If you cook a lot, you have to get creative with using up what’s left over in your kitchen and fridge to prepare your meals.
I have some leftover rice noodles in the pantry so I decided to make fried rice noodles Xiame-style as commonly found in Chinese restaurants here in the US.
I visited Xiamen in China earlier this year and fell immediately in love with the island and more importantly, the food.
Located in the Fujian province, Xiamen is a beautiful island with abundant fresh produce and seafood. The food in Xiamen is very similar to the Chinese food in Malaysia since many of the early Chinese settlers in Malaysia came from the Fujian region.
Other than rice, noodles and vermicelli are heavily consumed as daily staples. One of their common dishes is Xiamen Fried Vermicelli, a simple meal easy to prepare.
The key to making great fried rice noodles lies in the wok hei, which translates literally to “The Breath of Wok.” To get the wok hei, your wok has to be super-hot.
It’s this high heat that gives your fried rice noodles that special taste and aroma. While it’s not easy to have wok hei in an American kitchen without setting off the smoke detector, I managed to capture the essence with this fried rice noodles.
Fried Rice Noodles Recipe
The key to making great Xiamen Fried Vermicelli lies in the wok hei, which translates literally to “The Breath of Wok.” To get the wok hei, your wok has to be super-hot. It’s this high heat that gives your fried vermicelli that special taste and aroma!
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons oil
- 1/2 pack vermicelli or rice noodles, soaked in luke warm water to soften them first
- 4 oz boneless and skinless chicken breast, cut into thin strips
- 6 shrimp, shelled and deveined
- 2 stalks scallion, cut into 2" length
- cabbages, julienned
- 1/2 small carrot, peeled and cut into thin strips
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoons light soy sauce
- 1 teaspoon oyster sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon dark soy sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon sugar
- 3 dashes ground white pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
Directions
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1Heat up the wok until it starts smoking. Pour in the cooking oil and wait for it to be fully heated. Add in the chopped garlic and quickly stir a few times, then follow by chicken strips, shrimp, julienned cabbages, and carrot strips. Stir and mix the ingredients well with the garlic until you smell the aroma from the ingredients. Add the vermicelli, soy sauce, oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, sugar, chopped scallions and stir fry vigorously over high heat. Just when the vermicelli starts to burn, add in a dash of white pepper powder and sesame oil, stir for 1 minute. Serve immediately.
Raisa
Can you suggest a restaurant in Xiamen that serves fried vermicelli?
suealan
You have omitted soaking the bee hoon first.
Eric
I’ve started doing my wok cooking outside on my turkey fryer burner. Great benefits are lack of cleanup and that burner can really pump out the heat. Don’t need to worry about too much smoke or food falling out from tossing it around too much. Do need to worry about too much heat at times. Hardest part about it is getting your mise en place ready to bring out there because everything goes really fast.
Katya
I so love fried vermicelli! I will definitely try your fried vermicelly recipe. They sound easy enough for me.
speedoflight
Hi:
I’ve been looking for a VERY long time for the Sing Chow Mei recipe that is done in KL/PJ. A VERY long time ago, I had an amazing Sing Chow Mei from a shop there. It did not have curry powder in it like the way the Sing Chow Mei recipes in the US have. I feel the curry powder drowns the actual taste of the recipe. Someone mentioned that Sing Chow Mei has ketchup in it. Is this true? I cannot remember exactly what was in the sauce of that amazing Sing Chow Mei I had. It was more than 18 years ago. I don’t believe the Sing Chow Mei that is in the US is “authentic” at all because of the curry powder. Does anyone know what the actual Sing Chow Mei (KL/PJ style) recipe is? Thanks a lot.
Rasa Malaysia
Hi Tummythoz,
Yes, it did smell but in a good way. The Wok Hey with a little bit burned smell is great for this dish.
Thanks for dropping in Tummythoz. :)
Tummythoz
‘Alo there. Won’t d whole house smells after such vigorous oil frying or did u do it in d open? BTW, great pix + posts!
Rasa Malaysia
Tonixe,
Singapore fried beehoon uses ketchup and eggs and tastes sweet and sour. I believe the origin of our version of fried beehoon in Malaysia came from Fujian province. However, a lot of them are slightly “modified” to fit our palate.
In the authenthic Chinese restaurants in the US, this kind of fried vermicelli are always called Xiamen Fried Vermicelli.
Rasa Malaysia
Rose – you can use bean sprouts instead of cabbage. Cooking is really a personal expression of your creativity – as long as you stay authentic and true to the original recipe. :)
toniXe
I believe in KL they call this dish singapore fried beehoon ?
Rose
Can I use bean sprouts instead of cabbage?