Name: Curry Laksa (Coconut Curry Noodle Soup)
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 1 h
Total time: 1 h 45 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Malaysian
Ingredients: 15 pcs dried chillies; 150 g shallots; 5 cloves garlic; 3 stalks lemongrass; 30 g galangal; 20 g ginger; 20 g fresh turmeric; 6 pcs macadamia nuts; 2 tsp belacan; 2 tbsp dried shrimp; 1 tbsp ground coriander; 1 tsp ground cumin; 1 tsp ground fennel; 1 tbsp curry powder; 6 tbsp neutral oil; 1.2 L chicken stock; 400 ml coconut milk; 1.5 tsp salt; 1 tsp sugar; 200 g fresh yellow noodles; 100 g rice vermicelli; 400 g chicken thighs; 12 pcs prawns; 8 pcs tofu puffs; 100 g fish cake; 150 g bean sprouts; 2 pcs boiled eggs; 2 tbsp sambal; 1 handful mint leaves; 1 pc lime

Ingredients

4servings

Rempah (spice paste)
dried chillies · deseeded and soaked in hot water; they are for colour and aroma more than heat15 pcs
shallots · onion works but comes out sweeter150 g
garlic5 cloves
lemongrass · white part only, thinly sliced3 stalks
galangal · not the same thing as ginger; ginger will do but the aroma changes30 g
ginger20 g
fresh turmeric · or 1 tsp ground20 g
macadamia nuts · candlenuts traditionally; they give the broth body. Cashews also work6 pcs
belacan · Malaysian shrimp paste; it must be toasted first2 tsp
dried shrimp · soaked 15 minutes; the floor the savouriness stands on2 tbsp
Ground spices
ground coriander1 tbsp
ground cumin1 tsp
ground fennel1 tsp
curry powder · Malaysian meat curry powder is the closest thing1 tbsp
Broth
neutral oil · skimp here and the oil will never break out of the paste6 tbsp
chicken stock1.2 L
coconut milk · last of all; reduced-fat versions split easily400 ml
salt1.5 tsp
sugar · palm sugar if you have it1 tsp
Noodles
fresh yellow noodles · udon noodles stand in200 g
rice vermicelli · bihun; using both is the standard, not a compromise100 g
To top
chicken thighs · poached in the broth, then shredded400 g
prawns · peeled12 pcs
tofu puffs · halved, so they soak up broth8 pcs
fish cake · thinly sliced100 g
bean sprouts · 30 seconds, no more150 g
boiled eggs · halved2 pcs
sambal · a spoonful in the centre of each bowl, stirred in by whoever is eating2 tbsp
mint leaves · laksa leaf is the authentic one if you can find it1 handful
lime · in wedges1 pc

Steps

Shake the seeds out of the dried chillies and soak them in hot water for 20 minutes. Soak the dried shrimp separately for 15.
⏲ 20 min
Wrap the belacan in foil and toast it in a dry pan, 2 minutes each side. The smell shifts unmistakably from sharp to nutty. Used raw, that ammoniac edge stays in the broth.
⏲ 5 min
Blend the soaked chillies, shallots, garlic, lemongrass, galangal, ginger, turmeric, macadamias, dried shrimp and toasted belacan into a thick paste. Add only the minimum water needed to get the blades moving — more water doubles the next step.
⏲ 10 min
Fry the paste in 6 tbsp oil in a wide pan over medium-low heat for 15-20 minutes. It sputters like boiling water at first, thickens steadily, and at the end the red oil separates out of the paste and rises to the surface. Malaysia calls this pecah minyak, the oil breaking, and it is the destination.
⏲ 20 min
Add the four ground spices and fry 2 minutes more. There is plenty of oil by now so they will not catch, and ground spices need oil to open into as much as whole ones do.
⏲ 2 min
Pour in the stock, scraping the base until the paste is fully dissolved. Add the chicken thighs, simmer 20 minutes, then lift them out, cool and shred by hand.
⏲ 20 min
Add the coconut milk and never let it boil. Hold it at a bare tremble for 5 minutes and season with salt and sugar. At a rolling boil its fat and protein separate into grains and the broth turns rough — the exact opposite of the split you engineered in step 4, and this one cannot be undone.
⏲ 5 min
Halve the tofu puffs and simmer them with the fish cake for 3 minutes. The puffs are sponges, and these 3 minutes are when they fill with broth.
⏲ 3 min
Add the prawns for 2 minutes and lift them out as soon as they turn. Blanch the bean sprouts for 30 seconds in the noodle water — longer and the crunch is gone.
⏲ 3 min
Boil the yellow noodles 2 minutes and the vermicelli 1, rinse both in cold water, shake dry and put them in the bowls together. Mixing the two is how this soup is served: the slippery rice noodle and the springy wheat one eat differently in the same broth.
⏲ 5 min
Pile the chicken, prawns, tofu puffs, fish cake, sprouts and egg on the noodles and pour the hot broth over. Put a spoonful of sambal in the centre, add mint and a lime wedge, and serve. Do not stir the sambal in — that is the eater's decision about heat.
⏲ 3 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Asam laksa (Penang). A different branch entirely, with no coconut milk: mackerel

poached and flaked, tamarind for the sourness, pineapple, cucumber and onion piled on top. Same name, opposite axis of flavour — richness against sourness — which is why someone who met laksa in one shop can be baffled by the next.

Sarawak laksa sits in between, using sambal belacan and tamarind but coconut milk

too, over thin vermicelli with shredded omelette and prawns.

Katong laksa (Singapore) cuts the noodles short so the whole bowl can be eaten with

a spoon. Its broth is the closest to this recipe.

To make it vegetarian, replace the belacan and dried shrimp with a tablespoon of

miso and some toasted nori, and top with tofu puffs and shiitake. You are changing where the savouriness comes from, so taste as you go.

Make the rempah in quantity. Frozen in an ice cube tray after step 4 it keeps two

months. The same paste logic starts rendang, where the frying simply continues past the oil break to drive the colour darker.

Set against Thai green curry the difference is clear: the Thai

paste leans on fresh herbs and galangal, while a Malaysian rempah adds dried shrimp, belacan and nuts, which is why this broth is the heavier of the two.

Tips

Frying to the oil break is the whole dish. Once the water in the paste has gone it

stops stewing and starts frying, and the aroma changes completely at that point. Fifteen minutes feels long, but stopping at twelve leaves the broth raw and shallow (emulsions and pan sauces).

And yet the coconut milk must not break. The dish contains two opposite splits: in

the paste, driving the oil out is the goal; in the finished broth, a broken emulsion floating in grains is the failure. That is why the coconut milk goes in last and never boils.

Toast the belacan. The harsh volatiles in fermented shrimp paste cook off. Skip

those two minutes and the smell is in every spoonful, with nothing able to cover it (building umami).

The dried chillies are colour, not heat. Deseeded, fifteen of them is mild. Heat is

meant to be dialled in per bowl with the sambal.

Do not skip the nuts. Six candlenuts or macadamias are what thicken the broth.

Compensating with extra coconut milk instead gives you richness with no body.

Two noodles, both rinsed. Rinsing takes off the alkaline taste and surface starch

that would cloud the broth; the hot broth reheats them in the bowl.

Lime at the end. Coconut, nuts and oil all pull the same way, so the bowl needs one

source of acid (balancing flavour).

The broth keeps 3 days refrigerated, 2 months frozen. Cook noodles and toppings

fresh each time: noodles left sitting in broth are mush within half an hour. It is also good poured over rice, nasi goreng style.

The basics behind this dish

Cooking basics →

More of the same kind

Noodles →

More from this country

Nasi Lemak

Malaysian →