Today's program is brought to you by Whole Foods Market, a dynamic leader in the quality food business, a mission driven company that aims to set the standards of excellence for food retailers. For more information, visit Whole Foods Market.com. Hey, hey, hey, I'm Jimmy Carboni from Beer 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. It's Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from Bushwig Brooklyn and the Heritage Radio Network, Roberta's Pizzeria. Happy New Year. And we got, as usual, Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing?
Good. And uh just Jack in the booth today. Just Jack. Wow. I didn't mean it like that, Jack.
I meant it like that. Just Jack. Um well, happy new year to everyone. Uh and uh this is the first time we've been together. Actually, I haven't seen you, Nastasia, since I saw you briefly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but you know, not really so uh we gotta talk about uh Jack, let's start with you. What do you what do you do for the uh food wise for the uh for all the various uh holidays? Food wise, well, let's see. I I can't really say anything great about the holiday meals I had, but I did have an awesome meal at North End Grill with my girlfriend and had some really delicious ramen.
Went to Hai Chen, the place by Toto. Yeah. That was really good. Toto the toilet manufacturer. Yeah.
They make ramen now too. Nice. Pretty good. Toto does make fine toilets though. Different people.
Yeah, different people. Toto, the world's finest toilet seats, in my estimation. Stasy That's true. Yeah, right? It's good stuff.
I think by the way, for those of you that don't know, Japanese toilets are by far and away the greatest toilets that I've ever used in my life. Light years ahead of uh of our American toilets. And uh, you know, as a farm to toilet devotee, I think we often in our cooking endeavors don't pay enough attention to the toilet aspect of it. And yeah, and I am and I've said this I think before on the air. You did.
This was your response to the slow food uh event we had. Right. But I'm personally ashamed as an American that we don't have native toilet seat technology that anywhere approaches what they have in Japan. It's just it's just uh an embarrassment. Speaking of Japan, I have to say I got a bottle of the Yamazaki scotch.
Oh, that is a delicious product. It's damn good, yeah. Delicious. Not much smoke, but I don't mind. It was really good.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Uh yeah, I love the Yamazaki. I love which one did you get? The twelve.
Yeah. The Habiki also all those. Do you know that those guys bought Jim Beam? Isn't that weird? Yeah.
Weird, right? Weird world is weird. What about you, Stas? What what about how's your uh holiday food stuff? It's friends and family, so they don't care about food.
Wow. Nothing spectacular. Like what do you have on the Christmas? Nastasi was in Connecticut for Christmas. What'd you have?
For Christmas. Uh I don't know. It was that on the Oh no, it was steak. Yeah. Overcoat.
Yeah. Uh yeah. Dr. Oh, I have to shout out. No, no, no.
It was actually okay. Yeah. Yeah. Uh where's your shout out, Jack? Greenpoint fish and lobster.
I forgot. I went and bought oysters and rainbow trout for my dad's Christmas Eve. And it was really good. Nice. How do you do the rainbow trout?
Um broiled. Yeah? Good? Yeah, it was it was pretty it was good. Hard to mess up.
It was a good good piece of fish. Jack, was it dry? It wasn't. It wasn't that dry. Look, trout is one of those things that um, like for instance, the taste of smoked trout, love.
Love, love taste of smoked trout. Always too dry. Even with the oil that's in it, whatever. And let me handle it with uh Peter. Where at Russian place?
Was that trout? I don't I don't know. I couldn't remember what it was. Was it dry? No, I don't think it was dry.
Smoked trout is is often dry, but you didn't smoke it, you just broiled it. I love trout. Trout's good. It's like one of the few kind of uh freshwatery kind of fishes that uh I enjoy. Jack, what's my least favorite freshwater fish?
Oh yeah. Yes. Salmon, right? No, tilap first of all, yeah, yeah. Yeah, first of all.
But you don't even eat that, so you can't. It's not like well, I it's like you know, it's the worst, as we all know. You know, I look forward my New Year's resolution is to stop other people from eating tilapia. There's gotta be some other like crap fish that they can grow in its own filth for almost nothing that tastes better, right? There's gotta be something.
Something. I don't know. Uh okay. Uh what did I have? Well, uh I had uh I bought two I bought an extremely large uh standing rib roast uh and I did my normal like uh took it off the bone, low tempted, chilled it, and then did a roast off.
And that was good. But then uh there was too many like everyone in my family was sick, like on both sides, everyone sick. So I cut it in half because there wasn't as many people eating it before I did the retherm on it, and then the second half I staked off into like ooh, I don't know, how big is this does? Is that like an inch and a half, inch and a half, somewhere around there, inch and a half between an inch and a half and two inches. I staked off the second half of the uh of the rib roast 'cause I got the full, you know, rib, right?
