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[1:20] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you every Tuesday live on the Heritage Radio Network from Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn from 12 to approximately 1245. Calling all of your cooking related questions to 718-497-2128. That 718-497-2128. Joined as usual in the studio witness, Tasha, the hammer, Lopez. How you doing? I'm good Yeah? Good. Well, we haven't been here for a couple of weeks. Have a lot to talk about. A lot has happened in the in the last couple of weeks. Well, the most important one being, and I guess we'll talk about this more towards the end of the show, but we opened the bar. Whee! Yay! Booker and Dax, it's Sam is now open for business. And you can come to 13th Street and 2nd Avenue, where we've put our whatever it is, foot where our mouth is, whatever. Yeah, we're trying all of the techniques that for years I've been saying you can use in a bar or a

[2:19] restaurant, and we're actually doing it, seeing where it's working so far, I think it seems to be going pretty well. Yeah. Yeah? You enjoy the drinks? You've been there as a customer a couple times. They're delicious. Yeah? All right. Anyway, we'll talk more about that later. And that's the reason we didn't have the show last week. I apologize. We were going to try to do the show last week on Tuesday, but it was our 1st day of friends and family.

[2:37] And uh, let's just put it this way, uh, getting everything ready was, uh, what would we say, a poop show? Is that the family way to say it? Poop show? Yeah, poop show. Even though it was our friends and family who are very forgiving folks. you know, still quite a poop show. We armed it all out. Come, come, come to the bar. But the weekend before that, a week before that, rather, I was in Sweden, which I'd never been before, very nice in Sweden. I was brought there by the absolute people. The absolute vodka. was like, do you want an all expenses paid trip to Sweden and then get to go to an ice hotel and what are you going to say to that? But yes, right? So anyway, so I went, and I found out something interesting that I didn't know. Our friend, the bartender slash writer of New York Times, Toby Cicchini. Did you know he basically invented slash popularized the

[3:26] Cosmo, the Cosmopolitan? I did not know that. I learned that, of course, you know, a proper Cosmo, if there's such a thing as a proper

[3:33] Cosmo, it's actually an okay drink, right? It's just, you don't, like, Nastasia is giving her vegan face because she hasn't drink vodka drinks. So it's basically nastasia's vodka slash vegan face. It's actually, look, everyone has the gripe against vodka. It's fairly neutral in a mixed drink of vodka, so it's just a question of like, you know, any, whatever, I'm not going to get into it. Cosmo tastes fine. But in order to make a proper Cosmo, you need absolute Citron, which is why Absolute was talking about it, because the popularity of the Cosmo was coincided with the launch of

[4:02] Absolute Citron here in the US. But the point of the story is, is that you would never peg Toby for the Cosmo guy. And by the way, I know there's a lot of argument as to who invented the Cosmo, like there's these people out in San Francisco that say they do it. don't really care. Absolute vodka basically says it's Toby. So if they say it's Toby, I'm going to go with that. In fact, Dale DeGroff, another one of our friends who was at the thing at the time did not dispute, he actually probably made it more popular because he was serving them to Madonna and Madonna drinking them in public, I

[4:29] think guess was a major spur to its popularity. Oh, it was sex in the city. I believe Madonna came before Sex and the City. This is the problem with you being a 2 year old. But that made it mainstream. Sex and City was much later. In other words, it was already a popular drink. Sex and the City chose it as their iconic drink because it was already a popular drink among the inset in New York City of models and types like that.

[4:49] Two-year-olds. She's not actually two, by the way. So, anyways, you would not expect this guy to be the Cosmo guy, because he's kind of a tall professorial dude who speaks, you know, in very measured tones and wears tweed

[5:04] jackets. Would you expect that from the Cosmo guy? Anyway. Last thing I'll say about Sweden, is that I got to ride a dog sled. Dog sledding's pretty awesome. Dog sledding. Do you know that they they don't stop to poop or pee? They just pee and poop, whether they basically shoot it out while they're running, and then they also, they don't stop to drink, so they just eat snow while they're going. Wow. And that there's no rains. It's not like UConn Cornelius. There's no kind of whip or anything like that. You just basically tell the dogs go left, right, and they all run. Anyway, dog setting onto the cooking questions. I don't know how Joseph, I apologize. I'm going to brutalize your last name because it contains an umlat in a position I am not used to. But Joseph, uh, Petra. do you think, Petter? I don't know. P-E-T-H-O-Uma, Petter? Anyway, writes in about meatballs. Dave, I'm planning to make meatballs this week and I'm trying something new. The meatballs will be around 3.5 centimeters in diameter. That's like an inch and a half for us in inch land, right? Something like that. Cooked sous vide, but not really sous vide, because he says there's not going to be a vacuum seal so as not to destroy the texture. So Joseph, you're not really cooking sous vide, you're cooking low temperature, right? Sous vide, it has to kind of be under a vacuum. And remember, I make that distinction specifically because the health department gets in, you know, gets all hot and bothered when you use vacuum here in

