And so far I’ve failed three times.

Here they are:

the first was a recipe for a savory thai garlic sauce I found online. It goes like this:

1. savory Thai garlic sauce recipe:

1/3 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon rice wine vinegar
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 teaspoon chili paste (sambal oelek) (optional)
1 tablespoon dry sherry or sake
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil
9 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons minced ginger
10 Thai chiles, stemmed and left whole (optional)
1 tablespoon cornstarch
3 tablespoons water

In a small bowl, mix together chicken broth, vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, chili paste, garlic, and sherry; set aside.

In another small bowl or cup, stir together the tbsp of cornstarch with the 3 tbsp of water and set aside.

Stir the first bowl in with the cooked ingredients, cook for a minute, then stir in the corn starch bowl.

conclusion: this sauce, comprised largely of chicken broth with small minority stakes of soy, fish, and oyster sauces was pretty much flavorless. If anything, I’ double if not treble the soy fish and oyster sauces on my next attempt.

2. guay teow pad se-iew sauce:

1    garlic clove, minced
1    egg, beaten
1 tb cornstarch / cornflour
1 tb wine
1 tb fish sauce (nam pla)
1 tb oyster sauce
1 tb sugar
1 ts oriental sesame oil
1/2 ts white pepper

Mix together all the ingredients and stir into cooked ingredients.
Conclusion: way too sweet, for one thing. but also largely flavorless. Plus, the egg in the sauce really threw the cosistency of my kai kua. Next time, I’d skip the sugar, go heavier on the oyster and fish sauces, heavier on the salt, and skip the egg.

3. Off the Cuff

For the third sauce I thought I’d just wing it and see if I could do any better going with my instinct. Amounts are complete guesses.

3 TB oyster sauce
3 TB fish sauce
3 TB soy.
1 TB garlic
1/3 cup chx broth.

Conclusion: this was in my opinion the best sauce, though my wife thought it overpowered the ingredients. I agree qualifiedly: I think that I’ve been overdoing the soy, which has been giving the kai kua the darker cast than I’ve had in restaurants. Instead of soy next time I’m just going straight for the salt (this is, btw, what I’ve seen in thai cooking video tutorials, it just seemed kinda blasphemous).

Ingredients:
1.5 lb flat wide rice noodle
10 oz skinless boneless chicken breast, finely sliced
3 eggs
4 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
3 tablespoons oil
3 green onions, finely sliced
½ tablespoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon dried radish
Lettuce to garnish

Preparation : Place a wok or large deep frying pan over the high heat. Add oil, chicken, and stir-fry until chicken is cooked through about 2 minutes. Stir in eggs, noodle, and continue to cook about 1 minute. Add soy sauce, oyster sauce, sugar, dried radish, and stir fry for a further 1-2 minutes. Toss in green onion, season with pepper, and cook stirring about 1 minute. To serve, garnish with lettuce.

Char kway teow has a reputation of being unhealthy due to its high saturated fat content. However, when the dish was first invented, it was mainly served to labourers. The high fat content and low cost of the dish made it attractive to these people as it was a cheap source of energy and nutrients. When the dish was first served, it was often sold by fishermen, farmers and cockle-gatherers who doubled up as char kway teow pedlars in the evening to supplement their income.

In Indonesia, the dish is served in Chinese restaurants and traveling street hawker, and locally known as Kwetiau Goreng (Indonesian: fried Kwetiau). The Indonesian char kway teow is less oily, it uses no lard, and normally uses beef or chicken to cater the majority of Muslim population. But some Chinese restaurants in Indonesia do serve the pork and lard variety.