Homemade Prawn Mee

I have to thanks Precious Pea for this inspiration. I tried to make my own prawn mee a few months back but I was making an abridged version aka "the cheat version". Link here. I used the soup base from an instant noodle but added all the condiments so that it looked like a prawn noodles that I was ordering from a hawker stall in Malaysia. It was a nice Saturday morning breakfast thrill to surprise my Hubby-D. Fast and delicious prawn mee from Foodmadesimple hawker stall.

Precious Pea was so nice to direct me to her posting whereby she made the prawn mee from scratch. I decided that I must make it one day but firstly, I would have to accumulate the prawn heads. After months, I finally managed to accumulate enough so this is my attempt at the original foodmadesimple's Homemade Prawn Mee.

Simple Ingredients -

Soup base :-

1) Prawn's heads and shells - from 1-2 pound of prawns

2) Pork ribs -1 pound

3) Water - 10 cups (approximately 2 liter)

4) Rock sugar - 2-3 small pieces.


Chili Paste :-

1) 20 dried chilies (soaked to soften)

2) 5 fresh red chillies

3) 6 shallots (peeled)

4) 4 cloves garlic (peeled)

5) 2 TBSP of water


I made the chilli paste earlier. Blend all the ingredients above till fine. Heat the wok with 4-5 TBSP of cooking oil. Stir fry the chili paste for 5 minutes. Dish up and set aside.

Toppings:

1) 1/4 pound of lean pork meat (boiled and sliced thinly)

2) 1/4 pound shrimp / prawns (shelled, deveined - stirfry lightly)

3) 2-3 hard-boiled eggs

4) 1 pack of rice vermicelli / mee hoon (scalded) - enough for 3-4 servings

5) Kangkung or water convolvulus (scalded)

6) Bean sprouts (scalded)

Simple steps :-

1) Firstly, with a 2 tbsp of oil in wok/pot, you stirfry quickly the shrimp heads. Then you add water and bring it to bowl. Simmer on low heat for about 1.5 hours or longer until the stock is yellowish orange like above.

2) Strain the stock through sieve. Discard the prawn heads and shells. Discard the orange "foam" which in on top of the stock. Add the chilli paste, add the pork ribs and continue to boil in low heat for another 1-1.5 hour until the pork ribs are thoroughly cooked.


3) Ah-ha the special ingredient is to add rock sugar. Don't know why but for sure it would sweeten the taste. Let it boil until ready. Add salt to taste. The stock is ready!

4) To prepare the rest of the ingredient is pretty easy. Boil the eggs until hard boiled. Boil the pork slices, shrimp, until cooked, Keep aside. Get some fried shallots. Boil the kankung (water convolvulus) and bean sprouts. Boil the noodles.










5) Ready to eat?? To serve, place a portion of meehoon(rice vermicelli), some kangkung and bean sprouts in a bowl. Ladle hot prawn stock over. Top with pork slices, shrimp, egg and pork ribs and fried shallots. Add more chilli for more 'kick' as desired.

Click here for Precious Pea's recipe.