Chicken Rice Congee – Instant Pot

Chicken Rice Congee is savory comfort food, easily made with an Instant Pot, on the porridge setting. You can serve it plain but the toppings turn this simple dish into something special. 

This is actually the third congee recipe that I’ve shared in this space and all I can tell you is that it’s one of my favorite dishes. I first enjoyed congee in South East Asia as a wonderful addition to many hotels’ breakfast buffets. 

For those buffet breakfasts, I’m guessing leftover rice was used because congee is a great way to turn leftovers into another comforting, nutritious meal. It’s basically rice cooked until mushy in water or stock and it could not be simpler to make. For this recipe, I used my Instant Pot but you could also use a slow cooker like I did for this shiitake congee or a normal pot on the stove as I did for a congee variation using oats instead of rice. Who knew oat dishes could be savory? We licked our bowls clean!

Chicken Rice Congee – Instant Pot

Traditionally the rice for congee is cooked with water but I like to use stock instead for a much richer flavor. I use extra long grain rice because that’s what I have on hand but any white rice will work. The add-ons can be simple: just some soy sauce and green onions or go whole hog and offer your family all of the suggested “to serve” items.

Ingredients

For the congee:

1 1/2 cups or about 290g rice 

8 1/3 cups or 1.5L water + 2 chicken stock cubes (or use chicken stock)

2 in or 5cm knob ginger

8 oz or 225g boneless, skinless chicken breast

To serve, options:

Chopped spring onions

Crispy fried shallots/onions (These can be purchased in most Asian stores, in a small plastic tub. Store in refrigerator to keep them from turning rancid.)

Salted or normal boiled eggs, cut in quarters

Pan-fried raw peanuts, salted

Crispy anchovies

Soy sauce

Sesame oil

Method

Peel your ginger and cut it into little matchsticks. If you are using water and stock cubes, heat 1/3 cup or 80ml of the water and dissolve the cubes in it. 

Put the rice in the Instant Pot and add in that intense stock cube flavored water.  Give the whole thing a good stir. 

Add in the rest of water. Submerge the chicken breast. 

Cook on the porridge setting, which is 20 minutes.

Leave to naturally release pressure for 15 minutes, then carefully open the vent to release rapidly. I use a folded towel to cover the vent then open to block the steam. 

Fish out the chicken breast and shred it with two forks and add it back into the pot. 

If you find your congee thicker than you’d like it, simply add more water. I ended up adding another cup or cup and a half. Conversely, if you find your congee thinner than you’d like, cook it on low sauté until some of the liquid evaporates. 

Serve the chicken rice congee in bowls and let people add the condiments they would like. 

Enjoy!

It's Sunday FunDay and today we are celebrating Hot Breakfast Month by sharing some of our favorite recipes for warming breakfasts that are a treat in cold weather. Check out the links below. Many thanks to our host, Mayuri of Mayuri's Jikoni.

• A Day in the Life on the Farm: Apple Cinnamon French Toast Bake 
• Food Lust People Love: Chicken Rice Congee 
• Mayuri’s Jikoni: Egg Burji 
• Amy’s Cooking Adventures: Fluffy Pancakes 
• Our Good Life: Garlic Basil Sausage with Herbed Scrambled Eggs 
• Sizzling Tastebuds: Kodo Millet Crepes (Varagu Arisi Dosai) 
• Palatable Pastime: Sweet Breakfast Rice 
• Making Miracles: Toad in the Hole Bacon Breakfast Sandwich 
• Sneha’s Recipe: Tomato & Peas Poha

 

We are a group of food bloggers who believe that Sunday should be a family fun day, so every Sunday we share recipes that will help you to enjoy your day. If you're a blogger interested in joining us, just visit our Facebook group and request to join.

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Slow Cooker Shiitake Congee

Slow cooker shiitake congee is a warming bowl of comfort, made with lots of savory, flavorful mushrooms and your favorite rice. Top it with your favorite add ons.

One of my favorite breakfast buffet dishes when we lived in southeast Asia was the big pot of congee or rice porridge with lots of toppings from crunchy little dried fish and sliced chili peppers to crispy shallots and sambal. Such a bowl of comfort! 

It’s super easy to make in a slow cooker as well. Simply slice up your mushrooms, throw everything in together and walk away. You can eat it plain or dress it up with toppings. 

