A Storm Is Here, So Here's A Colorful Glutinous Rice Balls Sweet Soup For A Stormy Weather

22 October 2024

Rainy and cold. You would surely crave for something hot.

Today, we woke up on a rainy morning with tropical cyclone Kristine hovering around, causing heavy rain and strong winds in different places, including our province. There were power interruptions, too, which made our lights like a Christmas light turning on and off. When the power got back, I took the opportunity to write this down before it turned off again. After many years, I have experienced a Philippine typhoon again, but I find it safer since I am at home.

In our younger years, we used to eat something hot during this kind of weather. Our mom would prepare champorado (chocolate porridge) or simple lugaw (plain rice porridge) for us. Sometimes, when we had a better budget, she would cook sopas (macaroni soup) with chicken, veggies, and creamy soup. Those are my favorite foods during stormy weather.

And today, she made a simple recipe using only three main ingredients available at home. It has a sweet flavor, sticky texture, and thick soup consistency. This can be a kind of dessert that can be sold in the cold season and is the best food for a stormy day like today. I could truly hear the wooshing sound of the wind and heavy drops of rain from my room while writing this article. With my open windows, I can save electricity since I don't need to turn on my cooler. But you know the best thing to do today? Sleep underneath my blanket. That's perfect!

Before that, let me share with you this simple, sweet recipe that is best for the cold season. I call it Colorful Glutinous Rice Balls Sweet Soup for this stormy weather.

This recipe only needs a few ingredients. But to make the sweet balls not too plain and boring to look, we used food colors. However, it is optional if you don't have them. As for the rice flour, you can simply grind some rice at home if you have a grinder or food processor, so you don't need to buy rice flour. By the way, we added some grounded sticky rice to make the flour mixture sticky and easily shaped it into balls.

Let's start the cooking.

The procedure is so easy. First, put the rice flour in a large bowl and gradually add enough hot water, then whisk until you form a dry dough. Afterward, we divided the dough into three unequal parts and added food colorings. We have green pandan, violet, and yellow mango flavor food colors. My mom was hesitant to use those food colors as the balls might taste bitter, but we insisted on putting some to make the balls colorful.

Shape the rice dough into small balls.

The next procedure is boiling water in a big pot. My mom added a few drops of green pandan food coloring to flavor the soup. I like the scent of pandan so much. It makes the food more enticing. It is one of my favorite local ingredients we like using when making Filipino delicacies.

Once the water boils, carefully add the rice balls to the boiling water. You can also add evaporated or fresh milk, but I actually prefer coconut milk for this kind of recipe. However, we don't have one, so we only used evaporated milk, which also tastes good.

Once the rice balls float, it indicates that they are already cooked. We also call this palitaw derived from the Filipino term litaw which means resurface, appear, or float. We waited for more minutes to cook the soup and the balls well before serving it. As simple as that, you already have a creamy and tasty sweet glutinous rice ball soup.

The rice ball dough can also make other sweet Filipino soup delicacies and desserts. You can add some ingredients to this recipe, like sago or tapioca pearls, slices of bananas, and taro to make it flavorful. But since we don't have those ingredients, we made it as simple as it is: pure rice balls in a creamy-milky sweet soup. You can be as creative and resourceful as you are in the kitchen using glutinous rice balls as the main ingredient. In Hong Kong, we used to make ginger-sweet soup when cooking glutinous rice balls filled with black sesame paste on occasions like Chinese New Year. It is one of the popular traditional Chinese desserts in Hong Kong and China.

That's it. You can try this simple recipe. For Filipinos in places affected by typhoon Kristine, stay safe and comfy!

Thanks for your time.