indonesian meal of the month

for the past month, i've been contemplating whether or not i should dedicate a weekly post on my attempts at making various indonesian cuisine...after all, i should know how to make a few dishes since that is my home country. initially, i thought it would be a grand idea to do weekly posts, but at the risk of being overly ambitious i've decided to start with once a month. here we go...

this month's meal: bakmi goreng (stir-fried noodles)

i don't recall where i initially found my recipe since i found it a number of years back. i think this one is pretty close to the way i make it, except i don't use the regular soy sauce in there at all.

here are the ingredients i used for this meal:

• 1 lb. fresh chinese egg noodles
• 1/2 onion, chopped
  
• 3-4 garlic gloves
• 10 "asian" meatballs ("baso" in indonesian)
  
• some veggies-i used 1 chopped carrot, chopped bock choy, 1/2 of a yellow pepper, 3 green onions
• 1 tsp. shrimp paste
  
• about 2 tsp. sweet soy sauce
• salt and pepper to taste

now that they've opened park to shop asian grocery store, i've been able to find ingredients that i didn't easily have access to before. that's where i found the egg noodles, shrimp paste and the "asian" meatballs. the first time i made it, i didn't have any shrimp paste, so i think that part can be optional.



the sweet soy sauce is called "kecap manis" in indonesian. park to shop grocery store only sells the ABC brand. personally, i don't like the flavor of the ABC brand and only use the Cap Bango brand (it's also the one i've grown up with so perhaps i'm a bit biased). unfortunately, Cap Bango brand is harder to find so i either have to put in a request to family visiting us from seattle, bring it back with us when we go to indonesia, or order it online. kecap manis is also nice to have for fried rice. tyler LOVES to use it when we make fried rice...almost to the point where there's more sauce than rice. if you're in a pinch and don't have any on hand, i think a combination of soy sauce and molasses should work.

the great part about any type of stir-fry food is that you can pretty much use what ever meat and veggies you have on hand. if you don't want to use the meatballs, you can use any other type of meat you want, or even tofu. ty had specifically requested using the meatballs, and since he'll soon be leaving for the summer i thought i'd give him his meatball fix before he leaves.

the whole meal took me about 35 minutes, including prep time, and there was plenty left over for emma and i to enjoy it for lunch.