Kenji worship can be a little weird, but assuming because of his heritage means he can't cook Pho is ridiculous. His contributions to Serious Eats and America's Test Kitchen have immensely pushed food science forward.
He takes a scientific approach to cooking, and could accurately be described as coming up with techniques that are in the spirit of finding non-traditional ways of doing things.
He hacks food in other words.
Someone doing a technical write up about a new technique in their discipline is pretty hacker news to me.
OP here. Apologies if I overstepped, but it is kind of about hacking the prep. I was simply piggybacking on another thread about ramen, I wasn’t thinking of the hacking angle at that moment.
You didn't overstep, the preceding comment did. Anything that's interesting is on-topic here; even if the recipe isn't a "hack", if it's interesting it's a legit submission.
I appreciate the post if counts for anything. Cooking hacks to save time or elevate a dish to the next level or even allow me to make something without the proper equipment are always good to add to the toolbox. The coffee I am drinking right now is an example of that.[0][1]
I popped in here just to say I would fight anyone who asked why Kenji would be on HackerNews and yet I was too late.
Also, authenticity about recipes is the “but does it scale” of app discussions. It’s ok to just let people enjoy stuff. Not everything is a purity test.
The statement that electric pressure cookers measure pressure absolutely (i.e. not relative to local pressure) was news to me, and definitely a good hack to know if you're living at altitude.
Electric cookers don't "measure" pressure. They are thermostatically controlled via a sensor touching the bottom of the bowl and, because they are sealed, that temperature directly translates to the same pressure no matter what altitude you're at.
The temperature at the base of the bowl is close to the temperature of the mass of liquid / solids inside and at the base of the bowl, sure.
I'm less certain the same transfer function always returns the gas pressure at the top of the sealed bowl "no matter what altitude you're at" considering that at the starting point, when first sealed, ambient room atmospheric pressure varies with altitude: for the same initial food mass to be cooked the standardised gas volume included will vary with altitude.
(Alternatively, no matter the altitude, there's always a constant volume to fill with atmospheric gas .. and the mass of that gas will vary with altitude)
Kenji Lopez Alt is a well known chef who writes a lot about the science behind making food (which might contribute to it being HN-worthy). Though I understand where you're coming from, his ethnicity (Caucasian and Japanese; the Lopez comes from his wife) is irrelevant in the light of the fact that he is a professional chef.
Pho bo (beef pho) typically takes at least 8 hours and is better simmered overnight, so cutting it down to 30 minutes and still having a good result is very useful.
Check out Kenji’s book, The Food Lab. (Also the name of his blog before it merged with Serious Eats.) You’ll get a sense of what makes him popular among nerds who like to cook.
He used to own a restaurant in downtown San Mateo called Wursthall. It has since closed. He lives up in Seattle now but I am not aware of him being involved in any new restaurants.
Seems like you didn't read the article very well. Kenji is a well known chef that does a lot of testing of methods so many recipes come with a story but you can also just scroll to the bottom