Easy Seafood Congee Recipe for Home Cooks
4
servings30
minutes1
hour200
kcalSeafood Congee is a delightful treat for seafood enthusiasts. This dish features a handful of shrimp, a flavorful shrimp stock, and a couple of small crabs
Ingredients
8 ounces of whole shrimp (with heads on and shells)
Two crabs, weighing around ½ pound in total; we used Maryland Blue Crabs.
3 tablespoons of oil
4 slices of julienned ginger
10 cups of water
1 cup of frozen white rice
1 tablespoon of Shaoxing wine
Salt (to taste)
¼ teaspoon of ground white pepper
0.5 cup of chopped cilantro
0.5 cup of chopped scallions
Directions
- Rinse the shrimp under cold water, and don’t discard the heads. To clean the shrimp, cut open the back shell using kitchen shears to devein. Pat the shrimp dry with paper towels and refrigerate both the shrimp and the heads.
- For the crabs, remove the top shell of each crab and clean them according to Bill’s detailed instructions in our Cantonese-style Scallion Ginger Crab recipe. Cut the cleaned crab into 4-6 pieces and refrigerate.
- Now, let’s start cooking! Begin by heating the oil in a heavy-bottomed soup pot over medium heat. Stir-fry the shrimp heads along with half of the julienned ginger for a couple of minutes until they become crispy, and the oil turns a deep red color. Subsequently, pour in the water and bring it to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, turn off the heat and remove and discard the shrimp heads.
- Next, add the frozen white rice and Shaoxing wine, bring it to a boil again, and cook for 15 minutes over medium heat. The congee should be gently bubbling. Remember to stir from the bottom occasionally to prevent the rice from sticking. After 15 minutes, add the cleaned shrimp and crab. Stir, cover, and cook for another 10 minutes, or until the shrimp and crab are fully cooked.
- Before serving, season with salt to taste, white pepper, cilantro, scallion, and the remaining ginger. Serve immediately!
Chinese-style seafood porridge is a delightful treat for seafood enthusiasts. This dish features a combination of shrimp, a flavorful shrimp broth, and small crabs.
Throughout most of my life, porridge has been a go-to snack or a simple breakfast option. However, in recent years, a growing number of Teochew porridge restaurants have emerged across China, bringing this breakfast classic to the dinner table (at reasonable prices, too!).
I first encountered the evolving status of porridge during a trip to Shanghai in the summer of 2009. Despite the sweltering summer heat, I observed people sipping on beer, engaged in leisurely conversations while sharing a large clay pot of porridge.
Yet what left a lasting impression on me, and appeared quite enticing, were the clay pots of seafood porridge, with sizable bright red crab pieces peeking through the surface of the thick rice porridge, adorned with herbs and ginger. With a price tag exceeding 100RMB per pot, I was perplexed by the newfound prestige of porridge and people’s willingness to splurge on what used to be a humble dish.
In the spirit of this contemporary trend and to honor porridge as more than just an inexpensive breakfast option, I embarked on making this Chinese-Style Seafood Porridge. The result is a remarkable dish that will captivate the palates of seafood aficionados.
What’s more, it can be prepared with a mere handful of shrimp and a few small crabs. The secret to elevating this seafood delight is to utilize mantis shrimp to craft a rich shrimp stock, infusing the porridge with its unique color and flavor. The inclusion of aromatic ingredients such as green onions, cilantro, ginger, and white pepper imparts an incredibly flavorful and satisfying meal.
