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.

This episode is brought to you by Joule the emergent circulator for suevey by ChefSteps. Order now at chefsteps.com/joul. E.

You're listening to heritage Radio Network, where a member supported food Radio Network broadcasting over 35 weekly shows live from Bushwick, Brooklyn, join our hosts as I lead you through the world of craft brewing behind the scenes of the restaurant industry, inside the battle over school food and beyond. Find us at Heritage Radio network.org.

Hello, and welcome to cooking issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of cooking just coming to you live on the heritage Radio Network every Tuesday from roughly 12 to 1245. From my head. Where are we? Where are we now? We're Roberta's pizzeria in Bushwick. Brooklyn joined as usual, Anastasia the hammer Lopez Hey, doing stars. We do not have Dave in the booth today. We have Victor in the booth today, Victor How you doing? I'm doing great. Yeah, it's your first time. Like being there been. Cooking issues? Engineer.

Yes.

So like, like, what do you like to do, Victor?

Well, I like to do a lot of music stuff. In general.

Yeah. What about? You like food? I like eating. Yeah. Yeah. Like, what do you like to eat? What's your favorite?

Um, one thing that I eat pretty often is actually rice and beans. Love rice and beans from Brazil. So I grew up eating that pretty much every day.

Would that would that you put that Yuka powder all over everything. Yeah, sometimes you like to stuff

like fried yuca. And, you know, meats also?

Yeah. Brazilian, huh? Yeah. Nice. All right, it's bigger music. I'm actually not in a bad mood today, Anastasia, because I was listening to kind of like where I'm musically come from early. Early. 90s Connecticut rock. On the way I've us like, found like, the out an album from a band we used to play with all the time. I was listening to it. And they still kick still kick ass. Nice. Yeah, yeah. You might not know this people, but Anastasia Lopez used to be like the, the not the non. The non favorite granting backstage Queen of the

day know this.

You've talked about it before? Was the early 2000. Early 2000 Organa and all of them on the radio. Yeah, a lot of people didn't listen that episode. Is that early 2000s already doing that stuff? Yes. Early 2000s. Yeah, I was thinking to myself, like you know, like obviously I'm too old to like to be in the band anymore. But I do miss like, like listening to that stuff. Like I miss just ending up in like a crumpled mess of like blood and garbage on the floor, which is how all the concerts would end, you know what I mean? Like extremely physical style of playing, you would have hated it. You hate physical stunts, you hate it more than anything is like I was all about just beating the ever loving crap out of my instrument like I would get, I would get in a position where, like, once my wrist would no longer function properly towards the end of the show, I would just kind of lock my wrist and then move my whole arm as one unit and then eventually try to bend backwards to have gravity a my arm and coming down to smash the springs as hard as I could. That was like that earliest 90 style of playing would have been your worst nightmare, Anastasia. And I, you think we don't get along? Now? If we had known each other? In those days, it would have been a freaking nightmare. Call all of your cooking questions into 718-497-2128. That's 718-497-2128. Victor, where are you from? In Brazil?

Close to San Paolo. Yeah. state of Somalia.

Yeah, not the big capital. No. outside so you don't have to deal with the traffic. You still have to deal with traffic. Not

not as much as people who are actually in Sao Paulo. It's a bit better where I live.

Yeah. You ever go to one of Alex Applaws restaurants when you were over there? I haven't. No, no, no. But is it like, do you go back often is it super pocket is in order to see one of those chefs? It's just famous, like everywhere else, or is he also famous in Brazil?

No, I've heard his name. Yeah. Yeah. And I do go back. I try to go once a year. I can.

Yeah, we will have wacky fruits. Do you enjoy wacky the wacky Brazilian fruits? Yeah, a lot.

Have you seen the northeast and north of Brazil? They're pretty pretty cool fruits there.

Have you seen the book the fruits of Brazil? It's an amazing book. It's blue on the cover, which is very weird graph paper. You seen this book? Actually, I've

seen it. I haven't read it. But it looks pretty nice.

Yeah. Why would you mean you can just buy that crap like us in the US? We look at it. We're like, Oh my God. It's like fruit for mice. But like, you know, you're like, Hey, I just buy that stuff. And I think we've mentioned this before but there's you got to look this book up people on the Amazon. It's expensive. You the cheapest place I ever found it actually was there's a Hawaiian fruit like farm that sells reasonably priced copies of this book. But the hilarious thing about it is is that if you look in the back under exotic like, it's page after page of things that look like they're straight out of straight out of a horror show straight out of you know, whatever that one with suddenly see mortise Little Shop of Horrors, weird, weird freaking fruits, you know what I mean? And then at the end, it's got it an exotic section with the apple. That doesn't come from there. You know what I mean? They're like all the native fruits of Brazil. And then you know, for their exotic fruit, the Apple anyway. And some that you know, I've never been to Brazil. Does you ever go there? Any desire to go? No desire to go to Brazil? Why?

