Teochew Girl's Char Kueh Tiaw

I was having dinner with my family at a Parents' Day function at the KPCA Hall recently. The food, catered by It Hng Teochew Restaurant was quite rather unenjoyable ....

Top left to right: Noodles, chicken soup

Bottom left to right : Combination platter, braised pork trotters

Of the four dishes, the noodles were yum. Only simple ingredients like chives, beansprouts and mushrooms were used, but the noodles had a distinct peppery flavour that was quite pleasant. I liked the chicken soup, which had a mild flavour of herbs - but my parents and my aunts found the soup too bland. In the combination platter, I thought the deep-fried wantons were tasty; the other items weren't that impressive; Second Aunt liked the braised trotters - which was a savoury version. I think I'd prefer it to be a bit sweet - and there weren't any steamed buns to eat the trotters with .... 

 Top left to right : Steamed fish, Teochew style; duck and yam pancake (chi pan ya),

Bottom left to right : Braised cabbage and yam paste for dessert 

The fish wasn't fresh at all - some parts of it was bitter even. The scariest dish for me was the duck and yam pancake. Fifth Aunt said it's actually called Chi Pan Ya - not sure of the Chinese writing though. I tried Googling and couldn't find anything similar. However, tonight, this dish emitted a really pungent flavour. So much so that I suspected that offal was used to make this dish - not sure which animal's offal, though ... chicken or duck or pig??? Eew. The braised cabbage had a whole chunk of minced pork at the centre. Finally, everyone's favourite was the traditional yam paste for dessert. Dad said it was the best dish of the night.

In fact, I attended the same function two years ago, and I do remembered that the food back then was also quite bad; check out my post then ... But back then I really enjoyed the yam and duck pancake because it did not smell like it did tonight ......

At the function, I was superbly entertained by a song called "Teochew Char Kueh Tiaw". It is sung in the Teochew dialect. So when I came home, I looked it up on YouTube ....

(Source : https://youtu.be/rp3K7gTwLzw)

炒果条，炒果条

一条一条又一条 ....

It was a really amusing song and had me laughed out loud as I listened to it ... :))

Coincidentally, I stir-fried kueh tiaw for lunch for the first time today! Raw kueh tiaw isn't something I'd usually buy because I can't finish eating 1 packet by myself. Plus, it's not easy to cook a good plate of char kueh tiaw because when we cook it at home, it just lacks that smoky flavour.

Today, Mom said she would cook Char Kueh Tiaw for lunch. I groaned because I did not like Mom's Char Kueh Tiaw actually. So, I proposed to Mom to cook a portion for myself using my ingredients of choice - pork, Chinese sausage, egg, bean sprouts, spring onions. For this plate, I used 1/2 tbsp of minced garlic and chilli, and flavored with dark soy sauce and pepper.

Homecooked Char Kueh Tiaw

Well, the outcome was surprisingly quite great actually. Though no wok's breath, the kueh tiaw was quite garlicky, fragrant, and a bit spicy. The beansprouts were crunchy and not overcooked, and the meats complemented the noodles quite well. So happy! Looks like making char kueh tiaw isn't that hard at all .... :))