[0:00] Today's program is brought to you by Thurman Maple Days. celebrate flowing of sap in the Adirondacks, self-guiding to 7 sites for talks, tours, tastes, and old-fashioned friendliness. For more information, visit Thurman Mapledays.com. I'm Linda Pelacio, host of a taste of the past. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick, Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit heritageradionetwork.org for 1000s more.

[0:30] Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live at noon, actually, Stas. What do you think about that? Crazy. The Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting from Abertus Pizzeria, where, Jack? Bushwick. Brooklyn. Oh, yeah. Joined, as usual, in the studio with Nastasia, the Hammer Lopez. How you doing, Stas? Good. And Jack Jackie molecules. 's up? doing well. Good, good. We are going to be joined shortly by the late arriver, I guess, is like, you know, planning on my usual arrival time. Peter Kim. you know. He got a different name for him before the show started. was it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Family show, Jack. Family show. Call in your questions 2 718-497-2128. 718-497-2128. So Stas, on the magnificent L train on the way over here today. I was on that. Yeah? Just the one that just got on it? No, no. The one before me? Anyways, I'm never on the L train to get here. Anyways, dude had so much ketchup on his face. like just ketchup all over his face. And I'm like, dude. Like, a little bit of ketchup, like on your cheek, like, all right, fine, whatever. Well, no, that's the thing. He had done eating. He wasn't one of these freaks in the subway, like jamming his face full of like pot pie or something. But he had like, it was like he had taken a fistful of

[1:57] French fries, gone in the ketchup, and then like shoved it into his face and got it all over his face. But here's the

[2:03] thing. You, if you have that much ketchup on your face, you can smell it, you can

[2:10] smell, you're like, why do I, why do I still smell ketchup? You know what I mean? What a horrible thing to have on your face too. Yeah, just like a just a botonic ketchup. Crazy. not right I have a collar on if you want to get right to it. No, let's get right to it. get right into business. Caller, you are on the air. Hey, David, it's Judah from Silver Spring, Maryland. are you? Doing all right. So question for you. You know how in liquid intelligence you have kind of that shopping list. Excuse me, that shopping list and it's like grouped together by. Oh, did we lose you? Oh, I got to ask. I do know the shopping list. I'm familiar with the shopping list. I was thinking about this also. You still there? Maybe maybe... Oh yeah, you're back? Yeah, yeah, the shopping list. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, sorry. So, um, you know, that that list that you have where it's kind of grouped into like this, these are your necessities, this is if you have a little bit more money and this is if you want to go crazy. Right. Um, so, say you were doing the same thing for a commercial kitchen, think for like a deli. Um, you know, how, how, how might you group that? Okay, well, what kind of deli? What are you serving? So, uh, we're going to be doing everything in house except for baking bread, uh, but you know, um, cooking roasts from scratch. Uh, you know, making some prepared meals like soups and stews, some basic catering also,

[3:33] but uh, you know, nothing too fancy, at least at the outset. I'm trying to look to how I can bootstrap it as much as possible. Um, you know, uh, thinking uh, if, if I switch to induction, does it require the use of a hood, you know, that, that sort of thing. So really trying to be creative with our expenses there. Right. Well, you can definitely, I mean, I don't know what you're venting acquirements are,

[3:55] but, uh, you know, the situation rather, but you can definitely reduce

[3:59] your, your, the CFMs or the venting you need by going induction. I know a lot of people also who just basically cheat and they do their hot side on

[4:08] induction and then take it away when they're not using it. And that's totally viable. You know what I mean? It all depends on what you can get away with in your locale. But, you know, if you're going to do traditional, any traditional deli stuff, I would invest in the sweetest slicers that you could possibly

[4:26] get, right? And so like, what kind of slice are you getting? So, so it's, I'm buying a company that's already existing, but I'm trying to think of

[4:36] it, like, this place is so mismanaged. I have to think how would I would how I would start from scratch. So they have like a, the guy told me to have like a 70 year old Hobart slicer, which is, you know, just on an angle. Um, yeah. Okay, now, look, a lot. So let's just take the slice because to me, like the heart, and this is kind of pathetic the way I think, but the heart of like a deli operation is like your slicer,

[4:58] right? Uh, slicers, uh, obviously, you know, I don't know how long you have to deal with the one that you currently have, but the issue with the angle

[5:10] or gravity feed slicer, which is, you know, the American standard for slicers, um, is that regardless of, you know, how sharp you keep the blade, uh, you're going to get some toe out on the, uh, you know, some healing out on the bottom of the meat

[5:28] as you cut. And you know what I'm talking about that. Yeah. And that's just the nature of the beast when you're using a gravity fed slicer. Now, you know, what does that really mean? It means that you have to like take it off or rotate it as you slice or take it off and take that little heel piece off and it's

[5:48] unpleasant. Is that like a life ender? No. But if you were curing your own meats and like, you know, you really cared about it and you're dealing with high value stuff, you don't want that

[5:56] to happen. Now, the modern gravity slicers are a lot better in that respect because they require a lot more down pressure

[6:05] than some of the older ones do. And, you know, you know, the, you know, my favorite. Uh, you know, that, you know, the, you know, the old, um, um, the

[6:16] Model 3000, the, you know, the newer, the Hobart Model 3000, which is like, was like such a pimped out machine. Like that did a very good job on thin slices. The bazerba, you know, which was before that other one, the one that, and by the way, I'm a couple

[6:30] years behind, like three, 4 years it's been since I really worried about slicers. Um, you know, was was the best. But, you know, if you're going to do a high-end presentation deli kind of a situation, eventually you might want to get a vertical, like to, because a vertical slicer, A, looks freaking awesome, and B, like doesn't have any of that distortion on the slices it goes through. That said, the only people I know who use them are like, you know, the people trying to do like the high-end Italian

[6:58] style kind of service, you know, who don't want to do hand slicing.

