Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arrow, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, New York City, News Stand Studios. No John today, he's on vacation, but I do have Joe Hazen rocking the panels. How you doing? I'm doing great, man.
You look great today. Love the glasses here if everyone's watching video. Yeah, full radio, full radio action there. Well, uh, I went to the eye doctor this morning and they dilated the hell out of my pupils. And so even though it's raining out here, like any light, like car lights and stuff, and it's like you know what I mean?
Like a like a vampire. You know what I mean? Living up to my skin tone. Uh over there in Los Angeles, we have uh Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How you doing, Stas?
Good. Good. Yeah, good. And Jackie Molecules, what's up? Yo, what's up?
This is like uh this is like the original show. Yeah, yeah, because we do not have, unfortunately, today in the upper left hand corner, Quinn. Quinn's under the weather, so we hope uh he recuperates uh quickly. Love out to hit love out to Quinn. What did you say?
Well, I said, I don't know, I I didn't know if we asked for questions in advance, and not for nothing. It's not like you open your mouth enough stars anymore. You know what I'm saying? Know what I mean? Know what I'm doing?
Anyway. Hey, guess this. I hear that uh you are gonna go to the uh Maynard uh slash Primus concert thing on your birthday. Crazy. That's not my birthday.
Uh around your birthday. No, oh no, it's my wife's birthday. That's why that's why I can't come, because it's my wife's birthday. It's close to your birthday, though. And uh, whatever.
Two buttons. But I'm not gonna get to see that show, I don't think. Are you excited for that show? Do you listen to any of those bands? Perfect circle, I used to, yeah.
And I went to his fortieth, so now I'm going to his sixtieth, which is interesting. How was the four four was the fortieth tool though? That was tool, right? Crazy. I actually went to the birthday birthday party.
And he was like sitting on a throne, and in order then he had all these mermaids in a tank. And in order to go wish him a happy birthday, you had to walk up to the throne and sit on his lap. Oh my god. And did you have to good old days? Was it like uh was it like Santa Claus?
Did you have to like set tell him what you wanted for Christmas or something? I was so scared. I was only 21 20, something like that. So yeah, I was too scared. Have we discussed how like mermaids of all of the ways to kind of have a weird concept of women, that's the least functional of all of them.
It's like they can't they're they're f f fish. I mean, I don't even understand I don't understand what's going on. I don't understand why mermaids are a thing. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Physiology, right? Yeah, it's just it doesn't make sense. It's like I I don't get it. Like, you know, I don't I don't get it. I think it's about the I think it's about the emotional connection with them.
With the mermaid? They're known conversationalists mermaids are? I mean little mermaid, obviously. Yeah, I think I don't know. I think that it's like more than physical with them.
I don't know. I just think it's creepy and weird. But uh I think it's creepy too. Yeah. Creepy, creepy crap.
Uh all right, so we have some upcoming guests since I have to announce everything. Solo, where's she coming on? Is she coming on next week? Next week. Alright, nice.
Next week. Oh, by the way, uh, in the week of things that happened, like I say, like uh this morning, so Nastasia the Hammer Lopez uh mailed me for my birthday a bunch of. Did you get it? Did you get it? I got it this way.
I got it this morning. Oh my god. Okay. Yay. Yeah.
He y yay, yay. So I open up this package that Nastasia mailed overnight. Right? In like a uh, you know, like in a baggie with yeah, overnight. In in like an insulated McGillicuddy, right?
Overnight. Overnight a week ago, almost. Like Wednesday, right? Yeah, like six days ago, right? Shows up today.
No like note on it. Oh, uh, hey, sorry. You know what I mean? Nothing. So I opened it up.
Nice, nice big ziploc of tamales. Well, thank you. But I mean, I gotta get the bug counter back on the uh, you know, I gotta get the riskier not people back on because I don't know that six days on a loading dock for the for the United States Postal, remember, why is it not the postal service, Nastasia? No service. No service, no service.
And I say this is someone who used to work for at the post office. That was the roughest job I think I ever had was the post office. Of all the jobs, I think that was the roughest because the hours just blew hard. Anyway, uh, so yeah, so it shows up, and I'm I'm not sure about the tamales. The the uh the um I wish I had had it would have been awesome on Easter to have the uh the Coscaras on Easter.
That would have been awesome. But they were intact. That's good. But the avocado, which I'm sure you shipped in fine shape to uh ship, had gone completely soft in the package, and then when the person was using the the the box as a a maracca, had like pasted the avocado all over the inside of the other citrus, so it had all gotten wet and molded. So I opened it up, I'm like, that's a heady smell.
But it's all like molded, moldy, like what looks like it was at one good time citrus, except except the kungquats. The kumquats were okay because they were in their own Ziploc bag. And those are safe to eat. And speaking of kumquats, big thanks out to uh Han at uh Kato uh for mailing me a giant, giant Ziploc bag of uh dried kumquats. These ones are so dry, they're like chewy.
So I just sit there and I I'm chewing on them. I'm already like a quarter of the way through the bag. We appreciate it. Uh I was shipped by somebody, also same time it showed up. Like literally, I was almost late to the show because I opened the door and they decided I think what happened was is they waited, they wanted to wait for everything to show up to deliver anything.
So I got a giant air conditioner, like your package, does, and then uh some syrups, which it was hard to see. The the craft paper was such that with the dilated pupils, I couldn't read what the heck what the heck was going on. So I just took a knife and just cut the whole box open because I couldn't figure out where all the tabs or anything were or even how the tape was working. I couldn't see anything. So I just shredded the box and I found that there were these vials of syrup inside, and I saw that there was writing on the inside of the shredded box, so I took a picture of it, and once my eyes are working better again, I think they're starting to come back.
Uh, I'll read it and then I'll bring it when John's uh here and we can taste it on the air. So whoever it was that sent me the syrups, I'll know who it is once I can read again. Uh so thanks. Uh yeah, what do you guys have? We um we were together on Easter last year.
Ooh, Easter Austin. Friend of the show, Austin Hennley. Um, and we uh had a bunch of I don't remember where he got them from, Stas, but we got a bunch of kebabs. We had a big kebab spread. Yeah.
What's your idea of a kebab? What's my idea of a kebab or what? Okay, so like so like in other words, like there's kebab kebabs, like so. If you go out for kebabs at a real place, and then there is the I grew up in the 70s in America, giant chunk of meat on a stick with like raw vegetables that are on a grill for 35 seconds, kebab. No.
