[engee]

Hai

My 20 month old son loves chinese congee.
I dono how its made but it tastes really good.
From where i come(india) congee has no particular procedures.rice is cooked well thats all.I guess here something else is added.i donowhat.
even the plain congee tastes good.
Can someone tell me howto make chinese congee?
one more help-
chinese soups-the vegetable soups we get here are not just vegetables cooked wellin water.r they?
coz when i tried that itdin tatse a bit like the chinese soups.itried adding soya soya chill isauce but heheheee din taste good.
can someone help me with chinese soup recipes as well?

Thanx somuch for ur time!

[Wee Kean]

Hi, Engee,

I bought a rice and congee cooker which is really good for making congee. There are many ways in making congee. This is what I do:

First, I put the rice in with water (double or more water of the amount of the rice, e.g: 1:3) together with different meat/vegetable. For example: chicken breast and carrot (cut into small cubes) If you want it to be tasty, you can add some salt but I never add any salt in my daughter's congee. If you want the congee to be really mashy, soak the rice in water overnight. I like to add dried scallops and dried anchovies together with different type of vegetables.

Soup: boiled pork (meat and bones) or chicken (meat and bones) in hotwater. Take the meat out. This is to "take away" the blood. Boil another pot of water and put the meat in together with different vegetable. Cooked for about 2 hours. You can add salt at the end but I never did.

My daughter likes these soups: white carrot (turnip?) with red dates; lotus root with peanuts and red dates; carrot, potatoes, tomato and ShiChuan pickle; carrot, coconut and sweet corn etc. You can buy soup packs from Wellcome too.

Hope the above helps.

[mary_spc]

Hi Engee,

<SOUP>
There are some excellent bilingual CHINESE SOUP cookbooks from Page One. The one I recommend the most is written by the father of Karen Mok (HK singer). It’s called << Nutritious Soups for My Dearest Karen >> .

I became really interested in homemade Chinese soups & herbal teas when I was first pregnant. My son has been drinking soup daily since he was 1-yr-old. So far, he is always in good health & is rarely sick, which I firmly believe is b/c of the highly nutritious soups. Plus we always use spareribs, which has extra calcium for growing toddlers.

Most Chinese soups do involve many dried ingredients listed below which is now available in most supermarkets (though for better quality, you should go to Chinese dried goods store or herbalist.). These are the common inexpensive stuff.
- Red Dates
- Dried Longan
- Candid Dates
- Qi Zi
- Dried Figs
- Bitter & Sweet Almond
-
You have to be careful when you purchase these expensive dried ingredients to make sure it’s genuine and supplier is reliable.
- Cordyceps
- Abalones
- Tian Qi
- Dried Cod Maw
- Ginseng
- Bird’s Nest

That said, great soup doesn’t have to be complicated & you can also make using fresh vegetables such as tomato, carrot, green turnip, watercress, lotus root, Chinese white cabbage …

Soups are mostly cooked over low heat for at least 2 hrs. Salt is added last just before serving, but we find we rarely need to. Kee kee… just FYI, we never add soy-sauce to soups or congee since boiling soy-sauce makes it go sour.

<CONGEE>
Every family has their own recipe. For children, we always used a homemade stock (pork, chicken) or otherwise packaged organic chicken broth. Add washed uncooked rice. For ‘ChiuChow” style, it’s cooked 20 mins only on high heat, without lid. For “Cantonese” style it can be cooked for hours on low heat until all rice has dissolved. Then add any meat you like and boil again until meat is cooked. For children, we add chopped carrot or spinach (iron) or other vegetables.

For plain white congee, well it’s just rice, lots of water and maybe a slice of ginger.

Enjoy cooking!!!

[prisneo]

Minced Pork Porridge or Congee

Ingredients:
75g of minced Pork
1 handful of dry scallop
1 handful of dry silverfish
1 cup of mixed vegetables
2 cups of rice grains
water

Methods:
1. Rinse and soak dry scallop and dry silverfish for 15 minutes.
2. Wash and rinse rice grains, add clean dry scallop and dry silverfish and add water into the pot and bring to boil.
3. Keep it boiling until the rice grains are cooked well like congee, add in the mixed vegetables.
4. Add some hot boiling water into the minced pork and mixed well, then add everything into the boiling congee and stir.
5. Leave it to cook for about 10 minutes more before serving with parleys, spring onion, sesame oil, a little of light soy sauce (if desire) and some pepper.

Happy trying!!

Pris

[engee]

Fabulous!!!

Thanku somuch guys forallthe recipes/Ishalldefinitely try themout!

[mammalicious]

could i feed my 7 month old dried scallops in congee or best to wait until older? i plan to make just plain lean pork with some veggies she's already tried and ok with, or with chicken. then to blend it in the blender to make it pastey.

sounds so yummy, i'm going to make some of the above recipes for myself!!

[mary_spc]

Dried Scallop is hard to digest, so I wouldn't suggest it for a baby 7 months. Best to wait until baby is at least 12 months.

Cheers

[spsmok]

I wouldn't put dried scallop for a 7-month-old. For older babies, i would put it in for taste, but would still drain it before I give it to the babies.