laksa — Iran

Laksa is a family of spicy Asian noodle soups, most closely associated with Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, built on a broth thickened with coconut milk and seasoned with a pounded paste of chili, lemongrass, galangal and shrimp paste, poured over rice noodles with shrimp, fish or meat. This particular page is filed under Iran, reflecting how the dish is reported to appear there, generally through restaurants and home cooks drawing on Southeast Asian recipes rather than through a locally rooted line of cooking; it sits alongside separate pages for the dish's home region, where it is far more widespread. To prepare it, the chili paste is pounded or blended and fried in oil until fragrant, then simmered with coconut milk and stock into a rich broth. Rice noodles are cooked separately and placed in a bowl, topped with shrimp, fish or chicken, bean sprouts and hard-boiled egg, then covered with the hot broth and finished with coriander and a squeeze of lime. Reports describe many regional lines within the laksa family, curry-based, sour tamarind-based, or a distinct Sarawak version among them; the version covered here follows the coconut-milk, curry-leaning style most commonly cited, without claiming to represent every laksa served under that name, and without ranking it against the dish's Southeast Asian versions.