Buko salad

Young coconut and tinned fruit in sweetened cream, with no gelatine and no pandan in it.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (condensed milk), dairy (double cream).

Ingredients

• 600 g young coconut strips
• 800 g tinned fruit cocktail, drained
• 200 g tinned peaches, in strips
• 400 ml double cream, very cold
• 300 g condensed milk
• 150 g macapuno strings, drained
• 0.25 teaspoon salt

Method

1. NO GELATINE AND NO PANDAN AT ALL. That is the whole distinction from the buko pandan on this site, which is mostly green jelly cubes. Here nothing is set: it is fruit and coconut suspended in thick cream, and it stays loose and spoonable.
2. DRAIN EVERYTHING PROPERLY, in a sieve, for 20 minutes, and then press it. Tinned fruit carries a great deal of syrup and that syrup thins the cream into a pool within an hour. This is the step that decides whether it works.
3. Pat the coconut strips dry too. Fresh buko is wet.
4. Whip the cream to soft peaks only. It must stay thick enough to hold fruit and loose enough to fold.
5. Condensed milk and salt folded into the cream. Taste it now, before the fruit goes in -- this is the only chance to adjust the sweetness, and tinned fruit varies.
6. Fold in the coconut, macapuno, fruit cocktail and peaches with a spatula, in that order, as few strokes as will do it. Stirred, the soft fruit breaks up and the whole bowl goes pink.
7. Chill 4 hours. It needs the time for the coconut to take up the cream and for the whole thing to firm.
8. Stir once before serving and taste again. If liquid has collected at the bottom, fold it back through rather than pouring it off.
9. It is at its best the day it is made and acceptable the next; after that the fruit collapses.

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