Hello, everybody, and welcome to a brand new series on heritage radio network called the culinary call sheet where we give a peek into the back kitchen of culinary media. I'm your host, April Jones,

and I'm your co host, Darren bresnitz. Part of why we started the show was to offer an unofficial mentorship for anyone who's interested in learning about all aspects of food and video, whether that's TV, social media online, or just something you want to do for fun.

Absolutely what was once niche or a little silly, as I'm sure you remember, Darren, when we started out, this man has now become such a massive playing field for so many creatives using food as the medium.

It's something that has driven us professionally and personally, for so many years. What excites me the most about this show is that we're going to sit down with some of the industry leaders to hear how they made it and what drew them into this industry.

With 20 years in the culinary production game ourselves, we're hoping we can give through these conversations an insider's view into personal stories from the field, as well as an in depth behind the scenes look into some of the most popular food programming. In today's evolving culinary media landscape.

We'll be covering everything from how to style your food, to how to license IP, to developing your own ideas, and some tips from the masters of how to host your own show.

Yeah, it's a little bit of conversation, how to and how do you do the things that you do in color media, which I'm so excited about? I love so many of the guests that are coming on this season. We have talent from Food Network from Vice media eater refinery 29,

we've met some of the best people in the world both in front of and behind the camera. And we're bringing them all together to share their stories, their delicious adventure and their unique journey into this crazy world.

So to be the first to hear our episodes when they launched this fall, go to wherever podcasts are streaming, and hit subscribe and make sure to give us a follow at the Culinary call sheet on Instagram. Don't know

where Hello, you're listening to Dave Arnold on cooking issues on the heritage Radio Network. This show where you call in with your cooking issues and we tried to solve them be a technical be they're not technical, we're going to work on them for you. The column number here is 718-497-2128 that is 718-497-2128. And I'm told that for live call ins we are authorized to give away heritage meat pork chops Porterhouse pork chops. So that's an incentive to call in. Please do calling with your questions. I'm here with Natasha Lopez also working at cooking issues and we we actually have some email questions if you want to email questions email them to

and Lopez at French culinary.com.

Right. Okay, so let's start to start with some questions that were emailed in from last week. What do we have here?

We have one from Mike who wants to know about tearing a large cut of meat I think are pastrami

Alright, so yeah, so Mike is making pastrami with beef blade and he has been pumping it with liquids to cure it and he wants to maybe move to a vacuum machine now some of the advantages of vacuum machines you don't have to use a lot of Brian you can go dryer with a dry rub and cure quickly and I can assure you that cheering in a vacuum bag does work apologize to Mike we actually just got a vacuum marinade or so that we can run a bunch of different vacuum tests and see exactly what the optimum vacuum level is there's some disagreement Some chefs I know when they put their they'll use something like an insecure powder or Morton's tender quick which is basically salt plus curing powder and carrying powder is is nitrates, nitrates rather and you know these these aren't some sort of crazy things have been used for hundreds of years. So I don't want anyone saying we're adding some sort of crazy newfangled, you know, artificial crap to it. Nitrates have been in cured meats for centuries and centuries, actually millennia in the form of impurities that are already naturally occurring in salt deposits around the world. So that aside, it's a little tirade tangent for you. But if you just either use a brine or rub your cure onto the main packet in a vacuum bag, I think you'll notice I usually use a high vacuum some professionals say that you actually don't want a super high vacuum because it can actually at a certain point hinder the you know the penetration of the brine but I haven't tested it yet, so I don't know, but you'll notice much, much quicker Penix ration in a vacuum bag much quicker. So for instance, I haven't done pastrami this way but pork belly, you can get almost all the way through a pork belly overnight in in a vacuum bag. So vacuum machines definitely a great way to accelerate a cure. Now, from a taste standpoint on a long cured item, I would never use it to accelerate a cure and a long cooked long cured item rather like a like a hamlet say because a lot of the flavor of ham Yes, I'm specifically talking about your longer cured hams. It has to do with the length of time it takes for the curing to happen. So in general, even though I'm a tech guy, things that are cured over a long period of time for flavor, I tend not to try to accelerate too much. Thanks, Mike. If that didn't answer your question, please, you know, post something on the forums at WWW dot cooking issues.com. Forward slash forums, or email us another question. Thanks for the question. And before I take the next question, I'd like to say that today's show is sponsored by the Hearst ranch. Hearst Ranch is the nation's largest single source supplier of free range, all natural grass fed and grass finished beef. Since 1865. The Hearst family has raised cattle on the rich, sustainable native grasslands of the Central California coast. The result is beef with extraordinary flavor that's as memorable and as natural as the surrounding landscape. For more information, go to www dot Hearst ranch.com. That's www dot Hearst ranch.com. Actually, I can take some of that stuff. Yeah, maybe it'll send two sons. Yep. And again, the number to call in for this show is 718-497-2128 cooking issues at 718-497-2128. All right, and Stasha what's up next,

