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Sinangag (Garlic Fried Rice) 

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Photo of two bowls of sinangag with a bowl of fried garlic on the side.
Photo and Styling by Joseph De Leo

Breakfast in the Philippines is built on sinangag, or cooked rice tossed with garlic and oil. For us, the smell of sinangag cooking is better than waking up to the aroma of coffee. This recipe may garner some raised eyebrows from knowledgeable Filipino cooks because we don’t use leftover rice to make it and we don’t use a rice cooker. Instead, we cook the rice in a pot on the stove over very low heat. The rice kernels stay intact and even a bit dry—much like day-old rice—and thus they hold up to the additions of garlic chips and homemade garlic oil, which make the rice more robust and flavorful.

Notes:

You can also make sinangag using rice left over from your meal from the previous day. Just heat the rice in a pan with a tablespoon or two of garlic oil. When the rice is hot, add 2 tablespoons of the garlic and a drizzle of garlic oil.
Add eggs and the sweet Filipino cured meat called tocino or the garlicky sausages called Lucban longanisa for a silog; it’s an excellent breakfast.

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