What do you think a sweet ballon could be? For 1,000 riel (about 25 U.S. cents), we purchased two of these sweet balloons to sample.
The nom paong was delicious, and eating it in the early morning at the market made me feel like a local! It was a perfect little snack after seeing all the meat, fish, fruit and vegetables in the market. This is a snack that looked like something I have seen before in other countries and at home, but it tasted very different. The rice dough had sesame seeds rolled into it, so they didn't fall off of the top like sesame seeds do on bagels back home. It was also cooked in sesame oil, which added even more flavor. Even though I felt like a local eating nom paong in the market, I found out later that only the kids usually eat them as a sweet treat. We saw other people buying them while we were there, and we even saw a baby eating one for breakfast, too!
We watched our snack being made but didn't see the whole process. The dough is made from rice flour, milk, water, sesame and sugar. Once the dough rises, the nom paong is rolled out into thin circles using a water bottle. Then, once they have rolled out about 10 circles of rice dough, they place them into hot oil. The oil was in a large metal bowl that was sitting on an open fire. There was extra charcoal and wood sitting next to the fire, ready to be used if needed. The rice dough circles slid into the edge of the metal bowl and then float to the middle and begin to puff up. After about 30 seconds of frying, the cook used very long, wooden tongs and flipped them over to cook on the other side.
