[0:00] This is Chris Young, co-author of Modernist Cuisine. I'd like to invite you to check out chefsteps.com. It's a free website we've created as a place to learn new cooking techniques and collaborate with curious cooks from around the world. Sign up now at chefsteps.com. You are listening to Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradionetwork.org for 1000s more.

[0:32] Cooking issues! Go!

[0:57] Calling your questions, too. Cooking issues! Hello and welcome to Cookie Issues, this is Gabe Arnold, your host of cookies, just called you from the coast, Florida, where I'm down here in Florida for my Uncle Luke's 100th birthday party. How you guys all doing over there? Who I got in the studio with me today? Peter and Anastasia. Hey, Stas, how you doing? Okay, how are you? All right, what you doing? Uh, went to the beach. Yeah? Which beach? Westport yesterday. I mean, Sunday. Westport, Connecticut? Yeah. Westport, Connecticut? People actually go to Westport, Connecticut for vacation? It was just a day trip on Sunday. Yeah, yeah. Well, uh, I've been down here, uh, waiting for my

[1:47] onkaloop to term 100, which we did today, right after the radio show. I'm going over there for the actual party. Uh, Peterson. And uh, What did you say? Peter's here. up, Dave? Hey, Peter, how you doing? I'm right, man. Yeah? How much do you hear the weedwhacker going on in the background? zero. Oh, nice. The crazy burnouts that run this joint that I'm at in Tacomas, uh, chance to get the internet working, but they do have a weed whacker, a nice gas powered weed whack. So, uh, Peter, why don't we talk about the state of the Mosad Kickstarter before we get into the question. So those of you that don't know and I'll listen to this. Moped, the museum also didn't drink, has a Kickstarter up now called boom, where we're trying to get our puffing gun. Puffing gun is the old way they used to make puff cereals by heating, uh, blames, uh, up to, uh, well, not tremendous, but high pressures and temperatures, about 180

[2:37] psi, then releasing that pressure suddenly and having all the moisture inside. instantly evaporate and bang up the up the grains very uniformly, but apparently it works on things other than grains that we're going to try out

[2:47] things like and chips, things like uh peppercorns. Um, anyway, we have a kickstarter going to try and raise the

[2:55] fund in a crowd sort of manner to, uh, build out

[2:59] an actual exhibit that we can travel around with. Uh the Kickstarter now. We need about 80 grand to do it, and right now we're about 34 grand. So what I need everyone to do. It's not just, because I know a lot of our listeners have already donated, but I need uh, people to go and find their friends and relatives and other people uh, like mine individuals to come on the kicker and back

[3:22] it, and it's not just to give away your money and you get nothing. We're talking awesome t-shirts, awesome tote bags, uh parties. I mean, if you have a lot of cash jangling around in your pocket. Uh, we'll make a custom cereal for you. But the idea here is that, um, we

[3:39] wanted crowd sources to show that we have a broad level of sports. So it's very important that you go and you find people to go and back us if they just want a t-shirt or anything else, but, uh, that's my feeling about it.

[3:52] We have about 10 days left on the Kickstarter. We need to gear into high gear now after the holidays are over. Peter, what are your thoughts on it? By the way, Peter Kim is the, uh, executive director of the museum of food and drink, uh,

[4:04] the, the leader of the project, I guess. Peter, go ahead. Yeah, so 1st of all, if you want to check out our Kickstarter, you can go to boom.mofad.org, that's

[4:13] BOOM.mofad, m-O-F-A-D.org. Uh, yeah, I think Dave really, you did a great job encapsulating it. I mean, we're really excited about this Kickstarter. It, not just about kickstarting one exhibit, but it's actually about kickstarting the whole museum. You know, the plan for MoFAD right now is to challenge the traditional museum model and actually create a mobile pop-up

[4:35] museum. And this will be our 1st exhibit. And so, you know, as Dave said, what we're trying to do is drum up a lot of public

[4:42] support, and I think this will open up a lot of doors for us and help us get, you know, propel us towards our ultimate goal of opening up a brick and mortar museum filled with exhibits like this.

[4:51] So we really, really need your help. I mean, this is like a, it's hard to overstate this, but it's a labor of love. We have a lot of volunteers working on this. I was working until like 3 AM last night, woke up at 5 this morning, got right back up to work on it. We're pushing hard on this because we believe in this. We really think it's the time is right to create a food museum that, you know, encourages people, inspires people to think a lot about, you know, the choices that they make and how food connects to the world

[5:22] around us. Right, let me stress most museums. But most museums start, right? They start with one of 2 things. either a large collection or a very rich person, right? Very few museums are trying to start the way we're trying to start, which is as an idea, uh, you know, and then getting the funding

[5:41] from uh, a broad range of support that wasn't already present. So that's why it's very important that everyone go out and find their, find their buddies.

[5:53] And by the way, just because you don't live in New York City, don't think we aren't going to bring the puffing gun to a neighborhood near you at some point. The idea is, uh, after we get it funded and we test out, uh,

[6:03] the, the gun in New York to do a traveling roadshow to, uh, to other areas of the country. Uh, we probably can't take internationally at this point, but uh, we are, you know, taking it to other parts of the country, true or false, Peter. Absolutely true. And I wouldn't actually rule out international just yet. But, you know, after the puffing gun, we have just, you know, you know how Dave's brain works. We've got about a million.5 ideas for the next pop-up exhibits. And after we create a few of these, you know, we're going to be able to take those wherever we can drive them. And that's that's really exciting that we're not going to have to just be stuck in one place. Yeah, and you should go and check out our video anyway. We have an incredible cavalcade of, uh, awesome smart and famous people, uh, filling out for us on the, uh, on the video. So go check it out. Um, anyway, we'll probably harpen that a couple more times. Yeah, so, uh, boom.mofad.org, B-O-M.mofad, M-O-Fad.org. Let me hit a few of the questions we have in here. One, hey, cookie issues crew. I'm trying to help my pops impart Thai basil into his cooking. Fresh and finishing applications aren't doing the trick for him. I've read that you can freeze Thai basil and break it up before laying it under a protein that you are cooking. He also wanted to explore getting a mortar and pestle to release the oils or infuse cooking oil with it. Can you speak to the scientific aspect of working with more delicate herbs from maximum flavor? Thanks so much. Billy Rose Patterson, the manager of Alamo, Draft House Cinema, and Yonkers. I've been to Yonkers in a long time. Drive through Yonkers because it's on the way to my mom's house and goes up north of the city, but haven't stopped by the Yonkers in a long time. Peter, you ever hang out in Yonkers? I've never been, always been fascinated by the name, though. Well, Yonkers, you know, Yonkers, aside from being kind of the 1st city on the, on the, you know, on the left-hand side is to travel north, uh, up, up there, uh, and the