Slow Cooker Shiitake Congee

I’m publishing this recipe – looooong overdue – with permission from my lovely friend, author Kathy Hester. It’s from her wonderful revised and updated cookbook, The Vegan Slow Cooker. <affiliate link Like all of Kathy’s great cookbooks, the instructions are clear and helpful adaptations are included. Everything I’ve made from ALL of Kathy’s cookbooks has been excellent! Highly recommend. This recipe makes 4-6 servings.

Ingredients

For the congee:

8 cups or 1880ml water or broth (IMHO: Broth adds more flavor.)

4 cups or 280g thinly sliced fresh shiitake mushrooms

4 cups or 280g thinly sliced button, baby bella, shiitake mushrooms or combination

1 cup or 185g rice (I used long grain. Kathy’s recipe says brown rice. Use your favorite rice.)

3 tablespoons or 24g grated ginger

Optional suggestions for serving:

Soy sauce

Scallions

Cilantro

Chopped chili peppers

Extra grated ginger

Leftover cooked veggies

Tofu cubes

Method

If you are pressed for time in the morning, you can prepare the mushrooms and ginger the night before and keep them in the refrigerator overnight. 

Otherwise, cut the hard stem ends off of the mushrooms then use a sharp knife to cut them into thin slices. If desired, set a few slices aside for topping. 

Then grate your ginger. 

Add them both to your slow cooker, along with the rice and the liquid of your choice, either broth or water. Normally I would use chicken broth but in deference to Kathy’s vegan recipe, I used a rich vegetarian stock. 

Cook on low for 7 to 9 hours. When time is up, give the pot a good stir. 

Kathy suggests (be still my heart that LOVES congee in a buffet!) to place your chosen toppings on the table and let everyone add what they like best. 

In our house, sliced chili peppers are an absolute necessity but we also enjoyed the suggested tofu cubes and scallions aka green onion tops. 

You do you but do make this comfort dish. You won’t regret it. And check out Kathy’s blog Healthy Slow Cooking (and her other books.) You won't regret that either. We are not a vegan family but we always love her creative and delicious recipes. 

Enjoy!

It's Multicooker Monday! Check out all the other Multicooker recipes my friends are sharing this month! Many thanks to Sue of Palatable Pastime, our group leader. 

• Air Fryer Pork and Vegetable Egg Rolls from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Air Fryer Roasted Broccoli from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Instant Pot Swedish Meatballs from Making Miracles
• Kerala Beef Olarthiyathu- Pressure Cooker from Sneha’s Recipe
• Slow Cooker Shiitake Congee from Food Lust People Love
• Slow Cooker Spaghetti Sauce from Palatable Pastime
• Southern Pimento Cheese Crockpot Potato Soup from Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Toaster Oven Turkey Schmaltz Cornbread from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking

Multicooker Monday is a blogger group created by Sue of Palatable Pastime for all of us who need encouragement to make better use of our small appliances like slow cookers, Instant Pots, Air Fryers, rice cookers and sous vide machines. We get together every third Monday of the month to share our recipes. If you are a food blogger who would like to post with us, please request to join our Facebook group.

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Creamy Crab and Scallop Chowder #FishFridayFoodies

My creamy crab and scallop chowder begins with frying bacon, as all the best recipes do. Pour in the whipping cream, add a whole pound of crabmeat AND a pound of bay scallops, for a deliciously rich mouthful in every spoon.

When our elder daughter graduated from university in 2013, she immediately started a job in New York City. She was paid hourly so if she didn’t work, she didn’t get paid. Which also means no vacation time. It’s a hard cruel world, right?

As summer turned to autumn, thoughts of the possibility of Christmas without her sent me to the internet where I looked for a house we could afford to rent for three weeks, somewhere in New England. We ended up in a little town called Tiverton in Rhode Island. When we arrived at the home, a typical northeastern winter had already set in with real snowfall that stuck still covering the trees and bushes and lawn.

Just a few days before Christmas, on our daughter’s birthday in fact, we decided we needed some clam chowder to warm us up from the inside out. We found delicious bowls in nearby Newport and I’ve been a chowder fan ever since.

Creamy Crab and Scallop Chowder

This recipe is adapted from the Nantucket Chowder recipe from an issue of Bon Appétit magazine, December 1995 and it's my favorite! See if you don't agree.

Ingredients to serve 6
8 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped
2 medium onions, peeled and chopped
3-4 sprigs fresh thyme, plus extra for garnish, if desired
4 1/4 cups or 1L seafood or fish stock
1/2 cup or 120ml dry white wine
2 medium potatoes, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
3/4 cup or 180ml whipping cream
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 lb or 450g bay scallops, thawed if frozen
1 lb or 450g handpicked cooked crabmeat
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Traditional chowder accompaniment: oyster crackers – Buy some or make your own with this simple recipe: Easy homemade oyster crackers

Method
Fry the bacon pieces in a large Dutch oven, over a medium heat. Once the bacon is crispy, remove it from the pot with a slotted spoon and put it on some folded paper towels to drain.

