[0:00] Today's program has been brought to you by S. Wallace Edwards and Sons, 3rd generation

[0:04] cure masters producing the country's best dry cured and aged hams, bacon, and sausage. For more information, visit Surrey Farms.com. You are listening to Heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradionetwork.org for 1000s more. Cooking issues.

[0:52] Calling your questions, too! Cooking issues! Conan live at 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. Dave Arnold cooking issues coming to you live every Tuesday in the back of Report of Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn here with

[1:12] Nastasia, the Hammer, Lopez, and Jack and Joe in the engineering booth. How you guys doing today? Hey. All on 2 hour sleep. Can you believe that? Two hour sleep. Yeah. Well, that's why we needed a theme song like this one. Yeah, jack us up. Well, I like the fact that we have that, it's so stupid. Like, I go into the crazy mode and then here I am back in normal, normal mode. anyway. But we have like, we have 2 songs, which is awesome. So we have the break song, and then we have the crazy, you know, get me going with no sleep song. We'll take more. With listeners, we'll take more. Yeah? By the way, Joel, I'm trying to get McGee to call in and read the Myard stuff,

[1:47] but, you know... It's that's going to be his Christmas present, if I can convince McGee to do that. Who? Oh, well, whatever. I mean, like, you know, I can give someone a Christmas present, regardless where they celebrate. It's not like it's not like I'm smacking them in the face. Like a gift is a gift. If someone wants to get, hey, look, anyone out there wants to give me a gift from some other

[2:06] religion, I am glad to accept it. See? Yeah, right? What about you guys? It depends. He's like, no Zoroastrian gifts. Right? What gift would you not accept, Jack? Is that Jack or Joe who wouldn't accept? That was me, Jack. and I don't know. I mean, are there like Scientology holidays? Oh, you know? I think I think not. I think not too. Like, I don't know. Maybe they're Scientology gifts. Uh, well, there's there's always one Scientology gift. Dianetics. Okay. We have a question in. By the way, seriously, you can call any questions live 2718-497-2128. 784972128. Oh, this weekend we had the CNN thing went on. I cannot believe that Nastasia managed to not be on that entire half hour program. They didn't ask Piper either, and yet he's on, you know, why? Because he didn't hide away from the camera. did not hide. I was in clear view. Well, that's actually not true. You rescheduled your flight back to the country to miss the cooking issues episode when

[3:10] they went through a lot of hoops. You're like, yeah, have him come that day. Everything's fine. Oh yeah, I'm not going to be here. They came the 2nd time, though. Yeah, but they'd already done most of the shoot. Look, just people, like, people, she does not want to be on the camera. She's a crazy person. She's a crazy person, but not just for that reason. Many reasons. Please call in and convince her that next time she should not hide from the cameras. But I thought it was good. It was fun. Jose, I will be on. I like it's an expose day. Speaking of expose. I was very happy with the program. I enjoyed it. Um, which is unusual. I detest watching myself in any form. But the, um, So CNN did a blog and the blog post that they decided to do was on liquid

[3:53] nitrogen. So they like, I don't know, they put the liquid nitrogen, and then the internet trolls came out of their freaking caves and were typing all sorts of nonsense about liquid nitrogen.

[4:04] So, 1st of all, it was all about that awful case we talked about, you know, a couple of weeks a month ago now, maybe, right? Or this, like, you know, incredibly unfortunate, this 18-year-old woman in England was served, liquid nitrogen to drink, which is

[4:20] horrible and unconscionable thing for a bartender do, and she lost her stomach. And it's

[4:25] horrible and completely awful. But also, would never happen with anyone who's using liquid nitrogen properly. But you get all these, like, freaks on the internet who have no idea what they're talking about, and they just are

[4:41] slamming, slamming me for using liquid nitrogen, saying things that are patently untrue about liquid

[4:48] nitrogen. Like, for instance, this one person, and this, I, commented once to set some stuff straight, and then this, I, like, don't comment again. Just leave it alone. Leave it alone. leave it alone. But here it's my radio show. I get to do what I want. So this one person says, who's, by the way, their actual name is, yeah, right. I think that's their handle. Oh, I know, I'm kidding, because any anonymous jerk sitting alone in their underwear can make comments on the

[5:10] internet, like they're, like they know what's going on. But anyways, so what happened is they say, well, you know, there's always the possibility for human error.

[5:19] So there's no reason to do it, which is, I mean, the possibility for human error using liquid nitrogen, if you use it properly in terms of a customer getting hurt that way, like a horrible thing happened in England, is roughly on the order of saying that if a chef was chopping onions in plain view of a

[5:35] customer, that they might trip and throw the knife through the customer's head. And if that happened, then, you know, we should ban the use of knives in kitchens. It's simply ridiculous. Like, I cannot state in stronger terms how awful it is what happened in England and how thoroughly, thoroughly punished the person is who did that and how freaking horrible it is that

[5:58] they did that. And I also cannot emphasize in stronger terms that that is not a reason to ban the use of liquid

[6:04] nitrogen and that people writing it on the internet simply don't know what they're talking about. And I kept on getting the gimmick crap. The guys, the guys who are against liquid nitrogen, by and large, are throwbacks, it

[6:16] seems, from their writing, to like a very old school of thought where they just think everything's a party trick. They don't, they're not bothering to pay attention. Forget what I'm doing with it or, you know, anyone at the bar, anyone that knows me

[6:28] is associated with me. If you look around, there are many, many uses of liquid nitrogen that

[6:33] are not gimmicks, right? I'm sure there are uses of liquid nitrogen that are gimmicks in the same way that if you go to a Benihana, no offense to the Benihana people, but if you go to

[6:42] Benihana, their knife use is a gimmick. Do you know what I'm saying? So, yes, a knife can be used as a gimmick and liquid nitrogen can be used as a gimmick. And a knife can be used to, you know, cook. And liquid nitrogen can be used. Well, it won't cook because it's cold, but you know what I'm saying, right? Is that enough? Elliot Papineau tweets, please also ban fire. It's very dangerous. You know, he's right. It is extremely dangerous. I've been burnt several times this year alone. You know, uh, but, uh, Anyway, so that goes into, uh, uh, we have a question. Oh, I don't have the person. Oh, from Paul, uh, at American Meltdown. He says, I graduated from FCI back in 07. We didn't get to interact much. I was in the last class of the old 4 phase, culinary tech, paradigm, and there was no culinary technology stuff. I had a question about, well, I was there, but I didn't wasn't teaching the regular bubble bars, I guess, yet. Anyways. No, I did. Anyway, whatever. I had a question about liquid nitrogen. I own and operate the American meltdown food truck in North Carolina. We serve gourmet melts and grilled chees. I like grilled cheese. You like grilled cheese sauce? You love, right? That's one of the few things, Nastasia. Actually, I can legitimately say Nastasia loves yourself the grilled cheese. Do you like anything? First time I've heard her say the word love on the show, I think. I know it. I know it. Is it your 2012 love? Is it because your mom didn't make grilled cheese sandwich? Yeah? Yeah? Do you enjoy things on your grilled cheese or do you like, what kind of cheese do you like? Well, that's the other love you have. Swiss. What was the 2nd one? cheddar. cheddar. It doesn't melt very well. You don't care? don't care. Alright. What do you think about American cheese? No, don't like it. Don't like it? Don't like it. You're patriotic, David. I don't know. I know what they do with patriotism. Do you know where American cheese was invented in England? Oh, in Switzerland, maybe. It wasn't Europe anyway. It was not here. It was invented. Actually, no, it was invented by the Swiss. It's been the Swiss nostalgia. why? As a fondant, looking up right now. The book, the book, which I downloaded somewhere on my computer is processed cheese analogs, but I believe processed cheese was invented by the Swiss, which makes sense because of their love of freaking fondue.