we have another question from an email from Jason, who's a health nut and is going to buy a circulator from Polly science wants to know the best way to cook a skinless chicken breast. And he wants to avoid butter duck fat and use something like olive oil or coconut oil. Should he baggage the Brian it bone off? What do you think? All right, so

what is the name again? Jason. All right, Jason. So you caught me a little bit of a disadvantage because I almost never cook for health I almost always cook for for pure taste. So you know, I'm always a little bit out of sorts, when I when you know, I have to comment on nutrition. However, if you just want to know how to make a skinless chicken breast tastes as good as you can, you've gone the right route with it with a circulator. Now, here's the problem. If you vacuum a chicken breast at in a vacuum bag, and then circulate it, you can I would, I would do it at 63 degrees. By the way, if that's a little too, a standard chicken breast in a vacuum bag 63 degrees for roughly, you know, an hour or so is more than enough, that's a good way to go. If that's a little too under done for you, I would up it to maybe 64 I wouldn't go above 65. I know this runs counter to what you're taught your whole life. But trust me try it. And I think you'll you'll agree, I tend not to like to vacuum the chicken because when you do intend to take on a canned chicken texture, it's almost too juicy. And when you bite into it, all the juices kind of flow out. And and then the third and fourth two are a little drier than I like. So I tend to put them into ziplock bags and cook them that way. Oh, by the way, for anyone listening who doesn't know what the hell we're talking about. The piece of equipment we're talking about is an immersion circulator. And an immersion circulator is basically just a piece of equipment that lets you keep very, very accurate water temperatures. And this allows you to cook things very, very accurately. So you never, you never overcook them, you don't have to monitor them too much. It's very simple. You know, food doesn't dry out, it's a great piece of equipment. And even if you look under low temperature and cvwd on www dot cooking issues.com We have enough information to choke you, Hana mercy circulators if you want to know about it, so go look at it there, but they're actually a fantastic piece of equipment that people are using more in their homes. Now, back to your question, I wouldn't vacuum bag in them even though I love vacuum machines, I would use Ziploc bags. And the way he put it, the reason is, is because if you don't put a vacuum on it, you're gonna get much more of a natural texture in the chicken breast. Now you can use any liquid you want really, you know from chicken stock up to olive oil, I tend not to bag too much with the really flavorful olive oils because I think the tasty interaction can be a little bit strange sometimes. But you know, you can use basically anything you want. And you don't need that much of it in the bag actually, so you just seal the bag up till it's almost done. And then the trick is dunking it underwater. And then the water basically displaces all the air so that you get a nice seal. And it's very, very simple to do there's there's a you know not to pump the blog again but www type cooking issues.com There's a section on ziplock bagging with step by step picture instructions on how to do a really good bagging job with a ziploc and I can I can make my Ziploc very quickly look as good as a vacuum pack job to the untrained eye so I think that's really kind of the way the way to go and you can season it normally you don't really need to brine it except for the Brian's going to increase the salt level on the inside of the meat which is going to give you kind of probably a better taste and texture but you don't need it from an old or cooking standpoint because you're not going to overcook it. Now, because you're not going to have a lot of texture on this because it's a skinless chicken breast and it's going to be somewhat soft. These preps are usually better, I think, kind of chopped up for use in salads. They're really good for cold preps the next day. But you know, I tend not to eat skinless chicken on its own. But this is a really good technique for a cold prep, because when it cools down, it's still going to be delicious. It's not going to be dry at all. And so to recap, 63 for about an hour or 64, maybe if you'd like it a little bit firmer, if that got it.

Yeah, I think we have another question. We're gonna wait to see if your friend Michael is gone is Coulson.

Oh, yeah. So we have a question regarding a recipe from Michael Scott is to pastry chef at Liberty, Dan. And I was too stupid to text him beforehand to ask him the answer to the question. So we have a text into him. So we're going to handle that, that question towards the end of the program. But since

we were off last week, why don't you tell them how you spent your Fourth of July and what you cooked?

