Almost Vegetarian Laksa

If you've been following my Facebook page you'll know that over the past few days I've been trying to perfect a recipe for Laksa, one of my favourite soups. The idea first  popped into my head when a friend mentioned he was making it for dinner and like most cravings I've had in this pregnancy it refused to let go until I'd got it pretty much right. I started out with a recipe on the Thermomix Recipe Community which is a great resource once you own a Thermomix, but I think the end product is different enough that I'm happy calling it my own.

A couple of notes; I say "a small" type-of-vegetable because I used half of one so I can use the other half in something else later in the week. Don't knock yourself out trying to find miniscule produce.  Also I had a lot of the ingredients for this soup in my pantry already because I love Thai and Malaysian cooking- you can find pretty much everything at the IGA in Castlemaine or Castlemaine Fresh in Mostyn st. If you don't have any of the ingredients the first time you make this soup will be a bit expensive, but hopefully you'll like it enough to make it again and again and maybe try other dishes using similar things, so it'll be worth the initial outlay. Finally, the soup takes about 50 minutes from getting ingredients together to plating up, though there is a lot of "set and forget" time in there, so this is strictly a weekend dish at our house.

Paste Ingredients
20 g fresh ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
1 large onion , quartered
3 cloves garlic 
1 tbs fresh coriander, leaves & stalks
12 cashew nuts
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp shrimp paste 
50 g Thai red curry paste from Everyday Cookbook, or from a jar
50 g coconut cream 

5 g Rice Bran Oil (or other oil)

Sauce Ingredients
750 g coconut cream (i.e. rest of can you used for paste plus another can)
1 tsp Vegetable Stock Concentrate (from Everyday Cookbook or use a stock cube) plus 200 g water
1 "cube" palm sugar or 2 tsp brown sugar
1 tsp kaffir lime leaves from jar, or 8 fresh ones split
Splash of fish sauce
Juice of 1 lime
Pinch of salt
Small eggplant, halved vertically, horizontally then sliced into approx 1 cm thick strips
Small capsicum, prepared as eggplant
300 g firm tofu- cubed into bite-sized chunks
Handful snowpeas  

Fresh Noodles
440 g Hokkien 
440 g Udon

Garnish
Coriander leaves
Cherry tomatoes, halved
Lime wedges
Sliced red chilli

Place all paste ingredients into TM bowl and grind for 10 seconds on speed 7, scrape down bowl and repeat, scrape down again, including lid.

Add oil and cook for 8 minutes at 100°C on speed 1

Add all the sauce ingredients except the vegetables and tofu. Cook for 15 minutes at 100°C on speed 1

Add eggplant and capsicum and cook for 5 minutes at 100°C on Reverse on speed soft.

Place noodles in a separate bowl and cover with boiling water. 

Add tofu and snowpeas to TM bowl and cook for 4 minutes at 100°C on Reverse on speed soft

Drain noodles and divide into individual soup bowls. Ladle laksa over the top and garnish with coriander leaves, halved cherry tomatoes, lime wedges and slices of chilli.

Serves 4-6

Leftovers will keep for a day in the fridge.

Welcome

Hello and thank you for visiting my blog. My name is Chris, I live in Central Victoria in a town between Castlemaine and Daylesford and at the time of writing I am the only Thermomix consultant in the whole area. Actually that is not quite true, I only started training last week so in two weeks I will be the only consultant, right now there are none.

In this blog I plan to focus on Thermomix tips, tricks and recipes as well as keeping you informed of any local classes or events being offered. To start with I may need to stretch the definition of "local" to Macedon or Bendigo but I hope as more people in the area become interested we can offer classes in the Mt Alexander and Hepburn shires.

So what is a Thermomix? It is simply the smallest, smartest kitchen you could have. It is one machine which does the work of ten kitchen appliances. In no particular order I use it to: grind wheat, knead dough, mash potatoes, crush ice, churn butter, make sorbets, make jam, preserve fruits and vegetables, steam fish, make liquid stock and stock concentrate, chop salads and make dumplings from scratch (all the way from mixing the dough to cooking the stuffing and steaming the dumplings.) I can prepare a risotto in less than 5 minutes, press a few buttons and just walk away for the 20 minutes it takes to cook as the machine stirs itself. I've heard of other people using it to make their own bath and beauty products and cleaners, but so far I've not ventured out of the kitchen with mine. It's also great for those on a raw food diet as on it's lowest heat setting it will not exceed 37 degrees, or it can be used with no heat at all to make yummy salads and dips.

As well as keeping you updated on Thermomix events in the local area I plan to focus on recipes to help you cook in-season food from scratch and save money while not sacrificing taste or health. "Budget" is my watch word. I am currently a stay at home mum with one small child and another on the way. I love my life and lifestyle, but in order to make it work we need to watch our food spending. I also love having a bit of money left over at the end of the month to splurge at the Farmer's Market in Castlemaine. The Thermomix means that, for example, instead of spending $12 on two loaves of bread for the week I can make them for roughly 0.85c each using really nice flour, oil and seeds and have the extra $10.30 to spend on goats' cheese or something else indulgent.

If you would like to see the Thermomix in action I would love to bring mine around to your place and give you a demo. No pressure to buy, you simply need to have at least two friends from different households present (the ideal number of people including you is 4-6) and provide a few basic ingredients you probably already have in your fridge or could easily get from the supermarket for less than $15, I will do the rest! You can see for yourself what the machine does while tasting the results and having a nice afternoon with friends.

I will be qualified to hold demonstrations from the beginning of May and would love to get started straight away! If you would like more information or feel a demo is for you please contact me at castlemainedaylesfordthermomix(AT)gmail(DOT)com