Recipe: How to Make Congee (Lugaw or Tsuok)

Something ought to be said about the problem with haute cuisine -- (a) it is haughty patoity, (b) it's rather complicated and (c) it can get rather tiresome.  Anyway - because of the above, I have come back to the pleasures of home cooking starting with the joys of lugaw or congee. 

Congee...mmmm!

Oh yes.  Congee.  Who among my reading audience does not know Congee -- probably some in the US.  But in the Philippines, this is widely known as apple pie in the States.  Roughly translated as rice porridge, it is more than that because it is not as bland as oatmeal and certainly does not mean sweet.  It is tasty like chicken noodle soup but not boring as that.  It has complex flavors and the texture is quite unique -- the trick is not just in the components that make the flavor but rather in the way the rice is cooked.  And yes! It is quite a very economical dish for it only takes a cup of uncooked rice to make more than a gallon of congee when it should just yield probably at most two cups of cooked rice. 

Now, to add, Congee is more than just a thick rice soup - for rice soups here in the States are usually seen as  loose cooked rice amidst the broth and meat which is very much like a chicken noodle only that the noodles were replaced by rice.  The joy in eating congee is the fact that the texture is soft and heavenly which glides on the tongue.  Coupled with the different flavors that may flavor the thick well fluffed rice porridge, the crunchies on the top serve as texture contrasts while the thinly sliced green spring onions give likewise a mildly pungent aroma to the delicate overall taste of the dish.  And because it is served hot, it is the perfect cold, storm weather, rainy day treat.  It is perfect, reminding one of home. 

The trick in making great Congee is not really in the flavor accents such as the meats or chicken or the meatballs or seafood.  Of course, they do help but first and foremost, Congee is rice.  And therefore, the emphasis is how the rice is cooked.  After all, does anyone want Congee with rice grains as tough as plain steamed rice?  Secondly, as the rice gets fluffed further from the long gentle boiling, the inner flavors of the grains become more exposed thus making the soup more fragrant and providing a further "blank canvass" for the meats and seafood to become naked to the palate.  My Caucasian American friends have exposed me to the many varieties of potatoes and how they are cooked and what makes a potato great for frying or baking or boiling or salads etc. 

This is plain congee.  As one can see within
the bowl, the rice has disintegrated.

On my part, at first I really did not understand the many ways of cooking potatoes much more the many varieties of them and their ultimate purpose but eventually I did learn.  Vis, they seem not to understand the many varieties of rice and more so, the various ways of presenting, cooking and eating them and no wonder we have many words pertaining to the grain.  "Bigas", for uncooked rice; "Kanin" for steamed rice, "Lugaw" for rice porridge, "Malagkit" for glutinous rice,  "Pinipig" for cooked but pounded glutinous rice, "Am" for the rice water and so on.  And in addition, we have words that pertain to different ways of cooking rice such as "Bibingka" for baked rice cake, "Puto" for steamed rice cake, "Kutsinta" for steamed, gelatinized consistency of glutinous rice, "Kalamay Pinipig" for a solidified, caked glutinous dessert based on the Pinipig as opposed to the "Kalamay" which is usually made of cassava.  But it is not just the sweet based rice dishes but there are also the savory ones as well such as, "Arroz Caldo", the Philippine version of the Congee based on chicken with a saffron flavoring, or the "Paella/Arroz Valenciana", resembling the Spanish paella, which is now made Filipino with the addition of tomato sauce and sometimes coconut milk. 

But back to the Congee, the main thing is the rice.  It has to be fluffy to the point of disintegration, that there is not semblance of whole rice.  As this stage is reached, the starch hidden within the rice grains are released, making the soup thick with a velvety texture.  In this recipe, I hope we can recreate this texture by applying techniques that would  achieve this product. 

