All aboard the congee train: Guest post from Anne!

Yay! The very gifted Anne Convery blogs at wishicouldgo.com, and kindly shares her congee-making experience here in our very first guest post. Her congee sounds absolutely delicious. Like, I'm drooling a little right now.

Tried congee and want to share about it here? I'd love that! Shoot me an email at lorelle@thesaxenaclinic.com.

Here's Anne!

I go in and out of eating healthily, or at least of having the sense I’m eating healthily.  I don’t think this is so uncommon, and I think a lot of us are still coming down from our holiday high – which may feel more like clawing our way back up from a holiday low, into the light and our “lighter” selves, depending.

I try not to put undue pressure on myself and make a bunch of resolutions out the gate at the start of the new year because I don’t like creating a set-up for failure or beginning any enterprise with the undue stress of announcing it to the world or burdening it with fifty pounds of self-help books or cluttering it with fad exercise equipment.  I like to go small.  Test stuff out, see what I like, and then maybe share the ideas that pass the picky, picky “Will Anne do this/eat this/stick with this for more than 48 hours? Test” with friends and like-minded folk.  Something it is not hard at all to get me to stick with is eating, especially if it tastes good.

And I do think that incorporating a nourishing breakfast into a daily routine is one of the simplest and most comforting ways to have a big positive impact on how you feel physically and mentally each day.  

Emphasizing the importance of breakfast has become a cliché, something I remember as far back as this PSA from in between my Saturday morning cartoons: 

But just because it’s cliché doesn’t make it any less true.  And the times I’ve felt my best – most consistently energetic throughout the day as well as most inclined to make nourishing food choices from morning into the evening – are the times in my life I’ve chosen to start with a warm, healthy(ish) breakfast.  Oatmeal with apples and raisins and a leeetle butter and brown sugar, eggs scrambled with spinach and goat cheese on toast, cream of buckwheat with blueberries and toasted coconut.  I like to keep it in balance and give myself things I want along with things I need, and isn’t it a wonderful surprise when those happen to be one and the same thing?

So I was pretty intrigued by Lorelle’s congee blog, and I really wanted to try making some.  I also wanted to get back on the breakfast wagon after a hectic holiday season filled with travel and too many peppermint mochas masquerading as meals.  I really like the idea of a savory breakfast, since for whatever reason, sweet breakfasts – cold cereals, pancakes, breakfast pastries – always leave me feeling simultaneously sluggish and like, “When’s lunch?” 

I found this pretty simple and yummy-sounding recipe for Ginger Chicken Congee (or jook, as I found out it’s called in Cantonese – thanks, Internet! You’re not just for cats ‘n’ boobs, after all!), and decided to do it up on the first day I got my kitchen back after my house having been in general upheaval for the installation of some new windows the last couple weeks. 

I made a few changes as I saw fit, and my slightly modified ingredients and instructions are below:

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Ingredients: 

• 1 tsp butter
• 2 leeks chopped 
• 6 cups water
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 tsp butter
• 1 1/2 pounds bone-in chicken pieces, skin removed and trimmed of excess fat
• 1 cup long-grain white rice
• 1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, skin on and sliced into 4 pieces
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt, plus more as needed
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground white pepper, plus more as needed
• Thinly sliced scallions, for garnish

Instructions: 

Melt butter over medium heat and sauté chopped leeks in it until fragrant and just starting to become translucent in a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan or Dutch oven.Place the rest of the ingredients except the scallions in the saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium low and cook at a lively simmer, stirring occasionally, until the rice has completely broken down and the mixture is creamy, about 1, 1 1/2 hours.Turn off the heat and remove the chicken to a cutting board. When it’s cool enough to handle, shred the chicken into bite-sized pieces, discarding the cartilage and bones. Return the chicken shreds to the jook. Stir to combine, taste, and season with additional salt and pepper as needed. Ladle into bowls and top with scallions.  

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I am the child of a mother who came of age in the late 50s and early 60s.  My childhood meals were typified by concoctions created using the magic of Campbell’s “Cream of…” soups.  I think my palette’s come a little ways since then, but what I LOVED about this is that it kinda looked, smelled and was tastefully reminiscent of (though definitely better than) this chicken and rice dish my mom would make using just some onions, salt and pepper, Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup and chicken, served over some Uncle Ben’s quick rice.  Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not slagging on my mom, here.  If I’d had to cook for me and my brothers and my dad and whomever else my ingrate children had in tow, I’d be all about the convenience too.

Plus, you know, it was the 70s.  The early 80s.  We still thought there’d be better living through food chemistry!  But for reals, this was easy and awesome.  And made me all nostalgic and cozy feeling in the way that only foods which comfort us with their delightful aromas and tastes really can.

