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Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Harnell, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn on the Heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from roughly 12 to roughly 1245. Joined as usual in the studio with Nastasia of the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Stas? Good.
Yeah? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And uh got Jack in the in the booth. How are you doing?
Good. Ooh. Ooh. You hear that? Yeah.
What's up? Reverb Jack. That's my new nickname, Reverb Jack. Reverb Jack? Well, you switch between Reverb Jack and Jackie Molecules.
Speaking of which, uh, we had a suggestion in uh about uh the hammer. Uh and uh Peg Peggy from Australia. You know, we have some we have some listeners in Australia, which uh which I enjoy. We've never been. Have you ever been to us?
Would you like to go? No. You don't want to go to Australia? Why not? Far.
What is it? And I hate their accent now. What are you, Booker? So far for an English speaking country. Don't want to go.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa, what? Wait, you only want to travel for a far distance if they don't speak English? I just don't have any interest in Australia. I really don't.
What about New Zealand? I would go there before, but I s no. Don't have any interest. I I need to kind of know what's poisoning you against the a whole continent. The accent.
Oh my god. Well, that uh fits in uh listen, people. This is just like you now you're getting a little taste of what it's actually like to be with Nastasia Lopez. So uh Peggy from Australia uh wrote in, she had a question, but she also says that uh we need a new ringtone for you, Stars. And it's uh it's called uh I just don't like it.
And the the artist, it's old, uh, is uh is a drag queen who goes by the name of uh Pauline uh pants down, but making fun of an extreme right wing person named Paul uh Pauline Hansen, right? Uh who was uh had a political party called uh or still there called one nation, and among other things, they believed in uh in like not giving the Aborigines any rights and like basically turning Australia into a big like you know Anglo-dominated univers of no immigration, all this other stuff. And I and uh so one of the lines from this thing is my language has been murdered. My language has been murdered. So very, very uh apropos.
Jack, do you have that? Can we can we hear the I don't like it, chorus? Yep. All right, what do we got? Here we go.
Me now, it means that I don't like it. When you've turned my voice about, I don't like it. When you vote one nation out, my language has been murdered. My language has been murdered. My shopping trolley murdered.
My groceries are just gone. I don't like it. When you've turned my voice about, I don't like it. When you vote one nation out, my language has been murdered. My language has been murdered.
My shopping trolley murdered. My groceries are just gone. One, two, three, called. One, two, three, seven, eight races. I don't like shopping.
Well, you know what? You can't I can't win with this. It's like egg cup, probably. We don't like shopping trolley. You also do we do you not like British people because they call their luggage rollies?
Ugh. And jumpers and all that. What's a jumper? A sweater. Why is it a jumper?
I don't know. It's like the opposite. You like pop into a sweater. You don't jump into a sweaty pot. Anyway, so uh, but that sounds like it was actually her voice being used, whereas there's other other versions where it's uh it's uh him singing as her.
So anyway, do you think could that be like it, yeah? That could be your theme song? Yeah, I like it. I don't like it. Yeah.
You can't hear the Australian accent too hard in it. Dang. Well, it's like look. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I know our accent sucks too.
Okay, okay, okay. Listen. It's the worst, actually. What? Yeah.
What? Yeah. What? Yeah. What?
Yeah. Listen. Uh Jack, back me up because you you are you are a musical sort, right? Yeah. Uh nine times out of ten, when no matter what language, uh, no matter what accent you have, when you sing, you pretty much sing in neutral American.
So British, that's true. Right. So if you're gonna say what's the most music Wait, unless you're like uh Green Day or some of these American bands that then put on some other weird accents. Yeah, but what is the Green Day accent doesn't even exist. Like that's not even a real accent, right?
I don't know what that is. They try, yeah. Yeah, but I'm saying, so in other words, like the the language of music, which is you know, melodious, is like a kind of neutral American thing. The exam the the counterexamples I actually like a lot, like Billy Bragg, who's could not sound less American, because of course he's not. You like that stuff, Jack?
You into the old uh Billy Bragg? Yeah, good stuff, right? How about like the Michael McDonald accent? Well, how does that go? That's I I'm not gonna do it.
Wait, maybe you do the guy from the doobies? No, the the guy the you know the piano playing, singing soulful. That's the guy from the doobies. Oh, maybe yeah, maybe he was in the doobies. Oh, I can't do the doob the doobie because the doobie you have to like you can't like you can't outdoobie the doobies.
You know what I mean? Even George Clinton uh gave a shout out to the doobie brothers. You know what I mean? Anyway. Uh my language has been murdered.
Anyway, so should we should we get to that? What? I said thank you very much. So should we uh now that you've insulted her entire country and said you have no desire to go there? I didn't insult her.
