ឆ្នាំងបាយ

The name says what it is: chhnang is a pot, bay is cooked rice. It sits low and stays plugged in — on the floor, a step, or a shelf near the one outlet — and it is the first thing switched on and the last thing cleared. Rice goes in measured by the condensed-milk tin, water is judged by a finger laid on top of the rice rather than by any marking on the pot, and then it is left alone. Nobody stands over it.

It is usually left on warm straight through the afternoon, because a Khmer house does not eat only at set times: someone comes in from work, someone comes back from school, and there is rice. The crust that forms at the bottom by evening is eaten too. At the end of the day the inner pot is washed and put back, and the cooker stays exactly where it was.

That constancy is the point. Rice is not a side dish here — to eat a meal is ញ៉ាំបាយ, literally to eat rice, and everything else on the table is understood as what goes with it. Cambodian Cookbook notes the rice cooker turns up on nearly every page of its recipes for the same reason: rice accompanies nearly every Khmer meal, and this is the pot that makes it without being watched.

Source: Cambodian Cookbook — Kitchen Equipment