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

[0:07] Radio Network.com.

[0:20] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to live on the Heritage Radio Network in the back of Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn, from approximately 12 to 1245 every Tuesday. Joined again in the studio with Nastasia, Hammer Lopez. How you doing, Dawson? Yeah. What's wrong? I like that. Yeah, so last week, uh, while I was here chilling with uh, Tony Canoyaro in the in the studio, Nastasia was pretending to be me in Orlando, Florida, with the

[0:50] Buke people, makers of our favorite Rodovap. How did that go? Good. I get all the cool trips to Orlando. Dave goes to Sweden and Berlin. I know, you're just a lucky one, right? lucky one. Yeah. Well, I told you, you're supposed to get a free trip to Switzerland there that for those of you that don't know, Nastasia is a Switzerland lover. Italian Swiss lover. They're German Swiss. This does not interest me. So are you now insulting Bukey, who, like, may give us stuff? No, I'm not. They love me. All right. Call me all the Christians too. 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. And Nastasia writes here, but today is the... It's not Indie Jesus. I know. We haven't seen him in a while, but there's another name. No, no, he's here. He just doesn't work on Tuesdays. on Sunday. This is like India Apostle. He's like a pale, pale shadow of the real baby Jesus. That's a real nice dude. Oh, I'm not saying he's no, we're not saying he's bad. I'm not saying he's a bad human being. I'm saying he's a pale shadow of indie Jesus and his Jesusness. That's all. all I'm saying. Another note before we move on to more germane issues. Today, Nastasia tells me, is the 1st day of spring, which is interesting that she cares about that because for those of you that are ever going to meet Nastasia, never say to her that the weather is nice out,

[2:02] never. It's not that she hates bad weather like I do. I actually hate bad good weather, rather. I hate the sun. I hate everything about it. I'd be a cave dwelling atrogodide if I could. But Nastasia likes nice weather, but hates people in nice weather. True. when they're happy. Yeah. You want to explain that for the first? I just don't I just don't like how people associate weather with their happiness, their level of happiness and

[2:27] productivity. really deep. So she's she's like, that person said it was nice, so they're going to have a go have a good time outside. Those bastards. She hates that, right? What if they're hipsters? That was the worst. Like, a fair weather happy hipster is like Nastasia Kryptonite. Okay. This in from Elliot Papinau. I made corned beef sausage over the weekend, the idea came from Rob Levitt at the butcher and larder in Chicago, a place I've never been. I haven't been to Chicago in a couple years though. I used to go to the MRA show. You know, the National Restaurant Association, not the rifle show. But, you know, budgets being what they are. I haven't been in a while. Anyway, the corned beef sausages were outstanding. Corned beef, potato, carrot, cabbage, cooked, ground and stuffed. Um, I did it the same way you would do a boudon noir. I started with some sauerkraut, which is delicious, and mustard on a rye sausage roll. I think the dish would also work and presented like Dave Chang's hot brown. I had to go look up Dave's hot brown, hot brown, as you may or may not know, is a very famous Kentucky dish from the Brown Hotel in Louisville based on kind of like a Welsh

[3:32] rarebit kind of thing, which I used to love Welsh rarebit, which was just toast with like a cheese sauce over the top. You ever like you ever have that? Has nothing to do with rabbit. It is not Welsh rabbit, Welsh rarebit. It's basically a toast with cheese sauce. It's good stuff, but it's like, it's got like some white wine in the cheese sauce, so it's a little... You'd like it actually. Sounds good. Yeah. anyway. So this is a take on that, but of course, because it's Kentucky, they throw a bunch of meat in it, so it's got like turkey and bacon and whatnot. So Dave Chang turns out. I hadn't seen it before. It was in Lucky Peach. I go did, I looked at the video on the web, and it had our boy Nick Wong in it. But the funny thing is, Nick Wong was, you know, one of our great interns back at the SCI, worked at Sambar,

[4:11] Monfugusan Bar for many years. Fantastic guy I think he's, the video was shot after Nick left. I think he was just there to pretend to be Dave Chang, to see

[4:20] that anyone would notice, because he used to walk around Sambar with a hat pulled over his head and rush up on people as though he were Dave Chang to freak people out.