I don't know. Why would you though, I would like to pay for

it. i That's my role with anything. That's my role with anything if you

take vacations have we? Who has

time for vacations? Like if someone if there's a reason for me to go for business? I'll go but I mean, like, here's the thing like I wouldn't go for like the beaches or any of that not I don't care. You know what I mean? It's just like the food though. I want to go for the food. Not interesting. No,

they have pretty good food at the beach, though. Really?

Do I have to be near the beach to have the beach food?

Feel like fish? Yeah,

well, people will people make fun of me because I will be dressed in full length pants full length shirt and and a wide brimmed hat with sunglasses on.

Yeah, you might want to invest in a Speedo or something. Yeah.

Oh, that that that my friend Victor is something that no one on earth will ever see his me in a Speedo. Like unless I'm dead, then they can see me in a Speedo. Right maybe we should change my my coffin. Yeah, whatever. We're not gonna get into that family show family show. Me What do I care once I'm gone Your name anyway. So let's get to some questions. This from ZEV. Hey Dave. I just listened to last week's cooking issues and was disheartened although not surprised to hear that nobody else was saddened by the Ringling Brothers, circus shuttering Anastasia in particular doesn't care. I would I mentioned this on there. I talked to a bartender who was actually glad it closed admission that I can Yeah. Well, she you know, she was on the animal activist side which, you know, do they all yellow, you know, they stopped having elephants a couple of years ago, but all the elephants now are on like an elephant preserve and Florida somewhere. They're just like living out their elephant years in a Florida Preserve. Whatever. You're like, I don't even care about that. So that says frankly, I would have been shocked if circuses made it onto the shortlist of things that stars doesn't hate. But I think it's more indifference. indifference. You mean like you which is I don't know is it? Is that worse for you indifference or his hatred worse? Aging? Wow. Yeah, because her hatred is strong. Since you and I both share a love of cooking and a sentimental, sentimental, soft spot for the circus. I'd like to invite you to join me at the Barclays Center for a show next month. My wife isn't much of a circus fan, but will begin to make it a double date if Jen and or Booker and DAX have Want to come along as well? Well, I can, I'll check it out. Unfortunately, Booker would rather wear a hot frying pan for underwear than go to a show of any type. So he definitely won't go but that you know, Dax is a possibility. He imagined Booker going to a circus. I once took Booker to Walt Disney World. And we took them there's a universal it's universal, right is the Universal Pictures thing that they have there? We took him to a stunt show a stunt driving slash explosion show where the heat from the fake pyrotechnic explosions was like so hot that I got a sunburn from it. And it was nothing but all of that. And it wasn't like he was like, didn't like the noise or anything. He literally was bored out of his mind turned around had his back to the explosions. This was a number of years ago, but like, you know, he's just not a doesn't enjoy shows Booker, you know, I mean, just doesn't enjoy him tax tax into his shows. Check it out. Thanks. There. We got the question that I was hoping to get some answers from people off of the chat room, but I don't think we did from Mark on forming Yuba. So I'll just read it. longtime listener, food science student writing from the wintry depths of Saskatchewan. I'm embarked. I like that word. That word. Saskatchewan. It's good word. Better than the word Saskatoon. Right. Anyway, I'm embarking on a project to produce Yuba like films with other pulses last year being the year of the pulse. Now's the year the roots from there it really was it really the year the polls I know we I was supposed to do here the starch and I didn't really follow through, I did my own starch research, but I didn't really follow through anyway. You're the pulse we have tons of pulse products kicking around in our university, and hence the project. They've gone through quite a few trials, including UVA making procedures, beans to milk to film, with one pulse exhibiting more promise than the others. My understanding is that the formation of Ubay is independent of the fat in the soybean and therefore would mean that most pulses should be able to form some sort of a film barring the different amino acid profiles. I would like to know if there's any way to increase the odds of film formation, wood lactones or gypsum using beancurd making or any one of those things, or trans wood Tammany has helped protein realignment and skin formation. Do you think that having more water, ie one to 10 being to water ratio would affect yields? And would there also be a lower threshold that may not allow for film formation to to in sufficient protein Express extraction? And is there an easier way to go about this without making first a milk with the spins all be useful? Spins I was always useful, right? And now I'd actually in this case, I don't think you necessarily need to spend I mean, we'll talk about it. And I will give you the names of the pulses. That was the pulse that was successful. But we've been using sponsored products that with branded names that have no bearing on species. Thanks for taking my question. Love the show love Booker and DAX and can't wait for the new Bart open mark. Mean neither I cannot wait for the new BARDA. We're looking for space, if anyone out there knows of a place in lower Manhattan that, you know is closing down or needs a bar into it. Let us know. So back to the Yuba. So for those of you that don't know, kind of what Yuba is, Yuba is same thing as beancurd skin. Most of the time, when you buy it, you're buying it dried, and then you have to rehydrate it, but it's like, it's used in a lot of a lot of vegetarian dishes like mock duck and these kinds of things. I think it's a fantastic ingredient. But nothing is as delicious. One of the most delicious soy products is fresh Yuba. And I guess you can buy fresh you but I usually make it when I make it, it's kind of a pain in the butt making you because you have to get these kind of like, what you do is you make a relatively thick soy milk. So I would think that a thicker soy milk would actually be better for you mark released this my memory has been it's been probably a year since I've made UVA. But then you get a relatively wide pan because what you're trying to do is you're trying to create a an actual skin very, very much akin to the skin that forms on top of hot milk. And you heat it to kind of a temperature where it's what's happening is is that the proteins are aggregating at the surface of the milk and this large sheet along with the lipids. And according to the research, I read some of the carbohydrate that's in it some of the sugars and carbohydrate this and it forms a protein skin, you pull it off, and then another skin forms. And you can do this again and again. But one of the interesting things about UVA is that as you are depleting the protein from the as you're depleting the protein from the from the soil, the UVA is actually changing over time. So it's a super interesting super delicious you're hanging them up to kind of semi dry but just like fresh warm Yuba with just like a little bit of like saucers over the top. Fantastic. I wasn't able to find any references for making and by the way, the What's your name Andrea. And when if you want to, she has a soy and tofu book that I believe has decent instructions for you. But although I was too stupid to take a look at my coffee before I came the Old shirtliff Book on soy probably has an explanation of UVA, but I would probably go with the within WinBook to look at it, but if you've never made you well worthwhile.

