Manong Ken's Carinderia

Countdown to Christmas Noche Buena No. 1: Easy Pancit Bihon

I seldom make pancit bihon. Bihon noodles are made from rice flour and looks like vermicelli. I always do pancit sotanghon which is another kind of noddle but made from soybean. Sotanghon is also called sometimes as cellophane or glass noodle because they look transparent when cooked. I looked at the main carinderia site and there is a recipe for bihon there but I wanted to make something simpler.

I do have the rice noodles because I bought them last Sunday at the Vietnamese store but I wasn’t sure what I had in my refrigerator/freezer to mixed them with. I did find a pack of pork chops but they’re frozen together and I didn’t want to thaw the whole bunch just for one chop. So, I decided to use shrimps which I also usually have. I also found a bunch of celery and no other greens. So I thought, I will have to make do with what I had. This is what I wanted in the first place, a simpler bihon recipe.

So this is what I ended up with:

Needs:

onions, sliced
garlic, pressed
oil, olive oil if possible
some greens – I used celery
shrimps
rice noodles
celery, sliced
soy sauce
fresh ground pepper
sea salt (if you have)
patis (fish sauce) can be used instead of soy sauce
water
boiled eggs
lemon or lime juice

On a hot wok, heat a lot of oil. Saute onions and garlic. Add shrimps, soy sauce, fresh ground pepper, water and simmer for a few minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add noodles. At this point, I had to add more water because I didn’t pre-soak the noodles (which you may). As I said, I don’t know much about bihon so I didn’t soak in water before hand (I usually soak sotanghon). But I learned that the bihon absorbed so much water that I had to add more. So I guess, you need to pre-soak it in water before adding. Add your greens at this time. (I used celery … you can use beans, carrots etc. which I didn’t have.)

Mix while still on the stove.

Serve in a bowl garnished with sliced eggs.

So here it is, pancit bihon on my plate, ready to eat.

Success!

BTW, pancit can be good ‘meriendas’ (afternoon snacks).

This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 7:13 pm. It is filed under Desserts and Snacks, Noche Buena, Recipes, Rice and Noodles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.