You can find most of these ingredients in Asian supermarkets, or Vietnamese/Southeast Asian grocers. It’s warming and it won’t leave you hungry, thanks to a generous topping of flat rice noodles, steamed broccoli, pan-fried tofu cubes and sprouts. View image in fullscreen Mandy Lee strains the paste through a fine sieve before diluting it with coconut water. This hybrid cuisine blending Malaysian and Chinese food is known as Nyonya food, and laksa is one of its most famous creations.

I simply love the Penang “white” laksa, Penang Assam Laksa and Johore Laksa the latter 2 are fish based, not chicken.I’m surprised that there is no one standard noodle used for laksa: egg noodles, rice sticks, vermicelli and glass noodles all feature in the recipes I try. The other thing I do , which doesn’t alter the recipe is to add some powdered annatto to the spice ball mixture so that it gets that shimmery red you find in the airport laksa stands in Australia and Malaysia. I’m sure onlookers were thoroughly unimpressed at the sight of his dusty paws on the park bench that people sit on to watch the sun set over Pittwater…… (I think he jumped up so he could see over the shrubs to watch the pelicans frolicking on the sand flats! While they are steeping, chop up the rest of the Laksa paste ingredients- shallot, lemongrass, garlic, turmeric, and galanga, and place them in a food processor.

Also, lemongrass paste, which is often used to avoid hard stems of lemongrass in soups/curries, is not that easy to find either. Fine rice vermicelli noodles soak up the thick soup and is topped with shredded chicken, egg, shrimp, cucumbers and bean sprouts.Even though, I’m still about a month away from having the braces put on, today’s recipe happens to be a soup. Was feeling under the weather and was craving the laksa from a local place but decided to make it myself instead and wow!

They’re spongey, don’t taste of much and they look weird, but they’re an essential part of the Laksa eating experience!

This is a great and easy recipe and the results are fabulous, like restaurant standard laksa and my family really enjoy it particularly on cold days when it’s a great warming dish! In creating this recipe, I went against Duncan’s wisdom to keep things simple and I am hoping you’ll see that it’s worth it.