What's up guys? Welcome back to Rack of Lam. So growing up in a Chinese household, my parents would
often make us congee for breakfast. It was also something that they served to us when we weren't
feeling too well or just didn't have an appetite. If you've never had or heard of congee before,
it's basically rice porridge that we refer to as "jook" in Cantonese. It can be eaten plain or with
multiple toppings and fillings. My parents usually made plain congee with a number of side dishes,
which reminds me, my dad also made some bangin' pork bone congee that I'm going to have to
chase him down for the recipe one day. Now, with modernized kitchen gadgets that make cooking more
efficient, I began making congee directly in the instant pot. With just one press of a button, just
set it and forget it and return to the ultimate Chinese comfort food. In today's video I'm going
to be showing you how to make fish congee, which is my go-to variation because it's a great way
to squeeze in some protein and frankly, flavors are so subtle that you can still top your bowl
off with just about anything. So keep watching if you want to learn how I make fish congee in the
instant pot and five of my favorite toppings. And if you like what you see, please give me a thumbs
up, share and subscribe to my channel.
Okay, so what I have here is one of the best inventions ever!
I'm just gonna remove the pot and we're gonna put some rice in there.
So I'm just gonna go for one cup of jasmine rice
and we're gonna go wash these.
I wash my rice about three to four times
when I make congee or rice. I'm curious to know what you guys do.
'Cause I spoke with some people and
they like to wash their rice until the water runs clear, but I actually
don't think it's necessary, but it would be interesting to find out what everybody does.
So I washed it about three times. I think this is sufficient enough. So we installed a
filtration system in the home. This is what I use when I cook and I'm just gonna fill
this up with 4 cups of water and then I'm gonna add another two and a half cups.
I'm going to be filling this up with another two and a half cups of water,
so it'll be a total of six and a half cups.
Feel free to add a little more water if you like your congee more "hay" as the Chinese would say.
I actually don't like my congee too watery, so six and a half cups is good enough for me.
Okay, let's get all the grains in the water.
And in this, we're gonna be adding a large thumb of ginger and again, you can adjust it to taste
but I like my congee a little spicy so I like to add a lot of ginger into it. Before I put it
into the congee I'm actually going to be smashing it with my cleaver. The Chinese call this "pak gurng."
This actually helps bring out the
the aromas of the ginger. I'm going to throw this into the congee.
I am going to be using a fillet of swai in my congee. I get four fillets
for 2.99 a pound from my local Asian supermarket. I do like using this because it has a very subtle
fish flavor, so the congee doesn't come out tasting too fishy. Tasting or smelling too fishy rather.
I add one fillet in my congee, but feel free to add more if you'd like.
It's just going to go in here and I'm also going to be adding one tablespoon of fish sauce.
You can add more or less if you want. I typically add some while it's cooking and I'll adjust
according to taste afterwards. And now this is gonna go back into the instant pot.
I'm gonna plug this baby in.
We're gonna close the lid,
We're going to hit porridge and that is it my friends.
Set it and forget it. Make your life a little easier by making some congee in your instant pot.
Oh, one thing you must not forget is make sure that this is in the sealing position.
Alright, there's only one more minute left!
After the 20 minutes is up, I'll wait for it to naturally release and when this floating
valve is completely down i'll open it up. If you don't want to wait and want to eat
it immediately you can certainly push this steam valve to venting position
and let it release pressure that way but I'm just going to let it sit here until
the floating valve goes down, since I'm not in an urgent need to eat it right now.
After about 30 minutes, the floating valve finally dropped and now I can show you how the congee looks.
One thing you'll notice when you open up your instant pot is the fish is still in a whole piece,
but what I do is I just stir it around
and you can see that it melts directly into the congee. So stir it up, break the fish apart and
get a good taste of it to see if you want to add a little more fish sauce, some salt, whatever you'd like.
I typically add some white pepper and sesame oil in my congee. So as you can see,
looks pretty good
The rice is pretty broken up which is how I like my congee.
And it's not too thick
not too liquidy.
So this was six and a half cups. If you like it a little thicker, then I would suggest cutting
down the water a bit and if you like it more "hay" or watery then add a little bit more water.
It's going to be some trial and error depending on what your preferences are so...
This congee is smelling so good!
Now I'm going to show you how I assemble it and what sort of toppings I put on top of the congee.
Looks pretty good after five minutes. It's crispy and not burnt.
I can't wait to top my congee off with that!
So this is what we call thousand year old egg
or "pay dan." So if you've never seen this before please don't be alarmed because it's quite dark.
Let me get that out of your sight. So this is how a thousand-year-old egg looks.
This is probably going to freak you out but Chinese people actually love to eat this.
This is how it looks after you cut it open which is probably going to freak you out a bit more but
I actually really like it. It's definitely an acquired taste.
If you do get an opportunity to try this, I would recommend that you do
but I don't guarantee that you're gonna like it. That's another topping that can go on your congee.
There you go. Now if you'd like, you may add a little more white pepper and sesame oil but
these are just some toppings that we like to put on top for congee and I hope that you enjoy!