Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a very festive and fun start to 2010. I know most people always make new years resolution - however, I'm hoping we'll both stick with this particular resolution: Work on the food blog. It had such high hopes at the start, but laziness took over.
So to start, I decided to start documenting my new venture in cooking and baking. I've taken some (aka. ONE) cooking class, with two new classes starting next week. One of my best friends can also recount the times I have attempted to bake - ie. lighting something on fire in the oven, over burning simple cookie receipes, etc. So let's see how this goes.
While waiting for my mom to finish her grocery shopping at the new Foody mart (chinese grocery store in Markham), I saw this box and decided to give this receipe a try. I did a little research into what it actually was.
Puto:
A steamed rice cake popular in the Southeast Asian country of the Philippines. Puto is usually eaten as a dessert, but can also be eaten for breakfast dipped into or paired with a cup of hot coffee or hot chocolate. There are various versions of Puto.
Pandan:
Aka Pandanus amaryllifolius. The Pandan leaves or even pandan water used in this recipe change the flavour and colour of the puto; however, food color is another good option if pandan is not readily available.
Ube:
Purple Yam. It gives the puto a nice purple colour.
THE REVIEW.
Taste:
In my own receipe, I was hoping it would be somewhat similar to Malaysian steamed cake we get at dim sum restaurants. However, the taste was not quite the same. The taste itself was a bit doughy. The texture is not unlike the Malaysian steamed cakes, however, not quite as porous. To better describe the texture, it's similar to steam pork buns, but in a dessert form. I also added in a few drops of Almond essence to give it some extra flavour. Suffice to say, it did not help. To sum it up, it taste like sweet rice.
Preparation:
Amazingly easy. Not too much of a fuss. Little ingredients needed, most things found at home already and little cleaning up afterwards. However, the recipe ended up producing 24 mini puto's, as a result, it took a little longer to steam all 24 since I only had one wok.
Overall, I'd make it again. The price was cheap, only $2cdn a box of 2 packets (aka 48 mini puto's). However, I'd only recommended it as a light party appetizer and keep in mind, puto's are not something ultra tasty or decadent.
I give it 3 out of 5.