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Champorado (Chocolate Sticky Rice Porridge)

Name: Champorado (Chocolate Sticky Rice Porridge)
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Filipino
Ingredients: 200 g glutinous rice; 1.2 l water; 100 g tablea; 80 g sugar; 1 pinch salt; 4 tbsp evaporated or fresh milk; 8 tuyo (small salted dried fish)

A Filipino chocolate porridge: sticky rice boiled with tablea, tablets of pure ground roasted cocoa, until thick. Milk or coconut milk goes over the top and sugar goes in to taste. Eaten for breakfast or merienda, and commonly paired with tuyo, small salted dried fish.

Ingredients

4servings

glutinous rice200 g
water1.2 l
tablea · or 70g unsweetened dark chocolate plus 2 tbsp cocoa powder100 g
sugar · to taste80 g
salt1 pinch
evaporated or fresh milk · or coconut milk4 tbsp
To serve
tuyo (small salted dried fish) · optional, or a handful of dried anchovies8

Steps

Wash the glutinous rice until the water runs clear. Do not soak it.
Bring the water to the boil, add the rice and simmer over medium-low heat 20 minutes, stirring often so it does not catch.
⏲ 20 min
Add the tablea and stir until it melts, then add the sugar and salt and cook 10-15 minutes more, until the grains have burst and it coats a spoon thickly.
⏲ 15 min
If it gets too thick, add hot water a little at a time. It thickens further as it cools.
If serving tuyo, fry them in a little oil until crisp on both sides.
⏲ 3 min
Ladle into bowls, pour the milk over and serve the tuyo alongside (balancing flavour).

Variations

Tinughong. In the Visayas it is made with sugar instead of tablea, sometimes with coffee or milk added.
Ube champorado. Stirred with ube halaya, which turns it purple.
Cold. It is also eaten cooled, with milk poured over.

Tips

Use glutinous rice. Ordinary rice will not thicken it this much.
Stir often. A sticky-rice porridge catches on the bottom of the pan.
Add the sugar to taste. Tablea is unsweetened.
Fry the tuyo crisp.
Salted fish is the partner for the sweet porridge. Setting a small salted dried fish beside a sweet, bitter chocolate porridge pairs the two tastes against each other.

More detail and the reasons why (1)

A Mexican drink became a Filipino porridge. The champurrado that came over on the galleon trade is a drink thickened with masa, the corn dough. In the Philippines sticky rice took the place of the masa, and the thickness it gives turned something you drink into a porridge you eat with a spoon. Masa is the dough of pupusa; sticky rice is the rice of suman.