Cooked up a really traditional Chinese dish last night… Meatball & Braised Peanut Congee! I’m not sure what dialect (or whatever it’s called?) it is.. either Teochew or Cantonese I think. I made it in the whizzbang rice cooker that Mum and Dad bought me, but I’d never made congee in it before so it turned out to be a bit of a random exercise.. with me chatting to Mum on Skype the whole time giving me instructions, haha! Was very fun 😛

Surprisingly, it turned out really well.. I thought I had the timing wrong and that it’d be a disaster. So was very relieved (and proud!) when it came out really tasty :)~ It’s actually a very easy dish to make, once you know how. You can actually cook this in a pot over the stove, but my recipe shows it cooked in a rice cooker with the ‘congee’ functionality, since that’s what I used.

All you need is a handful of ingredients

Making the meatballs

Popping the meatballs into the rice cooker

I put a raw egg into the bowl….

… then scoop the cooked congee on top and gently stir through

Meatball & Braised Peanut Congee (serves 2)

150g pork mince
2 cloves garlic, minced
Few shreds of ginger
1/3 onion, chopped
Coriander, chopped
1 tsp corn starch
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp fish sauce
White pepper
1/2 tsp sesame oil
Egg (optional)
Can of braised peanuts
Rice

1) Cook rice in rice cooker under “congee” setting
2) In the meantime, mix pork, garlic, ginger, onion, coriander, corn starch, soy, fish, pepper and form into small balls
3) Drop into congee as it’s cooking and stir, the leave until the rice cooker shuts off
4) Crack egg into bowl and scoop cooked congee on top, folding in gently. Top with braised peanuts, sesame oil and fried onions

And a little random, but some alcohol-based quizzes:

Makes me sound like a wild party animal: not true

What Kind of Drink Are You?
	You are a Tequila Shot. You are the life of the party, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. When it’s time to enjoy yourself, you don’t hold back. Sometimes you take it too far, and go places you shouldn’t go, but that never keeps you from doing it all over again. Hey, you only live once right?
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Possibly true 😛

You Are Heineken

You appreciate a good beer, but you’re not a snob about it. You like your beer mild and easy to drink, so you can concentrate on being drunk. Overall, you’re a friendly drunk who’s likely to buy a whole round for your friends… many times. Sometimes you can be a bit boring when you drink. You may be prone to go on about topics no one cares about.

What’s Your Beer Personality?