Seafood Laksa recipe - Easy coconut curry

I mentioned to someone at work that I needed to stock up on Laksa Paste. My colleague looked at me in horror. The problem is that it sounds like I was talking about ointment for my bunghole, when I was in fact talking about a key ingredient in Seafood Laksa, one of the tastiest recipes I know. Just like a lot of the recipes I post on here, it's easy, it takes very little time, and tastes like something you would expect to get in a fine Asian restaurant. It's good served in small bowls as a starter, but works best served as a hearty and warming main meal.

The hardest part of this recipe is getting some Laksa Paste. I have been relying on Penta brand laksa paste, and it looks like this:

It's available in the world foods section of Tesco, but they'll probably expect you to beep it through the checkout yourself, and that's just rude. They'll be getting you to get up at 4am to stock the shelves yourself before you know it. Try and get it from an independent shop or an Asian supermarket if you can.

Laksa curry is a Malaysian and Singaporean dish. It's a coconut curry soup full of seafood and noodles. It's a good dish to make if you are serving a table full of people without getting into a panic about timing everything right and having enough space in the oven or on the hob.

The soup is made by mixing a couple of tablespoons of Laksa paste with chicken stock and coconut milk in a pan and heating it up. Laksa paste contains chilli, but is still fairly mild, so at this stage you might choose to add some chillis (fresh are best, but chilli flakes are fine).

Cook some noodles. Any type will do, but vermicelli are the authentic noodles to use. Cook a selection of seafood in the soup (don't overcook the seafood), along with a few baby corn, a few beansprouts and water chestnuts. For the seafood, I like to use prawns, bits of squid, pieces of salmon, and a few scallops. If you can get fried tofu, use some of that. I've seen it for sale frozen in asian shops, as it's a pain in the arse to make.

Laksa curry. Notice the deep fried tofu bottom left

Grab the serving bowl, and in each one put some noodles, then share out the seafood. Then pour the soup over the top and garnish with a bit of coriander, a couple of slices or strips of cucumber and half a boiled egg. The egg seems like an odd choice, but just trust me on this one, the Malaysians know what they're doing with this stuff.

I don't like to get into specific recipes and measurements for recipes like this one where you can improvise with it depending on what you like or what you've got in the house, but below are a few detailed recipes to get you started

BBC Good Food Prawn Laksa recipe
Seafood Laksa recipe from Taste.com.au
video of the recipe from http://www.asiafoodrecipe.com

And click HERE for a Laksa blog!

If you don't like seafood, do the exact same recipe with bits of chicken, but cook the chicken thoroughly just before you throw it into the soup.

Enjoy your meal, or as the french say "Eeet theeez food, you peeg!"


Update 11/04/2012:
It seems that Tesco have stopped stocking Penta laksa paste, as have a number of online retailers. It is my brand of choice at the moment, as a couple of other ones I've tried have been too spicy. I like spicy food, but my wife doesn't, so the extremely mild heat of the Penta brand stuff works because I can cook for us both and then throw loads of chillies in my bowl. I found a plentiful supply when i visited a Hoo Hing Supermarket today.

If you have a favourite brand of Laksa paste, then please comment and let me know. I'm all up for trying new ones.