KULINARYA Puto

The puto recipe in the KULINARYA guidebook is slightly different from the more popular recipes. It doesn't have coconut milk but has instead cooked rice added to the soaked rice. Using uncooked rice makes the recipe a bit involved with an added step of straining the blended mixture in a cheesecloth or fine sieve. The procedure uses greased plastic wrap to line muffin cups which is also time consuming.

The flavor of simple plain rice and sugar is very good and I really like it but I am not going to use raw rice and plastic wrap again. I prefer the easier to use rice flour and my puto molds lined with banana leaves.

Puto
adapted from from KULINARYA: A Guidebook to Philippine Cuisine
1 cup rice
1 cup water
1 tablespoon cooked rice
½ cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
plastic wrap
oil for brushing plastic wrap

• Wash rice and soak in water for at least 5 hours. Add the cooked rice. Put the rice in a blender. Add enough soaking water to reach the level of rice. Blend for 1½ minutes.
• Pour the blended rice into a bowl and add the rest of the water, sugar, and baking powder. Mix until smooth. Using cheesecloth or a very fine sieve, strain the mixture into another bowl.
• Brush the plastic wrap with oil, line each well of muffin pan or 1¾ inch puto molds. Trim the wrap so that each one fits snugly into each well or mold. Pour 2 tablespoon of the mixture into each well or mold. Steam on high heat for 15 minutes, undisturbed.
  
• Remove muffin pan or molds from steamer and let cool. When cooled, pull up each puto using the plastic wrap, discard plastic. Serve with butter or grated coconut.
• For puto pandan: Wash 6 pandan leaves, cut into 1 inch pieces, mix with the water, and blend. Strain and use the water to soak the rice. Add a drop of green food dye if desired.

Puto (Steamed Rice Muffins): White, Purple Yam, And Pandan

Several of my readers emailed me or left comments requesting for puto recipes. The last time I made white puto was either a year ago (or maybe 4 months ago?). I made pandan flavored puto just once two years ago. Nobody including me liked the pandan and never made them again.

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Filipino Kakanin (Snacks)

The Filipino word kakanin comes from kanin (rice), it also means to eat, hence kakanin. Kakanin are typically made of various forms (whole grain, powdered, soaked in water then ground) of regular rice and glutinous or sticky rice usually combined with coconut milk and sugar, some with salt. They are baked, boiled, and steamed, almost always using banana leaves to line pans and to wrap small bundles called suman. There is a variety of suman names and preparations depending on the region but the nationally known and eaten all over the Philippines is the suman sa lihiya (with lye). It is wrapped in banana leaves and boiled in pairs for 40 minutes and served with muscovado sugar and coconut milk sauce/syrup. A very versatile rice dish is the champorado, it is sweet simmered in water, sugar, a pinch of salt and cocoa powder. It is a breakfast food for most Filipinos but I eat it any time of the day. Champorado is eaten just like any cereals, with milk. There is a restaurant in Manila that serves a tweaked champorado using white chocolate instead of cocoa powder. I made both and served it in one bowl, eliminating the need to add milk to the dark chocolate champorado, they go well together. I call it champorado yin yang.

I also made both white and ube (purple yam) puto - sweet steamed rice muffins, and the Visayan moron (what a strange name), first photo, chocolate and white twists made with both regular and glutinous rice, half has cocoa powder, the other half has chopped roasted peanuts. I never had moron before and read about it in several Filipino blogs. I got the recipe from the The Little Kakanin Book by Gene Gonzalez of Cafe Ysabel in Manila. The preparation was simple and I had all the ingredients, let's just say it will never be a favorite, I still prefer the ones I ate all my life, the one with lye, although I don't put lye in my suman. Hot white and purple yam puto with lots of butter, I'll have them everyday, if possible, yummy.

Bibingka, a baked rice flour cake is a national favorite during Christmas season but is now consumed any day and anytime of the year in restaurants. My favorite is topped with salted eggs and sliced white cheese.
For puto recipes click here

There are many more kakanin that I still have to make and will post them soon if I am able to make them successfully: palitaw, pichi-pichi, piaya, guinatan halo-halo, sapin-sapin, cuchinta, mache (similar to mochi)...I'm getting a little ambitious here.

Recipes
Suman sa Moron
Puto
Bibingka
Kuchinta
Sapin-Sapin
Palitaw