NTT: If Waffles Could Fight Pancakes

Summary

Cooking Issues – "NTT: If Waffles Could Fight Pancakes"

Podcast with Dave Arnold
Date: May 30, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this lively episode, Dave Arnold and co-hosts Joey, Quinn, and Jack tackle an assortment of food and cooking questions, swapping stories from classic diners, reminiscing about fast-food favorites, and getting nerdy about kitchen gadgets and techniques. The highlight: an inspired debate—if pancakes and waffles could fight, which would win? The team also dives deep into burger experiments, the craft of poached eggs for high-volume service, and the mystery of what really gives cocktails their body.

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Key Discussion Points & Timeline

1. Show Open and Host Banter (00:11 – 04:00)

• Dave Arnold welcomes the crew and shares an anecdote about selling silver coins with his son, highlighting the quirky tools ("numismatic action") used to distinguish real from fake silver.
  • Quote [01:12]:
    “He pulls out some fake silver, drops the fake silver, and it makes one sound, and then he drops the real silver and it makes a different sound. He’s like, real silver’s more musical!” – Dave
• Patreon Perks: Quinn runs through Patreon benefits—early access, exclusive deals, detailed recipes, and blueprints for kitchen gadgets.

2. Kitchen Innovation & Gadgets (03:43 – 06:20)

• Dave describes his homemade, 3D-printed, miniature "row tap" sifter for precise particle analysis in flour, inspired by industrial machines.
  • Quote [04:56]: “I built a small 3D printed row tap. And I haven’t fired it up in total yet, but hopefully by next week I’ll have some particle analysis for you, folks.”
• Discussion about custom mill calibration and the minutiae of grinding adjustments on home mills.

3. Allergies, Cross-Allergens & Google Complaints (06:20 – 09:03)

• Joey shares a story about finally discovering a severe dust mite allergy after extensive testing.
  • Quote [07:23]: “Huge, you know, red rash and big welt. I’m like, oh, God. … And then he comes back and he’s like, whoa. Okay. Severe dust mite allergy. Thank God.”
• Dave expands on cross-allergens, sharing his own experiences (tree pollen, cherries, loquats) and the relief after immunotherapy.
• Frustration over unreliable Google/AI search results for medical advice.

4. Food Adventures: Cheeseburger Fried Rice, Scallion Waffles & Giant Pancakes (09:03 – 12:40)

• Dave reviews Nick Wong’s pop-up, specifically the cheeseburger fried rice ("smells and tastes like you’re eating a fried rice Big Mac"), lamb neck taquitos, and scallion waffles.
• The team discusses food fusion and the harmony between chef specialties—in this case, pancakes versus waffles.
  • Quote [11:12]: “It smells and tastes like you’re eating a fried rice Big Mac. It’s ridiculous.” – Dave

5. The Great Pancake vs Waffle Debate (12:38 – 15:53)

• The central bit: Pancake or waffle in a “fight”—which wins?
  • Consensus [12:52]: Waffle wins for structure and density.
  • Joey [13:02]: “It’s a brick house right there, man.”
• Reminiscences about IHOP and Waffle House, childhood diner nostalgia, and the magic of syrup caddies.
• Hilarious anecdote: Royal Canadian Pancake House’s “Ask me about my sausage” campaign and deep-fried challah French toast (blooming onion style).
• Quote [15:03]: "Imagine a waiter coming up to you with something that says, ask me about my sausage on their lapel. You're like, no, that's not. All right. No, thanks." – Dave

6. Cookware and Toasting Technology (19:04 – 27:07)

• Quinn’s Smashburger Experiment: Quest to create an Oklahoma-Style Smashburger with frico (crispy cheese) onions.
  • Key insight [21:05]: Onions in smashburgers act as a built-in nonstick.
• Burger bun debate: King’s Hawaiian, Portuguese sweet rolls, English muffins (sandwich-sized).
• Toaster Science: Deep dive into toasting one side vs. both, plus Dave’s experience testing antique and modern toasters for a video.
  • Quote [25:14]: “I'm a big believer in the top and bottom of the bun being soft and the toast being what is touching the interior.” – Dave

7. Simplified Semifreddo & Dessert Textures (29:12 – 34:42)

• Quinn’s Jam-Only Semifreddo: Attempt to simplify semifreddo to whipped cream + jam; notes the result is “greasy” and lacks fruit depth compared to gelato.
  • Quote [29:55]: “Yeah, they get a little greasy to me. Like straight, straight whipped cream has like a weird ... it's hard. So when you bite into it, it's kind of hard. And I think that's what makes it seem kind of greasy to me.” – Dave
• Team riffs on the word “semifreddo” (“Sounds like Godfather character!”) and classic Italian desserts.

8. Fast Food Ice Cream: Blizzards, Carvel Cakes & Milkshakes (35:16 – 38:49)

• Everyone votes pro-Blizzard (Dairy Queen); favorite mix-ins include M&Ms, Oreos, Reese’s.
• Dave waxes nostalgic about Carvel cakes (“I love everything about Carvel ice cream cakes”) and expresses a guilty fondness for cheap fast-food shakes—even if they "feel sick" after.
• Frosties (Wendy’s) and soft-serve compared; technical differences in overrun (air incorporation) and stabilizers discussed.

9. Upcoming Guest Tease: Burger King Innovations (39:14 – 40:43)

• Excitement for an upcoming show with Burger King’s culinary team. Jack prefers Burger King over McDonald’s; debate over best fast-food fries.
• Hope for iconic "Burger King crowns" at the taping.

10. The Mystery of Cocktail "Body" (40:43 – 49:04)

• Listener asks what polydextrose and glycerin actually do to the structure of cocktails.
• Dave: It’s NOT simply viscosity; xanthan or guar make liquids thick but not “structured”—the effect is “not well understood.”
  • Quote [41:35]: "It’s not viscosity...what it’s actually doing, I don’t think is well understood...I know it works, and I don’t know why, and I don’t think anyone really knows why. But it’s not just viscosity."
• Compares this to the misunderstood experience of carbonation (not just acidity).

11. Poaching Eggs at Scale (49:04 – 52:08)

• Best poached-egg workflows for restaurants: sous vide-style "62-degree eggs," rapid poaching via big batch, proper holding techniques.
  • Quote [51:09]: "There was an extreme non-zero chance that they wouldn't reheat the egg enough and it would be cold in the middle, which also sucks. Remember that? Anyone remember getting a cold poached egg where the center's not heated enough? Nightmare."
• The evolution of egg poaching technique—from onerous, one-at-a-time methods to "dump them all in!"

12. Hot Dog Preferences Preview & Sausage Talk (52:51 – 54:32)

• Teaser: In-depth hot dog chat coming with a future guest, but Dave outlines his preferences (high-snap, sheep casing, size 22–35).
• Discussion of classic “NYC beef sausages,” merguez, veal, and duck hot dogs—how spice blend often trumps meat choice.