Right, not no, not the not that. Which but I still have a sauce buffer, by the way. Yeah, they're no, they're not. That's like that's like the 70s America, let's do this different thing on a grill. But it is what it is.
You know what I mean? Yeah. You've had them before, right? You know what I'm talking about. Of course, of course.
Of course. Yeah. So these were more classic things. These were more kebab kebabs. A Long Island.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. These were not. I mean, this this was more like, I don't know, Saz. How would you describe this? It was like a patties of meat that were seasoned, and then like chunks of meat that were seasoned with like rice and stuff and garlic sauces.
Yeah, like a Mediterranean. Yeah. Yeah. There's this Turkish kebab I've always wanted to try that's not that's the one that they cook in clay. Have you seen this one?
And you go to the restaurant that they where they do this, and outside on the sidewalk is just like a big pile of clay because they cook it once in the clay and then the and then they they take it out of the clay and they serve it, and then you walk by the restaurant and you're like, I don't even care what it tastes like. I just want that big, I want that big anything that comes, I want it. You know what I mean? I want it. I need to go back to Istanbul just for that you know what I mean not for the delicious cheese string cheese I've said many times super on point there not for the you know awesome Lakerta fish that they have uh coming through the straits there just to have that freaking lamb kebab in the clay that'd be great if the patrons were able to actually make destroy the clay part of the experience.
Yeah I don't know whether the server does it for you they also have a really good cooking in sand game in Istanbul you know what I mean like a really good cooking in sand on the street game like a really good street cooking game in general anyways I would love to go back someday someday someday um wait what else was it what else did that bring me to mind that you uh you were just saying it'll come back to me so what else what else you guys do this week anything so well uh not to not to go back to last week's topic but um we did watch more of my childhood recorded video music awards together and did you have also ninety eight or was it still ninety seven this was ninety six and ninety nine ninety six yeah what was ninety six was ninety six was ninety six Green Day's second album ninety no there's no no sign of Green Day and 96 was not that great actually 99 was was way more eventful. Um and get this in 99 right the spoiler alert the uh video of the a year was Lorenthell and they have Paul McCartney up there to announce the winner and he like kind of fumbles with the envelope and he he opens it and goes, and the winner is uh some guy named Lawrence Hill. Oh my god. So Nastasia, did that did that kill it for you? Because for those of you that don't know, that's Nastasia's that's Nastasia's freebie.
Number one. Freebies, please. I'm not sure. No, in other words, like no matter what relationship you're in, that's the freebie. Doesn't matter who you're going out with, if if the Paul McCartney becomes available, the Paul McCartney, it's a freebie.
You're good. Yeah. Yeah. Um didn't damage it, still good? Yeah.
She's now Lawrence to you. She's always a Lawrence to you. All right. Uh all right. Well, back on uh food for one second.
Made me think of what the kebabs. You know what I found in the laundry room? So we have a weird laundry room in our building. Uh we're getting seriously fishbowled right now. We have this weird laundry room where people drop off anything.
So, like literally, like someone's like, I don't want this can of beans, and they put it in the laundry room. Or like one time they left a toilet seat. I don't want this toilet seat. They left the toilet seat in the laundry room. A couple of weeks ago, a giant baby's head, like a huge baby's head, like giant, like three times bigger than like like an old school diver's helmet size baby head.
That I did not take because I knew that that would end poorly for me. But they also threw away two like individuals serving tajines, and I've never owned a Tajine. I haven't cooked with it yet. Any of you guys Tajine people? Anyone?
I cooked with a Tajine once, and it was okay. I wasn't sure why it would have been better than another method, you know? Because it looks so sick. It does look like a little bit. Joe, are you a Tajine uh?
Yeah, I have a Tajine. I've used it quite a few times. Um how big is yours? Are they probably big? I think it'd be better if it was big enough for like three or four people.
Mine's like seriously, like one or two people. No, no, no, no. I did the ones and like two people. Oh, you know, I'm I I broke mine too hot. Too hot.
Uh no, I didn't mine's about four or five people. It's about as big, maybe as large as like a large pasta pot um you know for boiling water. A little bit a little bit bigger. And what do you do? Did you do some some lammy couscouski thing?
Lamb, apricots, dates. Oh, that sounds good. I like fruit and lamb. Oh, I love fruit and lamb. I had baby lamb for Easter.
I love fruit and rice. Yeah? Love it. I do too. Some people don't like the sweet with the with uh the rice and savory.
I enjoy it. You know, uh Europeans used to love that crap in medieval days. We gotta bring that stuff back. Everyone else in the world knows about it. Why can't the Europeans have it again?
I don't know. You know, it's part of uh it's very it was always rice is always a very important part of the Sephardic Jews, so we always Passover, we are we were we've always eaten rice. You know, and so that was always very important. We always had rice on the stove. Yeah.
Rice and pasta. My mom my mother's Sicilian, so like it was always pasta, and then my father said we always had like rice, rice and lamb, rice and vegetables, and rice and grape leaves. Yeah, man. He you uh, like I say, I had baby lamb for Easter, so that was good. We did it low temp.
We did uh 55 or 54 five hour. They were already it wasn't a whole lamb, it was uh legs, and they were a little bit butterfly out flat. So fit and then dropped to 52. We did it just like a steak, and then I took it outside on an infinity grill with a Sears All Pro. I have nice pictures we can post later, Stas.
I know you like those pictures of me Sears all pro in uh the the day away for Easter with uh the baby lamb. But I love baby lamb. I mean, that's such a childhood thing for me because you know, my stepfather's father was a butcher, he used to get the baby lamb, then you know the baby lamb, it's delicious. Some people like the baby goat. It used to be baby goat was cheaper than baby lamb, so I could buy a baby goat and not have to break the bank.
Because they taste very similar. But now baby goats just as expensive, if not more, I think. I don't know, I haven't checked recently. Because my mom bought it. Um, what else?
Had some more food stuff I wanted to get to. Well, I don't know. I don't remember it. You know, as my mom says, uh, if it's important, uh, you'll never remember. Your mom ever say that to you?
If it's really important, you'll forget it until it's too late. You know what I mean? I guess she knows me because I'm Mr. Tangent. So, like, if it's actually important, I'll probably never get to it.
You know what I mean? Yeah. All tangents all the time. Uh also next week, actually, next week's a dual episode, right? So we also have uh Kevin Young coming on from Noma and Noma Projects.
So you're gonna need to get in all your questions. I know we already asked for some questions for solo, but why don't you guys go look at her book again? We're gonna I'm gonna see if we can put her book back on the Kitchen Arts and Letters discount for our patrons. Uh, and then get your questions ready for Kevin. I think he's gonna bring in some funky stuff from Noma to taste.
Uh so we'll taste some other stuff. So anyway, there you go. There you go. Uh all right. Oh my god, I put my okay.
I'm gonna see if I'm blinded by the light. Uh what is it? Strapped up like a douche. How does that song go? Blinded by the light, strapped up like a douche.
And what has that go? No, it's written by Bruce Springsteen, right? Really? Yes. But what are they actually saying?
Do they actually say do like a deuce? Oh, deuce, like a poop. No, I wasn't a deuce, like wrapped up like a deuce. Like it wasn't 40 uh 40 seconds street called the deuce. Like deuce coupe?
Maybe it could be a deuce coop. You don't know. You don't know what I got. Little deuce coupe, you don't know what I got. Yeah, look that up.
Oh, it's very, very bright, but I can see again with my glasses. Amazing. Uh what do you got? Oh. What spins all stuff?
Oh spins all cheese, Louise. Let's do some questions, then we'll get back to spinzalls. You want to do spinzalls first? I feel like we should get some questions. No, you always wait to the last five minutes to do questions.
What's the rush now? Wow. Wow. Wow. Man.
Wrapped up like a deuce, another runner in the night. So that's poop. Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night. Yeah, you run out of bed because you're set on spray. Okay.
It's wrapped up like a deuce, another runner in the night. Needs to poo. I'm going with what do you think? But it's written by Bruce Bernstein. Yeah, well, you know, everyone poops, even even the boss.
No. You think the boss doesn't poop? To deuce coop. How do you why do you wrap a car? Do you know who the opening for the boss?
Who? Uh Olive Oil Nick. Oh, yeah. Mr. Oily, Mr.
Bansuri baseman is opening for the boss. The boss. The one and only the boss. Wow. Wow.
Hey. Yeah. Alright, well, that's awesome. That's congratulations to him. That's great.
Um spot spinzalls. So spinzalls. Before you go into questions, uh, or before you go to spinzall, one quick thing from the Discord, and we did get another question come in, so remind me about that. But um, somebody made a point that um we didn't give enough love to now serving, which we absolutely should have. So this is our more love to now serving, which was the um cookbook store in uh LA that Ariel had her event at.
It's not I don't know to give love. You guys who live in LA, why don't you freak shows give love? Well, that's that's what I'm saying. Um we, yeah, we didn't. Nastasia and I.
What do they need? Love. What do they need? No, they're right. It's uh we kind of just brushed by it because we were talking about other stuff.
So anyway. Um for those that are not in LA and are visiting LA, they should check it out because it really is uh an outstanding cookbook store. Tiny little ballbook balls. Selling it stuzz. Selling it.
So is it used or new books? New. Alright, nice. Yeah. All right.
Uh and they're knowledgeable folk. Yeah. No, no. Absolutely not. Man.
There's a whole conversation about it in the Discord. I mean, you know. Join the Patreon. You can check out the Discord. All right.
That's right. Exactly. Uh so the spinzall, right, is the centrifuge that uh Nastasia and Quinn and I are manufacturing selling and and uh along with Monitors Pantry, and they've they've gone out. The vast majority of them are gone out. Here's what I'm gonna say.
Most people, it's great. Some people are getting their lids stuck. So what you have to do, everyone's like, I want to be really gentle with it, so they hand wash it. Don't do it. Just put the rotor in the dish washer and get all the sugar off it.
If you assemble that love that thing wet with any sugar on it, the lid's gonna get stuck on it. And I designed it so that you could dishwash it. It's gonna be fine. Just the the thing that it's an enemy is sugar. If the sugar sticks on it, I actually let them dry with the lid off so that you can just put you know, it it it's never a problem then.
So uh other than that, it's been uh good. Also, anyone who can hear me who has one, put a layer of blue tape. So the way it works is it's got a rotor and it's like it's kind of like a food processor, but instead of it sitting on a hard thing, there's a little rubber McGillah that the rotor sits on so that it doesn't vibrate too much, so it's not loud. That rubber thing is a little bit sticky, and so uh the rotor can get hard to take off such that you have to like almost like kingkong it off of the shaft because it's sticking to the rubber so hard. And in version one, we had the same problem, and I used to get mad because people were ripping the rubber thing off all the time, right?
So I told I told the folks at the factory, make the washer around the rubber thing bigger so that the rubber doesn't come off, right? Problem is is that now I realize just how hard sometimes that rubber thing would stick to the rotor. So just put a layer of blue tape. I have a video up. You can look at it on uh you know, cooking issues uh YouTube.
Uh just put a uh like one piece of blue tape around the the rubber octagon piece, and then the you're not gonna have any not gonna have any problem. What else do you want to say, Stas? But you can still buy some, some for sale. They're working great, they're fast. Uh Mike Capaferi at Thunderbolt LA has been using the proto for the past, I don't know, month and a half because he won that contest, and uh he has a lot of luck.
They're better, stronger, faster as the uh as Steve Austin would say. Uh six million dollar man. Uh what what else do you want me to say, Stas? No, that's that's good. Yeah, we also, by the way, I don't know if you know this.
Uh we have a very small number, and we don't have any built, and we actually don't have an agreement right now to build more of them. We have a small number of Sears All Pros, and I have to say, all like shilling aside, the Sears All Pro just beats the snot out of the original one. It just really just beats the snot out of the original one. So just go on we and they're only available right now on the Booker and DAX website, and we only have I don't know, a couple hundred of them left. And it's just, oh my God, I was using the Sears All Pro on the baby lamb, and my brother-in-law, who I actually thought I was getting one for for Christmas, but couldn't because they uh we couldn't even ship them to ourselves.
Remember that beautiful day, Stas? Yes. Yeah. Uh so he was like, Oh my god, this is faster. I'm like, Yeah, yeah.
Things got things got uh things got the juice when you're running it on map. Anyway, uh good enough, Stas. We good? We good? I think so.
