Penang Asam Laksa

This Penang Asam Laksa is very famous in Malaysia, even won number 7th place of World's 50 most delicious food which published by CNN Go in July 2011.

You can enjoy to take this Penang Asam Laksa in hawker center, coffee shop, road side stall or food court in Penang state.

It is not only the loves from women and men but also young and old. When tracing back the history, it looks like the "Peranakan culture food". The hawkers who sell this Asam Laksa mostly from ethnics Malays and Chinese.

The soup is sort of a bit spicy and sour taste and rich with fish flakes and fish flavour. The Mackeral or 'ikan Kembung' in Malay language is widely used for making this Asam Laksa soup. Some local poeple used Sardine or 'ikan Sardin' to cook too, but not so fragant as the previous one. The Mackeral is being clean, cut and shredded and poached to make the fish broth as soup.

Meanwhile local people also used these ingredients; lemongrass, galangal or 'lengkuas' in Malay language, Chillies and tamarind put into the soup and poach. The dried sliced tamarind local people called as 'asam keping' or local called as 'asam gelugor' also being put in the soup to poach, it bring out the sourness to the soup. No coconut milk use.

The hawker will start to serve you with taking a plate or bowl with the white rice thick noodles or a bit thin noodles which looks like vermicelli.

Then they will garnish with Raw vegetables on top of the noodles, such as mint, thin sliced cucumber, thin sliced pineapple, thin sliced of red big onion, some red sliced chilly, some thin sliced lettuce. Some Chinese hawker will add in the shredded pink colour ginger buds or "bunga Kantan", for it's frangant.

After garnishing, the hawker will put the fish stalk on the noodles and meanwhile the hawker also put a few pieces of the dried tamarind as garnishing the Asam Laksa in the plate or bowl..

One plate or one bowl of this Penang Asam laksa is vary from place to place, from town to village. It's cost about RM1.20 to RM3.50.