Kiping

A coloured rice-paste wafer pressed onto a real leaf, steamed, dried, and eaten fried.

Not known. This site has not classified “food colouring in several colours”, so it cannot say whether the dish is vegetarian or vegan.

Ingredients

• 500 g long grain rice
• 700 ml water
• 1 teaspoon salt
• food colouring in several colours
• 40 cabbage or talisay leaves, washed
• oil, for frying to serve

Method

1. PRESSED ONTO A REAL LEAF, which is what makes it this and not the lokot-lokot or barquillos already on the site. The leaf gives the wafer its shape and its veins, and the finished thing is a stiff coloured copy of the leaf it was made on. Both of those others are made on metal.
2. Soak the rice in cold water overnight, then drain.
3. Grind it with the 700 ml of fresh water to a completely smooth batter -- a blender, run 3 minutes, scraped down twice. Any grit left shows as a rough patch that cracks when it dries.
4. Salt in. The batter should be the thickness of single cream. Thicker and it will not take the veins; thinner and it tears coming off.
5. Divide it and colour each part. Keep them well apart -- a smear of one colour on another leaf is visible for ever.
6. Dip a leaf in the batter, lift it out, and let it drain until the coating is even and thin. Lay it flat on a steamer rack, batter side UP.
7. Steam 3 to 4 minutes, until the batter has turned from opaque to glossy and set.
8. Peel the wafer off the leaf while warm, starting at the stem. Left to cool, it bonds to the leaf and tears.
9. Dry them flat on racks for several hours, or overnight, until they are stiff and rattle. They keep weeks once dry.
10. TO EAT, fry a dry wafer in shallow oil for 10 to 15 seconds. It buckles and puffs. Eaten undried it is simply a wet rice sheet.

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