All right. Uh from Zev, I just saw Chef Steph's post about the control freak home. Now, for those who don't know, Chef Steps, the company who makes Jule was bought by Breville, who makes the control freak when Bre So Breville kind of like Breville, Australian Breville, bought uh Chef Steps. They also brought PolyScience. So when they did poly science, they didn't actually do uh a too much innovation on the circulator side with it.
For some reason they bought Joule instead. I don't know why, but that's what happened. Uh but what they did do under the poly science name was the control freak, which everybody who has one knows is the best standalone uh 120 induction unit you can buy. It's just very expensive, right? So they're coming out with a new version, and Grant Cree from Chef Steps is still with them because his picture's all over their website.
And they're doing one called the Control Freak home, which is slightly smaller. So that's what we're talking about. And it really is. I have the original one from you know years ago, and it really is just a great uh a great induction uh burner. Anyway, very curious to hear Dave's thoughts about uh if he knows anything about the new control freak home.
The smaller size seems like the biggest advantage, as it's not that much cheaper than the original. I'm mostly curious to know if it's as good as the original. Uh, it's still more than I can reasonably justify for a new kitchen toy. Well then what are you worried about, Zev? If you're not gonna buy it anyway, what do you care which one's better?
Get the better one if you're not gonna get any at all. If you're not gonna buy one at all, don't buy the most expensive one. Am I right? Come on. Um, maybe you can ask for someone for a gift.
Do you have any rich friends? That's what you need is rich friends. Uh but if it really is just as good as the original, I may be able to convince myself, ah, there you go, and my spouse spouse to splurge. Well, I don't know. I haven't used one, Zev.
Uh, it looks like both the it looks like they're not gonna make the original one the way they made it anymore, and that the control freak is changing. There's a lot of things for as good as it is, there's a lot of really stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid things about the original control freak. For instance, like not as stupid as the idiots walking down New York City in the rain with umbrellas. Oh my god, I hate walking in this city in the rain with idiots with their giant umbrellas walking slow like cattle. Oh my god, when I'm trying to get to the radio show, Stas, is that like something you you miss New York City people walking in the rain with their giant umbrellas?
No, I don't miss it at all. It's the worst. Truly the worst. It really is. Why are we so stupid here?
Like with it's like the rain comes and we just become the dumbest people on earth. I don't I don't get it. You know what I mean? Like, you know, people in Scotland don't do that. They're like, I'm getting wet now.
Boom, good. You know what I mean? People in LA don't walk. Fine. You know what I mean?
Like here, it's like the worst of all the worlds. I don't get it. Anyway. Um the original one was very stupid for a couple of things. One, it had a lot of really good software, and it had a USB uh hookup where you could put a USB key into it.
But what they didn't give you was the ability to upload your own programs. In fact, I talked to them years ago, and uh, you know what they said? I was like, hey, listen, like, you know, I could get together all of uh, you know, the people I know, including Philip, you know, who you developed it with ostensibly at Poly Science, because I talk to him all the time, Bruno Gusso, we can get together, we can write a bunch of cool like sous vide programs and different programs for this because you have a USB input. And you what you know what they said when I when I called them? They said this.
And that's it. It's it's the same response as when I went to Absolute Bagel. Uh, you know, which absolute they, you know, you apprentice with Essa the years ago. This is like maybe 30 years ago. I walk in, I was like, you know what you should do?
I love your pumper nickel, I love your everything. How about a pumper nickel everything? You know what they said? And that's it. And I walked out and I was like, you're lost.
Now everyone has pumper nickel everything. It wasn't a thing. They could have been the first pumper nickel everything. Pumper nickel everything is a good bagel. I'll I'll tell you this pumper nickel everything is a good bagel.
I'm not saying that it's not, it's not a traditional bagel, but it's a good bagel. At one point, the everything wasn't a traditional bagel. In my lifetime, the everything wasn't a bagel. You know what I'm saying? Anyway.
Do you guys like pumper nickel bagels? Do you like everything bagels? Do you like everything bagel? Do you like a pumpernickel everything bagel? It's good.
I don't think it's for me. Well, you're that guy. You're the guy. I'm your problem. I'm your enemy.
You're the guy. I look at him and you just put this goofball smile on your face and say, eh. Same as Breville. But now, you know, Breville is doing the stuff I think that I asked for. So with Chef Steps that they now own, who's very good at that sort of thing, uh, I think they're making it so you can do really good programs on it.
And they're also, one of the issues on the uh on the control freak is you can set the temperature, right? You couldn't, you can't set the wattage, right? You used to be able to set in the control freak either full blast up to temperature. There was three different like slow, medium, and fast, but now they give you actually control over the temperature and the power input, which is very important for things like deep frying. Uh it's also uh very important if you really want to keep something low and don't want it to ramp up too fast because uh because there are issues with it.
So I think it's all in all going to be an upgrade across the board. I have not touched one, so I have no idea. Uh one of the things that the control freak does that other units don't do is uh is they are actually not lying. It can actually put out the power that it says it's gonna put out for a long, long time, even with a big load on it. Uh and uh I've measured other crappier, smaller induction, the cheap ones, and they don't.
They just throttle their power down. One of the reasons they can do that is there's a lot of very good cooling in the control freak, and that is of the electronics, and that is why the unit is so big. So if on the control freak home they're able to just shrink it and uh and have it have the same cooling and be the same bulletproof nature in terms of not overheating, then I would say it's better because the one thing I don't like about the control freak is how freaking big it is. I understand why it's so big, but whatever. So, like, as long as the other parameters are the same, I would prefer to have it smaller.
Is that what do you think? Covered smothered, covered smothered? Covered smothered. Yeah, maybe look, have them on the show. Get Grant on the show, have them bring it in, whatever.
Well, you know, I like Grant. Grant's good people. Haven't spoken to him in a long time since they sold the company. Uh Mathman writes in Hey, cooking issues crew. Is there a resource or guidance for properly setting the crystal structure of beef tallow after rendering?
I had some uh on the top of my beef stock that I skimmed off, melted to remove water, and then cooled. However, after cooling, it formed a slushy, partially crystalline mush, even in the fridge. I had to reheat it up to about 100 C and then put it in the freezer before warming to room temp to make it form a hard tallow that I'm gonna try to use to make a shepherd's pie crust with. I presume you need to remove all the crystals and then cool at a certain rate or temperature to ensure a hard product. Well, there's a couple of things going on.