13. Listener Questions: French Fries & Boquerones (54:32 – End)

• French Fry Methodology: Dave’s triple-cook oil-only approach; timing, salting, and achieving the perfect crust.
  • Key: Oil blanch, low-temp first fry, let steam off, final hot fry.
• Boquerones Advice: Refer to Hank Shaw’s method, eat within a month if in oil.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• [04:56] Dave (on DIY row tap): “I built a small 3D printed row tap ... hopefully by next week I’ll have some particle analysis for you, folks.”
• [11:12] Dave (on cheeseburger fried rice): “It smells and tastes like you’re eating a fried rice Big Mac. It’s ridiculous.”
• [12:52] Jack (on the big question): “It’s the waffle. I think the waffle is going to win.”
• [25:14] Dave (on burger buns): “I'm a big believer in the top and bottom of the bun being soft and the toast being what is touching the interior.”
• [29:55] Dave (semifreddo disappointment): "Yeah, they get a little greasy to me. Like straight, straight whipped cream has like a weird ... it's hard. So when you bite into it, it's kind of hard. And I think that's what makes it seem kind of greasy to me."
• [41:35] Dave (on cocktail body): “I know it works, and I don’t know why, and I don’t think anyone really knows why. But it’s not just viscosity.”
• [51:09] Dave (egg poaching nightmare): "Remember that? Anyone remember getting a cold poached egg where the center's not heated enough? Nightmare."

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Episode Highlights

The Waffle vs Pancake Debate

• Majority rules: In a hypothetical fight, the waffle's density and structure make it the winner—"It’s a brick house right there."
• The debate pivots to diner/dive culture and childhood nostalgia, with plenty of digressions about syrup caddies and breakfast sausage.

Nerdy Kitchen Tech

• Dave’s passion for building quirky, ultra-niche gadgets (miniature row tap!), and granular discussions about mills and toaster mechanics, offer a treat for culinary gadget heads.

Technique Deep-Dives

• Smashburgers: How onions double as nonstick and why frico cheese is challenging.
• Poached eggs: Evolution of technique, scaling up for restaurants, pitfalls to avoid.
• Cocktail structure: Real food science talk—what is “body,” really?

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:11 – 04:00 — Warm-up, Coin Stories, Patreon
• 04:00 – 06:20 — Row Tap Sifter & Mill Precision
• 06:20 – 09:03 — Allergy Test Results & Cross-Allergens
• 09:03 – 12:40 — Cheeseburger Fried Rice, Pancake vs Waffle Setup
• 12:38 – 15:53 — Pancake vs Waffle Debate, Diner Memories
• 19:04 – 27:07 — Smashburger Experiments & Toaster Tech
• 29:12 – 34:42 — Semifreddo Dessert Test, Italian Dessert Tangent
• 35:16 – 38:49 — Fast Food Ice Cream, Blizzards, Carvel
• 40:43 – 49:04 — The Mystery of Cocktail Body
• 49:04 – 52:08 — Poaching Eggs Efficiently for Restaurants
• 52:51 – 54:32 — Upcoming Hot Dog Episode Teaser
• 54:32 – End — French Fry Triplet Method & Boquerones Q&A

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Summary

This episode delivers Dave Arnold’s trademark combination of playful banter, deep nerd-out discussions on kitchen kit, and solid culinary technique. Fans of food science and diner lore alike will find memorable moments (and a few hot takes) as the team debates waffles versus pancakes, shares food hacks, and teases upcoming fast-food deep-dives.

Transcript

[Joey]

Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues.

[Dave Arnold]

This is Dave Arnold, your host of Issues. Host of Issues. I do have many issues. Cooking Issues Coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center, New York City Newsstand Studios joined in the studio. It's just me and Joey today. Just. How you doing?

[Quinn]

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

[Jack]

Yeah, good to see you.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, just a chill day. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jack]

And I got to meet your son.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, Dax came in. Dax, you know, is my younger son. He's 21 now, and he is. Joe's like, I'm surprised he's so tall. He is tall. He's a tall boy. He was selling coins in the diamond district. Oh. Cause, like, both he and his brother had this, like, stash of silver coins from when they were kids. And they were like, I'm gonna trade them in. I'm like, all right. So I took him to the place for money. For money? You hand them coins, they give you money.

[Jack]

Numismology. Is that what that is?

[Dave Arnold]

Like numismatic. Numismatic action from a numismatist. This dude had a $1,400 device that you put it on, it shoots a light at it, checks the density and tells you the purity of the metal.

[Quinn]

Whoa.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. So you can't. He's like, I don't really need it. Listen to this. So he pulls out some fake silver, drops the fake silver, and it makes one sound, and then he drops the real silver and it makes a different sound. He's like, real silver's more musical. I was like, all right. Yeah, yeah. I was like, I appreciate your weird little piece of kit, too. You know, I love any sort of weird piece of kit. Right.

[Jack]

I like that stuff too.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jack]

Musicality.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, baby. We should go sell some coins and have the guy play the music of the coins.

[Jack]

I have a 1908 silver dollar, I believe.

[Dave Arnold]

1908, that probably has worth beyond its just weight. Yes. These basically were worth their weight in silver.

[Jack]

Got it.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Over there in the upper left, just carved off of the body of North America on Vancouver island, we have Quinn. How you doing?

[Quinn]

I'm doing better.

[Dave Arnold]

Good, good. Well, good enough to be on, so that's good. And Jack Inslee is gonna be calling in in a second. I think he's coming in in a minute. But we are Johnless, so there are no French speaking people. We got Jackie molecules. How you doing?

[Joey]

I'm good.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah.

[Joey]

I'm saying we're much better than last week.

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, yeah, Nice. So, like. Yeah. So we're Nastasia lists and we're John Lists. So this is the crew. This is the crew we got. You go to podcasts.

[Joey]

We did plenty of these back in the day.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, well, Nastasia was usually there back in the day.

[Joey]

Usually, yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Anyway, you know what they say, you do the podcast with the crew, you got, you know what I mean? Some housekeeping notes. If you are listening live, call in your questions to 917-410-1507. That's 917-410-4101507. That is, if you were a member of the Patreon and Quinn, why don't you tell them why they might want to do such a thing?

[Quinn]

Well, patrons obviously get early access and live access to the show broadcast. They get exclusive deals with partners like Kitchen Arts and Letters, Grobanvine, various other Edwards Age Meats.

[Dave Arnold]

Edwards Age Meats.

[Quinn]

Age meats.

[Dave Arnold]

Edwards Age meats. Gotta do Edwards Age Meats.

[Quinn]

Obviously they get priority questions answered and they get some interesting little occasional bonuses like your, your sifter blueprints, sometimes one of my recipes, your recipes in more detail, etc. Etc.

[Dave Arnold]

I wonder if anyone built that thing. You said someone built a similar thing, but I wonder if anyone just built the thing, the sifter.

[Quinn]

I'm not sure yet.

[Dave Arnold]

I built an even dumber, more crazy thing for the next book that I'm working on. I built a miniature sifter called a row tap. And what a row tap does is it was developed, I think, in like 1913 or 1919. It's just a stack of sieves and, and it's a motor that shakes it like in a very specific way at a very specific rate. And then on top of it is a hammer. So that's the roe. On top of it is a hammer that goes tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap to knock the stuff through. And it's just very repeatable. But the. And you can get them used actually for not that much money. The problem is they're huge and they're loud. So I needed to build a smaller one. So I built a small 3D printed row tap. And I haven't fired it up in total yet, but hopefully by next week I'll have some particle analysis for you, folks. I built it around a 4 inch sieve, but that's so niche that I don't even think our Patreon would want it. You know what I'm saying? It's so niche. So niche, so niche. You know what I mean?

[Quinn]

They're not releasing the Row All Tapol.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, the Tapsol the thing is, like, I can't imagine why anyone else other than me would want this, but I am building something else that's interesting. So I wonder what percentage. Percentage of people who have mills at home who listen to this, have the como. One thing I'll say about it, another thing that I built is that it turns out that the pitch on the. So the way you adjust the grind on that mill is you twist the hopper and it goes up and down. And the one full turn is exactly a quarter of a millimeter. Right? So because it's 4 millimeter pitch. So no, sorry, is 1, 1, 1. I gotta do the math. But anyway, so I have like, I have an angular thing set up so I can actually know. And a movement thing so I can know exactly how far apart the stones are set. It's 4 millimeter pitch, right. So a quarter of a turn is a millimeter, right? Yes. And Right. And so I have it down to like 0.025. I have like the readings down 0.025 millimeter. Anyway, so that's what I've been working on, food wise. What do you guys got for me?

