Recipe: Char Kuay Teow

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.

Regular dried shrimp

Fine dried shrimp

Anchovies

6. Make sure you have all the ingredients ready and to hand – once you start cooking, it’s super quick as the heat is so high, so you won’t want to be running around looking for things or chopping things up at the last minute.

Chinese chives (available in most Chinese supermarkets)

Prepped beansprouts, garlic and chives

Method:
1. Heat up the wok on a high heat, add a good glug of cooking oil. When the oil looks like it’s smoking, it’s ready. If you are using tiny cubes of pork fat, heat up the oil on a medium heat and fry the pork fat as it takes a little while to crisp up, then whack the heat up. Add lap cheong at this stage if you are using, fry till nearly crisp, then remove and put to one side.

Quite a lot of oil – necessary to stop noodles from sticking

Oil is starting to smoke. I prefer a gas hob, but it works surprisingly well on this electric cooker.

2. Add the dried prawns / anchovies and fry until they brown and become crispy to give flavour to the oil. If you are using larger ones, discard from the oil. If you are using the fine shrimps, leave them in and cook until crispy.

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.

Fry the garlic, then the chives

Ho fun noodles added

Soy sauces and sugar added

7. Push the noodles to one side, and crack the eggs into the wok in the space you have made. Move the wok so that the egg is directly above the heat, and the noodles are slightly removed from the heat. Stir the eggs to break the yolks and then allow them to cook underneath before flipping to cook on the other side. Then when cooked and firm, break up the egg ‘omelette’ and mix with the noodles. Don’t mix it too soon or the egg will scramble and get mixed into the noodles too much.

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.

Add eggs to the side on direct heat

Add prawns, don’t allow egg to scramble

Mix in thoroughly

9. If using, add chilli paste to taste (I like it spicy so I put in a load) and mix well.
10. Chuck in the beansprouts and toss / mix well – they don’t need long – 20 seconds or so. Sprinkle liberally with white pepper and mix it in. That’s it – you’re ready to scoff!

Add beansprouts

Mix well for the last time

Scoff!

The end…

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.

A Purveyor of Fine Literature

• UPDATE: I’m so sad that Woolfson & Tay closed down but am leaving this post as a tribute to one of the best independent bookshops and nasi lemak sellers in London. Sadly missed…

Hang on a moment, I hear you say – what does a bookshop have to do with a street food market? All will become clear…

Our second vendor can only be described as the perfect bookshop. Still… what does this have to do with food, I hear you holler. Bear with me…

Woolfson & Tay is a local independent bookshop, very conveniently placed just around the corner from my office, and a mere skip and a hop from the venue on Union Street, where our first pop-up market is being held. Originally the bookshop was in that delightful corner of London that is Bermondsey Square and I tried to make it over there whenever I could. Their selection of books is thoughtful and seems to cover the whole spectrum of fiction and non-fiction that particularly tickles my fancy. A cookery book or travel writing, new novels or classics, children’s book or minority writing – it’s all there with handy tips from the team on which are their recommended reads, or you could have a chat with them about the books if you needed a bit of a steer. But when their lease came up, they moved into Bear Lane and that’s when I really got to know more about them.

Imagine my excitement, whilst plodding my weary way to work one morning to see a sign go up in an empty unit proclaiming that W&T would be opening there soon. Ooo – straight off to the internet went I, and lo and behold, it was true – W&T were coming! And what’s that – they hold author talks and events… and they have tai chi classes on Saturdays… and they have hot beverages and amazing cakes by Kaelie…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

an excessively cute dog…

 

…and, this is when I nearly fell off my chair… HOT ASIAN LUNCHES. Oh… my… god… that I didn’t know… is this the perfect bookshop or what?

Next thought in my mind was – what kind of Asian lunches? They were still in the process of refurbishing and there were no details on the proposed menu on the website yet. Still, this was a big step in my evil aim to make this part of London my little South East Asian culinary enclave. I had a suspicion that Tay might be Malaysian which could only bode well. As countdown commenced to their opening day, they announced a soft opening – no lunches yet but soon to follow. Positively champing at the bit by this point, their menu went up for the first week’s lunches – a different meat or veggie option each day ranging from Malaysian chicken curry (yes!) to Chinese mushroom and chicken cooked with goji berries (sounded Chinese but could be Malaysian Chinese), and other tasty sounding dishes.

First lunch day – oh no, lunchtime meeting, I couldn’t go – but my Malaysian food obsessed colleague went down and came back with chicken curry and rice. He was unsure… needed more chilli and spices, might be watered down for English tastes. Oh dear, I thought, that’s a shame. But then the following week, nasi lemak was on the menu. Undeterred I was straight down there and delighted to see a huge vat of rich, unguent chicken curry swimming with curry leaves, star anise, cinnamon sticks emitting an heady aroma. This was accompanied by a thick, rich, radioactively red chilli sambal, ikan bilis (crispy fried anchovies), cucumber and coconut rice. With my bounty hot in my hands, back at my desk was the great unveiling of what has become a firm Bankside favourite. Oh the curry was good – thick and full of flavour. The sambal was sweat-inducingly spicy (and has become even more so over the months) and the ikan bilis were crunchy little morsels of salty, savoury delight. I thrust my plastic box of deliciousness in front of my colleague’s face who agreed that it looked much improved, and on tasting he proclaimed it so. A success!

Woolfson & Tay has become a firm lunchtime favourite at our office now. We takeaway several times a week and are sad when Frances Tay is away because she does the cooking, and we are therefore deprived of the tasty goodness they provide. As word of mouth grows, they’ve become busier and busier, and Tuesdays are now Nasi Lemak Tuesdays when we have to get down there quick before the food sells out – usually by 13:00. They are introducing another Malaysian favourite – curry laksa on Thursdays, and I can’t wait.

It was therefore a no-brainer when selecting vendors for the market to ask the lovely Fran to set up a stall to sell her delicious nasi lemak. I really can’t wait!