Festive Filipino foods

• Recipes for three sweet Filipino treats

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Food Editor

Pasko! Annual Filipino holiday celebration, including cooking demonstrations, entertainment and more 1-5 p.m. Sunday Honolulu Academy of Arts Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser

Jacang has done her work, rolling mochi rice balls in fresh coconut from one of the trees in her yard, and is perched on a bar stool around the large central island, chatting.

Dory Atienza is pouring flame-colored, thin batter for kachinta, a sort of pudding, into miniature muffin cups. Liz Rahr is tending the steamer; she's here to learn from the women acknowledged as masters of these two recipes.

The talk swirls around the room: the "curse" of managapet (when you can't make a dish right because one of your elder relatives is in the room watching you); the differences between Filipino coconut varieties and others (the coconut are bigger, easier to grate); who makes the best kuchinta (it used to be Amy, but then Dory got the recipe, borrowed the miniature muffin pans and now she's "kuchinta queen").

Julie Cabatu arrives with a camera to document the process and share specifics about the cooking demonstration.

Emmie Anderson blows through the door with a dress on a hanger, is told it's not a photo session but a recipe-testing session and rushes back out, exclaiming, "Ai, Jesus Maria, I forgot the rice flour and the coconut milk!" She'll be back shortly with an armload of ingredients for making kaskaron, fried mochi balls, and — a special treat just for the folks gathered that day — banana/jackfruit lumpia.

Jacang said the cooking demonstrations are important because many younger Filipino Americans don't know how to make these dishes. "Some older people don't like to share; they say it is a family secret. But then they die and the secret is gone. It is not passed on."

She breaks off to give some direction to Atienza on the kachinta, but Atienza ignores her. "You see, my student doesn't listen to me," she says laughingly.

The women are known for their cooking prowess and their friends and colleagues have no shame about asking them to prepare treats. Jacang, a pediatrician, routinely makes a quick batch of peche peche, the purple rice mochi balls, before doing rounds at the hospital. Then, she says with a twinkle in her eye, "They don't know how easy it is. You tell your friends, 'Oh, it's so hard to make. I have been up all night; never sleep yet!"

Anderson, whipping mochi batter together, is blithely changing the printed recipe right and left. "If I don't have something, I substitute. That is the Filipino away of cooking. You don't cry if you don't have something, you just find something else," she says.

As with much of home cooking, the measurements are inexact. "Everything is by taste and sight," Anderson says.

It's an art that's being lost. Talk centers for a while on grated coconut: Many of the Filipino sweets recipes call for fresh-grated coconut, but many don't know how to do that anymore or have access to coconuts. Many houses have some form of ancient saddle-style grater — kudkuran in Tagalog or igad in Ilocano. "When my mother was alive, I could give her 10 coconuts and she was happy sitting down watching TV or watching the grandchildren, grating the coconut," Jacang recalled.

The solution now is to "have your husband do it," or buy fresh coconut in Chinatown, where some shops will grate it for you, or use the dried, unsweetened grated coconut available at health food stores.

This is a typical Saturday for the club members, some of whom have been friends since the club was founded more than 30 years ago. A number of them have spent the morning cleaning up a two-mile segment of freeway that the group adopted. Other weekends might find them visiting the elderly, helping with Special Olympics, cooking dinner at the Ronald McDonald house. "We've adopted a family, adopted a school, adopted a teacher. We do a lot of adopting," Cabatu says.

Jacang, Atienza and the others are not only good cooks, Cabatu says, but "willing cooks," who always come through. Some years back, they helped put together a cookbook, the third edition of which is now sold out.

Besides service, the group has another purpose: to bring together first-generation immigrants with what the group calls "local Filipinos." The first-generation immigrants had the knowledge of the culture and needed to build a social group here. The second- and third-generation Filipinos were losing their understanding of Filipino ways. There was also a need for pride-building, Rohr recalled; in the plantation-era social structure, Filipinos often were on the bottom rung.

But the women's fellowship has never been limited strictly to those who are Filipino by birth. When the food is ready and the women sit down for a little marienda — an afternoon repast — Amy calls Betty Bicoy, a neighbor and Filipino Women's Society member who is a Caucasian married to a Filipino. Bicoy is considered one of the group's premier parol-makers (parol are the brightly colored paper-covered stars that are an integral part of Filipino Christmas celebrations). "She is our haole sister," says Jacang, and the two exchange a smile.

The jokes zing across the table as everyone raves over Anderson's still-hot sweet lumpia, and the laughter bounces off the ceiling.

