Today's program has been brought to you by Kane Vineyard and Winery, a Napa Valley winery committed to respecting the soil and dedicated to the creation of three Cabernet blends. For more information, visit Kane5.com. Hey, hey, 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. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues, coming to you live on the Heritage Radio Network from Robert's Pizzeria in Bushwig, Brooklyn every Tuesday from eh, you know, like 12 or so, you know. No big deal. No big deal, like 1250, something like that. Call in your questions to 718497-2128.
That's 7184972128. Join as usual with Nastasia of the Hammer. Lopez, how are you doing? Good. Yeah?
And Jack Jackie Molecules in the booth. I'm here, full of molecules. Oh, yeah, as are we all. As are we all. You know, uh, again, not not to uh belabor the point too much, but that was like the whole point of uh the flavor exhibit at the museum.
We're all just big sacks of molecules. You know what I mean? Peter couldn't come today. He's going to Ethiopia tomorrow. Oh, Peter Kim, the uh guy running the food museum now, headed off to Ethiopia where his wife lives.
Hopefully he'll bring us back some more delicious Ethiopian coffee and uh spices and whatnot. You know what he should bring back this time? He should bring back are you allowed to bring grains back? I don't know. Like uncooked grains?
Tef. I'll look. I want some good Teff. Because uh now, you know, I can I can tef it up strong now. I got the wet grinder, I can go crazy.
And speaking of uh wet grinder, uh, you did did you taste the mustard that uh Johnny brought last week? It's good, right? Uh so we used that at our uh at the demo at the uh at MoFad. Uh and big shout out to uh Mark Bystrom, who's the beverage director of the Underground Food Collective, who made that mustard, and here's where it ties back in, to in a wet grinder. Grinds it for like three days in a wet grinder to get the texture right.
And the wet grinder is my new old favorite piece of equipment that I just got a new one of. And a question if we get to it, you never know. A question will come up later in the in the podcast about uh wet grinders and whatnot. So, uh anything uh good or bad happening? No.
How was your how was your Monday night uh bachelor celebrations? Yeah, so it's like a bin of banner week for you. You had your Super Bowl. Hey now. You m and you you made ch Jack, check this out.
Yeah. Mark Ladner, uh huh, right, made the chili at uh Nastasia's uh Super Bowl party. Here are two facts. One he has never made chili before. Really?
He has never made chili before. Never. And fact two, he put cumin in it, which as we all know, as anyone who you know, anyone who loves life knows that you need cumin in in your chili, or what is it, Stuzz? Or it's a beef tomato stew. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So Mark put cumin in it, and here's here's the fun fact of the day. Nastasia enjoyed it. It's good. Wow.
Mm-hmm. I feel like You think you were biased. No, I didn't know. Doesn't matter. Oh, please.
Please. Nastasia, biased towards just like, oh, my boyfriend made it so it's good. No, my boyfriend made it so it's bad. It has to be like three times the biggest big thing. So there's more of a chance it would, yeah, it would have gone the other way.
I see what you're saying. Oh, yeah. Right. You kidding me? So you don't generally like um chili, huh?
I love chili. Oh, okay. I do. I don't like human. Yeah.
If I put it in myself, I would hate the chili. Not seeing it. Yeah, but you know, the other thing is. Why does one hate human? Yeah, I don't smell like a taxi driver.
What the hell kind of crazy racist bull crap is that? My God. Like one taxi driver I had long ago. Smells like that. People, are you getting a little taste of what I have to deal with on a daily basis?
How does that raise it? Sometimes there's a smell memory that you just smell memory in my butt. Alright, listen. Here's the other thing is that but back on the other, you know, honestly, like Nastasia would have loved nothing better than to have hated the chili because it should have been like big famous chef. Can't even cook chili.
Can't even cook chili, right? You would have loved that. Love. Love. Love.
Love. Alright. Uh got some questions. Uh this one goes out first because I want I want the uh the chat room to uh to weigh in on this guy. Uh Jarvis Milwaukee writes in, uh, hey Dave and Stas and Jackie Molecules.
In a month and a half, uh, my new wife to be and I wait, new wife to be, right, just got engaged. New wife to be. Not new wife, new wife to be. The moment where you're able to, what do you say? Break off the marriage.
Well, uh, look, you know, it's it's I've said it like many, many times over many, many years. The worst thing in the world is fiance, right? That's like an open target. That's like it's like deer season. You know what I mean?
It's like because look, here's the thing, right? One of them's, you know, popped the question, bought the uh ring or whatever, the other one said yes, right? Now you're in this moment, you're about to make this big, huge, you know, hopefully permanent commitment, but you haven't done it yet, right? You haven't walked down the aisle yet. So anyone, if they had the second thoughts, that's when the second thoughts, that's when they're they're creeping in.
That's why, you know, I mean, I won't go into the actual personal people that I know this has happened to, but that's why, you know, if you're gonna make the move, that's when you make the move. Not that I I'm I don't think you should make a move on someone who is engaged. Never. I would never say that. That's a terrible thing to say.
But what I'm saying is is you're at that moment where you're about to dive in the pool. So you either get off the diving board or you dive in the pool. You pivot one way, you pivot the other, but it's like a momentous kind of uh uh decision. You know, they're second guessing. I'm not saying you're second guessing, Jarvis, or your wife to be is second guessing.
I'm not saying about you personally. I'm not still come on now. Jack, you know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah, yeah. It's like because look, not everyone is meant to be together, and but they still say yes.
My feeling about this, and people this is not a marriage show. It could be could be. That's Jack and my dream. Yeah, it's like this is this is a marriage show. It's like a personal show.
A personal show. You have the show issues with Nastasia and Jack. Oh, okay. Just regular issues. Here's here's a little fun fact for you.
Most people I know who have uh gotten married and then gotten a divorce. Everybody said they knew at the time it was the wrong thing to do. They knew when they were walking down the aisle that it was a freaking mistake. What are you supposed to do at that moment? Well, that's what I'm telling you.
Turn around. Don't get to that moment. Let me tell you, here's the thing, right? This is balls. Look, this is no.
This is the this is what is terrible about the whole McGillo, the wedding McGilla, right? Is that there's thousands of like you start spending money, there's thousands of dollars. All your friends are happy, your family's happy, everyone's happy. You're probably even happy. But you have this nagging thing in your head, and the people who break up.
What is that nagging thing? I have no idea. I don't have a nagging. I've been married over 20 years. I know, but what do you think these people are?
I have no idea. All I know is that you know, I said, you know, you know, you s you talk afterwards, you get the post-game highlights of the marriage, and they knew when they were walking down the aisle. They knew it. It's like it's like going to see a movie you didn't really want to see, you know, and then it starts, you're there, and then the back of your mind you're like, I knew I didn't want to see this movie. Maybe it's something like that.
Because you have to stay, you have to go through with it. Yeah, yeah. Once you're in. At least it's dark. Anyway, so Jarvis, this has nothing to do with you.
Okay, so back to your question. Wife to be, we'll be traveling to Seattle for our honeymoon. What a tangent. Yeah. Oh, so you uh actually about to get married.
Good. So in a month and a half, it's gonna be over. None of this fiance crap. It's also the only thing you could be a boyfriend and a girlfriend or whatever. You can be going out with someone forever.
I know, you know. Look, look at you, Stas. How many years? I don't know. Yeah.
Like, forever you can go out. You know what I mean? Well, you're saying this moment. Oh, yeah. Like, like married, you could do that until you die.
You know what I mean? This fiance is like the least permanent freaking thing on earth. You know what I mean? It's like it's specifically designed to not be a permanent situation. You know what I mean?
It is inherently unstable. Yeah, anyway, back to the question. I think you're convincing him not to do it. I'm not, I'm saying go through at the wedding. That's what I'm saying.
I mean, with no other knowledge in my head. Anyway. Seattle for our honeymoon. That's an interesting choice. Seattle for the honeymoon?
What do you think, S. I think uh maybe it's based on cheapness. My friends chose South Carolina or something. Really? Because the flight was like $64.
And I was like, hmm. My sister just got married, St. Lucia said it was amazing. Yeah, see, is that that's nice. I say if you're gonna do a honeymoon, just like go all out.
I don't know, deal with it later. I was more we went to Italy on our honeymoon. Italy. That's how my grandma says it. Yeah, yeah.
That's where we went. We had never been, and it was, you know, life changing was awesome. Anyways. We are going to eat and drink as much as we can and wanted to know if you had any can't miss spots that you could recommend. We scheduled a tour of modernist cuisine, and also chef steps reached out to us and said we can tour also.
Uh we will be doing some hiking, uh going to wineries, etc. I thought in the past episode you mentioned there was a place in the state of Washington where either apples or some fruit or something was being preserved, and they have a museum there. Hmm, I don't remember. You remember that? Oh no.
Portland. I mean uh Oregon. Yeah. Corvallis. Uh they have all of the all of the pears, and uh, I think they also do they do pears and they do berries, but that's in Corvallis, which is a hike.
Uh and don't don't tell the Seattle people that you think that the that the Oregon is the same thing, or you'll be in deep duty with them. Um, where either apples or some fruit or something was being preserved and they have a museum there. I hope that makes sense because I can't remember and tried to go back to your old podcast, but can't find it because they're not in the database, Jack. What's not in the database? No one can search our old podcast.
It's hard. Yeah, they can. Whatever. I couldn't find stuff I was looking for the other day. Yeah, whatever.
Fair enough. Whatever. Uh okay, so listen, I don't know. Is anyone any of our people who are from Seattle or or thereabouts? Why don't you answer in on the chat room just question?
Chef Tom Douglas. That's who you want to look for. He's got like a dozen restaurants. Really cool guy. We've done some stuff with him before.
Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Nice. So look up Tom Douglas.
All right. But also, if anyone has any recs, any recommendation, and they're in on the chat room, uh, shoot them on over to Jarvis and Milwaukee. I hope I didn't uh say anything bad about I didn't say anything bad about marriage. I'm pro-marriage. I know, we I know, Dave.
All right. All right. Uh but I want to get that one out first so people can write their recommendations. Ben wrote in uh we it was a couple weeks ago. We're just getting into it now, on milk.
Uh I've been making the Chef Steps express uh espresso martini a lot recently. I hate uh like turning the S to an X, but sometimes it's worse. Worse. Worse. People in my family do it.
Wow. I don't know why. I don't you don't correct your family, do you? Yeah. You correct your family when they say expresso, this is what you do.
You just make that just make that noise. Uh you know what though? You know what I say? Nuclear. Nuclear.
Why? Because who wants to say nuclear? Nuclear. It's look, it's nuclear, like when you're talking about the nucleus, or like you're actually referring to something scientific, nuclear is fine. When when you have a bomb, it's nuclear.
Go nuclear. Do you go nuclear on someone, or do you go freaking nuclear on them? I don't know. You don't know? Yeah.
I don't know. There's another one. Coupon. I'm a coupon guy. Coupon.
I clip my coupons. What about you? Are you a coupe or a coop? I like to clip coupons. Yeah, Jack, what about you?
Coupon. Ah! Might be a long island thing. He holds his pinky out in Brooklyn while he clipped his coupons. I think coupon comes from your parents.
Pardon me, do you have any clipped coupons? You know what I mean? Coupons. Also, if you're clipping coupons, like, you know, you're not trying to show your wealth. Coupon.
Alright, so here we go. I don't know. Look, there's nothing wrong with saving money. How do you think rich people get rich? Yeah.
That's yeah. Yeah. Alright. Anyway, making the chef's espresso martini. Uh I make it with tequila along with the jalapeno stuff from uh Liquid Intelligence.
Uh I can't keep it in stock because whenever someone comes over, uh hear smell this results in the whole bottle magically disappearing. I do like uh tequila with the ha with the uh with the jalapeno. ISI I assume, which is the way I do it. Uh this recipe has you this is the Chef's Deps recipe, I guess, has you milk wash the coffee booze. I've tried it with a few different milks and have had very different results.
Cheap, ultra-high temperature milk makes small but distinct curds. You like that phrase? Small, yeah. Uh regular, whatever else someone gets from the supermarket, makes bigger, still distinct curds. Um A2 milk, what's A2 milk?
I don't know. We should look it up. Jack, look it up. What's A2 milk? A2 milk makes one giant monster curd that looks like it might become sentient.
I like a sentient. It's just a company. Oh. Uh the yield is pretty flat for the first two types of milk, but the A2 donated a bunch of extra liquid hui. Huey.
What's actually happening in milk washing? How much booze is left in the curds and how much whey ends up in the final product? Thanks, Ben. Oh, here's another call out for the transcripts. P.S.
One of the main benefits of transcripts would be a way to make a full list of all the things that you and Dave hate. Hmm. Hmm. Jack, has there already been anything that you hate? I haven't really gone.
I feel like here and there. What do you hate? What do I hate? I'll have to get back to you on that. Like like like foods or just like things in general?
Well, I mean, you can start with food. I just said expresso. I hate that. Oh, there you go. All right.
We gotta start keeping a list of jack hates. Uh okay, back to your question. Um, it's interesting. I mean, I obviously what's going on here is the um level of pasteurization is affecting the protein somewhat, and therefore the the clotting uh strength because this I don't know a hundred percent like what the actual reactions are. We should talk to uh cheese person.
I one time did a bunch of research on the effect of pasteurization on cheese making, and all of the cheese making blogs uh talk about the differences between um uh the different pasteurization levels of milk and the the curds, but I I can't I forgot to look it up again before I came in today, and I can't remember the exact uh right uh spiel on it. But what's technically happening in milk washing in general is this. Uh you are using the casein uh to mop up the um the polyphenols and other weird things that are kind of either bittering or astringent in uh whatever you're doing, coffee, tea, whatever. Uh then you precipitate out, you curd, you make it curd. So in the case of coffee, a lot of times it'll curd on its own because coffee is a acidic.
B it's in alcohol, which destabilizes the proteins. And C, it's got a lot of things that can bind with destabilize the protein, the casein micells. So coffee often will clot on its own. And usually uh things that clot faster for me uh on their own like that make little small things that you didn't have to sweep into kind of larger curds but whatever that's just my personal experience. So that's what's happening with um milk washing.
