Buko Pandan Ice Cream (No-Churn)

July 22, 2020 amcarmenLeave a comment

Hello Everyone! A traditional Buko Pandan Salad is made with gulaman (jelly) cubes, tropical palm fruits, and shredded young coconut in sweetened cream. It is rich, creamy, and loaded with pandan flavour – a classic Filipino dessert that is a definite crowd favourite. You can check out my very out-dated recipe for it that I tackled back in 2015 by clicking here.

Tonight however, I won’t be sharing with you another Buko Pandan Salad recipe. I thought you might want to enjoy its delicious flavours with a twist. I’ll be turning the traditional salad into an ice cream that can be enjoyed as both a snack or dessert. It’s rich, creamy, full of coconut flavour, and with an intense pandan taste using fresh screwpine leaves. If you don’t have access to fresh pandan leaves, you may also use pandan extract for this – just skip ahead to step 3 in the recipe below!

The process of homemade, no-churn ice cream is super simple. It’s just a matter of whipping together heavy cream, condensed milk, and adding in your choice of flavour/s. Seriously, the hardest part is waiting for the mixture to freeze! The ice cream comes out rich, creamy, and so much better than store-bought with far fewer ingredients. Oh, and did I mention that it’s a lot cheaper too?

Seriously, you’ll be craving for this all year long, especially during the hot summer days!

PREP TIME 4 HOURS* | COOKING TIME — | SERVES 4-6

*For freezing time, minimum 4 hours or up to 24 hours.

INGREDIENTS

For the ice cream

8-10 pandan leaves
1 can (300g) sweetened condensed milk
1 cup (250ml) all purpose cream
3/4 cup (200ml) thick coconut milk/cream
Green buko pandan food colouring/flavouring (optional)

To serve with (optional)

Buko pandan jelly
Cornflakes
Lychees
Shredded coconut meat

METHOD

Place the pandan leaves together with the all purpose cream and coconut milk in a food processor or heavy-duty blender, and blitz/blend for a few minutes until the pandan leaves have been finely puréed.
Pour the blended pandan-infused cream and coconut milk over a fine sieve and into a chilled large mixing bowl. Strain the cream mixture from the pandan leaf pulp, pressing down firmly with the back of a spoon to extract all of the liquid from the pulp. Discard the pandan leaf pulp.
Whip the pandan-infused cream using an electrical hand-held mixer until soft peaks start to form. Add the sweetened condensed milk. You may also add a dash of vanilla extract at this point. Continue to whip to soft peaks, it should be fluffy and mousse-like.
Pour into an airtight container and freeze for 4 hours or up to 24 hours. Check the mixture every 30 minutes and mix (“churn”) using a spoon to avoid it turning into granita (coarse flavoured ice).
Let sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes before scooping and serving as it is or with other elements such as fresh coconut meat, buko pandan jelly, other fruits of choice, and crushed cornflakes for that extra added crunch. Enjoy!

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

Buko Pandan

December 24, 2015December 24, 2015 amcarmen1 Comment

Buko Pandan

Hello Everyone! We’re on our second last day of Festive Filipino Foods! If you have been living under a rock and basically haven’t been following my blog for the past week and a half, I have been posting a recipe every single day for the past 10 days now (tonight will be the 11th of 12 posts) cooking up recipes leading up to Christmas Day. Tonight, I will be sharing one final dessert recipe before I close this series for the month of December. I have saved the best savoury dish for last tomorrow, and if you’d like to take a stab at what I’ll be making, here are some clues: Spanish-inspired with lots and lots of seafood including prawns, clams, mussels, and calamari.

But enough of the seafood talk, that will be for tomorrow – tonight I will be sharing with you a recipe for a dessert that is a classic Filipino favourite known as Buko Pandan, that originated from the island province of Bohol in the Central Visayas region. It is a dessert dish found on the tables at every fiesta and family gatherings. The two main ingredients for this dessert are buko, which is a young coconut, and screwpine leaves which are locally known as pandan leaves. You can find these leaves in most Asian grocery stores, but if you’re a lucky duck like me, you might have a neighbour that grows these leaves and you have full access to it for free. However, you can use bottled pandan extract if this is more convenient for you.

At first glance, this sumptuous dessert can be mistaken for Buko Salad because of the similarity in texture and dairy ingredients used. However, the green gelatin which contains the aroma and flavor of the Pandan gives the distinction. — Vanjo Merano from Panlasang Pinoy

The dessert is usually topped with pinipig (immature grains of glutinous rice pounded until flat before being toasted), but I just went for what I had in the pantry, which is cornflakes and it’s just as good because you get that crunch in the dish anyway from it too. Rice Krispies may be used as well. I don’t think it is really added, but I like my Buko Pandan Dessert with large sago pearls, which is why I have added it to the dish. I’ve read that you can also add palm seeds or nata de coco in your dessert too if you like.

ps: before I move on to the recipe, I’d like to first apologise once again for a later than usual post. We’ve had a busy morning/afternoon cooking up a storm in the kitchen for our Noche Buena, and I only had time to write this post in between cooking/waiting times, and after all the cleaning up after our dinner.