Congee (Lugaw Puti) 

Ingredients 

1 cup long grain rice 

8 quarts water 

Procedure 

1. In a 16 quart stockpot, boil water.  Meanwhile, mixing about one or two glasses of water with the rice, blend the mixture using the highest speed, breaking the rice to smallest pieces as possible.  The water in the blender will become opaque white and the rice broken to small grains.  Once the water in the stockpot begins to boil, pour the blendered rice, stirring frequently to prevent the rice sticking together and settling at the bottom.  Once mixed with the hot water, cover and turn the heat up and once it boils again, turn the heat down to simmer.  It may also be necessary to leave the cover on the side, providing a small slit to let the steam escape and prevent the congee from overflowing as it cooks. 
2. It is in this long simmering process that the rice fluffs further.  As the rice opens up, the starch is released making the soup thick while the rice disintegrates.  This is the character of good congee and it is further promoted by regular stirring which breaks the rice and prevents it from sticking at the bottom of the stockpot which has a tendency to burn and leave a nasty black brown residue and not to mention flavor to the congee. In the event that some of the rice does stick at the bottom of the pot, don't panic - stir the congee as one would previously, but try not to scrape the bottom of the pot which releases the crust exposing the charred rice to soup spoiling the flavor. 
3. The liquid will reduce by a third.  Once done, the congee would be very thick, velvety and neutral in flavor.  Once that is that, turn off the fire and its time to enjoy it.   

First Version: Soy Sauce Poached Fish with Plain White Congee. 

Ingredients 

Fancy presentation of Soy Sauce
Poached Fish.

• 2 filets white fish: tilapia, flounder, milk fish or any similar fish 
• 1 thumbsized ginger, peeled and sliced 
• 1/4 head garlic, peeled and chopped 
• 1/4 head onion, peeled and sliced 
• 2 tablespoons sugar 
• 1-2 tablespoons fermented black beans (tausi) 
• 1/8 cup soy sauce 
• 1/4 cup water 

Procedure 

Saute the garlic and ginger until fragrant. Saute onion next until clear.  Add sugar to caramelize.  Saute the black beans next.  Add soy sauce and water and cover to boil lightly.  Once boiling, poach the fish until done.  Serve hot as a flavoring dish to the plain white congee. 

Second Version: Seafood, Mushroom with Century Egg Congee. 

 

How you flavor your congee is up to you.  But this is one version that you could do. 

Ingredients 

• 1 filet white fish, cut into chunks 
• 3 fish balls (Hokkien "he-I" Mandarin "Yui-Chiow"), cut in quarters 
• 3 seafood balls, cut in quarters 
• 1 century egg, peeled, halved and sliced 
• 1/4 head garlic, peeled and chopped 
• 1/4 head onion, peeled and sliced or chopped 
• 1 thumbsized ginger, peeled and sliced or chopped 
• salt to taste 
• Dash or dashes of sesame seed oil 
• 1 raw egg (optional if you are salmonella paranoid) 
• Chopped chives or spring onions to taste 
• 1 Chinese cruller (Filipino "bitso-bitso" or Mandarin "Yew Thiaw") 

 

Okay. This is the Century Egg.  It's a fermented
duck egg in ammonia (usually made of highly
concentrated tea solution and mud but modern
techniques eliminated the mud) for a
hundred days - hence, "century".

This are fish balls.

Chinese crullers.

The more traditional tausi that
we see in the Philippines.

But actually tausi can also be dried though
still very salty.

Procedure 

1. Saute garlic and ginger until fragrant.  Add onions and saute further.  Once lightly cooked, add the congee until the pot is almost 3/4ths full.  Stir and let boil.  Once boiling add rest of ingredients, lower the heat and cover to simmer for about five minutes.  Salt to taste and add dashes of sesame seed oil to taste. 
2. In a personal sized bowl (which is up to you), crack an egg and ladle in the hot prepared congee.  Top with sliced crullers and spring onions.  Serve hot. 

Notes. 

• I cannot over emphasize the need for vigilance in preparing the basic congee.  Again, once one burns the rice underneath and that gets to contaminate the rice porridge, the flavor is destroyed.  Might as well start new.  Therefore, occasional stirrings are needed to prevent burning the congee. 
• Always, keep the lid a bit oven for an escape vent to prevent overflows and messing the stovetop.  It happens.  
• Be free to experiment with flavors.  You can use Hong-Ma (known as "Red Stewed Pork" in Hokkien cuisine), "Ma-Hu" (Hokkien Dried Shredded Pork), Tau-Kiam (Hokkien Fermented Bean Curd) - almost anything.  It's very much like a sandwich.  How you want your sandwich is your own affair.  In fact, in Hong Kong, there are these small stalls for Congee which the different condiments are exposed and the diner picks what he wants for the cook to saute in a small pot in which the congee is then added and then served with the Chinese cruller and spring onions on top.

  

  Fermented Bean Curd.

  

  Ma-Hu known also as "Pork Sung"