[Joey]

Well, I. It's not quite food related, but so I've been dealing with like a lot of what feel like allergy things, right? Like crazy allergic react, like just congestion and all this stuff. It's been ongoing for like a year or two. So I finally go to an allergist and they give me the like the prick test with all the different reactor, like all the different food things environmental.

[Dave Arnold]

And then the needle or the one that breaks your arm, it's a. I

[Quinn]

guess it's like a needle. It's like a prick.

[Joey]

Like a needle. Yeah, little needle pricks.

[Dave Arnold]

So not the one where they. Not the one where they grind into your flesh. The one where they know. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Okay, go ahead.

[Joey]

So the guy's like, I'll be back in 15 minutes. And my arm is like exploding like, crazy itchy. It's like almost unbearable. Huge, you know, red rash and big welt. I'm like, oh, God. I'm like, no, I really hope this isn't shellfish or something. And then he comes back and he's like, whoa. Okay. Severe dust mite allergy. Thank God.

[Dave Arnold]

Your boy, your boy. Well, except for they're everywhere. So you're gonna get the shots?

[Quinn]

No.

[Joey]

Well, I'm starting with like the mattress protector, like all the things you do, the HEPA filters and all the. All the stuff.

[Dave Arnold]

Do you have any cross allergies?

[Quinn]

Nose spray.

[Dave Arnold]

Do you have anything to pollen? Do you have anything? No tree, no pollen, nothing.

[Joey]

Just dust mites.

[Dave Arnold]

And what are the major cross allergens with dust mites? Did they tell you?

[Joey]

I don't think so, no.

[Dave Arnold]

Because what you got to figure out is like certain things I don't know about dust mites because even though I did, I think have that, it wasn't that bad. Like my main things were like certain trees and like certain grasses, right? And those, those have cross allergens, right? So a cross allergen to what I had was cherries and loquats, right? So because it's like the protein is similar enough that you can get set off by that. So then I was like, oh, I took shots actually for trees, dust and grass, but it cured me of cherries and loquat. So now I can have cherries and loquats again. Even though that wasn't actually what I was allergic to, it was a cross allergy, you know what I mean? But I don't know what the cross allergens are or if there are cross allergens for dust mites, because let's say there is a major cross allergen that you care about, then you would need the shots, you know what I mean?

[Joey]

Mmm. I'm looking it up. It says it could be the shellfish, but I've never noticed anything with food. I don't know, I just.

[Dave Arnold]

That's interesting. Why? Because they're also bugs? Because they're also bugs.

[Quinn]

Maybe.

[Joey]

Who knows? You can't trust Google anymore. All these AI overviews are trash.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, true. So any food related stuff you've been eating, you've been feeling better enough to eat? What?

[Joey]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm feeling, I'm feeling fine eating. Let's see if I had anything or made anything good. Not quite. I mean, Nastasia's event that took me out last week was great. But you know.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, but you know, of course, because it's Nastasia, she won't like speak about it with anyone or allow anyone to speak about it. She's weird. She's a giant weirdo. True fact. You know what I did? So last week on the show we had, no thanks to you fools, we had Nick Wong and from Agnes and Sherman. Nick Wong, of course, was one of my interns back at the French Culinary. Worked at SOMME for a long time, then started UB Preserve in Houston. And then now he has his own, you know, other stuff too. Now he has his own restaurant. It's about A year old Agnes and Sherman. He did a pop up with at Golden Diner with Sam, who's been on the show before. Right. Which is weird. They did not know each other, but they had the Pop up, which is kind of bizarre. But they had both. You know, they had Momo in their past. Anyway, went to the Pop Up. Delicious. Delicious. So someone asked about Nick's cheeseburger fried rice. Cheeseburger fried rice was on the pop Up. Listen, here's the thing I'll say about cheeseburger fried rice. It's delicious. One, two. I didn't know what to expect, but when it came, I was like, oh, yeah, that's what it should be. You know what I'm saying? It has the smell of a Big Mac. It's not just a cheeseburger. It smells like a Big Mac. It's got the sesame on top. Right. I'm sure you could order without the sesame if you need to, but it smells and tastes like you're eating a fried rice Big Mac. It's ridiculous. It's got two slices of American cheese on the top. Every once in a while, they said, because I asked him and his partner, I was like, hey, people must love this. He said, yeah, every once in a while people will. They'll either crush it or they won't take a bite at all. And they'll be like, that's not what I expected. And they're like, it says cheeseburger fried rice. What were you expecting? And they're like, I don't know. Not that, but they're exactly wrong because it's exactly what you should expect it to be. You know what I mean?

[Joey]

I agree.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Yeah. And so, like. Yeah, what was the other with it? There's a lot of delicious stuff. They did a collab, which was like kind of a. A like a taquito with lamb neck in it. And they did the Sean style famous food style, like, like cumin, like spicy lamb for the inside. And they used Nick's salsa matcha, which is his, like, Mexican chili crisp sauce on it. That was. That was Dax's favorite. And then we had his scallion waffle, and we also had one of Sam's. So for those of you that don't know Sam was on the show, one of the things that everyone has to get when they go to his places are these giant pancakes, these hu. Freaking pancakes. Right? And so that's one thing he's known for, like, with all this kind of butter on it on top. And then Nick's got these scallion waffles. And so I said they should have a fight, but in fact they'd already made merch with them holding hands. So we had both. And I was like, they're holding hands now, but as soon as you're not looking, they're gonna fight. You know what I mean? But they can't really. They're really separate. You know what I mean? They really are. They can coexist. They don't need to fight. And in a real life, who would win a waffle or pancake? Who wins a fight? A normal waffle. Normal pancake who wins.

[Quinn]

I mean, I think that's a really. That's a mood thing. You're either in the mood for pancakes or you're in the mood for waffles.

[Dave Arnold]

Really? I don't know. Joe has an answer that's not mood based.

[Jack]

It's the waffle.

[Dave Arnold]

Waffle wins.

[Jack]

I think the waffle is going to win.

[Joey]

Yeah, I think so too.

[Dave Arnold]

Rib too.

[Jack]

There's a little bit more density to it.

[Dave Arnold]

You mean like an actual fight situation?

[Jack]

It's an actual fight.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Joey]

It's a brick house right there, man.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, exactly. You do the ddt.

[Jack]

Was that what it was? What was that move?

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, yeah, the wrestling move. I don't remember. Yeah, but you know, it's just true. Like, Quinn was thinking about it, like, which would he prefer to eat? And you guys are actually thinking about it like, you know, you know that famous Louis Jordan song? Beans and cornbread. Beans and cornbread had a fight. Beans knocked cornbread out of sight. But who actually wins? Beans and cornbread. And in the end they do hold hands and hand. Beans and cornbread hand in hand. I forget one of them wins, like decisively.

[Quinn]

Yeah, obviously. Also, if you abstract this a bit more, obviously, anybody from a waffle House could defeat anybody from an ihop. Go a layer out.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, yeah. Listen, no offense to the Internet, when I was a kid, I loved the International House of Pancakes ihop. Right.

