Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold

Dave Arnold is back at Rockefeller Center with the crew, and Nastassia kicks things off with a beer can chicken experiment that went spectacularly wrong: green chicken, burning skin, emergency Popeyes, and a last-minute rescue by Daniel Patterson. Dave also reports back from Lima, with thoughts on Peruvian chicken, ceviche, pisco sours, ancient adobe cities, cocktail bars, and the city’s formidable traffic. Then it’s on to listener questions: getting Flavacol to stick to air-popped popcorn, the limits of long low-temperature brisket cooks, red versus white clam pizza, and more. Plus: undercooked eggplant, broken glass disasters, mushroom versus butterfly popcorn, New Haven clam pies, and the deep-fried-self art project that thankfully never happened. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dave is joined by chef Fidel Caballero of Corima and Vato for a deep dive into Northern Mexican cooking, starting with an ingredient close to both their hearts: turkey butts. Fidel explains their place in the tortas of Chihuahua and Juárez, before getting into squab-butt tacos, asiento, molcajetes and metates, and why Northern Mexican food deserves more attention.

They go deep on flour tortillas: White Sonora wheat, boiling-water doughs, butter versus chicken fat, sourdough and lactic acid, hot presses, giant Sonoran sobaqueras cooked on an inverted wok, and why a proper Juárez burrito bears little resemblance to its enormous California cousin. Fidel also talks mole from scratch, Tokyo turnip cajeta, grilled fish collars, and the cooking behind Corima and Vato.

Plus, Jack attempts to break his daily cold-brew habit, Quinn reports back on tomato-water bread and amino-acid-enhanced tomato soup, and Dave weighs in on grinder maintenance, pre-gelatinized starch, tomato soup, vintage Japanese whisky, stand mixers, guacamole, and the enduring question: where the hell can you buy turkey butts in New York?
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Dave tackles a packed round of listener questions, starting with a surprisingly deep investigation into the canonical club sandwich.

Then, a listener trying to recreate the original marshmallow using marshmallow root sends Dave into the problem of building a vegan marshmallow.

Also on the docket: choosing an outdoor fryer and getting serious about homemade french fries, how cold Dave keeps carbonated cocktails at Bar Contra, using tomato water in bread dough, storing whole-wheat flour under vacuum, cooking for 12 people aboard a research vessel, and what to know before making turtle soup. Plus, Dave talks peak tomato season, debates whether “New American” still means anything, and checks in with Nastassia about the realities of feeding a touring crew.
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Dave reports back from Los Angeles with stories from a Morihiro pop-up and the hard-core world of tiki fandom. The crew also gets into airplane etiquette, Canadian Parmesan-style cheese, pressure-cooker stocks and braises, stabilizing sorbets, aging ice cream bases, purging clams, and the opening arguments in a definitive ranking of the world’s best sandwiches. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Dave answers long-awaited cocktail questions, dives into techniques for building better drinks, and shares updates from recent industry events and ongoing Cooking Issues projects. The conversation also covers creative burger experiments, getting more out of a small kitchen, troubleshooting common cooking mistakes, and practical advice for working with cured meats, custards, and emulsions.

Along the way, the crew debates paper straws, swaps favorite food movies, and wanders through the usual mix of culinary science, restaurant stories, and spirited tangents.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.