Cooking Issues with Dave Arnold

This week, Dave is joined by writer and chef Ham El-Waylly to talk about his new book, Hello, Home Cooking, out March 24. The conversation bounces from book-tour fatigue and the strange rituals of cookbook promotion to Ham’s childhood in Qatar, censored video game magazines, and the eternal question of how much pronunciation flexing is too much.From there: Brazilian hot dog parties, frozen pearl onions, pickled quail eggs, tostones technique, mashed potatoes cooked directly in milk, breakfast sausage without sage, tea as broth, and why sweet potato fries are still on thin ice. Ham also gets into the real mission of the book—helping people cook food that is actually achievable on a weeknight, without pretending every meal needs to be the greatest thing ever made. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of Cooking Issues, Dave and the crew are joined in-studio by chef India Doris for a wide-ranging conversation on cooking across London, France, Spain, Scotland, and New York, learning to break down whole animals in a butcher shop, the realities of restaurant labor in the UK versus the U.S., and what it actually takes to open your first place. Along the way: haggis, black pudding, game birds, owner mentality, kitchen culture, staffing philosophy, and the financial tightrope of building a restaurant from scratch. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dennis Ngo, chef-owner of Di An Di and pho specialist, shares pho fundamentals and stock technique. Paul Carmichael, chef behind Kabawa with broad restaurant experience, talks menu development and laminated baked-patty methods. They compare sandwich breads, mayo choices, sourcing quirks, and R&D limits in short, lively conversations.

C-Y Chia and Shane Stanbridge of Lion Dance Cafe join Dave to break down the philosophy behind their self-published cookbook—and why they closed the restaurant after four years. They discuss designing a cuisine around systems (shallot oil, chili oils, dredges, staple sauces), building menus from repeatable flavor frameworks, and writing recipes that actually teach how they think.Highlights include: vegan banana cake and Southeast Asian dessert structure; almond-sesame-shallot “ASS” cookies and sweet-savory crossover; soy-milk mayo science and high-acid balance; frying tofu nuggets with freeze-thaw texture engineering; gluten-free dredges for better crunch; Spanish peanuts vs. Virginia; brining corn before grilling; and the one vegan fish sauce that actually works. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The crew dives into practical cooking technique: why some induction burners struggle to push a roux dark (and how throttling, pan material, and heat management affect the result), followed by a broader discussion of “high instantaneous heat, low average heat” cooking—rotisserie logic, off-and-on grilling, and moisture control strategies that build crust without overcooking. Dave also revisits shrimp quality—why wild Gulf shrimp taste dramatically better than commodity farmed blocks—and shares recent kitchen experiments, including Austrian scarlet runner beans with pumpkin seed oil and beta-carotene “Golden Fluff-O” biscuit trials. Along the way: New Orleans food notes, po’boy bread realities, and the usual rapid-fire equipment and technique tangents. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dave Arnold is joined in-studio by chef Alex Stupak to talk tacos (including the evolution of his “cheeseburger taco”), Substack-era dessert thinking, and why some techniques (and tastes) don’t hit the same a decade later. The crew detours into gumbo viscosity and the eternal question of whether s’mores should be toasted or fully incinerated. Along the way: freezing clams to open them, Manhattan clam chowder ethics, American cheese brand loyalty, film-forming gels, and what the modernist cooking wave looks like in hindsight—plus why “simple” food is dominating menus right now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dave kicks off another anything-goes Tangent Tuesday with a stack of updates: upcoming guests Paul Carmichael and Dennis (with Momofuku/Kabo context) and a correction on the “German” drop-off that turns out to be Austrian—complete with scarlet runner beans and pumpkin seed oil for the canonical salad. From there it’s pure free-association cooking brain: the French galette des rois vs. other king-cake traditions, why grill marks are mostly a bad signal (and grill pans are worse), and Dave’s long-running dream of a bar “piñata service” that doesn’t involve handing drunk people a bat—now migrating toward a spring-loaded destruction machine. Quinn talks baguette iteration (including gelatin experiments), Dave dives deep on vintage Crisco lore and beta-carotene fry-color hacks, and the crew detours through oddball old cookbooks, “Japanese fruit cake” naming insanity, and a near-electrocution tale from rewiring a century-old Hamilton Beach mixer. The back half hits listener Q&A: milling/sifting guidance, lacto-ferment oxygen management, and circulator recommendations (with a pragmatic “watts + insulation matter more than marketing” take). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week is a rapid-fire run of Cooking Issues staples: why most store carrots are trash (and why frozen veg is usually the correct move for pot pie), biscuit technique tweaks (including grating frozen butter), and a pie-crust method that splits the fat for a “medium” flake. From there it’s gear-and-systems nerdery: a Seattle Ultrasonics knife test, pro home-kitchen “hacks” (deli containers, tape/Sharpie, restaurant-supply pans, freezing bases), and a long, detailed breakdown of home carbonation—carbonators, cold plates vs. chillers, line materials, compensator taps, and why soda guns lose CO₂. The back half hits listener questions on Soxhlet extraction, nitro vs. nitrous, red-hot poker construction, oat-milk eggnog separation, and a precise carbonated French 75 base spec to close. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The crew checks in live from Rockefeller Center and quickly veers from Patreon housekeeping into Polymarket absurdities, restaurant closures, and the grim mechanics of auctioning off a closed kitchen. Jean details liquidating equipment (including a Rationale), while Dave unloads on bureaucracy, safety grounds left floating inside a brand-new Bosch oven, and the theoretical physics of jacking oven temps via PT1000 resistance sensors—plus reversible home steam-injection hacks that don’t involve drilling holes.Quinn talks risotto-style oats and fresh milling, and Dave breaks down grain texture, grinder damage myths, and why oats are mushy compared to rice. Listener questions round things out with astringency in drinks beyond tannins (bitters, resins, aromatics), blood-sausage preferences across styles, and how phosphoric acid can anchor a cola-like, carbonated amaro build. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cooking Issues opens the new year with Dave and Joe in-studio, plus Nastassia and Jack in LA and Quinn on Vancouver Island. Dave recaps a rough holiday detour: adopting a young cat that immediately got seriously sick, turning New Year’s into emergency vet care and force-feeding. Jack reports from a cross-country drive to clear out storage, including a stop at Richmond’s Gwar Bar, inspiring instant talk of a future show takeover. Dave also offers Patreon listeners first dibs on hauling away a free six-burner Wolf commercial gas range from the Lower East Side.The crew swaps holiday cooking notes (Quinn’s turkey biryani, a red wine pork stew), then veers into gear and technique: Dave experiments with Ray-Ban Meta glasses for POV kitchen content, discusses his new Bosch oven and stone/pizza setup logic, and takes a caller question on keeping orange oil in syrup—recommending gum arabic plus xanthan while explaining why “clear” emulsions are hard. Quick hits include a shout-out to Alba in LA, a party etiquette rant about grabbing a legend’s guitar, and Dave’s non-alcoholic bitterness hacks for diet soda (wormwood/gentian infusions). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.