Put new life into spring with laksa

A tasty bowl of laksa is just the thing for spring. Photo by Peter McIntosh.
A tasty bowl of laksa is just the thing for spring. Photo by Peter McIntosh.

After months of hearty stews, the new season calls for zesty greens and a flash of spice. Nigel Slater cooks up a colourful supper.

A vibrant culture needs interesting food at all times of the year.

Though my everyday eating has long celebrated local foods, I do struggle a bit during spring. Yes, there is purple sprouting broccoli about (with which I am now ever so slightly bored), some very fine crunchy chicories, and still seriously good roots and spring greens, but I want more. I swear I could hear my shopping basket screaming as I dragged it away from the bags of delicious-looking imported peas and beans in a large food store yesterday.

Luckily I had some leaves of cavolo nero in the garden.

Sad to say, they were the last. After standing so majestically through the snow and now the heavenly spring sunshine, they have come to the end, their swan song being in a soup with Japanese noodles, seasoned with a little lemon grass and tamarind paste.

I also found some breathtakingly fresh spring greens this week and they could easily have gone in the soup instead of that cavolo nero. As much as I love my local produce, I would probably die of boredom if it never saw a spice or bit of seasoning from outside these islands.

I would be lost without the lemons, cinnamon and cumin, the juniper berries, ginger and soy sauce that lift our spring cooking so helpfully from the doldrums.

Whereas spring itself is joyously here - the plum blossom is out in my garden - the spring produce isn't.

The wait for something other than cabbage and roots seems interminable.

Most times I get by on our own stuff, but I do need a flash of palate-quickening spice from elsewhere to get me through another bowl of parsnip soup or a plate of greens.

Supper last night was soup - and a big meal of a soup at that. A swirling mass of warm coconut, bright citrus flavours, long noodles, vivid local greens and masses of coriander leaves, chillies and mint. At its heart was chicken stock, but I could probably have got by with vegetable broth instead.

A mixture of local food and exotic seasoning, it was as lively a bowl of food as I have eaten. And just right for this somewhat mixed bag of weather.

But at least I have started to get some seeds in the ground and herbs in the window box. Things are stirring, and it won't be long before everything is singing and dancing once again.

 

 


An early-spring laksa

Once you have made the spice paste (which will take less than a minute in the food processor), the rest of the recipe is a real doddle. Serves 2 with seconds.

For the paste:
2 or 3 small hot red chillies
2 cloves of garlic
a lump of ginger the size of your thumb
2 plump stalks of lemon grass
5 or 6 roots of coriander leaves and stalks
1 lightly heaped tsp turmeric
a little vegetable oil
1 Tbsp tamarind paste

For the soup:
500ml chicken or vegetable stock
400ml coconut milk
300g broccoli or purple sprouting
2 bunches of spinach
2 tbsp nam pla (Thai fish sauce)
100g thin dried rice noodles
a large handful of coriander and mint leaves

Chop the chillies, peel the garlic, peel and roughly chop the ginger and put them all into the bowl of a food processor.

Peel away and discard any tough outer leaves from the lemon grass and roughly chop the tender leaves inside.

Scrub the coriander roots and cut them off, putting them with the chillies along with half the coriander leaves and stems. Blitz them with the chillies then add the turmeric, adding a drop of oil if the mixture needs it to help it go round.

Place a fairly deep pan over a moderate heat, add half the spice paste (keep the other half in the fridge for tomorrow, covered tightly with clingfilm) and fry it, moving it round the pan so it does not scorch.

Do this for a minute or two, then add the tamarind paste, pour in the stock and coconut milk and bring it to the boil.

Bring a deep pan of water to the boil, then simmer the broccoli briefly, until just tender to the point of a knife. Drain.

Clean the spinach thoroughly, remove the toughest of the stalks and tear any particularly large leaves into pieces. Wash the spinach leaves thoroughly. Put the leaves, still wet with their rinsing water, into a hot pan, cover tightly with a lid and leave to steam for a minute or so until they have wilted. Lift out and add, together with the drained broccoli, to the soup.

Season with fish sauce to taste.

Cook the noodles as it suggests on the packet. They all vary depending on the exact type and brand. (Some rice noodles only need a quick soak in boiling water.)

Chop the remaining coriander leaves and the mint, and stir them into the laksa, together with the drained noodles.


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