{"id":241,"date":"2009-01-19T17:39:47","date_gmt":"2009-01-19T22:39:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rubright.com\/basement\/?p=241"},"modified":"2009-01-22T12:00:33","modified_gmt":"2009-01-22T17:00:33","slug":"laksa-rocksa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rubright.com\/basement\/laksa-rocksa\/","title":{"rendered":"Laksa Rocksa (or Laksa Luck)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month I stumbled on this story in the NYT<\/a> about a South Asian noodle dish called Laksa. Of course I had to try it. Sadly, I’d have to travel to New York (or at the very least Chicago, maybe) to order up a bowl. I thought I would forgo the plane fare and make some myself.<\/p>\n

I felt braced about my chances of success since I am fortunate to live near the amazing Global Foods Market<\/a>, which I stop by at least three times a week. If they ever went away I might have to move. Seriously, it wouldn’t be good.<\/p>\n

My first step was tracking down a recipe. For that I headed to the web. What I found was a lot of sites with endless variations on laksa. Even the name isn’t really standardized. There’s also curry mee, which is similar. <\/p>\n

What I found was that there are two components to the dish: the laksa paste and the soup. I found a workable paste recipe<\/a> and then combined that with a relatively simple soup recipe<\/a> from another site.<\/p>\n

Even in my well equipped Global Foods store, I couldn’t find a couple of things like coriander root and lime leaves. I didn’t ask, though, since I’m a guy.<\/p>\n

Here’s my version of the laksa paste recipe:<\/p>\n

Ingredients<\/p>\n

Laksa Paste (the list is long but it can be vanquished pretty easily)<\/p>\n

\u00bd cup of dried shrimps soaked in warm water until soft
\n1 red chili (these come in big packages so I substituted a couple drops of chili oil)
\n1 tsp turmeric
\n6cm\/2\u00bdin piece of *galangal or root ginger, peeled
\n(I used root ginger)
\n3 coriander roots or 1 packet coriander
\n(couldn’t find this so I used around a tsp. of coriander seeds)
\n4-5 hearts of lemon grass (tough outer leaves removed)
\n(lots of cutting to get at the soft hearts, but worth it)
\n6 shallots, peeled
\n3 cloves garlic, peeled
\n6 candle nuts or macadamia nuts
\n(I used macadamia nuts–no problem)
\n10 mint leaves
\n10 lime leaves, rib removed
\n(couldn’t find so I left them out–maybe they’ll get
\nsome in at some point)
\n1\u00bd tsp ground coriander
\n1 tsp blachan (dried shrimp paste)
\n(this they had in their small Indonesian section)<\/p>\n

Put all of the ingredients in a food processor and grind away. (I tried using the blender but found the food processor works just as well.) You get a sort of thick paste that works for several doses of soup. I put it in the fridge with plastic wrap pressed down on it. It should last a couple of weeks.<\/p>\n

Here’s my recipe for the soup:
\nThe cooking portion of the recipe uses the following ingredients:
\n1 14 oz. can lite coconut milk
\n2 cups chicken stock
\n1.75 oz. medium rice noodles (I bought a lot and just used
\na good handful per bowl)
\n2-3 tbsp laksa paste (see above)<\/p>\n

The following ingredients are put into each bowl to await the broth:<\/p>\n

.25 lb. cooked large prawns, from a sustainable source
\n(You can also you faux crab, dumplings, frozen shrimp or anything else that you might have around)
\n\u00bc cucumber, seeds removed and cut into strips
\nI’ve also added half of a hard boiled egg<\/p>\n

These go in at the very end, after the broth is done.
\njuice of half a lime
\na small bunch cilantro
\na handful bean sprouts<\/p>\n

Putting it all together:
\nPour hot water over the rice stick noodles and let them soften.
\n(Mine never really got soft like this so I boiled ’em like pasta. Worked great.)<\/p>\n

In a good sized sauce pan, combine 2-3 tbs. of the laksa paste
\nwith a couple of tablespoons of the coconut milk over medium high heat. After a few minutes, add the chicken broth and the rest of the coconut milk. Let this simmer while you load up a couple of bowls with the list above, leaving the bean sprouts, cilantro and lime for the final flourish. After 15 minutes or so, the broth will have thickened a bit. I strained mine into the bowls but it’s up to you.
\nAdd your final garnishes and enjoy.<\/p>\n

Here’s what my first bowl looked like:
\n\"Laksa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month I stumbled on this story in the NYT about a South Asian noodle dish called Laksa. Of course I had to try it. Sadly, I’d have to travel to New York (or at the very least Chicago, maybe) to order up a bowl. I thought I would forgo the plane fare and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[24,25,26,27],"class_list":["post-241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-stuff","tag-add-new-tag","tag-laksa","tag-noodles","tag-soup"],"yoast_head":"\nLaksa Rocksa (or Laksa Luck) - Rubright.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rubright.com\/basement\/laksa-rocksa\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Laksa Rocksa (or Laksa Luck) - Rubright.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Earlier this month I stumbled on this story in the NYT about a South Asian noodle dish called Laksa. 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