IF DON'T TRY, HOW TO KNOW

IF DON'T TRY, HOW TO KNOW


Barely an hour before, I was feeling hungry; thanks to an early dinner at 5pm. And that round of dinner was only half a packet of rice! So hungry and peckish was I; I scooted off to cook a pack of instant noodles. Heck about late night suppers and calories and fats! Humans ought to pamper themselves once in a while. I barely eat enough on most days, anyway.

Opened the refrigerator in search of an egg, only to find out that we've ran out of precisely that. So hungry was I; a bowl of plain noodles sounds dismal.

I gave the insides of the refrigerator a cursory glance, and grabbed some shiitake mushrooms, a slice of cheese, a chilli padi, and a bottle of ketchup sauce. I know this sounds alien. But hey, if we don't try, we'll never know, right?! After all, there are melted cheese on Italian baked rice, what! AND a lot of the world's greatest discoveries are accidental, okie? And my Dad once added in Black Pepper Sauce into a can of Sardine. The result? It tastes wonderful. Who knows, maybe my instant-noodles-with-cheese would be a national hit in the far future!

I thought for a moment. How shall all these ingredients be cooked? This is going to be quite a complicated meal in terms of preparations. The mushrooms are hard and thus need more time to be cooked; the noodles need only an average of 3 minutes in order to be cooked; the noodles have wax on them; I like cheese only when it's melted; and I hate soggy noodles. Given a choice, I would rather have undercooked instant noodles than overcooked ones any day.

Filled a pot with water and began heating it to a boil. With a pair of scissors, the stem of the mushroom was first cut off. Mushrooms were then rinsed and soaked in water for a few minutes. While waiting for the water to boil, I added the packet of seasoning into a bowl, tossed in some ketchup sauce, cut the chilli padi into slices, and randomly tore the slice of cheese into manageable bits. (So that the cheese will melt properly! More surface area, mah. Ain't I smart?)

The water began boiling. I threw in the pre-soaked mushrooms. To prevent nutritent loss, the chunky shiitake mushrooms were not cut or even sliced. Boiled the mushrooms for a couple of minutes. That's when I hit the 1st problem: should I take out the mushrooms first before putting in the noodle cakes, or do I take them out first?

Decided to do the former. The image of wax permeating into the chunky mushrooms is simply too terrifying. Using a chopstick, I fished out the mushrooms and placed them into the bowl. I threw in the noodle cakes next. This is really so satisfying. Firstly, the mushrooms are wax-free. Secondly, the noodles are being cooked in mushroom-essenced soup. Woohoohoo!

The noodle cakes were only cooked for a couple of minutes. Already mentioned that I prefer noodles to be hard and springy and bouncy, instead of soft and soggy. Was about to turn off the fire when I hit the 2nd problem: normally, I would discard the wax-water, rinse the noodles umpteen times in tap water, followed by a final wash in clean, pre-boiled water. But this time round, it is necessary for the noodles to be HOT in order for the cheese to melt! Oh, crap! Although the microwave is an alternative option, but I prefer not to microwave food.

I was stumped. It's a difficult choice to make: soggy noodles in melted cheese (but with wax), or springy noodles without wax (but un-melted cheese). It was such an excruciating moment in living history. Without a proper plan in mind, I decided to just anyhow whack. Afterall, sometimes, when at a loss, it's best to be natural and flow with instincts.

Took a sieve ladle and drained the noodles off the wax-soup totally. Quickly, the still-hot noodles were transferred into the bowl. Quickly, very quickly, the contents in the bowl were mixed together. After ensuring that the cheese has melted, sufficient pre-boiled water was poured in so that the noodles would not be too dry. Voila!!!

After yakking so much, you must be curious about how the mushroom-cheese noodles turned out, right? Well, the noodles were springy, and the cheese totally melted. The marvelous thing about the cheese is that it makes the soup thick, so much so that it seems like the noodles are bathed in gravy. The bad thing is that the taste of the cheese is so overpowering; so much so that noodles doesn't taste like Curry Chicken noodles at all. Rather than spicy (due to the chilli padi and Curry Chicken seasoning), it was strangely sweet and milky.


Perhaps I shouldn't have added in one whole slice of cheese. Hmmm...