Ask and you shall receive! *giggles*

LOL, yeah. I asked my mum to cook pan mee on Sunday. And so we had homemade pan mee on Sunday. Yummy-licious. To me, nothing beats my mum's pan mee.

Pan mee (pan mein in cantonese) is a type of noodle made from kneaded flour. It is usually served dry or with soup. Generally, I like the soup-based one better.

To me, how I define this food as good is by judging the pan mee (dough) itself and the soup base. I like my pan mee soft and smooth, best if rolled thin. Soup mustn't be too thick and "flour-y". The soup can get too "flour-y" if the seller puts too much flour on the pieces of flattened dough to avoid them from sticking together.

Like I said, nothing beats my mama's pan mee :P I think I'm always the one who consumes the most whenever she cooks this. I'd eat it for dinner, then again either the next morning or afternoon!

It's no easy feat kneading the dough. You need to put in the right amount of stuffs and at the right steps. Kneading needs a lot of strength and energy. My mum always tells me that I should "inherit" the steps and recipe from her, considering that I like it so much. Thinking of which, yeah maybe I should. One day lah.

The dough

Our style of cooking is individually. Whoever wants to eat, go roll and cook for yourself! Not the dump-all, cook-for-all. We have the usual ingredients of meat and vegetables to go into the soup. There's also the wood ear (that my hubby oh-loves-so-much!) but this time we didn't have it cause my hubby wasn't eating. It's one thing that I almost always leave out because I don't really fancy it. Then, there're the vegetables - usually they'll be the chinese long cabbage and choi sum.

Healthy dose of some vegetables!

Sliced chicken and pork, minced pork and sliced mushrooms.

Occasionally, my mum will cook a sauce using the minced meat together with the mushroom. Other times, it'll be just plain cooked in the soup. I like my soup clear, so I actually prefer the latter. But whichever style is still ok, afterall it's the pan mee that matters!

Apart from the kneading, the rolling part also needs some practice. We even have the rolling machine! Handling this machine and rolling flat the dough, this is where I'm referred to as the expert *LOL*

Roll and flatten it!

If you do not know how to roll it, you'll end up with holes and "craters" on your flat dough. If you're good at rolling (like me, ahem :P), the flat doughs are supposed to be smooth. Some like them thin, some like it thick. Me, I like it thin if rolled and flattened using this machine. If flattened and torn using hands, I like them slightly thicker. The thing I like when done using hands instead of the machine is you get an uneven thickness of the pan mee. Yeah, I'm fussy :P

And so I cook and tear and throw in the flatten dough.



And then, I'll just sit down and quietly enjoy my bowl of pan mee.

This is my usual serving!!!

Can see?! So soft and smooth!!!

And yeah, I had it for lunch again today!!! >_<

My mama's pan mee. Best in the world!