There’s a restaurant just off Oxford Street in London, called Laksamania, whose name sums up the correct response to this aromatic noodle soup, the national dish of both Malaysia and Singapore, found from Thailand to Indonesia, and deeply comforting whether you’re in Kuala Lumpur or Kings Langley. Yet, as MiMi Aye notes in her book Noodle!, “There seem to be as many variations … as there are stars in the sky”, thanks to the migration of the Peranakan people from China throughout the Malay archipelago.
By far the best known in this country, however, is probably laksa lemak, sometimes called curry or nyonya laksa, which I first fell in love with in a black and-white bungalow in Singapore on a day when the humidity topped 90%. Rich with coconut milk and salty with shrimp, with a pinch of hot chilli on top, it’s as good on a hot summer’s afternoon as it is in the depths of winter, and not half as much work as it looks, I promise.
The paste
Like any curry, laksa is defined by the base paste that’s diluted to form the gravy. Dried chillies and salty, fermented shrimp paste feature in all the recipes I try, and fresh ginger (or galangal), garlic and onion or shallot are also very common. I find, like the dried shrimp that Sylvia Tan, the cook responsible for my first laksa, uses in her book Singapore Heritage Food, the dried chillies benefit from soaking first; it makes them easier to blend into the paste. Tan’s is also the only recipe to use candlenuts, so-named for their high oil content, which give her gravy a lovely, nutty richness. They’re hard to get hold of in this country, possibly because they’re mildly toxic when raw, but macadamias make a good substitute.
Where the recipes diverge, however, is in their use of dried spices. Malaysian chef Norman Musa uses sweeter aromatics such as star anise and cinnamon along with the coriander seeds and turmeric found in Tan’s version, as well as that from Mandy Yin, the Kuala-Lumpur-born chef at my favourite laksa joint, north London’s Sambal Shiok. In fact, Musa uses the most spices of all, also adding cumin, black peppercorns and cardamom to the paste – his laksa is delicious, more savoury and complex to my and my testers’ minds than some of the others, but doesn’t quite hit the classic, comfortingly creamy notes we like so much in Yin’s. For a less rich take, however, I’d highly recommend it.
Two potential shortcuts: Mandy Lee of the website Lady and Pups uses ready-mixed curry powder instead of the dry spices, which may save you shopping, if not a great deal of time, while Olive magazine has a quick recipe using ready-made laksa paste, whizzed up with extra garlic, ginger and chilli powder, which does save a considerable amount of the latter. We all find the one I use a bit bland, but this could be adjusted to taste.
Frying the paste is an important step if you’re not to end up with a raw-tasting gravy; Yin recommends half an hour of patient stirring until it’s really dark, but it dries out under my inexpert care – half that time seems to yield a pretty decent result.
The broth
Because this is a seafood dish, I don’t think you need to add chicken stock to the broth, unless you want it to be very meaty indeed – in which case, you could do as Lee does and poach a chicken leg in it, then serve the sliced meat on top. It’s simpler, and more appropriate here, to make a prawn stock by adding their shells to plain water, along with some lemongrass for freshness and Yin’s laksa leaves, all of which can be strained out before serving. Laksa leaves are hard to come by unless you have a south-east Asian grocers nearby (ask for hot or Vietnamese mint), so if you can’t find them, do as Yin suggests, and use mint and coriander instead.
The strained prawn stock can be diluted with coconut milk to make the gravy (I wouldn’t recommend the light version I try in the Olive recipe: it’s quite thin and bland. If you’re after health food, a fishy assam laksa is probably a better bet, and seasoned according to whim: Yin, Musa and Tan all add sugar as well as salt and pepper, but taste it and see what works for you. You can also add tamarind at this point, if you’d like to make it sourer as well as saltier and sweeter, but I prefer to serve it with fresh lime on the side, not least because it’s easier.
One excellent tip from Lee: strain the paste through a fine sieve before diluting it; not only is this the easiest way to remove the shells and stalks, but unless you have the most powerful food processor in the world, it gives a much silkier texture to the finished dish.
