Lugaw

Plain rice porridge, kept deliberately bland because of who eats it.

Not vegetarian — contains chicken broth, fish sauce.

Ingredients

• 200 g jasmine rice
• 2 litres water or light chicken broth
• a large thumb of ginger, julienned
• 8 garlic cloves, chopped
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons oil
• spring onions and fried garlic, to serve
• calamansi, to serve

Method

1. Fry the garlic in the oil until pale gold, lift half of it out for the top, then add the ginger to the pan for 2 minutes.
2. Add the rice, unwashed, and turn it in the oil for a minute. UNWASHED: the surface starch is what thickens the porridge, and rinsing it away gives rice in soup.
3. Add the liquid and simmer, stirring often, for 40 to 45 minutes until the grains have burst completely.
4. Stir more as it thickens — it catches on the bottom in the last ten minutes.
5. Season with fish sauce only, and lightly. LUGAW IS MEANT TO BE PLAIN. It is what people eat when they are ill or when there is nothing else, and seasoning it up turns it into arroz caldo without the chicken.
6. It should fall slowly from a spoon. Add hot water if it has gone past that — it thickens further off the heat.
7. Serve with the reserved fried garlic, spring onion and calamansi to squeeze in, so each person can take it where they want.

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