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Char Kway Teow
This is a recipe for Singapore Char Kway Teow (炒粿條), a favourite local hawker delight. The name of the dish is Hokkein (Chinese dialect group) for stir-fried flat rice noodles. I personally love a small amount of yellow mee (local yellow egg noodles) to balance all that kway teow.
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The noodles are commonly fried with see hum (cockles), Chinese chives, lup cheong (Chinese preserved sausage) and fish cake. It is so sinful especially when fried with lard, but so good! To me, wokking it in high heat is the most important factor – not only does it impart more flavour, the char kway teow will also be less oily (not glistening in oil) when cooked.
Char Kway Teow is not complete without cockles (that’s my friend mochachocolatarita‘s beautiful artwork). The perks of cooking this at home is that I can treat myself to extra servings of cockles. You can buy whole cockles and shell them on your own. For a lazy cook like me, I bought shelled cockles from Sheng Siong supermarket. They may look scary in packaging with all that blood liquid, but it’s a total time-saver. And if you have leftover cockles, you can season them with some dark soy sauce for another quick dish.
These are the three sauces used in my char kway teow. From left to right, fish sauce (I usually use this particular fish sauce for local dishes, and Thai fish sauce for Thai dishes), dark soy sauce and kecap manis (Indonesian soy sauce) which is sweet, thick and syrupy.
Thanks Wiffy, Char Kway Teow is one of my favorites. I can’t get cockles where I live, canned clams will have to do. I didn’t quite have the recipe right, going on my memories as a child in Singapore. I am going to cook this for my family for my birthday in two weeks, and a couple more of your dishes (hard to choose which). I appreciate you posting this recipe, in fact all your recipes are great!
Hi Leslie, wishing you an early Happy Birthday! Thanks for always having such kind words for a noob cook like me. Hope you like this recipe when you try it! :)
Looks delicious just like the one sold outside. Love the addition of fish cake!
This is my favourite meal ever! I could eat plates of it all day long :-)
(minus see ham and lup cheong though! )
You doing hawker series ah? kekeke…..good!
CKT also my fav. Love Hokkien Mee for the umami seafood stock-infused noodles, and love CKT for the sweet sauce. I always have a weak spot for CKT char kway teow and CTK – char tow keuh cos of sweet sauce…hahahha….
And again, how can you be noobcook if you are showcasing all these super”skilful” dishes?
Thanks, if you see me in action, you will know that I am still a noob cook (clumsy and messy). Oh, I’m planning to experiment with CTK next :)
Do we need to rinse the noodles before cooking?
Is the sweet soy sauce in black color?
Can we get the sweet soy sauce in local supermarket?
no need to rinse, but no harm if you want to do so. Yes, sweet soy sauce is blank. It’s more commonly known as kecap manis. You can find it easily in local supermarkets.
I love this noddle, but do not cook it often…looks delicious Wiffy.
Hope you are enjoying your week :D
Hi, if i wanna add in some chicken or prawns, do i fry them before adding in the noodles etc?
Thanks :)
Hi Jess, yes you definitely can. Stir fry the prawns or chicken, push them aside in the wok or set aside on plate. After cooking the noodles, combine everything together.
Thanks for your reply :) gonna try it out tomorrow.
A sinful but delicious hawker delight that is always welcomed! :)
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Hi,
I have been trying quite a few of your receipes and my husband and I love it. :) pls keep up the good work that you are doing.
I would like to try this dish next as its my husband’s fav. Can I know if I can use other sauce/ condiments as a replacement for the Indonesian sweet sauce?
Thanks
Hi Jadie, thanks. You can use dark soy sauce to replace, but I would say Indonesian sweet sauce is sweeter and a bit thicker. But substitution should be fine, do adjust to taste accordingly.