Warm, nourishing and vibrant flavours, laksa is the perfect winter comfort meal. This recipe is perfect for busy people who want to pop something in the crockpot in the morning and finish off with some easy last-minute steps before dinner. I love making laksas for dinner. They can be a great way to use up leftovers and vegetables from the fridge. It doesn't need to be anything fancy. For this recipe I used some leftover roasted chicken from the previous dinner, blanched some greens, and added an egg and some noodles. I love using prawns, pork belly and tofu as well. That's the great thing about dishes like this — you can mix it up to suit you or whatever needs to be used up. Serves 8 1 red onion 6 cloves garlic 2 knobs ginger 1 stem lemongrass 1 red chilli 1 handful fresh coriander 2 lime leaves 1 tsp cumin seeds 1 tsp coriander seeds ½ tsp turmeric 1 star anise 50g shrimp paste 50g siracha 200g tomato paste 2 litres chicken stock 1 can coconut cream 1 litre water 20ml fish sauce Ideas to serve Bok choy Fresh coriander Spring onion Chicken Chilli crisp Crispy shallots Egg Noodles Method Start by peeling your onion, garlic and ginger. Adding all the first set of ingredients together and blitzing to make a paste. Preheat your crook pot on the saute setting and cook the paste down until nicely golden brown and you can smell the aromatics. Add your spices and continue to saute until you can smell those spices coming through, stirring the whole time to avoid this burning or it will go bitter. Now you can add your pastes and sauces, cooking these out for a further 5 minutes while stirring still. Finally adding your stock, water, coconut and fish sauce. Close the lid and set to slow cook for however long you want it to be cooking for. Just set it to low or high and the time duration to fit into your day. When it comes time to get ready for dinner you will want to cook it on high for another 30 minutes with the steam valve open to reduce the broth into a thicker consistency. Once the broth has thickened and you can smell and taste all the gorgeous fragrant ingredients you can take it out and pass it through a sieve to get rid of all the seeds and paste ingredients. Boil some noodles, blanch some vegetables and boil an egg. Add some cooked meats and chopped herbs to finish it off and you have yourself a delicious comforting winter dinner. Tip For those wanting an even easier version of this — you can buy laksa pastes in the supermarket. You would use that instead of the first and third set of ingredients on this recipe. I prefer making it from scratch, but if you're looking for the ultimate time-saver dinner then there's nothing wrong with this option either. Enjoy.
