Lort Cha Noodles (Cambodian Pin Noodle Stir-Fry)

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Cooking With Anadi

12K subscribers · thin rice noodles with chicken, egg and sambal heat

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Have you ever tried Cambodian cuisine? I have to admit that out of all of the Asian cooking I’ve done, Cambodian is certainly one cuisine that I’ve never tried until making this recipe!

If you’re like me and want to explore a new destination unseen, then you must try these Cambodian noodles as part of your Live to Cook one month challenge! You can get started on your cooking journey for free today by signing up to my newsletter!

This Lort Cha recipe was an excellent way to introduce me to Cambodian cooking! I loved all the flavors in our chicken and noodles, and it was super fast to make this recipe! I certainly would have it again any time, and I highly recommend you make this recipe if you’re looking for a completely new dining experience but still want a quick dinner on the table!

To watch how we make these super flavorful Cambodian noodles from start to finish (including the process of making our own rice pin noodles), be sure to watch the video! If you haven’t already, it would mean a lot to me if you could please subscribe, and don’t forget to hit the bell button so you receive the notifications when the recipe videos go live! Let’s get cooking!

Tools Needed to Make Lort Cha

• Mixing bowl
• Wok
• Chef’s knife
• Cutting board
• Spatula
• Sieve
• Slotted spoon
• Measuring spoons
• Measuring cup
• Non-stick pan
• Serving spoon
• Ramekins

Tips to Guarantee the Most Delicious Cambodian Stir Fry

• The wok to cook your Lort Cha should be well seasoned with oil to ensure ingredients don’t stick and also to prevent the need to use extra oil while cooking.
• Make sure to use the best quality rice pin noodles, veggies and bean sprouts for a fresh, vibrant array of flavors.
• While the chicken does not need much time to marinate to absorb the flavors, at least 10-15 minutes is important to have an impact in the overall flavor of your Cambodian stir fry!
• Don’t be nervous about browning the garlic, it will only add to the flavors and will be worth the extra couple seconds of cooking time.

Ingredients for Lort Cha

Scroll to the bottom of this post for the FULL PRINTABLE recipe card, with all ingredients and their quantities. You can save this recipe for later and the recipe card will also allow you to scale the entire recipe based on how many portions you want to make. All the ingredient quantities will be automatically adjusted, so you don’t have to figure this out!

For the Marinade

• Chicken: I’m using chicken thighs because in my opinion they just make for better stir fries! Chicken thighs tend to be juicier because of their higher fat content. However, if you do want to use chicken breast, then that’s completely fine.
• Soy sauce: The preference here would be dark soy sauce, but if you don’t have it, then that’s no problem at all! As I describe in my free motivational guide to explore your potential, Make Cooking Fun!, if there’s a suitable substitute you can use, then don’t stress about not being able to find a niche ingredient! My hack to get a similar color to what dark soy sauce produces is to combine regular soy sauce with oyster sauce.
• Fish sauce: A little really goes a long way, adding an umami flavor profile to the dish.
• Tapioca starch: Used to thicken the sauce.
• Granulated sugar: Used to balance flavors by adding sweetness.

For the Sauce

• Sambal oelek: If you didn’t know, this is an Indonesian chili paste. You can use this or chili garlic sauce. The sambal oelek I used actually has garlic added to it!
• Soy sauce: Again, dark soy sauce is preferred, but if you don’t have it, then use a combination of regular soy sauce and oyster sauce.
• Fish sauce: Known for it’s umami flavor profile, adding a sweet or meaty taste to the dish.
• Granulated sugar: Some sweetness to balance out the saltiness of our other ingredients.

For the Lort Cha

• Rice pin noodles: Also known as Silver Pin Noodles or Rats’ Tail Noodles. I honestly could not find them anywhere near me or even on Amazon, so I made them myself! You’ll need to allocate the extra time to do this, but don’t worry, it’s a really quick and easy process! Check out my recipe on how to make Rice Pin Noodles from scratch here.
• Bean sprouts
• Eggs: A fried egg for topping.
• Butter: To fry your egg. Of course, you can use olive oil or whatever oil you want to cook your egg.
• Canola oil: Used for stir frying all of our ingredients together. You can use whatever neutral oil you have, such as vegetable oil or even peanut oil if you want some nuttiness.
• Garlic: Freshly chopped garlic cloves.
• Seasoning: Salt is always essential!
• Green onion: You’ll want to separate the white part from the green.

How to Make Cambodian Lort Cha

Marinate the Chicken

In a bowl, add the chicken thighs, dark soy sauce (or soy sauce + oyster sauce), fish sauce and baking powder. Mix well and marinate for 15-20 minutes.

Prepare the Sauce

In another bowl, mix all the ingredients for the sauce and stir well. Set aside for now.

To Boil

Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook the bean sprouts for 1 minute. Strain and set aside. Add the packaged or cooked rice pin noodles to the boiling water and cook for 1-2 minutes.

To Stir-fry

While the bean sprouts and noodles are cooking, heat a seasoned wok on medium to medium high heat. In the meanwhile, heat another non-stick pan to prepare the sunny side up eggs with 1 tsp or so of butter.

Once hot, add vegetable oil and then the finely chopped garlic. Sauté and stir until lightly browned.

Add the marinated chicken and spread in a single layer. Cook undisturbed for 45 seconds to a minute to brown the chicken and then sauté. Add the cooked pin noodles and the sauce and mix well. Cook until the sauce thickens slightly.

Add the bean sprouts.

Add the chives and sauté until fragrant, then add the green onions.

Mix well, and then serve fresh with one sunny side up egg per portion of Lort Cha.

Enjoy!

No Coconut Milk, No Palm Sugar, No Prahok: What Actually Goes Into the Wok

If your picture of Cambodian cooking is a coconut milk curry, this stir-fry will surprise you. There is no coconut milk in it anywhere, no curry paste, and none of the palm sugar or fermented fish paste, prahok, that flavors a lot of Khmer home cooking. There is no lime either, so nothing here rests on a squeeze of lime juice at the table. What you get instead is four things stirred together in a bowl before the wok ever goes on the heat: dark soy sauce, fish sauce, granulated sugar and a tablespoon of sambal oelek.

The protein is chicken thighs rather than the beef or pork that many other versions use, and the marinade is nothing more than dark soy sauce, fish sauce and a little tapioca starch to help the sauce thicken later on. The vegetables are deliberately few: chopped garlic, bean sprouts blanched for exactly one minute, and fresh herbs in the shape of chives and green onions folded in at the very end. No long beans, no cucumber, no green papaya, no salad alongside. Once the prep is done the stir-fry itself takes about 10 minutes, which is precisely why the sauce is mixed in advance.

Where Lort Cha Sits Among Cambodian Dishes

Lort cha is street food and night market cooking, sold from carts and on street corners after dark, and that is what makes it one of the most recognizable Cambodian dishes: short, thick rice pin noodles seared hard in a wok and crowned with a runny fried egg. In Phnom Penh it is late night food. It helps to know what it is not, because the food of Cambodia covers a lot of ground. Kuy teav is the popular breakfast dish of the country, a rice noodle soup built on a long simmered pork or beef broth and served with a plate of raw herbs and bean sprouts on the side. Nom banh chok, usually translated straight across as Khmer noodles, is fresh rice noodles under a green fish based gravy, and it is a morning dish too. Lok lak is the seared beef one, cut into cubes and cooked fast, served over rice or lettuce with a dipping sauce of lime juice and cracked black pepper, ideally the famous Kampot pepper. And fish amok, a delicate fish curry steamed in banana leaves, is the dish usually named as Cambodia's national dish.