Conference turris::cooks

re: cloudy broth

I'm not Ian, but I know that if you have ANY fat in a chicken or other kind
of broth, and you add something chilled to it, the fat globules will solidify..
and the result can be a cloudy broth.  Does your friend try re-heating and
still get the cloudy result?  If so, she may need to strain out the residue
from the broth - through two layers of cheesecloth in a colander before making
the finished soup.

The easy way to defat and strain broth is to chill overnight in the fridge.
lift the solid fat off the broth and discard.  reheat to true liquid form
and strain through cheesecloth.  Go from there.

I have been on "holiday" for a couple of weeks. Sorry about the delay.

I agree with the foregoing: I suspect the problem is fat.

When my wife cooks it she trims off all the fat from the chicken (scraping off 
the under the skin fat). A little residual "oil" is then skimmed off before 
adding the lime juice. 

The idea of chilling and skimming would probably work (but we don't do it, so 
I'm not sure).

/. Ian .\

    Thanks for the replies.  I've been away from the conference
    for a while.
    
    My friend, Ann, uses shrimp instead of chicken so we kind of
    discounted the fat theory.  We couldn't think of any other
    fat in the recipe.
    
    Ann has this soup whenver she's in Singapore (and I had it
    there as well last year when we were visiting).  That's
    where she got her recipe.  The two versions of the soup 
    taste almost identical.  The only difference seems to be 
    that Ann's soup gets cloudy and the restaurant version 
    remains clear.  Ann was going to try this recipe when she 
    got home to Japan.
    
    Still a mystery but thanks anyway.
    
    					Donna

if the soup is thickened at all, you may be dealing with the difference
between thickening using corn starch and arrowroot.  In most cases,
arrowroot is used if you want a crystal clear product - corn starch can
leave the product a little cloudy.