My Favorite Postpartum Meal
I first discovered this dish in San Francisco. It was a very late night (ahem), and a friend of mine and I headed into this tiny place on the edge of Chinatown. It seemed everyone was eating the same thing: Jook (sometimes called congee) and Youtiao (Chinese Doughnut). I've loved it ever since and have found that if you choose healthy ingredients (that is to say, no fried doughnut!), it is unbelievably nourishing. It has become my go-to when under the weather, during early pregnancy, and during the postpartum as well. The best part? This dish is incredibly simple to make; I do it all in a crock-pot for 8 hours because, lazy, but you can also tend to a stock pot on the stove for a few hours if you prefer.
Jook is a Chinese dish that delivers pure, easy-to-digest energy to a weakened system. It can be pureed and given as baby food, is great during the first trimester of pregnancy when nausea and morning sickness are in full-swing, is beneficial after an illness, and helps to give a mother her energy back after childbirth. It is most commonly made with chicken, but if you are a vegetarian, you can use vegetable stock and add any number of nourishing mushrooms such as shiitake, which are rich in flavor and a true superfood.
Here is a basic recipe, but I’d encourage you to look it up online, where you will find a ton of other (probably equally awesome) recipes to choose from:
1 whole chicken
15 cups of liquid to 1.5 cups white rice.
2 cans (14 oz) of chicken broth, the rest is water.
2 TB of vinegar. It helps to break down the bones, thereby extracting more calcium and other nutrients.
1-2 slices ginger
Optional ingredients: veggies, mushrooms, green onions, raw herbs
Directions:
Add chicken, rice, and liquid (& any herbs & optional ingredients) into a stock pot and bring to a boil.
Lower heat to a simmer.
Scoop & discard any foam or fat that arises to the surface.
Simmer for ≈2 hrs. You want to end up with a thin gruel or porridge. Rice will fall apart.
Remove the chicken/bones from the stock pot. Shred the good meat from the chicken and add back into the porridge.
soy sauce or salt and pepper to taste
Side Note: You may want to place the chicken inside a cheesecloth bag so that when the jook is done, you can simply pull out the bag and don’t have to laboriously scoop out all the bones.