[7:03] Um, so I don't, and I don't have a lot of personal experience with them. But the good thing about like the newer slicers is I would look, the reason I like the 3000 is the just the ease of cleaning on it too. Like it's got like, it's got that like hydraulic lift that you can lift up the slicer and clean underneath

[7:21] it. You could pop the blade off and throw it in a dishwasher, which is sweet. I hate cleaning slicers. I gotta tell you, I do not like cleaning them. Yeah, I got a really nasty cut one year. doing that. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, obviously, I'm not even going to get it because I don't know the layout, but like refrigeration is going to be huge on you, like getting like good cases because you're going to throw a lot of money into electricity on those cases over time.

[7:46] And so even though like an old set of refrigerator cases might seem like a good bargain right now,

[7:51] A, like they might break on you more of. I've said this before, I hate commercial refrigeration. I really do. But, like, you know, uh, good refrigeration setup, um, you know, it's not going to go down. And I don't know who's got the best one right now. But, you know, those are like the heart, right? So you got your refrigeration setup. You got your slicer. Then, um, on your cooking side stuff. I would definitely invest in, um, in a couple, especially if you're not

[8:19] going to do, you're not, you said you're not going to do a lot of hot side right away, right? Right. Yeah, just get some get some decent induction ones. Like, um, you know, there's actually, you know, it's interesting. They, uh, uh, Breville, is that semi-commercial, semi-pro, like, uh, Philip Preston from poly-science, did some work with a new temperature controlled induction unit that's supposed to be pretty

[8:41] good. at least he tells me so, um, that I think is, I'm going to say it's right in between the consumer in the pro range. Uh, but it could be good for swapping uh, in and out. Otherwise, most people I know use, you know, the big old cook techs. You know what I mean? But they're not, they're they're pretty expensive. Whereas most of the other, you know, the smaller induction ones, the cheap ones, you can get away with them fine for a while, but they're not necessarily the best long term because they have a fairly small heat ring, so you can get some

[9:15] scorching. If you're doing, you know, work that requires like saute or anything like that, they can fuzz out on you over time if you're using them hard and intensively.

[9:27] But on the other hand, they're cheap like potato chips. You know what I mean? They're like a couple 100 bucks, so you can like rip through them, you know, as you as you as you need

[9:35] to. What else am I? I mean, if you're going to do catering, I would get a vacuum bag. I would get a vacuum machine, and if you're going to get a vacuum machine,

[9:43] in your setup, I would not go for the smallest one. I don't think you need to get a really big one unless you're going to be vacuing down. Maybe you are. Maybe you're going to be backing down like whole roast doing a pre-circ on them and then a roast out later in an oven. I don't know. You know, that's something you should kind of look forward to because that's another large investment, a vacuum machine. You got to probably need a haset plant as well for it. But, um, that's definitely going to be useful both in a catering application uh, for takeaway

[10:13] later, and also if you ever, and go to um, the underground meat collective section on their hasset because they do, they do vacuum for takeaway. So then if you're going to make your own products, do a slice down and a

[10:24] vac pack out so that you can push, you don't want to have to do all of your heavy slicing necessarily to order on something when you want to grab and

[10:32] go and you might want to be able to prepackage something, in which case you're going to need a decent vacuum machine.

[10:36] Right, right. So I was just looking at the, you know, the mini pack lines. Um, and the, uh, I think it was the, the XT 45, um, or the MBS 45, Uh, you know, I was trying to figure out, like, if that would be too big or if I could get away with something smaller, but you're saying, don't, don't go for the smallest thing. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, no. No, yeah, yeah, the 45 is the smallest one for your application that I think I would

[11:00] go. That's the same size as the, uh, as on the, um, multivac, that's the same size, I think as what, the 200. It's been a long time since I've shot. But yeah, that's the that's the smallest one that I would go for because you know what? Like, do you really want to be in a situation where, you know, you

[11:17] saved because the price difference is not that big, right? And the size is not that much different. And do you really want in 6 months time to say, I wish I could pack that

[11:25] down? No. You don't. Right. You know, what I used to recommend. Also, a lot depends on what you're going to do. So, uh, you know, I had the the pleasure of having a dual uh, dual bar setup in both machines that I was using, right? And the advantage of the dual bar having 2 bars in it is that you can seal 2 packages at once. And that becomes a really big deal if you are going to do packaging down of stuff

[11:53] for, um, for sale, not just for like storage at the end of the night, but because like let's say your vacuum cycle time is like 40 seconds, 35, 30, somewhere between 30 and 40 seconds, you know, in between each cycle,

[12:08] right? Which it could easily be. It could be longer, even, depending on what you're doing. So, uh, by having 2 bars where you can steal 2 packages at once,

[12:18] uh, you know, across from each other, you're you're cutting your packaging time in half. And if you've ever gone on a big packaging marathon where you're packaging package after package after package,

[12:30] uh, then, you know, it can be significant. The savings can be significant for not a not a huge initial extra investment. Got it And here's the thing. People are like, the bar, it takes up the extra bar, it takes up so much space, and the fact that's crap, because you can just rip the bar out when you're not using it. I've done it a 1000000000 times. You just rip the bar out when you're not using it, and then you have the full space where the other bar used to be. You know what I mean? For someone like you, I don't know that gas flush is going to be so important, you know, I don't know. Like, um, I don't know that many people who use it all the time, but anyway, there you have it. All right, we had another caller who's been waiting. Oh, wait, wait, wait. If you have any more questions, give us a call back. All right. Call her. on the air. How you doing? I'm doing very well. How are you today? doing well. Um, so I got any questions for you. I fluted the park next in when I'm doing things at home where I didn't write down exactly what I had done to get a result.

