The genius of congee

Such a chump. I realised what I should've called my blog, "Ugly as sin, tasty as hell!" I realised that when I was taking photos of all the food I've been making over the last few days, it looks hideous. I made a spiral cut hot dog the other day with mustard relish, BBQ sauce, bacon and caramelised onions. It looked like I mangled a hot dog and then vomited all over it. Goddamn it tasted good though. I'll try it again in a week or so and see how much better I do.

Tasty as hell. Despite the lacklustre appearance.

Then today I took a few pictures of my mum's chao and goi aka a chicken and rice congee plus a chicken, carrot and cabbage salad. The congee is made typically made from an intense chicken stock of at least one stewing chook plus a shit ton of chicken bones, onions and then towards the end, rice is added until the grains swell. The meat is normally shredded and either left in the soup or reserved and added to the goi salad.

Ugmo central.

Goi is a Vietnamese dish of basically salad, well Vietnamese style salad that is. I'm not sure if its just my Australian Vietnamese slang language, where my parents and relatives bastardise the English language, but they refer to any non-Asian salad as "sa lat". It sounds exactly like salad, if you were thinking Vietnamese accent. The one for this congee is made from raw shredded carrot and cabbage, sorta like coleslaw, I guess. However its dressed with a sugar, lemon juice and mint mixture. Dressings differ between makers though.

Goi. The most delicious salad ever.

Congee is such a fantastic winter dish, its one of those, "I'm sick mum." "Oh, eat some congee then." The deceptively simple flavours, the comforting easy to swallow goodness of puffy rice grains, the clarity of the stock and chicken cause its freaking delicious. You can also make many, many other versions of it but chicken congee is by far the best.

Anyway, where was I going with this? All my food is hideous, all the food I enjoy is hideous and it tastes fantastic. You can't make curries sexy and reconstructed with fancy arse smears, foams, spheres and stacks on plates. All you literally have is a bowl of the stuff with some garnish up top. That's it, let the deliciousness speak for itself.

Delicious.