My Favorite Rice Dish

How to make simple congee at home.

Five years ago I was ‘interviewed’ at Food & Wine about my favorite rice dishes.

It came out in 2017, and I took a look at it yesterday knowing that the first recipe I was going to post for these pages was my at-home go-to comfort food meal: my congee. I make it with duck or chicken and it’s a twice-a-week thing for me. Dinner one night and seconds for breakfast the next morning. I was curious where I placed congee, although frankly the list wasn’t really in order. But there it was in black and white, down at the bottom! I think if I was writing this list again, the first few rice dishes I would write down are the ones I make and enjoy the most today.

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So here is the old list.

https://www.foodandwine.com/lifestyle/andrew-zimmerns-10-favorite-rice-dishes

And today I would say it’s these six followed by the others. I just crushed a plate of inky black squid and rice at Jaleo in Washington, D.C., a few nights ago because I had such a crazy craving.

Black Squid and Rice from Jaleo

• Congee (rice porridge for want of an easier expression)

• Temaki  (Japanese fish hand rolls)

• Donburi (Japanese fish-on-rice bowls)

• Fried rice (obvi)

• Asopao  (a 200-year-old soupy rice braise that popped up in Puerto Rico, Trinidad and other islands around the same time)

• Com Tay Cam (crispy rice bowl, Vietnamese-style, although I make a Chinese version a lot too.)

But I digress. I love to cook, and if you do, too, then you have a lot of animal bones and parts and make a lot of stock, but you can also use store-bought chicken broth here. And I am going to tell you, double-cooking the duck or chicken in the store-bought stuff is absolutely yummy.

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Congee I served at Frasca in CO in collaboration with Chef Melissa King

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Simple Congee

Ingredients:

• 4 quarts homemade or or store-bought chicken broth

• 1 whole fresh naturally raised duck or chicken

• 2T vegetable oil

Instructions:

Using a small flexible boning knife, take the breasts off the bird and reserve for another use. Brown the carcass and dark quarter in a large soup pot over medium heat until it’s well browned. Add the broth. Bring to a simmer, and add a sachet of ginger and garlic, a star anise bud or two, lemongrass and Thai basil if you care to go in that direction. Return to a simmer and lower heat to maintain the least movement you can. I let that go for eight-12 hours. About three hours in, I reach in delicately with a tongs and take out the dark quarters. I reserve them, cool them and take all the meat off them. Place the meat in a Ziploc bag in fridge. Five to nine hours later—the longer the better—I strain carefully, leaving any solids in the bottom of the pot. I discard the carcass and the sachet and place the stock in fridge or freezer.

Now I can make my congee fairly quickly, and I can freeze the bags of cooked duck or chicken dark quarters, but it’s rarely needed due to how much I use them BTW.

So I start with 1 cup of short grain Japanese koshihikari rice. It’s a 70-year-old cultivar and most popular in making of sushi because of its ability to retain moisture. I find that ideal in making congee. Some folks love broken rice, but I am rather fond of the “overcooked” koshihikari.

I don’t rinse the rice, or wash and drain it well.… I just place it  in a pot with 11 cups of the double broth we just made, 1 cup of rice wine (sake or a good Shaoxing) and cook it at a strong simmer for 30-40 minutes.

I then add:

• Sliced mushrooms

• Shaved fennel

• Minced onion

• Sliced or diced carrot

• Watercress, water spinach, bok choy, Napa cabbage or other green.

• The leftover pulled meat from the dark quarters.

Whatever I have on hand works. Cook that for a few minutes until the veg are cooked. Then I season with salt if needed, some crushed Sichuan pepper corns, fresh sliced scallions, some soy sauce, a small handful of fresh ginger sliced into threads. A teeny bit of sesame oil if I want that flavor (it’s very strong).

And after that’s cooked for a few minutes more I fill it into some bowls and enjoy. I sometimes sear a duck or chicken breast and slice it on top, add some twice-fried crispy shallots and a spoon of chili oil or chili crisp, a few sprigs of cilantro.… There are few rules here. For me the only non-negotiable is the scallion.

This dish makes for a great dinner, and is beyond comforting in cold weather. Leftovers I simply warm over low heat in the morning with some broth or water to “bring it back” slowly for breakfast. If I have friends for brunch, I may add a poached egg and some extra chili oil.

Enjoy this—I think it’s what I am going to make tonight…. Now I’m hungry

All the best,

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