TEOCHEW MEE aka MEE POK

Of all the food in Singapore, this is what i really miss when I'm away. Just never seem to get enough of this, as most of you who know me well will attest to it. Unfortunately, you can have chicken rice wherever you go, and it will taste decent, but to find a mee pok stall which resembles the mee pok sold in Singapore is like looking for a needle in ten haystacks! I kid you not! Even in Malaysia, our closest neighbour, I have yet to find anything close to resembling the famous 132 Mee Pok in Singapore, so since i'm desperate to eat, i'll just have to make it on my own. 

Two days ago i stopped at a shop selling noodles around Salak South. I've been wanting to stop by for the longest time, and I'm glad I did, because I found the proper mee pok there! Also known as hakka mee in Malaysia, this flat noodle is just like the mee pok in Singapore. Another thing was the chili. It just takes too much work to make from scratch, but in Heng's Original Crispy Prawn Chili, I found an acceptable substitute. In one of my older posts called ESSENTIAL OIL, I described how to make the pork based oil that will bring flavour to this dish, and the rest of the ingredients that i use can be found in most of your neighbourhood supermarkets. the ingredients are as follows......

1 portion of mee pok
About a handful of bean sprouts
Minced pork
Fishballs
Sliced fishcake
Prawns
Fish skin wantons
Heng's original crispy prawn chili
Two tablespoons dark vinegar
Three tablespoons pork oil
Two teaspoons light soy sauce
Two teaspoons fish sauce
One tablespoon chopped spring onions
Some crispy fried pork lard


Bring to boil a pot of water , throw in the fishballs, fishcakes, prawns and fish skin wantons and remove when cooked.

In a bowl, mix the chili, vinegar, pork oil, light soy sauce and fish sauce and put it aside.

Put the mee pok in a metal sieve and put them into the boiling water. make sure to loosen the mee, as you don't want them clumping together, this should take less than a minute. Remove the mee from the boiling water, run some tap water over it to remove the excess starch, put it back into the boiling water for about ten seconds, remove and put it into the bowl with the sauce, mix it thoroughly to get sa much of the sauce on the noodles as possible.

Put the minced pork and bean sprouts into the sieve and cook it in the boiling water, this will only take a few seconds as there's nothing worse than overcooked minced pork and bean sprouts.

Now you can add all the other cooked ingredients on the mee and you have just made yourself a lip smacking good bowl of teochew mee! 

Enjoy!

SEAFOOD OLIO

Just can't seem to get enough of this! Had it twice in the last seven days! Good thing it's easy to make, and quite cheap too! A meal like this costs less than RM15.00, and it's enough for two persons. Just the kind of meal you would can whip up really quick. For those who can't take alcohol, you can replace the splash of white wine with a little lemon juice. That does the trick too, but since I have a bottle of white wine open in the fridge, why not use it, right? ;-)

some of the ingredients

Ingredients

Angel hair spaghetti for two persons

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

6 prawns, shelled

2 small squids, cut into rings

2 crab sticks

Some clams (bought it without the shells, frozen)

A knob of butter

Olive oil

A handful of chopped coriander leaves and spring onions

A splash of white wine or the juice of half a lemon

As much parmesan cheese as you like

Cook the spaghetti according to the instructions on the pack. I like to add some salt to the boiling water used to cook the spaghetti.

When it's done, drain the water and add some olive oil to the pasta, mix it well to prevent it from sticking.

In a hot pan, put a knob of butter and some olive oil to sautee the chopped garlic.

When the garlic is golden brown, add the seafood and a splash of white wine.

The seafood should cook pretty quick, and the wine should have dried up by then, and this is the time for you to throw in the green stuff, give it a quick stir and pour it into the pot with the pasta

Add as much cheese as you like, mix it well, plate it and your dish is ready! 

Enjoy!

PIZZA IN A FLASH


These thin crust pizzas can be made in under fifteen minutes if you have everything ready. I find this a good way to finish off any meat leftovers, as in the case of the Spicy BBQ Chicken pizza ;-) It's fast to cook, good to eat and tastes much better than Maggi Mee! These are what you might use in your own version of this pizza.


Mozzarella cheese
Parmesan cheese
Tomato puree
Oregano leaves
Garlic powder
Your favourite BBQ sauce
Thai chili flakes
Store bought tortillas
Roughly chopped coriander leaves
Smoked salmon slices
Leftover BBQ chicken slices

The first thing you need to do is to put the tortillas in the oven for a couple of minutes to get it slightly crispy. This is important because nobody likes a soft thin crust pizza :-D                                              

When it's done, dress the crust accordingly.

For the smoked salmon pizza I start off spreading the tomato puree on the crust. Next, sprinkle some garlic powder and oregano leaves. Now it's time for the first layer of mozzarella cheese. Be generous! Nobody likes a pizza that is short of cheese! When that's done, put on the slices of smoked salmon and add another layer of mozzarella cheese, some chopped coriander leaves and a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

For the Spicy BBQ Chicken pizza, I start off spreading my homemade spicy chinese BBQ sauce. You can use whatever BBQ sauce that rocks your boat. I then add a layer of mozzarella cheese, followed by the BBQ chicken slices. Next, more mozzarella cheese, some Thai chili flakes, chopped coriander leaves and parmesan cheese goes on top and the pizza is ready for the oven.