Remove all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon drippings from the pot. You can discard what you remove but I suggest you put it in a clean jar in the refrigerator where it will keep for several weeks. Use it whenever you want to add a little flavor to a dish, like roasted vegetables or pan-fried chicken.

Add the onions and thyme to the pot and sauté them over a medium heat, until they soften, stirring occasionally. This just takes a few minutes.

Pour the stock and white wine into the pot, along with the potato cubes. Bring the stock to a boil and then lower the heat till it’s just above a simmer. Cook for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender.

While the potatoes cook, take a few minutes to look through your crabmeat to make sure all the little bits of shell have been removed. Even the best, most conscientious pickers can miss some.

Remove the thyme sprigs from the pot and discard. Ladle about half of the chowder into a blender and pulse till smooth. Or you can use a hand blender in a tall measuring vessel, like I do.

Pour the smooth mixture back into the pot and cook for another 10-15 minutes, until it thickens slightly.

Whisk the cornstarch into the cold cream until it is completely dissolved. Add the cream to the chowder pot, stirring quickly.

 Sprinkle in half of the bacon and return to a gentle simmer.

Add the bay scallops and crabmeat to the chowder. Heat through and season the chowder to taste with salt and freshly ground pepper.

Ladle the chowder into bowls. Sprinkle the remaining bacon, garnish with fresh thyme leaves, if desired, and serve immediately. If you have some oyster crackers, put those out too and folks can help themselves.

Enjoy!

Many thanks to this month’s Fish Friday Foodies host, P from The Saucy Southerner. Check out all the lovely crab recipes we are sharing today.

An InLinkz Link-up

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Ground Lamb Lancashire Hotpot

This untraditional recipe uses ground lamb cooked with carrots, onions and thinly sliced potatoes, for an inexpensive, quicker-to-the-table version of the classic Lancashire hotpot.

Lancashire hotpot is a hearty dish from the northwest of England, made from some of the less expensive cuts of lamb cooked long and slow until they are tender. This is a great family meal on a chilly night when the heat of the oven is a comfort and we all need something warm in our bellies.

Browning the ground lamb until it turns crispy deepens the flavor of the gravy that is created with the added stock as the hotpot bakes.

Ground Lamb Lancashire Hotpot

My untraditional version uses an even cheaper cut, ground or minced lamb, which since it’s already tender, also shortens the cooking time. If you can't find ground lamb or you simply aren't a fan, substitute beef or pork.

Ingredients
1 lb 6 oz or 625g ground lamb
2 tablespoons plain flour
3 cups or 710ml beef or lamb stock
2 medium carrots, roughly chopped
1 large onion, roughly chopped
1 bay leaf or 2 small ones
5 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced thinly
salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil (for frying ground lamb and greasing Dutch oven for baking)

Method
Brown the ground lamb very well, until it’s a little crispy on the edges, adding a little of the olive oil if the lamb is dry. Some ground meat contains more fat than others, depending on which cuts the butcher has included in the mix.

Once the meat is well browned, sprinkle in the flour. Cook a few minutes more, stirring well. Turn the heat off and stir in the stock.

Add in carrots, onion and bay leaf.

Preheat your oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Grease your Dutch oven with some of the olive oil. Line the base with potato slices then season them with salt and pepper.

Spoon the ground lamb mixture on top of the potatoes. Top with the rest of the potato slices.

Drizzle the potatoes with melted butter and season with salt and pepper.

Cover the Dutch oven with a tight-fitting lid and cook the ground lamb Lancashire hotpot in your preheated oven for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. 

Remove the lid and cook another 20-30 minutes so the top can brown. If it is not browned to your satisfaction, you can put it under the broiler (Br. Eng: grill) for 5 or 10 minutes to brown further but do keep a close eye on it so it doesn’t burn.

Enjoy!

We eat a lot of lamb at our house. If you are also a fan of lamb, you might want to check out these other recipes, all family favorites.

• Irish Lamb Stew - perfect for St. Patrick's Day! 
• Saucy Persian Lamb Meatballs
• Grilled Lamb Skewers with Roasted Carrots

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Chicken and Dumplings

Chicken and dumplings mean different dishes depending on where they originate. In southern Louisiana, it’s fluffy drop dumplings, cooked in a roux-based simmering rich brown gravy with stewed chicken, just like my grandmother used to make.

