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Cooking issues! Hello, and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cookie Kitchen is coming after you live on the Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from 12 to roughly 1 in the back of Robertus Pizza in Bushwick, Brooklyn Here again today with Nastasha Hammer Lopez. Welcome back. Thank you.
And and as usual, Jack and uh Joe over in the engineering room. Howdy. Uh by the way, Nastasha, someone uh I said on the tweet out for today's uh program that you were gonna be back. And uh I said, you know, the hammer's gonna be back, and someone's like, is that your nickname? I'm like, no, that's Nastasha's nickname.
And uh he's like, Well, what's her Twitter handle? And I was like, Oh, ooh, ooh, no, no, no, no, no, no Twitter handle. I was like, uh you know why well Nastasha only believes in anti-social media. So I told him that Nastasha refuses to have a Twitter handle until they invent antisocial media, and then someone else chimed in and's like, it it already is freaking antisocial media. I was like, hey, hey, point taken.
Point taken. So yeah, so apparently, like people are so mean and rough on Twitter, you might actually enjoy it. Like if you had a Twitter handle that had nothing to do with work, so you didn't have to be nice if you could just sit there and be incredibly vicious to people, but people didn't know maybe who you were. You would love that. Yeah.
You can do that. Look, it doesn't the Nastasha will invest any amount of time to be vicious that is is needed to be invested. She's always typing on the computer anyway. Why not have it be like uh why not have it be towards Twitter? Oh, Nastasia, you know what Joe did last week while you're gone?
He shopped for shoes during the show. Thanks for holding the torch, Joe. Boom! Yeah, no one actually knows what Nastasha is doing on that computer. It's vicious.
It's crazy. She's not anyway. Uh welcome back. Thanks. Yeah, how you doing?
What would your twit like I'm sure the hammer's already taken, so you couldn't even have that Twitter handle if you wanted. I think it'd have to be a like a secret name so I can call out people. Like me. Yeah. Like you wouldn't tell me.
Yeah. You would write in and be like, this guy doesn't know anything. He's an idiot. He's a moron. Right?
Uh-huh. Yeah, pretty much. Okay. Uh calling your questions to 718497, 2128, that's 718497-2128. We have one more show before the Valentine's Day, correct?
I don't know. Uh yeah. Are you big on Valentine's Day? You know I am. You know I love the Oh I love I mean, I don't really look, and now look, I have two kids, an 11-year-old and uh and an eight-year-old.
So I'm more worried about their Valentine's Day at this point, which, you know, when I at that age for me. Growing up Valentine's Day. Get the all ready, Jack. I don't know. I won.
Like, oh look, like you get ready to play DJ Collet, all I do is win because I freaking won. Wow. But the point of the matter is, like, in order to become like the all-time champion, like my wife is awesome. Super psyched. You know what I mean?
And we started going out on Valentine's Day. So Valentine's Day, almost tw 21 years ago, this Valentine's Day, uh, my wife and I, our relationship can go to the bar and have a drink. Because we've been going out. We will have been together 21 years at that point. But um But yeah, I mean, Valentine's Day always sucked for me.
I always hated it growing up. I'm sure my kids will be the same way. Actually, Dax. I bet Dax will have good Valentine's Days. Yeah.
It doesn't really matter until like what? I don't know, 14, 13. No, you know what, dude? You're in the thing. I mean, even before then, even like 11, you know, 11, 12, you have to buy the carnations.
Is this just in the East Coast, or do we all is everyone in the world have this? Where like you buy carnations and you write stuff on it and the money goes to the school, like to the to the school body, and they go around on Valentine's Day and they hand out the carnations. Might just be. It's just East Coast? Maybe, yeah.
Jack, you did that stuff? No. I never did that. Joe? No?
No one? Anyway. Horrible. Horrible. And I always they they always, if you never, if no one bought you one, if your friends didn't buy you one, and you would buy different colors, like red was I love you, and green was I don't know.
I don't know what the hell green was. Anyway, it's like because who the hell they're fake, these carnations. They just dip the they dip the stems in in coloring and it colors up the carnation. Ridiculous. And you know, it's these crappy carnations that give carnations, which by the way, are a fine flower.
It took my it took me about 12 years or 13 years to convince my wife that the carnation was a legitimately good flower. Because she's like, they suck because she's only used to shitty carn. Ooh. Crappy carnations. Crappy carnations.
Sorry, folks. Anyway, we've got a collar. Wow. Whoa. Alright, anyway.
I I got the Secret Admira one, which means no one bought me one. Now you can play the off. Okay, caller, you're on the air. Hi, that's Johnny Clark from Memphis. Hey Sunday.
How are you doing? Doing all right? I'm doing good. I got picked up some stainless steel uh tubing yesterday. Oh yeah.
Okay. Yeah yeah, about four and a half feet of it and had it cut into one inch sections and uh leveled it off and everything. And I was trying to figure out the best way to keep the I was making like a savory cheesecake and I wanted to uh cook it in the circulator. Right. And I was trying to figure out the best way to keep it in there because it started pouring out and you know, when the vacuum was pulling, it's pouring out.
Yeah, it'll pour out when the So you're bagging how many tubes per? Uh one tube per uh large bug. All right, here's here's the awesome thing. Did you let the vacuum cycle complete? Uh no, I didn't.
It's it seemed like it was gonna come up out of the bag. Yeah, yeah, here's here's yeah, here's this is awesome. Now there I mean, oh look, the one problem with course is a cheesecake has some air in it, but assuming you have a fully dense product, let the vacuum cycle complete. Here's what happens when you vacuum something uh it with a with a tube like that. First of all, you gotta make sure that you have enough liquid to fully fill the tube.
Because if you don't, the bag will go in and puncture itself on the tube. But if you have enough liquid to fill the tube, all of the liquid will be smashed back into it's a miracle. Well, how liquidy is this? Is it semi solid or or what? Well, it it's cheesecake, but it's uh made with uh like a seventy-five percent moscarome.
Uh and it it's pretty much like uh screwone consistency. Right in the end. Right. So here's what's awesome. Like uh like when you suck a vacuum on a straight liquid, I've never tried it with something that's a paste consistency, everything's gonna boil out of your container, and then as soon as the vacuum comes back in, the force of the vacuum will smash it back into the tube.
