Pho

Sure, my family has some great cooks, but I was raised by baby-boomer parents in a home where we had such delicacies as hot dog curly-cues (fondly remembered here) and meatloaf.  And let's not forget that weekly meal our mother liked to call fend-for-yourself.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not disparaging my mom's cooking.  She cooked one mean pot roast.  I'm just saying that, growing up, I didn't have many opportunities to sample the cuisine of other cultures.  So, as I've grown out of my childhood fear of unknown foods, I have been joyously surprised to find some of my favorite dishes outside of the scope of American standard fare.

Pho is definitely one of those dishes.  My first bowl of pho was from Pho Bac on Buford Highway.  Maybe not the best pho kitchen around, but I still fell in love.  I felt it was the perfect dish.  It is warming on a cold day, light and fulfilling on a hot day.  The flavor of the broth is rich and complex and balanced by the bright flavors of fresh herbs and mung beans and sliced chiles served in a heap on the side.  I had no idea what gave the broth it's flavor or how I might even begin to replicate the dish.  Recipes I found online just didn't even look like they would add up to what I had tasted.  I now know this is because most pho is a beef soup flavored with spices such as star anise, nothing like what I had had at Pho Bac.  So, I was really excited when I saw Roger Mooking cook it up on Cooking Channel one day.  He didn't even call it pho on the show, but when I saw the show, I new that what he was cooking would add up to what I was looking for.  I've used his recipe ever since, with some minor changes, and it always comes out perfectly.  It takes some time to make, but man is it ever worth it!  You can use a whole chicken or, if you're only serving a few, you can just use one full breast section (2 breasts with sternum) and a chicken back and neck (the bones will flavor the stock and the breasts are for eatin'!)

Pho

1 2-3 lb chicken (or see above)

2 carrots, halved lengthwise

1 onion, quartered

1 stalk of lemongrass, bruised

3/4 lb shitake mushrooms

1 bunch thai basil

1 T. fresh ginger, smashed

2 limes

1 T. black peppercorns

2 bay leaves

2 red thai chiles (or any small chile)

1/4 C. fish sauce

1 T. sugar

mung bean sprouts

1/2 lb rice noodles 

Throw in a large stock pot (at least 6 quart) the shitake stems, onion, carrots, lemongrass, peppercorns, bay leaves, ginger, zest of one lime, 4 basil stems, and 1 chile (sliced open lengthwise).  Now place your chicken on top of all this goodness and add water until everything is covered.

 

Bring to a boil and reduce to a very low simmer.  Simmer until the chicken comes up to temperature, skimming the impurities as they rise to the top.  This step, also known as depouillage, is one of the most important steps in any stock, broth or sauce, so don't skip it!  Remember to stick a thermometer in your bird occasionally to make sure you're not over-cooking it.  

Once the chicken is done, remove it from the broth, allowing the broth to continue to simmer.  Once the chicken cools, pull the meat from the bone and put the bones back into the pot.  Simmer for another hour or so.  The longer it cooks, the more flavor.  Go all day, if you like.

Cook the rice noodles in boiling, salted water until just tender.  Drain and set aside.

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Strain the broth through a sieve lined with cheesecloth and place it back into the rinsed pot.  Turn on low heat.  Add salt to taste, fish sauce, sugar and the juice of your zested lime.

Now take the amount of chicken that you will be using in the soup and slice the shitake tops.  Place the chicken and the shitakes in the broth to warm, just until the shitakes are tender.

To serve, place some noodles in your bowls then proportion out the chicken and shitakes equally to each bowl.  Now ladle the broth over it.  Serve with a plate of basil leaves, lime wedges, sliced chiles and mung bean sprouts.

Enjoy! 

Basics

Spaghetti.  You know, Ragu.  That was all my husband or I could cook when we married.  We were doomed to eat the fried meat, over-cooked vegetable buffet three nights per week.  And lots of spaghetti.  Until my hubby started culinary school.  He attended the Art Institute of Atlanta with the expectation that our love of the outdoors would lead us to live in a resort town.  Almost ten years later, he works as a residential contractor and moonlighting electrician, and I am a pharmacist.  Not one paid chef between us.  We still live in the same old town, and we still have to drive 400 miles for decent backpacking.  BUT! we can cook.  Although husband hasn't used his culinary education as a means of making money, his little stint at AI has forever changed our life.  Questions that I never knew to ask in the kitchen were answered!  Our kitchen suddenly contained useful tools, and I knew how to use them!  I was no longer doomed to overcook chicken breasts for the rest of my life!  Or eat eggs so hard-boiled that the yolks were green!  Or eat frozen pizza!  Or be scared of goat cheese!  I was free!!

