Let’s Talk About Khmer Pancake

Ban Chow (Khmer Pancakes) at SAN restaurant

Now let me just tell you there are many different pancakes out there, and I personally think that the best one is the Cambodian pancake—of course. It’s savoury and not sweet like most pancakes and is eaten with heaps of salads. We call the pancake Ban Chow in Khmer, which is a thin, bright yellow crepe filled with either minced chicken or pork and bean sprout.

Making these is an art and requires a lot of patience. Believe me when I say it requires patience because making one piece takes at least two to three minutes, and when you make a lot for the whole family (especially one as big as ours) it usually takes at least the whole morning. (We make at least one hundred pieces of pancakes and it’s a whole lot of preparation in itself.)

Ways of Eating These Delicious Pancakes

There are at least three ways of eating these healthy, delicious pancakes. You have to eat them with the SAN sauce. Without this sauce the pancakes would be bland. So here’s how to eat them properly.

SAN Sauce

The first and most popular here at SAN restaurant is to drizzle the SAN sauce over the pancakes and eat it with a fork and knife, like we do with most things. I think this is very prime and proper. 

The second is to tear the pancakes off with your hands and dip the pieces of pancakes into the SAN sauce before eating. 

Thirdly, you can tear the pieces of pancakes up, mix them with salads, and pour the SAN sauce all over them. Afterwards give them a good toss and then enjoy, using either fork or a pair of chopsticks.

The last method is the official way of eating Ban Chow. It is supposed to be eaten like a salad—adding lots of lettuces, cucumbers, Asian herbs, crush peanut, and last but not least, lots and lots of chilly flakes. It’s even better when you add lots and lots of fresh chillies. Yum!

I do hope that next time you order Ban Chow here at SAN restaurant, you’ll try eating it the Cambodian way and that is to toss everything together and just enjoy the light, healthy food. Some people say the flavour is very delicate, and I do agree. This is a special food in Cambodia and is only made once in a while for the whole family to enjoy together. In our house, Mom would put the pancakes in the middle of the dining table along with Asian herbs (Vietnamese mint, Thai sweet basil, coriander, and spring onions), heaps of lettuces, cucumbers, bean sprouts, crushed peanuts, chillies (fresh and flakes) and of course the SAN sauce. Then we’d sit around the table and have fun competing each other for the ingredients to put in our bowls. It’s a mess, I tell you, but damn fun and delicious.

So there, that’s Ban Chow for you. I do hope you will like these pancakes as much as we do, especially the Ban Chow fanatic Miss Wanitta Praks who wouldn’t have survive the ordeal of her days if it were not for the famous Ban Chow.

Cheer,

Alexia Praks