Okay. So it would it'll do that with a dent uh liquid as well, like uh the cheesecake you think? As long as it can move. I mean, you might not get a hundred percent back, but you'll definitely get like ninety-five. I mean, I used to that used to be one of my favorite things to do, uh, because we would vacuum I would vacuum pack uh liquids in in in uh bottles, you know, like doing that.
I would like I would pour all the liquid into the bag and then like have the cap on very loose and then put it all in a bag and then suck a vacuum and then the vacuum would shoot all of the liquid inside the bottle. Uh yeah. You know, that's my I used to do that, that's fun. I mean, the you your point is well taken on something that's thick, I mean it eventually will work the way back in there because otherwise there's gonna be a lot of excess force on it because there's gonna be now the the the question is is will the product get forced back into the tube uh prior to the bag feeling enough force on the uh in the um i in the cavity on the inside of the tube prior to that shattering, right? I mean that's the real question.
But another thing you could do is I mean, uh do you do you need the vacuum to get the air out? Or are you having problems with air in it without the vacuum? I was trying no, I w uh it does fine in a conventional oven, but I was trying to uh I wanted to try the sous lead cheesecake because I wanted it I wanted the uh the consistency to be like you know uh no air whatsoever, no pocket, no nothing like that. Sure. Well then uh yeah, okay.
So if you're looking to compl make it much denser, it then definitely vacuum's the way to go, and just do it and see whether or not it all gets forced back into the tube. I think you have a very good shot of it all being forced back into the tube. You might have to clip the two ends because they're gonna be a little concave or convex, depending on whether you slightly overstuffed or slightly understuffed the tube. But I would definitely go that way. If you're not worried about the density issue, if you're just trying using it as a temperature control issue, well, then I would uh, you know, if you had access to a C vap, obviously I would just cook it in a C vap or a combi oven.
But if not, I would try wrapping the tube after it's stuffed with uh saran with plastic wrap, doing a uh you know, a couple of layers of it, uh, and that should be watertight enough for you to potion it that way. But if you're looking to actually remove all the air and dedensify it, I would say that vacuum is the way to go, and it'll all get shoved back in. In fact excuse me, in fact, the reason that it's puffing out is not just because the water lake the water and liquids inside are turning to a vapor, although that's causing it. But any air pockets that you're having in there need to push open and push the product out of the way to get out of the tube. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, so you think I should put in like a a four-inch hotel pan and and run it through a couple of cycles? Oh, you can do that, and that'll get rid of a lot of the air too. But I I have a a strong feeling. I would say I am more than fifty percent positive that if you just stick the tubes with the mixture in the vac bag and su and make sure it's packed in good, and you suck a full vacuum on it, that it will all boil out, but it'll go back in the tube. I'd give you a well, maybe I'll give you 50% odds on that working for you.
And if not, I would just put the mixture in the hotel pan, like you say, blast it a couple times in the vacuum to get the air out, then do a dense pack into the tube, and then wrap her in plastic and uh put and do it in the either uh either low temp or do it in the um uh you could do it in an oven if you're uh having good luck in an oven. So you think even though it's uh open at both ends. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. As long as there's as long as there's enough I mean it tr try I mean like the the the issue is is is it is it gonna move fast enough to get back into the tube?
That's the real real question. But I mean you can try it with water, you'll see if you if you put just enough water to exactly fill that tube and just throw it into the bag with the tube and vacuum it, all of the water will end up in the tube, all of it. But it's uh you know, but uh it's a question when it's so thick whether or not it's gonna move well enough. But I like I say, that's why I'm giving you like fifty I'm not giving you a hundred percent odds, I'm giving you like fifty percent. Yeah.
I understand. And what do you suggest uh the one seventy nine Fahrenheit or something like that? Oh, uh cheesecakes, I don't know. I usually do things like that. I can't do the Fahrenheit conversions.
I usually do them up in like the I usually do them in like the low eighties, somewhere in there, like the low eighties in Celsius, probably. Uh somewhere up there. Uh yeah. I mean, usually I think I'd have to go back and look at my numbers, been a long time. But anyway, tell us tell us how it works.
Sure just say uh a Twitter or whatnot and tell tell me how it works. All right, thanks, Dave. All right, thank you. You too. Um by the way, on Twitter, you know what?
If you ever want to insult uh Nastasha, she sees all of my emails, but not my Twitter. Just saying. That's true. Yeah. Just kidding.
Patrick Martin's also not on Twitter. I think you guys are the only two. He's not on Twitter? No. Or Facebook or anything.
Wow. He's you know, I don't know. Two or two exclusive. Wow. Wow.
All righty. Okay. Will Freeman writes in at Rebelcat at Heritage Radio and Dave Arnold. Could you please discuss sparkling water served with espresso? Theory and practice.
Word to Nastasha, Jack, and the crew. Again, that's a an and the rest reference from the first Gilligan's Island. Uh remember that? Anyway, I won't go into it again. So uh carbonated water with seltzer.
Uh I enjoy it. You don't you know sorry, carbonated water with uh with espresso. I I enjoy it. You don't drink espresso, right, Sas. Any of you guys over there espresso?
I've been to it. Yeah, you like the carbonated? I actually have never had the carbonated, but I like espresso. Okay, so when you get it when you order an espresso in a lot of nicer joints, uh they will give you uh a glas a water back, right? A glass of water uh with it, and then a lot of the uh places that I like, like in San Francisco, for instance, like Blue Bottle and other places, they'll give you a carbonated water back.
And uh it seems kind of strange. At first you wouldn't think that carbonated water would necessarily go well with coffee. I mean, there's very few carbonated coffee drinks. Manhattan uh special soda being the one obvious um you know that that that's the only really carbonated coffee thing I can think of. So it's not necessarily uh, and by the way, Manhattan doesn't refer to our Manhattan Nastash, it refers to Manhattan Avenue here in Brooklyn.
So it's like you know, it's actually a Brooklyn product, so you can't drink it. Uh yeah, and we I we saw the factory. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so uh I I don't know. I mean, like I I I like it, and I put it this way.
