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I was looking for a way to use fish broth and ingredients I had on hand. Internet searching found a fun site which talked about a rice porridge/soup dish called congee. I thought that sounded like a pretty good way to use the fish broth and combined some of the congee ideas to come up with a very yummy side dish which easily could have been our main dish.
Congee is supposed to be a kind of soup. It is made however thick that the person consuming it wishes it to be. When I made it instead of making a soup consistency I made it more of a casserole consistency (which I felt went better with our dinner). Congee is amazingly frugal with the most basic congee being rice and water. I upped the nutrition value a bit using bone broth and a few veggies. Even with those changes is was still incredibly inexpensive.
Congee Basics
1 cup white or brown rice rinsed until the water runs clear (the idea is to remove most of the starch)
6-12 cups of water or bone broth (depending on how thick you want your congee to be)
Combine the rice and water in a rice cooker (do not fill your rice cooker more than 70% to allow room for cooking). If you do not have a rice cooker you can cook it on the stove top. But for ease of preparation I loved using the rice cooker.
Add three thinly sliced carrots
Put the cover on the cooker and turn it on. I went back and stirred it every 10 minutes or so to help break down the rice. In this picture I used 1 1/4 cup white rice (I try to make food familiar when I’m trying new things and my family loves white rice. Next time I’ll use brown), 7 cups fish stock and the carrots.
While the rice was cooking I cooked some kale and mushrooms in coconut oil.
When the rice was finished cooking (my rice cooker shut itself off of cook onto warm and it looked good and done). I stirred in the kale/mushroom mixture and 2 teaspoons of coconut oil.
Here is the finished dish. Rich with healthy bone broth, carrots, kale and coconut oil. The options for making this ‘Congee’ are endless and I look forward to making this again.
Have you ever had congee? What was in it?
>Hi Millie, glad you found my site fun. I also love the way you improvised to suit your preference. Your congee looks good. Fish broth, rice, kale and mushrooms together, got to taste good. 🙂
Phoebe from homemade-chinese-soups.com
>Phoebe,
I had a great time looking around your site. You have some very good recipes and many things I want to try.