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Perpetual stew

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Re: Perpetual stew

#51

Post by do_not_redeem »

ethbr1 wrote: post #22
do_not_redeem wrote: post #14

I tried this recently, but a few days after putting in ground beef, the stew turned rancid. So I thought maybe meat was off limits--but the wiki article talks about a 50-year beef stew. So clearly I just don't have the touch. If anyone has ever done this at home, I want to know what ingredients you used!

What leanness of ground beef? 70/30 or 80/20? Likely too much fat. You'd want to keep the meat as lean as possible for longevity purposes. Alternately, when you cook it, you can either skim the liquid fat off the top (use a large spoon) or absorb it with slices of bread (drag it across the surface and they'll soak up the fat).

Good tips, thank you!

Re: Perpetual stew

#52

Post by do_not_redeem »

trhway wrote: post #48
do_not_redeem wrote: post #14

I tried this recently, but a few days after putting in ground beef, the stew turned rancid. So I thought maybe meat was off limits--but the wiki article talks about a 50-year beef stew. So clearly I just don't have the touch. If anyone has ever done this at home, I want to know what ingredients you used!

salt? some people don't use salt in their cooking and that quickly speeds up bad things. Long time ago working student summer construction jobs in Siberia we had "perpetual tea" going for several months - several electric tea kettles were always on at close to boiling, and we were putting into them, without any selection, whatever green stuff was growing higher than 2 inches - ie. above the moss - in the pine forest…

I didn't add salt (it tasted fine without) but maybe it would help preservation, I'll try this too!

Re: Perpetual stew

#53

Post by abdullahkhalids »

pradn wrote: post #4
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #3

Occasionally, I will make a soup that lasts about a week, adding things every day. So not perpetual. One problem I encounter is that some ingredients disintegrate badly (like noodles), which is not a problem when making it in a huge restaurant pot, but becomes a problem when you have a typical large home pot. I have resorted to cooking noodles separately and then adding them to my bowl, rather than putting them in th…

What sort of ingredients keep well in this process? How about mushrooms and potatoes?

The ones I throw that do well: carrot, cabbage, potatoes, mushrooms, leaks, corn, eggs, several types of meat. When I was a student, I used to throw in cans of cream of mushroom etc, but I don't eat canned food anymore.

The ones I take out after boiling for a while: onions, bell peppers, meat bones.

Ones that are kinda okay: beans of various sort (become too soft, yet don't disintegrate fast enough, and collect at the bottom of pot so difficult to take out), cooked rice.

Definitely bad: noodles.

Re: Perpetual stew

#54

Post by abdullahkhalids »

xg15 wrote: post #5
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #3

Occasionally, I will make a soup that lasts about a week, adding things every day. So not perpetual. One problem I encounter is that some ingredients disintegrate badly (like noodles), which is not a problem when making it in a huge restaurant pot, but becomes a problem when you have a typical large home pot. I have resorted to cooking noodles separately and then adding them to my bowl, rather than putting them in th…

I suppose, the original practice of perpetual stews solves this by continuously adding both new ingredients and liquid . So while the stew itself keeps going on, every individual ingredient and flavor would vanish after some time and be replaced by something new.

Given the size of my pot and my appetite, I eat about 1/3 of the pot every day, and add about 1/2 a pot of liquid+ingredients. Some of the liquid obviously boils away during the daily cook.

Re: Perpetual stew

#55

Post by nosrepa »

pradn wrote: post #4
abdullahkhalids wrote: post #3

Occasionally, I will make a soup that lasts about a week, adding things every day. So not perpetual. One problem I encounter is that some ingredients disintegrate badly (like noodles), which is not a problem when making it in a huge restaurant pot, but becomes a problem when you have a typical large home pot. I have resorted to cooking noodles separately and then adding them to my bowl, rather than putting them in th…

What sort of ingredients keep well in this process? How about mushrooms and potatoes?

Potatoes would disintegrate.

Re: Perpetual stew

#56

Post by bob1029 »

I do something like this with my deep fryer when using animal fat.

Replacing it all at once can be expensive and wasteful. You also wind up with a sub-optimal flavor profile for several batches when you do a total reset.

Re: Perpetual stew

#57

Post by stevenwoo »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #3

Occasionally, I will make a soup that lasts about a week, adding things every day. So not perpetual. One problem I encounter is that some ingredients disintegrate badly (like noodles), which is not a problem when making it in a huge restaurant pot, but becomes a problem when you have a typical large home pot. I have resorted to cooking noodles separately and then adding them to my bowl, rather than putting them in th…

I have the base with some vegetables that last two weeks like tofu cabbage carrots and onion celery like mirepoix and in separate containers the stuff that deteriorate if in stock like broccoli/mushrooms/spinach/other greens/veggies and add in the separated stuff to the base in a smaller pot along with ginger/garlic/sesame oil. This way I can buy and cook several things in bulk and use them as needed over a week or so, adding them to the base.

Re: Perpetual stew

#58

Post by alexjplant »

abdullahkhalids wrote: post #3

Occasionally, I will make a soup that lasts about a week, adding things every day. So not perpetual. One problem I encounter is that some ingredients disintegrate badly (like noodles), which is not a problem when making it in a huge restaurant pot, but becomes a problem when you have a typical large home pot. I have resorted to cooking noodles separately and then adding them to my bowl, rather than putting them in th…

> noodles

Replace them with a heartier starch like lentils or farro. As a bonus you also end up with better micro and macronutrients than you'd get from enriched egg noodles or the like.

My current meal prep stew comprises olive oil, pork, leeks, garlic, carrots, mushrooms, lentils, onions, tomato paste, and kale. For seasoning I'll throw in red pepper flakes and italian seasoning along with some balsamic vinegar if I don't get the depth of flavor I want. A little gorgonzola or other blue cheese on the side really sets it off.

Re: Perpetual stew

#59

Post by sidewndr46 »

TZubiri wrote: post #39
RALaBarge wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah if something common and harmful is surviving 100 C +, we got some big problems, my friends.

It happens with toxins, which is the reason why cooking spoiled food isn't a magical solution to everything. Examples are on-living molecules whether inorganic simple elements or complex thermo resistant proteins leftover from other forms of life like fungi. That said, there's nothing special in a forever stew that makes it particularly more susceptible to this risk. The toxins don't reproduce (unless there's some fu…

Yeah it'd be awful if someone slipped some ice nine into the stew

Re: Perpetual stew

#60

Post by abdullahkhalids »

ethbr1 wrote: post #47
rob74 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess potatoes would eventually disintegrate completely and just make the soup/stew a bit thicker. But yeah, soggy noodles sound unpleasant - but when the perpetual stew was actually in use hundreds of years ago (in Europe), noodles weren't really a thing yet...

Thickening is maybe the most interesting component! I.e. how do you make a thick perpetual stew? I'd assume thickeners have different behavior when cooked for 1 week+, as you start to get some byproducts you don't normally see in "fresh" cooking.

I used to add cream of mushroom (found in cans) to the soup, because I really needed the calories. It really thickened the soup and did pretty well. You can also just add corn flour (pre-mixed in a water before) and it thickens up the soup easily.

If I consume 1/3 of a well mixed soup every day and top it up to full, then in a week, only about (1/3)^7 = 0.05% of the first day stuff remains. You don't really have to worry about the longevity of the ingredients.

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