We’ve been booked for a private event on Friday 30 June, so we are only doing takeaway this Friday, no sit-in bookings. Pre-orders are essential – call 07775 661 456 to place your order by 12 noon on Friday.
We’ll have our special crispy Chinese roast belly pork on the menu this week. Don’t miss out! It’ll be served either on steamed Basmati rice with Chinese greens or in a steamed gua bao bun with salad; both with our homemade hoisin sauce or chilli, ginger & garlic sauce
Open from 17:00 – 19:30 (prices from £4.00)
Pre-orders – call 07775 661 456 (please give us at least 30 mins notice)
Small plates
Mains
Served with fragrant coconut rice & cucumber and pineapple salad
During March we have a special giveaway with every purchase over £10. Don’t forget! If you bring your own containers we will either take 30p off your meal or donate it to an environmental charity – it’s your choice.
Pre-orders – call 07775661456 (please give us at least 30 mins notice)
Open from 17.00 – 19.30 (prices from £4.50) During March we have a special giveaway with every purchase over £10. Don’t forget! If you bring your own container we will either take 30p off your meal or donate it to an enviromental charity – it’s your choice.
Every Friday from 17:00 – 19:30, starting 8 March 2019, we will be setting up our stall at On the Brook in Bruton selling a simple menu of homecooked South East Asian food.
The menu will change every week so there will be something to suit almost everyone. During March we have a special giveaway with every purchase over £10 to celebrate our launch.
We are also keen to do our bit for the environment. Whilst we use recyclable or reuseable containers – if you bring your own container we will either take 30p off your meal or donate it to an enviromental charity – it’s your choice.
This week’s menu (prices from £4.50)
Small Plates
Chicken satay or tofu vegetable satay with our signature peanut sauce
Chinese potsticker dumplings – pork & chive or Chinese mushrooms, tofu & chives
Mains – served with steamed Basmati rice & Asian salad
Malaysian chicken & potato curry
Sambal kacang hijau – spicy stir-fried green beans with tofu & vegetables
Date: 22 March 2019
Time: 19.00 onwards
Venue: On the Brook, Coombe Farm, Bruton BA10 0QP
Price: Adults £26 including welcome drink; Kids Menu £15 (children 14 or under). Vegetarian menu available
Please contact Sophie at On the Brook on 01749 813048 or info@onthebrook.co.uk to book.
We look forward to sharing this special four course dinner of Malaysian favourites, showcasing the different cuisines of the country. Enjoy a welcome drink, then sit back as we bring you dishes of delicious home cooked food. Finish off your meal with a cup of special lemongrass and butterfly pea flower tea from our friends at Perisa.
Time: 14:00 (event will last 2 – 2.5 hours)
Venue: On the Brook, Coombe Farm, Bruton BA10 0QP.
Cost: £20 Adults; £10 Children 14 and below
Spaces are limited so booking is essential. Please contact Sophie at On the Brook on 01749 813048 or info@onthebrook.co.uk to book.
Spend an afternoon with us learning how to make Chinese dumplings (guo tie). We’ll start with a demonstration on how to make the dough for the dumpling wrappers. Next, we’ll show you how to make our own pork & chive filling and Chinese mushroom, tofu & chive filling. Then, you’ll see how the individual wrappers are rolled out and filled, before you have a go yourself at rolling out and filling your own dumplings.
We’ll show you two ways to cook the dumplings – either traditionally boiled or turned into potstickers; and the different sauces and accompaniments usually served with them.
The demonstration and workshop will be followed by the traditional Malaysian Chinese New Year “Prosperity Toss”. This is a colourful salad known as Yee Sang Lou Hei which means “raw fish raising good fortune”. Yee Sang also sounds like the words for abundance in Chinese. All the ingredients have their own significance; encouraging good fortune and relationships into your year. The higher you toss the ingredients, the better!
We will all then partake in the salad and have some dumplings, so we can socialise and enjoy the food together.
You will be able to take home the dumplings you make and a recipe card.
Note: Children must be accompanied by an adult. N.B. The Prosperity Toss contains seafood and peanuts. Please let us know if you have any allergies.
Char kuay teow is a favourite hawker dish amongst Malaysians. It is apparently of Teochew origin, so must have come over with the immigrant Chinese some time in the late 19th century. It is a dish of flat rice noodles, stir-fried on a high heat with garlic, Chinese chives, eggs, beansprouts, prawns and blood cockles – these are a must for the char kuay teow purist. Sometime during the late 80s, lap cheong or Chinese sausage made an entry into the ingredients list and this is now common throughout Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur (where I grew up). However, I also remember in the early days that little cubes of crispy pork fat were part of the make-up of the dish, these were little gems of delight.
In essence it is the Malaysian equivalent of the popular pad Thai from Thailand but it is not so sweet. The secret to a great char kway teow is cooking it on a very high heat – you need a really smoking wok to get the “wok hei” flavour, the charred smokiness that elevates this delicious dish.
Enough background and on to the cooking…
Ingredients (2 people)
Prep time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 7 mins
2 tbsp of dried shrimps or dried anchovies or tiny pork fat cubes
4 cloves of garlic finely minced
4-5 stalks of Chinese chives chopped into 2 inch lengths (if not available, wild garlic sliced finely would work)
300g flat rice noodles (ho fun – fresh or dried) – soaked in hot water to soften
a good glug of cooking oil (4-5 tbsp) – something flavourless like sunflower, canola, corn etc.
10-12 prawns – raw or cooked, inch sized shrimps are fine
2 eggs
2 handfuls of beansprouts – tailed
a generous dash of light soy sauce*
a generous dash of dark soy sauce*
a dash of finely ground white pepper
a tsp of sugar
Nice to have but impossible to find in the UK – blood cockles. Reasonable substitute might be shelled clams, mussels or the frozen oysters found in Chinese supermarkets.
