Instant noodle gratification with chef Anthony Yeoh of Summer Hill: Creamy beef curry noodles
Who doesn’t enjoy the occasional slurpy indulgence in that guilty-pleasure comfort food – a fuss-free bowl of steaming instant noodles? Chefs certainly aren't above it in their own kitchens at home. In this series, CNA Lifestyle persuades a few Singapore chefs to share their fondest personal instant noodle recipes with us. No uni, no truffle, no caviar and absolutely no gold leaf – only the humble ingredients in their home pantries.
Leftovers from Summer Hill's excellent steak dish are transformed into a comforting meal by chef Anthony Yeoh. (Photo: CNA/Joyee Koo)
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Few chefs in Singapore have a handle on cottagecore grandma-style French cooking the way Anthony Yeoh does. The belly-filling, soul-warming dishes he serves up at Summer Hill, like lobster pot pie, French fried chicken, mussels Normandy and Kurobuta pork belly porchetta are things you crave over and over.
Since his food is ultimately designed to be comforting and delicious, I had a feeling that this Singapore boy might also be quite good at whipping up everybody’s ultimate quick-cook comfort food: Instant noodles.
He did not disappoint me. When I texted him to ask if he was fond of them, his reply came: “What do you think I'm eating now?”.
I had come to the right place.
“It's very dangerous coming home late and having a 7-Eleven downstairs,” said the chef with over a decade of experience in classic French cuisine, by means of justification.
If you're curious, he was eating Nissin x Jumbo Chilli Crab noodles, with the addition of hot wings from the freezer section. Classy.
Of course, chefs’ off-duty instant noodle recipes aren’t going to be just tearing open a packet and boiling some water.
Yeoh’s go-to dish, which he generously shared with me, is creamy beef curry noodles. A packet of Myojo chicken curry noodles, a can of Campbell’s Cream of Chicken soup, and the luxe addition of some leftover steak onglet from the restaurant are transformed into a slurp-worthy dish with all the elements of a satisfying cheat meal: Fat, spice, carbs and decadently delicious steak.
Along the way, he also throws in some caramelised onion, and roasted eggplant and tomatoes. No, not to make it a little more, ahem, healthy. The goal is the pursuit of flavour.
"Late at night, when I come home and want to have a nice hot meal, just seeing something like this makes me happy,” he said. “I really love seeing that lovely crust on the steak especially.”
The cherry on top is that "it’s also very low effort, which makes me even happier”.
Anthony Yeoh’s Creamy Beef Curry Instant Noodles
1 packet Myojo Chicken Curry noodles
1 onion
1 eggplant, roasted
Cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
Leftover steak onglet, about 100g
1 can Campbell’s Cream of Chicken soup
Milk
Parsley
For the vegetables:
In a roasting pan, drizzle the tomatoes and eggplant with olive oil and bake in the oven for 10 min at 200C.
For the steak:
Use half the seasoning powder pack to coat the meat.
Sear the meat in a hot pan, throwing in the onions to caramelise.
(You can also toss in a shot of bourbon to flambe the steak and deglaze the pan.)
For the noodles:
Cook and drain the noodles.
Prepare the sauce by boiling the Campbell’s soup with milk (add water if you wish).
Add the rest of the seasoning powder from the packet.
Combine noodles and sauce.
Lay the ingredients on top of the noodles and garnish with parsley. Drizzle the seasoning oil from the packet over the dish and serve.