Now as for what's actually going on your questions with the fat. So some of the studies I looked at show indeed, that the fat does matter. So it is primarily the protein and protein will by itself form of skin, but either too little or too much fat in the Yuba will negatively affect your yield. And also obviously the texture of it. Now, that larger, it's kind of interesting, like when you're when when they do the studies looking at their soy milk as it was being made, they noticed that the protein was being depleted, because it's protein film. But then the lipid fraction of the soy milk I think was actually static or going up. And that's because not as much of the fat was being incorporated into the skin, as was in the in the bulk phase. But it was Don't quote me on this because I was reading this research kind of in a flurry this morning. But it was the larger, which makes sense fat fat globs that were globules that were getting incorporated in because they're the ones that are floating up close near the surface. So it's an interesting kind of enrichment product. Now back to your problem. They've also done research on Yuba and on tofu for the ratio of what's called the Seven s to 11 s proteins, which are the ones that are studied a lot for tofu formation. And those numbers and they're similar proteins are published for other pulses. And you can kind of look them up and see what your like seven s 11 s ratio is and try to and maybe look at the fat and I mentioned on the when we started talking about this last week, an article that has kind of the breakdown of what the soy is versus other pulses, so you can look at them and try to assess kind of what's best now as for using occurring thing. When you're when you're adding a cutting agent to tofu, you don't add cutting agent to to make Yuba you're you're you're favoring aggregation, but it's not the same aggregation that happens in the happens when you're making UVA, which is I guess, heat denaturation as well as partial dehydration and aggregation at the surface where the where the dehydration is. It's my guess, you know, plus the fact that that that stuff, I guess as it teenagers, I guess floats up near the top and aggregates. So is it possible that like some slight amount of self aggregation through like, like, partial coagulation might help? Yeah, but it might ruin the whole thing, too. You know what I mean, as it heats it. I mean, like, I don't know, like, I would try it, because obviously I would try it, but I don't know on the other side transglutaminase would probably help. As long as it was below a threshold that would like what I would do is you would incubate the milk with the trans contaminates, to like slightly increase how aggregated the proteins are crosslinked the proteins are not enough to gel it and then heat it to a point where you wipe out the trans contaminates and now you just have your modified proteins so they could link together up at the top. And I would try to get a fat content fairly similar to what soybean is. It makes sense. Do you like UVA? No, really. But like in any form, or not the fresh

