(no subject)
A couple of days ago a friend posted about making juk (or jook, or congee - savory rice porridge goes by many names.) And I was reminded that my soy milk maker makes any entirely decent juk within its limitations, and its limitations work very well for me. It will not support all varieties of juk - it's probably best to think of it as a cooking blender. But as I'm making vegetarian versions anyway, and I'm just cooking for me, it's wonderful. I just finished a bowl made with this recipe:
Into the soymilk maker went
1.5 cups uncooked rice (brown basmati, because it was on hand)
a few cloves garlic
a couple of slices ginger
a couple of walnut sized chunks of miso
several fresh shiitake mushrooms.
Water was added to the marked line (About 1.5 liters total?) and the porridge setting on the machine punched.
When it came out, I added a handful of chopped jiucai, a bit of salt, a bit of lemon, and some pepper oil.
The big limitation is that you can't simmer things that you don't want pulverized (or, as in the case of ham bones, that the machine can't pulverize). And the texture of the rice is much smoother - you don't get that halfway dissolved texture that I so lovingly recall. I can imagine that a crafty person who lived alone could make stock some yummy broths, and then use them in place of water to make a nice fresh bowl of juk as needed, though. ...that it's so little work when I'm not feeling so great, or am short on time is just wonderful.