SO many things you put on top of the plain canvas of congee, whether or not it was cooked with broth. These are just a few of our favorites.
Here we have 2 kinds of preserved duck eggs, one is called "thousand year old egg" (speckled), other is a salted duck egg, and in front in the container is a product called pork fu or pork floss. The floss comes in other meats like beef and fish I believe too.
Thousand Year Old Egg (Pei Dan)
This really isn't a thousand year old egg. It's usually a duck egg processed in a mixture of clay, ash, salt, lime and rice hulls for weeks or months. I remember seeing these hairy looking eggs (from the outer layer of rice hulls) in huge ceramic pots in grocery stores in Chinatown when I was a kid. Nowadays you get them nicely packaged in a six pack all clean and in its own little baggie. Remove the shell to reveal the white has become like black jello and the yolk a funky smelly black cream. Doesn't sound great but somehow it is SO delicious, earthy and...good funky? Give it a try if you see it somewhere before you make up your mind.
Salted Duck Egg
These are exactly as it is named, an egg preserved in salt. Check when you buy them to make sure they cooked or not. The white ones shown here are cooked. The whites are pleasantly salty and so are the yolks which have now taken on a slightly gritty texture. Salted duck eggs are great in congee or even in soups!
Pork Fu or Pork Floss
This is another one that is hard to describe. Gosh, my people come up with some weird but tasty things! It's pork that has been cooked in some combo of soy sauce and sugar, then shredded and further dried or baked to produce that fine texture like cotton. It doesn't melt on the tongue but almost. It is salty and sweet and nice with congee. I've seen it in other meats too like beef and fish.
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