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[0:26] Cooking issues!

[0:53] Calling your questions, too! Cooking issues! Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live in the back of Roberta's

[1:05] Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Joined as usual with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How you doing, Natasha? Good. And we got Joe in the engineering room. Still no Jack? Did he die? Or is he just... Still in Puerto Rico, but it's like, was he planning on being there this long? or is he dead? or has he just decided to move there? I think he's actually he's back from Puerto Rico. Just hates us. You're going to have to talk with him about that. So, uh, so actually, you know, today, uh, Nastasia is like my, this is my perfect kind of weather. It's freaking awesome. This is New York, late fall at its best, uniformly overcast. There's not one ray of sun touching my disgusting white body burning me to

[1:43] death. Like my nemesis, evil nemesis, the sun, and... Today is the most fertile day of the year, actually. What does that mean, fertile? Most people have sex and get pregnant today. Really? Wow. Well, unrelated to me being so happy about the... It was a great day. It is a great day. So apparently it's a great day for a lot of people. A lot of people getting busy getting lucky today. But also Nastasia. And I think maybe this is part of it. Uh, although not historically, who knows, is it's exactly the right temperature. If it was like 3 degrees colder, you could see your breath outside. And if it was 3 degrees warmer, the crazies would come out. You know what I mean? Like there's no crazies on the street and not mentioned. For those of you, they're going to visit Roberta's pizzeria and hate hipsters as much as Nastasia does. There's a secret back way to Roberta's. You don't come, like, from the Williamsburg direction or from the L-train direction, which is like hipster train. You come from the J Chain direction down from Flushing Avenue, and you pass not one hipster in the entire walk.

[2:43] Either that or hipsters are like crazy people, and they just don't come out when it gets a little bit nippy. Is it because it doesn't take that much energy to be crazy, and usually crazy is just outside being crazy, and so they get

[2:55] cold because, like, when we were outside, we're moving around. You'd have to shoot me to get me to stand outside and do nothing. You know what I mean? I don't know. Interesting phenomena, the crazies. The craze is in the temperature. Anyway, beautiful fall day. Call your questions live too. 718-4972128. 718-4972128. We're going to answer a stand below's question from a 1000000 years ago that we keep on forgetting the answers. Here we go. Enjoy the show on podcast only as I'm in France. A great way to gain knowledge on cooking, good fun to listen to, and funky in a good way, choice of music. Although, now, you know, we have the user submitted, uh, submitted music, and so we have 2 different styles, which I, which I thoroughly enjoy. You like that stuff, right? stuff? It's good business. Okay, I would appreciate your answering a question. I'd like to create a small appetizer, maybe 2 bites. The idea is to take 2 medium prawns and Flash cooked them so they stay juicy and remove the shell and pair them with 2 contrasting textures.

[3:45] I'd like to pair one prawn with an ultra light, very brittle meringue in quotes, and the other one with a very chewy gummy bear also in quotes. For the meringue, one egg white whip to which we add lemon juice or another flavorful water, water-based flavor, I'm assuming, until very light, then

[4:01] stabilized with sugar or another hydrocoloid. Of course, the hydrocolid can be pre-mixed into flavored water first. Then put it in the oven to dry up. I could not find any indications on stabilizing egg whites in your hydrocolide prime or any suggestions for that. Sugar could work, but not sure the resulting taste with prawns or a savory dish. Okay. So, um, let's go into that before we go to the gummy bear. So, yeah, sugar makes the egg white denser and gives it structure for when it's drying up. But as you say, sugar is sweet. So you don't want to add a lot of sugar. You could use a different, especially if you're going to do, like, you know, a cooked meringue where you cook the sugar beforehand and beat it in, cook so that it already stays cooked and then you dry it out. Uh, you could use a less sweet sugar, like uh, isomalt. But it will still be somewhat sweet. There are other, you know, completely non-sweet things that have the properties of

[4:50] sugar you could add, or you could do what I would do, which is

[4:54] go in an entirely different direction and use methocellulose. If you use methocellulose F like Frank, F50, right? You can take whatever flavor base you want. If it doesn't have any sort of substance to it. You're going to need to add some bulking agent, like a maltodextrin or something that is going to provide some structure to it. So, you know, like if there's no protein in it. If there's no pecked in, if there's no anything, you're gonna need some structure. Then you add methocell F 50, anywhere between about 0.75 and up to, but don't go over, one% of methocell

[5:31] F, F, like Frank, 50. And you add it in a blender. while it's mixing high speed, so it doesn't clump up. And then if you want, if it doesn't work, you you know, if you're worried about it not working, you can let it sit and hydrate for a while. Might not work in a milk base, you might not want to do in milk base, but then you just whip it in a KitchenAid with

[5:47] a balloon whisk. It'll whip up like egg whites. And you can pipe it into any shape you want, and then you can dehydrate it in a dehydrator on a low

[5:56] oven, and they're crisp. Uh, they're great, uh, they, you can make anything with any flavor. You could go dead savory. You could go sweet, and it doesn't have any of the residual protein stuff that's left. So it's very, very light and airy. The less methocellulose you use, the larger the bubbles will be and the more area it will be, but I tend to like in the area of about 0.9% or 9 grams per liter of your product.

