Today's program is brought to you by Thurman Maple Days. Celebrate flowing of sap in the Adirondacks, self-guiding to seven sites for talks, tours, tastes, and old fashioned friendliness. For more information, visit thurman maple days.com. I'm Linda Palaccio, host of A Taste of the Pass. You're listening to Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting live from Bushwick Brooklyn.
If you like this program, visit heritageradio network.org for thousands more. Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live at noon, actually, Stas. What do you think about that? Crazy.
Uh the Heritage Radio Network, broadcasting from Roberta's Pizzeria. Where, Jack? Bushwick. Brooklyn. Oh yeah.
Joined as usual in the studio with Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How you doing, Stas? Good. And Jack Jackie Molecules, what's up? I'm doing well.
Good, good. Uh, we are going to be joined shortly by the late arriver. I guess is like, you know, planning on my usual arrival time. Uh, Peter Kim. Uh, you know.
He got a different name for him before the show started. What was it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Family show, Jack. Family show. Uh, call in your questions to 718 497-2128. That's 7184972128.
So, Stas on the magnificent L train on the way over here today. I was on that. Yeah? Mm-hmm. Just the one that just.
No. No. The one before me? Maybe. Anyways.
I'm never on the L train to get here. Anyways, dude had so much ketchup on his face. Like just cat ketchup all over his face. And I'm like, dude. Like, a little bit of ketchup like on your cheek.
Like, alright, fine. Whatever. Like eating. Well, no, that's the thing. He had done eating.
He wasn't one of these freaks in the subway, like jamming his face full of like pot pie or something. But he had like, it was like he had taken a fistful of French fries, gone pink in the ketchup, and then like shoved it into his face and got it all over his face. But here's the thing. You if you have that much ketchup on your face, you can smell it. You can smell you're like, why do I why do I still smell ketchup?
You know what I mean? Like what a horrible thing to have on your face, too. Yeah, just like a just a bow ton of ketchup. Crazy. Not right.
I have a collar on if you want to get right to it. Yeah, let's get right to it. Let's get right into business. Caller, you are on the air. Hey Dave, it's uh Juno from Silver Spring, Maryland.
How are you? Doing all right. So question for you. You know how in uh liquid intelligence you have kind of that shopping list? Excuse me, that shopping list, and it's like grouped together by.
Oh, did we lose you? Oh my god, we lost it. I do know the shopping list. I'm familiar with the shopping list. I was thinking about this uh also.
You still there? Maybe well maybe you're back? Yeah, yeah. The shopping list, okay. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, sorry. So um, you know, that that list that you have where it's kind of grouped into like this, these are your necessities. This is if you have a little bit more money, and this is if you want to go crazy. Right. Um, so say you were doing the same thing for a commercial kitchen thing for like a deli.
Um you know, how how how might you group that? Okay, well, what what kind of deli? What are you serving? So uh we're gonna be doing uh everything in-house except for baking bread. Uh but you know, uh cooking roasts from scratch, uh, you know, making some prepared meals like soups and stews, some basic catering also, but uh, you know, nothing too fancy, at least at the outset.
I'm trying to look to how I can bootstrap it as much as possible. Um, you know, uh thinking uh if if if I switch to induction, does it require the use of a hood, you know, that that sort of thing. So really trying to be creative with with our expenses there. Right. Well, you could definitely, I mean, I don't know what your venting requirements are, but uh, you know, the situation rather, but you can definitely reduce your your the CFMs or the venting you need by going induction.
I know a lot of people also who just basically cheat and they do their hot side on induction and then take it away when they're not using it, and that's totally viable. You know what I mean? Um it all depends on what you can get away with in in your locale. Um but you know, uh are you if you're gonna do traditional any traditional deli stuff, I would invest in the sweetest slicers that you could possibly get. Right?
And so, like, I I'm what kind of slicer are you getting? Uh so so it's I I'm buying a company that's already existing, but I'm trying to think of it like this place is so mismanaged, I have to think how would I how I would start from scratch. So I they have like a the guy told me they have like a 70-year-old Hobart slicer, which is you know, just on on an angle. Um look a lot so like let's just take the slice because to me, like the heart, and this is kind of pathetic the way I think, but the heart of like a deli operation is like your slicer, right? Uh so slicers, uh obviously, you know, I don't know how long you have to deal with the one that you you currently have, but the issue with the angle gra or gravity feed slicer, which is you know the American standard for slicers, um, is that regardless of you know how sharp you keep the blade, uh i there you're gonna get some toe out on the uh you know, some healing out on the bottom of the meat as as you cut.
And you know what I'm talking about that and that's just the nature of the beast when you're using um a gravity fed slicer. Now, you know, what what does that really mean? It means that you have to like take it off or ro rotate it a as you slice or take it off and take that little heel piece off and it's unpleasant. Is that like a life ender? No.
But if you were curing your own meats and like, you know, you really cared about it and you're dealing with high value stuff, you don't want that to to happen. Now the modern gravity slicers are a lot better in that respect because they require a lot more down pressure than um some of the older ones do. Uh and you know, you know, the m you know, my favorite, uh, you know, the my you know, the hob the you know, the old um um the model three thousand, the you know, the newer the the Hobart model three thousand, which is like was uh like such a pimped out machine, like that did a very good job on on thin slices. The Bazerba, you know, uh which was before that other one, the one that and by the way, I'm a couple of years behind, like three, four years it's been since I really worried about slicers. Um, you know, was was the the best.
