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

Hello, and welcome to cooking issues I am Dave Arnold, your host and cooking issues on the heritage Radio Network coming to you approximately from 12 to 1245. Every Tuesday here in the studio today with Mr. Chu the hammer Lopez cooking issues as always, she's the hammer. Are you doing this Darshan, I'm fine. I haven't seen you How was your holiday weekend was good.

Yeah, I went to fine Island.

Oh, nice. How was that? Did you get poison ivy? Nope. No, you put a Fire Island is a they should like I'm not gonna say that. Obviously they should not let the fires there but they should get rid of this some of that poison ivy but worst case poison ivy I think I've ever had a head and Fire Island. In fact, the doctor said it was the worst case of poison ivy that he had seen in in at least five or six years of practice. My entire arm swelled up I looked like The Incredible Hulk was bright red instead of green. It looked like I had one giant Hulk arm there but it was instead of like muscle it was a giant sack of water. It's gross. Well because they have these blueberries you see that are growing. On Fire Island. I picked all these delicious blueberries, and luckily was able to make possibly the most delicious blueberry pie I've ever made before my arm swelled up into a giant balloon, so I guess it was worth it. When did they? I don't know.

Did everybody enjoy it?

Oh, they loved it. That was that was a long time ago. That was in 2001 Long time ago. That's the last time I was at Fire Island. They still have deer who's further being eaten off by mange like there was one that was following me was really freaked out. Yeah, but it was at all gross looking

aid and I walked the other way. I didn't look at it that night.

Yeah, well look during the day there mangy and disgusting vermin. Anyway, Colin all of your cookie related questions to seven one a 4972128. That's 718-497-2128 coming to you live from Bushwick today. So today is here some like like an airplane. Today is the last of my week long my days of week long raw vegan diet. I have been on a raw vegan diet since Tuesday of last week. Tuesday right after we finished the low temperature suevey class. So we put ourselves into a meat coma in the low temps suevey class eating like a bazillion short ribs. And then right after I went on raw vegan, and you know because for those of you that haven't heard I made a bet on this radio show that no one could produce a raw vegan chocolate bar that I would even think tasted remotely of chocolate because frankly I figured it's impossible because you have to roast chocolate you see chocolate beans right first of all the the cacao right it comes down it's ferments so often right there and the fermentation In process, it gets above the arbitrary number of 118, or whatever you're gonna choose for something that Fahrenheit for something to be raw. Now, it's kind of odd that you could possibly overcome what makes it raw during the fermentation process. And so the raw thing is supposed to keep the enzymes alive. And it's actually life. But you know, bacteria and fermentation taking place that is causing this temperature rise, but we'll leave that aside. So often the temperature will go above 118 Right there, but that can be controlled. But then there's a step of roasting of chocolate, where it's roasted, and that's where a lot of characteristic flavors are developed. So I'm like, Well, you can't do that. So hey, what the heck, you can't have real real raw chocolates not good. Tastes like chocolate because crapping been roasted. So our former intern Grace brings me this stuff, finding raw chocolate, I taste it, and I had to agree that although it was not, you know, anywhere near my favorite chocolate, or you know, even a chocolate that I would choose to eat on a normal basis, its texture was wrong, etc, etc. was a little soft. You remember the chocolate, right? It still tasted like chocolate, though.

