Cooking Issues Transcript

Episode 3: Harold McGee


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.

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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.

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Don't know where I'm supposed to be between a man and got behavior. Oh twist. I can't get it straight. You're listening to cooking issues. I'm Dave Arnold. We're coming to you on the heritage radio network to show cooking issues a show where you call in and we solve your cooking issues related or not. Today cooking issues is sponsored by Acme smoked fish located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, Acme has been a mainstay in New York's culinary landscape for over 55 years. Using old world recipes. Acme produces the finest smoked salmon, white fish and sable the discerning palates demand for information on where to find Acme Blue Hill bay or Ruby Bay products visit WWW dot Acme smoked fish.com. And they actually supply most of the most of the big places in the city. So even if you don't know you've had Acme you've probably had Acme. Now, the number to call into the radio show. We're here between 12 and 1245. Every Tuesday is 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. And we already have our first caller for the day. Hello. We got we got Jordan on the line. Yeah, right here. Hey, how you doing? So what's your question?

Hey, I'm doing pretty well. You know, so I want to throw a barbecue for my wife's birthday. And I've been experimenting with just basically trying to cook ribs in a sushi. I've got a stupid supreme. So I've been experimenting, cooking the ribs in that. Trying to get him to the point where they're like, where they're fairly soft and yielding and at the same time, they'll stay on the bone because my my plan is to basically keep them in the machine until guests arrive and then I just want to finish them on the grill. Right,

right. Right. That's a that's a good call. Man. I just say before we go any further that you are in luck for being the first caller today. You have won some Heritage Foods boneless barbecue Riblets. So yeah, okay, so that should go. That should go pretty, you know, pretty well with your barbecue. But so here's the here's the thing. So typically, when we're going to do a rib, you can do a rib at any temperature between about 54 Four Celsius, which is rare. I wouldn't recommend that because it's kind of weird. People aren't used to it all the way up to traditional temperature of like 80 but I would recommend and something closer to 60. It's a little bit pink on the inside still, but it's, you know, it's, it's really, it's a good, nice temperature. And the good thing about cooking this way, and what we're talking about as low temperature cooking for those of you not aware, what we're doing is we're sealing the food in a bag. And we're using a water bath to very accurately keep the temperature and cooking for a long time. Now, what are the advantages of doing it this way, as opposed to traditional that we've talked about, the advantage you want is that the meat is going to stay on the bone, it's not going to shred and break apart. So you'll be able even though it's very tender, and 60, I would do it for about 48 hours 48 to 56 hours in that range.

That's the part I was having trouble with is I've got you know, I was looking at some stuff from Baldwin and a couple other things online. And everybody was saying, oh, yeah, you know, 12 to 24 hours tops for the ribs. And I just they weren't coming out where I wanted them at all. You said

60 Celsius 60. Yeah, what what temperature range? About 141 4160s Like your magic number? Because it's 140 it's easy to remember, what temperature were you using?

Oh,

I tried everything between about 135 to 155. But the factor that I was not getting right with the time to cook and I was afraid if I left it that long. I was afraid if I left it, you know, 48 hours or more I was concerned number one that I was going to lose some structural integrity in the bone itself. And number two, I was just I was concerned it just wasn't gonna stay on the bone. You're saying that? Even in 48 hours, it's gonna stick to the bone enough that I can talk on the on the grill. It's not gonna fall into the

rack. Right? Absolutely. Let me let me put it this way. And we'll leave it leave it at this right or wrong after 24 hours and had the texture of skirt steak. Awesome. Right? Is that right? After 24 hours, you should have had the texture right about a skirt steak. And after another 24 to 30 hours it will have the texture of short ribs.

Okay, yeah, that's that's much closer I'm looking for. Yeah. All right, super

lucky. Stay on the line, because we got to figure out a way to get you these. These bonus barbecue rivets. And thanks so much for calling in. I think we already have we got another caller. So we're doing well. Alright, so hello.

Hello. Hey, I have some questions about preserving cilantro. Essentially, every single time I buy it, it seems to turn into an unusable pile of mush and all the aromatics just leave it pretty much right away. So I was wondering if there's a way to render it more stable. I don't have a road map or anything. So I'm looking for a more conventional method.

