Serves 4

This can be a mid-week comfort meal eaten on the couch, or a Saturday special to impress your guests. If you substitute the rice noodles with “zoodles”, all the cooking can be done in one pot + your food processor/mortar & pestle.

This recipe is just a starting point for multiple ways to laksa it up; feel free to make up your own colourful veggie combo in order to get your ‘nutritional rainbow'.
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Laksa Paste:

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

¼ tsp black pepper corns

6 cardamom pods or ¼ tsp ground powder

½ tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 whole star anise

1 stalk of lemon grass (just the white bit)

1 medium onion, roughly chopped.

4 large cloves of garlic

1 knob of fresh ginger (about 2 tablespoons’ worth)

1 long red chilli

2 tablespoons Niulife Extra Virgin Coconut Oil (for frying)

1 lime both juice & peel (just the green bit for the peel)
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Laksa Broth & Chunks

150-200g cooked, flat rice noodles (or 2 medium zucchinis cut into “zoodles”)

400ml full-fat coconut cream

1 tablespoon Niulife Fysh Cocomino sauce

1L of quality vegetable stock

1 good handful of snow peas

2 large carrots, cut into thin julienne strips

1 400g tin of chickpeas, drained & rinsed.

1 medium eggplant, cut into rough 2cm cubes, and sprinkle with salt.

1 big handful of fresh chopped coriander leaves for garnishing

A few small spring onions chopped thinly cross-ways for garnishing.

1 long red chili, sliced thinly for garnishing (optional)

1 lime or two, cut into wedges for serving
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Laksa Paste Method:

In a large pot, on medium heat, dry toast the coriander, cumin, pepper and cardamom pods, moving them around so they don’t burn.

Crush the cardamom pods to extract seeds, then discard the outer husk. Put the toasted spices into a food processor, and blitz into a powder. Add the all the other paste ingredients, (except for the star anise and coconut oil) and combine until a consistent paste is formed.

You can freeze this or keep it in the fridge for later.
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Begin the Laksa:

In the same pot, gently fry the paste in the coconut oil along with the star anise, until there is a colour change.

Turn up the heat and add cubed eggplant (wipe off excess salt and any juice) and drained chickpeas, stir and fry for about 5 minutes, or until the eggplant gets toasty. (If the eggplant is a bit dry, you might need to add some extra coconut oil to avoid things sticking).

Add in the vegetable stock, coconut cream, Niulife Fysh Sauce, bring to the boil then allow to simmer for 15 minutes.

4 minutes before you are ready to serve, crank up the heat to have the pot boiling, then add in (in this order) the carrots – stir, stir, stir! – the snow peas – stir some more! – then gently swirl in the zoodles. Don’t leave these in too long or they’ll go too soft.

Serve immediately with plenty of fresh chopped up coriander, spring onion, chilli and some generous wedges of lime to squeeze as you please.

Et voila!