My Journal

Congee (粥 zhōu) is very popular, especially for breakfast. Some people prefer to add sour vegetable or furu (腐乳) to it which is really delicious! My husband eats congee every morning, at first, I didn't like it. Now, I love it a lot. It's really delicious and healthy-it has not even a drop of oil in it.

The very basic congee is rice congee. But people really put everything in it such as corn meal, variuos types of beans (red, green, etc), oatmeals, black rice, brown rice, barney,  etc... See picture below.

How to make congee:

The easiest way is to buy a crockpot (slow cooker). Crocpot here is designed to make congee. Just a push a button with timer and ready to go. It takes 4 hours usually to make congee.

THE KEY is: to soak all those grains overnight. I usually do it before going to bed. The congee tastes better and softer when the grains are soaked a few hours before cooked.

The proportion of the amount of grain with water is about 1: 8. That means for 1/2 cup grains, use 4 cups of water. Roughly... This should make enough congee for 2 people.

Convenional way: Use pot and stove

The proportion of grain to water is about 1: 12.

Put the grains inside the pot with water, when the water boils, turn the fire to be really low. Cover.

Depending on the type of grain it takes about one hour, but it varies, really. For example: Rice congee takes about 1/2 hour, also cornmeal and rice. But red beans take 2 hrs, at least, to be soft. Black rice takes about 1 hr to be soft, etc...

NOTES: 

Be sure to stir often otherwise the congee will stick to the pot and get burnt.

Use Big pot so the water won't spill to stove, especially later when the congee is almost cooked, it forms lots of foams. 

You can open the pot so you don't have to worry about the spilling, but be sure to check the water, is it dried up?

It's really cumbersome to cook congee using conventional way. Using crockpot is by far more convenient and deliciuos since it won't get burnt :(

Additional info:

 Grain soaked in a crockpot

Congee is done! This one is rice + oats + brown rice

Various Congee: 

Congee with 松花蛋 (sōng huā dàn)

 I cooked rice congee for 3 hours and added 松花蛋 in the last one hour. I cut it into six pieces.

Congee with rice and green bean

Congee with rice, cornmeal and xiao mi

Congee with rice and red beans

Congee with rice, brown rice, and cornmeal