Eat Drink Style Canned Horror - Whole Chicken & Cheeseburger In A Can!

The Canning industry. A remarkable advancement in food preservation technology developed back in the 1800s. Its help feed impoverished families and starving soldiers.

But where do you draw the line?

Read more about this atrocity here – the photos are. First a chicken is de-feathered, gutted, beheaded and then dunked into a can and placed on the shelves of Vons for god knows how long. Being a chicken is tough.

And yes, you CAN HAZ A CHEEZEBURGER. If you really want.

Eat Drink Style Pho Ga - Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup Recipe

I think some of the most difficult dilemmas in my life take place in a Vietnamese restaurant. Why does everything on the menu have to be so freaking tasty. I have tried a lot of things, but always stick to the standard pho. Just when I tell the server that I want something tasty like charbroiled pork over noodles (bun thit nuong), I end up retracting my order and getting the eye from the server. I'm just not able to shy away from it, like a needy little kid. And like most cooks with a passion for noodles, I've attempted to make my own beef pho for pride and merit. $40 and 6-8 hours later, I finally made my first soup. It tasted fine, but there was something missing, as there always seems to be with home-cooked food. Is it the boatload of MSG that goes into it? Is it the pair of chopsticks and soup spoon that need a pre-rinse with tea? Maybe the server's thumb that always seems to penetrate the scalding hot soup? Whether or not any of these factors actually affect the taste of a soup, it's just not the same. After that last time, I decided it would be less of a headache if I just coughed up a whopping $5.25 for a solid bowl of pho at Pho Filet in South El Monte or Pho Thanh Lich in Little Saigon – two places that I love at the moment.

But all of a sudden, I missed making soup from scratch. Something fast and something cheap. Something that doesn't hog up all the space in my Le Creuset. And Vietnamese chicken noodle soup (pho ga) comes to mind. How expensive was it to make 6-8 bowls? $10, if you already have the spices! Everyone has found their ideal beef pho, as the best ones seem to be very consistent. The slightest decrease in the amount of MSG and spices used can trigger off the food snobbiness. But with pho ga, as I've learned, there really isn't a standard, consistent taste – it's comfort food . With that in mind, you'll be happy to know that pho ga is not difficult to cook and you're free to get creative with it.

There is nothing more boring than chicken breast – dark meat for president. Instead of using chicken breast, I bought leg meat because it has more flavor. If you have to have breast meat, cut that thing in half, cross-section style – you'll be a much happier eater. Let's do this.

Shower Time
(1) Place all the chicken bones in a large pot filled with cold water. Bring to a boil, and let it roll vigorously for 10 minutes to really force out the impurities. Dump bones out into sink and make sure you rinse all the chicken bones. Set aside.

Get Toasty
(2) If you skip this next step, you're missing the whole point of Vietnamese noodle soup. If you want your pho to compete with places on the Westside and Chinatown, then don't toast your spices – because they seriously can't seem to do things right. For this recipe, I used the following spice measurement, add more as needed:

10-12 star anise
2-2.5 tbsp. coriander seeds
1 tbsp. fennel seeds
1 whole cinnamon stick
8-10 cloves

This will yield a very strong anise and clove aroma. So cut down to half or completely omit ingredients if you're not fond of those flavors – I love it. Toast these in a dry pan on low heat for 2-3 minutes, careful not to burn the spices. When the aroma is apparent, turn off the heat and remove the spices from the pan. Tie up the spices in some cheesecloth and string.

Campfire Time
(3) You'll be toasting the ginger and onions now, to wake up the flavors. Over the stove burner, turn it on high. Using tongs, set the onions and ginger on the burners. For the onions, I usually peel away the outer skin because I really want to punish those onions and make them sweat. Same applies to the ginger. You don't have to evenly char them, 60-75% is fine. Over cold water, remove any of the blackened parts.

