Today's program was brought to you by Fairway Market like no other market, a New York City institution that sells the best local, national, and international artisan foods for prices that can't be beat. For more information, visit Fairway Market.com. Hey, hey, hey, I'm Jimmy Carboni from Deer Sessions Radio. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick Brooklyn. If you like this program, visit Heritage Radio Network.org for thousands more.
Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you late! LATE! On Roberta at Roberta's Pizzeria, the editorial network in Bushwick Brooklyn. Call in your questions to 718497.
What is it? That's it. 784972128. We can't be nice today. No niceties.
But we do have a caller who has been patiently waiting. Oh geez. Uh caller, you are on the air. Hey Dave, it's Michael Nathan. Hey, how you doing?
I'm doing fantastic. How are you? All right. I hear you're running late today. Yes.
Yes, I am. But I'm sure you know that well enough to call in late and only have to wait a couple of minutes. Right. I I I I've got the whole schedule figured out. No problem.
Sweet. I just wanted to let you know. I I I just got this uh cocktail book. I I don't know if you've heard about it yet, called Liquid Intelligence. Oh, I have heard of that.
I hear it's terrible. Okay. I I'm actually I'm learning a lot from this book. It's fantastic. Yeah, there are, as uh I think you point out a couple other people, there are a couple of typos in it that we're gonna fix for the next printing.
There's just so many. There's so yeah, there's so many data points in it that um you know, for those of you that are listening, uh like one of the Manhattan recipes, I think Michael, you might have pointed this out along with a c along with a couple other people, like a one just got dropped, so it says a fat three quarters of vermouth instead of one and three quarters, right? Is that you that pointing that out? Yeah. I did notice that.
But uh, you know what? I uh my book has a millionaires, and you wouldn't believe the erotiction from our cuisine, so you know don't go down. Yeah, also we had a weird thing where the the when they did the layout on one of the charts, like a bunch of the acid percentages got switched into just weird numbers. But don't worry, people we'll get it all fixed. But but in spite of that, uh you know, forget a little details, man.
This is a great book. I'm really, really enjoying it. I'm learning so much about like the details of how things chill and different kinds of textures and the different acid ratios and everything. My uh I've always been a kind of a seat of the pants cocktail maker, and I can see this is gonna up my game considerably. Nice, I appreciate it.
Yeah. Yeah, just wanted just wanted to say that because uh yeah, I'm really looking forward to working my way through the whole thing. All right, sweet. And uh, you know, one of the things in the book that um uh you know uh address in in the f in the future is that uh currently our lime uh clarification technique that I use, you know, you wouldn't use it at home. You wouldn't use it if you didn't have a centrifuge.
Or if you had a really good centrifuge, like you know, when I say good, I mean you know, upwards of uh 40,000 Gs or something like this. Um, you know, you could clarify lime juice without any of the clarification aids that I use. But I think one of the things for research, maybe maybe you can look into it, uh, is uh this uh fungal chitasan. The because uh the one thing that we use that's not uh vegetarian is this chitisan, which is derived from Frimp cells. It's non-allergenic.
I'm not worried about it from a seafood allergy standpoint. Uh and it is spun out, so it's not in the product that people are consuming, but it is a processing aid that we're using that's of animal origin and I'd like to be able to get rid of it. So that's like one of the that's you know 'cause I I think I might mention somewhere in the I can't remember because it's a long book but uh and I've said it on the air many times is that I think it's entirely fair for you know a vegetarian to assume that they can not worry about the cocktail menu unless you know unless it obviously states something of animal origin, you know. Right, right, right. Although isn't that the case with some wine finding agents too?
Oh yeah. But the the issue with wine finding agents that no one tells you what they're using. So you know chitosan is used as a wine finding agent. Right. You know there's I've I've always put this in the category of things I'm not gonna worry about too much.
But you're right, I probably wouldn't use it myself so right. That's the thing. So there's a f you know it's like I've always said like everyone's drawing a line, right? I mean you pay taxes to people that that eat meat all the time. We you know we pay tax I'm sure like many of the people that you know we hire in the government are you know not just meat eaters but like actual bad people like you know torturers, murderers of people, like you know, mutilators of animals, all kinds of horrible stuff.
So it's like a question of like well yeah it's a question of where's the line, you know what I mean? And like what but you know uh it's I think it's always good to push uh I think it's always good to push as far as you can in you know in a direction uh eh you always learn more you push the more you learn. That makes sense to me so do you have any ideas of things that can be used in the photosan for the lime? Well there is in the U in the uh in the EU there is a um a fungally derived kitosan and we got a sample of it at the bar, but it was one of those things where I didn't have time to run the test myself and it it fell through the cracks. Like no one was able to come up with a good protocol for it.
It comes in powdered form. And you know, everyone was used to using the solution, the chitasan solution. So, you know, I and I I don't know that it's you know fully available here in in the US, but there's no reason why chitosan can't be uh fungally produced, and I think that you know, with the increasing uh number of people that want, you know, full disclosure of the processing aids that are used in things that you'll see more of a switch towards it. Because I think just in general, regardless of, you know, uh regardless of anything, people are like, ah, shrimp shells, you know what I mean? Right, well, and uh that latest uh Lucky Peach pointed out the shrimp industry is uh royal mess, so you know, getting away from that would be good anyhow.
Oh, were they talking about the slavery in Thailand? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's horrible. I mean, uh, you know, that at first came to my attention, I don't know, a couple of months ago, and I was like, I can't believe it.
I can't I can't I can't believe it, you know? Uh it's disgusting. Yeah. Well, it just goes to show the more the more you investigate, the worse things are in general, right? This is true.
Sometimes you don't want to know. Yeah. Is the uh clarified lime juice freeze well? No. No.
What about in uh cryogenic freeze? No. Oh. I've never tried. Like uh, like actually like completely immobilize it, like subutectic uh freezing.
Yeah, yeah, we have a ridiculous freezer here. Why don't you try it and tell me? Okay. Yeah, we'll do it. We got the we got a big bad centrifuge and a nice freezer.
So yeah, I'll see I'll I'll give that a shot. I would freeze it as rapidly as possible so you don't have um so you don't have uh increased concentration effects as it's freezing down. Uh right, right. If we put stuff uh flat in a bag and throw it in that freezer, man, it freezes very rapidly. Yeah, let me know.
So what I typically do, uh or now I've just started doing it with the leftover Clary Lime because we have a lot of it, is uh I sugar it and heat it with a little uh lime peel and turn just turn it into a cordial. And then it's delicious. Oh, that sounds good too. Yeah. And so it's a you know, it's a cordial that like is already clarified and so you can use it in uh, you know, st stir drinks for a cordial flavor.
And it's quite good because you know, once you heat it and you know, once you take old lime juice or sugar and you heat it, then it goes from being that awful old lime juice to being something different, you know? Right, right, right. Sounds amazing. Well listen, I want to take up your whole show, but uh great talking to you. Congrats on the book, right?
Thanks a lot. Hope uh well, next time you're out uh on this coast, stop by and see us. I would never miss a chance. All right. Okay.
All right, thanks. Uh so we do have one more caller that was waiting. All right. All right, sweet sweet. Caller, you are on the air.
Hey David Suda from Silver Spring, Maryland. How are you? Hey, doing all right, what's up? Well, first of all, I want to, you know, just echo the uh the last caller. Book is fantastic.
Uh, you know, went through it pretty quickly. Uh just a wealth of information there. And it was just I think one of the things that surprised me the most was just how well, you know, your voice, uh which I know from from the radio show came through just amazingly through the book. Like I was I found myself bursting out laughing in disinfections. So just uh Hopefully it wasn't a serious section.
Hopefully it wasn't like the section where you were laughing at how like poorly the recipe was going, but some of that, some of that. But one one complaint that I do have is that you really did tease us with the red hot poker and then you're like, Well, I'm not gonna tell you how to do it. Well, I mean, look. I mean the issue with the I mean i I I c I you know, I can tell anyone how how to make it. You know, I can I could I don't have it at my fingertips right now, but you know, I'm never gonna sell them.
So I have no problem telling people how they're made except for it's you know inherently you know, you y you if you can weld, you know, and if you can, you know, purchase stuff with a credit card off McMaster Car, you can buy everything. Everything that you need for it, you can buy on McMaster Car's website. Uh other than I just yeah, I just figured it was it was some crazy uh you know legal liability to to put those instructions in the book as well. Well and I mean, you know, there's th it's already a hundred thousand words as it is. And like, you know, I you know, I'm I I don't what I do explain, I don't pull any punches on it.
