Fantastic video! Tried the recipe but still confused why my congee didn't end up with that milky white appearance. Mine appeared more translucent/ gluggier? I used jasmine rice and made sure to rinse it thoroughly prior to cooking. Would cooking it longer give me this result? Or potentially my pot was too wide for the amount of rice/water I was using? 3/4 cup rice : 12 cups water? I've seen some of the congee pots have a rounded narrower base and tall dimensions? Does this increase the changes of the rice grains smashing into eachother when boiling?
Do you have any suggestions for batch cooking the topping? Can you freeze the sliced marinated fish? Pre-cook it and freeze it? We love congee for breakfast but are trying to make it 5 minutes in the microwave max each day, with some batch cooking each week.
possibly a dumb question, but I can't get a good feel for how many servings there are from following the recipe in the video. Does it end up to be around 2 bowls as shown at 7.19 in the video? thanks!
Hi, I was wondering if you've heard of freezing rice for congee. I've seen lots of people saying to freeze washed rice, and the bits of water in the rice will expand and crack the grains. It doesn't look visibly different than normal rice, but it also cooks into congee faster. Is this a good equivalent, or does breaking it first lead to a better texture?
Also, do you have any good suggestions for toppings / additions for a vegetarian?
Yep, I've heard the same thing about frozen rice. Not sure how broken vs frozen compares side by side, as we've always marinated our rice before freezing. But there's enough people that swear by it that I'm sure it's a legit approach :)
For vegetarian congees, it's a little hard to say things that're *specifically* this sort of Shunde-style Shenggunzhou, as it's almost always thinly sliced meat? Some ideas nonetheless:
* Taro (you can cook this in with the congee)
* Pumpkin (ditto)
* Tofu skin (ditto)
* Ginko (ditto)
* Century egg (often cooked with the congee, but you can also top it)
* Shiitake mushroom (marinate the mushroom, reconstitute first if dried)
* All sorts of fermented pickled vegetable (this is less a Cantonese obsession, but still goes quite well. You can look up some Teochew congee for some inspiration)
In the coming month or two, we'll be covering some Guangxi 'over-rice'/'over-congee' dishes, which would likely be much more directly vegetarian and the like
wanted to mention this rice freezing tip - it is what i used to do when i was a grad student in the us. learnt this from 阿基师, a taiwanese chef. there is a video of him demonstrating this on some taiwanese tv cooking show that can be seen on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do470MQVOsw.
scientifically, i think the concept is about the ice crystals helping to cut open / burst the rice cells and release the starch within rather than the bits of water expanding and cracking the grains, though i suppose the concept is not dissimilar.
kenji lopez-alt also mentions this concept several times (though not for rice specifically) in his work. from what i can tell the first instance of him mentioning this is in his gazpacho recipe on serious eats (https://www.seriouseats.com/andalusian-gazpacho-recipe), where he cites having come across the idea via aki kamozawa and h. alexander talbot: "The idea is that as ice forms inside the vegetables' cells, the sharp, jagged crystals end up rupturing and weakening the walls of the cells." he also mentions this in his book, the food lab: "Freezing potatoes causes their moisture to convert to ice, forming sharp, jagged crystals. These crystals damage the cell structure of the poatoes, making it easier for water to be released and convert to steam when they are heated ...".
Thank you so much! This is a wealth of information! Hopefully other vegetarians can see this and benefit as well.
It can be hard to research this more homestyle Chinese food in English, and you are definitely the best source around. I don't know if others would agree, but I find lists like this (there are some in other of your videos too, the dumpling one comes to mind) of common flavor pairings or ingredients to use are so helpful. Obviously you can only focus on one or two in a video, but having a list of traditional and tested options can be so helpful as a jumping off point.
Fantastic video! Tried the recipe but still confused why my congee didn't end up with that milky white appearance. Mine appeared more translucent/ gluggier? I used jasmine rice and made sure to rinse it thoroughly prior to cooking. Would cooking it longer give me this result? Or potentially my pot was too wide for the amount of rice/water I was using? 3/4 cup rice : 12 cups water? I've seen some of the congee pots have a rounded narrower base and tall dimensions? Does this increase the changes of the rice grains smashing into eachother when boiling?
Do you have any suggestions for batch cooking the topping? Can you freeze the sliced marinated fish? Pre-cook it and freeze it? We love congee for breakfast but are trying to make it 5 minutes in the microwave max each day, with some batch cooking each week.
Hmm... could always go with more humble options like pickles and such :) You could maybe look at Teochew congee for inspiration on that front?
I personally wouldn't freeze sliced fish like that. But maybe you could marinate the evening before and fridge until the following morning?
Thank you! Love your videos.
possibly a dumb question, but I can't get a good feel for how many servings there are from following the recipe in the video. Does it end up to be around 2 bowls as shown at 7.19 in the video? thanks!
Yep, two servings. Sorry about that
Hi, I was wondering if you've heard of freezing rice for congee. I've seen lots of people saying to freeze washed rice, and the bits of water in the rice will expand and crack the grains. It doesn't look visibly different than normal rice, but it also cooks into congee faster. Is this a good equivalent, or does breaking it first lead to a better texture?
Also, do you have any good suggestions for toppings / additions for a vegetarian?
Yep, I've heard the same thing about frozen rice. Not sure how broken vs frozen compares side by side, as we've always marinated our rice before freezing. But there's enough people that swear by it that I'm sure it's a legit approach :)
For vegetarian congees, it's a little hard to say things that're *specifically* this sort of Shunde-style Shenggunzhou, as it's almost always thinly sliced meat? Some ideas nonetheless:
* Taro (you can cook this in with the congee)
* Pumpkin (ditto)
* Tofu skin (ditto)
* Ginko (ditto)
* Century egg (often cooked with the congee, but you can also top it)
* Shiitake mushroom (marinate the mushroom, reconstitute first if dried)
* All sorts of fermented pickled vegetable (this is less a Cantonese obsession, but still goes quite well. You can look up some Teochew congee for some inspiration)
In the coming month or two, we'll be covering some Guangxi 'over-rice'/'over-congee' dishes, which would likely be much more directly vegetarian and the like
wanted to mention this rice freezing tip - it is what i used to do when i was a grad student in the us. learnt this from 阿基师, a taiwanese chef. there is a video of him demonstrating this on some taiwanese tv cooking show that can be seen on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do470MQVOsw.
scientifically, i think the concept is about the ice crystals helping to cut open / burst the rice cells and release the starch within rather than the bits of water expanding and cracking the grains, though i suppose the concept is not dissimilar.
kenji lopez-alt also mentions this concept several times (though not for rice specifically) in his work. from what i can tell the first instance of him mentioning this is in his gazpacho recipe on serious eats (https://www.seriouseats.com/andalusian-gazpacho-recipe), where he cites having come across the idea via aki kamozawa and h. alexander talbot: "The idea is that as ice forms inside the vegetables' cells, the sharp, jagged crystals end up rupturing and weakening the walls of the cells." he also mentions this in his book, the food lab: "Freezing potatoes causes their moisture to convert to ice, forming sharp, jagged crystals. These crystals damage the cell structure of the poatoes, making it easier for water to be released and convert to steam when they are heated ...".
Thank you so much! This is a wealth of information! Hopefully other vegetarians can see this and benefit as well.
It can be hard to research this more homestyle Chinese food in English, and you are definitely the best source around. I don't know if others would agree, but I find lists like this (there are some in other of your videos too, the dumpling one comes to mind) of common flavor pairings or ingredients to use are so helpful. Obviously you can only focus on one or two in a video, but having a list of traditional and tested options can be so helpful as a jumping off point.