Congee (Jook) - Chinese Rice Porridge

[fitfool]

Growing up, our mom sometimes made congee (pronounced con-jee) for breakfast, except she called it mwaye (all one syllable sounding kinda like moow-eye). I think that's the Taiwanese word for it. Each person had a bowl of watery soft rice. In the center of the table, there were a variety of small dishes to eat with the rice. Most often, we had sliced green onions, Chinese pickled cucumbers (in soy sauce?), eggs (tea-smoked or fried), and pork floss (a dried, shredded pork). Sometimes we'd also have whatever leftovers we had kicking around the fridge. Although we kids were finicky eaters, we all liked this meal. So much so, that when we were in Taiwan, we would request this dish even in restaurants. This embarrassed my parents a bit since apparently it was not really restaurant food. It's the sort of thing you have at home when you're sick and you want comfort food or if you're poor and don't have a lot to eat. It's not the sort of thing you order when you're out in a fancy restaurant celebrating gathering with your extended family for the first time in years. No matter. At least it wasn't as bad as when we demanded peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches.

I still love congee and made it on rare occasions. Last Christmas, B's dad and his wife gave us a fancy fuzzy-logic rice cooker. I've always pooh-poohed these things but I have to admit, they make perfect rice that doesn't stick to the pot or burn on the bottom. It even has a setting for porridge so it's easier than ever to have congee for breakfast. Awesome!

So on one hungry morning, I made this for breakfast. Starting from the egg and going clockwise, I piled on: fried egg (over medium with soy sauce drizzled on it), zucchini, Chinese watercress (from my parents' garden), green beans, and dried shredded salmon. That's right, now you can get dried shredded salmon! Mom brought some back from Taiwan for me on my last trip. Underneath that whole pile of stuff, the bowl is filled with soft rice porridge.

Apparently you CAN order it in restaurants. At least, I've seen it on menus in some of the places in Chinatown. I guess I've absorbed my parents' disdain for that as a restaurant dish though since I've never ordered it. Same way as I never order fried rice since that's made from old leftover rice. (And yet I make fried rice at home to use up my own rice leftovers.)

Sorry...no recipe since I'm just using a setting on my rice cooker. I think the basic idea is something like a cup of rice and lots of water (like 9 cups of water) and cook until the rice is really soft. But there should still be water. Add hot water as needed to keep it watery. Then season it and top with whatever you like.

Comments

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Congee rice all by itself is pretty bland. It's the perfect food for when you're sick since it's easily digested and bland and not likely to upset your stomach. The deliciousness comes from all the stuff you eat with it :-)

I was a very very timid eater when I was a kid. I only wanted to eat familiar foods and that even include all the stuff that my mom cooked since she would sometimes serve up stuff like fish with their heads on or soup with little cubes of blood in it! I found it was better not to ask what something was because if I knew, I'd be reluctant to eat it. Nowadays, I do try to order food in restaurants that I can't easily make myself at home :-)

[seaopaque.livejournal.com]

Oh man, some of the food I encountered in China totally repulsed me. I did eat some of the blood-chunk soup, but I avoided the blood chunks.

Growing up, our food was always very HEALTHY, which often meant boring or gross. I endured a lot of meals by dousing them with ketchup. Thankfully we ate out a lot, often going for Chinese. When I was about eight, we started eating Vietnamese and that was a life-changer. Love that food. I don't eat it much now because a) I'm pescetarian and b) rice vermicelli is no longer my friend, but I have enjoyed it in the past. I am glad my parents didn't allow us to be picky.

[fitfool.livejournal.com]

Heh...my parents didn't allow us to be picky either. It's just that when they served up food we didn't like, it became a long drawn-out battle to get us to finish eating. Oh but my poor parents... so many of the things we kids were scared to eat were considered delicacies by my parents. "But it's lobster!" my dad would say, aiming a piece onto my plate, while I pouted. Many years later, I finally understood why my parents had been so insistent. Moreover, I felt bad because my mom went to quite a bit of effort cooking up great meals that I hadn't appreciated as a kid.

I had not known it was possible to be allergic to rice. That would require a significant overhaul of my diet.