Rebel Noodles

In the basement of Lucky Plaza, at the heart of Singapore’s shopping district of Orchard Road, thrives what could be considered a Filipino hawker food center. Here you will find Jollibee, Lutong Pinoy 1, Lutong Pinoy 2,  Kamayan Pinoy, Tapa King and Lechon Pinoy. Six out of a total of sixteen food stalls (the rest are regional food that have some commonalities with Philippine cuisine as well) meld indigenous Austronesian ingredients and cooking methods with those of a revolving cast of traders, settlers, colonizers and dreamers. These are the foodways that make us who we are: our complex national and personal histories served up on a plate or a soup bowl.

One can happily spend the whole day going from stall to stall. First stop would have to be Jollibee, the Filipino’s answer to McDonald’s: fast, cheap and consistent. It looks like any other fast food joint:  fried chicken, burgers, French Fries. But then there’s this: sweet spaghetti with slivers of hotdog and melted cheddar cheese. It’s a hybrid that perhaps only a child could love, which is why this dish is a hit at Filipino kids’ birthday parties.

Any noodle dish can be traced back to China, though I’m sure the Italians will put up a fight for the pasta’s origins story and would probably scratch their heads at Jollibee’s interpretation of spaghetti. What you can be certain about is that when the Chinese, who had been trading with the Philippines since the 9th century, began to settle and intermarry with the native population, noodle dishes multiplied. Pancit is the catch-all name for Philippine noodles made from rice, buckwheat, wheat flour, or monggo bean starch. Stirfried with a variety of meats and vegetables, pancit is derived from the Hokkien word pain i sit which means “convenient food.” And pancit is indeed food for the masses. Pancit palabok, pancit Canton, pancit Miki, pancit bihon, pancit Miki Bihon, pancit luglug …  to name but a few.

Lutong Pinoy 2 makes a mean pancit palabok. Unlike the other variety that uses thick noodles to absorb the sauce, their version is made with thin rice noodles. The gravy sits atop like an insouciant orange shrug. Colored by crushed shrimp shells and achiote, the sauce makes pancit palabok the stuff of guilty and squeamish pleasure. The word palabok always makes me cringe: it brings up images of slime and other malapot, or sticky sludgy stuff. But the bright orange gravy has the right consistency and flavor, and they don’t skimp on the toppings either. When all combined, each forkful is a savory and creamy blend of slick noodles, crispy chicharon, savory pork, poached shrimp, hard-boiled egg, green onions with the citrus tang of kalamansi squeezed over to finish the dish.

(For more on my pancit palabok obsession, please check out

http://anilokanainparis.blogspot.sg/2009/09/alchemy-of-pancit-palabok.html )

Once broth is introduced, what was once pancit is transformed into something else: a noodle soup dish. Along with pancit palabok, Lutong Pinoy #2 serves batchoy (a noodle soup made with offal, lard and other bits of goodness) and chicken mami (springy yellow egg noodles in a flavourful golden broth, topped with sliced chicken and shredded napa cabbage). These are favored as late afternoon merienda fare.

There’s one pancit dish that isn’t served at Lucky Plaza and it’s a rule-breaker. There are no noodles in this dish, and yet it carries the pancit name. It’s also broth-based. Behold the pancit Molo: a glorious rendition of wonton soup. Molo is a town in Iloilo City and it lends its name to this special pancit. I’m Ilonggo on my father’s side, and this is a near sacred dish in our family, legendary among relatives and friends who were lucky enough to have a bowl (or several) of my Lola Mary’s famous pancit Molo.  My grandmother, who passed away five years ago last month, continues to be our family’s beloved matriarch.  Tributes have poured into my Aunt’s Facebook page honoring the anniversary of Lola Mary’s passing. Several comments revolved around not only how loving and wonderful she was, but also how much her pancit Molo is missed.

As October speeds into the holiday season, I look forward to being back home in California with my family to honor Lola Mary in our own way. Soon I will leave the humidity of Singapore and the numerous food stalls of Lucky Plaza. Instead, I’ll be shopping for ingredients at 99 Ranch in Gardena with my Mom, for the type of home cooking that I only get to experience once a year since becoming an expat in Asia. During the holidays we gather around the table: Mom, my siblings and our own families, cousins, aunties, nieces and nephews with a single task: hand-wrapping each wonton so that it looks like a bishop’s hat, the special way that Lola Mary had passed down to my Mom. Meanwhile the “mother broth,” a luxurious soup-base that takes three days to make properly, will be simmering on the stovetop. The wontons are boiled in the broth and whisked away as soon as they float to the top. Finished with fried garlic and sliced scallions, we will have our own bowlful of personal and national histories to warm us after Christmas Eve mass. This is the noche buena I look forward to more than anything else during the holidays.

