Penang Assam Laksa

Prior to our trip to Penang in 2015, I already knew of Penang Assam Laksa from one of the restaurants in Jakarta, Indonesia. I love spicy and tangy food. And I found the assam laksa is just so refreshing with the tangy broth and the crunchiness of the lettuce.

Recently I got a huge tray of salmon from Costco. For you who don't know Costco, it's a wholesale market. Everything there are sold in huge quantity. The salmon is no exception. That's when I thought of making it into assam laksa. But salmon wasn't the best fish for assam laksa. It's too fattening.

The recipe below was adapted from Rasa Malaysia blog. See the original recipe here.



Yield : 8 servings

Ingredients :
2 can 15 oz  mackerel in brine
2 bottle of clam juice
1.5 pack dried rice noodle
salt, sugar and fish sauce to taste
1 pack assam paste for seafood (if you can't find this then you need to double the amount of spice paste)

Spice paste :
12 dried red chillies - soaked in hot water for a couple of hours
4-5 shallots or mix it with 1/2 onion
2-3 lemon grass - use only the white tender part

Tamarind juice :
4 oz tamarind
1/2 cup hot water (repeat a few times)

Toppings :
1 Iceberg lettuce - thinly sliced
1 English cucumber - thinly sliced
1/4 pineapple - cut into matchstick
3-4 shallot - minced
1 bunch of mint leaves - thinly sliced leaves part only
4-5 red thai chili - thinly sliced and seeded

Optional :
2 limes - use the juice to mix with 2 tbs of sambal chili belachan (from jar)

outer part of lemon grass in a pot with 3 cups of water

Method :
We only use the tender white part (about 2.5 inches) of the lemon grass stalks. The rest of it can be torn/bruised and put in a stock pot with about 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil and then let it simmer for about 20 minutes to get the flavor out.

Using food processor, grind the spice paste items (with help of a bit water) to make it into a paste.

Put the ground paste into the pot along with the pack of assam paste for seafood. Slowly bring it into a boil along with the clam juice. Put in 2 can of fish. Use a spatula to break down the fish.

assam paste for seafood - additional paste as short cut to some spices that are harder to get in North America

Using a spoon, break apart the tamarind that has been soaked in hot water. This will bring the tamarind tangy flavor out. You want to get the hot water turned into a brown cloudy juice before pouring the tamarind juice into the fish broth pot. Repeat this process a few time until the fish broth reached the tanginess level you want.

Add water to your soup broth if you think the broth is too thick. Then season with salt, sugar and fish sauce to taste.

Boil the noodle according to the instruction on the package. Arrange noodle on the bowl along with with the toppings. Pour hot broth in the bowl and serve immediately.

This dry noodle though harder to cook but I found it pretty close to the fresh version of round rice noodle

Tamarind used for tamarind juice

Various toppings ready to be assembled

a bowl of assam laksa ready to be devoured...yum :)