Cambodian Bahn Chow

Iceberg wraps filled with crepe, chicken, coconut, fresh mint and basil.

This is dear Makara Meng, the co-owner of Mittapheap World Market who invited me to her relative's house for an authentic Cambodian meal in South Portland, Maine. What an evening it was! There were fried crickets as big as jumbo shrimp; 'n some chlook, a tamale-like deal only it was rice and pork steamed in a banana leaf; and noam koam, a white gooey dessert the texture of those rubber spider toys you throw at the wall, but with a crunchy center of caramelized coconut and sesame. My eyes have been opened. My heart, three days later, is still swollen with gratitude.

The preparation I'll take home with me is bahn chow, which I just tried making for a couple friends. The word is: thumbs up. Delicious. Said one: "I love the fresh mint, basil and cucumber. -- Ooo! And I just got a little kick from the sauce!"

Check out the posts at top right for the recipe, photos and the full story.

See how to do it

Cambodian Bahn Chow

The Recipe

Cambodian Bahn Chow

Iceberg wraps filled with crepe, chicken, coconut, and fresh mint and basil.

As cooked by Sopheap Im from Battam Bong, Cambodia,
in South Portland, ME, Sept 2009

Makes 14 crepes, serves 6-8 people

Bahn Chow Dipping Sauce

1 small shallot, finely sliced
1 small clove garlic, minced
2 small red chili pepper
3 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp distilled vinegar
2 ½ cups water
2 Tbsp fish sauce
½ tsp sambal olek chili
1/2 cup roasted peanuts

Mix everything but the peanuts together to let flavors meld while you cook. Grind peanuts in coffee grinder or chop with knife; add right before serving.

Crepe Filling

¾ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
¾ tsp sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
8 oz. fresh or frozen grated unsweetened coconut
1 whole chicken, meat ground or chopped finely
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
1 red onion, sliced in half moon shapes
½ pound bean sprouts, soaked in water then drained

Spread grated coconut evenly on a sheet pan and roast until slightly dry and golden. Heat vegetable oil in large saute pan or wok, add salt, pepper, sugar and garlic. When those begin to caramelize (turn light brown), add chicken. When chicken is well cooked, add roasted coconut, and onion. Keep chicken mixture and bean sprouts in separate bowls near pan where crepes will be made.

Crepe Batter

1 14 oz bag Bot Banh Xeo crepe mix
1 can coconut milk
3 ½ cup water
1 egg
pinch turmeric powder
small piece pork fat or vegetable oil

Mix all ingredients (except pork/oil) until smooth. Spear the piece of pork fat with a fork and keep in a small bowl next to the stove. Heat a12-inch nonstick skillet on medium high and wipe pork over hot surface. Ladel ½ cup batter into pan and tilt pan to spread batter into crepe shape, cover with lid. When rawness is gone, put ½ cup chicken mixture in center of crepe, and ½ cup fresh bean sprouts on top of that. Let heat 1-2 minutes. When edges of crepe get dry and crispy, fold crepe in half over filling, and place the whole thing on a sheet pan or large serving platter. Make 14 more stuffed crepes, putting pieces of tinfoil between each so they don’t stick and are easy to transport to plates.

Wrap Fixins

1 huge bunch fresh mint
1 huge bunch fresh basil
1-2 heads iceberg lettuce
2 cucumbers

Wash mint and basil and pick leaves, putting mounds of each on a platter with washed and quartered iceberg. Use a zester to make ridges in the skin of the cucumbers. Slice diagonally and place on platter.

How to Eat It

Use your hands. No silverware. Take a piece of lettuce, fill it with one cucumber slice, one mint leaf, two basil leaves, a piece of the bahn chow crepe and a little filling. Roll the lettuce so that all the ingredients wrapped inside. Dip in the sauce and eat! Continue until you’re full.

The Story

Her Friends Call Her So Peep

The queen of Cambodian cooking is among us.

By Lindsay Sterling

Makara Meng, co-owner of Mittapheap World Market, welcomed me to her relative’s suburban house in South Portland for an authentic Cambodian dinner. The head cook of the night was Makara’s relative, Sopheap Im, who is known as the queen of Cambodian cooks in Portland. “Everyone comes to her,” said Sopheap’s sister. Makara’s eleven extended but close family members that night taught me some amazing things.

First, people eat crickets! For Cambodians, fried crickets are a delicacy. Sopheap washed a pound of crickets, which were tide-mud brown and about the size of jumbo shrimp. Then she split the abdomen of each open with a knife, pushed a peanut inside, and deep fried large handfuls at a time in vegetable oil, using a mesh cover to contain the explosive splattering. When they quieted and turned brown after 8-10 minutes on high heat, they were done. Sopheap’s teenage daughter who was born here and had never tried crickets either, squirmed empathetically as I looked one eye to eye. While the concept of eating bugs was new for me, the experience was familiar: think the flakiness of spanikopita, the flavor of crispy skinned roasted chicken, and the crunch of a potato chip all in one. The platter of fried crickets was the only buffet item that night that yielded no leftovers.

Between her jobs as a lobster and sea urchin cleaner at Portland Shellfish and cashier at Mittapheap World Market, Sopheap cooks a feast for her huge extended family every week. This week the meal, which took five and a half hours and two people to cook, started with bahn chow, a large crepe made out of rice flour, coconut milk, egg and turmeric. The crepe is then folded over a filling of sauteed ground chicken, roasted coconut, red onion and bean sprouts.

Bahn chow is served with a buffet of fresh fixin’s: piles of fresh mint, basil, cucumber slices, wedges of iceberg lettuce, and an herb called fishface. (The dark green leaves are the shape of the card suit spade, and they smell uncannily like a fish just pulled from the water.) Makara showed me how to eat the bahn chow traditionally using no silverware. She took a piece of iceberg in one hand, filled it with one cucumber slice, one mint leaf, two basil leaves, and a piece of the bahn chow crepe and filling. She rolled the lettuce so that all the ingredients were wrapped inside. She dipped her roll into a sauce made of water, fish sauce, shallot, garlic, fresh red chili pepper, vinegar, a little sugar, and ground peanuts. Others in the family liked to eat bahn chow out of an oversized bowl with chopsticks. They cut the crepe and filling into large pieces with scissors, added handfuls of the fresh fixins’ and drizzled the sauce on top.

Sopheap made three other phenomenal dishes that night – more than I can share here. But you must know the queen of Cambodian cooking will be making appearances between her other jobs at the new Three Monkeys World Cafe, opening this October. If my evening with her is any indication, an open spirit will be rewarded. Her way with food made my heart skip a beat, then thump with joy.

Mittapheap World Market

61 Washington Ave.
Portland, ME
207-773-5523

Three Monkeys World Cafe
Opening in October
349 Cumberland Ave.
Portland, ME

fishface leaf:

frying crickets: