Mama's House

This is the first of what I hope to be many recipes shared not just by me but by all of you.

So with arroz caldo winning the recent poll I thought I would share with all of you how I make arroz caldo. Now you can find many recipes for it online - some of which are probably tastier than mine - or I guess you could just ask Tita Malou how to cook it - definitely better tasting than mine - but I think my way is the easiest and still produces an an arroz caldo that any arroz caldo lover would enjoy eating.

Ingredients:

1 lb. of Cooked Chicken (whatever part of the chicken you like most)
1 cup Calrose Rice (or any medium grain rice)
10 cups of Chicken Broth (I just use canned chicken broth - unsalted)
2 tbsp. of Butter
2 teaspoons of Salt
Pepper for taste

That's right, only 6 ingredients and if you're any sort of asian, the only thing you probably have to go out and buy are the chicken and the chicken broth.

Directions:

1. Wash the rice and then soak it in water for about 30 mins.
   
2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a pan, wok, or pot on HIGH heat. Drain, rinse, and drain the rice one last time. Add rice to the melted butter and cook, stirring, until rice is well coated with the butter and smells toasty, about 5 mins.
   
3. Add chicken broth to a slow cooker dump in the toasted rice, salt, and pepper. Stir well, cover, turn the cooker to LOW, and cook for 8 hours, or overnight.
   
4. After 8 hours, stir well. If you want it thicker, turn cooker to HIGH and cook for 1 hour more, stirring now and then. The soup will become thick and white.
   
5. Stir in cooked chicken and serve with soy sauce or hot sauce.

It's that simple. You can't go wrong with this recipe. It's damn near impossible to overcook. I usually cook it overnight or start it early in the day to have for dinner. Give it a try, don't be afraid to add your own touches to it, and let me know how it goes.

Need further convincing that this recipe is good? Feel free to ask Annette, Joni, Darryll what they think about my arroz caldo.

Notes: Most chicken broths at my score come in 6 cup cans so I just end up using 12 cups of broth and add an extra 1/5 cup of rice to compensate.

Now you can buy the chicken cooked or you can cook the chicken yourself. I usually just boil the chicken or pan fry some strips of chicken breast.

The toasting of the rice gives it a nice nutty flavor. You can skip this step but I wouldn't.

Traditionally, the chicken is cooked with the rice, but I choose to cook them separately, so all of the flavor is basically coming from the chicken broth.

I love it with hot sauce.