Oh I uh look, I didn't insult you. I just insulted your whole country. That's all. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. You live there, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you were born there, like it's part of your heritage and your culture and everything. But you know, it's not you I don't like, it's your whole country. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, it's not right.
I can't believe you don't want to go. What about you, Jack? I with all due respect to everybody there, and I I'm with the stars on this one. What the hell? On my list of places it would be kind of.
I mean, uh, convince me otherwise, I guess. I don't know. I mean, you know, it's like how many marsupials do we have? Like one or two? Like a possum?
Like the worst marsupial. We have like the worst marsupials. What do you want to do with them? What about platypus? You don't like the platypus?
What? What like what's the point? You don't what's the point of anything? What do you think about it? What are you gonna do with that?
I'm going to Temple Torah Thailand, and you're like, I'm gonna go see marsupials. Like what? Temple tour of Thailand? They've uh look, I'm with you. You go off the coast of New Caledonia, very rich uh in uh in strange conifers and strange plants in general.
Look, all I'm saying is is like, you know, since when are you interested in freaking temples? No, I'm saying what sounds uh the distances, you know, the big kangaroos hopping on the outback? You don't want to see the outback out no I don't have any interest none some of the oldest living things on earth are out there great barrier reef don't care the Great Barrier Reef doesn't get a that sounds good all right thank you like you know Hawaii like for the for waves and stuff yeah no I'm not you're not catching catching a wave and sitting on top of the freaking world styles let's be honest oh jeez is that a call we got to save me from from like my my hateful crew here yes uh caller you are on the air okay um this is uh Jasper calling you from Sweden Hey how you doing good how are you all right so you're having problems locating uh which chiller to use right yeah exactly yeah so uh for those of you that uh follow it's been taking a while so Jasper's putting together a roto vap set up in Sweden and he's looking at uh Bukey who are uh you know manufacturers of the roto vaps and they also make uh a lot of uh chillers and the question is how cold uh does it does it need to go so my old uh work when I back before I was using liquid nitrogen in my rotovap I was using a poly science chiller the poly science chiller made it down to about minus twenty degrees uh Celsius which is about uh chilling power very low so it's so what happens is is that what you do is is you you ha have a relatively large reservoir of either the glycol or alcohol right and you get the whole reservoir down to uh you know minus twenty and change and then uh during the distillation process the um the condenser heats up but uh so like at the beginning so like if you do your standard uh thing where you're putting a a liter of spirits into your into your thing plus whatever uh you've added so like a liter of spirits plus let's say like 200 grams of like peppers or herbs whatever right so uh usually off of that liter um if I start with 40% alcohol uh I'm gonna end up with roughly somewhere between 600 mils and 700 mils of distillate so that those are usually my parameters that's usually where I'm working okay when I'm doing alcoholic distillations so when I'm running um uh the the poly science chiller I'll start out my distillation at like minus twenty or so and by the time I'm done uh I'm I'm much higher temperature like minus four minus five right which is where the where it can maintain forever because that's where it's that's where the chilling power is equal to the um uh equal to the heating power of my uh thing right okay yep so the thing is is that early in the distillation when you get the much more fugitive stuff right the the stuff that boils uh more easily and it's harder to capture more important to have those uh low low temperatures at the beginning of the run versus at the end of the run and so um I never minded so much that the temperature would rise over the course of the run. Now you don't want it ridiculously underpowered or having a very very small reservoir because then the temperature changes are immediate right so you know the one that I was using, the reservoir was a was a lot. It was like uh I want to say like seven liters maybe of s uh uh seven, eight liters of uh stuff in the reservoir.
And so, you know, you I had a good bit of um a good bit of stuff that was down at temperature to start my my distillation run with. Now also remember that when you are um you know, when I was doing lower temperature uh or I should say higher temperature distillation using a chiller, I also had the uh I was pumping product uh out of my column as it was going. So as it was heating up, I didn't really have a lot of danger of uh the stuff that was in the receiver flask revolatilizing and going up through my stack and out through the uh vacuum fan. So you can um you can get around that problem either by chilling your receiver flask, right, which works, um or putting a pump onto uh that onto that spherical joint at the bottom where the receiver is, or a third option that I never did was just install uh like a small dry ice uh trap in between. So for those of you that don't know what I'm talking about, so that we're talking about a big distillation rig that's hooked up to a vacuum pump.
And typically uh one of the issues on these vacuum pumps is they get uh uh if you if you start pumping vapor through the vacuum pump that is with the product, you're losing flavor, one, and two, you're dead, you know, you're degrading the vacuum level because it can't really pump uh you know, vapor other than dry air. It can't, it doesn't want stuff recondensing in. So there's a little bottle called a wolf bottle. And uh the wolf bottle is a something that goes in between your vacuum controller and your um and and and your your condenser column. And what you could do there is you can just put instead of like a standard wolf bottle, you can basically make a little like super cold trap.
