Biko

A sticky rice slab with whole grains and a caramel top, cut in squares.

Vegan.

Ingredients

• 500 g glutinous rice
• 800 ml coconut milk
• 300 g dark muscovado sugar
• 0.5 teaspoon salt
• 400 ml coconut milk, for the topping
• 100 g dark muscovado sugar, for the topping

Method

1. THE GRAIN STAYS WHOLE. That is what separates this from the kalamay already on the site, where the rice is ground to flour first: here you should be able to see and feel individual grains in the slab. So the rice is soaked and steamed, never beaten.
2. Soak the rice in cold water for 2 hours, then drain it well.
3. Cook the rice in 500 ml of the coconut milk with the salt, covered, over a low heat, 20 minutes, until the liquid has gone and the grains are just tender. Stir twice only -- stirred often, the grains break and you are making kalamay by accident.
4. In a separate wide pan, melt the 300 g of muscovado into the remaining 300 ml of coconut milk and simmer 8 minutes to a loose dark syrup.
5. Cooked rice into the syrup. Now stir properly, folding over from the bottom, 10 to 12 minutes, until it is glossy, very stiff, and comes away from the pan in one mass.
6. Press it into a lined 25 cm tin, 3 cm deep, with the back of an oiled spoon. Press hard: air pockets collapse later and the squares fall apart on the knife.
7. TOPPING: simmer the 400 ml of coconut milk with the 100 g of muscovado, stirring, 20 to 25 minutes, until it darkens and thickens to the point where a spoon drawn through leaves a channel.
8. Spread the topping over and bake at 180C for 20 minutes, until it is set and blistered at the edges.
9. Cool completely in the tin before cutting. Warm, it drags and smears instead of cutting clean.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes