Got leftover rice? Try making congee! Congee is a rice porridge, also called jook 粥 in Cantonese or zhou in Mandarin. It is slowly cooked over a low fire with any variety of ingredients your heart desires, but one of the popular variations is century egg with learn pork and chopped scallions. Other types may include seafood congees with shrimp, scallops, squid, and fish, or simple congees with just chicken. Most of them also incorporate ginger which brings a warm balance to the porridge. Typically it is eaten as a breakfast item with crispy fried youtiu 油条, which are fried sticks of dough that is used for dipping into the congee. (Youtiu is also delicious to dip into hotpot broth!) It's a great vessel to soak up liquid flavors.

Congee can be made from scratch with fresh rice (though it can take longer) or if you're lazy like me, I use leftover or extra white rice that I have on hand from another meal. Once the jook is ready to eat, you can serve it with side dishes like pork floss (dehydrated pork that is dried and fluffy, seasoned with soy sauce and sugar), pickled cucumbers, spicy bamboo shoots in chili oil, roasted peanuts, and more. 

This is a dish that is close to my heart because my grandmother made it often for us for breakfast, or whenever my tummy didn't feel well. A warm bowl of jook cooked with chicken was comforting and easy on the stomach, and had such pure, delicious chicken flavor infused into it. Grandma always makes her jook super soft and thick and called it "BB jook"​ because it's how she made it for us when we were babies--she would spoon feed us the jook instead of American style baby food haha. This is a dish that is made with love and care deeply imbued into it. ❤️ Century egg and lean pork congee is also a congee we would be able to buy at restaurants or Chinese eaters in Chinatown, but of course, only grandma and dad made the best jook that money can't buy 😊

You can find century egg in most Chinese grocery stores, either in the refrigerated section or on a shelf where they keep dried goods. Century egg is a preserved and cured duck egg--it is not actually a century old, though when you crack it open it certainly looks like something that might have been, haha! It's characterized by dark brownish jelly like outside, with a blackish green gooey yolk inside. It is definitely an acquired taste to beginners, but there is something about it that is so delicious once you grow accustomed to it. You can eat it in steamed dishes, in congee, or just peel, cut and enjoy with vinegar dressing over cold silken tofu as an appetizer!

Now that I'm older and cook for myself and my hubby, I make congee from time to time and it brings back fond memories of my grandmother making it for me, or of his mom making it for him. It's something that is both comforting and nostalgic, and I hope you enjoy it as well!

CENTURY EGG CONGEE WITH LEAN PORK

INGREDIENTS:​
- 2 cups cooked leftover rice
- 1 can chicken broth
- 2-3 cups water
- 2 century eggs peeled and chopped up
- 100 grams sliced pork loin or pork butt into slivers (about 1/4 pound)
- 1 tbsp oil
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 3 stalks of green onions
- 2 slices of thinly julienned ginger
- 1 tbsp chicken bouillon powder
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tbsp white pepper
- salt to taste

DIRECTIONS:
1. Cut your pork into thin slivers and then coat it in cornstarch and a tbsp of oil. You can add a small pinch of salt to it and let it marinate for about 20 minutes.
2. Mix the leftover rice and break it up in a pot. Add your chicken broth and water.
2. Peel and rinse the century eggs and chop them up, add to the pot. Add the chopped up scallions and ginger to the pot.
3. Bring to a boil and add in your pork. Continue mixing, and once pork is cooked through, lower heat down to the lowest flame possible and let simmer for about 1-2 hrs. Mix once in a while to prevent the rice from sticking and burning at the bottom of the pot.
4. Keep an eye on the congee to ensure it doesn't get too thick--add water 1/4 cup at a time and mix if you want it thinner.
5. Once it reaches the consistency you like, add the chicken bouillon, salt, sugar, and white pepper to taste.

Enjoy with Chinese crispy pickled cucumber, spicy bamboo shoots in chili oil, or with pork floss!

Until next time,
​Jenny

Let's talk kale today. I could talk all about the benefits of this superfood vegetable that is great for you, but let's be real here, you can do your own research on that if you really wanted to. What I will talk about though, is how Wilson and I want to be more healthy and have a more balanced diet because we are getting older (30+ now! ahhhh) and while KBBQ, hotpot, seafood boils, rice, pasta and fried chicken every day sounds like a dream, we probably won't last long on this earth if we actually do loll! So, kale seemed to be a vegetable to get behind, or at least start adding to our diet. My hubby only likes enough vegetables that I can probably count off on one hand, and so cooking vegetables in a way that is yummy (or easily hidden HAH) is good. 

But, to be honest, there just aren't that many recipes online for kale that I enjoyed. Once in a while, I'll buy kale and throw it in some kind of vegetable and bean soup, but after a while, that got old too. We aren't really fans of kale chips or kale salads, so when we still have at least half a bag of kale left with no inspiration, I was at a loss. But my sister told me to use it as a substitute for dishes I would normally use spinach in, and it opened up more possibilities for me! I decided to make breakfast with it to finish off the remaining bag of kale in our fridge by incorporating it into breakfast shakshuka!

Shakshuka is a North African dish that is popular throughout the Middle East, specifically in Israel. It's easy to put together and is essentially a mix of onions, tomatoes, and peppers in a tomato based sauce seasoned with paprika, cumin, chili powder, and topped with poached eggs. I decided to add in kale, mushrooms, as well as some chicken sausage, and it came out delicious.