So like if I was gonna go into like a full detail, there'd be, you know, I'd have to tell you like, you know, what to look out for when you're welding, like, you know, what wattages to look out for, like, you know, issues I have with different kind of cartridge heaters. Um, because it's it's basically just a high temperature cartridge heater and I've tried, you know, many dozens of different wattages and and lengths and and diameters and I've come up with the one that, you know, can uh run f you know, without blowing itself out in the open air, because every every any time you use a heater that's powerful enough uh to burn itself out and try to control it, the control invariably fails with all the thermal cycling and when the control fails, it always over f it always fails in the direction of getting too hot and then the thing burns out. Uh sometimes spectacularly. So, you know. Yeah, so you know, I I you know I can give all this stuff, but then also there's like, you know, there's the tr you know, you gotta insulate it right when you're wrapping it, you gotta weld it right, grind it down.
I mean it's not none of it's rocket science, you know. Like I c you know, back when Pipe. It's a lot more work than you kinda mentioned in the book. So we can reset that, I guess. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, look, uh uh again, if someone wants it, you know, like next week, someone if you, you know, put put the question in or whatever, I can I can give you the part numbers. Uh and in fact, I'm gonna be I'm gonna be making a batch. You know, someone stole our welder, and as soon as we get uh a welder back in in uh in the shop, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to make a batch for this year's red hot poker. Maybe I'll take some pictures of the process. That'd be cool.
So I had some actual questions though, uh just uh on a couple of things. Um I was gonna ask uh, you know, similarly about the kitesan. I do keep kosher, so you know you you mentioned the fungal in the book, but I heard your answers, it seems like there's really not a good um alternative at this point. What I was just thinking right now is that I would reach out to maybe some kosher winemakers and see what they use for wine finding agents. Yeah.
Um and uh, you know, come up with that. Um the other thing for the uh the clarified grapefruit juice. I bought a uh home carbonation rig, I'm gonna be making the gin and juice this weekend. How long I know you mentioned with the lime juice, it doesn't really keep very well. You you find the same thing with the grapefruit juice as well.
No, I would just say it's like the maximum storage time. Yeah, clarified grapefruit juice it keeps fairly well. So, you know, I think you you know, a couple of days is not gonna be a problem. Okay. Are you gonna do agar or freeze thaw?
Uh agar. Okay. I mean, but agar f uh what I meant is quick quick agar or freeze thaw. Well, which would you recommend? I could do either one.
I if you're gonna use it right away, you can do quick, but Nastasia hates doing the quick, right? You she hates it. It's like one of the things that she refuses to ever do again. Uh you know, if you're practice with quick, the good thing about quick is it's quick. I typically reserve quick clarification for things like lime and lemon that can't sit around, or if I only need a small amount.
Like if you only need like you know, half a liter, then you know, quick is fine. And you because if you lose 250 mils, it's not a big deal. If you're trying to make like two gallons of it, you know what I mean? Then quick agar becomes a a bit of a little bit of a pain in the butt and then I would move to freeze thaw with freeze thaw you're gonna have uh a high you know probably a higher yield less overall work time even though it takes longer to do uh and um there was another oh yes and the the quick one will eventually well the next day will throw a cloud off so usually if you're gonna do quick do it the day you're gonna use it you know what I mean you can you can resettle out the cloud but you know the there will be some agar that's left in the uh in the in the liquid that'll then kind of stick together uh overnight to form kind of cloudiness so you know I would say that but but remember the freeze thaw takes a couple of days so you have to start you know soon. Okay yeah no because uh doing for a dinner on Sunday so actually now the sounds like a freeze thaw is a better method.
Yeah um if I can ask you one more question it's uh um the you had a little sidebar in there about eutectic freezing and try as I might understand you know the the principal behind it actually asked uh my brother who's uh a chemical engineer and brother in law so and uh we weren't really sure what was going on there. I don't know if you can take a minute to kind of expound on that. Sure. So um the there's a a concentration for uh you know all salts in in water where um they it kind of thaws like a um like a unitary substance like water, right? And so it's the point at which uh you know the point at which that happens and the temperature at which that happens.
So typically when you're using a eutectictic freezing plate, they'll choose the temperature of the plate based on the um the salts that they put into it, right? And then it freezes and thaws at that concentration. So if you if you have uh if you have less salt let's say of whatever salt you're gonna choose in your liquid what'll happen is you'll start crystallizing pure water out right you'll then kind of reach the uh a eutectic solution and then it'll start freezing as a as a solid there. I think that's how it'll work and then it'll thaw out whereas if you start with the percentage uh you know with that kind of like you know magic percentage of um of salts in it uh it will stay liquid and then freeze at its at whatever its temper eutectic freezing temperature is and then s freeze solid and then as it thaws it will do the same at the same temperature so there won't be any temperature drift during the uh during the freezing and thawing cycle. So it'll see so it's all about the uniformity of the uh of the solution kind of as it's freezing into into one thing.
