March 3, 2025 • 27 mins
We develop recipes for a living: over three dozen cookbooks, countless magazine and internet articles, and 20,000+ copywritten and published recipes. Here's a look inside what we do on an almost daily basis.
Let's face it: Most recipes are developed in an existing frame--a braise, a cake, a short crust, a roast, a pastry cream. You accept the frame, then begin to work inside it to create something new.
In this episode, we're going to take on the hypothetical of developing a trifle, a layered cake-and-custard dessert. We've also got a one-minute cooking tip. And we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week.
Here are the segments for this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:
[01:04] Our one-minute cooking tip: buy great butter for toast but supermarket butter for baking.
[03:21] How we develop a recipe. We're making up our own trifle, showing you the thought process and creativity it takes to create a new recipe.
[23:45] What’s making us happy in food this week? Ben & Jerry’s dairy-free Cherry Garcia and a kale salad with a nutritional yeast vinaigrette.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bruce (00:01):
Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
mark (00:05):
And I am Mark Scarbrough, and I am, yes, back on this podcast.
My leg is officially out of a cast.
It's out of a splint.
Well, that was a longtime before the cast.
It's Out even of the walkingboot, I am just now in an ankle
brace and actually walking around.
So I am back on the podcast withBruce and I'm glad to be here.
(00:30):
In this episode of our podcast,we're going to do what we always do.
We're going to have a one minute cookingtip, which you know, that we always
give and never do in one minute anyway.
When it does
Bruce (00:39):
this week.
mark (00:40):
Oh, maybe we're going to come.
Up with a recipe.
Well, not really, but we're going totalk about how we come up with recipes.
This is how we work at heartand how we work to put together
things to make recipes for themany books that we have written.
36 about to publish the 37th,and we'll tell you what's making
(01:01):
us happy in food this week.
So let's get started.
Bruce (01:06):
our one minute cooking tips.
Use great butter for your bread.
Use standard storebrand butter for baking.
mark (01:16):
Oh.
See how
Bruce (01:17):
fast that was?
mark (01:17):
Uh, I have no notes.
No, no notes.
Perfect.
No, yes.
I, I, by the way, I should tell you that,um, I do love great butter for bread.
And if you don't know and live in the U.
S.
or in Canada, you can get reallygreat butter like Kerrygold at Costco.
You don't have to buy a lot of it.
But.
It is cheap, and you can freeze the piecesthat you don't use, which is what I do.
(01:44):
Butter is
Bruce (01:44):
very freezable.
People don't know that.
mark (01:46):
So I stock up at Costco for great butter, and then we just watch store
sales for just standard butter for baking.
Bruce (01:53):
And there's often 15, 20 pounds of it in our freezer
when they Put it on sale.
mark (01:58):
Yep, exactly.
And, um, yes, of course,I use unsalted butter.
There you go.
Bruce (02:02):
Um,
mark (02:02):
you should have to use it for baking.
And I even put it on my bread.
Although, I will admit thatI salt the butter sometimes
at night on a piece of bread.
Bruce (02:09):
Better that you should choose how much salt goes on and
the kind of salt, then let thebutter manufacturer do it for you.
mark (02:15):
So see, we didn't do it in a minute.
There you are.
OK, before we get to the nextsegment of our podcast, let me
say that we do have a newsletter.
It hasn't come out in almost twomonths because, well, the broken leg.
But it's now going tostart coming out again.
If you want to sign up for thatnewsletter, you have to go to our
website, either cookingwithbruceandmark.
com or just bruceandmark.
(02:36):
com.
There's a form there to fill out.
I know a couple of people have mentionedthis in the Facebook group and they say
they want to be a part of the newsletter.
I can't.
I can't access you from the Facebookgroup because I can't ask for your email
address in a public forum like Facebook.
It's not fair to you.
You're going to get spammed todeath when your email appears there.
(02:58):
So go to our website and there's aform to fill out and you can then
receive the newsletter that way.
And that way I can also make sure thatyour email is never captured by a third
party for spamming and sales purposes.
Okay, on to the nextsegment of the podcast.
How Do we come up with recipes?
Bruce (03:21):
Today we are going to talk about how we develop a recipe and
rather than say the process for abook, I'm going to make it easier.
Because when the book, it getsreally complicated because it has
to fit into certain parameters andit has to fit in a certain place.
Place in the book and what's therecipes on either side of it and
there were so many Restrictionsplaced on me in the kitchen.
mark (03:42):
I just say that we have written a lot of books recently that you know
They've appeared in Target and thatthey're they're generated toward instant
pots and air fryers and Bruce's Constantcomplaint here that he's not voicing
is my problem, the writer's problem,which I'm always saying to him, can
I get this ingredient at Walmart?
Can I get this ingredientat the Target Superstore?
(04:05):
And he freaks out because of courseyou really can't get preserved Asian
black beans at your local Walmart.
So, uh.
Wow.
He's talking about theproblems of cookbook writing.
So,
Bruce (04:16):
let's talk about how we decide what we're going to serve at a dinner party.
And then, how do I actually create a dish?
Because, if you know anything aboutme at this point, you know I don't
use recipes when I cook for fun.
Right.
When I cook for friends, when I makedinner for us, I don't use recipes.
I just, I know the techniques.
I know how things work.
I'm a professional at this.
(04:37):
So how do I create something?
To be fair, Mark, how many hundreds ofrecipes have we come up with things like
braised beef and stews in our career?
Oh,
mark (04:46):
a lot.
I mean, I can't even, I couldn't even,I mean, we, we've way past the 20.
So I couldn't even come upwith a number there of how many
Bruce (04:58):
braises there are.
Well, we didn't invent braises.
No.
No.
And we didn't invent pan roastedchicken thighs or pasta sauces
or sheet cakes or even puddings.
No.
mark (05:07):
Just to say, can I just stop and say?
A lot of people don't knowthis, but do you know that
you can't copyright a recipe?
You can't.
You can't.
You can't copyright the ingredient listof a recipe, so if we come up with,
let's say, pan roasted chicken thighswith parsnips and chickpeas, I don't
know, I'm making this up, we come upwith that, the ingredient list for that
(05:27):
cannot be copyrighted, nor can the title.
Because if you could, if you just thinkabout it through, if you could copyright
that stuff, then somebody could copyrightthe recipe for Toll House chocolate
cookies or just chocolate chip cookies.
And they could then claim chocolatechip cookie is my copyright.
And you may never make, you may nevermake them without paying like that.
(05:49):
Do you know that the Happy Birthdayto You song is under copyright?
And so anytime anyone sings thatsong in a paid medium, like a series,
you gotta pay a royalty to it.
So it's the same problem.
You can't do that.
They stop you from being ableto collect a royalty here.
So there you go.
You can't copyright a recipetitle or an ingredient list.
Bruce (06:08):
So basically, If you think about every recipe that you've seen in a
magazine, that you've seen in a cookbook,that you've eaten in a restaurant,
it's all a variation on a theme,
mark (06:17):
right?
