Chef Ed Dychauco, RN
Everyone has a favorite comfort food. Be it a dish or a dessert. Be it sweet, sour, bitter or salty. And not only does this generates or evokes childhood or adult memories, but it also pave the way for more future memories into our more mature years.
This week, I felt like it is about time that we try to look deeper as to what is it in our Pinoy all-time favorite treat that makes Halo-halo a hit among the young and old alike.
Simple and traditional halo-halo would just have the following (but not limited) key ingredients: mongo beans, kidney beans, nata de coco, kaong, banana, langka and ube. Topped either again with ube ice cream or mango ice cream. Nata de coco & kaong comes in different colors that also makes the serving glass very colourful.
But then again the abundance of local and native produce can include more than a dozen of well-loved ingredients like: corn, camote, garbanzos, macapuno or fresh coconut, papaya, mangoes, and any other fruits that are in season, leche flan, pinipig or corn flakes for that crunch, chocolate malt powder, barquillos as added decoration/topping.
Served in a tall glass or a wide-open shallow glass, these ingredients can be placed on the bottom of the glass and covered with finely shaved ice, or the other way around (for better presentation), then added with milk, be it carabao’s fresh milk or evaporated milk. Sometime sugar is no longer necessary since all the ingredients are already sweet by it self.
But for a better tasting serving, a scoop or 2 of ube or mango ice cream is added. I personally like ube ice cream in my halo halo but then again, having ube halaya as one of the major ingredient makes the halo halo even better, plus of course the ube ice cream. To each his own.
With the influx of new ways of presenting the traditional halo halo, it has gone upscale. Remember when the price then was just a measly P5.00 for glass and maybe a peso or two more for the ice cream? It has gone to about P30.00 in regular shops to as high as P200.00 or more in luxurious hotels or restaurants. Abroad, this is already a specialty in the menu.
Funny but I always loved the halo halo in small shops where they really cook and prepare their different ingredients the “old” way. Beans are cooked with syrup, just like the banana and langka (but again, sometimes, fresh sweet langka is a lot better!), while the rest of the fresh fruits are just included as it is. Ube is mashed, cooked with milk and sugar until it becomes ube halaya.
But then again, it doesn’t mean that because there are more ingredients, the halo halo would taste better than the others. One should always remember that it is in the blending and the harmonious relationship of the ingredients, be it 3 or 4, or maybe 5 or 6 that makes the difference. The correct combination of the right ones, cooked and prepared well can make it a stand out by itself.
What about the ice? The thinner it is the better, but there are times I would like to have some big chunks in it because then I get to have it melt in my mouth, especially on a hot summer day. Or at any particular day when it is really, unreasonably warm.
Fresh carabao’s milk would taste really and absolutely great in halo halo, but evaporated milk will do if there is none. Which is what is normally used in most shops now. Fresh milk in boxes doesn’t give the “kick” to it, if you know what I mean. It just doesn’t taste right.
Prepared simply or lavishly, halo halo is here to stay…forever.
Why not have it now? Remember to always leave some room for dessert after a meal. It always give us that smile and twinkle in the eye!
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