Hot Tub
(4) Add the bones, spices, onions, ginger, whole bulb of garlic (cross-sectioned to reveal the cloves of garlic) into the pot and fill it up with cold water. Bring to a boil and add some fish sauce to taste. The fish sauce is used to flavor the soup, not be the sole source of salinity. You should have a delicate hint of fish sauce. Once you've brought it to a boil, turn down the heat to a simmer. Add a 1"-1.5" piece of rock sugar. This is crucial in giving pho that gentle sweetness. Regular sugar would be too harsh.

Dinner Time
(5) After about 2 hours, you should test out your soup once more to dot the i's and cross the t's. After simmering for so long, you may need to add more water incase it becomes salty. Scoop out any impurities and get your scallions, green onions, white onions and herbs ready. Banh pho noodles are typically used (I like the Kim Tar brand but this one is good as well.) and I've had versions with thicker rice noodles used in hu tieu. To cook the noodles, bring some water to a boil and drop the noodles in for no more than FIVE SECONDS for al dente noodles. Serve with piping hot soup and a headband if you get worked up like I do when I eat noodles.

Jeni and I were really happy that this turned out well. It was very simple and to tell you the truth, I don't think you can really F this up. What I might do differently is reduce the amount of cloves – too strong. And I may actually use chicken breast versus leg meat because you need to have some texture – my leg meat was tasty, but obliterated from the simmering of course. And also, pho ga is best eaten the day you make it. The refridgeration process sucks the life out of the herbs. I left the spice bag in the soup and that made the clove aroma even stronger. Bleh. Enjoy and thanks for reading.

Eat Drink Style Pollo A La Brasa, Koreatown - The Gateway to Chicken Heaven

IF I WAS A CHICKEN, this is how i would go out.

First, I'll take the LA bus to Koreatown (because i'm too small to operate a vehicle) and walk to Pollo A La Brasa on Western/8th. I'd walk straight into the kitchen and proceed to be stripped nude of my feathers, like i LIKE it. The cook would then toss me on the cutting board and give me a ride on the guillotine.

Secondly, I would be tossed into a big jacuzzi of delicious Peruvian-style spices like and rolled around, flipped around, massaged (feels good) like I'm on a beach in Cancun. I would say hello to all my other friends lying right next to me.

"Hola!"

Then, I will have a stiff metal rod impaled through my body from what was once my starhole, through what was once my head and placed in a chamber filled with eucalyptus logs – rotating in an infinite prom-slow dance at at a nice toasty 700 degrees. Oh joy.

After that, i will be cut into 6 pieces and placed over the patron's choice of skin-on fries or vegetable rice. For $.50, they can get me in a very hot & bothered mood with the SUPER SPICY aji sauce made of lettuce, cilantro, garlic, mayo and serrano chilis. If they want a 1/4 of me, they will pay $5. If they want all of me, they will pay $9.75 for me. I whore myself to Angelenos at any cost.

If you dare drive with me, beware of the car in front of you. My body odor will drive you crazy. You'll be licking your fingers once you're through with me and crave me some more. I am pure seduction.

Living for a rightful cause, has never been so DELICIOUS. Will you seal my fate?

The stack of Eucalyptus wood.

The interior of Pollo A La Brasa, which is designed with a nice
hole-in-the-wall decor. I didn't get to see much of it.

Wee! I'm the 4th one to the left on the 2nd rod.
I think.

Resting in peace, juiciness and flavor.

Hola!

I saw these guys on the way in. Apparently, they are beef hearts – 4 pieces per skewered, and they are huge. I recommend getting these cooked medium rare and eat them fast b/c they will dry up quickly. Served with one large grilled potato and a corn cob - add salt.

Aji sauce.

Pollo A La Brasa
764 S. Western Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90005
213-382-4090

Pollo A La Brasahttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
16527 S Vermont Ave
Gardena, CA 90247
310-715-2494

***There is also a place called Pollo La Brasa on Vine, up the street from Mario's Seafood & Peruvian. Not the same affiliation. Anyone try that place?

I've just added PALB to my list of very important numbers. And to my list of my favorite chicken joints – Pollo Campero and Mrs. Knott's Fried Chicken.

Read about J's meal here.