[0:00] Broadcasting live from Roberta's in Bushwick, Brooklyn, you're listening to heritageradionetwork.com.

[0:20] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. I'm Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live every Tuesday from 12 to 1245 from the back of Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick,

[0:33] Brooklyn. Here today in the studio, of course, with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez, as always. Hello, Nastasia. Hi. She's doing something or other on the computer. I don't know. Probably having to do with the event we're doing for 300 people tonight. Is that true or false? No for Thursday. For Thursdays, Museum of Food and Drink event, which I believe is sold out, but if you know someone, you can get tickets.

[0:52] I.e. if you beg and plead, you can get tickets. Although we are theoretically sold out, is that true or false? Yeah, that's true. It's true. So I shouldn't even talk about it. if they're going to donate a lot of money, we'll take people. I see that we're at that point now, huh? What's a lot? over a thousand. Oh, Jesus. Oh my god. Anyway, uh, you have to email Nastasia for that kind of uh, for that kind of information, you know, go on the blog, whatnot. Anyway, calling all of your questions, cooking or uncooking related, I guess, or technical or

[1:20] not too. 718497 You just wrote this wrong. She's trying to fool me. I happen to know that the last the last 4 starts with two. Yeah. So you kind of know the phone number. He pretends. I know, I kind of know it. I know when it's wrong. Look, it's like spelling. And when I see it, I know that because isn't spelled that way, but just spelling it out isn't the same.

[1:41] You know what I mean? Call in all your questions, 2718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. Anyway, today's show is brought to you by, uh, again, Chris Anderson from the Monest Pantry. Good news for all of you looking to get ingredients people out there. He was able to get his hands on some TechnX SPL. The miracle enzyme, which we use for French fries, recipe on the blog, www.cookingissues.com. Enzymatic peeling of fruits to get really amazing peels with no albedo. That's the white crap, or to do auto supreming. We also use it for clarification. self-clarify things like apple juice, but you need a center for you to do stuff like strawberry puree. Although I have way around that. I haven't posted about this yet, although I will because I found out that I'm still way behind on my contractually obliged posts per

[2:28] week and they're trying to ship me off to do a demo for the school and they won't pay my obligatory day rate because they say I'm behind. So I'm going to have to now go ahead and do all those things so that I can then stuff it in the appropriate people's faces.

[2:41] Anyway, true or false? Yes. True? Anyway, they're listening. Ah yeah, come on, please. Anyway, I'm going to read the thing straight up, right? So you get, today's show is sponsored by modernist pantry, supplying

[2:52] monitors ingredients for the home cook. Whether you were looking for hydrocoloids, PH modifiers, or even meat glue. You'll find it at modernist pantry. And if you need something they don't carry, just ask. Chris Anderson and his team will be happy to source it for you. With worldwide shipping,

[3:04] modernist pantry is your one stop shop for innovative cooking ingredients. Fan of cooking issues in order during today's show, we'll get 08s of transportaminates again, they're running. All right. No, no, they're running the Pecanex. Yeah, but what's the number on the, I have the, I'll look it up on my thing. But apparently they're still running the Transgutaminate special. So fans of the show call, what? Well, Jack just handed me the thing. Well, see whether you get it. See whether you get it. Try to get some free some free crap. Try to get transglutaminates for free. They said CI 53. in the promo code CI 55. Yeah, but CI 53 is the Miklu. You'll get packed All right, listen. Listen, you want a domestic shipping. It's like a drug dealer. They give you the free 1st sample? No, this is just free to estimate. Not shipping on Pectonex. Oh, free domestic shipping on package. For those people that call in during today's show, you will

[3:48] get, if you enter CI55. I'm sure he'll have it maybe for a whole week. I don't know. Uh, if you enter it, you will get free domestic shipping on Pectanex SPL, the ultra enzyme. Anyway. Oh, I like that. I like the reverb on that. That was good, Jack. Nice. Uh, Anyway, uh, oh, and it says maybe you could talk briefly about how you use

[4:05] Pectonex for the benefit of the audience, but it looks like I already did that. Anyway, I'm very happy if someone is finally carrying this thing and that, you know, who's a real person that ships stuff out and it's not us just shipping the stuff out of the school because that was a pain in the butt.

[4:18] You hated that. A lot, lot. Anyway. Okay. First question comes in from longtime questionnaire, Colin. First a response to what we said, because last week he had suggested maybe you could use an ultrasonic homogenizer, which is quite a violent tool as a toothbrush.

[4:37] Uh, and he says, well, listen, I know that you're not supposed to

[4:41] stick your teeth on it and rattle your brains into little bits. I don't have his actual comment here, copy, but he still thinks maybe it would be fun. I say again, do not attempt. Do not attempt, Colin. But for his other question. Going back to the museum, a food and drink fundraiser that we had a back in, what that was that, May? March. March. Back in March. Wiley did a dish. I gave Wiley Caveman food. Every chef had a theme that they had to do historical or fun, like, you know, Wiley had

[5:10] Caveman and Nils had, what do he have, food as, no, he had diet, fad diets. Anyway, so for caveman food. Wiley did an amazing looking dish that looked like it was just a split bone. It was done with high-tech stuff, actually, but it looked like twigs and branches and bones, looked very

[5:26] caveman. It was awesome. And one of the things he did, that looked like little twigs, was in nochi mushrooms that he had dried, and turning these twigs. That's actually the only thing I got to taste off that dish and it was good. I'm sure Nastasia had a whole one. had no food that day. Even you had no food nostalgia. Now, just to let you know how hard Nastasia was working, Nastasia would stab a coworker in the ear and let every piece of food you were cooking burn,

[5:47] uh, rather than give up the attempt, the possibility of taking any morsel of food, even your

[5:52] mise en place that you need for the dish. So it just goes to show how dedicated she is to the museum that she did not try that dish. Anyway, um, I, I, like I said, I had just the Inoki mushrooms and they were good. So Colin writes in, when he made the twigs for his caveman dish, did he use fresh

