What's up everyone? Today, Chef Daddy Lau is going to teach us his Chicken congee recipe In Cantonese, this classic porridge is known as "jūk" But congee has as many names as it does variations Since it's a staple of most Asian countries Interestingly, in Chinese tradition It's considered a bad omen to eat jook on Chinese New Year When I asked my parents about it, My mom explained that in the "old, old days" Many people didn't have enough rice to eat Using relatively small amounts of rice, they made Big pots of congee to make their rice last longer She said that, "the rich ate cooked rice, the poor ate jook" And that congee is not a high-class food But my dad quickly chimed in: "This is not true, if cooked with high-class ingredients," "Porridge is a high-class meal." Looking back at historical accounts, there's truth to both sides Rice porridge saved the lives of the hungry masses But also soothed the hearts and bellies of emperors past And little princes and princesses of present Chinese parents often feed baby congee to their infants Since it's so easy to eat and digest My parents started feeding us jook when we turned 1 And they'd always cook up a huge batch any time we got sick Like many of you, jook will always bring me back to my childhood Teaching us how to make this classic dish will be my dad Who's been cooking Chinese food for over 50 years And who also happens to be playing the flute That you're listening to right now After the recipe, I invite you to eat with us As we dive into the subtleties of making congee And what life was like for my parents growing up in China If you're looking for a written version of this recipe Check out our blog post at madewithlau.com Where you'll find an adjustable list of ingredients And step-by-step videos to guide you As you make the recipe at home Hope you guys enjoy! Hello friends! I hope you are all doing well. Today we'll be sharing our family recipe for chicken congee This is a popular dish for us Cantonese people First, for 4-6 people, we'll use 1 cup of rice Then, I'll wash the rice. Let’s wash it twice. For us Cantonese, we’re very particular about the soup base We have to cook the soup base slowly and intentionally Great - we've washed the rice. Place it to the side. Next, we’ll start boiling 8 cups of water to save time for later While we prepare all of our vegetables Peel and chop about 1/2 oz ginger into thin slices, and then into thin strips Then, we'll chop a few strands of cilantro and green onion into small pieces If you don't like cilantro, feel free to skip it. That's it - let's cut our chicken I'm going to use 12 oz of chicken If you want to use more, feel free Once we cut it into thin slices and marinate it When we put it in the congee, it'll be very tender When you're cutting ingredients, place a towel underneath your board That way, the board won't move all over the place Gently cut it into thin slices We're done cutting the chicken Next, we'll marinate our chicken Add 1 tbsp oyster sauce Then, push the chicken to one side of the bowl to clear out space Add 2 tsp cornstarch, 1 tsp chicken bouillon, 2 tbsp water Mix and massage the marinade for about 30 seconds Until there's no liquid left Then, add 2 tbsp vegetable oil to the bowl And mix it around with chopsticks for another 20-30 seconds The benefit of adding oil is to prevent the chicken from clumping together Another benefit - the oil helps trap the chicken's juices inside Great! We're done chopping everything. Let’s start making our jook! Cooking jook takes a lot of time Great, for 4-6 people, we'll use 8 cups of water To save on cooking time, we've boiled some water in advance 8 cups of water should be enough for us After you're done pouring the water, set the stove to high heat We'll wait until it boils, then bring it to medium heat And then, wait for another 25 minutes Cover the pot Another tip for making congee: Wait until the water is boiling until adding our washed rice Here, since our water is already boiled, we can add the rice now Once the pot is boiling again, don't stir the rice If you stir, the rice will stick to the bottom of the pot more easily Let's wait for it to boil - cover the pot Making jook takes time. You need patience. For us Cantonese, we need the soup base to be beautiful Be patient It's boiling now Great, you can all see, it's boiling now We'll stir it for a bit now, and then we won’t touch it again Stir, and let it cook slowly When you make jook, don’t