Cassava cake
Even if you’re located in the US, you can still make Cassava Cake. Just buy the ingredients at the Filipino Store. This cassava cake recipe is from my sister in San Francisco. It’s been tested and eaten with gusto by her family.

Ingredients:

2 packages grated cassava
1 can coconut milk
1 bottle macapuno strips
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 can condensed milk

Mix all 5 ingredients and 2/3 of condensed milk.
Bake at 350 degrees 45 min to 1 hour
Spread rest of condensed milk on top, cook for another 5 minutes

(I usually use the whole can of condensed milk and buy another one so I can put more condensed milk at the top to my taste.)

Another Cassava Cake Recipe

2 packs frozen cassava
2 packs frozen buko
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cans (16 0z) coconut milk
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/4 cup melted butter

Procedure:
1. Mix them together and bake it in a gressed pan/pyrex for 1 hour at 350 degrees.
2. Remove the pyrex after an hour so you can put the topping.(see below)

Topping:
1 can condensed milk
1 bottle of string macapuno.
Mix together and put on top of cassava, then bake again until topping is brown. Maybe 30 or 45 mins.


Ginataang Monggo
I am sure all of you enjoy feasting on comfort food. One of my fondest childhood memory is eating Ginataang Mongo. The flavor of toasted mongo and the malagkit is quite distinct. With the rainy season upon us, a hot bowl of ginataang mongo is dish that truly delights my children. Here is my recipe.

Ingredients

1/2 cup malagkit rice
1/2 cup mongo
1 1/2 cups diluted coconut milk from 2 coconuts- (I use a can of 400 ml coconut milk as substitute. The can contains 2 1/2 coconuts)

Sugar to taste
Salt

For coconut milk, I use Filtaste Gata (coconut milk) or Thai Heritage Coconut milk if I don’t use freshly grated coconut milk.

Directions

1. Roast mongo beans in a kawali until brown.
2. Break the roasted mongo beans with the use of a rolling pin.
3. Combine the malagkit rice with the roasted mongo and boil with coconut milk
4. Stir every so often to keep the rice from burning at bottom of the kawali.
5. Add the sugar and salt to taste when the rice-mongo is tender and cooked well.
6. Serve hot! You can add coconut cream to top it.

Buko pandan
This is the buko pandan that I ate at my cousin’s birthday party. The taste of Buko pandan dessert never fails to tempt me. The green and white colors lures you to take a bite. Here is a buko pandan recipe .

Buko Pandan Salad

Ingredients
8 leaves of Pandan – cleaned well
5 Buko (Coconut)not too hard, not too soft- Grated to strips
Water from 5 Buko (approx. 10 cups)
3 small cans of Nestle Cream
1 medium can of Condensed Milk
2 bars of Green Gulaman
1 3/4 Cups Sugar (more if you want it sweeter)
1 cup Kaong (optional)

Preparation

1. Boil buko water from 5 coconuts together with 8 pandan leaves that are individually twisted to break the fibers and expose the juice. Simmer for 20 minutes.
2. Before adding 2 bars of gulaman, make sure you remove the pandan leaves and check if the remaining coconut water is equal to 8 cups – 1 bar of gulaman is good for 4 cups of liquid. If it is not 8 cups, less will mean hard gulaman and more than 8 cups will result in mushy soft gulaman. Ensuring gulaman is well-dissolved stir well. Add sugar while mixing. Do this for 5 minutes.
3. Pour through a strainer into cooling trays. Wait till it cools and hardens, then put in fridge.
4. Meanwhile, mix the grated buko with the 3 cans of cream and 1 can of condensed milk.
5. Add kaong if you prefer.
6. Get gulaman from ref and cut into 1 cm cubes. Mix with buko mixture.
7. Put 2 cups of the buko pandan salad into one lunch box and give to Jojo Basug as a complement.

If you want a sugar free buko pandan recipe, try ,Gene Gonzales recipe

Buko Pandan Salad

Ingredients: 1 cup fresh buko meat; 1/2 tsp. pandan flavor for dressing; 1 cup cream; 1/4 cup coconut powder; 1-1/2 tbsps. Sweet’N Low for dressing

Gulaman: 8 tbsp. unflavored gelatin; 1 cup water; 1/2 cup Sweet’N Low; 1 cup water; 1 tbsp. pandan flavor; 2 drops green food color

Procedure: Dissolve gelatin in 1 cup water and bring to boil. Set aside. Add 1 cup water. When cool add pandan flavor, green food color and Sweet’N Low.

There should also be an alternative to the cream as it can be high in fat content.

buco pandan

Technorati Tags: Buko pandan
Leche flan
The original leche flan recipe was from my Mom but my sister Lorna reconfigured it to fit her tastes.

The perfect flan is such that when you slice through it, it barely quivers like jello. There is very little syneresis, that is, no weeping (or lots of holes in it!). I am sharing this precious recipe so you may prepare it for your family.

5 eggyolks
2 eggs
1 can condensed milk
1 can water (use the condensed milk’s can for measuring)
1 tbsp. vanilla to add to the mixture
1/4 cup to 1/3 cup sugar for caramelization
# Get a pyrex loaf dish (or equivalent oval, square, or round dish).
# Caramelize 1/3 cup sugar in it. Use your oven. When the sugar is starting to melt, make sure that you watch carefully. You don’t want the caramel to be too dark or it will taste burnt. Manipulate the dish until you are sure that the caramel is evenly placed on the bottom of the pan. Let the pan rest on the stove top.
# Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.

