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.

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for cookies is coming to you live on the zoom from the Lower East Side and Stasi Lopez as usual from Stamford, Connecticut. How you doing this Dasha? Good? Yeah, I was a little nervous because when they boot it up the sound it was like it was playing at like Barry White half speed and sounded like real torque, whatever it's called chopped and screwed. But I feel like we're back to normal so so we're okay, we got Matt Matt with Bucha unit are you in the Rhode Island booth are in the Brooklyn Brooklyn,

Brooklyn booth and that's an exciting development that plays weird speed for you guys. Don't even want to think about that right now.

I definitely don't want to think about it. So we have a special show. We have a bunch of guests today. So you know Nastasia you've known him for a while, you know, met him a couple times. But the guest for today is Adam Leontine but it adelante you there Adam?

I'm here

not not just a you know, well known chef chef worked your first big job was what with Marc Vetri or

Yeah, was that you for about 10 years? Yeah,

so chef but then somehow like went into the world of first through pasta right but then into bread and then also into milling your own flour via like some sort of like stopped like work that you did for a couple of years in Italy right so it's like this kind of long road but you've become one of the Guru's of the mill your own flour and bread baking movement. Would you say that's accurate?

That is accurate. Yeah.

So you wrote it? Yeah. Adams book, the flour lab. No relation to the Food Lab. By the way the flour lab is came out in 2019. And I think no one really expected it but with the COVID there has been an explosion in interest in kind of home milling. So astonishing. I contacted Adam to be on the show and then it turns out that he had his own idea. So here is what Adam wants to do. For those of you that are listening, Adam wants to do a show. That is a mash up of kind of car talk for bakers look like 3am Like cable access love line calling in kind of a situation, what would you say that's accurate?

That is accurate? I get a lot of desperate messages early in the morning. And so I thought it was only appropriate for the time,

right? So now we can't really have callers in here. You know now because we're not like, you know, we're, we don't have that capability right now. So what we did was is we were doing a test run of atoms like poker after dark bread, baking love line situation, in cooking issues, and we've gotten people to write in the questions and then this dasya has some of her friends, my friends, her friends who are going to read the people's questions as though they were calling you at 3am To answer these things, right. Perfect. All right, so Oh, by the way, before we get started, I know that, you know, probably our listeners aren't like this, but at Adam's bread, just if you hadn't had an Adam's bread is extremely delicious. I'm just gonna go ahead and say that it's extremely delicious. And it kind of the the first time I had it because the Brooklyn bread lab was where I first tasted your bread is right near Roberta's pizzeria. So we stopped after the radio show a couple of years ago, and we got a loaf. And you I know you're no longer there. But at the time you were you gave us a tour, it tasted a loaf. And it kind of changed my whole mental attitude of a what a whole wheat loaf could be even kind of what is like a sourdough lovin loaf could be and kind of like the, what freshly milled flour can do for you because he had his mill in the center of his of the of the lab, he was making the flour and then baking the bread. And the bread was, you know, as a kid in the 70s. like whole wheat was kind of this dense, like kind of terrible thing that people ate kind of for health reasons. And things that were considered sourdough were typically rather like they had come from slack DOS, because they had gone overly acidic. And the kind of structure had been lost on the inside. And they had a chew and across to match that, right, like the acidic dough would have. And this was none of those things. It was incredibly delicious, like amazing crumb structure, great taste. And I was like, I gotta learn how this guy makes the spread this way. So that's, you know, that's why I was interested in reaching out to have you on the show. That's just a

he's also making bread at Sofia's constantly, so you can still get it.

Nice. Alright, so anything you want to say before we start this or No,

I think that was a great introduction. I mean, you kind of covered it all. So let's go for it.

