Penang Hokkien Mee aka Prawn Noodles

Penang Hokkien Mee

The Penang Hokkien Mee is another famous noodle cuisine that originated from Penang. This soup base noodle cuisine is as traditionally and popular as the famous Penang Char Keow Teow. The preparation of this noodle cuisine starts with the broth.

The two must have components for the broth are shrimps and pork. And lots of them. So, in order to keep the cost down and maintain the flavours and tastes, we usually substitute out the shrimps and pork for shrimp skin and pork ribs. That is why, at home, we usually keep and freeze all the shrimp skin when we peel shrimps for use in other cuisines. Once we have accumulated enough of the shrimp skin, it would be a good time for the Penang Hokkien Noodle cuisine.

The Famous Penang Hokkien Mee

Start by, throwing into a wok without water or cooking oil about 400g of shrimp skin. Keep stir fry for approximately ten minutes, making sure that the skins are not over cooked or burned. Transfer the cooked shrimp skin into a pot and fill up with about four litres of water on high heat.

While waiting for the broth in the pot to boil, prepare the stock for the broth. Using the same wok, where we left off after transferring the shrimp skin, add four spoons of cooking oil, five spoons of dried chilli flakes, six spoons of pounded (or blended) dried shrimps and a pinch of belacan for taste. Stir fry and mix the everything together to form the chilli shrimp paste for the broth.

Penang Prawn Noodle

Allow the broth to boil for about ten minutes in slow heat and after that, while the broth is still hot, remove the shrimp skin from the broth entirely. Add about one pound of pork ribs and continue boiling for about twenty minutes. Once the broth is ready, add in the chilli shrimp paste and stir well. If the broth needs some belacan or salt add accordingly but if it is too salty add some water and continue boiling.

Home Cooked Penang Prawn Noodle

In each serving bowl, fill it with half handful of bean sprouts (blench) and a handful of shanghai noodle (also blenched). Then, garnish with cooked shrimps, slices of hard boiled egg, kangkong also known as water spinach (blench), couple of cooked fish balls, a spoon of fried shallots and a spoon fill with bits of fried lard. With the same amount of broth prepared, I can serve up to about fifteen bowls of delicious Penang Hokkien Noodle.