Samlor Korko
សម្លរកកូរ
Samlor korko is the great Khmer everything-soup — a whole garden simmered with prahok and thickened with toasted ground rice. The national bowl.
By Cambodian Cookbook Kitchen · May 6, 2026
តាកែវ Takéo & the SouthChenla era, c. 550–802
- Prep
- 40 min
- Cook
- 45 min
- Serves
- 6
- Level
- Intermediate
If Cambodia has a national bowl, it is this one. Samlor korko turns up at every table from the Angkor Borei rice flats of Takéo to the diaspora kitchens of Long Beach, and it does the quiet, essential work of eating a whole garden at once. The name comes from the verb to stir — korko is what you do to a pot with a dozen vegetables in it — and the dish belongs to no single cook because it belongs to all of them. In the old Funan delta, where canals fed paddies and paddies fed everything else, a soup that could absorb whatever the season offered was not a recipe so much as a survival grammar. It still is.
The signature is the toasted ground rice, and skipping it makes a different, lesser soup. Dry-toasted dark and pounded to a coarse flour, it thickens the broth to a soft, nubbly body and lends a nuttiness that reads as deeply Khmer — the same trick that carries larb and countless samlor across the region. Around that sit prahok for depth, yellow kroeung for perfume, and moringa leaves for the faint bitterness the whole thing leans on. Build it once with whatever your market holds, and you will understand why every Khmer cook makes it differently and every one of them is right.
The toasted rice is not optional and not a garnish — it is the body of the soup. Grind it fine and it turns thin broth into something you can lean on.
ពាក្យពីចុងភៅ · A word from the kitchen
Ingredientsគ្រឿងផ្សំ
Serves 6
០ of ១៣ gathered
The base
The garden
To finish
Methodវិធីធ្វើ
Step 1: Toast and grind the rice
Dry-toast the jasmine rice in a hot pan, shaking constantly, until it is deep golden and smells like popcorn and toast. Cool it, then grind it to a coarse powder in the mortar. This is the thickener and half the flavour.
Step 2: Fry the kroeung
Warm a little oil in a heavy pot and fry the yellow kroeung until it stops smelling raw and starts smelling like the market — two or three minutes. Stir in the strained prahok and let it bloom into the paste.
Step 3: Brown the meat and build the broth
Add the pork and turn it in the paste until coated and just coloured, then pour in about two litres of water. Simmer twenty minutes so the meat gives up its sweetness and the broth finds itself.
Step 4: Add vegetables hardest first
Go in by cooking time — taro and pumpkin first, then papaya and eggplant, then long beans. Stir in the ground toasted rice now; it will drink the broth and pull the whole pot together into something between soup and stew.
Step 5: Green it and season
When everything is tender, fold in the moringa and ivy-gourd leaves and cook just until they wilt. Season with fish sauce, palm sugar and more prahok to taste, then finish with torn basil and sawtooth herb off the heat.
ឧបករណ៍ · The tools
Equipment
Granite mortar & pestle
ត្បាល់THE Cambodian tool. Kroeung is pounded, never blended — the stone bruises fibre and oil out of lemongrass and galangal in a way a blade only chops. Buy the heaviest one you can lift.
Shop on Amazon →Carbon-steel wok
ខ្ទះFor char kroeung, loc lac, and every fast fry — a well-seasoned wok gets screaming hot and moves food fast, the whole point of a stir-fry. Flat-bottomed for a home stove.
Shop on Amazon →Rice cooker
ឆ្នាំងបាយPerfect jasmine rice with zero attention — rice is at every meal here, so the one appliance nearly every page leans on. A basic model does the job.
Shop on Amazon →
Equipment links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you. Disclosure.
Questions from the kitchen
Is there a fixed recipe for the vegetables?
No, and that is the point. Korko means to stir, and the soup is whatever your garden and market hold that morning — a dozen vegetables is common, twenty is not showing off. Keep a mix of starchy, leafy and firm.
Can I make it vegetarian?
You can build a fine korko on the vegetables and toasted rice alone, but leave out the prahok and pork and you lose the backbone. A monk's korko uses fermented soybean paste in prahok's place and holds together well.
Why is my soup thin?
You either under-toasted or under-ground the rice, or added it too late. The powder needs a few minutes of simmering to swell and thicken. Grind a little more, toast it dark, and stir it in with time to spare.
បន្ទាប់ · Cook next
