Mom's Famous Hokkien Mee

Remember Mom's Hokkien Mee? Well, that was in Malaysia. Now Mom's in Melbourne and guess what? Yes!! She made it yesterday.

Mom's Hokkien Mee is made to her own family recipe, and years of fine tuning. I watched her cook yesterday, hoping to learn a few things and I did! There's no secret recipe really. To get a good prawn stock, you just need to ensure that only fresh prawns and a generous amount of pork bones are used.



The prawns are lightly blanched in hot boiling water, which will be later used in the stock. All the goodness of the prawns are never wasted. It is then shelled and deveined.



The shells, heads and all are then tossed in the wok, getting a nice toasty, aromatic crustacean caramelisation that permeates through the walls of the house. This will be appreciated by most, but for some, it will create a frantic rush to quickly close all bedroom doors with face and nose crinkled like a raisin. The golden shells were then added to the stockpot and simmered for 15 minutes or so.

They were then taken out of the pot, strained and liquidised in the blender. This will make a rich prawny essence which will be strained through a muslin cloth to get a smooth finish. This will go back into the stock. Liquid gold.

Mom made the chilli paste one day earlier. About 15 dried chillies, soaked in hot water and cut into chunks; 5 fresh red chillies, deseeded; One red onion or about 5 shallots, A small square of toasted belachan or shrimp paste, all blended into a smooth paste with some oil. The chilli paste is then toasted in the wok with a bit more oil until aromatic and luscious red.

The spice for the broth also consists of this chilli paste with a bit more onions and garlic.

Bear in mind the figures are only approximate. It's always a handful of this and a knob of that, a piece of this as big as your thumb or a splash of that. Right.

Other ingredients include hard boiled eggs, shelled and halved; A piece of pork loin, gently cooked in the broth for about 20 minutes and then sliced thinly; And these lovely water convolvulus or kangkung, lightly blanched in hot boiling water, then rinsed in cool water to retain its fresh green colour.

Noodles, yellow Hokkien noodles and vermicelli are cooked in hot boiling water and then drained. These are assembled in a bowl, topped with kangkung, sliced pork, prawns, egg and a generous sprinkling of crunchy fried shallots. And oh yes, a heaped tablespoon of the sambal or chilli paste and hot, spicy prawn broth ladled into the bowl.

The best bit... wait for it... is sucking the juices and marrow off a piece of pork bone that has been cooking in the prawn stock, it's flesh soft and falling off the bone. Mmm... yumm. Just too good! Don't ask me to make this again without mom!