Char Kway Teow
(Fried flat rice noodles)

Food of:
Malaysia & Singapore

Food submitted by:
foodyoo/Johor/Malaysia

Char Kway Teow, literally "fried flat rice noodles", is a popular noodle dish in Malaysia and Singapore. It is made from flat rice noodles approximately 1 cm or slightly narrower in width. The term "Char Kway Teow" is a transliteration of the Chinese characters "炒粿條", based on the Min Nan spoken variation of the Chinese language.

Char Kway Teow is fried over very high heat in wok with light and dark soy sauce, chili, prawns, cockles, egg, bean sprouts and Chinese chives. And if it is fried in pork fat, with crisp croutons of pork lard will give it its characteristic taste.

When you order a plate of Char Kway Teow from a hawker, you always can have some personal requests for the ingredients. Such as don’t add in cockles, bean sprouts and etc since some people don’t eat those ingredients for some reasons. And some people also like to mix flat rice noodle with yellow noodle which give special texture for the taste.

Recipe

• 1 packet of Kway Teow (rinsed in hot water to rid unwanted oil)
• 1 handful taugeh (beansprout)                                          
• 1/2 handful garlic chives (cut to the length of beansprout)
• 3 peeled and deveined prawns (leave tail intact)
• 1 egg
• 2 Tbsp Chili paste
• 1 Tbsp chopped garlic
• dark soya sauce
• light soya sauce
• sea salt

Heat some cooking oil in a wok. Throw in the chopped garlic and chili paste. Stir 30 seconds add prawns. Stir 1 minute and put in the Kway Teow (flat rice noodle), dark and light sauce and stir another minute. Put in all the sprouts and garlic chives, stir 30 seconds and push all ingredients in the wok aside. Crack an egg and stir in the free space created earlier in the wok. Slowly flip the Kway Teow over the quickly cooking egg. (Careful not to over stir, may cause the eggs to be too scrambled). Here, I add a little hot water to give it a wet style. (Chicken or prawn stock may be used). Salt to taste.