Pacojet: Recipes, How It Works, and More | WTF – Ep. 204

Pacojet: Recipes, How It Works, and More | WTF – Ep. 204

Have you ever wondered whether
a Pacojet would make a great addition to your kitchen? Well, today on WTF, we’re gonna show you
the differences between a Pacojet Jr. and a Pacojet 2 Plus, and how to make
everything from a pâté to gelato. Hello, and welcome to WTF, where
we transform food here in the Modern Pantry test kitchen. I’m chef Scott Guerin. And I’m Janie Wang, one of the
owners of Modernist Pantry. And here on WTF, we like to cover fun
ingredients, unique techniques, and show you cool new equipment to get you
started on your culinary adventures. So remember, subscribe and ring the bell. You do get notified of our content. We come out with something
new every single Tuesday. And this week, we’re going to be
covering one of our favorite pieces of equipment, which is the Pacojet. And it’s kind of a cool time
to cover it for two reasons. One, they have new pieces coming out. We have the Pacojet two performance. We have this funky-colored Pacojet Jr. So we wanted to talk about that. But then also more importantly, we wanted
to showcase why people should invest in a Pacojet because it is an investment. But if you’re, you know, either
a really hardcore home cook or you are working in a restaurant,
you need to save costs and stuff. This is something that’s going
to give you a lot of returns. So we wanted to really cover the
benefits of why the Pacojet is such a great piece of equipment. Scott, can you maybe start off with, and
I know you have lots of demos planned, so stick around for the whole thing,
but like start off with, you know, you’ve certainly worked in restaurants,
you know, you’ve opened restaurants, worked on the line for years and years. What do you think is, you know, the
major benefits of owning a Pacojet? So the major benefit of owning
a Pacojet is ultra consistency. Every time you put a beaker
into a Pacojet, you’re going to get the exact same result. The exact same texture, the exact
same viscosity, every single time. No matter what you’re doing, this
isn’t just an ice cream machine. That’s kind of what people think it is. It’s like a fancy ice cream machine. It is not. It does everything you want it to,
anything that could be pureed or into a soup or into a, even a pâté, you
can do it in the Pacojet and it’ll be the exact same, every single time. And if you are doing ice cream,
it makes the best ice cream I’ve ever had in my life. So there’s a great number of
reasons why you would need one. But consistency is always going to be key
for what you’re doing in a restaurant. Yeah. I know off camera, you know, we talk
about things like labor shortages, obviously, you know, like with rent
and everything, like the ability to not waste anything that you’re making. And kind of like having a little
robotic sous chef in your kitchen, it’s certainly something that’s going to help. So hopefully today we’re going to show
you a few different ways in which the Pacojet can help you in your kitchen. So that if you have been thinking about
whether you want to invest in one, this is going to help you make that decision. So maybe for people who perhaps haven’t
encountered the Pacojet, or they’ve only heard of it, you know, like in
passing, can you describe some of the things you can do in a Pacojet and
kind of what really makes it special? Sure. Anything can be done in a Pacojet. It just depends on what
tools you’re using with it. So that does come with
different types of attachments. It does come with different settings. So the main one, like
we said, is ice cream. It’s going to make the most
smooth, creamy, consistent ice cream out of anything you want. Like we have dairy-free ice cream here
that you would not ever know is not dairy. All the way to something like
a pâté, which is, this is actually a great kind of example. You can see that there’s butter
and sous vide pâté in here. And then after you whip it, you get
this really perfect consistency. Completely smooth. It takes out half the prep work
because you don’t have to worry about straining or any of that
because you just grind it all in and everything is going to be consistent. So you’re not wasting any of that. This has a lot of bacon and onions
in it and you just blend it right in. And you don’t have to worry
about straining it, then throwing that stuff away. That’s waste. So this gives you more volume,
more product, more things to sell. And even down to items that are green. This is a really great tool
for items that are green. So actually, I’m going to show you here
really quickly, kind of hop into it. Okay. I go the other way. So this is a chimichurri that we made. This, I put into the freezer. I put in all the ingredients
for my chimichurri. I’ve tossed them into the freezer. This morning, right before the
shoot, I came out and I put it in here on a double cycle. So this is the Pacojet 2 Plus. This allows you to run as many cycles
as you want, up to 10 per unit. So I could just set it in there. In my recipe, I write, “Put it in the
Pacojet for two cycles, let it go.” And it’ll do that. And I come back and I have the exact
same chimichurri every single time. Now, the reason why it’s so good is
that all the heat is contained up here. The piston that comes down with the
blade that is attached, which I can take off right now, with the blade that
is attached, this contains no heat. So this adds no extra heat to my
chimichurri, which is beautifully green. Right? So that way, I’m not going to turn
