Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, New York City, News Dance Studios, joined uh with only actually it's only you and me today in the studio, Joe. Joe Hazen. How you doing? Doing all right.
Uh John's feeling uh under the under the weather, so he's uh staying home tonight, you know. Sorry for you, John. Yeah, or today. Yeah, sorry too. Uh hopefully he'll be back uh next week.
Uh joined in the upper left hand by Quinn. How you doing? I'm good. Good. Uh not in Los Angeles.
We have well, actually, let's do Los Angeles first. I think Jack, you are in Los Angeles now, correct? You're back? Yes. Yes, I am here.
We have Mr. Molecules there, and then headed all the way back over to almost New York, but not quite. We have Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. How are you doing, Staz? I'm good.
Back on our coast again. Awesome. And and to make up for the fact that we don't have John, very, very special uh long time uh old old time cooking issues friend of show, Jordan Rothman. How you doing? I'm so good.
I'm happy to be here, John today, baby. Yeah. Well, you know, as long as it starts with a with a J. We need two J's on every show, so that's how it goes. Um, before I start.
What's the joke? Everyone here but Quinn has at one point at least lived in New York City. Is it just New York people that think that they can spout off at you at random as they're like speeding by and not have you yell back at them? Or is that everyone everywhere and it's just there's more people in New York? I don't understand the question.
Like I'm I'm on a I'm on a first of all, like when you're on a bike, in New In New York, there's there's a there's a rage situation between pedestrians and both bikers and drivers. And there's a rage situation between bike, there's a rage situation between all three people at all times, infinite rage between all three groups directed against the other two groups, no matter which group you're in, right? But today, I'm on the bike, right? On a city bike, which is by the way, slow. I mean, you know, I make it go as fast as I can, but it's slow.
So I zip up to the thing, and then I'm I've got my hands on the brake. Anyone with the eyes can see I've got my hands on the brake. I'm stopping because it's a red light. Now he stopped me. And a guy on a bike who's meandering around without a helmet, right?
Tells me I need to slow down and stop because it's a red light for pedestrians. I'm like, so and then he thinks he can just say that and and go on. I'm like, sir, one, you're not a pedestrian, you're on a bicycle. Two, you're weaving around. Three, I am stopping.
Here I am, stopped. And then he starts going, and then I'm like, have a nice day. He flips me, uh uh he yells something back at me. I look at him, I go, oh, and by the way, you're uh yell at him. I was like, my brother, you're driving the wrong way up a one-way street with you and your talking.
You and your talking are going the wrong way up a one-way street. And he flicks me off. So I give the loudest have a nice day I've ever given in my life. Like such a loud have a nice day. And like even the crossing guard was like, Yep, that guy's a jerk.
But is that a New York thing that people think they can like with without repercussions start talking to people that no one's gonna spout back at them or what? This sounds like an extremely New York story. I do feel like I do have a lot of thoughts. On the one hand, I think that you did start the story by saying that the bike is slow. That does feel a little bit like a blame the equipment situation.
Well, but that should be in my favor because I should be going slow. You should be like, oh, this person's not a threat. They're they're on the equivalent of a potato bug for a bicycle. You know what I'm saying? Sure.
Sure. And that should be in my favor. If you see a potato bug coming, even a pedestrian can get out of the way of a potato bug. Here's the thing. We're all just doing our best.
You know what I mean? That's the thing. I don't think this guy was doing his best. I think this guy thought he could vent his anger about his life and like what a cesspool his life is, right? On somebody else without repercussion.
Answer is you can't do that. The whole reason New York sucks to live in is because you have to absorb and absorb and absorb and not give off. You know what I'm saying? And once you give off, you have to get it back. That's what that's the whole thing here.
Is that you get to take out your aggression on strangers? That's literally in the charter. That's why you do it. No, no, no. That's the kind of person who hits people in the head with bricks.
You can't do that. Like it's about absorbing and swallowing all of your race. If if if everyone, if all eight million of us let go and like imagine, imagine. Imagine Wild West. I mean, thank God there's air conditioning in most places here.
You know what I mean? Thank God. I mean, I told you that's my theory about the Wild West, right? Everyone's like, oh, why did everyone get shot in the Wild West? It's not because there's no law, it's because there's no air conditioning.
Imagine if people are getting into arguments and it's 120 degrees outside. It's so much easier just to shoot somebody. You know what I mean? I do feel weird about this conversation. All right.
Okay. Anyways, uh, if you're listening live on Patreon, call your questions to uh 917-410-1507. That's 917-410-195-195-1975. And uh, if they want to be on the Patreon, Quinn, uh, what should they do and why should they do it? Uh they should go to Patreon.com slash cooking issues.
You get the uh show early, you get prioritized answers to your questions. You get to join the Discord where a bunch of nerds continue talking about this stuff at any hour of the day, including illustrious guests like uh Kevin from Luna. Yeah. So it's a pretty fun chat room. Yeah, and uh speak speaking of people who are going to be guests, we're gonna have uh Edward Poe from Edward AIDS Ed Edwards Aged Meets in about uh a month, so start gathering all of your aged meat questions.
Um I had something else. Uh oh yeah. Also, uh from the Patreon, a shout out to Mad Sushi. Now we're having a discussion internally whether listener Mad Sushi is angry about sushi or likes mad sushi, aka lots of sushi. What do you guys think?
It has to be a lot. A lot? Yeah. Like you can't think like I'm mad about sushi. You know what I mean?
Well, oh, I see like m mad about Harry kind of thing. He's he's just wild about me, that kind of situation. Oh, that's interesting. I was thinking more of like all riser Helen Hunt. Oh, mad about you, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh you know what? That was a good show, but I didn't watch it. Did you watch that show? You know, I I think I was like a little young for it. Yes.
Yeah. Uh so I was assuming Mad Sushi was like could be a combination of mad as in slang for a little bit baddie and also like lots of and could be pulling a pivon, like maybe eat so much tuna, like like pretends that the reason that they're violent towards others is because of mercury poisoning. You know what I mean? That's probably it. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I think there was someone recently who tried the pivot defense, like also did something unconscionable and tried to pivot their way out of it by being like, too much tuna, too much tuna. And I have to say, even though I tell Booker that he's gonna die from mercury poisoning because of all of the freaking tuna heeds, can after can after can over can for can of can, like uh, I mean, it doesn't seem any more or less mercury poison than he did before, although please don't tell him that because I have no breaks on the tuna machine if if that happens. Boy, it's only fish.
