One of the girls’ favorite street foods are Khmer coconut waffles or ‘Noum Pom’. These sweet waffles are moist and dense, not airy and light. They do have that delightful waffle crunch on the surface but shredded coconut lurks beneath the surface. They are typically eaten plain, traditionally served in a banana leaf and more recently in plastic bags, but banana leaves are beginning to make a comeback.
I think each street vendor has their own unique recipe but they are traditionally made with salt, rice flour, duck eggs, shredded coconut, coconut milk/cream, and palm sugar. The rice flour, duck eggs, and palm sugar contribute to the moist density. The coconut flavor isn’t as strong as you might expect and remains fairly mild. Some vendors add black sesame seeds but that’s the only additional ingredient that I’ve seen.
The waffle street vendors here on the streets of Phnom Penh are masters of timing and multitasking. They flip, refill, and unload their waffle irons while walking down the streets, filling orders, and refilling their charcoal pots.
Mmmmmm! These sure do look tasty. Are coconut waggles and other street foods something you buy regularly or only on certain occasions?
I’m intrigued by the banana leaves. They’re used in a variety of cuisines that Adam enjoys preparing, and I’m always surprised by the flavor they impart, even if just used as a transport mechanism. I think we’re gonna have to explore Cambodian cuisine next!
In the beginning I was taking the girls out for street food all the time so that they’d make relationships with the people near our house, practice some basic Khmer, and learn not to be afraid of interacting with Cambodian people. That worked out well; it really helped them learn the basic Khmer social graces and made us all feel safer knowing the people around us. I tried to use the same tact with shopping but that was less successful because of COVID-19. I’ve had to do most of the shopping by myself but recently we had some good progress with Charlotte taking over the fruit shopping at our little local shop.
There’s a lot of great food that’s traditionally wrapped in banana leaves here. It definitely has an impact on the flavor and humidity. Plastic is everywhere here so I’m always glad when I see a vendor switch to bamboo straws or banana leaves for wrapping. There’s a great Cambodian dish called amok that’s served in bowl made of banana leaves. Crystal was also learning how to make a wonderful sour soup with banana blossoms – somlor machou trayong jeak. We’ll have to get some photos next time she makes it. It’s so good.
Yummy!
Now that’s what I call breakfast 😋
These are worth a trip to Cambodia for!!
They sound delicious to me!
They are very good! They are the girls’ favorite street food but, personally, if we’re going sweet I prefer the fried bananas. 😀