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How do I remove bloomy rind without wasting too much cheese?
Suppose I have a cheese that has a bloomy rind such as camembert or brie. I want to completely remove the rind before eating. What are some reliable methods I can use to remove the rind without wasting too much cheese? I could cut off the rind using a knife, but that wastes a lot of cheese. | When the cheese is very cold (even frozen), use a sharp knife and it will be easier to cut the rind off more precisely, to waste less cheese.
(I assume you're aware that the rind is edible and indeed enjoyed by many people. Another way to avoid wasting cheese would be to find a rind-eating friend to share your cheese with.) |
How can I prep a large amount of garlic quickly?
We're doing a food place for college students so the quality doesn't need to be top class, whereareas speed & cost matter more. We may need to prep a kilo or two of garlic for stir-fry and such (mainly Asian style).
Do we have to cleanly peel every garlic clove? Can we just cut off the hard & brown bottom and chop the garlic without peeling? What's a good way to prep large amounts of garlic quickly? | The quickest way to peel lots of garlic is placing a bunch of cloves in a large metal bowl, placing another metal bowl of the same size upside down on top, holding them together and shaking vigorously for 20-30 seconds. Most of the peels should come loose and it will be fairly simple to separate out the garlic cloves from the peels. They can then be chopped quickly either by hand or with a food processor. I would strongly advise against not peeling them. The peel is not dangerous, but it is tough and papery even with cooking. Your dish would be sprinkled with tiny inedible papery flakes which would be very unappetising. |
How to increase the carbonation for water Kefir fermentation?
I want to make my fermented water kefir drink more fizzy.
I used to following recipe
1st Fermentation 24h
78g sugar
237ml hot water
1.2 l room temp filtered water
2nd Fermentation 48h
51ml Lemon Juice
1l Kefir water from 1st Fermentation
5g sugar for each 0.33 l bottle
I used these fermentation lids which lets oxygen out but no in. after the second fermentation the the drink is as flat as ironing board.
How can I make the drink more carbonated?
Update
After the second try, I did use just the flip-top bottles and closed the bottle tight. I opened the lids once a day since I was afraid of an explosion. Opening the bottle might have reduced the carbonation. It is adequate but could be a little more. Nevertheless, safety first.
From my experience, close the lid tight and leave it outside for about 24-48h. Leave it closed at your own risk. | The “fizz” is created by adding the CO2 under pressure, so that it dissolves (native speakers are welcome to add a better term) in the liquid, then fizzes when opened.
For artificially carbonated drinks, either small tablets of frozen CO2 are added when bottling, or the CO2 is pumped into the liquid (think Soda Steam).
For natural CO2, e.g. champagne and kefir, the yeasts must work at least some of the fermentation time in closed containers, the typical process is that for the first, very vigorous fermentation, an airlock prevents pressure buildup, and in a second step, the almost ready drink is bottled and stoppered or corked, so that the remaining yeasts create enough pressure to carbonate the liquid, yet not enough to burst the container, then die back as planned from lack of food or alcohol level.
It is a bit of a fine line, though. If too little sugar (= “yeast food”) is left at the time of bottling, the drink stays mostly flat, if there’s too much, you may be in for a nasty (and potentially dangerous) surprise, like that one year when my darling MIL used “just a few extra flower heads” in her elderflower champagne. If you know your kefir strain, you’ll soon know how much sugar in the second fermentation is just right. For starters, I would simply bottle up according to the recipe’s second step and see what happens. Just make sure you use a sturdy container, that can handle the pressure. And plastic can be safer than glass. |
First Pork Roast Predicament
I cooked a 4 lb. pork roast for about an hour and twenty-five minutes in an open top roasting pan at a steady 350F. It reached 154F in the center so I pulled it out of the oven. The top came out nice and crispy. I let it rest a bit. When I went to cut it it split open at the center-line. The inside looks like it has a somewhat pink center. The juices came out on the pink side too.
What I see in the web says that this normal. I am a bit shaky though. I am wrapping both halves in foil and putting them in the fridge until tomorrow so I can figure this out.
Any thoughts? | You're good.
Many people have fears about pork because of trichinosis, which has led to people overcooking port until it is dry and unpalatable. Trichinosis is extremely rare in most places, so you could eat it raw if you wanted to with very, very low chance of getting sick. Previously the USDA guidelines was to cook pork chops or roasts to 160°F (71°C), however there has been a recognition that this is overkill and it has been revised down to 145°F (63°C) as evidence has shown that temperature instantly makes the food safe. 154°F is far above what you need for safety.
Your pork was a bit pink in the middle and still juicy, this is a good thing.
Note: the guidelines for ground pork, beef and lamb are still to cook to 160°F (71°C). |
Can you freeze whole pomegranates to save them?
I recently purchased a whole case of pomegranates, and it's getting hard to stand after doing 10 in a day, so can I safely freeze them whole to preserve the quality of the fruit? | You cannot freeze them whole; the large fruit pod will turn into a disgusting mush when you thaw it.
You can, however, freeze the pips quite well, and they are the part you eat anyway. |
How do I identify the fermentation process in a wild ferment?
TL;DR - How do I go about to identify the microbiological processes in a wild ferment?
Background
I have a recipe for rose hip wine based on wild (spontaneous) fermentation, that I got from a Swedish wine/beer makers forum. The recipe is simple (I've translated and summarized it a bit to make it fit better in the Q&A forum style). I've used the recipe above five times now with good results. The wine becomes very sweet and it has a quite low alcoholic content. It has a strong character of dried fruit and rose hips.
The recipe used
Take 2.5 liters of rose hips. Pick off bad parts but don't clean them with water or desinfect them in any way - make sure the wild microbes are kept!
Make a syrup of 3 liters (0.66 gal) water and 1.5 kg (2.2lbs) white sugar.
Add rose hips and syrup to a big ceramic jar with a plate as a lid (optionally use a proper fermentation lock). Let ferment like this for 3-6 months.
Strain and age on a carboy for 3 years. The taste is terrible initially, quite okay after 1 year, good after 2, excellent after 3.
This differ from most recipes online only on a few parts. (a) this is the only recipe with wild fermentation that I've found (b) the amount of water in other recipes is rather 7-10 liters for the same amount of hips and sugar (c) the first fermentation is 3-6 months instead of the typical 1-3 weeks seen in inocculated wine making (d) other recipes typically have some acid introduced in the beginning. lemons or lemon juince and possible lactic acid.
