Pandan Puto(Steamed Pandan Rice Cake)

Tomorrow is St. Patrick's Day. Though we don't celebrate it, my daughters insisted that we make something green that I can post here. So, that's what we did early morning yesterday. With our jammies still on, we made these pandan flavored Puto, and then ate them for breakfast.

In the Philippines, Puto refers to a kind of steamed rice cake that is usually served and eaten with butter or grated coconut, either for breakfast or snack. The traditional puto are made in big round shapes about 1 to 2 feet in diameter and 1.5 inch thick, which are then served or sold in diamond shaped slices. Because of its popularity, different versions of puto came out. The one that we usually make is more like the Puto Mamon version which makes use of ordinary flour instead of rice flour. This variety of puto is usually steamed in individual aluminum or plastic molds which come in different sizes ranging from morsel to cupcake size. It is also made with different colors and flavors, making it more fun to eat. The ones we made yesterday are pandan (a tropical plant which is widely used in Asia as a flavoring) flavored so we would achieve the green color we want.
 

Instead of a Meatles Friday recipe, let me share with you these green treats for St. Patrick's Day just as my daughters requested. Clarise and Cherlin love puto with cream cheese filling so that's the version I'm sharing with you. Hope you'll like it.

Buko Pandan

Pearl of  My Sassy Chef and Thea of Words and Nosh are January's Kulinarya Cooking Club Challenge hosts...and since Thea's birthday is this month, they came up with a birthday celebration theme. The challenge is to prepare a favorite birthday dish (entree, dessert, snack, or drink) and make it more healthy by making it into a vegetarian/vegan, lower fat, dairy-free or low sugar version.

My birthday falls on Dec. 25, and I grew up celebrating my birthday with lots of mouthwatering holiday food. But aside from Beef Caldereta and Pancit Canton, if there's one thing that I always want on the dining table for my birthday, it's Buko Pandan...a very simple yet so deliciously refreshing dessert that I really love.

Buko Pandan is a favorite Filipino dessert which is a combination of shredded buko(young coconut) and pandan(screw pine) jelly mixed with table cream and condensed milk.

In the Philippines where pandan can be found everywhere, this dessert is traditionally prepared by boiling pandan leaves until all the juices are released. After removing the leaves, the liquid is then used to make the jelly. Here in my side of the world where pandan is hardly available, I use pandan extract instead. To give the jelly a richer flavor, I use coconut juice in place of water. 

So how did I make my usual version of buko pandan healthy? Well, I made it low fat by using light table cream and fat free condensed milk. And instead of powdered gelatin, I used agar-agar bars. Though a bit tougher and less floppy than gelatin, agar-agar which is made from seaweed is a great and healthier substitute. It is fat free, low in calories and high in calcium.

With those simple alterations I made, I can say that I made a totally healthy version of buko pandan...

Check it out and let me know what you think! 

Cheers to good health!!!