So you could put like a little bit of dry ice or a little bit of uh LN in there, and then you have a secondary trap to recondense any stuff that's going to go through, and then right at the end of the run, you can just because it's a small trap, it's not your main trap, you can pour your liquid into the into the uh wolf bottle to to thaw out anything that you've got in. So those are the options that you can do. But uh so uh you wrote in to me on Twitter, I think like last night or something, uh but I haven't had a chance to try to talk to Tony yet, that uh Tony Kinellaro, our good friend uh over uh 69 Colebrook Row and Zetter Townhouse and the drink factory in um in the UK, who's uh has a couple roto vaps and does it uses a chiller that only gets down to what'd you say, minus what? Uh plus ten. Yeah.
So it surprised me a little bit that uh it was that higher. Uh that's not that's just not true. I just don't believe that. I just don't believe it at all. But we're and neither do I, neither do I.
Yeah, I'll uh I'll I'll I got I I got that the fact uh data from Bu C themselves. Yeah, I don't know. I mean look look, uh what I would do is I would uh if you find uh the drink factor the drink factory, um I you know I was gonna tweet them out later and then CCU on it, or you can CC me and the drink factory on a tweet and just say, hey, look, we're looking to get a uh chiller and Bukey lied to us and said you had this, and they'll tell you exactly what setup they're running. I don't believe because Tony likes to run his distillations even lower than I do, right? So you know I'm running my you know, look, it's a little bit of a lie, right?
So like I'm running my water bath at 50 uh Celsius, and he's typically running or used to be back when I was working with him on the roto vaps, he was running his uh bath at like 40 Celsius. Now as you know, the temperature of the water bath and a distillation rig is not the same thing as the temperature the distillation is taking place at because you know the the harder the harder you're distilling, you know, uh the greater the temperature difference between the um between the water bath and the actual product. And I and I don't know what kind of glass he uses, but I only use fairly thick walled plastic coated glass. And so I I have a I have one of the one of the higher temperature deltas between my bath and the product. So, you know, my standard operating procedure is to always place the back of my hand um because the front of my hand is too callous.
That's why I use the back of my hand to test everything's dyes. Did you know that? I always use the back because yeah, because I can't sense temperature with my fingertips anymore just because you know, whatever. So I use the back of my hand on the uh on the neck of the rotating uh distillation flask to judge the true temperature of the vapor because that equalizes out pretty much where the vapor is. So that can give you an idea of what your um kind of where where you're distilling.
So like I say, it's hard to judge, but I know that he likes to run his stuff down at like 40. So if he's running his stuff at 40, like even like the way that Bukey wants you to do it, like they want at least 20 degrees uh what do they want? No, they want forty, right? I think they want forty. They have 40 in difference, yeah.
Yeah, and so like that wouldn't even work because it would need to go to even to zero based on uh on his. And if it only went to ten, you could even though Europeans tend to have a hatred of ice machines compared to Americans, like you could just use a freaking ice bath at that point. And so it wouldn't make sense. Do you know what I mean? Doesn't make sense to me, 10 degrees Celsius.
Doesn't make any sense to me at all. No, I I I it doesn't make for me either. But however, d do you have like a number? Because I I understand everything you say, but what I can't figure out is like a chilling power at minus 20 C. Yeah, like a number for that, because I don't have a good feeling for that.
It's like 300 watts okay, or is it 200 watts okay or I mean it it yeah, so it's quite the loss in in price if you go from uh 200 to 400 watts at minus 20 for instance. So uh makes a hell of a difference. Right. So I would look at so let's say you have like a I don't really I don't remember anymore, but let's say you have like an eight-liter bath, right? And I would look at what its performance is at like minus five Celsius, and I would kind of m maximize that number, and then I would um and then I would just see I don't think mine had two hundred watts at I don't think mine had two hundred watts at minus twenty.
I think it was like a hundred and f it's been a many, many, many years. I could try to go look up the old uh numbers on my poly science, but you know, its sweet spot was down around minus five or minus six uh Celsius. That's where the majority of its power was. And then um and then it just you know the power went down. Uh you know, the as you know, listen, people, like any time you reduce the uh temperature on a refrigeration unit like this, you reduce the number of actual watts of cooling power it has, even though you're not reducing the usage of power that the machine has, it just becomes less efficient.
So um so yeah, so I would bet that like 200 watts at minus 20 is fine, as long as you have like you know a corresponding, you know, big wallop of power when you get down to minus five, and then you get kind of a natural gradation as you go. Because remember, towards the end of your distillation, you're pumping mostly water, and you don't really want freeze-up on your uh on your coils. You want it to drip down into the receiver. Yep, yeah. But I'll t I'll like either tweet me and s and uh also tweet the drink factory, or I'll try to remember later on today to see what kind of unit they use, because I know that you know they're running them day in and day out, and they use only stuff that you can get in Europe, and I guarantee you that they do not use something that uh only gets down to uh to ten.
Plus ten. Yeah, no, it just doesn't make any sense. No matter what Bukey says. Remember, Bukey makes great equipment, they're not cooks. You know, you know, it's no no, no.
Yeah, it's that simple. Okay, um they thank you very much for your um information. All right. Uh I will make a tweet and the CCU on that one. Cool um Tony.
All right, we'll pick we'll figure it out. Thanks a lot. All righty cool. All right. Bye-bye.
Right. All right, now back to uh back to Peggy's uh question in Aust in Australia. And by the way, uh she I don't what what's this emotic? What's this what what's this emoticon? Happy face.
But it's not a happy face, it's like a happy rising sun. I think it's a new G uh Gmail happy face. Yeah. So like I don't know how to use uh emoticon, so I literally just write out what the emoticon is. And my favorite is smiling pile of poo.
Smiling pile of poo. And have we mentioned on s on we've mentioned on air how much I am upset that Siri won't come out and just say smiling pile of poo unless you text it to me, right? Jack, have we talked about that? No. Really?
So it turns out that uh if like let's say Booker or Dax sends me a bunch of emoticons, or let's say Stas does it because you know she has the same kind of mentality that they do, sends me an emoticon, and I do as well. Come on, I'm gonna be honest. Like that says uh that's that smiling pile of poo, right? Smiling pile of poo. And then you say please read me Siri, please read me Nastasia's uh, you know, uh text.
And it'll go, Natasha Lopez wrote smiling pile of poo, smiling pile of poo, smiling pile of poop. But if you just go Siri, say smiling pile of poo, she won't do it. Is that right? It's weird. Isn't don't don't we all isn't it a machine?
It's not a human, right? Well she'll read you what you get, but she will not be told what to that's the equivalent of someone who like sings NWA lyrics and drops N bombs like they're f like it's raining and doesn't like and and oh but won't say it. Oh I won't say it if you just ask me to say it but if I'm quoting an NWA lyric, well then I can just say it left and right which is not true. It's not true. Either you can say it or you can't say it.
Well then she shouldn't say your text. She should be like Dave I won't repeat what Nastasia says because she has foul language right? Or like some sort of like substitution like you do when you're quoting rap songs. Jack you substitute when you quote rap songs. Yeah of course you go with the silence on the word yeah oh really you blank yourself out do you know what who is like remember when um nine inch nails used to do their radio edit stuff and they would literally just blank out the freaking song during the during the curses I was like wow that was strong because because like up until that point most radio edits I knew they would just insert a different word you know I mean or record a separate version but like the idea he's like I'm not gonna change my song man.
You're just gonna get silenced during that partner for as much of a jerk as he probably was like he made some baller moves yeah oh yeah yeah. Alright. Anyway, back to this question. I don't know how how do I get into it? What is wrong with me?
Do I need to take some sort of medication stuff? I guess you do. We talked about this before. Yeah. Therapy.
Uh okay. Uh Peggy again writes in. I love my little A Nova circulator, but like some others who have written in too, I have big issues with the landfill aspect of low temperature cooking. I use Ziploc bags as much as possible, but they have limited reuse before they fail. By the way, Dave, uh great job on nailing down S.
C. Johnson about cooking in their bags. That was a long time ago. Remember that? When I finally was like, hey, can I cook in the freaking bags I can, right?
They're like, yes, you can. Uh using rolls of thick bagging material and a domestic sealer, I can start with a stupidly long bag length uh length, uh, and for each use sacrifice only an inch or so from one sealed edge. Uh more environmentally friendly as well as frugal, but washing all these used greasy bags. Do you like greasy or greasy? I like greasy.
I know. Me too. Yeah, greasy. Uh bags of either sort is just nasty. Which is true.
Uh pondering reusable options. Is there a preferably non toxic, and this is where this rising sun smiley like uh although the ro I'm not gonna get into it. Uh high temperature melting wax that could be used uh as a coating for meats. Assuming it was possible to formulate such a wax, would it be theoretically able to transfer heat well enough? Uh it would have to uh uh it would be great to have a coatingslash skin that I could peel off, re melt and reuse.
From what you know about materials, is this even a possibility? Or am I just dreaming? Is it just me or would anyone else use something like this? I also kind of like the idea of peeling back a coating to reveal the magic, like with some cheeses. Oh, my you remember the baby bells?
