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Selling mini crème brûlées
This may be a difficult question to answer but if you have any recommendations, I would greatly appreciate it.
I’m going to be opening up a small a home owned desert business and I would like to sell mini crème brûlée. It’s hard to keep the top crunchy and if you pre-torch it and leave it in the fridge the topping will be ruined.
I was thinking of torching them right before the customer picks an order up, but if they decide to put it in the fridge, when they go back to it and bite into it it’ll be really soggy. Or if they order a dozen of them for a party the next day, the next day the topping will be super soggy.
I was just wondering if there was a way to keep the crunchy sugar top crunchy for long-ish periods of time especially because the dessert itself needs to be refrigerated and can’t really be outside the fridge for too long. Please help! | The question you are asking has no technological solution - you cannot put caramel on something wet and preventing from becoming wet. So you are looking at logistical solutions, and you have basically listed them already.
For eating on premises, you keep the custard in the fridge and add the sugar and torch just before serving, as you mentioned. This is so well-suited and common, that I don't think anybody has had the need to develop any alternatives.
For eating later at home, there are two options. One is as you said - you caramelize when selling, and the buyer has to live with the choice between eating it soon or eating it later without a snappy crust. The second is the one used by supermarkets and mentioned in comments - you package coarse dry brown sugar separately, and the customer has the choice between producing a good caramel crust at home (which is time-consuming and not everybody has the needed tools) or eating a custard with sprinkled brown sugar that has not been actually caramelized into a crust.
A variation of the "package the sugar" along option is to package caramel along, either as a whole disc or ground into sugar-sized crystals. It doesn't require the customer to caramelize at home (so the tool and time drawbacks are eliminated), but it is clearly separate from the custard, making it less like real creme brulee.
All two (or three) solutions fall short of the ideal, but as far as I am aware, you can't do better than that. You can just choose which negative is the most acceptable for you and your customers. |
Uses of dittany of Crete (origanum dictamnus)
Last summer I went to Crete for a short vacation, and came back with fond memories of the local cuisine.
Before leaving I bought some spices, among them a small bag of diktamo (dittany, or dictamnus).
While the smell is quite nice, I found that it doesn't impart any discernible flavour to dishes.
I tried it in some recipes that call for oregano (homemade pizza, some pasta sauces), but I'm curious as to its use in Greek cuisine; maybe I'm just using it the wrong way. | In Greece we use diktamo mostly for tea, as beverage.
You can try it by boiling water in a jar and put 5-10gr diktamo for 5-10 minutes.
Other uses as any other tea leaves. For example you can boil milk or 35% milk cream and put diktamo and then use the milk or cream to make pastry cream or ganache or any other similar. |
What type of chorizo is this?
I have been given a gourmet hamper which includes a chorizo sausage. There are no instructions on the packet to say what it is. I have had cooking chorizo before and know what it looks like. This chorizo is about 8 inches long, has string at both ends and is quite soft. I don't want to give anyone a stomach upset. To cook or not to cook.
Regards Carol. | A couple of the largest clues to help you
If it's Spanish, it's probably OK 'raw', if it's Mexican, probably not.
If it's soft & squashy, it needs cooking, if it's firm & wrinkled it's OK as it is.
Left is cured & ready to eat, right must be cooked first.
I'm ignoring the fact that for this photo someone has cross-contaminated, making the properly smoked one no longer safe
One additional tip I learned from my mother-in law, who lives in Spain - even though completely safe 'raw', if the skin comes off easily in one piece, it's better raw; if it tears off in bits, cook it anyway in red wine. It's not as good. |
Can I broil a box cake in the oven?
my oven has recently broken, it turns on but does not heat. On the other hand, my broiler works just fine and I've been able to cook peach cobbler and peach bread, though that calls for a different recipe. Of course. it's a pandemic and I'm unable to get the oven fixed right now, I will be making a 4 tier chocolate box cake for my friends birthday in a square 8x8" pan and I really don't want to mess it up, is there any possible way to figure out how long to bake a cake in the oven on the low broiler setting, should i just check it every 15 minutes?
Thank you in advance | I would suggest putting the cake on the lowest shelf your oven has and put a second oven rack above it then put a baking sheet or hotel tray on the upper rack to block direct radiation. If you have an oven steel or pizza stone, you can put that under your cake while you're preheating to help with the bake (leaving it in). It will hold a lot of heat and make the cook more even. |
Should I rinse chicken livers before cooking them?
I bought some fresh packed chicken livers from the supermarket (refrigerated). At home I froze them. Today I've thawed them and they were bloody. I've put them into a bowl with cold water, then drained them. The water was reddish and small pieces of tisue were floating.
Was my approach ok/safe? How is it done in restaurant kitchens?
Should I just drain the blood and water after thawing or wash them with cold water? | You should prepare the chicken livers by trimming away any fat, sinew, etc. You shouldn't need to rinse them, but it's OK to do so. Just be aware any time you are washing chicken or chicken parts that the bacteria can get all over your sink and kitchen, so I generally just confine to the cutting board and then wash it with warm, soapy water or put into dishwasher. |
How to make pizza without pizza sauce?
Does anyone know how to make pizza without pizza sauce? Maybe some kind of replacement? | Focaccia dough stretched and rolled thin, painted with olive oil, sprinkled with fresh herbs and coarse salt then lanced about with a fork is a wonderful pizza with no need for any sauce or other toppings as a snack of side dish. From there as a starting point you can start adding toppings, cheeses, even sauces to ones hearts content. Herbs could be dried rather than fresh, but fresh basil or oregano are a good starting point. I love a good sauce, but in no way is any sauce needed for a pizza. If you want a sauce however, most anything that pairs with your toppings will work and there is no reason to skimp on creativity. BBQ with chicken or shredded pork. An Alfredo with shrimp or chicken. A yogurt with fresh fruits for dessert. There really are no rules. Pizza is in my opinion defined by location and taste, not by some specific definition and is fully open to interpretation. With a good base if needs no sauce. With a lesser base, yes I want a sauce, but not to be limited to what some shop defined as appropriate. |
Trying to improve a vegetarian wrap by adding spinach
I am trying to come up with a recipe for a wrap (in a tortilla) and my idea features slightly fried vegetables and spring onion, sour cream, spinach and mozzarella.
I would usually try out different approaches and come up with a recipe through trial and error, but this time I don't have this luxury and yet I want my wrap to be tasty and well balanced.
The current plan is to slightly fry the vegetables in a pan with the lid on. After that, while still hot, I plan on adding the sour cream and mixing it up. The mozzarella is added inside at the end so it melts while the wrap is in a closed toaster or on a grill.
The main idea is super simple and actually my only concern is about the spinach. I don't want it to dominate in the dish, but still give that hint in the wrap. I don't have any specific amounts for the the other products.
What suggestions would you give me for the preparation of the spinach and how much should I use? | Fresh uncooked washed baby spinach would be best. Just the leaves, no stems.
If you wanted to, you could lay the spinach out over the wrap, then put the fried ingredients on while hot, so that they partially cook the spinach, add your sauce, then roll up. |
What are the vertical-edge plates called?
I'm assuming asking this question is ok since questions about kitchen equipment and cutlery are permitted.
So far I've only found steel plates that have a vertical edge. Do these vertical-edged plates have a specific name that I could search for, to check if they are available as a microwavable plates?
Most plates are pretty flat, which causes food to annoyingly go off the edge and onto the table. | With Duarte's help, I found the plates are:
Raised edge plate
The divided scoop plates.
Dignity plates.
High sided plates.
Hi Lo plates.
Manoy plates.
Inner lip plates.
There are also lipped edge plates, but it doesn't always satisfy the requirement of food not going off the edge. |
My sourdough started hasn't yet risen! What am I doing wrong?
I had started my first batch of sourdough starter a week back. Its just wheat flour and water (haven't added any pineapple juice or any other fruit juice).
The first 2 days had vigorous activity and the mix stank, a lot! After 3 days the smell has changed to a slightly fruity acetony/alcoholish smell with some remnant of the previous stink. I have been feeding the starter once everyday.
Its been 6 days now and I still don't see any rise that growth of yeasts is suppose to bring with it. The past 3 days I have always observed a slight layer of clear liquid form over my starter. And every time I throw the top part and a little of the starter away to add fresh flour and water. I live in India and its always hot and humid in the day, so room temperature isn't the problem.
My starter has just had a few bubbles in it nothing vigorous like I see in the pictures online. It never rises! There's no rise and fall.
What am I doing wrong? Don't want to waste flour if its dead. Would appreciate any help.
Attaching pics in link for reference
Sourdough starter pics
Edit: Forgot to mention before. I store the starter in a pyrex bowl, with the lid on it. Its not air tight, but neither is the starter getting the kind of air that covering the bowl with a cloth would let. I store it in a dark warm place inside a cupboard.
UPDATE1: So with accurate measurements (S:W:F= 1:1:1), there was a drastic change. No hooch whatsoever, the starter seems more active, there are bubbles throughout the batter. But there's nothing vigorous. There's no rise and fall at all.
Without the overnight rise and fall, is my starter ready to be used for leavening? How can I know if the yeast population is sufficient enough for baking a loaf?
UPDATE2: The sourdough starter rose very well. 2 days was all the difference I needed. The starter tripled in size once the yeast activity was good and going.
Have added the result pic in the same album linked above. | While feeding I take half cup measure of flour and then take the same
cup measure of water and mix it in the starter.
And there is your problem to some extent. Always weigh your flour, water, starter and everything else when baking bread. Water weighs about 25% more than flour. This means you have about 25% too much water (or more).
Great bread recipes take into account humidity, temperature, ingredient weights and the fact that not everybody's measurements will be exactly the same size. Always weigh your ingredients.
So now take 4oz or 100 grams of your starter, add 4oz or 100 grams of water along with 4oz or 100 grams of flour, stir that all up and see what happens in 24 hours.
Then repeat the process again, twice a day, though you may notice great changes as soon as tomorrow. Report back as you do.
If 4oz is a bit much for your container, you can reduce it to 2oz. Making half of the flour wheat--and not just white--helps in the beginning along with a tablespoon of rye if you have it. (Yeah, I'm not picky about the tablespoon here.) |
Matcha cheesecake can't keep the bright green color
I made a no-bake matcha cheesecake with cream cheese, yogurt, whipping cream, matcha powder and gelatin. The type of matcha powder I used was not very green but it was ok. However, the next day, the green color turned grey, not completely grey but not attractive anymore. How can I prevent this? | Lemon juice / exclude air.
If gray outside only but inside is good I conclude the matcha oxidized from the air. I am not sure why, but if it stayed green inside it must not have been any ingredient - they are all inside too.
Ideas to prevent oxidation are either preventing air from coming into contact with the cake, or adding antioxidant.
Some apples (not all types; not sure why) turn brown in the air. Lemon juice prevents this. I think it is the vitamin C in it acting as an antioxidant. You could squeeze lemon juice over the top. Lemon juice brings that flavor to a thing. It seems to me like it might be OK on this.
You could cover it tightly with plastic wrap such that air is excluded.
Best of all, if you have any cake left, would be if you would do an experiment with both methods and post images. Take out a slice of cake, cut it in half, treat 1 side with lemon juice, then new pic next day. Also take a slice of cake, cut it in half, cover 1 half tightly with plastic wrap and other half leave out. New pic next day. |
Do I need a specific pan for baking sourdough bread?
I have been following a recipe to make sourdough bread and a starter. The recipe said to cook the bread in a dutch oven or a cast iron casserole dish. Since I have neither, can I cook the bread in an ordinary loaf tin or some other utensil? | Bread can generally be baked in any pan, sourdough is no exception to this. Baking it in a covered dutch oven seals in moisture and keeps the crust from hardening, allowing maximum oven spring. You can achieve a similar effect by putting a pan of boiling water in the bottom of your oven for the first half of baking.
There's no reason you can't use a loaf tin, my main concern would be it sticking to the sides. To prevent this I would coat the sides of the dough that will touch with a generous layer of coarse wheat flour while it proves.
You can use other things as well, I don't have a casserole with a lid, but I do have some enameled cast iron pots. There are too deep to but the bread into without mangling the shape, so I invert it over a cookie sheet instead, then I remove it halfway through cooking. |
Beer in Sourdough Starter
Would there be any benefit to feeding a sourdough starter with beer instead of or in addition to water? | Actually, there is an answer in the question that I linked, which speaks to your question. However, now that I've read the question again, you are technically correct that it is not a duplicate. I'll also add that the folks here seem to think beer in your starter is not very beneficial, but I have found nothing definitive. Perhaps you could create two starters, one with water and one with beer, then bake two identical loaves and report your results as an answer here. |
Can I use German flour Type 405 for a recipe that needs self-rising flour?
I'm totally new to baking/using flour in general. I'm wondering if Type 405 is enough for a recipe that specifies "self-rising flour".
Germany's Flour Type 405 is equivalent to pastry flour. Pastry flour is made from soft wheat and has a gluten content of 8-10%. It is soft and ivory in color. Because of its low gluten content, it is best used for baked goods that should have a soft consistency yet still needs some structure, such as muffins, buscuits, pie crust, tart dough, cookies, some sweet yeast doughs, etc.
Pastry flour is available in the U.S. in health food stores, specialty stores, and mail-order businesses. To make a flour with the same gluten content as pastry flour, combine 1 1/3 cups (185g) all-purpose flour and 2/3 cup (90g) cake flour (which is available in most markets and has a gluten content of 6-8%).
Source
FWIW, I'm planning to make some home-made munchkins. The recipe doesn't need an oven but is deep fried.
If it is not suitable is there anything I can do/add to make this kind of flour be a suitable substitute for self-rising flour? | The keyword here is “self-rising” - which describes a mix of flour and baking powder.
So if you are going to use 405 instead, which would probably be a good—enough choice (especially as it’s “the standard flour” in German supermarkets), you have to add baking powder. As a rule of thumb, use one pouch (assuming you are in Germany, where that’s the standard unit) per 500g of flour. If your recipe calls for self-raising plus baking powder or baking soda, use the extra amount as well.
I personally prefer he German 550 flour as my go-to type, which is closer to what other countries call “all-purpose”, but it may or may not be available at your store. Unless you are making bread and similar goods, 405 will most likely be ok. |
Searing Burgers and Pot Roast
For a single burger I am using a Cusinart 7 ¼ model II 9022-18 18/10 stainless pan. For my first attempt at searing a 3 lb. pot roast I will be using a 4 quart Dutch Oven. My oil is GV Light Tasting, which is supposed to have a high smoke point.
