Pancit will always have a place in the heart of every Filipino. Since ancient times, this festive noodle dish has been a huge part of many Pinoy traditions and celebrations like fiestas, birthday parties, weddings, and many more.
It is a staple dish used not only before but even today. It is not surprising that most modern Pinoy transcribes a new set of versions and variations of the featured dish, and one of them is the Best Pancit Sotanghon.
And out of the many variants of this humble noodle dish, our featured dish for this article is one that always makes the list of the top choices.
So, there's no time to wait! Hurry up and explore the great Pinoy recipes you could ever recreate.
What is Pancit Sotanghon
Pancit is a rice noodle dish introduced by Chinese settlers in the Philippines. Over the centuries, Pinoys adapted the dish as local cuisine, which has more variants and types. And it is another variation of this well-known Pinoy dish.
Pancit Sotanghon is a dish known as Sotanghon guisado, a dish made from cellophane noodles, chicken broth, and vegetables. It is different from old and classic recipes because the featured dish is a dry version of the sotanghon soup.
The featured dish is also similar to the recipes Guisado and canton, which are also other variants of the Pansit. But somehow, the way of cooking and preparing is the same in sotanghon soup making.
It is also a great dish and stands out more than other recipes when you add more minced garlic during sauteing. The roasted garlic adds more aroma to the featured dish and makes it more appealing.
Then, cook the noodle to perfection and drain it well. After that, add the sauteed vegetables and the noodle and simmer it for five minutes. You could serve it with lime or lemon to add a more sour taste to the dish.
Ways to Cook of this Noodles Recipes
The featured dish is simple and easy to cook, so it requires perfect ways of cooking. Therefore, we look for some of the great methods to cook this incredible dish.
Instant pot Noodles Recipes
It is one of the easiest and effortless ways of cooking. It is because you could cook all in one pot. It requires you to use a multi-cooker to do both sauteing and simmering at the same pot. You have to set the time and then wait to cook the dish.
Stovetop Noodles Recipes
It is the old classic way of cooking the featured dish. Stovetop cooking is far easier and faster than other cooking methods since you have control of the burner. You could set it on high or low heat, depending on how you want to cook your dish.
You have to use a wide pan and put it at the top of the burner, then start sauteing the ingredients and then simmer the noodle and add it to the sauteed ingredients.
Other Delicious Variants and Filipino Recipes
Our menu is a wonderful dish to cook and to explore. You could create a lot of varieties out of that dish. Hence, we searched for some recipes that would surely help you elevate this dish you are recreating.
Seafood Sotanghon Recipes
If you are fond of seafood, this version would fit your taste buds. It is a version where you could use an added component to the featured dish is seafood instead of meat. You could choose between shellfish, crustaceans, or even fishes to put in your elevated recipes on our menu.
Seafood has different tastes, flavors, and texture that you could choose from in its varieties. It has a delicate, medium, and firm texture palette. And it also has a full, moderate, and mild flavor palette that you could choose from all the kinds of seafood.
It is one of the prime sources of protein and one of the world's largest consumed ingredients. Not surprisingly, many Pinoys love to eat seafood since thousands of islands and seas surround the Philippines.
With canton Recipes
Like the Canton dish, you may add canton pasta to the recipes. It makes the dish's texture firmer and thick.
Canton noodles are thick noodles made with wheat flour with a great bite and texture. It is the most common noodle used in canton recipes. Adding this noodle to the dish makes it tastier and delicious. The canton noodle absorbs the dish's seasonings and flavors easier and faster than the cellophane noodle used to create a sotanghon dish.
With pork/chicken Recipes
Similar to the seafood version, you could use and add pork and chicken to the featured dish as an added component to eat. It gives more taste and flavor to the dish.
Pork and chicken are the most consumed meat in the Philippines and even other countries because people love to eat meat. It is an added component to the dish because the two types of meat have a big difference in flavor and taste, making a certain dish stand out.
Pork doesn't taste like chicken. It also has a great difference in texture and taste because pork has a similar taste and texture. Therefore, combining these two types of meat as an added ingredient to the dish complements each other and makes the dish incredibly flavorful and tasty.
With siomai Recipes
It is a simple variation that added siomai as a side dish and added to the dish. It gives another level of flavor and delicacy to the dish.
Siomai or shumai is a type of dim sum snack in Chinese recipes. It is a Cantonese dish originally served along with dumplings. Hence, in the Philippines, it is a dish made from ground beef, pork, shrimp, or any other meat, combined with extenders such as carrots, green peas, and garlic, wrapped in wonton papers. It is usually and normally dipped in soy sauce with lime or lemon juice and a chili-garlic oil.
But in the featured dish, the siomai is an ingredient used as an added component that empowers and elevates the dish into something incredible.
Tinola (chicken broth) with sotanghon Recipes
This version makes the dish tastier and delicious because the soup you would use is from another dish called Tinola.
One of the most popular Pinoy chicken soups usually served as either an appetizer or a main dish with white rice. The dish's ingredients are chicken, green papaya or sayote, ginger, onion, garlic, chili pepper leaves or moringa leaves, and fish sauce as the seasoning.
The Tinola dish soup, which is from the chicken's broth, gives more flavor and delicate taste to the dish featured here.
Adobong pusit with sotanghon recipes
To add color and texture to the dish's appearance, you could add adobong pusit to it. It is an authentic style of upgrading and elevating the featured dish.
The simple white to yellow variation of the featured dish's color could turn into a dark brown color because of the adobo pusit dish's sauce.
Adobo is the most popular cuisine that many Pinoys love to cook and serve almost every day. It has a sour and salt flavor by adding other ingredients that give umami flavor to the savory recipes.
