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 :)

Fragrant Pork Bone Soup with Winter Melon and Pandan Leaves

Last month during the lunch time at Church, my friend, Yuth made this delicious pork bone soup. It was so light, yet very fragrant and flavorful, I ate 2 bowls of them...haha. I asked him what ingredients did he use for the soup? "secret" he said...later on he told me that his secret ingredients was the pandan leaves and also he didn't use ginger for the soup.
I always love winter melon, I think it's the best match for Chinese pork bone soup. Sadly, I almost chop off my finger one day while trying to cut the hard skin of winter melon...and I haven't cook winter melon again ever since. Yuth told me his tips to cut the winter melon, so instead of trying to cut the hard skin, he told me to use peeler to shave off the skin. I tried it and it was so easy!! I wish I knew this tips earlier, so I can enjoy my favorite winter melon more. So, here's my version of the soup. Yuth only used 1 pandan leaves and he used cilantro on his soup. I skip the cilantro and use more pandan leaves.

Ingredients,
1 pack of pork short rib, chopped
5 pandan leaves
1 bucket of cut winter melon
1 handful of garlic, crush.
salt & white pepper
3 pinch of sugar

Cooking Method,

1. Wash the pork bone and soaked them in cold water for 20 minutes to drain the bloods. If you are in hurry, you can omit this step.
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 water to the pot.
5. Boil the water with the pork bone in it one more time. Use High temperature
6. Add the pandan leaves and garlic into the pot.

7. Season with salt, white pepper and sugar.

8. After the soup is boiling, turn down the heat to simmer. Cook with the lid close for 1 hour.

9. After 1 hour, add the winter melon, the continue to simmer for another 30 minutes.

10. The soup is ready when the short rib and winter melon turn soft. The pork meat should be easily fall from the bone when poke with fork.

Braised Pork Belly with 梅乾菜

This is another recipe that I learn from hubby's grandma. I still remember when the first time I ate it at hubby's grandparent house, Grandma said "you are Hakanese right? this is Haka people's food". In Indonesia, my family called this food "Babi Hong" in Chinese restaurant in Indonesia, usually they cut the pork belly very wide and thin. When hubby's grandparent cooked it, they cut it into cubed. The meat cut is really up to one's preference.
I still remember that Grandma was trying to telling me the recipe in Chinese, and I was't familiar with the Chinese term of the ingredients and she got frustrated and said "aiii...ni bu dong lah!" (ahh...you don't understand!). Later on, I learned that sheng jiang means ginger.
This dish is so delicious, you need to cook it for a long time to make the meat very tender. When you cook it long enough, the meat should just melt in your mouth...oh so good! Usually it required 3 hours to cook it to perfection. Constant checking on the pot is very important, we don't want it to get burn.
I burn a pot before when I leave at the apartment, and my apartment was filled with smoke...I still remember the noise of the smoke alarm!! sigh...that's why now I prefer to cook them in a slow cooker. It's the lazy way of cooking...hehe...I can put it on the slow cooker, and it would cook overnight. Then the next morning I'll wake up to the delicious tender meat.

Ps. This dish required to use fatty pork belly with skin attached.

Ingredients,
1 pack of pork belly, sliced. Because I'm using slow cooker, I sliced my meat thick, it's 2 fingers thick.
hard boiled eggs, peeled (optional)
mei gan chai / preserved Chinese vegetable (look at the picture above). Soaked in hot water for one hour, then rinse for 3 times.
Sesame oil

Sauce Ingredients,
1 handful of garlic, crushed
6 stalk of green onion, sliced medium length
4 thumb ginger, sliced medium thickness
3/4 cup Chinese cooking wine
1 cup light soy sauce
2/3 cup soy sauce paste / thick soy sauce
10 pinch of sugar

Cooking Method,

1. Heat a large pan, drizzle generous amount of sesame oil

2. When the oil is hot, add green onions, garlic and ginger. Using medium high heat, stir the ingredients until it fragrant.

3. Add the pork, stir fry until the pork half cooked and turn slightly brownish

4. Add the cooking rice wine, soy sauce, thick soy sauce and sugar

4. Mix the sauce and the meat well, then transfer them into a slow cooker and add 2 cups of water

 5. Put the hard boiled eggs and mei gan chai on top of the meat, then close the slow cooker lid. I put it to cook on 10 hours low heat

6. After 2 hours, I flipped the eggs so it would be nicely browned, then pour some of the sauce on top of the mei gan chai again. 

7. Let it cook overnight, then you will wake up to a delicious braised pork belly, ready to be enjoy with warm steam rice.