Recipe: Breakfast Fried Bee Hoon

Breakfast Fried Bee Hoon (rice vermicelli) is very special to me.  At one stage of our courtship years (this sounds so old-fashioned but I don't know another phrase for it), Leon would buy me vegetarian bee hoon for breakfast almost on a daily basis.  This was when he lived in Blk 304 Ang Mo Kio, was doing his national service at the Beach Road Camp, and I was studying at the National University of Singapore.  

Every morning, I would ride the train from Yishun, where I lived, and we'd meet at the Ang Mo Kio station on the way, and ride together to City Hall station where he would get off and I would switch train line to get to school.  This was when Leon would pass me the packet of vegetarian fried bee hoon that he buys from this very good stall near his house.  It wasn't a cheap treat. All those mock pork and goose aren't easy to make and are priced as such.  But still, I'd get a packet each day...

This morning, I thought I'd fry up some bee hoon for breakfast.  Not vegetarian style because I can't make mock meat, but still hawker style.

Ingredients
For fried bee hoon
4 leaves of green cabbage sliced into strips
A handful of sliced carrots (available from the supermarket pre-sliced)
2 tablespoons of diced garlic
1/2 an onion sliced into strips
3 tablespoons of soya sauce
2 portions of bee hoon
1/2 cup of chicken stock
Pepper, sesame oil to taste

Accompaniments
You can go to town with the kind of stuff to accompany the bee hoon.  This morning we had:
Pan fried sliced luncheon meat/spam
A sunny side-up each
Other options - fried chicken wings, hot dogs, fish cakes etc

This Wai Wai brand of bee hoon is delicious!
BUT this Spam is super salty.  I'm never going to buy that brand again.

• Soak bee hoon in warm water to soften it.  This should take about 10 minutes or less.  Drain off the water.
• In a wok or large frying pan, heat some cooking oil.
• Fry garlic and onion until fragrant but not brown.
• Add cabbage and carrots.  Cook until vegetables are done.  Once you add bee hoon into the mix, the veg will not cook further so it's important to get it cooked.  You can add some proteins like meat or prawns at this stage if you want but since it was breakfast, I kept it simple.  Season your vegetables at this stage with a bit of salt if you want.  i like to layer my seasoning, i.e. season at every stage of cooking.
• Add bee hoon and fry until well mixed.  Cut it up with your spatula if it's easier to toss around.
• Add soya sauce and whatever seasoning you like.  Or just keep to soya sauce, sesame oil and pepper.  Good enough lah.
• Dish out when done and set aside.
• Tip the spam from its can and sliced width wise.

I miss eating luncheon meat!

Frying the eggs AFTER the spam in the same pan kinda seasons the eggs.

• Pan-fry spam until browned.
• Cook up a couple of sunny side ups.
• Serve bee hoon with a couple of pieces of spam and an egg. Tuck in.

That's chilli in the top right hand corner.
No, we didn't learn how to make chilli but found
what is called "Teochew Sate" sauce, a Thai
chilli that is pretty close to what we're used to.