There are different crystal forms, obviously, in fat and depends on how you on how you set them, but I that's not, I think, the main problem you have here. I think the main problem you have here is that uh first of all, when you're skimming it off the top, there's water in it. So when you then heated it up in, you know, with not in stock and vaporized any water that was kind of mixed in with it, and then set it in the freezer, you are just getting rid of a lot of the impurities that were in it. That's one. But two, the stuff that you're supposed to make pie with, right?
First of all, it's let's go sue it. Let's not because tallow can be any sort of like rendered fat, right? Uh like horse tallow. Like for like French fries back in the old days. Uh, you know, that's it used to make McDonald's.
Wasn't it horse? No, it's a beef, it was beef suet. But horse, I I hear horse fat makes good French fries. I ain't never had it. You ever have horse fat fries?
No. No, it's beef fat they used to use. Anyway, the stuff that you're using to make shepherd's pie is kidney fat, aka suet, and it is much harder because it has a different triglyceride makeup than the rest of the fat around the animal. So the fat of that beef has, the the hardness of the fat is dependent on the fatty acid components that are in the particular fat, and that varies from animal to animal depending on the feed, depending on how old the animal is. So I've had grass-fed meat that's like seven, eight-year-old cat like the old, old cows.
And that meat is like, I mean, that fat is like almost like liquid. It's like squishy. It's like, you know, not at all hard. It's like very unsaturated, right? So that's never going to get hard no matter what you do.
Muscle fat, grass fed in general, is softer than grain fed cows. But muscle fat, the stuff that you trim or that's in stock, right, is always, and plus also there's stuff that's rendering out of the bones and marrow and other fatty things that are coming out of it. All of those lipids are softer than suet, which is the hard, hard, high steeric acid fat that is coming from around the kidneys, aka kidney fat. That's what you want for your shepherd's pie. Now you could selectively crystallize it, and you can do that with a spinzall, but it is a pain in the behind, and your yields are small.
But it's fun to do once or twice, but I definitely wouldn't do it in a restaurant. Covered smothered. Good? All right. What contributes to the uniquely crunchy texture of Sukamoto, the Japanese pickle style, uh, and how can I make them at home?
Uh I ate them obsessively in Japan, but have had trouble finding them here in the United States and would like to make my own. The recipes I've seen often use some sort of press during the pickling process. So I was wondering if the compression plays into the final texture. Any tips for recreating those at home would be great. All right, well, uh I called up, or I shouldn't say I called because I didn't.
I texted uh Ariel Johnson, author of a Flavorama. And she uh she I asked her because you know I was like, I don't know, she's an expert in that. Uh she said, yeah, the really dense, crunchy ones you uh pre-salt under a lot of weight, then drain off a lot of the liquid, then ferment under pressure as well. So the pre pressure with the salt, instantly expelling a lot of liquid. She also says those are mostly turnip or daikon based pickles.
And then I said to her, just so you know, I was like, oh, why would those techniques make it crunchy though? Other than turnips and dicons are already crunchy. Usually my stuff, pickles in general, goes soft if the ferment is too slow or too hot. Could it be the higher salt on the exterior prevents that softening? I forget what what bacteria slash enzyme bull crap causes uh them to go soft if they ferment at too high a temperature.
And then she said, uh, putting it under a lot of pressure removes the water, but I also think collapses a lot of the internal voids in the structure. So the pickles are a lot denser. It's a different kind of crunchy than fresh vegetables with a high turger pressure that relies on holding onto a lot of water and keeping pectin intact. What do you think? Got Ariel?
I mean, she wasn't here live. Next time we'll get her live to come do it, we'll have her back on. We should just make her a regular guest if she wants to be, you know what I mean? I mean, like, yeah, we can have her on as often as she wants to come on, in my opinion. But uh, what do you think?
Covered smother? Good? All right. Uh, worst salad. By the way, if your name is worst salad, I think you kind of have to say what you think the worst salad is.
I don't even know what's the worst salad? Like what's like what in your minds, what is the worst kind of salad? I think like really over anything that's really over. Over what? Grass.
Oh my god. So you do you hate, do you hate like like a mayonnaise y salad, like Waldorf or one that's no, I just yeah. Is that anything that's like all liquidy? I can't. Yeah, like like wilted and over-oiled.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know what? Uh reassures has shown that it's actually the vinegar that makes it wilt in the oil, but it looks like it's the oil because then the oil penetrates in and makes it look all oiled out and gross. Yeah. That makes sense.
Um what about jello salads? Oof. That's gotta be up there with worse salads. Is that like um like the ambrosia? Like those are like the shredded carrot in the milk with the jello and the you know what I mean?
A little sugar? It's like a sweet, it's like half of it's like halfway to dessert, but you serve it uh on the side of your of your stuff. We used to look now it's only a Thanksgiving we eat a bunch of sweet jelly crap at uh during dinner, right? But it used to be that we would have these sweet jelloed salads from time to time. You know what I'm saying?
Anyway. Uh what about a potato salad? Are you guys a cold potato salad, a mayonnaise potato salad, uh warm potato salad, vinegar potato salad? Where are you guys on potato salad? Indifferent potato salad here.
Any? Well, indifferent about potato salad. What what is wrong with you? Yeah. Wow.
Like potato salad's never the side I'm going for. You know, like if it's if it's like a side at a barbecue place or something, it's like I'm I'm not choosing it. But I I I like it fine. Skin on or skin off? Depends on the potato.
What what about uh what about a little celery? You like celery? I like a little crunch. Am I bad for liking a little celery in mine? No?
No. I wish I liked the German style more. I'm more of an American potato salad. I appreciate a good German potato salad, but I don't I wish I wanted it more than I want the American one. But also, like Nastasia says, what I don't like, and maybe this is why if you use it, is the ones that are too sweet and they they overcook the potatoes, and then there's they're in so much of the goop filth that like it's just like and and then the potatoes get that weird kind of you know what I mean?