What is it there for? Espresso's gone in like 13 seconds, especially like a modern American espresso. You're drinking it in like 13 seconds because of the incredibly short shots that they're pulling these days. It used to be that a double was, you know, like an ounce and three quarters or so, or an ounce and a half, and now like a double is you know, almost not even coating the bottom of your cup at some of these places. I think it's gone a little far uh in in that respect in in some ways, but you have a strong tasting thing and you need something to clear your mouth out at the end.
So in general, what I do is I drink the espresso uh and then uh I pound the water, and regular water doesn't clean your mouth out or make you feel refreshed the way sparkling water does. I mean, straight up, right? So I don't think I don't know if there's any theory other than I'm sure the people who started doing it were offering a sparkling mineral water as a as a thing, and that just happened to be the water of their of their of their preference. But uh I didn't find anything uh on the kind of history of it. All I'm saying is I enjoy it.
So I'm assuming that you enjoy it as well at Rebelcat. Anyway, uh Ben writes it. Oh, caller, you're on the air. Hello. Howdy.
Hi, hi. I'm uh I'm Steven Benson. I'm a big fan of your show. Oh, thank you. Uh I had a quick question about juicers.
Okay, good. What's the question? I I need a a juicer that can also juice greens effectively and extract as much as possible out of the green. Uh and I I was looking for one in a in a reasonable price range. Uh and if if that's if that's not possible, then uh is there any way to modify a cheaper juicer to be able to do that?
When you say greens, you mean like kale? Yes. Okay. Uh all right, okay, good. So i i what do you have now?
Oh, I I don't have one yet. I'm looking I'm in the market. Okay. So the now there's all sorts of juicers that I myself don't uh don't own and haven't even uh tested. My main experience it with juice style juicers are with the smaller uh set the smaller like weird baskets and trifugal guys, and I've never had much uh luck with them.
I don't really never been so happy with them. The majority of my experience is with a champion juicer. Champion juicer is a is a masticating juicer, and so you know it's what it does is it's got a a a long nose and it's got little teeth on that long nose, and you shove stuff down and it just grinds it up with the and then the juice uh spits out of the bottom through a mesh screen and then the chaff comes out the front, right? And it the champion can juice just about anything. Uh with the exception it can't do sugar cane.
Uh I don't re I don't think it's very good at wheat grass, right? Uh but it does apples, it'll do kale, it'll do all those things, ginger, anything, carrots, uh loves carrots, it loves to do carrots. Now uh the the one gripe people have with the champ and the champion is relatively reasonably priced, right? It's like I think we paid what, like two hundred for it or something like that. And it's uh and it's a monster workhorse, right?
You c you can beat the heck out of it all day long and and nothing it's not gonna die. I have I think I said on the show, if not, I've said elsewhere that I ha I had one once that I ran so long and so hard juicing apples that uh the surface of the case was boiling water and the uh and I I actually I actually melted the electronics on the inside of it, the uh safety circuit, but it's still juiced. I mean that's kind of how sturdy these suckers are. Oh wow. But the one gripe that people have about the champion is that it can heat up your products.
Okay. And so with greens and certain other things, uh that can be uh a problem. By the way, when you're juicing something, if you juice something that has a tendency to turn brown after it's been uh cut up, what you want to do is put ascorbic acid, vitamin C actually into the pan that you're juicing into, and that's gonna uh that's gonna really um retard the browning that happens, for instance, apples or anything else. But the kale stuff is no problem. But if you need something that's more gentle, right, and for things like greens, you can get uh there there's a juicer called the green star juicer that's be that's it's it runs with two gears, and the two gears crush the product as it's going through, and that produces the juice, and that juice is at a much lower temperature, and so people like it.
It's a little more expensive than a champion. I don't have any personal experience with it, but Sam Mason, uh, you know, when he was opening Taylor had a a champion and a juice uh green star, and he said he really liked the green star, but he said the yield was a lot lower. So I don't know how important the yield is, because that's another thing to look at whenever you're looking at a juicer is how much you're leaving behind. Okay, I'm a I'm a chemist. The yield is actually pretty important to me.
Right, okay. Um and uh I was also I was also curious, so since I'm gonna be making savory juices sometimes as well, instead of using ascorbic, can I use some type of vinegar or citric acid or something like that instead to make sure the browning doesn't occur? Okay, well, it depends. So so if you're screwed to retard browning, right? So you're you're a chemist, so like, but we'll for everyone we'll s one, you lower the the browning is caused by uh an end enzymes that are present in the juice, right?
Uh I believe they're polyphenol oxidases that are that are uh agglomerating um things together into things that turn brown that look brown and then anyway, that make things take oxidized. So and other oxidation reactions are happening. In fact, I think the browning is only the only one of the things that's going on for the oxidation reaction. So, but they're mainly enzymatically caused, which means you can retard a lot of that browning by simply lowering the pH to the point where those enzymes are no longer active, right? That's one mode.
Or two, add something that is actively an antioxidant like ascorbic acid, right? So the other acids are only going to act insofar as they're going to lower the pH, whereas they're not as effective as actual antioxidants as you would have in something like ascorbic acid. Now, if you didn't want the ascorbic acid taste, right? But although ascorbic acid is very light on taste, you could move to something like uh a sodium metabisulfite, uh, or something like that as an antioxidant. And a lot of people use that, but the problem is that if you overdose on uh on one of the sulfite things, you start to taste that vaguely sulfurous note, but you won't taste it in smaller quantities.
Okay. All right, thank you very much. I really appreciate it. Man, thank you. Let us know how it goes.
Alrighty. Uh wait, stuff. Should we go to our first commercial break? We're going to our first commercial break. Cooking issues.
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Something new is always happening at the Brooklyn Kitchen. Visit them at one hundred frost street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, or visit the Brooklyn Kitchen.com. You guys put some scary music to that. Yeah, right. I feel like I'm gonna get butchered.
That's the point. It's not a scary place. Yeah, I was asking Nastasia before the show if she'd ever been to Brooklyn Kitchen, but then I forgot she's never really been to Brooklyn outside of Roberta's, so Oh, yeah, no, she makes a beeline directly for the subway when she gets out of here, like slapping the hipsters off her like mosquitoes as she's running. Tell the joke, dude. Which one?
