Burnt Lumpia: Filipino Food | Filipino Recipes | Culinary Hijinks

Bistek & Pancit: Together At Last

The Chinese influence on Filipino cuisine is perhaps most evident in the Philippines' vast array of noodle dishes known as Pancit. Pancit Miki, Pancit Molo, Pancit Palabok—all Filipino noodle dishes, and all of Chinese origin. And although Pancit Molo is basically a wonton dumpling, it is still classified as pancit in much the same way that both ravioli (a dumpling) and spaghetti (a noodle) are classified as pasta.

But of all the incarnates of Filipino noodles, Pancit Canton has to be one of my favorites—if only for its versatility and quick cooking time. Pancit Canton is a relatively thick, dried wheat noodle that is more or less like Chinese chow mein noodles. Pancit Canton is usually first softened with a hot flavorful liquid (i.e. stock or water), and then quickly stir-fried in a wok with any number of vegetables and proteins (e.g. chicken, pork, shrimp, etc.).

So when making a batch of Bistek recently, I decided that instead of serving the saucy beef dish over rice (as is usual), I'd cook it in tandem with some Pancit Canton noodles. But don't mistake this as a separate Bistek dish served on top or alongside a separate Pancit dish—here, they are actually fused together in the cooking method wherein the noodles absorb the essence of the Bistek.

In my Bistek/Pancit Canton hybrid, a mixture of soy sauce and lemon juice is not only used to marinate some flank steak, but the salty/sour mixture is then used to soften and flavor the noodles. And because Pancit Canton is usually served with extra calamansi or lemon wedges for spritzing the noodles, the lemony Bistek marinade was a natural fit in the finished dish.

After enjoying the meaty spoils of my Bistek Pancit Canton, it got me thinking of all the other saucy Filipino dishes that would easily lend themselves to being absorbed into noodles. Say, for instance, a saucy chicken adobo cooked with Pancit Canton, or even a soupy Pinakbet. Heck, dropping the dried noodles in a pot of hot Sinigang would even make for a great Filipino noodle soup. More experimentation is on the horizon, I think. But for now, here's the recipe for a tangy and meaty Bistek Pancit Canton:

Pancit Pointers in the Chicago Sun-Times

In today's Chicago Sun-Times food section, Janet Rausa Fuller navigates through the tangled maze of Pancit. Although the term "Pancit" refers to Filipino noodles in general, there's a little bit more complexity to this seemingly simple dish. In her wonderful article, "Filipino noodle recipe secured at last" Fuller writes:

"There are about a zillion variations, largely depending on the type of the noodle but also on all the colorful garnishes. The ones I’m familiar with include pancit canton (egg noodles), pancit bihon and palabok (rice stick noodles), pancit sotanghon (bean thread or cellophane noodles) and pancit luglug (thicker rice noodles).

Some versions mix two types of noodles. Chicago chef Jennifer Aranas’ book, The Filipino-American Kitchen, lists at least four renditions I’ve never heard of.

Also, no two Filipinos make pancit the same way, and all Filipinos, as a general rule, cook their native dishes from memory, not paper."

And therein lie the maze, not only of Pancit, but of Filipino food in general--one dish can differ completely not only from region to region, but from household to household and cook to cook. But like many other Filipino-Americans, Fuller finds answers to her Filipino food questions with a few phone calls to her mother.

After a few long-distance tutorials, Fuller is finally able to record and write down her mother's fantastic Pancit Bihon recipe--with measurements and all!

And while I'm very certain that Fuller created her Pancit Bihon recipe on the strength of her mother's advice and her own good taste, she did interview me as well for her story. In Fuller's article, I provide a few basic tips of how I make Pancit Canton (of which I learned from my cousin Kathy, and will post about very soon).

So if you're interested in some pancit pointers, check out Janet Rausa Fuller's Pancit arcticle in the Chicago Sun-Times, as well as her Pancit Bihon recipe.

And because no two cooks make pancit the same way, I'd like to ask one question of my readers:

How do you make your Pancit?

Cora Cooks Pancit

Some say that it's never too early to read to your child--even reading to an infant still in the womb is said to increase a baby's language skills. So when the fine folks at Shen's Books sent me a review copy of one of their latest children's books, I couldn't wait to read it to my own new baby boy.

But the book I received was no ordinary children's book. It was a children's book about Filipino culture and food!

Dueling Noodles

I have had my bouts with difficult and time-consuming recipes, and recipes that I just could not figure out on my own. But no matter how much I get my ass kicked in the kitchen, I always feel rejuvenated in between recipes.

It's kinda like pushing the select button in between rounds of Mike Tyson's Punch-Out: I get all my stamina back and I'm ready to punch King Hippo in the mouth.

Whoooosh.

Sorry, that might've gone over some of your heads. What I'm trying to say is that the more Filipino food I make, the more confidence I gain in my Pinoy Prowess in the kitchen. And, as I'm slowly discovering, Filipino cooking can be incredibly easy (with a little bit of practice, of course).

With that said, there are usually three dishes one first learns to make when embarking on a journey of Filipino cuisine: Lumpia, Adobo, and Pancit (The Big 3).  These three dishes are, generally speaking, easy to prepare. So that's probably why the Filipino cook learns them first.  Not coincidentally, these are also the first dishes that are usually fed to non-Filipinos with which they can dip their toes and test the waters of Filipino yumminess. Yeah, yumminess.

If you're keeping score at home, my cracks at the Big 3 are as follows:

Lumpia - Check and check
Adobo - Check, check, check, and check
Pancit - Check

Pancit (pronounced pahn-sit) is a Filipino dish of noodles that comes in as many forms as there have been varying iPod versions. And as you can see from my Big 3 list above, I've only dabbled once in the Pancit department when I made sotanghon (another type of Pancit).

Why haven't I made more Pancit recipes? Well, even though I've made Sotanghon before, I still have this stigma in my brain that Pancit is a difficult dish to prepare, and I'm lazy. Difficulty + Laziness = Beer.

But, after trying out Pat's Pancit recipe over at The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook, I was finally able to add another check next to Pancit on my Big 3 list.

Lazy Chicken Sotanghon

I have quite a few hand-written recipes that were given to me by my grandmother. Of course, I've only attempted to make a few of them.  Why just a few?  Well, most of my grandmother's recipes are intended to feed a small army.  And my household consists of only me and my wife.  No matter how hungry she and I get, a small army we are not.

Recently though, I was feeling ambitious and rifled through my accordian folder full of recipes (Nerd!) to find the instructions for my Grandma's Chicken Sotanghon.  After going over my Grandma's list of ingredients for this noodle dish, I was ready to give up and file the recipe away like I had many times before.  The recipe called for boiling one whole chicken and then picking the cooked chicken meat from the bones.  That's a lot of work. And I'm lazy.

But I realized something as I was stuffing my Grandma's hand-written, college-lined notebook paper back into my nerd-folder of food: I can't go on living my life like this can I?  I can't deprive myself of good Filipino food just because I am lazy.  I had to do something.  So I created a couple of shortcuts and reduced my Grandma's ingredient list to produce just enough food for me and my wife.