It is still comfort food season, it is still chilly out, so it is still time for great food by the fire or in front of the T.V. This particular recipe was inspired by some recent binge watching. The show? Top Chef, specifically the All Stars LA season. It was a somewhat weird experience watching it since it was filmed pre-COVID. A nod to a time when a second thought was not given to traveling, eating in a restaurant or congregating in groups. But I digress, this binge-watching session inspired our newest recipe: Congee Carbonara.
This season’s standout contestant -SPOILER ALERT- was Melissa King. She consistently impressed the judges throughout the season, but she especially wowed them during the final stretch of episodes (filmed in Italy, no less!) by weaving her Chinese heritage into classic Italian dishes. In fact, her Hong Kong Tea-Inspired Tiramisu actually brought one of the judges to tears. Making a grown man happy cry over our cooking is definitely way up there in our #CulinaryGoals.
While watching Melissa King seamlessly craft Chinese and Italian traditions together, Kyle’s creative gears started turning trying to create a dish that would reflect her masterful fusion. I’m sure plenty of you do this while watching competitive cooking or baking shows, right? It is fun to put yourself in a contestant’s position and try to conceptualize a dish that is inline to the weekly challenges they face. Well, it is fun, but not successful for all of us. Lucky for us, Kyle is good at it and that is how Congee Carbonara came to be – a mashup of two of his favorite comfort foods.
There has been plenty of Congee love on the blog; this is the 4th Congee recipe here after our Spicy Pork Congee, Chicken Liver Congee and Basic Chicken Congee. However, this is the first time we’ve shared anything Carbonara-related. Carbonara, a pasta dish served in a sauce made with whisked eggs, cured pork (usually guanciale or pancetta), hard cheese (typically Pecorino Romano or Parmesan) and cracked black pepper, is rich, comfort food heaven and is the perfect hearty meal needed after the endless barrage of snowstorms we had in February.
Carbonara is so delicious and satisfying; however, making homemade Carbonara can be quite daunting. The sauce is made by whisking some of the pasta water into the eggs, and the sauce can easily break or curdle if it is not tempered properly, therefore completely ruining the dish (and wasting expensive ingredients in the process). Congee, with its rich texture and stress free, set-it-and-forget-it preparation is the perfect solution!
Congee is a blank canvas. Making a big batch of it allows you to have several different meals from the same base, so it lends itself really well into being Carbonara’d. Kyle used sliced bacon instead of guanciale or pancetta (though both would be delicious in this recipe!) and cooked the aromatics for the congee in the rendered bacon fat to impart the smoky pork flavor throughout the entire batch of rice porridge.
Rice vinegar and soy sauce were also used to flavor the congee, to tie in the dish’s Asian roots (hopefully this would make Chef Melissa King proud!). Once the congee was finished cooking, the parmesan cheese and reserved bacon were folded into the dish.
The egg was the last component to add to complete the full Carbonara-ing of the Congee. Kyle loves garnishing each bowl of Congee with a soft-cooked egg. The runny yolk adds such a rich texture to the Congee. In addition, it serves as another nod to the Carbonara inspiration of the dish. For the Carbonara Congee, Kyle decided to forego the poached egg and to simply place an egg yolk on top of each bowl. This allows each person to finish the preparation of the Carbonara Congee by stirring the egg yolk into their bowls. It’s a fun hands-on aspect of this dish!
This comfort food dish is a simple, one-pot meal full of deliciousness and texture. It blends two seemingly disparate dishes into a hearty meal that will warm those winter blues away! Enjoy!
- 4 slices (about 6 ounces) thick cut bacon (if you can find it, guanciale works great too)
- 1 small yellow onion, or half of a large onion, diced
- 1 shallot, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 cup long-grain white rice or brown rice, rinsed
- 1 cup dry white wine
- 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
- 4 cups water
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
- 3 ounces (about 1 cup grated) shaved Parmesan Cheese, plus more for garnish
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 4 large egg yolks
- For garnish: sliced scallions, parsley, red pepper flakes, extra Parmesan and reserved bacon
- Cook bacon in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan or Dutch oven over medium-low heat, until the fat has rendered out and bacon has crisped, about 10 minutes. Drain the bacon on a paper towel and reserve.
- Pour out the rendered fat, reserving about 2 tablespoons in the pot. Add the onion, shallot and garlic and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes.
- Add the rice and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Increase the heat to medium-high and add the wine. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the wine has mostly evaporated, about 5 minutes.
- Add the chicken broth, water, soy sauce and rice wine vinegar. Bring everything to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium-low and cook at a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the rice has broken down and the mixture is creamy, about 1 hour.
- Coarsely chop the bacon, and stir most of it into the congee (reserve a couple tablespoons for garnish). Stir in the Parmesan cheese and a generous amount of cracked black pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
- Ladle into bowls. Add 1 egg yolk to the center of each bowl, then top with sliced scallions, parsley, red pepper flakes and the reserved Parmesan cheese and crumble bacon.
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