Right? Cilantro, actually, even in the road of app when you wrote a map, and it doesn't stay stable. This is actually an interesting question. The next segment we have Harold McGee is going to be on he's done a lot of tests with preserving things like herbs and berries. My guess the problem is, is that my guess is the way to do it is going to be like a quick blanching shock. But that's probably not what you're what you're looking for. And the other one would be to keep the moisture level not too high. So it's not going to rot. You know? Dude, right? Yeah, yeah. So you're drying still? Yeah, you dry with a paper towel. I mean, you could physically dry but it's not the same as fresh. I'm going to what I'm going to do is I'm going to defer this question and mustache is going to remind me to ask McGee. It's not going to ask me to remind Makita to answer this question, but I would guess he's going to he's going to say something of the nature of making sure air can get to it in your fridge, so it's not going to turn bad. Making sure that it's not wet when it goes in. He might say something even like allowing water to get to the stems, but I don't know. And he might suggest something like a blanch just to kill anything that's on it, which is what he does with berries. This is not my like, not my exact area of expertise. But you're lucky that McGee is gonna be calling in today because it's right up his alley, so we'll make sure to ask him.

Okay, well actually, just be on it, Ronnie. I mean, also the aromatics on the plant are just so fleeting, it seems like no matter what you do to it, that they're just going to leave pretty much right away.

I know. It's you know, we're doing a lot of experiments recently with, you know, when we wrote that a lot of times I wrote an app, which for those who don't know, low temperature distillation, we do it in rotary evaporator we do with alcohol just because it's the only way to really lock down those aromatics. And when you do it with water, you really those aromatics, they leave very quickly. We've recently been doing experiments with freezing with liquid nitrogen to try and keep those aromatics and it works pretty well. But I'm not ready to necessarily make any statements on it. Do you have liquid nitrogen lying around?

No, I don't but that doesn't mean I couldn't get some

right I mean, you could try I mean like that, that might be good keeping it Ultra frozen like that. Now it's gonna go black as soon as it thaws out unless you blanch it beforehand, but then you won't have the aromatic so you're always gonna, you're always going to trade because we do a lot of work with liquid nitrogen where we powder fresh herbs when you powder the fresh herbs when they thaw even when liquid nitrogen they go black because you've ruptured the when you blend them you rush rupture the tissues and so they go black or get that characteristic not so good aroma. So what we'll always do is blanch in boiling water in shock, and then that'll preserve it, but you're still you're gonna lose some of that. I mean, I haven't again, I'll ask McGee this but you know, it's very hard to get that fresh off of the plant kind of Have a kind of a flavor. But yeah, this is well, I'll bring up both of these things with McGee because I know he thinks a lot about this specifically this problem, but especially because he grows his own stuff because he lives in California, you know? So I apologize I'm gonna have to defer to later in the segment, but we'll get we'll get an answer for you. Is that sound good? Well, who am I speaking to better? Oh, my name is Chris. Hey, Chris. Thanks for Thanks for calling in and we'll get we'll get some answers for you before the Yep.

Also, just had a quick question about su need coffee. I've been just taking my coffee rounds and put him into a bag and basically doing a hydration low temperature, right like around 68 C

similar like Kyoto, so So higher than like a cold coffee higher than coffee and much higher

that cold coffee. But, you know, it sort of doesn't leach out all the astringency or anything like that. Provided you don't do it for two days.

Yeah. How do you like it? I like it a lot. Actually.

It seems to strike a good balance as far as having a lot of coffee solids in there versus a lot of the nasty stuff that

people like, and then you coffee, filter it and drink it or what do you do? Right? Exactly, it's

to a coarse filtration.

We'll, we'll test that out. I've done the cold. And I've done a lot of work with, you know, with normal, like espresso type stuff, but I've never done any kind of in between work we've done with tea. We've never done it with with coffee. That's interesting. You know, you should post something to our forums, and let's get a discussion going on that now. I'll try and, you know, www dot cooking issues.com forward slash forums posted like that, because you know, I think that's interesting. I'm sure a lot of the people, you know, troll around, will think that's interesting, too. Maybe we can get something, something started. Alright, great. Thanks a lot for calling in. We have another caller. We do. Oh, hey, we have another caller. Great. Hello. Hi. Hey, who am I speaking with? Nathan? Hey, Nathan.

