Ube Halaya

the Filipino purple yam jam: grated ube cooked down slowly with coconut milk, condensed milk, and butter until thick enough to hold the spoon upright

Origin: Manila & the Philippines

From the journey of Yam.

Ube is Dioscorea alata, the greater yam, in the purple-fleshed form the Philippines has selected for centuries, and ube halaya, from the Spanish jalea, jam, is what the islands make of it. Boiled and grated ube is cooked slowly with coconut milk and condensed milk and finished with butter, stirred until it pulls away from the pan, then pressed into a dish and left to set. It is eaten by the spoonful, spread on bread, layered into cakes, and piled onto halo-halo, and it is a fixture of fiestas and of Christmas. The flavour is nutty and faintly vanilla rather than sweet in itself, and the colour is the plant's own. The dessert in its modern form is usually credited to the Good Shepherd sisters of Baguio, whose Mountain Maid workshop began making it with carabao milk and butter in the 1970s and whose jars are still bought by the boxful by travellers leaving the city. The yam itself is much older in the islands than any recipe. Charred remains of purple yam and taro from Ille Cave in Palawan have been dated between about 8250 and 3050 BCE, which puts the eating of this plant in the Philippines among the earliest recorded anywhere.

Ingredients

  • 1 kg ube (purple yam), or 500 g frozen grated ube, thawed
  • 400 ml coconut milk
  • 395 g sweetened condensed milk (1 tin)
  • 150 ml evaporated milk
  • 60 g butter, plus more for the dish
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)
  • 1 pinch salt

Method

  1. If using fresh ube, boil the unpeeled tubers for 30 to 40 minutes until tender, then peel while warm and grate finely or mash smooth.
  2. Melt the butter in a heavy, wide pan over a low heat, add the grated ube, and stir to coat it.
  3. Pour in the coconut milk, condensed milk, and evaporated milk with the salt, and stir until smooth.
  4. Cook over a low heat for 35 to 45 minutes, stirring almost constantly with a wooden spoon, scraping the base, until the mixture is very thick and pulls cleanly away from the sides of the pan.
  5. Stir in the vanilla, spread into a buttered dish, smooth the top, and cool, then chill until set.

Notes

Frozen grated ube is sold in Filipino grocers, as is bottled ube halaya. Ube powder is a poor substitute and gives a flat colour. The jam keeps a week refrigerated, and it freezes well.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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