Asian Comfort Food: Congee
Asia's congee is the ultimate comfort food. You can have for breakfast and even as midnight snack. Congee is practically rice boiled in water, then mixed with seasoning, spices and other ingredients such as chuncks of pork, seafood, chicken or duck.
Congee is easy to prepare. You can use left-over foods to mix with it and with some ginger and chopped green onions, you are good to go.
Here's a simple congee recipe (found via):
Ingredients:
1 c Long grain rice
3 qt stock
2 T Minced Chinese preserved turnip
1 sli Ginger root, minced
1 Piece tangerine peel – soaked to soften and minced
Salt
garnish
Chopped green onion
Chopped coriander
Sliced preserved ginger
Sliced tea melon
Cooking Directions:
1. Combine rice, stock, preserved turnip, ginger and tangerine peel in a large soup pot and bring to a boil.
2. Lower heat and simmer, uncovered for approximately 1 to 1 ½ hours or until the rice is thoroughly broken up. Stiri occasionally to prevent soup from sticking and add boiling water if necessary.
3. When done, soup should be thick and creamy.
4. Add salt to taste and garnish with any or all of the suggested garnishes.
5. Variations: just before serving, add cooked chicken, pork, ham or beef.
6. Or with rice add diced forest mushrooms, soaked to soften or dried shrimp.
Also, here's a very nice and well written article on congee from the LA Times.