This episode of Cooking Issues is brought to you by Bob's Redmill, an employee owned company that has been offering organic stone ground products for decades. Their flowers and whole grains are the highest quality and are minimally processed in their stone mill in Oregon. Visit Bob'sRedmill.com to shop their huge range of products. Use the code Cooking25 for 25% off your order. That's cooking, and then the number two and the number five for 25% off your order.
I'm HRN's communication director Kat Johnson with a preview of the next episode of Meet and Three, our weekly food news roundup. We're exploring the future of eating animals, and we're going beyond typical meat sources. If you look at the length of human history, we've been eating insects a lot longer than we haven't been in the United States and Western Europe. We're looking at unusual ways to purchase meat. People are like, really?
Why would I want to buy that out of machine? And we introduce you to Frank Reese, a poultry farmer whose traditional farming methods are featured in a new documentary. I'm a fourth generation farmer in Kansas, and I focus basically all on standardbread poultry and have my Hawaii. He's kind of the last one standing with these rarefied breeds that are so important for if we're gonna eat chicken and turkey into the future. He's essential.
He's a national treasure. Listen to Meet and Three this week to better understand the history and the future of meat. Available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you pre-recorded! Why?
Because there's no freaking internet here, and there are no telephones. At Roberta's Pizzeria in Bushwick, Brooklyn on the Heritage Radio Network. Well, you're just that's just your phone. That's a game you have. Apparently, uh, you know, Brooklyn, tech hub that it is, we have no internet here.
And Dave in the booth, how you doing? I'm good. How are you? How are our voice over IP telephones working, Dave? We don't have voice over IP telephones.
So don't bother calling in your questions to 718497-2128 because you can't listen to this live anyway because it's not on the internet. Here's some more fun news. This particular area of Brooklyn is a blackout zone for ATT. And Nastasia, what carrier do you have? A C and T.
Booker, who's here. It's bring your child to work life. What do you have? What carrier do you have? What what's your telephone carrier?
Uh ATT. Yes, so am I. So that means we have zero internet here. Now uh there's I don't even need to use internet for what I'm doing. I am apparently I am playing Brickbreaker, which has been keeping me up late every night these the this past week.
Yeah, Brickbreaker is uh the game from uh from the Blackberry back in the day. But many people missed it, so it's now available for iPhone. Yeah, so I was gonna push something that uh we're doing at the bar tomorrow, existing conditions, but I guess there's no point since it's not going out live. Well, it could go out in what, an hour or so? Yeah, I mean, I can still post this on the internet.
That's where everybody's gonna hear it anyway. Oh, wait, I have no internet. No wait. Yeah. And like, I was gonna try to get Chris Young from Chef Steps to call in to uh, you know, answer one question that I didn't even bother really looking up the answer to because I was like, oh, I'll go right to the source.
But we can't. He won't be young for long. Well, he will always be young. He will always be. He's forever young.
That's his last name. Forever young. You know what this means, Dave? You gotta use your brain and not the internet. Well, except for like, you know, that's great if you counted on using your brain, but since I haven't been able to use my brain effectively for how many years, Nastasia?
Many decades. So anyway, as the listeners of the show will know, uh Booker, my uh eldest son Booker, is working for Nastasia. Did you say illness son? Eldest. Eldest.
You're his illest son. Yeah. Uh anyway, is working for Nastasia at uh Pasta Flyer, and Booker apparently does no conception of how scheduling works, right, Nastasi? Right. Because I'm I'm only 16.
This is I have 17 year olds that work there. And 16. Yeah, I learned to tell time when I was a lot younger than that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, so so Booker's big thing is he's like, so uh I want to work today.
How's about today? Yeah. And Nastasia's like, Booker makes his own schedule for the restaurant without bothering to tell the person who's doing the schedule for the restaurant. How does that work out, Steve? Not okay.
But I didn't know. I told you the last time you worked. Alright, well. Now he knows. Now he knows, and knowing is it means two weeks.
Two weeks. Well, G.I. Joe. Yeah, you know, uh, I told you about the pork chop sandwich, right, Dave? No.
You know about everyone, I mean, I'm assuming that many people who listen to this have seen the fake G.I. Joe. Well, they're real PI J uh G. I. Joe PSAs.
P.I. Joe is his private investigator cousin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Where they they remix the end and they add stuff. So anyway, my one of my favorite ones is pork chop sandwiches.
You know that one, right, Dave? No. You're not cooking. Yeah, I can't. I can't go to YouTube, so I don't know.
Yeah, but you should already have seen this 8,000 times. I don't have children, so. Uh, excuse me. Uh this was when you were a child. This came out when you were still in diapers, practically.
Yeah. You're not cooking. Yeah, dude. Ba bla blah blah blah. And then the guy runs pork chop sandwiches.
And then he says a bunch of not safer radio stuff and goes in and then gets the kids out. Anyway, so like Bobby Murphy at the uh, those of you who know will know. Bobby Murphy at the bar was developing a pork chop sandwich, which is an Iowa. Did you know Iowa pork chop sandwiches are saying? I talked about the Iowa pork chop sandwich and how they're like huge and like silly, this giant schnitzel coming out of a ridiculous piece of bread.
Yes. So we're having Bobby's version of the Iowa pork shop sandwich. Pork chop sandwiches. Tomorrow? Tomorrow, no, it won't be to that's on the full menu.
So tomorrow, the at the bar in existing conditions, there are still some tickets uh available. I think there's a couple tickets available. I would search how to get to the website, but I don't have internet. Uh and I don't have it on the top of my head, Dave, as you expect me to have everything, what the site is. But it's I think it's on some crazy site called Brown Paper Bag or something like this.
Have you heard of this thing? Yeah, it's a like a ticketing site, right? I think so. I think it's on I think it's on that. Go to my Twitter, go to Cooking Issues if you're interested.
Tomorrow night, we're having a preview because we don't have our liquor license yet. Supposedly, supposedly, the SLA, the State Liquor Authority board, is meeting tomorrow. And tomorrow is the day that we will have the firmness of liquor license in our you know, sweaty little palms, and we can announce the official, official opening date of existing conditions. Can't wait to get firm. Yeah, right?
But tomorrow, uh, we're gonna do a preview, and it's being sponsored by, I think either by Mace or by Boilermaker. So another bar is sponsoring our bar so that we can buy a liquor. Oh, I I gotta tell you this. Okay. Um when Booker and Dax closed, um, the new bar cannot keep that name.
And um, and then I say, ooh, how about Dax and Booker? Right. Well, I still hope, I mean, I still hope someday to reopen a uh a Booker and Dax. Would you like to be able to someday go to a bar and or a restaurant that uh had your name on it, Booker? Uh it would be a little awkward, but still kind of nice.
I think Dax would enjoy it. Yeah. Anyway, whatever. We'll work on it. Uh okay.
So uh long time uh listener and uh, you know, uh what do you call that? The correspondent. Uh not in the sense of like correspondent news correspondent, but one who corresponds with you. Yeah, right? Kang Ingber wrote in.
He says, Hello, Nastasia. Uh I lost track of how recent the podcast on cooking body parts was. It was recent. But I listened, uh found it grimly amusing. The funny and quirky Dave Sederis, David Sidaris, has a new book that includes uh his adventure of his fatty tumor and how to feed it to turtles.
That sounds gross. You hate the word tumor, right? Yeah. You hate it. I know.
Yeah. It's usually a sign of cancer. Yes. Uh I was also disappointed to learn in the same show that you are the world's worst friend. Now I was talking to Nastasi here.
Uh I mean, I heard it before, but I didn't think much of it. My dad said his ring tone to him, saying you were mean to me whenever she calls him. That is true. Uh, but when I've heard the same thing several times, I cannot, I can just not oh wait, so I cannot just dismiss it. Although, as I think of it, all the allegations come from the same source.
That's true. Um I'm checking once again to see if you ever watched or gave the link uh to Dave and family to insist they watch Steven Banks Home Entertainment, which is an old 80s thing, so you guys can go look that up on the internet if you're a fan of 80s entertainment. Yes, I did watch it. I enjoyed it. Okay, uh, that's from Kenneth Ingbert.
Now, about this uh guy who chopped his foot off. A listener sent to Nastasia the Reddit through the direct Reddit thread uh that apparently if you scroll through a bunch of stuff, you can get to this person's email because we wanted to contact him and perhaps get Mr. Foote Eater on the show. How'd you like that, Dave? Uh I'm ambivalent about that.
You're in what do you mean you're in? But you wouldn't want to have Mr. Foote Eater call in and people could ask him questions about eating. Sorry, wait, what's the backstory here? He eats feet.
Oh, we weren't here. You don't remember. Oh, you weren't there for this episode. Was this when Matt was filling in? Yeah.