[13:27] Right. But I think I have this one pretty much nailed on. So, um, uh, I'm a bartender and I used a recipe from Keller's uh, French laundry for one of the

[13:38] syrups that we use at the bar. Um, I used to, uh, top cherry pepper shirt, which is, uh, top

[13:43] cherry, black peppercorns, raspberries, uh, strawberries, sugar, water, um, and then he kind of poaches it. Uh for 45 minutes to keep it from getting cloudy. Um, the ratio that he uses are going to be, he uses a pine of raspberries, pine strawberries, a couple of water, 3 quarter cup sugar, which isn't going to be nearly enough

[14:02] sugar to get to a, um, uh, a 50 brick symbol. So, I mean, I've got to refry theometer. Um, Kind of, I was, when I was the 1st time I made it, I just kind of was like, throw some water in there, I'll just correct it whenever I'm

[14:17] done, and whenever it came out, I had developed a whole bunch of peppin in the syrup. So when I was blending it to get more sugar into it, the correct

[14:26] brick, um, it created this really amazing stable foam on top. Um, that's super, super delicious. Um, and then the 2nd time I did it, it, the foam wasn't stable. So what I'm thinking is that, um, I think what happened is I just developed, developed more

[14:43] pective the 1st time I did it. and I want to call you and ask you what kind of are the ideal conditions for developing packed in in fruits whenever you're making

[14:53] it sort of like that. Right. Oh, and I'm sorry, real quick. The way that I do it is the, like a double boiler method. So I put all my ingredients in the, um, mixing bowl over boiling hot

[15:03] water, just keep that hot food pushes and has no chance of boiling. Right. So what you want is like basically, um, not fully gelled, obviously, but like semi, right? So like the problem with that and impectin is like, you know, getting the ratio is exactly right each time to make

[15:21] it to make it right. Now in general, right? pecked in, uh, the, will form gels, uh, in situations where they're, uh, is a high soluble solids,

[15:34] right? So lower water and usually typically a lot of sugar. That's why a lot of times when people try to make jellies and they're like, oh, my jelly didn't set, it's because they don't have enough sugar in it, right? And the other thing is acid, right? So like maybe the batch that had the good pectin development was a little more acidic than normal, right?

[15:54] And then you doped it with extra sugar. So then you have a high sugar, high, high acid situation. Pectin loves that. You know what I mean? And so typically, you know,

[16:07] you can have, like, ionic reactions as well, but I think typically you're going to just look for high soluble solids and, um, not

[16:16] my brain. High soluble solids and acid conditions. And that's gonna, you know, increase the set characteristics of your of your pectin. But that said, like, wacky things happen with fresh fruit, and you never know, like, if you got like a really good result, it's like super hard to duplicate it.

[16:35] Right. Um, I was using frozen raspberries and fresh strawberries whenever I did it. Yeah, I think that should affect it much. Like, freezing. Could be wrong, though. I often am. So what you're saying is just add a little bit of acid, like either lemon juice or just citric acid or something, then that should help correct it. Well, I think once it's done, once it's cooked out, it's like, you know, it's probably cooked out. You didn't write down the exact ratios you did that time. No, that's what we're talking about, just Cardinal Sin. Yeah, I mean, look, I told you, I've said it on the on the air. Like, you know, there's recipes that I've never been able to achieve again, ever. But a lot of these recipes with, especially recipes that rely on hydrocolloids. Like a lot of them are on a razor thin edge. Do you know what I'm saying? So it's like, and the problem with those is you could be chasing unicorns, right? So, you know, let's say, let's say the syrup that you did, even if you measured it exactly. Let's say you're talking about a one in a 100 shot. Well, you can't you can't do you can't do a recipe based on a one in a 100 shot. You know what I mean? Um, you know, so you might want to think about uh, just, you know, doping, doping it with some uh, foaming age. I mean, strawberry is pretty foamy anyway. Like, even, um, you know, clarify, clarify, regular clarified strawberry is pretty foamy. So, um, yeah, strawberry soda foams like a mother. So does raspberry soda, really. You know, even when I hit it with Pectinex. So it's, um, Yeah, but getting it exactly the way you want it. I would consider just doping it with some, you know, some whipping agent and some, uh, I haven't, I've been looking into it. In fact, someone else asked last week about vegan egg replacers, and then I had I had a comment back in on the, on the, you know, HMC additives. There got to be a good thing just to add to make it happen because you don't want to rely. You don't want to rely on having to get something exactly right every time that

[18:40] is like on such a like a fine teeter totter. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. I didn't realize that getting pet development would be that kind of a razor edge. Well, because you don't want it fully gelled. You want something in between. In between things are always the hardest. By the way, you, the recipe that Keller has, has you cooking the peppercorns for 40 minutes? Or do you throw? See, here's the thing. So like Jeffrey Steingarden, you know, friend of the show, friend and friend of mine, he once lambasted me. Lambasted me for putting pepper into things early because he's like, when you cook

[19:14] pepper that, he doesn't talk to this. When you cook pepper that long, it's like all that's left is the is the bitterness. None of the aroma, the pepper. I'm like, you know, so what? Like, I still like to add pepper early because I kind of like that like harsh bitterness from the pepper. But if you considered like almost like dry hopping, like after the cook, like putting some grounds of pepper in, right as you take it

[19:34] off and then to get some sit, let's sit with the aroma in and then stranding it off to get more of that fresh pepper

[19:39] aroma. Because if you noticed that, um, the aroma of the pepper changes and drops off and loses a lot of its kind of like, uh, you know, interesting characteristics, especially if he's going to go all the way

[19:52] to like specify Telicherry over a different variety of pepper. I don't know why he's hating. don't know why he's hating on the Malabar. I was like, you know what? That's the thing, Stas. Remember we did all those pepper tastings back in the day. Stas has her, I hate pepper tasting face. You don't like pepper on butter? was just boring. Everything, everything that requires sitting and like doing you hate. You hate. Anyways. Uh, point being that uh, other peppers are also good. I know Telicherry's got the got the name. You know what I'm saying? But, you know, like we do a pepper tincture. You know what my favorite thing to add to any pepper tincture is? Cubebs. just going to say it right there. Cubebs. Go? Have you have you played with cubebs? I have not. I have a pink peppercorn tincture that we use at the bar. put it in an atomizer and use that to kind of like a rentry inside of a glass, it's awesome. No. Anyway, that's my, that's my, that's my pepper go to of the, you know, because we, you know, I'll do a pepper

