Rerun: Congee

OK I'll admit that when I was reporting live from Malaysia, I didn't give a glowing review of congee. The primary culprit was a salted duck egg, which is essentially a duck egg that has been cured in brine for two weeks or more. Sounds lovely, right? Hand me one of those with those pickled pigs feet. Anyway, to me the egg looked like a hard boiled chicken egg, so I popped it in my mouth - my tongue wanted to return it as quickly as it had entered. It was like uber salty rubber.

When I told my friend/co-worker (Trevor ... yes, the same Trevor of Durian fame) this a day or two later, he laughed and told me that I wasn't supposed to put the whole egg in my mouth at once. Thanks for the news flash. See, he is in "the know" because he and his girlfriend (Zhuhua) have congee (or rice soup as it is sometimes called) nearly every weekend for breakfast. I was willing to try it again, if he said I did it wrong. And Trevor and Zhuhua were eager to defend their breakfast. So they were kind enough to make a batch and bring it into work ... along with all the fixins' ... and let me tell you, this ain't no salad bar at Big Boys.

It starts with the congee. As I said, it's rice that has been cooked in extra water for an extended time. Also thrown in there are scallions and pork. While I prefer my pork in other forms for breakfast (say bacon), I guess as long as you have it, all is good. And oh yeah, that's a pot on a portable burner. Dedication baby. Defending congee is not like convincing me Frosted Flakes are grrrrrrrrrrr-eat.

I think from the picture you get a good idea of what the consistency is like - after all, they do call it rice soup. But let's get into the fixings; the raisins to our oatmeal if you will.

First up we have salty spicy shredded radish. Crunchy but not dry. Salty? Absolutely.

Fermented tofu. What? You don't eat fermented tofu? It has the consistency of extra soft tofu and a spicy-sour taste. You read that right. It's difficult to describe. Definitely not something to be eaten by itself. I can't imagine anyone ever saying "You know what would really be good with this Pepsi right now? Some fermented tofu." The answer is "No". But it works when blended into the congee. Similar to how that ragin' cajun hot sauce that melts hairs out of your nostrils when you take a whif works so well in that three alarm chili. Just give me a little rope here.

The eggs! Two of them. Very different. Let's get to the one on the left first which is the salted duck egg. It's packaged like that. What's even better is the nutrition facts are on the back.

The trick, as is now clear to me, is to cut it into small pieces, put it in the congee and take small bits. No popping whole pieces.

On to the right egg ... and what I think is the star of the show (drum roll please):

Don't adjust your computer monitor. That's really what the inside of the egg looks like. Dark. Dark as night. I give you the fermented duck egg (or the thousand year egg). It's a duck egg that has been covered in a mixture of salt, lime, and clay and left in the ground for several months before deemed "edible". Wild right?

The insides are hard. What is considered the yolk is now a moldy green color while the "whites" are a translucent brown. The taste? Ready for this? Like nothing. Given their gelatin-like consistency, it is like eating jello where someone left out the fruit flavored sugar packet. Seriously. I don't know how you can leave something in the ground for months and it has no taste - then again I haven't tried it within anything else in the ground, and probably won't for the foreseeable future - but it works.

The egg is diced and typically added when the congee is prepared, rather than as a topping.

Separately, the toppings are nothing special (other than unique to this food fan) - much like the cast of Seinfeld - but when they come together, it is magical. The salty duck egg (along with everything else) was consumed in moderation. The result was a delicious breakfast! Congee has been redeemed in my eyes.

Thanks to Trevor and Zhuhua for preparing and sharing ... and for convincing me that congee should be considered in the discussion of the breakfasts of champions.

baked sauerkraut and spareribs

Do you like slow cooked meat that falls off bones? Do you like recipes that take little prep and you can walk away from? Do you like it when the food could feed a small army? How about pork, sauerkraut, and dumplings? Do you like those? Do you think I have a chance to be the next Billy Mays (sans that whole dying early thing)? I thought I would throw that last one in there while I had you on a roll.

