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.

Today's program was brought to you by mood magazine a new international quarterly publication about music and food. For more information visit mood music food.com You are listening to heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick Brooklyn, if you like this program, visit heritage radio network.org for 1000s more.

Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. It's Dave on your cookies just coming to you live on Tuesday every Tuesday at 12. Well, not if we weren't here last week, because we were embarrassing ourselves at star chefs. Boom anyway, today we're here at Roberta's pizzeria in Bushwick Brooklyn, with Jack and Joanie engineering booth and as usual stars the hammer Lopez here in the studio. How you guys doing? Good. Good. I

just told the Stasi I ran into into Jesus in the street. What do you say? You say Hey, Andy

Jesus.

I didn't call him that day. I said, Hey, Dante. Oh,

you didn't like have a glass of water and try to turn into wine. Anything else? I'm like that next time. Next time. He's not here anymore, though. He left he's gone. On his craft. All right. All right. So listen, today we have a very special day. Are they both going to be owners or just one? Both sweet, sweet, we have we have the the you know, I already got the unique group ideas in food. Epic Amezaga and Alex Talbot. You know, the kind of like the you know, the Oh, the OG new tech food folk on the on the on the line on the internet. And they're there today have released a new book called maximum flavor, maximum recipes that will change the way you cook. And if you go in order that thing right now today is the first day you can have a shiny, fresh copy on your doorstep tomorrow. Or if you still live in a place where there are real bookstores, you could probably go buy it right now. Welcome, guys. What's going on?

What's going with us? Yeah, it's good to chat. Yeah. So

why don't you guys uh, you know, oh, by the way, you can call in your questions to the ideas and food guru or us if you have any questions, you know, for us. schlumpy. folks over here 27184972128. That's 718-497-2128. Before we start with some of the questions, I'm going to actually one of them references you. So I'll hit you with that later. But let me tell you a little bit about the book. I mean, one thing I noticed when I looked at this book, as opposed to the first book is this is the full color extravaganza of a book.

Novel Idea, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah.

So so why don't you talk about that talk about for a minute.

Okay, well, God has decided that we needed to have photographs in this book, because every time anyone opened the other They looked at us and what were the pictures? Now?

People are saying people are so visual the weasels, the weasels. What, what's what's really interesting from, I guess, from an outside perspective, is that for, you know, for many years your blog was known for, you know, having being very photo heavy having a lot of photos, I guess it probably just was a surprise to people to see something come out. That wasn't that way. Do you know what I'm saying?

Certainly, I mean, the first book, The first book is really a handbook for the kitchen. And without without pictures people are looking at we're looking for and you know, what is supposed to look like? My my on the right path. And I think that's probably the big the biggest hiccup we came across with ideas and food, the book. So this one, we wanted to base that front on and photograph the bejesus out of it. And it was supposed to be only 75 pictures in it. And I think we have probably double that. Yeah. And I think it really helps tell the story.

And it's like, you know, it's all all big color splashy stuff. I leave through it. It looks great. I didn't get a chance to read it. Because I saw you right before my ill fated star chefs demonstration. Which is where we you know, where the cooking issues crew was last week, instead of doing our real job of being here on the radio, we were at star chefs having things not go our way. But, you know, that's how I got the flip through it. It looks great. I can't wait to get a hold of a copy. But but it's true. It's I looked at it this morning on Amazon. And are you guys pro Amazon or anti Amazon? Or do you not want to come out for against on the, you know, in public?

Yeah, well, no, we, we used to live in Colorado, in the mountains in the middle of nowhere. And we could not have gotten any books there. If it were not for Amazon. So while we are pro indie bookstores, we are also Oh, Amazon, sometimes you just can't get things any other way.

And then you want to give a pitch for like, if they already own the first book, like what you know, why should they go get this? It's all new, all different? Correct. All new,

all different totally at all? No, it does. The first book, as we said was was one that it is the hows and whys it is the it is, you know, the the, the reference material that you'll need, and then recipes that support it. Whereas this is recipes that you really want to eat, there's a lot of information jammed into each one. And then it's a lot of things to really then extrapolate from. So, you know, it's a great jumping off point. And then it's also just a great eating point.

