Cambodian Fish Amok Recipe – Authentic Steamed Fish Curry (2024)

Our Cambodian fish amok recipe is traditional – an authentic steamed fish curry made to a classic recipe from an older generation of cooks who believe that if it’s not properly steamed, it’s not amok trei, a steamed fish curry. ‘Amok’ means to steam in banana leaves in Khmer and this refined dish is likely a Royal Khmer specialty dating back to the Khmer Empire.

This classic Cambodian fish amok recipe for a traditional steamed fish curry is based on the recipe of a respected family of elderly cooks whose mothers, grandmothers and great grandmothers made the dish during a time when Cambodian women thought nothing of spending a full day preparing a family feast.

Our Cambodian fish amok recipe isn’t a recipe for the watery fish amok style curry or sloppy fish amok you might have eaten in Siem Reap tourist restaurants, which can be made in minutes in a wok. To make this authentic steamed fish curry from scratch, including pounding your own Khmer yellow kroeung (a herb and spice paste), you will need to allow at least a couple of hours. It’s worth it!

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We have been researching Cambodian cuisine and its culinary history since 2013, interviewing old cooks and digging deep into archaeological and historical archives, and this recipe post, which contains original research, was a result of one of our very first in-depth interviews and a couple days observing a family of cooks. When published the book will hopefully change the way the world thinks about Cambodian cuisine.

Cambodian Fish Amok Recipe for an Authentic Steamed Fish Curry in the Old Style

What is Cambodian Fish Amok – And What Is It Not?

Cambodian cuisine must be Southeast Asia’s most under-appreciated andmost misunderstood cuisines. And one of its specialties, fish amok or amok trei, also spelt amok trey in Khmer, must be one of its most confounding dishes of all to untrained eyes, appearing to be served in an array of forms, shapes and colours.

A traditional steamed fish curry – ‘amok’ refers to the process of steaming in banana leaves – amok trei or fish amok should have a texture that we’ve described as being a combination of a mousse, mousseline, soufflé, and custard. We’ve spotted other food writers call it a pâté and a terrine. It’s most certainly in the realm of the former, but it in no way resembles the latter.

Most food-loving travellers to Cambodia fall in love with fish amok. It’s incredibly delicious and very moreish. It’s one of my favourite dishes. It’s also adorable when presented in a banana leaf basket or coconut shell – as Chef Kethana at Sugar Palm restaurant, who undoubtably makes Cambodia’s finest fish amok does – with a drizzle of coconut cream and finely sliced kaffir lime leaves and chillies on top.

Fish amok is beloved by Cambodians. So much so that it’s often called Cambodia’s national dish – despite the fact that Cambodians probably don’t eat it all that often these days. Most Cambodians would name nom banh chok or korkor as the national dish.

While fish amok was once eaten by Cambodians of all walks of life on all sorts of occasions – the consistency and banana leaf wrapping made it convenient for farmers to take it out to the rice paddies for lunch, while the sumptuous texture and rich taste made it a wedding party favourite – it’s thought that the refined dish began life as a Royal Khmer dish.

These days fish amok is primarily a restaurant standard and special occasion dish. When it’s made in the authentic old style it’s rich and luxuriant and seems to incite feelings of nostalgia for an old way of life – even if it’s a life that many have never known.

Older cooks I’ve interviewed over the years are firmly of the belief that amok trei began life as a Royal Khmer dish dating back to the Khmer Empire. And in a country with a long history of oral storytelling, where family recipes are rarely written down, but daughters learn to cook from their mothers and grandmothers, who are we to argue with Cambodia’s culinary traditions and beliefs.

There are also signs of its royal provenance in the refined nature of the dish, its complexity of flavour, and the time-consuming preparation when it’s made correctly – which requires pounding the kroeung (herb/spice paste), the base for the dish, marinating the fish in the paste, and steaming the dish for 30 minutes (more or less, depending on the size) until firm to touch.

Despite its regal origins, amok trei is a dish that you’ll see sold in banana leaf ‘baskets’ on trays in markets and on the street. Although, I’ve never been as impressed by the take-away version. The fast food variety of amok trei is more rustic, like Thailand’s hor mok pla (also spelt haw mok pla) and the Nyonya specialty otak otak, which is essentially street food, typically spotted in markets.

