Lugaw is one of the most famous and cheap comfort food in the Philippines. It has a similarities with congee and porridge since they both used rice as the main ingredient. Aside from the rice itself, there are other spices added to this food and I am glad to share it to all of you.
BACKWARD IN MY CHILDHOOD
I have a distinct memories eating lugaw with my siblings. We usually ate it at our neighbors house whom they sell in every cup for less than 5 peso ($.10) and we often ate it early morning. Sometimes we add some fried tofu and boiled eggs. If we have excess budget we do also add 1 pack of monay (round shape plain soft bread) and we enjoyed it the most.
Whenever I have time to cook lugaw, I see to it that the weather also call for a perfect comfort food like this. Just few days ago, there is a super typhoon (Odette) that really shuttered many houses in southern part of the Philippines. I feel so sorry for those families lost their houses because of the strong wind and rain that brought my typhoon Odette. The aftermath was so devastating and painful to look at. That's why our weather stills in this kind of rainy and gloomy sky throughout the day.
Getting back to my menu, since the cold ambience of the rain demands for a warm/hot comfort food like Lugaw. There are some special variety of Lugaw nowadays. But mine was the simplest and cheapest version you'll ever had yet it taste delicious and fantastic with these few ingredients.
> 1 cup of white rice
> 1 whole garlic
> 1 small red onion
> 1 small ginger
> salt, boullion cube and black pepper
> cooking oil
> water
**How to do:**
* Wash the rice first and set aside until needed. In a large caserole, drizzle some cooking oil and saute chopped garlic, sliced onion and ginger in a low to medium flame. Make sure not to over saute these three ingredients 'cause it will make our lugar to have a bitter taste.
* After few minutes put the washed rice into the caserole and stir and add some salt. Add 3 cups of water and allowed to boil. At this point do not add more salt. Just wait until it boils for several minute and keeping an eye while waiting the rice to be tender enough.
* Check the rice. Once it looks like this and the texture looks saggy you can now add additional water since the water already evaporates and absorbed by the rice. Then you can now add boullion cube and black pepper. You can add more flavor enhancer that will depends on you.
* While waiting for the lugaw to cook, I crushed my left garlic cloves and minced it. This is one of my favorite toppings on my lugaw. I will just fry it until turn toasted but not actually burnt.
*I drained it to remove excess oil and put in a separate container.*
After 10 minutes it is ready. I will eat this immediately to relief my coldness during this rain. I also add 1 boiled egg and slice in half and garnished my lugaw with my home made toasted garlic. I also do some mixture of vinegar, onion and garlic with brown sugar. This is my favorite Lugaw...
*Thanks for dropping by! All photos are mine shot on my android phone.*
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