A chef's guide to Khmer food

Chef Rotanak Ros picks her favourite food destinations for Khmer cuisine in Cambodia

- Ruth Dsouza Prabhu

Common knowledge about Cambodian food usually begins and ends with fish amok, a steamed fish curry cooked in banana leaves. Cambodian food has long been subsumed into the larger bracket of South-East Asian fare, and Cambodian chef Rotanak Ros, popularly known as chef Nak, wants to change that. Nak, 40, aims to turn attention from the Khmer Rouge oppression (the genocide of Cambodians between 1975-79) when traditional Khmer cuisine (Khmer is the largest ethnic group and language spoken in Cambodia) was sidelined and revive what was lost.

"I grew up cooking with my mother and sister in Phnom Penh's pre-dawn markets. I observed that some of our traditional recipes are quietly fading, lost to conflict, neglect, or simply a lack of confidence to share them. The realisation was my turning point because I firmly believe Cambodian cuisine deserves its place on the global map," she says.