Healing Congees

Healing Congees are traditional dishes from Chinese medicine used to strengthen, regenerate and energize.  They are combinations of ingredients with specific healing properties that become energized through cooking. 

These formulas can include a limitless combination of herbs, vegetables, grains and protein cooked slowly and until the food becomes an easy to digest stew. The longer it cooks the more Qi it develops. The resulting dish is infused with flavour and very warming and comforting.

I am personally familiar with one specific formula my mother in law gave me when John and I were having trouble getting pregnant.  She mixed me up a combination of 100 year old duck eggs, black figs, rice and fungus.  Two months later I was pregnant with our first child.

Easy to make, all a congee requires is a slow cooker and the right combination of ingredients. You can create your own signature dishes by following these simple principles.

Creating Your Own Healing Congee Formula

1. Start with a grain as a base. Choose from rice, barley, rye, millet or oat.

2. Add a protein. Choose from beef, turkey, bison, and/or beans.

3. Add specific herbs indicated for your condition for example: ginger for tummy upsets, thyme for purifying, etc. As this dish will be cooking for an extended amount of time the aromatic oils of the herb may become diluted, you will need to add a larger quantity than recipes normally call for.

4. Add vegetables for their healing properties. I always like adding dried shitake, not only for their flavour, but for their incredible immune boosting powers. Don't add too many, keep it to three vegetables, for example: carrot, shitake and garlic.

5. The liquid you cook the food in can be either water or stock. I like using turkey stock as it has a strong flavour. Bouillon cubes can also be used.

6. Salt is added near the end of the process. However, the kind of salt used is very important. Sea salt has usually been denatured and has very few of its medicinal benefits or energetics left. Use whole salt such as Himalayan or Antarctic.

Wash grain. Add four times the liquid to grain (you may need to add more during the process). Add the rest of the ingredients and cook at low for up to 8-12 hours, until the dish is almost creamy in texture.