UVA actually I like Brooke says UVA sloppy,

sloppy a US sloppy joe. What does that mean? Like they he wraps the fake sloppy joe into UberX he hacks you up and mixes actually you butt up. Okay, now gotta go to last week's questions. Give me one moment you want to take a commercial break and come right there. We'll come right back some more cooking issues

This episode is brought to you by Joule, the immersion circulator for Su V by ChefSteps. If you're listening to this show, you're probably a pretty good cook. Maybe you already know that su VT is the best way to get a kick ass juicy steak. And with jewel a new su V tool from ChefSteps you can do so much more smoky tend to ribs homemade yogurt, creme brulee, bright crunchy pickles, vibrant purees even smooth, creamy ice cream all perfectly cooked every time. Jewel is sleek and small enough to fit in your kitchen drawer and it's operated by an elegant smartphone app that's been designed to remove the guesswork gets you cooking faster and give you the information and inspiration you want when you want it. Brows ChefSteps amazing recipes and helpful guides. Choose your perfect doneness for any meet and get notified when your food is ready. You know you get great results so you can focus on sides and sauces, or just pour yourself a cocktail and chill until you're ready for a delicious dinner. For more information and to order yours now visit chefsteps.com/joul II

did I really tell people to chill to the cocktail and that people? Yeah, I mean, like, wherever. You should never listen to yourself on the air. Like, have you ever listened to the show? Yeah. And it's horrifying to listen to yourself, right? Well,

I don't talk much, but you're funny.

Looking. Okay. Oh, speaking of seaweed, so I built this so I'm going through a lot of the same problems writing the low temperature as well soothing and remember I said it before on the air I lost that argument right? It's It's It's soothing cooking now, whether it's in a vacuum or it's not the imprecise evil weasels and market tearing Jacquard 's of the world have won, and everyone freaking calls the technique Suvi even though like I very rarely use a vacuum machine. Am I still bitter about it? Am I still angry about it? Yes. It's not to the cooking for the most part, but you know, whatever. Like I don't know what other things like that are like completely imprecise and yet have like they win. And it's French word. Like it's so weird. You know what I mean? Look, obviously I understand maybe low temperature is not like you know a rousing word no one's like running to the you know running off to make some I'm gonna make little temperature blah you know I mean, maybe the French term use got damp that Bruno was so uses you sky the exact temperature he's like, temperature is not always low. It is the exact temperature and like he doesn't talk like that he's got a you know, an older Frenchman voice but like in a nice Frenchman voice beyond I mean, different Frenchman voice. But anyway, so he's just got them and I'm like, Just get on Tom not tempt Tom. Just get on. Anyway. So like, that doesn't work in English either. Or, either. And, yeah, so Soviet. I've lost that. But I've been working on it. And one of the this actually kind of dovetails with a question we had a couple of weeks ago. For those you that do cook in a smoothie, now I'm talking in a vacuum machine, or you know, using things that are vacuum packed, or in an immersion circulator, all at lower temperatures, one of the kind of problems is that red meats in particular. Look, kind of bloody to a lot of people and so most of us to our cooks, you know, don't like Trump eat our steaks well done. Although I was told who was it that told me that Obama also like to steaks well done. Was he lying to me? Was he just trying to be like nonpartisan? And like tell me that? Like, is it that presidents have to eat their steaks well done because because they're so worried that they're going to get the poops while they have to run the free world? Is that what it is? It's like It's like in space you're not allowed to have anything that's cooked you know, rare in space because getting the crabs in a space capsule is like the end of all ends like you get all that stuff sprayed all over the inside of the capsules like the end of times for you it's the same thing being president you told me that you the story you heard was that they used to have like a setup for doing low temp cooking at the White House and they got rid of it. They got rid of it right. Didn't care for it anyway well you know who needs it if you're gonna cook everything well done anyway right if you're just gonna like if it's gonna take like every piece of protein that you have and like you know burn the hell out of it. Well then why do you need to do low temperature Am I right? Anyway Anyway disappointed

eggs though right?

