Cooking Issues Transcript

Episode 180: Green Meat & Cyanide Cherries


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I'm Greg Blaze host of cutting occurred. You're listening to the heritage Radio Network broadcasting live from Bushwick Brooklyn, if you'd like this program was inherited radio network.org for 1000s more.

Hello, and we're back after a one week hiatus on cooking issues. I'm Dave Arnold, your host of cooking issues coming to you live from Burgess pizzeria in Bushwick. Brooklyn, joined as usual in studio with Natasha Hammond Lopez Haider. Sounds good. And we have Jack in the engineering booth and also for the first time in the engineering booth. What are you guys doing? We're great. Yeah, so why what is it that you that you do here at the Heritage Radio Network? Awesome. Full Service radio on Thursday nights, huh? Nice. Sweet. Awesome. And by the way, Jack, do we ever get? Do we ever get cutting the curd scheduled to call in and have a cutting the cooking issues?

Hopefully he's gonna come on the second half today.

Oh, nice. All right. So this last week, I was gone because I was in anastasius. Home state actually my home state, but we moved out. You know, I moved out when I was three. And Miss dassia had to stay in Covina long enough to see the filming of good burger before she came out to the Sweet Sweet east coast. I had no idea that good burger was filmed in your hometown. Yeah. So for like years did you walk around going buggy, buggy, buggy, buggy, buggy, buggy, or No? No, I think it was when I was in elementary school. 96, right. Yeah. Yeah. Classic. Sinbad. Do you remember the movie last? Single Sinbad is in? I think it's relatively late roll for Sinbad. But he is the teacher who's a little bit crazy. Who gets hit by like hit by the car by Dexter's car. And he's got super heat lapels, and a sweet sweet fro in that movie. My kids are now obsessed with good burgers.

Why it points out George Clinton also in that movie, George Clinton

was one of the dancing crazies in the institution. And yeah, you're like, holy crap. That's the actual Yeah, the movie has like, like lots of like, little kind of classic nuggets in it, you know? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. classic, classic. Good, good burger style movie there. But my problem is I can't get my kids to Stop imitating and repeating portions of it.

There's a good burger like in Union Square or something, right? They're not related. They're not really they must be somehow out related.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, I

don't know if he must have come first. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah.

But the question is is like, you know, can you start a restaurant called good burger and like not worry about infringing on good burger, the movie I mean, obviously it's helping you if people assume that you have Ed's special secret sauce, you know in your burger then I assume you are ripping off some of the IP of the movie and you know you should kind of be be punished for that to do some research on that. Yeah, we'll have someone check into this for us and tell us whether good burger the restaurant, I mean, I don't know that I want to be associated with a restaurant where you know, one of the employees takes a bath in the running strawberry milkshake machine. And I also don't really get the wisdom of having strawberry be your only flavor of milkshake. I mean, for for years. You know, Wendy had had the frosty and only one flavor of chocolate and I'm always a vanilla shake, kind of kind of guy. But you ever had the frosty stars? No Jack White ever had that? Love frosty? So here's the deal. Why the hell did they give you a straw with that thing at all? Oh, I know.

It doesn't work. And never, never, never never. I mean spoon. Yeah, I didn't know

those of you that have seen me in like, like a full like spitting red faced rant know that I have lungs. And like I can suck strong enough to completely collapse the straws under the force and vacuum for when I'm sucking on them. Even a perfectly round one that I haven't matched with any sort of pre anger. I can just like take a perfectly round straw. Like even if it has protective casing on it and suck that sucker flat in a frosty. And what this means to me is that the frosty should just be served in an open cup with a spoon. Yeah, you know, anyways, but I'm told now that they have no Frosties. I mean, I don't know what that's all about. Like they have extra space in a Wendy's restaurant now or they just have an extra flavor of frosty. I don't know. I don't know. But if you guys were gonna pick one flavor of shake, would it be strawberry? No, I mean, not as your personal favorite but as like you have to sell to customers. Now and this is why Mondo burger almost took good burger out of business I mean because they just think about stuff like that. Whereas you know all those other guys have is a pagoda by the way I would go to any restaurant is able to go to still alive. Oh, it's a good question. That's a look. I love me some a pagoda even back then in the 90s they were saying that he was about to die, which is kind of rough to save your fry cook. But anyway, good. Good times to people in Covina talk like that stuff. I don't know. I haven't seen them fast.

If God is still alive he's 93

I love Ava I love me some a pagoda Do you love able to go to ever go to one of the one of the people named checked in? I think was a hello nasty to the BCS check the pagoda. I don't know. Let me submit to go to. Okay, so Oh, but yeah, so where was i i was in California. And it turns out I went to someplace in California that I visited when I was like a very, very small boy that coastal redwoods, which are sick amazing. And by the way, that's where they filmed return to the Jedi like Ewok forests. So if you've never been to the coastal redwoods before, don't worry, the forest moon of whatever it is where the indoor, indoor Ewoks anyone anyway, so if you look at return to the Jedi, where they're flying through in the speeders and smashing into the trees and crap, like that's where they filmed it. And these trees are I mean, my wife took all the good pictures because she's got the iPhone five and I'm on like a like a flat four with like a like a cracked out camera. But like so I'll put some pictures up. But holy crap, there are some impressive sons of guns there. I live in a 20 story building and these these trees are almost twice as tall as my building. The tallest tree I saw was like top like 375 for the redwoods. And it makes like these awesome Douglas firs that are only like 300 feet tall look like puny mountains. You know what I mean? Meanwhile, any tree here would look like a shrub compared to the ones you have in there. I also visited the sequoias and Yosemite Yosemite amazing, obviously, but what I didn't know is kind of how awesome the kind of Sierra czar I went to. And also we went to Lawson volcanic Park, which is a national park in California that nobody knows about. And nobody was there like nobody, nobody like we like saw like maybe one car two cars and the hour and a half drive. We were driving to get to where we were going in Lassen State Park. And when I told the person that last in America, you know, my friend McGee told me I should come and check this out. She's like, you didn't know about loss? And I was like, No, she's like, it's a national park. I was like but I live in California she's like it's a national park where National Park I was like, Oh my God, there's such a chip on their shoulder. If you go to Lawson which is in like upper upper east of California do not mention that you're going to Yosemite because I went to Yosemite the the lady at the at the Visitor Center was like, I was like hey, yeah, we just got from Lawson Lawson. She's like Lawson. I was like it's a national park. She's like, Nope, doesn't ring a bell like it's in California. Nope. Like say like, like Lawson is like the Forgotten State Park. But it's pretty cool for those you that are in that area. And I was just really, you know, surprised and amazed at the variation in beauty in California, especially your coniferous forests anyways, so That's what I was doing. Oh I cook some good stuff on the cat by the way I cooked a crap ton of stuff with the sizzle boat ton of stuff with the series I'll make pizza with the sizzle because I was in one camp for two days so I did a 24 hour rise on the dough and then flash it off to the Sears on I had with me some some smart systems, smokescreen pizza and here instead of mozzarella and some parmigiana ones tomato paste and anchovies, some oil crushed it all up and the next day starts the ultimate cat food by the way. Risotto Allah Allah Allah with porcine sweets and so I had like the super expensive dried porcinis which are like you know, super expensive but super lightweight. Some Parmesan which doesn't need to be refrigerated obviously. I bought the you'd be happy styes the Italian Brodo cubes like the little like you know stock cubes that I normally won't use but for camping are great and it's busted that crap out. Kids didn't like it because I don't really like mushroom risotto but To hell with them. We got I mean I made them like leftover grilled cheese sandwiches by the way was on that did a picnic with a Sears all only did grilled cheese sandwiches on the banks of the Smith River with a Sears Oh, sweet and you know on the first night when you go camping you have ice so you have that's when you have your steak or whatever. Yes, this was sweet steaks, steaks. Sweet Sweet steaks anyway, okay. To what do you do this last week? How are this how the series is doing? Are they in the air? Yeah, they are. They're in the air ice. So that's that's the that's the current update there in the air from China on the way to the good old itaas Goonies here. Let's get some questions. Nick Malin writes in in Thank you Nick for providing the name now in like that ma L dash i in that he spells his name like Fallon but writes it like Eva, whatever. About green meat. Hey, Dave. I'm writing on behalf of a ChefSteps forum question that has seemingly gone unanswered, after 72 hours and is circulated waterbath 54 degrees Celsius. And what is 54 I can never remember 54 Is it? It's like 129 130 or something like that somewhere in there. The vacuum sealed short ribs were green on the outside, no smell, no funk, just the color was off. I did not add any salt or oil to the bag pre cooking. I simply had dried off the shorties before bagging them. Then after a seal them I placed them in simmering water for a few seconds to read any surface bacteria that can cause funkiness with long cooking times. And that was it. I gave them a quick sear, which I will soon be doing with my series All and enjoy them. People in the form of suggested air leakage or pre salting effect. But like I said, I added nothing to the bag and there was no leak. So we'd love to hear from you. Thanks, Nick. PS thanks for hating wraps as much as I do eat a damn sandwich people. All right, this is an interesting question. And I will start by saying that I have some links to point to but I don't have a definite answer. But I will say this in the many many years that I cooked boat, tons of short ribs, some sauce and with sauce cvwd. Because that was one of the standard things that we would cook in the low temperature class, we would cook short ribs, 8 billion different ways. And serum off because it's kind of a it's one of the classic low temperature things, whatever anyway, and also not just with short ribs, but with steaks and other whole whole pieces of meat hook up like this is they often do take a greenish tinge take on a greenish tinge on the very outside of the meat that goes away when you see it the second time, and it looks really really bad. In fact, you know, one of the arguments that I always would say to people because it used to be a big argument, do you see or before? Or do you see or after? And you know, the answer I always had was of course both. But if you had to choose one you choose hereafter because the surface of the meat not only doesn't look like it has a nice crust but often looks discolored and messed up and it gets fixed by like a quick sear because as you say it like that coloration is not necessarily come along with any sort of off flavor or funky flavor. Now when you when you cook something low temp for a long time, especially when you get as low as 54. In that range, you often have the problem of super funky blue cheese nasty meat stank, which comes from lactic acid bacteria and their relatives that are growing and often cause blow off in the bag if you get floaters. But as you say, I might want to go more than a few seconds but a dunk in simmering water does a lot to a kickstart the temperature right at the surface of the meat and to stop any bacteria that are at the surface from kind of penetrating in. Now, when you describe green, you also have describe kind of what color of green You mean because there's also and I don't think is what you're talking about. There's the phenomenon of iridescence in cooked meats specifically cured cooked meats but could be in non cured meats as well. And this is a physical structural phenomenon that you get you often see it and deli meats you've seen that before stuff like and that's not something to kind of worry about although some people don't like the look of it, because they think it means it's sperm, but it's not sperm. It's just iridescent meat. There's a lot of literature actually on iridescent meat. But that's not what you're talking about. I'm assuming what you're talking about. It's not bright green. It's more of like an army Blackish. Green. You've seen that before on the surface of the shortage, right? It looks disgusting. Yeah. And so then the question is, well, what causes that short answer? I don't know. But I did some initial research, there's most of the greening in meats is, and I'll send you to a couple of articles that are available on meat color in general, this one doesn't have so much about greening, but look it up. It's a on purdue.edu site, they have a meat color PDF, that is pretty good review on meat color. And unlike the reviews that I've been using, from like, four, four years ago, or whatever, which is last time I seriously investigated meat colors. This one's available free online. So if you go to www.cf es.purdue.edu, and search for their a meet color PDF, you can you can take a look at that. Another good resource to look at is look up, the meat industry services complete. That's a corporation meat industry services, they have a have a thing called Color defects in meat, and it's an update. And it's a good PDF. And you want to read about that because I think he typically, it looks like grinning colors in meats are due usually to sulfur. And so self myoglobin. And either sulfur or hydrogen peroxide are the two kinds of things both of which are usually present as the result of bacteria. They're there. They're on on the meat. Now.

