Sunday, May 20, 2012

KL Style Hokkien Mee wannabe (Dry Version)

There's something different about weekend. Weekend is meant to be lazy. Meant to wake up slightly late, eat brunch instead of breakfast. Drag the usual lunch time to super late lunch, like 2.30pm or something. And naturally.... it will lead to late dinner. I love the way. I love how it feels. Hehe..  :)

I cooked this over the weekend for late lunch. This is not the nicest looking fried noodles, but definitely flavorfully delicious.


I just have the feeling of... "Urgh! Too bored of eating rice recently", so... I bought a pack of Flat Noodles from NTUC. Don't know what I should do. In my mind, I thought of stir-frying it maybe?

Whatever. Just buy 1st lah.

Holding this pack of noodles, thinking if I should stir-fry it in a black black noodles, just the way we had KL Style Hokkien Mee.

But the fact is that this pack of noodles is totally not the big fat noodles that KL Style Hokkien Mee used, I don't think I want my stir-fry noodles to be that wet. Because I just felt that this is not the right noodle for KL Hokkien Mee. So, no matter how I cook it, it's not gonna looks original.

Squids, Prawns, Pork or even Chicken - These are the meat ingredients that we normally seen in KL Style Hokkien Mee. But since it's home-cooked, and I'm just cooking the KL Style Hokkien Mee wannabe, but not entirely. So, who cares? I'll just make do with some prawns and a nice Hand-Made Fish Cakes instead :)


I adapted a quick recipe from a blogger Lily's Wai Sek Hong, and the original recipe is here, but did some minor modification to suit my liking.

Ingredients (Feed 3, easily)
  • 1 pack of Flat Hokkien Noodles. (About 420g)
  • 1 Fish Cakes, cut into thin slices. You can use 2 fish cakes. It's up to you.
  • 8 to 10 Prawns
  • 150g Choy Sum, wash and cut into 1 inch length
  • 100g pork fat, cut into cubes and fried till crispy (keep the oil, we need them)
  • 250ml Water, or more if you want.
  • 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
Seasoning: 
  • 3 tbsp light soy sauce
  • 2 tbsp dark soy sauce (add more if you want it darker)
  • Salt to taste
  • 1/2 tsp pepper

Method 

1. I washed the noodles in cold water for awhile, I just wanna get rid of the oil that had been coated on of the noodles.

2. Do all the necessary washing & cutting before you start cooking. 

3. 3 tbsp Pork oil on the pan. Add in chopped garlic, fry till fragrant. 

4. Add in Prawns & Fish Cakes, give it a stir. 

5. Until you see the prawns are half cooked, add in veggies & noodles, toss for awhile.

6. Add in all the seasoning. Stir.

7. Add water, give it a good mix, cover up, let your noodles simmer for awhile. But pls do not simmer until the water totally dry. If you think you want it more wet, add more water. This flat noodles can absorb water quite well. 

8. Add in crispy pork fats, give it a quick stir before you off the heat & dish up.



The thing about this dish is that, it is highly advisable to use pork fats. There's no other substitute fats that can gives you the same flavor. Remember. Porrrrrk fats! And I used generous amount of it. The fragrance is just unbeatable! If you are a healthy freak, you may skip this dish for sure. But I would say, it is a waste for not trying.

With this recipe, I'm glad to say that I managed to retain it's flavor. The flavor that KL Style Hokkien Mee used to have. But dry version, which this is really want I wanted to achieve this time.

I really hope I have sambal belacan when I'm eating this. But sadly, I don't have it at home. Or else, this would be perfect.


If I managed to get those big fat noodles, I will give the wet version a try. Maybe Japanese Udon might works? Well, maybe. But it's not gonna be the same I would say.

3 comments:

  1. Very true, no lard no hokkien mee.
    Next time go JB buy the tai look meen la.

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  2. Wow, this looks so good! The hokkien mee served in restaurants in the states has no pork fat and is so bland :( and most of them use udon noodles! In my opinion, the udon noodles are fatter, so less surface area to starch ratio to suck up all the good sauce, so it takes away from the flavor. Aah, going crazy seeing the pictures of this dish, it looks SO GOOD!

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  3. Wendy, Yep! No lard Hokkien Mee just doesn't taste right. Haha. Next time if i really happened to go JB, I will try to find tai-look-meen for sure :D

    Hi Anynymous, Some of the Singaporean are health freak. They don't touch pork fats. And I also have the same feeling. Udon noodles might be a good alternative, but it's just not the right noodles :(

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