Yeah,

you could eat wasn't good. I mean, I can eat it. No, it's like, I felt like I lost the bet. So then the problem was, now I can't Well, it's like, it's impossible for me to well, just, you know, not an acceptable situation. So I had to do it. The problem was finding a one week period, where I wasn't obliged to do a demonstration where I had to cook. And so this last week, right after that ramp to the Soviet class was the only week we had where that was possible. So I've been raw vegan for a week, and I break my raw vegan fast. Tonight when I land in Austin, Texas, and I think I'm going to eat an entire cat when I get there. You're actually it's not the meat that I missed the most if it's like bread, and like starch, I mean, think about that. No rice, no bread, no starch in any way. So I'll share before we get into the questions, maybe I'll share a little bit of the, although I'm going to post on it. Hopefully today, or tomorrow, I'm going to share a little bit of the raw vegan thing. So the whole reason that you're supposed to eat raw vegan, if you believe in this sort of thing, is that not cooking things makes has made keeps the enzymes alive, the foods alive, and they're fruit foods alive. Therefore, it's more healthy for you the vegan argument is an argument against animal proteins and either for moral reasons, and also for health reasons. So it's a combination of like moral and health reasons. Now, here's, here's the thing, I don't believe it. I just don't believe it. Like, first of all, you make your own enzymes, you make your own enzymes, we make our own enzymes, you don't I'm saying like you produce your own enzymes, I don't see where consuming something that has enzymes are preserved is necessarily going to be that much more beneficial. In general, right? Now, even assuming that you need to consume all sorts of raw and science, even if enzymes are good for you, even if they aren't necessary, right? There's nothing to say that every scrap of food that you consume has to be teeming with these enzymes, right? Also, there's plenty of things that aren't heated that don't have enzymes in them, you know, what I mean? Like has to have enzymes has to be like, you know, a living thing. So like, why your why your your salt needs to be particularly raw, which they care about, you know what I mean? It's like, I don't understand, and why every last damn thing because it's been shifted from the enzymes are good to cook foods are toxic. Like that's where the shift is taking place. Another thing that I don't believe, so let me just say this before I even get started. There are some people who who think it by the way, eating raw vegan, I know I'm not supposed to make it seem post apocalyptic, but it is a hardship. It is a huge hardship for someone who doesn't normally do it. You know what I mean? Especially if you have two incredibly picky kids and I wasn't able to cook or prepare raw vegan for the kids because they weren't having it. They had like one or two nights of raw vegan, I'm Jen, my wife sometimes went into the raw vegan with me, but I, you know, yesterday, I made her hamburgers while I ate raw vegan, ended up actually like, like, you know, okay, well, I'll get into it. One, they say that you get this, you get more energy. When you're eating raw vegan, I felt, I'm what we call a very energetic, non athletic guy, right? I have a lot of energy, but I'm not athletic. And I felt like I got hit over the head with a hammer with this diet, because I lost all almost all of my energy. I was passing out tired at night. I was kind of grumpy during the day. Now I talked to someone they're like, Well, you need to eat it for a couple of weeks to get the effect of well, if I need to eat for a couple of weeks, you're sure you're not just going into some sort of starvation, euphoria and thinking you have more energy, right? I mean, it is true, you do lose weight on this diet, right? I did lose some weight on this diet. But you know, and for that, it's probably effective if your only goal is to lose weight, your choices are so constricted and your body's ability to process what's going on more on that later. Like your body's ability to process what's going on is sufficiently reduced that you will at me at least in the one week period, who knows if you maintain it for a long time, lose a lot of weight. I also feel like I've lost a lot of muscle mass. I don't know that I have less just because I have less energy but I feel significantly weaker than I did. Physically weaker than I did a week ago. So you know, I consumed what I consider to be a fairly healthy all around I based on the diet, the dietetic principle of eat everything in moderation, I prepare most of my own food or eat good food. So, and you know, I think a hamburger is healthy, right? And that's my feeling. So this is not a diet that I would say that you should go on for I don't believe it's healthier. That's what I'm saying then then my diet that I normally have, it's not just that it's a hardship, I don't believe it's healthier, even if it were easy to do, I would not do it by choice, right. So that that's that's said you are going to get in a very good relationship with your toilet. If you follow this diet. Let me just tell you, this stuff flies through you on this diet. You can't like there's no getting around it. You know what I mean? It's it's, it's, it's crazy. And it's also extremely expensive. Now, it doesn't matter. Like this is not an argument against it. But it doesn't seem to me to be a dot there's not an argument against it. But it's not an argument for a diet for the people. Everything costs eight bucks, like everything, like a little thing of dip, eight bucks, a little thing or crackers, eight bucks, anything that's raw vegan, go to the store, look at it, look at what it cost eight bucks, you really mean like maybe you can get like a little tiny bar snack of something that's less but unless you are just straight up consuming raw fruits and vegetables and by the way, if you eat nothing but raw fruits in the morning, you crash you get a sugar high and you crash like a mother You know what I mean? It's just like you're and you know, I'm probably a little rambling today because I'm still in the in the raw vegan mode. I had one good meal at Pure Food and Wine sorry melon guys, his restaurant. I call it sounds like guys can't do this anymore. I have to have someone else do this. For me, I went in, but their meals are extremely, extremely labor intensive. You know, I had had these high hopes that I was going to be able to make a lot of really interesting stuff raw vegan and my time just ran out and I had to do it anyway. So my rotary evaporators packed up so I couldn't do any low temperature. You know, brand easy that you know, a raw vegan even though they're delicious. I've had them before. I know they're good. I didn't get to make the you know, the Raw Vegan Black Sapote ate ice cream that I wanted to get. But all of these things are very, very, they're very they're esoteric, you know, I mean, it'd be hard to do this in real life. What you end up actually eating is a boatload of pineapple, like blueberries, dried fruits, and then avocado, tomato, sauerkraut, salads for dinner. I mean, and you know, I feel the whole week I've been feeling like, I don't know, like, I'm like, I'm just kind of trudging along waiting for it to be over. Like, you know, I'm not I'm not myself. So I am glad I did it. I have the experience of it. It's not for me. I don't necessarily think that I'd recommend it to anyone. I think it's incredibly expensive. Unless you are very have a lot of time to plan to do it. So that has been my raw food experience. What do you think? dystocia

I think that's a bad day.