Some of the bacteria are things like why Sella Vera dessins, which is you can look to there's an article called I guess it's Why sell and maybe it's vice LM anyway, if it's German, it'd be Fe seller via dessins in meat products, or review by Marta discover, which is out in 2012, which talks about which causes like kind of very vivid greens in meats. But and there's also a specific greening in meats that has a high pH. So I don't know if you had a particular piece of meat, for instance, meats that are hot have a high pH I are not acidic enough and cooked in that are stored in vacuum environments have a known situation where they can have greening take place on the on the on the surface. But it can also happen in in other environments if bacteria are there. And apparently it doesn't take very much sulfur presents, they form like I guess they form hydrogen sulfide or they break some sulfur off of sulfur containing amino acids in in the proteins. That's where that's where the sulfur is coming from, from the from protein breakdown that's on the surface. So it you know, and I don't think it's been studied that much in long, long term, low temperature cooking. But some of these bacterias the greening bacteria, if that's it is what it is, you know, take a long time to kill even at relatively elevated temperatures and actually can be strengthened by an initial heat shock. So it could be something there I don't know. But I know that searing makes it go away. Check out those articles. And anyone who else who can get back to me and give me a better answer. Please do got a caller. Caller you're on the air.

Hey, Dave, a huge, huge fan of the show. This is Ray, formerly DC now living in Crown Heights in Crown Heights. I just had a comment I enjoyed last week when you're talking about raw onions, I think in the email are called about getting a metallic taste. And I'm not sure if this is relevant to what they were doing. But I know Rick Bayless of Mexican cuisine fame talks about rinsing the the onions after he cuts them and serves them raw. And I've noticed a big difference in doing that.

Well, I would presume that's true, because you know, that kind of harshness in onions spec. So look, right. So there's some there's some chefs like, like, you know, Michael Palomino, who's like, I remember I saw him like, Go Ape, APE crap on someone because they cut their onions beforehand, right? Because you know, the longer an onion sits after it's cut, like the more this kind of problem happens, but the truth of the matter is, a lot of us have to cut onions beforehand for me's or for whatever or if you're going to serve it like in a salsa or it's going to be cut and serve fresh and not cooked again. And you know, the like I think almost all of this stuff that's happening in an onion happens after the tissues are broken, right? And so it's a reaction between what's going on in the broken tissues and juices and in this case, carbon knives, a carbon steel knives or any sort of like non passivated kind of steel surface or other metal ions for that matter. And so yeah, I would bet rinsing helps out because I think it probably gets rid of a lot of the free surface crap that's been kind of liberated probably even like a light soak. I mean, the problem is onions are so porous. If you soak them too long they'll just soak up the soak up you know water which I don't think is what you want but yeah, I would bet that works. I mean like yeah I usually

just give them a quick rinse and that seems to seems to do especially for salsa or anything if anything wrong nice I love the show and I like all the side note and I don't know I think it's been on the air and it's for a little while but the James Brown miso soup commercial

yeah

pretty awesome thinking my like it if you hadn't seen it

like so someone took which James Brown song did they take had

was one I think it was the one you guys used to use on your commercial breaks a long time ago. I don't know which one is the kind of remix it and it's it's a Japanese commercial. And it's it's it's bizarre, but it's highly entertaining.

