Laksa Assam

Ladies and gentlemen, let us salute the supreme noodle soup. The king of Malaysian cuisine, in fact. Malaysia’s national dish should be Assam Laksa or Asam Laksa. It’s the one that I long for and that makes me sob since I have to take a plane to get to the wonderful stuff. Basically, it’s so darn good that I see rainbows with every blissful spoonful.

To think that years ago I didn’t like this hot and sour mixture! For me, when the family had assam laksa, it meant quick noodles. Then, (luckily), as my palate developed, I started to enjoy sour foods. I wasn’t converted until I traveled to Malaysia in 2008 and tried it from the street hawkers there. I noticed the light. I was smitten, too.

I’m not sure I could adequately explain why I adore Assam Laksa so much. It is a riot of flavors and is intensely fragrant. The mackerel gives the soup a delicious fish flavor, and the tamarind and lemongrass add a sour note. The soup is also salty, hot, and sweet. With each bite of chewy noodles that have been lusciously covered in the thick murky broth, the aroma of the spices catches your nostrils. The pineapple is sweet and helps to balance the sour tamarind soup while the onions offer an extra dash of spice. The crispness of the julienned cucumbers and the final punch of fresh mint remain my favorite parts throughout. Every spoonful is a wonderful riot, and each one is superior to the last.

Is it obvious that this is love?

Sydney has a large number of Malaysian eateries, but alas, Assam Laksa is rarely on their menus, and even then, it is never as rich as it is at home. Fortunately, most reputable Asian stores and grocers in Sydney have the ingredients, so there was no reason to put it off any longer. More so now that I’ve learned that polygonum and mint were truly grown in the yard, right in front of my eyes. So, with little encouragement from Mother, I started from scratch, believing it would help me remember a little bit of “home.”

Don’t be deterred by the ingredient list. The secret is simple to season it appropriately for the ideal balance of sour, sweet, and salty. It’s not as strange as it seems, and the real process is not difficult at all. It’s not as difficult as you may imagine because the spice paste can be prepared in advance and the soup just requires slightly more than an hour of cooking time. It’s pretty good for a homemade laksa prepared outside of Malaysia, in my opinion. Actually, I absolutely adored it. The Father, though, delivered the judgment that counted, declaring it to be identical to Malaysia’s (woohoo) and, gasp, even superior to Mother’s (double woohoo, but don’t tell her that lol).

It goes without saying that the next batch is already simmering.

Ingredients

Spice Paste:

• 10 to 12 dried red chillies, deseeded, and roughly chopped after softening in warm water.
• Deseeded and roughly sliced, six tiny fresh red chillies
• 8 French shallots, peeled and roughly cut, weighing around 100g
• Peeled and roughly chopped 8 garlic cloves, weighing approximately 35g.
• 2 lemongrass stalks, sliced roughly only on the white parts
• 40g of a 5 cm piece of galangal
• 1 teaspoon of belacan paste or 1.5 teaspoons of belacan powder
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable or canola oil

Stock:

• 800g or two entire mackerel fish
• Water, 2.5 liters
• a few extra fish heads or bones (optional, but strengthens the flavor of the fishy soup)

Soup:

• 100g pulp from seedless tamarinds
• hot water in 125ml
• 5 pieces of dried tamarind skin (asam gelugor/asam keping) or dried tamarind peel
• 5 huge sprigs of polygonum odoratum (Vietnamese mint, coriander, and laksa leaf)
• 1 teaspoon salt, tasted, etc.
• 3 tablespoons of sugar, tasted,
• Fish sauce, 1 teaspoon
• 2-3 tablespoons of hae ko (adjust to taste) or prawn paste

Method

The paste for:

All the spice ingredients should be pounded into a paste using a stick blender, food processor, or mortar and pestle. When preparing this ahead of time, keep it in the refrigerator in a clean jar until you’re ready to use it.

To make the soup:

Your mackerel should be cleaned, gutted, scaled, and blood rinsed off (you can ask your fishmonger to do this for you; just be sure to save the heads). The 2.5 liters of water should come to a boil before you carefully add the fish and any additional fish heads or bones, if any.

After 10 minutes of cooking, remove the entire mackerel from the saucepan, leaving the other bones behind. Set the mackerels aside to chill while turning down the stock’s heat.

The tamarind pulp should be combined with warm water and given some time to stand. To disintegrate the tamarind pulp and release the juice, squeeze it. Squeeze continuously until all of the pulp has crumbled. Put aside after straining. Use a stick blender to combine the water and pulp before adding them to the fish stock for a quicker solution.

Simmer on low for 40 minutes after adding the spice paste, tamarind juice, tamarind peel, and polygonum leaves. To taste, add prawn paste, fish sauce, salt, and sugar.

When the mackerel has sufficiently cooled, separate the flesh from the fish with your hands and set it aside. Make sure all the bones, brown parts, and skin are gone. Set away after flaking.

After straining the stock, taste it for salt and sugar to ensure a balance of salty, sour, and sweet flavors. The remainder of the flaked mackerel can be used to decorate the bowls after adding roughly a third to the soup. More fish flakes will make the soup thicker.

Place cooked noodles in dishes and then pour hot soup on top. Serve immediately with prawn paste on the side and garnish with mint leaves, cucumber, onions, pineapple, and chillies.