Oil-Free Laksa Leaf Salad

I’m going through a laksa leaf craze now and am trying different ways to use it that’s different from the typical laksa lemak dishes. I’ve been wanting to make an oil-free Eastern salad and this came together. If you can’t find laksa leaves, you can use a soft leafy herb like mint or basil. Replace the jambu with apple if you can’t find that either. Add extra lemongrass if you can’t find torch ginger.

The most important thing about this salad is that all ingredients, especially the herbs, must be absolutely fresh. I made this a few days late as I wasn’t able to cook on schedule, and the laksa and torch ginger weren’t as fragrant as I like. Read my blog, learn from my mistakes!

Ingredients:
1 red chilli, chopped
½ jambu, diced
5 cherry tomatoes, quartered
5 calamansi limes, juiced
2 tsp fish sauce
good handful laksa leaves, chopped
one stalk lemongrass, base only, chopped
torch ginger, chopped
10 local lettuce or Romaine leaves, sliced into strips
2 tbsp ground peanuts

Method:

1. In a large bowl, combine the chilli, jambu and tomatoes with the lime juice and fish sauce. Set aside for the flavours to mingle and get on with the chopping for the other ingredients.
2. Add the lemongrass, torch ginger and lettuce, tossing gently. Taste and adjust seasoning by adding more lime juice or fish sauce. Add some sugar if needed.
3. Just before serving, sprinkle over the ground peanuts.

Serves 1.

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A Quick Laksa Leaf Toss-Up

By the time I got home last night, I’d almost perished of hunger. Grand plans for a laksa leaf-based chopped salad went out of the window. Even though I was so hungry I could’ve eaten my hand, I stubbornly refused to go the instant noodle route. Sticking to the laksa theme, I got this together in about 10 minutes. It’s simple, quick to prepare and incredibly tasty. (Or maybe I really was that hungry!) The proper version shall have to wait till later.

It’s a warm pasta salad of sorts, a very quick abbreviation of what I originally intended. Aesthetic considerations were tossed out of the window (see photo below). Proportions are even more approximate than usual because I mixed and tasted as I went along.

Ingredients:

½ cup mini macaroni or any quick-cooking shape
1 fish from a tin of sardines in oil
2 tsp fish sauce
1 handful laksa leaves, roughly chopped
juice of ¼ lemon
1 red chilli, chopped
1 cake tau kwa, optional

Method:

1. Cook the pasta till al dente.
2. Mash the sardine and some oil from the tin in a serving dish, then toss in the cooked pasta.
3. Sprinkle the fish sauce on top and mix thoroughly, followed by the laksa leaves, lemon juice and chilli.
4. Stir and taste, adding more fish sauce or lemon juice as needed.
5. Either boil or sear the tau kwa on a grill pan, then cut into pieces and toss into pasta.
6. Devour.

Serves 1 hungry person.

Pesto Variations: Laksa

Today’s instalment in Pesto Variations is inspired by the many laksa pesto dishes I’ve tried at various places around Singapore, some decent and some utterly FAIL.

By the way, laksa is also known as daun kesom and Vietnamese mint.

If you look more closely at pesto and laksa, you’ll find that laksa is remarkably easy to adapt to a pesto style. Both have some kind of root aromatic, herb and nut. Pesto: garlic, basil, pine nut vs laksa: shallot, laksa leaves, candle nut. The remaining ingredient in pesto is cheese, which adds umami to complete the flavour profile. For laksa, dried shrimp and belachan do the trick. I’ve used only belachan in this recipe, you could add or substitute dried shrimp.

Ingredients:

½ tbsp belachan
½ tsp salt
2 cloves garlic
2 good handfuls laksa leaves
2 red or green chillis, or to taste
½ tbsp sunflower oil
linguine
handful cashew nuts
1 cake tau kwa, cut into small rectangles

Method:

1. Toast the belachan in a pan until smoky.
2. Combine belachan, salt, garlic, laksa leaves and chilli in a food processor and pulse till smooth, adding the oil after a few pulses to help the mixture along. You should get a fine-ish paste. The pesto is done.
3. Cook the linguine to taste.
4. Toast the cashews in a hot pan and roughly chop once cool enough to handle.
5. Sear the tau kwa on all sides in the same hot pan.
6. When the pasta is done, toss it in the pesto, adding a drop or two more oil or cooking liquid to loosen. Top with cashews and tau kwa.

Serves 2.

P.S. In case you’re wondering, the picture and recipe have been previously posted on my now-defunct OSF.com account.