And it makes it sound like James Brown was a huge fan of miso soup. Not that he wasn't I have no idea.

Oh no, it's him. It's him. Dave I'm

gonna break the rules real quick and just run this

Oh, man I wonder what

it sounds like you sing with Khalifa. Maybe he is I don't know. This company is awesome. Yeah, that's that's sex machine. By the way. You know who's playing bass on that is Bootsy Collins. Bootsy Collins was a very young guy on the tour bus when James Brown was working on that and he ended up that was kind of one of his like, big early bass gigs was a sex machine which is maybe why it's got such I mean look, all James Brown spaces were awesome. But I mean, I have a special love in my heart for Bootsy but that is a classic. I would love to like figure out like by listening if I can figure out what clips of his voice they took to make him say miso soup. And I like how it's not really doesn't sound like it was really mixed by a native English speaker because not exactly how I would have imagined James Brown screaming me so that's perfect though. Like it makes it even better. Jackie already knew about this and didn't tell me I did not know about this. Well, you've just I'm now going to probably waste several hours in the stashes life once we get back to the lab like like playing that and then figuring out in my head exactly where they chopped it up. So thank you. Thank you for throwing away several of mustaches. Precious as

she bows her head down.

All righty for your time. I appreciate it and keep going and rock on guys.

All right, Jack, should we take a commercial break?

Yeah, give me one second. You

can read that Wisam cooking is us.

