When I went to Cambodia last year in January, my god mother made a similar dish to this. What do you see when you look at this picture? Yep! These are stir fried red ants with vegetables and beef! Normally seen as unwanted pests in the kitchen, in Cambodia these insects are considered a delicacy! I remember sitting at the kitchen table ready to dig into this dish with my spoon. After scooping up a spoonful, I realized the brown spots were not pepper but cooked ants! At first, I screamed and shouted that the vegetables weren't washed properly only to be answered with sounds of laughter. My god mother explained to me that these ants are considered "clean" insects since they live on the trees and good enough to eat. I didn't know what her definition of "clean" meant because in my opinion, insects are just bugs that aren't supposed to be eaten. In addition to the stir fried red ants, you could see white little balls which were the ants larvae, also stir fried and ready to be eaten.
I decided to be a tough cookie and have at least one bite. My philosophy is "you don't have to like it, but you should try it." Honestly, the ants give the dish a kick just like black pepper. It was as though I was eating black pepper stir fried beef. My only thoughts were, "how did they collect all those ants?" I imagined my god mother struggling as she was stir frying the dish, slapping at the ants that were crawling on her arms. My solution? Just use black pepper to avoid those crawling critters. Ants and black pepper tastes the same anyways!
