Since char kway teow is heavily customisable, colours are used to group ingredients in the order of frying. Think about which of the categories your secondary ingredients fall under in order to figure out when to add them
Purple = Aromatics Ingredients used to flavour the oil.
Yellow = Fry and set aside Ingredients that are best made ahead of the actual main frying
Green = Vegetables Your greens and veges! Adds aroma to the whole dish. This should not include slow cooking vegetables or vegetables that can overcook to the point of yuckiness
Orange = meats Your meat stuff! These can take a bit of overcooking as they’re added at the midpoint but also still require to be thoroughly cooked before moving ahead to the next step of the recipe.
Red = Finalé These are ingredients that only need a little bit of time to cook and also CANNOT be overcooked as they would taste bad (e.g. overcooked cockles would taste rubbery)
Blue = sauce ingredients These can be prepped separately in a single bowl or added to wok as you cook.
Main
Noodles (yellow mee, kuay teow, or a combination)
Oil
Fatty Pork/pork fat (a small amount is used to provide oil)
Minced garlic
Secondary
Chives
Beansprouts
Blood cockles a.k.a Tegillarca granosa [螄蚶]; boiled and then de-shelled
Prawns; de-shelled, de-veined, de-headed
Egg
Sauce
Oyster Sauce (dominant profile)
Light Soy Sauce (dominant profile)
Dark Soy Sauce (for colour; use sparingly)
Fish Sauce (for seasoning; use sparingly)
White pepper to taste
Sugar (only for counterbalancing saltiness)
Directions
Heat oil in pan
Scramble egg, remove once done
Add pork, fry until past done and oil is released
Add minced garlic and fry until aromatic
Add noodles, use chopsticks to spread open the noodles so there is no clumped noodle parts
Add sauce ingredients one after the other (order: dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce) and mix it with the noodles until thoroughly incorporated
Add vegetables and fry til cooked. This is a good time to adjust seasonings but they can be adjusted at any time moving forward!
Add prawns that require cooking
Fry until prawns done, try to cook until liquids in noodles have dried up
Add egg back in
Add cockles last as they are already cooked
Fry to remove excess liquid from the cockles
Turn off heat and serve
Notes
Add sugar only if it’s too salty
You can mix the sauce ingredients in a separate bowl for even distribution and to reduce stress of adding sauce ingredients, mixing and preventing burning. However, adding as you cook may be a preferred way of controlling seasoning amounts since there's no measurements.
Cooking noodles too long will make them mushy, it’s also important to fry until dry! Too much liquid will also lead to mushy tasting char kway teow
Tool notes
Frying with chopsticks can be used to separate noodles and prevent clumps
Frying with spatula can be used to incorporate sauce and ingredients evenly. To prevent your noodles being chopped into tiny pieces, fold your noodles into the pan (i.e. scoop from underneath and push into the centre) with the spatula