Well have I been incredibly mean,

I only dealt one day with you this the second day was that was I mean, you were you were an asshole.

You know not to say that on the air. That's, you know, this is a family program. Yeah, you know, you're the star. She says one thing comes out and it's and it's a curse word. Anyway, why don't we go to our first commercial break and we'll come back call your questions to 718-497-2128 That's 718-497-2128 cooking issues.

I can cool down, round and round, round and round and round goes. Where it stops. Nobody knows. My name. I hit up like a burn in plain desire.

Heritage radio network is about to celebrate the 100th episode of the main chorus with Patrick Martins and Katie Keefer. The main course is welcome talent that ranges from Temple Grandin on animal handling to Eric Asimov, The New York Times wine critic, chefs and farmers distributors and restaurant tours. Everyone who's involved in the food industry gets to put their two cents in on how and why we eat what we eat. And check out the archives for more information on fast when check out the archives for more information on the fascinating roster of guests that have graced the table for the main course and be sure to tune in to the 100th episode Sunday June 6 At noon on the heritage Radio Network.

Hello, and welcome back to Cooking issues. Stay Marnell. Colin, all every question is do 718497212 Wait that's 718-497-2128. So in Stacia, we have a column coming out in eater to my blog tomorrow supposedly, and and that that's gonna basically be the same as the as the radio show just in blog format separate from the cooking issues blog. on which you know, we, I hope to get my my raw vegan post up soon along with all the other 15 posts that I have in backlog but I haven't written but I am now on with eater we're going to do I think weekly where we answer questions. So some of these questions that that I've gotten by email, I might if I don't have time in the radio show, I might defer and answer them on the eater blog. And of course, you can put your question to the eater blog now instead of having to email and the star chef will get emailed to me, some of them will get answered on the air, and some of them will get answered on the eater blog. What do you think and stuff? Yeah, so we're thinking of calling it what we're gonna we're calling it. Issues cooking with Dave issues, issues cooking with Dave. Nice and nicely like that issues cooking with Dave? Yeah. Great. Okay. Marty, you wrote in, he says he doesn't deep fry that often. I'm sorry, Marty, you should deep fry more often. I don't deep fry that often. I'm looking for ways to preserve my fry oil online, I saw some articles about Rosemary extract being an effective antioxidant, especially a product called insulins for Do I have any experience with this product? I couldn't find a way to obtain any. And do you know if it's available to consumers through any sort of hippie dippie? health food store? No, I hadn't heard of that, in fact, but I did look it up and Rosen, you know, it's basically, that's the kind of trade name and I don't know where you can, I don't know where you can get it. But the actual thing that you did in Rosemary that's been used as an antioxidant, is I'm going to pronounce it incorrectly here is carnosic acid, right? So currently carnosic acid is derived from rosemary, there's a large amount of it, I assume it's in any kind of rosemary oil or extract you can purchase on you know, in Whole Foods or anyone else other stores. The problem is is that the one that they use as an antioxidant and oil and apparently it is a fairly effective anti antioxidant to prevent rancidity. The problem with it is is that they deodorize it completely deodorize it so no longer smells like rosemary when they when they add it. So you're if you add it, and they're adding it in fairly small amounts, I don't know what percentage of rosemary extract that you buy in a store is going to is going to have is going to be the actual antioxidant. But you know, it's in the parts per million kind of range. The question that I wasn't able to answer it, it definitely stops rancidity development and storage, right. You know, the breakdown of the of the into free fatty acids on storage. But I haven't been able to find that much information yet on the frying temperatures whether or not it basically withstands frying temperatures, and will actually help you at those temperatures prevent oxidation breakdown of the of the lipids those kind of temperatures, but it's very interesting. So we might be fun to drop. And there's it's also by the way in sage, not just in rosemary, and there's a lots of antioxidants and sage and rosemary. But it might be interesting to go to Whole Foods, buy some minutes rosemary oil, put a couple of drops and then do a side by side kind of temperature abuse, it'd be a little hard to be a little hard to do it completely accurately because you'd have to ramp you'd have to ramp the temperatures up and down the same and two baths and oil, which would be difficult unless you had it in like a third bath of oil and ramping up and down. So it'd be difficult experiment to kind of