#u can stirfry everything with that instead of sesame oil

[radio-charlie]

So one thing about rice congee is that its a very popular ‘struggle meal’ type of food among Southern Chinese. if u make it plain, its just rice slowly cooked in a lot of water. this sounds like a recipe for the world’s most boring chowder.

And it is. that’s why we like to eat it with little dishes such as: stirfried salted mustard greens, sweet pickled mustard green stems, crispy fried salted fish, 1-2 cubes of fermented tofu (usually 1 is more than enough for one bowl because it’s very intense). Some people like to have it with peanuts that have been braised in five spice powder and soy sauce until sweet and tender.

My favorite things to eat it with are stirfried salted mustard greens and fermented tofu. rarely both at the same time because -> sodium party. You don’t have to do all that much to make an alright salted mustard green stirfry. Here’s what i like to do

Ingredients:

minced garlic julienned ginger one packet of long salted mustard greens (theres the type that looks more like a little cabbage - i don’t do that for congee) chicken/veg stock powder chinese wine birds eye chillies (optional) sesame oil

Steps:

i. Prepare the mustard greens by washing them, then soaking them in water for abt 20-30 mins, then washing again and wringing out the water. You can then wad it up and slice it to the thickness of your liking. Thin makes it nice and noodly, but thicker lets you enjoy the crunch of the stem more.

1. Gently fry your garlic, ginger and chillies in the sesame oil until fragrant 2. Add the sliced mustard greens. Turn heat up to medium-low. Stir until mixed up with the aromatics 3. Slosh in the Chinese cooking wine. Turn heat up to medium. Keep stirring but not so much that the greens break up 4. Add water, then a little bit of stock powder. Set the heat to simmer, leave it alone until the water reduces enough that you can hardly see it 5. Serve with a hot bowl of rice congee

That’s it! As you can see it can easily be made vegan, which worked well for Fujian farmers back in the old days because who could just get fresh pork whenever.