Char Kway Teow (炒粿條)

(serves 4-6)

Recipe adapted from Rasa Malaysia

Feels like forever since I’ve had the time to do some fun cooking, somehow life just seems to get in the way. Also feels like forever since I’ve had a free Sunday to do some cooking at my parent’s place to use the wok! So given this great opportunity that we had a basketball bye, and that I had been out eating Malaysian a few times of late, I thought I’d give this Malaysian classic a try!

I imagine Char kway teow to be a bit like the Pad Thai of Thai cooking, or gong chou ngou hor (乾炒牛河) of Cantonese cooking or pho of Vietnamese, just the simple, much-loved, ever-popular noodle dish. It’s fairly simple but distinct dish with the flavoursome chinese sausage and freshness of the chive sand bean sprouts. For chilli lovers, home-made chilli sauce of course makes it better, but unfortunately my chilli tolerance is pretty appauling so I haven’t ventured there. The Rasa Malaysia recipe I adapted from has some good details on that though! Delicious!

Prep time: 20 min

Cooking time: 20 min

Ingredients:

12 prawns, shelled and butterflied

2 chinese sausages

100g fried fish cake

2-3 bunches chinese chives

1 packet bean sprouts

2 cloves garlic

1kg flat rice noodles

1 egg

chilli sauce or dried chilli (optional)

Sauce:

5 tablespoons soy sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
Scant 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 dashes white pepper powder

Method:

1. Soak the prawns in ice cold water with 2 T sugar (this is supposed to make the prawns sweet and succulent).

2. Cut the chinese sausage into thin diagonals and the fish cake into thin slices, finely cut the the garlic.

3. Wash and cut the chinese chives into 3cm strips.

4. Pre-mix the sauce, can add chilli sauce here as you like.

5. Heat the wok on high, put in 1T oil. When the oil is hot, then quickly put in the garlic. Chinese sausage, prawns and fish cake and stir. Cook for 1 minute until the aroma of the chinese sausage is released.

6. Add in the noodles, and half the sauce and continue to stir-fry for 1 minute until the noodles are soft. Push the noodles to the side, add some oil, then crack the egg in. Mix the yolk into the white until mostly cooked, then stir-through with the noodles.

7. Add in the chives and bean sprouts and the rest of the sauce and cook for another 2-3 minutes until the chives and sprouts go limb.

8. Taste and season with soy and chilli sauce (or dried chilli flakes) to your liking.