Buko Pandan Ingredients

PREP TIME 15 MINS | COOKING TIME 90 MINS | SERVES 10-12

INGREDIENTS

3 young coconuts, flesh removed and cut into strips
1L water
1 packet (200ml) crème fraîche
1/2 can (190g) condensed milk
1 packet (10g) unflavoured green agar-agar powder, or simply just gelatine powder
1 cup large sago balls
1 cup white sugar
2 tsp pandan extract*
Handful of cornflakes

*You can extract your own from pandan leaves, and here’s how you can do it: Place the pandan leaves and water into a blender (1 bunch (12 leaves) to about a half cup of water). Blend until the leaves are chopped very finely. Pour contents through a fine sieve and press against it using a spoon to draw out any extra juice. Discard the leaves. Tip: if you keep the extract in a sealed bottle, you can keep it for up to one week in the fridge. Do not freeze though.

METHOD

Dissolve the agar-agar powder in 1L of water. Add the sugar, stir, and bring to a boil over low heat for about 10-15 minutes. Once done, pour into a large square mould (about 10″ in size) and leave it aside to cool down before placing it in the fridge to completely set.
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil, about 2L. Once boiling, add the large sago balls in and cook until tender – mine took more than an hour to cook through, about an hour and 20 minutes to be exact.
While the sago is cooking away, mix all the ingredients together (except for the cornflakes) in a large bowl. Check to see if your gelatine has set, and once it has, cut it into small chunks and mix in the bowl together with all the other ingredients.
Once the sago is done, drain and add it to the mixture. Give it once good final mix and then place in the fridge for about 3-4 hours before serving.
Serve chilled, topped with cornflakes, or anything crunchy, and enjoy!

Buko Pandan

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx

Mesa Filipino Moderne

April 26, 2015January 7, 2019 amcarmenLeave a comment

Hello Everyone and welcome back to an all new Review Sunday! I’ve got three more places from the Philippines that I want to touch on before I start reviewing a couple of places here in Brunei. I’ve actually visited quite a number of places in the Philippines, but I feel like I haven’t had the full dining experience yet in terms of what their menu has to offer. Then there are some other places that I was thinking of writing about, but when I look back at their food, it was all too similar and nothing special really.

Anyway, what I realised when dining out in the Philippines, food is always the same no matter where I go. For example, dishes like sisig, crispy pata, kare-kare, sinigang, laing, buko pandan, leche flan, and many other classic and famous Filipino dishes, though I imagine cooked slightly different to separate themselves from others, all taste quite similar no matter where we have it. In tagalog, I would normally say “nakakasawa”, if you eat the same food over and over you will say or have that feeling nakakasawa, but maybe its because I’ve been eating in the wrong places.

Mesa caught my eye as I was roaming around SM North Edsa with my sisters while my Mom was somewhere along Quezon Avenue doing medical checkups. We were looking for new places to eat, and when a saw ‘new’ I just mean nothing like Barrio Fiesta or Gerry’s Grill – not places that we have been to over and over again every time we visit the Philippines. I had never heard or encountered Mesa in my pervious trips, and what intrigued me was the modernity and interpretation of classic traditional Filipino dishes. I was definitely intrigued when I saw Ostrich on their menu even though I didn’t have any.

SISIG: Sisig in a pouch
Savoury pork sisig wrapped in a pouch (₱190.00)

As mentioned probably in a previous review, sisig is a dish that I never fail to have whenever I visit the Philippines. I was attracted to this dish because I’ve never had sisig this way before. It was a perfect way to start out our lunch at Mesa; the pouches had a very nice golden brown finish to them, and it gave each bite a nice crunch to the sisig filling inside. It was paired nicely with a side of spicy vinegar as well.

SOUP: Sinigang na baboy in guava and pineapple
Pork simmered in broth with guava and fresh pineapple; serves 4-5 (₱290.00)

What caught my eye with this dish as I was browsing the menu was the guava and pineapple part. I’ve never had sinigang with these two fruits before so I was indeed very intrigued to know how the strong flavours would blend together. It actually worked quite well to an extent. I say ‘extent’ because there was one time I had a whole heap of guava flavour in my spoon of soup and the taste overkilled. Nevertheless, an enjoyable dish.

