When we are at other people's place we must eat like the locals, eat like the Sarawakian do! Malaysia is so rich with delicious food that you could spend your money travelling just for eating. Sing the jingle Jalan Jalan Cari Makan.
The first night right after work, we went to eat Mee Kolok at Satok. The mee kolok looked like instant noodle but it tasted different.
Here's an online photo.
You could pour the whole soup into the noodle and mix it like mee hoon or eat them side by side, mixing a bit of soup into the noodle each time.
On the last day, we went to eat Laksa Sarawak at Was Corner situated at Jalan Astana.
Those hands at the background belong to my officemates,
a omputer programmer on the left and my producer on the right.
The Laksa Sarawak paste is a must buy, for muslims look out for the 'Haji Manan' paste as it is said to be halal. Laksa Sarawak can be eaten with the white slim mee hoon or the thicker yellow noodle. I cooked Laksa Sarawak, but it's the bare version. If you take a look at other Laksa Sarawak recipes, they will include lemon grass (serai) and bean sprouts (taugeh). As I don't like taugeh and forgot to buy serai, my laksa sarawak was a little lacking but the paste is delicious in itself.
Our van pilot in Sarawak told us how to cook Laksa Sarawak. He said he has been invited to cook Laksa Sarawak on TV before, so he sounded legit. The recipe sounded easy but like all Laksa there are many ingredients to prepare. Here's how I cooked Laksa Sarawak.
Ingredients
1 pack of Laksa Sarawak - the pack said it is enough for 6 to 7 persons
1 box of coconut milk
1 pack of mee hoon
3-4 pieces of ada isi ciken
Half a big red onion sliced to bits
Eggs to be fried and cut up
Herbal leaves like daun ketumbar for added crunchy.
Bean sprouts if you like them.
A kettle of hot water.
1. Soak the mee hoon in cooked-room-temperature-water to soften it. The pilot said, only when you are about to eat it that you soak it in hot water. I never cooked noodles before so I prepared the mee hoon exactly as he told me.
2. Pour 2 litres of water or as much as your pot can hold but fill it about 2/3 of the pot. Put 3-4 piece of chicken which has isi and sliced pieces of onions in the pot and boil them for a half hour kot. I didn't keep track of how long I boiled them as long as the chickens are cooked. After the chickens are ready, take them out from the pot and place them somewhere so they could cool down. The cooked chicken parts will be later.
3. Clean the prawns. I separated the head from the bodies but don't dump the heads just yet. In the chicken broth boil the prawns' bodies and heads for a bit. I also mix in the coconut milk now and salt so the prawns will have some other taste innit. If you remember to buy serai, add it in too.
4. So while the prawns in the broth are cooking on the stove, boil a kettle of water to soak the mee hoon in. You could boil the water earlier, but I was cooking alone so I didn't cook it earlier. Oh and don't forget to transform the eggs into omelette, or you can also boil them. Now you switch off your stove and take out the cooked prawn and discard the prawn heads. Your laksa broth is ready!! The van pilot said to filter the laksa broth and then use the 'sedimen' that we have collected as an ingredient for the sambal.
5. Next we make the sambal. Use a mortar and pestle to mash 20 units of chili with belacan. Then along with the laksa 'sedimen' we fry all of them on a wok. Afterwards cut a few limau kasturi to squeeze in the sambal when you are ready to eat it.
6. So now our laksa broth and contents are ready. We have:
- A bowl of laksa broth
- A bowl of stripped chicken
- A bowl of prawns
- A bowl of sambal and limaus
- A bowl of fried or boiled eggs
- A bowl of mee hoon.
7. Eating time! For added crunchiness you put in taugeh ok.
I didn't take a picture of my cooking at all. BTW my husband said the laksa Sarawak is tasty. I attribute it to Haji Manan because when I mix in the paste in the water without any other ingredients, the water taste delicious enough to pass as plain soup.
Happy cooking.
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