Chicken Congee With Seared Spring Onion Sauce

A community recipe by Coby

Not tested or verified by Nigella.com

Introduction

Ok, here is my take on Chicken Congee. Not authentic, but delicious I think:) The amount of chicken meat you use for this recipe depends on you. My Hubby likes lots of meat with his, so a fair bit of one chicken is used up, but you could easily only use the breast meat and save the rest for another use if you wanted. You can serve things like Chinese picked vegetables, preserved duck eggs, crisp-fried shallots (you can buy these), salad ingredients, whatever you want. I tend to keep this fairly simple though, as I usually make it on a 'comfort food' day, so I want simple flavours, though I always make the seared spring onion sauce to go with it, Hubby likes Hoisin with his. You could leave it completely plain of course:)

Ingredients

Serves: 4

For the Congee

1 seeded and very finely sliced chile
1 cup rice
2 tablespoons peanut oil
2 teaspoons grated fresh gingerroot
3½ pints stock (well flavoured)
3½ pounds chicken
3 sliced scallions

For the Seared Spring Onion Sauce

4 finely chopped scallions
1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh gingerroot
1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
¼ cup light vegetable oil
2 fluid ounces light soy sauce
1 tablespoon chinese rice wine (or dry sherry)
1 teaspoon asian sesame oil

Method

Chicken Congee With Seared Spring Onion Sauce is a community recipe submitted by Coby and has not been tested by Nigella.com so we are not able to answer questions regarding this recipe.

Poach chicken in stock for 45 minutes breast down. Cool chicken in stock for 10 minutes, then remove. Discard skin from chicken, he cut meat into fine strips. Return stock to the boil and add ginger. Heat oil in a wok and fry rice for a minute or so until opaque. Transfer rice to a saucepan and add boiling stock to come a good 5 cm above rice. Cover and cook gently until rice is soft and soupy, about 30 minutes or more. You want the rice to get mushy. If the congee isn't sloppy enough add either more stock, or for a milder flavour some boiling water. Put some of the shredded chicken and a few slices of chile and scallion into each bowl and ladle in the soupy rice broth. Serve condiments on the side, including Seared scallion Sauce. While the Congee is cooking prepare the Sauce. Mix the scallion, ginger and garlic in a bowl. Heat the vegetable oil until smoking hot and pour it over the contents of the bowl. Stir then add remaining ingredients.