[Jack]

It's boysenberry syrup.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. And just like the syrup caddy was like, we're like, oh, syrup caddy. I would be lying if I didn't say that my desire to have a mayonnaise caddy at existing conditions wasn't based somewhat on the syrup caddy at ihop. I would be lying. But, you know, the condiment caddy. However, I went to IHOP once as an adult and I'm like, nah, I just wasn't feeling it. You know what I mean? It wasn't.

[Jack]

But the scooped out butter so it's so bad.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, it wasn't. I mean, look, maybe they've changed their game. I shouldn't look, there's generations of people, and I don't crap on businesses, but I just remembered it. So my childhood memories. I used to get what they used to call a pig in a blanket, which was just pancakes wrapped around breakfast sausages, right? And then I would eat the hell out of that as I was a kid. This is the 70s, you know what I mean? Maybe I just didn't know any better. I don't know.

[Jack]

They had good colors. Resident like that, that. That aqua and orange.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. You know what? Maybe I don't. Maybe I just had a singular bad experience. I will go back sometime to an International House of Pancakes. I have still never been to a Waffle House, though, so I have no idea how they are covered and smothered. Yeah. Yeah. Never been, though. Never been. Someday, I mean, maybe not. Maybe I'll be dead. Maybe I'll die. And then I will, on my deathbed, I'll be like, no, Waffle House. Never happened. You ever been to a Waffle House, Jack?

[Joey]

Of course.

[Dave Arnold]

Jesus.

[Quinn]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Joey]

Come on, man.

[Jack]

Many a time.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Do they. Do they have millions?

[Joey]

Better than I have.

[Dave Arnold]

Really? Do they have those up in Canada? Did you go back when you used to get out more Quinn, or. No,

[Quinn]

no, I haven't been. No, I don't think they've made it past our Northern wall.

[Dave Arnold]

Well, I've said this a million times, but they used to have something which I don't believe was Canadian, but it was called the Royal Canadian Pancake House. And they had like two or three locations in Manhattan. And this is where Sylvester Stallone went to Fatten up for Cop Land. And they used to have absurd, absurd size portions. And the thing that I actually liked the best there wasn't their pancakes. It wasn't that. All of the waiters had a button on it, said, ask me about my sausage. It was a different era, right? You know what I mean? Imagine a waiter coming up to you with something that says, ask me about my sausage on their lapel. You're like, no, that's not. All right. No, thanks. But they used to do an entire haul of French toast where they would slice into the challah. They had something that separated the slices, but they kept it, like, attached at the bottom like a blooming onion, but a challah. And then they would. They put the whole freaking thing into the. Into the, you know, the goop. They lifted it out and they deep fried the whole thing. And they brought it to the table like this giant. Giant French toast, blooming onion thing. It was nuts. Nuts. And they realized that their portion sizes were ridiculous. So they did the, you know, the thing where if you want to share, it's an extra $5, but you're like, fine. You know what I mean? It's like, I just don't want all of this. I don't need. No one needs this much carbohydrate on a plate at once. You know what I mean? Ask me about my sausage. They went out of business. That's what happened. That's what happened there. They're out of business. By the way, speaking of carbohydrates, next week I'm going to be at the Rochester Cocktail Revival. I'll still be doing the show. Right afterwards, I go to Rochester on a train, and I hope to visit Flower City. Longtime listeners, they always bring us good swag. I'm wearing their bread hat today, so maybe I'll stop by, because I don't think in all the times I've been to Rochester that I've gone and actually just gotten a loaf of bread there. So I hope to do that when I'm there, and maybe I'll. Maybe I'll see you fools when I'm up there. Maybe get a different garbage plate than I normally get. We'll find out. And get this. They're having me go up there to do a talk, and they're not making me do any demonstrations. I was like, really?

[Quinn]

Whoa.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. I was like, I don't need to bring 500 pounds of equipment, like, you know, source gas, like, you know, carbonate, like, you know, 50 liters of garbage. Nope. I don't need to bring a bunch of powdered acids. Nope. I just got to show up with, you know, whatever I'm going to wear, do the talk, and leave. It's the first time I feel like a normal, you know, normal person can do a normal talk. It kind of feels good, you know what I mean? Anyway, so that's what I'll be up to next week. All right. So, Quinn, what do you got for me?

[Quinn]

Well, I managed to get some cooking done this weekend. Two sort of experiments that went okay, but they need some development. I've got a dessert and a savory. But you want to. What do you want me to run down first?

[Dave Arnold]

I mean, I don't know, man. How would I know? I don't know what either is.

[Quinn]

The savory was a smash burger variant inspired by, like, many different things that you know, George Moats has discussed or you know that concepts that exist out there, but I've never seen them combined. I tried to make a Frico Oklahoma Smash burger.

[Dave Arnold]

So for those of you who don't know, correct me if I'm wrong. Oh, the Oklahoma is his standard one where you put the onions and you smash the extremely thinly sliced onions into the burger so that it melds into a unit while it's cooking. And then you flip it over and he would normally put the cheese and then he would.

[Quinn]

Yeah, are on top of the ball and then you smash down. So the bottom layer is the open surface of the beef patty and then there's sort of a bunch of onion strands around the edge. And then when you flip it, it's like a full layer of thin onions.

[Dave Arnold]

Right. Now, I don't remember whether we said it on the show or whether I was talking to him about it when I was talking to him afterwards because I went, you know, I've been there since he was on the show last. But one thing that is good about this technique, for those of you that have problems with smash burgers sticking to your spatula, is the onions act like a non stick layer so that you don't need a slice of parchment. So at home, when I'm smashing a burger down and actually just so that I don't mess up my counters, I tend to, I tend to gather all of my meat on squares of parchment so that I can move them around without raw meat touching everything. And then I smash the parchment down and peel the parchment off. But with the onions, they act as their own nonstick. All right, so then when you flipped it, now you have the onion side down, then you've fricoed the cheese on top. Normally George would put a dome over it and steam the cheese.

[Quinn]

What did I try to do? Well, no, I tried mixing a hard cheese into the onions so that it all sort of freako together. And then I also put like a melting cheese on top after the flip. But I think one, I didn't add enough cheese and I think two, I think next time I'm gonna apply the cheese like directly to the griddle right before the smash. Because then the onion side, you know, it still stays quite moist after the flip. So that side never really goes frico. The edges go a little freako.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah.

[Quinn]

But the actual like big side of onion is. There's still too much moisture.

[Dave Arnold]

Well, the Bernese burger, which is the one of the know one of the famous Connecticut burgers, the Bernice burger, Cheeseburger is the one where they frico the American cheese. It's like, you know, some specific variety of American cheese that they freako and turn up into the cheese wings. But they do that by getting the cheese away from the burger. So I think that's what you're going to need. You're going to need to get the cheese away from the burger in general, you know what I mean? Like out to the edges.

[Quinn]

I think if I do. If I do the hard cheese as a diameter that is as big as both the patty and the frilly onions that spill over. I think that's what I want.

[Dave Arnold]

I don't know. And it might.

[Quinn]

I don't care.

[Dave Arnold]

Scorch up.

[Quinn]

I don't care if I don't know.

[Dave Arnold]

I think there's a reason you don't see that. I don't know. Let's see what happens. But I think there's a reason you don't see that. By the way, can anyone think of things that are cooked with resistance heating today besides panko? I couldn't think of anything. So in other words, panko is the only remaining. Yeah, yeah. The way panko is cooked is there's two metal plates. The panko dough is between those two metal plates, and they apply an electric current across the plates. And I squared are losses. Resistance heat losses are what bakes the panko. And in my mind, that's the only thing that I know of that you regularly buy that is cooked that way via resistance heating. But I was wondering if anyone could think of anything else. It's a dumb way to cook.

