Alternative names | Puto bombong |
---|---|
Course | Dessert |
Place of origin | Philippines |
Serving temperature | Room temperature, hot |
Main ingredients | Pirurutong glutinous rice, white glutinous rice, muscovado , grated coconut, butter/margarine, sesame seeds |
Variations | puto |
Similar dishes | kue putu, putu bambu, puttu |
Puto bumbong is a Filipino purple rice cake steamed in bamboo tubes. It is traditionally sold during the Christmas season. It is a type of puto (steamed rice cake).
The name is derived from Tagalog puto (steamed rice cakes) and bumbong or bombong ("bamboo tube"). The names are sometimes mistakenly spelled as puto bungbong or puto bongbong. [1]
Puto bumbong is made from a unique heirloom variety of glutinous rice called pirurutong (also called tapol in Visayan), which is deep purple to almost black in color. [2] Pirurutong is mixed with a larger ratio of white glutinous rice (malagkit or malagkit sungsong in Tagalog, lit. "Chinese glutinous rice"; pilit in Visayan). [3] Regular white rice may also be used instead of malagkit, to give the dish a less chewy consistency. [4] In the Philippines, puto bumbong is traditionally served in Christmas gatherings together with bibingka .
The rice grains are covered completely in water (traditionally salted water) and allowed to soak overnight. This gives it a slightly acidic fermented aftertaste. The mixture is then drained and packed densely into bamboo tubes and steamed. The sides of the bamboo tubes are traditionally greased with coconut oil, but in modern versions, butter or margarine are commonly used. The rice is traditionally cooked as whole grains, but some versions the rice is ground before or after soaking. [5] [4] [6] [7]
The resulting cylindrical rice cake is then served on banana leaves, slathered with more butter or margarine, and sprinkled with muscovado sugar (or just brown sugar/white sugar with or without sesame seeds) and grated coconut, others had special toppings of puto bumbong like condensed milk (as an alternative ingredient to sugar), or even cheese and leche flan. [3] [8]
Puto bumbong is commonly served as a snack or breakfast during the Christmas season. It is usually associated with the nine-day traditional Simbang Gabi novena, where stalls serving snacks including puto bumbong are set up outside churches. [9] [5]
Modern puto bumbong may use metal cylinders or regular food steamers. These versions are commonly shaped into little balls or long narrow tubes (similar to suman ). [9] In some modern versions, pirurutong (which is difficult to find) is excluded altogether, and purple food coloring or even purple yam (ube) flour are used instead. However, these versions are frowned upon as being inauthentic. [5] [4] [6] [10]
Adaptations of the dish in restaurants include ice-cream flavors, pancakes, cakes, and empanadas . [11]
A variant of puto bumbong from the provinces of Batangas and Pampanga is putong sulot which uses white glutinous rice. Unlike puto bumbong it is available year-round. [12]
In Indonesia there is a very similar dessert known as kue putu in Indonesian. It is also cooked in bamboo tubes, but is made with rice flour. It is also commonly green due to the use of pandan leaves as flavoring. [13]
In India (Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka) and Sri Lanka, a similar dish is known as puttu or pittu, though it is a savory dish rather than a dessert. [14]
Both of these related dishes are very different in that they use regular (non-sticky) rice flour or ground white rice, but they are all cooked in bamboo tubes. [13] [14]
Glutinous rice is a type of rice grown mainly in Southeast and East Asia, and the northeastern regions of South Asia, which has opaque grains, very low amylose content, and is especially sticky when cooked. It is widely consumed across Asia.
Kuih are bite-sized snack or dessert foods commonly found in Southeast Asia and China. It is a fairly broad term which may include items that would be called cakes, cookies, dumplings, pudding, biscuits, or pastries in English and are usually made from rice or glutinous rice. In China, where the term originates from, kueh or koé (粿) in the Min Nan languages refers to snacks which are typically made from rice but can occasionally be made from other grains such as wheat. The term kuih is widely used in Malaysia, Brunei, and Singapore, kueh is used in Singapore and Indonesia, kue is used in Indonesia only, all three refer to sweet or savoury desserts.
Nian gao, sometimes translated as year cake or New Year cake or Chinese New Year's cake, is a food prepared from glutinous rice flour and consumed in Chinese cuisine. It is also simply known as "rice cake". While it can be eaten all year round, traditionally it is most popular during the Chinese New Year. It is considered good luck to eat nian gao during this time of the year because nian gao (年糕) is a homonym for "higher year" or "grow every year" (年高), which means "a more prosperous year". The character 年 is literally translated as "year", and the character 糕 (gāo) is literally translated as "cake" and is identical in sound to the character 高, meaning "tall" or "high". In Mandarin, Nian gao (年糕) also is an exact homonym of "sticky cake" (黏糕/粘糕), the character 黏/粘 (nián) meaning "sticky".
Idiyappam, also known as indiappa, noolputtu, noolappam (நூலப்பம்/நூலாப்பம்), santhagai, or ottu shavige, is a string hopper dish originating from southern India. It consists of rice flour pressed into noodles, laid into a flat disc-like shape and steamed. The dish also spread to Southeast Asia, where it is called putu mayam in Malaysia and Singapore, and putu mayang in Indonesia.
