Fried Hokkien Mee

Recipe from "Hawker Food" by Jimmy Chua (ISBN: 988-202-270-7)

Fried Hokkien Mee

Ingredients:

200 g Hokkien Mee 
150 g thick bee hoon (laksa beehoon)
50 g bean sprouts
2 eggs, beaten
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon chopped garlic
8 cooked prawns 
1 sotong, cooked in water and cut into rings
1 fish cake, cut into pieces
some chinese chives
750 ml stock (from below)


Stock:

2 chicken breast fillets or pork
3 litres water
50 g sugar cane (normal sugar can also be used)
300 g clams

Seasoning: rock sugar and salt to taste

Method:

1. Blanch chicken breast fillets or pork meat in hot water. Rinse well. Wash the sugar cane and cut into big pieces. Soak clams in water for 1 hour. Boil chicken breast fillets or pork meat in water over low heat for 30 minutes. Add sugar cane and clams. Boil for 1 hour. Strain the stock. Add seasoning according to taste.
If normal sugar is used, then one has to agak-agak.

2. Fry eggs with oil till fragrant. Add a little light soy sauce and stir well. Put in Hokkien mee, bee hoon and bean sprouts. Stir fry further. Add some stock. Stir well and cover the lid. Cook briefly. Stir fry the ingredients till fragrant and dish up.

3. Heat oil in a wok. Fry garlic till fragrant then add some light soy sauce, some stock and fried Hokkien from step (2) above. Stir well. Add prawns, sotong, fish cake pieces abd chinese chives. Stir well and serve.

Black Hokkien Mee

Ingredients:

- thick yellow noodles( if like me, you can't stand the "kan sui" odour, give it a wash or quick blanch just before cooking. Alternatively, use Udon.)
- thick dark soy sauce( not sweet )
- soy sauce
- crisp lard and it's fat
- chopped garlic
- prawns, sliced pork, squid
- stock made from prawn shells & pork bones
- ground dried prawns( very little & optional )
- caixin, cabbage.
- pepper & sugar to taste.
- sambal belacan & calamansi( this is SO IMPORTANT! )

Saute garlic and dried prawns( if using ) in the lard fat followed by pork, squid and prawns. Add in the noodles, stir to coat somewhat and then pour in stock. Cover to steam/braise. Season with both soy sauces, pepper and sugar. Keep frying until liquid is almost gone before adding in the veggies and crisp lard. Serve with sambal & calamansi.

by curryman

Char Kway Teow

rep.
(a) Cut some green veges, whatever you like. Result: stem and leaves.
(b) Mix: 1 tbsp soy sauce, 3 tbsp dark soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil. Result: bowl of mix
(c) Slice up: chinese sausage, fish cakes (chicken?). Result: meat mix
(d) Deroot (old habits die hard): Bean sprouts. result: Derooted Bean sprouts
(e) Chop: garlic. I use 1-2 pieces. Result: chopped garlic.

1. Boil yellow and white flat noodles. Drain. Heat oil in pot/pan/wok with a pinch of (e) chopped garlic, then fry the yellow and white flat noodles with (a) vege stems. If vege stems are harder (e.g. chye sim), fry stem first then noodles. Put pot one side. Result: Cooked noodle mix.

2. Heat oil in wok with a pinch of (e) chopped garlic, then fry (c) meat mix. When half cooked, throw in (b) bowl of mix. When fully cooked, put one side in a large plate/bowl. Result: Cooked meat mix.

3. Now, with (1) and (2) above nearby, use same wok that you just emptied to cook individual portions. Again oil and even less garlic heated. Throw in a bowl of 1 to 2 quarter-beaten eggs. Let eggs semi harden, then throw in (2) Cooked meat mix for an individual, and cook them all mixing the egg with them. Then throw in an individual portion of (1) Cooked noodle mix, stir fry some more. Then throw in a handful of (d) Derooted Bean sprouts and (a) leaves, and immediately pour 1-2 tbsp of DARK STARCH, and mix them all until the leaves are cooked (they shrink by 25%) and then immediately pour out to individual plates to serve 1. Repeat for another plate.

The trick is the DARK STARCH for the taste and texture of char Kway teow. After years of experimentation, I find that dark soy sauce add more saltiness rather than just the colour and the dark starch taste of char kway teow.

My missus and myself were from Chung Cheng high in the old days, and remember an old man who cooked Char Kway Teow for years(!) -- he was still cooking it and it was awesome, some 10 years after we revisited. In trying to reconstruct what he's done, we pieced together ingredients from all over youtube and the net over the years and believe this is the way it was done. Warning: best to do is as husband and wife -- the person cooking individual portions would find it easier if someone was helping with all the logistics!

There are small tricks along the way. If step (1) gets too dry, or step (3) gets too dry when throwing in the noodle mix, add a few drops (or tsp, or tbsp) of water. Noodles soak up a maddening amount of moisture so keeping it tangy and wet externally would prevent the noodles from disintegrating too easily.

Egg portions can also be controlled. My kids like 1 egg to share for 1 portion. I go for 2. DW goes for 3, sometimes 4. Starch and darkness levels also can be controlled individually.

If you read up the origins of char kway teow, it was nothing more than lard and cheap noodles, for some of our ancestor coolies who needed the energy boost. We've tried lard, but find no pleasure in the sickening taste. The dark starch should suffice.


By Rostov

Char Kway Teow

1. Colour/flavour the kway teow with dark & light soy, pepper and Thai fish sauce.

2. Make an omellete to be shredded later. In the same pan, "grill" sliced taukwa and prawns. Dish out.

2. On high heat briefly stir-fry garlic, julienne of carrots & red chillies and beansprouts. Add a dash of Thai fish sauce. Dish out. Takes a minute or less.

3. Fry garlic, chopped chai por, & thinly sliced lean pork followed by the kway teow. Turn off the heat and dump in the rest of the stuff. Throw in a handfull of Chinese chives.


By Curryman