I found this instant rice cup some time ago at T&T. Congee is a usually savoury rice porridge that is common in China, Japan, Korea, and others under different names. It is a warm comfort food that people have for breakfast and when they are sick. All kinds of diced and shreeded toppings are mixed in so you can have chicken congee, turkey congee, congee with peanuts, shredded pork, and egg, etc. The one I'm reviewing here is a mushroom and pork flavour.
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| 3/4 view of the instant congee cup. |
The cup isn't huge, about the dimensions of your regular instant noodle cup. The characters in red say Haifusheng in Chinese with the English below. The other characters just say "Pork Ribs and Mushroom Porridge." A big image of the porridge covered in toppings is shown.
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| Lid of the cup. Shows a big bowl of porridge covered in shredded pork and mushrrom. The text in the brown circle indicates it uses freeze drying technology. |
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| Directions and characters that say that classic food comes from high quality ingredients which this company strives to provide. Directions say add all of the dried sachets and then pour in boiling water to the fill line and wait 5 minutes. |
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| Nutritional information, ingredients and manufacturing information. |
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| Front of the cup. Not that there is a gold border around it which looks like ripe heads of oats at the top. |
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| All of the components for this porridge. All you need is boiling water. I was actually surprised to find a block of freeze-dried rice in the foil package and a sachet of instant oats too. |
The contents of the opened cup surprised me a bit. There was a nice block of freeze-dried porridge -much like the technology pioneered by the Japanese. The little sachet of instant oats would add some texture and fibre to the porridge too. Chinese bowls often have utensil like a spoon or a fork.
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| Block of rice and soup base with mushroom, pork, and cabbage. Unlike many western freeze-dried meals, these smaller meals come in a block and preserve a higher quality of flavour from a prepared dish rather than mixing separate ingredients to make one. |
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| I added in the boiling water to the fill line, put the lid back on and covered it up for 5 minutes. |
The final congee looked a bit watery to start, but thickened a bit when I stirred it. It smelled a bit of the earthiness of mushroom and some meaty savouriness, but it was a duller smell, not distinct. The aroma was not strong. It rehydrated well and the congee tasted savoury, not too salty, and possibly a bit on the bland side. The chewy mushrooms provided some nice texture and the oats basically blended in well with the rice. There were bits of meat and they were definitely saltier than the soup. The rice was soft with a hint of texture like a congee should be - this isn't a risotto or a regular rice dish! It wasn't bad for a savoury porridge. I would buy this again, but it doesn't seem like a regularly stocked item at the supermarket. This is a very light meal.
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