Kau Kee Mee Suah - 九杞面线

Kau Kee - 九杞 (wolfberry leaves) is a kind of leafy vegetables that comes in long stalks and sharp thorns on it. You can get this from most local supermarket or tradition wet market near your area. Usually this vegetable is cooked as a soup using minced meat and egg. But today, I am going to use the soup idea to transform it into a noodle dish.

In order to make the soup more tasty and nutritious I added in some fresh prawn to give it some natural sweetness. Since Mee Suah/Mian Xian - 面线 is available in my pantry drawer; I decided to add it into the soup instead of using other type of noodles. As you might have read about my previous post on “Herbal Fish Mee Suah”, you will get to know that Mee Suah is actually made from rice flour and is very brittle in uncooked form as the strands are really thin.

Ingredients: (serves 2)
2 - 3 Strands of Mee Suah, 面线
8 Medium Fresh Prawn
1 Packet of Kau Kee Leaves
150 Minced Pork
4 Slices of Ginger
3 Cloves Garlic, minced
2 Eggs
1200ml Hot Water

Method:
1. Carefully removed the leaves from the Kau Kee stalks and soaked them in water for a few minutes, rinse well and set aside.
2. Season the minced pork with some light soy sauce, sesame oil, pepper, corn flour and minced ginger(optional) for at least 15 minutes or so before cooking.
3. Preheat a small saucepan with 1 teaspoon of oil, saute 2 ginger slices and half minced garlic till fragrant, add in half of the minced meat and roughly break them out and cooked till slightly golden in colour.
4. Next add in half of the kau kee leaves and continue to stir till the leaves wilted and cooked through, add in 600ml of hot water and wait for the mixture to come to boil.
5. Add in half of the prawns and let it simmer on medium heat till the colour changed slightly red and begin to cook through.
6. Remove the string from the mee suah, rinse it with water then add it into the simmering soup, give it a quick stir before breaking in an egg.
7. Use a chopstick, stir the egg through the mixture and let it simmer for another 30 second before dishing up.
8. Lastly, top with extra cut chilli and dried shallot before serving.

Note:
~ Mee Suah must to be cook just a few minutes before serving or else it will soaked up all the soup and became soggy.
~ Usually I will cook individual portion rather than all so that it will be cook easily and the mee suah won't dried up too fast due to the cooking time.


This is another quick and easy meal that required less than 30 minutes of cooking time which is what working mum like me prefer to prepare for my family. Although it might look simple but I can guarantee you that the taste is really good and it's full of flavour from the vegetable, meat and prawn. Do give it a try! Ok I shall leave you with this recipe till I am back from my trip next week. Cya!

p/s: For more details/photo of Kau Kee, click HERE.