So I had a question. I remember a post you made a couple, couple months ago, I guess, on cooking issues about how carbonation was perceived. And you mentioned sort of offhand that you tried stuff that was carbonated or not carbonated, but forced forced gas with no to wondering about other gases that you've tried dissolving in, in liquids, and what that tasted like,

you know, end to nitrous and co2 are the two readily available gases that that are soluble to a large degree in water, I don't know. And also alcohol. And also co2 is very soluble in alcohol. And also, I don't know about co2, but into I guess, co2 as well. Also soluble liquid fats. So these are, you know, they're very soluble, which is why you can put a lot of it in and why you can get a big effect. Other gases, you know, other ones that I know of, that you know, are food grade aren't as, as soluble. So you're not going to get the same kind of now, you could definitely get some sort of maybe aroma or flavor out of putting some gases in and some noxious gases can clearly go in, but I haven't experimented with any other gases, because, basically, you know, you get the effect of carbonation, which is what I'm looking for out of the co2. And then we use the nitrous as a as kind of a balancing act. So if I want a lively beverage, I want a lot of bubbles in it. And the number of bubbles in is determined by the total pressure dissolved gas in it, because that's what's determining how fast it's bubbling, right. And also bubble size for given liquid and a bunch of other things. But, but if you added that much co2, it would rip your face off, you know, your nose would be you know, we've had I like actually over carbonated things, but you know, but like my face being ripped off. But the the thing is, is in order to make it a really lively belet beverage, but more mellow, we had the end to Oh, a side effect or the end to Oh, is that it's sweet. Right? Now, there are situations like I'm sure people have heard of beer gas. So beer gas is a mixture of co2 and straight nitrogen. And the reason that they put the nitrogen in is because they want to keep their kegs at a high pressure so that they can push beer out at a reasonable rate. But they don't want to increase the bubble load by adding too much co2. So they're adding a relatively insoluble gas, right nitrogen to it so that it can so that it basically just adds extra pressure, I believe also it's nitrogen and not co2 that's in the Guinness widget that's sitting in the in the bottom of Guinness. And I think what's going on there as they're literally just forcing some bubbles into it to create kind of a creamy head even though they're not increasing the actual total amount of co2 in it. Right. So there are reasons to use other other gases, but I don't know anything that would help necessarily in a in a carbonation setting what do you have any ideas of things you want to try? No,

I was just wondering because you said you know, co2 was kind of sour tasting and two hours kind of sweet tasting if there were any other things that would sort of give you other flavors.

Obviously sure we can put some you know sulfur containing gases in that would dissolve in just fine but it would make it taste god awful. You noticed that? I haven't I haven't. You know, maybe someone will, you know call in or post something they think is good to try, but they're the two readily available foodgrade gases that dissolve to a fairly large degree into into your, you know, into beverages so that those are the ones. That's why we use them. Gotcha. Cool. All right. Thank you very much. Thanks for calling in. All right. So that brings us pretty close. I'm talking about one thing before we go to our first break, but coming up on the next right after the next break, Harold McGee is going to be here. He's going to help us answer answer some questions. One thing I wanted to address, we had an email question, oh, for your calls, by the way, please call into 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. So we had a really interesting question come in via email. And don't worry all the email questions we'll get to. So don't worry if I'm not doing yours first. Someone called in Matt, Matt hyperness. Matt's name has, has, has, has, has has. He, his Restaurant Group is using someone who grows their own cattle and is using ultrasound to check the marbling of the meat while while they're alive. So basically, you're taking a cow, they're walking, they're putting an ultrasound on the cow, and they're trying to measure the fat content of the cow. So the idea is trying to get a higher percentage of prime marbled meat than you otherwise would, and said he had never heard about this TIG technique before. And he wanted to know something about it know about these guys running tests. This is a kind of, I don't know how well I don't know how often it's used nowadays. But using ultrasound to test the fat level of animals has a fairly long history, they've been doing it since at least, the 80s. And there's a bunch of different ways. So basically, lean muscle, meat, and fat have different properties. For ultrasound, the speed of ultrasound, ultrasound is just basically any sound wave faster than you can hear it, then you can hear over about 20,000 cycles per second. And it can penetrate through tissue, which is why they use it to check for babies for ultrasounds and for medical diagnostic stuff, they can take pictures of it, but even simply without an image, you can tell based on the speed that the ultrasound is going through, whether it's going through more fat or more lean, you can tell because fat also reflects ultrasounds in different ways. It also can I think, shift the frequency as it goes through. So there's several different techniques they can use with ultrasounds to take a live animal in a very quick you know, easy to do way out in the field with it with a piece of machinery and take a picture and figure out figure out kind of a best guess as to what the tech you know, the inside of the muscle is like in terms of its fat content. And for in general there's a lot of interesting work being done with ultrasounds and a PE a review paper you might be interested in is ultrasonic innovations in the food industry from the laboratory to commercial productions by Alec Alex Pattis at all and that was in what journal the journal for innovative Food Science and emerging technologies in July 2007 Thanks for calling in and please post a question to the blog on that I'm interested in talking about ultrasound and meat quality more and this is our first break you're listening to cooking issues on heritage Radio Network. Right. One more time shop shop Right Shaw another Riblets Hello, Steve Arnold, you are listening to cooking issues on heritage Radio Network, the show where you call in with your cooking issues. And if we're lucky, we get to solve them. Our number here is 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. And we're coming to you live every tuesday from 12 to 1245. Eastern Standard Time. And we have a real treat today because calling in as our calling guest is Harold McGee, and Harold McGee, for those of you that don't know, there's probably a couple of you that don't know, is the ultimate all time Master Blaster of science as it relates to delicious things in the kitchen. So not industrial science, but the science of how to make things taste better. And he's calling in from San Francisco Herald you there. I am Dave, Hey, good to talk to you. How you doing?

