Chapter 06 · Zi Char
Zi Char & the Wok
Chili crab, cereal prawns, sambal kangkong — the shared-table repertoire of the neighbourhood wok stall, cooked over the biggest fire you can honestly make.
06Zi Char & the Wok·75 min·Intermediate
Frog Leg Porridge田鸡粥
Geylang after midnight — field chicken seared with dried chili and dark soy in a claypot, a bowl of silken porridge alongside to cool the fire.
06Zi Char & the Wok·35 min·Intermediate
Salted Egg Prawns咸蛋虾
Prawns fried crisp, then tossed through salted duck-egg yolk foamed in butter with curry leaves and chili — the mid-2010s craze that ate the whole island.
06Zi Char & the Wok·40 min·Intermediate
Har Cheong Gai虾酱鸡
Chicken wings marinated overnight in fermented prawn paste, then twice-fried until the crust shatters and your whole kitchen smells like the sea.
06Zi Char & the Wok·20 min·Beginner
Sambal Kangkongsambal kangkung
Water spinach seared in belacan sambal over the hottest wok you own — thirty seconds of fire, stems still snapping, the zi char vegetable that earns its place.
06Zi Char & the Wok·35 min·Intermediate
Cereal Prawns麦片虾
Crisp-fried prawns tossed in a sandstorm of buttery, curry-leaf cereal — a 1990s zi char invention no one asked permission to make, and everyone is glad of it.
06Zi Char & the Wok·80 min·Intermediate
Singapore Curry Chicken咖喱鸡 · kari ayam
The HDB kitchen's Sunday pot — chicken and potatoes in a coconut curry where every community's spice box met, mopped up with baguette or rice, both correct.
06Zi Char & the Wok·105 min·Beginner
Bak Kut Teh肉骨茶
Pork ribs simmered with whole garlic and a fistful of cracked white pepper — the clear Teochew morning soup of the docks, refills on the house.
06Zi Char & the Wok·65 min·Intermediate
Black Pepper Crab黑胡椒螃蟹
The drier, hotter answer to chili crab — mud crab tossed in butter, toasted black pepper, and dark soy until the sauce clings to the shell instead of pouring.
06Zi Char & the Wok·75 min·Intermediate
Singapore Chili Crab辣椒螃蟹
Mud crab in a chili-tomato gravy ribboned with egg, born on a 1950s Kallang pushcart — Singapore's table-flag dish, with fried mantou for the sauce.