This is similar to other recipes online in the proportion of hips to sugar, and the recommendation to age 3 years is the same.
The current ferment
This year is the first that I use a fermentation lock. I altered the recipe slightly by admitting oxygen freely the first week, stirring occasionally to get the ferment going. After that, I put the lock on.
The fermentation is slow, but carbon dioxide is released continously. A bubble every minute or so, and has now been going so for 3 weeks. The specific gravity is still very high, so there is sugars in abundance. The smell from the bubbles is a little yeasty. The smell is also a little sour, but not at all like vinager. This is the typical smell this ferment makes!
I've read online that rose hips are high in malic acid, so I guess the long aging is for malolactic fermentation to take place.
The question
I would like to know what fermentation is currently going. Is it yeast or LAB? Could there be other carbon dioxide releasing processes of significance?
This very slow fermentation indicates to me that there might be not enough nutrition to sustain a larger yeast population. It would be nice to do some kind of before/after test if I would ad nutrition to see what effect that has.
I have pH measurements and gravity measurements currently. I consider getting other equipment for up ca $200, such as a microscope.
How does one go about to analyze the fermentation process at this hobby level? | In addition to @kitukwfyer's answer. There's quite a bit of biology that goes on here...
Not only are you influencing the competition, you are actively selecting for organisms that grow well under the conditions. This is the real reason brewing (and bread etc) works better with a starter culture. There are a few things influencing this:
With a starter culture you are putting in a high number of organisms, which results in a shorter lag phase. Wild ferments rely on a relatively low abundance of naturally occurring organisms - so have a long lag.
With a starter culture you are also adding organisms that are already at least semi-adapted to the type of culture, so they will grow better.
It takes a while for the wild organisms that are there to actually adapt to the conditions. These are related to abundance of water, salt(s), nutrients, oxygen, CO2, pH etc; all of which may be on the boundaries of what is tolerable for the organisms that are there. Cultured organisms are at least partially selected for these characteristics already and selected against ones you don't want, indeed that is actually part of the reason people add things like acid to fermentations - it inhibits gut microflora like Escherichia coli that can make you quite ill.
In the ferment you are selecting for strains that grow well under the conditions; this will be a small proportion of those that are there, so it results in a very small inoculum, and a long lag phase.
Finally, wild organisms often have slow growth rates compared to cultured ones, because we generally want things quickly, so we select for strains that grow faster under the conditions we want - you probably did this subconsciously a couple of times already - you didn't see any signs of fermentation in a brew, so you threw it out and made a fresh batch; or something along those lines.
As to how you can identify the organisms - your best bet would be to get or make a bunch of bacterial (aim for lactic-acid fermentation ones here) and yeast plates (use some filter sterile fermentation broth as the liquid base if possible) and start streaking out your cultures. You most likely won't be able to culture all the organisms in your ferment, but you probably can culture those with the highest abundance (you already know they grow well under some conditions). You can then pick off individual colonies from our plates and grow them in liquid culture to see which have characteristics (flavour profiles) you like by themselves or in combination (try smelling them before drinking...). This is not a trivial task (list of techniques you might need) and relies on a bit of good sterile technique and a knowledge of what a "normal" organism looks like, not a contaminant from your own microflora. |
How to peel boiled quail eggs without breaking
I can peel chicken eggs fine, but boiled quail eggs are much smaller & easier to break. I tend to use my finger nails to help with peeling but it's easy to cut it too much due to the thin egg whites. Sometimes, even just pulling a half-off shell piece is enough to break the egg in half.
I've tried thermal-shocking the shell with cool water right after boiling & lightly cracking the shell before peeling, but the shells tend to come off as small pieces rather than whole big ones, making each egg take >10 seconds to peel, which adds up really quickly. Even peeling them underwater doesn't seem to help much, as it doesn't separate the shell from the white.
What's a good way to more quickly peel such small & delicate quail eggs without breaking? | Start with eggs near their sell-by date, not ones you only just bought. The shell gets less attached to the egg with age & air builds a gap.
Boil as desired [hard-boiled is easier, of course].
Use the pan lid to drain off the water, then hold it tight & shake the pan to smash the shells into smaller [still mainly attached] pieces. Hard enough to break the shells, not hard enough to mince the contents.
Fill the pan with cold water. This will rapidly cool the eggs & as the water seeps in between, will aid separation of egg from shell.
Once cold, pull one at a time, roll gently on a hard surface - your aim is lots of tiny pieces, no large areas remaining - & pick an easy start-point. The shells should come off in one go.
I found backup to this, from a quail egg supplier…
How to easily peel quail eggs |
Is there a tool to make bread balls?
I’d like to make bread balls out of already baked soft and moist bread. The tool that I have in mind is akin to an ice cream scoop, but sharpened and thinner (since bread is much softer than frozen cream).
Is there a specialized tool for just that or a technique that would allow to form bread balls avoiding compression (and thus thickening)? | I can't imagine anything would be sharp enough - you have to saw it with a sharp serrated knife to just slice it.
Only think I could think would be maybe to try it frozen with a melon-baller or similar, but it would have to be really soft beforehand - sawing at frozen bread is even harder than at room temperature - but it might prevent compression. |
How to add lemon flavor to tea?
I am trying to add lemon flavor to tea so that it has ginger and lemon flavor to a noticeable extent. If we boil tea water with ginger, the ginger flavor can be brought almost to the way it is okay.
But I am having trouble adding the lemon flavor to tea. If I use lemon juice just before drinking tea, it makes tea sour, which is not acceptable.
Another way I tried is that I used the lemon peel, a chunk of it, but the tea became bitter. Note that the tea already contains ginger and it has no sugar.
Is there any other way to add lemon flavor to tea without changing the flavor of this non-sweet, ginger tea? | The white rind of the lemon is what causes the bitter flavour. To get simply the lemon flavour you just want the zest. Use a zester, microplane, or fine grater to scrape off only the yellow bit of the peel and nothing white and you'll get a lovely lemon flavour without the bitterness or sourness. |
Benefits or effects of salt on fruit fruit cleanliness with regards to wax, pests, pesticides, insecticides, etc?
There's a language barrier here for context.
