Puto bumbong
Puto bumbong is a Filipino purple rice cake steamed in bamboo tubes. It is traditionally sold during the Christmas season. It is a type of puto.
Etymology
The name is derived from Tagalog puto and bumbong or bombong. The names are sometimes mistakenly spelled as puto bungbong or puto bongbong.Description
Puto bumbóng is made from a unique heirloom variety of glutinous rice called pirurutong, which is deep purple to near-black in color. Pirurutong is mixed with a larger ratio of white glutinous rice. Regular white rice may also be used instead of malagkít, to give the dish a less chewy consistency.The rice grains are covered completely in water and left to soak overnight. This gives it a slightly acidic, fermented aftertaste. The mixture is then drained and packed densely into bamboo tubes and steamed. The sides of the bamboo tubes are traditionally greased with coconut oil, but modern techniques use butter or margarine. The rice is traditionally cooked as whole grains, but in some recipes, the rice is ground before or after soaking.
The resulting cylindrical rice cake is then served on banana leaves, slathered with more butter or margarine, seasoned with muscovado sugar, just brown sugar, white sugar, grated coconut, and sometimes sesame seeds. Less common toppings include condensed milk, grated cheese, and leche flan.
Cultural significance
Puto bumbóng is commonly served as a snack or breakfast dish during the Christmas season. It is usually associated with the nine-day traditional Simbáng Gabí devotion, where stalls serving snacks including puto bumbóng are set up outside churches before dawn.Variations
Modern puto bumbong may use metal cylinders or regular food steamers. These versions are commonly shaped into little balls or long narrow tubes. In some modern versions, pirurutóng is excluded altogether as it can be hard to find, and purple food coloring or even purple yam flour are used instead. However, these versions may be frowned upon as being inauthentic.Adaptations of the dish in restaurants include ice-cream flavors, pancakes, cakes, and empanadas.
A variant of puto bumbóng from the provinces of Batangas and Pampanga is putong sulot, which uses white glutinous rice. Unlike puto bumbóng, it is available year-round.
Similar desserts
In Indonesia there is a very similar dessert known as kue putu in Indonesian. It is also cooked in bamboo tubes, but is made with rice flour. It is also commonly green due to the use of pandan leaves as flavoring.In India and Sri Lanka, a similar dish is known as puttu or pittu, though it is a savory dish rather than a dessert.
Both of these related dishes are very different in that they use regular rice flour or ground white rice, but they are all cooked in bamboo tubes.