[7:49] childhood normal, uh, one of my sculpture mentors, John Kessler. Uh, you know, we always heard like, you know, Yanshu's raceway. That's right. I think the monster Trunks, Trunks could go. So like we, when I was growing up listening to monster, monster, monster truck, those guys were all in Yonkers, nobody ever took me to go ski. sad, right? sad. Have you ever seen a demolition derby, Dave? I have not been to a demolition derby, but I've always wanted to go to a demolition derby and I've also always wanted to go to a figurate racing competition. You know, figure 8 racing? Yeah, where they like, they, they race into figure 8 and they smash in the middle. amazing stuff. Great. I mean, crazy. I can't believe they did that. whatever, that's, that's now we're, you know, they do that now. they have figure 8 racing with school buses. were you aware of this? Oh my god. Yes, it's sick, dude. It's like decommissioned school buses and they probably fill the sides of it with concrete and stuff so they can keep going for a long time and then the school buses are going as fast as they can around this tiny figure

[8:41] 8 track without flipping over and then occasionally smashing into each other. I mean, I can't think of much cooler than that, except for maybe Mofad's puffing done. Nice, sweet boom. All right. So the issue with Thai basil. and I think you're hitting the nail on the head. Thai Basil is an extremely fragile herb. Now, Thai basil, for those of you that don't use it, is, uh, it's akin to, uh, you know, kind of the globe, Italian basil. It's more common here in the US, but it has, um,

[9:09] has, it's, I, I like it quite a lot. It's not really used for the same applications. It has a bit of an anis note, but if you're not a friend of anis flavored things. Don't let that put you off. It's not like overpowering or like a pastise kind of thing, but it has a definite anise flavored note. Uh, and it's what we use at the bar for our Thai basil daiquiries. I like it a lot. I think it's very good, by the way, in drink applications, but the problem with Thai basil, uh, even as opposed to regular globe basil, which is the

[9:39] Italian one that we know are more used to, uh, is extremely fragile. It goes, it goes off very, very quickly. And by that. I mean, it turns black and they, enzymes in it are very, uh, very fast, almost as fast as, as they are in, in mint and turning the leaves kind of black. And so it's difficult to do things with them, uh, and have them stay fresh for as long, uh, as you would with, uh,

[10:01] with, um, something like even with regular basil, which turns black very quickly as well. So, they, you know, the problem is, is that anything is gonna ability it, for instance, freezing it, if you freeze Thai basil, when it's fall, as soon as it's fall, it'll turn black, because the freezing is going to rupture the

[10:15] shells, in the uh, rupture some of the shells and ice crystals. And then when it thaws out, polyphenal oxidase, uh, enzymes in it will instantly go to work and turn the sucker swampy and black. So if you were going to do some, like, 11 thing you can do. is to, um, you can, you know, I've never dried Thai basil. So I'm kind of talking out of the, out of the wrong side of my body at this point, but uh, I'm sure you could dry it in the same way that they dry herbs, perhaps in

[10:42] the microwave. I never tried it. Or, and it's not so good. If you were going to freeze it, you could blanch them. The problem is if you blanch them, which kills the enzymes, you definitely change the flavor and you lose a lot of that freshness. If you freeze them very quickly, and then never let them thaw again, and then blend them

[10:58] into something that doesn't have a lot of oxygen, you might be able to get around, uh, to get around the problem

[11:03] of it browning. But it really is, uh, just a kind of a delicate, um, a delicate herb that kind of needs a little bit of care to

[11:12] work now. You can cook with it. It's fine. If you want that fresh, I mean, it's great. I shouldn't say fine, it's great. I, I, besides, you ever cook with it, or Peter, you ever cook with Thai basil? No. All the time. I love it. Yeah, right. I mean, you can, you can cook with it, like you can cook with any basil, but if you want that fresh flavor, it's very hard to do anything too.

[11:30] That, why we go through all the trouble of freezing with liquid nitrogen, and, and, you know, blending it with alcohol, which kills the, kills the polyphenol oxidase.

[11:38] Now, uh, like I say, if you freeze it, then if you're going to, um, if you're going to, uh, blend it into something like sauce and water pests or pests on oil, you might want to sprinkle a little ascorbic acid on it before you do that to try and inhibit the browning that's going to happen almost instantly as it falls out, uh, or you, you might try, uh, muddling it with a little bit of super

[11:57] high proof ethanol to keep it green, uh, before you uh, incorporate the oil and whatnot. But just remember, if it freezes and then thaws, as soon as it thaws out, it's going to turn black, unless you prevent it by blanching, which kills the, not kills the fresh flavor, it alters it, or um, or hit it with some sort of antioxidant, or something that uh, inactivates the enzymes, like high

[12:19] prucuscanol, right there. That makes sense guys? Yep. All right, cool. Dave Nastasia, Joe Jack at all, which I guess includes Peter today. I purchased a small deep fryer late last year and regrettably haven't used it that much. That is regrettable to have a deep fat fryer, not use it, although I will say that small deep fryers are nowhere near as awesome. I mean, like they're not even in the same league of awesome as, uh, as commercial deep fat

