Mamak Mee (aka Mee Goreng)

When I was a kid back home, there was a stall under a huge tree down the road from our house run by a Mamak gentleman. The word "Mamak" as it is used in Malaysia refers to the Indian-Muslim community.  Thanks to the Indian-Muslims, we have such famous Malaysian dishes as roti canai, roti telur, murtabak, rojak, teh tarik and mamak mee (aka mee goreng) - a glorious plate of spicy, savory noodles with fish cakes, fish balls, tofu puffs, boiled potatoes and a dense fried cruller in a delicious egg-y sauce. Yummy, yummy mamak mee - how fondly I remember thee! The stall near our house made the most delicious, addictive version ever. I'm quite sure they had other things on their "menu" as well, but all we ever went there for was the mamak mee. It was close enough to our house that mum could send either of my brothers on their bicycle or me walking with a friend down to the stall to pick up dinner. We'd walk down to the large tree, put in our order and sit at one of the rickety old wooden tables to wait - inevitably there was a crowd of folks waiting for their orders. Everyone would stand around watching the chef take the orders and fry up each serving of the noodles one at a time. It was almost like watching a magician at work. There was the huge gas stove, old-fashioned but blazing with BTUs. There was the glass case filled with all the cut up ingredients. There was the mound of fresh yellow noodles and the numerous bowls of sauces and chilli pastes. He took everyone's order and remembered each one in sequence. "Satu mamak mee, tak mau taugeh. Satu mau semua. Satu tambah pedas. Satu tambah pedas, tak mau cucur udang" which translates to "One mamak mee, without bean sprouts. One with everything. One extra spicy. One extra spicy without the fried cruller". And this was just one person's order! How he kept it all straight without writing it all down is a mystery to me. It was showtime at the Mamak stall! I always made sure I had the best view and watched with eyes big as pies.
Unfortunately "progress" and municipal improvements have done away with the beautiful big tree that provided the shade and the space for the stall. The spot is now a huge four-lane road. Traffic zips by at breakneck speeds but when I drive by I go real slow and remember the exact spot where many a serving of mamak mee was ordered to go and enjoyed by so many. I wonder where Mr Mamak is today? If he's set up somewhere else and you know where, please do tell. Until then, I'm left with the memory of the perfect plate of mamak mee.
Back here in Brooklyn, I've been cooking up my version of the dish. A few months ago, I posted a picture of a wokful of noodles on my Facebook page and a few friends have been asking for the recipe. Here's the AMK version of mamak mee. Very tasty and quite easy once you get the hang of it. I've left out the boiled potatoes and the fried cruller because seriously, how much deep-fried carb-y friedness does one noodle dish need? :o)

Mamak Mee (serves 4)
3 tablespoons + 1 tablespoon corn oil
5 cloves of garlic - peeled and minced
1 red onion - finely sliced
1 chicken breast - sliced
8 - 10 fish balls - halved
4 fish cakes/fish tofu - sliced
8 tofu puffs - sliced
1lb Lo Mein noodles
Large handful of Chinese greens*
1 tomato - cubed
3 eggs
Large handful of beansprouts

Sauce
3 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons sweet soy sauce
3 tbsp Sriracha*
2 tbsp ketchup
1/4 cup water
Salt to taste
White pepper to taste

Sliced scallions, cilantro and lime wedges to garnish. 

1.  Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a wok. Add garlic and onions and fry til very lightly browned.







2. Add the chicken and stir fry until no longer pink. Then add fish balls, fish cakes/fish tofu and tofu puffs. Stir to combine then move on to adding the sauces.





3. Add the soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, Sriracha, and ketchup. Stir to combine. Add a dash of salt and pepper. You can add more later if you need more.






4. Add the 1/4 cup of water and stir to combine. At this point I added more Sriracha as it didn't look red hot enough for my taste. Add the noodles and greens and stir to mix evenly. Cook until the greens begin to wilt - about 1 minute.



 
5. Move the noodles over to one side of the wok. Add tomatoes over the noodles. Add a tablespoon of oil to the empty side of the wok and crack the eggs onto the oil. Leaving the noodles to one side, scramble the eggs until almost completely done.

 6. Then stir to mix it all up. Check for seasonings - you might want to add more salt (says the saltaholic)

 7. Add a large handful of sprouts and stir to mix them in. And there you have it - mamak mee! Garnish with the sliced scallions, cilantro and a wedge of lime. Now all that's left to do is to eat it. Squeeze the lime over everything and you're in heaven!

If you're like me and nothing's ever hot enough, have a little dish of sliced bird eye chillies in soy sauce on the side. Ooooh, my mouth is on fire. Exactly as it should be!

