Mie Goreng: Makan-makan!

Food coma in Solo, Central Java (top left); just a regular Tuesday night dinner at my house (bottom left);
breakfast of champions (right)

There are two things about Indonesia that always fascinates my BFF (boyfriend forever i.e. husband), M. The first is obviously the surfing, which unfortunately he doesn't get to do much in the landlocked country of Switzerland... :( Anyway that's another story... The second is the simplicity of the language, at least compared to German which we have been struggling with for a year. No grammar, no tenses, no gender, no conjugation. But the best thing is that a plural noun is just the single noun repeated twice. Like 'anak' is a child, 'anak-anak' means children. His favourite words are those that are already repeated in a single form (spider = laba-laba, spiders = laba-laba-laba-laba...?).



The word to eat (=makan), when 'pluralised' into makan-makan means the favourite past time of Indonesians: feasting! Seriously Indonesians love eating!! But thanks to some good genes, they are always so skinny! I on the other hand, share the love of food that most Indos do as well... but after changing diets when moving to Australia (I blame Nutellas in boarding school), somewhere along the line I've lost my Asian skinny genes and adopted the fresher-ten genes which never really seemed to go away even after I finish my degree and got a job... (FYI: the fresher-ten is the 10 kilos you put on in your fresher year)

Anyway,what I love about Indonesian food is the variety of it. Every meal is about sharing it with friends and family, sitting through the whole meal, and having at least 3-4 dishes of lauk-pauk (curries, stir fries, side dishes) with nasi putih (white rice). The first time I had dinner at my boarding school in Armidale back in Oz, I was shocked to learn all I was getting at each meal was just pasta and meat sauce. I'm like... where is the rest???


Whenever M and I go to Asian restaurants, my Indo-ness comes out and I always feel the desire to order 4-5 dishes even if it's only for the two of us. And of course, we never end up finishing all of it. But seriously, I blame my my Indo upbringing for making me a food snob! But when you grow up having cheap food, and eating meals like these... it's seriously hard to expect any less than at least 3 types of food in one sitting... :)


Anyway, since being in Switzerland, I have yet to find an Indonesian restaurant, makes me pretty homesick. So when I saw this list of the Top 40 best Indonesian food on CNNGO, I knew what I wanted to do... my own little Indo-food Julie/Julia experiment and cook every single one of them during my stay here in Zurich.


Soooo here is the first one... number 10 on the list... my version of Mie Goreng. I know the Indomie Mie Goreng are only 70cents a pack, but I think the MSGs might get to you after a while... The best thing about mie goreng is that you can put as little or as much meat/veg as you like. The idea is to use whatever you have leftover in your pantry and try to be creative with it!

Mie Goreng (fried noodles, for 2 starving people with lots of leftovers for tomorrow's lunch*)
Prep time: 10-15 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes
A pack of egg noodles (fresh if possible)
2 cloves of garlic
1 piece of shallot
1 chili, deseeded (alternatively you can use sambal oelek**)
200g of chicken / beef / tofu
3-5 tbsp of Kecap Manis^ (THE GOOD STUFF!)
1 white onion
Vegetables, diced/sliced (I normally use either capsicum, carrot, bean sprout or whatever is available in the fridge)
Peanut oil, for frying
Eggs, fried or sunny side up, for decoration


Make sure you have all your ingredients chopped up and ready to go, so you can cook everything quickly.

1. Crush up the garlic, shallots, sambal oelek and/or chilli together in a food processor - or to be more authentic and get a bit of work out crush them with a mortar and pestle - way more fun!!
2. Heat up the peanut oil in a large wok and fry the garlic/shallots/chili/sambal oelek mix.
3. Open the windows in your kitchen because the smell of fried chili can be pretty stingy on the nose and eyes.
4. Add the onions into the wok and sautee until soft. 
5. Add the beef/chicken/tofu into the wok with pour in the Kecap Manis liberally, and watch the dark sauce gets soaked into the meat darkening them. Keep frying until they are cooked. Yum. 
6. Soak egg noodles in hot water for a couple of minutes, drain
7. Add the noodles into wok and stir fry for another couple of minutes. Don't leave it too long, otherwise the noodles get really soggy. 
8. Serve topped with your fried eggs.

* if you intend to heat up leftovers mie goreng at your work's microwave and work in a small office, you might want to tone down the garlic a bit. For some reason the beautiful fragrance of garlic which fills up the kitchen have a totally different effect in the office... And I'm speaking from experience... Fact.

Kecap manis

** Sambal oelek is an Indonesian chili paste containing chili, salt and vinegar or lime. Available at most chain grocery stores, normally in a jar. 

^ Kecap manis is truly the key of Indonesian cooking, in my opinion at least. It's a thick, dark and sweet soy sauce. You can buy this in most Asian grocery stores. In Australia they are pretty much in every supermarket under the Asian food section. In Switzerland I found this gem of a website, which sells Indonesian ingredients for pretty cheap (by Swiss standards), www.pasar-indonesia.ch. Anyway there are heaps of brands around, but try to get your hands on Kecap Manis ABC brand!