Today, we bid a fond farewell to this great series of products from Way Premium Foods of Malaysia with a Malaysian favorite, Asam Laksa. Here’s some info about it from WIkipedia –

Asam laksa is a sour, fish and tamarind-based soup. Penang Asam Laksa listed at number 26th on World’s 50 most delicious foods compiled by CNN Go in 2011.^[12] Asam is the Malay word for any ingredients that makes a dish tastes sour (e.g. tamarind, gelugur or kokum). Laksa typically uses asam keping, known as kokum in the English speaking world, which is a type of dried slices of sour mangosteens. The modern Malay spelling is asam, though the spelling assam is still frequently used.

The main ingredients for asam laksa include shredded fish, normally kembung (small mackerel of the Rastrelliger genus), and finely sliced vegetables including cucumber, onions, red chillies, pineapple, lettuce, common mint, daun kesum (Vietnamese mint or laksa mint), and pink bunga kantan (torch ginger). Asam laksa is normally served with either thick rice noodles or thin rice noodles (vermicelli). And topped off with petis udang or “hae ko” (蝦膏), a thick sweet prawn/shrimp paste.^[1]

Variants of asam laksa include:

Penang laksa (Malay: Laksa Pulau Pinang), also known as asam laksa from the Malay for tamarind, comes from the Malaysian island of Penang. It is made with mackerel (ikan kembung) soup and its main distinguishing feature is the asam or tamarind which gives the soup a sour taste. The fish is poached and then flaked. Other ingredients that give Penang laksa its distinctive flavour include lemongrass, galangal (lengkuas) and chilli. Typical garnishes include mint, pineapple slices, thinly sliced onion, hε-ko, a thick sweet prawn paste and use of torch ginger flower. This, and not ‘curry mee’ is the usual ‘laksa’ one gets in Penang. Penang Laksa is listed at number 7 on the World’s 50 best foodscompiled by CNN Go in July 2011

Time to cook – let’s go!

Way Premium Foods Authentic Penang Asam Laksa – Malaysia

Detail of the side panels (click to enlarge). Contains fish. To prepare, boil noodles for 3~4 minutes. Drain and set aside. add liquid sachet to 200ml water and bring to a boil. Add noodles. Finally, stir and enjoy!

A pillow pack of instant noodles.

Here’s the back of the package (click to enlarge).

The noodle block.

A large wet sachet.

A spicy and sour scented paste.

Finished (click to enlarge). Added pineapple, hard boiled egg, fried tofu with lemongrass, lettuce, fried garlic, and Salad Cosmo mung bean sprouts. This was just delightful. The broth has a tangy and sour hit to it with a nice tomato kind of taste. The noodles marry to it so well and it just sings of Penang flavor. Very impressed. 5.0 out of 5.0 stars. EAN bar code 9555861000861.

Enchanting Penang (Enchanting Asia)

Watch me put this together on the 150th episode of Instant Noodle Recipe Time!