HAWKER
WONTON MEE
Serves 2
2 bundles wonton egg noodles
1 tbsp pork lard oil
2 tbsp crispy lard bits
6 stalks Chinese flowering cabbage (chye sim), cut and blanched
1 teasp oyster sauce
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 cups chicken broth
1 teasp sesame oil
10 slices char siew (barbecued roasted pork)
WONTON DUMPLINGS
10 round wonton wrappers
Wonton dumplings filling:
3 prawns, cleaned and minced
250g minced pork
1 stalk spring onion, sliced
1 teasp ginger juice
Dash of sesame oil
2 teasp Shaoxing wine
Salt to taste
1 teasp sugar
2 teasp light soya sauce
MAIN PREPARATION
Prepare a large pot of simmering water. Fill another pot with ice cold water. In a bowl mix the lard oil, sesame oil, 4 tablespoons of chicken broth, soy sauce, oyster sauce and stock together. Divide into 2 portions and put each onto a serving plate. Place one bundle of wonton noodles onto a sieve spatula and plunge into the simmering water. Cook till al dente, about 2 minutes. Immediately plunge the noodles into the ice cold water. Plunge it back into the simmering water for 2 seconds and place onto serving plate with the sauce mix, tossing well. Top with one portion char siew slices, crispy pork lard bits and chye sim. Repeat process with second wonton bundle. Serve immediately with wonton dumplings in remaining chicken stock as a side soup, and accompaniments of chilli sauce, light soy sauce and pickled green chilli.
CHAR KWAY TEOW
Serves 4
Have all the ingredients ready and easily grabbable beside your wok
4 tablespoons lard oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
Handful flat rice noodles (kway teow)
Handful egg noodles (mee)
Handful of beansprouts
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons shelled cockles
1 Chinese sausage, steamed and thinly sliced
1 fishcake, sliced
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark, sweet soy sauce
Chilli sauce (optional)
Stock or water to prevent drying out.
Heat a wok until smoking hot over high heat. Add lard oil and fry garlic till fragrant. Add noodles and sautee with light soy sauce for a couple of minutes. Drop in the Chinese sausage and fishcake. Lower heat if it gets too hot. Keep the noodles moving and infusing with all the ingredients. Make a well in centre and mix in the eggs. Add a dash of stock or water for steam. Add dark soy sauce, chilli sauce and beansprouts. Finally add the cockles. Sautee all for a few more seconds. Dish out and serve immediately
HAINANESE CHICKEN RICE
Serves 5-6
CHICKEN
1 large chicken (1.2kg)
Enough water to submerge chicken in large pot
Large bowl of ice and water to hold cooked chicken
4 slices ginger
2 pandan leaves, knotted
2 spring onion
1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
Pinch of salt
Mix sauce, oils and wine together, and rub all over chicken – inside and out. Rub salt. Stuff chicken cavity with pandan, ginger and spring onion. Set aside to marinade for 30 minutes.
Poaching the chicken:
In a large pot of tap water submerge chicken. Bring to boil and turn chicken over. Reduce to low simmer and cook for 20 minutes. Switch off heat, cover pot and keep chicken submerged for another 20 minutes. Reserve chicken stock for cooking rice, for garnish and for chilli sauce. Lift out chicken and place into ice water bath for about 15 minutes. Pat dry cooked chicken and rub all over with a little sesame oil and light soy sauce. Let rest for about 20 minutes till ready to serve and cut into portions.
RICE
3 cups uncooked jasmine rice, washed
1 tablespoon oil
1 teaspoon raw chicken fat from chicken
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup water
2 garlic, chopped
3 slices ginger
2 pandan leaves, knotted
Pinch of salt
In a little oil, fry garlic and ginger till fragrant. Add this together with the other ingredients in a rice cooker and cook. Discard pandan, ginger after cooking.
CHILLI SAUCE
5 red chilli
2 cloves garlic
2 slices ginger
2 tsp lime juice
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsp chicken stock
Pinch of Salt
Pound or blend chilli, garlic and ginger together – not too fine. Mix together with other ingredients until sugar dissolves.
