I grew up in Malaysia and frequently travelled to various parts of the country with my father, who was an architect. One of his biggest projects was the FLDA (Federal Land Development Authority, which has since grown an E to become FELDA). In the course of the travels we often stopped for a late breakfast in a coffee shop. We would drink black local coffee (Kopi-o kosong) and eat Penang Laksa, a kind of noodle soup.

Laksa is a fairly well known dish, but that's what we call “Singapore laksa”, which tastes quite different. The following recipe is the oldest file originally created on my system:

=== grog@wantadilla (/dev/ttypl) ~/public_html/recipes 35 -> ls -l laksa
-rw-r--r--  1 grog  lemis  2643 Jun 14  1991 laksa

041     SENT:  91-06-12  18:51   ORIGINAL       001 ATTACHMENT
        FROM:  SMTPGATE @COMM (grog@devnull.mpd.tandem.com)
          TO:  LEHEY_GREG@TANDEM.COM

Path: devnull!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!nntpsrv
From: karsiti@emerald.eng.uci.edu (MN Karsiti)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.asean
Subject: Penang Laksa
Message-ID: <2853A8E5.17577@orion.oac.uci.edu>
Date: 10 Jun 91 16:29:25 GMT
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Lines: 55
Nntp-Posting-Host: emerald.eng.uci.edu

     Since there was some interest in Penang Laksa recently, I am posting
the official (at least according to TDC, Malaysia) recipe.

Ingredients:
 1 kg fish
 2 tbsps salt
 2 kg coarse rice vermicelli
 2 stalks bunga kantan (translation?)
 **1 clove garlic
 **1 tbsp shrimp paste
 **35 dried chillies ( this is going to be hot !!!! )
 **3 cm piece turmeric
 **10 stalks lemon grass
 **500 gm shallots
   ** ground to a paste ("gilling hingga lumat")
 8 pieces asam gelugor (tran?)
 20 cups water
 6 tbsps sugar
 30 stalks daun kesum (tran?)
 6 tbsps tamarind-mixed with 3/4 cup water.

for garnishing:
1 bunch mint leaves
1 pineapple- sliced
3 cucumbers- thinly shredded
12 red chilles- sliced
15 green chillies- sliced
250 gms large onions- diced
120 gms preserved leeks- sliced

method:
* Soak the tamarind in water.  Squeeze and strain out the juice.  Bring to the
boil with ground paste and dried tamarind, daun kesum, bunga kantan, sugar
and salt.  Boil for 10 minutes.
* Add the fish and let the gravy to simmer for 15 minutes until the fish is
cooked.  Remove (fish) to cool.  Set aside and flake (remove bones--make sure
you get everything so you won't get sued by your guest).
* Let the gravy simmer for 1 hour.
* Remove the daun kesum and bunga kantan.  Return the flaked fish to the gravy
and bring to boil.
* To serve, place the rice vermicelli (if it's dried - boil first) in
individual bowls, put the garnishing on top and pour the gravy over.

Happy cooking,
Mohd Noh.

p.s.  taken (without permission) from "Malaysian Common Recipes" by TDC, Malaysi
(added remarks in bracket were mine).
Other interesting menus include: Rendang, Fried Rice, Nasi Lemak, Sambal Ikan
Bilis, Beriani, Kurma, Murtabak, Roti Canai, Dhall, Fish Head Curry, Fried Mee,
Nasi Minyak, Satay, Chicken Rice, and Peanut Sauce.

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• Bunga kantan is ginger flower.
• Asam gelugor (“asam” means “sour” in Malay) is the fruit of a tree (gelugor) native to Malaysia and Borneo. I don't know an English culinary name for it; the botanical name is garcinia atroviridis. I've frequently seen asam jawa (“Java sour”, better known as tamarind) used instead.
• Daun kesum (“daun” means “leaf”) is also known as Vietnamese Coriander or laksa leaf.

After writing all this, I discovered that Wikipedia has what looks like a much better description of all kinds of laksa. It confirms my observation that asam jawa is used instead of asam gelugor in Penang laksa; it doesn't mention asam gelugor at all.