Recipes for three sweet Filipino treats

These recipes for Filipino sweet treats will be demonstrated at the Pasko! event Sunday at the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

These sweetened mochi rice balls are made with the whole mochi rice and the whole-grain rice of a variety called pirurutung, which turns purple when cooked; the result is a not-too-sweet confection with a pleasantly chewy texture. Find pirurutung in any Filipino or Asian specialty store. This recipe is from Dr. Amy Jacang.

Peche Peche

• Sweetened Mochi Rice Balls
• 2 cups mochi rice
• 2 tablespoons pirurutung (purple rice), soaked in water overnight
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cups freshly grated coconut

In a rice cooker or 2-quart saucepan, rinse mochi rice; drain. Add pirurutung and 2 cups water; cook until rice is tender, about 20 minutes. Add sugar and mix well before water has evaporated. You should have a somewhat loose, lumpy mixture — not too liquid, but not stiff, either. Cool and form into 1 1/4-inch rice balls, rolling between wet hands and in grated coconut. Makes 50 balls.

Kuchinta is an unusual dessert with the texture of flan and the clean, sweet flavor of pudding, but there are no eggs in the mixture. The blend of water, flour, sugar and flavoring is caused to gel by the addition of lye water (potassium carbonate). This ingredient, available in Asian or Filipino food stores, may be labeled Eau de Lessive, Kalium-Carbonat-Loesung or Loog Water.

You will also need powdered achuete (annato or achiote) seeds for their distinctive orange-red color: Dory Atienza, whose recipe this is, prefers Mama Sita's brand, each packet containing 4 teaspoons of the powder, enough for two batches. Atienza uses nonstick-sprayed miniature muffin cups for ease in getting the kuchinta out of the pan.

The dessert is steamed. Atienza has a two-piece steamer for this with a chamber for the water below and a perforated upper part that's large enough to take four stacked trays of miniature muffin cups. The kuchinta does not rise, so you can stack them. You can improvise with water in a soup pot or Dutch oven and a rack on which to place the trays. Be sure the pot doesn't boil dry and that the water doesn't overflow into the kuchinta.

Kuchinta

• Steamed Pudding Dessert
• 2 teaspoons achuete powder
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon lye water (potassium carbonate)
• 2 cups freshly grated coconut

Dissolve the achuete in 1/2 cup of the water for 30 minutes. Bring water in steamer to a boil. In a bowl, combine the achuete water, the remaining 1 1/2 cups water, flour, brown sugar, and lye water; mix well. Spray muffin cups with vegetable oil spray. Fill miniature muffin pans three-quarters full. Steam, covered, over boiling water for 20 minutes or until done. (Test for doneness as you would a cake, sticking the tines of a fork or a piece of broom straw in the center; if it emerges clean, the kuchinta is done.)

Allow to cool. Run a knife around the inside of each cup and lift kuchinta out gently. Top each piece with grated coconut. Makes 24 pieces. To store, refrigerate in airtight container.

Emmie Anderson contributed this dessert, fried mochi fingers that are arranged on bamboo barbecue skewers, then drizzled with a sweet syrup. It goes together quickly and makes use of a product that seems as though it might have many uses: bottled young coconut ("sport"), which may be labeled Sweet Macapuno Strings. The strips of coconut are immersed in a sweet, gelatinous mixture of their own milk and sugar and offer coconut flavor but with a melting texture.

The mochi dough here is very fine and sticky, just one step short of a batter. Don't expect to be able to roll it; rather, just use your fingers to form what Anderson calls a "cocoon" shape, or a thick, rough finger, which she immediately drops into the hot fat.

You may use a deep fryer, if you have one, but Anderson just heated 2 inches of oil in a large, heavy-bottomed frying pan.

Kaskaron

• Coconut Mochi Balls
• Canola or other salad oil for deep frying
• 1 (16-ounce) box mochiko flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup coconut sport (fresh or bottled shredded young coconut)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla or coconut extract (optional)
• 1 (13.5-ounce) can coconut milk
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar

Heat oil to 350 degrees. In a bowl, combine mochiko, 1/2 cup brown sugar, coconut sport, and vanilla. Gradually add coconut milk to form a very soft dough but not too wet. The dough resembles very soft, very fine mashed potatoes. Shape dough into 2-inch-long, thick fingers or into balls. Deep fry until light golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes; turn to brown other side. Drain on absorbent paper. Skewer 2 balls together and place on waxed paper.

While the kaskaron is cooking, make the syrup. In a small saucepan, bring the water to a boil. Add the remaining sugars; cook until thickened to honey consistency; the syrup needs to bubble up and boil briefly. It will thicken as it sits.

Drizzle over skewered kascaron. Serve immediately. Makes about 3 dozen kascaron.