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August 13, 2024 48 mins

We’ve been watching a lot of “The Bear” and are inspired to create all the delicious and mind-blowing meals. . . . but first, we must learn to chop before we sauteé.  

It’s the Season Two finale, and Molly and Matt are hitting the kitchen with a special guest, the James Beard award-winning J. Kenji López Alt. Yes, chef! 

Learn which cooking tools are must-haves, the best ways to defrost meat, and the most common mistakes made in the kitchen. We’re going to help you foster a love for cooking, even if you’re a takeout stan.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Cooking is an art form, but it's also a science,
and over the years, this combination has made it intriguing
as a hobby for all. But this dichotomy can also
make it feel intimidating to a lot of people. Back
in twenty thirteen, Tufts University published research results that revealed
twenty eight percent of study participants did not know how

(00:29):
to cook. And honestly, it's not that surprising. With all
of the delivery and takeout options literally at our fingertips today,
it's become so easy to have pre made food at
your door within minutes. That being said, getting takeout every night,
is that always the most affordable, nor is it always
the healthiest option for us? The UK Social Innovation Agency

(00:52):
NESTA conducted a study in twenty twenty one that found
that most food purchased for dining out or takeout exceeded
the recommended caloric intake for a meal, and about twenty
percent of these types of meals were more than the
recommended daily calorie intake. Thankfully, today, interest in cooking at
home has grown. According to a twenty twenty three report

(01:13):
published by the National Frozen and Refrigerated Foods Association or NFRA,
sixty four percent of Americans are cooking at home as
a means to stay on budget and help save money.
But there's also a lot to know and understand and
even master when it comes to cooking. I mean, some
people create an entire career out of building recipes and

(01:34):
cooking for a living. So how can we simplify cooking
and ease our way in and find the joy of
cooking for ourselves? And what are the tools that will
make it a lot easier? And do I need to
buy a rice cooker? Start taking notes? Because this is
grown stuff. Hello to all of our grown ups tuning

(02:01):
in and joining us on this journey we call life,
And are you know, just trying to figure it out?
This is grown up stuff. How to Adult the podcast
dedicated to answering all of those tricky adulting questions like
what's the best way to frost a turkey? And can
I drink milk if it's past the expiration date but
still passes the smell test. Welcome to our season two finale.

(02:22):
I'm Mollie and I'm here with you asking all the
questions you're thinking but don't want to say out loud,
And as always, I am joined by my co host
and favorite co chef, Matt still O. Matt, I can't
believe it's season two finale, can you two.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Chef Baby, I cannot, I cannot know. It has been
a wonderful season. We have really run the gamut of
the essentials of adult life, and we're topping it off
with perhaps my favorite episode of this season.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
And that's saying a lot, because we've had some phenomenal
topics this season, Like truly it's tough to pick, like
that laundry episode that blew my mind so good, getting
to interview Instagram's plant queen, like.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
That mean of all plants, the Queen of all plants.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
But today we're going to be talking about one of
my favorite topics, food and cooking. You have a lot
of topics that, like you actually feel more grown up
than me about, but like, this is the topic I
kind of sort of feel like the most grown up about.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
It's truely, we just had an off site with our
team at iHeart and you and our coworker Jay. You
guys are like fine dining caterers. You have menus. J
goes around and picks flowers from wherever we are. It
makes a beautiful table has a friggin spread. We had
like piea this year, we had like eggs and like

(03:44):
I couldn't even It's dishes that I had never even
seen before.

Speaker 3 (03:47):
So what did you guys make?

Speaker 2 (03:49):
It was bananas.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
We did grilled octopus with like grilled ridikio. We did
a skirt steak with a spicy citrus like glaze and sauce,
which was probably one of my favorite things that we did.
It was delicious.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
I mean, it was just absolutely wild. So no, you
bring it in the kitchen, Mom, you bring it in
the kitchen.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
I'm blushing that thank you. That's so kind for you
to say. Matt, you and I are both rearding out
a little bit about this guest. We are talking to
none other than the award winning cookbook author and chef
Jay Kenji Lopez alts.

Speaker 3 (04:24):
I love The Food Lab.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
I got it for my dad for Christmas. But Kenji
is also a New York Times food columnist and the
chief culinary advisor for Serious Eats.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
The Food Lab and Kenji's other cookbook, The Walk, have
been awarded the James Beard Award, which is pretty much
the most prestigious award in the culinary World. Kenji is
also the former chef and founding partner at the restaurant
Worst Hall in California.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
And a founding partner at the bakery Bachhouse. Kenji also
has a very popular YouTube channel where you can watch
to make everything from fluffy mashed potatoes to a Kremberley
French toast oh yum.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah right. Plus, Kenji hosts the podcast The Recipe with
cookbook author Deb Pearlman. Kenji. Welcome to Grown Up Stuff,
How to Adult. We were so thrilled to have you here.
I want to kick off by in your book The
Food Lab, you talk about how you ended up in
your career cooking and that it was not always planned

(05:22):
or maybe what your family had planned for you. So
how did you find yourself on this culinary journey.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
So I had gone to college thinking I was going
to be a biology major. I was into science, and
my father's a biologist, my grandfather's a chemist, and so yeah,
I went to college thinking I was going to do that.
And then I realized, like, you know, this is not
what I want to be spending my life doing. Just
to make ends meet for the summer, I was looking
for a job as a waiter one of the restaurants
I walked into, they had a cook who didn't show
up that morning, and so they asked if I could

(05:48):
work that afternoon, and I said sure, and so they
gave me a job as a cook for the summer.
And that was basically it was an accidental you know,
I never really I was not a great eater before that.
If I went to a restaurant, I was the one
who would order, like, you know, the chicken or the
steak that they stick on there for people who can't
order anything else. And so I'm the kind of person

(06:10):
that does enjoy sort of learning new things and having
new challenges, and so for me, it was like, oh,
this will be a fun new skill to learn, like cooking.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
That's got to be useful.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
And I found that I very quickly took to what
at the time was a good sort of schedule for
me because I didn't have to wake up early in
the morning, and I get to stay up late at
night and drink after work and all the you know,
all these things that like seem cool when you're in
your twenties.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
And then you realize, oh, wait, this is not sustainable.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
And so for people who are thinking maybe not about
getting a summer job as a chef, but are looking
to bring a little bit more of cooking skills into
their life. Maybe they're just getting started. I'm curious, why
should we care about cooking? You know, what does a
stand to bring into our lives as adults.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
There's a number of reasons. So first of all, it's
something that most people do every day. So if you
can build some sort of interest and pleasure into that
necessary activity every day, then why wouldn't you want to
make your life more interesting, more fun?