do unless you were unless you had a professional lab. But it's it seems it seems interesting. So if it was going to work, I would say that just rosemary oil should do the trick. But again, no experience with it. But sounds interesting. Yeah, yeah. No, Rosemary. Well, rosemary, well, maybe Tresor I can do that. Amy. It says ready for sellers. You know, our friend, the chef like basically has Rosemary growing out of his pocket for many uses at any time. Yes, Rosemary coming out of everything right. Rosemary out of every orifice man is like the man the man sprung from a rosemary Rosemary bush. Anyway, okay. Mike anonymous, which I liked that name, Mike anonymous writes, and he has two questions. One, one's on meat and the other is on popcorn. So meat. I'm trying to buy all my meat from local farmers. And that usually means that it's frozen. Unfortunately, that is true because they don't sell it as fast they don't have the pipeline out so they slaughter it, maybe hang it hopefully, then freeze it and have it for sale. That's just that's just the way it works because they just don't have product all the time and they can't get it out the pipeline that fast. My general question is, is the rule about not refreezing meet an issue of safety or quality or both. More specifically, my question is Can meat be refrozen after defrosting and manipulating two specific examples he's thinking of Kenny defrosted pork shoulder make a sausage, Italian for example, and then refreeze it in a suitable size. And the same question goes for dumpling fillings and other ground pork products. Can you defrost a rack of ribs, thinking of Mickey's oven method for barbecue ribs and refreeze them after cooking good shouts McGee and refreezing metric cooking he would like to cook several racks and stashed away for a future meal. Okay. It is not a safety issue Mike it is a quality issue every time you freeze meat. The meat is dehydrating as it as it freezes water is leaving the cells especially the way you freeze and a normal home freezer. Water is leaving the cells and then they also the ice crystals that are formed can puncture those cells so that when it rehydrate when it was out, essentially asked to rehydrate. And if it doesn't rehydrate 100% Or if the cells are damaged too much, you get a huge what's called drip loss, you get a lot of liquid dripping out of out of the meat. So you're gonna see like the sack with a lot of liquid liquid dripping out of it. And the more times you repeat the cycle of freezing and thawing, the more you break down the tissue and the more liquid you're going to lose. In fact, that is a a technique that you know, people use to break apart cells as freeze thaw, freeze, thaw, freeze, thaw, freeze thaw now assuming that when the meat thaws, it doesn't drip like a lunatic and it was frozen Well, the first time right, by the way, but back and safety for a second freezing is not it arrest bacterial growth, but it does not kill the bacteria, right. So as long as you have the product safe the whole time, and then you cook it refreezing, it is not is not an issue, even if you thought completely and then refreeze it completely, as long as you didn't temperature abuse the product, the product is going to remain safe. Okay, so the safety concerns are the same safety concerns you would have with with anything else, the freezing itself doesn't alter the safety of it, okay? Now, if you take a product, it's cooked, like really cooked, like a stew or braids or something like that, the cells are pretty much cooked anyway. And so you could probably freeze it after that procedure. And then, you know, like, cook it and then freeze after that procedure without too much of a quality loss. Especially if you're going to freeze it in something like a VAC bag or like a very like close Ziploc where there's no oxygen, you're going to want to keep the oxygen out because you're not going to want it to go rancid during the second freezing. And you're not going to want a chance for the the moisture on the inside to be able to sublimate out or recrystallize on the outside and get freezer burn. But as long as you don't do those two things, you might get some quality loss on refreezing. I mean, I'm not going to say that you won't get a, quote, quality loss. But I would say that you would probably get less quality loss on something that was cooked. And then after cooked, portioned and re frozen. So you know, it's all a question of whether or not you get a result that you like, I mean, I think it's optimal to not have to freeze if you don't have to, especially if you you know, your home freezers not very good. But sometimes there's just no choice, you might want to try a very fast freeze by bagging and then putting the bags into a very heavy Brian and ice solution. And that'll drop it like a rock, freeze it really quick. But I think Mickey also posted some stuff on that online, but it's just like you would do for ice cream. Just make sure that the salt can't get to your food in the water can't touch your food. We have a caller, we have a caller. All right, caller, I'll get back to your popcorn in a minute. Mike anonymous caller, you're on the air.

