Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking News is coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, New York City. New Stan Studios, joined as usual with John sitting here in front of me. How are you doing? Doing great, thanks.
Yeah? Yep. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right.
Peachy. Joe Hazen rocking the panels. What's up, Joe? Hey, how's everybody doing? Good, good, good, good, good.
We do not have Jackie Molecules, although he's listening. He's listening and coordinating, but he can't like actually speak on the phone right now, so we can't talk about him like a dog, which is kind of unfortunate because you know, when people aren't on, we like to talk smack. You know what I mean? True. But we can't.
Not that I have smack. We shouldn't, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Uh, but we do have, thankfully, Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Stas?
I'm good. Yeah. Yeah. And uh upper upper left, Quinn, how you doing? Hey, I'm good.
The Q Dragon. All right. Uh, so we do we do not have uh uh by the way, do we have a guest next week? Oh, we got a real fun episode next week. What?
We have two mystical chef Josh from YouTube and Ariel Jonathan. Boom. How's that working? They're all on my own. Don't you worry about the details, Dave.
It's just gonna happen, okay? They're all gonna be at my house. Oh, wait, so it's all not live, so it's gonna be one of those things where I can't see their faces and it's gonna be a nightmare, and I'm I don't know if I'm stepping on them and all this stuff. We're gonna try to figure that out. Like put them on a zoom.
Put them on a zoom. All right. Yeah. All right. Uh all right, what do you guys got for me this week?
What's going on? What be happening? What be happening? I see you brought us some chocolate stuff. I did.
I brought some chocolates. Well, while we're waiting for other people. Yeah. You want to tell me about these chocolates, Sean? So don't.
By the way, if you are listening on the Patreon, even though you probably aren't because it's not our normal day. We were recording on a Wednesday because uh yesterday I was in San Antonio. Uh do you have to be from Texas to call it San Antonio? I call it San Antonio. I'm not gonna like be like San Anton.
You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't think does anyone even say that? Is that even real? I don't know.
Maybe I mean it's gotta be. I mean, otherwise, why would we have heard it? It's not even a little bit real. Yeah. Yeah.
By the way, best Uber driver stories I've ever had, any place I've ever been. One Uber driver, both her parents flew with Chennault, the Flying Tigers guy. And like with the uh Chinese National Army after World War II, she was also a pilot. Her mom was a UN doctor, and the dad was in and out of the Air Force, you know, flying like with the with the Flying Tigers logo. The dad was like, you know, in the in the early 40s, like in the original Flying Tigers before we got into the war.
And I was like, what do you think about all these kids wearing the Flying Tigers logo on their backpacks? Like, no, like they they don't even know that there were two world wars, much less one. She was like, what are you gonna do? You know what I mean? She had met Madame Chiang Kai Chek.
How messed up is that? That's pretty crazy. Yeah. Yeah, nutty, huh? Yeah, wild.
Yeah. Uber driver. You know? Another Uber driver. Get this.
Swear to God, I was there for less than I was there for 24 hours, maybe on the dot, right? 24 hours. Another Uber driver had skied for Bulgaria in the Olympics. That's crazy. And her son did gymnastics for Bulgaria.
And I'm like, what are you doing in Texas? Because she lived like all over the world. She's like, best gymnastics coaches in Texas. And she didn't talk like that because she's Bulgarian. And I tried to like bait her with a little bit of like, you know, Bulgarian chauvinism.
I was like, you know, I used to have a studio mate from Bulgaria, and he said that everyone else's feta was garbage and only Bulgarian feta is worth anything. And she was like, that's not true. Many countries have good feta. I was like, damn. So not a trash talker, huh?
You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty wild. Yeah.
Just it's like crazy Uber driver story after crazy Uber driver story. Good town for good town to get an Uber. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Not like Florida, where they don't they don't have front plates. Is it Florida where they don't force you to have plates on the front of your car? The worst. The worst.
So you can tell it's your car once it's past you. Oh, that was my car. There was one place I flew, I think I talked about this on air, maybe it was Florida, where Uber rents out cars to the Uber drivers, and they're all white Teslas. So you're at the airport, and there is like a fleet of white Teslas coming out. You how the hell are you supposed to know which one's your car?
Come on, man. Get with it. Front plates. Uh all right. What else you got?
Also in the news, uh, I don't know if you guys remember this uh from such times as last time we had a show, but I mentioned that, or Nastasia mentioned that her Christmas time, you know, McGilla that she appreciates food-wise, is tamales. And her mom, swear to God, packed me. First of all, I think Nastasia, your mom must own stock in a styrofoam tray corporation because that package. Your mom uses styrofoam like like deli trays as as like their dip, like that, like they're packing peanuts. It was amazing.
But she sends me a bag of Meyer lemons, a bag of uh of eureka's, you know, which is you know the style we normally get, eureka lemons, and then like both kinds of tamales, as Nastasia had said, one with the bow and one not with a bow. Not with like a grow grain bow, like you know, uh uh she slices one of the one of the husks down and ties it in a little bow to signify. I don't remember, it's bow bow bow is beef only or bow is beef pork. I think bow is beef and no bow is pork. No boy for and in uh three three to a zippy individual zippies so that you could steam individual zippies if that was your inclination, which is what I did because I have the ANOVA steam oven, makes it easy.
Andova steam oven makes your tamales easy because you don't have to fire up a steamer for it, or you know, nuke it as Nastasia does, whatever. Uh delicious. And Nastasia, I'm sure you hate everyone else's tamales because the meat ratio on these mothers was intense. You know what I'm saying? It was like it was like your mom tries to figure out like what's the thinnest skin of masa around the meat tube that uh she can make.
I was I appreciate it. It was delicious. And she sent me two kinds of cholula, the red and the green. Now, guess which one is what'd you say? Pork.
You didn't get any of the pork with green sauce ones. Molly. I put I put a lot of cholula green sauce on it, so yeah, yeah. I said which is your favorite cholula? The red.
Oh, yeah? Yeah. I like the green. And they're both good. I like the green.
I kind of have to say that, and uh people are gonna hate me for this, but Tabasco's okay. Yeah, agreed. You know? Yeah. I mean, maybe it's just because I grew up with it.
It was like everywhere. I just got like, I just like it's not like Yeah, just doesn't do it. It's fine. It's fine. Yeah.
But, you know, if you put like a bevy of hot sauces in front of me, I'm not like, ooh, I'm going for the I'm going for Avery Island. And not just because, you know, the folks over at Avery Island did all sorts of skullduggery to uh, you know, crush anyone who tried to use the word Tabasco, even though it's the name of a pepper. It's like trademarking the the word New Jersey. You shouldn't be able to do it. You know what I mean?