Now presuming that you get your you know the same amount of yield out you should get almost all of the whey out. It is true that uh I've had recently with milk washing where I've reheated in the presence of acid I get a lot of whey precipitation almost like making a ricotta but that's only if the acidity level gets pretty high and it's still warm when you do it, which I assume you're not doing here. So the there shouldn't be that much of an effect on um the whey because you're you're not precipitating the way out with the technique in milk washing. However if you did I'm sure it would affect um I'm sure it would affect it greatly because uh heat really affects whey proteins quite a bit. Anyway, what do you think?
Good Yeah she just says that's all shut up that's uh that's what it is. Okay. Chris wrote in uh about uh China and chocolate. Let's hold that we got a caller. Oh caller you're on the air.
Hey Dave how are you? It's Alvin Schultz from uh Houston Texas Hey all right what's up how's uh how's Texas Yeah really good to come down and shoot. Um anyway, I got a I got an update for you on an eggnog question I wrote in about a year ago and a question about nyx d'ematics. Okay. Hey hey, stay on because I'm gonna pause it Alan, hold on a second.
Stay on afterwards because I have an eggnog question that came in and I'll read it, and since you have some uh aging eggnog experience, we can talk about it together for a little bit, all right? Okay, cool. You want me to ask the Nixomatic question then? Yeah, go Nix Domatic. Nixamatic.
Um so in Mexico City, where do you buy it? Ooh, uh man, I wish I could remember where it was like like d are you going on your own or do you have like a uh contact down there? Uh I'll probably be going on my own. Um I know some people down there, but I don't know if any of the people I know are gonna know where to buy an extent. I forget the name of the neighbor.
It was within walking distance of uh the Almida, and it was like between there and um the the market that's right near uh Almida. So it wasn't all the way down by Merced, and there was like a little cooking district there, cooking equipment district, and it like it was that's w you know all the shops. So if if if you see any cooking district like on the map in Mexico City that's within like, you know, like a mile or a mile and a half of like the Almida area, that's where I went, and you just walk around the shops and a bunch of different people have 'em. And so it's just a matter of haggling on the price. And they run about two fifty or so?
That's my memory. Yeah. I mean, I bought it uh yeah, I uh uh in my head, whenever I really want a piece of equipment, I fudge the conversions in my head to make it seem like it's cheaper for me. You know what I mean? That's just like a mental Yeah.
Uh so like what else would I get when I was down there? I got that, but it's a lot to carry. Obviously, like I I I w you know, I wish if I had infinite strength and money to bring stuff back, I would bring back a matate, a real one, just for the heck of it, just 'cause I would like to have one. But I would never really use a matate, to be honest, because if you have the nixtimatic, uh, then you can just get a wet grinder to do the rest of this stuff that's not like nix d'amatic friendly. Like between the two of them, you can grind pretty much anything wet.
You know what I mean? Yeah. So you're getting good puff off of your off your masa uh for tortillas out of the nix d'attic. Getting good what? Oh, your tortillas are puffing consistently?
Look. No, like they're getting better and better on that, right? But that's really a function of grind. Like the commercial grinders are like so big and it's it grinds so fine. The coarser your masa, like the less you're gonna guarantee you're gonna get a puff out of it.
Now, I you know, I know that um you know, some people prefer the some people prefer that like really light, really fine grind, like tortilla, uh you know, masa for tortillas. And some people actually don't mind if they're if their masa for their tortillas is a little bit uh you know, a little bit coarser, so you can still see like like a little bit of um speckling in it. What about you, Stas? What do you feel? Uh my masa being speckled.
You like it's speckled? I don't know. She doesn't care. She doesn't know. I like speckling for tostados.
Yeah, and and obviously, but yeah, right. Like because they look better. Yeah. Um, but I get your point. But my the thing is is that every time I use the nixtamatic, it gets better.
So you know, that's that's where I'll go there. So like the first, you know, the first like three or four batches you make, you they will not puff. The straight up, I'm telling you, they will not puff. Um, you know, once you get past that, you know, like the the more you use it, the more the kind of puff rate goes up. But it's you're not gonna get like the out-of-the-box performance with that thing that you would get with like a real stone grinder or like you know the ones that are like a thousand bucks like uh I forget what model like uh Alex Dupac got up here or a couple other people have you know bought up here but there's a yeah the one's a cosme right yeah like you know the they're like mid-sized stone wheel grinders but you know that that's like the next level of horsepower motor up and like three levels up in price like you can't make an excuse to buy that and have it unless you unless you're using it pro you know what I mean.
You can't yeah you can't plug the conversion on that one right yeah so I have a process that I'm getting pretty consistent puff on so I'm I'm grinding by hand with the corona uh as it's fine as it'll grind and I've I've got probably two or three dozen batches through my corona right now and then I'm taking that grind and putting it in the Vitamix dry grain container the only thing is and I'm grinding the heck out of it in the Vitamix. Right. Uh the only thing is every time I do it I feel like I'm gonna blow the the fuse and then my vitamins be out of commission for a couple hours. But unfortunately I have two so uh if I blow you know it's a second one that gets that gets really nervous but but um my my popping pretty consistent well let me tell you if you're using the Corona I can't believe that you're still alive I hate using that thing so much. My right arm is really huge.
