Salmon Congee 三文鱼粥

A recreation of what I’ve tasted at Ryu Men Tei, Subang Jaya.

We always frequent this place when Mike and I still lived in USJ. I think I’ve almost eaten everything on their menu, except for their lobsters and live catches in aquariums. As we only go there for regular dinners, lobsters and those geoducks are a luxury that we never indulged in. Ha, but a good dinner only needs good food, there’s no necessity for luxury stuff. I love everything there.. except for their sushi, which is find to be a bit bland for my taste. Other stuff are pretty nicely seasoned.

Lydia and Lyanne was sick during this weekend (as of this dish, weeks and weeks ago), so, we didn’t go out. What I had in my fridge were salmon, spring onions, filament crab sticks and not much of other stuff. Well, congee was the easiest stuff for Sunday lunch, as I will always cook the rice the night before I sleep and bring it back to a boil in the morning for a smooth smooth congee.

The night before, I boil 5 cups or more water. Wash 1 cup rice and put it in. Bring to a rolling boil and reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes, with lid on. Take a look at the rice, it should look flowered (split). Return the lid and turn off the heat and let it sit overnight. It should look like puffed rice grains the next day. Only use high starch rice to make congee, so that you’ll have nice and smooth results. AAA grade Thai Fragrant rice (jasmine), Japanese short grain rice, or Bario rice will be a good choice.

The next morning,(or you can also do this the night before, just mix both broth and rice together the next day) with another pot, I boil 5 cups or less water or stock or dashi. Put in chicken or whatever meat and let it cook. If it needs to be shredded take it out and let it cool. Then put the cooked rice back in, and bring it back to a boil on high heat for 10 minutes. There you have it, smooth express porridge in the morning. Well of course, you can always use the slow cooker and let it cook overnight the whole thing if you want, but I don’t.

For this time, I used
1 cup Thai fragrant rice (jasmine rice) (Makes about 2.5L porridge)
5 cups or more water
Cook this the night before just before you go to sleep until the rice splits.

5 cups or less water
2 Tbsp mini dried scallops
200gm salmon flesh, or just use one piece of 1 inch thick salmon steak (mine was ¾ of a steak, partially used for Lyanne’s porridge weeks ago)
1 medium carrot
6 pcs filament crab stick
2 sprigs of green onion
Salt to taste (about 1.5 to 2 tsp)

1. Bring water and scallops to a boil and let it simmer for 30 minutes.
2. Either cook the salmon in the microwave, or poach it in another saucepan of water(if you’re scared that it’ll taste fishy) or you can throw it into the pot (that is making scallops broth). Take out the salmon and let it cool down. The fish is cooked when it can be easily flaked.
3. Next, peel and finely dice the carrot, slice the green onions, slice the filament crab sticks finely.
4. By the time you’re done with the cutting and slicing, put the rice back into the scallop broth and bring to a boil on high heat (lid off), don’t’ leave the pot unattended. Stir the rice so that it’ll disintergrate into the broth. Season with salt.
5. Flake the salmon and return it to the pot. Put in finely diced carrots too.
6. When the rice has come to a boil, let it simmer on medium heat for 10 minutes, lid off.
7. Put in the sliced crab sticks, lightly stir and turn off the heat.
8. Put in green onions now or use it as a garnish later.

*The reason why I do this in 2 pots is because reboiling rice can sometimes be a daunting task. It can easily burn or if you stir it while bringing it back to boil, you may scald your wrist or palm because porridge is very very hot, worse than getting scalded by hot water. So bringing the broth to boil, then only you add the rice, reduces the cooking time and less chance of getting scalded.

Mike rarely goes back for seconds when it comes to porridge. He ate 2 big bowls of this. Very very sweet porridge.
He asked me, if this porridge is sold for RM5/bowl, will I make money. I told him Ryu Men Tei sold this for almost RM10  :-)

And I did this again the following week.... this pic below is from the 2nd week , I left some salmon to sprinkle on top for garnish, rather than mixing them all in.