Notes about Recipes in this book

• Yellow kroeung

  • Stephenn31 on December 30, 2025

    Tasty. I used it with the chicken stir fry. The yellow colour wasn’t too pronounced

• Pickles (Chrouk)

  • jenburkholder on December 12, 2025

    Oh yum - similar to a Viet pickle in its sweet-tart flavor, but with added funk from the fish sauce and interest from the various veg. Definite make-again.

• Crispy garlic oil (Khtoem jien)

  • jrosenbo on May 16, 2026

    Caution: botulism risk!! I still make it for the dishes that call for it, but the storage advice is dangerous, and prepping it in the quantities given makes it impossible to finish within a safe window. For botulism safety this CANNOT be stored at room temp. Straight to fridge or freezer. If in the fridge, toss after a week.

• Soup outside the pot (Somlaw kraung chnuk)

  • lina on January 31, 2026

    Very true to the Cambodian version, while made with accessible ingredients.

• Stir-fried egg noodles with gravy (Mee ka-tung)

  • Stephenn31 on December 30, 2025

    Quite easy and flavourful. I didn’t add salt throughout as I knew the fish sauce and soy sauce would be salty enough. The times indicated are too long for this type of stir fry.

• Potluck glass noodle salad (Ngyom mee sou)

  • jenburkholder on December 15, 2025

    Very nice. Omitted the shrimp (ew). Only tweak would be rice vermicelli instead of glass noodles, which several of us found unpleasantly brittle in the cool sauce.

• Caramelized beef stew (Kuy teav kho ko)

  • oded219 on December 13, 2025

    Takes some effort but GREAT flavor, strong aromatics and lots of umami vibes. My meat chunks were a bit overcooked, so next time i'll try to reduce the cooktime for it by ~30 mins.

• Coca-Cola chicken (Mu-anh doat cola)

  • jenburkholder on December 15, 2025

    Overall enjoyable. Sauce was very tasty and the bird was tender, but all diners agreed that roasted would have been better. That is listed as an alternative in the book and would be well worth trying.

• Quick stir-fry with fried tofu & chives (Cha dau fu kh-chai)

  • jenburkholder on December 15, 2025

    Not my personal favorite (felt one-note), but several at the table loved and have requested again.

• Stir-fried cucumbers with black pepper & egg (Cha trek sak)

  • lina on January 31, 2026

    I love this recipe! I have it for breakfast or lunch all the time.

• Stir-fried kroeung (Cha kroeung)

  • Stephenn31 on December 30, 2025

    Really good. I used normal basil as everything else is out of season. I cooked the sliced onion with the sauce because otherwise it would be almost raw. It still had crunch. Would make again

• Stir-fried water spinach (Cha tra koun)

  • jenburkholder on December 15, 2025

    Very good. Don’t think it needed the broth, water spinach gives off enough liquid on its own. Sauce was deliciously savory.

  • Stephenn31 on December 30, 2025

    I didn’t have water spinach so I used Bok Choi. It was excellent. I would have added the stock sooner with the stems to help them cook and soften as the leaves just wilt

• Pork noodle soup (Kuy teav Phnom Penh)

  • jrosenbo on May 17, 2026

    Set aside a full day to source the ingredients and cook this dish. The broth flavors were authentic (I grew up in Cambodia), and overall I really enjoy and recommend this recipe. Tricky bits: as written it makes an enormous quantity but scaling down is awkward. Means you need to make way (way!) less garlic oil, find 2oz of pork shoulder (I just omitted), one single preserved radish. Wish I’d added some thinly sliced beef at the end, and would adjust or choose a different meatball recipe - these are tasty, but sweeter than my preference.

• Christina Mueller

  Anyone who likes a sense of place to accompany their cooking. Yun’s stories drive the recipes...’d recommend this book to anyone who likes to dig a little deeper to explore their local food scene.

  Full review