When one lives in a place where bargaining is standard practice, there is a hierarchy of pricing guidelines and most folks assume I’m a tourist. So, when I am out and about in a local market and someone asks, “Where are you from?” I always answer, “I live here.” And then, if I am truly interested in buying the thing, I start chatting with the vendor. “I live here” puts me squarely in Resident Expat sector, which usually gets me a decent price but not as low as it could be if I cajole my way up the Friendliness/Bargaining Savvy Continuum. If you know what I mean. Here, I’ve drawn you a handy chart.

Sadly, I've met folks from a few countries who could qualify as "ugly Americans."

It’s only when someone pushes further, that I might say that I am from the United States. If you prod even more, you’ll get “The South.”  We have to be having a real conversation for me to get into, “Well, I was born in Louisiana but I lived more years in Texas, but Louisiana is still kind of home because that’s where my grandparents were. Actually, I’ve lived overseas even more years than I have lived in the US.” Whew.

But when it comes to cooking, the first hometown favorites that come to mind are my grandmothers’ traditional Cajun dishes, like chicken and sausage gumbo,   courtbouillon, maque choux, smothered pork chops, smothered cabbage with pork, eggplant casserole with shrimp or crawfish etouffee, just to name a few. I’ve shared all of those already, as you can tell by the links, so I was wracking my brain for another of my grandmothers’ dishes that I haven’t shared for this week’s Sunday Supper hometown favorites theme. Perhaps smothered round steak or cabbage rolls or crawfish fettuccine casserole? And then it hit me!

A couple of years ago, when we were living in Cairo, it was chilly, my heater was broken and I was cold and lonely. I needed some comfort food. So I called my mom on Skype and discussed the ins and outs of my grandmother’s chicken and dumplings recipe. I made it that day and even took photos but I never shared it here. It's the perfect dish for this week’s Sunday Supper Hometown theme, and it's kind of chilly here in Dubai, so I made it again. The roux-based gravy is wonderful, the chicken is tender and falling off the bone. And the dumplings! The dumplings are light and fluffy, so wonderful that my husband went back for seconds of just the dumplings with extra gravy. As my grandparents would say, “Talk about good!”

Chicken and Dumplings

Any recipe that includes a copper-penny-colored roux is a good recipe in my book. If you'd like to see photos of the evolution of your roux from blonde to dark copper, check out this post: https://www.foodlustpeoplelove.com/2015/09/how-to-make-roux.html

Ingredients
For the chicken stew:
1 whole chicken
Sea salt
Black pepper
Cayenne
Olive oil
4 tablespoons flour
1 medium onion
2 long stalks celery

For the dumplings:
2 cups or 250g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup or 180ml milk
1 large egg

Note: My grandmother would have undoubtably finished this dinner with a sprinkling of chopped parsley. I plumb forgot.

Method
Cut your chicken up into at least eight pieces and season liberally with salt, black pepper and cayenne. If the breasts are large, I cut them in half again to get 10 pieces. I go pretty heavy on the cayenne because we like things spicy but use your best judgment for your family’s tastes.

Heat a good drizzle of olive oil in a frying pan and panfry the chicken until it is golden on both sides.

While the chicken is browning, dice your onion and celery.

Once the chicken is browned, remove it from the pan and set aside.  Add the four tablespoons of flour into the pan and stir until it is completely combined with the oil in the pan. Use a wooden spoon to loosen all the lovely browned bits that are stuck to the pan.

Cook the flour/oil mixture, formally known as a roux, over a medium heat, stirring almost constant, until it reaches a lovely dark copper color. Make sure not to let it catch and scorch or your gravy will taste burnt.

Add in the chopped onion and celery and continue cooking for several minutes until they soften.

Slowly add in a couple of cups of water and stir. Keep stirring until you have a lovely brown gravy without lumps of flour.

Add the browned chicken back into the pot, along with any juice that is in the plate it was resting on.

The gravy should come most of the way up the sides of the chicken. Add a little more water, if necessary.

Cover the pan and turn the fire down to simmer. Leave to simmer for about 45-55 minutes, checking occasionally that the water doesn’t completely evaporate and adding more if necessary. About halfway through the cooking time, turn the chicken over.

When the chicken is tender and cooked through, lightly whisk your egg with your milk and then combine your dumpling ingredients in a mixing bowl, stirring until just mixed.