These are the cooking times:

For the first 45 minutes: 325 degrees Fahrenheit
For the next 20 to 25 minutes, until the toothpick test shows that the flan is done: 350 degrees Fahrenheit

Procedure:

1. Separate 5 eggyolks when the eggs are cold. It’s easier to get the whites and the yolks separated. Set the whites aside to use for Flan de Huevos Blancos or Angel Cake.

2. In a mixing bowl, mix the eggyolks, eggs, condensed milk, water, and vanilla until well-blended. Set aside for a few minutes so that the mixture reaches room temperature. Do not beat up the mixture to form bubbles. Just try to make sure that the eggwhites are blended in.

3. While waiting for the mixture to reach room temperature, prepare your baine marie (bano maria).

Get a rectangular roasting pan that is slightly taller than the baking pan that you are using for your flan. Put this roasting pan inside your pre-heated oven. Add water to the pan, about mid-way. Be careful that you don’t splash water around as you heat this pan of water.

4. Get a small rounded double-meshed metal strainer, as finely-meshed as you can find them (similar to the strainer that comes with a wok). This is the secret of the recipe.

5. Get a bowl and put the strainer over it. Spoon (with a 1/4 cup measuring cup) the mixture over the metal strainer. With a rubber scraper, smoothen any eggwhites through the strainer. Using a wooden spoon (or other mixing spoon), blend the smooth mixture.

6. When you have finishing straining the mixture, blend the muixture with your wooden spoon one last time. Try not to produce any bubbles while doing this.

7. Pour the mixture on your prepared caramelized pan. It should have a thick, liquid “feel” to it.

8. Open your oven and pull out the rack with the roasting pan (that has hot water on it).

Position the Leche Flan’s pan into the center of the roasting pan.

9. Bend a little and check the height of the water around the Leche Flan’s pan. You might need to add more water (using your measuring cup) so that the water outside the pan reaches the height of the leche flan. This is the secret to having very little syneresis (or “weeping”).

10. Remember:

For the first 45 minutes: 325 degrees Fahrenheit
For the next 20 to 25 minutes, until the toothpick test shows that the flan is done: 350 degrees Fahrenheit

11. When you take out the cooked Leche Flan from the baine marie, be careful not to splash water around. Set the pan on top of the stove or counter to cool down.

12. Taking the Leche Flan out of its pan:

Many a Leche Flan is destroyed by the baker not knowing how to take it out of its pan.

Refrigerate the cooled-down leche flan until you’re ready to unmold it.

Unmolding the Leche Flan: Run a straight-edged (non-serrated) knife on the sides of the Leche Flan. Place a piece of plastic wrap over the top of the Leche Flan and press down ever-so-gently on the surface of the flan. Let the caramel from the bottom of the pan run through the sides of the pan. Get a pan of hot water and let the leche flan’s pan rest gently on this water bath for a few minutes. The rest of the mixture is cold and only the bottom is hot. This is done so that the unmolding is faster — and smoother. Take out the plastic wrap. Take your serving platter and place over the Leche Flan. Invert the mixture in one quick move.

13. You can garnish the Leche Flan with some macapuno strings or langka strips (preserved jackfruit) if you like.

Hoping you all are successful in making Leche Flan
puto bong bong

It’s December 16 and the first day of the Misa de Gallo. For nine consecutive early mornings before Christmas Day, Catholic Churches throughout the Philippines ring their bells around 3 am to invite the faithful to worship and announce the start of this holiday custom. After the mass, the parishoners including myself headed off to the Puto Bumbong stand where it was sold for 20 pesos per pack.


puto bumbong

Puto Bumbong memories only started when I lived in Manila. Growing up in Cebu till I was 16, I never knew what puto bumbong tasted like. At first I thought it was tasteless but that was because there was no muscovado in it.

Most Puto Bumbong is in bright purple color supposedly due to the addition fresh pirurutong (purple upland glutinous rice). It is topped with lots of granulated sugar and shredded coconut. The thing is I can’t taste a hint of pirurutong when I bought puto bumbong from the neighborhood stall. I thought it’d be authentic. MarketMan Manila explains it :

First, the mixture most commercial vendors use today is purchased in bulk, and not made by them at all. The mixture is heavily adulterated with plain rice (up to 50+%) which is mixed with glutinous rice to reduce the cost and “fluff up” the end result. Second, nearly all of the vendors I observed apparently used violet food coloring to achieve their purple rice cakes, and NOT the more fragrant and expensive and often difficult to find pirurutong! This whole violet food color thing does bug me immensely. Pirurutong imparts a distinct fragrance and natural color that is GORGEOUS, and replacing this key ingredient with purple dye is simply outrageous for me.

If you missed buying the puto bumbong after the misa de gallo, you can always grab a bite at the food stall in Taste Asia, SM Hypermarket. Via Mare is also known to serve great puto bumbong. For a small extra charge, one can choose to have it with cheddar cheese or grated queso de bola.

And if you’re feeling adventurous enough, MarketMan Manila generousky shares his Puto Bumbong Recipe and Cooking Techniques.