Hey, it's Neil Sevidra.
You're listening to kfi EM six forty the fore Purport on demand on the iHeartRadio app. How do you Howdy, howdy, Welcome to the four Report. I'm your wellf at host Neil Savedra.
How do you do?
Boy? Is it a bit of a scorcher? Yesterday was a hot one too, Today is another hot one. Hope you are beer beer. I hope you are beer today, and for friends, I hope that you are near water of some kind. If you are gonna do beer, pace yourself, man, nothing worse. You'll be outside just chilling. All of a sudden, you're consuming so much of that and you're lost, especially if you're working around that grill, which I highly recommend. Nothing like a super duper hot day and then getting
in front of a seven hundred degree grill. Huh, yeah, that's nice. Hope you're with family hanging out having a good time. Today is the day for it, for sure. So was filled in for I guess it's not filling in. You know our new boss, Brian Long, great guy, smart.
Guy, the PG.
He says, you don't fill in, You're always there, And I said, you know, well, you're right, so I guess it wasn't filling in for Handle. Is the morning crew doing the show without Handle?
I suppose how it was. And Amy had.
Done an interview with Curtis Stone, chef Curtistone, who's a phenomenal chef.
Award winning rightly so, and.
His restaurant Gwen serves, you know, the best stakes in town.
I mean just really, they do a great job.
But he said something that bugged me, and I find a lot of chefs do this, and even some grill masters do this. They pass along certain myths we've always been told, and they are the food equil equivalent of don't go outside with your hair wet, You're going to catch a cold. You know, wait forty five minutes after you eat before you go in the pool. It's not that there might be some understanding behind it, but really scientifically they don't jive. Now, science and food go hand
in hand. However, the process of handing down information when it comes to food is what they call a master apprentice style, so you are taught from someone else and you don't question them. It's the same as martial arts. A lot of arts are actually passed down that way, which is unfortunate. I mean, it's a good way to learn things, but when you can't question something, nothing gets better. I found this in studying theology as well, because I was a bit rogue in my studies. I didn't have
one master. Let's say I often went and jumped where I found where I was fed. It's not to say there weren't teachers that were more powerful in my life than others. Absolutely there were, but that the that I jumped around and questioned things it didn't have that. You know, I'm the one that knows all and you shut.
Up and listen. But when it comes to food, this happens a lot.
So I thought i'd go through the myths of cooking a steak again because there's a number of them. And I love summertime. I love grilling, I love hanging out in the yard Every year around this time. The you know, magazine, food magazines and food blogs and the interwebs and all these things are just wall to wall about tips and tricks for cooking the perfect steak. Now, unless you're over
cooking a steak, you're gonna do okay. That temp is going to be key, that you know, So even if you don't overcook the steak, then it's probably gonna be pretty good. But if you really want to do the best thing you can for a steak, understanding what's happening when you're cooking it is the best vast majority of the time. These articles, tips and tricks give the same garbage I've heard for years, searing in the juices, let your stake come to room temperature before you cook it.
These types of things are not true. These types of things are not possible because of physics, has nothing to do with if you're a great chef or not, because it's been passed down and nobody questions it. So I hear great chefs say these things all the time. Now I'm not a great chef, but I'm a pretty damn good researcher and it's been a part of my job for thirty plus years. And I like the sciences, and I use logic in everything I do, and sometimes things
just don't make sense. So a lot of misinformation out there, myths, personal anecdotal evidence on some thing, a lot of outdated knowledge. So let's kind of break this down with the help of science and food writer Kenji Lopez Alt, who's been on the show also wrote the book Food Lab, which is a master work when it comes to the science and food. This is all about really cooking the best
steak possible. All these you know, tips and things that we're going to go over right now are debunking myths apply to pan sered steaks, roasts as well, you know, cooking on a grill, all of it. So myth number one, this is probably the most dangerous and confusing. You should let a fixed steak rest at room temperature before you cook it.
Room temperature.
Ambient room temperature is between seventy and seventy one degrees. That's when people say room temperature. That's what's going on.
The belief in the theory comes from a legitimate one, and that is to be able to cook your steak evenly from edge to center, because when you cook at five hundred degrees with a steak, it's got to push that heat that five hundred degrees into the center because it's only done when it reaches the center the thickest part of whatever animal protein you're cooking, So it's got to push its way into that and make the inside medium rare. But the steak itself is gradients of doneness
the outside is not medium rare. I guarantee it's been up against that five hundred degree heat, so it's only that center. So the desire of any good cook is to want to cook it as much of the steak at medium rare as possible. That's where soouv'd cooking comes in, which is cooking in a sealed bag under poached water to a very precise degree, which doesn't allow you even to overcook. H You want it to be as close to the eating or the cooking or the final temperature
as possible. Right, So you want that steak coming out of the thirty eight degree refrigerator to be warmer, to be closer to the cooking temperature or the final temperature of one thirty.