Speaker 1 (07:01):
You know?

Speaker 4 (07:01):
I find cooking to also be sort of the quickest
way to learn more about someone. So eating with someone
and cooking with someone and eating someone else's food or
serving someone your food, I think is a very quick
and enjoyable way to learn about someone. And finally, I
think just as sort of a matter of sort of health.
You know, It's like I wouldn't advocate for any sort
of particular diets, but I do think that in general,

(07:24):
cooking your own food and being more aware of what
you're sticking into your body is good. Like it helps
me make better decisions about what you're eating, you know,
and when you realize the stuff that I'm putting into
my body is made from real ingredients and real things
that I can trace what these things are and what's
going into me more easily when I cook for myself.
You know, it kind of makes you think about it.
The more you think about your health, the better health

(07:45):
outcomes you have.

Speaker 3 (07:46):
I think.

Speaker 4 (07:46):
So all that said, if you hate cooking and you
just want to buy a jar of soilent and whatever
and get along with your day, that's fine.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
You know, I'm not going to judge you for that.

Speaker 1 (07:56):
But also there's other options besides soilent.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
I feel like this are sure?

Speaker 3 (08:01):
Sure? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (08:03):
You open your book up by asking this simple question,
what is cooking? Would you care to explain to our listeners?
Your answer on that, I don't.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
Know what I wrote in the book. Yah, you'll know better.
You've read it more recently than I have, probably what it.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
Mean to you? Now? How do you define it?

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Now?

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Let me put it that way.

Speaker 4 (08:22):
I mean cooking, I think is sort of any sort
of transformational act that you do to something you're going
to consume in your mouth, Like even things that don't
involve heat, I would still consider cooking. It's one of
these things where it's both a craft and an art.
You know, it can be an art at the most
basic level, it's a craft, right where you're using a
certain set of unique skills to transform something in the
real world, and at its best or most interesting. Food

(08:45):
transcends being a pure craft into also being something that
has some sort of personal significance or cultural significance, you know,
And those are the kinds of things that you know,
you could argue turn it into an art, but at
the very least, it turns it into a method of
sharing a bit of who you are. My goal is
not to teach you how to cook an individual dish.
It's not just to say, hey, here's a great recipe
for this, like roast chicken whatever. Yeah, that's part of it.

(09:06):
But the goal really is to teach you more the
background and the science and the techniques behind it. And
it's like, why are you roasting a chicken this way?
What happens if you roast a chicken a different way?
What happens if you spatchcock it versus leave it hole?
What happens if you do it at a lower temperature
versus a higher temperature? What if it happens if I
salt it today versus salt it tomorrow, right. And so
these are the kinds of questions that when I was
learning how to cook, I had a lot of those questions, right.

(09:27):
And I wish that someone had written a book like
this for me, or like I had a column like
that that I could read. And so that was sort
of my goal with the Food Love. But the idea
is that by understanding these things, then you don't have
to follow recipes. And I find that it empowers me
in the kitchen and it makes me feel that the
things that I want to make that are in my head,
you know, the flavors I have in my head, or
the dish that I want to produce, I have the

(09:47):
skills and the techniques to do that, and I want
to sort of show people how to do that. And
then if I want to then say, hey, well this
was my mom's dumpling, Well, how do I make them
my own dumpling? Like, what are some experiences I've had
or some flavors I like that I can then add
to my mom's dumplings. Well, first I need to know
what my mom's dumplings are. I need to know the
sort of technical skills needed to bring them together. And
then I need to be able to take my own
flavors and know how to sort of translate them into that.

(10:09):
And these are all sort of skills that I think
are teachable. If you learn how to cook from these
sort of first principles and sort of basic technical background
as opposed to sort of a recipe based background, then
you become Yeah, I think you become a lot more
expressive and free in the kitchen.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
I love so many things about what you just said,
because the thing that drew me to your book first
and foremost was your science base approach. That was so
good for me to hear because I need a little
bit of both. I need some like art and some
science coming together to make something. I also love what
you said about like how to make a dish your own.
And that's another great thing about just cooking as an
adult is like if you like food a certain way,

(10:46):
you're really picky or I mean whatever, you're just really experimental,
like you can change it up. But I am curious
for those who are just starting out, who are maybe
you know, expanding beyond toast, you know, right, like a
few simple kind of like maybe foundational recipes that you
would recommend to people starting out.

Speaker 4 (11:03):
Well, sure, I would suggest you learn how to cook eggs.
Eggs are one of those things where the ingredients are cheap.
You know, eggs are still relatively inexpensive compared to other foods.
They're easy to experiment with, they're fast to cook, they're healthy,
they're delicious. So I would say, if you want to practice,
learn how to make really great scrambled eggs, Learn how
to make a really great Omelet learn how.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
To fry a good egg.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
Like, all the basic egg techniques are things that you
can sort of practice every day, and I think we'll
get you into the kitchen really quickly and easily and cheaply,
and all you need is one pan, right. But you know, honestly,
I don't think there's too many sort of foundational techniques
that span across every sort of cooking style. So you
really need to ask, like, what kind of food do
I like? Right, and look for resources in that department.

(11:43):
But really, I think the best thing to do is
start with things you like and things that you know
you want to learn. And at least for me, I
find I learn best when I'm passionate about the subject
that I'm trying to learn about, right, And so if
I want to learn how to cook something, it's going
to be something that I think is delicious already. Anyhow, Yeah,
eggs are a good thing to do. Knowing how to
roast a check and probably is a good idea. Learn
how to cook some rice, I guess, learn how to

(12:04):
make a bunch of pasta dishes, and how to properly
sauce your pasta. Don't just like open a jar and
pour it over the top.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
That chills me to the bone.

Speaker 4 (12:10):
I mean, you can't do that if you want, that's fine.

Speaker 1 (12:16):
What chills me to the bone here is not the
idea of jarred sauces. There are some really great ones
out there. What Kenji is talking about is the process
of making sure whatever sauce you're using properly adheres and
mixes in with your pasta. It sounds simple, but there
is a technique and a science to this, starting with
heating the sauce on its own before adding the pasta,

(12:37):
and making sure you reserve and add some of that
starchy salty water your pasta cooked in, and using that
to help the sauce really properly stick to the noodles.

Speaker 2 (12:48):
I did recently come across the notion that sauce is life,
and so I went out and bought a book that
was all about like sauces from around the world, and
that really like opened up a ton of stuff for me.
I like learned how to took a masala, yeah, and
various different curries and you could throw a curry on
anything if you want.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. That's a lot of
like the basics of sort of classic French cooking. It's like,
all right, you learn how to roast a chicken one way,
and then now you make fifty different sauces and like,
now here's fifty different dishes.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
You just got, you know, controversial question, where do you
stand on mayonnaise? Just broadly?

Speaker 3 (13:20):
I love me.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
I mean I slathered it all over my raw birds.
Yeah I do.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
I had an article that came out in The New
York Times a couple of years ago around Thanksgiving talking
about the merits of mayonnaise as a marinade. Kevin Bacon
read it and talked about it on the Jimmy Fallon Show,
Like he wrote my name on his hand and said
that he wrote my name down so you'd remember it.
Because because he was a big fan of slathering his

(13:46):
Thanksgiving turkey with mayonnaise. But the idea is that mayonnaise,
you know, it's mostly fat and some flavorings, but it's
mainly just fat with a little bit of egg. But
the egg is it stabilizes it and mulcifies it, and
so you can get sort of fat soluble flavor compounds,
which is most of the organic stuff we eat. You know,
most of those things that make food taste good are
dissolvable in fat, you know, which is often why sort

(14:07):
of fattier foods just taste better. They coat our mouths,
and a lot of the flavors that we get coat
our mouths better, and so you get more flavor and
a better sort of texture out of fattier foods. But anyhow,
if you try and make say like a flavored oil
or flavored butter, which many turkey recipes will have you do,
or even a roast chicken recipe, you know, you make
like a you take butter and herbs and you blend

(14:28):
them together and then you rub that over the chicken,
rub that over the turkey. Butter melts quickly at a
relatively low temperature, and it kind of just runs off.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
Same with oil.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Mayonnaise on the other hand, because there's some of that
egg protein in there, it doesn't really melt. It's mostly fat,
but the fact kind of just stays there, and as
it heats up, it continues to stay there and then
eventually does sort of melt away, but it stays much
longer than the other things, and those egg proteins help
a lot of it sort of say, adhere to the
skin of a chicken or a turkey, So it doesn't
taste like mayonnaise at the end, but it does sort
of get those flavors built into the skin a lot better.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Just taking a sip of water, because I have straight
up ruling that just hey.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
I'm Promeo. Yeah, I'm Promeo.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
I love it.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
I get why people are uncomfortable made uncomfortable with it.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Mayonnaise is a very polarizing topic. In most cases, you
either love it or you hate it, and if you
hate it, you really hate it. For many people, it's
a texture thing. For others, it may be a leftover
trauma from a regrettable tuna salid cast role experience when
they were young. I'm personally a fan of mayo in
every form, spicy aoli bring it on. There's more to

(15:31):
cooking though than condiments and sauces, and one of my
biggest questions about cooking still remains what tools I actually
need in my kitchen to really be an effective home cook.
What's going to make cooking that much more enjoyable and efficient?
And what devices are just a waste of money in space.
Let's get into tools as well. You have a list

(15:51):
of kitchen essential tools and accessories that you recommend. Now,
I personally spent way too much money getting some of
these on Prime days. But we discussed, you know, things
have changed since your book.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Yeah, I don't remember what's on that list, but I
can tell you it's on like what would be on
my current list and we could see how much it
over last.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, like your basic startup kit?

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, what's on your current startup kit list?

Speaker 4 (16:13):
So I would say the first thing that I would
get for me personally is a walk, because I know,
I mean I walk is the tool I use the most.
Is it for simmering, for steaming, for sauteing, for deep frying,
for pan frying. I do a lot of stir frying
as well, So a walk I would get a three
court slope sided saute pan. It's sort of like between
a saucepan and a skillet, you know, so it's got

(16:34):
deep walls. They would call it a saucier, but it's
three courts, which I find is like sort of a
good size for cooking, just like a batch of soup
or like a bunch of pasta for four people. You know,
that would be the pan that I use, sort of
the second most, and then I would get something sort
of big and wide for searing and sauteing. You know,
if you like stainless steel and you sort of like

(16:54):
the ease of maintenance and like you can just scrub
it clean or let it soak in the sink, go
for like a clad stainless steel pan, you know, something
with an aluminium core, so a ten or a twelve inch,
depending on how big your family, whether you're cooking for
you know, two to three people or four to five people,
or one or one.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Yeah yeah, people on this call don't have anyone else
to cook for.

Speaker 4 (17:11):
Yeah sure, and then yeah, then you get an eight
or of ten inch, but I would recommend rather than
a slope sided skillet, actually, I would get a straight
sided sawt taepan, so you know, something that has like
a two inch depth to it or so because it's
a little more versatile.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
It's something that you'll be able to.

Speaker 4 (17:24):
Sear chicken in or like sate vegetables in. But you'd
also be able to sort of like do a pasta
bacon there or braise things in there because most of
them come with lids. So yeah, like a ten or
twelve inch saw tapan you know, with two to three
inch tall sides would be my next recommendation. And then
something sort of yeah flat for you know, I would
say like a cast iron or a carbon steel pan
for searing things in. You can get stainless steel again

(17:46):
for that if you prefer, but I prefer sort of
cast iron or carbon steel. I don't know how many
pans is that? Is that seven? Yet I would get it.
I would get a whirlipop to make popcorn.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (17:57):
I mean I do personally have a lot of sort
of specialty just because I like collecting stuff. But you know,
that's the sort of good course. Oh, I would get
one non stick skillet. Oh really, yeah, like one like
sort of egg slash omelet pan, you know, something like
like a ten inch nonstick skillet that you're only going
to use with a silicon spatula for eggs or like
rarely for other things. But you know the problem with
the non stick skillet is that the coatings, if you

(18:19):
use them for anything that takes like high heat or
is rough on them at all, the coatings all wear out.
No matter how good they are, they wear out, and
so your pan wears out after a couple of years.
But if you stick to just doing really delicate things
like eggs or certain fish dishes that you might want
nonstick for, then you really keep the heat moderate and
only use silicon on it, you can get a non
stick pan that'll last, you know, five to ten years
or so, which is a pretty good life span for nonstick.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Do you worry at all about like the chemicals that
are used to coat those.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Yeah, I do. I got kids, so I worry about that,
you know.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
Well, the reason I ask is because I feel like
this is an issue I have a ton in my kitchen.
Is that like stuff just gets stuck, like I've been
recently making, like eggs in a basket, and like I,
for the life of me, cannot get them to not stick.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
So you can't get them to not stick to like
cast iron or carbon steel, even cast iron.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
We have a ceramic pan too, which is not crazy about.
But yeah, like if you are living with someone who
does not want to nonstick in the house, Yeah, how
would you recommend not sticking things to it?

