'Bubur Taukwa' or Dried Bean Curd Porridge

I always find this porridge rather a little too plain and lacked of 'ummpph' but I am a fan of porridge so no matter how you cook it I am able to finish up more than a big bowl of porridge most of the times. Today I finished two big bowls and was so satisfied as I have discovered a new way of enjoying this food.

Previously I would add more light soy sauce to this dish as I really felt that it somehow lacked of something but I just didn't know how to describe it!! Even after adding msg and salt, I still didn't quite satisfied with the taste and felt that something was missing. Initially I thought perhaps it was due to the stock as it used just plain prawn stock as base without chicken or pork meat/bones.

Today I am so happy to have discovered a better way to enjoy this food and I have fall in love with it now!! This is a 'Peranakan' porridge and according to my mother-in-law it has to go along with lots of green onions, cilantro and chopped chillies with soy sauce. It happened that my kitchen has run out of soy sauce so we substituted it with dark soy sauce. That wasn't good enough .... I myself by chance added some bovril to the porridge and that made tremendous difference to this simple and humble food!

Bubur Taukwa (Recipe for 4 pax)

Ingredients

1.5 cup of rice
2 big pieces of taukwa (cut into cubes and briefly pan fried)
8 pieces of prawn (deshelled; keep the skin for stock, deveined and cut into small cubes)
1 cup of slice white fish
100g of minced meat (marinate with soy sauce, pepper and sesame oil; roll into small balls)
Aboutt 1.5 ltr of water for rice
About 3 cups of water for boiling the prawn shell

Method

1. Briefly fry the skin of the prawn without oil in a pan and pound lightly to maximise the prawn essense. Boil it in the water for about 15 - 20 minutes. Drain and remove the shell.

2. Boil the rice in the water and prawn stock for about 20 minutes and switch of the gas. Close the lid and leave the rice aside for an hour. Reboil again for another half an hour or so.

3. Add prawn and minced meat and boil for another 10 minutes. Then add taukwa and fish and continue to boil for about 5 minutes or less.

4. Add seasoning.

5. Serve with green onions, cilantro, chopped chillies with a little soy sauce, black sauce, pepper and BOVRIL.

Notes:

1. The most important ingredients for this porridge is prawn and taukwa. Meat ball and slice fish are optional.

2. The tip to shorten the boiling time in cooking porridge is to freeze the rice first beforehand. This step will eventually take you less than half an hour to cook a pot of porridge! I have tired this method before and I was so amazed by the result!