Congee, An Old Favourite

My buddy Brian was talking about craving deep fried bread dough that is normally a Chinese breakfast/brunch item served with congee or wrapped in a rice noodle and dipped in sesame butter/paste/sauce – Chinese tahini and hoisin.

For me, its original pairing was congee, (AKA rice porridge, rice gruel and jook in Cantonese). Whatever you call it. I remember it being a weekend staple where my mom would take a bunch of water, some rice, ground pork, conpoy (dried scallop) and century egg and boil then simmer it for a while. She eyeballed the proportions and generally got it right enough for her standards. My dad, on the other hand, preferred it thick and would go for slices of meat and typically rape greens (the plant that is responsible for rape seed, aka Canola seed oil). Later, they would venture into making fish congee with sliced up bits of ginger to go with it. Crack a fresh egg into the bottom of the bowl before ladling hot congee on top to partially cook the egg so that the yolk was still jammy.

I was a mid to late teenager working at Woodside Square’s Scarborough Library branch where a Mauritian couple who ran a fish ‘n chip kiosk started adding chicken congee to their offerings. They threw chicken legs in at the beginning and by the time I got to it, the fat rendered out and the meat had fallen off the bone. Seasoned with salt and I don’t doubt some MSG, it was a yummy bowl of goodness especially on a cold winter day.

I eventually forgot about congee and having moved away from home and settled down to domestic life with a non-Chinese wife, I could pick and choose what I liked to eat. Toronto was my proverbial oyster and I was partaking. Forward a few years and I joined the recreational Dragon boat team at work. The day of our race on Center Island, there were food stalls. A beach bum of a Canadian born Chinese (CBC) guy walks up and in a very loud and happy voice exclaims

“Hey! It’s chicken jook!”
The mix of Cantonese and English and the accent sounded funny and back into my very easily influenced mind went congee.

Nowadays, I don’t buy congee while out at a restaurant. It’s too simple for the price, in my opinion. I suppose if it were with lobster or some other thing that would be more work to get those ingredients, I might. But there are often so many other things that my tastebuds want when I go out to eat at those Cantonese greasy chopstick places.

For me, 6 cups of water, half cup of rice (If I’m lazy, I might not even rinse the rice. Hey, there’s valuable starches that go down the drain!), throw it into a slow cooker the night before and set it for a 10 hour slow cook. Hearty extra ingredients like chicken or pork, I’d throw that in at the beginning. Otherwise, do it in the morning before I eat. Easy peasy lemon squeazy.

In recent years, with the influence of other family members, (Thank You Amelia), I’ve gotten a little more adventurous beyond the pork and preserved egg or fish and ginger. Two of the kids, Laura and Sam seem to have either accepted or taken a liking to it. Nice to see tastebuds maturing.

At any rate, I present today’s congee concoction.

Instant pot, sure. I think it needs a stick blender at the end of a pressure cook. The slow cooker has been maligned in recent years but I think this is the perfect application of the technology. Everything just breaks down perfectly.

Considering the delicacy of fish and shellfish as well as the egg, I decided to take the finished plain congee and do a separate cook with the additional ingredients. A sprinkle of Hondashi (bonito soup stock powder) flavours the congee along with a dash of salt in a separate pot on the stove.

Adding the scallops, shrimp and egg for a few minutes until the flesh cooked and then serving in my nice blue Asian inspired bowl by Lynn Heath pottery.