Congee with Fish Paste

Ah the versatile fish paste. I personally like it best pan fried as it's much tastier but if you want a fast meal, scooping it into boiling water is the fastest way to cook it.

You can use existing chicken stock and cooked rice to make this congee in 10 mins.

However in the recipe below, I'll be using a chicken shell and uncooked rice which will result in longer cooking time.

It's really fast to put together but you'll need a bit of time to let it simmer. 

Congee with Fish Paste

Ingredient

• 2 to 3.5L of water
• 1.5 rice cooker cup of frozen rice
• 1 chicken shell
• 3 slices of ginger
• 1 tub of fish paste
• 1 green onion
• 2 tsp salt

Directions

1. Add 2 L of water to the pot and bring to a boil.
2. Add the Chicken shell and ginger and let it simmer for 15 mins. 
3. Add the frozen rice.
4. Bring the pot back up to a boil and then simmer for 20 mins.
5. Now that the base of the congee is cooked, you can add in the fish paste. Easy way is to use a spoon and scoop out little balls and dip your spoon into the congee so it releases from the spoon. If you want it prettier, you can try to cut it but you will probably want to freeze it before hand so you can cut it. It's pretty soft and malleable so hard to cut if you don't freeze it.
6. Let it cook until all the fish paste floats to the top to signifies that it's cooked.
7. Add the salt and stir.
8. Chop the green onions to be used as topping for your congee after you scooped it into bowls for serving.

Enjoy :)

5 Spice Chicken Congee

I had chicken that was over marinated because we left it marinated for way too long. So what to do with a salty chicken? Make congee with it :)
Turned out it was a pretty awesome mistake. It made a weeks worth of breakfast and some lunches since you can reheat it in the microwave in the mornings.

5 Spice Chicken Congee

Time: 60 mins Makes: 1 big pot of Congee

Ingredients

• 1 Cornish Hen or 1 Small Chicken (depends on how much meat you want)
• 1 muk or 1.5 muks of rice (frozen over night)
• 1/2 tsp or 1.5 tsp salt (pending on which bird you picked)
• 1/2 tsp or 1.5 tsp 5 spice powder (pending on which bird you picked)
• 1 green onion
• 1 cm block of ginger
• 1.5 - 3L of water

Directions

1. Wash your Cornish hen or chicken. Dry and then rub the chicken with the salt and 5 spice powder. Let it sit for 30 minutes to marinate or leave overnight in fridge if you desire.
2. Start off with 1.5L of water and bring to a boil.
3. Wash the green onion and ginger. Cut the green onion into smaller pieces and put both green onion and ginger into the water.
4. Add the rice
5. Once the water is back up to a boil, add the hen. The amount of time it makes Congee is about the amount of time required to cook a chicken so it's safe to add at the same time.
6.  Monitor the thickness of the congee and add more water as required. You'll probably want to increase it by at least 0.5L if you want to leave it unmonitored. 
7. Let it simmer at medium-low heat for half an hour until everything cooks through.
8. Once it's cooked, take 2 forks and shred the meat into the congee.

Serve hot. Great for breakfast or brunch. 

Fish and Corn Congee

This congee is one of the ones where you add the extra ingredients in last.
This is a very simple yet yummy tasting congee. Using Fish as the protein allows for a very lean and healthy meal.

I use frozen basa fish fillet because it's easy to use and I usually have a package or 2 on hand in my freezer. I defrost the fish in the fridge overnight. As always, because there's seafood, I add ginger to help get rid of the "fishy" smell/taste.

For Corn, you can use either frozen or canned corn. If you have corn on the cob you'll have to remove the kernel from the corn to use it. Since I live in Canada where I can only get fresh corn in the summer, I typically use frozen or canned corn for this congee.

This recipe will make 1 big pot of congee enough to feed a family of 5.

Fish and Corn Congee

Makes 1 big pot Prep Time: Overnight Cook Time: 30 Mins

Ingredients

• 3 to 3.5 L of water
• 1.5 rice cooker cups of frozen rice
• 2 packages of defrosted basa fillets
• 2 cups of frozen corn or 2 cans of corn kernel, drained
• 3 slices of ginger
• 1.5 tsp of salt
• 2 green onion chopped (optional)

Directions

1. Put the water and ginger into the pot on the stove top and turn the heat to max.
2. Once the water is boiling, add in the rice and stir until it's boiling again so nothing sticks to the bottom.
3. Once it's boiling, turn the heat town to simmer and cover. Let it simmer for 20 mins.
4. While the pot is simmering away, wash the basa fillets and then cut each piece into 4 like I show in the picture to the right. You don't want to cut it too small as it'll break apart some more when it's cooked.
5. Strain the fish in the fridge to get rid of the water.
6. Chop up the green onion on a clean surface. (if you're adding the green onion)
7. At the 20 minute mark, turn up the heat again to high.
8. Once it's at a roiling boil, add the salt and the corn and stir.
9. Once it's boiling again, add the fish and stir. Let it come to a boil and cook it for 5 minutes.

