Amok Trey: How to Make Cambodian Coconut Fish Curry

AMOK TREY

• Author: Romae Chanice Marquez
• Recipe Category: Main dish
• Cuisine: Cambodian

Amok trey is the national dish of Cambodia, a fragrant and spicy coconut fish curry that is tenderly steamed in banana leaves. The dish’s taste resembles a mild Thai red curry. The whole preparation and cooking time is around 1 hour. This recipe serves at least four people. 

Amok Trey is best paired with rice or bread. Photo credits to: http://www.nutmegsseven.co.uk/blog/2014/06/amok-trey-cambodian-fish-curry-steamedhtml.

Amok Trey Ingredients

• 3 stalks of lemongrass, thinly sliced (use only the bottom)
• 10 cm of the stalk
• 1 tbsp of galangal
• 1 tsp of turmeric
• 6 leaves of kaffir lime thinly sliced
• 8 garlic cloves
• 350 g of carp fillet snakehead fish is the traditional choice
• 200 mL of coconut milk
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tbsp of shrimp paste
• 2 tsp of chili pepper
• ½ of a cayenne pepper seed, removed and thinly sliced for garnishing
• 8 in. leaves of Chinese cabbage
• 4 tbsp of shallots
• 4 garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp of brown sugar
• ¼ tsp of salt
• 2 tbsp of soy sauce
• 2 tbsp of oil

Amok Trey Instructions

Step 1: In a mortar, pound into a fine paste the lemongrass, kaffir leaves of lime, galangal, turmeric, garlic, and salt. This is known as the kroeung.

Step 2: Place the easiest-to-grind ingredients in the first place when using a food processor. The fluid that forms will help process the other ingredients that are more difficult to combine and add a few teaspoons of water to make mixing simpler.

Step 3: Add the shrimp paste and dried chili. Keep pounding until well balanced. Put aside.

Step 4: Take a large banana leaf and cut 4 square pieces of 30 cm each if you want to serve the Amok traditionally. Place all the sheets together and cut diagonally off the tips of the edge.

Step 5: In order to prevent the mixture from leaking while steaming, each dish container will need two squares. Place two squares together and fold up about 3 cm in the long sides to fold to make a corner.

Step 6: Screw all folded pieces together with a small toothpick. For all sides of the leaves, repeat this until you get a square pan.

Step 7: Heat the vegetable oil in a wok. Add the chopped garlic and shallot, and stir until it is fragrant.

Step 8:  Add the kroeung and coconut cream with 3 tablespoons. Then add the sugar of the palm, fish sauce, salt, paste of chicken, and fish.

Step 9: Cook for about a minute, add the remaining cream of coconut, and stir until it thickens and boils. Remove and set aside from the water.

Step 10: At the bottom of each serving bowl, put the leaves. Pour over the mixture of cooked fish and add the yolk of the egg.

Step 11: Pour the remaining cream of coconut, and add the thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves and cayenne pepper to the bowl. Put the Amok mixture together, and steam 7-10 minutes in a steamer.

Amok Trey Additional Information

• Some famous recipes use chicken instead of fish.
• This dish is best served with rice or bread.
• This dish serves about four people.
• Total prep/cook time is around 1 hour.