Minimalist Mee Suah Soup 面线汤

Mee Suah Soup – A Simple and Homely Bowl of Chinese Vermicelli 面线汤

This is a simple dish – and when I say simple, it really is as simple as simple can possibly get. Simpler than crawling out of the house to buy food back =P The method is almost like cooking instant noodles. It came about because one day, I was home alone and I didn’t feel like cooking anything elaborate or going outside to buy food. And there is almost no food in my fridge anyway for anything fancy. So I remembered that my mum used to whip up this simple one-dish meal when I was in the afternoon session of school. It was fast to cook so it’s great when I’m rushing to school. This being the minimalist version, all you need is some mee suah (Asian Vermicelli noodles), eggs, spring onions, soy sauce and sesame oil, which are food that one always find in an Asian pantry at all times anyway. It is definitely a quick and quite satisfying treat for lazy bums like me. And it beats having instant noodles all the time

A box of locally made mee suah noodles

For those who aren’t familiar, mee suah is the Hokkein (a dialect group) name for what is known as flour vermicelli. The other names are 面线 “mian xian” in Chinese or “min seen” in Cantonese. The ingredients in this type of noodles are mainly wheat flour, salt and water. It is commonly used in classic dishes like “Longevity Noodles” and “Hong Zao Mian Sian“. They are often arranged in small bundles and sold in paper boxes. The noodles cook really fast (like about 2 minutes in boiling water), that’s why I always keep a packet in my pantry at all times as it is good for emergencies

Ingredients
(Serve 1)

- 40 to 60g mee suah (That’s about 2-3 bundles)
- 1 to 2 eggs, beaten and season with a bit of soy sauce (I use abt 1/4 tsp for 1 egg)
- light soy sauce
- sesame oil
- vegetable or olive oil
- water
- 1 stalk of spring onions, chopped thinly (optional) – I used dried that day coz I didn’t have fresh ones
- fried shallots (optional)

Directions
1. Rinse mee suah in cold water to remove the starch, then cook them in a wok of boiling water with a bit of oil added for about 2-3 minutes, separating the strands with chopsticks.
2. Take out the cooked mee suah and set in a serving bowl. Discard the water in wok and pat the wok dry.
3. Heat some oil in the pan and spread the oil evenly. Pour the egg mixture slowly and cook a thin layer of egg. When the egg is cooked (lightly browned), use your spatula to break them to strips.
4. Add one serving of plain water and season with light soy sauce to taste. Pour everything over the noodles.
5. Garnish with a few drops of sesame oil, chopped spring onions & fried shallots.

Cooking Notes
You can spice up this minimalist mee suah soup in the following way:
- A richer soup. The recipe below may taste bland to some, but this is the version which my mum cooked in the past so I find the blandness familiar, comforting and tasty. But if you like a richer soap base, you can use home-made broth, instant miso soup or instant broth cubes such as knorr to favour the soup.
-  More ingredients. Some also like to add cooked pig liver to their mee suah soup which I will try next time. You can add anything you have in your pantry to this dish – such as crab sticks, hot dogs, boiled quail eggs, bak choys etc…

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I’m sending this simple noodles soup to Presto Pasta Nights which Katie of Thyme For Cooking is hosting this week.

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Tagged as: egg, noodles, sesame oil, soy sauce, spring onion