Alright, and then after this, I'll pester you with my questions from your book. And we'll talk about my misadventures in flour milling by the way, those of you who are old like me and tried milling flour in the past with some things like let's say a Kitchenaid grain mill, like that's, if you've ever used one of those grain mills maybe that's why you don't like grinding flour because they are garbage. Yeah, I like the KitchenAid corporation but those things are garbage and we will talk about it later unless you're brewing beer in which case it's fine. Okay. So the first question in is going to be answered bounced sourdough is going to be from Harry Cuthbertson and is going to be read by Mike Van Dorn friend of the show boondoggle Oilers fiance and adult diaper expert might go. Hey, Dave,

the hammer, Matt and pence, Adam and any others that I've missed. I'm a pastor and a chef from Tasmania, Australia. And I'm the stereotype for your show. I'm 36 white male married. I buy too much kitchen equipment but my wife's cool with it. And it's a tax write off wink. A blank sourdough at home with local book commercially available Baker's flour. It's pretty stock standard flour. Is there any real benefit to milling at home? Is it worth the hassle? The bread I'm currently baking is good, but how much better could it get? Thanks for your show. You guys are the best seems like New York is coping a massive pummeling from this COVID 19 virus you guys are in my prayers. She is Harry see.

Right. So correct me if I'm wrong. But I believe folks from Tasmania really love coffee. And kind of the same idea applies from coffee to milling your grains is a lot of folks are used to having maybe, you know, in their youth something pre ground for coffee every day. But as soon as you start to get, you know, into the more modern era of espresso and your little espresso bar from down the street, you realize when they mill it to order it kind of makes all the difference. So if you're going to improve your bread and you're already happy with it, if you added a portion of fresh milk flour, it kind of it definitely has the same effect. It just doesn't oxidize and therefore all the flavor is there. When you put it into your dough,

well, let's see anything about this Adam. So it's like having just tested because I'm sure you don't go out and bake bread anymore with you know, flour that you buy at the store. Right? But Dhaka has been right DAX has been baking bread, you know, primarily he's doing the Gimli he No need bread, right. But he's been baking it with, you know, relatively decent, you know, flour, AP Hector's and it's good, right the texture of it's good. We let it you know, we were targeted in the fridge for a couple of days a slow rise for like 24 hours, then we returned it in the fridge for a couple of days. So you know builds up since late rates good. You know what I mean? Yeah, but then when we used we use first some relatively recent stuff milled by somebody else. But when we started milling our own warthog lectures that we were using, it's like you're like, oh, all of those flavors that are things that you need to hide. They're all flavors when the stuffs been milled and sitting around for a long time with the germ and the brand and an oxidizing those are actually things that you crave and love if you use it right after you melt right when you say that's true.

100% I couldn't agree more.

So mean like what's not the bread made from flour if you make good bread is going to be delicious. But there are these other flavors and I think this is where like the coffee thing really comes through there are these other flavors that in general you see as bad things in in kind of old stale commercially. No flour, because they aren't bad at that point. They've been ruined. They've been

oxidized. They've gone rancid. Yeah, exactly.

Right. But when you have them fresh, they're great. And so I think that's the difference. So I mean, as a recent convert, because I've just got a decent grain mill up working at a time I think it's I think it's good. Anyway. So I guess we have also met who know who's up who's up next. Okay, so longtime listener of the show Capri Sun, Capri Suns question will be read by Jordanna Rothman friend of the show, as long time she likes to pummel us. So we use Peter Kim is our punching bag. And then Jordanna comes in and punches on us pretty much.

Why haven't people pushed the tuning and development of home grain mills to the extent that has taken place? The current high end espresso grinders? Does it just not matter? And the final product love bread shot of espresso.

Well, I mean, the I think the answer is in the word espresso meaning like Express really fast. To have your result, you know, end up in about 30 seconds from an espresso is immediately gratifying where breadmaking inherently is a long process, even even the shortest made or time to make bread is is still at least 45 minutes. So a lot of folks aren't all that patient. I think one of the reasons why bread baking has taken off so much since we've been in quarantine is that there's a lot of time on folks hands. So it's not that the milling isn't something where it's not that it's not worth it for flavor, it's 100, it's absolutely worth it for flavor, it's just that the time that's needed to then make bread after milling, the milling only takes a few, a few seconds, or maybe 10 minutes, if you're gonna make

you're not using a whole meal, if it only takes a few seconds to

a few minutes. If you're doing it at home, maybe 10 or 15. You know, not too bad. But certainly not as quick as it is for just a few ounces of coffee, like an espresso.

