Nom banh chok is a beloved Cambodian dish, so much so that in English it's sometimes called simply "Khmer noodles." It's a typical breakfast food, and every morning you'll find it being sold by women carrying baskets of fresh rice noodles hanging from a pole balanced on their shoulders.
The dish consists of fresh noodles laboriously pounded out of rice, topped with a fish-based green curry gravy made from lemongrass, fingerroot ginger, turmeric, and garlic. Fresh cucumbers, banana flower, long beans, edible flowers, and wild leaves are heaped on top. In Siem Reap, it is served with a sweet sauce called tuk paem made from palm sugar and peanuts.
Centred around Cambodia’s indigenous noodles, nom banh chok showcases Cambodia’s much-loved ingredients – rice, prahok, fish, coconut milk, palm sugar, seasonal vegetables, and kroeung, the spice paste distinguished by aromatics such as lemongrass and kaffir lime that are so intrinsic to Cambodian cuisine – and is garnished with the foraged wild leaves, aromatic herbs and edible flowers so important to Cambodians for their fragrance and flavour, as much as their sense of aesthetics.
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