Pancit Palabok (Rice Noodles With Chicken Ragout and Shrimp)
- Total Time
- 1 hour 20 minutes
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 2pounds bone-in, skin-on split chicken breasts (about 2 breasts)
- 2pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
- Kosher salt
- 1pound small shrimp (26/30 count), peeled and deveined
- 6eggs
- 3tablespoons neutral oil, such as canola
- 3tablespoons achuete annatto powder (¾ ounce)
- 2large yellow onions, finely minced (about 3½ cups)
- 8celery stalks, finely minced (about 3 cups)
- 15garlic cloves, finely minced
- Fish sauce, as needed
- ½teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper, plus more for garnish
- Banana leaves, for lining the serving dish (optional)
- 16 to 18ounces rice vermicelli noodles (ideally about the thickness of spaghetti, or whatever you can find!), cooked
- 1bunch scallions, thinly sliced
- 3calamansi, halved, or lemons, cut into wedges, seeds removed
- 1cup chicharron, crushed into small pieces
- A few tablespoons of crushed fried garlic
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Preparation
- Step 1
Add the chicken breasts and thighs to a large pot. Cover with about 8 cups water (the chicken should be fully submerged), add 3 tablespoons salt, and bring to a boil over high. Once the mixture comes to a boil, reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until meat is cooked through and can be ripped off the bone easily, about 40 minutes.
- Step 2
Transfer the chicken to a bowl to cool, and reserve the cooking liquid. Once the chicken is cool enough to handle, discard the skin. Tear the chicken into bite-size pieces and shred into thin strands. Discard the bones.
- Step 3
Meanwhile, prepare the shrimp: Bring 4 cups water and 1 tablespoon salt to a boil in a medium saucepan. Once it comes to a boil, add the shrimp and cook just until pink and tender, about 2 minutes. Pour into a colander, straining and discarding the liquid, then quickly transfer the shrimp to a large bowl of ice water just until chilled, about 2 minutes. Strain shrimp, transfer to a bowl and refrigerate until use.
- Step 4
Prepare the eggs: Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil over high with 1 teaspoon salt, and prepare an ice bath in a large bowl. Carefully drop in the eggs, one at a time, reduce the heat to a gentle simmer over low and cook, 9 minutes. Transfer eggs to the ice bath and let cool. Drain, then carefully peel.
- Step 5
Heat the oil over high until shimmering. Add the annatto powder and stir until toasted, slightly darkened and fragrant, about 1 minute. (The natural yellow food coloring dyes the oil a robust hue.) Add the onions, celery, garlic and 1 tablespoon salt, and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 8 minutes. Deglaze with 4 cups reserved chicken stock.
- Step 6
Add the shredded chicken and simmer, constantly mashing the chicken with a whisk to promote shredding until the chicken has braised and disintegrates into fine threads, and the sauce has thickened, about 30 minutes. Add fish sauce and black pepper to season.
- Step 7
Line a large baking dish with banana leaves, if using. Add the cooked noodles to the dish, top with an even layer of warm chicken mixture, followed by most of the sliced scallions. Top with alternating rows of hard-boiled eggs (thinly sliced crosswise into rounds) and shrimp, squeezing about a half a lemon over the surface or calamansi juice if you have it. Then top with a crunchy mix of chicharron, fried garlic, a few more sliced scallions, a coarse crack of black pepper and remaining lemons or calamansi on the side, for serving.
Private Notes
Comments
In the Philippines it is a no-no to discard chicken skin, or any other still edible ingredient, for that matter. Deep fry the skin until it's as crispy as pork rinds, crush them by hand (or mortar and pestle) and include them in the crunchy mix described in Step 7. My palabok twist: Before adding any salt, crumble the yolks of 6 salty eggs (YMMV) and dissolve into the sauce at around Step 6. This is the secret ingredient that will make your guests ask what you added to your palabok sauce
Suggestion for readers who would enjoy more of the seafood slant typical of Pinoy cooking: obtain shrimp with heads and cook into the gravy the smushed deliciousness in the heads (like lobster's tomalley, but for shrimp). Maybe just how to do this counts as that assumed knowledge the chef mentioned, but you can improvise (don't put shells!) Also little calamaris alongside the shrimp bodies is nice to have in the topping.
love palabok! you can also just boil the shrimp in the hot liquid leftover from cooking the chicken
I love RH's twist of the crumbled egg yolks in the sauce. My favorite versions of palabok have always tasted eggy and had a thicker texture.
My family used to own a foo stall in the old Central Market in Santa Cruz, Manila. They only serve Pancit Palabok and Halo-halo. The palabok is always made to order. There are three sauces, all flavored with achiotte or annatto. The first sauces is made with semi firm tofu, the second is the palabok, which is the constarch thickened annatto sauce followed by a ragut of finely diced pork fat rendered until brown. These sauces are layered in this order with a generous sprinkling on ground chicharrones, flaked smoked fish, boiled egg and calamansi on the side. It’s a work of pure art! Bt the way, the sauce is flavored with the heads od ‘raw’ shrimp, pounded into a paste and sieved into browned garlic. In some versions, bean sprouts and kamias (bilimbi) sr are added on top.
RH mentioned "salty eggs." Can I use chicken eggs or do the have to be duck? I've never made these before. Any suggestions?
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