My winning Mushroom Arroz Caldo Recipe.
It’s been a rainy week and I was down with flu for the past days. For rainy days and specially when I’m sick, I’m always looking for comfort food. By stroke of luck, I was asked to join Mega Prime Rainy Day Mushroom Souprise Competition and I thought that soup is good comforting food for both body and soul. I know I’m sick but I’m excited! Rainy days and Mondays might get you down, but mushrooms will always make you happy.
We we’re given a pack of Mega Prime Mushroom, yay! They have two versions – one is the Pieces and Stems and the other is Whole Mushroom. The Mega Prime Mushrooms were in easy open cans, making it easier and quicker to open. Look ma, no can opener required!
So I decided to make Mushroom Arroz Caldo since as I mentioned, I happened to be not on my 100%. This is a very easy dish that is a classic Pinoy just throw them together and cook them kind of recipe. There’s no secret except patience and lots of love and attention.
Arroz Caldo has always been associated with chicken and I thought this time, it will be nice to create an entirely different variation but without the chicken. This will be a good arroz caldo recipe for vegetarians and people like me, who just adores mushrooms. The Mexicans actually have Arroz con Pollo with mushrooms and I got the idea from there, only this is more soupy and there’s no tomatoes.
The key to this arroz caldo is to saute and sweat the mushrooms long and slow. The Mega Prime mushroom makes an intense flavorful Arroz Caldo. Coupled with thick and wonderfully soft “malagkit” rice, it’s sure to take the blues away.
Oh, and before I forget, please use a good patis (fish sauce). (I cant recommend one since I always have the Marinduque Patis which my mom sends me religiously, sorry.) A bad patis will make your arroz caldo unnecessarily salty or fishy. #protip
Arya (4 years old), who is always treated to Champorado, found this to be a weird food but I forced her to eat her first tablespoon and she ate on her own after. My sisters, who are the only ones awake this early tried it with me. I added some chili garlic sauce to my bowl and it was awesome!
Mushroom Arroz Caldo
Ingredients:
- 2 tbsp oil
- 8 pcs garlic cloves, minced
- 1 thumb ginger, washed and smashed
- 1 can of Mega Prime Pieces and Stems Mushroom (drained)
- 2 tbsp patis (fish sauce) (or according to taste)
- 1 chicken cube
- 1 cup malagkit (glutinous) rice
- 8 cups of water
- 2 soft boiled egg (for garnish, optional)
Instructions:
- Fry garlic until crispy. Set aside half for garnish.
- Add ginger, mushroom, and patis. Lower the heat and let it sweat for 3 to 5 minutes.
- Add rice and saute for a couple of minutes.
- Add water and chicken cube, raise heat, and bring to boil.
- Cover and set the fire to medium until the rice is fully cooked (about 45 minutes). Make sure to stir the porridge one in a while to avoid the rice sticking to the pot. Add eggs about 30 minutes into cooking. Let the water evaporate depending on how soupy you want your Arroz Caldo to be. Remove whole ginger.
- Transfer to serving bowls and garnish with scallions and fried minced garlic.
Notes:
- Some people, they have to saute with onions. I don’t like onions in my Arroz Caldo. The onions are sweet-ish and have a flavor profile that sticks to the rice.
- Some recipe also has Kasubha, to produce a yellowish collor, but I don’t find that it affects the taste so much so I also don’t recommend the additional expense.
- Also, you can serve on the side with Calamansi if you want it tangy.
- Most of the time, I also use just plain day old or leftover rice.
That’s it! Now if you want to save this recipe, bookmark this page or click the print button to save it on your computer.
This is a sponsored post. All opinion is mine.
