Believe it or not, the secret to this dish lies in frying the ginger well. Yes, fry it until it’s a bit charred before you beat in an egg and some mushroom slices. I find the soup to be especially flavourful whenever I fry the ginger well.

Next, make sure fry your egg and mushroom well too. I’d like to brown the egg a bit and add in a dash of soy sauce just before the egg is ready to go into the pot of boiling macaroni. Add an ikan bilis cube or oyster sauce, vegetables and you’re done.

© Chan Joon Yee

You must have heard of this relatively new “gourmet” instant noodles. I saw it at Sheng Siong the other day. The price was pretty gourmet, so I decided to give it a test.

OK. Like all instant noodles, the cooking part is idiot-proof. There are 2 flavouring pouches inside. One contains a whitish powder and the other an orange-coloured paste. Empty the pouches into a large bowl of water heated over a stove and watch the gravy boil. In terms of aroma, it was definitely laksa.

The instructions say you should put in the noodles and boil for 7 minutes. I suggest cooking it a little longer to make sure the laksa gravy seeps in. The taste? Well, it’s actually quite good. A blind-folded taster may not be able to tell that it’s instant noodles if you add in some shrimp, fish cake, bean sprouts, tau pok and of course, laksa leaves. The noodles may not taste like coarse bee hoon, but it’s nice and chewy if you don’t overcook or undercook it.

Quite pricey, but good if you want a little more out of your instant noodles.