Char Kway Teow With Cockles 鮮蚶炒粿條 - "Malaysian Monday 19"

I love the weekends as I am able to take a break from my diet and cook whatever I feel like eating. It is a bit strange cooking Asian dishes after preparing all the carbless meals that have very few ingredients involved. This is quite similar to the Teochew version I posted a while back except there are cockles and and lard being used for the cooking. This is also the most widely available version in both Malaysia and Singapore. I made this once for my Muslim friends replacing the lard and Chinese sausage with chicken fat and halal chicken sausage respectively and the result was an equally delicious one. I did a round trip to Victoria Street on my bike for the ingredients so I was able to eat this very naughty dish without any guilt :)

P.S The 5th round up of Muhibbah Malaysian Monday is up next week so please send all you entries to my friend Shaz at its.sharon@gmail.com before that.

serves 2

you'll need;

500 g of fresh flat rice noodles

1 Chinese sausage, sliced, fried briefly and drained

6 prawns, peeled with tails intact and deveined 

20 cockles (鮮蚶), scalded and flesh picked

1 small bunch of Chinese chives (韭菜), cut into lengths to match the bean sprouts

1 large handful of bean sprouts

pork lard for cooking

pork scratchings (by product of lard making) (豬油楂)

3 tbs of chicken stock or water

3 tbs of dark soy

2 tbs of dark sweet soy

dash of fish sauce

1 tbs of sambal belacan (recipe below)

white pepper to taste

sambal belacan;

3 red chilies

3 to 5 bird chilies

1 tbs of toasted belacan* (shrimp paste)

1 tsp of salt

2 tsp of sugar

juice of one lime

Blend everything in a blender and check for seasonings.

*to toast the shrimp paste - wrap shrimp paste in foil and place in a pre-heated oven for 10 minutes

I prepared some pork lard  just for the dish. Pork fat is available at any Asian butcher (200 g is will yield one cup)

Pick the flesh off the cockles - scald the cockles with hot water and they can be opened very easily after that.

Deveined prawns, picked cockles and lightly fried Chinese sausage.

Chinese chives and bean sprouts.

Place 1.5 tbs of lard in a hot wok and fry the noodles and bean sprouts for 30 seconds. Add stock and dark soy and cook for another 30 seconds. Push the noodles to one side of the wok; add 1/2 tbs of lard and scramble the eggs, mix well with the noodles and fry for another 30 seconds.

Next add prawns and Chinese sausage follow by sambal belacan, mix well and fry til the prawns are half cooked.

Add chives and the rest of the seasonings and continue to stir til the chives are wilted, add cockles and mix well. Check for seasonings.

Scatter some pork scratchings over  and serve immediately with extra sambal belacan on the side. I must say I am very happy with the result so give it a try too!

My friend Shaz from Test With A Skewer is hosting the November event, please send all entries to its.sharon.gmail.com . To find out more please click HERE.