I found a couple of ‘Best Singapore Favourites’ boxes while grocery shopping last weekend and plucked two off the shelf. Never would I thought I would ever resort to this, alas.. there’re not many places serving laksa in Doha.
Laksa is essentially a kind of thick, white rice vermicelli in spicy noodle soup. I’ve tried a couple of variations to laksa and my two favourites are the Asam Laksa and the Lemak Laksa. They are two very, very different kinds of laksa. The former originates from Penang, and the word ‘asam’ comes from the Malay word for tamarind. The soup is not only sour, but contains mackerel that had been poached and then flaked. Typical garnishes include pineapple, mint leaves and cut chillies.
Lemak Laksa, or Singapore Laksa, however, is rich, savoury, creamy and not sour at all. Coconut milk is the key ingredient to the soup giving it the distinctive, rich ‘lemak’ taste.
The pack consists of 1 laksa paste with laksa leaves (though I didn’t see any in the paste, nor in the soup when it was done), 1 laksa premix and 1 generous packet of sambal chilli. You have to add your own noodles, meat of choice and vegetables… and 600 ml of water. It’s super duper easy to prepare.
Because laksa noodles are so impossible to find in Doha, I substituted it with a packet of Udon noodles I found on the same shelf. The result : Thicker, chewier noodles but no less delicious. Instead of cockles (speciality in Singapore laksa) I added a pack of mixed seafood that included mussels, clams, shrimps and a piece (yes, just one) of lobster.
I love my laksa with a little crunch, so I sliced up some Saudi cucumbers and tossed them in along with a few beansprouts I managed to salvage from the previous week.
The gravy isn’t as thick as I would have liked it to be, but a slurp of the coconut-flavoured soup was enough to cure my homesickness for a while. Instead of using the sambal chilli included in the box, I added a dollop of Sambal Belacan Power for extra spice.
So. Much. Win.
No other complains, I inhaled the whole bowl in less than 10 minutes, and had enough leftovers for 1.5 more bowls.
My Singaporean readers back home, please don’t head to NTUC to get a box (because I remember seeing them there). You’re better off heading to Katong. Eat an extra bowl for me while you’re at it. Extra cockles please. To those who are adventurous (and not in Singapore) and would like to have a taste of Singaporean cuisine, it’s worth the bucks.