More ways than one…

I got this from my friend the other day…

…and I guess we all know by now that their curry laksa is nothing like our Sarawak laksa and to me, it is more like masak lemak (something cooked with rich santan/coconut milk) and I still have one packet of their laksa la mian anyway so I decided to use this in some other way.

I remember that I quite liked the lontong I had in Singapore way back in 1973 and the broth in which it was served also came across as being something like masak lemak to me and I did get to buy some at my regular stall at Bandong that sells all these Malay and other local delights once but that one was not all that great as it was kind of diluted – not lemak enough for my liking and anyway, I’ve not seen them selling that since. Well, all things considered, I thought I would be able to use it to cook some sayur lodeh or what we call sayur masak lemak in my family and dish out my own lontong.

There were three pouches in the box…

…but the last one was the sambal cili (chili dip).

I poured 750 ml of water into a pot even though the instructions said 600 as I wanted more broth and I emptied one of the pouches – the laksa premix (that reminds me of cement *chuckle*) into it and stirred well for it to dissolve…

To me, I thought that looked like santan (coconut milk) powder. Anyway, I added the laksa paste next…

…and once again, I stirred it well to mix everything together before turning on the heat and bringing it to boil.

Once it had started boiling, I put in the prawns and the sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into small cubes…

The bean curd sticks, soaked to soften, went in next…

…followed by the cabbage, hand-torn…

…and as soon as I had brought it back to boil, I turned off the heat.

When my mother cooked her sayur masak lemak, she would add a whole lot of things – paku (jungle fern) or cangkuk manis/mani chai, tofu pok (fried bean curd cakes), long beans and even tung hoon (glass noodles) but as you can see…

…the pot was already too full and I should not be adding any more things in case it overflowed and made a mess!

The sambal cili (chili dip) was kind of dry and I did not think it was all that nice so I squeezed some calamansi lime into it…

…and it sure tasted a bit nicer after that.

I cooked some ketupat – the ones in little packets available at the supermarkets and then I cut two into cubes and poured the broth over them. I added a bit of everything into the bowl and sprinkled some serunding udang (the bottled chili shrimp floss) over it and served with a spoonful of the sambal cili…

So, was it good? Well, you can bet it most certainly was…and I really enjoyed it thoroughly.

As for whether I would cook it again, maybe I would or maybe I wouldn’t…as sadly, that box of the “ready-to-cook sauce kit” does not come cheap here – more than RM17.00, mind you, but of course, it is a lot more convenient (and perhaps, even nicer too) to use that instead of starting from scratch and cooking my own.