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| Bunga Kantan: As beautiful as it can get |
In the first post, I have detailed out how to prepare the kembung fish broth. I hope you are not put off by the work involved. Just get into it and it will be intuitive after a few tries. But you (and your family & friends) will be rewarded with a spectacular dish.
We continue with the rest of the recipe.
I will introduce some of the exotic ingredients in this recipe.
The ginger flower or torch bud is beautiful both in appearance and taste. Used in Nonya and Malay cooking, it also goes by Bunga Kantan. If you are a sophisticated biologist, you call it etlingera elatior. If you are a plain Joe - like myself - you can just call it the "Rojak flower." It is easily available here. It is a fantastic flavour enhancer. It is also used widely in Thai and other types of Asian salads. It's taste is exotic and rather hard to describe. In fact I am chewing on some now.
How do you even begin to describe the experience of eating Assam Laksa?
Imagine a fish kembung broth meticulously prepared. Then you add spices like chili, the complex and fruity ginger flower (torch bud), lots of sour tamarind (assam), assam keping (dried tamarind skins), blue ginger (lengkuas, galangal), shallots, laksa leaves and "funky" belachan (dried shrimp paste,and 'funky' was the word an Australian chef used to describe this paste).
As if that is not flavorful enough, you garnish the sweet and indescribable prawn paste (hae kou), mint leaves, and shredded large red onions, grated pineapple and more chillies and ginger flower.
Fishy, sour, sweet, fruity, spicy, salty, bitter, minty and umami. This rich, flavorful and complex broth has all the works.