Uh and I actually you know what I have to say no matter what I like it better when it's staked off and seared each steak seared individually and then sliced the other way. I just think it's a lot better than eating the big slices of prime rib. As much as I loved the 70s and 80s, going to those crappy steakhouses and getting the big slice of prime rib, it's just always a little too cold in the center by the time you get to it. There's too much of that stuff. And then what are what are your thoughts on this?
Steak or staked off or or the whole prime rib? Staked off, I think. Steaked off? Definitely. Yeah, except for for sandwiches.
For sandwiches served cold, you want sta you want like the whole thing and then sliced very, very thinly. But you wouldn't really do that with a standing rib roast, because that's a freaking waste. You know what I'm saying? For a roast beef sandwich? Waste.
I don't know. Uh so anyway, but here's what one you like, Stas, because even though it's actually French, it's like close to Swiss. I guess maybe it could be Swiss too. You like roclettes? Mm-hmm.
So I did a I did a cheat, cheating and it's a good Sears all app, actually. I did a cheating uh roclet. But so you know how like roclette you got like the cornichon, right? And then you got the the boiled taters and whatever else you got, and then you melt the cheese on a broiler and then you scrape the crap off and then you put it on the stuff, right? Mm-hmm.
But do you really want the potatoes to be boiled? Or do you would you prefer if they're roasted? Rested, I guess. Yeah, right. So I so I took the I I did uh what could I get a hold of?
I got a hold of the Yukons, uh, you know, planked them out, then roasted those suckers in the oven, drained off all the extra oil because roclets got its own, and then in and then so I then I put those out in the dish, grated the rocklet, and don't get angry, but I grated the roclette, right? Shredded rather, and then uh here's the thing: instead of the corny shelly, ready for it? Ready for it? Cocktail onions. The vinegared cocktail onions, because onions and taters, good, but I wanted something crunchy and kind of vinegary to offset the fact that I was about to dump like a boatload of like super heavy, like you know, full fat cheese on top of that some gun.
So I did the roasted taters, then the uh the uh cocktail onions, rocklet, sears all, bueno, bueno, muy bueno. You could have done it in the oven if you didn't have a Sears all, but Cerez all just toasted up the cheese, ness and ness. I think that's about it. I don't think I did anything. Oh, New Year's I did the Zampone.
You know Zampone from from Modena, which is the whole pig's foot. Like uh you gouge out all the meat in the pig's foot, then you stuff it with the same sausage mix that you would have uh cotaquino in, and then uh did that with lentils. That was nice, and then on New Year's proper, right? I got first of all in the fine I shopped at the fine fair, which is my local kind of I don't know, I'm not I I've been shopping there for a long time, so I'm not gonna say anything negative about the fine fair people, but it ain't no fairway, it ain't no what is their motto again? Like no other market anyway.
It's like no other market, like no other market. That's you the story about like maybe 15 years ago when the fairway first moved it into uh West Harlem over there by the uh that's where my art studio used to be when I was in school, and more than 15 years ago, almost 18, 19 year anyway. So I'm there and there's this guy wandering around, literally wandering around fairway, going, not so special, not so special. Like like right on the border of homeless, that border right between homeless and not homeless. Not so special.
That's my memory of the homeless. Like uh at the time, like that was kind of a game-changing market. I'm like, well, dude, what does it take? Like, what does it take for you to think a market is special? They have like an indoor, like walk-in meat, and it wasn't like the the one I'm remembering like we have some kind of rough indoor refrigerated meat markets here in New York, like big apple down by you, rough, right?
Uh Western beef has that, right? Anyway, it's kind of awesome. So saying not so special, weird. Anyway, where I don't know where I was going with that. Oh, yeah.
So at my Fine Fair, I got the last bag of black-eyed peas in the whole place. The last, the very last one. To make what? You know what you Hopping John. You like Hopping John?
I don't know what that is. Oh my god. You take like your ham hocks or whatever, pork neck bones, whatever, smoked. Tarstrings. Uh yes.
Nastasia has the complete collection of Rudolph, the red nosed reindeer. The guys in the mail. The bumble. The bumble. Well, you have to buy all four.
So the four figurines are Santa Claus, uh Harmie, uh Rudolph, and just not happy in my work, I guess. That's well, you guys gotta know the show anyway. And uh Hermie Yukon Cornelius, yeah, and uh Santa, who's the weakest because he's such a jerk in that. Yeah, he really is. Yeah, until the end, right?
And then he's okay. He's like, No, Rudolph! You know what I mean? At the end, he's like fine, but like in the beginning, he's like, you know, he's like, you know, not really nice to the elves when they're singing to him. Mm-hmm.
You know. And then needs work. I have to go, right? Then he leaves, and then it's like he's just a jerk the whole time until the very end. Mm-hmm.
Anyway, but anyway, you buy all four figures, and then you send away and you get the bumble, which is the abominable snowman. And Stas has the entire entire bumble was shipping and handling though. Which is five. Yeah, it probably costs them two ninety-five to make, so they're breaking even. Mm-hmm.
