Not so instant 'instant noodles'

Instant noodles are what you call, instant food. Fast, easy to prepare and perfect for filling hunger pangs.

Coming from a small Asian country, we grow up eating Maggi mee and the likes, especially during our growing years where our stomachs are a bottomless pit. After a good hearty dinner, about 1 hour or so later, there will be sounds of pots and pans clanging as we cook our favourite instant noodles because there is nothing else to eat and mom is reluctant to cook again. Maggi Curry Flavour is my all time favourite and next is Maggi Tom Yum flavour - spicy and full of zing :)

Maggi noodles are also known as '2 minute noodles' because it only takes 2 minutes to get a piping hot bowl of noodles. Simply put the noodles into a pot of water, pour in the contents for the soup base. cover the lid and start boiling for 2 minutes and it's ready. You can also opt to add other ingredients such as egg or some vegetables for a a more robust flavour. Sounds too easy and good.

Well. as usual, nothing new coming from me, I do not cook my Maggi in this way. It takes me about 15 minutes just to prepare the noodles. Yes, and I tell you how I prepare it.

First, I fill the pot with water and I put it on the stove to boil. Just when it's starting to boil, I'll put in the noodles to boil them till they become softer. Then I cover the lid for awhile. Next, I will drain the water from the freshly cooked noodles. Why do I do so? Because the water after the first boil appears to be cloudy and yellowish and my mom always told me it's the colouring from the noodles that changes the water. Her source of knowledge - newspapers. Gross, I don't want any yelloow substance in my stomach plus newspapers are never wrong :P Then, I will give the noodles a quick rinse with filtered water to wash off whatever remnants of the colouring left on the noodles. Now, I feel its safer to eat the noodles without those yucky yellowish water.

Then, I start to put the noodles in the pot agand and cover it up in fresh new water and start to boil again. Luckily, I like my noodles soft. When it reaches boiling point, I will have to separate the noodles from the soup into a bowl. Because right now, it's the perfect time to beat an egg in it. I hate the egg yolk to be broken plus I'm more worried that the eggs were to cling to the noodles and thus not cooked fully. I'm a hypochondriac, you know, and I'm worried I might get E. Coli or other bacterias in non well-cooked food. Then, I pour in my satchet of soup base at the peak of boiling and close the lid for awhile to simmer the soup. Why do I pour in the soup base at the end, well, it's simple, my aunty read in the papers again (yes, again) that the soup base ingredients can turn toxic if we boil them for too long. So, there you go, I'm safe to have my wonderful 'instant but not so instant anymore' noodles. Total time taken to cook my 'instant' noodles - 15 minutes.

Yup, I am quite a specimen of its own. I rather go through a longer cooking time than to worry about what bacteria or other scary stuff I might be ingesting while I'm enjoying my warm snack. The aftermath of worrying over it is much worse than taking a little longer time preparing it. I know that very very well by now.

So, anybody care to share with me their own special ways of preparing their instant noodles, be it instant or not so instant :)