What'cha Cookin' Tonight II

[shadowplay]

Penang curry with shrimp

 

[Sommerswerd]

Penang curry with shrimpView attachment 569967

Looks like shrimp Pho

 

[warpus]

Pho wouldn't have broth like that though and the noodles are wrong. Just saying!

In my fridge I have a risotto I made. Turns out I love risotto! It's like a rice ghoulash with lots of butter and mushrooms or whatever else. I got it via the food delivery service I use, they send me recipes along with all the ingredients. I got a risotto 2 weeks ago and loved it and got another one for this week. I'm getting ready to devour the leftovers for dinner (but will throw in some swedish meatballs cause I'm extra hungry today)

Let me see if I can look up exactly what I made. - Scallion & Cheddar Risotto with Cherry Tomato Confit < Basically fancy words for "rice goulash with butter, cheese, and tomatoes"

Tomorrow I'm making this - Sausage & Organic Maitake Mushroom Orecchiette with Garlic Pangritata < I will find out what some of these words mean tomorrow

In my fridge I also have a stirfry I made last week, it's probably still good so I'll eat it for lunch tomorrow.. it's.. soy marinated beef strips in.. ah lemme paste it in too - Soy Marinated Beef Chow Fun with Crunchy Greens & Scallions

So yeah, thanks to the pandemic I have been cooking quite a bit. Pretty much all my meals. This service's recipes change every week, so every week you have about 30 recipes to pick from. I pick 2, which gives me 4 portions each, and then throw in grocery add-ons they have, like bread, salami, black pepper, mayo, odds and ends, etc.

This has reignited my passion for cooking and trying new dishes, and they make it easy. If you're feeling lazy you just pick a recipe from the "easy prep" menu, although that costs a bit more.

I'll pick stuff that I know I like, but mostly stuff that looks interesting. I tried some vegetarian pasta dishes and they were amazing. I learned how to properly make sauce from various ingredients, instead of just resorting to store bought sauce which is usually way too sweet.

 

[Sommerswerd]

Pho wouldn't have broth like that though and the noodles are wrong. Just saying!

At the restaurant, maybe, sure... but my understanding it that this is homemade... with homemade you make due with what you have... and homemade broth is usually cloudier than restaurant broth.

 

[warpus]

The thing is.. if your pho broth looks like that, it isn't really pho broth, you've made something else. The broth more or less defines this dish, so if you've made a different broth then you've made another dish.

Although I admit the colour here looks like it could be southern style pho. But it wouldn't be that cloudy. Ofc that's just the penang curry stuff

 

[Sarin]

In my fridge I have a risotto I made. Turns out I love risotto! It's like a rice ghoulash with lots of butter and mushrooms or whatever else. I got it via the food delivery service I use, they send me recipes along with all the ingredients. I got a risotto 2 weeks ago and loved it and got another one for this week. I'm getting ready to devour the leftovers for dinner (but will throw in some swedish meatballs cause I'm extra hungry today)

I don't really see similarity between risotto and goulash, they're quite different dishes.

This reminds me I need to finally learn how to cook my mother's buřtguláš-essentially a spicy sausage stew.

 

[warpus]

I don't really see similarity between risotto and goulash, they're quite different dishes.

This reminds me I need to finally learn how to cook my mother's buřtguláš-essentially a spicy sausage stew.

I couldn't think of a better word to describe risotto into terms pre-2020 warpus would understand. Risotto just seems to be a "Okay guys, there's nothing in the fridge but we got some rice, butter, cheese, mushrooms, and a thing that looks like an onion. Imma put it in a pot and hope for the best" sort of dish. It would probably be better described as a sort of creamy Italian stirfry

 

[Sarin]

I couldn't think of a better word to describe risotto into terms pre-2020 warpus would understand. Risotto just seems to be a "Okay guys, there's nothing in the fridge but we got some rice, butter, cheese, mushrooms, and a thing that looks like an onion. Imma put it in a pot and hope for the best" sort of dish. It would probably be better described as a sort of creamy Italian stirfry

Yeah, goulash is pretty much defined by the use of paprika as main flavoring, it isn't usually used in risotto.

 

[Takhisis]

You were saying Tak?

If I goaded you into that then I'll say my job is done.

Also I love the pattern on the plates, even though I prefer round plates to square/oblong ones.

 

[warpus]

Yeah, goulash is pretty much defined by the use of paprika as main flavoring, it isn't usually used in risotto.

