Pancit Canton, Filipino Noodles with Stir-Fried Vegetables

Filed under Pasta + Noodles + Rice

I skipped swimming tonight to run some errands I’ve been putting off the last week so all I wanted for dinner was something healthy and quick to make. I wanted a lot of half-cooked vegetables and imagined a lot of crunch to my meal. I immediately thought of cabbage and bubble and squeak, but I didn’t really feel like eating potatoes. I turned to the Filipino pancit after I remembered that I still have a package of cooked noodles from the Khmer Legacies swag a couple of weeks ago.

Canton noodles, one of the many Chinese influences Filipinos call their own, are long egg noodles that have been precooked and dried before packaging and thus only require a few minutes to cook. Time the prep just right and you’ll be slicing and dicing while the first batch of vegetables are cooking. This way, your time is spent efficiently and you avoid overcooking any of the ingredients. The worst is to eat soggy noodles. You can use angel hair noodles as a substitute here; just cook them al dente and toss with the vegetables before serving.

Ingredients:
1 pack of pancit Canton noodles
2 cups of chicken broth
1 small head of cabbage, sliced into strips
1 cup of dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in water then drained, roughly chopped
a handful of string beans, roughly chopped
1 small carrot, roughly chopped
2 red bell peppers, julienned
1 onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
peanut oil
sesame oil
soy sauce
juice from 1 lime
salt

1. Heat some peanut oil in a large skillet. Sauté garlic until brown and onions until soft. Add cabbage and toss until covered in oil. Let cook for about 5 minutes while occasionally mixing.
2. Add the carrots and cook for another 2 minutes. Then add the softened mushrooms, string beans and the bell peppers. Keep tossing all the ingredients together to cook evenly. Add chicken broth and cover the skillet for 3 minutes to steam the vegetables.
3. Meanwhile, soak the noodles in a bowl of water to soften them. Gently separate noodles by hand. Drain, uncover the skillet and add noodles with the vegetables. Drizzle some sesame oil for flavor and season with salt and a jigger or two of soy sauce to taste. Toss for another 3 minutes to make sure the noodles are evenly distributed. Remove to a plate and serve with lime juice for a little sting.

Related post/s:
I survived on homemade bubble and squeak while traveling in Iceland
Khmer Legacies is preserving the history of the Khmer Rouge genocide to avoid future mass atrocities

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Centovini

Filed under Italian, SoHo

25 West Houston Street between Greene and Mercer
212/219.2113
$196 for two, with five drinks, without tip
♥ ♥

I knew I shouldn’t have ordered the $22 glass of Barolo but the guy behind the bar gave me a taste after I picked the $16 Muraglie and convinced me that it was the better way to go. It was a very good glass of wine and I gingerly drank it with the meats and cheeses that we ordered as appetizers, as well as with the asparagus salad topped with fried duck prosciutto and egg. For $20, we had a choice of five cheeses and salumis: we split the cacciatorini, the sweet coppa, the finocchiona and the Calcagno with the Testun al Barolo. I loved the subtle spring taste of the trout main dish with the fava beans, sprouts and sweet peas; a few pieces of morels upped the price to $28.

I have walked by Centovini several times but never paid much attention to it because it looked far too dark from the outside. I thought the space would be a little too romantic to meet a friend, so I was surprised at how bright it actually was inside. We sat at the bar under the massive mirrored lamp and even felt like a surgery can be done right on the marble-top counter. The rest of the restaurant is quite handsome, with a beautiful wall of wine shelves in one end and a lounge area in another.

The service was unobtrusive because they knew to leave us alone the entire time we were there. The bartender seemed to just show up whenever we needed to refill our wine glasses. And as to not interrupt our conversation, we would nod and just give him an okay–that makes for a very hefty bill after two and a half hours.

You can still get away with a much simpler dinner–and less wine–before heading to Angelika Theater without spending too much. A three-course prix-fixe is available every night for just $38 while brunch on weekends goes for $18. Centovini isn’t Lupa but I think it’s a good spot to start the night off right. Just make sure you don’t order the Barolo.

Related post/s:
Kale and bacon salad recipe inspired by Lupa
I still have to try Shorty’s .32 which was at the Goblin Market space

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