Speaker 1: Hey, it's Nil Sevadra. You're listening to kfi EM six
Speaker 1: forty the four Report on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1: Do you do? Thanks for hanging out with us today.
Speaker 1: We'll have three hours to discuss food, what's going on,
Speaker 1: food culture and things like that. We're going to start
Speaker 1: with Technique of the Week. And I don't know that
Speaker 1: we've done this. If we have, it's been a long time.
Speaker 1: I'm sure we've touched on vinegar before, but I want
Speaker 1: to get into vinegar a little more of a deep dive.
Speaker 1: So I thought it would be a great start to
Speaker 1: the program today with Technique of the Week. There's a
Speaker 1: book if you don't have it, I would highly recommend
Speaker 1: it came out and I don't know twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen,
Speaker 1: something like that. Some in Nosrat, I think is how
Speaker 1: you pronounce her name wrote a brilliant book breaking down
Speaker 1: cooking into four essentials. Salt, fat, acid, heat. That's actually
Speaker 1: the name of the book, And really these are things.
Speaker 1: The salt is a salt is a taste, but it
Speaker 1: also has a chemical reaction to it as well. But
Speaker 1: salt is the only thing salty on Earth I know, right,
Speaker 1: sounds like well, of course it would be. But keep
Speaker 1: in mind it is one of your tastes, salt, and
Speaker 1: it can only come from salt. For instance, fat comes
Speaker 1: from many different places. Acid can come from different places
Speaker 1: as well, and heat there's different types of heat. But
Speaker 1: salt is salt is salt. But I love this book
Speaker 1: because it breaks down the fundamentals of cooking in a beautiful,
Speaker 1: beautiful way. And I'll use some analogies when I can
Speaker 1: think of it this way, because I work with photography,
Speaker 1: and I work with graphics and have for many, many years,
Speaker 1: and one of the things that you use in good
Speaker 1: photography is contrast. Now, any illustration or design is going
Speaker 1: to use contrast. You want depth, you want focus, you
Speaker 1: want lights and dark and all of these things. And
Speaker 1: strangely enough, that's the same thing you want in cooking.
Speaker 1: And acid is one of those things that's going to
Speaker 1: bring out. It's going to brighten food, it's going to
Speaker 1: cause contrast. When something looks kind of hazy. I know
Speaker 1: it's kind of a hazy day today, it's supposed to
Speaker 1: burn off. Of course, this is the first official full
Speaker 1: day of summer, and there's something when it's gray or
Speaker 1: there's no real shadows. Everything kind of looks bland out right. Well,
Speaker 1: imagine when the sun comes out and you have very
Speaker 1: striking or harsh shadows. It also doesn't only create that
Speaker 1: contrast of dark and light, but note that once the
Speaker 1: gray burns off today, that you're gonna see more vibrancy
Speaker 1: in the colors. Those red umbrellas you have in the backyard,
Speaker 1: or the blues of a of a T shirt or
Speaker 1: dress or whatever, They're gonna become more vibrant. That's kind
Speaker 1: of what acid does as well. It's like the sun
Speaker 1: shining on things. It just makes something flat become bright
Speaker 1: and wonderful. There have been times where I would make something,
Speaker 1: you know, like a vegetable dish or something, or maybe
Speaker 1: a stew, and I taste it and the salt the
Speaker 1: seasoning tastes right, and everything kind of tastes right, but
Speaker 1: to me, it's like bland. You know, it just is bland.
Speaker 1: And then all of a sudden, I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: pop some acid in there. And acid comes from vinegar,
Speaker 1: acid can come from citrus, acid can come now naturally,
Speaker 1: and things like tomatoes and the like. But this I
Speaker 1: need a pop. I'll reach for vinegar, and each vinegar
Speaker 1: has a a flavor base and and differences about it
Speaker 1: that create another level to your palate. And so yes,
Speaker 1: it can brighten, it can create contrast, but it balances
Speaker 1: things out. Salt makes things taste more like themselves. Shouldn't
Speaker 1: be salty. Salt should awaken your taste, but buds to
Speaker 1: taste whatever your uh, you know, enjoying. So if it's meat,
Speaker 1: that meat should taste more lammy, if it's lamb, more beefy,
Speaker 1: if it's beef, more poultry, if it's poultry. Acid is
Speaker 1: going to balance those flavors out. The harmony is like
Speaker 1: a filter that brings everything together, makes them all sound
Speaker 1: like themselves, but in a symphony of flavor that they
Speaker 1: kind of have their individuality but doing it all together.
Speaker 1: So the most versatile sources of acid gonna be vinegar.
Speaker 1: Like I said about things like tomatoes or citrus, They're
Speaker 1: going to add other things to the base as well
Speaker 1: that maybe you don't want. But vinegar you can find
Speaker 1: in different notes, in different variants, but they're going to
Speaker 1: come together. It's very available to those of us who
Speaker 1: are home cooks, and some are a little more rare
Speaker 1: than others, but they all have their own flavors and
Speaker 1: uses if you can ever find them. One of the
Speaker 1: best places to do it, and I know are beloved
Speaker 1: bomb Fass that was out there in Claremont is no
Speaker 1: longer there, but the Ventura San Diego you can still
Speaker 1: find them. Go and taste to a tasting of vinegars
Speaker 1: and you'll be surprised that different types of flavors that
Speaker 1: each one can bring. And there's many others. You look
Speaker 1: around town that we have a lot of great olive
Speaker 1: oil and vinegar places throughout the south Land, and you
Speaker 1: kind of have to know the taste of these things
Speaker 1: to be able to choose the right vinegar for you
Speaker 1: know whether you're gonna pickle something, whether you're going to
Speaker 1: do a pan sauce or a reduction of some kind.
Speaker 1: So the key there is to be able to understand
Speaker 1: the notes and what each will bring. Now, to make vinegar,
Speaker 1: you only need a few things. It's very basic. You
Speaker 1: need alcohol, you need heat, you need oxygen, and you
Speaker 1: put these things together. And in that too, you're going
Speaker 1: to add a natural bacteria that kind of converts the
Speaker 1: alcohol to acid in the first place. So vinegar traditionally
Speaker 1: made from alcoholic beverages. And these are things that we drink,
Speaker 1: whether it's a hard cider, a sake, a wine, a beer.
Speaker 1: These are the things that vinegars are going to be
Speaker 1: made out of. If you've ever you know, left the
Speaker 1: bottle of red wine out or something like that begins
Speaker 1: to sour, it's basically on its way to becoming vinegar.
Speaker 1: Not a good vinegar, but a vinegar, all right. So
Speaker 1: American vinegar is you know, just like any other place.
Speaker 1: You can get a varietys of them. You can find
Speaker 1: your white distilled vinegar. These things like white distilled vinegar
Speaker 1: I used to clean things as well as to brighten
Speaker 1: up food. It's kind of the acidity in it is
Speaker 1: at a place where you can use it to clean
Speaker 1: and get like tarnish off or what am I thinking of? Oh,
Speaker 1: you know, on your sink or something. If you have
Speaker 1: mineral build up on your faucet or something like that,
Speaker 1: you can use distilled vinegar, some vinegars might say diluted.
Speaker 1: Other things in there could be manufactured for distributed. To
Speaker 1: buy these things doesn't mean they're bad products. It just
Speaker 1: means that the brand you're buying from probably didn't make
Speaker 1: it themselves. They're taking different parts of the vinegar and
Speaker 1: putting them together. If you're looking for different types of vinegars,
Speaker 1: there's about ten basic categories, and the first one is
Speaker 1: the one that you probably have in your pantry right now,
Speaker 1: and that's white vinegar or distilled vinegar, very simple variety.