[6:19] the city, but not for low temperature. So I try to keep the term sous vide under vacuum, separate from low temperature, which is temperature control cooking. Or some people call it exact cooking or there's a bunch of different terms people use. Anyway, I'm going to cook them low temperature at 56 degrees Celsius, which is a good temperature for meatballs. If there's a high

[6:39] port content, people might freak out. It's not going to be a health issue. But it's just a question of what people want. 56 is going to basically be a rare, you know, medium rare kind of a meatball. So if you want it to be medium rare, it will taste great. It's just a question of visually whether you want it to look that way or not. Okay. I cooked them for about 30 minutes. I would cook them actually longer if you want to tenderize the meat at those temperatures. See, when you're grinding it, you're tenderizing it, but in fact, you can tenderize the grounds even further. So when I do a hamburger, I'll cook it for several hours at 55 or

[7:12] 56 to really tenderize and cook the meat. Anyway, for 30 minutes, and afterwards, the meatballs will be deep fried to finish them off at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 2 minutes.

[7:22] He's just like I am. He fries in Fahrenheit and fries in Fahrenheit and cooks in Celsius, crazy, just like me, crazy. Anyway. A go higher anyway. 350 is a little low. Go to like 365 and you don't need a full 2 minutes, although you can. Um, I think they should give good results and was wondering what you think. Okay. When I cook meatballs. This is a technique I use, but you have to fry them before you cook them in

[7:43] the Ziploc bags. And the reason why, is otherwise they'll stick to each other. What you want to do is get oil fairly hot and you want to flash fry for like 30 seconds, the meatballs, pull them out. Do not let them sit on a tray that will just break under their own weights at that point because you've heated the outside. So you want to put them directly into a bag. I usually put them into a bag with butter, but you probably could cook them directly in your meatball sauce if you want. And that's the way you cook them to stop them from breaking apart. Once they're cooked they won't be as fragile. You could pull them out, flash fry them. I obviously would bag them in something like butter and not in the sauce if you're going to do the flash fry afterwards because you can't fry the sauce. It would be a nightmare. Another point. 56 is going to be a little low for some of your customers. You might want to go a little bit higher, like 57, which is normally where I go. And another point that I make other than saying cooking longer than the 30 minutes that you're

[8:36] cooking is if you mix salt in and you almost always mix salt in with your meatball mix when you're mixing

[8:45] it. Um, it's the, the longer they stay, when they're cooked, kind of the firmer they're going to get, and the less you're going to have that kind of a low temperature

[8:54] effect. But on the other hand, the saltier and more delicious meatballs will taste. So you have to kind of trade off how much salt and how much mixing, but you never want to make your meatball. You want to make your meatball mix right away, fry it, make your meatballs right away, fry it, and then put it in the

[9:10] bag, and that's going to kind of give you your best results. And the more salt and the more kneading you do to your meatballs, the more they're

[9:15] going to get firmly packed, like a, like a, like a sausage or like a puck, and the less there'll be like a hamburger. So it depends on how you want your meatballs. Some people like their meatballs very loose, in which case you're going to want to add

[9:26] more wet, more filler, less salt, less kneading, or firmer, in which case more salt, more needing, and longer keep times.

[9:36] That makes sense? Yep. Okay. onto the next question. Naveen, our good friend Naveen, from Harvard, who was the TA Hetia, I think, right? Yeah. Head TA in the Harvard's Food Science course, friend of ours and a vegetarian that Nastasia ruthlessly berates him for for no apparent reason.

[9:58] Apparently. What apparent reason. He is the food TA. She's a food chase, so what? Why can't he be a vegetarian? How was he able to taste all of the wonderful things that those awesome chefs who go up there

[10:11] do? 1st of all, it's not about that. It's about teaching like science and cooking. And you're there. There's not like they're making a lot of food for people to taste. Still, science and cooking, and he only eats vegetables. I mean, I don't, I don't, I don't get you. I don't get you. You don't eat half the things in the world you eat, but you don't like. I eat. Whatever. Anyway. Naveen writes in. It was great to see you at Harvard last year. We did a couple of lectures last year at Harvard. Several of the students told me how much they enjoyed your demos during the science and cooking class. Must have been somebody else. My demos were a poop show, right? Big show. Anyway, there is a group of them who are inspired to do more research into cooking related science projects as part of a spring class that they're doing. So I was wondering if you had any ideas for them, which could be free R&D R&D for you. This is actually a complicated question. I'd have to think of what would be kind of appropriate for an undergrad to experiment with

[11:03] with the kind of level of cooking, that level of cooking equipment that they have there at Harvard. I mean, there's a ton of research that I would love to do that involves lab equipment that we don't

[11:13] own, but not cooking. And, you know, some of the similar stuff that, uh, you know, Ariel, our friend Ariel is doing over

[11:20] in, uh, at UC Davis with, um, checking how food reacts and doing qualitative tests on food. For instance, she's working on what happens to lime juice as it's stored over time. There's a whole bunch of tests like that that I like running. Um, I don't know. I'm going to have Naveen, are going to have to give that some thought. And also, if anyone out there has any interesting projects, maybe email them