Anyway, this is a dish I could happily eat in all its limitless variations for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  In this case, I couldn’t wait ‘til breakfast, so I had it for dinner, topped off with some steamed and lightly seasoned kale.  Aaaaand a little bit of chicken skin I removed from the chicken parts I used, and which I may have lightly dredged in flour and seasoned with black pepper, cayenne and turmeric and then MAYBE crisped in a little bit of bacon grease.

Oh, and how'd that poached egg sneak in there? EVERYTHING IN MODERATION. Delicious, delicious moderation. That's a resolution I don't think it'll be hard to keep this year.

Don't worry. Cody totally got some. 

How To Get Healthy: A One-Word Lesson (and also, Sunday morning congee recipe)

If I had to give a one-word lecture on how to achieve your healthiest self, here's how the lecture would go:

"Moderation."

All things in moderation, "good" things and "bad" things alike. This applies to exercise, to emotions, and very straightfowardly to food.

I love congee and I think you should eat it for breakfast every day, yes. But I don't think you should eat it for every meal of every day, because it would be hard to get enough calories and because eating lots of different foods is important (and fun!).  Kale is good for you, and it's hard to eat too much of it, but "kale overdose" can actually cause thyroid problems.  Beer and bacon cheeseburgers and pistachio ice cream hot fudge sundaes are generally considered not so good for you, but I'm going to go ahead and say that in moderation, all of those things can be very good for your soul.

I remember one day in particular, five years ago, when Adam and I had recently moved into our home. The backyard had been serving as a mini-farm for 30 years for the family that lived there before us, but hadn't been maintained for their last few years there. We'd spent that long, bright September day, along with many days before and after, working hard to restore the backyard to a functional and beautiful growing space.

Here's a "before" pic of our backyard...

...and an "after" pic. Hard work, but so worthwhile.

When the sun finally went down and we'd showered and stretched our aching muscles, all either of us wanted was a burger and a beer. We went to Flavor, sat at the bar, ordered a couple of pints of Moonlight and medium-rare bacon cheeseburgers, and felt really, really good about it. It was a meal that was good for our souls. Not the kind of meal anyone ought to eat on the regular, for sure--but that night, it was exactly right. It was moderation at its most fun.

This morning Adam made me the congee he's made most often for me, one I requested while at the hospital after giving birth to Kamal. The morning after Kamal was born, after sleeping in a chair in the hospital room with me and spending hours with our brand-new son in the NICU, Adam went home, checked on the animals, fixed me congee, and brought it to my hospital room steaming hot in a thermos. The hospital staff got really worried when my breakfast tray came back untouched; a nurse stopped in and gently remonstrated that I shouldn't worry about losing the baby weight yet. I explained that my husband was making me the breakfast I really wanted, and she frowned skeptically, then slipped a bunch of applesauce cups onto my bedside table with a conspiratorial look.

Sunday Morning Chicken Congee with Kale, Ginger, Goji Berries and Shiitakes

WHAT ADAM PUT IN IT:

For full congee recipe:
1 1/2 cups of white rice (we used jasmine)
1 4-inch piece of ginger, sliced into thin coins--no need to peel if it's organic
2/3 cup of dried goji berries
one 10 oz bag frozen shiitake mushrooms, or equivalent weight fresh shiitakes
water to fill the pot, or a combination of water and stock (approximately eight parts liquid to one part rice, so approximately 12 cups of water--but this is a very flexible ratio)
2 whole chicken legs, skin-on, bone-in*

For individual serving: 
about a quarter of a bunch of kale
one egg

*A whole chicken leg=one thigh and one drumstick. You could also use four thighs, or four drumsticks, or three drumsticks and one thigh...you get the idea. You could certainly also use the equivalent weight in skin-on, bone-in chicken breast, but I prefer the flavor of dark meat.

HOW ADAM MADE IT:

Adam first thoroughly washed the rice, then put in in the rice pot with the ginger, goji berries, shiitakes and water.

Next he heated a skillet, added a little bit of coconut oil to it (we use Nutiva brand) and browned the chicken legs all over in it.

He put the browned chicken in the rice pot with the other ingredients and filled the pot with the water.

Then he turned the rice cooker on. (Follow the directions for your rice cooker; or, if you're doing this on the stove top, add about 12 cups of water, cover your pot, and bring it to a low boil, then reduce it to a low simmer, stirring occasionally, until congee is done. See this post for a description of how to know when your congee is done.)

While the congee is cooking (about 90 minutes to two hours in our rice cooker) chop and sautee the kale; Adam used coconut oil for this, too. Here's an important note: Half a bunch of kale is enough for a couple of servings, and this recipe makes way more than a couple of servings of congee.  If you want to make enough kale at once to accompany the whole pot of congee, Adam suggests two bunches of kale.

You could also just add the kale to the pot of congee at the beginning of cooking, if you want. This wouldn't work for softer greens, like spinach--those would just sort of melt into the congee with the long cooking time--but it's fine for a hardy green like kale.