[12:44] fryers. However, the summer after I graduated from college. I did only 3 things. I watched daytime TV, including Regis and Kelly all the way through up to General Hospital soap operas. I watched the whole, the whole thing, uh, and, uh, worked on my 76 Bonneville, which required a lot of bondo work, and spray fitting

[13:02] in gold and whatnot. And I, uh, deep fried, uh, French fries and uh, habanero chili rienos in

[13:10] my uh, little deep, deep fryer fried Eddie. So, they do work. Anyway, I purchased a small deep fire light last year. We haven't used it that much. 4 months ago, I left the oil in it last time I used it after skating out the solids. You got to be careful, you want to cover it, so, you know, light doesn't get to it, and um, the problem, one of the problems with small

[13:28] fryers and storing oil in them for long periods of time, is that they have a poorer surface area to volume ratio, and so it's the surface area of oxygen, uh, transfer to

[13:38] volume that's kind of, uh, determine how fast uh, the oil oxidizism goes rancid on you. So they're not really ideal in that sense because that was fairly large surface area. Anyway. Uh, okay, so after this community, 3 months ago, I spooned in some solidified bacon fat,

[13:52] making it was a clever way to store it, uh, and I would deep fry something and get a great smoky bacon flavor in the next week or so.

[13:58] Three months later, the bacon fat and oil are still in the deep fryer. Question, is it okay to fry chicken with this oil bacon fat combo for the 4th of July or not? Well, I'm a little late to help you on that. But anyway, I understand possible grand acidity of bacon bits from bacon grease could create a flavor issue, but if I bring it up to 350, are there any potential health issues, we're trying some fried bread, uh, to check for

[14:16] acidity. Uh, thanks, Tommy Bishop, YSL VA. Uh, I don't, uh, Westville, VA. I don't think it's, uh, I, I can't think of any major health problems, but the issue with bacon Greece in general. I mean, I save it, but it goes off pretty quickly because remember, there's a lot of salt in uh

[14:32] bacon, and the salt is, you know, it's really going to um, increase the rate, especially because bacon grease is usually heated to a very high temperature when you're cooking the

[14:41] bacon, so you're starting to break down the fats there. You have salt in it, which is starting to break down the fat. And so in general, bacon grease isn't your most stable of fats. Uh, that said, you know, that's not going to kill you, they eat it. It's just a question of is it still going to taste good, right? What do you think, guys? I think that's, uh. Anyone, anyone, any thoughts and opinions? Okay. So, uh, that person's probably already done this or hasn't done

[15:09] it, so. I guess we could just ask the person who asked the question because they probably tried it. Well, but again, you know, Tommy is pointing out my favorite test for frying oils is putting a cube of bread into them, frying

[15:25] them, and then tasting the bread to see whether or not it has a, you know, whether it tastes like crap, because bread's very neutral, red absorbs a lot of oil, and then you can get a real feel for kind of what's going on with

[15:37] the, uh, with the bread. So that's a good way of doing it. Uh, but yeah, it's not. I mean, it's not going to kill you. I mean, there are probably people who say that they, they, you know, the free fatty acids aren't good for you and all the other stuff, but I don't know that I'm a real believer and I haven't seen any data that says that, you know, you're going to substantially shorten your lifespan by

[15:54] uh having a little bit of uh bacon grease. It gone a little bit over the hill. You know? Hey Dave, what's the what's the lifespan of the oil in your massive fryer? Very long. So, if you, so, like, oil, there's a couple of things, like, so I have a £35 deep fryer that takes about 6 gallons of oil, uh, about 5.5 , 6 gallons of oil, and uh, it's stored

[16:16] very, in a very tall format. Uh, and additionally, you know, because deep fryers are tall and have a fairly small surface area for how deep they are. And the other thing about uh, and so that right there for storage is uh kind of ideal. The other great thing about, um, commercial deep fryers that use tubes, called tube fryers, is that, uh, the oil at the bottom stays relatively cool, and uh, also particles that come

[16:42] off of your food and you're frying sink to the bottom into relatively cooler oil, instead of in traditional stovetop frying, where the particles hit the bottom of the pan, which is the hottest part of the

[16:52] pan. In addition, the surface area of heating at tube fryer is so high that, uh, it doesn't overheat the oil too much because, um, it has such a large surface area for transfer. So it keeps the oil at a much more stable temperature, and stability of temperature is much better for uh, for oil stability over time. You don't overheat it to get to the temperature you're going to cook, and therefore that greatly enhances the uh, the length of time the oil lasts. It has a smaller surface area on top, so that greatly increases the length of time that it will last. And uh, the burnt particles are kept at the bottom while you're fine, which greatly increases. So all in all, uh, just much, much, much, much, much, much better. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, okay. So, uh, hey, Dave, Nastasia, at all from Timothy. Uh, I came across this video of a guy making crepes in

[17:46] Kowloon Wall City. I think it's pronounced Calum. It's in Hong Kong. Any idea what's going on? It's YouTube video. Now, I had no idea what Cal's in World City is. Have you guys heard of this before? I looked it up. You guys heard of this? No, no. So Calhoun Wall City, when, um, when the, uh, the British, uh, I don't really even know how

[18:05] they uh, got Hong Kong in the 1st place through some form of coercion or whatnot, but when they gained control of Hong Kong, uh, in the early, uh, in the early 1800s or in the early mid 1800s, uh, China maintained control of certain areas of Hong Kong, including uh, parts of uh,

[18:22] Towhoun, where they had a fort, so they could see what the Brits were going to, were going to do. Uh, in the late 1800s when the Brits, uh, I guess, decided to, uh, alter the deal, as Starth Vader would say. Uh, they, uh, they took over control of Calhoun, uh, the walled city of the fort, and then didn't do much with it, and it stayed relatively