Mm-hmm. They're still around. Yeah, you know, Booker loves those things and he likes to peel the wax and he mutilates I'm sure you also a wax mutilator. I don't uh eat those. Even when you're a kid?
What about like any wax coating on a cheese? Jack? I'm a wa I'm a wax mutilator. You're a wax mutilator? Big time.
Oh, yeah. Because it's fun. Oh, yeah. Do you like Stas? Do you like those wax candies, like those wax lips?
You know, I like all those wax bottles that you won't let me eat. Nickel nips? Yeah. No, I was buying those for my freaking brother. That's why I didn't have a few minutes.
No, you wouldn't let me eat them in the car. What? In your car. You said your car would get dirty. I did not.
Anyone who knows me know that's a ridiculous thing to say. Anyone who's met me or the fact that like I carry my lab. No, no. First of all, there's no dust from a nickel nip. It's a liquid wax phenomenon.
I just probably knew that you were gonna crumple up the wax and like you know what? No, no, no. I'll ask who's with us. No one piper. No.
No, no, no. This is crap. First of all, I should record everything. You should. And in full context, no like weird editing.
Nastasia is the queen of weird editing. I don't know how to edit. You know, no, I mean like Nastasia, like well, Nastasia will like do like a big Socratic thing where she drags you through a half an hour of arguments and like with like like a billion conditions, and then like, okay, in the event that, you know, I was on an island and an airplane and and blah blah blah, and it ends up with you cutting your foot off and eating it. And then she's like, that's that's what but then when you talk to someone else, be like, Dave wants to cut off his foot and eat it. No, I don't.
It's just like if you give me a whole bunch of things that lead up to it, would I cut off my foot and eat it if that's what's never the one that we talk about? Please. Family show. Um okay. So back to the question.
Um coating. Wax coating. So, like, you know, I'm thinking something like uh a botarga. It look, obviously it would be possible to get a a wax coating that would melt at a high enough temperature, but I think you're gonna have problems. Remember, if it melts at that high temperature, uh, then you'd have to get it up to that temperature to dip the uh meat into.
And if it was that hot, when you were dipping the meat into it, it would start steaming the um it would start steaming the the moisture that was in the meat. So I think you'd have uh I think you'd have problems basically. When now, there could be um, for instance, like a a self-sealing wax or something like this that you could just press onto the wax to to do it. I think in the future, what's gonna happen isn't necessarily although I do actually kind of like the idea that you have a steak and then you peel back the wax and then kind of sear it. You don't like that idea, Stu?
I kinda like that idea. What color is it in your mind? The wax red. Red? Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking not black. I hate powdered black wax everywhere, like from like uh like or like I actually hate the powdered wax from like the uh liquor bottles. I hate the powdered wax everywhere because it when it gets old it gets dry and brittle, right?
Don't you hate that? And then it's like crumpling everywhere, and you're like, why is this happening to me? But um in my mind it's that weird translucent beeswax color. Oh. Okay.
Yeah. Like a like a Matthew Barney sculpture. Anyway, um, I think the future here, uh, Peggy, is that someone's going to uh do um like a uh a bioplastics bag that can be composted. I mean that's what's gonna happen. Right now, it's uh somewhat difficult uh for a number of reasons because they don't last long and uh hard processing and stuff like this.
But someone's gonna make up a uh a bio um compostable bag that uh works and then we just won't feel bad about it. What do you think, Styles? Would you people wouldn't feel bad about it if it was like corn plastic, right? Right. Yeah.
What do you think, Jack? Sugar plastic. Sorry, yeah. Sugar sugar plastic. Is that your new band?
Sugar plastic. Uh but there's all there's people who make those resealable silicone things, but just the idea of reusing those bags and not getting them 100% clean, the thought of like my dishwasher stuff full of bags with like greasy crap, and then when you don't put rinse aid in your dishwasher and then it elites those little particles. Don't you hate that? Hate it, hate, hate. Okay.
Uh and she writes in a quick response to why anyone want to eat tomato blossoms. Remember we had someone saying that and be like, You're getting weird tomatoes. Peggy brings up a good point here. If you want to increase the size of tomatoes, you can thin out the blossoms or baby tomatoes, leaving the others to grow larger than they would have done without uh with the competition. Well, flowers probably wouldn't kill you unless you ate lots.
Have you ever tasted them? Not a flavor I'd go looking for again. I suspect the person inquiring about their edibility has not yet tried one. Garden Betty had a post on uh what she could find out about tomato plant toxicity, but I was unable to access her sources. Long story short, she now uses some tomato leaf uh in her tomato sauce as a seasoning.
Uh and she thanks us for uh the show. Uh by the way, with um tomato, remember back have I ever done the distillation of tomato leaves for you? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that.
