Ube-r Jam

I put great effort in preparing Filipino food for my children. I want them to grow up learning about our cuisine. I'm lucky that my mom loves to cook. I guess my early influence of  food was from her, plus the fact that I was surrounded with imported American food products when I was growing up because of my father's business. My mom would also take me with her when she goes to the market. Saturday early mornings are spent in Pampang (equivalent to Flemington Market here in Sydney). I miss those days.

One of my favorite Filipino desserts is Ube Halaya. Ube is also known as purple yam.  My mom does her halaya the traditional way. She uses freshly squeezed coconut milk, sugar and condensed milk. She painstakingly mixes her ube using her big "kawali". She even grew ube in our backyard.

When I had a taste of Good Shepherd's Ube jam from Baguio City, I fell in love with the taste and texture.It took me few trials before I got satisfied with my final result. It's very easy, the hard part though is mixing it until thick. Spent 25-30 minutes! Happy cooking :)

Ube Jam

1 pack (454g) ready to-use-boiled ube or 1/2 kilo boiled & grated ube

1 tall can evaporated milk

1/2 can condensed milk

1/3 c sugar

1/4 c butter

1 tsp. ube flavour (optional)

Procedure:

In a heavy saucepan, mix all ingredients together except for butter. Cook in medium low heat until thick. Mix continuously, otherwise, you'll burn your mixture or you'll have lumps. Lastly, add the butter for extra flavour and shine.

Notes: 

• I used ube flavour because sometimes the ube that you get from the market is not very dark in colour.
• For a native taste, you can replace the evaporated milk with coconut milk or half coconut milk & half evaporated milk.