[4:28] Anyway, so what Dave did was to lighten it up by rolling it in a tube in Saran, uh, like, you know, like our Miklo tubes, like, or Miklo

[4:36] tubes, more accurately, but it was Turkey with, uh, I forget it was in the, there's another layer. Oh, country ham, which is delicious. Uh, and then, uh, he put, uh, Gelan set, uh, like a Mornay sauce in the middle of it. fried it up, started with a delicious looking broth. Anyway, interesting. So yes, you probably could do it that way, Elliot. Anyway, second, I sent Dave a question about smoking tomatoes in the past. I vaguely remember that. You remember that? Not really. Remember I said get to dry him out first? Anyway. And just read in the Wall Street Journal about the fatty cues, Smoked Tomato Bloody Mary. Have you tasted it or tried to make your own at BDX? I have not. In fact, we haven't done any sort of smoked anything at the bar. And the main reason is because I have a bunch of friends who are very well known for doing

[5:23] smoky drinks. I mean, we use smoke in the form of uh, mezcal or uh, certain scotches that have

[5:31] a smoky note, but we haven't actively smoked anything because if I smoked uh, a syrup, uh, Eben uh, Freeman would come up to me and be like,

[5:39] no, smoking syrup now? What are you making smoked coke next? right? Which, you know, I don't want to hear from, because Evan likes to rib me anyway, right? So I don't want to give him anything actually rib me on. And then if I did something with meat, like bacon, Don Lee, and also Evan Freeman would come up and be like, really, Dave? Really? Really? Smoky bacon? Anyway, so I'm sure it's delicious. I haven't tasted. I would love to taste it, but it's not something I can put on the bar menu without having a bunch of my friends come down

[6:06] on me like a ton of bricks. What do you think, stuff? Yeah. Okay. This in from Andrew. I was hoping you could talk about the possibility of using just Pectinex Ultra SPL for enzymatic peeling. Pecnix Ultra SPL is the magical enzyme that we use that you can get from modernistpantry.com. Anyway, it eats any kind of pecked in and hemicellulose. I use it for French fries. I use it for enzymatic peeling, which we're about to talk about in a minute. They use it to clarify all of our juices. Anyway, I believe we're, I believe I recall, reading or hearing that a 1000 grams of water, a.k.a. a liter, uh, a 1000 grams of water, uh, and 3 grams of pectinex, uh, solution, um, water mixed with 3 grams of

[6:48] pectnex was sufficient. If a 12 hour refrigerated soak is used basically to peel fruit enzymatically to get rid of the membranes,

[6:54] all right? I peeled my citrus and vacuum sealed it using a chamber sealer in

[6:58] a 1000 grams of water, 3 grams Pecanex, and let it soak for 12 hours. When I came back, most of the pith, who has a gooey texture, easily washed away. Unfortunately, the membrane between the segments was still intact and needed to be carefully removed. The exposed portion of the membrane was mostly dissolved. In the future, if just using pectinex, I will need to, uh, will I need to separate each segment, or is there another time saving method? I had bagged a mixture of caracara oranges, real star grapefruit, blood tangerine, kishu mandarin, and minio tangelo. All had similar results, but some were more easily peeled. Thanks to the great show, and I'll be in New York this summer. I plan on hitting up booker index. Okay. Yes, Pecninex Ultra SPL is all you need. But, and you actually don't even need a vacuum sealer for this guy. Uh, your main mistake, and you don't even need to soak it that long and it doesn't need to be in fridge. In fact, it's going to act longer, act faster if you just keep it out. We usually keep ours. Uh, you know, in warm room temperatures. So the enzyme acts faster. I mean that's just what we do. Now. I mean, you can use a vacuum to get it into the pith faster, but you do need to separate out the segments. Even with a vacuum, if you put a whole peeled citrus in a bag. It's not going to penetrate into the inner membranes. It's just not. And then by the time you broke it apart. It just never seems to work as well. So what you want to do, it might eat through one membrane. You want to break them into as small segments as you can without breaking the actual segments

[8:18] apart or without actually cutting into the vesicle. So grapefruits are fairly easy. The hard ones are things like pomelo, and those, you just kind of split it in

[8:29] half, and then in quarters, and there's so much pith in a pomelo, that a lot of times you can eat between it as long as you break it into smaller pieces and let it soak, you know, for a while.

[8:39] I wouldn't, again, I wouldn't do it at refrigeration temperature because I think that's just going to just slow things down.

[8:44] Another thing you want to keep the peels, try to keep them as whole as possible, put them in the bag with it, and it'll eat the white albedo away from the

[8:51] peel and you get these amazing appeals. I thought we used ice water, wasn't it? I bagged it when I use a vacuum machine, I bag it with ice water so that I can get a good vacuum seal on

[9:00] it, and then I would remember throw it into a hot water bath, warm water bath to heat it back up, melt out the ice and get the enzyme cooking. I didn't want to make it that complicated, but that's actually the way that's actually the way I do it when I do it. You can go on, uh, cookingissues.com, which is still up, even though I haven't written on it

[9:16] in a long time, and there's a whole article there I did on enzymatic peeling with all of my

[9:20] procedures. I don't use 3 grams per liter. I think I use four. I use 4 now. Maybe I use 3 back when I wrote it, but we typically use 4 now. You can never know exactly how good the enzymatic activity is of your badge depending on how old it is. And 4 always seems to work, and it's not going to add any off flavors, and it's not particularly more expensive when you're using it in restaurant quantity, right? If you're going to do the peels, sometimes a toothbrush is helpful to scrape away all

[9:43] the melted albedo. It's a gross word, right? Yeah. All right. Anyway, you want to go to our 1st Mart? Okay. Yeah? Our 1st commercial break, call your questions too. 718-4972128. That 718-497-2128 cooking issue. Well, excuse me. Take a few minutes to mellow out. Big addict cane is on the mic and I'm a tell about a minimum limp of rhymes with strength and power. So listen to the man of the hour. Flow and go to a slow tempo and you know, sing ho, swing,

[10:18] load, then, yo, the show will go on, zopper, form, transformational stage. I got decepticon. But I'm not animated like a cartoon. I'm a real shooting lyrics like a harpoon. Across the crowd, the listeners and spectators. So let's groove with the smooth operator. Just sounds so smooth.

