• Prepare the California chili: Remove seeds and stems, then rinse and soak in cold water for at least half an hour.
• Prepare the Prahok: This is Chef Channy’s secret! The paste will smell very different once finished. Measure 3 ounces of prahok into a pan over low heat. This step is not necessary if using fish sauce. As the pan heats up, add 6 tablespoons of water; cover to gently steam the paste for 5 minutes until the paste breaks apart. Remove any impurities (bones, scales) by pressing against a fine strainer over a bowl. Heat 1½ tablespoons of avocado oil over medium heat; add the filtered prahok. Stir continuously until foaming rapidly. Turn off the heat. Now you have roasted prahok that is perfect for cooking any Khmer dishes. Use it instead of salt, or fish sauce. It adds that intense umami to your dish.
• Roast Eggplant and Chili: Roast pea eggplant (or green peas) and Bird’s Eye chilis in a cast-iron pan over medium heat until slightly charred, then set aside.
• Prepare the Base: Blend California chilis with ¾ of the top portion of the coconut cream using a blender of choice. Set aside. (Our Edible Test Kitchen could not find whole dried chilis but found already ground California chilis so no blender was needed. We stirred the ground California chilis with the coconut cream.)

  In a medium pot over low heat, add oil and prepared prahok, or fish sauce. Stir until the mixture becomes creamy. Add the lemongrass paste and continue stirring until thickened. Add the California chili and coconut cream mixture, thnot sugar and 5 Makrut lime leaves or leaf flakes. Stir until red oil begins to appear on the surface.

  Add ground pork or chicken and the remainder of the coconut cream to the base and mix well. Increase to medium heat, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Continue cooking for about 8 minutes, until the meat is done and at least 165ºF.

  Add roasted eggplant and chili to the base and mix well. Season with salt to taste. Turn off the heat, add the thinly sliced garlic and mix well.

  Put the prahok ktis in a bowl, top with thinly sliced garlic and julienned Makrut lime leaves. Serve with seasonal fresh colorful veggies and wedges of lime or lemon.

Substitutions

• Pea eggplant is very small and round. It is typically only available when it is in season in the late summer and early fall. Substituting with green peas is for the look, as Chef Channy explains, “You cannot have prahok ktis without something small and round.” So do not swap the pea eggplant or green peas with regular eggplant varieties.
• Prahok, or fermented mudfish paste, can be hard to find at our Asian supermarkets. If prahok is unavailable, substitute fish sauce rather than shrimp paste. Because prahok is made from fermented fish, fish sauce is a much better substitute to preserve the authentic Khmer flavor profile.
• Thnot sugar comes from the nectar of the Borassus flabellifer palm blossoms. Through a labor-intensive process of evaporation and stirring, the nectar crystallizes as it cools.

  Chef Channy remembers this as one of her duties at the refugee camp. “During the genocide I spent my time producing rice, thnot sugar, or building levees, but most of my time was spent in a sick house where there are no treatment, and I was left to die. A silver lining of my endurance during the Cambodian genocide was learning to appreciate the ancient processes of transforming a bowl of rice grain into more than 100 pounds of somewhat white rice (not white, not brown) just the right color, texture and aroma. No machinery, no pesticides, no herbicide, all done with our bare hands and with help from the cattle and water buffalo. Similarly with thnot sugar, I was lucky to be selected to help with rendering the thnot nectar to sugar. I was amazed by the skill and dedication given to converting palm nectar drops into the best sugar I ever tasted. Unlike rice, thnot sugar is still collected and processed in this ancient way.”