Slick. Mm-hmm. Slick. Anyways. But wait, wait, we're talking oh, Hopping John.
So Hopping John is a traditional New Year's Day thing, and it's uh so you know, anyway, it's like ham hocks, I use pork neck bones, whatever. Uh, and you know, black eyed peas, and you you simmer that. I use I use both I use peppers, I use red and green peppers, and you just simmer the heck out of that, and then you you eat you know onions, obviously. I had a little garlic, I don't know if you're supposed to. I added a little thyme, I don't know if you're supposed to.
Um and just you know, simmer that until that's done, and the cornbread and the collard greens. That was good. Delicious. Collard greens, money, hop and John, I think also money or luck, and then the cornbread gold. New year, right?
That's why the day before with the Zampone, right? You supposed to the classic accompaniment for that in it for the Italian would be lentils. Lentils also, little coins. Mm-hmm. Money.
Money. Money. Okay. Uh I have a caller who's been patiently waiting. Well, what do you tell me?
Caller, you're on the air. Hey, I have a question for you about the spears all. Okay. Um, I have been loving mine so far. I've taken it camping.
I use it in my office, make like eggs and where do you live? A little bit of burnout on the screen. Okay. Where do you where do you where do you live, first of all? What's that?
Where do you live? Uh Jacksonville, Florida. Oh, nice. Okay. Um, and so I was wondering if it's possible to I mean, I know it'll avoid me warranty or whatever, but if I switch the metal screens out for like molybdenum mesh or something, if that will mitigate the um the bulging and burnout.
Okay, on the rear screen. Uh I don't know, either or. Well, the front screen, if the rear screen doesn't have a problem, the front screen's never gonna have a problem. Okay. I mean, that's that's just like that's like the truth.
There's a r I forget why. There is a reason that we don't use um molybdenum. I forget what it is, why we don't use it. Um I researched a a bunch of met I guess this is as good a time to say as we're looking into the possibility of the metal you want to use in in to plate. First of all, you don't want to make an entire screen out of uh one of the different metals because most of them don't have the strength to uh stand up to stuff, you know, things the the way that um you know, like a conthal or a or a 693 is going to.
But um, you know, what you're really looking to do is plate with a metal typically. And so what we're looking at is uh palladium. Palladium is what you want to use. Uh for its um it's high high but high temperature and um food safe because you know they they use like that series of metals in um in things like dental work. So you like you want something like that.
And so we're looking into um we're looking into the possibility of making uh palladium-coated rear screens uh that would be just a straight swap out in the Searsol. So, you know, if you happen to know a metal uh plater, they could plate your rear screen in palladium for you if you can't wait for us to do it. And if the rear screens coated in palladium, um then nothing else is ever gonna happen to it. It won't cook any different, obviously. But um anyway, so that's kind of like long and short what we're looking what we're looking at um doing is doing that, and then you know, we anticipate that you would never have to replace the um uh the rears.
And the fronts you would only have to replace if you smashed them into something or something like this. Now, uh you know, if you were plating one or two, you know, you might as well just plate the front and rear because why the heck not? It's gonna cost you I doubt they're gonna charge you any more for plating two screens than they do one, because I'm sure most of the cost is gonna be the setup time. But that's what I would that's what I would do. The crucial thing with the rear screens or the front and the rear screens is getting the spacing somewhat correct.
So if you were to get a rear screen out of uh you know some other uh mesh, but you didn't have the same kind of percentage of open area, or you didn't have you know the that fundamental kind of uh relationship correct, then it would um it would cause problems. I wouldn't worry about the warranty too much, you know what I mean. Right, okay. Is it making any sense? I forget why off the top of my head why I ruled out molybdenum.
I I mean because I looked into all of those. I forget why. Um but yeah, I mean the one to go for is uh palladium. Okay. Can you can you just get solid palladium screen somewhere, or do you have to get a plate at the same time?
Only if you're constructed out of money. I don't think any I don't I don't know of any I don't know of anyone that makes palladium wire. Uh I'm sure maybe somebody does, but um I don't know anyone that makes it, but it the cost would be intense. You know what I mean? Maybe again, not for one screen.
Like if you can get someone to send you a sample, then maybe fine, but like there's no way that I could of like there's no way that I could ever afford to make like solid plate like the palladium screen, that one screen would cost more, probably as much or more than the rest of the Sears all combined. You know what I'm saying? Um you know, as is, 693 is kind of spendy, and then it's like 693 costs a lot more than Conthal does, which is the which is the metal that the mo m most of the screens are made out of. Um yeah, and I you know I looked into just the per pound cost on palladium, and it's just bananas. And then furthermore, you'd have to get it probably have to get custom wire made and then a custom cloth woven out of it and then making the screens out of it.
So it's just really expensive. Whereas like plating, you you're you know, you're paying for the setup cost and then for the thickness of palladium that's coated onto your onto your screens, which is you know not that much. Okay. And palladium is very, very, very corrosion resistant. And uh very high, very high temperature and you know, uh rated, fairly easy.