[10:46] This sounds so smooth. The BIGDA double DYKANE. I'm good and plenty. Serve a minion in competition wishing for an expedition. I'm straight up... Hello and welcome back to cooking issues. All right. Now last week, because I had Tony here, I didn't make it to all of the questions from last week. So Nastasia rightly says, I should go over last week's questions before I go over this week's questions. So, from Joel Gargano. Hello, guys. I want a really weird and interesting corporate kitchen, cafeteria, really, here in New Haven, New Haven. You lived in New Haven for many years. I was at Yale and I lived there for 2 years afterwards. Nice town. I actually like New Haven. Anyway, feeding lunch to the company's employees. I wonder what company it is. Hmm. Anyway, uh, being a trained chef and working in a fine, uh, working in fine dining as a cook for the past 10 years, I took the opportunity to not only run my own kitchen, but experiment as much as possible and throw some

[11:40] cool chiznit out to the staff. I'm a bread baker, 2nd generation, charcuterie, not DIY obsessive and really into modernist technique. For example, I'm doing all my deli meats brined, and then SUVed, sous vide, both salami and for sausages, and they're all coming out killer. Doing charcuterie in an office building. Weird. They all come through the buffet line, pulling house made bread and freshly cooked and or cured meats, and put them onto plastic cafeteria trays, walk to their high school appropriate lunch table and discuss marketing strategies.

[12:05] It's pretty hilarious. Thought I'd share that with you guys. The movement is all over the place. nice, right? It's good to people use. I like that stuff. The question, I'm currently attempting to create some vegan desserts for select crew of the company using hydrocoloids. I developed a super good chocolate mousse appropriate for an ISI, that's the whipped cream makers, using

[12:21] versa whip, which is either soy, protein, or milk protein, depending on what it is, whey, or soy protein, and

[12:28] UltraTax 8, which is a pre-cooked starch. total success. Soy whip cream, however, is totally failing. I need some help. What type of hydrocholid should I use for this? Xanthan and LBG, which is locust bean gum? Turn it into snot. is known to do that. Xanthan is the snotty gum if you use it in too high a quantity. And I tried to use VersaWip minuses anthangum and LBG, but got it a runny mess. I'm assuming that the chocolate works so well because it stabilizes the mixture while the soy milk does not. If the fat content is the fat, if the fat content of soy milk is messing with me, should I try gelatin? Well, you shouldn't try gelatin if you want it to be vegan gel? That's for sure. Not if you're going to tell anyone, right? Yeah. If you want to try something that's like gelatin that might whip into it, Uh, they make a, um, a Carraginanist, uh, Agar, people use Agar, but I

[13:14] wouldn't, people typically use Carraginen, uh, for things like this. And in particular they use a specialist carragin and for whipping, if you're going to make marshmallows called genutine. And genuine is made by the CP Kelco Corporation, and it's specifically a

[13:27] Kerragin, and it's meant to be a gelatin replacer for applications like marshmallows, a.k.a. things that need to be whipped and hold their texture well. Now, I think I looked up, there's a, I think what it is, is it's a lack of fat, is the problem, is why it's not, it might whip

[13:43] up, It's not holding its whipping. I looked up a like an in can, like a ready whip situation. Uh, soy whip topping that's available, I think, mainly in the UK called Soyitu. And luckily, their ingredient list was on the web. So I read it. It's organic soy milk, uh, organic fat, uh, fractionated palm curl oil, organic sugar

[14:04] beet syrup, maltodextrin, tartaric acid, carragan, and sea salt, uh, and vanilla extract. Okay, so let's break this down one by one. Soy milk is the main thing that you want to make out of it. what you want to whip up, right? They've added coconut oil and palm kernel oil, probably to get something that's fairly solid. I think you're going to want a fairly solid fat, like a coconut, uh, style

[14:23] of thing, like coconut fat mixed with a little coconut milk, maybe, something that's going to give it some body that is a,

[14:28] a fat that is fairly solid at refrigerator temperatures because it's going to give you more body. Um, okay? And then they're adding maltodextrine, and I went, oh, sugar for sugurness, obviously. They're adding maltodextrin. What that's doing is adding some extra masks, some body to the soy milk and giving it extra kind of whipping properties. Tartaric acid is probably there just for flavor. And carragin is there as the, uh, carragin is there as the