That's really good. I love that. So, like for any of you who have a roto valve out there and can do uh like low temperature distillation, at the end of the season, after you've gotten all your tomatoes in, but you still have greenery, take the greenery and turn it into a distillate and that stuff My greenery has small spiders on it. Well, we told that story on the air, right? How like you shipped these parasites from California into your New York garden and obliterated everyone's tomatoes, and now people because you don't control the garden, you can't have tomatoes not planted for a year, and no one there understands that like in order to kill this California pest, they need to let the land lie fallow for a couple of years because like every plant that you have has this like agricultural nightmare.
Like who knows, you know? I don't know. Maybe it'll spread. Maybe you've ruined the entire eastern seaboard. Who knows?
Yeah. Anyway, should we take a break, Jack? Yeah. Uh yes. All right, coming back with cooking issues.
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Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Eat them to save them. So before we get back to the show, Dave, I don't know if you saw, but a little boy came up to the glass while me and Stas were doing our pre-show show that nobody gets to hear every week. Pre-show show.
Yep. It's called Issues. Yeah, we just complained. That's how you that's how you uh that's how you fluff the crowd up with the Yeah, because that's the opening act, yeah, exactly. Yeah, nice.
And this little boy came up to the uh the glass window here and held up a napkin that said, We love hammer. Yeah. And it said, and Jack and Dave too, in small letters. Right. Yeah.
But it was mostly about Hammer. Nice. Yeah. Well, that's that's typical. Nastasia, as much as she like, you know what?
I'm like, it's not that I'm a jerk. I'm just real. That's all. You know what I mean? Like, really just wants uh acceptance, you know?
Yes. Yeah, yeah. And wants to be accepted for who she is. That is true. Yeah.
Uh hey, we got uh we got uh friend of the program uh uh curious Claire writing in again. And that's yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hi, Dave. When is raw too raw?
When is raw too raw? And so now that's my favorite question we ever got. Yeah, so now I have the uh I have that Buster Ry Buster Rhymes is now going through my head. Yeah. Everything we make we make raw.
Uh right, isn't that what he says? I make sure everything remains raw. Raw. That's it. Can we can we call that up because I love it so much?
We don't have the rights. We don't know the rights to that. Even for like playing like it's like we're like it's a discussion. It's like educational. It's educational.
It's like a news program talking about Busta Rhymes. Who you know how you know why Buster Rhymes disappoints me? Why? Right. Because, like, you know, when you're young, like being like uh a homophobe, I could be like, you're young and just ignorant, but he's been around the world like a long time, and he's maintained his kind of homophobic stance.
Yeah, which is, you know. Not gonna get into it. Uh when is raw too too raw? Uh I am scared of meat that is too red because I feel like I'm eating a live animal. At what point does it go from mucow to dinner?
Curious Claire. Okay. So what we have here is a psychological question, right? Because and I cooked steak last night perfectly. But then she used the sears on the cut pieces and like obliterated it.
Well, how thick did you cut the pieces? It was skirt steak, so thin. Yeah. Okay. So for instance, you can like okay, so the color of a meat is what people use to judge how done it is, right?
But the color of the meat can lie. Uh, you know, quite clearly it can lie, because uh the uh myoglobin, which is what's providing the color, the primarily what's providing the color in the in the meat, um, the color that it takes on when it's cooked is dependent not just on the temperature that it's reached, but the environment in which it reaches that temperature. So the oxygenation state of it, also the rate at which it's heated, right? So you can take a piece of meat that's cooked uh low temperature, right? You can overcook it, right?
And then when you cut it and you let it sit for a while, undenatured myoglobin will get oxygen hit on it, and boom, it'll it's what we call a cherrying up, and it'll just turn this kind of bright, kind of like freaky cherry color. You've seen it happen, right, Styles? And this can flip people out, right? Which is why, in general, when you're doing a sliced uh when you're doing a low temperature meat that's cooked for a long time, um, especially one that tends to have a lighter background, like so you know, like uh I don't know. I don't know.
But like i what I'll do is is you slice it right beforehand so it doesn't have a chance to cherry up and then people don't notice, or you can throw it, flash it under a broiler, which is in essence what Claire did with the Searzol to just kind of take that color off. Now you can do it fast enough with a cerezol that you don't actually overcook the meat if you're quick. I'm sure she hammered the hell out of it because she's worried about it. But the uh no, it's salt, you know. Uh but um the point is is that um we kind of, you know, the old saw, we taste with with our eyes first.
So like I can I can cook a chicken, like I say, fully through, but it has uh that persistent pinking at the bones if it cooks slowly enough, and then people won't eat it even if they know it's cooked. So the where things actually become cooked is a it can be measured based on like what's happening with the proteins. Where it looks cooked depends on a number of variables that are very hard to control. So, you know, you could shut your eyes. You know what I mean?