Mostly.
Yeah, I mean, if you go reallyhigh end with the molecular
stuff, it's not Then they start
Bruce (06:23):
creating some new things.
Sure, somebody did create theidea of vinegar gel bubbles.
Someone did create the idea of foam.
Let's do a milk foam,let's do a bacon fat foam.
But now that we're doing thosethings at home, we're just doing
variations on that theme, right?
Well, I
mark (06:40):
don't know how many people are making baked foam
at home, but okay, sure, yeah.
Bruce (06:44):
All it takes is maltodextrin.
That is all it takes.
And a hand blender, oryou know, a stick blender.
mark (06:50):
But yes, um, it, it, it, it, It is variations on a theme, but that doesn't
mean there's not originality out there.
And in fact, originalitycomes inside of the form.
And let me just say before Bruce isgoing to talk, I think about a trifle,
Bruce (07:03):
right?
No, I'm talking about dessert.
How do we think about it?
Okay.
So
mark (07:05):
before we talk about that, let me just say that variations within
a form is a long artistic tradition.
I mean, let's face it.
There are 5, 000 landscape paintings.
There are hundreds of tragedies.
Shakespeare wrote many.
tragedies.
And inside that form is wherethe creativity takes place.
So you paint a landscape or I'mcurrently teaching a class on
(07:27):
Henry James and Paul Cezanne.
And Cezanne painted, gosh, literallyHundreds of still life paintings of
fruit and particularly apples on tables
Bruce (07:38):
falling off tables.
Yes, they should befalling off the tables.
Somehow they're not.
It's
mark (07:42):
this whole problem of perspective.
Anyway, but you know, he says,I didn't invent still life.
Instead, he's taking this verystoried form of art and he's
being creative inside of it.
That's a.
same thing we do in recipes.
We take a storied technique, abraise, or here we come, a trifle, and
then we become creative inside out.
Bruce (08:04):
The art comes when those variations are pitch perfect,
balanced flavors, balanced textures.
And it's a way to look atsomething old that hasn't been
looked at this way before.
I, I would love to think that I amto food what Cezanne was to art.
Oh!
I don't know that I'm evergoing to reach that, but
mark (08:22):
I strive.
You're almost as crabbyas he was sometimes.
But I
Bruce (08:25):
strive for it.
Well, and I don't, I, well, he took a lot,he did a lot of paintings of his wife.
I don't know that, how does thattranslate to what I, well, I've
made a lot of meals for you.
mark (08:37):
Okay, sure.
Okay.
I still don't.
really want to be HortenseCezanne, but okay, go on.
So
Bruce (08:43):
we're going to have a dinner party.
This is all hypothetical here.
We're going to have a dinner partyand it's a thought experiment that
I want to make a dessert and Ihave in mind the idea of a trifle.
So Mark, why don't you explainwhat a classic trifle is?
Well,
mark (08:56):
uh, uh, cause classic trifle is a cake of some sort, often lady
fingers, which is a cookie cake, buta cake of some form that's usually
soaked in some kind of distilled spirit,and that's usually a brown spirit.
Brandy, whiskey, it's usually abrown distilled spirit of some sort.
(09:19):
There's always a cream or a custard,and then there's usually fruit of
some kind, sometimes preserved orsometimes fresh, and these things are
all layered up, usually in a glass bowlso you can see the layers, and then
sometimes there's a topping of somesort, whether it be whipped cream or
meringue or something like that on top.
Bruce (09:41):
Okay, so one of the things that I don't like, and I know Mark's not
crazy about, is booze soaked cake.
I don't like Babazo rum.
I don't like those things.
So I know that we'regoing to do Can I say why?
mark (09:52):
Sure.
Because I think it destroys the crumb.
Because I think cake is all about thetextural crumb, and when you soak the
cake in booze, you get a kind of gummyconsistency, and I just don't like it.
It's not my favorite thing.
And thus, oh, don't kill me.
I really don't like tiramisu.
It's okay.
Listen, if I come to your house and youmake tiramisu, I'm going to eat it because
(10:13):
of course I'm a pig and eat everything.
But I, I, it's not my favorite thing.
I'd rather have the cake has thatlovely crumbly texture to it.
And
Bruce (10:22):
the same thing goes for those British drizzle cakes where
like a pound cake or a tea cakecomes out of the oven and they.
pour over a syrup.
The same thing.
There are Greek semolina cakeswhere honey syrup goes over them.
I don't like it.
mark (10:35):
It's okay to me if it doesn't soak all the way through.
Like we have a cake in andwe're way off topic here.
We have a cake in the vegetariandinner parties book that is a vegan
chocolate ginger cake and we poura whiskey syrup over the top of it.
But that whiskey syrup doesn'tsoak very far into that.
It's a Bundt cake actuallyinto that Bundt cake.
(10:57):
And so it, it, It ke it keeps thecake still with its own texture.
It does.
And that I, that's my problem.
Mm-hmm.
Is the internal texture people load up.
I think about that classic dessert,the eel diplomatico from Italy, and I
think about how it's soaked up with rumand I just, it gets a gummy texture.
I don't
Bruce (11:16):
want, and you know, the French Patisserie do the same thing.
Most of those classic French cakes,like the uh, casis buttercream
cakes and the grandma Monet cakes.
They brush each Genoise layer with liquorbefore they put the buttercream in it.
I know they do it.
It keeps it fresher, longer.
It keeps it moisture.
Don't like it.
(11:37):
So in this dessert, It's
mark (11:38):
like that.
It soaks you up.
Okay.
Yeah, it's when it soaksthrough brushing it.
Okay,
Bruce (11:43):
but soaking through, mm, mm, mm, mm.
Okay, so we know we're notgoing to be adding that
component to my layered dessert.
Now I do have to decide up front,am I going to make this in a big
bowl and serve it out in scoops, oram I going to be a little fancier
and make it in individual portions.
mark (12:00):
So
Bruce (12:00):
let me
mark (12:00):
stop.
and say, Let me just stop you right there.
So when you think about a recipe inorder to create it, and this goes for
cookbooks or just for dinner parties,you think almost first about how it's
served, which is really, that's thefirst thing you brought up after we
Transcribed on about soaked cake.
You talked about how it's served.
Bruce (12:23):
Absolutely.
That will impact how I cook it.
That will impact how I do it.
If I'm going to be plating something,I'm more likely to say, cut the pork
belly into cubes before I braise themin Asian spices because I could plate
beautiful pieces as opposed to braisinga whole chunk and cutting it up because
it won't look as nice on a plate.
mark (12:42):
And I would say that that's the difference between you, a
trained chef, and the rest of us.
And that is, I would dare say most ofus don't think about what the final
product will look like on a plate.
And so, your ability to see thatin advance is what gives you a
slightly different perspective onall of this than most of us have.
It
Bruce (13:01):
does.
And if you've watched the TV show,uh, Bear, about the restaurant No.
You could, if you remember throughthat, every time they were coming
up new dishes, what were they doing?
