Malaysia – Laksa Sarawak

by Fauzan Anandika

Visiting Malaysia maybe become one of your best trips to Asia. Consist of more than 50 tribes makes Malaysia rich in culture and tradition. The Zapin, Makyong, Joged Tambak, and Tandak dance the averment of their various cultural existence. Malaysia is also known as the House of Laksa since they have nine different types of Laksa dish.

Each Laksa dish has a different taste and seasoning. Those nine Laksa dishes become an earmark to the region it resides. Like the delicious Laksa dish from the Sarawak region. According to local history, the Laksa dish originally came from mainland China. This dish is full soup seafood whose recipe was brought by traders or immigrants from China. They married the local Malay women. Laksa is an example of a cultural blend in the form of cuisine. In the beginning, the dish has a clear soup and then added with coconut milk and chilies to make a perfect blend of flavors and traditions between China and the Malay.

There are three types of Laksa, sour and salty Laksa (made from tamarind fruit and torch ginger to create a fresh broth with a strong seafood taste in the sauce, it have red color from chilies or it can be thick white). Laksa curry (using coconut milk, chilies to make a red curry, but mild curry flavor). The last is the Laksa combination (coconut milk with curry but sour and uses chilies and seafood).

Sarawak laksa is a type of Laksa combination because it contains coconut milk and curry but also has fresh broth with a sour taste from tamarind fruit, torch ginger, galangal, and lemongrass. The broth is made from shrimp and chicken broth (made from chicken legs and breast). For the seasoning, Sarawak Laksa uses various dry spices (curry) and fresh herbs (garlic, shallot, candlenut, galangal, torch ginger, red chilies, and lemongrass). Even though there are curry spices, Sarawak Laksa has a different taste from the Indian curry and Indonesian curry. From the fragrance, we will know that this Laksa sauce is fresh and contains a sour taste. Well, without any further ado, let’s cook some Laksa Sarawak.

Ingredient

• 2 tablespoon cooking oil
• 1 liter of water
• 2 tablespoon curry powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 600-gram yellow noodle, cooked
• 6 pieces of fish cake, diagonally sliced
• 5 pieces of tofu, diced cut
• 150 gram of bean sprout
• 3 egg. Make thinly omelet and sliced
• 200-gram chicken breast. Boil and cut into bite-size

Grounded spice

• 8 piece of red pepper
• 10 pieces of shallot
• 1 stalk of lemongrass
• 2 cm of galangal
• 1 cm of turmeric
• ½ teaspoon of Belacan (shrimp paste)

Grounded sauce ingredient

• 10 pieces of red eyes chili
• 3 pieces of shallot
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 tablespoon of dried shrimp
• ½ teaspoon of salt
• ½ teaspoon of sugar

Complementary

• Fried shallot
• Free lime

How to cook

1. Prepare a cooking pan, heat the cooking oil.
2. Add all the grounded spice. Stir fry until fragrant.
3. Add water, curry powder, and salt.
4. Cook until boiled.
5. Add noodle, fish cake, tofu, bean sprout, omelet, and chicken into a serving bowl.
6. Pour the soup and serve with a garnish.
7. Laksa Sarawak is ready to be served.