Nowadays I only blog dishes that I love to eat. My daughter has also taken an interest in cooking simple food recently. Praise the Lord! I think of ideas and simplified them but yet hope to maintain ‘tasty’ so she can try and make it her own one day. She loves seafood and prawns above all else.

Today’s dish is very simple. I bought a block of raw shrimps the other day and made some prawns paste. It is very easy to make if you have a blender. I prefer to make my own because I have a suspicious mind. I always think others are not ‘clean’ especially those doing it in bulk for business.

Please refer to the pics for inspirations.

TIP – You can add in a beaten egg or two just before serving to thicken the sauce instead of using corn-starch.

TIP – You can also make any sauce you like using chicken stock or mushroom stock.

Sometimes, actually most times I like to do a one dish. Often, we skipped breakfast, have early lunch and late dinner. Lucky for me hubby is one who do not mind eating the same dish for both meals and if it is Malaysian curry he can eat it for few days – kekekekeke

Today I decided to do a trio of braised soyabean products dish. It is said that soya products are very good for menopausal symptoms, and I am lucky that hubby is a huge fan of anything made from soyabeans. Heck there are soyabean products that he will eat, and I won’t! Funny man will eat like fermented beancurd especially the spicy ones with plain rice!

Soyabean has some of the most important nutrient required in the human body. Besides offering high-quality protein it is super rich in saturated fats, antioxidants, Omega-3 fatty acids, fibre, and phytoestrogens.

It has a long list of benefits, but I am only interested in the diabetes aspects, the potential of sleep regulating and the improving of blood circulation for the menopausal women.

We do eat a lot of soya produce, at least once or twice a week in one form or another. I do make my own soya milk often and it is pretty easy to just add a few egg yolks and steam for a smooth soft eggy dish.

When I make my own soya milk, I would also boil it in the morning and crack a couple of eggs in for breakfast.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this simple made-up dish. Please adjust and add anything you wish. I would have added other types of mushrooms if I had.

Note: To velvet your chicken just marinate with light soy sauce, cornstarch, salt and pepper. Before hitting the oil add in a sesame oil and loosen. Your chicken slices will be velvety smooth and won’t clump together.

KamPua Mee, Mee Pok, Kolok Mee, Hakka Mee, Kon Loh Mee, Mi Kolok, by any other names, in any other dialects are all basically dry flavoured noodles.

There is something about dried flavoured noodles that is so comforting to an Asian and especially to one who grew up in Kuching, Sarawak you just find it difficult not to have a deep desire to eat it when you are feeling a bit under the weather.

When I was working this is my weekend work. Making the ‘readies’ shallots crisps and oil, garlic oil, ginger crisps and oil, char sui for the freezer etc etc. In my house I always have ready mince even though I am not working now. Hubby will get very excited when he sees me frying this mince pork.

I remembered when we first moved from Kuching to Ipoh, Gunung Rapat area, there was a new Kedai Kopi with a stall serving Kon Loh Mee (Cantonese for dry noodles). The noodles were rather plain and wanting. My mother made friend with the lady seller and told her how in Kuching the Kolok Mee stall we frequent always have nicely flavoured minced pork toppings. That was the start of a great relationships! Mother then started to explain to her how she should have flavoured oil and flavoured minced pork.

The next time we ate there again, there were well fried and flavoured minced pork dotting here and there on the bowls of noodles and business for the lady improved! My mother was happy and I have always remembered this incident. Not sure why.

I can still remember the Kedai Kopi in my mind’s eye as it was next door to my Uncle’s the then Sundry Shop. Hmmm……a case of with age comes reminiscences? 😀 Certainly a sign of old age.

These noodles were from my old classmate. I must be not too bad a person to have good friends from school days who still loves me <3 At first I was rather sceptical about these dry noodles. I was thinking, nah they will never taste as good as the real ones ……. BUT I stand corrected! These were good! The dried KamPua Mee taste different to other dried noodles! I must get my hands on more! The hubby said they have a special springy bounce and I agrees wholeheartedly.

Sometime the hubby will just ask for kolok mee kosong. That means nothing added just the noodles, oils and mince! In his opinion simple is the best!

Updated 23rd September 2020. Added a few more pics and simple explanation of just making Kon Lo (dry noodles) kosong (with just mince pork, sauces and flavoured oils)

TIP – Fried mince pork can be kept outside (room temperature in a clean receptacle in UK) use a clean spoon when taking out for a week or if you have fridge space just put in your fridge. If you store in fridge please micro your prepared bowl before adding noodles to mix.

TIP – If you have any leftover by the end of the week you can fry rice with them, put on top of steamed toufo, fry mince with potatoes and many more.

Yong Liew (Yong Tau Foo) – This famous Hakka-style yong tau foo (also fondly referred to as ‘yong liew‘ aka stuffed … fish paste made from securely-guarded traditional Hakka household secret. it is up to you to create a recipe for yourself that you really really like and then pass on that recipe as your household tradition.

I will give you a guide of my recipe. In my case living in UK I do not have much choices where the fish paste is concerned. I find it better to mix my paste.

I also love to add salted fish but as I have only 2 packets left (from Malaysia) I did not want to use them. Please refer to the pics. If you have any question please feel free to leave me a message.