Right. So you what you don't want to have happen is you don't want to uh you don't you don't want so normally if you just use salt and ice right eventually as the salt st as the as it starts diluting down the temperature's gonna start rising right or conversely sometimes you know if the brine concentration increases because more salt dissolves into it your temperature can drop. So by using this kind of like you know these magic ratios you can have it act like a a pure substance tip typically the the specific uh the uh heat of fusion is not as great, I think. I'd have to look back, it's not as great as it would be in a pure water solution, but you still have that uh kind of constant temperature um and this is used commercially all the time for things like trucks, where they'll throw like large plates into a huge, you know, walk-in freezer for several days, then throw the plates into a truck or into like a you know an ice cream cooler case, and then they'll go around and they can keep it uh you know at perfect dipping temperature or storage temperature, whatever they want. I gotcha, I gotcha.
Okay, that makes a lot more sense. All right, all right, thank thanks a lot, Dave. All right, thank you. Hey Jack, I know we only have five minutes. You want you want to do the you want to whoever's paid for this episode, you want them to put it up real quick?
What's that? Oh, we got we we can keep going. We'll put that in later. Oh, I like that. We it's like to the live listeners to be like, nah, whatever, we'll put it in later.
Yeah. Uh by the way, Stas, you want to announce what's gonna happen with Amazon later? No, I don't really want to. Okay, because someone called in uh um Quinn DuPont. I was supposed to talk about uh searing techniques with the Sears on the radio show.
So uh searing techniques with the Searsol. Uh uh, I think you know, uh in reading the your views of people that are using it, I think the prime thing if you think that it's too slow, right? You want to get the Sears all much closer to the surface of uh what you're doing. Uh the exceptions are things things that are dry, like breads go from like kind of you know, uh totally blonde and they can start burning very quickly because there's not a lot of liquids to moderate it. So those things you have to be a little more careful with.
Uh and so typically breads I'll hold what you say this is. What was that, like two and a half inches, three inches? Mm-hmm. But about that far away. And and I'll move it around.
And you can actually, I mean, I I shouldn't say this. You can actually like hold things and like manipulate it. It's you know, it's very you don't have to kind of worry about it. But things like uh steaks, uh cheese also usually okay. I'll give you this because I'm gonna have to go to another another question.
Here's what I usually do. I get it down fairly close and I do tiny little circles, and I wait for uh to to start seeing sizzle or bubble or or movement, and then I'll move away from it and I'll start it in another zone. And by the time I start it getting bubbling in a second zone, I could start moving it back and forth like a welder, kind of creating a uh a puddle, not like a puddle, but like kind of creating a zone of searing, just like a welder can when you're moving a MIG welder or an arc welder back and forth by you know, melting the rod in and forming a puddle. And by doing that, you can keep a re relatively large area in kind of fine searing fashion. So uh, and it's a lot more effective than like hitting and stopping and you know, move you know, moving too quickly, for instance.
So uh the general rule of thumb is is that for something the size of like a rib steak, you're gonna want to do about a minute, uh minute, minute and a half per side. Uh cheese, typically I'll go really close till it starts bubbling, I'll pull back a little bit, zip around, and let's say I'm doing like five burgers, I'll hit one really hard go, hit the next one, and then like start moving around until I'm moving around, and I'm constantly hitting each one for you know, a couple of seconds until they're until they're all cooked. You're gonna get a better crust in terms of like tack, tack, tack, tack crust uh on something uh by hitting it a couple times and letting it rest a little bit in between. So if you're doing like three or four steaks, it's a good idea to kind of not do one all the way to the finish and then do the next one all the way to finish, but keep them all little, you know, you know, don't have them to stop entirely, but hit and then come back to you know the same one at at least uh twice. I find that's the kind of gonna give the best crush.
Yes? Mm-hmm. Yeah, all right. And I can give more, you know, uh more what's it called, if anyone uh wants to know. Okay.
Uh Philippe Lament wrote in, uh, your book is finally coming out, so stoked. Thank you. Uh I have a sticky question for you. I'm trying to make an alcoholic ice cream for a Paco Jet. I want to retain the raw alcohol taste.