Optional: Chinese sausage – soaked in hot water for an hour and sliced thinly
1-2 tbsp of a savoury chilli paste or savoury chilli sauce like Sriracha (you can make your own too – recipe for that some other day…)
All the less familiar items can be found in Chinese supermarkets. In Bristol, you can go to Wai Yee Hong (near IKEA), Wah Yan Hong (behind the Hippodrome), 168 Oriental (Little Chinatown and Park Street). In Bath, try Banthon in Weston.
*If you are gluten intolerant, just replace the soy sauces with gluten free tamari. Everything else is gluten free!
Notes on Preparation:
Whilst mainly a self-taught cook, some things were passed down to me by my parents and family amah, as well as learning from watching professional hawker stall holders and friends. Attention to the small details seem a bit OCD but for many Malaysians are a must.
1. Tailing beansprouts. My husband was somewhat taken aback (thinks I’m bonkers) to know that I pick the roots or ‘tails’ off beansprouts. Believe me, it’s a thing in Malaysia. This is what I mean:
See all the lovely ‘tailed’ beansprouts.
2. Next thing, remember to soak your rice noodles. If they are fresh, they only need soaking in hot (not boiling water) for a few minutes to loosen them but don’t let them soften too much as they will continue to soften in the wok. If you are using dried ho fun noodles, then use boiling water and soak a little longer – again don’t let them get too soft – just loose and pliable.
Fresh noodles before soaking
Noodles after soaking – they are still quite hard but pliable and separated out
3. If you are using Chinese sausage, soak it in boiling water for an hour, and then slice it thinly on a slant, about 2 mm thick.
Chinese sausage (lap cheong)
4. Shell, clean and devein the prawns if they are raw. You can leave the tails on. However, cooked prawns are perfectly fine.
5. Dried shrimps / anchovies or pork fat for flavouring the oil – the usual shrimps or anchovies are quite large, and you will need to remove them after using them to flavour the oil. You can always use the anchovies with nasi lemak, and the shrimp in a stirfry with vegetables if you don’t want to throw them away. I have also discovered some very fine small dried prawns in the Chinese supermarkets which can be left in the oil, as they add a nice subtle texture and flavour to the dish when it’s finished.
3. Add the garlic, and fry till it browns slightly. If it cooks too quickly, remove the wok from the heat and continue to fry.
4. Put the wok back on the heat and add the garlic chives. Mix thoroughly until they soften and wilt slightly.
5. Add the ho fun noodles and toss thoroughly.
6. Add the two soy sauces and sugar and mix in thoroughly.
8. Add the prawns (and blood cockles/mussels etc if using). If raw, again, push the noodles to one side, and allow the prawns to cook thoroughly, flipping them over to ensure they are pink and cooked. If using cooked prawns, just mix thoroughly with the noodles until they are hot and coated with the flavours. Re-add the lap cheong if using, at this stage.
Hope you liked this recipe and have fun trying it out. It’s really simple – just make sure the wok is smoking hot, and if it gets too hot and things start to burn, just remove from the heat for a few seconds. You want to have a slightly charred flavour, so don’t worry about slight burning.
Bon appetit! If you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
This December, 5 Foot Way is taking part in the annual Caring in Bristol Christmas project. Caring in Bristol provides warm, safe accommodation, food and social activities to homeless and vulnerable people in Bristol over the festive season to 1st January. We will be preparing a meal for 150 guests of the 250 daily visitors who rely on them at this time of year.
http://caringinbristol.co.uk/caring-at-christmas/
We will likely make a big vat of rice and serve it with sayur lodeh (Malaysian veggie coconut curry) and a turkey curry; and if we raise enough we will do some pudding too.
How can you help? Send us some cash and we will use it to buy the ingredients – we will cook it all up and deliver it to the venue and help serve the food.
If you are so inclined we will also be collecting warm clothing to take along – socks, gloves and hats – for women and men – gloves hats and scarves can be ones you no longer like or wear, but washed and clean. Socks need to be new (thick and warm ones). We will collect it all together and drop it off closer to the time.
Financial donations can be made easily via PayPal with this link – https://paypal.me/forwardcontrol or you can wire us the money if you already have our bank details.
Thank you for helping to make a difference to some of the homeless in Bristol!
Ais Kacang
Preparations are ramping up for this weekend’s event with Wild Serai in Ewer Street, Southwark on 11-12 July 2015.
We have been busy perfecting our recipes for local handmade iced desserts and typical hot Malaysian coffee and teh tarik. Just covering all the bases with the weather!
We’re excited about our fresh coconut milk which will be used in the desserts made with our specially imported machine. It’s hard work but makes such a difference to the flavour. With homemade pandan infused noodles for the traditional cendol and ais kacang desserts, and sweet palm sugar syrup, it makes a delicious refreshing treat on a hot summer’s day.
Killer coconut grating machine
We had a fantastic day. The rain came briefly to drizzle lightly upon us but didn’t dampen our spirits or those of the crowds of lovely people who came to visit and fill their bellies. Keep following us to find out news of our next pop-up Asian market. Thank you to our great partners SEA Arts Fest and Bangkok Kitchen; lovely vendors A Grape Night In, Azi’s Kitchen, Bunta, Pepe’s Kitchen, Pitstop Cafe, Rangoon Sisters and Woolfson and Tay; the fabulous 5 Foot Way team who bust a gut to keep things running smoothly with happy faces; and, of course, the brilliant hordes who came to support and taste all the great food.
Pictures and other news to follow soon.
5 Foot Way 