It’s not impossible…

I think it was in the 90s when a colleague of mine came to work and asked everybody if we had all eaten fried mee sua (thread/string noodles) before. “That’s impossible!” they all exclaimed in disbelief. Before that time, we only had the noodles our traditional way in chicken soup with lots of ginger and the Foochow red wine…

*Archive photo*

…and having it fried was quite unheard of. Well, the colleague said that she had it here for dinner the previous night and it was very nice – probably they were the first around here to ever attempt that, serving mee sua fried. There followed a whole lot of speculations among all the lady colleagues. They must have deep fried the noodles first, one said. Maybe they used the ones imported from China or elsewhere, another chipped in. Those would be firmer and harder, she commented, and would be easier to fry. Nobody went and tried though, not that I heard of, so how the people at the restaurant went about it remained a mystery.

However, the novelty had caught on and today, you can easily get to eat fried mee sua at the restaurants and even some of those chu-char (cook & fry) places and stalls at some coffee shops in town. It’s not impossible actually and I have done it a number of times.

You would need to boil some water and throw in the mee sua. Loosen the strands and once the water starts boiling again, drain it away and add cold tap water to stop any possibility of further cooking in the residual heat and keep loosening the strands so they will not stick together. Keep repeating till you are sure that all the starchiness and also the saltiness have been removed and the noodles will not all stick together in one big clump. Drain away all the water…

…and make sure that you do it really well – when it comes to frying mee sua, it would be best to keep everything as dry as possible.

As for the ingredients, it is up to you really but that morning, I did not have much in the fridge so I just went and fried a very simple version with these…

– one shallot, peeled and sliced, a few cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped finely, a few chilies, seeds removed and sliced thinly, some spring onion, two eggs and minced meat that I marinated with a spoonful of oyster sauce.

Of course, you can use other ingredients of your choice such as prawns, minced or whole, in place of the meat or together with it or crab meat would be nice and you can add some vegetables – usually Chinese cabbage (bok/pak choy/wombok) sliced really very fine, not much bigger than the mee sua. Here…

*Archive photo*

…I used some thinly shredded lettuce but I do think that leek would be nice as it would give the noodles its nice fragrance and taste and I do know that at the restaurants, many would add very thin strips of carrot, probably more for the colour than anything else.

I heated up a bit of oil in the wok and threw in the sliced shallot and once golden brown, I removed a bit to use later for garnishing. Then I added the garlic and also fried that till golden brown before the meat went in along with the chili and the spring onion, also saving a bit of  the latter two for garnishing.

You will have to wait till the sizzling has simmered down so that there would not be so much moisture in the wok. Remember, it would be best to keep everything as dry as possible. When everything is ready, add the mee sua and mix it with everything else as thoroughly as possible before the eggs go in. Once done, add a pinch of chicken stock cube (and pepper, if so desired) and dish out once that is done. I garnished that with the fried shallot, chili and spring onion and served…

No, the noodles did not stick together…

…at all. I would say it was something like bihun but the taste is different, nicer…and the texture is softer, not as coarse or hard.

You may add a bit of dark soy sauce if you do not want it looking so pale but I was fine with it. I would say that it tasted great with the fragrance of the ingredients used…

…and it was just a little spicy – I probably would add more chili next time as we would like it extra hot. The best part, of course, was that there was no added salt nor msg other than what was in the oyster sauce and the little bit of chicken stock…unlike when you go and eat this outside.

So, anybody keen on giving this a try? It sure is not difficult and of course, it is not in any way impossible, not at all.