I once had porridge from a hawker’s back home called the Triple Treasure Porridge – century egg (pei dan), salted egg (hum dan) and egg (gai dan) – and I absolutely loved it. But century eggs and salted eggs over here are really expensive ($1.50 and $1.80 each) so it’s not something I can afford to have. Alan caught a bug while doing his GP rotation last week and thanks to him, I fell sick too. Seeing that Krys and CY were away, and both of us had sorethroats, I thought of this porridge and decided to splurge for once. As both of us are not fans of the watery rice porridge (Alan says it’s soft rice in water; apparently it’s called “moi” in hokkien), a little extra effort had to go into making the thick, mashy porridge (“chuk”).
Ingredients:
- Rice, soaked for at least an hour
- Pork bones
- Chicken stock
- Century egg
- Salted egg
- Egg
- Salt & Pepper
- Fried shallots
- Spring onions
- Sesame oil
Method:
- Boil pork bones with water, drain and wash.
- Put rice, pork bones and water in a pot and bring to boil. Lower heat to medium and allow to simmer. Add in chicken stock and salt.
- As porridge thickens, constantly add water till rice mashes up into oat-like mixture. Stir occassionally to prevent porridge from sticking to the bottom. Add in century egg. Put salted egg with cold water in a pot and bring to boil in medium heat. When done, halve it.
- Break an egg into a bowl, add a little bit of sesame oil.
- When porridge has reached the consistency you like, scoop it into the bowl where you’ve just broken an egg into. Stir and mix well so that porridge is coated with egg.
- Add some soy sauce, sesame oil, and a dash of pepper. Garnish with spring onions and fried shallots.
