Samlor Tumpang – Khmer Soup

Since ancient time Cambodia is a country that has a lot of fishes, especially in Tonle Sap lake, the biggest lake in Southeast Asia. So most of Cambodia foods are mainly consist of fish, and mostly the soup are fish soups.  Samlor Tumpang (fish soup with bamboo shoot) is a simple daily fish soup for Cambodian families, which always be popular. Within a month, they cook the fish soup with bamboo shoot at least 3 times. You might try it next time at any local restaurants in Cambodia. It’s truly Khmer flavor. Or you can try with the receipt below at your own hands.

Ingredients

- 500g of fish. The fish can be Trei po, Trei Andeng, Trei Chhlang, Tree kae, or those has more fat fished, are best for Samlor Tumpang.

- 300g of sliced bamboo shoot.

Samlor Tumpang Ingredients

- Vegetables can be chosen one or several kinds combine together among sweet vegetable (ស្លឹកងុប), Bas leaves (ស្លឹកបាស), Edible amaranth (ផ្ទី), Chili leaves (ស្លឹកម្ទេស), and ridge gourd (ននោង).

- 1 tablespoon of Prohok flesh

- 2 tablespoons of paddy rice

- 2 tablespoons of fish sauce

Vegetables for Samlor Tumpang. From left to right: bamboo shoot, ridge gourd, sweet vegetable, bas leaves

Start Cooking

- First squeeze paddy rice with bamboo shoot in the pot. This process is needed to decrease the bitterness of the bamboo shoot. Then add some water in and wash it, after that drain it up by lowing the pot to aside to let water run out. The paddy rice cause the water become muddy. So wash it several times, until the water become clear, so that the soup water would be clear too.

- Next add water and put on fire, cook it until the paddy rice become well cooked. Now we can crush the prohok and get its water for the soup.

- Add fish and fish sauce.

- When the fish is cooked, add green vegetables then bring the soup to an immediately boil while add other seasoning to adjust your taste.

Samlor Tumpang – Khmer Fish Soup with Bamboo Shoot