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Comment by abdullahkhalids | Hacker News Reader

Occasionally, I will make a soup that lasts about a week, adding things every day. So not perpetual.

One problem I encounter is that some ingredients disintegrate badly (like noodles), which is not a problem when making it in a huge restaurant pot, but becomes a problem when you have a typical large home pot. I have resorted to cooking noodles separately and then adding them to my bowl, rather than putting them in the pot.

Generally, I also want more ingredients ideas that I like, which is still an open problem. Sometimes I add something new and it destroys the taste.

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The trick is to use a pasta cooker basket which hangs from the edge of the pot like the ones restaurants use. You dip it in to the perpetual stew so that noodles can cook in the broth then take it out when it’s ready. They’ll still dissolve if you leave it in too long but at least with this method you don’t need to boil a separate pot of water and you can infuse the noodles.

> noodles

Replace them with a heartier starch like lentils or farro. As a bonus you also end up with better micro and macronutrients than you'd get from enriched egg noodles or the like.

My current meal prep stew comprises olive oil, pork, leeks, garlic, carrots, mushrooms, lentils, onions, tomato paste, and kale. For seasoning I'll throw in red pepper flakes and italian seasoning along with some balsamic vinegar if I don't get the depth of flavor I want. A little gorgonzola or other blue cheese on the side really sets it off.

The first rule of perpetual stew would be: do not add anything which can be overcooked

Most starch and carb-heavy items wouldn't be a good fit.

I guess potatoes would eventually disintegrate completely and just make the soup/stew a bit thicker. But yeah, soggy noodles sound unpleasant - but when the perpetual stew was actually in use hundreds of years ago (in Europe), noodles weren't really a thing yet...

Thickening is maybe the most interesting component! I.e. how do you make a thick perpetual stew?

I'd assume thickeners have different behavior when cooked for 1 week+, as you start to get some byproducts you don't normally see in "fresh" cooking.

I used to add cream of mushroom (found in cans) to the soup, because I really needed the calories. It really thickened the soup and did pretty well. You can also just add corn flour (pre-mixed in a water before) and it thickens up the soup easily.

If I consume 1/3 of a well mixed soup every day and top it up to full, then in a week, only about (1/3)^7 = 0.05% of the first day stuff remains. You don't really have to worry about the longevity of the ingredients.

I have the base with some vegetables that last two weeks like tofu cabbage carrots and onion celery like mirepoix and in separate containers the stuff that deteriorate if in stock like broccoli/mushrooms/spinach/other greens/veggies and add in the separated stuff to the base in a smaller pot along with ginger/garlic/sesame oil. This way I can buy and cook several things in bulk and use them as needed over a week or so, adding them to the base.

I suppose, the original practice of perpetual stews solves this by continuously adding both new ingredients and liquid. So while the stew itself keeps going on, every individual ingredient and flavor would vanish after some time and be replaced by something new.

Stew of Theseus

Given the size of my pot and my appetite, I eat about 1/3 of the pot every day, and add about 1/2 a pot of liquid+ingredients. Some of the liquid obviously boils away during the daily cook.

I found this out by trying to use up some olives in my black beans and rice the other day. Devastating.

Olive fried rice is quite popular in Thailand and southern parts of China. However, it uses the Chinese olive (橄榄, Canarium album), which is usually pickled and mixed with mustard greens to create a gloopy black paste that your local Chinese grocery probably calls "olive vegetable" (橄榄菜).

What sort of ingredients keep well in this process? How about mushrooms and potatoes?

Anything you'd normally make a broth out of would be a great fit!

Including bones / carcasses.

The ones I throw that do well: carrot, cabbage, potatoes, mushrooms, leaks, corn, eggs, several types of meat. When I was a student, I used to throw in cans of cream of mushroom etc, but I don't eat canned food anymore.

The ones I take out after boiling for a while: onions, bell peppers, meat bones.

Ones that are kinda okay: beans of various sort (become too soft, yet don't disintegrate fast enough, and collect at the bottom of pot so difficult to take out), cooked rice.

Definitely bad: noodles.

Potatoes would disintegrate.

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