Pichi Pichi Recipe - Foxy Folksy (2024)

Pichi-pichi is a Filipino dessert made basically from just 3 ingredients: cassava, water, and sugar. It is steamed and becomes glutinous.Once it is cooked and cooled it is rolled in grated coconut or grated cheese.

What is Pichi-Pichi?

Pichi-pichi is a kind of Filipino kakanin or delicacy made from cassava (manioc, yuca). This treat hailed from the province of Quezon. It has a sticky, gelatinous yet firm texture that is made by steaming grated cassava. Once it is cooked, the opaque white color of the cassava becomes somewhat translucent.

What is Pichi-pichi made of?

Normally eaten as a snack or dessert, Pichi-pichi is really easy to make and needs only 4 main ingredients:

• Grated cassava
• sugar
• water
• lye water

It can be enjoyed as it is but normally it is coated with grated coconut or topped with grated cheese, or both. Other flavorings are also added like coconut water, pandan (screwpine) or ube.

Tips in using frozen cassava

In the Philippines, it is easy to get fresh cassava and they are available almost all year round. That is not the case in other non-tropical areas. While I was in Germany, the only way I can get cassava is from the Asian food stores and they usually sell them frozen.

• You can either buy the already grated cassava and just thaw it. I do not squeeze out the liquids and use it as it is.
• If you have whole frozen cassava, thaw it a bit if it is too hard or covered in ice. Do not let it thaw completely or it will become more difficult to grate.
• If you have a food processor with a grater attachment, I suggest using that. Or one of those nice manual rotary food graters. But an old cheese grater would also do, only takes some time and elbow grease.

If you are going to use fresh cassava instead, I included steps on preparing fresh cassavain my Cassava Cake post.

Alternative to Fresh Grated Coconut

Like cassava, coconut is not something that is easily available in other countries. I will let you in on a secret, I seldom use freshly grated coconut for my desserts. And I stir clear of the frozen ones as, based on personal experience, they tasted like old coconut where the milk was already wrung out.

Out of necessity, while in Germany, I discovered the best alternative to the freshly grated coconut.Since it is easier to find in the local groceries and supermarkets, I did some experiments and tried torehydrate desiccated coconut. It works perfectly.

All I did was add some water and sure enough, the dried coconut flakes absorbed the liquids. It became soft and it wasalmost like having freshly grated coconut and so much better than the frozen one. Just add70-80 mlof water to1 cup of coconut flakes then just mix them well together for 1-2 minutes and you are ready to roll.

Substitute to Lye Water

You can find some recipes that include lye water in their ingredients.

But since I do not have any at the time I made this post,I made my first batch without lye water. They turned out OK, a bit too soft for my liking but still totally yummy. For my second batch, I used a substitute for lye water (baking soda solution) and they were firmer.

The substitute for lye water I used, was ¼ teaspoon of baking soda dissolved in 1 cup of water then boiling the mixture for 5 minutes, that's it!

Lastly, you will need molds to steam them in. Filipinos would know about 'puto' molds, but I do not have those as well, instead, I used my silicon cupmolds that I sometimes use for baking cupcakes and muffins.

Printable Recipe

This Pichi-pichi recipe was originally published in May 2015. Updated on November 2019 to include new images and videos and additional tips. The recipe remains the same.