[14:55] gelling agent, which is going to be a whipping agent, and it's going to be, uh, also something that's going to provide some structure after it's been whipped. I would guess they add a little bit of something called iota carrogene and in because carrogene into a

[15:06] blend because it will reform a gel after it stands still. Vanilla is just for flavor and they add nitrous oxide to whip it. So I would do that. I would add fat. 1st of all, is going to get you a higher whipping quality on it. I would have it be cold as hell, same way you would with whipped cream. I would add some maltodextrin, and I would use some carrotine in,

[15:24] preferably, genutine in the mix with it. And you should be able to get a good, should be able to get a good result. Yeah? Yes. Yes. Okay. And by the way, I thought you think this is the funniest. When I was researching it, one of the 1st people to come out with vegan marshmallows, we're using a vegan gelatin replacer from this company called

[15:43] Eames. And it turns out that these guys. It was kosher gelatin, right? And it was advertised that it was vegan, hmm? Turns out, whole thing was made out of regular gelatin. They were just selling it to all these vegans and these kosher guys. And literally like what happened is like this woman who was making vegan marshmallows. She like quit her job in finance or law or something like that and became a vegan marshmallow maker. She called up the guy and was like, hey, are these is this gelatin? Is this totally vegan? And he's like, yeah, this vegan, what's vegan? You know what I mean? So the company ended up going out of business and yada, yada, bloody, bloody. Did you see Ellen had a how to be a vegan on her website? I did not. I was on Ellen last week for St. Patty's Day. And she turns out to she's a vegan. She was a nice lady, though. She seems very nice. Well, I didn't mean to like that. Only you mean things like that. She's a nice lady, though. No, I just look, look, people want it, it has nothing. They're unrelated. They're unrelated statements. Like people always want to know it's the person a nice person. Oh, Jesus, you know, nostasia? She's like, you're a crazy person. But you know what's funny? I show up at the show and the producer, very nice, said, you know, Ellen, I was making alcoholic drinks, duh, for St. Patrick's Day, you know, because I'm at a

[16:54] bar. And they were like, you know, Ellen is not going to be able to drink the alcohol because she's shooting 2 shows.

[17:00] She shoots 2 shows on a Thursday. And I was like, crap. And then so I had to go in. I was trying to make all these non-alcoholic versions that looked like and tasted similar to the ones mint. I did a mint drink. It's impossible to do it non-alcoholic because the mint turns brown. Anyway. Um, so, so she shows up and she's like, what are you talking about? I'll drink it. I was like, yeah, Ellen. Yeah. And then she slams in Jameson. What? Yeah, she's pounding Jameson like, damn, I'm kidding. She didn't. She did. took a sip. My kids, you know, who never don't know Ellen. I like, it's Dory from Nemo. They were like, crap, you met Dory. That's freaking awesome. Anyway, this question in, this is a long one from Ali, I think it's Colette or Colette? I don't know, Colette. You know, Colette, Colette, Colette. Anyway, 1st of all, I like to say how much I've enjoyed listening to your show over the past few months. I say months because I only discovered the show recently, I spent most of my commute to and from work catching up with every single podcast. We'll appreciate it. I appreciate it. It's really refreshing to hear a cooking show from people who understand the practical application of science and

[17:56] cooking, and who are not afraid of using ingredients and methods which others might deem foolish, or which might foolishly dismiss, or both, maybe. I do have lots of questions I like to ask, but I thought I'd keep things brief. Sorry for not calling you up to ask you the time differences in the UK. The show overlasts with I'm on my way home. Make from work making things difficult. I was wondering what your thoughts were on seasoning meat. Taking steak as an example. I tend to season roughly an hour in advance, generously sprinkle the salt, sprinkle with

[18:21] salt, and occasionally adding a small amount of minced, minced garlic with the salt. After an hour, I'll wipe off the excess moisture before cooking using the sear flip every 20, 30 seconds method. the McGee special, where you flip it a bunch of times to get a more even heat, and it's a good way to approximate. It's a good way to actually to approximate kind of either a rotisserie or a low temp cook using a regular thing because the heat meat never overheats all the way

[18:42] through. It's basically a very high instantaneous heat input, but a low average heat input, good technique. Anyway, this method seems to work very well, but it does raise some questions. First, you have, of course, covered on your blog about how if you were cooking a steak CV'd. You should not salt the meat pre-seer unless you were serving it immediately. If you're only salting it afterwards, which does not result in an inferior flavor due to the salt only being on the surface and not seasoning through the meat. I guess I'm looking for further tests between salt, cook, serve, and salt, chill, salt, serve. Second, is the seasoning well in advanced method only really useful for less tender cuts, but cuts have not been dry aged for any serious length of time, which will contain more