And for people, you know, who aren't necessarily super tech or equipment savvy, although I guess, you know, a lot of people who listen here are like, there's still going to be a lot in for them. Correct.

There's the whole point of this, as we talk over each other, that the whole point of this book was we had a lot of fun with it. And the science is still there, but it's almost hidden. So it's kind of scattered through the rest of us. And it's in the head notes. And it's layered more into stories, as opposed to the first book where the science was kind of front and center. And the recipes are behind that, where we were more about like, really, really delicious food and then explaining how we did it.

Sweet welcoming, I can't wait to get a copy of it. I'm sure it's gonna do well, why don't we answer some questions for the folks. We have we get writing questions beforehand, I have a little bit of a an advantage over you guys that I got the questions this morning. So you know, I had a chance to look at it. But with that said, we'll all go forward here. Okay. So Aaron will writes in, he said, recently, we've been making shrimp stock at our restaurant scratch. And we've noticed that unfortunately, when we let the stock come to a full boil, a stable form of foam would form and it would boil over vigorously. This obviously has never happened to a fish, poultry or land mammal stock that I've ever made before. And this leads me to hypothesize that there is some sort of stabilizer in the shrimp meat or shells that would cause this phone to form. If there is Could there be a way to use this in an advantageous manner to suit the needs of somebody or some entity. Also, I never got to thank you for giving us a shout out on the show a while back can't wait to get some low fat gear and represent Aaron will. Well I mean, I'll just put my two cents in really quickly. One thing I need to know beforehand on the foaming I mean is you guys does anyone knows if you cook a whole crustaceans, especially things like lobsters, they foam like demons. And I came. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, it's my most my presumption, right? So I would assume that you wouldn't get that much foaming for if you were buying headless shrimp. Do you know what I mean? But if you were buying whole body shrimp, I would assume that you could get some decent foaming out of it. Because there's lots of I'm reminded of a very old, like, dual language Chinese American cookbook that I have that one of the recipes, calls for like foaming egg whites by hand and then putting it in front of the cooked crab on the plate and it's in it's called for crab spiddal effect in English translation crabs middle effect. And so you know, right. I mean, it's it's well known that there's all kinds of proteinaceous crab app that you know, sea creatures produce, especially crustaceans. In fact, when you have, you know, animals that produce waste nitrogenous products constantly in aquarium tanks, you have protein skimmers to remove them because otherwise and the way that they work is by foaming the protein stuff that's there. So my guess is, is there's some sort of protein crap there that comes out. The only other guests I have is that some of that you know that shrimp shells are made of a product called chitin, which is one of the most common biopolymers in the world and it's it's a nitrogen containing kind of barley polysaccharide like thing that you know, I use the broken down form of it called Chi to sand for, for clarification and other things, but that stuff foams so maybe you're getting some of that too. You guys ever had any any issue with this stock or anything to say on crustacean stocks.

I mean, all shrimp shells stock certainly foam. Same with lobster, but we do everything now in the pressure cooker. So for the most part, we're not getting any of that boil. And we're doing it you know, again, real faster, the concentrate the flavor. And again, the pressure keeps the foam I would say at bay.

Right? I mean, you know, the thing also, as opposed to shrimp, let's just mean it. It's not on like not on topic, really. But shrimp as opposed to lobster. So I think you know, one of the common problems with a mean shrimp shell, there's like an American like a shrimp shell that we get from a farm trip. Like even if you cook the hell out of it. Like there's only so much crap it's there, right? If you're just using the shell and not the head and all that stuff in terms of meat. So paper thin usually, there's not much so I don't really find a lot of problems not not foaming problems, taste problems, but I do find I'm curious about pressure cooking, so they haven't pressure cook this one. If you were to pressure cook like a hardshell lobster. You know how when you overcook a lobster stock to make a biscuit gets the only thing I don't really know what it is because I've never analyzed it, but what I consider to be kind of like a shell taste almost like a calcium meat taste to it. Do you ever notice that?

