Lor Mee in Balsamic Vinegar (Chinese Braised Noodles) 卤面

Lor Mee or Chinese Braised Noodles is one of the Penang street food I love since young. Usually the hawker sell the Lor Mee with braised egg, a few pieces of thinly sliced pork, and if you are lucky you will see one or two small pieces of Ngor Hiang or Lor Bak (fried pork roll) and it goes with yellow noodles, you can request to have yellow noodles mixed with rice vermicelli or only rice vermicelli by itself. For me, I always eat Lor Mee in rice vermicelli and without beansprouts, it is still the same until today. 

Saw Kenneth Goh of Guai Shu Shu made his Lor Mee (Singapore version which is with the fish cake, fried wanton, Ngor Hiang), I decided to try make one too. As we don't get to buy the Zhen Jiang Xiang Cu 镇江香醋 here. And I don't have the good Chinese black vinegar which give the strong sour taste with no taste of bitter end, I decided to use the Balsamic Vinegar (product of Italy) which I usually used to dip my gyoza as substitute to the Chinese Black Vinegar with changes to the seasoning. The ingredients stated below is only for reference as this is greatly depends on your prefer level of sourness, starchiness and darkness of the Lor Mee's broth. 

The verdict: The Lor Mee tastes really satisfying with the starchy sour gravy, my hubby thumbs up for it! 

Ingredients for broth: (Made 4 litre of broth)

500g pork belly, blanched in boiling water, sliced in 1/2" thick wide pieces

1 bulb of garlic, sliced

2cm long ginger, thinly sliced

2 tbsp five spice powder

75g rock sugar 黄冰糖

200 ml dark soy sauce + sweet soy sauce (to get the dark) (the dark soy sauce over here is not the thick dark type, that's why I add more, you may need to adjust this if you are using the thick dark soy sauce)

5 litre water

400ml dark balsamic vinegar 

100g tapioca flour

80g corn flour

a dash of pepper

1 tsp salt (to taste)

3 eggs lightly beaten 

a few hard boiled eggs

a few pieces of dry bean curds, snipped into small pieces

Method:

1. In a deep soup pot, pour in the water, add in garlic, ginger, dark soy sauce, rock sugar, and five spice powder then bring to boil.

2. Add in the sliced pork belly and balsamic vinegar , bring to boil again. Add the dry bean curds and hard boiled eggs, let it simmer for 20~30 mins. (taste the gravy, if not sour enough add more vinegar) 

3. Use a ladle, take out the pork belly and eggs. Set aside. Gradually add the beaten eggs while using the ladle to stir the broth continuously in circular motion. 

4. Mix the tapioca flour and corn flour with some water, mix well so no flour lump can be found. Gradually add the flour mixture to the boiling broth. If the broth still too runny, add more starch mixture.

5. Continue stirring the gravy, add salt to taste, remove the soup pot from heat.

Ingredients for Lor Mee: 

500g rice vermicelli (or you can use noodles, depends on how many bowls you need to make, this is for four)

some minced garlic

sambal or chili paste

braised eggs, halves 

braised pork belly, sliced into small pieces

Method:

1. Blanch the rice vermicelli in boiling water for 2 mins. 

2. Place the rice vermicelli into serving bowl, blanch the rice vermicelli with the Lor Mee gravy, place some sliced pork belly pieces, hard boiled eggs on top, pour some gravy over them. Place minced garlic and chili paste on the side of the bowl, garnish with coriander and cut spring onion, serve hot.