[19:16] moisture or should it always be used. I did notice that when Heston Blumenthal has covered steaks in 2 separate cooking shows, he's never really talked about seasoning as if it had much importance, which I found odd, but maybe I'm thinking it's more of an issue than it really is. Now, okay, now look. Here's the deal. If I'm going to serve a steak right away, and by right away, I mean within a couple of hours, I always season the meat beforehand

[19:36] because yes, I do think it probably makes a better tasting steak. However, that it's not just seasoning and retaining of moisture, the textural difference and the color difference of the steak that's been salted a long time in advance. Let's say 3 hours, 4 hours in advance, is not just not nearly as good. To me as a steak, uh, then it would be if you didn't salt it beforehand. And so, um, you know, the any advantage, which is relatively minor, of salting the meat, me, it's there, I agree, but relatively minor compared to the textual breakdown of the meat, uh, from

[20:08] oversalting beforehand. I just don't think it's worth it. So I tend not to salt meat beforehand. Now, when I'm serving a steak, I almost always will slice. I 1st of all, I salt the bee Jesus off the out of the steak outside of the steak right before I see it. Like, you know, you know how in like a home cooked, when they sear, uh, well, nothing, when, you know, when most people sear a

[20:28] steak doesn't matter where they're working, they, they put a small amount of salt on the outside. Look, when you're searing steak people, put an absurd amount of salt on the outside before you

[20:37] sear it because most of it's going to come off anyway. You know what I mean? So sear the heck out of it. And then I find that the advantages of pre-salting way beforehand aren't nearly as great. Also, I tend to cut my steaks before I serve them and serve them in

[20:50] pieces so I can also salt the cut face if I need to. It's not a situation, for instance, like bread where if you don't salt it beforehand, your bread is going to be awful, like the Tuscan bread, although

[21:02] Nastasia claims to like Tuscan bread, even though everyone in the world knows it tastes awful, you know, right? You like it, right? Why? just like it. Why? Maybe it's memory oriented. Is it the sallow, disgusting crush, or is it the lack of flavor in the crumb that you like best? Anyway, um, so, the thing is, is, uh,

[21:23] it's not the same as that, it's also not the same as when you're cooking something in a braise, and you undersalt it, and then you don't get the seasoning all the way

[21:31] through. It's something that's long cooked like a pot roast or something like that. Because in a situation like that, you're relying on the seasoning penetrating the meat for the flavor of the dish. Anyway, uh, that's just my, uh, that's just my 2 my ¢2. That makes sense to us. Yeah. My other question is regards to New York City. I know someone called some time ago about places to visit, and I did know down some of them, but I think you mentioned you would email Alyssa's suggestions to them personally for

[21:52] bars, restaurants. We're going to be heading over, what? Yes. We're going to be heading over for a week on the 1st leg of my two-week tour of gluttony. The following week. We're on a grant Aikits pilgrimage to Chicago for next slash Alinia slash aviary place.

[22:06] We've never been. I've been to, you know, a lineum, of course. We have a pretty tight schedule, but I thought I would ask for some feedback on what I've got down so far during my 1st week of April.

[22:14] I'm going to go to kijitsu, Nastachi, you're supposed to make your vegan face, but you've been, right? That's the Japanese temple food place, the one that's or the, it's um, vegan or

[22:23] it's supposed to be really, really good. WD 50. Gotta go to WD 50. My brother-in-law, Wiley, his joint, Mama Focusam, and Noodle Bar. And then if you're there, go to BDX, per se, that's Tony's favorite place. should mention it last night. Roberta's. Yeah, Tuesday, although listen, if you want to see Indy Jesus, turns out Sunday at lunchtime. Sunday is appropriate to see. I haven't even thought of that. That's crazy. And 11 Madison Park. I think we could squeeze one more nice meal in and I'm basically left with going for one of the nice sushi places like Yasuda, Masa's way out of league budget. No, no, go to Bar Masa. It's it's the same and it's amazing and you aren't losing anything. Yeah? Now, see, here is good information from the stud. The rare piece of good. The only thing I've ever said. Oh, no. No, but it is true. Barmasa, same thing, less money. amazing. Yeah? Yes. Was that on your list that you had on your email list? Probably. And Blue Hill at Stone Barnes. Um, as another place he's looking to go. Anyway, so what we're going to do, uh, is at the end of the show, if there's time, Nastasia's going to read out her email list. My phone is not recognizing the word restaurant in any I never typed restaurant. iPhones. iPhones. Yeah. Well, maybe next week we can start the show with Estachio's reading off a list of stuff. And don't forget to come to Booker and Tax Bar from

[23:38] Ali Collette all the way from London, England. So, let's go to our 2nd commercial break. Call your questions two, 718-497-2128. 718-497-2128 cooking issues.

[24:18] Yeah. Yeah.