[Quinn]

Most of it was almost developed for that purpose.

[Dave Arnold]

No, it's just like. I think everyone thinks of any way you can heat anything, but that's the only thing left that people actually do it with. You know what I mean? It's just like. But it's a crazy way to cook things. You know what I mean? It's just nuts. But whatever. All right, wait, so that was your. That was your smash burger. What kind of. What kind of roll did you use?

[Quinn]

My. My brother bought King Hawaiian.

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, so you like. You like. You like a sweet roll, huh? You're a sweet roll, man.

[Quinn]

I mean, I didn't. I did not have say in the. In the bun selection.

[Dave Arnold]

I see. Do you know what's good? I haven't had one in a long time are the Portuguese sweet rolls. We used to get those. Yeah, they're good, huh? I used to get them all the time in Cape Cod and Rhode Island. Stuff like. But like, do they sell those in New York.

[Jack]

There used to be a place in the Lower east side used to have smashed burgers on the Portuguese boys. I like English muffins.

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, I like an English muffin too.

[Jack]

The large English muffin. Sandwich size English muffin is great for a burger.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Whoever at Thomas Brand who's like, you know what, we just need to make these a little bit bigger. Just a little bit bigger.

[Jack]

Smart.

[Dave Arnold]

Very smart. Now here's the question. When you do your Thomases, are you still. Are you still. Do you use the bagel setting so it just toasts the top so that the bottom is still soft? I'm a big believer in the top and bottom of the bun being soft and the toast being what is touching the interior. Yeah.

[Jack]

I think I do the same thing because I like a little bit of moisture on that crunch.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, yeah. So like. But you know, English muffin and my

[Jack]

teeth on the other side are just going softly through.

[Dave Arnold]

Exactly, exactly. I think, you know, people who don't love an English muffin for a burger, I think one of the issues is I think they're toasting it on both sides and it's just too hard. You know what I mean? It's too hard. Listen, it's not a Benedict, right? It's like in a Benedict, you can toast it. I don't know that I do though. I might still broil it or, you know, toast it on one side only, but whatever. I think an English muffin is a good, a good product.

[Quinn]

I have.

[Jack]

I use a toaster oven.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, which one?

[Jack]

Proctor?

[Quinn]

Silex?

[Dave Arnold]

I don't know. I don't know. I don't. I know the brand. I don't use that one. There are certain toasters and I think toaster ovens that don't have a real bagel setting. It's not real. Do not get a toaster that doesn't allow you to toast one side only if you so desire it. It's a huge advantage. I use it so often, you know, that's why I do it.

[Jack]

Because if I do those ones, the slots, you get cooked to both sides.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. They have slot based ones that will.

[Jack]

On one side.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. So what it'll do. Typically in a dual slice toaster, right, there's actually four elements and it'll just fire the middle two and leave the outer wings off. There is a toaster. I did an episode of a pilot for something and I had to test like 19 or 20 toasters. This was like six months ago. But I don't think they're ever going to put it on, right? So I can talk a little bit about it. There's a new toaster.

[Quinn]

No, they released that video.

[Dave Arnold]

They did.

[Quinn]

Ever curious. Are you testing, like 20 different toasters?

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, they released it. I never saw it. Huh.

[Quinn]

Yeah, it's been up for a while. Oh, it's one of my family favorites of yours.

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, I gotta go contact those people because I never heard anything about it. Like, they didn't tell me it was going up and, you know, no one tells me crap. It was okay.

[Quinn]

Yeah, it was very, very amusing. You like the death trap antique toaster, eh?

[Dave Arnold]

No, I did appreciate that toaster. It's from the 20s and it's got this amazing mechanism on it. But really the issue when you buy any antique electrical item is you really have to make sure that the contacts. You have to kind of take an emery bore steel wool to the contacts so that the contacts aren't corroded because the. The resistance, you know, for something like you're doing Joe, the resistance could ruin the sound, make it scratchy. But in a high power electrical thing, you're getting a huge loss across that contact. Heats up. I've had solder melt. I've had like all sorts of crazy things happen when contacts aren't done. But they had a toaster in there that had a very. Most toasters have the same BS design of their heating elements. In fact, most of the internals are probably all made in one factory. This one toaster, but it had too much garbage on it. Tried to act like a phone, but it actually had a heating element where the bottom portion of the heating element, which requires more heat because it was a vertical toaster. And if you think about it, right, the bread at the top is getting heated by the hot air coming up and by the direct radiation, whereas the bottom one is only getting the radiation. So they actually changed the pitch of the heating element from the bottom to the top so that it was evenly toasted from top to bottom. It was the most even toaster. And they're the only people that had designed their own heating elements. So I was like, when? You know what I mean? Anyway, I gotta get in touch with those fools because I didn't know that they put it up. Huh. They probably emailed me, Quinn, and I just never saw it. You know what I mean?

[Quinn]

They probably did, yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

All right. Anything else? Anything else? Oh, yeah. What was your dessert?

[Quinn]

Well, I tried to make a simplified semifreddo because I've made semifredo several times before when I Republished my book in 24. I had a formula for converting any of the gelato recipes into a semifreddo. I generally prefer a semifreddo where the structure is Italian meringue based. But I tried to make one this week where the only structure is a whipped cream and then the only flavor was a jar of jam.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, they get a little greasy to me. Like straight, straight whipped cream has like a weird. It's hard. So when you bite into it, it's kind of hard. And that, that I think that's what makes it seem kind of greasy to me. You know what I mean?

[Quinn]

Yeah. I was able to get. I didn't go crazy with the cream. Like, it's still balanced out, obviously much richer than gelato. But there was still a decent amount of milk that I used to sort of blend the jam smooth and incorporate everything. And people like it. But I did the math with the jam being the only sugar source. You know, it's like 27% jam, but obviously most of the jam is added sugar. Well, so it only ends up being like 10% actual like fruit content for the whole dessert.

[Dave Arnold]

Wait a second. I used to know the numbers because I had to calculate it for my jam or shot, but I thought they're like, they end up being on the order of 60 brix to get the pectin to set. Right. But part of that bricks is sugar contained.

[Quinn]

The brand I'm using, the reported sugar content is 66%. 66 grams. Grams per hundred and sixty three of it is added sugar.

[Dave Arnold]

Huh. Well, what flavor was it?

[Quinn]

Raspberry.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, Raspberry is a low sugar fruit. You know what I'm saying?

[Quinn]

So. Yeah, but again, but you also can't taste a good.

[Dave Arnold]

You also can't calculate simply based on like what percentage of it is fruit. Right. Because you don't know how much they boiled it down. Right,

[Quinn]

sure. But I'm saying I know that there's three grams of fruit sugar that isn't added sugar in the remaining, what is it, 30, 37 grams of material.

[Dave Arnold]

Right. But I'm saying you'd have to back calculate how much actual raspberry that is, if you want to figure out how much actual fruit is

[Quinn]

sharp. Everything's still much lower. My berries and yogurt, gelato, and therefore the derivative semifredo is like 50% fresh fruit. So there's still just way less fruit flavor per gram than I'm used to.

[Dave Arnold]

I see, I see. Don't you think semifredo is a really dumb word? Dumb. Right. Semifreddo sounds like.

[Quinn]

I call it. I call it sir. I call it semifreddy, which I think is funny.

