Palitaw (Filipino Boiled Rice Cakes)
As a child, Edwin's mom told him, "If you want to eat, you should cook it yourself." And that's exactly what he's been doing ever since.
What Is Palitaw?
Litaw is a Tagalog word meaning "to float." The reason this dish is called palitaw is that when rice cakes are boiled, they float to the surface when they finish cooking. Even if a family does not have an oven, they can easily make these rice cakes in a pot of boiling water. It can be served as a dessert or as a snack.
These cakes are made of simple, inexpensive, and easy-to-find ingredients: rice flour, water, and sugar. In the Philippines, this dish can be enjoyed by everyone—no matter their economic circumstances.
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Cook Time
Prep time | Cook time | Ready in | Yields |
---|---|---|---|
10 min | 10 min | 20 min | 10 servings |
Ingredients
For the rice cakes:
- 2 cups glutinous, sweet rice flour, available at Asian stores
- 3/4 cup water
For the topping:
- 3/4 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 cup grated frozen coconut, available at Asian stores
Instructions
- Combine the rice flour and water in a bowl and mix well.
- Using your hands, form the dough into small balls.
- Flatten the balls into round disks.
- In a pot, bring the water to a boil.
- Drop a few of the flattened rice dough disks into the boiling water and cook for 2 minutes or until they float to the surface.
- Remove the cooked rice cakes from the water and drain.
- Sprinkle each rice cake with grated coconut and sugar and serve.
Variations
- Use dried, grated coconut instead.
- If using sweetened, dried, grated coconut, you can reduce or omit the sugar.
- Sprinkle with toasted sesame seeds and sugar, instead of grated coconut and sugar.
- Or combine the toasted sesame seeds, grated coconut, and sugar and sprinkle on the rice cakes.
- Instead of sprinkling the toppings on the rice cakes, you can roll the rice cakes in the topping mixture to coat both sides of the cake.