Porridge with Minced Pork Balls

I love porridge because it's so easy to cook.

All you need is a rice cooker and the porridge can happily cook itself while you go about doing other things - like updating one's blog. ;-)

Because porridge is so versatile, you can make plain porridge which goes well with fried crunchy anchovies, fried peanuts, choy poh (Chinese salted vegetables) or you can make fish porridge (basic porridge with the addition of fresh fish slices) or you can make pork porridge.

For pork porridge, you need:

1/2 cup minced pork (marinate with pepper, salt, soya sauce and 1 tsp cornflour for 10 minutes in the fridge)
1 cup rice, washed and drained (1 cup rice serves 2 people, so double up if you have more mouths to feed)

The ratio of rice to water is 1:4. The water should be at least 3 inches above the rice level when it's in the rice cooker pot.

When cooking porridge, do not close the rice cooker lid tightly. Slant it at an angle or you will have a mess of gruel to clean up after! Plus your porridge might just end up a mushy rice.

Put rice and water into your cooker and switch on the cooker. Tilt the lid so that the rice cooker isn't tightly covered. Let this bubble and boil for 30 minutes or more. Once in a while, stir the pot so you know the consistency of the porridge.

After 30 minutes, shape minced pork into tiny balls and drop into the cooking porridge. Add a teaspoon of salt and a dash of pepper. Add 1 tbsp sesame seed oil and stir well.

Let it cook for another 10 minutes before switching off the heat. Let porridge stand for another 10 minutes before serving warm with good quality soya sauce.

UPDATE: A tip I learnt - if you mix your minced pork with egg and soya sauce, your minced pork ball will be smoother!

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