It's funny, you mentioned that we? We haven't gotten to that we can all use it to hatch any of the other show. So we just take the insides.

Yeah, there you go. Because when you when you make when you're doing like, you know an oil infusion, or if you're making a stock, like from straight shells on lobster like It's like good, good up, you roast them, right. And then you cook them up to a point and then when you over extract them. You're like this craps done. You know what I mean? It's like shells. Yeah, it tastes like Shell. Yeah.

Well, that's it. But if you're making a Shell Oil, it's great. But if you're making a lot of soil, you probably just want to use the you know, the head part.

Yeah. Yeah. So back to your question, Aaron, they're well known that there are proteins in there. Try the pressure cooker. Do you guys believe my story that your pressure cooker shouldn't vent or No, I still believe it very, very wholeheartedly.

You don't want to defend why would you vent it? No, no, I

mean, in other words, like I believe that the pressure cookers that constantly vent to regulate their pressure produce a lower quality stock than ones like the Qun recon that don't even know I just had terrible experience with Akun recon exploding in my kitchen it was friggin nightmare really explode. Well, here's what happens. There's a you know how like, you know how you're how I'm lazy you know me I'm lazy so like, you know, they got the gaskets deteriorate over time because they're silicone they deteriorate and and so you know, it's my personal pressure cooker I brought into work that I needed to do something and I'm you know, every I'm like, I'll have a price the gaskets, I'll replace it and you know, next time I'll replace it next time next time. And there's a little there's a little secondary pressure relief on the top of the pen next to the valve and the silicone there wasn't sealing properly so it was always spitting out a little steam so Piper who works with me is like Hey, David steaming Don't you see the ruins flavor this time like alright, so I go over there and start fiddling with it right and then and then I'm trying to set the damn thing so I think maybe there's like some grit in it or something. So I'm trying to set it I take a a butter knife the back end of a butter knife and I go pop on the top of the thing to seal it and I blew it through the lid of the of the thing now this sucker was full three quarters full of rendering like full chicken with the fat in it and everything stock at 15 psi, like I'm talking like, like, like five litres of chickens, six litres of chicken stock at 15 psi. And then all of a sudden I punch a quarter inch hole through it. And it was like old faithfuls like a freaking geyser. It flies up hits the ceiling chicken fat like everywhere and you know paper ones I'm just gonna put a towel over him like paper man, that's like you know, that's like whatever you're needing in the ocean to raise the tide like you're, we're done here and like so we just have to sit there for a minute watching the damn pressure cooker vent chicken fat and chicken stock all over the entire lab coded with a fine mist of chicken products. My dog loved it. The dog thought it was fantastic. I have since replaced the gaskets. So Okay, next

so it wasn't the pressure because it failed it was more of a user error.