Speaker 1: It's always almost always made industrially. It's made from distilled alcohol,
Speaker 1: and generally you take super high proof alcohol, and this
Speaker 1: is an alcohol that hasn't you know, hasn't spent time
Speaker 1: in a barrel or anything like that to bring up
Speaker 1: any of its flavor. Using industrial fermentation methods, and it
Speaker 1: turns into a high acid vinegar which then you dilute
Speaker 1: down and you probably bring it down to normally somewhere
Speaker 1: around five percent acidity. And the value to all this,
Speaker 1: I guess, is that it's made with neutral spirits, so
Speaker 1: it doesn't have any flavor per se that's going to
Speaker 1: affect your dish. So stilled vinegar can be used in
Speaker 1: tons of different ways. Can make cakes lighter, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, helping set whites in poached eggs. It's one
Speaker 1: of those things that you heard you put that in
Speaker 1: the boiling water and it helps kind of firm up
Speaker 1: the albumine, the whites of the eggs. Very reliable thing
Speaker 1: that you can use whose canned pickles, super affordable. You
Speaker 1: can buy it in large containers and it doesn't affect
Speaker 1: the color of the vegetable, you know, because it's just clear.
Speaker 1: It's safe for canning. All these things make it kind
Speaker 1: of this household, bright, crisp neutral. People use it for
Speaker 1: pickled eggs, Jimmy churry, raspberry vinaigrette, these types of things.
Speaker 1: The next you look at are going to get into
Speaker 1: more flavors that are going to be usable. And the
Speaker 1: first one we're going to look at is apple cider
Speaker 1: vinegar and we'll talk more about that we come back.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Fork Report with Nil Savedra on
Speaker 2: demand from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 1: We're talking. We started the Fork Report today with our
Speaker 1: technique of the week talking about vinegars. This acid is
Speaker 1: oneful thing, acid that brightens and causes contrast in your dish.
Speaker 1: And what a great day to talk about it when
Speaker 1: it's hazy out, because go look outside the lack of contrast.
Speaker 1: How everything's kind of one note, even bright colors are
Speaker 1: a little flat. Well, that's the type of thing. When
Speaker 1: you taste a dish and it tastes like that, that
Speaker 1: is exactly when you need to brighten it up with
Speaker 1: vinegar with an acid to give it that extra pop
Speaker 1: that just separates every single note into something more beautiful.
Speaker 1: We talked about your basic vinegar that you have, your
Speaker 1: white vinegar, your distilled vinegar that you have. I guarantee
Speaker 1: you use it for cleaning and also for cooking. The
Speaker 1: next we were just starting to talk about apple cider vinegar.
Speaker 1: It's made traditionally from a hard cider, alcoholic cider. It
Speaker 1: offers an acidity from five to six percent, still in
Speaker 1: the same or similar range as the white or distilled,
Speaker 1: but it does have this apple forward, fruity taste and
Speaker 1: that adds just a wonderful pack to what they call
Speaker 1: quick pickling or quick pickles, salad dressing, for marinades, these
Speaker 1: types of things. It works out. It's also very good
Speaker 1: for just giving that extra punch. But unlike the the
Speaker 1: distilled vinegar that is neutral, it just did I don't know,
Speaker 1: vinegary taste. You can add, you know, mix apple cide
Speaker 1: or vinegar, ginger water, something sweet like you know, maple
Speaker 1: syrup or molasses, and some people would use that to drink.
Speaker 1: There are actually drinking vinegars out there that I used
Speaker 1: to drink vinegar. There were some great Again, you have
Speaker 1: to find a store that has them in stock. I mean,
Speaker 1: some people drink at apple cider vinegar, but that's slightly
Speaker 1: different than something that has been created for drinking. And again,
Speaker 1: back in the days when we had our partners, sponsors
Speaker 1: and friends there at vom Foss and Claremont, they have
Speaker 1: so many that are worthy of drinking on their own.