[Dave Arnold]

Well, whenever I hear Fredo, I think of the Godfather, you know? And so when someone says semifredo, first of all, it's like, what does that even mean? Semi. Why semi? And then I'm like. I just have in my mind, I'm smart. You know what I mean? Because he, like, wants to, like, you know, like, Fredo is such a. Such a nice guy, you know, Trying to go fishing with the kid. Gets capped in the back of the head. I'm not spoiling this. I'm sure everyone's seen the Godfather trilogy, right? Wow.

[Quinn]

I haven't, actually.

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, man. You've not seen the Godfather trilogy? At least see 1 and 2.

[Quinn]

I'm not seeing any godfather.

[Dave Arnold]

At least see 1 and 2. Dude. Dude. At least see 1 and 2. For real, not mean. Jack, you've seen all these, right?

[Quinn]

Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

I mean, you could skip three if you needed to. You know what I'm saying?

[Joey]

You can definitely skip three, but you

[Dave Arnold]

kind of need to see one and two. Let me tell you this. What if I told you that it was actually a history of an olive oil company? Would you then watch it?

[Quinn]

I mean, maybe it's one of those things where it's referenced so much you feel like you've seen it via osmosis.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, but you have, but you haven't, though. It's like, you know, look, they are long movies, but, you know, you don't have to watch it all in one shot. You know what I mean? You could, like, take a break. I don't know. Gotta see that, man.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, that's a shock. You know, the shocks just keep coming. All right, so you don't. You don't feel success with your partially Fredo'd Your. You're not completely freighted again?

[Quinn]

Like, again, yeah, people liked it. My hope was if I could keep it simple and then just calculate all the ratios for a bunch of common jams, it would be like a nice gateway recipe for people. But with this result, I have a bunch of things I would like to add, which makes it more complicated. So it's like, what's the point?

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, especially also what's the point? Because you own several ice cream machines, but when was the last time someone was like, I own an ice cream machine, but instead I'm going to make a semifreddo? Not often, right? Not often.

[Quinn]

I mean, I like them because they're a different texture and I Like layering a semifreddo with a bunch of mix ins, which I wouldn't normally do with a adjourned dessert.

[Dave Arnold]

Speaking of which, for those of you who have gone to Dairy Queen, what are your feelings on blizzards? Pro.

[Jack]

Love a blizzard. Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Pro Blizzard. Jack, you're pro blizzard.

[Quinn]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

What do you mix in? Are you Oreo?

[Quinn]

People like.

[Joey]

I like a little M&M's usually.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah.

[Joey]

Oreo, yeah.

[Jack]

Reese's.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah.

[Quinn]

I feel like one time they did the Oreo with the chocolate base. That was good.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's. You choose. They have the Blizzard machine. You can blizzard it up. You know what I mean? I will say this also in terms of commercial items, I need to go back and re listen to the episode with the woman who invented all the Carvel stuff because. Yeah, because she gave the recipe for their magic ice, first of all, for their crumbles, and she gave the recipe for their icing. I forget what it was. It was. It was cream and ice cream base. Right. It was whipped cream and ice cream base or something like this. Anyway, like, I love Carvel ice cream cake. I like everything about a Carvel ice cream cake. I love everything about Carvel ice cream cakes.

[Jack]

I do, too. But I am very suspicious about when it's out of the freezer and how it still stays in form.

[Dave Arnold]

Well, they're big. They have a big mass because they're

[Jack]

so thick, even when they're not cold.

[Dave Arnold]

Carvel, I don't know what they use for stabilizer. I mean, one of the ways to stop ice cream from melting, Quinn will tell you, is put a lot of air in it. High overrun. But Carvel is famously low overrun, famously dense. So I don't know what their stabilizers, what they use anymore, but I love Carvel. But I was also saying things that are low quality, not low quality, things that are not considered to be fancy that I actually like. I love fast food milkshakes. We call them fake shakes in the house, but I love them. I always feel sick when I'm done eating it, but still, I love them. That weird flavor. You guys like those things.

[Quinn]

Does that include the Frosty? The Wendy's Frosty?

[Dave Arnold]

No, Frosty is functionally different. Frosty is halfway to saucer. Frosty is an in between product. Took me a while to get my head around.

[Quinn]

Do you like a soft serve?

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, yeah.

[Quinn]

Or do you like the Frosty?

[Dave Arnold]

I like soft serves and I like Frosties. I think if you said to me, you can only ever have a Frosty Or a fake shake. I would take the fake shake.

[Jack]

My, my.

[Quinn]

We.

[Jack]

We. We love Carvel. I grew up my whole life with Carvel cakes. But my son cannot have the cake because of the chocolate. The. The cookies. There's a coconut in it. And we found out. Oh, ma'.

[Quinn]

Am.

[Jack]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Found out the hard way.

[Jack]

Yeah, we sure did.

[Dave Arnold]

So what, are you going to Baskin Robbins?

[Jack]

No, no, no. We still go to Carville. We just get soft serve. It's great. He can only have it with, you know, limited toppings.

[Dave Arnold]

Oh, man. Someday they'll fix all that stuff. I hope he'll be able to have whatever he wants. Quinn's first on the crispy list. But then after that, we'll take care of the other people.

[Jack]

We go to Carmel like once a week.

[Quinn]

I'm definitely first.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Quinn's first on the crispy list. When they. When they. When they get. When they. When they can crispy us all up and fix all the problems. Quinn. Quinn's first in line for sure. You know what I mean? But you know, we'll all get it. We'll all get it. Wait, we had one other thing about milkshake. Oh, speaking of that, do you know in a couple of weeks. Right? We have a couple weeks. Burger King's coming.

[Quinn]

That's. I think John's arranging that. I was not informed about the scheduling.

[Dave Arnold]

Well, at some point in the summer, we have the head test chef of Burger King coming in and we can ask all of our flame broiled and like, how things work on large scale questions. Yes.

[Jack]

No, I believe it's June 30th with Alex Hawk and Zach Young, Manager of culinary innovation, US and Canada, Director in culinary and commercialization of. For Burger King.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jack]

That's awesome. I'm a huge Burger King fan. Way over McDonald's.

[Dave Arnold]

Really?

[Jack]

Well, their fries have gone down, but yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

Who? Burger King. I haven't had a Burger King fry in a long time. I don't buy fries up.

[Joey]

Oh, fries are the best ones. Those are the best. Fast food fries. It's not even close.

[Dave Arnold]

Burger King.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

What is it about their fries? Should we save it for when they come on?

[Joey]

Yeah, please. I want the answers.

[Dave Arnold]

What I want is the hat. I hope they bring the hats. Do they still have those?

[Jack]

What about the creepy heads?

[Dave Arnold]

The crowns?

[Joey]

You can get those crowns, I think anywhere.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah. As an adult, as a 55 year old man, I can walk into a Burger King and be like, give me a flame boiled Whopper and a crown.

[Quinn]

Yeah.

[Jack]

One of those creepy smiles at the

[Quinn]

Commercial lie and tell them you have a kid, a young kid.

[Dave Arnold]

I find it hard to lie to people's faces. I find it hard to lie about things that are ridiculous. You know what I mean?

