East meets west fusion cuisine beef congee
Dedicated to all the cows which have died for me
I decided to play lucky dip while grocery shopping yesterday and looked for a cheap meat to eat.
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I found some chuck steak for less than $6. My options were slow cooking or steam under pressure in a portable autoclave also known as a pressure cooker. Given today was hovering around 30 °C/86 °F, I thought slow cooking was a poor option. I’m not about to turn on the air conditioning for 30 °C/86 °F. Sterilising meat in a cooking autoclave was the way to go.
Sorry if you’re all confused. I spend a good proportion of my day thinking about controlling infections so autoclaves are often on my mind.
The east meets west thing is about using some Asian flavours along with some western flavours in what is an Asian dish. I used hot curry powder, Sichuan seasoning, Old Bay seasoning, Hoisin sauce, barbecue sauce, and beef stock along with a tin of corned beef from the shelf of shame and the chuck steak. Instead of just rice, I also added some quinoa to satisfy the trendy hipsters who believe in the fallacies of super foods.
I bought all the ingredients from Coles.
No, Yummy Lummy is not sponsored by anyone.
Recipe
- Chuck steak
- Corned beef in a tin from the shelf of shame
- Arborio rice
- Red quinoa red for contrast
- Beef stock
- Hoisin sauce
- Smokey barbecue sauce
- Hot curry powder
- Old Bay seasoning
- Sichuan seasoning
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Dice the chuck steak and then put it into the cooking vessel along with the contents of the tin of corned beef, the rice, the quinoa, the hoisin sauce, the smokey barbecue sauce, the hot curry powder, the Old Bay seasoning, the Sichuan seasoning, and the beef stock.
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Cook with steam under pressure for 20 minutes.
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Allow the pressure in the cooking vessel equilibrate to atmospheric pressure and remove the lid.
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Aliquot into portions for work lunches and keep aside enough for a small rice bowl.
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Spread the congee onto a baking sheet and squirt on some more smokey barbecue sauce and then cooking a toaster oven for 10 minutes at 200 °C/400 °F.
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Take the twice cooked congee and put it in a bowl.
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Shoot a photograph and a short video because Google now wants video on recipe cards.
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Eat the meal.
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Wash the dishes (hint, wash as you cook, it makes life easier).
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Write the recipe.
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Write the blog post.
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Hit publish and hope this blog post gets shared on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.
Recipe Video
Disclaimer
I have no culinary training nor qualifications. This post is not intended to convey any health or medical advice. If you have any health concerns about anything you read, please contact your registered medical practitioner. The quantities are indicative. Feel free to vary the quantities to suit your taste. I deliberately do not calculate energy for dishes. I deliberately default to 500 Calories or 500,000 calories because I do not make these calculations.
Photographs
This is a gallery of photographs. Click on one image and then scroll through the photographs.
Arborio rice and red grain quinoa 
Arborio rice and red grain quinoa 
Chuck steak 
Chuck steak diced 
Beef stock cube, barbecue sauce, hoisin sauce, Old Bay, Sichuan, and hot curry powders. 
Meat, rice, quinoa, and flavours in the cooking vessel 
Meat, rice, quinoa, and flavours in the cooking vessel with water 
Pressure cooker 
Sunday dinner. East meets west fusion cuisine beef congee where Sichuan meets Old Bay and curry meets smoky barbecue. Congee is food of the gods, the food gods.
Questions and answers
Why cheap meat?
It’s soon going to be Christmas. Gotta save money for gifts for people.
Why the tinned corned beef?
I needed some animal fat in there to carry flavours. Meat fat does it the best.
How did it taste?
Good. It’s hard to go past fatty meat and rice.
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Final thoughts
- Slow cooking is for winter! Do you agree?
- How do you feel about mixing Asian and non-Asian flavours?
- Do you like congee?
Sponsorship
Yummy Lummy has no sponsors but maintaining a blog isn’t free. If anyone or any company would like to contribute please contact me.
I agree that slow cooking is for winter–when it’s cold outside, but when I was a teenager, I was part of a 4-H club that focused on cooking, so we would practice all of our recipes during the summer. It was strange to try out recipes for hot apple cider and stews in the middle of summer’s heat, but we had lots of fun because we could stay up late in each others’ kitchens and not worry about homework the next day–and eat–that was the most important part:)
Wow. That sounds like heaps of fun.
Ooh I really like the sound of this. I adore congee and your version looks so good.
Thank you very much Lorraine. I was really happy with the taste.
I’m all about cooking for seasons, so when it’s hot slow cooking might not be something I’d want to do eventhough I like a hot house. I like the idea of cheap meats – walk into Coles on random day you haven’t decided what’s for dinner, see what’s on sale and just grab and go, and decide right there what to make 😀 I like how you’ve got containers ready for the rice and quinoa 😀
Thanks, Mabel. I think for the rest of summer I need to get into the salads 😃😃😃