GARNISH
2 Japanese cucumbers, sliced
2 stalks coriander, cut 3cm
2 stalks spring onion, cut 3cm
Sauce:
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp Chinese rice wine
2 tbsp chicken stock
Spread out sliced cucumbers on serving platter, cut chicken into portions and lay out on top of cucumber. Drizzle over sauce mixture. Garnish with coriander and spring onion.
ACCOMPANIMENT
Thick dark caramelised soy sauce to serve along side chilli sauce.
GORENG PISANG – Banana Fritters
The secret to a light, crispy batter is sparkling water and a dash of alcohol
Serves 4 to 6
8 bananas
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup rice flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt
Oil for deep frying
1 teaspoon rum
1 cup sparkling water
Mix the flour, rice flour, baking powder and salt well in a bowl. Beat the sparkling water, rum and egg into the flour mixture until batter is smooth. Set batter aside to rest for 15 minutes.
Heat the oil in a deep skillet. Dip the bananas in the batter and gently drop them into the hot oil. Turn bananas so that they colour to a rich golden brown on all sides. Remove and drain on paper towels.
CHWEE KUEH – Rice Flour Cakes
This Teochew savoury snack with Guangdong origins literally means ‘water cake’. A tiny well in the middle of the rice flour cake forms a pool of water when it is being steamed. Springy yet tender in texture the rice flour cake shimmers with its sweet salty lard-laced radish topping.
Makes about 15
You need 6-cm diameter metal chwee kueh moulds, or porcelain teacups that can withstand steaming. Steaming vessel.
CHAI POH (PRESERVED RADISH) TOPPING
3/4 cup (150g) preserved radish (chai poh), soaked in water for 20 minutes. Discard water and dry chai poh on paper towel
3 tbsp lard oil
2 tbsp cooking oil
A few drops of sesame oil
1 clove garlic, minced
1 shallot, minced
1 tsp dark soy sauce
7 tbsp water
Sugar to taste
CHWEE KUEH
1 1/2 cups rice flour
2 1/2 tbsp tapioca starch
1 1/2 tbsp corn flour starch
1/4 cup room temperature water
1 1/4 cups boiling hot water
Pinch of salt
Radish Topping – Heat a deep pan over medium heat, add the lard oil and cooking oil, and fry the minced garlic and shallot until fragrant about 1 minute. Add the chai poh, soy sauce and sugar. Turn heat to low and gently simmer until the radish is soft and caramelised brown, about 30 minutes. Drizzle in a few drops of sesame oil.
Rice flour cakes – Sift the flour and starch flours together in a bowl. Add the salt and whisk together with the room temperature water until you get a smooth texture. Let rest for 30 minutes. Lightly grease your moulds with lard oil. Place steamer vessel over high heat. Whisk in the boiling hot water into the rested flour mixture and pour into the greased moulds. Place the moulds into the steamer and steam on high heat for 10 minutes or slightly longer.
To serve – remove the chwee kuey from the moulds and arrange on a serving platter. Top with the cooked chai poh and serve with chilli sauce on the side.
ROTI PRATA
Roti prata or roti canai is a flaky Indian flat bread from southern India. It is one of the favourite foods in Singapore and Malaysia.
Makes 8
3 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 cup ghee, room temperature
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup water
In a large bowl, mix the flour, salt, sugar and 1/4 cup of the ghee. When the mixture comes together in a ball, add the milk and water. Knead for about 5 minutes to form into a smooth, elastic dough.
Divide into 8 balls, coat with ghee, cover with a damp cloth and let rest at room temperature for at least 5 hours.
To cook, heat a frying pan on low heat. Roll out the dough ball as thinly as possible so you can see through it. Either disc-shaped or square is fine. Fold the edges in to meet in the middle like an envelope. Drizzle some ghee in the pan and cook the prata dough 3-4 minutes per side until golden brown.Serve with a tangy curry or sugar.