The pizzas will be in the oven only long enough for the cheese to melt, on high heat it should take no more than three minutes and it's done!

Enjoy!

Restoran Yat Mun Sin,
15, jalan 16/155C, Bandar Bukit Jalil,
57000 Kuala Lumpur


This place is a hidden gem! run by a hainanese family and the cook is one really versatile chap! I came across this place when I was running a car workshop just behind this shop. Missing singapore food, i went there to order a fried beef hor fun, and described how it was cooked at Geylang Lorong 9. Not expecting much, I waited for my food to arrive. To my surprise, it was a 98% copy of what i would get at Geylang, and I've been coming back here ever since. There is only one cook, so if it gets crowded there, be prepared to wait, but trust me, the food there is well worth it.

Steamed Salted Chicken

Not as salty as most of the other places that serves this dish, which is just as well because I find the other places too salty anyway, you can also get a slight hint of the chinese herbs and ginger used to make this dish. The kampung chicken used is not too tough to the bite, making this dish one of the better ones that I've ever had.

Butter Prawns

When it comes to prawns, I'm a real fussy eater. My wife usually gets all the prawns from whatever dish it's served with as I seldom, if ever, eat any prawns that's not up to my expectations when freshness is concerned. This place, however, serves the freshest prawns available. I know, because the owner of the shop buys the prawns from the same place as I do! The prawns were huge, fried to perfection and the shell was so crispy that you could eat it all. The meat was still juicy, almost like as if it was steamed and the buttery bits were also well done, with a hint of curry leaves lingering in the background. A really good dish!

Pai Kuat Wong

This, in my opinion, is the best Pai Kuat Wong I've ever tasted in this country! I've ordered this dish almost every chinese restaurant i go to, but none of them comes close to this! The pork was nice and tender, and the sweet and tangy sauce that coats every bit of it takes this dish to another level! The plate was so clean after we finished this dish that you'd be thinking if there was ever anything on the plate just a few minutes ago! That was how good this dish was! Excellent stuff!

Spicy and Sour Fish

I once had a craving for Singapore style chili crabs, but unfortunately, this place does not have the mud crabs to go with it, so I told him to substitute the crab with a tilapia and BAM!, I've been ordering this dish ever since! The fish is deep fried to perfection, and the sauce, oh, that sauce! It SO reminds me of a good chili crab in Singapore! I've never ordered this fish here in any other way, only this! Really excellent stuff!

We came here because it was my mother-in-law's birthday, and according to tradition, we ordered a noodle dish, which was pretty good too. The vegetable dish was Kankong fried with sambal balchan, which was not too bad too. Overall, we had two tables of 7 and 8 people each, and the bill came to RM468.00 including drinks and rice, quite good value for money too!

ESSENTIAL OILS


No, i'm not  talking about the oil that you use to make the room smell good, but the kind of oil that I use to make my food taste good! Nothing beats the taste of pork lard in your Hokkien Mee. Same goes for most other chinese noodle dishes. In fact, most chinese dishes are, to me, incomplete without a dash of pork lard thrown in to bring up the extra flavour. I usually whip up a batch of pork lard oil to add flavour to whatever I cook. Some people say it's unhealthy, but oils rendered from animal fats have more of the healthy fats than the unhealthy ones. Read http://fearlesseating.net/seven-reasons-why-you-should-eat-lard/ and you will get the picture. Although it's not easy to get the specified type of pork lard, six reasons out of the seven is good enough for me ;-)

From left to right.... fried anchovies, garlic, 

pork fat and the oil

This is what i usually have stashed away in my kitchen. I would whip up a batch and use them sparingly, after all, it's all about moderation here. Usually, maybe once a month, i will head to the supermarket to get some pork lard, ikan bilis and garlic to make this wonderful oil. It brings a wonderful flavour to most of the things I cook, it's easy to make and when kept dry, it stores pretty well too!

1. 1kg pork fat, cut into cubes

2. 500g chopped garlic

3. 200g dried anchovies

4. a splash of olive oil

On medium heat, put the pork fat and olive oil in a pan

Cook the pork fat until golden brown

Remove the pork fat, put in the dried anchovies and cook to golden brown

Remove the fried anchovies, put in the chopped garlic and cook to golden brown

After you remove each of the ingredients, make sure to put them on kitchen paper towels to soak up all the excess oil before storing them. That way they will remain crunchy for a longer time.

This oil is now good for almost any kind of cooking. Enjoy!

HONEY BLACK PEPPER ROAST CHICKEN

I love roast chicken. But unfortunately, most of the roast chicken that i get at stalls are quite dry. Usually I would order the thigh and drumstick, as that's where most of the fat and flavour of the chicken is. But with this recipe, even the breast meat of the chicken is tender, tasty and juicy. Why, you might ask? It's because of the way it's marinated and cooked. As you can see in the picture, the chicken is deboned, all except the wings. This makes for more even cooking of the chicken, and you can be sure that there will be no blood dripping out of the chicken when you make the first cut. After deboning the chicken, it is then marinated in the fridge for two days, and there is no salt in the marinade, as salt draws out moisture from the meat. I only add salt at the very last minute before the chicken goes into the oven.

tender, juicy and flavourful breast meat

As shown in the picture above, the meat is tender and juicy, with the flavours going all the way into the meat because of the long marinating time. 

