A little bit left…

After cooking the Singapore mee siam the other day, I had a little bit of the mihun left so I decided to fry it one morning for breakfast…

These were the ingredients that I used…

The usual suspects – the sliced shallot and two or three cloves of garlic, some kunyit (tumeric), pounded and a stalk of serai (lemon grass), end bruised, sliced chili, a few of the Thai or Vietnamese basil leaves from my garden…

…and bottled tom yam paste.

I decided to use sotong (squid) so after I had fried the shallot and garlic slices till golden brown, I added a tablespoon of the tom yam paste and a sprinkling of sugar (to give a bit of sweetness to the sourish and spicy taste) before throwing in the sotong and mixing everything well and stirring till the sotong was cooked. Then I added the leaves and the sliced chili and also the mihun and mixed it all thoroughly and kept on frying till everything looked nicely done and had a pleasant golden colour. Finally, I added a few dashes of fish gravy/sauce (in place of salt) and a bit of msg…and then I broke an egg into the wok and mixed it with all that was inside…and that was it! Done!

There you have it, my fried tom yam sotong mihun…

…with a sprinkling of some chopped spring onions on top. How did I feel about it? Well, it was very nice – I wouldn’t mind cooking this and serving it if I had some guests over for a buffet party and that was how good it was. But personally, I felt that it would taste even better if I had used prawns instead of sotong. One disappointment was that the chilies I found in the fridge and decided to use were not spicy hot at all – at best, they were good only for giving the dish some colour. Had I known that earlier, I would have used some cili padi instead.

Other than that, there wasn’t any sign of the Thai/Vietnamese basil leaves at all…

…and if at all, there wasn’t much hint that it was used. Next time, I must remember to put a lot more…and maybe some curry leaves as well.

Ah well, we learn new things every day and no matter what we do, there will always be room for improvement. Agree?