Good old days…

Way back in the good old days when I was growing up, life was simple and we did not have much and we found delight in whatever treats there were at the school tuckshop or canteen or one of the few coffee shops in town. Most of the time, if my mum did not cook it at home, we would not get to eat it at all like this fried bihun (rice vermicelli) with canned clams in soy sauce…

…and each time we got to enjoy something like this, it was such sheer ecstasy, believe you me. These days, you can get this quite easily in some shops in town and some would even add bits of cangkuk manis to it but we never had it that way then.

There was some bihun in the house that day – I think my missus had opened a packet for Melissa to take some to her jungle school to cook and eat so I decided to cook that for breakfast.  Instead of the usual Amoy clams, I thought I would like to try a local brand to see if it was any good but unfortunately, it paled in comparison. The clams were a bit bigger but it lacked the very nice fragrance and taste so at best, it was nice, just that it could have been a lot nicer.

I only managed to use half of what was lying around in the house so the next morning, I decided to fry and use up the rest of it and for a change, I decided to use as the main ingredient, those canned stewed pork chops instead…

…and to get rid of the oil/fat, I put the tin in the fridge overnight. The oil would float on top of the sauce and can be removed easily with a spoon…

In the past, my mum would always use the Ma Ling ones but we had had some not very pleasant experiences with their products, including their luncheon meat, so we would never buy any of that brand ever again – I don’t know how true this is but they say there are a lot of imitations and that is why many have been disappointed and are boycotting their products as well. On my part, these days, I would go for the Narcissus brand instead but oh me oh my!!! Only after I had opened the can did I realise that I had bought the wrong thing!!! This was stewed pork and not stewed pork chops! The latter would be mostly lean and would not have so much fat but this, as you can see in the above photograph, was actually pork belly with all the layers of fat.

Never mind! Left with not much choice, I just had to make the best of the situation so I took the pieces of meat in the can and removed all the fat, keeping only the lean meat for my fried bihun…

You can shred the meat if you like into something like what people call pulled pork these days but in fact, in the process of cooking, it would all come apart in strips so there is actually no need to go through all that trouble of doing it by hand.

I poured the sauce onto the pre-soaked and softened bihun…

…so that it would have its very nice flavour when cooked and these were the ingredients that I used…

– one or two shallots and two or three cloves of garlic, thinly-sliced…and since I had one tomato and some daun sup (Chinese celery) in the fridge, I decided to use those. These would be optional, of course – when my mum cooked hers, she never had these add-ons and despite it being so very simple, it was nonetheless very nice. I also had a spoonful of my missus’ pounded chili at hand, and two eggs as well.

Firstly, I heated a bit of oil to fry the shallots and garlic till golden brown…

…after which I added the meat…

…followed by the tomato and daun sup…

…before putting in the bihun and the pounded chili…

Once everything was mixed thoroughly and sufficiently fried, I added the eggs…

…and when the eggs were cooked and I was satisfied that the bihun was nicely done, I dished it all out, garnished it with some chopped spring onions and served…

Yes, it turned out pretty well. I know self-praise is no praise but I enjoyed it…and my missus had some too and since she was going over, she took the rest to my mother-in-law’s house for her to eat. My missus said that she loved it and finished it in no time at all. This was probably like what we were like before when we were kids – savouring and enjoying every bit of it and licking our plates clean each time we had had something that to us, in those days, was such an awesome and special treat.

I wouldn’t be surprised if kids or even people in general nowadays would not even cast a second glance at it…and would head to the nearest fast food franchise for a burger or some Japanese or Italian restaurant for a bowl of ramen or a plate of pasta. Time certainly has changed a lot, hasn’t it?