Kuey Chap and braised pork innards

Yes yes, it does sound awful doesn’t it? But I’m Chinese and I revel in the fact that as a race, we eat anything that moves so long as its back faces the sun. I think what that means is that if the back no longer faces the sun, its usually dead and so its poisonous to eat it.

When I went back down South to Johor recently, I had to have one of my favourite foods – Kuey Chap with braised pork innards. Pablopabla of Hochiak! wrote about Sarawak Kuey Chap on his site before so my contribution is the Johor style one.

Kuey Chap and kuey teow are made of similar ingredients I think. They have similar texture in that they are flat rice noodles and are slightly oily and usually cooked from fresh noodles not dried. The Thai have a dried version though that you can buy from supermarkets.

For Kuey Chap the rice noodle sheets are left in roughly cut largeish sheets which somehow end up curled when cooked. I love that. They are served in a bowl with some broth and some chai poh (pickled radish) for a salty taste and crunchy texture.

The usual accompaniment is braised pork, its innards and hardboiled eggs . For today however, we eschewed the pork and went instead for the cholesterol inducing innards consisting of pork intestines both large and small, some pork stomach and tofu, all braised in soy sauce.

It goes very well with the kuey chap as this is rather salty and the noodles are rather bland. It is served usually with a chilli sauce dip that has lime in it for a sour tang.

Where I come from, this dish is eaten less as a meal and more of a snack, which is why I have classified it as a snack. In fact, it is usually had at breakfast and dinner/supper but never usually for lunch. Sorry Pablo, I prefer my version to the Sarawak one And like Pablo, I can’t find this in Kuala Lumpur too! Pity.

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Tagged as: Chinese