It should be illegal. They paid off all these judges in uh in Louisiana, which is yeah, I guess a time-honored tradition to pay off judges in Louisiana. But it's uh, you know, whatever. It's just a whatever, it's whatever. It's good, but whatever.
Is anyone, you know, John's with me anymore? What do you think, Joe? What do you where do you want Tabasco? Uh uh I'm not into hot sauce. It doesn't like me.
No? No, and I actually I'm not the now the uh for forgive me. Tabasco is very heavily vinegary-based, right? Yeah, yeah, I don't like vinegar. Oh, so Tabasco's a double no for you.
Yeah, I didn't do it. Um, I do like like like uh um the Cholula um I like the green. Um I love spicy things, but it just doesn't like me, and then I just can't do it because I suffer. Yeah. Yeah, luckily like I get to the I'm at the point where it's I just put an unconscionable amount of this stuff on everything.
You know, I don't know what it is. I don't know what I just don't enjoy eating a lot of things without a little bitty zippity do duh. You know what I mean? Sometimes I just do that with black pepper. Really?
Oh, I love the black pepper. I love black pepper. You know what happens when someone gives me a steak and there's no pepper? I'm just like that's like, or if someone gives me pizza and I don't have crush red, I'm like, I just don't enjoy it. I just don't want it.
It doesn't mean that it makes it better. It's just that's the way I want it. Aren't I old enough to want something the way I want it? I think that's her. Yeah.
You know who the first person I was like, you know what? You have it. However, someone who Nastasi, you'll remember this. Who do you k do you know who I'm talking about? Someone who we all know the story.
What? Listeners, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Chesarake. He wants his uh doesn't matter.
Champagne doesn't matter how much it costs. He wants a freaking ice cube in that thing. And I'm like, you know what, Chesare, God bless. Right? Yeah, absolutely.
You want it the way you want it. Yeah. I think you've earned it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Anyway. So uh thank your mom for me, uh, Nastasia. Now, Nastasia admits said, I think we agree on this. The flavor of Meyer lemons, who cares?
It's the aroma, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. They smell real good. They smell real good. Uh, but you know what I should do? Because I still have a couple.
I should measure the acidity of those suckers. I don't really have the time to do it, but like break out the uh the titration setup again and do some titrations, but I really should titrate that thing and see what the acidity level is. Huh. I don't know. Uh what do you got?
You got anything. Well, we're curious about the lemons. Yeah. Uh um now, I I can't say I've I'm sure I have have had a Myers lemon, but um, I've had many lemons because I'm I I love lemons. Um love to taste lemons.
And um when you get like some of these like Italian lemon drinks, and it says, you know, uh it's carbonated water, maybe it's some type of sugar and like a lemon. Right. Like the limonata, like pegrina. Um the pellegrino doesn't, it's not exactly the the gallavina. I don't know if that's a good one.
Have I had galavina in a bottle. No. The lemon itself has got this almost like nutty nuttiness to it. That's phenomenal. And I can't, it almost like a nuttiness.
Maybe it's not nuttiness. Like, there's an aftertaste that you get from Sasaparilla. Oh. I like Sasparilla. You know that that that's a weird little thing on your tongue that you get.
This some lemon drinks do this to me, and I don't know if it's me or is it um is it the beverage itself? But sidebar, I had one of the best lemonatas on the planet two days ago. I went to Damascus the restaurant. I was gonna say the mouth. No, I didn't.
I didn't go to Damascus. I went to the uh the purveyors on Atlantic Avenue, right next to Sahiti's Sahadis. Uh I'm not as big as a fan of Sahadis, but I like Damascus better. I hear that they've changed. I don't know a regular shopper over there, but I Sahadi's is way different now.
It's not as fun. It's not as I don't sorry, sorry, not but anyway. If anyone disagrees, call us and talk to us about it. Damascus is is phenomenal. They're, you know, the spinach pie.
I'm a big fan of the pies and stuff like that and the um the stuff grape leaves. But they had the old school Sicilian Lemonata by Osis O. Sicilia Lemonata, and it's I don't know if it was the can that was so amazing to look at, or if it's the beverage, or if it's the psychological, you know, marketing branding thing. Um, but I recommend uh finding the original lemonata by O. Sicilia.
Um, and it's awesome. Well, next time you're there, you gotta bring a can in. You know what? I went to go buy it. The 48 bucks for 12 on Amazon.
No, but what about next time you're at what's it called? Next time you're in Damascus Lands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. But I think I'm gonna get them from Amazon.
It's easier for me now. All right. With a kid, my butt, forget it. 48 for 12, that's $4 a crack. That's four, I'm I'm gonna say this again.
That's $41 can. Although, like, get this. I was at you want the reverse? I'm in San Antonio, right? Uh, I was going there for Panot Ricard.
I was there with Jack Shram. We were doing a talk on uh acid and bricks adjusting. So I go into what is purportedly the oldest bar in San Antonio from like uh the the hotels from the 1850s, the bars from 1880. They have all the original woodwork. It's been moved once inside the building, but it's all there.
Walk in, and I just kind of want to chill. You know, we had that old wood. They they said it was based on a London pub, but it you know it looked like a lot of the old like Labak Balkan, like you know, mahogany bars from that era. And you know, I sit down and I'm like, you know, I don't want to have too much, so we we get we both get an Alamo Lager because it was literally right next door to the Alamo. And uh we're drinking, we're talking about it.
I think we have one. We're just like, oh, can we get the check? She's like, that's $6.50. It's so crazy. Oh, we were all like, what?
Lord, yeah. I literally said to her, what? Oh man. Yeah, you know what else I saw there, Nastasia? So uh when my wife was working uh in Panama years ago, this has got to be like over 10, 12, this is like 12 years ago.
Uh she bought me my first like Guayabara four pocket shirt. It was made by uh Panabrisas, which is the company in Panama that made it. It was a beautiful coral color. I love that shirt. It was my favorite shirt.
And what happened to it, Nastasia? Fell in the street metal. It fell on its own. That's how I remember it. Oh yeah.
Okay. Uh it got fell on the street, ruined. Like a hole ripped in it. They had the exact same shirt at like the oldest shirt shop in San Antonio. But I was like, you know, I'm kind of on a buying freeze right now.
And it was a $180. I was like, for that, I could almost fly to Panama and get it like cheaper. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um anyways.