Speaker 4 (19:16):
Yeah, learn how to use carbon steel or cast iron
and just season it properly. You know, part of it
is seasoning it properly. A lot more is just comes
down to properly preheating it. And my recommendation generally for
carbon steel or non stick. When you're going to cook eggs,
if you want to fry them, make an omelet or something,
you want to preheat them of relatively high heat, get
a little water in the pan, like a tablespoon or
two of water, and as you're preheating it over high heat,

(19:37):
swirl that water around. And what that does is the
water as it moves across the surface of the pan
will regulate the temperature of the pan, so it'll draw
energy off to evaporate, right, And so by doing that,
it will also regulate the temperature of the pan, so
the temperature pan will never really come up much above
the boiling temperature of water until all that water is evaporated.
So when you're whether you're making omelets or frying eggs,
I want the pan temperature carbon steel or cast iron

(19:59):
to be add around, you know, three hundred degrees a
little above the foaming temperature of butter, which is the
boiling temperature of water. And so by putting that water
in the pant, swirling it around, waiting till it evaporates,
and then as sort of the end of the water evaporates,
that's when I put my butter in. And if you
do it that way, you'll see the butter will sort
of immediately start foaming, but it won't burn very quickly.
So it gives you sort of the largest window between

(20:20):
foamy butter and burnt butter, which is what I want
for eggs, because that foaming is an indication that the
butter is sort of like at the right temperature for
the eggs to sort of immediately start setting and to
make sure that they don't chemically bond to the metal
in the pan before they have a chance to set.
So if you do that every time, you preheat it
on high heat, get your water evaporated, and then once
it's preheated, then you can sort of adjust your heat down.

(20:41):
You know, so if you're gonna fry eggs, if you're
making something like eggs in a basket where you're cutting
a hole into the toast and you're putting your eggs there,
and you want to cook the eggs a little bit
more gently, starting them off with that high heat will
get them to make sure that they don't stick, and
then you know, once you lower the heat, they'll continue
to cook a little more gently.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
But I don't know that's sort of the trick.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
This is blowing my mind.

Speaker 2 (20:59):
I'm thinking about asking you this question for like a week,
and you just delivered.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Like that is the exact Kenji response that I wanted. Okay, good,
thank you.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
That's amazing learning so much with Kenji. All right, My
big question here is on whether or not I need
a rice cooker. I see so many articles and videos
online that tell me a rice cooker is a must
for the kitchen, but I have limited space in my kitchen,
and I'm also wondering is a rice cooker really that
much more of an improvement over just cooking rice in

(21:29):
a pot.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
It depends how much you cook rice.

Speaker 4 (21:32):
I guess I have a rice cooker just because you know,
I'm half Japanese and I grew up eating rice, so
I find it's much easier to just kick a rice
cooker where you can just dump, pour, push a button,
and then I don't have to worry about it for
the rest of the meal. The cheapest rice cooker is
the kind that just have the little like magnetic CLICKI
thing at the bottom and one button on the front.
You know twenty five bucks on Amazon that rice cooker

(21:52):
will cook rice better than you can. Okay, so you
know the way those rice cookers work, it's pretty fascinating.
There's a magnet in the bottom that when you click
the button down, there's a magnet that clicks up and
it seals to the bottom of the pot, and that
closes a circuit that then heats up the bottom of
the pot, and the magnet will actually shut off once
it comes above a certain temperature. It's made of material

(22:13):
that is only magnetic below well, in this case, it's
below the boiling temperature of water. Again, so the boiling
tempers of water is a very useful cut off point
for a lot of things and cooking. But the way
that those pots work is that the magnet will keep
the pot sealed. The circuit closed as long as there's
some water left in the pot. And so even if
you're imprecise with how much water you've put into the

(22:33):
pot or imprecise with your timing, as the water sort
of gets absorbed by the rice and evaporates, Eventually, once
all that water has been absorbed, then the temperature of
the pot can start to rise a little bit above
the boiling point of water. And then at that point
the magnet stops functioning, falls off the bottom of the
pot and opens the circuit. So then the rice kirka
just stays to keep warm. So there's like this very

(22:54):
simple circuit that automatically keeps track of exactly when the
rice has absorbed the water. And you're never going to
get that on the stove. No matter how good you
are cooking rice, the cheapest rice cooker is going to
be better than you guaranteed.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
This actually sounds worth it.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
I add another deal in the Amazon part.

Speaker 4 (23:10):
But I'm gonna I said, you know, if you only
cook rice, like you know, a couple times a month,
you can do it just fine in a pie.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
But I always screw it up. Can see you're right,
So it's worth the twenty five dollars at this point.
So we talk about staples in terms of tools in
the kitchen, what about staple ingredients? So what are things
that we should always have in our fridge and our
pantries that are like necessities, whether that's you know, in
the terms of dairy, spices, herbs.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
You know, again, this really depends on what kind of
foods you like to cook. I can tell you what
I have in my pantry because of the kinds of
foods I like to cook and the kinds of foods
my family likes to eat. So all right, let's see,
let's start from the west and more western end. I
will always have butter. I will always have olive oil.
I'll usually have some variety of neutral oil, you know,
something with a high smoke point that doesn't have a
ton of flavors.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
So that could be grape.