If you're gonna do brunch see only Yeah, but I guess but you know what I guess we have smiles the White House gives you did you get to see it No. Like I mean, is it I wonder whether it's big or whether it's small like the James Beard house I mean to think about like if I mean maybe they have a big enough staff they can just have someone sit there and do the eggs maybe they do it Kenji, Kenji Lopez all style and they just dump all of the eggs in at once and like let him separate out you seen that where he poachers like 10 eggs at a time pulls them out anyways, point being that or maybe they just don't do eggs benedict. If I was the president united states I'd be like you know when I feel like while I'm running the free world I feel like some eggs benedict. And then the next day I'd be like, You know what, I feel like eggs Florentine. I would just do every single poached egg on an on an English muffin. Kind of a prep that I could possibly have prepared for me like anytime day or night because poached eggs. If I had someone on staff who would constantly bring me poached egg preparations like that's what would happen. We'd have to rename them American muffins if I was president because that's how many of them I would eat. You like English muffin you like an egg Florentine? Right? What do you like better Benedict or Florentine? Really, because you'd like to Spanish, huh? But how much do you hate it when they don't press enough the liquid out of the spinach and I believe that disgusting. blacks finish water all over everything. And it stops into the freaking English muffin. And it's just like a messy like garbled garbage on the bottom you have that irritates the hell out of you. Anyway, I forget how he got into this. Oh, so one of the problems when you're, when you're, when you're cooking low temperature, one of the problems is is that the color of the meats is often off putting to people so. So as you know, one of the prejudices that we as cooks have to overcome a lot of the time with people we cook for is that and I have to overcome this myself. This is I'm talking about myself, but I think also for a lot of our listeners is we feel like we know what you would like if you had your brain screwed and straight. You know what I'm saying? Like, are your head screwed on straight? So it's like, I know for a fact that you would like the taste of this steak better if it was cooked. But for God's sakes below 57 Celsius, right? Like, I prefer to 55 I can understand if you don't want to 55 but for God's sakes, you don't want it higher than 57 You really don't you know what I mean? And like, you know, and we all have this feeling people who cook this way than if I just put a blindfold over you and gave you the steak the way I want you to want the steak that you would want the steak the same way. But the problem is, you can't really cook that way. You can't cook based on what you think somebody else should like. You have to cook based on what they actually like. And if they see meat that looks too red for them, for whatever reason whether they're a germaphobe like Trump, whether they grew up eating shoe leather, so that they need shoe leather in order to feel like that stuff's going to be good. Who knows why, like maybe they grew up eating their steak drenched in a one steak sauce. Were you one of those people says Were you did you were you a ketchup? Whoa on steak. PEGI Vaughn. Whoa, with scrambled eggs. No, it matters because of the addition of wizards or sauce makes it more steak like

I was saying if it's like a piece of something with like, sugary tomato stuff on it.

