November/December Foods Reflection

Phở

why did you choose this lab to reflect on?

I chose to reflect this lab because we were going to make a food that I’ve eaten and enjoyed throughout my life, and I have tried varieties of pho, I’ve eaten some in Vietnam, pho in the USA and Canada, and they all tasted great even with the extra MSG. When I was told that we’ll be making pho in school I was semi hyped, because I know school food taste a whole lot different than if it was made by a person who made pho throughout their life, and things will be taken away to fit school food standards.

Did you enjoy this lab?

This lab was extremely fun to make, especially the broth, cutting the chicken and obliterating to small pieces was enjoyable and throwing all of that in a cauldron and then becoming a witch and stirring it like a witch was very very fun. Starting out to make a bowl of noodles from scratch lets me see and experience what its like to make a very popular food. When it came to the making and assembling of the noodles it self, quite fascinating that we used ingredients that we would find in a actual pho restaurant like, basil and beansprouts.

did the lab turn out the way you hoped?

The pho turned out to be okay, I wouldn’t say its the best pho I’ve eaten, to be honest it looked great and the noodles with the other vegetables were fantastic, but the broth is comparable with the starbucks unicon shake. Not the sweet or sour taste but, “I should continue to try it to see if I like it.” The taste of the broth was funky tasting, it wasn’t bad and it wasn’t good, it was just some smoky and salty soup. I drank a couple of bowls and my decision on the soup was still inconclusive, but everything else was rather enjoyable, maybe steaming the beansprouts would be great so it wouldn’t have that crunch.

Did the group work well?

Some of my group was away so we had to incorporate and merge some other groups with mine, and it was with hard working people that I know so I had a good feeling that it was going to turn out well. The lab Seemed impossible to mess up and I was right, we followed everything correctly, no mess UPS or screw UPS, but we were all confused with the taste of the broth.

what would I change about the lab?

 100% I would change the broth, lower the water amount and probably put some star anise in there, no group should have over 4 liters of left over broth by the end of the day. Also, steaming the beansprouts would be the most ideal choice, I was heavily confused why we would just let the soup steam the beansprouts so adding a steaming option would be good.