One of the indulgences that I occasionally partake of are two minute noodles, and Mi-Goreng are my first choice. They are quick and easy to prepare, cheap to buy and I like the flavour, especially with a few extra storables thrown in. They can make a meal at almost any time and in almost any circumstances. What I don’t like is the level of packaging!
There is an outer wrap on each set of five packs and then each pack has its own separate wrap. Once you open it up there are five seasoning pouches: the flavour powder and fried onion garnish in one set of two pouches and another three pouch set with hot sauce, sweet soy sauce and seasoning oil inside. Add it all up and that is an awful lot of packaging to make one feed for one person!
I wondered if there were a way of being able to enjoy my favourite noodles but reduce the packaging. So I did a bit of research, and this is what I came up with -
1. The noodles – There are several types of noodle packs on the market that give you ten noodle cakes in a single package, particularly around here are ‘Ayam’ brand and ‘Fantastic Noodle’ brand. These were a good place to start.
2. The flavour powder – It turns out that there are a number of chicken stock (Boullion) powders on the market that, according to the ‘net, can stand in for the flavour powder. I grabbed the one that was available (Massell) to give that a try. It was only after I bought it that I thought I could have used my own homemade stock powder, next time for sure!
3. The fried onion garnish – I did not bother with this one, I have read you can use onion soup mix, make them yourself or just buy a premade jar or pack from Woolies, but I am ok without it.
4. The soy sauce pouch – from what I read this is ketjap manis, a thick and sweet Indonesian soy sauce, which we already use – Winner!
5. The hot sauce pouch – I have read that this can be substituted with sriracha, so I bought a small bottle of that.
6. The oil pouch – Again this is something I do not use so I didn’t bother to try and reproduce it, although I have read it can be replaced with a mix of sesame oil, fried shallots cooked in a neutral oil, and a dash of soy sauce or dark soy sauce.
The next trick was to work out exactly how much of each component goes into the mix and I did this by making up a batch of noodles and then weighing the components in by difference ie weigh each sachet, squeeze or tap out the ingredient, then re-weigh the sachet to see how much has been used. Using this method I worked out –
- Flavour powder – 5 grams
- Kepjap manis – 3 grams
- Sriracha – 2 grams
That was the theory, this was the practice –
The way I make the noodles is to soak the noodles themselves in boiling water along with any other additives, which in my case is usually peas (frozen), corn kernels (canned) and spam (yeah, I know!). All of this is placed in the bowl, the boiling water applied and a plate placed on top to keep the heat in. Once the noodles are softened (eight to ten minutes) I pour off the water and add in the condiments, mix with a fork and we are ready to eat!
I worked to the script, added in 6 grams of flavour powder and then had an ‘oops’ moment with the ketjap manis and in went 13 grams instead of 3, then got the sriracha spot on at 2 grams.
While it was not identical with the standard Mi Goreng, it tasted OK, with perhaps a bit much ketjap manis! The experiments continue but, by and large, I shall chalk this one up as a success!
Practice Two
This one was similar to my first go at things, but with three notable differences –
1. I got hold of some fried onions/shallots to use as a garnish,
2. I would use my own home-made flavour powder (recipe here), and
3. I would reduce the ketjap manis to a bit more manageable level
And the results are (drum roll):
Well, it wasn’t quite that easy….. The homemade stock powder is based on nutritional yeast flakes, that are……… flakes not powder so I had to run the stock powder through my spice grinder so it became a fine powder that would disperse easily through the noodles.
In the end though, I gotta say that it tasted OK, and the fried shallots were a nice, crunchy and tasty addition.
While Mi Goreng will never be a part of my staple diet, being able to have them occasionally with a reduced impact on my conscience, not to mention the environment, is a good thing (for me at least!)
