So a couple of weeks ago (or something *ahem*) Beadsandyarn mentioned she was looking for a pancit recipe on the Pinoy Ravelers group on Ravelry. She was looking for a thick noodle one and my mom makes it sometimes so I figured I’d get the recipe from her, I was planning on writing down her recipes anyway and I figured why not wheedle her into making pancit canton so I have the recipe and I can take photos to blog :D Off I went to send a pm to Beadsandyarn about getting a recipe from my mom and then I forgot about it for a week (so sorry Beads!!! ;_;), got the recipe the next week, and then procrastinated for almost 2 weeks about blogging it (really really sorry Beads!!! x_x). So here I am finally getting around sending it off into the blogosphere :D
::Warning:: I’m pretty sure my mom is so used to cooking for 10+ people it became a habit. So if you’re going to make this pancit you might wanna wait either for a party or get used to eating LOTS of pancit canton for leftovers. Or you can just alter the recipe to make it smaller (and suit your taste :3)
The Mom’s/Inai’s/Nanang’s/Inang’s Pancit Canton
Ingredients & Equipment (happeh nao Rei? lol) :
Chop/slice up your cabbage, celery, carrot, onion, shallots, bell pepper, crush a bulb of garlic cloves (less if you don’t like garlic) and do a rough slice, or not if you’re like me and like the chunks. Also make a knot out of your lemongrass. We did this part while the water and the meat were on the stovetop heating up, but you can to this before hand if you don’t have extra hands.
Get your big pot and fill it with water, set it on the stove, and let it boil. Place your meat in a pot with a couple of crushed garlic cloves (for flavor), lemongrass, and some crushed peppercorn and set the heat to medium. Let this cook for about 30 minute on low heat (to be honest she was looking at the time, she just kind of knew when it was done, not that that helps much). Mom doesn’t like all that fat and oil that will start to float at the top, so she tends to remove it with a spoon.
When the water in the large pot starts to boil, turn down the heat to medium and start adding the pancit, let it do its thing (stir occasionally so it wont stick) until its halfway cooked (taste for chewy chewy). Once its ready take it off the heat and give it a cold water shock to stop it from cooking further (don’t worry because you’ll finish cooking it a bit later).
Once the meat is finished with its little hot bath take it out of the pot and let it cool down. The broth that you’ve ended up with in the meat pot is going to be used later, so set it aside for now, because mom detests the fat that’s floating we strained it through a cloth just to get all the last bits of fat and other chunks of lemongrass/garlic/peppercorn out of the broth.
Once the meat has cooled down cut it up into little bite friendly bits. Get your pan and add some oil to it. Take your meat and brown it in the pan, once its brown set it aside and start adding the onions, shallots, and garlic to the pan (oil if needed). When the onions become a little transparent add the carrots, once the carrots are halfway cooked add the celery and lastly the bell pepper and cabbage. Add some crushed peppercorn (or if you prefer just ground pepper), and around 2 tablespoons of soy sauce (she eyed it so I’m not 100% that it was 2 lol) taste a veggie and if it needs it add some salt (we didn’t need any since we had pork). Scoop out the veggies from the pan and mix them up with your meat.
Don’t clean your pan yet because we’re going to use those juices at the bottom, get a little bit of the broth (around 1/4 – 1/2 a cup, again mom eyed this) and add it to the pan juices. Let this simmer till its been reduced almost by half.
Here’s where things started going a little off for me an mom, because of all the food we had the pancit wouldn’t really fit into our little pan, so we had to do the the final step in two batches. If you make the food the way I wrote it 1) I hope your not eating it all by yourself, 2) I hope you have a bigger pan, 3) if not you’ll take the same steps with both batches.
When the pan juice + broth gets reduced take out half of it for the second batch. If you have a large pan do all the noodles together. So, if you were like us, and had a small pan, take half of your semi-cooked canton and add it to the pan (see I told you we’d finish cooking it). Mix the noodles into the sauce so every last bit is coated and taste it to see if it needs anything (more pepper? salt? or soy sauce?) Taste your noodles to see if they’re done (should be a little chewy) and when they are done add half of your veggie and meat mix, stir it all together so every serving will have a little bit of everything, and your done (yay :D congratulations!!!). Except if you were like us and had to do it in two batches (aww :( no congratulations), but once you do the second batch your done (yay :D). Don’t forget to add the other half of the pan juice + broth reduction to the other half of the semi-cooked pancit!
Remember if you’re going to make it yourself you can always tweak the ingredients so it suits your taste, if you like extra garlic, add more garlic! Onion fiend? Add 10 of them (ok don’t do that…). Like the salty taste? More soy sauce!!! or salt!!! Hate cabbage? Do your cheeks swell or do you break out in rash at the merest idea of eating bell pepper (really? I never heard of bell pepper allergies)? Don’t add them!!! Anyway you get my point, go ahead and tweak away.
Also if you make this you are automatically obligated to posting a picture of either you eating it or making it and Happy Eating :D
