Bringhe

Glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk and turmeric in a leaf-lined pan, with chicken on top.

Chicken, Egg. Not vegetarian — contains chicken, fish sauce.

Ingredients

600 g glutinous rice
1 litre coconut milk
1 kg chicken thighs, in pieces
2 teaspoons ground turmeric
1 onion, chopped
8 garlic cloves, chopped
3 tablespoons fish sauce
2 bay leaves
200 g green peas
1 red bell pepper, in strips
3 hard-boiled eggs, quartered
3 tablespoons oil
banana leaves, to line the pan

Method

GLUTINOUS RICE, COCONUT MILK, TURMERIC, AND A LINED PAN. Those four together are what separate this from the paelya and the arroz ala Valenciana already on this site. Long grain and stock and saffron give you one of those; this is sticky, pale yellow, and it comes out of the pan in a slab with a leaf on the bottom.
Soak the rice 1 hour and drain it well.
Line the base and sides of a wide heavy pan with wilted banana leaves, overlapping. The leaf is not decoration: it stops glutinous rice welding itself to the metal, and it scents the bottom layer.
Brown the chicken in the oil in batches, 4 minutes a side, then lift it out.
Onion and garlic in the same fat, 4 minutes. Turmeric in for 30 seconds -- it needs fat and it scorches in a minute over direct heat.
Rice in, stirred for 2 minutes until every grain is yellow.
Coconut milk, fish sauce and bay in. Chicken laid on top, pushed down so it is half submerged.
Bring to a simmer, then the lowest possible heat, covered, 35 minutes. DO NOT STIR after this point. Stirring releases the starch and turns the whole pan to a single paste.
Peas and bell pepper scattered over at 30 minutes, lid back on.
Heat off, lid on, 10 minutes to settle. Then lift the leaf out whole onto a board or serve from the pan, with the egg quarters arranged on top.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Philippines · All recipes