Your joke, it's your joke. You tell it. Yeah, you'll say it better. No, you see it's Nastasia, you how much does a hipster weigh? How much?
An Instagram. Oh. Wow. Thank goodness she's measuring in grains. There we go.
All right. Clef's writes in at cooking issues. What starch have you found to be the least cloudy when using as a thickener for hot sauces? Uh, or do you have any non-starch ideas? Okay, well, it's an interesting question.
Uh, you want something that's hot soluble, uh, so you know, heat it up and uh to coat the back of a spoon with thick uh coat the coat the back of the spoon, as they say, a napel, as they say in the trade. Uh or maybe a little bit thicker. So uh if you're interested in starch clarity and the theory behind starch clarity, you can look up a 1989 article called Starch Paste Clarity by S.A.S. Craig. It's available on the internet uh and you can look it up.
But in general, if you're looking for uh a regular starch, you know, not uh modified, if you want a modified uh uh not even a modified, but a very highly tuned starch. You can go to National Starch Corporation and they have any number of starches that are already that are they made specifically for things like clarity. In fact, they have gel, they have starches, they have the word clarity and purity in their name that are intended to be very highly clear. But if you're looking to get uh kind of a more normal, just like a grocery store situation with starch, uh the way the reason starches um are c when when starch becomes clear typically means that the starch is swelling rapidly and the starch granules break gr uh rapidly and the starch goes completely into solution rapidly, and that makes for maximum clarity, right? So the starches that have that are ones like potato starch or uh tapioca starch, root-based uh uh and tuber-based starches.
These starches tend to swell extremely rapidly. The granules rupture rapidly, at which point it becomes very clear. Uh so you know, those those are going to have higher clarity, things like potato starch. Um, also starch that's higher, like other types of starch, like waxy cornstarch, not cornstarch, but waxy cornstarch, which is high in a millipectin, uh, tends to be uh more clear because a millipectin uh tends to be uh more clear and it's easier to paste out and also retrograde less. Now, any starch you have is gonna have the issue that when it cools down, it's gonna thicken significantly.
I think less so probably for potato starch, but I haven't I didn't have a chance to uh look it up. If you want to move just to a hydrocolloid for thickening with clarity, then obviously you can add a little bit of xanthan at the end of your cooking procedure, and it will stay uh it will add its thickening capability whether it's hot or it's cold. The problem with xanthan is if you add too much xanthan, uh your product's gonna get snotty. It looks really like snot and very jiggly. So you want to add low percent energies.
You never want to add really more than about uh to a sauce more than about a quarter of a percent up to about a third of a percent. If you go over that, uh you're gonna start noticing some xanthan characteristics to it. You can go up to half a percent sometimes, but I wouldn't. You know what I mean? And you know, we hate the xanthany look and things, right?
That kind of jiggly, that jiggly look. Uh in a sauce, it's gonna be eaten uh as a lot of sauce. In certain applications, it's okay to have that texture because you're not having a large quantity of it there where you can see the motion on the surface. It's mainly the motion on the surface. I mean, there's some snotty texture to the actual mouthfeel, but mostly it's the way it looks that is so horrible, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Um, but you might want to move to something like not a regular locust bean gum, but a uh, you know, a purified locust bean gum. They're hot soluble, they need to be heated up, but they can be very uh good. Clear locust bean gum.
And you can buy that from, I'm sure Monarch's Pantry carries it, or if not, you know, it's CP Celco makes some. A bunch of people make clear locust bean gums, but they're uh highly refined, they're good thickeners. Also, purified guar is uh very clear, and so you can get a good purified guar gum. Guar is cold or hot, so you can add it and then uh you know use it as you go, uh, and maybe those will be useful for you. We gotta make sure that you don't get just regular cruddy guar because regular cordi guar tastes bad and regular coretti guar also is not clear because it hasn't been purified to have only the hydrocaloid, the active uh polysaccharides in it.
Uh I believe what are they? Glucomanids, whatever. I can't remember. But anyway, so you uh get a hold of those. Of course, we all know the price of guar has gone up due to fracking.
Thanks, fracking. Thanks a lot. Thanks, you know. You know, I I've I I heard there's an environmental problem with it too. I haven't heard I haven't heard that.
Anyway. Then again, I only listen to cooking issues. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Uh so anyway, so uh take a look at that.
Hopefully uh that will uh work out for you. Yeah? Mm-hmm. Okay. Uh we have a question in from Zoe at 69 Colebrook Row, our friend Tony Caneliara's place, and the drink factory, and they they hope we're doing well, are we?
Yeah. Yeah? Good. Uh we're looking to do some work with calcium oxide, and I'm wondering if you had any advice. Also, this may sound a bit strange, but knowing it beg it can be quite an aggressive chemical, is there a food-safe version of it, or is it a case of just being careful?
Uh, as always, any information is greatly appreciated. Um, okay. Calcium oxide, I've not heard so calcium oxide is C-A-O, right? Quick lime. Uh, and the main use of calcium oxide that I know of in food is actually to make self-heating cans.
Because you add any time uh calcium oxide is added to water, it's going to have uh a very, very strong reaction where it absorbs the water and turns into calcium hydroxide. Uh and that reaction liberates a boatload of heat. So if you go to the Wikipedia, uh this is what they quoted, so you know I can't verify it because it's Wikipedia. You know, I can you know Nastasha could go in there and enter that, you know, whatever she wants, right? In fact, she's doing it right now.
Uh uh I think that's actually what she's doing all the time. When she's doing this, she's actually just loading in like updating Wikipedia like really like random facts. She's like uh, you know, she's like Elliot Gould. Elliot Gould's Wikipedia? You have written on Elliot Gould's Wikipedia page?
Awesome. Awesome. I love myself. Elliot Gould. We were talking about him like over Christmas.
Oh man, I love my man. I love myself some Elliot Gould. What happened to Elliot Gould? I don't know. I love smell myself smelly Gould.
