To me, congee is one of those "everything but the kitchen sink" comfort foods. There are so many different ways to make it, and it's difficult to mess it up. This morning I was feeling a bit under the weather, so I immediately thought of cooking up some congee to boost my system. Traditionally I love putting ginger and ground meat, usually pork or beef, into my congee, but I'm out of all those ingredients right now, so improvisation stepped up to create a fresh, brightly-flavored congee.
I started out with cooked brown rice, about a cup, and added it to my dutch oven with 4 cups of warm water. I cooked that down until the consistency was to my liking, which is a moderate thickness. I drizzled a bit of bacon fat into the porridge and added tamari soy sauce, about two tablespoons. I let that cook a bit longer before adding diced baby carrots, red bell pepper and garlic. I let that cook for about a minute then added fresh spinach and turned off the heat. I let the spinach wilt, then plated the congee. For toppings, I flaked some poached salmon I made the night before with turnip greens. I also crumbled bacon and added just a bit. To wrap everything up, I drizzled just a bit of chili oil on top and voila! it was done.
Texture in food is really important for me. Typically I'm not a fan of porridge, pudding or anything that reminds me of gruel. It's mushy, dense and that softness really turns me off. While I love congee, it tends to fall into this category of mushiness. Thus the reason why I decided not to cook the veggies this time. By merely incorporating the fresh veggies at the end of the cooking process, I was able to get them warmed while still maintaining that fresh, crunchy flavor that makes fresh veggies so good. Texture was partially behind adding the bacon as well, but I think that it's important to make sure that the bacon is crumbled into very small pieces, because otherwise it's a bit too intense.
Another diversion from my usual congee had to do with salt. Usually I add salt to the porridge while it's cooking down to help with flavor. If I don't do that, I use a stock or broth instead of water. My stock was past expiration, so I knew I was stuck with water this time. But I chose not to use salt, since I added the soy sauce, bacon and pre-cooked salmon which had salt as well. The resulting flavors were slightly under-stated, but to me that's a good thing. There's nothing worse than having to eat salty food.
I had two servings of this wonderful dish and I feel like I can take on the world. Ginger would have been a great addition to this, and would have helped boost my immune system even more. For someone just learning how to cook, congee is a most forgiving dish, and encourages experimentation and creativity.
