Rice porridge is a dish made from rice and water, with added ingredients for flavor. It is served as a breakfast food, main meal, or dessert, and is common in South and Southeast Asian cuisines. Congee is a popular form of rice porridge in China, with regional variations and ingredients such as chicken, fish, pork, ginger, lettuce, tofu, or pickled eggs. Similar dishes occur in other Asian nations and some European cultures.
Rice porridge is a dish made from rice, water, and other ingredients added for flavor. Rice porridge is served as a breakfast food, a main meal, or a dessert depending on the recipe and ingredients added. It typically has a thick, slightly bumpy texture, similar to a thick soup. This dish is known around the world, but is especially common in South and Southeast Asian cuisines.
To make rice porridge, a cook boils the rice together with a small amount of salt and oil, then simmers the mixture over low heat until the rice grains break down. This is a lengthy process, requiring at least half an hour of cooking and often much longer. Once the porridge is ready, the cook can add other ingredients such as sliced vegetables, meat or sauces. In some rice porridge recipes, the broth adds flavor to the porridge as it cooks.
One of the best-known forms of rice porridge is congee, a Chinese dish with a huge range of regional variations. Congee – also known as juk, jook or chook – is a thick rice porridge that is a traditional breakfast food. It can also be part of other meals and is particularly popular as a meal for the invalids due to its blandness when unflavoured. Congee recipes include ingredients such as chicken, fish, pork, ginger, lettuce, tofu or pickled eggs. These ingredients provide a heavily flavored counterpoint to the simple flavor of the congee.
Congee and related dishes appear in many other Asian nations including India, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Burma, Indonesia, Korea and Japan. The texture and aroma vary according to local customs. To vary the texture of the rice porridge, the cook varies the amount of water used to boil it. The lower the ratio of water to rice, the thicker the porridge will be. The duration of cooking can also vary, with shorter cooking times resulting in a more soup-like consistency where individual rice grains are visible in the water. The type of rice used also varies from place to place.
Outside of Asia, dishes of this type are less common. Related dishes occur in some European cultures, particularly Scandinavia. These are usually sweet dishes prepared with rice cooked in milk instead of water. This type of dish is often called rice pudding rather than rice porridge and may include sugar or spices such as cinnamon.
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