They were sketching, right?
It was always before the ingredientlist came a sketch of a plate and
what is this going to look like?
And I think as a trained chef,I was taught to think about
(13:21):
how it's going to be presented.
mark (13:22):
Right.
Because it is, this is really unfairto say, but food is spectacle.
It is theater.
Yeah.
If you're doing it, not on a Wednesdaynight for yourself in front of the TV,
but I mean, if you're going to reallygo all out as we're going to go all
out with a trifle, it is spectacular.
Okay.
So let's go back to the trifle.
Okay.
Bruce (13:37):
So I'm going to be doing this in individual bowls
and I'll leave it at that.
So now let's take apart the trifle.
Mark said the first thingthat is in there is a cake.
So I need to have some kind of cakeand I'm thinking about all of the
sponge cakes and all the pound cakesand all the things that are in.
other books that we've done, Ladyfingers.
Like, I know we have a beautifulVictoria type sponge in our ultimate
(14:00):
cookbook, but I looked at thatrecipe and it's so full of eggs.
I don't want this to be too eggy.
And so then I thought, hmm, there'sanother cake we've done that's a
sponge in one of our other books,that's a tres leches cake, but that's
designed to be soaked with liquid.
And we just said, we don't like liquid.
mark (14:16):
Yeah.
I may make an exception for TraceLitchis, only because, you know,
I'm a dairy fiend and it is so muchmilk and all of that poured over
the cake that I kind of like it.
But anyway, go ahead.
So
Bruce (14:28):
I keep thinking, where am I going to get a really good cake to start with?
And the Amy's Bakery Cookbook, thesweeter side of Amy's, has one of
the best yellow cake layer cakesfor birthday cake we've ever tasted.
They do.
too rich and sweet for this.
So I'm going to play with it.
I'm going to try it.
I'm going to use it with a littleless sugar, a little less butter.
I'll probably separate theeggs so I could beat the white
(14:49):
separately and lighten it up a bit.
And here's the trick rather thanbaking it in round cake pans.
I'm going to bake it in a flat sheet pan.
It'll bake faster and I'llhave more of that lovely cake
crust, which we both love.
mark (15:04):
Wow.
And see, most of us could neverimagine all of those transformations
to get to the cake that you want,because it's too complicated.
We just want to be given arecipe and be told what to
Bruce (15:15):
do.
Well, if this comes out great, you'll havea recipe that'll go into one of our books
or a newsletter or something like that.
Okay.
So
mark (15:21):
now the question comes up about the custard.
So.
You have to have some kind of custard,and it doesn't have to be vanilla,
although it traditionally is, but youhave to have some kind of cream, um,
that's, you can have creme diplomat.
You want to explain what that is?
Creme
Bruce (15:34):
diplomat is one of my favorite.
Basically, it's creme pat, whichis creme patisserie, which is a
very, very thick Pastry cream.
You probably have watched
mark (15:42):
the British baking show.
And so you probably knowall about creme pot.
And if you
Bruce (15:45):
fold whipped cream into that, you have creme diplomat, which is so lovely.
It's whipped cream plus creme pot.
And if you do some gelatin into that,then you end up with a whole other thing.
And you become, yeah, you getall sorts of interesting cremes.
You can get a scent on a ray cream.
And
mark (16:02):
you know, my mom, my mom made.
Trifles when I was a kid and,uh, she just used, I'm going
to tell you vanilla pudding.
Not only did she use vanilla pudding,she made vanilla pudding out of a box.
She didn't use the instant nocook vanilla pudding, but she just
made the boxed vanilla pudding.
And that's what she put between layers.
And we use pound cake.
(16:23):
That's what mom is pound cake.
And vanilla pudding, and then I'll tellyou later what she also did to that.
Bruce (16:30):
So once I perfect that cake, and I actually may have to make it once
or twice the week before the dinnerparty to make sure I get it right.
mark (16:36):
And again, no one else is doing that.
Go on.
And
Bruce (16:39):
I'm thinking I am going to go vanilla with the cream and I'm
thinking creme diplomat is Just thetexture I'm going to want, which
is my creme pat with whipped cream.
So now I have to figure outwhat the flavor profile is.
Do I want to use peaches?
Do I want to use berries?
Do I want to use coffee?
Do I want to make this a salted caramel?
Do I want to make it a chocolate chip?
Mint trifle?
mark (17:00):
Uh, let's see, you could make, like, apple pie filling and add nuts
to it and cinnamon and cardamom.
You could add ginger to things, uh,to create a ginger blueberry filling.
And don't forget curds,lemon curd, grapefruit curd.
These are all possible fruit mixtures.
Curds are a little harder because they area consistency very similar to the cream.
(17:22):
So it gets harder.
You get.
Uh, not enough, uh, texturaldifference between the two, but
it's not unthinkable to do it.
Bruce (17:29):
And I'm thinking summer pudding.
I love summer pudding.
It's not the middle of summer now.
I mean, I just love it.
And yes, you use white breadwhen you build a summer pudding.
mark (17:39):
So if you don't know what a summer pudding is, you take
basically, uh, well, a mixing bowl.
You, there are fancy molds, but you cantake a mixing bowl and you line it with.
What literally crust off white breadand then you fill it with a cooked down
berry Not cooked down to jam consistency,but a cooked down berry mixture and
(17:59):
you keep layering bread and thisBerry filling all the way to the top.
It usually has red currants oftenhas strawberries But you know, you
can actually add any summer fruit toit Bruce has actually made a summer
pudding with plums and peaches,a stone fruit, a summer pudding.
So you can actually go crazy with thisand vary it in all different ways.
(18:21):
But anyway, you, you layer the whitebread and after you've lined the tin with
white bread, you layer white bread andthis cooked down fruit mixture together.
All the way up to the top and then youput it in the fridge and literally the
thing sets up and you can turn it upsidedown and unmold it and cut it into slices
like cake, um, cut into wedges, like a,
Bruce (18:39):
like a bundt cake.
It's a beautiful, yeah, purpley, breadypudding and, and it's not cooked,
it's not baked, I mean, the jam andthe berries are cooked, but, uh,
mark (18:47):
It's called summer pudding because the Fruit comes in in the
summer, but also summer pudding, becauseyou don't have to turn your oven on.
Bruce (18:52):
And also pudding, because pudding in the UK is dessert.
I mean, what are we havingfor pudding tonight?
You know, we could be havingapple pie for pudding.
I'll be grabbing ice cream.
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, so now I have the cake.
I have my creme diplomat.
I know I'm going to make a berrymixture to drizzle in there.
And because the whipped cream isalready in the creme diplomat, I need
(19:14):
something else on top because I don'twant to be over whipped cream on this.
And I thought, Hmm, I've seenpeople do meringues on top.
So I like that idea, butthey're always just white.
And I want to do a toasted meringue, likeyou might do on a lemon meringue pie.
And because I'm not going to putthese individual bowls in the.
oven, I need to do the kind ofmeringue I can hit with a blowtorch.