I have heard from a family relative that they think using salt in the preparation of some fruits to be beneficial from a cleanliness perspective, which they heard from the radio. I inquired about the mechanics of how and why this works and did not receive any sort of explanation that satisfied me (e.g. Kenji J lopez style experiments or references to any scientific models/theories of why)
I understand that not all scientific models/theories work in all cases and some become historical as more cases and knowledge is discovered. However I do enjoy/prefer theories/models with experiments and tests with reproducible and measurable results to help prove things.
In all examples the salt used is normal table salt.
Preparing an apple to be eaten raw, putting salt on it first and rubbing. Then washing off the salt and washing like normal. Something about the salt is supposed to do something about insecticides and pesticides? I'm not sure if a case could be made for the salt being used as an abrasive for removing wax?
Grapes, Berries (blueberry, raspberry, strawberry) Rinsing them off with water like normal, then briefly soaking them in salt water, then dumping the salt water, then rinsing with water again. The salt water soak is supposed to do something for possible (insect) pests, pesticides, insecticides?
Let me know if these kinds of salt operations have any substantial effects good or bad, with regards to cleanliness, taste, nutritional etc. I have heard of brining meat, but never thought or heard of these kinds of practices.
I would be happy to see this debunked or explained. | According to this article, submerging strawberries in saltwater will make fruitfly larva leave the berries. Apparently the idea was popularized in May 2020 by a TikTok post. But the author goes on to say that it's probably not necessary, that consuming fruitfly eggs or larvae is not harmful (they site USDA for this claim), and soaking your strawberries in saltwater may ruin the flavor. I get the impression that the author of this article didn't actually wash any strawberries in saltwater themselves (given that they only say "may" ruin the taste).
This article cites India's Centre for Environmental Science as recommending washing fruit in 2% saltwater to help remove pesticide residue from the fruit surface. They say that most pesticide residue will be removed by washing with normal cold water, but saltwater removes even more pesticides. Here's an article from the Centre for Environmental Science, which has the information cited in the previous article.
Apparently there is also a myth that washing fruits and vegetables with salt water is a bad idea, that it will make pesticide residues "more durable." That myth is debunked here. This article cites Dr. Jessada Denduangboripant of Chulalongkorn University, as saying “salt water can be used to wash fruit and vegetables” and "Most insecticides come in oil form so salt will make the oil compound separate from each other."
Since point of the salt is to help remove oil-based pesticides, you might think of washing your produce with detergent. The problem with that idea is that detergents are not tested for food safety, and you risk leaving some detergent residue on the produce (or even of the produce absorbing the detergent) which you then eat. Eating detergent is not good for you. The advantage of salt is that if you don't manage to rinse it all off, the remaining traces of salt are non-toxic.
All the sources I found about this mentioned using saltwater, not dry salt. So I don't think the salt is meant as an abrasive. Maybe it would work for that, but I didn't find any references for it.
You mentioned a language barrier with the relative who told you about using salt to clean vegetables. Given that two of the top search results were from India and Thailand, and that I've never heard this technique recommended here in the US, I wonder if this might be a technique which is more common in southeast Asia, and perhaps originated there. Some of the recent sources referenced Covid, so perhaps the idea came about when everyone was (unnecessarily, as it turns out) trying to sterilize their vegetables in the early stages of the pandemic. Or perhaps the idea already existed, and it had a surge in popularity for the same reason. Pure speculation on my part. |
Why is the nutrition information for these two items so different?
(In the UK)
I have a packet of custard, which has the following ingredients: Maize starch, salt, Flavouring and Colour. The salt content on the nutrition information is 0.17% so I assume that the custard is almost entirely Maize Starch.
Wikipedia tells me that Maize Starch is the same as (in the UK) Cornflour. I have some of that in the cuboard and its nutritional information looks like this:
My question is: why is the nutritional information so different? Where did the Sugars come from? Why is there more protein? What's going on? | You are comparing (100 g of custard made with some of this powder and some milk) to (100g of this powder) -- ignoring the salt, anyway.
The magic words are
As prepared with semi-skimmed milk
That's where the sugars and proteins come from, among other things. |
What are those spices?
I was organizing and labeling my spices cabinet when I run into those two spices that I cannot recognize. I'm assuming one of them is fenugreek. I'm quite sure I bought them when I had 'Indian cuisine' phase.
Cropped & sharpened
Original - click for full size.
The left item seems looks and feels like a chopped peanuts or bark. However it has a onion-like/garlic-like smell with some earth or bark component. | Agree that stuff on the right is fenugreek.
The stuff on the left is asafoetida.
source
Asafoetida is a resin and is sometimes sold in chips as depicted. It smells strongly like onions or garlic which would not be true for any nut. |
I just made ice cream. Unfortunately, it became gritty in the end result. What is a way to make use out of it?
I just made vanilla ice cream with my ice cream machine. The taste was amazing, however, the texture was sandy and gritty. I made a awful lot, and I do not want to dump the ice cream. How am I going to make it creamy, or use the ice cream for something else? | Given all of the advice so far, and as you said that you started with a rather large batch, I might try a few things. I would recommend trying a small-ish portion at a time, so you don't ruin the whole batch:
Soften the ice cream slightly, then put it through a food processor to see if you can make it less gritty, then re-freeze. (or possibly don't re-freeze, if it has a soft-serve like consistency)
Soften the ice cream slightly, then mix in other ingredients to add texture to the ice cream to try to hide the grittiness. Nuts, cookie or pretzel bits, or anything else that's crunchy. You could also make an 'ice cream pie', but you'd want a rather thin layer of ice cream so it's not so obvious that it's not cream. (maybe something like this
Scrape it with a fork, and tell people it's a granita. (or, actually make a fruit granita, and then serve it layered with granita / scraped ice cream / etc.)
Melt it down, add starch and cook into a pudding, then re-freeze. (frozen pudding also has a strange texture that isn't quite ice-cream like).
Melt it, add some more eggs, then use it as the custard for french toast or bread pudding. |
What is the use of this device? Perhaps a potato masher?
It has holes on the bottom as well.
Please inform me of all the uses (and the name of) this tool. | It is a potato ricer. You place boiled potatoes in the basket and push the lever down to squeeze the potato through the holes. They are handy for making very smooth mashed potatoes, though they can be tricky to clean - washing them immediately or at least putting them in water so the potato doesn't harden is advised. |
How to prepare rice in rice cooker so it won't become sticky or clumpy, like Indian takeout in the US?
When I get Indian takeout (US), the white rice is not at all sticky or clumpy. Even over the next few days it can be essentially poured out of the container as individual grains. This is unlike the rice in say, Chinese takeout, which is much stickier and in a single mass.
