Char Kuay Teow

Char Kuay Teow which simply means fried kuay teow, is a famous Penang dish and it is available at almost all coffee shops in Malaysia. But, not every stall is yummy & tasty. We both love Char Kuay Teow very much and used to eat it almost every week! Well, sometimes, more than once in a week... hehehehe.

This dish is quite tricky because you'll need a very hot wok to fry your ingredients. Nonetheless, with a little patience and effort, I think everyone can cook it : )

So here goes the awesome Penang dish... slightly modified by yours truly, due to incomplete ingredients : P

Clockwise from top left: Ingredients are chopped nicely; Bean Sprouts;
Kuay Teow soaked and drained; Prawns soaked in sugar water.

First, fry some finely chopped garlic & some chopped dried chillis in a liquid of hot cooking oil. Then quickly put in your lap cheong and fry them until it is fairly crispy. Add in some prawns and sear it until it is almost 70% cooked. Once that is almost done, put in your kuay teow (or also known as rice sticks) and bean sprouts together. Give it a quick toss.

For the seasoning, you'll need to prepare this concoction before you start the cooking. In a bowl, pour in soya sauce, dark soya sauce, fish sauce, dashes of white pepper, salt and some sugar. However, I do not have dark soya sauce and hence, replace it with oyster sauce : ) Stir to mix well.

After you have toss your kuay teow and sprouts, pour in your seasoning mixture. Then the final ingredient, egg! Push your noodles aside and crack an egg. Once it is cook on the base, mix everything together and it is ready to serve!

Round 1: Fried by SousChef

Round 2: Fried by TheLoyalFan. Looks nicer than mine...mmmm! 

Our first attempt of this was quite good although we have missed out 2 important ingredients - cockles and chinese chives. Nonetheless, the sauce does make it taste like the hawker stall's version. The noodles were well coated with oil, making it looks so glossy and yummy too! I wished that the lap cheong was crispier but it can't be done because the garlic was going to be burnt. Hence, I think for my next attempt, I shall try to fry the lap cheong first, then only the garlic. Hopefully my theory works lah!

TheLoyalFan says: 'Oh Char Kuay Teow... how I love you so! Nom nom noms... I don't know what to say. I love Char Kuay Teow!!!'

The sauce mixture was referenced from Rasa Malaysia. Please feel free to check it out ^_^ Mine is sort of the simpler version.

Till then, keep nomming!

Ingredients: Garlic, Dried Chilli, Lap Cheong, Peeled Prawns, Kuay Teow (Rice Sticks), Bean Sprouts, Egg.

Yum Woon Sen - Thai Glass Noodle Salad

I've tried this dish when I was in Bangkok about 2 years ago. This salad really 'opens' your appetite. We wanted to learn to prepare this dish since we had extra glass noodle in our cupboard. However, we didn't know what is it called in Thai. So, we started googling and googling... and finally, we managed to google out the dish! Happiness and excitement filled us as we read the recipe and watched some videos about it too!

It turns out that this dish requires some time and effort for the preparation although ingredients were easily bought in any supermarket. And so the preparation begins with cutting up some garlic, wood ear fungus, tomatoes, bird's eye chilli, coriander and basil leaves. Squeeze out lemon juice from a lemon and if you like, you can grate some zest for it too!

Next, prepare the mince pork in stock. What I did was stir fry the pork for a couple of minutes. Then pour in water with chicken cube and boil them for about 10 minutes. If you have pork cubes, I think it would be splendid : ) While letting the pork simmer away, blanch the wood ear fungus and some shrimps. And, not forgetting the important ingredient - the glass noodles need to be boiled until it is cooked (it will turn transparent).

Once all the preparation is complete, this is the simplest part - mixing them all together. And also this is where your saliva will start drooling too!!! Hehehehe... it affected both of us at this stage : P

Firstly, put in the garlic and chilli into a mixing bowl. Then pour in equal amounts of lemon juice, fish sauce and sugar. This means that if your lemon juice is 5 tablespoons, then it will be 5 tablespoons of fish sauce and sugar. When you mix the lemon juice and fish sauce, my oh my, the aroma is so good that it makes your taste buds tingle and the sudden flood of saliva in your mouth too! (This is speaking from experience...lol) Give it a good stir to mix up the stuff, and taste. If you find it too sour, add in some sugar to balance it out. 

Once the 'dressing' is good enough for you, put in the rest of the ingredients. Snip the glass noodle a couple of times so that it helps to 'trap' the goodness from the dressing and other condiments when you are mixing the ingredients in your bowl. If you find the noodles are abit dry, pour in a couple tablespoons of stock from the pork. And... voila! It is completed!

I feel this is one of the most tedious dish I have ever made. Lots of chopping and blanching but the outcome was very fulfilling. We noted that the chilli and garlic were very strong and we'll probably need to reduce the portion for both. Apart from that, it was a success and we're looking forward for another round of this fantastic salad!

TheLoyalFan says: 'Very yummy... especially in the cold. I like that they call it a salad. Allows me to eat more... hehehehe'