I was invited to do a demonstration cooking class at Kogarah Community Services yesterday, where I made a curry laksa (aka curry mee if you’re from Penang) based on a recipe originally supplied by the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Kuala Lumpur.
(By the way, I enjoyed the session enough that I’m currently open to offers to do more of these workshops, so if you represent a company or organisation interested in this high priestess of Malaysian cuisine coming to your venue to run a class, hit me up before I change my mind or my schedule gets clogged up).
I made some tweaks to the recipe to accommodate a combination of my own flavour preferences and what ingredients I had on hand.
Here’s the second half of a recent Twitch Live Asian Kitchen broadcast during which I made this dish >>
And here’s the original live broadcast from the Grand Hyatt KL (it’s a couple of years old), starting from the laksa portion (ie. about 10:48s in) –
Here’s the recipe I used in the workshop and also in my Twitch stream, to the best of my memory (allow for a large dose of “agak-agak” ie. guesstimating) –
Curry Laksa
INGREDIENTS:
3 brown onions, peeled
12 cloves garlic, peeled
6 large red chillies
40g mild chilli powder
100g minced lemongrass
60g dried shrimp
3 bunga kantan (ginger flower bud, optional)
150g fish curry powder
4 stalks curry leaves
2 cups oil
2L water or stock
1L coconut cream
1 Tbsp sugar
4 Tbsps chicken powder
200g tofu puffs
Noodles
Vegetables
Seafood or meat etc.
METHOD:
- Combine ingredients to fish curry powder in a blender, blend till smooth.
- Add oil and curry leaves, and fry until the onion caramelises, the paste is aromatic and the oil separates.
- Transfer half the paste into a stock pot, add water/stock, coconut cream, sugar, chicken powder and tofu puffs.
- Simmer for about 10 minutes, adjust seasoning and remove from heat.
- Separately bring water to boil in a saucepan, and use it to blanch or cook noodles, vegetables and any seafood or meat you’re using.
- Arrange in a bowl and top with the curry laksa soup before serving.
- Serve with an optional side of sambal belacan tumis (fried shrimp paste sambal).
Sambal Belacan Tumis
INGREDIENTS:
1 ½ cups chillies, cut into chunks
6 bird’s eye chillies (optional)
1 ½ onions
2 Tbsp belacan powder (or equivalent if using Thai shrimp paste or Malaysian/Indonesian shrimp paste blocks)
1 ½ tsp sugar
2 Tbsp soya sauce or fish sauce
½ Tbsp chicken powder (optional)
½ cup oil
METHOD:
- Blend chillies and onions to desired consistency.
- Heat oil in frying pan. Add chilli/onion puree and all other ingredients and cook until oil separates and onion is aromatic – approximately 15-20 minutes.
- Allow to cool, then store in glass jar. Sambal will keep in fridge for 6 weeks or in freezer for 6 months.
