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Lunar New Year (aka Spring Festival) was Tuesday, kicking off a weeklong celebration for Asians worldwide (about a quarter of the global population). It was also Fat Tuesday, aka Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day — a day to relish all the fried treats before the austerity and sacrifice of Lent.

Lunar New Year has its own array of rich or significant foods too. Steamed fish, various rice cakes and noodles are all pretty standard fare for welcoming abundance, longevity and prosperity, but it’s also a fine time to break out a showstopper like Peking duck or lechon — a whole roast suckling pig with crackling-crisp skin.

In the Philippine city of Cebu (where my best friend’s extended family lives), folks often go with a pork belly instead of the whole shebang, which is a LOT easier to pull off. Cebuchon is wallet- and weeknight-friendly, too. (I made this one in my toaster oven with deep-discount sliced pork belly from H Mart.)

Lechon is just gilding the lily, though! The Filipino staple stir-fried noodle dish pancit is usually made with chicken or shrimp, and it’s very easy to make vegetarian or vegan. If you have the time to be precious with it, slowly building and layering the flavors will create a dish that truly tastes like a special occasion. I used glass noodles (aka bean threads) here, but rice vermicelli, thin wheat noodles or a mix of different noodles will all do the trick. Serves 6-8 or enough to bring to a party

SPECIAL THANKS to “All Things Considered” announcer/producer Donald Orr, who taste-tested this recipe. His grandma offered a couple tips: She uses Super Q brand corn starch stick noodles for this dish and makes her pancit with shrimp, reserving the shells to make a flavorful broth for the sauce.

Note: If you can’t find coconut or cane sugar vinegar (Datu Puti is the most widely available brand in Asian markets), use Chinese black vinegar or rice vinegar instead. If you don’t have Maggi sauce, sub a mix of Worcestershire and soy sauce or Bragg’s Liquid Aminos. I had a tub of really dank, sticky pork stock on hand in the freezer, but chicken broth will work here too. Lastly, calamansi is tricky to source, but you might find the juice in frozen packets — this stuff is good, or you can sub kumquats (calamansi citrus is a sour hybrid of kumquat and mandarin orange).

Ingredients

Lechon

2 pounds of skin-on pork belly

Salt and pepper

1 teaspoon five spice

1 stalk lemongrass

4 cloves garlic

2 scallions

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons Maggi sauce

2 tablespoons coconut or cane sugar vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 star anise clove

¼-inch thick slice of ginger

Pancit

½ head green cabbage, cut into bite-size pieces

2 carrots, peeled and cut into matchsticks

1 celery stalk, sliced thinly

1 cup snow peas, strings removed

1 medium onion, sliced

½ red bell pepper, diced

3 scallions, cut into 1-inch sections

2 dried wood ear mushrooms

2 tablespoons neutral cooking oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

1-inch knob of ginger, minced

2 teaspoons ground achiote (annatto seed)

1 6-ounce package dried glass/cellophane noodles (aka mung bean thread or sotanghon)

Sauce:

2 cups pork stock (or other flavorful broth)

¼ cup fish sauce

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons Maggi sauce

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

A few inches MSG (optional)

For serving:

3 or 4 halved calamansi, kumquats or mandarinquats

Sliced scallions

Sugar cane or coconut vinegar

Instructions

1. Make the lechon: Preheat the oven to 350 F and set a rack on a small roasting pan or rimmed sheet pan. Pat the pork belly dry and using a sharp knife, deeply score the meat side in a criss-cross pattern. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper and the five spice and rub it into the cuts. Finely mince the lemongrass, garlic and scallions to a paste, then rub the mixture into the meat. Roll the belly as tightly as you can, tie with butcher’s twine and set the tied meat on the rack.
2. Add about a cup of water to the roasting pan (so the drippings don’t burn) and add the soy sauce, Maggi, vinegar, sugar star anise and ginger. Tightly wrap the roast, pan and all, with foil and roast for 2 ½ to 3 hours, occasionally turning and basting the meat during cooking. Be sure to add more water to the pan as needed so you still have delicious drippings when the roast is finished!
3. When the meat is tender and fully cooked, remove the pan from the oven, take off the foil and increase the heat to around 500 F. Roast the pork — watching carefully, brushing with the drippings and turning as needed to avoid burning — until the skin is bubbly and crackling, about 10-15 minutes. Move the roast to a plate and set aside to rest. Do not chuck the roasting pan in the sink yet though! Just discard the star anise clove and smash or chop the ginger to use in the sauce.
4. Make the pancit: While the lechon is cooking, prep the vegetables — this is the most work required for this dish, and it’s important to have everything assembled ahead of time because the cooking all goes very quickly once you start.
5. Soak the dried wood ear mushrooms in a cup of boiling water until they soften up, then drain and slice them thinly. While the lechon is resting, soak the sliced wood ear mushrooms in the hot pork drippings to soak up flavor.
6. Heat the oil in a large wok over high heat and quickly stir fry the garlic and ginger for a second before adding the prepared vegetables (excluding the wood ear mushrooms). Attentively stir-fry the vegetables until they’re glossy and beginning to soften, about 5-7 minutes. Sprinkle on the achiote powder and another pinch of salt and pepper and give everything a good toss.
7. Gently pull the dry noodles apart with your fingers and add them to the wok. Stir to combine — you want the noodles to get a little bit oily and soft for a second before you add the soaked wood ear mushroom with the pan drippings. Add a splash of water to the roasting pan to dissolve the remaining pork drippings, then pour that into the wok as well. Stir to coat and reduce heat to medium.
8. Combine the sauce ingredients, add the sauce to the pan and give everything a stir. Cook, stirring frequently to prevent sticking, until the noodles have absorbed the sauce (the vegetables should still be tender-crisp), about 4-5 minutes.
9. Slice the roasted lechon into bite-sized pieces and add half the meat to the wok, reserving the crispy skin cracklings. Transfer the pancit to a serving platter and arrange the remaining lechon and cracklings over the top. Squeeze some of the calamansi or kumquat juice over the top, sprinkle on the sliced scallions and serve with extra citrus wedges and vinegar.

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News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/02/20/superabundant-recipe-pinoy-pancit-lechon-lunar-new-year/