Rice Porridge (Khao Tom) Recipe on Food52 (2024)

FAQs

What's the difference between rice porridge and congee? ›

So, congee is a type of rice porridge, but not all rice porridge is congee-like the way all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Jook gets a step more specific: It's the English translation of the Cantonese name for rice porridge.

Congee, also known as jook in Cantonese, was one of my favorite things to eat growing up. My parents used to make this chicken congee recipe as breakfast for my sister and I as we got ready for school, and they'd always have a week's worth of congee for us whenever we got sick.

So is it a porridge or a pudding? To my mind it is definitely a pudding if it is served after as a dessert and a porridge if it is served in the morning. However many people prefer to call it a porridge whenever it is served. Rice porridge/pudding has been an important dish in Sweden for centuries.

Rich in flavour and filled with the goodness of nutrients, rice congee is the perfect dish to have daily for anyone, especially children who are picky eaters. Introduce your fussy baby to a warm bowl of rice congee topped with the things they love. The delicious dish is also beneficial for your overall well-being.

One particular benefit is hydration, due to the amount of water absorbed by the rice grains throughout the cooking process. Chicken stock or bone broth, which is the second key ingredient for congee, is also hydrating and provides a rich source of collagen.

Beancurd skin is the secret ingredient to ensuring the texture of each bowl of congee comes out right. Adding the beancurd skin helps to make the rice grains mushy, and thus easier to cook down to a smooth consistency.

Congee is essentially a rice porridge made by boiling rice in a great deal of water until it breaks down into a pudding-like consistency. When made with water, the taste of congee is very bland, but there are many ways that you can add sweet or savory flavors.

The range of sides that goes with congee is endless. Lovers of preserved will be spoilt for choice with options such as pickled cucumber, wheat gluten, pickled turnip, pickled white gourd, fermented bean curd, dried bamboo shoot, salted clam, salted duck egg, meat floss and all sorts of fried bean sticks.

Congee has a history as a famine food — rice stretched to last with the addition of extra water — and, more commonly nowadays, the ideal sick dish.

Is there a Japanese version of congee? ›

Kayu (粥), or often okayu (お粥) is the name for the type of congee eaten in Japan, which typically uses water to rice ratios of 5:1 or 7:1 and is cooked for about 30 minutes. Kayu may be made with just rice and water, and is often seasoned with salt. Eggs can be beaten into it to thicken it.

Congee, or jook, probably originated in China. Cookbook author Eileen Yin-Fei Lo maintains that congee dates back to approximately 1000 B.C., during the Zhou dynasty. In the south, jook was (and is still) made with rice, the preferred grain.

Oats are a better option than rice for weight loss and fitness aims. Oats is a better choice for people suffering from Iron Deficiency Anemia. Oats are rich in antioxidants including avenanthramides. Avenanthramides helps in lowering the blood pressure levels.

This makes it an accessible and convenient option for busy people who want to eat healthy meals. Overall, rice porridge can be a healthy choice due to its easy digestibility, nutrient density, low fat content, hydrating properties, and convenience.

This type of porridge is very popular in Korea as a light but hearty meal, often for breakfast. Something so common as rice and water always seemed to cure colds and any gloom I felt.

Congee is soft and easy to digest. People with digestive challenges and other chronic conditions benefit from the warm fluid filled with nutrients that are easy to absorb.

Congee is an important part of East Asian cuisine, but the word originated from the Tamil word 'kanji', which may refer to the water in which rice has been cooked or the porridge itself. It is a preparation of rice boiled in water.

This is, of course, congee: the porridge — also referred to as jook, zhou (my name for it, having a Northern Chinese mother), or myriad other names — that likely originated in China but is eaten in many Asian countries.

Basically, congee is the Chinese version of lugaw, but the key difference is the toppings. There is more variety when it comes to congee. While lugaw has very few toppings and is designed to be easy to digest (for those sick days), congee has more toppings that lean toward Chinese flavors.