For the history of fried kway teow 炒粿條 in Singapore, we have to start from Chaoshan char kway teow 潮汕炒贵刁 far away in Guangzhou, China of today.
Chaoshan 潮汕
Chaoshan is a region in the southeastern part of Guangzhou province of China where Teochew speaking people live.
Chaoshan fried kway teow is flat rice noodles, chive, bean sprout, pieces of pork with skin and fish sauce stir fried in sizzling pork lard in a hot wok.
That's all, it's that simple. No egg, no lup cheong (Cantonese wax sausage), no fish cake, no blood cockles, no prawn, no chili sauce.
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| Image credit: Wikipedia |
Chaoshan fried kway teow is flat rice noodles, chive, bean sprout, pieces of pork with skin and fish sauce stir fried in sizzling pork lard in a hot wok.
That's all, it's that simple. No egg, no lup cheong (Cantonese wax sausage), no fish cake, no blood cockles, no prawn, no chili sauce.
Especially, no crab, no lobster, nonsense.
Fried kway teow is one of those dishes where the ingredients are humble and paltry, and it is only the sheer skill of the artisans that elevate it to icon status. When we pay for a plate of char kway teow, we are really paying the hawker for his skills honed through years of hard work sharpening his craft.
Given the exact same (or even better) ingredients, only the most skilled can turn out a good plate of fried kway teow - otherwise, it is just a waste of your precious calories and cholesterol. It is a difficult dish to get right! and hence, very difficult to pass the founder's business down the generations without putting in the hard work of serious wok time in mastering the skills.
Char kway teow is best enjoyed while the pork lard enveloping the rice noodles or kway teow is still piping, smoking hot. The kway teow's subtle sweetness is complemented by the savoury toasty taste of caramelised sauce forcefully seared onto the strands of lightly charred rice noodles. The Cantonese call it wok hei 鑊氣, literally "wok breath" but I like to think of it as "wok qi", a sort of transformational combined force of internal energy and spirit of the wok, ingredients and chef that elevate the starchy rice noodles to a heavenly dish.
So simple, simply so good that it connected people from Chaoshan and its diaspora through generations.
Of course, even in Chaosan there are variations in char kway teow. This stall still uses wood to fire the wok. The chef uses goose lard instead of pork lard. The kway teow is fried with eggs, bean sprout, chive, chye poh (preserved turnip), optional chili sauce and small pieces of pork (optional).
The host tried 3 plates with different options and he felt that the basic version with only egg, bean sprout, chive and chye poh is the best as there is little to interfere with the flavour of goose lard.
Singapore
Come back to Singapore. Go back in time 150 years.
Teochew folks came to Singapore (then part of British Straits Settlements) in the mid-1800s to 1930s. Those were wretched years as China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing was in its death throes. The country was wrecked by widespread rebellion, abject poverty, anarchy, famine and the dying Qing was handily defeated time and again in wars with foreign powers in China.
Millions from southern China left on boats for British Malaya and California to slave as coolies (indentured labourers). Naturally, they brought their comfort food with them everywhere they went. That was how Chaoshan char kway teow came to Singapore.
When I was a child in 1960s Singapore, char kway teow was ubiquitous - they were everywhere on the island. It took very little capital to start a mobile fried kway teow business due to its humble ingredients - the hard part was to master the dish (and so, many people gave it a go!).
Come back to Singapore. Go back in time 150 years.
Teochew folks came to Singapore (then part of British Straits Settlements) in the mid-1800s to 1930s. Those were wretched years as China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing was in its death throes. The country was wrecked by widespread rebellion, abject poverty, anarchy, famine and the dying Qing was handily defeated time and again in wars with foreign powers in China.
Millions from southern China left on boats for British Malaya and California to slave as coolies (indentured labourers). Naturally, they brought their comfort food with them everywhere they went. That was how Chaoshan char kway teow came to Singapore.
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| Image credit: National Archives of Singapore |
When I roamed the streets as a boy, I often smelled the rich aroma of lard and caramelised soy sauce on starch. I have not smelled that heady aroma for decades already.