But this meal is all of those things. I'm proud to say that this is definitely a family recipe. Not only does it come from my great-grandfather's cook book, (pg 41 for that 0.0000000001% chance that someone - other than my mom - owns this book AND reads this blog ... I think OJ Simpson being tapped to be in Naked Gun 444 1/4 has a better chance of happening ) but it was also adapted by my mom so that it is pretty much perfected ... although that won't stop our family from experimenting. Thanks mom for the assistance!

baked sauerkraut and spareribs w/ dumplings

3 lbs. pork loin back ribs
salt and pepper
1/2 tsp. sugar
1 onion, sliced
1 mcintosh apple, peeled, cored and sliced
2 lbs. prepared sauerkraut
1 egg, beaten
2 cups sifted flour
1 cup milk
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder

Step 1: Mix together 2 tsp. each salt and pepper with 1/2 tsp. sugar. Rub onto ribs, wrap them in foil, and place in the fridge for 1 hour ... or more if need be.

Step 2: Bake the ribs in the foil at 300 for 1 hour. In the words of the legendary Ron Popeil, "set that shit and forget it". You might have left that four letter word out.

Step 3: Remove the ribs, bump your oven up to 325 and put the ribs in a deep baking dish (cut them in necessary). Place the sliced onion and apple on top of the ribs and then cover it all with the sauerkraut and its juice. Add on a lid and bake for another 1.5 hours.

Step 4: When the ribs have 10 minutes left, mix together 1 egg (beaten), 2 cups flour (sifted), 1 cup of milk (milked), 1/2 tsp. salt (salty) and 1 tsp. baking powder (can't come up with anything) to make the dumpling batter. As a side note, these dumplings are denser so if you like 'em fluffier and/or you have a favorite dumpling recipe, go for it.

Step 5: Take your oven up another notch to 350, drop dumpling batter on top of sauerkraut, cover, and bake for another 20 minutes ... or until dumplings are cooked.

Enjoy what you waited hours for (but paid little attention too)!

Wrapping up Malaysia

I'm back on the Western side of the world writing this. The last 48 hours in Malaysia combined with the mind numbing 30 hours worth of travel time - during which I swear I saw the wicked witch fly by on her broom outside the plane window - makes it feel like I left some unfinished business for this post. So here are my final culinary moments of what was an amazing experience.

We returned to Sesame for dinner. I opted not to get the braised goose foot this time (been there), but there was one item on the menu that matched my "to eat" list - abalone. Now at the time I ordered this I had no idea what abalone are. So how could it be on my list? Marketing. Pure marketing. It was during the night we spent in Hong Kong when I saw about three ads in a matter of three seconds for abalone. Sure I could have immediately went to the know-it-all (aka Wikipedia) but where's the fun in that? Truth is, I just forgot to look it up.

Turns out abalone are just edible snails, but are considered a delicacy in the Southeast Asia. Preparation of common abalone dishes can take all day, and are considered a real draw (hence all the ads). At Sesame though I had abalone in a cheesy tart that was so familiar that I swore Ms. Marie Calendar was in the kitchen. So while it was tasty, I think I missed out on the true flavor of abalone.


The next coarse was a gorgeous and delicious rack of lamb with veggies in a Szechuan sauce. Probably not so much Malaysian, but fantastic nonetheless. Jasmine tea in the background.

We wrapped up the meal with some complimentary sesame ice cream.



I wrote a LOT about the bacon shop. It would have a tragedy if I had left without at least tasting some of it. Fortunately my co-worker Dan decided that we might all want to try some. So he decided to pick some up ... or should I say he took every piece the store had. Seriously! He ordered what he thought was a "normal" amount - 500 g - only to see all but two pieces exit the case. He couldn't let them those two occupy that large case by themselves (they'd surely feel like rejects), so he asked the vendor to toss them in the bag too, thus completing the clean-up.

We snacked on the bacon at work. Dan got the square kind which was coated in a sweet glaze. Do I even need to say that it was delicious?

And after taking a bite of the bacon, clicking our heels three times, and saying "there's nothing as tasty as airplane food" we found ourselves eating something at 30,000 feet elevation in the middles of a 30 hour travel "day".

Malaysia - Day 6

So this is Durian. A fruit that grows in this region of the world. Ever since arriving, a colleague of mine, Trevor, has been suggesting (or should I say "demanding"?) that we try this. Like myself, Trevor is up for trying new things all the time. While he had already had Durian in the States and once since being here in Malaysia, he wanted to share the experience with us. When pressed for an explanation to the question of why he was so insistent that we try it, his answer was "because it's an experience", which was quickly followed by a smirk.

Facial indicators aside, it doesn't take much arm twisting to get me to try anything new ... especially if it is labeled as an "experience" ... and I'm egged on. So we set out to find some of the fruit. The cab drivers laughed when we approached them about taking us to some. But after one stand was already out, we found a stand with plenty.

