pancit canton - my recipe

I had a marathon cooking today and cooked a few dishes in advance for next week. As a working housewife, I make it a point that my freezer is full of ready to eat foods that I myself  have cooked.

It reduces stress during the week when I´m at work and I would just have to thaw and reheat the food as needed. Well, the advantage of advance cooking is that, you always have a choice on what to eat and you know which ingredients were used.

One of today´s dishes that I cooked  is a philippine version of the chinese "chow mein" that uses noodles called pancit canton. It´s a dish that is very popular in all the islands of the Philippines ( 7200 of them that includes uninhabited islands).

 Other recipes call for shrimps and oyster sauce... Oh sorry (!), my version does not use either one of these ingredients because I don´t eat sea foods..my apology for that, but you can add shrimps as you like when you cook this.

My recipe version is so easy to make, I used simple ingredients which are available in stores. Pancit canton is the prime ingredient here and this is usually available in asian supermarkets.

pancit canton noodles

 So, come on and  let´s cook! 

PANCIT CANTON

(serves 4 portions)

Ingredients:

400 grams of  pork filet cut into thin strips 
1 pair of chorizo or hard sausage, sliced (optional)
400 grams or 2 packs 8 oz. dried pancit canton noodles (fresh ones are of course preferable)
2 stalks celery cut into bite pieces
1 red bell pepper, cut approximately into 2x2 cm pieces
3 cups of  white cabbage cut into strips
4 medium size carrots, cut into bite pieces
1 big red or white onion, thinly sliced
1 bunch of spring onions, chopped
3 cloves crushed garlic
Soy sauce, vegetable oil, sesam oil ( optional)
Salt & pepper

Preparations: 

1. Boil water in a deep casserole and quickly add the dried pancit canton noodles, Boil for about a minute  or until noodles become  soft...Do not overcook to avoid noodles getting limpy.. Drain the water and let stand for later use.

2. Marinate the pork filet in 1/3 cup soya sauce, season with salt & pepper and let stand for about 10 minutes..

3. In a pan, add 3 tablespoons sesame oil and fry the pork filet batch by batch until meat pieces are golden brown, add cooking oil to the pan if necessary. Add the cut sausages ( optional) and cook for 2 minutes more. Take meat+sausage out of the pan and place in a container and cover to keep warm, set aside for later use. 


4. In a deep  huge casserole... heat 2 tbsps cooking oil,  fry the crushed garlic, add the onions, spring onions, carrots, celery, the cut bell pepper, and the cabbage... 

Stir-fry until all vegetables become soft, takes about 10-12 minutes. Add the meat+sausage to the vegetables , mix carefully until all ingredients are well blended. Add the noodle, sprinkle with 1 tbsp soy sauce,  mix well  and season with salt and pepper according to your taste.

5. Arrange in a platter, serve hot.

Enjoy cooking!