Reverse Engineering a Restaurant dish?

[boomchakabowwow]

There is a couple of restaurants in Oakland CA. one is the OG one, and we hit the spin-off one with way better and safer parking.

they specialize in Chow Jew Ho Fun. a savory noodle dish that totally blows the cool breeze up my pant legs. it is so good. mild, delicate tasting.

We eat there a lot. prices have gone way the hell up to rediculous. it is almost $20 per bowl. i have asked (and flat out flirted) with the owner lady for some hints, but NOPE. she is like a vault of information. she will not give up the family secret. one of her workers once whispered in Cantonese to me that is a simple broth. simple. i hit up a chicken egg farm and bought a few carcasses, and then picked up some pork bones from a farmer friend. i got to work. i ran with simple.

my wife came home the other night, and before she could walk into the home and smell what i have been up to, i put a bit of hot broth into a shallow dish and ran it out to the garage and said, "taste this". (a shallow dish is the safest and most sanitary way of tasting a soup BTW)

She replied:, "you cracked the code??!!"
"you tell me, did i?"
"it tastes just like it?"

i chilled the broth into a big gelationous vat..and tonight i will reheat and construct a bowl. i didnt buy pork kidney, since i dont even know how/where to buy it. BUT I WILL! need to figure out how to clean one and prep it first.

a stock photo of the target noodle soup. pulled off of YELP
do you reconstruct restaurant dishes?

 

[MarcelNL]

I do try sometimes, the dried tofu curd 'veggie chicken gong bao' was my first encounter with traditional chinese, and we were blocn away by it's flavors.

Luckily Fuchsia Dunlop came to the rescue

edit: I did not look up the recipe for the dish with duck tongue, which was merely what it says...a plate chock full of duck tongue with the bony bit, it got boring after like 5

 

[Tekkz]

I've been trying to figure out this coriander beef dish from a thai place for 20 years. No luck so far. It's some version of Nuea Sawan but no other place tastes like it.

 

[dragjp]

pork kidney

marina, ranch 99 or any decent Chinese supermarket around the bay. But also be sure to check the freshness of the product!

 

[MarcelNL]

marina, ranch 99 or any decent Chinese supermarket around the bay. But also be sure to check the freshness of the product!

and do check if they are watered already

 

[Michi]

i didnt buy pork kidney, since i dont even know how/where to buy it. BUT I WILL! need to figure out how to clean one and prep it first.

Trim off any membrane or bits that look unsavoury on the outside. Slice in half along the long axis, so you end up with two pieces that are the same size as the original kidney, just thinner. Trim out the white bits in the centre. It's obvious which bits you want to remove, don't fret over it. Put the kidney into water or milk (or a mix of the two) for a day; replace the liquid halfway through. Now it's ready to cook any way you fancy.

 

[Delat]

Nice job! I like reproducing restaurant dishes at home too when one really strikes my fancy.

 

[daveb]

Can't speak to the Chinese dishes (I eat them, I don't make them...) but in Euro/American cooking, the reverse engineering always focuses on ingredients. I would argue that recreating a dish has more to do with technique than ingredients.

 

[MarcelNL]

Can't speak to the Chinese dishes (I eat them, I don't make them...) but in Euro/American cooking, the reverse engineering always focuses on ingredients. I would argue that recreating a dish has more to do with technique than ingredients.

I guess you are right, ingredients are an important part of any dish...and then quality of ingredients but technique too. From my experience as hobby cook I guess that the more technique you can tap into th easier the execution is and the better your chance of getting close when reverse engineering a dish.

BTW; there is a somewhat interesting UK/Belgian TV program where two known cooks have to recreate a snack....sometimes it's mind blowing how fast they are on the right track, usually the cook with the best knowledge of techniques (and best taste buds) wins

 

[boomchakabowwow]

mission failure on my noodle clone. I am missing something.

 

[Rangen]

I was once fascinated by a restaurant's Dan Dan Noodles rendition, to the point where I got some takeout, which has separate sauce and noodles, put the sauce in the fridge to harden up, and carefully examined the stratified layers. Ah! Pickled vegetable (often one of those things you can't taste, but which are completely essential to the wonderfulness of a dish), and chopped dried shrimp (ditto).

A Chinese friend resolved the question of whether the sauce contains peanuts/peanut butter, or just sesame paste, by claiming to have an allergic nephew and asking if he would be able to order the dish. Definitely peanuts. Probably both that and sesame, was my guess.

The project lost steam when I found recipes for versions I liked even better, but the hunt was fun while it lasted.

 

[MarcelNL]

mission failure on my noodle clone. I am missing something.

keep at it, it's like an escape room...clues everywhere, you 'just' need to notice them ;-)

 

[YumYumSauce]

I may or may not have pursued a kitchen career to be able to do just that