stir too much If you stir it too much, it will stick to the bottom of the pot Remember this - don't stir too much. Now, we'll cover the pot partially to prevent it from overflowing Now, we'll adjust the stove to medium heat When we started, we were at high heat Now, after boiling, we've adjusted it to medium heat It should take around 25 minutes to cook fully For us Cantonese, we can't rush making beautiful congee. Be patient. He's sad, he just took a nap. When he woke up, he went like this - Hong Doy! Cam, you wanna eat the porridge? Oooh! How does the jook look? We've already cooked the jook for 25 minutes Let me take some out and show you This rice is already cooked beautifully Next, we'll use a whisk to break up our rice So that it becomes even more heavenly soft Stir constantly with the whisk for 2-3 minutes Keep stirring constantly So that the rice completely separates and becomes very soft If you don't use a whisk, it's fine, you just need to cook it for longer You’d cook for another 10 minutes For us, this is faster, and we can eat sooner This congee base is already very beautiful Remember - don't stir after it's started boiling See? The jook is done now, and it's not stuck to the bottom of the pot Very beautiful This thickness is just perfect Any lighter, and it won't taste as good Since I still have some ingredients to add Great, now we'll set the stove to high heat We'll be adding the chicken, which has already been marinated We’ll add the chicken slowly and spread it apart Don't pour it in all at once, mix and separate the pieces Here, my dad gradually added his chicken over the course of 30 seconds If you add it all at once, it will clump together Just let it cook slowly Using chopsticks, gently mix and separate the chicken Gently stir the chicken around for about 1 minute When the jook is boiling again, the chicken will be ready See? See that? The chicken is ready Now, we'll add our flavors We'll add 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp chicken bouillon And the ginger we minced from earlier Stir everything around for 20-30 seconds Great, we can turn off our heat now Now, we'll plate the congee See how beautiful the chicken is? It’s so beautiful. See that? Let's pour the rest That perfectly fills the bowl! If you feel the jook is too thick for your liking You can add some boiled water and mix it around But if you’re comfortable with it, you don’t need to do anything Let's add some green onions And cilantro Great! We're done! What a great success! This tender chicken congee is done, let's eat! Let's bring it to the table. Call everyone over to eat. Stay tuned to eat with us and hang out with Baby Cam! We dive into a lot of interesting stuff Like the types of jook my parents ate growing up And what life was like for them in China Oooh, with potstickers! What?! Hey! Hong Doy! Happy Buddha! Hong Doy, eat jook! Soon you'll be able to eat jook Maybe 6 months. No, not 6 months. Maybe! 6 months, yeah maybe Without the meat and stuff No, just the jook No, you eat, you can serve Let me serve (Laughs) Step down, Randy Back off! You don't know how to serve porridge This is my house! Cam Cam, Yeh Yeh made jook for you! Too slow Mmm smells good, I like the ginger Okay, yay! Cheers! Are you jealous?? Hi! You jealous? No you're just happy! You have to wait, you're only 3 months 3 months is way too early to eat jook! How do you feel about the chicken? It's great, it's a lot of meat Eat more! More, more, more. I don't need any, I have enough This dish, waaht gāi - waaht gāi means Very, very tender. Very soft. Very, very juicy Yeah, this is very tender I think this is the best jook I've had I think so too So how'd you guys make it so tender? You just saw me do it Cornstarch, water, mix it up and then add oil last When the jook is cooked, then cook the chicken Did you eat jook as a kid? All the time! Just like this? We definitely didn't make it with chicken We'd only eat chicken twice a year Twice a year?! Once on the New Year The second time might be for Mom or Dad's birthday New Year's and a birthday That's what I thought. Wow. On my birthday, I didn't eat chicken I ate a red egg on my birthday Red egg, red egg When we were kids, China was very behind We were very poor. The economy was not what it is right now. So if we ate chicken - we had to raise the chicken So one year, we might be able to raise a few chicken Then that's the chicken we can get Let me hold him, you can eat It's so