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Tibok-tibok

A milk pudding set with rice flour, where the milk and not coconut carries the whole dish.

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

Ingredients

Method

  1. THE MILK CARRIES THIS, NOT COCONUT. The maja blanca on this site is a coconut milk pudding; this is the same idea built on carabao milk, which is far richer than cow's milk and sets to something distinctly cheesy and tangy. Made with cow's milk it is thin and bland -- if that is all you have, use 800 ml of whole milk and 200 ml of double cream.
  2. Latik first, because it needs attention. Simmer the coconut cream in a small pan, stirring, 20 to 25 minutes. It splits into oil and solids, and the solids brown. Strain the curds out and keep them; keep the oil too.
  3. Watch it in the last 5 minutes. Latik goes from gold to black in under a minute.
  4. Slake the rice flour into 300 ml of the COLD milk until there is not a single lump. Into warm milk it seizes instantly and no amount of whisking recovers it.
  5. Heat the remaining 700 ml of milk with the sugar and salt to just below a simmer.
  6. Flour mixture in, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, and keep stirring for 15 to 18 minutes over a low heat.
  7. It thickens suddenly, about twelve minutes in, and from then on it must be stirred hard and scraped off the bottom or it catches and the whole pan tastes scorched.
  8. IT IS READY when the mixture pulls away from the side in one piece and the spoon leaves a channel that stays open.
  9. Into a dish brushed with the reserved coconut oil, 3 cm deep, smoothed with a wet spoon.
  10. Cool completely, then chill 3 hours. Latik and toasted rice flour over the top just before serving -- put on early, the latik goes soft.

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