Sngor Chruok Samut — Coastal Seafood Sour Soup

The French protectorate turned Kampot into a working port — its riverfront lined with shophouses whose shutters still peel picturesquely today — and a port town eats what the boats bring in. Sngor chruok samut is the coast's answer to the great inland sour soups: where the lake makes samlor machu from mud fish and prahok, the Gulf builds a clear, sharp broth around prawns, squid, and sea fish, soured with tamarind and loud with lemongrass. It is a hot-country soup, meant for the rainy months when the air is thick and a sour, aromatic broth does more to revive you than anything rich ever could. Every coastal family sours it a little differently, and every one insists theirs is correct.

The craft is all in restraint and sequence. Steep the aromatics gently so the broth stays clear and perfumed rather than boiled to muddiness; balance the tamarind, fish sauce, and palm sugar until the soup reads sharply sour with only a shadow of sweet; and above all, add the seafood at the very end, in order of toughness — fish, then squid, then prawns — and kill the heat the second the prawns curl coral. A stem of green Kampot pepper dropped in whole scents the whole pot without turning it hot, and a last fistful of rice-paddy herb off the flame gives it the green, grassy nose of the coast. Serve it the moment it's done, over rice, and let the sourness do the reviving.