[6:09] enochi, then season a dehydrate, then or did he use a nochi, bought pre-dried? Come on, Colins Wiley. Of course, he bought fresh annochi, seasoned them and dried them. Come on. Come on. They were fresh. which is what I recommend you do. And this other question is, uh, what other than marketing and gold dust makes Quantros verification kit different? Any idea what their formula was? Okay, for those of you that don't know, spherification is turning fluids into tiny balls made popular by

[6:35] Faran Adria. It was an industrial thing to make fake blueberries, an X, Y, and Z for a long time, typically uses sodium alginate, which is a gel that is, you know, has a lot of good properties from

[6:45] a structural point of view and a lot of bad properties from a taste point of view because it's a taste thief. Although I do like the balls when they're properly made, but it's hard. Anyway, so Quantro thought they were going to get into what some people call molecular mixology, a

[6:59] term I detest and abhor. It sounds gross and I think it's dumb. And they made a kit there will teach basically anyone, any regular bar person to make little balls out of

[7:12] Quantro and then add Quantro balls to dishes. And I believe they mix some gold dust in to make shimmery, quantro, shiny, tiny balls. I think that's what it was, shiny, tiny balls. I'm not sure what they added to the kid, whether it was a mag stir unit or something like that. But I believe that they were just using. I hope they were using calcium glucinate and not calcium lactate. I mean, calcium chloride as their salt, because it's basically alginate plus calcium equals, you know, alginate plus calcium equals

[7:39] a gel. So you make an al, you make an alternate mixture with your quantro, you drip, dip it into the calcium and boom, she sets. Pretty sure that's what they were doing. I don't think they were doing reverse verification because it's more difficult and they were trying to train people to do it who had no training with hydrocoloids. So I believe that it is just marketing gold dust, alginate, and calcium. Hopefully, calcium lactate glucinate because it's the least flavorless of the thing. And I believe a scale. You get a scale, so you can measure this stuff out. You ever see him do that, Nastasia? No. I've never had a Quantro, tiny ball cocktail, but, you know, I'm willing to try one. Although I have my doubts about the tiny ball phenomenon in general. What about you? You like tiny balls? Oh, fresh balls came. Fresh what? Fresh balls came. Fresh. Oh, Nastasia ordered for her boyfriend. The product fresh balls, which cooks across the world, apparently tell me, is much, much better than putting like cornstarch or whatever else you're going to put into your pants to keep yourself fresh during service.

[8:39] Nastasia looks horrified. Well, Nastasia brought it up. I mean, I have to say, I was not going to mention this at all. A tiny balls is an alternate food product that is absolutely wholesome

[8:51] and family oriented. I do not like the alternate balls at all. All right, then. And, you know, I don't want anyone writing or calling in, saying that I suddenly took the show to a bad place when I believe it was

[9:02] Nastasia who brought it up, and then, you know, you're not allowed to bring up an inside thing to our viewers without me explaining what's going

[9:08] on. It's unfair to the listeners. Moving on. Alvin writes in about centrifuges. Okay, because I just did a post on centrifuges. Okay, now I want a centrifuge. Actually, I wanted one before ever since I had corn butter at Mirvold's lab in Bellevue, Washington. That would be nature Mirvold of Monitor's pantry. What size should I buy? Where to look? Perhaps eBay. I think you mentioned once on the radio show about finding one super cheap because of a misspelled auction. one of my favorite things of all time. I got a centrifuge for almost nothing because they spelled it like, what did they spell it, like central centra feuge or something? Something wrong. I forget. Centrifuge, something crazy. Finding one super cheap because of a misspelled auction. The approximate cost, I got it for under 100 bucks, plus shipping was sick. Awesome. Thing works great, by the way. Don't be, you know, not to make you jealous or anything, works great. Please answer on the radio show because I listen to the podcast religiously. By the way, will you guys be at the Star Chefs ICC,

[10:04] which is the International Chefs Congress, not to be confused with the renaming of the French

[10:09] Culinaries Building, the International Culinary Center, although it is confusing, right? Confusing. Do you find it confusing? Anyway, anyway. Well, Alvin, we will not be there as participants this year, we don't have to work

[10:22] it. We just get to show up. Boom! Every year. I've never seen any of the demos because we're working the whole time, right, Nastasia? Anyway, this time, I'll be hanging out and getting liquored up at the whoever the wine and beer sponsors are, I'll be going to the seminars given by my bartender friends and watching

[10:42] chef's demo and learning stuff, like a normal human instead of running around like a chicken with my head cut off, right?

[10:48] Right. Should be fun. Anyway, okay, now to his question. Okay, you want a 4 or sometimes three. You want a 3 to 4 liter benchtop centrifuge. If you can find one, refrigeration is not necessary, but refrigeration is helpful. If you're only going to run one or 2 batches, it doesn't matter, but when you're running a thing all the time,

[11:09] uh, and you don't have time necessarily really chill your products down, they can heat up somewhat

[11:13] uh, somewhat drastically in uh, in a centrifuge because of all the friction of the thing spinning around. You want to make sure, uh, what you do is you look up whatever rotor you're using and you, uh, you can look it up on the internet. There's all sorts of calculators that help you figure out how many times the force of gravity,

[11:30] any particular rotor is generating at a particular number of revolutions per

[11:34] minute, and you can look it up. You want to get about 4000 G's to be able to get the best benefit out of it, including all the stuff you do with enzymes and things like that.