[Jack]

Flame broil, baby.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, flame broils. Flame broiling. Gotta be flame broiling. Anyway, all right. Elliot from Berkeley wrote in and said. So I've said more than once, that polydextrose, by the way, is a material I use a lot where it's literally, you take dextrose, glucose, and you polymerize it in an acid environment, I think, and they're like, isn't that the same as maltodextrin? No, it's not. It's not the same thing anyway. So I use that quite a lot anyway, and I use it to add body. So you said many times that polydextrose adds body or structure to a cocktail in the same way that sugar does or alcohol does. I have used polyd now in a bunch of specs, and they're always good. This is delicious, which I appreciate, but I don't really understand what it's doing. Is this body or structure entirely explained by viscosity, or is there some other phenomenon going on? And if so, what is it? And same question for glycerin. And the answer, Elliot, is I have no idea. It's not viscosity, right? And think about it this way. You can take a cocktail and you can add xanthan to it or guar to it. Guar. You can add those things and you have a thick cocktail, but it doesn't change. And they're thick and goopy, but it doesn't fix the structure of the cocktail the way that polydextrose or glycerin or alcohol or sugar would. It just tastes thick and gross. So it's not viscosity. And I've measured this with. I bought a Brookfield Viscometer, cheap one, and did the tests. And, yeah, it doesn't do that. So what it's actually doing, I don't think is well understood. Now, Harold McGee, a couple of weeks ago, sent me a patent that somebody applied for where it's a mixture of two things that they say also provides this structure, but I forget exactly what it is, and it's not readily available. I got to try to get the chemicals in and see what they. What they do, but I don't think anyone knows exactly. I've done as much research as I'm willing to do for the update to the book, and what I said is, I know it works, and I don't know why, and I don't think anyone really knows why. But it's not just viscosity.

[Quinn]

What do you think it's some interplay between viscosity and density?

[Dave Arnold]

No, but it could be. I don't know. But no, I don't think so. No, it's like, you know how people always used to say carbonation, it's really just acidity. No, it's not. You know what I mean? Like if you take the mountain climbing drug that knocks out the enzyme that you're using, like acid is involved, clearly, because it's carbonic acid is what you're tasting. So there is an acid involved. And according to Zucker, who's cantankerous but smart, it isn't mediated in similar way that acid channels are. However, if you take the thing that prevents you from tasting carbon dioxide, the mountain climbing drug, whose name is out of my head right now, you can still taste acid, right? Taste acid, fine, but you can't taste carbonation anymore. And it's not just a combination of acid and bubbles because you can take nitrous oxide, which doesn't taste carbonated, and you can add acid to something that has got nitrous oxide bubbles in it and doesn't taste carbonated. So it's like every time someone says, well, carbonation is really just acid. No, it's not. It's like I can with experiments show you that that is not what is happening. Simple experiments, right? So it's something much more complicated. And the same thing is true with body and viscosity. Through very, very simple experiments that you can do in your kitchen, you can prove to yourself that it is not just viscosity. Now what it is, I don't know, you know what I'm saying? Because that is not a simple experiment that I can do. But anyway, so you know, could there be some sort of magical thing with begin to understand like, like why would alcohol and sugar, which have. So like alcohol decreases, it increases the viscosity, but decreases the surface tension, right? Also decreases the density. Sugar, not exactly sure what it does to the surface tension, but it increases both viscosity and density. So if it was some combination of that, you have two things that provide a similar level of structure, but do it by moving the drink in opposite directions, right? So it's like, I just don't think it's simple. I don't know what it is. I just know, I don't know. And I'm unwilling to say that. I'm unwilling to speculate because I really have no idea. And I've tried to find out anyway. Maybe these people with a patent have a better, you know, maybe they have a better understanding of what it is. But it could just be that they found something empirically that works because they're focused on the non alcoholic drink space, right? So they have this combination of chemicals that I forget what they are, but they apparently don't add a lot of flavor and they can be used directly as a bodying agent in small amounts. Right. Because the problem with polydextrose and glycerin is it's relatively macroscopic amount of the stuff you're adding glycerin, you add much less than polydextrose. But polydextrose, you need to add as much or a little bit more even. I do. As you would of sugar. So I think the answer is, I don't know the answer. Rock Baker wrote in. I know there's a million theories on this one, but what are your thoughts on poaching eggs for a busy service? Well, here are my thoughts. If you're busy, right, and you don't want to like set a bunch of timers, right, and do a bunch of eggs. I, I like the old school, I like the old school 62s in, in a, in a hot water basket because they hold forever. Now if you don't like the way those are, right? If you don't like those, you could do so in shell because, because what's amazing about the in shell ones is that for those who don't know what we're talking about, you take, take eggs, whole eggs, and you cook them in a water bath at 62 degrees Celsius for about an hour. They then drop the temperature, you must drop the temperature to like 57. And you hold it there somewhere between 57 and 60 and you hold them at that temperature forever. If you keep them at 62 forever, the yolks will start getting jammy on you. And so if you want it to be runny, right, you have to drop the temperature. If you want it to be jammy, you cook it at 63 for an hour and then you drop the temperature down to 60, 59, 58. And then you can hold them forever. The nice thing about 57 is that you can put your hand directly into the water and pull the eggs and the shell out and then pow, you crack them out. Now they look a little bit kind of ghostly. So if you're not going to sauce them, right, some people don't like it. So then you can drag it through hot Water. The advantage for me on this is that you can use them if you want them and they can be chilled down and reheated again so you don't ever throw any away. They're also not messy because the water doesn't have all of the thin white crap in it. Now if you want a traditional egg white. Sorry, a traditional poached egg. It's only been the past 15 years. I think that the average Joe like me knew that you could just crack a billion eggs into a bowl and poach them all at once. When I was a kid and they taught you how to poach eggs, they were like, you must swirl the water and then crack them in individually right over the surface of the water. And then you must scrape them from the bottom to make sure they don't stick to the pan and keep them all this crap, right? And turns out you can just crack all your freaking eggs into a bowl with or without a strainer. The only reason to use a strainer is if you want to get rid of some of the thin white. But you don't need to just crack all those sucke bowl, dump them in the freaking water, give the water a stir after you dump them in, and you're off to the races. Bang. Right? And when I learned that, I was like, oh my God, I've been wasting my brain. And how did we. Who is the first person to test this way of. This new way of doing it? You know what I mean? Who was the first knucklehead who was like, I'm not going to listen to anyone.

[Quinn]

I saw it popularized by Kenji.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, but no, he did he. With a strainer. No other people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, but the thing, the thing is,

[Quinn]

is that I don't.

[Dave Arnold]

We were all taught, all of us, you know, who are old enough were taught this much more complicated way. You know what I mean? But still, let's say you do it that way and you have them, right? And you're not going to use them all at once. Now you still have to like either chill them, keep them warm, or reheat them. So then now either you need a CVAP or the other thing about these is you need to drain them, right? Because they have water all on them. So you need to still do the whole thing where you lift it with a spider, gently drain it, like tap the bottom, get all that crap off, and then you got to keep it warm. And you could keep it warm in a CVAP or in a Nova or in a combi oven, but there's something Still, I like about the show.

[Quinn]

I've done successful chamber in chamber, not chamber and chamber, but like a larger vessel floating in a water bath. You've got to double check the temperature. And you could have like an open, like, thing of water nestled into a larger water bath. You gotta double check. There's usually like 1 or 2 degree difference between the actual bath and like the internal, like, container, right?

[Dave Arnold]

But I'm saying if I'm cranking out. If I'm cranking out a hundred poached eggs, 200 poached eggs at a service, right? And I don't want a big mess and I don't want a big footprint, and I want it to be 100% correct all the time, right? I mean, that's the challenge. Because here's something that in the old days, you would go order if you went to a brunch place and you didn't trust them and you got a Benedict or a Florentine or whatever you were getting your poached eggs on. All right? There was a very non zero chance that either they would overcook it if they were doing it ala minute, right? And you would get an egg that wasn't runny.

[Joey]

Horror.