Only fish. It's crazy. Uh only fish. Only fish. Uh only fish.
Only fish fans for aquarium lovers. Only what? Only fans for aquarium lovers. Yeah, yeah. Well, he see, he eats what does he eat?
I tried to branch out. So the other day I bought uh skate. You know, I love cooking skate because you can just beat the ever loving crap out of it, and it still tastes good. You know what I mean? It's the fish that you can hammer real hard and it still tastes good.
I don't like it if it's under. You guys don't I don't like skate when it's under though. You guys, what what do you guys think? Skate wing? Yeah, I don't like an undercooked skate wing.
I don't like an undercooked skate. Yeah. It gives me well, what is the name of that thing that people feel when they like look at coral wreaths or like hives? It's um you know, where things are not wait, wait, hold on. I don't understand.
Like beehives. I'm trying to get what the thing is between the two. You mean is this a visual thing or like are you afraid of coral or do you love looking at beehives? Because when I think of coral reefs, I think beauty and wonder. Well, you know, that's great for you.
I am talking about me. Yeah, um but there's like a sensation that you get that some people get when they look at things that have like a lot of holes in them, it's like a phobia. And it's like it's pro reef or beehive, like certain things that like make your skin crawl. It's like a I don't know, it's like an evolution thing that predators had lots of eyes. I don't fucking know.
Something like that. I have not heard of this. This is interesting. What about sponges? Same.
Yeah, there's like a similar it can be a similar thing. And I think that I don't know, skate kind of does that to me a little. All the lines, you mean all the lines? Yeah, like the spanned out. There's something about it.
Yeah. What about like the hammer open bird wings like a soaring eagle? No, I'm into that. That makes me feel wild and free. All right, okay.
Yeah. What about skates when they're alive under under the water? They look kind of cool. That's okay. Because you can't really see the lines.
They look kind of more just like big fans then, right? I you know what? I don't have any firsthand experience to say. But I but I do I see what you're saying, and I and I want to say that I would be experiencing on wonder if I fell a skate under under the under the sea. I mean, they just look like rays, but like not like cool colors.
You know what I mean? They look like whatever. Anyway, but the point is, here's something weird about uh skates. Did you know that until recently, I'm sure you did, that they were considered a trash fish and people would throw them away. And that uh one thing that they used to say they would do, which I can't believe because they don't taste at all similar, is that they would make fake scallops out of them.
So they would take the center, the the closer to the center portion, it's a thicker portions of the skate wings, so not the part that you're afraid of. And they would stamp circles out of it as though they were scallops and sell them as fake scallops. But it doesn't make any sense because they don't have the texture of scallops and they don't taste like scallops. So like who's buying these as scallops, you know what I'm saying? Nobody knows anything.
I can kind of see the texture. Really? Like if you yeah, if you really hit escape flesh hard, and then you're like, oh, sorry, I overcooked the scallops. But the fibers go the wrong way. Well, it depends on which way you cut it, I guess.
But a skate is thin. You can't cut a scallop the other you can't I I don't I don't see. Uh you are you saying like they cut they cut little scallops, they cut it the other way? Yeah. Like bay scallops, they really don't taste like bay scallops.
You can get little scallops. I mean, you know, listen, if you if you're buying little scallops, you better be buying them like in Nantucket, like right off the freaking boat. Those things are damned delicious, right? Otherwise, you know, if you're buying like some tiny scallop that was shipped eight billion miles and been like, you know, festering in its own filth and like you know, treated with like all sorts of garbage to keep it from going bad and from losing all of its liquid, like, you know, not as nice. You know what I'm saying?
But I guess you're buying fake scallops anyway, so who cares? You know what I mean? I think maybe like an accessibility problem that is emerging from from that. But I do think that um, I don't know, like people don't even realize that like imitation crab meat is not crab meat. You know, I I don't know I like Cerimi.
I use Curimi all the time. I think Cerimi should be its own thing. I think you should stop calling it imitation crab meat and and just call it California roll juice or something like this. You know what I mean? Do you not like sure me?
I think surimi makes a good seafood salad. No, I'm not a judgment, a judgment call on surimi or imitation crab meat at all. My point is that from a consumer perspective, if the cons if plenty of consumers do not know that that is not crab meat and are fine with that information. I think that there's an equally compelling case to be made. The people who were or are buying stamped out scallops, imitation scallops made out of skate wings, probably don't know the difference and or care.
Do you know what I'm saying? Well, I don't because I've never seen one of these things. And neither of you, because you said you didn't. Like we don't even know what these things look like. It doesn't even make sense to me.
You know what I'm saying? Like, at least the crab things are colored like crab. They don't look like crab to me, but I I mean I in other words, I get some aspect of it, although of course you would imagine that crabs wouldn't grow their own flesh wrapped in plastic tubes, right? I mean, you would guess that, which I don't know why that I don't know why that stuff comes in plastic tubes. Piss that that ticks me off.
Like, have you ever had to do that? What for uh what is it going on 30 years? I've been doing it. I've been farming it, and it's going really well. And I'm excited to I'm excited for the new business.
Wait, what do you say? What do you what are you lying about farming for 30 years now? My own flesh. Oh, nice. You know, uh I you know, you were uncomfortable with the first segment of this show, and now you're taking us into cannibalism, which I appreciate because that has been a long time uh topic that we haven't brought up in a long time.
I don't feel it's time to bring back the would you eat your own arm situation if you had to, or if you or you know, if you had the opportunity to. I don't think it's time to bring that back yet. I don't think we should ever bring that back. Okay. I sort of feel like I know where you I mean you know where I stand on it.
I do. You know I do know where you stand. Yeah, don't let it go to waste. And it sounds like you're the same way. Well, it's with all of the you know developments in lab-grown meat.
