Difficulty: Easy
Serves: 4 People
This recipe is an absolute favourite in my house, it’s fairly simple but the flavours are bright and moreish, so I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Laksa is very versatile so it is perfect for this lockdown period, you can choose from lots of vegetables to add in the curry and it freezes very well.
South-East Asian food typically relies on the balance four areas of taste, salty, sweet, spicy and tangy - something the Butternut Laksa absolutely nails. It can be served with rice or glass noodles if you have more mouths to feed. And believe me everyone will be coming back for seconds so make sure there’s plenty to go around.
The Ingredients
1 large onion finely chopped
1 medium butternut squash
4 cloves of garlic finely chopped
1 fresh red chilli
4 cm piece of ginger grated (or ½ tsp ground ginger)
2 tsp ground turmeric
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp sugar (soft brown if you have it)
600ml chicken stock
1 ½ tbsp soy sauce or tamari
1 ½ tbsp fish sauce (optional but really bring the dish to life)
1 can of coconut milk or coconut cream
1 – 2 tsp lime juice to your taste (substituted for lemon if you don’t have limes)
A handful of fresh coriander
2 spring onions finely chopped diagonally
Coconut Oil (or other cooking oil if you don’t have any)
Plus a good handful of fresh veg diced (I like to add red peppers and mange tout, but you could add anything from beansprouts to baby corn or asparagus)
Chicken breast (diced) or fresh prawns
The Method
- Pre-heat your oven to 180C. Cut the skin from your butternut squash, then chop the flesh into medium-sized chunks and lay them evenly on a baking tray. If you are a little nervous about removing the skin, you can do this more easily after roasting. Melt a few tablespoons of coconut oil in a small pan, and then use this to coat your butternut squash. Roast the butternut squash for about 30 minutes, checking after 20 minutes to make sure that is doesn’t brown or crisp at the edges.
- Meanwhile, prepare the rest of your ingredients so you are ready to add them to the cooking when needed.
- Next melt some more coconut oil in a large pan sauté your onions with a pinch of salt for 5 minutes until they start to get translucent, stirring regularly to avoid them catching on the bottom of the pan.
- Whilst your onion are frying, place your turmeric, cumin and coriander in a pan and dry fry them on a low to medium heat for 30 seconds and they smell fragrant. Then leave them to the side for a moment.
- Next, add your garlic and chilli to the onions and fry them for 3 minutes whilst stirring. Then add your chosen chopped vegetables (just not beansprouts if you using those), chicken (if you are including it), along with your fragrant spices and fry for a further 5 minutes. Add a little more oil if the pan looks at all dry.
- Now is time to add your chicken stock and half of the coconut milk to the pan and leave it to simmer for a few minutes.
- Your roasting butternut squash should be nice and juicy by now, so remove it from the oven. Remove the skin if you haven’t already done so, this is easy to do by scooping the flesh out with a spoon. Be careful, you will need to leave it to cool; the butternut squash will be very hot out of the oven.
- Place the butternut squash in the blender with a little bit of the remaining coconut milk, plus a dash of water. Blend until completely smooth.
- Add the blended butternut squash to the pan, along with your soy sauce, fish sauce, grated ginger and sugar and stir it all in. If it looks a little thick just add more coconut milk.
- Let the Laksa simmer for 5 minutes, stirring a couple of times to let the flavours infuse. If you are adding fresh prawns add them at this point.
- Next, stir in your lime juice and half of your fresh coriander leaves, and give you Laksa a taste. Depending on the stock and soy sauce used, you may wish to add a little more soy or some more salt to taste.
- Serve hot, sprinkled with the remaining fresh coriander leaves and the chopped spring onion.
