The World Table

An interactive culinary compendium: recipes, lexicon and study

Michigan · Soup

Michigan Booyah

  • Advanced
  • 5 h
  • roughly 3 of 4 for cost

clean · simple A quiet dish that lets its main ingredient speak: season well and stand aside.

Ingredients

  • 1 chicken, cut up
  • 500g beef shank
  • 500g pork shoulder, cubed
  • 4L water
  • 3 onions, diced
  • 4 carrots, diced
  • 4 celery ribs, diced
  • 500g potatoes, diced
  • 300g peas
  • 300g corn
  • 200g green beans
  • 400g crushed tomatoes
  • 2 bay leaves
  • Salt and pepper

The skills inside

Keeping the cooking liquid

Allergen screen

Found: celery

Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.

Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.

Method

  1. Simmer the chicken, beef, and pork in the water with the bay 2.5 hours until all fall apart. Lift out, shred, discard bones, and keep the broth. 300 min
  2. Return the broth to the pot with the onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes and simmer 45 min. 45 min
  3. Add the tomatoes, peas, corn, and green beans and cook 30 min. 30 min
  4. Return the shredded meat and simmer 1 hour more until everything melds. 60 min
  5. Season well. It should be a thick, rich meal in a bowl.

How to tell it is going right

This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.

Keeping the cooking liquid 60 recipes

  • It was actually kept: the liquid went into a container rather than down the drain, and the volume saved is enough to be worth using.
  • It is clean: strained of solids and grit, and not clouded with the debris of whatever broke up in it.
  • It tastes of what it cooked and tastes concentrated rather than washed out, and it is not so salty or so bitter that the only honest use is the bin.
  • It was cooled quickly and stored cold, not left standing warm on the stove to be dealt with later.
  • Used, it does the job the dish gives it (carrying flavour into a sauce, loosening the dish, or setting when chilled) rather than merely adding water back.

Where it goes wrong The pot was left to cool slowly on the stove and only strained the next day, so it soured overnight: what should have been the best ingredient in the dish goes in the bin, and the recipe gets water instead.

At the Table

The Pour
Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec
Also Right
Tempranillo (Rioja Reserva)
From the Taps
Amber ale
Zero-Proof
Sparkling water, make room

Tannin binds to seared protein and fat: each bite softens the wine, each sip resets the palate: the steakhouse equation.

Saved on this device and kept across visits: export from My Menu to move them.

Film school

This dish, cooked on camera Search films of Michigan Booyah Search YouTube: J. Kenji López-Alt on Michigan Booyah A YouTube search for J. Kenji López-Alt and this dish. No affiliation.