[24:26] Seldom travel by the multitude. The devil's devil has a couple food. My coach is screwed 'cause this word is misconstrued. Small countries that jump on food, 'cause leaders have different views, YouTube. What mean the world to me is beating free? Living, let, living. just let it be, let it be, love, peace, and harmony, one universal family, one God, one aiming one destiny. Imagine life without a choice at all. And welcome back to cooking issues. Call your questions too, 718-497-2128. 718-497-2128. Coming question from last week. I can't remember whether I answered. If so, I'll answer it again if I did last week. Stephen Garrett wrote in with 2 questions. I think I only answered one. The 2nd one comes off the tail of Rulman. That's, uh, you know, Roman from Soul of a Chef, and who writes all of uh, Thomas, not writes all of them, whatever. Thomas Keller books, and also charcuterie. Uh, Paulson Roman. Anyway, leaving his stock on the stove, the heat not on for days on end and heating it up to the boil as he needs it. And subsequently, Harold McGee, our buddy Harold McGee, still in China, I think. What? Cool. Yeah. calling him out for unsafe food practice. So basically, Ruleman wrote this article, this blog post where he's like, hey, listen, our great grandpappy's didn't

[25:35] have a, you know, a refrigerator to put the stock in. So we would just leave it out, and then the next day we would boil it again before we used it, kill all the nasty stuff, and then that's it. Go. Come on. I'm not dead yet. Come on, grandpappy. Well he is dead, but you know, anyway, not from that. And then McGee was like, so I think the times asked McGee to comment on this. And McGee was like, well, I mean, of course, the odds are that nothing bad is going to happen, but there are things that can happen, especially if it's not brought up properly, et cetera, et cetera.

[26:03] And it basically, it's not considered a 100% safe practice to do so. And since most of us own a

[26:09] refrigerator. Why wouldn't we put it in the refrigerator? And the other thing is, is you're going to get quality degradation as the thing sits out over time at room temperature. So why wouldn't you just refrigerate it? That's the point. Uh, so, uh, so then he's like, okay, so if Roman was kind of mistaken about that, and I'm not getting

[26:26] it. That what McGee said about Rulman, although I tend to agree. So when the rules takes, talks about meat and saying when it's cured, it's cured and nothing bad is going to happen to it. You don't have to worry about meat that's being left out. If it's cured. Should I take that with a grain of salt or is salt stopping all the bad stuff that is in it? Question in from Stephen Wellington, New Zealand. Well, well, you know, I read the post, uh, Roman was talking about. He was talking about, I think it was last week, I was looking it up, but it was duck prosciutto, I think. Or some sort of, you know, hanging meat that he just wiped with, you know, a mixture of nitrites and salt and hung it

[27:00] up. And, you know, sometimes mold can develop on it depending on the moisture content of it and the relative, you know, the temperature and the humidity

[27:08] in the atmosphere, et cetera, et cetera. And the question is, is it true, what Roman says, that nothing bad is going to grow on that meat? So you don't really need to worry about it. Well, mostly, yes. Mostly that's true. Although, I mean, I would take it with a, you know, I would take it with a little bit of a grain of

[27:26] salt. I mean, there are bad things that can happen, 2 meat that has been cured. They cured meat itself probably isn't bad, but for instance, you could contaminate cured

[27:35] meat and then it could have really nasty stuff on it that doesn't die right away, right?

[27:39] So, yes, you know, and also, it depends on whether you've used enough salt. So, you know, if you haven't used enough salt, then you haven't cured, you haven't killed all the bad stuff. So just the fact that you have cured it and that it looks cured isn't necessarily mean that it's always going to be okay in all circumstances. However, for the most part, if you properly cure something and follow the instructions, then yes, nothing bad is

[28:01] going to happen. But let's not forget that in ground meats, especially if you don't get the proper pH and you don't use the proper salt amount, you don't have the proper amount of nitrates, that you could do yourself some serious damage. Let's not forget that the word botulism comes from the Latin word for

[28:15] sausage, okay? Yeah. Although that doesn't really happen anymore because people, you know, they cure things properly. Anyway. Okay, now, uh, now I got to find another question. Okay. Derek Bodkin wrote in with a question saying Dave and Co. That would be you and dad and the rest. Is it possible to substitute Eastern red cedar berries for juniper berries? Thanks for your help and insight and keep being awesome. Okay, so here in the US, a lot of us don't have the, uh, you know, the standard juniper that we use in flavoring, which is juniper, I guess, communist, I

[28:51] think is what it's called, Juniperus Communist, something like that. I don't have the Latin in front of me. And that's the one that's used for flavoring, but a lot of us have around the

[29:00] Eastern Red Cedar, which is, I'm going to make it up now. Gina Paris, and then like Virginianica or something like that. Sounds like Virginia, whatever. Anyway, common, you know, it's a common juniper that's around here a lot. It's also used a lot as an ornamental. It turns out that the red cedar, the berries are edible, in fact, and have been used sends prehistoric times by Native American tribes living in

[29:22] America as both the leaves, the berries, and the bark have been used in various decoctions and