The other thing about San Antonio, uh, I had uh for the first time their puffy taco. I don't really want to get into an argument over like is a puffy taco like 100% different from all of the other kind of puffy fried like tortilla things, but I'll say it's delicious. We went to uh what was it? Hen I think Henry's Puffy Taco, which is one of the, you know, popularizers. Let's put it that way, one of the popularizers of the of the puffy uh taco.
So if you've never had one of these puffy tacos, most of the recipes online seem like they uh suck uh based on what I ate when I was there. So uh I didn't kind of know what to expect, but they they use an uncooked, uh relatively thick masa to tortilla, like you know, they press that and then they they fry it and it puffs up, and then as it's puffing up, they push it down so that it has a semi-taco shape. But the inside is still really soft, uh, like really kind of like you know, soft, like almost like arepa-e kind of texture, but the outside is crispy and it forms this like kind of outside double crisp layer that puffs up around this inner, like, you know, you know, you know, medio arepa kind of a situation than with the filling in it. And they're filling it, Henry's is also like we had a bunch of them, but good. Good and cheap and cheap.
And cheap. Everything's so much more affordable as soon as you leave New York City. It's crazy. Yeah, we went to another place, I forget the name of it, but it was something like the the chef's name or something, pork and bread. And we had their like a jogato version things where they stand up the sandwich like it's a sinking Titanic and then they pour the sauce all over it.
It comes in baskets. You know the you know tortilla baskets, not the the warming ones, though the wickery ones. Yeah. And they put like a shower cap over it, and then they put the sandwich into the tortilla into the shower bath like shower cap in the thing, and then with sauce all over it. And then I was like, well, okay.
Okay. Sounds good. Yeah. And we went to uh John's recommendation. Yeah, my land.
Is it good? Very good. I went, I was a little nervous because when you go in, it looks I mean it it is somewhat uh touristy track. You know, the the servers are dressed up and yeah, yeah. They didn't have a band because it was lunchtime.
Okay, and uh, you know, like all sort of like you know, crazy decorations everywhere. Super kitschy, but oh my god, their uh their uh green chili uh enchilada was like really acidic, which I appreciate. I appreciate a high acid green uh chili enchilada. It was delicious. And the last thing is it's a chain, and it I'm not gonna try to pronounce it.
No, no, not okay, okay. Uh the pan you know pan of whatever it is, area, like pan the bread and whatever it is. I'm not gonna be able to pronounce it. But you know those rolls that I forget the name of, I'm gonna see if anyone remembers the name of them, where they're like really puffy, like like really light, almost kind of brioche kind of rolls with that crispy layer of uh sugar on top of them. You guys know what I'm talking about?
What? Maybe, but I never know the name of them because whenever I order them, I'm like, these suck. And I throw them away. I take one bite and I throw them away because they're always kind of stale. Yeah, those.
They're always they're always kind of stale. I ate one from this place, and I was like, oh my God, these are so good. How could I have gone for 52 years thinking that this was a trash can product and not understanding why anyone ever wanted to eat these? And why I thought they just made them because they were pretty. I thought they were like decorations, you know?
Like popcorn strings at Christmas or something that no one ever ate these things. And I ate like two or three of them. That was like, these are so good. Like the bread was so fresh and light, and the crispy coating was just shattering. Like shattering.
You know what I mean? I was like, damn, this is good. Did not require any sort of topping of any kind. Anyway, that's my San Antonio story. Yeah.
Uh what do you got, Quinn? You've been cooking anything? You've been cooking? Oh, yeah. I've got it.
Before I get to what I've been cooking, you received uh the tamales. Did you receive anything else? Now you're testing. Oh Jesus. Son of a gun.
You know, the company that you oh my God. So like in San Antonio, someone raises their hand, I'm like, yes. They're like, What is my spinzall getting here? I was like, oh. Uh well, I don't know what you guys are worried about.
My spins all showed up last week. So the uh pilot unit, uh, so for those of you like a quick reminder on how this all works. Like you argue with a factory for years and years and years. You make a bunch of crappy prototypes. They then do what's called engineering build, and the engineering build is the last time they're really allowed to f up.
And they did. They really effed up, which is why we're uh a month behind. They messed up the electronics, not the main guts. And uh, but the pilot run is the one they do after the engineering run. And the pilot run is where they're supposed to say, we know what we're doing now.
So the pilot run unit is supposed to come to you, and it's only minor tweaks from there on out. And my the pilot unit showed up last week. Uh I f had Dax, because he was still in town, uh, take a video of me unboxing it, completely not. I had no idea whether the thing was gonna work or not. One take, in and out, worked great.
So we're super uh we're super excited and relieved. As far as we uh know, we like we look like we're good for production uh beginning this month. It's a two-day production. So when I say beginning this month, I mean January 31st through February 2nd, and then a couple of days of uh freaking inspection, and then it's you know, boat on the water, boom thumb thumb. You know what I mean?
It's like get that thing on the water, yeah, get it out. Exciting, get it off my shoulders, you know what I mean? Like all the three of us are like you know what I mean? Now we can't wait for that crap to be done. Done.
Uh anywho. Uh was that what you was that was I was supposed to talk about, guys? Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah, yeah. Uh all right.
Um, when I cooked, I made some pretty great uh pasta emetriciana with handmade guanchole. I went really wild with this batch of guancholi. Uh oh. I used regular salt, obviously, a little carry cut number two. Um little bit of messy, just a really small amount.
Um a little bit of savory nucleotides. So I know and light. And then instead of a small amount of regular sugar, of course, dextrose, and take a melt, yeah. Uh what's my favorite sugar? You're oh god dang it.
Lactose? Why? For what reason, though? Because it's paired with cheese. Yeah, but so but well, why?
It's really good. You know what I don't, you know what I don't uh drink when I'm eating cheese? Well, they're still treating milk of lactose milk and cheese. That's the thing is like when I'm eating cheese, I don't drink milk. Why?
Like, I'm not saying it wasn't delicious. I'm sure it's delicious. I'm just questioning why lactose. Is that like not eating chicken when you're eating chilliquillis? Is that really a thing you're not supposed to do?
I don't know. How do we eat chicken and egg at the same time? Really? That's weird. Wow.
Joe's just saying he doesn't do it. I don't do it. I don't do it. He's like, I won't do it. It's good.
It's not a cheese with lactose. It's the meat, infusing the meat with the channel. I know, but you said you said that you put lactose in the guanchale because lactose pairs with cheese, which you're gonna eat with the guanchali. Is that not what you said? Yeah, because it sort of regulates the cheese.