I I imagine I imagine that like you know you're like uh you know like yeah your one arm is like a stick and the other one is like a like you know like somebody else's leg like John Cena's arm because I hate the corona remember when we had long stars and I insulted his manhood and we made him grind all of that masa that night. Nightmare. Corona oh corona is such a nightmare. You're gonna love the Nick's dramatic, brother. If you if you're using the corona, you're gonna love the Nick's dumatic.
Just give it some grind in time. Alright now, eggnog. Eggnog. What do you got? I'll I'll say I'll say the question I got, and then you can tell me about it.
All right. You know, uh May May Kitchen Friends of the Show, Boston. They wrote in, here's what they said. Uh hope you guys are well. We made eggnog recently using four quarts of cream, one quart of El Dorado spiced rum, one quart of one to one simple, and twenty-four eggs.
Holy crap, that's rich. That's that's freaking rich. The eggs were separated, whites were whipped with cream, uh, simple and booze, and then combined with yolks. After two weeks, the knob mellowed, no change after four weeks. After eight weeks, and it turned into marshmallow snot.
See video. I didn't get to see the video, but I believe you. Uh still tasted fine. How? What?
Should we try to turn it into something weird and or delicious? Is actually already weird, but not necessarily delicious. Thanks to folks at May May. I think it's just you think the water contents to all that fat? Like what do you think is going on, Alvin?
I I think I think the uh the egg whites. I would say that I would mix everything but the egg whites and then just fold back in egg whites uh when you're ready to drink it and not age it with the egg uh uh the whites on it. So you think the whites are setting? You think it's like a low like a low water thing and the the whites are somehow setting over time, like like alcohol denaturation? I think so.
So what I was gonna call in with my update is I made a batch of Rolman's eggnog and uh also George Washington's eggnog at the very beginning of twenty fifteen. And I drank it over this past holiday season. I drank I tasted both. Rule Mims doesn't really change much of the I think I did the math and I that that's what I called it for a year ago, and I think the math on rule bins came out to about twenty two percent. Uh Washington was about twelve and a half, eleven and a half, twelve, twelve and a half.
And Washington's was real interesting. It got sour, but not unpleasant at all. It it had like these uh notes of blue cheese on the on the nose, but then like almost like a uh tangy goat cheese uh on the palate. So I call it almost like an eggnog sour. Both were pleasant, and both were aged at room temperature for uh the better part of a year.
You're not really selling me on the blue cheese eggnog. It's like you gotta come up. It smells funkier than it tastes, but it wasn't unpleasant at all. You got I recommend uh you put it in a tin and and shake the cr shake the stuff out of it. And it's it's pretty tasty.
Yeah. So Nick Bennett did like a three-year-old eggnog, but I didn't get to taste it. They our former bar captain and now the guy at Porsche Light and Stas. We tasted what? Three-year-old?
What do we think? Did we taste it? We didn't taste it. Or did we decide it smelled like poison? Yeah.
I think we decided it smelled like poison. I don't know. Yeah, I'm trying I'm trying to get to a vertical. So I made another batch of rule min uh this year. I'm I'm working, I'm I wanna make inspired uh my batches, so I'm gonna try to get the five-year vertical.
Right. And so so your your advice to May May is to hold the white back? I would hold the white back. Um I don't I I don't know what what recipe she's using, but uh but I with rulemans without the white is is uh is just fine after a year. Uh they'll funk at all now.
The real question is gets funky. What are we gonna do with this one that's already funky? Mix it into some sort of baked good. What are we gonna do? I don't know.
Um make cannelese. Yeah. All right. Hmm. All right, very good.
So you're gonna keep track of your uh tests and you're gonna give us a call back and let us know how your vertical goes. We'll every year we'll we'll come back as long as we keep doing the show every year. You come back and tell us how you're doing with the uh with the nog. Yeah, sounds good. Alright, brother.
Alright, see ya. Alright, have a good one. Uh we got uh two more callers on the line. So next caller. All right, caller, you're on the air.
Hey Dave, it's uh Matt from Mystic calling back about the haggis. How was the haggis? Uh it was amazing, man. Oh great. Oh man.
Yeah, it worked uh it worked like a charm, but it stunk to high heaven. The bung stinks. Uh the bung stinks. That's like your that's your next album. The bung stinks.
Yeah, exactly. Well, uh, did you do any like pre-soaking or like washing or scrubbing? I yeah, I so I soaked it for twenty-four hours beforehand. Uh and it didn't really didn't really help. My kit hidden uh, you know, it's still there's still a faint aroma of bung every time I fire up the stove.
Wow. I think uh next year I'll do it off site. That's the that's the follow-up album, Faint Aroma of Bung. Yeah, yeah. Well we can get a trilogy out of it if we're if we're careful.
