With the cold weather, you might want to try something hot! A hot soup with protein might be the solution.
Food in Cambodia are served with different occasions and of course, most of the time come with rice.
I would like to introduce one soup - easy to make and the taste is wonderful!
It is called Banana flower soup with hock
- Ingredients:
- Banana flower (whole or half, depends on family membeors, peel out outer layers, keep the inside that are soft and edible)
- Hock (leg + shoulder meat of the pig) / chicken: 0.3 - 0.5kg
- Basil, lime/lemon, lemon grass
- Salt
- Sugar
2. How to prepare (make sure to clean all)
- Cut banana flower into two pieces (just like in the above photo), throw away hard reddish layers, keep only edible layers, then cut it rectangle but not too big nor too small, just for like the winter melon, then soak them in the water (put lime inside to prevent the flower getting black)
- Cut the hock into small pieces, clean and put aside
- Clean and cut the lemon grass, put aside
- Chop the basil and lemon/lime, put a side**
- Then put the soup pot on the cooker/gas stove - warm it, then put the hock inside, put salt and sugar just as the taste you like (put meat in the hot pot in order to get rid of the smell from meat by letting the meat dry in the hot pot/ other way, put galangal together too, very good to get rid of the smell).
- After it is getting dried (not overcooked, just no more water out from the meat), then pour water just per your preference.
- Waiting till the water is boiled for 20mns, put lemongrass into that water (the meat is getting tender),
- After you taste the soup and see that the meat is getting tender, put the banana flower in.
- 3-5mns after that, when the water boils again, turn off the cooker.
- 3. How to eat?
- Use the bowl, put the soup in, then squeeze lemon/lime and put basil in. It is best to serve with rice and when it is hot.
T****ips: This is a very good dish for mothers who are breastfeeding babies. The resin from the banana flower and hock help provide more proteins and also increase the milk!
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