[18:45] lawless. It also stayed relatively unpopulated until after World War

[18:48] II, uh, and uh, the fall of uh, mainland China. It also had a big influx during the Japanese occupation in World War II. And then after World War II, after the, you know, the, uh, communist takeover of mainland China, it just got swamps of people and still maintain no laws. So until the, and then it just got kind of crazier and crazier till at one point in this little 6 acre place, 30,000 people were

[19:12] living, with no law, and literally no law, they accept the triads, which, you know, the, the,

[19:19] the kind of their mafia over there. And so, uh, it was just insane. If you see pictures of it, it's like no light made it down into the bottom of it because people would just build kind of illegal walkways. People would bring in illegal electricity. It was so crazy. It was like free for all like Mad Max kind of thing. What do you say? Or like 5 points. Yeah, right. kind of like five, kind of like 5 points. And much like 5 points, which was incredibly vilified in the press at the time. Uh, the vast majority of people who uh, 5 points was the big gang area in uh, downtown New York, uh, in the uh, 1800s, much like that, uh, the majority of people who

[19:58] live there were just living kind of normal lives. And not, you know, and just trying to, to, you know, make a living and do whatever they needed to do.

[20:05] Um, so, anyways, the, um, I need to move again because now there is a lease blower. Uh, so anyways, what, what happened uh, is that they kicked everyone out. Uh, and then they tore the whole thing down. The same thing you said to the 5 points actually. So it's almost an exact analog to 5 points. But there's a, a German documentary of it that was done prior to when they tore it down in the 90s and they evicted everyone, I guess, in the late 80s. And in that video, uh, you can see people just going about their daily business, like making noodles and

[20:40] making the, what isn't really crepes, which is what's point out in the video. But uh, spring roll wrappers. And spring roll wrappers have a very interesting manufactured technique because what you do, instead of making a standard crepe dough. So in a standard crate, though, you do a very high hydration dough. Uh, like one to one hydration of a liquid to flour. You let it rest and hydrate and let all the air bubbles come out, and then you pour it on a very hot griddle, uh, with oil. you put oil down the griddle. You pour down a very hot riddle, and you use a little kind of, what looks like a spatula rate. I forget what the term in French is. It's like rap play or something like that. Peter will help me out because his French is much better than mine. Uh, and you, you swirl it around into a crepe. You let the bottom cook and you flip it. Spring roll, by contrast, is a much less hydrated dough. It's, I mean, I don't really know what they use, but it looks like maybe 75% hydration or maybe a little higher and sticks, sticks to your

[21:39] hand, and you need it to build up the gluten, use a high gluten flour, you need it to build up the gluten, and then you let it

[21:45] rest for an hour or so before you use it to let it hydrate. And then you get a fairly low temperature griddle, right? And I don't think you want to oil it. I'm not sure. don't think you want to oil it. And you grab the dough in your hand, and you have this lump of sticky dough in your hand, and you mash it onto the griddle, and you wipe it around in like

[22:03] a, wax on, wax off movements for those of you that have seen karate kid, uh, and then you pull the dough off, and just a thin layer sticks on your

[22:11] griddle, uh, and then after a couple moments, it dries out, because it's very thin, and after it dries out, it self releases from the griddle in the same way that, uh, in the same way that rice, uh, will release off the

[22:24] sides of a pan if you let it dry overnight. But you don't want to turn brown. You're not browning it, right? So it's very low temperature, probably somewhere in the 200th Fahrenheit in that range, and he's making spring roll

[22:35] wrap after spring roll wrap. But it's a pretty cool technique. Um, I don't think I've tried it. I can't remember whether I've ever tried it. If I have tried it, it would have been decades ago, but it is a cool technique. You ever tried that either, you guys? No. Nope. You like yourself spring roll? Yeah. Loving my spring rolls. Yeah, everyone likes spring roll, right? I like a big roll is wrapped in lettuce. The combo is good for me. Uh, that's more of a lettuce roll, isn't it? Well, it's a role within a roll. Oh, you mean you like an actual spring roll with the wrapper and then wrap again in lettuce? Yeah. Is that because of the whole, like, you know, Korean thing? You have to wrap everything in lettuce, you're not happy? I can pretty much take anything wrap it in lettuce and love it. But I really like I really like the contrast of the crispy spring roll and then with the fresh lettuce.

[23:23] It makes me happy. No, no, you would prefer, but, oh, wait, were you like a fried spring roll or you like them like still kind of, you like them fried, like egg roll style, fried hard? Wrapped in lettuce? or you like them sauce, wrapped in lettuce? In that case, fried. Fried and wrapped in lettuce. You should do a, uh, you should fry it, you should fry it, then wrap it, in

[23:43] an unfried one, and then wrap it in lettuce. See how many layers you can go. By the way, this might be a good point to bring this up. Uh, I don't know if we brought it up before. I'll see whether Nastasia and uh Peter and uh the guys in the booth agree with me. I hate rap. A man. I hate raps, for as much as I hate like, uh, spring roll, as much as I love

[24:05] tortillas of almost any variety, although I do prefer corn from most applications, man, wraps suck. They really are bad. Everyone needs to walk around, and then every once in a while, like, think about the fact that raps are so popular here in the US, and they're really just, they're

[24:22] just viciously bad. They're horribly, horribly bad. I mean, if you think about this. Uh, You're taking an undercooked flour tortilla, which if you were going to do any reasonable kind of cooking, you would reheat on a griddle to kind of make it taste more cooked, right?

[24:42] And then serve it right away in some sort of cooked thing. And instead, you're wrapping it with a bunch of other dense wet crap.