[11:42] You're going to want to get yourself some pecton XSPL, of course, so that you can just clarify everything like a Mamma Gemma. Now, the reason I recommend 4 liters is because a 4 liter, you're really spinning about 3 liters at a time. And I find that it really is a convenient size because if you have less product, you can spend 2 buckets instead of one, we sometimes even spun one bucket of product and then the other bucket just had like sugar in it as a weight to keep it weighted down. And it's just a really good size. We can put a lot of product through it. It's, you know, pretty economical to time-wise to run. So I really, really like it. You could maybe get a 3 liter fuse. Um, I didn't enjoy using my one that only had uh, 500 by six. It's like a liter and a half or something like that. What is 500 by 6? That's 3 liters, but it didn't seem like it did 3 liters in those little bottles. Maybe it was 250 by five. Anyway, it was like a liter and a half fuge. And I didn't really like it. I had to spin it so many times to get enough product to work. You know what I mean? And plus you need to have a little bit of air at the top anyway. so you end up losing. I would get a 3 to 4 liter benchtops interfuge. If you, apparently, someone told me at the class I taught last weekend that

[12:51] the price has gone up substantially on eBay since we've been screaming loud and long, everyone needs to buy one. Um, and so I don't know whether my particular model, the Xuan, uh, you know, C, whatever it is, C, C 12, C 14, is

[13:04] uh, still a good deal, but you should be able to get one for about a 1000 bucks in good working order,

[13:09] 1200 bucks in good working order. I never paid more than 200 for mine, but I'm willing to wait around and wait for something broken and fix it. Brand spanking new. There 8 grand. Uh, and so that should give you a, uh, that should give you an idea. Is that good answer, Stas? Yes. All right. Now, let's go to our 1st commercial break. And while we're doing that, pick up your phones and download your questions. 2 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128.

[13:38] We're having a party. Dancing to the music. Played by the DJ. On the radio. The coats are in the ice spots. Hot bones, or the table. Me and my baby. We're out here on the floor. So, just an easy day. Keep falls, like a plane. Cause I'm a habit, such a good time. Dancing with my baby. Just to give you an idea what kind of person nostache is. She wanted to cut the song off before you said dancing with my baby. No soul. No soul on that lady, right? Right, guys? Yeah, we're getting some nods from the room over there. Then don't come in and ask if we're ready, Jack. Well, he knows not to cut it off before he says dancing with my baby. Come on. Please. Come on. anyway. And you know what's funny? Nastasia used to work for MTV and like loves bands. loves going to see bands, kind of, doesn't like to be in the audience, likes to be side stage, and yet

[14:58] she, like, an actual song comes on. Couldn't care less. Anyway. It's not true when it comes to Hall and Oates. No, it's true. Hall and Oates, if you had cut if you had cut off man eater at a bad time, she would like, all of us would be dead because that's her theme song. Oh, wow. Boom. All right. So, Johnny writes in with lots of questions. I really enjoyed the discussion last week about which blender brand to purchase and day's promotion of induction cooktops. Do you guys have an opinion about brands for induction burners? I own a couple of cook techs. have been happy with them, but I'm wondering if there are others that I should look into? Unfortunately, Johnny, I don't have enough experience. Cook Tech. I know a lot of people that use cook techs, they're out of Illinois. I believe, you know, they're a US brand, and so most people building them in. I haven't heard a lot of horror stories about cooked text versus other induction units in a commercial environment, which I'm assuming you're in a commercial environment because most people who use cooked texts are in commercial environments. The main problem with inductions early on is everyone wanted the holy grail, which is induction units over an oven. Induction range over an oven. And no one, I don't care whether it was French companies or cook tech or whomever. No one made induction units that that wouldn't burn out when they were put over an oven because they just, you know,

[16:13] the electronics weren't cooled effectively enough and they would always just burn out. And that was what happened. That was the last time I checked into that was maybe 4 or 5 years ago. So I'm hoping that they've solved that problem, although I don't know if they have or not. The other problem I've seen with induction units, Cooktop, CookTech, and otherwise is just shattering of people like putting a heavy pot on something in a commercial

[16:34] environment or dropping a, you know, dropping a pan down on it and boom, they shatter. And so those are the 2 things that I know had always been the Achilles heel, not of

[16:44] Cooktex in particular, but of all of these units. So I'm hoping that some of those problems will change. I think when you're looking into, when you're looking into induction units, one of the interesting things is you can configure them kind of however you want, and so you can buy dual units that are either side by side or front

[17:00] back. Uh, I thought the front back units were pretty cool because you could treat, you could stack them like a regular range, which is awesome and you could just make any number of burners you want, but the guys at

[17:10] Sam who have one have a problem because they won't accept a big stock pot. So just figure out what you want. And I think Cook Tech is a fine brand to go with. I'm going to get back to some of Johnny's questions in a minute because we have a caller. caller you are on the air. Hi, Dave. This is Garrett from New York. I have a question about tinctures. Um, and basically I was wondering if the rapid and infusion technique that you talk about on the blog, is there a way

[17:35] to uh, do tinctures with that? So, you know, you don't have to wait 6 weeks for his 7 tincture or whatever. Okay, well, so here's my feeling on that. So, um, the rate of infusion, what kind of proof of alcohol are you using very, very, very high? Well, since I'm in New York, they can't get grain alcohol, but I guess the highest thing, I know I can get is like solely 100 or, you know, something like that. You can do 151 is the highest proof you can get here and they sell a, I sell one that was slightly higher that was illegal, but you can get 151 here.

[18:06] Okay. You can't get, you can't get higher than 151. So, but you can go to New Jersey or Connecticut and get it and get the everclear regular Everclear. It tastes bad, regular, ever clear. You could try to source some like lab or perfume grade. And if you convince someone that you're a business, you can get lab grade 200 proof, which is sweet. I don't get 200. Get the 195 USP lab grade. It's really pure. It's awesome stuff. And if you find it on sale, it's not that expensive. Okay. But back to your question. Um, I think that the the flavors you get are not going to be exactly the same. If you want a, if you want it to taste like an old school tincture, then you're probably gonna need to make an old school tincture. Will you accelerate the infusion by doing rapid infusion? Yes, 100%. But the exact ratios of uh, you know, different compounds that are extracted under the different uh, kind of time and pressure regimes might not be exactly identical. Maybe it's going to be better. Maybe it's better. Maybe it's worse, maybe it's just different. I think you have to have tested. So if you've made a particular tincture before, right? You can make one using the rapid infusion technique and and I think have a good result, but it might be different. Another thing is, is that when I have rapid, right? I'm typically doing rapid stuff in the one to 5 minute range. Now, there's been people who have tested, uh, trying to do more traditional tasting like several week tinctures by keeping the stuff under pressure on the order of 8 hours or overnight or one day and then venting the

