Cravings for.... Fish Head Noodles!

My favourite fish head noodles stall is from Woo Pin Fish Head Noodles in Taman Danau Desa. It has the most flavorful soup ever. I usually order mine with fried fish, sometimes with un-fried ones. I always finish mine and I would wait for my mom to say "Chung, I can't finish mine. Do you want to finish it?" Be careful when you order a large bowl at this shop as it can really turn a good meal into a bad one if you force yourself to finish it... I remember once I had the large and... I was greedy... finished it.... and finally I was way too full. My whole day I felt bloated... and up to dinner I didn't feel like eating anything. From that day onwards, it's a small + mom's leftovers :-p

With all that in mind... I thought of the ingredients needed for this dish. It's pretty simple, all you need are:

(for one serving)
1. Fish fillets (I used tilapia fillets)
2. Half a tomato
3. Pickled Mustard Green (Ham Choy)
4. Spring Onion 5. Ginger (i forgotten to put this when I was preparing mine)
6. Shao Xing Chinese Cooking Wine
7. Sesame oil
8. Evaporated Milk (Recommended: NESTLÉ CARNATION Evaporated Milk)
9. Vermicelli (meehoon/"mai fun") (Note: For Fish Head/Fillet noodles, thick vermicelli is recommended)
10. Soy Sauce/Salt to taste


For the soup, I'd recommend using some kind of fish stock. I made my own stock using "ikan bilis". To prepare the stock, just stir fry the ikan bilis untill fragrant/brown and add 2 medium sized bowl of water. Boil it for 15mins. When done turn the heat down and remove the "ikan bilis".

An alternative to making this "ikan bilis" stock is to just use fish sauce. Just bring water to boil and add adequate amount of fish sauce for flavor. Fish sauce itself is salty.

Now, to cook the soup base for the fish fillet noodles.

1. With half of the tomato cut it into 4 pieces. The green mustard green into thin slices. Ginger shredded. Spring onions into 1 inch stocks and the fish fillets into 1 inch cubes.

2. Turn the heat to high and bring the stock to boil. Add all the ingredients in the first step except for the fish cubes. Boil for 2 minutes then put in the fish. You wouldn't want to overcook the fish.


3. Next is to add the evaporated milk, shao xing chinese cooking wine and sesame oil. This is all adjust to taste. Some likes less milk, some likes more, some don't even want them in their soup. Some likes stronger wine taste and some likes lighter. For sesame oil, add about 1 tablespoon. That should be just right. I like mine with just the right amount of milk and shao xing wine. Once it's right, turn the heat down to low.


I realize in cooking, milk absorbs the taste of alcohol pretty easily. I remember when I was cooking my shrimp scampi in cream sauce, I needed to put quite a bit of white wine to make sure the full cream doesn't overpower the taste of wine.

4. To speed up the process for preparing the meehoon. I just boiled water and put in the meehoon. Usually meehoon is soaked in water till it's soften, but I have no time for that. Cook the meehoon until the softness of your liking, drain the water and run the meehoon under cold water. This is an essential process! This makes the noodles have better consistency.


5. Add the meehoon to the soup and bring to boil. Once ready, serve it in a bowl and top off with some chopped spring onions and a dash of white pepper.

My First Bowl


My Second Bowl

My version of this dish doesn't exactly use fish head. It's easier to eat with fillets anyways! Yeah I don't know how to enjoy eating fish head. Anyway, hope you enjoyed this post!