Celebrate Life’s Exciting Moments With This Special Seafood Noodle Recipe

Nina Daza-Puyat shares an exquisite recipe perfect to serve for any occasion, no matter how grand or intimate.

During social gatherings, may it be with your family or friends, one of the things that people bond over is the love for food. It’s fascinating how food will always be at the heart of any occasion, that every household will whip up their most beloved dishes for any upcoming festivities.  

Food expert and cookbook author Nina Daza-Puyat once again shares a recipe that deserves a place in every home’s dining table. During occasions that merit a celebration through food, this mouthwatering main course would make any seafood lover’s dreams come true. 

A Mother’s Special

For the most delectable kind of shellfish, shrimp and crabs are definitely at the top of the list when it comes to the amount of dishes loaded with umami. Arguably two of the most loved ingredients when it comes to any seafood meal, this recipe fuses them together in one extraordinary noodle dish. Nina’s Garlic Prawns with Taba ng Talangka is a creamy vermicelli noodle dish coated in a decadent sauce of cream and crab fat. It is served with garlicky butterflied prawns on top. Moreover, this recipe has a particularly special story about it as it is an original recipe from her mother, Nora Daza, that was served at their restaurant in Paris back in 1972. 

“It’s my mom’s original [recipe]. The use of taba ng talangka sauce with prawns is my mom’s idea. When my mom put up a Filipino restaurant in Paris in 1972, she included this recipe called Sugpong Pampango in the menu. She had a supplier of prawns in Paris, but then she needed a sauce. And our cook there would simmer the taba ng talangka in French crème fraîche, which is like their fresh cream but it’s a little sour,” Nina recalls. 

However, Nina wanted to make this recipe more accessible to the typical Filipino household. Which is why she made a few adjustments to her rendition of it. 

“The way I did it here was heavy cream plus a little sour cream, because the crème fraîche of the French has a sour note to it. So that’s what I did here, cream then pure taba ng talangka, and a little lemon for acidity. That’s the sauce for the prawns,” she explains. Nina then proceeds to share more about her recipe formulation process.

“I said ‘Would a taba ng talangka sauce also go with noodles?’ That was the challenge, because definitely, taba ng talangka goes well with plain rice. I thought ‘would it translate to noodles?’ And happily, my experiment was successful because I created a taba ng talangka sauce base and then just simmered the noodles in it,” she says. 

The amazing thing about cooking with noodles is its ability to soak up all the flavors of whatever sauce or stock it’s cooked with. So, the key to delicious noodles always lies with the sauce, and Nina’s taba ng talangka sauce transforms simple vermicelli noodles into something rich and buttery that is coated to perfection. 

Food, no matter the occasion, no matter the time of the year, will always possess the power of bringing people together through enchanting flavors and alluring aromas. And what better way to enjoy this beautiful seafood noodle dish than with the people you love the most. 

Let this recipe be a part of your life’s celebrations with Sapporo’s Long Kow Vermicelli. To know more, you may visit their website.