Likewise, pretty well. Thanks.

How about you doing well doing well? So actually, you know, where we have a caller? Calling in right now. So you want to just, you want to just take their question real quick. And then we'll, then we'll we'll hit some of the email questions we've got. Sure. All righty. So who do we have? We have Derek on the line.

Hi, Dave. Hey, great to talk to both you big fans. But you Dave and arrow, I was thinking the other day, would it? Would you get more flavor out of your stocks? If you started with distilled water? Because it tends to it pulls in stuff such as carbon dioxide? Would it be more? Would it pull in more flavor from whatever meat or what you're using as the base?

Harold, what do you think? I wouldn't think you get much of an effect because it's going to become non distilled water pretty quick, as soon as you put stuff into it. And you typically what do you think Harold?

I agree completely. Yeah, there's I mean, it's it's it's distilled and nice and pure. But the moment you put anything in it, it's not and the difference between I think, you know, a few parts per million of of minerals in tap water and, and distilled water, by the time you've made the stock is not going to be detectable.

I mean, maybe it depends also on how hard your particular water is. I mean, that the Japanese, the Japanese chefs insists that there's a huge difference in kombu stocks. If if the water is excessively hard, and they so they say that, you know, the European water, it's hard for them to make a good combo stock, so they use bottled water. And of course, for beer brewing. It's important, but I just don't I don't know that for regular stock, right held me when you wouldn't you think I mean?

Yeah, the thing about kombu is that it's so delicate, and, and you're extracting for a relatively short period of time, and just a few minutes. And so I think, you know, something where you're throwing in meat, bones and vegetables and cooking for hours, it's gonna be much less important.

Of course, you know, if you do the experiment, you taste them blind. And you you know, get back to us, we'll post it because they you know, there's no, I always say that, you know, whatever I think is, you know, a secondary to what you actually observe when you do it.

Awesome. All right, exactly. All right, thank

Well, thanks so much for calling in. And before we go to anyone else, Harold, I don't know if you heard before, we had someone calling you wanted to preserve the the kind of the aromatics in cilantro and I said that you might be the best person to talk to you about the best way to keep cilantro in top condition to try and make it smell like you just took it out of your garden. Do you have any tips on that?

Why it's it's tough with with fresh herbs because the those flavor compounds are really fugitive and the cells are delicate and when they dry out, you know everything gets scrambled up inside the cells and in the case of cilantro, you know, the more that you Eat it up. If you try to make a pesto, for example, the flavor actually becomes much milder. And so what you want to do, I think, probably is just dry it as gently as possible, just to minimize the damage to the cells.

Right, he says he was doing it with a paper towel, but also I think people store it too tightly wrapped. You almost want those, like, those bags that allow air to go through them. Right, because I think he's also having lost in the refrigerator. I think he said they were turning brown and it kind of muddy. You know, what do you think?

Well, yeah, I think, you know, if it's, if it's a matter of keeping it alive, you know, by preserving I thought you meant you know, drying or something like that. If you're, if you just want to keep them alive, then yeah, what I would do is, you know, cut the cut the stems to get a fresh end, and then put them in a glass of water, and then put a bag around the glass. put a rubber band around the bag, and that gives you prevents the cilantro from drying out and the refrigerator, keeps them cool gives them a supply of water. They're not going to be happy in the dark. So that won't last forever. But it's better than nothing.

And there you go. There's the answer from the source. We got another interesting one that I think is up your alley. Herald, Jeff salts writes in wrote to Natasha, you know, we had to email questions as well, and says if we can whipped cream with sugar, and we can whip egg yolks with sugar, and why can't we whip cream on glaze. And just to verify this morning before we came on to the show, I tried to whip some cream on glaze. And indeed, it does not whip you know, I also know that there's some problems. Sometimes people have problems whipping cream, even straight cream that's been heated. I mean, what do you what do you think what do you think's going on here?