This guy lost his foot in a motorcycle accident and ate it. Well, wait. Had a chef friend cook it and then consumed it with friends. He was in a motorcycle accident. That doesn't answer my question.
Why? The guy was on the table, probably high out of his mind on whatever they were giving him to not pass out from you know the pain. And the doctor said we amputated your foot, and the first words out of his mouth was Can I keep it? Speaking of amputations, I just got my ingrown toenail cut away, and I was and since it was infected, I was very worried that the toe would have to be amputated. This is this is what we call in the trade booker too much information.
Too much information. Anywho. Okay, sorry. The guy wanted to uh freeze dry it, but he didn't have the cash, so he cooked it instead. Fair?
Fair. Anyway, this is a real person. He's on the Reddit, and someone sent to Nastasia a way to contact this person. The Reddit thread, which apparently his email is in the Reddit thread. Uh but just so everyone knows, Nastasia did not have the stomach to sift through the photos to look for the dude's email address.
Do I ask Dave to do it? So she asked me to do it this morning. Yeah. So if you do it, I'll kind of do that. Why do I have to do it?
Somebody has to do it. David, do you want to do it? If I I can't speak to it's a good one. Dave in the booth. Wait, what?
Sorry, I was distracted because the internet just came back on. Oh. My brother loves that horn. Wait, what do you want me to do? You're gonna pay me to do something?
No. Well, no, the way Heritage Radio Network is gonna pay you to find this guy's email to get him on as a uh as a telephone guest. Yeah, I could probably do that, sure. Yeah, yeah. But like uh, yeah, but so so Nastasia's not willing to sift through all the uh pictures of frozen foot.
It's coming her way right now. Foot, one foot. I kind of don't have the stomach for those kinds of things. Oh, Hustino. Let's get it done, guys.
Okay. Call in all your questions too. 718 497 2128. That's 718-497-2128. That's a pretty good imitation there, Dave.
I like that. Yeah, I've been working on it. Yeah, nice. So you want to see if Chris Young is available? Yeah, I'll give him a ring.
All right, and I'll uh I'll do the next uh question here while we're waiting for it. All right. Uh my name is Laura Maddox. This is not me. My name is not Laura Maddox.
This is someone writing in. My name is Laura Maddox, and I work at a cocktail bar in Austin, Texas, called Small Victory, owned and operated by Josh Loving. Uh, we use your that was my that was kind of Casey Casey mask a little bit. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
I wish, right? Casey Caseon. You ever I've no I've said this before on the radio, but you ever listen to the Flatland? You know Flatland, the old band? They got a uh recording of Casey Case and losing his freaking mind.
I've I've heard that one. It's a m it's amazing. About the dead dog. It's about the dead dog and you too. And like, and it's him going completely.
No, but he's like, so Booker, he has to introduce the you two, and he doesn't clearly doesn't know much about you too at all. And he's introducing this thing, and he's going from a happy song into this like dog dying, and he loses his mind. He's like, I go from a happy song into freaking dogs dying. Bullshit. He starts screaming and yelling and saying things like diddly shit, diddly shit, and then he goes what are you doing?
Family show. You can bleep it. This is a quote. I can't believe it. It's a Casey Case some quote.
I can't change the quote. I could try, I'll try to change the quote. And he goes, he goes, about you too, and you'll appreciate this. He goes, these guys are English, and who gives a mean? And I'm like, and I'm like, first of all.
First of all, not English. Second of all. Everyone. Everyone gives. I mean, like, it's so weird.
Anyway, and in the back, they have, I forget what U-2 song. It's like it's like Unforgettable Fire or something, playing with like a real tinky rinky dinky like Casio tone in the background. Amazing. Flatland. Check it out.
If you want to hear Casey Kasim losing his mind. This is back, by the way, before everyone and their sibling like leaked like studio tapes out. This was like the 80s. You know what I mean? So it was pretty funny.
These guys are English, and who gives a diddly, diddly. Anyway, it's like you like it, right? I love it. All right. Anyway, I don't know how we got on that.
We use your cordial with agar technique from Liquid Intelligence as a foundation for our house lime cordial. What do you think about the word cordial? It's okay. Cordial. Okay.
Do you like when someone says when when you say you're being cordial, it means you hate someone, right? That means you're being nice to them even though you hate them. Yeah, right. They were cordial. Anyway.