Up to last night I have avoided seasoning my burger to avoid salt. Last night I seasoned one with salt and pepper: that seemed to help with the sticking, but the burger still wanted to become one with the pan. Unseasoned if I used too much oil when cooking the burgers (90/10) they got oily: if I used too little they stuck to the pan.
So how do I determine how much oil to use in each application so that the meat does not stick to the pan at all and sears properly? I am thinking that there should be an optimal depth of the oil in millimeters for specific types of meats?
Secondarily I am uncertain if I should expect seasoned meat to stick to a pan as part of the searing process, and if I should flip the meat for minimizing any sticking of a forming crust.
Thanks for any thoughts. | Meat sticking to metal happens in the very first few moments of contact. Salt will help a little because it draws moisture out of the meat, and that moisture is what is reducing the stick. You can reproduce the effect by oiling the bottom of the meat rather than the pan, this reduces the amount of oil required. If you want to avoid oil you can use water instead, I know this sounds wrong somehow, but all you are trying to achieve is a barrier between the meat and the pan for a few moments until the meat releases its own juices.
Leave the meat to form a crust - crusts are good, they give you flavor and texture, once they are formed they also won't stick to the pan. If you flip and it sticks a bit that's okay, let if form a crust and use a thin metal spatula to get it loose. |
What is the benefit of a pasta pot with an inset?
All my life I’ve cooked pasta in regular pots. The most fancy thing I had in regards to pasta cooking was a pot with little holes in the lid and a locking mechanism, so that you could use that to drain the past | Said pot now broke, and as I am looking for a new pasta pot, I see a lot of large pots with some strainer-ish inset:
What is the benefit of such a strainer inset pot over a regular pot?
These strainer pots seem more expensive, taking up more space, and I'd have to clean more.
I can see that the strainer may be useful for other things like steaming vegetables.
Anything else, especially when it comes to cooking pasta? |
Damage to pan bottom
I have a non stick Tramontina frying pan. Today, in an effort to remove the brown stains on the reverse (metallic) side, I put the pan in boiling water with baking soda for 30 min. After cleaning it with a sponge, I noticed that the outer bottom metallic layer seems to have come off quite a bit (see attached picture). I was surprised as I did not think that baking soda could do this--moreover the nonstick surface seems to be undamaged. So my questions are: What happened here? And what will be the effect on cooking? | Baking soda is a mild base (the opposite of being acidic). In the right concentration & environment, it can be a corrosive.
What happened is that in addition to taking the burned bits off your pan, it also took the shiny finish coat off the outside of the pan. What you're seeing is the unpolished aluminium, with a coating of aluminum oxide.
Since only the exterior of the pan is affected, you've not damaged the functionality of the pan, just the looks. |
Should we start making dough with water or with flour?
We have a recipe and it tells us to put X grams of flour and Y ml of water. And some of this type of recipe tells us to add flour slowly according to the consistency of the dough. Some say add water slowly.
So in the first approach, I put all the water in the bowl at first and add flour until I get the desired consistency.
In the second approach, I put all the flour in the bowl at first and then I try to obtain the desired consistency by adding water slowly.
My question is; Which approach is more correct if we make a mixture with flour and water? Does it differ ?
Thank you for your help | The best thing is to do as your recipe directs it, because there are several considerations that play together here.
First, if you have a very exact recipe where you measure each ingredient and mix together in a mixer, it doesn't matter that much. Just dump it in the mixer and turn on, making sure to scrape or rest as needed until the texture is right.
If you again have an exact recipe but are mixing by hand, I suggest that you do it flour-first, because that reduces lumps.
If you have a recipe where you are starting with one ingredient and are going to add more of the other until the desired consistency is reached, the main constraint is the yeast. If you are starting with the yeast in the flour (as is typical with dry yeast), then you should always start with the measured flour+yeast mixture and add water until ready. If your recipe has you start with the yeast in the water (needed for cake yeast, but some converted recipes also suggest it for dry types of yeast) then you should be adding flour to the water and not the other way round. Here, you can avoid the lumps problem by not dumping flour on top of the water, but using the volcano method where you add the water to a depression in a flour heap and slowly mix in more flour from the crater walls until you have it the way you want it. The volcano method works better on flat surfaces rather than bowls, you can use a baking sheet or a big baking tin to gain some control of the mess. |
How can I improve my bread-scoring technique?
When I try to score bread with a lame, the blade tends to catch on the dough instead of slicing cleanly through. This means that I have to run over the same cut several times, and also produces ugly jagged edges on the scores (see photo). The bread does expand correctly, so it's purely an aesthetic issue, but I'd still like the bread to look a little less clumsy. I've read instructions and watched videos on YouTube, but clearly I'm missing something. How can I optimize? | This is an annoying problem, you've gone through all the effort to make beautiful loaves and then the razor catches and makes an ugly mark, or even deflates the bread a bit.
This is most likely to happen on high hydration doughs as they tend to be stickier. The trick is to stop it from sticking in the first part of the cut. The best way to stop sticking is to oil the blade before each cut. I drop some on a paper towel and use that to apply it, some bakers use an oil sprayer. Water also works, you dip the blade in water before each cut.
Also, there's technique. If you cut with the tip it's much more likely to catch, you need to cut with the flat of the blade. Don't press in hard, let the blade do the work. |
Is there a way to remove sodium tripolyphosphate additive from fish?
I bought fish online but I noticed it had tripolyphosphate additive.
Is there some way I can at least reduce the content without compromising the fish?
I was thinking soaking the fish in water as it thawed or boiling it for a short time just before baking it. | You can remove any salt like this by diffusion/osmosis - basically by soaking with multiple changes of water over a period of time. This technique is used to make preserved salted-fish edible.
How long you need to do this for will depend on the thickness of the fish and the concentration of the salt. You can determine this empirically by experimenting, but you need some way to measure how much salt is coming out at any one time (e.g. in a change of water), which will be difficult to do without some analytical chemistry skills.
However, in your case, you have a fish that has had some small amount of salt added to improve texture for keeping it longer. The amount of salt added is not enough to preserve the fish and prevent it from rotting, so soaking it comes with the added risk of causing the fish to spoil. If you are going to do this, keep the soaking fish in the fridge. This will slow the diffusion process somewhat. It is also likely that it will alter the texture and probably the flavour of the fish and result in soggy, not so great tasting fish. |
Can I substitute agar-agar powder for gelatin in no-churn ice cream?
I saw that many no-churn ice cream recipes use gelatin to prevent crystalization. Unfortunately, I don't have any gelatin left but a lot of agar-agar powder. Can I use agar-agar powder instead? And if yes, what is the best way to use it? Because normally I have to bring the mixture to a boil to cook agar-agar powder but I don't want to boil my milk.
Thanks for your help. | Sure, why not.
350ml of liquid with 0.5g of agar-agar powder.
Just use another 50ml of milk for this 0.5g of agar-agar powder. Before boiling it, mix 0.5g agar-agar powder with around 5 to 15ml of warm water to avoid cobble up and then only boil with the 50ml of milk. |
Repackaging shelf-stable products
For products that start out shelf stable but are labeled "refrigerate after opening," I'm wondering if it's possible to safely return them to their shelf-stable status to save refrigerator space. A few specific products come to mind: olives, maple syrup, salad dressing.
For example, could a vacuum sealer and a sterilized jar work? Or does exposure to germs in the air compromise the food requiring refrigeration? | Exposure to germs is the problem, once you open these they are exposed and the clock starts. If you vacuum seal you are vacuum sealing the germs in with the food, and not taking steps to kill the pathogens. Pouring into a sterilized container again just puts contaminated food into an uncontaminated container.
The only way to make them shelf stable again would be to process them. You could vacuum seal and then pasteurize the food inside for example, or re-can and pressure-cook. This takes a lot of time and energy, and each time you do it you lose quality. |
How to maintain oil temperature when deep frying at home?
I was frying chicken and I noticed the amount of time needed to fry the chicken and how dark the batter will end up depends largely on the temperature of the oil.
The problem is, the oil temperature when it reaches equilibrium (or almost constant temperature) will vary depending on the amount of chicken inside, the volume of oil, and the heat outputted by the stove. For home cooking, this is a disaster and very variable way of cooking.
The only way I can think of becoming consistent is buying a thermometer that will constantly monitor the oil temperature. I had one where I had to place a meat thermometer on the oil and hold it just so it won't touch the metal portion of the pan, but this is tiring and the heat tends to go all the way up the thermometer--and to my hands and it gets too hot. It may also damage the thermometer this way.
Is there a more industrial (and heat resistant) but affordable thermometer where I can just leave it on top of the oil so I can adjust the heat element to achieve desired temperature for deep frying at home? If none, how to properly deep fry at home to get consistent results? | My meat thermometer can bear temperatures above deep frying ones so I just use that and I keep the tip "suspended" in the oil with the help of the pot's handle and the thermometer's own cable.
An alarm at 170 Celsius helped me last time to keep the temp under control. For the record, I was frying this
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struffoli
Since I don't deep fry more often than once a year, I can totally live with this solution. |
What is the term used for this type of biscuit
What name is given to the type of cookie that has no icing?
Wanted the correct term to find on the internet the type of cookie that receives a mark like the figure: | Welcome to the site. The term you are looking for is cookie stamp or biscuit stamp.
You can also get a cookie press, which is like a big glue-gun for forcing out fancy shapes, but these are not pressed into the top of the biscuit, rather by forcing the cookie batter through a template. If you have kids, you will be familiar with plastic versions of these for use with play-dough. |
Can I rehydrate dried chillies in bulk?
I have a bunch of dried chillies (chipotles, poblanos and pasillas). My preferred method for using these is to soak them in hot water for about 20 minutes, then blend them and add the paste to whatever I am cooking. This means I have to clean my blender every time I do this, which I hate.
Can I rehydrate and process these chillies in bulk, then refridgerate or freeze the paste until I need it? | You can refrigerate your paste, however your quality will degrade and it won't last more than a few days in the fridge. When I make pastes I usually blend 4 times what I need and freeze the leftover in chunks, then they last for weeks, even months. You could use an ice cube tray to make measured quantities to use later. |
A stock question for British catering professionals
When I was a child in the 1960s, we had a Co-operative restaurant that served the most incredible home-made broth. A few years ago, I visited a cafe, and their home-made soup tasted almost identical. Seizing my chance, I asked the proprietor what the ingredients were, assuming they had used lamb or beef bones as I have not managed to recreate this myself over many years of cooking.
I was surprised when they said "Just stock cubes". They weren't able (or willing to tell me) what brand they were, so I am assuming here that they are some commercial variety available in the the UK for the past 50 years or so. I know they are definitely not Knorr or any major supermarket own brand, so what could they be? The only way I can describe them is a very savoury, almost smokey taste that has an incredible depth of flavour. I have tried all the classic ways of recreating this flavour with homemade stock, bones etc. but have not come anywhere close. Both soups were a similar colour and consistency to Heinz lentil soup, and the childhood version definitely had bits of beef in it as I remember the very fine, well cooked shreds of meat.
Any ideas what this mystery ingredient (or possibly technique) could be? | I buy tubs of Knorr stock powder from restaurant supply stores here in the uk, it's a different product from their cubes, and has a very different flavor, there's also a paste. It may be worth having a look at those. Knorr is the brand I see in the bulk quantities you'd typically see in a restaurant kitchen that you can get retail, other brands are not sold in the stores, like Brakes.
You'll find many ingredients in stock cubes, powders and pastes to pack flavor into a small space. The commercial stuff I use has several flavor enhancers: E621 (Monosodium Glutimate aka MSG), E627 (Disodium guanylate) and E631 (Disodium Iosinate). Some have yeast extract in them. You could experiment with some MSG and Marmite to see if you can re-create that special flavor. |
How to determine the grain of a fresh/ uncooked Arm Roast
Newbie.
I have a 3-lb fresh Arm Roast from a local butcher shop.
They did not slice it into 1-lb. slices this time, so I need to figure out how to do that.
It looks like my first obstacle is figuring out the run of the grain structure and then which way to slice the meat, with the grain or against the grain.
The second obstacle will then become how to slice it into roughly three 1-lb slices. Given its shape (paraboloid) stirs distant memories from geometry class! More math than I want to take on right now for making two cuts through it.
So I am thinking that there must be some rule of thumb for making two such cuts through the roast.
Alternately I thought I might come close by starting at the halfway point then measuring out a half an inch either way, getting a 1-inch steak from the center and and two mini-roasts. I would weigh all three sections for future reference.
Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated. I do need to get this roast into the freezer tomorrow, even if I have to freeze it uncut. | For most cuts of meat, the direction of the grain should be relatively easy to see. Usually at least one face will have no visible striation, and the grain will run roughly perpendicular to that. If you scrape at a bit of fat or connective tissue at the surface with the tip of a knife, you can see what direction it takes down into the meat. And if there's a (long) bone, the grain will usually run parallel to it.
As for dividing it up evenly, that just takes practice. If you really want things exact, though, and you have a pot which you can submerge the entire roast in, you can use water displacement. Put the roast in the pot, and cover with water. (If the roast floats, keep it down with a thin metal utensil.) Note or mark how high up the water is in the pot. Then remove the roast while leaving the water in, and check or mark the new water line. Find the level 1/3 of the way between the two lines, and dip the roast down until the water reaches that point; note where on the roast the water comes to, and cut along that plane. |
How can I remove whole peppercorns from a sauce after cooking?
I've heard that whole black pepper is put in sauces for flavour, but it is not supposed to stay there in a finished dish, because it's quite unpleasant to bite on one during a meal. But how does one remove all of it from a sauce / gravy, especially a thick one? | Strain it, or put the peppercorns in cheesecloth which you can easily remove. Obviously both ideas would work better if the sauce was thin then thickened after the peppercorns were removed. |
Citrus-smelling sourdough starter
I have a batch of King Arthur sourdough starter that I mixed up several months ago and have been using ever since. I keep it in the refrigerator and feed it with 100 g of AP flour and 100 g of water once a week. I have made several hybrid loaves with it with no issues.
I have noticed that at the end of the week when I am ready to feed it, it seems to have an orange-pink coating that has a strong citrus smell. I assume that it is some kind of fungus. I live in north Florida. It does not seem to be harmful in any way; I've made several loaves since I noticed it and have never gotten sick.
Any idea what it might be?
UPDATE
Here is a picture of the starter. In the lower left, you can see an orange tint. | I'm pretty confident you can get rid of that with the Ed Wood "washing" process.
Stir hooch into starter. This stuff the microflora make to protect themselves.
