Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Simple Jook Demo

When I think of Thanksgiving leftovers, I automatically go to turkey jook. Pretty much every Chinese mom will be gathering the leftover turkey bones and meat and dumping them into a big pot of rice and water to create a bowl of jook. (OK, probably several bowls.)

I have friends who would go and order jook at restaurants. It's a very popular breakfast dish. But I rarely order jook because I can make a nice bowl by myself. Some people think it's so much work, but I made this video to pretty much shatter that myth. Sure, it takes some time to make jook because it's one of those slow-cooked one pot dishes. It takes between 1 hour to 1.5 hours to make a small pot of jook, but the actual technique is super easy.

In this video, I'm using leftover roasted duck that I had for dinner one night from Chinatown. I used the hard-to-eat meat/bones for jook because the slow cooking helps the hard to get to meat fall off the bones. The recipe is pretty much easy to get from the video, but you can also follow a previous jook post I did awhile back. But whatever you do, save those turkey bones for your morning after jook! Enjoy!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yum. You sure have to watch that pot. That's why mine is always sticking to the bottom. I usually use regular rice, but next time I'm try the calrose rice. Love the "pei da" thousand year old egg and the peanuts! Great job to de-mything the jook.

The Librarian said...

Thanks for posting this. I've never eaten or made jook, but you make it look so easy and delicious that I may give it a try. It looks like it would be very comforting on a cold day!

Anonymous said...

what about making it in a rice cooker? My mom does that. I would think maybe 4 cups of water & the broth would work. Whatcha think?

Single Guy Ben said...

Hmm, I've never tried a rice cooker. Not sure how it would work since rice cookers are supposed to sense when the rice is ready, so if you cook with too much water, it just might cook forever and be confused if the rice is done. But if your mom has done it, I'd be interested to see how she overrides the system! :) But I bet a crock pot would work wonders. I ended up putting about 4.5 cups of liquid to the one cup of rice I was cooking, so I think your estimate is about right.

Carolyn Jung said...

I need to roast a turkey sometime in the next few weeks just so I can have the carcass to make jook. Since I was a guest for Thanksgiving this year -- rather than the usual hostess -- I came home without my needed carcass. Oh well. Good excuse to re-live the holiday all over again. ;)

Unknown said...

Ben,

Love your blog - didn't know you have a food blog. Your jook looks delicious. I've made jook in a crock pot - takes all day, but you don't have to constantly add water, stir and monitor. Jump dump all the ingredients in and forget it.

I'm going to try your way w/ leftover duck/chicken from a Chinese restaurant, thousand-year-old egg, ginger slices - topped with green onions and peanuts.

Looks delicious!

I've also done it by putting oil in a pan with chopped garlic and browning the rice in that first - then dumping it in pot w/ water over low heat.

You haven't aged at all! Must be all that good home cooking.