Pancit
Posted by: Fats in: Fats, Vitamins & Minerals > Takaw at Sursur!Yesterday I spent nearly the whole day cooking pancit canton - enough pancit for us and to give to our landlady upstairs and to my mom! It was Trevor’s birthday and when there’s birthday there has to be long noodles. 
I guess the pancit canton wasn’t too bad. I put all the usual vegetables (had to run to the nearby market for carrots -didn’t realize we ran out - and I thought the carrots at 7 pesos each were quite expensive though) - and added cauliflower. I also used shredded chicken meat, some shrimps and hard-boiled quail eggs.
Despite pancit, from the Hokkien word pian i sit, literally “something conveniently cooked fast”, I took all day because I’m slow and cooking had to be done in two batches because all the pancit wouldn’t fit in our wok.
Asel came over to pick up the pancit for my mom. She brought over some of my post, and two t-shirts, gifts from my mom to Trevor. One t-shirt was bright orange and said “Local Style” on the front, and the other one had a print of a fierce-looking dinosaur that said “send more tourists, the last ones were delicious!”
And as if the pancit weren’t enough, we went out for dinner - Vietnamese noodle soup and fried noodles!
Anyway, I still have some pancit luglug and pancit bihon in the kitchen cupboard, and although I’ve done pancit bihon a few times before, I am not yet very happy with my recipe. Maybe later, I can also develop my own recipe for pancit luglug. Got some spaghetti noodles today too.
June 25th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
this post reminds me of a recent find: luxury pasta.
apparently, we can buy wholewheat fettucine in the philippines now. SAN REMO (a moderately-priced italian brand) sells it for about P185/kg. why anyone would pay that much for noodles that, by nature, should taste like boiled cardboard is beyond me. of course, social climber that i am, i bought a kilo.
the ultimate luxury pancit i’ve seen at the supermarkets, tho, is this beautiful BLACK spaghetti from italy, made with squid ink. i forgot the brand, but it’s going at P290/kg. of course, social climber that i am, i bought a kilo, even if squid ink is so cheap in manila.
obviously, i have no plans of eating any of this. dunno about you guys, but my social climber taste-buds never got to like boiled cardboard. and while i love squid, i simply find the italian squid ink pasta too expensive to eat (and too beautiful, too. like overly fat pencil refills).
so i’ve displayed them on my kitchen shelves, together with two kilos of rare first-cut Ifugao ceremonial “tinawon” rice (sourced directly from the tribe itself); two kilos of vacuum-sealed export grade organic upland brown rice, and a kilo of rare black-violet glutinous rice that ilocanos roast into ceremonial Basi.
there’s something powerful about all these token amounts of luxury carbs for diabetics like me during a food crisis. i find them as loaded and as potent as paintings, or sculpture. much cheaper, too, per cubic inch, hahaha!