[19:44] vessel. And I think people have had some good luck doing that, and that might taste closer to a traditional

[19:50] tincture because you're basically the amount of time it would take the liquor to percolate through and get an intimate contact and kind of displace the air that's inside of some of the products that you're

[20:01] steeping would be, uh, you know, basically you get through that part of it right away. And then it's just, uh, it's just the, you know, the the, the marrying once it's together and then, you know, shooting it out that you

[20:12] get. So that might be another way to do it if you want to give that a shot. Yeah I will. Thank you, Dave. Hey, no problem. Thanks for calling in. I love questions on infusions and tinctures, right, Stas? Yeah. Now let's see if I can get my iPad. Oh, I have another caller? Caller, you were on the air. Hi, uh, hi, Dave. I have a question. If I, so a lot of recipes call for chicken or vegetable broth,

[20:36] um, and if I don't have any in my apartment and I can't really like run out and get any, what can I do?

[20:41] Like, what can I use instead of that? Huh. But you want it to taste like that? Well, I mean, I guess so. I guess it's not so much, like if I'm making, like, a barley or something, and I know that it might be too bland without the chicken or vegetable

[20:55] broth. Yeah. I mean, and you just can't keep it in stock because you forget. Right. So it's like, it's always one thing that you have in your kitchen and you forget and you forget to buy it until you don't have it. Yeah, okay. Now, listen, don't, don't tell anyone who's not listening to this, but there, like, there's whole groups of people who you otherwise respect in

[21:15] Europe, who keep, uh, who use on a regular basis, like Brodo, broth, bullion

[21:20] cubes. And there are higher quality ones than the ones that we normally get in the US, even made by the companies that make the same ones in the

[21:29] US because it's more of a respected product in certain places we show that shall remain

[21:35] nameless Italy. And so in other countries, like these broth cubes, Brodo, they call them, right? Cubes, what do they call them? Yeah. They you know, they are a, they are considered a valid ingredient. So what I would do is, is if your buddies are going to bother you about it, hide it in the back of your pantry. If not, say like, you know, who shove that stick up your butt? This is a valid ingredient, stop being so provincial and look at the world. Uh, and then uh, and then what you do is you just have that there. Use your normal stock when you have it and then have one of those sitting around just in case all hell breaks loose and you don't have it, right? Okay, that sounds great. But you're going to have to remember, you're going to have to change the amount of salt that you have in your recipe. So you're going to want to make sure that there's no pre-salting going on. Okay, with the with the buoyon cube. Yeah, and the other thing I would recommend. And this is another good one is stock freezes almost indefinitely. So what I tend to do when I'm doing a bunch of, do you have a pressure cooker? don't. Okay, well, buy a pressure cooker. Anyway. Step one. Yes. After you buy a pressure cooker, even if you don't. Like whenever you're getting chickens, I tend to buy whole chickens and then I break them down. And then I just, uh, I throw the, uh, I throw all of the bones

[22:41] and and, you know, you know, backs and necks and stuff into, uh, into zips and throw them in the freezer. And then after I've accumulated, you know, like 4 or 4 chickens worth. I just, I throw the bones in the in the pressure cooker and just make a quick white stock. Don't even buy. I mean, like it's better if you roast everything, but don't even bother. Just throw it in with some veg, clamp it, and like 20 minutes later, you know, you have

[23:03] passable stock, you can freeze into cubes, and then you just have, so you have 3 layers now. You have some stuff frozen and then you freeze them in ice cube trays and then put them in zips. And then you just throw individual cubes of frozen in and they melt relatively quickly.

[23:16] You don't want to freeze big cork containers of it because then you have to thaw a whole core container out. Yeah. Yeah. So now you have 3 layers that are going to protect you. Yeah, wow. that was really great. Thanks so much. I never thought about the ice cube idea. That's really cool, though. Oh, well, I forget who I stole that from back in the, probably from Jacques Pepin or Julia Child, someone back in, you know, way back in the day. Oh, that's okay. I won't tell anybody else. Dave Arnold's idea. All right, cool. Thanks very much. Thanks for calling in. All right, so now back to Johnny's list of questions. He writes in, are there any details, is there any detailed information on changing the oil in a vacuum sealer. Commercial vacuum machines, another indication that Johnny's in a commercial kitchen. Commercial vacuum machines use vacuum oil. And that's how they seal, how they get a good seal on them. And it's one of the reasons why they're much better than a food saver, any sort of home

[24:02] machines, because they have a much higher grade pump. That said, occasionally you have to change the oil. You don't have to actually change the oil very often. Oil gets contaminated with water every time you vacuum something with water in it. And you clean it typically just by heating the pump up, by running it, letting air go through it. It boils the water out and makes the oil clear again. But when the time comes to change it, you change it much like you change a car. What you just, you run the vacuum pump to get the, what's it called? The pump hot so that the oil is a little runnier, right? And then typically it depends on the machine, but you might have to undo a couple of bolts and move the pump out.

[24:34] It's just attached by hoses and pipes and stuff. You move it out a little bit. There's typically a filling port at the top and one on the

[24:41] side, and you drain it just like a car. If it had any grit in it. You should look at the oil and make sure it had no grit in it. If it had grit, seal it, pour some fresh oil in, run it vacuum oil. You can get it any industrial supply place, like McMaster.com or Grainger, or

[24:55] uh, MSC direct, and run it with some fresh oil, drain that again, fill it with fresh oil. It doesn't take much. Usually these things take under a quart. Uh, under a court. Anyway. And that's it. It's fairly, fairly simple. Okay. Lastly, Johnny wants to know, uh, he was listening to the Nathan Mirvold episode that we had, uh,

[25:16] and and particularly the discussion on confit, uh, where we sit, where Nathan basically said that you could steam a duck and it's the same thing as doing a confit.