I'll give you another thing on this as well is that if you go back in time, if you you know are old enough to go back in time to like 2001 2002. Like nobody. Nobody had commercial espresso machines, machines or grinders at home. No, buddy. And you know, the kind of the height of home espresso making at the time was the LA Pavoni. Europe Piccolo, hand press machine, right. And there were websites devoted to you know, how to try to get the best professional shot out of your your Piccolo. And, you know, the best grinders that you could get at home are these kind of burr grinders kind of with the advent and espresso wasn't that huge deal, frankly, in the United States either like you know, none of the huge stuff that really hidden hit here like on the west coast in Seattle, you had you know, Schomer and Versace and you got other people who were starting like the rumblings of the kind of espresso revolution here but it hadn't happened. The what happened is a bunch of rich people started buying commercial espresso quickly. At home, and then, you know, people who weren't rich, like myself started buying commercial espresso stuff used on eBay. And there was already a big market for commercial espresso grinders and commercial espresso machines, like for espresso bars. And once big companies realized that there was this next tier of idiots like me who wanted this kind of like semi pro crab, then that semi pro crab, which was just dumbed down versions of the commercial stuff became available, like the rancilio Rocky grinder, which I still use to this day. So I think the reason another reason is, is that there was this whole tear of things that could be dumbed down to home use. And Adam, you are actually talking to these mill people saying that they should hit the pros, if a bunch of pros have intervention will trickle down to the home jerks like myself, right?

Absolutely. Yeah, that was that was really the the idea when I started talking to folks from different milk companies was, if we can get it into a commercial kitchen, and and people start to talk about it at that level, then it can trickle down. Exactly.

Because Because what you don't understand what most people don't understand as a as not manufacturers, is that the cost to make, like 100 mils, MOQ Mills is like, a per mil is extremely high. Now, if you were making, you know, 15,000 of them a year, then the price drops considerably. Also, the amount it costs you as a seller to sell each individual one because your salary is going to stay pretty much the same. The cost to sell each one of these units goes way down and things can become cheaper, they can become more reasonable. You can you can use different kinds of tooling, different kinds of manufacturing, you can get it much cheaper. So it's very hard to market something inexpensively unless you're making a lot of them, you know?

Absolutely.

All right now we have a friend of the show, deep voice master and our favorite Grinch stand in for every Christmas episode. Phil bravo to read a question. And we had this for you, Adam, because I know that you are a lover of olive oil, and a lover of things Italian so he's going to read Ashmead Caitlin's question.

Hey, Dave, and the issues gang. I have a question about olive oil. Now it's gonna be inflammatory for some people. So prior discretion. I think that olive oil is not that intrinsically superior than most oils in the market. I'm not talking about the health aspects which honestly, I don't and you don't care about, but the actual taste of it. The extremists evidently enjoy the taste of raw olive oil by itself. Now I get that that could be nice with like a reduced tomato sauce or something, but just in its raw form unaided. It's so overpowering, and tannic to me, as a North Indian, I am obviously not that exposed to it, which might explain my dislike. I much much prefer ghee, or if anything mustard oil in my cooking. Now the question is, is raw olive oil really that great? Am I just an outlier? Or is it not. And there are cultural and historical factors at play, or both, in some sense. Also, I've tried converting myself by daily tasting 10 grams of raw EBU or olive oil by itself for one month, just in case I might eventually like the taste of it. And the result is that I hated myself for that period. Thank you. And hope you all stay well. And so sorry for this question being this long?

