Congee keeps you full despite being mainly water based. As you can see from the recipe, only 1 cup of rice is used. 1 cup of rice is 2 meals, but by making it into congee, it’s for up to 5 meals. The taste is far better than rice, and if you’re a student like me, you buy Sainsbury’s basics Long Grain rice, which tastes absolutely horrible on its own. I usually add chicken stock to add flavour to it, but this is another alternative way of cooking rice.

It saves you both time and money. After cooking the congee, if you have extras, just pop it in the fridge and consume it within 4 days. Just heat the amount you need for your meal and you’re done!

During my trip to Singapore, I was on a plain congee diet because I could not eat proteins (I had a horrible case of urticaria). I roughly know what tastes are in the porridge, and this recipe is based on my experiments. It serves about 5 people, feel free to try it.

Ingredients

• 1 (rice cooker) cup uncooked long grain rice
• 400g Chicken Breast, cut into slices
• Ginger, cut finely into strips
• 4 cups water
• 1 Scallion, chopped
• 1 tablespoon pre-fried Shallots
• 1 teaspoon pre-fried garlic
• ½ Salt
• 1 ½ teaspoon Light Soya Sauce
• ½ teaspoon Dark Soya Sauce
• 1 teaspoon Ground White Pepper
• 2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine (optional)

Method

1. Add the chicken breast, 2 cups of water and ginger and bring to boil.
2. Once the chicken is cooked, add in the rice and remaining water.
3. Turn to low heat to simmer for about 30 minutes with the lid on (or longer, depending on how watery you’d like it to be).
4. Add the garlic, light and dark soya sauce, pepper and salt.
5. Simmer for another 30 minutes.
6. Stir in sesame oil( and shaoxing wine).
7. Garnish with scallion and shallots and serve.

Oh and this is the most optional step. If you want to add an egg, do that before step 5. Don’t beat or stir it, just leave it to boil.

Enjoy your congee