Rooster Jook

Meals Editor: Lillian Chou Father: Kuo Hung Chou, Pine Brook, NJJook, a rice porridge, is eaten at breakfast or as a gentle lunch in quite a few parts of Asia. Despite the fact that my father arrived from Shanghai, he desired the much more flavorful Cantonese version my mother manufactured. Breakfast with “Baba”(“Daddy” in Mandarin) on Sundays intended a desk adorned with numerous modest dishes of condiments. A single of his favorites was “thousand-yr-old eggs” (pei dan), which are essentially rooster or duck eggs preserved in a mixture of clay, lime, and salt. Thousand-calendar year-outdated eggs are out there at Chinese marketplaces, in which they are offered independently or in packs of 6. (Really don’t confuse them with “salted eggs,” which are brined duck eggs.) Since their high quality may differ broadly, it pays to acquire a additional highly-priced range, if obtainable.

Ingredients:

• one bunch scallions
• 1 (one-inch) piece new ginger, peeled
• 12 clean cilantro sprigs
• one (two one/2- to 3-lb) entire chicken
• two teaspoons salt
• 3 qt cold drinking water
• 1/four cup dried scallops* (about 10)
• three/4 cup lengthy-grain rice
• 1/four cup Chinese (small-grain) sticky rice* (also termed glutinous)
• Accompaniments: soy-sauce-pickled cucumbers* pickled mustard greens thousand-calendar year-aged eggs, shelled and slice into wedges smoked tofu*, minimize into slices
• Garnish: new cilantro leaves
• a modest square of cheesecloth kitchen area string

Directions:

1. Slice off scallion greens and reserve greens independently from white and pale environmentally friendly components. Slash ginger in half crosswise and smash one piece with flat aspect of a large significant knife, reserving remaining piece. Wrap smashed piece of ginger, cilantro, and white and pale green sections of scallion in cheesecloth and tie into a bundle with string.
2. Rinse hen within and out and place in a 4-to 6-quart hefty pot together with cheesecloth bundle, salt, and water, then carry to a simmer, protected. Cook dinner, protected, 15 minutes.
3. Switch off warmth and evaluate out and reserve 1 cup cooking liquid, then include pot all over again. Pour reserved liquid into a small bowl and insert dried scallops. (Scallops really should be wholly submerged.) Soak right until softened, about 30 minutes.
4. Though scallops are soaking, allow chicken stand in cooking liquid, included, 30 minutes. (Hen will be cooked by way of.) Meticulously get rid of rooster from liquid with tongs, then transfer hen to a cutting board and address loosely with foil. Discard cheesecloth bundle from cooking liquid, reserving liquid.
5. Rinse extended-grain and Chinese sticky rice briefly in a sieve, then insert to pot with chicken-cooking liquid.
6. Shred scallops into high-quality threads with a fork or your fingers, discarding rough muscle from side of every scallop if attached. Incorporate scallop threads and scallop-soaking liquid to rice mixture and simmer, partially coated, stirring once in a while, right up until jook is incredibly thick, about one hour.
7. Even though rice is simmering, discard skin from chicken and get rid of meat in massive parts, then minimize meat into one/2-inch pieces.
8. Slash reserved ginger into thin matchsticks and chop reserved scallion greens.
9. Divide chicken among six serving bowls, then ladle jook about chicken. Sprinkle ginger and scallions in excess of jook and provide with accompaniments.

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