Sampan congee (traditional Chinese: 艇仔粥; pinyin: Ting Zai Zhou, jyutping: Teng5 Zai2 Zuk1) (also called boat congee in English) is a

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...

congee dish in China, originated in Lychee Bay,

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong ...

(Canton), Guangdong. It is peddled by the

sampan A sampan is a relatively flat-bottomed Chinese and Malay wooden boat. Some sampans include a small shelter on board and may be used as a permanent habitation on inland waters. The design closely resembles Western hard chine boats like ...

s cruising on the Pearl River. Selling sampan congee was one of the livelihoods of these boats. Sampan congee is made from

rice Rice is the seed of the grass species '' Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice) or less commonly '' Oryza glaberrima'' (African rice). The name wild rice is usually used for species of the genera '' Zizania'' and ''Porteresia'', both wild and domestica ...

and

pork Pork is the culinary name for the meat of the domestic pig (''Sus domesticus''). It is the most commonly consumed meat worldwide, with evidence of pig husbandry dating back to 5000 BCE. Pork is eaten both freshly cooked and preserved ...

bones with fried

peanut The peanut (''Arachis hypogaea''), also known as the groundnut, goober (US), pindar (US) or monkey nut (UK), is a legume crop grown mainly for its edible Seed, seeds. It is widely grown in the tropics and subtropics, important to both small ...

s, fillet of scaly fish, etc.

History

During

Qing Dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

, in Lychee Bay,

, the

Tanka people The Tankas or boat people are a sinicised ethnic group in Southern China who have traditionally lived on junks in coastal parts of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan, Shanghai, Zhejiang and along the Yangtze river, as well as Hong Kon ...

who lived on the water first created

porridge. Starting as a living place for the Tanka people, sampans later became cruise boats for tourists and served as a hangout for celebrities and litterateurs. While cruising the river, they were served with porridge; as the porridge is served on the sampan, it is called sampan porridge.

Preparation

Boat porridge has a variety of ingredients, which often includes

fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% ...

shrimp Shrimp are crustaceans (a form of shellfish) with elongated bodies and a primarily swimming mode of locomotion – most commonly Caridea and Dendrobranchiata of the decapod order, although some crustaceans outside of this order are refer ...

, fried peanuts, a deep-fried twisted dough stick and scallion. The base of the porridge is made of rice, pork bones, and bean curd, and it is boiled until the water is blended. Wash and slice the raw grass carp and squid and then scald them a few times with scalding water. Then the general practice is to put soy sauce, heated cooking oil, shredded

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is a herbaceous perennial which grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of ...

and chopped green onion in a bowl and pour in the cooked congee along with sliced

grass carp The grass carp (''Ctenopharyngodon idella'') is a species of large herbivorous freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae, native to the Pacific Far East, with a native range stretching from northern Vietnam to the Amur River on the Sino-Russi ...

, shredded squid, sliced cooked

duck Duck is the common name for numerous species of waterfowl in the family Anatidae. Ducks are generally smaller and shorter-necked than swans and geese, which are members of the same family. Divided among several subfamilies, they are a fo ...

and chopped vegetables.

Side dishes

Youtiao ''Youtiao'' (), known in Southern China as Yu Char Kway is a long golden-brown deep-fried strip of dough of Chinese origin and (by a variety of other names) also popular in other East and Southeast Asian cuisines. Conventionally, ''youtia ...

, a deep-fried dough fritter. * Zhaliang, a combination of dough fritter wrapped in a rice roll.

Nutrition

While the calorie content of 100 grams of plain congee is 32 kcal, the calorie content of 100 grams of boat congee is 64 kcal with 0.5g of

saturated fat A saturated fat is a type of fat in which the fatty acid chains have all single bonds. A fat known as a glyceride is made of two kinds of smaller molecules: a short glycerol backbone and fatty acids that each contain a long linear or branched ...

and 0.33g of sugar in it.

References

{{reflist Congee Chinese cuisine

History

Preparation

Side dishes

Nutrition

See also

References