[25:24] And he's wondering how steaming could produce the same results as cooking in fat. He guessed that he just assumed that the fat had some beneficial effect on flavoring. Now, that's one of the more controversial things that mirror old, young, you know, and everyone, you know, Max were saying is that, um, confit, the fat actually doesn't make

[25:42] any difference in that what it was is fat is a very gentle way to cook something in a liquid that's not a poaching liquid,

[25:50] right? So when you when you poach something in water, you're you're basically you're, you know, fluids are exchanging, you're beginning more of a poached duck, uh, or a braised duck, then you are a confit

[26:01] duck. But since the fat is considered a dry cooking medium and it doesn't really add moisture or

[26:05] move moisture from the or water soluble stuff from the duck, it's a way of doing a

[26:10] gentle, low temperature cooking back in the day before there was any sort of low temperature,

[26:15] right? And if you roasted it in the oven without the fat. You get much more evaporation loss off of the duck, so you'd end up with a much, much drier duck. So it's a way to protect and cook the duck. But Mirville's thing is that basically it doesn't actually add any appreciable flavor to the duck at

[26:33] all. I don't know. I've never run the side by side test. The only way to do this is to do one in a combi oven set on steam at 85 Celsius or something like that. Uh, and uh, do another one, uh, traditionally confit, or even in a bag sous vide confit, although you shouldn't do it in a bag because nothing can evaporate off in the

[26:51] bag. So you should do it basically traditional. In fact, in the city. Here's what you should do. You should get one combi oven, run one in a pan, just steamed, and the other one in the fat, in the same cavity at the same time, and for the same exact length of time, same temperature regime, and see which one comes out better

[27:08] if there's any difference. I'm assuming, knowing those guys, that they did that, and they saw that there wasn't any difference. So I'm going to have to say that the way that they were doing it, it didn't make much of a difference. What do you think does? All right. And apparently that wasn't the last question because he says, sorry for all the questions, but he has one last question. He does a lot of low temperature cooking, but his partner doesn't like it because she's worried about the harmful effects of cooking things in plastic. I showed her manufacturer's recommendations and that I cook things under the temperature that they recommend, but she points out that plastics have continued to have increased negative effects that get revealed after new introductions and after new, you know, whatever research

[27:40] that comes out, and not enough is known to show it is safe. Is she worrying too much or is it a valid concern? It's very interesting because, I mean, the main problem is you either trust that it's safe or you don't trust that it's safe. You can't prove that something is safe other than saying,

[27:58] you know, we've used X, Y, and Z for a long time. There doesn't appear to be any negative effect. Now, the fact of the matter is that a lot of these plastics haven't been around super duper long in food processing

[28:09] things, and there's all sorts of problems that we're having these days. And some people point to things like plastics, but they also point to things like high fructose corns. They point to a lot of things. So it's very difficult to know, and it's almost impossible to prove that something doesn't have an effect, unless it's by centuries of use. You know, it's very, very, very difficult. I will say this. Um, I am fairly certain. that there are materials that leach from plastics into food when you're cooking. The question is, are those, and depends on the plastic, of course. The question is, are those things harmful? The reverse happens too. Things in your food leech into the plastics, which is why plastics sometimes take on smells and can't be cleaned properly.

[28:51] It's mainly with fat soluble things because the fat, you know, fatty things tend to, um, you know, have a cross-talk with your plastics more often, which is why if you use a crappy plastic wrap that has a

[29:01] smell and you wrap a fatty cheese in it, the outside of the cheese just tastes terrible. You've had to happen, right? It does. Disgusting, right? It's because the cheese is absorbing plasticky flavors. and vice versa. So you want to you want to be careful. Now, I would stay away from certain things that have, if you, for instance, if you're worried about BPA,

[29:21] this phenol A, right? Polycarbonate, has, you know, has it, right? We don't wrap the food in polycarbonate, but I would use polycarbonate and drinking vessels all the time. So if you're worried about bisphenol A, you stay away from that. I would stay away from cooking with PVC because it has lots of stuff in it,

[29:38] including, you know, plasticizers and thalates and all sorts of things. So, and but luckily, most plastic wraps aren't made of that. Most plastic wraps nowadays are made of polyethylene. And polyethylene usually doesn't have plasticizers, which are the things that are, you know, people most normally blame for a lot of the problems in

[29:55] plastics these days, but they, you know, they do have things in them. Uh, you know, other things like ethyl vinyl acetate and polybutine that are added to make things cling better, they have solvents in them that are used to, uh, you know, during the process of making them, that

[30:09] they're then flashed off. And are there the residual things like that? Sure, there are. I mean, have have there ever been shown to be any problem with them? Not that I know of, but it's very difficult. I feel confident using polyethylene at low temperatures. Um, but it's very, it's very hard to, It's very hard to say. Um, you know, the, a lot of the bags have, you know, the bags that we use. cooking bags have nylon, which is also relatively, you know, considered inert and, you know,

[30:38] not harmful in any way. So, what do you think, Nastasia? What's the upshot of that? There is no upshot, right? Have I have I helped at all or I just... I don't know. Here's some things. You can also cook in glass jars and a pressure cooker. You can cook in fat directly without cooking in, um, without cooking

[30:58] in in bags at all. Another thing, people have experimented making kind of foil pouches to cook things

[31:04] in low temperature. Uh, you know, and I think there's going to be more, you know, more and more people are going to be interested, but you could just do low temperature directly in stock, directly in fat,

