M got back from his work trip yesterday. He didn’t bring back any souvenirs, but he did bring back a nasty case of food poisoning. When he backtracked his steps and tried to remember what could have brought on this nasty bug, the only probable suspect was some funny cookie he had at the mall. Regardless, I knew this calls for some congee!
I was supposed to do something very exciting for the blog today, but I ended up cancelling those plans, taking him to the hospital and being the ever-caring dutiful wife I am.
With him tucked back in bed, I walked to our nearby supermarket to buy some mushrooms for the congee I planned on making for him. Staying true to it’s complete inadequacy, our supermarket had no fresh mushrooms. I don’t even know how that’s possible in today’s day and age, but that’s Geant Easy for you. Defeated, I returned home and decided to make the congee with some chicken and a half-boiled egg instead.
Congee is not something I grew up eating. I’ve heard the word “congee” being thrown around a lot in my Singaporean cousins’ home, but until a year ago I had never had it. Suffice to say, one spoonful of this viscous, soupy love and my life changed. This is the epitome of sick-person comfort food. Congee is to Asians what Khichri is to South Asians, but with very different flavors.
Traditionally, congee is made with white rice, and involves the rice being slow cooked to the point that it breaks down into a thick, slightly lumpy (with broken down rice grains) soup. I used brown rice instead because healthy drama, and it definitely didn’t release as much starch, so I just gave it a couple of blitzed with the hand blender to get some viscous texture.
Here’s the recipe, you guys:
Serves 1. Prep time: 10 minutes. Cook time: 1 hour.
Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked brown rice (or white rice, if that's what you'd rather prefer)
- 2 cups bone broth (I used turkey bone broth)
- 1 cup water
- 1 inch of cinnamon
- A thumb of ginger
- 1 pod black cardamom
- A pinch of black pepper
- A pinch of white pepper
- 1/4 cup of mushrooms, or a thin slice of chicken breast, or firm tofu.
- Garnish:
- 1 medium boiled egg
- 1 tsp dark soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon crispy fried onions
- 1 few sprigs of cilantro
Instructions
- Place the bone broth, cooked rice, water, ginger, cinnamon, black cardamom, mushrooms, chicken, and/or tofu and pepper in a saucepan and cook on low heat for about an hour or until desired consistency has been achieved.
- Pour the congee into a bowl, top with the egg, cilantro, fried onions, and soy sauce.
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