My memories of my mom making goulash (and derived dishes like potato pancake with goulash) is always a big pot into things go and are then stirred and you get this sort of mush of stuff, which in a way that's not at all apparent reminded me of risotto.

You are very right that this comparison does not stand up to culinary scrutiny! But now I'm getting hungry for some good goulash

 

[Josu]

I went about a month ago with a friend and his father on a boat to fish longfin tuna (wiki says AKA albacore).
We meet at their town's port at 3.00 AM, and we sailed about 35 milles, fished 3 pieces, one for each of us (My friends father fished them) and we went back.

I used most of it in a Marmitako, a traditional basque pot with the longfin tuna, onions, peppers, potatos and dry pepper.
I froze the rest and I used yesterday in another traditional dish:

Cut 2 onions in french cut.
Fry them whith a small spoon of oil at low heat about 45 minutes
After that add the tuna and fry it less than 2 minutes each side

 

[Sarin]

The talk here made me try out a little kitchen experiment. Noodles with creamy onions and cheese sauce. Kinda recipe that flashed through my mind as...it could work.

It ended...well, not bad, and there's definitely room for improvement next time. I need to figure the herbs to add for a better taste.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Went ahead and did a 24 hour Pizza dough. I think it was me and @warpus or me and @hobbsyoyo who had a discussion about Pizza dough, not sure. anyway, with like one year delay I delivered. my pictures probably won't work.. again, pls tell me if they don't.



crust on this was absolutely insane, bubbles are undeniable. the dough is more stretchy than any other dough I have made before, and far less chewy. the pizza took only about 90 seconds in the pizza oven. dough proofed for half an hour, then spent almost 24h in the fridge at close to 0c for the autolysis process to occur, then proofed for another 90 minutes, than again but as individual pizza-size dough balls.



chicken in 6h mole poblano, fresh tomatoes from the vine, elotes (mexican corn salad), refried beans, pimentos de padrón



victoria bass in panko-parmesan crust, beans almondine, roast taters with rosemary and thyme

The thing is.. if your pho broth looks like that, it isn't really pho broth, you've made something else. The broth more or less defines this dish, so if you've made a different broth then you've made another dish.

Although I admit the colour here looks like it could be southern style pho. But it wouldn't be that cloudy. Ofc that's just the penang curry stuff

Disagree with the broth comment, Pho broth can get increasingly dark, especially depending on how many spices you are using, how long you are cooking the broth for, whether or not you are cleaning your meat, how charred your ginger/shallots are, and a number of other factors.

But wholly agree on the noodles. If it's not rice noodles, it's not Pho. Pretty much simple as that.

 

[warpus]

I'm sorry but pho broth is meant to be clear. The clearer, the more superior it is considered to be.

All the pho I ate in Vietnam had see-through broth, although southern style pho is a bit murkier to be fair. Still fairly seethrough though, until you start adding sriracha and hoisin sauce of course.

This is the broth I'm referencing, before the patron starts adding all the sides and sauces

 

[yung.carl.jung]

This is the broth I'm referencing, before the patron starts adding all the sides and sauces

obviously, yeah

if a clear broth was a sign of superiority, then vietnamese soupmakers would use the classic french technique of using egg white to clear the broth of any impurities. this produces the most clear soup in the world.

they could also strain the soup through a cheesecloth, or do anything resembling that. but most of them don't.

in general, the broth will look incredibly difficult depending on your ingredients. for pho bo the more oxtail and bones, the less breast you use, the cloudier (whiter) your broth will be. imho those two ingredients are the most key ones. if you have a soup with little bone and tail, and lots of "meat" (usually breast or leg) it will be clearer, but taste very flat. so "impurity" can be a sign of quality. also, as I mentioned earlier, the longer you cook a stock, the less "pure" the color will be, so again "impurity" is a sign of quality, since pho stock just gets better and better the longer it is cooked, up to 8-10 hours imo. I've done a 6 hour pho at home.

some sellers also roast their bones (in addition to the ginger and shallots, which as you know are burnt), which creates even deeper flavor and color.

for pho ga it is extremely easy to have a white or clear broth, I have rarely seen one that wasn't.

I'm sorry but pho broth is meant to be clear.

who says this though? not my vietnamese friends, nor any vietnamese person I've met. clearly pho is a more or less clear broth, but I've never heard of clarity as a marker of quality, imho time is probably the best marker of quality.

 

[warpus]

who says this though? not my vietnamese friends, nor any vietnamese person I've met. clearly pho is a more or less clear broth, but I've never heard of clarity as a marker of quality, imho time is probably the best marker of quality.

