When I am ill, I usually eat congee, because it is easy to digest, so the body has less workload. It is also a very good choice for both breakfast and supper during cold winter.
Although there are so many kinds of congee, there is really not much choice for vegetarian, thousand-year-old egg congee is my favorite. It is also a very good way to taste thousand-year-old egg.
Thousand-year-old egg, also named century egg, preserved egg, hundred-year egg, millennium egg or ‘Pidan’ (in Mandarin) is not really as old as its name suggested. It is a Chinese cuisine ingredient made by preserving duck, chicken or quail eggs in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime, and rice hulls for several weeks to several months. The yolk becomes a clay yellow to dark green. The egg white become a transparent black and has a jelly like texture. They may not look attractive but the do taste good and really exotic.
According to Chinese herbal medicine system, thousand-year-old egg reduces the “heat” (fire element) inside the body. So when a person stays late, s/he eats thousand-year-old egg congee to get the balance right.
When I buy thousand-year-old egg, I buy the type made in Taiwan, I also look for the “Lead free” type.
One more thing to note, in Cantonese, when we say someone eats ‘evening congee’, it means the person learns and practices Kungfu (martial arts).
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