Tag Archives: asam laksa

  • Penang Assam Laksa for Father’s Day

    I don’t make a habit of re-visiting blogged recipes — it’d be a bit like re-visiting an ex boyfriend — but there are always exceptions to every rule. In this case, I’ve been itching to redo my Grandmother’s Penang Asam Laksa post for the longest time; while the words hold up fine the photography and styling don’t do my grandmother’s recipe justice.

    Consider this photograph of the finished Assam Laksa in my old post.

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    Yikes. Apologies to anyone who stumbled upon my blog looking for an Assam Laksa recipe and found that. It looks completely unappetising. It doesn’t even look like Assam Laksa.

    So I’ve been looking for an opportunity to tweak and re-blog this recipe and when Father’s Day rolled around today, I realised it was the perfect time. You see, my father absolutely loves this recipe as it’s adapted from his mother’s. Sadly, she passed away last year so cooking her food is a way of keeping her memory alive and making my dad happy.

    Penang Assam Laksa

    Assam Laksa is the perfect present for my dad because he’s not really into (bought) presents. A home-cooked meal based on his mother’s recipe, however, is something that he can truly appreciate.

    So Happy Father’s Day, dad. We love you very, very much. And Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there, too!

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    My Grandmother’s Asam Laksa 2 – re-worked and simplified

    Assam Laksa is truly an exceptional dish – an intoxicating noodle soup dish with the perfect balance of spicy, sweet, sour, salty, and savoury flavours. This is not a dish for the meek and mild – this is an assertive and robust dish that will jolt your tastebuds and get your blood pumping. Enjoy!

    INGREDIENTS FOR PASTE

    • 10-12 Bird’s Eye chillies
    • 4-5 sticks lemon grass – lower half, white part, cut into fine slices OR 5 tablespoons drained lemongrass from jar
    • 1 small piece turmeric, peeled and diced
    • 1 small piece galangal (lengkuas), peeled and diced
    • 2 ginger flower stalks (bunga kantan)
    • 2/3 block belecan, about 160 grams
    • 3/4 cup diced shallots (can substitute with onions)
    • 1/4 cup water

    INGREDIENTS FOR SOUP

    • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
    • 1.5 litres water
    • 1 bunch laksa or vietnamese mint leaves (daun kesom), washed
    • 1/3 cup dried tamarind (asam), soaked in hot water for 30 minutes and then drained
    • 4-5 tablespoons tamarind (asam) juice
    • 4 teaspoons sugar
    • 3 tablespoons light soy sauce
    • 2 large cans sardines in tomato sauce
    • 1 large pack rice vermicelli, cooked according to instructions

    INGREDIENTS FOR GARNISH

    • 1/2 fresh pineapple, peeled, cored, de-eyed, and cut into shreds
    • 1 large cucumber, peeled and cut into matchsticks
    • Bunch fresh mint, washed
    • 1 red onion or 2 shallots, peeled and sliced very finely
    • Few teaspoons of Hae ko, a thick, sweet Shrimp paste, to garnish (optional)

    METHOD

    • Blend all ingredients for paste until finely ground and mud like.
    • To make soup, heat up a large non stick pot and add cooking oil.
    • Add paste and cook over a medium heat, stirring frequently, for around eight minutes so paste ‘splits’ and separates from the oil.
    • Add 1.5 litres water, laksa leaves, dried tamarind, tamarind juice, sugar and soy sauce and bring to the boil.
    • Taste and adjust seasoning if you like, adding more tamarind juice for a more sour taste, more sugar for a sweeter taste and/or more light soy sauce for a saltier taste.
    • Add sardines in tomato sauce, break the fish up gently with a ladle and simmer for a further 15-20 minutes.
    • To serve, use chopsticks to put rice noodles in a bowl and spoon over steaming hot soup and fish.
    • Garnish with pineapple, cucumber, mint and shallots.
    • Add a spoonful of hae ko if you like for a stronger shrimp flavour.

    A note on ingredients: my old post has (bad) photos of most of the ingredients for reference. I found all of them at my Asian grocer but the ginger flower is not always available. 

