I cooked: Hokkien Prawn Mee

Prawn mee or better known as Hokkien Prawn Mee (hae mee in Penang) is a egg or rice noodle dish in a spicy broth made from both fresh prawns and dried prawns, as well as pork or chicken.

There are two ways of cooking prawn mee; the complicated way or the cheat's way.

The complicated way involves a lot of ingredients such as pork ribs, belly pork, prawn heads and prawn shells to make a good stock. But, making the stock itself can take up to 6 hours as you would want to simmer it til its richly flavoured. As good as it sounds, it can be a rather tedious and lengthy cooking process in the kitchen.

So, most of the time, if I want my fix of Hokkien Prawn Mee, I either go to Little Penang or make my own, the cheat's way. It is pretty satisfying and ALMOST as good as the real thing. And it is almost effortless to cook!

Do you want a piece of me?

Hokkien Prawn Mee

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 5-10 minutes

Serves 1

Ingredients

1/2 onion, sliced thinly

70g beansprouts

Meehoon, soaked in water for 15 minutes (or yellow noodles if you prefer those)

2 tbsp Instant prawn noodle paste

6 raw king prawns, peeled

1 egg, boiled and halved

500ml of water

Mint leaves

1 tsp dried shrimp paste (optional)

1. Bring the water to boil in a small saucepan.

2. Add the onion and prawn noodle paste. If you prefer your soup spicier, then add the dried shrimp paste.

3. Add the meehoon (rice noodles) and prawns and simmer for 1 1/2 minute.

4. Finally, add the beansprouts and simmer for a further 1 minute.

5. Serve immediately and garnish with mint leaves and hard-boiled egg.

The cheat's Hokkien Prawn Mee

Note: If you do have some extra time, you can boil the shells from the peeled prawns in water and a little salt for 30 minutes, drain, and then putting in the rest of the ingredients. This will make your broth a lot more flavoursome and sweeter.