cook: arroz caldo

It was the eve of my birthday, and I was longing for a comfort of home. My mom always used to cook Arroz Caldo, a chicken and rice stew redolent of garlic and ginger and fish sauce. The recipe called for a cup of rice and 3 pounds of chicken! Umm, I only had one pound package of chicken wings, and so I went to the supermarket and picked up lots more. I fried the wings in a tablespoon or so of grapeseed oil to brown and render its fat. And then I removed them from the dutch oven to hold in the lid.

 

There was some nice schmaltz in the pot to which I added chopped onion, garlic and ginger.

 

I softened the aromatics in the fat to soften and then added white and brown rice to toast.

 

A lotta fond at the bottom of the pot to which I then added the chicken and water to cover.

I also ladled in tablespoons of fish sauce and let that mother boil. Sometimes I left the lid on but I wanted the rice and water to simmer into porridge, and so I placed the lid ajar or sometimes completely off as it cooked down for an hour and half.

While my arroz caldo simmered, I halved calamansi or Filipino citrus, took out the crispy garlic in oil, hard boiled a few eggs, chopped scallions, and halved bok choy--I used those greens instead of spinach in my lugaw.

Unlike my mom's and other porridges, mine was a caramel brown, probably because I browned the onions too much and used brown rice and lots of patis or fish sauce.

I had also added lots of black pepper because husband said it was rather spicy. Cecilia liked it though, and I have leftover for more bowls of comfort.