[20:45] tincture and I'll throw in because you always have all those pepper like things sitting around, right? So you got like a couple different black peppers. Like, typically the 2 that I'm using are the Malabar and the Telicherry, and I forget the 3rd one. We sometimes use some other ones, but those are the main 2 that I'm using. And you always have a little bit of the grains of paradise, although that's a very strong flavor. I sometimes have a little bit of the long pepper, which, strangely, even though it's not really, it's nowhere near the same flavor, the Romans, like, used interchangeably with black

[21:15] pepper, according to the research that I have, and cubebs. And some combination of all those can make really interesting kind of peppery aromas. Awesome. Thank you so much. I play around with that. Cool. Thanks. All right. So, hey, Jack. He's not there. Oh, he's not there. So the maple syrup, guys, you can take a maple syrup tour, huh? There are our sponsors today. Yes, that's true. What do you think about that? What do you think about the maple syrup tour? I think it sounds great. Their whole thing is they're like, you know, maple syrup is more than just a condiment for pancakes. So they're like, you get to tour the sugar shacks and they show you all these other products that they make with maple, like candies and things like that. Sugar Shack sounds vaguely like, you know, like some other stuff's going to happen in there, don't you think? It's a family show. don't know. Yeah, yeah. anyway, my point is, I was thinking about this the other day. And I'm such a jerk about it, but like, I have not noticed any huge terroir

[22:12] phenomenon in maple syrup. You know what I'm saying? It's like, I've had maple syrup from Connecticut. You know what it tastes like? Maple syrup. Yeah. You know, Vermont, you know, Vermont, maple syrup tastes like? Well, have you ever done a tasting? Like a side by side? I'm saying, I think we should. I think we should get these guys to send it in and do like a side by set. Now, listen, the like, there's a huge difference between the different grades of maple syrup and like early season versus late season, right? Because the earlier in the season, the clearer it runs, that's where you're getting your lighter

[22:40] syrups, and as the season goes on, it gets darker and darker until you get to the point where you get all this metallic taste that even like below grade B,

[22:48] right? Which are even too strong for me. Like, I'm a solid B guy. I like B for eating. I like beef or cooking. Like, I like beef. You know what I mean? But, um, But it seems to me those

[23:00] effects, like swamp, like any sort of, like, locale effect. You know what I mean? What do you think? Am I wrong about this? I want someone to see. We gonna have to do this. We need someone to send in a tasting. You know what else I've really always wanted to do? Always want to do. I've always wanted to get a bunch of maple sap and then concentrated in a roto app. We'll try to make it happen. Right? To see, like, I want to know how much of the characteristic mapleness is, because of the cooking itself versus just the extraction of water.

[23:35] Do you know what I'm saying? I'm sure someone out there has done evaporative boiling on this without heating it, but... Sorry, I got to call her here. All right, call her. on the air. Hey, it's Chris from Green zone. Hey, what's up? Hey, got a throw up question, actually. Oh, nice. I haven't had a chance to look at the at the video yet. I heard you sent it to Jack, but I haven't seen the link yet on the coffee. Yeah, no worries. I just wanted to know what your go-to method for gum Arabic is because I couldn't actually find one on liquid intelligence. Dump syrup, I should say. Yeah, I don't use it that often is why is why it's not in there. I did a bunch of tests once where I, you know, we did the heavy gum

[24:11] syrups and then tried to see how much of a difference it made, and our impression was that, you know, we didn't love it enough

[24:22] to like, it wasn't one of those things where I'm like, my life has changed. And so now I'm going to do it, which is why it's not in there. The gum Arabic I typically use is fairly, uh, you know, uh, tweaked out, like, you know, from

[24:34] like uh, tickoloid, those guys. So I use it mainly as a suspense, as an emulsion, right? Yeah. Yeah, I'm using it. Yeah, I'm using it that way as well, also, you know, in methods that I got from your book, but as far as the pure gum syrup, I was just kind of

[24:47] curious. Yeah, Wonderridge has a bunch. Dave Wondridge has some gum syrup recipes he published. Uh, I think, uh, either, it's either it's in and vibe or it was one of the esquire things he wrote about

[24:59] it because I know he's a proponent of gum syrup, but, you know, that the interesting thing about gum Arabic is that you can put a preposterous amount of it into solution, right?

[25:08] I mean, that's the kind of thing about it. It's like very, very high percentages of gum Arabic. Um, you know, don't form an extremely viscous solution. And it's because, um, gum Arabic, uh, is, you know, it's not a long chain polymers, not the way it works. In your in your opinion, what do you think is a high proportion? Oh, well, I don't like, like, I, like, I say, like, I, like, I don't do it, so I don't even think, but, like, over, like, you can easily do like 10%, I think. I have never done it that high. Stas, remember we ran those tests? You didn't really like it either, right? No. Um, no, I don't really. I never really liked it. That's the thing. I think a lot of people also buy kind of like crap grades of gum Arabic and like they can

[25:57] have, you know, different kind of tastes and they're kind of dark. The stuff that I use is powdered and pure white. Yeah, that's what I have. Yeah. And so, you know, look, here's what I think. Like, uh, you know, use warm, use a hot, hot water, right? blend it in, hydrate that sucker. Um, I don't know whether mine is special that you don't have to heat it. like whether the stuff that I use is special because I can't remember, but hot water is always going to make it easier, right? Blend the hell out of it, get it, get it, then add your sugar to it. But start with a ridiculously high rate. This way, you can kind of see what happens when you go overboard. I always like to start with something ridiculous. You know what I mean? Yeah, but I've actually followed Jeff Morgenthaler's recipe, which is like 6 parts sugar. It's a one part, uh, gum to 2 parts water and it's just this ridiculous sludge. Yeah, well, okay. So how does the recipe made? Tell me the steps. So he's, well, I saw one thing online that said you can blend it and you don't have to wait, but Morgenthaler