I was hoping to get a few tips on procedure and equipment that might help us increase our yield. Below is a recipe we've adapted uh for our space. 500 grams of lime juice, finely strained, 250 grams of white sugar, approximately 50 grams of uh lime zest, 250 grams water, and two grams of agar powder. All right, so let me look here. Basically I like the way you enunciated water like water.
Water. Uh so you have 750 grams of water and two grams of agar powder. So we're right off the bat. Uh it's a little high on agar. So you could go.
I mean, I typically use two grams per liter on agar. So um for my stuff, and the the firmer the agar is, and it's not linear, by the way, the firmer the agar is, uh, the less yield you're gonna get. So, anyways. Uh with paddle attachment, mix zest and sugar in Kitchen Aid for approximately 20 minutes. Let rest uh 10 minutes, add lime juice and mix until sugar is dissolved, strain out lime zest, and uh set the oleo, uh lime oleo aside.
Stir the agar powder into water at room temperature until it is fully well until it is dispersed. You can't dissolve it. You say dissolve here, but it's dispersed. Bring to boil, stirring continually for two to three minutes, transfer agar mixture to a heat-proof container, slowly pour lime oleo into agar mixture. Whisking continuously.
Once mixed, put cordial in the freezer for one hour until agar gel sets. It doesn't really need to be in a freezer, but yeah, you could do that. Or you could put it in, you don't want to freeze-freeze it unless you're doing freeze thaw, in which case go ahead. But yeah, you want it to set as soon as it really gets um down below room temperature, it'll set. And agar sets pretty quickly just once it goes all the way through.
Don't disturb it though, until so it's good to put it in there just so that people don't mess with it. Don't you find people are always messing with things, Nastasia? Especially Nastasia loves to poke at stuff. Did I ever tell the story on air, Dave, about Nastasia and F and D C blue? Yes.
Do you remember that one, Dave? Wait, what was it? About Nastasia and uh F and D C blue. What is it, number two? Did I ever tell you that one?
No. So F and D C Blue, I think it's two, right, Stas? I can't remember. The one that they use in all of the all of the foods, like booberry and whatnot. So, like, it's the stuff where if you eat 50 packages of booberry, you're poop green for a little while because as F and D C boo goes through your body, it turns green.
No, in fact. So we got it for I forget what experiment we were doing with it at the French culinary. I was like, hey, uh Nastasia, don't mess with it. And then I went to go get lunch, and I came back and I was like, you messed with it, Nastasia. She's like, what are you talking about?
How do you know? Her whole face was blue. Her whole face, Dave, was blue. Because the other thing you gotta know about Nastasia is. You mean it was boo.
Boo. She can't help but touching her face. This is a fact I know. So I didn't warn her that like this stuff doesn't look so bad, but if even the smallest particle of it gets on your hands, and then you touch anything else, that something becomes blue. So her face was like freaking violet Beauregard out of Willy Wonka.
It was amazing. It was awesome. I love Willy Wonka. Yeah, everyone loves Willie Wonka Booker. Everyone.
I think the old one, right? Booker, what do you think of the new one? The new one is so creepy, and Wonka is just so rude in the new one. Yeah. Never seen it.
And uh he's he's just an idiot. What's more? It's like he wants the he he derives pleasure out of watching the kids getting hurt in his factory. Yeah, yeah. He treats Mike TV like trash.
Well, Mike TV. That makes me sick, Booker. Even though Mike TV is kind of a jerk, Wonka still disrespects him. Yeah, so Booker, what is your uh alarm tone? You get nothing.
You lose. Good day, sir. You know, Booker, my my dream man in life has always been Gene Wilder. You know who that is. Your dream man is in a box.
I know that, but like if I was away and you wanted to like bring someone to do that. Oh, Johnny Depp is the is the actor of the trashy Willy Wally. Alright, back to Agar. No, one more thing. One more thing.
Debt means a bad word in German. I don't know about that. I took German and I never heard that. But anyway. Look it up.
Okay. So uh Do you want to take a call? Oh, yeah. Let me yeah, yes. Let me finish this real quick.
Are you still on that? Yeah. Okay. Uh I just lose track. Alright, so the agar sets now.
Once it's set, you break the gel into curds with a whisk, pour into a cheesecloth line strainer, and let the cordial leak out of the gel suspension. By the way, don't use cheesecloth unless you have access to real cheesecloth, in which case still use a bunch of layers. I actually use uh like uh dish towels or much better, like fine linen dish towels or cotton, like unbleached cotton muslin is kind of amazing. Or if you have the money on super bags, you can use super bags for it. Um anyway.
