Chicken congee with confit shallot

Chicken congee with confit shallot, originally uploaded by yongtze.

Having tried the congee (rice porridge) in Wonton House on Russell street near Chinatown (by the way the wonton, congee, and claypot rice there are the one of the best I have tried in Melbourne!), I decided to cook some congee for dinner tonight.

I used to hate congee in primary and high school but now I'm loving it. It's absolutely comforting, especially in winter. I'm cooking the Cantonese-style congee today, in which it requires cooking the rice with lots of water (about 1:10 ratio) with low heat for at least 1 hour or so until the rice breaks down and becomes a fairly viscous and creamy porridge (unlike the Hakka-style where less water is used and only cook for about 20-30 minutes and the rice is just tender but doesn't break down).

For more flavour, I slowly cooked some shallot with oil to serve with congee, kind of a Hokkien influence from my family.

Serves 2:

- 1 cup of jasmine rice
- salt
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 10 cups of water or chicken stock, or mixture of both
- 1 good knob of young ginger, cut into thin shreds
- 2 chicken breast fillets
- 2 shallots, thinly sliced
- sesame oil
- soy sauce

1. Wash and drain the rice. Put the rice in a big pot. Add in 1 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon vegetable oil, mix well. Set aside for 10 minutes. Let the grain to soak up the oil.

2. Add water/stock to the rice. Bring it to boil. Turn down the heat to a medium low, stirring occasionally. Simmer for 25 minutes. Meanwhile, marinate the chicken with 1 tablespoon soy sauce and 1 tablespoon sesame oil.

3. Add the chicken into the rice porridge. Cook for 5-10 minutes or until the fillets are just cooked. Take out the chicken and leave it aside to cool down.

4. Add half of the ginger into congee. Season the congee with some salt and cook for a further 20 minutes.

5. Add 1 teaspoon of soy sauce and sesame oil into the serving bowl, also about 1 teaspoon of ginger shreds. Tear the chicken fillets into thin strips and put half of them into the cooking congee. Divide the rest and place them into the serving bowl, together with the soy sauce, sesame oil and ginger mixture. Once the chicken goes into the cooking congee, briefly cook for another 5 minutes and the congee is ready.

6. Confit shallot: slowly cook the shallots with oil over very low heat for about 10 minutes until very crispy. Keep the oil together with the shallot.

7. To serve: Pour congee into the serving bowl, mix well with the soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and chicken strips mixture. Place some confit shallot and its cooking oil on the congee.

Optional: Some thinly sliced spring onion on the congee to serve.