Like this is like uh like when I uh w when you when I remember when I was doing eggs for uh like a long time ago when you first started doing low temperature eggs, right? They if you're not used to a low temperature egg that's let's say 62 degrees, which is like the perfect yolk uh texture and that uh for like uh um eggs benedict, right? And it had but it has like kind of a it has kind of a weird look on the white if you're not used to it, right? So for normal folk, we would pass them through simmering water, right? But really it's just a visual thing because once you coat that egg with Hollanday sauce, ain't nobody complaining.
You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. So uh a lot of this stuff is really really just uh visual. Now if you're talking on a textural basis when's it done that has a lot to do uh that does have a lot to do with temperature but also time. So if what you actually want is something that's firmer and No no it's not that it's like am I eating an animal like looking at an animal it's all bloody oh it's bloody it's blood.
It's not really blood but I know it's not really blood it's like you know when you put the steak on the plate and juices run out she's like duh blood get it off well even a high temperature cooked meat's gonna have those juices unl you know unless you let it rest. So you let it rest and if by God if I catch any of you cooking meat until the juices quote unquote run clear I will find you like that's overcooking by so much you know what I mean like what a nightmare. Whoever invented that like is a hater of food it's like my you know grandma and grandpa used to have that like that like onion soup mix on top of the microwave like piece of beef you ever have that? No but I know what you're talking about is it dead yet is it dead listen Claire Claire Claire the animal has died once don't kill it again. That's all I'm gonna say you know dang.
Yes. Alright did that did I even answer the question? I hope so. I don't know Jack you're back there. Did I answer the question?
I don't know. Yeah I think so. When is raw too raw look it like I say it's it it's a matter it's a matter of taste. But I will say uh cooks need to take into account the reaction of their uh diners, right? So on a skirt steak, how'd you cook it, Studs?
Just in a pan. Yeah, but like describe it. Oh, I salted it and then I put oil in the pan, got it hot, threw it in, flipped it. Okay, a skirt steak is like what, like a centimeter, centimeter and a half? How many, how many, how long on each side?
I don't know, three minutes each side, four minutes each side. Oh, so you cook you cooked it. I cooked it. Yeah. So what was happening there is you cooked it, and uh you probably didn't let it rest before you sliced it.
No, I let it rest. And then I sliced it, yeah. Really? For like five minutes, not long. Yeah, well, you don't want it to congeal and get nasty.
And then I cut it and there was the middle was perfect. But just seeing red. Chesare perfect or perfect perfect. Perfect perfect. Cesare Casella, uh uh, you know, one of our good friends, the man likes raw inside meat, char on the outside.
But he uses good meat, so it's fine. Me too, that's how I like it. Yeah, what are you a black and you're a black and blue man? Pittsburgh? Exactly.
All right. Did I tell you what I was talking to someone? I was like, uh, so she's like, I'm f no offense to people from Pittsburgh. I was like, I was like, uh hey Pittsburgh, I hear Pittsburgh's a good town. You ever been there, Jack?
I've never been there. I've been there. No, but I want to go. One of the managers here at Robert is opened a place in Pittsburgh. Really?
Anyway, so she goes, Yeah, Pittsburgh's great if you like racists. I'm like, wow. Yikes. I did not know that. I think she was just in a bad mood.
I don't know. I don't know. Someone tested to call me and tell me what it's like in Pittsburgh. But I heard it's a nice town. Did I say her?
What am I from? St. Louis or something? Anyway. Uh we got another question in from uh BJD.
Uh longtime listener, several time emailer. Want to try my modern hand at uh palette de pork a la bière. What's palette meaning? Anyway, like plate, right? I don't know.
Yeah. Of pork with beer. Uh I've made it following Bourdain's instructions in the Les Al cookbook. It was delicious, which probably means do not mess with success. Uh I've circulated shoulders before smoking in the past.
That worked well. I was wondering about circulating a pork shoulder dish that is traditionally braised. Would it end up uh being a final product with only the sauce uh reminding the diner of the original? Uh would it present more like steak? Am I a fool?
I have ten weeks of paternity leave with a four-month-old and a three-year-old. Hey, good luck. Uh it will be a battle. I'm hoping to dial in some recipe ideas, Sunday suppers. Listen, my memory of being with a four-month-old and a three-year-old, because I had that exact thing, is like, you know, I'm not planning my cooking time.
I'm like trying to plan when I can go pee. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? It's like when can I just like or a shower? Imagine.
Like taking a shower, you're like, oh, a shower. Anyway, uh, I'm hoping to dial in some recipe ideas, uh, Sunday suppers with my circulator and my new uh rock espresso maker. Uh while uh is it rock? Is that d does anyone know? Is that the one with the two levers?