Yeah, I'd have to go say I'd have to go user error with that. Yeah, I mean first of all like you know just not to vent out there you know, regularly replace the rubber parts in your in your pressure cooker because they do lose their ability to seal over over time. This is the this is not the first time I've had issues like this, you know, the main gasket around the around the rim, I'm always late in replacing that one. And modern pressure cookers have a safety override where if you look at the lid of a modern pressure cooker there are there are gaps cut into it. And the reason those are there is so that if you build up too much pressure, it will literally extrude the main sealing gasket out of these holes and then vent out of the thing. But if you don't replace your gasket they just extrude under normal 15 PSI pressure I've you know as Bill Ray is back, you know, at starships when he was doing this stuff I've vented twice in one day, coffee, pressure cooking coffee, rye beans, rye berries all over his chef whites twice because I didn't replace the freaking gasket a little too much information for the folks out there. All right, next question. Johnny writes in about about fermentation and about beans and I don't really have an answer for the beans I'm hoping you will he goes thanks for the egg advice a few shows back cracking them on a flat surface Jack Papan style has reduced the amount of shell in my scrambled eggs and now it's a question is about lacto fermenting vegetables and fruit lately I've been getting some really kick ass results in it that will kick butt will say kick butt results with simple countertop countertop ferments did some experimenting and found that even crappy low quality flavored list tomatoes both canned and fresh become delicious with some bubbling on the counter of fermenting bubbling. Also pureed chilies with a bit of salt lifted ferment turned into a dynamite hot sauce. That's true. And my underwhelming sauerkraut tastes delicious fried up with some potatoes although there's no reason for sauerkraut to be underwhelming sauerkraut is inherently delicious anyway. Question Is there an inherently safe slash putrefaction preventing minimum salt prevent percentage for lacto fermenting fruit and vegetables assuming a normal includes water content in the amount of fruit or veg. I've been eyeballing the salt and nothing you know, instead of measuring presumably, I've been eyeballing the salt and nothing's turned out inedible. But I would like to be more consistent so I can get repeatable results. I've also tried fermenting fresh corn and it ends up really sour. This is a known fact by the way. So anyway, not so sure what ingredients or dishes it'd be good with or added to any ideas. Do you have any favorite lacto ferments? Sauerkraut actually literally is mine. But boring is that is can you use them like stocks? can use them like stock? Or does the acidity totally change? How do you how do you think about using them as an ingredient? Alright, so it's a long, complicated I'm gonna let you weigh in the corn by the way. I you know, right now, when anyone asked me a fermentation question, I literally just pick up my my copy of the art of fermentation by Sandor Katz and just see what, because the researcher that is so thorough that you know, I just, there's no reason to reinvent the wheel. Sometimes I just go because I'm sure he has researched it. And in fact, he found I don't know her personally. But April McGregor has a website called farmer's daughter, and she doesn't sell those on the website, but she sells fermented corn in her stand in North Carolina. And she's like, Yeah, it get really sour, presumably you're using sweet corn. Sweet corn has a lot of sugar, it will ferment very quickly and make very sour results. But as for salt, you know that and I'm going to let you guys weigh in here. Because if people ask me this all the time, and I always say the same thing you can do ferments without salt. The problem is that they're not they're not going to be consistent. And the short answer is taste good. Well, yeah, I mean, look like McGee was telling me that there's these crazy amaranth ferments in China, that's that smell like, like the worst smell in the world. When people you know, eat it without dying, you know, my feeling is, is that if it gets sour, you're probably safe. And if it doesn't get sour, you're probably not going to want to eat it because some crazy stuffs gonna be growing in there. You know, you guys any any any thoughts there? On this on the call free sermon? Yeah, go ahead.

So, I mean, I'll kick it on. I mean, you don't need salt. And again, that's referencing one one Sandor Katz as well. But the salt, the salt is certainly the the flavoring agent. So we wanted there to help teach everything fermentation. Certainly, we found fermented foods just taste better. If you're developing flavors and ingredients are broken down to release more aromatics. So, you know, anything fermented is good, for the most part, anything rancid. That's a whole other story. Well levels. It ranges. I mean, what is it? I think we've seen as low as 1.5%. But we usually have our salt brines in whey based brands are something that are rough around what 5%? I say, yeah,

that's pretty, that's pretty, that's pretty standard, like, you know, not not be, you know, all these things are crazy. It's like, some people they write in and they take into account their theoretical water base for their veg, and some don't. The fact of the matter is, is I think only if you're going to do this the same thing a lot, right? Like, let's say you were going to make 55 gallons of sour pickles, right? Well, I'm gonna who's gonna do that at home? Right? Right, exactly. But I'm saying but if you're going to do it, then it behooves you to get the stuff, right, you know what I mean? Right and get something to measure salinity, and figure out exactly what's going on, measure the water where you can put in, you know, in reality at home, I think, you know, eyeballing it, in general is okay, you know what I mean? I mean, like, anyone that's listening to this show, unless you have a very, unless you have a specific dietary restriction, right, knows that I believe that salt is not there is not harmful to people that it's not harmful to right. So you should probably put the salt level where it tastes good to you. Like, that's my feeling. What do you guys think about this?

