Breaking the fast in the best way possible.
Every Saturday, a kakanin or rice snack vendor from Batangas sets up shop in the nearby market. He brings superb suman sa lihiya, which is a glutinous rice cake made with lye water, and greenish from the banana leaves it is boiled in. If sodium hydroxide in food sounds freaky to you, eating this just might change your mind. Lye-- traditionally derived from wood ash-- is found in Chinese noodle, century eggs, etc. It creates a too-alkaline environment for bacteria.
Every Saturday, a kakanin or rice snack vendor from Batangas sets up shop in the nearby market. He brings superb suman sa lihiya, which is a glutinous rice cake made with lye water, and greenish from the banana leaves it is boiled in. If sodium hydroxide in food sounds freaky to you, eating this just might change your mind. Lye-- traditionally derived from wood ash-- is found in Chinese noodle, century eggs, etc. It creates a too-alkaline environment for bacteria.
This type of suman, like our national daily pan de sal, has gotten considerably smaller throughout the years. So have the packets of brown, wonderful thick sauce made of raw sugar (panocha) and coconut milk.
Nevertheless, I rejoice at their arrival. Last weekend, I got some grated coconut, used some of it to make cream to thicken some cacao up, used some to sprinkle on the suman and mix in with the sauce. After awhile came the inevitable dunking of into chocolate.
What's better than suman sa lihiya?
...
Suman sa lihiya all dunked and bothered in cacao.
