An ingredient for success- passion

Passport & Plate - Puto Bagol

Philippines | Thursday, March 13, 2014 | 5 photos

Ingredients
The name of this local delicacy literally means cake (puto) steamed cooked in a coconut shell (Bagol)

Ingredients:

Cassava - is a kind of root crop, this is the main ingredient in making "Puto Bagol"

For Stuffing:
Coconut - You must choose a coconut carefully, the coconut must be in the stage of beginning to ripen – on the outside, it turns slowly brown, and on the inside a thin white layer of meat or pulp begins to develop. This will be used as a stuffing

Sugar - For making the stuffing sweet

Fennel Seeds - for additional aroma

Cocoa Powder - for color and additional taste

Margarine or Butter - used as a toppings when cooked, it will be melted on top of the "Puto Bagol"

Salt - Salt to taste

 

How to prepare this recipe
What makes this special is that it needs not only one person to but at least 2 or three to prepare the recipe.

The first thing that needs to be prepared is the stuffing, here's how:
1. Choose the right age of coconut to be grinded. It must be be on the stage of beginning to ripen. Grind it in a local instrument of grinding.
2. Mix together the grinded coconut, sugar, cocoa powder, fennel seeds, and salt in a bowl. Cook the mixture in a large pan in a medium flame while continuously it from the start until it is cooked.

Now the stuffing for "Puto Bagol" is ready, set aside and next to do is prepare the cassava :

3. Peel off the cassava, wash it and put water on it to prevent it from blackening.
4. Grind the cassava using our local instrument in grinding invented by our ancestors
5. Put the grinded cassava in a white cloth then press and squeeze until the juice is drained and the cassava is dried up.
6. Put it out from the cloth and then scatter it thoroughly
7. Set aside

You have now the stuffing the and cassava ready for cooking, but before that we have to prepare the cooking materials:

Pot - is where the puto bagol is being cooked through steaming, just like our grandparents we are still using the old way of cooking which is in the pot and improvising it so that it will act like a steamer. It shouldn't have steam holes aside from the hole in the center because it will affect the cooking process quality.

1. Boil water in the pot
2. Put the grinded cassava around the cup size coconut shell with the coconut stuffing on the center. Put again another grinded cassava on top until its full
3. Put the coconut shell it on top of the pot where the steam hole is located and cover.
4. It will take about 3-4 minutes until cooked, remove when cooked.
5. Use a spoon to remove the "Puto Bagol" from the shell, be careful because its hot, then put it in a banana leaves cut in squares.
6. Put butter on top of the cake "Puto Bagol" and wait until it melts and serve

 

The story behind this recipe
My father was then a farmer, their family including my grandparents were growing root crops, vegetables, rice, coconuts and many more depending on the weather. This recipe came from my grandmother, who used to be a housewife of a world war 2 veteran, since the root crops are abundantly available, then she invented the local delicacy, this was then passed to my father which is the oldest among his 12 siblings and then passed to my mother and unto us. This was then the means of livelihood for our family, we helped our father at farm harvesting the ingredients and traveled it for 3 hours in a boat since we are living in an upstream. Early in the morning about 3am, all of us woke up and helped our mother in preparing the delicacy, we are given each a task, my mother was the one who cooks, i am assigned to prepare the cassava, my sister on the stuffing and my brother on grinding, until we finished it at dawn. After that we will go out together with my 3 siblings and sell out "Puto Bagol" around the village, we have to sell it because the money we can get from selling will be used to buy our food for that morning before we can go to school. What makes this recipe not just a recipe because this was our life, this was our life blood, from this recipe we were able to be sent to schools and finish our study. We never experienced to play like a child when we were younger, we are used to help our livelihood so that we can eat, go to school and someday finish our studies which our mothers didn't achieved. This recipe is not just a mere recipe, this means a lot to our family and how we have overcome the challenge of being poor. The complexity of the process of preparing the delicacy is just like how we started, we were grinded up, we get undercooked but we never give until the we've come to be a perfect sweet "Puto Bagol" which what we are now.