Hi, I'm Marcus from Venice Beach. And I just have a question about different solutions. You know, you have the surface different types of solutions. And I was wondering if you could speak a little bit about that, you know, I know it's a very broad topic, but

Well, what what what in particular, do you want to talk about with it?

Well, you know, you have this Uposatha you have the salami, what are what makes the difference in time and, and so on and recipe.

All right, well, I mean, the recipes, right? So for talking Italian products, I mean, they're all they're all extremely different. Right? So the, the fundamentally, let's say we're just going to deal with pork products, right? So when you're starting with pork products, that the first thing you're going to choose is kind of what assuming you all have the same quality of pork is going to be your fat lean ratio, right? And then how finally the parts are going to be cut up, right? So you can go all the way to like an emulsified product like with a mortadella or something like that, where it's basically emulsify fats and, and, and meat, you know, and muscle, or like very coarse like most of the supersize, we call it Hey, New York, we call it a super site anyway, like, wasn't stuff that I get, you know, it's, it's fairly coarse, right? Down to something like, you know, like a, like the hunter saucers and Pikachu Torrey sausages that are a little bit in between. So then you have, like, what the fat lean ratio is, and then how they're, they're cut up. The next most important thing for that for these kinds of products is the spice and or sometimes wine, make sure that's added to them, right. So that's where a lot of the characteristic stuff is going to come into play. The next thing after that is then how much they're needed by hand. So some of the stuff that we think of as traditionally, like if you go to a deli and say salami, right, that they there are they're very finely bound together because they've been needed with salt. So they bind together and form a very kind of, you know, compact like mass and they're usually fairly finely chopped, whereas you'll get some coarser products. That and I'm not even talking about whole muscle cuts like like you know, copas or anything like that. So it's like so the coarser ones tend to be not needed as much so they don't pack together as much and then the next step after that obviously, is what size you pack. And so the thinner something that is going to be packed in the the shorter The drying time, but therefore also to my opinion, sometimes the less complex the taste, right, then there's so many stuff. The next step after that is, is, well, a lot of times these guys like in Italy or in a lot of places that aren't commercial, they'll they'll do what's called Wild, they'll get a wild fermentation going because the sausages aside from usually in the US anyway adding some nitrites to it to kill botulism board. Botulism, by the way, is derived from the Latin for kind of sausage, because you can get botulism in these things if they're not cured, you know, cured properly, so the nitrates are in there to prevent that. But the slave salted nitrates to prevent that, but then also bacteria growing in there, and the bacteria that grow in there, drop the pH and make it acidic. That's where the tart tangy nature of the sausages come from. So the temperature of fermentation and what kind of bacteria in that also make a huge difference on the type of product you're going to get. And so the combination of all of those things together, then along with, you know, the environments age, the microflora in the place where it's age are what are going to give you all the different kinds of results, you know what I'm saying? I mean, and that's it. That's in a nutshell, basically what's going on with most of the with most of the cut up products, and there are differences that make sense. Either, I lost him. Anyway, I hope that's what he wants to talk about. That's making me dang hungry though. I could do some salumi right now. Man. I could use some salumi. Oh, my goodness. Anyway, did that answer the question? I hope so. What do you think? You make sense think that was great. Yes. All right. Good. See Jack Jack has a good answer. Where's the star? She sits here calls when she calls me in a hole on the air. And then like, I don't know, I was listening to what he was saying. Anyway. All right. magnanimous calls in writing with popcorn question. He goes What's your go to method higher low heat pan with oil, microwave or other I make it in a sauce pan with oil heated over high until a few kernels pop add the remainder and turn the heat down a little I use a splatter screen instead of a cover as excess steam seems to make a chewy and they can regularly but have difficulty with consistently excellent popcorn. My problems are occasionally chewy, not life and fluffy corn and varying levels of pop kernels. I buy my corn from a local co op in small quantities. So as far as I know, it is fresh. I've heard about people who cook it over lower heat. But that doesn't seem right to me. Nor does it seem right to me, Mike anonymous. Now, I haven't had an experience with buying popcorn from cola local Co Op. You might have some issues that because popcorn is pretty tweaked out, like you know, not that I have nothing for against the you know, the good folks at you know, whatever it is horrible rettenbach or whatever. But certain popcorn varieties are much better poppers and the the popcorn is leftover. They're called believe the call widows, the ones that don't pop little kernels at the bottom but don't pop I believe they're called widows, I used to know that. There's two basic kinds of popcorn, there's the butterfly shape that we're used to. And then there's the I forget what it's called, I think mushroom, which is the one that they use for caramel coating because it has a larger surface area, it doesn't break apart, but usually we're eating butterfly popcorn that's got, you know, they're fairly consistent, but they're grown to be popcorn. So there is a huge difference among varieties. And the one you get maybe you like to taste but maybe don't get them all pop. I don't know. As for the my favorite technique, like by far and away my favorite technique is the whirly pop the whirly pop is basically a limited hinge with a wheel on it that keeps the thing agitated well while you spin it, they're like 30 bucks. And you just boil and whirly pop turn it on, not so high that it's going to scorch and you just keep turning until the stuff pops. It's got steam vents in it, so the steam seems to leave. I've never had a problem with popcorn being truly in that. It's also a fantastic first coffee roaster. If you want to roast coffee in a worldly pop, you don't have to worry about really pops just make sense, since you at least got the wooden handle on it. And it's got like a little gear on the top and it goes down. It's got a little wire that moves around and keep this keeps the popcorn moving on the bottom. And that's what I use almost exclusively until my mom decided that what she was going to get me for Christmas was a movie style popcorn machine that is like, you know, it's meant for homes, but it's big enough to be in a movie theater, it takes up my whole apartment, but the kids fell in love with it. So now that's in my house and that works on the same principle as a worldly pop. It's just a smaller, smaller container than than the worldly pop. It's basically and that's the way most of the pro batch things work they have an agitated rod with a loose fitting flap up lid with steam vents that allow the steam to leave so the steam can leave while it's going. You know the popcorn kernels themselves should be well above the boiling temperature. So once it leaves the steams gonna want to leave spatter screen you might have some issues with oil getting out or problems I don't know mean doesn't sound like you do but the whirly pop if you make it off and get the freakin whirly pop just go by it you're not going to regret it and then you can start roasting coffee as well. What do you think?