Well, that's an easy one. But you know, obviously, flavor is in taste and subjective. However, I think Sticking with the theme of freshness, I think, fresh olive oil, certainly is something that's not available to everyone. And if you're gonna go about your objective tasting, maybe start with something that was also freshly put on a stone mill, much like the wheats. In Italy, a lot of times, it's just in November, when they start to press it and you get this really bright, fruity flavor. But you also have to consider just how many varieties of olives there are. So perhaps the olive oil that you're tasting isn't the variety that's for you. So I would certainly try to exhaust those options before you write it off. I think a majority of the population in the Mediterranean would agree that the olive oil is maybe not superior, but certainly the olive oil of choice for the table. And if that's not quite enough to convince you to keep, you know, researching if you go down a YouTube hole of Turkish oil wrestling, which is on the western side, I'd past Istanbul, you should get into small oil after that. So that's, that's my answer.

So my two cents on this one is, I'm going to give you a little bit, I'm going to give you a little bit in the sense that if you're going to heat the oil, like a lot of it's like, taste properties. And you're right, I don't care about the health properties, the suppose the health properties are kind of obliterated by by high heat. And as Adam says, If you don't like the taste of the olive oil, then by all means, use something else. But I mean, I just happen to love the taste. And the way to learn to love olive oil isn't to taste it on its own. Because also, frankly, like if you take a spoon, where the olive oil hits you on the tongue and how you inhale air afterwards is going to radically change like you could have a sample of oil hit it, you don't get a lot of pepper Enos and then you hit it, but you inhale a different way or hits a different part of your throat and mouth, and you'll get an entirely different sensation of that oil. And this brings it back to the episode, the best way to taste olive oil is on bread. And I have to say, olive oil on bread with salt is right up there with butter on bread with salt as two of my favorite things to eat. So, I mean, I would I would kind of try it. I would try it, you know, that way as something, but it's definitely a condiment? You know, I think there's very few dishes, that dishes that require it. Yeah, finishing oil, for sure. But I mean, there's certain kinds of pastries that kind of require that olive oil to really be themselves. And there's, you know, the famous olive oil, ice, gelato, but I get your point. If you don't like it don't Don't, don't use it. Right. I don't know.

Oh, 100%. Yeah. And I think, you know, I think the part of the answer the quote was in the question when he was talking about with the reduced tomato, that kind of goes to what you were saying it's a good condiment, you know, something's very acidic, it's really nice to have something that's sort of fat and luxurious to counter it. So certainly have it with items I don't, I don't think it's probably the best showing of just walking around drinking it by itself.

Yeah, also, I will say this one last thing, sorry. But like the olive oil, the olive oil, kind of the evil empire of olive oil hegemony is run by the Italians, right. And the, the Italians in general for their judging off in favor, extremely green, extremely broad tasting, biting, heavy, phenolic kind of oil, nothing. You know, I mean, I'm, like bucking kind of tentacle oils, they, they really, they favor that, right. And so kind of the more throat ripping, the better. And one of the reasons as Adam pointed to is because that throat ripping stuff goes away as olive oil sits around. So even before an oil becomes rancid, and actually becomes destroyed, it will lose some of that fresh green biting kind of flavor. And hence, it is prized. There are many cultures around the Mediterranean, who make it and you know, also in California and also in Australia, who make olive oil that doesn't fit those criteria. And yet, the judging is still based around that. So perhaps you prefer one of the more quote unquote, buttery of oils, because there are a lot of olive oils that have a lot of flavor, but aren't huge throat rippers that said, I love throat ripping olive oil, but that's me. You know what I mean? And what you think anything more you think we're gonna

Yeah, no, that's that's definitely true. I remember I spent a little bit of time in Spain when I was living in Italy and would visit Spain and some of those olive oils were much fattier, which was really surprising, a little less throat ripping. But then it kind of made sense with what we were eating because the food was actually a little bit more throat ripping on its own. And there was more spice involved there was a little bit more, you know, pecan Tay style heat, you know, so an olive oil didn't really need all those characteristics. And you could see that definitely in the food and how they were making their olive oil. So yeah, certainly cultural. That's that's that's a good way to look at it.

