Carrot Cake & Hokkien Prawn Mee (Like the real thing!!)

I woke up at 7 a.m. today! Such a rare feat for me! Despite the early hours, I was feeling very wide awake and fresh cos I slept early the night before. Headed to Chinatown and was pleased to discover that I had almost the whole supermarket to myself (I've never been there at 9h30!!).

Carrot cake for lunch.
The radish cake was prepared yesterdayand stored in the fridge for it to harden overnight since I can't find alkaline water here.

Chai tao kway (Traditional: 菜頭粿; Simplified: 菜头粿) is a common dish or dim sum of Teochew cuisine in Chaoshan (China), Singapore and Malaysia. It is also known as "fried carrot cake" or simply "carrot cake" in Southeast Asian countries, due to the fact that the word for daikon (POJ: chhài-thâu), one of its main ingredients, can also refer to a carrot (POJ: âng-chhài-thâu, literally "red radish"). However, it is not to be mistaken with the Western carrot cake.

It is made of rice flour and white radish. In Malaysia this is often served in large rectangular slabs which are steamed and then later fried whole.

In Singapore, however, it is more commonly cut into pieces and stir fried with soy sauce, eggs, garlic, spring onion and occasionally dried shrimp. There are two variants: the "white" version does not use sweet soy sauce, and the carrot cake is fried on top of a beaten egg to form a crust; the "black" version uses sweet soy sauce, and the egg is simply mixed in with the carrot cake.

Source: Wikipedia

********************

Hokkien Prawn Mee for dinner.

Left: Brewing my prawn stock with the heads & shells, Right: Ingredients sliced & prepared for the making of the dish

Left: My precious wok & "spade" (what's the proper name for this thing?!!) brought over from S'pore which churns out loads of delicious food for me.

Right: My plate with a small scoop of sambal chilli (It's really hard work to be a hawker! My arms were already aching trying to stir fry this small wok of noodles, I find them so heavy! Imagine those hawker folks doing this the whole day on a day-to-day basis!!)

Hokkien hae mee (Hokkien/Fujian prawn noodles; 福建蝦麺) is served in Penang (with a variant served in Singapore known as Hae mee). It is a dish of egg noodles and rice noodles in a fragrant stock, which is made from both fresh shrimp and dried prawns, as well as pork or chicken. Traditionally, small cubes of fried pork fat are added to the soup, but this is now less common due to health concerns. It is garnished with prawns, fish cake, leafy greens, pork ribs, squid, crisp deep-fried shallots, spring onions and fresh lime. The dish is served with sliced red chili, light soy sauce and sambal.


In Singapore, Hokkien mee refers to a variant of the Penang version of Hokkien hae mee. The dish uses the same egg noodles and rice noodles used in Hokkien hae mee, but is stir fried in lard and served dry. The main ingredients are shrimps and small pieces of sliced pork. It is usually served with lime and sambal chilli.


Source: Wikipedia

********************

Left: The vegetables compartment in my fridge filled with all the greens I like! The garlic shoots were selling at 11.60€ per kg and the kailan was selling at 10.60€ per kg!! I was cursing and swearing in my head while putting them inside my trolley.

Right: Our family friend gave us 2 big bags of freshly harvested potatoes and tomatoes this morning because they grow them in their own garden! They tasted really good but I don't know how can I possibly use them up before they rot when there's only the 2 of us? Someone give me some ideas!

********************


Pic taken while I was frying the carrot cake. I like the lighting & my complexion in this pic.
Since I'm at home, that means I didn't apply any makeup (I'm such a 黄脸婆！其实，是我们家的灯是橙黄色的关系。我已经白得几乎像白纸一样了。). LoL.

Off to take my bath and thinking which facial mask should I use for tonight before we start on our Millefeuille Chantilly Fraise as dessert tonight!

Contemplating to try making soya bean curd tomorrow for dessert...