‹ The Noodle 100 › Make it at home

The Noodle 100 · make it at home

Prawn mee soup, Penang and Singapore style

1 hr 30 min · 4 bowls

A broth built from fried prawn heads and pork bones, deep orange and sweet. Penang calls it Hokkien mee and adds chili; Singapore calls it prawn mee.

Save it and it opens in Chef Amazing with a timeline, mise en place, what you already have and a shopping list.

The real one

You need

• 500 g (1 lb) large prawns, shells and heads kept
• 1 kg (2 lb) pork ribs or bones, 2 liters (2 quarts) water
• 3 tbsp oil, 6 shallots sliced, 4 cloves garlic
• For the chili paste: 8 dried chilies soaked, 4 shallots, 2 cloves garlic, blended and fried in 3 tbsp oil until dark
• To season: 1 tbsp rock sugar, 2 tbsp fish sauce, 1 tbsp light soy, salt
• 200 g (7 oz) yellow noodles and 200 g (7 oz) rice vermicelli
• To top: water spinach (kangkung) blanched, bean sprouts, sliced boiled pork, half a hard-boiled egg, fried shallots

How to make it

1. Shallots (8 min): Fry the sliced shallots in the oil until golden; lift out and keep the oil.
2. Prawn base (10 min): Fry the prawn heads and shells in the shallot oil with the garlic, pressing, until deep red and toasty, 8 minutes.
3. Broth (1 hr): Add the pork ribs and water, simmer 1 hour. Poach the peeled prawns in it for 2 minutes along the way, then lift out and halve. Strain the broth, season with rock sugar, fish sauce, soy and salt, and stir in a spoon of chili paste.
4. Build (5 min): Blanch the noodles, greens and sprouts, put in bowls, add pork, prawns and egg, pour over the boiling broth and top with fried shallots and chili paste.

Tips

• The more heads you fry, the better it is; freeze heads from other prawn dishes for this.

Chef Amazing's own home version, in our words; not any shop's recipe.