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And we are back when he gets a couple of questions from Harvard next week. Oh, yeah. Go on with McGee and I are doing the Harvard lecture next week, we're gonna do the class lecture, which I normally are you going up this time says, I think so. I'm doing the class lecture, which, you know, McGee and I have done for the past what like three years now, four years, three years. Like for the initial one, like, and this year, we're not gonna blow anything up. Right? I'm not gonna I'm not gonna cause the entire Harvard Science Center to be evacuated, that remember the depress looks on those, like, on those undergrads, or grads, wherever they were in their lab jackets with like, staring at the ground and like, in the dark and cold when we evacuated them from that building. Yeah. Yeah, good times, not and the anyway, so I'm going to do that, which is the normal class you're going to do, I'm going to do some, hopefully some new demos, but I think it's just going to be rapidly slap, you know, demos, which shouldn't cause too many problems like I normally do. Hopefully, they're fun. I've got a couple of demos that are really good for that kind of thing. Like, maybe I won't spoil it because we think anyone's no one's listening. This now is going to be at Harvard. And I will talk about it afterwards. But I have a couple of demos that I really enjoy. Like when you do demos, like the good like the bad thing about doing demos over and over again is that Natasha tells you that you say the same crap over and over again. Same anecdotes, and it's not true. It's not true. It depends, like certain things like are. So here's what, here's where I'm going with this. So like the deal is, is that, you know, you know, when you've been teaching a while you come up with demos and you see kind of what really demonstrates something. And so like a lot of things that you think are gonna demonstrate stuff, they don't really work. But then other ones that you don't know, they do, like oil. And water isn't such a good demo that oil and water heated oil and water anyways. And so, you know, like, the good news is he would teaching as you come up with these demos that you know, you really like people really stick in people's heads. And if you do them for long enough or enough times, you really get to get a feel for what it is that sticks in people's heads about it. So you can really kind of like, you know, jigger the pedagogy around that crap. And so anyway, we're building we're building up a list of demos, and we're gonna bust some of them out at the at the Harvard going to be good, good. But then for the public lecture, Maggie and I are going to do a lecture we've never done before, it's going to be, although you've probably heard some of the same crap, because it's the stuff I rant about all the time. So if you're in the if you're in the Cambridge area, I think that one's on Monday, Monday, Monday evening, we're doing a public lecture and the subject of the public lecture is going to be what the hell's been going on the past kind of 20 years, and what's really going on, you know what I mean? And so it's going to talk about how, you know, the use of science is not just related to kind of these new technical and modern cooking things. It's going to be kind of how, you know, we don't think that what everyone's doing the same kind of, you know, analyzing the difference between kind of like what Wiley does what grant does at Alinea, or what other huckster things are like kind of where this movement is gone. And kind of what it means what people are actually trying to do when they do it as well as talk about kind of what's different in food now in terms of who's going into it as it's going into it before so this kind of a discussion and I'm sure I'll make some digs at my favorite targets like Arab ATS and whatnot. And I think we got to find are going to replay that video I did it Portland of the remember the stuff that we that video we made with Piper on like the crappiest cocktail of all time using all like the weak weak weak molecular gastronomy techniques that that I have no problem labeling is out because I think they're just PT Barnum huckster, crap, and just make it so I did a lecture at Portland cocktail week was that two years ago, year and a half to two years, and we did a video that was like all of the crappiest things you could think of like to do to a cocktail, like just the worst, worst cocktail. And and so we went through this whole two minute video, I can't remember whether there's music or not, there might have been music. If not, I'll put music on it because it needs some sort of stupid demo music in it. And then. And then at the end, like literally, we just flash up. This sucks. This sucks. Remember that? This sucks. This is terrible. This is everything that's wrong with cooking and cocktails. This is the worst thing in the world. And literally, after the demo, someone asked me for the recipe. It's the worst, worst, one of the worst moments of my life. It's like it's like I always tell people is you should any of you out there who can hear my voice have to do a demonstration. For a camera that where where someone has the ability to edit you afterwards. Never show them what not to do. Because you think you're helping. So like when someone's showing me in person. Like I appreciate it when they specifically do something wrong and show me how to do it wrong. So that I know not to do it that way. It's like so I show someone how to do it right or what I think is right, and then I show someone actually I'll eff it up. I'll make it wrong on purpose so that they can see it happening wrong. And then hopefully let them taste and see how screwed up it is and they do it wrong. Inevitably. editors use the wrong thing and put it up without explanation in video clips. Inevitably, it's just inevitable. So if you are ever in a situation where someone can edit you and you're not in the editing room never demonstrate what not to do. You've seen how many times you've seen it says a bunch. And then you're like no one knows any way to shut up if that's what you say. You say. I freak out about like nobody gives a crap nobody knows. Anyway, Rubin wrote in about Sherry Pitts. Dear shipping container occupants. I scored some delicious sour cherries this summer and have a couple of questions on putting them to use one I'm planning to make a sorbet with the cherries puree sweetened at 28 bricks, chill spin sounds good. Any thoughts on what sugar will ensure a good texture I understand the mechanics of freezing point depression and I normally experiment but don't have enough fruit left I've got dextrose fructose, liquid glucose, etc. I would just look I would just look up like a recipe. I don't have kind of the ratios in my head. I would just I forgot to look this aspect of it up. But obviously you can make something more sweet and make it softer or use invert and have it be softer because of the increased freezing point depression. I would love to look up somebody else's recipe and see kind of what they add. I wouldn't add I wouldn't add too much. I'm sorry. I forgot to look up the numbers now because that's stuff that I wouldn't want to quote out of my head. I just don't do it enough but to Here we go. Here's what I actually looked into for you. I have a lot of leftover pits any tips on working with them to safely make havening pronounce it and why Oh, right. Why oh pit knio or, or ice cream. I'd like to extract the most flavor, but I have no idea how to dose them to avoid cyanide toxicity and can't find any seemingly reliable information. I've seen some comments that roasting the pitch eliminates the risk, but not much in the way of justification. Can't say I'm gonna enjoy the show every week. Thanks you all, Ruben. So what we're worried about here is that any of the stone fruit and it's really the kernel, you know, I mean, not the not the not the meat, but not the meat and not the not the roughly crap. You know, I'm talking about the roughly crap on the pit. You don't need this kernel is when you taste them. And this is like, you know, any stone fruit, Apple, you know, pips all that stuff. What the problem with it is, is that it contains a Magdalene and megalin when you chew on it, enzymes can convert the amygdalin into sweet sweet cyanide, which is poisonous. But also benzaldehyde, which is the aroma we get from from like, you know, that almond extract benzaldehyde which is what we like it in an emirate or cookie or something like this. Now, if you're just throwing a couple of apricot kernels, which is typically what you buy here in the States into a batch of almond cookies, then you know, it's not going to be a problem. But when you're doing a boat ton of apricot pits, in fact, the cyanide level can or whatever, what are we using, again, you're using chairs, you can get enough problematic crap. Cyanide to cause problems. So man, and there is not a lot of information out there. So I will defer to you know, chemistry drink Meister Darcy O'Neill. So if you're not familiar with art of the drink, blog, Darcy is a chemist and kind of drink person. He's the person who wrote fix the pumps, which is kind of the game changing book on bringing back the art of the soda jerk. And fix the pumps is as old slang soda jerk slang for checkout the stack lady at the bar, fix the pumps. I think that's what it is. It's my memory. So he in August 31 2011, put a big post up on Cherry specifically, I think cherries, but any sort of stone fruit and cyanide in liquor specifically, it goes through the different steps you can do. And he's a second post on how to get rid of it. His take on it. But he did some calculations based on the number of milligrams per milliliter cyanide in standard pits that he was able to get off the internet. And like the amount that's there that yes, it is possible to have a dangerous level and that he wouldn't necessarily keep it around and recommend consuming it even though people have done it for a long time. Here's what he said, though, in the second part where he says how to mitigate the problems. One if you leave this stuff a long time. So here's what he says I'll just I'll just read his quote. Because he talks about how to get rid of invade distillation, which is possible. He also by the way just says buy oil of almonds we always benzaldehyde it and just have it done with but because he's thinking that someone is trying to make that flavor not that someone has a product that they want to get the best use of right I mean, I think the reason that you're not going in buying crap to make that flavor is because you have this product it has other flavors in it besides the benzaldehyde and you want to use these things so you know whatever. So you can't just go buy the flavor and have done with it. But here's what it here's what it goes.

