Vegetarian Cha'o Ga` / Chicken Congee

Cha'o Ga` Chay / Vietnamese Chicken Congee 

 For the congee:

1 Cup of Rice

1-2 gallon(s) of Water

1 Medium Onion  slice in 4

Mushroom Seasoning 

Rinse the rice, add water & onion in a big pot and leave it on the stove at high heat till boils.  Then turn heat down to a medium and stirring occasionally so that the rice would not settle at the bottom which could burnt...we don't want to do that!

I suggest using a non-stick pot so that when the rice settles in your pot before you get a chance to stir them up, you could scoop them up without a problem! 

Keep it on the stove until the mixture thickens usually an hour is good.  Depending on how thick of a soup base you want while it boils, you can add in more water to get the right medium that you prefer (add only while it's cooking).  

Once you get to the right texture and medium, add in the mushroom seasoning to taste ( this simply is just your own preference so I can't say how much you need to put in!), just like adding SALT to anything... do it in small amount each time until you get to the taste that you want!!!! DON'T POUR a large amount in at once cuz... well you know how that goes! LOL 

  

YOU'RE DONE ... with your congee!!!!

The other part is the chicken and cabbage salad that comes on the side of this congee... you'd need....

 Gluten Sausage

 Shred them to long thin pieces like this just like you would a piece of chicken breast.... except it's cleaner and doesn't have a meaty smell ...yay! This time I've only used 3 pieces of the gluten sausage... 

 Once that's done, add in Sesame oil (1 tbsp) and mushroom seasoning (1-2 depends on you), use your hand to toss and squeez everything together so that the gluten can absorbs the seasonings.  Pick a little piece and try to taste if it's tasty enough... you can choose to add more of the mushroom seasoning... no need to add more oil. Set aside ... =0)

 

Then you'd need white cabbage, slice them as thin as possible (or as thick as you can possibly enjoy chewing LOL), for this I have used 3/4 of a small cabbage.  

And the most important ingredient in a chicken salad is this "herb" called Rau Ram or "Vietnamese Coriander" and this is what the leaves would look like.  It usually comes with the stem but you'd need to separate the leaves and throw away the stems.  

Once rinsed and clean, chop them sparingly ... and add it along with the cabbage in the mixing bowl with the seasoned gluten.

 Then add in 2 limes juice, mushroom seasoning, 2 tbsp of sugar, and grind black pepper and give them a good toss.  Again... personal preference on how it taste... like it more sour? Add lime juice.  Sweeter? Sugar... etc.  But keep in mind that if you want the saltier... add ONLY mushroom seasoning, I swear by mushroom seasoning because first of all it's not as salty as salt therefore much easier to work with and easier to fix even when you go overboard, and MOST IMPORTANTLY it does not make your veggies wilt!!!! Which I think is so important when you're preparing salads because you want them to look and taste fresh! ( I made this the night before and the next day the cabbage are still crunchy and taste just as FRESH!)

So here is what you'd expect it to turns out...

AND THERE YOU GO!!! YOUR CHICKEN CONGEE IS DONE AND READY TO SERVE!!! 

 Here I topped of my congee with some chops cilantro, dried onions, and black pepper.

<3 this is my very first "recipe" post... I'm not sure of how good of a job I did in describing the process to you but I hope that it's not too confusing... if you have any questions feel free to ask me on the comment section or email me ... I'd do my best to answer.  I hope you'd enjoy it after you're done because I really did! And so does my husband! <3 

We both love the original Chicken Congee but with him being a vegetarian, I tried to be as creative as possible with our food and try to bring it back to our normal days of eating and this somewhat came pretty close.  You savvy eaters might questions why is there no onions in the salad which is in the original viet chicken congee recipe... but the answer to that is simple... my husband HATES onions so I have to minimize that to the max! 

If you don't mind onions, then you'd just slice them like the cabbage and add them in along with the cabbage!  It adds an extra punch to the taste of the salad which is wonderful!!!!! 

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING AND HAPPY COOKING!!!! <3