I've been using cognac and calvados. Uh do you like Calvados or Calvados? How do you pronounce it? So I was like, I don't care, I don't drink that stuff. Do you like that stuff?
I don't think I've ever had it. No? You know the apple brandy? Oh, yeah. No.
Okay. Yeah. She's like, they don't make it in Italy or Switzerland, so I don't drink. I don't drink it. I don't drink it.
Uh so anyway. Um, do you have any suggestions on ratios or stabilizers I can use to have a nice consistency? Thank you. Uh okay. So what I would do is uh I would do what I always do when I want something to not I mean, obviously for those of you that like, I don't know, you're zoning out because I'm speaking too quickly or whatever.
The problem here is obviously you add too much liquor, you affect the texture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So uh you don't wanna like one solution, which is the wrong solution, and you can't do it in a pocket anyway, so it doesn't matter. I guess you could, is to freeze it much colder than you normally would in a pocket, but that's not gonna work because when alcoholic stuff melts out, it typically melts out in a weird way. So unlike typical sorbets, they have relatively nice melt profile over alcohol sorbets are like they just blast out on you, you know what I mean?
You've seen that happen, right? It's not not nice. So what I would do is cheat in the same way that I always cheat, and I would make a gel-an fluid gel with uh the alcohol. So I would make a portion of the sorbet base kind of normal and then create uh a gel-an fluid gel uh that and you want, I would say total sorbet. Total sorbet.
I would go uh in the ratio of like no more than half a percent. And that will never melt. So you can spin it and it'll stay like the texture of I mean it won't melt. It'll stay like the texture of uh just melted sorbet on the surface of the sorbet, but it'll hold its shape. It so in other words, like whatever it is, whatever your liquid base is in it, don't forget forget the salads because my recipe doesn't work on that.
But whatever the liquid base is, half a percent. Remember, you're gonna have to boil that and then you can temper stuff into it, let it chill into and then blend it into a fluid gel and then spin it in the Paco Jet, and that should work. And it'll be super creamy. You might have to up your flavors a little bit because half a percent of Calco Gel F, which is low acyl gel-an, is quite a lot and uh will mask the flavor somewhat, but it'll be smooth and creamy. Right?
Stas, you hate do you like things that are smooth and creamy? Yeah, but you don't like when people describe them as smooth and creamy. Come on, dude. All right, right, right. Uh okay, got a story in from uh Ross and Aruba.
Uh, and I wanted us to read this uh on the air. And I might have to read it quickly because you know I'm late. Um thanks for your help. I look forward to getting the two Sears all. I hope you better already have them.
He does. All right, good. Uh as a home cook, I've been coming, and by the way, I like home cook. Cook, cook, a lot of honor in cooking, cook, cook a cook. Uh, as a home cook, I've become enthralled with sous vide cooking uh in an ANOVA circulator, low temperature, I'm sure.
I'm amazed with its ease and convenience. Uh at last, chicken steaks and other meats cooked to desired level of doneness. Uh yes, that is a word, by the way. Uh, without fail. Uh, we've become so attached to sous vide cooking that we took the Anova circulator on a budget vacation to Aruba.
Uh bought a five dollar plastic bucket at a local grocery store, and we were cooking. We took zippies with us because we weren't sure about their availability. By the way, were they available? Could you get the Ziplocks? Uh and remember, people, don't buy the cheap Ziplocks because remember, Stas, we had that problem with the cheap Ziplocks?
Do not buy the freezer ones, the freezer ones. We were doing an event the other day and they were leaking and how put your angry face on. Alright. Anyway. Because we weren't sure about their availability.
We had steaks that uh could complete uh that could compete with those available at Aruba's high-end restaurants. Before we went to the beach or bar, we'd pop the meat in the uh in the bags and they'd be ready when we got back to our apartment. More importantly, if we want to do some more snorkeling or have another drink, we could. We didn't have to rush back and tend to the cooking, which is a good point. If you're snorkeling, by the way, I don't know about the safety of snorkeling and drinking.
I'm sure you're drinking responsibly while you're snorkeling. Uh but yes, uh definitely, you know, if you're under the water and that you know, looking around at all the awesome sea life and you lose track of time. A normal steak would be ruined, right? Right, yeah. Uh anyway, we didn't have to rush back to tend to the cooking.