Well, are there actually are there actually a lot of developments in lab-grown meat, or is that one of those things with a lot of hoo-ha? Well, I don't think it's a lot of hoo-ha. I'm pretty sure like a year ago the FDA said that they don't even have to label it as lab grown. If it's I don't know, I have to look at it. I I know that there's someone who got their stuff passed, but that it's still far, far, far too expensive to actually make a dent and anything, and it was mainly chicken.
But I don't know. I I would totally eat lab-grown, you know, you know I'm waiting for like lab-grown uh whatever, you know. It's not that it's gonna taste like the real thing. It's like it's like I don't see how anytime soon you're gonna make anything grown in uh like a monocultural situation taste, especially like you know, everyone's so hyped up on the differences between even the different cows that they buy or the different pigs that they buy eat, the different chickens, all of the ways that they're raised, the what the impacts things have on flavor, the like uh what the feed that goes into it, and then to think that you can monoculturally raise cells in a dish and then make that same flavor. Yeah, I mean, like someday, you know, someday maybe I don't think any time.
Yeah, but Dave, you're you're thinking about the high end too much. No, but the low-end meat is cheap. That's what my point is. Is that if if the lab-grown meat is gonna cost 20 times as much as anything that we eat, which is going to for a while, then it better be like as good as the best stuff. It is a high-end proposition.
Right? There is no right now technology where we're gonna feed the world fake lab grown meat, and it's going to actually be more carbon neutral and cheaper and better for the environment than what we're doing right now, right? Beef maybe, because beef is such a beef is such a bad proposition from uh from uh um an input standpoint. But not chicken perspective, right? Not chicken, and that's the first one that they're that they're that they're doing.
Like chicken's the most efficient animal that we raise. I mean, there's lots of externalities that that you know aren't getting erased, but I'm sure there's gonna be externalities in this other stuff as well. I mean, so in other words, like I think it's a false I think it's a false thing to say, oh well no, it's we're only shooting at the low end. Well, if if if it's really low end, then you know, just buy impossible, which is uh, you know, a decent analog for low-end beef, right? Um, Dave, I have a proposition for you.
Uh-huh. Okay. Is your Patreon tiered? Yeah. It's tiered.
What's like the highest reward? I don't know. Gwen. Uh Access. Let me see the exact perks.
All right. Well, you look into that, a proposition for an even higher tier. Okay, let's hear it. On the data. Okay.
And here's what I'm thinking. Lab grown Dave Arnold flesh. And you sell it and it's in yakatory viewers. You go yakatory. I would say that would be.
That's more uh Kushioki, because yakki, I mean Tory means bird. So oh my gosh. So you're so particular, Quinn. Always um, really just I love your yes and style. Um, Nastasia, what's the name of that barbecue thing that you and Mark used to have?
Like little twisty thing. Well, is that the Croatian thing? Oh, speedy, speedy, speedies. No. Oh, wait, wait, wait.
You guys made speedies like like Syracuse? Yeah. You did you never came. You never come to MSF. Don't lie.
I I went to that thing that you had outside at that hellhole outside uh in the 40s with that cool tiny long grill with the little things that were like Speedies, but he was doing some sort of Euro thing and he bought that grill from Euro Trash people, Euro people. You know what I'm saying? Anyway, the point is that. You never go to any of my things. Crazy.
The point is is that I think the highest Patreon level is flesh of Dave Arnold grilled on the Spiadini, the little tiny rotisseries, and it doesn't, but it doesn't speak. It's just flesh. It's just meat. And and you can choose, you can either have it backpacked and sent to you for your own, you know, for your own like Memorial Day barbecue, whatever. Or highest highest level, Dave comes and cooks of himself.
Well, thankfully, Memorial Day is over. Well people, this isn't this is not this is not real people. It's not real. Not real. It is real people.
It's the FDA said that if it's on a cellular level, you don't have to label it lab grown. So actually it is real people. It's Aaron. I get it. I get it.
I get you. I get you. All right. Let's uh let's uh let's take a question while we're while we're uh while we're thinking about this. From Tony Tony, um okay, Tony Tony.
Umy wants to know about uh hex clad pans, right? Uh is it is it for a home cook on a budget with a gas stove, is the hex pan a good frying pan to buy? And I have to say, Tony, I have never I've never used one. I don't own one, and I've never used one. If I was gonna own have have any has anyone here owned one or used one?
I have not, but I would say the sentiment from 90% of people is that they're bad. Okay, but you know, just the sentiment I'm saying. I mean, I'm sure Tony Tony can look in other people's sentiments, right? He wants to know someone who's actually used it. I haven't used it, but I'll say this.
If you're going to buy uh a frying pan, uh I really the like if you look at if I look at all I'm looking in my head at all my pans hanging over my stove right now, the two things that I go for most, right? And what I have are uh in regular rotation, I have cast iron, I have uh black iron, you know, black iron thin, black, you know, black iron blue steel pan, I have, which are much lighter. Uh I have uh two sizes of Lincoln uh centurion, which are not all clad, they're disc bottom clad, very thick, right, uh aluminum cladding pants, like extremely fast, extremely even with thin sides, right? And uh an all a couple of all clads, different sizes, old school, D3s. And what I reach for, and I have a a nonstick, I have uh one of those uh green pans.
I've never had a nonstick pan that it has ever lasted. Let me put it that way. The green pan is now dented and dinged, my old scan pan's dented and dinged. I've never had a nonstick pan that has ever lasted for any length of time under the circumstances I put it through. It just hasn't happened.
So what I reach for probably most often are the centurion and the black uh iron. I reach only for the cast iron when I'm baking, and I rarely use my old allclad because there's not that much need for it. So I don't know if that helps. That makes sense. That's what I would get for a and by the way, like the the wherever Lincoln's uh centurion line, you can get those real cheap because people don't consider them beautiful pans.
They're food service pans. You can get them used on eBay, you can get lids for them. They can take a licking and keep on ticking. They are great pans and they're not overpriced. Uh make sense?
Anyone? Anyone? But they're not nonstick, right? I really do like uh the black steel because they're more lightweight. If you need something a little lighter weight than a cast iron and you want that non-stickness of cast iron, the black steel, the black iron uh thin iron pans uh are nice uh steel pans.