Well, in the case of the criminal gloves, it's true that cream can be can be whipped, and egg yolks and egg whites can both be whipped into a foam. But that's true of the raw raw versions of those things. Kremlin glass has been cooked. So and in the case of cream, whipped cream, it only whips if it's cold. So if the conditions aren't right, the proteins have been denatured. And the temperature is wrong.

But I didn't I mean, I took the Kremlin glaze and cooled it down to like back to fridge temperature still doesn't work. There's something there's something about heating cream and then cooling it that made you need to wait a long time What are you disrupting and cream that stops it from whipping like that?

Boy, with with cream, all by itself, I mean, in a crumb on gloves, of course, the cream is the surfaces of the oil droplets are going to get coated by the egg proteins and by you know, whatever else you might have in there sugars in the way. So it's just going to make it much more difficult. In the case of just plain old cream, heating it and then cooling it back down. offhand. I can't see why that would make it harder to whip.

Yeah, I mean, I've never done the experiment myself. But I know people who've done it and said that they were able to do it. And I've known people who've done it and said they weren't able to do it. So I don't know. I don't know where that where that is. But

I know that you know, the the fat inside the droplet takes a while to get organized again, after it's been heated, you know, you heat it up, it becomes molten inside. And then as you chill it down, it begins to crystallize. And I think you know, maybe, maybe it just takes a while for you to get that to the optimum crystal structure so that when you whip at the the edges of the crystals break through the membrane and begin to stick to each other and you get a good foam.

That makes sense almost like the theory of aging. Ice Cream bass. Right? Yeah. Yeah. All right, Jeff. Well, I hope that answers your question. Let me see whether we have anything. Ah, here's one that Harold you'll enjoy. Val called in and said, I love the radio show. I'm traveling to Turkey in three weeks. I was wondering if you guys had any suggestions as to where I could find some good slept on Derma flour in Turkey. And for those of you that know, like part of the current interest in selep here in the United States is due to an article that Harold wrote a number of years ago in the New York Times on stretchy ice creams. And selep is an orchid powder that is available in Turkey but can't be exported because it's not that it's endangered but they just don't have enough they don't allow exports of it. And if you add this to ice cream and and beat the ice cream vigorously, it forms a stretchy stretchy ice cream is kind of unlike any other ice cream and it's a traditional kind of product over there. But I don't know of any. I don't never been to Turkey I've only ever had smuggled back from me. What about you, Harold, do you know of any?

I've never been to Turkey either. So yeah, I don't I really don't know. Yeah. Yeah, there are a couple of people who who blog who are who know the turkey in the Middle East in general really well and who blog and you might check their site. Some ask them one of them is a Nisa, Hulu, a and I SSA, Hulu, I forget the the name of her site, but she knows that part of the world really, really well and she could probably give you some good advice,

right and it's important to get a good source because different solid powders are very different in how much of the active principle they have in it. And you know also like they sell some it's just meant for for drinks and it doesn't necessarily have the same capability to make ice cream stretchy. The two times I had were smuggled back by interns, and they just you know, they packed it. One time though, the my interns mom got stuff in the airport for coming from Turkey with, you know, a vacuum bag thing of you know, kind of powder and spent three hours talking to, you know, a very irate customers official about how it was not any sort of drug product that they were trying to bring back in. And it didn't, you know, it didn't make it in, but you know, I would get as much as you can, as you can, you're going to use anywhere from half to 1% in your recipe. So that gives you an idea of how much you need to buy. And then I'll ask one more question. What would the results be with salad ice cream if you froze it and spun it in a pacojet? Alas, this will not work. The pacojet I've never had any luck trying to pacojet it needs to be manually beaten after it's frozen need to manually freeze freeze it and then manually beat it and that's the only way to get that texture. Would you agree Harold or no?