But how does it highlight the cheese? It's just it's a lactate how does it highlight the cheese? Milk doesn't highlight cheese. But the sweetness. But any sweetness.
I don't know. I don't know now. Look, I'm not saying it's not delicious. I'm not saying it's not really good, but you know what, I bet you would be just as good? Sha shugar.
Sugar. Sugar. Yeah. I mean, people had dextrose because they don't want it to be sweet and they want it to ferment down. I get that, but lactose is less sweet, even dextrose is easy to dose in because it's a powder.
I I get all that. Uh, but I don't know, man. You and your you and your lactose, you're like, crap on you if you can't eat it. Yeah, anyway. Uh anyway, whatever.
It was really good. Um and also, okay. You know what you need to do? You need to do a side by side. Well, I I was actually trying to, but then the other one got moldy.
What's wrong with mold? Couldn't scrape it up. Was the wrong mold? It got it got bad. Yeah, no, it was not good mold.
Yeah. Hey, uh, I'm not saying you should do everything traditionally, but I think as I've said many times, any time I used to talk to Giuliano Buggiali, like anytime someone was doing something like that and they put a non standard, any sort of non standard spice on it, I was like, hey, what do you think? What do you think? Uh Gianna, what do you think? He's I don't like it.
I've made normal guancholy before. I've also had commercially produced guancholis. I've had some really bad commercially produced guanciale that a lot of people really like. How do you like yours? Do you like yours dry as a bone so that it has nothing left to it, or do you like it wet, or do you like it somewhere in between?
Um, I don't know the moisture level of the stuff I bought, but I mean, I'm targeting the thirty percent moisture loss. I was a little short. 30 this time. Yeah. That's quite that's pretty dry.
I mean, I mean it's drier than 25. It's so much fat that like you're not losing my point is is that you're not losing a lot of weight out of the fat. So if you're doing like a 30% off of the meat level in a guantal, it's quite a bit of moisture going out of something that is primarily fat. So it's good so it's on the dry side, is what I'm saying. I'm not saying good or bad.
I'm just saying it's on the dry side. Yeah. Right. What kind of pasta? Bocatini.
Pacquet. I actually did ready to nice. Okay. Little radiators. Nastassi, what are your thoughts on uh on the radiator shape?
I like it actually. I do too. They're okay. Yeah. What do you prefer the radiators or do you prefer the little uh the spirals?
Spirals. Huh. Why? Better bounce. Like the pre-stranglers or the Oh no, I love those.
I don't even care what they're shaped like. Oh, the routinis, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the radiators are good sauce holders, but they're not so bouncy, you know what I mean?
They got a nice bite though in the middle. The radiators? Yes. Yeah. That's what that's what for fossil for me.
It's gotta have a snap. Like for Folly in the middle, that when it in the in the fold decrease, that snap you get. That's the money for you. Man. Yeah.
Nastasia, what's your absolute like when you want to eat something, you get to choose a sauce. What's your favorite shape, or do you not have one? Because it depends on your mood. Really? That's your fave?
Nice. All right. Best name. It is the best go-to. I like Bucettini a lot.
Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's good. Hmm. Uh what if you could inject some crap into the middle of that?
It'll be it's it's gilding lily. It doesn't need it. Stupid. Stupid. I take it back.
Release in my name. Well, you can put another piece of spaghetti inside the coccatini. Yeah. Well, you know that I've said this before. The insult in my family is that guy is a macaroni with no hole.
Yeah. He's a macro. He's a macaroni with no hole. That's what he used to say about my crazy Uncle Larry. Macaroni with no hole.
As opposed to, you know, what's good is you're you're a you know, tall drink of water, long drink of water. That's good. But macaroni is always, I mean, like, is macaroni always an elbow? No, but it was just a saying they had. I don't know.
I don't know what that. I don't know why they called it. I don't know. The macaroni used to be the term for like all dried pasta, right? Yeah, I'm saying is in Boston the term that is this idiot is a macaroni with no hole, which is a nicer way of saying strunz.
You know what I mean? Anyway. Uh I always wanted one of the that posters I always see in the Italian markets, the oldest all the pasta numbers and shapes. Always like enamored me. Nastasia has that book that's like like the math of pasta or something.
It's all like all like numbers and pictures and like technical drawings. Right, Sas? Don't you have that book? I think Mark has it. I didn't get that back.
He doesn't he doesn't care about that stuff, does he? You care about that stuff. I don't know. All right. Uh all right.
So John, should we eat these chocolates before? Let's eat these chocolates. All right, what are they? What are they, Belgium men? So these are from Nuhaus, which is I know those guys.
Yeah. I mean, not personally. Yeah, yeah. Um it's a chocolate shop that was started in 1857. It's in the Grande Galerie.
If I've sent you guys listeners the food recommendation map thing, uh it's on that list. It's really great. Uh so he started out as a pharmacist, tried to be a doctor, but failed at that, so opened up a pharmacy. Did the chocolates too and used chocolate to cover the medicine, so everyone loved it. And then in 1912, their claim to fame is having uh invented the praline.
Um so instead of gas. Yes, yes. First of all, that's the worst word in the world because it means a billion things to a billion people. But does it know what I mean? Yeah.
Say that to someone down south and they're like, what? Yeah. Yeah, completely different. Yeah, yeah. Um praline.
But whatever, very. What's that? It's not praline. Wait, what so what is it? What what's their definition of what they invented?
The So I think instead of let's see, what do they say on their their website? You translate it from the French. To delight his customers in the apothecary, Jean Nohouse first thought about covering medicines with the finest chocolate. In 1912, his grandson had evolved this idea into the Belgian Palinet, as we know it today, chocolate filled with delight instead of medicine. Oh god damn.
That's a terrible This is the worst, worst fluffery in the world. And first of all, like why would you put fine chocolate around medicine? Just anything to make it go down. You know what the you know who the best at that is? Advil.
Advil. They put like sugar on the outside of those things. We used to call those office candy. Oh, brown, the brown advil, the best ones. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Because, like, you know, I used to have to work in an office, and the minute I walked in, I had a headache. I'm like, oh my god. Get me out. Give me some office candy stat.
And then we get the Advil's. And I still have good feelings about the Mavill. So, you know, I I graduated from the uh remember the chewables, St. Joe's? Oh, yeah, the pink the pink one.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you're supposed to give it to your child now, like when they're infants. Yeah, like weird. You're like your no-teeth gums. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. The other thing that I used to pound, remember when uh vitamin C tablets were a huge thing and they had those like sticks of vitamin C tablets like Smarties, I'd be like pow pow pow pow pow pow I was like I was like that with tums. Oh, really? That'll mess you up though. You have too many tons.