Increase the volume 3-5 times with water
Stir until homogenous
Pour off 4/5ths of it
Tip in flour and stir until homogenous
If not a consistency you like then add more flour or water
Wait until it has risen double or triple
Repeat several times
Lactobacilli and yeast are just a lot more active than moulds when at room temperature, they will outcompete the mould spores. If there were a toxin you'd just be diluting it, but I've heard of people reviving prized cultures that had gone completely black.
Good luck! |
Can I boil a full chicken for several hours?
I know I can boil a chicken for about 30 minutes
I want to boil a chicken with vegetables, lemons and some spices for 3+ hours. Can I do it safely?
How is the chicken fat going to affect the texture/taste? | After maybe 45 minutes to an hour, the chicken will be very soft and falling off the bones, the broth will have a strong but pleasant chicken flavor, and the lemons and vegetables will probably be completely depleted and disintegrated. This is usually a good start for home made chicken soup. At this point you'd probably strain it, let it cool, remove the meat from the bones and be left with soup.
After 3 hours the chicken meat will start to get mushy and disintegrate, the cartilage and connective tissue of the bones will also be melting and releasing gelatin into the broth, the vegetables will also disintegrate. This would result in a pretty strong chicken broth that is full of gelatin, which would be good once you strained everything else out.
If you did not remove the fat and skin from the chicken, the will mostly melt and leave rendered fat in the broth, but some of the skin will never melt and will remain with a very unappealing texture and flavor. The fat will generally float to the top and can be pretty easily removed once the broth cools. |
Pasta rolling machine
Apologies in advance if this is a question that has been asked before but I can't see anything.
I have a past rolling machine and I am comfortable with the pasta dough making. My problem sits with the machine itself. The first couple of runs through it with the dough are fine. I start by running it through on the widest setting, folding in thirds and running it through again. Once I have repeated a couple of times I gradually start turning the notches on the machine. This is where the trouble usually starts.
When I get to some of the middle settings, I start running the sheet through. However it doesn't run through perfectly and is pulled over to one side of the rollers and ends up being folded back on itself. This has the effect of thinning the sheet that is being rolled in the machine.
My questions are thus:
1) Is it me or my machine that is making this happen
2) any machine rolling tips?
Thanks to all in advance | Primary advice: use shorter lengths. Also, make sure the dough is the right consistency, not too wet. Make sure you are aligning correctly. Allow it to drape over so that you are not inadvertently pulling it toward you when you are feeding it. |
When I boil cereals (rice, quinoa, etc.) to freeze, shall I drain water first?
When I boil cereals (rice, quinoa, etc.) to freeze, shall I drain water first? (the water I want to drain is the water I used to boil which was not absorbed by the cereals during cooking)
I am wondering if water would favor or go against keeping the right moisture in the freezer
Order: Boil, drain, freeze | There shouldn't be extra water in your grains. If they are cooked properly and there is extra water you're using too much. If you do have extra water, however, drain it. Maybe save it for soup since it will have good things in it that you don't want to throw down the drain. |
Can I use cow feet in pho broth
My instacart shopper has accidentaly given a pack of cow feet, in addition to the soup bones I ordered.
Can I boil the feet alongside the bones while making pho broth?
Cow's feet are primarily used for making stock or stews/soups due to their collagen content, which lends body and umami to the end product.
This makes it sound like a great idea, and it would act just like tendon in the soup. Is there any reason not to do this? I've never cooked pho or cow's feet before. | You can. Cows' feet will add gelatin without adding much meaty taste, which may not be ideal for pho both (depending on the other ingredients). In my experience they take longer to render than pork gelatin. They can also add off flavors if not treated properly (similar to tendon); blanch them in a couple of changes of water before you use them. |
I can't seem to get my nougat to come out right and I don't know why
I tried this pistachio nougat recipe once and it came out great. I've tried it two other times and the nougat hasn't set well at all. I'm thinking that this is because the recipe doesnt list a temperature and I probably didn't reach the correct temperature. Is that a good assessment? Additionally, why are most nougat recipes made by adding the syrup to the whipped eggs instead of the whipped eggs to the syrup (like this recipe)? It seems like it would be easier to reduce the mixture to the correct thickness if you added the eggs to the syrup. Thanks | As you suggest, most nougat recipes require the sugar syrup to be brought to specific temperatures (typically "hard ball" or "soft crack" stage, see for example this page for details of the stages of cooking sugar). By that time, any water that you started out with (in your case in the form of rose water) has boiled off. Simply bringing the mixture up to a boil will not be accurate.
For repeatable results, I suggest you use an instant-read thermometer (or a sugar thermometer) to ensure your sugar syrup is at a consistent temperature. If the nougat does not set, increase the temperature next time.
Regarding your second question: Even in your recipe, you add some of the syrup to the egg whites, to raise their temperature before adding them to the syrup. This is called 'tempering' and is common when using eggs in sweet applications with something hot. In the case of nougat, however, you can probably add the egg whites directly to the syrup, as was pointed out in a comment. |
Picking up wet dough
I've been making sourdough recently and trying to get the knack of using a really wet dough. I've watched a number of YouTube videos, and I do all the stretch and folds and periodic reshapings, and this all seems to work - the dough builds up some tension and becomes much less sticky to the touch on the non-seam side. I do all this in a pyrex tray.
The problem comes when I tip it out onto the bench to do the final shaping. Then, although I flour the bench, it starts to stick to it quite badly, and then when I try to pick it up to put it in the proofing basket it just turns to slime, loses its shape and becomes very sticky again.
I then leave it to proof overnight in the fridge, and while it rises perfectly it sticks to the proofing basket, which causes it to deflate in the oven. This is despite covering the basket with large amounts of flour beforehand. I'm assuming this is partly because I've messed up the tension in the dough by not picking it up properly.
My questions are (1) is there something I might be doing wrong that's causing it to stick to the bench and become very difficult to pick up, and/or (2) is there a special technique for picking up wet dough off the bench? In the videos people seem to just deftly scoop it up into their hands and it doesn't look especially difficult, but I might be missing something.
In case it makes any difference, our bench top is made of metal. | If it is turning to "slime", losing shape, and becoming sticky again, you are probably not building enough strength in the dough. First, I would try the same recipe, holding back 50 - 100 g of the water. Work with a slightly lower hydration until you get the feel for things. Then, make sure your initial kneading/stretch and fold takes at least 8-10 minutes. Subsequent slap and folds should be 1 set (to me that is like four folds, which reshapes the dough into a sort of ball), spaced by about 30 minutes. I use no flour on counter, even with very high hydration. Initially, with a wet dough, you will get a lot sticking to fingers. This will reduce with time and the building of the gluten structure. For final shaping, either a very light dusting of flour (often none), but a wet bench scraper and wet hands usually does the trick.
High hydration dough is tricky. I really had to work up to it to understand the behavior of the dough. |
How to roll pasta thinly by hand
Last weekend, I made some fresh pasta without a pasta machine. I used a simple recipe of 200g AP flour, 2 large eggs, ~1 tbsp olive oil and a pinch of salt, kneading by hand then resting the dough (for about 1.5 hours) at room temperature wrapped in cling film. However, when rolling out the dough (using a wooden rolling pin) I was unable to achieve the thinness I wanted -- at some point, the dough started springing back as much as I stretched it with each roll.
How can I roll out pasta dough by hand to any thinness? How do I stop the dough from springing back? | If the dough is springing back, it's cause the gluten is still tight. Let it rest for 15-20 minutes, then try again. |
How can I clean utensils (e.g., knives) used to cut longkongs?
After using utensils to prepare/eat longkongs, the utensils are very sticky (by far stickier than for any other types of fruit that I have tried so far). I tried to use soap and dishwashing liquid, as well as letting the utensils in the water for a few hours, but the utensils are still sticky.
How can I clean utensils (e.g., knives) used to cut longkongs? | The stickiness is similarly stubborn as trying to clean up pine sap, where regular soap often will not clean it up.
Instead, try using mineral oil to clean up. You might have mineral oil in the kitchen for oiling cutting boards. ("Baby oil" is a form of mineral oil that also has fragrances added.) Simply rub the sticky utensils with a towel and mineral oil until the stickiness is gone.
After cleaning the sticky longdong sap off your knives with mineral oil, you will then be able to then wash off the mineral oil with soap and water. |
Safe uses for sourdough starter discards during building phase
I was wondering if there are any safe uses for the sourdough starter that is discarded during the build phase, i.e. in the first 1-2 weeks before the starter has stabilized. Assuming that there is no obvious mold or acetone smell, is it safe to use, and what would be good ways to use it? | As long as there is no mold or any "off" smells, any use in which the discard gets cooked (i.e., no raw flour ends up in your final product) should be safe. After all, your starter is little more than a mixture of flour and water, the main ingredients in any number of baking recipes.
The internet is littered with recipes using sourdough discard. A personal favourite of mine are these cookies. If your starter has not yet matured, it is likely that it will not have the leavening power some recipes require. Look out for recipes that include alternative leaveners (such as baking powder or regular yeast), or that won't suffer from not rising (like these crackers). Once your starter is happily bubbling away, any recipe is an option. |
Can I use diastatic malt in applications which call for non-diastatic?
I am interested in a few different applications of barley malt some of which classically would use diastatic malt and some use non diastatic malt.
I’d rather just purchase one malt for everything. Assuming I can find a diastatic malt powder without any added flours is there any reason I wouldn’t/couldn’t use it in a traditionally non diastatic scenario (such as a malted milkshake)? Many sites claim that diastatic is used for yeast growth, not for flavor but if it’s not diluted with added flours to the powder I don’t see why it couldn’t be. | diastatic malt powder is milled malt that hasn't been heated to deactivate the enzymes. To deactivate it to use as non-diastatic malt, heat to 130F/55C |
Baking after the first rise (without punching down) vs the regular two rise approach?
Yeasted dough is usually given a second rise because after the first rise it's shaped, which knocks the air out of it and so it needs time to be leavened again. But what if you shaped the dough before the first rise and then baked after letting it rise (without deflating the dough in the process)? Would there be any difference in the end result compared to the two rise method? Assume that in both cases, the dough is left to refrigerate overnight for the first rise. | Part of the effect of the first rise is to develop gluten in the dough. With an overnight rise, the flavour and texture of the final product will most likely be fine. However, you might have trouble shaping the dough before it has risen and/or relaxed.
Note that even in bread recipes that explicitly tell you not to punch down the dough (such as Ken Forkish' recipes), there is a first- and second rise. |
Sugar in canned sweet potatoes. can I remove it simply at home?
I have canned sweet potatoes that have sugar added.
Can I boil / bake / soak / ANYTHING to remove the added sugar? | If these are canned whole sweet potato, or pieces/slices in syrup or sugar then yes, you can remove the sugar by rinsing the pieces in water. Whole pieces of sweet potato don't absorb sugar, it stays on the surface. The sugar is there as a preservative, believe it or not, not to make the potatoes sweeter. They could use salt but then that would clash with the flavor of the potatoes. You may get a little bit of sugar remaining but it will be very small.
On the other hand if it is some sort of processed sweet potato mash then there's no way to get rid of the sugar, it's there for good. |
How do you clean cheesecloth full of bean roots?
Related: How do you clean cheesecloth?
My problem is a bit more complex. I sprout beans in cheesecloth and it's been working okay. The cheesecloth is able to get some of the bean roots off the beans when I harvest the bean sprouts so that I don't have to eat a lot of roots. The drawback: I end up with a piece of cheesecloth full of bean roots. Handwashing it helps remove some but not all the roots. Better ideas? | You clean it by throwing it away. Is it worth the trouble? |
Cooking Brown Rice on a Portable Induction Burner
Are there any tips on how to properly cook brown rice using a portable induction burner? I use my standard ratio of 1 cup rice to 1 1/2 cup water bring to a boil, cover and reduce to low for 20 minutes, let stand for 10 minutes on the regular electric stove top. However my induction burner is labeled warm, simmer, boil and I have yet to achieve satisfactory results. | For what it's worth, I find it difficult to get brown rice cooked properly using any sort of regimented process. It seems sensitive to the variables involved, and it doesn't come out right without me being more involved in the cooking process.
So, I follow the procedure which (if I recall correctly) I found in Cook's Illustrated: cook the rice in a much larger volume of water than is needed (two-to-one, or even three-to-one if you can spare the room in the pot), stirring occasionally, monitor done-ness by tasting the rice periodically, and when the rice has the desired consistency (different people prefer different degrees of firmness), take it off the heat and drain it (e.g. in a chinois).
Even using this approach, it's important to maintain the heat relatively low, at a simmer. But it's a lot more forgiving than techniques that demand you get the rice-to-water ratio perfect, because you never run out of water, and the rice never sticks to the bottom of the pot.
The "simmer" setting on your hob should work well with this approach, but if the hob is so underpowered that "simmer" doesn't simmer, the "boil" setting might work out okay, if that setting doesn't in fact result in a very vigorous boil.
At the end of the day though, if your hob has only two cooking levels (plus the "warm" setting), it might just not be a hob worth using. There are plenty of other hob choices out there, which allow a more fine-grained control than choosing between "not quite warm enough to simmer" and "rolling boil", and with a better hob, cooking rice should be very easy, whatever technique you prefer. |
How do I make Vietnamese Yogurt more tart?
How do I make Vietnamese Yogurt more tart?
I've been using several online recipes to make Vietnamese Yogurt. The ones I buy from the store are much more tart then my own results.
My results:
Danactiv vanilla flavor - Way too sweet, but texture was alright
365 Organic Plain - Not too sweet, but not tart at all, texture was very thick
I have not been able to go to a store that sells Vietnamese yogurt due to the lockdown, so I didn't try that, yet. Hoping for an answer that allows me to make tart yogurt American grocery store ingredients.
Here's an example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgNtOOa8dg8
For incubation we used a warm water bath and left at room temperature (74F) | First, the tangness of yogurt depends on the culture, and somewhat on the temperature of incubation. Lactobacillus bulgaricus will give you a tangier yogurt than streptoci or bifidi-based cultures. So buy a lactobacilicus culture (either the pure culture or the yogurt made with it) and use it as your culture. Then make sure to incubate at the proper temperature (which is 43-46 for lactobacillus bulgaricus). If that's not tangy enough for you, leave the incubated yogurt one night at room temperature before putting it in the fridge.
Second, sweetness and sourness are an unusual pair of tastes in that they inhibit each other. I have not had vietnamese yogurt, but the Internet tells me it uses sugar. So consider reducing the sugar in order to get more of a sour taste when you eat it. |
What is this sauce-making technique called?
