Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

Legend has it that century eggs are or once were prepared by soaking eggs in horse urine. Eeeew! Probably that myth arose from the ammonia smell that century eggs are known to have.

Maybe it’s an Asian thing. Just like foie gras (found in French cuisine) or sea urchin roe (popular food in Japanese sushi cuisine), I think century egg is also an acquired taste.

Someone had asked in an Asian food forum how to make congee the way Chinese restaurants do, to which I replied: “Add lots and lots of water and cook it for a long long time - more than 4 hours.”

I have a two and a half quart crock pot (for servings for two to three people). With slightly less than one cup of rice, I filled the crock pot to the maximum height with water and let the rice cook overnight, so that I can have a bowl of hot century egg and lean meat congee in the morning.

Ingredients (for 2 servings):

- 1 hard boiled century egg
- 1 lb lean pork, cut into big chucks
- slightly less than 1 cup Thai Jasmine rice grains
- a few slices ginger
- about 2 litres of water (that’s about 2.14 quarts)
- salt
- white pepper
- light soy sauce

Method:

1. Pre-cook the century egg the night before. Start with room temperature water and boil for 12-15 minutes to get a hard-boiled century egg. Remove egg from water and set it aside at room temperature.

2. Place lean pork, rice grains and ginger into the crock pot and pour warm water into the crock pot.

3. Set the crock pot to a low heat setting.

4. During the first couple of hours, a scum consisting of coagulated albumin, and foreign material will begin to rise to the top of the water. This should be skimmed off at once and the process of skimming must be continued until little or no scum remains so that the congee looks “clean”.

5. When the congee is ready to be served the next morning, crack open the hard boiled century egg and cut into small pieces or wedges and mix with the congee.

6. The lean meat in the congee easily falls apart at this stage.

7. Add salt, white pepper and light soy sauce to taste. Garnish with chinese parsley and some fried shallots and serve.