different from right now. We have a lot right now. Okay, go to Yeh Yeh I'm full, you let grandma eat Yeah, let's let grandma eat, okay? (Laughs) Grandma's time to eat! You're smiling! Finish the rest of the jook, son Kat, more jook How did you eat it when you were kids? We'd cook it with rice, and maybe salty fish head Or maybe red beans Now I remember, yes haahm yùh Salty fish head jook! We didn't have that much pork, chicken, but we had a lot of fish Because Guangdong - we lived in Guangdong, by the sea We made the fish become "haahm yùh”, meaning "salty fish" Salty fish? Is it cold or hot? Dried, salty. Mmm, that sounds good So we used that for steaming Sometimes you'd have meat, and we'd make steamed salty fish with pork (Laughs) Aiyah! (Laughs) Hong Doy! You want a potsticker? Hong Doy! Cam Cam trying to learn, huh? He wants a potsticker! (Laughs) In the old days, we didn't have a refrigerator, washing machine We didn't have gas to cook We used - it's called “mùih” "mùih" means "coal" We'd buy the coal, come home, turn it into a "cake" It's called, like a furnace, a stove It's very small mùih lòuh, mùih lòuh, When we burned coal - the black coal, you know? Everyone who wore white to go out, by the end of the day it'd be black (Laughs) The inside of the collar would be all black Here you can wear a shirt for a week and it'll still be white Hi baby, are you very lucky? You grew up with a lot of stuff You have a refrigerator, washing machine, cool clothes You have everything, you have a play pen, a bath, a swing Multiple swings, huh? Multiple chairs! Multiple pack-n-plays! When we were little, we'd play with sand (Laughs) We play with feathers from a chicken Feathers? Feathers from a chicken We’d use our feet - like in the air, then try to catch it We had nothing to play with I remember my aunt told me, in the old days, $20 can buy a lot of things Hurry up and eat, hurry up and eat! It's getting cold. (Laughs) Here, $20 is nothing You could only buy a pizza Not even a pizza Yeah, yeah, yeah - maybe a small pizza (Laughs) Less talk Go to mommy Hi baby! Uh oh, uh oh At the restaurant, did a lot of people ask you to make jook? At my old restaurant, you could buy it on Saturdays and Sundays Weekends Oh, only weekends? Only on those days would more people want congee Not everyone wants to eat jook So, you couldn't get it on Wednesday? No, we didn't sell jook on Wednesdays The thing is - the preparation time is long You cannot just order, and expect it to take a few minutes You could only order it on weekends, at his restaurant Let's say the order was chicken congee You'd scoop the porridge into a wok and boil it Then add the chicken later, just like we did at home Shrimp works too, seafood also works Beef works, beef is cooked the exact same way Fish? Fish, you'd just cut it into slices Fish tastes even better, son He's happy! Hi, Cam Cam! He’s a happy boy! Is restaurant jook as good as what you made? (Laughs) The jook isn't as beautiful The soup base isn't as beautiful What does "jūk dái" mean? When I'm done cooking the rice, before adding anything else It's like this - they make big pots You couldn't possibly sell all of it at once Maybe on the 2nd or 3rd day They'd take some out to serve to a customer, but it will be thicker So they'd need to add water to dilute the jook Boil it again, dilute the jook In Cantonese, it's called "jíng hēi" Then they'd serve that dish A lot of restaurants aren’t able to cook and serve it right away If they serve it a lot, then it's different In Guangzhou, it's not like that In Guangzhou, they cook it and serve it right away Jook is very, very popular in Guangzhou Cantonese people really focus on the quality of the soup base In Guangzhou, how does the jook compare? Number one! (Laughs) You’ll find so many different types of jook there, I’m telling you. Are you listening Cam? Are you learning? Cam do you understand? When you're older, you will When you're older, Yeh Yeh will teach you Toisanese (Laughs) We'll speak Toisanese so your dad won’t understand (Laughs) Your dad really doesn't understand Toisanese I have no clue Grandpa will teach you Toisanese! Are you going to teach Daddy and me Toisanese? He said, "No, this is my secret language with Grandma and Grandpa" It's hard to learn, no way. Your ears are beautiful! Hello, dear friends! Thank you for enjoying our video today! Our baby Cameron also says, "Thank you!" "Give us a thumbs up!" "Subscribe to our channel!" Bye!