Fish amok is sometimes compared to the Indonesian otak otak, which is actuallymore similar to the Cambodian street food snack called song vac or sang vak (also written as sangvak – ‘ang’ is pronounced as ‘ong’ in Khmer), a ground fish paste, wrapped in a banana leaf parcel and grilled over charcoal.

Our Cambodian fish amok recipe comes from the matriarchs of an old Cambodian family – several little old ladies who are the daughters of a long-gone generation of cooks, including a cook to a king. These women take their food seriously, thinking nothing of recruiting young female relatives and neighbours for a full day of preparation for a family meal.Our old ladies’ amok trei recipe can take several hours if followed closely.

Forthis older generation, their way of cooking Cambodian food – or rather, Khmer food (there is a difference between the two) – is the only way to cook what they believe to be the authentic food of Cambodia, which for them was at its best in the pre-Khmer Rouge era.

To Steam or Not to Steam– If It’s Not Steamed It’s Not Amok, It’s Curry

When we informed our old lady cooks that it’s possible to see fish amok in Siem Reap restaurants that hasn’t been steamed and that it’s served as watery as a soup or at best as a curry, they were aghast.

When we revealed that it’s also offered with a choice of chicken, beef, pork, vegetarian, and tofu instead of fish, they were even more horrified. I love how Terence tells this story here in Ruining Amok, the National Dish of Cambodia.

It should be noted, however, that while this is generally just a short-cut to feed tired, impatient and hungry tourists, Cambodians are also known to make amok trei in a curry form, particularly poorer, hard-working Cambodians with less time on their hands.

As Terence puts it in that same story on the link above, who wants to watch a dish steam for 30 minutes after working in the rice fields all day?

I spotted one food blogger write that some Cambodians don’t steam fish amok because they don’t have “steaming equipment”. While the traditional basket steamers aren’t typically used for fish amok these days (they’re used for sticky rice), they’ve probably been used for over a thousand years and can be hand-woven in a day. Not a lot of ‘equipment’ is needed to steam something here in this part of the world.

Even the poorest Cambodian home has a clay brazier in their rustic outdoor kitchen, which is often a bamboo hut or low wooden prep table in the breezy space under the house. The brazier is another piece of ‘equipment’ that’s been used for a few thousand years. It featuresin the bas reliefs on the walls at the Angkor temples.

Every home willhave a wok, which can be used with a bamboo steamer, or they’ll have a large steaming pot which is the most popular choice for steaming fish amok. There will also be a very large mortar and pestle in the Cambodian kitchen.

Cambodian Fish Amok Short-Cuts and Substitutes

We’ve established that steaming is essential if you’re going to make this Cambodian fish amok recipe the old way, but there are a few time-saving measures for busy home-cooks and we need to tell you about substitutes.

While we believe that the Khmer yellow kroeung tastes better when it’s made in a mortar and pestle, and I personally love few things more than hearing the sound and smelling the fragrance of a fresh herb and spice paste being made, you can save a lot of time by using a blender instead obviously.

Fresh coconut cream and coconut milk can of course be substituted withthe tin variety if you don’t have coconuts or access to fresh grated coconut to be able to press your own coconut cream and milk.

For this Cambodian fish amok recipe our little old lady cooks prefer goby fish, snakehead fish or catfish – all freshwater fish from the Tonle Sap or Great Lake. Most cookbooks written in the West suggest a firm white fish such as cod or snapper.

In cooking classes in Siem Reap, cooking instructors tell participants they can use anything from barramundi to salmon. David Thompson in Thai Food suggests whiting, blue eyed cod or perch for Thailand’s haw mok, which is clearly a descendant of amok trei. Chef Kethana at Sugar Palm also makes a heavenly prawn amok.

Our little old ladies have one of the young assistants massage the kroeung into the fish fillets for up to an hour and let it rest before slicing it. For more intense flavour, after combining the kroeung and fish you could skip the massage and leave it to marinate in the fridge for a while.

Some Cambodiancooks will use their belovedprahok (fermented fish)instead of shrimp paste (kapi in Khmer) for a more authentic flavour. We’ve also seen young cooking instructors add “seasoning” (i.e. MSG) and/or Knorr’s chicken powder stock cubes, which would have their grandmothers rolling in their graves if they weren’t Buddhists who’d been cremated.

One ingredient in this Cambodian fish amok recipe that’s difficult to find a substitute for is slok ngor – also written as nhor (‘slok’ means herb). Nhor or noni leaf(morinda citrifolia) is what gives amok trei its distinctive taste. Traditional Cambodian recipes call specifically for young nhor leaf.