[8:46] But look it up. Anyway, back to the question. I had a question about liquid nitrogen, blah, blah, blah. I wanted to bring on some liquid nitrogen for a play on frozen grilled cheese. I don't know how you would freeze a grilled cheese, though. But anyway, I don't know. I mean, like, but in other words, if you freeze the grilled cheese, it's frozen grilled cheese. I don't understand. But anyway, I've had some difficulty with equipment. I found the place to buy the liquid nitrogen and the guys will let me carry it off in a Styrofoam box. As far as dispensing it. Do I need a tank? Where would I get a tank to hold LN? I saw some one liter ones at McQueenlabs.com. In my head, I have a tank with a hose, and I would put something like olive oil into a

[9:21] bowl and then squirt in the liquid nitrogen, and it would get the popcorn like frozen shapes, which is similar to

[9:26] the, you know, Danny Garcia, the famous Spanish chef, used to make frozen olive oil in various ways. But he actually did it exactly in the reverse, right? Or would I pour some ladle, some liquid nitrogen into a bowl and then pour the olive oil in? That is what typically you would do. So in fact, I saw Danny Garcia once do the olive oil demo in a

[9:43] Styrofoam box. And when he's doing his stuff, when he's, when you're freezing olive oil, the trick is, is that it breaks up into little

[9:50] pieces, uh, like almost like couscous. So he, if you sit in the LN long enough, it makes this like couscous-like thing. If you want like kind of foamy or denser things, he used to emulsify different amounts of water in to get different textures, the more water you add, the more it hurts your face, though, because the water hurts a lot when you put it in

[10:07] cold, frozen like that, whereas the olive oil by itself doesn't have as high of a specific

[10:12] heat, so it can't actually damage you as badly. But anyway, he would put olive oil in an ISI canister shaken up and

[10:20] then foam into the liquid nitrogen and the aeration would also make it less damaging on tongue, provide interesting texture and get those popcorn like things. So that's how Danny Garcia used to do it. And in fact, I did that demo once because we had a whole bunch of liquid nitrogen and people wanted to see it. I'm like, all right, I'm now going to pretend I'm Nanny Garcia because I hate doing other people's demos. So I literally was like, I am Danny Garcia, but not. anyway. And so I did like, because I had seen him do his demos. So I did, you know, I did a lot, a lot of those. I mean, not as well as he did. I'm not trying to say I was, but anyway, I did that. So, um, okay. So you don't, if you're putting into Styrofoam box, there's not much point in putting it into, into something, I mean,

[10:56] Styrofoam box is not so good. You got to be careful when you have a Styrofoam box because they can crack. And if they crack, they dump liquid nitrogen everywhere. So you want to make sure that if you do use a styro, it's like something sturdy like a fish tub and that you have it in a cardboard with duct tape around it so that it doesn't break.

[11:11] Um, you can pour it into coffee crafts is the easiest way, uh, because you're not going to be that, uh, you know, you're not going to be that efficient in storing it this way anyway. Eventually, you're going to want to go get like a 35 liter doer or something like that. Okay. And you ask, do I need a tank? Will the LN just evaporate quicker without one? Yes, that's the case. It'll just evaporate quicker. And, you know, the problem with Styrofoam boxes. They also have a fairly large surface area. So unless you keep it capped all the time. You're going to lose a lot. and when you pull the thing off, you're going to lose a lot. But if you're getting a cheap price on it, it's an okay way to start out. Just be careful that it can't slosh around because things can slosh out of those containers and then get liquid nitrogen all over

[11:49] everywhere. And if you're not being cautious, especially if you're in a food truck, never let it get in a situation where the liquid nitrogen is above the head of a customer and you're serving down to them with liquid nitrogen because then you

[12:00] could get liquid nitrogen. You could pour it like, you know, potentially into their eyes or inside of a piece of their clothing where it could get trapped and cause severe burns.

[12:07] You also want to make sure you don't have large amounts of liquid nitrogen inside of your truck unless your truck is completely ventilated to the

[12:13] outside so that you have no possibility of, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Asphyxiation, asphyxiation. Nostasia's like, I don't know. Oh, and it was the British, not Swiss, for American cheese. It was British? For processed cheese in general. Look up processed cheese and melting salt in general. That's not American cheese. Okay, well, clearly at least American cheese was invented by the Brits, but processed cheese in general, I

[12:35] believe, was invented by the Swiss. So I've got 1911 by Walter Gerber in Switzerland. Wait, wait, wait, wait. That's processed cheese. James L. Kraft is the 1st who applied for a patent for the method in

[12:49] 1916, and then Kraft was the 1st to commercial, commercially sliced them, keep them, you know, sell them sliced in 1950. In the U.S. In the US. In the US, yeah. Yeah. The Swiss. So Nastasia, your precious... Well, what do you think American cheese is? Hello, it's processed cheese made with cheddar? Duh. Hey, by the way, just so you know, I've said this before on the show, but this is what I do with my kids. I give them a prize. Anyone, the 1st person who calls in, I'll send you $2 if you get this. So what is going to be more likely to produce a better emulsified, uh, uh, processed cheese product, an aged cheese or a non-aged cheese? First coloring gets 2 bucks. I don't know how am I going to get 2 bucks? Wow. PayPal. PayPal. will PayPal you 2 bucks. Okay. Now, back on the thing. We are in close space being inside the truck, but there are 2 huge ventilation hoods, a service window and a large back door that can swing open. I feel that has enough airflow, but I could be wrong. Thanks for your time and response. It could be enough airflow. Just make sure that there's no possibility that one of your workers is in there and it gets

[13:47] sealed. Like, for instance, when you're driving, and if you're driving and they have a, like, a big tub of liquid nitrogen and you get hit, it could dump

[13:55] over, and then the entire styro cooler of liquid nitrogen is on the floor of your truck and it's

[14:00] sealed, and then you're shafted, because you might have gotten knocked out and you can't open the window or something like that. So anytime you have liquid nitrogen in a vehicle like that, it has to be away from you, secure, and all the windows have to be open. Right? That's what that's the rule. Nastasia's like, I don't want to talk to you about it. We're on the show. What are you talking about? There's no one else I can talk to. Okay. Um, Tony, Tony Herrion writes in from the mixing bar in Brazil. Hey, Dave, Nastasia, Jack, and Joel. Joe. I don't want to say Joel, crazy, because we're going to talk about Joel later. Yeah. Salute from Brazil once again. This Tuesday I've been invited to speak to a group of bartenders, media, and industry people about the use of salt

[14:37] in drinks in Sao Paulo. They I want to go to Sao Paulo. I don't like Portuguese. The language or the people? But do you don't like like European Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese? But see, I like Brazilian Portuguese, but actual Portuguese makes no sense to me. It sounds like Russian. Is that why you like it? Sounds all crazy to me. Like Portuguese from Portugal sounds all crazy to me. And like Brazilian Portuguese sounds like Portuguese to me. Anyway, uh, okay. The project is called Mentes Brijantes, Brijantes, Brilliant Minds, and is produced by the Brazilian

