Bambukeyo Bondibai

We love bondibai in general. But among all the types of bondibai that we have here, our favourite is bambukeyo or breadfruit bondibai. It’s just too good when you have it with hanaakuri mas.

* While we were researching recipes for bambukeyo bondibai, we noticed that there was a difference in how it was made. Some called for the breadfruit to be boiled, rinsed and drained while others continued with just adding in the sugar. We made our version by refering to the bambukeyo bondibai recipe on Zareena Ibrahim Didi's Dhivehi Kaanaa-1 where the boiled bambukeyo was not drained. But anyway, if you want to drain it, as a lot of people do, that would fall between steps 4 and 5 of our recipe. Also, maafen is traditionally used in making bambukeyo bondibai; we did not include it as it is not something that we can regularly find. But, with that being said, if you have it, we thought we should let you know that according to Dhivehi Kaanaa-1, it's added in the initial boiling stage.

Serves: 2-4

Ingredients:

• ½ a breadfruit (comes to about 4 ½ cups when diced)
• 3-inch piece of raanbaa
• 6-inch stick of cinnamon
• 5 cardamom pods
• 2 ½ cups thin coconut milk
• ½ cup thick coconut milk
• 2 cups sugar (or to taste)
• 3 tsp. rose water

Instructions:

1. Peel and wash the breadfruit.
2. Dice the breadfruit. There’s going to be some sticky sap, don’t worry about it; you can wash it off your hands easily with just regular soap.
3. Add the breadfruit to a large pot along with the thin coconut milk, raanbaa, cardamom pods (with their ends snipped off) and cinnamon.
4. Cover the pot and on medium heat, cook until the breadfruit becomes soft but not mushy. For us it took around 20 minutes. You can check with a fork; if it goes through without much resistance, it’s good. Also, the mixture is going to boil, so you might need to turn down the heat when it reaches the boiling point, and let it just simmer for the rest of the time.
5. Add the sugar, remove the lid from the pot, and cook uncovered until the mixture becomes thick and takes on a golden brownish colour. You’ll need to stir it once in a while, and for us this took around 40 minutes at medium low heat.
6. Add the thick coconut milk and rosewater, and stir well to combine. Cook for another 2 minutes on low heat.

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