Chao ga (chicken congee/porridge)

Remember I told you I would keep that nice chicken broth? Well since I kept it outside I made sure I bring it to a boil for a couple of minutes every day. It would be better to store it in the fridge, but there’s simply no room. I understand that if I keep doing this long enough it would be referred as a “master stock”, one stock in which you continue to cook your chicken, pork etc. Well I’m not planning to keep it that long. In fact I already used half of the broth for my chao.

My sister and hubby weren’t feeling to hot today and there is nothing more comforting then chao. And nothing easier to make either.

When we were young and we were ill, my mom use to make just plain chao with rice and lots of water (nothing more then that) and we had to eat it with sugar. JUK! Still now I can’t have any sweet rice pie…just reminds me too much of ill people’s chao.

I still had some of yesterday’s rice left which is perfect for this. It all went in the pot after the broth boiled. I turned the fire low so the rice could soak up all that nice chicken broth and had time to fall apart.
If you don’t have any cooked rice you can just use uncooked rice. It just takes a bit longer. Bring the broth to a boil and add the rice. Stir every once a while so the rice doesn’t stick on the bottom. Remember a little bit of rice goes a long way when you make chao.

As I don’t like my chao too thick I had to add some more water and some salt. I like it well seasoned. When you can’t see the rice shape it’s done. With chao there is no overdone, just underdone. As long as you still see the rice shape you know it has to cook it a bit longer.

While the chao was simmering I had time to chop some spring onions and cilantro. We always use this combo of herbs on our chao.

From that whole chicken I cooked for my goi ga the other day, I only used the breasts and the drumsticks, so today I had the thighs and the wings left.

I made another batch of goi ga, but as you can see it doesn’t look as nice as the one made with breast and drumsticks.

Normally chao has beans sprouts as well, but I didn’t buy it. I wasn’t planning on making chao. In fact I wasn’t panning dinner at all today. To busy making daikon cake (recipe will follow) which is sitting in my fridge right now. I’m crossing my fingers that it will set enough to fry tomorrow.

The goi ga went really, really well with the chao. It will for sure cure anything!