Recipes written for a Western readership suggest substitutingthe noni leaf with everything from kale to spinach. Chef JoannèsRivière of Siem Reap’s Cuisine Wat Damnak restaurant recommends Swiss chard in A Culinary Journey in Cambodia (see link at the end of this post), a cookbook produced by Sala Bai Hotel School. Although note that this is a recipe for a fish amok ‘curry’ and is not steamed.

A Note on the Colours of Cambodia’s Fish Amok

One thing we often get asked about is the colour that an authentic Cambodian fish amok should be. If you’ve travelled around Cambodia, you’ll notice that fish amok can range from yellow to yellow-green to an orange-brown colour. Chef I Kethana’s is more of an orange shade due to a red tinge from to the chilli, while the amok trei we see in markets, especially in villages, is often yellow or yellow-green.

The yellow-green fish amok is made with either the yellow kroeung paste or kroeung samlor m’chou in Khmer (made with the base of lemongrass stalks, galangal, kaffir lime zest, turmeric, garlic, shallots) or the green kroeung paste or kroeung prahoeur (which also uses the green leafy part of the lemongrass, and has kaffir lime zest, turmeric, garlic, and shallots, the addition of finger-root (also called Chinese keys), but no galangal).

The orange-red fish amok uses the same yellow kroeung paste as a base, but has the addition of red chilli. Note that fish amok it is not normally made with red kroeung or kroeung samlar cari in Khmer, which has the yellow kroeung base of lemongrass, galangal, kaffir lime zest, turmeric, garlic, shallots, plus the addition of coriander seeds, cumin seeds and dried red chilli, and shrimp paste or prahok. These additional spices would make the amok trei very intense and it’s already rich enough.

How to Make Banana Leaf Baskets for this Cambodian Fish Amok Recipe

If you happen to have a banana tree in your backyard, pull off a banana leaf or two. You’ll need to clean and soften your banana leaves in warm water and then pat dry. Use an upturned round plate or cake tin to trace a roughly 20-25cm in diametre circle onto a leaf and cut it out with scissors.

The size will vary depending on how large you wish them to be, whether you’re serving your fish amok as a main-size dish to be eaten family style for all guests to help themselves (when you’ll want to create a large banana leaf bowl) or individual appetisers (when you’ll need smaller bowls). We made mini fish amoks for our contemporary Cambodian feast. The small sizes are not only cute, they steam quickly. You’ll need to experiment.

Lay the cut-out flat and create a square bottom by raising one side at a time, folding each corner around onto the next side. Secure each side with half a wooden toothpick. We’ve seen young chefs staple the leaves but this doesn’t look pretty. Trim the tops so they’re even.

Cambodian Fish Amok Recipe

Further Reading on Cambodian Cuisine and Cambodian Cookbooks

We often get asked which Cambodian Cookbooks we recommend. They may not be the hippest looking cookbooks but Cambodian cooksbelieve the most authentic Cambodian recipes are to be found in Narin Seng Jameson’s Cooking the Cambodian Way andHem Meakphal’s The Book of Khmer Cooking (only available in Cambodia).

Sorey Long and Kanika Linden’s Authentic Cambodian Recipes has been the most comprehensive cookbook we’ve used and a great source in many ways, but it has also been adapted so much for its mainly American market that our little old lady cooks here in Cambodia don’t recognise some recipes.

When you’re in Cambodia, we recommend the Sala Bai school‘s Culinary Journey in Cambodia by Chef Joannès Rivière, which has super-easy recipes, makes a nice souvenir, and proceeds support the school, but again, this is only available in Cambodia.

And of course, do browse our Cambodian recipes until we complete our Cambodian cookbook and please do let us know in the comments below if you make this Cambodian fish amok recipe as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.

Pictured: Chef Kethana’s Cambodian fish amok from Sugar Palm restaurant, Siem Reap, which for us is the finest fish amok in Cambodia.

Keen to learn more about Cambodian food? Consider joining us on one of our occasional Cambodian cuisine and culture tours or our food and travel writing and photography retreats. Planning a trip to Cambodia? I craft bespoke Savour Siem Reap itineraries and similar food-focused journeys throughout Southeast Asia. Need accommodation in Cambodia?See our recommended hotels in Siem Reap, Phnom Penhand Battambang(all tried and tested).