Kamoteng Kahoy Part 2 🙂
This was a bit more difficult than anticipated. It sounded as simple as making mashed potatoes except for one major difference. Mashed potatoes become creamy when cooked. This was tough and dry as nails and when dumped in a blender, even small amounts become doughy that you can really only do small batches. But the outcome is worth all the effort.
So what is nilupak? Basically, it’s mashed kamoteng kahoy, added with a bit of butter and condensed milk. I added a smidgen of salt, since all good desserts have salt.
My mom and ate Pines used to make this using a huge-ass mortar and pestle, almost like how they make bayo (pound) the palay (rice still in their husks, or something). Really big, I’m not kidding. It sits on the floor and you pound it with this long stick while you’re standing up. That hard to make it. I was thinking of how much pounding I had to make but looking it up, nothing even said that I have to go through the mortar and pestle route, all just used mashers, blenders and mixers. Hmmm. Technology making things easier.
So I cut half of the kamoteng kahoy into cubes and steamed them, and allowed them to cool. I tried using the masher but it was just too damn hard. I did around 10 small batches in the blender, each batch after being grated was dumped into a pan. It will still be cooked afterwards. It was already clumping in the blender, and I knew I have hit the jackpot. This was going to be a very makunat (tensile, google translate said) – chewy, which is how it’s supposed to be, or at least a good of batch of nilupak.
In the pan, I added some butter and about a total of half a can of condensed milk (for a kilo of kamoteng kahoy). Over LOW FIRE, I hand mixed the whole thing. It actually looked like dough, and was very had to work with using implements. I just kept the fire low and I wasn’t getting burnt for most of the time. I had to dump it out on a plate to work in the condensed milk for the latter half cuz the pan was just too hot. It’s all to taste actually. But I swear, it’s the best nilupak I have ever tasted. Within the day, out of the total combined 4 long logs, only one was left at night and even that had already been attacked. 🙂 At least this was a success 🙂
Nilupak Recipe
1 kilo of kamoteng kahot, peeled, steamed, mashed/grated
4 tbsp of butter
1/2 can of condensed milk
Mix best as you can 🙂 Read blog. 😀
Domestic Urbanite 
i love this!
It’s so easy to make pala! 🙂 I wish I knew that the hassle of the friggin mortar and pestle wasn’t that much of a help 🙂
I remember we used to have the kind of mortar & pestle that you mentioned. I actually enjoyed helping out with the pounding when I was a kid, go figure. We even pounded uncooked rice and that took a long time. Doing this with a food processor is less fun but infinitely easier. 🙂
Uncooked rice? To make galapong and stuff? I asked my mom before to get me the really huge and heavy manual grinder for the same purpose, to grind rice (for puto). I have never attempted to use it again. Hassle. Either I’ll use the blender or buy ground rice/malagkit. I like doing the stuff the old way, but if those fail, I’m happy to have something with electricity assist me 😀
wow! thanks for posting the recipe….. how about adding boiled green bananas too?….to make it easier, maybe i should mix all the ingredients before putting them in the blender….
Hi Christy,
What would the boiled banana add to the mix? I don’t know if that’s how they really do it, but the recipes I’ve looked up didn’t suggest adding bananas 🙂 I think if you have a food processor, rather than a blender, it would be heaps better. I guess you can mix before blending, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. 🙂
Clarissa
Thanks for your recipe. I have a small business and i added to my list. My customers love it. Feww people here in my place know how to make this ia different sime way , like you did!
More power ..
God bless
Glad to know that this has money earning potential! 🙂 Hope you get more recipes from here to make for your customers! 🙂