The staple food of India is rice. Up until 1970, India was home to nearly 1,10,000 varieties of indigenous rice! Thanks, but no thanks to the Green Revolution, only 6,000 varieties now remain – a result of the green revolution’s emphasis on mono culture and hybrid cropping! Be that as it may, India is known for its sheer variety of rice dishes that are prepared and served, no matter what the occasion – sickness, health, family gathering, festivities, Hindu rituals, offering (naivedya or prasad), weddings, funerals, even as offerings to ancestors and departed souls.The variety of rice preparations are indeed many – as widely varied as the cultural diversity of this country – from coast to coast, from the mountains to the valleys, East to West, North to South.

Congee

In its humblest form, rice is made into a gruel or porridge called Congee (also called kanji, ganji,pez, ambil). Valued for the nutritional strength of the starch in this porridge where the rice isboiled to a soft consistency, the congee is the staple food in the poorest homes of India.Leftover rice soaked in water from a previous night and served as breakfast is much sought after in all parts of South India because of its high nutritional value. Its popularity is such that,there are restaurants that serve it as breakfast to office goers. Because of its high nutritionalvalue and easy digestibility, congee is prescribed as diet food for recuperating patients at home.Congee is also prepared using wheat grits (daliya), foxtail millet, pearl millet (ragi), brokenmaize, sago, etc.

Preparation

To prepare the dish, rice is boiled in a large quantity of water until it softens significantly. Congee can be made in a pot or in a rice cooker. Some rice cookers have a “congee”; setting, allowing it to be cooked overnight. The type of rice used can be either short (or broken) – or long-grain, depending on what is available and regional cultural influences.Congee is bland and therefore its flavor is enhanced with salt, papadam or such varieties of crispies, pickle, chutney, vegetables, pure ghee, etc. In some regions of South India, sweet variations of the congee using jaggery, coconut, unprocessed candy sugar, buttermilk, milk, etc. are also made.

Ingredients

The essential ingredients for congee are only two – soaked rice and, 3-4 times its quantity of water.

Wheat Grits Rice

• ½ Padi Wheat Grits
• 1½ Palam Ghee
• 1 Padi Clean Water

1. Place 1 padi of water into a pot which can hold 2 padis of water. When the water starts to boil, add 1 ½ palam of ghee and ½ padi of Wheat Grit Rice to it. Stir well, cover it with a lid.

2. Few minutes later, stir again. Once the Wheat Grit Rice is ¾th cooked, turn off the fire and stir it again for 5 minutes.

3. Leave the covered pot on the warm stove.