Seafood Congee - How to Make Teochew Rice Porridge (砂锅海鲜粥)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2018
- Teochew Seafood Congee is one of my favorite rice porridges. It's served in a big claypot and's the perfect late night meal.
It's also pretty easy to make at home. Make a congee, throw in whatever seafood you like. Here we went with shrimp and oysters (my personal favorite), but it's also done with crab, fish, clams, squid... really, whatever.
Written recipe is over here on /r/cooking:
/ recipe_teochew_seafood...
And check out our Patreon if you'd like to support the project!
www.patreon.com/ChineseCookingDemystified
Outro Music: "Add And" by Broke For Free
/ broke-for-free
ABOUT US
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Learn how to cook real deal, authentic Chinese food! We post recipes every Tuesday (unless we happen to be travelling) :)
We're Steph and Chris - a food-obsessed couple that lives in Shenzhen, China. Steph is from Guangzhou and loves cooking food from throughout China - you'll usually be watching her behind the wok. Chris is a long-term expat from America that's been living in China and loving it for the last nine years - you'll be listening to his explanations and recipe details, and doing some cooking at times as well.
This channel is all about learning how to cook the same taste that you'd get in China. Our goal for each video is to give you a recipe that would at least get you close to what's made by some of our favorite restaurants here. Because of that, our recipes are no-holds-barred Chinese when it comes to style and ingredients - but feel free to ask for tips about adaptations and sourcing too! - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
How to make congee recipe:
- Rice
- Water
- METAL SPOON
rice porridge is honestly my fave home food. so simple and so heartwarming
Whoa. I’ve been eating and making jook my entire life and never had that dried turnip thing. Or maybe I have and didn’t know it! I probably didn’t know it. Lol! (I’m 5th generation American Cantonese so I need chances like yours to help me learn more authentic recipes!) this was awesome.
Radish..
@@dumbfounded No, turnip. Two different things. He literally says it's a turnip in the video.
Thanks for the great video! I really enjoy your cooking!
Thanks for the METAL SPOON TRICK?! Just knew it..LOL?! Does it work in any bubble floopy cook thing?!
OMG THANK YOU, I've been trying to find an actual recipe for this and just couldn't find it. Thank you soooo much! Now time to enjoy some Nice Rice Porridge on a hot spring day...worth it. Also
To me, this dish's forever linked in my brain to late night snacks/dinners. In Shenzhen, a lot of the dapaidang-style places are actually Chaozhou restaurants, and this is a real-popular staple. One of my favorite restaurants was a place where you could eat outside and have some seafood congee together with Chinese barbecue (they were so popular that they've since morphed into a chain and it's not the same as it used to be, but still).
Lots of hot Guangdong summer nights, chilling eating seafood congee and sticks of skewers with friends, all washed down with some ice cold Tsingtao. It's a great meal even when it's hot and muggy.
Thanks for the recipe, my favourite is crabs and shrimps!
I like to add a ton of small fishballs too! So glad u mentioned teochew food!
Yeah we totally need to do some more Teochew dishes. I really wanna do guorou (果肉, apologies that I only know the Mandarin), and once it comes around to Mid Autumn the flaky Teochew-style mooncakes. Any other ideas?
@@ChineseCookingDemystified i heard of my dad saying about pickled stuff like prawns. Havent tried that before myself but no1 seems to do it anymore. And braised meat? Liked duck... then there's the desserts, a yam paste and there's this popiah(薄饼) with sweet fillings... so many to choose from. Haha.
I've been shenzhen once there seem to be quite a lot of teochew immigrants...
Awesome recipe! This is the ultimate hangover food for me.
Haha, it's very quick and easy to make, makes for a perfect hangover food, lol.
I love this recipe, its amazing, thank you
Cheers! I've poked around your channel a bit :) You're from Hohhot, yeah?
My family still live there, I visit every year its a great way to learn new recipes.
Making this right now,,super excited
Thank you for sharing your video !
My goodness you read my mind... these zhou are the Chinese answer to risotto, sooooo good and flavorful! Not terribly common here in the north but I found my favorite spots :)
Hey guys, a few notes:
1. We forgot to mention the other classic seafood that's added to this dish, crab. While you can ultimately add whatever you want in here, I would personally recommend using at least one of (1) shrimp or (2) crab. Both of these lend a really nice flavor to the congee itself - I usually go with shrimp simply because its easier to eat in a scalding hot congee (it's also easier to prep to boot).
2. I should note that the way that I slice shrimp in half isn't really a classic technique or anything, just how I personally do it. It's actually different than how I've been taught. It seemed lame to kind of gloss over 'slicing shrimp in half lengthwise', so unfortunately we're stuck with my janky knife skills ;)
3. Re that datoucai/chongchoy, you should be able to find this at Chinese supermarkets (I found some at the Chinese supermarket in my parent’s hometown in Philly), but I understand that there’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding sourcing Chinese dried-and-fermented vegetables. Zha Cai - a dried and fermented mustard tuber that’s popularly used in many Sichuan dishes - seems a bit more available, but it’s important that you get an unseasoned one (often its rubbed with chili paste, which would obviously be a no go here). Tianjin preserved vegetable (dried and fermented cabbage) is another possible route to go, but that stuff’s quite salty: you’d have to soak the vegetable in water for ~10 minutes before using to get some of the salinity out, and then salt to taste instead of using the quantity below. If using either Tianjin preserved vegetable or the bagged/jarred variety of Zha Cai, use about one tablespoon and wrap in bouquet garni bag to easily remove it. Lastly, **if this is all an enormous headache, just skip it**. There’s no sub here that I’m aware of, and while this adds a nice flavor to the congee it’s a bit subtle. It’s nice but not integral, you’ll still make a tasty congee without it.
4. As for the metal spoon trick, I honestly have no idea why that works. Using a bone (like we did in the Century Egg Congee vid) also does the job. As I said in the video, be sure to keep a watchful eye as it can still overflow if you're unattentive.
5. Note that some places go with an even higher water ratio here - you can even see 12:1 or higher. We went with 10:1 because I personally like the thicker sorts.
6. A sprinkle of white pepper powder (say, ~1/4 tsp, added together with the salt) is also nice in here, to be honest I simply blanked on adding it when making the congee for the video.
That's all I can think of for now. Next week we're looking at another rice dish actually, HK Chacaanteng-style baked fried rice with seafood, bechemel, and cheese. It's obviously a... confluence of influences haha. Huge guilty pleasure of mine.
in Mexico, when we boil cactus, the metal spoon trick also works, i think its something about alkalinity and pH
Can i replace that datoucai with dong cai? My mom usually put dong cai on her simple chicken porridge, and i actually like it
Oh totally - ‘Tianjin Preserved Vegetable' is the English translation of dongcai (catchy, yeah?) so feel free to follow the process I outlined in point #3. The big thing is that dongcai is salty, so you'll want to season to taste in place of just going with those 2 tsp.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified ah i see,now i only have to find some seafood with good price... We only got like tuna here while other seafood are quite expensive...
Ah that sucks, where you based out of? We're blessed with super cheap seafood here in Guangdong
oh men this is my favorite
A quick question is chung chow the same as choy bou(菜脯 )
Thanks
Love it, made it and will make again, and again..! The only problem was my husband doesn't like shell-on shrimps 😞 So, I descaled the shrimps and boil the shells separately. Then, used that liquid to cook Congee.
Awesome, glad you enjoyed it! I've done a similar move before. When I've cooked this for people that can't deal with heads/shells, this is what I did... first, deshell them and separate out the heads. Second, cut the now de-shelled shrimp in half lengthwise as always (makes it feel like there's 'more' shrimp). Then, take the heads/shells and toss in a mesh bag, adding the bag to the pot right when you're starting to have it come up to a boil. Remove the bag of shells/heads right before you serve.
