Maritime Southeast Asia · Volume 46, The Sago, the Citrus Cure and the River Before the Road
Sarawak Laksa
Kuching
Illustration
- Time
- 1 hour
- Researched
- 7 sources cited
Bourdain called it the "breakfast of the gods," a phrase now used almost universally in coverage of the dish. Its structural signature: no curry powder, a clove-forward broth built from sambal belacan, tamarind, garlic, galangal, lemongrass and coconut milk, finished with fine vermicelli, shredded omelette, prawns, chicken and bean sprouts, and always served with a side of sambal belacan and calamansi for the diner to adjust.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 1 hour.
Ingredients
The method as the tradition gives it, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them, lead dishes first.
- 1 chicken breast, poached and shredded, stock reserved
- 200g prawns, peeled, shells reserved for stock
- spice paste: dried chillies, shallots, garlic, galangal, lemongrass, candlenuts, belacan, coriander seed, ground to a fine paste
- 400ml coconut milk
- 2 tbsp tamarind pulp, strained
- as available fine rice vermicelli
- 2 eggs, made into a thin omelette and shredded
- to serve bean sprouts, coriander, sambal belacan and calamansi, to serve
Method
- Simmer the chicken and prawn shells in water to make a light stock; strain.
- Fry the ground spice paste in oil until fragrant and the oil visibly separates.
- Add the stock, coconut milk and tamarind; simmer 20 to 30 minutes.
- Season, add the shredded chicken and prawns, simmer until the prawns are just cooked.
- Serve over vermicelli, topped with shredded omelette and bean sprouts, sambal belacan and calamansi alongside for the diner to adjust.
What a modern chef changes
The one UK-specific correction that actually matters more than any single spice, and an honest word on what "authentic" even means here.
Rung 6
Method
- Never substitute cream for the coconut milk. UK-facing recipe writers flag this repeatedly and for good reason: cream's dairy fat and absence of coconut's own flavour compounds changes the broth's whole character, not just its richness.
- Fry the spice paste until the oil visibly separates before the stock goes in, the same technique this chapter uses for soto Banjar, watching for the paste to darken and the fat to pool at the pan's edges rather than adding the paste to hot liquid directly.
- Do not present this dish as a lost original waiting to be recovered. The modern "standard" flavour traces substantially to one man's proprietary spice blend, sold commercially from the 1960s as the Swallow brand paste; when that brand discontinued, no replacement matched it for people with childhood memories of the original, because it was the specific ratios, not the ingredient list, that made it distinctive. There may never have been a single canonical recipe to be faithful to, and this chapter treats that honestly rather than implying one exists to chase.