[15:10] cocktail site, mixology news to promote the exchange of ideas within our cocktail scene. My presentation is pretty much all set up, but we also include any hint or pointer from the cooking issues team. I know from the episode you did with Tony Canallaro that you use or Tony C, as they say, Tony C. Do you know that in America, when you pronounce the ballplayers, the dead famous Boston Red Sox ballplayer's name that they literally, even like I was talking to my 93 year old, my stepfather's father, my step grandfather, whatever, you know, who's Italian,

[15:37] Adonisio, right? from Boston, and I need SEAL. Anyway, so he even says Canigliaro. Canigliaro. That's what the Bostonites call him anyway, whatever. Simon's going to start calling Tony, Tony Canigliaro. What do you think? I like it. You like that? Tony Connigliaro. Anyway, that you use salt and a few drinks at Booker and Dax. fact, we use them in most drinks in Booker and Dex. Anything that has any form of fruit in it, really, coffee, chocolate, anything like that has salt in it. Sub threshold, sub threshold. But would love to hear more of your experiences with it. I'm going to use the drink. The search for delicious to exemplify how salt can help bitterness in drinks.

[16:12] Participants will get a glass containing China, Punta Mez, and orange bitters, and will gradually add lemon juice and salt tincture. The salt tincture is going to be at 100 mils of water and 15 grams of salt, which is roughly what we do, right? to see how it changes over time, tasting the drink at each step. I know it's a bold cocktail, but it's pretty impressive how a few drops of salt mass, it can really change this drink. The workshop is based on the article I wrote for mixology. news a while ago, but of course, it's in Portuguese, so it's useless to me because, and I hate Google Translator. I'm sorry. Sorry, Tony, I can't stand the Google translator. Do you like Google Translate? It's awful. It's always wrong. Always, wrong. Any pointers ideas about the use of salt and drinks and its effects appreciated. I'm sure to mention a lot about you guys in seminar. Cheers, Tony. Okay, so 1st of all, I was not aware of this word, but here's my favorite new title in the world. Maybe this is what you should become instead of error apparent. Maybe you should be chemosensory psychophysicists. I think that's a real. It's real. Yeah, I know, but people earn that. You think? You think that's like an earned title? You can't just like, it's like, it's like everyone says, I'm an architect. Did you go to architecture school? Did you pass a test, you know what I mean? It's like, so you think it's like that? You have to actually pass a test to be a chemosensory psychophysicist. Got the word psycho in it. Yeah, well, you can stick with that. Psychophysicist. Like, what if it's just psychophysicist and not chemosensory psychophysicist? you be that? Sure. Okay. Anyway, so, like, very, very clearly, the people who are the top of their game on this are uh, PA Breslin and uh, G.K. Beauchamp, and

[17:45] they they work for Monel out of Philadelphia, and they've written all of the good articles on salt and bitterness.

[17:50] And some of the good ones you might want to look at, like a lot of their, like, classic work was done in the late 90s. And so you might want to look up salt enhances flavor by suppressing

[18:00] bitterness and another good one is salt taste. Which is a chapter in a book. That one came out in 2008 and that's a good, it's good because it's a, it's what it's called. It's a review, a review section. anyway. So the interesting thing is, and by the way, while I was researching this to get some more information, I learned some extremely interesting things.

[18:23] So everybody knows that um, and I guess everybody doesn't know this. If you present something that smells sweet with something that it makes everything taste sweeter. So like, in other words, if I give you banana aroma and sugar, it tastes sweeter than if I just gave you banana aroma alone.

[18:43] Does that make sense? And if I add certain things, but if I ask you to

[18:49] evaluate, and then things have different synergy. So typically if you add salt, salt, masks, bitterness. So like if you add salt to it, bitterness level is reduced. Typically, if you, but what's crazy is if I ask you to rate, there's very recent scholarship that, that when you just have someone rate a single thing like sweetness, it all makes sense, but that if you actually say, for instance, in sweet, if you're

[19:11] going to do a sour and salt together, if you ask someone to rate the, wow, someone just tossed a pizza on someone's chest, it was awesome.

[19:17] sleep. You see that? We watched the kind of like dining room here. And there was a there was a pizza chest toss. anyway. Grease on cashmere. Yeah, grease on cashmere. That's a good band. Anyone out there, you're welcome. Grease on cashmere. that sounds like a lot like, remember that band lubricated goat? Yeah. Was Lubricated Goat the one who's had the album Circusized Peanut? Look that up. Someone looked up. Yeah, see, see, see whose album was circuscised Peanut. I think it might have been lubricated goat. Great bad names, family show. Okay, so back to what I was saying. But if you actually tell someone, okay, now rate salt and and sour separately, they can.

[19:55] They can rate it. But anyway, in general, salt is extremely complicated. So the way the way it affects your taste. So the way it affects your taste is very dependent on concentration. So when you add salt, for instance, like some people add salt to coffee. When you're adding salt to things in low concentrations,

[20:13] you so, okay, look, I get so, I get so like all over myself. My head's going at like a 1000000 miles a minute that I can't, I got to slow down, slow down, slow down the head. Okay. If you take a bitter and a bitter component, and let's say a sweet component, and you have them together, the, in a drink. The bitter component and the sweet component will mutually suppress each other. Does that make sense? Right? So it'll taste both less sweet and less bitter. But if you add salt to that, right? Even fairly small amounts of salt to that mixture, what ends up happening is, the salt suppresses the bitterness, but also undoes

[20:54] the undoes the suppression that the bitterness did to the sweetness. So it tastes even sweeter. So it tastes like the bitterness is going down and the sweetness is going

[21:06] up, even though actually what's happening is you're unmasking the, the, you're unmasking. The bitter is no longer masking up the sweetness. And this is like really super interesting work that like Beauchamp and Breslin did out of

[21:19] Mono and like everyone should, everyone should kind of, kind of read that. But just in, um, in very kind of, uh, round terms, in the article, salt enhances the flavor, uh, by suppressing bitterness. He says, our data shows that in addition to adding desired saltiness to food, salt, potentiate

[21:35] flavor through the selective suppression of bitterness, and perhaps other undesirable flavors, and the release from suppression of palatable

[21:43] flavors such as sweetness. The desire for NACL and other salts and foods is diverse as often bitter vegetables, oily foods, and meats may be due in part to their ability to suppress unpleasant flavors. This may explain why it is difficult to make low sodium foods acceptable. That's a quote from that article. Another interesting thing that Beauchamp in his, what's that thing called? A review article gives a really interesting example that you can smack your friends across the face with sub-threshold salt,

[22:10] right? And I've said this a 1000000 times on the air, but I've never said it so succinctly, and that's why these are the smart guys. This is in salt taste. So, Nastasia, does bread taste like the average loaf of bread? Does it taste salty? No. No, it doesn't, right? So I would call that sub-threshold salt, right? And so, but when you get Tuscan bread, it what? Taste good. It sucks. Everyone knows it sucks. You're being ornery. Tuscan bread has no salt and it sucks. And so that shows you kind of the incredible rounding effect that salt can have on

