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| These beauties are about to steam for 30 minutes |
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| It's ready to be enjoyed. Get your hot chocolate ready. |
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| Lovingly open it and enjoy the fruit of your labor! |
Budbud is a glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk, then gently wrapped in a wilted banana leaves and steamed to perfection. This is very popular all over the islands of Philippines. It is best served for breakfast or afternoon snack (merienda) paired with hot chocolate on the side. There are several different versions of making Budbud depending upon regions. This specific recipe I made is the most popular one in the Visayan region, where I came from.
When I was shopping at our one and only Asian store in our tiny town, I inadvertently found some frozen banana leaves. It's fascinating how little things like banana leaves can make your day. It's funny that we have so much banana trees at home (Philippines) in our backyard and I never paid too much attention to the value of it until I had to pay one at the store. Now, seeing one here (leaves) is like a little girl seeing a beautiful doll! It literally brought me some excitement simply because they are so hard to find in our area. As soon as I saw the leaves, I already knew what I was going to do. Yep, make some budbud. So, here it is...simple, delicate and delectable!
Ingredients:
3 cups glutinous/sticky rice (washed and drained)
5 cups coconut milk
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
banana leaves (cleaned and wilted, I put them individually under the broiler for few minutes making sure not to burn just long enough to wilt it)
Mix coconut milk, sugar and salt in a saucepan. Add washed and thoroughly drained rice. Cook the mixture in medium heat. Stir constantly for 15 to 20 minutes. When mixture is soft and liquid is reducing, stir to prevent rice from sticking at the bottom of the pan. Lower heat until rice is fully cooked and all liquid dissipated. Take off from heat. Put 3 tablespoons of cooked budbud on a wilted banana leaf (about 6 inches long), fold over the edges and tie extra thin leaves on each ends. Repeat the process. Put them on steamer for 30 minutes. Let it cool a bit, enjoy with hot chocolate!
Note: You can also use a rice cooker (thank you vhayotch for the wonderful suggestion!) for a very convenient version. Put all ingredients into the cooker. Make sure you put it to the sweet rice setting (if your rice cooker has that option). Once it's done, you may notice some extra liquid on top of the rice (like what I had) but don't panic, just stir them gently into the rice and it'll do the trick. Proceed to step 2 and 3, which is wrapping and steaming. Enjoy!
Tips: Freeze leftovers in an air tight ziplock bags. Reheat in the microwave on a plate for 1 minute before serving.
Yield: makes 20 wrapped budbud
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