Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold

Dave is joined by Farideh Sadeghin, author of The Hot Dog Cookbook: 50 Recipes for a Classic American Food, for a deep dive into hot dog culture, regional styles, and the surprisingly high-stakes question of what belongs on a dog.

They get into New York onion sauce, Seattle dogs on alleged “bialy sticks,” Colombian and Brazilian hot dog toppings, Zweigle’s red and white hots, Connecticut meat sauce, New Jersey Rippers, Italian hot dogs, Fenway Franks, split-top buns, and why a hot dog should usually remain a handheld food. Farideh also talks about the anxiety of writing a book on a food everyone has strong opinions about, the difference between hot dog chili sauce and standard chili, and why Heinz is the only ketchup worth discussing.

Also covered: Quinn’s 25-pound pea situation, saffron labeling disasters, Rochester flour history, pit beef versus roast beef, Maryland crab habits, lobster-roll bun standards, grilled cheese crunch, and the final verdict: a hot dog is not a sandwich.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's a No Tangent Tuesday, which means everything is on topic — including Dave getting lost in Rockefeller Center for the hundredth time. Quinn is back from his antibiotic recovery, Jean just survived catering the Roots Picnic VIP section with a rented reefer truck (and a branch that won), and the California crew is dialing in from LA.

Dave opens by explaining why his new miniature Ro-Tap machine — a 1917-standardized particle analysis sieve shaker running at exactly 150 BPM and 85 decibels — cannot, in good conscience, be operated in a Manhattan apartment. A caller brings the real problem of the week: his partner can't eat onions, and chili without onions is a crisis. Dave prescribes asafetida (AKA hing) and hints at fermented West African dawadawa as sulfur-forward workarounds. Quinn, recovering from his own dietary restrictions courtesy of a GERD diagnosis, has been running low-sodium experiments with glutamic acid powder — which leads to a full detour on salt, Tuscan bread, sweating bakers, and why the Civil War soldier's salt ration proves nothing.

Bar food rankings break out organically: potato skins, mozzarella bricks, fried cheese curds, and the great belly clam vs. strip debate, with Dave confessing he failed his son by not making him eat belly clams in Connecticut. Quinn rounds things out with a pina colada gelato stabilizer deep-dive and a vanilla oleoresin gelato report, Dave gives out the full Razzmatazzarak recipe from the old Booker and Dax days, and God's mojito is teased for next time.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dave is joined by Joe, Quinn, and Jackie Molecules for a stripped-down crew episode covering a lot of ground: severe dust mite allergies, coin-selling in the Diamond District, homemade rotaps, and the musical qualities of real silver. Dave recaps Nick Wong and Sam Yoo’s Golden Diner pop-up, including cheeseburger fried rice, scallion waffles, and the eternal question of whether a waffle could beat a pancake in a fight. Plus: Quinn experiments with a frico Oklahoma smash burger and jam-based semifreddo, the crew debates Blizzards, Carvel cakes, Burger King fries, hot dog preferences, low-temp eggs for service, polydextrose in cocktails, oil-blanched fries, and homemade boquerones.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chef Nick Wong joins Dave in studio to talk Agnes & Sherman, his Houston restaurant named for his parents and built around personal, deeply considered food. They revisit Nick’s FCI days with Dave, from throwing hatchets and pushing kitchen equipment through the city to hot dog contests, meat glue demos, and the value of doing what you said you’d do. Plus, Angela Garbacz calls in, Dave answers a Spinzall question, and Nick breaks down scallion waffles, cheeseburger fried rice, crispy shell-on shrimp, salt-and-pepper fries, and Eng Soo’s Chicken.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marco Canora joins the show to talk Brodo, bone broth, and what everyone gets wrong about stock, from marrow-bone misconceptions to the commercial realities of packaging broth at scale. Dave and Marco get into spent hens, fish fumet, lobster shells, blanching greens, cocktail dilution, juice-shake techniques, and why a little acid can save a pizza sauce. Plus: mason jar vacuuming, weevil management, fava bean grievances, striped bass butchery, gummy-bear wellness, and the eternal difference between “interesting” and actually good.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.