But you know, if you're gonna do a high-end presentation deli kind of a situation, eventually you might want to get a vertical, like to uh because a vertical slicer, A, looks freaking awesome, and B, like doesn't have any of that distortion on the slices that goes through. That said, I o the only people I know who use them are like, you know, the people trying to do like the high end Italian style uh kind of service, uh, you know, who don't want to do hand slicing. Um so I don't and I don't have a lot of personal ex experience with them. But the good thing about like the newer slicers is I would look the reason I like the the three thousand is the just the ease of cleaning on it too like it's got like it's got that like hydraulic lift that you can lift up the slicer and clean underneath it you could pop the blade off and throw it in the dishwasher which is sweet I hate cleaning slicers I gotta tell you I do not like cleaning them. Yeah I got a really nasty cut one year uh doing that.
Ooh yeah yeah yeah um now obviously I'm not even gonna get it because I don't know the layout but like refrigeration's gonna be huge on you like getting like good cases because you're gonna throw a lot of money into electricity on on those cases over time and so even though like an old set of refrigerator cases might seem like a good bargain right now A like they might break on you more often I did I I've said this before I hate commercial refrigeration. I really do. But like you know uh good good refrigeration set up um you know that's not gonna go down and I don't know who's got the the the best one right now. Uh but you know those are like the heart right so you got your refrigeration set up you got your slicer then um on your cooking side stuff I would definitely invest in um in a couple especially if you're not gonna do you're not you said you're not gonna do a lot of hot side right away right yeah just get some get some decent induction ones like um you know there's actually you know it's interesting they uh uh brevel is that semi commercial semi pro like uh Philip Preston from Polyscience did some work with a new temperature controlled induction unit that's supposed to be pretty good uh at least he tells me so um that I think is r I I'm gonna say it's right in between the consumer and the pro range. Uh, but it could be good for swapping uh in and out.
Otherwise, most people I know use you know the big old uh cooktechs. You know what I mean? But they're not they're they're pretty expensive. Um whereas most of the other, you know, the smaller induction ones, the cheap ones, they'll get you can get away with them fine for a while, but they're not necessarily the best long term because they have a uh a fairly small heat ring so you can get some scorching uh if you're doing uh you know work uh that requires like saute or anything like that. They they can fuzz out on you uh over time if you're using them hard and and and intensively.
Uh but on the other hand, they're cheap like potato chips. You know what I mean? They're like a couple hundred bucks, so you can like rip through them um you know as you as you as you need to. Uh what else am I? I mean, if you're gonna do catering, I would get a vacuum bag, I would get a vacuum machine.
And if you're gonna get a vacuum machine uh in in your setup, I would not go for the smallest one. I don't think you need to get a really big one unless you're gonna be vacing down maybe you are. Maybe you're gonna be vacing down like whole uh roasts doing a a pre-circ on 'em and then a roast out later in i in an oven. I don't know. You know, that's something you should kind of look forward to because that's another large investment, a vacuum machine.
You're gonna probably need a hassle plan as well uh for it. But um the that's definitely gonna be useful both in a catering application uh for takeaway later and also if you ever and go to um the Underground Meat Collective section on their HACC because they do they do vacuum for takeaway. So then if you're gonna make your own products, do a slice down and a vac pack out so that you can push you y you don't wanna have to do all of your heavy slicing necessarily to order on something when you want to grab and go, and you might want to be able to pre-package something, in which case you're gonna need a decent vacuum machine. Right, right. So I was just looking at the uh you know, the mini pack lines um and the uh I think it's the the XT 45 um the MVS 45, uh, you know, it's trying to figure out like if that would be too big or if I can get away with something smaller, but you're saying don't don't go for the smallest.
No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, no. No. Yeah. Yeah.
The 45 is the smallest one for your application that I think I would go. That's the same size as the uh as on the um multivacts. That's the same size, I think as what, the 200? It's been a long time since I've shot. But yeah, that's the that's the small size.
That's the smallest one that I would go for. Because you know what? Like, do you really want to be in a situation where you know you saved because the price difference is not that big, right? And the size is not that much different. And do you really want in six months' time to say, I wish I could pack that down?
No, you don't. Right. Um what I used to recommend also, look a lot depends on what you're gonna do. So uh, you know, I had the the pleasure of having a dual uh dual bar setup in both machines that I was I was using, right? And the advantage of the dual bar having two bars in it is that you can seal two packages at once.
And that becomes a really big deal if you are gonna do packaging down of stuff for um for for sale, not just for like storage at the end of the night, but because like let's say your vacuum cycle time is like 40 seconds, 35, 30, somewhere between 30 and 40 seconds per, you know, in between each cycle, right? Which it could easily be, it could be longer even, uh, depending on what you're doing. So uh by having two bars where you can steal two packages at once, uh, you know, across from each other, you're you're cutting your packaging time in half. And if you've ever gone on a big packaging marathon where you're packaging package after package after package, uh then you know, it can be significant. The savings can be significant for not a not a huge initial extra investment.
Got it. And here's the thing. People are like, eh, meh, man, meh, eh, the bar. It takes up the extra bar, it takes up so much space. And in fact, that's crap, because you can just rip the bar out when you're not using it.
I've done it a billion times. You just rip the bar out when you're not using it, and then you have the full space where the other bar used to be. You know what I mean? For someone like you, I don't know that gas flush is going to be so important. You know, I don't know.
Like um I don't know that many people who use it all the time, but anyway, there you have it. All right, we got it. We had another caller who's been waiting. Oh, right. Thank you very much.
If you have any more questions, give us a call back. All right, caller, you're on the air. Hi, Dick, this is Anderson Sitzers. How you doing? I'm doing very well.
How are you today? Doing well. Um, so I got a question for you. I committed the card test in when um doing things at home where I didn't write down exactly what I had done to get a result. Right.
But I think I have this one pretty much nailed on. So um uh I'm a bartender and I used a recipe from Keller's uh French Laundry for the sheriff at the bar. Um I used a uh tall cherry pepper strip, which is uh teleterry, black peppercorns, raspberries, uh strawberry, sugar, water. Um and then he can kind of poach it uh for 45 minutes to keep it from getting cloudy. Right.
