Char kway teow

Before you start

• a wok or your widest pan, cooked one portion at a time
• everything chopped, measured and lined up before the pan is lit

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 200gflat rice noodles — dried; fresh ho fun are better, and you want about 400g of those
• 150gprawns
• 2eggs
• 2 tbspoil
• 200gcockles or clams
• 80gfish cakes
• 150gbeansprouts
• 1 handfulgarlic chives
• 4garlic cloves
• 1 tbspdark soy sauce
• 2 tbspsoy sauce
• 1 tbspchilli paste

Method

7 steps

1. soak · 25m walk away

   Dried noodles in hot water until they separate and bend without snapping, then drained and tossed with a few drops of oil so they do not weld together in the colander.

2. boil · 7m

   Cockles rinsed hard under cold water and dropped into a pan of boiling water for a minute until they open. Any that stay shut after that go in the bin — they are not worth the risk. Shelled and set aside.

3. chop · 10m

   Garlic minced, fish cakes sliced, chives cut into short lengths, sauces mixed together in a cup, everything divided into two piles — one per portion.

4. fry · 6m

   First portion: pan smoking, oil in, garlic for a few seconds, prawns until they turn opaque, then the fish cake, then the noodles and half the sauce, tossed hard and left still for a few seconds between tosses so they actually catch and char.

5. fry · 4m

   Noodles pushed to one side, an egg cracked into the space and broken up as it sets, then folded through with the cockles, sprouts and chives, which get thirty seconds and no more.

6. fry · 7m

   Onto a plate immediately and the whole thing repeated for the second portion with the pan brought back up to full heat first.

7. finish · 2m

   Eaten straight away, from the plate it was tipped onto. It does not sit, and it does not reheat.