Frogs in Cambodia: Not just great street food
When you live a bit outside downtown, you will hear the sounds of frogs in the evening after the rain. and you will see some men with a headlight and a stick: They are hunting. The lights usually keeps frogs to freeze and the hunters pick them up and put them in a bucket. Frogs in Cambodia are a delicacy, and in the countryside moist people go out and hunt them.
Skinned: Frogs in Cambodia at the markets
The taste for frogs is not related to the French occupiers, who famously prefer the legs of the amphibians. In Cambodia, frogs are eaten since centuries. You can even find some stone carvings in Angkor Wat featuring frogs. It is said that frogs in Cambodia are present since before the Angkor period, however there are no documents left.
While hinting is an original way to supply the family with some proteins. frogs are gibt business. There are frog farmers all around the country, making a living from raising and selling them to markets. Around 700 of them got nearly 500.000 US-Dollar recently from the government to help them surviving during the Covid-19 pandemie. On the local markets, frogs are sold either alive or already skinned.
How to eat frog in Cambodia
if your are a traveler in Cambodia, best way to eat frog is as a street food or in a restaurant. Many street food places like along the river in Siem Reap or on road 60 in the evening will grill frogs over charcoal. The easiest way is to just skin them and then takes intestines out. Then its grilled until nearly charred. Some take the head of, some not.
Fried frogs in Cambodia – a delicacy
Stuffed frog
Another popular dish is stuffed frog. The inside of a frog is filled with pork and spices. You need to create the famous spice paste kreung for this recipe of frog n Cambodia. If you want to learn the make the paste while in Cambodia, some of our hosts will teach you!
The fresh kreung paste ist then mixed with minced pork. It is common in Cambodia to mince pork with a cleaver on a wooden chopping pork rather then buying it from the market – for freshness reasons. The frogs you use are usually without heads.
Battered frogs
A bit more efforts takes a delicious version of frogs in cambodia: Battered and deep fried. You just need to buy skinned frogs at the market, create a batter with baking powder, flour and water. Dip the frogs in the batter and deep fry them. As a sauce you crush small green chilli and garlic in a mortar until you have a paste and mi this with palm sugar.
How does frogs in Cambodia taste like?
Frog meat tastes a bit like chicken meat. Since frogs are significantly smaller, you may order a full plate of fried or grilled frogs when in a restaurant. You just eat the whole animal, with carefully taking bones out like you would do it with fish bones. At Cambodian parties, fried frogs are served as a snack, sometimes with fried insects or even spiders.
At our host families we usually don’t offer frog, since demand is not much for it from traveller s. However, if you are keen to try frog in Cambodia, please get in contact with us and we can talk to the hosts families if they can prepare it for you – you will also learn how to do it. The frogs will then bought at the market.