Pork Porridge
I love pork porridge with home-made pork balls. To make my porridge naturally sweet and flavourful, I added ikan bilis aka anchovies, red dates, dried scallops and dried shrimps to cook with the porridge. If you want the simpler version and do away with the ikan bilis, red dates, dried scallops and dried shrimps, you can always cook porridge with plain water, and then season the porridge with appropriate amount of light soy sauce (the porridge will become light brown in colour).
Ingredients
(Serves 4)– 250g minced pork
– 1 1/4 cup rice
– 12 cups water
– 2 tbsp dried shrimps
– 10 red dates
– 10 dried scallops
– 2 tbsp ikan bilis (dried anchovies)
– 1 to 2 tsp light soy sauce, to taste
– century egg, cup to small pieces (optional)
– chopped spring onions for garnishing
– fried shallots for garnishingmarinade
– 1 1/4 tsp light soy sauce
– 1 tsp corn starch
– 1 tsp sesame oil
– dashes of ground white pepper powderDirections
1. Place dried shrimps and ikan bilis in a disposable soup pouch. Add washed rice, red dates, dried scallops, water and soup pouch to a deep pot. Bring to a boil.
2. Leave the lid partially open and reduce heat to low. Stir the bottom of the pot every now and then to prevent the rice from sticking to the base.
3. Simmer for about 20 minutes to get porridge and longer to get congee (very fine consistency). Add more hot water if needed.
4. In the meantime, mix the minced with the marinade and leave for about 10 minutes. After which, scoop about 1 tsp of the marinated mince meat and shape into a ball (see photo above).
5. When the porridge has cooked to the consistency you liked, discard soup pouch. Place the meatballs into the porridge, increase heat and allow meatballs to cook for about 3 minutes. 6. Season the porridge to taste with light soy sauce. Serve & garnish with century egg, ikan bilis, spring onions and fried shallots.
Pork Porridge/Congee served with pork balls, century egg, and garnished with spring onions & fried shallots
Cooking Note
1. It is better to cook the meatballs only when you are ready to serve as overcooked meatballs are tough.
Related Recipes
– How to cook porridge on the stove top
– Fried shallots recipe
Similar Recipe
– Pumpkin Porridge
hey, so what happened to the other half of the minced meat?
Hi linus, what I meant was, each time use about 1/2 tbsp of the marinated mince meat to mould into a ball.
Dear friend, may i know why we must soak the dried oyster when cooking porridge
thank you
dried scallops u mean? It’s to soften it. the water u used to soak the scallops can be added back to the pot.
can u tell me about the oyster , why we must soak them
In my place, pork porridge are totally pork!!! Not only you got pork ball, but with slice of meat, intestine, liver etc… it also sometimes serve with some ‘kueh’ I don’t know what it call.
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Dear wiffy,
Thanks for sharing the recipe. I enjoyed eating it.
:)
Hi Wiffy,
Happy New Year to you.
My kids all fell sick before Chinese New Year. I was thinking to cook pork porridge for them.
I have some questions to you. Did you chop the mince pork by yourself or you buy from the market? If buy from the market , do we still need to wash it ?
Will appreciate your reply. Thanks
I usually buy minced pork from the supermarket, I don’t rinse before cooking. But if you feel better if they are washed, I recommend you buy it from the wet market; you can tell the uncle to wash the pork first before he sent it to the grinder. Hope this helps and Happy Chinese New Year!
I tried this recipe a few days ago and the taste was amazing! I love the flavourful and sweetness right in my bowl of porridge. Thank you for the recipe : )
happy to hear! thanks!
Hi I tried the recipe for meatballs but cooked it in soup. However all my nice shaped meatballs disintegrated in the soup :'( my friend says I should add egg to ‘bind’. But now I’m too scared to try again!
if it disintegrated in soup, it meant they were too wet to begin with, so add corn flour until the ingredients are nicely binded together.
Hi wiffy may I check if the cups used for rice and water are rice cups or baking measuring cups?
I am using rice cups. But as long as you are using the same cup for the measurements, it does not really matter as cooking porridge is very forgiving :)