[22:43] something, even though it's below a threshold. And that, in fact, is the exact thing. What Beauchamp says. Uh, he says, I think it's a he. I don't know, maybe woman. She, he. don't know. Um, that consider, again, bread and bread products. The salt in these make up the single largest source of sodium consumed in the US diet. I did not know that. I did not know that. Yet we typically do not perceive bread is salty. Bread without salt tastes insipid or bad, like Tuscan bread does. That's emphasis is mine. When salt is added, the flavor is enhanced without making the bread tastes salty. The salt, when added to food, must have functions other than adding saltiness, and then goes on to explain what they are. Wow. What? These guys are... They can't see. You got to say what's going on if you're going to make a comment. really like whacked out customers that just left right now. Well, 1st of all, it's raining cats and dogs here. It's like the day you'd never need sunglasses in Bushwick and... Two of the 3 of the group are wearing sunglasses. Yeah, and like, you know, major like, you know, leaning back and then, you know, I had to actually use this interesting. I had to use the women's bathroom today before the show. And by the way, the Roberta's people apparently love women a lot more than they love men

[23:52] because you've been to the men's bathroom? Yeah, men's bathroom, hellhole. Not just because it's filthy because men are filthy. Just it's like laid out. Like, I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. So you're, you know, your legs are smashed into this sink. I don't care You know? So the door is going to clock you in the head if, you know, who cares? You're a dude. know what I mean? The women's like, you know, you could turn around. You know, you can wash your hands. The bigot's not like, you know, like half a millimeter off of the, and what at, what? But anyway, so the reason I went into the women's bathroom, I was given specific, okay, because apparently, uh, a couple had gone in there and they were finishing up last night's festivities. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. So it's not it's not that they're like that in the morning. It's still nighttime for them. Yeah, we'll see when Indie Jesus isn't around all hell breaks. Boom. Oh, that's a good one. No, geez, that's good. That's good business. All right. And two, just to break it down the line for you. For example, this is a quote again from these guys. For example, sub-threshold salt levels, increase perceived sweetness and decrease perceived acidity, whereas

[25:02] sub-threshold, sugar concentrations make a food taste less salty than it actually is. And in very weak concentration, salt might actually enhance the flavor of

[25:10] acids because it's not linear. It changes whether it's subthreshold, super threshold, and how much. So the answer is there is no answer. You like that? Nastasia loves, there is no answer. Oh, you want to go to our 1st commercial break? Let's do it. Is that for me? Yeah. Cooking issues.

[26:10] Like what you hear so far? Support the network and become a member. Membership helps us bring you the best food radio in the world and gives you access to thousands of dollars in discounts at the sustainably minded businesses that support us. To become a member of visit heritageradionetwork.org today. Today's program has been brought to you by S. Wallace Edwards and Sons, Edward Suriano hams are aged to perfection for no less than 400 days and hickory smoke to achieve a deep mahogany color. The Edwards name is well known for its world-class aged and cured meats. Their exclusive curing and aging recipe produces a unique flavor profile that enhances the quality characteristics of Berkshire

[26:56] pork. Optimum amounts of pure white fat marbling contribute to a flavor that's a delicate, perfect balance between sweet and salty. For more information, visit www.surifarms.com. Ooh, reverb. Uh, we have a caller, yeah? Yeah, call or you're on. Call her on the air. Yeah, hey, Dave, Mark Jansen here down in Lexington, Kentucky. Nice. Hey, man, I've been listening to you guys. This is Tasia, Jack, Joe. It's been a dream to get all this information over the radio. Fantastic. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. What do you got for us? All right, this is Apropos, because I'm also a food truck owner, and this also

[27:36] can kind of had something to do with Portuguese cooking. So here we go. I'm doing a Macau style pork chop bun tomorrow for a gig, and of course it has some kind of Portuguese influence and Chinese influence. But my big question is, I'm gonna coat this in a starch. and then deep fry it after I marinate the pork chop after I marinate the pork chop. On starches. What do you think lends to a more crispy crust if, I'm just really powder coating it. I'm not going to do a batter. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's everyone has their own feeling. 1st of all, you're going to, you said you're going to sous vide it and then like bring it, they're going to be thin enough that you're just going to fry from cold after

[28:18] they're, after they're low temp? Is that what you said you were going to do? Exactly. Okay. Exactly. Um, I mean, I think there's a couple things going to look. Everyone has their own view about kind of what's going on, but the issue with any kind of skim coat is that you're,

[28:32] you're, you're, unless it's dry. It's hard to get like a real crunchy surface on it unless, you know, I need to do more research on it. I learned here at Roberta's. They do a chicken that's a variant of a kind of a well-known restaurant that was closed at the time, but it's

[28:47] open again called pies and thighs. And they literally take it out of their brine, throw it into flour, and then

[28:54] fry it. So apparently like everything I learned, because when I learned it was, you know, you'd make a pellicle, uh, you know, you dry it

[29:00] real, real, so to get adhesion, and then you do uh,

[29:04] flour liquid flour fry, which is not what you're looking to do. But these guys go directly into the starch from wet. Were you going to go into the starch from wet or no? I was thinking about patting it dry at least. Yeah. Right. But not a multiple coat. I'm keeping it thin. Uh, and I was leaning toward uh, a cornflower. Uh, keeping it in the kind of Chinese tradition, but uh, that corn exactly is old world, but. Right. I mean, you know, I've done uh, rice starch batters, and they're, they're, you know, they have that a certain flavor, and in fact, some people, even if it would put, uh, you know, but you can't in your application, but

[29:42] they, they put some, uh, uh, you know, Cal in there, some some basic stuff in there

[29:47] to to alter it or baking soda even. But, you know, nils, uh, Noran always used to use uh, water chestnut uh, flour. And he swore by water chestnut flour. Now, chestnut flour. The storeroom used to make that mistake all the time. Water chestnut flower. And it was good, but that was what he always used to swear by. Uh, you know, and I don't know which one of the countries over there that he was working in where he picked it

[30:12] up. I't know whether we picked that up in China. I don't know if he picked it up in Singapore. I don't know where he picked it up But that was his go to for when we when we used to do the whole fish, the whole striped bass, and he

[30:23] wanted, and we would pull it out, we would only let it, you know, dry off for a second, he would always dust it

[30:27] in water chestnut flour. And I have to admit, it was better in my in my memory than when we just used, you know,

[30:35] playing wheat flour or any of the other kind of normal, normal starches.

[30:39] You might want to look at a modified starch, like crisp coat, or something like that. And it's not going to be too expensive in the, um, in the quantities that you're using probably, least, you know, unless you're going to do it forever. I think you can get that stuff from modernist pantry. But, you know, that stuff, you know, when it's designed to form a kind of a moisture barrier so that

[30:58] it, you know, crisp coat, hence its name crisp coat. But it could be added also to other starches. So you don't need to use exclusively that. In fact, in industrial usage, they use it only at around, I think, around 10% usage ratio versus other starch, but it definitely is built to increase adhesion and crispness in

[31:14] the in the in the coating. So you might want to look into something like that. Interesting. Do you think that Chris is something that is put into, say, wonder? Wonder, uh, you know, I've also never done a lot of testing with frying with wonder. Wonder is just like it's agglomerated so that it dissolves, you know, easily. Uh, and there are some people who swear by Wandra coatings in

[31:39] their, in their frying, but I used it only once or twice in

[31:43] tests, and I, you know, my feeling was that it had a weird taste, but it could have been something else.