If you're doing mediumare not going to happen.
You're not going to get a one inch, you know, fifteen ounce steak or whatever to come up to that degree in any length of time that's safe. Keep in mind, you can only have raw meat outside for less than two hours. The minute it is you let it go past two hours, you have issues of bacteria growing and multiplying big time to where it becomes problematic and it would make you sick. The reality is the internal temperature
is never going to get close. You put a thirty eight degree steak on your kitchen counter at seventy you know, seventy degrees seventy one degree temperature after thirty minutes, and most chefs will tell you thirty to forty five minutes to leave it out there. It goes up about a degree and a half a degree and a half in the time most chefs tell you to leave it out. That's not going to make any difference. The only difference that makes sense is drying the outside. Why because when
there's water, the heat has to do two things. It's not just heating up anymore. Now, it's essentially expending enerture energy to turn the water in the steak to steam, which takes five times more energy than it does to heat the stake, just to heat the water in the top of the steak to make it turn to steam so it could caramelize the outside or sear the outside the Mayard reaction of browning. Because it won't do that, it will steam the steak, which doesn't make it taste good.
So that is a legitimate reason to want to have it dry on the outside.
But you know what you do.
You either salt the steak the night before and leave it uncovered in the fridge, not touching anything, and it will release that into the air. It'll evaporate even in the refrigerator, or you pat it with a paper towel that you're gonna throw away.
That's it.
So after an hour and fifty minutes in a study that they did, the steak only got up to forty nine point six degrees. So the best you could get is thirteen percent closer, which is not enough scientifically to make a noticeable difference on that steak. But since a lot of chefs are men, and men like to make everything look harder than it actually is, we tend to do that.
All right.
There's many more, but that is a big one that I think people get wrong and you waste time and you're not doing anything different to the meat.
It's the Fork Report.
On Neil Savedra debunking some steak cooking myths today because it's a great day to be cooking steaks and much much more so.
Goat nowhere.
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Savedra on demand from KFI AM six forty.
You can talk back to us.
I never tell anybody about that, but I you know, because I don't always get to them during the show. But if there is something you ever want to say to us, Kayla or me or Robin, you want to say, Robin Man, you are really playing great songs today. You're awesome. Yeah you, then you can go to the talkback feature. It's little micro icon, little red circle on your iHeartRadio app and you can do that there talking about steaks
for technique of the week, cooking steaks. A lot of miss out there, and I know, you know, it was once taught to me a long time ago when I got into the discipline of apologetics defending ideas. I don't defend people. Typically, I do defend ideas. It often confuses people because I'll say something, you know, Trump will do something and I'll go, I'll say something about the idea, and people think I'm defending the man.
I'm not.
I almost never defend an individual per se, but I defend an idea. And I was told, if you tell people something that they think makes them think, they love you, but if you actually tell somebody something that makes them have to think, they will hate you. And you know, everybody's like, oh, this is great, you're teaching all these things. But the minute you go against something that they believe in their heart, like that you see in the juices when you cook a steak or you're to leave it out,
I guarantee people will hate my guts. Or that marinades do almost nothing on a thick steak. So anyways, so sorry, we'll go through all these one at a time, these myths, and I'm sure you will hate me all the more for it. I'm always humored by people that hate people on the radio. Yet you hear three hours of their entire week and they go, you know, or four hours if you're listening to Gary and Shannon, they got a long show.
Okay.
Myth number two, you sear, you sear your meat over high heat that locks in the juices.
It does not.
You would have to have to hermetically seal. Now it doesn't lock and some juices. No, it doesn't even do that. There's no, there's nothing that's happening. The reason why you want to see a steak is for the browning of the steak to add flavor.
That's it.
Otherwise you wouldn't need to see a steak at all. You just need to cook a steak. You're not searing in the juices. There is no actual liquid bear or barrier that liquid can't pass through when you're searing it.
It is a muscle.
It is designed for blood and very important fluids to get in and out of it to do its job, so.
You can dry out the layers. As we talked about.
That's important because that actually helps the seer get grill marks all on that bone in steak more flavor than boneless. No, another myth, So there is no transfer. Again, these are things that people say. Another thing I was taught a long time ago. There's a difference between good sound reasoning and reasons that sound good. We like reasons that sound good. We go that sounds pretty, that makes sense, And if you want to know the difference, the internet is mostly
reasons that sound good. There are things that they tell you and you go, well, I guess that sort of makes sense, but they don't.
