Century Egg Congee With Chicken

Century egg congee, or 皮蛋瘦肉粥 (Pi Dan Shou Rou Zhou), is one of the ultimate comfort foods I’ve enjoyed since I was very young. My mom would usually cook plain congee or millet congee for everyday dinners. But once in a while when she had extra time, she would cook the century egg congee for me as a treat.

Why this recipe

To cook the traditional century egg congee, you need to simmer the congee on the stovetop until the grains are tender, then add the sliced marinated pork and the century eggs to finish it up. It requires quite a bit of prep and hands-on cooking, because you will need to monitor the congee and stir it frequently. When I cook it at home, I use a much more laid back approach using the Instant Pot (or pressure cooker). I also use chicken instead of pork, because it simplifies the cooking by skipping the cutting and marinating, and it tastes great. By using the Instant Pot, the grains will release more starch during cooking so you get extra silky and creamy congee. The chicken will be fork-tender so that it pretty much falls apart when you stir up the congee. You only need 5 minutes to put everything together and the result is so good!

Century egg congee ingredients

Between packing up and settling into my new home, I’m super behind on recipe development and have somehow been craving comfort food like crazy. That’s why I want to share my favorite dish from when I was growing up.

1. Century egg

The century egg (皮蛋), or thousand-year egg, is a duck egg preserved in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, quicklime, and rice hulls for several months. During the curing process, the yolk turns grayish dark green with a creamy consistency. The white of the egg becomes a dark brown translucent jelly with a salty taste. The eggs have a strong savory umami that’s similar to aged cheese. In Chinese cooking, we use it to make century egg congee or make it into a cold appetizer.

2. Chicken vs. pork

Growing up in northern China, most of the century egg congee I had was made with pork strips. However, I really love the version served at Jin Ding Xuan (金鼎轩), a famous Cantonese dim sum chain that I used to visit frequently. Their congee is made with shredded chicken instead. I decided to make the chicken version for this recipe. It’s easier to make than the pork version and I love the taste. If you prefer the pork version, what you can do is cook the congee first. Then use the method documented in my hot and sour soup recipe to add the pork at the end of cooking.

3. What type of rice to use

To make a very creamy congee, you should use short grain white rice. It creates a much creamier texture than other types of rice. Medium grain works as well, but the congee will be a bit thinner. I would avoid long grain rice.

4. Toppings

In China many restaurants add crispy fried chips (made from wheat flour) on top of their century egg congee. It adds such a great texture. To recreate those chips, you can bake some wonton wrappers until crispy and break them apart to top onto the congee. Check out my previous post on how to bake the wonton wrappers (you don’t need to make them into a cup shape; simply using a baking sheet is enough). Of course, you can totally skip these chips and the result of the congee will still be super tasty.

How to cook century egg congee

Cooking century egg congee in the Instant pot is super easy. The reason I love this century egg congee recipe is that it requires very little active cooking time. Unlike the pork version, which requires you to cut and marinate the meat, the chicken version doesn’t require any of that prep work. You can even use frozen chicken without defrosting it. I hope you enjoy the dish as much as I do.