Salty…

Sometime ago, I got this pack of made-in-Johore mee teow from my friend, Pete, in KL…

…and the other day, I decided to cook it.

It looked like our hung ngang (big bihun) but that would not be salty.  Our mee sua (longevity noodles) is salty and that is why when we cook the chicken soup to serve it with, we do not add salt…or I will use a lot of water when boiling it, the same as what I did with these noodles from Pete…

The salt would be dissolved and go into the water and after cooking, I would rinse in water some more…

…a few times, to get rid of whatever saltiness that may be left and also to remove any excess starch so the noodles would not be sticky and would not stick together when tossed or fried.

My cousin in Australia told me that she liked the grilled clams, this particular brand, so I decided to give it a try and other than those, I also had these ingredients…

– some shallots and garlic, peeled and sliced…and what was left of some fish cakes that we had in the freezer.

I tossed the noodles with a bit of mushroom soy to give it a little bit of colour…

…not too much in case it was still too salty.

Then, I fried the shallots and garlic in a bit of oil, added the clams and the fish cake slices…before putting in the noodles and after frying everything together thoroughly, I added some eggs and a pinch of ikan bilis (dried anchovies) stock and when I was satisfied that it was done, I dished it all out and served…

…garnished with a bit of chopped spring onions. It was very nice, the noodles…

…nothing like bihun or kway teow or mee sua – I think it is in a completely different category of its own. I did not think the clams were very nice though – they lacked the taste and fragrance of the Amoy ones that I would usually use even though the clams in the latter would be so small you would need a magnifying glass to be able to see them.

We all enjoyed that and even though the pack did not look all that big, there was so much that we had that for breakfast and also for lunch that day.