The congee is not ready to eat. You can top it off with the green onion or stir it in at this point.
I generally like my green onion raw so I just add it on top of my boil of congee

Enjoy!

Pork Bone Congee with Dried Bean Curd Strips

You don't normally see pork bone congee in the menu at congee restaurant because this is one of the ingredients you should cook with the congee from the start for the flavours to really meld together.

You might ask, "why use pork bone instead of just the meat?" The reason why I used pork bone is because there's a certain sweetness that comes from pork bone when you make soup or congee. You can definitely use meat in your congee instead of pork bone, but that's another type of congee that I will post about at an other time.
Different flavours and different styles.

I cooked this for 30 mins to ensure that the flavours is mixed nicely into the congee.
I also pre-treated the pork bone when I first brought it before I froze them in the freezer so I can use it at any time. For the pre-treatment, I quickly blanched the bones. Then washed it under cold water with a brush to brush off any impurities. Once cooled and dried, I bagged them and stuffed them in the freezer to be used in soup/congee.

This will cook a very big pot that can feed up to 5 people.

Pork Bone Congee with Dried Bean Curd

Makes 1 big pot Prep Time: Overnight Cook Time: 40 mins

Ingredients

• 1000g Pork Bone
• 3 to 3.5L of water
• 1.5 rice cooker cup of frozen rice
• 85g (1/2 bag) dried Bean Curd (picture to the left)
• 2 tsp salt

Directions

1. Put 3L of water into the pot and boil.
2. Add in the pork bone, bring it back up to a boil.
3. Rinse the Bean Curd and put the Bean Curd and the rice into the pot of boiling water.
4. Stir and bring back to a boil.
5. Turn the heat to simmer and leave it alone for 20 mins.
6. Check on the thickness and add more water if needed.
7. Add salt and stir and cook for another 10 mins for 30 mins in total.

If you added water, you'll have to turn up the heat again.

And you're done :)

The congee will continue to thicken after you cooked it and it's cooling!!!
I used 3.5L of water, when I first started eating it, it was still a bit watery. By the time I was on my last bowl, it was at a thickness I prefer.
So if you start off with 3L of water and you have left overs, you might need to add more water the next time you eat it.

Intro to congee and trick to making smooth congee in short period of time

Congee (粥) is a rice dish that can be eaten at any time but it's a very common dish at breakfast, brunch and late night snack times.
You can find it when you go yum cha (some people like to call it dim sum but dim sum actually refers to the food you eat there), cafes, food court or specialty restaurants that specialize in congee, noodles and fried rice.
It can be full meals on it's own or one of the many dishes you eat.

It's also a very common dish to eat when you're sick as it's suppose to be easy on your digestive system so it doesn't zap the energy you need for healing.
Although when you're sick, you're eating very plain congee with minimum things added to it.

Congee is very very versatile. You can make many different variations depending on what you put in it. You can either add the additions at the beginning and let things cook together to enhance the flavours or add it at the end. If you look at the menu at a congee restaurant, you'll find that most of the different flavours are things they can add to a plain congee base and cook so they do not have to have 10 different pots of congee all waiting for people to order. Great idea for even home cooking if you need to save on time and you want a different congee flavour every day.

Besides all the different things you can add to the congee, there's 2 distinct style and it's determined by how the rice appears.

The most common kind you'll find is the one where the congee is a porridge with the rice all broken down and smooth. My parents will cook the congee for several hours to ensure all the rice is broken down. Some people will put it in one of those pots that stay hot over night for the rice to break down. Others even go to the extent of putting the congee through a food processors to ensure that it'll be smooth.
To make this style of congee, you use very little rice to make lots of congee. The water to rice ratio is huge. 1.5 to 2 rice cooker cups of rice makes a huge pot of congee that can be enough for 5 people to eat at least 3 bowls each.

The other kind is 潮州粥 (Chiu Chow style Congee). This one is not as common. You usually have to go to a Chiu Chow style restaurant to find it. The rice in this congee is solid and not broken! It's almost as if you made a soup and added cooked rice to it after. Very different then the more common style congee. I find this one definitely more filling then the other one as it requires more rice.
There are other Asian countries that cook this style of congee too so it's possible to eat it at those restaurants but I don't have a full list of what style each country cooks as I haven't tried them all myself.

After all that explanation, onto the tip.
Here's the trick my friend taught me to make that smooth congee without cooking the congee for hours or using the blender.
It's very simple, just freeze the rice before you cook it!!!
Wash the rice that you are going to cook, drain it and then freeze it for at least 2 hours.
I froze it over night as I was making the congee in the morning.
The frozen rice broke down much faster then unfrozen rice.
Within 20 minutes, the rice was broken down and basically the congee was ready to eat.
You can continue to boil it down so it thickens up to a thickness you like.
I found my congee continued to thicken up even after I turned off the heat and it was starting to cool.
It was definitely a lot thicker by the time I was finished eating and trying to pack up the left overs. Perfect for the next several days :)

Give it a try, definitely simple and makes it much faster to get your breakfast up and going in the morning.