One Sauce for Two Dishes - Thick Eggy Sauce

When visiting a chinese restaurant, there is always one particular dish I tend to look for: Flat rice noodles with seafood served with a thick eggy sauce. In Cantonese we refer to it as Wa Tan Hor, or Kong Fu Chao. But, in certain restaurants, they also serve the same sauce with rice. This take on the dish is normally referred to as Man Fan (braised rice). 

 

(Left to Right: Fried Flat Noodles with Seafood and thick eggy sauce, Rice with seafood and thick eggy sauce)

Ultimately this dish is simple to make. For the sauce you need:

Ingredients:

10 pieces of prawns

4 fishballs  - sliced

2 cloves garlic - diced

A bunch of Mustard leaves (Choy Sum) or Pak Choy - sliced to bite size pieces (measuring probably 5cm)

An egg

1 tbsp cornstach - mixed with 1tbsp water

1/2 a bowl of water

Salt

Pepper

Method:

1. Prepare seafood ingredients by cleaning out the veins from the prawns and slicing the fishballs. Dice the garlic and wash away excess dirt from the vegetables.
2. Heat up a wok or a deep non stick pan with some vegetable oil and add in the diced garlic. Stir fry till fragrant before adding in seafood.
3. Add in your salt and pepper to taste. Then add in the water and let it boil. Reduce the heat when water begins to boil. Let it simmer to allow the seafood to be fully cooked.
4. Then add in your vegetables and stir it till you see the vegetables turn a deep green. When it becomes a dull green, means your vegetables are overcooked. Alternatively, when you see the leaves wilt, then you know it is halfway through the cooking process.
5. Next add in the cornstarch mixture and stir. You will notice the soup starts to thicken. When this happens, break an egg into your sauce. Stir so that the egg breaks up. Let it boil for about 20 seconds or until it bubbles and take it off the heat.
6. Serve it on a bed of fried flat noodles or rice.

To prepare the fried flat noodles, all you need is:

Ingredients:

100 grams dried flat rice noodles

a bowl of boiling water

2 rounds of dark soy sauce

Method:

1. First, cook the dried noodles by adding in a bowl of boiling water. The noodles will turn white and it soft to the touch. Drain and set aside. 
2. Next heat up a wok or a flat non-stick pan. No need to add oil in as the noodles will emit some oil when being heated up.
3. Add in the noodles and dry fry it. Then add in the dark soy sauce by drizzling it all around the noodles.
4. Continue frying till you see the noodles are completed covered with the soy sauce. Take out and place on a plate.
5. Cook the eggy sauce, serve it on top of the noodles and serve piping hot!

The rice is an alternative for those who much prefer rice over noodles. Just cook the rice, scoop as much as you want on to your serving plate and scoop the eggy sauce on to it and voila!

If you want it with meat, you can replace the seafood with pork slices. Or if you are like the Chinese Malaysians, we serve the pork together with seafood along with deep fried pork fat. The deep fried pork fat can be used to replace the vegetable oil as this would emit oil for cooking. You can opt to use bacon bits or panchetta as it also provides salt for your sauce. You can also add in fish slices. At best, use fish fillet, as then it quickens the cooking process. You can even add in sliced calamari to add to the variety of the seafood. 

You can also replace the flat noodles with egg noodles. There is no set rule to what noodle you should use. This sauce is capable in adapting to the type of noodle you use. You can even serve it with spaghetti if you run out of Asian noodles.

Fast, easy and not time consuming, this provides you singletons out there another dish to want to cook at home yet have a taste of Asia right by your doorstep. After all, us people in London are deprived of authentic Kong Fu Chao, so why not have it at home? I did.

Bringing a taste of home back into London,

The Innovative Baker