33. - Cambodia - Fish Amok and UFO's

amok  (əˈmʌk, əˈmɒk, əˈmʌk)

— n

1.                  a state of murderous frenzy

— adv

2.                  run amok  to run about with or as if with a frenzied desire to kill

                                                                                                                                      Collins Dictionary

While shopping for the ingredients for this, I was swiftly reminded that I stick out like a blonde in an Asian food store. Too often I don’t know how to find the food on the shelves, what it should look, taste or smells like. Sometimes I can’t even pronounce it.

During my recent re-encounter/reunion with the ethnic food store I was looking for ‘galangal’. Google tells me that it’s a member of the ginger family. I could see nothing that looked like a relative but took a guess and picked up two UFO’s  (Unidentified Food Objects). Below are both specimens, neither of which I actually believe is galangal, both of which I put into the curry paste. I’m just that bad ass.  

I had trouble getting the banana leaves too and found the last (gone off) ones in Dublin. I am not a talented Cambodian banana bowl maker. My banana bowls were bowls in spirit but not in function.

Fish Amok                                                                                                                             Rating: 7/10

Like being hit between the eyes with lemongrass, being kicked in the teeth with ginger and slapped in the face with a great big lime leaf. Curry paste so intensely flavoured it made my eyes water. Next time I’d lay off the lemongrass a bit. I can still taste it.

Serves 2

Curry Paste or Kroeung

­2 fresh chillies, seeds left in

8 cloves of garlic

1 red onion

1 tsp tumeric powder

4 sticks of lemongrass

Chunk of UFO specimen A

Chunk of UFO specimen B

Chunk of ginger

6 lime leaves

(1 tbsp shrimp paste, I couldn’t find this anywhere and left it out)

A few glugs of oil

The Rest (Amok)

2 fillets of hake, skin removed

can of coconut milk

tbsp sugar

1 tbsp fish sauce

2 eggs

Banana Bowl

2 banana leaves

cocktail sticks

fresh red chilli and lime leaves to garnish

Roughly chop and blend all the curry paste ingredients in a blender. Fry the curry paste in a little oil for about five minutes. Add the coconut oil, sugar, fish paste and simmer for a further ten minutes or so (it tastes better than it looks). Leave to chill.  

While this is chillin you can make the banana bowls. (Or not. You can screw the banana bowls and just use a normal bowls). Make them anyway you can. I cannot give advice on this beyond fold up the corners, thread with cocktail sticks and keep your fingers crossed. I made an external tinfoil bowl as backup. I advise you do the same.

Dice the fish into bite sized pieces. Once the coconut mixture is cool beat in the eggs and mix in the fish. Divide into the banana bowls (or normal bowls), and steam for 20-25 minutes until the amok has just set. Coat the fish skin in some seasoned flour and fry in some oil until crispy. Chop and scatter on the amok with some sliced fresh red chilli and lime leaves. Serve with steamed rice and eat with chopsticks (even if the Cambodians don’t.) 

32. - Burundi - Have You Seen This Country?

Missing. What a way to make a come back?

The poster should really read LOST rather than MISSING. I’ve lost the recipe, lost the photographs and lost (or maybe never possessed) the motivation and dedication to repeat a country. 

Give me a break. There are 26 letters, 230 countries. I’m only (nearly) on C. “What letter are you on?” is fast becoming my most dreaded question after “So what’s the plan now you’ve graduated?”.  To kill these two questions with one stone so to speak, and just so you know, my immediate plan is to get through ‘C’ and have an absolute laugh. Sounds like a plan to me.

It’s good to be back. Let's get bitchin in the kitchen. (Yo). 

No. 31 - Burkina Faso Sleep!

Riz gras I can hardly remember, due to college related sleep deprivation, and cider induced, (lets call it) tipsiness. Not only did I have to worry about not poisoning myself but six others, including the guests of honor, Claire Gillan and Mark Conway (for some reason I feel full names are necessary here). And for their welcome home feast from lands far far away, they were presented with none other than the showstopper riz gras, a.k.a chicken and rice. A humble side dish maybe, but I simply did not have the cognitive skills to achieve anything more accomplished. Even still, I left out a vital ingredient and lost and my camera in the spices drawer.

I remember better, the next day having riz gras for breakfast, lunch and dinner asian style, dashed with soya and sweet chili sauce. The perfect hangover food. Trice.

Serves 6                                                                                     Rating: ⁵/₁₀

6 chicken breasts, cut into cubes

500g rice

1 vegetable stock cube

5 cloves of garlic, chopped

3 hot chilies

1 onion, chopped

4 tomatoes, chopped

4tbsp tomato puree (I forgot this)

salt, pepper and oil for frying

The following is how I think it went.

Chop up the chilies, garlic, tomatoes and onion until very fine. Fry in a large pan for a few minutes. Add the chicken, a little water and continue to simmer until the chicken is cooked through.

Stir in the tomato puree and stock cube. Add the rice, one litre of recently boiled water and simmer until the rice is tender and the water is absorbed.

