Wanton Mee (Singapore Dry Wonton Noodles)

Mix the minced pork, chopped prawn, Shaoxing wine, cornflour, half the sesame oil, white pepper and a teaspoon of the light soy. Stir it in one direction for a minute until the mixture turns sticky and holds together.

💡 Stirring one way lines the proteins up and is what gives a wonton filling its bounce. Stirring randomly just mixes it.

Put a scant teaspoon of filling in the centre of each wrapper, wet the edges, and gather the wrapper up around it into a loose bundle with a frilly top. Do not try to force out every air pocket.

💡 The loose frilly tail is the point — it cooks into a soft ribbon that catches sauce. A tightly sealed parcel eats like a dumpling, not a wonton.

Slice the char siew thin. Whisk the sauce in each serving bowl: the rest of the light soy, oyster sauce, sesame oil, tomato chilli sauce, lard and 2 tablespoons of hot stock.

Bring the stock to a gentle simmer and poach the wontons for 3 to 4 minutes, until they float and the wrappers turn translucent. Keep them in the hot stock.

Blanch the choy sum 45 seconds in boiling water and lift out. Cook the noodles in the same water for 20 to 30 seconds — no longer — then lift, dunk in cold water for 3 seconds, and shake them completely dry.

💡 These noodles are thin enough to overcook while you look at them. Under-done is recoverable in the hot bowl; over-done is not.

Toss the noodles hard in the sauce, then arrange the char siew, greens and a few wontons on top with the spring onion. Ladle the remaining wontons and stock into a side bowl. Pickled green chillies go on the table, not in the bowl.

💡 One slice of pickled chilli per mouthful, chosen by you — that vinegar hit is how the bowl stays interesting to the last strand.