Prawn Mee / Mee Yoke / Har Mee / Penang Hokkien 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 bowls (approximately 2 liter)
4) Rock sugar - 2-3 small pieces.
5) 2-3 cloves of garlic and ginger (chopped fine)

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
6) Dried shrimp - optional
Blend all the ingredients. Heat the wok with 4-5 TBSP of cooking oil. Stir fry the chili paste for 15 minutes on low heat. Let the fragrance of the chilli paste fill your kitchen. Dish up and set aside.

Toppings / Condiments:
1) 1/2 pound of lean pork meat (boiled and sliced thinly)
2) 1 pound shrimp / prawns (shelled, deveined - stir fry lightly with some chilli paste)
3) 4 hard-boiled eggs
4) 1 pack of rice vermicelli / mee hoon (scalded)or yellow noodles - enough for 4 servings
5) Vegetable - Kangkung or water convolvulus (scalded)
6) Vegetable - Beans Sprouts (scalded)
7) 10 pcs of shallots - chopped and stir-fried till brown and fragrant

Simple Steps :

1. In a deep pot, put some oil (2 TBSP)and stir fry the chopped garlic and ginger. Add in the prawn heads and shells and stir till prawns turn beautiful reddish orange. Pour in the water and close the lid for it to boil for 2-3 hours.

2. After 3 hours of brewing, the prawn soup should be ready. Sieve out the soup and discard all the shells and heads. Brew the soup with pork ribs or pork bones for another 1 hour minimum. Add salt to taste.

Also put in the 1/2 pound of lean pork loin in soup. Remove after 15 mins (or when cooked), when it has cooled down, slice to thin rectangular slices and set aside as condiments.

3. Next, let's fry some shallots and set aside. Fried shallots are so fragrant and yummy when added on as toppings.

4. Next, in a wok with 2-3 TBSP of oil, stir in the chilli paste in low heat. Continue to stir till the chilli paste is fragrant. Becareful not to let the spice aroma catch your throat or else you will be coughing from the heat. However that also means you have a mean chilli paste going. :) Stir fry for about 15-20 minutes on medium to low heat. Remove from wok, keep some aside and slowly put into soup base. You can adjust the qtt based on your liking. Put more if you like spice. You can make it less spicy to cater for the different taste buds and if some like it spicier they can add on their own when served.

5. In the same wok, with some of the chilli paste, stir fry the prawns. Set aside when ready.

6. For the rest of the other condiments, boil the eggs till ready, peel of shells and cut to half or quarters. In a pot of boiling water, prepare the vegetables and noodles. Scald each item for 2 minutes and remove.

7. Assemble : In a big bowl, add noodles (mee or meehoon as per your liking), add the condiments on top - prawns, pork slices, Kankung, bean sprouts, fried shallots, hard boiled eggs and some chilli paste. Pour in the hot steaming soup and it's ready to be served.

Please visit http://www.mysimplefood.com/ for full story and other recipes.

Homemade Chili Pan Mee

Have you heard of Chili Pan Mee? Please read my posting on MySimpleFood for the most popular Chili Pan Mee in KL.

This posting on how to make homemade chili pan mee is dedicated to Chiro who has been waiting for me to post this recipe like...forever. I just did not have the time to post it up. But at last, I did.

When I was in the States, I gave myself a challenge that I will make Chili Pan Mee. I love Pan Mee (Min Fun Keuh), and I make it at home all the time. But Chili Pan Mee is totally different as it is the dry noodle version and most important ingredient is the dry chili paste.

After making it, I realized it is rather a tedious process with 3-4 major components. But I made it and am proud to share it.

Stage 1. Dried Chili Paste.

This is most important ingredient in Chili Pan Mee. The hot spicy chili gives it the extra oooomph!

1. Dried Chillies - soaked - 2 handful
2. Fresh red chillies - 2
3. Dried Shrimp - 1 palmful
4. Shallots or onion - 5 shallots or 2 mid sized onion
5. Garlic - 3 cloves
6. Oil - 4 TBSP

Blend the ingredients. Then in a wok of oil and low fire, stir-fry slowly (at least 30 mins) until dry and golden brown. You will need some patience on this and watch the fire as you need to get the chili really dry but you can't burn it. Good luck.

Stage 2. Minced Meat Sauce

1. 500gm of minced pork - marinade with salt, pepper and a dash of soy sauce and some starch
2. Oil - 2 TBSP
3. Dark Soy sauce - 1 TSBP
4. Oyster Sauce - 1 TBSP
5. Salt, pepper, soy sauce, 1/2 cup of water

In heated wok with oil, fry some shallots before putting in the minced meat. Stir fry till cooked, add in dark soy sauce and oyster sauce, and water. Stir till blended, add salt and pepper to taste.

