Do you have a favorite dish when you’re sick or have a cold?  Growing up, chicken porridge or congee  was my comfort food. In Chinese, it’s called Jook. Whenever I had the sniffles or any sign of a sore throat, I could be sure that my grandmother would lovingly serve me a bowl of porridge. Just thinking about it brings back fond memories of my grandmother’s cooking. Mmmm… I could remember the fragrant smell of ginger as the porridge simmers in the pot. To this day, I could eat rice porridge any day, and when I do make it, I usually ended up eating too big of a bowl. And thus my comfort food!

I have to warn you that this is not a low-carb food if you’re on a low-carb or the Paleo diet.

This comfort food of mine is starting to be our family favorites.  Last weekend, when we came back from our church retreat, we were all exhausted and some of us were under the weather.   So, I turned to my kitchen and lovingly prepared one big crockpot full of brown rice chicken porridge. Boy, did it hit the spot! Manners aside, my little girl picked up her bowl with her two hands, and poured the last drops of the porridge into her mouth. Then when dinnertime came, my big boy asked if I were serving porridge. My brown rice chicken porridge was a hit! Here are the easy and quick steps:

Ingredients:

1 cup brown rice
8 quarts of homemade chicken broth or cans
shredded chicken
cilantro chopped
green onion chopped
dash of sea salt
ginger (peeled and cut into thin slivers)
ground white pepper (optional)

Instructions:

1. Wash brown rice and put it in an 8-quart crockpot and add chicken broth to about 1 ½ inch from the rim of the pot.
2. Turn crockpot on to low setting and let it cook for about 6 hours. I usually turn it on before I head to bed and when I wake up, my porridge’s ready for me.
3. We like our porridge thin, so I usually have to add a little more hot broth or hot water before we serve it.
4. While the porridge is hot, add chicken, cilantro, green onion and slivers of ginger to taste. Over here, we love cilantro and green onion so we put those in our soups generously. All my three kids also liked having the ginger in their porridge.
5. Lastly, add a little white pepper (optional)

Note: We like our green onion softened by the hot porridge, so I usually put the green onion in the bowl first before I add the porridge.

If you were to order porridge at a Chinese restaurant, it usually comes with Chinese deep fried bread sticks, also known as Youtiao. They are also available at your local Asian supermarkets.

pictures credit

DIY chicken broth:

I generally use one to two chicken carcass and add enough water to cover it, about 8 quarts of water. Any kind of chicken bones would be okay. Add one small onion and five medium slices of ginger. Bring the liquid to a boil and reduce to a very slow simmer for about 3 hours or longer. I’ve simmered chicken for 6 hours and what I got is darker, thicker, reduced chicken broth. When chicken broth is done, use a fine metal sieve and drain the liquid into a big bowl or another pot. Toss bones and whatever’s left in the sieve. This reduced stock is perfect for freezing when you’re not using right away. When you’re ready to use this broth, thaw and add more water to dilute.

For quinoa soup, read Easy Peruvian Quinoa Chowder. For a kale soup recipe, click Zuppa Soup.