← Nouns Cooking · Malaysian & Singaporean

Ingredients

• 400 g orange sweet potato, peeled and cubed
• 300 g beef brisket or chuck, cut into 2 cm cubes
• 1.5 l Water
• 30 g Dried shrimp, soaked 10 minutes in warm water and drained
• 8 Dried chillies, soaked and drained
• 6 Shallot
• 3 cloves Garlic
• 2 cm piece Galangal
• 1 stick lemongrass stalk, sliced
• 2 tbsp Fermented soybean paste (taucu / tau cheo), mashed
• 1 tbsp Curry powder
• 4 tbsp Vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp palm sugar or brown sugar
• 1 tsp Salt
• 600 g fresh yellow noodles (mee kuning)
• 200 g Bean sprouts, blanched
• 4 Eggs, hard-boiled and halved
• 4 fried tofu cubes, sliced
• 2 Green chilli, sliced
• 4 calamansi or 2 limes, halved
• 2 tbsp Crispy fried shallots
• 2 spring onions or Chinese celery, chopped

Method

1. Put the beef and water in a pot, bring to the boil, skim off any scum, then simmer gently for 40 min until tender. Add the sweet potato for the last 15 min, until it is very soft.
2. Meanwhile, blend the dried shrimp, dried chillies, shallots, garlic, galangal and lemongrass with a little water into a smooth paste.
3. Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat and fry the paste for 6–8 min, stirring, until it darkens and the oil separates. Stir in the taucu and curry powder for 1 minute.
4. Lift the sweet potato out of the broth, mash it until smooth (or blend with a ladle of broth) and stir it back in with the fried paste, palm sugar and salt.
5. Simmer the gravy for 10 min, stirring often so it does not catch, until it is thick enough to coat a spoon. Taste: it should be gently sweet, savoury and mildly spicy.
6. Blanch the noodles and bean sprouts in boiling water for 30 seconds and drain. Divide between bowls and ladle over plenty of hot gravy with some beef.
7. Top with egg halves, tofu, green chilli, fried shallots and spring onion, with calamansi to squeeze over.

Tips

• If the gravy thickens too much as it sits, loosen it with a splash of hot water; it should pour like thick soup.
• Contains wheat (noodles), soy and shellfish (dried shrimp). Chicken works instead of beef; simmer it for 25 min.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

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