Curry Laksa

If you love curry and coconut milk, you're going to love this curry laksa. The real one requires lots of pounding ten thousand spices, but I'm going to show you the short cut to it. :)

First, go to your local Asian grocery store and look for the South East Asian food aisle. In the picture above, I showed two different types of curry laksa paste. Either one is good. The one on the right we got it from Maxim grocery store in Cupertino. The one of the left was bought in Vancouver, Canada. I'm sure there'll be different ones out there. So far the good ones had been from Malaysia where the origin of the curry laksa came from. But of course, each country has their own version. Indonesia actually has its own too, not as rich and don't require use of shrimp paste (aka belachan). While you're there, look for sambal terasi (chilli mixed with shrimp paste) like the one above. Or there is another version from Singapore - nonya sambal chilli. Both are equally good.

Okay, once you got your curry laksa paste then you can go get the other ingredients :

1/2 lb chicken thigh meat, cut in cubes of 3/4 inch.

1/2 lb medium size prawns, deveined

1/2 medium size onion, peeled, sliced.

Put a bit oil in a wok big enough to contain all the above ingredients. Put in onion, saute till fragrant. Put in the rest of the ingredients, stir around until they are cook through. Season lightly with fish sauce. Put aside.

1 English cucumber, peeled, half lengthwise, slice thinly

1 lb bean sprout, lightly put in hot water. Don't let it cook too long. It will loose crunchyness.

3 hard boil eggs. Peeled. Cut lenghtwise.

1 package of rice noodle. Put in hot water to let it soften but don't over cook or it will be soggy.

1 package of fried tofu or fried tofu skin.

Mix 1 tbs of sambal terasi or nonya sambal mixture with juice from 1 lime. Stir well until they become like chilli sauce.

Follow instruction on the package to prepare the curry laksa sauce. Put in the fried tofu to cook with the laksa sauce to absorb the flavor. Arrange the rice noodle, vegetables and meat on a serving bowl. Scoop the sauce onto the bowl. Season to taste with the belachan/chilli sauce mixture. Enjoy !