Pancit Palabok

The Chinese immigrants introduced our country to noodles. Because of this, noodles have adapted to our culture and taste. With this different noodle dishes have been born thru the centuries. Today let me introduce to you one of the best noodle dishes in our country that showcases our food culture.

It is in our culture to have some bread or rice cake when eating noodles. It could be a piece of white bread, Pandesal (Philippine breakfast bread) but the best partner is the "Puto".

Puto

It is a rice cake made from rice dough, fermented a bit and then steamed the next day.

Cost: 7 pesos per piece ($0.15 USD)

The Puto is soft, moist and a bit sweet. Different toppings are added like cheese or slices of salted duck eggs. There are also other variants where pork asado is placed inside the rice cake. Sometimes other flavors and colors are added to make it more attractive but the best for me is just the plain white Puto topped with cheese.

Pancit Palabok

This noodle dish is one of my favorite and is an original Philippine dish. Although this dish has been with us for centuries it is hard to define who invented the Pancit Palabok.

Cost: 290 pesos good for 4 persons ($6.07 USD)

In almost all of our noodle dishes, it requires a squeeze of Calamansi to give a little bit of sour flavor. This small green citrus is the Philippine lime and has many uses that range from juices to skin whiteners.

This dish can often be found during birthday celebrations and fiestas. I recall when I was young everyone wants to have spaghetti during their birthday party but for me, I wanted the Pancit Palabok.

The ingredients are thin white rice noodles locally called "Bihon". The orange sauce is made from a mixture that has a shrimp flavor. There are instant mixes out there but the best sauce is made from shrimp stock.

The toppings include eggs, a lot of crushed pork cracklings and shrimp. It is then garnished with spring onions and topped with smoked fish flakes called "Tinapa". There are more elaborate versions of the Palabok that includes tons of seafood. Loaded with sea mussels, slices of squid, crab meat and large shrimps. It is hard to look for that version these days due to the expensive ingredients but I was able to try it when I was younger.

Now for the serving and you would always aim to get a piece of the sliced egg. It is also best if you could get a decent amount of pork cracklings from the top.

As for the taste, it is a little salty and the shrimp flavor can be determined but not overpowering.

To balance all the flavor it is best to add a squeeze of the calamansi and then you are good to go.

Thanks for joining me again today and I hope you enjoyed our noodle dish. It is one of the dishes that define our food culture.

Have you ever tried the Pancit Palabok?
Are you willing to try this noodle dish?
Please leave some comments and let me know what you think.
Until then stay safe and happy eating.

All photos are original and taken with

Lumix GX85 and Olympus 45mm f1.8