Chicken and sweet potato congee or rice porridge
Preparation
10-20 Minutes
Cooking
60-120 Minutes
Servings
2-3
Introduction
I always make my own chicken stock and I will do this at least once a week by poaching a whole chicken, flavoured with spring onions, ginger and white peppercorns. This is one of my favourite because it is easy and relatively cheap to make. After poaching my chicken, I keep the stock in the fridge or freeze it, use it to make other dishes, including soup and congee. The chicken meat can be eaten immediately once cooked with rice accompanied by 1 or 2 side dishes, or shredded to make congee, salad or sandwich. Typically I can make 3-4 other meals out of the whole chicken for 2 of us. This is a great idea for people who are too busy to cook during the work week.
In this recipe, I am going to use the stock to make a chicken congee. I will keep the cooked whole chicken for other dishes, and use some fresh chicken thigh fillets and a sweet potato to make my congee.
Steps
Make chicken stock
Wash, clean and pad dry a whole chicken
Cut and lightly bruise the spring onions and ginger
Place the spring onions, ginger, white peppercorn in a pot of water and bring to a boil
Immerse the whole chicken in the boiled water and poach until cook
Make chicken congee
Cut some spring onions and ginger
Peel and cut the sweet potato
Mince and marinate some chicken fillet (thigh or breast)
Wash the rice and cook with the chicken stock
Once rice is broken down, add the sweet potato and marinated chicken
Add spring onions and ginger
How to make
A. Preparation
Cut and separate the spring onions between the white and green parts. Lightly bruise the white sections, which will be used to flavour the stock. Cut the green section into small pieces to flavour and to garnish the congee.
Cut half of the ginger into smaller size and lightly bruise, which will be used to flavour the stock. Cut the other half ginger into thin slices, then thin strips. Reserve this to flavour the congee
Wash and clean the whole chicken.
Cut and mince the chicken fillet. Then marinate with 1 tablespoon of light soy, 1 tablespoon of Chinese cooking wine (leave this out if you don't have a bottle), 1 tablespoon of sesame oil, 1 teaspoon of starch, a dash of salt and ground white pepper.
Peel the sweet potato skin and then cut into small bite pieces.
Wash 1 cup of rice (for 2 people).
B. Cooking
Fill a large pot with 1.5 litre of water. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of rock sugar. Add the spring onions, ginger and white peppercorns. Bring it to a boil. Once boiling, gently add the whole chicken. Reduce the heat to the smallest flame. Simmer and poach the chicken for 45-60 minutes. The time may vary depending on the chicken size, amount of water in the pot, type of cooktop and heat. Turn the chicken over to the other side halfway through the cooking time. Check chicken is cooked before removing the chicken.
Once the chicken is cooked, remove and let it cook down. Strain the chicken stock to remove any scum from the stock. Rinse the pot and place the stock back into the pot. Add rice (which has been washed).
Bring the rice to a rapid boil. Once boiling, gently stir to prevent any sticking on the bottom. Cover with a lid but leave a gap to prevent liquid from overflowing. Boil for 20 minutes. Give another gentle stir to prevent any sticking on the bottom. The rice grain should be cooked now. Keep boiling for another 20 minutes.
Add the sweet potato. Cook the sweet potato for 10 minutes or until they are all cooked. Add the marinated minced chicken. Then add some spring onions and ginger.
Turn off the heat. Garnish with some chopped spring onions.
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Ingredients
Chicken stock
1 whole chicken (about 1.5 kg)
3 spring onions (white section and roots only) lightly bruised
1 teaspoon white peppercorn
3-inches size ginger lightly bruised
1.5 litre of water
1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of rock sugar
Chicken congee
3 small chicken thigh fillet (skin off) or 1 breast fillet
3 spring onions (green section only)
3-inches size ginger
1 cup of rice
1 small sweet potato
light soy sauce
Chinese cooking wine (optional)
sesame oil
tapioca starch (or corn starch)
ground white pepper
salt
1.5 litre of chicken stock