Your approach also totally makes sense.
My hubby is Swiss/German, so I'm (very) slowly educating him of Food..! After 18 years, he now doesn't mind fish-sauce, Tofu, fermented soybean, fermented bamboo-shoots (and ++) anymore. But still, some-things are just "No-Go" (eg; smelly Tofu). 🤣😂. Thanks for the tip. Mesh beg is a great idea. I will try that next time... Thinking of doing it again this weekend..... and eat all-day 🤣😂 ... Take care 🤗
Hello Steph and Chris!, from a cooler (fiiiiinaly) Canada.
First: please never, ever change how you do your videos. Your voice overs and hand gestures are what first attracted me to your videos!
Second: I don't know if you can do this, but would it be possible to show a regional map of China to give an idea of where the particular area you're talking about is located? Very briefly like 5 seconds. If you can't it's fine, but I'd love to actually have that area in my mind as you cook.
I love that so very many regions/provinces/cities have their own unique way of preparing the same dishes. It's like India and Italy and Greece. Many of the same dishes but specific ways that make it unique to that area. Just a suggestion.
PS: I watched a docu-series about China recently. The history is just gobsmackingly amazing. We here in Canada think something 600 years old is~well, old. 4,000 years of history in China~kinda makes one feel one's country is a still a toddler in diapers, fofl.
Jenn 💖 in (a very young) Canada 🍁
That's a nice idea, sometimes tough to execute without getting too bogged down though :) We did do that sort of thing for the Yunnan Dai Cucumber Salad and the Guizhou Kung Pao chicken however! Regardless, this is the place that we're talking about:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaozhou
Lemme see if I can offer a brief overview however :)
The city's on the far eastern portion of the Guangdong (Canton) province. In the 19th century, a treaty port opened (Shantou), which became a major trading hub. Over the last couple centuries, the Teochew people became one of the world's great diasporas - re-settling everywhere from South East Asia (Teochew is the largest Chinese community in Thailand and IIRC Vietnam) to Hong Kong to the West. Teochew people tend to be renowned for their business acumen, as throughout the world it's quite common to see Teochew-lead companies and such.
While their food shares a number of similarities to Cantonese (and Fujian a.k.a. Hokkein, which is right to the east of Guangdong), it's very much its own thing. The situation gets even more complicated once we throw in Teochew/Singapore, Teochew/Vietnamese etc. Like, from what I can tell, in Singapore this dish is basically synonymous with fish, and features a handful of different ingredients. Also, in the Straits there's even a style of restaurant called "Teochew Porridge' which consists of a plain congee and a smorgasbord of different sides.
The city that we live, Shenzhen in Mainland China, is probably about a quarter to a third Teochew, and features food much closer to what you'd have nowadays in the city of Chaozhou (basically a B/B- version of what you could find in Chaozhou). So whenever we do a Teochew food vid, that's what we're aiming for :)
@@ChineseCookingDemystified
Thank you for the quick response Chris. And for the excellent references. I looked at the link and it actually made it easier to understand. I'm a very visual learner, so I'll simply write down the names and look the geography up in wiki. I figured it may be a bit "too much" to do with every video.
But thank you anyway!
BTW~My husband was watching the way you were cutting the shrimp and he kept saying an old English trope "Cut towards your chum, not your thunb." 😂 I think you cut them very well!
Yeah I'm totally willing to admit that that's probably not the idea way to cut a shrimp in half - the way I was taught was to slice into the shrimp in the back with a standard Chinese chef's knife (almost akin to butterflying it), then press down on the knife to cut through. Flip it, then chop down through the head.