(19:37):
And that's an Italian meringue.
There are so many kinds of meringue.
I know.
mark (19:41):
There are French and Swiss and Italian.
Bruce (19:44):
So what's an Italian meringue?
An Italian meringue is where you beategg whites till foamy and then you cook
a sugar syrup until it's at the softball stage, about 148 degrees Fahrenheit.
And you drizzle that into the beaten.
Egg whites as they're being beaten andyou beat and beat and beat until it's cool
and it is so Creamy and smooth and shiny.
(20:06):
Yeah, it has some marshmallow fluff andthen I Cream consistency and I use a
star tip on a pastry bag and sometimesI'd use different tips and I changed
the look, but I'm going to use a startip on this and I'm going to cover the
whole top of each individual one of thesetrifles with stars of meringue and hit
them with a blowtorch so they're lightlygolden and that is what is going to be
(20:28):
for dessert at our next dinner party.
mark (20:29):
In the end, the whole point of this exercise, and I know we
went on forever about things, thewhole point was to say that, look,
here's the structure, a trifle.
And so how do you vary up a triflein order to create something new?
That is interesting andinteresting on the plate too.
This is a really wild ideato individually do trifles.
Nobody ever does that.
(20:51):
Everybody always just puts it inthe big bowl, but this way, I think
Bruce wants to do it individuallybecause that way you don't get.
To put it crassly, a mound of goop onyour plate, which is a spoonful of goop
that comes out and goes on your plate.
That's
Bruce (21:05):
not very nice.
No,
mark (21:07):
it's not.
But again, most of us don't think aboutthat, what the end result of this thing
is going to look like when we eat it.
And that's because most of us are makingdinner on a Wednesday night, and we're
sitting in front of Netflix, or whatever,and you know, we're not really worried
about what it looks like on the plate.
plate.
But I think that a chef's perspective ismuch more what it looks like on the plate.
So of course, that washis primary concern.
(21:28):
And then we have a structure and wehave to figure out what goes in it.
And honestly, this ishow we write cookbooks.
This is exactly the sameway we write cookbooks.
For example, we have a newcookbook coming out this summer.
That is, we're going to talkto you a lot more about this
ahead, but that is a lot about.
canning.
And there are certain techniques incanning that are really standardized.
(21:50):
There are certain techniques in makingthings that you can can, including,
and we're not just talking sweetthings, chili crisps and salsa matchas.
And those recipes are pretty set.
But you can also start to becomevery creative in what's set.
We'll talk more about that when we talkabout salsa matchas and chili crisps.
That's a
Bruce (22:11):
great way to explain what we did in this new book.
Yeah,
mark (22:13):
that that you have a set way to do something.
There is a technique formaking a Chinese chili crisp.
A classic, classic Sichuan chili crisp.
Right.
But once you know the technique,you can start to vary it endlessly
with flavor profiles and pull itway away from anything Chinese
not to get too far into that book.
But Bruce has a salsa macha.
(22:34):
This is a traditionalMexican salsa made with nuts.
And because you know it'schilies and nuts, right?
And it's usually got a slightly sweet.
edge to salsa macha.
Not always, but usuallysometimes from dried fruit.
Bruce went crazy, and while we have astandard salsa macha in the book, we
also have one with walnuts and maplesyrup in it, which is nothing to do
(22:56):
with Mexico at all, but it's taking thatbasic technique and morphing it over
time into new things because you've gotthis set form, but the creativity comes
inside the form, not outside the form.
Before we get to the last bit of thispodcast, which has gone on forever, but
(23:17):
before we get to the last bit of thispodcast, let me say it would be great if
you could rate or like this podcast, youcan find that rate or like button on any
platform that you're listening to it on.
Spotify just lets you rate it with stars.
Can we ask for five?
That would be great.
Uh, Apple and Podchaser andothers let you actually write a
review, which would be terrific.
It helps us with the NLA's becauseas you know, we are otherwise.
(23:39):
unsupported by any commercialadvertising and choose to stay that way.
Okay.
Our final segment.
What's making us happy in food this week?
Bruce (23:50):
For me, it's not something I made or created, although I've
been doing a lot of that recently.
You know, it's Ben and Jerry's nondairy cherries, Garcia ice cream.
We are in the store last night.
We went out for dinner.
I wanted a burger and a beer.
We went out.
I
mark (24:04):
just want to Stop here and say, you realize with a broken
leg, I went out to dinner.
My leg isn't broken anymore,but this was a big deal.
This is the first time I've been atdinner in yeah, eight, eight, eight weeks.
Bruce (24:15):
And we had, I had, I had a burger and a beer and fries and we
shared a nice salad and on the way home.
We stopped at a store because Iwanted ice cream and I love Ben
and Jerry's non dairy ice cream.
It's a, it's a cashew milk and an oatmilk base and the cherries Garcia with
the big chunks of cherries and chocolate.
It's really good.
(24:35):
So that's made me happy.
mark (24:37):
Well, I guess what made me happy is a being able to go out
to eat because I have not beenable to do that in eight weeks.
I went to an actual restaurantand sat at an actual table, which
I want to tell you is just crazy.
I mean, I think I now.
somewhat understand what people feellike post surgery when they're actually
out in the world, you realize how muchyou've taken for granted, um, in your
(24:57):
life and how much you've done thatyou just assume is natural and going
into this restaurant and walking in.
I walk very slowly right now, but walkingin and walking very slowly to the table.
Uh, it was just like this, uh,almost revelatory experience.
I couldn't quite believe it.
But what I had at thatrestaurant was really good.
(25:18):
We went to a local restaurantand they served a kale salad,
raw kale with cauliflower.
But the big part of this was it wasreally, really finely sliced cauliflower
in tiny little bits and pieces.
But what was really wild about this is thedressing was made with nutritional yeast.
And so it had this kind ofcheesy, savory quality to it.
Bruce (25:42):
They called it a toasted yeast vinaigrette.
mark (25:45):
Yeah, I guess they had toasted the nutritional yeast.
It was so delicious.
I know, I had a curry after thatfor my main course, and Bruce and I
split the salad, and as we left therestaurant, I said, gosh, I wish I'd
just ordered that salad as my meal.
It was the fresh kale and the freshcauliflower, all raw, and then with
this toasted nutritional yeast,vinaigrette and dried cranberries.
(26:07):
And it was so tasty.
It was ridiculously good.
It was fabulous.
I think we may have to try someof that here at our house sometime
because I do love nutritional yeast.
Okay, that's the podcast for this week.
Thank you for joining us.
I'm glad to be back on the air.
I'm glad to actually be ableto get downstairs to the
podcast studio and do this.
(26:28):
Hey.
That's another thing.
I came down a set of stairs on my own.
Bruce (26:32):
And not on your butt.
mark (26:33):
Not on my butt.
I've been going up and down stairson my butt, which is really something
to see and really something to do.
But I came in here on myown and I'm glad to be here.