And look at all that juice oozing out of the meat after I've finished off the part of the chicken that I would never order if I'm eating out! Ok, enough of describing how good it tastes and let's get down to how you can make this at home. I'm not a classically trained cook. All the amounts of seasoning were just liberally sprinkled over the skin and flesh of the deboned chicken, so all I'm going to give you is the ingredients for the marinade. Don't worry, it's idiot-proof! If this idiot can do it, so can you!  If you don't know how to debone a chicken, be nice to your neighbourhood poultry seller and he just might do it for you. if not, then if I can do it on my own, you can too! So here we go!

one medium sized whole chicken, deboned

rosemary, roughly chopped

garlic powder

black pepper

brown sugar

honey

smoked paprika

sea salt

Rub all the ingredients except the salt onto the skin and flesh of the deboned chicken, place it in a ziplock back and put it in the coldest part of your fridge for two days or more. The longer you leave it in the fridge, the better the chicken will taste. I have tried leaving the chicken in the fridge for four days and the meat was still good.

Line the tray in your oven with foil to catch the juices when you are roasting the chicken. This will save you a lot of clean up time. Using olive oil, grease up a rack before you put the chicken flesh down, with some salt sprinkled on the skin and flesh. For the first 20mins, roast the chicken at 160 degrees celsius. Turn the temperature up to 200 degree celsius and continue roasting for another 20mins or until the skin becomes golden brown. Baste the chicken with a honey and black pepper mix when it looks like the skin is about to turn slightly brown.

Once that's done, put the cooked chicken on a plate and cover it with foil to let the juices go back into the meat for 10mins. Now, you can enjoy a nice juicy, tender and flavourful chicken!

Enjoy!

OLD TOWN FISH HEAD

Last night the Old Jew wanted to give us a treat, so we went to this place in SS 14, Subang Jaya for dinner. Since it was the Old Jew's treat, we were hoping that there would be some pricey stuff on the menu, but the sly old man got that covered. He suggested we go to this place called OLD TOWN FISH HEAD, which he claims, serves good fish head curry.

FISH HEAD CURRY

The fish head curry was not too bad. Usually, chinese fish head curries have a coconut milk induced richness to it, while the indian version has more of a tangy taste. This curry is more slanted to the indian version, with a little richness of the coconut milk creeping into the mix.  The usual fish curry suspects like tow pok, long beans and lady's finger were present, but what disappointed me was the texture of the fish. The skin was almost like rubber, sad, really, because i really enjoyed the curry gravy.

FOUR HEAVENLY KINGS

Whoever thought that lady's finger and petai could be included in the list of heavenly kings should be shot! Hello?! What were you smoking?! Gimmie some! However, aside from that, i must give credit where credit is due. There was some long beans and brinjal in the mix, and the texture of the vegetables in the dish was spot on. So was the sambal that it was fried with. Not too spicy, this is something that even those who can't take spicy food would enjoy.

YAM BASKET WITH KUNG POW CHICKEN

I was a little surprised when this dish came, as the old man's favourite was to have kung pow cuttlefish instead of chicken stuffed into the yam basket. Anyway, the yam basket on it's own was pretty good. the taste of the kung pow sauce was pretty good too. The chicken chunks were generous in size. the only thing that let this dish down was that there was not enough sauce and the omission of cashew nuts from this dish. 

SALTED EGG PRAWN

Salted egg is my kryptonite! Anything with salted egg, i'll like! but in spite of my biases towards anything cooked with salted eggs, this is one of the dishes that deserves special mention! The prawns was fresh. The salted egg coated the prawns to perfection, but what really got me was the texture of the prawns! The God of Woks must have been in control of the fire, as even though the prawn shells were so crispy you could eat the prawn without peeling off, the texture of the meat was still nice, springy and juicy like that of a steamed prawn!  Excellent stuff!

YAM PORK RIBS

Don't judge this dish by the way it looks. Imagine marrying a plain jane, only to find that she's like a porn star in bed! Every man's wet dream come true! Well, that's what this dish is like! Pork ribs, cooked to tender perfection, in a gravy made of  yam and some dried shrimps thrown in! The smoothness of the yam gravy with the taste of pork on it's own is really good, and the savouriness of the dried shrimp takes the flavour to another level! If you like the teochew dessert call oor nee, think of this as it's savory, ever so slightly watered down cousin! I scraped the claypot clean and i would definitely come back for more of this goodness soon! 

OLD HOME TOWN STEAM FISH HEAD
16, Jalan SS 14/2, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor

Food......

I love to cook, I love to eat. Be it something I whip up in my kitchen, or something I get in a swanky establishment, what you get here is food cooked with love and passion and food tracked with determination. Follow me on my food journey to finding the best foods to eat or the simplest way to put a great tasting meal on the table for your loved ones, here, at that bloody botak!