Tinubong: Iloco Rice cake

Ilocanos are known for their very laid-back and traditional lifestyles, most especially food. Up to this day, although they now enjoy hamburgers and pizza, they continue eating and cooking custom foods like dinengdeng (vegetable with fish-sauce broth), Spanish-influenced meat dishes of adobo, caldereta, igado, but most especially their rice cakes like bibingka, patupat, sinambong, and many others. These foods, when encountered, would always point to this Philippine ethnic group of lowland and upland northerners.

Today, I have a photo documentary of how to make tinubong, one of their rice cakes in bamboos!

While some have made tinubong as their source of income specifically residents of Magsingal, Ilocos Sur, some only cook tinubong during holiday seasons, like Christmas. First thing one does is to dig a rectangular pit of about 2-3 feet deep.

 Then, prepare 3 mature coconut fruits, grated and the milk squeezed, then cooked to make an oil.

 Coconut oil is then mixed with the glutinous rice flour, sugar, butter, and young coconut fruit, also grated. Some add milk, others, egg and milk, and cheese. It is then put inside a bamboo internode which one side is open.

The filled bamboo is sealed with banana leaves then cooked on top of the pit with fire. But as they expand, the banana contraption is spewed out.

This is the finished product. It has a shelf-life of about 3-5 days. Simply re-heat as is before opening. There's a bit of action in opening Tinubong. First, smash the end-node with a hammer or a rock against a rock. Be careful not to break anything else!

Split the cracked bamboo open.

Enjoy the cake!