Bruce (26:44):
And I'm really glad you're back too, because it's more
fun when we do this together.
And it is more fun for you listening, I'msure, when we are doing this together.
So thank you for listening.
And please subscribe so youdon't miss a single episode.
And let me also remind you to go toour Facebook group, Cooking with Bruce
and Mark, and there you can find linksto all sorts of interesting things.
And each week, the question is posted.
(27:04):
What's making you happy in food this week?
Because we want to know, hereon Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein, and this is the podcast
Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
mark (00:05):
And I am Mark Scarbrough, and I am, yes, back on this podcast.
My leg is officially out of a cast.
It's out of a splint.
Well, that was a longtime before the cast.
It's Out even of the walkingboot, I am just now in an ankle
brace and actually walking around.
So I am back on the podcast withBruce and I'm glad to be here.
(00:30):
In this episode of our podcast,we're going to do what we always do.
We're going to have a one minute cookingtip, which you know, that we always
give and never do in one minute anyway.
When it does
Bruce (00:39):
this week.
mark (00:40):
Oh, maybe we're going to come.
Up with a recipe.
Well, not really, but we're going totalk about how we come up with recipes.
This is how we work at heartand how we work to put together
things to make recipes for themany books that we have written.
36 about to publish the 37th,and we'll tell you what's making
(01:01):
us happy in food this week.
So let's get started.
Bruce (01:06):
our one minute cooking tips.
Use great butter for your bread.
Use standard storebrand butter for baking.
mark (01:16):
Oh.
See how
Bruce (01:17):
fast that was?
mark (01:17):
Uh, I have no notes.
No, no notes.
Perfect.
No, yes.
I, I, by the way, I should tell you that,um, I do love great butter for bread.
And if you don't know and live in the U.
S.
or in Canada, you can get reallygreat butter like Kerrygold at Costco.
You don't have to buy a lot of it.
But.
It is cheap, and you can freeze the piecesthat you don't use, which is what I do.
(01:44):
Butter is
Bruce (01:44):
very freezable.
People don't know that.
mark (01:46):
So I stock up at Costco for great butter, and then we just watch store
sales for just standard butter for baking.
Bruce (01:53):
And there's often 15, 20 pounds of it in our freezer
when they Put it on sale.
mark (01:58):
Yep, exactly.
And, um, yes, of course,I use unsalted butter.
There you go.
Bruce (02:02):
Um,
mark (02:02):
you should have to use it for baking.
And I even put it on my bread.
Although, I will admit thatI salt the butter sometimes
at night on a piece of bread.
Bruce (02:09):
Better that you should choose how much salt goes on and
the kind of salt, then let thebutter manufacturer do it for you.
mark (02:15):
So see, we didn't do it in a minute.
There you are.
OK, before we get to the nextsegment of our podcast, let me
say that we do have a newsletter.
It hasn't come out in almost twomonths because, well, the broken leg.
But it's now going tostart coming out again.
If you want to sign up for thatnewsletter, you have to go to our
website, either cookingwithbruceandmark.
com or just bruceandmark.
(02:36):
com.
There's a form there to fill out.
I know a couple of people have mentionedthis in the Facebook group and they say
they want to be a part of the newsletter.
I can't.
I can't access you from the Facebookgroup because I can't ask for your email
address in a public forum like Facebook.
It's not fair to you.
You're going to get spammed todeath when your email appears there.
(02:58):
So go to our website and there's aform to fill out and you can then
receive the newsletter that way.
And that way I can also make sure thatyour email is never captured by a third
party for spamming and sales purposes.
Okay, on to the nextsegment of the podcast.
How Do we come up with recipes?
Bruce (03:21):
Today we are going to talk about how we develop a recipe and
rather than say the process for abook, I'm going to make it easier.
Because when the book, it getsreally complicated because it has
to fit into certain parameters andit has to fit in a certain place.
Place in the book and what's therecipes on either side of it and
there were so many Restrictionsplaced on me in the kitchen.
mark (03:42):
I just say that we have written a lot of books recently that you know
They've appeared in Target and thatthey're they're generated toward instant
pots and air fryers and Bruce's Constantcomplaint here that he's not voicing
is my problem, the writer's problem,which I'm always saying to him, can
I get this ingredient at Walmart?
Can I get this ingredientat the Target Superstore?
(04:05):
And he freaks out because of courseyou really can't get preserved Asian
black beans at your local Walmart.
So, uh.
Wow.
He's talking about theproblems of cookbook writing.
So,
Bruce (04:16):
let's talk about how we decide what we're going to serve at a dinner party.
And then, how do I actually create a dish?
Because, if you know anything aboutme at this point, you know I don't
use recipes when I cook for fun.
Right.
When I cook for friends, when I makedinner for us, I don't use recipes.
I just, I know the techniques.
I know how things work.
I'm a professional at this.
(04:37):
So how do I create something?
To be fair, Mark, how many hundreds ofrecipes have we come up with things like
braised beef and stews in our career?
Oh,
mark (04:46):
a lot.
I mean, I can't even, I couldn't even,I mean, we, we've way past the 20.
So I couldn't even come upwith a number there of how many
Bruce (04:58):
braises there are.
Well, we didn't invent braises.
No.
No.
And we didn't invent pan roastedchicken thighs or pasta sauces
or sheet cakes or even puddings.
No.
mark (05:07):
Just to say, can I just stop and say?
A lot of people don't knowthis, but do you know that
you can't copyright a recipe?
You can't.
You can't.
You can't copyright the ingredient listof a recipe, so if we come up with,
let's say, pan roasted chicken thighswith parsnips and chickpeas, I don't
know, I'm making this up, we come upwith that, the ingredient list for that
(05:27):
cannot be copyrighted, nor can the title.
Because if you could, if you just thinkabout it through, if you could copyright
that stuff, then somebody could copyrightthe recipe for Toll House chocolate
cookies or just chocolate chip cookies.
And they could then claim chocolatechip cookie is my copyright.
And you may never make, you may nevermake them without paying like that.
(05:49):
Do you know that the Happy Birthdayto You song is under copyright?
And so anytime anyone sings thatsong in a paid medium, like a series,
you gotta pay a royalty to it.
So it's the same problem.
You can't do that.
They stop you from being ableto collect a royalty here.
So there you go.
You can't copyright a recipetitle or an ingredient list.
Bruce (06:08):
So basically, If you think about every recipe that you've seen in a
magazine, that you've seen in a cookbook,that you've eaten in a restaurant,
it's all a variation on a theme,
mark (06:17):
right?
Mostly.
Yeah, I mean, if you go reallyhigh end with the molecular
stuff, it's not Then they start
Bruce (06:23):
creating some new things.
Sure, somebody did create theidea of vinegar gel bubbles.
Someone did create the idea of foam.
Let's do a milk foam,let's do a bacon fat foam.
But now that we're doing thosethings at home, we're just doing
variations on that theme, right?
Well, I
mark (06:40):
don't know how many people are making baked foam
at home, but okay, sure, yeah.
