By Julie A. Warner
Post-Bulletin (Rochester, Minnesota, USA)
Loc lac or Marinated Beef Strips with Lime SauceOur community has been enriched by recent immigrants from many countries, including Cambodia. Being a foodie, my conversations with my Cambodian friends often turn to their cuisine.Place cubed sirloin in mixture of the minced garlic cloves, soy sauce, sugar and 1 tsp. black pepper. Marinade for 30 minutes. Heat 2 T. oil in skillet, remove meat from marinade and place it in skillet. Saute until browned, approximately 8-10 minutes. Mix together lime juice, water and black pepper, and add to beef. For an authentic presentation, serve over lettuce with tomato, wedge fried potatoes, and top with fried egg. For the less adventurous, it is also excellent served over steamed white rice. Serves 4-6.
- 7 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 T. soy sauce
- 1 T. sugar
- 1 tsp. black pepper
- #2 beef sirloin, cut into narrow 2-inch long strips
- 2 T. oil
- 1 T. lime juice
- 1 tsp. water
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper
So I was excited recently to have the opportunity visit Cambodia with my daughter to experience the food, an important part of their culture.
During the course of this backpacking adventure, we traveled with an experienced guide who knew where and what to eat, be it roadside rest stops or fine dining. The colors, textures, aromas, and fellow diners were most unlike Rochester, but because of my contacts with our local community, strangely familiar as well.
One memorable stop on our journey was near Siem Reap, where we explored the ancient temples of Angkor Wat. After a morning of prowling these fascinating ruins we found ourselves at a very basic, outdoor roadside restaurant.
We dined under the shade of a canopy that provided welcome relief from the broiling sun, at red vinyl-covered tables fashioned from rough wood. The kitchen was also outdoors, without the benefit of shade, hidden behind a rather flimsy temporary wall. We wondered what was going on behind that wall!
Wanting to sample a traditional regional dish, I asked our guide for a suggestion, and he suggested loc lac or marinated beef strips with lime sauce. Our pretty young waitress took my order and I anxiously awaited my lunch.
I was not disappointed -- when the dish arrived, I found lime-marinated beef strips placed delicately upon a bed of green lettuces, red tomatoes, and golden fried potato wedges with a lightly fried egg placed on top.
To accompany my dish there was the common condiment of cracked black pepper, salt and lime wedges, the ingredients to make a dipping sauce by squeezing the lime wedges and mixing the juice with the salt and pepper.
I eagerly tasted the beef, and found it to be tender to the bite, sweet yet tangy to the taste and balanced by the richness of the fried egg. I savored each bit and was amazed that one could find such cuisine in such a humble roadside restaurant.
When I came home, I wanted to recreate this lime-marinated beef in my own kitchen.
This is the recipe I modified and shared with my family with great success.
Even though I do not have Angkor Wat in sight as I relish my loc lac I can still smell, see and savor a traditional Cambodian meal in my own home. Enjoy, enjoy!
Julie A. Warner is a chef at the Mayo Clinic Foundation House in Rochester.
7 comments:
Julie, let's set the record straight: loclac is a vietnamese dish. The name betrays its origin.
shut the fuck up, lok lak is not youn, stop saying everything is youn, stupid. lok lak is a favorite khmer dish that youn stole from khmer in order to show to the world it is a youn dish. we all know their dirty trick! i like cambodian lok lak dish! remember how siem and youn food is better known in the world due to this kind of show, well, it's about time for khmer to show our food as well! more power to khmer food! god bless cambodia.
i know, youn even say that french bread sandwich is vietnamese, too. go figure! don't be surprise when youn claim that the food is theirs! they even stole khmer prahok dish and say it's theirs! god figure! what else is new with youn and siem!
don't be surprised that a lot of youn and siem dishes are chinese in origin and even khmer's in origin as well. it's all about the show, that's why people like 2:21pm claim lok lak to be youn's. see, this is why telling the world about khmer food is very important because khmer food is less known in the world. one reason was because youn and siem opened up restaurant almost in every corner of the street in america and europe when compared to khmer food. i guess one other reason why khmer food is less know to the world is because in general khmer people don't really like to cook. well, thank god, that's changed as well in cambodia. now more and more khmer people are taking cooking as a job and love to cook, both male and female khmer, however, before th4e KR era, most cooking are confined to home, women and rarely in cambodia we see a khmer man cook. but again, it has changed now in cambodia. who says cambodia can't learn from the rest of the world? god bless cambodia.
cambodia should adopt this concept that if food is located in cambodia, called it khmer food, like siem and youn called it in their country! i'm sure neighboring countries shared the same same of food, but just don't called it all youn or all siem food, ok! that's the point. because khmer people will start to call it khmer food, too, you know! what goes around comes around, you know! by the way, cambodia is not without food such as noodle soup dishes, curry dishes, grilled dishes, soup based dishes, veggy dishes, sausages, etc, etc..., ok! so, stop label food all vietnamese or all thai, ok, because that is a sign or ignorant! khmer people rarely label our food, we only started to do it now because we are now being competitive with youn and siem! now we called all of our food "khmer food" in cambodia! get used to it! god bless cambodia.
Julie, here's a quote from http://www.phnomenon.com/index.php/cambodian-food/recipes/loc-lac-recipe/
"..Loc Lac (occasionally, lok lak) is a superb expression of Cambodia’s recent colonial history and the imagined authenticity that is generally transferred by foreigners onto Asian food; an authenticity that is mirrored by the way that Khmer national culture itself is constructed. Loc Lac comes to Cambodia via Vietnam where it is named bo luc lac (literally, “shaking beef” in Vietnamese) and was most likely brought to Cambodia with the French colonisers rather than with the Vietnamese. At some point within the last 50 years, Cambodia has wholly claimed it as part of Khmer cuisine - so much so that it would be literally unimaginable for most Cambodians that the dish was originally Vietnamese. Somewhere along the line, an enterprising Cambodian added French fries (dumlon barang chien) as a typical accompaniment..".
need i go on about other dishes such as banh chheo, kuong.. or our own cambodian version of curries..? borrowing an idea/recipe is not shameful, but living in denial is! and please don't get your tiny god involved in this!
what no reply? some time it does take facts to kneecap morbid xenophobia. i'm proud to be a khmer, and i detest the idea that we are the centre of the world for the simple reason that it makes us look like dim witted morons. and please note that as a decent khmer i keep my integrity by not using swear words on my critics, behind internet anonymity.
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