Curry Laksa Fried Chicken, with Pineapple Mint Salsa and Ginger Lime Aioli
Ah, laksa…who doesn’t love a big steaming bowl of fiery creamy goodness. If you’re unfamiliar with laksa, it is essentially a rich and spicy noodle soup commonly found around the Malaysia/ Singapore peninsula, as well as in parts of Thailand and Indonesia.
Laksa has always been a favourite in our house, though ironically we don’t really eat it all that often. I had been playing around with the idea of a laksa fried chicken for a bit, though after a bit of quick research, I found that Adam Liaw (a MasterChef winner from Australia) had already beaten me to it*.
Oh, well – you can’t have too much of a good thing can you?
This recipe has been through a couple of iterations in its lifetime. Initially, I started making a classic curry laksa, topped with laksa fried chicken. Tasty, but it quickly loses the impact of crisp chicken goodness in the soup.
So next came the idea of making a dry laksa noodle – I cooked down the curry paste and coconut milk till thick, then tossed it through noodles stir fried with the usual laksa toppings. This is how it turned out.
In the end though, I abandoned the idea of gratuitous laksa overkill – I’ve concluded that it’s all pretty much an excuse to get as much laksa down my face as possible. So instead let’s focus on the good stuff – the star of the show was always meant to be the fried chicken.
This recipe takes it’s cue from curry laksa, as opposed to the other types of laksa variants such as Assam. Incidentally, here’s a nice overview of the different laksa variations and some etymology on the name that I hadn’t come across before. As you might imagine, recipes can vary hugely even within the scope of the good old curry laksa, but at the heart of it lies a spicy laksa paste balanced with creamy coconut milk to form the heart of the soup base. The spice paste is what brings the fire and the flavour, made from chilies and aromatics including shallot/onion,garlic, tumeric, galangal, lemongrass and shrimp paste.
In this recipe, I’m using boneless thigh fillets, and marinating the chicken in curry paste and coconut milk powder rather than regular coconut milk – I wanted a good amount of coconut flavour without it getting too wet. The curry paste I typically make is fairly standard from what I could see from other recipes online and in my own library. The focus is mainly on the aromatic ingredients, with some lighter, sweeter spices so as not to overpower the balance.
I also trialed several options for the coating for frying – various combinations of potato starch, regular flour and coconut flour. Best options are either all potato starch or half potato starch and half plain flour. I didn’t find using coconut flour added much to the texture or flavour. Using 100% potato starch gives the chicken a lighter, crisp coating which draws on the the Japanese fried chicken/ Karaage approach, whereas the half and half mix gives it more of a regular fried chicken feel – slightly thicker crust and better colour. The potato starch chicken can look a bit on the pale side in comparison, though I did find it stayed crisper for longer.The photo below is the half and half coating, and would be my preferred method, though to be honest the all starch coating is still a very very close second.
The recipe for the curry paste below makes about double the amount you need for the chicken, so feel free to make some regular laksa if you like too! If you don’t feel like making your own laksa paste, it’s possible to do this with a shop-bought or pre-prepared laksa paste instead. Use the same amount of paste, but leave out the 1/2 teaspoon of salt as the paste will most likely already have a fair bit added.
- 5 grams dried Red Chili soaked, drained and chopped
- 25 grams fresh Red Chili
- 10 grams dried shrimp soaked for 20 mins and drained
- 10 grams fresh galangal
- 50 grams lemongrass
- 10 grams fresh tumeric
- 200 grams shallots
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander seed
- 1/2 teaspoon ground fennel seed
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 350 grams boneless chicken thighs
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 25 grams coconut milk powder
- 1 teaspoon Vietnamese mint (Optional)
- 75 grams plain flour
- 75 grams potato starch (or use 150g potato starch to replace the plain flour)
- Oil for deep frying (peanut , vegetable, rice bran or your choice of oil)
- 200 grams pineapple finely diced
- 1/2 red onion finely diced
- 1 small bunch mint chopped
- 1/2 lime juice only
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar (optional)
- 3 tablespoons mayonnaise
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger minced
- 1/2 lime juice and zest
- 1/2 red chili finely chopped
- 1 small clove garlic minced
- The chicken will be best marinaded overnight, so plan to start the recipe the day before you plan to serve it if possible.
- To make the curry paste, place all the curry paste ingredients into a food processor and process till you get as smooth a paste as you can. Depending on how dry the ingredients are, you may need to add a teaspoon or two of water at a time to get everything amalgamated. Pause every now and again to scrape down any bits creeping up the side to ensure it's all blended well. If you prefer, you can be traditional and use a mortar and pestle instead - start with the chili and shrimp, and get everything well crushed before moving through the ingredients from hardest to softest.
- Cut each chicken thigh into three or four strips and place in a bowl. Add the salt, 100 grams of the curry paste, coconut milk powder and Vietnamese mint if using, and mix well to combine. Leave to marinade overnight, or for at least 3 - 4 hours.
- In a large bowl, combine the potato starch and plain flour and mix well (or just potato starch if that's what you're using). Take a strip of chicken and toss it through the flour/starch mix till well coated all over, and place to one side on a plate while you repeat the same with the rest of the chicken. Once you've finished coating all the chicken pieces, take the piece you started with and repeat the process a second time so that it's coated with the starch/flour again. Repeat once more with all the chicken so it all has a double coating of the flour dredge.
- In a deep pan, wok or fryer, heat your oil till it reaches 180°C or 350°F. Once the oil is ready, fry the chicken a few pieces at a time until crisp and golden brown.
- To make the salsa, combine all the ingredients and mix well. If your pineapple if a little under-ripe, feel free to add the optional sugar so that there's a nice balance of sweet and sour to your taste.
- Combine the aioli ingredients together, and mix well to ensure the garlic and ginger are well distributed throughout. Add more lime juice if you prefer it more tangy.
The recipe for the curry paste below makes about double the amount you need for the chicken, so feel free to make some regular laksa if you like too!
If you would like to add more spices to your laksa paste, some good options are 1/2 teaspoon of cumin, cardamon or clove.
If you don't feel like making your own laksa paste, it's possible to do this with a shop-bought or pre-prepared laksa paste instead. Use the same amount of paste, but leave out the 1/2 teaspoon of salt added with the chicken as the paste will most likely already have a fair bit added.
References
*Christine over at Christine’s Recipes has done a good job of reproducing the recipe, in turn adapted from MasterChef Magazine, so here’s the link)
I also tried to get an idea of what others were doing with their laksa…here are a couple of good options to check out!
Curry Laksa (Malacca Nyonya Laksa), 2011, Serious Eats
Laksa, 2011, Rasa Malaysia
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