(More on pancit Molo here http://anilokanainparis.blogspot.sg/2009/07/pancit-molo-in.html )

References:

Doreen Fernandez Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture

https://www.amazon.com/Tikim-Essays-Philippine-food-culture/dp/9712703835

Jason Tastes Asia, Episode 7: Philippines Panciteria and Panaderia

http://www.asianfoodchannel.com/shows/jason-tastes-asia/episodes

Pancit Palabok from Lutong Pinoy 2

Preparing wontons for Pancit Molo

Homecooked Pancit Molo

Pancit Molo Chicken Soup for the Balikbayan Soul

We arrived yesterday in Manila after almost twenty hours of travel. One of the first things I wanted to do as soon as I got over my jet lag is to shop for local produce and to make meals for my husband/travel companion and for Dad. At the kitchen in our home in San Mateo, Rizal I reacquaint myself with the cooking techniques of the Philippines. While preparing breakfast this morning I had my first lesson. Thinking the gas stove was like my own in San Francisco, I absentmindedly lit a match that sent a blanket of flame to briefly cover the entire stove top. My Dad grabbed the matches out of my hands and reprimanded me with a chuckle. “You have to light the match immediately after you turn on the gas. You cannot leave the stove on even for a few seconds longer than necessary.”
 

With a newfound respect for the kitchen ways I now prepare the broth for pancit molo soup, primarily to aid in restoring my husband’s health. He has been running a temperature since we landed in the Manila from Hong Kong, but I believe he has been fighting this fever even in San Francisco. I am relying on the old and proven powers of the chicken noodle soup to make it all better. I tell him that he has been running himself ragged with work and other obligations, and to not fight being sick anymore. Sometimes it is the body’s way to ask us to slow down. I tell him to not feel any guilt or worry that we are spending more time at home and not beginning our trek up north to Alaminos and Baguio as originally planned. . We will spend as much time at home for him to get better and acclimate himself to the weather and nuances of life in the Philippines.

I too need to acclimate and reorient myself to the sights, smells and sounds of Metro Manila and the neighboring rural town of Rizal. The kitchen itself is like a new baranggay to explore, with its own set of rules and nuances. Salt is coarse and due to the humidity, has a tendency to liquefy. Olive oil has a different flavor also because of the climate, less round and fruity but not altogether unpleasant. It is better to cook with the native virgin coconut oil or canola oil that holds up better in the tropical climate. The knives are thin, not as sharp as the ones I have back home in San Francisco. The pots are blackened from the butane gas stove flame that has a life of its own. The yellow flickering tongues lick the sides of the pot, curling around almost to the rim. I turn down the flames into a more subdued ring of blue, trembling beneath the soup broth but still very much alive. 
 

I write this in the newly built lanai where my husband rests on thin slats of the bamboo bed. The late afternoon sun smudges amber against the walls, lighting the capiz shell squares of the window/door that separates the lanai from the study, and they glow like pearls lit from within. I am keeping strong and in high spirits for my husband who cannot help but feel a little upset about slowing down our itinerary. I want to reach into him and pull out whatever it is that is making him sick. Early morning still jet lagged I woke up at 4am and gave him a healing massage, the kind that Mom has learned from her baglan research. I knead and pull with intention, and end the massage by sweeping my hands across his body to grab any toxic energy and casting these out, literally making movements to throw away the sickness, then clapping and snapping over him to clear the energy. Afterwards I sang Joey Ayala songs and rocked him back to sleep. Then I got up at around six am and did yoga in the front yard underneath the rambutan tree.
 

This evening I hope to cure him from the inside with soup that originates from Iloilo, where my father’s family and his Mom is originally from. La Paz where Lola lives and where we will go as soon as he gets better is adjacent to the town of Molo. The ubiquitous pancit Molo is derivative of the wonton noodle soup of the early Chinese traders who settled in the port town. It has been indigenized with the addition of fish sauce, crushed shrimp heads that lend a pink hue to the soup and other Filipino tweaks to the original recipes. My Mom has added her own flavors by the beginning with a very good French style broth from a whole chicken and root vegetables, the pot left uncovered and the broth not allowed to boil beyond a soft rolling simmer, the muck skimmed every so often then the entire soup strained. Then soft vegetables are mashed for its essence then discarded, producing a clean, golden hued pure broth. To this I will add the pancit molo from the town of Molo that Dad has in his freezer. Usually I make the molo from scratch, but in this case I will experiment with an already made product. Then I will also fry up some garlic for garnish. In the same pan I will sauté small diced carrots, celery and onions. The whole chicken I will shred before adding it back to the soup along with the sautéed vegetables. To serve I will garnish individual bowls with fried garlic and chopped scallions.