this into a brown chimichurri, just by, you know, using the Pacojet. It adds no heat. So it’s not going to
heat up your ice cream. It’s not going to heat
up any of your greens. It’s going to keep it green indefinitely
until obviously if you leave it out or whatever, but if you’re
using sodium bisulphite, which this uses, it’ll never go brown, right? Never go brown. Yeah. Never go brown. Excuse me. Yeah. So, and then we should probably talk
about the differences between the two, because obviously they’re different
in color, but they are different in the things that they can do. This is the Pacojet 2 Plus. This is kinda like the
mac daddy of Pacojets. This has an extremely
quiet, extremely fast motor. So this will churn I think one
serving in about 30 seconds. Okay. So if you’re making ice cream, and you’re
doing high volume, you can have a serving every 30 seconds out of this machine. Okay. That’s incredibly fast. That’s faster than you can
plate the rest of the dish. You know what I mean? And you don’t have to do
it one serving at a time. So you need 2, 3, 4 servings. You can dial in up here into
how many servings you want. Also with this machine, you can dial
in exactly how much aeration you want. Okay. So if you’re making a gelato
like this, you want no aeration. You put 0%. Say you’re making an ice cream and you
want that extra kind of airy mouthfeel. You can dial it up 10%. Whatever you want, you
can do with this machine. With the Pacojet Jr., you don’t really
have all those tools at your hip. You have this button right here, which
will help you with the aeration, with the pressure and everything that’s
going on inside the machine there. But you don’t have the
ability to dial it in. So that’s about one different thing. Yeah. This takes a little bit longer. I think about a minute and 30 seconds per
serving, where this is about 30 seconds. This also takes about four minutes
and 30 seconds for an entire beaker. So these are called the beakers. So if you want to churn the entire beaker,
it’s about four minutes, 30 seconds. This is much faster. I believe it’s about,
about two minutes or so. Yeah. So I think, you know, at the end of the
day, if you’re thinking about getting one, the major difference is how, how
many people are you serving in an evening? If it’s like a lot, and then you
probably want to go with the 2 Plus. If it’s not a lot, you
know, the Pacojet Jr. still has the same technology and is able
to bring that same level of delicious performance, I think, to the dish. So, you know, that’s one of the
major things when you’re thinking about all right, what’s the
difference between the colors? So, okay. What are we going to show people today
that they can make in their Pacojets? Sure. So I’m gonna have to do
the chimichurri right now. So I have this beautiful
chimichurri that I made. Then I’m going to put right over
my skirt steak, which is just a grilled skirt steak, right? And while this did go in frozen, you
can take it out and refrigerate it after and it’s going to hold its color
and texture, and you don’t have to worry about anything else, separation,
whatnot, especially with this recipe. So that’s a really cool thing. And then we get into
something like a pâté. Now this pâté is really special,
because generally with a pâté, there’s some emulsification that has to go on. Someone has to, you know, clarify the
butter, pour in the clarified butter after they strain the pâté, you know, put it
into containers that, and then when you cook it, you have to allow it to soufflé. You don’t have to worry about any of that. This, I take all the ingredients
after I sauté and sweat off the bacon and the onions. I put it into a bag. We do all this on our Instagram,
so you can check it out. And there’s recipes for this on our
blog, blog.modernistpantry.com in the links, in the description below. So I take that, I put it into
a bag and I sous vide it. When it comes out, I put it
right over the cold butter. So I kind of freeze the butter. So it doesn’t melt. Put it over there. When it’s all at room temperature, I put
it on the Pacojet and I blend it up and it whips it into this perfect consistency. Cool. So there’s perfect consistency. If it’s too cold, it can look grainy. It is not. It’s just that the butter
isn’t fully emulsified. So that’s one thing you need to know. But if you do it at room
temperature, you can take it. You can form it into whatever you want. If you want to put it onto a plate
like this, I can show you, right now. Perfect pâté. That came right out here. Put it in. But you could see how easy it
started and what a beautiful finished product you get out of it. And then there’s so many
other things you can do. So we decided why not try making foams? Because a lot of people
like to make a, this makes incredibly stable whipped cream. So why don’t we try and make
something with our foam magic? So I made a red wine foam here. And I made this about an hour ago
and you can see how beautiful it is. Right. Great bubble structure. And I can put that right
over the top of my pâté. It’s going to hold up really beautifully. Yeah. And if you, if you haven’t watched foam
magic, you’re like, what is foam magic? That episode will be in the
link in the description below. So you do need something like foam magic
to get that foam, to, to stick around. Yeah. This will foam any liquid. This right here is a red wine foam. It’s a little bit of sugar, a
little bit of water, a little bit of red wine, foam magic. And that is it. And you can see how
wonderfully it holds up. Yeah. Now we can get into
the, to the ice creams. ‘Cause that’s what people,
