Podcast Companion, August 9th: Culinary Boot Camp! Big Pot Blanching, Choosing Which Cooking Fat, and Other Stuff, Both Useful and Goofy

 

Hi everyone!  Nate had a fun idea for this week's cast.  He wanted to spend some time doing a deep dive into some basic topics.  On this episode, he covers blanching (boiling) vegetables, and Jesse gets into how to select the proper cooking fat.

Also, they get into a bunch of nonsense and tell stories about pranks.

Time Stamps:

0:59 The Double Scare Prank Story

6:21 Introducing Culinary Boot Camp

9:35 Jesse’s Stage at Jacky’s Bistro

12:45  The Sarah Duncan Revenge Story

14:24 On Big Pot Blanching

27:16 The Thomas Keller Effect

35:20 On the Additive Nature of Best Practices

36:45 How Not to Make Your Stock Suck

38:35 How to Choose Your Cooking Fat

42:42 Nate Gets Pissed Off, part what, like 97?

43:44 Butter is Different

44:45 On Ghee, and How to Sauté in Butter

53:50 On the Evils of Seed Oils

47:48 Jesse Visits the Skylight Inn for 100 Mile BBQ

Note: So one place where our culinary knowledge ran aground was when we were discussing whether salting blanching water meaningfully jacks up the boiling point.  Jesse had been told this was the case many years ago, and accepted that knowledge uncritically (which honestly isn't like him).  Meanwhile, Nate had done some reading that debunked that, at least, to a degree.  

Well, we did some research.  According to the arbiter of all knowledge and trivia (by which I mean Google), 58g of salt raises each kilo of water a half a degree celsius.  So, if you salt your blanching water at a ratio of a cup to a gallon, which isn't unreasonable, that would be 243 grams, into 3.8 Kilos of salt, or a ratio of about 63g a kilo.  This would mean you are raising the boiling point by just about half a degree celsius, or about 1 degree Fahrenheit.  Looks like Nate wins big on that one.  Better luck next time, Jesse.

{Goddammit.  -JS}

Link: 

Nate made reference to this article by Dr. Cate Shanahan, on the evils of seed oils.  It's worth a read!

That's all for this week!  See y'all again soon.