Well, I wish, you know, we were here for Johnny, which I wish Johnny I wish this was last week when Johnny was here because I'm sure he's dealt with that kind of an issue before. There's gotta be some sort of like pre poach in milk that will help out. The thing is you just don't wanna have it shrink up too much and everything before you stuff it. That's the real issue, right? Yeah, that's what I I would be afraid, 'cause like once you once you get it in the the uh hot liquid, it really uh uses up nicely.
Yeah, right. That's the whole point. Um yeah, how could you just a bunch of changes? It didn't impart any uh off flavor, honestly. Like once like but during the like the first like hour or so of the of the boiling of it, it was like really gross.
But like poopy or like tripe slaughterhouse smell? Uh yeah, like sort of it the combination. It's sort of like sort of like a halitosis uh note. Right. Uh and some, you know, and some barnyard barnyard song.
Yeah. Yeah. But uh but the oats worked. The oats came out great, so it was like totally permeable. And uh I did add a little bit more broth to the mixture uh than I normally do uh with you know with the lamb meat, etcetera.
Uh but it came out great. Nice. How were the neeps and tatties? Oh, uh great. You know, we just uh we just we must do like five pounds each at least, and uh and they go like crazy too.
So awesome. Awesome. Yeah, there was there was very little haggis left over, which is always a good sign of success. Someone can put the picture on? Uh if they send it to me.
Yeah, send a picture. We'll put it up on the on the thing of your haggis. I want to see. All right, cool, I will. Yeah, I will uh I'll is it can I tag you on Instagram with it?
Yeah. It looks like uh it looks like the sandworm from Dune. Oh, nice. That sounds cool. Those creep the hell out of me on the shot of Lud, so it's real.
You know what freaked me out in Dune? That dude who like would always like like have people's hearts plugged, and then what would he do? Drink their blood or something so gross. Remember that dude? Remember that dude, the dude who was on that chair that would float around and he had those people and he would unplug their hearts?
Isn't that what would happen on Dune? I don't uh it's not ringing a bell. Baron Harkonin. Look, it's been a billion years since I've seen Dune. I saw it when I was too young, and it was I was it was alternately boring and horrifying.
Uh but I I was a kid when I saw it, so I don't know. I never read it. I got another caller when you're ready. But listen, send that stuff in. I'm glad it worked out.
Yeah, I will. Alright, cool. Awesome. Go ahead. Thanks.
Alright, cool. Caller, you're on the air. Hey, this is uh Scooter in Montana. How you doing? I got a cigar not too bad now.
Uh I have a question about uh pressure canning. I've been pressure pressure canning soup. Um and everything that I've read says you can't have pressure can anything that's been pre-thickened with flour and you can't do noodles. Uh so I'm wondering why that's the case, and uh if so, how do how do they get those sort of deliciously overcooked noodles in in your you know can of candles like a noodle? Huh, that's a good question.
Um presumably what's happening is is you're taking the um starch well uh because you know like you cook starch, it absorbs stuff, there's a maximum thickness, right? And then after you reach that maximum thickness, then you get viscosity breakdown as you totally disintegrate the kind of starch, right? And so that's why, you know, if you look at a starch thing, that's what'll happen. So presumably they're saying that it'll reduce the thickening. Nothing terrible is gonna happen.
Have you tried it? No, I have not tried it yet. I mean, I would obviously, you know, I'm sure they like uh they must just get the water balance exactly right, throw the pasta in and then have it like all absorb and come out, you know, because come out like right where they want it. You know what I'm saying? Like the same way that like beans are so highly tweaked out that you know they they know exactly how long they want their pre soaked, they know they know exactly everything.
You know what I mean? And so that they they put 'em in the in they know that they know the pH of their water, they know the salt content, they know everything. You know what I mean? And so they load them into those cans and they come out perfect almost every single time. So there's gotta be some trick with uh with the with the pastas.
But the pastas are pretty they're pretty I mean soft. I mean like I haven't had a spaghetti o in a long time, but they're pretty soft soft. You know yeah, oh yeah. No, they're they're they're they're really soft and they're not necessarily ideal, but for some reason I sort of love them. Yeah, you know, also what if you stuck only with pastas stats?
What's the shape of pasta that's shaped like a rice grain, it's real thick? Oh, orzo or something? Yeah, yeah. Like something like that, I think would hold up a lot better, or like what's the one that's like a really thick square that's like you know what I'm talking about? They're like thick squares, and they're meant for soups, but they're like they're like pasta little bricklets.
Those things would hold up. I think things that I think thicker pastas are gonna like obviously stand up because they'll it's gonna take longer for the inside to turn to complete mush. The outside will turn to complete mush. As for thickening, like thickened mixes with flour, I'm sure it's just a matter of they won't be as thick when it comes out. You're not gonna get poisoned, you know what I mean?
Sure. Yeah, I mean, some of the things that I've read have said that it that it it does increase the botulism risk because it like slows the the heating through the the jar. Um, good point. Yeah. That's interesting.
