Char Kway Teow (Malaysia/Indonesia/Singapore)
Considered one of the national dishes of Singapore, this is also a popular street-hawker dish in Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Traditionally it is stir-fried in lard, and topped with an unusual type of cockle bursting with dark red juices known as a blood cockle, but I’ve used groundnut oil to be a bit healthier, and normal cockles as you can’t get blood cockles in the UK for love or money. Just as for Beef Chow Fun, ‘wok hei’ is important for this dish – in fact, I recommend cooking each portion separately to ensure optimum flavour and texture.
Serves 2 | Takes 20 minutes to make, 8 minutes to cook
200g fresh broad, flat rice noodles (ho fun) or 75g dried
8 tbsp groundnut oil
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 Chinese sausage (lap cheong), thinly sliced at an angle
50g ready-made fishcake, sliced into strips
8 large raw prawns, peeled and deveined
50g beansprouts, topped and tailed
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tsp dark soy sauce
2 tsp Indonesian sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
2 tsp chilli sauce (sriracha is particularly good)
2 eggs
2 garlic chives, cut into 5cm lengths
100g shelled fresh cockles
white pepper to taste
If using fresh ho fun noodles, carefully separate them (they should come apart in 2.5cm strands), then set them aside, lightly covered with a damp cloth or clingfilm. If using dried ho fun, put them in a large heatproof bowl and generously cover with just-boiled water. After a minute, untangle the noodles, then leave them to soak for a further 6 minutes until al dente. Drain in a colander and rinse thoroughly under running cold water. Set to one side in the colander so that any residual water can continue to drain.
You need to cook this one portion at a time for the best results:
Heat a wok on a high heat until you can feel the waves of heat coming from it with the palm of your hand (‘wok hei’). Add 2 tablespoons oil, half the garlic and half the Chinese sausage, and stir-fry for 1–2 minutes until the garlic is fragrant and the sausage is glossy. With the heat still on high, add half the fish cake and 4 prawns, and stir-fry for another couple of minutes until the prawns turn pink.
Turn the heat down to medium and push everything to the side of the wok, then add half of the noodles and beansprouts, half of all the sauces and 3 tablespoons water to the cleared space. Mix these new ingredients together, then stir-fry for 2 minutes in the cleared space.
Now push everything to the side of the wok again. Add 2 tablespoons oil to the cleared space and, when it’s hot, crack in an egg. Break up the egg with your spatula, then pull everything back into the centre of the wok and combine well with the egg.
Next add half the chives and white pepper to taste and stir-fry to combine well. Lastly, add half of the cockles and stir-fry for 30 seconds. Serve immediately on a plate, with chopsticks. Repeat the process for the other portion.
