Cintan Mee Recipe ( Stir Fry Noodles ) 炒金旦面

Cintan Mee - The Ding Dong Mee

I love Cintan Mee so much, whether it is stir-fried with tomyam or soy sauce. I 'developed' this dish from an old kopitiam in my hometown which used to be famous of Cintan Mee. The shop was owned by an old couple but they closed the shop when I was in Year 5? Oh it was long time ago! Everyone miss their cintan mee. 

Thank god for gifted me such a good tongue and I made it!!! The taste is similar but the method of preparing is differ from the old couple. Also, I skip some ingredients to make it easy and simple. 

My sister loves it because she misses it so much as she was away from home for so many years. I remembered when I was in primary school and she came back from oversea, she will ask me to take away for her and she wanted it dry ( less sauce compare to the wet one). I could see she enjoys this dish so much whenever I cooked.

Sadly I don't have any photo of how was the noodles looked. I really miss it. So why I said my cooking method is differ from the old couple? Because their way of cooking and presentation was like the dry wonton mee, the noodles were stirred and flavoured with the sauce in a bowl, not completely dry. For me, I stir-fry the noodles.

For the original version, they flavoured it with pork fat oil, garnished with spring onion, small pieces of honey roast pork, slices of boiled egg. I am not sure how many sauces and seasoning they were exactly used. Don't worry the one I created is pork-free and could be modified for vegetarian too. 

Ingredients:

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons oil

3 cintan mee/maggie mee (any instant noodles)

1/2 to 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce/ caramel sauce 

1 1/2 tablespoons oyster sauce

Direction:

1. Boil the noodles in a pot until soft. Dry it with sieve and quickly run through the tap water.

2. Heat the oil in the pan. Stir in the garlic with small fire until aromatic but not golden brown.

3. Stir in the noodles and mix well with the garlic. Add in the sauce and stir well until noodles are well caramelised with the dark sauce. 

For VEGETARIAN:

Substitute the oyster sauce with the 'vegetarian oyster sauce'. You can find it in most of the asian grocery.

Notes:

1. I over-boiled the noodles but it still turned out not bad. I quickly ran the noodles with tap water for a few times and left it aside for awhile before I Stir-fried.

2. Chopsticks is a good tool to stir-fry noodles. 

3. Healthy reminder: Reduce the oil and oyster sauce (less fat and saltiness) - 1 tbsp oil, 1 tbsp oyster sauce.  

This is a basic recipe of preparing this dish with awesome flavour. However, you can add in any ingredients you like to make it more healthy, yummy and pretty. I usually like to add carrot and spring onion to make it colourful. My fridge was emptied, so I garnished it with the leaves( a veg but I don't know what it is called) from the garden and also looked more healthier. Oh yea, FRIED EGG or BOILED EGG are good to go with this! They are indeed a very good combination and very yummy. 

This is so simple yet delicious. How awesome of garlic and oyster sauce have done to give such a rich flavour. Sorry the after eating breathe is a bit strong, so drink more water!  I am so happy to develop and share the long lost dish. This is also one of my signature dish that I love to cook for family and friends. Thanks for reading.