Serve immediately with finely sliced red onion.

No. 30 – Bulgarian Moussa.k.a Potatoes and Mince

(most desperate pun yet)

I feel like I am repeating myself, but this moussaka tasted exactly like its components – spuds and mince, blatantly obvious maybe, but the best and only possible description. This was the first time we marked a culinised dish out of ten - ten being a roast lamb dinner, zero being not worth naming. It turns out that our marking system became more complicated than I originally intended, but I take culinising very seriously and marking the dishes out of ten should give a sort of structure and order to the randomness.  I also tend to forget how good or lets say, less good some dishes are, and find some difficult to recall at all (Bulgarian moussaka in fact being one of them).

Our marking system was doomed from the start. You can’t compare minced beef to a leg of lamb, because a leg of lamb is intrinsically better and minced beef simply can’t and won’t ever compete. This didn’t seem fair though and so having thought about the dilemma for a while, we decided that the moussaka was a ⁴/₁₀ compared to roast lamb dinner (though it depends how much you like lamb) but an ⁸/₁₀ compared to other mince dishes. The final mark works out as a ⁶/₁₀  average.  By this system we could have gone down the road of comparing moussaka to steak, or lobster, or beans on toast, or liver, or marshmallows. We’re just going to have to come up with another system.  

Moussaka                                                                                                                           Rating: ⁶/₁₀

This Moussaka wasn’t what I thought it would be. I thought Moussaka was like some sort of lasagna with aubergine. Not in Bulgaria. I read somewhere that they claim to have invented it and who am I to contest?

It was a very satisfying and comforting sort of dinner. What else can you expect from spuds and mince with a dollop of yogurt?

500g potatoes, peeled and diced small

500g minced beef

oil for frying

salt and pepper

2 onions, diced

garlic, chopped

4 tomatoes, chopped

handful of cheddar or other hard cheese.

1 egg

500g plain yogurt

1 tsp flour

In a heavy ovenproof dish fry the onions and garlic in some oil until soft. Add in the mince and cook until browned. Season. Add the potatoes, tomatoes, cover and bake in a preheated 180 degree oven for about 45 minutes until the potatoes are cooked.

In the mean time, mix together the egg, half the yogurt, flour and cheese. Pour over the meat and potatoes and bake for a further 15 minutes until the top is golden. Serve with a dollop of yogurt and a few dashes of tabasco. 

No. 29 - Back with a Brunei Bang!

I’m back with Brunei bang as I am sure the anticipation has been killing you!

I’m going to try really hard to get a good few countries Culinised over the next few weeks. Still being on B is depressing. However now that I’m settled into the new flat and college, I should to have more time to get a few more in. Yeah right.

Things are just about to kick off in college so I better Culinise my ass off before I fall into the dark abyss that is my architecture thesis. Alas, don’t worry, I am as determined as ever to culinise the world, one country at a time and one letter at a time. Slow but steady wins the race. Neither the cooking, nor indeed the eating is what is time consuming - it’s all this blogging. But then again, cooking my way around the world and not photographing the dishes seems wrong, like going on holidays and not taking a camera.

Mee Goreng (Spicy “Fried” Noodles)

This is a supposedly a dry noodle recipe although mine didn’t turn out that way because, like most of my cooking endeavors, I didn’t follow the recipe. This is usually because I either a) I don’t like something, b) like something else better, c) just plain can’t afford it d) cut it out for ease. This means that it usually turns out to be, not the same but similar to the original - and in my opinion, often better. I don’t have a wok because I don’t have gas and it turns out in this instance that a wok cannot or rather, should not be substituted with a heavy pot.  This of course I knew already. The pot didn’t cook the chicken fast enough and everything kept sticking etc. so I had to keep adding water. Not exactly a stir-fry master class this, is it?  Still though it was a satisfactory Sunday night dinner – good, sticky, spicy, sweet Chinese, he hem, Brunei.

Serves 2 with leftovers

200g noodles (or what ever your equilivent of two servings is.)

3 tbsp sweet chili sauce

1 tbsp dark soy sauce


3 tbsp oyster sauce


3 tbsp tomato ketchup

tabasco, to taste


2 tbsp oil

2 eggs


5 cloves of garlic, minced

1 handful of bean sprouts

1 handful cabbage, shredded

1 carrot, sliced finely

2 chicken breasts, cut into bite sized pieces

3 scallions, sliced


Note: This method is not what I did, it’s what I should have done.

Cook your noodles in plenty of salted boiling water until just under done. Rinse with cold water to stop them cooking and cool them down.

In a bowl combine your sweet chili sauce, soy sauce, oyster sauce, tabasco and tomato ketchup.

In a wok, add the oil, garlic and chicken and fry until cooked. Then crack in your two eggs and lightly scramble until just set. Then add the noodles, bean sprouts, cabbage, carrots and continue to stir-fry for a few minutes. You may need to add a little water. When everything is cooked stir in the chili sauce. Serve in bowls with the sliced shallots to garnish.