[6:23] Now, listen, here's the important thing. Metal cellulose has trouble in that if you leave a methocellulose meringue out for a long time. It's going to absorb moisture and lose its crunch. So you're going to want to keep it either in a, if you're going to use a dehydrator, and I apologize. This is the one thing I know in Fahrenheit because my dehydrator only works in Fahrenheit. You want to dehydrate at around 135 to 135 degrees Fahrenheit, but you're going to want to store it at like 112, 110,

[6:53] 120, lower, much lower than 135 because if you store it at that high temperature, if you cook

[6:59] it for a long time, I'm talking like a day or 2 to hold it, it's going to start tasting cooked.

[7:04] Now, you need to keep it in a dehydrator when you're getting ready for service because it's going to absorb moisture, or you can package it along with a desiccant, which is a silica

[7:14] gel that a lot of pastry people get, and you just package it in a container with a desiccant. The desk can will remove all the moisture and keep it crunchy. But that's what I would do if I was wanted a meringue that was totally stable because it doesn't require very much thinking or very much

[7:26] tweaking and it works all the time and I like it. Uh, okay, now, for the gummy bear, I wanted to grind some, uh, wanted to grind some sage up fine along with tarragon or other herb, add ground star

[7:38] anis or something like that, and just a bit of water with high acyl gel in, and or iota carragin. Now, remember, I'll finish. Once gel, the gum would be cut in a few one by one by one centimeter cubes to be eaten whole with the prawn. Any advice on how to use the herbs so the gummy bear really packs a punch of flavor, which

[7:54] hydrocoly, should I use any problems with flavor release, temperature, or acidity to think about? Okay. So here's here's the deal. So, uh, hi, there's 2 kinds of gelen. uh, for those you don't, and

[8:04] Jelen is one of these geling agents, newer age geling agents. It's natural, but it's, you know, derived from microbial fermentation. There's high acyl gelin and low acyl gelin. Low acyl gelan is brittle like agar. And it, and it, you know, it's brittle. There you have it. High acele, Jalan is very elastic. I do not enjoy, uh, straight up high acel geland preparations because they're extremely rubbery. They don't really imitate. They don't really imitate gummy bears. Uh, oh, and the other one you mentioned iota carrot game, and also, so iota carrot

[8:39] game, and kappa carrot game, and 2 most common carrot games people use. Kappa, brittle, like Agar. In fact, it's very closely related to Agar and Iota, which is elastic and stretchy. Also, I mean, Iota, typically when you're using it, you're using it in low concentrations for things like puddings because it allows you to shear it and then have it reset up into in gel.

[8:58] a kind of its unique property, along with reacting very nicely with milk. But neither of those 2 things alone are going to impart a real gummy bear texture. Why not just use gelatin? Gelatin is amazing, has great flavor release. And, you know, there's a lot of recipes out there for, you know, how to do high gelatin preparations for real gummy

[9:17] bear. Because remember, the hallmark of a gummy, you like gummy bears, rice sauce. They should be hard, right? They're hard. What do you mean? They're physically, you have to bite into them. They don't just break apart like a marshmallow. You don't like marshmallows. Is it you that doesn't like marshmallows? or just doesn't care about them? made marshmallows, I don't like. You like jet puffed? store bought marshmallows. What it you don't like about ham and marshmallows again? I forget. Is it the idea or is there something about detection? The scissors cutting it. The sound of the scissors cutting it. What if it was cut in a different room? You think about the scissors and then you're like, I can't enjoy this because I know that at some point it was cut with a scissor.

[9:47] Wow. All right. All right. Not gonna, I'm just gonna let that one stay. Um, so, uh, the properties of a gummy bear that you're trying to get at where the gummy

[9:56] are, uh, that they are, uh, cohesive, elastic and hard, okay? And if you look on there's a patent out right now. Someone using a mixture of gelan and carraginen, but not, I believe they're using low as, or the brittle one. So the gelland's there to provide the hardness, and you can use gelland at a fairly low proportions. This is only if you want to do a vegetarian gummy. Otherwise, I would just use gelatin. Uh, you know, geland's going to provide the hardness and the iota is going to provide, or they don't use iota. They use a mixture of iota and um, and I believe new, which is a, you know, there's a 1000000000 different, not a billion, like eight. Different

[10:31] keraginans, but the, you know, new is one of the ones that we don't really use much, but they, in the patent literature, and you can look at

[10:37] it. It is, the inventors are Andrew J. Grizella and Neil Argo Morrison on a gelatin-free gummy confection comprising the combination of gel and gum and new

[10:45] carrogenen and or new iota carrogen and blend. So, uh, the gelin is there for the hardness and the iota is there for the elastic, uh, elasticity and the cohesiveness, and the recipe is actually there in the patent, so you can go look at it, which is a good thing to do.