Speaker 4 (23:59):
Seed oil, or avocado oil, or rice brand oil, you know,
anything that's sort of refined in neutral and flavor. Obviously,
always going to have salt, pepper, so pepper mills. I
have a black pepper mill, a white pepper mill. I
also keep set on pepper corn in a pepper mill.
On my counter. I keep salt and sugar. Next to
my stove. In my dry pantry, I'll have baking soda,
baking powder. I have things like I always have a

(24:22):
little bit of sodium citrate, which I use for I
mulsifying sauces. I always have powdered gelatin, which I use
all the time for adding sort of texture to sauces,
for helping stews and soups, and mulsify for giving sort
of better mouth feel to things like meat loaf or
meatballs or hamburgers, corn star trees quite a bit as
a sort of thickener and a binder. I'll always have

(24:42):
like some kind of citrus. And controlling acid is not
quite as as important as controlling salt, but can be
very very important in food. In fact, you know, oftentimes
I feel when when people are tasting food, we've been
trained at this point to sort of taste for the
proper salt level. You know, you use your feud is like, okay,
does that need more salt? Right, I'll sprinkle a little
more salt.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
And you know the next.

Speaker 4 (24:58):
Step after that is to sort of think about, all right, well,
what about these other flavors, What about the acidity in there?
What about the bitterness or a stringency like could it
use like a bit of like brightness in the form
of lemon juice or vinegar.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
Could it use a little bit of bitterness in.

Speaker 4 (25:10):
The form of like a drizzle of extraversion olive oil,
something like that, you know, something that's going to give
your food more dimensions. And acid in particular, I think
is sort of the most important dimension after salt, and
so always having like a good selection of acids, various vinegars,
and various citrus, I'll always have that on hand. Oh interesting,
It really depends what you're going to cook. So I
cook a broad variety of things, and I think a

(25:32):
lot of people these days, just because of the sheer
access to both information and ingredients, will pull from a
broad variety of cuisines and flavors.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
And so I don't know.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
Yeah, my pantry tends to be relatively large, but if
it's intimidating, you know, you just pick the dishes you
want by the pantry ingredients you want for that and
start there, you know.

Speaker 3 (25:50):
I love that.

Speaker 4 (25:51):
I don't think there's any must have pantry things other
than salt, salt, and fat.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
I feel like garlic is also another one you should
always have, Like fresh garlic on.

Speaker 4 (25:58):
Yeah, fresh garlic is always good to have, yep, yep.
As far as like fresh ingredients go, I'll always have
garlic and ginger and usually a bunch of scallions in
the fridge, and then yeah, potatoes and onions.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
In the food lab. Some of the other items Kenji
recommends having on hand are the aforementioned and very divisive mayonnaise,
but also honey, nutmeg, bay leaves, cheese like parmesana, rogiano, eggs, buttermilk,
dried beans, pasta rice, and a slab of bacon. What
are some of the most common mistakes you see beginners

(26:31):
make and what are some ways that we can kind
of avoid the pitfalls as we get started.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
Yeah, I think most of them come down to sort
of managing expectations and you know, expecting meals to come
out exactly the way the picture looks are exactly the
way like the thirty second hands only video with like
the perfect cheese poll looks like you just want the
final product, like you expect it to come the way
like food delivered to you at a restaurant is or
delivered to you through an app is, And you know,
I think that's a mistake. Is not recognizing that the

(26:58):
cooking process is part of it, Like what you should
be attempting to gain some sort of pleasure enrichment out
of learning to cook as a journey, and the end
product is going to vary and is hopefully going to
get better and better over time, But you really should
focus on enjoying the process of the cooking if you
want to sort of make it part of your life,
I think, And so you know, I think, just sort
of being kind to yourself about what the end product

(27:19):
is and remembering that you get kind of three chances
to cook every day, so as long as that's edible,
like who cares you get to try it again, and
also remembering that, like you know, I think, especially when
people have guests over, it can be nerve wracking to
think like, all right, I'm cooking for people, or like
if you're cooking for someone like who is a better
cook than you, you know, who has more experienced cooking
than you, That can be really frightening to some people,

(27:40):
I think. But just think of it, like from your
perspective when you're a guest at people's houses and think
about the kinds of people are who are your friends? Right,
it's like I don't know when I go to friends houses,
like I'm just happy to be there and happy to
like have good company and happy to have been invited
to a thing, and like I don't really care how
good the food is. And so I feel like, you know,
I remembering if you're inviting people over to your home,

(28:02):
if they're going to be judging you, if they're going
to be sitting there like nitpicking your food and judging
you and your food, like just like, don't invite them
back next time, but just realize, like most people are
nice and like enjoy the fact that they've just been
invited over. And so if the food has gotten people
to gather around a table, whether it's just you and
one other person, whether it's you by yourself sitting down
to enjoy a meal, you know, or whether it's like
all of your friends are over for a big pot
lick or whatever. If the food has gotten people to

(28:24):
the table to enjoy a moment, whether it's together or alone,
then I think the food's already done its job how
it actually comes out at the end, you know, be
nice to yourself, and you know who cares if it
doesn't come out right the first time?

Speaker 1 (28:34):
It's all part of the journey. Yeah, coming up on
grown up stuff how to adults.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
There's a lot of value in being excited about new things,
but I think training yourself to just kind of be
happy sitting there chopping an onion, those are skills that
I think end up making all of your future cooking
more fun.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
We'll be right back after a quick break, and we're
back with more grown up stuff how to adults.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
I feel like something that discourages a lot of people
when they first start off cooking is like, oh, I
bought a bunch of kale, and like it just goes
to waste. So do you have any tips for like
meal prep or like making cooking more efficient?

Speaker 4 (29:22):
Yeah, I mean learning how to google well, and like, honestly,
it's like if you have a bunch of leftover kale,
just like learn how to use a bunch of leftover kale,
Like find kale heavy recipes, right, like be smart about it. Yeah,
if it helps, google kale recipes kenji right, and I'm
sure I'm sure a bunch of recipes.

Speaker 3 (29:39):
Will come up.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
One thing I like to do with my vegetables is
make sure they're ready to go, you know, So It's
like if i get like a whole head of broccoli
and I'm not going to eat it all at once,
Like I would still prep the whole head of broccoli
and have it like you know, sometimes I'm if I'm
going to blanche part of it just to sate your
serving a recipe, I would blanch all of it so
that I just have it like ready to eat form. Yeah,
you know, I kind of think about it the way
I would, you know, because I from a restaurant background,

(30:01):
and in restaurants, like generally what you'll do with your
ingredients is you will prep them up to the final
point that you could take them without sort of them
losing versatility.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
You know.

Speaker 4 (30:11):
So it's like you're cleaning your salad greens, and you're
chopping your vegetables, and you're washing your vegetables and trimming
your meat and so like I tend to kind of
just like if I'm going to be doing that for
like one meal, I'll just do it to all of
that vegetable that I have so that it'll be ready
to go for the next meal. And that helps me
sort of make my time in the kitchen more efficient.

