Tasty, tasty holiday treat! The last time I had laksa I was in Malaysia and I'll always remember how amazing this noodly, spicy soup was out there.
This particular balance of ingredients was suggested in Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey, currently my favourite book, and turned out tasty as can be - even with a few of my convenience tweaks thrown in.
A warning: this can take a while to make because of all the chopping to make up the paste before you start cooking! I made enough for four dinners, we'll have the leftovers of the first half for lunch tomorrow and pop the rest in the fridge for another time.
The Curry Paste
The spice paste contains lots of ingredients, all chopped or ground up, and popped into a mini food processor to be made into a smooth paste (or you could do it in a pestle and mortar, old style). If you don't fancy making the paste, buy a pot of pre-made from the supermarket and skip to the next section.
Dried Shrimp |
1 tbsp Shrimp Paste |
10 Dried Chillies |
Several garlic cloves |
A peice of galangal |
Two stalks of lemongrass |
1 tbsp Coriander Seeds |
1 tbsp Turmeric |
Handful of peanuts |
Several Shallots |
3-4 tbsp oil |
The finished paste |
* Just by the way: you can use ginger instead of galangal, any onion instead of shallots and can buy frozen, pre-chopped lemongrass as well as shrimp paste at the supermarket. The rest of the ingredients shouldn't pose a problem, except the dried shrimp which you can leave out if necessary.
The Laksa
Heat up a glug of oil in a pan and fry the paste for a few minutes. Add 750ml of stock, preferably fish stock. I was stuck so I used 500ml dashi and 250ml vegetable stock. Also a can of coconut milk, 1 tbsp palm sugar and 2 tbsp nam pla (Thai fish sauce).
While that's coming to a simmer, pour boiling water over some dried, flat noodles and leave to soak. They'll be ready in a few minutes.
Add some king prawns to the soup and leave to simmer for a few minutes. Pile the cooked noodles into bowls along with sliced cucumber, bamboo shoots, beansprouts, red chilli, spring onion, mint and coriander.
Ladle the soup over the top along with the prawns. Goes nicely with Jubilee champagne!
I ripped this recipe out of some food magazine ages ago; it was on an advert for Cauldron (the tofu brand) and had been stuffed between the pages of my Malaysian cookery book. I omitted their dessicated coconut but was otherwise reasonably true to the recipe: it was really tasty.
First of all assemble the "paste" ingredients: a couple of sliced lemongrass stalks, 2 chopped red chillies, a generous tablespoon of chopped ginger, a heaped teaspoon of turmeric, one of palm sugar and a pinch of salt. Also once sliced purple onion and a few cloves of garlic.
Heat up a pan with some oil and cook the garlic and onion until translucent, then add all of the other ingredients which you've already prepared. Cook for a minute or two before adding a can of coconut milk, 125ml water, 1 tsp tamarind paste (or more if, like me, you love the stuff), 4 star anise and a cinnamon stick. I also added a load of halved chestnut mushrooms and trimmed green beans.
Simmer on a low heat while you cook the rice. Then, while the rice is on the side having its final steam, pop the tofu in to cook through. I used plain tofu and I think it would have been even better if I'd drained it and fried it first, but it was still lovely au naturel. Serve over the rice and top with fresh coriander.
Singapore noodles are an old family favourite but they are a bit hit-and-miss from takeaways. The ones I've made contain fairly average veg that a Uk fridge is likely to contain, rather than any specialist (expensive) ones, so they aren't exactly like ones from a good Chinese but they are tasty.
The guideline recipe I used is from "Chinese Food Made Easy" by Ching He Huang - a great book if you love a Chinese takeaway, but hate the heart-thumping, water gulping after effects.
I like to pre-prepare all of the spices and veg, so that the last thing to touch the chopping board is the raw meat. For the spices, you need a chopped red chilli, a few cloves of chopped garlic and a couple of generous tablespoons of turmeric. The garnish is chopped spring onion and a sprinkle of dried chillies. In addition to the veg, you're also going to need 2 tbsp light soy sauce, 2 tbsp oyster sauce, 1 tbsp of rice vinegar, some chicken and some bacon. Or use prawns if you have / like them.
The veg I used (and by no means feel bound by these, because I certainly didn't choose these ones based on any recipe!) were: one green and one red pepper, spinach, a cob's worth of sweetcorn and a carrot sliced into thin batons. I also had a jar of mushrooms preserved in olive oil which needed using up, these were really good in it.
Then you can chop up your chicken - this was the meat off two legs, as they are cheaper than buying a pack of four thighs or two breasts, and I always feel the breast is less tender anyway. The sad water-injected legs you'd get off a battery/poorly treated chicken won't cover this, at the very least a free range bird is needed, but I'd recommend organic for too many reasons to cover here. There are some notes on choosing chicken in this earlier post.
Pre-cook the chicken with nothing more than a little seasoning and some oil, then put the peices to one side. You also need to soak your
rice noodles, hot water from the tap will do, for about 5-10 minutes
depending on what the packet says.
In the same frying pan, heat up a little more oil and add the garlic, fresh chilli and turmeric (and mushrooms if using). Cook for at most a minute, then add the bacon and cook for a minute more. Tip all of the veg in and cook until tender, then add the soaked noodles, light soy, oyster sauce and vinegar.
Mix it all up, add the dried chilli and spring onions, and serve.
