Eight Treasure Congee (La Ba Zhou)

The night before, soak the adzuki beans and mung beans separately in cold water. At least 4 hours before cooking, soak the glutinous rice and lotus seeds separately. Drain each before use. Unsoaked beans will resist the long simmer and remain firm at the core when all else has softened.

Bring 1.8 litres of water to a rolling boil in a heavy pot. Add the adzuki beans, mung beans, lotus seeds, and peanuts — the ingredients that require the longest cooking. Reduce to a moderate simmer and cook, partially covered, for 45 minutes. The beans should have begun to yield at the surface but will not yet be fully tender.

Add the soaked glutinous rice, the walnuts, red dates, and dried longan flesh. Stir to combine and return to a gentle simmer. Cook partially covered for a further 1 hour 30 minutes, stirring every 20 minutes and adding water in small additions if the porridge thickens to the point of catching. This is the stage that decides the dish: the long, patient simmer must be maintained until the rice and beans lose all structural resistance and collapse into a single creamy mass — if the heat is too high the bottom scorches; if too short the congee remains grainy and the beans chalky.

Continue to simmer, stirring more frequently, for a further 30 minutes. The congee is ready when it has deepened to a pale amber, flows slowly from the spoon in thick ribbons, and the surface is glossy and cohesive rather than watery.

Taste for sweetness. The natural sugars of the dates and longans should carry the porridge. Add brown sugar only if needed, stirring until dissolved. Add the goji berries now — no earlier — and simmer for exactly 5 minutes. Added sooner, they bleed and turn the entire porridge an uneven red; added at the close, they remain vivid and distinct. The congee is done when the goji berries are plump and their skins just tender.