  • Lobster Noodle Stir Fry

    In my family, my dad is the Noodle King.

    Born in Penang, home to the mighty Asam Laksa, my dad came out to Australia in the 60s as a high school student. Back then, there was only one or two Asian restaurants in Adelaide and both were Chinese. So if dad wanted to eat the hawker dishes of his childhood like Char Kway Teow (fried rice noodles), Asam Laksa (sour fish noodle soup), Curry Laksa, Har Mee (prawn noodle soup), Sar Hor Fun (‘wet’ fried rice noodles) and Sambal Udang (prawn sambal), he had to learn to cook them himself.

    And so he did.

    Asian street food devotees may argue that you can never truly recreate the taste of a hawker dish in a domestic kitchen: they say that the wok doesn’t get hot enough and the ingredients are not the same. They say too, that it’s about the atmosphere – the sheer satisfaction of eating a bowl of $AUD2 noodles on a plastic stool underneath a furiously spinning fan at your favourite hawker restaurant can never truly be replicated.

    That may be true but why should we not try to reach for those moments? After all, a little bit of love is better than none, isn’t it?

    When my grandmother was alive she would cook her Asam Laksa paste and her Sambal Hebi (dried shrimp sambal) each time we visited Malaysia. We would freeze them in plastic bags and wrap them in old newspaper to bring home to Australia. Later, when I was working overseas, my parents brought me these precious parcels and whenever I was homesick I would use them as the base to create the dishes from my childhood. It made me feel connected and loved.

    I’m working with Bertolli at the moment, developing Asian-style dishes for them using their light olive oil. The first recipe I made for them was a Beef Stir Fry and recently, I made this Lobster Noodle Stir Fry, based on my dad’s recipe. It’s not a dish he ate growing up, rather, it’s a dish that he makes for special occasions that the whole family enjoys. To watch my three year old niece slurp up these noodles is to witness pure joy.

    Eat the love.

    Tell me, dear reader, what are your most cherished family recipes?

    Continue reading

  • My Grandmother’s Penang (Asam) Laksa

    UPDATE: this recipe has been simplified and re-blogged here. And I’ve changed the photo above to the new version. But please do read on for a story about my grandmother and how this recipe came to be.

    The mere whiff of a favourite family dish can evoke so many memories.

    When I inhale the fragrance of my Grandmother’s Penang laksa I am instantly transported to her house in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. We’re sitting around her large round dining table, which is groaning with food. The night is warm and humid – 28 degrees – and the fan turns lazily above our heads. Tiny geckos dart across the dining room walls while outside, the whirr of crickets is continuous.

    Cooking can be a way of connecting to those we love. Handed down, treasured family recipes become living legacies, a lovely reminder of those who are important to us.

    I now have such a legacy from my Grandmother.

    Continue reading

  • Postcard from Malaysia

    8 days in Malaysia = 40 meals = me coming home with an extra 3 kgs around my waist.

    Was it worth it? Oh, yeah. Because Malaysia is a foodie’s paradise. There’s just so much good stuff to eat there.

    Malaysia boasts a wonderful mix of Malaysian, Indian and Chinese food, along with the intriguing Nonya style of cooking, which blends Chinese ingredients and cooking techniques with Malaysian spices. The result of intermarriage between early Chinese migrants and local Malays, Nonya cooking features heavy use of coconut milk, candlenut, galangal, belachan, sambal, tamarind, asam flower (torch ginger), lemongrass, and pandan leaves.

    Food in Malaysia is cheap and readily available at all times of the day and night. Whenever I had a craving for fried noodles at 10pm at night I could always find a hawker stall within a 5 minutes walk of wherever I was. Love that convenience.

    So what were our favourite dishes? Well, we ate a LOT of good food there but these dishes below were the stand outs. If you’re visiting Malaysia, or eating at a Malaysian/Asian restaurant you must try some of these. Luckily, we have some fantastic Malaysian restaurants in Australia so I don’t have to wait another year until my next fix.

    I don’t have photos of everything we ate unfortunately – travelling with two small children meant that the best laid plans often went out the window. But that’s life with small children for you.