[24:49] Right? And then wrapping it in such a way, almost invariably that you have too much, uh, kind of

[24:56] floury mess on one section and not enough in another, and serving to someone as though something they should eat. Have we discussed this before, Nastasia on the air? I think so. And that way, well, it kind of bears repeating. Peter, we've never discussed it before. What do you think? Am I on space here with my with my rap hatred? No, my soul just crumbled away a little bit, just imagining biting into one of those cold, mealy, crumbly tortilla things, like it's, yeah. Yeah, so somewhere at some point, right? And I can't remember when the rap thing happened, but I remember before there were raps, right? So like, you know, when I was a little boy, we didn't get wraps. That didn't happen, right? That was not, that was not on the race. So some point between the late 70s and the mid 90s. Some person who hates food, some person who absolutely detests all that is good in life, came up with this kind of horrible, rancid

[25:54] idea, has perpetrated it on 100s of 1000000s of us, because we've all been served one of these nonsense

[25:59] wraps before. And I think, you know, right after you back the most add Kickstarter, go tell us for not to buy raps. You know what I'm saying? I will say this. You know, a lot of times, so back when I was working as an attorney, you know, we'd have these business meetings, right? And there'd be catered food. And I'll be honest, a lot of times I opted for the rap over the sandwich simply because I didn't want to make a mess and it was just easier to eat. I still didn't like it. I still prefer a sandwich. I don't necessarily think that this was a crime against humanity as you're suggesting, but, you know, it's, there is something to be said about how it keeps your hands clean. All right. Well, okay, so let's let's go on this for a second. That's true. However, here's here's the thing. Most a poorly made sandwich. Right, is still better than a well-made wrap, right? And but the problem is, is that it's very hard to actually construct a sandwich for best taste and also best eatability.

[26:59] You know what I mean? So most people, they'll overstuff the hell out of their sandwich, and then it tastes good because the fillings almost always

[27:07] taste good, but it's completely uneatable in a kind of a friendly, or not friendly, but the public or business environment because the stuff's

[27:14] going to be falling all over your plate all the time. The flip side is people that manufacture sandwiches for either maximum eatability or their maximum crazy

[27:22] hairbrained ideas of health, right? Like, those guys, when they, when they make the sandwich, it's like horribly

[27:28] dry. And, like, a dry sandwich makes me almost as sad. Maybe in some situations more sad because it could be so much better with a simple addition of the condiment like mayonnaise or oil as a wrap. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. I think that comes out as a dry sandwich. How sad are these 2 things? A dry sandwich or an undersalted sandwich where they, like someone made the chicken salad, they didn't put enough salt in the chicken salad, and it's also a little too dry, and they pack it on that like horribly bad, badly made wheat bread that they think is good for

[28:00] you, but it's not because it tastes bad. And there's like the bread to filling combo is just way off. I mean, I think the solution really for this is to have tea sandwiches at all business meetings.

[28:10] I love tea sandwiches. tea sandwiches are good. That's a good business meeting compromise. But I think, you know, the other issue with bad sandwiches, you know, there's so much bad, like so much of the kind of things that are put out for people to eat are

[28:24] horrible. I mean, I don't know what got me into this move, but here's another one for you. When you wrap a breadstick with uh, with ham, right? You don't realize that uh, especially the thin breadsticks, like their ability to stay crisp is extremely minimal because any amount of water at all,

[28:42] uh, migrates out of that ham into that breadstick. And now you have like a mealy gooey breadstick, and then you have to try and extricate this ham from around

[28:51] it, and it, it, it's another, people need to think about moisture migration and putting different products

[28:58] together. They're going to sit around for a long time when they're worrying about catering things like business lunches. What are your thoughts on the breadsticks and ham? Just moisture migration ignorance. Yeah, agree. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't think I would describe that with myself. in this

[29:17] episode because kind of like, I'm just throwing a bunch of hate downs for no reason. I mean, I agree with you in spirit, you know? I'm right there with you. Just perhaps the, uh, the, uh, magnitude is, uh, is you're further out there than me. Well, I also noticed that, uh, and what you're telling me is that at the business meeting, you're too much of a sissy to take the sandwich that you

[29:39] like and instead taking the rep. Oh, the hates being directed this way now. Yeah. Yes, yes. Well, yeah, if you ever come work, anyone who's listening, if you ever come work with us, you got to realize there's going to be a certain amount of hate down getting thrown around at all

[29:54] times. We just can't, we can't, we can't help a little bit of the friendly hate down, uh, here, uh,

[29:59] uh, either at MoFAD, uh, or booker into actual cooking issues. Anyway. Uh, we got a, did you stick a, a commercial break? Sure. Okay. Here's a big coming back. PH.

[30:29] This one, it's called Fish Is, Fish Is Vodka. By the meatballers, on cooking issues.

[31:04] This is Chris Young, co author of Modernist Cuisine. Together with photographer Ryan Matthew Smith and Chef Grant Crilley, we've created something exciting and new at chefsteps.com. Each day in our kitchen at Seattle's Pike Place Market. We're working on new recipes, as well as updating classic ones that we love. And we're always looking for new techniques that make the impossible possible.

[31:31] At chefsteps.com, we publish it all online with detailed step-by-step demonstrations, as well as explanations of the science that answers the why behind the how in the kitchen.

[31:43] And through our forum, you can engage with our team as well as a friendly community of curious cooks from around the world. If you're interested in becoming a better cook. If you want more from the creative team behind modernist cuisine. And if, like us, you're a fan of Dave Arnold in cooking issues, then we think there's a lot you'll like. And the best part, chefsteps.com is entirely free to learn. And welcome back to the issues. Here's today with Peter, Kim. Adam Mofad, Nastasia, and the engineering crew. Uh, call on your questions, she's awesome time, call on your questions, 718-497-2128, 718-497-2128.

