Singapore Fried Vermicelli (Bihun Goreng)

Rempah

• 4 dried chillies Cut into small pieces and seeds removed. Don't rub your eyes after handling chillies or they'll burn!!, seeds removed
• 1 Tablespoon tamarind paste Mix well with ½ Cup water then sieve- use the resulting tamarind "juice" for this recipe. If you don't have tamarind on hand, substitute with ½ T rice vinegar. Click here for more info on tamarind.
• 1-3 fresh red chilies Omit if you don't have any on hand- I often do this as my fresh chilli supply is very intermittent depending on how my balcony plants feel! Alternatively, these are some chili substitutes although note that I've not tested the recipe with them.
• 3 garlic Peeled, cloves
• 3 shallot Peeled

Noodles

• ½ lb bihun noodles 226.8g) Soak in hot water for 20-30 minutes then drain in colander. Don't use cold water to soak. If in a rush, you can blanch the noodles but they'll break easily when frying later, aka bee hoon, mee hoon, dry
• water See above, hot

Sauce

• ¼ C kicap manis Substitute with dark soy sauce and a pinch of sugar (preferably gula melaka) if you don't have any kicap manis on hand.
• 4 Tablespoons tomato ketchup (Weirdly enough, if you add more tomato ketchup it makes the noodles spicier!)
• 2 Tablespoons soy sauce Don't substitute with dark or thick soy sauce. They're not the same thing! You can, however, use fish sauce as an alternative, light
• 1 Tablespoon oyster sauce
• salt You should not need salt after all those saucees but do season to taste if you find it necessary, optional

For stir-frying

• pork lard Substitute with vegetable oil if you don't have pork lard on hand (you may need to add a bit more salt in that case as vegetable oil has less flavour) It's easy to render pork lard at home FYI and it keeps for months!
• 1 egg I used 6 eggs for the omelette, but it's really up to you, Asian omelette, cut into strips
• 1 carrot Peeled and julienned
• 1 fish cake
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil Sesame oil in Chinese cooking is almost always toasted sesame oil. If you don't have it, try 1 of these substitutes for sesame oil, optional

Optional garnish

• green onion For alternative green garnishes, click here, chopped
• cucumber thinly sliced
• pork lardons