Bruce (06:44):
All it takes is maltodextrin.
That is all it takes.
And a hand blender, oryou know, a stick blender.
mark (06:50):
But yes, um, it, it, it, it, It is variations on a theme, but that doesn't
mean there's not originality out there.
And in fact, originalitycomes inside of the form.
And let me just say before Bruce isgoing to talk, I think about a trifle,
Bruce (07:03):
right?
No, I'm talking about dessert.
How do we think about it?
Okay.
So
mark (07:05):
before we talk about that, let me just say that variations within
a form is a long artistic tradition.
I mean, let's face it.
There are 5, 000 landscape paintings.
There are hundreds of tragedies.
Shakespeare wrote many.
tragedies.
And inside that form is wherethe creativity takes place.
So you paint a landscape or I'mcurrently teaching a class on
(07:27):
Henry James and Paul Cezanne.
And Cezanne painted, gosh, literallyHundreds of still life paintings of
fruit and particularly apples on tables
Bruce (07:38):
falling off tables.
Yes, they should befalling off the tables.
Somehow they're not.
It's
mark (07:42):
this whole problem of perspective.
Anyway, but you know, he says,I didn't invent still life.
Instead, he's taking this verystoried form of art and he's
being creative inside of it.
That's a.
same thing we do in recipes.
We take a storied technique, abraise, or here we come, a trifle, and
then we become creative inside out.
Bruce (08:04):
The art comes when those variations are pitch perfect,
balanced flavors, balanced textures.
And it's a way to look atsomething old that hasn't been
looked at this way before.
I, I would love to think that I amto food what Cezanne was to art.
Oh!
I don't know that I'm evergoing to reach that, but
mark (08:22):
I strive.
You're almost as crabbyas he was sometimes.
But I
Bruce (08:25):
strive for it.
Well, and I don't, I, well, he took a lot,he did a lot of paintings of his wife.
I don't know that, how does thattranslate to what I, well, I've
made a lot of meals for you.
mark (08:37):
Okay, sure.
Okay.
I still don't.
really want to be HortenseCezanne, but okay, go on.
So
Bruce (08:43):
we're going to have a dinner party.
This is all hypothetical here.
We're going to have a dinner partyand it's a thought experiment that
I want to make a dessert and Ihave in mind the idea of a trifle.
So Mark, why don't you explainwhat a classic trifle is?
Well,
mark (08:56):
uh, uh, cause classic trifle is a cake of some sort, often lady
fingers, which is a cookie cake, buta cake of some form that's usually
soaked in some kind of distilled spirit,and that's usually a brown spirit.
Brandy, whiskey, it's usually abrown distilled spirit of some sort.
(09:19):
There's always a cream or a custard,and then there's usually fruit of
some kind, sometimes preserved orsometimes fresh, and these things are
all layered up, usually in a glass bowlso you can see the layers, and then
sometimes there's a topping of somesort, whether it be whipped cream or
meringue or something like that on top.
Bruce (09:41):
Okay, so one of the things that I don't like, and I know Mark's not
crazy about, is booze soaked cake.
I don't like Babazo rum.
I don't like those things.
So I know that we'regoing to do Can I say why?
mark (09:52):
Sure.
Because I think it destroys the crumb.
Because I think cake is all about thetextural crumb, and when you soak the
cake in booze, you get a kind of gummyconsistency, and I just don't like it.
It's not my favorite thing.
And thus, oh, don't kill me.
I really don't like tiramisu.
It's okay.
Listen, if I come to your house and youmake tiramisu, I'm going to eat it because
(10:13):
of course I'm a pig and eat everything.
But I, I, it's not my favorite thing.
I'd rather have the cake has thatlovely crumbly texture to it.
And
Bruce (10:22):
the same thing goes for those British drizzle cakes where
like a pound cake or a tea cakecomes out of the oven and they.
pour over a syrup.
The same thing.
There are Greek semolina cakeswhere honey syrup goes over them.
I don't like it.
mark (10:35):
It's okay to me if it doesn't soak all the way through.
Like we have a cake in andwe're way off topic here.
We have a cake in the vegetariandinner parties book that is a vegan
chocolate ginger cake and we poura whiskey syrup over the top of it.
But that whiskey syrup doesn'tsoak very far into that.
It's a Bundt cake actuallyinto that Bundt cake.
(10:57):
And so it, it, It ke it keeps thecake still with its own texture.
It does.
And that I, that's my problem.
Mm-hmm.
Is the internal texture people load up.
I think about that classic dessert,the eel diplomatico from Italy, and I
think about how it's soaked up with rumand I just, it gets a gummy texture.
I don't
Bruce (11:16):
want, and you know, the French Patisserie do the same thing.
Most of those classic French cakes,like the uh, casis buttercream
cakes and the grandma Monet cakes.
They brush each Genoise layer with liquorbefore they put the buttercream in it.
I know they do it.
It keeps it fresher, longer.
It keeps it moisture.
Don't like it.
(11:37):
So in this dessert, It's
mark (11:38):
like that.
It soaks you up.
Okay.
Yeah, it's when it soaksthrough brushing it.
Okay,
Bruce (11:43):
but soaking through, mm, mm, mm, mm.
Okay, so we know we're notgoing to be adding that
component to my layered dessert.
Now I do have to decide up front,am I going to make this in a big
bowl and serve it out in scoops, oram I going to be a little fancier
and make it in individual portions.
mark (12:00):
So
Bruce (12:00):
let me
mark (12:00):
stop.
and say, Let me just stop you right there.
So when you think about a recipe inorder to create it, and this goes for
cookbooks or just for dinner parties,you think almost first about how it's
served, which is really, that's thefirst thing you brought up after we
Transcribed on about soaked cake.
You talked about how it's served.
Bruce (12:23):
Absolutely.
That will impact how I cook it.
That will impact how I do it.
If I'm going to be plating something,I'm more likely to say, cut the pork
belly into cubes before I braise themin Asian spices because I could plate
beautiful pieces as opposed to braisinga whole chunk and cutting it up because
it won't look as nice on a plate.
mark (12:42):
And I would say that that's the difference between you, a
trained chef, and the rest of us.
And that is, I would dare say most ofus don't think about what the final
product will look like on a plate.
And so, your ability to see thatin advance is what gives you a
slightly different perspective onall of this than most of us have.
It
Bruce (13:01):
does.
And if you've watched the TV show,uh, Bear, about the restaurant No.
You could, if you remember throughthat, every time they were coming
up new dishes, what were they doing?
They were sketching, right?
It was always before the ingredientlist came a sketch of a plate and
what is this going to look like?
And I think as a trained chef,I was taught to think about
(13:21):
how it's going to be presented.
mark (13:22):
Right.
Because it is, this is really unfairto say, but food is spectacle.
It is theater.
Yeah.
If you're doing it, not on a Wednesdaynight for yourself in front of the TV,
but I mean, if you're going to reallygo all out as we're going to go all
out with a trifle, it is spectacular.