Um I forgot to say one more thing about Willy Wong. Okay, what? The Umpalumpas and the new and crappy one are so creepy. Well, it's only one guy. Anyway, okay.
The yield we get from this method. What's more, they're clones, so whatever one guy does, all the others do. Yes, that is a fact. Well, well, we could talk about I could talk about the original the Umpalumpas for a long time, but I will not. Okay.
The yield we get from this method is usually around 425 to 450 mils. So you're losing about 250 mils of liquid. We would like to make this ingredient more often and possibly in larger batches. For our cheesecloth line strainer, we're using a flat bottom Chinese uh strainer sitting on top of a large bowl. Usually it takes us several hours to leak the cordial out of the gel.
Do you have any suggestions you could pass along regarding tools and materials to scale this method up? We don't have access to a centrifuge, also. Uh, do you think there'd be any problems in doubling this recipe as is? I'm concerned about the straining leaking, losing its effectiveness as there's too much gel to work with. Um, so no, I think you can scale that up.
I would take the agar down a little bit. And uh if you're you're doing quick agar, so you can just sit there and manually kind of do it. You can get like a bunch of liters out by just manually um like it's called uh sorry folks, it's called massaging the sack. You pull the thing up and you kind of massage it and unclog the called. And you like unclog the thing, and how many liters have we done of quick at a time?
So many. So many, so many, so many. So many. So massaging the sack produces liters and liters. Liters and liters.
Liters and liters. Gross. But yes, anyway, so but the trick is if you squeeze too hard, you will extrude the stuff out, and then it's all nasty. You'll extrude stuff out of the sack, and nobody wants stuff extruded out of their sack, correct? Right.
Correct. Uh, it depends on the show, I guess. Wow, wow, wow. Don't want to go there. Anyway, but uh also like if you're doing a cordial that's going to be left for a long time anyway, you might want to consider doing freeze thaw.
If you're doing free stall, you let the thing freeze solid, right? Then you uncrack it, and then you let it thaw. Good day, sir. That's Booker playing his phone. So uh you let it thaw over the cheesecloth.
In that case, you do like a wide, wide thing, like over a perf pan. And Nastasia and I have done like in the case. It takes g many, many gallons. Like 30 or 40 or 50 or 60 gallons. Remember that party we did for 1500 people?
And we filled every freezer at the FCI with frozen grapefruit juice. But the problem with that is it takes a long time. It's a lot less labor and it's fairly high yield, but it takes a lot physically longer. Anyway, all right, we got a caller, caller on the air. Hey Dave, my name is Max from Boston.
Uh big fan. Um I got a sausage making question for you. Um and I wish I had caught Johnny Hunter. Um I've actually reached out to Underground Foods separately to ask the same question. So traditionally with salami, um, after you've stuffed the casings, there's a fermentation step where you you let the bacteria kind of come alive for a period between 12 to 72 hours, depending on the culture you're using.
Um traditionally this is done in like a fermentation room um set to a particular humidity and temperature. Uh my question for you is could this uh fermentation step be done sous vide? Um what are your thoughts on that? Uh I don't know. Um I mean the whole idea is to drop the pH, right?
Quickly. Um and you're also you're nitrating it, right? Or nitriting it, I should say. So botulism shouldn't grow. I mean, I'm I I can't think of any inherently reason why you could not do that.
But it's not commonly done, so there must be a reason why people don't do it. But I can't I mean I mean yeah, I mean, like, look at the same thing. My big concern would be right moisture loss. Um I'm I'm guessing traditionally during the fermentation step, you do have some moisture loss. I mean some, but it's done at a relatively high humidity.
You know what I mean? Relatively high. Right. And you're talking 48 hours, you're talking less than you're talking like 24 hours, honestly, right? Or less over the course of a several week uh drying and ferment and uh drying and aging procedure minimum, even for something thin, right?
So I don't know. I don't know. What uh hey uh Dave, uh, can you put that out to the chat room and see whether anyone there has tried this or knows why you cannot do it? If you were not nitrating it, I would say you put yourself in danger because you're not going to reheat the problem product, and you could get a um botulism growth, and then you would not be re-sterilizing it to get rid of the I mean that's the other thing, right? So typically during you're not smoking during the ferment.
