Mamak Mee Goreng By Lalitha Kirsnan from another site

Yield: For 10
Dear Raihana : this recipe is for a yield of TEN. Scale down appropriately!!

Ingredients:

Canola Cooking Oil - 1/3 cup
Yellow Hokkien Noodles - 2kg
Fish Cake - 200g sliced thinly into rectangular pieces
Chicken Breast Fillet - 100g diced into bite sizes
English Spinach - 2 cups (Feel free to substitute the spinach with cabbage, lettuce or salad mix)
Soft Tofu - 100g cubed
Eggs - 4 beaten well
Salt - To taste
Soy Sauce - To taste
Tomato Sauce - To taste * Optional
For Sambal Paste
Dried Chillies - 30 cut into halves and deseeded
Tomatoes - 5 medium sized quartered
Toasted Belacan (shrimp paste) - 1/2 tbsp
Fried Anchovies - 1 handful
Shallots (Small red onions) - 15 cut into halves
Peeled Garlic - 12 cloves
Ginger - 3cm knob

Instructions:

1.Boil the dry chillies in hot water for five minutes or till you see the chillies appearing al dente. Strain the water and remove any remaining seeds. Otherwise you will feel your stomach burning when eating the noodles.

2.Using a blender, blend the chillies, tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, belacan with ½ a cup of water first. Add more water if you find it difficult to blend. However, this amount should suffice.

3.Once the paste is very smooth and thick (be careful because we do not want a runny sambal), add the fried anchovies. Just one or two quick blends making sure the coarseness of the anchovies is retained.

4.Switch your stove on and get your wok ready. Add 1/3 cup of oil. Once oil is heated, add in the sambal, salt according to taste and on a medium fire cook the sambal covered for approximately 30 minutes. Cooking time varies depending on individual’s stove. My sambal usually finishes cooking in 20 minutes. You know your sambal is cooked when the oil separates and floats on top of the chilli paste.

5.While the sambal is cooking, heat a small frying pan with oil and fry the fish cake, tofu, chicken and eggs each separately and keep them aside to be added later.

6. Once sambal is cooked, add the noodles making sure they are well mixed with the sambal and on a slow fire, cover the wok and let the noodles cook through. The noodles will expand during the cooking process. This should take about 10 minutes.

7.Finally, add all the fried ingredients and the spinach and mix through.

8.Taste for salt. If you feel it is not enough, add soy sauce accordingly. I usually add it in because I feel it gives a richer taste to the mee goreng.

9. If you like your mee goreng to be a tad sweet, you may add tomato sauce.

10.Voila mee goreng ready to be eaten. Garnish it with green shallots, lime wedges and sliced red chillies with tomato sauce on the side. :-)

Tips

* Grinding the Sambal

The reason why we only give the cooked anchovies two quick blends is because it lifts the flavour of your mee goreng to a whole new level compared to when ground finely. Not many add fried anchovies into the sambal but this is the secret ingredient to a delicious mee goreng.

Be careful to ensure sambal is not too watery. The key to getting the perfect mee goreng lies in your sambal. If it is too watery, your mee goreng can turn soggy.