How To Make Laksa On A Whim (when you have none of the ingredients, equipment or know-how)

It’s very complicated, so bear/bare with me

1. Find a recipe on the internet. Well done.
2. Boil some water in a saucepan on your horrible electric stove, using your frypan as a lid so that it takes less than half an hour
3. Put some vermicelli noodles in a bowl and tip some of the water on them to soften
4. Peel a potato using that wobbly sharpish knife you have
5. Put the potato in the pot, realise you didn’t boil enough water to cover it, panic, top it up with cold tap water, put the frypan back on top and leave the potato in there hoping it’ll sort itself out
6. When it finally starts boiling again take the frypan off so you can use it in a step that is coming up soon
7. Sadly you don’t have any laksa paste which will definitely be your downfall. Examine the spices on hand, and select the one marked “curry” rather than the one marked “piment fort”. Then decide you will probably use both anyway, since it’s going to be horrible regardless.
8. If the potato doesn’t seem to have done anything yet, turn the Spice Girls up to full volume
9. If the potato is still taking forever, start writing the recipe on your blog, then look for other ingredients you can put in later. It would be good to find some tofu, but sadly all the packets of it were stuck together in the only shop that sells it because they have still failed to clean up the spillage that occurred there or get some new stock. Speaking of which, I think you’re meant to use some kind of stock in this too, but if you don’t have any no matter.
10. Decide the noodles have been soaking for too long but you don’t know what to do about it
11. Get frankly a little bit pissed off at the potato, take it out, cut it in half, put it back in
12. Using the frypan as a wok, put some coconut milk and curry powder (and piment fort?) in
13. Realise this is coconut cream not milk, pretty sure there’s a difference. Add shit loads of both “spices” but it still just tastes like coconut and it is way to thick. Add some water in an attempt to fix this, then bring to the boil
14. Drain the noodles, accidentally tipping about a third of them in the sink
15. Stick your hand in the potato pot to see if it’s ready yet. Yelp in pain.
16. Meanwhile, get those ingredients you found earlier. Cut the snowpeas and cherry tomatoes in half for no apparent reason. Grab a handful of presliced mushrooms just so you have them ready
17. Remove the hair you just found in the wok
18. Use the water you boiled the potatoes in to make a cup of tea, being careful not to tip the actual potatoes into your mug
19. When the stuff in the wok has boiled, turn it down quite a lot and let it simmer until you finish the tea
20. Oh also, fish the potatoes out and cut them into smaller pieces, then shove them and all those other vegetables into the bowl with the noodles
21. Realise the bowl is too small and you don’t have another one. Solve this by eating some of the noodles and potato, and accidentally wiping laksa in your hair
22. When the laksa starts sticking to the sides of the frypan in a frightening manner, it’s probably a good time to tip it in the bowl
23. Voilà! Serve with those useless chopsticks you’ve been waiting for an excuse to use.

Gross Things I Have Eaten #5
Home made Laksa.