Yeah, that's right. pacojet is is great for a lot of things but what it's basically doing is chopping the mixture into tiny little bits and that's the absolute reverse of what you want to do with solid ice cream you want to create this this network like a gluten network and bread dough and that's what gives gives it that wonderful stretchy quality

all right all right so we're about to go out to our second break before we do I'm gonna give you the number to call in one more time 718-497-2128 That's 718-497-2128 we're coming back with Harold McGee this is cooking issues got the highest slip in you are more than all right no you're outside God that's keeping you up keep me up to know you're outside the way you do the thing where you kiss me to do the things you do that's what you know you're outside data sweet does musician right? We always know you're outside

you're listening to cooking issues on heritage Radio Network. I am Dave Arnold. I'm here in the studio with Natasha Lopez and on the telephone we have Harold McGee. So you have one last chance to call in at 718-497-2128 that's 718-497-2128 and I'll sweeten up the pot we will give away another packet of Riblets if you call in anyway, so Harold we have a couple more email questions we have to get through so why don't we take take care of those she we had someone call in actually last week or write in last week who's interested in kind of Doug ball Baldwins formula for calculating the calculating when meat is going to be done and I know you've done some work on it so that was Baldwin has this is kind of rather complex well not for him because he's a math professor but complex formula for determining the you know the heat of you know when meats gonna get to it, but what do you what do you think the best thing is? I think the best thing is to just cook a couple of things and get a feel for the size of thing and then just go go that way. What do you think?

Yeah, I agree. Yes, it is true that you can calculate how long it's going to take for something to heat up in a water bath. And it takes a lot longer than you think. Because the difference between the temperature of the bath and the temperature of the food is relatively small. And that means that you know, there's there's not much of a and a push behind the heat on the outside to the inside. So it takes takes quite a while but you know, the calculations rate, they can't account for all the variables that you're going to encounter, like variations in the thickness of the meat. And you know, the effect of the wrapping, whether if the, if the wrap isn't, isn't perfectly sealed, if you've got a couple of bubbles here and there, it's it's going to slow things down. So I agree, the best thing to do is just to have several packages and check every once in a while. Give them a good good long time and maybe use the formulas as a guide. But tested. Yeah, I've

never had really much of a need to know exactly how long was going to take but but also Nathan Myhrvold posted a bunch of things number of years back on egullet. Oh, I see. We have another we another caller. Who do we have on the line? Hello, hello.

Yeah. Hi, how you doing? I'm a chef working on the East Coast. And I have a couple of questions about Suvi cookery. And a couple of specific situations we're in right now that we're trying to kind of fine tune right. I don't want to mention anything specific because we're still kind of operating under the radar, right. So right now we're working with a couple different cuts of meat. Some have been really successful, some we're still trying to, you know, they're very good, but they still could be a lot better. Right now, we're working with a sick cut pork chop, which is kind of cut from the shoulder. And so it has a high fat content. And, you know, we've tried cooking it at around 50 to 54 degrees Celsius, or anywhere between four hours, 12 hours, up to 24 hours. And the problem is that the fat isn't breaking down in an appealing way. You know, we used to cook it conventionally and more of a hot oven. And we get like a nice sort of criminalization on the fat. And it would be very pout, palatable. And, you know, that was those low temperatures that were just kind of be like hammy and you know, just not have a nice mouthfeel. So we up to tamp up to 70 degrees too high. And we ran it. We ran it with a thermal coupler. Just to check the tamp, we'd pull it at like 54 degrees. And that was

better. Yeah, that's still that's still high, right? Yeah,

exactly. Yeah, it was still a little like it got a little hammy, you know, wasn't perfect, and we brought it down to 64 degrees. And that was kind of a nice, you know, medium, we're kind of happy with that. And we just basically we'd run it in a thermocouple until we hit, you know, 54 degrees Celsius. So just want to Yeah, I was wondering if any comments on that, or any ideas of directions, we can

go so low temp, that's not going to really render out when you're cooking, low temp. And that's kind of one of the main things to work around when you're doing this kind of work. And in fact, you know, Harold will agree like that's one of the things you know, you don't particularly like some of these dishes, because we don't get things like the like the rendering of fat but give you a agree Harold are no. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, one technique you might want to look into, first of all, are you doing a pre sear on your meter? No, we're not, no, we haven't tried that yet, I would do a pre sear on the meat, that's gonna start getting the flavor going. And also, you notice you're going to pick up a lot more color a lot quicker on the finish. But you might do something we do called Low Temp for insurance purposes. And so what that is, is you cook the meat to like a medium, like you want the inside to be whatever you want to be, you know, 5050, High 50s and change or like 60 Somewhere in there, right? You cook it through, then you chill the whole thing down, then you throw it in a blazing hot oven, right now you're just focused on the external texture of the of the chop, and you can pull it as soon as it looks good, because the insides already been cooked. And it's going to be warm enough. And so this way, you can serve something where you get a lot of the benefits, reproducibility, you know, fairly quick turnaround time on on a pork chop, that you get more of a traditional flavor out of it where you know, but still get some of the benefits of low temperature. And so this works a lot on bigger bigger cuts or things like that, where you basically you just want to ensure that the inside is done. So we call that kind of low temperature for insurance purposes. And so you might want to look into something like that, like just cook it through to the lowest temperature you want cooling down and then you know take it from normal in a in a hot hot oven and just get that outside where you want it and I think you might be happy with the results because a lot of times we want a more traditional tasting especially on something like a pork chop where you think Harold's right.

