Kwetiau goreng in a restaurant in Indonesia served with acar pickles and fried shallot sprinkles | |
Alternative names | Kwetiaw goreng |
---|---|
Course | Main course |
Place of origin | Indonesia [1] |
Region or state | Nationwide |
Serving temperature | Hot |
Main ingredients | Fried flat noodles with chicken, meat, beef, prawn or crab |
Kwetiau goreng (Indonesian for 'fried flat noodle') is an Indonesian [2] style of stir fried flat rice noodle dish. [1] It is made from noodles, locally known as kwetiau , which are stir-fried in cooking oil with garlic, onion or shallots, beef, chicken, fried prawn, crab or sliced bakso (meatballs), chili, Chinese cabbage, cabbages, tomatoes, egg, and other vegetables with an ample amount of kecap manis (sweet soy sauce). [2] In Asia, kwetiau is available in two forms, dried and fresh. [3] Its recipe is quite similar to another Chinese Indonesian favourite, mie goreng , with the exception of replacing yellow wheat noodles for flat rice noodles. [3]
Ubiquitous in Indonesia, kwetiau is sold by many food vendors, from traveling street hawkers in their carts ( warungs ) to high-end restaurants. It is a favourite one-dish meal amongst Indonesians, although street food hawkers commonly sell it together with mie goreng and nasi goreng (fried rice). Kwetiau goreng is also served in Indonesian franchise restaurants. [4]
Indonesian kwetiau goreng usually tastes mildly sweet with a generous addition of sweet soy sauce, spicier with the addition of sambal chili sauce as condiment, and mostly using halal chicken and beef instead of pork and lard to cater to the Muslim majority population. The most common protein sources for kwetiau goreng are beef, chicken, prawns, or crab. [2]
Chinese influence is evident in Indonesian food, such as bakmi , mie ayam , pangsit, mie goreng and kwetiau goreng. [5] The dish is derived from Chinese stir-fried shahe fen and believed to have been introduced by Chinese immigrants in Indonesia over several centuries. The Chinese first made contact with Indonesia in the 7th century, and by the 1600s Chinese settlements had sprung up along the coasts of Java and Sumatra. [1] Centuries of interactions between the two cultures resulted in the blending of Chinese and local cuisine. Kwetiau goreng may be served with sweet soy sauce that adds mild sweetness, or a sprinkle of bawang goreng fried shallots, or sambal to add spiciness. Kwetiau goreng may have a krupuk topping to add a crispy texture, and not contain pork or lard to cater for Muslims.
Just like mie goreng, kwetiau goreng recipes might vary according to its ingredients. The popular variants are kwetiau goreng sapi (beef), [6] kwetiau goreng ayam (chicken), kwetiau goreng seafood (including cuttlefish, prawn and fish) and kwetiau goreng kepiting (crab). The kwetiau goreng pedas (hot and spicy) uses a lot of chili pepper, while kwetiau goreng sayuran mainly uses vegetables. [3]
Another popular kwetiau recipe is called kwetiau kuah (kwetiau with soup), kwetiau ayam (chicken kwetiau with soup) and kwetiau siram (poured kwetiau), in which the flat rice noodles are boiled or poured with thick soup or sauce instead of being stir-fried. Another variant called kwetiau bun is similar to kwetiau goreng but moister and softer with the addition of more water. [7]
There is a variation called kwetiau goreng lenjer, which is made by slicing the pempek and mixing it with chicken, prawns, eggs, bean sprouts and soy sauce. [8]
Indonesian cuisine is a collection of various regional culinary traditions that formed in the archipelagic nation of Indonesia. There are a wide variety of recipes and cuisines in part because Indonesia is composed of approximately 6,000 populated islands of the total 17,508 in the world's largest archipelago, with more than 1,300 ethnic groups.
Chinese Indonesian cuisine is characterized by the mixture of Chinese with local Indonesian style. Chinese Indonesians, mostly descendant of Han ethnic Hokkien and Hakka speakers, brought their legacy of Chinese cuisine, and modified some of the dishes with the addition of Indonesian ingredients, such as kecap manis, palm sugar, peanut sauce, chili, santan and local spices to form a hybrid Chinese-Indonesian cuisine. Some of the dishes and cakes share the same style as in Malaysia and Singapore, known as Nyonya cuisine by the Peranakan.
Nasi goreng, literally meaning "fried rice" in both the Indonesian and Malay languages, is a Southeast Asian rice dish with pieces of meat and vegetables added. It can refer simply to fried pre-cooked rice, a meal including stir fried rice in a small amount of cooking oil or margarine, typically spiced with kecap manis, shallot, garlic, ground shrimp paste, tamarind and chilli and accompanied by other ingredients, particularly egg, chicken and prawns. There is also another kind of nasi goreng which is made with ikan asin which is also popular across Indonesia. Nasi goreng is sometimes described as Indonesian stir-fried rice, although it is also popular in Southeast Asia. Beyond the Malay Archipelago, it has gained popularity through Indonesian influence in Sri Lanka and via Indonesian immigrant communities in Suriname and the Netherlands. It is distinguished from other Asian fried rice recipes by its aromatic, earthy and smoky flavor, owed to generous amount of caramelised sweet soy sauce and powdered shrimp paste, and the taste is stronger and spicier compared to Chinese fried rice.
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Mie goreng, also known as bakmi goreng, is an Indonesian stir-fried noodle dish. It is made with thin yellow noodles stir-fried in cooking oil with garlic, onion or shallots, fried prawn, chicken, beef, or sliced bakso (meatballs), chili, Chinese cabbage, cabbages, tomatoes, egg, and other vegetables. Ubiquitous in Indonesia, it is sold by food vendors from street hawkers (warungs) to high-end restaurants.
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Bakso or baso is an Indonesian meatball, or a meat paste made from beef surimi. Its texture is similar to the Chinese beef ball, fish ball, or pork ball. The word bakso may refer to a single meatball or the complete dish of meatball soup. Mie bakso refers to bakso served with yellow noodles and rice vermicelli, while bakso kuah refers to bakso soup served without noodles.
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Soto mie, Soto mi, or Mee soto is a spicy Indonesian noodle soup dish commonly found in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Mie means noodle made of flour, salt and egg, while soto refers to Indonesian soup. In Indonesia, it is called soto mie and is considered one variant of soto, while in Malaysia and Singapore it is called mee soto.
Mie ayam, mi ayam, or bakmi ayam is a common Indonesian dish of seasoned yellow wheat noodles topped with diced chicken meat. It is derived from culinary techniques employed in Chinese cuisine. In Indonesia, the dish is recognized as a popular Chinese Indonesian dish, served from simple travelling vendor carts frequenting residential areas, humble street-side warung to restaurants.
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