Saturday, August 28, 2010

Jade: Bitemycurrylaksa

It's a cute little place, Basingstoke...horrendously boring...but there's a Zara in town..and it's about 45 minutes to London..so it could be worse. What properly pains me is how difficult it is to find the most basic ingredients...I used to be able to walk into any store in Southampton and come out with bagfuls of lemongrass, galanghal and nissin noodles...and on a good day, half a pound of okra and a sizeable daikon. I went into 3 supermarkets here the other day looking for lemongrass... one of the shop assistants asked me to spell it for him. Made me seriously reconsider working here for another year. ...And no, I wasn't being difficult...I wanted to make curry laksa now that Supreme is no longer an option...and laksa paste without lemongrass is like nasi lemak without sambal...an utter waste of time.

Curry Laksa~ adapted from Rasa Malaysia...with minced lemongrass that came in a jar. I'd be semi disgusted if the end result wasn't quite so good. But just in case, I made a trip to Southampton today and bought 6 ginormous stalks of lemongrass.

* I didn't make the chili paste because I was lazy and my guest was hungry. But I imagine it would've lent the soup more depth and a much prettier colour

SPICE PASTE

1 heaped tbsp belacan
2 large shallots [ I used the long, brown ones you get in supermarkets here]
Half a bulb of garlic
2 tbsp lemongrass paste
2 tsp dried chili flakes

1 tsp thai dried chili shrimp paste

4 tbsp coriander powder
Small handful chopped fresh coriander and basil
5 tbsp oil

STOCK

3 cups chicken stock
100 ml coconut milk
Brown sugar and fish sauce to taste

Spritz of lime for some much needed acidity~ I didn't have any lime so I drizzled in some balsamic vinegar. I thought it tied everything together beautifully

Noodles:

Egg noodles
Bee hoon
Taugeh

Mixed seafood

Chopped spring onions to garnish

1. Blend all the ingredients for the spice paste until very fine

2. Heat up some oil and fry the paste till the oil separates from the solids

3. I only used half the paste since there was only 2 of us. In a separate pot, bring the chicken stock to boil, add the spice paste

4. Lower the heat and bring the soup to a gentle simmer, stir in the coconut milk

5. Season to taste

6. Blanch the seafood, noodles and taugeh

7. Arrange in a bowl, ladle the rich coconut broth over the noodles, garnish with seafood and spring onions, and possible a dollop of chili paste..........close your eyes, slurp and pretend you are home :)


2 comments:

  1. Yummy! Looks great. Ya...I used dried bits of lemon grass too when I was in KL - came in a bottle...like those bottled cooking herbs. Poor thing!

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  2. how come u never do this when u were in sibu where u could get all the ingredients easily *nothappy* I WANT EAT

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