Coastal Signature · Wok-Fried Crab

Kampot Pepper Crab (Chha Kdam Merech)

Photo: Black Palm / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

The crab isn't even the rarest ingredient — the green Kampot peppercorns tossed in whole are picked unripe and fresh, a form of the spice that barely survives shipping and so is mostly only eaten right where it's grown.

Whole crab, usually caught that morning at Kep, is stir-fried hard in a wok with garlic, spring onion, palm sugar, fish sauce, and a heavy handful of fresh green Kampot peppercorns still on the stem. Stalls at Kep's covered crab market sell it fresh off the wok, shells cracked open at the table.

Why it's made this way: Kep's crab market has drawn fishermen and buyers to sell the day's catch for generations, and pairing it with Kampot's globally prized peppercorns — grown just up the coast and the first Cambodian product to earn Geographical Indication status — turned a simple stir-fry into the region's signature dish.

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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries. Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below. Photo credits.