Once the kale is done, cook an egg over-easy in coconut oil.

Put the congee into your favorite bowl, making sure there's a little of everything in it, then top with the kale and egg.

For over-the-top decadence, Adam also crisped some of the chicken skin in the hot pan. This is a time-revered, ridiculously delicious congee topping--but definitely falls in the category of things that, no matter how good for the soul, should only be eaten in very careful moderation. BUT HOLY MOLY IT'S SO GOOD.

Tea leaf eggs (cha ye dan)

When I was a really little kid--like two, or three, or five, or so--my mother would pull out this embroidered green bag from the linen closet, stuff it with towels and sunscreen, and put it in the back of our old Datsun station wagon with a straw beach mat and a picnic cooler. We'd all put on our swim suits and drive out of Hahaione Valley, our quiet neighborhood in the suburbs of Honolulu, to Hanauma Bay, a lovely moon-shaped beach that used to be pleasantly sociable and nowadays is a huge tourist attraction. (It's still lovely. It's just crowded! And hard to park! And they charge admission!) We'd park up at the top of the road and walk a long way down a sloped, winding path to the beach. Once we'd spread out our beach mat, Mom would slather me with sunscreen while I squirmed and whined to get in the water, and then she in her glamorous one-piece or Dad in his awfully-short trunks would walk me into the waves.

I remember loving that water so much, bobbing in the gentle waves, peering at the fish that brushed our legs and terrified my big sister. Once there was a shark sighting, and everyone was warned to get out of the ocean, and I screamed and cried that I didn't care if a shark got me, I just wanted to stay in.

Here's a grainy old picture of me at the beach circa, oh, 1980 or so. See how pissed I look? That's probably because I'm not in the water. Stupid shark sightings.

Eventually, salt in my hair and eyes stinging from trying to see under the water, I'd trundle back to our spot on the sand and Mom would unpack the cooler. There might be anything from turkey sandwiches to pasta salad to potstickers in the cooler, but there would always be what she called soy-sauce eggs, one of my absolute favorite treats. Satiny, savory, perfectly umami: there was never a time, not through my endless picky-eater phases, when I wouldn't be thrilled to eat them. Mom made them by hard-boiling eggs, peeling them, and then letting them sit, overnight or longer, in a briny mix of soy sauce, star anise and strongly brewed Lipton tea.

The tea eggs Adam made for yesterday's congee are a fancy, grown-up cousin of my mom's soy-sauce eggs. They use loose-leaf lapsang souchong, a smoky black Chinese tea--no tea bags here!--and cinnamon sticks, fennel seeds and peppercorns along with the star anise. Also, before the eggs are totally hard boiled, the shells are cracked all over but left on, so that the tea brine creates a delicate veined pattern, similar to a crackled porcelain glaze, all over the surface of the eggs.

If you don't love the flavors of star anise and fennel seeds, you can leave them out of the recipe and still get the beautiful pattern and a nice subtle smoky-salty flavor. If you're on the fence, though, try it with at least the star anise: it's pretty integral to the traditional character of these eggs.

Adam used this recipe from Saveur, originally published there in 2012.

Tea Eggs 

1/2 cup soy sauce1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
8 whole cloves
2 whole star anise
2 sticks cinnamon
1 tablespoon loose-leaf smoked tea, such as lapsang souchong 
8 eggs

Bring soy sauce, sugar, peppercorns, fennel, cloves, star anise, cinnamon, and two cups water to a boil in a saucepan; remove from heat and add tea. Let steep for 10 minutes.

Pour marinade through a fine strainer into a bowl and keep warm. Place eggs in a 4-qt. saucepan; cover by ½″ with cold water.

Place saucepan over high heat and bring to a boil; cover pan, remove from heat, and let sit until eggs are soft-boiled, about 5 minutes.

Drain eggs. Crack shells all over but do not peel eggs; return to saucepan along with marinade.

Bring to a boil and let cook, stirring, for 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and add 2 cups ice. Let cool in marinade before serving. (We actually left our eggs overnight in the fridge, sitting in the marinade, in a quart Mason jar.)

 
Here's how they look all peeled and pretty. The longer you leave them in the marinade, the darker the marbling and more pronounced the delicious flavor. 

Today Adam reheated yesterday's bai zhou, or plain white congee, for me, with some of the remaining sauteed beet greens and shiitake mushrooms. He tucked a cold tea egg underneath the hot congee, and it was warmed up and perfect by the time I broke into it. Here's a photo of today's breakfast, and you can see, if you compare it to yesterday's, how the congee gets progressively smoother and creamier as it reheats (or cooks longer).

A dab of sesame oil, a dab of tamari, a dab of homemade sriracha, and I'm in heaven.