Jook or Rice Congee Starter

Jook, essentially a rice broth or porridge, to me is the equivalent to how I imagine most people feel about Chicken Noodle soup. It's what I want when I'm not feeling well. It settles the stomach and it's just a really nice comfort thing. Plus it's associated with all kinds of memories growing up when my Mom would make it for me and/or the family. One instance in particular stands out...when I got my wisdom teeth out and couldn't really eat much and my stomach felt all gross after the 'surgery.' (Does it count as a surgery if they put you out for it?) My mom made a pot of this when we got home and kept it on the stove for me for whenever I felt like I could keep something down. *Sigh* reminiscing...

But for the longest time I really had no idea how on earth to make it. I did try on a couple of occasions, but it always ended up a pretty ridiculously goopy mess usually with a thick layer of it stuck to the bottom of the pan. Definitely not what you want and nothing quite like what I remembered from when my mom made it. It wasn't until I tried doing the ratios from this blog that I got consistent results that actually tasted great.

So this is a basic variation of Appetite for China's vegetarian variation (she also has a chicken one) that originally came from the New York Times. I call it a starter because from this point you could add pretty much anything to personalize it to your taste. I usually add stripped up pieces of ham or something, though you could add pretty much any meat and anything else you might like to throw in there. I don't make as large of a batch as she does, mainly because we wouldn't be able to eat that much (serves 6-8 people) and I don't currently have a pot anywhere near large enough to make a batch that large. Now if only I could find the dried crumbled fish that my mom also used to have...think bacon bits, but with fish...sounds weird but it's fantastic on this!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 cup rice, uncooked
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 3-4 cups water
• 1 Tbsp grated ginger
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Dash of white pepper
• 1/4 tsp sesame oil
• Green onion for garnish

PREPARATION:

1. Combine rice, stock, and water, bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat and simmer for an hour and a half stirring on occasion and adding more water as necessary to keep essentially same ratio as when you started.
3. Add all remaining ingredients, except garnish, at some point during the simmering process depending on how strong you want the other flavors incorporated. I sometimes add it in right after reducing the heat to simmer. Sometimes not until later, in kind of just depends on whenever I get everything else all ready to go.
4. When consistency of rice is as desired (sometimes you want the rice a little more formed and sometimes I like completely broken down-I guess this makes more sense if you're familiar with jook and you've made it before...) serve hot, throw green onions on top and enjoy!