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.

Pork Sinigang, the famous Filipino tamarind soup served preferrably over rice, has been one of my favorite dishes my entire life. I’d always order it from different Filipino restaurants trying out what they did differently. There are so many variations of Sinigang so it’s not like you could really do it wrong, I just took my favorite veggies and my favorite cuts of meat and thew in all the tamarind mix you could. You’ll understand when you eat it. Anywho try out my easy to make version – and if you don’t have a pressure cooker, just get the pork ribs 🙂

Ingredients

• Choice of: country style pork shoulder (easiest to chop) or a slab of pork ribs (have the butcher cut it across in 4 pieces)
• 1-2 packs of tamarind sinigang sa sampalok mix
• 3 tomatoes
• 1 white onion
• Assorted veggies: broccoli crowns, spinach, eggplant, baby bok choy, green beans, okra, pepper etc

Directions

1. Chop the pork into small pieces, size really just depends on how large you want your pieces to be. Using pork shoulder, you will want to make the pieces smaller since it is a tougher piece of meat, but easier to cook with. Using pork rib, you can keep them larger as they will cook faster and be more tender.
2. Dice into cubes the onion and tomatoes, keep the ratio close to 3 tomatoes to 1 onion.
3. Throw everything into a pressure cooker (literally) and mix till juices reduce for a few minutes.
4. Add water just to cover ingredients
5. Set pressure cooker and once pressure starts to increase, time for 30-40 minutes for the country style pork or 15 minutes for the pork ribs for tender meat.
6. Turn off stove and let cooker sit before opening.
7. Add water to your desire
8. Add in 1 package of sinigang sa sampalok mix (add more if desiring more of a sour taste)
9. Mix, add veggies and boil till veggies for a 5 minutes.
10. Serve over rice and enjoy!

@justinelement

I’m not the biggest baker, but luckily I have a Gaby that is! So here is our recipe for the BEST bibingka bites I’ve ever had, made by my darling fiance who pretty much knocked this one out of the park. Lots of people have been asking for this, so go nuts, try different things and let us know how it tastes!

@justinelement

Ingredients

• 1 cup rice flour
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 3 eggs
• 4 tbsp melted butter
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 can cream style corn
• Extra butter and sugar for topping

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Line or grease the cupcake pans.
2. In a bowl, whisk together rice flour, cornmeal, salt, and baking powder.
3. In a separate bowl, beat eggs until fluffy. Add sugar and melted butter and continue to whisk until it starts to become foamy.
4. Add the coconut milk into the egg mixture and stir to combine. Add the dry ingredients and mix until smooth. Add the cream style corn and mix.
5. Pour batter into the cupcake pans, about ¾ of the way full in each. The bibingka won’t rise much while in the oven. Cook for about 20 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Remove from oven, brush top with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar.
7. Turn on the broiler in the oven to high and place the cupcakes back into the oven to brown. Make sure to keep a close eye on them, they’ll burn quickly if you leave them in for too long!
8. Take out the cupcakes and remove them from the pan. Let them cool and then enjoy!