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Went for dinner at a freinds in Rotterdam last night and had some super nice Indonesian food.
Gado Gado, a warm salad of cooked potato, carrots, beans, cauliflower, broccoli. Sprinkled with bean sprouts and prawn crackers. Poured over the top is a peanut sauce. Very nice...I added some sambal for some extra heat!

For main we had chicken curry in a coconut sauce and spicey beef curry served with steamed rice.. DROOOLS

To kick off the new recipe section here at mrmule.com, I thought I'd introduce you all to a new favorite of mine, CONGEE (pronounced "kon-ji") or Chinese rice soup. This was you can feed four people on one and a half cups of rice!

This is a pork recipe, but you can substitute the pork for any meat/left over roasts.
There is quite a bit of preparation involved, but I cheated last night and made it in about 3 hours.

CONGEE
feeds 4 people

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of long grain rice (basmati)
2 litres of good chicken stock
salt
4 large eggs (duck eggs are specially nice)
2 dessert spoons of chinese gunpowder tea
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
2 star anise
1 pork fillet

*optional Ingredients:
*1/2 stick of lemon grass
*1 small finger of ginger
*2 green cardamon pods
*3 kaffir lime leaves
*1 clove of garlic

Ingredients to serve:
2 large spring onions
Soy Sauce

___RICE - PREPARATION UP TO 12 HOURS BEFORE____

Wash/Rinse the rice 3 times or until the water runs clear
Cover rice with fresh water and leave to soak for min2 hours and maximum 12hours (the longer the better)

___MEAT - PREPARATION UP TO 12 HOURS BEFORE____
If you are using leftovers, you can skip this part, otherwise marinate your meat in a nice sloppy mixture of soy sauce, grated ginger, garlic, chili peppers.

___EGGS - PREPARATION 2 HOURS BEFORE____
1. Cover the eggs with cold water in a pan, bring to the boil and cook for 8 minutes

2. When the eggs have cooked, put the pan in the sink and open the cold tap on them.
when they are cool enough to handle, gently crack the shells all over (do not remove the shell!!!)

3. Put the eggs back into the pan and cover with cold water again, add the gunpowder tea and the soy sauce and star anise, bring to the boil and simmer for 2 hours

___MAKE THE RICE SOUP 2 HOURS BEFORE____

1. Drain rice and rinse

2. Put the rice (& the optional ingredients) and a good pinch of salt in a VERY large pan/dutch pot and add 1 litre of the stock and bring to the boil

3. Turn Rice to simmer and add the remaining stock, stirring occasionally for 2 hours

___BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER (20 - 30 mis)____

By now you should have a huge pan full of what could only be described as wallpaper paste. Keep stirring!

1. Turn you oven to high, put a frying pan onto heat and sear the pork on all sides. Put the pork in the oven (cooking time about 15/20 mins)

2. Remove all the optional ingredients from the rice soup so you have no lumps/nasty suprises.

3. Shell the eggs (if you haven't already... Look at the wonderful marble effect you made!!) slice the eggs in half longways. Place them into the rice soup and stir (gently now, so as not to break up the eggs).

4. Remove the pork from the oven, leave to rest for 5 minutes, then slice very thin pieces, add it to the soup and yup, you guessed it, give it a stir!

___SERVING____

Bowls & Spoons are best for congee, you can have optional chopsticks too.
make sure everyone gets some egg and meat and a good dollop of soup.

Slice up the spring onion VERY THINLY at a jaunty 30 degree angle and make a little pile on top of each bowl.
Splash some Soy sauce over the top

Serve!

additional extras?
Prawncrackers are always good
1 or 2 drops of sesame oil

To drink?
Of course what Congee dinner could be without warm Sake!?!

ENJOY!!!