Malaysian Curry Laksa
This is a classic dish found all over Malaysia from the Peranckan culture. There are traditionally two types of laksa – curry laksa and ayam laksa. Curry Laksa is a spicy coconut curry soup with noodles while asam laksa is a sour fish soup with noodles.
There are many different regional variations of Laksa in Malaysia including Johor Laksa, Penang Laksa and Sarawak Laksa.
There are quite a few ingredients required to make this dish but it is well worth the effort!
Ingredients: Serves 4 people
Spice paste:
- 10 macadamia nuts / or 5 brazil nuts
- 1 stalk lemon grass
- 1 inch piece galangal (or ginger)
- 1 tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tsp ground black pepper (use 2 tsp if you like it to have a kick!)
- 2 tsp ground coriander
- 10 shallots
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp belachan
- 6- 8 red chillies de seeded (depending on how spicy you like it)
- 1 litre / 4 cups water
- 400ml can coconut milk
- 2 tsp sugar (dark brown or palm sugar best)
- 2 tsp salt
- 4 tbsp sunflower oil
- 1 chicken breast cooked and shredded
- 250g fresh de shelled and cleaned king prawns
- 3 egg omelette shredded
- Handful of fresh coriander chopped
- 500g Fine rice noodles – vermicelli / meehoon cooked (you can use whatever noodles you fancy)
- Handful bean sprouts
Cooking equipment:
- 1 large saucepan
- Small wok or frying pan
- Blender
Directions
To start, add all the ingredients for the spice paste into your blender with 1 tablespoon of oil and whiz until it becomes a fine paste.
Heat the remaining oil in a large saucepan and add the spice paste. Cook on a low heat for 7 minutes to make all the flavours infuse together. Then add the sugar and salt, cook for a further minute or two then add the water. Bring to the boil, then turn heat down to simmer and add the coconut milk. Simmer for 15 – 20 minutes. When you are ready to eat add the un cooked prawns to the curry soup and leave to simmer for a few minutes until cooked. They don’t take long to cook!
You can cook and prepare this a day in advance and simply heat up again the next day. Perfect for a dinner party.
To serve this dish simply put a handful of cooked noodles and all your other cooked ingredients, chicken, egg omlette, bean sprouts and fresh coriander, into a large bowl. Then ladle the hot spicy curry soup over the top until it just about covers the infredients and serve straight away – divine!!
Click here to watch the tutorial:
I’ve been looking for a good laksa recipe, and so far Carolines looks delicious and more or less simple to achieve, also possible are the requriments for the ingedients.
Thank you Caroline.
Victoria