Remove your chicken from the pan and set aside. Cover it so it stays warm.

Use a tablespoon to spoon the dumpling batter into the simmering gravy, leaving room between the dumplings so they can puff up as they cook. The batter comes off the spoon more easily if the spoon is wet so rinse it with water first and between scoops. Put the lid on for a few minutes.

Remove the lid and turn the dumplings over and replace the lid for another minute or two.

Transfer the dumplings to a plate and keep them warm until ready to serve, while you cook the remaining dumplings. They will soak up some of the gravy so you can add in a little water and stir well between the two batches if you need to.

Serve the chicken and dumplings with the remaining gravy from the pan. And my grandmother would always have had a vegetable or two alongside.

Enjoy!

So fluffy inside!

I am so excited about this week’s Sunday Supper because I know I am going to learn about dishes from so many different places around the US and the world through the loving, perhaps even a bit nostalgic, eyes of my fellow Sunday Supper colleagues and our wonderful host Coleen of The Redhead Baker. What a fabulous list, don’t you agree?!

Breakfast

• Alamo City Breakfast Tacos by The Weekend Gourmet
• Gluten Free Cinnamon Raisin Bagels by Cupcakes & Kale Chips
• Mickey Mouse Waffles by Wallflour Girl
• New York Style Bagels by The Girl In The Little Red Kitchen
• Peanut Butter and Fluff French Toast by Momma’s Meals

Drinks

• Candied Kumquat Peels, Kumquat Syrup, and Kumquat-Ade by Recipe for Perfection
• Wine Pairing Recommendations for Hometown Food by ENOFYLZ Wine Blog

Appetizers and Snacks

• Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings by Peanut Butter and Peppers
• Cuban Sandwich Crostini by Casa de Crews
• Cuban Sandwich Dip by Family Foodie
• South Jersey Boardwalk Caramel Corn by Take A Bite Out of Boca

Main Dishes

• Chicken and Dumplings by Food Lust People Love
• Crockpot Cincinnati Chili by Palatable Pastime
• Fried Rice Vermicelli with Vegetable Fritters by Brunch with Joy
• Honey Cola Baked Ham by Magnolia Days
• Hot Brown Ham Sliders by A Kitchen Hoor's Adventures
• Joe's Special by Nosh My Way
• Lentil, Cauliflower and Sweet Potato Curry by Mess Makes Food
• New England Beans and Cod by Cooking Chat
• Oven Toasted Ravioli by Curious Cuisiniere
• Philadelphia Tomato Pie by The Redhead Baker
• Pierogies by Hezzi D's Books and Cooks
• Portobello "Philly Cheese Steak" by PancakeWarriors
• Pozole Rojo by Simply Healthy Family
• Revved-up Poutine by Jane's Adventures in Dinner
• Rice with Pork and Pineapple by Basic N Delicious
• San Francisco Cioppino by Eat, Drink and be Tracy
• Seattle-Style Dungeness Crab Roll by Bobbi's Kozy Kitchen
• Tex-Mex Cheese Enchiladas with Chile con Carne by The Texan New Yorker
• The Pittsburgh Devonshire Sandwich by Seduction in the Kitchen
• Upper Peninsula Pasties by Recipes Food and Cooking
• Victory Pig Sicilian Style Pizza by Rants From My Crazy Kitchen
• Xiang La Tu Zi // Hot & Spicy Rabbit by Curried Canteloupe

Side Dishes

• 1905 Salad by Supper for a Steal
• Chicken Rice Pilaf by Crazy Foodie Stunts
• Classic Italian Risotto in Bianco by La Bella Vita Cucina
• Greek Salad with Potato Salad by Ruffles & Truffles
• Korean Steamed Eggs by Hip Foodie Mom
• Smoke House Cheesy Garlic Bread by Peaceful Cooking

Desserts

• Apple Crisp by Serena Bakes Simply From Scratch
• Buckeye Cupcakes by Desserts Required
• Carob Bumpy Cake by Pies and Plots
• Chocolate Earthquake Cake by That Skinny Chick Can Bake
• Chocolate Pocky Cake by NinjaBaker
• Grandma Sweeney's Chocolate Cream Pie by Lifestyle Food Artistry
• Lemon Buttermilk Bundt Cake by Alida's Kitchen
• Memories of Mom; Michigan Apple Cake by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Mile High Strawberry Pie by Cindy's Recipes and Writings
• Pear Parkin by Happy Baking Days
• Vegan Timbits by Killer Bunnies, Inc
• Vernors Cake by Country Girl in the Village

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