Chicken Arroz Caldo With Jammy Eggs Recipe

Chicken arroz caldo with jammy eggs is a traditional Filipino dish that is easy and extremely filling. With a few simple tricks, you can get an affordable, flavorful rice and chicken dish on the table in under 40 minutes.

Filipino food tends to take a no-frills, nose-to-table approach. Yet due to the country's diverse ethnic population and painful history of Spaniard colonization, Filipino cooking is also bold and adventurous, offering a Spanish-influenced take on Asian food that is effortlessly stylish and intriguing. Unique ingredients like tamarind, bitter melon, pork, and calamansi join bananas, rice and chicken in this spotlight-worthy cuisine.

Chicken arroz caldo is one of the most famous examples of the country's Spanish-Chinese fusion. With a Spanish name that translates to "rice stew" and an appearance that is similar to a Chinese congee, the addition of chicken to this hearty dish is often interpreted as an attempt to adapt a traditional Asian dish to suit the palate of the colonizing Spaniard population. Despite its somewhat problematic roots, today, chicken arroz caldo is a favorite in many Filipino households. With the additions of fried garlic and 6-minute jammy eggs, we take this simple, one-pot Filipino meal and make it into a stew that's unique enough to serve when company comes over — not to mention eat it with gusto when you are home alone!

Despite its Pacific island origin, the ingredients for chicken arroz caldo with jammy eggs are very simple, and all can be found in a typical supermarket.

You will need to pick up oil, a small onion, garlic, fresh ginger, chicken wings, chicken broth, glutinous sweet rice (or alternatively, short grain rice), green onion, a lime, and eggs.

To get started, preheat oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven set over medium heat. Add the chopped onion, 2 minced garlic cloves, and all the minced ginger. Cook for 5 minutes. Once they've softened a bit, add chicken wings, then stir and cook for 2 minutes. This helps lock the moisture in the chicken.

You can make this dish using chicken breasts or thighs as well, but we prefer to use chicken wings as it is more authentic, and truer to the spirit of the dish, which was meant to extract flavor from cheaper, lesser-used cuts of meat.

Add the chicken broth to the pot — it should cover the chicken wings and other ingredients completely. Add in the rice, stir, cover the pot with a lid, and bring the mixture to a boil.

Once your arroz caldo is boiling, lower the heat to medium-low and continue cooking, with the lid on, for an additional 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The rice should be completely cooked by the end of this process.

While the chicken arroz caldo is cooking, it's time to prepare the eggs. You can serve regular hard-boiled eggs with this dish, but we like the look and feel of 6-minute jammy eggs. To make them, fill a small saucepan halfway with water and bring it to a boil. Once the water is boiling, use tongs or a slotted spoon to gently lower the eggs into the pot, then let cook for 6 minutes. Cooking them longer will result in a more cooked yolk — up to 12 minutes for hard-boiled eggs.

After 6 minutes exactly, remove the saucepan from heat, and remove eggs from the boiling water and into an ice bath to stop them from cooking further. Wait until the eggs have cooled down, then peel and set aside until ready to serve.

Now it's time to make the other specialty part of this dish: the fried garlic. While you may choose to skip this step, we strongly discourage you from doing so. The fried garlic adds a depth of flavor and a special texture to chicken arroz caldo.

To fry the garlic, add 2 tablespoons of oil to a nonstick pan. Fry the remaining chopped garlic until it is golden, which shouldn't take longer than a couple minutes. Take care not to leave garlic unattended, as it can easily burn! Using a slotted spoon, drain the garlic from the oil and set aside.

To serve your chicken arroz caldo, portion the soup into bowls. Make sure each portion gets a chicken wing or two, as well as some rice.

Top each bowl with a halved jammy egg, lime slices, scallions, and fried garlic. Serve it immediately to get the full impact!

Leftover chicken arroz caldo will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days. The rice will continue soaking in the broth and your stew will become less liquidy as the days go on. You can add more water or chicken broth to make it soupier when reheating leftovers.