[10:58] But I recommend just using gelatin. Unless you don't want a gummy bear. Now, you're in France, a lot of people like, you know, the pectin texture, in which

[11:05] case, just go high pectin, nothing, like, in terms of very good flavor release and high concentrations, gelatin

[11:11] and pectin are the way to go. Gelan is good, but in high concentrations can get kind of weird. Um, and I've never done a super high concentration of like a highest, a low

[11:20] acyl mix to try and imitate gelatin, but anyone out there with some advice, eh, we'll take it, right? We'll take it. Okay. Uh, so I apologize for not answering that question for so long. Right? Actually, Stan had a really interesting idea. We've never done about roto apps. Stan was saying, so different flavors, right? Have different kind of solubilities in different mediums, like alcohol or oil or bubble, blah, right? So typically when we rotovap something, we wroteovap the entire product to try and get as much flavor out of it as humanly possible, right? Yeah. So what, but what he's saying, why not, have you ever tried, uh, for instance, doing an oil extraction, uh, of, of something or an alcohol extraction versus a water

[12:00] extraction, and then wrote of app those extractions without the product in it to try and separate different aspects of the

[12:05] flavor? Nope. Good idea, though. You could try it, right? Okay. Mike writes in about lemongrass. Happy holidays, everyone, and cooking issues. Oh, that's right. It's next week our last one before the holidays? Really? Next week is, by the way, for me, holiday means Christmas. Next week is the Christmas edition of cooking issues. Call in all of your, you know, Christmas related or holiday or are we going to do one between Christmas and New Year's? No, because I think New Year's falls on the day of the next one after Christmas. Oh, it's on Tuesday? So next week, your last chance for 2 weeks, right? Is Christmas on a Tuesday? Yeah, yeah. Something like that? Yeah. I just don't know anything. I can't believe the freaking year is over. By the way, we're doing our holiday thing for the, there's a holiday. What do you call them? like an ice cream social, but without ice cream today, for the Booker and

[12:56] Dax, equipment company, and Booker and Dax, the bar, are going to meet to ice skate in at the Bryan Park. It should be fun, right? Moustache, like, no, it's not gonna be fun. But you like ice skating. I do. I just don't like... doesn't like getting together with people. Those people, oh, how I hate people. company softball games and all that. I'm just not. You've been pestering me about having a company Christmas party. I'm actually getting that, like a Christmas party where you drink. Oh, I'm sure the bartenders are going to show up. They will bring liquor. I highly doubt it. They'll already be wasted. I told Tristan to bring some hot drinks. I think it's alcohol, it's illegal. Okay, well, yes, yes, it's technically okay, sorry. Mike with his lemongrass. Happy holidays, which is how we got into this nonsense. Happy holidays to everyone at cooking issues. I hate mincing lemongrass by hand and who doesn't? Nastasia hates lemongrass. Guess why? Guess why, people? You can't because you're not here with me because it grew in her backyard and it goes back to her hatred of everything from her childhood. Well, why do you hate him? I used to like, like play with it and smell it and like now I feel nauseated when I think about it. Nastasia, what I love about her is that she properly uses nauseated instead. I do get angry about that one. But the, but like, but what's true or false? You hate, like, everyone knows. We had a tangerine tree and a pomegranate tree. like all those things. The lemongrass I used to play with it so much. You know what I used to play with because we didn't have that stuff because I lived in, you know, in the east coast here. What? Jersey? Yeah, you know, you know? Kind of. Onion grass. I used to rip up onion grass and smell the onion grass constantly all the time. I still love myself some onions. anyway, whatever. Mike hates mincing lemongrass by hand. A few cookbooks recommend against using a food processor given that the blades create

[14:45] friction, and therefore heat, and that this damages the flavor of the lemongrass. Any thoughts on this, given that lemongrass is going to be heated at a later point. Should this even matter to me, thanks, Mike. I do not think that should matter to you, Mike. I think that's a load of horse hockey. Look, I'm willing to, I'm willing to have my butt handed to me on this one, but I don't think it's a problem.

[15:04] I think, like, the reason I wouldn't use it is that food processor isn't that good at breaking up lemongrass properly, and I detest the long, uh, uh,

[15:14] like, uh, sure, Nastasia agents even more than I do. the long fibery craps from an inappropriately processed lemongrass, right? So, I mean, like if you mince it by hand, across, you know, crossways, you're guaranteed to not have any long fibers, which is good. Um, So, I mean, I think it's less about the friction or the heat, especially if you're going to heat it later, and because there's not that much heat in a typical food processor. Now, you can get a good bit of heat and a vita prep or something like that. But I think it's more about the, uh, about the length of the fibers and you don't want any long, nasty fibers. I detest the texture of, um, kind of cellulosic and, you know, lignified fibers in my food.

[15:52] You know, unless I'm chewing on sugarcane, and then I chew on it for some reason because I have a mental problem until my gums bleed.