Yeah. But that's okay. I don't know is there any data? In other words, like the people who say that, uh did they say this. In nineteen sixty-five, a family of four cooked soup with starch in it, and they died.
You know what I mean? Because that's like that's what you need to say, because the fact of the matter is, there's not there's nothing in canning that says please measure the viscosity of your ingredients, right? Right. I I could take I could take an entire brick of pork, slam it into a can, and like and like follow the freaking canning procedures, and and I'm okay. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. So like off the top of my head, I just don't believe I don't believe it. But I mean, I see what they're saying that you're in inhibiting the convective forces that's going on. But like in the absence of uh some data where someone followed good canning procedure, right? And maybe you have to increase the time.
I mean it's been a long time since I've looked at canning procedures, but like maybe for something that's not a lot of liquid you have different things. But uh I just say I doubt it from a safety standpoint down there. Okay. Yeah, that that's kind of what I was thinking in uh I'll know. Yeah.
Alright, cool. Let us know what happens. Pick up the line. All right, so we're uh sorry, should we go to a break? Or do we have a no no let's let's we're gonna this is the home stretch here.
Oh yeah? Yeah. We're just we're ripping through. Who's the sponsor? It's Kane Vineyard and Winery.
Um I was gonna put an ad in later, but I will say that Chris from Kane is is a really awesome dude. Great nap of winery. Yeah. Um lot of a lot of interesting stuff. I do have another caller if we want to take that.
Yeah, sure, caller, you're on the air. What they hung up as soon as I picked up. Um keep them moving. Man, maybe they were yeah, too bad. Sorry, caller.
Uh so you've had the wine, it's good? It is, yeah. I've had I had uh his couvet. Do you know who's never had the wine? Uh you?
Yeah, Nastasia. Have you had the wine? No. Where's the wine? Ooh, Erica's in here and she visited the winery.
Well, Stas, have you missed have you visited the winery? Nope. I'll tell you something here's something does Nastasia does not hate. Wine, visiting wineries. Drinking wine.
Drinking wine. I don't know. Do you like visiting wineries or you just want the wine? Are you like my stepfather? He doesn't care about he doesn't want to talk about fishing, he just wants to fish.
Doesn't care, doesn't want to talk about wine skills. You? Me? I mean, wineries can be pretty, but like, yeah, I like the drinking the wine. What are your favorite wines?
I don't really like being in Napa because it's hot as hell. Like, well, obviously, Stas. I really don't know enough. Stas has got to be like Nebbiola. No, style.
Style. Champagne. Alright. See? Love that.
Love that. So if you're at a restaurant and you open the wine list, like where do where do the two of you go? Well, it depends on what you're doing. No. I mean, yeah, what do we, what am I eating?
I don't know. A lot depends on what I'm eating. It wasn't a fully formed question. It's just like, what's the temperature outside and what am I eating? And and how much money does the person who's buying dinner for me have?
Right. Like, so if the person, if the person buying dinner has a non-finite amount of money, I I start out the meal with a glass of vintage champagne because if they have that much money. No, but like, and then like like let's say we're Italian. I like, I like to have if you can call a head and the person has infinite money, they open a bottle of Amaroni, like a really nice old amaroni, let it air out for you. I'm a fan of amaroni.
You know? I I'm a very simple, like my in other words, like I I don't I'm not saying, you know, I'm not like out there on a limb. Like, I like stuff that everyone likes. I like Barollos, I like amaronies, I like champagne, I like, you know, I hey people, like, I don't want to have a big American wine all the time, but I enjoy that like, you know, 90s style big big butt like US Infandel. Like, I love that stuff.
You know what I mean? I I like everything. I like everything if it's good. What about you, Stas? If it's good, uh, I like it.
Okay. Uh Jared wrote in about uh orange water, orange flower water. I've never thought about orange flower water. Here's what he says. Lately I've been enjoying the addition of orange blossom water to my daily tea uh so much that I've been running through it at about a cup per day.
A cup of orange flour water? That's a lot of orange flour. That's a lot of freaking orange flowers. A lot. It's become rather costly habit.
I'm wondering if there's a more cost effective way to simulate the pleasant aroma in my beverages, maybe through the use of essential oils. Would that work? As far as I know, oil and water don't play well together, so I'm hoping you provide a way to emulsify the two that won't drastically change the viscosity of the water. For dietary reasons, I'd rather not use alcohol or sugar like substances. Fats uh and acids are okay.
Jared and Vancouver. Well, yeah, gum arabic is the is what you want to use. You typically uh I don't know why, but in soda formulations when people are using gum arabic, they'll first you put the gum arabic into water, and they literally they always like literally say add a drop of alcohol. Uh you know, or like a couple drops. And I don't know why.