Speaker 1: And of course you could still find vom Fass in
Speaker 1: Ventura and in San Diego and the like. And they
Speaker 1: were friends of our friend Kim in Claremont, so you
Speaker 1: know that they're good people as well. But you can
Speaker 1: do tastings of their vinegars and they're just fantastic. So
Speaker 1: it depends what you're doing with it. Again, the acidity
Speaker 1: can go up to six percent, a little bit more
Speaker 1: than your distilled vinegar. And then there's rice vinegar. I
Speaker 1: love rice vinegar. This is used in Asian food and
Speaker 1: it just there is a sort of sweetness about it
Speaker 1: and something that is distinctive to me that just makes
Speaker 1: a dish pop. So obviously made traditionally from rice wine
Speaker 1: or suke white rice vinegar is the least acidic. So
Speaker 1: we've talked about five percent, talk about six percent. This
Speaker 1: goes about four to five percent. It's mild, it's got
Speaker 1: a new mommy ness, a very a savoriness to it,
Speaker 1: but it is just lovely hot or sour. Sauce goes
Speaker 1: well with and it just is I just there's something
Speaker 1: about that flavor to me that just works really well.
Speaker 1: I like it with carrots, like it with a bunch
Speaker 1: of things. Sherry vinegar. So if you know on the
Speaker 1: sense of rice vinegar you look at it as being
Speaker 1: more mildly acidic, then sherry vinegar is made from fortified
Speaker 1: wine and it's on the other end of the spectrum.
Speaker 1: So it's going from about six to eight percent acid.
Speaker 1: So this is when you're going to put it towards
Speaker 1: tenderizing meat, red meat. It's going to do a great job.
Speaker 1: Keep in mind, it is a dark vinegar, so if
Speaker 1: you did use it on poultry or fish or something
Speaker 1: like that, it's definitely going to transfer that color there,
Speaker 1: which may or may not be appetizing. Has a little
Speaker 1: bit of nuttiness to it, but can be really wonderful
Speaker 1: and can brighten up all kinds of dishes. There. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's some more that I want to get into as well,
Speaker 1: So stick around and we'll continue talking about technique of
Speaker 1: the week. And this technique is really kind of breaking
Speaker 1: down the acid we find in vinegar. It's just a
Speaker 1: lovely ingredy it that a lot of us home cooks. Well,
Speaker 1: I'll speak for myself. Took me a while and continues
Speaker 1: to take me a while to really understand. It's like
Speaker 1: seasoning or anything else. It really is trial and error
Speaker 1: and understanding when you need that acid maybe to cut
Speaker 1: through some of the fattiness, or to separate flavors, brighten flavors,
Speaker 1: or just elevate a dish, and you'd be surprised. A
Speaker 1: tiny little capful and a big pot of something can
Speaker 1: really cause separation and contrast that will make the dish
Speaker 1: go pow. So stick around. Much more to come.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Fork Report with Nil Sevadra on
Speaker 2: demand from KFI A six.
Speaker 1: For I heard here every Saturday. I produced The Jesus
Speaker 1: Show tomorrow at six am, and then I'm with you
Speaker 1: Monday through Friday, hanging out with Bill Handle in the
Speaker 1: morning crew and an Amy and Cono and Will and
Speaker 1: the whole gang there. So I'm always happy to do that.
Speaker 1: That'd be sick of me. That's a lot of me,
Speaker 1: My poor wife. Don't say anything, o, Kayla, I know
Speaker 1: what you're thinking. All right, Back to vinegar. I'm extending
Speaker 1: this because vinegar is one of those things that is
Speaker 1: imperative to good home cooking, good cooking period. And so
Speaker 1: for Technique of the Week, I thought i'd go through these,
Speaker 1: going through the ten, the ten big ones that you
Speaker 1: need to know about and that you can use. Acidity
Speaker 1: is important to the way brightens flavor, causes contrast, and
Speaker 1: adds it adds that jouje when something just seems flat,
Speaker 1: And what a day to talk about it with it
Speaker 1: being a hazy June day. You look out and that's
Speaker 1: kind of like in photography or the way we see
Speaker 1: things and how they can kind of look flat. You
Speaker 1: don't have shadows, and sometimes that's what you want when
Speaker 1: you're taking doing photography, but in a case like this,
Speaker 1: there's no vibrancy to the colors and things like that.