It hurt me, it hurt me. All right, so we're we're prolining out here. Wait, did this one's fill with happiness or this one's filled with medicine? Happiness, hazelnuts. Uh other little things it's got a weird like candied kind of shell to it.
You talk while I taste. Um hazelnut kind of cream filling, but yeah, there's like a little stickiness to it. Uh it's tasty. It's not like my favorite of their chocolates. This is probably that.
It's got uh Maison d'Andois speculos inside. Oh, well, that's exactly. You know it's gonna be a game winner. First of all, this one's delicious. Trader Joe's no offense to the to my uh to uh them, but they sell that they sell this.
How do you pronounce it? How do they actually speculate? How do they pronounce it? Speculus. Yeah.
Okay. They're fine. But when you go to the actual like place, pronounce the the the dandovani. Dandois. Maison d'andois.
Yeah. You go there, and they have like four foot tall ones that you can buy, and they have all the molds around. And it's like, imagine this guy what Nastasia always says, like, you know, someone's like, Oh, I want to make that. And you're like, okay, that's great. Making it once, and then you go to this place, and this is what they do.
Like, like where they wake up in the morning and you they don't seem like they're jokers, right? You know how like sometimes people show up and like uh, you know, their job is whatever, and so they just do their job so they can get out. I think these people are literally like thinking about these products as they're making them. You know what I mean? It's a money, it's a it's a it's a huge money place.
And they're actual, like their non that their waffle, the stand in the street. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. That's the first time I realized that I was a complete idiot. And that I had to get a hold of a real waffle iron, and then I knew nothing.
It's like, you know, a no know nothing moment. And what they they had running from their commissary on a constant basis. People with buckets, buckets of uh, you know, of the uh the Brussels mix because that's a battery and just trays, tubs full of the Liege, the Liege uh stuff rising because they could not make that stuff fast enough. Yeah, it's very good. All right, I'm gonna try this.
All right John, you talk talk about so what's this what's the orange bullet? I it's the it's the one filled with the speculos. You talk about so I don't get uh death threats. Yeah, no, it's got a weird, it's like a pyramid-shaped chocolate. It's got uh orange cap, which is a little strange, but yeah.
Oh Sacey. Prolean with uh with speculos, yeah. Can't go wrong. That's crazy Belgians. Yeah, but that's the really good chocolates.
They I think still provide the chocolates to the monarch, you know, the Belgian monarchy there. So it's like I imagine their palace being filled with like little trays of these chocolates around. I think of uh the Belgian monarchy as being filled with trays of sadness. Yes, that too, especially if you go way back, yes. Not even that far back.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Not that far back, but yeah. Like my parents' lifetime. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, my grandparents' lifetime too. Yeah, yeah. What what what is speculos? Because I'm it's a cookie, like a spiced cookie that uh gets ground down into like a peanut butter y kind of paste. Not like the gynecological tool speculum or anything.
No, no, no, no, no, no. No. Oh, wow. Dark place. Uh okay.
Well, thank you. Why why how did how did you come upon these right now? I got some as a Christmas present for one of my prep guys. Oh, nice. So I got some for us too, because I figured why not?
They're less. Yeah, they have an outpost near Grand Central, I think. Yeah, that's where I got them. Yeah, nice. And have had for years.
Yes. But I've always I always used to walk past it. So like uh one of uh Jen's uh studio mates in uh architecture school was uh she was she was huge on on that. She's Parisian though, you know what I mean? So she was always like go there, and I'm like, Well, where are you getting this money from?
You're an architecture student. What the hell's wrong with you? You know what I mean? They're not afraid of charging. No.
No. I think nine chocolates was 30 bucks, basically. Kill me. All right. Uh wait.
So Quinn. Back to your back to your guanchali. I'm thinking about it. The only one that didn't get mold was uh did you did you have the same amount of all the products on it or no? Um you know what, man?
One variable at a time, my man. One variable at a time, sweet Jesus. I'm gonna send you, I'm just sending you an interesting video describing multi-variable comparative studies. Okay, you can, but you know what's easy to do? One variable at a time.
Unless the variables are completely, completely um separable, right? If the variables are completely separable, then you know, test two at once. Like color of the car and the engine of the car. Oh, yeah, but I'm also like making two at a time at most. And it takes like six to nine months, so yeah.
Well, you gotta pick up the pace a little. Yeah, okay, but if you're making two, then one variable. You can maybe do more variables if you had three. You know what I mean? I mean, how you gonna get how you gonna do it?
Well, anyway, whatever. But like, for instance, like, what's the advantage? I know every beef jerky maker adds uh umami agents to their to their stuff. But did you did you side by side that as well with it? Well, again, yeah, that was part of the original test, but then again, the other one might maybe.
They've made materially previously. Again, it's more of an iterative process than directly comparing by something. Yeah, but you know what? Like eventually you need to do a direct comparison just because you know you you you're always wrong. This I had this discussion just yesterday when I was doing this talk.
It's like you fool yourself and you can't you're no one is good enough to know uh today versus three, four days ago, much less three, four months ago, whether this one's better than that one. Nobody, you know what I mean? You have to taste them uh side by side, you know, to really know. It's a because like I've had that happen to me constantly. In the fridge.
Yeah, it's not that silly. That's not the same, not the same. Anyway, okay. Uh Dr. Smose uh Dr.
Smos. Dr. Smokehouse uh wrote in. Two questions came to mind on your brief uh duck confit discussion with Chris Young. One, do you think the salting method matters much, i.e.
uh salting it overnight randomly or equilibrium salt for a length of time? Well, I think it does matter, but uh I don't know anyone that does equilibrium salting on Confit because who's got the freaking time? So I think you just salt it. All right. Well, this is why you can't do side by side tests, Quinn.
Because you you do things that take a billion years. It's like everyone, everyone who makes it in a restaurant, they salt it. Equilibrium cure a dick takes like two or three days. I'm saying that's a lot. That's a lot.
A lot of time and a lot of space. Yeah. To do that. Yeah. Like in the walk-in, that's I don't know.
For me, like in my experience, at least it's very limited, yeah. Yeah. Right. So most people want to do like 24 hours, right? And so you and frankly, like if you do excess salt uh on the outside, um, I mean, you might get a little change plus or or minus, but during the cook, it will equilibrate quite a bit into the into the meat.