Also under Stasiuk like must be loving this format because she hasn't said squat. Um, how many pairs of shoes have you bought on Zappos?

I'm just keeping everybody in line that's waiting on you to finish the questions so that they can read their questions later get on with their day.

What's with the snark on the waiting the question getting on with the day the job is to answer the question,

I know that it's just like it's, it's a ball. Anyway, as long as Okay, well, I'm just waiting for you to have the last word on the question. And then I'm like, Okay, get ready. It's your turn.

But I know them when it's their turn. They can hear their name. Yes.

Some people don't out.

Okay. Now, the next person reading a question. I don't know, I know her, but I don't know her well enough to jab her make fun of her. So I'll just say, is reading that fan off of Instagrams pizza question will be a Rachael Cruz gota. Why is

a 60 to 92nd Pizza bake different from three plus minutes at cetera? Is it because there's less time for moisture to escape the dough or something else?

That's the easy one that comes from Naples, the city of Naples, which is where my grandmother's from, that's a very specific dough cooking method to a town that has made its own system and hierarchy or have or have pizza. Really, what it does is it leaves a dough that's wet and kind of soupy a lot of people actually really don't care for it, when they look at it over say a New York pizza. I used to go to Naples maybe once a year, and would bring someone with me that had never been. And they're always so surprised on how quickly it was baked and how unsatisfying it was to them. I think it's really interesting. I love when I'm down there to try it. But it's really a preference. In those ovens, also, just to give it a little bit more than just the flavor or how it's culturally made. They're very hot, you know, there's somewhere between 650 and 800 degrees Fahrenheit. So one of the things is to get the dough in and out as quick as possible to get another pizza sold. Because it is a business and it's also inexpensive food in Naples. So it's something to have for lunch. And not necessarily and I'm sure I'll get in trouble for this, but don't take it too seriously, just kind of eat it and go monk, you know about your day afterwards. They're usually like, five to 10 euro for what would be like $30 here. But you get a big burst of heat, which makes all the co2 in the dough expand really quickly. So you get like the the big outside coronet credito, the little corn on the outside little holes, that comes from high heat. And then you just get that soft interior. It's really more stylistic than anything, you could take those those and bake them differently. You could make them longer, you could get crispier. And it would just taste different. And maybe you would like it. Or maybe you wouldn't.

And in your book, Adam, correct me and correct me if I'm wrong. But in your book, you give different recipes for different styles of pizza dough. And a lot of it has to do not just with the place. So you have an April, you know Neapolitan, you have a Roman one and Connecticut one which we have time we could talk about later. But then you talk about how the dough and not just the flour, which you talk about a lot as well. But that's you know, getting in deep for people who aren't going to do their own milling, but how the hydration changes depending on the oven that you're using and how the heat is applied. And that's not something I think that a lot of people talk about in non specialist non pizza specialist books anyway.

Yeah, try to get the idea across. Because if you're gonna bake in your home oven, to achieve something that tastes professional, you're gonna have to kind of deal with it and provide the recipe so that way you don't have to actually like create your own recipe but to get an understanding that with a lower temperature or something that's not maybe also equipped with a heavy stone, which helps keep heat regular and in kind of the same throughout the whole time that you're baking. You have to mess with the hydration to kind of mimic your favorite style because the style that who you're into or whoever is into. To achieve it, you're going to have to mess with the water because it's going to be relative to the amount of time that's in your oven. So to have neapolitan style pizza in your house, you're gonna have a higher hydration it's kind of ferment also a long time to counteract that Dominus, that quick bake. So you're not really eating quote unquote raw flour. You're eating something that's been digested by yeast for a long time so it's easier for it to bake, easier to digest. And also, it just mimics that that feeling that maybe you have Naples when you have like a Detroit pizza. It's something that's baked in a pan so inherently is going to be slower. Because the pan is going to be cold, it's something that you're gonna have to form in the pan and then put in the oven. So you're gonna have to kind of change for that effect on the time there. So that's going to be you know, closer to 30 minutes really for something like that to bake kind of like a big pasta. And then the the other things are, the water in the dough is going to determine how the dose stretches. More water generally speaking, makes it easier and more elastic the dough. So for Connecticut pizza, those are big pizzas, they're not the little 350 grams. Oh wait, they're much bigger, they're like 20 Something inches. So you need a little bit more water in there too. So you can stretch it which is kind of interesting. So there will have an effect based really on what you're trying to achieve and the pizza that you're into. So it really comes down to style. And pizza is I would say the food item that the people I know are most comfortable with getting in a fight about people love to argue about pizza in my experience so

