Fish Amok

Khmer steamed fish curry with a mousse-like texture, made with kroeung, coconut cream and eggs and steamed in banana leaf.

Illustration inspired by a Khmer restaurant in Phnom Penh.

Dish details
Khmer name	អាម៉ុកត្រី
Other names	Amok trey; Amok trei
Dish types	Steamed dish; Curry
Subjects	Food & Foodways; History & Remembrance
Related dishes	Kroeung

Fish amok (អាម៉ុកត្រី, amok trei) is a Khmer steamed fish curry with a mousse-like texture, made with kroeung, coconut cream and eggs in banana leaf. It is considered one of Cambodia's national dishes.

Cultural context

In Khmer, amok means to steam in banana leaf, and trei means fish. Fish amok appears on the menus of nearly every Cambodian restaurant, from luxury dining rooms to simple eateries. It is a dish for special occasions such as ceremonies and weddings rather than everyday meals. It is also served at festivals. The Cambodian chef Chef Nak counts the dish as deeply Cambodian and holding the soul of Khmer cooking.

The flavor is slightly sweet, fragrant and mildly spicy. Compared with Thai curries, amok is more subtle and leans on fresh herbs and spices rather than strong heat. The dish is served hot, usually with steamed rice.

Ingredients and preparation

Fish amok is made with freshwater fish such as goby, snakehead or catfish, with yellow or green kroeung, coconut cream and eggs. The kroeung is built from fragrant ingredients such as lemongrass, galangal, turmeric and makrut lime, pounded to release their scent. One traditional version also uses fresh turmeric, dried red pepper, garlic, palm sugar and fish sauce. The mortar and pestle remain the traditional way to make the paste. Food processors have made the work shorter, but pounding releases natural oils and gives a different aroma from a machine.

The fish, kroeung, coconut cream and eggs are mixed and spooned into a banana-leaf cup lined with leaves of the great morinda tree, known in Khmer as nhor and in English as noni. To make the cup, the banana leaves are softened in boiling water, folded, and pinned at each corner. The eggs give the dish body and help it set like custard. The mixture steams for about 20 to 30 minutes until it turns to mousse. Fish amok is served in banana-leaf cups or coconut shells.

Older cooks in Battambang pound the kroeung, massage it into the fish for about an hour, let it marinate, then steam it in single banana-leaf bowls. They hold that snakehead is the fish for amok trei. Steaming the traditional way can take 25 to 40 minutes, where a curry takes about ten.

History and origins

Fish amok is believed to have been a royal Khmer dish dating back to the Khmer Empire, between the ninth and 15th centuries. Some people question whether it began in Cambodia. The recipe passed down through the generations.

Under the Khmer Rouge, in Democratic Kampuchea (1975 to 1979), much of the knowledge of how to make the dish was lost along with the oral traditions that carried it. Traditional recipes vanished from home kitchens in those years. In the decade before 2017, Cambodians began to rediscover their cuisine, and fish amok is part of that wider work of restoring the country's food heritage. As of 2018, a movement to restore Khmer cooking was under way.

In 2022 fish amok was one of five Cambodian dishes shown at the International Gastronomy Village in Paris, where Cambodian chefs gave a presentation on it using a recipe from the cookbook The Taste of Angkor. In Australia, the Cambodian migrant brothers Chan and Ryan Khun turned their mother's fish amok into a pie filling made with barramundi. They first sold it in 2021, and it later won the Best Pie in Australia award from the Baking Association of Australia, ahead of more than 300 other bakeries.

Regional and household variations

Cambodian cooks follow no single formula, and the dish changes from place to place. Many families have their own recipe. Home cooks may add egg and steam the dish, while some restaurants leave out both because steaming takes too long. Villagers around Siem Reap make amok trei as a wet curry with the same paste and usually no eggs, and poorer households are more likely to serve it as a curry than steamed. In Battambang, the local version is known as Amok Battambang and is part of daily life. On the coast, including Kep, some restaurants make amok with crab meat or sea fish.

Goby, snakehead or catfish may give way to cod, snapper, barramundi, salmon, whiting or perch, and Swiss chard can stand in for morinda leaves. Many restaurants in Cambodia serve less traditional versions with chicken, tofu or beef instead of fish, a store-bought paste, a thinner sauce, or cooking in place of steaming. Some restaurants use a commercial paste or thinned Thai green curry paste in place of fresh kroeung. Older Cambodian cooks hold that the dish is amok only when it is steamed, and they see other versions as a threat to culinary heritage and identity. One restaurateur added chicken, beef and tofu amok for diners who did not want fish and because the restaurant needed the income.

Preparations and recipes

• Chef Nak, NHUM: Recipes from a Cambodian Home Kitchen

  Steamed fish curry built on kroeung, dried chilli paste, shrimp paste and coconut cream, portioned into banana leaf cups and steamed until set.

References