Well, okay, so, you know, Fourth of July, I usually go either to Maine or to Cape Cod, or some combination thereof. This year, I went to Cape Cod. And you know, as many of you know, Cape Cod in Massachusetts is, you know, kind of lobster country, the guys in Maine actually make fun of the Cape Cod lobsters. They say the Maine lobsters taste better than the Cape Cod lobsters and the guys in Canada make fun of the Maine lobster. So the further north you go, the more they make fun of the southerly lobsters anyway, that's, that's not you're here to there. But so anyway, so Maine lobsters, right, they have that there's a catch size limit, like you can't catch lobsters that are too small, and you can't catch catch lobsters that are too big. And it's based on the measurement of the of the back shell. And that's a conservation method, you know, effort. And it must be working because the you know, the lobster fishery in Maine is actually still quite healthy. Now, in Cape Cod, they don't have those kinds of limits on male officers, male officers, you can basically take any size you want, if you die for them, there's certain I think there's limits on how many you can take per day, you're not supposed to take big females because lobsters unlike most creatures, as they get older and older and older, they still bear more and not just the same amount of eggs more and more and more and more eggs. So an older lobster female officer is much more valuable to the lobster population than than the young female officer. So you shouldn't take the older, the older females, but the older males I kind of think are fair game. Now, a lot of people think lobsters big lobsters, they tend to taste bad. And this is just because two problems one, they cook them too long because they have to cook them a long time to cook them through. And secondly, they don't, they don't serve them properly. Lobsters as they get older, the muscle fibers get bigger and bigger and coarser and coarser. So if you were to bite into a lobster tail and save an old lobster, it would taste kind of rubbery and tough. The trick with this is is to just slice the tail and meat like that into discs. And then the fibers are already shortened and you're actually biting, you know, kind of with the grain and it breaks apart. And it has a different texture from a young lobster tail. But it's still, you know, very delicious. So, a lot of people they don't kind of they don't believe this. And you know, usually the biggest laughter I'll cook is like 688 pounds, which is still a monster by most standards. I mean, you know, most people are out there with their, you know, one two and three pound lobsters. sissies and and so what you know what we did, I went walked into the store in Truro mass. And I was like, yeah, what kind of Officer Yeah, what kind of what kind of size laughter It was 20 pounds, it was 20 pounds, 20 pound lobsters like cheese 20 pound lots I bought it basically, at 20 pound lobster is really, really big lobster. And I thought if you can get any lobster to prove my point that big lobsters aren't any worse than small lobsters, that you know, it's going to be harder to get one bigger than about 20 pounds. Now that guy in the store told me that a 20 pound this 20 pound lobster is like 130 years old and young and everyone else was like, Oh my God, you're eating something. It's 130 years old. It's older than anyone at the table. You know, the lobster almost could have fought in the Civil War, all this kind of. And that's the nonsense first of all that the lobster does not fight in the Civil War, the lobster is sitting at the bottom of the ocean, you know, killing other lobsters when it can and hiding whenever it molds, you know, it's still just a lobster, it's still you know, its brain function doesn't get any higher just because it's old, right? I mean, that's kind of thing, this kind of sentimental notion that just because it's old, you know, gooey duck clams can live to be 140. And you know, people don't have that much symbol. I don't know anyone that has a lot of sympathy for the gooey duck Anyway, anyway, that's beside the point. The fact of matter is, this lobster wasn't actually 130 years old. You know, that's based on these kind of crazy formulas that they have for lobsters. You know, that don't kind of fit older lobsters. It's probably but I mean, it was old. Be honest, it was probably like 60 or 70 years old, you know. So anyway, so here's what I did. I had the guy at the lobster store, he wanted to cook it for 45 minutes, which obviously would have made it you know, inedible and terrible and this is why people think big lobsters are bad. So instead what I had them do is I hadn't steam it for eight minutes. This kills the lobster and it lets the meat separate from the shell. Then I got metal shears because the show is so darn thick and I cut that all the meat out Have it right and then I sliced it thin and I Ziploc bagged it with butter and then I quit poached each individual slice so each slice was cooked very quickly which preserves the texture the Alafaya it's cooked for too long gets mushy and it was sliced properly so that when you chewed it it wasn't going to be tough and it was like I think it was one of the best lobsters I've ever made and and you know it certainly it fed our whole crews delicious so anyway that you can check out that post also you know pumping ourselves again why not on www dot cooking issues.com Anyway, I've been told that we're what are we going to break we're going out to break and we'll be right back with cooking issues

hey listen to the man hey before we go didn't say much going on down the list together and face let's get together let's raise up like men Good day get focused. And don't make it pretend to make unless you're listening to Dave Arnold on cooking issues on the heritage radio network where you call in and we answer your cooking issues. Please call into 718-497-2128 That's 718497 and 2128 call in with any cooking related question you want and you will get free delicious pork chops

emailing get you the pork? Yeah,

sorry, folks. No email. No, no pork chops with the with the emails. Okay, so we talked about lobster I'm going to wait a couple more minutes to see whether or not we get Michael Scott has to get and get him on the phone to talk to him about his recipe that we're talking about. The question came from actually a person who reads our blog and she it came from the person who sent us money Yeah, money Yeah, delicious mana candy, which you can also read about on WWE cooking show.com pump on pump. Okay, so let's talk about cocktails for a minute while we're while we're waiting. Next week, I guess, going off to New Orleans to go to the tales of the cocktail, which is a you know, kind of a cocktail convention that they have in New Orleans every year and you know, a lot of the great you know, bar people go every year and it's a it's kind of a crazy debauched drink fest. It's in New Orleans in the middle of the summer because, you know, they're too cheap to have it in New Orleans any other time and no one no one wants to go to New Orleans you know, in the middle of July where it's a billion degrees and you know, 100% Humidity you know, and sit in you know, some of the best old bars in the country on air conditioned you know, drinking yourself into oblivion, but yet I do I do it every year. Anyway, just kidding. It's great, great event. The so this year, I'm going and I'm part of a seminar called What's it called The Science of shaking, stirring. No, I do shaking last year. You know, I've been I've been clam the, you know, the kind of well known bartender, he's kind of the, you know, the head of the BER guests you know, mega restaurant chains bar program, and he pulls me in every year. Last year, we did kind of the science behind shaking a cocktail, where we actually came up with some interesting information, which is as far as the dilution of your cocktail is concerned, and as far as the temperature of your cocktail is concerned, really with as long as you're within reasonable limits. The way you shake the cocktail doesn't make a bit of difference really. It makes a definite difference on the also the ice type doesn't make as much difference as you think and makes a different difference difference on the texture of the drink and how it tastes in the texture of your mouth. But in terms of temperature and dilution, It doesn't really make that much much of a difference this year, we're taking on stirring. And you'll have to, you know, I suppose I shouldn't post the answers before the seminar that would mean people didn't have to go to the seminar. Yeah. Right. So we'll be posting that stuff, hopefully after next week after they after the seminar tales of the cocktail. But something I will talk about is dilution, and pre batching cocktails. So, you know, a lot of times you have to make a cocktail, and then you know, batch it all together, let's say you're doing an event or a function or party, and you have to put all the cocktail together beforehand, and then serve it out. And a lot of people have kind of crazy ideas in their heads on how to figure out how much water to add to a pre batch cocktail to really get it to work properly when you when you put it in the fridge. So let's prove that by the way, pre batch cocktails. It's very hard to pre batch a shaking cocktail because you really do need to shake a shake and cocktails to get the texture right, we ran side by side blind taste tests of drinks that are should be shaken versus stirred. And and we we did we did them both shaken and stirred. So we did a daiquiri which would be shaken. And we did daiquiri, stern, a daiquiri shaken blind with blindfolds on, and you easily tell the difference. And we also took drinks that should be stirred like a Manhattan. We know which is, you know, whiskey, we used rye, whiskey, vermouth, some bitters. And, you know, we started some an insurance on tasting them blind and huge difference. Now, the shaking is hard to emulate in a pre batch cocktail. Unless you have liquid nitrogen. It turns out, we've done some tests that if you if you chill a drink our minute that you've already diluted with liquid nitrogen, you can emulate the texture of a shake and drink pretty well. But stir drinks are basically good if you just dilute them properly, and then chill them. Because basically, stirring is just a chilling and diluting process. It's not a texturizing process. And that's why that's why you use it for those drinks. You don't want to add a lot of extra texture and a stir drink. So you know if you can choose a stirred drink to do your pre batch drinks with. And then here's how to determine how much how much water to add. Make your make a single drink, right, make it using volume like you normally would with jiggers. Then weigh that on an accurate scale, weigh the drink, write that number down, right, that's how much drink you're starting with. Now, add your ice storage, just like you're making a normal drink normal drink, right, stir it right then strain it. Now weigh how much the drink weighs. Now, that is that is the weight of the total cocktail. If you subtract the weight of the liquor that went into it, the liquor and ingredients that went into it from the final way to the cocktail, you have basically how much water you should add, right. And that's really the best way to determine instead of guessing in your head 25%. And it also doesn't work to try and dilute it by just diluting it with water when it's at room temperature and then tasting it because when you chill it, the balance is going to be off. So you really just want to make a drink the traditional way and then weigh how much water is in it. It's slightly more complicated than that because some of your liquor is actually held on the ice. And so you have to do a lot of fancy finagling. But within two or three grams of water, you know, you're going to be pretty much right doing it the way the way I just told you it seems complicated, but you're I think your pre back shrinks are going to thank you for it. And you only need to do it once. If you write down the recipe. You can get that recipe right every time. You don't have to retest it every time. So it's a little bit of a pain in the butt, but well, well worthwhile. Right, right. snazzy. Yes, yes. Yes. Okay, so she that's pre batching pre batching cocktails. what else what else? We

