FCC Recipe: How to Cook Char Kway Teow
Executive Chef Johnny Ma lets his creative eye roam around Southeast Asia to conjure his version of one of the region’s most popular comfort foods. Now you can follow his sterling example at home.
It would be hard to come up with a dish that’s more fusion, and more Asian, than char kway teow – stir-fried flat rice noodles. It started out, so legend has it, as a sort of fast-food cooked by farmers, fishermen and cockle-gatherers who were looking to make some extra cash serving labourers with a tasty meal that was inexpensive and easy to make.
Regional variations abound, as chefs adapted recipes to cater for local tastes and make the best of whatever foodstuffs were on hand. But from Guangdong to Malaysia to Singapore and beyond, the hearty mix of seafood and sausage on a bed of noodles spiced up with chilli and soy has been whetting appetites for generations. Here’s how to whip up the FCC’s version just like Executive Chef Johnny Ma.
Char Kway Teow Recipe:
Ingredients:
Sauce
5 tbsp soy sauce
1½ tbsp dark soy sauce
1 tbsp sugar
½ tsp fish sauce
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper powder
Chilli Paste
30g seeded dried red chillies, soak in water
2 pcs fresh red chillies, seeded
3 pcs small shallots or pearl onions, peeled and sliced
1 tsp oil
1 pinch salt
Other Ingredients
2 tbsp oil
3 pcs cloves garlic, chopped finely
8 pcs shelled prawn; submerge in ice cold water plus 2 tbsp sugar for 30 minutes
50g Chinese sausages, sliced diagonally
1 bun fresh bean sprouts, rinsed with cold water and drained
400g fresh flat rice noodles, loosened with no clumps
2 pcs large eggs
1 bun Chinese chives; remove about 2 cm of the bottom section and cut into 2 cm strip
Instructions
- Mix the sauce ingredients and set aside.
- Grind all the chilli paste ingredients until fine using a mini food processor
- Heat up a wok with 1 tsp oil and stir-fry the paste until aromatic. Move to a dish and set aside.
- Clean the wok thoroughly. Heat on high until it starts to smoke. Add 2 tbsp oil, chopped garlic and do a quick stir.
- Remove prawns from water and combine with sausage in the wok. Stir a few times with the spatula until the prawns start to change colour and you can smell the sausage.
- Add bean sprouts into the wok, then the noodles.
- Add 2½ tbsp of the sauce and stir vigorously to blend well. Using the spatula, push the noodles to one side.
- Add a little oil on the empty area and crack the eggs on it, then scramble with a spatula.
- Flip the noodles and cover the egg, and wait for about 15 seconds.