[31:47] I really didn't give it enough of a test to say that I love it or I don't. And for some reason, I never got in the habit of keeping Wanderer around for gravies because I, you know, I just... Right. It's not necessary. And by the way, I'm not like an, it needs to be necessary kind of a guy. It's just, I just never bothered, never bothered becoming a part of my pantry, but there are people who swear by it. Have you ever tried? you ever tried it or do you like it? Hello? Oh, I'm still here. No, I'm not a wonder guy either. It just says something that's down here in the south more. Uh, and I was wondering since you mentioned Chris Cote, that maybe that was part of its uh, profile. Yeah, no, no, it's just, I mean, in other words, like what they do to certain starches. If you look up the natural, national starch, which is a starch company that I like to go to a lot, they, you know, they have a lot of agglomerated starch

[32:40] products. For instance, like Wonder is the is the starch equivalent of ultra spurse versus ultra

[32:46] techs. So, you know, it's prehydrated. Well, those are prehydrate, ultra spurs, and ultra texts. I really know how winter is done, but the one's agglomerated so that it dissolves easily and doesn't clump up and the other one's a pain in the butt.

[32:58] Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm, Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, I may check into that water chestnut flour. We've got some good Asian markets here and I might be able to source that. Yeah, and I'm just doing it off the top of my head. So you should when you do some research on it, let us know what happens. Send us a tweet or something. Excellent. I shall man. Thank you, everybody. I appreciate it. All righty. Good luck. Uh, why does my iPad shut down? I hate that. Okay. Oh, by the way, we got a question. Jack, we're okay over there? We got another caller? Caller, you're on the air. Yeah, Dave, a couple questions about pressure cooker stock, and then one about sweet potato fries, if I'm not taking up too much time. Let's go, let's do it. Okay, so when I make pressure cooker stock, what you got me started on and I'm having outstanding results with. If, if I just don't open the lid on a Kunwicone do a dramatic, after the last extraction, however many I'm doing,

[33:54] is it sealed enough to just be canned and like room temperature stable for a day or 2? All right, that's an excellent question. Excellent, excellent question. And, um, Okay, so if you were to, uh, when you bring it up to pressure, like, just do a couple of

[34:17] ch- vent to get all the extra air out and you've done it a couple of times, I would say, I

[34:24] would, I would be okay with it. I've not done the studies because if you look at actual pressure canning. They're very, very clear that you need to purge the entire thing from with air and then have it be full steam before you start your timing on it for being

[34:40] canned. But I think the reason they're doing that is because they're cooking it for a bare minimum amount of time and they don't want air trapped in next to the food particle, which is going to slow heat

[34:49] transmission and therefore going to slow the rate of cooking. I think that if you're doing a stock for long enough that it's probably not an

[34:56] issue and at the outside and all the air and everything that's in that headspace are going to get

[35:02] fully, um, you know, fully, you know, pressure cooked. Um, Now, if you're going to reheat the stock. Remember, the stock is not like, it's not really cannibal straight. I mean, it is. I mean, if you if you do it long enough, if you follow the procedures, it should be. Long story short, I don't know whether I can feasibly recommend it to you. but I do it. So it's not FDA approved, but should probably work. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I actually do that because like a lot of times, you know, what will happen is, and you know, like Harold McGee and Roman got into like a little bit of a thing about Roman saying he just leaves regular stocks out

[35:39] on and then just reheats them, which is what everyone used to do in the old days. You know, they'd keep a soup going for a whole week. And I did that during the blackout here when we had Hurricane Sandy. But, um, but you know, the, the, uh, you know, many times I will have the pressure cooker going and I don't want to, you know, it's late at

[35:56] night, it's late at night. I want to go to bed. I've made dinner and now I'm making a stock out with the bones that I had left over from the prep out at

[36:02] dinner. And I'll leave it overnight and then put it in the fridge in the morning and I don't really feel bad about it.

[36:06] Uh, yeah, because I'm, uh, well, hey, I want to do exactly what you just described, and also on Thanksgiving, I mean, you know, I'm just running out of space for everything, and if I could just run the last pressure cooker with the turkey stock and set it in the garage and forget about it

[36:21] till I need it again. I mean, that's that's just very helpful. Yeah, I would not leave it forever. I wouldn't consider it 100%. Yeah. I'm talking 24, 48 hours, Max, just enough to get, you know, get it done and out of the way if I'm getting ready for a big family deal. Yeah, and I say reheat it. Two. Oh, yeah. Well, reheating is pretty much the same with anything I would do with it would be going in something hot, like, Uh, I make gravy with a fairly dark, uh, butter and

[36:48] flour, boo, and, you know, that, when the stock hits that gravy, when the stock hits that root, it's about 350 degrees or something ridiculous. Right, right, right. And then you boil it from there. So, I mean, so reheating is definitively part of the program. Yeah, I mean, I mean, most things that are going to develop would be heat labile anyway if you're going to reheat them. I mean, again, like, I just feel very hesitant to say it's okay on the air and yet I do do it. Okay, well, that's that's sometimes maybe as good as you get. Yeah, yeah. And you got a 2nd question you said? 2nd thought question. I've been doing some double and even one triple extraction, which just came out fantastic. Um, based on the method you described a month or 2 ago where you, you know, just keep pulling, you know, you, you

[37:35] want the pressure cooker, uh, let the pressure come down, take one batch of bones in, and run it again without ever cooling it

[37:43] off. How many times can you do that before something weird happens? Jeez, I know I don't know. I've never done more than three. Um, but I figure there's got to be a diminishing marginal return. I think, you know, it's been years since I, it's been years since I've done side by sides on that or like, or kept a little back and tasted it, but I bet you that you're not getting much after about, about 3, 2 or

[38:07] 3, 3, on chicken bones, probably three. Uh, but I mean, it really makes a fantastic stock, doesn't it? I mean, that triple stock is crazy. I made I did a triple extraction among some beef bones for faux here a while back and it was

[38:21] just amazing. Yeah, I mean, that's, that is like, you know, people, no one makes it anymore because, you know, if you were actually going to do it, it's, it's, if

[38:28] A's would be expensive in a restaurant sitting and B, it would take forever if you were doing it in kind of a standard way, but you can do it so quick and just the depth of flavor on that stuff's nuts, right?