My mother was not the best cook, well she cooked because she needed to, but I don't think she ever enjoyed it. One of the things she did was if she was making sauce, is to take a spoonful of margarine or butter and use a fork to knead a little bit of flour into the fat.
She would then slowly add milk to the butter paste to get the thickness she wanted, and then flavour it depending on what sauce she wanted to make.
Is there a name for this? Was she making a roux or a beschamel without even knowing what either is? Is this a French technique? | If she was doing this in a pan on the heat (melting the butter, stirring in the flour, then adding milk), this is called making a roux, then a béchamel. If, instead, she kneaded the flour and butter 'cold', then added this to a hot liquid, it is called beurre manié. Notice that in both cases, the sauce is heated. From your question I could not tell if, and at what point, your mother introduced heat to the butter-flour(-milk?) mixture. |
Too much sugar - HELP
I'm making a cinnamon raisin bread. The recipe calls for 5 3/4 cups of flour and 4 tsp of sugar in the first part. Later on it calls for 3/4 cups of sugar mixed with cinnamon. I was working the recipe from my computer screen and somehow missed the first sugar in the ingredients and added the 3/4 cups to the dough. I didn't realize the mistake until it was already proofing. I did add some extra water to the knead, but not enough. The dough is barely rising after 2 hours. What can I expect the results to be? Thank you in advance for any help. | It will not go well, as I think you already have guessed.
The reason for this is that concentrations of sugar over about 4-5% are inhibitory to yeast growth in bread making. You need the yeast growth to make the bubbles of carbon dioxide that cause the bread to rise.
The only reference I could find for this is from Food and Feed Technology p. 729.
...sugar concentrations ~4% produce apparent inhibition...
The book then goes on to say:
Consequently sweet yeast raised breads (15-20% sugar) contain very high yeast concentrations
Your concentration of sugar is about 13% (0.75/5.75), well above where it needs to be for the bread to rise with regular amounts of yeast.
I suspect that you won't be able to resurrect it by adding extra yeast at this point, it would be over-kneaded and probably won't rise all that well, or will rise and then collapse during baking. Your only sure way is to start again and follow the recipe. |
Can fermented dosa batter cause bacillus cereus poisoning?
Dosa batter is made by allowing urad dal and rice to ferment for upwards of 24 hours, letting natural yeasts develop in the batter. I've read that bacillus cereus poisoning is a concern with rice left at room temperature for a long time, and that bacillus cereus can survive even when the rice is cooked.
Since the batter for dosas sits out for so long, is bacillus cereus poisoning a concern? And are there ways to prevent it? | I don't have a completely definitive answer. However generally, fermentation produces lactic acid which inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria, which is why it is a successful food preservation method. The yeast and bacteria that are responsible for the fermentation are often naturally occurring on many raw foods. For example with lacto-fermented vegetables often all you have to do is submerge them in a salt solution and the naturally occurring yeast and beneficial bacteria will usually just do their thing and begin the fermentation process, which inhibits the growth of bacteria.
This is similar to how sourdough starter works, you simply add water to flour and the naturally occurring yeasts are activated. As the starter ferments, lactic acid is produced, which reduces the pH of the solution, which inhibits the growth of bacteria. This is why you end up with sourdough starter rather than something spoiled. This is also why fermented foods (pickles, sourdough bread, etc) are generally sour in flavor.
Incidentally this same thing is true of wine grapes, if you harvest ripe wine grapes and just leave them somewhere, fermentation will begin because of the naturally occurring yeasts on the fruit, which will eventually produce wine. These yeasts are variable and can be mixed with various bacteria and produce uneven results, so wine makers generally do not roll the dice and add their own preferred yeast instead. But I suspect that this is how wine was made for thousands of years before that technology was developed.
Back to dosa, the dosa batter is usually prepared by combining dal and rice and sometimes salt with water. The dal especially typically has a significant amount of lactic acid bacteria, and the salt, if used, inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria. Many recipes call for fenugreek seeds (not ground fenugreek), which usually contain naturally occurring yeast which helps kick off the fermentation. The rice is usually raw (soaked) before it is ground, and so has not had a chance to sit cooked at room temperature to develop harmful bacteria. The goal of the recipe is to ensure the beneficial fermentation happens instead of the growth of harmful bacteria. The recipe is pretty foolproof which is why dosa have become a dietary staple in such large parts of the world. |
Are gas stoves preferred in a commercial kitchen due to having a constant heat source
I'm a home cook and have never been inside a commercial kitchen - I believe though, in a commercial kitchen, gas stoves are preferable due to having a constant heat in contrast to an induction or halogen hob which 'pulses'.
I live off the gas grid (meaning I have no gas), and I was wondering, other than gas, does any other type of cooking "technology" (that is suitable for an indoor kitchen) offer constant heat or anything that can heat to as high a temperature as gas can? | Commercial burners generally have a high power output. A commercial kitchen doesn't have to be large to have 12 burners, all capable of 3kW, in a small space, plus ovens, and running near constantly. By this point the cost saving of gas over electricity becomes significant (in the UK, electricity is about 3x more per kWh). In addition many premises wouldn't have sufficient electricity supply to support that in addition to all their other consumption, and running a fatter cable is very costly.
Only induction gets the pan up to cooking temperature as fast as gas, and although it's getting cheaper, it's still expensive to install. I've seen induction wok stations used for food that's cooked to order; one advantage is that they need less extraction than gas (but still some).
The pulsing you mention isn't really an issue. The fairly thick aluminium pans used in many commercial kitchens, and the large thermal mass of food being cooked would tend to minimise fluctuations in the temperature of the actual dish
Many of these reasons don't apply at home, but many of us prefer gas anyway for its controllability (at least compared to mostelectric stoves, I've only cooked on induction a few times and fairly simple stuff). |
Can I halve a macaron recipe and expect the same cooking temperature and time?
I'm about to try a macaron recipe at home; I'd like to start with a half volume in case they turn out particularly badly. Given the macarons will be on a single tray in the oven I can't think of a reason why cooking temperature or time would be different to the full recipe – is there anything I haven't thought of that I should be aware of? Of course I will try to check that they're ready from appearance/texture etc. anyway. | You might see a tiny reduction in cooking time due to the smaller thermal load, but this is more a theoretical than a practical point. The difference will be smaller than normal variation between ovens. Check for doneness as you would usually, and you will be fine. |
Is this okay or moldy? Sourdough starter question
This was modestly active starter that I put in the fridge last week since I slowed my baking routine. Took it out today, a week later, to feed and saw this. Is it mold or normal variant? It’s ap flour fed 1x per week in the fridge. Stored in a dedicated starter crock I got from KAF.
Update:
Looks like this died but in any case I re-fed and looks great. So I baked a loaf which turned out perfect. Now...should I eat it? Anyway thanks guys. | It sure looks weird - but with just a blurry photo we’re mostly in the guessing territory. In the other hand, sourdough can look strange after a while in the fridge.
Activity means that you have at least a good amount of active yeast and the vinegary smell indicates lactobacillae, both indicators of a good starter. In a stable sourdough, the combination of the two will keep mold at bay by outgrowing any unwelcome bacteria or fungi and by creating an inhospitable environment due to the acidity.
Whether a sourdough starter that has developed mold spots needs to be discarded is a widely discussed topic - some count on the desired microorganisms’ power to outcompete the mold, especially if the obviously moldy parts are scooped off, others assume that the mold may grow alongside them.
In short:
We can’t say whether your started had mold or just some hooch (the latter perfectly harmless) and so can only give you the general ideas and concepts to help you make an informed decision.
On a very personal note (and this is by no means a recommendation or statement about food safety!), I would interpret the pattern as hooch and the grey patches as the beginning discoloration that often happens with a starter that has been stored for a while in the fridge. I see no fuzziness and no “weird” discoloration apart from the brown-grey of dark dough. But on the other hand, creating a new starter takes only a short while. Hint: Many bakers have a “backup” of their favorite starter for cases like this. |
What does the date on eggs mean if it does not say sell by or expires by in the United States?
I have several cartons of eggs that have a date stamp but the date stamp does not say, sell by, expires by or best by. It's just a date. By the way the date is in the future so I know it is not a pack date of when the eggs were packed. If I knew that I would be OK.
What is the default if the date is just a future date? Should I assume it is an expiration date and it's time to toss them out after that or should I assume it is a best buy in which case it is good for another 2 weeks or so? I assume on eggs there is no such thing as best by because you need to know or be able to figure out when they will expire so you can toss them out.
The date appears as follows "May 29 11:45" 121 P1008 L6". I know you will be tempted to say pack date but May 29 is in the future. Should I eat them all by May 29 or do I have the standard 2 weeks after a sell by date? | In the US, the most important thing to look for on the carton is the number which shows the day of year that the eggs were packed. If the number is 1, that's January 1st. If it's 365, That's Dec 31st. In other countries the system may be different, so find out what system in your country indicates the pack date, if possible. Note: apparently some states in the US don't regulate this, so you would have to see what your state's protocol is, if not. All the good states do, and the others can go suck an egg.
Eggs last a very long time (a few months at least) properly refrigerated and are safe to eat long after the sell date. The egg will lose water, and the air bubble in the end of the egg will continue to grow, so if you put the egg in water and it floats, it's pretty old, but can generally still be eaten if the eggs is not crazy old.
The membranes will also thin over time, making the yolks easier to break if you're trying to separate them or use them for sunny-side up eggs, e.g. The whites will also thin and the thicker part of the whites won't be as pronounced from the thinner parts.
Some recipes actually call for aged eggs. Also note that in the US eggs are washed and the outer membrane is removed, so they must be refrigerated. In some other countries the outer membrane is left on and the eggs can be stored safely outside of the refrigerator. |
Why is my dough sweaty?
I have been making kouign-aman (my favorite recipe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxwgzzErW1w) for several years, playing with different recipes, making minor modifications, but can not seem to prevent the dough from "sweating" when I add the sugar. The latest thought was maybe when I put it n the refrigerator to rest, the temperature of the metal cookie sheet was the culprit, so I put the wrapped dough on a towel - no change.
This happens whether it is 66 in the winter or 72 in the summer with max humidity of around 35%.
Then, whenI cut it into pieces the layers separate, it sweats even more, sometimes giving the impression the butter is melting - which it may be.
The end result is a pastry that is more bready than layered (like a good croissant).
Any ideas why this is happening? Or how to prevent it? | I'm fairly certain the sugar, being hydroscopic, is drawing moisture out of the dough as well as the air and dissolving, which produces the sweat you've noticed. It doesn't help that kouign-amann dough is chilled before rolling with the sugar, which means you could have straight-up condensation happening as well. It's not just the metal pan, but the dough itself that's chilled.
I don't think you can avoid it-except by working very quickly once you've started rolling the sugar into your dough.
As to your texture being breadier, it's hard to say. It could be you need to do a couple more folds to get thinner layers. It could be that they're overproofing before you toss them in the oven. Or the ovens not hot enough maybe... Like I said, it's hard to say. But when I've made kouign-amann, they were very soft in the center, with crunchy outer layers and a salty caramel shell. So it's equally possibly that there is no problem. Breadiness is subjective after all.
One thing I do know is that if you want a more crisp pie crust, you can replace part of the butter with shortening or lard, both of which are lower moisture than butter. I don't know if it's even worth considering for kouign-amann, but it might be an interesting experiment anyway. A pie crust is different from a yeast bread obviously, so I'm really not sure what effect it would have overall, but my guess would be that the outer layers would be a hot flakier/crisper. |
How fine is "Fine Mesh" for removing lumps from custards?
Many recipes for custards and similar deserts like lemon curd suggest passing the completed custard through a "fine mesh strainer" to remove lumps. When looking up strainers and sifters I see a wide range of different mesh densities often characterized with a "mesh number" such as "60 Mesh" with higher numbers being smaller holes.
What would be an appropriate mesh number for a "fine mesh" strainer to smooth out custards?
At the moment I only have tea strainers and two different sized bowl shaped strainers with what I would consider "normal" density meshes. | From this website:
What does mesh size mean?
Figuring out mesh sizes is simple. All you do is count the number of openings in a one US inch of screen. The number of openings is the mesh size. So a 4-mesh screen means there are four little squares across one linear inch of screen. A 100-mesh screen has 100 openings, and so on. As the number describing the mesh size increases, the size of the particles decreases. Higher numbers equal finer material. Mesh size is not a precise measurement of particle size.
For custards and other desserts where you're making sure you don't have lumps, the lumps are most often pieces of egg that have scrambled because of the heat. A 60 mesh strainer has 0.0098 inch sqaures that material can get through, which I believe would be plently to catch any bits of egg. |
Lysol on microwave, how to clean off?
Honestly, I’m still learning about some cleaning products. I made an approximately 10% Lysol 90% water solution, dipped a small paper towel into it, and wiped all exterior sides (no interior) of a microwave (redipping up to 5 times as needed). I now realize I shouldn’t have wiped areas with vents. After about 10min I washed all sides with water. I’ve been rewashing with water the sides each day since. I read perhaps Lysol is inert when dry. What should I do additionally to try to make it safe to use? How long should I wait before using it? | To further @Tetsujin's answer.
The Lysol product you have specified as Lysol Clean & Fresh Multi-Surface Cleaner is made of a number of active ingredients. The primary decontaminating component is Alkyl (50% C14, 40% C12, 10% C16) dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride. This is a member of what are known as Quaternary Ammonium Compounds or Quaternary Ammonium Cations (QACs). These are all very effective disinfectants against most bacterial pathogens and a wide range of viruses (including SARS-CoV-2 the cause of COVID-19 - see the list and concentrations here). There are a bunch of other things in there too, but most of it is ingredients that allow the QACs to work better, this includes the alcohols (surfactant), EDTA and Tetraborate (mineral sequestering - for hard water, which can inhibit QACs), or ways to make it smell nicer or look pretty.
QACs are generally irritants - they make your skin red and itchy, but they can also cause more severe damage on more sensitive tissues such as lungs, eyes and intestines if inhaled or swallowed. Generally these compounds are safe to use on hard surfaces like your microwave, but not on porous surfaces because the porous surfaces can absorb the disinfectant. Note that they are pretty common as bacteriostatics in contact storage solutions, eye-washes and nasal sprays (see Dermal section) - so the risks are relatively low.
Use of QACs on hard surfaces is fine - just wipe with water a couple of times after use will dilute it enough that it is no longer a problem for most people.