Anyways, uh, so you know, don't trust anything on Elliot Gould's Wikipedia page from now on, because you know Nastashia just put her fingers in there and like all of a sudden, you know, Elliot Gould's gonna be friends with Elton John, all sorts of terrible things are gonna happen. Anyway, uh according to them, one liter of water will combine with uh 3.1 kilograms of uh calcium oxide to uh give uh calcium hydroxide and 3.4 megajoules of energy. To put that into perspective, that is an entire kilowatt hour, or the same amount of energy it takes to run a thousand watt thing for an hour, or in calories, 846,000 calories, and it can deliver it at a fairly high heat. So that's a very high heat interaction. So I don't know of any use for calcium oxide itself in food, but calcium hydroxide uh is extremely uh interesting.
So calcium hydroxide, which you can get um as form of pickling lime, uh you can get it in uh Mexican places as uh as uh cal, which is you know what was used for nixtimalization. Uh it's also available membrane just erased, but it's also available on a couple other names. But you know, that stuff's great, and it's uh oh uh Thai red lime paste and Thai lime paste, you can get it. It has uh you know it's calcium hydroxide base. And it that's really interesting.
It has a faint cementy taste on its own, it's not very soluble, but it it's also used uh to do things um uh like nystamalization, which uh it changes the taste of things, and anything that requires something that's either as basic or that has calcium is one of the reactions. So we uh we use it a lot. It's also used in uh sugar production uh because they uh for a number of reasons, and this is interesting. This is I did not know. I knew that they have to keep sugar on the relatively basic side when they're processing it to prevent it from inverting, right?
Because it if if if sugar is even a little bit acidic, if sucrose, table sugar is even a little bit acidic as it's being processed, it will invert into uh glucose and fructose separately, which is a problem for sugar manufacturers because then it won't crystallize out and they don't sell fructose and glucose, they sell sucrose, they sell table sugar. So everything is kept uh on the neutral or slightly basic side. But when you're doing when they're doing beet sugar, they go through a process, and I learned this this morning of not carbonation, one of my favorite things on the earth, but carbon nutation. And what they do there is they put uh they put calcium hydroxide into the mix with uh into the into the juice and then they shoot uh CO2 carbon dioxide into that and what happens is the carbon dioxide reacts with the uh calcium hydroxide to form calcium carbonate and calcium carbonate isn't soluble so it what it does is it forms particles of calcium carbonate and as it forms those particles it traps other things in it and so it can be used as a clarifying aid so anyone out there I wonder whether there's a way to do an inexpensive uh you know centrifuge free uh clarif quick fairly quick clarification using calcium hydroxide maybe interesting someone check it out someone tells me what's going on anyway uh so uh there you have it right yeah okay uh milk cult wrote in can you guys cover real buttermilk the byproduct of butter production and acidified buttermilk and impacts on hydrocolloids well um okay uh so here's the thing so when I use we whenever you go buy buttermilk in a store you're buying what's called cultured buttermilk and it's not really buttermilk it's just a low-fat milk that they treat with a culture that's I guess you know similar to what would be uh in a culture in real cultured cream right now uh so what you're getting there is the actual milk the casein is there uh you know everything is there in the normal proportions as would be for low-fat milk only it's been cultured with uh bacteria so it's tart it's acidic uh and it's thicker right uh in buttermilk, what you do is you take cream and you make butter with it, and the stuff that's left over is buttermilk. That's what real buttermilk is.
And what it's mainly composed of is the whey proteins. The because you know the casein is what's glu the the the milk solids go with the oil when you're making butter, but you you know you have some you have casein, some casein, I guess the casein comes out too. But some of it's trapped as milk solids in the thing. But may all the whey proteins are basically in in there. Uh I guess some casein, some fat, uh, some little bit of fat that's left over, uh, and a lot of like great uh uh emulsifiers and and lactose and water.
Um if you use sweet cream to make it, uh, in other words, just like right from as the way you buy it from the grocery store, then uh that cream it will not be tart, it will not be acidic. So most of the recipes that you're using buttermilk for in uh you know pancakes and whatnot, you what you're really using them for is the acidity. You're counting on the acidity from them. And that's why you add baking soda to those recipes, because the baking soda is interacting with the acidity in the buttermilk to leaven your products, like let's say pancakes. Uh you know, they also sent tend to make it more tender crumb, things like biscuits, not that Nastasha would know because she hates biscuits.
Uh very similarly, sourdough starter is mainly used in pancakes, not for its leavening capability, and that's why you can use an old nasty sourdough starter for pancakes. You're using a sourdough starter there for its acidity to re- and that's why a lot of those buttermilk pan uh sorry, sourdough pancakes will have soda in them, baking soda in them, because they're actually doing an acid-base reaction and not uh leavening uh in a traditional way, or they're augmenting the traditional leavening with an acid-base reaction. However, when I make buttermilk, I typically take my cream. I will buy buttermilk, and you have to make sure that the buttermilk that you're using is uh has active cultures. And so the one I get from Whole Foods is usually very active.
Uh the I've had bad luck sometimes with the one I get at my local supermarket, uh, of the a culture not being active enough. And then you take your cream, and to like your quart of cream, you can add uh, you know, like a half a cup or so of buttermilk, and then you I let it sit out in the kitchen overnight, and then my cream is cultured, and then I get real buttermilk from, and that's the way you would make cultured butter. You let it sit however long you want for the culture to develop for the cream to ripen, and then you make uh your butter with it. That buttermilk is acidic, and that buttermilk, so that buttermilk has the like the best of all the world. It has like the interesting, awesome taste of buttermilk, it has the emulsifying properties uh of you know that are in a uh in traditional old school buttermilk, and it also has uh which I guess mainly come from probably the whey proteins, I'm not sure.
And it also has uh the acidity. So, what do you think? Good. Good. Okay.
Um I guess it's time for our second commercial break already. Sure. Yeah, second commercial break, cooking issues. Like what you hear so far? Support the network and become a member.
Membership helps us bring you the best food radio in the world and gives you access to thousands of dollars in discounts at the sustainably minded businesses that support us. To become a member, visit Heritage Radio Network.org today. And welcome back to Cooking Issues. Anna from Hungary wrote in. Thank you for covering my questions last week and clearing up my dulce de leche recipes and processes.
I made Dulce de Leche without the water this past weekend and stirred almost constantly, and it did work. Previously, I thought the water was there to prevent the milk or sugar from burning while they interact, and the water is just slowing the process. I read more on the MyRad reaction. I learned a lot. Anyways, I want to say thank you for giving me a heads up, and now we're ready for flavors and perfecting the recipe.
