Vegan Laksa

A few months ago, my husband went on work trip to Indonesia and discovered an amazing little vegan restaurant called Loving Hut. He made me suitably envious by sending photos of all the cheap, delicious, meat-free feasts he was enjoying on a daily basis, while I could only daydream about being able to enjoy a similar vegan eatery.

We’ve just got back from spending the summer in Fiji and Hong Kong, and imagine our joy and surprise when we found that there was a Loving Hut, of the same chain, close to our hotel in Kowloon! As a vegan, being able to choose absolutely anything on the menu is a rare oddity, so it was a real treat to pour over pages and pages of sumptuous looking delights and know that they were all just a 10 minute order away. Heaven!

Needless to say, we ate there a lot and loved every single dish. However, a stand out for me was their mouth-watering vegan laska. It was just so fragrant and full of flavor.

Now we’re back home, I’ve been craving more of the same, so I dug out an old laksa recipe last night and gave it a go. The result: A taste sensation! This dish is relatively simple to make and rewards you with such deliciousness you’ll wonder how you ever survived without a regular dose of laksa in your life!

To start:

Soak 450g of rice noodles in a pan of hot water (I prefer ones that are slightly thicker than vermicelli)

Then make the paste:

Chop the following ingredients. Place them in your vitamix/food processor and pulverize into a smooth paste (you can add a little water if it helps):

1 Bulb of peeled garlic

14 Kaffir lime leaves

4 Lemon grass stems

1 Chunk of ginger (about 5cm squared)

2 Red chillis

1 tsp ground coriander

2 tsp ground turmeric

Then cook the tofu:

Take 500g of extra firm, organic tofu. Press between paper towels with a weight on top to remove all the excess liquid.

Chop the tofu into bite size cubes

Fry over a medium heat in 4 tbsp of coconut oil and 2 tbsp of tamari sauce until browned all over

Next, cook the paste:

Heat 3 tbsp of sesame oil in a large pan and add the paste. Fry for a couple of minutes, stirring continuously.

Then add the following ingredients to the pan of paste:

6 cups of coconut milk

6 cups of vegetable stock

Bring to the boil, then add:

2 medium sized red capsicums, cut into bite sized pieces

6 green cabbage leaves, cut into shreds

4 large spring onions, cut into shreds

8 water chestnuts, sliced

The cooked tofu

Simmer for 5 minutes, then add the following ingredients and stir through:

2 tsp of tamarind paste

100mls of tamari sauce (or soya sauce will do)

100mls of freshly squeezed lime juice

Sea salt to taste

Then serve!

Divide the drained noodles into 8 serving bowls

Use a soup ladle to cover each bowl of noodles in the laksa sauce, so they look like bowls of soup

Garnish each bowl with roughly ½ a cup of bamboo sprouts and a ¼ cup of coriander

I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!