It so happened that I dropped by the market one morning and I saw some fairly big seawater prawns selling at RM19.00 a kilo – the usual price would be around RM17 or 18. Perhaps it was due to the wet landas season and another reason could be the sellers have started keeping them for sale as Chinese New Year draws near at a much higher price to reap a more lucrative profit.
I bought 3 kg and went through the tedious task of peeling and de-veining them, putting aside some selected bigger ones and leaving their tails intact. I took the heads and the shell and washed thoroughly and boiled them to get the stock…and after that, I buried them under my rambutan tree.
Well, the stock was sitting in the fridge all this while and one morning, while the ladies were out of town, I decided to take it out and cook some Sarawak laksa broth and I used some of the prawns (the ones with the tails) for the topping. I also fried some pieces of omelette and sliced them into thin strips for that same purpose…and that was what my own-cooked Sarawak laksa was like that day, garnished with the daun sup (Chinese parsley/celery/cilantro) from my garden…
It was on my no-meat Friday so I did not have any shredded chicken and it was raining that morning so I did not go out to buy some taugeh (bean sprouts) and of course, that saved me the trouble of having to pluck the tails but, yes, I did pound some very nice and very very spicy hot sambal belacan to go with it…
It was very nice – I had a bowl for breakfast and another one for lunch and I did save two servings of it for the ladies to enjoy when they came home. There was a whole lot of it so I sent it over for the wonderful people at Payung to enjoy to reciprocate for the birthday treat that they gave me a couple of days earlier.
They all loved it and Peter particularly loved the sambal belacan. Maybe there was not enough for all of them to eat to their heart’s content or as what Peter said, he did cook it before though not quite successfully so he wanted to try again. That was why earlier last week, on Tuesday, he invited me and the ladies (they had come home by then) to drop by the cafe and enjoy HIS Sarawak laksa.
Unlike mine, his had the whole works – the bihun…
…and the prawns, shredded chicken and thinly sliced egg omelette…
…with some sawtooth coriander for garnishing and the lightly blanched taugeh, heads and tails removed…
According to Peter, he will always get rid of the heads as that is the part, the bean, that may trigger off a gout attack.
He prepared one bowl for me, with bunga kantan (torch ginger flower) petals added…
…and two for the ladies…
…and yes, we sure enjoyed it a lot!
His was very nice as well but different from mine – for one thing, his was creamier…
In general, Sibu folks love it with a lot of santan (coconut milk) but Kuching people would frown on it insisting that it would end up like curry instead and authentic Sarawak laksa should not be like that. Well, it wasn’t that creamy…
…not like many sold at the stalls around the town so it was not overly rich and very much to our liking.
Thank you so much, Peter, for going through all that trouble to cook this exclusively for us. Now, let’s see what we can cook next… LOL!!!
PAYUNG CAFÉ (2.284049, 111.833014) is located at No.20F, Lanang Road, Sibu, Malaysia, back to back with the multi-storey car park of the Kingwood Hotel which faces the majestic Rejang River.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 