The 10 Cambodian Cookbooks To Open Your Mind 👩‍🍳

Hi, I am Chef Zara. In this post, I will guide you through Cambodian Cookbooks. Join me on this journey of taste and discovery.

I love discovering new food and cooking with friends and family. One of the most common questions that I often get is for cookbook recommendations. I have created this guide for friends, family, and new friends alike. I hope that you enjoy our site.

What is Cambodian Cuisine?

Over time, Cambodian cuisine has been influenced by a wide range of culinary techniques. It offers a variety of flavors that surprise the tongue and pique the taste buds. In order to create distinctive tastes, Cambodian cuisine has also expertly merged the culinary essence of its adjacent nations. Asian cookbooks are easier to find now than they were in the past. But getting a cookbook specializing in Cambodian food is still challenging.

Here are the 10 Cambodian Cookbooks For You!! 👇

1. The Ultimate Cambodian Cookbook

Why We Love It ❤️

If you enjoy trying new food and nutrition/health-oriented recipes, this Ultimate Cambodian Cookbook is the best option for you. The book comes with 111 of the best dishes from Cambodian cooking. In this cookbook, the author picked the most traditional recipes and long-standing meals that mothers in Cambodia prepare. There are also well-balanced, delicious, and nutritious recipes in this book prepared for any occasion and everyday cooking.

Review 📖

This comprehensive cookbook includes numerous vegan recipes in addition to a wide range of meat, including poultry and seafood choices. Don’t let trying a new dish deter you. The ingredients are widely available and the recipes are straightforward. You don’t need to be a skilled chef to know how to cook with this book.

Its thoroughness in detail makes it suitable for beginners. The variety of flavors, including mouthwatering Ceviche, also eaten in Peru, warm and cold salads, and Cambodian dessert recipes will delight even the most jaded foodie. This traditional Cambodian cookbook offers the taste of a different culture. Discover new flavors by reading them now.

2. The Food & Cooking of Cambodia

Why We Love It ❤️

This fantastic book has all the recipes you will need to relive your travel experiences, including soups and snacks to major dishes and desserts. After trying a few of the dishes in this book, you’ll want to visit Cambodia if you haven’t already.

Review 📖

The most well-known recipes are included in this book, but the titles are frequently anglicized. For instance, “Amok” is described as “Fish in Coconut Custard,” and “Aubergine Curry with Coconut Milk” is one of the several names given for “Khmer Curry.”

It is also important to keep in mind that the ingredients for many common Cambodian dessert recipes are flexible, depending on the region or the cook’s personal preferences. Just because a recipe calls for chicken, for instance, doesn’t mean the same dish can’t be made with beef, fish, vegetables, pork, etc. That being said, choosing the appropriate spices is crucial. A minor critique of the book is that it doesn’t emphasize how difficult it is to find “Prahoc,” a sauce made of fish that is a staple of Cambodian cooking.

About the Author ✍️

The author claims that it may be purchased at Asian shops, but other sellers nor I online seem to have discovered this to be the case. However, I simply replaced it with the Thai or Vietnamese fish pastes that are offered in Asian stores, which have shown to be successful. Many cookbooks fail to provide truly authentic examples of regional cuisine.

This is my best recommendation. It’s also simple to follow the directions and get the necessary ingredients online or at Asian stores.

3. Easy Cambodian Cookbook

Why We Love It ❤️

The Easy Cambodian Cookbook is a comprehensive collection of straightforward but unique Cambodian dishes. You’ll find the flavors surprisingly good despite the recipes’ simplicity. The recipes are accompanied by vibrant images of the area.

Review 📖

Each recipe has a title and a list of components, and you’ll be able to make substitutions for your healthy dietary requirements, such as low salt, low fat, low sugar, and fresh ingredients rather than canned. There are no photographs of the recipes; only instructions are provided. Servings, prep time, calories, fat (not divided into good or bad fat), cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates, and protein based on a diet of 1000 calories are some of the nutritional data that is provided.

You should have no trouble finding the ingredients as there is a wide assortment to pick from. Make sure you have all the ingredients before beginning a dish with a lengthy list of ingredients.

4. The Elephant Walk Cookbook

Why We Love It ❤️

It is a cultural and culinary journey to read The Elephant Walk Cookbook, the first book on traditional Cambodian cuisine to be published in the United States. It also tells the tale of novelist Longteine De Monteiro and how she and her husband, who was sent into exile in 1975 as a result of the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia, came to own three restaurants and a market in the Boston area.

Together with Katherine Neustadt, she developed this book in part to preserve traditional foods that may no longer be served in Cambodia, as many who knew how to prepare them were either killed by the Khmer Rouge or fled the country. China, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Spain, and France are just a few of the Asian and Western countries that have influenced Cambodian cuisine.

Colors, textures, and, most importantly, salty, sour, sweet, hot, and bitter flavors must all be balanced. The two staple foods are rice and fish, notably freshwater lake fish, and prahok, a fermented fish paste, as well as several other ingredients that are getting easier to find outside of Southwest Asia, like coconut milk, lemongrass, and a long list of others.

