While she was living in LA, our pastry chef Kelly Helgesen would follow her sweet tooth to Jollibee. Popular on the West Coast, this fast food chain serves up Filipino-inspired fast food, including their version of a traditional ice cream dessert known as Halo-Halo.
Tagalog for “mix-mix,” the treat is commonly served with boiled kidney beans, garbanzos, sugar palm fruit (kaong), coconut sport (macapuno), and plantains caramelized in sugar, jackfruit (langkâ), gulaman, tapioca, nata de coco, sweet potato (kamote), cheese, and pounded crushed young rice (pinipig).
The dish is constructed by placing most of the ingredients (fruits, beans, and other sweets) inside a tall glass. Top it with shaved ice and sprinkled sugar, the top it off with either leche flan, purple yam (ubeng pula), or ice cream. For good measure, evaporated milk is poured into the mixture upon serving.
Kelly’s version, which is now on Lula’s dessert menu, is a Midwestern spin on her favorite Filipino dessert: strawberry ice cream, strawberries macerated with shiso*, vanilla shaved ice, candied fava beans, lychee pearls, flan, popped sorghum, and strawberry syrup.
Or, as Jason Hammel describes it: Halo-Halo is the adult equivalent to going to an ice cream parlor and asking for every single topping.
*The berry season changes quickly, and we’re already on to stone fruits! Look for sweet cherries in lieu of strawberries now...
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