The other day, my missus bought a loaf of sandwich bread but of course, these days, a loaf would be equivalent to half a loaf compared to those good ol’ days when I was a kid…and let’s not talk about the price either. It’s the sign of the times! Well, she said she had not had bread for quite sometime and that was why she bought it. We’re not crazy about bread; as a matter of fact, in the end, I threw away the last three slices that had gone all moldy…and in the first place, there were not that many slices in the bag.
She opened a can of sambal prawns to eat with it and I do not quite care for that either. I always feel there is a peculiar smell in it and if I had wanted that to go with my bread, I would much sooner go and buy the homemade sambal for nasi lemak – just RM5.00 for one plastic tub. That would be a lot nicer. Anyway, she just left the can on the table after she had finished…and I had a few choices – to eat it (which I did not intend to) or throw it away (which would be such a waste) or transfer it into some Tupperware container and stuff it in the fridge (where it would live happily ever after).
In the end, I decided to use it to cook fish. I fried the ikan bawal hitam (black pomfret) and then I proceeded to cook the sambal. Actually, all I did was to fry some finely-chopped Bombay onions in a bit of oil, add sliced chillies and a stalk of serai (lemon grass)…and in went the leftover sambal prawns, plus a bit of water to dilute it a bit. Finally, I poured it over the fried fish…
It did not look that good, don’t you think? But to my pleasant surprise, it tasted really very nice!!! Somehow the fish and the sambal blended very well together…
…and we finished it all in one sitting.
I also spotted in the fridge half a bitter gourd from earlier in the week that looked as if it would not last longer than a few more days…and the sambal belacan that we had with the pork the other day. I fried the sambal belacan in a bit of oil and threw in the sliced bitter gourd and added a bit of msg to enhance the taste. That turned out very good too…
Sigh! It’s the same old story, isn’t it? I wonder what will be sitting there waiting…the next time I open the fridge…
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 