Copycat Panera Bread Company Souffles

This recipe has been kicking around the internet for a few years. I've made it twice now. The first time without as much success as the second, but I'll help you avoid my mistakes.

You can get the recipe nice and legally from this ABC newscast link as this is Todd Wilbur's copyrighted work. The first time I thought the microwaving of the scrambled eggs seemed needlessly tedious and slow and so I did the par scramble in a frying pan. That came out dense and less appealing than anything with the name souffle.

The key step is the microwaving and stirring in between bursts. It does give the eggs the structure and lift to pull this off.  Like so many home cooks, I felt it was OK to change the recipe for my convenience but there are risks to that attitude with this dish.

I happened to just use some sausage and cheese this time, as that's what was waiting to be used up. I'm not totally cured of changing recipes. That change was a safe substitution.  

If you follow his recipe, you're stuck in making this recipe in multiples of four because that's what the tube crescent dough supplies. Any extra souffles will freeze well if you let them cool first and then wrap them tightly. Reheat in an oven or toaster oven. A microwave would work too, but will give you a soggier bread crust.

I'm thinking next time I'll try it with Pepperidge Farms puff pastry from the freezer case. I think that will give an even better texture to the crust and still be easy to do.

Making Stock

Stock is the flavorful liquid created from cooking the bones of an animal with aromatic herbs and vegetables in water. It's a basic ingredient in many other dishes, such as soups, stews and sauces.

Here, I'm making a turkey stock with the carcass I deboned in the earlier post, as well as photo from my Thanksgiving stock for the western style example. If I were making a chicken stock, I'd want two carcasses fro the amount of vegetables in these examples.
 

For stocks for European and American cooking the ingredients are usually:

Bones from 1 turkey carcass

2 large onion, peeled and cut in half or quarters

3-4 carrots, washed, trimmed and cut in chunks. If really thick perhaps cut them in half lengthwise too.

4 ribs celery

sprigs of thyme

2-3 bay leaves

10 pepper corns
1/2 cup white wine (optional)

Put all this in a pot. Cover with cold water. heat slowly to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 4 hours. Strain out the solids. Chill, remove the fat when chilled. Save the fat, it's useful to cook with where you want some turkey flavor, such as in gravy. Keep the stock refrigerated and the fat too.

The wine is helpful particularly if you're working with a cooked carcass and nice with a raw carcass too.

For Chinese stocks, they change up the aromatics so the ingredients are:

Bones from 1 turkey carcass

2 large onion, peeled and cut in half or quarters

3-4 carrots, washed, trimmed and cut in chunks. If really thick perhaps cut them in half lengthwise too.

4 ribs celery

3-4 cloves garlic, crushed

4 star anise

1 inch chunk of ginger, cut in round slices, like a coin

10 pepper corns
1/2 cup ShaoHsing wine (otpional)

Put all this in a pot. Cover with cold water. heat slowly to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer for 4 hours. Strain out the solids. Chill, remove the fat when chilled. Save the fat, it's useful to cook with where you want some turkey flavor, such as in gravy. Keep the stock refrigerated and the fat too.

Goi Cuon (minus the diacriticals)

Vietnamese Summer Rolls

For any fan of Asian food, these are a treat and simple to make.

The Rice paper is made from just ground rice and water. The batter is poured onto a fine fabric stretched over a large pot of boiling water. It is tilted or scraped out to the right thinness if needed and left to cook quickly in the rising steam.  It is then lifted from the fabric and left to dry on a woven bamboo mat. Viet World Kitchen has a better description and pictures of the process. One of Martin Yan's cooking episodes also shows the process.

There are different sizes but for this dish, the round ones about 8 inches across are the ones I prefer.  When you're shopping for the papers, pick up some rice paper trays. These are round perforated plastic trays, about 9-10 inches across. These trays make softening the rice papers simple and also simplify rolling.

If you can't find the trays, you can soften the papers by hand and roll them on a dampened cloth towel.

I tend to make a meal of these and let everyone roll their own with what they want in them. The trays make this possible. Without the trays, I used to pre-roll all the goi cuon myself.

Many different fillings are possible. Generally you'll have a meat or seafood, some herbs, lettuce of some sort or another, rice noodles and a sauce. For this particular meal, I used some char siu I picked up at Costco. I usually keep a package of this in my freezer for quick meals like this. Some sliced cucumbers, rice noodles, a spring mix salad (Costco again) and some Basil and Cilantro. I usually have some Nuoc Cham on the table for people to season their rolls with. A peanut sauce is also commonly used, but my taste preference is the Nuoc Cham.


Prepare the Nuoc Cham (See next blog post) I prepare this first to give the garlic some time to infuse the sauce.  I made a bowl you can see in the background of some other shots, but here's just a spoonfull I'll use for my servings.

Soak the rice noodles in hot water. When they're soft, drain away the hot water and coat them with a little toasted sesame oil so they don't stick together in one bunch. While they're soaking, you can do some of the other prep, but keep an eye on them so they don't get too soggy.

Slice the Char Siu and cucumbers.

Prepare the herbs, in this case some basil and cilantro. Mint, lemon balm, culantro, ra rahm, and many other herbs are good here too.

If you're using a whole leaf lettuce, this would be a good time prepare the lettuce. Here, I used a commercially available spring mix of lettuces. If you don't have trays for the rice paper, you might make a roll, then roll it again in a whole leaf of lettuce. This keeps the rice paper from sticking to other rolls on a plate or to the plate itself. They can be quite tenaciously sticky.

I had my daughter prepare the rice papers while I did some of the other prep. But with the trays it goes pretty fast. I prefer to lay a sheet on each of the trays I'll be using and stack them up.  You'll see that I have two different sizes of papers as I was finishing off the tail ends of two different packs of rice sheets. The larger sheets just barely fit on the trays.

Then I take one extra tray that I use to encase each rice paper as I soak it in the hot water. Below, my daughter spins each cased rice paper through the hot water.

I reuse that extra tray for each sheet of rice paper. Then I stack each softened tray of rice paper for use during the meal.

We prepared 15 rice papers. In the course of the meal itself, you'd take a tray with a softened rice paper and lay it on your plate. Then you'd start to add the different ingredients. What ever you put on first will be the presentation surface so it's common to use a colorful ingredient first. Quite often, you'll see three shrimp laid out.  Here I laid on some Char Siu strips.

Then cucumbers.

Basil and Cilantro

Rice noodles.

A stack of spring lettuce mix. I'll be squishing this down in as I roll it up so don't worry that it's overfilled.

 Now roll it up burrito style. Fold the bottom up onto the lettuce and compress a bit as needed.

Fold in the right side,  again compressing as needed.

Now the left side.

And roll it the rest of the way up. Notice the Char Siu is now on top and displays nicely through the rice paper.

Set the tray aside and you can now dip or drizzle on the Nuoc Cham and enjoy your goi cuon.

Soy Sauce

Soy Sauce is a staple ingredient for cooking throughout Asia though it originated in China. 

Soybeans are cooked; mixed with flour and a specific mold as well as salt; covered in water and allowed to ferment. Sometimes other things are added like sugar, alcohol and caramel color. 

There are regional differences of course. Japan generally uses more wheat flour to create their preferred flavor profile. Though they also produce wheat free tamari soy sauce. Indonesia uses a thicker and stronger soy sauce and so on.

For China, there are primarily three soy sauce types: Light or Thin, not to be confused with Lite or reduced sodium; Dark, Black or sometimes Thick soy; and a Mushroom variety of Dark soy sauce.  There is a Thick soy that's different from Dark soy as well, but it's not commonly encountered.

Wikipedia summarizes their characteristics well:

• Light or fresh soy sauce (生抽 shēngchōu or 酱清 "jiàngqing") is a thin (low viscosity), opaque, lighter brown soy sauce. It is the main soy sauce used for seasoning, since it is saltier, has less noticeable color, and also adds a distinct flavour. The light soy sauce made from the first pressing of the soybeans is called tóuchōu (simplified Chinese: 头抽; traditional Chinese: 頭抽), which can be loosely translated as first soy sauce or referred to as premium light soy sauce. Touchōu is sold at a premium because, like extra virgin olive oil, the flavor of the first pressing is considered superior. An additional classification of light soy sauce, shuānghuáng (雙璜), is double-fermented to add further complexity to the flavour. These last two more delicate types are used primarily for dipping.
• Dark and old soy sauce (老抽 lǎochōu), a darker and slightly thicker soy sauce, is aged longer, contains caramel, and may contain added molasses to give it its distinctive appearance. This variety is mainly used during cooking, since its flavour develops during heating. It has a richer, slightly sweeter, and less salty flavour than light soy sauce. Dark soy sauce is partly used to add color and flavour to a dish after cooking, but, as stated above, is more often used during the cooking process, rather than after.
  • Mushroom dark soy (草菇老抽 cǎogū lǎochōu): In the finishing and aging process of making dark soy sauce, the broth of Volvariella volvacea mixed into the soy sauce and is then exposed to the sun to produce this type of dark soy. The added broth gives this soy sauce a richer flavour than plain dark soy sauce.

Going through my various cookbooks and looking for recommended brands these are the results.

Light Soy Sauce

Kikkoman is the first pick of Grace Young and Barbara Tropp. Tropp also likes the reduced sodium Kikkoman. While Kikkoman has a wheatier, sweeter profile than most Chinese soy sauce it is nearly universally available and quite compatible in the role of Light Soy Sauce. I've used plenty of Kikkoman in the past. It's a fine product but I prefer more Chinese-oriented flavor profiles over this.

Koon Chun Thin Soy Sauce is an equal pick for Eileen Yin Fei Lo and Bruce Cost's recommended brand. I've done some testing with this brand and it is a quality brand. Good complexity and nuanced flavors. High salt content for my situation though. If you use this soy sauce, pay special attention to balancing flavors as you finish the dish. Use less if cooking from my recipes as it will be overly salty. Alternatively, you can increase other flavorings to bring it into balance as well, but that's a trickier path. 

Pearl River Bridge Superior Light Soy is an equal pick of Bruce Cost and respected by Barbara Tropp though she prefers Kikkoman. This soy is often recommended on the internet and is the soy sauce I've used for some years now. It's lower in sodium than most other brands which is one reason I use it. Beware though, the bulk plastic jugs of this soy sauce are rated about 600 mg/tablespoon more sodium per tablespoon than the glass bottled soy with the same label. I don't know why. My recipes are based around this brand.

Yuet Heung Yuen Soy Sauce is preferred by Eileen Yin Fei Lo and Mai Leung. I've not noticed this sauce in a local store yet.

I did a taste test of Koon Chun, Pearl River Bridge and Kikkoman Reduced Sodium Soy Sauce. It was enlightening as it taught me the perils of taste tests. Whichever soy sauce you used to develop the recipe will taste the best in that battery of recipes.

Amoy First Extract Light Soy Sauce is one I've been playing with for a few days now. It's only slightly saltier than the PRB. In comparing the flavors it has a more balanced nuanced complexity. However, it also contains sugar and caramel color. First extractions are normally used only in dips and not for cooking. I do think the nuances would be lost under heat and other flavors and best reserved for dipping. It costs more than the Pearl River Bridge as well.

See this update about Pearl River Bridge.

Soy sauce is inexpensive and it's worth conducting your own taste tests to discover what you like best. 

Dark Soy Sauce

I've not experimented as widely with dark soy. It's used almost purely in cooking and it's nuances aren't as clear used that way.

Amoy is the preference of Mai Leung though she differentiates her preferences among dark, double black and mushroom dark soys.

Koon Chun Double Black Soy is Eileen Yin Fei Lo's pick. 

Pearl River Bridge Mushroom Dark Soy is recommended by Mai Leung, Barbara Tropp,  Bruce Cost  I've mostly used PRB mushroom for my Dark Soy  but don't have a strong preference in this category. It gets a lot of votes from respected authors though.

Yuet Heung Yuen  Double Black for Mai Leung as she differentiates among the different types of dark soy

The preponderance of using the Mushroom variant for all Dark soy uses is one I practice too.

History of Soy Sauce is a worthwhile source for details about soy sauce.

Also my update on soy sauce testing, http://itsallabouttohappen.blogspot.com/2013/10/soy-sauce-choices-2013.html

Aromatics

Garlic and Ginger are what we normally think of for aromatics in Chinese cooking. 

The grocery store is full of convenience items for managing these as many people think they're tedious ingredients. Jars of pre-peeled garlic cloves, even jars of minced garlic and another of minced ginger. But they're both pretty easy to cook with from fresh garlic and ginger.

For ginger, I prefer to cut off what I need and then further prepare it.

If it's just a "coin"--a US Quarter sized slice--I'll cut it off, then trim away the peel.

For larger amounts, I prefer to cut off a chunk, or knob and peel it with the edge of a spoon.

I'm still figuring out this camera and my lighting so you'll see some color shifts in the following. I apologize.

From there I can cut rounds of the appropriate thickness.

For a small amount of minced ginger, an easy technique is to smack the rounds of ginger with the flat of the blade.

This breaks up their structure. If you smack it at a slight angle so it also drags across the ginger, it breaks up the ginger even more. If needed, you can run the knife through it in some quick chops.

If I need more ginger, or strips or a lot of minced ginger, I prefer to slice the knob of ginger into thin planks as the first step.

Stack them, or if the stack isn't stable orient them lengthwise and overlapping in a shingled manner. Then it's easy to slice them into thin strips.

For a mince, orient the strands all in the same direction, then cut across the strips in small steps to form the fine dice or mince further as needed.

For garlic, the steps are pretty similar. Smack the garlic clove at a slight angle with the flat of the knife to break it up and free it from its skin. Pick out the skin.

Chop through the garlic a couple of times to form the rough mince.

Once:

Twice:

If you need a finer mince, drag the edge of the knife across the garlic while pressing on the knife with one hand.

Scoop it up and place it with your ginger.

For a stock or soup, you usually want to add some aromatics too. But it you usually don't want to leave them in the stock or soup with the other ingredients.

I like to us a teaball to convert a western stock into Chinese stock. I load the teaball with crushed garlic, ginger, and sometimes some star anise. The teaball makes it easy to remove all the aromatics in one step.

Here I'm using some low sodium chicken base to form the basis for the chinese soup in the earlier post. It's there on the spoon, and the teaball and some dried mushrooms

On a related note, i use a big teaball when I'm pressure cooking beans. The  onion normall falls apart, but the big teaball makes it easy to remove from the beans.