Laksa

           I am stuffed to the gills - fat and happy - couldn't possibly eat another wafer!

I have been craving laksa since we arrived back 

in Australia. I wasn't able to get it from my favorite Chinta Blues restaurant in Melbourne so I have resigned to a 'packet' mix for the paste and a very enjoyable shopping trip to my local Asian grocer this morning.

I have never used this paste before so I thought I'd give it a go. Laksa's are so delicious with the blend of coconut, lime, chicken, seafood and tofu just to name a few ingredients, but if I was to make it from scratch (which I do and the flavour is twice as good) it would take me all day- I was after short cuts due to the warm day we had, the fact I had to pick Max up from a play date and having Alex all day I wasn't about to loose my concentration to the kitchen!

 I made a chicken stock- popped a whole chook into a large pot filled it with cold water and then added a whole bulb of garlic cut in half, with skin left on. Added 3 lime leaves, a couple of onions and carrots all roughly cut up. Popped the lid on and waited for it to boil. Once boiling I turned it down to a simmer as I wanted the meat to stay tender. That simmered away for about 30 minutes. After the chicken was cooked I pulled it out of the stock, turned up the temp, added a couple squirts of fish sauce to the mix and reduced it further for about 15 minutes.

OK so the stock was now made and the chicken shredded, all I had to do was make the 'soup', add the noodles, vegetables  (peas, beans and choy sum) and fried tofu and fish balls that I brought at the market. So there you have it a delicious chicken curry laksa- seriously it really was that easy. 

Now you may be wondering if the boys ate the laksa- in a fashion! 

Max is quite partial to some spice so I made his like ours though cut back on the coconut 'spicy' sauce and added a little extra stock to make it a little less hot. As for Alex who cannot grasp the 'spicy' sensation just yet. I filled his bowl with noodles, and cooked chicken. I then ladled out some peas, beans, tofu and fish balls from the soup mix, washed them under the tap to take away any spice and then topped his noodle dish up with cooled left over stock and it worked a treat. He wasn't keen on the fish balls but ate the rest. As for Max- he loved it but couldn't finish due to the massive size of the bowl (I tend to go over board when it comes to noodles!) He did however tell me he ate all the chicken, quote 'Because that is just a waste of an animal if you don't eat all the meat and that isn't right'.

Spoken like a true carnivore!