Cocktail Hour Part I: The Guys Fail to Discuss Ramen

 

Hi everyone!  Very special episode today!  We host the very first (and possibly last) Hot Dogs and Caviar Cocktail Hour.  By which I mean, we were drunk.  We tried to discuss ramen, but things didn't go as planned.  Whaddayagonnado?

2:25 Jesse Tries to Stump Tarver and Nate — A Lengthy Digression on Latin American Cuisine

16:26 Tarver Gives Praise, and Loses the Plot

18:00 On Brining

21:36 Country Pate

25:17 TK says WEIGH YOUR EGGS

Links

During the episode, we talked a lot about Heston Blumenthal's chicken liver parfait (and TK's insane decision to make it with oysters).  Nate and Tarver have both staged at Fat Duck, but the insanely good pate is actually something we'd been making for a while, before that happened.  Sometimes, great recipes show up in the most unusual places.

Additional Content:

The Displacement Method: Tarver glossed over something worth talking about, when he was ranting about brine.  If you don't know how much brine you need to cover something, the solution is simple.  All you need to do is put the item (or items) in a container, cover them in water, and then weigh (or otherwise measure) the water.  It's so simple!  And yet in 15 years of cooking, it never occurred to me (Jesse).

Brines: Ok, so this is a real topic, too much for this post, and Nate-Dogg is gonna cover it soon.  Stay tuned!