Penang style prawn mee (hae mee or mee yoke in Cantonese) (福建蝦麵)

Every time I cook prawns I will freeze the unused prawn heads and shells. Once I have over a kilo worth of prawn shells I will cook prawn mee. The length of time it takes to save the shells will depend on how often we eat prawns and whether we eat with or without the shells. Luckily I don’t cook prawn mee often ‘cos it takes a lot of time and work to prepare. Also need more people around to help eat it.

Prepare the toppings

1 kilo small prawns for topping

Shell the prawns and put them aside

 

Put the shells together with the other prawn heads and shells

1 piece pork belly and 3 hard-boiled eggs

Cut the kang kung into three to four-inch lengths

Wash and put aside

Remove the tails of the bean sprouts

Blanch the bean sprouts and the kang kung

Keep the water to cook the stock

This is because the vegetables contain vitamin C which is water soluble and it has leached into the water during the cooking process

Put the vegetables into a container and keep aside

Prepare the chilli paste

4 red chillies

10 shallots

6 cloves garlic

3 buah keras (candlenuts) to thicken the chilli paste

10 dried chillies (I am using my frozen chilli boh)

Put 100 ml water and all the ingredients into the blender

Blend until it is a smooth paste

Remove the blended paste and put aside

I add 2 packs of my frozen chilli boh

Heat up 6 tbsp oil

Put in the chilli paste

Stir fry the chilli paste until it has thickened and smells fragrant

Remove the chilli paste and keep aside

Do not wash the wok

Add the prawns

Pan-fry the prawns until all the water has evaporated

Remove the prawns and add some water to “rinse” the wok

Transfer the chilli water to the stock

Let the prawns cool  

Cut the hard-boiled eggs and put into a container with the prawns

Prepare the stock

Do not wash the blender after blending the chilli paste

Put in the prawn heads and shells

Roughly blend the prawn heads and shells

Put the blended prawn shells into the boiling water that was used to blanch the vegetables

Simmer on low fire for about 2 hours

When the stock is ready, strain it through a sieve

Press the pulp to squeeze the stock out of the pulp

This is how much pulp I got

Transfer the strained stock back into a clean pot

Slice a big knob of ginger and add to the stock

Blanch the pork belly to remove the scum

Put the clean pork belly into the stock

Add some of the chilli paste if you want it spicier

Add 2 pieces rock sugar and salt to taste

Simmer the stock until the pork belly is cooked and tender

Remove the pork belly from the stock

Let it cool down and then slice thinly to use as topping

1 kg packet of yellow noodles

3 pieces of rice noodles

Soak the rice noodles until soft

Scald the noodles

Put the required amount of noodles into a bowl

Arrange the toppings on top of the noodles

Ladle the stock over the noodles

Garnish with some fried shallots and serve with the chilli paste