Skip to main content

Laksa 101: Creamy Chicken Laksa

Anyone who travels to SE Asia will, sooner or later, encounter laksa. It is basically a spicy curry soup, often swimming with seafood. Having never grown up with curries or chillies or seafood, I initially was resistant to laksa. Yet, because of my annual visits to Malaysia, I eventually had to capitulate and give it a try. Penang, which is a celebrated food centre in Asia, was where I had Penang Laksa with mackerel. Getting and keeping the big fat noodles on my spoon was a major challenge. Then, I experienced the Sarawak Laksa while visiting Kuching. Laksa was becoming more and more mainstream for me.

One of the redemptive values of laksa is that it is a great and tasty way to introduce vegetables into the diet. So, when I discovered a ‘veggie-rich’ laksa recipe, I introduced it to my wife. Like me, she had little experience with curries, chillies and seafood. Her initial approval encouraged me to press on.

The following recipe is:

Laksa 101 - A Recipe for Beginners & Westerners

25 minutes prep, cooking 15 minutes.

250 gram rice noodles (these noodles expand so consider use half that amount, even if you are a noodle lover!)

1 Tablespoon oil

1 onion, diced finely

2 cloves of garlic, crushed

3 Tablespoons laksa or Thai red curry paste (laksa paste often has shrimp paste, which can be loved or loathed - if you are not use to it, try the red curry paste)

250 g chicken, thinly slice

2 cans of coconut cream (another option is Carnation light & creamy coconut flavoured condensed milk)

2 Tablespoons fish sauce

1 carrot cut into strips

1 cup (or more) sliced mushrooms

1/2 cup (or more) peas, preferably baby peas. Can use frozen peas.

2 cups bean sprouts (fresh is best)

1/4 cup fresh coriander

INSTRUCTIONS

1.    Soak noodles 10 minutes in boiling water, drain;

2.    Heat oil in the pan, gently fry onion and garlic until translucent;

3.    Place chicken and laksa or Thai red curry paste in pan, cook 2 minutes;

4.    Add coconut milk & fish sauce;

5.    Bring to boil, add carrot and mushrooms, return to boil. Lower heat and simmer for 5 minutes;

6.    Add frozen peas, bean sprouts and noodles just before serving.

For laksa veterans, add generous laksa paste and all the seafood you like.


Give it a try and you’ll feel like you are in tropical Asia!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 2025 Los Angeles Fires: The Bigger Issues

The new year had barely begun when New Orleans was rocked by a jihadist car ramming attack on the 1st of January. In Las Vegas, there was an explosion in front of the Trump hotel. Then, on the 7th of January, what arguably could be the most destructive fire in American history commenced. They are called the Los Angeles fires. Thousands of homes and businesses have been burned to the ground. Prestigious suburbs like Pacific Palisades or working-class Altadena look like war zones. Thousands of acres and buildings in America’s second-largest city have been destroyed and dozens have lost their lives or are recorded missing. People were told to evacuate their homes. Many abandoned their cars along the way because of the impasse. Thank God, they made it out alive but they lost everything but the clothes on their backs. It is a humanitarian crisis of the highest order. Like Australia, Southern California is dry and prone to fires. With the history and technology, there should have been pruden...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Twelve-Day War of June 2025: Israel and Iran Have We Turned A Corner?

After years of debate, negotiations, threats and risks, the inevitable finally came: military action. Israel pre-emptively attacked Iran’s nuclear program while neutralising its nuclear scientists and top military men. There was the Six-Day War of June 1967; now we have the Twelve-Day War of June 2025. The combatants: Israel, Iran, and briefly, the United States. Despite all this, have we turned a corner? The state of war started in 1979 after the successful installation of a theocratic, fundamentalist, puritanical regime called the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Islamic Republic overthrew the Shah of Iran, the last sovereign of a monarchy which lasted 2,500 years since the days of Cyrus the Persian, who is prominently mentioned in the Bible. The Shah was replaced by a Shia Muslim cleric, called the Supreme Leader, who possesses broad executive powers, more than the elected Iranian President. The Supreme Leader is the most powerful person in the country. From Day One, Iran announced its...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘Liberation Day:’ What The Trump Tariffs Are About?

  April 2, 2025, another day, another flurry of activity coming from the Oval Office. Yet, it wasn’t like any other day. After signing yet another Executive Order, US President Donald Trump declared it ‘Liberation Day.’ On paper, he had ordered ten per cent tariffs across the board on countries worldwide, friend and foe alike. In reality, he is shaking up the world's economic and political order, deliberately. Initially, there was great consternation around the world. The stock market and, more worryingly, the bond market dived. Dozens of nations queued up to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement with the American administration. Then, Trump announced a 90-day freeze on tariffs for those countries that had reached out to the Americans. Both stock and bond markets recovered; a correction came to what was overvalued, and life calmed down for the moment. While critics derisively called the ‘tariff freeze’ a ‘backflip,’ it was actually part of the plan all along. Liberation Day spawned...
Post a Comment
Read more