[11:39] into us, right? Naveen, I'm going to give you more thought on that. going to come back to you next week with some good ideas. By the way, speaking of R&D. One of my former interns, Liz Button, who has a restaurant in North Carolina, came into the bar last night for research. You like that? That's nice research, huh? Going to drink? That's some good research. I like to get that research job. anyway. Okay. We have a question in, actually, without a name, so I'm sorry, I don't know who you are. But says, hello, Nastasia, Dave, Jack, and Carlos. Jack actually not here today. Not here. Lazy. Just kidding, just kidding. One, my wife and I are going to be in New York City for the week of March 6th for our honeymoon. Wait. So are you already married or are you going to be married? Did you take a delayed honeymoon? Probably delayed. Everyone does the wait. Really? Why? They don't have the money. They don't have the time. Wait, so they want to get married on particular date, but they don't have the money and or time. You think it's more money or more time usually? Time. Time? They don't want to schedule the wedding for when they have time. Okay. I'm just trying to understand this. Because you got to remember, when I had my honeymoon, I was like 3 years old. I was 24 and I had nothing but I had no money, but it's not like I was

[12:54] going to make money in the next couple of months after that and I had time, went to Italy. Italy. Anyway, I was like 17 years ago. Anyway, we are going to hit Roberta's for lunch on Tuesday. Roberta's honeymoon. Anyway, uh... Ask for Indie Jesus. Oh, yes. You have to get served by India. He's stoking for fire, right? Actually, he's stoking the fire, but he's like indie motorcycle Jesus now. He's got like the Greek fisherman's hat that like, you know, motorcycle dudes from the 50s and 60s used to wear, you know? know what I'm talking about? Looks, he looks, he's in rare form today, Indie Jesus. And he just, Indie Jesus decided before he came to work today what the temperature was going to be outside because he's got like a sheerling jacket on.

[13:34] He gets outside. It's like a 1000000 degrees in New York today because of global warming. He's still wearing the warm jacket just because of the look. anyway. Love that, love that. Anyways, please get served by Ind Jesus. And yes, you can actually watch this tape our show. If that interests you. If you're here between 12 and 1245, you sit in the outside area, you can watch us tape the show. Uh, okay. And he imagines our secret operation will be up and running by then. Yes, it's the bar, the secret operation is the bar, and it already is up and running, so we can talk about it. Anyone can call in any questions about the bar right now they want to at 718-4972128. Uh, and we're planning on hitting a couple of the Momofuku properties while we're in town anyway. That means our project. Hopefully, the milk bar cookbook inspired my actual and next 1st question. What is the deal with glucose syrup? What I understand is it a mix? It is a mix of water, glucose, maltose, and other longer chain maltodex rims. Sounds like the ratio of those determines the sweetness and the viscosity and the total

[14:32] solids content, which are all important. to uh, prevent uh, fermentation. I guess fermentation means of the syrup. I've got recipes calling for DE 40 and DE 20 glucose syrup, but at the store, I can just buy normal corn

[14:46] syrup, uh, or more expensive clear corn syrup, which seems to have vanilla flavoring added. Any idea what the likely dextrose equivalent of these things in the supermarket

[14:56] is? I've already have a big bag of dextrose. It was mean to buy a bunch of Ensorbit. anyway. Can I just mix up some homemade glucose syrups from powdered dextrose maltos and

[15:04] malsodextrins? Are there standard ratios for the different DEs? I think that it's more community stock powders and sticky syrups, but does anybody actually do that? Okay, here's the problem. There's a lot of terminology, a lot of terminology issues. It's going to be very difficult for you to make glucose syrup from powder just because the bricks level of a,

[15:25] well, it's really silly to call it bricks, but the solids content of those glucose syrups is upwards of

[15:31] 80%. They're extremely stiff, extreme, you know, so you're not going to be able to make one of them without applying

[15:37] heat, probably. You're not just going to be able to dissolve it and make it. You're going to have to heat it and then take it to a certain temperature. The answer for which temperature, which I'd have no idea. You're better off. They last basically forever. So you're better off buying a pail of it from like modernist pantry if

[15:55] they sell it. I don't know if they sell it. They say they'll stock any dang thing. So you know, you should go get it. So, And for those of those that don't know what we're talking about, Glucose syrups are very unfortunately named thing. Glucose is, uh, obviously a simple sugar, and it is sweet, right? So sucrose is made up of glucose and fructose together. It's a, you know, a disaccharide, and that's what it is. Glucose starch, by the way, is made up of a repeating long, long repeating chain of glucose units. When you break down starch. You break it down into like starch, maltodextrins, and dextrins, which are, you know, longer, like shorter numbers of glucose units glued together,

