What was your childhood vice? I had a friend in primary school who couldn't resist white chocolate buttons. Every day, she'd pop into the milkbar on her way to school, grab a huge bag of buttons and share them with us during recess. In secondary school, I had a friend who couldn't go a day without eating custard tarts.
I loved my mum's red-bean dumplings. And if I had to pick just one bun from a Chinese bakery, I'd choose an anpan, a red bean-filled bun. But I'd never go past a bowl of eight-treasure congee.
Congee has become more popular in Western societies with more mainstream publications like the US' celebrating it (although I'm suspect of some of its recipe's ingredients). However, people in Asia have been eating congee for a long time, and for breakfast for that matter and it was always something that I was told would ramp up my immune system during flu season.
Eight treasure congee (八寶粥) is a sweet version that's most commonly eaten during the Chinese Laba festival, which is held on the eighth day of the 12th lunar month of the Chinese calendar. This congee is in a league of its own. It includes (also called black or forbidden rice), glutinous rice, beans, grains (such as barley and millet) and dried Chinese fruits. You can also make a simpler version with just the rice, called purple congee. My mum used to make both, and we were all the better for it.
Unlike white-rice congee, eight treasure congee involves a lot more preparation. You must soak the purple rice for a long time because it doesn't soften easily. I remember mum soaked the purple rice and grains then mixed in red and green beans, and dried fruits like longans and red dates, for at least 24 hours, sometimes longer. Then she added these ingredients to a giant pot of water which she slowly brought to a boil. She would add sugar and let it simmer for hours. She stirred the pot each time we wanted a bowl and the congee simply got stickier and better as time went on.
For instant gratification, we kept canned purple congee. Mum used to pack me a congee can for school excursions and you can, in fact, still find these cans in Chinese and Asian supermarkets. I didn't eat it with my friends since I didn't think they'd understand it back in the 1990s, but instead, I saved it until mum picked me up. I used to guzzle it down in the car - now, that was bliss.
Mum used to cook purple or eight treasure congee the old-fashioned way, but you can also use a pressure cooker or rice cooker. It really depends on how you like to cook your rice at home and how much time you have on your hands.
Because patience is not my virtue, I'd often fill a bowl after just one hour of cooking. I'd only regret this because the congee wasn't as creamy as it should've been. Despite many opportunities to learn from my mistakes, I still get impatient and ramp up the heat in the hope this will speed up the cooking process. PSA: all you get is a burnt pot of sticky rice.
You've been warned. Be patient and good things will come in the form of a giant purple bowl of goopy congee.
