Mie Babi Jamur Bakso / Egg Noodle Soup with Pork, Mushroom and Meatball

Mie ayam bakso / Egg noodle with chicken and meatball is a very famous dish in Indonesia. Most of the noodle shop own by Chinese immigrant, but other than that we have a lot of hawker style or cheaper version of this noodle too...you can find the noodle cart almost everywhere in Indonesia.
My mom used to have a noodle shop, she sold pork noodle and chicken noodle as well...she made her own noodle, it was a family recipe she got from her parents, my mom also made her home made wonton. I remember her deep fried wonton was crazy delicious!!

 I was craving for that kind of noodle and trying to re-create the dish, this is my second attempt making this dish.  Previously I made this dish with the dried wonton skin and fried meatball (look at picture below), too bad my fried meatball was too tough...lol...I have to try to make the fried meatball again, once I hit the perfection, I'll share the recipe here :)

So, they are 4 components of this dish that need to be cook separately: the meat, noodle, vegetable and the soup.

THE SOUP,

Ingredients,
8 cups of water
1 pack of pork bone
7 cloves garlic, crush and chop finely
a bunch of green onion (about 7 stalks), slice thinly
1/2 tsp white pepper
3 tsp sugar
3.5 tsp salt
1 pack of beef meatballs (I like to use meatball with tendon)

Cooking Method,
1. Wash the pork bone and soaked them in cold water for 20 minutes to drain the bloods.

2. Boil water on a big pot.

3. Put the pork bone into the boiling water, let it boil for 15 to 20 minutes. Then you'll see the foam rise to the water surface. We don't want those dirty stuff.

4. Throw out the dirty water, rinse the pork bone one more time, rinse the pot, and put new 8 cups water to the pot.

5. Use high temperature, it it boil then low the heat to simmer. Simmer the bone for at least 3 hours or until the meat fall apart from the bone and the broth turn milky. Add more water to retain the 8 cups amount of broth.

6. Take away all the bones, and meat until you got clean broth.

7. Add the green onions, garlic, white pepper, salt and sugar. Bring to boil one more time, then add the meatballs. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary. 

THE MEAT,

Ingredients,
1.7 lbs ground pork
1 can string mushroom
1 handful garlic, smash and chop finely
3 tbs sweet soy sauce
1.5 tbs oyster sauce
2 tbs fish sauce
2 tbs soy sauce
1/2 tsp
salt, as needed.
Olive oil

Cooking Method,
1. Heat a pan, drizzle some olive oil on it.
2. When the oil is hot, add the garlic

3. Stir fry the garlic until fragrant and wilted, but not brown. Then add the meat

4. Stir the meat until it half cooked, then add all the seasoning. When the meat cooked thoroughly, add the mushroom and mix well

5. Set aside the cooked meat 

THE GREEN VEGETABLE,
Ingredients,
one big bunch of green vegetable, cut into 4 lenghwise

Cooking Method,
1. Cut the green vegetable and rinse 3 times

2. Divide the green vegetable into 2 part, the leaves and the other bottom half (the leaves cook faster). Boil the quickly and then set aside.

THE NOODLE,

Ingredients,

Wonton noodle / thick egg noodle

sesame oil

sweet soy sauce

Cooking Method,

1. Open the noodle from the knot, then boil them on boiling water until cook (follow the instruction of the packaging).

2. Drain the noodle, then drizzle some sesame oil and sweet soy sauce on the bowl. 

3. Add the individual potion into the bowl and mix the noodle with the sesame oil and the sweet soy sauce

SERVING,

place the boil vegetable and meat on top of the noodle. I like to have the meatballs and the soup on separate bowl, some people like to pour the soup into the noodle bowl...it's all up to one's personal preference :)

Simple Japchae

Japchae is Korean stir fry starch noodle with vegetable, seasoned with sesame oil and soy sauce. Usually it will have spinach, carrot, and mushroom as well, but today I'm making a very simple one. The japchae I cooked today only using onion, green onion and beef with the noodle, it's a lot more simple and easy to make compare to the original version. This japchae remind me of the Korean TV series, City Hunter, where the main character only eat japchae with beef and no vegetable at all.
The preparation of this noodle is rather unique, instead of frying all the ingredients together, we boil the noodle, then stir fry all the component separately.
This recipe was adapted from Maangchi's japchae recipe. She's the master of Korean food!

Ingredients,

1 lb (450gr) Korean starch noodle

1 big onion, slice thinly

7 green onion, slice crosswise

1 pack rib eye (around 0.8 lb) or sliced beef

1 handful of garlic, crush and chop finely

roasted sesame seed (optional)

3 pinch of sugar

soy sauce

sesame oil

olive oil

Cooking Method,

1. Boil water in a pot, then put the noodle and cook around 3 minutes or until it cooked.

2. Drain the noodle, then put the noodle into a big bowl and cut them with scissor.

3. Add 2 tbs of sesame oil and 5 tbs of light soy sauce.

4. Heat some olive oil on a pan, stir fry the onion until wilted and turn transparent, then put it on the big bowl with the noodle.

5. Heat some olive oil on the pan, stir fry the green onion for one minute, then add them to the big bowl.

6.Heat more olive oil on the pan, add the garlic, stir until fragrant

7. Add the beef, 3 tbs soy sauce and 2 pinch of sugar. Stir until the beef cooked, then transfer them into the big bowl.

8. Add some roasted sesame seeds if you like

9. Add another 2 tbs of sesame oil and soy sauce to season, mix them well. Somehow, whenever I season this type of noodle, I always end up using large amount of soy sauce...and no, they don't taste salty! :)

10. This dish best serve with kimchi <3