Mee Grob Recipe

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Mee grob is Pad Thai’s distant cousin; the ingredients are similar, but the balance is more toward the sweet, sour and crunchy, with a hint of citrus.

There are two ways you can have mee grob, as a snack or as a part of the meal. As a snack, mee grob is served is with bean sprouts, Chinese chives and pennywort, sprinkled with fried beaten egg and pickled garlic.

However, the mee grob that is part of a meal is made with simpler ingredients and aimed at long storage. Mee grob, in an air tight container at room temperature, will stay fresh and crunchy for at least 2 weeks. In a cool, dry climate, it can stay good for a few months.

When I was a kid, my grandmother made her mee grob in a large batch and kept it in a special pot in her kitchen. Unbeknownst to her, every time I walked by I would sneak a few bites. I found out later that my cousins were doing the same thing!

At Ampawa Floating Market, Thailand, I found one of the best mee grobs, made with som sah, a type of orange that I believe is Seville orange. If you're visiting, I'd recommend buying a lot and bringing it back home.

10 Servings, Prep Time: 25 Minutes, Total Time: 25 Minutes

1/4 cup dried shrimp
2 tablespoons fish sauce
3 cloves garlic
1 1/2 tablespoons thinly sliced orange
1 shallots
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup cooking oil
1/4 cup water
3 ounces julienne Pressed Tofu
3 1/2 ounces Rice Vermicelli
1 tablespoon tamarind

Tips and Techniques

When pressed tofu is not available, use extra firm tofu instead. Extra firm tofu has higher water content which will take longer to fry until crispy.
What makes mee grob unique is the zest of an orange grown in Thailand, som sah(ส้มซ่า). I believe it's the same as Seville orange but I've not been able to confirm. When I get the Seville oranges in January, I'll report back on the finding. Substituting regular orange with som sah seems to work on one level, citrus aroma, but it's just not quite the right aroma.
The tamarind that in this recipe is the dry paste, thick like sour cream.
If you are using tamarind in pods not the processed tamarind, use 2 ounces of tamarind with 1/2 cup of water. This will yield about 1/2 cup of tamarind. Omit the water in the recipe.

Method

Prepping

Chop garlic. Thinly slice shallots. Julienne firm tofu. Break up and separate the noodles into shorter strands for easy frying.

Frying the Noodles

This step should be fast. Heat up your wok and add oil. It's very crucial that oil is at the right temperature. Test the oil by dip a strand of rice vermicelli in the hot oil. If the noodle puffs up immediately, the oil is hot enough. Take a handful of noodles and drop them into hot oil. The noodles should puff up instantly. Immediately, flip the noodles to get all strands submerged in oil. If you drop too much in, some strands will not get a chance to puff up in the oil. The fried noodles should be white or slightly brownish. Then, immediately, remove the noodles from hot oil into a large bowl or pot. Fry the rest of the noodles the same way.

Making Sauce

When all the noodles are fried, add the julienned tofu to the hot oil. The tofu will take some time to turn brown. Remove the tofu from the oil when it turns brown and crispy. The goal is to remove water to prevent early spoilage and give mee grob a crunchy texture. Fry the dried shrimp next. It should not take more than 1 or 2 minutes to crisp the dried shrimp. The shrimp will turn from bright orange to light brown with whitish specks. Remove the shrimp from oil and set aside.

Pour out all but 2 tablespoons of the oil. Add chopped garlic and sliced shallot in the wok, over medium heat. When the garlic and shallot turn brown, add sugar, water, zest and orange juice, tamarind and fish sauce. Stir to mix and dissolve the sugar. Let the sauce boil. Taste the sauce, you want a balance of sweet, sour and salty. Let the sauce reduce until it is at a soft crack stage (much thicker than molasses -- almost to warm peanut butter consistency). Sauce that's too thin will make the noodles soggy. Sauce that's too thick will risk burning the sauce and having difficulty in spreading the sauce on the noodles evenly. Add the fried tofu and dried shrimp back to the sauce and stir to coat with the sauce. The sauce should be quite reduced like in the picture.

Putting All Together

Turn off the heat or keep on lowest setting (to keep the sauce fluid). Add the fried noodles. With 2 spatulas, gently mix the noodles with the sauce. Stir to get the sauce on all the noodles. Gently break up clumps. Mee grob should be brownish orange.

Storage

You can put mee grob in a container, but let it sit a room temperature to cool down before closing the lid. When cooled, mee grob will harden and take the form of the container. Store mee grob in an airtight container at room temperature.