A scientist in the kitchen

Purple yam is a type of yam that has a very distinct violet color and is popular in the Philippines. We call it ube in the Philippines. It is cooked with milk and sugar and is eaten as a sweetened dessert called haleyang ube which has a bright violet color. It is an ingredient for halo-halo, a favorite Filipino dessert during the summer. While the tuber is seasonal, Filipinos get to enjoy ube-flavored ice cream all year round. When in the Philippines, you might come across a purple-colored ice cream, that’s it! That’s ube ice cream.

Ube is not often sold in the market so haleyang ube is usually served on special occasions. This Christmas, my sister receive ube powder developed by the University of the Philippines at Los Baños (UPLB), my alma mater. So I wasted no time in making haleyang ube for the holiday cooking. Typically, haleyang ube is made from mashed ube, so you have to boil the ube tuber till soft then mash it which could take some time and is really tiring. You mix the mashed ube with milk, sugar and a bit of butter and cook slowly till the mixture is thickened. That’s why I was happy to receive the ube powder - no more boiling and mashing ube till my arms ache!

With the ube powder, think of all the possibilities! Not just the haleya, but I have some rice desserts I would like to try out with ube flavor. Or perhaps homemade ice cream! Yummy!

Haleyang Ube

50 grams ube powder
3/4 cup milk
condense milk (add according to your preferred sweetness)
2 tbsp butter

Here’s how to it:

1. Mix ube powder and milk. Add condense milk according to your preferred sweetness. Let stand for at least 10 minutes.

2. Melt butter in a pan. Add the ube-milk mixture and stir constantly. Use low heat. Continue stirring until mixture has thickened.

3. Place in a molder that has been lined with butter. Cool down and refrigerate a few hours before serving.

Never to early for Weekend Herb Blogging! Cheers to Kalyn for making this event possible and for hosting this week’s edition!

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The Noche Buena feast is my especialty. Often, I start thinking of what to serve on Christmas eve dinner as early as October. I start getting excited on what to cook, often influenced by what cooking show or recipe book I am into at the moment. Now, food blogging has added another dimension to my cooking, getting ideas on herbs and spices, dishes and presentation. Christmas eve dinner often would have roast chicken and noodles or pasta. Plus, tsokolate eh and some sweets which are mostly gifts from friends.

I am already busy in the morning of December 24, having decided what to cook for the Noche Buena feast and a light dinner before that.

This year, my sister and I decided to have roast chicken once again with yet another variation. Also the noodle is sotanghon with carrots and shiitake mushroom. What is special about the noodles is that we used a particular brand we could only get from Iligan City (a pasalubong from my uncle, Mom’s elder brother). And instead of store-bought chicken, we used native chicken which we raise in our backyard.

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Here’s the Christmas lunch version I blogged previously for the Waiting for Christmas food blogging event.

I basically followed the same recipe except that I added 1/2 cup of rice wine along with the oyster sauce. Oh, and also more Chinese celery!

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This is my first post for the Lasang Pinoy series, this time on rice. Quite appropriate for me as I work on resistance of rice to diseases. This is not so Pinoy though, but one I really like.

 One of my favorite fried rice is Thai bago-ong fried rice from a Thai restaurant here in Los Banos. I’ve managed to copy it at home but this post is not about that. It’s Thai inspired in the sense that I was craving for it during the Christmas holidays but did not have all ingredients at hand. It started with me seeing a bunch of cilantro my mom bought the day before. I was already imagining Thai fried rice with sour green mangoes. Undaunted, I rummaged the ref and found some pork slices as well. I made me some Thai-inspired fried rice. I like to add eggs to my fried rice, but at that time we didn’t have any (We rely on eggs from the chickens we raise at home, but at that time, all the hens were nesting hence no fresh eggs).

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Adobo is one of the most popular dish from the Philippines, and is in fact considered a national dish. It usually uses pork or chicken or a combination of both (dubbed as CPA or chicken-pork adobo) which is slowly cooked in water, vinegar, soy sauce, pepper, and garlic as the basic ingedients. Variations occur in different regions of the country - in terms of ingredients and manner of cooking. Some peopel add laurel leaves, there are those who prefer their adobo dry as well some prefering to have saucy adobo. In any case, the salty-sour combo of soy sauce and vinegar and the garlicky flavor makes for a much flavorful adobo. Did I just mention vinegar? Some regions have their local vinegar from cane, coconut or other palm trees thus adding another dimension to the national dish.

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