Congee or guk?

I’m interested in learning more about (especially savory) rice porridges.

I boil (or pressure cook) the hell out of leftover brown rice to try and get a congee and then top it with kimchee or Sichuanese pickles or whatever.

Right now I have some white (which I don’t really know much about)  jasmine rice in broth with a small pumpkin in the instant pot and I’m thinking about topping the porridge with leftover stirfried orange broccoli from last night. It’ll be edible for sure, but I’m always just pulling it out of my ass and making do.

How do I learn to do better? What are the broad rules? What’s your favorite?

There’s some talk about it in this rice thread

I didn't grow up in a culture that did any kind of rice porridge; maybe, at a push, I could count milky rice pudding, but that's a dessert and not a meal.  Anyway, I have no traditions surrounding it or expectations of flavor/ texture, so I've made it pretty much your way (rice and flavorful liquid in instant pot, with or without additional mush ingredients).  I usually get soupy rice more than a smooth, creamy texture because my rice is old and dry and actually the wrong kind, probably.  

I may try making a thinner version of the rice paste for kimchi made from glutinous rice flour and adding it into the wet rice after it's been cooked but not cooled, so it gets a kind-of-textured, kind-of-silky thing going.  

I've had mixed results with using the immersion blender when pumpkin was involved (I was going for a vegan pumpkin rice pudding dessert for one, and wanted to get a kind of half-assed risotto situation happening with the other); everything was edible, but it's not a technique I'll be repeating.  I just prefer everything chunky when I cook the two of them together.

Here's a list of Maangchi's porridge recipes.  

Here's a recipe from Just One Cookbook for one-dish herb congee.

I've learned a lot of basics of Korean and Japanese cooking from both of them.

The way I have been served congee was as a very plain base. It was white rice based but done pretty much with straight water so it was the rice version of oatmeal.
The reason is so everyone can customize as they want, like an oatmeal bar, but savoury.

When I make it for myself, I know what I want so those things are built in. First thing is the broth. I do it with tons of garlic, ginger, dried mushrooms, a few spices and some lemongrass. Chicken pieces are poached in it until cooked then the meat is stripped off and the bones, skin and bits are put back in.
After a few hours on the stove, it's strained and all but the mushrooms is thrown out. ( I put the mushrooms in dry and they tend be good for chopping by the time it's done)
Then the rice is cooked in the broth until it's broken down but not completely smooth. I do it a bit thicker than most restaurants. The poached chicken, the mushrooms, some fresh greens and maybe some dried fried onions are about all that are added to it aside from a drizzle of soy sauce and rice wine vinegar.
Very warm, comfortable and soothing and it freezes well.

Dian, that sounds amazing! You've got me hooked!

I’ve used this recipe https://delightfulplate.com/wprm_print/4235
and it was great.  I can’t really buy fish scraps (so irritating, in a town known for fishing!) and fish steaks are so expensive… but a friend gave me some fillets from his fishing hobby.

There’s also a Vietnamese place nearby that serves fish congee as an appetizer and it’s enough for the perfect comfort meal.

Oh, and this is not remotely a congee, but soothing savory rice:  from An Everlasting Meal by Tamar Adler

Rice and lettuce soup

1 1/2 onions medium diced
2 Tablespoons butter
Salt
1/3 parsley leaves roughly chopped
1/2 cup Arborio rice
8 1/2 cups chicken stock or chicken stock and water
1 very big head lettuce, romaine or crisp leaf, about 16 cups very loosely packed

Cook the onions in butter in a medium sized pot , adding salt to taste, until soft. Add parsley, rice and liquid. Let it cook for about 50 minutes until the rice is thoroughly cooked and getting ragged looking, then turn off the heat.

Whenever you’re ready to eat, slice the lettuce into thin ribbons, add it to the soup, and stir in.

I admit I rarely add the parsley (one can also use whatever herb you love) and play with the ratios a lot.  But it’s savory-soothing with bright lettuce crunch and ridiculously easy to make.

The book in general is charming with an emphasis on frugality.  There’s not a lot of spice action in it, but an emphasis on really enjoying good quality vegetables.

I used to make congee for an elderly dog.

I made it in the crockpot by just cooking rice a long time.

I like the regular rice that they sell at the grocery store.  I don't see that it is much different from Jasmine rice.

Christopher Weeks wrote:I’m interested in learning more about (especially savory) rice porridges.

I boil (or pressure cook) the hell out of leftover brown rice to try and get a congee and then top it with kimchee or Sichuanese pickles or whatever.

Right now I have some white (which I don’t really know much about)  jasmine rice in broth with a small pumpkin in the instant pot and I’m thinking about topping the porridge with leftover stirfried orange broccoli from last night. It’ll be edible for sure, but I’m always just pulling it out of my ass and making do.

How do I learn to do better? What are the broad rules? What’s your favorite?
There’s some talk about it in this rice thread

Christopher Weeks, your honesty is infectious!

Now, I don't necessarily prepare rice unless it's black, brown, or purple.

