Pancit Canton with Shrimp and Vegetables and My Sister Menchie

Pancit Canton with Shrimp and Vegetables

This particular recipe uses the Chinese/Filipino flour noodle called pancit canton. The "sahog" or other stuff in it are a mixture of vegetables and shrimps.  The seasonings used comprise of fish sauce, soy sauce and lime.  One can also use lemon or better yet calamansi if you have access to it for the citrus taste essential to the dish.  I also garnish it with hard-boiled egg and green onions. 

Note the label did not mention any eggs as ingredient.  Some refer to Pancit canton as the egg noodle.  This dry version is not apparently. However, according to Jun Belen author of the wonderful Jun-Blog blog site, fresh canton noodles are made of eggs. 

My younger sister Menchie celebrated her birthday last week and I actually forgot about it and did not get to call her till two weeks later.  So this post is my peace offering.  During birthday celebrations Filipinos prepare a noodle dish to wish the celebrant long life.  I decided to prepare Pancit Canton with shrimps and vegetable in her honor.  One can also use chicken, pork, beef and smoked meat like ham and sausages individually or in combination with each other.


Menchie. Ate Bebeng and myself.

Menchie is the youngest in our family of 3 sisters and 3 brothers.  Her passion is sewing and doing crafts.  She actually majored in Textile Design at the University of the Philippines and worked at Ocean Pacific making the designs on their T-shirts.

She and I are 7 years apart and look very similar to each other.  My witty and sometimes annoying brother Chot one time posed this question to us when we were playing during our younger years.  "How do you spell Menchie in five letters?" The answer: Ondes. (My childhood nickname). Chot has always marveled at how much Menchie and I resemble each other.

Menchie is fearless and versatile. When I got married she did my upswept hairdo without telling me it was her first time to do so and on the biggest day of my life at that!  It was professionally done I would admit and I would not have known her lack of experience until she told me.
 

Menchie doing my hair for my wedding in 1981.

She can sew all day and she is good at it. She can easily sew one or two dresses in one day. She is also very resourceful. I remember her making a cover from remnants for our first sofa a friend passed on to us when Bob and I were newly married. She made the beautiful runners for her son Chris and daughter-in-law Chris' wedding reception last year plus the dresses for one of the bridesmaids and the flower girl.



Menchie with son Chris and husband Bubut at Chris' wedding.

Chris and Chris, also known as Team Chris, at their wedding with their mothers during the sand ceremony. 

 Menchie is very talented.  Her amazing creativity is most evident in the jaw-dropping headless costumes (see below) she made for herself and Bubut as Marie Antoinette and Louis the VI, respectively, at the Halloween ball of the San Beda high school class Bubut belongs to.  Needless to say they easily won, heads off, I mean, hands down, first prize.





 Belated Happy Birthday Menchie!  See you in March at Los Angeles.

Pancit Canton with Shrimp and Vegetables

Ingredients: 

• 8 oz Pancit Canton (available in any Asian Grocery Store)
• 2 tbsps vegetable oil
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• 1 large carrot, julienned
• 3 celery stalks, sliced thinly in bias cut
• 1/2 a cabbage head, chopped in strips
• chicken stock, 2 -3 cups or as needed
• 8 large raw shrimps unpeeled but deveined (thawed in microwave if frozen saving the juice)
• salt and pepper to taste
• 4 hard boiled eggs, cut into slices or chopped
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped
• soy sauce
• fish sauce
• lime or lemon slices

Saute the onion and garlic in 2 tbsps vegetable oil.  Once the onion is translucent and the garlic a little browned but not burn, add the carrot and celery.  Continue to saute the vegetables.  When the carrot and celery are half done, add the chopped cabbage.  You may add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of chicken stock at this point of stirring only if you need to. Stir the mixture till the vegetables are cooked and yet still crisp.  Add salt and pepper to taste.    Add the raw unpeeled shrimps including its juice if you microwaved them frozen.  The juice of the shrimps and the shrimps themselves give this dish a distinct taste.  Continue to stir fry till the shrimps turned pink.

Remove the mixture from the wok or pan leaving any juice.  Add the noodles in the pan and add about 1/2 to 1 cup of chicken broth.  Do not submerge the noodles in too much broth.  Add only enough to wet the noodles at the bottom of the pan, crush the rest and stir till the noodles are cooked.  Add more broth only if you need to wet the noodles or else it will get soggy.  However if it does happen let it go since it will still be good.

Once the noodle is done, add the vegetable and shrimp mixture and just heat through.  Garnish with the sliced or chopped eggs and green onions.  You can add soy sauce, fish sauce and lime juice to the pancit canton according to taste at this point or you can put the three seasonings to the side for the guests to flavor the pancit according to their own taste.  I prefer the latter.  The pancit canton is pretty much seasoned with salt and pepper during cooking.  The other seasonings are there to enhance the flavor.  But then again I am watching my salt.  The lime or other citrus that you squeeze over your serving is an essential component and do not skip it.