[38:38] Oh, it's, I mean, it's just unbelievable. And also, it's advantageous for me, that the stronger I can make it, I can make soup and dilute it back out a little

[38:48] bit, so it improves my storage efficiency since my freezer is permanently stuffed. Yeah, right. I mean, I got that technique from James Peterson. I forget which one of, you know, he was, you know, one of my favorite cookbook writers back in

[39:01] the in the day. I guess he's still writing, but, you know, I think that's where I that's where I picked that one up like a long time

[39:06] ago. The, the, not from the pressure cooker, but just the idea of a triple stock in general. As opposed to, as opposed to doing a lot of reductions, because he was one of the early people that I can remember, saying that, you know, he preferred, uh, you know,

[39:19] 3 like more heavy duty, uh, bone to water ratios rather than, uh, rather than, you know, making a weak stock

[39:27] in reducing it, which is what most people do. And I think it's not as good. And, you know, and he kind of railed against that, you know, a long time ago. And I kind of took that to heart. I think most people use too much water in their stocks, period. Well, when you're trying to make a living, so in it, it's just a different scenario. I mean, I don't really care whether my batch of stock costs $12 or 14, but I mean, if you're in business, that can

[39:51] be, if it's been making money and losing it. I think it's exactly right I think it's, but the funny thing is, when people at, people at home who can afford to do it that way, like they're emulating the restaurant practice, not necessarily best practice, you

[40:03] know? Well, it's just, that's just because it's just the most common idea out there, but you've, you've certainly helped me out on a bunch. Well, thanks very much. And then completely different question. I absolutely love sweet potato fries. My wife doesn't like the texture I get, and that they're just a little too limp. Is there some little magic powder from modernist pantry that would at least help that problem? You know, I've never, I've never had the luck on the surface of the sweet potato. You're talking about the surface or the interior. I've never had luck on the surface. I've gotten the interior nice, but I've never had that luck on the surface. Well, I would, I would try anything that even might get my wife to eat them because they've been a 100 times better for eating regular

[40:49] french fries in terms of vitamins, if not calories. Well, you know, the only way I've ever done it where I thought it was like really good. I cheated and I battered them. Okay. You know what I mean? And then if you do, like a light batter on them, you can get them. crunchy is all get out and then have the sweet potato on the inside. So you're doing so you're doing like egg white and cornstarch? Uh, I know, I didn't do. I, you know, last time I did it, I did it in wait, everyone's going to hate me now. I did it in too thick, but usually I only do one kind of batter. So, and I'm not a fan of like really like kind of light stuff most of the time. So I do what I do for fried chicken, which is like a flower-based, like, you know, pretty hardcore, crunchy. Flour and buttermilk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I'm not saying you should do that. I'm just saying that, you know, that's that's what I do, but some sort of whatever your favorite crispy coating is. I'm not a fan. I'm again, I'm going to get. going to get nuked on this. I am not a fan of tempura batters. I think that I've had what is supposed to be very good tempura that other people say was

[41:49] good, and to me, it's not as, I understand that everyone loves it. It's just not what I love. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, you know, sometimes you just like something or don't. That's right. I mean, I prefer a harder, harder texture, and I think tempura also goes off too quickly, especially on something high moisture, like a sweet potato

[42:08] fry. One of the problems with sweet potato fries is, it's virtually impossible with that high sugar content to get that crunchy kind of

[42:16] coating, because you're not lacquering it. Like when people make sweet french fries that are like shatter on the outside, sometimes they're sweet and they are almost like lacquers from the outside. But it's so hard because of the way moisture absorption goes into the crust to get that crust to stay normal on just a sweet potato fry. I would love to hear somebody else's technique of doing it. But I bet you could do it with just, you know, a fairly good starched dusting, like maybe Chris Coat or something like that without going full batter. All right, Chris Code, it's cold. Yeah, Chris Coke, you can give that a try. I mean, hopefully someone will tweet me into the my Twitter account and say what they do to make their sweet potato fries crunchy. But I'm not, like, a lot of people out there who like sweet potato fries, they like them even though they're not crunchy, but it sounds like you're, you know, your wife wants them crunchy, right? Well, yes, she's just, she's just very specific about texture of a lot of things and sweet potato fries just don't work

[43:06] for her. Yeah, yeah. At least I'm having a couple making one that works for her. Yeah, I'm sure you'll get it. I mean, like, just mean, like, yeah, I mean, I like them, but, you know, I fry them hard the same way that I do deep fried okra, which is pretty hard crust, so, you know, but you have to like that sort of thing. Oh, I mean, I just like fried food, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, fried fried, frying is a good way of cooking. That's the way it should be. Oh, but anyway. But yeah, those are, those are my 3 for the day. All right, well, listen, tweet us in and let us know how it worked out, all right? you very much. All right, thanks. Can Canningberg wrote in, basically calling us, calling not you because me,

[43:43] Wussy, said, hi, Nastasia, Dave, enjoyed the Thanksgiving show. Dave is cutting corny corners with his turkey, it seems to me. If mom and stepdad are docs and Dave has access to equipment, my suggestion, boning the

[43:54] turkey laparoscopically, uh, like, like, uh, they don't let me, my mom wouldn't even give me a prescription for quinine to make

[44:02] drinks. I have to pay like retail price for my quinine sulfate. So you know, if they don't they don't steal stuff. They too honest these guys. Anyway, I was in New York City and planned to have a drink at Booker and Dax and be an audience at one of your show, but instead found myself holed up in Park Slope for the duration of Hurricane

[44:15] Sandy another time. Happy Thanksgiving, hanging bird. So by the way, the turkey was delicious, delicious. Did I talk about this already? Have we already had a show since Thanksgiving? Turkey was really good. It was, I think, the best no tech turkey I've ever done, but and anyone can do it. So, like, to recap what I did, took the turkey. It was a £23 turkey, I inside out boned it. So I ripped all of the I ripped all the bones out from inside without cutting the skin in any way. Uh, then, uh, I had my mom make, and then I brined it. Now, one of the advantages of boning it, before you brine it, is that you can fold the turkey up into a small little package and put it even a £23 turkey in a fairly small amount of brine.

[44:55] So I put that in a brine for a couple of hours. You know, my typical brine, which is no measurement. It's make it taste salty like the ocean, and then add enough sugar until you can just barely taste the sweetness. Uh, uh, my mom started making the stuffing. She put the stuffing into the oven covered, so it wouldn't lose its moisture. We pull the turkey out after a little bit. Let it dry, form a pellicle on the skin so that it was nice and tacky. You know, got the inside all rinsed out. And remember, when I inside out boned it, what I took out all of the internal bones and I took out the thigh bone on both sides, I left the last arm bone in and I left the wing joint or last leg bone in, rather, the drumstick

[45:33] bone, and I left the wing bones in for a little bit of structure. Then I took the stuffing out when it was like scalding hot, like, you know, of the full oven

[45:42] temperature, and then jammed the 1st thing I jammed was I jammed it into the thighs, so it started cooking the thighs,

[45:48] right? And now we're cooking from the inside out and then jammed it in, made it look like a turkey again. And now the advantage of the hot stuff thing is, I'm not going to poison anyone and it's going to speed the cooking and it's going to cook the parts that I boned out like the thigh very quickly in the same fashion that it would the other breast meat because it's getting hot stuff in contact where you wouldn't normally get it right

[46:07] away. Threw the whole thing into a 450 degree oven, I think, or 400 or something for like an hour and a half , 2 hours. Whoa, butter and salt on the thing. Thing was good turkey. Good turkey. anyway. So Ken, even though I was cutting corners, it was good turkey. Uh, and I think I might do it again that way, it's so much easier than the, than the aluminum uh, than the aluminum skeleton. Other noastasia likes to see me. more traditional. Yeah, well, yeah, I guess it is more traditional. I guess anything is more traditional than what I'm doing. And all the stuffing has that awesome flavor from being in the turkey.

