Updated November 5, 2025 at 7:23 AM MST
When Nite Yun cooks, she's telling her family's story.
The Cambodian-American chef, best known for her restaurant Lunette in San Francisco, has long used food to honor her parents' country. But as she was growing up in Stockton, Calif., her parents rarely talked about their life in Cambodia and the genocide they fled in the 1970s.
"My parents dodged landmines, survived starvation, forced labor camps, walked under the hot, hot sun to safety," Yun told NPR's Leila Fadel.
It was in the kitchen that she began to piece their story together.
"Cooking Cambodian food has been a way of storytelling," she said.
Now Yun is sharing those stories and her recipes with the world in her debut cookbook called My Cambodia: A Khmer Cookbook.
"My Cambodia is my story. My parents' story of resilience and strength," she said. "I also wanted people to not forget the good times of Cambodia when my parents were growing up."
Among the dishes she features is kroeung, a fragrant herb paste that forms the base of Khmer cooking. Made from lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, garlic, shallots and lime leaves, kroeung is used in soups, stews and curry. Yun shared a recipe for kroeung with Morning Edition, which you can find below. As she writes, "you simply cannot talk about or cook Khmer food without it.
MASTER KROEUNG
Makes 2 cups
8 large or 12 small lemongrass stalks, trimmed and thinly sliced (2 cups)
3-inch piece galangal, thinly sliced (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup chopped garlic (15 to 25 cloves, 1 to 2 heads garlic)
1 small shallot, chopped (1/4 cup)
10 makrut lime leaves, center veins removed, thinly sliced
Place the lemongrass in a mortar and smash it into a paste with the pestle (see Note). Add the galangal and smash it with the lemongrass until it has the consistency of a paste. Add the garlic and smash, then repeat with the shallot. Finally, add the lime leaves a little bit at a time, smashing as you go. The ingredients should barely come together into a paste.
To finish, stir everything together. Doesn't it smell lovely? It's ready to use. To store, refrigerate the kroeung in an airtight container for up to 3 days. To freeze, portion the kroeung into ½-cup containers or resealable bags. It'll keep for up to 2 months.
Note: The key to great kroeung is in the smashing of the ingredients. Crushing each ingredient in the mortar will break down the fibers and release aromatic oils and flavors in a way that tearing and shredding will not. That said, if you don't have a mortar and pestle, a food processor is the next best thing: Place all the ingredients in the bowl of the processor and pulse several times until it turns into a paste. If the ingredients aren't combining, add a little bit of grapeseed or another neutral oil to help things move along.
This digital article was edited by Majd Al-Waheidi.
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