[16:40] right? All the way down to Maltose, which is a sweet sugar, which is 2 glucosis, right? So sucrose is a glucose and a fructose, maltose is 2 glucose. And then you break it all the way down to glucose. Now glucose, unfortunately, is known by glucose and dextrose, I don't know why they can't just have one name, but they have two, right? And the dextrose equivalent of a glucose syrup is the percentage of

[17:07] sugars, not that they're glucose, because that would be or dextrose. That would be too damned easy, right? It's the percentage of the things in it that are what's called a reducing sugar. Glucose is a reducing sugar because I guess because of the aldehyde unit on the end of the of the thing. Anyway, so it's all very complicated. And and different sugars, different things with different DEs, right? Because they have different sugars in them. something can have contribute to the dextrose equivalent, but not contribute to the sweetness, right? So nothing makes any damn sense. There's no direct relationship between sweetness and dextrose equivalent or anything. Dexterous equivalent, typically, though, I mean, not typically, always. The lower the dextrose equivalent, the less sweet the product is, okay? And also, the lower the dextrose equivalent, basically, the less broken down it is. So the higher the dextrose equivalent, the more it's been broken down to glucose, and typically the sweeter it is. Okay? Now, the reason I think it's silly that they call it glucose syrup is

[18:11] because it's not very sweet at all. You know what I mean? It's hardly sweet at all. I use it all the time and things like ice creams. I use DE20 glucose syrup when I want to take an ice cream and I want to get the texture right, but I don't want to have it sweet because it's really not sweet at all, a

[18:31] DE20 compared to normal sugar or, you know, a very sweet corn syrup. So I'm not being very helpful. I wouldn't use Enzorbit. And Zorbit is a particular kind of... And so the reason it's the composition of those things is basically they take starch and they break it down into various soluble

[18:48] things like maltodextrin, maltose, dextrins, and glucose. And Zorbit is going to be an expensive way to try and make it. You could, instead of trying to make a syrup, try to get the recipe by adding straight powders, but it's

[19:01] going to be really complicated. I wasn't able to find anyone that does that. Uh, but I can look more and see that I can come up with anything uh, for uh, next time. Does this make any sense what I'm saying? We have to go to a break. All right, one second. 12nd. And the last comment is the show is great, guys. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. And Jack is doing an amazing job with the music. We'll see how Carlos does today. But how about bringing back doing it to death and bad, bad whiskey for one more show sometime? We'll think on it. Thanks so much. It's a rocky little record, I want my jockey to play. Roll over bees old and gotta hate it again today. And all my time, this is rising out the jukebox for the fuse. My heartbeat rhythm, my soul keeps a singing the blues. Roll over Beethoven, I dance, she cops you the news. I got a rock in pneumonia. I need a shot of rhythm of blues. Woo I think I call it on the line of sitting down by the rhythm review. Roll all the Beethoven, rocking in 2 by 2. Well, if you feel it like it. You get your lover and reel and bark it. Roll it over and move on up, just drive a brother

[20:30] and a real rocket. Rolling over, roll over Beethoven, rocking. And welcome back to Cooking Issues, calling your questions too, 718-497-2128. That 718-497-2128. The Beatles version of that song, huh? George. What do you mean, that's George? You said it was the Beatles. Yeah, yeah, I know, but it's George singing it. Beatles. Okay, yeah. So, obviously, I like the Chuck Berry version better. Nastasia probably likes the Beatles version better because she's a Beatlehead. What do you think? Beatles, Italy. That's all I think about. That's true. My question is, how do you get a rocking pneumonia? Like, in what sense is pneumonia rocking? Like, you, like, you try to breathe, you can't, because your monks are full of fluid. Like, what's so rocking about pneumonia? It's like the least rocking disease. Rock pneumonia. No, I got a rocking pneumonia. I need a shot of rhythm of blues. From rock music. He would prefer rhythm and blues. But rock and roll comes from rhythm, but it doesn't make any makes no damn sense. Makes no damn sense. And like nothing is less lung clogged than rock and roll. Think of a, think of a more. I'm saying his lungs are clogged with rock and roll. Rock and roll is non-clogging. It's a non-clogging situation. Yeah, whatever. ever. Anyway. And the Beatles are saying that their lungs are clogged with rock? Give me a break. Give me, give me, give me a big, give me a big break on that. just hate the Beatles. I do not hate the Beatles. Dave thinks the Beach Boys are far superior to the Beatles. I did not say that. What I said is well-known fact that at the time there was kind of like a rivalry of who could be more of a badass. And when pet sounds came out, everyone was like, oh my god, pet sounds like the most important blah, blah, album, blah, blah, blah. And then Sergeant Pepper came out and then Beach Boys were like, wow. Basically, that's the that's the rock and roll history in a nutshell on cooking issues. Today's show is sponsored by modernist pantry supplying innovative ingredients for the modern cook. Do you love to experiment with new cooking techniques and ingredients, but hate to overspend for pounds of

