Saturday, June 16, 2012

Cooking & Ripples/Photo-Hunt


Not the usual cooking method we normally see nowadays.  I was in Midnight Mercato and spotted these vendors cooking bibingka and puto bumbong---types of rice cakes, the traditional way.  Bibingka is a mixture of rice flour, sugar and coconut milk---other ingredients vary from each region.  The bibingka I grew up with has strips of young coconut meat and top is brushed with margarine.  

Puto bumbong is steamed rice cake made from a variety of glutinous rice which has a distinctly purple color, soaked in salted water and dried overnight and poured into bamboo tubes and then steamed until done.  Now, fabricated tin steamer with tubes is used.  Muslin cloth is used to cover the tube opening. 

Puto Bumbong
Traditional cooking of bibingka is time-consuming.  The mixture of rice batter is poured into terra cotta container lined with banana leaf.  The terra cotta container is placed on a charcoal stove, then a tin container with pre-heated coals is placed on top of the terra cotta container.  In short, bibingka is cooked with coal embers from the top and bottom.

Cooking bibingka is a common Filipino metaphor to describe life's difficult situations.

I love the distinctive smoky smell of charcoal and banana leaf.
Wanna share these bibingka with me?  They're perfect with coffee.


Bibingka

Sand ripples at low tide.



Linking with Gattina's Saturday Photo-Hunt
and Sandi's Photo Hunt


9 comments:

Gattina said...

Delicious cooking pictures ! I am sorry I mixed up the dates I was distracted because now I am leaving on a roundtrip through Tunesia !

Suzy said...

A very interesting post. you explained it well.
Here's mine the making of a kebab

MaR said...

Love reading about cooking around the world! and beautiful ripples. Happy weekend!

cooking ~ripples

magiceye said...

beautiful takes on the themes!!

Anonymous said...

Those sand ripples are so relaxing . . . I'm getting tired looking at them all. *smile*

Anni said...

LOVE the low tide image!! Fantastic ripples.

My Bird Photos have RIPPLES today. <-link

Sandi @the WhistleStop Cafe said...

Beautiful ripples!

Happy Hunting~
Sandi

Carver said...

Very interesting post and wonderful photographs!

EG CameraGirl said...

Bibingka sounds very good! I love the sand ripples.