Smoked Salmon Laksa with Soft-Boiled Eggs, Peanuts & Pickled Mustard Greens
Laksa is one of the great noodle dishes of Southeast Asia, and its story sits at the point where Chinese immigration and local cooking met and became something new. The dish grew out of Peranakan culture, the communities formed when Chinese traders and sailors settled along the coastal ports of Malaysia, Singapore and southern Thailand and married into the local population. Their wives took Chinese noodle soups and started building them with local aromatics, coconut milk and the spices of the region. The result spread through every port along the spice route. National Geographic has a good piece on the full history, and it's worth reading if you want to understand how deep the roots go.
The salmon here is cold-smoked. Not the deeply cured kind that comes vacuum-packed, but fresh salmon left over a cold BBQ with a little wood smoke moving through it. The texture stays the same as raw fish, the flesh stays soft and uncured, but there's a layer of smokiness sitting on top of it. In a laksa broth that's already deep from red curry paste, curry powder and dried shrimp, that extra layer of smoke makes the whole thing more interesting. The technique is worth knowing for other things too.
Dried shrimp ground to a floss is a garnish, not part of the paste. Work dried shrimp down in a pestle and mortar until they break into fine, light threads, then scatter them over the bowl at the end. They add a concentrated umami depth and a slightly feathery texture on top of the noodles. You'll find dried shrimp in most Asian supermarkets, usually in the ambient section in small sealed packets.
The pickled mustard greens matter here. They bring a sourness and crunch that cuts through the richness of the coconut broth in a way nothing else quite does. You'll find them in Asian supermarkets in ambient pouches or jars. They're intensely salty and sharp straight from the packet, so give them a rinse under cold water before using. If you can't find them, pickled ginger is the closest substitute and it works well.
Smoked Salmon Laksa with Soft-Boiled Eggs, Peanuts & Pickled Mustard Greens
Serves: 2 | Prep: 15 mins | Cook: 25 mins
Ingredients
100ml vegetable oil
300g Payst red curry paste (or 300g red curry paste)
1 tablespoon mild curry powder
10g dried shrimp, ground to a floss in a pestle and mortar
2 medium eggs
1 tablespoon soft brown sugar or palm sugar
2 tablespoons fish sauce
200ml fish stock
400ml coconut cream
400g cold-smoked salmon, cut into bite-sized pieces
300g fine vermicelli rice noodles, blanched for 1 minute in boiling salted water and refreshed in cold water
10g coriander, roughly chopped, to garnish
20g pickled mustard greens, rinsed and roughly chopped (or pickled ginger as a substitute)
3 tablespoons toasted peanuts, lightly crushed
1 large lime, cut into wedges to serve
Method
Heat the vegetable oil in a medium, heavy saucepan over a high heat. When the oil is hot and shimmering, add the red curry paste, curry powder and dried shrimp. Fry for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring constantly and scraping the bottom of the pan to stop anything catching. The paste should darken, come together and smell deeply fragrant. This is the part that builds the base of the whole dish, so don't rush it.
While the paste fries, soft-boil the eggs. Bring a small pan of salted water to a rolling boil, lower the eggs in gently and cook for exactly 5 minutes. Transfer immediately to a bowl of ice-cold water with a splash of vegetable oil. Peel the eggs in the water, the oil helps the shells slip off cleanly. Set aside.
Back to the paste. Add the sugar and stir until it caramelises into the base, darkening it further. Add the fish sauce and deglaze, scraping up anything that has stuck to the bottom. Pour in the fish stock and bring to a boil. Add the coconut cream and bring back down to a simmer. Taste. It should be rich, well-seasoned and fragrant. Adjust with more fish sauce if it needs salt, more sugar if the paste flavour is too sharp.
Add the cold-smoked salmon and simmer gently for 2 to 3 minutes. The heat of the broth will cook the fish through quickly. Don't rush this step and don't let it boil hard.
Divide the blanched noodles between two deep bowls. Ladle the hot laksa over the noodles. Halve each egg and lay them alongside, letting the yolk run into the broth. Scatter over the coriander, crushed peanuts and pickled mustard greens. Serve with lime wedges to squeeze over at the table.
Chef's notes
Cold smoking is a technique worth having in your toolkit. The salmon sits over a cold BBQ with a small amount of wood smoke, low enough that the heat doesn't cook the fish. What you end up with is fresh fish with a layer of smokiness that you don't get from any other method. If you don't have a BBQ setup for cold smoking, fresh salmon works in this recipe, but the smoked version is the better dish.
Dried shrimp are available in most Asian supermarkets in the ambient aisle. They keep indefinitely in an airtight container. Use a pestle and mortar to work them down to a light floss, which takes two to three minutes. Don't skip them. They add a umami depth to the finished bowl that the broth alone doesn't have.
The pickled mustard greens from a supermarket ambient pouch are often very aggressively seasoned. Give them a good rinse under cold water and taste before you use them. If they're very sharp after rinsing, soak briefly in cold water for a few minutes. You want them to add sourness and crunch, not to overpower everything else.
This laksa keeps in the fridge for up to 2 days. Reheat gently on the stove with a small splash of water or coconut milk to loosen the broth. Store the noodles separately if you can, so they don't absorb everything while sitting.
This recipe was also published in The Evening Standard.
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For more recipes, signed copies of my cookbooks are available at Payst: Cook Thai and Thai in 7.
Head chef & founder of Farang London restaurant. Cookbook author of ‘Cook Thai’ & ‘Thai in 7’. Chief curry paste basher and co-founder of Payst London.