Halo-halo

Layers built in a specific order under shaved ice, to be mixed by whoever eats it.

Egg. Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains egg, dairy (cream), dairy (evaporated milk).

Ingredients

• 1 kg ice, shaved not crushed
• 400 ml evaporated milk
• 200 g sweetened red beans
• 200 g nata de coco
• 200 g kaong palm fruit
• 150 g sweetened jackfruit, in strips
• 200 g ube halaya
• 4 slices leche flan
• 100 g pinipig or toasted rice flakes
• 4 scoops ube ice cream

Method

1. SHAVED ICE, NOT CRUSHED. Shaved ice is soft and takes up the milk; crushed ice stays as lumps that rattle in the glass and dilute everything as they melt.
2. BUILD IT FROM THE BOTTOM IN THIS ORDER, and the order is the recipe: the heavy sweet preserves first — beans, nata de coco, kaong, jackfruit — in the bottom third of a tall glass.
3. Then the shaved ice, heaped above the rim.
4. Then pour the evaporated milk over the ice, slowly, until it soaks down through it.
5. Then the things that must stay visible on top: ube halaya, a slice of leche flan, pinipig, and the ice cream last.
6. Preserves on top would sink through and the ice would be left plain; ice cream at the bottom would be a puddle before it reached the table. Each layer is where it is for a reason.
7. THE NAME IS AN INSTRUCTION: halo means mix. Serve it with a long spoon and let whoever is eating stir the whole thing to a lilac slush, which is the point and not a spoiled presentation.

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