[32:24] Uh, so we have this one in uh, comment, really, from uh, Andrea Peroti, from the uh, UK, and this one, uh, Peter, you want to want to listen to it? has to do with MoFAD. I'm a long time reader of the blog and listener of the show. My girlfriend and I have followed the recent MoFAD development and are very excited about this project, especially the puffing gun exhibit. I'm a nutrition science student currently working at Kellogg's as a junior nutritionist in our UK team. I'm sure you guys won't need it, but if you'd, uh, if you'd like any information or any help of any time, I'd be happy to contribute any way I can. I'm not a huge manufacturing expert, but I work closely with the R&D team, and I'd be happy to let any give you any information, should you need it. So I guess, you know, who knows, who knows what we need, right? Peter? Oh yeah, that would be fantastic. Fantastic. So yeah, you should definitely contact us at info at mofed.org and we'll definitely get in touch with you. Here's the best part. Best of luck and obtaining the full amount for the puffing gun. We recently made a small donation, but are spreading the word to all of our family and friends. So Andre's doing exactly the right thing, which is spreading the word to all the family and

[33:23] friends. Steve, you have a color? Call her, you're on.

[33:35] Hey, can you guys hear? I can't, I can't hear what's going on. Call her. Oh. Hi. Hello? Hi. Call her. Hi. Howdy duty. your question? Hi, sorry, I didn't think you could hear me. Um, I'm calling about uh, one time listener, love the show. Um, calling about thickening yogurt. I'm wondering, I want to like take yogurt and add fruit puree to it, but it lose a lot of its viscosity. and I'm wondering if I can use something like Agar or Carraginan to take it so that I can like form canals with spoons. Well, you can thicken yogurts with cancine and it's done all the time. The issue is, is that, uh, you know, carragina needs to be heated. Uh, you know, pretty hot almost all the way up to uh, the boil for it to really get, um, to get active. Now, what you can do is uh, heat, heat the carragin in, in, and I would use,

[34:38] so kappa carragin is uh, stiff and brittle. Uh, and it doesn't reform after it's broken, whereas Iota carragin is much more kind of uh, stretchy, uh, and it also reforms gel. So a lot of times people will use a mix of kappa and uh iota for things like thickening yogurt. Uh, and you, you can use a very small amount, because carrogene is very synergistic with, um, uh, with uh, dairy systems. Um, and so, yeah, I think a lot of the times people would probably add the stuff before the

[35:08] thickening because they can then heat it without heating the yogurt up to a certain high temperature. But what you could do is over, um, you know, heat heat the yogurt

[35:17] slightly and then, oh, it'll kill the culture, though. And then over, uh, you know, overdose, dose, some actual straight milk, and then stir that in, let it gel, and then set up further. Alternatively, you know, you could take a live yogurt. Uh, make like a firmer iota and then, you know, stir it in, uh, just before it sets when it's

[35:36] warm but not too hot and then let it set like that and then let it culture up a little

[35:40] more, uh, and you should be able to get a, uh, a gel. The other thing, though, is if you really want to thicken it up, just hang it, you know, like, put, put it into like, uh, you know, uh, uh, an actual fine cheesecloth, not that wretched, they sell in the supermarket, and let moisture drip out of yogurt for a good long time, and uh, you'll, you'll drip out a bunch of the moisture, and it'll thicken up quite a bit, and then you won't have as much of a problem when you mix the fruit, fruit purees back into

[36:05] it, because uh, it'll, it'll just be taking it back to where it once was. Right, right. Okay. Um, how much curry can do you typically use for, say, like X amount of... something like yogurt? You said you use small amounts, right? What did you say? You generally typically use like very little, right? Yeah. Well, so, I mean, uh, in a dairy systems, Caribbean is roughly uh, 5 times more powerful than it is in water based systems. There's a number that get a little dicey when you get down to those kind of very low percentages, but you can in general

[36:39] use like on the order of uh 2 grams per kilo, something in that

[36:45] range and get a pretty uh decent gel with with them.

[36:49] Um, Piper, Christensen, uh, who works with us at Booker and Dax, uh, did a stint

[36:55] at uh, working R and D at CP Kelco, who does a lot of the good tarraginas. So what we'll have him do. He's in Vietnam right now. But when he gets back from Vietnam. I'll just ask him for a good yogurt thickening recipe and have him tweet it out and I'll

[37:09] refweet it for it on cooking issues tweet Twitter feed before next week's show. Awesome. That would be amazing. Thanks, love the show. Love everyone. Keep up the good work. Thanks so much. Thanks for calling in. Yeah, no worries. So, all right. Andrea made a comment back from the person who works

[37:29] at Kellogg's in the UK, and this is the apropos part also for Peter. Uh, the nutrition show uh, the nutrition coverage on the show is limited but always very interesting and usually aligned with my personal opinions. There are not so many shows, programs or print media publications that really value evidence-based nutrition like you do. I really do enjoy listening. Well, I have a treat for you, so that you can talk about a little bit, which is the museum. We've mentioned this on the air. The museum is going to be uh, doing a series of food for us. Uh, I guess that's the plural forum, uh, where we

[38:00] get, uh, uh, experts in different fields, uh, food related fields on opposite sides of, uh, different issues, including, uh, nutrition questions, things like the soda

[38:12] band in New York, uh, and kind of what the evidence is on whether or not that's even a useful

[38:18] thing or a good thing. Uh, things like, what other subjects we going to tackle, Peter. Looking at the marketing of snack foods. Also, GMO seeds. And basically, take any controversial food issue where you've got a lot of really strong opinions out there, you know, bringing all these people together for

[38:39] a discussion and to allow people to see the different points of view and come

[38:43] to their own conclusions. So, you know, what we hope is that, you know, this is going to be, uh, a, a bastion of no BS straight fooding. We're going to get people from different size of the debate, we're all smart, no idiots, uh, and get them together, moderate

[39:03] them, and try to have some actual interesting food discussion. A lot of it's going to be centered around nutrition just because that's such an important topic today. There's just so much misinformation uh out there uh

[39:15] because, you know, all the information that you get presented is presented by someone who has an axe to grind. Now you think so, Peter? Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I mean, we have, I have an axe to grind too, but my axe to grind is that everyone else has an axe to grind, but I guess that

