Deliciously Sticky Char Kway Teow Recipe!

Hey guys, it's Wok Wednesday. I'm pointing with my ladle because that stops me from pointing. Merry Christmas, or after Christmas. I'm still wearing my Christmas crisps? Christmas? Christmas jumper because I just love it. What recipe are we doing? This week, this week we're making char kway teow. Now, I'm not sure about you guys, but after a few days of heavy eating and heavy drinking, perhaps, you know, noodles are a great hangover cure. So I've got half-run noodles here, or like rice. It's kind of like a thick rice noodle. These were dry. I've soaked them in hot water, just from the kettle, for about five minutes. And then I put these, different to how I would usually treat dry noodles, into cold water. You don't have to do it. You could just strain them, dry them on a clean tea towel, keep them really nice and dry. Now, the reason why I prefer to do it like this, sometimes, with half-run, is then it keeps them nice and separate in that cold water. But, as you can see, because it's cold water, it's not over-soaking, and it's still got that nice elasticity, and it's nice and long. So that's a nice little tip for half-run, or this particular type of noodle. I'm going to go on to some chopping, and then it literally is some classic school wok stuff, all in the wok from there. So I've got some Chinese chives, which will wilt very, very quickly. And everything just needs to be in, sort of, lengths for this. You could use Western chives as well, but they're not quite the same. This is definitely more, sort of, vegetable-like than a Western chive. It's got more crunch to it. So I'm going to set up my wok clock. Plenty of chive there. And then I've got some spring onion for the end, which I'm just going to finely slice. Especially after Christmas, you know, you don't want anything too complicated, but you still want that, sort of, I guess, I don't know, street food feel. Especially these times when you can't go away. Give you that foodie satisfaction. So I'm going to put that spring onion at the end. I'll just sprinkle into the char kway teow, the noodles, at the end. And then I've got a little bit of garlic here. You could put some chilli in as well, but I'm using chilli paste. It's up to you, really, how hot you want the char kway teow. But it should be, sort of, have a base of spice, but be more, sort of, sweet, savoury in flavour with the sauces that I'll talk through in a second. Very rough chop of your garlic, and that's going to go in and flavour the oil more than anything. And that'll work really nicely with the Chinese chives. I'm just going to put those first, just before the Chinese chives. I've got an egg, which will go at twelve o'clock, and then we're going to start to go round my wok clock of ingredients. So egg, garlic, Chinese chive, and then I've got my prawns and my noodles. So my prawns here, you can just leave them whole, but I quite like to either butterfly them or cut them in half, and they'll curl up nicely. And they'll go a little bit further as well and cook very, very quickly. One thing for me that makes the festive season festive is just non-stop cooking. And I think a lot of people are saying that this year, even more so, everyone's cooking more at home, which is a great thing. Of course, you don't have to use prawns. You can use whatever sort of leftover meat or protein, tofu, anything like that you want. Just to reiterate, I've got my wok clock ready. My egg at twelve o'clock, garlic, my Chinese chives, my picked bean sprouts, my noodles will go in after that, and then lastly, it's your sauce. Your sauce, very, very simple. It's made up of the following. You've got some chilli or sambal. And if you want to check out how to make a fresh, homemade sambal, then check out our Patreon channel. And it's on Patreon with a whole load of other great recipe videos. So I quite like my chilli, so I've gone for a heavy amount of sambal. I've got some belacan or your shrimp paste in there as well, which you want to kind of crush into it because you don't ever want a big sort of chunk of shrimp paste in your mouth. And that's going to give a real deep, savoury flavour. It already smells very, very strong. If you're worried about that shrimp paste sort of not melting through, just put a bit of chicken stock into that. I will use a bit more chicken stock later on when I'm actually wok-ing. So that's my chilli base. And then I've got kecap manis, which is a Malaysian sweet soy. You can see how treacly that is in texture. So your sweet soy or kecap manis gives the noodles a great colour, but also that sweet, savoury flavour. Then we'll use chicken stock. It's our fresh, homemade chicken stock. We have it frozen in the freezer and then we just pop that out and melt that through. So we'll use that to cook through the noodles. From here on in, quick wok cooking as ever. Here we go. As always, you want to start with a smoking hot wok. A good amount of oil because the first thing I'm going to crack into this is the egg. Make sure that oil is evenly heated and smoking hot. You can always turn the heat down or bring your wok off the heat when you're ready. But just crack that egg in and then break your yolk and start to just move that egg around relatively quickly around the wok. You can see how quickly that's sort of cooked and scrambled. From there on in, we're going to go straight in to your wok clock of ingredients. So my garlic is going to just season that oil. Bring the egg over the top so it doesn't burn. And that garlic will cook through very quickly so your chives, your Chinese chives can go in. And this is sort of cooking it much like it would be on the Malaysian streets. Quite quick and fierce. But the Malaysians have this sort of calm attitude to everything as well. So it's like firm but fair. Just nice and relaxed at the same time. You don't want to overcook any of these ingredients. I'm going to get my prawns in next. And they will be very quick so just a little bit of oil. And then my prawns are going to sear on a nice high heat. Smoking hot. Prawns in. Bring the rest of the ingredients over the prawns so they don't burn. And in the meantime you can kind of set yourself up. So I've got my bean sprouts. They will take like 30 seconds to cook through. My noodles are still quite wet but I'm going to just take those out now and get ready for those. Here goes. Stay. Still on a nice high heat. Those prawns are cooking through nicely. You don't want your veg to burn if you can help it. So my noodles are going to go straight over the top and they'll sit over that. And then I'm going to pour my sauce in. Woah, look at that. And then I'm going to go for my tummy and the head movement and add my bean sprouts. The colour on those noodles is great. And what you're trying to do here is you're trying to keep cooking it and stir it through until the noodles sort of start to soften and start to almost stick at the bottom of the wok. You may need a little bit more chicken stock as you go. Now that that sauce has all gone through, my bean sprouts can go in so that they don't overcook. Keep their nice crunchy status. And then flick that through. I'm just going to bring this up to a heat now and let it sizzle a little bit. So you want to cook it through for about 3 to 4 minutes to a point where you should get a slight sort of stickiness, not charring but a little sort of browning of the noodles and the egg on the base just before it starts to stick or any of the noodles start to stick. That's when your noodles are ready. So my char kway teow is pretty much done. And that soaking in cold water has kept the noodles nice and long and whole and they haven't all broken up. And that's the trick. Spring onion in at the end. Give that a toss through. And then you can serve that up straight away, nice and hot. You can see that steaming hot. With that ketchup manis, I do like just a little sprinkle of salt over the top and that will just mix in once you start eating that. The classic garnish for a char kway teow is your crispy fried onions. Can't wait to tuck in. Let's get a bit of that chive. Mmm. Oh, wow. That base spice and that sweet savoury flavour. I could eat the whole plate in seconds and the guys know it. Takes me back to the streets of Malaysia for a few ringgit, you've got a whole plate of noodles. Guys, I hope you had a great Christmas. Happy New Year. And don't forget, in the new year or today, tomorrow, whenever you like, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe. And like everything we do.