I had spare lo mein noodles and wanted to see if I could heart health-ify Yotam Ottolenghi’s Mee Goreng recipe. (Ottolenghi’s cookbook, Plenty, was one of our pre-heart attack favorites.) Mee Goreng is an Indonesian dish, but I thought it had enough in common with Chinese cooking that we could cobble something together with pantry ingredients.
I have a kindergartener who doesn’t do “spicy” at all, so I omitted all the spice from this recipe. However, a teaspoon of a spicy sauce like sambal oelek or sriracha would definitely add a ton of great flavor.
This is a “meat on the side” dish, if you want to incorporate plant-based protein without entirely sacrificing the meat. I love tofu because it’s so versatile, and it absorbs the flavor of whatever sauce you put it in. Tofu is a common ingredient in Asian cuisine, and it works great as a protein in Asian dishes.
This Mee Goreng recipe can be entirely vegetarian if you just omit the shrimp.
Mee Goreng
Ingredients
- 8 ounces lo mein noodles (or any other type of Asian egg noodles)
- 8 ounces firm tofu
- 12 ounces uncooked jumbo shrimp
- 1 tablespoon canola oil (or other neutral-flavored oil)
- ½ cup finely chopped shallots
- 2 green onions (chopped)
- 1 teaspoon ground coriander
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- 1½ cups shredded lettuce
- 1½ cups mung bean sprouts
Sauce Ingredients:
- 2 teaspoon hoisin sauce
- 2 teaspoon low-sodium soy sauce
- 2 teaspoon ketchup
- ¼ cup water
Instructions
- So the first thing you want to do is press all the water out of your tofu. Put a big pile of paper towels on top of a cutting board, and lay the entire block of tofu on top of it. Put more paper towels on top of the tofu and weigh the whole thing down with a frying pan or some other heavy thing. Let it sit there for about 20 minutes before cutting the tofu into strips.
- Stir together the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside for later.
- Run the noodles under hot water. Most likely, running the noodles under hot water is all you'll need to do to loosen them up since they are already cooked. If not, boil a pot of water and let the noodles soak for 3 to 4 minutes. Set the noodles aside.
- Peel and rinse the shrimp
- Lightly spray a skillet with nonstick spray. Heat the skillet over medium heat and cook the shrimp; set aside.
- Spray the skillet with nonstick spray again. Cook the tofu over medium heat until most sides are lightly browned. Be gentle with tofu! Chopsticks and metal spatulas are ideal tools for gently turning the tofu chunks.
- Set the cooked tofu aside with the shrimp.
- Heat the canola oil (or any other neutral-tasting oil) in a skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the shallots and garlic until fragrant.
- Stir in the cumin and coriander and cook for another minute.
- Stir in the noodles and the sauce; stir until noodles are fully coated in the sauce.
- Stir in the tofu, shrimp and mung bean sprouts. Cook for 1 more minute.
- Top with shredded lettuce.
