Conquer Asia

Usually eaten as a breakfast food or late supper, rice congee is a kind of rice porridge that is made in a pot or in a rice cooker. Rice congees vary from one country to another. The Chinese, Japanese, Filipino and Korean kinds of rice congees differ in the way of cooking and in the ingredients used.

The Chinese congees are often served with zha cai, salted duck eggs, lettuce and dace paste, bamboo shoots, youtiao, wheat gluten, meat and century eggs. They also add seasonings like white pepper and soy sauce. The Japanese call their rice porridge as Okayu. It is consists of rice and water and they often have salt for seasoning. Okayu may be topped with negi or green onion, salmon, roe, ginger and umeboshi. The Okayu in Japan is known as the food served to those who are sick.

The Korean people cook their rice porridge with vegetables, tuna and other ingredients. They often serve kimchi, beef jerky, pickled cuttlefish and other ingredients to add flavor to the plain congee. Lugao is the rice porridge of the Filipinos and it is often boiled with fresh ginger.

[/tags] rice congee, asia, food [/tags]