Spicy and saucy stir-fried noodles with seafood spiked with chili sauce and umami-boosting shrimp paste is a favorite by many Indonesians.
Mie kangkung belacan is one of the very popular street food almost every Medanese love. I grew up in a town calls Medan, and so I call the people Medanese 🙂 It is basically a stir fry noodles with red chili, shrimp paste (belacan), water spinach (kangkung) and some seafood. The dish is spicy (but won’t burn or numb your tongue), and it has this wonderful flavor from shrimp paste, umami would be the elegant way to describe it, it’s saucy (but not soupy) and oh gosh…just give it a try will you?
The lady who originally started her business selling Mie Kangkung Belacan at our little home town, probably the pioneer of it, has tremendous success and this business is now inherited to her son and as far as I know, he is doing VERY WELL!! Not sure which generation is selling now 🙂 I get this recipe from my great mama and it did fix my feeling of being homesick !!
Water Spinach / Chinese Convolvulus / Kangkung
Pick the leaves and smaller thinner stalks to include in cooking and discard the rest
Though in my home town where I grew up, I remembered seeing people feeding the stalks of kangkung to fishes. Anyway, this is just a short video of how I made this Mie Kangkung Belacan. I only used shrimp in the video, but you can follow the recipe and add other seafood like sliced fish balls/fish cakes, livers, etc, or just stick with shrimp if you prefer 😉
Mom is the best. I hope my own kids will find comfort in some of the food I’ve cooked for them the way I am now when I cook some of my mom’s recipes 🙂
Mie Kangkung Belacan Medan (Spicy stir-fried noodles with shrimp paste and water spinach)
Ingredients
- 300 gr Chinese egg noodles or about 150 gr dried noodles
- 2 Tbsp cooking oil
- 4 cloves garlic finely minced
- 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp of belacan/ shrimp paste
- 3 Tbsp red chili paste - more if you want it spicier use about 10-15 already soaked dried red chilis and few spoons of water and ground it up in food processor or you can always use readily bought red chili paste like sambal oelek for example
- 6 jumbo shrimps deveined and shelled
- 6 thin slices of pig liver optional, but I love it
- 200 gr water spinach or use regular spinach or water spinach
- 4 fish balls sliced
- 2 Roma tomatoes quartered
- 2 duck eggs or chicken eggs
- 2 cup loosely packed beansprouts optional
Seasonings:
- 2 Tbsp sweet soy sauce/ kecap manis
- 2 Tbsp Soy sauce more as needed
Instructions
- If you are using dried noodles or pasta, cook according to direction. Remember not to overcook the noodles
- Preheat the wok and add in oil. Saute garlic until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Add red chili, belacan and stir fry until the belacan is really fragrant, about 3 minutes or so. Add the shrimp and liver (if using) and cook for about 10 seconds (they won't be fully cooked yet). Add water spinach, tomatoes and continue to stir fry until the greens started to wilt. Push to the sides. Crack in eggs. Break the yolk a bit and leave them. Let the egg settle for a bit (for about 20-30 seconds) and then mix everything up in the wok
- Add noodles, seasonings and about 1/4 cup of hot water and let it cook for another minute. The noodle has just a bit of gravy. Have a taste and add more soy sauce if needed. It should taste salty with a hint of sweetness from the sweet soy sauce. Then add in the beansprouts (if using) and stir a little bit and turn off the heat. I like the beansprouts to be still crunchy
- Ready to serve and clean the wok before cooking the next portion (if you are doubling this recipe)
10 comments
The video and the instructions are very different … which is the better way to follow?
Hi Julie, I supposed to update the instructions on the recipe. I’ve updated it. It should be similar to the one in the video.
Hi Can I check what is the frying pan that you use?
Hi Jo, the frying pan was a non-stick with ceramic material. It’s a no-brand, I got it from a local store here. I didn’t really like it though and it didn’t last that long. I no longer had this pan now.
Looks great. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Omg this looks so good! I’ve been craving sambal kangkung for quite some time now but I could never find kangkung in Minnesota! Do you know where I can get them? Thanks a million! 🙂
You can definitely get kangkung at United Noodles, Dragon Star in St. Paul. I don’t live close to United Noodles or Dragon star, but I can get kangkung at the oriental stores here in Savage and Burnsville area. I’m confident you will be able to find it in a large Asian store like United noodles and Dragon star.
What a beautiful dish, like usual! I would love to try this with pork livers and everything, but with regular spinach, water spinach is not available here. I bought some shrimp paste some time ago, but never knew what to do with it….
It’s totally fine if you use regular spinach. Have you ever had shrimp paste ? It’s a bit pungent ha.ha…! But most Southeast Asian, including me, loves it, but for those who don’t, they find it “stinks” 🙂 My kids hate it 🙂
It looks yummy and Dan would probably love to have it for dinner 🙂 I would only try it in a non-spicy version