the main idea of Pacojet is to make the best ice cream ever. So what we have here
is a pistachio gelato. We borrowed this recipe, you know, kind of
made it our own, from Modernist Cuisine. They make a really beautiful
pistachio gelato right here. You can see just how gorgeous it is. Now one thing that this pistachio
gelato uses is polysorbate 80. And that works really well in the Pacojet
because of how fast the Pacojet works. It helps emulsify and it will actually
slow down the melting of this gelato. So this gelato has been sitting
out for about a half an hour. It looks a little melty, but it’s
going to hold that shape really well. And it’s not going to
dribble all over the place. All right. So Janie, we’re going
to do one more thing. Okay. We’re going to switch sides. Okay. We’re just going to do an on-screen
demo of how to use the Pacojet. So this is the Pacojet Jr. Yeah. Now I’m a lot taller, right? So I’m going to take this and
I’m going to put it right on. Now there’s a magnetic tip on that piston. So when I put it on, you’ll
feel it pull up the blade. And you just have to turn it
to make sure it’s locked in. There was an older version that people
had that didn’t have that kind of, it’s almost like a screw cap on it. And it was a little bit difficult. And this starts sideways. And this here is the exact same
recipe as the pistachio gelato. We just made it with regular peanut
butter because who doesn’t want that? So put it up and then turn it. It’ll lock itself in and up here,
there’s an indicator that’ll let you know that it’s locked in. So you just dial in how
many servings you want. I’m just going to do three. And then I’m going to hit
the green button, which is go, and you’ll hear it start. Now there’s a brushless motor
in both of these, and it’s much quieter than in the older version. So when you put it on, but it’s
still gonna make some noise. And as it goes down,
that blade is spinning. And as that blade is spinning,
it’s churning that ice cream. So you don’t have to churn it prior
to putting it inside of the beaker. You make the ice cream base
and you just pour it in and you don’t have to worry about it. Every other ice cream recipe, you’re
going to have to make that, churn it, pull it at the right time, and then put it
into the freezer to let it fully freeze. This, it’s going to do
all that work for you. Like I said, it’s going to blend it up. All right. So this is finished. So you just pop it off and you can hear
a little bit of pressure be released. So what it did during that,
is it pushes the piston down. It spins that blade. When that blade spins,
it churns the ice cream. You do not have to churn prior
to going into the beaker. Most ice cream recipes will make you
churn the ice cream, and then you put it into the freezer and allow it to
completely freeze after the churning. This, you completely freeze the base
ice cream, and then you’re able to churn it on demand so you get this
beautiful consistency for a peanut butter gelato, almond butter, but really
the best is the pistachio, especially because we use the Fabbri Delipaste. The pistachio is unbelievable. Yeah. And this is completely dairy-free. Yeah. So this recipe uses perfect gelato,
a little bit of polysorbate, water, sugar, and then whenever you’re adding,
either pistachio or a peanut butter. It’s so good. As always, you can get all
the recipes today in the links in the description below. And we just kind of wanted to do
this high-level overview because we can stand here and talk
about the Pacojet for an hour. But that would be a very tedious episode. So if you do have any questions about
either of the Pacojets, leave them in the comments below, and we’ll just get back
to you about, you know, anything that we don’t know, we’ll ask the manufacturer, we
have a great relationship with them, so we can definitely get you whatever you need. If you’re still kind of thinking
about like, oh boy, can I do this? Can I do that? So there’s a lot of different
options that we can go with here. And I kinda just want to wrap us up, you
know, I was thinking about you making this mousse and you got the foam and stuff. Do you have an idea of what if you were
to do all this without the Pacojet? Like how much time would it have
taken you to make this plate without the Pacojet versus with the Pacojet? So it takes a lot more equipment and time. So I would have had to
have an ice cream churn. I would have taken up real estate
inside my oven for the pâté. So probably about 50% more time. Taking up all that extra equipment
usage, rather than just a few beakers and a couple of Pacojets. So there’s a lot that goes
on, you know, that this covers up and takes off your mind. Yeah, definitely. So the ROI on a Pacojet or return on
investment is really, really great. If you’re thinking about it, let
us know if you have any questions. And from here in the Modernist
Pantry test kitchen, I’m Janie Wang. And I’m Scott Guerin. Thank you so much for watching. And if you haven’t already,
like, comment, and subscribe. And hit that bell so you get
notified when we drop a new video. To get today’s recipes and all
of our recipes, remember to go to blog.modernistpantry.com, where
you’ll get recipes, ask-a-chefs, tips and tricks, and more. And if you haven’t already, tell a friend,
so they know what’s going on here at WTF. And, as always, to get any of the
ingredients you saw today, you can go to modernistpantry.com to shop. And until next time, we’ll be here in
the test kitchen, helping you create memorable and magical experiences.

