Mee Rebus

Ingredients:

• 1½ lb fresh yellow egg (chow mein noodles)
• 6 cups beef stock
• 2-4 small sweet potatoes, peeled, cooked and mashed
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• Salt to taste

Items in red to be ground or blended

• 2 tbsp or to taste, chili paste
• 20 shallots
• 3 candlenuts
• 1 tbsp coriander powder
• ½ inch turmeric root
• 1 inch fresh galangal

Garnishing :

• 10 shallots, thinly sliced and fried golden brown
• 4 pre-fried tofu [soy bean cakes], cut into small cubes
• 4 cups bean sprouts, briefly blanched
• 3-4 hard boiled eggs, cut in wedges
• 2 potatoes, peeled boiled, sliced
• 2-3 dried squids, reconstituted in water or fresh squid cleaned, boiled and cut into rings or bite size
• 4-6 prawn fritters or crackers, fried and broken into small pieces
• 4 fresh red Serrano chilies, thinly sliced [optional]
• 3-4 limau kasturi* [kalamansi limes], cut into halves [Substitute: kaffir or key limes, cut into small wedges]

Preparation:

• Using a mortar & pestle or blender, grind chili paste, shallots, candlenuts, turmeric root, galangal into a paste, add coriander powder
• Heat pot on med, add heat vegetable oil, sauté paste till quite toasted, color darkens - be careful not to burn!
• Add about 5½ cups of beef stock, bring to a boil
• Gradually add the mashed sweet potato to the stock, until a gravy-like consistency is reached
• Add salt to taste, reduce heat to low, simmer gently 8-10 mins, maintain a thick gravy-like consistency, add more mashed sweet potato if gravy is too thin or more beef stock if the gravy is too thick, keep gravy hot on low-med heat, for serving
• In another pot, bring about 6 cups of water to a boil, for blanching bean sprouts and warming up noodles
• Assemble individual soup-plates - using a sieve, blanch a handful of bean sprouts in the hot water, dish into a soup-plate, next put a serving portion of noodles in the sieve, dunk in the hot water briefly to warm up and top it on the bean sprouts
• Ladle piping hot gravy over the noodles
• Top with a little of each garnishing, and a lime half - to squeeze just before eating!