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- Hacker News
- Is there a domain of low temperature, high pressure cooking? Infusions and such come to mind.
- Pressure cookers get up to pressure by heating water until the steam pressure is whatever pressure they are trying to reach -- which means their temperature will necessarily be above the boiling point of water.
Low-temperature high-pressure cooking seems hard to achieve. You'd need a pump or something similar to pressurize with.
by gavinsyancey - Yes, it’s been used for mixology (and other things like oils). Put ingredients in a whipping siphon, pressurize and then rapidly vent.
https://culinary.isi.com/en-GB/culinary/applications/aromati...
Dave Arnold’s Liquid Intelligence has instructions and popularized it with that specific brand of whipper (who also sell an infusion attachment).
- I haven't seen this written yet but I highly recommend Kenji's book: The Food Lab. It's the perfect book for HN Nerds that love to cookby bolt012
- The Food Lab is a great introduction to cooking. Could use some updates but it's still a staple for me.
I didn't like The Wok (his most recent real coobook) as much as the Food Lab. Although the garlic noodles with regular Italian pasta, oyster sauce, and Parmeggiano Reggiano are absolutely incredible and easy to whip up because it's all pantry ingredients.
Another cookbook I recommend is Meathead: The Science of Great Barbecue and Grilling. Also teaches the science and the guy who wrote it is one of the main people who debunked the resting meat.
by Cider9986 - Oh man the the amount of fish sauce he wants you put in this will ruin it. Add a teaspoon or a tablespoon or something, but not 1/4 cup. The first time I made it I nearly threw it out.
- It's a tablespoon per serving which isn't that crazy at all. Also Vietnamese fish stock is milder than Thai fish sauce if that's what you're thinking of.
- Pressure cookers do reduce the cook time of some dishes dramatically, but the flavors don't meld as much compared with slow cooking. If you do a 30-minute recipe like this, it's probably worth letting the soup sit another 20-30 minutes in warming mode before serving.by pverheggen
- One of the reasons why I loved The Food Lab was that very often Kenji would write several versions of a recipe at different effort levels, along with detailed reasonings about why and how he shortened a step and what one was giving up by doing so. While he didn't do that for the Pho Ga recipe, he did do that for his Beef Pho recipe, with a full blown 6 hour "traditional" version [0] and a faster (although still not as fast as the pressure cooker pho ga one) 1 hour version of the recipe [1]. My guess is that the write ups of the 3 recipes together probably give one enough information to dial in relatively precisely how much effort you want to give and which steps one can skip or reduce.by MostlyStable
- We've been making pho ga from this recipe for years. It's been on weekly rotation in the fall and winter because it is so ridiculously good. Pair it with bone broth made in your instant pot for best results.
Normally we start making bone broth around 9am, it finishes by about 5pm, and then dinner is ready by 7pm.
- I’ve recently discovered Galbitang and despite being far less popular, I much prefer it over pho. We make it in a pressure cooker as well and love how easy it is!
- There was a recent submission on HN about ramen. While I love ramen/udon/soba, I prefer pho. Perhaps I find pho more "crispy", I like the sprouts/lime/mint/jalapeno. Ramen puts me to sleep. Ramen definitely has more pedigree, this isn't about what's better.by stasomatic
- Best pho I had was in Tokyo, thinly sliced raw wagyu melted into the soup. Though theres as many ramen styles as there are cities in Japan, some style would likely suit you.by Hikikomori
- Particularly tonkotsu, which basically has fat emulsified into it. My understanding is that ramen was originally a workman's meal -- inexpensive and calorie rich food for laborers.by fallinghawks
- As a lover of both pho and ramen I feel I can compel with you on the crispy factor - like pho is more for a jungle - and also on the food coma factor of ramen - a meal for the monsoons, perhaps - but nevertheless need to point out to you that there are also crispy ramens, with sprouts/lime/mint/japaleno, too.
In fact there is no ‘one ramen’, it has to be said; there are regional variants where the “scrap food” of the area is used as the decoration to the base, where a noodle and boiled-meat leftover soups/stock are combined …
I have very sleepy pho’s in my neighborhood, also .. just sayin’. Both are great, you’re right, they are a wonderful branch of food.
by MomsAVoxell - They are both some of my favorite foods. I've made pho probably 4 times at this point. It takes 8 to 10 hours but is totally worth it.
Something I started doing was occasionally taking the rare thin meat out for use with the sriracha and sweet sauce. I never added then to the soup because I found it corrupts it.
There's also Northern Vietnamese Pho which I haven't tried but I'd like to. It's supposed to be less sweet and less spiced. In the US it seems southern sweet style is the norm.
by Cider9986 - I’m not entirely sure what makes this hacker news?
It’s just a very long recipe for Phở (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pho)
Is the hack that it’s supposedly doable in under 30 minutes?
by guessmyname - My Instant Pot has AI and when I turn it on I hear Kenji Lopez guiding me through the recipe steps.by stasomatic
- Check out Kenji’s book, The Food Lab. (Also the name of his blog before it merged with Serious Eats.) You’ll get a sense of what makes him popular among nerds who like to cook.
He used to own a restaurant in downtown San Mateo called Wursthall. It has since closed. He lives up in Seattle now but I am not aware of him being involved in any new restaurants.
by dcrazy - In addition to what others have said, the OP posted their rationale in a comment along with the post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49135427by mplanchard
- The statement that electric pressure cookers measure pressure absolutely (i.e. not relative to local pressure) was news to me, and definitely a good hack to know if you're living at altitude.by jarvist
- Kenji Lopez Alt is a well known chef who writes a lot about the science behind making food (which might contribute to it being HN-worthy). Though I understand where you're coming from, his ethnicity (Caucasian and Japanese; the Lopez comes from his wife) is irrelevant in the light of the fact that he is a professional chef.
Pho bo (beef pho) typically takes at least 8 hours and is better simmered overnight, so cutting it down to 30 minutes and still having a good result is very useful.
by fallinghawks - I popped in here just to say I would fight anyone who asked why Kenji would be on HackerNews and yet I was too late.
Also, authenticity about recipes is the “but does it scale” of app discussions. It’s ok to just let people enjoy stuff. Not everything is a purity test.
by tclancy - the person cooking it is Kenji Lopez-Alt, who is an MIT graduate turned professional chef, and his wife is the one who's colombian.
He's got several excellent cookbooks (like the Food Lab and Wok) and is a regular contributor to serious eats and has youtube etc...
by eutropia - Kenji worship can be a little weird, but assuming because of his heritage means he can't cook Pho is ridiculous. His contributions to Serious Eats and America's Test Kitchen have immensely pushed food science forward.by Larrikin
- Love that this popped up on HN. Been making this recipe regularly for going on 14 (?) years now.by sicvita
- same here, one of my family's favoritesby stevenaenns
- Just learned about Kenji by finding his "The Best Chili Ever" recipe [0] through Reddit and immediately his another recipe appears on HN. Baader-Meinhof strikes again.by vient
- Is this the one where he adds espresso and chocolate? So good!by dcow
- In a similar vein, Chris Young has a fantastic video on making world class chicken stock in 60 minutes using a pressure cooker: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3k20zFlbFfE.by m4r71n