Heritage Food Trail: My version of Penang Hokkien Mee (福建面)

I always cook this Hokkien dish but seldom post it because of my laziness in getting the food nicely done up and not to keep big boy with rumbling tummy waiting. The Hokkien Mee paste I used for this dish was a homemade paste by my mum who learnt cooking from my late grandmother after she married my father. My mum made a bottle of the paste for me many months ago, I keep it in freezer. She told me the ingredients she used to make the paste but not the quantities of it as ... it depends on how much paste you want to make, was her answered to me. So, in the recipe for paste, I only can tell you the ingredients. 

Usually yellow noodles is used in Hokkien Mee, some may like to mix bee hoon (rice noodles/Rice vermicelli) with yellow noodles. I didn't like the yellow noodles, therefore, usually I used only bee hoon.

My improvise version of Hokkien Mee Soup, used of chicken bone, prawn heads and shells in the soup.

Recipe from Ah Tze's kitchen play

Ingredients for paste:

dry prawn, pounded

shallot, sliced into thin

lemon grass, chopped

chilli, pounded

some balacan

oil, a few spoons

sugar

assam water

Steps:

1. Heat up wok, fry all the ingredients (except sugar and assam water) in hot oil for 10 mins, add sugar, add assam water, continue to fry until the paste is dry. Set aside.

Ingredients for soup:

2 chicken bones, wash and boil in hot water for 5 mins, set aside

some celery, cut into short

2 big tomatoes

6 tbsp of homemade Hokkien Mee paste

300g of fresh prawns, peeled and deveined

3 tbsp oyster sauce

3 tbsp light soy sauce

3 tbsp oil

500 ml water

Steps:

1. Heat the wok with oil, fry the shell of the prawns until fragrance. Add water, simmer for another 15 mins. Set aside.

2. Add Hokkien Mee paste in the slow cooker, add chicken bones, celery, tomatoes and the (1), add another 2 bowls of hot water. Cook for at least 3 hours. Add oyster sauce and light soy sauce.

3. Boil water, cook prawns in boil water for 2 mins. Take out and set aside.

4. Boil water, add been hoon in boil water for 3 mins. Take out and set aside.

5. Transfer been hoon to a serving bowl, add soup and garnish with whatever you like, eg. prawns, boil egg, chillies, fry shallots. Serve immediately.

If you go Penang, you must try Penang Hokkien Mee, it is different from the prawn noodles we eat in Singapore, the soup is much thicker. However, is this Hokkien Mee really a dish from Hokkien, that I don't know, what I know is you can see and smell this dish at most of the hawker centres in Penang. Is a signature dish for Penangite!  

I'm submitting this post to join Edith's Heritage Food Trail Event.