Since distillation method isn't practical for the average person here's another though much slower method think months. Hydrogen cyanide can be hydrolyzed to formic acid and ammonia. Yes, formic acid the same stuff that fire ants use to piss you off hydro zation is done in the presence of water. So if you just infuse apricot kernels and vodka some of the hydrogen cyanide will decompose, but the process is very slow heat will help it should also be noted that formic acid as a fruity mustard aroma. Sorry. So aging it for a long time. Okay, and this is still Darcy. Okay, I understand your impatience. So here's one more method a number of sources have indicated that roasting the kernels at 176 degrees Celsius for 10 to 15 minutes will drive off the hydrogen cyanide. This could work but you have to make sure all the kernels are free from the shell and ground coarsely, I'd recommend adding enough water to make a wet mass and set aside for an hour or more to ensure that the amygdala and beta d glue glucosidase which is the enzymes that make the sweet smell can react afterwards spread the mixture on a baking sheet and heat until dry. There is no guaranteed this method will remove all the cyanide but it should remove some dry roasting is not effective since miglin is stable at that temperature. Also the boiling point of benzaldehyde which is the aroma you want is 178 degrees Celsius which is just two degrees higher than the cooking temperature. So you will most likely drive off some of the flavor component you are trying to capture. So So there you have, you know what he says about it. I'll also add that you could probably heat it. The problem is I don't know it's an interesting thing. I if I was doing it, I would just age it for like a year. or do it an agent for a year and and kind of see what happens to you if you're Darcy you're lucky enough to have the equipment you could actually test whether or not you've gotten rid of it or not. You guys can't. Anyway, so I hope that answered some of your questions on that All right, let's see where we are here. Stan be right wrote in we talked about his caramel so greeting from France. We talked about Corolla two weeks ago, three years ago, three or four weeks ago asked a question about replacing sugar in a recipe with caramel ie the same amount of cooked to a brownness sugar. I tried to also make more eggs with it and the result is interesting. And they go through the recipe I make a dry camo with about 200 grams of table sugar imported, well hot on 100 grams of egg whites being whipped almost the same this time around. After shaping them around. I cook them for two hours at 120 see quite a bit of a liquid caramel turn solid wood pouring into the egg whites who got a bit scary scary with caramel bits making strong clickety clack sound from the electric whip. Maybe a better technique would be add a bit of water into the caramel turn into syrup closer to an actual time ring that should lower the amount of crystallization before the caramel gets mixed into the egg whites are under prep. The taste was good, not great, but good and close to expectations but soon after baking and one's called the Merengues had a very brutal texture with a bit of crunch before turning to powder. However, after five or six hours, the mornings turned very soft, almost marshmallow like as you had mentioned on the show the inverted sugar. The inverted sugars and caramel do suck in moisture I would advise to serve quickly or keeping your dehydrator. So your update on whether or not what we say makes any sense. He also says I appreciate your thoughts that caramel taste can come from cook milk solids might get some milk powder and toasted brown or cooking in the oven and butter as per ideas in food blog posts from 2008 on that and then see how it goes. And then as a side note, he gives us an article on on like the scientific article on pizza cheese. What do you what are your needs in a pizza cheese? Do you like blistered bubbles on your pizza cheese is important. You know? Apparently it's very important. If you look up here is the recipe for perfectly brown pizza cheese as established by science. If it's good interest, it's very interesting reading for those of you out there that are interested in why certain cheeses, you know, bubble and boil not and I'll give you the short answer. It has to have some fat but not that much and fairly high moisture as well as being elastic and cohesive, aka mozzarella, but you know, hit you know, standard question was could you use like a Modernist Cuisine style emulsifying salt technique to make a cheese that acted like that that had a different flavor? And I think quite certainly the answer is yes. Just have to get the fat content, right. And in fact, they hinted this in the article get the fat content, right? Increase the stretchiness of it by with proper multiplying salts, but not enough to make it like milk out totally. And then and then make sure you have enough water most beneficial work. Yes, yes.

So we have one color that we can squeeze in before the show ends.

All right color. But we have more than one that we can squeeze in. No. But

do we have time for one call?

Alright, caller you're on the air.

Hey, Dave, it's Brian here in New York. How are you

doing? All right, what's up? Good.

I just want to say thanks for all your information on ice cream recently, but I haven't had a chance to implement it. In part because I recently got an allergic reaction and had to go through battery of all kinds of allergy tests. Oh my God come up with is the possibility of something called to look it up pancake syndrome, which is dust mites. Dust mites getting into flour, or flowery powdery substances. If if it's got heat or humidity, so you know here in the New York weather that that might be a cause. So now, based on this, and the reason it's called pancakes syndrome is those people who you know, put some pancake mix in the back of their cupboard and every, you know, every six months bring it out to make pancakes, you know, sometimes come down with a allergic reaction in which they've digested dust mites unknowingly, and therefore, come down with the reaction. So one of the things is, is got rid of lots of my flowers. And now the recommendation from the doctor is keep it all in the fridge or the freezer. And so what I'm wondering is, with flowers and sort of powdery stuff, is there any consequence to keeping these items in the in the cold in the fridge or the freezer? Okay,

I got some answers for you on this. But here's me ask you a couple questions First, the test that they did, were they were they were they bio assays are they new skin prick tests? I freaking hate skin prick test and let me tell you something. Like, I am like, you know, a pasty white, like Northern European mud, right? And so, like for those of you that aren't pasty white, like, you know, pasty white people have very sensitive skin. And so it looked like I was allergic to every dang thing on the skin test just because that will It'll like that little freaking thing that they scrape into your arm like that gives me a freaking reaction. You know what I mean? I hate that test. I think it's completely inaccurate and crappy. What do you think?

