A Crunch of Good Ol’ Days

Here’s something funny – I’m a chemical engineer that likes to cook. Well, that’s not the funny part. The thing is, I think of cooking as something more akin to alchemy rather than chemistry. So when I dabble in the kitchen, “300g of this, 1 tsp of that, cook for 10 minutes,” isn’t what’s going on. Oh no, it’s “Is this too much? But if I don’t cook it all, I’d never be able to finish it. Oh what the heck, dump it all in. A dash of this, a few sprinkles of that… maybe another sprinkle. And another. Taste… UGH! Add water. Okay, now it’s smelling right. More or less.”

Welcome to touchy-feely cooking.

Fortunately, it’s not always about desperate dramas or exasperating experiments. When it comes to cooking for one, as I sometimes do, simple is almost always best. Like a steaming bowl of white rice, served with plain stir-fried cabbage and crunchy ikan bilis. A little pauperish, perhaps, but a good change to the rich food I’d normally have.

Speaking of crunchy ikan bilis, I like mine with sugar. Probably strange to some palates, but it’s how my mum made it way back when I was a young’un. Fried with sugar and peanuts. Yumminess. It came back to me the other day as I was thinking about how to finish the food in my fridge. Here’s my take on it:

Soak ikan bilis (dried anchovies) for a while, then drain them dry. In a wok, sautee sliced onions in oil briefly, then add the ikan bilis. Keep frying until the ikan bilis starts to turn crispy. Throw in peanuts (I like to use pine nuts – they’re a great, though rather expensive, alternative), add sugar (be generous, but not so much that you wind up making candy), and keep frying till the sugar has caramelised and coated the ingredients. Turn off the fire, and it’s done.

And there you have it – sweet, simple, nostalgic. What more could a guy ask for?