Singapore Laksa

A few months ago, I went to lunch at a nice Singapore girl's place here in Stuttgart. And came home with a branch from her laksa plant.

Being a plant killer, I wasn't too convinced that this branch would survive. But it did. It's now a big plant, with lots of branches. It must be one of those hard-to-die kind of plant. And I have so many laksa leaves I do not know if I'll ever be able to eat them all.

Last night I made a Singapore Laksa with the leaves from MY plant :-). Needless to say, it was good. (All measurements aga-aga kind, I'm a feeling kind of cook...)

The spice paste :

1 thumb-sized Turmeric

3-4 pieces Galangal

1 stalk Lemongrass

Lots of Laksa leaves

10 Dried chillies

2 Red chillies

2 Candlenuts

2 Tbsp Shrimp paste

5-6 Shallots

4 Garlic cloves

1 Tbsp ground Coriander seeds

1 Tbsp Palm sugar

Pound or ground all of the above into a fine paste.

In a pot, brown some sliced onions, a fistfull of pounded dried shrimps and heads from about 20 raw and fresh Tiger prawns. Fry the paste till fragrant. Add in 6-10 laksa leaves shredded. Stir in 1 can of Coconut milk. Stir in 3 cups of chicken or seafood stock. Add salt and pepper to taste. Adjust liquid amount before serving (I usually add more milk to have more soup).

Serve the soup piping hot with fresh coriander leaves, slices of fish cake, tau pok, thick rice vermicelli and thick yellow noodles (or like in my case, Spaghetti), bean sprouts, more chilli and of course the prawns. These prawns can be cooked in the soup just before being served (so as not to overcook them), or you could do it like me, I had them grilled in my heavy-iron grill with olive oil, salt and pepper because I like to lick the salt off the shells before I peel them :-).

PS : This is an improved version I made a few weeks later with pan-seared scallops, codfish, tiger prawns, zucchini...