Vegan Congee

I open my fridge. It’s been a long day, and I just want to make something simple and quick. I spot the leftover rice from the meal I’ve made yesterday. Only one thing comes to mind – vegan congee!

As a Malaysian, I have had a lot of congee growing up. They’re even on the menu in McDonald’s retaurants over there! Much like fried rice, it makes good use of leftover ingredients to stretch things further. It’s also just plain delicious! You can also dress it up however you want.

Ingredients

• 1 cup day-old rice, make sure to break up the clumps (no need to be too exact about this, I find this is the minimum amount needed for a satisfying amount of congee for 2 people)
• 250ml water ( I prefer to boil it beforehand so that it takes less time to start bubbling in the pot!)
• 4 cloves of garlic (we’re garlic-crazy in my household, so often use 5-6 cloves)
• 5 dried shiitake mushrooms, broken into smaller pieces (you can fresh as well if you want to)
• 1 inch of ginger
• 1 low-salt veggie stock cube
• 1/2-1 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 chopped spring onion
• 1 tsp black vinegar (optional)
• few cracks of black pepper
• 1 tsp of sriracha – or perhaps some red chilli flakes if you’d prefer this in your congee (optional)
• 1 tsp toasted sesame oil
• 1 tsp chilli oil (optional)
• 1/2 tbsp crispy fried onion (optional)
• a sprinkle of MSG – optional! We’re not afraid of a bit of MSG here 🙂

Method

1. Pound or finely mince garlic and ginger to form a paste.
2. Pour water into a pot and bring to a simmer.
3. Add ginger-garlic paste to the water and simmer for a few minutes.
4. Add dried mushrooms into pot with the veggie stock cube and simmer for 5 minutes.
5. Add leftover rice to the contents of the pot and continue simmering till rice has broken down and forms a nice, thick, gloopy, porridge-y texture – I find that it takes us about 15-20 minutes on medium heat. Be sure to stir every now and again! You may need to add more water if it’s too thick.
6. Ladle porridge out into bowls, and add soy sauce and sesame oil; I’ve listed some optional ingredients above that I would highly recommend!
7. Top with chopped spring onion and black pepper (or white pepper if you have any), and enjoy 🙂

Both my husband and I love congee, and we often have it for breakfast as well. I hope you’ll enjoy it too!