Well, thanks. I'd love to hear feedback that something actually worked, right? Alright. Feels good. Uh okay.
Uh in from Nick in Seoul, Korea. Uh, and he's writing to you, Nostash, because he doesn't really care what I say. Sorry we missed you this week. Uh, I'm Nick from Seoul Korea. I called about cold smoking bacon.
I just want to follow up my inquiry. Dave says I'm not going to get the desired effect, uh, which by the way is to reduce the emissions and deposit of harmful substances while preserving the good smoky flavor of bacon. Because the good smoky aroma that we love is released uh at the combustion temperatures along with the various possible carcinogens and other nasty stuff. Well, that is unless I make made or major modifications to my setup. What if you go low and slow?
Wood's essential oils and aroma compounds uh are uh also released at lower temperatures, say 200 to 300 Celsius, no? Wouldn't keeping it under the combustion temperature of two or three hundred Celsius for longer duration, more or less produce the desired effect. And also, do you have any experience smoking with herbs, grains, flowers, and polls, or any mixture of them? Are there any things I should be made aware of before giving it a whirl? Looking forward to hearing from you.
Best regards, Nick. Okay, so we have to separate what's going on here. Wood's essential oils and aromas do go out at lower temperatures. But you've got to remember these are compounds that are already in the wood themselves. So things like the aroma of cedar or the aroma of sandalwood or any of those aromas or pine.
Those those things are in the wood uh and relatively easy to volatilize. In fact, they're there, you can smell them, right? So they're clearly they're fairly easy to volatilize. The other things in them, uh, like you know, the phenolic uh things, like uh the one that you always think of as being associated with smoky flavor is guyacal. Uh and uh that is not in the wood to begin with.
It needs to be produced, and it's produced uh by the pyrolysis of lignin at high temperatures. Now, is there a way maybe to uh produce it really long in snow? I don't know. I haven't wasn't able to find anything in the literature to to make to figure out like what those flavors uh to produce those flavors at a lower temperature. In addition, remember that the temperature at which the uh smoke is produced, even in that in the higher temperature range, which is where we're talking about, uh the actual flavors that you're produced, the actual reactions that take place are dependent on that temperature.
So the flavor of a particular smoke is gonna depend on the temperature at which it's created as well. So it's not like even all high temperatures are created equal, but I don't know of a way that you can get traditional smoke flavors at lower temperature. Now, like I say, getting the volatiles out of it and making those kind of flavors, I think it would be a very uh, you know, be easy to do at those lower temperatures, but not the traditional smoky flavor. If someone tell someone call back and or write me and tell me of a way to do it, uh, but I I don't know of any way. Okay.
Uh hello cooking issues team from Matthew. Uh I hope everything is good with you guys in 2013. I decided to add some Xanthan gum and soy lecithin to my vinaigrette recipe to help it stay emulsified. Uh now, Xanthan is of course uh the you know one of the magic hydrocolloids that's uh comes from uh bacteria, and it's awesome because you can use it in very small quantities, so it doesn't mask flavor. It can go into almost any recipe, whether it's acidic or not acidic.
It can go, it can be heated, it can be cold, uh, it it is it suspends things like pepper because it has what's called a yield point, so it forms a uh a weak gel unless it's being uh agitated. So it's amazing stuff. Uh problem before we said it used too much of it and things get snotty, but it's really kind of uh amazing, amazing stuff. Uh soy lecithin, of course, is lecithin, which is a phospholipid that's derived from uh soybean uh uh processing. Um lecithin is in a lot of recipes anytime we use egg yolk as an emulsifier, we're also using lecithin, but remember lecithin from an egg yolk is not the same thing as lessithin from soy.
Very related though. Anyway, uh that was just a the before we get to the full thing, so you know. Okay. The first recipe I used for a reference was here on HDTP, modernistcooking made easy.com. Uh and they made a uh maple vinaigrette recipe.
It called for 0.6 0.6% lecithin and 0.2% xanthan. I made a vinaigrette that was about 840 grams, uh, and then added five grams of lecithin and one point seven grams of xanthan and spun the whole thing in a vita prep. Vitaprep's always a good call, by the way. Love the vitaprep. Uh alas, it broke almost immediately and shortly after, completely separated.
After this, I consulted uh Martin Larish's Chymosis Texturous Hydrocolloid Cookbook, and its recipe called for 0.2% lecithin and 0.1 to 0.4% Xanthan. Again, I started with 840 grams of vinaigrette and then added 1.7 grams of lecithin and 0.85 grams of xanthan. Also a complete failure. I'm not really sure where I went wrong. Maybe my inferior mass skills contributed.
In both cases, I completely ignored the recipes and used my own vinaigrette recipe and just added the hydrocolloids in the proportion specified. Could this be the issue? I assume that with the additives and the ratios uh the with the additives, the ratios of the other components weren't as important. Any other suggestions or ideas on using lesson, lecithin, xanthan, or other stuff to keep dressings nicely emulsified? Thanks.
Okay. We tend to use um uh when I'm thickening salad dressings, I typically use something called uh a ticoloid uh you know 310 or or or 210 or 201 or 301. I think they're all very similar. They're mixtures of gum arabic and xanthan because I have a lot of them around because I use them in in drinks. But so they're they're using a gum arabic slash xanthan system to thicken and stabilize, and those things last forever, forever, and both of them are very good at different uh at different acid levels.
So here's a way I there's a couple of things that can be going wrong there. First of all, I looked at the recipes, and both recipes uh state their percentages in a way that is normal for cooks to state them, but not really um accurate. Uh hydrocolloids, the th the the thickening power of a hydrocolloid is based strictly on uh how much it's interacting with the water in a system. So I looked at the maple vinaigrette uh recipe. It was 45 grams of balsamic vinegar, 15 grams of lemon juice, and 20 grams of maple syrup, and 90 grams of olive oil.
So when they were doing the recipe calculations for that, they added all of those numbers up to get the percentages. However, uh the xanthan gum isn't interacting with the 90 grams of oil, so it shouldn't factor into your percentages, right? It's just not it shouldn't. Uh also the uh balsamic vinegar is mostly water, so that's okay. The lemon juice is mostly water, so that's okay.
