Sarawak Laksa

My family fall in love with this noodle on the first try. It was prepared from my neighbor and after that, she has been giving me a lot of advices on how to make a good Laksa. She has advised me to use the commercial Laksa paste in order to master my cooking before considering making the paste from scratch.

This is my 4th attempt and I would say, it is time for me to go to the next level; making the paste from scratch.... I do hope this plan will come true one day :)

But before that, it is good if I share some tips on how to make a good Laksa noodle using commercial Laksa paste. I am really lucky to have a neighbor who always bring back the Laksa paste to me and also taught me how to prepare this noodle. She has been selling Sarawak Laksa for more than 10 years.

There are few tips in order to make the noodle tastes good. As for the ingredient, besides using fresh coconut milk, adding a few drops of fish sauce can improve the soup's flavour. Since we are using beehoon as the noodle, it is the best if we blanch the beehoon with the soup base so that the soup flavor can be absorbed into the beehoon.

You may choose any garnishing that you like. Since my husband loves roast pork, I have added in just to match his liking! Therefore, you may find that this may not look like the original of the Sarawak Laksa!


Ingredients (8-10 people)

600g commercial Laksa Paste
1500 ml of water
700-1000 ml of coconut juice (depending on the individual preference)
A few drop of fish sauce
Salt to taste

Garnish
1 kg of prawns, clean and deveined
1 chicken breast
5 eggs
600g of roast pork
Some mint leaves
Some limes
300 g of bean sprout
1 packet of beehoon, soaked with water
1 kg of yellow noodle

1. Boil water and cook the prawns and chicken breast. Soak the prawns and chicken breast in cold water upon cook. This step will prevent the prawns and chicken breast from further cook while maintain the juiciness in the meat.

2. Using the same boil water, add in the commercial Laksa Paste and boil for another 30 minutes. This is to make sure that all the aroma and flavour from the Laksa Paste diffuse into the water.

3. After 30 minutes, sieve out the spices traces. Then, add in coconut juice into the soup (without any spices traces) and the added amount is depending on the individual preference. Since I prefer a watery soup, I am using only 700 ml of coconut juice. If may add more if you prefer a thicker soup. Add in a few drop of fish sauce to taste.

4. Garnishing: Peel the chicken breast into thin strips. Cut the roast pork into small slices.


5. As for the eggs, beat the eggs lightly with a fork. Add some salt and pepper. During frying, coat a thin layer (~2-3mm) of egg layer on a pan. Once it is cooked, remove from the pan and set aside. Continue with the remainder egg mixture and depending on the size of the pan, you may get 3-5 pieces of thin layer of egg. Once the egg layers are cool, cut into small slices.

6. Bean sprout and yellow noodle: Boil a pot of water and blanch the bean sprout and noodle separately. The main objective of blanching the yellow noodle is to remove the excessive oil and it should be done within 1-2 seconds. Do not cook the yellow noodle.

7. Noodle: Using a clean pot, transfer around 250 ml of curry soup base into it. Once the soup base is boiling, add a small handful of beehoon and yellow noodle (from step 6). Cook until the noodle are cooked. Serve and garnish the noodle in a bowl. You may serve with Belacan Dipping Sauce for better taste.

Yummy.....let's feast!

Melt-In-Mouth Pineapple Cookies

I have just finished my Spring Cleaning for the Chinese New Year also known as Spring Festival. This is the culture for Chinese to clean their house before Chinese New Year which we believe this will sweep away all the bad luck. Every nook and cranny of the home is scrubbed, broken furniture and appliances discarded, and dirt is swept away to unsure Chinese New Year starts off right. This is a big day where I can still recall my grandmother will choose an auspicious date to start off the job. In fact, we were using bamboo leaves to clean the house in order to sweep away the 'dirty unknown' stuff!!! As comparing with my grandma's practice, my Spring Cleaning is far less complicated.

Back to my pineapple cookies. As usual, my son is the one who initiated so that we can have some festive mood. After some discussion, he suggested to bake cookies and among the cookies, he has chosen Pineapple Cookies!! That is really a time consuming task!!! I have no choice but to fulfill his wish.

He has helping me with some blending job and rolling up the pastry. So far, I have made 2 batches and the batches are different in term of the used of sugar for the filling and the type of oil for the pastry.

For the 1st batch, I have used 20 g of brown sugar. To be honest, the brown sugar flavor covers by the pineapple taste and it does not help much in improving the tart's fragrance. As for the 2nd batch pastry, I have replaced around 30 g of butter with vegetable shortening. It turns out to be softer and creamier. Thus, in future, I shall use the pastry recipe of the second batch.

Another trick that I observe is the sweetness of the pineapple filling. In my normal baking, I will reduce more than half of the sugar amount. However, for the pineapple filling, it is not advisable as this will yield sour filling. You may keep on tasting the filling while you cook in order to get the right amount of sourness.

As for the glazing, the outcome will be more presentable if we only glaze after we bake the cookies. I did it for my second batch and the color turns out to be so beautiful and I do not have to worry about over bake the cookies.

Ingredients
Pineapple Filling (yield around 350-400 g)
2 large pineapple, remove skin
200 g sugar (you may adjust according)
3 cloves

1. Blend all the pineapple using a blender or processor.
2. Use medium heat, cook the blended pineapple with cloves until it forms a thick paste; like oatmeal thickness.
3. Add in sugar. Upon adding in sugar, the paste will be slightly watery again. Do not worry and continue to cook until you get the color and paste consistency that you want.

Blended pineapple

Pineapple Filling

Pastry
280 g plain flour
20 g custard flour
40 g corn flour
30 g milk powder
40 g icing sugar
150 g salted butter
30 g vegetable shortening
3 lightly beaten egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla essence
2tbsp Parmesan cheese

Egg wash (egg yolk and 1tsp of milk)

1. Sift plain flour, custard flour, corn flour, milk powder and icing sugar together.

2. Cut the salted butter into cubes and mix with the flour. Mix well either with finger tips or a mixer.
3. Once they are well blended, add in the yolks and vanilla essence.
4. Knead well with hand and chill in the fridge for 1 hour to firm up the dough for the ease of handling.

5. While waiting for the pastry to chill, roll up around 7 g of pineapple filling. Set aside.
6. As for the pastry, rolls up around 9 g of pastry. Then, carefully warp the pineapple filling inside the pastry and roll in a ball.
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 170'C for 15-20 minutes. Remove from the oven and glaze with egg wash.

Before oven