Kabkab
A large thin cassava cracker dried to a board and fried flat in seconds.
Vegan.
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg cassava, peeled and finely grated
- 2 teaspoons salt
- oil, for deep frying
Method
- DRIED UNTIL IT RATTLES, which takes two days. A kabkab that is merely dry to the touch will not puff: it bends in the oil, goes leathery and stays pale. It has to be dried to the point where a disc flexed between the hands makes a noise and snaps.
- Peel the cassava thickly and cut the woody core out of each piece before grating.
- Grate finely, then squeeze the mass in a cloth to get the loose water out. Keep the liquid, let the starch settle for 10 minutes, pour the water off and put the starch back. The starch is the only thing holding these together.
- Salt worked through thoroughly.
- Press a handful at a time between two sheets of oiled plastic into a disc 20 cm across and 2 mm thick. Even thickness matters more than a neat circle -- a thick patch stays raw in the middle of a fried cracker.
- Steam the discs 4 minutes each, on a lined rack, until they go from white to translucent.
- Peel them off and lay them flat on racks or mats to dry. Sun for a day, turning them, or a very low oven at 70C with the door ajar for 6 to 8 hours.
- Test one before frying the lot: it should snap cleanly rather than bend.
- Oil to 190C, deep and wide. One at a time: a disc goes in and puffs and curls within 3 to 5 seconds. Hold it flat with a spider or two spoons for those few seconds if you want it flat, then lift it straight out.
- Drain upright. Salt while hot if you want more. They keep a week in a tin and go soft in an hour in the open.
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