Malaysia is calling me

I have been craving Malaysian food lately. I also have been thinking of Malaysia a lot lately too. I am not sure why our trip this summer did not include a stop over, probably did not work out with our schedule or the price was too high when we were booking our trip.  We recently went to a BBQ of sorts at a Malaysian friends home and had beef rendang and a few other malaysian treats. That seemed to help but the last few weeks, I have had the bug to go to Malaysia again. Perhaps we will make it there for our Chinese New Year holiday, we will see. In the mean time I must cook something Malaysian to suppress my appetite.

Hubby has always wanted me to make Laksa, I make Rendang pretty often, but not often enough if you ask him. So I decided to make Laksa, or at least, see if I could do it and if I could find the ingredients. Well yes and no, some of the ingredients are found easily enough but some others are not but I did my best with what we had and what I could find and it actually turned out quite good. I will try to give you the recipe or at least what I used in this version of Penang Laksa. Some of the ingredients and methods I use are not very traditional, I am sure  some will scoff, but, hey it got me what I wanted and that was a taste of Malaysia.

Penang Laksa

1 clove of garlic
1 Tbsp shrimp paste
35 dried chilies
10 stalks of lemon grass
500g shallots   I used half red onion and half shallots
3 cm piece of turmeric  omitted, I did not have and did not substitute with powder next time I will. I totally forgot about it.

Grind the above into a paste. I did this in my blender.
Not very traditional but my mortar and pestle would not hold all those chilies not to mention the shallots.

3 1/2 liters of water
250 ml tamarind water from pulp I broke off a 3 cm piece of tamarind paste and soaked it in a bowl of water until the pulp was mixed with the water and added this, the shells and seeds I discarded.
**not traditional I think it should be dried tamarind**
30 stalks of Garlic chives "daun kesam"
2 stalks of Ginger bud "bunga kantan"  omitted could not find
6 Tbsp sugar  I used 8 Tbsp.total,I had to add two more to help cool the chilies, at the end
2 Tbsp salt
1 kg Sea Bass frozen filets, thawed
2 kg rice vermicelli

6 Tbsp shrimp paste - mixed with 3/4 cup of water  I omitted this by accident, for me it was not needed. Hubby did say that it was not as fishy tasting as the Laksa we had in Malaysia. I felt it was fishy enough.

Garnish
pineapple sliced small
cucumber  slice small
onion sliced thin
green and red chilies sliced thin
bean sprouts
Hard boiled eggs sliced in quarters
Deep fried tofu    this was an impulse addition of mine not traditional

Boil the water add ground paste, tamarind water, sugar, salt, and garlic chives (ginger bud if you have it) boil for 10 minutes. Add the fish and simmer until the fish is cooked. Remove the fish and let it cool you will flake it and add it later.
Let the broth simmer for an hour. After the hour remove the garlic chives and (ginger bud) if you have it. Put the flaked fish back into the broth and bring it to a boil.

Before serving pop the deep fried tofu into the broth for a couple of minutes so they soak up some of the flavor. if you are using this for your garnish.

Serving:
Place cooked rice vermicelli in bowls and add the garnishes you desire. Pour the broth over top.

Comments

[GZ Expat]

Woot!

[FlyRice]

I read somewhere that that was the correct way to produce tamarind juice...Good Job!

We have Turmeric growing in our back yard in Hawaii.

I miss spicy food!