My first excursion to locate ingredients took me to Siem Reap in the northwest of Cambodia, which is the gateway to the Angkor region.
Song Saa’s Conservation Director Dr Wayne had put me in contact with Karen Nielsen from the Wildlife Conservation Society, who told me about an exciting project near Siem Reap where famers are producing jasmine rice in a way that also helps protect Cambodia’s national bird the ibis.
This wildlife friendly ibis rice sounded like a good fit for our conservation-minded restaurant and so Panha Mao, our Logistics Manager, and I set off to investigate.
At Siem Reap Airport we met our driver and started the 3.5 hour drive through beautiful countryside to Tmatboey Village – one of only four villages in Cambodia producing a kind of fragrant jasmine rice unique to Cambodia called ‘malis’.
The drive was fantastic with some amazing views and the beautiful Tmatboey mountain in the distance.
The driver told us how Buddhist monks believe Tmatboey mountain has a magic power that draws all energy to it. This, he told us, means no plane can ever fly over it and if you take a photograph it won’t appear on the print.
We arrived at Kulen Promtept Wildlife Sanctuary where we met Ashish John, who would be our guide for the day. Ashish has been in Cambodia for eight years, the past three spent working on the Ibis conservation program.
He told us there were believed to be only 43 Ibis birds left in the world when he first started on the project. Numbers are now up to 500, which is a fantastic achievement. In fact, Tmatboey is now the only place in the world where you can find the two different Ibis species in one area.
On entering the village along a rough dirt road we stopped to look at a small shelter in the paddy fields where farmers and their families often stay to guard the rice from enormous flocks of parrots. Another problem are wild pigs that can also do a lot of damage to the rice crops.
Buffalos are believed to have helped ibis numbers increase although the full reason for this is still unclear. But with this in mind, the ibis conservation project has been encouraging the use of traditional farming methods, including the use of buffalos. 
We walked through paddy fields and saw young ‘malis’ rice in the nursery field ready for planting. We walked across the wet borders and talked to farmers about the rice and how it grows. It was then we came across another important ingredient – frogs.
Frogs breed prolifically in rice fields. During the October harvest farmers in this area can collect up to three or four tonnes of frog, which they sell locally or export to Thailand.
Frog is a favourite ingredient of mine and an important feature of Khmer food, and so I made a mental note to return to the village at harvest time to gather frogs to use in a special dish.
At the end of our tour we stopped at a family home where we were offered some homebrewed rice wine. This hefty brew has a big enough kick to knock you over after just a few drinks! A suitable end to our tour.
All in all, this was a fantastic first trip to find traditional Cambodian ingredients, and I’m looking forward to returning at harvest time to collect rice, frogs and drink more wine!