The ferment is done in plain oxygen, right? Just in a regular oxygen environment. Right. I mean, so maybe they are worried about some botulism growth in that initial um point because you're adding nitrites and the drop in pH and the salt together form the hurdles that make it safe. So maybe it isn't inherently safe uh during that initial drop before the pH goes down.
I don't know. I'd have to, I mean, that if that's a real like safety technical question that I don't have at the tip of my fingers. Um but technically you you mean you will be able to get something to if you inoculate it with uh lactic acid bacteria and uh, you know, keep it at the correct temperature to ferment. Uh, uh those bacteria will grow. That's for sure.
You know what I mean? I know that because I've done sauerkraut in the bag, I've done kimchi in the bag, I've done pickles in the bag. Um, I ain't never done meat in the bag though. I mean, not on purpose. Every time I've tried to from every time something's fermented in the bag that's a meat, it's been a a horrific mistake.
And man was it atrociously smelled. Nastash, you ever there when we cut up one one of those uh fermented bloater bags? No. Ugh. One time, you were you there that time we did the pork shoulder and it fermented?
Yeah. And the entire room smelled like cheese. Yes. And we had all those people. Rotten cheese?
Well, I mean, no, like cheese. Like what cheese? Like Swiss? Like stinky feeds cheese. No, like stinky feeds cheese.
It was hardcore. Uh you ever notice how you didn't want to eat that. No. You ever notice how when meat, when something goes bad like that, your first your your first year's like, can I fix it? Can I fix it?
And you're like, well, no. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but you have that yet your mind for a second, can I fix it? Can I fix it? No, you can't.
No. That's like when we broke into the dining hall in college and the cops showed up and like the cops were like freeze. My first instinct was to try to climb out the window. What the hell was I gonna do? They could have shot you.
Not just that, I would have fallen, I would have gotten skewered. I would have been killed falling out the window. But your first instinct is not your best instinct. To you, David, were you able to look through that Reddit? Anyways, no, uh caller.
I have not looked yet. Caller, is this an answer? I know I have not answered your question, but um yeah, maybe someone in the chat room will get to it, or Johnny Hunter maybe will like text me back or or go on you know, cooking issues in the channel. Chat room says I fermented Koji sous vide, so I think the same principle can apply. Right, except for Koji, uh I don't know.
First of all, Koji a lot smaller. The question really is is do you need that oxygen at the beginning of the ferment to protect from botulism in something that will not later be heated and or so the whole point of botulism toxin is if you if you heat botulism toxin, it will be destroyed. Or if you don't produce botulism toxin, it will be destroyed. But if you merely um allow it to grow, then inactivate the bacteria, but leave the toxin, that's when there's kind of problems if you're not going to heat it again. But I don't mean if you have nitrates, I mean the question is is the salt and nitrite alone uh enough to prevent botulism growth, considering the fact that the pH is going to be dropping relatively rapidly because you're gonna have lactic acid bacteria that you inoculate.
Plus, um you you know, there's gonna be a lot of competition for the botulism to grow because of the lactic acid bacteria. So I mean, it sounds like it could work, but I would be very hesitant to say it's safe unless I had a food safety person tell me that it was. Okay, thank you. All right. This episode of Cooking Issues is brought to you by Bob's Red Mill, an employee-owned company that has been offering organic stone ground products for decades.
Their flowers and whole grains are the highest quality and are minimally processed at their stone mill in Oregon. Visit Bobsredmill.com to shop their huge range of products. Use the code COKING25. That's all caps cooking and the number two and the number five for 25% off your order. So uh they sent me a little bit of their uh muesley mix, which I really kind of enjoy.
So uh, you know, muesley for those of you that don't know is kind of like uh imagine uh imagine like fruits, nuts, seeds, uh, oats, grains kind of smashed into kind of a uh thin, almost rolled like a rolled grain uh scenario. And instead of cooking it, I mean you can cook it, but typically you're gonna hydrate that in yogurt uh over a long period of time. You can do a quick one, you can hydrate the muesli in um in yogurt for like 10-15 minutes if you want it to be quick. Uh, or you can do the more traditional, which is actually on the back of their package, where you grate an apple, you take the muesli, and you take the yogurt, and you let it sit overnight. And I have to say, as far as traditional kind of uh products and textures, I mean I love uh I love that stuff.