talked about talking about the meat that's coming in.

Oh my god. Yeah. So okay, so that wasn't even a butcher again. It was like six months. In were they out of Chicago? Yeah. So there's there's this butcher shop and you know, I'm ruining the name but says like CISM or CZ CZ what is the I M er? Yeah, and these guys have been around for decades and decades. I think they're you know, a couple generations older business now at this point. Right? Right. Yeah. And they specialize in bizarre rare meats, right and meats that you wouldn't normally get. So what does that mean? I'm not talking you know buffalo all they do have that I'm talking Beaver and lion. You know what else what else we get raccoon bear. You know things that you can't you can't normally get and meats that can't normally buy because you can't you know in this country you can't buy meat that's been hunted by a hunter you have to know a hunter who legally bags meat in order to get these kinds of game meats. So before I get people writing in telling me I'm a horrible person for ordering lion meat to taste and by the way, we're going to we're going to taste a tiny piece of each one of them then bag them and cook them Suvi because we think that these tough, you know tough older meats are going to be best that way. Anyway, so before we get angry at me about ordering these, these meats you Should know kind of how it how it happens that these meats are sold it's not a pretty story but here's how it is people get lions as pets because they're crazy. Right? I mean they're insane you know? So they get lions as pets or they have lions and they use the lions as to breed you know like they're breeding lions either for I don't know for what for zoos, circuses, whatever for other you know freak shows who want lions as pets right? So they breed them and then once they're no longer good breeders anymore, or if someone has a pet and they don't want that pet anymore, they give them to animal brokers and you know just like stray cats you know, you give your stray cat and they get put down you don't have to see it you don't have to do it but you basically know your cats being put down the same thing happens with a lion so they get the lion and if they can't sell it which often they can't on an older lion the lion is killed the actual the most valuable part about is the skin the skin is sold off for you know for for for Lion for for you know for whatever making rugs rugs, I guess I don't know. But then the meat is basically a byproduct. So you know rather than let it go to waste you know these guys uh, you know in Chicago buy you know the meat from these exotic animal brokers and then freeze it and resell it. So no one's going out and slaughtering Lions for the purpose of food these are you know, animals that probably shouldn't have been in the situation that they were in but not through the fault of the you know, the butcher it's just you know, you know, once it once you've killed the animal you might as well put it to use so we're going to taste all of these meats. What do we have coming in? We got