[31:15] uh, in uh, glass, packed in glass uh, in uh, like I say, foil, although I haven't done that many experiments with it. So there's alternatives you can use if you're worried for certain dishes, if you're worried about the plastic. Yes? Yes. Okay. Chris, should we take one more break? Okay, one more commercial break. Call in all your questions too. 718-4972128. That 718-49728. Too much love drives a man of sling. You brought my will. But water free. Girl, let's graze a great ball to fire. I left that love cause I thought it was funny. You came along and moved me, honey. I've changed my mind. Because love was fine. Good to miss, good raises, great balls of fire. Give me baby. Oh, feel good. Oh, no, baby. Well, I will do love you like a lover should. Oh, you're fine. So kind. Got to tell this world I jumped. And let's remember that if it's Jerry Lewis, he's talking about a 15 year old. That's not, but I'm thinking, but all I can think of is Jerry Lewis singing that to like a 15 year old. Oh man. I had to take it to a bad place, right? But listen, I like his music, but don't you think about that when you see, like when you have a musician that, you know, has like a crazy, and look, I respect him greatly as musician, but when you think of someone who has a crazy foible like that, don't you have to think about it every time you hear the

[32:47] music? Wasn't it his cousin too? Now you're just making fun of the South. I don't appreciate that. I'm pretty sure. I don't know. don't know. Anyway, Chris Fear, we're going to get in trouble on this one. Like, you know, but with the fresh balls in this, it's bad. been a bad day. Anyway, Chris Beer writes in about ISI Infusions. Hi, David Nastasia. I have a cocktail question. For you. I been doing a lot of ISI infusions and fat washing. and I have a question about rancidity. Even though I freeze and strain my fat washed alcohol. Is there some residual fat that can go rancid over a period of time? I air on the side of caution and keep it in the freezer, taking out as needed, and let it come to room temperature for proper dilution. Also, I have infused nuts into alcohol and an ISI. Is there any nut oil that would seep out and go rancid at room temperature? I don't usually keep ISI infused alcohol in the freezer. My cocktail obsession, didn't start until I took your hydrocoly class last November. Thanks for the enlightenment, crisp beer. Well, thank you for the compliment. That's very nice. Okay, look. When you're fat washing, a certain small amount of fat is soluble in the alcohol, and that's frankly where some of that taste is coming from. Now, as to whether or not it goes rancid. If you're worried about rancidity, one thing you can add is a little bit of vitamin E, which is kind of a fat, you know,

[33:58] fat soluble antioxidant that you can add to try and prevent rancidity. I don't know. Can you just buy that in the store? Vitamin E? Can you just buy a vitamin E in the store? Yeah? All right. You can just go buy it, Toko ferol. Um, but I called up. I couldn't get in touch with Don Lee, but I was trying to get him and John

[34:15] Darragon, who were 2 of the guys at PDT, who used to blast out their famous Benton's bacon, bourbon, fat

[34:24] washed drink for their bacon, bourbon, fat washed thing. It was hugely popular PDT. I don't know what, 4 or 5 years ago, some of that, 4 years ago, whatever it was, three, 4 years ago. And so I said to John, here's the quote. John, did you ever have rancidity problems with fat washing? And then he writes back, he wrote, we didn't have the product around that long. I was like, all right, all right. Have you ever heard about the problem? Because I have a radio question about it. He says, no. But then again, putting bacon sticks in a bottle of vodka. People putting bacon sticks in a bottle of vodka, probably experiencing it, uh, and won't know it because, I don't know, because they're drinking too much bacon in vodka or

[34:57] something. He said something unprintable, so I can't print it. But he basically says is that he, there maybe there's some rancidity happening, but he hasn't noticed

[35:04] it and people who are like doing a lot of bacon in vodka probably don't notice either.

[35:09] He also says, he thinks it depends on the shelf life of the fat. Someone doing a lobster fat wash will have much less stable shelf product than a duck fat or bacon fat. Would be interesting to see if there's a relation to proof of spirit versus stability of product. I agree, John. It would be an interesting thing to look up. I mean, to test. I don't know. I mean, the one thing we do with fat a lot in the ISI is cocoa nibs,

[35:31] and of course, you know, cocoa butter is going to get dissolved in there, but cocoa butter is famously stable against oxidation. You know that's why chocolate lasts so long. I mean, you know, it loses its temper, but it doesn't go rancid. You know what I mean? But, you know, Eben has done a lot of butter fat washing. I wonder whether it goes ransom. I mean, certain things do go bad when they're infused. You know, remember, did you ever have this, the hops one, got all skunked. Nastier. She was 13 and his 1st cousin. You got to speak more into the microphones. She was 13 and his 1st cousin, but his management all insisted she was 15. Oh, wow. See, just like me to believe the management story. Just like you. You know, just too trusting. Company man. Yeah. Matthew writes in on sauerkraut and slow roasting. Hey, Nastasia, I hope all is well with you and Dave. I had a question. I was hoping you could answer them when you had time. I heard Dave mention that lactic acid contributes to sauerkraut type flavors. In fact, it's the acid that you get from lactic acid bacteria making sauerkraut. And you can distinguish, you know, a pickle, you know, an actual lactic acid pickle from a vinegar pickle based on lactic acid. I'm working on a bratwurst sandwich for my business. Sounds good, that I plan to top with pickled purple cabbage. Would it be possible to incorporate a small quantity of lactic acid into my pickle cabbage to suggest a sauerkraut type flavor without actually going through the fermentation

[36:47] product process? Does this make sense, and is it a good idea? Well, I don't know. It's interesting. I've never had really a mix of lactic and vinegar, like a

[36:56] semi-vinegar lactic. I mean, maybe I have, but I haven't I haven't made it myself, so I don't know. Look, it doesn't harm you at all to call up terror spice or modernist pantry. Does modern pantry carry that? I have no idea. Anyway, call them up. Get yourself a bag of lactic acid. It's not that expensive. powder form. I used to get liquid form, but it's a pain to deal with. Don't get that. Just get the powder form, because it stays around forever, and sprinkle it in, and, you know, it really does add, it depends on how you think about it. Sometimes people think of it like cured sausage. Sometimes people think of it like sauerkraut depends on what it's attitude. I'm assuming if you add it to cabbage, it's gonna taste like sauerkraut. Uh, you know, I happen to really love sauerkraut. And so my feeling not having done side by side taste test is you're not going to get the same sort of

[37:39] complex, delicious flavors uh, from a quick pickle that you are from an actual fermentation that produces lactic acid bacteria.

