Sunday special…

My missus said she would cook something special for us that day, Sunday – she was going to cook curry laksa…

…from scratch.

I have tried cooking this before once using that no-longer-affordable made-in-Singapore laksa paste and I’ve tried using this Malaysian-made one too but no, you would not catch me cooking it from scratch. The mere idea of all the work to be done sends shivers down my spine!

Anyway, early that morning, I went out to the neighbourhood fruits and vegetables plus sundry and whatever shop in the next lane from my house to buy a few things that my missus said she would need.

I got her some taugeh (bean sprouts)…

…no prize for guessing who removed all the tails, and some tofu puffs…

She also wanted these seafood tofu…

…that she said my girl likes a lot and some daun sup (Chinese celery)…

…as well and yes, she did take some of my daun kesum/daun laksa (Vietnamese cilantro/Vietnamese coriander) from the garden…

…to use in the cooking.

I also bought a box of New Zealand mussels…

…to add to the dish as I was quite sure it would bring it to a whole new level.

When I got up that day, I took the prawns…

…out of the freezer to defrost. We had these the other day, the pre-peeled and deveined ones from Sabah- my missus bought a pack from this same shop and since it was so good, very sweet and fresh, firm and succulent, I went back there and bought two more packs to store in the freezer. Unfortunately, she did not want these – she said she would rather use the ones I bought from my favourite fish & seafood stall…

…as she wanted to use the heads and the shell for the stock. Left without a choice, I had to pack the aforementioned prawns in a container and put them back into the freezer.

To say that it was a lot of work would be an understatement. She spent the whole morning in the kitchen which looked like a whirlwind had swept past the place and it was way past noon when she finally got everything ready.

We gave some…

…to her brother, my brother-in-law and also to my sister but of course, we packed the broth…

…separately.

This…

…was what I had for my lunch that day and I sure enjoyed it a lot!

She said it was a bit too diluted and she did not add enough santan (coconut milk) so it was not very lemak but I thought that was a blessing in disguise. I wouldn’t like it to be too lemak so much so that halfway through I would start to feel that I had had enough. It tasted really great, not quite like curry or masak lemak – it was in a class of its own, so very nice but looking at how much work was involved, no, I don’t think I will ask her to cook it from scratch again, thank you very much.

SWEE HUNG (2.316161, 111.840441) is located along Jalan Ruby, in the block of shops on the right – next to a hair salon at the extreme end and on the other end, to the left is the Kim Won Chinese Medical Store and Mini-supermarket.