Word: khmer
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...arrived from Phnom Penh only four years ago. Although she speaks no English, she oversees a coterie of family and friends who cook the recipes imported from her homeland. Soon after joining her five children in America, she was serving authentic home cooking to the Boston-area Khmer community, the second largest in the world outside Cambodia. Concentrated in Lynn, Lowell and Revere, the population numbering between 40,000 and 50,000 is manifested by the Khmer food markets and jewelry shops that line the streets. Kim’s son estimates that the restaurant draws a clientele that...
Prahok, a salted, fermented fish paste, is the main ingredient in Khmer cooking, lending its pungent and musky taste to nearly every dish. Its strong aroma permeates the room at Floating Rock, but prahok’s bark is worse than its bite; the smell and taste is familiar to anyone who’s eaten the fish sauce-laden cuisines of Thailand and Vietnam. Much like these cuisines, Cambodian food uses an abundance of aromatic herbs for vibrant flavor, fresh chiles for heat and spices for complexity. Dishes are often augmented with a pinch of sugar, supplying a characteristic...
...Floating Rock the menu is only a vague guide—items are written in Khmer script and accompanied by simple English descriptions that barely indicate the contents of a dish. Ordering often results in surprise, but the staff will helpfully translate the daily specials, explain how foods are prepared and suggest particular items. The liberal use of fresh chiles leaves a gentle tingling sensation on the tongue, but never sends a diner madly scrambling for water. And because everything is cooked to order, seasoning levels can be adjusted for personal preference. However, spicing is best left to the chefs...
...pile of bean sprouts and thinly sliced cucumbers. A mound of crunchy, salty dried shrimp shrouds the top and hard-boiled eggs ring the plate. This very traditional dish was the one I kept reaching for over and over throughout, a perfect salve for the highly spiced seasonings of Khmer cuisine. Cooling drinks like iced coffee with condensed milk, limeade and egg soda are also perfect foils to the cuisine...
...rare, but here they are peeled into sheets and featured in a soup with the ubiquitous green chiles and fresh baby vegetables. Uniquely Cambodian products come from Florida, where the weather is similar to Cambodia, or from Lowell, where the city has given plots of land to the Khmer to grow native produce and herbs...