Review 📖

The majority of the recipes in The Elephant Walk Cookbook will still require mail ordering from the sources listed in the book or a special shopping excursion. The foods that are easiest to access are pickles i.e. Mixed Vegetable Pickles, and the salads, many of which have chicken or pig in them. Another simple option is Loc Lac, which is beef that has been sautéed while marinated in mushroom soy sauce and served with lime juice on top of crisp lettuce. 

You can read about all 150 dishes, which are flavorful with ingredients like basil, cilantro, galangal, kaffir lime, curry leaves, and tamarind, as well as hot chiles, garlic, pungent fish sauce, and others. They are described with affectionate, lively language that will keep you reading. I would advise you to put The Elephant Walk Cookbook at the top of your list if you enjoy cooking foreign food at home.

5. NHUM – Recipes from a Cambodian Kitchen

Review 📖

This is an authoritative work on Cambodian food. The amount of detail in the recipes makes them understandable to home cooks in the West. The format is large enough to admire the lovely photographs while still fitting on the counter of the apartment kitchen with space to cook. 

There is a wide range of options here, including major courses and straightforward sauces like lime/salt/pepper for dipping thinly sliced meat. The book is an excellent value and is prominently displayed on our cookbook shelf.

About the Author ✍️

The recipes that Nak makes are amazing. To enjoy delicious Cambodian food, you don’t have to be a Cambodian citizen. To preserve Cambodian cuisine for future generations, She meticulously investigated and recorded these recipes.

She offers substitutes for ingredients that are difficult to get outside of her native country, making it even simpler to recreate the unique taste of Cambodia wherever you may reside.  You might be drawn in by the book’s exquisite photography, which elevates it to the status of both a cookbook and a coffee table book.

Bravo to Chef Nak and Nataly Lee for producing a must-have cookbook for your library.

6. Cambodian Recipes: A Journey into Asia

Why We Love It ❤️

If there is anything thing you should know about Cambodian cooking, it’s that the meals and drinks are produced with a variety of ingredients that give rise to contrasting but delectable flavors and sensations. You should also be aware that tropical fruits, particularly pineapple and mango, are frequently used in dishes and beverages.

Therefore, don’t be alarmed if you come across any unusual fruit dishes in this cookbook. The last thing you should know is that Cambodian cuisine is among the most exciting and delectable in Asia and the entire world! So, it would be a wonderful decision to choose this cookbook to know about delicious and savory Cambodian recipes!

7. The Ultimate Cambodian Cookbook 2022

Review 📖

You might not expect to find excellent cuisine in Cambodia, but when you explore further, you’ll discover that the New Cambodian Cookbook 2022 is stuffed full of mouthwatering meat cuts, seafood, and the tastiest and freshest veggies.

There isn’t a single recipe on this list that isn’t appropriate for leading a healthy lifestyle. You won’t need to spend a lot of time in the kitchen because every recipe in The New Cambodian Cookbook is simple to make.

Be willing to try new things because these are original recipes. Also, keep in mind that the cooking instructions in this cookbook are simple. The meals will be delicious and unique but also easy to create.

8. A Taste of Cambodian Cuisine

Why We Love It ❤️

The meals are fresh and different from those typically seen in commercial Asian restaurants while being good and healthy. I highly suggest this cookbook. I’ve enjoyed many delicious meals from these Cambodian dishes with friends and family.

Review 📖

This cookbook is an amazing revelation. It offers a wide variety of delicious Cambodian cuisine made with high-quality, fresh ingredients, and the recipes are simple to follow. The sauces are light, the veggies come out crunchy and bright, and the fish or meat flavors are well-balanced and brought out. 

This is a fantastic change from the thick, sticky, or overly sweet sauces that are typically found in Chinese or Thai cuisine (the nearest culinary relative). Asian grocery stores are great places to find the ingredients. 

Noodles Siemreap is a quick and easy dish to cook; any leftovers make a nice lunch the next day. The rice and noodle dishes in the cookbook are very delicious. With the dishes in this booklet, it’s hard to make a mistake. 

9. Cambodian Cookbook

Why We Love It ❤️

Beginners will find this Cambodian cookbook simple and easy to use. Various traditional Cambodian dishes can be found here. Every recipe is straightforward to complete. You’ll enjoy and find the tastes in Cambodian cuisine to be interesting. Your family and friends will be profoundly affected by the work your hands do.

Cambodian cuisine shares many similarities with Thai, Vietnamese, and Lao cuisines and has adopted elements of Indian, Chinese, and, more recently, French cuisine. Khmer cuisine can be divided into a peasant, highly regarded, and royal cuisine.

While the peasant meals are produced with easier-to-find ingredients, the royal and elite dinners employ a greater variety of premium ingredients and more meat.

10. Cambodian Cookbook: Authentic Cambodian Food Recipes!

Review 📖

Learn about Cambodian cuisine. Come explore the pleasures of simple cooking. The purpose of this cookbook and all of our cookbooks is to demonstrate how simple cooking is. Cambodia Cookbook: Authentic Cambodian Food Recipes! is a full collection of straightforward but incredibly distinctive dishes.

Even though the recipes are straightforward, you’ll discover that the flavors are fantastic. This cookbook is a good option if you want to embark on a simple Cambodian cooking adventure.

Final Thoughts

After long research, I have reviewed the 10 best Cambodian Cookbooks that will help you to know how to cook Cambodian food. So, pick a cookbook from the list that meets your criteria. Thank you.