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not as crazy as you but I definitely got some bumps and stuff from from all that

but then they they verified it with like an actual kind of like bio assay

to take Yeah, they drew some blood. So yeah,

that I believe, like those things I believe. But back when I developed my cherry allergy, they didn't really have all that crap yet. So like, literally they were like, Oh, you're allergic to lobster. You're allergic to what I'm allergic to getting jabbed in the frickin arm lady, you know what I mean? Anyway, okay. And I love the story about the pancake things. Pink pancakes, syndrome, stars do pancakes. Pancakes syndrome. And my other question before I answer, your question is, is it that the that you're directly allergic to the mites? Or is it the mites trigger reaction that now you can have, even without the mites, it's stuff that you're directly allergic to the mites?

It's the mites, you know, it's it's that you know, if you if it's one thing if you don't know you're breathing it in the you know, might be might be, you know, on your bed or something like that around your house, but if they're getting into something that you eat, and then you're eating them, then it's higher concentration. And that's

the problem. So I like to have some more

smoking pot versus, you know, eating it, or

oh, now I thought you're gonna say Bill Clinton it like but they're not inhaling. But the so here's my other. Here's my my other question, which just came into my head. What about cheese mites? Or like the mites on meat like on like ham mites and stuff like that? Those? Do those crossovers only flower mites?

I have no idea. I didn't even I didn't they told me dust mites, the the allergist, but you know, I don't know if they can test for all those kinds of different different variables. You know, they can't vote

for everything. Right. But how bad is that reaction? Is it hospital? Remember, they

said it was severe reaction? Yeah, so it's

hospital. So like, what I would do is like, the next time you go into talk to the allergist, I would stop by, you know, a cheese shop like Marie's or something, and get or whatever, and get like a, like a really mighty cheese that has, you know, some rind on it, don't eat it on your own, you know what I mean? But like, when you're in a challenge test situation with your doctor, just unless they know, like, you do a search of literature and they say no cheese mites aren't a problem. But, you know, get get some of that, you know, just so that you can know for a fact whether that's going to be a problem or not. But I'm just curious, you know, this is probably a known thing, but I just wonder how kind of how specific It is to this specific kind of might. And also, you know, if you've ever stored hams, you know, dry aged hams, which we're doing ham testing next week. The they also can have mites and you see like a dusty powder Enos, it's underneath hands, if you've been hanging on depending on kind of what's around, you want to make sure that you're not allergic to that kind of stuff, too. If you like, you know, long cured meat products, or if you like, like cheeses, just and I just wanted to check out because I've also found that, you know, a lot of times, you know, a doctor won't necessarily like think to tell you that they might know it or they might not know it, but either way I would check before you have to stab yourself with an epi pen and go to the hospital just for eating something. You know what I mean? Yeah, I gotta tell you that every time I know it sucks and yeah, and you know, they expire every whatever it is and you have to get a new one. And you know what the thing is, though, dude, I don't know how bad off you are. But a lot of times I've had kind of mild reaction start and I always carry with me Benadryl and so and I don't know if they still make it but the last time I bought it they they used to make like Benadryl and like Listerine strips, it gets into your system extremely quickly. Unfortunately, you can't do it if you have to drive home or whatever because it not you know it makes you super drowsy and knocks you out. And I also feel very strongly that Benadryl destroys my sense of taste for hours. So you know, you don't want to have to take it you know, it's I don't take it lightly. But it's a lot you know, because once you stab yourself at the epi pen, you have to go to the hospital I mean that's basically it. But if you you know if you just if all you're doing is taking Benadryl and you self monitor for a little while as long as there's someone there with you, you know, I don't feel the need to you know, go to the ER you know, because you can start well I don't know what you have with me my throat closes up and so you can kind of feel when the reaction is happening anyways. Now to answer your question, Do not store it in the fridge and the reason not because you don't that you don't want to store it in the fridge is there's a boatload of condensation that can happen especially if the thing is greater. Yeah, freezer Yes. So that's why these guys don't store it in the fridge stored in the freezer so I buy quite often a couple of brands of shoe potty flour and other kind of like whole grain soft Indian flowers because I liked them. pancakes actually, and in biscuits because of the flavor that they have, but the brands that I buy, almost always have larva in them that hatch. And so eventually they'll get buggy. And if you've seen like a flower that has that kind of stuff, it gets kind of little ropey threads in it. And then if you look closely, you can see kind of stuff that's there, and then you have to sift, everything sucks. And so for years, like, and I don't do it with, you know, gold brand or anything, like, you know, I use hackers actually, but you know, with those, because I've never had a problem with those, but I store all of those kinds of specialty flowers in the freezer always. And, and they're fine. They're fine. You know, I what I do is I wrap them, I put them in zips, and I get rid of all of the air in the zip so that there's not a lot of you know, you know, when if moisture does get in the fridge, it doesn't condense in high school form on the flour. I've never had a problem with it clumping. I've never had any degradation of the quality. You know, it's it's been, it's been fine.

