The municipality of Santa Barbara, Iloilo embarks on a culinary journey focusing on heritage, traditional and sustainable food. Promoting and utilizing local produce and recipes, the LGU led by the Municipal Tourism Officer Irene Magallon with the support of the Baranggay Nutrition Scholars and department heads held a cook off of local Ilonggo dishes and typical "sud-an" with ingredients sourced out from the local market. Tasked of preparing one dry and one "sabaw", groups prepared assortment of typical "sud-an" favorites and various methods of cooking which includes pinamalhan, tinola, sinugba, sinabawan, ginat-an, relyeno, ensalada, tino-um among others. On a special note, if the dish involves a souring ingredient, it required the use "catmon", a local citrus fruit which was the old name of the town. Fresh ingredients were sourced out from the town market which is just a few steps away from the venue. The
Named after one of Iloilo City’s districts, Pancit Molo is one of the more identifiable pancit dishes in the country. It stands out uniquely among the noodle dishes mainly because of its non-traditional pancit look. It is a derivative of the Chinese wonton (filled dumplings) made into a soup. One of the first questions always asked is "Where's the Pancit?". With pancit as a sort of "prefix" to the name of the dish, first timers always for the noodle-like component of the dish. It's then explained that the pancit is actually the molo ball wrappers which is basically of the same mix as any pancit/noodles. Pancit Molo is more of a household specialty and the recipe varies from household to household. From the meat filling mix to the soup, there could be a hundred and one ways of making pancit molo. Pancit Molo Filling I suggest to make this days before the actual cooking of pancit molo so that the flavours will be full.