Manong Ken's Recipe of the Month - November 2003
Tinumkan
This is a regional dish, most especially from the province of Aklan. The recipe calls for young
coconut meat,
fresh water crustaceans and gabi leaves. BUT surprise of all surprises,
I was able to recreate this in Chicago when I found gabi leaves available at my local Vietnamese
store. You also need your mortar and pestle.
Ingredients:
- Cooked shrimp, chopped
- 1 pound (half kilo) of shrimps, already peeled and cooked
- Young coconut meat - can be substituted with unsweeted coconut flakes
- 1 can coconut milk (you can actually use milk if you don't have coconut milk)
- Gabi leaves - you can substitute with large spinach leaves or grape leaves maybe
- Ginger, pounded
Ingredients
If you have fresh gabi leaves, you have to dry it overnight otherwise, it will be itchy.
Shredded young coconut and shrimp prior to pounding
Pound shrimps, coconut flakes and ginger together. The finished product should have
coarse consistency (not pasty).
Wrapped young coconut/shrimp/ginger mixture
Make pounded mixture into a ball and then wrap it with the gabi leaves. You can tie the
wrapping with string or with a piece of fiber stripped from the gabi stalk.
Boil wrapped coconut/shrimp/ginger mixture in coconut milk. If you have excess gabi leaves and stalks,
boil those together with your wrapped mixture. Maybe for an hour or so.