[46:41] And, well, all inside out boning also has the advantage, which everyone should take advantage of, of now you have all the bones,

[46:48] which while it's, while it's, uh, what's the word I'm looking for, brining and cooking, you can make a turkey stock right

[46:53] away. So then you can get your gravy base done, and then you can take and deglaze the pan that a turkey comes in. Remember, like everyone, I hate, I hate it when I see a turkey in a roasting pan, and the sides of the pan are coming up over the side of the turkey, and I know that the underside of that turkey is that like nasty, blonde, like,

[47:12] flabby. You what I'm talking about, stuff? Do you hate that? I lift, lift your turkey up, people. lift up, be proud of your turkey. Lift it above the, the, the rim of the pen. anyway. And so we got the gravy and the gravy was done, good. bueno bueno. So it's all around a good, a good, a good thing. It's all good. Um, so, uh, um, on pressure cookers again. Tom Fisher wrote in and said, hope you enjoyed your Thanksgivings. I'm looking into getting a coon recon pressure cooker and was surprised at the number of sizes available in the small difference in price. Is there any reason not to just buy the 8.5 quart stock pop instead go with the smaller units? We went over that last week. Uh, you know, a similar thing. I don't think it was Tom, though. No, just get the 8.5 court. It's good. See, how you like that, Stas, for a short freaking answer. You like that? Still going on, though. What do you mean? What do you mean? Yeah, of course I'm still talking. What? You're the next question. Okay. Okay, Marty from Eagle Rock writes in Dave at all. First, I think Katamaro Tempura, which is like an ongoing thing we're talking about. The thing that solidifies oil in Japan. Uh, Ketamata temputo is, uh, I don't know how you actually pronounce it, is derived from castor oil. I think that's how you pronounce it, though, because it's like tempo or like tempo. Anyway, at least that's what the ingredients page from S.E. Johnson translates to. And then there's the Thai caster oil group, whose primary product is cooking oil solidifier. The internet does not lie. Um, And I've been looking up uh, castor oil, and I'm trying to figure out what the heck is in this stuff. And I got another person saying castor oil in on my Twitter account. Uh, I think it was uh, clefs. Anyway, so the The thing is, I still can't figure out what the hell it is. So if you take castor oil, it's like semi-food gray, but it tastes bad. It comes from the castor plant, which if you don't process it right, can poison you with ricin, which is like a toxin. anyway. But the if you hydrogenate it, it becomes a castor wax and castor wax has a very high melting point. And I think that you can use, it's a castor wax, it's a cylinder fire for the oil because you do it in hot, and then when it sets, it sets solid. It's used to harden underarm deodorant. Yeah, so it's like hard, like a carnugal wax. But I can't really figure out what's going on. But anyway, Marty's 2nd question is, are there any well, 1st question, 2nd comment. Are there any consumer level reusable products out there for low temperature cooking? Whenever I cook stuff, I always end up with a pile of plastic freezer bags. I'd love to experiment more, but my inner hippie keeps chastising me so I don't. You know, this is really an issue. There are some bags out there. Um, and you can reuse them, but it's just so gross that no one does it. You know what I mean? It's just, it's just nasty. Uh, you know, I'd like to say that there's some sort of like, you know, paper like on poppyote thing that you could do. But I just don't know that it's the case. And like they, the bags just tend to degrade over time. I haven't used any of the thicker. There are a couple people out there who are making very thick bags that are the equivalent of, you remember those

[50:06] noustache? Remember those pencil cases you get when you were a kid? That was like, yeah, that were made out of vinyl. These aren't made out of vinyl because it's gross, but I haven't had time to really look into them, but it's really something I'd like to put out to anyone who's listening to the show to think about maybe some alternative like that that doesn't require a constant source of new

[50:23] bags. I mean, obviously there is cooking in broth and cooking in stock, low temperature by using the actual circulator to circulate the products. There's cooking in jars, but it's just not, it's not the same. In other words, there's lots of things you can do, but it's just not the exact same thing. Like you can pack a jar 100% full with product, screw it down, and throw it into a bath, and it'll work, but it's not the same. It's just not the same as doing it in a bag. You know what I mean? I don't know of a good solution. But I would love to hear anyone's good solution. By the way, Castor Bean Oil, hydrogenate, Castor Bean, not only used to solidify, but another caster, uh, oil product, zinc, uh,

[51:03] Ricinulate is the, is the, is the anti-stink in uh, antipersprints. I don't know why it absorbs, it absorbs the stink, but apparently, apparently it do. Okay, are we going to get kicked off the air so now? Oh my god. And I have so many questions. I have not gotten to. Uh, Charlie Chang. I know I have some questions on Twitter. I'm gonna have to get those next time, I guess. Joel, we did not get a text back from McGee, right? Let me check. See if you got a text back from Harold. We got a text back from Harold. Then we'll run an extra 30 seconds or something. Did we get one? Anyway. I also have a question that I'd like to spend more time on from stand below, so we'll get that next time or maybe get it on the Twitter, all about different kind of geling

[51:49] compounds, and interested in making vegetarian gummy bears using geland, and there actually is a brand new patent on that. We'll have to get into that next time. One thing I will shout out, you know, I'm constantly amazed at the amazing information that's available on the FAO's website, which is the food and agricultural organization of the UN, and they have so many crazy publications out there on like how to grow shrimp in

[52:11] Thailand. Like it's crazy. You can go on there and I just, I spent probably, I don't know, stupidly, probably spent 2.5 hours last night when I should have been sleeping, reading like the

[52:22] FAO's documents on seaweed production. It's not even that it's like super scintillating. You know, it's not like anyone else here would, like, be like, oh, bam, it's awesome, but, like, I can't help free information like that. You know what I mean? Isn't that weird? Anyway. So we did not get it in, right? Nope, no answer. Yeah, no answer from the McGee. All right. He's sleeping. I know. The poor guy's sleeping. He's in what's it called? He's in the California. Uh, so, uh, Joel wrote in and said, uh, just listen to the podcast, you made my uh, effing holiday. Thanks for playing my song ever since I picked up a copy of On Food and Cooking 9 years ago. I become obsessed with a reasoning for everything I do in the kitchen. As a cook, I would tick off my chefs because I explained why their white chocolate ganache wasn't

[53:05] working or how starch types different, short grain rice and works better in putting because they don't retrograde like long grain rice does. like, you know, most long grain. Obviously, Thai black sticky is, is, uh, anyway, whatever. Now, running a kitchen myself. I make sure that all my cooks question everything they do. I teach methods, not recipes. I promote discovery, not conservative French technique, although I do like that stuff. When I went to Danielle a bunch of years ago and they presented me with like the whole fish and crust, even though it's overcooked, I was like, I love

[53:31] it. I just, because I love, you know, it felt like, you know, felt like old school. anyway. We listen to the podcast during prep crew gets into it. Uh, HRN is seriously awesome. Cooking issue is awesome. Keep it up. Joel, thank you, Joel. We got a call or call or you're on the air. Dave Arnold. What's up? This Jeremiah Bullfrog, how are you, sir? I'm doing awesome. How's Miami? Good man. Nice. Hot and sunny like we like it. I got a burning question for you. All right, what's up? I'm trying to emulsify powdered spices into