Speaker 1: Well that's kind of what acid brings to it is
Speaker 1: like what light brings to photography, brighten things up causes contrast,
Speaker 1: and that's what we need in our food sometimes. So
Speaker 1: white wine vinegar vinegars that you know, wine vinegars tend
Speaker 1: to be kind of the middle of the road when
Speaker 1: it comes to the acidity, so they kind of stay
Speaker 1: around that five percent mark, right, and that makes them versatile.
Speaker 1: That makes them have a lot of play in what
Speaker 1: you can do with them and how you use them.
Speaker 1: I have fortified wines like Lily Blanc that I will
Speaker 1: use in cocktails, and fortified wines obviously go back into
Speaker 1: the refrigerator once they're opened. You don't leave them out,
Speaker 1: and they do go bad, whereas a vinegar is going
Speaker 1: to have higher acid and it's going to stay more
Speaker 1: stable for longer periods of time. But I'll do that
Speaker 1: when when I'm doing a dish and vegetables and I'm
Speaker 1: like there's just something lacking, I'll take a fortified wine
Speaker 1: like Lile Blanc and that I use for mixing a
Speaker 1: cocktail or something, and I'll just pour a little bit
Speaker 1: of that in there. But when you want the super
Speaker 1: versatility of something in the middle row the wine vinegars,
Speaker 1: in this case, white wine vinegar ends up being really great.
Speaker 1: It's easily found at the grocery store. But you can find,
Speaker 1: you know, different varieties as well. You can find a
Speaker 1: chardonnay looking at looking at you fair and a pinot.
Speaker 1: You've got champagne, other grapes, regions, whatever, They're going to
Speaker 1: add their own flavors and that are going to add
Speaker 1: to the acidity as well. So it depends on what
Speaker 1: you're cooking, but you can use champagne vinegar as a
Speaker 1: base ingredient in a barbecue marinade, believe it or not,
Speaker 1: an adobo, things like that. Many chefs in an article
Speaker 1: I was reading or breaking down these different styles of
Speaker 1: the use of vinegars and when they use them, and
Speaker 1: it really it really goes to show you how we're
Speaker 1: still these things are having these Food and Wine did
Speaker 1: a wonderful breakdown on vinegars, which is where I was
Speaker 1: pulling a lot of information from just great great content.
Speaker 1: A white vinegar is good for chicken breast. Like I said,
Speaker 1: the color of the vinegar could change the color of
Speaker 1: the meat depending on how you're using it. And sometimes
Speaker 1: a red wine might look great with the chicken that
Speaker 1: you're doing, and it causes this richness and this great
Speaker 1: color to it. However, sometimes it may cause a color
Speaker 1: that is unfavorable because it just looks muddied or grayish
Speaker 1: or something like that. So when you're using it in
Speaker 1: poultry or fish, the white is light, so it adds.
Speaker 1: It's not as jarring on an off putting as it
Speaker 1: can be acidity, Like I said, about five percent mild balanced.
Speaker 1: You can use it for all kinds of things, candy, bacon, wedge, salad.
Speaker 1: Red wine vinegar is going to play in that similar
Speaker 1: pool generic blended versions of highly specific specific wine red wine,
Speaker 1: like you can get a cab or you can get
Speaker 1: a Pinot Noah or something like that, and it makes
Speaker 1: its red wine vinegar, you know, sit in that same
Speaker 1: category about five percent acidity. You can get a California Surrah.
Speaker 1: All these different things are going to bring slightly different
Speaker 1: flavors to the table, but the app acid is still
Speaker 1: going to be doing what it's doing. Some people even
Speaker 1: use red wine vinegar as a bitter or something in
Speaker 1: their cocktails. It could be as high as seven percent,
Speaker 1: but it's usually floating around the five percent range. Tangy
Speaker 1: sometimes fruity can add a lot to it. Now one
Speaker 1: that I love because this can fall into sweet and
Speaker 1: savory depending on its thickness and flavorings and things like that.