Speaker 1 (30:29):
Yeah, speaking of keeping things fresh, I want to get
a little bit into food safety in storage. Okay, but
I want to start with defrosting and thawing meat because
I have made horrible mistakes where I've unintentionally made myself
very ill. So what is the safest And this is
also a controversial topic in my family too, because okay,
we were raised one way and then us kids were like,

(30:50):
you can't do that, mom, and dad, why do you
do that? So what is the safest way to defrost
or thought meat?

Speaker 4 (30:56):
The safest way is to do it in the fridge, right,
and that that takes a long time. So if you have, say,
you know, like a two pound block of ground beef,
that could take you overnight in the fridge, But if
you have like a whole turkey, that could take like
three nights in the fridge. Right, that's the safest way.
Because there's this thing called the danger zone between forty
degrees fahrenheit and one hundred and forty degrees fahrenheit, And
the very basic rule of thumb is that the total

(31:18):
amount of time that your food spends in that window
between forty and one hundred fourty degrees should be under
four hours. So that means like if you're heating food,
you need to chill it rapidly down below forty degrees,
or if it's been held at forty degrees a long time,
you want to heat it up rapidly above one hundred
and forty degrees because that's the window sort of where
bacteria is most likely to multiply. The reality is is
a lot more sort of nuanced than just that simple

(31:39):
four hours at forty to one hundred forty degrees. But
that's the sort of basic rule of thumb. And so
when you're defrosting things, yeah, defrosting it in the fridge
keeps it below that temperature. And so that's sort of
the safest way if you want to rapidly defrost things,
doing it under cold running water and swapping out the
water every once in a while, like is sort of
the fastest and most effective safe way to do it.
Just letting it sit on a countertop generally not advisable.

(32:01):
You know that that's generally going to be a slow process.

Speaker 1 (32:03):
Hear that, Mom and Dad, hear that.

Speaker 4 (32:06):
However, there are exceptions. So if you're freezing like a
big chunk of meter, you know, a whole turkey or something, Yeah,
don't defrost it on the countertop. If you're freezing individual
portions of food, you know, say like a pound of
ground meter, like a steak, or like a few chicken
breasts or something, what I recommend is that you put
it in a freezer bag, you know, like an airtight
zipper lock bag. If you have a cryovac machine, you know,
that's even better get all the air out of there.

(32:27):
If you don't, you want to use a heavy duty
zipperlock bag specifically designed for the freezer, because regular zipperdlock
bags will actually they actually breathe, you know, they let
air in and out very slowly. It per me us
right through the membrane. So that's why they're not great
for the freezer because you get freezer burned. But a
heavy dough the freezer lock back. What you do is
you put the food in there in a single layer.
You seal it almost all of the way, and then
you can either squeeze out as much air as you can,

(32:49):
or even better, you can dip the whole thing into
like a pot full of cold water, and the water
will push the air out, and then just before it submerges,
you seal it. And that's sort of like you know,
like poor Man's cryovac, So it'll give you like a
completely air free seal, which is what you want when
you're freezing things. And then what you want to do
is you want to freeze things as flat as possible.
So if you have like ground meat, you want to
spread it out into a single layer, because the ideas

(33:10):
you want things to freeze and defrost as fast as possible.
And then the final thing you want to do is
you want to make the environment as conducive to freezing
as possible. And what that means for me is putting
it on an aluminum pan. I find that like a
gallon sized zipperlock bag basically fits perfectly on a corticized
rim baking sheet, and so I'll put that zipperlock bag
into a corticized sheet pan, then flatten it into a
single layer, and then put it in the freezer. So

(33:32):
aluminum is a very very good conductor of thermal energy
of heat. It will actually sort of conduct heat away
from the food and into the air of the freezer,
and so it will make things freeze and defrost significantly faster.
And then when you're defrosting, you can do the same
thing you can take those flat packs of food that
you have place them on an aluminum baking sheet. The
aluminum will actually help it defrost about fifty percent faster

(33:54):
than if you just leave it on like a wooden
cutting border or a plane countertop. So freeze flat, freeze fast,
use aluminum to freeze in defrost, and that that's sort
of my advice for rapid defrosting. And for anything that's
like frozen flat on a gallon sized bag, you can
safely do that on the countertop. It'll defrost. With an
aluminum thing, it'll defrost in like an hour or two. Okay,
So for individual portions of things like that, that's how

(34:16):
I recommend freezing and defrosting.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
I also want to ask about when things start to
go bad, Like let's say we see a speck of
mold on a block of cheese. Yeah, what are some
of the things where we can like cut the mold
off and use the rest, or you know, take the
moldy berry out of the bunch and use the rest
because they all look fine.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (34:35):
I mean, you know, the person who doesn't want to
get sued in me will say that, you know, when
in doubt, throw it out right.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
We're not talking restaurant, We're talking like in our own home.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
Yes, what I would personally do is I have no
problem cutting off the moldy exterior of the cheese that
you know, I would cut in maybe about a quarter
to half an inch away from the surface, especially if
it's like a cheese that, like say, it's like a
washedrind cheese, like something like a breeze that has its
own beneficial mold on there. You know, if that starts
to spread a little bit and I sort of see
like a similar sort of white, bloomy mold growing on

(35:04):
the surface of the she's like, I'm not too worried
about that because I know it's the same mold that
is on the rind.

Speaker 3 (35:08):
But yeah, that's it.

Speaker 4 (35:09):
Like, you know, I buy like a big chunk of
like tellamook cheddar, right, Like I buy like a tup
on block of it, and sometimes, yeah, the end of
it might get a little speck of mold on it,
and so yeah, I'll just I'll definitely just go to
trim that off.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Same.

Speaker 4 (35:20):
You know, personally, if I have like jam with a
little speck of mold on the top, really I'll sort
of carefully clean out the inside of the jar and
then scoop out the top half inch and then transfer
the whole thing into a new jar.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
But personally I have no problem consuming it.

Speaker 4 (35:31):
I wouldn't serve it to someone at a restaurant, of course,
but the restaurants have a very different set of standards
than I think. What I personally have is a home cook,
and you know all these things. It's like it's down
to your personal comfort level. But for me, it's like
I generally trust my nose, and it's like if something
smells off, I won't eat it. But if it smells
okay and it visually looks generally okay, I will cook
it or I'll eat it.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
And we'll caveat. Do this at your own risk.