Sugary, vinegary tomato. So look, I'm with you. But like, my point is, is that but so food was horrible. You know, fence food was horribly overcooked in your house. Yeah. So you needed to cut things into small pieces and douse them and stuff to make them palatable. Right. They still frankly, have a nice meat tape. Look me it has a nice meat taste when it's overcooked. It's just the texture of it that is objectionable to us kind of Soviet and low temperature jockeys, right? We would prefer the rarest thing. But on the other hand, right? I mean, this is what I think the average person who the average person who looks at a rare steak cook traditionally, right? thinks that it's going to be that bloody squeegee. You know that when I say squeegee, you know what I mean? Right? That squeegee texture on the inside of steak? Well, the issue is that the color of a steak is only I mean, it is related to but not directly related to the temperature which the steak is cooked to. Right. So you can have a vacuum pack steak that's cooked for a long time at a temperature that is not squidgy, right, and one that you might actually accept as medium rare, let's say or medium rare person, but it still looks too rare for you to eat, and so you're put off by it. And the reason for it. The reason this happens is that the actual was number of reasons one, the protein that's in and we talked a little bit about this, but the protein that's in steak and meats in general, that causes it to be read or not, is myoglobin. And myoglobin comes in three basic forms in meat, it comes as the Oxy myoglobin, which is the red one, we talked a little bit about this before. And the deoxy myoglobin, which is what you get inside of a vacuum bag, it's kind of purplish. And met myoglobin, which is kind of the brown stuff that happens as it oxidizes, right, and what color the meat and again, we talked about I just ran some more experiments. In fact, this morning, the color of the meat as it cooks is directly related to the state that the myoglobin is in as you cook it so I cooked I took a thin piece of I have round which by the way I think is a garbage piece of meat like on its own you ever just eaten like like tucked into you take something like an eye of round you know, I you know the round rounds that like the back end of the back side of the leg of the cow there that area and I have round is a relatively lean cut with relatively little going on if you like but people want to cook that one low temperature because it doesn't have that much connective tissue so they think they can it's also very lean and all these idiots who are like super pro excuse me if you're one of these idiots but like who likes super lean lean meat, like think it's going to be a good piece of meat. It's just not very interesting piece of meat. Like it doesn't offer a lot of textural variation across the meat. It is not good if you overcook it. I mean it's good kind of as London bro Are you sure Are the piss out of the outside. And so it's like kind of crunchy and then slice it thin, real thin on like, and then like, and then like put sauce on it or something like that. Anyway, I digress. So I had these pieces of the of the round, and I cook them to very accurate temperatures within a 10th of a degree, I did a temperature ramp because I built it I built my own kind of the reason this came up is I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to take pictures for the book. If you go on cooking issues, the blog, it still exists I have we haven't done anything with it in years. But there's a section called low temperature or CV primer. And in it are a series of pictures and charts that I developed when I was working at the French culinary to teach low temperature and CV stuff way back in the day like Oh 809, something like this, or even earlier, oh seven, and we put them up on the blog when the blog started in 10, or whatever, when we started it. And I'd worked a lot on trying to take pictures of meats at various kind of temperatures. And always found it was very hard because it like how much oxygen was on the meat really changed kind of the way it looked. And so today, I built a plate heater like a super accurate flat plate heater. And was taking pictures of the meat and meat that's cooked even very accurately and very quickly, just up to 5050 or 55 degrees Celsius, which is rare, rare, rare, rare, Brown when it was cooked in full oxygen. So my recommend right recommendation to you is that let's say you have this goes against some of my recommendation for any of you who have known me for like a decade or more. I always recommend that when you're vacuum packing meats, right? That you especially if you've just started learning how to vacuum pack that you let meat sit in the vacuum pack for a half hour or an hour before you have to cook. Why? The answer is because a good chunk of your