KennethT

Most flavor doesn't get out of the meat into the broth until a long time... and most meat has a lot of impurities which don't taste so good. So you have a couple of options: 1) Don't blanch the bones but constantly skim skim skim skim as it cooks.... 2) Blanch for 10 minutes, throw out the water and rinse the skum off the bones then start over for real with less skimming needed This is stock making 101... any french cookbook will discuss this. Beef broth should simmer for like 8 hours for full flavor extraction. That's a long time and a pita to watch. I (and a lot of us here) take a shortcut and use the pressure cooker... then it only takes about an hour, and if you use a natural release, winds up with a really clear broth. In classical cooking, one can clarify soups/stocks by utilizing a raft - since the clarification also removes flavor, you commonly mix meat and veg into the egg whites to replace the flavor you might have lost. The steps are basically once you strain your stock, mix a couple egg whites and ground meat/veg and add to the cold stock (mix prior toadding). Bring up to a simmer - the raft materials will slowly float to the top - once it covers the whole surface, poke a hole in the middle and allow the broth to simmer up through the hole. Simmer for like 20 minutes, then gently remove the raft and strain. This is classically how you'd make consomme, which looks like a typical Chinese wonton soup base but will be much higher end. Also, if you want a lot of flavor in your soup, don't just use bones as you would for making stock, but add quite a bit of meat in there as well - that will add a lot of flavor.

First - while kombu and bonito are the ingredients for dashi, the method is completely different. I usually put the 10g kombu per liter water and cook at 65degC for an hour. Remove the kombu, bring to a boil, dump in a big handful of bonito flakes, let sit for 30 seconds, then strain. In any case, dashi will not get you close to a pho or chinese wonton soup flavor because it would never be used in either. If you want to amp up the umami, try some dried shiitake mushrooms or msg. Lots of people on this forum love Red Boat fish sauce, but I think it's very expensive and completely not necessary if used in a broth or in anything other than finishing. Maybe it would be worth the expense in a cold dipping sauce (that's never been cooked). To me, it's kind of like using an XO cognac for cooking... personally, I like the Squid brand of fish sauce - which is like $4-5 per liter, or Golden Boy which is similarly priced. A homemade chicken broth will be orders of magnitude better than what's available at a chinese takeout place that uses boullion cubes or powder - but it won't taste the same if that's what you're trying to do. Kind of like making a high quality genoise and buttercream filling taste like a Twinkie. Also, the chinese takeout wonton soup broths are MUCH saltier than anything you'd make at home. I think you'd be surprised at how much salt is in this stuff. This is mostly because those boullion cubes are mostly salt.

For the clearest broth, I use a pressure cooker with natural release - even though, true pho broth is never clear. I've had many bowls in 3 different regions of Vietnam and none of them have been clear. In one place in Hanoi, I was able to watch them making the broth and it was boiling vigorously, ensuring a cloudy emulsification of fats and proteins. In general, Hanoi style pho has an almost imperceptible sweetness and is barely scented with spices - it tastes mostly of meat. In Saigon, it varies but all the versions we had were sweeter than the Hanoi style, some by a large order of magnitude bordering on clawing (yet it was still packed with locals so it was a stylistic choice) and some were so heavy with spices that I could smell them in my head 30 minutes later. I would also say that none of the pho broths I've had in Vietnam were made from canned or powder - not so though for some of my local NYC shops where they cheat for sure. Regarding wonton soups - while many of the broths are based on a chicken broth, in Hong Kong, the broth was almost always made from shrimp (and the wontons were filled with shrimp as well). At many of the local NYC takeout joints, I know that some make their broth using a powder or bouillon cube (like Knorr) because they have showed it to me. I'm not saying they all do, but quite a few do. It seems like the ones that taste the strongest are most likely to use the boullion/powder.

@ShelbyI figured you'd have a few dozen quail in your freezer from Ronnie's hunts, no?

Depending on where you get your Chinese takeout from, many restaurants use a canned or reconstituted powder broth - they don't make it from scratch. Many of them are industrial products using ingredients unavailable to the home cook. With regards to pho broth, it gets even trickier since the broth varies wildly in Vietnam from North to South. The broth in Hanoi is typically quite different than in Saigon.

No problem... the only reason I was thinking about making my own was to make it healthier... many store bought prata are made with some kind of trans fat... this recipe uses oil - so you can use a mild olive oil or grapeseed oil and, theoretically, have a "healthy" prata, if such a thing could ever exist....

@mgaretzNice roti prata... one of these days, I'm going to try my hand at making it... probably using this recipe: http://ieatishootipost.sg/how-to-make-roti-prata-aka-roti-canai-everything-you-need-to-know/

@pastrygirl How does invert sugar's de compare with glucose? I had read that glucose was less sweet than sugar, but I don't know how it compares to invert sugar

if you want to decrease sweetness, sub in some isomalt for sugar. It has similar properties to sugar but is about half as sweet.

Ha... when I first read that, it reminded me of that Harold and Kumar White Castle movie...