And uh, Greg Blonder, regardless of what you think of his other uh thoughts on uh cooking techniques in his uh what's his it's not genuine ideas is his blog. He's done a lot of tests showing that the um salt penetration rate is extremely high at cooking temperatures. So if you're gonna cook something for quite a long time, you're more likely to get a better equilibrated salt uh level than you would, let's say letting it sit in a fridge. Um so you know, well, did Quinn, did you do a side-by-side on equilibri uh uh equilibrium salting versus uh just salting overnight? I I do I do everything that I'm gonna like specifically salt equilibrium.
The only thing I do equilibrium is uh is uh salmon. Because you know it's it's two, three days and it needs to cure for two or three days anyway. You can't do a one-day cure on a salmon and have it be sliceable. You need to do like a three-day cure to have it really be sliceable and then dry out. So I do equilibrium because you want it to be accurate all the time.
With duck, I don't, yeah, overnight. But you could do equilibrium cure, but I I don't know the percentages off the top of my head. Uh I know that modern confie, even modern confie, and when I say that, I mean like confie from the 90s forward, really changed a lot from traditional. So if you go to like an old school bistro uh in France and you get the confie, it's very different from the confie you would get at like, you know, like a mid to high tier New York restaurant in like the early 2000s. And by that I mean the salt levels a lot lower.
Um and a lot of traditionalists really decried the decrease in salt in the confie uh over time. Part of it was, and you would I would talk to chefs about it, and part of it was uh, you know, like John says, I want to get that thing out faster, and also part of it is people's tastes ran to lower salt items than uh than they than they had prior. And people didn't really care about the traditional uh technique of you can remember confie is originally like a siege thing, you know. It's like you know, you take your or you know, uh the a preservation thing, you're taking your duck and you're preserving it for a long time. So you needed a good salt amount to prevent botulism and whatnot from growing in it.
It was typically herbed with other things that were also bacteria static or bacteriacytal, right? Uh so the herbs were a necessary component uh as well. And in the modern times, all that kind of stuff dropped off. So I think most people now have salt just for their taste because they're also not curing it. That's one thing I really miss.
If you've never had a truly aged confie, they're missing out. Like the confie that you made yesterday is fine. Right? That the confie you made months and months ago, that's fine. You know what I mean?
You know what I'm saying? John, you know you're with me, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, notes. And like uh you can you can taste it.
Yeah. And uh because there's a little more, you know, breakdown of the stuff. But the stuff that you're gonna keep for a long time, better get your salt levels right, i.e. traditional. Yeah.
Um anyway, um, and two, do I have a preferred cooking method, oven stove top sous- vide? So we did extensive testing on different kinds of vacuum-bagged uh confie back in the day. And the tremendous advantage of vacuum bagged confess that you don't need a lot of fat to do it. And that's a huge advantage. Uh so that's what we used to do all the time.
Um, we've done low temperature sous- vide and traditional sous- vide. I do not like low temperature confie very much. Uh, it's fine, it's not a bad product, but if you were to hand me low temperature confie and uh high temperature confie, both in a bag, I would choose the high temperature, i.e. traditional, like 85 C something like this, Celsius, every single time. Now, is this because I grew up eating confit?
And would someone who, you know, if I somehow like flew someone in from Mars and like they had never heard of or had confí before and I served them, you know, uh a low temp confie and the traditional that maybe they would prefer the the low temp one, I don't know. But I didn't fly in from Mars and I grew up eating Konfi, so I prefer the other one. Um and maybe that makes me a dinosaur. I don't know. Uh have you ever had a low temp confie?
No, I haven't. It's fine. It's but confie is comfy. Yeah. Uh and uh so I wouldn't go low temp sous-vide.
Um, the problem with the bag is there's no evaporation. So if you are working uh with confie in a bag, you'll notice you get a weird jelly uh along with the uh along with the the fat that renders uh out of the uh the bird when it's uh working. And it probably makes it, if you're gonna age it for a long time different, and it also changes the way it kind of crisps up when you fry it because there's more moisture on the inside of it, so it's a little bit different. I think the skin's a little bit different. And it's the same problem.
Um I think that's roughly the same as doing it in a um in a combi oven, unless you could figure out, which this is what somebody should do. Somebody should help me out, right? Here's what you need to do. And I don't have the time to do it, so I won't. But do a traditional confie, you know, uh weigh weigh your products before and after and see how much water is uh is getting evaporated out of X number of legs at X weight.
Weigh them before, weigh the whole thing after, uh, figure out how much is evaporating, and then you could tune a combi oven to the correct steam level to get that exact moisture loss, but you'd probably have to get the loads right each time. And if you did that, I'm assuming you'd be able to make a pretty bang on Confi. Because that that's the issue, I think, with um non traditional ways of doing it, is it's hard to get the evaporation as well as uh the other things right at the same time. Does that make sense? Yeah.
Anyway, one time I did I think I can't remember what I think I did maybe with a lower temperature, but you could do a higher temperature. I did a bath in bath going fee with the Civide. So I had like a tree filled with oil with the product inside, and that was nested inside the water bath, and there was only about a two-degree difference why the water and the fish. Why? Um I wanted lower temperature.
But I didn't have any sort of precision like served up anytime you're at the lower temperature, anytime you're below, anytime you're covered with oil and you're below the uh boiling point of water, you get very little evaporation because uh there's you know, you're under oil, so there's not a lot of vapor pressure, not a lot of stuff is leaving. So I would bet, and this is why when somebody is if you were gonna make like uh some at like some Italian families when they're making their super soprasata, when they're making their supersad, right, they let it cure for a certain amount of time until it's as dry as they want, and then they put it in oil, right? Or country ham makers, they get the country ham exactly the way they want it, and then they slather the face of the ham with with fat, hard fat, to prevent evaporation, right? So if you're going low temp under oil, you're gonna get very little evaporation. So I'm assuming you're gonna get a wetter product than you would otherwise.
And so what I'm saying is is that I when I make confie, I usually do it in the bag because I'm lazy and it's extremely easy to throw my bags in the fridge and then cut them open when I need them. And I'm not aging them for a long time. But I think that someone who does it the old way is probably gonna make a better product than I do. That's my guess. I don't know.
I mean, comfy delicious. But I think you could make it just as good if you were to measure the stuff I was measuring, uh talking about. Tony Tony writes in, this is a home kitchen question. In fact, an on-a-budget home kitchen question. Tony Tony, I know where this is going.
I've read it, so I literally know where it's going. But I'm very nervous telling you to do things that are. Well, I'm not going to tell you how to do really dangerous things. Okay. So uh this is a home kitchen question, on budget home kitchen question.
