Wok-Fried Comfort · Prawn Noodles

Hokkien Mee

Photo: RM Bulseco / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0

Despite the name, Singapore's Hokkien mee bears little resemblance to anything actually cooked in China's Fujian province — it borrowed the name from the immigrant community that invented it here, not the other way around.

Yellow noodles and rice vermicelli are wok-fried in a rich prawn-and-pork stock until the liquid reduces to a sticky, savory coating, then tossed with egg, prawns, and squid and served with sambal chili and a squeeze of calamansi lime.

Why it's made this way: The dish was created by Hokkien immigrant hawkers adapting noodle cooking to local seafood stock, and it remains one of the dishes Tiong Bahru Market's cooked-food stalls are best known for among Singapore's hawker regulars.