I don't really know why, to be honest. The reason you use gum arabic is because the susp the it it dilutes well, the suspension dilutes well. So then that's how you typically emulsify uh oils like oil, like if you were doing a cola like cinnamon oil or or uh you know uh citrus oils. And you can look up on Art of the Drink, Darcy O'Neill on Art of the Drink. It's hard to search for it, but you can find it.
Has something on on uh putting uh uh essential oils for sodas with gum arabic, and if you look up that uh article, that blog article um and the art of the drink, you can see the basic uh procedure for suspending oils into emulsions. But I don't know that orange flour essential oil, because I haven't even seen that. I've seen orange essential uh essential oil. Do they make the essential oil of the flour too? I don't know.
But that's the way to do it. So you should uh write in and tell us what's going on. Okay. I.e. tell us if it works.
Um, we got a lot to get to. Okay. And you got five minutes. Okay. Chris wrote in.
Uh, thanks again for uh the show. They wrote into uh hey Anastasia, Dave, and Jack. Uh I'd love to hear your thoughts and lessons on food in China as well as developing cooking products in China, i.e., what it's like to develop cooking products in China. Stas, what's it like? Not fun.
Hard. Hard. I mean, look, if we're uh like if I'll let you know when the next product is ready to come out exactly how hard it is. Um, but it it's challenging in ways that I didn't expect it to be challenging. It's simpler in ways that I thought it was gonna be more challenging, but it's very challenging in ways that I didn't um expect uh in terms of yeah, it's just really hard.
Uh but you know, again, I don't know. I probably shouldn't go too much into depth on that, right? Stas is shaking her head, she's giving me the shut up shake uh of of her head. Um but on food, I mean I was you know, I was mainly in Shenzhen. Shenzhen's interesting because people from all over you know China come to Shenzhen to work.
Um, but the local uh food, you know, is you know, from that kind of Canton area, so it's very not spicy. Um is that even an English? It's not spicy. Uh I had a lot of steamed uh seafood, and yes, they really freaking like crunchy just killed fish there, which is totally antithetical to like the way we normally eat fish. I had like a whole bunch of steamed, you know, different species of carp that uh were all extremely uh crunchy.
But love the fresh they love the f the fresh killed. I mean it's not necessarily my cup of tea but you know there you have it. The um did I talk about the mantis shrimp here? I did, right? Yeah.
Um anyway, so like we I I I should think more. I should try to condense in my mind more of the lessons uh I I learned on food there so I can uh come back. But anyway here's another one. I've recently s uh from you. I've recently started doing dark chocolate in a wet grinder.
See I told you wet grinders are gonna come back. Uh with nibs and sugar. I'd love to hear about your tips, tricks and riffs on chocolate making. Well don't make ketchup flavored chocolate which is what I started with because nobody I was the only guy that liked the ketchup flavored chocolate. Right?
You hated it? I do not like it. It was better than the mustard chocolate. Yeah. So the whole point that the the reason I started in the wet grinding thing was because I wanted to create the texture of chocolate, which is mainly a phenomenon of cocoa butter completely surrounding very very fine solids particles in the absence of liquid, right?
That's what it is. And so like I was trying to get different powders, uh very, very fine powders and I was pre-blitzing those things and putting in the cocoa butter, adjusting the sugar, adding some lecithin and hoping that it could turn into something that had that uh texture. But it's very hard because nothing can have kind of water in it. It's you know a nightmare that way. When we were making actual chocolate.
You know, I frankly learned from reading the Chocolate alchemy website, which is I think the first website on making your own chocolate uh at least it's the first one that I'd I had ever seen. Um so yeah, there you have it. Um and we would put the nibs through uh a champion grinder first to get them pre-ground, which worked very well. And then we would just uh you know, we would use uh I did we use confectioner sugar or what kind of sugar do we use? Do we not care?
I don't remember. I feel like we didn't care. Or did we blitz it? I don't remember. I probably I knowing me, I like tweak everything, so I probably use something fine, I don't know.
And then just let it run. But we'd have to let it run a long time. The question is like opening and shutting the lid, you have to keep it open so liquids don't condense because it warms up, but then you lose aroma, so it's all back and forth. But we would grind for days to get the texture right because you know the bigger grinders can do it quickly, and then you conch for however long you want. But we, you know, we couldn't do that.
So it was like a very long uh melange thing. It was days, several days, and you have to keep tasting it. Anyway, uh Aaron wrote in. We're basically at the end here. Oh, Aaron, I've totally solved your margarita problem.
We'll uh get to it next week. Uh I'll give you a hint. Just increase the simple syrup a little bit, increase the the lime. You need to double your lime and multiply your simple syrup by another or add another half ounce of simple syrup, but double your lime, and your alcohol number should come down. You can add the lime earlier uh and get it going, and you should be better.
But I can go into it uh in more detail next time. Uh Liza wrote in about the gaps diet, and we still haven't gotten to the freaking Thai basil question, preserving the Thai basil, but we will next time, I promise, on 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. You can like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at heritage underscore Radio.
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