Congee With Sweet Hannah Yam

Many of my non-Chinese friends have never tried congee before. But many of you have rice in your pantry. So you have all you need to make congee. Let’s see if I can convince you to try it at home with this blog post.

Congee is simply rice porridge or rice cooked with lots of water until soft. It’s a humble dish; but it comes with thousands of years of history in China. People all over Asia love it because it’s easy to digest, comforting, and very versatile. It is the breakfast of choice for many Chinese. To me, I especially crave congee when I am sick. However, until I learnt the trick shared in this recipe, I never cooked congee at home because it takes forever. Now, I can make congee whenever I want. It takes less time than cooking rice.

I recently went to a hipster place in Seattle selling congee at $12-$14 for one person. That is just obscene. I appreciate the creativity (but chocolate congee? Eww.) and introducing congee to the hipster crowd and making it cool. But $14 for a bowl of congee is criminal.

The steps shared in the recipe is Congee 101. It leverages the gentle heat of the congee to cook the cubed Hannah yam to perfection. This technique works like wonder for anything you could think of that doesn’t require long cooking time, e.g. fillet white fish or minced beef. Or you could use the congee to reheat any leftovers, like store-baked whole chicken. By cooking or reheating it directly in the congee, you won’t run into the risk of overcooking or drying out the meat and the meat flavours the congee as it cooks or reheats. It sounds magical, right?

Give this recipe a try and let me know in the comments if you want additional pointers when making different variations.

Preparation: 30 min | Cooking: 30 min | Level: Easy | Serving size: 1

List of ingredients: