Vegetarian Laksa

Teh:

Are you tired of disappointing tasting food? Was lunch just somehow not satisfying it? Is it the same old greasy and tasteless meal? My dear readers, i implore (yes implore!) you to cook something yourself! That will end all dissatisfaction. Yes of course it may not taste fantastic but the fruits of your labour will definitely add a sense of appreciation and a promise to try harder in future!

This is the Vegetarian Laksa i cooked over the weekend. Another premix experiment. For $3.20, this premix is a keeper!

Vegetarian Laksa Premix

Vegetarian Laksa

The cooking method is fairly simple. This pack of premix will serve 7 servings. This is what i did:

1. Stir fry 1 pack of Laksa premix in a pot you will be using to cook the laksa until it is fragrant. Add some laksa leaves (like 10 or more) if you have. I suggest you buy it. For a few cents, it really enhances the whole awesome laksa flavour.

2. Add in 2 litres of water, mix, bring the soup to a boil. At this point in time, you can remove the chilli oil that floats to the top of the soup if you want. I removed the oil because i didn't want the soup base to be oily or too spicy. You can reserve the oil and add it to individual servings as desired.

3. Add as many sliced tau pok (fried beancurd) as you want. I used 8 pieces of regular sized tau pok for this. You can use all 10 pieces that came in the packet if you want. The more the merrier. My mum likes the tau pok to be really soft. So i ended up simmering the soup for an hour. When the tau pok sinks to the bottom of the pot, you know it is soft enough!

4. At this point in time, add 750ml of coconut milk. Now, the issue of the coconut milk is a little tricky. Do you use thick coconut milk (store bought pack) or squeeze your own fresh one? What happened to me was i squeezed my own coconut milk. But it ended up as pretty diluted because i didn't buy enough coconut to squeeze milk from (ya, what the hell was i thinking?). I added 750ml of not thick coconut milk to the soup and realised something was very wrong! The colour looks bad, it is diluted, the laksa taste was bland (but salty). I was worried. In the end i decided to go buy a pack of 250ml of thick coconut milk and added it to the pot. The above mentioned lacklustre soup magically transformed into REAL LAKSA. My mum also added 3 small cubes of rock sugar into the pot and i think that was a nice trick. The laksa soup came out wonderfully tasty. So what i suggest is to add 750ml of thick coconut milk slowly until the desired soup thickness is achieved.

5. Blanch yellow noodles or thick bee hoon as you prefer. Blanch bean sprouts. Add any ingredients you want. Here i used vegetarian otah and sliced mock prawns.

6. To top it all off, i add some chopped up laksa leaves. That was really the icing on the soup!

I'll definitely buy this premix again when the laksa craving strikes.