I'm using a three-year-old freestanding gas Samsung range from the Home Depot. I'm sorry for you, Tony Tone. Uh is it possible to cool? And that's probably fine. Samsung makes decent products.
They make good products. I don't know, I don't know your stove. So I don't know. But I'm just imagining if it's freestanding. Here's what I don't like about when you're buying a stove like that and it's freestanding.
It sounds like you're you're on a budget. Maybe it's not your house. Is when the stove isn't installed properly and it moves around. So when you're cooking on your stove and your stove makes any movement at all, it just drives me bonkers. Nuts.
You know what I mean? As much as when I sit down at a table and it doesn't have wobble wedges and the table's moving around and I want to lose my freaking mind. You know what I mean? Anyway, so I hope that's not happening. I hope you have a very steady, steady stove.
But a lot of those ones you get, they're so lightweight. They're gonna move around. My stove like weighs like what a truck weighs. You know what I mean? Uh yeah.
Anyway, is it possible to coordinate the oven controls so uh that what they say is what I get? Yes and no. Currently I want uh say 225 Fahrenheit and I have the oven set at 250, and only by judging time it takes to get things done. You're only judging by the time it takes to get things done. I guess uh if I had a way of testing the oven temp that I trusted, I would settle for that and not go through the hassle of coordinating the electronic settings with the actual temperatures.
Unfortunately, the grocery store oven thermometer I picked up, nah, nah, nah. Nope. Uh seems way off. Uh says like it's 150 degrees when the oven is set at 250. Uh using my construction quality infrared thermometer also seems unreliable.
Yeah, yeah, it is, because what are you pointing at, right? Um I'm only asking what's reliable and affordable. Uh third-party oven thermometer. I have a thermopen. No, no, no.
Listen, so uh what's really cheap is uh thermocouples, right? So you what you want to do is go get thermocouple uh bead thermocouples with fiberglass insulation that are rated above uh 400 or 500, I would do 500. They do five, six hundred degrees Fahrenheit, right? The the it's gonna get a little toasty, but it's not gonna be too bad. Turn the oven off.
Every gas oven has holes in it, right, for ventilation. And so if you take off the if you get into it, you can feed a thermocouple up into the body of the oven without having them so that you're shutting the door on the thermocouple wire, and you can have the thermocouple come out through the bottom because it can take all the temperatures, and they are cheap. On the order of like five dollars a piece, maybe for a bead thermocouple, they can they can take all this. Don't get the ones with PVC on them. Don't get the ones with PVC on them.
And then on eBay or on Amazon, you can get really cheap thermocouple thermometers, and you can actually measure in like various places in your oven what the temperature actually is. I can't see like professional, I know how to adjust a professional thermostat in an oven. You rip the knob off, you you set it at a temperature, and there's an internal screw on the inside of the knob. Like we most of them use like Robertshaw or similar thermostats, and you pull off the knob and there's an inner screw on the inside of the thing that lets you turn so that you can you set a temperature, then you get your thermometer and you measure it, and then you rotate the screw up or down to set the ther thermostat. But I don't know how home ovens work.
If it's an electronic, most of these things have a calibration uh screw on them somewhere. So, like a professional oven, you calibrate both the height of the pilot and you can't, but you can't do that. Home ovens now are all click, click, click, click, click, click, you know, ignitions. But usually there's some sort of calibration thing. So you figure out who made the control for it and figure out how to calibrate it, get some uh thermocouples in there, and you could probably do this whole thing for if you're willing to wait and find I could use thermometer under 150 bucks, and then you can use that on any sort of testing you want to do later, all those thermocouples, and you can reuse them and just don't please don't burn yourself or burn your house down.
Uh and thank God you didn't ask me to tell you how to uh put a solenoid valve in line with your gas unit and control uh the oven any way you want, hot rod it up to 900 degrees, because I definitely would not tell you how to do that. Uh Jameson wrote in uh and would appreciate thoughts on mapping and calibration of ovens, uh and whether uh whether I guess it's probably for Chris, but whether we worry about it or just work around it like everyone else, it's very instructive to map your oven at least once to see where all the real hot spots and cold spots are uh and how they work. Uh so typically what uh I did is uh I would get this one I didn't build it into my oven, but I I've mapped my brevel, I've mapped my APO, uh, is you take three different thermocouples at three heights and you just make a little wire uh kind of rig to hold them, and then you put them at uh you know front to back. You can really map out and see where all like the crazy cold spots are. And then once you know, then you kind of know what to do, and you stop worrying about it.
So you don't need to map it all the time. You know what I mean? You can either be like, oh, this is fine, or like, oh, I'm really, I'm so effed that I'm not gonna worry about it anymore, which is kind of what I end up doing. Uh Lionel Hutz writes in uh question for me. Uh who or whomever might have insight.
I've been having trouble with my dough rise. It is a complicated question. So if we have any real dough people out here, and and uh Lionel, I feel like I need more information from you. All right. I've been having trouble with my dough rising after mixing uh with a pretty active sourdough starter.
I'm gonna start from the back. So what Lionel says in the thing is that uh their dough usually doubles, right? Uh in um their dough usually doubles uh in a similar time span to their starter, which they're saying their starter doubles every four to five hours. So they're usually after they make their bulk, their they do their bulk fermentation, they get a doubling time in four to five hours, right? And uh now it's taking like eight to ten hours, so about twice the time.
And they say that it that they're adding the same amount of sourdough starter to each. They're adding five percent, which seems low, right? I think you know, more like ten might be, and that could help you out. But what I what I don't know, what you didn't tell me, Lionel, and you're approofing an 80. Well, you didn't, and you're using an ancarcerum, which I appreciate.
You know, everyone knows I like the ancarcerum mixer, but you know, Swedish helper baby, the kitchen assistant, and carsum. Uh but what you didn't say, you said what you're doing now, but you didn't say what you used to do that made it work, right? So something changed between the way you used to do it when it used to double and now. And so I don't I can't go line by line and figure out where the change is and what could have happened, right? So I think there is some like follow-up discussion in the in the Discord too big to include.
Well, nothing. The word that the word document would have uh crapped out on me. Well, it was like uh but anyway, so waiting nothing. If nothing changed, then nothing changed. Then I can't troubleshoot.
If it used to work, people are suggesting it somehow might be the season. What? He he he proofs it in an oven at 80 degrees temperature controlled. He's getting dough out of the ancarcerum at 78 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit, right? So I don't think it's the season.
I really don't. You know what I mean? Um he's using 25% rye, which is gonna act pretty much like wheat flour at that dosage. I mean, it's it's high for you know pretending to be wheat, but it's still gonna act, you know, primarily as as a wheat dough at that point. Um I don't know what's different.
