In the family I believe it was my sister who cooks pancit molo a long time ago.  Can’t remember really but it’s a dish that’s been lying at back of my mind but somehow I never had the chance to cook.  When I was living in Beijing, believe me or not, it was not easy to find fresh wonton or spring roll wrappers.  I reckon all those restaurants and cafeterias around make their own pastry for their dumplings and rolls.  I had to go to a specific supermarket near my son’s school if I ever wanted to cook spring rolls.  Here in Auckland, I use either Vietnamese or Thai rice paper. Occasionally, I buy a packet of fresh wonton pastry from a pinoy shop quite far from where we live.  Or buy ready-made dumplings to make dumpling soup.

Only now after I’ve seen Connie’s pancit molo post that I really paid attention to every single packet in the refrigerated section of an Asian dairy.  And voila!  Found it in Newmarket, on the ground level cum market of a multi-storey carpark we lovingly call ‘smelly alley’.  Lots of wonton pastries… nicely packaged or eco-friendly paper wrapped, 50 or 100 pieces, thin or thick, suitable for soup or for deep-frying.  Awesome.  I bought 50 pieces that has to be consumed within the next 10 days.

To make the filling, it all depends on how you like your dumplings – plain pork or with shrimp, garlicky or gingery, with a hint of sesame oil, or with ‘hidden’ vegetables for the kids.  I like mine quite simple – the way I knew it as a kid (no vegies!).  For a flavorful soup, I recommend making your own stock. You can cook it while you are preparing the dumplings.  As for me, I always have homemade stock in the fridge.  It’s handy that you have it right away in a snap of finger – you may want to prep a soup to go with a fried main dish, make gravy for fried chicken, or cook pancit molo.  But in any case, stocking your pantry with packets of unsalted stock from the supermarket is also a good idea.  Using beef stock is also not bad.

If there is one thing in this dish that I find challenging, it’s how to wrap the filling. Good thing I stumbled upon Jun Belen’s blog.  Very clever.

Ingredients:
Wonton pastry suitable for steaming
250g minced pork
100g peeled, headless and cleaned shrimps, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
5 tbsp chopped carrots
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
2.5L chicken stock
Patis (fish sauce)
2 bunched of petchay
Chopped spring onion
Crispy, fried garlic
Boiled egg

Combine pork, shrimps, carrots and garlic in a mixing bowl.  Season with freshly ground pepper and salt. Mix well and set aside.

Prepare a small plate with water next to you.  Then lay a piece a wonton wrapper flat on the kitchen benchtop, one corner pointing towards you.  Place about a tablespoonful of the mixture closer to that corner pointing towards you.

Fold that corner unto the mixture and roll towards the center.

Moist the right corner with water and fold towards the center to secure.  Do the same on the left side.

It should look like this.  You shouldn’t see exposed meat anywhere.  This is my first time; I started a bit slow and I needed to fix it to make it look nice.  But after 3 dumplings, I’m good.

And I was also wondering what’s the point of having that triangular flap at the top. Oh just like me you will find out soon.  By the way, I made about 25 pieces.

Pour prepared chicken stock in a pot.  Bring to boil.  Add petchay and simmer until cooked.  Scoop out and set aside.

Add dumpling one by one into the pot and simmer for about 10 minutes. (Add water if necessary.)  Turn off the heat.  Stir in a dash of fried garlic. Adjust taste with fish sauce and freshly ground pepper.

Serve hot with boiled egg and petchay. Garnish with crispy garlic and onion spring.  Condiment next to my bowl is soy sauce with homemade chili oil.  Ay sarap!

I like eggs with creamy yolk.  A bit runnier would be preferable but this is fine.

And that triangular flap I was talking about earlier… that becomes the ‘long pancit’ floating around in your soup but still attached to the meat mixture.

Iska

I am not a professional cook. My only claim to having a culinary background is a short stint as my dad’s teen ‘sous chef’ in his carinderia ages ago. Dad ran small eateries since I was a young kid - serving standard ‘turo-turo’ food ranging from the likes of menudo, adobo, pritong isda, dinuguan, binagoongan, bopis, munggo, pinakbet and giniling to merienda fares like goto, ginataan, pancit bihon, halu-halo and saging con yelo.

My father, a farmer in his hometown before working his way to becoming an accountant, definitely influenced my cooking in a lot of ways than I thought. My siblings and I were raised in a backyard full of fruit trees and vegetable garden. We spent weekends and the summer breaks running around with ducks, chickens, goats and pigs. I had wonderful memories of gathering eggs, butchering chickens, selling vegetables and the sweet aroma of preserved fruits. But my love for art led me to a degree in Architecture. Just few months after getting my license, I went abroad and lived independently at age 23. Definitely no maid, no cook, and a totally different food culture. Along the way I met lots of friends and spent what seemed a lifetime learning new tricks and recipes.

Now living in Auckland, I am a work-from-home mum who juggles time between work, fun and family - in pursuit of work-life balance. No matter how busy I am, I love the idea of cooking for my family. My blog chronicles home cooking greatly influenced by life outside my home country from Southeast Asia to Beijing and Auckland. And most of the time, being busy also means easy (sometimes quick), affordable meals.