Tomato-flavored Rice Porridge?
I didn’t feel like cooking after my work at the Izakaya last night. We didn’t have too many customers, but maybe just waiting in the kitchen, being bored, made me more tired than a busy night. I dropped by a supermarket on my way back and bought my late-night supper. Well...it was a big mistake that I picked a pack of ready-made "deep-fried mackerel fillets with sweet & sour sauce." I was 100% sure that the mackerel wasn’t really good, because that’s how they sell very unfresh leftover mackerel fillets. I don’t know why…maybe the magic of the word “discount” written on the label… but I bought one pack.
It tasted OK and I concluded that it was a good buy after all. NO WAY. After 2:00 am, I started feeling a pain in my stomach. Until about 4:30 am, I had a real hard time. I don’t want to go into too much details here, but anyway, I was so worn out when I got out of bed this morning.
Unfortunately, today was the day that people at my daytime work had a little luncheon meeting over some expensive bento delivered to the office. I didn’t have to attend the meeting, but my boss and colleagues kindly ordered one bento for me. I didn’t want to say “No” to their kindness, and more than anything, I didn’t want to miss the chance to eat such an expensive bento, I just said “thank you” to them with a big smile on my face and ate up the bento to the last grain of rice in it.
Thank goodness, my stomach was OK all afternoon. But when I came home after the daytime work (no work at the Izakaya tonight), I didn’t feel like eating anything for supper but something kind to my stomach…such as nice, warm porridge.
So this was my supper tonight. What should I call it? Maybe, tomato-flavored rice porridge? And this lazy obachan used instant tomato-soup mix for making the soup for the porridge ;P (I mean, how much can you be adventurous after your stomach was upset almost all night?)
Instant tomato soup and diced eggplant/potato
All I did was dicing an eggplant and a small potato, sautéing them, making instant tomato soup and cooking the sautéed vegetable and leftover white rice in the tomato soup. The soup was already flavored with mozzarella-cheese but I felt like more cheese, so I sprinkled some grated cheese on top before eating.
This was not a bad idea at all. I liked the taste of the porridge and my stomach is feeling much better now.
I guess me and my stomach are going to have a good rest tonight.
;)
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10 comments:
I hope you're feeling better Obachan! Discounted food products ARE suspicious...but I buy them too. Just too cheap to let it go. ^^; That porridge is very interesting...I've never had porridge with tomato soup base before. Looks like my version of chicken soup with rice, except with tomato flavour. ^^
Posted by Tea
I hope you feel better. Found your site a few days ago and really enjoyed it. My grandfather would refuse to eat any type of Saba (vinegared) because he always said the fish was old.
Posted by kyle
Hi, obachan, I hope you are feeling better today. The tomato-and-rice dish looks more like a tomato risotto (especially with all the cheese in it) and it must have been real good. The only thing I would do differently is that I would use ripe tomatoes, especially if my stomach is upset; preservatives and other chemicals found abundantly in ready-made soups and dishes don't do my stomach a lot of good. For example, I was surprised to notice that every time I had pasta with canned meat sauce - you know the type they sell in Japan - it would upset my stomach, so as soon as I realized that, I stopped using that kind of stuff.
And by the way, thanks for pointing out that chocolate-tofu pudding recipe, I might try that sometime.
I have a "rare-cheese cake" type recipe with tofu, and you hardly get any tofu aftertaste with that. You just mix in a blender one piece of silken tofu with the juice and rind from one lemon, honey or sugar to taste, about one cup of milk and one sachet of gellatin powder (previously dissolved in a bit of water and heated in the microwave). Pour the mixture into a bowl or jelly form, refrigerate for a couple of hours, cut and serve with blueberry jam, for example. It really works!
Posted by steff
> Tea --- Thanks. I felt better after eating this porridge. Yeah, at first I thought about chicken soup with rice -- something I always have when I caught a cold -- but this time I just wanted something different.
> kyle --- Welcome to my humble kitchen! :) I recovered pretty quickly. Thank you. Yeah, people always say you need to be careful with saba. You know, in my hometown (a small fishing village) I was so used to having fresh seafood all the time, so I sometimes forget about being cautious. I tend to take it for granted that seafood is always fresh or OK as far as they are sold at stores…but no, that’s not the way it is, right?
> steff --- Welcome and thanks for your comment! My stomach is perfectly fine now ;) You’re right. Food preservatives are not good for your upset stomach.
I wasn’t sure if I could call this “risotto” because when I googled, most of risotto recipes seemed to call for uncooked rice and require sautéing the raw rice with butter. So I thought maybe I should call mine “porridge” because I added some already-cooked white rice directly into the soup. Maybe this leads to the question what’s the essential difference between risotto and rice porridge?
BTW, your tofu-rare-cheese cake sounds good. From what you and others say, maybe some dairy product (cheese/milk) and lemon could be the key to get rid of the too-strong tofu taste??
Posted by obachan
Hey.. Obachan,
Glad you are feeling better.. :)
As for me.. i never risk getting food poisoning or any bad health thing.. if humanly possible .. especially when it concerns food.
Me philosophy is.. a few bucks.. is not worth the pain.. and the agony i have to go thru' for the next few days.
Posted by MrsT
Thanks MrsT. I think you're absolutely right. I'd better be careful.
Posted by obachan
Hi obachan, glad to hear you are better. You know me, when I am ill I tend to eat processed food too, but it isn't really a bad thing in your case. Because when you have gastroenteritis (food poisoning) you are losing quite a bit of fluids and salt, and your tomato porridge was just the thing to get things back into equilibrium.
Posted by umami
Hi umami,
I’m so glad that you recovered so soon. Porridge is so nice and healing when you’re sick, isn’t it? Next time I want to try congee. Not that I’m looking forward to being sick, but I do want to broaden my porridge repertoire.
Posted by obachan
yes, feel better and don't buy marinated meat on sale. American supermarkets pour bbq over expiring chicken parts and sell them as marinated. Eww.
Posted by JJ
Hi JJ,
Thanks. Looks like people do similar things everywhere... :(
Posted by obachan
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