Old school…

I grew up eating this – mihun fried with canned clams in soy sauce…

…but of course, the clams were a whole lot bigger in those days. My mother would fry for us to eat and I would say that I loved it very much. Somehow, kids do seem to prefer noodles, no matter in what form, to rice or maybe, bread as well. They do sell it at some places here too…and they add cangkuk manis to it. I would have added that to to give it a try but there wasn’t any in the house.

That day, I used this Thailand mihun…

– I seem to like the Thai ones more than the China-made ones which have a certain smell which puts me off. I would have to rinse and rinse it to get rid of that smell. Somebody told me that the A1 is nice – I did not quite like their kway teow but I’ve yet to give their mihun a try so I don’t really know how good that is.

Anyway, to cook this dish, you will need the usual suspects…

– sliced shallots and chili (of course, my mum never had chili in hers) and chopped garlic and also an egg.

Then, of course, you MUST have this – the most essential ingredient…

…and this particular brand no less…even though the clams are so minute these days that they are hardly visible to the naked eye. There are some West Malaysian brands but I don’t think they come anywhere close as far as the taste and fragrance go. The local ones have bigger clams so sometimes we do add those as well, or the clams only, so that we will have some big ones in the dish.

I don’t think many others would do this but I would add the clams and the sauce to the mihun first and toss it really well…

…so that they would be evenly mixed with the mihun. You can add a bit of soy sauce to give it some colour as it would look kind of pale but just a bit as the clams and its own sauce are already somewhat salty enough.

Heat up a bit of oil in the wok and fry the shallots and garlic till golden brown. Add the sliced chili and mihun and fry thoroughly. It is a bit wet/watery because of the sauce from the can so you would have to fry a bit longer till it gets kind of dry. Break the egg into the wok and mix it with everything else and when you feel that it is sufficiently well-fried, dish everything out and serve…

 I only used half a packet of the mihun (4 pieces) only with that one can and there was really quite a lot to go round…

There you have it – our old school way of cooking fried mihun. You may notice that I did not add any seasoning – no salt, no msg…and despite the absence of these, it was already very flavourful enough and very tasty indeed. I would have added some chopped spring onions or Chinese celery (daun sup) for additional fragrance and also to add some colour to it but there wasn’t any in the fridge.

I’ve fried something similar before but with canned stewed pork so if you think you would prefer that, you can click this link here and hop over to that post and have a look.

EXTRA! EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!
I just received these favourite Marks & Spencer’s All Butter Viennese cookies of mine from my dear friend, Annie-Q, in KL yesterday…

Her mum just came back to Sibu after her trip to Taiwan and I thought the pineapple tarts came from there. It seems to be the in-thing for people visiting that republic to come home with boxes and boxes of those to give to family and friends. I’ve tried them before but I wasn’t too thrilled by them really. I’ve had nicer ones from Bintulu and these are from Selangor, available at Mid Valley. Hmmm…if they’re good, I can grab some more when I go over…soon.

Thank you so much, Annie and to your mum too for taking the trouble to send them over to my house…and at the same time, pass me these gifts from my friend, Yoong, all the way from Perth, Australia…

Thank you for the lovely Australian key holder and for those very pretty and colourful magnets and also for the macadamia cookies. I’ve yet to try them but I can say for sure that they would be so very nice – since they came from you! Thank you, thank you, Yoong. It is so sweet of you to remember me in your list of who-to-give-what on your recent trip to KL. Too bad I was not able to go over to meet you then…but no worries, I will hop over to Perth one of these days.

And thanks to you too, Huai Bin, for your “gift of gold” over the weekend…and last but definitely not the least, to you, Clare, as well for the Toblerone and for kindly helping me pass some stuff to my cousin in Kuching. Thank you all…!!!!