The SECRET to making CHINESE CHICKEN CONGEE

[Music] heyo everybody I am back with another cooking video and today we are gonna be making one of my favorites my mom used to make this for me when I was sick when I wasn't sick it's one of those you make it on a Sunday night you have enough leftovers to last you well into the week and this is a classic home kind of food home food for Chinese families and this is kanji or Joel called porridge Chinese porridge it's a rice based GU actually it's really really flavorful it's very high in nutrients I would say just like chicken noodle soup the base of this is chicken broth there's a couple secrets to this dish that I think makes it pop and have its secrets I want to share with you that I've learned from my mom she makes the best chicken congee and I don't think I have mastered this dish the way she has yet there's there's nothing like going home and having her make it for me but I'll try my best to replicate the recipe and I'm here to share it with you guys so first up you're gonna start with a whole chicken so what I can do is I chop it up into pieces and we're gonna take this chicken and place it into a stockpot with about three liters of water now this dish takes a while to make about three hours two hours for the chicken broth and then another hour for the actual congee part so once you have the chicken in the water bring it to a boil and then once it's up to a boil you want to let it simmer for two hours now you can ramp this up with some extra flavors like you can throw some green onions in to the broth or some ginger slices into the broth and I'll give it some extra layers of flavor if you like for me the simpler the better for this dish I don't want to overwhelm it with too much flavors I like how simple it is now while your chicken broth is simmering there's gonna be a lot of that gunk that floats to the top the impurities as they call it now what you're gonna want to do is skim out all the impurities and all the fat that's floating to the top as it simmers if you don't you're gonna have a very oily joke which is not that fun to eat and also scooping out the impurities gives the joke cleaner presence traditionally joke is done with white rice and you know you want your job to be very very clean looking but the chicken broth if you don't clear out the impurities as they float to the top it'll definitely give it a much dirtier look so if you care about presentation which I feel like this day and age thanks to Instagram and YouTube and all a bunch of social media presentation is very key for food now okay so now while you're making this chicken broth while it's simmering we're gonna want to get started on the rice and the chicken meat both these things we're gonna marinate separately now with the rice you're thinking wait hold on marinating rice yes there's a way to flavor this rice and this is definitely the secret and the big secret to marinating the rice here is using century egg aka thousand-year-old egg aka hundred-year-old egg it's that black preserved egg that most people find very unappetizing looks terrible smells terrible and in fact it's it's you know taste wise it's also an acquired taste if you're eating it hold so what you're gonna do with the rice is take a separate pot now we're gonna put about two-thirds cup of rice into this and make sure we wash the rice and then from there we're gonna take the century egg we're gonna peel it and drop the whole egg into the pot of rice the next part can be the fun part we're gonna mush the egg into the rice and this is the big secret to making the best congee in the world with the preserved egg there is a lot of I actually don't even know what kind of crisp chemicals that are in there it definitely smells like ammonia or something I don't know whatever is in this preserved egg when mushed into the rice and marinated into the rice it brings out the best rice flavor ever and as you marinate as you squeeze it into the rice grain so there's a reaction in the rice the rice starts to puff up a little bit so whatever chemical reaction is happening in this rice with the preserved egg it adds so much flavor to the congee and then we're gonna let that sit for about 30 minutes to an hour and let the flavors meld together and get that rice nice and marinated and also we're gonna need to marinate the chicken now you can choose between a white meat or dark meat thighs or breasts personally I like to do dark meat because I find dark meat a lot more flavorful it's a different kind of texture that white meat yes and but I do think darkman has a lot more flavor so I personally choose dark meat but if you're on a health-conscious thing or you just like the texture of white meat by all means use white meat I've gotten four thighs I'm gonna cut it up into little slices of chicken pieces I like to also get rid of as much of the fat as possible so it's a leaner dish and now once you have it all added to a bowl we're gonna add two tablespoons of soy sauce one teaspoon of white pepper 1 tablespoon of rice wine and one teaspoon of sesame oil and add a pinch of salt as well optionally you can also add in diced ginger or diced garlic to your marinade but like I said I like to keep mine really really simple so now once you have all this stuff added in go ahead and do the same process we're gonna take our hands and we're gonna squeeze the crap out of the chicken pieces and get the marinade and the flavors worked in together so once the marinade has worked in go ahead and let the chicken sit for about an hour and at this point we've done most of the work already it's a super simple recipe all right so fast forward we are now ready to combine all the ingredients together and we are going to toast the rice a little bit and after about a minute or two we're gonna pour in our chicken broth now an easy way to pour in the chicken broth is I take out all the chicken pieces the the bones take it all out and I just so you can have a clean pore of your chicken broth homemade chicken broth now this is the biggest difference between good congee and and just kind of generic congee is you have to make your own chicken broth making your own chicken broth is also is another way of really making dish shine and pop so you pour all the chicken broth into the rice and give it a stir make sure none of the rice pieces stick at the bottom because that's one thing about making drug is you have to keep it moving sometimes to prevent the bottom from burning go ahead and close the lid and we're gonna bring this to a boil and once it's at a boil we're gonna let it simmer for a full hour and just let that rice cook and soften we want to get it to that goopy texture like oatmeal as we're nearing the end of the hour I like to add in a full tablespoon of salt to the congee all right so well after our full hour of cooking go ahead and turn off the stove and this part is another trick that I have is to cook the marinated chicken in the residual heat inside that big pot of congee so this is my technique this is not something you have to do you can definitely if you feel more comfortable keep it in the stove on with the fire and putting in the chicken meat and having that chicken cook with full full summer mode by all means definitely go ahead and do that but if you want it cooked just right not overcook chicken and it's tender and flavorful and it keeps its own juices you want to let that chicken cook in the residual heat tell you it's gonna be the juiciest most tender chicken they'll have in congee otherwise if when it boils in it to me the chicken gets kind of rough I'm not a big fan of rough chicken meat so during this 15 minutes of residual heat cooking of the chicken I like to bring out some green onions some ginger and what I like to do is to dice the green onions and shred the ginger and this will act as both our garnish and as a nice fresh aromatic to our dough let's go ahead and plate our kanji in a bowl and what you are looking for and what you want to relish is this oatmeal texture definitely looks like home food it's not meant to look amazing Instagram ready or anything but it is so good trust me if it's raining if it's cold outside congee is my go-to like comfort food so once you have it in a bowl I like to top it off with the ginger and the green onions and wallah that is mom's congee alright guys I hope you guys liked this video it's one of my favorite home dishes to make and I hope you guys give it a try especially if you're under the weather or it's cold outside this is one of the best dishes this is the Chinese chicken noodle soup so full of flavor full of good stuff for your health so like always thanks for watching make sure to comment down below what you'd like to see me make next and don't forget to subscribe thanks [Music] [Music]

Channel: Tiff & Case

Views: 307,586

Keywords: Tiff and Case, Big Mood, Video Blog, Vlogs, Interracial Couple, Casey Chan, Tiffany Del Real

Id: CKw4ktWwXg0

Length: 9min 30sec (570 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 25 2020