Champorado is a chocolate rice porridge that is a popular breakfast item in the Philippines. If you ever wanted to have chocolate for breakfast, this is the perfect dish to whip up!
Background
Champorado is a dish that can trace its roots back to the days of Spanish colonization when Mexican traders brought the dish "champurrado" to the Philippines. Over time, the Philippines created their own version of it making use of glutinous rice. Hence, this now classic Filipino breakfast was born!
I personally had this a lot growing up, and I can remember always topping it up with blocks of cheese. Though I'm not sure if anyone else did this? Now that I'm older, I've found that people actually added salted fish to their champorado! Not something I'd do now that I'm vegan, but it just goes to show how versatile this dish can be.
About the Ingredients
Traditionally, this is made by boiling glutinous rice (also known as "sticky rice"). Then adding tablea which are these cocoa tablets you can find in the Philippines. If you don't have easy access to tablea, there are substitutes like cocoa powder that give you a similar flavor profile.
Tablea might be the most difficult ingredient in this dish to find outside the Philippines. But even glutinous rice might be something you can't find in your commercial grocery store. However, thanks to the popularity of sushi, sushi rice could potentially be more readily available in your area. If you're struggling to find glutinous rice but can find yourself a bag of sushi rice, feel free to use that instead.
How To Make Champorado
A big reason why this dish is so popular is that it's fast and uncomplicated to make. As I mentioned before, finding the ingredients can be the most difficult part of making champorado (though hopefully the substitutes make your life easier). Once you have the ingredients though, get ready for some quick and easy chocolatey goodness!
First, mix 3 cups of water and 1 cup of glutinous rice in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer and heat covered for 10 minutes (by the end, there should still be a decent amount of water left in the saucepan).
While the glutinous rice is simmering, combine ½ cup of cocoa powder with 1 cup of water in a bowl and mix well too dissolve. You're doing this so you don't end up with lumps of cocoa powder in the finished product.
After the rice is done simmering, pour the cocoa powder mixture and ½ cup sugar into the saucepan and continue cooking uncovered. Stir occasionally until you reach your desire consistency (I personally find 3 additional minutes of cooking to work pretty well). Enjoy your champorado!
Tips
- You can top your champorado with add-ons to bring it to the next level. If you can find a vegan condensed milk, it mixes pretty well with this dish. I personally like topping champorado with blocks of vegan cheddar cheese, similar to how I used to when I was a child.
Champorado
Equipment
- saucepan (or pot)
- small bowl
Ingredients
- 1 cup glutinous rice or sushi rice
- 4 cups water
- ½ cup cocoa powder
- ½ cup sugar white or brown
Instructions
- Mix 3 cups of water and the glutinous rice in a saucepan and bring to a boil.
- Lower heat to a simmer and heat covered for 10 minutes.
- In the meantime, combine the cocoa powder with the remaining 1 cup of water into a bowl. Mix well to dissolve. This is so you don't end up with chocolatey lumps.
- After the rice has cooked for designated amount of time in Step 2, pour the cocoa powder mixture and sugar into the saucepan and continue cooking uncovered.
- Stir occasionally and watch the mixture get thicker. Continue cooking and stirring until you reach your desired consistency (I usually cook for an additional 3 minutes). Enjoy!
Leave a Reply