Prawn Noodle Soup (虾面汤)

“Homemade Prawn Noodle Soup that you can’t resist”

1 dish meal is always the easiest cooking as weekday dinner. It could be prepared in 1 hour time, less dishes to wash after meal, and All-in-One balance diet.

I brought medium-sized prawns from the market on Sunday morning (since I do not have time to go market on Monday morning). Prawns have to be fresh since the whole prawn including shell will be used. I kept it in the freezer overnight, and took it out and stored at the defrost compartment this morning. All other ingredients were also in the refrigerator.

The success of prawn noodles meal is, of course, the prawn soup. Frankly, I do not make complicated soup base or sound like a professional/ commercial prawn noodles seller, I made my homemade version prawn soup. Very “homely” taste, I find it (chuckling). No worries, it is definitely taste nice prawn noodles, I guaranteed.

Prawn noodles are surely healthier than Curry Laksa. Without using any coconut milk, prawn noodles counts much lesser calories,too. One bowl of prawn noodle soup counts only 290 kcal (as compared to dry prawn noodles which counts almost double the calories). Wow, that’s wonderful! To further decrease the calories intake, I’ve forgone the garnishing, fried shallots, too.

Serves 4-5
Ingredients:
250g of thick rice noodles aka thick bee hoon (about 40 cents for 250g)
250g of yellow noodles (about 40 cents for 250g)
2 to 3 liters of water for soup
400gm large or medium-sized prawns (with head and shell), washed thorough
300gm meaty pork bones
1 cup of pork meat, sliced (your preference of meat part and amount)
1 cup of fish cakes, sliced
Handful of Kang Kong Vegetables (Water Convolvulus)
*1 tablespoon of chicken stock paste
*1 medium-sized rock sugar
1 teaspoon of dark soy sauce

Spices:
1/2 teaspoon of black peppercorn
2-3 star anises (八角）
4-5 cloves (丁香）
1-2 cardamom (豆蔻果实)

Salt to taste
1 tablespoon of oil

Garnish:
Fried shallot (able to get it off the shelf, if you do not wish to fry it your own)Chili powder

Method:
1. Boil water in a larger pot and add in chicken stock. Add in pork bones, sliced pork and whole prawns (with shells).

2. Remove just the prawns from the pot when prawns turn pink, about 2 min time. Remove the shell and prawn head (leave tail intact) when prawns are cooled, and reserve. *Put the shells back to the soup to boil.

3. Heat up the wok with oil. *Fry all prawn heads till slightly crispy. Remove from heat. Add to the pot of soup and boil together. Add rock sugar and spices. Reduce heat to low-medium fire to simmer the soup for 45 min. Add salt to taste.

4. Boil some water again with another pot. Blanch Kang Kong vegetables, fish cakes.

5. Change the boiling water (add pinch of salt when water boiled), boil yellow noodles/ bee hoon now. Drain and divide noodles among bowls.

6. Top the prawns, fish balls, fish cake slices, Kang Kong veggie on the bowls of noodles.

7. Remove shells and heads from the soup.

8. Pour over hot prawn soup. Scope also the sliced meat from the soup to the bowls of noodles. Garnish with fried shallots and serve hot.

Tips:
I personally prefer to add chicken stock into the soup cooking. Stock paste, granule or cube are easily found in major supermarkets. The chicken stock I’ve gotten are without added MSG. The soup will be tastier with it, but it’s ok if you do not want to add any.
*When you put the prawn shells and heads in the soup, you may like to pack them in a small soup ingredient’s bag and put the whole bag into the soup, for easier to remove from soup after boiled. I did not use it as I prefer to cook them directly in the soup. It wasn’t hassle to me to remove the shells and heads from the soup as I think they are big pieces enough to scope up easily.
* Prawns heads are best to fry them before putting into the soup again. It adds fragrance and taste to the soup. Most importantly, fry prawn heads to dry up the juice, so that the soup will not become too redish.
*It is important to add some rock sugar. I prefer rock sugar over brown sugar, as the rock sugar gives smoother texture to the soup, and the sweetness of rock sugar taste better.

Try it, you ‘ll like it!