Ube Halaya

Ube is (my) another favorite from my Lola Dioneng's lists of foods she knows how to prepare, that we enjoy the most. Others call it Ube Halaya. It is made from boiled and mashed purple yam combined with condensed milk, evaporated milk, and sugar. 

 Ube

Unfortunately, she wasn’t able to teach me how to cook any of her recipes :( and that made me search and ask until I found the taste that I used to eat during her time. There are a lot of recipes for Ube available online but I haven’t tried any of those. A friend previously prepared one but the one she prepared was not as the same taste as my Lola’s recipe.

Last week, Rose one of my friends here, prepared Ube and gave me a free taste. Upon tasting it, it was the same taste I was craving for – the same as my Lola’s recipe. So I asked her about the ingredients and how to cook it, and she told me so. I decided to lessen the amount of the ingredients a bit because this is my first time to cook. I’m afraid if I cook many, I might end up losing the ingredients huhu  

Ingredients:

- 1 medium size purple yam

- 1 medium size sweet potato

- 1 cup sugar

- ¾ butter

- ¾ can condensed milk (big can)

- ¾ can evaporated milk (big can)

- 1 tbsp glutinous rice flour

- 1 tsp red food color

- 1 tsp blue food color

The ingredients may seem different because not all ingredients are present here in the Middle East, but I repeat, this is the taste I’ve always enjoyed and wanted :) . The use of glutinous rice flour will make the Ube thick faster so to avoid continuous stirring. Red and Blue food colors will make purple since purple yam here is not really purple :). My combined yam and sweet potato make only less than ½ kilo that is why I reduced the amount of the milk ingredients. You can use one full can each for a kilo of both. 

Procedure:

- Peel and boil yam and sweet potato until good enough for mashing

- Remove from heat, mash after boiling, and set aside

- On a bowl combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, red and blue food color (you may always add or reduce to get your desired color), set aside

- On a cooking pan at low heat, melt the butter

- Add the milk and food color mixture

- Gradually pour in the sugar, mix until melted

- Add in the mashed yam and sweet potato

- Using a whisk, stir continuously until the milk mixture is fully absorbed by the mashed ingredients

- Gradually add in the glutinous rice flour (again this will help the Ube thick faster to refrain you from longer time of stirring)

- Remove from heat when your desired thickness has been achieved

- Transfer to a container, spread with margarine on top

- Cool down, refrigerate for some time, and enjoy :)

 

This may not be the taste others wanted but this is how I want the taste to be. I will always remember the taste of the foods my Lola prepared.