After last week's bad meat news, I decided that it is probably time to begin one of this year's projects for the blog, which is to create a series of posts on sustainable food.  It is part of an effort to educate myself about the basics of sustainable food.  I'm hoping through these posts to provide a basic overview of the main ideas that define sustainable food practices and a list of resources that can be used in making better food choices. I'll begin with a post sometime next week on sustainable meat and go from there.  My plan is to have one well researched post a month that can serve as the basis for discussion, comments and suggestions from readers. I will then use the comments to revise the information and post it on the site as part of a sustainable food guide page to be updated periodically as new information and resources become available.

For today's recipe, I decided to post a cold rainy day favorite because I just read that we are about to get hit with a week of wet and stormy weather.  A couple of years ago, I spent a year living in Taiwan. Regrettably, I never learned how to cook a single Chinese meal while there.  I did, however, become adept at eating from the local street stalls and tiny neighborhood restaurants. There were plenty of cold, rainy winter days in Taipei, and because I didn't have heat in my apartment, I had to find various ways to keep warm.  One of the things I loved to do was to eat a warm bowl of congee and then snuggle into bed for a long nap. Congee, known as zhou in Mandarin and jook in Cantonese, is a rice porridge traditionally eaten for breakfast and made out of the previous night's leftover rice along with whatever seafood, meats, eggs, or vegetables are on hand. My favorite kind is made with salt-cured pork and thousand-year-old-egg. 

Given that we don't eat meat at home, I decided to craft my own brown rice version using cabbage and mushrooms.  Shitake mushrooms would be the obvious choice for this dish, but I opted for a flavorful mixture of Velvet Pioppinis, Trumpet Royales, Brown Clamshells and Alba Clamshells regularly available at a grocery store near my house.  You can easily come up with your own combination of ingredients.

The tricky part to this recipe is the rice.  You will definitely need to plan ahead to make this meal because the brown rice takes about three to four hours of slow simmering for the individual grains to break down and form a good thick porridge. Of course, you could easily substitute white rice and cut the cooking time in half.  You will also need to keep a close eye on the rice as it cooks, and stir it frequently.  As the rice gets closer to being done, it begins to stick to the bottom of the pan and can easily burn, leaving the entire pot of congee tasting slightly charred.  

Once the rice porridge is finished, the remaining ingredients are sautéed very quickly and stirred into the porridge.  For the sake of appearances, I opt to serve the plain porridge in the bowls and then top it off with the sautéed veggies.  I also choose to serve the soy sauce, rice vinegar, and chili oil typically used to flavor the rice on the side so as to allow everyone to individually doctor up their own bowl.  For a slow version of a fast meal, you can make the rice ahead of time, place it in the fridge, and warm it up when you are ready to sauté the rest of the ingredients and finish the process.

Cabbage & Mushroom Brown Rice Congee

1/2 cup of brown rice

4 to 6 cups of water

2 large cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced

1 tablespoon canola or grapeseed oil

1/2 pound of shitake mushrooms, chopped

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1/2 cabbage, cut into thin shreds

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

6 scallions, chopped

2 tablespoons toasted sesame seeds

salt, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, chili oil*, and cilantro for flavoring

In a large pot, combine the rice with four cups of water and a little salt.  Bring the rice and water to a boil. Reduce to low heat, cover and gently simmer for a few hours.  Stir the rice periodically to ensure that it does not stick to the bottom.  Add more water if too much evaporates before the rice grains have dissolved enough to provide a good porridge consistency.  Cook the rice three to four hours until you get a thick porridge consistency.

As the porridge is finishing, prepare the remaining ingredients.  In a large pan, sauté the garlic and ginger for about ten seconds in canola or gape-seed oil over medium heat.  Once the garlic and ginger have released their flavors into the oil, but before they burn, add the chopped mushrooms.  Sauté for about 5 minutes until the mushrooms release their water and it has practically evaporated from the pan.  Add the tablespoon of soy sauce and cook a few more seconds until absorbed.  Place the mushrooms in a covered bowl to keep warm.

Without rinsing the pan, add the toasted sesame oil, cabbage and a pinch of salt to the same pan and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes.  Allow the cabbage to begin to wilt, but avoid over-cooking it.

Serve by dividing the congee into bowls and topping it with the sautéed cabbage and mushrooms, chopped green onions and toasted sesame seeds.  Provide soy sauce, rice vinegar and chili oil on the side for dressing the congee.

* Note: You can quickly make your own chili oil by warming some oil in a pan without allowing it to smoke, and adding fresh or dried crushed chilis to cook for a few minutes without burning.  Once cooked, you can either strain out the chilis, or leave them in.

Serves 3-4

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