Poor littlej is sick in bed
The warmer weather seems to have stirred up any latent flu bugs and in a desperate effort to get as many victims as possible, they are jumping on anyone foolish enough to have run 3.5kms in sleet last week for school athletics before staying up to 1am to finish off a Science project.... Oh dear, at least she'll learn her lesson before college when pressure and performance really start to pile on
Eating really hasn't been fun between sniffles and sneezing, so to coax her to partake of some nourishment I put together one of the ultimate comfort foods out there- Congee
So warming, so soothing, not much chewing or digestive energy required, and did I mention delicious? Perfect invalid food, or for when you just want a big bowl of hugs instead
Congee has so many variations, but I stuck to a very basic one with chicken stock, ginger and spring onion being the main flavouring. The thickness of the soup or porridge is also open to interpretation, but I favour a fairly thick mix and use a 1:12 ratio of rice to stock to make mine juuuuust riiiight
Cosy Chicken Congee
1/2 cup Jasmine Rice
6 cups Chicken Stock
2 or three Spring Onions
thumb size piece of Ginger
1 teaspoon Sesame Oil
big pinch White Pepper
Toppings to taste- keep reading
Peel the ginger, then cut it into nice thin matchsticks. Give the spring onions a bit of a bash with your knife just to encourage them to give up their yumminess during cooking
Pop the rice and sesame oil in your rice cooker (or pot) and give it a good mix through, then add in everything else and stir once or twice
Pop the lid on, set and forget! I love using my rice cooker this way, it's such a gentle way of cooking and I don't have to fuss with it at all. If you are using the stove top instead, you need to very gently and slowly simmer your congee for at least an hour or until the rice really starts to break down and loose it's shape definition
My rice cooker takes three cooking cycles to get the congee the way I like it. As you can see it bubbles away getting quite thick and gluggy- but don't worry, that's the right consistency
This is the congee after cooking, each little rice grain is desperately trying to maintain it's structurally integrity, but you can see it's a losing battle
Now give the congee a good brisk stir and glorious gloopiness will result. See the lovey golden strands of ginger? They are nice and soft as well and add a lovely subtle sweetness when you bite into them
If you're not sick and have a decent appetite, one of the really fun things about congee is the toppings! You can jazz it up any way you want, but some of my favourites are: drizzling with gf soy sauce, a few drops of sesame oil, finely sliced spring onions, coriander, sliced boiled eggs, crispy fried onion and garlic. You can also include sliced chicken, pork or fish, fried tofu or just about anything that takes your fancy- Yummo!
So Dear Readers, would this tempt your appetite and what's your tried-and-true recipe for the flu?
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