Uh anyone else have anything to add to pan land? Jordana, you can't. If you want a non stick, I would just get a nonstick. If you want a nonstick, just be prepared to throw it away in three months. That's all.
Because it's trash. Or use it only for the egg that you cook like once a week. Because it's and and make sure make sure you don't get yeah, but I mean, like, I don't know. I feel terrible throwing away pans all the time or then using them after they aren't really nonstick anymore. When honestly, a well treated black steel pan is as nonstick for most things as a nonstick pan.
You know? I feel like if you're using it once a week, it should last like six to twelve months. That's just, but that's I don't know, just to me, that's crazy. Like I have pans that I've have been in continuous service for like over 30 years, and my cast iron pan was at least 60 years old when I bought it. And it's still in continuous service to this day.
It just seems nuts to buy something that you know is trash. For what? Eggs don't stick to my black. When I cook eggs, I cook them in my in my black steel. Because I don't want to wait for the cast iron to heat up.
Anyway. I mean, has anyone here had a uh um a nonstick pan that has lasted for any length of time. No. I don't think I've ever had I don't think I've had a nonstick pan since maybe college. Yeah, right.
Now, they are a lot better than they used to be, right? I mean, that's true. I'm not gonna lie and say that they haven't gotten any better. Like, for instance, it used to be that if you had birds in the house and you let your your uh nonstick pan overheat, all your birds would die, like instantly, dead. Because when t when Teflon gets too birds, yeah, tefan all the way.
Uh volatilizing Teflon is extremely toxic to birds. So as as soon as pans get as like this is why most people who have like, especially parrots and other kind of like, you know, high value birds that they care about, like they don't allow Teflon pans anywhere near their house. Nowhere near it. Because like one you you step away from a Teflon pan like even one time and it goes over about five hundred and changed degrees, and you start getting fumes and all your parrots fall over dead. It's a nightmare.
There's a lot that I will say though, because it's like, okay, first of all, like the thing that you always hear about birds is that they live for like 800 years, you know. And so that's true, unless you cook an egg, you overcook an egg, then they uh they die. But I will say, just I don't want to be like a Pollyanna here. I don't want to like, ooh, life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. But if your parrot dies, then you could do the yakatory after all, so then you're not.
It's rough. People are very attached to the carrots. People are very attached. Oh, hey, you know what we forgot to say. So Mad Sushi, the Patreon listener, we get back to remember, we always eventually get back to it.
Fishbowled us last week with a uh a sign that merely said, and I mentioned it last week, dry brining. So someday, Mad Sushi, I hope that I'm walking past your place of business and can somehow, I don't know. I don't know what, but the thing is, I don't know, like most people aren't set off by things like the term dry brining in the way that I am. So like I'm uniquely open to this sort of attack. You know what I'm saying?
I mean, I don't know. Um Maybe you'll have to read happy sushi. It's fairly character. I don't think that's gonna make them mad though. Like, why would that make them mad?
You know what I mean? Anyway. Um, all right, Neurologic writes in anyone have suggestions for a reasonable vacuum pump oil to use for food adjacent things. Uh I'm gonna answer this right now. No.
Uh almost all of the uh even the silicone-based oils that you use for vacuum pumps, um, they don't smell okay once they start kind of burning up. But I'm gonna finish the rest of your question anyway, as uh they say I'm gonna give you your time. I've had uh I have a few rotary vein pumps that drive vacuum ovens and a vacuum distillation unit. I have a nice Welch uh pump oil in them, but it gets fouled by moisture fairly quickly, despite having a zeolite trap, which is a good it'd be great to use an oil that is more disposable, cheaper, but won't be nasty. Bonus points for something available at a brick and mortar store since shipping oils gets expensive.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I just go to um I just go to uh refrigeration supply. I mean, like in New York City, there's a tons of refrigeration supply uh places, and you can just buy vacuum pump oil at them, or even a lot of plumbing places have vacuum pump oil because it's just something that comes up a lot in service because a lot of us have commercial refrigeration, and as everyone knows, commercial refrigeration breaks constantly. So you need vacuum pump oil because you need to evacuate all of the old uh refrigerant out of systems, take the vacuum all the way down to zero, and then often that oil gets contaminated, has to be swapped out. Uh, but I have never had an oil, no matter what price I paid for it, that didn't get nasty, especially once you're pumping uh, you know, uh moisture laden uh liquids through it. And uh I don't, you know, I mean I guess it's true I have used cheaper oils, and then you get a fog in the kitchen of oil, and that and that's no good.
But I wish I could say I had a good uh recommendation for you. Sorry. Um S writes in in a recent episode, Dave mentioned vacuum sealing grain for storage purposes. What sealerslash technique uh does he use? Uh if this question has been answered, uh point me towards it.
It's not a very interesting technical question, probably a one-sentence answer. Well, that's not one sentence. So I uh I use my um my multivac uh vacuum packer, right? And I bought so they make these things for sealing mason jars, and you have to get a wide mouth lid and a regular mouth lid, and then you just uh you fill up the mason jar and you put the lid but not the screw thing on, and then you stick the thing over it. And then I had to build a tube adapter to go into my vacuum pump because they don't make one.
So I like it because I didn't want to do anything too complicated, even though I've been using it now for you know over a year. I just bored out a cork. And the best way to bore out a uh a rubber cork is to take a metal straw and a straight one and put it into a cordless drill and drill the metal straw through the cordless drill. If you try to use a regular drill, it's gonna foul up, but the straw will go right through it, and then you can shove the tube into it, and then you connect it. You just gotta make sure you wet the gasket every now again, and that's it.
That's how I seal them in mason jars. And um you know how many bugs I've gotten in my uh in my larder since then? None. No bugs in my larder. No bugs.
Jordana's gonna sign off and say goodbye. No, goodbye, Jordana. Uh let us know when you find a supply of uh of uh human meat for us to uh put out on Patreon. I'm not finding it. I'm gonna come collect it from yourself.
Yeah, but you need the you need the growing containers and all that. I've got the growing container. Uh sure, sure you do, sure you do, sure you do. All right, uh, thanks for coming on, Jordana. See you soon, I hope.
Um Nate writes in the Dave, we never did we never did the weekly recap. What weekly recap? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, okay, okay.