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| Photo credit: National Archives Singapore |
During the 1960s, my father would give me a chicken egg and ask me to go get fried kway teow at the push cart stall along Lorong 5 Toa Payoh (we lived in Block 65 which was demolished). Standing there waiting, I smelled those greasy white smoke bellowing from the hot wok. The aroma was just wonderful. That char kway teow was greasier than anything I've eaten since and it tasted fantastic (I can't remember the details lah... .). Char kway teow was then 50 cents a packet wrapped in plastic sheet and newspaper, if I my memory didn't fail me. (People use opeh wrap or betel palm sheaf too, but by that time mainly for hor fun.)
An example of a popular fried kway teow of the 1970s. The dish consisted of flat rice ribbon noodles, chopped garlic, bean sprouts, egg, choy sum greens, fish cake, lup cheong (Chinese wax sausage), see hum (blood cockle), prawn, sotong (squid), lard, soy sauces, optional chili sauce.
This was still the Teochew style but with more ingredients than the austere Chaoshan original hometown version.
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| Zion Road Char Kway Teow |
Every stall serves char kway teow with a slightly different taste profile and each have their own fan base.
As Singapore's main Chinese community is Hokkien, Hokkien preferences naturally feature in fried kway teow. Today in Singapore, fried kway teow is a hybrid Teochew - Hokkien style.
Most of the more popular stalls have flat ribbon rice noodles, round yellow wheat noodles, chicken egg, lup cheong, fish cake, bean sprout, chive, chye sim / choy sum (a leafy green), blood cockles, fish sauce, a blend of savoury and sweet sauces (fish sauce, light soy sauce, dark sauce sauce, caramel sauce), chili sauce, garlic, lard or vegetable oil in their serving. Often, the dish is given a squeeze of calamansi (lime) just before it is eaten.
The yellow noodles, dark soy sauce, and caramel sauce are nods to Hokkien tastebuds.
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| Hill Street Char Kway Teow in Bedok, Singapore |
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| Where do blood cockles come from? |
The following are some popular char kway teow stalls in Singapore (as well as Johor Bahru and Penang).
Singapore
Malaysia
Bukit Mertajam duck egg fried kway teow, Penang, Malaysia
You can get char kway teow at most Singapore hawker centres but to taste Chaoshan char kway teow, you have to go to Teochew restaurants. Here's a couple of places that offer their interpretation of Chaoshan char kway teow you can try.
Where do you get your char kway teow fix?
Written by Tony Boey on 7 Jun 2020 | edited 11 Oct 2024
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| Sri Tebrau Market duck egg char kway teow, Johor Bahru, Malaysia |
Bukit Mertajam duck egg fried kway teow, Penang, Malaysia
You can get char kway teow at most Singapore hawker centres but to taste Chaoshan char kway teow, you have to go to Teochew restaurants. Here's a couple of places that offer their interpretation of Chaoshan char kway teow you can try.
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| Liang Kee Teochew Restaurant in Singapore |
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| Chao Shan Teochew Restaurant in Kulai, Malaysia |
Why and when was round noodles added to char kway teow in Singapore?
ReplyDeleteWhere got endangered Sia everywhere selling 😂
ReplyDeleteChua Wee Kirk Definitely harder to find than ban mian and mala stalls, don't even need to say good or not...
DeleteAgreed. Uncle Liang at toa payoh, one of best hidden gems, hurt himself and unable to open anymore.
ReplyDeleteIs char kueh teow a teochew dish? Cos I know the former Ungku Puan Food Centre in JB, had a 'Chong(3rd sound) Ling' char kueh teow. If you are an old skool budak JB, you will surely know.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree on this. The essence of ckt is the lard and the see hum. U need the see hum blood, lard and char taste to all inter mingle and create the Singapore style ckt.
ReplyDeleteMany ckt stalls now go through the process and all these 3 points are missing thus creating just a plate of economy black kwey teow with noodle.
The worst culprits are those who omit lard and even see hum, as see hum now expensive. Putting green vegetables on top of ckt is just a crime.
I agree there are less than 5 stalls thats classified as good and it’s indeed endangered.
Ckt is not critically endangered. Excellent tasting ckt is critically endangered. The same can be said of several other local food like claypot rice, wanton mee, pig's organ soup or mutton soup.
ReplyDelete