I can’t remember why…

…I bought this pack of what we call the big bihun (rice vermicelli) or hung ngang in Foochow (I assume they are all one and the same thing) but the other morning, I decided to take it and cook…

…to get it out of the way.

I think we were having something and I was thinking that perhaps my girl would like to have this instead of the regular bihun or tang hoon (glass noodles) or mee sua (string/thread noodles). Obviously she was fine with whatever we had so this pack…

…was left there unopened to this day.

Despite the difference in size, this is called rice vermicelli…

…as well and I was quite surprised that they also call it laksa beehon especially when it is a product of China. Probably they repacked it locally and hence, the name. Having said that, if I am not wrong, the noodles used for Penang asam laksa and the laksa up north in the peninsula are a little different, smoother, firmer, a little harder even – for our Sarawak laksa, we just use the regular bihun and don’t ask me what cha kow is supposed to be or what language that is. I don’t know.

There were two pieces of the noodles in the pack so I took one and boiled till soft, keeping the other till another day. Just as in the case of the regular bihun from China, there was this horrible smell in the noodles! That is why these days, we prefer to use the bihun from Thailand. I always thought the Chinese ones stink of cockroaches but this one made me think of chicken shit. Eyewwwww!!!! I rinsed it again and again and again until there was no smell at all.

After that, I tossed them with soy sauce, a teaspoon of low GI brown sugar, half an ikan bilis (dried anchovies) stock cube – I used this instead of msg and lots of pepper…

For the actual cooking, I had these ingredients…

…that I managed to find in the fridge and also in our garden.

I fried the finely-chopped garlic in oil till golden brown before throwing in the prawns, my girl’s cherry tomatoes from our garden, my missus own homemade chili dip plus those strips of spring onions that I found in the fridge and some daun sup (Chinese celery) also from our garden before throwing in the noodles.

Lastly, I took three eggs, broke them into the wok and mixed them well and when it was nicely done, I dished it all out…

Yes, I would say it was nice. Well, like I always say, you can never go wrong with those prawns.

Of course, it would be even nicer if I had added a lot more ingredients, some slices of meat, char siew perhaps or sliced fish cake or fish balls, sotong (squid) and I was wishing the whole time that I had some taugeh (bean sprouts) or green vegetables (sawi) to add to it. Somehow, without one of those two, I had a feeling that something was missing!

Well, I still have another piece of the noodles. Let’s see what I shall do with it when I get down to it.