A Traditional (and easy!) Singaporean Noodle Dish: Kway Teow

I asked my Singaporean friend at Le Cordon Bleu, Christine, to teach me a typical Singaporean noodle dish. The next Monday at school, she brought in homemade kway teow and let me have a taste, and I told her I wanted to learn it!



The next Sunday she came over. We went to an Asian grocer, picked out all of the ingredients with her expert guidance, and came home and cooked a delicious, and surprisingly simple dish.



Kway Teow
Makes two servings

Ingredients
400g fresh ho fun (or 200g dry)
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
100g of bean sprouts
20g (5-6 stalks) of Chinese chives, cut into two inch pieces
100g fish cake or shrimp/chicken/beef/tofu/pork
2 tbsp vegetable oil or canola oil
2 eggs
1 ½ tbsp dark soy sauce
1 ½ tbsp sweet soy sauce
1 tbsp sweetish chili sauce (not too sweet!)
1 tbsp regular soy sauce (or more to taste)

First, lets take a look at some of the ingredients... I certainly wasn't familiar with all of them!



Three types of sauce... to the left, the chili sauce, in the middle, the sweet soy sauce, and on the right, dark soy sauce.



Chinese chives aka garlic chives... they are beautiful and mild tasting, and have a hint of garlic taste.



Dry ho fun. Needs to be cooked like pasta until al dente (probably about 5 minutes depending on what variety you get).



Fresh ho fun. Separate them in warm water.



Fish cake. A commonly used ingredient in Asian cooking. Any sort of protein can be used though.





Prepped fish cake, chives and garlic.

Now for the method. Heat the oil until it's extremely hot, even smoking. Add the garlic, and stir in the pan until fragrant (about 30 seconds). Do not let the garlic burn!





Crack the eggs and add them to the pan. Don't stir until they start to look brown around the edge. Then, break the egg up and stir until cooked through.



Add the fish cake, or whatever protein you are using, and cook accordingly.



The next step is to add the noodles. Be gentle stirring so that the noodles do not break. Heat through.



Next, add the dark soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, chili sauce and regular soy sauce. Stir thoroughly. Taste a noodle to check the seasoning, and look at the color. For more color, add more dark soy sauce. For more heat, add more chili sauce. For more sweet/smokey flavor, add more sweet soy sauce. And for more saltiness, add regular soy sauce.



Add the bean sprouts and stir through. Cook them for about one minute. They add crunch and texture to the dish, so don't cook them too much or they will become soft. Finally, add the chives. Turn off the heat, and stir the chives until distributed evenly. Serve piping hot.