Indian Mee Goreng

I liked Rasa Malaysia's Roasted Crab & Garlic Noodles recipe so much that I decided to give another of her recipes a whirl. I had extra packages of the chow mein noodles left over from the Garlic Noodles recipe. I originally planned to make a simple Chow Mein, but that's boring. Who actually makes Chow Mein with Chow Mein noodles when you can make Indian Mee Goreng?

The name of the dish is misleading as it's not an Indian dish. I've only ever had Indian Mee Goreng at Malaysian restaurants, never at an Indian restaurant. Caught the footnote on the Rasa Malaysia site and ahah! "Indian Mee Goreng is Malaysian dish. Created by Mamak (Indian-Muslim in Malaysia), it cannot be found in India."

I followed the recipe for Indian Mee Goreng almost exactly, the only difference is I doubled it since I had friends over for dinner and added in shrimp. I did also find that I had way too many potatoes leftover! The recipe calls for one potato so I threw in two. I could've easily made do with just one. But this actually turned out to be a great thing! See below for what happens the next day.

Another hiccup was trying to figure out how to clean the squid. Just a warning, they look nothing like the beautiful, golden calamari rings you get at restaurants. I bought fresh squid, the kind that come in whole pieces and have eyes and guts and everything! Nasty little buggas! But nothing compares to having to kill a crab so I just rolled up my sleeves, pulled the head out of the body, squeezed the mucus looking stuff out of the body, pulled out the weird plastic looking skeleton and then skinned it so that it transformed into the beautiful white, silky calamari that I knew and loved.

All of those gory details were quickly forgotten after I tasted the Indian Mee Goreng. Not exactly how I remembered it from restaurants but still very flavorful! Something interesting happens when the noodles are mixed in with the egg and potatoes, adds a very interesting texture. And this dish has a definite kick!

The next day...
Since I had almost a whole boiled potato leftover, I decided to throw a few of the other left over ingredients together for a very scrumptious brunch! I turned the potatoes into hashbrowns, threw in some sunny side up eggs, and topped it with some garlic shrimp. Yummy!

Roasted Crab with Garlic Noodles

I've been wanting to make Crustacean's signature recipe, Roasted Crab with Garlic Noodles, ever since Crab Season started in November. There's just something about those noodles and the idea of a "secret kitchen" just for making this dish intrigued me. After a quick search, I found a recipe that I liked. Someone actually analyzed the dish and experimented with the recipe until they came up with a very similar recipe. I was excited! It was a very simple recipe but it required a live crab.

The idea of having to kill a crab for dinner was not appealing at all. And I actually had to kill TWO live crabs since it was a surprise dinner for John. I began searches on "how to kill a live crab humanely" and quickly decided I did not want to plunge the crab into boiling water. I found these two videos and both freaked me out! Here's the first and here's the second. Neither video looked humane at all.

I abandoned the web and asked around to see how my friends have killed their crabs. There was one technique that I took to. It required turning the crab onto its back, grabbing hold of the legs and pulling up while holding the shell down. Sounded easier than what I saw in the videos.

I went to Ranch 99 to pick up two live crabs. They packed the little guys up in plastic bags and for extra security measures, triple bagged it in a paper bag and another plastic bag. Which was great because when I got home, the feisty crabs punctured the first plastic bag and water was leaking out. Great...

I put the crabs into a pot of cold water so that they would stay alive until John got home. That's when I got a really good look at their faces. Big mistake! I felt terrible! And they have these tiny little hands right in front of their mouths that come together like they're begging me not to eat them. I poured myself a gin & tonic and ignored them. Hard to do when they are trying to escape and make "tap-tap" noises against the pot. This called for TWO gin & tonics, one for each crab I had to kill.

Hi Guys

It was finally time to prep the crabs. I tapped the crab's head against the sink to "put it to sleep" like the video instructed. I turned the first crab over onto its back and grabbed hold of the legs. At this point, I wondered if I should just keep them as pets. But the potential deliciousness I was about to experience gave me the strength to do it! I said I'm really sorry and thank you so much for providing a delicious meal tonight and ripped the legs up and dismembered it. I was so freaked out by all of the goo inside of the shell that I immediately started cleaning, forgetting that I should have cut the rest of the crab in half to make sure it was really dead.

One down, one to go. The second one was a lot easier. I said, "Sorry! and Thank you!" Cleaned everything up and chopped the crab up into bite sized pieces.

 dismembered crab

I followed this recipe exactly so I'll spare you the details. Thank you Rasa Malaysia for sharing this awesome recipe!

 Serve the noodles in the shell. delish!