Congee or Rice Soup (#57)

Congee or Rice Soup (#57)

Congee or rice soup is a very popular Chinese diet. It is as easy as cooking rice. When you add more water than required, the rice becomes rice soup. The thickness of the soup depends on the amount of water you add.

Besides being a light dish with good nutrition, rice soup serves other purposes as well:
•Weight control.
•To nurse stomach back to health.
•To nourish and soothe the body for hot weather, lack of appetite, or suffering from a flu.

Making Plain Rice Soup
Rice soup can be made from leftover cooked rice. Add water to cover the rice in a pot and turn on high heat. When the boiling point is reached, reduce temperature to simmer. Stir the rice for a few times to prevent it from sticking to the bottom. The rice will soften to form a soup. Add more water if you want to reduce the thickness. The longer you simmer, the softer the nature of the rice soup.

The same process applies if you make rice soup from uncooked rice. All you need is adding more water than required. You can even use an automatic rice cooker to make rice soup. Remember to unplug the cooker when the soup has reached a desired softness and thickness. Else, the cooker will continue until all the water is evaporated.

For convenience, you can make enough rice soup to last for several days. Keep it in the refrigerator. Spoon out the quantity you want for a meal or a snack, and heat it in a microwave oven.

Meats to Cook with Soup
Various kinds of meat can be cooked in the rice soup. Add the meat when the soup is done but kept simmering hot. Here are the popular ones:
•Fish fillet sliced into thin pieces.
•Beef, pork, or chicken, sliced or minced.
•Pork liver or kidney, sliced.
•Leftover cooked meat stored from the refrigerator.

Pickles to Eat with soup
Many different kinds of pickles go well with rice soup to enhance flavor. They are available in the Chinese supermarket in cans or jars. The popular ones are listed below:
•Preserved tofu.
•Preserved cucumber, turnips, beans, and many other vegetables.
•You may use Western pickles, Japanese, or Korean pickles, too.

Others to Add
•Scrambled egg, or Chinese preserved egg to cook in soup.
•Lettuce or other vegetables, chopped into small pieces, to add to soup.
•Corn beef or salami to eat on the side.

Combination
Almost anything goes well with rice soup, either cooked in it or eaten with it on the side. Use your creativity to find a combination of meat and vegetable you want. You will find that its an enjoyable light meal.

Please go to www.herbsandtea.com for further information.
Raw herbs and herbal capsules can be tailor-made to suit your needs.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Chinese
• medicine
• herbs
• natural
• healing
• acupuncture
• health
• maintenance

[headlightdog]

thanks John for the wonderful videos  This soup disperses summer heat?

[askjohnfung]

Not quite. But rice soup is more suitable when the summer gets too hot that may decrease your appetite.

There are better food to dispel summer heat like fruits and vegetables, especially water melon.

[25noamm]

hi

great video,

can you tell me pleas what is the name of this book?

thanks

[seriniti11]

Thank you so much John for all your help. I will be making this today.