Penang Curry Mee

There are many versions of Curry Mee.. but the one i like most is Penang Curry Mee.. it is definately a comfort food during rainy days.

mmmm... definately slurp slurp all d way!!

There are a few sets of ingredients needed to make Penang Curry Mee:
The main ingredients:

1a. The 'rempah'/ spice paste: 
1tbsp coriander seeds, 1/4 tbsp black pepper, 3-4 shallots, 3 garlic, 1/2 big onion, 2 lemon grass, 1 1/2cm ginger, 1 cm tumeric root, thumbsize shrimp paste, 2 candlenuts and 2tbsp fried dried shrimp. Blend all the ingredients above till fine and add in 4 tbsp of dry chilli paste.

1b. Prawn stock:
Ingredient: Shell of 1kg of fresh prawn, peanut oil, 1 tsp sea salt & 1 liter of water.
Method: i. wash the prawn shell properly and toss.
ii. heat peanut oil in the wok in high heat and put in the shell and sea salt. Fry the shell till they are crispy and pour in water.
iii. simmer for 1 hour and once done, seive the stock.



1c. 1/2 cup of coconut milk. (.. try with half cup first and then add more to yr liking.)

 2. 3/4 cooked fried tiger prawns, 3/4 cooked cockles (de-shelled), tau fu pok, fish balls & fish cakes. ( a few more varieties of fish balls and yong tau fo could be added.. but then- i would like to enjoy d cockles more..)

3. The garnishes for this dish i minimised them to a minimum as to i would to focus more one my big cockles & tiger prawns:-
Garnishes: boiled egg, blanched bean sprout, spring onions, deseeded calamansi, red & green chillies and dry squid sambal.

to make dry squid sambal- you may need: 1/2 big red onion, 5 shallots, 4 tbsp dry chilli paste, 1/2 tbsp tamarind paste, 1 tbsp brown sugar & fish sauce. Use fish sauce sparingly as the dry squid is quite salty.

method: fry the onion & shallots till golden and pour in tamarind paste & chilli paste. Put in brown sugar and fish sauce. Once the paste is cooked (oil surfaces)- put in dry squid which has been presoaked and cut into small pieces. Pour in a bit of water and cook the dry squid till the sambal dries a bit. The taste should be sourish sweet and chilli hot.

4. Blanched yellow noodles and rice vermicelli.


Method:
1. Use the oil that previously used for frying dried shrimp and tiger prawns to fry the blended paste.

2. Cook the paste till fragrant and oil surfaces from the paste. Pour in 1/2 cup of santan and the prawn stock.

3. Let it simmer and put in the fish balls, fish cake. Once the fishballs & fishcakes are done, put in cockles, prawns and tau fu pok.

4. The liquidity of the curry depends on how you like it to be. I use a little coconut milk as using candlenuts is quite creamy already. :)

Serve with yellow noodles and blanched rice vermicelli, bean sprouts, boiled egg, spring onion, half deseeded calamansi and top up with dry squid sambal. Bon Appetite.. :)

As featured in Asian Food Channel : Fan Submission (November)
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