[54:05] brine. Is there a trick to uh, getting it, keeping it from separating? Uh, okay. Like how thick is the brine allowed to be? I mean, the thing is, I don't know that it's gonna, I mean, you could do like the typical thing. I mean, emulsive, you're not really emulsifying the spice. You're you're actually stabilizing it. So like the classic thing would be to hit it with some Xanthan, but then it's going to be kind of snotty. You know what I mean? Right. Think like if we're doing pickled cauliflower? Like half sour style in like a 5% brine. Oh, Brian, not like Brian. Brian like serving brine. I got you. Uh, yeah. So, I mean, you could do a, like a gel, like a light gel and fluid gel, depending on the salt level. The problem with brine's is the salt level is so high. Like, I've had no luck making fluid gels with kimchi liquid because it's just, it's just

[54:58] too, it's just too strong. You know what I mean? So it might not be able to do like Jalen, whereas Xanthan woodwork and something like that, which is why they do it in salad dressing, but like really freaking light amount of Xanthan. I've done a bunch of tests with just very, very, very light amount of Xanthan. Uh, you know, like less than a quarter of a percent or at a quarter, you know, one quarter, one% or less less. break out the uh break out the drug dealer scale and and just keep it real light. Yeah, and let it hydrate for a good, like, 20, 30 minutes before

[55:29] you, uh, make, add, add, you know, add anything more to it so that you make sure it's it. You want to get, there's a, there's a point at which you can stop it from settling for, let's

[55:39] say, like 30 minutes. You know what I mean? So, which is more than enough for service. Are you doing it for a shelf or for service? Um, I mean, we're going to put it up as a preserve and then, you know, 7 to 10 days, pull it

[55:52] out and use it. Right. So, but then, like, just like a couple of quick, like, back and forth and it'll, it'll come back. Do you know what I mean? Right. You think I should hit it in the, um, in the Vita Prep? Yeah, you should definitely hit in the VitaPrep and you should do it. Are they are they lactic fermented things or are they... Yeah, super, super lactic. Oh, you see, you might have problems because, uh, there's like some lactic acid bacteria can ferment Xanthan, but I don't know. Uh, you might have to add it afterwards, like to the brine. I might have to think about it. I never tried to stabilize a like a pickle brine. Uh, I mean, salad dressings I've done all day, every day, and the brine,

[56:31] because I don't have to think about it. But I would try it like a, I would try a low amount of Xanthan. I would pull the brine out, add the xanthan to it, and then add the brine back and stir it rather than doing it beforehand because once it's really fermented out, It's not going to keep fermenting because they've, you know, that they've done their best and the acidity is already low, so it's not going to get a lot more, you know, sour, especially if it's already gone. And so then, uh, I think the Xanthan will be okay at that point. Whereas if you do it earlier, you might run into. I don't know if those bacteria eats anything, but I know some do. Right. Also on the same token. We're doing, um, we're doing pressed juices, and I was wondering, what are like some commercial tricks to keep the juice from, you know, separating when we bottle it up. Oh, you because you want it to be, you want it to stay home. Again, like those guys usually add some form of peck den. So, uh, you know, to things like that to stabilize it. You can add other things, but I think they usually use some form of pectin to stabilize it.

[57:29] Like they add like a functionalized pectin. I don't have the pectin stuff in my head. Piper does. shoot me a, like, shoot a, shoot it to the, to the cooking issues, Twitter, and I'll force Piper to write down what it is that you're supposed to use. Cool. And then, do you think, like, um, ultras ultrasonic homogenizer would be cool for that too? I don't know, man, because the thing about it is, is that, like, yeah, that'll, that'll make things last longer, but break, by breaking down the particles, but they, they're not so good at breaking down like certain solid sizes, so it depends on what's floating in there.

[57:57] Like I've had good luck doing emulsions with that, like making milks with it. Like, you know, like duck fat into duck stock and making like a milky duck thing, but I haven't had

[58:07] a lot of luck just like making a juice finer. you know what I mean? But, I mean, your results may vary, like, like everything else, like when you're experimenting with a zillion things, like you, if you have like early success with one thing or if you really love something, then you keep working at it till you get it right.

[58:22] if you don't, you just don't follow down that line. So like I never got into like, you know, hitting seawater with my ultrasonic homogenizer to see what happened.

[58:31] You know what I mean? or anything like that. And I remained unconvinced. Do you have one? No, I don't, but, you know, give me a reason to go get one and... Well, next time you're in the city, stop by to stop by and I'll let you use

[58:44] mine and see what you think about it. Awesome. Thank you, Dave Arnold. All right, brother. All right, take it easy. on the way out, I got one more thing on the way out. Don't you want me to don't you want me to read from Brett Adams? All right. Jack, do I got like 2 minutes? I got 2 minutes? Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it. Okay. Listen, Brett, like, I'm going to answer your question next week on spices and, you know, why you dry roast spices because it requires a longer answer, but I'm going to read the other thing you said about how, like,

[59:10] sometimes this makes us happy. This is feedback that I like. But the question for the radio show, and a quick story to recount that all of you, specifically Dave, may appreciate. Regarding the latter, I 1st became aware of Dave and cooking issues a few years ago when I was searching online for further information on a tortilla making that wasn't fully covered in a Diana Kennedy

[59:27] cookbook, who was a great cookbook writer. Uh, uh, I stumbled on Day's blog, uh, post on Nixstimilization, learned a ton and have been a regular listener ever since. you. I've had a few delicious cocktails at Booker Index last time I was in New York. One particular part of the post that stood out to me was how the process of nextimilization releases bound niacin and mature corn,

[59:44] uh, which is why when Europeans took it but didn't take over the nextimilization, they got pelagra. Uh, anyway, um, okay. I later recounted this to my roommate who was both a nurse and an avid home cook. This last summer, this roommate spent 3 months at a refugee camp in South Sudan volunteering for doctors without borders. One day he was eating lunch with the man in the charge of the food rations for the camp of 50,000 plus people. And the rations guy brought up that they were likely going to have to switch the rations from

[1:00:09] sorghum, which, you know, I've never experimented with a lot. Anyway, to maze. My roommate, remembering what I had told him, asked if he had heard of Nixonization, specifically about its ability to release digestible niacin, which, as I'm sure you can guess, is a big deal in a refugee camp.

[1:00:23] The director had never heard of it, but was intrigued, went away to do some research, and later told my roommate that they had begun learning to niximalize the corn for the rations. My roommate left shortly thereafter, so I have no idea if the full switch to

[1:00:35] maze was made, but I think it's pretty cool that your research in a kitchen in New York, uh, through somewhat random events could possibly have a very significant uh, positive impact on the other side of the world. Thought you'd like to hear that. I do like to hear that, Brett, but in fact, uh, it's your, uh, to your paying attention to it. I paid attention to it when someone else said it, and you paid attention to it when I said it, so

[1:00:54] it's, it's you paying attention to it and remembering it, and that's how all good things are

[1:00:59] learned, and all good things are transmitted by people paying attention, tucking away

[1:01:03] information and tasting their head, and making the world a better place, cooking issues.

[1:01:13] I'll see you in... Special shout out to Plexophonic, who's submitted theme song is not able to be used for legal reasons. This is I'll See You in My Dreams by Plexophonic. You've been listening to cooking issues. Still, I feel the thrill of your drums. Thanks for listening to this program on heritageradionetwork.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes store by searching Heritage Radio Network. You can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at Heritage underscore radio. You can email us questions at any time at info at heritageradionetwork.org. Heritage Radio Network as a nonprofit organization. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening. Goodbye.