And I came to realize that it wasn't the complex and lofty techniques of Escoffier, nor the holier-than-thou, infused foam, prissily arranged plates of Food Network fame that have really made a difference.  Sure, learning how to make a perfect consommé will change your life, but the most truly life-changing things I have learned are the basics.  Basics are basic, not trivial.  If you don't have them, you have no base from which to work.  With that being said, we shall learn to boil and egg...

Boiling an Egg. I'm not kidding here.  A perfectly boiled egg is a thing of beauty, the yolk just set, but still soft and bright, sunshine yellow.  I can't tell you how many boiled eggs I've had whose yolks were powdery and slightly green from over-cooking.  For the perfect egg, place a room temperature egg in boiling water.  Boil for exactly eight minutes, then place the pot under cold running water for a minute or two.  Even that lofty Escoffier guy agrees with me on this eight minute thing.



Equally important...

Boiling Pasta. Al dente is the term used to describe pasta when it is perfectly cooked.  No more crunch in the middle, but just enough resistance when you chew it.  The term literally means "to the tooth", meaning that it needs to be chewed and is not mushy.  Mushy pasta is not pasta at all.  Please, people, never ever ever cook pasta according to the time given on the box.  Instead, regularly check a piece until you get that perfect pasta springiness.  Fresh pasta is a whole 'nother, heavenly ball game.

And lest we forget...

Salt. Throw out your iodized table salt and get some kosher salt.  Sure, most chefs say it's best to cook with kosher salt and finish with sea salt, but I find that kosher salt is good for all of it and much cheaper than sea salt.  (Still, I am tempted occasionally to spend $8 on some fluer de sel.)  And taste your food!  You should not need to season at the table.  That is all.

Moving on to less basic basics...

Vinaigrette. Just look at the ingredients on that dressing bottle next time you pull it out of the frig.  Or look at the expiration date.  Either way, you're going to be grossed-out.  I'm pretty sure the last bottle of dressing I bought was ten years ago, just before I learned how ridiculously simple it is to whip up any kind of vinaigrette.  First, get yourself a jar.  You know, like a mason jar.  Then add 3 parts oil to 1 part acid, such as red wine vinegar or citrus, plus any other aromatics, such as herbs, for flavor.  (Reduce the amount of oil if needed)  Now shake the jar! And when the oil separates in the frig, just shake it again!  Now you have the template for whatever kind of dressing you can dream up.  I'll give you some of my favorite examples, but I must admit that I stole the jar idea from that chick on Bitchin' Kitchen and the recipes are from Frank Stitt's Southern Table.  These are the only recipes I actually follow.  Mostly, I just throw some stuff together...

Balsamic Dressing

Place in the jar:

1 small shallot, minced (aromatic)

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar (acid)

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar (acid)

1/2 cup olive oil (oil)

salt and pepper to taste

Shake it up!

Buttermilk Vinaigrette
This one is best if you whisk the ingredients together, slowly whisking in the oil last.  I love it for dipping fried green tomatoes!
2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 small shallot, minced
salt and pepper
1/2 cup buttermilk
 1/3 cup mayo
 2 tablespoons sour cream
2 tablespoons olive oil

Moving along...

Meat Temperatures. If you do not have a good meat thermometer, go buy one!  There is nothing as leathery and off-putting as overcooked meat.  Chicken breast sticks to your teeth and steak becomes inedibly tough.  Sure, I used to be afraid of that pink part in the middle of the steak, but that was before I knew that 140 degrees was a magical number where bacteria die and steak reaches that delicious state we call rare.  White meat chicken should be cooked to 165 degrees, while dark meat chicken can be cooked to 175 because of its fattier composition.  Once you have used your thermometer long enough, you will begin to be able to tell doneness by how firm the meat feels when you poke it with your  utensil.  If it feels like shoe leather, it will taste like shoe leather.  And always remember the phenomenon called carry-over; pull your meat just before it reaches the desired temp and allow it to rest for a few minutes.  The residual heat will finish the cooking process and the rest gives the juices in the meat time to redistribute.  Juicy!  Oh, and if you refrain from smashing your hamburger patties with the spatula next time you grill them, you will be rewarded with nice, juicy burgers; smashing them just squeezes all the flavorful juices out onto the coals.

I know, that was a long post.  I could have gone on and on about knife skills and about how putting a potato in aluminum foil is not baking at all, but I will stop now.  Thanks for reading!