[37:49] On the other hand, quick pickles can just be fresh and delicious tasting, and there's no reason why they can't have a lactic acid flavor as well as a vinegar flavor, right?

[37:56] So, you know, you know, I don't believe in things necessarily, uh, using them, just a shortcuts, but I definitely believe in doing something that's going to make it more

[38:05] delicious. And so if it's a delicious product that you stand behind, then I think it's a good idea, you know? Yeah. Uh, along the same veins. Does shocking, slow roasted or braised meats in an ice bath affect the reabsorption of juices into the meat? I often slowly brace slabs of bacon or other meats wrapped in plastic and foil in the oven at temperatures between

[38:24] 200 and 250 Fahrenheit. I was under the impression that during the cooling process they reabsorb some juices that may have secreted during the cooking. It would speed things up for me to be able to plunge them into an ice bath after braising in order to chill them quickly. What worries me is if this would affect the overall outcome of the product in terms of juiciness. It absolutely will. Absolutely will. This is one of the things that we do in the sous vide class every time we run

[38:46] it, is we show the effect of cooling on pieces of

[38:50] meat if they're too rapidly cooled. And this goes back to something I learned, maybe six, seven, 7 years

[38:55] ago, from Bruno Gouseau, kind of one of the grandfathers of, you know, low temperature cooking, is that you want to cool meats relatively slowly, in order to have them reabsorb juices

[39:08] properly, and that once they get much below about 50 degrees Celsius, they stopped reabsorbing juices.

[39:14] And so you want to ramp the temperature from cooking down relatively slowly. Now, I'll tell you what he recommends. Bruno Gouseau recommends, and we've done side by side. I'll tell you what he recommends. He recommends you take a product out of your cooking bath, and you just leave it on the counter, in air, on the counter for, let's say it's a thick product like you're talking, like a bacon slab, 20

[39:34] minutes. Then throw it into tap water for 20 minutes because the air is not a very good conductor. It's gonna heat it, cool it relatively slowly. Tap room temperature tap water, much better conductor is going to start dropping it down a little more rapidly. After that 20, throw it in ice, and it will get all the way down in a relatively quick and safe amount of time without having to worry about,

[39:54] you know, whether it's going to be chilled properly or not. That's what Bruno Gouseau recommends. And we've tested various regimes from throwing it directly in ice like you recommend, or not you recommend that you ask about, and then versus just going on the counter for 20 minutes and then in ice versus the full

[40:11] Gousseau on the counter, then in water, then in ice. And there's not that much of a difference between the full gousseau and just leaving it on the counter for 20 minutes and then throwing it in ice. So if you have to admit that step, you can, but there is a marginal difference and his method is marginally better. There? Fair. The full gousso. Okay. I also have a small sandwich business, he writes. I would like to make a cheese sauce to serve over a braised beef sandwich. I'm looking for a more temperature stable solution than any traditional Mornay sauce. For those of you out there who don't not hip to it. Mornay is basically a béchamel, so you take a roux, like a flower and butter. You cook it. You add milk. typically they would scald the milk beforehand, but I don't think it's really necessary because milk that we use has been pasteurized, right? And then that thickens up when it comes to the boil. Usually you cook it off now for like 20 minutes to get rid of any residual, starchy and flour flavors. And then towards the end, you stir in cheese to make a delicious cheese sauce.

[41:08] Like, you know, classic would be Gruyere or something like that, right? Styles like Gruyere, because she likes all kind of like fondue y, Swissy kind of crap. She's like, she loves like Italians and Swiss, right? And people. I thought, like, you're the one always coming to the, coming to the defensive, the Swiss people. I make fun of them because they're neutral and you're like, no, they're great. I like their food culture, mostly. But not the people. So you don't like Swiss people? You're going on record saying you don't like Swiss people. I like some Swiss people. All right, all right. Just curious. I was just asking. Okay. Where was I? Mornay sauce. Okay, ideally, I would like to be able to make this sauce ahead of time and just heat it up for service without having to worry too much about

[41:49] it breaking. I'm not sure if it matters, but I would like to incorporate cheddar. I should have said, I would like to incorporate delicious cheddar into the sauce. My goal is a more delicious version of cheese whiz made from actual cheese. I'm not at all averse to adding strange chemicals into the mix. I want the main flavor to come from actual cheese, i.e. not from processed cheese. Any thoughts or ideas? This would be a great assistance. Thanks, Matthew. Okay, look. We've all had cheese sauce go grainy, right? Have you had a cheese sauce, go granny, or have you just never made a cheese sauce before? Yeah, we've all had a cheese sauce go great. She is not paying attention. She's literally staring off into Roberta's waiting for her pizza that is soon to come. So there's a number of things. like a couple problems with cheese. Some cheeses just don't melt very well, right? And they go grainy. The other problem with cheese is you heat them up and they break. So, you know, the basically the fat is bound in kind of a protein and water

[42:38] matrix, and then it breaks and it turns into a fatty, goopy thing and then like a curdled, nasty protein bull crap, and your sauce is ruined, and or it's grainy. And you want to try to prevent all those things. So one of the things you can do to prevent that from breaking is to starch. But of course, there's already starch in your sauce. You can add, you know, maybe a little bit more starch that's not necessarily one that you need to cook off as

[43:00] much, like a rice starch or something like that. Um, but I'm going to talk about non-starch related stuff to get it to go. Obviously, if you're making, if you're having a problem with getting ropey, right, you can add a little acid, which is what McGee

[43:12] recommends and is why fondues always have white wine and then to increase the acidity a little bit, so they tend not to get ropey and they tend to stay smooth. But if you're having melting problems, right? And you want to know how it is that Velveeta is so freaking delicious, but you want to, not from a texture standpoint. I'm not saying you like the taste of Elvita Nastasia because she's making a stink face. I'm saying the stuff melts like a genius. Is there any better melting tree? Is there anything more? Like melty, awesome, and queso dip made with velveeta, government cheese, and rotel tomatoes. Delicious. Anyway, my point is, is if you want that melty thing, you have to add something called melting