Yep, sounds good. I've nothing to add. And definitely

like what's at the 64 degrees is actually it's it's great really, really good. But we just, you know, we want to save as if we're missing anything. And if we can try and take it to a higher level, which this sounds like, it's something we're definitely going to try.

Yeah, I'd be, I'd be careful with the lower temps like 5254. Here's why. I mean, will you kill bacteria down there? Yeah, probably. But one of the issues is when you load up a circulator, and you hit those fairly low temperatures, if the circulators crowded at all, sometimes that the pieces of meat that are near each other, they'll be shielded from the temperature for long enough at those low temperatures that you'll get lactic acid bacteria growing in. So if you'll look into people who post on cvwd, you'll notice people saying, Oh, my thing smelled like sauerkraut, my thing smelled like blue cheese, but and it's because they're not killing the lactic acid bacteria fast enough. So when you're doing those low, low temperatures, I would recommend a quick dunk of the bag into into maybe into simmering water just to kill all the lactic acid bacteria that are on the outside. And and then and then go from there as another thing, if you're having that problem, I know that some people are having that that problem.

And just just real quick, I know you guys are have a lot to cover. But do you have any sort of guideline basic temperatures that you work with? In your laboratory just for for, you know, for poultry? Let's say gave me you know, stuff that? Well, you know, things like that? What's your braising temperature? What's your I do

a lot of braises, it's 60. Because the lower ones I think are you know, people don't really, people don't really, they want their braces much lower than that. And when I go higher than about 63, I start feeling like I'm losing the advantage 6364 I start losing the advantages a low temperature, so I tend to stay in that range. But the best we have cooking charts, if you go to cooking issues.com and look up low temp charts. There's a chart that has basically all of our temperatures on it. Temperatures and times that we work with Yeah, and that's that's pretty. That's pretty up to date. I would I would check that out. And then let me let me just knock something out real quick, Harold before because I want to talk to you something about because Harold and I are actually gonna go to tales of the cocktail. Oh, wait, we have another caller. So I can't talk about tells the cocktail. Alright, we have another caller coming in here.

Okay. Hello. Okay.

How you doing? How

are you, man? All right. I'm here to ask you a question. All right. So I know you guys are talking to me, but I don't have a subida at home. Right? I but I do have an oven. Okay, so my, my entree into kind of the technical side of cooking has been to kind of fudge it at home. I'm trying to I Brian, my meat usually before I roast it. So are you familiar with this River Cottage meat book? Yes. In the River Cottage meat book, he'll talk about how he describes a two part roasting process one at like, 425. And then it comes down 5075 degrees for like, the longer roast that cooked through. Right, you know, to make the crust and then to cook the meat through. Right. So but I found at home after brining that it didn't work. What I've been doing is roasting a chicken the whole time at the same temperature. So I wanted to know what what you guys thought about that, about that to temperature versus one temperature and about that process because I've been you know, getting a good brown on the meat and cooking it all the way through with a lot, you know, the more technique I applied to it, the worse the results got.

I Harold, I'm gonna let you take this one because you focus a lot on these kinds of techniques, specifically with oven. So I'm going to let you know that you take this guy,

okay. Well, my feeling is that you can, you can get a good result in a lot of different ways. And it just depends on on the details of what you do and what you're looking for in the end. So the high temp followed by low temp is pretty standard way of doing things gives you that initial blast of high temperatures starts the browning on the surface, and then you turn the heat down to cook it through more gently. If you left it at the high temperature too long, then you'd end up over cooking the outside while the inside was still cooking through. But with something like a chicken which is relatively small and which cooks relatively quickly, I find that you can get good results. With all sorts of techniques, you can stick a chicken in at 500 degrees, and it's done really quickly and it comes out pretty juicy because even though the outside temperature is so high, the rapidity of the cooking means that you you end up with a reasonably juicy inside. You can also cook at a low temperature. When you say that you're cooking at the same temperature constantly. Is it like what? 400 degrees 375

Or it's like three 5375 Read in there. Yeah, yeah. And your hands are like 45 minutes long happy with

the, with the Browning that you get on the on the skin.

