Comfort Food

There's nothing like sitting under the kotatsu with a big bowl of (minced pork) congee on a cold winter's day when you're sick.

*contented sigh*

Boiled rice never tasted so good!

The only thing missing was the dried shredded pork (ba hu--spelling?!). There was tons of dried shredded squid and other assorted seafood in the supermarket, but try as I might, I could not find any shredded pork.

Oh well. I greatly enjoyed it even without the ba hu. (But if someone wanted to mail me a pack of ba hu for Christmas, he/she would have my eternal gratitude!)

I'm not that sick (just a cough/cold), but I'm sick enough that I feel very lethargic and don't want to do anything, so thank goodness congee is super easy to make.

Apparently there's a Japanese congee-like dish called okayu that is also commonly served to people who are ill. The main differences are that it's a lot thicker than congee (5:1 water to rice ration, compared to 12:1) and takes less time (30 min compared to 1 hr+) to cook. My rice cooker has an okayu setting, so if I'm feeling really lazy next time I might try using the rice cooker to make okayu instead of boiling congee on the stove.