The vents on your microwave are not considered porous - porous surfaces are things with small holes that will absorb the ingredients and not allow them to be washed off easily. Examples of porous surfaces are unsealed wooden surfaces (e.g. chopping boards), sponges (you can use these for cleaning with though - just don't eat off them) and unglazed pottery/crockery. If you have used a QAC cleaner on these sorts of things, you should throw them out or re-purpose them so that you are not eating off them
Long story short - wipe with water a couple of times and you will be fine. |
How to avoid cream breaking / splitting in oven?
A peculiar Swedish recipe calls for ladling curry flavored whipped cream over chicken and baking in the oven, at 225c for 20-30 minutes typically.
During my childhood, this resulted in a creamy, emulsified result.
Now, when trying to recreate it, it always comes out thin, with visible butterfat and coagulated proteins.
Does anyone know why this happens? When reducing cream in the pan, this never happens. Id suspect the whipping to be the culprit, but it was never a problem during my childhood.
Should I try lower heat for a longer time, higher heat for even shorter time, or could it be that I use enameled ceramic cookware while my mother used ovensafe glass cookware? | The splitting of cream depends a lot on the ratio of fat to water in the sauce, and can be influenced through stabilizers. Some possible reasons for the change are:
the chicken or the bacon of your childhood might have exuded less liquid. Nowadays, chicken meat gets injected with water for "plumpness", and that water seeps out in the oven. The same happens with bacon.
the chicken of your childhood might have been fattier. Due to customer preference and economic pressure, today's food animals are raised to have lower amounts of fat than several decades ago.
your mother might have been using a different recipe, or might have stabilized the cream somehow. This can be done with packages of "whipped cream stabilizer" from the supermarket, or adding some flour or starch to the sauce, or using other thickeners. Or she might have been using a brand of curry made with emulsifiers.
My suggestion for you is to try some kind of thickener. The simplest way would be to dredge the chicken and bacon through flour and see if this helps. If not, consider making a slurry with a tablespoon or two from the cream and some flour or starch, or some emulsifier like xanthan, and folding it into the whipped cream. |
Air bubbles in semi liquid chicken sausage
I'm facing a problem of existing air bubbles in semi liquid chicken sausage. The bubbles are tiny and mostly formed while mixing to bowl chopper machine. So when I fill the mixture into the casing there observed tiny air bubbles on the sausage. After smoking the tiny bubbles are clearly observed and it is the reason of rejecting much amount while sorting. I used needle for expelling the bubbles but it is a semi liquid mixture so the mixture gets out from that needled hole while knotting manually.
Can I be helped how to remove or expel the bubbles of chicken sausage. | Since it’s quite thick and in liquid form, the process inevitably causes air introduced into the product.
if you can’t change your recipe, you might want to consider applying vacuum to the mixture in a chamber, that should help dissipate the bubbles. |
Sour Dough Starter - proofing in less than 24 hours?
I recently started with making sour dough. I created a new starter yesterday. After feeding it one time in less than 24 hours it's already doubling it's size. I'm not using self-rising flour just normal wheat bread flour.
Is it usual that it picked up so fast? | 24 hours is above average but not unheard of, 24 hours is a realistic time. I'd say you have a healthy starter on your hands. |
Turning a sweet cake into a savoury one: What should I swap in place of sugar?
I am looking to turn the following recipe for pumpkin bread into a savoury one. i.e. I want to get rid of sugar (which in this case is maple syrup). I think that sugar will add to the loafiness of the bread. I have thought of using eggs as this might add the extra moist and structure that sugar seems to facilitate - but I might be wrong, and I am still very confused by the research I have done. It also seems that sugar and eggs complement each other, so I am not sure if eggs alone are the solution.
As per above, I don't care about the cake being vegan (just gluten free). So all suggestions are welcome. | On King Arthur's site, they talk about liquid sweeteners.
One of their comparisons between the different forms is water content/acidity.
Maple syrup's water content/acidity: 34%, mildly acidic (less acidic than honey).
This led me to look up water content and acidity impacts on baking.
The Cake blog did a comparison of cakes based on level of acid used. The no acid cake (what I would assume would happen if you removed the maple syrup because it contains malic acid) still worked, it just wasn't as tall or fluffy as the ones with acid.
My suggestion is that if you want a loaf that is more cake-like, you should add a bit of acid (e.g., lemon juice or vinegar) if you remove the maple syrup. If you want a loaf that's denser, you can leave out the maple syrup and don't add in anything else. |
Making salted caramel popcorn - how can I remove the bitter flavour?
We've been following a Gordon Ramsay video to make salted caramel popcorn a couple of times, and it usually turns out pretty nice, except that the salted caramel has got a distinct bitter taste. I think it's from the bicarbonate of soda - Gordon recommends using half a teaspoon. We use a little less than half, but it still tastes bitter.
Can we cut out the bicarb completely? Will it ruin the salted caramel if we don't include it, or is there something we can substitute it for that will make the popcorn taste less bitter? | I've watched the video that you mentioned and being a pastry chef I can guarantee you that the bitterness is not due to the bicarbonate of soda even if in the video he uses a huge amount of it. The thing that is causing the bitter flavour is actually the method that he uses to make the caramel itself. Dry caramel is one of the most difficult ways to make caramel because it tends to burn really easily - in fact, it is normally made by adding sugar a bit a time, not all at once, this way you can avoid the burning of the sugar at the bottom and on the side of the pan (as you can clearly see in the video that you linked the side bits are already super brown and boiling while the sugar in the center is still solid).
So my advice to make your life easier will be to put the sugar that you need in the pot and add a bit of water, just enough to moisten the sugar a bit, put in on the heat and let it caramelise without stirring, it will take a bit longer but you can control the colour better, when you reach the colour that you like (it should be a slightly dark amber color) stir in the salt and the butter, turn off the heat and add the baking soda. |
How can I get cuts of beef I recognize when in Italy
Almost five years ago, my husband and I retired to the Abruzzo region of Italy from the U.S. I've made a lot of cooking adjustments, but beef cuts have me beaten. I want steaks and roasts. Research has helped very little. Dialect gets in the way in villages and I'm a long way from the closest large city, Roma. Photos are met with quizzical looks. The closest we have gotten is "girello", from the shoulder. I want top round, sirloin tip roasts, and NY strip, T-bone, and rib-eye steaks. The only time I sort of got what I wanted was when I recognized a piece of meat that resembled a filet, but it was huge and there was no "mignon" about it. It was good, but pretty expensive. I have seen few cuts with marbling, but a lot of stringy tendons. They don't seem to cut meat in the same direction I'm used to seeing. We have a good butcher who is willing but doesn't seem to be able to help. I welcome any suggestions as to how I can shop without being so frustrated. Thank you for any assistance. | As someone who has moved from the US to another country I can relate and have some general advice. Rather than spending time trying to find the US equivalent of something try to take advantage of what's good and plentiful locally. If there's something you desperately miss there's always an online store to help, the trick is not to miss those things as much.
I wrote a meat app years ago and did a lot of research as I wanted to make an equivalents table for meat cuts across the world. I gave up because it was impossible: cuts are very different from country to country, there may be no exact equivalent for what you are looking for. Instead I would suggest you try a different approach by describing what you want out of the meat and how you plan to cook it and relying on the butcher to give it to you. Rather than saying 'New York Strip' tell the butcher you want a tender cut for charcoal gilling, for example. |
Do you add extra oil when replacing eggs in baked goods?
I usually use applesauce to replace eggs in muffins, but I realize that I am losing out on some of the fat that an egg yolk would provide. Should I add more oil when I do this? If so, how much?
If it helps, here is the recipe I use to make muffins: https://togetherasfamily.com/mini-chocolate-chip-muffins/
I replace one egg with 3 tbsp of applesauce and 1/8 tsp baking soda. Is there a rule for how much oil I should add per egg?
Thank you. :) | Eggs are about 10% fat by weight, a large egg is about 50g, so you would lose 5g of fat in the recipe per egg, which is just over a teaspoon of oil. Whether or not you add it depends on what you want out of the recipe. If you are taking eggs out to reduce fat then you don't need to add anything, if you want to keep the richness and consistency then a splash of oil or butter would be a good thing. |
How to keep drinks carbonated
I like to occasionally, but not regularly, have a carbonated drink such as soda water. Buying these in small containers is more expensive and uses more packaging. Big containers go flat before I have finished them. How can I keep my carbonated drinks from going flat for as long as possible? | Transfer the contents of the large bottle to several smaller bottles.
Fizzy drinks go flat because each time they are opened & re-closed, the gas is released from the liquid until parity pressure is reached in the container, preventing any more from escaping.
Once you've reached about the halfway point in any size bottle, you're on a losing run from thereon in. Every time you release the pressure, whether you drink or not, you have a lot of gas to release from the liquid to reattain parity pressure.
If you continue to re-use the smaller bottles, the planet will send you a big green hug too ;-) |
Should I throw away my pan if I accidentally melt plastic on it?
I have a pan/wok that I use for toasting flatbreads.
Yesterday, I placed it in my cupboard while it was still hot and it accidentally touched a plastic bag full of salt. The plastic immediately melted off and stuck to the pan.
I was able to peel off the plastic after it had solidified, but am worried there may still be some "invisible" remnants left (I have no idea if that's possible). I'm not sure what plastic the bag was made out of or anything: should I discard the pan? Or is it sufficient to wash it well? | You do not need to throw out the pan
Metals tend to be impervious to absorption of much in the way of plastics (or anything else), which is part of the reason they make great cooking implements.
If the plastic is on the cooking surface and that surface was seasoned, to be absolutely sure, I would recommend that you remove the seasoning and re-season.
If you touched the outside of the pan to the bag, then anything that remains after you peeled the plastic off will burn off next time you heat the pan. |
Can I mix all-purpose flour with high-gluten flour to make bread flour?
Basically of the opposite of this question.
I'm writing during the 2020 pandemic, and bread flour is sold out everywhere because everyone (including me) is entertaining themselves at home by making bread. I did manage to find "high-gluten flour", which according to Epicurious seems to be more or less the same as bread flour but with a higher protein content:
Unbleached all-purpose has the lowest amount of protein, usually around 10.5%. Bread flour contains about 12 to 12.7%. High-gluten and whole-wheat flours have about 14% protein.
My recipe calls for white bread flour. (I'm making sourdough at 80% hydration, in case it matters.) Can I get there by mixing this high-gluten flour with AP flour? What proportions should I use? Any pitfalls I should be aware of? | Yes, you can mix them at basically a 1:1 ratio to achieve a flour with roughly 12% protein content (mimicking bread flour).
Bread flour is milled from hard spring wheat, which has a higher protein content than the hard winter wheat used in all-purpose flour. Protein adds strength to dough and enables loaves of bread to rise high.
Mixing them together to achieve a roughly 12% protein content will ensure you don't end up with a bread that's way too dense/soft or rises far too much/little, basically.
There's no issues mixing flours, and in fact this can be a great way to create the mixture you need when it's sold out (such as during this pandemic). |
What are the differences between Coconut Milk, Coconut Water, and Coconut Oil?
I am wondering about the differences between these three products. There must be oil and water in the coconut milk, but what makes the milk more than the water and oil? Is it the fiber?
Is there oil in the water?
Is there milk in the oil? | Coconut milk:
is an opaque, milky-white liquid extracted from the grated pulp of mature coconuts.
Coconut water:
is the clear liquid inside coconuts.
Coconut water is typically extracted from younger coconuts. The milk contains both coconut water and ground-up coconut flesh.
Cocunut oil:
is an edible oil extracted from the kernel or meat of mature coconuts harvested from the coconut palm.
So, the milk also contains some coconut oil.
There will be little to no coconut oil in coconut water. The question "is there milk in the oil?" makes little sense given the above, as the oil is one of the components of the milk. This is like asking if there is milk in milk fats. |
Does oil promote browning of foods?
Recently I've started to roast vegetables without adding oil in a bid to eat healthier. However, they end up coming out of the oven looking more dry instead of crisp and browned, with not as much of that roasted flavour. Casual googling has lead me to the Maillard reaction, but is this reaction affected by the amount oil covering the food? | The Malliard reaction is quite complex. The article I linked defines it as
many small, simultaneous chemical reactions that occur when proteins and sugars in and on your food are transformed by heat, producing new flavors, aromas, and colors.
Oil does not necessarily need to be present, though, especially with regard to meats, fat is often there. If you scroll down to the comments, someone does ask the author about oil and marinades. He replies that "fats, under high heat, produce their own separate browning reaction."
Maillard is not a reaction of fats, but the browning of fats works in tandem with
the Maillard reaction to produce flavors and aromas.
Oil does promote caramelization of vegetables in a roasting situation, which is what it appears you are missing. It doesn't take much for the desired effect. |
How to prevent oil splattering when placing steak in pan?
Lately I've been trying to cook steak.
I pat the meat with a paper towel, then I put salt on it. I wait another 10 mins, then when I put the meat on the pan, the oil splatters and burns my hand.
I am wondering if I should dry the meat one more time right before I put it into the pan? But if I do that, then am I going to wipe the salt and pepper off the meat?
Or what else can I do differently? | Three recommendations:
If you pat the meat with a paper towel, it will absorb some of the moisture without removing salt or other seasoning.
You need very little oil (if any) in the pan to fry a steak, since fat will melt out of the steak. Use less oil, or put the oil onto the steak rather than in the pan. Then there will be much less oil to spatter.
Use a tool such as a spatula or tongs to place the steak in the pan, so your hands are further from it. |
"Parts is parts" in sausages?
I'm not sure I really want to know the answer to this, but in the United States, are sausage manufacturers required to specify certain cuts of meats in their sausages, or does "beef" or "pork" suffice?
The reason I ask is that some brands of chorizo sausage disclose with great specificity what parts of the pig go inside their casing. For instance, the cuts in the Cacique brand pork chorizo contain:
PORK (SALIVARY GLANDS, LYMPH NODES AND FAT (CHEEKS))
On the other hand, several other brands simply list "PORK" as the meat. Is this disclosure (or concealment) by marketing choice, or are certain cuts required to be explicitly called out in the ingredients? | Following on from my comment, I have found some (old) US government documents that seem to answer this question. TL;DR: salivary glands, lymph nodes, and fat are "pork byproducts" (thus not "pork") and as such must be named explicitly on the ingredients list.
The long answer: The USDA's 2005 Food Standards and Labeling Policy Book lists:
MEAT BYPRODUCTS:
Byproducts must be individually declared by species and specific name in the ingredients
statement, e.g., Pork Liver, Beef Tripe, and Beef fat.
and
“(Species) tongue trimmings” may also be used to
identify salivary glands, lymph nodes, and fat from which the muscle tissue has not been removed.
