Pork and Scallop Congee

Ang saya. This was a spur of the moment dish. No recipe, no plans.

Mommy asked me to prepare congee for hubby (still having wisdom tooth issues). I thought about preparing arroz-caldo but the chicken I meant to use for arroz-caldo had to be defrosted before I could pry the pieces apart (they had frozen together).

I had a piece of pork that seemed the right portion so I threw that in a pot and started boiling. I let it boil, added the rice and remembered the dried scallops in the ref so I let them rehydrate in some water and threw that in the pot as well. Later, I remembered some kasubha (saffron ?) that I still had in my spice cabinet so I threw some in as well.... I put in some chicken powder and a dash of patis for a bit of flavor and this turned out great.

I served it topped with crunchy fried onions.

Ingredients:

pork shoulder

dried scallops

rice

salt

patis

chicken powder

fried onions and fried garlic (toppings)

Salted Pork and Century Egg Congee

Hubby and I have been craving for congee since the weather started getting colder last fall. I only used to be able to prepare good-'ol arrozcaldo but hubby had other (and better) ideas.

He preferred to have a different kind of lugaw and wanted me to try making salted pork congee. So I googled a few recipes and we called up MIL for some tips and instructions and this was what we came up with.

Ingredients:
- pork cubes
- salt
- century egg
- salted duck egg
- a couple of thin slices of ginger
- rice
- dried scallops (optional)
- sesame oil (to coat the rice grains)
- chicken boullion powder (for flavoring)

Steps:
1. Cut the pork into cubes, rub with salt and keep them in the refrigerator overnight.
2. To start cooking, rinse the pork and boil in a pot of water.
3. Prepare the rice by coating it with sesame oil.
4. When the pork has been boiling for a few hours (I like my salted pork so soft that they are falling apart when I bite into them), add the dried scallops and then, the rice.
5. Stir and continue cooking until the rice is cooked and you have congee.

6. Taste and flavor with chicken boullion powder.

7. If the congee is bland, use some salted dug eggs (cut up into small pieces or mashed) to flavor the congee. I've prepared this dish a few times and sometimes I had to add the duck egg and sometimes, the congee came out salty from the pork already.

8. Slice up some century egg and mix into the congee. The pic below shows the congee with bits of salted duck egg (the white stuff) and century egg slices.

This is good, we prepared this for Mom/Dad during our visit to California, they loved it and finished the whole pot.