The one thing I miss and it's something nobody else can replicate, is mom's heh bee hiam or loosely translated, chillied dried shrimp. It sounds grotesque to some of you I'm sure but omg, it's the best thing wrapped in soft white bread with a cup of Milo in condensed milk. Truly!!!
So last week, I decided to pluck up some courage and called mom to ask what's in this dish. Stupidly this time, I didn't ask her how to make it. I mean, it sounded too easy... shallots, dried chilli and dried shrimp. Even a monkey can figure that out! LOL! Ok, I might have slightly misjudged... ok grossly misjudged. I don't usually ask for measurements since well, mom doesn't cook with cups or spoons in hand. It's home cooking! Everything is an estimate. I could have asked how much shallots in relation the chilli and or dried shrimp but I figured I'd wing it, as usual.
So it took a day to boil and de-seed two packs of dried chilli... well not the entire day but by the time I did that, the last thing I wanted to do was any more prep work for anything else; even for my beloved heh bee hiam. The next day, I soaked my giant dried shrimp and then finally, yesterday, I got around to grinding everything that was needed (I poured the stinky dried shrimp water into the laksa I'm making - YUM!).
Here is the end result: me having my heh bee hiam for brunch since it took more than the thirty minutes mom said it would take to cook it. It took me more than an hour standing in front of the stove stirring the bloody thing - but oh my, how worth it!! Just like mom used to make :D Of course I was so excited with my sandwich (even day old baguette works... but soft white bread is still better!) I couldn't wait for water to boil to make my Milo lol! It was sooooo good! Soooooo worth all the effort :)
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