Speaker 3 (35:51):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not saying this is what you should do.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
This is just what I do, Yes, exactly.

Speaker 4 (35:55):
And I store my pizza on the counter overnight, like
I wouldn't stick my pizza in the fridge. Whe Never
do that, never never wait why because it ruins the
crust texture. I don't know, I'd never do it.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
Do you not try the heating it up in the pan?

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Tech?

Speaker 1 (36:09):
No?

Speaker 3 (36:09):
I do that too.

Speaker 4 (36:09):
Yeah, yeah, I like morning after pizza, and I find
it's just better at room temperature than in the fridge.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
All right, listen, I respect it. One final storage food
safety question. There are a lot of food products like
I feel like broth has this on there. I feel
like our all mendolk has it on there where they'll
have an expiration date, but then they'll say, you know,
in fine print, like you must consume seven days after opening.
Which one should we really be following?

Speaker 4 (36:36):
I mean, to be honest, neither. So the expiration date
on a package of food other than baby food, those
expiration dates have no real meanings, so there's no there's
no standards that they are measured by. There's not like
a list of check marks saying like this much bacterial
will grow in this amount of time. There's no standards
at all. It's all voluntarily applied by the food companies.
In fact, they don't even have to put an expiration

(36:56):
date if they don't want to.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
It's all voluntary.

Speaker 4 (36:59):
But the idea is that food companies do it because
they want to ensure that their customer is going to
be eating the food within the amount of time that
it's sort of at its best quality level. So it's
like when you eat this oreo, does it taste the
way an oreo should? First of all, it's nothing to
do with safety, And they also tend to be very
conservative because they want to make sure that, say, is
this oreo still going to taste like an oreo in
six weeks?

Speaker 3 (37:18):
Yeah? Is it going to taste like an oreo in
twelve weeks? And probably not? All?

Speaker 4 (37:21):
Right, So let's say the cutoff is, I don't know,
seven weeks, right, So they tend to be conservative about
that because they really want to make sure that whatever
people eat it tastes the way they want it to
taste for them. You know, that's important. But from a
purely food safety perspective, expiration dates they're nothing to do
with the food safety. They're only to do with sort
of the eating quality of food, the flavor and texture,
et cetera.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Great because ignore most of them anyway.

Speaker 4 (37:44):
Yeah, So when it comes to food safety, you know,
generally you want to you want to follow your nose.
And you know in those cases that consume seven days
after eating, refrigerate after opening, those are things you generally
want to follow, right, So things like jams and catch
up and blah blah blah things that are shelf stable,
but then must be transferred to the fridge, Like those
are generally tested. So those things you would want to
follow the general protocols on, but in reality, you know,

(38:05):
again like went in doubt, throw it out, use the
small test. But if you followed expiration dates for everything,
I think you end up wasting a ton of perfectly
good food because they have nothing to do with safety.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
I agree, thank you for that sport.

Speaker 2 (38:17):
Okay, So we're going to get to two last questions.
And you know, just knowing that you've you know, come
from a long line of restaurants and you've worked with
some incredible people in the industry, we're curious to hear
One what's your favorite dish to cook at home and why?
And two what's the best piece of advice you ever
got in your culinary career.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
So the dish I cook at home more frequently than
anything else is Mapo tofu, the Japanese version of the dish.
So the dish is originally Sishwan dish, and it came
to Japan in the seventies. So iron chef chen Kinichi,
if you're familiar with him, like he brought it to
Japan in the seventies and popularized it there and then
you know, sort of developed into its own thing. And
then you know, my mom made her own version of
it that she fed to us growing up. So it

(38:58):
was my favorite dish growing up, and my kids love
it now. So I kind of make not quite my
mom's version, but my version of my mom's version. It's
as sort of a staple recipe for me because I
always have the ingredients on hand and I know that
if I make it, my kids will eat it.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
So yeah, that's what I make more than anything else.

Speaker 4 (39:14):
Best piece of cooking advice, I would say, you know,
the bits of advice that have stuck with me most
were from sort of my early days of working at restaurants.
But I guess really the idea of spending time just
putting your head down and working and listening, like paying
attention to what you're doing, as opposed to constantly trying
to do something new. There's a lot of value in
being excited about new things, but I think training yourself

(39:36):
to just kind of be happy sitting there chopping an onion,
you know, and like learning how to get better at
chopping an onion, like those are skills that I think
end up making all of your future cooking more fun.

Speaker 3 (39:47):
It's the same way.

Speaker 4 (39:47):
It's like my daughter is learning to play violin right
now and she doesn't like practicing, and when I was
her age, I hated practicing music also. But it's like
by building these foundational skills, by doing these repetitive motions,
by learning scales, by learning you know, the right fingerings
and all that stuff that seems boring at first, Like
once that stuff is kind of like in your muscle
memory and you're kind of used to doing it, like,

(40:08):
that's when you can call on those skills later on
when you need them. And so for me, it's like, yeah,
I spent a lot of time just putting my head
down chopping onions, and so now I can Now I
can chop an onion without looking like I can talk
to you and have a full conversation and chop an
onion like really really fast without thinking about it, right,
And for me, like that's very pleasurable. And so yeah,
I guess like not discounting sort of the discipline of

(40:31):
training yourself to get good at repetitive tasks.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
Yeah, the time spent in doing those foundational skills, I agree,
because the first time I cut an onion, I was like,
have a what do you do? And now I have
a whole technique. Yeah, and it's really easy and it's
like such a foundational part of a ton of dishes
to just chop up an onion. So yeah, I love that.
Well said.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
And then one final final question for me. In your
book The Food Lab, which was published almost ten years ago,
you have this long if in five years from now,
somebody hasn't discovered that at least one fact in this
book is glaringly wrong, it means that people aren't thinking
critically enough. So now it's nearly ten years, as we said,
what have you learned since then? And what's wrong with

(41:13):
the book?

Speaker 3 (41:15):
Oh geez?

Speaker 4 (41:16):
I mean there have been a ton of things where
people said, hey, how about this, and I've tested it again.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
Oh you know what I didn't include in there?