I have a very simple rice cooker. (It has the settings "white rice" and "brown rice".) How can I use this rice cooker, and any necessary preparation/finalization steps or types of rice, to produce rice like I get from Indian takeout? Ideally that can be eaten straight out of the rice cooker, but I'm willing to be flexible if necessary. | First, use basmati rice. Then, rinse your rice very well. Place rice in bowl, fill with cold water, drain, repeat until the water runs clear. I find that using the correct variety of rice, combined with good rinsing, helps keep the long grains separate. |
How do you cook more successfully in a different kitchen?
We rarely host holidays at my house and therefore end up traveling to visit with family. Since I cook frequently (and enjoy doing so!) I am generally asked/expected to help in the kitchen with the main dish, sides, and/or desserts.
My question is how do you generally deal with cooking in a kitchen other than at home? At home:
I have my "favorite" knives, cutting boards, pots/pans, mixing bowls,
etc
I am used to my stove and oven, and have tuned my recipes to those
times/temperatures
I know where all the seasonings/spices and other ingredients are
and to complicate things there are generally multiple other people helping in the kitchen and/or socializing, which is a great time to hang out with family but obviously makes moving around the kitchen more cumbersome.
None of the above are showstoppers as I am still able to cook okay, I just find that nothing comes out quite as ideally as I know I could've executed if I were cooking at home.
What are some specific things I can do or bring to make cooking in other kitchens more successful? | Planning, planning, planning. As you say, you are used to your kitchen and know where everything is. Go over the recipe(s) in advance and locate everything you will use. When you cook at home, you know where the measuring spoons are. Find them. Make sure there is one of the size you need. You know you have all the spices, but put your finger on each one you need and open the jar to make sure there is enough. You might even poll the other cooks to make sure you aren't all using turmeric and there isn't enough to go around. Even better, premeasure the spices and hide them somewhere. Decide what pan, cooking implements, serving dish, and serving implements you will use and make sure nobody else wants them. When the gathering is large the house often doesn't have enough big ones. Foil covered cookie sheets can be a lifesaver. I find there are always enough burners on the stove to go around, but the oven can be a problem. If you do this the day before there is time to recover from problems.
Having done so, recognize that you are your own worst critic and are not looking for your Michelin star today. There will be glitches. Probably you can recover from them, perhaps with some loss of quality. If it is small, nobody else will notice. If it is large, they will share your pain. It may become one of the family stories. It isn't the end of the world. I recently burned up an entire rack of ribs on an unfamiliar grill. Fortunately there was some meat in the freezer for a replacement.
One challenge is the conflict in attention. When you are cooking at home you get to think about what can be done before guests arrive and how you will share your energy between cooking and talking to guests once they arrive. When you cook for a family gathering the guests are there already and competing for your attention long before the meal. There are a range of ways to deal with this, but recognizing it in advance can make it easier. |
Would replacing sugar with a sweetener affect bread dough fermentation?
I've been baking Asian style sweet bread rolls using the Tangzhong method with success. However recipe calls for quite a bit of sugar (60g for 2.5 cups of flour).
Will substituting a natural sweetener like stevia work in place of sugar? Will this affect the fermentation process? If it does, what would be ideal minimal amount of sugar I could add to get a good rise? | The short answer is that it's probably safe, but here are some considerations:
What Does Yeast Do?
Yeast eats sugar and converts it to carbon dioxide (also alcohol, but that's not a consideration in most bread baking). "Sugar" doesn't necessary mean sucrose (table sugar) - it also means fructose and glucose, like you'd find in honey or agave syrup.
If you don't provide the yeast with anything to eat, it won't produce any carbon dioxide.
Can Yeast Eat Stevia?
No.
Stevia is not any kind of sugar, nor can it be converted into sugar (more on that in a moment).
Does Leavened Bread Need Sugar (glucose/fructose/sucrose/lactose/maltose)?
No1
Many (most?) bread recipes do not contain any sugar - and yet they can rise impressively. How does the yeast produce carbon dioxide if you don't add sugar? The flour can feed the yeast.
Flour is largely starch, which is a chain of sugar (glucose) molecules. Our digestive systems are powerful enough to break starch down into sugar, but yeast cannot do so. Fortunately, the wheat berry itself contains the solution. An enzyme present in wheat berries (amylase) will break down the starch into sugar. Once this happens, the yeast can eat the sugar and happily bubble away.
1 I had a note here about proofing active dry yeast, but this information is now out of date.
Active dry yeast has been reformulated. It's now in smaller particles and does not need to be dissolved in water. It can be added directly to the dry ingredients. If your active dry yeast is nearing its expiration date, you can proof it by mixing it with warm water and a small amount of sugar. This doesn't do much to affect the bread, but it does allow you to avoid baking with dead yeast.
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/blog/2015/09/25/active-dry-yeast
Will Anything Else Happen If There's No Sugar?
Possibly - that is, some things will change, but you may not detect the change.
(Most of the rest of this information comes from this article - "How to reduce sugar in yeast bread". Feel free to skip my summary and go straight to the source!)
The bread may be drier
when you reduce sugar in yeast bread, the only textural difference you might see is a tendency towards dryness.
Why is this? Sugar is hygroscopic; that means it attracts and holds moisture. Without sugar, moisture evaporates from bread during baking, creating a drier loaf. The more sugar you cut from a sweet yeast bread recipe, the more you’ll notice this effect.
Counter intuitively, it might speed up the dough's rise
Remember, sugar is hygroscopic. And in yeast dough, this means it can deprive yeast of the moisture it needs to grow. Ever waited impatiently for your sweet bread to rise? Blame the “arid” atmosphere
The bread may brown more slowly
Some of the sugar in yeast dough rises to the surface and caramelizes as bread bakes, yielding rich brown color
A Note about Acacia
A comment asks about acacia, otherwise known as acacia gum, or gum arabic. As the Wikipedia article says, "Gum arabic is a complex polysaccharide," which makes it chemically similar to starch (also a polysaccharide). But can amylase (or some other enzyme already present in the dough) break down this polysaccharide? I would guess so, but here's where we come up hard against the limits of my high school chemistry education. |
Why does water color go red when you boil maizes or lentils? Is it bad?
I was boiling two maizes in a pot. After about twenty minutes the water inside the pot became red-colored. Also, some days before that, I was boiling lentils and the same happened.
