For the second installment of my weekly New Recipes series, I made a pot of chicken congee using a combination of this Chowhound recipe and this Food&Wine recipe. Congee is wonderful during this season.  I was craving my mom’s goto (Filipino beef congee) and wanted something similar.

Following the theme of this series (“things I’ve never made before”), this was my first try at congee.  I am happy to say, it was a very easy process, and the outcome is delicious. My friend Nicole inspired me to make this dish 🙂  This dish is dedicated to Nicole!

Why two recipes? This originally began as a crock pot recipe because that’s how Nicole made it, but I quickly had to shift gears once once I realized all my ingredients would not fit into my crock pot.  It was easy enough to search the web for a stove top recipe, though.

For the crispy scallion and garlic topping, I crisped up two smashed garlic cloves and a quarter of a scallion in olive oil.

Modifications: I used low sodium chicken broth and sliced a pound of chicken breast into 1/4″ slices. The stove top recipe called for 4 cups of chicken broth and 6 cups of water (10 cups of liquid), but seeing as how I had already had the 8 cups of chicken broth, I just added 2 cups of water.  I also used 1.5 cups of rice instead of 1 cup, and added extra ginger slices into the broth because I love ginger.  I also put two whole green onion stalks into the broth while it was cooking for flavor, then took them out once the congee reached a level of consistency I liked.