 

* The mamaks usually use Sawi or Kai Choy (mustard greens) for this dish. I believe that one can use most any Chinese greens for this dish. If the stems are particularly tough, separate the stems from the leaves while prepping. Add the stems when you add the chicken, so they have more time to cook and become tender.  Then add the leaves when you add the noodles. For this recipe, I grabbed a bag of greens at the Chinese supermarket without actually looking at them. When I opened the bag to cook last night, I found greens that I had never laid eyes on before. I tasted them raw and they were slightly peppery with a great flavor. They worked more than well for this dish - the stems were not too tough so I was able to cook them together with the leaves. Here's a picture of them - if anyone knows what these are, please enlighten me! :o)

** Sriracha is not usually used in mamak mee. A chilli paste of ground dried red peppers is cooked and used to add heat to this dish. In Malaysia, we get little bags of chilli paste called "chili boh" at the market. In most households you will find some in the refrigerator as there are many uses for it and a home cook always finds themselves in need of it. I decided to eliminate the step of blending the red chillies and cooking them to make this recipe a lot easier. One could also use the easily found Sambal Oelek as a substitute. If you do blend your own chillies or use Sambal Oelek, make sure to cook it long enough until the raw chilli smell is gone.  

All ingredients for this dish can be found at most Asian supermarkets.  Here in NYC, I shop at New York Mart, 128 Mott St (between Hester St & Grand St) New York, NY 10013

Curry Laksa

One of my favorite dishes ever from back home is Laksa.  There are many different kinds of laksa,  but in my opinion they can be broken down into two main types - the coconut curry broth laksa,  and the sour, pungent Assam laksa.  I prefer the first type,  but maybe that's just because I'm a fattie who loves the rich, creaminess of the coconut curry broth.  Yum.  My mum always favors Assam laksa - a fish and tamarind-based broth with finely julienned cucumbers, pineapples, onions, mint and fresh buds of ginger.  Altogether too much freshness for my tastes!
Curry laksa is a deep bowl of delicious comfort,  easily found in hawker centers and coffee shops all over Malaysia.  Each laksa stall has it's own version of the dish,  and one could make it their life's work trying to find the best one.  Every time you think you've found your favorite,  someone's telling you about another place they've discovered that you just HAVE to try.
I remember a stall on a quiet street in the back of town where my parents would take my brothers and I for curry laksa.  This particular hawker had her own brilliant rendition of the dish and her sign referred to it as "curry mee".  She used fresh won ton noodles that she made daily from scratch,  and served them with her very coconut-ty broth topped with Hainanese chicken.  I'm guessing that her laksa broth was made even tastier than most by all that chicken schmaltz that she saved each night from cooking the chickens.  The schmaltz and stock was used the next afternoon in her cauldron of laksa broth for that evening.   A pretty brilliant way to not waste the by-products of cooking, she was definitely ahead of her time when it came to cutting down on food waste and being green.  Considering that in the US,  we throw away 98 billion pounds of food each year,  it is now every chef and home cook's duty to learn how to use every part of the produce that they purchase.  Here's an article about just that!
I digress - back to the laksa.  We went to this particular laksa stall regularly.  We'd sit on the rocky wooden stools,  at the rocky plastic table and my dad would order 2 large and 3 small bowls of noodle goodness.  The noodles and broth were slurped up using chopsticks and before you knew it,  there was the bottom of your bowl!  The mild spiciness of the curry was washed down with a colorful fruit-flavored soda called Fanta - do they have them here?  My favorite was the green one - I guess that must have been "apple"!  I believe my brothers' favorites were the "grape" and "cherry" versions!  Those are in quotes because we know there was nothing apple, grape or cherry about them - they might as well have just called them green, purple and red!  Ah,  I wish we could time-travel back to the days when brightly colored fizzy sugar water brought us so much joy!
Alas,  our friend the curry mee hawker is no longer there.  The row of stalls is no longer there either,  and have given way to municipal "improvements" over the years.  What to do about this?  I guess make my own. 
The main part of cooking a laksa meal is making the large pot of laksa broth.  Once you've done that,  you can let each person assemble their own bowls based on their own tastes or if you're a complete control freak assemble each bowl yourself.  I usually offer two types of noodles,  various seafood toppings,  shredded chicken and  a few different garnishes to complete the bowl.  Here's how to make laksa:

Laksa (serves 6 - 8)

Spice paste:
1/4 cup peanut oil
10 garlic cloves
20 Asian shallots
10 dried chillies - soaked in hot water for 20 minutes
10 fresh chillies (or to taste) - de-seeded if you want less heat
1" piece galangal - peeled and sliced
6 candlenuts or macadamia nuts
2 tbsp shrimp paste
3 tbsp dried shrimp - soaked in hot water for 20 minutes
3 tbsp curry powder

2 tbsp peanut oil
12 cups chicken broth - preferably homemade
6 cups coconut milk
2 stalks lemongrass - bruised
Salt
1 tsp palm sugar (substitute with brown sugar or regular granulated sugar)
1 package fried tofu puffs - sliced or cut in triangles


1lb Chinese egg noodles
1package thin rice vermicelli - soaked in lukewarm water for 20 minutes

Toppings:
1lb jumbo shrimp (heads and shells removed and set aside for the broth, tails left on) - boiled
2 packages fish balls - these come already cooked,  but I like to put them in boiling water just until they float
1 package fish cake - sliced and dunked in boiling water for a quick minute
6 squares fish tofu - ditto the fish cake
1lb mussels - cooked
1lb scallops - seared
2 chicken breasts - boiled in salted water,  then shredded
12 quail's eggs - boiled and peeled
Flowering chives - woody ends chopped off and blanched in boiling water until bright green
2 cups of bean sprouts

Garnishes:
2 scallions - sliced diagonally
Cilantro
Fried Shallots
Laksa leaf - Vietnamese coriander or Rao Ram (optional)
Thai Basil (optional)
Regular mint

1.  Place all spice paste ingredients in a blender and blend to a fine paste.  This can be done up to a week in advance and stored in a tightly-closed jar in the refrigerator until ready to use. 

