Chicken Curry Laksa

Chicken Curry Laksa

While chicken curry laksa is a popular restaurant dish across Southeast Asia, making it at home is entirely doable. It’s as simple as blending a spice paste, cooking it off and poaching some chicken thighs. It gets its complexity from rempah, a fragrant spice paste made with ingredients such as lemongrass and galangal (which can be swapped for ginger). This recipe calls for making your own rempah, but to save time, you can buy a good-quality paste and enhance it with fresh lemongrass, ginger and garlic (see Tip 2). The coconut milk-based broth is spicy, savory and rich, but not heavy, based on the curry laksa found at hawker centers in Malaysia and Singapore. The flavor improves over time, so it’s a dish worth making in advance.

Yield: 4 servings 

For the Chicken

1 pound chicken thighs, skin-on and bone-in

1 (½-inch) piece ginger, unpeeled, bruised and sliced into 5 pieces

3 lemongrass stalks, woody and dark green parts only (white parts reserved for the paste) 

6 cups unsalted chicken stock (see Tip 1)

For the Laksa Paste (if Using Store-bought Paste, See Tip 2)

6 to 10 dried chiles, such as tianjin, Sichuan er jing tiao or chile de arbol, soaked in boiling water

⅓ cup dried shrimp, soaked in ½ cup boiling water (See Tip 3)

6 to 10 garlic cloves, peeled

1 ounce candlenuts, or macadamia, cashew or Brazil nuts

2 to 3 medium shallots, peeled, roughly chopped

3 lemongrass stalks, white parts only, roughly chopped (reserved from above)

1 (4-inch) piece ginger, peeled and sliced 

1 (3-inch) piece fresh turmeric root, peeled

4 teaspoons belacan or terasi (optional) (see Tip 3)

1 tablespoon table salt

½ cup peanut oil, or neutral oil

1 tablespoon ground coriander

1 tablespoon ground cumin

3 tablespoons Thai or Vietnamese tamarind paste (see Tip 4)

2½ teaspoons sugar

For the Soup

One 14-ounce can full-fat coconut milk

½ pound raw peeled jumbo shrimp or king prawns, tails on

6 fried tofu puffs, halved or quartered

14 ounces fresh Hokkien egg noodles (see Tip 5)

2 ounces dried rice vermicelli noodles

3½ ounces fresh bean sprouts

For Serving

Store-bought crispy shallots

Vietnamese mint (laksa leaves) or a combination of mint and cilantro leaves

Sambal belacan, sambal nasi lemak or sambal oelek 

Lime wedges

Poach the chicken: Place the chicken thighs, ginger slices, bruised lemongrass and chicken stock in a large saucepan. Cover with a lid and bring to a simmer. Adjust the lid to allow some steam to escape, and reduce the heat to low so the stock is barely simmering. Cook for 10 minutes, then remove from the heat and leave submerged for an additional 10 minutes. Remove the chicken, set aside to cool slightly, and discard the aromatics. Reserve the stock. When the chicken is cool enough to handle, remove the skin and bones and roughly shred the chicken into large pieces and strips. Set aside.

While the chicken cooks, make the paste. Drain the dried chiles and dried shrimp and discard the water. Combine the dried chilies, dried shrimp, garlic, candlenuts, shallots, lemongrass, ginger, turmeric, belacan and salt in a high-speed blender (or food processor) and blend until smooth, scraping down the sides, if needed.

Heat the oil in a large, wide-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat until the oil begins to shimmer. Add the paste and cook, stirring regularly, for 15 to 20 minutes, until the paste darkens slightly. Add the coriander, cumin, tamarind paste and sugar and stir together, and cook until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes more.

Add the coconut milk and reserved chicken stock to the spice paste and stir together. Bring to a low simmer and cook for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the soup thickens slightly. Add the prawns and tofu puffs, and simmer until just cooked through, about 2 minutes. Taste the soup and season with salt, if needed.

Meanwhile, cook both noodles according to the packet instructions and divide evenly among four large bowls.

Divide the soup, prawns, tofu, chicken and bean sprouts evenly among the bowls. Top with crispy shallots, Vietnamese mint and a little sambal and serve with lime wedges.

Tips: If using salted chicken stock, omit the 1 tablespoon salt in the recipe, and season to taste.

If using store-bought laksa paste, use one 7-ounce jar, such as Por Kwan brand. Skip Steps 2 and 3. Roughly chop the white parts of 3 lemongrass stalks, 3-inch piece of peeled ginger and 2 garlic cloves. Blitz in a high-speed blender or food processor. Add 1 tablespoon peanut oil (or neutral oil) to a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over a medium heat. Add the paste and lemongrass mixture and cook for 5 minutes or until fragrant. Add 1½ tsp ground cumin, 1½ tsp ground coriander, 1 tablespoon Thai or Vietnamese tamarind paste and 1 teaspoon sugar and cook for 1 minute. Proceed with Step 4.

Dried shrimp is readily available online and at most Asian supermarkets and is essential to the recipe. Belacan and terasi are Malaysian and Indonesian fermented shrimp pastes. Belacan and terasi can be bought online and at some Asian supermarkets, but can be more difficult to find.

Thai and Vietnamese tamarind paste is recommended, instead of more intense Indian variety. If using Indian tamarind paste, season sparingly and to taste.

Laksa is often served with both Hokkien (egg) noodles and vermicelli (rice) noodles, but you can replace the Hokkien noodles with vermicelli if you want to cook just one type of noodle.