Rezel Kealoha creates delicious mouth watering food that looks stunning.  We reached out to this Bay Area culinary maestro to see if we could reprint one of her Oodaalolly-centric recipes. She replied in the affirmative.

Champorado with Bonito Flakes

I get super excited when I find ways to make Filipino food healthy.  Like super super excited.  This time around it’s a breakfast dish called Champorado.  Traditionally it’s made with white sticky rice, some cocoa powder, sugar and some condensed milk swirled on the top.  Imagine being a kid and being told you can eat chocolate for breakfast – with condensed milk.  You ask are you sure so many times before you take that spoon to your mouth as it could be a trick!  Read on to find out how I made healthy Champorado.

This time around I used steal cut oats, real dark chocolate (from the Philippines no less) and sweetened it with date syrup.  I also made smaller portions, so that you can indulge a little, but not go overboard.

Why Bonito Flakes??

I bet your wondering why I decided to add bonito flakes right???  Well traditional this sweet sweet dessert is served with some really salty fried fish on the side.  Yup… you read that right chocolate and fish.  Instead of frying up some fish, adding some bonito flakes (dried Japanese fish flakes) gives it a nice salty finish.  It’s very mild, but surprisingly complements the chocolate nicely.  You can opt to skip the bonito flakes and just go with some salt, but if you can find it a nice smoked salt would be oh so perfect.

Oodaalolly Chocolate

The chocolate that I used to make this healthy champorado is quite special.  I happen to stumble upon these Oodaalolly bars while browsing Instagram and instantly bought them.  The beans are sourced in the Davao region of the Philippines and then ground and tempered here in the Bay Area Swiss style.

The Oodaalolly bars have a nice smooth finish with a little bit of tang in them.

I hope you try this recipe with the bonito flakes!  Don’t be scared new flavor combinations, you will be pleasantly surprised!  Tag me on Instagram with #rezelkealohaeats + #healthyfilipinofood if you do make it.  I would love to know what you think of it.

Reprinted from Rezel Kealoha, copyright © Rezel Kealoha. Photographs copyright © Rezel Kealoha.