Peanut Porridge

Another comfort food for me - good for weekends when I want to destress, when I want something familiar, and something that "warms" my stomach ...

It's not a vegetarian dish - since I add dried scallops and dried oysters to the porridge base, and occasionally some chicken stock as well. I'm not sure how to make the vegetarian version, maybe just add peanuts? :P

Anyway my version requires "cooking" a soup base first, before adding the rice. So if you have a slow cooker, great! Else, erm, you probably have to so some additional hovering over the stove. What I do is, I do the "soup" in a slow cooker overnight, together with preparing the rice. The peanuts would have been soaked since the morning of making the soup.

Peanut Porridge (Cantonese style)
Ingredients
1 small packet of raw peanuts (about 1.5 ricebowl)
Dried Oysters - 8 medium pieces, rinsed (if you buy stuff from HockHua, it's the $9 tub) (see Note 1)
Dried Scallops - 2 or 3 pieces, rinsed and crumbled
Rice - 1 to 1.5 rice cooker measuring cup
Salt & pepper to taste

Method
1. Soak peanuts in water for 4 to 5 hours. I normally do it overnight together with the rice.

2. Wash rice and drain. Put the rice into a container or plastic bag, add 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of oil and mix well. Leave overnight in fridge or 1 hour in room temperature.

3. Boil 1.5L of water (about 4 to 4.5 full ricebowls of water). Drain peanuts and rinse well. Add to the boiling water, together with the dried oysters and scallops. If using slow cooker, leave it on low overnight. If not, bring to a rolling boil, turn down the heat and simmer for 1 to 2 hours. You can add 1/2 bowl to 1 bowl of chicken stock. Add salt and pepper to taste.

4. Bring the "soup" to a rolling boil again before adding the rice. There is no need to rinse rice again. Wait till the soup is boiling again before turning down the heat to simmer to the desire consistency (anything from 1 to 3 hours). I'll leave mine in the slow cooker for either 1 full day (eat at night) so I don't have to bother about making the soup boil before turning down the heat. Best is I get the thick, mushy porridge I grew up with! If still not salty enough, add a little light soy sauce!

(sorry pics dun seem to be working still ... it's really getting me a bit off ...)

Note 1: It seems like a lot of people DON'T like dried oysters - the taste or etc etc ... it actually does give a wonderful sweet taste to soups and porridges. What I suggest is, start small. Use the smallest dried oysters (this you can buy from NTUC prepacked ones - like less than $4), so when you cook, you don't get overwhelm by the looks of it. Big ones can look very intimidating - i know! after all i grew up in a pretty traditional cantonese cuisine environment! I dislike eating big ones too, they tend to mask out all other flavours in the dish. So small to small medium ones are just perfect!