Simple Congee

When you are away from your family it is always good to know a thing or two about congee. It certainly helps. Like chicken soups, they are like the Asian version of home-cooking when you are unwell and refuse to eat that your mother usually whip out from her magical kitchen onto the bowl.

Having said that, congee does seem to be a boring dish to almost everyone that I ask. But when your mother's not around and you are sick as a dog, could be a kitchen disaster to whip up. Here's the recipe for just the congee. Any additional ingredients may be added later except for the ones you need to add early on which are listed in this recipe.

Also just to note this is not the recipe for cooking congee that restaurants usually serve. This is more like the thick chunky less watery version of congee.

NB. It would be wise to do this hours before you need to eat it.

Ingredients

1 cup of rice grains
4 cups of water (if you think you need more you can always add later)
1 tbsp of sticky rice grains (OPTIONAL)
1 carrot, cut into chunks (OPTIONAL)

Method

1. Put the rice grains and sticky rice grains inside a pot (preferably with a lid) and wash. Add water and carrot and bring to boil on high heat. You don't have to stir the ingredients around at this point so just leave it until it boils.

2. After boiling stir the content around every once in a while with a wooden spoon. This is to prevent burning the bottom of the pot. Lower heat to low to medium after congee thickens and begins to splatter around in the pot.
(note: stir at the bottom of the pot to check whether any of the congee are sticking to the pot, if you think there are chunks stuck onto the bottom carefully scrape them with the wooden spoon)

3. After a while the content should thicken and the carrot cooked well. Keep stirring and keep in mind the splattering congee because it will burn your hand. (no, seriously, it will, I've had a few scars on my hand because of it)

4. Make sure the congee is really thick and coagulated well (the way I see it all I can see is melted rice, but again that's just really vague description for reference) and then put the pot lid on. Turn heat until very high for about 10 seconds and turn off the stove.

5. Leave for about half an hour until the rice really has soaked the water and 'melted'. Stir around the pot and scrape any chunks of congee stuck on the bottom of pot.

6. Enjoy. : )

Note: If you are thinking of keeping the congee for another day or two I suggest not to add salt until you want to eat it. This is to prevent the congee from going sour. Though having said that the last time I added salt it went bad after four days. ... yes, I've done it before.

To Serve

• Grilled Bacon Congee
• Bubur Manado

To Re-Heat

Option 1: Microwave

Option 2: Steam in a steamer

Option 3: Re-heat on stove with a little bit of water and stir around until hot

Serve 1 to 2 people. May be stored for 2 or 3 days in fridge.