Comfort breakfast: congee
While the average Dutch person starts the day with a sandwich or a bowl of yogurt, in Asia it’s perfectly normal to have rice for breakfast. And Chinese congee (pronounced kon-jee) is what we consider the ultimate comfort breakfast.
Maybe you’ve accidentally ordered it while on holiday in Asia because you saw porridge on the menu and expected oatmeal. Almost every Asian country has its own version of this savory rice porridge.
No skills
Do you always find it difficult to cook the perfect rice? No problem—making congee requires very few skills. You make it by cooking rice in a huge amount of water or stock for a very long time. You just need to know the right proportions.
It may take some getting used to, swapping your daily muesli for a spoonful of this soft rice porridge. And if you’ve never eaten it before, it may not sound very appetizing. But you can vary the toppings endlessly and tailor this brekkie completely to your taste.
Endless toppings
A splash of soy sauce or Shaoxing rice wine is always a good idea, as are paper-thin slices of spring onion and ginger. Keep it vegetarian and add mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, small cubes of tofu, pickled cucumber or corn. Or add marinated ground pork, leftover chicken, salmon or shrimp at the end.
At the table
The most fun option is to give everyone their own bowl of basic congee (you can make it like this) and put the toppings out on the table. Go all out at the Asian grocery store and pick up exotic ingredients such as fermented cabbage and shrimp or a thousand-year egg. Or serve it with a soft-boiled egg, which makes it completely breakfast-proof.
Any time of day
The rice needs to cook for about an hour, so if you always wake up with an unsettled stomach, it’s handy to make it the day before. Then all you have to do in the morning is heat it up. Do use long-grain rice, such as basmati or jasmine, as this gives the best texture. If rice in the morning really isn’t your thing, eat it for lunch or dinner—we do that very often too.
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