Penang Char Kway Teow Recipe | El Mundo Eats (2024)

What is Penang Char Kway Teow?

In Chinese "char" literally means "fried" and "kway teow" refers to flat rice noodles.

Char kway teow is stir-fried flat rice noodles that are very famous in Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and Brunei.

The noodles are cooked over very high heat with a combination of sauces, some protein like prawns, eggs, and some veggies like bean sprouts and chives. Traditionally it uses pork fat to stir fry instead of any other oil.

In my home country, Malaysia, this meal is one of the famous street food and is often being sold at street bazaars or night markets. The fast movements of stir-frying from the cook are really wonderful to watch.

Simplified Version

Yes, today I want to share with you a very simple version of making this delicious meal. If you're curious about this meal and would like to have a taste of it in the convenience of your own house, or if you're an ex-pat and just missing this delicious meal..do keep on reading.

Talking as a true Malaysian, I want to say that believe it or not, a delicious meal doesn't need to be limited to its ancient-traditional way of making it.

If we don't open our minds to adapt our wonderful meals to where we are then those wonderful meals will slowly be forgotten because we ourselves don't make them due to some restrictions.

People from other places and countries wouldn't be exposed to them because we couldn't proudly introduce those wonderful meals to them. Don't you agree?

Now, let's start!

Fat

As I mentioned earlier, traditionally this meal uses pork fat. I'm not. I feel using olive oil or naturally flavored oil is enough.

Sauces

There are a few sauces in this recipe.

Dark soy sauce gives color to the meal. So if you don't have it, don't worry. Skip it. Just know that your char kway teow wouldn't look dark.

Soy sauce, oyster sauce, and fish sauce contribute to the taste of this meal, also the saltiness. We will not be using salt at all.

I'm using sambal oelek instead of chili paste just for convenience and it works amazingly. Adjust this to your taste. Just know that different type of sambal oelek comes with different level of saltiness.

I'm not using sweet soy sauce in this recipe because I want to reduce the amount of liquid used. This meal should not be wet and soggy. So instead I'm using sugar for the sweet component.

Protein

I'm using prawns. They're simply the best for this char kway teow.

I'm also using co*ckles.Usually, blood co*ckles are used but I'm using canned normal ones as it's easier to find in my place. I do drain the juice beforehand because remember, we don't want too much liquid in this meal.

Traditionally Chinese sausage or commonly known as lap cheong is used. It usually has a sweet touch to it. So if you can find something similar, that's great.

If not, do like me. I'm just using turkey sausage that I bought from my local supermarket. Or you can simply skip it.

Noodles

In my home country, the rice noodles used are wider and fresh. I can't find that in my place so I opted for the typical dry flat rice noodles available here. A tad smaller in width but the taste is the same.

What I do is prepare the noodles according to the packet's instructions. Which usually is soaking the noodles in hot water for 10 minutes. The noodles need to be pliable, that's all. We will continue cooking it later on during stir-frying.

Veggies

Typically bean sprouts and Chinese flat chives are used. I make my own bean sprouts for this meal! I'm just so proud to tell you. By all means, you don't need to. Just buy some. It's not easy to find Chinese flat chives here so I'm just using the regular ones.

Stir-frying

Use high heat all the time. Yep. We want the charred marks on the noodles and proteins. I would also recommend using a wok as it will give a more authentic flavor.

I have a carbon steel wok that I use all the time and it is perfect for this meal, it is also very cheap and I wrote a post on how to season and care for the wok.

It's best that you prepare and measure all the ingredients beforehand. This meal should not take more than 10 minutes to cook, like my easy beef lo mein.

I would also recommend you make one batch at a time as crowding the wok will make it challenging to get the charred look that we're looking for.

Well and then that's it! I hope with all the substitution options and some tips here and there, I could persuade you to give this delicious meal a try. Let me know what you think.

More Stir-Fry Recipes

• Stir-fry glass noodles
• Stir-fry noodles with peanut sauce
• Easy Pad Thai
• Soy sauce stir-fry noodles
• Basil stir-fry

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📖 Recipe