⏱ 3 hours 🔥 324 kcal 💪 40 g protein 🥗 10 servings
Recipe inspired by Simply Khmer restaurant, What the Food & Nite Yun
Pictorial Instructions
Lemongrass Spice Paste (Kroeung)
1 Peel off a few fibrous outer layers of lemongrass, chop off the root and green top, only reserve the tender 7-8 inch (20 cm) bottom part, cut into thin slices. Stack and roll up the lime leaves, thinly slice into strips. Peel and thinly slice galangal and turmeric. Peel and roughly chop the garlic and shallot. Roughly chop the Thai chili peppers.
2 In a food processor or mortar & pestle, add the more fibrous three ingredients lemongrass, galangal, and lime leaves, process until finely chopped and well combined. Then add the garlic, shallot, turmeric, and chili peppers, continue to process until forming a paste.
Soup
1 Cut the beef into bite-size pieces.
2 To a large pot, heat up 1 tbsp vegetable oil, saute the kroeung for a few minutes to bring out more aroma. Add the beef and stir until all pieces are coated with the kroeung paste.
3 Add 10 cups of water, fish paste, fish sauce, sugar, salt. Cover and bring to a boil. Once the broth is boiling, add a ladle of hot broth to the tamarind paste and mix to loosen it up, then add it into the pot. Turn the heat to low and cover, let it simmer for 2 hours or until the meats are tender.
4 While the soup is simmering, wash the water spinach, separate the leaves from the stems, cut the stems into 2-inch chunks.
5 Once the meats are tender, add the stems to the pot, cook on medium heat for about 10 minutes. Then add the leaves, cook for a few minutes or until the leaves are wilted. Serve the soup with steamed rice.
In the summer of 2014, I joined a research team to conduct nutrition projects with the Cambodian community in Lowell, MA. My professors took the team to this restaurant called Simply Khmer to get us exposed to the Cambodian flavors. Salaw Machu Kroeung was one of the dishes they ordered and it blew my mind! It was sour, savory, umami, pungent, and so many different and completely new flavors hitting my taste buds. I was hooked since then. Now whenever I go to a new city I search for Cambodian restaurants and especially this soup.
Tips
1 Ingredients substitution: I am very grateful that I have access to Asian grocery stores where I can get all the ingredients for this soup. However, if you can't find everything, here are some options:
Galangal ↔︎ ginger
Kaffir lime leaves ↔︎ lime peels or zest
Fresh turmeric ↔︎ turmeric powder
Tamarind paste ↔︎ tamarind powder/lime juice
Water spinach/morning glory ↔︎ watercress/spinach
Fermented mudfish paste (Prahok) ↔︎ fish sauce/anchovy
2 Change it up: the traditional soup uses beef and organ meats such as trip and lung. I am using two cuts, shank and plate, to add different textures to the soup. You can use other cuts such as stew meat. Other meat choices: chicken, fish, pork; other vegetable choices: Thai green eggplant, celery.
3 Store and use of Kroeung: Kroeung can also be used in stir-fry dishes as well. You can keep it in the fridge for a few days, or freeze it for a few months. I like to separate it into 2-tbsp portions and freeze for later.