[22:30] supplies, and only a few grams are needed per application. Modernist pantry has a solution. They offer a wide range of modern ingredients in packages that make sense for the home cook and enthusiast. I have a question. Isn't the home cooking enthusiast, the same person? No. Who's an enthusiast, not a home cook? Home cook or enthusiast. Because some women who work or who cook at home aren't enthusiastic about having to cook for their family. If they're not enthusiastic, are they calling modernest pantry to get some crazy ingredients? All right. And most only cost around 5 bucks, saving you time, money, and storage space, which is a big deal here in New York City. Whether you're looking for hydrocoloids, pH buffers or even meat glue, you'll find it at modernist pantry. And if you need something that they don't carry, just ask. Chris Anderson and his team will be happy to source it for you with inexpensive shipping to any country in the world, verified by us. Modernist pantry is your one stop shop for innovative cooking ingredients. Modernist pantry now carries the complete line of texturist products by Faran Adria. Fans of cooking issues that place in order of $25 or more before next week's show. We'll get a free texturious ingredient to experiment with. Simply use the promo code, cooking issue. Oh, sorry, CI 69 when placing your order online at modestpantry.com. Visit modernestpantry.com today for all of your modernest cooking needs. All right. Now listen, I love Faran, all props to Faran, love Faran, all props. My problem with the texturist line of ingredients. is that they don't say on them exactly what they are. So it's hard to sub other things out for it, and it's hard to develop recipes other than the recipes they've printed.

[24:01] So, for instance, Farans, Jelan, it's just called, I don't forget what it's called, like Jelan or something like that. It's a mixture of 2 different gelands. I mean I happen to know what it is. It's like 25% of the stretchy, high acel stuff and 75% of the low acel, non-stretchy stuff. But, I mean, that's my one issue. I wish that they would just tell you exactly what's in it.

[24:22] Because people would buy it anyway. You know what I mean? It not like they'd have to worry. It's not like people would go. People want to buy his product because it's been vetted by him. You know what I mean? But you should just tell you exactly what's in it because it's only going to foster better research by cooks. That's my only gripe. Would you agree or disagree? She hasn't really, she hasn't listened to what I'm saying. She just got she just agreed. No, it's just lots of emails for people. Yeah, but we're doing a show right now. We're doing a show. Anyway, I had another question about modernist pantry, but I forget. Anyway, they seem like good people. What? Good people. Good peeps, good people. Okay. Oh, yes, I'm an idiot. Okay. Okay, Matthew writes in, hey, y'all, pork shoulder I called in about last week. Of course, that's 3 weeks ago now, came out insanely good. I'm glad. I went for 58 degrees Celsius for about 34 hours. I brine it in a basic salt and sugar brine for 12 hours before cooking, seared it in a

[25:17] cast iron grill. seared it in a cast iron grill, on a cast iron grill, probably, right? Or a grilled pan maybe. I'm not sure. And circulated it with olive oil, a bit of reduced vermouth and aromatics. My girlfriend said it was the best meat she ever tasted. I'm not nastachi. You are a messed up individual and this show is not going to go that way. So I was going to skip all past that. My girlfriend said she is the best meat she ever tasted. So that was good. One thing that surprised me was that the meat was not as pink as I expected, it would be at that temperature. It had slight rosiness to it, but not in medium rare appearances I anticipated. That didn't really matter as it was incredibly juicy and tender in a good way. Okay. Uh 2 things. One, when you cook something at 58 for only a little bit of

[26:02] time, like an hour, it's going to be very, it's going to be very pink. When you cook for a long time at 58, it's going to be rosy, but you're going to lose some of that pinkness, that loss is also going to be enhanced by the

[26:13] brining. I think the brining is going to firm it and also give you that color change a little more towards the other side.

[26:19] So if you wanted to stay rosier, I would not brine it, but then you won't have the same flavor,

[26:24] right? Or not cook it as long, but then you won't have the same texture. So I don't think you're going to get that color. Also, Bruno Gouseau, I mean, I can't even know where this came from because this is pulling out like information he gave

[26:36] me like, you know, 8 years ago or something like that. But, uh, says that if you were to store that package uh, in very low, low temperature for a long, long time, the

[26:46] rosinists would come back. weird, right? Anyway, he told me that a long time ago, of course, I've never run the test because I don't store unfrozen meats for a long, long time, which is not

[26:56] my thing. My question today, however, just going back to what Matthew was saying, is about pork shanks. I'm going to be cooking about 30 pork shanks for an upcoming event. I doing. I'm leaning towards circulating them. I'm hoping if I max out my bath size, which is purportedly 30 liters for the sous vide professional. I can do them all in one batch. I plan to brine them overnight, sear them and then circulate them similarly to the pork shoulder for 34 hours or so, but at a higher temperature, maybe 65. Do you think this is a good time and temperature strategy? My goal is for them to be super tender and delicious, but not necessarily falling apart like a traditional braise. The 2nd part of this question is on deep frying them post-braise. The location of the event does not have great ventilation. I'd like to deep fry the shanks as far ahead of the guests arriving as possible, so that if I smoke the place out. It happens when people aren't around. After frying, I plan on letting them cool on racks and then heat them up in a cider, agrodolce glaze. Oh, more Italian. Glaze just before serving. Do you think they can hold next page? Well, for a couple of hours after deep frying before serving. Obviously, they won't be as crispy, but my only alternative would be to use the crappy broiler

