Winter Warmers

[Soup]

1. Soup (all kinds but I'm really a fan of more thinner meat based broths) Been doing more beef based soups. Recently made soup with beef knees and cow feat. Collagen city...It was great.

2. Pot Roast - Made it last night with lots of gravy (home made chicken stock) really made this dish.

3. korean Chigae (kimchi, tofu). Spice and heat will heat you on two fronts

4. Pho (one of the greatest winter comfort foods yet it invented by a people who don't get snow).

5. Lentles (huge pot of lentel or any legumes for that matter) with fresh hot rice

Soup

[Jaymes]

4. Pho (one of the greatest winter comfort foods yet it invented by a people who don't get snow).

I'm no food historian, but I've been told that pho was actually "invented" by the French, and became popular in Vietnam during the French occupation, the days of Indochine.

That explains the pronunciation of "fuh." It's really from the French "Pot au Feu."

Interesting bit of food trivia, I think.

[heidih]

1. Soup (all kinds but I'm really a fan of more thinner meat based broths) Been doing more beef based soups. Recently made soup with beef knees and cow feat. Collagen city...It was great.

Soup

Thanks for this. Cow's foot soup was a comfort meal long ago. I did it with yucca and drop dumplings. Collagen city = lip smacking good comfort. I need to revisit.

[Darienne]

Sichuan Hot and Sour Soup!

[Snadra]

Well, it's the opposite of cold here, but I always like to remember my favourites!

Anything on top of creamy polenta or mash, or creamy polenta or mash ontop of a lightly dressed salad of bitter greens so that they wilt, which is warming but also makes you feel virtuous.

Pho. Just about the perfect winter meal, especially with all those fresh herbs.

Vegetable soup the way my mother makes it, with small-diced vegetables (onions, carrots, celery) fried in the pot until limp, a 400gram can of tomatoes that I crush in my hand before adding to the pot, and small diced potatoes added just at the end for as long as they take to cook. Water, not stock, and just a few herbs: thyme, bay, marjoram, salt & pepper. It's a thin-ish soup that tastes purely of vegetables and it's as warming as it is refreshing. Especially nice ladled over a few raisins in the bottom of the bowl - something about the slight sweetness makes the soup more flavourful. And it keeps well for a few days in the fridge.

Crepes for dinner

Hot desserts, like a self-saucing pudding. Next winter I want to try to make dampfnudlen and golden syrup dumplings.

[nakji]

4. Pho (one of the greatest winter comfort foods yet it invented by a people who don't get snow).

Winters in Hanoi are no treat. Everyone's in concrete buildings, there's no heat except for the coal brazier for cooking, or a re-purposed single air-con unit - and you've been driving around all day next to the lakes on a motorcycle. A hot bowl of soup is essential.

I'm no food historian, but I've been told that pho was actually "invented" by the French, and became popular in Vietnam during the French occupation, the days of Indochine.

That explains the pronunciation of "fuh." It's really from the French "Pot au Feu."

Interesting bit of food trivia, I think.

I find it hard to believe no one in Vietnam was able to invent a bowl of noodle soup until the French came along. However, I have a rule: "Never get involved in a land war or a discussion of who invented something in Asia; never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line." It is unarguably an excellent restorative.

[Jaymes]

4. Pho (one of the greatest winter comfort foods yet it invented by a people who don't get snow).

I'm no food historian, but I've been told that pho was actually "invented" by the French, and became popular in Vietnam during the French occupation, the days of Indochine.

That explains the pronunciation of "fuh." It's really from the French "Pot au Feu."

Interesting bit of food trivia, I think.

I find it hard to believe no one in Vietnam was able to invent a bowl of noodle soup until the French came along. However, I have a rule: "Never get involved in a land war or a discussion of who invented something in Asia; never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line." It is unarguably an excellent restorative.

Indeed.

[Soup]

What ever the reason, It was below 32 this morning and I went for a bowl. Just simply amazing. Being a regular I didn't have to ask for a pile of Jalepeno's which they put on the table. Pho is an amazing soup.

One thing, is there a rice noodle for pho that will stand up for more than 3 minutes in the soup. I love having some resisliance to the noodle. It that way when I get it but about half way through, noodles start getting a little mushy. A small pick but does cause me to eat the bowl fairly quickly.

In vietnam do people us saracha (or equivalent) and hoisin sauce with their pho?

[nakji]

In Hanoi, chili sauce (usually homemade, not bottled) was on the table, but I never saw hoisin. Doesn't mean it wasn't out there, though. Could be a HCMC thing, too.

I had pho for lunch today in Shanghai, as the weather turned cold and rainy. My husband and I were debating which was the more perfect soup: pho or tonkontsu ramen. I argued that pho was more balanced and less likely to result in a heart attack at the table, but he thought that was actually a point in the ramen's favour.

[sheepish]

I'm liking Zacky's list. A lot. I'd also like to suggest a personal favourite that I'm just about to dish up. Changde Clay-Pot chicken from Fuschia Dunlop's Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook. Chunks of chicken, in my case wings chopped into 5 pieces, deep fried twice til brown. Then simmered in chicken stock with chili bean paste, garlic cloves, casia, ginger and chili. Top with strips of green pepper and spring onion greens. Just the boy at the moment where it hasn't got above 0C for more than a week, our water supply has frozen up and the track from my house resembles a bobsleigh run.