Doing it that way is such a slog for me though - I work *so* much faster doing the way that I showed in the video. It's not really a 'real' approach AFAIK, and I totally get the concern cutting towards the fingers (but that's why it's important for the knife to be angled downward). I tried to do a few the other way in the video before I threw my hands up in the air and said 'ah, screw it, I'll just film the way I actually do the job' lol
@@ChineseCookingDemystified
And THAT is the best way for you! Keep doing what you do Chris & Steph!
Your videos are the highlight of the week!
Jenn 💖
This looks amazing. I would love to see you do Hunan Di Shui Dong Ribs?
After a touch of research... cumin lamb ribs, right?
Could I sub the yellow soybean paste for red?
Also, could I fix your sink? It's starting to drive me mad.
You mean like mianchi/red miso? Hmm... never tried, toss a touch into a bowl and find out! The congee has a good bit of flavor without the soybean paste (it's served tableside because not everyone adds it in), so if it's a pain to source you can skip it.
And totally. If you make you way to Shenzhen, you have free license to fix our sink lol. We'd feed you.
Am Teochew and I haven't had it this way. Here in southeast Asia, the Teochew porridge is quite different from this - it's usually plain congee served with an assortment of dishes on the side.
Totally, I know 'Teochew Porridge' means something completely different down in the straights - more of a style of restaurant than a dish per se. Translation's always tough, we're doing "砂锅海鲜粥", i.e. this stuff: p9.pccoo.cn/bendi/20170325/2017032510051840999947_600_396.jpg
I was hoping calling it 'seafood congee' would be good enough to differentiate. I suppose a better word-for-word translation would be Teochew Claypot Seafood Congee, but I didn't wanna turn off people that didn't own a claypot (as its not mandatory for the dish) :)
You guys have this stuff in SG/MY or is it primarily more of a Chaozhou/Hong Kong/Guangdong thing?
Yeah, the style you're talking about is "打冷" (da lang). They also have this style here, plain congee eat with mostly seafood dishes. The one we did is another style to serve seafood~
Ah cool, never made the 打冷 = Singapore Teochew Porridge connection. Makes a lot of sense. But what's the Chinese term for Teochew Porridge in SG/MY?
Sir.. Why u put small spoon in the porridge?
I think the spoon, since it's metal, absorbs some of the heat to prevent things from burning.on the bottom.
It stirs the congee when flowing with the bubbling, and breaking down the bubbles, thus preventing overflowing~
I make quick congee occasionally ... a comfort food favorite. Your classic slow traditional version looks yummy, and far superior to 5he quick version ive been making.
A couple comments and questions on your technique ...
1) RICE: I've heen useing a shortcut I developed and I was wondering what you think. I grind dry short grain sushi rice in a grain mill to a very fine meal (40 mesh min), and store it in a small glass jar (if I grind too much and it tends to get stale). To make quick congee I whisk some chicken base into boiling water to taste, then whisk in 1 part of my self ground fine rice meal to 8 parts broth, simmer 5+ mins until thickened, and then garnish with desired flavors (ex: scrambled egg, baby peas, chopped shrimp). Nothing beats a proper slow cooked congee with a well made broth base, granted, but the shortcut is pretty decent and convenient in a pinch. That said, I'm really looking forward to learning the slower classic way.
2) SPOON: I'm not sure about the efficacy of tossing a metal spoon (1:31) into a metal pot in order to control foaming. A light drizzle of vegetable oil (or rendered chicken fat) has always been my go to gimmick for contolling foaming when i am boiling pasta in a less than ideal ratio of water, and my first guess is that would be worth trying in congee. Just a thought.
3) OYSTERS: AFAIK, the cornstarch (or flour) water trick for purging bivalves only works for LIVE bivalves that are still in their shells. Shucked ones by definition do not need incentive to expel sediment because theyre already out of their shells (read: nothing confines the sediment) and they're already freshly deceased anyway, and thus sediment will drop free unassisted with simple stirring. In other words the corn starch here only serves to add a slight textural note.