Stage 3 Other Condiments

1. Fried Ikan Bilis (Anchovies)
2. Poached egg
3. Vegetable soup

Ok you can do all this separately, but this is my simple steps to reduce additional work and cleaning.

First I will fry the anchovies. Remove when done but leave a handful in the wok. Scoop up access oil. In the same wok, I will put in water to boil the soup with the anchovies base. Let it boil for 15 mins in low heat. Then I will crack on egg in the soup to make the poached egg. Crack the egg in the big soup ladder and leave it in the soup. Do 2-3 eggs depending how many people wants poached eggs. Remove cooked eggs and leave it in the individual bowls. In the same soup, put in some vegetable for the vegetable soup! Simple right ??!! :) You have all 3 ingredients ready, all from just one wok!

Stage 4 The Noodles

Ok actually, this is the first step. Make the noodles dough first cos it takes the longest time.

You will just need flour and water. No need to add oil. If I am making pan mee (min fun keuh) soup, best to add some oil to the dough cos this will ensure smooth and soft texture. As I need to make the dough into strands of noodles, I need a tougher dough so that the noodles do not turn out too soft.

Knead the flour into a dough. Good exercise if you are using your hands to knead. :)

Once the dough is ready, it is good to let it sit a while before you start cooking. 30 minutes is fine. Remember to cover the dough with a wet cloth so that the surface of the dough do not crack up.



Guess what? I bought the special machine flatten the dough and it can only make noodles.



Here comes my noodles. I am feeling pretty proud of myself by this time. Since I have never made noodles before in my life! Everything is so readily available in Malaysia, just a hawker stall away, why do I need to make my own noodles?? But I truly feel the satisfaction when I made in by myself!

To prepare the noodles - prepare a pot of boiling water.

Put in the noodles in the water, let it cook for 2 minutes then scoop up the noodles into a bowl.

Put in the condiments -

Poached egg

Fried Ikan bilis

Minced meat Sauce

and the most important ingredient - Dry Chili paste.

Mix all together and there you have it, a hearty homemade chili pan mee.

Truthfully, I was exhausted by the time I finished making it, so I think it is much better to just go to KIN KIN for my Chili Pan Mee. :)

But then, I was in the States...so have to make myself loh, no choice.

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.

Mee Siam

Mee Siam, which means "Siamese noodle", is a dish of thin rice noodles (mee hoon, vermicelli) in spicy, sweet and sour light gravy. Honestly, I have never really eaten a proper mee siam with gravy. This is because I love fried mee hoon and I don't like it with gravy. So in Malaysia, whenever I have mee siam, I always decline the gravy.

Thus, when I decided to make mee siam, I searched the net for recipes and found it a little bit confusing for me, particularly because I was looking to just make the dry noodles but yet have the taste of the gravy! So I decided to mix and match the ingredients and create my own version of mee siam. Please note also I am missing the dried beancurd ("Tau kwa") and dried preserved soy bean ("tau cheong) which are important ingredients in an original mee siam.

So, I went with an easier version of dry mee siam, yet still ensuring it has the sweet, sour, spicy flavour.

Simple Ingredients.
1) Vermicelli or Mee Hoon ( enough for 3-4 persons) - soaked and drained.
2) Beans sprouts ("Taugeh") - one cup
3) Prawns - 8-10 pcs
4) Dried Shrimp (soaked and chopped) - one handful
5) 1 tbsp of chilli paste
6) 1 tbsp of tamarind paste (dissolved in water)
7) 1 Egg (hard boiled)
8) 1 lime - for 1 tsp of juice and rest for garnishing
9) A bit of garlic/ shallots to stir fry

It was rushed day for me and once I started cooking, I totally forgot to take photos. So for this recipe, I will just write the process. Sorry yeah but trust me...I did cook it :)

Simple steps -

1) Firstly, stirfry the shallots and garlic till fragrant. Remove and leave aside. Next, stirfry the dried shrimp till fragrant. Add the prawns and do a quick stir till prawns are cooked. Add in the chilli paste and tamarind paste.

2) Add in the vermicelli and stirfry. Continously stir the meehoon to prevent it from sticking to the wok. Add a bit of tamarind juice and lime juice. Add salt and some fish sauce. You can use soy sauce if you do not have fish sauce. Add a bit of sugar and continue to toss the meehoon.

3) Ready to serve. Add green onions, sliced hard boiled eggs and lime as garnishing.

4) This is my version of mee siam. Well it is not exactly the exact formula but it has the tangy, sweet, sour and spicy taste. If I have added the preserved soy bean paste, probably the taste would be closer but I am happy with my results for now. Voila! Ready to eat! Yummy!

Char Kway Teow

I never thought of cooking myself a plate of Char Kway Teow. When I was in Malaysia, it was readily available in nearly every hawker center. So all I needed to do was drive out to any hawker stall and just order "1 char kway teow, no 'si ham', yes chilli" and within minutes I would be enjoying a hot yummy sizzling plate just like picture above.

