The Field Marshal

Cooking Porridge Living in this modern day and age, cooking dinner is something which a lot of couples dread upon reaching home after a hard day's work. Well that doesn't really apply to Mydaemon and I. We enjoy cooking nice dishes for dinner, as a sort of a reward, after a tiring day in office. Yes, we are actually working hard nowadays. Anyway, dinner would usually consist of a vegetable, soup, and meat dishes. Top it off with a bowl of rice and we have a nice hot meal. But I cannot deny that working life really restricts our creativity in our meals. Since we usually reach home around 7pm or later, it is often difficult to prepare the ingredients and cook them thereafter. Thus dinners could start as late as 7.45pm on some days. Something which I don't really relish since I am more often than not hungry by then. I found one way of circumventing this. The solution is simple. Just cook a huge pot of porridge. Being an advocate of healthy and easy to cook meals, let me share with you Fieldmarshal's very own chicken porridge recipe. Fieldmarshal's Favourite Porridge Ingredients 1 Chicken thigh (remove skin if one is in 'healthy' mood) 4 Cloves of garlic Half carrot (big) 1 Stick of celery 4 Slices of ginger (skinned) 6 Mushrooms (dried or fresh) Hua Diao wine Sesame oil Dark soy sauce Fish sauce White pepper 1 Cup of fragrant white rice 2 Cabbage leaves or 1 '高山娃娃' 3 Tablespoons of dried shrimps Preparation Season the chicken with 2 tablespoons of wine, 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce, put in the ginger slices, 2 to 3 dashes of sesame oil and pepper. Stir the ingredients with hand till they are evenly mixed. Leave seasoned chicken in the fridge, for 2 hours or more, to let it absorb all the seasoning. Cut the carrots into cubes. Size is up to you. Slice the celery into small pieces. Just cut across the celery and you have a beautiful 'U' shape. Soak the mushrooms (if they are dried ones) and slice them into thin strips when they are soft. Cut the cabbage into bite-sized pieces. Cooking Instructions Bring water to boil. Put in the chicken and garlic. Once the water boils again, put in the rice. Washed mind you. You do not want to eat rice weevils and what not. As there's already seasoning in the chicken, make sure that you don't put in too much of the other seasoning. The amount of seasoning will depend on the amount of water and rice. Pour in the rice (washed) and stir. Make sure that you stir regularly as the rice will get burnt if you let it settle on the bottom of the pot for too long. Once the water boils again, put in the carrots as they take the longest to cook. Also add in the mushroom at this point of time. Keep stirring. Now you will put about one tablespoon of fish sauce, 1 tablespoon hua diao wine, 1 tablespoon of sesame oil and few dashes of pepper. Taste to add more if necessary. Bring the water to boil again. Add the celery into the now boiling porridge. Continue stirring. The process above takes around 20-30 minutes. The porridge gets thicker as the water evaporates. As I prefer to eat porridge which is gluey and dried, my advice is to keep stirring till you achieve such a nice texture. Add more water if you prefer the watery sort. The cabbage is added around 10 minutes before the porridge is ready. By this time, the rice is all cooked and the porridge is quite 'thick'. Don't forget to keep stirring it! The porridge is ready to be served once the cabbage is cooked. Enjoy!