First Time-ish Congee

Monday, February 20, 2012

Since it’s President’s Day, classes were not in session today. I woke up early afternoon craving pancakes but 10 minutes later and some sniffles (almost done recovering from a week-long cold) confirmed what I really wanted was a bowl of congee.

I’d never bothered learning how to make congee even though it was a breakfast staple growing up. I only made my first and only plain congee last year when I was in the mood for something bland. But this time, I wanted something with more flavor. My dad’s a really good cook and I still like watching him do his thing in the kitchen. One of his culinary tips is to cook the spices/herbs first to bring out the flavor, buttttt I don’t think that’s a secret. For us, that usually means it’s either the scallions, garlic, or ginger. So I used ginger. Why? I don't know, cultural instinct? :)

I sliced about 2 inches and put it in the pot as soon as I turned on the fire so the water had time to soak it in. I also added a few dashes of salt to the water for taste. To save time, I did my prep work while the rice was boiling.

I was too lazy to leave the house so I only worked with what was in the refrigerator. What I have here are baby carrots, cilantro, and because I did not have any scallions, I used onions. As soon as I finished cutting them up, I transferred them all to the pot.

I accidentally put a few pieces into the water too early when I realized it would make my congee very spicy. So I fished most of them out but some of them were still left in there. So even though I didn’t use any oil, there’s oil floating at the top of the pot. Oops. Strained it with a spoon.

As soon as the water started to boil, I took the ginger out and turned the fire down to a simmer. Part of our leftovers from last night was this takeout dish that contained of thin slices of pork and spicy pepper.

A minute into simmering it, I put in the pork and put in a dash of black pepper for taste...even though the takeout was already spicy... Didn’t they say hot and spicy soup is the way to clear up congestion?! At this point, it was starting to look really good and just because I felt like it, I also poured some oyster sauce in. Turns out it really helped temper the spiciness. I let it simmer for about 20 more minutes and realized it would've been so much faster making those pancakes. But this is 10x healthier and better for my stomach.

1 cup of rice, 10 cups of water, and enough for dinner too! How economical!

-Debbie

the blog named X