I would have thought that I think that it depends on how long you want to keep your pickles to, if you're going to eat them and you know, relatively quickly, then you don't have to worry as much about the bacteria levels. And I also think that with pickle making, it's usually pretty obvious when things have gone wrong. And I think actually, Sanders says that in his first book that you know, if it smells bad, if it looks bad, don't eat it start over again. But you know, pickles are it's, it's, it's clear. When things have gone awry. Things start growing and things get soft and mushy. And as long as your texture is good, and your flavor is good, you're good to go.

So it didn't lose she alright. Second question is emerging

adult Oh, yeah, it was that was our biggest problem for longest

Brian Well that's why like you know, that's why the like the easiest way to do it if you don't if you know, is to just back the crap down and then put it inside of a second VAT evac bag in case it blows and tie the second bag down you know what I mean? It's like boom, suckers Instow submerged. You know that's, it's a it's such an easy way to get if you have a VAC machine it's such an easy way to get high quality I've never tried it just in zipping without a VAC but I'm sure it would work but does it bags will blow once it starts fermenting is the only problem you know a good vac actually, interestingly a not so good vacuum bag that has slight gas permit you know, can defuse a slight amount of gas or they don't blow I've never really had one. I've had them turn into really tight tight tight, tight, tight, tight, tight, tight, tight pillows, but I've never had one explode on me. And and the good news about that to as you get that nice little kind of petty on from the co2 that can't leave you ever do that and that do you like doing it in backpacks?

We actually don't you don't like your jars weights. Boom done. You don't like to? I don't I don't like the bubbles.

I love the bubbles. You know like anything. If you know me, I like carbonated any any damn thing carbonate any damn thing. Especially kimchi. I love kimchi with some carbonation in it. You have to like that you hate that. I love that

I ate that I chop it all up so the bubbles dissipate. Really

so you're like You're like You're like You're like putting a throwing a vacuum down on it to pull any co2 out of it right before service you're like me pull the co2

I have to do is slice it up because you know, once you slice it up, it evaporates naturally, but yeah, I love it. Yeah, no, I'm not a fan.

Oh, interesting point of difference. And this just goes to show this is why it's good to make your own crap because then you know if you'd like it to bubbles, you can make it a bubbles if you don't, you don't.

And if you do make them you can always get rid of

them. That's true. That's true. So Johnny's second question. Sometimes I cook dried beans and despite an overnight soak and long all capital so it must be very long cook time several hours. I cannot get them to finish cooking with a soft interior. Now here's the kicker I don't add salt or acid just cooking them at a boil and then simmer in water. I got them from a popular green market vendor vendor that seems like they have a high turnover. So it's not like a five year old being could the beans be so old that they just won't cook all the way through? Or am I just doing it wrong? I don't have a pressure cooker. And would that solve it? That's interesting question. I don't know what would cause them to stay hard if you're not adding any acid to it.

Yeah, that's where you need to see weak combo. Yeah. It helps tenderize Yeah,

yeah. What's the agent?

There's no I don't have it in front of me. But there's actually an enzyme in the kombu that softens the skin of the beans. So it helps them absorb water more more easily.

So you put it in during the soak.

You can put it in during the soap soak and leave it in during the cooking time or if you have like pre soaked beans or you can always just put it in during the cooking time. Right like you know a two inch square for every cup of dried beans

in the book Yeah, nice by the book by the book, but you know my only question You know, the one thing I don't know where Johnny lives or what his water quality is like, I mean, most typically,

it has something to do with it. Right? And if he lives in Plano, Texas, He's toast. Why? What's

the what's the pH of water and play? No, no, it's

calcium in the water that down there. Oh, they have a lot of

Yeah, super hard water. If you have calcium will strengthen reacting and you're done. You're done. You're done. That's gotta be it. It's got to be the water he's using.

