Cuchinta (kutsinta)

Cuchinta (kutsinta) is a native delicacy in the Philippines. It's a sticky, golden brown, sweet dessert popular among Filipinos.


Ingredients:

- 2 1/2 cups rice
- 1/4 cup malagkit (glutinous rice)
- 1 3/4 cups brown sugar
- 1/3 cup cooked rice
- 5 cups water
- 3 tbsp lye (wood ash lye)- lye is used to improve their texture.
- 4 tbsp achuete for coloring

Procedure:

- Soak rice and malagkit (glutinous rice) overnight. Grind with the 5 cups water in which they were soaked and the cooked rice.
- Add sugar, achuete coloring and lye.
- Stir well to blend.
- Turn into cuchinta molds filling each 3/4 full, and place on a steamer over boiling water.
- Cover and steam for 15 minutes.
- Cool cuchinta before removing from containers.
- Serve with grated coconut.


Easy Cuchinta Recipe

Ingredients:
- 7 cups water
- 4 cups white sugar
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp lye solution
- 1 tbsp achuete

Procedure:
- Soak achuete  in 1/3 cup water to extract color.

- Combine flour sugar, lye and the rest of water together. Stir until smooth.
- Blend achuete extract.
- Fill muffin cups 1/3 full.
- Steam for 15 to 20 minutes or until firm.
- Serve with grated coconut.

Yield: 8 dozens.

How to Make Lye (Food Uses):
Burn wood till all turns into ash. Sift and save fine dust. Place in a bottle till needed. When needed, boil enough with equal part of water. Strain in double thickness cloth and save water. Use water as lye.

Historically, lye has been used to make many foods like hominy, lutefisk, German pretzels, and Chinese noodles. Lye created from wood ash is potassium hydroxide (KOH).- lifeunplugged

In reality, the use of lye to soften a hard, indigestible base is actually a fairly common practice with many kinds of food (such as hominy).- wikipedia