Kitchen Exploits: Fish Head Bee Hoon or Fish Head Rice Vermicelli

One of my favourite hawker dishes! It's basically a bowl of vermicelli rice noodles cooked in a savory broth and topped off with pieces of deep fried fish fillet or chunks of deep fried fish head. What gives the broth a piquant sourish-sweetish type flavor which leaves one wanting for more after the last drop of broth is spent, is the combined use of fresh ginger slices, tomato wedges and slivers of chinese pickled/salted mustard green in the cooking of the soup. The dish is usually finished off with freshly chopped cilantro and some garlic oil/sesame seed oil for that extra aroma. Simply delightful!

This is how I like my bowl of fish head bee hoon - Loaded with deep fried fish
and generously garnished with fried garlic bits!

My only grouse with hawkers is that they tend to load up on the carbos (lots of noodles) and pay sparse attention to most everything else. My inner female loves me some vegies and there never seems to be enough to go around. I'd be happy to pay for extra tomatoes, more spring onions, more chopped cilantro .. the list continues. And oh, definitely more deep fried fish chunks! But there seems to be this serious expectation gap between one and these said hawkers over the word "extra".

Inevitably this led to a fish head bee hoon "diyah" (do-it-yourself-at-home) mission on a Sunday morning (must say it did take me almost the whole morning to get it ready in time for lunch). Keeping in mind the taste I'd like to arrive at, I basically cook instinctively - adding, subtracting and tasting as I go along. Hence, I don't have exact measurements of the stuff that goes into the meal. However, I firmly believe you cannot go wrong when you use fresh, quality ingredients, and sufficient amounts of it in preparing your meal.

I started off by making sure I had some good, fresh chicken stock made from simmering chicken and chicken bones in a stock pot (chicken stock cubes just will not do for the kids).

Good old fashion chicken stock with a knob of ginger in it

Next I prepared some tomato wedges, ginger slices, a bunch of 1 inch-long spring onions lengths, sprigs of cilantro leaves, fresh tofu cubes and finely sliced pickled chinese mustard greens. Must not forget the home made fried garlic bits in garlic oil which can be pre-prepared (Garlic oil is a kitchen staple as far as I am concerned - ever ready to be used as garnishing for many a dish) and the chinese wine

That little jar of oil towards the bottom right corner is the garlic oil with fried garlic bits in it
- something I keep perpetually handy in the kitchen

Next I salted and then coated about 3 kgs of kurau and garoupa fish head chunks and fish fillets with a mixture of plain wheat flour, corn flour and rice flour. The addition of corn flour and rice flour gives the fish pieces a longer lasting crispiness when fried.

Deep-fried fish fillet and fish head which is still juicy on the inside and crispy on the outside

Once all the preparation of ingredients is completed, we can embark on the "assembly" of the fish head bee hoon which entailed the following steps :

1) In a saucepan, sautee some ginger slices in a tspn of oil and a dash of sesame seed oil

2) When the sauteed ginger starts giving off the loveliest fresh aroma, ladle the chicken broth into the pan.

3) Throw in the pickled/salted vegies and tomato wedges at this stage giving it some 4-5 minutes simmering time to ensure that the flavours are infused into the broth.

4) Next in is the rice vermicelli/noodles/bee hoon and tofu cubes.

5) Season with salt and a dash of fish sauce to suit your taste. Instead of putting evaporated milk from the can like they usually do at the stalls, I used fresh Australian full cream milk instead. If desired, including a tablespoon of chinese wine at this stage is good too.

6) When rice vermicelli is soft enough. Throw in a handful of spring onions and remove from stove immediately.

7) Place in bowls and garnish with the cilantro leaves, fried garlic in oil and the deep fried fish pieces.