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My Cambodia: A Khmer Cookbook
Celebrate Khmer and Cambodian American cuisine with award-winning chef and restaurateur Nite Yun, featuring over 100 recipes for her favorite dishes.
Khmer recipes and culinary techniques are traditionally passed orally from generation to generation, and in My Cambodia, Nite takes special care to preserve these dishes. Filled with the historical context of Cambodia’s Golden Era, cultural fun facts like the rules of rice, and introspective anecdotes on using food as a tool to connect with community, My Cambodia aims to make Khmer American cuisine accessible to all.
With recipes organized by different times and places throughout Nite's life, this cookbook takes you on a journey from her childhood in Stockton, California to Cambodia to Nite's popular Bay Area restaurants Nyum Bai and Lunette. Discover her take on dishes such as Kuy Teav Phnom Penh, the fragrant pork and noodle soup that started it all for Nite; Nom Pachok Somlar Khmer, a delicate, rustic chowder filled with rice noodles; and Amok, fish tucked into an aromatic mixture of kroeung and coconut milk and steamed until it puffs up like a souffle. For dessert, try the decadent Nom Kong, donuts glazed in palm sugar and topped with sesame seeds.
Whether you are new to Cambodian food or have a bowl of kuy teav every morning for breakfast, My Cambodia will inspire you to connect with your own communities and stir up new, joyful creations.
Khmer recipes and culinary techniques are traditionally passed orally from generation to generation, and in My Cambodia, Nite takes special care to preserve these dishes. Filled with the historical context of Cambodia’s Golden Era, cultural fun facts like the rules of rice, and introspective anecdotes on using food as a tool to connect with community, My Cambodia aims to make Khmer American cuisine accessible to all.
With recipes organized by different times and places throughout Nite's life, this cookbook takes you on a journey from her childhood in Stockton, California to Cambodia to Nite's popular Bay Area restaurants Nyum Bai and Lunette. Discover her take on dishes such as Kuy Teav Phnom Penh, the fragrant pork and noodle soup that started it all for Nite; Nom Pachok Somlar Khmer, a delicate, rustic chowder filled with rice noodles; and Amok, fish tucked into an aromatic mixture of kroeung and coconut milk and steamed until it puffs up like a souffle. For dessert, try the decadent Nom Kong, donuts glazed in palm sugar and topped with sesame seeds.
Whether you are new to Cambodian food or have a bowl of kuy teav every morning for breakfast, My Cambodia will inspire you to connect with your own communities and stir up new, joyful creations.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published September 23, 2025
11 people are currently reading
92 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
October 24, 2025
My Cambodia, A Khmer Cookbook by Nite Yun with Tien Nguyen is an amazing and wonderful cookbook. It is more than a cookbook, it is a piece of history, beautifully written, very moving. The recipes are delicious. The chef wants to celebrate the food she grew up with; it is truly a “Khmer American celebration…” of food and culture. The book is divided into different sections, each is filled with delectable items, all melding together. There are many recipes that are wonderful! My favorites, so far, were the Kroeung Beef Skewers, Caramelized Fish with Tomatoes, and the Banana Tapioca Pudding. I wanted to try the Savory Coconut Custard but ran out of time, a great use of leftover cooked rice. I learned a skill from each recipe I tried; the Master Kroeung recipe can be used in many recipes throughout the book and in other cuisines, it is delicious. Caramelized fish, sugar and fish? This was a new concept, and it was tricky, caramelizing palm sugar until deeply brown took more than one attempt, but it was worth it. I tried this with cod with skin on, give it a go, you will love it. The Banana Tapioca Pudding included crushed salted peanuts, a surprising and tasty addition. Ten Speed Press provided me with a free copy of this book; the opinions are my own. This is such a brilliant cookbook. This cookbook has broadened my understanding of Khmer food, and I look forward to integrating its elements into my own cooking.
December 7, 2025
The salmon-y pink color of the cover of My Cambodia: A Khmer Cookbook with the boldly original typeface makes this book stand out and sets the tone for the beautiful cookbook that could easily double as a coffee table book. Nite Yun shares her background and recipes in this deeply personal book.
This cookbook is so much more than a collection of recipes. It’s part history lesson of Cambodia, Khmer, and the author’s experience as an Asian American and enveloping both cultures through food. There are wonderful illustrations of markets and favorite places of the author, in addition to photos of the food and stylized one of scenery.
The recipes in the book predominantly do not have standard American pantry ingredients, but there are descriptions and details about those not familiar to many, such that if you want to cook from this book, you can go to an Asian market confidently with a list put together from the pantry section. This is more of a project-based cookbook than a “let’s get dinner on the table” quickly.
Whether you add it to your bookshelf to learn from or to cook from, or both, if you have an interest in this part of the world, you will learn so much from this beautiful book.
4c provided me with a free copy of this book; the opinions are my own.
This cookbook is so much more than a collection of recipes. It’s part history lesson of Cambodia, Khmer, and the author’s experience as an Asian American and enveloping both cultures through food. There are wonderful illustrations of markets and favorite places of the author, in addition to photos of the food and stylized one of scenery.
The recipes in the book predominantly do not have standard American pantry ingredients, but there are descriptions and details about those not familiar to many, such that if you want to cook from this book, you can go to an Asian market confidently with a list put together from the pantry section. This is more of a project-based cookbook than a “let’s get dinner on the table” quickly.
Whether you add it to your bookshelf to learn from or to cook from, or both, if you have an interest in this part of the world, you will learn so much from this beautiful book.
4c provided me with a free copy of this book; the opinions are my own.
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November 10, 2025Made the ground pork and pumpkin and something else I can’t remember and didn’t seem to have logged. Fascinating book…I didn’t know anything about Cambodian food. Bookmarked the banana blossom salad and the poached chicken and lime rice.
January 6, 2026
It has been hard to find options to explore the unique cuisine of Cambodia. This book has a great variety with beautiful photography. It will transport you back to Cambodia and wanting to make a trip to Oakland to try Nite's cooking.
November 11, 2025
One doesn't really "read" a cookbook, but this is one beautiful book.
January 13, 2026
recipes are very similar to my mom's! I wish there were more pictures, but the stories are lovely.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews