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Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live in the back of Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwig, Brooklyn, joined as usual with Nastasha the Hammer Lopez. How you doing, Nasha? Good. And we got Joe in the engineering room.
Still no Jack. Did he die? Or is he just in Puerto Rico? Still in Puerto Rico, but it's like, was he planning on being there this long? Or is he dead?
Or has he just decided to move there? I think he's actually he's back from Puerto Rico. Just hates us. Uh you're gonna have to talk with talk with him about that. So, uh so actually, you know, today, uh, Nastasha is like my per this is my perfect kind of weather.
It's freaking awesome. This is New York, late fall, at its best, uniformly overcast. There's not one ray of sun touching my disgusting white body, burning me to death. Like my nemesis and evil nemes is the sun and today is the most fertile day of the year, actually. What does that mean, fertile?
Most people uh have sex and get pregnant today. Really? Wow. Well, unrelated to me being so happy about the studio is a great day. It is a great day.
So apparently it's a great day for a lot of people. A lot of people getting busy, getting lucky today. Uh but also, Nastasha, what I and I think maybe this is part of it, uh, although not historically, who knows? Is it it's it's exactly the right temperature. If it was like three degrees colder, you could see your breath outside.
And if it was three degrees warmer, the crazies would come out. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like there are no crazies on the street. And not to mention, for those of you that are gonna visit uh Roberta's uh pizzeria and hate hipsters as much as Nastasha does.
There's a secret back way to Roberta's. You don't come with like it from the Williamsburg direction or from the L train direction, which is like hipster train. You come from the J Chain direction down from Flushing Avenue, and you pass not one hipster in the entire walk. Either that or hipsters are like crazy people, and they just don't come out when it gets a little bit nippy. Is it because it's doesn't take that much energy to be crazy, and usually crazies just outside being crazy, and so they get cold because like we're when we're outside, we're moving around.
You'd have to shoot me to get me to just stand outside and do nothing. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know. Interesting phenomenon, the crazies.
The craziest in the temperature. Anyway, beautiful fall day. Uh calling your questions live to 7184972128. That's 7184972128. We're gonna answer uh Stan Below's question from uh a million years ago that we keep on forgetting to answer.
And here we go. Uh enjoy the show on podcast only, as I'm in France. A great way to gain knowledge on cooking, good fun to listen to, and uh funky in a good way, choice of music. Although now, you know, we have the user submissive uh submitted music, and so we have two different styles, which I which I thoroughly enjoy. You like that stuff, Restos?
It's good business. Um, I would appreciate your answering uh a question. Uh I'd like to create a small appetizer, maybe two bites. The idea is to take two medium prawns and flash cook them so they stay juicy and remove the shell and pair them with two contrasting textures. I'd like to pair one prawn with an ultra-light, very brittle meringue, in quotes, and the other one with a very chewy uh gummy bear, also in quotes.
Uh for the meringue, one egg white whip to which we add lemon juice or another flavorful water, uh water fl based flavor, I'm assuming, uh, until very light, then stabilize with sugar or another hydrocolloid. Of course, the hydrocolic can be pre-mixed in the flavored water first. Then put it in the oven to dry up. I could not find any indications on stabilizing egg whites in your hydrocolide primer. Any suggestions for that?
Sugar could work, but not sure of the resulting taste with prawns or a savory dish. Okay. So let's go into that before we go into the gummy bear. So, yeah, yeah, sugar makes uh the egg white denser and gives it structure for for when it's uh drying up. But as you say, sugar is sweet, so you don't want to add uh uh a lot of sugar.
You could use a different, especially if you're gonna do uh like uh you know a cooked meringue where you cook the sugar beforehand and beat it in, cook so that it's already stays cooked and then you dry it out. Uh you could use a less sweet sugar like uh isomalt, uh, but it will still be somewhat sweet. There are other, you know, completely non-sweet things that have the uh properties of sugar you could add, or you could do what I would do, which is go in an entirely different direction, and use methylcellulose. If you use methylcellulose F like Frank, F50, right? You can take whatever flavor uh base you want.
If it doesn't have any uh sort of substance to it, you're gonna need to add some uh bulking agent, like a maltodextrin or something uh that is going to provide some structure to it. So, you know, like i if there's no protein in it, if there's no pectin, if there's no anything, you're gonna need some structure. Then you add methylcel F50, anywhere between about uh 0.75 uh and uh up to, but don't go over 1% of methylcel F uh F like Frank 50. And you uh add it uh in a blender uh um while it's mixing high speed so it doesn't clump up, and then if you want, if it doesn't work, you go you know if you're worried about it not working, you can let it sit and hydrate for a while. Might not work in a milk base, you might not want to do in milk base, but then you just whip it in a kitchen aid with a with a with a uh balloon whisk.
It'll it'll whip up like egg whites, and you can pipe it into any shape you want, and then you can uh dehydrate it in a dehydrator or in a low oven, and um and they're crisp, uh they're great. Uh they you can make anything with any flavor. You could go dead savory, you could go sweet, uh, and it doesn't have any of the residual protein stuff that's left, so it's very, very light and airy. The less methellulose you use, the larger the bubbles will be, and the more airy it will be. But I tend to like in the area of about 0.9% or nine grams per uh liter of your product.
Now, listen, here's the important thing. Methylcellulose has uh trouble uh in that if you leave a methyl cellulose meringue out for a long time, it's gonna absorb moisture and lose its crunch. So you're gonna want to keep it either in a if you're gonna use a dehydrator, and I'm I apologize, this is the one thing I know in Fahrenheit because my dehydrator only works in Fahrenheit. You want to dehydrate at around uh 135 to 100 135 degrees Fahrenheit, uh, but you're gonna want to store it at like 112, 110, 120 in uh 20 lower, much lower than 135, because if you store it at that high temperature, if you cook for a long time, I'm talking like a day or two, uh, to hold it, it's going to start tasting cooked. Now, it you need to keep it in a dehydrator when you're getting ready for service because it's gonna absorb moisture, or you can package it along with a desiccant, which is a silica gel that a lot of pastry people get, and you just package it in a container with the desiccant.
The desiccant will remove all the moisture and keep it crunchy. But that's what I would do if I was wanted a meringue that was totally stable because it doesn't require very much thinking or very much tweaking, and it it works all the time, and I like it. Uh, okay, now for the gummy bear, I wanted to uh grind some uh grind some sage up fine along with tarragon or other herb, add ground star anise or something like that, and just a bit of water with high acyl gel-in and/or iota carrageenin. Now remember, well, I'll finish. Once gel, the gum would be cut in a few one by one by one centimeter cubes to be eaten whole with the prawn.
Any advice on how to use the herb so that the gummy bear uh really packs a punch of flavor. Which hydrocolide should I use? Any problems with flavor release, temperature, or acidity to think about. Okay, so here's here's the deal. So uh high there's two kinds of gel an uh for those of you that don't and gel an is one of these gelling agents, newer age gelling agents.
It's a micro, it's natural, but it's you know derived uh from microbial fermentation. There's high acyl gel an and low acyl gel in. Low acyl gel an is brittle like agar, and it uh and it well it's brittle. There you have it. Uh uh high acyl gel an is very elastic.
I do not enjoy uh straight up high acyl gel an preparations because they're extremely rubbery. They don't really uh imitate um, they don't really imitate gummy bears. Uh oh, and the other one you mentioned, iota caragenin, also, so iota carrageenin, kappa carragen, two most common carrageenans people use kappa brittle, like agar. In fact, it's very closely related to agar and iota, which is elastic and stretchy. Also, I mean iota, typically, when you're using it, you're using it in low concentrations for things like puddings because it allows you to uh shear it and then have it reset up into a gel.
That's a kind of its unique property, along with uh reacting uh very nicely with milk. But neither of those two things alone are gonna impart a real uh gummy bear texture. Why not just use gelatin? Gelatin is amazing, has great flavor release. Uh, and you know, there's a lot of recipes out there for you know how to do a high gelatin preparations for real gummy bear.
Because remember, the hallmark of a gummy, you like gummy bears, right, Sus? Uh-huh. A real Hallmark, a gum, uh they should be hard, right? They're hard. What do you mean?
They're physically, you have to bite into them. They don't just break apart like a marshmallow. You don't like marshmallows. Is it you that doesn't like marshmallows? Or just doesn't care about that.
I don't like. You like jet puffed? Yeah. Storebout marshmallows. What is it you don't like about the hand-made marshmallows again?
I forget. Is it the idea or is there something about the texture? The sound of the scissors cutting it. What if it was cut in a different room? You think about the scissors, and then you're like, I can't enjoy this because I know that at some point it was cut with a scissor.
Wow. All right. All right. Not gonna, I'm just gonna let that one stay. Um so uh the properties of a gummy bear that you're trying to get at with a gummy are uh that they are uh cohesive, elastic, and hard.
Okay. Uh and if you look on pat there's a patent out right now of someone using a mixture of gel-an and carrageenin, but not uh, I believe they're using low acel, the brittle one. So the gel an is there to provide the hardness, and you can use gel and a fairly low proportions. This is only if you want to do a vegetarian gummy. Otherwise, I would just use gelatin.
Uh you know, gel an is going to provide the hardness, and the iota is gonna provide, or they don't use iota, they use a mixture of iota and um and I believe new, which is a you know there's a billion different, not a billion, like eight, different carrageenins, but the you know, new is one of the ones that we don't really use much. But they in the patent literature, and you can look at it, it. It is the inventors are Andrew J. Grizzella and Neil Argo Morrison on a gelatin-free gummy confection comprising the combination of gel and gum and new carrageenin and/or a new iota carrageenan blend. So uh the gel-in is there for the hardness and the iota is there for the elastic uh elasticity and the cohesiveness, and the recipe is actually there in the patent, so you can go look at it, which is a uh a good thing to do.
But I recommend just using gelatin, unless you don't want a gummy bear. Now you're in France, a lot of people like you know the pectin texture, in which case just go high pectin. Nothing like in terms of very good flavor release and high concentrations, gelatin and pectin are the way to go. Gel an is good, but in high concentrations can get kind of weird. Um, and uh I've never done a super high concentration of like a high is a low azile mix to try and imitate gelatin.
But anyone out there with some advice, eh, we'll take it, right? We'll take it. Okay. Uh so I apologize for not answering that question for so long, right? Right.
Actually, uh Stan had a really interesting idea that we've never done about uh roto vaps. Stan was saying uh so different uh different flavors, right, have different kind of uh solubilities in different mediums like alcohol or oil or blah blah blah, right? So typically when we rotovap something, we rotovap the entire product to try and get as much flavor out of it as humanly possible, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
So what but what he's saying is why not have you ever tried uh, for instance, doing an oil extraction uh of uh of something or an alcohol extraction versus a water extraction, and then rotovap those extractions without the product in it to try and separate different aspects of the flavor. Nope. Good idea though. You could try it, right? Uh okay.
Uh Mike writes in about lemongrass. Happy holidays to everyone in cooking issues. Oh, that's right. Is next week our last one before the holidays? Really?
Mm-hmm. So next week is hol and by the way, for me, holiday means Christmas. So next week is the Christmas edition of Cooking Issues. Call in all of your, you know, Christmas-related or holiday or are we gonna do one between Christmas and New Year's? I know because I think New Year's falls on the day of the next one after Christmas.
Oh, it's on Tuesday? So next week, your last chance for two weeks, right? Is Christmas on a Tuesday? Yeah, uh, yeah. Something like that?
Yeah. I just don't know anything. I can't believe the freaking year's over. I know. My God.
By the way, we're doing our uh holiday thing for the they the there's a holiday, what do you call them? Like an ice cream social but without ice cream today for the Booker and Dax the Equipment Company and Booker and Dax the bar are gonna meet to ice skate in uh at the Bryan Park. Should be fun, right? Mm-hmm. Nastash's like, no, it's not gonna be fun.
But you like ice skating. I do. I just don't like I just don't like it. Joe doesn't like getting together with people. Those people, oh, how I hate people.
I'm just not gonna. You've been pestering me about having a company Christmas party. No, I'm actually getting that like a Christmas party where you drink. Oh I'm sure the bartenders are gonna show up. They will bring liquor.
I highly doubt it. They'll already be wasted and start skipping. I told Tristan to bring some hot drinks. I think it's alcohol, uh, it's uh illegal. Oh, okay.
Well, yes. Yes, it's technically illegal. Okay, sorry. But we're doing Mike with his lemongrass. Hello, have you happy holidays, which is how we got into this nonsense.
Happy holidays to everyone at cooking issues. I hate mincing lemongrass by hand, and who doesn't? Nastasha hates lemongrass. Guess why? Guess why, people?
You can't because you're not here with me. Because it grew in her backyard, and it goes back to her hatred of everything from her childhood. Well, why do you hate that? Yeah, I I used to like like play with it and smell it, and like it's now I feel nauseated when I think about it. Nastasha, what I love about her is that she properly uses nauseated instead of you get very angry.
I do get angry about that one. But the but like, but it's true or false? You hate you like everyone else. You know what I used to play with 'cause we didn't have that stuff. Because I lived you know in the East Coast here.
What? Joycey? Yeah, you know, you know sewage. Kinda onion grass. I used to rip up onion grass and smell the onion grass constantly all the time.
But I still love myself some onions. Anyway, whatever. Uh Mike hates mixing mincing lemongrass by hand. A few cookbooks recommend against using a food processor given that the blades create friction uh and therefore heat and that this damages the flavor of the lemongrass. Any thoughts on this given that lemongrass is gonna be heated at a later point?
Should this even matter to me, thanks, Mike. I do not think that should matter to you, Mike. I think that's a lord of a load of horse hockey. I I uh look, I'm willing to I'm willing to have my butt handed to me on this one, but uh I don't think it's a problem. I think like the reason I wouldn't use it is that food processor isn't that good at breaking up lemongrass properly and I detest the long uh uh like d uh I'm sure Nastasha hates this even more than I do, is the long fibrey craps from an in inappropriately processed lemongrass, right?
Yeah. So I mean like if you mince it by hand across you know, acrossways, you're guaranteed to not have any long fibers, which is good. Um so I mean I think it's less about the friction or the heat, especially if you're gonna heat it later and 'cause there's not that much heat in a typical food processor. Now you can get a good bit of heat in a vita prep or something like that. But I think it's more about the uh about the length of the fibers and you don't want any long, nasty fibers.
But I detest the texture of um kind of cellulosic f and you know, lignified fibers in my food. You know, unless I'm chewing on sugar cane and then I chew on it for some reason 'cause I have a mental problem until my gums bleed. You ever do that? Yeah. Yeah, it's terrible, right?
It's horrible. Which is why instead of using sugar cane in a drink, consider saving the cores from pineapples and vacuum infusing some sugar into the core of a pineapple and using that instead of the typical sugar cane garnish. I need to get our sugar cane press back out to use it the pu though, they'll never do it at the bar. But that'd be awesome. I do like sugar cane drinks.
Mm-hmm. Like fresh sugar cane juice? Mm-hmm. What's so I forget the word for it in uh Portuguese. But I love that stuff.
Well, they look for it eventually. Eventually, we'll do it someday. Someday. Anyway. So uh there you go, Mike.
And with that, uh Joe, should we take our first commercial break? Coming right back at you with more cooking issues. Man, Joe, your computer is so slow, I can't even use this thing. Yeah, I should probably get a new one. Do you have any suggestions?
Oh, totally, man. You should go to TechServe. Okay, what's so good about TechServe? Well, they've got this awesome new insider program that's free when you get a new Mac with Apple Care. So you should buy your computer there because you get 50% off data transfer, free loaner computers, front-of-the-line repair privileges, an annual Mac tune-up service, backup consultation and setup, seminars, and much more.
Okay, yeah, where's TechSurf? It's at uh 119 West 23rd Street in New York City. They're New York's premier authorized Apple reseller and service provider. And you should totally check out TechServe.com for more information. Alright, that settles it.
I'm headed to TechSurf. Man, your computer just got called out. Your computer's busted. Your computer's a flying sack. Yeah, can you believe that was all improved?
And Joe has not made it over to TechServe yet, so his computer still is a steaming pile of uh of uh horsehop of uh you know poop. True. Are you you're allowed to say poop on the air, right? I think that there's no regulations against poop. Yeah.
I mean, even if we were on the real air, I think I could say poop. Anyway, uh Matt writes in about lemon juice. Here's a word I'm not gonna use on the uh on the air on the air. Uh listen, Matt, I'm gonna editorialize a little bit. Uh come up with a good word schmutz.
How about schmutz? Matt used a much, much worse, in fact, I think one of the worst words in the English language when you think about it. Right? Dave had to explain this word to me three years ago. Yeah.
Rhymes rhymes with Greg. And egg. I'm not gonna go into it. Anyway, uh Schmutz. Uh I just got done center fusing some lemon and lime juice.
I started with fresh juice, uh, juice treated with pectanex. I let it sit for a few hours and make a loose gel with agar. Uh then I broke the gel up and spun it at 4,000 RPM, uh, which I'm assuming if you use a similar centrifuge to mine is also roughly 4,000 uh G's. Uh the lime turned out perfect, but the lemon had a scum. There you go, scum's good one.
Floating on the surface. Though I was able to remove it with the coffee filter. See below. Uh the same thing happened with peach juice a few months back. From what I can see, it appears to be some kind of oil or grease.
The question is, what is that scum? And is there a way to avoid it? Thanks, Matt. Uh well, it depends. There's a couple things that can be floating on the top of the centerfuff.
First of all, uh I would recommend you change your um your the way that you do lemon and lime juice. You should lemon and lime juice, I would not sit with an agar. Uh Nastasha's least fond memories uh are trying to spin agar gels in uh the centrifuge. Are these your least fond? Never want to do it.
What do you hate more than that? What's the worst? That or you did like grapefruit. How many tons of grapefruit? I don't know, for that for the Oh my god, it was horrible.
But no, but what was your least favorite? Is that your least favorite task? Yeah. Yeah. Really?
Of all? Uh let me think about it while you attend. Alright. Okay. So um, so anyway, that's not the way to do it.
Go uh buy Kiesel Sol, which is suspended silica uh salt from the um from the what's it called? Homebrew shop and chita san. Uh CH kitasan, uh, also from a homebrew shop. These are wine finding agents, right? Then you add two for every liter of lime juice or lemon juice, add two um two milliliters of the SPL, and also two milliliters be accurate of the Kiesel Sol.
Stir it, let it sit 15 minutes, add two milliliters of chitosan, stir, also be accurate, 15 minutes. Then uh two more milliliters cut uh Kiesel Salt again. Stir it up, spin it, you'll be good every time. That's just the that's the way to do uh lemon juice or lime juice. Uh that's what we do at the bar, and it never fails.
Uh okay, now to your other problem stuff floating on top. There are two things that can be going on. Sometimes you spin something that has some fat in it, uh, in which case it floats up to the top. Sometimes you s uh have some fat contaminating your buckets if you spin directly in the buckets as I do, in which case it floats on top. More often than not, what's floating on the top looks like fat but isn't, is a floated layer of stuff, and it could be broken up cell stuff, which is phospholize, but I doubt it.
I doubt it. It could be some fat. I doubt anyway. Air. So what happens is when you blend something, or when you stir it or whisk it, you get air bubbles.
And believe it or not, even under the force of 4,000 times the force of gravity, air bubbles don't necessarily pop. And so you have a layer of stuff floating at the top of uh of a lot of things after they spin, even if they don't have fat in them. And the way to get around that is to do a quick vacuum cycle to de-aerate the product before you spin it. And if you do that, uh pretty much you'll get crystal clear stuff on the top from the from the get-go. Certain things um are more apt to throw a thing on the top than others.
Tomatoes typically will have a layer floating on the top. Uh, if you vacuum them, they won't. Um certain things you can't get around it, like coconuts have a lot of fat in them. And so if you blend those and don't get the air out, you get a mat, a thick mat floating on the top, which actually tastes good. Tastes good.
Uh but anyway, so that is my uh that is my theory, and um that's that's what's going on. That's how to avoid it. Uh remember that where are we spinning that time that was crazy? Oh no, also when you're gonna put stuff in a roto vap, if you don't want it to boil over after you blend it, you you you put it in a vacuum machine, chamber vacuum machine, you dearate it. That's just you know, standard procedure, but a lot of people don't do it, and then when they run the rotovap for the first time, it sprays all over the inside of the machine.
Do you remember that time we had to deerate all of that uh was it the habanero that almost killed us when we were de-arated or was the horseradish? I think it was a horseradish. Oh my god, that sucked. Lots of horrible times. Every day with Dave is a horrible day.
Uh right? No. Pretty well, no, just most. Back then, when we did everything ourselves. We were in the school and we were working out of a trash room.
I mean like a hundred by a hundred square foot. And it was like a billion, it was a billion degree. Now, people, Nastasia Nastasia hates uh me for a number of reasons, but one that she detests more than any other is the fact that I am an insensate brute, and that my body doesn't care what kind of temperature it's put in. Whether you you could freeze me out, you could burn me, you could light my hands on fire. It just doesn't seem to bother me that much.
Uh and for some reason, uh this uh is in uh Nastash's playbook uh the hallmark of a poor uh a poor person, a low quality individual, uh as we like to say. Uh and uh I can I can't help it, things don't bother me. But that trash room averaged uh like a hundred and fifteen degrees because we were in the same room as the refrigeration units. I'm talking like all year, 115 degrees in that son of a gun. And here's the thing about me like I don't mind any temperature if I'm working, but if I'm sitting in a trash room sweating into a keyboard, I want to kill everybody.
Everybody, right? Yeah. I mean, I could be outside in that weather working if I was working, if I was doing something, or cooking in a million degree weather, I don't care. You know what I mean? Like, you know, uh uh those were legitimate temperature readings, like 115.
Remember that? Oh, yeah. No, remember we like the when we got those new thermometers, we were like, come on. And then we like recalibrated them and we're like, no, it's really like it's 115 degrees in here. And let me tell you something.
It wasn't like 115 Arizona style, which is still piss hot. Because I've been to Arizona where they're like, hey, you know, 100 degrees is legitimately not that hot in Arizona. It really isn't. You can go outside in 100 degree weather and it's fine. You know what I mean?
Because it's so freaking dry. Because it's not the heat, it's the humidity. But listen, at 115 degrees, people, it is hot. Now in New York, it's 115 sweet humid degrees inside of that trash box. Man, that sucked.
Remember that? We're sitting there spinning agar gels, and I'm like, oh my god. Anyway, good times. Good times. And that was back, remember when but my favorite part about it was I remember there's someone who wrote an internet uh article back when we were still doing the blog.
We're gonna get that fixed again, right? Jerry, the Christmas break, yeah. Yeah, Christmas break. We can get that fixed again. Back when we were going full bore on the blog, uh, which we hope to again someday.
I'm gonna get Piper to write for it, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, uh, when we were doing that, I had a guy say, Well, I don't have all of like the awesome resources that Dave has. And Nastasha and I read this, and we burst out, we burst out laughing, right?
We were laughing for like 20 minutes straight, 115 degree hot box with stuff. Everything is taped together with duct tape. Listen, I'm happy with I'm happy with everything we I'm I'm totally happy. So this is not like, oh, poor little you know what I mean? But well, like the fact of the matter is is that everything we own is held together with duct tape.
Alright? The phone was duct taped to the wall. The phone was duct taped to the wall. That's my goal. My New Year's resolution, peoples, is to not be the guy whose box is duct taped together when he shows up to the party.
You get a new box. Chip writes in about Calustians. Nastasha, Dave, Jack, and Joe. Well, crap on Jack because he doesn't like us anymore. He's not showing up to the sh just kidding.
I love Jack. Everyone loves Jack, right? Mm-hmm. Even though he insulted Joe's computer and I take Unbridge. Have you been to Calustian's recently?
Uh Calustians, by the way, for those of you that don't uh haven't been to New York, uh Calustian's is kind of a well-known and amazing kind of spice and ingredient shop. Um I guess it started out as having a lot of uh you know Indian and that kind of you know subcontinent style ingredients, um, and but now has just ingredients from everywhere all over the world. And chefs regularly make pilgrimages to Calustians to kind of just browse the aisles and see uh kind of what exists or what's something they haven't used before. And you can buy them in fairly small uh packages. A similar store for those of you it's on the it's in the 20s uh on Lexington Avenue here in in Manhattan.
There's uh another store uh called Dual Specialty Shop, which is dumb a name for no offense if anyone no one's ever listening. But the dual specialty shop is a really dumb name. It's over on First Avenue, I think, over downtown in the East Village, and they have um they're not as big, but they have a lot of interesting ingredients as well. So people go there uh searching for ingredients for bitters, for cooking, whatnot. Anyway, so that's what Calustian's is, um, and you know, great, great place.
Uh I went in for some spices and notice they have a large selection of modern ingredients. Uh, they are not listed in the website, so you have to actually go there to verify. Sorry. By the way, Calustian's website, one of the world's worst websites. It's a horrible website.
Horrible. No offense. Crap. It's crap. Horrible.
It's impossible to search for things on their website. Anyway, um, uh anyway, just a few that I remember them having are Kappa and Iota Carragain and Ultra Crisps, Ultra Crisp from National Starch Corporation. National Starch. I wish anyone would have a name as good as National Starch. National Starch.
Um Maltodextrum. Now, but the question is what kind? See, one of the problems with Calusteans is when they're bagging stuff like that, they don't necessarily write the provenance of the material on it. So you don't know exactly what it is. That's one of the issues.
Anyway. But there were probably two shelving units full of these ingredients. So it is nice if you're in a pinch. Most were in the one ounce or two-ounce bags. So good good tip.
I did know that, but I haven't mentioned it on air as a place you can walk in and get stuff. So it's good, good. I don't think dual specialty has those kind of ingredients, so you're gonna go to Calustians for that kind of thing. I also wanted to send you a picture of the turkey I did this year. I saw it.
You can't see it because you're listening on the radio, but it's a nice looking turkey. Mm-hmm. Right? Good to me. Anyway.
Uh in the smoker for about 2.5 hours. Wet her I like to mispronounce herb and call it herb. How does McGee say it? McGee? Yeah.
I think he says Herb. You think? Mm-hmm. Like Herb the guy. Whenever I say herb, I think herb like a like her Herbie.
By the way, Nastash and I sit. This is what we actually do for a living. We don't work on anything. We sit around and watch the YouTube of Hermie the Elf getting his butt handed to him by the lead elf over and over. Both the original version and the full metal uh jacket version.
Uh both of them. Uh it's an all-time look, rank and bass, it's crazy with all the weird, like pagan weirdness that goes on in the butt uh they gotta love those shows. Anyway, back to back to this. Uh uh, with uh in a smoker for about 2.5 hours, a wet herb rub under the skin. Uh there were only four of us, so it went with the traditional cooking method as well.
Thanks for the great podcast. Chip. Thank you, and thank you for your picture of your turkey. Right? Mm-hmm.
Turkeys. Okay. Uh we have some questions in from the Twitter. Ellenasa writes in three bone prime rib for Christmas, cooked off sous vide. And the question is off the bone?
Okay, off the bone? 55 C? Finish in a 550 oven for about 15, 20 minutes. Those are all questions. So here's the answer.
And uh that's actually like a compact uh Twitter question. Good. Compact Twitter question. Here's the thing. Uh if you're gonna do it typically, if you're gonna actually cook one, what you'll do is you'll uh cut it off the bone, sear around, and then some this is what some people do, then retie it back to the bone and cook it using the bone as a uh as a you know kind of an insulator protectant.
You don't need to do that if you're gonna do it sous vide. I I don't uh whether or not you pull the bone off is up to you, right? But typically, um you I I okay now here's where I'm gonna go against everything I've ever said. Just for easiness sake, I would bag the sucker and cook it to 55 uh 55 C. 55's a good number.
55 C, 551, 552. Do nothing to it beforehand. Then this is where I'm gonna sound crazy. Just like bag it in a zippy with some oil, uh, cook it off to 55, let it cool down uh, you know, for quite a quite a while, actually, and then throw it into your super hot oven for longer than 15 to 20 minutes. I would do it until you get a nice, nice, super crisp crust.
You like prime rib rice does? Yeah. Stas, uh, what's your favorite part about prime rib? Um, it smells like home. Oh, okay.
Well, weird. Uh I was gonna say the crunchy outside parts that are overcooked along with the inside that's rare. So you don't want to skimp on producing those crunchy burnt fat things on the outside. So I would say do a 55, let it cool down for a minute, and then a little bit longer in the oven at the super high temperature. When I did my turkey this year, I had it in there for uh like an hour and a half in a pretty hot oven because I I but I had cooked it all the way through.
So I wouldn't be afraid of overcooking the outside in a traditional way because we love that stuff. The one the worst prime rib I ever did was when I cooked it sous vide all the way through and didn't finish enough on the outside and it was too uniform in the middle. It was a horrible nightmare. You see the way to call? Yes.
Caller, you're on the air. Hi, my name's Peter Bellastray. Um I live in Wisconsin, Milwaukee. I help run my family restaurant. And I just graduated from CIA about a year ago.
And I'm looking to go back to school for food science and wondering if you could make me like top five schools or just general advice on that. So, like we when you say food science, do you mean ac actual food science like a PhD, or do you mean just kind of new techniques for use in restaurant? I think combination of both. Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. Most of the actual food science uh places are focused on more in industrial uh industrial applications.
And it's changing a little bit now, but the the the issue is is that there's very little money in worrying about problems that are only geared towards restaurants. In other words, to fund real scientific research. That's changing a little bit. I would look at the kind of research chefs association if you're interested in uh food science programs. I mean, uh I I don't know who's currently uh the best.
I mean, especially out where you are, I don't know what's currently the best. I mean, over here, I mean, obviously Rutgers has a good program in food science because it's near where a lot of the flavor houses are. Um, you know, there's um there's also uh um Cornell has an interesting food science program uh you know you might you might want to look at, but I don't really know who's the best feeder for that kind of stuff. I mean, obviously if you want to do wine or analogy, Davis, you know what I bet I I don't know kind of what the kind of programs that they have. The other thing is is that um, you know, if you do some work in that, like maybe get a master's, that's you you could then get a job being uh a a chef or doing research work at a at a flavor house.
We've just met, you know, uh a bunch of them and they're kind of an an interesting crew. Now from uh from a food from a food tech for restaurant stuff, I mean, obviously, you know, we we teach at the at the FCI, we teach uh low temperature sous vide work that's geared at chefs that's like two days in and out. It's not a food science class by any stretch. It's like uh low temperature sous vide. Chris Young is uh from Modernist Cuisine is starting up his program at uh Johnston Wales.
Um but and you know, Chris Chris Loss, who's at uh CIA is still doing some is doing some work with that too, but I don't know what kind of classes they offer. But it's all a question of what you're trying to do with it. Do you know what I mean? I don't know how much a food science uh program is gonna help in a restaurant unless you're just a lover of knowledge, in which case go for it. You know what I mean?
I mean, that's that's what gets me up in the morning is just l liking knowledge. So yeah, I mean, and that's kind of one of the reasons I want to go back. It's like I want to continue learning that, you know, and with everything I learned from school, now being able to go quiet to my my family restaurant. I just I kind of want to continue that. I'm only 23 and I feel like I wouldn't really like going to school here isn't better in my mind.
I I still want to travel and like see things and learn things, so that's that's a part of it is walk. Right. I mean, if if you get, you know, another thing you can do if you're interested in just like the the the restaurant side of it, you know, and this is what a lot of people I know do they go they work for someone in the US that they can get you know stodge basically for someone who is doing this kind of work right and then uh you know so you know Wiley or you know uh Grant or uh you know Paul Librant someone you know what I mean and then uh after a while of staging there they then get the recommendations to go work at like Noma or in Spain and then you know they make the the you know they'll they'll spend some while so that's you know Fabulous who's you know uh works with us for a long time that's what he you know he worked with us for a while then worked uh with Johnny Azzini uh back when he was a John George for a long time and then you know spent a long time staging at Noma and other places and traveled the world and has picked up um you know if you're if you're young and if you can you know if you can do it if you can live that lifestyle is a good way to to see what is current right now in kitchen. But you have to be willing to put your time in in each one of the kitchens for that. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah yeah definitely but it sounds like you're and I mean I guess that's kind of a fact I've been I mean I knew already but I think I've been kind of making to myself that it isn't um but thank you this is very helpful. And by the way that last depidation you're showing is very smart. Like if you if you even think that you don't want to do that then don't send yourself down that road. Do you know what I'm saying? Because if you send yourself down that road and you and it starts you start feeling like you know, this wasn't the right move.
They it's a it's a long road to be halfway down and find out that it wasn't the road you wanted to be on. Do you know what I'm saying? Right. Whereas you know, if you're gonna go take a program in a school like food science, you're learning all the time and it's not the same it's not the same sort I don't think you'll feel the same sort of sense of crap if it's not the road you want to go down. Do you know what I mean?
Right, right. Yeah. And I guess I guess that's what I still need to decide. Right, cool. Well, uh well, good luck and I hope everything works out for you.
All right, thank you very much. No problem. Um, so uh at at Clef's, I don't know at Clef's name because at Clef's name is written in um Japanese characters that I don't understand on his on his or her I don't know Twitter feed. Uh but you know, uh one of our Twitter buddies. Um can melatonin be used as an antioxidant in food.
Does it have any advantages? So melatonin uh is you know uh a hormone that I guess is made in the in the pineal gland, and uh it you know, it's regulates uh sleep patterns and a bunch of other things. It's a powerful also antioxidant. Uh and it's sold as a dietary supplement here in the US, um, but it's not there's a strange rule in the US, and uh and here it is. It's that if I s I like the rules for selling you something that you put into your body as a dietary supplement are a lot less stringent than the rules uh governing uh what you put into food.
And it like everything is everything is completely back buttword on this kind of stuff. For instance, also like it's like the same thing where uh well, not the same, but the irritating the way regulations work, you know, usually and isousionol, which is clove oil, uh is considered safe to eat, but is not approved to use as a fish anesthetic. That's the dumbest thing in the world. So when we use it, we have to say that's a spice. Dumb.
Anyway, but uh the other side, and actually can be crazy, is that things that aren't on the G RAS, i.e. generally regarded as safe, which is the main list of things, can be used as dietary supplements. So you can buy melatonin as a uh dietary supplement. And you could grind it up and add it to a beverage, but uh there was uh uh uh an energy drink manufacturer who was making a relaxation blah blah blah that added doped it with melatonin, not just things that contained melatonin, but doped it with melatonin, and they got a warning letter uh saying that you know, um you you shouldn't do that. It was uh the company was innovative beverage, uh and they were had these relaxation drinks that had melatonin, and it's not approved as a food additive.
That that said, I mean, I don't see why technically it wouldn't work. I don't know what the stuff tastes like. Have you ever taken a no mean no? I've never taken it. I mean, the other thing is i you know, one one thing to do, and I uh I don't have time to I didn't have time to do it before now, but like you could just buy some melatonin, grind it up, and add it to some stuff that usually turns nasty, like apple juice, and see whether or not it keeps the apple juice uh from you know turning.
But be aware that even though melatonin is passed fairly quickly in the by the liver, uh according to what I read, it's like a one pass through the liver and it's out. Uh you might make people sleepy. Sleepy time, right? Because it's supposed to be the relaxation thing. So if you want people, you know, passing out at your restaurant table, you know, anyway.
So that's my that's my thing. But I but I do not I do not know, and I and I cannot uh what's the word? Uh advocate. Uh okay. So uh a couple things that uh I'm uh working on now.
Uh I sent out a Twitter question, uh, where can we get pig bladders? Because Piper saw uh Chef at Danielle use pig bladder. Pig bladder, uh, and this I started thinking about it again because we got a question, I don't know, about a month ago or a couple weeks ago about um not using plastic bags for sous vide work. And so I was interested because there's an old kind of natural en papillot technique where you use a pig bladder to um to to hold things in while you cook them. And so I was wondering whether or not you could use a pig bladder to do some kind of rudimentary low temp work.
Um, the I mean the problem obviously is that pig bladders uh unlike plastic bags are semi-permeable, i.e., things can travel in and in and out of it. In fact, the whole notion of a semi-permeable membrane was discovered with uh pig bladders by a guy named uh uh you know Jean-Antoine Noyet, who's a physicist in this in the 1700s, and uh he you know he was the person who noticed um that uh pig bladders slowly pass things in and out, and there was other experiments afterwards that showed that certain uh things can migrate across pig bladder. So the question is if you were gonna cook for long short periods of time, I think you could probably cook in a pig bladder without too much uh flavor crossing back and forth or too much loss or too much kind of uh the fact that it's poaching, because the numbers that I read um were that the the transfer rate across pig bladder membranes is fairly slow. You could also probably coat the pig bladder in something that would reduce the permeability even more, like zane or something like that, but then it wouldn't, you know, then that's kind of a pain in the butt. But um I found a couple sources for pig bladders on the internets, uh, thanks to uh the folks on Twitter.
We have two different sources of it that uh sent in. So we're gonna get ourselves some pig bladders, probably not before new year, and we're gonna do some low temperature uh pay bladder work. How's that sound? Sounds good. Sounds good.
And uh lastly, I'll leave with this. Uh we're we uh I'm gonna do some more lobster experiments. So for those of you that follow my lobster and the stash is like, oh crap, more lobster. But the last time I did lobster uh experiments, Stas, we uh I did I did it at my house, you didn't have to deal with it. Yeah.
Yeah, no, I know I'm not. Do you even like lobster? Yeah, it's okay. What's your favorite crustacean? Um I don't know.
You don't like crab, right? No. God damn it. Oh, ooh, didn't mean to curse. Crab is delicious.
Oh, oysters. Oysters, oysters, oysters that's not a crustacean. Oh. That's a mollusk. You like oysters more than clams?
Squid. Squid, also a mollusk. Hmm. Then none. Okay, no shrimp.
No crab. No. Lobster. No. If I have to a lobster roll.
Oh, Jesus. Okay, so uh, so anyway, so uh uh key uh keep you guys posted. Soft shell crab. It's good. Soft shell crab is delicious.
I don't know if I've mentioned this on soft shell crab, but uh I love me some soft shell crab. Do you ever prepare them? No. Do you know my favorite fact? I've told you this a million times.
My favorite fact about sockshell crabs? Because when you cut their eyes off, you have to cut their eyes off with along with their brain. They bread themselves. So you cut their eyes off, you pull up the little tab in the back, you rip the gills out, you put it down, you throw it in the breading, and they bread themselves. That is consideration.
That is a considerate food stuff. Yeah? Well, anyway, we'll uh we'll fill you in on my lobster test next time. Cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on Heritage Radio Network.org.
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