Puto (Filipino Steamed Rice Muffins) Recipe

The place Individuals have cornbread and dinner rolls, Filipinos have puto, a steamed savory cake most frequently product of rice flour. It’s often served as a facet for stews, particularly dinuguan (Filipino pork blood stew), or eaten by itself as a satisfying snack. Spanish audio system may do a double take on the identify, but it surely has nothing to do with the Spanish slur that it feels like. The identify, just like the dish itself, has indigenous roots and comes from the Tamil phrase “puttu,” which suggests “portioned”, referring to how the person truffles are pinched off and portioned from one giant dough. Puto—together with dishes reminiscent of bibingka and kare-kare—resides proof of our vestigial ties with India, which date again to precolonial instances.

Whereas “puto” is usually related to being created from rice flour, it’s really a blanket time period for indigenous steamed truffles made with numerous kinds of flour or grated greens, not simply rice. Puto can differ in form, components, or cooking technique from area to area. For instance, puto lanson, from my area, the Visayas, is made with grated cassava, whereas puto lusong from Pampanga is flavored with anise seeds, as is puto Manapla from the municipality of the identical identify—though the 2 snacks differ in form and presentation. Well-liked in the course of the Christmas season, puto bumbong is one other puto selection discovered all through the Philippines. The identify bumbong refers to how the heirloom number of black sticky rice known as piruritong is steamed in bamboo tubes known as bumbong.

This recipe is for some of the fashionable iterations of puto discovered all through the Philippines, puto bigas (rice puto) or puto puti (white puto). Earlier than the American occupation of the Philippines, rice puto was historically made by soaking rice for a minimum of a day, grinding it in a stone mill, after which making a batter known as galapong. The batter then would sit and naturally ferment till small fuel bubbles developed within the dough which produced a light-weight and fluffy puto texture and its barely bitter taste. It was then divided and formed into particular person spherical parts utilizing a specialty mildew often known as a putuhan earlier than steaming till gentle and fluffy.

My model of puto puti is impressed by this conventional technique, however depends on store-bought floor rice flour (not glutinous or candy rice flour) and prompt yeast—business yeast was launched to the Philippines after the American occupation and is now generally utilized in rice puto. Positive, you would nonetheless grind your personal rice to make puto, utilizing a stone grinder or a Vitamix, however I discovered that utilizing store-bought rice flour is less complicated and the result’s simply nearly as good. The stand-in of prompt yeast for the standard longer fermentation saves on time, and the yeast nonetheless emparts the specified slight tang and fluffy texture to the dough.

To make sure a young and fluffy puto texture as soon as steamed, a cooked flour paste, also called a tangzhong, is included into the dough. Including this gelled starchy paste is an effective way so as to add a excessive quantity of moisture with out making the feel of the dough too moist and tough to form. The ultimate dough is supple and pliable, however nonetheless straightforward to portion into small particular person molds.

As soon as steamed till puffed and agency, puto is scrumptious as-is, however will also be used as a jumping-off level for variations: formed uncooked puto might be topped with cheese, salted eggs, halaya (purple yam jam), or full of stewed meat earlier than steaming, or cooked puto might be topped with flan to serve. With puto, the probabilities are infinite.