Self-Treat

I self treat myself with Assam Laksa today by cooking them myself. It was a craving since last year. Mind me ranting like a pregnant women, but men have craving for foods too especially those who can really cook. Not to self praise, but I cook my own laksa when I really got the time to do so.

To strengthen the proof, UK have no laksa parlour for you to get your mouth on as the ingredients of making them itself is so scarce. Not to self boost, I can cook assam laksa in less than 2 hours provided that I have already acquired the ingredients before rocking the stoves and chopping board in my kitchen.

The UK version is not 100% perfect as there were ingredients that I cannot obtain here. Imagine the disappointment when devouring them, you can feel something really amiss – that’s the fragrant smell of ginger bud (bunga kantan) and the extra kick in the laksa soup with polygonum leaves (daun kesum). But my friend says ‘it’s ok’ as this was the best you can find in UK. Something is better than none they said!
But it was alright as a visit to our local Chinese or Indian store can already complete 98% of my ingredients. Don’t be surprised that in my place where minority races are..really minorities, I can still find;

• Galanga (lengkuas)
• Turmeric powder (kunyit)
• Belacan (prawn cake) – damn!
• He Ko (prawn paste)
• Tamarind skin (asam keping)
• Lemon grass (serai)
• ‘Lai Fen’ (laksa noodles)

Not to mention chilli powder, dried chillis, vermicellis, mackerel and mint – is readily available in the local store and even in my local Tesco.

One thing about laksa and me is, we are inseparable. Being one of my favorite food since childhood, I can devour laksa as breakfast, brunch, tea break, dinner and even supper ignoring everything else. As a result of that, I have downed 6 bowls in 2 days where 5 was downed on day 1 and 1 was downed the during brunch the very next day of this serving.

Before ‘activity’

During ‘activity’

Minus 2 servings that a some friend ‘tapao-ed’ from me, that means I downed 6 out of 8 servings that made the whole pot. Talking about madness, ya’ll think that my arse gonna behave like a volcanic eruption? NO. My metabolism has already been adapted well with food spicyness and hotness.

On the other hand, just to highlite some extra info, do you know that the name Laksa itself is already ‘muhibbah’? No wonder laksa is a ‘national food’ of Malaysia because  the food (style) itself is a fusion of Chinese and Malay adopting the name that was coined from ancient Indian Sanskrit word ‘laksha’ meaning ‘abundance/many’. The abundance was actually in terms of the composition of the laksa where it was made from different ingredients.

Surprised?

I tried treating friends with laksa;

• Hongkie friends – they don’t like it because of the strong fishy smell.
• English friends – they don’t like it because its stinky and damn spicy.
• Indian (from India) – they don’t like it because it wasn’t curry enough for them!

And me being the typical rascal downed 6.

Oh, damn. I’m missing home cooked food oh so badly. (Bangs on desk)
So help me lord.