And the 20 grams of maple syrup, though, is only one-third water, so that's like seven grams. So if you look at it, uh this recipe uh they says that one gram of lecithin is 0.6%. It's actually using 1.4% of lecithin on a water basis. Now, lecithin you can't really count as a water basis alone because uh it's interacting with the oil because it's an emulsifier. So, like there, the the water, the total uh amount and the water oil part is is important.
I don't really know how to work it out from an accurate standpoint, but anyway. But back on the xanthan gum, uh he says he's using 0.2% xanthan gum, but on a water base, he's really using 0.45% xanthan gum. Okay. So one one problem is is that when you're looking at it, you should look at the amount of water in your recipe for your xanthan, and in fact, he's adding 0.45. I went and analyzed uh Martin Larsch's recipe, and he's using um I have it here somewhere.
Um yeah, he's using uh actually m much more Xanthan uh than he would because he's not counting the oil on the xanthan either. So uh you could up your xanthan or make sure your percentages are in line with uh what they want for the liquid. Another problem you might be having is maybe your lecithin's no good, and your lecithin is are you using powdered lecithin or are you using the one that's in granules? The granules might not be dissolving properly. The good way to figure out whether it's the lecithin that's the problem is you can figure on a general basis that egg yolks are roughly 10% lecithin.
So if your recipe works just by adding 10 times uh the amount of egg yolk as you added uh lecithin, right? So in your case, let's say you were using the one gram of lecithin. If you were adding 10 grams of egg yolks, it should have roughly that same amount of lecithin, but it's not going to be a problem hydrating. So that one, if you added the egg yolk and it worked, then bang, it's probably your lecithin's not going in there properly. Could be you weren't hydrating the xanthan properly.
Remember, you're doing in a very acidic environment here uh if you're using some of these recipes. So just take a look at it. Um another uh so I would look at your hydration, even though you're using a vital prep and make sure everything's getting hydrated. Um I don't know about lecithin's um performance in extremely acidic environments. I don't know how acidic your environment is, but look at the actual water content of what's going on.
Test it with egg yolk to see whether that's the problem. Uh up the xanthan slightly uh because uh the other way the percentages are being calculated is uh is a little bit uh wonky, or switch to something like Ticaloid 310, which I know works in these situations because I've done it all the time. No, one more thing is that you might want to whisk the lecithin into the into the oil if you can. And if you have a water uh that's in there that isn't very acidic, if you're using something that's not very acidic, I would put the hydrocolloids as much into a non-acidic thing as possible before you start, they'll hydrate faster and easier. Uh yeah?
What do you think? Good. Good? All right. Uh okay, let me see, find another good question.
Uh oh, we had a question in from Ben. Uh actually, we probably only have time for like one or two more questions anyway, right? Yeah. So uh we have a question in from Ben uh from San Francisco. He says, Hello, Dave, Hammer, and Jack.
And I'm gonna put Joe in there. Yeah, really. Come on. I know he's shout out to Joe when you submit questions. No, seriously.
Seriously, people. Where's the love? I know it. I know it. You know what?
Although I'm sure you get the love as the front man in the band, right? So like all I want on Valentine's Day is to be recognized. Next week is our Valentine's show. Right, but you know 12th. That's not two weeks from now.
Yeah, but uh the the Valentine's Day is on the 14th, right? Yeah. Yeah. So before. Yeah, but like but Ben wants like advice now.
He's got a plan in advance. He's not gonna make it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. I know.
Just let you know. So yeah, next week we'll, you know, we'll have the Valentine's Day, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I thought you never answered this last week. No, I didn't get to it because we had callers. You would know if you whatever.
Whatever. I'm not even gonna get into it. I'm not even gonna get into it. Don't make me. Oh, and everyone else who's heard is is here?
Oh, yeah, okay. So Ben writes in from San Francisco. Uh big fan of the show and the blog, so much so that I finished the entire cooking issues backlog while I'm winter vacation with my girlfriend on Jolly. And I remember uh she wrote in and said that, and we apologize to her on air for that, for her having to listen to it. Uh perhaps you recall her email.
Uh I do feel guilty about making her listen to it, but it was worth it. Uh to make up for being such a horrible guy, I want to cook her uh a unique and outstanding Valentine's dinner. Alright, I like this kind of question, right? Uh we can go off on this one. I have a great pressure cooker, the Fistler brand, which I haven't used that one actually yet.
Well, it wasn't, I I don't have it. Uh, but I hear it's okay. I hear it's good. Uh, an emer uh you like it a lot, so maybe it's great. I have no idea.
I haven't used it. Uh an immersion circulator, which is a uh he has a crazy old poly science uh 7312. We have that. That's the one that's on our circulator chiller that we used uh in the that we use with the roto vap or we're using with the rotor vap. A Vitamix, good call.
Strong call on the Vitamix. I love it when someone has a Vitamix at home because that just makes everything easier. Uh and most regular equipment. Uh, what would you make for your wife on Valentine's Day if you really owed her this time? Wow, it's mostly something else other than just the cooking issues.
I mean, I hope I'm not that much punishment. I am kind of a little bit. Talk to my talk to my family. Uh, if you really owed her this time something epic or unusual that a reasonably sophisticated amateur cook could make. Uh, thanks for everything.
Your future Kickstarter supporter, uh, Ben. Okay. Uh, this is an excellent question, but okay, so I have a I have some good perspective. I've been doing uh Valentine's uh day uh, you know, meals for my wife for a long time. Uh and I don't tend to go out on Valentine's Day.
Uh I always, always, especially before I was doing this uh professionally, uh, I was um I was cooking her meals, right? Uh here's the here's the issue, and here's what you have to look out for. When you're cooking a meal uh at home, there for Valentine's Day, you're cooking it for just the two of you, I hope. Right? And so uh the main problem is to organize your meal such that you actually get to sit down with her during the meal because it's it's gonna be irritating for her if you're not sitting down uh at the meal with her, right?
