Text 31040, 97 rader
Skriven 2012-11-17 16:38:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Pho 1
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A great little tutorial. If you want to skip the science lesson just
go  straight to part 4 for the recipe.

MMMMM-----Meal-Master - formatted by MMCONV  2.10

     Title: How To Make Awesome Pho In 1-Hour Pt 1
Categories: Vietnamese, soups, info
  Servings: 4

    pho

There are times in life when devoting six hours to a single project
seems like a good idea. Like making Vietnamese beef noodle soup the
traditional way on a chilly Sunday in the fall. Then there are those
times when you're not in it for the long haul. You need to have
dinner on the table in about an hour.

One solution for the dinner problem is to just make large batches of
the traditional broth, freezing the extra in flat-laying cryo-back
bags to quick and easy defrosting at moment's notice.

Another solution is to just figure out a way to make the darn stuff
in record time from start to finish. My goal: full-flavored pho in 1
hour or less. I knew it was an exercise in futility to try and come
up with something that tastes as rich and complex as the real deal,
but I'd settle for 90% as good in 20% of the time. Start your
stopwatches, because here we go.

Accelerated Aromatics: Traditional pho is made by simmering beef
bones and meat along with a few aromatics for around 6 hours,
straining the broth, then serving it with the cooked meat, some
sliced raw meat, hydrated rice noodles and other garnishes.

Outside of the meat, the basic flavors of pho are pretty simple:
charred onions and ginger (or a bit of sweetness, smoky depth, and
pungency), star anise, cinnamon, cloves, and occasionally other
spices (for aroma), fish sauce (for salt and its savory umami
qualities), sugar (for sweetness, duh), and a slew of stir-in herbs
and such at the finish.

There's no need to streamline the stir-ins, as they take no time at
all to cook. Likewise the fish sauce and sugar.

Spices: Spices, too, have their flavors extracted in under an hour,
so we can leave them alone as-is. I like to put mine in a
cheese-cloth pouch, making them fast and easy to remove and discard.

Charred onions: Normally, I'd broil my ginger and onions or roast
them directly over the open flame of a gas burner. This requires
about 25 minutes of time and a couple extra pans or racks to clean.
For my fast pho, I skip the oven or burner and cook my onions and
ginger directly in the pot I'm going to make the soup in.

Charring onions and ginger: The char is not quite as even or deep,
but you can get some great caramelized flavors and just enough smoky
char in just about ten minutes. This gives us plenty of time to
think about the meat.

Faster Flavor: Before we can devise a new method, we first have to
figure out exactly what our goals are. What happens when you simmer
meat in water to make a broth?

Locked in this piece of beef chuck are various aromatic molecules
and texture-altering proteins.

Big chuck: When you simmer it, there are actually two distinct
things going on. First off, we're extracting and altering flavor. As
muscle fibers heat up, they contracts, expelling proteins, fats, and
aromatic molecules, like toothpaste coming out of a tube. These
molecules get dissolved in the liquid, adding flavor.

Simultaneously, we're altering texture. This occurs when certain
proteins present in the connective tissue that runs through
meat—mainly collagen—break down and are converted into gelatin, a
protein with the ability to form a microscopic, loose connective
matrix within the broth, making it feel thicker and more unctuous on
our palate.

I decided to first focus on faster flavor extraction, then come back
to work on texture. First off, starting with a good quality canned
broth and doctoring it up is a pain-free way to get a quick flavor
boost. Though pho is traditionally made with beef, canned beef
broths are universally pretty awful, consisting mostly of flavor
enhancers and tasting tinny and thin. Canned chicken broth tastes
much more like homemade, and provides a relatively neutral
background to build a broth upon.

MMMMM-------------------------------------------------

YK Jim


... I picked up a hitchhiker today. You have to if you hit them.

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