    PS Watch out for an upcoming post about the Soong family in Malaysia and my grandmother’s asam laksa recipe.

    HITS

    1) My top Malaysian dish is Penang’s signature noodle soup, the Asam Laksa. Both my husband and I are completely addicted to this chill-hot, tamarind-sour, asam (ginger) flower-tinged fish noodle soup. I can honestly say I never get enough of this dish. It’s the most marvellous combination of flavours – the fresh pineapple, onion and mint cut through the strong fishy flavour making it all at once savoury, sour, sweet, hot and salty. I find it endlessly satisfying.

    2) Hot on the heels of the Asam Laksa is the Char Kway Teow (Fried Noodles). Simple to prepare (watch out for an upcoming recipe), these noodles are pretty much universally beloved. Prawns, sliced fish cake and cockles are fried with garlic and sambal chilli before being mixed with fresh flat rice noodles, spring onions and fresh bean sprouts. Soya sauce is added for flavour and then an egg is cracked into the wok, allowed to partly set and then mixed through the noodles. This was my preferred choice for supper every night.

    3) Chicken Rice or Pork Rice are also firm favourites of ours. Chicken Rice is either roasted or poached chicken served with chicken flavoured rice (rice cooked in chicken stock). Hainese Chicken Rice is of course the ultimate chicken rice – tender poached chicken is served with chicken rice and a bowl of clear soup, and accompanied by a fresh gremolta-esque sauce made with ginger and spring onions and a fresh garlic chilli sauce. My children love chicken rice – when we were in Malaysia they had it at least once a day.

    Pork Rice is roasted pork (either Char Siew style or roasted style as per below) served with plain rice. The belly pork is tender and juicy while the skin is crunchy and salty. Not surprisingly, my kids loved this, too.

    4) The better known laksa, Laska Lemak or Curry Laksa, is also a favourite of mine. A coconut curry soup is poured over hokkein or rice noodles (or a mixture of both), fried tofu puffs, chicken, prawns and fishcake, and garnished with fresh beansprouts, sambal and often, half a boiled egg. It’s a deeply satisfying and filling dish, and hugely popular in Australia.

    5) I never miss eating Satays when I’m visiting Malaysia. I love everything about them – the lemongrass and onion marinade, the tender chicken or beef skewers, the thick, roasted peanut chilli sauce, the cubes of starchy cooked rice and the roughly chopped cucumber and raw Spanish (red) onion that accompanies them.

    6) We had the most marvellous Sui Gao (water dumplings in Cantonese)  at my grandma’s house bought from the local hawker place. The pastry was beautifully light, and the filling was a wonderful combination of pork, carrot, Chinese mushroom, crispy water chestnut, vermicelli, and spring onions. It was so good I am determined to make them at home – watch out for an upcoming recipe.

    7) Congee or Chinese porridge (we call it by its Cantonese name, Jook Jook) is readily available throughout Malaysia. Rice is cooked in lots of water with ginger until it breaks down, becoming like thick soup. Then shredded meat (chicken, pork or beef), seafood (dried scallops and prawns) or century year old eggs are added before the congee is flavoured with spring onions, white pepper, soy sauce and sesame oil. Dried anchovies and roasted peanuts are also sometimes added. It’s very much Chinese comfort food – people eat it for breakfast, when they’re sick or when they’re feeling fragile.

    8. Dim Sum – Dim Sum is not actually Malaysian but Chinese. My kids loved the siu mai (steamed pork dumpling) and char siu bao (roast pork steamed bun).

    9) Curry Fishballs. I’ve eaten these wandering around night markets in Hong Kong many times but I never expected to see them in Malaysia. But the dim sum seller on Jonker Street in Melaka was selling them as ‘Melaka satay fish balls’ and they were fantastic. In Hong Kong you eat them on a stick but in Melaka you buy them by the cup.

    10) Mee Goreng is a popular dish in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. I quite enjoyed this dish but my two kids refused to eat it. Not sure why but that meant more for me then!

