Winter Congee

Winter breakfast congee

Congee or Kanji is a pan Asian comfort food. It's a simple fare of overcooked rice, a sort of porridge, eaten sweet or savory. It is the easiest thing to digest, and what babies and the sick eat.

I first made congee when Jill, my acupunturist-Chinese doctor suggested that I fed it to my bowel-troubled dog. I had just found Chloe the Pitbull on my birthday, lost in a big city park. She had been eating whatever she could scavenge. The effect on her intestines was not pretty (-and she was not potty trained).

Chloe, the sick pitbull
(feeling much better after a good dose of TLC -and congee.)

Being a great fan of rice, I decided to make a big batch of congee and to try out some recipes for myself.
I made soup and breakfast porridge.

How to make congee?
1 mesure of rice
5 mesures of water
Cook until mushy (it can take several hours on a stovetop -if you want it faster, put less water).

Breakfast congee for cold mornings

This is perfect if you are sick or need to go out in the cold. You get complete protein with the rice and lentils, and your good fats with the coconut oil.

(1 person)
1 cup congee
1/2 cup cooked coral lentils (reduced to a mush)
1 inch ginger, grated
1/2 apple, grated
1 tsp coconut oil
1/4 cup water
1/2 tbsp agave nectar
1/2 tsp salt
Heat everything in a covered pot. Adjust salt or agave nectar.
You can make it with a banana, and add spices that you like (cinnamon).
It's also a good idea to cook it with dried fruits such as raisins.

Congee soup for 2

2 cups of congee
3 cups of vegetable broth
2 cup of water
6 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 cup of carrots, diced
1 cup of chard leaves, sliced
1 inch ginger
wheat-free tamari

Cook shiitake in 2 cups of water for twenty minutes (bring to a boil and then simmer).
In a pot, cook congee, broth, carrots and chards.
When the mushrooms are ready, add their broth (dashi) to the pot. Slice the shiitake thinly (discard the stem), and add to the preparation.
Add tamari to taste (depending on if your broth is salty or not).
Grate ginger and add to the pot.
Cook until the carrots are soft.

Congee with red cabbage

A great side dish for winter.

Red cabbage is a traditional winter vegetable. Cooked with fruits (I chose apples and dried apricots) it is more festive (it is for instance a Spanish and Russian Christmas dish).

for 3 portions
1 onion, sliced
2 tbsp coconut oil
1/2 shredded red cabbage
1 apple, thinly sliced
3 dried apricots, in small cubes
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar (or balsamic)
2 tbsp tamari

Cook onion on medium heat in coconut oil until translucent. Lower heat and add tamari. When onions are brown, add cabbage, apple, cubed apricots, nutmeg. Mix well, and cook, covered on medium-low heat. When cabbage starts to soften, add vinegar. When it is soft but still a little crunchy, add congee (1 to 2 cups), adjust tamari and vinegar, mix well and cook until desired consistency.

Read more about Congee here

Raw day! Ginger Lingui-veggie Salad

(version française)

Lately, I have been into veggies cut in linguini-like shapes. It makes for a beautiful, original presentation, and it is pleasant to eat.
Basically, you chose a long vegetable (carrot, cucumber, zucchini) and, armed with a peeler, you shave it horizontally until you are left with a pile of long, and soft-but-crunchy bits. You can also use leafy greens: just cut long strips in the leaves (flatten the leaves on the cutting board, take the hard stem out, and run your knife through the green part.).
This salad is a result of this current shape obsession.

For better results, let it marinate for at least an hour in the refrigerator. I usually let it sit for a whole night. The veggies soak and taste delicious, and they don't get soggy, but remain good and crunchy.

Ingredients
1 cucumber and 1 tsp of salt
A bunch of leafy greens (chards)
2 long carrots
1 cup of mixed nuts and dried fruits/berries*
4 shiitake mushrooms
mixed sesame seeds

Dressing
1 1/2 inch ginger, peeled
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 orange, juiced
1 lemon, juiced
1 tbsp miso
1 tsp tamari
1 tsp mirin
1 tsp rice vinegar
½ tsp agave nectar
2-3 drops of hot sauce

With a peeler, shave the cucumber lengthwise to make long, soft strips. Put in colander and mix with 1 tsp of salt. After at least 30 minutes, rinse the salt with cold water and press to eliminate all water.
Shave the carrots just like the cucumber and cut the chard leaves into long strips. Take the stem out of the shiitakes and cut them into strips. Add cucumbers, nuts, dried fruits, and sesame seeds. Mix.
Liquify miso paste into a tbsp of water. Mix all the liquids in a bowl. Grate the ginger and add to the sauce. Mix well and pour over salad. Mix well, and let it marinate for at least an hour.

Presentation
Put it on a plate and sprinkle it with a blend of sesame seeds.
I accompanied it with a zucchini carpaccio (slices of raw zucchini marinated in a balsamic-garlic-olive oil dressing) and slices of heirloom tomatoes and avocado (sprinkled with the same balsamic dressing).**

Verdict
It was delicious, my guest was really excited about all the nuts and the dried raisins and berries saturated with the gingery dressing.
Popularity points: +4.
Karma points: +4.5 *** All of this was organic, I biked to the store, I didn't use energy for cooking, and most of the ingredients were local (it's easier for foodies to have good green karma in California!), but some stuff came from far away like the hunza goji berries, and probably the almonds (since you can no longer sell unpasteurized almonds in California, these raw nuts had to be imported from somewhere else), the Mirin, I guess... But it's a pretty good score!


*make your own mix according to your tastes. I chose a ready-made raw trail mix sold in bulk at Rainbow Grocery. If you want to make it a raw salad, make sure your nuts are not roasted.
** The salad was Asian-inspired and the sides were Italian. It's pretty but next time i'll make sure I have a coherent theme and include something more in tune, like green papaya strips with peanut sauce...
*** Karma points go from -5 (negative karma, you'll burn in hell, get reincarnated into a battery chicken or get dumped really bad) to +5 (total holiness!).