[15:58] You ever do that? Yeah, it's terrible, right? It's horrible. Which is why instead of using sugarcane in a drink, consider saving the cores from pineapples and vacuum infusing some sugar into the core of a pineapple and using that instead of the typical

[16:12] sugarcane garnish. I need to get our sugarcane pressed back out to use it, but they'll never do it at the bar. But that'd be awesome. Do you like sugarcane drinks? Like fresh sugar cane juice? I forget the word for it in Portuguese. I love that stuff. I look for it eventually. Eventually, we'll do it someday, someday. Anyway. So there you go, Mike. And with that, Joe, should we take our 1st commercial break? Coming right back at you with more cooking issues.

[17:36] Man, Joe, your computer is so slow. I can't even use this. Yeah, I should probably get a new one. Do you have any suggestions? Oh, totally, man. You should go to tech serve. Okay, what's so good about tech surf? Well, they've got this awesome new insider program that's free when you get a new Mac with

[17:54] AppleCare. So you should buy your computer there because you get 50% off data transfer, free loaner computers, front of the line repair privileges, an annual Mac

[18:03] tuneup service, backup consultation and setup, seminars, and much more. Okay, yeah, where's tech serve? 119 West 23rd Street in New York City. They're New York's premiere authorized Apple reseller and service provider. And you should totally check out techserve.com for more information. All right, that settles it. I'm headed to TechServe. Man, your computer just got called out. Your computer's busted. Your computers are flying sack. Yeah, can you believe that was all improv? And Joe has not made it over to tech serve yet, so his computer still is a steaming pile

[18:36] of of uh, you know, poop. You're allowed to say poop on the air, right? I think that there's no regulations against poop. Yeah. I mean, even if we were on the real air. I think I could say poop. Anyway, Matt writes in about lemon juice. Here's a word I'm not going to use on the on the on the air. Listen, Matt, I'm going to editorialize a little bit. Uh, come up with a good word, schmutz. How about schmutz? Matt used a much, much worse. In fact, I think one of the worst words in the English language when you think about it. Right? Dave had to explain this word to me 3 years ago. Yeah, rhymes with Greg. And egg. I'm not going to go into it. Anyway, Schmutz. I just got done centrifuging some lemon and lime juice. I started with fresh juice. Juice treated with Pectinex. Let's sit for a few hours and make a loose gel with agar. Then I broke the gel up and spun at a 4000 RPM. Uh, which I'm assuming if you use a similar centrifuge to mine is also roughly 4000

[19:35] uh, Gs. The lime turned out perfect, but the lemon had a scum. There you go. Scum's a good one. floating on the surface. I was able to remove it with a coffee filter, see below. The same thing happened with peach juice a few months back. what I can see, it appears to be some kind of oil or grease. The question is, what is that scum and is there a way to avoid it? Thanks, Matt. Well, it depends. There's a couple things that can be floating on the top of the center. First of all, I would recommend you change your the way that you do lemon and lime juice. You should lemon and lime juice. I would not sit with an agar, uh, Nastasia's least fond memories, uh, are trying to spin agar gels in uh, the centrifuge. Are these your least fond? Never want to do it. What do you hate more? What's the worst? I did like grapefruit. How many tons ago? No, for that for them. Oh my god, it was horrible. But what was your least favorite, is that your least favorite task? Task? Yeah, yeah. Really? Of all? Let me think about it in a while. All right. Okay. So anyway, that's not the way to do it. Go buy Kiesel Saul, which is suspended silica, Saul from the, what's it called? Homebrew shop and Kaida San, uh, CH Kaida San. Also from a homebrew shop. These are wine finding agents, right? Then you add two, for every liter of lime juice, or lemon juice, add two, um, 2 milliliters of the SPL, and also 2 milliliters, be

[20:54] accurate of the Kiesel Saul. Stir it, let it sit 15 minutes, add 2 milliliters of

[21:00] kitusan, stir, also be accurate, 15 minutes, then 2 more milliliters,

[21:06] kesel salt, again. Stir it up, spin it. You'll be good every time. That's the way to do lemon juice or lime juice. That's what we do at the bar and it never fails. Okay, now to your other problem, stuff floating on top. There are 2 things that can be going on. Sometimes you spin something that has some fat in it, in which case it floats up to the top. Sometimes you have some fat contaminating your buckets, if you spin directly in the buckets, as I do, in which case, it floats on top. More often than not, what's floating on the top looks like fat, but

[21:37] isn't, is a floated layer of stuff, and it could be broken up cell stuff, which is

[21:42] phospholus. I doubt it. I doubt it. It could be some fat. anyway, air. So what happens is when you blend something. Or when you stir it or whisk it, you get air bubbles. And believe it or not, even under the force of 4000 times the force of gravity, air bubbles don't necessarily pop. And so you have a layer of stuff floating at the top of a lot of things after they spin, even if they don't have fat in them. And the way to get around that is to do a quick vacuum cycle to