Really. It's not good sound reasoning.
So good sound reasoning says that a bone is solid and it has stuff on the inside that's supposed to stay on the inside, and yes, things can pass backwards and forwards, but there is no transfer of flavor from the bone to the meat anymore. There is transfer of meat to the bone when you're cooking at the difference is that the bone accesses as an insulator, and therefore the meat closest to the bone usually is cooked a
little more rare than the rest. And no matter what people tell you, more rare is better flavor, so they will you know. That may have been what started this whole myth, is that people would eat near the bone and they'd go, oh, that's super flavorful. Yeah, because it was insulated and wasn't overcooked with the rest of your crap food. So that's another one. Flip only once is another one that I used to believe too. I mean, don't think I'm above this. I ain't better than you.
I'll tell you that right now. Flip only once. Now. The reason you don't want to be flipping your proteins, your meat proteins.
The only reason is if you want.
That really good hashmark, you know, like in a Sizzler commercial where you go, how they do that? Well, I'll tell you, not just a Sizzler, but any food commercial. They're usually using a curling iron, sorry, or they paint them on there. Sorry, that's the way they make it look like it's got those seer marks. I like a
good hashmark. There's some point of pride artistically, But flipping it back and forth actually cooks it more evenly, and we'll keep over cooking one particular side to where it curls. You ever see a steak curl up because somebody only left it on there on one side and then flipped it over and it curled up because it tightened on one side. So you can flip multiple times. It's actually going to give you better flavor and cook about thirty percent more quickly. If you do that, it won't cause
any problems. Let's see bu bah bah. Don't use a fork to turn your steak.
That's wrong. You can.
You can even cut it open to check its doneness. The problem with doing that later and then it oozing out all the juices has to do with the different temperature of the outside and the inside pushing it out. You want it to drop to one hundred and twenty degrees in the center after you've cooked it, and that it won't constrict anymore. And the last thing is don't poke your thumb into the either pad of your hand. Or anything like that. To tell when the steak is done,
use a thermometer. It is the only way to tell exactly the temperature on the inside. Period dunda da dun dune dum. We all learned today. I love that stuff. It just makes us better. I don't know why we push back on stuff when we learn. Sure, our pride is, you know, beat up. But there's an old Chinese saying, don't roll your eyes at me. Can I have a little time without my wife?
Just a little time? I come here, I get a whole new wife. You're about to make up a whole old I'm not gonna make it up, all right, Go go, go for.
It, Neil.
He who he who asks the question is dumb for five minutes.
He who doesn't ask the question is dumb for a lifetime. I actually like that. I my eyes. I was good. See that was good.
See you almost did the same sin that everybody else does, so pride.
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Sevedra on demand from KFI AM.
Sixty Happy Saturday.
Three hours of celebrating food, talking about the people that make it, the cultures behind it, cooking at home, gosh, going out to eat, we still need to do that. Have a story we'll be talking about coming up later about the aftermath with restaurants after the eat and fire. They're starting to open restaurants back, and it is imperative that we get out there and support them. This is a very very important time where things are being rebuilt
and there's a lot of question marks. And I've said it before and I will say it again that our local economy rises and falls on hospitality, and so I know it's hard.
It's hard for me to get out of places.
I get it, and it's you know, not cheap, but it's part of what we do to support local businesses and that makes the world go round. Another thing is events. You know, people tell me, hey, what happened to that one event? Blah blah blah blah. I go went away. You don't go to them, they go away. And to talk about one Coming up is friend and amazing chef and radio show host and author and a Samolier and all these other crazy things.
Chef Jamie Gwen. Welcome to the Fork Report. That's enough, Thank you please. I wasn't going to read the whole list.
We only got a couple of segments it's a pretty impressive bio. I wrote for myself the way to do it I did. I'm very glad to talk to you, friend. I'll take friends that I find honored and flattering. So thank you, Neil, thank you for having me with you. I'm with you. By the way. We have got to support our communities right now. We have to go out and eat. We have to experience new chefs and support multiple cuisines and expand our paletts. It is imperative.
Yeah, and that makes us, you know, we learn about ourselves as we grow up. We turn away from you know, the pizza and mac and cheese, and not far away do we turn, but we learn about other things. And you have an event coming up this month, and I've seen you at Ben had your food at many many events. Are they still fun to do? Are they still fun to represent and be a part of?
