Saturday, May 10, 2014

Mee goreng with curry paste

I don't think anyone who was not raised in Asia, can really understand the Asian obsession of noodles!
I must have noodles in my pantry. The dehydrated type. Fresh are great too but it really needs to be done within a week or so after you bought it or it starts to mold.

Today for brunch, I decided its a mee goreng day.

I use a premixed curry paate usually available in Asian aisles in Woolworth and Coles supermarkets. Anyone will do but I tend to gravitate to Malaysian premixes. Malaysian tend to be less 'chilli' spicy then Thai's. And I think it tends to be less 'fishy' as most premixes has to some degree either anchovies or shrimp paste as part of their ingredients. I don't really care much, I love them both!!
Bottled curry premixes can last a long time, I only need 2 tsp. And you will need soy sauce, fish sauce, chicken stock in powder form, salt and pepper.

There are really 4 parts to a mee goreng
1. The noodle itself
2. The meat/seafood mix, protein that you want to add
3. Vegetables, think colours...red, green would look perfect on yellow noodles
4. Putting it all togerther

So
Part 1: Noodles
1. Soak the dry cakes in hot boiling water. Usually one cake feeds 1 person.

Part 2: Protein
For this dish, I decided pork. You can add anything really. Stir fry it in a wok with garlic, a dash of chicken stock powder. Make sure its ready to eat 'cookness'. Tiday I decided to add julienned kohlrabi. Turned out really yummy on its own.
Leave it aside on a plate.

Part 3: Vegetables
Think colour. I love colour. My choices depend on texture and colour...I am food vain. So its red pepper (red) slices and snow pea shoots (green).
Keep these aside. I love these veges so its half of a pepper and 2 hand fulls of shoots.
Chop some garlic up, 4-5 cloves.
Just about now, drain the noodles and separate by hand.
Now, the exciting bit!

Part 4!!
1. Heat up the wok you've used to fry the pork, don't wash it! It has lovely flavours from the cooking.
2. Dash a tbls of oil into hot wok
3. Add garlic, wait till just browning
4. Add 2 tsp of curry premix, let it heat up till the flavours begin to rise and the oil turns red fron the paste
5. Stir it around
6. Noodles go in by hand one at a time, mix it as it goes in until all done. Keep stiring till the curry mix is evenly distributed on the noodles. A pair of wooden chopsticks work really well for this.
7. Add a bit of soy sauce, 2 - 3 squirts.
8. Add a tiny bit of fish sauce. They come in a small bottle and should be used sparingly. Its very salty.. and fishy! But I think this fishy juice when used properly brings out the flavours in the premix.
9. When the noodles are done, i.e. they start to look brighter yellow and more elastic, ADD the meat mix.
10. Stir till mixed in. Then SHUT the heat.
11. Immediately mix half of the pepper and all of the shoots in. MIX.

Add this point, get your bowls ready. The residual heat will 'cook' the veges.
Now its ready! Serve in bowls. Distribute the remining pepper. Garnish with coriander and fried
shallots. And pepper to taste.

Tadaaaa!

The egg noodles, a cake usually feeds one

Premixes that comes in a bottle

My part 2: Meaty bits

Part 4: Mixing it up

All dished out, garnished with fresh capsicum/red pepper and fried shalots

Later! Time to om nom nom

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