Uh doesn't um you know I've done scratch tests on it and all this other stuff, and it's it's uh it it's it's pretty it's pretty good. Again, it doesn't change the cooking of it at all. It's just gonna protect that rear screen from um having too much deformation, and if the rear screen gets deformed too much, that's when you start seeing problems with your front screen. Okay, I gotcha, cool. All right.
That was that's the perfect answer. Thank you. All right, thank you. All right. Um what are we talking about for guitar strings?
Yeah, no, I think you're going into the questions. Oh, we were about to go into the questions? Yeah. Oh, nice. All right, cool.
Uh well, you know what? Today, it's not mainly questions, it's people giving us feedback on stuff that that you know, which I like. It's like new year feedback, which I appreciate. Um this in from uh James uh Nazaroff. Um, I think.
Um, hey Dave, uh Nastasia, and wow, insert names here. Well, it's just Jack today. Just Jack. Uh I just wanted to uh uh write a follow-up to my Twitter question last week on how to keep the bottom of a buffan cruit from getting soggy. Remember that?
He was doing the uh the the beef tenderloin wrapped in the in the in the pastry and then cooking in soggy bottoms, which is like soggy bottoms. You hate is that was that the name of George Clooney's group in that in that movie, Ho Brother, Where Art Thou? Soggy Bottoms. I don't know. I don't know.
He doesn't strike me as a Cohen Brothers kind of a. I don't know. Jack doesn't strike me as a Cohen Brothers. He's more of a Corn Brothers character, less of a Corn Brothers watcher. Yeah.
No, I'm a huge Cohn Brothers fan. Yeah? What were the name of those guys? Soggy Bottom Boys? Soggy Bottom Boys, yeah.
Yeah. Anyway. That wasn't my favorite. I like that movie a lot, but it's not my favorite. You didn't like all the like the you didn't like the allegory aspect of it.
You did. No, I really haven't done a film I don't like, but I really like a serious man. No one else loves that, but I like that. Which one's that one? Um there weren't too many known actors.
Just kind of uh, and there's no real plot. I guess that's why people didn't like it. When was it? It was probably like four years ago. Oh yeah.
See, that's I haven't like, you know, you gotta go way further back for me to know I've seen them all. You know what I'm saying? Like okay. Uh the challenges posed were thus. There was a six-hour drive ahead of us.
I was unable to bring equipment, namely my circulator. And the tenderloin to be cooked was at the final destination already. This is an interesting problem. Although, you can always actually bring your circulator. I've done it.
Although maybe it's maybe they don't want. Maybe like you maybe you're dealing with someone like my stepfather Gerard who's like, uh, the mishigash, what the heck? You know what I mean? Stas knows these people. Your family's like that, right?
They give you problems. Problems. All right, I understand that. Uh the home kitchen I was to be using had limited equipment and the absolute worst electric range ever. And by worst, I mean it's 40 years old, has hot spots all over the oven, and only two burners seem to be able to draw any power if the oven is on.
That does suck. That's crap. And I suppose they didn't have enough ventilation for you to just throw logs into the freaking oven and light them on fire. That would be sweet. Anyway, um, don't do that ever.
Anyway, uh, I have made the uh buffon croot for several Christmases running, each being uh each being progressively made from larger portions of tenderloin. Last year was two-thirds of the muscle, and this year was the whole dang thing. I added dang. Dan was me. Uh despite using the same method, the the larger the cut, it seemed the softer and wetter the bottom had become.
That's because that's interesting. I wonder why. I wonder who I. Um soft and wetter the bottom had become. I didn't want to go to the root of cheating uh that so many recipes for Wellington suggests, and adding a layer of crepes between the pastry and the other ingredients.
Your suggestion of a layer of rusk didn't sound overly appealing either. I wanted to keep the flavor simple and knew the range I was to use would fight against me as much as possible. I took your advice and pre-cooked the tenderloin entirely. With an uneven oven, a lack of circulator, or large pieces of cookware to brown on. I browned the tenderloin carefully under the broiler, then brought it up uh to 130 uh in the core in a 300 degree oven, let it rest for 15 minutes, and then chilled it for four hours.
Alright, that's good. That's a good pre-cook, right? Pre-cook. She'd done. Uh the mushrooms and shallots were puree raw, which is interesting, and cooked long and slow in butta.
The rationale being uh that cooked dry as possible meant little moisture could escape and exacerbate the the uh sogginess problem. I cooked under the brink of being dry and crumbly. My culinary school instructors would have a kitten over that. Uh despite not wanting to use rusks, I ran with your idea of an absorbent. I this is an interesting idea here.
You might like this because you like uh Italian. Well, you don't really like Italian. It's northern Italian though. I don't like them. The be like the food.
Mm-hmm. And the place. Yeah. Um, although Nils would come back and say that this is actually a Swedish thing. Anyway.
Uh I blitzed some dry porcini mushrooms into powder. Right. Uh when it came time to wrap the pastry around the tenderloin, I spread out the duck cells on the pastry, then lightly sprinkled the porcini powder on top of the duck cells, layering uh extra on the part of the pastry that would be the bottom. So I was using the the using that as like uh the sponge, the porcini powder sponge. Interesting idea.
Uh the wrapped tenderloin was decorated, heavily vented, egg washed and chilled for two hours. The result turned out fabulous. It was baked at 450 for 10 minutes and then uh turned down to 325 until the core was reheated up to 120. While the hot spots that led to some overbrowning uh uh hot spots of the oven led to some overbrowning on the top. This I also believe caused the uneven leavening uh and or minor tearing of the pastry near the venting.
The result was otherwise spot on. No juices escaped beyond the mushrooms, and the pastry was crisp all the way around, only some minor butter leakage was to be found. Butter leakage. That's butter leakage. Stas is making her butter leakage face.
Uh on the sheet pan afterwards, the tenderloin was succulent and juicy, and the duck cells were moistened by any escaping juices, thus leaving the pastry dry on the bottom. Thanks again, James. See, I think the key there, excellent work. Uh excellent work. I think the key there is the pre-cook on it.
You're getting rid of a lot of those juices that would be flowing out and getting into the pastry. And it's not like it's on the initial cook is when you're losing most of those juices into your pastry anyway. And it's not like those juices are making the meat any juicier, they're just making your pastry soggier. So I think that's a good way to go. Uh and then we got a next question in.
Hello, uh, New York. I finally got an emergency. This is a question, not a comment, I think. No. You want the comments first and then the question?
You don't care. Are you yeah. Are you doing the joke one too? No. No.
I'm offended that you don't think I read them and you're like, Alright, so we I got a question. Someone sent someone who You saw it over the break, too. I I know. Someone Look. Someone who is challenged in the arts of writing emails requesting things in English, requested something from Booker and Dax the Bar.
I'm not gonna read it. What if they hear and then like they hear that we're insulting what they wrote? But it was the craziest request for an email ever. Although a delicious sounding dinner, I might say. You don't think it'd be good?
No. No? Nope. You don't want like a side of one in the no. No.
Alright. It's not like I'm putting it this way. It's not like the one that I tweeted out. It's not it's not spaghetti and potatoes, like the one that I got tweeted out that my son was uh. Ow.
A starch and a meat. Starch meat. But that meat would never go with that starch. No. Nope.
Whatever. Whatever. I I can't tell you guys what we're talking about because I don't want to insult anyone. But whatever. Crazy email.
Crazy email. Crazy. Anyway. Okay. I finally got an immersion circulator.
I'm now in my messing around stage. Messing around stage. That sounds like a weird like kind of relationship time. My messing around stage. I'm in my messing around stage.
I bought a sirloin tip and dice it into fairly large one and a half to two inch cubes. I cooked everything for about eight hours and the meat became a dot dot dot dense. Dense. Not dry or tough, but certainly not melt in your mouth tender. I'm wondering since sirloin is comparatively lean cut, will it ever become as tender as, say, um rip steak or filet?
Now listen. Listen. Filet is only tender because it's got no connective tissue in it, right? Uh filet, you're if you cooked filet for a long time. I'm saying this right now, so everybody knows.
If you cook a fillet for a long time, low temp, what happens is it turns to paste, turns to like mush because it has no connective tissue to hold it together, and it has nothing to render out and get and get gelatinous, right? Um to me, like you know, the the one that can tenderize a little bit is like a rib steak you can tenderize by long cooking, or anything else that has more connective tissue in it where the underlying meat itself is still tender. So skirt steak, you can cook for um you know, like 24 hours, and it'll just get more and more and more tender, right? Uh what is it? What's the other one I'm looking at?
Uh no, no, you want to cook skirt steak for 24 hours, like eight hours. Stupid, stupid, what am I stupid? What I meant to say is you take like a short rib and you cook it for like 24 hours, it'll have the texture of skirt skirt steak, and if you cook it for another 24 hours after that, then it'll start having the texture of steak. So it's it's it's all about the breakdown of uh connective tissue there. But you would never typically want to do any longer cooking on like a tenderloin.
In fact, I never pasteurize tenderloins because I don't like to cook them longer than about 45 uh minutes to an hour or something like that. Anyway, um okay. At the moment I can't recall the mouthfeel of conventionally braised sirloin beef stew vexing. Also, Vexing. I like that.
I like anything with an X in it. That's why Dax is named Dax. Three letters with an X. That's how we chose his name. Anyway.
And we didn't want Rex, because Rex, my wife says sounds like a dog, even though that's my great grandpa's name. Do you think it sounds like a dog? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah? What's the long of Rex?
It's not. Oh. That's why I liked it, because I didn't want something that was uh shorter for something else. And Rex was the only one I could think of that's because it means king. It's short for nothing.
In what language? Rex? Latin. Oh. Yeah.
Anyway. Uh I guess it does sound like I guess the guys at Night of the Museum 3 thought it sounded like a dog because that's what they named. Uh Tyrannosaurus Rex. Yeah. Rex and what a jerk I am.
What a moron. There's a name Rexford. Rexford? Yeah. Or Rexler.
Isn't that like a college? What's Rexford as a person's name? Seems like it, yeah. It can be a first name. Well, kudos to all you Rexfords out there.
You don't sound doesn't sound like a dog to me. I like the name. Anyways. This is why you should never tell other people the names that you're thinking of having for your kids. You ever notice?
Like, if if if if someone's pregnant that you know, don't ask them what they're thinking of naming their kid. Because then if they tell you, you're gonna ruin it. Your face. Your face. Well, not just your face.
Like, I'll make a wise crack. I'll like literally ruin it. You know what I mean? And if if once a kid is named and someone says something like wisecrack about the name, then you just want to kill that person. You punch them in the face.
You're like, wait, you making fun of my kid's name? You're you should die, right? But before you've had the kid, it puts little seeds of doubt. They're like, I knew a guy named that once. Oh, I hated that freaking guy, right?
And like you know people that you hate. I know some names that you will never choose should you have kids. Yeah, right? So then but you don't want anyone else giving you that information either. You know what I'm saying?
Whatever. Whatever. Okay. Uh okay, here we go. Also, since I was basically messing around, there are likely flaws in my method.
Here is what uh here's what was done to the uh sirloin. Okay, this is Michael from Toronto saying this, by the way. Uh, I think. Yes. Um salted and seared the cubes.
First of all, on a long cook, you're cooking for eight hours. A lot of the density is gonna be due to the fact that you pre salted the cubes. If you salt those cubes, especially something that small, the salt's gonna get good penetration as you're cooking. If you're salting those things out, they're going to become dense. There's just no way around it.
Alright. So that's your first thing you need to do is not salt those dang uh cubes beforehand, salt them afterwards. Then allowed to cool slightly before bagging with lightly cooked, salted and sliced onions, carrots, and leeks. Okay, now listen. When you're putting um cooked like mirapoix or when you're putting mirepoix or veg in um in the in the thing with it, you want to cook it all the way through till it's done because two reasons.
One, you're gonna leach water out of it when you cook if you cook it high enough. And secondly, you're never going to get any more cooking texture-wise on those vegetables until they hit about 82 to you know, between 82 and 85 uh Celsius, right? So they're never like I've put uh carrots in a bag as a demo when I was teaching back when I used to teach this stuff. I put carrots in a bag and let them circulate for a week uh and at like you know in in the in the high 50s or or low sixties Celsius, and they're just they're still crunchy when you take them out of the bag. So they're not gonna cook anymore.
So you want to take uh your veg in a in a meat in meat in bag situation. You want to take them all the way to done uh before you put them in the bag. Okay. Um then did the zippy ziplock 63C 63 Celsius for five hours. That's another like thing right there.
I would not have gone for that high temp for five hours because what you're doing there is you're raising you're you're basically cooking all of the protein to uh to 60 to 63. There's no point then in because then for another one hour you did 56 and then uh 58 for two hours, and then prends you write it clearly messing around with temps. Once you've cooked at 63 for five hours, you're never gonna undo what happened there at uh at 63. So there's no point in going back uh low. If you want something that tastes like a traditional, you don't want it like rare, uh you know, 62, 60, somewhere in there, 60 to 62 is good.
Um, you know, a lot of people like their kind of short ribby stuff, somewhere between 57 and 60, uh, and sometimes 62. Anything over that, and it's really getting into the kind of like I used to say denser, kind of chewier uh ranges. Um so on something like a sirline, I wouldn't go that high. I would stay somewhere in the area of like 57. Highest I'd go is like 60, but uh on a sirline.
I mean, on a short riby kind of a thing, people sometimes like it a little higher because they like to take like it to taste a little more traditional. But and and also remember when you're doing low temp, even if you were to cook it for a long, long time, it's not gonna shred out like a traditional braise will. It'll stay uh intact, anyways. Uh and then post sear and butter. Will it ever be a tender stew?
Well, I think you're looking the a couple of the problems you're looking at is the pre-salt on it. I would omit the salt until uh until the end for that kind of cooking. I think 63 is a little bit too high. Um, and if the meat would be tender as soon as it's cooked through, if the sirline you have, it means tip, I guess. I haven't done a lot of cooking with that uh particular cut.
Uh but if it's if it's gonna be tender right from the get-go, then just keep it. I would keep it low, like in the in the high 50s for a long time. Uh, and then that will do any tenderization, but won't cause it to be dense. But it'll end up being more like uh it'll be good. That's what I would do.
Anyway. Um, um also, thanks for your tips about carbonation. I put together a five-pound rig at home now because of you, and I can fulfill my daily seltzer quota, life-changing. Uh, and a slightly related follow-up, I added roasted turnips to my stew, uh, as I was afraid they might somehow overpower the stew with their cruci cruciferous, you know, cruciform vegetables. Uh, notes, i.e., farti smells.
Can we just say this? Farty smells. Uh, sulfur farty smells. Uh, if left in a bag with everything else, is that even a possibility? I don't know.
You know, I've never done uh I've never done turnips in the bag. You ever done turnips in the bag anyone? No, I was like, no. Well, you have Mark uh done turnips in the bag? No.
Do you like mashed do you like turnips? Yeah. Yeah? I bet you know, I bet Rutabages would go farty in a bag. I don't think turnips are gonna go.
I don't think so. You like haggis, neeps and tatties? I haven't had it, yeah. You haven't had haggis? Oh my god, haggis is so delicious.
We should just do, you know what we should do? Like, if we ever get in a situation where we have time again and we can do normal cook like cooking stuff like for a living. I don't really I don't get to cook so much for a living anymore. It's like my cooking now is like I'm back to being a basically a private cook. Um, because you know, I'm focusing on bar and the booker and axe and stuff like that.
We should do like just like those like kind of weird presentation. Remember when we did that haggis back at the FCI? I don't think I was with you. You weren't? We did, I did a haggis, I did a high-end haggis.
Good, good. And a high-end uh scrapple. I love all those things. Anyways. Um so the answer there is I don't know.
Is that even a possibility? Also, are low temp mushrooms good? I cook those separately as well. Well, again, as I said before, mushrooms are not going to uh cook at those temperatures, but uh mushrooms that are infused in a bag for a long period of time with flavors and then sautéed afterwards, delicious. Done that many, many times.
Okay. You want to take a break, Jack? Uh well. Yeah, right? Take a break?
Yeah. You want to take a quick break? Nah, I don't think. Nah. Alright.
Dear Dave, Anastasia, Jack, and White. But why didn't want to come today, so he doesn't like us anymore. Is that true, Jack? He hates us now? No, he's home listening.
Oh, okay. I like that. That's wrong. A few weeks ago, I wrote in to ask your advice on cooking bear. I followed your suggestions and I'm happy to report that bear is in fact delicious.
Well, it gotta be better than the one we had, right? Remember how awful that was? Tasted like you were chewing on a on a nail. Tasted like iron supplements. Yeah.
I hate iron supplements. Uh I've never had to take iron supplements, but like I told you, I when Dax had to take them when he was a little baby, like I ate them to see what I was feeding him, and they're terrible. You ever had the iron supplements? Yeah. Terrible.
Anyway. We had two pieces, one with some ribs still attached to it and a fair bit of fat, and one that was very lean, possibly a tenderloin or whatever the ursine equivalent is. After various uh lengths in the circulator, uh simplest turned out to be best for the tenderloin, and since the other piece was much smaller, I decided to treat it the same way. I pre-seared both pieces and popped them in the circulator for about four to five hours, let them cool down a bit, and gave them the final sear and sliced them up. I made a jus out of this scraps and bones, seasoned with a little soy and fish sauce, uh, and thickened with uh 0.25% Xanthan gum.
Delicious. The lean piece was medium tender, very slightly gamey in a good way. The other piece was a bit chewy, but still very tasty. I'm hoping to get my hands on some more next year so I can experiment further. If I can get some stewing meat out of it, I can live the dream and make beer braised bear or brown butter basted bear.
Good, right? The question is how old was the bear? That's what I was told. I was told that the bear that we ate was too old by a hunter who had experienced, I guess, young bear and old bear, and said that that my problem was that we had old bear. Um he also wants this is Alex Matrano, wants to know uh more about like you know, what I think's important to pay attention to in the food in the food system.
I don't have time to do that now. We gotta do that some other time. Some other time. Okay. Uh Cooking Issues team.
Uh love the show, been listening for a long time, learned a ton. Recently, I've started carbonating drinks, and finally I have a question to send in. I've built a CO2. This is uh this is from John, by the way. Um recently I started carbonating drinks, have a question that want to send in.
I built a CO2 sink set up for carbonating, but I'm getting disappointing results. Oh, sad. I hate disappointing carbonation. Lord knows I hate disappointing carbonation. Uh I've been forced, uh, I've been forced carbonating cold water, roughly 32 Fahrenheit at about 45 to 48 PSI.
And when I open the seal, it foams like crazy and goes flat within a minute or two. This occurs even if I let it settle for some time. I don't have a proper attachment, like the liquid bread carbonator yet. I'm using a Schrader valve. Schrader valves are like the valves on like bicycle tires and car tires, right?
