Monday, January 3, 2011

"I get too hungry for dinner at eight..."






I am going to post a month of recipes or what I like to think of as 'dinner'.
I will try to talk the chef into certain favorite recipes I want to share.
Feel free to ask questions, or request a favorite dish.

Mee Goreng
*Zok believes that only fresh Hokkien Noodles are acceptable when making this simple dish.
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
1 large onion (brown is best)
2 cloves garlic finely chopped
2 red chillies (or one large depending on how your garden grew)
seeded, and finely chopped (the seeds can be added back in if you desire a high 'hot spicy' rating on your food).
2 cm (3/4 in) piece of fresh ginger (Zok says you can switch this out for fresh galangal)
2 tablespoons oil (one when tossing the noodles, one when cooking up the rest of the ingredients in the wok)
1 large carrot, cut into matchsticks
Deep fry tofu squares (.5 lb of firm tofu), cut in half to make triangles
3 tablespoons each of kecap manis, soy sauce, tomato sauce (this is increased due to the fact that we are cooking with tofu when normally this dish would have raw prawn meat (a pound).
Optionally a person could also add 8 oz. of rump steak finely sliced. The meat (ahh poor fishes what did they ever do to you?) would be added in place of when the tofu is added.

Combine the chopped onion, garlic, chillies and ginger (or galangal) in a small food processor or mortar and pestle. Set aside.
Heat 1 tbl. spoon oil (Zok uses peanut oil) in wok (large is best); stir fry the noodles until plump and warmed through (Zok makes them a wee bit burnt on some of the noodles, they are the tastiest ones), Place noodles in covered serving bowl to keep warm.

Add another teaspoon of oil to wok and stir fry the paste until golden, add your carrots, stir-fry quickly 2 minutes, add in tofu, 2 minutes (or until tofu, carrots and paste are nice and mixed)-
Add in the kecap manis, soy, and tomato sauces - wait until this all reduces, as you work your wok technique prowess.

We divide the noodles as desired, and then dish out the amount of tasty goodness on top of these noodles.
Zok adds spring onion as a garnish, Colleen does not.

*kecap manis can be found in most asian grocers, and is a sort of sweet, thick soy sauce
** this dish goes nicely with Sapporo Beer
***Zok mentioned that he actually uses a bit more tofu because somebody, steals pieces when somebody is too hungry to wait for the food to cook.




3 comments:

Monte Means said...

Yesterday Roberto made his version of Zok's yummy tofu...so you and Zok (and food) have been on my mind!

Sookie said...

I think I'll make Roberto's Beans and Tortillas in his honor. Any requests? Although we are going to do a coconut rice/salad dish I think you'll really like. xx

Anonymous said...

I wonder who that Tofu-stealing-Somebody could be.