Leftovers: Suman as a Side Dish

In her excitement to feature dessert from her native Philippines on her Easter menu, my good friend H made more suman than she could handle.

H, Mr H, Dr Dre and I each had two, but there were still plenty sumans leftover, so she packed five for me to take home and enjoy in the coming days. But you can only have so many sweets, and even I, the consummate sweet tooth, had reached my limit for that day.  And, as on any other holiday, I had a a fridge full of leftovers to consume.

So I tried something completely unheard of:  I made the suman a side dish instead of a dessert.

Dr Dre had his sauce on the side (top left), and we added some
brussel sprouts (because we've gotta have our vegetables).

This can only work if the suman isn't overly pre-sweetened; it's best on the neutral or gingery-side.  H's suman was neutral ("The next batch will be more gingery!" she promised), so it worked perfectly with a couple of the other leftovers I had in the fridge: baked chicken fillets and citrus-walnut sauce. First, I reheated the suman, then unwrapped the leaves, flanked each end of the rice loaf with a chicken fillet, drizzled some sauce on top, and reheated the whole plate in the microwave, and voila!  Instant gourmet lunch.

Suman would work as a texturally diverse and unexpected accompaniment to countless other dishes.  Some ideas: Adobo pork chop, ginger-and-soy bass, steamed Chinese broccoli sprinkled with oyster sauce.  Yes, it might take a bit of headwork for most Filipinos to stop seeing suman exclusively as a dessert and consider it something more diverse, but once that hurdle is cleared, the pairing possibilities are endless.  What do you think?