Char Kway Teow (Malaysian Rice Noodles)

This has been on my to-make list for a long time, and I'm happy to have tackled it.  Plus, I wanted to highlight a savory dish since I've covered nothing but sweets lately.  Char Kway Teow, a Malaysian dish of slightly spicy stir-fried rice noodles, is a favorite of mine.  My mother, who is from Malaysia, would often order the dish for me in restaurants when I was a kid.  This version has shrimp, Chinese sausage, Chinese chives, and bean sprouts.  In restaurants in New York or Boston, there is no sausage but there are usually dozens of tiny squids that I ask them to leave out.  Other versions on the Internet call for cockles (no, thanks) or fish cakes (I like those).  But I like everything in this version, and the minimum level of fussiness appealed to me.

The dried shrimp paste, also known as Belacan, gives it great depth of flavor.  I was unfamiliar with it, and it was not in the Asian market aisle labeled "shrimp paste" but in the Malaysian aisle.  The one fussy-looking step I skipped was roasting it in foil -- I just sauteed until fragrant, and proceeded with the recipe.  And if you've never cooked with the fresh rice noodles before, don't refrigerate them, and use them the day you buy them or they will dry out and harden.  I also doubled the amount of bean sprouts, because what else am I going to do with the rest of the bag?

In the end, making the dish was easier than I anticipated, making me wonder why I waited all these years to try.  And it's pretty darned good.

Satay!

I think this satay would make my Malaysia-born mom proud.  I love ordering it in restaurants, dipping the perfectly grilled strips of meat into a peanut sauce.  The recipe calls for chicken, but my red meat-lover self used beef; both are common.  The sauce takes some time to put together but is great and complex, not like those flat, sugary peanut sauces you find in chain restaurants.

Some of the ingredients, like tamarind, were unusual for me, but don't let that put you off.  Despite my heritage I don't cook a lot of Malaysian, Singaporean, or Chinese food, since I learned to cook on my own rather than from my mom.  But I've been picking up a dish here and there, and getting less intimidated with each one.

One other minor note: some of the recipe instructions tell you to process ingredients to a smooth paste, but don't knock yourself out.  Ginger and lemongrass are very fibrous, so my spice paste was a bit chunky and stringy.  In the end, though, it all smells great on the grill.

Cooking Malaysian with Mom

So I finally made it back to New York for a long weekend with the family, and did I eat well!  I had Dominican steak and plantains with my sis and her roommate in Washington Heights, brunch out with sis and mom, and a stroll around Chelsea Market.  I also had dinner at Locanda Verde with Bao, who's written some food pieces for the New York Times City Room blog and suggested a three-course dessert at Chikalicious.  I said, "Twist my arm, why don't you?"  I tried steak tartare for the first time and liked it, along with our fritto misto, pumpkin agnolotti, and halibut saltimbocca.  And it was fun to see the dessert chefs prepare my darjeeling gelee with pear sorbet; warm chocolate tart with pink peppercorn ice cream; and coconut marshmallow, spice cake petit four, and lavender chocolate truffle.

Watching bread bakers at Chelsea Market

Brunch starters

But I did some cooking as well, with my mom.  She showed me how to make some Curry Shrimp and a Shrimp and Roast Pork Mei Fun.  Some mei fun versions are soy sauce-based, and others, like this one, use a curry sauce.  I love to eat both.  Like lots of old-school Chinese cooks, she doesn't measure or time things, write down recipes, or make them the same way every time.  So I estimated measurements and took notes, helping out when asked and snapping photos.  She wasn't used to the last part, but seemed amused by it.  So I've decoded my garbled notes and estimates, and hopefully when I make the dishes on my own I'll have gotten them all right!