The dish I have chosen to manipulate is the Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee (claps claps)!
The ingredients that go into this are:
Ingredients
15 medium prawns, head and shell removed
2 squids, cleaned and cut into rings
1 huge fishcake, sliced
1 tbsp chopped garlic
150-200g fresh yellow noodle
152-200g fresh thick beehoon
2 eggs, beaten
100-150g bean sprouts
fish sauce, to taste
a few dashes of pepper
a handful of Chinese chives, or spring onion, cut into short lengths
Prawn stock
2 rice bowls of prawn heads, approx 3.5 cups
4-5 rice bowls of water, approx 6 1/2 cups water
Boil for 20 minutes using low heat. Switch off fire and rest for 5 minutes. Drain the stock out into a big bowl.
And the method of preparation:
1. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a large wok
2. Saute garlic till fragrant. Add fishcake and stir fry for a little while before palming off the squid rings and prawns in. When the prawns turn a little pink, ladle half the prawn stock in and let it simmer for a 30 seconds using low heat.
3. Shake in pepper and fish sauce.
4. Mix in both noodles. Ladle in the rest of the stock or to just enough (go with your gut feel). Simmer for a minute or 2 (depending on how soft u like your noodle to be) on medium heat.
5. Pour in the beaten eggs, scramble them and toss well before stirring in bean sprouts and chives.
6. Toss to combine.
7. Serve HOT.
Taken from: http://www.maameemoomoo.com/blog/2011/04/04/fried-hokkien-mee-fried-prawn-mee/
This recipe looks pretty delicious and is relatively healthy compared to the other hokkien mees I've seen. Firstly would be the omission of pork lard (or pork in general - this was due to having to cook for halal), also, maameemoomoo has also put in less of the condiments, reducing the amount of artificial flavours in the dish.
However, I would like to make some more amendments to the dish, such that it can be further health-ised :)
For example, I would like to replace the yellow noodle and thick beehoon with soba or buckwheat noodles, a nutritious Japanese staple that is derived from the buckwheat seed. It has hi-fibre, contains rutin (which is an antioxidant that protects our body cells from damage - like high blood pressure and plague which results in high cholesterol), high magnesium content which helps prevent cardiovascular illnesses and promotes normal circulation. In addition, they are a complete source of protein and contain at least 8 types of amino acids. This would help fulfil our protein needs. Soba noodles also provide a lot of carbohydrates for energy!
However, soba noodles (though low-caloried), can increase its calories when cooked with much oil, therefore, the preparation of the noodles must be less oily. I suggest boiling the soba noodles in water, before stir frying it with relatively less oil (one teaspoon of olive oil, just to prevent the noodles from sticking to the wok).
Next, for the prawns, I suggest around 3 prawns for one serving, and I agree with removing the heads of the prawns (my grandma always does that), because they contain a lot of cholesterol.
Prawns would have provided enough zinc, therefore, due to personal preference, I would like to omit the squid (though if you would like to, you can always add it in, just be careful with the portions so that you don't exceed your protein intake).
I would not add in fish cakes as well due to the high sodium it provides (up to 230mg for each fish cake), however, the beansprouts also provide omega three, which compensates for the lost omega 3 fatty acids in the fishcakes.
The soy bean sprouts are also a good source of protein and minerals such as magnesium, iron, zinc, and calcium.
In addition, I would add more carrots to the dish as carrots contain a lot of vitamin c, b6, folate, pantothenic acid, iron, potassium and copper. In addition, it is low in cholesterol and saturated fat. However, it has high sugar contents, so I would use around 2 baby carrots for each serving. I would also add more spring onions as they contain a lot of vitamins and similarly are low in cholesterol and saturated fat.
I would use only 1 egg white to cook this dish as eggs are high in cholesterol, especially the yolk, however, the egg white is high in protein, so one would be enough for two servings.
I would omit the fish sauce (to taste) as it contains very high amounts of sodium (1190mg), also, the noodles would taste alright without this :) I don't fancy fish sauce very much...
The prawn stock is also made from the prawn head, therefore, it would be very high in cholesterol. In that case, I would use the water which I had boiled the prawns (heads and shells removed) and add a little of salt and pepper for flavouring.
Effectively, my new method of preparation would be:
1. Boil the soba noodles in a pot
2. Remove the prawn shells and heads while waiting for the noodles to boil.
3. Once boiled, remove the noodles and drain them dry, place them into a refrigerator for around 10 minutes ( to enable it to be tangy - something learnt in cooking the spaghetti :D)
4. Boil the prawns and the vegetables (bean sprouts and carrots) - in different pots because they cook at different rates
5.Add some (a pinch of ) salt and pepper into the pot with the prawns.
6. When they are done, remove them from the pots and drain dry, remember to keep the prawn stock.
7. Take out the noodles from the refrigerator
8. Heat up the wok for frying
9. Add in 1 teaspoon of olive oil and some water to 'unstick' the wok
10. Add in the egg white and sort of 'scramble it', before it cooks done, add in the soba noodles and start stirring
11. Add in the carrots and the beansprouts
12. Add in the prawns.
13. Pour in 100ml of the prawn stock into the wok and stir it for 3 minutes.
14. Afterwhich, place it on a plate (remember to drain it dry) and it's ready to serve!
The preparation method involves a lot of boiling over frying so as to minimise the amount of oil used in the cooking. This also keeps the food (such as the prawns) in its original taste :) The after stir-frying is to ensure that the food does taste well (afterall, it's not separate dishes and soba noodles, it's prawn soba mee, so it's supposed to still taste well, not be compromised on the taste yep).
I'll include a picture of the dish afterwards.
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