[26:59] said, do one part, gum, one part water, let it sit overnight. It'll hydrate itself, and basically you just stir that into simple syrup, but he's using a 3 to one sugar to water ratio. Three part sugar, one part water? No, no, no. No, no, no. must be a misprint. Three parts sugar, one part water? Yeah. No. It's on his, it's uh, it's on imbibe because they took it from the book and it's in the book and, you know, I don't know if this is a

[27:31] mistake. But yeah, this stuff is like super thick. No, there's no way. It would definitely not come out of a poor bottle. I would have to like spoon it into a drink. Well, I'd have to calculate the bricks on that. Three parts. Well, we could do it, right? So it's it's 70 something bricks? I guess, right? Yeah. 75 bricks. So, like, think about this way. Honey is 82, right? And honey is completely inverted. If honey was had any sucrose remaining in it, right? It would crystallize instantly, right? So you can't you can't have sucrose mixtures at that high at

[28:11] break. I mean, really, anything over above 6668 is going to start throwing crystals off. So it's going to be difficult. You could boil it to get it in. Does he boil it to get it in solution? No, I blended it. Wow. Yeah, I would imagine that that would be hard. Yeah, I mean, I guess the point of the gum is that it keeps it from crystallizing. Huh. I guess, but it's still going to be. mean, think about it. It's going to be thick. Oh yeah, it's super thick. mean, think about it this way, right? Maple syrup is around 66 bricks. You know how that pours, right? You're adding a small amount of hydro to it, which maybe it does stop crystallizing. That's a good point, right? But the difference between 66 and 82, right, is not that much when

[28:59] you think about how much water is, and that's the difference between maple syrup and freaking honey. I gotta jump in. The chat room is going nuts. It's 2 to one. Two to one. That makes a lot more sense. Two to one would work. sugar to water. That's what I guess the chat room is. what they're saying, yeah. 66 waters, 3 sugar, one gum. Now that would work. Hold on, let me look up. would definitely work. Because 3 is bonkers. I don't even know that I could get it. could get it dissolved only with heat. But while we're going on this, some tricks. If you're having trouble getting your gum Arabic into solution, remember, any hydrocolloid wants to go into

[29:36] water, if at all possible. So you want to you want to add the hydro before you add the sugar. The exception to that is you can dry blend your hydrocolloid with some of the sugar, right? So you can like blend, uh, you can blend, you know, uh, equal

[29:54] parts gum Arabic and sugar, and what you're doing there is just helping the gum Arabic particles stay separate from each other to help them hydrate.

[30:01] So that's a time order technique. But you don't need to freaking do that. If you have a vitaprep, you can just... You know? Yeah, so by the way, I'm looking at the book. And it's, it is 2 to one, if you consider that the water

[30:14] that's already in the gum mixture. Oh, I see. So he says 2 ounces gum Arabic, hydrate was 2 ounces of water, and then 12 ounces of sugar mixed with 4 ounces of water. That's a lot of gum Arabic. And plus, yeah, you're using the, yeah. I don't really, I don't really like, what is a purported benefit? Does anyone in the chat room say that they love this stuff, that they use it every day? that it's the only syrup that they ever use, that this is like the love of their freaking life. Well, I'm using it at the bar tonight, so we're going to find out. Yeah, it's just like, you know what? Here's the other thing, too. Like, what are you using it in? Like, a lot of times people would use these gum syrups for, like, freaking, like,

[30:51] stirred and built drinks? Why? They just don't, especially like a hybric syrup like that doesn't dissolve in well Are you shaking with it? What are you doing with it? You know what I'm saying? If you're shaking with it, there's no freaking point. I don't see that much of a point in going that high of a bricks because you're shaking. You're going to get all this extra dilution anyway. Do you know what I'm saying? Uh, so you're, you know, the, the, the reason, for instance, to go back to a completely different

[31:13] argument, has nothing to do with this. The old-fashioned argument, there's all these people who like to make old-fashioned with sugar, right? And the idea there is that you are, um, not adding the extra water from the

[31:27] syrup, and all that means is, is that you want that 1st sip to be preposterously boozy, right? I mean, that's really all that means. Most people I know, like a couple of, even with syrup, like a

[31:43] couple, and it's only a tiny bit anyway, let's be honest. A couple of stirs of the spoon anyway, before they start drinking it. Most people, except for hardcore, you know,

[31:52] booze hounds, and I know Plenty, right? Yes, so do I. want like a couple of spins of the spoon. Anyway, let us know what happens with the syrup. Jack, is anyone on the chat line say that they love, love, love it? Let's see Uh, no. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's one of those. We have a few no's. It's funny to use it in actually a shake and

[32:12] drink where I want a fair amount of viscosity and body. Yeah but it doesn't add a lot of viscosity. That's the thing. That's why I don't get it. Like it's a really good emulsifier, right? Like if you were going to make a citrus syrup or any of these other things, like it's a really good emulsifier to keep things like citrus oils suspended. Or if you're going to have any. Yeah, I get it. You know what I mean? But like, I just don't get it. I don't get it as a texturizer because I think other things do that better. It's in its main characteristic is that it can go in high proportion without becoming too viscous and it's great emulsifier, but it's not really a foaming agent,

[32:48] do you know? Yeah. I mean, I'm going to be shaking it up with milk and so that'll certainly help, I think. Yeah, I mean, maybe it has interaction with milk. I don't know. I don't know. It just one of those things. I think it's one of those things that people do because they used to do it back in the old days. And like maybe there was some reason to do it back in the old days. Like, I don't know, maybe crystal inhibition. I don't know, I don't know what. But I just don't, I don't love it. Cool. Well, I'll try it out tonight and later know how it goes. All right. Good luck. Okay. This in... I do have another call. All right, call her, call her, call her. on the air. Hey, how's it going? Anton from Boca. Hey, what's up? I was going, hey, I'm going to Japan on Thursday. I'm here for 3 weeks. Uh, I wanted to see, uh, if there's any place I can get an A GMH fish at all. I also wanted to know any other recommendations to places going to. Is he going to Tokyo? Yeah. Okay. So I would definitely, um, I would definitely see if you could get a tour

[33:51] of uh, ski market, like Stas and I went on this awesome tour there, but we had like, we

[33:58] got, we got, you have to meet up with someone, right? Like, we can't just tour it anymore. I don't know. Like, are you going as part of a, for business or are you just going? Just going, pleasure. I believe I'm going to the tour of the market the 2nd day I'm there. Yes, 2nd day. So that that there is life changing, right? And like, I don't know, like, if you speak or have someone translating, but let them know in advance what you kind of want to see.

[34:24] Because everyone is like, oh, well, you know, someone's coming to the market, they want to see the tuna

[34:30] auction, and that's great. That's fine, awesome. But, like, you want to see people doing, uh, like the different techniques, like, like, like fish butchering, um, you know,

[34:41] Ikigime, which you can all see there. So if you just let like your, the tour guide or the host know what it is you want to see, you know, um,

[34:48] they'll, they'll probably um, show you. So, you know, then what time of year is it? Is it spring yet over there? Is it Hamo yet? When we were there, what time of year were we there, Stas? It was a little later, right? It was all that freaking hummo, all that, like, all that bone with the crunchy... That's the thing. Everything's seasonal. So it depends on what's in season right now is what you're going to get a whole boatload of. Anything you remember like particular places? What was the one that Mark went to that he loves so much? He said it was the best place he's ever been. Oh, man. When are you going? Two weeks? I'm leaving Thursday. Thursday. Go to the chat. People should call in on the chat room and see who's good or like, you know, uh, you know, we have some, we have some crew over in Japan right now. They should give you some recommendations on our chat room. We'll go to see. But all I'm saying is, is that I would be very clear what it is that you're interested in seeing when you go like on a food tour or anything like this because I think in general, like people who listen to this show have a different set of interest

[35:51] and the average tourist Jackweed who shows up somewhere. And I think that in general, people like cater tours, even of things like the fish market to what the average Jackweed wants. Got to go with jackweed, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. And well, dude, it's not like you, Jack. It's like...

[36:13] But, uh, I don't also know what the current exchange rate is, but like have someone take you to like the knife shops. I would go to the, uh, do you remember the name of the street stars with the big with the chef hat dude on it? There's a there's one street, and I want to say it's Kobayashi, but I made that up because it's like a Star Trek reference or something like

[36:32] that. But, like, go, go to that street and, like, check out I love, absolutely love, um, seeing, uh, kitchen, like commercial kitchen equipment, uh, districts in different countries. Every country I go, I try to go to market and to like a

[36:49] commercial, um, kitchen equipment outlet area. And I'm sure you'll find some fun stuff. Awesome. I know we're going to go to the Yamazaki distillery and then hopefully try to see some sake brewery as well. Oh, nice. You know what I never went when I was there. I really wish I would like a good traditional miso production would be nice. I hear I've never been to Yamazaki, but I know people that have gone

[37:14] that I thought it was a great tour, so, you know, let us know what happens. Sounds good, man. All right. I'll let you know. I'm fine. Thanks, man. Oh, look, Caleb, it's Peter Kim. Peter Kim. Peter can. Shows up just in time to get the free lunch. So, Peter. So, Peter. You know, Peter can by here. here for the pizza, not the friendship. Do you want a menu, Peter? bring a menu. You want to start with drinks? What are you? Are you the president or the director? Can I ever get a drink? Dude, who cares? of the museum of food and drink. How's it going over? Yeah, man, it's all right. Yeah, still kicking. Yeah. Not that you check on us that often. Damn. Well, so last week they had a technical difficulty with some of them, you know, for those of you who don't know,

[38:07] museum of food and drink open right now with an exhibit on the birth of the flavor industry.

[38:12] I heard you guys were having some technical problems with one of the machines. Did you get it fixed? We're still troubleshooting it. Oh, son of a gun. going to have to go over there and fix it. All right. Oh, I'm just saying. It's just the, yeah, we've got grape. List. Okay, everything smells like popcorn is one thing. Everything? Well, it's just popcorn constantly comes out. Every time you press any button, we have this thing called the smell synth, and it has 19 different arcade buttons, releases different smells, and you can press them to create all these different flavor combinations. One of them releases pyrazine, which has a popcorn smell to it. And for whatever reason, whenever you press any button, the Pyrazine jar, it shakes and there's a little air that goes through. So there's a slight popcorn note to everything right now at the smells. So it seems like it's like a programming thing. Well, how could that? don't know man. Probably because I went in and tried to futz around with it. Did someone actually try to fetch on it? I just want to see, I'm basically like the, I think the best episodes of cooking issues are when Dave turns into

[39:11] Incredible, the Incredible Hulk. And so I basically just keep poking. It's like I take the sleeping line and just keep like poking them with you know, the broomstick. Could be worse. It could all smell like cheesy vomit. Yeah, it's true Which is another one of the buttons Yeah, that's the one that actually runs out the fastest. Oh really? People like the cheesy vomit. Yeah, everybody. I watch this all the time where everybody's like, oh, cheesy vomit. Oh, try. And then yoga, you go back for it. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's like, I've always said, like, when you're, I don't want to get into it, family show. family, not family. Gross. Just gross. Like, whenever you get, let me put it this way, whenever you get something nasty smelling on your finger, you have to smell it. Actually, there are a small subset of the people who will not smell. their finger before they clean it off. Yes. Well, there is that classic saying that man with itchy butt has smelly finger. Where is that a classic saying? In the Kim household. Wow, we have one more color. All right, call her, you're on the air. Hello. Hello? Hey. Hi. Hi, this is this is Bill from Fullerton, California. How you doing? Well, where's Fullerton? A long time fast listener, and so it's great to actually finally be talking to you live.

