My Perfected Indonesian Mie Goreng

One of the dishes I have had the hardest time trying to recreate while living away form Bali is mie goreng. As a kid my sisters favorite and only place to go eat mie goreng was at Casa Luna restaurant in Ubud, I
on the other hand was less picky and happy to eat mie goreng form almost anywhere as all the different versions are almost like a mini tasting adventure. Until today, I can’t really say I have a favorite, but I definitely have a strong fondness of the mie goreng Ibu Nila serves out of her restaurant she runs with Oded, Sari Organik, hidden away in the rice fields behind Ubud.

Over the years, my search for a mie goreng recipe that melts my heart and teleports my soul to Bali has turned into somewhat of a mission. Of course while living in Bali, I never actually made mie goreng, so, the search began with me using the only one place I could easily find recipes, the WWW. I found a lot of simple recipes that I tried out, none of which brought me satisfaction, even when I tweaked them to try to improve the flavors. Something was never quite right.  I continued my search by asking friends, even the daughter of Janet, owner of Casa Luna, if she’d give me her mum’s recipe. With no luck, I continued on my own…

I have now, through trial and error, incrementally developed a recipe for mie goreng that I am happy with and excited to share with everyone. Here goes…

Feeds 2 people.

Ingredients for mie goreng:

– Asian leafy greens (e.g. bok choy, choy sum, water spinach, sayur hijau), roughly sliced into 3 cm strips. I use approximately half a plate full or the equivalent to one bok choy.
– 1 carrot, julienned
– 2 spring onions, sliced roughly 1 cm  (or half a leek, finely sliced)
– 1 large chili (lombok), finely sliced
– 1 egg
– 1.5 tblsp oyster suace
– 1.5 tblsp kecap manis (sweet soya sauace)
– 1 tblsp tomato ketchup (or tomato puree + pinch of sugar)
– 50 ml chicken stock
– 1/5 teasp crushed white pepper
– 150 g dried egg noodles (slightly under cooked and then blanched, this is critical)

Spice paste:

– 3 shallots
– 2 garlic cloves
– 2 candlenuts
– 1 small chili (cabe rawit)

First steps in cooking mie goreng

Instructions:

1. Blitz the spice paste ingredients in a food processor or use a mortar and pestle to ground into a paste.

2. On medium heat, add 3 tblsp of oil to a wok. Add the spice paste and fry till fragrant and you can feel the spices slightly tear up your eyes and open up your sinuses (~2 min).

3. Throw in the carrots, spring onions or leek and chili. Toss around to coat with the paste. Add the chicken stock and allow to cook till carrots are soft and almost all the stock has evaporated.  At this point, crack the egg into the wok and scramble; turn heat on lowest.

4. When the egg has  slightly cooked and obtained a texture, throw in the leafy greens, the blanched egg noodles, oyster sauce, kecap manis, tomato ketchup and pepper. Stir around till well combined (~2 min).

Notes and variations:

1. For mie goreng with chicken, add 150 g chicken (0.5 cm chunks/pcs) a couple of min before adding the carrots, spring onions or leek and chili.

2. For mie goreng with beef, cook up a steak and serve sliced on top of the mie goreng –>looks  awesome

Mie goreng with a beef steak