Um the ratio that he uses are gonna be he uses a pint of raspberry, pine of strawberries, cup of water, three quarter cup of sugar, which isn't gonna be nearly enough sugar um to get to a um uh a fifty bricks symbol. So I mean I've got a refresh hotter. Um kind of I was whenever the first time I made it, I just kind of was like throw some water and sugar in there, I'll just correct it whenever I'm done. And whenever it came out, I had developed a whole bunch of pectin in the syrup. So when I was blending it to get more sugar into it to correct the brick, um it created this really amazing stable foam on top.
Huh. Um that's super super delicious. Um then the second time I did it, it uh the foam wasn't stable. So what I'm thinking is that um I think what happened is I just develop developed more pectin the first time I did it. Um and I want to call you and ask you what kind of are the ideal conditions for developing pectin in fruits whenever you're making a syrup like that.
Right. Oh, and yeah. Sorry, real quick. The the way that I do it is uh like a double boiler method. So I put all my ingredients in the um mixing bowl over boiling hot water and just keep that hot so it pushes and has no chance of boiling.
Right. So what you want is like basically um not a full uh fully gelled, obviously, but like semi, right? So like the problem with that and and pectin is like you know, getting the ratios exactly right each time to make it to make it right. Now, in general, right, pectin uh the will form gels uh in situations where there uh is a high soluble solids, right? So lower water and uh usually a typically a lot of sugar.
That's why a lot of times when people try to make jellies and they're like, yeah, my jelly didn't set, it's because they don't have enough sugar in it, right? And the other thing is acid, right? So like l like maybe the batch that had the good pectin development was a little more acidic than normal, right? And then you doped it with extra sugar. So then you have a high sugar, high uh high acid situation.
Pectin loves a debt. You know what I mean? Uh and so it typically can have uh like ionic reactions as well, but I think typically you're you're gonna just look for high soluble solids and um and uh my brain. High soluble solids and and and acid conditions, and that's gonna uh you know, increase the uh set characteristics of your of your pectin. But that said, like wacky things happen with fresh fruit and you never know like if you got like a really good result, it's like super hard to uh duplicate it.
Right. Um I was using frozen raspberries and fresh strawberries whenever I did it. Um freezing could be wrong though. I often ask. Yeah.
Uh yeah. So what you're saying is just add a little bit of acid, like you have lemon juice or just citric acid or something, and that should help correct it. Well, I think once it's done, once it's cooked out, it's like, you know, it's it's probably cooked out. But you didn't write down the exact ratios you did that time. No, I that that's what I was talking about, just cardinal thin.
Um, I told you I've said it on the uh on the air, like, you know, there's recipes that I've never been able to achieve again ever. But a lot of these recipes with especially recipes that rely on hydrocolloids, like a lot of them are on a razor thin edge. Do you know what I'm saying? So it's like and the problem with those is you could be chasing unicorns, right? So, you know, let's say let's say the the syrup that you did, even if you measured it exactly.
Let's say you're talking about a one in a hundred shot. Well, you can't you can't do you can't do a recipe based on a one in a hundred shot. You know what I mean? Right. Um, so you might want to think about uh just you know doping doping it with some uh foaming age.
I mean strawberry is pretty foamy anyway. Like even, you know, uh clarify clarify regular clarified strawberry is pretty foamy. So um, you know, strawberry soda foams like a mother. So does raspberry soda, really. You know, even if even when I hit it with uh pectanex.
So it's um yeah, but getting it exactly the way you want it, I would consider just doping it with some with some you know some whipping agent and some uh I haven't I I've been looking into it. In fact, someone else asked last week about uh vegan egg replacers, and then I had a I had a uh a comment back in on the on the you know uh HMC additives. There's got to be a good thing just to add to make it happen. Because you don't want to rely, you don't want to rely on having to get something exactly right every time that is like on such a like a fine teeter totter, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely.
I I didn't realize that getting patched development would be that fine of a razor edge. Well, because you don't want it fully gelled. You want something in between. In between things are always the hardest. By the way, you the recipe that Keller has has you cooking the peppercorns for 40 minutes.
Or do you throw see here's the thing. So like Jeffrey Steingarden, you know, friend of the show, friend and friend of mine, uh, he once lamb basted me, lamb basted me for putting pepper into things uh early because he's like when you cook pepper that he doesn't talk to this. When you cook pepper that long, it's like all that's left is the is the bitterness, none of the aroma of the pepper. I'm like, you know, so what? Like, I still like to add pepper early because I kind of like that like harsh bitterness from the pepper, but if you considered like almost like dry hopping, like after the cook, like putting some grounds of pepper in right as you take it off, and then to get some sit, let's sit with the aroma in and then straining it off to get more of that fresh pepper aroma.
Because if you noticed that um the aroma of the pepper changes and drop and drops off and loses a lot of its kind of like uh you know interesting characteristics, especially if he's gonna go all the way to like specify telecherry over a different variety of pepper. I don't know why he's hating I don't know why he's hating on the malabar. But you know what, that's the thing, Stas. Remember we did all those pepper tastings back in the day? Stas has her I hate pepper tasting face.
You don't like pepper uh on butter? That was just boring. Everything, everything that requires sitting and like doing you hate. You hate. Anyways.
Uh point being that uh other peppers are also good. I know telecherry's got the got the name. You know what I'm saying? But you know, like we do a pepper tincture. You know what my favorite thing to add to any pepper tincture is?
Cubebs. I'm just gonna say it right there. Cubebs. Go. Have you have you played with cubebs?
I I have not. I just I have a uh take peppercorn tincture that we use at the bar. Uh put it in the atomyzer and use that um to kind of like a wrench tree in front of the glass. It's awesome. Yeah.