I I can tell you're bringing it up because you have something that you want to uh what'd you do this week, Quinn Well went back to basics. I remember last week I mentioned we did gumbo. I had a big batch of dark roo. Mm-hmm. So I tried dark roux with milk for like a batchamel instead of uh white roux.
And then that didn't taste great on its own. But I used it as the hydration for bread, and it turned out pretty good. Well I was like, you used the dark roux instead of a prehydrated starch for Yeah. Well. So you accounted for the fat, I guess then, and then then didn't use fat in it?
And did you notice did you do well? I mean, there's fat in the roux, right? Yeah, but I'm saying like there's not much fat in the again. I I'm using the ro I used I made a a full batch of dark roux and milk cooked together. And then I used it for m multiple projects.
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What wait hold on. You didn't make the roux as just flour and fat and then add the milk? Or you did? Yeah, yes, yes.
Okay. Yeah, I had already made roux. Right. From last week. I am not sure what the water holding capacity of fully cooked out uh roux is.
But did you do a side-by-side of like regular prehydrated flour versus the roux or not? You just say you like you gotta start doing these sign-by-size, man. Otherwise, how are you gonna know whether or not you just like the bread or whether what you did? I was more curious about the flavor impact. Well, but how do you know what the flavor impact was?
Unless you were were you testing it's a bread recipe that you know exactly what it tastes like? Or were regular bread tastes like. Well, but did did you follow it's not a regular bread recipe, in other words, what I'm saying. Like in other words, like, how do you know it's same same? That's my point.
I mean, it has a very distinct flavor. Okay. Okay. So you'd say this is something you'd try again? Yeah, I think I might say the thickening power is definitely not huge, but it's uh cooked roux.
I haven't tasted this yet because it's still in the freezer, but actually I also made a roux gelato, which might be good. Right. But my point back to the bread is unless you are using the same recipe all the time, like how can you tell what the power of it is if you don't have all your hydrations locked in? Are you using at least the same flour base that you typically use? So you know what the hydration should be?
Uh yeah, I'm using a similar recipe to what I've done. All right, so here's what I'm hearing from you. What I'm hearing from you is is that you like the flavor of it, but you need to do more work to see what its actual effect is on the functionality of the bread, other than the fact that it clearly probably tastes more like toasted stuff on the inside. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it has like a very unique, almost like natural peanut butter, almond butter, but still, you know, it wasn't too crazy in in the bread.
No. Oh, we have a toilet. Yep. Well, we got a caller. We'll we'll come back to the roux.
Caller, you're on the air. Hey, I've got it. This is Patrick Colling from from New York City. How are you doing? All right.
How you doing? Good. Hey, the roux conversation has reminded me of a long standing question I've been meaning to ask. Is does in a in a roux, you know, in a traditional New Orleans, you know, uh Louisiana style dish, does the quality of the flour, and I'm just talking about, you know, normal white flour make any taste difference, especially as the darker it gets. Because I'm I'm always inclined to use cheapo flour for that, but I don't know if there's actually any improvement with with better flours.
And again, I just wait. I'm not I'm you know, it's an excellent question. It's an excellent question. I I don't have I don't think any of us have tested, so we can't say if you asked me what my feeling is, I would say does not matter. That's my feeling, right?
Now, I mean, look, there's a massive difference in the water holding capacities of different flowers. Can be like up to like 20, 30 percent difference in water holding capacity between different flowers. So the thickening power could be different. I don't know, to be honest, I don't know how much cooking, especially to a dark stage, affects the thickening power of let's say so softer flowers, uh softer wheats, uh are usually usually have much more damage starch in them because the starch is easier. Sorry.
Wait, no, they have less damaged starch in them, so they take less water, they have less thickening power. You can add less water to them, right? Because they're soft, they're soft wheat. Harder wheats get more damaged starch, so they thicken things faster at room temperature. Once you're heating both of these things, the starch gets functionalized anyway.
So I don't really know about the water the hot, the the hot starch water holding capacity of uh um a hard wheat versus a soft wheat. Then you add in the fact that things like whole wheat flowers, right? The the the bran that's in that is going to absorb a lot of water cold, but doesn't have a lot of hot holding capability because that brand doesn't functionalize for hot holding the way that regular starch does. So I don't have a lot of data on the thickening power of different flowers, and then it's possible that even if one thickens better at a particular uh at a particular um like you know cold that they won't necessarily track that way once they're both heated to dark roos stage, right? They might change differently.
So there's a lot of things that I just don't know the answer to, but my guess is that it's not going to make that much of a difference. Does that make sense? Yeah, and I think that and this is something Quinn might be able to answer because I think he's done it. Is it can you pre-make roux and just free freeze it? Oh, does it have that's all I do?
And again, if you look like way, way back at like really old French books, it's all about you make the room first. And it's like a separate thing that you utilize. So yeah, I I tend to make my room ahead of time. And and and you what what unit do you freeze it in? Like what thought was your.
I just have these like random um silicone molds that make like a bar shape. So I'll just freeze them there, and then I grate them with like a cheese. And so, like in a gumbo style preparation, you would grate that, reheat it, and then cook like the Trinity. Why that's an oil. You took the Trinity.
I would cook the Trinity and then uh at least a little bit of liquid first, like your stock or whatever, and then you add the first you know, dose of roux. Why would you bother grating it? I mean, well no, with the soft roux, we just do a whole chunk. Yeah, but why would you ever grate it? Like if you if you're if you don't know if you're willing to use a little roux that's frozen, it's a convenient way to like distribute it into your own.
And what's what's your what's your preferred preferred fat. Okay, and for dark, I just did an oil. For a light room, I'll do a regular uh butter. Why interesting because you don't want the milk fat to darken? Yeah.
Yeah, except for I mean, I think that's part of what you get is the darkened milk solids out of that. Well, I like uh I Louisiana style, dark room is always done with oil, from what I've seen. Right, but you're all over the map here. You're going Frank, you're going to Louisiana. What I'm saying is like, I think it depends on your goal, right?
Yeah, I guess when I make I tend to make both extremes, and if I want somewhere in the middle, I can always yeah, mix them. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I hate grating, I hate grating. The only thing frozen thing I'll grate is butter for biscuits.
