Sầu Đâu (Cambodian Sadao Salad)

Sadao are flower buds which grow on trees in Cambodia and surrounding regions. At first taste, the flowers are extremely bitter, more bitter than bitter melon, however the bitterness is soon lost in their unique flavor and slightly sweet aftertaste. Those not familiar with Sadao often find it too bitter to handle, but after a few bites most people turn into devoted fans. Sadao can be found frozen or fresh in most asian grocery stores (in Seattle at least).

Ingredients:
-1 package sadao flower (frozen l package = 1lb)
-1 lb pork belly
-1 tilapia (1-2lbs)
-3 pickling cucumbers
-dấp cá and tía tô herbs

What to Do:
Thaw sadao flowers and drop into a pot of boiling water and give a quick stir. Remove from heat, allow sadao (in water) to cool (cool enough to handle). Remove sadao from water and strip the flowers off the stem (hold the stem with one hand and use the other hand to “strip” the flowers starting from the bottom of the stem to the tip). Boil pork and slice thin, clean and grill fish, de-bone and flake into bite size pieces. Slice cucumbers and chop herbs. Finally mix everything together and serve with tamarind sauce.

Tamarind Sauce:
Follow the basic recipe for fish sauce. Replace lime juice with sour tamarind juice and use palm sugar instead of table sugar.

Ah Bow Leng (Tang Yuan)

Ingredients

200 g glutinous rice flour
filings : peanuts, yam, black or white tau sa
lots of pandan leaves
sugar

Method

1. Boil a pot of water with lots of pandan leaves until the water turns green and fragnant. Add sugar to taste.

2. Mix glutinous rice flour with normal water and knead into a dough.

3. Take a small portion, flatten it and put in the filings and roll it up like a ball.

4. Put them in another pof of clean boiling water and cook until it floats.

5. Scoop it out and leave them in a pot of cold/tap water.

6. Before serving, scoop it out from the cold water put in a bowl, pour the pandan soup over.


Note:
By cooking them in a separate pot, will prevent the soup from turning cloudy.
By putting them in cold water pot, will prevent them from becoming too soft.