And there's a famous old website where a guy builds uh carbonator caps out of Schrader valves. It's like the first ever like carbonate in bottle site is out there since way before anyone was thinking about anything. I can't remember the guy's site right now, but it's old and venerable uh as websites go. Uh because of this, my technique is basically gas in, disconnect, shake about 20 seconds, and repeat until water stops absorbing CO2. About five cycles or so.
Here is the mistake you were making right off the bat. Here is a mistake you're making. You need to keep the pressure on that thing while you're shaking it. Five cycles of like hit and shake is never gonna be enough, and you're not venting out the the regular gas before you get rid of it. What you need, I mean, what you need to do is you need to get rid of all of the air in there first.
You can either do that by doing a full carbonation uh session, opening it, letting it spray off, or you can do it by squeezing out the bottle first, right? That is like first off, you need to get rid of the air. I don't see in your in your um in your list here where you're not uh getting the where you're getting the air out of it because if you don't have air if you don't get rid of the air that's in there beforehand uh and carbonate with pure CO2 in the head space um you're always going to get massive amounts of foaming when you open it because that you're gonna have small amounts of gas that are inside of the inside of there and they're gonna uh inflate form nucleation sites for for CO2 because it's basically unsoluble and bang you're gonna get you're gonna lose all your CO2 right from the get go. Also um 45 PSI 45 to 48 is quite high for water. So you're gonna get a lot of foam out.
If your water is actually at around 32 you're gonna uh 40 is m like more than sufficient psi you're also gonna want to maybe throw an ice cube chip or two in so that you're not warming up as you're as you're shaking. Just a little bit even though it adds nucleation sites it tends to keep it because as you carbonate you're going to be increasing the temperature of the water because as CO2 dissolves in the the water uh gets uh warmed um so like I think that's your main that's your main uh thing uh with the Schrader you know I can't I obviously I can't see your setup uh but if you you know I'm picturing it there I have had situations where I had to shake while I used my hands to hold valves down in place and it's possible it sucks but it's possible to do so what I would do is make sure you get all of the air out beforehand keep it cold uh whether or not your water is filtered, it shouldn't make that much of a difference if you can't see anything in the water, it's probably good enough from a um from a carbonation standpoint in terms of clarity. The one thing that is true is if it's very highly mineralized, you won't it won't taste as carbonated. Okay. Um but anyways, squeeze the air out first, first thing to do.
Then if you can't squeeze the air out, then do a full carbonation run and vent it, let it foam up and then carbonate it again. Also, when you're shaking, shake while you're applying gas because uh it takes a good bit of shaking while under gas pressure, not just the pressure from the head space, but the full pressure of the tank onto it to get a good carbonation results, and that should uh work. Also, if you have time, could you describe your sink pedal setup? I know you use TNS brass, but I remember hearing on an older show that you had rigged it so you could continue to use the sink normally. Did you install a latch for this or something that could bypass the pedals entirely?
Okay, no, here's the problem. So foot pedals, uh, everyone should have foot pedals uh in their sink. It's just the truth. Um they're awesome because why would I want to touch a faucet when uh you know, or need a hand to touch a faucet? Why would you do that?
And you end up wasting less water if like when you're washing veg, if you just hit the pedal when you want to wash the veg. They're great, right? The problem is is that there are very few sinks that are designed to use um the uh regular top valves and uh and also a foot pedal valve. So what you need to do is buy a sink, buy a faucet setup where the input to the spout, right, uh comes isn't integrated with the two uh the two mixing valves that you have up top. There's plenty of setups like this.
And then what you do is you just install a T valve in between the uh gooseneck and um the uh two like hot and cold water mixing valves, right? And then you also have your uh foot valves, foot pedal valves, and you wi those things together and put them into the input, the T input into uh your um into your main sink. And make sure you put check valves on everything so you don't have any backflow. The best way to do this is if you buy a faucet that has a uh setup for a sprayer right uh it depends on how it's on how it's laid out but the one that I have which is also from TNS brass I can undo uh where the sprayer is and interpose a T you know a uh a plumbing T in between where the sprayer comes out and where the valve for that particular sprayer is so you have to make sure that you don't have some of the ones like um some of the sprayers if you press the sprayer it automatically uh turns off the the flow to the um to the to the spout you can't use that kind but if you have one where you can run both at the same time you interpose a T there which is where I've done it and then put the input directly into that and you're good to go make sense okay uh how are we doing? That's the end.
Uh all right next time we will talk about Bryce's results using Novo Shape in his uh in his uh Steep Fruit uh and uh we'll talk more about series shout out to Co Miles for supporting us during the fundraising drive I love Co Miles Co Miles engineer down in uh down in Houston. He's the man he is the man co miles here's to you happy new year cooking issues thanks for listening to this program on heritageradio network dot 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 anytime at info at heritageradio network dot org. Heritage Radio Network is a 501c3 nonprofit. To donate and become a member, visit our website today.
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