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 How to Make Num Banh Chok BigOven - Save recipe or add to grocery list Yum
Nom banh chok is Cambodian rice noodle, often sold by vendors in the early morning, usually women, carrying it on baskets from a pole balanced on their shoulder. This food consists of noodles laboriously pounded out of rice, topped off with a fish-based yellow kreoung gravy made from lemongrass, rizhome, turmeric root and other cambodian ingredients, and served with banana blossoms, cucumber and freshly foraged wild greens.
Course Main Dish
Cuisine Cambodian
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
Course Main Dish
Cuisine Cambodian
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Servings
people
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. Make kreoung using this yellow kreoung recipe. Portion them out into 1/2 cup portions. Keep 1 cup for this recipe, and freeze the rest.
  2. In a large pot, bring 4 litre of water to a boil, along with a stalk of lemongrass (crush the lemongrass to bring out more of its flavour). Once boiled, add chicken bone and let it cook for 10 minutes or until the chicken is done. Clean the mud fish or whatever fresh water fish you want to use for this recipe, and place it into the boiling water. Do not throw away the fish head, as it gives the most flavouring to broth. Let the chicken and fish simmer for another 5 - 10 minutes.
  3. Once the chicken and fish is cooked, take them out and de-bone them both. Keep the fish meat, and the chicken meat separately. Do not get rid of the broth. It will be used later.
  4. Chop the rhizomes into thin slices, and then pound them in the mortar and pestle with kreoung, roasted peanuts, bird eye chilli pepper, and garlic. I usually do mine in half portions since I have a smaller mortar and pestle, and then combining them into a bowl.
  5. Pound the chicken and 1/2 the yellow kreoung/rhizome mixture together to infuse the flavourings. Pound until the chicken is completely crushed, and then add the fish meat, and the remaining kroeung/rhizome mixture. Pound some more to really mix it up. Fish meat is really soft, so it doesn’t need much pounding to crush. If you don’t have a large mortar and pestle, you can do this in portions. Once, everything is mixed and crushed into a course mixture, place it into a large bowl.
  6. Then add knorr chicken mix, fish sauce, salt, sugar and coconut milk into the bowl as well, and mix thoroughly. Let stand for at least 10 minutes to let all the flavour infuse.
  7. In the large pot with broth inside, put 1 tablespoon of pahok liquid into the pot and let it come to a boil. You add pahok before any other flavouring ingredients in order to lessen its strong scent. Once its boiled, add in the chicken/fish mixture. Let it simmer on low for at least 10 minutes, adjusting the broth to taste with salt and sugar. That’s it. You’ve just made somlar prahar. Now onto the noodles.
  8. Make fine rice vermicelli noodle: Bring a pot of water to a boil. Add in a pack of rice noodle, and let it cook for 4-6 minutes, stirring occasionally. Set aside a large bowl filled with ice cold water. Once the noodle is cooked, and the texture is to your taste, pour out the water, and place the noodle into the cold bowl of water to stop its cooking progress. Start taking out handfuls of noodle and shaping it into serving portions -arranging it nicely into a bowl.
  9. To serve, take 1 serving of rice noodle and place it into a plate. Add whatever fresh vegetables or wild greens you prefer, and ladle some somlar prahar on top.