Speaker 1: But a balsamic vinegar, and I know there's many of you,
Speaker 1: and I've heard from you before that you do not
Speaker 1: like balsamic vinegar. I absolutely adore it, and I keep
Speaker 1: a number of different types here. A maletti is one
Speaker 1: of the ones that I absolutely love, and again that
Speaker 1: came from our friends at voon Fass, And to me,
Speaker 1: it is gold. It is absolute liquid gold. I put
Speaker 1: it on top of, you know, if I'm making an
Speaker 1: avocado toast or something, or you can even put it
Speaker 1: on top of vanilla ice cream. It's so sweet and
Speaker 1: lovely up against that, so it's deep, it's rich. I'll
Speaker 1: use it to do reductions, all kinds of great things.
Speaker 1: It really has to do with the percentages of sugars
Speaker 1: over the alcohol. That's what kind of breaks it down.
Speaker 1: They just really cook it down and concentrate those sugars
Speaker 1: and it just gives it that sweetness to it. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it's aged in barrels, or it's always aged in barrels,
Speaker 1: but sometimes it's aged for much longer. But it's got
Speaker 1: to have a minimum of twelve years, and just the
Speaker 1: flavors of it in a gosh. I love it with
Speaker 1: red meat, I love it on salads. There's so much
Speaker 1: that you can do with it, and it really is
Speaker 1: one of those wonderful, wonderful things. All Right, we'll wrap
Speaker 1: this up vinegars when we come back, So go know
Speaker 1: where you've been listening to the fore Report. You can
Speaker 1: always hear us live on KFI AM six forty two
Speaker 1: to five pm on Saturday and anytime on demand on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio appum chatting with you on look At, I said, chatting.
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable with who I am chatting with you on
Speaker 1: a Saturday, as we are one to do on the
Speaker 1: fore Report, hanging out and celebrating food in every way
Speaker 1: kind of an extended technique of the week as we're
Speaker 1: talking about the ten top vinegar types. Vinegar is incredibly
Speaker 1: important to cooking and separating flavors, brightening things up, causing contrast,
Speaker 1: and it is a wonderful thing. Indeed, we're moving on
Speaker 1: from balsamic vinegar, which I know a lot of people
Speaker 1: have different opinions about. I really love it. The sweetness,
Speaker 1: a bit of tangyness, tends to be pretty rich. I
Speaker 1: think it goes great on pork chops and the light
Speaker 1: I like to put it. I like to grill watermelon
Speaker 1: during the summer and a little salt and pepper on there,
Speaker 1: and you can grill it and then you just rizzle
Speaker 1: a nice high end bolsamic vinegar on that. Get it
Speaker 1: with a fork, You're welcome. Malt vinegar malt vinegar is
Speaker 1: made traditionally with beer, and it can be slightly sweet.
Speaker 1: It's kind of toasty, little nutty typically or just medium
Speaker 1: plus let's say, with acidity going five percent six percent.
Speaker 1: And there are two types. Well, there's many types out there,
Speaker 1: but some make them from ipa, one from a porter
Speaker 1: style beer, and they can be you know, made from
Speaker 1: an industrial malt mash uh. And those things aren't made
Speaker 1: for eating, but you can process us the vinegar and
Speaker 1: make them a wonderful treat for you. Subtle in flavor,
Speaker 1: maybe not something you'd want to drink, but as it
Speaker 1: is used, it gets a little sweet. It can be
Speaker 1: complex depending people will use it on a beer battered fish.
Speaker 1: That malt vinegar a only things like that, maybe a
Speaker 1: spicy beer mustard. And then that moves us to black vinegar.
Speaker 1: Black vinegar is put into creation by way of fermentation
Speaker 1: just like the other vinegars, but it's fermenting whole grains,
Speaker 1: so you're using barley or sticky rice or things like that,
Speaker 1: very umami, and it just has this pretty intense flavor, malty,
Speaker 1: rich and very flavor or fall So you can do it,
Speaker 1: use it as a dipping sauce for dumplings and the like.
Speaker 1: It originated in China, works very good with Asian cuisines,
Speaker 1: whether it's Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese, works very very well. Honey vinegar,
Speaker 1: now this is maybe something that might be harder to
Speaker 1: get depending on where you are. It's made from mead,
Speaker 1: and this honey vinegar is you know, it's not everywhere.