Why did this happen and is this water safe to drink besides eating the maize and/or lentils? | This is probably due to anthocyanins present in the maize and lentils. Despite the possibly worrying sounding 'cyanin', anthocyanins are antioxidants and if anything, beneficial to one's diet. Anyway the amount of anthocyanins present in maize is far far less than in say red cabbage (see the table in the Wikipedia article), so I think you have nothing to worry about. |
Does eye contact with the cooking food make it more delicious?
There's a belief in some cultures that if you look at your being-cooked food from the beginning till the end, you will have a more delicious food compared to when you leave the food to be cooked.
Is this scientifically real or just a cooking myth? | I can think of two potential things that might affect how delicious food is:
If you're the one cooking, constantly watching the food makes sure you don't burn it or do something else that might adversely affect it.
For everyone involved, cooking or not, it can help to build anticipation. You'll smell the food cooking, and may trigger physiological changes (stomach rumbling, anticipatory salivation, etc.) as your body prepares for food.
As your body has an opportunity to start thinking about the food and there's a period of denial (as the food hasn't been served yet), the food may seem more delicious than food that's only set down before you just as you're preparing to eat. (Although, if the food quality is lacking and doesn't match what you've been anticipating, it's possible that your enjoyment would be worse)
To know if it's truly eyesight that's required, you would probably have to do some experiments -- watching someone cook behind a glass window or via closed circuit TV so you can't smell it being cooked; being blindfolded so you're in the same place to get the smells but can't actually see the food being cooked, etc. |
What other cookies/biscuits were traditionally baked in shell shaped forms like this one?
This is an old form I got from my German mother-in-law, here in Southern Germany. It is 10 cm (~ 4 in) long and 5 cm (~ 2 in) wide at the widest part. From the double shell shape, it appears to be a madeleine mold. Were there any other uses that someone knows of?
And yes, I use it to make southern German "Bärentatzen" - or "bear paws". I am just wondering if there is another use or two out there, since it looks so much more like shells than like paws :) | It’s not a perfect match1, but considering the region and that you apparently have just one or a few, I would assume that this is a slightly unusual mold for “Bärentatzen“ („bear paws“), a classic Swabian Christmas cookie.
(Source)
A soft but stable flourless dough made with whipped eggs (or just egg whites), sugar, chocolate and almonds is first shaped into balls, coated in sugar, and then pressed into a wooden or metal mold just to shape them. The sugar prevents them from sticking and they are baked not in the mold, but free on a baking sheet. If you look closely at your mold, you’ll see that there is none of the slight polymerized grease residue that suggests that it was ever put into an oven.
Molds are traditionally made of wood (“Model”), usually beech or other hardwoods, but I have seen tin ones as well - the metal ones were more common in the earlier 20th century (pre-WW I&II and shortly after), but often had problems with the material suffering over time. Wooden ones are seeing a comeback in recent years.
Bärentatzen are pretty local - older Swabian cook books have them2,3, in the rest of Germany they are virtually unknown or mean another type of cookie closer related to spritz cookies. Food historians have suggested that the original shape was supposed to be scallops or seashells (think the religious symbol of the pilgrimage) and that the reference was lost at some point. The alternative name „Schokoladenmuscheln“3 („chocolate scallops“) is another indicator.
1 Typically Bärentatzen would be single shells. The baking equipment company Staedter sells a wooden version of a double shell and of a single shell as „Spekulatius mold“, which is in my opinion imprecise as Speculaas are traditionally very flat and at least the single one is sold as „Bärentatzen“ by Birkmann, another baking equipment supplier.
2 Kochen und Backen nach Grundrezepten, Luise Haarer, 1965 (and others)
3 Kiehnle-Kochbuch, Hermine Kiehnle, 1928 |
Can you store frozen dinners in the refrigerator for up to a week before eating them?
Given that this is "Seasoned Advice", my question may be considered blasphemy, but I'm going to take a chance anyways as the good people here are likely best suited to know the answer. ;)
Is there any harm in storing store-bought frozen dinners in the refrigerator (not freezer) for up to a week before eating them?
Many frozen dinners are labelled with "do not thaw", implying there is a problem with doing this, and I am hoping people here can shed some light on the topic.
Update: In the comments, I was asked why I would like to do this, and what I am trying to achieve. Good questions!
The reason I would like to do this is because the freezer is completely filled, and a bunch of frozen dinners are being delivered (as a result of mistakes outside of my control).
Also, I know people will be eating several of the frozen dinners within a week, so it will conserve energy to place them in the refrigerator before cooking them in a microwave oven. | I wouldn't recommend it for a couple of reasons:
Food in general degrades much faster in the fridge than in the freezer, so you risk spoilage during that time. Most prepared foods are not recommended to be stored that long in the fridge.
Most "do not thaw" meals are designed to be cooked from frozen. So you're not only left guessing what the correct cooking times are, but there may be elements such as a sauce that placed in the container as a puck that's intended to no interact with the other item in that compartment, but that would now have a week to get soggy from the sauce and dramatically change how it cooks up. |
Does meat (Black Angus) caramelize just with heat?
I follow a famous chef in Spain. He uploaded an Instagram Reel showing a quick recipe: Black Angus burger (smash burger), cheddar cheese, truffle cream, fried egg and chips. Watch short video in here.
So the thing is that on the first step, he says "Black Angus" (while putting it on the grill), "very well pressed so it can caramelize" (and pressed the burger to leave a thin and wide burger). He adds later the rest of the ingredients directly to the burger (bread, etc). But I am still curious about that caramelization he mentions. No sugar, nothing else added to the meat. I was looking at the comments of the video, looked for specific information about Black Angus but did not find anything relevant. So he either made an unlucky mistake while talking, or I am definitely missing something. | He's not referring to the kind of caramellisation you see when you make caramel, he's referring to the Maillard reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that is responsible for among other things meat and baked goods browning. |
How do I make my food taste like leftovers
I find that when I make stews, casseroles, curry’s etc. that they are much nicer after a day or two in the fridge. I understand that it “gives the flavours time to meld” etc, but what actually happens? Is there a way to make it happen first time round? | I think that your thinking in terms of "leftovers" is what is tripping you up here. Cooking food involves tons of chemical changes, and some of them happen best on the stove, and others need a long period of resting time.
