First try…

I have had a lot of posts on one of our Sibu local specialties – the Foochow fried noodles, for instance…here…and here…and I have been eating that since I was a kid. However, this was the first time I had tried cooking it myself.

Well, actually, I found a small plastic bag of those yellow noodles in the fridge – enough for one serving…so I thought I could cook that and see how it turned out. These were the ingredients that I used…

There were some prawns in the freezer but I had to go through the chore of removing the shell and vein and cleaning them. I could not find any meat but I was able to trim some bits and pieces from some pork bones that my missus would usually use to cook soup. There was no sawi either but I just made use of whatever leafy green vegetables I could lay my hands on. Of course, for Foochow fried noodles, I would need chopped garlic and soy sauce…and I also used a bit of tomato sauce and Foochow red wine which I would think were actually dispensible.

I fried half of the chopped garlic in oil till golden brown and then I threw in the vegetables followed by the noodles. By the way, I had tossed the noodles in a bit of soy sauce prior to cooking so that the noodles would be evenly coated. Add a little bit of water as and when necessary and I found that this helped in scraping of the noodles sticking to the wok. Keep frying for a few minutes and then remove them from the wok and put them in a plate…

Add a little bit of oil and fry the rest of the garlic. There is no need to clean the wok even though there may be bits of noodles and whatever sticking to it – I noticed that they did not do that either in the shops. After frying the garlic for a while, throw in the prawns and meat and next, add water to make the gravy for the noodles. I added some soy sauce and a spoonful of Foochow red wine and tomato sauce…and half a teaspoon of msg. When it had started boiling, I added a bit of diluted cornflour to thicken the gravy.

Finally, I put the noodles into the gravy and let it simmer a bit before serving it on a plate…

There you have it – how to cook Foochow fried noodles.

I have seen in some shops that they do not put the noodles back into the wok to simmer in the gravy – they just poured the gravy over the noodles…but I have seen people doing it the way that I did it and I actually preferred it when they did it that way.

Not difficult at all, right? You can give it a try yourself. As for the taste, it was nicer than what I have had at many places…but I wouldn’t say that it is the best in town. I think I will have to try again a few times. As they say, practice makes perfect! LOL!!