2.  In a large stock pot over high heat,  heat two tablespoons of peanut oil.  Add the shrimp heads and shells, turn your burner down to medium high and sauté to flavor the oil with the essence of the shrimp.  Add about 1/4 cup water and cook for about 5 minutes,  taking care not to let it burn.  Using a slotted spoon,  remove the heads and shells.
3.  Add the spice paste,  stir continuously for about 3 minutes,  then turn down to medium and let this cook for about 15 - 20 minutes,  stirring occasionally.  Once the oil separates from the spice paste and you can see that the oil is colored reddish-orange (see picture on the right),  add the lemongrass, chicken broth and coconut milk.  According to your taste,  feel free to change the proportions of chicken broth and coconut milk.  Some people prefer a thick, creamy broth and some prefer it lighter. Stir to combine,  turn the heat up and let this come to a gentle boil then turn it down to simmer.  
4.  Add salt to taste, sugar and tofu puffs.  Cook for another 20 minutes or so. 
 5.  In a separate large pot,  boil about 6 cups of water.  Blanch the yellow noodles,  soaked rice vermicelli (2 minutes), flowering chives, fish balls,  shrimp, mussels separately.  Feel free to add or leave out any toppings as you prefer.

Fish tofu

All the fixins for an exquisite bowl of laksa

6.  Assemble a bowl:  Add handful of noodles (either kind, or both),  and some beansprouts to a bowl.  Add whatever toppings you like - chicken,  fish balls, mussels,  etc.  Pour the laksa gravy with a couple of pieces of tofu puff over everything.  The tofu puffs soak up all the goodness of the broth and are my favorite part of this dish.  Garnish with sliced scallions,  fried shallots,  cilantro etc.  

7.  Remember to go back for more before it's all gone!

Here's a bowl of laksa I made last Saturday.  Happy cooking!  

Laksa!

I threw a laksa party last Friday night. Here are a couple of pics - we have house-guests, so no recipe today. I will add to this post during the week, but couldn't resist sharing these pics ASAP. A great big thanks to my dear friend, Lila Yomtoob for these pictures.
Laksa is a popular Malaysian hawker dish.  It's traditionally made with two kinds of noodles,  beansprouts,  shredded (or curried chicken), fish balls,  fried tofu puffs,  , quail eggs, shrimp and blood cockles.  Blood cockles are not available here in NY,  so I used mussels instead.  A fragrant coconut curry broth is ladled over everything and the dish is served with a spicy sambal condiment.  This is my version from last Friday night:

This is a shot of the kitchen counter with everything laid out on it and ready to be assembled into individual servings.  From bottom to top - yellow noodles,  rice vermicelli noodles,  shrimp, fish tofu, fish balls and fish cakes,  quail eggs, beansprouts,  mussels, flowering chives and shredded chicken.

Here's a short video of a famous laksa shop in my hometown of Seremban called  Laksa Asia - the woman who runs the stall is my laksa inspiration if only for the fact that she has been serving consistently delicious, mouth-watering laksa at the same location for over thirty years.  A true laksa goddess - I wish I had the guts to go up to her and give her a hug!
In the second video,  you get a better look at what's inside her steaming cauldron - tofu puffs floating in the broth soak up all the yummy goodness of the curry broth.

And finally,  here's a picture of the laksa served at this famous local spot.  On the right,  there is a whole hard-boiled egg.  In the middle,  near the top,  is a slice of fish cake.  To the left of that are a couple of those mind-blowing fried tofu puffs - my absolute favorite!  In the foreground,  to the left are a few blood cockles - a shellfish found primarily in Asia.  In Malaysia,  these are called kerang.  I find that folks either love them or hate them - I LOVE them.  While the name "blood cockle" is off-putting,  it's just a description of the beautiful deep red color of these clams - there's nothing actually "bloody" about them.  I think we need to work on the branding of these delicious clams - perhaps if we called them "yummy cockles" instead,  more people would be inclined to taste them.  If you love clams, mussels and oysters,  my bet is that you will love these.  We can't get these here in Brooklyn so I sadly substitute with mussels instead. Back to the picture - see how the sambal is served? In a tiny little side dish perched on top of the soup spoon - brilliant!  Rice vermicelli and beansprouts are in the foreground to the right,  and yellow noodles can be seen peeking out of the broth at the very top of the picture next to the soup spoon.  Aaaahhhhhh,  all this describing of this bowl of laksa is making me crave a bowl right now - I need a reason to cook up a giant pot of laksa for another feast - who's hungry?