They are totally fabulously fun to do. And I will tell you of all the wonderful things you and I get to do my one on one experiences with other food lovers and great cooks and listeners and TV watchers, Because like you, I've had the privilege to be on TV and the radio for a really long time sharing my passion. That interaction is such a high for me, like Palm Desert Food and Wine, Aspen Food and Wine,
South Speech like I love the interpersonal connections. I love the camaraderie that I have with my chef friends like you, and I know you love it too. So yes, I am the crazy person that thought, oh I should do this, and there is backstory to it. I hear the same thing that you hear. So we had a pandemic. I
had a baby eleven days prior to the pandemic. Yes, as you know, my child is not at the palette place where he is a beach thought beyond mac and cheese and chicken plumber, but I'm sure he'll get there, and even though his mommy is a chef, right. But I mean, I was locked up for two years by choice, and when I started venturing out, I have the absolute
blessing of living in paradise in Newport Beach. And my friends were all whining that they really missed Newport Beach food and wine, and I think we all did start to miss those events, experiences, new flavors, camaraderie like all the things we're talking about. And I think I had one too many martinis that night, so don't do that. Because I yielded to the peer pressure, because they said, well, Jamie, you should bring it back. They're your friends, why not.
The chef's all you know all these years and Food Network and HSN, et cetera. And I threw my hands in the air and said, fine, well mind you. It's a beast, but it will be the most glorious curated gastronomic experience that Orange County has ever seen. It. If it doesn't give us a heart attack, I have the absolute blessing as well. My best girlfriend from childhood is the top event planner, one of them, a celebrity, a
celebrity event planner in LA. Her name is Nicole Hirsty and you know her for a million dollars listing in house slides of Beverly Hills. So when I called her and said guess what we were doing? She's my best friend, like, she had no out at all all, like say, will be yeah, right. So we created Relish and it is almost two years in the making and it is our inaugural year, and it will be a truly delicious, weekend long gastronomic experience of twelve events from master classes to
a sushi and donuts Sunday brunch. That's my dream. By the way, Neil and big time chefs that are full of passion as well are gracing Relish like Scott Conant and Tyler Florence so that you can sit and savor right next to them. It's an opening night cocktail party. I mean, we have just everything you know, truly delicious.
Plant, relishfood wine dot com, relishfood wine dot Com. We're gonna get a look out at the highways and byways. Then we're going to be back with Chef Jamie Gwen Horse author. Chef has her own show syndicated here on KBC in Los Angeles and beyond. You can see her on Channel four all the time with my friend Jessica a, Chies and all kinds of folks. So stick around. We'll
talk more with Chef Jamie gwhen we come back. Write this down relishfood wine dot Com, relish food wine dot com, Relish food wine dot com, lasch Food, and we'll be back with more.
So go know where.
You've been listening to the Fork Report. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty two to five pm on Saturday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
How do you do? Gorgeous day out today?
A great day for grilling, because nothing better than ninety degree weather than standing next to a seven hundred degree grill, I suppose. But good times everywhere. I hope you're enjoying friends, family and staying safe. Telling you right now about an event coming up that you need to put on the books right now. It's the Relish Food and Wine Festival.
You can find out more at Relishfoodwine dot com. Also the same on Instagram as well, and here to tell you more about it at the Helm herself, chef Jamie Gwen Chef. So I'm going through the ig feed for the Relish Food Wine event and see that.
You make oh my god.
And you've got patre chef, Zach Young, the engineer, the chef behind the pik Aken is going to be out there as well.
It just looks like it's going to be. I don't know.
I think there's something different when it's put on by someone like yourself, when it's helmed by someone who has gone to these things in every form, from you know, teaching and doing demos to showing your food off to cooking in front of people, guest speakership, maybe doing your show from there.
I mean, I'm.
Excited because I think that these events need to be shaken up a bit, and I think that you at the Helm is the right listen to this, watch this ingredient to make it happen.
Yeah, you just.
Love food analogy. Thank you, and you flatter me. No, sorry, not sorry, I appreciate that very much. I mean the passion and the time in the end energy that has gone into curating, culminating, producing, spearheading relish like you. I mean, I have a lot of full time jobs. This is a you know, this is a major full time job. But it is a celebration of the world class culinary scene for sure that we have planned. And I thank
you for that because you're right. I think we take all of our experiences and try to culminate the best of the best food memories we have when we go to create something ourselves. And that applies to a dish, a recipe for a weekend long you know, gastronomic experience, and it is the best of cooking demos and the best of winemaker seminars and spirits tastings and master classes in cheese and chocolate and Vodkan caviat all sprinkled throughout
a weekend. But thank you for that compliment. I'm still reeling on what you were talking about. Do you know that I'm a girl at the grill, Neil, I will humbly tell you I have one a barbecue competition or two.
