Serves: 5
Rice, in addition to being boiled or steamed (see BACKGROUND, "10- The Basics: Rice"), can be combined with various toppings, prepared as fried rice, or made into a soup called congee.
When fully cooked, rice can be mixed with stir-fried meat and vegetable combinations (these are added to the rice just before serving). When partially cooked, rice can be topped with ingredients such as raw cut-up chicken, meat and seafood, and cooked with them until all are done. (The steam rising from the rice will actually cook these raw ingredients.)
FRIED RICE
Fried rice, which originated in Yangchow province, is a versatile dish which combines cooked rice, onions, soy sauce, sometimes eggs, and just about any other ingredient-leftover or fresh-that may be on hand. The ingredient that predominates gives the dish its name: chicken fried rice, roast pork fried rice, shrimp fried rice, etc. When many ingredients are included, the dish is called subgum--or "many varieties"--fried rice.
The starting point for fried rice is cold cooked rice, preferably cooked the day before and refrigerated, so that it becomes firm and grainy and will not stick or become soft when stir-fried. If there is no cold cooked rice on hand, boiled rice can be prepared and broken up while still hot. The rice should then be left to cool for several hours. As long as it's quite cool, it needn't be chilled. It should never, under any circumstances, be rinsed in cold water to speed up the cooling. All of its flavor will be washed way. NOTE: When rice is prepared especially for fried rice, it can be boiled in half-stock and half-water to enrich its flavor.
Since fried rice is essentially a dish of leftovers, many of its ingredients, being already cooked and moist, should be drained well before they are added, to keep the rice from getting soggy. (If the rice becomes too dry, however, small amounts of such drained liquids, stock, leftover gravies or oil can be added at the very end.) Since the finished dish is reasonably dry and aromatic, it goes particularly well with light and simple soups, and the combination makes a good lunch or light supper. The restaurant convention of ordering a dish of fried rice with numerous other "main" courses, or ordering it in place of white rice, is Western and not at all Chinese.
Fried rice, prepared a few hours in advance, can be kept warm in a slow oven. Leftover fried rice will keep several days, if covered tightly and refrigerated. Fried rice can also be frozen and then reheated in the oven without preliminary thawing.
RICE SOUP OR CONGEE
Rice soup or congee is a dish of equal versatility. (It's also known as soft rice or rice gruel. The Chinese call it "jook.") Congee is prepared by simmering a small quantity of rice in a large quantity of water until a smooth creamy broth is formed. Depending on the proportion of rice to water, congee can range from a thin, delicate gruel to a semi-solid porridge. Any type of rice is suitable: long-grain, oval-grain or glutinous. These can be used alone or in combination (glutinous added to long-grain rice makes the congee thicker and stickier). The rice can also be used raw or cooked. Even the seemingly unusable rice crusts, which form at the bottom of boiled rice, can be simmered in water to make this dish.
Congee is eaten for breakfast, lunch, supper and just about any other time of day as a snack. It may be prepared plain or cooked with additional ingredients. The plain congee is never eaten alone but accompanied by various side dishes to contrast with its blandness. For breakfast, it's accompanied by salty and pickled side dishes, designed to wake up the early-morning palate. These side dishes can include hardboiled eggs, served with soy sauce salt eggs preserved eggs eggs stirred with preserved minced turnips fried salted fish salted radishes salted peanuts small amounts of red or white bean cheese savory Chinese sausages pickled vegetables and pickled ginger. (The contrast between the thin wateriness of the congee and these spicy and stimulating foods provides a refreshing taste of sweetness to the mouth.) Westerners, accustomed to blander breakfasts, may find these combinations too pungent for early-morning tastes and prefer them for lunch or evening snacks instead.
The basic blandness of rice makes it possible to cook congee with just about any meat, poultry and fish, as well as with the bones of pork and chicken, the carcass of roast duck, etc. All these combinations produce dishes which are nutritious and highly digestible. Some of the ingredients used (such as dried shrimp, dried scallops and dried tangerine peel) are added at the start of cooking. Others (such as slices of raw fish or squid) are added at the very end. The latter, when dropped into boiling congee, need a minute or less to cook through. Raw meat or poultry, when cut up fine, also cooks very quickly.
Congee, whatever its ingredients, is always served piping hot, garnished with a bit of green such as minced scallion or Chinese parsley, and seasoned with a few drops of soy sauce. A raw egg is sometimes stirred in at the very end to make it richer. Congee, if refrigerated, will keep for several days (if it becomes thickened and heavy, it can be thinned simply by adding more water when reheating the congee on the top of the stove.)
The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook. ©1994 by Gloria Bley Miller.
This *Rice Dishes recipe is from the Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook Cookbook. Download this Cookbook today.
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