Anyway, that's my that's my that's my pepper go to of the of the, you know, because we you know, I'll do a pepper tincture and I'll throw in because you always have all those pepper like things sitting around, right? So you got like a couple different black peppers. Like uh typically the two that I'm using are the Malabar and the telecherry, and I forget the third one. We sometimes use some other ones, but those are the main two that I'm using. And uh you always have a little bit of the grains of paradise, although that's a very strong flavor.
Uh I sometimes have a little bit of the long pepper, which strangely, even though it's not really it's nowhere near the same flavor, the Romans like used it interchangeably with black pepper, according to the research that I have. Uh, and cubebs. And some combination of all those can make really interesting kind of peppery uh aromas. Awesome. Thank you so much.
I'll play around with that. Cool, thanks. All right. So uh hey Jack. He's not there.
Oh, he's not there. So the maple syrup guys, you can take a maple syrup tour, huh? They're our sponsors today. Yes, that's true. What do you think about that?
What do you think about the maple syrup tour? I think it sounds great. They're their whole thing is they're like, you know, maple syrup is more than just um a condiment for pancakes. So they're they're like you get to tour the sugar shacks and they show you all these other products that they make with maple, like candies and things like that. Sugar shack sounds vaguely like you know, like some other stuff's gonna happen in there, don't you think?
I I it's a family show. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. It's well anyway. My point is I was thinking about this the other day, and I I'm such a jerk about it, but like I have not noticed any huge terroir phenomenon in maple syrup.
You know what I'm saying? It's like I've had maple syrup from Connecticut. You know what it tastes like? Maple syrup. Yeah, you know, Vermont, you know what Vermont maple syrup tastes like?
Well, have you ever done a tasting? Like a side by side? I'm saying I think we should. I think we should get these guys to send it in and do like a side by set. Now listen, the in like there's a huge difference between the different grades of maple syrup and like early season versus late season, right?
Because the earlier in the season, the clearer it runs, that's where you're getting your lighter syrups, and as the season goes on, it gets darker and darker until you get to the point where you get all those metallic tastes that even like below grade B, right, which are even too strong for me. Like I'm a solid B guy. I like B for eating, I like B for cooking, like I like B. You know what I mean? But um, but it seems to me those effects like swamp like any sort of uh like locale effect.
You know what I mean? What do you think? Am I wrong about this? I want someone to see. We're gonna have to do this.
We need someone to send in a tasting. You know what else I've really always wanted to do, always wanted to do. I've always wanted to get a bunch of uh maple sap and then uh concentrate it in a rotovat. We'll try to make it happen. Right?
To see like I want to know how much of the characteristic mapleness is because of the cooking itself versus just the extraction of water. You know what I'm saying? I'm sure someone out there has done uh evaporative boiling on this without heating it, but sorry, I gotta call her here. Alright, caller, you're on the air. Hey, it's Chris from Green Zone.
Hey, what's up? Hey, got a syrup question, actually. Oh, nice. I haven't had a chance to look at the uh at the video yet. I heard you sent it to Jack, but I haven't seen the uh the link yet on the on the coffee.
Yeah, no worries. I just wanted to know what your go-to method for gum Arabic is, because I couldn't actually find one in Liquid Intelligence. Yeah. Yeah, I don't use it that often is why is why it's not in there. I did a bunch of tests once where I, you know, we did the heavy gum syrups and then um tried to see how much of a difference it made, and uh our impression was that you know we didn't love it enough to like it wasn't one of those things where I'm like my life has changed, and so now I'm gonna do it, which is why it's not not in there.
The gum Arabic I typically use is fairly uh, you know, uh tweaked out, like, you know, from like uh Ticoloid, those guys. So I use it mainly as a as a suspend as as an emulsion, right? So Yeah, I'm using it, yeah. I'm using it that way as well, also uh, you know, in method that I got from your book, but as far as the pure gum syrup, I was just kind of curious. Yeah, Wonderich has a uh a bunch.
Dave Wundrich has uh some gum syrup recipes that he published uh I think uh either it's either it's in bibe or it was one of the Esquire things he wrote about it, because I know he's a proponent of uh gum syrup. But you know, that the interesting thing about gum arabic is that you can put a preposterous amount of it into solution, right? I mean that's that's the kind of thing about it. It's like very, very high percentages of gum arabic um, you know, don't form an extremely uh viscous solution. And it's because um gum arabic uh is you know it's not a long chain polymer, it's not the way it works.
Right. Um so uh in your in your opinion, what do you think is a high proportion? Oh, well, I don't know, like I have like like I say, like I like I don't do it, so I don't even think but like over like you can easily do like ten percent, I think. I have never done it uh that high. Stas, remember we ran those tests?
You didn't really like it either, right? No. Um I don't really I never really liked it. That's the thing. Uh I think a lot of people also buy kind of like crap grades of gum arabic, and like they can have um you know different kind of uh tastes and they're kind of dark.
The stuff that I use is powdered and pure white. Yeah, that's what I have too. Yeah. And so, you know, look, here's what I think. Like uh, you know, use warm use uh hot hot water, right, right?
Bl blend it in, hydrate that sucker. Um I don't know whether mine is special that you don't have to heat it, like whether the stuff that I use is special, because I can't remember, but hot water is always gonna make it easier, right? Blend the hell out of it, get it, get it, then add your sugar to it. But start with a ridiculously high rate. This way you can kind of see what happens when you go overboard.
I always like to start with something ridiculous. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean I've actually followed um Jeff Morgenthaler's recipe, which is like six parts sugar to one part uh gum to two parts water, and it's just this ridiculous sludge. Yeah. Well, okay, so how how does the how does the recipe made?
Tell me the the steps. So he's well, I saw one thing online that said you can blend it and you don't have to wait, but Morgenthaler said do one part gum, one part water, let it sit overnight, it'll hydrate itself, and basically you just stir that into uh simple syrup, but he's using a three to one sugar to water ratio. Three to one. Three part sugar, one part water? Yeah.
No, no, no, no, no. That's it must be a misprint. Three part sugar, one part water? Yeah. No.
It's on his, it's uh it's on imbibe because they took it from the book and it's in the book, and you know, I don't know if this is a mistake. But yeah, this stuff is like super thick. No, there's no way. It would definitely not come out of a pour bottle. I would have to like spoon it into a drink.
Well, uh, I'd have to calculate the bricks on that. Three parts, well, we could do it, right? So it's it's 70 something bricks. I guess. Right?
Yeah. 75 bricks. So like think about this way honey is 82, right? And honey is completely inverted. If honey was uh had any sucrose remaining in it, right?
It would crystal it would crystallize instantly, right? Right. So you can't you can't have sucrose mixtures at that uh high of brick. I mean, really anything over above sixty six, sixty-eight is going to start throwing crystals off, so it's going to be difficult. You could boil it to get it uh in.
Does he boil it to get it in solution? No, I blended it. Wow. Yeah, I would imagine that that would be hard. Yeah, I mean I guess the point of the gum is that it keeps it from crystallizing.
Huh. I guess but it's still going to be I mean think about it. It's gonna be thick. Oh yeah it's super thick. I mean think about it this way right maple syrup is around sixty six bricks.
You know how that pours right you're adding a small amount of hydro to it which maybe it does stop crystallizing that's a good point right but the difference between 66 and 82 right is not that much when you think about how much water is and that's the difference between maple syrup and freaking honey. I gotta jump in the chat room is going nuts. It's two to one two to one that that makes a lot more sense. Two to one would work. Sugar to water that's what I guess the chat room is that's what they're saying yeah.
It's six six waters, three sugar, one gum. Now that would work that would definitely work. Let me look up that would definitely work. Because three is bonkers. I don't even know that I could get it I could get it dissolved only with heat.
But while we're going on this some tricks. So if you're having trouble getting your gum arabic into solution remember any hydrocolloid wants to go into water if at all possible so you want to you want to add the hydro before you add the sugar the exception to that is you can dry blend your hydrocolloid with some of the sugar, right? So you can like blend uh you can blend you know uh equal parts gum arabic and sugar, and what you're doing there is just helping the gum arabic particles stay separate from each other to help them hydrate. So that's a time honored technique. But you don't need to freaking do that if you have a vita prep.
You can just it is two to one if you consider that the the water that's already in the gum mixture. Oh, I see. So he says two ounces gum arabic hydrated with two ounces of water and then twelve ounces of sugar mixed with four ounces of water. That's a lot of gum Arabic. And plus I don't really I don't really like what is the purported benefit.
Does anyone in the chat room say that they love this stuff, that they use it every day, that it's the only syrup that they ever use, that this is like the love of their freaking life? Well, I'm using it at the bar tonight, so we're gonna find out. Yeah, it's just like you know what? Here's the other thing too. Like, what are you using it in?
Like, like a lot of times people would use these gum syrups for like freaking like stirred in bill drinks. Why? They just don't dispeak like a high brick syrup like that, doesn't dissolve in well. Are you shaking with it? What are you doing with it?
You know what I'm saying? If you're shaking with it, there's no freaking point. I don't see that much of a point in going that high of a bricks because you're shaking, you're gonna get all this extra dilution anyway. Do you know what I'm saying? Uh so you're you're you know, the the the reason, for instance, to go back to a completely different argument, has nothing to do with this.
The old fashioned argument, there's all these people who like to make old fashioned with sugar, right? And the idea there is that you are um not adding the extra water from the syrup. And all that means is is that you want that first sip to be preposterously boozy, right? I mean, that's yeah, that's really all that means. Uh I most people I know like a couple of sp even with syrup, like a cup, and it's only a tiny bit anyway, let's be honest.
A couple of stirs of the spoon anyway before they start drinking it. Most people except for hardcore, you know, booze hounds, and I know plenty, right? Yes, so do I want like a couple of uh spins of the spoon. Anyway, let us know what happens with the syrup. Jack, does anyone on the chat chat line say that they love love love it?
Let's see. Yeah. Uh no. Yeah. Yeah.
I think it's one of the few nose. I'm trying to use it in actually a shake and drink, where I want a fair amount of viscosity and body. Yeah, but it doesn't add a lot of viscosity. That's the thing. That's a that's why I don't get it.
Like it's a really good emulsifier, right? Like if you were gonna make a citrus syrup or any of these other things, like it's a really good emulsifier to keep things like citrus oils suspended. Or if you're gonna have any Yeah, I get it. You know what I mean? But like I I just don't get it.
I don't get it as uh a texturizer, because I think other things do that better. It's in its main characteristic is that it can go in high proportion without becoming too too viscous, and it's great emulsifier, but it's not really a foaming agent. Do you know? Um Yeah. I mean, I I'm gonna be shaking it up with milk and so that'll certainly help, I think.
Yeah, I mean, maybe it has interaction with milk. I don't know. I don't know. It's just one of those things I think it's one of those things that people do because they used to do it back in the old days. And like maybe maybe there was some reason to do it back in the old days.
Like, I don't know, maybe crystal inhibition, I don't know, I don't know what. But I just don't I don't love it. Cool. Well, I'll try it out tonight and you know how it goes. Alright.
Good luck. Okay. This is I do have another call. Alright, call caller, caller, you're on the air. Hey, how's it going?
It's Anton from Boca. Hey, what's up? I was going. Yeah, I'm going to Japan on Thursday. I'm here for three weeks.