vacuum packages will be bad if you've just started learning how to vacuum a good number on the order. I've seen some students where like 10% of their vacuum packs are bad, because they haven't figured out how to accurately align the bag along the sealing arm. They are you know get little pieces of pepper or spices into the seal. For whatever reason they don't get a good seal and over the course of that half hour to hour that it sits before you cook it. It can sit in the fridge or whatever, you'll notice where leaks happen because the bag will start to come away from the meat you'll also notice if you're bagging something with bones, you'll notice that the bone like if a bone accidentally punctured your bag, which is you know you should take care of the rat bones and things like cellophane, you know not polyethylene wrapped, to kind of protect them, but or to stop them from puncturing your bag. But that half hour can mean the difference between getting a leaker and leakers can be okay in the sense that sometimes not enough product leaks into your bag to ruin your meat. But it can also be catastrophic. I've had like leakers where they leak so much that it might as well be in the water bath, which is gross. You've seen those bags, right stars, they are disgusting. So I made that recommendation. But for something like a meat a steak that you're going to serve at a relatively low temperature, let's say 55 degrees Celsius round there abouts. I recommend cutting it out of your vacuum bag if it came in a vacuum bag, doing maybe a pre sear. But wait. But before you do any of that, just let it sit out, look for like 20 minutes, 30 minutes on a rack in your fridge out wherever you're going to do it, let it oxygen up, let them meet get as much oxygen in it as possible. Now, this is not good for long term storage stability, right because you want as little oxygen as possible on the meet for long term storage ability. But in terms of the color development of the meat as it cooks, you want to have it out and unlike oxygen going into it for a while and so it how fast it diffuses in is something I'm still trying to look up and I'm trying to figure out a way that I can steal borrow or bag and oxygen probes I can actually measure the time it takes for oxygen to get to the middle of a steak when you've taken it out. If anyone knows anyone out there who can lonely one or has one has to be one that I could actually measure like with a probe a, you know an IR one fiber optic one optical rather you let it oxygen up like that, then I would do Ziploc bag instead of vacuum for your Quickstep, because it's going to have less depletion of oxygen because you're not going to subject it to a vacuum and then have it go right in the bath like food right in the bath. And then the faster the heat travels through that while they're still oxygen there, the better off you're going to be. So let's say you're going to cook your steak to 55 I know it's a long explanation, but I'm thinking a lot about it and you know this is a problem people have. Let's say you were going to cook a steak to 55 The real life truth is that you're going to take that steak and you're going to sear it afterwards. And so the stuff that's, you know, not right around the edge. In other words, even up to like, a quarter of an inch is going to be a couple of degrees higher than 55. So what I would do is I would throw it in at a higher temperature, I would throw it in at like 5737, maybe even 5857 is probably safer. Let it sit for like 1015 minutes, then put it down at 55, let the bath drop to 55 as it would let this this is for a thick steak by the way, thin steak just put it right into 55 Thin steak right under 55 I'm talking to fix steak, it'll come in you won't overcook the center, you'll overcooked by a couple of degrees, a little bit of stuff around the side, but you're gonna have denatured that myoglobin faster than it can deplete its oxygen as as it's packaged that way and you're better off there, you're gonna have a better chance of getting a better color of meat for your customer that doesn't like that cherry red. The other thing you can do that we used to do all the time is if you pre slice your meat, which is a good idea with steaks, you know I like doing is you, you bring it out, you do your your hard sear, you do your hard sear on it, I always drop the temperature down to 50 or even lower. Before I do my heart serious I don't overcook the meat. When you slice it, you can do a real fast flash under a salamander or grill or even with a sizzle, and just D Color that top and take it right off anyway, one of the things I've been talking thinking about more, since we answer that question, so I thought I'd deal with it. And then you know, we can talk a little bit maybe next time about the miracle of moisture management and how that affects low temperature CV cooking anyway.