4) SHELLS: This is just a point of personal preference, but i've never really been a fan of shellfish shells in porridge or soup. I generally shell my shrimp and store the shells in the freezer until i have enough, and use them to make a broth, which i then either use as is (i usually fortify it with chicken base), of freeze as is, or reduce it to a base and then freeze it. Lately, ive just been buying shrimp or lobster base from a restaurant supply market.
Cheers.
The grinded up rice thing sounds interesting!
@@Balala_ Thanks. I expanded my post above with more comments.
As for ground rice ... the chief drawback, which is minor, is textural. Although it cooks fine in 5 mins, the result is not as smooth as a classic slow congee, which is superior. It is just a convenience shortcut i use when making congee for myself in a hurry (my wife doesnt care for it)
1. Hmm... it's an interesting approach. You're basically halfway towards a certain sort of dish called 'Miancha' (baike.baidu.com/item/%E9%9D%A2%E8%8C%B6 ) where they toast some grains, grind it, and use it as an instant soup of sorts. You can find a few instances of these sorts of dishes throughout China, notably Hakka 'Leicha' (zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%93%82%E8%8C%B6 ) and Hokkein 'Sanhemian' (baike.baidu.com/item/%E4%B8%89%E5%90%88%E9%9D%A2 ).
2. Sure, oil's another oft-cited trick, though I've had less luck with it than the spoon. To be honest, the best 'trick' is just to stand by the pot and make sure it doesn't bubble over haha. I'm willing to admit that the spoon thing might be an old wives tale, but in my experience I think it helps.
3. Another hill I'm totally not willing to die on lol. I'll just go ahead an assume that you're right, but the reason we continue to recommend it is (1) cleaning out oysters is super important, nothing worse than a dirty oyster (2) even if it's not *more* effective than plain water, the processed used here certainly works and (3) visually, we are impressed by the griminess of the cornstarch water after the soak.
4. I've cooked this for people that can't deal with heads/shells, this is what I did... first, deshell them and separate out the heads. Second, cut the now de-shelled shrimp in half lengthwise as always (makes it feel like there's 'more' shrimp). Then, take the heads/shells and toss in a mesh bag, adding the bag to the pot right when you're starting to have it come up to a boil. Remove the bag of shells/heads right before you serve.
Then you can get the flavor of the heads/shells without having to eat around them.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified 4. Oh, heads are the best part of the shrimp when it comes to flavoring sauces and broth (and eating, if you can get fresh spot prawns) ... but here in the CONUS shrimp are nearly always headless in most supermarkets. I gotta drive further to asian markets or restaurant suppliers to get head on shrimp. Funny how most americans are squeamish about head-on fare ... but im not very average. 😁
1. The chief drawback of my ground rice meal is the 'cream of rice' texture it imparts to the broth, after the brief 5 min simmer. You either like or dislike that texture. It does mostly go away if you take the extra time to let it cook out a bit.
3. "Another hill ..." . lol ... you have a gift for words, friend.
I look forward to giving the dried scallops a whirl. Great tip. New ingredients are always fun.
I cannot find datoucai. Would dried (not sweet) daikon work here?
Never tried myself but I'd venture that that would totally work.
"Pescetarian" would be a good tag for this video.
so I've heard Mong Kok is famous for good Congee, whats the difference between this style and Mong Kok style? or is it cantonese style?
The congee joints I've been to in Mong Kok make Cantonese congee - the idea is a bit different. The rice ends up almost totally dissolving. We did a Cantonese style congee last year here: th-cam.com/video/95GP6JoD3ek/w-d-xo.html
Great video as usual! Side note: that chopping board is in some serious need of love/mineral oil. The amount of wood that has chipped off makes me worried that you might have splinters in your minced pork or beef.
Yeah, we need a new one. I actually bought one and then... we promptly warped it. I think I'm just just drop the money on a proper Chinese cutting board.