(note that OP's ingredient list specifies "Cheeks", suggesting that these may indeed be "tongue trimmings". A different USDA website gives some idea of what is considered a "byproduct":
virtually all parts of the live animal that are not part of the dressed carcass.
The policy book further defines Chorizo (which OP's product is marketed as) as:
CHORIZO (SP):
The product name “Chorizo” can be used for any type of chorizo sausage that is cooked, dry, semi-dry, cured and fresh without further product name qualification. Other requirements for various types of chorizo apply, including the sausage standard.
Finally, we can find the following text:
SAUSAGE CLASSIFICATION: [...] Cooked sausages and/or Smoked sausages: [...] Meat byproducts may be used when permitted by standard.
There are a few plot holes:
There is no mention of byproducts in any type of sausage other than "cooked and/or smoked", so I cannot tell if they are allowed or not.
The policy book has an entry that seems to forbid the inclusion of these ingredients, contradicting the quotes above:
Trimmings with fat from tongue is acceptable ingredient in cooked sausage products covered under section 9 CFR 319.180 of the regulations. Lymph nodes and salivary glands are not acceptable ingredients. |
How much baking powder or soda can I add to cookies without the taste being affected?
I like to do a lot of baking without eggs, and so I realized I should be adding either extra baking powder or baking soda to make up for the leavening that an egg would usually provide...
How much baking soda or baking powder should I add per egg I replace without it leaving a taste in my cookies?
Thank you! | Your question is based on several misconceptions, I'm afraid. The very short answer would be, "don't do it".
First, you cannot add more baking powder without affecting the taste, baking powder is already there at levels that affect the taste in standard recipes. If you add more, it'll be noticeable.
Second, my first point left out baking soda on purpose. Just adding baking soda is unlikely to change the leavening, since you probably won't have enough acid in the recipe.
Third, even if you have enough acid to react with your baking soda, or are adding baking powder, this doesn't mean you'll get more leavening. Recipes which need a lot of leavening and use chemical leavening are already optimized to get the most leavening that the baking soda (or baking powder) can provide. A greater amount won't give you more leavening.
Fourth, I can't imagine a situation where this makes sense. The typical things people mean when they say the word "cookies" without further qualifiers, say American chocolate chip cookies, are not egg-leavened. Other types which are egg-leavened, such as French macarons, are generally not doable without eggs, and adding baking soda won't change that. |
Can I mix cutting boards when I dishwash them
I have a dishwasher safe set of boards. I've heard a common advice to use separate boards for meat, fish and ready to eat food. However it got me thinking - I don't mind mixing plates or other utensils as they are cleaned by dishwasher anyway (or hand washing).
Does the advice applies to mixing without cleaning? Or are there reason not to mix despite cleaning? | I'm not sure I understand the question. In a cleaning situation, where you are using soap and water, there is no reason you can not clean your boards together. Once you have clean boards, there is no reason they cannot be stored together. The potential issue is cross-contamination. If there are no contaminates, there is no issue. |
What are those little holes in some meat?
For example this ham:
I see them in ham, sometimes chicken, salami, and similar.
They seem to be small sphere shaped half to one millimeter in size. | My experience comes from making salami sandwiches... In order to allow myself the luxury of eating something so grease-filled without guilt, I'll zap it in the microwave for 20-30 seconds to render out the fat. Since packing the salami with ground up fat is part of the process. Cooking the meat melts the fat globules and leaves little hole where the fat use to be. This more apparent when done with sliced salami and bologna.
In chicken and certain cuts of beef, I think the holes are the result of cutting across veins. Also, I know that from preparing raw chicken for cooking, I am sometimes able to pull out lengths of veins that leave behind perfect little holes where they came out from. |
Is using commercially available yeast to create a sourdough starter effective?
Numerous starter recipes talk about capturing wild yeast from the environment.
Many recipes, as well as questions and answers here, directly say or imply wild yeast is better and that deliberately added yeast is counter productive, but the explanations (if offered) seem to be vague handwaving more than fact.
The most reasonable sounding argument against (to me as a lay-person) is that the yeast will not live long, but that seems specious to me. After all, that commercially available yeast was just grown somewhere a few weeks before it made it to the shelves.
It frankly makes little sense to me to gamble on the contents of the local environment at the point in time of trying to make a starter, when known safe and effective yeast exists that could be introduced.
(The question is not about safety or efficacy of wild yeast, not about substitution of yeast for a starter, and not about mixing yeast and starter at baking time; the point is to predictably, safely, and effectively make a starter.) | Don't do this. A sourdough starter contains several strains of yeast and bacteria in a fairly delicate balance. These consume sugars and produce CO2 and a range of byproducts. Commercial yeast is a different species of yeast, engineered to eat and reproduce much faster than any of the wild yeasts in your starter. Adding commercial yeast to a starter will lead to the commercial yeast outperforming the wild yeasts and gradually replacing them. You will end up with a commercial yeast culture, rather than a sourdough culture.
Edit I realise I have somewhat misunderstood your question. The answer still holds, though: you cannot start with commercial yeast and expect to create a sourdough starter. The commercial yeast would prevent any wild yeasts and bacteria from colonising the starter. You can keep a culture of wild yeast (to some extent), but as @Chris H's comment states, it won't be sourdough.
If you want a better guarantee of success, your best bet is to somehow obtain an offshoot of someone else's starter. Some bakeries will be happy to give/sell you some, or you can try buying a starter online. |
Is it safe to use glass cooktop cleaner to clean and polish stainless steel pots?
My glass cooktop cleaner has abrasive materials and other components which are very effective when cleaning the hob: grease, burnt and solid stuff...
I thought this could be used to clean and polish pots too. I tried with an old pot and the results look amazing (I didn't take a picture before, but it didn't look like that at all):
The question is: is it safe to use?
While rubbing I could see the abrasive material's effect: once the grease and rust was gone the cloth started becoming gray like the pot, presumably from the steel particles that were being removed. I made sure to clean it up a couple of times with water and soap to remove all those particles, so I guess that would not be a problem. But maybe other components could damage the pot in the long term, or worse, be unsafe for cooking?
Update (ingredients)
<5% Nonionic surfactants
Perfumes
Limonene
Benzisothiazolinone
Methylchloroisothiazolinone
Methylisothiazolinone
2-bromo-2-nitropropane-1.3-diol
The sticker literally says "Among other things", so I hope they are harmless if they are allowed to omit them. :-D | It depends on the abrasive.
In the USA, there is a class of "soft abrasives" designed for effective scrubbing while not scratching cookware and barware. This includes the brands Bon Ami and Barkeeper's Friend. These, and abrasives like them, can be used on most cookware, and certainly on any kind of steel.
Harsher abrasives, such as Comet Bleach Powder and Ajax, are designed for cleaning porcelain and will scratch most cookware and even some kinds of glass. You can use them on anodized aluminum coated cookware, because the coating is basically corundum (and this a hardness of 8). However, even for these, harsh abrasives will wear down the coating over the years, eventually stripping it off (based on my personal experience).
The cleaner you linked to is probably fine for steel, since it contains no harsh base chemicals; the strongest surfactant is limonene. The only thing that would make it not-safe would be a silica-based or corundum-based scrubbing agent.
Please also see discussion in the comments regarding calcium carbonate as a scrubbing agent, and why Comet and Ajax are harsh (because of strong basic chemicals). |
can i put hot soup in mason jar for travel
i ran out of glass containers (people haven't returned them) and i want to give my boyfriend hot soup for work. Is it safe to put it in a mason jar and put the lid on while hot? And how long might the soup stay hot in it? | For the first part, about pouring hot soup in mason jars, it should be safe, but there's always a risk of shattering if the liquid is too hot.
There are many somewhat related topics regarding putting hot liquid in mason jars.
Is it safe to put fresh hot soup in a glass mason jar?
https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/9rd3y2/will_a_mason_jar_explode_if_i_put_it_into_boiling/
https://www.quora.com/Will-a-mason-jar-shatter-if-I-pour-hot-water-in-it
...
For the second part, It will not keep the soup hot/warm for a long time, it is not a "thermos" container. |
Is it actually possible to send food to a lab to get the recipe?
I've seen this trope on TV shows from time to time. Well now, I know someone who actually has some bbq sauce that they want to send to a lab to find out what the recipe was.
Is this actually possible, and if so, how would we find a lab that can do it? Or is it just a silly TV trope.
Googling turned up nothing. | As long as you have a list of potential ingredients, it would be possible to find out if these ingredients are in the sauce. For example, if you don't know what spices were used, you could start with a list of spices, find information on some signature chemical compounds found in each spice of the list, then tell the lab to find out which of these substances are present in the sauce. This would give you a pretty good list of substances (spices) you could use. You will need a curious chemist-food scientist who has experience with that kind of work and is willing to play a detective, I'm pretty sure you can't get to a general purpose organic chemistry lab and expect them to just plug it in and get a result.
Even that information won't be 100% certain. First, you would have to find substances which are present in one source ingredient but not another - and these are unlikely to be the main aromatic substances, since these tend to be shared between plants, for example eugenol is something you'll find in a lot of herbs. Second, you might have unusual combinations in which the plant may get into the recipe: for example, where the lab suspects the use of inverted sugar and hyssop as an herb, it might turn out that the recipe contained wildflower honey and the bees processed lots of hyssop.
And when you get the information, you still don't have a recipe. Both the ratio and the process are missing. A good cook (or food technician, for industrially produced food) can make educated guesses about possible processes, and with some work, they are likely to create some kind of replica, if the original recipe doesn't include surprising tricks.
So, you decide to do so, it is kinda possible, but it will be a long process involving experts, not a send-the-sample-get-full-answer kind of thing. If there are no businesses offering it as a service, it doesn't seem like a practical proposition. |
How do caraway and ajwain differ in taste and use?
These two seed spices seem confusingly similar. I have never used ajwain before. A new recipe I intend to try out calls for jowan (carom seeds) which, according to Google and Wikipedia, are also called ajwain. The pictures I found online of ajwain resemble fennel and caraway seeds but seem smaller than either. Since there are two different Wiki pages for caraway and ajwain, I was certain they were different things.
Today I saw a pack of ajwain at an Indian grocery store but "(caraway)" was also printed on the packaging. As per Wikipedia, ajwain is also called ajowan caraway. But how different are they?
How are they different in taste and actual use?
If I don't have ajwain what'd be a good substitute? | You are right about Ajwain and Caraway seeds, they are very different when it comes to taste; although both are considered as good digestives and add a distinct flavor to the dish.
Coming to your two questions @Neil hinted about how they taste. As its hard to describe how exactly they taste, I will mention how I used them.
I have used Ajwain when making concotions or when I am making chilli dumplings (mirchi bajji in regional language) with gram flour as they aid digestion of flour.
Caraway, I usually put a pinch of these when cooking rice as its gives nice aroma to the final dish you make, example tomato rice(rice mixed with some veggies and other Indian spices), meat pilaf's etc.
Although I cannot think of any real substitute to Ajwain, you can try adding some cumin seeds which is somewhat close. Hope this helps, happy cooking. |
I added olive oil to my cake, but I haven’t baked it yet
The taste is so strong, and I haven’t even baked it yet.
How do I make it taste better?
I added it as a butter substitute... now what do i do? | First, you could bake it as planned. The taste may become less pronounced, especially in comparison to the other, still developing flavors from caramelizing and the Maillard reaction during baking.
There are quite a few cake recipes that use olive oil (so it’s not necessarily a bad idea), and often they use citrusy and slightly savory flavor combinations, e.g. a pound cake with rosemary and orange or a lemon cake. (Not sure whether olive oil would work too well with, say, milk chocolate.) You could take that approach as an inspiration: If there's still time, add e.g. some lemon peel. If not, you can combine the baked cake with a citrus marmalade or a glaze. |
Can you use coffee or tea instead of water in a sourdough starter?
Can I use coffee or tea instead of water when making a sourdough starter? | Well no-one will shoot you if you do. But there are obvious downsides: yeast is killed at 55C to 60C, and slightly higher temperature will kill many lactic acid bacteria. So unless you cool the tea or coffee you'll simply kill the starter. Moreover caffeine has an inhibiting effect on yeast growth (see Figure 5), so your feeding regime will be less effective.
If you want to make tea or coffee flavoured bread, I would instead add instant espresso powder to the dough, or replace some of the water with (cold) strong tea. Given the article above, it might also be a good idea to use extra starter/yeast. |
How do you know how large or small your cut pieces should be?
I was making a curry and I'm having a hard time deciding how large or small I should cut my ingredients. Advice?
Particularly I'm looking for how the taste is effected depending on how large or small your cut pieces are | Conventional wisdom suggests cutting ingredients so that it results in bite size pieces so that it is easier to eat, either with spoons, forks or chopsticks.
Vegetables usually do not shrink that much, but meat and fish/seafood will shrink a little bit.
I'd say cut raw meat in to 2 cm pieces. |
Are these Bay Leaves?
I bought what I thought were bay leaves because they were very cheap. Physically speaking, they behave like bay leaves when cooked (they stay hard even when boiled for along time in a stew). But, I get the feeling they do not give a true bay leaf flavor to the food (or perhaps not any flavor at all). The flavor of bay leaves is sufficiently subtle, though, that I cannot be sure without doing a side by side comparison, which I have not yet had the time for. They are a bit curly along the edges, which bay leaves are usually not, but maybe they're just a different variety that I've not encountered before. So, here's the question: are they bay leaves?
Here is a picture of the questionable leaves:
And here is a picture of what I know to be bay leaves: | There are a number of different bay leaves, and the description and picture are consistent with what I've seen called "West Indian" bay leaf.
Regarding price, bay leaves are absurdly expensive at retail... Buying from a local restaurant supplier near me, dried whole bay leaves around $11 a pound and those are not locally grown or processed, just wholesalers. |
Huge bubbles in pizza dough
I made some pizza dough and let the individual dough balls rise in the fridge for a day. The following day I took them out of the fridge so they could come up to room temperature so the dough would be easier to handle when I make the pizzas.
Problem is when it was at room temperature some massive bubbles (could probably fit a tennis ball in them) emerged from the doughballs.
Is this normal or have I done something wrong?
How should I deal with these bubbles, do I pop them or just let them be? | A longer rise can certainly yield large bubbles, and there is nothing wrong with that.
Popping them before stretching works just fine, and a little more force working near where the bubble was will keep the spot together when it cooks.
