Too little, too late…

I have a lot of hay bee (dried prawns) or in Malay, udang kering, in the fridge and we do not need that much usually as we will only use a bit to fry our wild ferns – the midin and paku or sometimes, vegetables such as kangkong and long beans perhaps. Well, my cousin from Kota Kinabalu just gave me two big packets not too long ago and I remember that Yee Ling gave me one too when she came to Sibu in April/May. That was quite sometime ago and my missus said that she could not remember seeing it. I went digging for it in the fridge and I found it at the bottom of one of the crisper drawers. Probably my missus did not  realise what was inside because it was all wrapped up inside the foil bag and could not be seen from outside.

Anyway, I decided not to keep it any longer and to use it to make some sambal hay bee or perhaps what some people will call serunding udang kering (dried prawn floss). I got down immediately to getting the ingredients ready…

I had some shallots, garlic, ginger, kunyit (tumeric), lengkuas (galangal), chilies…and also some belacan (dried prawn paste), curry leaves and a few stalks of serai (lemon grass). I pounded everything (except the curry leaves and the serai) together…

…and put that aside.

When I opened the packet of hay bee, I had the shock of my life! It was so compact and there was simply TOO MUCH inside that little packet – double this amount that you can see in the picture…

I knew there and then that I had TOO LITTLE ingredients and would need a lot more than what I had prepared but I was not bothered to go through it all again. I just went ahead and soaked the hay bee till they became a bit soft and pounded the whole lot…

…and I was ready to start cooking.

After filling the wok with oil, I threw in the pounded ingredients and fried them till fragrant and then I added the serai, ends pounded and bruised, and the curry leaves and after a while, I put in the pounded hay bee. I had to cook it for a long time to get it to turn golden brown and nice and crusty…

It looked good, was very fragrant and very nice…

…despite my initial fears that the ingredients might not be enough. It was certainly heavenly, eaten with hot steaming white rice…and of course, I simply HAD to go to my regular shop to grab some kompia and chu-nu-miang to eat with the sambal as well.

Gosh!!! It was sooooo delicious, I tell you – so very compatible. They went absolutely well together…

…a perfect match, I must say – this marriage between Foochow and nyonya.