Two Classic Filipino Dishes To Keep You Warm During the Rainy Season

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For Filipinos, the months between June and October typically bring torrential rains, cloudy skies, and blustery winds. Consequently, the need to stay warm, dry, and indoors is at no other time more important than during this period, known in the archipelago as the habagat (southwest monsoon) or rainy season.

Cooking a Filipino soup dish in a pot
Photo by Oleg Magni from Pexels

Two Classic Filipino Dishes To Keep You Warm During the Rainy Season


    Food for the rainy days


    Naturally, when the topic of staying warm and comfortable comes up, foods associated with eliciting that warm and cozy feeling are not far behind.

    If curling up beneath a blanket with a furry companion close by simply isn’t enough anymore, here are some delicious recipes that are sure to warm you up from the inside out.

    Bulalo: The Soup Designed for the Rainy Season


    When the weather turns foul and the winds blow a little colder and harder, the one dish that’s almost certain to keep you feeling safe and warm is soup.

    Cooking bulalo soup in a pot
    Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

    While there are many other soup dishes scattered throughout the world, every cook worth their salt has a bulalo recipe that seems specially designed for keeping us feeling warm and cozy throughout the rainy season.

    The reality is, like many other Filipino dishes, bulalo straddles the line between soup and stew. To make it, simply take a beef shank and simmer it in a blend of water, fish sauce, and peppercorns in as large a pot as possible.

    Bring the soup up to a boil, then turn down the heat and let the soup simmer for at least three to four hours. With about an hour of cooking time left, toss in some vegetables of your choice: popular options are halved ears of corn, cabbage quarters, split napa cabbage, or big pieces of carrot.

    The beef takes a long time to cook owing to a large amount of connective tissue in the shank, but once that tissue melts into the soup, you’ll be left with a rich, fatty, flavorful broth that tastes beefier than the biggest, beefiest steak.

    And let’s not forget the marrow! The core of the shank can be allowed to simply melt into the broth to add more flavor and complexity to it, but for a truly unctuous treat, you can extract it and grill it or stir-fry it, then serve it over rice as its own dish!

    Finally, for a more regional dish, try making kansi. This Ilonggo variant of bulalo is made almost exactly the same way, except that the extract of young tamarind is added to the broth. This makes the dish bright and tart and gives it an even greater depth of flavor.

    Arroz Caldo: A Dish That Gives You the Freedom to Play with Your Food


    While rice and grain porridges are found the world over, there are few that are both as simple and as satisfying as what Filipinos know as Arroz Caldo. 

    A bowl of Arroz Caldo
    A bowl of Arroz Caldo

    The porridge is made with chicken stock and is infused with ginger to make it flavorful and zesty on its own. Best of all, it’s a great way to dispose of overcooked rice without letting it go to waste, and it makes use of chicken bones and pieces that would otherwise be thrown out.

    To make this dish, prepare a simple stock of boiled chicken parts, skimming away whatever impurities float to the surface. Once the stock is prepared, add your rice to a clean pot along with the stock. You’ll need about twice as much stock as the rice, by volume.

    Bring the rice and stock to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Once it boils, turn the heat down to low, but not all the way to a simmer, and continue to stir. This breaks down the starches in the rice and releases them into the stock, creating the thick, rich base for the porridge.

    At this point, you can also infuse the porridge with spices and seasonings, the most popular being slices of ginger. Turmeric is also a popular addition to Arroz Caldo, and it’s something that will turn the porridge a vibrant shade of yellow.

    Once your porridge is ready, it can be served as is, but part of the fun of having Arroz Caldo is preparing all the toppings that go along with it. Popular toppings include hard-boiled eggs, tofu seasoned with soy sauce and vinegar, and bits of crispy fried garlic.

    Those looking for a more filling dish can add slices of deep-fried ham hock, known in the Philippines as crispy pata, to their porridge. The crackle from deep-fried pork skin is a delicious contrast to the rich, creamy porridge.

    Finally, turning this into the Chinese version of rice porridge, called congee, is also a popular option. To the hot porridge, add a raw egg and stir until the egg cooks and forms long ribbons in the porridge.

    This dish can then be topped with Chinese favorites like sweet sausage slices, 100-day eggs, stewed bamboo shoots and pork, and slivers of green onion.

    Epilogue


    Whichever rainy-day treats are your favorite, make sure to prepare a big batch and save whatever is leftover for another day. 

    After all, the best part about the rainy season isn’t slaving away in the kitchen; it’s staying in bed!

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    Two classic Filipino dishes to keep you warm during the rainy days
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    Ivan On The Move

    Hi, I'm Daddy Ivan, aka Ivan On The Move // Dad On The Move, a blogger since 2006. I'm a family travel and dad blogger in the Philippines. I write about traveling with kids, kid-friendly restaurants, the joys of fatherhood, the ups and downs of modern parenting, and autism awareness and acceptance. In my blog, you will find tips for traveling families in the Philippines, as well as stories about special needs parenting. I'm also an author, having written and published a travel book called "Select Travel Stories from the Different Regions of the Philippines." I was also part of an international book project called "100 Men On Becoming A Dad" where I shared my very own fatherhood story. As one of the dad influencers in the Philippines, I like to share photo updates & stories on social media.

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