How to make Num Ansom

Num Ansom is consider a traditional cake for Cambodian. From the ancient time, Num Ansom was made in the important annual festivals only. It’s in Pchum Ben and in Khmer New Year. Num Ansom is a cake made of sticky rice with filled of green bean and pork. Normally, Num Ansom is eaten alone as cake, the taste is slightly salt because there is a little salt mixed in the sticky rice and its filled also has been seasoning to the right taste. Some people who like sweet also eat Num Ansom with sugar. But Num Ansom can also be fried and eat with sauce and vegetables.
How to make Num Ansom anyway? It is not arduous at all, all you need to do is to follow a few steps that I am going to show you soon. Keep reading ! 🙂

There are some ingredients that you should have such as : rice, ripe bananas, grated coconut and salt.

Once you have the recipes, we can start now.

 The means of cooking Num Ansom

1. Soak sticky rice over night

2. Mix grated coconut with rice

3. Cut bananas vertically; Mix salt to cut banana

4. Each Num Ansom would need 1 square and another half its size to tie the cake

5. Place a small portion of rice and spread vertically

6. Make space in the middle and place banana piece

7. Cover with rice

8. After the leaf is filled with rice and banana, fold the leaf, cover with a fold in the middle, make the next and final fold with a dent in between

Now it is time to tie it

1st knot

4th knot

Tie all the strings together and the end string would look like this….

Here comes another important time for some imagination in making your desired plaits, to complete the string

And yeah, the cakes are ready to be steamed! G-o-o-d-j-o-b !!

To boil Ansom, it takes a lot of time ranging from 2 to 8 hours depending on the number of cake to be boiled. Also, you should check the boiling pota from time to time to make sure all cakes are well cooked. After bod, Ansom can be kept up to 2 or 3 weeks. J

The history of Num Ansom and Num Kom

These three types of rice cakes are not eaten every day. They are served only in major ceremonies or religious festival. It seems to be vital to have these kinds of cakes in the ceremony. Each of these cakes has the meaning of its own meaning.

According to some document, it is said that the days of king jayavarman 7, Hinduism was the main religion in Khmer Empire;therefore, until today some faiths and believes Khmer have are related or rooted in Hinduism. In the same way, these cakes have their meaning embedded in Hinduism. However, today these cakes are generally used generally used in major Buddhism religious ceremonies because most of Cambodians are Buddist. Num Ansom in general is made as the symbol of Shiva’s reproduction organ (penis), while Nom Kom is made as the symbol of (Shiva’s wife) Uma’s vulgar, where it can be found in most Hinduism temples in Cambodia, even in Angkor Wat temple. Today, these rice cakes are widely served in many ceremonial rites and gatherings.

Khmer rice cake is sticky, chewy and elegant. Try them out if you participate in Cambodian wedding or visit Cambodia during Pchum Ben or New Year time.

of Cambodians are faithful B

Num Kom

Num kom is also called as “The rice cake.” You will often find ” Num kom” on special occasions like Weddings, Khmer New Year or Pchum Ben. Nom Kom is the Rice Cake with coconut and palm sugar filling. It tastes sweet.

How to make Num Kom?

Num Kom is not different to make at all, but it requires good recipe and efforts to make the delicious ones. The shape, taste and ingredients vary from family to family, village to village and from province to province. Therefore, I will show the common one.

There are some ingredients that you need such as :

• glutinous rice/sticky rice 
• sesame seeds 
• jaggery syrup 
• salt
• banana leaves to wrap

The procedure of making Num Kom 

I. Preparation of Outer Shell/Rice Covering

I decide to go for the traditional method of soaking rice and making a paste. The paste is strained in a netted cloth and the water content remaining in the paste would go. Then, hot water is added to somewhat dry dough to make it easy to wrap the filling inside.

This was a flop with the cloth I had was thick and could not strain the water away.. Emergency!!!  Got some glutinous rice powder and mixed it with the rice paste and converted it into the required right consistency to make Num Kom.

II. Preparation of filling

1. In a wide pan, dry roast sesame seeds till slightly brown. Preferably black sesame – but I had white.
2. Switch off the stove and add grated coconut and jaggery syrup
3. If one uses palm sugar, it mixes well very fast and easily
4. Frying more or making the filling thick and sticky as in south indian dumplings is not needed here
5. Mix well and keep aside.

