Better than nothing…

Somebody updated his status on Facebook not too long ago…grumbling that his attempt at making kampua noodles failed miserably. I think it must have been one of my ex-students studying overseas and having this craving for the Sibu delicacy.

Well, you can peel some shallots  and cut them into thin slices…

Heat some cooking oil in a wok or frying pan and fry the sliced shallots till golden brown. You can make more and keep the oil and fried shallots for future use, so you do not have to do this each time you want to whip up some kampua to eat. Of course, for the original taste, you will need to melt some pork fat in a wok/pan to get the oil or lard…but if you are not keen on going through all that trouble, cooking oil will do. I do not like to use olive oil though as there is a peculiar taste to it.

Then you put the oil and the fried shallots in a plate and add a bit of soy sauce and msg and perhaps, some chopped spring onions…

I used the black variety of soy sauce as I do not have any light soy sauce or chio cheng in the house. You can substitute the soy sauce with Bovril even…and I find that it tastes even nicer!

I guess there is no possibility of getting fresh kampua noodles or even the dried ones abroad…so you will just have to make do with those factory-made egg noodles that they sell in packets in the supermarkets…

Boil a piece (or more) of it till soft…

…and then toss it thoroughly with the aforementioned ingredients. You can boil some pork and cut it into thin slices to place on top…or you can just buy some char siew (barbecued meat) for the purpose…

Incidentally, if you are boiling your own pork, you can save the stock for the soup. Put a bit of msg and salt/chio cheng (light soy sauce) in a bowl, pour in the stock and garnish with chopped spring onions and fried shallots. You will have something like the complimentary soup that you get at the local kampua stalls in town.

There you have it! It may not be EXACTLY like the kampua from your favourite stall here in town but it should be good enough. After all, not all the kampua stalls make very good kampua…and some may actually pale in comparison to what you can produce following the above steps.

Moving on from kampua, I happened to cook this beef soup the other day. Just cut the beef into thin slices (across the grain) and peel one or two Bombay onions and a few potatoes and cut them into chunks. Throw everything into a pot together with a handful of peppercorn, fill it with water and bring it to boil. Simmer until the beef is tender and the potatoes are cooked. Add msg and salt according to taste.

You can add the pre-cooked/softened noodles to the soup for your own gu bak mee (beef noodles)…and garnish with chopped Chinese celery or spring onions. Note that I did not add any salted vegetables or those spices such as cinnamon stick or star aniseed. I prefer my beef soup nice and clear with the real taste of beef – not drowned out by all those stuff.

Well, why don’t you give it a try and let me know how things turn out? Good luck!

On the street where you live (2)…

In the early days of black and white TV in Sarawak, even before we had colour, I think we already had Sesame Street and it was the favourite of the children at the time. I dare say that many of them picked up their English language from the show.

Well, Sesame Street celebrated its 40th anniversary recently and Google even saw it fitting to have special logos to commemorate the occasion. I am not going to post them here as many bloggers have already featured them in their respective posts. You can click this link to go and have a look if you have not seen them yet.

But when my daughter was small, McDonald’s was giving out little Sesame Street bean bags with their Happy Meals…but these collectibles were probably not very popular and at the end of the promotion period, they were selling the complete set together with the display pockets. I bought one for my daughter…

I can’t remember how much I paid for it but since then, it has been hanging in her bedroom…

I do not know all of the characters but I do know Big Bird…

…and I will always remember the video clip for Jose Feliciano’s Christmas song, “Feliz Navidad” featuring Big Bird  ice skating but I cannot find it on youtube, so I am unable to feature it in this post…

Do you know these other characters from the television show?

Well, I can’t jolly well include all of the rest…but here, I would like to share with everyone a video clip of their cousins – the Muppets singing one of my favourite rock songs of all time, Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Watch out for the grand finale featuring the Muppet that I like best – the ever-sexy and seductive Miss Piggy!

After all, as they say, “It ain’t over till the fat lady sings!” LOL!!!