I must say, I am very fortunate to have friends who care about what i eat and I am a very proud owner of the remaining gramms of PONG’s Laksa paste. Laksa has been a favourite all my life and despite thousands of recipes that I have tried, this laksa paste was the bestI’ve had in years. Authentic, pungent and spicy and easy to make, you feel like you’re in ASia, if only the thermometer wouldn’t show -5°c outside  all the time! There are many kinds of laksa in in south east asia. Penang is famous for it’s Penang Laksa and the secret lays with the bunga kantan (ginger flower) they use.

Laksa comes from the sanskrit language meaning ” 1000 ingredients ” and the best places to get the best laksa in town is at a hawker stall.  OK, you have a point there, there’s no hawker stall in europe… but you can still get the paste and help yourself out.  It’s a soupy delicious  meal. Here’s how it goes:

Ingredients: (makes 2)

Gravy:

200g PONG’s Katong Laksa
1l water
400ml Coconut Milk
100ml Condense Milk
1 teasp. Sugar
Salt

Garnishing:
6-8 fresh prawns (peeled and shelled, leaving the tails on)
150g Beansprouts
1 hardboiled egg

100g pork (optional)
150g fried Tofu, sliced (optional)
100g boiled chicken (optional)
200-250g Laksa noodles (rice flour noodles without eggs!)

2-3 Stalks of mint leaves

Method:

Boil the water in a pot. Once boiling, add laksa paste and continue simmering for 10 mins. Lower heat. Add coconut and condense milk, carefully stiring all the time, making sure that the gravy now does not boil. Add sugar and salt to taste.  Let it simmer very softly for another 10 mins. In the meantime, boil the eggs and slice, blanch the beansprouts for 2 mins, boil the noodles (do not overcook!) and lastly boil your prawns, either in the gravy itself, or separately. Put all this in a serving bowl.

Make sure that the gravy is hot (but not boiling) when you pour the gravy over the noodles. Serve immediately and hot, and enjoy!