When in a new country, one of the best ways to get to know the cuisine is by learning to cook it. Our quest to find the best cooking class in Cambodia had us scouring the internet, looking for reviews of cooking classes in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. Surprisingly though, we found that Battambang, a city in North-Western Cambodia was known for its cooking classes. Upon further research (which involved eating at Coconut Lyly’s Restaurant), we decided on taking part in the cooking class at Coconut Lyly.
Situated only a three-minute walk from Battambang’s Central Market, Coconut Lyly is both a restaurant and a cooking school. Boasting classic Cambodian dishes like amok, lok lak and green mango salad, this restaurant serves authentic cuisine, with optional substitutes for western palates.
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Format of the Cooking Class at Coconut Lyly
The day before the cooking class at Coconut Lyly, you get to pick four dishes that you want to cook. There’s a list of ten or so dishes that you can choose from salads, curries, soups, spring rolls and desserts.
Then, on the day, the cooking class begins at 9 am with a market tour at Battambang’s Central Market, where you buy some ingredients for the class and get to taste various herbs, fruits and vegetables, native to Cambodia.
Back at the cooking school, you’re then taught how to cook each of your dishes before sitting down to eat your creations for lunch. The whole experience lasted until around 2:30 pm.
What’s Cooking?
For our cooking class at Coconut Lyly, we had free reign to pick four dishes to cook. To get a good range of dishes, we chose a starter, a main, a salad and a dessert – although you could pick four mains if you wanted!
First of all, we chose fish amok, a lemongrass coconut fish curry. Secondly, we had to pick the spring rolls – the ones we tried at the restaurant the day before were delicious. Thirdly, we went for the green mango salad and finally their signature dessert, the Coconut Lyly.
Market Tour
After we arrived and re-confirmed the dishes we were making, the day began with a tour of Battambang’s Central Market. Our teacher and Coconut Lyly’s owner, Savath, took us around the market, telling us about local herbs and fruits.
She bought some for us to try, like jack fruit and rose apple (enough for our journey to Phnom Penh!). As we walked around, we pointed at anything we didn’t recognise and Savath would happily explain it – she speaks really good English.
We also needed to get some coconut milk for the fish amok and Coconut Lyly dessert. So, Savath, took us to the coconut milk stand in the market. Here put they put brown coconuts in a large press and ground the flesh, releasing the coconut milk.
With our curiosity satisfied and ingredients bought, it was time to start the cooking class.
Coconut Lyly Dessert
In true cooking class fashion, we started with making the dessert as it needed time to chill. This coconut dessert, created by the restaurant was a gelatin-based dessert so it needed time to chill.
We started with blending fresh coconut with the coconut milk we got from the market, along with vanilla, sugar and lime zest. We brought this to a boil and added soaked gelatin, before pouring it into ramekins to set.
Normally, you’d place the Coconut Lyly desserts in the fridge to set, but as we didn’t have all day, we put ours in the freezer. The freezer creates a more refreshing ice cream-like dessert, whereas the fridge results in a Panna Cotta-like dessert.
Fish Amok | Cambodia’s National Dish
The second dish we made was the fish amok – a dish that you can find all over Cambodia.
The dish starts with making the amok paste, a blend of garlic, lemongrass, shallot, galangal, turmeric, kaffir lime leaves and chilli. We pounded this until it became a very fine and fragrant paste.
Then, we mixed our amok paste with white fish, fresh coconut milk, chicken powder (MSG), sugar, salt and amok leaf. Amok leaves, also known as Noni leaves, have a bitter taste that balances the rich coconut and herbal flavours of amok.
We poured this mixture of fish, coconut, seasonings and our amok paste into a prepared bowl made from banana leaves. This banana leaf bowl is the serving dish usually associated with amok, which Savath taught us how to make later. We then placed our Fish amok into a metal steaming pot to steam. Savath explained that bamboo steamers were actually more common in Western cooking than in Cambodia.
The Best Spring Rolls We Had In Cambodia
Everyone loves a spring roll, and these Cambodian ones were definitely a hit.
First, we had to make the spring roll filling of grated taro, carrot and finely sliced spring onions. To this we added minced pork and various seasonings, making sure not to skimp on the pepper, which we found to be a very common flavour in Cambodian cooking.
With filling made, Savath then taught us how to wrap these spring rolls. She explained the difference between fresh and dry rice paper; for deep-fried spring rolls, you want fresh, for raw spring rolls you typically use dry rice paper that’s been soaked.
Under instruction, we rolled up three spring rolls each and deep-fried them to golden, crispy perfection.
Green Mango Salad
In South-East Asia you see a lot of papaya salads. This Cambodian take on the dish ditches papaya for green mango. Green mango is unripe mango, so it’s a lot harder than your typical mango, perfect for grating into salads. It also has a sourness which pairs really well with the dressing and seasonings we added to the salad.
To our grated green mango, we added a Khmer dressing. This dressing was the perfect blend of sour from lime juice, sweet from chilli sauce and salty from fish sauce. We then ground dried shrimp into a powder and mixed it with the mango, peanuts, coriander and our Khmer dressing.
Savath showed us that the best way to mix salads was with our hands (covered in plastic bags). This mixing method meant we could really feel the salad and make sure that all of the components were thoroughly incorporated.
Time to Eat!
With all our dishes made, we sat down at one of the tables outside of the restaurant, it was time to eat our creations.
First up, the spring rolls. These were definitely some of the best we had in Cambodia. They were so crispy, but not oily, and the filling was great. There was a real hit of pepper when you bit into them, and dipping them into the chilli sauce gave a nice spicy sweetness.
The green mango salad was always going to be a winner. I love green mango and would happily eat it as a snack with some chilli salt during my time in Cambodia, so this salad was right up my alley. The mango had a slight crunch despite being grated, and it really absorbed the spicy, sweet and salty flavours of the Khmer dressing, creating a bright, fruity and tangy salad.
The fish amok was served in its banana leaf bowl alongside some steamed rice. The amok was slightly yellow from the turmeric and had thickened slightly in the steamer. It was so creamy, with flavours of coconut and lemongrass and a nice balance between sweet and salty.
Finishing our feast was the Coconut Lyly dessert. We had given it a little time to soften after coming out of the freezer. It was similar to a coconut sorbet, but a little bit creamier. The little bits of lime zest laced throughout the Coconut Lyly gave refreshing and zingy pops of flavour.
Pricing and Booking Details
You can contact Coconut Lyly via WhatsApp or Facebook to book the class online.
Alternatively, you can go to their restaurant the day before and book the class for the following day. Either way, once booked, you get to pick which dishes you want to cook the day before.
Price: $10 / £7.60 / €9.05
Address: 111, Krong Battambang, Cambodia
Thanks for reading! Make sure you check out this cooking class at Coconut Lyly when you’re in Cambodia!
Interested In More Cambodian Cuisine?
If you’ve made it this far, I assume you probably like Cambodian food.
Want to see what Cambodian Fine Dining is like? Check out our review of Cuisine Wat Damnak in Phnom Penh! Or if you want to know more about Cambodian Street Food, then check out Street 60 in Siem Reap!
