Phnom Penh: Market Tour and Cooking Class

Another stop on my international cooking class and market tour expedition: Phnom Penh!

We took Scuba Steve's advice and scheduled a Khmer cooking class at Linna Culinary School, taught by the lovely Vong Linna, who teaches Khmer cooking to tourists, but also teaches professional courses in Western and other cuisines, as well as food safety to Cambodians.

We had a great time, thanks, Steve!

First, the market tour... Vong Linna was very excited about showing us everything at this bustling and crowded morning market.  It was one long lane of vendors, some with tables, some just selling goods off of a tarp on the ground.

These poor chickens have no idea what fate holds for them in the near future:

I imagine they will soon end up thusly:

Anyone for pork?

Dried fish and lots of it, much probably fished from Tonle Sap, where we had kayaked a few days prior.  Vong Linna told us that whatever fish was not sold fresh on the first day after it was caught was then sold dried:

This honey vendor, my favorite sight of the tour, was wandering the length of the market, selling her goods.  Her honeycomb looks like it was clipped right off of a tree branch, doesn't it?  No fancy bee hives for her.  Plus, the honeycomb comes complete with bees still in it!:

This sorta gives you a sense of how crowded the market was... sorta:

More fish and seafood:

Ok, onto the cooking part of the class.  Vong Linna showed us how to make fresh summer rolls, so we rolled and ate a few to tide us over until the rest of our meal was complete:

Then we headed down for the main event, beef lok lak and Khmer pumpkin soup!  Below are the ingredients for the Khmer pumpkin soup:

Tony and Emily, deep in concentration as they prepped their mise en place:

Me, rocking the mortar and pestle like a boss:

Tim, also showing 'em how it's done with the M&P:

The boys face off in the soup challenge:

Emily assists the chef de cuisine:

In goes the pumpkin:

Keep stirring!

Vong Linna shows me and Tony how to properly flip the beef lok lak:

Finishing off the sauce:

The final result!!! My favorite part was actually the dipping sauce for the beef lok lak... freshly ground Kampot peppercorn plus salt and lime juice... amazing and the perfect acidic complement to the rich lok lak sauce:

Tony and Emily giving their best blue steel with their lovely finished meal:

Cooking Class, Silom Style

Back from my epic adventures with Chuck and ready to report on them... here's a start, with my photos.  I may update these posts when Chuck gets her photos up online (ahem, Chuck.)
UPDATE: Chuck's pics added!

First order of business when she got off the plane: Soi Polo for fried chicken and fish with garlic crispies, super spicy chili sauces, other deliciousness and a Thai-style massage to get the kinks out. 

 
A trip to the neighborhood market, then jet lag set in and Chuck was toast:

Our second day: Thai cooking class!  

We took a course with the Silom Thai Cooking School, not too far from my apartment.  Before getting started with the cooking, we hit up the market for ingredients.  I love a good market tour!

Here's our cute cooking instuctor, Goong, showing us how to pick shrimp (comically, the word "goong" means shrimp in Thai.  Har har.):

Here's the guy who uses an industrial strength grater to grind up the coconut for making coconut milk (have I mentioned how much I love the auto-GIFing that Picasa/Google+ does?):

Fish lady:

Chicken dude:

Cooking class attendees (Team America, Team Singapore and Team Korea, as Goong called us), picking up some veggies and herbs:

Pretty flags on the market's street:

 The cooking class itself was pretty great, too.  Down a couple of sois, in an open air kitchen, great instructor and detailed recipe book (complete with photos of the ingredients and potential substitutes)... good stuff!

Here's me and Chuck squeezing the coconut shreds (plus water) to make the coconut milk:

Here's our food prep set-up... veggies and spices and big knives:

Cooking in the open air kitchen:

Here's us in our fancy aprons with our finished products:

Mid-cooking selfie:

The whole class, cooking up the green curry:

Just some of the dishes we made... green curry with chicken, tom yum goong, pad thai, and tub tim grob (aka "rubies in coconut milk"):

 Mmmmmmmmmm...

Cooking, Balinese Style

Here is the second half of our culinary experience at Lobong (the first being the market tour).  My second time taking this class was not a disappointment- just as interesting, hands-on and delicious as last time!  Pretty sure Martha enjoyed it, too... asking lots of questions, learning about life on Bali...

As we did last time I cooked here, we got to see Pak Sang Made's mother making the coconut oil from fresh coconuts, as she does weekly:

Our mise en place, including chilis, shallots and garlic (the Indonesian holy trinity), fresh galangal and turmeric root, peanuts, lemongrass, tomato, ginger, tamarind, and long beans, among other fresh ingredients:

Martha implements her signature hand gesture in case anyone was planning to take a photo during the initial ingredient explanation by the Chef:

Teacher's pet helps out with the very involved, multi-step, over-a-wood-fire Balinese rice making process (this is not just tossing the rice and water into the rice cooker, my friends):

Chopping the holy trinity... look at those knife skillz:

Chef explaining the importance of and ingredients in the essential Balinese spice paste, the base gede:

Martha's responsibility was the curry sauce for the chicken, and she took it very seriously:

Mine was the peanut sauce:

Martha using the mush-and-twist method of getting the spiced minced chicken sate onto the skewer for sate lilit ayam:

And Pak Sang Made helping out with the grilling of said sate... smoking up the whole place:

Dessert time... a Balinese crepe filled with a delicious palm sugar and coconut filling:

And the finished products!  Sate lilit ayam and peanut sauce (base sate):

Kare ayam (braised chicken leg in coconut curry sauce) and dadar gulung (Balinese crepe filled with palm sugar syrup and grated coconut): 

Jukut urab (mixed veggies [fern tips, long beans, red beans] salad with grated coconut and garlic chili dressing) and sambal ulek (tomato and chili sambal):

Balinese rice with sweet potato and fried shallots:

Martha admiring our work:

But before we eat, an offering/cangansari must be made:

Pak Sang Made's mother is in charge of the offerings, which are placed all around the family compound several times a day:

After the offering, our meal was plated (pretty fancily, I might add) and we got to eat... all of it was pretty awesome, but I am partial to the salad, the sambal and the sate: