Ten-Minute Chicken & Ginger Congee
Cold rice fractured in the blender and boiled hard until silky, with slips of chicken poached in it at the last minute.
Why it works
Congee normally takes an hour because whole grains have to burst open from the inside. Pulsing cold cooked rice breaks them before they reach the pan, and a hard rolling boil keeps the released starch moving so it thickens in ten minutes. The chicken goes in only once the heat has dropped, sliced thin and dusted with cornflour, so it sets in the standing heat of the pan and stays soft instead of seizing into threads.
Method
- Slice the chicken across the grain as thinly as you can manage, about 3 mm (⅛ in). Toss the slices with the cornflour, 1 tsp of the sesame oil and a good pinch of salt, and leave them on the board.
- Put the cold rice in a blender jug with 300 ml (1¼ cups) of the stock. Pulse four or five times, one second each: you want fractured grains and cloudy liquid, not a purée.
- Tip it into a wide pan with the rest of the 1.2 litres (5 cups) of stock, the ginger coins, the spring onion whites and the salt. Bring to a hard, rolling boil and cook 10 minutes, stirring every couple of minutes and scraping the base so nothing catches. It is ready when a spoon dragged across the bottom leaves a trail that closes slowly behind it.
- Drop the heat until the surface barely moves. Scatter the chicken over in a single layer, leave it 30 seconds to take, then stir once to separate the slices. Give it 2 minutes more, until the pieces are white all the way through with no pink at the centre of the thickest slice, and still yielding.
- Season with the white pepper and more salt than you expect. Ladle into bowls and top with the shredded ginger, spring onion greens, peanuts, fried shallots, coriander and the last 2 tsp of sesame oil.
For the toddler
Use the unsalted stock and hold the salt back at step 3, then ladle a small bowlful out before you season the pan at step 5. Leave off the fried shallots, which are salty, and the white pepper. Peanuts are a choking risk under five, so grind them fine or keep them off their bowl. Chop the chicken small.
How the toddler notes workChef’s notes
Boned-out chicken thigh, sliced just as thin, is more forgiving and wants a minute longer. Cooked pearl barley fractures in the blender the same way the rice does.
Pulse the rice the night before and keep it in the fridge in its stock. Slice the chicken while it is still half frozen and it goes twice as fast.
Two handfuls of spinach wilted in at the end, or a soft-boiled egg halved into each bowl.
Sets solid when chilled. Loosen with boiling water a ladleful at a time and bring it back to a boil for 2 minutes.