Century Egg Lean Pork Porridge (皮蛋瘦肉粥）

This must be a staple with Hongkongers and Cantonese. I have it so often, it has become a routine.

The century egg always reminds me of my days in the university. I was in the Science Faculty in the National University of Singapore and we were the ‘kampong’ (or rural) folks. The rest of the schools were centralized while our school was in the remotest area of the campus. Our canteen was also supposed to be the worst.

However, I managed to always find something to eat. It was almost always century eggs with porridge, simply because that stall used to have the shortest queue in the canteen. I would watch as the canteen lady cut the egg with a piece of string. I would also ask for a dollop of ikan billis with nuts. That’s about what I eat everyday when I was an undergraduate.

I had thought that century egg was to be eaten with any kind of porridge until I started visiting Hong Kong often when I started working. I realized that in Hong Kong, it was most common to have century eggs with lean pork meat. So, I started making this for myself, and pretty regularly.

I know, I know. The health nuts among us will tell me it is full of lead, and with the recent WHO announcement, red meat is not encouraged as well. This whole bowl is not a ‘healthy’ dish by Western standards: century eggs with lead, the red meat that ‘may’ cause cancer, the white rice that is carbohydrates. But you know, half an egg, 30g of red meat, 1/4 cup of rice, so I believe anything in moderation can only be good for us.