Penang Hokkien Mee Supreme! - Ethnic Foods R Us

Penang Hokkien Mee is a very popular seafood noodles dish in Malaysia. Prawns and pork, with a special hot and spicy chili paste makes Penang Hokkien Mee a very memorable meal indeed.

(Photo Attributed to Author: Jpatokal)

Penang Hokkien Mee Recipe-

Ingredients:

For the Stock-

shrimp heads and shells, enough to fill a quart-sized Ziploc bag
15 cups of water
rock sugar, to taste (I use 2-3 chunks, about the size of a golf ball)
1-1/2 lb. of pork ribs, cut into small pieces
salt, to taste

For the Chili Paste-

30 dried Thai Birds-Eye chili peppers, seeded, and rehydrated
12 green onions, bottoms trimmed and outer skin layers removed
6 large cloves garlic, peeled
2 tbsp. water
6 tbsp. vegetable oil

For the Noodles-

1 lb. yellow noodles, cooked tender
1 pack rice vermicelli, cooked tender
4 oz. fresh or frozen spinach, cooked tender
8 oz. bean sprouts, boiled until just blanched

For the Toppings-

8 oz. lean pork meat, boiled done and tender, and sliced very thin
8 oz. shrimp, shelled and deveined
6 hard-boiled eggs, shelled and cut into quarters
4 oz crispy fried onions, crumbled

Directions:

Place all the chili paste ingredients in an electric blender or food processor and process until finely thoroughly blended.
Heat a wok over medium-high flame and add in the oil; stir fry the chili paste for about 5 minutes. Remove paste from the wok, transfer to a bowl, and set aside for now.
Do not wash the wok, but add in a little more oil and stir-fry the shrimp. Add and stir in a bit of chili paste, sugar, and salt, to taste. Stir-fry the shrimp until they are just a little bit toasty on the outside. Remove from the wok, and set aside on a plate or bowl for now.
Put 15 cups of water into a cooking pot and bring it to a vigorous boil. Add in the shrimp heads and shells; reduce heat to just a lively simmer, and gently cook for about 2 hours – maybe even longer. You want the stock to become dense and cloudy, and take on a very strong aroma of prawns.
Now strain the stock through a sieve and transfer it into another cooking pot. Discard the solids. There will be an orange colored foam on top of the stock. Scoop that off and discard it.
Again bring the stock to a vigorous boil, and add and stir in half of the chili paste – more, if your tastes are such that you like extra hot and spicy.
Next, add and stir in the pork ribs, reduce the heat to a lively simmer, and continue to cook for another hour to and hour-and-a-half, until the pork is well done.
Now add and stir in the rock sugar and salt, to taste. If you want a little more chili sauce after doing a taste test, add that in now, too.
To assemble the dish, ladle a portions of yellow noodles, rice vermicelli, bean sprouts and spinach in each serving bowl. Ladle some hot stock over that. Top with the shrimp, pork, egg quarters, and garnish with a generous sprinkling of crumbled crispy fried onions.
Serve your Penang Hokkien Mee immediately with more chili paste to taste.