We (there were three of us, Trevor, Jake, and I) stepped out of the cab and our nostrils were filled with the stench of dirty gym socks. This is the only other characteristic of Durian that I knew about - its atrocious smell. Keep in mind that the fruit hadn't even been cut open yet! It took only a matter of moments for the fruit stand owner to select our Durian and crack the spiky shell open.


Inside there is this white, coconut looking flesh inside but then there is beige slug-looking thing, which is the part that you eat. It consists of a mucus casing, filled with mushy stuff (more on this in a second), and a seed or pit in the center. The idea is pop the whole thing in your mouth and then suck the "meat" off of the pit.



Not knowing what I was in for, I tried to separate it all and ended up with a big mess on my hands. So with a bit of a panic from the idea of it hitting the ground, I popped some in my mouth.


Before I go on, let me just say that the locals told me that once I got past the smell, the rest was easy. Well that is like saying once you got past the first level of Super Mario Brothers, you beat the game. Not. Even. Close.

The mush has the consistency of baby food and it flows through your mouth without any control. Initially the taste is not too bad, but when it hits the taste buds in the rear of your mouth, your natural instinct is to gag; as if your body is in self-preservation mode saying "oh that can't possibly be good for you". I've been struggling with how to describe the taste and I come up blank every time. It might be it's own standard - something to use as a future reference where I can say "that tastes like Durian". So for the future, I could say "that rotten egg tastes bad, BUT not as bad as Durian." Yeah, something like that. But if I HAD to describe the taste, I would say baby food blended with sour milk.

You can judge the harshness of the fruit from my reaction in this video:

Once the gag reflex is quelled it goes down pretty smooth. The next seed is easier to handle and then the next is easier still. After three seeds, I thought it was done but then the owner of the fruit stand came over and cracked the remaining shell in another quarter to expose 5 or 6 more seeds. At this point, Trevor was nice enough to help me out. And the cab driver was nice enough to shoot video of us using his cell phone. So keep a lookout for a video on youtube labeled "stupid Americans eating Durian - hilarious".


All that said, it honestly was one of the most unique experiences regarding food I've had in a while. But Jake hit it on the head when he said "it was an experience I don't regret but never want to have again." Everything from the fruit stand on the side of the road to the fruit itself was something I'm glad I did. However, I won't be rushing out for another one ... unless I can convince somebody else to try it. I could see it being OK in a highly sweetened product, like candy or ice cream. I think we should all write in to the Food Network and demand that it be the secret ingredient on Iron Chef.


Everyone we've talked to doesn't think it tastes especially good, even the locals. So we had to wonder if it is sold purely on the demand from people like us. People who say "oh this stinks! here smell this!" to our friends.

One final note (an important one at that), if you are a fan of "Bizarre Foods" with Andrew Zimmern, then you know Durian is one of the few foods he wasn't able to eat. You can see his reaction in the video below. Eat that Zimmern!

Malaysia - Day 5

On the very first day when I arrived, the breakfast buffet in the hotel had a dish labeled "fish congee" that caught my eye - not because of it's beauty but because it looked like oatmeal and the title had "fish" in it and it was breakfast time. I'll admit it shook me a little bit. Here I was less than a day into my trip, determined to try just everything, and I couldn't face the congee.

I passed that day, thinking it would be on the buffet everyday and I could build up to it. But as I approached the cauldron hosting the stuff every morning it was filled with other kinds of congee, plain or chicken, which both sound much less daunting.

Patience happened and today I tried fish congee. Congee is just overcooked rice that is a little soupy. Toss in fish and fish sauce and you have, you guessed it, fish congee. There were chunks of fish, which wasn't the most pleasant, but in general the congee has little flavorful - after all it is just rice. Sticking with the oatmeal analogy, there are a variety of toppings to dress it up. Most of the toppings I selected (green onion, fried onion, these things that looked like puff pastry, and soy sauce) did the job quite well. I say "most" because that egg was the worst thing I've had since being here. It is a duck egg that is prepared by storing it in salt for 1 to 2 months then hard boiling it. It ends up being super salty and very tough. I wasn't expecting that, and I popped the whole thing in my mouth! Yuck!

I'm no longer afraid of congee but I'll think twice about eating anything that is appears like a hard boiled egg again.