Fried Hokkien Mee

Invited to another foodie's house for Boxing Day dinner... what should I cook? (especially when this person wants to learn about Chinese stir fry??) Hmmm..

After a few days of Christmas food, we were hankering for some good old Singapore flavours. Garlicky, savoury.. full of umami...

Rummaging in our pantry we found a packet of thick yellow (Hokkien) noodles and dried rice vermicelli. Fried "Hokkien Mee" then! ("Mee" is Hokkien for noodles). This dish, consisting of thick fresh noodles and rice vermicelli, cooked with prawns, squid, pork in a rich prawn stock, is a firm favourite, appearing in every hawker centre.

stir-frying mee in a wok

Braved the pre-Christmas crush at the supermarket on the 24th and found a packet of frozen prawns, raw, with shell on. Wanted fresh actually, but then that would be nigh impossible. Do you know how difficult it is to find fresh prawns here? Blood from stone! We had to scour the freezer chests of 2 supermarkets just to find the type of prawn we wanted. Most supermarkets here sell frozen prawn cutlets, either cooked or raw without the shell or head. Just what are prawn cutlets? Why not just call them prawns? Anyway, I digress. Another key ingredient, belly pork was not too hard to find, still plenty left on the shelves, not really a Christmas food. Frozen squid tubes substitute quite nicely for fresh calamari.

mung bean sprouts or "tau geh"

Don't be daunted by the long list of ingredients. It's really quite an easy dish to make, the preparation is not too tedious and one is well rewarded by the results.

blanched squid, prawn and pork

Ingredients:

• 200g fresh thick yellow (Hokkien) noodles
• 100g dried rice vermicelli
• 150g raw prawns, peeled and deveined, head and shells reserved
• 150g squid tubes
• 200g belly pork (2 strips about 2-3cm thick)
• 4-6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 3 cups bean sprouts, cleaned
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• spring onions / scallions finely sliced
• red chilli, de-seeded and finely sliced
• salt
• white pepper
• dark soy sauce 1 tablespoon
• light soy sauce 1 tablespoon
• 4 small limes (limaukasturi)

Method:

1. Prepare the prawn stock - a good stock makes the difference between an absolutely delicious plate of noodles and a "just so-so" one.
2. Heat a table spoon of cooking oil in a large pot and stir fry 2 cloves of garlic over medium heat for a few minutes until just starting to soften. Add the prawn heads and shells and fry till they turn pink and smell fragrant. Add the 2 soy sauces, allow for caramelisation and the add 1 litre of boiling water. Simmer for 10-15minutes.
3. Strain into another clean sauce pan. Use a potato masher to extract as much from the shells as possible. Season with salt and pepper. (The stock has to be salty enough to flavour the noodles, as no more salt will be added during the frying of the noodles)

Preparing the meat/seafood:

1. Cook the prawns and squid separately in the stock, remove and cool.
2. Slice the prawns into 2 (or keep them whole if you feel generous or have plenty of prawns)
3. Slice the squid tubes into rings about 5mm wide.
4. Poach the pork in the stock, remove, cool and slice into 2-3mm thick pieces.

Preparing the noodles:

1. Put the fresh yellow noodles in a bowl and pour boiling water water. Stand for a minute and drain.
2. Soak the dried rice vermicelli in hot water until softened (about 5-10min), drain and set aside.

Putting in all together:

1. Heat 2-3 tablespoons of peanut oil in a wok, stir fry the remaining garlic until golden brown.
2. Add the noodles and rice vermicelli and 1 cup of stock and stir fry over high heat for 1 -2 minutes.
3. Add the bean sprouts, 3/4 of the pork, prawn and squid and another 1/2 cup of stock and stir fry for another minute until heated through.
4. Make a small well in the middle of the noodles, pour the beaten egg in and let it cook briefly, until it starts to coagulate and then stir through the rest of the noodles.
5. Add more stock if at any time if the the noodles look dry or threaten to stick to the wok.
6. Transfer to large serving dish
7. Garnish with reserved pork, prawns and squid and sprinkle sliced chilli and spring onions for added colour.

Enjoy!

Monkfish Medallions with New Season Potatoes and Asparagus

I was walking by my favourite fishmongers the other day and as I always do, stopped by to browse in their shop window. Sometimes they have pretty interesting stuff. I love to buy, prepare and eat freshly caught fish, and their fish is really fresh.

Being a Kiwi fish shop, they have items which might be considered unusual elsewhere - seasonal sea urchin roe - called kina by the Maori - and uni by the Japanese who make it into delicious sashimi and sushi. Occasionally they even have mutton birds - a curious sea bird which comes from the South Island which has been preserved in brine. They belong to a order of sea birds called petrels and perhaps the "mutton" part of their local name comes from early settlers who thought the meat reminded them of mutton. More information on this when I have actually cooked one.

This time, what caught my eye was a particularly ugly fish. It couldn't be, I thought, a whole monkfish? Sure looked like one. The guy in the shop said, it's a Stargazer - local name for Monkfish and happily filleted it for me. This whole fish about 40cm long cost the equivalent of 2 Big Mac meals and yielded 2 large fillets of firm white flesh and a frame to make super duper fish stock.

Thought I'd make a variation of a Rick Stein recipe.

Ingredients:

• Monkfish fillets, cut into 1 inch thick medallions
• 1/2 cup Roasted buckwheat
• 1 clove fresh garlic
• 1 bunch Fennel fronds
• sea salt
• white pepper
• new season potatoes
• asparagus

Method for the fish:
1. in food processor or mortar, crush up buckwheat with garlic, fennel and sea salt.
2. coat one side of the fish with this mixture
3. fry in olive oil, crumbed side down first, for about 2 min, then turn over and fry till just cooked and brown on the other.

For the veges:
Peel and cook the potatoes in a pot of well salted water, drain and keep warm
prepare and steam the asparagus (or blanch them in the same salted water for about 2 min)

To serve:
Plate the potatoes and asparagus with generous amount of butter or saffron mayonnaise
Place fish alongside..

Eat and enjoy!

Corn & Zucchini Fritters

Spring is here - or trying to establish a foothold in any case. We've had some really lovely warm days followed by a couple of blustery days with wind blowing right up from the Antarctic.

However, today is a beautiful day, the wind has died down, the sun is out and the birds are singing. And the grass needs mowing. Before getting onto that task, I thought I'd make myself a nice light, healthy lunch of corn & zucchini fritters. How can fritters be healthy, you may ask. Aren't they deep fried? Well, these are full of fiber and practically fat free too!

Ingredients:
2 cups fresh corn kernels
2 cups finely julienned zucchini (grated is OK)
1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
2 eggs
1 cup water
1 finely chopped red chilli
1/2 cup finely sliced spring onions
1 cup self raising flour
1/2 tsp ground cumin
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, cumin and freshly ground black pepper. Add a bit of salt (depends on how salty your feta cheese is). Mix well.
2. Add the vegetables and cheese to the flour
3. Beat the eggs well
4. Add the eggs and water to flour and veg mixture and mix well. It will be a stiff batter.
5. Heat a non stick skillet (you can add some olive oil for frying but it is not necessary). Drop 1 large tablespoon of the fritter mixture on the the skillet and fry over medium-low heat for about 3min on each side, till well browned. You'll know when it is time to turn over when small bubbles appear on the surface.
6. Serve with sweet chilli sauce / chilli mayo / alioli

Makes 12 fritters.