just so people know like some of your pizza recipes are like up like like almost 90% hydration and then some of them are as low as like 56 60% Hydration so he's really he's not just he's really pushing the hydration in different directions based on what you want right like your your pizza Romana is looking at like 56 or 60% hydration.

Yeah, exactly. Because those those pizzas that you see in the windows in Rome are kinda like I mean pizza and bread are very much almost the same thing. And those are a little bit more bread like a little bit. They're not as thin you know they're not as delicate they're slightly more hearty and that that effect comes from having the lower hydration

This episode is brought to you by vendor table a monthly food subscription service for avid home cooks focused on delicious and sustainable pantry items. Here I am open up my box. Let me see here. It comes with a delicacies France and an essentials. I got floor to set now Florida sell now. This is from I swear to sort of God mg Fe and then I got Rancho Gordo's classic Castlebay been I love. I love Cassie Leigh. It says a beautiful white runner being developed by French farmers over generations to be the foundation of the classic s who lay now I have never made a castle lay with the official beam before I better hurry up and cook it though it's going to get too hot for castle as soon finally Christmas lima beans which I don't know anything about all the meat of a conventional Lima with chestnut flavor. bold enough to handle chilies curries are just a drizzle of olive oils. I'm interested in that I've never I've never had this before. It does not look like the kind of green lime as we have it is white and it kind of looks like a drawing like a woodblock woodblock cut of like wood and grains got a real kind of cool look to it. Alright, looking forward to cooking with it. Go to vendor table.com to start your own monthly subscription use the discount code Hrn to get $20 off a new subscription and bend a table will donate $10 to support cooking issues and all of HRMS programming. Right next question is from Erin Melville and will be read by Jordanna.

It may be worth mentioning how much the quality of the flour can influence the pasta taste. I didn't fully appreciate this until I moved to Emilia Romagna from the US the pasta dried and especially fresh can be so flavorful and varied here in Emilia Romagna where I live now, supermarket flour can be very good here in Italy, where I live as well. But there are particularly fresh and excellent flowers from small, local, Italian of course producers that can change the taste of the pasta dramatically. Of course, I'm sure plenty of good producers are in the US that may be worth seeking out but I wouldn't know because I live here in Italy.

Alright, what do you what do you have to say to Aaron slash Jordanna?

Well, there is a certain amount of romance that goes in with pasta. And oftentimes with bread dough starters, people like to name their starters. But pasta is also something that the provenance of the flour sometimes evokes certain feelings and nostalgia. And the reason I mentioned it is because the reality is that a lot of a town and brands in Italy serving in Italy, get their grain, or even already pre milled flour from the US. So that is something that is oftentimes confusing. But the arable land in the US, especially for grain is many times larger than like the entire country of Italy, which is pretty incredible. When you think about it, if you go all the way down from Utah up to Canada, you know, that's a very large area, mostly growing wheat. So Italy buys a lot of it from the US they have survived from Australia, and Ukraine. So it's not always the effects of it being grown in Italy, but maybe the Italian standard on what it is they stock their shelves with. So the properties that these Italian producers are, you know, looking for, is probably a little bit more flavor driven. So when they make a wheat kind of compilation, so when you buy an all purpose flour, there's usually seven or more sometimes 11 Different wheats that go into what makes an all purpose which would be double zero, in Italy. And in the US, we might choose our combination for strength. And to make it more foolproof to bake at home in Italy. The double zero is oftentimes selected for flavor, in addition to the other properties of maybe elasticity, or protein. So you know, if you're getting something from a local mill and emilia-romagna That's great. In the US, if you're lucky enough to live generally in your bigger cities because they have the larger market farms will bring their grains and flowers there. But small towns often sometimes have less options. You know, we're lucky in New York to have a lot. And in Italy, when I worked in Italy, we actually use all of our flour came from a mill right in town was just a few miles away from the restaurant. I hope that answered the question.