To much kneading will make the dough tough, but if it has been in the refrigerator all day, then a little more/extra won't hurt anything. |
Sour dough using unbleached all purpose flour is very wet during the preshaping
My wife created her own sour dough starter. She’s been feeding it unbleached white flour. It’s doing great.
When she is making her dough during the first step she is using a recipe that calls for bread flour and whole wheat flour. However we don’t have bread flour so we are using all purpose flour.
She’s rested the dough a few times and when she is trying to work it in the preshaping step the dough is really wet and doesn’t seem to have good surface tension. She keeps adding flour to try to dry it out.
The dough basically is just flat on the counter...
What are we doing wrong? Do we need to adjust the recipe for the all purpose flour? Or work the dough differently?
update
I did more research and Cook’s Illustrated suggested holding the salt temporarily for 15 minutes. Salt hinders autolyse. They found that delaying salt hastened gluten development by an hour.
ratios/recipe
400 g warm water
100 g sour dough starter
400 g bread flour (which we don’t have)
100 g whole wheat flour
Rest for 60 min
add 10g salt and 10g water
Repeat following 3x:
Then stretch and fold, etc.
Rest 60 min
After this the dough was as described in my post. | (I am assuming your starter is at 100% hydration, i.e., that it is half water, half flour. I am also assuming you have no/little experience in baking bread. Please correct me if wrong.)
Looking at your ratios, you have a total of 460g water (400g as water, 50g in the starter, 10g with the salt) to a total of 550g flour (including 50g from the starter). This gives you an overall hydration of just over 83%, which is definitely a wetter dough. Handling wet dough is not easy. I think there might not be anything wrong with your dough itself (although see below), and you just need to get more experience working with wetter doughs.
One thing that may make the dough wetter than the recipe assumes: both bread flour and (especially) whole wheat flour absorb more water than AP flour. Substituting AP flour for the bread flour is not going to make a huge difference, but still might make the dough wetter than is expected.
My advice: lower the hydration to somewhere in the 65%-70% range (i.e., replace the 400g water with 297g-325g). Learn to handle this dough (this might take a few trials), then start increasing the hydration. |
Why is ciabatta poolish usually made with instant yeast?
So far all the "classic" ciabatta recipes I have found propose using small amounts of instant yeast.
But I'm pretty sure that ciabatta predates invention of instant yeast so why not use sourdough instead?
It work pretty well for me except the poolish doesn't get bubbly overnight in the fridge (6 degree Celsius) but if I keep it for like 3 days it looks like gluten gets over-fermented. On the other hand, if I add more sourdough to the poolish it probably will get too contaminated with over fermented whole wheat and rye (I use it to feed my sourdough). So is it the reason? | Commercially produced yeast has been around since the mid-late 1800s, and the commercial strains we use today have been around since the 40s while Ciabatta was invented in 1982. So while ciabatta seems like it's a very old traditional thing it is relatively new, and commercial yeast was widely available. |
I love the combination of pesto and chicken. Is there a reason traditional Italian cuisine seems to shy away from it?
They just seem to go together perfectly without the need to add much more to make a tasty dish. However, for some reason, it doesn't seem to appear in traditional cuisine at all. Is pesto considered exclusively a pasta sauce? Is there a reason why? | I'm assuming you mean basil pesto, although according to an Italian dictionary a pesto is a sauce made by crushing ingredients (pestare is Italian for crushing). Some specific types (like the Genovese one) are protected by law and you can't call something with that denomination unless they have some specific requirements.
As Italian, I've seen basil pesto also as a sandwich sauce together with cold cuts and/or cheese, pizza topping or as lasagna filling as alternative to the ragù (aka Bolognese sauce outside Italy:) I think this answers your first question.
Together with meat, I've never seen it; probably because it can be too strong to cover the meat's flavor. However, a similar preparation with parsley (salsa verde) but probably not as strong usually accompanies the bollito (boiled meat). I'd say the pattern is that we're speaking about not-so-flavorful meats, but here I'm afraid to cross the line and step into speaking about my personal taste. |
An extensive sausage making site
I have been looking for a website that offers recipes for sausage making at home, at an encyclopaedic level if it exists.. thespicysausage.com has some popular ones, but is there anything out there that is more diverse? I mean Chinese, Thai, Indian, Italian, etc etc? It seems that typing 'sausage recipe' into the web engines only offers recipes to make with already made sausages! :s | There is no all-in-one sausage making site that I know of. However, many recipes can be found just by searching "home made sausage." You can further specify by searching individual types of sausage. For example I recently searched for, and made, "home made Argentinian chorizo". |
Does cooking food destroy BPA?
These days, stocking up on and eating canned food to reduce grocery shopping trips is tempting but reports have found possibly BPA can be an issue with eating certain levels of those foods [1]. Aside from if you believe BPA is possibly harmful or not, can cooking food (e.g., from a can) in a non-BPA container help destroy any BPA in the food? If so, what level and type of cooking may be needed, boiling in water on the stove or simply the standard microwave directions on cans?
Reference:
[1] https://www.womenshealthmag.com/food/a19993318/canned-food-safety/ | I found some publications about the decomposition of Bisphenols A and E in high-temperature water (BP |
is Doubanjiang (sezhuan hot bean paste) an acceptable substitute in recipes calling for gochujang (Korean hot sauce)?
These days I keep on seeing repeated shout-outs to gochujang, which is not available where I live. However, I do have a container of Doubanjang just sitting there in my fridge, taking up space. Would it be a reasonable substitute in recipes calling for gochujang? | Both are mildly spicy, but the similarities end there. Gochujang is tangy and slightly sweet, whereas doubanjiang is more salty, savory and fermented-tasting. Even the textures don't match up: gochujang is smooth, while doubanjiang is chunky and ragged. I wouldn't substitute either one for the other.
Incidentally, if your doubanjiang is just sitting there because you got it for some elaborate Sichuan recipe involving like eight other seasonings... doubanjiang is more flexible than that, and will work well as an addition or even just on its own. Try frying up some ground pork with a bit of doubanjiang and some scallions, served over rice. |
Can I use less sugar for making this bread?
I've been following this beginner recipe from Alex, The French Guy Cooking (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycztOGTIX-s&t=326s).
I'll summarize it at the end for easier refernce.
The result was pretty great, tbh, but I'm wondering if I can get away with less or even no sugar without ruining it. From what I understand, sugar is used as a food source, but the flour and butter is a food source too, no?
Any advice is welcome, thank you!
INGREDIENTS.
FLOUR : 2 pounds flour : 7 cups : 907 grams (1 cup flour = 128 g) Bread flour is great, AP Flour works especially if
protein content is higher than 10% LIQUID : Half milk, half water. A
bit less than 2.5 cups. (1 cup water is 236.59 grams) You can go full
milk for more comfort, or full water for simplicity, FAT : Life needs
fat. I am french I going full on butter. 100g of butter. (14.2g per
tbsp) 7 tbsps ! Oil works as well, or lard, crisco... same 7 tbsps.
SUGAR : 88g or 7 tbsps of sugar. SALT : 3 tsp of salt = 18g, for a 2%
salt content dough. Instant yeast : 9g. Active dry, instant yeast,
don't bother. It'll work about the same. or 3 tsp. ( knowing that 1
packet is 7g and 2.25 tsp. according to redyeast.com )
INSTRUCTIONS :
Big mixing bowl. Tepid Liquid goes first. Then, Yeast, sugar, salt, fat, flour. Mix it till shaggy mess. Cover
and wait for 1 hour. This is the "Autolyse". Knead the dough for 5
minutes straight. Pause for 15 minutes. Knead again for 5 minutes.
Dough should be smooth by now. Add oil in a big bowl, place the dough
in. Wipe the bowl with it. Cover with cling film. 1st proofing starts.
Wait till it has doubled in size, usually 2 hours. Sometimes more. You
could also wait a day or two if it proofs in the fridge. Deflate.
Divide in half. If you just want to bake one loaf in the end, that's
the moment to freeze the one of the doughs. Flatten to the width of
your (oiled) cake pan. As my dough is soft, i use my hands. Roll up.
Place in, with the seam facing down. Let it proof again, until
doubled in size again, then bake it. ( no punching this time ) 200°C -
400°F for 30 minutes or golden brown on top. Brush the top with
butter. Let it cool down 30 minutes. Enjoy. | You can make a bread following this recipe, but reducing or omitting the sugar. Your bread will rise just fine, as the yeast can feed on sugars in the flour, as you suggest. The same is true for the butter and milk. Lots of tradititional 'simple' bread recipes use only flour, water, salt and yeast. You might have to slightly change timing and kneading procedure to get a good result.
That said, you will alter the flavour (and probably texture) of the bread. Whether you will like the result as much as the original recipe you can only find out by trying. |
Drying beef to preserve it without any equipment
I have high quality beef muscle meat, beef liver and beef heart. All completely grass fed from healthy animals with clean practices thus I am not that worried about botulism ("Botulism outbreaks occur when animals eat improperly stored or spoiled silage, decaying vegetation, poultry manure, or feed and water contaminated with bird or rodent carcasses.").
Is it possible to air dry thin slices of this meat at home without dehydrator or an oven, in order to preserve it? It's in my apartment so I can't really smoke it. | Simply hanging meat likely won't result in a safe drying environment. The moist, room temperature surface is the environment that bacteria and mold thrive in, which is why holding food at room temperature is considered unsafe.
Alton Brown offers a method for homemade beef jerky without any specialized equipment, but does make use of a box fan and air conditioning filters:
Evenly distribute the [thinly sliced, marinaded] strips of meat on 3 of the air filters, laying them in the grooves and then stacking the filters on top of one another. Top these with 1 empty filter. Next, lay the box fan on its side and lay the filters on top of it. Strap the filters to the fan with 2 bungee cords. Stand the fan upright, plug it in, and set it to medium. Dry the meat for 8 to 12 hours. (If using a commercial dehydrator, follow the manufacturer’s directions.)
Once dry, store in an airtight container in a cool, dry place for up to 3 months.
Note that deviation from Alton's recipe & method may require additional changes to compensate to make it food safe. For example, changing the marinade may affect cure & dry times. |
Does wear and tear limit the usefulness of a Dutch oven?
I bought a no-name Dutch oven* about eighteen years ago and have used it steadily since. It continues to serve me well, but I'm wondering whether I need to worry about the wear and tear on the enamel, as shown below:
Is there a point at which a Dutch oven is no longer usable, or are they basically immortal barring structural damage?
* So no lifetime warranty or anything. | Sufficiently damaged enamel could allow the metal underneath to start corroding. Eventually the corrosion could spread under larger pieces of the enamel, allowing them to flake off in large pieces. I don't see any evidence of that in your picture.
Scratched and crazed enamel won't cause subtle problems, though, other than a minor loss of nonstick properties (not that enamel is particularly nonstick to begin with). If you're happy with it, there's no need to second guess that based on how it looks. |
Can I dissolve eggshells in vinegar, and use the vinegar in a dish?
Are there other dishes where this is done to increase the bio-availablity of calcium in a dish, such as pork knuckle vinegar stew, which is considered a post-partum dish in Cantonese style cooking.
https://www.thefooddictator.com/the-hirshon-chinese-black-vinegar-pork-trotter-post-partum-stew-%E7%8C%AA%E8%84%9A%E9%86%8B/ | Addressing the food chemistry aspect:
Vinegar (acetic acid) reacts with calcium carbonate in the eggshells to make calcium acetate (Wikipedia), as in the naked egg experiment. Calcium acetate can be used, among other things, to gel alcohol; in food it can be used to coagulate tofu as well as having a stabilising effect. There's a chance it will act as a thickener depending on quantity depending on what else is present in the sauce; the chemistry is quite intersting.
This chemical reaction means you won't have as much acidity left in the vinegar as when you started but the additional flavour of all but the most refined vinegars should survive, so you can choose one that matches the other ingredients. For a Chinese-inspired dish, rice vinegar would be an obvious choice. It's not clear to me whether the calcium acetate itself would have a flavour, pleasant or otherwise
I can't comment on the nutritional aspect, but will just add a note of caution from a food safety point of view (actually 2):
Calcium acetate has a medicinal use and making and consuming medicinal compounds at home can't be assumed to be safe. In this case it treats cases of excess blood phosphate by preventing the absorption of phosphate in food; how much you'd consume, and how this relates to the levels seen in foods/medicines are not things we can help with.
If you wished to make a vinegar-preserved food (rather different to the example you've added since I started writing this) you'd have to take into account the fact that you've neutralised much of the acid in the vinegar, and therefore much of it's preserving power. |
Coconut bread dough is crumbly and does not come together to knead
So I followed the following recipe once and the bread buns turned perfect. Today I decided to make it more coconut-ish so that it tastes and smells like coconut even more than the previous batch. I substituted half of the flour with coconut flour, added more coconut flakes and substituted the butter with coconut butter (that is what I did the first time, using coconut butter)! It seems that I messed it up and it is so crumbly that I cannot knead it! I came up with the idea that I might make small buns that look like cookie but then I added yeast, how to fix it? Or what to make with this crumbly dough?
4 cups flour
3 eggs
4 tbsp coconut flakes
50 gr butter
water
2 tsp yeast
vanilla 1/2 tsp
salt 1 tsp
sugar 1/3 cup | You can't substitute a non-wheat flour for a wheat flour and expect similar baking properties; bread doughs rely on gluten for their structure which is why gluten-free baking is difficult.
The simplest way to fix this would be to double the recipe, look at what you've already added, and add more ingredients up to the correct amounts. You can freeze bread dough which helps mitigate the 'too much' problem although I appreciate it might get you through your ingredients faster than you'd want.
If you're dead set against that, add more flour in small quantities and try to knead the dough until it has a workable consistency, and see how it comes out.
For your broader desire for the bread to have a stronger coconut flavour, consider buying coconut extract or essence and adding that to the original recipe. |
Coconut cream from coconut butter
How can I make coconut cream from coconut butter? I am making Pina Colada cocktail and I need coconut cream. I have one original coconut cream (for the sake of not advertising, I will not put here name of this brand), from the original Pina Colada, and yes, it tastes good, but, I would like to make my own. So I bought biological coconut oil (which solidifies so it turns into butter almost instantly in the refrigerator), and I tried to mix it with some low fat coconut mil, some water, but nothing worked. I mix it well and put it a little bit on the low fire, but as soon as I put it in fridge, it soon solidifies, so I cannot really use it to put it in the cocktail, since it becomes gritty, so the cocktail is not good. Any advice, guys? Newb here on this stack, so thanks for any suggestions. | Coconut cream is a more concentrated version of coconut milk, with more fat but also more coconut solids. Coconut milk won't mix well with additional coconut oil, because without the additional solids the emulsion will be unstable.