I'm not to happy about congee with meat but I do love seafood and I have been looking for a good congee recipe to make for a while now.💚
I feel like there are occasionally Japanese ingredients that can be suggested as subs. Taukan fermented radish instead of the turnip?
It won't work it's a completely different flavor but I like eating it with plain rice porridge.
It's similar to the one we have in Malaysia.
can you make the chicken version next time?
I don't like congee so I wont make this but I still liked the video.
Haha well appreciated. Teochew and Cantonese congees can get pretty flavorful though, I've converted a number of people to congee here in Guangdong :)
Second! Love it
wow that metal spoon hack
is it bad that i throw green onion on everything? ... probably. but this was delicious. might have added too much shrimp though lmao.
My family toss in ceramic spoon instead.they said other spoon does not work well lol
Recognize the voice? its actor Richard Dreyfus!He speaks Mandarin and is an accomplished asian chef
METAL SPOON FLAVOR CONGEE
this could use some crabs
Too rich/ thick for a chaoshan style in my opinion. Back in the time our congee was so watery and rice grains are so separated from the soup it feels like eating a sea food hot pot😂
Fair, many Chaoshan places work from a ratio of 12:1 or even higher. This was a copycat of a certain Chaozhou restaurant in Shenzhen which isn't quite as thin as some others, and hey, I like it a touch thicker :)
The Chinese word translated should be teochew seafood rice congee.
Mmmm, Pearl River oysters. Very healthy metals xD
Looks so so. Crab meat with seabass and mushrooms would be better
He sounded very nasally. Good recipe
omg~ what did that metal spoon do? XD
Appears to help with boiling over. Did a bit of research, couldn't find any 'scientific' answer but seems to work well.
@@ChineseCookingDemystified Thanks for the tip! I''ll give it a try next time. :D
Faucet leaks ;)
😂 😂 😂
One of those little things that's gotta get a LOT worse before we actually get around to fixing it haha
I think actually I would get rid of the shrimp altogether as that’s just far too much work and I don’t like the taste shrimp heads add to any dishes. Oysters would stay. Absolutely. I think I would add some sort of flaky fish.
"... I don't like the taste shrimp heads add to any dishes."
Wha...? Burn the heretic!
(Nah but seriously this is all personal preference. I'm totally all about the flavor of shrimp and crab, but there's totally a reason why these are all options at restaurants. Super easy to mix and match.)
Oooooooo crab. Yea. I’ll replace shrimp with crab. That sounds perfect.
always remove the spoon hahaha
Gods this recipe looks so good! But, yeah, I find it a bit bizarre, eating shrimp this way! How do you do it?! Those tiny eyes! Eeek! Makes me nervous and curious. I want to try it but I'm also scared. Like how do you even start? Do you chop them off afterwards, do you just toss it into your mouth like that and don't give a fuck? I must know!!!! 😅
Huge fan of the channel and the recipes. Some feedback: what's with all the pointing and tapping? I think it's pretty excessive and, to me, distracting. But that's just my two cents, others may not mind
I don't mind it at all.
I think that's one of the things that most appealed to me when I first saw their videos. It's as though they're talking with their hands, as we don't see faces. Almost every cooking video that is concentrated specifically on the preparation uses the "expressive hands" method.
Yeah I agree with this video it was a touch much. It's just kind of hard because we need a visual at each stage... if we were doing an old school stand-and-stir simply talking to the camera and saying "if you’re abroad something like a Japanese short grain, like the sort for sushi, would probably be an ideal sub" would be easy enough.
So for this style of video, what kind of visual would be appropriate for that? I'd like these to be helpful informationally dense, and we're committed to the hands-only sort of approach. There's a lot in the narration I end up cutting out in the end because it'd end up being 30 seconds of me pointing and waving... but yeah, it's a balance :)
I'm certainly open to suggestions!
Are you chinese by any chance? You sound kinda awkward when speaking mandarin .