Island in the Sun

Alright, I haven’t actually listened to Weezer in a while… but this post is going to be featuring the wonderful food from the Philippines! I’m Chinese-Filipino, and most of my extended family currently resides in the Philippines. As a first generation American, growing up was quite interesting. My parents are multilingual and speak Hokkien, Tagalog and English. Hearing a combination of all 3 languages was the norm for me, so it wasn’t until college that I was able to start distinguishing which traditions belonged to which culture.

Perhaps it is because I will soon be moving to a location with a very small Asian population, but I’ve been going through phases of craving different types of ethnic food. This week (and probably next, as well) has been centered around Filipino cuisine. I’ve been too lazy to post recipes for all the goodies I’ve made, but here’s a quick summary of the recent treats:

Mango Bars

Maja Blanca (Coconut pudding with corn)

Ube Macapuno Empanadas (Purple yam and coconut)

Ginataang Mais with Langka (Sweet rice dessert with corn and jackfruit)

Some of my pictures didn’t turn out too well, so I had to rely on Google to find photos from other chefs. If I remake them, I’ll definitely make sure I take better photos to share with you all!

I think The Food Scientist already mentioned this, but I brought back a bunch of calamansi after my most recent trip home. One of the only times I ever use calamansi is to squeeze fresh citrus juice over some yummy pancit palabok (also known as “fiesta noodles” at Jolibee). This is a bit of a comfort food for me because I didn’t like a lot of Asian foods when I was a child. This frustrated my parents greatly, but they soon discovered that I would eat almost any noodle dish…so palabok was good in my book. 😀

Today was my first time making this dish by myself, so my night consisted of cooking small parts of the dish… and then calling my mom to make sure I was doing it right. I based the recipe off of one found on Panlasang Pinoy.

For the Noodles:

• 1 lb of rice noodles (I used pho noodles because they cooked faster)

For the Sauce:

• 2 Tbs vegetable oil
• 1 Tbs minced garlic
• 1 Tbs annatto (achiote) powder
• 3 cups pork broth
• 1 piece shrimp broth cube
• 3 Tbs corn starch
• 2 Tbs fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp black pepper

For the Garnish:

• Hard boiled eggs
• Cooked shrimp
• Chicharon flakes
• Scallions (green onions)
• Calamansi

First, prepare the rice noodles according to the package directions. Some of them require a pre-soak, but since I chose to use pho noodles… all I had to do was boil them for 6-8 minutes until they were done! Next, start making the sauce. Saute the garlic in the vegetable oil in a large pan or wok, if you have one. In another bowl, dilute the annatto powder in pork broth. Then pour this mixture into your saucepan and bring it to a boil. Add the shrimp broth cube and stir. Simmer for 3 minutes. While whisking thoroughly, add the cornstarch. Afterwards, add the fish sauce and ground black pepper. Simmer until the sauce becomes thick. Since it’s used as garnish, I like to prepare my shrimp separately. I thawed some frozen shrimp by putting them in a bowl for water for ~10 minutes. Once they were ready to use, I sauteed 1 Tbs of vegetable oil with about a teaspoon of minced garlic (really, I just eyeballed it…). Then I added the shrimp to the pan and arranged them in one layer so that they would all cook evenly. As they were being cooked, I ground some sea salt and fresh black pepper over them to give them a bit more flavor.

You can tell when shrimp is done because they turn pink and look opaque in color. Mine took about 2-3 minutes per side.

After I prepared the rest of my chosen items for garnish, it was time for plating! Here’s what the final product looks like:

Side note: Palabok normally has tinapa (smoked fish) flakes added to it, but I couldn’t find any after searching a couple of the Asian stores in town. If I had found them, then I would definitely add them for a more authentic Filipino taste. There’s also a couple more ingredients you can add to the dish to make it more savory. Some like to add ground pork or beef to the sauce, but my favorite parts have always been the egg and shrimp… so I was content with just those two.

Hope you enjoyed this small journey to the east! What foods have you been craving lately?

– Chef μChip