That helped No one writes to us. No one, no one no one cares. Okay, we got a question in from Ben. I'm not sure if this is the best place to send this question. I guess it is because here it is. We have it right. But I'm hoping to clear up an issue I'm having when I attempt to deep fry a taco shell made of Nick's thermalized corn. So for those you that don't know, Nick civilization, you know, I like it a lot. It's like super awesome that it's the technique is where you take traditionally corn and you soak it, you heat it partially gelatinous it and in an Alkalyn in an Alkalyn mixture, typically calcium hydroxide or cow and you heat it in partially gelatinous is the starch in the core and partially cooks it, it also turns the outside of the of the corn into a goop and then you wipe the goop off. It's now easier to mill which is why it originally did but also the goop that remains and so like part of the art of maximization is how much you cook it ie how much it starts you gelatinous, how much you cook it out so much, how much water is it taken, etc? Also, how much of the cow do you have and how much of that cow tastes like calcium hydroxide tastes, which is what distinguishes a tortilla from a cornmeal flavor. And then how much you rinse off the goop on the outside because the goop on the outside along with the the germ from the corn, the fat and the other stuff from the germ of the corn is what gives masa which is the dough for tortillas. It's amazing properties and why you don't need to add anything else to it to get it to work. So anyway, so that's what Nixon was ation is. I continue with the question. The problem I have encountered is that when attempting to fry the next malai shell after property, cooking the corn using the maximization process outlined in the cooking issues blog, they tend to puff and become tough, not crispy. My question lies and the only solution I found to be effective over cooking the corn. When I'm next analyzing the corn, I could get to the point where it is soft all the way through. My understanding is this is not ideal for making masa but when I grind press and fry this overcooked almost gummy corn, the shells are thin and crispy. Any insight on why this may be I appreciate the time. Thanks, Ben. Okay, so now, it's been a long time since I've done heavy maximization work and many people many, many people have done a lot of work over the past Oh, you know, six or seven years whenever it was since I wrote that post on next amortization. What, nine? Oh, I didn't write. When did I write the nationalization? Really? Anyways, whatever, old man so it's been a while so I don't have it in my in my fingers and in my blood the way I did back then. But the puffing is usually a good sign when you're making a fresh tortilla. Right? So like most people, and remember, there's all different kinds of grinds of masa. So, of course her masa is going to puff less on a Kamal than a by the way did you say that you could Mr. Kumar before he tried to frame properly cooking the core initialization tend to Puffin. We see say when I am next month a quarter critical as my understand is not even a grind, press and fry your cooking it before you fry it right? You still have to fret you still have to cook it on a comma before you fry it. Right. I mean, like, I'm pretty sure you probably already do that because you have to do that. But it very fresh, especially very finely ground, tortilla should puff and be very kind of like light and like that's like a hallmark of a good style tortilla. I also like denser, coarser tortillas, those will not puff as much. So you could deal with the core sense of grind there. I've never attempted to overcook the heck out of corn to see kind of what happens. The other thing is that the fresher the tortilla is, the more it's going to puff. And so I have honestly never fried a tortilla the day I've made it because whenever I'm next analyzing I next analyze for fresh, soft use. And then if I'm gonna fry, I'll fry like day old day old tortillas not like the tortillas I just made that day because the amazing thing about fresh masa the taste of it is actually fine. The next day, it's okay, not fine. It's okay the next day, but what you're never gonna get back is that texture, you know what I'm saying stuff here, you're never gonna get that texture back. So here's what I would recommend one, just make sure that you're cooking it out on a Kamal like perfect, you know, well, because you need to get rid of some of the moisture in that cooking process. And to cook the tortilla together so that it has structure. One of the if you say It's gummy, if it's puffing and gumming it's got it must be having as it passes probably has the ability to store too much residual water, it's hard for you to dry out the tortilla. Frying a tortilla until it's crispy is essentially the art of removing all of the water from it. Before it scorches. I'll give you an example of how I fried tortilla chips. I take, I don't I don't mean I buy when I'm making tortilla chips, I just buy garbage tortillas, because I'm going to fry the heck out of them. Anyway, I shouldn't probably meant that, but I do. But you can throw a tortilla chip. And I think I've said this on the air before you can throw like a cut cold tortilla chip into cold oil and just ramp up the temperature because all you're doing is getting rid of all of the water that's in that tortilla. So if it puffs, it's probably going to be more difficult for you to get rid of all the water that's on the inside, then when it deflates, it's not going to be it's not going to be crunchy. In fact, if you take any fresh tortilla, and you fry them, and you fry them at too high of a temperature, right, you'll notice that some of the tortillas will start to brown because the water has left them and you have to pull them out and you'll notice a blonding area on the other parts of the tortillas and those will be soft. Even a marginally under fried tortilla chip is gross and tough. So like what I would what I typically do, and you know a lot depends on how fresh oil is. So if you're frying at home, I don't know where you're frying. But if you're frying at home. Older oil tends to color your tortillas faster and younger oil tends to make them more blind. So I always just test the texture of them when I'm pulling out if I don't, if I'm walking into a situation, I don't know what condition the oil is in. So you just pull it out, and you tap on it with your hand like you tap on it. And you can feel instantly with the tip of your finger. I mean, if you aren't used to doing this, you're going to burn the hell out of your finger. But if you've already burnt the hell out of your fingers, so many times that your finger has no feeling left in it. Like you can just tap the surface of a tortilla just pull it out for a second let it drain, tap tap tap feel the surface of it and know whether or not you've gotten rid of all the water obviously also like looking at it visually for the amount of bubbling coming out of it is a good sign for how much water you've gotten out of it. But what's interesting to me is that overcooking, it appears to have made it easier for you to extract all of the water from the tortilla. And I don't know why it's interesting that that's the case. But anyway, those are the in this order, I would maybe grind it not quite as fine. I would make sure you're thoroughly cooking it out on a on a we say a Kamal griddle is what we all use even like I use cast iron sizzle platter sometimes Doom to like let them sit around for a while to kind of cool off and retrograde before you fry them so that they act more like an old tortilla than a new tortilla and then maybe take your oil temperature down a little bit and let it fry until it stops bubbling but yeah, you don't want them to because you can take a tortilla chip that puffs and still fry it really crispy like witness. If you've gone to a Mexican restaurant that fries its own chips. You'll notice every once in a while you'll get like a hugely bubbled tortilla Chip. It's still crunchy as hell because they fried all the water out of it, right? Yes. Anyway, you want to hate Anastasia when they when they, when they haven't properly drained the tortilla chips and you get that tortilla chip with the bubble, but the bubble still has the oil in it. You're not talking about. You've never had that happen. You've never been in a restaurant and they give you that basket of chips. And first of all, here's another thing I don't like I don't like when the chips come and they didn't bother to unfold the tortilla. So you had that tortilla that's folded in half, or when they didn't bother to shake the freaking basket. So you have like three tortillas glued together and the one in the middle is that gummy nonsense. These are the tortilla files my friend you've had that happen to stop here at that is a tortilla fowl here at the top order of tortilla files at a Mexican restaurant. It's first not giving you tortillas smack yourself that stuff doesn't cost that much money. Give me some freaking tortillas. Right? Have you noticed this that recently they like like people have gone skimpier and skimpier on the tortillas when they hand you like a basket of tortilla chips, right? What that sounds good. So under fried tortillas, nightmare. Fried and rancid oil so tastes like cardboard friggin nightmare. Under salted tortillas, freaking nightmare and tortillas that they didn't they didn't bother separate.