FRESH CATCH: Hito
Crispy boneless with mangga salad (₱340.00)

The only thing that concerned me about this dish was where’s the mango salad? If you’re going to make mention “with” mango salad, I expect it to be of reasonable portioning as a side dish and not just “topped” over the fried fish. Slightly disappointing.

FRESH CATCH: Tilapia
Crispy boneless served with four sauces (₱340.00)

Well, just like the crispy boneless hito, nothing quite special about the four sauces that went with fried fish that in my opinion had not much flavour in the flesh itself. Verging on being overcooked? Quite possibly.

VEGETABLES: Laing 2 ways
Taro leaves, pork, shrimp paste, and coconut cream topped with adobo flakes, served original and crispy (₱170.00)

The taro, or also known as gabi in the Philippines, is low in saturated fat, sodium, and cholesterol, and in contrast, high in dietary fibre, vitamin E, vitamin B6, potassium, and manganese. The leaves, stems, and corms are all consumed and form part of the local cuisine, a dish known as Laing. Laing originated from the Bicol region, and no matter where you have it at, and no matter the way it is cooked, it always ends up looking like a pile of… 🙂 I’ve had my fair share from many eateries, and even home-cooked laing, and it always looks like this. But I assure you that it tastes so much better than it looks. I like how Mesa served this dish two ways – basically one with sauce and the other without. Both tasted pretty good and the adobo flakes on top added that extra flavour and crunch to the dish.

MEAT: Pinatayong Manok
“Standing” whole chicken carved right at your table (₱415.00)

Quite possibly one of the reasons why I stopped in front of the restaurant and had a look at their menu; I saw a picture of this dish and I immediately knew I wanted to eat that. It was basically a whole roasted chicken that didn’t particularly have any special taste to it in my opinion, but what I enjoyed was the way it was served to us. It was brought to our table “standing” and carved for us at our table. The chicken was cooked well and was very tender.

MEAT: Pork Binagoongan
Pan fried pork belly sautéed in shrimp paste (₱190.00)

This dish I enjoyed because I love the pairing of a well-cooked pork belly, shrimp paste, and grilled eggplant. This dish did not disappoint at all unlike the others.

DESSERT: Pandan Macapuno Rumble (₱75.00)

I was intrigued to know what modern twist they would put on a classic buko pandan dessert. Nothing special to be honest except the fact that the coconut meat was set with the jelly? That’s all that I could point out that seemed different to the classic ones I’ve had multiple times. Other than that, flavour was good.

DESSERT: Crispy Leche Flan (₱70.00)

This was the dessert that I was most looking forward to only to be disappointed in the end – small, not so crispy rolls of flan that didn’t quite taste like flan in my opinion and more like steamed egg. I was disappointed only because I had a much better first experience with crispy leche flan when I was travelling the city of Lucena just a couple of days before I visited Mesa again.

Mesa Filipino Moderne is definitely a place to visit if you want to experience modern Filipino cooking at an affordable price. I say that it is affordable because the pricing of their dishes are quite reasonable for the portions you get, so definitely a good value for money indeed. But as I have mentioned in another review before, these prices are not very affordable for the average Filipino, so I guess the value for money on a more general scale wouldn’t be so good. The food I would rate no more than a 6 to be honest – at first glance I was very excited to experience modern Filipino cuisine, but after having dined and looked back at the dishes that I’ve had, I can’t say I was left excited to go back for more. The only dish that I really enjoyed was the pork sisig in a pouch. Everything else was mediocre. Service 8 out of 10; it was exceptional nor was it bad, and the ambience is a sure 10 for me.

Now that I look back at all the dishes that I’ve had and my small disappointments with each of the dishes I ordered, I wonder how they were able to achieve the Best Food Retailer award. I may be jumping into conclusions a bit early as I’ve only tried probably an eighth of the dishes they have on offer, but if I am off to a non-promising start with their menu, I can’t be sure on how the rest will unfold if I visited a few more times and trying other dishes. Anyway, my opinion is my opinion; it may be biased, it may be not. You may agree with me, you may not, that is, if you’ve dined at Mesa.

I’m not sure if there are other restaurants that are much better at modern Filipino cuisine, but this is the first step of my journey to finding out how far we can modernise classic dishes. There is one place I have yet to visit, but have been closely following their Instagram page, and it’s called Sarsá Kitchen+Bar. I must say that their Sinigang Fried Chicken looks very enticing. Maybe on my next adventure to the Philippines I’ll be able to drag some family members over to have some eats.

Mesa Filipino Moderne
3/F SM City North EDSA, Main Building
EDSA corner North Avenue
Quezon City, Metro Manila
Philippines

– Ally xx