Puttu, also called pittu, is a dish native to the Southern Indian states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and parts of Karnataka, as well as Sri Lanka. It is made of steamed cylinders of ground rice layered with coconut shavings, sometimes with a sweet or savory filling on the inside. Puttu is usually a breakfast dish served hot with either sweet side dishes such as palm sugar or banana, or savoury with chana masala, chutney, rasam, or meat curries.
Bibingka commonly refers to a type of baked rice cake from the Philippines that is traditionally cooked in a terracotta oven lined with banana leaves and is usually eaten for breakfast or as merienda especially during the Christmas season. It is also known as bingka in the Visayas and Mindanao islands.
A rice cake may be any kind of food item made from rice that has been shaped, condensed, or otherwise combined into a single object. A wide variety of rice cakes exist in many different cultures in which rice is eaten. Common variations include cakes made with rice flour, those made from ground rice, and those made from whole grains of rice compressed together or combined with some other binding substance.
Kue is an Indonesian bite-sized snack or dessert food. Kue is a fairly broad term in Indonesian to describe a wide variety of snacks including cakes, cookies, fritters, pies, scones, and patisserie. Kue are made from a variety of ingredients in various forms; some are steamed, fried or baked. They are popular snacks in Indonesia, which has the largest variety of kue. Because of the countries' historical colonial ties, Koeé (kue) is also popular in the Netherlands.
Putu piring is a round-shaped steamed rice flour kueh (dessert) or sweet snack filled with palm sugar popular in Singapore. Commonly associated with Singaporean cuisine, it is usually made using stainless steel molds with a distinctive flower shape. It is a traditional dessert among the Malay community of the country.
Puto is a Filipino steamed rice cake, traditionally made from slightly fermented rice dough (galapong). It is eaten as is or as an accompaniment to a number of savoury dishes. Puto is also an umbrella term for various kinds of indigenous steamed cakes, including those made without rice. It is a sub-type of kakanin.
Klepon or kelepon or kalalapun, also known outside Java as onde-onde and buah melaka, is a sweet rice cake ball filled with molten palm sugar and coated in grated coconut. Of Javanese origin, the green-coloured glutinous rice balls are one of the popular traditional kue in Indonesian cuisine.
Puto seco, also known as puto masa, are Filipino cookies made from ground glutinous rice, cornstarch, sugar, salt, butter, and eggs. They are characteristically white and often shaped into thick disks. They have a dry, powdery texture.
Kue putu or putu bambu is an Indonesian kue. It is made of rice flour called suji and coloured green with pandan leaves, filled with palm sugar, steamed in bamboo tubes, and served with desiccated coconut. This traditional bite-sized snack is commonly found in maritime Southeast Asia, particularly in Java, Indonesia, where it is called putu bumbung. Kue putu is usually sold by street vendors and can be found in traditional markets, along with other kues. Kue putu can also be found in the Netherlands due to its colonial ties with Indonesia.
Betawi cuisine is rich, diverse and eclectic, in part because the Betawi people that create them were composed from numbers of regional immigrants that came from various places in the Indonesian archipelago, as well as Chinese, Indian, Arab, and European traders, visitors and immigrants that were attracted to the port city of Batavia since centuries ago.
Sayongsong is a traditional Filipino steamed rice cake from Surigao del Norte and other areas of the Caraga Region of northeastern Mindanao, as well as the southeastern Visayas where it is known as sarungsong or alisuso. It is distinctively served in cone-shaped banana leaves. Sayongsong is a type of puto.
Acehnese cuisine is the cuisine of the Acehnese people of Aceh in Sumatra, Indonesia. This cuisine is popular and widely known in Indonesia. Arab, Persian, and Indian traders influenced food culture in Aceh although flavours have substantially changed their original forms. The spices combined in Acehnese cuisine are commonly found in Indian and Arab cuisine, such as ginger, pepper, coriander, cumin, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, and fennel.
Chunga pitha, also known as chungapura pitha, is a traditional rice cake (pitha) originating in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh. Though its main ingredients are bamboo and glutinous (sticky) rice, it is also made with binni rice, milk, sugar, coconut, and rice powder. This unique delicacy is prepared when sticky rice is stuffed inside young bamboo and smoke slowly. It is popularly known as a distinct and traditional food in Bengali cuisine.
Indian Indonesian cuisine is characterized by the mixture of Indian cuisine with local Indonesian-style. This cuisine consists of adaptations of authentic dishes from India, as well as original creations inspired by the diverse food culture of Indonesia. Indian influence can be observed in Indonesia as early as the 4th century. Following the spread of Islam to Indonesia and trading, Muslim Indian as well as Arab influences made their way into Indonesian cuisine. Examples include Indian biryani, murtabak, curry and paratha that influenced Acehnese, Minangkabau, Malay, Palembangese, Betawi and Javanese cuisine.