Hey Hive!
It's been a while but we're back with more of our home cooking! If you're unfamiliar with this series, it's where I showcase some of the food we've been making at home since we've been cooking a lot nowadays! Both because it's cheaper and also healthier to cook for yourself compared to eating out. While I usually stick to the usual recipes I do like to try new ones once in a while and figured I'd share the new ones I've tried.
As many times as I have made rice, there are some times it doesn't come out perfect and fluffy. Sometimes it's the lack of water, other times it's too much. A few months ago I wound up with imperfect rice so I decided to try and fix it by turning it into congee, or Cantonese rice porridge!
Source: omnivore's cookbook
I don't think I've ever actually made porridge on my own before since I used to eat it a lot in my childhood and got quite sick of it. But this was my chance to try and make it better! I found this recipe and I still had extra frozen fish fillets so it was perfect.
These were the ingredients I used:
- leftover rice (with veggies)
- frozen sutchi fish fillets
- 2-3 cups chicken broth
- 2 tablespoons oyster sauce
- 2 tablespoons shaoxing wine
- 1 teaspoon ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
- 2 tablespoons seasoned soy sauce
Step 1: If you're using frozen fish like I am, the first step is of course to defrost the fish.
Step 2: Once the fish has defrosted, cut the fillets into bite-sized pieces.
Step 3: Marinate the fish by mixing the ginger, soy sauce, oyster sauce, shaoxing wine, salt and pepper. Use your hands to toss the fish to coat and make sure every piece is well coated in the sauce.
Step 4: Cover the bowl with an overturned plate and keep it in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes to marinate.
Step 5: While the fish is marinating, we can prepare the congee. Boil a pot of water and chicken stock and add in the leftover or frozen rice.
Step 6: Cover the leave the lid slightly ajar to avoid it boiling over. Reduce the heat to medium-low and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. Do not stir.
Step 7: While the congee cooks you can prepare more veggies like lettuce, cabbage or some fresh ginger. Since my rice already had vegetables and mushrooms I didn't add anything else.
Step 8: After about 10 minutes, increase the heat to medium-high and stir the congee continuously for a couple of minutes to thicken. After that add in the fish pieces and leave to cook for a few minutes. Once the fish has changed colour it's ready!
You can add in fresh ginger, scallions or spring onions as toppings if you would like. Add salt and pepper if needed.
After that it was ready to serve! We had some fried anchovies (or ikan bilis) in the fridge and I like to add it as a topping to give it some crunch.
It actually turned out really well! The porridge was a nice smooth and soft texture and totally fixed the hard rice I had. It was also nicely seasoned from the marinated fish and the chicken stock. In fact the fish marinate gave it lots of flavour and hardly needed any other seasoning. The fish itself was also nicely cooked and had the perfect soft texture to match the porridge.
Overall I think this was such a good easy recipe that's perfect for rainy days or when someone is ill, or a way to use leftover rice that's healthier than fried rice.
It was only after I cooked this that I realised just how much more portions you can get from 1 cup or so of rice! I didn't have much leftover rice in the tupperware; definitely not enough for the two of us and yet we managed to get 4 bowls of porridge from it! It felt like such a good life hack. So if you're running low on rice this is a good recipe to try as well!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