By the way, you're reminding me at the end of the show. Hopefully we have time you know Matt will remind us but the Stasi hates fresh pasta so I want for free anyway. Wally from New Orleans has the next question. This one will be read by Mike vandoorne

Like everyone else I'm trying to make bread again. But like the last five years of attempts I still can't get that light in Hymer thin crust light crumb that lasts exactly 12 hours before it needs to be used in bread pudding or crumbs poboy loaf actually pistol that's I've had some nice looking love since I pipe seen in them from the pressure cooker. It's a great spring but the Chrome is still leaden I found a bond me recipe that looks doable, but it calls for bread enhancer. Well, there was is a run on that too. What does it do and what can I substitute it for? I found lecithin, citric acid, wheat gluten. Also, I was robbed last week buying a pound of fresh SAF instant gold dust east as the block that I bought in the Bahamas three years ago seemed a little tired. Although it was only open for to any other advice other than go visit the family in New Orleans.

By the way, for those of you that don't know the Lighten Heimer I believe and Adam can correct me here. But that's the bakery in New Orleans that I think makes the official poboy loaves but it is a New Orleans bakery. poboy of course is the sandwich that everyone gets in New Orleans and people are as jazzed about that bread as the specific like people are super jazzed about bond me. Lowest payment. Adam, do you have anything on this?

Yeah, I think this is an interesting thought because it's not really a question in the realm of health or like flavor, because typically those those bond knees and, and those kinds of French bread, things aren't known for flavor, but none for textures. So it really sounds like this guy's trying to achieve a certain texture. You know, I wouldn't want to speak on behalf of specific bakeries, you know, on what they're using, but oftentimes, those kind of more industrialized products are EES Abramo ated mixture so they brought me the flour which is a sodium bromide, which is illegal to use in a lot of European nations, but we embrace it here in the US. It's like a dough fixer helps things rise and also helps with the coloring and the crust. That would be one One way to go about it is to use brominated flower for your, your texture, because we're talking about texture here. The other way is to use malt. There's dry malt, there's a couple of versions, but I prefer using the molds that kind of looks like honey was like a syrup. A little bit of sugar goes along way, in a crust or texture. So I once had it described the crispiness of those behind me, threads should almost sound like walking on, you know, like fresh, late snow, that little bit of crunch. So that comes from having a little bit of sugar inside the dough. If you're not using a dough enhancer, such as bra mated flour, you know, get into the sugar realm a little bit, try that. And then also, before you bake, you can let a crust start to form on your dough. So make sure it's exposed the air for a certain amount of time before you fake it. And then we'll also get a little bit more crispiness but can make your bread a little more dense. So it's a slippery slope.

So I'm reading the ingredients here that are on one of them. And it looks like it's got wheat gluten, so that's going to increase rise, but also going to take a little more water and make it harder to work with. Right for sure. It's got also whey and milk powder, that's going to make it brown more. Right. Exactly. It's got dup now, as opposed to maltose to sugar, it's got diastatic malt, meaning they're adding enzymes that are also going to break down some of the starch into the broken starch into sugar and cause the yeast to rise more dramatically. Is that correct?

Yeah, you'll get a faster rise from that kind of mole. And then

it also has ascorbic acid, which is vitamin C, what is the what is the antioxidant thing doing there? What's the effect of vitamin C on the bread?

