This recipe feeds four. I adapted it from https://www.messyvegancook.com/five-minute-zhenjiang-noodles-recipe/. It’s a keeper.

My hubby grew up with black vinegar. I hated black vinegar at the beginning. But we have been married for 29 years, so our dietary habits are beginning to be a lot more alike than different! It makes family cooking easier too! The adult kids like this dish a great deal. Black vinegar always gives that additional punch of flavour.

For those with lack-lustre appetite, fry some sliced onions with black vinegar and put them over a fried egg and eat it with rice. This is also an easy way to cook a ‘no-salt’ dish!

Ingredients

  • Kway Teow (2 pkts; 420g each – follow the instructions on it to prepare it for frying – mine came in a pack but one can get fresh ones from the wet market)
  • 6 tablespoons of (Chinkiang) black vinegar + 4 tablespoons of soy sauce, mixed together
  • Spring Onion (1 sprig – separate the white from the green (buy the whole pack of spring onion and chop it up – any extras can be used as garnish for noodles or steamed dishes)
  • Garlic cloves 6 – minced
  • Chilli Padi1 – 2 (can remove some of the seeds if you want)
  • Bean Sprouts – 1 packet 320g – half it if just cooking one pack of kway teow
  • Small prawns 375g per pack – half it if just cooking one pack of kway teow
  • Chicken breast2 (2 pkts; 300g each)

Method:

  1. 2 capful of oil pour into non-stick wok.
  2. Fry garlic in warmed oil.
  3. Fry in the chilli padi.
  4. Fry in the spring onion (white part).
  5. Fry in the chicken until the chicken changes colour, plus 2 more mins of cooking.
  6. Then pour in (in order) – kway teow, spring onion (green part), thawed prawns, bean sprouts (taugeh) and give it a few stirs to thoroughly mix.
  7. Then pour in the sauce (abt 3/4 of it3).
  8. Give another stir or two to mix it all up.
  9. Cover the wok for about 2 -3 mins – lower the heat by a notch.
  10. Open the wok cover and one more stir or two.
  11. Off the fire and remove from heat.
  12. Plate it.

Notes:

1 My daughter uses small chilli (‘chilli padi’ for her dishes). Oftentimes she cannot finish the whole packet she buys from the store – it dries up in the fridge – so I have been using the shrivelled leftovers as my ‘chilli flakes’ or ‘chilli peppers’. This ‘hack’ is amazing and these ‘dried’ small chilli taste amazing too, in dishes when we need that added spot-on spiciness! We strive for less crowded kitchen pantries😊- this is a good substitute for other chilli (for now!)

2 We buy breast meat more than the fillets if we have the time to brine them (post-covid times prices of meat has risen quite a bit!) – brine it in 4-6 hrs in 1 tbp of salt in 1 litre of lukewarm water in fridge or for 15 mins at room temp, to make it moist when frying. We picked up this tip in the Philips deep fryer app recipes😊

3 For me I think ¾ of the sauce is just right but my daughters say, “It’s gotta be tangy mum, tangy!”