[28:01] in the household type oven present at the event to postseer them at service time. Uh, okay. And he says he would have called in this question, but hopefully as I answer this question, he's eating Lulu in Cartagena, which is good. Lulu is the amazing fruit that they eat in Colombia that makes great drinks. Anyway, I hope the lulo is delicious. I'm sure it is. You know, I can now find Frozen Lulo in New York. I bought some. It was okay. I bought my local supermarket, had like a package of frozen Lulu that I guess got shipped by mistake from

[28:28] Columbia. I don't know, but it wasn't as good as afresh. I mean, probably make an okay drink, but it wasn't great. Anyway. So, 1st of all, 65 Celsius is, I think, too high. I think you're going to want to do 62 or 63 Celsius. 65 is a little bit over and it's the point where you're going to get a lot of contraction and you're going to get a lot more moisture loss from the muscle.

[28:48] I would do six. I think 30 34 hours might be okay. You might want to go like a little bit longer and I would do it at like 62, maybe, 62 in that range. That's gonna give you a nice, not pink, really, nice texture. Uh, if you cook it for 34 to 48. Okay? But 65 seems a little high to me. And it won't fall apart. These things will never, they're getting mushy, but they won't break apart like a traditional braise. And the reason why is because the collagen, even though it gets soft and it turns to

[29:22] gelatin, doesn't melt out of the structure, so it doesn't literally fall apart because it hasn't lost its structure. The structure's just gotten soft. Okay. As regards frying them post-braise. What I would do, you can, you can pull them out of the bag. I would pull them out of the bag, give them a quick fry before the people come to develop a little bit of a crust on the outside, and then I would throw them into a,

[29:47] uh, I would throw them directly into the sauce in ziploc bags and keep them warm in your circulator. That's what I would do. Uh, Because, yeah, you're going to lose the crust, but it's going to soak up the sauce. I wouldn't keep them on racks because look, it's not the crust. It's most important on something like a braise. It's the kind of sauce and the integration. So I would let it integrate with the sauce. I would just put the crust to give you a little bit of variation between the outside and the inside. Um, anyway, that's, that's my, that's my opinion. The other thing is, is if you're going to, uh, cook it this way and you want it to taste the most like tender meat and not like a traditional braise, I would do the low temperature on the stuff without a sauce at

[30:25] all. And without salting it, although if you're going to brine it, it's going to be brine. going to have salt in it. But if you want to taste the most like fresh, like fresh pork, but only a shank and cooked, then I wouldn't salt it at all, and I would just add the salt and everything else went right before you fry it, and then

[30:42] bag it with the sauce and the sauce will soak in. That up to you. But if you are going to cook it with a sauce in the bag, then you're going to have to

[30:49] hyper, hyper reduce that sauce, or otherwise when the meat gives up its juices, it's going to taste poached, which is I don't think what you're looking for.

[30:56] Another thing I'd be very careful of is if you're going to max out your bags, uh, your, your, if you're going to max out the size of your circulator, right? You're going to have a problem because you could possibly have a problem because all of the meat is touching each

[31:10] other and in the center, it's going to take a long time for the meat to get up to cooking temperature, right?

[31:16] So if it's sitting there for, and it takes a good five, six, 7

[31:20] hours, for the center of the, of the packages of meat, because there's no circulation there to come up to temperature, you could have a problem with uh, lacto, uh, lactic acid bacteria growing in that bag, probably won't kill you, right? But it's going to smell terrible and you're going to get puffed up bags. And this is what happens all the time when people pack their circulators too tight and they're cooking at a low temperature for a long period of time. So what's the remedy? There are several remedies. One, don't pack it too tight. The 2nd one is to take a pan of a pot of simmering water and put the bags in for

[31:59] like into the simmering water for like 35, 45 seconds, right? When the meat is still cold, and you're killing the bacteria on the outside without doing too much overcooking, and then put them in a circulator bath. And then you've killed all the bacteria on the outside. And you're not going to have a problem, right? Make sense? anyway. Uh, so those are my uh, those are my comments. What do you think? you think I need to say anything else about that? I don't think so. No? Should we go to our second commercial break? Okay. Let's go to our 2nd commercial break. Cooking issues. Remember the foul. This was the land that it works by hand. It was the dream of an upright man. There was a room that was filled with love. It was a love that I was proud of. This is a life, but a life that it planned on the love, the same old love in the house, the

[32:53] Jackson, the hostage jacket. Remember this house. There was a fence that hell now, love. Yes, it was the case that it walked out. This is my heart, it is turning sound. Yes, it is a house. It ain't no more. This is a love that I can start on, that I tried with love in the house, that Jack feels, the house to Jack, I'm

[33:16] going in my house. The youth of crying. You know, I brought it all myself as knowing that. But it's easy. Some of funny.

