Monthly Archives: November 2009

11.20.09
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Noodle Beef

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“Thorne has an accompanying recipe for Noodle Beef. The beef takes eight hours to poach, but based on the results with the chicken, I’m ready to embark on a beef adventure.”

So I said at the end of my Noodle Chicken story. Well, I have now cooked the beef. As a bonus, I cooked another batch of chicken during the first three hours of beef cooking. Both went in the fridge.

I used boneless beef short ribs from Golden Gate Meats. The meat poaches for eight hours at 170°F. I learned to control the water temperature by cracking the lid on the pot to a greater or lesser degree to keep the temperature in the acceptable range of 165 to 175. Although 8 hours is a long time, the cooking doesn’t require much attention. I checked every 30 to 45 minutes.

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The poached beef was almost as tender and velvety as the chicken, but there was no mistaking the rich beef taste. Once cooled and shredded, the beef and its broth can be kept in a covered bowl in the refrigerator for a week or so.

The next day I made the Noodle Beef. The method is the same, but the ingredients vary to go with the meat — red bell pepper and Napa Cabbage to complement the chicken, carrots and bok choy for the beef — along with the common ingredients; scallions, garlic, ginger, chile paste and noodles.

When cooking the chicken version I found the recipe hard to follow. It’s written as though John Thorne made it up as he went along and prepped his vegetables while he was cooking. Maybe he did make it that way, but I’m not seasoned enough to cook like that. I have learned that if I get my mise en place together before starting to cook I don’t forget stuff. What one does with the carrot, for example, (2 medium to large carrots, peeled, cut into thirds and sliced vertically into wide thin strips.) I would note in the ingredients, rather than in the instructions. So I altered the recipe for the way I work. Continue reading →

11.03.09
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Noodle Chicken

Chicken Noodle Soup
… without the soup

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I was browsing the cooking section of my local Books Inc on Chestnut Street in San Francisco. I had a list of potential books on cooking, but none appealed to me at the time. I spied a copy of Mouth Wide Open by John Thorne and bought it without looking inside. I know John Thorne, not personally to be sure, but I have his books Outlaw Cook and A Serious Pig and I once received his Simple Cooking newsletter, a gift from son Eric. Sadly, I allowed the subscription to expire. I guess I’d rather read books… newsletters tend to get misplaced. And I’d rather read books about cooking than cookbooks.

John Thorne writes the way I write — except way better. He takes a subject and explores it and usually invents something to suit his whims. In Mouth Wide Open, he addresses subjects such as Cod and Potatoes, The Grist on Grits, Go Fry an Egg, Swedish Meatballs, and my current delight, Noodle Chicken… comfort food, but comfort food with wit, substance and personality. He cooks the way I cook when I do breakfast or lunch for myself… I’ve got this and that… I wonder how those would go together? And what else might go with them?

One doesn’t necessarily read his books from cover to cover, but by skipping around, seeking out what’s interesting, or landing on a subject you know nothing about. I came upon his Two With the Flu chapter… what’s that about… probably chicken soup. I was right, but he took an entirely new approach. Regular chicken soup is a time tested method handed down from grandmother to mother to daughter or son: poach a chicken in a pot of water, pick off the meat and put back in the (now) broth, add carrots and celery and sometimes potatoes and noodles. There, chicken soup.

Tom Colicchio in the Stock Making chapter of his book, Think Like a Chef, has a twist where he puts his chicken in water, brings it to a boil and then pours off the water and starts over. “Pouring off the original water after the first boil will remove all of the blood and a lot of the coagulated protiens, which form a gray scum on the surface. Don’t worry that you’re throwing out flavor, you’re not. The bones need to cook a good deal longer to extract flavor.” His method — I call it “the Colicchio method” (duh!) — works well and I get a nice clear broth without scumming. I hate scumming, it’s never ending.

John Thorne takes an entirely different approach. He cooks his meat in a Ziplock w5_bag_coolingplastic bag at relatively low temperature for a long time. Sort of a poor man’s sous-vide. “The method … has three unique advantages: (1) The meat’s juices and flavor are neither diluted nor lost during the cooking process; (2) the scum produced in the cooking clings to the side of the bag, eliminating the need for skimming; and (3) the meat can be cooked in a small amount of liquid with no worry that it will overcook or dry out.”

Bingo. I’m hooked. I have to do this. Continue reading →