I got it…

My sister got me this very nice sambal ikan bilis (dried anchovies dip) that one would usually find by the side in one’s plate of nasi lemak. If I am not mistaken, there is a lady selling it at her stall by the roadside in front of the primary school at Bandong, here and I would say it is mighty cheap, RM5.00 for a big plastic tub.

At one place here, I used to buy this at the same price for a very small plastic tub, the ones they usually use for kaya (coconut jam) and that one is not spicy at all so I would much sooner head to this stall and buy from the lady. As a matter of fact, I heard that she was fuming mad that day as she found out that somebody had been buying from her and selling it at RM10.00 per tub at one of the markets in town. Good grief! That sure is a very easy way to make money, don’t you reckon? Just buy and sell at double the price, no need to put in any effort whatsoever into the making.

Anyway, I did not bother cooking any nasi lemak of my own so I just ate some of the sambal with toast…

…and yes, they went very well together.

To go with the aforementioned for breakfast that morning, I also made a second attempt to cook two half-boiled eggs the old-school way – the way my mum used to do it. It did not turn out too well the first time and of course, I would not give up so easily. This time around, I used two kampung eggs or kampung chicken eggs…

I think they are free range eggs or eggs laid by free range chickens left to run around freely in the kampung (village). They are supposed to be healthier as they are not fed with all those not-so-desirable chicken feed and what not and of course, they are more expensive. My sister-in-law gave us some and since I had those in the fridge, I thought I might as well cook two of those to eat. I do think, however, that I would very much prefer eating the regular ones as these do not have that strong eggy smell, the absence of which takes out much of the enjoyment of eating eggs.

Now, for some reason, there were marks on them using permanent marker so this time around, I washed the eggs first and removed the marks. I also poured hot water into the stainless steel pot so that the heat from the boiling water would not be lost once it was poured in or if it was, then perhaps the conduction would not be so much since the pot was a little hot already. When the water had started boiling, I put in the two eggs and poured in the steaming hot boiling water, covered the pot tightly and waited for 10 minutes.

Once the time was up, I cracked them open to see and yes!!! They were cooked…

…though I do need to be more careful next time so I would not end up breaking the yolk…

So there you have it!!! Half-boiled or half-cooked or soft-boiled eggs, whichever way you would like to call them, in 10 minutes, no more no less.

And talking about breakfast, many of the locals currently residing in Perth, Australia would probably be delighted to know that they now have kompia here…

My cousin there shared this photograph on Facebook recently and tagged me. I would not say they are very expensive if one does not convert into our miserable ringgit as here, they are selling those with pork belly filling for RM4 something and the ones with minced meat for RM3 something, excluding GST, but the ones at the stalls elsewhere are 90 sen each, RM2.70 for three, that is if they have not jacked up the price like most everything else around here these days. Tsk! Tsk!

I guess many would know of this place by now – one where they can get to eat our Sibu kampua noodles (AUD7.50), Kuching kolo mee and Sarawak laksa and they even have an outlet in Melbourne (though the kampua noodles are a little more expensive than here, AUD8.50). I did hear once that kompia would only be available when there is somebody flying over from Sibu – I would not know whether they are now making their own and whether they are using the regular electric oven or the traditional stone oven that we have here as my cousin did not say much else other than the fact that they tasted quite good and her grand-daughter enjoyed it  a lot! Perhaps somebody in the know over there can enlighten the rest of us?