[40:32] Oh, nice. Where is Fullerton? Florida is Orange County. South of LA. All right. So Stas knows it well. Are you close to her home country of Covina? Um, yeah, nearby. I realized that Covina is in a disproportionate number of movies that involve teenagers or anything else

[40:55] happening. Like, it's all like good burgers, COVID. Every time I watch a movie like that, it's Covina, Covina, Covina. You ever notice that? Uh, honestly, I haven't watched a lot of those movies. I'm not sure why. Yeah, strange. All right, what's your question? get to your question. Okay. I'm wondering, and I've listened to the back catalog, and I don't know if you've ever addressed this. Um, I really want to refill my soda stream bottle with dry

[41:26] ice. But I wanted your take on it, whether or not that was extremely dangerous to do.

[41:33] Yeah. I'm gonna file that one under, listen, I've seen the YouTube, what's it calls, where people do that, right? Uh, I'm going to go ahead and file that one under not

[41:47] advisable because, look, here's the, here's the truth, though. And when Dave Arnold files something other not advisable, that is really not advisable. Yeah, because it's just, you know, you could get it wrong. You know what I'm saying? It's like, you know, theoretically, it's all fine and good. You open it. Here's the other trick. You have to let the CO2 build up before you close it again, right? Because you don't want any oxygen in there at all. So you have to, you have to tear out your, your, you have to tear out your bottle on a scale, right? And you have to get a scale that's going to sit there long enough because you don't want the sucker like, uh, you know, turning off. This is why I always advocate if you can afford having a plug-in scale, like get a plug-in scale so that it doesn't turn off on you. I hate when scales turn off in the middle of a measurement. Hate. Uh, so you get this scale there. It has to be enough to weigh the bottle and the contents that are in it. You tear it out empty, then you have to throw in your

[42:49] pre-weight nuggets, right? You have to make sure it's the right weight, let it off gas for a little bit to clear out the excess

[42:57] oxygen, and then and then cap it, uh, and pray that you've measured right. If you've measured right, it should all be good because you know how they fill CO2 tanks, they fill them by weight. They don't fill them by volume or anything like that. But I would say, and again, I'm not recommending you do this, but if you are going to do it, I would always go a little bit under instead of a little bit over.

[43:20] Okay. A little bit over, very bad. Okay, well, I guess I won't do it then. I mean, I wasn't even sure if it would end up saving me money based on how much dry

[43:33] ice, I would end up needing to buy. So I, and then I was actually, I was also actually curious if there was a built-in safety valve

[43:43] to make it more safe than if there wasn't a safety valve.

[43:48] The answer is there is an, there is a, now you're stretching my memory. There is an overpressure safety on those things, but I don't I don't think you want them to go off on you. You know what I mean? I think that little thing on the right is an overpressure safety, that

[44:02] little, little hex looking thing on the right is an overpressure safety thing. But I wouldn't want to rely on. I think here's here's the other thing. So like I fill my own CO2 tanks, my large CO2 tanks, right? So I'll have like one of the large cylinders and I'll fill smaller cylinders or I'll do gas mixtures in them, but I'm doing it like pretty carefully by weight. And if you ever go that route. You know, that's also can be unsafe, and so I wouldn't recommend unless you look into it because you don't want to overfill it.

[44:30] Um, but what I would do is, does your soda stream live in one space in your place or does it move around the house? Uh, it just moves like from above my fridge to my counter to back up above my fridge. Okay. So, uh, I'm sure someone out there has done this already, but it is rather trivial to

[44:52] just uh, make an adapter to have it go to a real tank. Oh really? Yeah, done. Done. Then you just have the line running up to the soda streams, screw it on with the adapter, you're done. Okay, yeah. Where would I find info on that? I don't know. I should look at it because I've had enough people ask me about it, but yeah, you could, I don't know. People have done it. The real problem is this. Like people, it's a very simple machine work job to do it, right? Very simple. And then people, because, you know, they're not gonna sell that many of them, they need to charge an exorbitant amount of money. So the question is, has anyone done it in like quantities large enough such that the price is reasonable. Like that's the that's the thing. But think about it this way. To me, like large tanks isn't just about price, although price is a factor. It's all about like, how much do you hate those little bottles running out all the freaking time? Totally. I know. You hate it. It's brutal. Yeah. And then you're like, well, 15 bucks a pop. Jeez. Oh my god. Yeah, I share this struggle at home. It's a preposterous amount of money. It's absurd. preposterous by design. Now, CO2 tanks, CO2, the price of CO2 has gone up recently over the past couple of years, but not by that much.

[46:13] You know what I mean? I think I pay, I think I pay $15 now for like 5 or £10 of this stuff. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. Yeah, my friend has like the under the counter rig that, um, that,

[46:26] that per your instructions and, and I think he does pay like just like about the same amount or a little more than what I pay for however much he

[46:35] has. I'm not sure how much, but way more than me. Yeah, so like the, the, the rig that I use, right, which is the one with the carbonator caps and the bag and bottle

[46:43] things. Here's the problem with it. My entire family is so freaking nanny

[46:50] poo on carbonating that way. They're like, nah, it's so hard to put the valve onto the thing, man. Yeah, suck it up. Suck it up. Oh, in my house in Connecticut. It's freaking suck it up. And like Dax, my, you know, 11 year old. He's like pushing on it and like, I'm just staring at him because he has to man up and like put the cap on the thing, right?

