We hope you like your kitchen smelling like fish for 3 weeks
A thick, fishy, fiery coconut gravy poured over spaghetti, of all things. Laksa Johor is Malaysia's rule-breaker, and the flavour lives in a hand-pounded rempah and a pile of fresh garnishes. Open every window and go for it.
The challenge
- Hand-grinding rempah spice paste
- Making fish-based curry from scratch
- Balancing coconut-tamarind
- Sourcing specialty ingredients
Malaysian curry that breaks all the laksa rules by using spaghetti instead of rice noodles and fish instead of chicken or seafood. The rempah (spice paste) gets hand-ground from dried chiles, shallots, lemongrass, galangal, candlenuts, and belacan, which means your arm will hurt and your kitchen will smell like a fish market had a baby with a spice bazaar.
Spaghetti replaces traditional noodles in this Johor variation, which sounds wrong but somehow works. Half the work is prep, and getting everything to the table hot while the spaghetti isn't overcooked is its own coordination nightmare.
Prep: 1 hour 30 minutes ย ยทย Cook: 1 hour 30 minutes
Ingredients
For the rempah (spice paste)
- 20 dried red chillies, soaked in hot water 20 minutes and deseeded
- 10 shallots, peeled
- 4 garlic cloves
- 3 lemongrass stalks, white part only, sliced
- 4 cm (1ยฝ in) galangal, sliced
- 2 cm (ยพ in) fresh turmeric, or 1 tsp ground
- 5 candlenuts (or macadamia nuts)
- 1 tbsp belacan (shrimp paste), toasted
- 2 tbsp dried shrimp, soaked and drained
For the fish gravy
- 800 g (1.75 lb) Spanish mackerel or other firm oily white fish fillets
- 1 tbsp coriander seeds and 1 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground
- 3 tbsp kerisik (toasted grated coconut, pounded)
- 60 g (2 oz) tamarind pulp, mixed with 250 ml (1 cup) warm water and strained
- 800 ml (3โ cups) coconut milk
- 4 tbsp vegetable oil
- 2 tsp sugar or palm sugar
- Salt to taste
To serve
- 500 g (1.1 lb) spaghetti
- 1 cucumber, julienned
- 150 g (5 oz) bean sprouts, blanched
- 1 red onion, thinly sliced
- Daun kesum (Vietnamese mint) and Thai basil leaves
- 1 torch ginger flower, finely sliced (optional)
- 3 hard-boiled eggs, halved
- Sambal belacan and calamansi or lime halves
Method
- Poach the fishBring 1 litre (4 cups) water to a simmer, add the fish and poach 8โ10 minutes until it flakes. Lift out the fish, keep the stock, and remove every skin scrap and bone. Flake the flesh finely, or pound it lightly in a mortar.
- Pound the rempahIn a large mortar and pestle, pound the ingredients in order from hardest to softest: candlenuts and lemongrass first, then galangal and turmeric, then chillies, dried shrimp and belacan, and finally the shallots and garlic. Keep going until you have a fine, moist paste, about 20โ30 minutes of honest work. (A blender with a splash of oil is the forgiving backup.)
- Fry the pasteHeat the oil in a large heavy pot over medium-low heat. Add the rempah with the ground coriander and cumin and fry, stirring often, for 15โ20 minutes until it darkens, smells sweet rather than raw, and the oil separates out and pools around the edges (pecah minyak).
- Build the gravyAdd the flaked fish and kerisik and stir 2 minutes. Pour in the tamarind water and about 500 ml (2 cups) of the fish stock. Simmer 15 minutes, stirring to stop it catching.
- Add the coconutStir in the coconut milk and bring back to a gentle simmer; don't boil hard or it may split. Cook 20โ30 minutes, stirring often, until thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add more fish stock if it gets too thick.
- Balance itSeason with sugar and salt. Taste and adjust: you want rich coconut, a clear sour lift from tamarind, deep savouriness from fish and belacan, and real heat. Add a little more tamarind water if it's flat, more sugar if it's harsh.
- Prep the garnishesWhile the gravy simmers, slice and arrange all the garnishes on a big platter: cucumber, sprouts, onion, herbs, torch ginger, eggs, sambal and calamansi. Everything ready before the pasta goes in.
- Cook the spaghettiBoil the spaghetti in well-salted water until just al dente, 1 minute less than the packet says. Drain and toss with a few drops of oil.
- Assemble and servePile spaghetti into wide bowls, ladle the hot gravy generously over the top, and heap on the garnishes. Finish with a spoon of sambal and a squeeze of calamansi. Serve straight away.
- Open every windowServe the laksa big and hot, then open every door and window in the house. Light a candle, warn the neighbours, and enjoy the next three weeks of smelling faintly like a fish market. Worth it.
Tips from the trenches
- Frying the rempah until the oil separates is the step that turns a raw, harsh paste into a deep, sweet one. Don't rush it.
- Toast the belacan wrapped in foil in a dry pan for 2 minutes each side. Do it with the extractor fan on full, you've been warned.
- Daun kesum, torch ginger and candlenuts are in Asian grocers. Mint plus a little coriander is a decent stand-in for daun kesum.
- Cook the spaghetti last. Overcooked pasta under a heavy gravy turns to mush fast.
โNo rules. Don't be afraid to do whatever you want. Cooking doesn't have to have rules.โโ Masaharu Morimoto
