Podcast Companion: Half in the (Mail) Bag!! Drunk Jesse and Sober Nate Answer Listener Questions

Hi everyone!  This was a FUN one!  Sorry it took 2 weeks to come up, Jesse had some technical issues with his macbook last week (JESSE SMASH).  But all is well, and we're back in business.  

Also, Jesse would like to apologize in advance for his state, the only time he and Nate could find to do this was after a social function that left Jesse somewhat worse for wear.  This wasn't exactly a Cocktail Hour episode, but homeboy was a little loose.  Listen up at 3:08 for an epic belch.  (All jokes aside, it's getting harder and harder to find time we are both off, since Nate works mornings and Jesse works nights, but we are getting creative.  If we have to cut an episode after a night out, you'll just have to deal with the consequences of Jesse, just like everyone else does.)

So anyway, we went into the mailbag and answered a few questions.  We got into the best way to cook a steak for home cooks, we gave a little gravy boot camp, and we answered a really fun question from alert listener Tim Lillig about the possibility of making a Reuben pie.  Oh, and Jesse blindsides Nate with an Iron Chef-style challenge that was patently ludicrous.  Have fun!

Time Stamps

1:50 The First Question: How to Best Cook a Steak

3:08 Jesse’s Epic Beer Belch (You Have Been Warned)

4:00 How to Buy a Steak

6:38 The High-Low Principle

8:14 The Tempering Principle

10:14 Jesse’s Method (The Fine Dining Butter Baste)

12:30 The Flipping Controversy

14:47 On Digital Thermometers

16:50 The Importance of Carryover Cooking

18:55 2-Zone Grilling

20:16 The Second Question: What Are Some Great Gravy Tricks

20:30 Great Gravy Starts with Great Stock

24:20 The Grocery Store Chicken Trick

25:49 The Wondra Solution

28:39 Kitchen Bouquet is the Dirty Secret

30:27 Korean Soy Sauce

34:24 Jesse’s Crazy Iron Chef Game

41:55 Tim’s Insane Reuben Pie Question


52:35 The Spaghetti Incident 

Supplemental Information:

First, Jesse's instructions for making turkey stock require a bit of clarification.  When he said to bring the stock to a simmer, and then go sit and watch two Royal Rumbles, he never stated exactly how long that was.  About 5 hours.  A Royal Rumble PPV is usually about 2.5-3 hours long.  Also, he didn't clarify whether he meant the match itself, or the whole PPV.  This kind of imprecision is beneath our standards, here at Hot Dogs and Caviar.

Second, Nate tossed off the term jus rotie without any kind of context or explanation.  Let's clear that up now.  In French, it just means 'roasted juice.'  What this means in practice is a sauce made from roasted poultry bones, which is actually pretty close to gravy.

Third, the guys talked about compression.  Specifically, they talked about using it to get cabbage to bind with Activa, aka 'meat glue.'  This bears explanation.  Compressing is when you put a fruit or a vegetable in a cryovac bag with a liquid.  Then, you run the vacuum cycle on full blast.  The reverse pressure blows all the cells of the food opened wide, and then when the vacuum is released, those open cells suck in all that liquid, changing the texture.  You can use it to make interesting candied fruit, for instance, by compressing fruit in simple syrup.  Works well with melon.  Thing is, you need a chamber vacuum sealer, and home cooks don't really have access to one.  Any pros wanna give it a go, awesome. 

And then the thing with the Activa (Moo Glue, meat glue, don't mess with it unless you know what you're doing, but if you do, I'm about to blow your mind).  So Activa, transglutanimase, it binds protein.  It's the way they make boneless deli hams that don't fall apart on the slicer.  It's really interesting, versatile stuff.  In Modernist Cuisine, the author figured out that if you bloom some gelatine, and then compress plants with it, you can infuse them with protein.  Which there's no earthly reason you'd ever want to do, unless you want to make something out of plants that's bound with Activa.  In the book, it was rabbit loins wrapped in blanched leeks, and it looked absolutely sick.  Again, this isn't really stuff for home cooks, but damn, what a cool trick.

Links: 

Jesse talked about his beloved Korean soy sauce.  Just like everything else, the Evil Empire has deals on it.  Here's the link.

Diastatic malt powder, same situation.

We talked about Aligot potatoes, the gooey, cheese potatoes hailing from France's Pyrenees region.  Here's a recipe.  Don't know it, never cooked it, won't vouch for it, but on a cursory going-over it looks decently legit.  Really, we just wanted to give an idea for the dish.

Speaking of potatoes, we also discussed Heston Blumenthal's denatured mashed potatoes, the ones that you can reheat without them getting all gluey.  Here is a link to a recipe.  Know that 72C is about 161.6F, and all you do is hold potatoes at that temperature for a whole.  I circulator makes this easier, but it's not impossible on a stovetop, either.  If the temperature fluctuates a tiny bit, the trick still works.  You WILL need a good digital probe thermometer, but we've already been over that.

That's all, guys, this was a fun one!