Hmmm…it seems that everybody is sick of the noodles and my fried rice that I would cook for breakfast in the morning. Ah well…whatever it is, personally, I would think they would be much nicer than having plain cream crackers or tasteless Osborne biscuits first thing upon waking up and anyway, as far as the rice goes, it would be such a waste to throw away any that is left over. At least, I make an effort to cook it differently so it would not taste exactly the same every time.
Like the other morning, for instance, there was nothing much in the fridge so I was cracking my head as to how I could fry the rice that would not be the same as my usual kampung-style…
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…Well, the basics were still the same – to start off, I still fried one shallot and two cloves of garlic, sliced, and a handful of ikan bilis (dried anchovies) in a bit of oil till golden brown. After that came the difference from the usual – I threw in one stalk of serai (lemon grass), bruised at the end and fried that in the oil for a bit before adding a tablespoon of tom yam paste – the bottled one that I still had in the fridge, Nona Brand, and after stirring that and mixing it with everything else, I threw in some sliced chili…followed by the rice. I added a bit of sugar, around half a teaspoon, to counter the sour taste of the tom yam…and lastly, I added the eggs. Once everything was sufficiently fried and cooked, I dished it all out and served…
I had cooked fried bihun with tom yam paste before but this was the first time I was trying it with rice so I did not actually know whether it would be any good but I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be too bad. Why, they even have tom yam kampua…
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…at some places in town and even though it was not good enough to get me going back for more, I thought it wasn’t too bad really.
Well, as they say, the test of the pudding would be in the eating so I sat down and ate…
Wow!!! It was really very nice, you can take my word for it – much nicer than my earlier versions of fried rice, be it with dabai, tempoyak, cincaluk or whatever….and like most, if not all, of the things that I cook, there was no added salt and no msg used.
I am pretty sure that if I had added prawns and sotong (squids) like what I did when I fried the bihun, it would definitely bring the taste up to a whole new level. I certainly would want to do that next time…and perhaps, you would like to give it a go as well?
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 