[29:30] teas for various various, you know, ailments that you might have. So yes, they can be used. The wood, apparently, is also quite nice. But the downside is that it doesn't have the same powerful aromatic quality that the traditional juniper

[29:47] is. So it's not going to, well, it's not going to be as baller, necessarily, of juniper flavor. That said, you know, if you taste it and you like it, then maybe you can use it in a way that's different from a,

[29:59] you know, the juniper that we're used to, you might, again, I'm a big believer

[30:03] in, you know, it might not be as good as juniper at being juniper, but it might be very good at being what it is, the eastern red

[30:11] cedar. Do you know what I'm saying, Stas? anyway. So give it a try. It's not going to poison you. However, I've read some sources that say it's mildly toxic, but again, it's been used for a long time. It was in my herbal book. It was in, it's in a bunch of the references I've read. I wouldn't eat a whole boatload of them. And there are juniper species out there that are toxic to a greater or lesser degree. So make sure you have your identification, right? Don't eat boatloads of it. And maybe try to find an application where it tastes as good or better than the regular juniter for what you're trying to use it for. There's a great article in 2000, I think. somewhere between 2006 and 2009, in the New York Times, in the gardening section. You can find it on the internet about juniper and which junipers to use and so on and so forth. Right? You like that? Okay. Now, uh, Philippe, uh, let me see, get his 1st name. I dont know. Well, let me get his last name. Anyway, Philippe writes in a question about knives. He's been contemplating picking up Michelle Bras, which is the famous French chef from where is he

[31:22] from? Albrach or something like that. Michelle Bras, Shun Knife for years now. I've read many reviews, and they are split half and half. I'm worried about the platinum oxide coating on the blades. titanium oxide, actually, I believe. platinum. titanium oxide. Titanium oxide coating on the blade. Do you have one and does it scratch easily? Thanks so much. Okay. Titanium, okay, 1st of all, Shun, a.k.a. Kershaw, has a bunch of lines of knives out that are associated with celebrities of one type or another.

[31:53] So they have Alton Brown knives. have a funky angle because Alton Brown is tall and he can't cut properly with a regular knife because the angle is bad. So he says, I can't use the Alton Brown knives, but I'm not that tall. Maybe Mark has Mark tried those? Mark's tall, man. He's never tried one of those knives? You should try them. I'd be interested to know whether or not a tall person, whether it's actually helpful for them. That's an interesting fact for me. I could probably get him one. anyway. Ken Onion, a famous knife designer, also made one, a knife for those guys. It completely non-traditional chef's knife has a very curved belly. So you rock it as you cut it and it's got like a kind of a strange ergonomic handle on it. Chef Andre Soltner, international old school badass, enjoys that knife. He actually uses it. And then they did a line with Michelle Bras. Michelle Bras, his knife. Michelle Bross is all about aesthetics, and so the knife is really pretty, right? So it's kind of a matte kind of like a like gun metal gray color and it's got a titanium oxide coating on it. Titanium, the metal is not very hard. It's tough as hell, and it doesn't ever, it basically won't rust. But it's not that hard. Titanium oxide on the other hand, I believe, is quite hard. It's used as a coating for drills for high-speed drills and things of that nature. So I'm pretty sure that it's kind of a baller coating to put on the outside, right? The knife itself has 2 different grades of stainless steel as softer stainless steel on the outside for toughness and a harder stainless steel in the center for the edge. Um, so, so it should be okay. I mean, I don't know if it's worth a huge price tag. I don't think it's going to cut appreciably better than the less expensive, uh, Kershaw slash, uh,

[33:29] Shunn Nyas because I don't think the blade chemistry itself is any different. It might be balanced better. It might be made better. It definitely looks better than those other ones, but I don't know if it's actually going to cut

[33:39] better. The, um, the other interesting thing about it is that it's, uh, unlike a lot of Japanese Western knives. I read on their website. actually, I went on the website. It's sharpened with a 50-50 bevel, meaning it's sharpened the same way on either side, like a traditional French or German knife, which means it should be fairly easy for someone who's used to European knives to sharpen it.

[33:59] It sharpened 15 degrees on each side. So it's not, it's fairly, it's a fairly sharp, fairly sharp blade. I've read some reports on the internet saying that they are well, very well balanced blades and that they handle quite well. Now I'm going to go on a little bit of a rant. A lot of people worry about the sharpness of their knives and they buy the most, you know, the best steel, the best

[34:23] disk, the best dats, ceramic knives, all this other stuff. And, you know, in the words of Jeffrey Steingard, which I think I've quoted here several times, you know, knives are like puppies.