[22:09] deerate the product before you spin it. And if you do that, uh, pretty much you'll get crystal clear stuff on the top from the from the get go. Certain things are more apt to throw a thing on the top than others. Tomatoes, typically, will have a layer floating on the top. If you vacuum them, they won't. Certain things you can't get around it. Like coconuts have a lot of fat in them. And so if you blend those and don't get the air out, you get a mat, a thick mat floating on the top, which actually tastes good. Tastes good. Uh, but anyway, so that is my, uh, that is my theory, and um, that's, that's what's going on. That's how to avoid it Remember that, where were we spending that time that was crazy? Oh, no, also, when you're going to put stuff in a roto app. If you don't want it to boil over after you blend it, you put it in a vacuum machine, chamber vacuum machine, you deerate it. That's just, you know, standard procedure, but a lot of people don't don't do it. And then when they run the roto after the 1st time, it sprays all over the inside of the machine. Do you remember that time we had to deerate all of that, was it the habanero that almost killed us when we

[23:06] deerated or was the horseradish? I think it was a horseradish? Oh my god. That sucked. lots of horrible times. Every day with Dave is a horrible day. Uh, right? Pretty well, no, just most. Back then, when we did everything ourselves. We were in the school and we were working out of a

[23:26] trash room. I mean... It's like a 100 by 100 square foot. And it was like a billion. it was a 1000000000 degrees. Now, people, Nastasia, Nastasia hates me for a number of reasons, but

[23:37] one that she detests more than any other is the fact that I am an insensate brute and that my body doesn't care what kind of temperature it's put in, whether you could freeze me

[23:48] out. You could burn me, you could light my hands on fire. It just doesn't seem to bother me that much. Uh, and for some reason, uh, this is in uh, Nastasia's playbook, uh, the hallmark of a

[23:58] poor uh, uh, a poor person, of a low quality individual. as we like to say. Uh, and uh, I can't help it. things don't bother me. But that trash room averaged. Uh, like 115 degrees because we were in the same room as the refrigeration units. I'm talking like all year, 115 degrees in that son of a gun. And here's the thing about me. Like, I don't mind any temperature if I'm working, but if I'm sitting in a trash

[24:25] room, sweating into a keyboard, I want to kill everybody. Everybody, right? I mean, I could be outside in that weather, working, if I was working, if I was doing something, or cooking in a 1000000 degree, I don't care. You know what I mean? Like, you know, Those were legitimate temperature readings. like 115. Remember that? Oh yeah. No, remember we like when we got those new thermometers, we were like, come on. And then we like, we calibrated them and we're like, no, it's really like it's 115 degrees in here. And let me tell you something. It wasn't like 115 Arizona style, which is still piss hot because I've been to Arizona where they're like, hey, you know, 100 degrees is legitimately not that hot in Arizona. It really isn't. You can go outside in a 100 degree weather and it's fine. You know what I mean? Because it's so freaking dry. Because it's not the heat, it's the humidity. But listen, at 115 degrees, people, it is hot. Now, in New York, it's 115 sweet, humid degrees inside of that trash box. Man, that sucked. remember that? We're sitting there spinning Agar gels, and I'm, oh, my God. Anyway, good times, good times. And that was back. but my favorite part about it was, I remember there was someone who wrote an internet article back when we were still doing the

[25:38] blog. We're going to get that fixed again, right? The Jerry, the Christmas break, yeah. Yeah, Christmas break. We can get that fixed again. Back when we were going full bore on the blog, which we hope to again someday. I'm gonna get Piper to write for it, I think. Anyway. When we were doing that, I had a guy say, well, I don't have all

[25:55] of like the awesome resources that Dave has. And Mustache and I read this and we burst out. We burst out laughing, right? We were laughing for like 20 minutes straight, 115 degree hot box with stuff. Everything is taped together with duct tape. Listen, I'm happy. I'm happy with everything. I'm totally happy. So this is not like, oh, poor little Rick, baby. You know what I mean? But like the fact of the matter is, is that everything we own is held together with duct tape. Right? The phone was duct taped in the wall. The phone was duct taped to the wall. That's my goal. My New Year's resolution, peoples, is to not be the guy whose box is duct taped together when he shows up to the party. You get a new box. Chip writes in about Kalustians. Nastasia, Dave, Jack, and Joe will crap on Jack because he doesn't like us anymore. He's not showing up to the just kidding. I love Jack. Everyone loves Jack, right? Even though he insulted Joe's computer and I take umbrage. Have you been to Kalusian's recently? Kalusians, by the way, for those of you that don't haven't been in New York. Kalusians is kind of a well-known and amazing spice and ingredient shop. Um, I guess it started out as having a lot of, uh, Indian and that kind of, you know, subcontinent style ingredients. Um, and but now has just ingredients from everywhere all over the world. And chefs regularly make pilgrimages to Kalustians to kind of just browse the aisles and