Uh I wanted to see uh if there's any place I can get an A Gmate fish at all. Oh no, any other recommendations of places uh of going to. So you're going to Tokyo? Yeah. Okay.
So I would definitely um I would definitely see if you could get a tour of uh Tsiji Market. Like Stas and I went on awesome tour there, but we had like we got we got you have to meet up with someone, right? Like we can't just tour it anymore. I don't know. Like who are are you going as part of uh for business or are you just going?
Just going. I believe I'm going to the tour of the market uh the second day I'm there. Yeah. So that that there is life-changing, right? And and like I don't know like if you speak or have someone translating, but let them know in advance what you kind of want to see.
Because everyone who's like, oh well, you know, someone's coming to the market, they want to see the tuna auction. And that's great. That's fine, awesome. But like you want to see people doing uh like the the different techniques like like like fish butchering, um, you know, Ikajima, which you can all see there. So if you just let like your the tour guide or the host know what it is you want to see, you know, um they'll they'll probably um show you.
So you know, then uh what time of year is it? Is it spring yet over there? Is it Hamo yet? I when we were there, what time of year were we there, Stas? It was a little later, right?
Yeah. It was all that freaking Hamo, all that like all that bone with the crunchy that's the thing. Everything's seasonal, so it depends on what's in season right now, is what you're gonna get a whole boatload of. Um anything you remember like particular places? No.
What was the one that Mark went to that he loves so much? He said it was the best place he's ever been. I don't remember. Oh man. When are you going?
Two weeks. I'm leaving Thursday. Yeah. Go to the chat. People should call in on the chat room and see uh who's good or like, you know, uh you know, we have some we have some crew over in Japan right now.
They should give you some recommendations on our chat room. We'll go uh to see. But all I'm saying is is that I would be very clear um what it is that you're interested in seeing when you go like on a food uh tour or or anything like this, because I think in general, like people who listen to this show have a different set of interests than the average tourist jackweed who shows up somewhere. And I think that in general people like cater towards even of things like the fish market to what the average jackweed wants. Gotta go with jackweed, huh?
Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. And uh well, dude, it's not like you, Jack.
It's like oh. But uh I don't also know what the current exchange rate is, but like have someone take you to like the knife shops. I would go to the uh do you remember the name of the street, Stas with the big with the chef hat dude on it? No. There's a there's one street, and I want to say it's Kobayashi, but I made that up because uh it's like a Star Trek reference or something like that.
But like go the go to that street and like check out I love, absolutely love um seeing uh kitchen like commercial kitchen equipment uh districts in different countries. Every country I go, I try to go to uh market and to like a commercial um kitchen equipment outlet area. And I'm sure you'll find some fun stuff. Awesome. I know we're gonna go to the uh Yamazaki uh distillery and then uh hopefully try to see some sake uh brewery as well.
Oh nice. You know what I never went when I was there? I really wish I would like uh like good traditional miso production would be nice. I hear Yama I I've never been to uh Yamazaki, but I know people that have gone that uh I thought it was a great tour, so you know. Let us know what happens.
Fair enough. Sounds good, man. All right. Uh I'll let you know I'm fine. Thanks, man.
Alright, cool. Oh look, look, it's Peter Kim. Peter Kim. Oh Peter Kim. Shows up just in time to get the free lunch.
So Peter. So Peter. You know, Peter Kim, but I'm here for the pizza, not the friendship. Yeah. Do you want a menu, Peter?
Oh, Peter menu. The uh start with drinks. What are you doing? Are you the president or the director? Dude, uh who cares?
Yeah. Of the Museum of Food and Drink. How's it going over there? Yeah, man, it's alright. Yeah.
Still kicking. Yeah. Yeah. Not that you check on us that often. Oh, so last week they had a technical difficulty with some of you know, for those of you who don't know, Museum of Food and Drink open right now with uh an exhibit on uh the birth of the flavor industry.
And I heard you guys were having some technical problems with uh one of the machines. Did you get it fixed? Uh we're still troubleshooting it. Oh, son of a gun. I'm gonna have to go over there and fix it all right.
Oh yeah. I'm just saying. It's just the yeah, we've got grape. Everything smells like popcorn is one thing. So everything?
Well, it's just popcorn constantly comes up. Every time you press any button, we have this thing called the smellSynth. And uh it has nineteen different arcade buttons, releases different smells, and you can press them to create all these different flavor combinations. One of them releases Pyrazine, which has a popcorn smell to it. And for whatever reason, whenever you press any button, the pyrazine jar uh it shakes and there's a little air that goes through.
So there's a slight popcorn note to everything right now at the SmellSense. Did it so it seems like it's like a programming thing. Well, how could that be? Probably because I went in and tried to fround with it. Did someone actually try to fetch around with it?
I just want to see basically like the I think the best episodes of cooking issues are when Dave turns into incredible the incredible Hulk. Yeah. And so I basically just keep poking. It's like I take the sleeping lion and just keep like poking him with uh the broomstick. Could be worse, it could all smell like cheesy vomit.
Yeah, it's true. Which is another one of the buttons. Yeah, that's the one that actually runs out the fastest. Oh, really? Those people like the cheesy vomit?
Yeah, everybody. I watch this all the time where everybody's like, oh, cheesy vomit. I'll try it. And then you'll go you go back for it. Yeah, you can't.
Well, that's like I've always said, like when you're I don't want to get into it. Family show. Not family, it's just gross. Just gross. Like whenever you get let me put it this way whenever you get something nasty smelling on your finger, you have to smell it.
Wow. Actually, there are a small subset of the people who will not smell their finger before they clean it off. Yes. Yeah. Well, there is that classic saying that man with itchy butt has smelly finger.
Uh where is that a classic saying? In China. In the Kim household. Wow. We have one more caller if we want to.
All right, call on that note. Caller, you're on the air. Hello. Hello? Hey.
Hi. Hi, this is this is Bill from Fullerton, California. How are you doing? Wait, where's Fullerton? I'm a long where's Fullerton?
I'm a long time past listener, and so it's great to actually finally be talking to you live. Oh nice. Where's Fullerton? Fullerton is Orange County, south of LA. Alright.
So Stas knows it well. Are you close to her home home country of Covina? Um yeah, nearby. Nice. I realized that Covina is in a disproportionate number of movies that involve uh teenagers or anything else happening.
Like it's all like Good Burgers, Covina. Every time I watch a movie like that, it's Covina, Covina, Covina. You ever notice that? Uh I honestly haven't watched a lot of those movies. I I don't I'm not sure why.
Yeah. Strange. Alright, what's your question? Let's get to your question. Okay.
Um I'm wondering, and I I I I've listened to the back catalog, and I don't know if you've ever addressed this. Um I I really want to refill my soda stream bottle with dry ice. Oh. But I wanted your take on it, whether or not that was ex extremely dangerous to do. Yeah.
I'm gonna file that one under listen, I've seen the YouTube uh uh what's it calls, where people do that, right? Uh I'm gonna go ahead and file that one under not advisable. Because look, here's the here's the truth. And when Dave Arnold files something under not advisable, that is really not advisable. Yeah, because it's just, you know, you could get it wrong.
You know what I'm saying? It's like you know, theoretically it's all fine and good. You open it. Here's the other trick. You have to let the CO2 build up before you close it again, right?
Because you don't want any oxygen in there at all. So you have to you have to tear out your your your you have to open it, you have to tear out your bottle on a scale, right? And you have to get a scale that's gonna sit there long enough because you don't want the sucker like uh you know turning off. This is why I always advocate if you can afford having a plug-in scale, like get a plug-in scale so that it doesn't turn off on you. I hate when scales turn off in the middle of a measurement.
Hate. Uh so you get the scale there, it has to be enough to weigh the bottle and the contents that are in it. You tear it out empty, then you have to throw in your pre-weighed nuggets, right? You have to make sure it's the right weight, let it off gas for a little bit to clear out the the excess oxygen, and then and then cap it uh and pray that you've measured right. If you've measured right, it should all be good because you know how they fill CO2 tanks?
They fill them by weight, they don't fill them by volume or anything like that. Uh but I would say, and again, I'm not recommending you do this, but if you are gonna do it, I would always go a little bit under instead of a little bit over. Okay. A little bit over, very bad. Okay, well, I guess I won't do it then.
I I mean I I wasn't even sure uh if it would end up saving me money based on how much dry ice I would end up needing to buy. So I and then I was actually I was also actually curious if there was a built in safety valve to to make it more safe than j if there wasn't a safety valve. I answer is there is an there is uh now you're stretching my memory, there is an overpressure safety on those things, but uh I don't I don't think you want them to go off on you. You know what I mean? I think that little thing on the right is an overpressure safety.
That little little hex looking thing on the right is an overpressure safety thing. But I wouldn't want to rely on I think here's it here's the other thing. So like I fill my own CO2 tanks, my large CO2 tanks, right? Uh so I'll I'll have like one of the large cylinders and I'll fill smaller cylinders or I'll do gas mixtures in them. But I'm doing it like pretty carefully by weight.
And if you ever go that route, you know, that's also can be unsafe, and so I wouldn't recommend unless you look into it because you don't want to o overfill it. Um but what I would do is does your soda stream live in one space in your in your place? Or does it move around the house? Uh it just moves like from above my fridge to my counter to back up above my fridge. Okay.
So uh I'm sure someone out there has done this already, but it is rather trivial to just uh make an adapter to have it go to a real tank. Oh really? Yeah, done. Done. Then you just have the line running up to the soda stream, screw it on with the adapter, you're done.
Okay. Yeah. Where where would I find info on that? I don't know. Uh I should I'll I should look at it because I've had enough people ask me about it, but yeah, you could uh I don't know.
People have done it. The real problem is this. Like people it's very simple machine work job to do it, right? Very simple. And then people, because you know, they're not gonna sell that many of them, they need to charge an exorbitant amount of money.
So the question is, has anyone done it in like quantities large enough such that the price is reasonable? Like that's the that's the thing. But think about it this way. To me, like large tanks isn't just about price, although price is a factor. It's all about like how much do you hate those little bottles running out all the freaking time.
Totally. I know. Yeah. Yeah. And then you're like, well, I'm 15 bucks a pop.
Oh, jeez. Oh my god. Yeah. I I share this this struggle and all of that. That's a preposterous amount of money.
That's absurd. It's preposterous by design. Now, CO2 tanks, CO2, the price of CO2 has gone up recently over the past couple of years, but uh not by that much. You know what I mean? I think I pay I think I pay $15 now for like five or ten pounds of this stuff.
You know what I mean? Right. Yeah. Yeah, my friend has the like the under-the-counter rig that uh that that uh per your instructions and and I think he does pay like just like about the same amount or a little more than what I pay for however much he has. I don't I'm not sure how much, but way more than me.
Yeah, so like the the rig that I use, right, which is the one with the carbonator caps and the bag and bottle things. Here's the problem with it. My entire family is so freaking nanny poo on carbonating that way. They're like, meh, it's so hard to put the valve onto the thing. Yeah, suck it up.
Suck it up. Oh, in my house in Connecticut. It's freaking suck it up. Like Dax, my you know, 11-year-old, he's like pushing on it, and like I'm just staring at him because he has to man up and like put the cap on the thing, right? Yeah, I can't just sit there and that one is very hard.
