Destination: Southeast Asia

Last night I made a laksa, which is a spicy soup made in Southeast Asia. I could call it a curry too, because instead of laksa paste, I used green curry paste since the recipe recommended it. Anytime you mix curry paste, coconut milk, lime juice and fish sauce, wonderful things happen. The flavors blend into a delicious mixture. I love the pungent smell of curry paste while it is frying in the pan...  It makes me feel adventurous  even though all I am doing is just frying some curry paste that I scooped from a jar bought at the store. Now, if I made the curry paste myself, which really sounds like a great idea, then I could see where that sense of adventure is coming from.

The laksa recipe, from What To Cook & How To Cook It, is very simple. Chop, chop, fry a little, stir in some stuff, bring to simmer, season. Done. I did make a slight alteration. Instead of scallions (Whole Food only had conventional) and bean sprouts (not liked by my people), I chopped a zucchini and it was really a quite good substitution, although I can see how scallions would really enhance the flavor of the dish. The soup is served with rice noodles, and I used mai fun brown rice noodles. Since the broth was so tasty, I ended up mainly drinking it while skipping on the noodles, veggies, shitake mushrooms and shrimp. Then I went to bed hungry...