If he's if he's worth not like mason jars that are that are fully sealed.

Well, he actually in a mason jar, you have more air because you can't compress them down. I usually keep them in their sack, and then put the sack in a zippy, roll this and then compress it down, and then get rid of it cuz you actually can get more air out of it that way. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, now, but here's, here's the heads, I had a caveat. Oh, yeah. One caveat to remember is that it like I don't know what you're making with it, but it's gonna throw off all of your temperatures. So, you know, if you're used to things hydrating in a specific amount of time, or if you're doing you know, mixing of breads or anything like this, just be aware that you're, you know, it's not that it has that much thermal energy compared to the water that you're adding, or milk or whatever. But if you have a recipe, it's where the temperature of the batter or whatever or in yeast on a bread is, is, is critical that you might just need to adjust it a little bit or lead up to stuff that are going to use come up to temperature, but I haven't had any problems and but you know, like I say that stuff I mainly use for biscuits and pancakes, so So I hope that helps.

Great. Yeah, I'm, I think I might need to get another freezer because I don't have enough room for everything that I want to sneak in there. And I gotta put my my Mafa in there. I gotta put my I gotta put all my baking flowers. I gotta put, you know, all the different, you know, different stuff in there?

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, if you're gonna, if you're gonna, right away, if you're going to use this stuff, I mean, depends on how long you're going to store this stuff to right. Here's another thing that is true. Once you get and I know this for a fact, with with hands, right? Once you get like a mite. There. I mean, like, for most of us, it's totally harmless. And it's like, they're just there. It's not because it's not like a hygiene or whatever, you know what I'm saying? It's just they're there. But once they're there, like I know with him, like you can not have a hand for like, it seems like a billion years, and then all of a sudden you get another hand and all of a sudden they're back. So I don't know whether you're going to have a problem where you need to kind of decontaminate your pantry somehow. And I don't really know how to do that. To kill them all. But I mean, it might be a situation where you only have to store your long held stuff. I don't know, do you know what I mean? You also might be able to, if it freezer space is an option, most of these things probably can't grow in a hardcore vacuum atmosphere. So then if you want to go to a FoodSaver situation, you might be able to vacuum pack your flowers, not in a bag, because that'll compress the hell out of them and a lot of sifting work for you to do. But like in a hard container, like a vacuum pack might be able to reduce their ability to read to reproduce. I don't know, I'm just I'm just saying this is a possibility that I'm picking up off the top of my head. And it might be easier for you to do dry storage of the vacuum containers, you have to make sure that the vacuum is being maintained, maintained over over a long period of time. Or you could just take small samples and vacuum them down hard and bags and then just deal with the sifting. Because I've done that before on certain things. But just be careful. When you're vacuuming powders. If you use a strong vacuum to vacuum powders you can it's like I've like when you're when you're dumping powders into bags, you can aspirate them. And if you're having a problem if there's already some mites present, you don't want to be aspirating a lot of this stuff when you're baking or cooking. That's another point I want to make is that your allergist might not be a cook and so they might not think about the difference between cooking with something and and consuming it. So you might want to be extra special careful when you're working with flowers, not to not to cause a lot of, you know, aspirated particles like it like we've all done it where we fire up the KitchenAid a little bit too fast and it goes Whap Whap Whap and throws a flue for flour up in the air there I might be a little more hardcore for you at this point than it would have been like a year ago. And so you might want to also take care of when you're doing that just to minimize your experience.

Yeah, that's, that's great. That's great. Yeah, you know, gotta get that out of the freezer. Because, you know, I got my I gotta put the hydrocolloid in there, and I'm not sure you know, what's going to grow? And in what, for sure, or, you know, paprika, and, you know, you know, ground spices. I mean, I try to grind as much from fresh, but

you know, yeah, well, I don't know, did he grow in that step? Well, again, you're gonna have to experiment. But like, why don't you get back to us? And let us know. Let us know what happened. And I'm interested to hear what happens. Especially Ari, that cheese and stuff like that. Alrighty.

Yeah, sounds good.

All right. Good luck with it. All right. So Jack is going to rip me off the air in a second. So here are the questions I didn't get to. And I'll get to them. Adam Rogers, the author of proof good book, A wants to know, like how high I have to pour liquid nitrogen above your head to have, you know, evaporate before it kills you. Maybe we'll get to that next time. Have a question about phenol from Michael wants to know if we can make it taste more wine, but we'll deal with that next week on keel Clayburgh, wrote in about custard. I have answers on that. But we'll have to wait for next week. And also a request that we get one of the Momofuku. What's it called fermentation experts and on the show, we should do that some time. All right, and a question which would have been perfect after this flower thing from Sam on the autolyse step of bread baking by, you know, which popularized by Raymond Colville, famous bread guy again, we'll have to get to that next week. This has been cooking issues.

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