Is the is the mixer different? Is he switching to a different mixer? Is it you a different flour? I mean, the easiest thing to do is to just up the sourdough because he's it's on the very low end, right? Like up at the 10.
Yeah. Because anytime you uh up the the leavener, you know, when you're talking about doubling times, uh, right? So if you're talking about doubling times, if you double the amount of stuff that's in, that's one doubling you don't have to do. And that all of a sudden bingity bingity boomity, it takes you from it takes you from you know 10 hours to five. You know what I'm saying?
So um yeah, I mean, I just like I would need so were there any differences to hone in on? It's always the difference that makes the difference. If I can be honest. The mystery, the mystery was that something changed that he was not right. The other thing is the starter the starter doing it.
The starter could change. Just because one starter worked a certain way, it's not the same, it's not the same group of microbes that it that it was before. And something that you know rises like a mother in a hundred percent hydration situation when you're feeding it constantly, right? It's not necessarily gonna rise at the same rate, you know, in uh in a bread system. You know what I'm saying?
Um so it I don't I don't know. I didn't I don't have the hydration of the dough, as far as I can tell here. Anyway, look for your point of difference and your point of difference, if you can find no point of difference, then your starter is probably the difference. But I guarantee you, somewhere there is a point of difference. Find it.
You know what I mean? That's always what you need to do. And this is why Quinn, one variable at a time, baby. Because you need to find the point of difference. Anyway.
Uh let me know. Let me know what the Discord finds. Uh Tyler H, question uh that can probably be answered. Uh I think uh was maybe talked about at the show at some point. How do I make a sauce using low temperature bag juices?
That's just sounds wrong. How do I make a bag juice sauce? Like Nastasi, if you went to a restaurant and someone's like, yo, we have a bag juice sauce, what would you say? No, thank you. Yeah, right?
No thanks. I I told you guys, like someone once said it's served in a room temperature sauce. And I was like, No, no, thanks. No thanks. I mean, words have words have uh words carry feelings.
You know? Yeah. Room temperature sauce means you made it one way and now it's at the temperature of the room. I have not controlled it. I care little for you.
You know what I mean? Uh I mean, I'm sure that's not what they meant by it, but you know. That's what's implied. It's what's implied. Yeah, yeah.
Is there any good way to say something's gonna be room temperature? That's not assumed to be room temperature, right? So, like when a little charcuterie plate shows up and that sucker is cold, I'm like, oh damn. Why'd you hurt my why'd you hurt my meat? You know what I mean?
Yeah. But I I've noticed people serving cheeses colder and it makes me bad. Tempered. Tempered. I like it.
Sounds a little more sophisticated. Yeah, has other meanings, but I like it. I feel it's getting close. Tempered. Tempered, tempered, tempered to temperature.
All right. Uh how do I make a sauce using low temp bag juices without turning it into a coagulated gray grossness? Most recent fail was from a 24-hour, 135-degree uh beef roast. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. That's that's gross looking.
So here's what happens, people. Uh, as I'm sure you all know, uh, different proteins coagulate at different temperatures. And when you're doing uh low temperature cooking, uh, there are always proteins uh in the liquid that leaches out of the meat. So as the as the fibers contract, right, uh they squeeze liquid out. And also the the you know, the the proteins have less water holding capacity, the muscle muscle fibers have less water holding capacity.
So moisture goes out. We all know this. In that stuff that leaches out are proteins that have not yet been denatured. So you can take a sauce or like a bag liquid that looks good out of the bag, and as soon as you heat it up near the boil, scum, and it looks gross, like real bad, like nasty. So, how to uh do this?
Well, the way we always used to recommend uh working, and and I don't know whether you're doing this professionally or at home. Uh, uh professionally, if you really want to do it, is you fix yesterday's sauce for today, and you use today's sauce for tomorrow because you can uh heat it and you can skim that crap off and then use the flavors that are in it as the base reduction for another sauce. But as those proteins coagulate it with it, unfortunately they're also stripping some flavor out in the same way that doing a consomme would uh strip the flavors out. But you need to get rid of all that uh coagulate. If you're doing it at home, it's hard because when you get the bag sauces out, usually you're ready to eat it now and you want to do an a la minute sauce, and for that, you're kind of up the creak, unless you use extremely reduced uh things going into it.
So if you're let's say you were gonna do like a red wine Megilla, if you extraordinarily reduce the stuff that goes into the bag beforehand, and you don't have as much juices, get this. Let's say you were to make like some sort of like a sauce, like a Bernaysie Hollandaise sauce. Then you could at the low temperature without bringing it up on the service out at service temperature, just whisk some of those juices in and get some of that flavor. If that help out, John, as long as there's not too much? Yeah.
Bernese. Uh radar, looking for ideas on French onion soup. I've done a lots and lots, but I have I haven't had bliss. I've tried pressure cooker versions. Nope.
With and without Kenji's baking soda edition. Nah, makes it mushy, and also I don't like baking soda and there's no, it makes it brown. Uh steam ovens, baking the onions, various chicken mushrooms, dashi based stocks. I avoid it, uh prefer to avoid dark beefy stocks. My favorite uh French onion soup is actually made with veal stock.
All right, here's my idea on French onion soup. Cut up an unconscionable amount of onions. Put them into a pan, and then let them go at a very, very, very, very low heat for a very long time. Then make whatever the richest stock that you like is, add it to said onions, then get you a nice piece of bread, get you some good cheese. What do you use on your French?
Great? Gruyere. Yeah, grier. Yeah. And then melt that.
Like put the bread, put the grate the stuff up, put on top, melt it over the thing, and then you eat the hell out of it. I'd also say a little sherry vinegar. Oh, yeah, yeah. I like sherry straight sherry. Yeah, that too, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Straight sherry. Yeah. Uh, but a little bit. Yeah.
But the key here is just is that you can't shortcut the onions. You can't shortcut the onions. That's what you're doing here. Shortcutting the onions is is a a large mistake, especially in the pressure cooker. It's not gonna work.
And Joff, I don't have any new recommendations on uh sharpening stones other than DMT. But if anyone in the uh if anyone in the uh Discord has a sharpening stone that they like better than the DMT, the big one, don't say that you don't like the small one because nobody likes a small one. Nobody likes to sharpen their knives on a tiny little stone. This isn't like Boy Scouts in the 1890s. Like get a real size stone if you're using a real-size chest knife.
But the DMT is expensive, so if anyone has recommendations that supersede my old ones, let me know. Cooking issues.
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