So that that used to be one of my main problems is I would have all this prep work done, but then there'd be a long lag in between the dishes as they as they rolled out. And also, you know, I would be standing up doing a lot of prep. So the dinners would go very long. This is why I would suggest to you that you get uh that you do a lot of the stuff in the circulator and do as much post finishing as possible. Uh you know, I would like you to write and tell me kind of like what she likes to eat, and then I could give you some more recommendations for for right beforehand.
But also, I used to like to do like probably like four or five courses on the Valentine's Day, get your desserts done beforehand, right? Uh and you know, this it's unfortunately it's cold out, so you could do some sort of like hot cold. I used to do a lot of things that lit on fire because mean that's what I do. I light stuff on fire. But try to go, I mean, I used I used to go nuts.
I would do I would always do a fish, a poultry, a meat, a dessert, and an appetizer, some four court uh and finish with cheese. Definitely get a couple of bottles of wine and vacuvan. Don't force yourself to drink only one wine throughout the entire thing and start out with champagne, get a clamshell thing to open it. But I would definitely do uh I would I would definitely do most of my work in the circulator if at all possible so that you can sit with her during uh the time that you're eating and light something on fire at the end. Does that make sense?
What do you think, S. What do you like to have for the you don't care about Valentine's? I don't care. What do you well what what would what would you like? I really don't care.
She's like, make it hardy pasta. Just make it a hearty pasta. Haughty. Haughty pasta. Oh, here's one for you.
Try uh so you know, if you like quail, and I like quail, the pr the problem is also when you're doing this, another problem you're doing, if you don't do lots of plated dishes all the time because you're cooking at home, and why would you do that? The the problem is is that you plan a me, and I've done this several times, is you plan a long meal for the Valentine's Day, and then you don't uh you you you make her so full that she can't finish the last couple of things. And in fact, the main issue with all of the small plates uh situations that you have in restaurants is it's extremely difficult to get the portion sizes right when you're doing multiple courses. Because a little bit too little and you're hungry at the end. Now you can just solve that by making some sort of mega filling dessert, right?
Or a little bit too much and they can't finish the stuff as it goes through. Then you're gonna get depressed because you've been working all this time and she's gonna feel bad that she's not finishing what you're making. Either that or she's gonna stuff herself, which would then make you know the both of you, you know, feel like you're stuffed. You don't like feeling stuffed at the end of it when you're w on a on a occasion like that, right, Stuzz? No, there's no loving for later, right?
I I I was hoping you would say that so I would not have to. Thank you. Appreciate that. Finally, Nastasha comes through for me in a pinch. Bang!
Hey, guess what, cooking issues listener? I'm single. So for Valentine's Day, you know, shoot us a line. I'm the only one here without a date. Really?
Yeah, man. Come on, really? Jack has no date. No date. Really?
Yep. All right, listen. Uh anyone in the New York area. Whoa. Wow.
We don't know that. Wow. I would be happy if we had women listeners. I think we do. Wow.
Anyway, back to Ben's problem. Ben. Ben. Well, Jack has a problem of a date. I'm working on okay, we have two separate problems here.
I have Ben's problem of what he's gonna make on Jolly for Valentine's Day, and hopefully I'm a uh I'm giving him advice without giving him specific advice. Uh and then we have the problem that Jack needs a date. These are two separate uh interviews. Then we have a third problem that there are no female listeners of the show, apparently. You know, by the way, apparently Booker's new catchphrase.
He says apparently every other word is apparently out of his mouth now. But uh uh okay, so these all need to be addressed. But right now, uh I'll say some of the things that um I mean, look, get an extremely, extremely, extremely high quality steak, uh, and then uh do a low temperature steak, do 50 like small piece, right? Cut it, pre-cut it so it's nice, uh, do it at 55, uh, do it like up uh at 55, drop it to 50, then do a finish uh poiv style with like a cassis sauce, uh, and then you can finish it with whatever else you want as a steak course. That's a freaking knockout.
It's not gonna take you any time at all. Uh make a good uh beef, uh like a beef tasting sauce beforehand because you're not gonna have a pan foam to make the uh to make the cassis uh sauce for the uh poiv thing, but that's like it's a knockout. Also, uh for the poultry side, if you you might not want to go all low temp because then it's gonna be a little bit too much, but you know, a low temp duck breast sliced with like a side salad, uh where you just finish it in the pan after it's cooked, because you could take it almost from cold in a pan to crisp up the skin 57 degrees on the duck breast uh for about 40 minutes, 45 minutes. Uh make sure you smash the duck down so it's nice and flat on the uh the skin before you put it in the in the bag to cook it in the circulator. Also, a knockout and a good poultry thing to lead into the meats, especially if you keep your portions smaller.
Uh I would get the world's best cheese. I like to have cheese uh at the end before dessert. I like to have a cheese course. I just do with a glass of port uh and you can do that, or you can do it beforehand if you really need to. But to me, really good cheese makes a meal.
Another, like if you want to go weird on the uh on the on the poultry side, get uh the small quails, the small ones. You can buy them deboned already, or you can inside out bone them. And this is one of my favorite things I used to do was I would low temp, I didn't have actually circulators at the time, so I had to do it old school. I would poach eggs uh like a s like a chump sucker. And then you would uh you would shimmy the egg into the boneless quail, which is really kind of weirdly gross.
Wait till you do it, you'll see. And then I mean you don't want to deep fry on the Valentine's Day, but like Flash Cook or Deep Fry the quail, so it's crispy on the outside, but then when you cut into it, the egg yolk is still runny and it and it the quail sauces itself. And that's a really interesting, fun thing. Like a quail with a with a runny egg on the inside that holds a shape, and you cut it and it self-sauces itself. Make sure you serve that on some sort of like thin but like well-made kind of brochetta thing so that you can eat it uh all together.
I mean, I've done that a couple times on Valentine's Day, uh, but the steak's always a winner. And I'm trying to think of what what else uh what else I would do. But anyway, take those pieces of advice, send me back uh a tweet, a line, tell me what you're looking for exactly on uh what she likes to eat. Uh, and uh we need a day for Jack, right? We need some women listeners and a day for Jack.
Hey, women listeners, prove that you're there and call in and give Jack some love. And then next week on the questions, I want to shout out to Joe, cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on heritageradio.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.
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