we have lion black bear a whole raccoon into beavertails

to be returned. Doesn't we also got some of the regular beaver meat to No, no, I thought we did. You sure? I'm pretty sure beavertails an interesting one. Yeah. Oh yeah. She has to the Tibetan favorite yak and we'll get some yak milk cheese. We'll go get some yak milk, cheese, and then we'll have you know, yak, yak and Yak. We'll get some yak butter. And we'll make Tibetan Tibetan tea with yak butter floating on the top of it, which is actually wretched. I don't know how people drink that, but we'll make it you know, in the sense of we want to be authentic, authentic Sufi Tibetan dinner. Anyway. Beaver is an interesting one. Because back in the day, it here's the thing the butcher laughed, laughed is, you know, rare off because he says there's no meat on a beaver tail. And he always has people asking him to, to, to buy it to eat it. But he says there's basically no meat on it. So what are you gonna do? And you know, I think the reason most people call him I don't know how much of a history buff he is. But for all you history buffs out there. You know, back in the day, there were many days, not just Fridays, when Catholics weren't allowed to eat meat. There were many, many fast days, and Lenten days. And on those days, you weren't allowed to eat meat, you could only eat fish, right? And so that, in fact, that's my theory, why in Italian recipes, you'll find very few recipes that use dairy and fish because it wasn't just meat you weren't allowed to have on a fast day it was it was dairy so you didn't cook with dairy. You didn't cook, I believe also eggs and you didn't cook with meat. So these were, you know, basically fish based fish based dishes and this helped, you know, fuel the dried stocked fish, you know, and you know, the dried cod dried fish business for hundreds of years. Anyway, you know, and there's all sorts of religious reasons why they thought meat inflame the passions and it was good etc. Blah, blah, blah. Anyway, so beaver tail because, you know, they had kind of, you know, this is pre Linnaeus they had wacky you know, ways of categorizing animals. So the the actual beaver was a an animal and you couldn't eat that on the fast days, but beaver tail was seeing kind of like fish. And so you can eat beaver tail on a fast day. And so you actually get these recipes. Or these mentions anyway, in medieval documents of beaver tail cooking beaver tail. And this, this has got to be why this guy gets the interest in it because there's lots of history buffs out there who are doing this kind of thing. Oddly, also whale clearly is not labeled as a meat strangely as labeled as a fish. So if you could get a hold of some whale meat back in the day, I don't advocate that. But if you could get hold of it, you could have that on a on a fast day as well, I believe. I'm not sure how seals classified but I don't know. Anyway, so we'll let you know how the beaver tail and the lion is the lions actually supposedly interesting because if you think about it, there's no commercially raised meat that we have that comes from a carnivore and supposedly, you know, they have a completely different taste. Carnivores do so we'll let you know when that when that comes in. What's going on Saturday,

we have two more minutes and then we're trying to look up the tables from Douglas bald. Okay,

so I have a question that came in who coming from Caleb? Caleb, I have a question coming in from Caleb who's looking up. Douglas Baldwin. Douglas Baldwin has a online a suevey prize Moran, he just came out with a book on Suvi cooking. And he's a he's a mathematician, I believe he lives out in Colorado somewhere near Denver. And he has a bunch of tables in there that allow you to calculate exactly when foods temperature when food has come up to temperature when you're cooking it Suvi or low temperature in a circulating bath. And for you know, for those of you not not hip to the fact, this is a you know, a huge way of cooking now is that you'll put something in a bag and then put it in water, and very gently and very evenly heat heats food. But a lot of people when they're starting out, they worry a lot lot lot about whether or not the inside of their food has come up to temperature. And so they'll do things like stick thermometers into it, which is I think really kind of fraught with problems because you have to get the thermometer in the right place. Otherwise you don't get the right answer. And you'll a lot of times you won't get it in the right place. And then you'll undercook something you know, that thermometer can puncture the bag and you can get leaks and this causes problems. Most often I think thermometers cause more problems than then they help. So Douglas Baldwin being a mathematician along with Nathan Myhrvold, who's coming out with the Super Book in December, I think, November December on cooking. Nathan Myhrvold is a Microsoft guy who you know, has a huge passion for cooking and has probably one of the greatest kitchens in the world is working with Chris Young, formerly the Fat Duck and 15 other cooks on on making the world's kind of greatest technology cookbook. You know, coming to Amazon soon I believe you can actually preorder it now as of last week, if you've got the got the money for it. And anyway, so it Nathan Myhrvold on on a website called egullet number of years ago, a good number of years ago at this point, published a bunch of tables on how to figure out how long it would take food to get up to a certain temperature in a water bath based on certain dimensions. And those tables work and are probably easier to work out then a formula I don't know the formula because we haven't been able to find it yet. But I would definitely look up on Eagle at Nathan Myhrvold tables, which are going to be much easier to use in a formula unless you're trying to create your own Excel document. Without having the formula in front of me, it's hard for me to tell exactly what he's doing because he could either be calculating the food based on the fact that it's treating it as a big slab and trying to heat through the slab or he could be talking about cylinders that are heating through. But I'll tell you this, all formulas that his formula I'm pretty sure it's right. I've seen it once and it's it's good. And he's a mathematician, he's he's good at that sort of thing. But any formula tells you X number of inches per X number of minutes per pound or X number of minutes per inch are egregiously false because as things get bigger, it's not linear, how much longer it takes to cook it, I tend not to use these formulas, I tend to cook a couple of things and then store in my mind how big those things are and how long they took to cook and then just do it that way. And I'm almost never you know, wrong. So I know that an egg takes about 45 minutes to an hour to get all the way up to temperature a rolled chicken you know, like a like a tour show and thing takes like an hour. I know that 36 inch striped bass the size I normally get takes three hours you know so you kind of build up this knowledge but I'll try and post some information on that in the forum for you sometime this week. Sorry I couldn't be more accurate on the on the answers we should go to alright so we're gonna go to our second break now please call in to claim your pork you can ask anything you know the price of eggs although I don't know it right now. Anything like that at 718-497-2128 That's 718-497-2128 cooking issues

