PORTED FROM VOX: QotD: Secret Family Recipe

What's one family recipe that you wish you knew how to cook?

Actually, there's a whole lot. XD

As a few of you already know, I am proficient in cooking leche flan, a velvety custard made of milk and egg yolks, so much so that I know how to substitute egg whites in the recipe without anyone ever knowing or tasting the difference. XD This recipe I learned from Mama, my late father's mother.

But there's one other dessert I wish I learned from her, and that's to make ube (oo-beh) jam. My dad would describe how Mama would cut up and then mash the purple ube yam, before boiling the mixture, adding water while she stirred. It sounded easy, but then I learned that she cooked the very sticky ube mixture in large batches of at least four yams, in a gigantic saucepan that was half her size. And judging from her pictures, she was always a petite woman, so it was amazing how Dad told me that "stirring the mixture was difficult" in such a nonchalant way.

It's an acquired taste, sweet yet bitter, sticky yet grainy. I'm a HUGE, HARDCORE ube jam fan (I can finish TWO large jars in one sitting!), and so is my mum. That's why I want to cook it.

And I'm drooling on my keyboard now. XD;;;