It's just something I learned by doing research online before I flew to Vietnam to eat all their food. What I saw in Vietnam seemed to correspond to this; in Hanoi all the pho I got was usually fairly clear. Same thing with most of the pho I ate in central Vietnam. I noticed that some restaurants would throw in the herbs for me, ahead of time, but most didn't. When the herbs were thrown in ahead of time, the broth was noticably murkier. But most pho broth usually arrived fairly clear. It was my understanding that this is by design (based on the research I did) - You're supposed to savour the broth before you add any ingredients into your bowl. So I would always do that - taste the broth and savour it before adding anything to my bowl. That's why I have all these memories of the broth and what it looked like.

In the south the pho broth tended to be a bit darker (and a bit sweeter, although it's not something I noticed personally until a local pointed it out to me). In North America it seems that the vast majority of restaurants will make southern style broth. I prefer northern style myself. In the south your broth will never arrive as clear as in the north (and central Vietnam), from my experience anyway. A lot of the fast food pho options also tended to serve murkier broth, but I tried to stay away from chains.

You seem to know a thing or two about pho. I am actually putting up a pho guide sort of website. Maybe I'll have to reach out to you when I'm closer to launching it and see if you'd be interested in writing any articles for it. There seem to be a lot of different opinions on this dish out there, although there isn't a ton of information on pho online either. (That's one reason why I want to put up this website)

 

[shadowplay]

I'm sorry but pho broth is meant to be clear. The clearer, the more superior it is considered to be.

All the pho I ate in Vietnam had see-through broth, although southern style pho is a bit murkier to be fair. Still fairly seethrough though, until you start adding sriracha and hoisin sauce of course.

This is the broth I'm referencing, before the patron starts adding all the sides and sauces

Yup. It was an anchovy broth, whereas I believe pho is a beef bone broth and is clear, as you mentioned.

 

[Ajidica]

Made Butter Chicken in my slow cooker. Curry sauce was underwhelming. Not much spice or flavor, and absolutely no heat; not even by white-person standards for heat.
Using thigh meat instead of breast really improved the texture of the chicken in the slow cooker, but I'm not sure it was worth the hassle of having to trim and cut every chicken thigh I use compared to taking out a couple chicken breasts and cubing them.

 

[Samson]

I'm not sure it was worth the hassle of having to trim and cut every chicken thigh I use compared to taking out a couple chicken breasts and cubing them.

My solution to this (and any other time the meat comes in bigger bits than I want to serve) is to cook it like it comes, and then breaking them up. This usually just involves vigorous stirring.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

a few of the nicer pictures I found:

this is the picture from wikipedia, which features a pretty weird variant of pho with seemingly raw, more expensive cuts on top, raw onions and cilantro (pretty sure in vietnam they use culantro). broth is incredibly dark, more than I've seen, a tad cloudy and has a nice amount of fat.

the beef meatball variant in southern style, one of my personal favorites. features a very cloudy stock that is still light in color (the meatballs do that, among other things)


this is pho how I've mostly eaten it in vietnam: brown broth which is a tad cloudy but still mostly clear and has some very visible fat on top. the spring onions (a different cultivar than the one that is popular in the west) are cut very finely, there are no onions added and people mostly don't use hoisin/sriracha, pretty much just herbs and lime.

very classic pho bo with a decidedly brown, yet almost seethrough stock. it also has some of the more expensive parts of the beef added in at the end

this last one pictured is closest to an actual clear/purified broth, like the french consomme, which the vietnamese were probably familiar with when they came up with pho:

You seem to know a thing or two about pho. I am actually putting up a pho guide sort of website. Maybe I'll have to reach out to you when I'm closer to launching it and see if you'd be interested in writing any articles for it. There seem to be a lot of different opinions on this dish out there, although there isn't a ton of information on pho online either. (That's one reason why I want to put up this website)

sure, I'd love to write an article for it. I have good experience even with the weirder kinds of Pho, one of my favorites so far had liver, stomach and blood sausage in it. I also have made Pho at home quite a lot, using a pressure cooker double boil method for Pho Ga.

Yup. It was an anchovy broth, whereas I believe pho is a beef bone broth and is clear, as you mentioned.

Pho Bo is usually oxtails, neck bones (or other bones) and either meat from the chest or from the legs. Pho Ga is usually done with whole chickens and occasionally extra drumsticks or bones. Some other varieties (like duck) do exist but they're incredibly uncommon, most of Pho is either beef or chicken. Beef is much more popular outside of vietnam, inside of vietnam it's pretty region-dependant.