That's that's not what you need biscuits. I think it's the newer food on cooking, he says something offhand that I've never seen anywhere else. And I've tried it, and it's interesting is that he says that in Louisiana, cooks will combine different roos and different dishes for different thickening and different flavors. So I mean, I'm not remotely an expert or even an amateur in this, but I haven't I haven't seen it in any real life recipe or preparation. But that's sort of one of the I'm curious to know where that came from.
And if anyone, you know, in the cooking issues community has actually seen specific preparations with with that as well. Because it's always curious. It's like, well, these taste different, have different thickening powers, but what if you put them together? Does that actually create something that's more interesting than just one of, you know, one of the three three shades you get to in Louisiana cooking? I I don't have an answer.
Yeah, I don't I don't have an answer either, but I will say this. I know for sure that every Louisiana style cook I've spoken to would give all of us serious side eye on not just standing in front of the pan and stirring it forever until the roux is right. That's for sure. Well, do you have do you have a temp uh uh Dave for for the uh the um blanking on the on the product, the uh the the control freak, which you would actually you could set it at to get darker and not you know I have to say it really depends on on the actual unit and how maintained mine is moved over time, so mine now registers a couple of uh degrees lower than what the actual pan temperature is. I need to recalibrate it.
So like I can't I can't really say I do a lot of it by um eye. I don't do too much root roux work, like I'd say nine times out of ten, like the thing that I praise my control freak for constantly is is onions, which is a similar sort of problem, right? You want to cook it for a long, long, long time and just break it down. And usually I'm setting it uh at around uh around two fifty, and then after it starts breaking down, I'll drop it down to about two twenty-five in Fahrenheit and then let it go. And I don't get any real kind of like over browning or scorching at that.
But I don't think that's gonna get your root dark in any reasonable amount of time. So you might need to I I could I could tell you when I baked my hat. Yeah, I mean baking's a little different, but what do you what do you do? Like uh two seventy five, three hundred or something like this. I did I I did one sixty Celsius for two hours.
So that's what two That's hot. They're three twenty Fahrenheit ish. Yeah. Yeah, and then I did one seventy-five for another uh two hours. Yeah, but a lot's gonna depend on the actual transfer in your oven, you know.
Um there's a there's a lot there's a lot of things. You do it fairly fairly fast if you're if you're careful still, because that still seems like it's but pre-prep the block. Yeah, exactly. It's like I want my idea is like I'll I'll take uh I'll take more time if it means I have to be less careful. Yeah, I mean that's what I do with onions.
I mean like then you know, now I cook them for hours. I can cook them for an hour now, which is the best. The other thing I use is my uh I use my water pan, which I love. Love my water pan. Uh forget the why why do I forget the name of it?
Well, I saw I saw I saw I did see um Kristen Patroni had some red sauce recipe where he cooked, I think it was just onions and celery for four hours before adding the tomatoes, and then did the tomatoes for four hours, which seemed kind of bonkers, but now I'm sort of curious about the super low temp. I mean, yeah, I mean like it's an hour versus four hours would make any difference. Once it goes really long, once it goes really long, I mean you know what I mean, really long. But like for instance, uh I've said this before, but like uh, you know, I'll occasionally leave rice in my rice cooker for like 72 hours. Uh one time I left it for until it maxed out, my rice cooker maxed out, so like it was over 99 hours, and the flavor changes a little bit, but like not like a bunch, right?
So, like the question is how much can you dehydrate it without scorching? And so it's a lot of dehydrating. I mean the control freak is really good at taking uh a tomato sauce like down to at least half, right? So, you know, like even if you just take like decent canned tomatoes, blitz them, and then take them down to half in the control freak, it's gonna sputter a lot, be careful, right? But that is delicious and it takes a while, but I don't know if you need four hours.
You know what I mean? I mean, currently my induction is is a very cheap thing that has 20, 20 degree Fahrenheit temperature intervals, which aren't particularly accurate, which is still reasonable, so you know I'm not dealing in you know one or two two two Fahrenheit increments. I mean the control freak is I mean, like I I'm anxious to see how the inexpensive one works because it really uh I mean I I it's it's uh what's it called? It's uh it's it's it's really expensive, but I do use it constantly, right? So like if if someone were to take it away from me, I would be sad.
Let's put it that way. Oh, speaking of which, did I mention that my ANOVA broke? Did I talk about this? No? You told me.
I don't think you're told on the air. Okay, so my ANOVA precision oven breaks, right? Like dead. So, like, okay, so I love the ANOVA. I've said this a million times.
The main problem with it is it's it's too big to run off of a 110 socket. It doesn't have enough power really to do everything it's supposed to do. Uh, but if you can get around that and then it doesn't have the kind of juice that a real combi has in terms of its ability to really hit the hit the accelerator, then like it's an awesome piece of equipment. But much like a lot of the stuff that we work on, like it's a little bit beta, right? So um, in other words, bait you know, like it needs a little a little work.
So one of the issues I have with it, uh obviously anytime anyone cleans the front of it, uh it turns off or on. And if you have gl because it's got those weird capacitive sensors on the thing, and you and if you're using gloves to take things in and out of the APO, you can't turn the oven off with your gloves on, which sucks, right? The other thing that really ticks me off about the ANOVA is that the racks that are in it aren't sturdy enough so that uh or or the indents in the oven that hold the racks aren't deep enough such that if you stick something really heavy, like a big La Crusade La Crusade uh pot full of stuff, boom, the rack just falls to the bottom of the oven. If you're lucky, you don't spill it all over the inside of the oven. So those are two of the main things.
But the the coating on the inside of the uh door went south on me and started rusting. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna ignore it. I'm gonna ignore this problem. Like the paint chipped and started rusting on the inside because it's not stainless, it's it's it's just painted metal.
I'm gonna ignore this problem. And then all of a sudden, oven wouldn't turn off one day, wouldn't turn off. So I was like, oh my God. So like I had to unplug the oven to turn it off, which is not something you want to have to do. I opened it up and I had to unscrew the door, I take the whole thing apart.