So it's been a long time since I've had traditional muesli. My wife and I are constantly making fun of the word muesli because it's you know, uh we used to hang out with these Germans and any kind of cereal we would be eating, they'd be like, We has this also if we call it muesli. So, anyway, so like I make I like to make fun of it, but it's been a long time and it was uh it's really good to use. I'm sure also because it's all thin and easily hydrated, you can also add it to anything that's quick cook. So any quick cook recipe you have, your pancakes, your muffins, anything like this, you'll be able to throw the muesli mix in and get a shot of nuts, fruits, and oats in it at the same time.
It's not gonna mess with uh your recipe too much, so it's a good thing to have around in the house. So go to Bob'sredmill.com and use the code cooking25. That's one word, all caps, cooking25, the number two five, for 25% off your order. Alright. Alright.
Dear Dave, Nastasia, Dave in the booth. Uh, after burning through multiple food saver type sealers and being frustrated with trying to get a good seal on liquids or um items with high moisture content. By the way, I was at a thrift store the other day, and guess what the tag said? Moisture management. It was a pant.
Oh, yeah. The miracle of I was like, you're forgetting the most important word. The miracle, the miracle of moisture. Was that when you had to get Booker's shoes? Yeah, I had to Booker shows up another food service thing.
Booker tries to show up at work at a restaurant with open-toed shoes. And gross. Yeah. Unsafe. Unsafe.
Unsanitary. So I gotta. If boiling water gets poured on them or fry oil, how terrible that would be. Nah, you'd have a lot more than your toenail cut off if that happened. Alright.
Um. Okay, so this person is trying to get a food uh burn through food saver type sealers uh by using liquids with high moisture contents. I've decided to break down and buy a chamber vac sealer. The prosumer models from VAC Master, the 112 and the 120, 112S rather, and the 120, are in my price range, but they actually take up more counter space than the professional models due to the vac pump being on the side as opposed to underneath the chamber. I've also never used those.
A million people have asked me if they're any good. And people say, and uh, you know what I said every time? Don't know. Don't know. Never used one.
Those guys, listen, VAC Master. If you're out there, let me see you dance. Uh no, but like uh you said you was funky. But like my point is that like is it for any of you who listen to the black album? But the point is that I will never recommend something that I haven't not used.
Right, Nastasia? Right. Dave, is that makes sense to you? I'm not gonna recommend some stuff I haven't used. I know, like Bob's Red Mill, for example.
You're using it every time. Uh where you weren't here, I cooked a whole bunch of recipes with Bob's red milk. I heard, yeah, I have to edit those. Oh, you oh they didn't edit them for you? No.
Yeah. Are they gonna use mine? I have to say. I don't know. How bad was it?
Oh, it was pretty nasty. Like, it wasn't nasty, it's like, it's like, okay, Nastasia was giving me huge amounts of of uh of uh guff, let's say, about how I needed to do these. Every time she would talk to me about Booker and Dax business, uh, by the way, Sears all is back in stock, right? Yeah. Every time she would talk to me about Booker and Dax business, she would say, Did you do the Bob's red milk?
I used their almond flour for my angel food cake. I don't know whether what which one's going up. And I have to say, almond flour and angel food cake is an amazing sub. It's a great sub. Did you have a piece of the one I made before?
Or did I eat it all before, or did you not know that it was going to be good so you didn't eat it? Book by the way, Booker now is cooking. Check this out. Booker, are you a huge fan of the Star Wars movies? No.
No. Not as well, not as much as Dax. Right. But but what is your favorite cookbook? The Star Wars cookbook.
Booker has cooked almost every recipe out of both Star Wars cookbooks. And I think he has made those recipes more even than the writer of the book. I mean, the writer of the book probably didn't even make the recipes that were in that book. He's got to have. And so Booker has Booker has been cooking a lot, but oh exclusively using recipes from the Star Wars cookbook.
Ah, Booker. That's that's I'm proud of you. So tell him about your tote in the hole, Booker. What toad in the hole? The uh recipe.
Yeah, the tote in the hole. You know what toad in the hole is? What? That's toast with an egg in it. So Booker comes to me, he's like, Dad, I need a piece of toast seven inches long.
I'm like, Booker, you can't just I mean, like, no one makes, I'd have to find like an unsliced Pullman loaf, because no one makes that because he wants to put two eggs in it because that's Tatooine, right? That's how Tatooine has two sons, so it's two eggs in instead of one egg. That's the Tatooine toast. What's the name of that recipe booker? I forgot.
Oh, I forgot. Anyways, whatever. So we're back. I want to take a call. Okay, let me finish the vacuum thing.