[27:15] see kind of what exists or what's something they haven't used before. And you can buy them in fairly small packages. A similar store for those of you. It's on the it's in the 20s on Lexington Avenue here in Manhattan. There's another store called dual specialty shop, which is dumb a name for no offense if anyone, no one that we're listening. But the dual specially shop is a really dumb name. It's over on 1st Avenue, I think, over downtown in the East Village, and they have, they're not as big, but they have a lot of interesting ingredients as well. So people go there searching for ingredients for bitters, for cooking, whatnot. Anyway, so that's what Kalustians is. and you know, great, great place. I went in for some spices and notice they have a large selection of modern ingredients. They are not listed in the website, so you have to actually go there to verify. Sorry. By the way, Kalushian's website, one of the world's worst websites. It's a horrible website. Horrible. No offense. Crap. It's crap. Horrible. It's impossible to search for things on their website. Anyway, um, uh, Anyway, just a few that I remember them having are

[28:15] Kappa and Iota Carragain and Ultra Crips, Ultra Crisp from National Starch Corporation, National Starch. I wish anyone would have a name as good as National Starch. National starch. Um, and Malto Dextrum. Now, but the question is what kind? See, one of the problems with Kalustians is when they're bagging stuff like that, they don't necessarily write the provenance of the material on

[28:34] it. So you don't know exactly what it is. That's one of the issues. anyway. But there are probably 2 shelving units full of these ingredients. So it is nice if you're in a pinch. Most were in the one ounce or 2 ounce bags. Uh, so good tip. I did know that, but I haven't mentioned it on air as a place you can walk in and get stuff. So it's good, good. I don't think dual specialty has those kind of ingredients, so you're going to go to

[28:55] Klusians for that kind of thing. I also wanted to send you a picture of the turkey. I did this year. I saw it. You can't see it because you're listening on the radio, but it's nice looking turkey. Right? Good to me. anyway. Uh, in the smoker for about 2.5 hours. Wet. I like to mispronounce herb and call it herb. How does McGee say it? McGee? I think he says Herb. You think? Like Herb the guy? Whenever I say herb, I think Herb, like Herb, by the way, Nastasia and I sit. this is what we actually do for a living. We don't work on anything. We sit around and watch the YouTube of Herme the Elf getting his butt handed to him by the lead elf over and over. Both the original version and the full metal jacket version. both of them. It's an all time. look, rank and bass. It's crazy with all the weird, like, pagan weirdness that goes on, but

[29:43] they got to love those shows. Anyway, back to back to this. Uh, with uh, in a smoker for about 2.5 hours, a wet herb rub under the skin. There were only 4 of us, so it went with a traditional cooking method as well. Thanks for the great podcast. Chip. Thank you and thank you for your picture of your turkey, right? Turkeys. Okay. We have some questions in from the Twitter. Ellen Nasser writes in, 3 bone prime rib for Christmas, cooked off sous vide. And the question is, off the bone. off the bone? 55 C, finishing a 550 oven for about 15, 20 minutes. Those are all questions. Here's the answer. That's actually like a compact Twitter question. Good. Twitter question. Here's the thing. If you're going to do it, typically, if you're going to actually cook one, what you'll do is you'll cut it off the bone, sear around, and then

[30:32] this is what some people do, then re-tie it back to the bone, and cook it using the bone as

[30:36] a, you know, kind of an insulator, protect it. You don't need to do that if you're going to do

[30:41] it, CV. I don't, whether or not you pull the bone off is up to you, right? But typically, um, you, okay, now here's where I'm going to go against everything I've ever said. Just for easiness' sake, I would bag the sucker and cook it to 55, uh, 55 C. 55 is a good number. 55 C, 55 one, 55 two. Do nothing to it beforehand. This is where I'm going to sound crazy. Just like bag it in a zippy with some oil. Cook it off to 55 Let it cool down. Uh, you know, for quite a while, actually. And then throw it into your super hot oven for longer than 15 to 20 minutes. I would do it until you get a nice, nice, super crisp crust. You like prime rib rice does? Stas, what's your favorite part about prime rib? It smells like home. Oh, okay. Well, weird. I was going to say the crunchy outside parts that are overcooked along with the inside that's rare. So you don't want to skimp on producing those crunchy burnt fat things on the outside. So I would say do a 55, let it cool down for a minute and then a little bit longer in the oven at the super high temperature. When I did my turkey this year, I had it in there for like an hour and a half in a pretty hot oven because I, I, but I cooked it all the way through. So I wouldn't be afraid of overcooking the outside in a traditional way because we love

[31:55] of that stuff. The one the worst prime rib I ever did was when I cooked it sous vide all the way through and didn't finish enough on the outside and it was too uniform in the middle. It was a horrible nightmare. You say we had a call? Yes. Color, you're on the air. Hi, my name's Peter Bell, Stray. Um, I live in Wisconsin, Milwaukee. I help run my family restaurant and I just graduated from CIA well about a year

[32:20] ago and I'm looking to go back to school for food science and wondering if you could make

[32:26] me like top 5 schools or just general advice on

[32:30] that. So, like, when you say food science, do you mean actual food science, like a

[32:34] PhD, or do you mean just kind of new techniques for use in restaurant? I think combination of both. Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. Most of the actual food science, uh, places are focused on more

[32:48] industrial, uh, industrial applications. And it's changing a little bit now, but the the issue is, is that there's very little money in worrying about problems that are only geared towards restaurants.