[39:30] is, that is its own axe, right? Also, even a Medax. Yeah, Medax. I'd say either an axe a grind or a commercial interest. Yeah, or some combination, some combination there of. Okay. Vivian Mac writes in. Question for the show. She writes it on Twitter, actually. Why do some uh, age uh, egg whites when they make that grow? What's the difference? Uh, what's affected age, egg whites on foam, uh, grainage and volume? Well, I'll look at an article called the 10 age, and 8 storage time for A, I'll be in filming by

[40:01] Marianne Hammer. Dave, you have another problem? Oh, yeah? Okay, okay. Call her, you're on the air. Yeah, Dave. I'll be brief here since you're another time. Falafel. I'm having repeated falafel disasters. It either instantly burns or just completely disintegrates in the oil. Yes, that is true. There's nothing more depressing than, uh, there's nothing more depressing than making the falafel ball, and then sticking it into the oil, having it completely dissolved and then form a layer of burnt crap on the bottom of your fryer.

[40:38] Check, check, check. Yes. Yeah, that's horrible. It happens to me all the time, and I didn't point research, a good recipe, and I

[40:51] have a lot fulls, uh, down, but I'm hesitant to, uh, just like over the air, give a bunch of things, because I want to remember exactly, uh,

[41:00] how down, them. I think one of my main problems was I, early on is I really like, uh, I really like, uh, tahini flavor a lot, and so I think I put a lot of it into the chickpea mix that I put in.

[41:13] And so I think the oil, and plus I didn't add a lot of external binder to it, and they just blew apart. Um, then I moved to try and chill the batter 1st in the, you know, parfreeze a little bit so that

[41:24] they'd hold well before the crust set up, and I went through a whole bunch of rigmaroles. I'm gonna try to figure out exactly what I did and if Natasha can write out, I'll uh try to talk about it for next week's uh program when I have

[41:36] uh, little more time to gather my thoughts on it, but, but you are correct. There's nothing more depressing. Well, a few things more depressing than watching your falafel balls fall apart in the

[41:46] fryer and think to the bottom. Yes, um, thank you very much. All right, so we'll deal with that guy next week. All right, so back to the importance of hen age and egg storage time. uh from 2000 and I was reading the abstract. The firm is in fraction of egg albumen had different foaming properties. Uh, so in, I'll give you the upshot. The thin, white, foams more, i.e. has more overrun, can take more energy into it. But the thick white produces a more stable foam, right? So you can't uh, that, that, you can't win. And so, the more you age things, the more the, uh, egg whites, uh, more, more of the thick white is converted into, uh, thin white, but

[42:30] also, the, the foaming properties of it depends on the age of the hen when they handle

[42:35] age the egg, and that's something you can't control anyway. So really, uh, there is no way, uh, there's no way to win. Uh, there's another article if you want, you can go look at, uh, that deals

[42:45] with, uh, the problem of meringue specifically. It's called the effect of sugar, citric gas, and egg white types on the microstructural mechanical properties of meringues, which came out relatively recently, but, uh, I think all of this stuff is kind of

[42:58] the point. The best thing I read about it, was uh, on a website called

[43:03] macaron Mythbusters, uh, uh, on the blog, www.bravepart.com. Anyway, we're kind of talking about macaroons here. We're talking about the French meringue based cookies with the jelly in between, which I freaking love. you guys like those things? Uh, no, not really. What the hell? You don't like those either? What do you not like about those? Peter, you like those things, right? Sorry, man. You don't like food? Well, actually, I don't, it's been so long since I've had one, but I'm not, I don't have much of a sweet tooth. What's wrong with you people? don't you like it, Stas? Is it because it reminds you of how delicious a biscuit is? No, I, same as Peter. Like, I haven't had it in a long time, so it's not like I care that much about them. So maybe that's the thing. I just don't care. So it's not that you don't like them. you don't care about me. But if someone put in front of you, you're not like, no, thanks. No I'll eat it. You guys are freaking. I think they're delicious. anyway. Uh, so, uh, Brave Tart, and I don't know who it is, uh, uh, did a series of tests, and uh, here's what Braveheart writes, which I really

[44:12] like, uh, every day I changed a single variable across multiple patches. The bridge where I was making them professionally uh for somebody, uh, you know, for, for several

[44:21] months, was, uh, every day was pumping out these things, and so had a lot of opportunity to

[44:26] test, and said, I changed people variable across multiple batches, generally 3, you know, to my results. I also tested variables by their absence. For example, I listen to Huey Lewis in the news every time I made that room. The macaron turned outside the list. Then I made a few batches without the power of love because these all, and then these also turned out beautifully. So I can at least conclude that human Lewis didn't play an essential role in the matter of making macaroni. I think that's kind of a great test. You know, maybe it was the human limits. And right, race part here is, a race card matter, here is, um, what they're, what, what, you know, what, basic targets, basically saying is, is that, uh, a lot of these things that people take for granted, or take as rules, making them, like, you have to, uh, age your egg whites 1st, or you have to, um, or you have to dry out the math, you pipe them before you cook them, aren't necessarily dried in stone, and Brave starts point, and I have to keep saying their name, because I don't know if it's a he or she, but, uh, Brave Tart's point is basically that, if you

[45:21] have proper proper technique and you know what a proper meringue uh looks like and the proper egg white phone looks like, then you can get that egg

[45:29] white so you can get a proper result. Right? Uh, it's for technique is good, whether you dry it uh, after you uh, after you pipe it or you don't, because that's basically controlling uh,

[45:40] moisture. A lot of the techniques that are used are controlling the moisture content of the uh batter before it's piped. So drying controls the spread of the macaron and the and and the moisture content by letting some moisture flash off. Ditto with the aging the egg whites. And by the way, back to Vivian Max's question. Aging the egg whites can mean several things. It can mean using aged egg whites. i.e. uh, what, or aged eggs, that is, eggs that are older, and therefore also have a higher pH and more thin white, uh, and

