Chicken Congee
By: Køkken69
Published: Thursday, February 18, 2010 - 4:32pm

Ingredients




Thai Rice                      1cup (about 120g)

Water/ Chicken Stock  1.5litre with more hot water on st
tablespoon Glutinous Rice Flour      1  mixed with 100ml water and mixed well
inch Chicken                         I used left over chicken. If start from scratch,
seasoned with salt, pepper and 2 slices of ginger.

Sesame Oil

Preparation

1 Chicken - shred cooked chicken meat  and season with a little soya sauce and sesame oil. 2 Wash Rice and coat with a few drops of sesame oil. 3 In a heavy saucepan, add water, rice, pinch of salt, 2 slices of young ginger. Bring the water to boil. Once water starts to boil, reduce heat and boil the congee gently until rice starts to split and turns viscous. Add hot water or chicken stock if the mixture becomes to thick before the rice is cooked. Stir the congee at intervals to prevent the rice from sticking to the saucepan. 4 Once rice has split and turns viscous, add in the glutinous rice flour/ water mixture and stir continuously until the congee becomes a smooth creamy consistency. Add more hot water if the congee becomes too thick. 5 Ladle into serving bowl. Garnish with shredded chicken, shredded ginger, You Tiao and diced spring onion.

About


 I decided to cook Gai Chok (Chicken Congee) prepared the Cantonese way to achieve a smooth, velvety glue like texture as oppose to the loose grainy version of the Teochew Porridge. Grainy or gruel like, plain or savoury, I like them all. In my opinion, this is the best comfort food there is. Light yet sustaining, warm and soothing, the porridge is the type of food we turn to when :
1. we are too sick to have an appetite to chew and digest;
2. feeding the very young and very old where a semi fluid food is most easily consumed;
3. in this case, the stomach still feels heavy from 4 consecutive days of festive binging.