Speaker 1: It depends where you're shopping, but it has a similar
Speaker 1: process than the other vinegar or things like that. You
Speaker 1: ferment it slowly let age. In this case it's whiskey barrels.
Speaker 1: It mellows out the vinegar. Use honey vinegar like you
Speaker 1: would a white balsamic, so it's naturally sweet. Brighten up
Speaker 1: butter cream, add tang to fruit cobbler, caramelized onion jam,
Speaker 1: kind of jug it up and kick it up a notch.
Speaker 1: And it's from low to mid so it goes between
Speaker 1: like four and five percent acidity, very sweet, floral. You
Speaker 1: can use it in a braize chicken, that type of things.
Speaker 1: So this breaks down the most basic kind of varieties
Speaker 1: of vinegar. But again, think about the whole dish, the contrast,
Speaker 1: the taking us back to the concept of photography or
Speaker 1: art or design and how if something is monotonous and
Speaker 1: it seems flat and there's no contrast or no depth
Speaker 1: or these types of things, that often when you find
Speaker 1: that in a dish, that often is the lack of acidity.
Speaker 1: You're missing something to cause a vibrancy to the dullness
Speaker 1: of a dish. And you could have done everything else right.
Speaker 1: The fatten air is perfect, the heat, the temp that
Speaker 1: you're cooking is perfect. All of those things come together well.
Speaker 1: But what you're missing is going to be the lovely,
Speaker 1: separating and dynamic ingredient of acid. That acid can come
Speaker 1: from different places. Even buttermilk has acid in it. That's
Speaker 1: what causes That's what causes it to become acidic and
Speaker 1: to get that tanginess that it gets in buttermilk, and
Speaker 1: you can use That's why many people when they're making
Speaker 1: a fried chicken will let it marinate overnight in buttermilk
Speaker 1: because that acidity, so it has functional properties like chemical reactions,
Speaker 1: but also the way it dances on your tongue or
Speaker 1: wakes up your taste buds in a way for you
Speaker 1: to be able to taste the different things in a
Speaker 1: dish in a way that brightens them and causes that contrast.
Speaker 1: So it's one of those ingredients that I think many
Speaker 1: of us will you know, make mistakes with or tend
Speaker 1: not to put in a dish properly, or you know,
Speaker 1: leave it out. We're afraid that it's going to mess
Speaker 1: the dish up. Well, like any ingredient, you can mess
Speaker 1: a dish up by putting far too much of it
Speaker 1: in there. But the reality is, just like salt or
Speaker 1: any other seasoning or fat, that you're going to have
Speaker 1: to learn the proportions to be able to utilize it
Speaker 1: in a way that makes everything wonderful and delicious. That's
Speaker 1: the key of cooking, right. Controlling liquid, controlling temperature, all
Speaker 1: these things are part of the experience of making a
Speaker 1: dish at home. And so in this particular case, it's
Speaker 1: the acid to focus on. And so I hope that
Speaker 1: you take some of these ideas, and if you didn't
Speaker 1: get to hear the whole thing, you can go back
Speaker 1: and listen to the podcast of course at KFIAM six
Speaker 1: forty dot com. But play around with it. Even if
Speaker 1: you set aside a bowl of something if you're cooking,
Speaker 1: you don't want to do it in the whole bowl.
Speaker 1: You want to set it aside. Just keep in mind
Speaker 1: that a little goes a long way when it comes
Speaker 1: to acid, and the way it wakes up a dish
Speaker 1: is always it always surprises me how just a tiny
Speaker 1: little bit of in this case vinegar or something will
Speaker 1: brighten up a dish, a vegetable dish or something and
Speaker 1: make it taste cleaner and brighter. So I hope that
Speaker 1: that helps and gets you focused on trying something new
Speaker 1: if you are not comfortable with it, and there is
Speaker 1: much more to come, so go nowhere.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Fork Report with Nil Savedra on
Speaker 2: demand from KFI AM six foard