Fish Slice Horfun 魚片滑蛋炒河粉

i think this week's posts can be collectively called 'comfort foods'.

as many will agree the 河粉 is part of the mainstay of every 煮炒 stall. along with the hokkien noodles, fried rice and yee mee. frankly if the stall's 河粉 sucks, you're better off eating from the chicken rice stall. i prefer the seafood 滑蛋 version and in a not too distant past they were served and packed in dried banana leaves (more uses of banana leaves here). i haven't tried cooking this for a long long while and with a few 'refresher' recipes from the web, here's my adapted version. Not perfect cos the gas stove wldn't allow me to create the 鍋味 in the horfun but the texture and taste quite there. if The Wife says not bad then it must be not bad lah.

following recipe serves 3-4.

ingredients A (to prepare horfun/guotiao)

• horfun/guotiao 1 kg (boil it in water for >10 sec, drain before frying. you dun wanna over cook it. try to get frsh ones from market, the one i used is from a prepacked...it had a 'distinct' factory/preservative taste which i can‘t quite get rid of even after frying)
  
• chopped garlic
• dark soy sauce
• fish sauce
• salt (soy sauce)
• chinese cooking wine
  
• cooking oil
  

recipe for frying horfun

• oil wok (you'd need quite a bit of it else horfun/guotiao will stick) and brown garlic. keep at medium-hi heat
  
• add boiled horfun/guotiao and fry
• add fish sauce until u see the 1st shade of brown and smell the fish sauce's fragrance
• add dark soy sauce (sparingly) to brown the horfun/guotiao further. some say that you can add this on the side of wok to let it burn to help create the 鍋味. not much luck here.
• add a dash of cooking wine (not too much you dun wanna have it soggy) and salt to taste
• try not to disintegrate the horfun/guotiao with too much stirring
• once done, set aside

ingredients B (to prepare gravy)

• chopped garlic
• ginger slices (essentail if u doing fish horfun)
  
• thin fish slices (i used bassa. can add prawn, pork slices etc)
• vegs (choy sum, bakchoi, carrots whatever)
• 2 eggs, beaten
  
• oyster sauce
• 1 bowl stock (great if you have prawn stock. i used chicken powder stock)
• salt
• 1 tbspn corn flour (optional)
  

recipe for gravy

• brown ginger and garlic. keep heat at medium
  
• fry in the 'harder' vegs like carrots, stems of choy sum etc
• add stock and when it comes to boil, add fish slices on the vegs so they dun stick to the wok. you can alternatively coat fish with cornflour and fry it before adding to gravy
  
• when the fish is almost cooked, add the leafy parts of vegs as they cook faster. cover wok to allow all to be cooked
  
• once all is cooked, add corn flour to thicken gravy, stir to achieve consistency
• off the stove and pour eggs over the gravy, cover wok to allow heat from gravy to cook the eggs
• scoop desired amount of prefried horfun/guotiao into plates and add on gravy

too bad i didn't have green pickled chillies to go with it. maybe i'll make some.