[33:00] In other words, to fund real scientific research. That's changing a little bit. I would look at the kind of research chefs association, if you're interested in food science programs. I mean, I don't know who's currently the best. I mean, especially out where you are. I don't know what's currently the best. I mean, over here, I mean, obviously, Rutgers has a good program in food science because it's near where a lot of the flavor houses are. Um, you know, there's, um, There's also, uh, um, Cornell has an interesting food science

[33:31] program, uh, you know, you might, you might want to look at, but I don't really know who's the best feeder for that kind of stuff. I mean, obviously, if you want to do winery analogy, Davis. You know, I don't know kind of what the kind of programs that they have. The other thing is, is that, um, you know, if you do some work in that,

[33:46] like maybe get a master's, that's, you could then get a job being a, a chef or doing research work at

[33:52] a, at a flavor house. We just met, you know, a bunch of them and they're kind of an interesting crew. Now, from a food, from a food tech for restaurant stuff, I mean, obviously, you know, we, we teach at the, at the FCI, we teach uh, low temperature sous vide work that's geared at chefs. 2 days in and out. It's not a food science class by any stretch. It's like a low temperature SUV'd. Chris Young is from Modernist Cuisine is starting up his program at Johnston Wales. Um, but, and, you know, Chris, Chris Loss, who's at CIA, is still doing some, is doing some work with that too, but I don't know what kind of classes they

[34:26] offer. But it's all a question of what you're trying to do with it. Do you know what I mean? I don't know how much a food science program is going to help in a restaurant unless you're just a lover of knowledge, which case go for it. You know what I mean? I mean, that's where it gets me up in the morning is just liking knowledge. So. Yeah, I mean, and that's kind of one of the reasons I want to go back. It's like, I want to continue learning, you know, and with everything I learned from school. Now, I'm being a, let's go quiet to my, my family restaurant. I just, I kind of want to continue that. I'm only 23 and I feel like, I wouldn't really, like going to school here isn't, set

[34:59] in my mind, I still want to travel and like, eat things and learn things, so that's, part of it

[35:05] is well. Right. I mean, if, if you get, you know, another thing you can do, if you're interested in just like the, the, the restaurant side of it, you know, and this is what a lot of people I know do, they go, they work for someone in the

[35:18] US, that they can get, you know, stage, basically, for someone who is doing this kind of work,

[35:22] right? And then, uh, you know, so, you know, uh, Grant or, uh, you know, Paul Lee

[35:31] Brant, someone. You know what I mean? And then, uh, after a while of staging there, they then get the recommendations to go work at like Noma or in Spain.

[35:43] And then, you know, they make the, you know, they'll spend some while. So that's, you know, Fabulous, who's, you know, works with us for a long time. That's what he, you know, he worked with us for a while, then worked with Johnny Azini back when he was at Jean George for a long

[35:55] time. And then, you know, spent a long time stodging at Noma in other places and traveled the world and has picked up, um, you know, if

[36:03] you're, if you're young and if you can, you know, if you can do it, if you can live that lifestyle is a good way

[36:08] to, to see what is current right now in kitchen. But you have to be willing to put your time in in each one of the kitchens for that. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Definitely. But it sounds like you're, and I mean, I guess that's kind of a fact I've been, I mean, I knew already, but I think I've been kind

[36:23] of, making to myself that it isn't. Um, but thank you. This is very helpful. And by the way, that last the trepidation you're showing is very smart. Like, if you if you even think that you don't want to do that, then don't send yourself down that road.

[36:41] Do you know what I'm saying? Because if you send yourself down that road and it starts, you start feeling like, you know, this wasn't the right move, it's a, it's a long road to be halfway down and find out that it wasn't the road you wanted to be

[36:55] on. Do you know what I'm saying? Whereas, you know, if you're going to go take a program in a school like food science, you're learning all the time and it's not the same, it's not the same

[37:04] sort. I don't think you'll feel the same sort of sense of crap if it's not the road you want to go down.

[37:11] Do you know what I mean? Right, right. Yeah. And I guess I guess that's when I still need to decide. Right. Cool. Well, uh, well, good luck and I hope everything works out for you. All right, thank you very much. No problem. Okay. So, uh, at Class, I don't know at Cleft's

[37:28] name, because at Class name is written in, um, Japanese characters that I don't understand on his on his or her, I don't know, Twitter feed. But, you know, one of our Twitter buddies. Can melatonin be used as an antioxidant in food, does it have any advantages? So melatonin is, you know, a hormone that I guess is made in the pineal gland. And, you know, it regulates sleep patterns and a bunch of other things. It's a powerful, also antioxidant. Uh, and it's sold as a dietary supplement here in the US. Um, but it's not, there's a strange rule in the U.S. and here it is. It's that if I like the rules for selling you something that you put into your body as a dietary supplement are a lot less

[38:17] stringent, then the rules governing what you put into food. And it, like everything is, everything is completely back butt word on this kind of stuff. For instance, also, like, it's like the same thing where, uh, well, not the same, but the irritating the way regulations work, you know, usinol and

[38:36] iso usinol, which is clove oil, uh, is considered safe to

[38:41] eat, but is not approved to use as a fish anesthetic. the dumbest thing in the world. So when we use it, we have to say it's a spice. dumb. anyway. But the other side, actually can be crazy, is that things that aren't on the GRAS, i.e. generally

[38:55] regarded as safe, which is the main list of things, can be used as dietary supplements.