But now here in US......it is just not the same. I can get Char Kway teow but eating it in a restaurant is vastly different from a hawker stall. No hawker stall concept in US. Therefore, I thot I would settle for trying my own version at home.

The most important ingredient is getting the kway teow or called rice noodles. This is readily available in any Chinese grocery stores. However, it is semi frozen and not the fresh ones you get in Malaysia. Better than nothing and probably work as well.... beggars can't be choosers.

The Other ingredients -

1. Chinese sausage (lap cheong)

2. Bean sprouts (taugeh)

3. Egg

4. Spring onions

5. Garlic, soy sauce, salt, pepper and not forgetting some chilli paste

6. Prawns but since I don't have it in fridge, I opted for some roasted pork. :)

Simple Steps -

1. Stir fry the garlic, chinese sausage and roasted pork in some oil. Put in the rice noodles / kway teow and continue to stirfry. Add in seasoning of soy sauce (or some fish oil if preferred). salt and pepper.

2. Move the noodles to the side of wok and then crack on eggs in the middle of the wok. Mix the egg with the noodles.

3) Add in the bean sprouts and spring onions and continue to stir fry. Add more soy sauce for taste as needed. The key in frying a good char kway teow is the fire, therefore ensure the fire is big but you must be fast to control all the ingredients elements.

4) This is my first attempt in cooking up a char kway teow. With trying to cook and trying to take the photos of the cooking process....I must say the results is not too bad. Of course, it does not have the look of a hawker's stall char kway teow but importantly is that I brought a bit of the hawker stall aroma back into my kitchen. Voila! Ready to eat! Yum Yum!

Hakka Mee

Inspiration - Alright...it is not authentic but conceptually it probably works. I don't know where Hakka Mee originated from, but as long as I can remember the most authentic is from Seremban cos in my opinion nothing in KL comes close to the ones from Seremban. People from Seremban would know of the popular shop (near market, opposite post office) that sells only Hakka Mee - the worst service you have ever seen, the most unfriendly husband and wife who ignores you and pulls a black face and the slowest service ever. Yet people still go for their Hakka Mee. Almost everytime I go there, I remind myself don't ever come back but then once in a while the temptation for the Hakka Mee weakens me. And I know it is tasty likely due to pork lard :), yet I go. But really, their combination of homemade noodles and pork gravy is yummy.

Since my recipe is not really Hakka Mee but more like a replica, but it is quite simple.

Simple Ingredients-
1) Minced pork gravy. Marinated in soy sauce, salt and pepper. Stirfry in some oil, add water, then add seasoning of dark soy salt, salt, a bit of oyster sauce and a bit of corn starch to thicken the sauce. I usually make this when I cook dinner, keep in fridge and can use it for the noodles if I am having it for breakfast.

2) For the noodles, I just use dried wan tan noodles. Fast and easy, like cook maggie mee.

3) And a bit of taugeh but this is really optional. Any vegetables you prefer.

Simple Steps -

1) Boil the Dried Wan Tan Noodles. Seriously the fresh ones are way tastier but No choice since I only had the dried ones, I had to use it. But I made sure that I boil it in more water to remove some of the noodle taste.

After boiling, I put it in cold water to rinse further.

And then back to hot water again. Tip - best to have another pot of water boiling so that after the cold water you can put back into a 2nd hot boiling water. Usually I only use one pot (cos I lazy to wash). So after I remove the first hot water, I throw the water away and I need to put in fresh water to boil. This takes sometime and the process to soak in cold water is quite fast which the 2nd pot of boiling water is not ready. If I dump the noodles in the not so boiling water and wait for it to boil again, the noodles would have soak too long and becomes a little soggy. So best to have 2 pots of boiling water.......(unless you lazy like me)

Anyway, drain noodles from the hot water. Put on plate/bowl. Pour the minced pork gravy on top and toss. Voila. Ready to eat!

To make it tastier you can also add fried shallots oil or if you have pork lard. Sure tasty wan! :)

Pan Mee

Inspiration - For as long as I can remember, this dish is called "min fun keuh"(cantonese) or "mee hun ker"(hokkien). I grew up with my grandma cooking this dish so I thot this was only made by my grandma. He he he, of course when I enter the whole of hawker food, I realized this dish is widely available and called "pan mee". I don't know why it is called pan mee (cos maybe they make the dough to noodles-like!! - I like mine the traditional hand pulled way) but I think the min fun kueh translation is more accurate. It translates directly to mean - flour noodles! which is exactly what this dish is made of. I started making this dish myself a couple of months ago...I never attempt it myself cos either my mom or grandma would cook this and I just eat. my 2 fears on making this dish - 1) I dread the kneading of the flour dough and 2) can't really master making it to thin slices. But I love this dish and it is not difficult if you can get over the two fears I mentioned :)

Simple ingredient -
1) Flour - all purpose flour - mixed with water and knead to form dough
2) Soup - ikan bilis (anchovies) boiled
3) Condiments - pork slices, fish ball/pork balls, vege - choy sum or that leafy vege - can't remember the name, fried ikan bilis, fried shallots - as desired.

