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Wow, that's a lot of Jook!

  • s

First try at making jook, as turkey thighs were on sale at Whole Foods for $1.99 and it seemed an appropriate tribute to Mrs. Yimster, who I never knew...but boy did it make a lot! Not unhappy with the result, but don't want to eat it every day. Can it be frozen?


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  1. Jook can be frozen but the consistency changes after it is reheated.

    Was there a recipe posted by Yimster? If so could you please point to the post?


    3 Replies
    1. re: swingline

      I've never frozen jook, but i imagine if you reheat it after freezing, the rice breaks down a lot. i can see this actually being a great thing if you like the cantonese style consistency of totally broken down stuff as opposed to like taiwanese individual grains are still discernible type.

      can i second a request for a turkey thigh jook recipe? never even heard of it. does it go with thousand year old eggs as well?

      1. re: thejulia

        What a coincidence, I just called my mom last night for a jook recipe! Based on her advice (she doesn't exactly give out step by step recipes) here's what I did:

        I used as much of the turkey carcass from our Christmas deep fried turkey that I could fit. The bones were frozen and I didn't bother to defrost them. Put it into a big pot, poured in a cup to a cup and a half of rice, added 3 big slices of ginger, and enough water to cover the top of the bones and set it to boil on medium heat. She said to keep it at a rapid boil to keep the rice moving so it wouldn't settle on the bottom and stick/burn and this method worked for me. I did stir it a bit now and again. We let it boil for about an hour and a half, till the rice started breaking down and then added salt to taste.

        I scooped out the jook into tupperware and saved the bones (they still had a decent amount of meat/skin on them) to make soup or another batch of jook later this week. We eat it plain, with a little Magi sauce on it, topped with pork "floss", or with an assortment of pickles/meat in the Taiwanese style. You could definitely add in thousand year eggs when you eat it as a topping but if you want to make the real thousand year old egg with salt pork jook, i'd make it seperate, using the eggs and pork to flavor the jook instead of just adding it to plain/other flavored jook.

        If you dont' have a leftover turkey carcass, my mom uses skinless boneless chicken breasts and I save bones from any meat I cook for dinner and use it to make soup/jook whenever I've saved up enough bones. Sometimes it needs a can of chicken broth to help it along but with something like the turkey, it had enough skin bones and fat left that the result was flavorful without any extra help besides a little salt.

      2. re: swingline

        No, no recipe by Yimster - just read all the other CH posts I could find for tips...and its probably not kosher to use fresh turkey instead of a carcass. I have only had jook one other time and it was soupier than this one, so I will add more stock to each serving before reheating - maybe I can eat the whole thing after all!

      3. Thanks for ruining my day. Now I can't get my childhood post-Thanksgiving jook memories out of my head. EVERY Thanksgiving, my mom would make a HUGE pot of jook and we would dutifully work our way through it until it we just couldn't take it anymore... and there would still be half a cauldron left... and we would just keep eating until it was gone. Usually took about a week of twice a day jook meals.

        But I guess that doesn't really answer the freezing question. My Mom would keep the jook cauldron in the (unheated) garage and it last about a week. Maybe it froze sometimes at night but it never did go bad. Our turkey jook had raw peanuts boiled in it but it they didn't really make the jook any better.

        1 Reply
        1. re: chococat

          Good grief! Now you've reminded me of my family's post-Thanksgiving turkey jook! I never did like that stuff, but my mom admits that her jook wasn't that great :-) Maybe I'd like it better now if it didn't have that all-over feeling of nothing but leftovers...

          1. re: Tamar G

            jook is one of the names for rice porridge. it is often eaten as a breakfast or brunch meal (or anytime snack). it's also found in some indian (dunno the region) cuisine. in chinese cuisine, there are many variations including pork and thousand year old egg, seafood, or topped with super fried dried pork, beef or fish, tea eggs, various sauteed or pickled vegetables, list is endless. it's my comfort food. very anti atkins.

            1. re: thejulia

              also called congee

          2. Thank you for honor Mrs. Yimster. I will make some jook for you and then if you think it is good than I will post the recipe for the board. Normally you create a jook base and then add the ingredient to make a type of jook.

            The jook Mrs. Yimster loved best was Roast Pig jook. Made from the head and feet of a whole roast pig. The next time I run up to San Francisco I will pick up the ingredients. With fried breads.

            Jook is best made using bones of any type and a little pork. Turkey jook is good but it bones and meat should be roasted first and then made into jook.

            For the most part for 30 days I will be lucking. Maybe RWCFoodie will tell how our jook is.

            I would not freeze jook. Normally we make enough for a couple of meal and or share the pot. But it is a cheap comfort meal. So it not a big deal dump the bottom of the pot.

            1 Reply
            1. re: yimster

              Yimster, thank you so much for posting...

              I would happily trek up to SF for or with you to get ingredients for a true Yimster jook! Whenever you are ready.

              In retrospect, I think that begining with the bones, and not a fresh piece of turkey, would result in a lighter stock, and hence a lighter taste - my jook is really strong tasting and the flavor of other add-ins (fresh ginger, green onions and sesame oil) are lost.

              As the oldest of seven children, it is hard to toss out food that is still edible, but hey, if it gains me entre into Mrs. Yimster's favorites, then I'll not consider it a "sin".