It’s the first time we made the famous Pancit Palabok dish inspired by Gaby’s grandpa’s recipe and although there are few kinks we need to work out like a slightly thicker sauce and maybe trying different types of noodles – for the most part I think we knocked it out of the park. The hardest part about making palabok though is prepping all the ingredients separately – it’s extremely time consuming but worth the reward in the end. Start yourself with this and scroll down to my bibingka cupcake recipe for the best dessert cupcakes you’ll ever EVER have, I still can’t stop thinking about ’em. I’ll stop talking now so you can get to cooking! Please enjoy!

@justinelement

INGREDIENTS

¼ cup vegetable oil
1 head garlic, finely chopped
½ cup tinapa (about 2)
1 package Mama Sita’s Palabok Mix
3 cups stock or water
1 pack bihon or lug lug
3 hard-boiled eggs, sliced
½ lb shrimp, boiled, shelled, deveined and halved
¼ cup green onions chopped
½ cup chicharon, crushed
lemon to taste

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS

1. Dissolve the palabok mix into cups of water or stock. Stir until dissolved.
2. Clean the shrimp and boil until the all of the shrimp are pink. Peel, devein and half.
3. Boil the eggs until hard boiled, which takes about 12 minutes. Peel the eggs and slice.
4. Place the chicharon in a sealable plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin or other heavy kitchen object.
5. Create tinapa flakes by using a fork and scraping the fish meat off of the bone.
6. In a wok, sauté the garlic garlic, 1 of the flaked tinapa and stir in the palabok mix. dissolved in 3 cups stock or water. Bring to a boil while stirring occasionally.
7. Lower the heat and simmer until sauce is thick. Remove from heat and set aside.
8. Bring water to a boil in a large pot. Carefully put the noodles in the boiling water and follow the cooking directions. After the noodles are done cooking, strain and let cool.
9. Place the noodles in a large pan or platter and pour the palabok sauce over the noodles. Place the sliced eggs on top, along with the shrimp, green onions, the remaining flaked tinapa and crushed chicharon.