[38:59] So you can buy melatonin as a dietary supplement. And you could grind it up and add it to a beverage. But there was an energy drink manufacturer

[39:10] who was making a relaxation, blah, blah, blah, that added, doped it with melatonin, not just things that contained melatonin, but doped it with melatonin. And they got a warning letter, saying that, you know, you shouldn't do that.

[39:23] It was the company was innovative beverage, and they had these relaxation drinks that had melatonin, and it's not approved as a food additive. That said, I mean, I don't see why technically it wouldn't work. I don't know what the stuff tastes like. Have you ever taken them? I mean, no, I never taken it. I mean, the other thing is, you know, one thing to do, and I don't have time to, I didn't have time to do it before now, but

[39:44] like, you could just buy some melatonin, grind it up and add it to some stuff that usually turns nasty, like apple

[39:51] juice, and see whether or not it keeps the apple juice from, you know,

[39:55] turning. But be aware that even though melatonin is passed fairly quickly

[39:59] by the liver, according to what I read, it's like a one pass through the liver and it's out. Uh, you might make people sleepy. Sleepy time, right? Because it's supposed to be the relaxation thing. So if you want people, you know, passing out at your restaurant table. you know, anyway. So that's my, that's my feeling. But I, but I do not, I do not know and I, and I cannot, uh, what's the word? advocate. Uh, okay, so, uh, a couple things that uh, I'm uh, working on now. I sent out a Twitter question. Where can we get pig bladders? Because Piper saw Chef and Danielle use pig bladder? Pig bladder? And this, I started thinking about it again because we got a question. I don't know, about a month ago or a couple weeks ago about, um, not using plastic bags for sous vide work. And so I was interested because there's an old kind of natural on papillote technique where you use a pig bladder to, um, to hold things in while you cook them. And so I was wondering whether or not you could use a pig bladder to do some kind of

[40:59] rudimentary, low temp work. Now, I mean, the problem, obviously, is that pig bladders, unlike plastic bags are semi-permeable, i.e., things can travel in and out of it. In fact, the whole notion of a semi-permeable membrane was discovered with pig bladders by a guy

[41:17] named, you know, Jean Antoine Noyer, who's a physicist in the 1700s. And, uh, you know, he was the person who noticed, um, that, uh, pig bladders slowly pass things in and out and there was other experiments afterwards that showed that certain uh, things can migrate across pig bladder.

[41:35] So the question is, if you were going to cook for short periods of time, I think you could probably cook in a pig bladder without too much flavor crossing back and forth or too much loss or too much kind of, uh, the fact that it's poaching because the numbers that I read, um,

[41:49] were that they, the transfer rate across pig bladder membranes is fairly slow. You could also probably coat the pig bladder in something that would reduce the permeability even

[41:59] more like zane or something like that, but then it wouldn't, you know, then that's kind of a pain in the butt. But I found a couple sources for pig bladders on the

[42:07] internets, thanks to the folks on Twitter. We have 2 different sources of it that send in. So we're going to get ourselves some pig bladders, probably not before New Year, and we're going to do some low temperature

[42:17] pay bladder work. How's that sound? Sounds good. Sounds good. And lastly, leave with this. I'm going to do some more lobster experiments. So for those of you that follow my lobster and nostalgia, like, oh, crap, one of that. But the last time I did lobsters experiments, stars. I did it in my house. didn't have to deal with it. Yeah. Yeah, no, I'm not. Do you even like lobster? Yeah, it's okay. What's your favorite crustacean? I don't know. You don't like crab, right? God damn it. Oh, ooh, didn't mean to curse. Crab is delicious. Oh, oysters. Oysters, oysters. Oyster, that's not a crustacean. That's a mollusk. You like oysters more than clams? Squid? Squid, also mollusk. Hmm, the none. Okay, no shrimp. No crab. Lobster. If I have to, a lobster roll. Jesus. Okay, so anyway, so keep you guys posting. It's good. So crab is delicious. I don't know if I mentioned this on soft shell crab, but I love me some soft shell crab. Do you ever prepare them? Do you know my favorite fact? I told you this a 1000000 times. My favorite fact about soft shell crabs? Because when you cut their eyes off, you have to cut their eyes off with the one with their brain. They bred themselves. So you cut their eyes off, you pull up the little tab in the back, you rip the gills out, you put it down, you throw it in the

[43:38] breading, and they bread themselves. That is consideration. That is a considerate food stuff. Yeah? Anyway, well, we'll fill you in on my lobster test next time. Cooking issues.

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