Food and Wine
Bibingka—it’s dope: It’s a Filipino street dessert and it’s usually rice flour, mad egg, and butter wrapped in a banana leaf (sometimes cheese, like white cheese or sharp cheddar). And there’s salted duck egg in it, too—pieces of duck egg on top or inside, so you get bites of the salty duck egg to cut through all the richness, and counterbalance the sweetness of the butter. It’s really good.In the Philippines, in the provinces, there are small little neighborhoods, barrios. By six a.m. you’re hearing roosters and people whistling and yelling. Hawking already starts by six thirty, and you wake up to that. Outside, people are running or walking, going to their next thing—they’re in jerseys and sandals because it’s a little poorer in the provinces. It’s a little micro economy where they’re taking care of one another. We were driving in our car one day, and my mom was like, “Oh, you know who makes the best bibingka? My so-and-so, she makes it best . . .” And she rolled down the window and she said, “Oh, that’s her! Maria, come over here!” We were driving all slow in traffic and Maria walked up to us and she just slanted it toward us—boom!—and we ate it hot. It was wrapped up in a banana leaf—buttery and hot as hell.Growing up, we tasted a lot of different takes on bibingka: Some were breadier, some were more airy. Some families use Bisquick pancake mix—probably an American influence. We settled on this recipe, which is in between. —Chase and Chad ValenciaReprinted from All About Eggs: Everything We Know About the World’s Most Important Food. Copyright © 2017 by Lucky Peach, LLC. Photographs and illustrations copyright © 2017 by Tamara Shopsin and Jason Fulford. Published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC. Slideshow: More Coconut Desserts Recipes
