Fried Mee Hoon or Chow Mien for PPN 100!!

Firstly, congratulations to my dear friend Ruth over at Once Upon a Feast who celebrates her 100th Presto Pasta Nights this Friday. Hooray!!!



What I'm bringing to this 100th Feast of Pasta is a very Malaysian noodle dish that The Lovely Wife made for my son's birthday back in November last year. See? Keeping old posts sometimes has its benefits!!



Now whats a lovely dish without a good story to go with it right?

Chow Mien is the generic Chinese name for any fried noodles. I've known this for a long time. How long I've known this has a point - it really does!

Now have you noticed that in a lot of American movies, every time they order Chinese, they will order Chicken Chowww Meeean? I changed the spelling to how I would hear it pronounced. Oddly enough though, I never knew they were talking about Fried Noodles with Chicken and I always wondered what this exotic Chinese dish was that we could never get in Malaysia.

One day, the Lovely Wife and I were watching some movie on telly and the lady in the movie asked the man to make sure he got some Chicken Chowwww Meeean for takeaway. The Lovely Wife remarked that she would love to try this Chicken Chowww Meeean and suddenly I felt like I had been hit by a bolt of lightning and bells started going of in my head. Quick as a flash I realised it was Chicken Chow Mien!

Without blinking an eye, I raised my eyebrows at her and replied rather haughtily (with a 'don't you know anything' look) - "Noodles with chicken! Chow Mien! You know, Fried Noodles" - as if I had known all along. The Lovely Wife felt rather sheepish and so I confessed that "Yes, I only just realised it, I too wondered what it was for many years." See, I'm really not that bad a person....

So anyway, this lovely Fried Mee Hoon (Mee Hoon is thin noodles or vermicelli) was made by The Lovely Wife and this is what she does:

Ingredients:
1 packet Mee Hoon (sorry, dont know the weight or size)
6 dried chillies
5 cloves garlic - chopped
1 chicken breast - cut into strips
10 dried taufoo (bean curd) - cut into strips
2 firm taufoo - cubed
1/2 cabbage - cut into strips
2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1/2 Tbsp Dark Soy Sauce
3 Eggs

Method
Blend the chillies with a little oil to form a paste. Fry this paste with the garlic until fragrant. Add in the chicken and cook well. Add in the taufoo and allow to simmer. Throw in the cabbage and mix well and then add in the Soy Sauces. Stir in the noodles until well coated. Add more sauce to taste if required.

Whisk the eggs together until smooth and then fry like an omellete. Cut the egg into strips and sprinkle over the noodles.



These noodles go really well with Birds Eye chillies in a little soy sauce - that is a typical Malaysian 'additive' to fried noodles and fried rice!



This dish is so versatile that you can use prawns, beef or any other meat as an ingredient. Throwing in some beansprouts or other vegetables would also go really well!

Fusion Vol-au-Vents - Royal Foodie Joust

It's been a while since I took part in the Royal Foodie Joust with my last entry being in October 2008. I'm back though for the February Joust where the ingredients are rather simple with
Mushrooms
Cauliflower and
Noodles

My initial thought was to make a noodle dish or pasta dish. Then I thought this would be what most everyone would do so I left that idea on the back burner. We had some friends over for dinner on Chinese New Year Eve and while thinking of the menu, I hit upon the idea of Fusion Vol-au-Vents!



I used fish, cauliflower, oyster mushrooms, button mushrooms, spinach and cream for the filling and then topped it off with thin rice noodles (or mee suah) tosssed in a little olive oil.

This is what I did.

Ingredients:
1 pack ready rolled Puff Pastry
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp oregano
1 fillet of Dory (about 200g)
1 bunch of spinach
200g button Mushrooms
200g oyster mushrooms
1 small head of cauliflower - cut into small florettes
1/2 cup cream
50 g rice noodles
Soy Sauce
Salt
Black Pepper

Method
Make pastry shells by cutting out two circles of puff pastry and then cut a smaller circle into one of the circles to form a ring. Place the ring over the first circle and press firmly. Use some egg wash if you like. With the circles that are cut out, you then then roll them out again to maximise the use of the pastry sheets. Bake in 200C oven till nicely puffed up and then let them dry out a while in the cooling oven.
Meanwhile make the filling. Fry the chopped garlic until soft. Throw in the oregano and give it a good stir. Then add in the cubed fish and stir fry quickly. Remove the fish and set aside. Sautee the the sliced button mushrooms and oyster mushrooms until tender. Throw in the cauliflower and cook till softened. Add in the fish and season with salt and black pepper. Allow to simmer. Meanhwile, boil the spinach and chop finely. Add the spinach to the fish mixture together with the cream. Mix well and allow to simmer till almost dry but still moist.
Before serving, fill the pastry shells with the filling and reheat in oven for about 10 mins. While reheating, soften the noodles in hot water and toss with a little soy sauce. Add to the top of the vol-au-vents just prior to serving.



These were a hit at our dinner party and as I normally do with Vol-au-Vents, I made two sizes. I liked the lightly flavoured soy sauce noodles on top as it gave it an interesting texture.

Yee Mee - Cantonese Style Noodles

One of the great things about Malaysian food is its multicultural-ity (yeah, I know there's probably no such word but who cares - you get what I mean). You get so many different kinds of food that you sometimes dont know where to start - or where to stop for that matter!
One thing that the kids love are noodles. Oodles of Noodles! And that is one thing that we have an abundance of in this country. Lots and lots and lots of different kinds of noodles. One of our favourites is the Cantonese Style Yee Mee. Mee (or Min) is the chinese word for Noodles and Yee Mee is a particular kind of noodle that is fried to make it crispy before covering or smothering it in sauce - but the noodles are still sort of crispy-ish . You can get the prepacked, prefried variety
at supermarkets.


Last Saturday, my wife made her own version of Cantonese Yee Mee. We normally just go down to the local hawker or chinese shop and order this as its cheap and yummy but we all know there is nothing better than home cooked food don't we. Especially since it wont be laden with MSG!

The version you normally get in the shops uses pork, prawns and squid but my wife uses loads and loads of fishballs, taufoo (beancurd) and chicken strips. Cantonese Yee Mee has an egg sauce as its base and is slightly soupy before the noodles soak up all the lovely sauce.

There's no real recipe to this as its all just a matter of taste really. Also you can add in as much ingredients as you like. Use Prawns, Chicken, Pork, whatever you like basically. This is the general idea

Ingredients:

1 packet Yee Mee (usually makes 5 servings)
4 cloves garlic - chopped
300g Chicken Fillet - cut into strips
200g fishballs
100g Dried Taufoo
1 bunch Mustard Leaves (Daun Sawi) - cut into large pieces
Corn Flour for thickening
Light Soya Sauce
Water
2 Eggs - beaten

Method:
Fry the garlic. Add the chicken and fry till cooked. Add in fishballs, taufoo and mix well till cooked. Add in mustard leaves and stir till wilted. Add in Soya Sauce and about 2 cups water to form a sauce to taste. Add some corn flour mixed with a little water to thicken. Ensure there is enough sauce to cover and soak the noodles. Bring to a boil.


Add in beaten eggs and stir quickly. Add in the noodles and spoon the sauce over it to cover the noodles completely and soften it.


Its delicious. Especially eaten with some Chilli Padi (Birds Eye Chillis).


This is a closeup of the birds eye chilli


My son loves his noodles as you can well see!


This is also my entry for Presto Pasta Nights hosted by my friend Ruth at Once Upon a Feast. She did say it didn't have to be Italian Pasta and any kind of Pasta/Noodles will do!! Hope you enjoy it.