Mee Siam Goreng Recipe
Cook up the best mee siam goreng ever. Complete with explanations of ingredients from a former Singaporean chef and culinary instructor.
Ingredients
- 300 g dried rice vermicelli noodles
- room temperature water as needed for soaking noodles
- 200 g tofu
- 125 ml vegetable oil
- 200 g prawns
- 100 g beansprouts optional
- 60 g garlic chives (or regular chives or spring onions/scallions)
- 8 calamansi limes or 2 regular ones
Omelette
- 3 eggs whatever size
- ⅛ tsp salt
Spice Paste
- 10 dried red chillies or 10 fresh
- 60 g dried shrimp
- hot water, just off the boil, as needed for soaking
- 1 medium onion (about 120g/4 oz pre peeled weight)
- 4 garlic cloves (about 25g/1 oz)
Mee Siam Goreng Seasoning Sauce
- 2 heaped Tbsp tamarind pulp or 3 Tbsp shop bought paste
- 125 ml hot water (for the tamarind pulp)
- 2 heaped Tbsp taucheo
- 1 flat Tbsp tomato paste
- 1 Tbsp white sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 4 Tbsp dried shrimp soaking liquid
Instructions
Soak the Noodles
- Place your dried rice vermicelli into a large bowl and cover completely with room temperature water, as discussed in the article above.Leave to soak for 1 hour, while you get everything else ready.300 g dried rice vermicelli noodles, room temperature water as needed for soaking noodles
Soak the Chillies, Dried Shrimp and Tamarind
- Dried Chillies. Fill a kettle about half full and turn it on. Or completely full, depending on the size.Cut the dried red chillies into 2 -3 pieces with a pair of scissors straight into a bowl.10 dried red chillies, hot water, just off the boil, as needed for soaking
- Pour the hot water onto the dried chillies, cover, and soak for 20 minutes, or until needed, whichever is longer.
- Dried Shrimp. Give the dried shrimp a quick rinse and place in a bowl. Top with a generous amount of hot water (about ½ a cup) and leave to soak until needed, at least 15 minutes.60 g dried shrimp
- Tamarind. Place the tamarind pulp (if using) into a bowl, and top with 125 ml (½ cup) of hot water from the kettle. Leave to soak for 10 minutes, no need to cover.2 heaped Tbsp tamarind pulp, 125 ml hot water (for the tamarind pulp)
- At the end of 10 minutes, when it should be cool enough to handle, mash it all up with your fingers and fish out all the fibrous pulp and bits of shell, as much as you can.I prefer not to strain the tamarind juice, as you'll miss out on all the flavour if you do. The odd bit of pulp is perfectly fine.
Fry the Tofu
- Cut up the tofu into little pieces about 2.5cm (1in) long. See image/video.200 g tofu
- Heat the oil in a wok or deep frying pan (you'll be frying the noodles in the same wok/pan) on medium heat.125 ml vegetable oil
- Pat dry the tofu pieces with kitchen paper and tip carefully into the hot oil Be careful, tofu, no matter how much you pat dry, is still going to be wet.Fry for 1 minute on each side.
- Get the fried tofu out of the hot oil and place on a plate lined with kitchen paper.
Fry the Omelette
- Crack the eggs into a medium-sized bowl and add the salt.3 eggs, ⅛ tsp salt
- Whisk the eggs lightly with a fork, as you would when frying a regular omelette. No need to go crazy here.
- Heat 1 Tbsp of the tofu oil in a small frying pan (about 20cm/8in) and fry up 2 thin omelettes.
- Tip the cooked omelette onto a chopping board. When cool enough to handle, roll them up and slice into thin strips.Cover until needed, so they don't dry up.
Make the Spice Paste (Rempah)
- Drain the soaked chillies and give them a quick rinse, shaking out the seeds, if you like. Place them in a chopper or blender.
- Drain the soaked dried shrimp, saving the liquid, and add to the blender.
- Peel and quarter the onion and add to the blender, along with the peeled garlic.1 medium onion, 4 garlic cloves
- Blend everything to a smooth paste, scraping the sides, and adding a little soaked shrimp liquid if necessary.
The Seasoning Sauce
- Tip the taucheo into a medium-sized bowl and lightly mash with a fork. So some beans will be mashed, some will be whole or halved.2 heaped Tbsp taucheo
- Add the rest of the seasoning ingredients and mix well. Set aside until needed.1 flat Tbsp tomato paste, 1 Tbsp white sugar, ½ tsp salt, 4 Tbsp dried shrimp soaking liquid
Let's Cook our Mee Siam Goreng
- Heat the tofu oil in the same wok or deep frying pan on medium heat and fry the spice paste for at least 10 minutes, preferably 15.Reduce the heat to medium-low after 3 minutes.This is a very important step to get the best mee siam goreng. The spice paste is full of flavour and cooking it for this long period of time deepens the flavour and takes away the rawness of the paste.10 minutes is the minimum time you should be cooking it for. At 10 minutes, the spice paste would have lost its raw flavour and you can move on with the recipe.But going the whole 15 minutes will further deepen the flavour and your mee siam will thank you for it.Reduce the heat to low if your paste is catching too much (burning). You have to stir it pretty much continuously in the last 5 minutes or so to stop it from burning.
- Add the mee siam seasoning sauce and mix well. Cook for 1 minute on medium heat.
- Add the prawns and beansprouts (if using) and mix well. Cook the prawns for about 2 minutes until they are practically cooked. The odd tiny bit of rawness is fine here.200 g prawns, 100 g beansprouts
- Tip in the soaked and drained noodles. Using 2 spatulas and a lifting motion, mix everything up, coating the noodles with the spice paste/seasoning mix.I'm using cooking chopsticks and a spatula. Cooking chopsticks are much longer than regular ones.
- Cook the noodles for 5 minutes, lifting and mixing.Now we need to check for 2 things: the flavour and the doneness of the noodles.Taste your noodles and add more salt if necessary, or the shrimp liquid, as this will be salty.Check the texture of the noodles. They want to be cooked but still with a tiny bit of bite to them, kind of like al dente pasta. If your noodles are still pretty raw in texture, add 2-3 Tbsp of the shrimp liquid, mix and cook for another 3-5 minutes until they are done.If we had soaked our noodles in hot/warm water, the noodles will take no more than a minute to cook but they will be broken up and will also get stodgy if they cook even slightly longer than necessary.
- Finish off with a squeeze of fresh lime juice. 2-4 calamondins or 1 regular lime is perfect for this. Depends on how much you love lime juice on noodles. I use 4.8 calamansi limes
- Leave to rest for 5 minutes, while you chop the chives or spring onions into 5cm (2in) lengths.Then drape the top of your noodles with the strips of omelette. Or "throw" them over haphazardly.Scatter the chopped Chinese chives (or regular) or spring onions all over and serve with the rest of the calamondin limes or regular lime wedges and sambal.60 g garlic chives
Nutrition
Calories: 535kcalCarbohydrates: 57gProtein: 34gFat: 25gSaturated Fat: 4gPolyunsaturated Fat: 14gMonounsaturated Fat: 7gTrans Fat: 0.2gCholesterol: 374mgSodium: 856mgPotassium: 321mgFiber: 3gSugar: 6gVitamin A: 519IUVitamin C: 7mgCalcium: 203mgIron: 4mg
Tried this recipe?Mention @azlinbloor or tag #linsfood!
Made it? Upload your Photos!Mention @azlinbloor or tag #linsfood!