Or is that some new one that I don't know, electronic? I gotta look it up. I didn't look it up beforehand. Uh because I was testing some new equipment. By the way, I shouldn't say the reason I might not be as prepared today as I normally am is because I was testing some new equipment that we'll be talking about soon that uh Booker and Dax is working on.
Yes? Yes, does Stas Nastasia is the sole determiner of when we discuss the specifics of what we're doing uh on air. That's it's I would discuss it now. Really? Yeah.
I know. Well, I mean, like don't we have to see what we need to protect or no? No. No, we'll see. Let me finish the question here.
Um any tips on things to try with either my circulator or uh R-O-K. It says espresso in quotes. I gotta look up what it look up what it is, Stas. R-O-W. R-O-K, capital R, capital O, capital K.
I want to master whole muscle meats uh that can get us through a week. Uh I'll stop type type typing and listening in two days. Uh very respectfully, BJD. Okay. So uh congratulations on uh the uh four-month old.
Um in my uh experience, which is oh yeah, it is the one with the lever. Uh in my experience, I haven't had it, I haven't used that thing for infusion, so uh I don't know, but I hear it's a very nice machine for making espresso, so you're gonna need it. So I would keep pounding out those double shots so that you can uh you know have your brain uh working. Um I have extensive experience in doing braises uh in both the bag and in um in tradition. If you want something to taste like a traditional braise, a braise, right, then you have to extremely over reduce the sauce that you're using because the um there's no reduction inside of the bag, right?
So what happens is is you make a sauce that you think is good, uh, and you're like, oh, that's gonna be good. You use a stock, you make it rich. Then you put your uh seared piece of meat into the bag, and then uh as it cooks, the uh moisture leaves the meat, right? Uh and as the moisture leaves the meat, it waters down uh the sauce. The sauce is no longer the perfect flavor level, it's been watered down, and so now when you pull out, instead of tasting like a braise, the w the example I always use is it tastes like a pot à pho.
It's good, but it's not necessarily what you're looking for. It's more of a poached uh or cooked in broth kind of a situation rather than a brazing phenomenon. If you want something to taste braised, you have to go extremely reduced on uh the sauces and stocks that you put in, like ping-pong ball kind of uh reduction. The other thing is in a braise, any veg that you put in, you should pre-cook the veg because the veg will not cook in uh in the bag. So typically what I'll do is I'll sweat out all of the stuff, uh pour in the uh stock, reduce or whatever, you know, whatever sauce, reduce it down until once it's hard, once it's done, it's like ping-pong ball uh consistency of gelatinousness.
Then I'll sear the meats, throw them in and and and go to it. But now you're looking at having a much kind of a longer uh procedure. Now, even if you did that, what happens is is that let's take uh you could take a pork shoulder, or you could take a short rib, or you can take a um you could take like a cock of vin, any like pick any braise that you want. Um what tends to happen is if you were to do a side-by-side tasting between a traditionally done one and a one that's done in a circulator, most people, if you present them as being a traditional braise, will choose the traditional one. And the reason is that it is uh just a uh things tend to taste uh more meaty, uh right?
They taste more like people traditionally want them. If you bend your expectations and you tell people that what they're because for instance, in a traditional braise on a piece of beef, uh that beef will get that kind of stringy braised texture, and and the the gelatin will melt out of the meat and get everywhere, and so you'll have that kind of gooey, you like that stuff, right? That stick to it, like stick to your ribs, gooey kind of like texture thing that people like. Whereas low temp, it's or with pork, it's the same thing. Low temp, the meat is gonna retain its shape, it's gonna retain a lot more of its moisture, it's gonna have a different overall taste and texture.
And in if you don't prime people for it, then they tend to prefer the kind of traditional one, even though I think that the low temperature one is like a delicious product in its own right. And so that can be an issue. On things like confie or other long things, I'll tend to when I want to do it in a bag, because bags can be convenient, right? So you cook it in a bag, then you can save it and it doesn't degrade over time, so you can you know have it over the course of a week. But when I'm doing things like that, I'll typically do them at traditional temperatures so that I have that kind of traditional taste and texture.
Uh and so you can do that with a bag. Another thing you can do, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but if you want to do these long because I don't even have one, crock pot. You ever have crock pot? And when I was a kid. Oh, I'm about to go.
So listen, Stas thinks I'm gonna talk to her off air, and we'll come back. I have some more questions I didn't get to. I'll get to them uh next week, I hope. You know, unless I need to do another ketchup thing. But uh maybe next week we'll talk about uh our our project that we're working on.
Yeah. Well, this has been That's a cliffhanger, huh? Oh yeah. Cliff hanging cooking issues. Thanks for listening to this program on Heritage Radio Network.org.
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