[46:09] also possibly more protein density because some uh, waters evaporated. It could also mean, uh, uh, cracking the eggs out in advance, uh, and then letting moisture flash off the top of the egg

[46:21] white to also increase protein density. Either one of those things could be meant by aging. I'm not sure which one you mean, uh, or which one anyone knows when we're talking about it. But the, the big point here is that, uh, all of the variables about the age of the egg whites can just be swamped and drowned out if you just

[46:38] perfect, uh, your actual techniques. So I would go read, uh, Brave Tarts macaroon section, uh, macaroon section, rather, uh, and see what they said. So, uh, very quick, because I know I am running out of time because I have to make it to my uncle Luke's 100th birthday. You don't want to be ready to 100th birthday party, am I right? Right. I mean, he's 100, so last time I saw Uncle Luke, he was 98, and he's, he's still clipping along, saw him yesterday, you know, just, just in case, but, uh,

[47:05] but yeah, never been to 100th birthday, oldest relative I've ever had. Does you have anyone that's close to 100 family ever? No, not at all. Yeah, down here in Florida, living the kind of dehydrated Florida life, you know? Yeah. Uh, okay. So, Scott from Guelph. You know, we love Guelph, never been, but like I always say, awesome university

[47:27] up there. Every science, rice in. Uh, it's an interesting link, uh, about the polymerization, uh, the polymerization of oils, and the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, is APA, 244, 0068, A1, uh, and says, Dave was

[47:43] talking. Japanese being said, well, products, uh, I'd be relevant. Now we were talking before about this Japanese product. Some people wrote in about, uh, that you could uh, add to uh, oil in the pan,

[47:55] solidifies it so you could throw it away as a block. It was kind of cool. But this is kind of a cool technique. Then we should talk about it more next week where they're actually using, um, not methyl cellulose, like we use in normal cooking, ethyl cellulose, uh, and the, the deal with ethyl

[48:12] cellulose is opposed to ethyl cellulose. ethyl cellulose is not soluble in water. It's not a hydro, soluble in oil, but it's, it's, although it's not a hydrocolloid,

[48:24] but it's not soluble in water, uh, it, it, it, is exactly analogous to hydrocolloid and water, but, so you disperse ethocellulosin oil, heat up as much higher

[48:37] temperature, then you do uh, most water bases. So it, uh, it dissolves in cools and forms a gel where a liquid phase is actually liquid oil and not liquid water.

[48:51] Uh, I'm fresh and they like them, but, uh, pretty cool, and they have a lot of, um, potential uses in

[48:58] dehibit, uh, uh, replace uh, trans facts. Anyway okay. It's a question for before we got to go. Uh, Yo, Jack, got a question for the show and something for you to laugh at. from Dan Cisca. Uh, and, uh, 1st give you the one that they sent me the

[49:14] last, uh, uh, uh, they, you know, he knows uh, that uh, we enjoy uh, funk and hip hop and all this kind of stuff. So, and I was not aware of this website, but sent us a link

[49:23] to uh, it's called Gizugal, and basically they take, they take any, Google, but they have somehow used Google Translate, uh, uh, functionality, and they, they translate anything into, uh, kind of, like, you know, shape or

[49:42] facial language. So they sent us all to uh, cooking issues, uh, heritage raising or cooking issues, uh, splash cage done in, uh, in shizzle language. And, uh, in an interesting, fun to do search, uh, as long as you're, you know, as long as you're not

[50:00] offended by, uh, people stopping a lot of F bombs, it is, you know, In fact, these quick questions. He has 2 questions. I'm going to ask about this next week because I don't understand it. Questions are, number one, Western sauce, the VATF. I've never heard of Western sauce. You ever heard Western sauce, Gaws or Peter? No. I have no idea what that is I don't... North Carolina barbecue sauce. Okay. I'm going to see WTS. Western North Carolina barbecue sauce, no offense, Lexington, North Carolina, because I'll tell you something, the Eastern North Carolina barbecue sauce, which is very, very much pepper only, way to be. And, you know, I think now, anyone that lives, you know, kind of in the Peymont area of North Carolina, and likes to add a little bit of today's lunch, and that otherwise delicious pulled pork barbecue, uh, with, uh, with, kind of,

[50:48] please, slush, but, uh, you know, there's kind of like, there's a right and the wrong there, and I believe Eastern North Carolina sauce is right. I think that's what they're referring to. Probably can get in trouble for that. I'm there. Oh, and by the way, you know how a couple weeks ago I came out against barbecue sauce because in general, I'm against it. You remember that stuff? Yeah. Do you know who Mr. Gabe Williams is? You're sort of fading out and then Oh, do you know who Dr. Gable Williams is? No. Ventra Cable Williams was the most famous animal trainer, like, that Ring's brothers ever had, and he's

[51:23] been down there, and I had a chance to taste his steak sauce, and I

[51:26] had to say it was pretty good. Check out Gunter Gable Williams steak sale. You take, uh, you take Scotch. You should not pay potential onions, and then you throw in a bunch of scotch, and then you throw in a bunch of Worcestershire sauce, and then, uh, and then you throw in a little bit, a little bit of brown sugar, and uh, a little bit of mustard, and a little bit of Worcestershire sauce, and

[51:49] that, and I have to say, actually, like, it's pretty good. It's more of a jus. This is a beast, sweet barbecue sauce, and more of a... Anyway, um, all right, so it looks like uh, looks like it's all the good stuff we got. It does? Yep. All right. we're out. I'm gonna report on my uncle Luke's 100th birthday when I come like 350 issues. Remember the backsticks? Dave, one more plug. One more plug man. So, yeah, we'd really appreciate you guys support. Means a lot to us. really need your help. So, and we need to raise the money we need for the exhibit by July 20. If we don't get the support we need, this is really just not going to happen. So please get onto boom.mofed.org. Thank you. Do it. Do it.

[52:41] 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

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