Congee is a Chinese dish which is thought to help with tummy troubles and exhaustion. A true Congee is cooked for 6 hours, but this is my adaptation. Which takes about 1 1/2 hours, but that includes poaching a whole chicken!
Serves 6.
Ingredients:
1 chicken (approx. 1.5kg or 3lb)
200g brown basmati rice
5cm (2in) grated fresh ginger
1 tbsp soy or tamari sauce (Tamari is a wheat free soy sauce)
1 tbsp sesame seed oil
3 sticks of celery, chopped
1 onion, sliced
Seasoning
3 spring onions, chopped
Handful of fresh coriander, chopped
Method:
Place chicken into a large pan and cover with water and bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 1 hour. After 1 hour remove chicken from water and remove bones and skin (might need to allow it to cool down to do this). Keep the water which is now stock. Add the chicken meat back into the hot stock, also add the rice, sliced onion, celery and ginger. Bring back to the boil and then simmer for 30 minutes until the rice is cooked or slightly over cooked. Remove from the heat. This should be soup like in consistency, so add more water at any stage above.
Add the soy/tamari, sesame oil to the pan, season and stir in.
Serve in bowls, add the spring onions and coriander to the bowls and serve.
If you only want to make enough for 2, then when it comes to adding the chicken back in to the stock, only add enough chicken for 2 and reduce all other ingredients for two, too! You can use the rest of the chicken for other meals.
You can have this for breakfast, lunch or dinner!
Nutritional facts:
Brown rice is a low GI (Glycaemic Index) food, which provides a slow release of the sugars through the digestion process. There is about 2g of fibre in 100g of rice, so this adds to your fibre intake which is a requirement for good gut health. Here are the UK NHS guidelines for fibre intake: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/how-to-get-more-fibre-into-your-diet/
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