Move over beets there’s a pretty new vegetable colouring our foods – ube! This social media juggernaut is having everyone seeing purple.
Ube (pronounced ooh-beh) is a purple yam originally from the Philippines, traditionally used as part of their desserts. Yes, you read that correctly. This vibrant violet vegetable is used primarily as a component in delicious Filipino desserts.
Ube’s boring outer skin hides its bright purple flesh, similar to that of a sweet potato but with a mellower taste, sweeter, with undertones of vanilla and nuts. However, the vivid purple colour is not only for looks; it also tells us that this vegetable is packed with anthocyanins. These antioxidants help protect your cells from damage caused by harmful molecules called free radicals. Ube is a highly nutritious, starchy root vegetable that contains only 140 calories per 100g as well as 1 gram of protein and 4 grams of fibre, and it is high in Vitamin C, potassium, iron, and Vitamin A.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to book a trip to the Philippines to enjoy ube; you can find ube products here on the Sunshine Coast. E-Mart, based in Sechelt, carries ube in many forms, from powdered ube to the famous and most popular ice cream flavour in the Philippines.
As ube went viral around the world, Vincent Uy, owner of Corinthian Distributors (a Filipino food distributor based in Burnaby) felt the demand for Filipino foods rise, in particular the delicious ube ice cream. Because of restricted dairy import laws, Uy found he couldn’t get enough ice cream to meet the orders from an increasing number of stores looking to stock their freezers with the in-demand flavour. So he decided to use his background in ice cream manufacturing, from when he lived in the Philippines, and partner with a local manufacturer to create his own line of ube ice cream in Canada.
Seeing the opportunity to improve on the traditional formula, Uy decided he wanted his ice cream to be creamier, tastier, and healthier (meaning a reduced amount of sugar and artificial colours). He succeeded and in late July of 2021, two flavours of Pulo* ice cream were on grocery store shelves in Canada, original ube flavour and ube-macapuno (ube with coconut).
Pulo ice cream is made in small batches, using grated and frozen ube from the Philippines. It is hand-fed into the ice cream base to produce a creamier product with no artificial colours, just pure purple ube. Uy is currently working hard to produce more flavours that will be launched in the spring of 2022. Our very own Edmund Arceo of Spiderplus Graphics, and one of Uy’s friends from college, designed the packaging for Pulo Ice Cream.
Uy is honoured to “share the Filipino food culture with the wider community” and wants everyone to enjoy this Philippine purple powerhouse.
How do you use ube at home? While the purple yam is not readily found on the Sunshine Coast, it is easy to pick it up in powdered or jam (ube halaya) form at E-Mart. The jam can then be incorporated into many dishes: swirl it into cheesecake batter or into doughs; add thinned jam to milk or coconut milk for a brightly coloured drink; include it in cake or muffin batter. It can add a vibrant purple colour to your icing as well.
Wherever you use ube, know it will make an eye-catching dessert for any occasion.
Try it for yourself. Where could you use a touch of this vibrant hue?
