Pinay In Texas Cooking Corner's New Look and Seafood Pancit Bihon Guisado

When I thought of creating Pinay In Texas Cooking Corner in January, I really didn't have the chance to give my page background and blog header much consideration. I love roses so when I saw the rose background on blogger, I decided to use it and adapt its color for my blog header and fonts as well. I simply wanted my header to be something related to cooking, with my picture on it to make it more personalized (LOL), so that's how I designed it, and my blog came out with this look.

Today, I'm saying goodbye to my old header and background as I try to make Pinay In Texas Cooking Corner a better reflection of myself - A Filipina (Pinay) who's loving her life in Texas but will always be proud of where she came from! My new header shows both the Philippine and Texas flags which now makes it more descriptive of my chosen blogging alias "Pinay in Texas". I still haven't decided on the background that best suits my blog...but for the meantime, I'm using this vector waves background with a mixture of blue and green which are both my favorite colors. 

Despite the new look, Pinay In Texas Cooking Corner's mission will remain the same, and that is to provide you with mouthwatering Filipino recipes and some non-Filipino ones which I modify to suit the Filipino palate. :)

Today, I'm sharing with you another "pancit" recipe.  Pancit is the term for noodles in Filipino Cuisine. I've featured other pancit recipes before like the Pancit Canton & Pancit Palabok. This time, it's Pancit Bihon Guisado which like the Pancit Palabok makes use of bihon or rice noodles. The difference between them lies in the cooking method and the special sauce used to top Pancit Palabok. Pancit Bihon is simply sauteed with vegetables, meat or seafood and flavored with soy sauce, fish sauce and broth. Like the Pancit Canton, it is very flexible that you can add whatever ingredients you want. Whether you add in plain meat, vegetables or seafood or all of it, it will still be good. 

This  Pancit Bihon Guisado that I'm going to share with you is my seafood version, and I just used fish sauce and shrimp broth to give it a real seafood flavor. I also didn't use vegetables which I usually do with my pancit. In this one, I just used more garlic for added flavor and green onions to give it a hint of green color. 

*I'm sharing this on Food Trip Friday, Foodie Friday, Fat Camp Friday, Friday Potluck@EKat's Kitchen and Feed Me Tweet Me Follow Me Home.

Prep Time: ~20 mins               Cook Time: ~25 mins                Servings: 4-6            

Ingredients:

• ½ cup white onion,chopped
• 3 Tbsp garlic, minced
• 14 oz. bihon noodles (rice stick), soaked for at least 15 minutes then drained
• 15 pcs. shrimp, peeled & deveined
• 15 pcs. mussels, boiled and shells removed
• 10 pcs. squid, innard removed and sliced into rings
• 6 pcs. squid balls, quartered
• ½ cup green onions, chopped
• 3 Tbsp fish sauce
• 1 ½ cups shrimp broth (I made this from shrimp heads mashed using mortar and pestle then mixed with 2 cups of water and then strained, then boiled with salt and a pinch of pepper.)
• 4 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 pcs. lemon (optional)

Procedure:

1. In a wok over medium heat, fry squid balls in 3 Tbsp olive oil until light brown. Remove from wok and set aside. Sauté shrimp, mussels and squid just until the shrimps turn pink. Remove from wok and set aside.

2. In the same wok, add remaining 1 Tbsp olive oil. Saute onion and garlic until garlic is golden brown.

3. Pour in broth and add fish sauce. Bring to a boil.

4. Add noodles and keep on tossing to loosen the noodles. Add salt and pepper to suit your taste. Cook until noodles are almost soft.

5. Add green onions and cooked shrimps, mussels, squid and squid balls. Keep on tossing until ingredients are well mixed and noodles are soft. Do not overcook.

6. Remove from heat. Transfer to a serving platter and sprinkle/garnish with lemon.