If you'd like to make your own coconut cream from scratch, you'll need a coconut. Alternatively, buy it directly, or skim it off rested coconut milk. |
I bought a cast iron skillet and after washing it and then heating it I got a color like rust
I bought a cast iron skillet and after washing it and then heating it I got a color like rust from fire side
After washing by Dishwashing soap I dry it by tissues, then heat it over a high temperature
Now I season it
Is healthy using it with this color ??!!
I have no experience dealing with this type of fryer
Now I season it but is healthy using it with this color | This has happened because you didn't dry it thoroughly enough.
I would advise starting the seasoning process again. This is a good visual guide from Joshua Weissman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDTCgxvmShc |
How 豉椒炒蜆 (stir fry clams in black bean sauce), without black beans?
I don't want buy any thing from China because of politics. Korea Japan are OK. But Toronto got just black bean and black bean sauce made in China.
Can I just skip black bean sauce for 豉椒炒蜆 ? If not, what substitute?
Stir-Fried Clams in Black Bean Sauce | The Woks of Life
1 1/2 pounds fresh manila clams, scrubbled/washed thoroughly
2 tablespoons oil
4 slices ginger
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 scallion, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 long green pepper, sliced (you can seed the peppers if you like)
1 long red pepper, sliced
1 tablespoon fermented black beans, rinsed and drained
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon soy sauce (optional)
2 tablespoons cornstarch and 2 tablespoons water, mixed into a slurry
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
Madame Chu's Clams in Black Bean Sauce Recipe - NYT Cooking
18 to 20 littleneck clams (about 2 1/2 pounds)
2 cups liquid, preferably the juice of the clams
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 thin slices fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons crushed fermented black beans (see Tips, below)
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 ½ tablespoons cornstarch dissolved in 3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons chopped scallion, green part | Since no one more knowledgeable has come along, I'll go ahead and put together an answer.
Based on the recipe, it looks like you're actually intended to make your own black bean sauce using fermented black beans, or douchi. It seems that Chinese douchi are made and known as "hamanatto" in Japan as well. Searching online, there are retailers that you could purchase Japanese dried hamanatto from, but I have not done so myself. It looks like that would be the best direct substitute for douchi.
As a substitution for the resulting black bean sauce, I would personally recommend Korean chunjang. Chunjang, which also translates to black bean paste, is the major flavoring component in Jjajang sauce in Korea, and you can even find Jjajang (or "chajang") sauce premade.
I have Lee Kum Kee brand Chinese black bean sauce on hand as well as Assi brand Korean chunjang, so my mother and I did a small taste test (and included some other bean sauces, like doubanjiang, akamiso, and some zhajiang I prepared a while back.) We agreed that we of the options we had on hand, Korean chunjang would be the best substitution for a Mongolian beef recipe we love that also calls for Chinese black bean sauce if we ran out.
The black bean sauces were both predominantly salty, with some pleasant bitterness to them and a little sweetness. The Lee Kum Kee reminded me a little of bitter chocolate, but it was very mild. The chunjang on the other hand was much more aggressive all around, which makes sense since it's a paste rather than a prepared sauce. The bitterness and sweetness were both stronger, and it also had more acidity. It was also saltier, being more concentrated, but the other flavors seemed stronger proportionately. I might describe it as a little smoky, rather than chocolatey, which makes sense if black caramel color is added. But other than the acidity we both detected in the chunjang, the flavors were very similar. Both are complex flavors and can't be fully described, but while certainly different, I think chunjang would work well in a pinch, potentially with some extra salt, to taste.
My only other suggestion would be to look into fermenting your own douchi. You can buy black soy beans online, and you should also be able to purchase an aspergillus starter. It seems the basic process is to inoculate the steamed black soybeans with the aspergillus spores to create koji. After a week, the koji is washed (to remove bitterness), then dried and combined with salt (I saw references to a 15% brine as well as 15% salt by weight.) and then aged for several weeks or months. Again, I have not done this myself, and would recommend doing significantly more research before attempting. But based on what I've read it should be quite doable.
Good luck! |
Sous vide "Jabon de Paris" (Cooked ham)
I would like to use sous vide to prepare "Jambon de Paris" from a raw piece of pork.
I have been doing tests on my own, and 8 hours at 65°C with 4% salt, 1% sugar, and a good amount of white and black pepper yields a satisfactory result in terms of taste and texture.
The issue now is how to make sure that it is shelf-stable as the store-bought one. This, for instance, has a shelf life of 26 weeks.
I have been trying to find recipes on the Internet with no success, as most of the recipes for cooked ham are, basically, glazing an already cooked ham. | I don't think you are going to make this shelf-stable, which, in part, comes from the dramatic reduction of water activity in a product. Cooked hams are generally products that must remain refrigerated. They can last quite a while in the refrigerator, especially in the original packaging. For your purposes, the process is clearly explained in Douglas Baldwin's excellent guide to sous vide cooking. In particular, you want to pay attention to the Food Safety section found in part 1, and especially the part titled "pathogens of interest." Here, he specifies how long products can be held when cooked to pasteurization temperatures in a sealed pouch, rapidly chilled, then held at refrigeration or freezer temperatures. However, once the seal is broken and you begin to use the product, you begin a different, much shorter "clock." That is why the ham in your example must be eaten within 7 days, once the package is opened. |
Sourdough dough collapsed, not rising again... Need help!
A few days back I started a bread following a Youtube recipe, it had 400gms of flour and 350 gms of water. I had never made such high hydration bread before. I did 1 hour of autolyse followed by 4 round of 5 min kneading by hand. Still it was rising slowly, so I left it on the counter overnight (22-24°C).
Next morning it had doubled. But when I started lightly it folding for final proofing, it just collapsed into a sticky mass. I waited for 2-3 hours and when it didn't rise I added another 150 gms of flour hoping that it would rise again. But I'm waiting for almost 30 hours but there is no gluten development or rise!! Even the no knead sourdough dough rises much faster!
Could anyone explain what's going on and if there'a chance to revive it?
PS: I have been making 2-3 sourdough bread every week since the lock down due to COVID19 started. Some of them were no-knead bread, some were kneaded bread and most of them turned out pretty good. I just mentioned it to let you know that, although I'm an amateur, I'm not a complete novice for sourdough bread and my starter is good! | This sounds very much like overproofed bread. You should have baked it much sooner, or retarded it in the fridge, not left it on the counter.
You cannot "rescue" overproofed bread in the sense that the loaf will never have good texture. If you really want to save the ingredients, you can reuse them as a preferment in a new bread. But it is not necessarily worth it, since the overproofing process creates very sharp off-flavors. |
Does a pizza lose flavor/texture from cooling down and then heating up again versus keeping it warm from the original oven until eating?
Let's suppose two (identical) pizzas have to be consumed some time after they are baked. One pizza is kept at the same temperature constantly. The second pizza cools down and is then reheated in an oven at a reasonable heat setting and on a bake plate, until it has reached the right temperature again.
Will there be a noticeable difference in taste and/or texture between the two pizzas? | Flavour
Keeping the pizza warm for an extended period will result in some volatile compounds evaporating, thus slightly changing the flavour of the pizza. On the other hand, reheating the pizza (which will probably require the oven to be at a higher temperature than the target pizza temperature) will do the same. It is difficult to predict which one will have a bigger effect, but I expect neither method to stand out.
Texture
This is going to be a bigger issue. Keeping the pizza warm in an enclosed space for an extended period will result in condensation, and make the pizza more soggy than it originally was. Conversely, reheating the pizza in a hot(ish) oven will add an extra dose of evaporation on top of the original cooking, resulting in a pizza and toppings that are dryer than it was when fresh.
Keeping the pizza warm, rather than reheating, might also do some weird things to any cheese present, which might get rubbery rather than melty.
Food safety
Keeping the pizza warm for an extended period might land you in trouble if the temperature is below 60 °C. See this answer and references therein for more information.
How to have hot pizza long after cooking?
This is going to be opinion-based, but I do have some ideas. Ideally, eat the pizza as soon as possible after its initial cooking. Keeping the pizza warm for a short amount of time (say up to 30 minutes) is acceptable. Any longer than that, and I recommend refrigerating the pizza, then reheating it in a dry non-stick skillet over medium heat (cover and/or add a splash of water to steam the top of the pizza if necessary). Also, cold pizza is still pretty tasty. |
Can I eat a sauce that ruined my carbon steel pan seasoning
I cooked a sauce of dry spices, coconut milk, ginger root and lemon grass in my steel carbon pan. I finnished the sauce of with the juice of one lime fruit.
I thought that the coconut milk would protect the seasoning by neutralizing the acidity of the lime juice, but when I cleaned out the pan, the seasoning in the bottom was destroyed -- down to the steel.
It is a deBuyer pan Mineral B type.
The seasoning is from flaxseed oil, Sheryll Canter style with six layers of oil polymerized on top of each other in a 250 degree Celsius oven etc.
My question is: is it safe to eat the dish with the corrosive sauce, in the sense that it contains the residue from the corroded seasoning?
Cheers
Mats | You have some misconceptions here.
First, coconut milk doesn't neutralize any acid, it is just fat in water, probably with a very mild acidic pH itself. For neutralizing an acid, you need a base (and it has nothing to do with the perception of diminished sourness coming from eating fat alongside the acid).
Second, it wasn't the acid that stripped away the seasoning. Bases strip seasoning, acids don't. And you need something a lot more corrosive than an edible sauce for that. The advice to not make highly acidic sauces in iron pans is connected to concerns about rusting the pan underneath the seasoning. Your seasoning probably went away because flaxseed tends to make nonrobust seasoning.
As for the safety, it is obviously safe in the strict sense, polymerized oil gets created in everyday cooking too and nobody has created a regulation forbidding us from serving food where that has happened. This means that you won't keel over from food poisoning tomorrow. If you are asking it in any other sense (e.g. whether it has long-term effects on your health), this is a topic which is explicitely excluded from discussion on our site. |
How to maintain my knife? What am I missing, and what am I doing wrong?
I've been cooking for a long time now, and I've been the proud owner of entry level chef knives for the better part of a decade now.
Last month I've ordered a new knife, a KAI Saki Magoroku Redwood, which is not their cheapest knives, but also not their Shun series. I figured, it was better than what I had, its steel is harder, and angle is steeper, and it will hold out better.
Nevertheless, I use my knife a lot (about twice over three days on average, maybe a bit more), cutting a lot of salads, meat, chopping garlic, etc. So you'd expect that the edge will lose its sharpness at some point.
And indeed, after four weeks, the knife no longer slices tomatoes. It started out great with tomatoes, then slowly it became an easy task depending on the point of ingress (so I'd run the knife gently, and it would eventually slice). But now the knife just can't break the skin. This is not only frustrating (who wants crushed tomatoes in their salad?), but it's also dangerous.
Everything else gets chopped very nicely. I don't have any problem with scallions, cucumbers, spinach, garlic, or any other thing I'd normally chop.
I tried my sharpening rod, but to no avail. It made an effect, but not enough to keep me from fearing for my fingertips. My sharpener is a pull-through "Victorinox Sharpy", and I fear that I will mess something up with the knife if I use it.
What can I do better to maintain an edge for longer?
I'm cutting on a decent wooden board, nothing frozen, no bones, washing my knife immediately after use, and storing in its KAI blade guard in the drawer (in a way that also minimizes movement, just in case).
How do I make it sharper?
The sharpening steel is a bust. Maybe it's because it's two years old, and wasn't the best quality to begin with. But maybe it's something else. I'm not sure if using the Victorinox gadget will solve this, because pull-through are normally set to a specific angle, and it might not be the right one.
The KAI manual website says to sharpen (on a whetstone) at a 15 degrees angle, but they don't specify the series of the knives. I couldn't find the angle information on any website, except one which said, oddly enough, 22 degrees. (This despite the KAI Wasabi series having 15 degrees angled edge. So I'm not sure if that site was right.)
My current line of thought is to buy a whetstone and learn how to use it with my old knife, and then sharpen the KAI. But that seems like a lot of work that I should be able to avoid.
Any advice? | After 30 years of faffing unsatisfactorily with just about every solution known to humanity - whetstones, pull-throughs of various sorts, wheels, diamond edges, v-shaped 'scrapers', steels, specific angle attachments, cheap electric grinders…
I eventually bit the bullet & spent a darned fortune [£170] on a decent electric sharpener. Never looked back.
It keeps the angle far better than I ever could & uses the simplest instruction set ever. In 3 different graded slot-pairs, pull through one side then the other slowly until you can feel a burr, then move to the next grade. It's idiot-proof ;)
Use the final 'polisher' after that to keep the edge. Return to the full set only when that no longer works. I haven't reached that stage yet after only a couple of months, I just give them a quick polish every week or two, using the "own weight tomato test" as my guide.
I don't mean this really as an advert - there are many other systems & manufacturers, but this is what I ended up with.
I got the Chef's Choice 'Trizor' 15XV* in the UK, on import [with correct voltage & UK plug]. I finally picked this one after a long hunt & weeks of research [all without leaving lockdown, of course]. The final decider was, after reading reams of information, it seemed that this was the one all the 'experts' were measuring against. If they were all using this as their yardstick ... why not buy the yardstick? I wasn't disappointed.
btw, the 15XV specifically takes 20° knives down to 15° in a three-step system. If that doesn't float your boat, then they make alternatives for 15°&/or 20° edges. Some, if not all, can also do serrated blades.
After comments - if you're thinking about one of these, make sure to get the one most suited to your needs - there's a guide at https://chefschoice.com/collections/sharpener-finder
*The name seems to vary depending on who is listing it. It was at the time I bought mine called the 'Trizor XV' but Chef's Choice now just call it the 15XV, as they've introduced their 'Trizor' system to other models. You might see it listed under either name. |
Can this silver-colored skillet be put and used in ovens for baking?
My grandparents own this silver-colored skillet. QUEENSENSE SENSHIN is the only printed on it, at the bottom.
To save money and space, they desire to dual-purpose this skillet not only for cooking on stove-top, but also baking inside oven. But how can they deduce if they can safely insert this skillet into the oven for baking, like the pictures below? | If the skillet is entirely made out of metal, then yes, you can use this in the oven. If there are any non-metal parts or coatings, it depends on what those are. Without manufacturer information about oven safety, in the latter case I wouldn't risk it. |
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