Fresh Spring Roll With Bacon (Kourng Sarch Chrok Bei Join)

Most of the time we make Fresh Spring Rolls with Shrimps but with my recipe will show you how to make spring rolls with Bacon. Spring rolls are a part time meal for Cambodian people between lunch and dinner. And usually we don't make our own spring rolls because Khmer family is big so to make a lot of spring roll for a whole family member might take time. So for us, the easy way we just buy ready-made-spring rolls from the seller as much as we need (the price is cheap, we do not need to spend time sitting to wrap & roll, and not only for spring rolls we buy from the market/sellers but all kinds of part time meal/snack). One person probably eats up to 4 or 6 spring rolls, and of course it doesn't keep you full for long time. But when we live abroad, we really should make our own homemade spring rolls if we would like to eat (the cheapest way). Recipe below will also show how to make sweet-and-sour dressing which is necessary to serve with spring rolls. By the recipe here you also can make vegetarian spring rolls, just don't use bacon.

Recipe for One Portion:

Prepare the Dressing: 

Ingredients: 1Garlic Clove (minced), 1/2sp of sliced Carrot, 1sp of Peanut (smashed), 1Red Hot Chili (chopped), 50ml of warm Water, 1sp of fresh Lemon Juice, 4tsp of Sugar, 1+1/2tsp of Salt.

Method: Put all the ingredients together and mix well, the tasted must be Sweet-and-Sour. Keep it to serve with Spring Roll.

Prepare the Spring Roll:

Ingredients: 6pieces of Rice Paper, 3slices of Bacon, 3layers of Lettuce, 1/2Carrot (10cm long need), 1/3Cucumber (10cm long need), 18 leaves of Asian Basil, 1cup of Bean Sprouts. Wash and clean vegetble very well before use. (Recommend: for bean sprouts should clean with water 2-3 times and then keep in water for 5minutes before use).

Method:

1. Cut sliced bacon into half (make 3slices become 6pieces), and take them to fry about 1minute for little brown color but don’t fry till crispy (See pictue). Cut lettuce into half the same way as bacon (makes 3layers become 6pieces). 
   
   
   

   
   

Peel carrot and slice into thin and long piece about 10cm length. Cucumber are peeled and sliced as same as carrot but can be a bit thicker and keep 10cm long the same.

2. How to wrap:

1. Take 1Rice paper deep in water for 6seconds till it soft little bit for wrapping. 

2. Take Rice paper out from water and put on a plate. After that put one sliced bacon in middle of the Rice paper, and then put a few sliced of carrot and cucumber, some bean sprouts, 3leaves of basil and one piece of lettuce.

3. Start to wrap from rolling it up one side to the middle, then wrap lelf and right together and after that roll it up to the end. See the pictures below.

      4. Do and wrap it one by one in the same way for the rest. 

Language Tip = English =) Khmer

Bacon = Sarch Chrok Bei Join

Carrot = Karrot

Cucumber = Tro Sak

Shrimp = Beung Kea

Sour = Cho

Spring Roll = Kourng

Sweet = Pha Em

Wrap = Kha Chob

Khmer Chicken Curry (Curry Sarch Mann)

There are many kinds of curry and it makes little different taste by different countries.We know that curry is originally from India, and by the culture influence, the curry has become one of our Khmer national dishes and since then it was adapted by other countries in the same region. Khmer curry might be not exactly same like Indian curry but more closer to Thai curry. For Cambodians, curry is a very special food and is cooked only for special event or occasion only, for example on Khmer New Year, Pchum Ben or a special day. And by the traditional and local way, to cook curry takes longer time as we have to make our own fresh curry paste from fresh Lemongrass, Turmeric, Kaffir Lime leaf, Garlic, Shallot…etc before cooking, even such peanuts are used in the curry paste as well (I remember when my mother told me to grind and mix all those lemongrass, turmeric…with our heavy stone mortar & pestle; I was very lazy to do it as it took like 30minutes to get all of them ground & mixed well together, and when finished my hands were yellow color - it took a few days to get the color gone from my hands). We even have to make and take the milk from the coconut. So it’s a long process to get all done. And we never cook for a few portions but with a big pot which could serve 10people or enough to eat for 2-3days. This is a story of curry from my experience. But since there is ready-made-curry-paste is available, I never want to think of making my own paste anymore. Curry can be cooked with many kinds of meat such as beef, chicken or pork. But the fast recipe is chicken because chicken is tender, - no need to cook longer time like beef or pork. And as I have mentioned in my note that I don’t use fish sauce in my recipe while the local taste needs to use fish sauce and shrimp paste extra for cooking; however, you will find out that it’s also great and delicious without using stinky fish sauce and shrimp paste even more healthier for sure.

Recipe for One Portion:

Ingredients: 200g of Chicken thigh boneless and skinless (or chicken breast), 1 mid size of Potato, 1 mid size of Onion, 1/2of mid size of Eggplant, 400ml of Coconut Milk, 100ml of Low Fat Milk, 2sp of Oil, 1sp of Red Curry Paste, 2 + ½ tsp of Sugar and 1 + ½ tsp of Salt.

Method: 

1. Slice chicken into small pieces, peel and chop potato and onion into small pieces. Chop eggplant into small pieces as in the picture, do not need to peel the skin.

2. Heat up pot and pure oil then put red curry paste to fry for 1minute. After that put chicken to fry for another 1minute. Then pure coconut milk, low fat milk and chopped potato in and mix them well together, after that cover and cook for 5minutes.

3. After 5minutes, open and start to put sugar and salt in. Stir it well little bit, then put chopped onion and eggplant. Cover and cook around 10minutes. Add extra salt or sugar up to favorite, then ready to serve with Steamed Rice.

Note: Red Curry Paste is spicy so do not need to put extra red chili.

Language Tip = English =) Khmer

Chicken = Sarch Mann

Coconut = Dong

Coconut Milk = Kti Dong

Delicious = Chha nanh

Lemon Grass = Sleuk Krie

Milk = Teuk Dess Ko

Special = Pi Sess

Stinky = Sar Ouy