Everybody knows her as the Sopas Queen. She is just one of many food peddlers who frequently visits our office and offers merienda of either congee, widely known also in the Philippines as arroz caldo or another Filipino favorite dish of glutinous rice porridge with coconut cream blended with some fruits and root crops also known as binignit.
To give her loyal clients a breather of her usual offerings of arroz caldo and binignit, she cooks macaroni soup and lomi, a noodle soup with pork strips and vegetables.
The Sopas Queen decided to sell merienda because many of the food peddlers offer viand, Filipino traditional food delicacies like puto, kutsinta and others and fruits but nobody vends noodle-soup-based merienda.
She started to sell her Arroz Caldo at nine o’clock in the morning and finishes it before lunch. A big container of arroz caldo is worth P800 if she could sell it all and she said, with her husband, they could vend six containers of it in half a day.
To sum it up, they could earn P2, 400 for a half a day. Tiring but fulfilling. Why peddling? She said she has no rental fee to pay, no workers to compensate—just a power of two-her and her husband.
Chicken Sopas Recipe
Ingredients
1 tbsp cooking oil
1 medium sized onion, diced
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast, diced
32 ounces chicken broth (about 4 cups)
2 cups elbow macaroni
3/4 cup carrots, diced
3/4 cup cabbage; shredded
3/4 cup fresh or evaporated milk
1 cup water
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
Procedure
Heat a cooking pot and put-in the oil.
Add onions and cook until the texture becomes soft.
Put-in the boneless chicken breasts and cook for 3 to 5 minutes.
Sprinkle some salt and ground black pepper and stir.
Add chicken broth and bring to a boil.
Pour-in water and milk and wait to re-boil. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes.
Add the elbow macaroni and cook for 8 minutes while stirring once in a while.
Put-in the carrots and simmer for 3 minutes.
Add the cabbage and cook for 2 minutes more.
Serve hot.
Estimated Cost Summary (Prize may vary)
ingredient quantity total cost
cooking oil 1 tbsp P3.00
onion 1 medium sized P5.00
boneless skinless chicken breast 1/4 kilo P35.00
elbow macaroni 1/2 kilo P25.00
carrots 3/4 cup P7.00
cabbage 3/4 cup P20.00
fresh or evaporated milk 3/4 cup P50.00
Salt P.50
ground black pepper 2 small packs P4.00
TOTAL COST= p149.50
Serving cost P10 per plastic cup
di kaya lugi pa sya ng 49.50?
sopas is good for 10 person and 10.00 per cup = 100.00