One of my lifelong dreams was to visit the vast grasslands and desserts of Mongolia. As a young child, I’d always been enamored by people who lead a nomadic life, living off the lands and having the ability to pack up their homes and re-construct it at a different location. An opportunity to visit China came about and while we couldn’t fit in a trip to Mongolia, we did travel far north to Inner Mongolia for a glimpse of what nomadic life is like. On our travels, we ate quite a variety of chinese food but one particular standout was chicken porridge. It was always served at breakfast time and having a bowl of it sustained us for pretty much the rest of the morning. Scroll to the bottom to get your recipe!

Ingredients:

1 cup jasmine rice, thoroughly washed until water runs clear

1 pound chicken breast

6 cups stock strained (i made this by boiling 6 cups of water with 1 teaspoon salt,  1 onion, 4 slices of ginger, and 1 garlic clove. After boiling on low flame for 30 minutes, i strained the liquid and kept it aside)

Condiments:

1 red chili sliced

1 bunch green scallions sliced

1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds

light soy sauce (to taste)

drizzle of sesame oil (to taste)

white pepper (to taste)

Method:

In an instant pot (this can be done in a rice cooker as well), place the washed rice and 6 cups of stock in the pot. Add the chicken breast directly into the pot. Use the “porridge” function on the instant pot. It cooks the porridge under pressure for 18 minutes. If you don’t have an instant pot, you can use a rice cooker. Place the rice, stock and chicken in a rice cooker and just turn the cooker on and allow the cooker to turn off by itself. The chicken porridge will be cooked perfectly. Shred the chicken and serve a good portion of the porridge and chicken in a bowl. Garnish the porridge with the condiments.  This is also a perfect time to add sautéed mushrooms, which is what i did. But sautéed greens such as baby bok choi or spinach taste great too!