Fish Porridge

My "B's" on the road of recovery. Thank God! That cough had been bugging "B" ever since Hari Raya for 2 weeks looong... Still a little "korf... korf..." here and there but no more the loud ground-shaking "KORFF... KORFF...". "B's" still on a strict diet of no oily, spicy, coconutty and most of all fried food. Only light soothing ones. "B" had kept his hands off the raya cookies at home and told me that he yearn to have some soon. "Alaaah, kesian dia".

To compensate all that "B" had missed, I made Fish Porridge for dinner. A simple, light, delectable and easy on the tummy meal. A rather easy, no-mess meal to prepare. I'm also gearing up for the coming of Little Baby. Porridge IS one of the things they'll eat don't they??? So, I gotta master the skills of 'porridgery'. Hahahahahaaa...

Anyhows, "B" savoured a full bowl of the Fish Porridge with a cup of soybean milk and then Snapple Mango Madness juice. He was already eyeing the cookies after that coz I was munching away in front of the teevee. Ooops, sorry "B"... I should have hid myself amongst the cusions aites!

Ingredients for Fish Porridge
2 fillets red snapper (or any white fish) - sliced
1.5 cups short grain rice
5-6 cups water
3 shallots - diced
1 cm young ginger - slice thickly
1/2 handfull ikan bilis - pound
1/2 handfull dried small prawns (udang kering) - pound
1 stick celery - sliced
1 carrot - sliced
salt to taste
1 tbsp light soy sauce
white pepper
Garnish - celantro, fried shallots, red chillies, chye poh, spring onion etc.
Method
Boil water and add in diced shallots, ginger, carrot, celery, ikan bilis and dried small prawns. Then add in salt to taste, light soy sauce and a dash or two of white pepper. Close lid and let soup boil till carrot softens. Add in the sliced fillet. Once, fillets are cook, dish out onto a plate and put aside. Add in rice and let simmer with lid close. Stir once in a while so rice will not be clumpy or burnt. Porridge will be cook when the rice start to 'break' and turn to a 'mush'. Scoop into a bowl and top it with the fish fillets boiled earlier. Garnish and serve.

* For an easier way to prepare the stock, you can buy any ready-made fish stock, cubes or granulates from supermarkets. Sometimes when I don't have any ikan bilis or dried prawns at home, these off-the-shelves products became my saviour. I'd usually stock on Knorr brand. The ones w/o MSG added.