Whether you have experienced the wonder of a Pacojet before, or are new to the world of pacotizing, this incredible piece of equipment delivers kitchen wizardry with just a few button presses. Scott and Janie demo the new Pacojet 2 and Pacojet Junior models, and showcase how you can make a fresh green chimichurri, a heavenly dairy-free pistachio gelato, and silky smooth chicken liver pâté… on this week’s WTF.

Timestamps:
0:00 – Introduction
1:27 – The benefits of owning a Pacojet
3:00 – What you can do with a Pacojet
4:16 – Chimichurri demo
5:30 – Pacojet Junior vs. Pacojet 2 Plus
8:04 – Pâté recipe demo
9:28 – Culinary foam demo
10:12 – Make the best ice cream ever
11:06 – Pacojet: how it works
14:20 – Could you do this without a Pacojet?
14:57 – Conclusion

Product Links:
Pacojet Jr.: https://bit.ly/3x5eO4F
Pacojet 2 Plus: https://bit.ly/3qxQaYd
Fabbri Delipaste: https://bit.ly/3qAIgxh

Recipe Links:
Dairy Free Pistachio Gelato: https://bit.ly/3hbCIVm
Silky Smooth Chicken Liver Pâté: https://bit.ly/361Yztu
Evergreen Chimichurri: https://bit.ly/3hahh8J

References and Other Links You Might Like!
WTF – Ice Cream Stabilizers: https://bit.ly/3y9xEYr
WTF – Sodium Bisulfite: https://bit.ly/3qBiPeT
WTF – Fabbri Delipaste: https://bit.ly/2ULW3VH
WTF – Polysorbate 80: https://bit.ly/3dnTMGz
WTF – Prague Powder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvCzSQ74EMg
WTF – Foam Magic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq7AT-PN1fo

About ‘We Transform Food’
We Transform Food is a weekly series from Modernist Pantry exploring cool ingredients and gadgets that can help any chef transform food into more memorable experiences.

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#PacojetJunior #Pacojet2Plus #Pacojet