Food Stories from Singapore - Paula Teo
Prawn and pork rib noodles
Paula is one of my dearest friends in the world, and I have known Paula since we met at university in Perth, 2003. Soon after meeting, we bonded very quickly over food (no surprises here). Being away from home, we were always looking to create Singaporean recipes at a time of dial-up internet and very limited pool of online recipes. We relied on our combined collection of recipes from food magazines or photocopied versions of Singaporean recipes.
Over the last 20 years, we have cooked together and for each other countless times. Despite our very different tastes buds, food is definitely a shared love language. Vegetables are not Paula’s thing. And it wasn’t until this conversation we had that I discovered why.
This interview was conducted late last year, and it has taken me this long to publish this because when the two of us get together - the conversation goes all over the place (haha!), and my transcription app decided after 30 mins of transcribing that it no longer understood what we were talking about.
Paula’s recipe makes a large portion as she lives in a multi-generation household. So, if you want to try your hand at this recipe, do note to reduce the portions for your household.
[Penelope ]What are you sharing with us today Paula?
[Paula] The prawn noodles I'm cooking is actually comfort food for me growing up. My mum is a pretty good cook, and she is also Cantonese, so in a lot of food that she makes, its very rich and very homely. You can tell she puts her heart into cooking for us. It was great fun growing up because we always had a lot of food at every meal. We were a family of five but we could easily have 6 - 7 dishes per meal.Â
So, I imagine if your Mum is Cantonese, there will always be a soup in the mix.
Yes, there would be soup at every meal, like a Lotus Root (and Pork Rib) soup and "Lok Mei Tong" (translated to Six Flavour Soup). It's a soup made with a combination of herbs and she likes to boil it with chicken. She doesn't use chicken bones for the soup. Instead she uses an entire chicken, but we do not eat the chicken.
That sounds like a very Cantonese thing.
Yes. We "waste" a lot of food. When my Mum boils the soup, we only drink the soup (broth), and everything else in the soup is discarded.
So, back to the prawn noodles...
I chose the prawn noodles because, to me, it's one of the most comforting that I can remember her cooking for us. She made this once every few months, mainly because she needed time to collect the prawn shells. In addition, she would buy at least 3kgs worth of prawns, mainly for the prawn shells.
What else did you eat growing up?
Chicken Rice, Fish Maw Soup, Abalone Soup, Sweet and Sour Pork, Fried Fish, Steamed Fish. Another thing that my mum cooks that I really like is her glutinous rice, which she either steams or fry.
I have never heard of anyone frying glutinous rice. That must take forever!
Oh yes, and she sometimes did it over a charcoal fire too. I also cooked our prawn broth outdoors today over a charcoal stove.
I feel so special that you whipped out the charcoal stove for this interview.
Oh no, think of it as saving money (laughs). When you have to slow cook a broth for this long, it's cheaper to do it over a charcoal fire. I don't know if it is psychological or not, but I feel that there is a difference cooking over charcoal, as compared to a gas stove.
Do you cook with charcoal often?
I try to. The boys (Paula's sons) like it. I did this a lot during COVID lockdowns. I made Fried Hokkien Prawn Noodles over the charcoal, or make Japanese chicken skewers and beef cubes. I have a BBQ grill, but there's something about the charcoal that gives more earthiness to the food.
So what other kinds of food are comfort food to you?
Cantonese style congee (rice porridge)
So how do you make congee? Cos I was raised by a Teochew mother, so it's very different.
So, I make it like how my mother makes it. Depending on the type of porridge, she will always make it with a stock, like fish stock. Then she either makes it with jasmine rice, or short grain rice mixed with glutinous rice. There is always be glutinous rice as she wanted that slightly sticky texture.
Are all the comfort foods that you shared things that your Mum made, or are there any comfort foods that you also make for yourself now?
I think my list of comfort foods are really dishes that I ate growing up at home. We didn't eat out very much except on Saturdays, where we went to Swenson's (American family restaurant chain), cos my Dad loved Swenson's.
For my family, Ponderosa (another American family restaurant chain, famous for their buffet salad bar) was our thing. We loved the salad bar.
The thing is my mum doesn't eat vegetables, so we grew up eating very little vegetables.
I know!!! Wait. Hold up. So if you are saying your Mum doesn't eat vegetables, does that mean that the 6- 7 dishes that your mother used to make for family dinners was all meat-based?
Yes.
Was there even some token vegetable dish?
I don't remember. I think there may have been bean sprouts around, mixed into some dishes, but there was never a full vegetable dish. Vegetables only really started to appear on the dinner table when we got older, and requested for them.
Did you find it strange at the time? I know you, and I have been cooking with you and eating your food for many, many years. What I have come to realise is that vegetables are an afterthought.
No, I guess not. It was only when we got into secondary school and junior college and started to become a bit health conscious - which was when we started to want to eat more vegetables.
Our conversation drifted back and forth to soups and Paula adjusting to moving in with her husband’s family to live with his family after marriage; and adjusting to cooking for her new family.
Paula’s Prawn & Pork Rib Soup Noodles was a delicious bowl of comfort - and reminded me of the bowl of prawn noodles I used to order in my primary school canteen. Like a lot of local foods in Singapore, the ingredients are simple, but the process can be laborious, like slow cooking stock to extract as much flavour from the prawn shells and pork ribs. Like all the other times, I always feel very loved to be fed by Paula, and I hope you enjoy this.
Paula’s Prawn & Pork Rib Soup Noodles
Makes enough for about 8 pax
Ingredients
1 entire bulb of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
750g prawns + extra about additional 1kg prawn shells for the broth
750g spare ribs
Fresh yellow Hokkien noodles or rice noodles (kuay teow)
Salt, to taste
Sugar, to taste
Local lettuce
Fish cakes, sliced
Fish balls
Chilli padi, sliced
Thick black soy sauce
Method
Heat a large stock pot and add a little oil. Add the prawn shells, garlic and fry until browned.
Add 3 - 4L of water and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer for about 30 mins.
Pour the stock through a strainer and discard the prawn shells.Â
Fill a large pot with som water to blanch the pork ribs. When the water has come to a boil, add the pork ribs. Bring the water to a boil and cook for about 10 mins. Remove the pork ribs from the pot and rinse under cool running water to remove any scum or impurities. Add the pork ribs to the strained pork stock and bring back to a boil.
Turn the heat down to a simmer and cook for another 2 hours.
Add salt and sugar to taste. The stock should be seasoned with a slightly heavy hand. The addition of the noodles later will balance the flavours out.