Another Hawker Centre Noodle Dish–Curry Laksa or Curry Mee (咖喱叻沙, 咖喱面）

INTRODUCTION

I love curry laksa but I have never wanted to cook at home because the pre-mix laksa paste was too spicy for my kids. When I was shopping yesterday, I suddenly feel the urge to have some curry laksa but if I am cooking at home, I would have to do it from scratch so as to adjust the spiciness for my kids. I did not locate any recipe but instead I went to the counter selling the Laksa premix, took a photo of the ingredients and started my curry laksa adventures.

I am very pleased with this adventure. Sorry for not being humble, in fact the taste is very close to what I have tasted in Singapore hawker centres. Wife loves it but kids  still complaining a bit spicy which I think is reasonable given  that this is one of their very first chilli based dishes.

Preparation is not difficult and it all depends whether or not you want to prepare your own meat stocks.  I have prepared the stocks from the prawn shells and chicken bones but you can always substitute with readymade chicken stock if you wish to.

If you do not want to prepare the meat stock, you can easily get it done in a few steps and a bowl of delicious curry laksa will be available for your family members.  One thing good about home made laksa paste is that you can easily adjust to suit your families’ taste buds. That is especially so when kids are not able to take spicy food.

As per Wikipedia,

“Laksa is a popular spicy noodle soup from the Peranakan culture, which is a merger of Chinese and Malay elements found in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Curry laksa (in many places referred to simply as “laksa”) is a coconut-based curry soup. The main ingredients for most versions of curry laksa include bean curd puffs, fish sticks, shrimp and cockles. Some vendors may sell chicken laksa. Laksa is commonly served with a spoonful of sambal chilli paste and garnished with Vietnamese coriander, or laksa leaf, which is known in Malay as daun kesum. This is usually known as curry mee in Penang rather than curry laksa, due to the different kind of noodles used (yellow mee or bee hoon, as opposed to the thick white laksa noodles).” (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laksa)

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WHAT IS REQUIRED

Servings: 5-6 adults

Spice Mix or rempah

• 4 cm galangal, peeled
• 2 fresh chillies*
• 10 cloves of garlic
• 20 medium size shallots
• 10 candlenuts
• 2 tablespoon of balachan
• 2 lemon grass stalks (white part only)
• 50 grams of dry shrimps
• 1 tablespoon of turmeric powder (or 2 cm long fresh turmeric)
• 2 tablespoons of chilli powder (or 10 dry chillies) *

*As for the chilli quantities, feel free to adjust to suit your family’s taste buds. You can either use chilli powder or dry chillies or fresh chillies. I have selected chilli powder as it will not stain my blenders.

• 500 grams of prawns
• 3 chicken drumsticks
• 200 grams of beansprouts
• 1 kg of laksa or coarse vermicelli
• 10 tofu puffs (not in picture)
• 6 hardboiled eggs (not in picture)
• Some homemade sambal
• 2-3 stalks of laksa leaves
• 200 ml (1 packet) of coconut milk
• 2-3 tablespoons of cooking oil

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STEPS OF PREPARATION

• Shell and devein the prawns. Keep the head and the sells. Meanwhile, de-bone the chicken drumsticks. Keep the bones too.

• In a large pot with about 6 cups of water, bring the water to boil under high heat. Blanch the prawns for 2-3 minutes until the prawns start to curl and flesh is translucent. Take out the prawns and add the chicken drumstick meat.

• Boil the chicken until it is cooked. As this is only chicken drumstick meat, it can be cooked rather fast and take about 5-6 minutes under high heat. Drain the chicken and set aside. Once cooled, cut into your desired sizes.

• Once the chicken were taken out, put in the prawn shells, heads and chicken bones. Bring to boil, lower the heat and let it simmer under medium for at least 30 minutes. If you found that the water starts to reduce, add some plain water and continue boiling.

• Meanwhile, put all the spice mix ingredients (rempah) except turmeric and chilli powder in a blender. Add in some water (about half of the volume of the ingredients) and blend the herbs until fine. If it is too difficult for you to blend, add in some more water. Set aside for later use.

• In a pot, heat up 2-3 tablespoons of oil, pour in the rempah, followed by chilli powder and turmeric powder.

• Stir fry the rempah under low to medium heat until aromatic and colour start to turn darker. This will took about 5-6 minutes depending on your heat. But never use high heat for stir frying as your rempah will get burnt easily. Once burnt, it is hard for you to salvage a situation. Once the rempah is fragrant, sift the prawn and chicken stock into the pot. Add in a handful of laksa leaves.

• Bring the laksa gravy to boil. Add a packet (200ml) of coconut milk, followed by the tofu puffs. Bring to boil, add in seasonings of your choice (suggested: salt or fish sauce, sugar or mushrooms concentrate). Off the heat and set aside for later use.

• Before serving, have a large pot of hot boiling water, blanch the bean sprouts for 1-2 minutes followed by blanching the laksa vermicelli or coarse bee hoon for 1-2 minutes. Drained and set aside.

• For assembly, in the serving bowl, have some laksa vermicelli, add in the beansprout and pour some laksa gravy on top of the noodles. Put on top of the noodles half a hardboiled egg, blanched prawns, chicken meat, and sprinkle sparingly some chopped laksa leaves. Best served hot with some sambal chilli of your choice.

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CONCLUSION

The post is rather long but it does not means that the noodle dish is difficult to prepare. You can always start from a step that you feel comfortable with. It is definitely not difficult at all.

As this is a savoury noodle dish, variations are many and it is up to you to adjust to suit your taste buds. This recipe have taken into consideration of kid’s taste buds of not able to take spicy food, therefore, you can increase the chillies used if you wish.

This recipe was included in Page 11-13 of the “One Pot Noodle E-book”. For more One Pot Noodle Dishes, you can have a copy of “Easy One Pot Noodles  – A step by step guide” that was packed with 30 recipes, 60 pages at a reasonable convenience fee of USD5.00. The recipes covered various recipes from curry laksa, prawn noodles to fish head beehoon and etc. Of course not forgetting the well like Economy Bee hoon and Mee Rebus . You can purchase by clicking the link above.You can either pay using Pay Pal or Credit card account. Please ensure that you have an PDF reader like Acrobat or iBooks in your mobile phone or iPad if you intended to read it in your ipad or mobile phone. Should there be any problems of purchasing, feel free to contact me at kengls@singnet.com.sg and separate arrangement can be made.

Hope you like the post today. Cheers and have a nice day.

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