My wife and I keep saying that we want to try a Doritos-locos taco... I haven't had TB in like 12 years - but I remember it being tasty (if completely unhealthy) and cheap! Too bad there are so few in NYC... I have to go on the hunt for one...

http://evergreenseeds.com/snowpeashoots.html @Shelby

That's easy to fix... the variety I have is bred specifically for tasty and tender shoots... who knows if it would even flower or fruit?

I love snow pea shoots... the leaves and stems are really tasty as long as the stems are young enough that they are still tender. One of these days I'm going to start growing them... I've had the seeds for half a year!

It's funny that the can of Viet soup comes from Thailand! Then again, Hue is not far from Thailand - when we were driving around, our driver pointed out quite a few stores that sold cheap Thai goods (laundry detergent, other household products) and said that it's easy to bring in these products as it's a pretty short drive to Thailand from there, and it's a lot cheaper than the Viet made stuff - but the imports are hurting their economy.

@JoNorvelleWalker I don't know... I'd have to check it out... my local supermarket (Fairway) carries Bell and Evans, but they're a lot more expensive than the store brand or Murray's...

@dcarch An interesting idea about the balloon. I don't have a chamber vac, just a foodsaver - so I can't pull nearly the amount of vacuum to get 14 psi, nor nearly the amount to collapse the rib cage, but I like the idea of a barrier to minimize air contact with the inside. Originally, I had thought of putting the chicken in a zip lock bag that is not that much bigger than the chicken, filling with water to cover, then via displacement method, seal the bag so that only the small amount of water is in contact with the chicken, then freeze that way, basically creating a giant block of ice... but I was worried that the extra mass would make freezing time too long and would cause more than normal damage.

Yes, I can buy frozen cornish game hens for a decent price, although not nearly that cheap. Unfortunately, being in NYC, I don't have access to a Walmart without driving about an hour. The most inexpensive birds around are in Chinatown - plus, they have lots of breeds that are not normally that common - like that are more typically found in Asia where they're scrawnier, but very tasty with bigger legs/thighs and smaller breasts. The problem is that they're not coming from a big industrial farm, like Perdue, where they come already vacuum packed and sealed - they are basically just sitting on a plastic tray with some plastic wrap on them. Chances are that they were slaughtered that morning, or the day before. I currently have a cgh dry brining in the fridge to be used for dinner tonight... but at my local supermarket, they're like $4.50 per pound, and aren't that flavorful - as opposed to similar sized birds I can get in Chinatown for like $2 per pound and are crazy tasty.

I'm wondering what the best way to freeze a whole chicken is... I like to rotisserie whole birds - but normal supermarket chickens are too big (3.5 to 4pounds) for just my wife and myself, and we're not big fans of leftovers.... So I was planning on going to Chinatown which is a pita to go to on a regular basis - but they have a good selection of smaller chickens in the 2# range which would be perfect for us. So I'm looking to buy a bunch of chickens and then freeze them whole so I don't have to go down there all the time. Does anyone have a good method to freeze them quickly and avoid freezer burn? Would a food saver be helpful here or am I still going to have issues with air in the cavity?

I actually think the most important part of the dashi is the kombu - there are some kombu dashi that don't use bonito flakes - although they do add a nice smokeyness...

@TropicalseniorI have never seen dashi sold in a store - even in Japanese stores in NYC's little Tokyo. But it's very easy to make - you need kombu (dried kelp), katsuobushi (bonito flakes) and water... There was a time years ago when I did a lot more cooking than I do now, and I would use dashi all the time as a basis for various sauces. I made it using this method: http://www.cookingissues.com/index.html%3Fp=3040.html which may be a little over the top but made a nice product.

@ShelbyIs it possible that there was something wrong with the roast prior to brining/SV? Maybe some kind of bacteria that just went crazy at those temps? Many years ago, on the early SV threads, people talked about doing some meat for a long time and complained that it smelled really bad when taken out of the bath. At the time, the feeling was that for anything that goes long term, the outside should be given a brief high temp application first - to kill any surface bacteria that could cause problems. Some people would torch the outside prior to bagging, others would submerge the bag in boiling water for 20-30 seconds just after bagging but before SV...

A long time ago, I had read that venison does weird things when cooked SV for long periods of time... that it contains some kind of enzyme that makes it go mushy. I don't know if this is true or not, the only venison I have done are rib chops which I just cooked to temp and they came out great. But you cook a lot of venison.... is this the first time you have done it SV for a long time?

@ElsieDI find that the biggest issue with cilantro is temperature - if it gets slightly too warm, it bolts. There are some "slower bolting" varieties available, but I've never tried them. It never works to grow in my windowsill just because it gets too hot when the sun comes out (my window is southern facing). Even in winter, when the sun is out, it's like 90 degrees right by the window... Maybe a fan on it to blow room temp air at it? Or maybe stick it in a corner (with little natural light) and a compact fluorescent bulb on a timer....

I've had mint in pasta before at nice Italian restaurants in NYC... it works really well in combination with chili.. just not too much! Have you ever seen Italian basil in Vietnam? I've only seen the purple stemmed kind, what we call Thai basil.