Ginataang Bilu-bilo

Philippines is blessed to have a lot of coconuts; and coconuts is one of the favorite fruit bearing trees of the country since we can make variety of dishes, snacks and desserts from it. One of my personal favorite for a snack is ginataang bilu-bilo.

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups of malagkit rice (one that is used to make rice cakes; a sticky variety)

6 cups of coconut milk (about 2 pieces coconuts)

1 cup of ripe jackfruit

½ tablespoons of anise seeds

1 pandan leaf (optional)

Sugar to taste

PROCEDURE:

1. In a bowl, wash malagkit rice; pour in water until covered and let it soak for about 3 hours.
   
2. Grind the rice, then put it in cheese cloth, tie it up and let it hang until most of the liquid drip out or until the consistency of the ground rice can be made into small balls.
   
3. Form the ground rice into bite size balls. Set them aside.
   
4. Extract milk from the ground coconut by adding 2 cups of water; set aside the first extraction or coconut cream, which should yield about 2 cups of coconut milk. Add another 4 cups of water to already extracted ground coconut and from it, extract a less concentrated coconut milk; this is your 2^nd extraction.
   
5. Cut the jackfruit flesh into strips.
   
6. Let the second extraction of coconut milk boil in a saucepan; once boiling, put in the malagkit rice balls, jackfruit, anise seeds and pandan leaves.
   
7. Add sugar according to your taste and let it cook. Put in the coconut cream and let it boil once just before serving.