Adding it to the featured recipes makes it an elevated and incredible dish to serve as a snack to your family and friends.
Batchoy noodles recipes
Thinking about Batchoy makes you hungry? Batchoy is a noodle soup made with crushed pork cracklings, pork offal, beef loin, round noodle, and chicken stock. This dish originated in La Paz, Iloilo City in the Philippines. Thus they often referred to the dish as La Paz Batchoy.
Adding it to the recipes makes you crave more. This dish absorbs its delicate, bold, and succulent taste as you cook it with Batchoy. Like the tinola soup, it enriches the dish flavors and makes it more appealing.
Vegetarian Recipes
Last on the list of variations is the vegetarian version of our menu. Instead of adding pork, chicken, or seafood meat to the dish, you could add vegetables to it like Baguio beans, cabbage, spinach, and many other green leafy vegetables.
Trivia about Pancit Sotanghon
Pancit is a dish traditionally served during birthday celebrations and in many Chinese restaurants. They believe that birthday pasta presents good health and long life, so you cannot cut off the noodle.
Many Pinoys adapted that culture to the Chinese people. Not surprisingly, even today, they still cook pancit and serve it during birthdays because of the elders' superstition.
Did you know that there are almost 35 variations of pansit in the Philippines? Yes, that is true! Pinoys love to explore and create other recipes from a single, old and traditional one.
Cellophane noodles are a type of noodles made from green beans in China. But sadly, they used cornstarch to create the noodles to reduce cost, which is not great for our health.
Tips for cooking these Filipino Recipes
When cooking, you have to know certain tips to pull off an amazing dish.
- Avoid putting oil in the water when cooking your noodles.
- Use a large pan or pot when cooking this dish to avoid spilling the mixture and the noodles.
- Check the noodle if they're ready, especially when cooking it along with the other ingredients.
- Don't overcook the noodle, or else it would turn mushy.
- If you would add another component, ensure that it would complement the taste of the dish.
- Put the right amount of seasonings to it.
Troubleshooting when cooking these Filipino Recipes
Saving your dish is always your last option when you accidentally make some errors.
- Add more water when you taste the dish, and it is very salty.
- Avoid adding more ingredients or components to the dish when you taste it is a mess.
- If you add more water to the dish, make sure to keep simmering it in low heat. You could also remove the noodles first to avoid overcooking it.
Best Serve With
Serving the dish like our menu compliment with great recipes listed below:
- Pineapple Shake - is a drink perfect for the recipes' taste and flavor.
- Maruya saba banana is a dessert perfect to combine with the featured pancit recipes.
- Potato Croquettes- is a comfort food perfect for serving with the recipes featured in the article.
- Fish Fillet - is a dish perfect with the noodle recipes featured here.
- Mango Graham Cake - is one of the most requested desserts of all time that compliments the savory taste of the featured recipes.
- Camaron Rebosado- is another perfect dish that helps to elevate the featured recipes more because of its taste and flavors.
- Breaded pork chop- is a pork cuisine perfect along with the noodle featured recipes.
- Mixed Vegetables - is a dish that fits with the recipes. It is a dish perfect for vegetarians who love to eat noodles and vegetables at the same time.
- Garlic Bread - is one of the recipes suitable to eat along with the featured recipes.
- Potato Chips- is another comfort dish perfect for serving with the featured pancit recipes.
- Cornbread- is a bread that fits the taste and complements the flavor of the recipes. It is perfect for serving as a snack, along with the featured recipes.
- Banana Bread- is a sweet bread that helps the recipes to stand out. This bread is perfect for eating as a snack or comfort food along with the recipes.
- Buttermilk Pie- is another dessert but also a comfort food to eat along with the recipes.
- Snickerdoodle- is another bread perfect with the recipes.
Conclusion
This noodle dish incorporates the Philippines' traditions and culture through its flavors and spices used in it. It is an overwhelming dish that surely you would love when you try to taste and cook it.
It is another variation of well-known Filipino-Chinese recipes called Pancit. But, you could expect to taste the Pinoy flavors in every ingredient and spice, including the dish.
If you are a noodle lover or a Chinese cuisine lover, this half-Chinese cuisine would knock your taste buds and would turn your hearts into Pinoy recipes like the featured recipes.
Most of the modern generation doesn't like the color and the idea of having our menu on their birthdays or special occasions. Still, you could have the chance to change their mind and start loving the Pinoy dish.
So, hurry up!
For more delicious recipe, visit Eat Like Pinoy!
Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lb Sotanghon
- ¼ cup Soy sauce
- ½ teaspoon Ground black pepper
- ½ cup Shrimp
- 2 cups Water
- 1 pc Chicken breast shredded
- 4 cloves Garlic minced
- 6 pcs Baguio beans sliced thinly
- 1 pc Onion diced
- 1 cup Chicken stock
- 1 lb Cabbage
- 1 pc Carrot cut into strips
- 1 pc Bell pepper cut into strips
- 1 tablespoon Cooking oil
Instructions
- Heat oil in a pan. Once the oil is hot, saute garlic and onion until brown.
- Add the shrimp and shredded chicken, and cook for 2 minutes.
- Then add water, soy sauce and chicken stock in the pan.
- Put-in carrot and pepper and bring to a boil.
- Put-in sotanghon noodles and cook for 10 minutes. Make sure that the noodles are soft and that excess water has been drained. Toss until all the ingredients are well blended.
- Add the baguio beans and cabbage. Simmer for 5 minutes.
- Transfer in serving plate. Enjoy!