Salty Porridge Recipe

Today my uncle was supposed to take my sister and I to 清境農場 for a small trip, which unfortunately was cancelled due to the typhoon coming up. Instead, we stayed at Grandma's house for a day, which means another great opportunity to keep Project 17 going.

Gram cooks less and less these days, because there aren't many people in the house to really cook a meal, and she gets exhausted easily now. However, since we visited, she decided to go in the kitchen and start the fire. For lunch today, we ate a kind of salty porridge, which isn't really difficult to make, yet tastes absolutely amazing. Grandma was the chef and I had the honor of being her assistant. Mostly, I do the chopping and cleaning, it's really fun and I enjoy it. 

Salty Porridge Recipe

Ingredients:

- Dried mushrooms 

- Cabbage (half will do) 

- Dried scallops 干貝 (optional)

- salt 

- rice (according to how many people there are) 

- thousand year old eggs 皮蛋 (optional) 

- lard/oil 

1. Take the dried mushrooms and soak them in hot water until they are soft, then slice them into strips.
*Do not throw out the water used to soften them, the water will be used as flavoring later on.

2. Cut the cabbage into long thin strips 


3. Break the scallops into smaller pieces 


4. Wash the rice 


5. Take a big pot (Grams used her Wok) and add in the lard/oil


6. Throw in the mushrooms, then the scallops, and lastly the cabbage. 

7. Add the uncooked rice on top of all the ingredients 


8. Add the mushroom water


9. Keep adding water until it covers all the ingredients 

10. Let it cook until the water boils, and then gently stir the porridge


11. Add in salt to your own taste 
* Salt doesn't really make everything salty, rather enhances the flavors of the original ingredients 

12. Add the thousand year old egg last, since you do not want the porridge to get all soggy from it. 

13. Let it simmer for a few more minutes 

14. Let the porridge cool for awhile before eating...it tastes better that way

15. Enjoy! 

Grams actually cooked a whole wok- full of porridge, for 5 people. We ate it for lunch and dinner, that's how we managed to finish the whole thing. 

Me: Hey Grams! You look exactly like a professional!
Grams: I'm sweating all over,, I'm nowhere close to being a professional!