The food stayed fine and didn't overcook in the circulator. Now we want to try the Sears all at home, not on vacation. Airline security folks may have qualms about such a device. Thank you for your help. Uh regards uh Ross.
Now listen, Ross, I bring the Sears all with me all the time, all the time on the airport. And occasionally people are like, What is this? And I go, um it is a cooking device. And they're like, Oh. But I unscrew it from the torch and I bring the torch separately, and they look they look at it a couple times look at it.
I also bring red hot pokers with me. I always bring those things, you can bring them in checked luggage, obviously, uh, but then they're gonna search your luggage. Uh uh, but I bring them in my carry-on because I never bring checked luggage to demos because I've had them not show up, and then you don't have a demo. So I plan demos around being able to bring stuff in my carry-on. Uh, so you can do it.
But uh good luck with the home use of the series. I'll let's know how it works. And then uh, how many minutes we got, Jack? Uh under five. Under five.
Okay. Uh all right, let me let me let me hit this quick. We what is next week Thanksgiving or the week after? Uh week after. Okay.
So Antoine, I'm gonna get your brining question on birds because I'm assuming that's for uh that's for Thanksgiving. I'm gonna get that next week, as well as Lee Lee Crawford's uh explanation of uh, by the way, wrote in about uh Julia Child and went back and watched her old black and white uh shows. That was from Jean. Uh G N or G-E-A-N-N-E. How do you say that?
GN? Gene? Anyways, from Jean, not from Lee. Anyway, I went back and watched that episode, which is one of the reasons I'm a little bit late because I'll do anything. Holy crap.
I you know, you forget what a badass Julia Child is. You know what I mean? You forget and then you watch it. She might have been a little drunk. I'm not sure.
I mean, I know that's like whatever, that's the uh stereo, you know, that's her like, you know, that's her shtick. Like she did that way before Hoda and Kathy Lee. You know what I'm saying? Uh or I know, maybe the same time as Dean Martin did the kind of like, you know, kind of a little bit tipsy thing. You know what I mean?
Uh, but such just is such an intense badass. Uh, I'm gonna go back and now now you've ruined me. I have to go back and uh and you know, read all those. So we'll get that. I'm gonna hit really quickly.
Um Daniel from San Jose wrote about it rose petals. Uh I've been making candy rose petals the classic way by coating the rose petals in a thin layer of egg white, dipping them in sugar, and then leaving them out to dry. My problem I was be able to finally chop them uh for use in a plated dessert, but the egg white sugar uh always flakes apart from the dried rose petal when it's chopped. Is there any way I can modify the prep so I can drop the candy rose petals without them flaking apart? Thanks.
You know, I've never tried it, but uh uh, you know, the problem is you don't want to heat them. That's the issue. Uh, you know, Johnny Zini uh used to do a thing where he would dip them in simple sh uh syrup and lay them out on a paper towel to drive after he dusted them with sugar. But I think the key is maybe let them half uh the egg white is gonna be a problem because the proteins are gonna are gonna, you know, kind of crunch up on you. But I think if you let them go demise, as they say, you know, like half dry and then chop them and then let them finish out after after that, if you can stop them from the problem is you they're gonna gum up.
So you have to sit there and individually chop each rose petal like into a you know you can't even do a shift knot because you can't roll it, it'll stick, right? I don't know. It's a problematic. But uh, I don't know. I I tried to think of a surefire whatever.
Maybe try Johnny's uh way instead of with the egg white, maybe it'll work. Now, um, as for other things I'm not gonna get to in time. Let me see. Uh Uriel and your milk powder. Uh he's talking about milk powder and my art for browning and meats.
I'm gonna cut that later. And also Alex's bear. We didn't like our bear, but I'm gonna research more about bear. If you have a young bear, then it's uh it's you're gonna be better off. Um but I'll I'll I'll look more into cooking bear.
The one time that we cooked bear, did you even taste it, Sas? No, I don't think I tasted the bear. It is it is terrible. Uh but uh again, uh young young one is young bear is uh good. Also, uh David with your lemon sorbet question, I'll catch you next time because it is uh it's not a problem.
I I can do it. And and I just have too many questions to answer, but I'm gonna I I I missed Ken uh I miss Ken Ken Ingber's uh uh would you call it a diatribe? All right, I think he would I think he would fairly call it a diatribe. So I'll read that really quickly and then we can discuss it later if people have uh more questions on it. Okay.