[Dave Arnold]

And there was an extreme non0 chance that they wouldn't reheat the egg enough and it would be cold in the middle, which also sucks. Remember that? Anyone remember getting a cold poached egg where the center's not heated enough? Nightmare. Nightmare. Yeah, nightmare. Both of them are nightmares. And both of them can be solved with temperature control. But the issue is just how it flows at your restaurant. You know what I mean? Like what the good flow is. No one's ever returned of all of the 62 degrees or even 63 degrees low temp eggs that have been sent out that I've seen when we were at the FCI and we were pumping them out of Lake Cole every day at lunch. The only time they were ever sent back because they do look weird to people who aren't used to the way that they look, right? Is if there's no sauce on top. As soon as there's a sauce on top and no one can see the white, they love it. Weird, right?

[Quinn]

Anyway, I really dislike the texture of the lower temperature egg.

[Dave Arnold]

I'm just telling you, like, and I think if you maybe eat them side by side, but never, never, never got a send back when they were sauced, often. If they were naked. If they were naked, you get them sent back all the time sauced. No. You know, damn, de Gustavus non dispute, whatever. You can't dispute taste. Dr. Smokehouse says, because Dave said the upcoming hot dog show guest does not have a hot dog preference. By the way, that's Farada. She's on next week or the week after.

[Quinn]

I believe that's May 9.

[Dave Arnold]

Two weeks.

[Quinn]

June 9. June 9, yeah, yeah.

[Dave Arnold]

May 9 would be next year. Because she does not have a preference. I would like to know the staff's go to dog. I would also like to make what meat you like. Beef, pork or blend as well as casing type sheep and size. We should save this 22 to 35. I think we should save this conversation for when she's here and when we have more crew. But I will say for me, I prefer traditional sheep casing, like relatively small gauge, high snap casing. But we could talk more about. I'm sure she has opinions, just didn't want to write them in the book, you know what I mean? Because she wanted to be more inclusive. That's my feeling and I'm gonna ask her about it.

[Jack]

Do hot dogs, does that include brats and knocks?

[Dave Arnold]

No, if a hot dog's a hot

[Jack]

dog, just a plain breaker. They're a hot dog.

[Dave Arnold]

Not a German version of a Frank Furter.

[Jack]

Frank Furter.

[Dave Arnold]

A Frank Furter. A hot dog. You know what I mean? Hachi Daga. Yeah, yeah. Not a. What was it they used to. What they used to call the big sausages. They call them hot beef. Remember that at the Sabrette stands out here in New York in the 70s, 80s and even I think up until the 90s, maybe they still do it. You could get a hot dog or they had a sausage, like a beef sausage that had a little bit more spice in it. That was like not a kielbasa, but it was a bigger gauge than a hot dog. But that was its own thing. It wasn't a hot dog. You know what I mean? A hot dog's a hot dog in my mind, you know what I mean? I am also agnostic about the meat mix. We can get more into it later. Any of you guys, like Nick Wong was like, has to be all beef, don't want any other things. But for me, agnostic, I could do it either way.

[Joey]

Yeah, same.

[Dave Arnold]

Yeah, I mean, I mean the biggest hot dog shock of my life was when I made duck dogs because people were like, oh, duck hot dogs. I made duck hot dogs. I was like, you know what this tastes like hot dog. Because the spice, once you emulsify it and you put the spices in the, you know, the, the meat Variety is not as present as it would otherwise. Not that you can't taste beef, pork, you know what I mean? But it's like meat. Meat base I think is less important than would be for other sausages. Never had a lamb hot dog. I'd probably like it, though. I like. I like veal. Yeah, I've had veal mix in. But like, I would love. Imagine if you had. The thing is, it's not a hot dog anymore. Like, if I want merguez, I want. I mean, merguez, that's a good sausage. You know what I'm saying? You guys like merguez sausage? Sausage merguez. Like, you know, spicy lamb. Anyway, that might be one of my favorite sausages that I don't have a lot is merguez. I don't have it a lot. Whenever I have it, I'm like, oh, yeah, you know what I mean? What's your go to sausage cooking technique, anyone? I'm old school. If you're doing it in a pan, if you don't have a grill, I do A little bit of water in the pan. Put the lid on it when you hear it run dry. And the reason you leave a lid on it is not just to steam it, but because it's going to spatter like a mother, right? As soon as it runs dry, you pull it. Then if you need to add more fat, you add it. Then you brown, brown, brown, done, bang. That's if you're not going to low temp it. If you're going to low temp it, I throw it in the anova or in a bag. I take it up to like 60, 61 Celsius so that I know it's like cooked all the way through and then like flash fry it on the outside, you know what I mean? But if I'm just doing one or two for me. Water pan. That's the way. That is the way. Unless you guys have a different idea. Eddie asked about the PB&J and said thanks for the answer. The PB&J drink. I actually do have liquid intelligence and forgotten about the PB&J with a baseball bat. Which, by the way, a riff on something that Tona Palomino made back at WD way back in the day. WD50. That is related. Follow up. Would you publish the list of juices and their acidity and adjustments to lemon or lime recipes to the Patreon? Yeah, I could probably do that. As long as you guys don't start publishing it elsewhere. Because my editor will kill me if I put it up there and no one wants the new book. But yeah, sure, I'll put it up. James Fiveson says, in reference to my most recent french fry video, am I doing two dunks or three? Walk through the steps for this, please and thank you. Yeah, so the last fry, I think got edited out. The way it works here is that you do a instead of a water blanch, you do an oil blanch. The advantage here is that you're not adding any more water to the fry. You're actually doing a dehydration step while you're blanching it. You already have oil because you're going to fry. So you don't have to have a big pot of steaming water. And two, if it goes directly into oil, then, and this is for some people, is a disadvantage because it doesn't remove sugars and doesn't remove starch off of the outside of it, but it makes the potato flavor a lot more than it would otherwise be. So you oil. And it also doesn't knock. It doesn't beat up the fries as much. They don't get as many brokens as you do with a water blanche. So you do a water blanch for a long time low. Then you do a regular first fry, right? Which is oil.

[Quinn]

Oil. You just said water.

[Dave Arnold]

I say do an oil blanch. Then you do a regular first fry at a fry temperature, but low. And you do it. And here's the important part, and I'm going to have him maybe post a video of it. You have to tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap the skin of the fry to make sure that you've got a crust formed. After the crust is formed, but before it gets too dark, you pull it, it's going to instantly steam itself down. And then on the third and final fry, second fry, third oil dunk. That's when they get crispy as all get out. I salted mine after the initial oil blanch and let it sit for an hour or two. Let the salt kind of soak in just so that they would be kind of salted through. Wismurt said anchovy season is kicking off in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm going to try making Bocarones for the first time. I've looked over a handful of recipes and it seems the steps are generally remove the head and slit the belly, remove the viscera, rinse, clean salt for a few hours to firm up the flesh. Add acid, cure overnight, ditch the acid and add oil, garlic and herbs. Is this track with your own recipes. And once they're covered in oil, how long would you keep them in the fridge? I see some folks saying a week, others say six weeks. I think it will last up to probably a month. I don't really make bokeronas. Fair. Fair point. I love boqueronas, but I actually like salted anchovies. I love salted anchovies. So if any of you have made Bocarones. Anyone here made Bocarones? No. I would go to Hank Shaw. Hank Shaw is a good writer and outdoor enthusiast, and he has a relatively easy to follow bokoronis recipe. And he eats them fundamentally the next day or even later that evening because he only saw it for a couple of hours and then only acids it for a couple of hours. And then once the oil's on it, he'll either eat it right away or let it sit around. So, you know, if Hank says so, it can't be too wrong. All right, well, thanks, folks. We'll see you next week on cooking issues.