So vitamin C and also in the presence of acidity to if you actually add different like vinegars to DOS and whatnot, is, is for strengthening it, it kind of helps with the overall structural strength of the dough, which will really make it more dense. It doesn't make it more elastic, it just improves the strength. So I II, whatever the product you're reading, you're probably using a softer flour. So that way it's an A like a lighter feeling bread. So we've got like a wonderbread quality and then they add vitamin C to give a little bit more strength to achieve the crust.

It's so funny because it's counterintuitive, right? Because you think that like over acidic dose, if it's too much acid, obviously, it weakens the gluten and makes the crust not brown, but a little bit of ascorbic acid kind of goes the other direction. It's kind of interesting.

Yeah, you can use it and puff pastry too. You'll see some people do that. That was where I first learned how to use it.

Cool. All right. And now we have from one magic ninja, Phil Bravo.

Hi to all of you out there in the far flung reaches of heritage radio. I just bought a bag of beans called horse gram from my local Indian grocery store. They're tiny beans, and they vary in color from dark brown all the way to light tan, but unfortunately, so are the rocks that are hidden among the beans. rinsing them in a colander has proven to be futile, as both the beans and the rocks are roughly the size of mung beans. I've picked over the dry beans and then soak them and pick them over again just to be sure. After pressure cooking the beans are soft, but remain intact. And you just you just can't tell when you spooned up a rock until you crunch one between your molars. Is there some magic bean cleaning trick that I can try or as I have no horse should I just throw them out to avoid breaking a tooth during this global pandemic? I love the show and grateful that you all keep on keepin on during these trying see 19 times.

Wow, Phil. Adam, before you answer that I know some of the that's the last one of the ones that we're having read by callers. I want to thank Phil, I want to thank Mike I want to thank Rachel I want to thank Jordanna for reading those questions for us and doing the tests. We appreciate it. And Adam the reason I had them read this one for you is because when you're buying wheat at home Um, sorting your wheat is another thing you're going to have to do wheat or rye. And so I thought maybe you could talk about that as well.

Yeah, no, it's great question. What so here's the thing to add is also kind of breaking that fourth wall of the romance of baking and cooking is, you know, much like, you know, I always talk about it with grandmother's how people really adore grandmother's. But at one point, they weren't grandmothers and probably did some pretty evil things. So don't always trust those sneaky known as same thing is with farmers, we have this sort of adornment with all farmers. And as we should, I mean, they do feed us and it's kind of the most important job one have on the planet. But you know, there's a way to make ends meet. And there's certain farms that aren't really run by an individual and more of a larger company. And it all comes down to their care for the product. So with grain specifically like wheat, I always look at the grain before I buy it and kind of just mull over it. A few things you can learn just from looking at it with just a regular like, say breadmaking wheats, whether it's hard or soft, or spring or winter, look at this, they are all the same sizes, they're all the same size, then probably the seed that was used is more or less a sea that wasn't made for flavor, but was bred for production. So they're all kind of uniform, which will let you know that they won't have too many interesting flavors going on kind of just one. But also, if you look past that, you if you see stones in your grain, that means they're not using a seed cleaner, which kind of just sorts everything out, there's 120 130 year old equipment and patents out there on how to separate these things. So you don't have to separate all the rocks at home except for maybe the errant one here or there. So if your beans are full of stones, to the point where you're nervous of ruining your teeth, I would absolutely throw them in the bin and get a better quality being a being that someone loved and someone cared about and was like, what separate the stones out for you before they get there. So that way, when you check out, you know, if there's some stones, there's maybe only just one or two, because if it's full of stones, then the farming practice really didn't take the time to clean it or take care of it. Which means other things could be in there. Other things that you don't want, or even in the growing process before, who knows if your beans were just blasted with pesticide, and that would be worse than eating a rock I imagine. So it just kind of means that someone didn't care for the beans, or probably a inexpensive B and the jump and bean quality prices and all that much, I wouldn't mind paying $4 A pound as opposed to to if it meant you got to stay out of the dentist. Right. And there's