Okay.
So let's go back to the trifle.
Okay.
Bruce (13:37):
So I'm going to be doing this in individual bowls
and I'll leave it at that.
So now let's take apart the trifle.
Mark said the first thingthat is in there is a cake.
So I need to have some kind of cakeand I'm thinking about all of the
sponge cakes and all the pound cakesand all the things that are in.
other books that we've done, Ladyfingers.
Like, I know we have a beautifulVictoria type sponge in our ultimate
(14:00):
cookbook, but I looked at thatrecipe and it's so full of eggs.
I don't want this to be too eggy.
And so then I thought, hmm, there'sanother cake we've done that's a
sponge in one of our other books,that's a tres leches cake, but that's
designed to be soaked with liquid.
And we just said, we don't like liquid.
mark (14:16):
Yeah.
I may make an exception for TraceLitchis, only because, you know,
I'm a dairy fiend and it is so muchmilk and all of that poured over
the cake that I kind of like it.
But anyway, go ahead.
So
Bruce (14:28):
I keep thinking, where am I going to get a really good cake to start with?
And the Amy's Bakery Cookbook, thesweeter side of Amy's, has one of
the best yellow cake layer cakesfor birthday cake we've ever tasted.
They do.
too rich and sweet for this.
So I'm going to play with it.
I'm going to try it.
I'm going to use it with a littleless sugar, a little less butter.
I'll probably separate theeggs so I could beat the white
(14:49):
separately and lighten it up a bit.
And here's the trick rather thanbaking it in round cake pans.
I'm going to bake it in a flat sheet pan.
It'll bake faster and I'llhave more of that lovely cake
crust, which we both love.
mark (15:04):
Wow.
And see, most of us could neverimagine all of those transformations
to get to the cake that you want,because it's too complicated.
We just want to be given arecipe and be told what to
Bruce (15:15):
do.
Well, if this comes out great, you'll havea recipe that'll go into one of our books
or a newsletter or something like that.
Okay.
So
mark (15:21):
now the question comes up about the custard.
So.
You have to have some kind of custard,and it doesn't have to be vanilla,
although it traditionally is, but youhave to have some kind of cream, um,
that's, you can have creme diplomat.
You want to explain what that is?
Creme
Bruce (15:34):
diplomat is one of my favorite.
Basically, it's creme pat, whichis creme patisserie, which is a
very, very thick Pastry cream.
You probably have watched
mark (15:42):
the British baking show.
And so you probably knowall about creme pot.
And if you
Bruce (15:45):
fold whipped cream into that, you have creme diplomat, which is so lovely.
It's whipped cream plus creme pot.
And if you do some gelatin into that,then you end up with a whole other thing.
And you become, yeah, you getall sorts of interesting cremes.
You can get a scent on a ray cream.
And
mark (16:02):
you know, my mom, my mom made.
Trifles when I was a kid and,uh, she just used, I'm going
to tell you vanilla pudding.
Not only did she use vanilla pudding,she made vanilla pudding out of a box.
She didn't use the instant nocook vanilla pudding, but she just
made the boxed vanilla pudding.
And that's what she put between layers.
And we use pound cake.
(16:23):
That's what mom is pound cake.
And vanilla pudding, and then I'll tellyou later what she also did to that.
Bruce (16:30):
So once I perfect that cake, and I actually may have to make it once
or twice the week before the dinnerparty to make sure I get it right.
mark (16:36):
And again, no one else is doing that.
Go on.
And
Bruce (16:39):
I'm thinking I am going to go vanilla with the cream and I'm
thinking creme diplomat is Just thetexture I'm going to want, which
is my creme pat with whipped cream.
So now I have to figure outwhat the flavor profile is.
Do I want to use peaches?
Do I want to use berries?
Do I want to use coffee?
Do I want to make this a salted caramel?
Do I want to make it a chocolate chip?
Mint trifle?
mark (17:00):
Uh, let's see, you could make, like, apple pie filling and add nuts
to it and cinnamon and cardamom.
You could add ginger to things, uh,to create a ginger blueberry filling.
And don't forget curds,lemon curd, grapefruit curd.
These are all possible fruit mixtures.
Curds are a little harder because they area consistency very similar to the cream.
(17:22):
So it gets harder.
You get.
Uh, not enough, uh, texturaldifference between the two, but
it's not unthinkable to do it.
Bruce (17:29):
And I'm thinking summer pudding.
I love summer pudding.
It's not the middle of summer now.
I mean, I just love it.
And yes, you use white breadwhen you build a summer pudding.
mark (17:39):
So if you don't know what a summer pudding is, you take
basically, uh, well, a mixing bowl.
You, there are fancy molds, but you cantake a mixing bowl and you line it with.
What literally crust off white breadand then you fill it with a cooked down
berry Not cooked down to jam consistency,but a cooked down berry mixture and
(17:59):
you keep layering bread and thisBerry filling all the way to the top.
It usually has red currants oftenhas strawberries But you know, you
can actually add any summer fruit toit Bruce has actually made a summer
pudding with plums and peaches,a stone fruit, a summer pudding.
So you can actually go crazy with thisand vary it in all different ways.
(18:21):
But anyway, you, you layer the whitebread and after you've lined the tin with
white bread, you layer white bread andthis cooked down fruit mixture together.
All the way up to the top and then youput it in the fridge and literally the
thing sets up and you can turn it upsidedown and unmold it and cut it into slices
like cake, um, cut into wedges, like a,
Bruce (18:39):
like a bundt cake.
It's a beautiful, yeah, purpley, breadypudding and, and it's not cooked,
it's not baked, I mean, the jam andthe berries are cooked, but, uh,
mark (18:47):
It's called summer pudding because the Fruit comes in in the
summer, but also summer pudding, becauseyou don't have to turn your oven on.
Bruce (18:52):
And also pudding, because pudding in the UK is dessert.
I mean, what are we havingfor pudding tonight?
You know, we could be havingapple pie for pudding.
I'll be grabbing ice cream.
Okay, go ahead.
Okay, so now I have the cake.
I have my creme diplomat.
I know I'm going to make a berrymixture to drizzle in there.
And because the whipped cream isalready in the creme diplomat, I need
(19:14):
something else on top because I don'twant to be over whipped cream on this.
And I thought, Hmm, I've seenpeople do meringues on top.
So I like that idea, butthey're always just white.
And I want to do a toasted meringue, likeyou might do on a lemon meringue pie.
And because I'm not going to putthese individual bowls in the.
oven, I need to do the kind ofmeringue I can hit with a blowtorch.
(19:37):
And that's an Italian meringue.
There are so many kinds of meringue.
I know.
mark (19:41):
There are French and Swiss and Italian.
Bruce (19:44):
So what's an Italian meringue?
An Italian meringue is where you beategg whites till foamy and then you cook
a sugar syrup until it's at the softball stage, about 148 degrees Fahrenheit.
And you drizzle that into the beaten.
