Instant Pot Chicken Congee

Method

1. 1

   Rinse the rice in several changes of water until it runs mostly clear. Drain it. Instant rice and brown rice are the wrong grains for this. You want raw white rice that can break down.

2. 2

   Put the rice, water, ginger, and chicken into the pot. Stay under the halfway line. Congee foams and climbs as it cooks. A pot filled higher can force porridge into the valve.

3. 3

   High pressure for 30 minutes. Let the pressure come down on its own for at least 15 minutes. Do not quick-release. A starchy porridge will spit.

4. 4

   Lift out the chicken. When you can handle it, shred the meat and discard the bones. Skim the skin and the fat if you want a cleaner bowl, or leave a little. Stir the rice hard. The grains should blossom into porridge. If it is stiff, stir in hot water until a spoon leaves a slow trail.

5. 5

   Salt it now, and add white pepper. The long cook concentrates whatever you added at the start, which is why the salt waits. Ladle into bowls. Top with chicken, scallion, and more ginger if you want the bite.

From the kitchen

• For 皮蛋瘦肉粥, the Cantonese bowl with century egg and lean pork: leave out one thigh. At the end, while the porridge is still boiling on sauté, stir in 4 ounces of very thin lean pork and cook 2 to 3 minutes, until no pink remains. Chop a century egg and add it in the bowl. It is not required for a true congee. It is one true congee.
• Soy sauce belongs at the table, a few drops, not boiled into the pot. Boiled in, it turns the porridge brown and salty before you have tasted it.
• The same porridge can be made on the stove. Use the stovetop chicken congee, which gives the rice more water and more time.