If you have a recipe which tastes better on the second day, then all you have to do is to plan to serve it on the second day. See it as a recipe whose last stage needs 24 hours and happens at fridge tempearature. You wouldn't serve yogurt before it has spent 8 hours at 46 C, because the mixture doesn't taste like yogurt yet. Similarly, you shouldn't serve your "perfect beef stew" before it has spent 24 hours at 4 C, because it doesn't taste like "perfect beef stew" yet.
If you are looking for ways to speed up the process, I don't think these exist. Maturing of foods involves complex chemical reactions, which need their time. This is why many luxury food items let you know how long they were aged.
For a bit of background, see also this question on the process of flavors "marrying". |
Is a portable Wok burner safe (indoors)
My Condo only has an electric stove, an no gas lines. I was looking to get a portable propane burner for a wok, so that I could effectively cook (I use it daily). Is this something that is safe to do inside? I've seen things like this use professionally, but as I do it personally and for family, I wanted to be sure the danger wasn't unreasonable for a non-professional chef | It can be safe - people use gas burning stoves inside on a regular basis.
The one thing you must do is ensure that there is adequate air-flow in your kitchen so as to prevent the build-up of carbon monoxide. This is as simple as leaving a window partially open when cooking.
Another concern would be how stable one of these is on your bench/work surface. Placing a large pan on top of a small foot-print stove will make it decidedly top heavy, so you should get one that is either low and flat (much like a regular cooking stove in a kitchen; e.g. this one) or one with feet that limit the movement/tipping capacity (e.g. this one). I have no affiliation with either product and make no claims about their ability to cook things, other than that MSR is a reliable outdoors brand. After all, you don't want your cooker to tip over and set your kitchen on fire or cause you to get burned from the hot food/pan and/or from the flame. |
Are these canned dolmas safe to eat, why are they pink?
My canned dolmas (grape-leaf wrapped rice) are marked as expiring in 2023, but when I opened them they both had pink spots and the oil that pours off had some pink watery color to it.
The discoloration only occurred where the rice was exposed to the oil, if you peeled back the grape leaves the rice was white.
Smelled normal and tasted normal (the non-pink ones that I ate before I spotted the discoloration). | It appears to be tannins from the grape leaves. The water in my jars of grape leaves is usually colored slightly red. It makes sense that the rice would be stained pink where there is contact with the leaf. |
Does the preparation of chicken liver mousse require force feeding of chickens?
The force feeding of ducks or geese required to prepare foie gras (French "fatty liver") is widely known and banned in some states. I was at a restaurant last night which offered "Chicken Liver Mousse." It was creamy, delicious, and quite reminiscent of foie gras. In fact, many chefs are turning to this as a foie gras alternative.
The only discussion I've found on this is from this Reddit post. Other sites' preparation instructions do not discuss initial chicken treatment to get such a liver texture.
I'm curious if chickens are force fed to marbleize their livers in much the same way that ducks are. Have we just transitioned from one bird to another? | There's no need to force-feed the chickens.
Chicken Liver Mousse is just a posh word for a smooth paté, with sometimes a bit of extra aeration.
For every chicken, there's a chicken liver. The world eats a lot of chicken these days, so there's a lot of chicken liver to spare. All you need to add is butter for the extra fat content & resulting mouth-feel.
At its simplest, it's chicken liver, lightly sautéed in butter &/or oil, added onion or garlic, herbs & spices, alcohol, cream etc to taste, then whizzed in a blender until perfectly smooth. It's often not really a mousse, as it's not really fully aerated, but extra aeration makes it tend further towards an actual mousse, which the cooling butter will attempt to hold in place. You could go further perhaps using gelatine etc to hold the mousse as it cools. |
Adding cayene early makes it less hot
I have a favorite jambalya recipe. I usually saute the trinity (celery, onions, green peppers) for a short while before adding garlic and then a longer while later I will add my Cajun seasoning. For some reason the other day I did it differently and added my Cajon seasoning to the oil before adding the trinity and garlic (like I do when making Thai curry - adding the curry paste to the oil to start the cooking). I was surprised to find my final dish at the end was far less spicy (less hot) and there was less of the flavor from the Cajon seasoning. That surprised me. Slightly less spicy would make sense but this was WAY less spicy. I used the normal quantity of all ingredients so that wasn't the cause of the difference.
EDIT: DIshes made 3 days apart with spices that have been stored the same length of time (months+).
What is going on? | Cooking over high heat causes capsaicin (the hot chemical in chiles) to break down and to vaporize, leaving less in the finished dish. There's a huge difference between cooking in water at 95C vs. in hot oil at 150C; simmering only causes losses of up to 1/4 of the capsaicin, while frying can cause much greater losses, up to 90%.
So by adding the cayenne pepper earlier, you were cooking it at hot oil temperature, and thus lost the majority of the spiciness. If you'd waited until the vegetables broke down, the water they release lowers the cooking temperature to near boiling, and thus little hotness is lost. |
What are these clear parts in beef steak?
I can identify the large white strips as inter-muscular fat, the red meat as muscle, and the small white parts throughout the muscle as intra-muscular fat, but what is the clear tissue (circled in orange and blue)?
Should it be removed before serving? | This looks like gristle.
I wouldn't go hacking at the steak just to remove it. If the eaters don't like it, they are free to cut their steak around it and leave it in their plate. |
Does 100% pure honey expire?
The bottle has a best by date. The bottle has been stored in a cool dry place away from sunlight. Does anyone have a clue?
I know they discovered honey thousands of years old but that is probably a very specific type. | Yes, honey last "forerver".
It might crystalize overtime , but you can liquify it with a little bit of heat.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-science-behind-honeys-eternal-shelf-life-1218690/
As always, if you do not feel safe eating something, just throw it. |
pickled cucumbers seemingly lasting "forever"
My girlfriend's grandma has made pickled cucumbers for decades and distributed them to her whole family.
They are delicious, despite the jars looking like swamp water.
On one occasion, we got her some new jars and she later said that the older jars were better because they are not as tight as the new ones. Apparently they produce some gas and need to vent and I noticed that the sides of the jars show some dried liquid, so it is clear they all leak somewhat.
So, I'm wondering how can food which is not airtight and not refrigerated can last for months without spoiling? She's been doing that for 50+ years so somehow the technique works, but I'm curious about it.
