THINQon : Cantonese Congee

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Jeremy Stone

Cantonese Congee

Latest Post: March 16, 2010 at 3:12 PM

26 followers

Congee is Chinese rice porridge, regarded by many as a comfort food. It has close equivalents in other Asian cuisines. The Cantonese variety is distinguished by the fact that the rice is cooked in a large quantity of water until the grains break down and become viscous.

It can be made with many meats and seafoods; pork and tripe are common, as are dried shellfish. Preserved eggs -- the Chinese hundred-year eggs -- and salted duck eggs are often added. The recipe given here is for pork and preserved egg congee, but even so, the ingredients are quite flexible.

Ingredients

Congee ingredients
1 1/2 cup long grain white rice, washed and drained
(optional:) Substitute 1/2 cup glutinous rice, washed and drained, for the last 1/2 cup of white rice
2 tbsp. vegetable oil
13 cups (~3 liters) water

Core ingredients
1/2 pound boneless pork loin roast or pork loin chops, sliced into thin sticks, 1" x 1/8" x 1/8"
4 preserved ("hundred-year") eggs, sliced into quarters
(optional:) Substitute salted duck eggs for some of the preserved eggs
(optional:) dried scallops, soaked in water and broken into pieces
1 (1") piece fresh ginger (young ginger is best), shredded

Seasoning
ground white or black pepper to taste

Garnish
(optional:) 1/2 cup chopped green onion
(optional:) pork floss
(optional:) several spoonfuls of sambal ebi (dried shrimp sambal)

Ingredient Notes

The ingredients less common in western cooking can readily be found in Chinese food shops in the U.S., and sometimes at other Asian supermarkets. The exception is sambal ebi, which I've mentioned above only because it's an excellent topping for congee.

In Hong Kong, jasmine rice is often used. Any long-grain rice should be fine.

Powdered ginger can be substituted for fresh ginger, though the latter is preferred not just for flavor but also for the contrast in texture that it provides.

The garnishes should also be used for texture. Pork floss (also called rousong or pork sung) is a fluffy, dried seasoned pork; pork fu is similar and works equally well here. Sambal ebi is an Indonesian food consisting of small dried shrimps fried in a mixture of chilis and spices. Green onions are also good instead of or in addition to these. Other possibilities include fried shallots, chinese celery, and sliced ginger.

Some recipes call for sesame oil, oyster sauce or soy sauce as seasoning. I recommend these be used in very small quantities, if at all.

Steps

1. Mix the oil and rice in a large pot. Allow 10 minutes for the oil to soak into the rice.

2. Add the water, and bring the pot to a boil. Allow to boil until the rice is largely decomposed, typically 40-50 minutes but perhaps less. (Be careful, it will be very hot and can splatter!)

3. Add the pork, preserved egg, scallops, and ginger, and continue to boil until the pork is cooked.

4. Season the congee, remove from heat, and garnish.

Serves 4

References

This recipe is partly based on the following web pages:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cantonese-Lean-Pork-Congee/Detail.aspx
http://ezinearticles.com/?Hong-Kong-Style-Congee&id=113528

Reply to:

James Lambert, I imagine myself to be a romantic atheist...

March 16, 2010 at 10:23 AM

53 followers

Where oh where is the Julia Child within you Jeremy Stone? You give me a recipe, well explained but I am missing your being, your guidance through the process, your confession of addiction of taste. I like the fullness of your recipe but it wanting for the lack of yourself. I want the smell and taste of the prescribing cook, you only hinted at that. Nevertheless, thank you for what you have given but I want much more of youness, please grace your food with your self.

Reply to: or

Jeremy Stone

In response to James Lambert

March 16, 2010 at 3:12 PM

26 followers

Thanks for the reply. I do see what you mean -- the recipe above is pretty bare-bones -- but my feeling is that a recipe doesn't need to be a story. And can't one reveal something of oneself without these confessions and excesses?

I didn't really think of the recipe as a piece of writing, just a record of my results in the kitchen. But since you raise the question: it seems to me that most good prose writers, whom you may feel you know after reading them, don't actually reveal very much about themselves; their tone can even be quite impersonal. I'd make an even stronger claim of this sort about poetry.

I like Julia Child for (as Anthony Bourdain says with a kind of grudging respect) the fact that her recipes always work, and for the way she changed American home cooking. On television I enjoy her mistakes-and-all manner and her charisma. I don't have much sympathy for the cloud of sentimentality that's settled over her lately, especially in that dreadful biopic. A few glances at her memoir, on which her half of the movie was based, suggest that she wouldn't either. That's not to say that I'm not interested in her life, though; the memoir seems nice.

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