I’d long heard of it, and decided to make some tonight in my Instant Pot.
Approximate recipe:
3/4 cup short-grain rice
6 cups water
Onion powder and garlic powder
A dash of red/black pepper mix, and a dash of ginger
One can of Hormel Chicken
45 minutes on pressure, and then let it come down for about 20 minutes. Released pressure, and am eating a bowlful right now. Mmmmmm!
I may later make some where I fry up onions and use fresh chicken, but this was fine for now.
Early in our marriage there was a year it was just the two of us for Thanksgiving (my wife worked for a small daily newspaper, so holidays weren’t guaranteed.) After we had done everything we could think of with the leftovers, we consulted the Betty Crocker International cookbook and decided to try congee rather than carcass soup. It was good, but pre pressure cooker it wasn’t worth the time. Time to try it again with fresher ingredients and better equipment. Plus, 35 or so years on I’ll probably appreciate the porridge consistency more.
A friend of mine always put sliced Chinese sausage in hers. Yum!
With hard boiled eggs. Yum.
I saw a few YT videos on how to make it, and it seems to be something made in a Crock Pot (or, back in the day, set on a low-fired stove) overnight, for breakfast.
My Chinese relatives live on Chicken. And Rice. And Chicken Rice. And sometimes (particularly the old ones) Chicken Rice Porridge (probably with just chicken stock added, made from the bones and scraps of the many chickens).
My mother is from Korea. She likes rice, and rice soup, and rice porridge, but given her preference, it’s going to be a vegetable soup/porridge.
I need some kind of pickled vegetables (e.g. mustard root) to drop in my congee. The Chinese long donut is optional.
I’ve seen a multitude of savory recipes from southeast Asia, and sweet recipes from Scandinavia. I may also try some of those.
I know rice isn’t native to Scandinavia, but they may have been adapted from other grains native to the region.
Century eggs, baby, Century eggs.
No, thanks! (Sorry.)
Come on…tear the locks from the doors! Tear the very doors from their jambs! Those eggs are TASTY in the jook.
I’ve only had them in Brooklyn or Manhattan Chinatown restaurants, though. Don’t, uh, keep them in the house.
Jook is always something I mostly was fed only when I was sick growing up, so I still associate it with that.
My father would make it every now and then (and still makes it occasionally), and whenever he does he makes a big pot and goes through the fridge and just tosses in pretty much whatever he finds. It’s “Dad’s Surprise Jook.” You never know what’s going to be in there.
Asians really know how to do rice porridge! Congee is good, but Indonesian bubur is even more insanely good. It’s really about the toppings, just like luscious popcorn is about the salt, butter, and more exotic flavorings like cheese, sugar, chili powder, or whatever.
Indonesians top their bubur ayam (literally, chicken-rice porridge) with, among other things:
…and probably six or seven other things I’m forgetting. Anyway, the point is: be creative! A good basic rice porridge, well flavored with chicken broth and/or coconut milk, is a palette for you to add all kinds of deliciousness.
Mmmmmm…
Cairocarol, that sounds really good! Thanks for telling me about it.
Your basic recipe sounds great. (Possibly vary by substituting some coconut milk for part of the water, or add part of a packet of powdered coconut milk to the existing mix).
Hate it, it is a textural problem for me. Not pleasant at all. I’ve got much more palatable ways of cooking rice.