When I take it apart, I realize that they've had these wires, because they have the the door has the controls on it. There's these wires that go into the door. And after the time, open, close, open, close, open, close. Boom, the wires, but bye-bye, broken, right? So I was like, oh my God.
And then when I did it, I saw the how much rust there was on the inside of the door. I couldn't put the the front the glass back in it anymore because it was so rusted. I put navel jelly on it, which is you know what you use to get rid of rust, and it was so bad that I put my finger straight through the door. So I had to then like patch that and then the silicone or repainted it all with cryon barbecue paint and then clear coat. And then I bought a bunch of really high temp silicone.
I resolted all the wires and like coated them up and put it. So I got it back together again. But I would say no one but someone who knows how to build something could have fixed it. And you can't buy the door. You can't just buy the door.
Anyway. So I have an oven again, but trials and tribulations. But you know what though? For 700 bucks or whatever they sell it for, you there's nothing comparable. So I'm it's not like I don't recommend getting it.
It's just have your eyes open. You know what I'm saying? Anyway. Uh all right. Uh Nate uh says, your Thai basil d'acquer is one of my favorite drinks.
Had it one time at uh XCON and blender muddle them at home. My wife my wife chooses not to drink much, but will either have a sip of mine or have me pour her a tiny glass. What would your recommendation be for trying to create a low alcohol version? Would guess that you uh could denature of the enzymes with a relatively small amount of rum. If you could make it work mechanically, maybe a food processor instead of a blender, then top it with a non-alcoholic rum and finish the drink, or this could be a reason to work a little harder for some uh LN for nitrile muddling.
It's an interesting question, Nate. I mean, it'll stay somewhat fresh for uh a little bit of time. I would say, you know, my typical thing when I reduce alcohol is um you need to add some form of bodying agent other than sugar. So my like, and I don't uh you know, fair notice, I don't use a lot of the pre-made non-alcoholic uh spirits, so I don't know kind of what's in them, but the two things that I use are glycerin and polydextrose. Polydextrose, uh, you can add like a uh make a 50-50 polydextrose uh simple syrup and add that, and it adds no sweetness uh at all, but it does add the same body as the equivalent amount of sugar.
So you, you know, you can completely jack it with polydextrose and get some of that uh texture back. When the cocktails get very low alcohol on a shaken side, I tend to want to add a foaming agent to it. So you might want to add, like uh get one of the commercial foaming agents or like go look at someone's recipe for like a methylcel F50. So it's gonna be F like Franc 50 methyl cell uh like uh liquid, and usually it's gonna be a mixture of F50 with a little bit of Xanthan gum and maybe some depending on gum arabic, depending on which formulation people are using. But that's gonna add some foaminess.
And I find that in low alcohol shaking drinks, the only way to really make it feel like a drink because it doesn't hold air the same way, is to go all the way into kind of the the fluffy side, uh almost like an egg white texture. And that's gonna make it kind of more satisfying. It doesn't solve the problem that you're having that you're worried it's gonna oxidize, but um, it does kind of make the drink um taste a little more like a real cocktail for shaking drinks. Because shaking drinks are hard to make, both low and non-alcoholic, easier low and harder non. That uh that makes sense, folks?
Was that making any sense? Mm-hmm. All right. Rob as hobbies writes in and wants to know about kokigori ice and cocktails, any standout bills to try. Any new thoughts on modified ice, such as coconut water, thinking of shaved frozen coconut water with a banana ustino.
That sounds good. Um I've only ever used regular ice uh in my in my shave ice, and I tend not to so like for those of you that don't know, like the kakagori style, like there's actually ice left over when you're done. And so you know, the only way to do that is to put kind of the alcohol in the bottom of the drink and then build a lot of shaved ice on top of it. Uh that's not the you know, and then the stuff you pour on it, like syrup and all of that, doesn't melt the the ice nearly as much as alcohol does, right? So I've never done a I've never done a drink that shows uh up at the table, not almost fully melted.
So, like my style of doing it doesn't really lend itself to that, so I don't have any experience with it. So I, you know, the way I do it is I put some in the glass, I shave until you have a nice big pile, I take it to the table, I pour the the rest of the liquid on the top, and it instantly melts down into the coop and forms almost what is like a blender drink, but higher alcohol than a standard blender drink. Uh so I don't have any experience. If you can get a good shave out of like uh coconut water, that's great. I don't have a lot of experience with it because I like a very specific kind of shaved ice, and so usually ices that have flavors in them don't shave as nicely and they chum up.
They're fine, like if that's what you want, but they chum up. They don't have the same kind of amazing texture in my mind that uh the straight-shaved is. So I don't wish I had more, wish I had more information for you. Um, Mathman writes in, I love red wine vinegar on sandwiches and hate how low viscosity it is. Doesn't everyone, Math Man, you don't want that stuff to soup out.
Although the real hoagie lovers know that you want that like oil and vinegar on it, it's not the same without it, which is why when you buy one of those things and ship it, if if the if the places were spit, they'll package it separately. They'll put the meat and cheese and two pieces of paper on the inside of the bread and hand you the containers with the with the oil and the vinegar separately so that you make it when you get home, right? I mean, come on. Uh anyway, uh it makes the bread all soggy and drips everywhere. Mayo coating on the bread reduces sogginess, but it's still a mess.
Uh, how would you uh best thicken vinegar to make it cling? Would you use xanthan or uh modified cornstarch or guar? I mean, xanthan is gonna work. Uh the problem with Xanthan is is that you know you don't want it to get too snotty. You're not gonna use it in that high of a quantity.
I mean, you could easily with I mean, in other words, you could easily make it spreadable, right? You could make the vinegar spreadable. Um, but I wouldn't use straight Xanthan for it. I wonder, I'd have to think about what I would use. I mean, you don't want a little bit of little place to there.
Well, it's just gonna make it's gonna make it simple syrup, it's gonna make it like simple syrup, right? So it's gonna uh it doesn't have an extraordinarily high viscosity. So it depends on if all you're looking to do is make it a little bit thicker. If you want to make it, like I say, if you want to make it spreadable, right, then you're gonna have to like fairly well thicken it. But if you were gonna thicken it, you would want to thicken it with something that doesn't need to be heated, right?