They turn kind of like slimy within the cake of the of the of the mayo goop that's no good right style you hate that right that's no good that's not good that's no good uh would you rather have egg salad or potato salad my mom puts eggs in her potato salad I could see that that sounds good I like that yeah I'm into that egg salad chicken salad speaking of potatoes on the egg what chicken or the egg I say chicken salad seafood salad chicken salad well chicken I like a seafood salad well speaking of potatoes we had in the pasta queen the other day uh Nadine Muno and she was telling us about making gnocchi she said you know a lot of people make a big big big mistake by making gnocchi they always use fresh uh fresh potatoes you gotta use the ones with the eyes the ones that are super dry and ugly been sitting out look like they're gonna die make the best gnocchi really but you know what they will kill you if they're green. Oh really? I don't know they're gonna kill you but they're not good for you. Well what's going on with the green I don't believe it's the green itself but they create more of the poison uh I forget the name I think it's something like it's like solanine or something like this the poison that's in them and so you're not supposed to eat fully greened out potatoes. Okay I get it.
Yeah sure. But I'd be scared of it because it looks like mold. Oh yeah they look like they're coming to life which is what they are. Right? So I don't mind the eyes.
The eyes. Yeah, take that stuff out. I think it's higher in Solony, but maybe it makes a good gnocchi. Who cares? You're gonna die some point.
You know what I mean? So she wants it to have less moisture in it. Exactly. Hmm. It sounds like something that is uh interesting thing for study, and if I was better at gnocchi, as I said on the air, I'm not as good as I wish I was at gnocchi, so I stay away from it.
Who's the best gnocchi maker we know well? I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to make no one in my family wants to make it. Yeah?
It's too much work. Yeah. I used to make it all the time. It's just hit or miss. Sometimes great, sometimes not.
And then I was like, you know what? Life's too short. She swore that the less moisture in in the potato, the better than gnocchi. She also said when she said when making her sugo, her the uh uh like a like a a pan made uh handmade tomato sauce in the pan is to only cook your pasta for four minutes, then take the super al dente, almost unbent pasta and cook it in the sauce for the remainder of the time. That is a school of thought.
I never knew that. Yeah, that is a school of thought. I like that. There's also the uh the school of thought that uh I forget who first started pushing it of using almost no water to cook it. And even some people who like pre-soak it, and uh I think a bunch of people have proven that you can make decent pasta that way, and it somehow saves energy, but like who has the time to think about it, right?
Stas just fire up the water and make the pasta, no? Yeah. You know, yeah, but uh it's it's easy to say that, but my wife being British, sorry. Um uh and it's just must go on in the generations of her family when they make pasta, the water's cold, and the pasta is put into the cold water and then brought up to boil. Yeah, it works.
Does it really? Yeah, it works. Does it that's like oh super uh I mean, like uh who was telling us about the uh the people from um from Florence with these super mushy pasta? Oh, I don't know. I don't know.
I mean, like, look, there everyone everywhere is someone will overcook the hell out of something and undercook something, it's all culturally determined. But uh from a technical standpoint, people have shown that you can make a good pasta with any of the things as long as you pay attention. There is there, in other words, there is no perfect. That's the one thing that everyone always gets wrong. There is no one perfect way to do anything that's complicated.
And so as long as you have a good procedure, it can start in any one of a number of different ways. It's just for me, you know, I'm never I never know. So I'm always like big pot of boiling water. I have an infinity stove, right? So I can make a pot of water boil faster than you can run and go pee.
You know what I'm saying? So it's like, I'm just gonna boil the water, salt the hell out of it, and that way I know what the timing is every time. The problem with starting from cold water is is that the uh cooking rate is going to depend very heavily on the power of the stove and the load that you put into it, because there's a certain amount of time to get a certain amount of water and a certain amount of pasta up to temperature. So it's like it's like it's like bowling or golf. You gotta hit the same pocket all the time.
If you're boiling a large pot of water, you have like a a a very large thermal mass compared to the pasta that you're throwing into it, which has almost no thermal mass because it you know it's dry. And so you kind of like even out a lot of the the problems that you can have or the differences that you can have if you're starting from cold with variable amounts of water and variable amounts of pasta. So if you're always the same and you're always on point, or if you're good at paying attention and palate and you can pull things in and out when when it's just right, then I think you can do it any way you want. But from uh just walking in, bulletproof knucklehead way to do it, boiling is easier for me. That makes sense.
Copy that. Yeah. Uh all right. Well, we gotta get to worst question salad now that we've talked about the worst salad. I hate it when you go to a place and the and the salad has started to ferment on itself.
That's the worst. Right? When you taste it and you're like, oh man. Oh yeah. Now yeah.
Oh my God. Oh, it's terrible. Uh I just tried to wrap it in fused vodka with coffee beans. The taste and smell of the result is great, but the liquid ends up with a brown color. Any ideas of how to get a clear, colorless coffee infused vodka?
No, you can't do it worth salad. Not possible. It's not possible. This is why you don't have any good clear coffee beverages. There's no good clear anything because coffee is brown, and distillates of coffee don't taste like coffee.
Uh they're all like tinctures and infusions, and none of those, none of those things are without color. First of all, remember, uh, yeah, you said so clear coffee can be clear, right? Like drip coffee, cold brew coffee is clear in that you can read a newspaper behind it if anyone remembers what a newspaper is. But the uh it is not colorless. And I have never in my life had a fake coffee that was colorless that was tasted like real coffee.
I've distilled it a number of times, and every time I've distilled it, I thought that the product that I made was garbage. And I've also never had anyone else's product that I thought was distilled that tasted like coffee. What I recommend that you do is close your eyes and pretend that it is clear and colorless, right? Because that's the closest I think you're gonna get. Fair?
Yeah, I mean, sorry, but that's just the answer. You know. Uh Rich uh Rich writes in a similar kind of question. Uh I just took delivery of a nitropress DS, which is a new uh EC uh like siphon that accepts regular EC cartridges for cream and soda, but also has a charger that sucks concentrated nitrogen out of the air and puts it into your coffee or whatever you want without any single use cartridges, which are expensive and hard to get here. All right, I'm gonna before I'm gonna stop you right here.
Uh I'm almost I haven't seen this item that you're talking about, Rich. I am almost certain that this uh concentrated nitrogen that you're speaking of is a very fancy mix of nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and oxygen that we call air. Right? I don't think there's any easy way for them to like actually concentrate cheap way, like reasonably mass market way for them to concentrate the nitrogen. It's possible to have like an oxygen scavenger and get some of the stuff out, but I just highly doubt it.