[43:51] salts. So what they do is there's a whole category of things called melting salt or emulsifying

[43:57] salt. And they're, use different ones. Sodium citrate is one that you might already have if you have hydrocoloids sitting around, or different sodium phosphates like monosodium phosphate, things like that. You add, you take your cheese before you make a sauce, take the cheese, grind it up fine, mix the salt in in the, in the area of like a percent or something of, of this stuff,

[44:21] right, of the, of either. Try sodium citrate, although I haven't used it like monosodium

[44:25] phosphate, you can get these things on the, you know, maybe you can get them from monos pantry. Well, Chris will get it. anyway. Sodium citrate, you probably already have if you do algerine or things like that. Grind up the grind or grate the cheese. Toss it all together with this. If you need to add some other liquids, if it's too dry, add liquids to it, if you need to add extra fat, add fat to it, if it's very low fat cheese, to try and get it, you know, in a

[44:47] relative into the relative proportions of a good melting cheese, like a Gruyere or something like that, or like Velveeta. Now heat that, right, until it forms a smooth block, until it forms a smooth curd, set that. And then you can use that cheese as the melting cheese in your Mornay

[45:04] sauce and it'll be a lot more stable. What do you think, Snows? I think it's a good idea. All right. So, uh, in doing this, I went and read a bunch of stuff on the internet. And, um, oh, also, if you add some of these things, they can make the pH of

[45:18] your, of your thing, they make it more basic because these things tend to make it like the, their alkaline, they make it more basic. And so it's going to affect the texture of your cheese. You need to add a little bit of an acidifier to the cheese as you melt it to bring the pH back down into the slightly pH

[45:33] range or you're going to have a problem. You can use citric acid, you can use whatever. You can use whatever you want, you know, lemon

[45:40] juice, anything, anything you want. Okay, so what I would do is go read, uh, if you want, if you want to go stuff, go to the university of, how do you pronounce it in Canada? Guelph, University of Guelph. They have the best, like one of the best dairy sites, and they have an entire section on how to make processed cheeses.

[45:58] Uh, and so you should go to their to their website, the University of Guelph, look it up. If you want some cool pictures of what these things look like under the microscope, the little known food under the

[46:10] microscope blog, which you have to search for in Google under foods under the microscope, have a really cool section on it, and also a really cool section on how to look at the

[46:20] curved boundaries inside of cheese that you buy at the supermarket, using

[46:24] like a cheese slicer. Here's what you need. You need a cheese slicer, basically, and you need a sandpaper, and you need a 2 to 5% solution of glutaraldehyde.

[46:36] Now, that sounds like you're not going to have it, except for you can buy glutaraldehyde as a wart

[46:40] remover, in roughly the same percentage that you need, uh, and denatured alcohol and acetone. So you can get all of these things basically at the local CVS or Rite Aid, uh, and

[46:51] and and do it, but I don't have time to go through their uh, procedure, but just go under

[46:56] foodsunderthemicroscope.com and look up their awesome procedure for looking at curb boundaries and cheese. Lastly, we just got a call in from I don't know from whom? Oh, from Don Lee, texted us in. By the way, Donnelly is tending bar from cocktail. He's, you know, representing Cocktail Kingdom with Greg Bohm, which is a fantastic company that sells all sorts of awesome bar gear, including like the world's greatest ice pick for, um,

[47:21] it's an awesome ice pick. Like, I have no idea whether it makes ice crack any better than anything else, but you want to hold it all day long and tap people on the head with

[47:28] it, who bother you? Also, by the way, about them, not to push them or anything, but in general, I have a negative feeling about many reprints of old books because they're done so poorly.

[47:38] And, you know, Greg, who does cocktail kingdom, is also a publisher and an avid book collector, of cocktail books. And I saw one of his reprints of, I think what was it, the flowing bowl or something like that. And it was such a good quality reprint that I thought he had reset the manuscript. That's how good they are anyway, whatever. And they're being gracious enough to be one of the bartending crews at the museum event on Thursday. Don says, uh, regarding rancid fat. I have tasted a rancid fat wash, and it was seriously no bueno, but it was also a fat wash gone terribly wrong. They didn't freeze the fat and properly remove it. The fat was left in slightly above room temperature for 48 hours and definitely had gone rancid. The longest state fat wash I've done was 12 hours with ghee at room temperature before freezing. And that's just from Don Lee, and this has been cooking issues.

[48:32] Fishes, fish, and butter. Oh, you did that.

[48:46] Thanks for listening to this program on the Heritage radio network. You can find all of our archives programs on HeritageRadioNetwork.com as well as a schedule of upcoming live shows. You can also podcast all of our programs on iTunes by searching

[49:03] Heritage radio network in the iTunes store. You can find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for up-to-date news and information. Thanks for listening.

[49:19] The Heritage Meat Shop has just opened in the Essex Street Market, opened from 9 to 7 Monday through Saturday and 10 to 6 on Sundays.

[49:27] The Heritage Meat Shop supports independent family farms and animal welfare approved and certified humane raising standards.

[49:33] Most importantly, they offer a wide variety of heritage breeds. So stop by, get a sandwich, try the charcuterie, the heritage meat

[49:41] shop at the Essex Street market. This is a message from Fork and Anchor. Aaron Fitzpatrick, the host of our wine program, Unfiltered, is looking for help on Kickstarter to open fork and anchor, a general store inspired by 2 food loving ladies with an equal affection for urban life, the sea, and the agricultural paradise of Long Island's

[49:59] Northfork. The store is situated in a growing community of farmers and wine makers, and will become a meeting place offering prepared foods, a variety of sun dries, and a selection of homespun products, many of which will have their origins in New York

[50:10] State. Your backing will help them fulfill their dream of fostering relationships with

[50:14] the community and making the local food system accessible on a broader scale. Search Kickstarter.com for fork and anchor and donate today.