Black rice aka forbidden rice is so-named because it was once deemed too good for the common people and reserved only for royalty. Today, it's gained popularity as a super food or super nutritious food stuff. It's chewy, nutty, and reminiscent of oatmeal to me.

Speaking of oatmeal, it's my go-to rice substitute. Much easier to cook and highly versatile.

I've included pictures of my black/purple rice as well as savoury oatmeal.

Happy to share a link to my eCookBook and Social Media but I'd prefer that this response does not get flagged as SPAM.

I'm also on the blatant advertising thread discussing my eCookBook. Do check it out!

did someone call me? congee is basically my middle name. it's my comfort food, sick food in my family, and one of my favorite things. I first met it as okayu (hangover food in japan, usually salty with a bit of ginger), then got to experience korean and chinese versions. i often have it for breakfast, and in the winter it is in our general rotation as a side-dish carb instead of noodles or rice, it's very warming and knocks down carb/calorie intake a bit compared to a straight bowl of rice.

I think my very favorite is chinese style-- white, with a pinch of chicken broth powder, some sesame oil, and some chopped scallions/cilantro and white pepper.
talking about pumpkin makes me think about korean pumpkin jook, which is also fabulous.

I usually make mine in the crockpot from dry rice, and the ratio is something like half a cup rice (could be any kind-- usually i use broken grains of white rice that are sold specifically for this purpose) with 6 to 8 cups water. I could see using the pressure cooker with leftover rice, maybe 1.5 cups to 6-8 cups of water? but I'm not sure how it would come out, if the texture would be right. I occasionally also use other grains (millet, amaranth).

Last night I tried something my wife suggested -- stirring in cheese to treat it like some risotto or grits. But we didn't have a coherent vision and kind of got in each other's way by taking it in alternate directions. I wanted to serve it with sautéed arugula and an over-easy egg and shoyu, she thought cheese and shoyu and sesame greens was weird. So we added peas and topped it with the egg. It turned out...I dunno...edible but kind of insipid.

As I mentioned at the top, my current batch is made with white rice which I don't usually have in the house, so my instincts are all wrong and it has lost almost all texture from over(?)-cooking. I'm thinking about cooking up a batch of our normal brown rice mix and stirring it in for chewy bits. (Which reminds me of this great thread on 'oatmeal' that I derailed a little by noting I prefer whole oats to rolled (or steel-cut) oats.)

And hey, anyone fry leftover congee? I'm sure I've read something else about frying it in slices, but this technique is the only thing that's coming up just now in my searches: https://eathealthy365.com/the-definitive-recipe-for-perfect-crispy-fried-congee/

your post definitely makes it clear that everyone has their own preferences for congee, in terms of texture and thickness. i love brown rice congee, for the little chewy bits you reference, but otherwise my congee is, like you say, almost entirely without texture when white rice is used. i usually like mine soupier rather than thick, and i am That Crazy Person who really, really detests risotto (more for the 'mix in random stuff and pretend it's gourmet rather than just the dog's breakfast'** factor than anything else, and also the omnipresent cheese, cream, and milk in risotto where i live, which is a non starter for me).
that said, do any of that with grits or polenta (including frying slices) and it's gold. different strokes!!

**- not to comment on your dinner. here risotto is such an ooh-and-aah 'fancy food' that it makes my grumpy. your combo sounds pretty good compared to the creme-fraiche/arugula/mozzarella/bacon type combos i see on menus.

Christopher Weeks wrote:And hey, anyone fry leftover congee? I'm sure I've read something else about frying it in slices...

Tereza Okava wrote:do any of that with grits or polenta (including frying slices) and it's gold.

Now I wonder if I was only remembering the frying of polenta slices and generalizing it to congee.

And I totally get what you mean about the over-presence of meh risotto!

Christopher Weeks wrote:

Christopher Weeks wrote:And hey, anyone fry leftover congee? I'm sure I've read something else about frying it in slices...

Now I wonder if I was only remembering the frying of polenta slices and generalizing it to congee.

It just so happens I have been down this rabbit hole.
The link you quoted above about the fried congee piqued my interest (since I'm studying Chinese and obviously interested in food--- i can read more about food than anything else).
I ended up finding this link reviewing fried congee which at least gave me an idea about how realistic/worthwhile it is (probably not worth my time if I'm on cleanup duty....) but you may find it interesting.

(and this, ladies and gents, is what happens when today's work docket is really boring. i research food on my breaks.)

I know the primary question was about savoury congee but I wanted to mention 8 treasure as an option. You can do it savoury too.
We tried it for the first time this year and I really like it.
I used this recipe 8 treasure congee

I like that they give ratios so you can adapt based on what you have. We used: rice, split mung bean, buckwheat groats, red dates, raw cashew, raisins, dried apple and lotus seeds. I used the instapot and a bit less water than it suggests. It made a very tasty multigrain porridge that was good cold and hot. We mostly just topped it with some maple syrup.