Edit:
Today I had the opportunity to question grandma about her method :)
She's 85 so she just knows what's she's always done :) the pickling is not using any heat, it's cucumbers, vinegar, salt, tons of spices and herbs.
she puts everything in jars that will 'gas out' and leak for a few days, and then after that another process seems to take place where the jar seals itself, doesn't leak anymore and becomes harder to open, so I guess the air inside is somehow consumed. | I have to admit I am speculating a bit here. Your pickles are fermented, which itself is a form of preservation. The type of fermentation taking place is likely acetic, since the added vinegar could work as a starter, but it's also possible that you have a lacto component. It depends on the proportions of salt and vinegar used.
That said, as whatever bacteria and natural yeast get to work, they convert sugars naturally present in your vegetables to various acids, alcohol, and carbon dioxide. The production of carbon dioxide will indeed cause an increase in pressure and make a sealed jar leak.
As the fermentation settles down what will often happen is the lid will glue itself shut with a combination of partially digested sugars and salt that dry out. This doesn't really indicate negative pressure, but can make a jar a major pain to open.
As for how it works - the short version is comprised of two parts. Part one is that the good bacteria and yeast go through and eat everything, making it harder for bad bacteria to get a foothold. Part 2 is that as a result of the fermentation, the brine in the pickle jar is very acidic (not to mention salted) and therefore very unfriendly to most bacteria even if there was sugar to be had.
That's an extremely simplified version, obviously. But fermentation has a long, long history as food preservation. It's an absolute classic from a cultural perspective, and is biologically complex. I would make sure that grandma's recipe is written down (if you can), since it can be dangerous to fool around with an untested fermentation procedure. (I personally consider 50+ years to be "tested" enough...) |
Making cheese without rennet
What can I use in place of rennet to make mozzarella cheese? And what cheeses can we make without rennet? | You cannot make mozzarella without some form of rennet. It can be natural rennet, synthetic, or vegetable-based rennet, but you need it to get the correct cheese texture.
This goes for the vast majority of cheeses. The only ones you can make without any type of rennet are the soft, heat-and-acid-set cheeses such as ricotta, farmer cheese, chevre, and paneer. |
Is it OK to reheat my spaghetti sauce over & over?
My spaghetti sauce is made with fresh tomatoes, ketchup, garlic, some vinegar, and some basic seasoning. I've been told it's not good to reheat the sauce over & over, but I'm making this for myself, 4 servings at a time, so the most reheats 1 batch would get is 3, and each batch lasts at most 2 days. I've been told to put the sauce in separate containers & only reheat 1 serving when ready to eat. I find it a pain to dirty extra containers and have had no problem reheating my sauce.
Is there some real problem with reheating my spaghetti sauce over & over, or is my family just too careful/concerned about it? | Food safety wise, you want to minimise the amount of time the uneaten sauce spends in the "danger zone", 4-60 degrees Celsius. When you repeatedly reheat and chill food, every time it chills it spends some time (depending on how you chill it and the container you store it in, but usually at least an hour) in the danger zone adding to the risk you will get sick from eating it. A typical recommendation is that food should not spend more than 2 cumulative hours in the danger zone to be considered safe to eat. Why not just scoop out the amount you need for the day onto the plate you will eat from and reheat that? Or, if you're adding it to freshly cooked pasta, dump it directly on the pasta from the fridge and let it stand on a warm burner with the lid on for a few minutes to warm up? |
What is acceptable tolerance for heat distribution in frying pan
I have purchased a crepe pan but I think my question applies to any frying pan.
In my case I'm on halogen as a heat source but I don't believe that it matters too much.
I think the goal is for pans to distribute heat evenly. I appreciate there is like hundreds of reasons why this is hard to achieve for the manufacturers.
What is unclear is what type of tolerance should be seen as acceptable. For example, if my pan was at 200 degrees in the middle and 190 degrees at the side, I'd feel this is OK.
In my case, it is out by around 100°C
Please note, the crepe pan was in the middle of the halogen hob and the difference in temp was not due to the pulsing nature of the hob. The difference in temperatures was consistently out over a period of time
Is this type of loss normal or will it likely make cooking difficult. Is there a tolerance that people find acceptable? | You say the heat source doesn't matter, but it's probably the biggest effect.
Gas tends to give a hotter ring, possibly with a central burner giving a central hotspot on big burners.
Electric (resistive) depends on where it makes good contact - and both pan and ring probably aren't perfectly flat.
Induction should be quite even over the element (if the pan is good)
Halogen should again be fairly even over the element, though there's often a cooler spot in the middle.
In almost all cases a pan that overhangs will be cooler at the edges, which may or may not be a bad thing. Often a pan exactly the same size as an electric ring will be cooler at the edges, because more heat is lost there. On gas this may be reversed due to hot air rising up the sides.
The contents will tend to reduce the difference in temperature. This is obvious in boiling, where you've got convection and hotspots are limited by the water. In frying there's less to even it out, but moving the food around has the same effect when that's possible. Crepes (similarly omelettes), after distribution of the ingredients, of course don't get stirred, but still usually cook evenly.
I suspect in your case the ring is smaller than the pan; you may also find it gets more even with longer preheating. For some things, especially on gas, it can be good to preheat on maximum then allow the temperature to drop to what you want - part of the dropping is heat spreading out. |
Is it okay to wash a plate at a later point?
After reading:
Do the dishes: Why you should keep up with the washing up - ABC News
And especially:
"You will end up with a lovely bacteria soup, then you will stick your
hand in the sink to pull the plug out and do the dishes, and if you
don't wash your hands properly you are going to cross-contaminate the
kitchen."
I started wondering if it's okay if I leave a plate unwashed in the sink (the sink itself, not filled with water or anything like that, as described/hinted at in the quote), before leaving/rushing for work; in order to save time and wash it later with some next plate, when I return back from work (can be a bit late sometimes).
I usually always clean/wash things that have stains right away, but I only eat oats and milk for breakfast, which perhaps might make this seem like a non-issue; though I've honestly had this on my mind, for way too long at this point. Hopefully it is indeed a non-issue, but I'd love to hear what people think...
EDIT:
Basically my primary concern is the bacteria spread on the plate/invisible bacteria becoming harder to wash off, in regards to my prior use case... | That quote sounds like they're assuming you fill the sink with water and leave dirty dishes sitting in the water. That seems gross. And of course you should wash your hands after doing the dishes, regardless of whether you washed your dishes immediately or let them soak first.