III. Preparation of Rice Cake

1. Make small balls of rice dough
2. Fill with coconut-sesame-jaggery filling

IV. Folding the Rice Cake in Banana Leaf

Cut  the banana leaves in 8 by 7 inches

There would be two pockets and grease the leaf and place the Rice Cake inside

Do not close it the same side where the leaf looks ‘V’ – but, fold the leaf to close the cake in the middle portion where there is a double slit

Now the cake is ready for boiling. It does not really take a lot of time for boiling. Num Kom is chewy and cream sweet, and it is usually served as desert or food between meals.

Last but not least, if you come to Cambodia, you are strongly recommended to taste this Khmer traditional cuisine.

Is it important to write journals to teachers?

If you are a student, I believe that you may have written uncountable writings. Yet, have you ever had a doubt as to why students are required to write the journal writings? Why do teachers ask the students to write many writings in one term or a semester? If I were to answer those questions, I would say that it is extremely fundamental because of the following reasons. The first reason is that writing journals to teachers is vital because it allows students an opportunity to practice their writings. They might have learnt a lot of wonderful theories from their teachers or textbooks. However, if they are asked to write a paragraph, some students will contain barrages of mistakes in their writings. Therefore, if they want to know how to produce a great piece of writing, the only medium is to practice writing. Hence, learning theories without writing is like learning English without speaking. At the end of the day, they will learn nothing. Therefore, if they are assigned to write the journals to their teachers, they should be delighted. The second reason is that writing journals to teachers is significant because we, students, always have our teachers to help us correct our mistakes on our writings. We can think that if we write many statuses on Facebook, do you think that we will improve our writings? I would say that we will not improve anything due to the fact that there is no advice provided. Yet, if we write to teachers, they can enhance our sentence structures, word usages or grammar points. We all indubitably know that there are many similar meanings, which we might use it in the wrong content. They can provide us with many good tips on how to write like an advanced writer. To put it in a nutshell, we can be a better writer by writing journals to our teachers. In conclusion, writing journals is extremely important because you cannot learn only theories from the book, you need to practice writing. Additionally, you need to learn from your mistakes by accepting the advice from your teachers.

How to get F in class

Some students believe that failing the exam is like a piece of cake. Yet in the reality, it is not. It still needs some tips in order to overcome this wish. Failing the exam is one of the great and amazing experiences that you will ever have in your life. Normally, many students are sick and tired of getting a good grade or top score in class. Also, you surely know that you cannot constantly succeed in your study, there will be a time that you might fail. Therefore, if you fail now, you will understand what makes you fail or the feeling of failing the exams is like. I have failed for four times, so I believe I can help you out with this issue. There are four distinctive means to fail. I am going to show how.

The first step is that you should choose either not to do your homework assigned by your teachers or miss the deadline of the tasks. Every time your teachers clarify the homework, you do not need to lend your ears or take notes. What you need to do is to sit still and play facebook if you want. And, when it is time to submit the assignments, you just tell your teachers that you forget to bring it or you have not finished it yet. I believe your teachers will not accept the late assignments. When you do not have score on the homework, you are already half way to fail.

The second step is that you should fail the attendance in class. For some universities, if you are absent exceed the amount of attendances that you are allowed in each semester or term, you will automatically get an F without taking the examinations. Yet, if you are eager to learn, you can choose to be late instead of being absent. In particular, if you are an IFL student, you know that coming late for three times will consider as one absent. Therefore, you can fancy that how many attendances you are going to make throughout a whole term. Additional to this, I can offer you some good tips on how to come late for class. I recommend that you should leave your house at the exact the same of your starting class time. And you should drive slowing and enjoy all the beautiful landscape along the street. If you follow all of my advices, you are guaranteed to accomplish your objective.

The last step is that you can choose two predominant subjects to fail. There are many subjects for you to learn as a student. Hence, choosing the right subject to fail is extremely crucial. For instance, if you are an IT student, you should decide to fail on the fundamental subjects which are related to math, English, or something that has to deal with writing codes. Another incident is that if you study doctor, failing the subjects like science will definitely make you fail.

In conclusion, failing the examinations or getting grade F is as easy as singing ABC song. I have given you three various mediums to accomplish your intention. First, you should not do your homework. Second, you should fail your attendance. Last, but most importantly, you have to choose vital subjects to fail. I believe that all of my tips will help you successfully get F in you class.