The Champ is Here!

One of the most scrumptious of Pinoy comfort food is the Champorado.  It is glutinous rice cooked in cocoa.  It is sweet and served with a swirl of evaporated milk.  It goes well with tuyo, dilis or even salted egg (itlog na maalat.)  For some reason this food reminds me of rainy days as champorado never fails to keep my tummy warm when I was a kid on cold rainy days.

I usually get my champorado fix from Tapa King and Max's restaurant where they serve this as part of their All day breakfast line up. You got to try the Max's variety as it is called the Triple Chocolate Champorado and boy does it live up to its name!  It tastes like a bar of milk chocolate was melted into each bowl :)

For my mom's recipe here is how we make this in the good old days.

You need:

8 Tablespoons of Ricoa Breakfast Cocoa

1 cup of glutinous rice or malagkit

4 Tablespoons of white sugar

3 cups of water for cooking the rice

1 cup of hot water for the cocoa

evaporated milk

To cook:

Bring the 3 cups of water to a boil and add the glutinous rice  Cook until the water boils again.  While waiting for this, mix the cocoa with one cup hot water and let the powder to be completely dissolved.  Add this mixture to the boiling rice and stir constantly for another 15 minutes.  Add the sugar and cook for another five minutes but t don't let the water dry up.  Serve with a swirl of evaporated milk and enjoy!

Curry Squash Soup

Soup is a major, major comfort food :) Also, for those on a diet, servings of soup gives you that fill without the excess fat or calories.  One of my favorite soup is Curry Squash Soup.

This one is easy to prepare, all you need are:

4 cups of squash, peeled
1 white onion
2 Tbsp of garlic
1 tsp curry powder
4 tsp of cream
6 cups of broth (chicken or beef) you may also try Knorr cubes dissolved in 6 cups of water
salt and pepper

Sauté the onion then the garlic  (notice that this is always the right sauté sequence as garlic cooks faster than the onion.)  After the onions become transparent (naging honest na sya, *joke*), add the squash, broth, curry and salt (according to your taste but this requires about 1/2 tsp, lessen if using bullion or cubes.)  Bring this to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer for about 15 minutes until the squash is tender.  Remove form heat.  You may puree the squash using a food processor/osterizer or mash the squash with a fork (although the consistency might not be as good.)   If using a fork, stir the soup well to blend the squash with the soup.

To prepare, ladle soup in a serving bowl and add one tsp of cream.  Add salt and pepper to taste.