Delicious noodle soup made with rice noodle sticks (bee hoon) served with Asian-style fish balls and super easy to make soup will quickly become your favorite
Place the meat in a bowl along with the rest of the ingredients and marinate for at least 30 minutes or overnight
Making the easy basic soup:
Soak the dried anchovies in water for about 5 minutes. Discard water and rinse a few times. Bring the chicken stock to a boil. Add the dried anchovies and lower the heat to let it gently simmer for about 30 minutes
Strain the stock and discard the ikan bilis. Season with sugar and salt to your taste. Add fish balls and into the soup and cook for about 1 minute. I used ready-made fish balls, which are usually pre-cooked, so this part is just to reheat the fish balls. Do the same with fish cake slices just to heat them up briefly
While the soup is simmering:
I used a thin bee hoon that need to be soaked for 30 minutes. And then briefly cook in boiling water for only about a minute or less. If you use different noodles or pasta, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook the noodles according to instructions. Refresh the noodles/pasta with cold water. Set aside
Separate the chye sim into single stalk. Blanch the chye sim in a small pot of water for 1 minute then refresh with cold water
Cooking the ground meat (if using):
Place the marinated meat in a noodle basket it you have one, otherwise you can just use a a small teaspoon to add the ground meat to the boiling broth teaspoon by teaspoon, and cook them in the anchovies broth until they are no longer pink
Putting it together:
Portion the noodles into an individual serving bowl. Add 4-5 fish balls, 3-4 slices of fish cake, and ground meat. Ladle the hot soup generously over the noodles. Garnish with chopped green onions, cilantro leaves, drizzle of garlic oil and the chips, sprinkle with fried shallots. Serve with red and/or green chili doused in soy sauce on the side