It's always the water.

So you know,

that's right. Yeah, super hard water. We were doing a demonstration down there number of years ago. And we were making a pectin math and didn't account for the calcium in the water because we didn't know about it and stuff instantly gelled.

And it wasn't even a questionable you couldn't even hit it with him.

No, we did afterwards. But at first we didn't even didn't even didn't even cross our mind to sequester though. What And then

Johnny, I'm gonna go ahead here and say that we've discovered your problem, you have hard water and you're going to want to use a water softener or get like a gallon jug of spring water or something like that. You think we

are actually getting hexametaphosphate

Yes, that would be another solution is to sequester your being water although I've never that's interesting. It's might be the first time any human being has ever said I'm going to sequester my bean water yet, but I might have to try that now. What to go. Next time you're playing. Oh, you're gonna go get some water and add some shrimp to it to cook beans. All right. Yeah. All right, sweet. Should we take a commercial break and come back? Yeah, we're gonna come back right back with ideas and food cooking issues.

Like what you hear so far, support the network and become a member. Membership helps us bring you the best food radio in the world and gives you access to 1000s of dollars and discounts at the sustainably minded businesses that support us to become a member of visit heritage radio network.org today. What's mood, mood is a quarterly magazine about music and food. For its creators. Not many things can beat a good record and a delicious meal. Maybe a well written story or a gorgeous photo. Well, that's all a mood. The magazine looks at music and food in a cohesive and unique way with a keen eye to design and high quality writing. Its contributors are located around the globe, and the stories span accordingly. Check it out today at mood music food.com That's mood music food.com.

And welcome back. So what is mood is good. I'm just messing with you. Anyway. So we're back with ideas and food. You still have time to call your questions to 7181972128 That's someone 84972128 So the folks at Main Street kitchen, who we met when we are when we met we went up to Harvard wrote in a question I think they must have sent it before but I just got it. They said hello from the crude made me street kitchen. We are so amped up from watching Dave burn up a bunch of rice at the Harvard lecture I when I last time I pumped in a lecture it's I shouldn't do this lecture wise anymore. We you know, we we had an issue. And we cleared out of science building at Harvard. But it did make a big explosion which was which was nice. Anyway, were so amped up from watching Dave burn up a bunch of rice at the Harvard lecture that we had to write and say how much we love you guys was very pleasant. The bar of the podcast, the blog, everything was so fun to see you in action in person, especially in the stashes sitting in the corner like a boss. And honestly, we couldn't think of a better end of the night and watching Dave set off the fire alarm in a cloud of black brown smoke and subsequently getting Harold McGee to sign our books while sitting on the lawn like a friendly and wise woodland creature. Seriously, we think of we think of burnt rice and it's great. You may have never heard of McGee described as a woodland creature before woodland creature to talk to him about that. So they have a question from two of their cooks Emily and Caden and the question is it started when we tried to figure out if the and this is one where they reference you guys specifically so I'm gonna let you guys just take this sucker and run ready because they're referencing something that you that one of your techniques. Okay, Emily, Emily, and cadence question it all started we've tried to figure out if the air in a fridge is wet or dry and if a thing placed in that fridge will dry out or absorb moisture. We had a peanut brittle on the menu at the time and we were trying to decide whether we should keep it In the fridge to avoid melting, it gets hot on a food truck in August or leave it out to avoid absorbing moisture and becoming horribly disgusting and gummy. We noted that if you're drying out the skin of something that you want to crisp, you can put it in the fridge like Dave Chang does. And the MOMO fried chicken recipe or Heston does in his home cooked version of triple cooked chips. That's French fries for real people. Kidding British people, you know, whenever we come french fries, other things that you put in the fridge, they absorb moisture, other things you put in the fridge so they absorb moisture, like on the ideas and food blog AQI and Alex rehydrate dehydrated Beats by putting them in the fridge. What gives? So now we're thinking about the relative humidity versus absolute humidity. I don't know what those things mean, but my staff does and whether we should be thinking of the fridge as an open system or a closed system. I don't even know what our question is anymore. But maybe you can. Maybe you can just wax poetic about humidity and refrigerators and little like for as long as you deem appropriate. All the best. And thanks again for coming to Boston. I mean and Max and Caden and Emily and Alex Kailyn. Olivia and Peter. Okay. So why don't you guys talk about that for a minute. All right, okay.

