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The family keeping watch over a 52-year-old pot of soup

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Re: The family keeping watch over a 52-year-old pot of soup

#71
post #39
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool. The pot is surprisingly small. Is the sauce in it highly concentrated or something?

Yes, 滷肉 ("braised meat") is highly concentrated. You can't eat the sauce by itself like a stew, it would be too rich. So it's usually served on white rice or in this case noodles. The ingredients are typically finely minced fatty pork with soy sauce and strong flavorings like dried mushroom, garlic, star anise, and a fermented bean sauce that's super salty. Plus other ingredients that make the taste unique to the che…

So it's something along the lines of demiglace or the stocks it is made from.

Re: The family keeping watch over a 52-year-old pot of soup

#73
post #70

I have lived around the corner from this place for nearly 13yrs. It’s fine, not any better or worse than places serving a similar dish but without the perpetual stew marketing. The funny thing is, this place got famous a dew years ago, so you now have to wait in line for hours to have this perfectly normal bowl of $2 soup. I didn’t really mind because even if there was no line I’d probably eat here once every 3yrs wh…

> so you now have to wait in line for hours Interesting, I go there pretty regularly and while It is well visited, I not once encountered a queue there

Ok! Maybe I’m wrong, but whenever I pass by (which admittedly isn’t daily or even weekly) I notice quite a long queue.

I’m probably just exaggerating and remembering selectively.

Re: The family keeping watch over a 52-year-old pot of soup

#74

I've gone without a fridge for 8 years now and do something kind of like this usually - I'll cook a pot of food and then steam or boil it again after ~24 hours to reset the clock on it rotting. It's handy for things like eating a whole chicken or other large soup. I switch between being home and on the road a lot so my pot just comes with me and can be re-cooked on my car stove or my home stove. I tend to cook or re-…

During winter I'll run a perpetual stew pot for a few days, maybe week+ because it's going towards heating anyways.

Re: The family keeping watch over a 52-year-old pot of soup

#75
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bacteria is still there, its just dead. Along with all of its waste. Leaving soup at room temperature over night is crazy. Its usually the biggest food borne illness vector in restaurants so they usually boil then move straight to cooling. Ive learned leaving soup out and reboiling is fairly common in some cultures which is unfortunate. Bacteria rapidly multiplies at room temperature around the world (well, maybe…

> Ive learned leaving soup out and reboiling is fairly common in some cultures which is unfortunate. I know next to nothing about chemistry or biology but I do cook a lot of food, and quite often have leftovers. After many years in Germany, I got into the habit of leaving food out, and that would mostly be fine. Very rarely would food spoil, at least from a culinary perspective (I'm not disputing the presence of bact…

Both humidity and temperature matter, it's a complex thing going on.

But yes I'm mostly in a dry environment doing this, I haven't tried it anywhere that was warm and humid at the same time.

It helps a lot to not seal the leftovers but let them have airflow and dry out on the surface. Sealed containers with moisture in them get nasty much faster.

Re: The family keeping watch over a 52-year-old pot of soup

#76
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ive learned leaving soup out and reboiling is fairly common in some cultures which is unfortunate. I know next to nothing about chemistry or biology but I do cook a lot of food, and quite often have leftovers. After many years in Germany, I got into the habit of leaving food out, and that would mostly be fine. Very rarely would food spoil, at least from a culinary perspective (I'm not disputing the presence of bact…

Both humidity and temperature matter, it's a complex thing going on. But yes I'm mostly in a dry environment doing this, I haven't tried it anywhere that was warm and humid at the same time. It helps a lot to not seal the leftovers but let them have airflow and dry out on the surface. Sealed containers with moisture in them get nasty much faster.

If the container is sealed (airtight) while it's still above the temperatures that (most) bacteria can survive at, and then cooled while sealed, it might actually do better than open-air for a while.
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