Congee

This matters to me because...

I was tested for Covid-19 in late December, and when I called my parents, they reminded me of the best dish I would have when I got sick: congee. It actually was one of the things I didn't like, because of how bland it was, but I looked forward to making it for myself. Having a rice cooker that also had a "Congee" setting helped, but I also added some meets and ingredients to help enhance the flavor and make it my own. I couldn't ask for a better "sick day" dish.

Ingredients

• Rice
• Water
• Chicken breast
• Tilapia fillets
• Salt
• White pepper powder
• Ginger
• Scallion

2 Comments

• I love the peppery, spicy feeling I get when adding ginger and white pepper powder to my congee, despite me being relatively sensitive to spice. Part of it definitely was because of the agitate throat that came from Covid, but the heartiness that comes from congee, coupled with the spice, is just as big of a contributing factor.
• The contrasting freshness that comes from raw scallions on top of the congee is great. Makes the experience of eating what often feels like much a lot more interesting. That might also be the reason why I didn't like eating congee that much growing up. It was just a boring dish to have, despite it being extremely healthy and good for me.

2 Learnings

• I want to make sure I marinade each meal that I add to the congee. It makes sure that there's flavor in each aspect of the dish. I've heard it also helps mellow out the "hot/cold" properties in certain ingredients when cooking them. These come from traditional Chinese medicine knowledge passed down from my ancestors to my parents and now to me. Regardless of how much I believe it (and I do, to a degree), I just like that it adds flavor to my relatively bland congee.
• It's really easy to cause rice to stick to the bottom of the pot when I'm cooking the meat/fish in the congee. Lots of stirring was required after I transferred the congee from the rice cooker to the pot. Definitely worth it the extra effort for the add-ons.

References

My true reference was the call with my parents. The following were resources I've looked at afterwards, but they're very interesting and worth a revisit once in a while.

• A walkthrough by someone who has made a career in cooking at Chinese restaurants (slight bias because the family is also from Guangzhou!): link

• Food research article on the linkage between the traditional Chinese medicine concept of "hot/cold" food properties and common nutrition fact components like vitamins: link