Photo credit: My dad
My grandmother cooks the most delicious, scrumptious, and comforting food. One of my favorites would be a dish she makes that is called Asam Laksa. This dish is a spicy and sour fish soup with fresh thick and thin rice noodles that incorporates Malaysian and Chinese elements from my cultural background, especially from my families Hokkien background, which is a dialect that is commonly spoken in Malaysia.
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A little history lesson about Asam Laksa is that people believe that the dish was created by the Chinese in the 15th century where most of them were of a Hokkien decent. Therefore this was a Hokkien dish that was cooked by many generations of my family, with the recipe passed down and refined every single time. Hokkien is just one of the many countless dialects from China in each little province. Mandarin is the official dialect in China, however a majority of the “older” generation cannot fluently speak Mandarin, and instead can speak multiple different dialects. Each dialect may sound similar to each other sometimes however, they would usually mean different things. Each dialect has different pronunciations and accents, which the younger generation cannot really relate to. Therefore China has been trying to focus on making Mandarin the most important and commonly used language in China so that it would be more universal. Especially for tourists to communicate with them. You can learn more about this issue from the New York Times article.
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Asam Laksa is a very hearty and warm meal that I constantly crave, especially when I am homesick while I am here in the States and when it is cold outside. I have tried this dish from countless restaurants away from home, however my grandmother’s Asam Laksa remains to always be the most delicious one to eat, as I can taste her warmth and love from the dish, which never fails to make me feel extremely satisfied, as it always does the trick. Not to mention the amazing nap you get to take right after this meal.
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It usually takes more than half a day to prepare this dish and my grandmother wakes up extremely early in the morning to start the preparations. She usually prepares the whole dish by herself with some help from my grandfather who will do some of the chopping, slicing, and shredding for some of the components to the dish.
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There are a lot of ingredients for this dish, and most of them you can only get in Asia, especially if you want fresh and more flavorful ingredients. One of the main ingredients of Asam Laksa is the asam, which is the malay word for tamarind as it gives the soup that sour flavor. To balance out the sourness, we also add kembung fish, which is also commonly known to most people as mackerel. This particular fish has very deep and rich flavors that enhance the stock of the soup to bring out more of its complex flavors and smells. After my grandmother steams the fish, my grandfather helps her by shredding the fish and carefully removing each and every small bone before adding it to the soup. It is an extremely tedious task that takes some time to complete, but we all know that nobody would want to get a bone stuck in their throat while enjoying this scrumptious dish. Once the broth of the soup has simmered in the pot, it turns into a delectable light gravy-like texture from the mackerel, lemongrass, and mint leaves.
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When the soup is almost ready to be served, my grandmother will always call me to do a little taste test to see if any thing is missing. When she lifts the lid from the pot, I take a deep breath as I take in all the succulent and rich aromas from the tamarind, lemongrass, laksa leaves which are also known as mint, tons of shallots, chillies, and mackerel. Of course to top it all off, there are the amazing and colorful garnishes which are a vital component to Asam Laksa and it is basically like the whipped cream and cherry on top of a delicious sundae, which would be incomplete without it.
Each garnish for the Asam Laksa enhances the different flavors and textures of the dish. There are the mint leaves which give the dish a refreshing and sweet flavor. The thinly sliced cucumber helps to cool your tongue down if the spiciness is too much for you. The juicy, sweet, and succulent pineapple slices. Sliced red onions to enhance the flavor of the broth. Plus the sweet and salty thick black prawn paste called haeko or petis udang, which has a very distinguishable smell that most people cannot stand as it can be quite pungent. However once it is mixed with gravy the flavors intertwine with one another to form an amazing dish. For all my spicy lovers out there you can add chopped chillies if you really want to turn up the heat.
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My grandmother constantly tweaks the dish every time she makes it, making it more and more delicious than the time before; she calls me her number one food critic because I never fail to rave about it to everyone I know. Asam Laksa has continued to be a family favorite due to the fact that it is extremely delicious, and it is always good enough for a group of people to eat because you cannot just make a complex broth like this for just one person. It takes a lot of time and effort to make just the broth alone, and my grandmother never ever complains about it every single time that she makes it for us all. As she always tells me, “it’s a labor of love.”
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The best part about this dish is that there are always leftovers for the next couple of days and somehow the sour fish broth seems to taste even better they day after. Asam Laksa can be an acquired taste for some people who have not tried many different types of food, however if you’re a foodie like me who loves to try new things and loves eating anything delicious, I am one hundred percent sure you will not be disappointed by my grandmother’s dish.
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Ingredients (Good for 5-6 people)
1kg of thick and thin round rice noodles
1.5kg of mackerel
10 cups of water
1/2 tsp of salt
15 stalks of mint
3 stalks of lemongrass, pounded
6 tbsp of dried tamarind, soaked in hot water
3-4 tbsp sugar
Salt
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(To blend for Asam Laksa paste)
20 cloves of shallots
4 cloves of garlic
1 galangal
1 fresh turmeric (or 1 tsp ground turmeric)
6 fresh red chillies
5 dried red chillies, seeded and soaked in warm water
1 tbsp belacan (shrimp paste)
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(For Garnishing)
5 small red chillies (chilli padi), sliced
1 pineapple, diced
1 cucumber, shredded
2 large red onion, thinly sliced
Mint leaves
Black prawn paste (haeko)
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Steps:
Boil the water and add the mackerel and salt, bring to a boil again and let it simmer for about 15 minutes until the mackerel is cooked. Remove the mackerel and save the stock to use for the broth. Flake the fish and remove all bones.
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Add the lemongrass, mint and tamarind into the stock and the blended ingredients. Bring to a boil and let it simmer for about 30 minutes. Add the tamarind juice, salt and sugar, and bring to a boil. Put the flaked fish in the into the stock and let it simmer in low heat.
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Cook the noodles in boiling water with a pinch of salt.
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Put noodles into a bowl, pour the soup, add garnishing, and it’s ready to eat.
Health & Happiness 