    11) I’ve had Pineapple Tarts many times before but this was the first time I’ve really appreciated them properly. Pineapple tarts are simply a small pastry filled with pineapple jam. But this is so much better than the sum of its parts. For starters, the pastry is gorgeously light and flaky (thanks to the use of lard, not butter) and the homemade jam is fibrous, dense and not overly sweet. It’s a fantastic combination and perfect after a chilli hot meal. Just make sure you eat them outside as they crumble all over your clothes.
    12) Fruit in Malaysia is so good. It’s so flavoursome and sweet because the fruit has been allowed to ripen properly. In Malaysia, fresh juices abound (we love drinking watermelon, sugarcane, carrot, star fruit and coconut juice) while fresh fruit, conveniently peeled, cut up into small pieces and bagged, is available everywhere – a much healthier version of ‘fast food.’ Below are duku langsat and mangosteen from the local market.

    13) Fatty Crab is the name of a well known restaurant that specialises in, you guessed it, crabs. One night my Auntie brought some Fatty Crab chilli crab home. Cooked Singapore style in a thick, sweet chilli gravy, the crabs were absolutely sensational. In the restaurant you can order toast to mop up the gravy – a seemingly unorthodox combination that is just so right.

    14) Peanut Pancake is a sweet, crepe-like snack available at morning markets and at street stalls. A thin batter is poured into a metal mould to make a round crepe shape, and dusted with roasted peanuts, brown sugar, and sweet corn before being folded in half and popped into a paper bag. It’s absolutely delicious and very, very moreish.

    MISSES

    1) I know people who love Popiah. My dad, for instance, always orders this soft spring roll filled with stir-fried and raw vegetables covered with a hoisin-y, peanut-y sauce. But I just don’t get popiah. I eat it and I’m nonplussed. For me, it’s a non-event. And it’s not because I’m not into spring rolls; I adore fresh Vietnamese spring rolls and I’ll eat my mother’s deep-fried Cantonese spring rolls by the plateful. But I just don’t get popiah. So I don’t.

    2) I also don’t understand the fuss about Asam Pedas, which we ate in Melaka. Everyone told us we had to eat this dish in Melaka; my cousins, my aunt, our taxi driver – they were all enthusiastically singing the praises of Asam Pedas. Basically, it’s a piece of fish cooked in an Asam sour thick gravy/soup, served with a plate of plain rice, fried cabbage (very nice, actually), half a boiled egg and raw cucumber slices. The idea is that you mix the gray and fish over the rice as you eat. As I love Asam laksa I was expecting great things from this dish but both my husband and I were distinctly underwhelmed. Put it this way: I’d eat it if there was nothing else available.

    3) Wonton Mein (Wonton Noodles) is available throughout Malaysia but it’s just not very good. I guess I’m a traditionalist when it comes to wonton mein – I expect it to look and taste as it does in Hong Kong, where it originates. The Malaysian versions often introduce rogue ingredients and flavours that I think detract from the simplicity of the dish. You can order wonton mein either wet (in soup) or dry (on a plate with a small bowl of wonton in soup separately). But I would rather order something else in Malaysia.

    4) One of Melaka’s signature dishes, Chicken Rice Balls, also left me unimpressed. Basically, it’s your normal Chicken Rice but the rice is shaped into small balls. The idea is that you can dip these in the sauces and pop them straight into your mouth. But I like dribbling the chicken soup, chilli and spring onion/ginger sauces over my rice and eating it quite wet. So the ball concept just doesn’t appeal to me. My kids, however, loved it.

    5) Now I usually love Roti Canai, an Indian-esque flatbread made freshly before my eyes. And I love dipping it into an curry sauce before stuffing it greedily in my mouth. But my experience one night when we were staying at the Sheraton in Kuala Lumpur has put me off it, at least for now. At 10pm, I’d had a craving for food so ventured out to see what I could find. I ordered some char kway teow from a hawker stall and then a roti canai from an Indian restaurant and it all looked great. But when I got back to the hotel and decanted the curry sauce from it’s plastic bag into a bowl, a big black beetle emerged. Eeeeeewwwww!!! Thankfully, the beetle was dead but it was still disgusting. As the sauce sits in an open warming dish, the beetle must have fallen in sometime during the day. This brings me to my number one tip when eating street food: eat fresh!