And it's going to it's gonna reduce the flavor release of it if you use, let's say, I don't know how well ultra spurse will respond, and you're gonna want to use spurse, not techs. I don't know how well something like ultra spurse is going to respond to something that's that acidic just because I've never done it, right? Now, what you could do if you don't want to heat it, here's something you could do. You want to make something really spreadable. Now you're gonna have to use like twice as much as you ordinarily would, but if you make a very thick uh agar, like like two, three percent, right?
Boil it, and then add the vinegar to that and then let it set down, that will set. You could blend that into a fluid gel, and then you could have a spreadable kind of uh fluid gel. You want to end up at like half a percent or so of agar when you're when you're done. And it should be able to handle a fairly high acidity. I've done it with pretty acidic lemon.
I don't can't remember whether I've done it with vinegar or not. Uh and I don't remember what the pH limits on gel-an gum are, but maybe a fluid gel is the way to go. Yeah, because it's got pretty good flavor release and you want that much money. What you know, on the Patreon, it's like a forum, so people can't respond. Agilar fluid gel is exactly what uh Kevin suggested.
Yeah, yeah, there you go. Agar fluid gel, baby. I, you know, everyone like goes for like all like the fancy folks like Wiley, my brother-in-law, they all go for gel-in because they have a lot around, but there's a lot to be said for agar just because it's so easy to buy. So when I can recommend something like Agar that you can just go to your local uh, you know, store and buy, I do. You know what I'm saying?
I buy the telephone. Well, gelatin hold up or no, no? No. Oh, and no, it's not that, it's just it won't, how you're gonna I mean you can set it, but you can't make a fluid gel with gelatin. What it doesn't hold, it doesn't read it doesn't have the same texture as like an agar fluid gel.
Go agar. Do agar. Agar. Agar's agar is an awesome thing. Uh L Butts writes in curious as to whether magnesium carbonate is still the best method for clarifying starchy liquids, uh, e.g.
ginger juice. Quinn alluded to in the past that there's a new method Dave was using, wondering if uh that method is uh what's what's OPSEC? Is that like top secret? Opsecomm, I don't know. Yeah, uh, or it can be explained.
Um having source uh trouble sourcing food grade magnesium carbonate within Australia. By the way, I might go to Australia. Is that still happening? Am I still maybe gonna go to Australia in September? Uh it's in the works.
Uh I actually have a lot of travel coming up, right? I'm going to going to Australia, going to Rochester soon. We have Brooklyn Bar Conference coming up. Tales of the Cocktail produced. Maybe Korea.
Maybe Korea, we'll see. Uh I know Monerist Pantry has a magnesium carbonate, but it's a significant delivery fee. Uh, would love to know about it. Okay, here's the problem. Um my god, hold a second.
Also, might want to explain the uh stas. You ready to get triggered? I don't know. What is it? All right.
Get ready for trigger warning for Nastasio Lopez. Also, you might want to explain to uh the Spinzall 2.0 to Dave Chang. He plugged in a 2.0 on a recent episode of his podcast and called it a rotovap. I had a little giggle. Had that are you okay?
Are you triggered? That should trigger you like pretty hard. Doesn't trigger me. I don't care what people say about me. You know, but I don'm all right.
That's what I'm saying. You're you know, anyway, that's funny. Um so listen, L. Uh when you're doing ginger, most of the work can be done just by adding a little bit of acidity to it along with the enzymes, and then it drops and you can get like 80% of the yield because ginger, if you treat it right with the with the enzymes and the wine finding agents, it drops real hard. So, like if you have a lot of experience clarifying, something like Granny Smith apple juice drops real hard and ginger drops real hard.
Remember, you have to do it with the alcohol. If you don't do it the alcohol, it doesn't taste as spicy. So that's what I do for the most of it. And then to get the last little bit clear, then I'll do the magnesium carbonate. The problem with magnesium carbonate is is it's not one thing, right?
If you can find the fluffy magnesium carbonate, then it's fluffy. If you buy it, it's not that expensive. So just buy whatever you get in Australia. If it's super, super fluffy, if like a two-pound bag is the size of like a 10-pound bag of rice, then you got the right stuff. If like two pounds fits into like, you know, something the size of a of a small sugar bag, then it's the wrong stuff.
It's too, it's too dense uh and it won't work. Uh was that enough of an answer, Quinn? All right. Uh, another one from Math Man. Uh, Dave, all of your opinions on how to make delicious fries at home.
What do you think of adding vinegar to the parboil water to provide flexibility to the fries to prevent their breaking? Ethan Chelbowski seems to do it uh to some sets, but I don't see it replicated in many places. Although Kenji talks about it back in 2010, which with his McDonald's fry recipe, which by the way, if you want to read about an earlier thing, you can read my writing about it in 2008. Boom! Boom!
Uh yeah, no, I I've done vinegar. I used to do vinegar fries back uh then. Hessen used to say he he did you here's the issue is that um it tastes good and they cook forever. You can go look at the old cooking issues section where I talked. I believe I didn't we write about that, Stas.
Doing the vinegar fries like we used to do all the time. Yeah, yeah, we did. Yeah, so it is viable, but it's it's a pain because it's like you use a lot of vinegar and then it smells like vinegar, and then you know the outsides cook, but the insides don't, so they get kind of beat up. But it tastes good and people like them and they ended up being pretty crunchy. I like it.
I would try it. Uh but go check out uh what I said about it back, you know, I don't know, 12 years, 13, 14, whatever, how many years ago we did it 14 years ago because uh it was much more fresh in my mind back then than it is uh now. Uh all right. So uh what else we got? Uh Jack, did you do anything this week?
You didn't tell me what you did this week. I know what Astasia did. She flew all the way from LA over to here. Nothing good? Yeah.
No, nothing good. Yeah, 56 seconds to come up by. Well, you're going out with the inimitable Jessica Harris, who was a guest on this show. Uh, and you know, everyone knows who Jessica Harris is, so hopefully you'll have some good stories. Bring it back next week.
We have another all tangent Tuesday, I believe, next week. Is that correct, Quinn? Uh no, it depends. Uh so who knows? Next week, maybe no tangents, maybe all tangents, maybe a guest.
We'll find out. Cooking issues.
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