Food and Leisure

Pinoy foods to keep you warm this rainy season

Alixandra Caole Vila - The Philippine Star

July 17, 2014 | 3:24pm

MANILA, Philippines –We all get it. The gloomy weather is infectious. Most of the time, the somber atmosphere of the rainy season dampens not just your clothes, but also your mood. Shake off that feeling by having a bowl of Pinoy comfort food.

Forget ice cream, halo-halo and ice cold juice drinks. Indulge on warm soups and dishes that will surely bring you comfort this rainy season. Beat those rainy day blues with these warm and hearty traditional favorites:

Lugaw is the Filipino congee. It is similarly prepared like boiled rice porridge, but typically thicker. Most often, lugaw is cooked in chicken or beef stock and fresh strips of ginger. It is usually topped with scallions and served with crispy fried garlic. Serve it with fried pork and tofu and you have the perfect food for the cold weather.

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Sopas literally means soup in tagalong or Spanish sopa. Filipino sopas is noticeably creamy and made with plenty of chicken, vegetables, macaroni pasta and milk. It is a very hearty soup not just ideal for the cold weather, but also for giving relief for common cough, colds, and fever.

Allan Reyes/CC BY-NC-ND

Champorado is a sweet chocolate rice porridge that uses sweet glutinous rice (malagkit) and cocoa powder. Tableya (pure cocoa blocks) can be used as a replacement for cocoa powder. Combine it with salted dried fish and top it off with some milk and you have got a warm, sweet bowl to devour on a rainy day.

Matthew Mendoza/CC BY-NC-SA

Bulalo is a popular Filipino dish. It is a stew made from piping hot beef shanks with bone marrow. Corn on the cob, peppercorns, potatoes and bokchoy are often the ingredients of bulalo. A bowl this warm comforting food will definitely shake off the shivers that you get from the chilly weather.

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Batchoy is a soup dish composed of sliced pork, pig’s innards and miki noodles. This dish originated from the district of La Paz in Iloilo City — in the island of Panay. Traditional batchoy recipe requires the use of shrimp paste or guinamus (or guinamos). Unlike regular shrimp paste or bagoong, the shrimp paste used in traditional batchoy is sold in small blocks.