What I think they're doing is putting in compressed air. I think it's basically an air compressor. I now look, I'm happy to be wrong, but that's just my guess. So uh, you know, don't fall into people's marketing hype unless it's accurate. But so what I would say there is that if you're using something that is highly oxidizable, don't think that it's gonna be preserved in the way that something that is under pure nitrogen blanket could be preserved from oxygen.
Make sense? All right. So on to your question. Uh this device that I have works great for coffee, but an impromptu test with clarified strawberry cordial and water could only hold gas momentarily before dissipating. So my question is before I do a thousand tests, what's the magical ingredient that makes it work for coffee, but not clear cordial plus water?
Is it total dissolved solids, proteins, fat? Question mark. Uh, what piece of info will slash my development time? Even better, is there something I could potentially add to any drink to help it um you know foam up more effectively? Thanks.
Yeah. The secret ingredient in coffee is coffee. Right. So as we said in the in the previous uh question, right? Coffee uh has a bunch of stuff in it, right?
So especially espresso and other things have a lot of dissolved solids that have foaming ability. So in an espresso foam, it's uh oils and proteins that are are the surface active components to help stabilize the air bubbles, but then you also have polysaccharides that make it thicker, right? So what you want is stuff in it, so probably not clear things, right? Stuff in it, and also uh a certain amount of thickness and viscosity. So you can use uh you know, anything with body in it, so I would add uh I would not if you need it to be clarified, it's a little more difficult, but it's not gonna be clear once you foam it anyway.
You can use a methyl cell foam F50, methyl cell L F50 is gonna foam like a weasel, uh gelatins will foam like a weasel, uh pineapple juice, cucumber juice, uh coffee, any milk product. Um you want to add proteins and or whipping agents and then a thickening agent. So think methylcel F50 and Xanthan, uh and you know, but in you know, relatively small amounts, and then because it's too much and it'll just form a hundred percent stable foam. It won't like actually turn into a liquid, it'll just stay like a whipped foam, right? Um and you know, worse comes to worse, you can make a light fluid gel if you really want to out of uh gel in or agar light, and then uh whip air into it, and that'll uh that'll that'll work.
Make sense? Work? Good? Smothered? All right.
Uh Dori's uh, can Dave talk more about his approach to longer, uh longer low temp sous vide cooks after the for insurance phase. Um I recall a few times he talked about dropping to a lower temperature to let it ride for achieving breakdown of connective tissue, et cetera. What's the specific advantage? Is it lower moisture loss versus continuing at the target core temp, allowing a longer cooking time and if so what advantage uh and more about that. And by the way, uh Dory says uh for any of the French speakers out there, of course John's not here, he's our only French speaker.
That's it. The only French speaker that's ever listened to the show, John. So uh I can highly recommend the 2023 book Sou vide 2.0 by Karsten Tongard, 2A's in Tongard. Two G's two A's, that's a sick name. Like you know what I mean?
T-A-N-G-G-A-A-R-D. That's hardcore. I like that. Uh available in Danish and French, but not in English yet. I like how you weren't like for the Danish speakers out there because you're like, there's only two of them, right?
You're like for the French people. For the French folk. Uh but not in English yet. It gets pre-salting wrong but has nothing on dropping the temp uh but great tables and insights still. Well it's I'm glad that you brought up salting uh Doris because one of the things is uh you know back in the day I always used to recommend not salting um your products beforehand.
But most of those um unless okay back back back sorry sorry it's gonna get a little in the weeds. So if I always used to say if you were going to serve something like a ribeye, right, and you were going to uh serve it right away, in other words cook serve, no chill, that you could salt it, you could do your your low temp on it, right, you know, for a couple of hours, never let it chill, and then serve it, and it's gonna be fine. Uh but on all the studies I had done, tests rather, where you had where we chilled it afterwards, it got kind of a hammy texture, right? Got too firm, even though it was cooked at the same temperature. So I advocated not salting.
Well, it turns out that uh what happens is is that over time uh at a particular temperature, you actually do get more firming of the uh of the muscle meat. So what what you if you want to salt it beforehand and get the flavor benefits of salting throughout the meat, you can in fact salt the meat beforehand if you drop the temperature once the core reaches uh the core temperature that you want to have it quote unquote done. So what I aim for is I aim from my cook temp to just make it to my cook temp. And then I aim to drop the temperature down, and then you don't get the hammy texture that you would get in a uh in a steak. You also don't get as much the fibery texture you would get if you were to cook something a long time uh at the core temperature.
So, you know, a lot of the work that I used to do, I would say, oh yeah, you really shouldn't cook turkey or chicken or really any meat uh that doesn't have a lot of connective tissue. You shouldn't cook it longer than it takes to cook it till it's done because as soon as that happens and there's no connective tissue to break down, it just gets fibery. And then when you're chewing on it, it just tastes like mush in your mouth, mush mouth. And there are people that like that soft mush mouth meat. I happen to not be one of them.
So I always try to get people to distinguish in their head between tenderness and mushiness, because to me they're completely different things. And the one is, oh, I can bite it, but it's still a piece of meat. The other one is it turns to a wad of chewing tobacco fiber in my mouth, well, not true tobacco, but like fiber in my mouth and water, and that's no that's no good. So that is prevented or at least lessened by lowering the temperature. So you're not going to get that hammy effect and you're not going to get it in salted meats.
You're not going to get that hammy effect and you're not going to get that fibroy effect as fast. And it allows you to break down any connective tissue that's there and just make sure that everything is kind of cooked through to the way uh you want it. Um another way to look at this is uh if you want to see the effect in something that's very cheap is uh do a 62 degree egg, leave one in for an hour, leave one in for two hours, leave one in for three hours, leave one in for four hours. Crack them all out, and then look at the difference in the yolks between the one hour, the two hour, the three hour, and the four hour is sixty-two Celsius, and you can see the slow creep. So after two hours, I forget exactly, I haven't I gotta go back and look at my new charts, but after two hours, uh, you know, a 62 degree egg is a 63 degree egg, and after, you know, three or four hours, it's a 64 degree egg.
So it really like you see the slow creep of proteins as they denature at a particular temperature slowly. So the vast majority of your of the cooking, quote unquote, texture-wise, uh, for those proteins is gonna happen relatively quickly, but there's a slow creep, and it makes it always look like it's approaching a higher temperature. So that's why you drop it. Makes sense. All right.
