UBE (Purple Yam) DODOL

After the customary pastil... now here comes my long overdue Dodol... they are supposed to come together when i made pastil but my ingredients were not complete so dodol has to wait until now☺️😋, finally. 

I used to eat “Dudul, Dudol or Dodol” way back in my younger years when my Mamang brought me to several “Kanduli(s) ”(a Maguindanaon  term for traditional salu-salu accompanied by rituals and prayers) or thanksgivings, weddings or even simple celebrations of birthdays in our muslim communities. Dodol is one of my favorite delicacies prepared for those special occasions. A purple sticky delicacy made of milled purple glutinous rice and jaggery (palm) sugar, i can't remember our local name for this special brown sugar used for local delicacies. Anyways...

While cooking this delicacy, I interestingly realized that dodol is just before my nose all this time. Several years of craving food from places we've been to blinded us of the opportunities to explore, learn and integrate with the local food similar to what we had before and one of that is Dodol. 

Dodol is a very sticky, thick and sweet delicacy made of glutinous rice and sugar (palm sugar specifically called jaggery). It is commonly found in Southeast and South Asia and is very popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Brunei, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and even south India. In Muslim Communities, this Dodol is served in festivals and families take pride in making it. So it's one of those occasions of creating or renewing the bonds between families over a huge wok and a long laddle.  So, this dodol is just right in front of me all the time and i have not noticed it because it is wrapped in a thin plastic and comes in deep brown (original), green (pandan) and light brown (durian) colours and flavours.

All this time i have been craving for the dodol wrapped in banana leaves that look like a "suman" log and to my surprise recently, the dodol in the province becomes less and less popular and now comes wrapped in a thin plastic too. Things changed. 

In my desperation, i have decided to look for recipe and make it according to my preferences... purple and wrap in banana leaves. The only challenge i have is that-- i don't have the milled (powdered) black glutinous rice available in the market so I made my own --- purple one! ;-) 


 UBE DODOL
makes about 6 (half ft)  logs 

Ingredients:

200 g palm sugar
1/2 c fine or caster sugar
1/2 c water
1 tsp ube flavouring 

Place everything in the pan and warm under low heat to dissolve the sugar granules. Set aside.

In another bowl, mix to dissolve the following:

1 c powdered glutinous rice
1 tbsp rice flour
2 steri pack coconut cream (200 ml each)
1/2 c water
Add drops of violet coloring according to your color preference. More drops means more intense purple color.

Then pour the mixture in the cooled sugar  then strain. When done, place in the non-stick pot and cook over medium heat with constant stirring. This will only take you about less than 10 minutes. Cooking is done when you can scoop the entire mixture with the laddle/ spoon.

Remove from the heat and cool.
RTU.

You can either wrap it in greased banana leaves, or place it in a greased container. Your choice.

Baked Prosciutto Wrapped Apple Stuffed Pork Loin with Strawberry Sauce

Kids love food. But between my two kids, my daughter is the picky one. Believe me in her younger years she's hard to please so feeding her was a challenge. I think feeding a toddler is one of the big challenges of most Moms. She was raised as a "gerber kid" as i played safe all the time due to her allergy history. Or what i thought could be her allergic reactions to practically anything. One time, scrambled eggs become her favorite. She eats nothing unless its a scrambled egg. My thought -- giving her what she likes will be a step to wean her. So I fed her srambled eggs (every day) with no complaints nor dislikes and we were into this for quite sometime. This raised a big concern for me.

So you see, food explorations is not my thing, though i love cooking since i learned how to. Yet with my daughter (given that i was not into web world at that time) child-rearing information and updates and any idealistic guides on feeding (raising) your child was not my thing too. My knowledge was based on previous experiences of the Moms ahead of me, so I played hard on the safe side (always) and I despise running to the ER(hospital). My son on the other hand is a food lover. Ever since he learned to eat, he eats everything. Yes! you read me right, he still a baby but he eats grown up food. I learned my lessons with baby bottled food, so with my son, baby bottled food is a NO! Because he always sits with us during meals, he explores grown up food until one day, he never liked any of the "baby food" that i made for him. He abandoned his infant milk voluntarily and he prefers our food instead. This made it easy for me though 😁.  

As they are growing up, this allergic thingy with my daughter never developed. Thank goodness! Then i started from a clean slate. Beginning with our "own food culture" -- the usual filipino food that we get used to. At the start, there were dislikes. But given that travelling started to be in our menu, I begun to sort  of "educate them" by incorporating travel with food, and an explanation that should they become picky, they will go hungry and will never enjoy any of our trips. Their favorite food may not always available at the place we'll visit so its best if they will try eating variety now and be flexible with food on site.

As we go along,  i kept reminding my kids that food exploration is always part of every trip. For my daughter, it's a step for cultural integration. For my son, he'll never go hungrey😂. And they will appreciate the place more if they know the food, and of course we'll never leave the place hungry, something to bank in their (our) memory.

Kids now get used to varieties. They never complained about food rather give their critique instead so I will know which recipe worth keeping and which one is on the trash 😊. Now you know this one is for keeps!


Ingredients:

1 pork loin (you can use beef or chicken)
about 4 slices of Prosciutto (you can use turkey bacon or simply bacon)
Apple stuffing
Strawberry sauce


Apple stuffing:
1 apple sliced (cubes)
1 small onion
EVOO
pinch of salt
minced black pepper

Place EVOO on a pan then sauté onion. Add apples til half done.
Add pinch of salt and some black pepper.
Remove from heat, cool a little and RTU.

Strawberry sauce:
1 cup fresh strawberries
1/2 c balsamic vinegar
1 tsbp brown sugar or you may use honey
salt and pepper to taste

Place strawberries, balsamic vinegar  in a pan and bring it to boil.
Add sugar, salt and pepper and simmer about 5-10 minutes.
Remove from heat and place in a mini blender.
Puree and strain.
RTU.

Assembly:
Lay down your prosciutto on a tray lined with parchment or cling wrap.
Place the loin on the prosciutto and slit half open the loin to form a cavity.
Place the cooked apples on the cavity then close the loin.
Hold one end of the cling wrap or parchment and blanket the loin.
Pull the wrap loin towards you to tighten it and continue to roll over to complete cover the loin with your prosciutto. Tighten to prevent it from reopening during baking.
Remove the cling wrap if you used this and fix the parchment on the center of the baking tray without disturbing your rolled loin. Brush the loin with EVOO.
Place in a pre-heated oven at 175℃.
Bake for about 30-45 minutes depending on the size and thickness of your loin. or until prosciutto is invitingly brownish.
When done, remove from oven, blanket with foil and rest for 10 minutes.