Ed Quiambao's Home-Cooked Pancit Palabok

[Ed's palabok, awesome with red wine, while conversing with him, & getting distracted by what's online!]




At yesterday's visit to my friend from highschool, Ed Quiambao, he surprised me again by going out of his way to prepare his home-cooked pancit palabok, his version. Ed ought to seriously consider putting up a food business anytime soon, I went kidding him, which I hope he'd take action soon as he's a happy cook. His wife, Vicky, did all the prep works, while Ed and I were chatting. Click on the link found anywhere here in this posting so you'd get details on how to prepare your own pancit palabok. I'll share here what went on as we ventured into having our dinner last night.

As we talked about the travails and joys of immigrating to the US, specifically here in NYC, he was soon making the sauce. He added in oil and grounded achuete in the pan for the sauce. Stirring in the sauce while it's slowly being cooked, he soon finished it by straining away the grounded achuete seeds. He was never giving me instructions on how to cook this dish, though I was observing him while cooking as I heard him wondering if I do cooking myself. I told him, "I just cook for myself" with a sigh and a smile, and adding "I just cook whatever is in the fridge" saying in a way that Ed enjoys cooking more than myself. Vicky has then prepared the peeled shrimps, sliced the squids with their heads already removed, and have done the mincing and crumbling of the garlic.

Ed also dried fried the steamed fish flakes, and then proceeded to boil the noodles. He was careful not to break the threads of the noodles.

In 30 minutes or so, as we were also having red wine, the palabok is cooked and prepared. Such awesome dinner! Hmmmm....