Learning to cook Cambodian with a hopeless flirt

Don't let chef Wayan Mawa attempts with the ladies distract you.He may appear to be the most lecherous man in Siem Reap, clumsily "charming" the female fruit and veg sellers at the local market like a Casanova proteg on his first day out of school. But whatever lessons you learn (or don't learn) about the art of seduction with Mawa you'll learn 10-fold about Khmer cuisine.

Mawa in fact hails from Bali and is the executive chef at the Raffles Grand Hotel D'Angkor in Siem Reap. In between his flirtations with the carrot and broccoli peddlers, he proves to be an entertaining guide for a tour of Cambodian food. Take an encounter with some tarantulas on sticks. They taste good. Crunchy, he smiles.

So he'd recommend them?

Oh no, it's not really safe to eat any of this stuff. It's been out in the sun too long, or it's been washed with the wrong water. You need to either fry it again, or clean it with a chemical.

Cooking Khmer

The market tour is one part of the Raffles Grand Hotel D'Ankor's new cooking class.

Raffles recently ran a Khmer exposition at its sister property in Singapore and stand-alone Cambodian restaurants have opened in various cities including Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.Mawa insists that, while uneducated palates may not be able to distinguish between the subtleties of the various Southeast Asian cuisines, Cambodian food is distinct.

This country is completely different to the others,he says. Thai and Vietnamese food is not really involved in real Cambodian cuisine. The lok lac and Khmer curry are more similar to central Javanese food, for example.And while Cambodian curries -- especially the national favorite the amok -- are full of lime leaves and baby aubergines, it would be wrong to think they were influenced by Thai cuisine.

Actually it was the other way around,says Mawa. Amok was created here and influenced the Thai food. When the Thais attacked Siem Reap they took everything, including some of the recipes.One thing it does share with Thailand is the speed and simplicity with which it is all made.

According to Mawa, nothing in Khmer cuisine should take anything longer than five minutes to cook -- although preparation may take considerably longer. Hence the promise to teach you how to cook six dishes in one hour.The results, meanwhile, are almost always delicious, whether within the hallowed walls of Raffles or at a cheap-and-cheerful sit down joint in Phnom Penh.

Source = cnngo