Over and over again…

I have blogged about cooking those factory-made egg noodles (available in all supermarkets in plastic packs), kampua-style, with dark soy sauce or mee sua (Foochow thread/strong longevity noodles) in a similar way but with Bovril added here and also here and even with the dried mee sanggul but I think most of the time, I merely described the process with a couple of pictures thrown in here and there and never really showed the whole process in detail. Well, seeing that people are still saying that they cannot imagine what kampua noodles are actually like…and asking over and over again whether it is like wanton noodles, I think I will share with everyone the whole thing but step by step this time.

I used mee pok, the flat version of our local kampua noodles as that was what I had in the fridge that day. My missus had bought a bag (usually 1 kg) and dumped it in the fridge so that I could cook for breakfast whenever I felt like it. Nope, I did not use all of it – maybe, just a third…or enough for 4-5 plates/servings.

Firstly, I peeled and sliced some shallots and fried them in a bit of oil…

…till they turned golden brown. If you want to cook the original/authentic Foochow kampua noodles, you will need to use lard but I am usually not too bothered about it and will just use whatever cooking oil that is available instead. Doing this will give the oil that very nice fragrance of fried shallots.

As you can see, I did not bother to transfer the oil and shallots onto a plate or something and just used the pan for what I had to do next. I can imagine all the ladies shaking their heads in disbelief and muttering to themselves, “Men!!!” LOL!!!

I added one spoonful of Bovril and one spoonful of dark soy sauce and a bit of msg to the oil and shallots…

You can leave out the msg and if it so pleases you, you can add a spoonful of chili sauce or pounded chili or even some pepper. You may vary the amount of Bovril and soy sauce added according to your taste – some of you may prefer it a bit more salty but I was fine with this.

Actually you can take out the fried shallots and put aside for use later as garnishing…but I did not bother about that as well. As you can see, when I cook, I’m not a stickler for all those little details especially with regard to presentation  and what not – as long as it tastes good, that’s fine by me.

Boil water in a pot, enough to cover and cook all the noodles, and when it has started boiling, throw in the noodles…

…and bring the water back to boil. When the noodles have softened, drain away the hot water using a sieve…

…and rinse with cold water from the tap. You can put the noodles back in the pot and fill it with water for this purpose which is to rinse away the excess starch in the noodles and to prevent over-cooking of the noodles resulting from the heat. All this is so that your noodles will not stick together in a clump when it has cooled down a bit – especially when you do not use so much oil as in the shops to keep the strands apart.

Drain away the cold water and put the noodles back in the pot. Fill it with boiling water…

…and bring it back to boil so that you will not end up eating cold noodles.

Finally, drain away the water again and add them to the ingredients you have prepared earlier…

…and toss really really well…

…coating every bit of the noodles with the fragrant ingredients.

Serve the noodles in a plate and garnish with very thinly-sliced char siew (red barbecued meat), fried shallots (you can save the ones earlier for this) and chopped spring onions. I did not bother about the shallots – they were there mixed with the noodles already and I did not have the rest…so what I did was, I fried an egg to go with the yummy noodles…

So, if you have seen the hawker preparing wanton noodles, you would be able to tell right away that they are in no way the same – other than the fact that they are both tossed noodle dishes.

Anybody care to give this a try? I assure you it is really very easy and it is very very nice. Yum! Yum! Yum!