It is my great pleasure to announce the commencement of Mazeta Walters as our Chef’s Tales blog reporter. In her first report on Penang street food, Mazeta has taken some photos of a famous Hawker Chef in Penang frying the Malaysian favorite “Char Koay Teow”.
Please notice how the chef is frying the Koay Teow over a charcoal fired flame, he is cooking the noodles and continuously fanning the charcoal to ensure that the flame he is using stays at the exact temperature he requires it to be. Sometimes different stall chefs use a foot pump that pushes air up and under the charcoal fire to make the embers flare up and thereby intensifying the heat.
As the hawker chef was unfortunately unwilling to part with his recipe that had been passed down from generation to generation, we took the liberty to squeeze our Executive Chef here at the Eastern & Oriental Hotel, Chef Bob Lee, to part with his instead (after much arm twisting).
CHAR KOAY TEOW
Ingredients:
- 240gm Koay Teow (Flat Rice Noodles)
- 160gm Bean spouts
- 20gm Fresh chives
- 20gm Fish cake
- 20gm Fresh cockles
- 100gm Fresh prawns (peeled)
- 100gm Flower squid
- 12gm Garlic (peeled & chopped)
- 100ml Any low cholesterol cooking oil
- 80ml Asian dark seasoning
- 2nos Egg
- 2pcs Banana leaf
Garnish:
- 40gm Crab meat
- 20gm Chili cut into small strips
- 20gm Spring onion cut into small strips
Asian Dark Seasoning: (Mix all together)
- 110ml Light soya sauce
- 10ml Dark soya sauce
- 12gm Sugar
- 3gm Salt
- 3gm Oyster sauce
- 12gm Fish gravy
Method:
- Heat the oil in a thin bottomed wok and fry the pounded garlic for a couple of minutes over an intense flame.
- Add the prawns first, then the squid, the chili paste and finally the fish cake.
- After a few minutes of cooking, pour out the fried ingredients from the wok and place to one side.
- In the same wok, stir-fry the noodles quickly adding the Asian dark seasoning.
- Add all the fried ingredients together mixing thoroughly.
- Spread all the finished mixture around the side of the wok to create an empty space in the middle.
- Add the bean sprouts, fresh chives and crack in the egg (a drizzle of extra oil may ne needed) then stir evenly and quickly the entire ingredients together one more time.
- Serve on a Banana leaf covered plate and garnish with crab meat, the strips of chili and the strips of spring onions.
Dear Mr Saxon,
This is great! Love this site to bits!
The Asian way… Let’s slurp… then burp and wok and roll!!!!
More food reports to come…
Kind regards,
Mazeta Walters
Man, all this talk and pics about char koay teow makes me hungry. Only thing is now I can’t have ckt so often, have to watch my diet and my health…not a young kid anymore, LOL!!
Dear Philip,
You are not that old either.
You can still enjoy a little fried food once in a while, everything in moderation…so they say.
Warm regards,
Mike.
Hi Mike! Love checking in and finding such great sharing, yummy recipes and photo’s. I am just curious what a ‘think bottomed wok’ is in the koay teow recipe! It brought on a wide grin when I read that!
Just exploring the posts in your blog and see so many Malaysian themed posts. Thanks for this recipe and the pics look delicous
That wok must be super hot as they normally just take about 1 min to cook a good Char Kway Teow. The penang ones also have a different flavour from the ones in KL.
Where is this stall in Penang? We never seem to find the really authentic koay teow there.
Hi May,
This fantastic stall is on Siam Road off Datuk Keramat.
Enjoy!
Warm regards,
Mike.
Dear Mazeta,
We are all looking forward to many more of your interesting and informative reports.
Warm regards,
Mike.
Hi Lynda,
I knew that it was only a matter of time before someone picked up on this and brought it to my attention which has brought an equally big grin to my face.
Thank you very much for being the first, the one thing I really hoped for, is that Chef’s Tales blog would generate this kind of debate and communication.
I would like to debate that if you go to the normal stores and see a selection of wok’s, when you pick them up you can feel the difference in weight.
Some are heavier that others and the heavier ones will normally be more expensive.
The heavier woks normally have a thicker base and this base can retain heat longer, reach higher temperatures so that the frying is more intense and will last longer in cooking years.
In other words, I guess what I am saying is that you get what you pay for. When frying any kind of Chinese noodles, the wok has to be as hot as can be and to be able to attain this kind of temperature the wok has to be of the best quality possible.
Hope I have explained myself a little better.
Warm regards,
Mike
P.S. It is really lovely to have you here, please keep popping in.