Egg whites as they're being beaten andyou beat and beat and beat until it's cool
and it is so Creamy and smooth and shiny.
(20:06):
Yeah, it has some marshmallow fluff andthen I Cream consistency and I use a
star tip on a pastry bag and sometimesI'd use different tips and I changed
the look, but I'm going to use a startip on this and I'm going to cover the
whole top of each individual one of thesetrifles with stars of meringue and hit
them with a blowtorch so they're lightlygolden and that is what is going to be
(20:28):
for dessert at our next dinner party.
mark (20:29):
In the end, the whole point of this exercise, and I know we
went on forever about things, thewhole point was to say that, look,
here's the structure, a trifle.
And so how do you vary up a triflein order to create something new?
That is interesting andinteresting on the plate too.
This is a really wild ideato individually do trifles.
Nobody ever does that.
(20:51):
Everybody always just puts it inthe big bowl, but this way, I think
Bruce wants to do it individuallybecause that way you don't get.
To put it crassly, a mound of goop onyour plate, which is a spoonful of goop
that comes out and goes on your plate.
That's
Bruce (21:05):
not very nice.
No,
mark (21:07):
it's not.
But again, most of us don't think aboutthat, what the end result of this thing
is going to look like when we eat it.
And that's because most of us are makingdinner on a Wednesday night, and we're
sitting in front of Netflix, or whatever,and you know, we're not really worried
about what it looks like on the plate.
plate.
But I think that a chef's perspective ismuch more what it looks like on the plate.
So of course, that washis primary concern.
(21:28):
And then we have a structure and wehave to figure out what goes in it.
And honestly, this ishow we write cookbooks.
This is exactly the sameway we write cookbooks.
For example, we have a newcookbook coming out this summer.
That is, we're going to talkto you a lot more about this
ahead, but that is a lot about.
canning.
And there are certain techniques incanning that are really standardized.
(21:50):
There are certain techniques in makingthings that you can can, including,
and we're not just talking sweetthings, chili crisps and salsa matchas.
And those recipes are pretty set.
But you can also start to becomevery creative in what's set.
We'll talk more about that when we talkabout salsa matchas and chili crisps.
That's a
Bruce (22:11):
great way to explain what we did in this new book.
Yeah,
mark (22:13):
that that you have a set way to do something.
There is a technique formaking a Chinese chili crisp.
A classic, classic Sichuan chili crisp.
Right.
But once you know the technique,you can start to vary it endlessly
with flavor profiles and pull itway away from anything Chinese
not to get too far into that book.
But Bruce has a salsa macha.
(22:34):
This is a traditionalMexican salsa made with nuts.
And because you know it'schilies and nuts, right?
And it's usually got a slightly sweet.
edge to salsa macha.
Not always, but usuallysometimes from dried fruit.
Bruce went crazy, and while we have astandard salsa macha in the book, we
also have one with walnuts and maplesyrup in it, which is nothing to do
(22:56):
with Mexico at all, but it's taking thatbasic technique and morphing it over
time into new things because you've gotthis set form, but the creativity comes
inside the form, not outside the form.
Before we get to the last bit of thispodcast, which has gone on forever, but
(23:17):
before we get to the last bit of thispodcast, let me say it would be great if
you could rate or like this podcast, youcan find that rate or like button on any
platform that you're listening to it on.
Spotify just lets you rate it with stars.
Can we ask for five?
That would be great.
Uh, Apple and Podchaser andothers let you actually write a
review, which would be terrific.
It helps us with the NLA's becauseas you know, we are otherwise.
(23:39):
unsupported by any commercialadvertising and choose to stay that way.
Okay.
Our final segment.
What's making us happy in food this week?
Bruce (23:50):
For me, it's not something I made or created, although I've
been doing a lot of that recently.
You know, it's Ben and Jerry's nondairy cherries, Garcia ice cream.
We are in the store last night.
We went out for dinner.
I wanted a burger and a beer.
We went out.
I
mark (24:04):
just want to Stop here and say, you realize with a broken
leg, I went out to dinner.
My leg isn't broken anymore,but this was a big deal.
This is the first time I've been atdinner in yeah, eight, eight, eight weeks.
Bruce (24:15):
And we had, I had, I had a burger and a beer and fries and we
shared a nice salad and on the way home.
We stopped at a store because Iwanted ice cream and I love Ben
and Jerry's non dairy ice cream.
It's a, it's a cashew milk and an oatmilk base and the cherries Garcia with
the big chunks of cherries and chocolate.
It's really good.
(24:35):
So that's made me happy.
mark (24:37):
Well, I guess what made me happy is a being able to go out
to eat because I have not beenable to do that in eight weeks.
I went to an actual restaurantand sat at an actual table, which
I want to tell you is just crazy.
I mean, I think I now.
somewhat understand what people feellike post surgery when they're actually
out in the world, you realize how muchyou've taken for granted, um, in your
(24:57):
life and how much you've done thatyou just assume is natural and going
into this restaurant and walking in.
I walk very slowly right now, but walkingin and walking very slowly to the table.
Uh, it was just like this, uh,almost revelatory experience.
I couldn't quite believe it.
But what I had at thatrestaurant was really good.
(25:18):
We went to a local restaurantand they served a kale salad,
raw kale with cauliflower.
But the big part of this was it wasreally, really finely sliced cauliflower
in tiny little bits and pieces.
But what was really wild about this is thedressing was made with nutritional yeast.
And so it had this kind ofcheesy, savory quality to it.
Bruce (25:42):
They called it a toasted yeast vinaigrette.
mark (25:45):
Yeah, I guess they had toasted the nutritional yeast.
It was so delicious.
I know, I had a curry after thatfor my main course, and Bruce and I
split the salad, and as we left therestaurant, I said, gosh, I wish I'd
just ordered that salad as my meal.
It was the fresh kale and the freshcauliflower, all raw, and then with
this toasted nutritional yeast,vinaigrette and dried cranberries.
(26:07):
And it was so tasty.
It was ridiculously good.
It was fabulous.
I think we may have to try someof that here at our house sometime
because I do love nutritional yeast.
Okay, that's the podcast for this week.
Thank you for joining us.
I'm glad to be back on the air.
I'm glad to actually be ableto get downstairs to the
podcast studio and do this.
(26:28):
Hey.
That's another thing.
I came down a set of stairs on my own.
Bruce (26:32):
And not on your butt.
mark (26:33):
Not on my butt.
I've been going up and down stairson my butt, which is really something
to see and really something to do.
But I came in here on myown and I'm glad to be here.
Bruce (26:44):
And I'm really glad you're back too, because it's more
fun when we do this together.
And it is more fun for you listening, I'msure, when we are doing this together.
So thank you for listening.
And please subscribe so youdon't miss a single episode.
And let me also remind you to go toour Facebook group, Cooking with Bruce
and Mark, and there you can find linksto all sorts of interesting things.
And each week, the question is posted.
(27:04):
What's making you happy in food this week?
Because we want to know, hereon Cooking with Bruce and Mark.
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