[47:11] Yeah, I can't just sit there and that one is very hard. Oh, come on. That one is very hard. How hard can a beast does? Really hard. How hard can it be? It's not like I'm like the strongest man on earth. I can make seltzer, not good. You are the strongest man. Anyway, my point being that some people in your family might go a little nanny poo on it. And like they have to go through the rigmarole every time. For me, it's easy. carbonating that way is just as easy as carbonating in a soda stream. In fact, easier because I can do it and leave it in the fridge, all kinds of stuff. But just be aware, if you do switch to a carbonator cap setup, be ready for some nanny poo from your family. friends. Okay, noted. Yeah. All righty. good luck with it Thank you. Long live indie Jesus. Ah, I wish we still had any Jesus. Where is he, Jack? That's a great question. I'm sure he's doing well, though. Can I share a quick story? So somebody who I won't name that works next door at the takeout

[48:04] spot came up to me and they were like, hey, so, well, wow, maybe I shouldn't tell this whole story. Long story short, they say, um, who's who is, uh, Santa's little hipster? Ah. And I'm like, how did you know about that? And they're like, well, somebody that I know is a fan of the show. And they asked me to find out who Santa is. lives in all of our hearts. I haven't seen Santa's little hipster in a long time Not working here anymore. We're kind of like without a new character, you know? We got to find that person. Yeah, we got to we got to find someone. Yeah, who's like worthy of Stas is, you know, fertile ire. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Cool. few minutes here. All right, okay, so let me get some of the questions. Hey guys, this is Steve Yune from Los Angeles. A few weeks ago, Johnny Hunter revealed on your show that he had developed a way to make

[48:56] Black Garlic in 3 days and that he would be revealing it at a MoFat event and possibly on the radio show later.

[49:01] Can you bug him for his recipe again? Me and several friends are anxiously waiting with our ears, stuck to the radio, waiting to see if the quick black garlic recipe would become public. My mom makes it all the time in a rice cooker and taught me that the typical, it taught me the typical three-week method. I'd like to be able to blow her mind once by making it over the weekend while visiting her. Ah, okay, listen, we have to get Johnny said, he made it public. Is that stuff on the air? Is that, can you go watch that demo? No. Did he videotape that demo? No. so nice. Thanks. So, yeah, well, but we could we can get it from Johnny. Yeah, I mean, roughly what he does, is he doesn't use a rice cooker, he uses a crock pot. He breaks the leaves the garlic in the skins, breaks it up, like, miss it a little bit, right? With water, wraps it in moist paper towels, and then puts it in aluminum foil in the crockpot, closes the crockpot, hits go, and then

[49:55] has there's a towel, I think, also in the crockpot, a moist towel, and then just keeps re-upping that and like overturning it like once a day or so and goes, that's roughly what he does. Something like that. Yep. Yeah. But we'll get Johnny to cause because he did say he was going to make it public. And so maybe we'll get him to call in like, you know, next week, the week after and and, you know, just go through it really quickly, but that's the gist. You have his contact info man? Yeah. I think Stas is going to do it. You know, like, I have, I don't, I don't even call my family. Yeah. You know, I call people. Do I look like I call people? Stas, do I call people? Nope. Let me see. Dear Jack, on a food website. Dear me, huh? Yeah, dear you. Stella culinary, I asked the founder if he agreed with blast chilling sous vide proteins.

[50:46] He quoted Dave Arnold. He said Dave Arnold says a slower chill is best for texture and flavor. If at all possible, please ask why slow chill is best. Thanks, John. Okay, here's the deal. I didn't used to believe this was the case. This is actually Bruno Gouseau's thing, Bruno Gouseau, the grand pappy of low temperature cooking. And so he always said that you want to ramp the cooling down. And the reason is, is that as meat is passing through, um, a particular temperature, he always said it was somewhere around 50 degrees

[51:21] Celsius, as the meat is passing through that temperature, it's absorbing the liquids that it's expelled during

[51:27] the cook, right? And so if you rapidly force meat from cook temperature down, it won't have the time to reabsorb that because at low

[51:37] temperatures, it won't reabsorb the liquids, and obviously at high temperatures, it won't reabsorb the liquids. And so, you know, he used to um, advocate uh, three-step chilling, where he would take the bags out, leave them on the counter, because air is not very good at

[51:53] uh, uh, heat conductor, so it doesn't cool, it doesn't have a, doesn't cool it off very quickly, then he would, after 15 or 20 minutes, depending on how thick it was, he would put it into tap

[52:03] water. Uh, you know, like room temperature tap water to bring it down to that. And then after that, he would ice it down. And so what I would say is that blast chilling is great. once it's in, once it's done, its initial chilling. So once it's initially chilled down, right, and it's reabsorbed whatever juices, it's going to reabsorb. Once it gets down to, you know, in the kind of room temperature or not even a little warm in the room temperature, then you could hit it in the blast chill and take it down like a rock. What do you think, Jack? Did I answer the question? think so. That's going to be about it. All right, so next week we'll have to get to, we had a, we had a, you know, a Lahey

[52:40] Bittman style, no need, bread question, which we have to get to, and we have a mocktail. We have a mocktail question. Mock duck. interesting. You want to talk about, you have 5 seconds to discuss, discuss mocked up. Not mock duck. The excellent. By the way, I in general don't like fake vegetarian stuff, but some traditional stuff. I think mock duck is delicious. Like actual mock duck. Delicious. Me too. Yeah, it's good. I asked some egg white questions. I have some good stuff. And how to hack how well to hack your soda siphons and your EC

[53:16] bottles. There are some tricks. We'll get to it next time on cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on heritageradionetwork.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes store by searching Heritage Radio Network. You can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at Heritage underscore radio. You can email us questions at any time at info at heritageradionetwork.org. Heritage radio network is a nonprofit organization. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.