Binaki

Grated fresh corn steamed in its own husks, with cornmeal added only to hold it together.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (butter).

Ingredients

• 8 corn cobs, with their husks
• 100 g fine cornmeal
• 200 ml coconut milk
• 150 g caster sugar
• 60 g butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 0.5 teaspoon salt

Method

1. STEAMED IN ITS OWN HUSKS, which you have to keep when you shuck the corn. Strip the husks off whole, keep the broad inner leaves, and blanch them 30 seconds in boiling water so they go pliable. Baking paper works and gives you none of the corn smell the husk puts into the cake.
2. GRATE THE CORN OFF THE COB rather than cutting it. Use the coarse side of a box grater and go right down to the core, then scrape the cores with a knife. Cut kernels stay whole in the finished cake and it falls apart; grated, the corn milk binds everything.
3. Mix the grated corn with the coconut milk, sugar, melted butter and salt.
4. Cornmeal and baking powder in. ONLY 100 g -- it is there to hold the corn together and nothing else. More and you are eating a cornbread with corn in it rather than corn with a little meal in it.
5. Rest the mixture 20 minutes so the cornmeal swells. It thickens noticeably.
6. Two tablespoons onto the middle of a husk leaf, folded over into a flat parcel and the ends tucked under. No string needed if you lay them seam down.
7. Steam 25 to 30 minutes over a rolling boil, in a single layer if you can.
8. Open one to test: it should be set, slightly springy, and come away from the husk cleanly. Underdone it is a sticky paste.
9. Eat warm in the husk. Cold ones can be steamed again for 5 minutes.

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