Satay bee hoon, not a pretty looking dish, is an invented in Singapore dish reflecting our combined Malay / Indonesian, Indian and Chinese heritage. There are not many stalls left serving satay bee hoon - one of the most popular is Bak Kee Teochew Satay Bee Hoon in Redhill Food Centre.
There's always a queue at Bak Kee stall (which was established in the 1960s). Singaporeans eat satay bee hoon all day from breakfast to afternoon snack but the queue is longest at Bak Kee during lunch.
Three cultures in one plate - it's Chinese rice vermicelli (bee hoon) with rehydrated dried cuttlefish, pork liver slices, lean pork slices, blood cockles, tau pok (fried bean curd), and kang kong greens completely smothered by a Malay / Indonesian satay sauce with local and Indian aromatic spices.
At Bak Kee, all the ingredients taste fresh and cooked to just the right doneness. The rehydrated dried cuttlefish was soft-tender, spongy; the pork liver was soft-tender, powdery; kang kong had that juicy crunch; everything was done just the way I like them.
The bee hoon were done right too - blanched till soft-tender with a subtle bit of crunch left. The satay sauce clung well to the snowy white skinny strands. No bean sprouts - why no bean sprouts? 🤔
Bak Kee's satay sauce, the soul of the dish was savoury sweet nutty with lots of spice flavours and subtle bit of spicy heat. There are nearly forty ingredients in the satay sauce like onion, garlic, chili pepper, ginger, dried shrimp, crushed groundnut, etc. The soft-grainy, quite greasy sauce was thick with crushed groundnuts softened by boiling in the spicy stew. Despite the many ingredients, the rich yet mild flavours were all well balanced, so it is easy to enjoy and like, explaining Bak Kee's enduring popularity.
The second generation boss Lee Siew Chuan who worked at Bak Kee since he was 11, said he didn't change anything from his father, Lee Sar Bak's time.
"My father made his own trishaw for business. He bought a used trishaw, installed a glass cabinet and steel roofing by hand and started his business just like that" Lee Siew Chuan said of his father. Source: Not for Sale: Singapore's Remaining Food Vendors
Yummaey. (Price $4 / $5 in 2021.)
Unfortunately, there are only a handful of satay bee hoon stalls left and they are all in their last legs. The satay sauce is tedious to make - since the last decade, old satay bee hoon hawkers retire one by one but I have yet to come across any new satay bee hoon stall.
Written by Tony Boey on 5 Oct 2021
Aaron Ong said on Johor Kaki Facebook:
ReplyDeleteNo towgay is right. That's probably why it's still so popular. Towgay will dilute the sauce taste if it's cooked (cos got water). It will change the taste profile if just blanched.
Anyway it's filler.
The amk central one throw in so much towgay it becomes satay salad
Have tried Bak Kee before, not bad but my fave for satay beehoon is still Sin Chew at Bt Timah FC. Got towgay in the delish gravy!
ReplyDeleteAnother favourite is Meng Hui Satay Beehoon at Albert Centre.
ReplyDelete