Speaker 4 (41:22):
And I think I talked about peeling eggs. I mentioned
how older eggs peel better. Some of that was just
sort of like accepted wisdom that in subsequent testing I
found is actually not really true. So I've done a
ton more on peeling boiled eggs in there. I updated
actually in my walk book. But basically I discovered that
the only thing that matters when you want your eggs

(41:43):
to peel better, like boiled egs to peel better, is
whether the water that you cook them in, whether it
was boiling before you put the eggs or not. So
if you start eggs and cold water, they're much more
likely to sort of fuse to their shells. But if
you start them in already boiling water or so like
a steam bath that's already hot, they separate from the
shells or easily. And this overrides basically everything else, Like

(42:03):
it doesn't matter how old the eggs are. It doesn't
matter like whether they're brown or white eggs. It doesn't
matter if they're room temperature or not. It doesn't matter
if you salt the water, if you add acid to
the water, if you shock them the eggs with ice.
None of those things really matter compared to whether you
start them hot or start them cold. So that's something
that after the first book was published, maybe a couple
years later, I'd got like one hundred people to come
and peel over a thousand eggs in like a very

(42:25):
very large blind experiment.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
That's a decent data set, though.

Speaker 4 (42:29):
Yeah, people, one hundred people thousand eggs is a lot
of data.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yeah, I agree, and that is the beauty of science
and getting a little bit better over time.

Speaker 4 (42:37):
Yeah, that's a question that comes all the time, and
everybody always has an answer, and all the answers are
pretty much always wrong, and I can prove it because
I have the data.

Speaker 2 (42:46):
I love it amazing. Well, yeah, Kenji, just thank you
so much for your time. This has just been wonderful,
your generosity and just all of the work that you've
put out there in the world.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
Oh well, thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
We love you, Kenji, come back anytime.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
Appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
An enormous thank you to Jkengi Lopez Alt for joining
us for our season two finale. If you're not already
following Kenji on social, you can find him at Kenji
Lopez Alt, on Instagram, at j dot Kenji dot Lopez Alt,
on TikTok, and check out his YouTube channel at Jkegi
Lopez Alt and his website Kenjilopez Alt dot com for

(43:29):
more great recipes and tips. You can also find his
cookbooks The Food Lab and The Walk where most cookbooks
are sold, and don't forget to check out his podcast,
The Recipe wherever you're listening to this podcast. Here's some
of the key things I've learned from Kenji. Cooking can
be a fulfilling and enjoyable activity that brings pleasure and
creativity toward daily lives. Learning cooking techniques and understanding the

(43:52):
science behind them empowers us to be more impressive and
free in the kitchen. It's okay to make mistakes. It's
part of the cooking journey, and it's a part of life.
Essential cooking tools include a walk saute pan, skillet, and
a nonstickpan. A rice cooker can simplify the process of
cooking rice and ensure consistent results every time. A great

(44:15):
way to avoid wasting food is prep all of your
produce at once, even if you're not using it all
in one recipe. This way, you make your time in
the kitchen more efficient. Kenji also recommends just googling recipes
with your remaining ingredients to find new ways to use
what's left. The safest way to defrost meat is in
the refrigerator, but it's also the slowest. You never want

(44:37):
food to stay between forty to one hundred and forty
degrees fahrenheit for more than four hours, leaving it out
at room tempt to defrost is generally not the best move.
If you're in a rush, run it under cold water.
Aluminum baking sheets can also help speed up both the
defrosting process and the freezing process. Practicing basics over and

(44:58):
over is a great way to start. Don't discount the
repetition of foundational skills. Expiration dates on food packages are
based on food quality and not necessarily the safety of
the food. Use the smell test when it comes to
food safety, and when in doubt, throw it out. And finally,
the key to an easy to appeal hard boiled egg
is starting the eggs in hot or boiling water, not

(45:21):
cold water matts. You finally have the answer to your
stuck on egg issue.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
This is the thing that is brilliant about Kenji is
that he marries the art of cooking with science. And
one of the things I think is most interesting about
the cookbook is it goes into different ways different pans
heat up. Some spread heat evenly because they have like
an aluminum core. Others will really like follow the heating
pattern of the type of burner that you have. And
so because I have a gas grail, what I learned

(45:48):
is that Basically, my pan has been getting super super
hot in those certain areas and causing things to stick.
But if you use that water trick, which is like
just brilliant, Yeah, you can really even out the heat
on the surface of the pan, much like an aluminum
core pan. You know, it's something you just don't think about.
You know, you're like, I got a pan, I'm gonna
make an omelet. But really, if you think about, you know,

(46:09):
the science of heat and heat conversion and how it
interacts with different metals, like it really can change the
outcome of whatever dish that you're making.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Now is the time that I would normally ask you
what's up next? But this is our season finale to.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
Our wonderful listeners and grown ups. We don't yet have
a day for season three, but remember to keep watching
the feed wherever you're listening, and follow our team's instagram
at Ruby iHeart for more updates on when we'll be
back with new episodes. Plus, you could hear more of
the great shows that our team produces.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
That's right, and if you haven't listened to all of
season one of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult, go
back and listen to those episodes in the meantime, but
we will be back and learning more grown Up Stuff,
and I'm personally hoping that we'll get to dive deeper
into investing. What is it? How do I do it?
And avoid losing all my money and renter's insurance and
homeowner's insurance? What exactly does that cover?

Speaker 2 (46:57):
Not much, but we might find out on the next
season of Grown Up Stuff How to Adult. If you're
enjoying the show, don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening
so you don't miss an episode. We also want to
hear from you, so go ahead and leave us a
rating or review on your podcast player.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Of choice, or send us an email. Tell us what
kind of adulting stuff you're trying to figure out and
want us to cover on the show. You can send
us an email or a voice note to Grownupstuffpod at
gmail dot com. You might hear us thanking you on
an upcoming episode. We've gotten some really great suggestions so far,
so keep them coming. Remember you might not be graded

(47:30):
in life, but it never hurts to do your homework.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
This is a production from Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia. Our
executive producers are Mallisosha and Matt Stillo.

Speaker 1 (47:41):
This episode was engineered by the Matt.

Speaker 2 (47:44):
Stillo and written by the one and only mallisshow.

Speaker 1 (47:47):
This episode was edited by Sierra Spring and.

Speaker 2 (47:50):
We want to thank our teammates at Ruby Studio including
Ethan Fixel, Rachel Swan, Krasnov, Amber Smith, Deborah Garrett and
Andy Kelly and BLUs
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