Chicken and pumpkin laksa
There are many different kinds of laksa – essentially a thick noodle soup – and it varies from country to country (it’s found in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Cambodia). This is a simple version, perfect for cooking midweek (it’s pretty quick, despite having to do a bit of pounding to make the paste) and a great vehicle for leftover chicken. You can add other ingredients (beansprouts, beans, peppers), it depends on what you have. I’m usually quite purist about dishes (I don’t like mucking about with classics) but on a Wednesday night, when you’re hungry and short of time, I think anything goes. You can use wide rice noodles or, if it’s all you have, rice vermicelli.
Ingrediënten
- 450 g 1lb pumpkin, unprepared weight
- 2 bird’s eye chillies
- 2 lemon grass stalks
- 4 garlic cloves roughly chopped
- 2 cm ¾in root ginger, peeled and finely chopped
- good knob of virgin coconut oil or 1 tbsp of any other oil you like plus more to blend the paste (optional)
- bunch of coriander
- finely grated zest and juice of 1 lime or to taste
- ½ small onion sliced into thin wedges
- 600 ml 1 pint chicken stock
- 400 ml can of coconut milk
- 2 tbsp fish sauce or to taste
- 100 g 3½oz cherry tomatoes, halved
- 75 g 2¾oz dried rice noodles
- 250 g 9oz cooked chicken, torn into pieces (you can add more if you have it)
- big handful – literally – of baby spinach leaves
- handful of mint leaves torn
Instructies
- Halve, deseed and peel the pumpkin then cut the flesh into chunks about 2.
- 5cm (1in) square.
- Put these into a steamer and cook over boiling water for about 15 minutes.
- The pieces should be tender.
- Slit the chillies along their length; you can decide whether to remove the seeds or not (I don’t).
- Chop.
- Remove the tougher outer leaves from the lemon grass and roughly chop the paler hearts.
- Put the chillies, lemon grass, garlic and ginger into a small food processor (or a mortar and pestle) and whizz or pound until you have a rough paste.
- If you’re using a food processor you might need to add a little coconut or rapeseed oil to help it blend.
- Add the coriander stalks and half the leaves, both chopped, and the lime zest and pound or blitz again.
- Heat the good knob of coconut or rapeseed oil in a saucepan and add the onion.
- Cook gently until it softens a little but is still pale in colour.
- Add the spice paste.
- Cook over a medium heat for another minute or so, until you can smell that the spices are no longer ‘raw’.
- Add the stock and coconut milk and bring to just under the boil.
- Add the fish sauce and the tomatoes and simmer gently for about seven minutes (the tomatoes don’t have to get soft; they should keep their shape).
- Prepare the noodles according to the packet instructions.
- Add the pumpkin, chicken and spinach to the laksa and allow the pumpkin and chicken to warm through thoroughly and the spinach to wilt.
- Finally, stir in the rest of the coriander leaves, chopped, the mint and the lime juice.
- Taste for seasoning and balance (you might want more lime juice or fish sauce).
- Divide the noodles between four bowls and ladle the laksa on top.
