slow-cooker jook

november has befallen us, and with it, the scourge of the season - the icky cold. i felt miserable yesterday and made myself a big honkin' crock pot full of jook (gruel, as K calls it).

i actually didn't start to like jook (aka congee, aka "jewk" as biff [a jew!!] calls it) until very recently, in the last 5 years. i discovered its glories on a trip to hong kong in 2008 at the breakfast buffet of the salisbury YMCA hong kong (our preferred place of residence in hong kong). it was laid out with all the toppings alongside - i never even knew you could put soy sauce in it! my parents always make it very sparsely. i went crazy with cilantro and green onions (what do i always say about MAXIMUM ASIAN FLAVOR) and have never looked back.

i've made jook at home a handful of times, and i'm still not quite convinced that the time/effort put into it is worth it, considering you can get this meal for less than $5 usually (my favorite place is hing lung on broadway near stockton in chinatown). the other thing is that i LOVE to eat jook with the oily bread, and it's hard to find good oily bread around the inner sunset (the white sunset, as K calls it). i almost would rather not eat jook if i don't have that deep-fried bread! i remember driving crazily up and down clement street looking for that bread one day to eat with my jook. also i usually just make it with whatever meat i have around, but i prefer to eat it with fish or ground pork. so, jury's still out on making this at home.

i based it on recipes from both the minimalist and the traverse city record-eagle's blog but there doesn't seem to be a wrong way to make it. this time i threw in some leftover roast pork and sliced chinese sausage (in addition to ginger) and topped it with cilantro, green onions, and a dash of soy sauce and sesame oil. today i'm feeling much better. still thinking bout that oily bread.

Vietnamese Chicken Bùn

Mmm, that cold rice vermicelli salad, or whatever Anglo-ish name you can come up with. You know what I'm talking about. Aside from phở (especially on those hungover or sick days), one of my favorite Vietnamese dishes is bùn (dude, I am not Vietnamese, if you couldn't already tell. Sorry if I mess up on any terms). I usually go for the one with barbecued shrimp and pork, or spring rolls and barbecued pork.

Given the fact that I have a slight fear of grilling (sorry to be a female stereotype), I decided to venture forth by myself with my apartment complex's gas grills and some boneless, skinless chicken thighs. Yay for dark poultry meat! I once succumbed to the notion that white meat was more desirable. But who wants dry-ass meat? Asians know what's up. I feel more at ease cooking chicken than pork. I don't know why...I've made pork dishes several times, but maybe the next meat venture is grilling pork. Anyway, it was a Monday, so I decided to prepare the chicken two ways so I could have a variety of meals for the rest of the week. Way 1 was simply salt and pepper. Way two was a Vietnamese-style marinade. BTW, I wasn't aware of the fact that Andrea Nguyen is a modern-day Vietnamese cooking master. But her name kept popping up during my recipe searches, so kudos to her!

Vietnamese-style Marinade for Chicken

2 to 3 lbs chicken (use whatever kind you like, bone-in or boneless)

1/4 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1 tsb. fish sauce (aaahhh! The stage crew for a local SF theater group once substituted in fish sauce instead of apple juice for a fake shot an actor was to take on stage. LOL)

1 tsb lime juice (can also use lemon juice or vinegar. I think you can also use more lime juice than fish sauce if you're freaked out by the, um, pugent nature of fish sauce)

2 tsb. canola oil or whatever neutral oil you have on hand

Mix the marinade ingredients together, wash and dry your chicken, then submerge the chicken into the marinade and massage the crap out of it. OK maybe not that much, but you want some good flavor! Let it marinade for 30 minutes to two hours.

Heat your grill to medium and throw the chicken on, turning every five minutes until the juices run clear. Because I was using boneless, skinless chicken thighs, I only needed to turn the chicken once for a total cook time of about 10 minutes. Juicy grill success! Now for the rest...

Vietnamese Chicken Bùn (for one serving)

1 to 2 pieces of Vietnamese grilled chicken, sliced

rice vermicelli

cilantro

mint

Thai basil (for me, this is optional)

shredded or julienned carrots

shredded or julienned cucumbers (seeded if you like)

1 to 2 pieces of soft leaf lettuce, chiffonaded

1/3 to 1/2 cup nước chấm (nuoc cham without the diacriticals...I'm just linking the recipe here because this post is getting long! At the time I didn't have any Thai chilis and used chili-garlic sauce instead, which worked well enough for me. Here's an article comparing that with sambal oelek and Sriracha.)

If you're using dried vermicelli, soak it in hot water for about 10 minutes, then drain. I like to line the bottom of a giant bowl (a mixing bowl, no joke) with the lettuce, then put the noodles on top. I arrange the veggies, herbs and chicken into sections for presentation's sake, then I douse the whole thing with the nuoc cham. Stir it up and eat it up.