It works because I think the brine, the brine and then the drying after the brain allows easier.

Yeah. So you take it out of the brine and you what do you do let let it sit in the fridge for a day to dry out.

I ran it overnight, and then in the morning, you know, with my cereal, I'll take it out and dry it dry it when it come home, then make it for dinner.

Yeah, so that's the those are the little details that can make all the difference in the world. If you if you Brian without the drying, then you're gonna end up with a soggy chicken at 400 degrees or 375. And you really need that high temperature to bake out the moisture and get the brown and going. Yeah, if you've already pre dried it, then then that's not an issue.

And then it forms that kind of pellicle you know, and it gets brown there, the skin gets kind of clear and tacky. My other question to you is if you're cooking that at 500 Really high really fast. Do you have to rest it? Man? Like is there a tin foil? Is there? Do you have to I mean, because how does it cook through that fast?

Resting it does is a good idea. And that's because of the the outside parts of the of the bird have gotten pretty hot. And it's a chance for the for the juices to to kind of redistribute you know they're they've been squeezed out but they haven't exited the muscle completely. And so they can kind of settle in and find the find the dry spots and then redistribute and give you something more evenly juicy.

Okay, well, thanks for your answer, man. I was just feeling guilty. Because of the two different temperatures versus the one I felt that somehow I was being unfaithful. And now I realized that the drying made all the difference.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you only owe your face to a delicious result.

Proof is in the pudding.

All right, thanks. Thanks for calling in. And we have a very short amount of time, I gotta knock two things out with you, Harold, we got to follow up. And this is right up your alley. Chris who called him before about the cilantro just sent us a text saying I realized I forgot to mention that I've had some luck preventing rot by washing with aqueous ozone. It's really the stabilization of the flavor itself that I'm after. And he thinks that maybe it's Deccan Island at that he's in and it's so this is a quote it's so Dan fleeting even and totally unwrought and bunches, anything to say about that?

Well, it just speaks to the variability among among people and their sensitivity to these aroma compounds. Because there there are people who who can't come within a mile of a bunch of cilantro without smelling the, you know, the tiniest quantities. So it may just be that he is he loves the the aroma, but he's less sensitive to it. And so it's going to be harder to find a bunch with with enough of the stuff to really make an impact for him.

And then we have one quick question that came in I promise I get to all the early email ones. He Scott from your hometown, San Francisco, wants to know how to make a foam to put on top of his dirty martini with an olive Brian based on a drink he had at the bazaar in Los Angeles. And just wants to know some basic pointers Can you do it with stuff from the supermarket? Yes, I would get yourself some out get yourself some some lettuce in the granulated kind, AND and OR xanthan gum and or a combination, I would not add any more than about a quarter percent or so of Xanthine you can actually add a little more but it wouldn't have much more. And anything up to about half to three quarters of a percent of lecithin. Put a stick blender into the mixture, hold it at an angle so that the blade of the stick blender is going in and out of the liquid. And that's going to cause the bubbling and Frothing. And you should be able to get a foam if not just post a question to the forums or the cooking issues. And and we'll answer it. Harold and I are actually going to in a couple days actually going to both be in New Orleans. We're going to tales of the cocktail which is an event where Harold will be speaking with my good buddy, Tony conigliaro, and good buddies and Audrey Saunders. And then one more cocktail related thing. If you want to come learn high tech cocktail stuff, including some home friendly things from me personally and Neil's My my, the head of the French culinary and my partner in crime here. We're doing a class on June 28 At the French Culinary Institute at 6pm. Uh, sadly we're out of time and I'm really upset because Harold I had a bunch of interesting stuff to talk to you about with new rotary evaporation breakthroughs that we made just yesterday, but I guess we'll have to Yeah, well, it turns out I think I might have a way to do really delicious distillations. What are based and then add it to alcohol quickly to try and keep the aroma in, I found that like I can with liquid nitrogen, I can I can basically, even though waterbase distillations are normally not so flavorful, so fleeting, that if you if I'd use a cold finger with liquid nitrogen, do my distillation that way and then immediately melt it into alcohol that I get a very good result, but I'm still working with it. So I was hoping to talk to you about that on the radio. But alas, we are out of time. So I hope Harold I hope you enjoyed calling in. I enjoyed having you. Hopefully you can come again. Anyone who texted and Stasha a little bit later. I'm sorry. We didn't get your questions. We'll get to them next time. And you've been listening to cooking issues on Harry's Radio Network, brought to you by Acme smoked fish. Thank you