Serves 2
A. Fish balls:
2 fillets of mackerel, skin removed
¼ tsp salt
1 chili padi, seeded and chopped
3 stalks spring onions, green part, chopped (save the white parts)
½ clove garlic, minced
pinch white pepper
B. Minced pork:
minced pork, palm sized
½ clove garlic, minced
spring onion, white part, chopped
1/2 teaspoon oyster sauce
Splash soy sauce
Few drops sesame oil
Few drops fried shallot oil (you can find them store bought in a jar)
Splash tsao tsing wine
Pinch white pepper
Mushroom sauce:
5 dried shitake mushrooms
5 large fresh oyster mushrooms (you can use fresh shitake too)
2 cloves garlic, minced,
1 slice ginger, minced
1 small red shallot, minced
1/2 teaspoon dark soy
1 teaspoon oyster sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
Splash Tsao tsing wine
peanut oil
cornstarch (1 teaspoon of cornflour mixed with 2 teaspoon of water)
Pinch white pepper
C. Noodle sauce:
1 tablespoon Oyster sauce
Splash Soy sauce
5-10 drops Sesame oil
1 tablespoon Singlong Super Chili sauce
Very small spalsh of black vinegar (be careful of using too much, put a little bit at a time till you get the taste that you want)
white pepper
Fresh noodles, Hong Kong style or any fresh egg noodles, e.g mee pok
Boiling water with a handful of ikan billis and dried shrimp
Spring onions and fried shallots with shallot oil for garnish
1 Marinade mince pork by mixing all of
B together.
2. Add all of
A together and blitz t in food processor till it clumps. This will take quite a while. You need to be patient - if you don't process it enough you won't get smooth fish balls.
3. Transfer to a mixing bowl and pick up the mixture and then whack the clump of fish against a bowl a few times. ( I don't know why they do this but my mother said it had to be done.)
4. Divide fish mixture into 8. Wet hands and form fish paste into a patty, add a small marble sized minced pork in the middle and cover and roll into ball. Repeat with the rest. Lightly oil your hands and coat each ball so they won't stick. Set aside.
5. Reserve the rest of the minced pork.
6. Boil dried shitake in small saucepan of water till soft. Drain and reserve the liquid.
7. Cut and discard the stems off the boiled shitake and slice. Slice the fresh mushrooms.
8. Add peanut oil to a sauce pan with garlic, shallot, ginger. Saute till soft and add the fresh and dried mushrooms. When slightly brown, add tsao tsing wine.
9. Add enough mushroom liquid to cover. Add the rest of the ingredients, except cornstarch. Boil for 10-15 mins. When taste is right, slowly add the cornstarch to thicken. Set aside on very very very low heat to keep warm.
10. Mix all the ingredients for the noodle sauce
C.
11. Boil water in one pot for noodles, and boil water in another pot with ikan billis and dried shrimp.
12. Add the fish balls into the pot with ikan billis & shrimp. Let boil for 5 mins.
13. Boil the noodles for 2-3 mins and drain. Divide into bowls and mix it with the sauce.
14. While fish balls are still boiling, boil the minced pork in the same pot with a strainer/kitchen spider until meat turns opaque. Remove from water and add on top of noodles.
15. Add the mushroom sauce on top of noodles.
16. Remove fish balls and transfer onto noodles.
17. Garnish with fresh spring onions and fried shallots with shallot oil.
18. Spoon some of the ikan billis/shrimp/fishball/pork stock into bowls as side dish.
* This is my own recipe so and I'm not very good at taking down measurements so these are just estimates. I don't even normally follow other people's recipes to the tee either - cooking is all about gut feel!
