Amah's hengchai moi (spinach congee)

June 8, 2024

   

One of my friends kindly gave me Junda Khoo's new Malaysian cookbook Ho Jiak for my birthday.  It's a pretty meat heavy book, but I flicked through it and scoped out dishes we could adapt. I got into Hetty McKinnon's congee a few winters ago, and I was immediately drawn to this family recipe for spinach congee. 

Substitutions were fairly simple: vegan mince for pork mince, veggie stock for pork stock and some weird mushroom salt we had in the kitchen instead of dried shrimp. It's a time consuming recipe, but it's all very simple - lots of gentle simmering and stirring. Our version was browner than I was imagining - the soy sauce and mushroom salt gave it a kind of earthy tone. The good news is that it tasted great - savoury and rich and hearty. I think it needs the chilli crisp to cut through the richness a bit, but with that it was superb.

I might go for the easier, quicker Hetty version next time I'm in the congee mood, but I had fun making this and powered through the leftovers all week at work.

Amah's hengchai moi (spinach congee)

(adapted from Junda Khoo's Ho Jiak)

500g veggie mince

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon ground white pepper

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon plain flour

1.8 litres of veggie stock

3 tablespoons mushroom salt (this was our sub for dried shrimp)

200g/1 cup of jasmine rice

5 tablespoons vegetable oil

3 garlic cloves, peeled

1 tablespoon veggie chicken stock powder

250g mushrooms, chopped

2 tablespoons soy sauce

1 bunch English spinach, washed and roughly chopped

garlic oil, chilli crisp and fried shallots to garnish

Stir the mince together with the soy sauce, white pepper, sugar and flour and set aside.

Bring the veggie stock to the boil in a large saucepan.

Dry fry the mushroom salt and the rice in a wok for a couple of minutes until fragrant and then pop it all in a bowl for later.

Heat the vegetable oil in the wok and lightly fry the whole garlic cloves and the mince - for veggie mince this is pretty irrelevant to be honest, but good to stir everything together nicely. Add the mince to the boiling stock along with the rice and faux-chicken stock powder and bring everything back to the boil. 

Once it's boiling, lower the heat to medium and simmer uncovered for at least 90 minutes - you want the rice to have broken right down and started sticking to the bottom a bit. Lower the heat further and simmer gently for another half hour, stirring regularly. Be careful not to burn anything.

While this is happening, lightly fry the mushrooms with the soy sauce.

When everything is ready, stir the spinach and mushrooms through the congee and give it a minute or two for the greens to wilt. 

Serve in bowls, garnished with garlic oil and fried shallots.