Suman sa lihiya

To start this year easy and simple, we decided to make Suman. There are many variations of Suman but this particular one we chose is the simplest of them all. Suman sa lihiya is a Filipino delicacy made of glutinous rice or sticky rice with lye water and wrapped snugly in a banana leaf. When I was little, every day during holy week my Grandma takes me to a local Market and she'll buy a lot of Suman, sweet ripe yellow mangoes and Sikwate (Hot cocoa). Suman is best eaten with latik (a coconut milk residue), brown sugar, white sugar, fruit jams or nutella!

Here are the ingredients:

2-1/4 cups glutinous rice

1 teaspoon lye water

2 cups water

1 package banana leaf, cut and size 8x10

Cooking Procedure

• Place the glutinous rice in a large mixing bowl then pour 2 cups of water and let it soak for 3 hours.
• Drain excess water. Add the teaspoon of lye water and mix thoroughly.

• Prepare banana leaf. The bigger leaf should measure about 8x10 while the smaller is 3x5.
• Arrange the banana leaves by placing the larger leaf first in a flat surface then put the smaller leaf in the center, diagonally.
• Add a spoonful of the rice mixture and place it in the middle.

• Fold the leaf in half twice and close each side by folding toward the center about two inches.
• Set aside with the flap down and continue to make another wrap.
  

• Put together both of the folded banana leaf, flap facing each other and secure it with a kitchen twine on each side.

• Once done wrapping all the rice mixture in the banana leaf, arrange them in a cooking pot and fill in water.
• Turn on to medium high heat and boil for 1 hour and 20 minutes.
• Turn off and drain water.
• Carefully open and transfer to serving dish. Enjoy! :)