[33:33] That I didn't understand. And welcome back to cooking issues. Call Your Questions 2 718-497-2128 718-497-2128. And the house that Jack built, signifying that Jack is back in the studio, people. Howdy, how you doing? So I take back my laziness comments also. Oh, wow, really? I missed all that. I was, you know, when you're not here, I rough you up. That's how it works. Oh, man. Even though I wasn't here last week, so like... You should hear what we say when you're not here. It's still on the radio. Oh, man. Oh, we're going to have one of our listeners is going to come in on, on, uh, in the week of March 6th on Tuesday and hopefully going to be served by Indie Jesus. We have to check his schedule. Right? Anyway. Uh, Ken Ingberg, long, longtime listener, Ken Ingberg writes in and says that he's asked me several questions about the new coffee machine, the

[34:25] Breville 900 XL, which I say I've never tried. He bought one and he likes it. So maybe we'll get to try it someday. I don't know. You know, Dave Chang, and Christina Tozi from Milk Bar. Breville loves those guys. Brett, like, if you walk into Milk Bar. commissary, right? It is basically, it's like a Brevel factory. There's like so many Brevel things there. But again, I have no I have no comments, but Ken seems to enjoy his. and this is a long-term. Someday I will try one and I will give my review on air of the new... I think I think they're going to stop by the bar this week. Revelers? people. Really? and give you one. Well, look, the gig with the Breville thing is that it was apparently designed by a like a barista, like an award-winning barista to be good for what they want.

[35:13] Again, but you know, my problem is, is that, and it's the same problem. We lost that sponsor that time is because if I don't know whether a product's good or bad, I won't say whether it's good or bad. No, you're just saying. What? Probably bad. That's not true. Look, those guys, I'm not going to mention any names, but those guys who stopped being our sponsor after I started wisecracking made marketing claims that did not make sense to me. Right? I mean, I mean, you know, I do have my limits, Nastasia. anyway. Uh, okay, have an interesting question in, uh, from, uh, Julie

[35:47] Madras of, how do you think you pronounce that town in Wisconsin? Beloit? Beloit? It's not Belois. Hopefully. Hopefully, hopefully it's not pronounced like the actual French, you pronounce it. Gods and people with the French accent on that. Really? Yeah, I guess not, right? Belowie. Anyway, Julie Madress writes in. I have been looking forever for a website that could show me all of the fish that are skinfish. Now pay attention, skinfish. My mother has allergies to shellfish and scale fish, and we find it very hard to get straight answers from the grocery stores, seeing how half of them are

[36:21] not, what do you see? Half of them are not manned like it used to be in the meat department. So in other words, there's no one there to tell you what's going on. So I thought it would be right I thought it would be right to you with your knowledge about food to see if I can enlist your help. We try very hard not to give her something wrong, and she just loves fish. All right. This is an interesting question. So off the top of my head, before I did any research, right? It seems to me that it's actually not the scales. I'm gonna, let's ignore the shellfish because in shellfish, you know what to stay away from. So the question is, scale fish versus skinfish. Now, my right off the top of my head, for me, it says 99%. It's not the actual scales, right? that is the problem. It's just that scale fish are the problem, which means that all fish that, uh, in that same group are the ones that cause a problem. Sure enough, that's the case. Most fish allergies, right? Finfish allergies are allergies to certain proteins, parvalbumen, certain parvalbumens that are in fish, and they cause

[37:23] a an allergy, because your body, or some people's body, develop a specific antibody

[37:29] system, and they have allergic reactions, okay? Now, here's how the world works. Basically, you got to look at the evolutionary chain. So you go keep going back in the evolutionary chain, uh, to the point where the 1st fish developed those proteins, they're uh, that your mom's allergic to. And then any of the fish that branch off from that, she's probably allergic to, right? So it turns out that what she's most likely allergic to, is Teleost fish, right? And Teleos fish are fish with what's called ray

[38:06] scales, and so they're scales, normal, normal scales. So all you need to do to find out whether or not you should stay away from it, most likely, is to look and see whether it is a Teleost fish. Now, what's a non-teleos fish? Eels, lamp rays, sharks, right? Like any cartilaginous fish, right? Typically not gonna probably be probably be a problem. Uh, anything that's not a part of that group. Now, there's also most likely a bunch of teleost fish that are okay. I just don't happen to know what they are. And for the research backup on this. I found it an article that's called Quantitative Eliza for Determination of Fish and Foods by Christian Fest and Christian

[38:50] Plass in 2007, where they were trying to figure out ways to measure with an Eliza

[38:56] test to look for these allergens that are in food. And basically, what they say is that the allergic reactions are strongest for taxonomically closely related species,

[39:08] right, due to the major allergen in fish, which is

[39:12] parvalbumen. And that accounts for over 95% of all allergens, fish allergy, it's basically 95% of the allergies related to

[39:25] finfish are because of this protein, right? And so parvalbumens are found in great amounts in the white muscles of lower

