Assam Laksa

Recipe: Assam Laksa(亚参叻沙)
Serves: 2




Ingredients

• 400 - 500g whole Spanish mackerel / wolf herring (ikan parang) / galunggong fish
• 1150ml water
• 500g fresh or dried laksa noodles (thick rice noodles)

Tamarind Paste (view)

• 150g seedless tamarind
• 200ml hot water

Seasoning

• ½ tsp salt or to taste
• 1 TBSP sugar or to taste
• 3 TBSP Hae Ko
• lime wedges (squeeze juice to adjust sourness)

Ingredients A (Spice Paste)

• 15 to 20 dried chilies
• 4 cloves garlic (15g)
• 8 shallots (150g)
• 1 lemongrass (use white part only) - need 1 TBSP
• ½ tsp grated ginger
• 1 TBSP belacan powder (shrimp paste)
• 1/8 tsp turmeric powder / 1 tsp grated slice fresh turmeric
• 1/4 tsp galangal powder / 20g fresh galangal (grated)
• ** Heat up some oil in a pan and saute asam laksa paste over medium low or low heat for about 20 minutes until oil separates. Set aside. **

Ingredients B

• a small bunch of polygonum leaves (a.k.a Vietnamese mint or laksa leaves)
• half of a red onion

Ingredients C (Garnish)

• 1 small cucumber (julienned)
• red onion slices
• pineapple (julienned)
• cucumber (julienned)
• chopped bird's eye chillies
• finely chopped polygonum leaves
• finely chopped mint leaves
• finely chopped bunga kantan (* if available)
• Hae Ko

Measurements: tsp. = teaspoon | TBSP = tablespoon

Preparation
1. Deseed and rinse dried chilies. Put dried chilies in a pot of water and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for another 10 minutes with lid on. Turn off the heat. Allow to simmer for another 30 minutes. Drain and set aside chilies.	2. Clean fish.	3. Get 150g seedless tamarind.
4. Soak tamarind in 200ml hot water for 20 minutes. Then, grab a handful of tamarind pods and keep squeezing and squashing to separate pods from seeds and veins; Repeat process with the remaining pods. Strain and set aside tamarind paste.	5. Julienne and thinly slice garnishing ingredients. Cut lime into quarter wedges.	6. Grate ginger and lemongrass (for ingredients A).
7. Place all ingredients A into a blender.	8. Blend ingredients A into a thin paste.	9. Mix 1000ml water, half of the tamarind paste, and spice paste in a stockpot and bring to a boil. Add the remaining tamarind paste if not sour enough.
10. Add ingredients B. Reduce heat to medium low and continue simmer for 15 minutes.	11. Season soup with salt, sugar and Hae Ko. Squeeze lime wedges to get lime juice if soup is not sour enough.	12. Add cleaned whole fish. Simmer over low heat for about 15 minutes or until fish is cooked (lid ajar).
13. Remove fish from soup. Leave soup to continue simmer over very low heat. Flake 2/3 of the fish meat and leave 1/3 fish meat as chunks. Discard bones.	14. Return fish flakes into the soup. Reserve fish chunks for later use. Cook for 3 minutes over medium high heat. Then reduce heat to low and simmer for another 20 minutes.	15. Prepare another clean pot of boiling water. Sprinkle a pinch of salt into the water. Cook noodles as instructed at the back of packaging (if using dried ones) or blanch noodles for 40 seconds to a minute(if using fresh ones).
16. Put some julienned pineapple, red onion, hae ko and chopped chilies into each serving bowls.	17. Then, divide noodles and fish chunks into each serving bowls. Ladle soup into each serving bowl and garnish with the remaining garnish ingredients. Serve hot.

Notes

Extra lime wedges can be used for garnishing.