Arroz Caldo — The Soup That Santos Women Prescribe for Everything

I turned twenty-nine this week. April third. The age that is one year from thirty, which in Filipino families is the unofficial deadline for marriage, children, and having your life together in a way that can be reported to relatives in the Philippines without shame. Lourdes is already in countdown mode. "Twenty-nine," she said, as though the number were a diagnosis. "Next year is thirty." I said, "I'm aware of how numbers work, Mama."

Birthday dinner at the Mountain View house. Lourdes made the traditional pancit for long life and lechon kawali and arroz caldo because I mentioned I was tired. In Lourdes's medical vocabulary, "tired" = "sick" = "needs soup." The arroz caldo was perfect — thick with rice and ginger and chicken, topped with fried garlic and scallions, the bowl of liquid comfort that has been prescribed by Santos women for every ailment from fever to heartbreak to existential fatigue.

Jason came. He brought a cake from a bakery downtown — not a Filipino bakery but a nice one, with buttercream roses that Lourdes examined with the scrutiny of a food critic. "American cake," she pronounced, which is Lourdes-code for "too sweet, too much frosting, not enough substance." She ate two slices. The code and the eating coexist, always.

Mark called. Joseph called. The phone went around the table. Each brother wished me happy birthday in his own idiom — Mark efficient and military, Joseph wind-swept and warm. Angela gave me a gift: a leather-bound recipe journal, nicer than the first one, with tabs for categories and a pocket for photographs. "For the blog," she said. "For the book you're going to write someday." I said, "I'm not writing a book." She said, "Not yet."

Twenty-nine. Two years of therapy, steady on sertraline, writing consistently for the blog. The nightmares come once or twice a month instead of nightly. I'm stable, which is a word I once would have found depressing and now consider a miracle. Stability is not exciting. Stability is not dramatic. Stability is a bowl of arroz caldo at a table with your family and your boyfriend and your mother's pancit and the knowledge that you are here, upright, eating, loved. Stability is the miracle of ordinary evenings. I'll take it. I'll take it every year.

Of all the dishes Lourdes made for my birthday, the arroz caldo is the one I keep coming back to. Not because the pancit wasn’t good or the lechon kawali wasn’t perfectly crispy—they were—but because the arroz caldo is the dish that means someone noticed you were tired and decided to do something about it. It’s the Santos family prescription, and at twenty-nine, stable and upright and eating soup at my mother’s table, I figured it was time to write it down properly.

Arroz Caldo (Filipino Chicken Rice Soup)

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
• 1 cup jasmine rice, rinsed
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 6 cloves garlic, minced (plus more for topping)
• A 2-inch piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into thin coins
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce, plus more to taste
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups water
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon safflower threads or 1/4 teaspoon ground turmeric
• 3 tablespoons fried garlic, for topping
• 3 scallions, thinly sliced, for topping
• Calamansi or lemon wedges, for serving
• Fish sauce, for serving

Instructions

1. Sauté the aromatics. Heat oil in a large Dutch oven or heavy pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until softened, about 3 minutes. Add the minced garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute.
2. Brown the chicken. Add the chicken thighs skin-side down and cook until lightly golden, about 4 minutes per side. You’re not cooking them through—just building flavor.
3. Add rice and liquids. Stir in the rinsed rice, then pour in the chicken broth and water. Add the fish sauce, black pepper, and safflower threads (or turmeric). Stir to combine and bring to a boil.
4. Simmer until thick. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover with the lid slightly ajar, and simmer for 30 to 35 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent the rice from sticking. The rice will break down and thicken the soup into a porridge-like consistency.
5. Shred the chicken. Remove the chicken thighs and set them on a cutting board. Shred the meat, discarding the skin and bones. Return the shredded chicken to the pot and stir to combine. Taste and adjust seasoning with more fish sauce or pepper as needed.
6. Serve. Ladle the arroz caldo into bowls and top generously with fried garlic and sliced scallions. Serve with calamansi or lemon wedges and a small dish of fish sauce on the side.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 320 | Protein: 22g | Fat: 12g | Carbs: 30g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 980mg