You may recall my blogpost sometime ago about how I went and bought a kilo of shallots/bawang merah here. Somebody mentioned that they were from Myanmar and I did feel that they were not as fragrant as those from India. Nonetheless, I picked a few that had bits of roots underneath and planted them in my garden.
I waited and after a week, nothing appeared. I was already resigned to my fate – that we could not take these to plant and hope to yield some spring onions for our use. Much to my delight, one batch sprouted…and then another…and another…
Of course, I’m so happy – now, I can enjoy my noodles generously garnished with my own-grown spring onions from my garden. They are thinner but sturdier and they all stood straight and tall unlike the ones I planted before – after a few days, those would all go north, south, east, west and look rather untidy PLUS they withered very fast – that was why I had to harvest them regularly.
I have heard complaints that if you go and eat kampua mee outside these days, they will not give you any chay chang (spring onions) nor will you get any yeu chang (fried shallots). I hear the new stock from India has arrived and they are available around town but at RM26.00 a kilo, you will have to be very lucky to see any all over your plate of noodles like this…
If there are any fried shallots, chances are those are the factory manufactured ones from God-knows-where sold in big plastic packs at the supermarkets. To be fair, I have encountered some reasonably good ones but I got put off by most of them because they had an unpleasant smell.
I tried cooking Maggi goreng again that day and incidentally, I was watching a documentary on Channel News Asia on salt intake and this guy in the show dropped by a food court in the island republic. I sure was surprised to see “Maggie Goreng” on one of the stalls. There too? And all this while, I thought the standard of English there would be so much higher and they would know the difference between the name of the popular brand of instant noodles and that of a lady.
Perhaps they did it on purpose, licensed to kill, so to speak, so they could use any brand of instant noodles instead of Maggi since the name is not exactly the same. Well, my lawyer-friend/ex-student, Louis, mentioned the other day that Maggi goreng was every university student’s staple in the 90’s during his years in varsity and they all loved it so much but it had to be Maggi, no other brand.
I still had two packets left so the other day, I took one and boiled the noodles, adding half the sachet of the curry seasoning provided and not too much water so by the time the noodles were cooked, the soup/gravy would have dried up already. I fried a bit of garlic in a bit of oil in a pan, added the noodles and fried after which, I added an egg, mixing everything together thoroughly and lastly, I threw in some taugeh (bean sprouts) and greens. I dished it all out and garnished it generously with some fried shallots that I had prepared and of course, the spring onions from my garden…
It does look good, don’t you think? Tasted great too!
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 