Simple steps -
1) First the dough! Get ready for some abs training :)
It's easy - mix flour with some water and a bit of oil/salt and start kneading. continue to knead, add flour and water as required. A smooth dough should be formed. To know if dough is ready, make sure dough is not sticky on yr fingers. If yes, just add more flour and continue to knead. When dough is formed and ready, just cover with a piece of damp cloth and let it set for a while.
My grandma use to add one egg to the dough (to make the dough more fragrant) but I don't cos I think a bit of oil does the trick to make the dough really smooth /elastic and easy to pull to thin slices.

2) The soup is simple for me - ikan bilis soup. I usually put a bit of oil, and then stirfry the ikan bilis for a while and then add water. close the lid and let it boil for 20 mins and you will have a lovely soup base. Of course, you can use other soup base eg, pork ribs, chicken etc.

3) Other condiments - vegetables - I just use choy sum cos I can't get the other vege that is usually put into the soup....errr it is called "kau kei". hmmm I don't know.
I have some pork/fish balls so I am throwing that in. And to make the soup sweeter, I marinate some sliced pork with just salt, soy sauce, pepper and corn-flour.

4) Now the action start, when the soup is ready......lower down the fire, wash yr hands and get to work. Ok this, I really can't tell you how to do it, you just have to practise and eventually, hopefully you will get it. I will take a small piece of dough and with my thumb and finger start stretching it till it gets to a thin slice. Then I will pinch the slices into the soup.

5) errr.... can or not? Next time, I will try to tape the process and maybe it will be clearer. I am still learning to be an expert like my grandma, her hands are so mobile, it's like a automated machine and each piece comes out nicely. Mine still has holes in them sometimes - ha ha ha but eat at home, never mind la.

Once you have pulled all the dough into soup, you can turn up the fire, add all the condiments (pork slices, pork balls, vege etc) into the soup and let it boil for another 5-10 mins. Add salt of required.

6) It's that easy and voila! Ready to eat my "Min fun kueh"! Yum yum!

Wan Tan Mee - self made :)

Inspiration - OK, So I miss Malaysia and how I took for granted all those years when I can just go out and literally get wan tan mee anywhere at anytime. It is difficult to find the dry wan tan mee here cos mostly they have the Hong Kong style which is soup-based with big wan tan dumplings. I want dry wan tan mee..so I make myself loh. You notice that my "charsiu" is not really "charsiu", I just went for the simplified version...marinate the pork with soy sauce/oyster sauce and just bake. So it is more like roasted pork but it taste great.

Simple ingredients -

1) 1 strip of pork belly

2) Vegetables - Choy sum

3) Egg noodles - easily available at any Chi/Viet grocery stores

4) Soy sauce, oyster sauce, pepper, salt, oil, sesame oil.

Simple steps -

1) First start with the meat. Marinate the pork belly with soy sauce, oyster sauce, salt, pepper. I was using a small sealable bag so I have cut up into smaller strips. Prefer to marinate overnite but at least 30 mins to 1 hr at least. Bake in oven at 350 for at least 20-30mins depending on the thickness and amount of meat.

You will be able to hear the crackling sound of the pork roasting but more so the smell the delicious roasted pork aroma coming from yr oven. Here, since I am making only a small portion, I am using the electric oven which serves the purpose just fine.

2) Ok, next just boil a pot of water. I usually boil the vegetables first. Here, I am using choy sum...hmmm to find out what it is called in English. Anyone??

Just boil for 5 mins or so, drain and put aside. You can also add some salt in the water for taste.

3) Now for the noodles, remove from pack and loosen the noodles as it is usually all clumped tight together.

In hot boiling water, put in the noodles, once the water start boiling again and the noodles float up, drain it. The next step is important though for it may seem unnecessary (cos u can technically just eat the noodles now) but trust me, if u do it, you will find that yr noodles will be springy and yummy.

The step is to put the noodles in cold water. You will see that all the hawkers stall actually do this process. They boil the noodles in hot water, remove and put in cold water and then put it back to hot water again before serving. In cantonese they call it "kor lang hor" (cross the cold drain)!

So remember, hot water, cold water and then hot water again before draining. Prepare the dry sauce - consisting of soy sauce, a bit of oyster sauce, salt, pepper, oil and sesame oil and also some dark soy sauce for color.


4) Toss the noodles together with the sauce.

5) Almost ready...........garnish with choy sum, and the roasted pork and Voila! Ready to eat! Yum Yum! Do try my simple self made "Wan Tan Mee"