Recipes with kaffir lime leaves

8 recipes that use kaffir lime leaves, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Sambal goreng boontjes, takes 30 minutes. It is most often cooked with shallot, garlic and galangal.

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Samlor proher

Home cooks in the villages around Siem Reap make samlor proher when the garden is full: a light, clear soup crowded with pumpkin, banana blossom, long beans, little aubergines and leafy greens, seasoned with a lemongrass kroeung and a spoonful of prahok. Toasted ground rice is stirred in near the end, giving the broth a faint body and a nutty, popcorn-like aroma. It is everyday lunch food, eaten with steamed rice and perhaps a piece of grilled fish, and it tastes savoury, sweet from the pumpkin and gently earthy. Leaving the prahok raw is the big no; it must be mashed and boiled in the broth for at least 10 minutes, so it cooks through and its sharpness rounds out. Chef's tip: slice the banana flower straight into lime-acidulated water, or it will turn black within minutes.

60 min

Cambodian Soups

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Samlor machu kroeung

Sour, herbal and gently golden from turmeric, samlor machu kroeung is one of the soups Phnom Penh families put on the table at lunch, ladled over rice with a side of something fried or grilled. Its base is a fresh kroeung of lemongrass, galangal, turmeric and kaffir lime, fried and simmered with slow-cooked beef until the broth turns aromatic, then soured with tamarind and finished with armfuls of crunchy morning glory. Many cooks use beef tripe; here it is braising beef, which turns spoon-tender. A slip that ruins it is adding the morning glory too early, so it turns khaki and slimy. Chef's tip: toast the kroeung in the beef fat until it darkens a shade and smells sweet; that is where the soup's depth comes from.

95 min

Cambodian Soups

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Khmer red chicken curry

When a Cambodian family celebrates (a wedding, Khmer New Year, the Pchum Ben days in autumn), a big pot of red curry is usually on the stove, and in Phnom Penh it is just as likely to be eaten for breakfast from a street stall with a crusty baguette for mopping. It is a gentle, fragrant curry rather than a fiery one: chicken on the bone simmered in coconut milk with a red kroeung of dried chillies, lemongrass and galangal, plus chunks of sweet potato, aubergine and long beans that soak up the orange-tinged sauce. Dropping all the vegetables in at once is the error to avoid; the aubergine collapses before the sweet potato is cooked. Chef's tip: make it a few hours ahead or the day before, as the flavours deepen and the sauce settles into a silky, spoonable gravy.

75 min

Cambodian Curries

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Sambal goreng boontjes

Sambal goreng boontjes is one of the most loved dishes in Dutch-Indonesian homes and toko takeaways: green beans fried in a spice paste of shallot, garlic, chilli and galangal, then simmered in coconut milk with lime leaves until just tender and coated in a rich, spicy, slightly sweet sauce. It is a regular part of a rijsttafel. Traditional versions include shrimp paste (trassi); this one is vegan. A common mistake is overcooking the beans until khaki. Chef's tip: fry the spice paste until the oil separates and it smells sweet, which takes the raw edge off the chilli and garlic.

30 min

Dutch Vegetarian

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Serundeng

Serundeng is the crunchy, sweet-savoury sprinkle that comes in a little tub with every Indonesian takeaway in the Netherlands: grated coconut slowly toasted with a spice paste of shallot, garlic, coriander and cumin, palm sugar and tamarind until golden and dry, then mixed with fried peanuts. It is scattered over rice. Most versions use shrimp paste; this one is vegan. A common mistake is toasting over high heat, which burns the coconut in seconds. Chef's tip: keep stirring over a low heat for the full 20 minutes; the coconut turns golden slowly and evenly and stays crunchy for weeks.

35 min

Dutch Chutneys & Dips

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Prahok ktis

Prahok, the pungent fermented fish paste of the Tonlé Sap, is softened here into something mellow and moreish: it is simmered with coconut cream, minced pork, a fragrant lemongrass paste and pea aubergines until thick and orange-flecked. In Phnom Penh it is a family-table dish for lunch or a weekend feast, set in a bowl in the middle with a platter of crisp raw vegetables (cucumber, cabbage wedges, long beans, Thai aubergines) and steamed rice for everyone to scoop with. Salty, sweet, funky and creamy all at once, it tastes far gentler than the jar smells. Prahok tossed in at the end goes wrong: it stays harsh and is not cooked through, so it must simmer properly with the pork. Chef's tip: buy prahok in jars from an Asian grocer, mash it with a splash of hot water before adding, and let the dip simmer for a full 10 minutes after the pork is cooked.

45 min

Cambodian Chutneys & Dips

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Solok lada

Bulky green chillies are the cases for this Kelantan festive dish, cooked for weddings and Raya tables in Kota Bharu. Each one is slit, scraped out and packed with a pale filling of fish, freshly grated coconut, shallots, ginger and black pepper, then simmered gently in coconut milk until the chillies slump and the gravy turns rich and faintly smoky. The filling is soft and sweet; the skins bring gentle heat and a green, grassy bite. Serve two or three per person with rice and a sambal, or with nasi kerabu. Chef's tip: choose large, mild chillies (or long sweet peppers for a gentler version) and tie each with a strip of pandan or a toothpick so the filling stays inside.

60 min

Malaysian Snacks & Starters

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Otak-otak

Drive through Muar in Johor and you will see roadside grills stacked with slim green parcels, sold by the dozen in paper bags for the journey home. Inside each is a soft, bright-orange custard of pounded mackerel, coconut milk and egg, flavoured with a chilli-lemongrass rempah and kaffir lime leaf, which turns smoky and slightly charred at the edges from the grill. Melaka's Nyonya cooks make a fatter, steamed version, but this one is grilled in banana leaf. Eat it warm, peeled straight out of the leaf, with white bread, rice or nasi lemak. Chef's tip: chill the fish mixture for 15 minutes before wrapping; it firms up and is far easier to spoon onto the leaves.

50 min

Malaysian Fish

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Goes well with kaffir lime leaves