Uh Jack, you said you had a question on the uh on the Patreon. What do you got? Yes. Gosh, uh, I have a kettle one espresso martini machine. Oh.
Espressy marmars, as he calls it. And he's not getting quite as much foam as he wants. The recipe calls for vodka, coffee, liqueur, grind, uh, simple syrup using Gemerara with gum arabic and cold brew. It pushes with nitrogen. Can I what can I do to get some better foamage?
Yeah, I mean, I would say this so the gum wait's gum arabic and what? Uh in the simple demorara with gum arabic. I mean, so gum arabic's like an emulsifier, so uh, you know, it's it doesn't have that much foaming ability on its own, but it you can add quite a bit of it, and so it's adding solids, which is good. Um, but I would add, like I say, a little bit of that, a little bit of foaming agent like uh like a methyl cell, if you don't if you want to go with something neutral, um you could add a little bit of xanthan to it, which will just make it hold the foam better, but stay light, like less than an eighth of a percent. So like, you know, uh like you know, l like small amount, very small.
Um, just you know, because you don't want it to get all snotty. You know what I mean? Or like uh I really like you know, Xanthan and those kind of things is like sometimes problematic. People add too much. Uh and you also gotta wait for it to dissolve into your syrup so you can use it properly.
Um yeah, I would say one of those one of those two things. It really depends on how foamy you want it. You know what I mean? There's no coffee, just coffee liqueur, espresso would do it. Then you have to make espresso.
God forbid people actually put espresso in their espresso martinis. You know what I mean? Yeah. Everyone wants to use cold brew. You know what I'm saying?
But um, yeah, I don't know. Helpful? Anyway. Uh all right. Well, oh my god.
I got through all the questions. I started it too soon. Now what? Now I got six minutes and fifty one seconds to do what? To do what?
To talk about what. Did you see that World Central Kitchen was hit in Gaza? That's awful. I just heard about it this morning, and I know that a number of their people were killed. Like some not small number of their people were killed.
It's terrible. I don't really know the details though. Do you there was supposed to be a non like a non-conflict zone and it was an accident. Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Yeah. Uh yeah. Maisie knows like some of the people. So it's just a good thing. Say it again.
Maisie who has worked with World Central Kitchen for a long time knows some of the people. That's awful. Oh yeah. I mean, you know, you know, people uh just go into trying in and and uh help. It's you know it's always a it's always a nightmare when stuff like that happens.
Um yeah. I got nothing constructive to say about that. It's terrible. Um you know thoughts out to thoughts out to that crew. I I didn't want to say anything about it because I I don't really know the details of it yet, but yeah, it's it bears uh bringing bringing out.
You know, a lot of those yeah, I mean a lot of uh Maisie knows a lot of those people, a lot of those people, you know, um crew come from the you know, the hospitality industry here on the Eastern Seaboard, so I'm sure, you know I'm sure m a lot of us know are like only a couple of degrees away from those folks, so thoughts out. Um Wow, way to bring it down right at the end styles. Nice. Nice. I think it's worth mentioning worth mentioning.
It's totally worth mentioning. Yeah. It's like uh, you know, everyone. Well Quinn also Quinn also popped up in the Discord. Here's uh something curious.
Um he says his grandma is great with gnocchi. Uh well, all right. Well, get her recipe, Quinn, and we can talk about it, talk about it the next time. Yeah. Um, and back to gnocchi.
That's like the classic, like uh, that's uh like the ma the the Mario Batali, and here's some cinnamon buns. Yeah. So it's like uh it's like I don't know, for those of you that don't remember what happened, like uh when when Maro Batali got me too, he was like, Oh yeah, sorry I did all that stuff. Uh here's some cinnamon buns to think about. And so, like, you know, the cinnamon bun apology, non-apology became like the ultimate kind of F you.
So whenever that's terrible. Whenever we do anything wrong, Nastasi and I are always like, here's some cinnamon buns, right? But you know, eventually people aren't gonna get it anymore. You know what I'm saying? Like uh, you know, like I think the memory for that kind of thing is quite short.
Wouldn't you say, Stas? Yeah. Shorter, shorter than shorter than you think. Oh, speaking of cinnamon buns, though. Do any of you guys know any Samoans and or like uh I guess speak to Liam.
Lianne Wong, you know, from the FCI is in town shooting something for Bravo, which I don't even know if she's allowed to talk about, but there I said it anyway. But um, you know, she you know, her restaurant in in Hawaii was burnt during the uh during the catastrophic uh fires. Um but there's these I just learned about these Samoan buns that now I really want to try. You ready for this? Uh uh Pani Popo, okay?
I've never had them before, and I would like to have them actually produced by somebody who knows what they're talking about. But the basic theory of operation is you make a bun, right? And so uh the only person who's actually Samoan whose recipe I saw uh doesn't use milk in the buns, but most of the Hawaiian versions and other versions have like a almost like a dinner roll recipe. So but these the the rolls do have in them, they're yeased, and they have sugar and you know, a small amount of sugar and butter, but not an incredibly rich dough. So but you make a fairly light bun and then you put them into the pan, and here's what you do.
Before you bake it, right? So you let it rise up, you let a little air around them as they're rising. You put a sweetened coconut cream mixture into the pan while it bakes, and it forms like a crust over the top and then a goop around them. And so it's like almost when you think of cinnamon bun. So it's like this apparently like sweetish, not sweetish, sweet-ish, like coconut goop, crackling top, and now I'm dying to have a traditional one and then see like where to take it from there.
I'm almost hesitant to just make it on my own the way that I would think about making it because that's almost invariably wrong, right? So I want to see whether we know anyone that does anyone I wonder make one in the in New York that's passable? Is there any like one who's like the Panny Popo house of New York, like Pantypopo.com? Panny Popo, Panny Popo Life, Panny Popa Village. Who knows?
You guys ever have one of these things? No. I would love to. You have any Samoan restaurants in LA? I'm sure they're somewhere.
We'll go. Or like a Hawaiian, because apparently, like I say, like it's also become, you know, uh very popular in Hawaii. So I'm sure we can get it here there. If if any of you guys have some Panny Pobo skills, you know, let me know. Uh next week, uh stay tuned for uh two episodes one day, uh, with Sola El Oayaley coming in talking about her book and Kevin Young coming in talking about Noma.
Uh and yeah, thanks so much. Cooking issues.
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