(no subject)

[cblj_backup]

I bought ham hocks today. I've never done that before. Until a few days ago I didn't know what ham hocks were for. I'm still not sure what part of the pig they come from. I'm assuming somewhere around the ankles.

For those of you who weren't around last year about this time, I had an allergy test (and an ulcer, all at once!) and it turned out I am allergic to a lot of random things. Melons and basil are my favourites, I think, because I don't eat those anyway.

Turns out the big ones the test said I was allergic to are: Chicken, turkey, peanuts, salmon. Technically it's a "sensitivity" but I have since learned the degrees of "sensitivity" by not eating those foods for a while. Turkey's okay once in a while; I get lethargic, but then who doesn't after eating turkey? Salmon I only eat raw, because I don't like cooked fish, and it's okay too once in a long while, as long as I'm prepared not to spend any time with other people afterward.

Peanuts and chicken are seriously no longer part of my diet, especially because chicken induces misery; my joints hurt, I can't think clearly, and I have no energy. Shouldn't be too hard to avoid, though, right? No General Tso's, no grilled chicken sandwiches...except the big killer is broth. Chicken broth makes rice taste delicious! Chicken soup is my favourite! Chicken broth is used in tomato soup. But I have spent The Year Of Living Chickenless and I know how much healthier I feel. If you read back through my blog, you can see a sharp uptick in my activity levels right around the time I stopped eating chicken.

This is my life, y'all. This is the absurdity of my existence.

Anyway, I really wanted to make stuffing, and it's very hard to find duck boullion that isn't cut with chicken, and beef broth -- man, let me lecture you guys sometime on the amount of chemicals it takes to make beef broth. So I thought, I'll make pork broth. It has to exist.

Pork broth exists in basically two cultures of food: Chinese and Soul. Trying to create a coherent single recipe for pork broth out of those two cultures is an exercise in awesome. But the key ingredient to Soul pork broth is ham hocks, and ham hocks are available at my grocer's, so I bought some ham hocks. I covered them with water, set it to boil, added some garlic, apple, and onion, and now my entire flat smells like the best bacon you've ever eaten in your life.

After I put the hocks in, I made challah dough, which is now rising, and as soon as this ground beef thaws I'm making enchiladas. I AM A ONE MAN FUSION REVOLUTION!

Except for the bits that require chicken.

Comments

[ysabet.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... just a thought, but have you ever considered experimenting with Japanese soup stock, dashi? It's usually made from bonito and does NOT taste fishy to me in the least; the first time I bought some to use, I honestly thought it was chicken stock. Might want to mix it with veggie broth and see how that tastes to you; I bet it'd make a decent substitute, and one of the useful things about dashi is that you can buy it at Asian grocers in powdered or cubed form just like standard American/European-style chicken or beef bouillon. I tend to buy a jar of the powdered stuff, me.

[brainchild129.livejournal.com]

Yeah, dashi is ridiculously easy to make. If you don't want to buy it in instant bouillion-style form, you can make it using only two things (well, three counting the water): bonito flakes (which is basically a type of tuna which is smoked, dried, and then chipped into sawdust-like flakes) and kombu, a type of dried kelp sold in big stiff sheets. Don't take my word for it, though - take Alton Brown's (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lld2TBlZDZg).

[ysabet.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering if maybe the smoking is what takes away the fishy flavor, because it's just not there. And I've eaten a lot of bonito; it's lovely sashimi, but it sure tastes like fish. Not that I minded...

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I've never encountered dashi, but now I'll have to keep an eye out. One of the reasons I went with making my own pork broth is that hocks were easier to come by -- it's sometimes difficult for me to source various ethnic food ingredients. It's possible to get them in Chicago, it just means going more out of my way than I'm willing to for bouillon. :D