So the Yeah, so we pressured her to beat to cook the bejesus, then We dehydrate them until they concentrate and develop a nice dark skin. Then we take them while they're still warm. And we actually there's a missing point that we put them into zip top bags, while the warm feeling in the setup bags and then throw them in the fridge so they steamed in the bag in the in the environment. So there's your your moisture,

so you're just really Aquila, grating really, you're just really quickly waiting. Exactly, yeah, so one of the issues with all with all food Cookery, that involves surface phenomenon. So that's frying, Pan panning, grilling, par dehydrating anything, is that you develop a situation where the inside typically the inside of the food has a much higher moisture content than the outside of the food. Right? And so sometimes, and you know, I don't really know the inside obviously your technique you know, you will tell me tell me about but the sometimes you can form a skin that skin is can be then permanent because the cells have collapsed, but you can get moisture back so that they can Aquila braid so that the texture changes back to something that you like, just by letting the moisture come in from the outside. correct or no. Yeah, bingo. The typically and this can be a very good thing for this kind of technique. Very bad thing with fried chicken horrible with fried chicken. But you know, a lot of what cooking is, especially if you want things to last for a while after they're cooked is moisture control and moisture migration from the center of a product to the outside of a product and much time is thought about that, especially on the on the pro level. This is why people add so much to their temperature. This is why timber is actually not a good product. This is why it actually is bad. Like tempura I've had like some of the supposedly best tempura chefs in the world make tempura and I've eaten it and it was It wasn't bad. I mean, it wasn't bad. And that's that's rare. That's hyperbolic but it's not as awesome as it could be because it's it's the the moisture balance shaft. I mean, if you eat it directly as it comes out, yeah, it's good, but I don't know, I don't think I ever prefer it and it can't last the way that it's made. What do you guys think on tempura?

Well, but they like to soak it in sauce. So it's sort of the combination of the crunchy and also the soggy. Yeah, not really only about the crisp. It's not a question about peanut brittle.

Oh, no. So what they're saying is, is that they have a situation where, where look, where they put stuff in the fridge and they're having they want to know whether the the the environment in a fridge is adding is is adding moisture to or removing moisture from things so you put it in a Ziploc bag so it's moisture neutral, but it adds moisture to the skin by Re Aquila breeding in general fridges are a What? What? Yeah, I think they're moist if freezers dehydrate right. And fridges you get a lot of re condensation of crap on them. You know? Because the thing is like I think if you It depends on the fan speed like in a in some of the prophage fridges I've used that have a fan speed that's too high on the circulation. You can get a real pellicle on the outside I think a lot I think a lot depends on a lot. You know what I mean?

Well it depends on the ingredient too I think because if you're you know if you put chicken thighs on a rack they're gonna dry out a little bit surface is gonna dry out in no matter the fridge but if you throw peanut brittle in the fridge the sugar is gonna absorb all the moisture in the air.

Right well you know that's a even like in the sealed is wide like you're never supposed to store coffee and in chocolate and what this in the fridge. There are several reasons but but to me the reason isn't necessarily the sucker is going to get moist while it's in the fridge. It said as soon as you pull it out, you're going to get condensation from the air and you're toasted unless you live in Arizona. You don't mean

so that's well no, that makes that makes all the sense of the world. Yeah, no, you know peanut brittle? Yeah, I would I would use desiccant in a closed container you know room temperature in the truck?

