Mmm... rice porridge.
About a month and a half ago, I went to this place called Porridge Place in Cuptertino. It wasn't exactly what I was expecting. I grew up on the Filipino version of this and I think my parents called it Lelut pronounced as Le-Loot. The universal filipino name of this is actually Arrroz Caldo. I would go to the asian mall in El Cerrito and order "congee" and it tasted very similar to the stuff I grew up with. At work, we have rice porridge which was basically congee. It had all the trims and fixings that I'd normally see in congee.
So back to the beginning of the story... it was pretty cold out and I wanted something warm to enjoy for dinner. I got a pretty strong craving for some of this stuff. I found Porridge Place on yelp and decided to give it a try. As I said earlier, it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. The porridge was plain, and they had all these side items you'd eat along with it. The porridge didn't have the chicken base I was used to. I was pretty disappointed after that. The food was ok, but c'mon. When you expect to taste a ribeye and all u taste is hamburger patty, you'd feel the same way - amirite?
Since then, I've been meaning to make my own and with my gf being sick, this was the perfect time to do it. I looked up a few recipes online to see what stuff I was familiar with, and I got to cooking. I watched my dad make this a few times also, so everything was pretty familiar. Not bad for the first time - the prep was pretty easy and the cooking part was even easier. I cook slow because I get pretty careful and I don't wanna mess up. I'd say this process took about an hour and a half.
The version I created consisted of a short list of goods. This is a pretty common staple in Filipino foods, and its very simple to make.
- Rice
- Chicken
- Boiled Egg
- Green Onions
- Onions
- Garlic
- Lemon
- Ginger
- Black pepper
- Some kinda oil or butter
Ok, maybe looking at it now, the list looks kinda long, but the ingredients aren't uncommon. I'm sure you can find most of these in your kitchen fairly easily. The result of mixing all of these in one huge pot is this...(pls excuse the Blackberrry cam quality)
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