Okay, we have a question in from Stephen Garrett regarding pressure cookers Hey longtime reader of the blog and listener. thank you Steven. I finally got my hands on a pressure cooker a Cuisinart pressure cooker electric model which got christened with a pork shoulder for pulled pork as I've never used them before. I was wondering if you had any tips techniques or recipes to fully utilize the machine? I love the look of your egg bread was wondering how it is done and is there a liquid in the pot regards Steve from Wellington New Zealand. Okay Steve. I know a lot of people Geoffrey Stein garden is one who loves his Cuisinart electric pressure cooker I won't I don't know is what the actual pressure on the Cuisinart is because the one failing of electric pressure cookers is they don't necessarily tell you what the pressure level on it is right. So hopefully the Cuisinart runs at 15 pounds per square inch which is going to you know, which is what you know all standard pressure cookers run out but not all electric pressure cookers. So if it runs at 15 psi it's gonna work just like a regular pressure group it does for anything else. The great thing about electric is you don't have to worry about throttling the the gas up and down and you rarely I think if ever I've never heard really scorch have big scorching problems on the bottom of the bowl because you're not using a high high heat. Plus you know it doesn't take up a burner. It doesn't heat up the kitchen appreciably says supposedly they're fantastic although I've never really used that one. The The interesting thing about the egg bread did we don't add any extra liquid to it I would add some to the recipe. I would add a pinch of sugar or soy not too much it'll burn but you actually don't need to make it in a pressure cooker you can make it in a steamer we found out later because a chef randomly did it in a in a steamer instead of in a pressure cooker and it worked just as well pressure cooker will work but you can do that thing just in a in a steamer and it uses its own liquid. It's just egg yolks, baking powder, salt, sugar or soy and just beaten together and then not even a lot just like basically mixed together and then put into ramekins and steamed you can pressure cook it. Here's what I would do with the pressure cooker first of all, I hope the Cuisinart I'm not sure is not inventing another words it doesn't produce steam when it's working. It's basically sealed or produces very little steam. In which case you can use it to make some fantastic stocks especially reinforced stocks and like triple stocks. So if you get bones you can do a triple stock or you you know fresh set of bones to get this incredibly rich dock in like an hour. Secondly, even if it does vent from you know the guise of Modernist Cuisine they seal their stock in mason jars so they can do basically the work of sealed stock in small quantities in jars without having a vented pressure cooker without having a non venting pressure cooker the one I have couldn't recall too expensive and also not electric. So that's very interesting. Also garlic pressure cooked garlic I do it and milk typically blended with for about two I do it about 20 minutes, then blend it with oil that's a great pizza sauce. You can press a nose and I are doing a demonstration in Texas. I'm flying out to Texas later this afternoon. And we're doing ramps which are you know wild you know Allium things from the US we're doing a pressure book ramp ice cream. You can do onion ice cream, you can pressure cook horseradish and then puree it you can pressure cook like I say onions anyone else things can be modified pressure cooked Do we ever put the stuff on the blog pressure cooked mustard seeds you pressure cook them and you firstly blanch them in water then you pressure cook them in vinegar and then add sugar afterwards toss it and you get these like awesome like they're almost like mustard seed caviar. The one thing don't add a lot of if you add a high sugar things are gonna get really dark really fast because the sugar is going to be an even higher temperature so you might get some scorching that's why add the sugar to things like the mustard seeds afterwards so that they inflate properly and they and they don't you know get too brown. Another great one is a humming eggs which are the eggs that turn brown because of the mild reactions that happened low temperatures just put whole eggs hard boil them if I don't know if you can unseal it let it boil if not like bring water to a boil with the eggs. Let it let it hard boiled normally for like you know six minutes or so then put the hot water and the eggs in the pressure cooker pressure cooker for about an hour and when they're done. Hopefully they didn't break when they're done. You peel them and the whites are kind of dark muddy brown and have like a toasted kind of aroma when you cut it the yolks have a chicken liver, kind of a chicken liver kind of aroma. It's pretty cool. So these are some good things to do. And obviously it's really great for fast braises like pork shoulder the one thing I have to caution you against is don't add a lot of extra liquid because you're not going to evaporate and reduce a lot of extra liquid you should you should put in your wine first and then then reduce it down so that it you know you get rid of the the kind of alcohol aroma you want to get off of it and then reduce like somewhat or pull the product afterwards and then reduce it reduce the stock but I would definitely start with less liquid than your than you're used to. And also you're going to get a richer Meteor taste. But the texture is going to be different because the fibers are going to be broken apart a little more and it's because it's cooked at a higher heat. It's you know, overcooked overcooked in a technical sense, but usually quite delicious. I actually like braises I did a chili in a pressure cooker that was awesome. Awesome. Anyway, I hope that answered your question and get back to us and tell us tell us how we're gonna go one more commercial break let's go to one more break and come back call any questions 271849721287184972128 tugging at you

so call me and a gangster come and speak the competition impetus say I'm doing your job and your dogs you be bad because I'm radium radio, radio radio.

