When harvested, ube (“oo-beh”) looks like a lot of veg that grows underground – bulbous, dusty, unremarkable. But you only need to snap off a piece to reveal the magic inside. The flesh of this root vegetable is such an electric violet, it seems like it shouldn’t exist in nature.
Indigenous to the Philippines, ube is one of the country’s most important crops. Today it’s mostly used in sweets such as halaya jam, halo-halo, pandesal, cakes and doughnuts. And while purple desserts have only recently flooded our social media feeds, Filipinos have been eating the starchy, nutritious tuber for thousands of years.
Around 150 varieties of ube are grown for consumption, but kinampay ube from Bohol in the Philippines' Central Visayas region is most prized for its sweet flavour, generous size and striking colour. In Australia, you can sometimes find whole ube in Asian grocers, but grated, frozen ube and packaged ube sweets are far more common.
Kim Ambrose, chef and co-owner of Mix Mix Co in western Sydney, remembers preparing ube for fiesta every February in Silang, a few hours south of Manila.
“When we were growing up, my lola [grandma] had a farm and we harvested ube,” she tells Broadsheet. “It’s a long process. Ube takes two years to mature, then you have to prepare it.”
Because ube’s earthy, nutty, almost pistachio-like flavour is so delicate, it’s almost always made into halaya jam rather than eaten fresh; the addition of condensed milk to the jam is a result of American and Spanish occupation in the 1800s.
“We used a one-metre-diameter kawali [wok] over a wood fire to cook ube halaya,” she says. “You add condensed milk, sugar and butter or margarine, and then you stir continuously as it thickens. When we make it at the shop, my husband stirs for the entire hour it takes to cook.”
Luisa Brimble, baker at Tita Carinderia in Sydney’s inner west, says ube is best treated as a blank canvas.
“Its earthy vanilla flavour comes out when you add something milky,” Brimble says. “This winter, we made an ube and truffle flavour for desserts like tres leches cake and tiramisu. The flavours together were amazing.”
Brimble bakes hundreds of pandesal bread rolls each week, some plain, some with ube filling. “I want people to bite into a pandesal and taste the ube, so instead of adding it to the dough, where it disappears, we made a filling.”
For John Rivera, co-founder of Kariton Sorbetes in Melbourne and Sydney, ube is a way for him to connect the two halves of his upbringing.
“I grew up in New Zealand and Australia, and you couldn’t get ube,” he says. “We’d travel to the Philippines and seek it out: ube cake, ice-cream, you name it. I’m proud that ube is our most popular flavour at Kariton.”
But there are caveats to ube’s growing popularity. For one, climate change has made it difficult for Filipino farmers to produce enough yield to cater for the surge in demand. Another is competition with ube products made overseas using heavily processed extracts.
“In the Philippines, I don’t think people care as much about our products,” Rivera says. “They value Western products and I think we need to change that mindset. Then we can protect them.”
Ube has a long way to go before it’s as well-known as other Asian vegetables. Ambrose says customers have asked if the purple comes from blueberry, and although Brimble has heard many mispronunciations (“oob”, “yoube”, “you-bae”) she sees it as an opportunity to “shine a light on Filipino food”.
“I hope we get to the point where we don’t have to explain anymore,” Ambrose says. “That will only happen if we keep using ube and promoting it. If every Filipino business has ube on the menu, everyone will know what it is.”
Here's where to try ube around Australia.
Melbourne
Kariton Sorbetes
Papa Bear Bakehouse
Ceree
Inasal Express
Sydney
Tita Carinderia
Mix Mix Co
Mesa
Smoky Cravings
Brisbane
Dovetail Social
Lola’s Coffee Bar
Kubo’s Bar and Grill
Sabor Cafe and Grill
Perth
Pala
The Sansrival