The noodles
I’m surprised that there is no one standard noodle used for laksa: egg noodles, rice sticks, vermicelli and glass noodles all feature in the recipes I try. All have their fans, but my favourites are the rice sticks and glass noodles, both of which provide a chewier counterpoint to the rich, coconutty broth than soft egg noodles or delicate vermicelli. But use whichever you prefer.
The toppings
Lee says the only two mandatory toppings are prawns, which are “important for flavouring the broth”, and tofu, “to suck it up”. You’ll need to get big prawns for this, unless you do better than me at finding smaller raw ones with their shells still on, and I’d shell them and blanch the meat separately, rather than simmering them whole for half an hour as some recipes do – it makes them very tough and woolly. That said, because I don’t think these big prawns have a great deal of flavour however they’re cooked, I like Lee’s idea of turning them into shrimp meatballs; that might sound a faff, but they take only a minute to make, and they’re exponentially more delicious. Tofu-wise, if you can find tofu puffs (and this shouldn’t be hard – they’re fairly standard in south-east Asian supermarkets), they’re the best choice here, because, as Lee says, they soak up the gravy like a delicious sponge.
Otherwise, you can add an almost infinite array of things to laksa: blanched vegetables such as beansprouts, runner beans or sugar snap peas supply a pleasing crunch, while testers particularly liked the cool contrast of Olive’s shredded cucumber. Extra protein, such as Tan’s co*ckles or Lee’s chicken and her spicy pork sauce, is also a possibility; a boiled egg, of course, would be the simplest option.
To serve
Curry laksa is such a rich dish that I like to serve fresh chilli, pounded with a little salt, as in Tan’s recipe, as well as fresh lime wedges and a handful of coriander or laksa leaves. Oh, and a napkin to tuck into your collar. Turmeric is a devil to wash out.
Perfect laksa
Soak 30 min
Prep 25 min
Cook 55 min
Serves 4
8 large raw, shell-on prawns
4 tbsp neutral oil
1 litre water
2 lemongrass stalks, lightly crushed
50g laksa leaves (hot mint), or a mix of coriander and mint, plus extra to serve
400ml coconut milk
Sugar, salt and pepper, to taste
8 cubes deep-fried tofu (shop-bought is fine)
¼ cucumber, deseeded and finely shredded
200g wide flat dried rice noodles or vermicelli
For the paste
10 dried chillies, soaked
30g dried shrimp, soaked
75g ginger, peeled
6 garlic cloves, peeled
4 small Asian shallots (about 50g), peeled
30g shrimp paste
2 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground turmeric
5 macadamia nuts
For the prawn balls (optional)
100g pork mince
2 tbsp cornflour
1 tsp fish sauce
¼ tsp white pepper
To serve
4 red bird’s eye chillies, chopped
1 lime, cut into wedges
Soak the chillies and dried shrimp in hot water for 30 minutes, then drain. Put in a small food processor with all the other paste ingredients and whizz fairly smooth.
Shell the prawns and set the meat to one side. Heat the oil in a large saucepan, then add the paste and prawn shells, and fry, stirring, until dark and aromatic – about 10-15 minutes. Beat in the water, then add the lemongrass and laksa leaves, and bring to a boil. Turn down the heat and leave the broth to simmer gently for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, if you’re making the prawn balls, put the prawn meat in a food processor with all the remaining prawn ball ingredients and whizz to a chunky paste (otherwise, keep the prawns whole and add to the broth for the last minute of cooking). Form the prawn mixture into eight balls; wet your hands first, to make it easier to handle.
Pass the prawn stock through a fine sieve to remove the solids, squeezing out as much liquid as possible, then return the broth to the pan. Whisk in the coconut milk, return to a boil, then stir in the tofu puffs and prawn balls, and simmer gently for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, cook the noodles according to the packet instructions, then divide between four bowls.
Pound the fresh bird’s eye chillies with a little coarse salt to make a coarse paste. Check the broth for seasoning, then pour it all over the noodles. Top with the tofu and prawn balls (or whole prawns), shredded cucumber and a little fresh coriander.
Serve with the fresh chilli paste and lime wedges on the side.
Curry, nyonya or laksa lemak – whatever you call it, how do you like yours, and where makes the best? And what other laksas would you recommend to noodle soup novices?
