Manong Ken's Recipe of the Month - December 2002
Ibos (Suman)

Ibos (Visayan) or suman (Tagalog) is basically malagkit (sticky rice) wrapped in either banana leaves or coconut leaves.

So you probably need to have banana leaves for this, at least, or if you want to get fancier, young coconut fronds like those they use during Palm Sunday. But since I don't have coconut fronds here in Chicago and even if I do, the wrapping is quite intricate and mabusisi (tedious) to do, so I will be using banana leaves instead. It is just fortunate that banana leaves are now available frozen in any Filipino grocery store. But get this, although I haven't tried it, I suppose aluminum foil could also work if you're really desperate. But you won't get that flavor or color that the leaf imparts. But such is the life in the diaspora. You make do with what you can.

Needs: 2 cups of malagkit (sticky or sweet) rice
a can of coconut milk
fresh ginger or maybe anise seeds or anise extract
rice cooker
sugar

Cook malagkit just like you cook rice in your rice cooker but instead of using water, use coconut milk - about two-thirds of the can - usually I find, when cooking malagkit, you have to use a little bit less of liquid than cooking regular rice. I maybe wrong here but cooking malagkit with water up to your 2nd knuckle joint when you dip your hand into the rice cooker doesn't work. As I said, use little less of water. (Or maybe it's the other way around. More water. I'm dyslexic.)

Pound ginger and add this to your rice. If you don't have ginger, add a tablespoon or two of anise extract or if you have the seeds, a sprinkle will do.

Once the rice is cooked, you can wrap them in the banana leaves (or foil) like you wrap lumpia. Take about two tablespoonsful of the rice, put them on top of your banana leaf sheet that you have cut into square pieces about 6 inches by 6 inches or so, then roll to make a log, then twist both ends and tuck under the log.

Note: in order for your banana leaf not to tear, you have to run the leaf over a flame (be careful now, you don't want to cause a fire here). You also need to wipe the leaf with a piece of damp cloth. Place the rice on top of the darker side of the leaf (this side doesn't have that whitish powdery stuff that covers the underside of the banana leaf).

Now, after you finished wrapping your rice, put them in a casserole or a large sauce pan, then boil the hell out of it, covered, again using coconut milk just enough to cover your pile (use the remaining coconut milk diluted with water). I remember my mother used to cook the wrapped malagkit overnight but I suppose you can finish this in one hour just how I did the batch above - or until the liquid evaporates.

Serve rolled in sugar OR as a side dish for ripe Manila mangoes.

You probably don't want to refrigerate your creation because the rice becomes hard when refrigerated. Suman actually will keep for long - for about two to four days, unrefrigerated, but don't eat when you open the suman and there is a string of gooey stuff sticking to your rice and banana leaf. That means it's already spoiled.

Ang dali lang, ano?

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