[34:34] They're always good when they're new. It's only later that the problems come out. And I think the main thing about a knife is how easy is it to sharpen, how fast is it for you to sharpen, and how well can you resharpen it? And I know I've talked about sharpening here a bunch, but I'll say something I don't think I've said before, which

[34:49] is I would prefer steel that isn't quite as badass that sharpens really well and just sharpen the dang thing more often, right? A lesser quality read softer steel that you sharpen right before you use it is going to do a much better job in general than the super hard, high quality powdered centered steel that you

[35:11] buy and then have it sharpened in 4 months. I mean, that's just truth. What do you think? Don't talk nostalgia. She takes people's knives and beats them about their head. She's a strange lady and stash him. Yes or no? What? I don't know what you're talking about. Oh, yeah? Okay. We'll talk about later. Okay. Uh, and thanks for answering, basically, thanks for answering my liver question a few weeks back. You're welcome. And then one more question. My chef asked me to turn some already old blanched cauliflower into a puree. I was hesitant. So I popped the florets into a small pot and covered with half and half, and then with a paper lid. I slowly simmered the cauliflower until it's tender, but the weird side effect was that a lot of the cauliflower turned brown as if it were

[35:53] caramelized or, you know, myard. Uh, uh, no, it didn't taste good uh, even in the 1st place. Do you know what happened? It's interesting. First of all, I did some bunch of research this morning on cauliflower. looks like we'll have to wrap up with this, but I did a bunch of research on cauliflower. And did you know that in the biz, they don't call cauliflower florets florets, they call it curd? weird. Because I guess because it looks like, you know, like cheese curd, I guess. weird, right? Cauliflower, by the way, your kid's favorite. Oh my god, my kids. I swear to God, you know what? I love cauliflower. And I was like, there's no one on earth that doesn't, unless you're vegan that doesn't like cauliflower drenched in a cheese sauce, right?

[36:31] I mean, it's just it's just good. good stuff, right? And so, and you know, my kids for a long time, have I already talked about this? My kids, for a long time, wouldn't eat green vegetables, really, of any sort. By a long time, I mean still. They don't like re vegetables. It's one of these demented things that's put in their head by the by, I don't know, by other kids. It, one of these like weird things. It's perpetuated generation after generation. I loved green vegetables growing up. Anyway, that's me. So I was like, okay, I'm going to go get cauliflower. It's not green. I'm going to drench it in cheese sauce. Everyone freaking loves cheese sauce. And it was the worst dinner I've ever had in my life. The worst experience of the cauliflower is delicious. It was the worst experience of a meal I have ever had in my entire

[37:15] life. The screaming, the moaning, the pleating, the crying,

[37:20] and ever since that, that day. All I've ever had to, uh, say is threaten my kids with cauliflower for dinner and they're quiet. Call the sardines thing. Oh, my Booker loves sardines. They like some weird stuff. It's like, look, it's all it's all mental. No, no, and you feel the sardine, kid. Oh, I fill the sardine can, gave it to my son, Booker, who loves sardines, and I filled it with cauliflower, and he opened it up. He's like, ah, ah, ah, like I had, like, I don't know, some sort of like, uh, I don't know, toxic, toxic, something like that. Anywho. So, uh, turns out that cauliflower, like all other, uh, you know, you know, kind of

[38:00] brasica style things like cabbages, like, uh, broccoli, like, um, Brussels sprouts, uh, contain a lot of sulfur containing compounds.

[38:09] And so when you, you know, and sulfur, the chemistry of these sulfur compounds in food is extremely complicated. And as you cook these things for a long time, various things happen. They get stinky, right? Then they get old, then you have lipid oxidation, and then it turns

[38:24] out sometimes I guess they can change colors. I couldn't find, I didn't have time to run it down, and since McGee is still in China, I guarantee you McGee knows right off the top of his head exactly what's going on, but since he's in China, I can't call him to get that information out of his

[38:38] head. Um, but, uh, you know, some of the stuff that's in it, I was thinking about,

[38:44] there's a couple articles like the non-enzymatic browning of cauliflower in storage. And one of the culprits might be these kind of polyphenols that are in it that can react with

[38:54] iron. I'm wondering if you had any sort of, uh, if you were using a steel pot, it's possible that maybe the steel in the pot had something to do with

[39:02] it. Um, in which case, if it is something like that, like non-enzymatic browning, it's happening or some sort of weird mired reaction, maybe in conjunction with the half and half that you used, a little ascorbic acid might make it

[39:14] better. But there's all sorts of very complicated sulfur breakdown

[39:19] components in cauliflower that can change over time, get stinkier over time. It's a known fact. You might want to look for reference to some articles like the volatile constituents from

[39:31] Roman Esco cauliflower, the glucose innolate and free sugar content in cauliflower, and the

[39:39] non-ensmetic browning of cauliflower on storage. But I haven't found, you know, 100%, you know, ironclad reason why it would happen. The more I read, the more complicated cauliflower turns out. Just don't serve it to my kids. All right, and before we leave, today's show is sponsored by Modernist

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[41:07] Fishes, fish, vodka. Oh, you did that. Got me on this

[41:19] corner network. And you can find all of our... Don't know where I'm at. You can find all of our... I'm 20 minutes late. You got my head all twisted. And I guess can't get it straight. Fishes, fish and vodka.