At last I was able to cook pancit palabok at home. One look in my freezer and I saw squid,prawns and crabs. I opened the lower door of the fridge and found leftover porksteak, spam, egg and some chicken. The vegetable drawer was cooperative too, it offered some green leaves,carrot, and spring onion.
Wella, well, what else were missing? The noodles, tinapa (smoked fish) and coloring for the sauce!
I ran quickly to a nearby store and found everything I needed. Even the tinapa! The store was at the entrance of our village and there was a dried fish vendor infont. Lucky me! Since, this was a first time, I let an expert help me with this, I bought Mama Sita's powdered pancit palabok mix.
The noodles cooked easy. The toppings were quite tedious : I fried the leftover porksteak to dry and sliced thinly. I sauteed the prawns,squid and crab meat. I heated the spam to crunchy and chicken. Cut the veggies and sliced the eggs.
The sauce was a bit challenging: I figured, a pack of the prepared mixed sauce was not enough. I thought I wouldn't be needing any colorant for the sauce because of the Mama Sita's. Improvision was the answer. I added more shrimp-water (shrimp head & skin's juice) than told by the pack, then added more tinapa flakes, dropped a dash of food color ( found in my fridge door_Mccormic, red&yellow), thicken the sauce by cornstarch_ voila! It was perfect!
When my voracious family smelled what I was cooking, everyone found his nose in the kitchen and rushed me to serve the dish. That expalained the "rush look" of my pancit palabok.
Ps: It was a success thu'. They loved it! Worth the effort and love :)
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