[39:33] vertebrates and lesser and higher vertebrates. Anyway, so that is that. So just look up and see what kind of fish you're dealing

[39:44] with and you shouldn't have a problem, right? Nostalgia is like, that makes no goddamn sense. No, no, no, no, no, no. So Nastasia, and you're going to have to look up from your email for a minute because we're going to talk about the bar now on the way up. is upsetting. He's upsetting you. Why is he upsetting you? Why is he upsetting you? Why can is our good friend? show, he says. It looks like rebels giving you your own 900 XL. And I was like, yes, but I didn't want to say that they're giving it to us 100% because it's not for certain. And then you said, Dave is right. Stop reading your email. And I was like, well, then don't email me in the middle of the show. Wow. Wow. See, now, Ken, now you know what I have to deal with on a daily basis. I was right on Ken's side. Oh, squarely on Ken's side. Look, a listener, look, a listener is just like in a restaurant is your customer. They're always right. Right? Am I wrong about this? anyway. Jack's not answering. Jack's not sure We have a lot of different listeners on this network. Anyway, I'm coming down squarely on Ken's side on this one. Anyhoo. So let's talk about the bar for a minute. All right? So what do you want to say about the bar? Nothing, it's a great space. There's usually a wait, so make sure you get there early. Yeah, or can we call in advance? Can you call in this? You have to show up and put your name in. You're equipped for that yet. Yeah, our bar manager is Tristan Willie, who is at, you know, Death and Co's sister bar,

[41:13] Mori Margot, and also at PDT. And he's having a great time, I think. We have, we're, we're, we're pulling out. We haven't pulled out all the stops yet. We still have some stops left to poll, you know, if you were using organ terms. We still have some stops left to pull. But right now we have 4 carbonated things on the menu, and I think we do a pretty good job of carbonating. I'm not, I haven't put on my new carbonation system yet. First of all, I'm building a new one that's going to be, like, it's going to be really good. Let me put it this way. It's going to be really good. I was going to say, it's the Cadillac of carbination systems, but that makes me look bad because it's better than it's like the Maybach. It's the Maybach of was that good? Is that what they're called? really expensive car? Anyway, a really good carbonation system I'm putting in. For now, though, we're using old school bottle carbonation, the same as everyone uses with the carbonator caps, the liquid bread carbonator caps, just because that's the best system that I've used so far. The system that I've built, my 1st generation system that I built is maybe 80 to 90% as good as

[42:17] that, but has the advantage of being a la minute. But until I'm 100% as good as the bottle or better, I'm not going to use it. Does that make sense? Um, we have a uh, finally, illegally, uh, a legally roto vapped uh, product on our menu, we have the a horserash, which goes into our

[42:35] Lady of the Night, which is a really, I think it's a good cocktail, um, which also has, it's basically a clarified

[42:41] Bloody Mary, but just, you know, everything's clarified. The Worcestershire's clarified, the tomatoes clarified, the srirache is clarified, and then use the horseradish distillate. So we have Rotovap, we have the centrifuge. We're figuring out how bar prep works to have all of those things prepped for a bar. It's kind of halfway between the kid prep and a bar prep. But it's pretty interesting. And I think we've ironed out most of the kinks as far as service goes. So I welcome any questions on kind of flow at the bar or how it's working or what we're

[43:10] doing and we're liquid nitrogen chilling almost every day in glass, right? That's the bartenders seem to enjoy that, right? People seem to enjoy. Oh, and we have the red hot poker on the menu. I've never had a red hot the red hot poker, for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about. It's basically a, it's a poker that is red hot. It's a stick that I build that heats up to about 1500 Fahrenheit and you plunge it into a drink and the drink catches on fire. And I've used them at the SCI before, but they've never been on this long this often before.

[43:37] So, uh, we're really putting them through their paces and seeing how to make them make them work. I streamlined it. They now cost less than $100 for me to make a piece. And so hopefully, uh, we can uh, the bartenders don't seem to mind it, right? No, no, not anymore. No one's gotten burnt. Anyway, it's a lot of fun. So come in, have some red hot poker drinks, have some, have some liquid nitrogen chilled glasses, but most of all, at Booker and Dax at a new bar, we're just trying to make delicious cocktails.

[44:06] We use a lot of tech, but really the tech doesn't matter. It's all about delicious cocktails. On a final note, now that I have that thing, started up, and I have all of a lot of other things in motion. I'm going to try to get the blog back up and running again. Nastasia is giving me my whatever face. She has 2 faces. The vegan face slash vodka face is a face of kind of disgust, like she just stepped on a roach,

[44:29] whereas, uh, whereas this other lake is a look is a look of, eh, whatever, you know, whatever, right? That's the blog starting look, but I got to figure a better name for it. Anyway, it's good to be back. Sorry about the 2 week wait. Be back next week, sure thing. Cooking issues.

[44:50] Thanks for listening to this program on the Heritage radio network. You can find all of our archived 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

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[45:12] up-to-date news and information. Thanks for listening. You got my head all twisted. And I guess can't get it straight.