Welcome back to Cooking issue. So I seen a star she gave me at least one decent Steve Miller song along with punishing me not only with a raw vegan diet for a week, but giving me the absolute worst Stephen

Miller sauce.

Right. It's unbelievable that abracadabra was written by the same person or same people that wrote, you know, the Joker, right? I mean, I look I'm never I was never a huge Steve Miller guy growing up, but I gotta respect it. I mean, that's it. You don't I mean, like, that's real song. That's real deal.

Did you say I'm a gangster of love or something? Is Yeah, that was the Lyric, although some

people do call him Maurice. You know, known by many names, but the abracadabra is got to be the worst, the worst damn song and the whole world. Anyway, thank you for the quadruple punishment. Natasha, thank you so much. Okay, Brian karega wrote in with a nixtamal and alkali question in general. He read the article on externalization and the blog and he loves saying that word as much as we do is a great word. Next time our next demo, I meant oh, by the way, if in case you don't know what the heck we're talking about, that's the process of taking a base like calcium hydroxide is is classic, and then cooking corn in it. And he makes a characteristic a kind of flavor and texture for masa dough for making tortillas. So you get that awesome. I mean, it's just great. The bass basically breaks up the outside of the corn kernel makes it easier to grind pre hydrates, it changes the texture of it to flavor fantastic. Read the article on externalization because unfortunately, I'm not going to have the time to go through the entire rigmarole here, but we love it anyway. He's interested in making pretzels and possibly other things with basic solutions. Can you give me the down and dirty on all this stuff? It seems like baking soda is too weak. And you already covered calcium hydroxide with an externalization lie which is sodium hydroxide seems too dangerous per my article and I agree that it is I still use it at school but I won't use it at home because I have kids at home if I didn't have kids at home and was properly labeled I would do it but I'm not having that in my house with the kids. Life seems too dangerous as periodical but what is what is what pretzels traditionally require? What about McGee's article about baking baking baking soda? So you take baking soda and you turn it from sodium bicarbonate into sodium carbonate? What about mugs and go look it up the great article What about McGee's article about baking baking soda to convert it from sodium bicarbonate sodium carbonate, does that really work? Does it make a solution stronger? Is it safe? And what about the stuff I found at the Chinese market there's a bottle of clear liquid labeled potassium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate solution. And they also have some white crystals of borax which are labeled not food safe, but are right next to the spices and what's safe and what's not. I don't want to poison myself or others. And as a final note, how does enteries make fossilized the fossilized veggies in Spain lexiles V with calcium, what's the reaction going on there is the same as the banana that we cook with calcium hydroxide. And is there any other fun applications? Well, Brian in San Francisco, a lot of questions there. I'm gonna try and hit him in the little amount of time that I have left. He is using calcium hydroxide. I haven't had them by the way. So I don't know specifically but I have talked to people that have had other reasons. The vegetables that are done this way, I think also rendered Sepi at Noma uses this technique, and they're basically firming up the outside of vegetables using using these calcium hydroxide to basically crosslink the the pectin there. And that's what's going on calcium crosslinking of pectin. They're usually done in conjunction with heat treatment, which activates the enzyme inside the inside of the vegetables that causes it to happen, which is pectin, methyl esterase. And so the combination of calcium and the heat, activating the pectin, methyl esterase makes it very strong outside shell, and then the inside basically is allowed to get mushy in the outside firm. Now, what I do with a banana is I inject calcium hydroxide into the banana and they injection of calcium hydroxide makes the banana firm all the way through. We've recently done it without the calcium hydroxide by injecting with just calcium and then he treating it and getting a similar result but that's that's what's going on with those and you can do those and you know at home it's exact same thing that goes on with the banana which is you know traditionally done in Thai cooking other Asian cooking so yes that's a very good thing that's calcium hydroxide and really lots of different forms of calcium will do that for you. Now Borax is a used as a food ingredient in other countries but is not legal for food use here in the US now I don't know what the specific health problems with it are right? But there is food grade borax versus caviar is treated with borax it's a it affects the texture in a way that I'm not really don't really understand Borax is I think, I believe it's it's a ball rate like sodium to sodium and boron which is like, I think for bronze and Tetra board I think anyway, and but it's it's used as a texture modifier but also as a preservative. So in caviar, the lateral borax, and to fish row, they'll add borax to it. It's a preservative. And I read on Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of Borax. But well this part of it that our caviar that we get here in the US is more highly salted because borax isn't allowed to be added to