Um Dave and the hammer by extension, if not conspiracy, have been champions of low temperature and sous vide cooking. When you started this campaign on the radio, this was still pretty exotic, requiring either relatively expensive equipment or internet hacks that only a small cadre of enthusiasts would employ. That has changed. Not only because of the promotion of low temp and sous vide by uh us and others, but because Sous vide Supreme was successful in the mainstream, and the cost of an immersion circulator has come way down. I back the Nomi Coup, which works well.
I assume Ben uh this is harsh. I assume BAM's Venture, BAM is Weepop Soupy Pot, uh who, you know, one of the founders of uh I assume BAM's Venture will not survive because since they've started, uh poly science has come down in price, and both the Sansera and Anova are better rated and available for $200. By the way, there's a new NomiCoup coming out, so you know I I don't I don't, you know, I don't what's it called? I don't play favorites in the in the circulator market because I'm friends with a lot of these folks. But don't count anyone out yet.
Uh and he goes, bad news for BAM, but great news for consumers. Ouch. Uh an emergent circulator is now uh a little pricey for an impulse purchase, but clearly inexpensive enough to be a regular consumer product. But the information and education provided by cooking issues and the like are not as available as the products are. Take me as an example.
I am not a typical consumer. I listen uh to cooking issues. I have books by McGee and Keller on my night table. On your night table, I'm gonna tell tell Harold about that. Uh and do plenty of research.
Hell, I have even read a Hasset plan. Yet with all my attention and devotion, I understand the safety issues that are uh I understand the safety issues that are so widely mentioned very poorly. For various reasons, mostly in abundance of caution. I've almost invariably prepared low temperature meals by reaching pasteurization, and I use the quick chill method for storing. But even I don't really understand this.
If I am researching pasteurization temp and time, how could this be a big danger I keep hearing about? With conventional cooking, you leave food in pots while you eat, you leave it out on the counter to cool, and you put it in the fridge, all the while in the danger zone. If the contents of the low temp bag are pasteurized, why isn't that close to canning? Uh it's not close to canning. It's not, because you're not killing the spores.
But anyway, why isn't that close to canning giving me a much wide rider margin of safety than ordinary prepared food? It is, but you know, I'm not gonna have time to discuss it, but it is. Anyway, if the bag's contents are pasteurized, I would find it plausible to conclude that it would be perfectly safe to throw it in the fridge without a quick chill ice bath. This was asked by someone on the air quite a while ago. Dave, in my opinion, did not catch the drift of the question and did not answer it.
This came uh to a head with considering fish. Chef's deaths uh promoted a combination of salting in the danger zone and cooking for salmon that was declared safe. Uh and Chris Young did a challenge test on it, which is how they figured out it was safe. Fine for that specific chef step preparation, but you see plenty of examples of cooking fish well below 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Even the amusing hot water tap method.
I don't want to cook all fish to pasteurization all the time. In fact, I never do, me personally, Dave. Uh and I want to experiment with textures and the like. How safe is that? What about killing fish parasites?
Um, look it. And he says, it seems to me the availability of low-temp equipment is far outpacing consumer understanding and capability. If there's really a serious danger associated with low temperature and sous V cooking, as I've heard repeatedly, then I would say there'd be a whole lot of illness arising from this technique at home in the coming years. Best regards, Ken. Look, this is complicated, and part of the fact is that we're never going to come out and tell we I like no one is gonna come out and say with a relatively new thing, something that, you know, might get someone sick, even though we all know that people get sick from cooking all of the time.
So next time when I get back, I'm gonna just have Stas and I, maybe if she wants to, she won't, she doesn't want to uh we'll have just have like a discussion. Maybe we can get someone on. I don't know, let's see if we can get someone on. And we'll just hash out the food safety stuff, my opinion as a cook versus uh someone who's more, you know, into food safety, their opinion as a as a food safety expert. Because we're coming from different points of view.
We have different acceptable levels of risk, and the acceptable level of risk, typically in pasteurization levels, is one of supermarket morons walking home with a product uh in an abused situation, not as someone who's like cooking for their own uh use at home who has more control over their raw ingredients. So I think like there are there are different standards of risk, different standards of what we think the inputs into the cooking are, and those are leading to a lot of confusion. But maybe we can get someone on next week and hash it out. Yeah? Yeah.
Yeah? Uh nice. All right, we'll try and get them, and that'll be next week on the cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on heritage radio network.org. You can find all of our archived programs on our website or as podcasts in the iTunes Store by searching Heritage Radio Network.
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