Oh, come on. That one is very hard. How hard can it be, Stuzz? Really hard. How hard can it be?
It's not like I'm like the strongest man on earth. I can make sells or not. You are the strongest man on the earth. Anyway, my point being that uh that some people in your family might go a little nanny poo on it, and like they have to go through like rig and roll every time. For me, it's easy.
Like carbonating that way is just as easy as carbonating in a soda stream. In fact, easier because I can do it and leave it in the fridge, all kinds of stuff. But just be aware if you do switch to a uh a carbonator cap setup, be ready for some nanny poo from your family. Okay. Noted.
Yeah. Alrighty. Good luck with it. Thank you. Long live Indy Jesus.
Oh, I wish we still had Indy Jesus. Where is he, Jack? Uh that's a great question. I'm sure he's doing well though. Can I share a quick story?
So somebody who I won't name that works next door at the takeout spot came up to me and they were like, hey, so well wow, maybe I shouldn't tell this whole story. Long long story short, they say, um, who's who is uh Santa's little hipster? Oh and I'm like, how did you know about that? And they're like, well, somebody that I know is a fan of the show, and they asked me to find out who Santa's. I haven't seen Santa's little hipster in a long time.
Not working here anymore. Is it is he We're kind of like without a new character, you know? We gotta find that person. Yeah, we gotta f we gotta find someone, yeah, who's like worthy of uh of Stas's you know fertile ire. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Alright, cool. A few minutes here. Alright, okay.
So let me get some of the questions. Uh hey guys, this is Steve Yoon from Los Angeles. A few weeks ago, Johnny Hunter revealed on your show that he had developed a way to make black garlic in three days, and that he would be revealing it at a MoFat event and possibly on the radio show later. Can you bug him for his recipe again? Uh me and several uh friends are anxiously waiting with our ears stuck to the radio, waiting to see if the quick black garlic recipe would become public.
My mom makes it all the time in her rice cooker and taught me that the typical it taught me the typical three-week method. I'd like to be able to blow her mind once by making it over the weekend while visiting her. Ah, okay, listen. We have to get uh Johnny said he made it public. Is that stuff on the air?
Is that can you go watch that demo? No. Did he videotape that demo? No. Er, so nice.
Thanks. Yeah. So yeah, well, but we could we can get it from Johnny. Yeah, I mean, roughly what he does is he doesn't use a rice cooker, he uses a crock pot. He breaks the leaves the garlic in the skins, breaks it up, like mists it a little bit, right, with water, wraps it in moist paper towels, and then puts it in aluminum foil in the crock pot, closes the crock pot, hits go, and then has there's a towel, I think also in the crock pot of moist towel, and then just keeps re-upping that and like overturning it like once a day or so and goes.
That's roughly what he does. Yeah. Something like that. Yep. Yeah.
But we'll get uh Johnny to uh call us because he did say he was gonna make it public, and so maybe we'll get him to call in uh like you know next week, the week after, and and you know, just go through it really quickly. But that's the gist. Yeah. You have his contact info man? Yeah.
All right, cool. I think Stas is gonna do it. You know, like I have I don't call I don't even call my family. Yeah. You know, I don't call people.
Do I look like I call people? Stas, do I call people? Nope. No. Uh let's see.
Um, dear Jack, on a food website. Dear me, huh? Yeah, dear you. Uh uh, Stella Culinary. I asked the founder if he agreed with blast chilling sous vide proteins.
He quoted uh Dave Arnold. He said, Dave Arnold says a slower chill is best for texture and flavor. If at all possible, please ask why slow chill is best. Thanks, Joan. Okay, here's the deal.
I didn't used to believe this was the case. This is actually Bruno Gusseau's uh thing, you know, Bruno Gusso, the grandpappy of uh low temperature cooking. And so he he always said that you want to ramp the uh cooling down, and the reason is is that as meat is passing through a particular temperature, he always said it was somewhere around 50 degrees Celsius. As the meat is passing through that uh temperature, it's absorbing the liquids that it's expelled during uh the cook, right? And so if you rapidly force meat from cook temperature down, it won't have the time to reabsorb that because at low temperatures it won't reabsorb the liquids, uh, and obviously at high temperatures it won't reabsorb the liquids.
And so, you know, he used to um advocate uh three-step chilling where he would take the bags out, leave them on the counter, because air is rub very not very good at uh uh heat conductor, so it doesn't cool, it doesn't have a it doesn't cool it off very quickly. Then he would after 15 or 20 minutes, depending on how thick it was, he would put it into tap water, uh, you know, like room temperature tap water to bring it down to that, and then after that he would ice it down. And so what I would say is that blast chilling is great once it's in, once it's done its initial chilling. So once it's initially chilled down, right, and it's reabsorbed whatever juices it's going to reabsorb, once it gets down to, you know, in the kind of room temperature uh or not even a little warmer than room temperature, then you could hit it in the blast chill and take it down like a rock. What do you think, Jack?
Did I answer the question? I think so. All right. Uh that's that's gonna be about it. Alright, so next week we'll have to get to uh we had a we had a you know a a Leahy Bitman style no need bread question, which we have to get to.
And we have a mock tail, and we have a mocktail question. Mock Duck. Uh Mock Duck, interesting. You want to talk about you have five seconds to discuss discuss mock duck. Not mock duck, the excellent.
By the way, uh I in general don't like fake vegetarian stuff, but some traditional stuff. I think mock duck is delicious. Like actual mock duck. Delicious. Um I have some uh egg white questions, I have some I have some good stuff and how how to hack how well to hack your uh your soda siphons and your your EC bottles.
There are some tricks. Uh we'll get to it next time 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.
You can email us questions at any time at info at heritage radio network.org. Heritage Radio Network is a nonprofit organization. To donate and become a member, visit our website today. Thanks for listening.
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