it but it's definitely used in other cultures as I've never used it as a firming agent and as a preservative. Borax if you can get hold of it. It's also the cool stuff that you mix with Elmers it's a it's a it's an agent that helps polymerize things make larger polymers so I was finding a lot of articles on using Bora Bora asked him to make larger like food polymers but not I couldn't find anything specific for normal use. But if you mix it with Omers glue you can make slime borax numbers glue mix together. Silly Putty is I think different like PVC polyvinyl alcohol is the is the glue is that what glue Elmers white glue is and if you add borax to it, it polymerize as in turns to polymerize PVA which is slime, you know, GAC or whatever that stuff that's in the, you know, that slime, which I'm extremely interested in because I want to make a food grade slime. I'm working on it, but I haven't fixed it yet. Okay, the potassium carbonate sodium bicarbonate solution that you see is constantly that's what used to make. That's what used to make the stretchy yellow alkaline noodles, right. So you add that that's a basic solution. And that's very classic in Chinese, you know recipes. Your flower is going to go very yellow and it's going to have noodles are going to have a lot of bite to it. Right it's going to really enhance the kind of gluten snappiness of those things. That's the consequent it's typically used for the yellow Apple noodles, although I don't know how basic it is. It might also be useful for pretzels I'm not sure that stuff is also mistakenly sometimes sold as lye water even though it doesn't contain y which is everything everything's got to be Brian everything's got to be a pain in the ass. You know what I'm saying? Anyway, you can see that x is different it's a donkey makes no sense you make no sense all right. Now the converting baking soda to you know the sodium bicarbonate sodium carbonate actually does work and will make a fine pretzel bias traditional. I've never done a side by side taste test of live boiled pretzels versus sodium carbonate pretzels. But I have made sodium bicarbonate pretzels and they were you know what I mean? Like like but I've never done live versus sodium carbonate McGees technique definitely does work. You can also tell if it's work because the weight changes of the sodium bicarbonate because water is being driven off. So you can weigh the sample before and after to verify that you have in fact converted it. Use that to water this driven off or co2 can can't remember anyway, I can't remember what's driven off but then you can weigh it and weigh the difference. And then use that to make your pretzels add it and do the boil. The reason you boil pretzels in a basic solution is because that will radically first of all change the flavor makes it taste like a pretzel and not like like you know something else like a bagel or something like that. You know because the pretzels supposed to taste like a pretzel. First of all pretzels should be freaking twisted. I don't like pretzel sticks. I don't like molded pretzels. I don't like any of these pretzel Lloyd's I don't like I don't like like fish Preds shaped pretzels. I mean, they're okay. They shouldn't be called pretzels. Pretzels need to be twisted because the way they break up. When you eat a pretzel, it's twisted, it breaks up in a very specific way the pretzels are supposed to break up based on the fact that they were a stick of dough that's been twisted into a shape that we know as a pretzel. Right? And so, you know, the middle knot has a different texture from the Nubbins. Those also bakes differently in different parts which adds varied texture to it as well. So real pretzel and I've taught my kids this since they were about since they could speak. I could walk up to my kids and say what's a real pretzel and they're like Daddy and we'll pretzels twisted because that is what a pretzel should be anyway. Aside from that it needs the real pretzel taste from the for boiling in bait in a basic solution it also that it's going to enhance the mired reaction so the reason pretzels are so dark brown is because they have been boiled beforehand in a basic solution. I haven't done live versus sodium carbonate, but I'm sure the sodium carbonate is going to be good. If you can have lying around do it. If not, I'm sure so in carbonate is a fine fine runner up. Also, if you're going to make a hard pretzel, please do not add any oil to the pretzel at all. Don't add any oil at all. If you take most pretzels that are bad, even twisted ones or ones on the market, I'm not going to call out roll gold as a bad brand of pretzels. But if I did is because if you looked at the ingredient label or Bachman, which like would otherwise be a fine pretzel because it's twisted their large ones, right? If you look at the ingredient label, they have oil in it and that reduces the texture of a pretzel from what God intended a pretzel to be, which is delicious to that of a cracker with a dark brown crust on the outside and salt. That's not where you want a pretzel to be. Alright, now I have one last thing and I'm going to defer this to the eater blog as the first one is gonna go to the eater blog, Adam frost asked a question about legumes and the vegetal taste of that legumes have when they're raw. And since he didn't have time to research it thoroughly, and be it's time for us to go. Adam, I'm going to answer your question on either tonight or tomorrow, but I'm going to have to call him again to see what he see what he thinks. All right. So listen, your pretzels must be twisted. Your pretzels must not contain oil and your pretzels must be boiled and alkaline solution cooking issues.