Simply Belle

Lately, I have been craving for this dish that my niece fixes for me whenever I go home to the province. I never asked for the recipe because I didn’t think that I would one day prepare it myself here. I was wrong.

Last Sunday, we (8 of us) went to Phoenix to do some oriental shopping. I was surprised to see good quality taro roots just like in the picture below. I immediately grabbed a plastic and picked about 6 medium roots and thought of making kalo-ko to satisfy my craving.

Here it is:

In between Kaloko is filled with the flesh that I pryed out of the taro roots (split lengthwise) using a small spoon. I made sure I carved it out carefully so as not to puncture the shell to put the filling in. I flavored the filling with 1/2 can of coconut cream, 2 cups of sugar (or more depending on your taste), and anise for flavoring. Pandan leaves work just as good for flavoring. My niece suggested that I add salt. No salt for me, thank you.

Then I filled in the shell with the filling, about 3/4 full. I poured 1/4 can of coconut milk into the bottom of the pan and placed each kaloko in. I poured the remaining 3/4 can of coconut cream over the kaloko and another cup of sugar or more depending on your taste. Cook slow for 45 minutes or until the juice becomes sticky. Cool and enjoy. (For this recipe, I opened 2 cans of coconut cream but only used 1 1/2.) I ended up throwing the other half. I know I am wasteful but I don’t foresee myself using the leftover milk in my cooking in a week or two.

It was sooooo good!

Below is the picture of the taro roots that I lifted from this site

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As usual, am late for PMN family pics

I was hoping I would make it to the deadline this time but we were in Sedona the whole day yesterday and didn’t get back home until late. The theme this month is plated (on a plate).

Nothing can beat home-made pie. It simply delicious especially with french vanilla ice cream topping or plain cheese. My whole family loves apple pie. But, I only bake it on special occasion like on Thanksgiving or Christmas because it is too rich and it is too easy to eat the whole pie.

Apple pie brings back memories of my mother-in-law(bless her soul). She made the best apple pie, and I am not kidding. She tried teaching me how to make it, but for some reason, mine wasn’t near as good as hers no matter how much I practiced.

I also have a friend, named E, who is an excellent baker. I learned from her how to make the best apple pie crust. She never uses her bare hands to mix the dough and that is her secret. The crust is nice and flaky!

This Thanksgiving, I am pretty sure she will be baking apple, pumpkin, and pecan pie. And you know what it means– pig out time again!

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Last Sunday, I finally had a chance to try the recipe of Martabak Manis of my friend, Elyani.

I only had less than half an hour to prepare as we were heading to Phoenix Sunday morning. I didn’t have enough time to let the yeast foamed up so that is probably the reason why my pancake had lots of holes in it. Elyani’s pancake was nice and smooth. Also, I was supposed to let the batter sit at room temperature for 15 or 20 minutes but since I was in a hurry, I skipped that part and proceeded with the cooking. I should have lowered the temperature at a medium setting or lower to avoid burning the bottom part of the pancake. Ahhh, next time, I will do much better.

I had to do a little bit of math to convert grams to ounces, which was a bit of a challenge. Elyani’s recipe is measured in grams.

Here’s the recipe:

1 1/3 cups of flour

1 tsp instant yeast

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/3 cups of coconut milk

2 eggs

1/2 tsp baking soda

For filling, I used (or whatever are your favorite toppings)

condensed milk

chocolate syrup

coconut flakes

For instructions: go to Elyani’s site.

Here’s my very first Martabak Manis:

I only cooked two huge pancakes out of the batter. My husband loved it. He said if he was not watching his diet, he could easily eat the whole plate. I had the leftover for breakfast this morning and that was all I had until dinner except for banana, grapes, and water. Very filling, indeed!

Thanks Elyani for the recipe.

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Familiar with this tree? It grows wild in the province. Can you guess what it is? Give up? It is a pili tree. My Japanese friend was so curious to see a pili tree while we were in the province so the moment we saw one, we stopped and we let her get off the car and relish the sight of it. She took all kinds of pictures. She asked if she could take pili nuts back to the US and I said, “I don’t see why not!” You see, my friend has eaten pili sweets before because I brought her a jar of caramelized pili from the Philippines and she liked it a lot. She had this idea that she could grew this in Hawaii where her sister lives. It is probably true as Hawaii has a similar climate as the Philippines’. Unfortunately though, we didn’t see pili nuts during our trip because our province just recently got hit by a super typhoon last November. Too bad!

When I was young, we would go to the mountains and we would climb a pili tree regardless of who owned it..hehe. Their pili trees were our pili trees, too, you know. I would de-shell it carefully so I wouldn’t break the meat. I must say, I was good at it. And I would pop it in my mouth and savor its delicious taste. It didn’t take much to fill me up because just like any other nuts, pili nuts are quite rich.

I lifted these next two photos from this site: http://www.marketmanila.com/archives/fresh-pili-fruit-and-pili-nuts, because pili nuts were not available when I visited the market or I didn’t look hard enough. That is how they look when pilis are de-skinned. There are two ways of de-shelling the nuts. One is by cracking them open with a piece of stone and other way is by using a machete and applying just enough force to break through the shells but careful enough not to hit the meat. Then you slowly split them open.

These are the pili pods or the pili nuts. The skin of pili is one of my favorite appetizers in the province. We would submerge a dozen or so of pilis with skin in hot water for a minute or two and remove them right away and let the skin soften. The reason why you shouldn’t leave them long in hot water because the skin tends to get soggy, hence, it will not taste good. The skin sort of remind me of olives and it is best when dipped in fish sauce or “patis.” Delicious!

Caramelized pili is super super tasty! When I travel back to the province, I usually buy at least a dozen to give out to people but on this recent trip, I only bought a couple for my daughter. Amazingly, this is the only nut that my daughter can eat. So, I pamper her with pili delicacies when I make a trip to the province. Mind you, a jar of caramelized pili is not cheap. It costs php90.00 per jar, about $2.00, but it is all worth it.

These are Mazapan Pilis made out of pili nuts, condensed milk, cheese, and eggs. For me though, I prefer the caramelized pili as it tastes so much better and it doesn’t have those rich artificial ingredients, which to me, alter the delicious taste of pili. The more natural it tastes the better, I think.

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