No 100% Yeah, that's against the way to go or a vaccine killed you know what I mean vaccine in a hard container or you know vaccine in a in mason jars if you don't have access to a heart container that can hold a vacuum. Hey, here's another one for you on refrigerators and moisture content if it's some some of the hardcore In fact, I think all the hardcore Japanese sushi chefs I only talked to one of them, you know, when he was years ago when he came to the FCI those guys all have commercial refrigerators and then they've never plugged them in not one time, they just throw giant block of ice into the bottom of the fridge and then keep their fish in there because they want to maintain the temperature but they don't want the air circulation to mess with the water content at the surface. Presumably I guess they don't want it to I would say in the in the case of fish with very high moisture product you know, they want to drought and by the way, you know we're not talking about you're talking about peanut brittle which has a moisture content below probably 6% Right? Like once it's cooked up when you say it's like below six and a fish which has a content probably above 80 or around 80 You know what I mean? 7580 So you know if the fridge is anywhere in between those things, it's going to shaft both of them

that is true but peanut butter brittle crusted fish is tasty.

Yeah. Is I've never tried it for real though it works. So well. We

did it years ago yeah I made like a peanut brittle and put it on on on a machine and baked it in place.

And does it does it form like a little snappy like new like brocante thing on the outside?

Yeah, not quite as cool coffee as you want but you get the nice texture the the peanut brittle the second you know the carmelized the second time you get the nice toasty notes and then we smoked peanut brittle. So anything smoke taste better.

Smoked peanuts are in fact delicious. And while we're on the subject of peanuts, I just want to give a shout out to a Virginia peanut, Virginia peanut and then you know I don't get anything from the Virginia peanut people but if you've never really been up by the way, it's a variety it's a it's a type of peanut and there's people from you know North Carolina and South Carolina will tell you that the Virginia peanuts that are grown there are just as good if not better than the ones going to Virginia however it is called a Virginia peanut. That's all I'm gonna say about that. But Virginia peanuts you guys play with Virginia peanuts at all?

No, we have not that I know of crap. You

need to go buy yourself a high quality bat batch of Virginia peanuts because once you have a Virginia Pina you're like I can't believe I've been eating this other dreck. No offense planters. I can't believe I've been eating this other dreck for so long. Virginia Pina is just a superior product taste texture. You know, like a really good Frankford has that snap. When you bite into it? You're like, Damn, that's what a good Frankfurter tastes like, you know, I'm saying as soon as you bite into one of these giant Virginia peanuts a good one that's properly roasted and everything. It's like pop it snaps it's so awesome. Virginia peanuts. Smoke those. Yeah, it gets some Virginia peanuts. I got an easy one here for you. Mike Chesky by the way, Mike, thank you for phonetically writing out your name. At first I thought it was like some strange name that Ken he's always helping me with the phonetics because he writes sure Chev ski Maitree Chesky writes in about ham hocks Hello everyone question about cooking ham hocks. I usually braised in a typical mirror plot slash water stuff my ham hock so that the meat gets tender enough that I can pick it off the bone and shred it. However, I find that much of the smoky salty pork flavor is too often leached into the breezing liquid. Do you have a recommended cooking method which will render the meat tender but not robit of its characteristic? Smoke and flavor? Thanks Mike's Chesky Yes, put that sucker in a bag and cook it you know, you might want to add a little bit of liquid because it takes an unbelievably long time to render out collagen if there's not a little bit of excess moisture in with the product. But it does it does not take much

pressure steam it actually so it'll be the fastest way.

Oh yeah, that's true.

But the Hawks can do you know a bowl inside your pressure cooker and do it then do it that way. You'll have a 45 minute job perfectly broken down, tear the bejesus out of them. And you go from there, but they'd be solving I mean there's nothing Yeah, but

if you're gonna shred it and use it as an ingredient, it doesn't matter. You know, I'm saying

Do you remember when they used to sit at home I'm dating myself here but they used to sell the plastic mags or seasonings and you would like take your pork chops and some liquid in them and tie the bag shut and bake them in.

Is that like not is that like shaken bake?

Is it time is shaken bake but it wasn't because it was sort of like this this brace and the bag would pop up in the oven and it would just be there. Anyway,