Oh.
Now, I have actually known that you do enjoy the grill. But did I know that you want a competition?
I did not.
Do you want to know what I'm making tonight? Can I share it all? Yeah? Thank you? Because you said ninety degrees. That's what I do as jend in front of the barbecues of everybody. Right, Okay, I like to smoke with rosemary on the grill. You don't need a smoking box, an aluminum pan, you don't even need wood chips. But you know as well as I do that you throw fresh rosemary on the grill grapes and it catches on fire and it views infuses flavor. Right, this is
my best one ingredient wonder grilled appetizer. Because you already have honey and balsamic in your pantry, so you know those ingredients don't count. You need to go get yourself a keel bossa, the smoke sausage that I never met anybody that doesn't love. And you literally take the kill bossa out of the package or from the butcher preferably if you have one, and you throw you preheat the grill to medium high. You throw the rosemary springs on
the grill, and you poke the kill bossa. Because I like more smoke flavor, I like to poke it with the tip of the pairing knife. You can use the tooth pick or a skewer, and I lay the kill bossa right over the top of the smoking rosemary. Now, not only do you get a smoke rosemary facial, which is quite lovely, really, but you infuse the kill bossa with this herbaceousness that piles on on top of the smoke of the sausage. And I start to glaze it when it starts to blister with a combination of equal
parts honey and balsamic vinegar. And not three four five minutes later at most, you take it off the grill, You cut it in to bite by pieces. You pour yourself a drink. Well, you should already have one, And I'm telling you. You've got the best rosemary smoked honeyballsamic glazed bossa one ingredient. Wonder.
Uh, I'm gobsmacked that sounded.
I'm telling you something.
If you had an eight hundred number where people could call you and hear you talk about that, you would you would make a mint flatter me.
Really, Wow. Boyfriend is not going to like that idea.
Yeah he will. He gets in on the two. He'll just be sitting in the back zoning like this, Yeah, baby, and he'll be he'll be your hype man.
Very proud to tell you, Neil as well that we are the first ever Relish the event upcoming June twenty seven to twenty nine, Newport Beach. We're the first ever Orange County event to have James Beard backing. Wow. In this industry, you know how important James Beard Foundation and the James Beard House has been in bringing chefs up in the world, and they really do support and teach
and nurture new talent. So we are very excited for the charitable affiliation as well, with a you know, very diverse mission of the James Beard Foundation and associated with Relish. I'm very proud of that. We have incredible sponsors that have made it possible, of course, and it's going to be a truly scrumptious weekend and we can't wait to have you there, so you know you Neil and all of your listeners, tell your friends please, you don't want to miss it.
Oh no, it is June Friday, June twenty seventh, Saturday, June twenty eighth. You can see the rundown. You can go on Instagram to Relish Food Wine, or you can go to.
Relish as well.
Don't make Friday Saturday night.
Yeah, how could I forget it? Just is a wonderful lineup and there's education to be had along with great food as well. Learn about cheeses, learn about wines, Educate your mouth a little bit more and your taste buds as well as enjoying yourself again Relishfood Wine dot com. This event is at the helm of Jamie Gwen and her friends. Obviously calling in people that you know everybody, but you're calling in people that you know are going to bring fun and facts and a good time.
And it's very easy to see on.
The website Relishfood Wine dot com.
Chef Jamie Gwen, I appreciate you taking the time. I do. I do.
I've always been a fan of listening to you talk about food and enjoying the food that I've had the pleasure of eating. And I just was so thrilled when i got the press release that this was taking place.
I'm like, oh my gosh, this is finally.
Very kind you're putting on you know, yeah, final, finally, but oh my god. Yes, you know, I've long been a FOURK Report fan and I've long been a fan of yours, and I'm very grateful. Thank you for having me, thank you for championing Relish. Thank you for allowing me to share a grilled recipe in the middle of other conversations. Oh no, all are the things that excite us, right, I'd sit.
Back and listen. I really do.
And I know it's a mutual appreciation day to day, but I really do appreciate what you've done here in Los Angeles on radio and paying the way for others like me to talk about food. So you keep doing great things, And Relish is going to be on the twenty seventh, twenty eighth, and twenty ninth in Newport Beach.
Put this in your calendar.
Make sure you go, because this is not you know, your run of the mill type event, so greatest of life.
Pluck your way, Jamie and we will talk again.
I look fard it. Thank you for letting me grace your show. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
You're listening to The Fork Report with Nil Savedra on demand from KFI a M six forty