please Mr. Johnson don't play those blue please Mr. Johnson. Doh play the Blue was bad before I lost he please Mr. Johnson. Sing my six the business of Johnson see in my six Sin me tonight Mr Johnson don't say he He's Mr. Johnson don't play those blues because the night before Hello

this is Dave Arnold cooking issues on heritage Radio Network. Call in your questions at 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128 Caller gets free delicious pork chops. Okay, so we're having trouble getting through to Michael Scott is the pastry chef at Lebra den. And so I'm just going to look at the question from kitchen girl. Kitchen girl without the it's g by the way for look, she has a blog if you're looking for a blog, it's kitchen G RL kitchen girl. That's her that's her blog. And she sent us some delicious actually before I go into a question some mana candy. So do we talk about the last time Saudi mono talked about? Yeah. Alright, so you know mana is a real interesting substance it it when I'm just gonna say mana I mean like manna from heaven, like, like in the Bible. And, you know, for my whole life, you know, this is something I've read about known about never knew was actually a real, a real thing, a real product until this guy name, you know, the roof roof, Sharifi the saffron King gave us so I was like, Here's mine. I'm like, What the hell are you talking about mine and then I basically I did a lot a lot of research. It turns out that mana isn't one thing mana is a huge variety of different products. And in here, here's what they all have in common one, they're sweet. Okay, two, they appear as if from nowhere, they you know, they're not, they're not cultivated, they're wild things. They're providential. They're, you know, there's kind of their their bonuses and, and so those are basically the two main main criteria most of them are actually dried sap from trees. You know, probably the you know, a lot of it hasn't been researched actually, strangely, but little bugs will chew on the undersides of leaves, the SAP will come out then dry up, and that dried SAP is mana mixed, mixed along with you know, little bits of twigs and leaves and other nonsense like that. Another way money is made is actually it's honeydew which means that a bug bites into the leaf. And this is Honey Do you know what aphids make you know, here in the States and ants collected. So what honey do is is bug will bite a juicy leaf or stem of a plant and the pressure of the sap is so strong compared to the bug that it literally shoots it shoots SAP through the bug and artist behind and that's how you do I mean it's gross to say it that way but it's basically like force pumped bug poop that then dries up on the outside into a delicious sweet substance anyway so they go out into the desert most of these monsters happen in the Middle East you know kind of because it's dry enough there for these monitors to form and people will go out in the morning with twigs and beat on bushes and catch this monitor that comes down you know from you know from the bushes and use it and there's dozens and dozens of different types but there's a there's a candy that's been made I guess in you know the entire that entire area you know Iraq Iran and called gauze in Iran I forget what it's called in in Iraq but kitchen girls sent us some of this mana candy which is basically just mana and with a little bit you know more sugar and nuts in it. I forget whether they put egg whites in I have the ingredient list on the blog, but it's delicious and it's got a really unique texture that you know it's it's weird. It's kind of chewy and but it breaks it's very monolithic or you can get the straight mana which is delicious, you know, mixed in bourbon which we which is incredibly delicious. You can get that from saffron king. He has a website, the saffron King, and this stuff is crazy because they not So much the amount of candy that didn't change as you as you've been in all the time, that was more of a textural thing, the candy, but the actual mana itself, every bite you take of it tastes a little bit different than the bite you had before. And different people have different perceptions of it. I wrote an article in The New York Times on it, which you can you can search for it. We did a blog post on it anyway. It's a long way of saying kitchen girl sent us a question. You know that she very kindly sent us the mana and then she she has a question. She's working on a potato free recipe pad for Everhard pronouncer, whether it's potato food or pet food, I'm terrible at that. And pastry chefs always laugh at me and correct me as to all the Frenchies at the school but you know, crap on them. So anyway, so she's working on Michael Scott, this is his recipe here. And basically, what you do is, is you're cooking the fruit puree, 280 degrees Fahrenheit. With sugar, then you add pectin, sugar and glucose syrup, and then bring it up to a higher temperature 225 Fahrenheit and then pour it into a silpat tray to set. And she's having problems with her sugar with the sorry, the fruit burning in the in the puree, which when she's doing it. And I don't disagree, I'm sure she is having some problems, she says that 180 degrees Fahrenheit, her fruit is starting to brown sometimes burn, and that it only gets worse when she adds more sugar. And she's thinking that what's happening is her pan actually is getting too hot. So she's actually getting scorching, because her pen is too hot. Now, I don't have a lot of experience with this. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to make some random stabs at ways to try and fix this. And then I'm actually going to try and get the actual answer. And I'll post it in the forums at cooking issues.com. But I guarantee that Michael is probably using an induction burner, which is going to be much more accurate as temperature control and so much less likely to scorch than if you're using an open flame burner. And a pan especially, you know, I don't know, you know how good the temperature conduction is there. But anyway, to 25, you should actually be okay, it shouldn't actually burn if at 225 if you if you have good temperature control at the bottom of the pan. And I know this because I've been trying to test out caramelization of sugars and, and fruits in pressure cookers at temperatures well in excess of that without burning. So you should be able to do it. So I would I would use an induction pan that's got very accurate temperature control to prevent scorching, and maybe go slow. And you know, she asked at the end, she has a circular immersion circulator? Can she do it in a water bath? No, there's no way to get a water bath up to up to 20 to 25, unless you put it under pressure, but then you're you're ruining the whole point of boiling, it isn't the temperature actually, it's it's at a certain temperature, you've gotten rid of enough water that when it cools down, it'll have enough solids. So if you if you do something in a water bath, you're not boiling the water off. And any of these pectin and candy recipes with sugar are basically requiring that you remove a certain amount of water. And the way that you guarantee that you've removed it is by reaching a certain temperature at atmospheric pressure. Now, you could I don't know, try this actually, you could maybe do a very low temperature pet fee in, in, in an aroma that it's kind of interesting question. You know, I mean, like if you evaporate the water off of off of, you know, you know, a mixture under vacuum, I should be able to I've never thought of this before. Crap is my work you like, like we could do a low temperature one of these because the pectin needs to make it to a certain temperature to to work, right. So it needs to get up to at least regular boiling, but I could take something to regular boiling, then throw it in the roadmap, I could set the roadmap at boiling, right does all the pectin in it, right? And then and then evaporate off the water. And I know exactly how much I know how much water because I can look up unnecessarily like I can figure out like what my finished total solids solids content. pectin is one of these opinions hydrocolloid it's natural we've been using it for you know, since there's been fruit, we've been using pectin, I don't want to hear that word chemicals or any crap like that. pectin is great, but standard practice that you use for these kinds of things patch wheat, they, first of all, they need to be heated up to I think to boiling or roughly they're close to their to work properly. But also they require two things acidity and high soluble solids they need and what that means is something like sugar, that's going to bind all the water that's that's left there. So that the gel so it detected gels and forms a good thing. That's why if you try to make a jelly and there's not enough acid doesn't work and why you like you know, you always add not just for flavor to make a tart but to make it work and why if you don't cook your jelly long enough, it's not going to set right that's how pectin works. Caramel is on the other hand are basically just solidifying sugar butter. Moving water or your candies rather caramel, you're actually breaking that breaking the sugar down anyway. That's basically how it works. But I should be able to do a pectin right at at a much lower temperature using a standard pectin and aroma that making an uncooked thing with traditional pectin. Maybe I'll try it. Of course that you know, you can use you can use different kinds of pectins and get the same effect without having to go to such high soluble solids using a kind of pectin called LMA, ultimate, low methoxy. emanated pectin, which you know, whatever. But most people don't have access to that, of course, most people don't have access to a roadmap either. The hell am I talking about?