After making a whole frozen chicken a few days ago using my Anova Sous Vide Precision Cooker, I decided I wanted to see how different it would be compared to a frozen whole chicken made in an Instant Pot.
My wife said it would be good to use that chicken after my test to make Chicken Jook (Rice Congee) since we have not had Jook in so long. Great idea!
The Instant Pot chicken was set for 1 hour, 15 minutes (so much faster than Sous Vide at 9 hours!) and that is after the pot comes to full pressure, so you need to add the time it takes to reach full pressure and then add the time it takes to do a natural release. I decided after 15 minutes to release pressure manually... I didn't want to wait any longer.
Overall, the chicken in the Instant Pot was "fall off the bone" as expected. But, the Sous Vide chicken breast was FAR SUPERIOR! Sous Vide had very moist chicken breast even after spending a full night in the refrigerator. But the Instant Pot chicken was a lot drier, even though it was fall off the bone tender.
In comparison, if you use the Instant Pot, you gain speed and ease, but if you Sous Vide a whole frozen chicken, it's texture and moistness is far better. You use up more electricity with Sous Vide cooking as it takes 9 hours to finish the cook, but you gain a better chicken.
While the Instant Pot was doing its thing, I made Jook in a conventional pressure cooker. I added about 1-3/4 cups of long grain white rice to water that was perhaps 70 percent filled in the pot. We have noticed that this traditional pressure cooker from Fagor (top rated by America's Test Kitchen) tends to spurt out the congee when it achieves pressure. Of course, you could fill the pot with less water, but then it's not enough to eat and have leftovers!
Once pressure is achieved, I turned down the flame of the stove dramatically and eventually turned it off. Once the pressure was naturally released as much as I could stand, I manually released the remaining pressure. The jook was still a bit watery and the rice was not fully disintegrated yet, but that made it the perfect time to add shredded chicken breast meat and also 6 Century Eggs. Century Eggs are also known as 1000 year old eggs or 100 year old eggs. Essentially they are preserved duck eggs that take on a dramatic change during the preservation process. It grosses out most people who see it but if you are Asian, you are used to them in jook. I personally love them in jook and can't have jook without them! We also seasoned the jook with chicken bouillon, some ginger and a bit of salt. That's all it needed.
Overall, the chicken jook was perfect. Nice and smooth from pressure cooking and the chicken and eggs were great for the purpose. I often add a bit of oyster sauce to my jook and a very small drop of sesame oil. It's not needed, but I like it that way. We'll do it again in the future!
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