Extra plus because it's also healthy, and a great way to use up/sneak veggies into your diet 🤭  

This dish is so good with some toasted bread to dip into and smother the runny poached eggs all over. I added a splash of sweet soy sauce and it provided some extra umami, especially with the mix of mushrooms, tomato and onions. The kale and chicken sausage gave it extra body as well, making it a filling and satisfying breakfast dish. 

This is definitely a dish we'll be making again and again, and a great way for us to eat more veggies. We rarely eat breakfast--if anything, we're more brunch people, but this dish is great for any meal, but even better incentive if we make it for breakfast because it's so quick to put together and has great savory flavors. I hope you enjoy it!

KALE AND CHICKEN SAUSAGE SHAKSHUKA
Makes 2-3 servings.
INGREDIENTS:

• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1/2 can tomato sauce
• 1 half can chicken broth
• 2 teaspoon sweet soy sauce
• 1/2 bag kale
• 1 roma tomato, chopped
• 1/2 container of cherry tomatos, about 15
• 2 chicken sausages, sliced
• 1/2 red onion, chopped
• 1/2 box of button mushrooms, about 10, stems removed
• Parsley for garnish
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 cloves fresh garlic, chopped
• 2 tbsp cumin powder
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp sugar
• Fresh cracked black pepper
• salt (optional)
  
  

DIRECTIONS:

1. Cook red onions until translucent in olive oil, then add garlic, tomatoes, kale, mushrooms, chicken broth and cook until kale has softened.

2. Add sliced mushrooms and sliced chicken sausage, tomato paste, tomato sauce, sweet soy sauce, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, sugar and paprika, mix and cover. Add salt to taste if you feel you need it. Then lower heat to medium and cook for about 3 minutes.

3. Open and mix again, then crack 4 eggs on top of the mixture and cover again, cook for about 5-8 minutes or keep an eye on it until eggs reach your preferred doneness. I like them just cooked until the egg whites are no longer transparent and the yolk is still runny!

4. Garnish with fresh cracked black pepper and chopped parsley. Enjoy with buttered, toasted bread!

Enjoy! 

Until next time,
​Jenny

So I haven't posted in foreverrrrrr to this blog because a LOT has happened in the past year, other than the COVID19 pandemic, of course. Earlier this year we moved to Illinois because my hubby got a new job and everything changed after that. We quit our jobs, he started his new job, we sold our house in New Jersey, bought a new house in Illinois and moved over here within the span of a couple months. Looking back on it now, I don't even know how we managed such a feat, but it certainly helped that his new company paid for all of the expenses and moving company. It's crazy how much stuff we'd accumulated over the short span of a few years, and so I got rid of a TON of stuff and still managed to move with a giant truckload! We've been living in Illinois since May now, and I have just started to get back into the groove of things, in terms of doing things that I wanted to do, for myself.

Since moving out here, we realized our town does not have many good Asian food options, and we did try some of the offerings around, though none of it memorable. I craved all the things we usually had easy access to in NJ and NYC, and being out here all alone really made me miss real, authentic foods from my culture. If we wanted anything remotely good, we'd have to drive about 2 hours to Chicago to find something. There is a town about an hour from us with slightly more authentic Chinese food, but it's still just so-so. So now, I end up making a lot of the foods we crave. Within the first 2 months or so, I made hundreds and hundreds of assorted dumplings and wontons, one of our favorite foods, which brings me to today's recipe post!

Wontons (雲吞) are a favorite in our family and a type of dumpling that I have fond memories of. These dumplings are a favorite of my father's and his favorite were from a very specific no frills restaurant that he would frequent in Hong Kong that served up "Ping Pong ball sized" wontons filled to the brim with fresh shrimp mixed with a touch of pork and served in a delicious clear broth. Cheap, fast, and delicious was the name of the game when it came to food in Hong Kong--especially street food or casual food. Nowadays, we always reminisce about how delicious the ping pong ball wontons were from Hong Kong whenever we have wontons or make them at home!

Traditional wontons are dumplings that are typically filled with pork, shrimp, or a combination of both. In Hong Kong and China, wonton soup often includes 大地鱼 or bian yu, also known as dried sole or flounder that adds a real hit of umami when the wontons are submerged in it. Some dried flounder powder is sometimes added to the wonton filling as well. It's been pretty hard to find this dried flounder powder in the USA, but with some online googling, I'm sure you can find it if you truly want an authentic wonton experience. For this recipe, we don't use dried flounder powder, but it still tastes great and goes wonderfully with noodle soup or on its own.

In my recipe, we use shrimp and pork, some Chinese staple seasonings and sauces, and ginger. The trick to a shrimp-ilicious wonton is to mix  a combination of chopped chunk shrimp and pounded shrimp paste with some ground pork. ​

Once your filling is ready, you'll spoon some onto some thin wonton wrappers which you can find at most Asian markets, and now increasingly can be found in the refrigerated sections of non-Asian supermarkets. I usually find them where they keep their tofu selections, which is also where they keep egg roll wrappers if you need to find some! I like to fold my wontons in half, then bring the ends together to "hug" the wonton.

I love to wrap a whole bunch of wontons and dumplings in one sitting so that I can store them in the freezer. After you are done wrapping them, place each finished dumplings onto a flat pan lined with parchment paper. After they are frozen, you can throw them into a freezer gallon bag to save space in the freezer.