Leftovers Laksa – By Anthony Davies

Traditional laksa uses shrimp paste and curry powder for flavour, and noodles are added to make the soup more substantial. My version relies more on fresh spices, and crushed crayfish shell adds some no waste taste.

Crush up the shells to release flavour.

The Bride and I know a family of Torres Strait folk who are regularly generous with gifts of painted crayfish. As she doesn’t eat them (or mudcrabs, best wife ever!) I get to spoil myself with crayfish salad, crayfish rolls, crayfish mornay, crayfish thermidor, etc etc. Like Forrest Gump’s mate Bubba and his shrimp I never seem to run out of ways to eat crays. And not just the tails, there is a lot of tasty meat in the heads, horns and legs if you make the effort to extract it. Said extracting creates a big pile of cracked shell, and I don’t like wasting all that leftover flavour. This recipe takes care of that.

Simmer fast to reduce the liquid.

Ingredients:

Cooked, picked over shell of a small to medium cray, including legs and horns.

10 large green prawns, peeled and deveined. You could use the crayfish meat instead; cut in chunks; I always seem to have eaten it by the time I get to this stage. In any case, the Bride eats prawns – but not crayfish, go figure!

200g firm white fish, cut into 2cm dice. I used Queenfish, trevally or mackerel would be good too. Soft fish like barra is OK in a pinch but it breaks up and spoils the presentation.

1 x small carrot, 1 x small onion 1 x bunch of bok choi or pak choi, sliced Asian style.

3cm piece root ginger, grated. Handful Thai or regular coriander, handful Kaffir lime leaves, crushed in your hands. 4 x 10cm lemongrass stalks. Hot chilli to taste, finely chopped.

1 x 400ml can coconut cream

Stirfry the more robust ingredients.

Method

Bring a cup of water to a simmer in a small saucepan. Add the crayfish shells and crush with a meat mallet, sturdy bottle or other heavy implement. In the pic I am using a dukkah, a sturdy middle eastern pestle carved by my grandfather almost a century ago. Cover and simmer the crushed shells on low heat for at least 30mins. Uncover and increase the heat to a fast simmer until the liquid has reduced by half. Strain off the liquid and reserve. The remaining shell is still good to add to berley, or to dig in around calcium loving plants like pawpaws.

Add the reserved crayfish juice.

Heat a dash of oil to medium in a wok or large deep frypan. Add the onion, carrot, ginger and chilli and gently fry until almost tender, about 10 minutes. Add the prawns, lemon grass stalks and crushed Kaffir lime leaves, stir fry until the prawns are just cooked. Add the liquid from the crayfish shells and bring to the boil.

Coarsley chop the coriander leaves, reserving a couple of leaves for garnish. Add the chopped coriander, chopped bok choy ,fish pieces and coconut cream to the pan and stir through quickly before the fish softens. Bring back to a simmer and cook gently until the fish is cooked . Pick out most of the kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass stalks, allow one of each per bowl for garnish. At this point you could add cooked noodles if desired, we usually serve with crusty bread. Enjoy!

Serve in bowls with a coriander garnish.