All right. Most of the pro models are out of my range, but I've seen a number of Chinese made knockoffs on the eBay in the sub $500 range that I would be willing to take a chance on. Now I have that song. Take a chance, take a chance. Um yeah.
First of all, Jack from the from the bar like loves ABBA, plays ABBA all the time. But then but now, yeah, take a chance. Oh god. I hate that song. Take a chance on me?
Why? I don't like ABBA very much. Why? I don't like their music. Why?
It's it's greeting. You don't like happiness? No, she hates happiness. That's the thing she hates the most. Uh ABBA stand for.
It's just a word, ABBA. I don't know. Uh, one thing I noticed is how these low-cost units use an oil pump as opposed to a dry pump. I recall that sometime in the past you discussed this issue, but I don't remember which you said was better. Oil.
Um, can you share your thoughts on what I should be looking for in a low-cost chamber sealer and give any tips on maintenance, choice of bags, etc. Uh, thanks in advance. John in Jersey. Jonathan in Jersey. I love Jersey and Jersey.
Anyway, point being this. Again, uh, I it's hard for me, I should say impossible for me to recommend a product that I haven't used. Oh, I know how we got on that on that whole tangent before. Vacmaster, if you send us a unit, I will test it and see whether I think it's acceptable or good. The truth of the matter is, though, if I if I don't think so, I probably I just won't say anything.
But if I do, I'll recommend it, right, Nastasia? That's how I work. Alright, you gotta take this call because then we gotta go. Oh, okay, hold on a second. So on the oil thing, Philip Preston, who by the way, we're built we built this awesome system using a Philip Preston PolyScience chiller.
So if you want anyone wants to talk about chiller systems, like I got a lot of new information on chiller systems. But straight chilling. No, but more. I'm working more and more. I got more information.
But the point is, is that um Philip Preston once imported some of the Chinese uh Philip Preston is importing some of the imported some of those uh Chinese uh chamber systems. Now remember, if you just say Chinese, that's like like super racist to think that all Chinese units are the same quality, right? He imported some units from China that had oil pumps, and said that even when using moisture, that the pumps fundamentally fritzed out and like uh because they they weren't electrically sealed enough to not have problems when there was high moisture in the chamber. So even though um oil pump based pumps would be good for handling this kind of problem, the particular units that he had imported were not good enough. So just because it's got an oil pump, which is inherently superior as long as you keep it clean by running it for a long time, the reason they're superior is they can achieve a much lower vacuum much, much quicker than the equivalent dry pump can.
They broke a spinz all at the bar. That's fine. He wants you to know. That's fine. Why are you like he said make sure you tell him on the radio?
Why would you tell me on the radio? To make sure I did. Make sure you tell why what does that have to do with the radio? He wants you to know live. That's okay, fantastic.
Uh, we gotta go. But uh, take the caller, we'll take the caller. But point is I can't recommend it because I know people have had problems ordering no-name products off the internet, even though I think oil-based pumps are superior in general. Caller, you're on the air. Oh, okay.
Hi. Hey, how you doing? Very quickly. I know the spin ball has a density limit. So if I mix honey and oil to get below the density limit, could I run that in the spin ball in batch it?
Uh yeah. I mean, the problem look, the thing, honestly, the thing about density limits is just we didn't test anything for safety over simple syrup density. Like my personal opinion is that it'll be fine. My, but I can't say that it'll be fine just because it hasn't been tested. That's where that density limit comes from.
But yeah, if the ultimate density of the rotor is less than um, you know, four, you know, uh the if the density of the liquid in it ult the average density is less than 1.23 grams per CC, then you'll be you'll be fine. Okay. Did you but it might be might be fine anyway? Did you say you had something about the fermentation? Yeah, I mean I was just gonna say I ferment to um 30 Celsius in a circulator in an open hotel pan circuit.
No, that's a good idea. So there's still some oxygen there. Yeah, yeah, that's a smart idea. There you go. Leave some oxygen in the bag, and then you don't have to worry about uh like you know, just put put it in something and let it make sure it gets that's a good idea.
I like that. I like that. Thanks so much for all your help, then. Yeah, yeah, no worries. We're just uh I mean uh what can you make?
All right, cool. All right, thanks a lot. Be back with more cooking issues. Thanks for listening to Heritage Radio Network, food radio supported by you. For our freshest content and to hear about exclusive events, subscribe to our newsletter.
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