ROJAK
A tossed salad of vegetable and fruit in a sweet tangy prawn paste-tamarind dressing, Rojak has its roots in Java, Indonesia. Rojak means “mixed” in Malay slang, with hawkers in the past selling it on their pushcarts all over the city. Today each ethnic group in Singapore has its own exciting version of rojak.
Serves 4
1 wedge peeled and sliced pineapple
1 cucumber, seeded and sliced
Handful of peeled and sliced jicama
Handful of bean sprouts, blanched
2 tofu square puffs, toasted and sliced
2 strips Chinese crullers (you tiao), toasted and sliced
ROJAK DRESSING
A good dressing has a nice balance of sweet and tangy
1 teaspoon finely minced ginger bud flower
1 tbsp prawn paste
2 tbsp tamarind paste
1 teasp sugar
1 teasp gula melaka
1 tbsp calamansi lime juice
1 teasp unsweetened chilli paste
2 tbsp ground dry toasted peanut
In a large bowl, mix the Rojak Dressing ingredients together until the sugar is dissolved. Loosen it with a little preboiled cooled water if necessary. Taste and adjust seasoning to your liking. Toss in the other ingredients and mix well. Feel free to add other fruit that you like such as guava, water apple (jambu ayer) and apple. Garnish with a sprinkle of crushed peanuts and serve.
CHAI TOW KUEY – Fried Radish Cake
Serves 2
Make the Radish Cake, which has the texture of moist compacted rice – this makes 4 portions:
1 small radish, peeled, grated and steamed till cooked
Pinch of salt
1 cup rice flour
1 cup water
1 teasp oil
Combine the ingredients, and pour into a cake tin. Cover with tin foil with a few holes poked in and steam for 45 minutes. Use half the portion and store the other half in the refrigerator for another day. If you’re feeling lazy you can buy the ready-made radish cake at supermarkets.
2 eggs, beaten
2 teasp fish sauce
1 tbsp sweet dark soy sauce (for the black version)
2 tbsp oil
1 tbsp lard oil
2 tbsp chai poh, preserved turnip
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 spring onion, sliced
Slice portions of the radish cake for 2 persons. Heat oil and lard in a non-stick frying pan over medium heat and fry radish cake till golden brown and crisp on both sides – about 3 minutes. Use 2 spatulas and break into smaller pieces. Add the garlic and fry until fragrant. Add the fish sauce, chai poh and salt to taste. Fry and combine well. Make a well in the centre of the frying ingredients and pour in the beaten egg. Combine all well. Sprinkle spring onion on top and dish out to serve.
NASI LEMAK
Serves 4
Coconut rice
1 3/4 cups long grain jasmine or basmati rice
1 cup water
1 cup coconut milk
Pinch of salt
2 pandan leaves, tied into a knot
Place all ingredients in rice cooker and cook. When cooked, give rice a stir to fluff it up.
Sambal (chilli paste)
3 cloves garlic
2 candlenuts, chopped
3 shallots
6 dried chillies, soaked till soft
2 tbsp tamarind water (a knob of tamarind pulp mixed with warm water and sieved)
1 tbsp sugar
Salt to taste
Oil for frying
Blend garlic, candlenuts, shallots and chilli with a little water to make a paste. Heat a pan or wok, add oil and cook chilli paste till fragrant, add tamarind water, salt and sugar. Cook over low heat for about 10 to 15 minutes. Add water if it gets too dry. Adjust seasoning.
Accompaniments
3-egg omelette, cut into 4 pieces
1 cucumber, sliced
4 mackerel fish, seasoned with a little turmeric powder and salt, and fried
Other items – you can be as elaborate or as simple as you wish: fried anchovies, salted peanuts, fried chicken, pickles, stirfried vegetables
To serve
One person: line a plate with banana leaf and spoon rice on top, 1 piece omelette, 1 fish, cucumber slices and a dollop of chilli sambal