Home-made Mie Goreng

One of the good things about living in the Netherlands, is that it’s quite easy to get Indonesian food both in normal supermarkets and toko’s (Indonesian supermarket). There are also a number of Indonesian restaurants in every city. In The Hague, I can recommend De Poentjak at Kneuterdijk 16, a bit of an old-fashioned restaurant, but the food was delicious.

In Sweden, Indonesian food is rather uncommon. There’s lots of Thai food, sushi and Swedish-Chinese food – but not so much Indonesian to my knowledge.

At the supermarket in the Netherlands you can buy packages of instant noodles called Mie Goreng (meaning fried noodles). I’ve never liked instant noodles, so I was quite happy when I found this recipe: http://www.fussfreecooking.com/recipe-categories/meatless-recipes/homemade-instant-mi-goreng/

I’ve found this recipe a few years ago, now this is how I make the dish.

Home-made Mie Goreng, 1 person 

You will need to grab this from your pantry:

A comment about the noodles here, these aren’t the noodles I usually use for this recipe (either wok noodles or udon noodles) but this is what they had at the supermarket at the moment. I used to buy the cheapest wok noodles from the Jumbo (big supermarket chain in the Netherlands) but they stopped stocking them, so I have to go out on a hunt for noodles at the Asian store soon!

Ingredients (I used what I had left in the fridge – your recipe might differ accordingly)

Vegetables and meat

• 1/2 red onion
• 3 small carrots
• 1 stalk of celery
• 1 spring onion
• one handful of bacon pieces

For the sauce

• 1 tablespoon Ketjap manis (Indonesian sweet thick soy sauce)
• 1/2 tablespoon ketchup
• 1/2 tablespoon sriracha
• a few drops of sesame oil
• a dash of white pepper (mine is quite old, so I use more than one dash 😉
• about 1 tablespoon of onion oil (described below)

The rest

• 1 bunch of noodles (if your noodles come in portion size, otherwise 60grams)
• a few stalks of cilantro
• 1 egg
• sunflower oil

For the onion oil, pour about 2 tablespoon of sunflower oil in a pan. Heat up the oil. Slice the onion.

Fry the onion until it gets brown and crispy. Take the onion out of the oil on a plate lined with kitchen paper (to drain ). Add about 1 tablespoon of the oil in a small bowl. Put the pan off the heat. Don’t clean the pan, you’ll need it soon!

Slice the carrots, the celery and the spring onion. Take some bacon pieces out of the package. Like below.

Start boiling water in a pot. While the water is starting to boil, prepare the sauce. In the bowl with the onion oil, add ketjap manis, ketchup, sriracha, white pepper and about 3 drops of sesame oil.

Mix.

When the water is boiling, throw the noodles in and stir. Follow the directions on the packaging, or rather, taste: it should be slightly underdone (have a white center) when you take them out, because you’re going to fry them later. Drain in a colander and massage with some sesame oil.

Fry up the bacon in the pan with the left over onion oil on high heat, until crispy or however you want it. Press play for the best sound in the world!

Add the vegetables. Stir. Cook for 2-3 minutes. I like my veggies crispy!

Add the noodles. Stir all the time. If the noodles get stuck in the pan, add a few splashes of water. Stir stir stir. Fry for about 1 minute. Lower the heat if it gets too hot (I cook on electric….sadly). Add the sauce. Continue stirring until the noodles are fully cooked, about 1-2 minutes. Taste regularly to check the done-ness.

Pour in a bowl.  In the pan, add some more sunflower oil to fry an egg. Sunny-side up! Put the egg on top of the noodles. Sprinkle with the fried onion and cilantro. Now eat!

I hope you’ll enjoy this recipe. It’s a nice lunch dish, if you like hearty lunches. I make it a lot when I’m working from home.