Nilupak

Boiled cassava pounded with butter and milk while hot, pressed into a block and cut cold.

Not vegetarian — contains cheese whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg cassava, peeled
• 120 g butter, soft
• 300 g condensed milk
• 150 g young coconut strips
• 0.5 teaspoon salt
• 40 g butter, extra, for the top
• 60 g grated cheese, to finish

Method

1. POUNDED WHILE HOT. Cassava has to be worked the moment it comes out of the water: hot, it mashes to a smooth elastic paste, and cold it goes grainy and refuses to come together however hard you beat it. Have the butter and milk measured out and waiting.
2. Peel the cassava thickly, taking the pink layer under the bark off as well, and cut out the woody core from the middle of each piece.
3. Boil it in salted water 25 to 30 minutes, until a skewer goes through easily and the pieces are beginning to split.
4. Drain and tip it straight into a large bowl or a mortar.
5. Pound or mash it hard, adding the butter in pieces and then the condensed milk in two or three goes, until it is smooth and stretchy and comes away from the sides in one mass. 8 to 10 minutes of real work.
6. Salt in. Coconut strips folded through at the end, so they stay in pieces rather than being pounded in.
7. Press it into a lined tin or a leaf-lined tray, 3 cm deep, with a wet spoon. Press firmly -- air pockets show as holes when you cut it.
8. Dot the extra butter over the top and spread it as it melts.
9. Cool completely, then chill 2 hours before cutting into squares. Cheese over the top at the table.

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