I frequently leave dishes to soak and wash them later, but I don't fill the sink. Just fill the dish with water and let it sit in the sink. When you come back to wash it, dump out the soaking water, and wash as normal with soap and hot water.
Some dishes work best if you rinse them right away, then let them soak after rinsing. Oats tend to dry on rock-hard, so be sure to wipe off any smears that are above the water level before leaving it to soak. |
When should I add the garlic to a roasted leg of lamb?
I'm going to roast a leg of lamb. Here is how I plan to cook it:
Cover it with kosher salt
Let is rest in the fridge for two days
Make 10 or 12 slits, and stuff them with garlic sort of like this recipe.
Cook
Would there be any benefit to putting the garlic into the lamb before it rests in the fridge? My goal is to make it tasty. Will the garlic flavor maybe infuse better somehow? | There's no benefit to putting the garlic in as slices from a flavor point of view, it's the cooking that brings the garlic flavor out. I've found that no matter how you do it the garlic flavor pretty much stays with the garlic rather than spreading throughout the meat - you don't get some even garlic hum throughout, instead you get parts with intense garlic flavor, which if you like garlic is a good thing. The only way to get it more even is smaller garlic slices in many more slits, however loads of slits will lead to the meat drying out.
From a food safety point of view cutting the slits and putting garlic in them that long before cooking can introduce bacteria or botulism spores deep inside the meat, and the temperature you cook it to may not be enough to make the food safe. If you use this method it's prudent to wash the outside of the meat, the knife, the garlic and of course your hands before you do it to reduce this risk. |
How to (cheaply) grind wheat berries for home bread making?
I've never made wheat flour before, though I bake bread regularly. I'm considering using my KitchenAid blender to grind my hard white wheat berries, but am worried I would harm the blender. I use about 7 cups of flour per week, so hand-milling might be too labor-intensive. Is there a good way I could try out homemade flour without investing in an expensive grinding device? If not, what grinding device is recommended for home use?
As a bonus, I'd like to use the device for occasionally grinding chicken feed... | You can get a carona mill for under $50. It looks like this:
But you are likely going to work pretty hard, and have to do plenty of sifting. I have one and it is fairly inconsistent, as the plates and mechanism are hard to dial in, and have a tendency to loosen. It is good enough to get you started with some experiments, though. |
No-egg egg-wash
Is there anyway to get sesame/poppy/etc. seeds to stick to a loaf of bread without using an egg wash?
A family member with an egg allergy means that I cannot use eggs anymore. | You can brush with melted butter, oil, milk, cream, honey, maple syrup, yogurt...water would even likely work. |
How can I get a thicker coating when enrobing something in chocolate?
I'm trying to make dark-chocolate-covered marzipan balls, using Valrhona Guanaja 70%.
My problem is that the chocolate coating is too thin; the end result has a) too low a ratio of chocolate to marzipan, so the flavors aren't balanced, and b) a hole in the bottom, where I place the balls on a silicone mat after coating them. I'd really like a thicker (1-2mm) coating, including on the bottom.
My first thought was to let the chocolate cool and thicken further before dipping; below 26C/80F. That did help to get a thicker coating, but reheating it from that point, after the temperature dropped too low, seemed to cause issues with the tempering of the chocolate.
Googling this, I found endless questions about how to achieve a thinner coating, but nothing about how to get a thicker one.
It seems possible to get an arbitrarily thick coating using a spherical mold, but marzipan can't really be piped into the sphere.
Is there a trick to getting a thicker layer when enrobing? Do I just need to be more patient with my approach of letting the chocolate cool, or do a better job of tempering it in the first place? | The first suggestion is to let the chocolate get cooler - which will help in two ways:
Less runny material from the start and less time until the chocolate starts to set, resulting in less runoff overall.
Yes, it means you will be walking that fine line between just right and too firm, but my favorite trick for that is to prepare a comparatively large amount of dipping chocolate and rely on thermal mass to help me get through as many pieces as possible.
Holes at the bottom can be avoided by using a wire rack instead of a mat, although this can come with its own pitfalls.
And ultimately, you can always double-coat your marzipan to get a thicker coating. |
Adding chili powder to a dish makes it dark black
Chili powder was homemade, Chilies were dried and sent to nearby mill to grind and make it fine. When I started using this powder it makes the dish black and it looks black but tastes fine. Wondering what contaminated the powder, does anyone have any similar experiences? | I make my own chili powder by drying (already dried) chilies in the oven till crispy. I then add them to a food processor and grind them to a rough powder.
The result is a very dark chili powder that will often darken what it is added to substantially. If I cover a steak with it the steak is blackened. Adding it to lighter soups and stews also darkens them substantially.
As you send your chili powder out to be professionally ground it likely comes out much more finely ground than my inexpensive, old, food processor. And because of that is likely to color anything you add it to more than mine.
Like @GdD said I would bet this is what is happening with your chili powder. |
What dough recipes are suitable for "shaping" with a piping bag?
I have made cookies based on this recipe, and we have really liked the taste. The appearance was not ok but not perfect, partly because my make-a-ball-and-flatten technique is not great (the outcome is not 100% round), but also because the dough started to stick to my hands 5 minutes after it was out of the fridge.
I wonder if it is possible/reasonable to "shape" these cookies using the piping bag, or maybe you would suggest another way to "shape" them nicely?
Is there a way to tell if the dough will be suitable for a piping bag "shaping", other than try-and-see-if-it-works method? | I can't answer the question about piping so much (but see my comment about recipes meant for cookie presses), but I think I can help you with your problem.
Depending on how firm the dough is, you might be able to reduce the time that it takes to shape the balls, and thus increase the number of balls that you can shape before the dough gets to be sticky:
First, I would chill the dough in logs, rather than just the whole bowl. Place it over waxed paper or plastic wrap in a bit of a line, then roll the paper (or wrap) around the dough. You can sometimes tighten it up the log by folding the wrap in half, then pushing on the log with the edge of a sheet pan or cutting board before you roll it up.
Then, you can take a single log out of the fridge, unwrap it, and cut it into bits, and then roll each one. For more problematic dough, you can cut up half of the log, and then return the uncut half to the fridge while you shape the others. I've even cut up a log (using a table knife, so I didn't cut through the paper/wrap), then put the whole thing back in the fridge to cool back down.
As moscafj has mentioned, gloves might help. But because the dough might not stick to them as well, but they'll also insulate your hands so the warmth doesn't affect the dough. You can also try rolling the balls in your fingers, rather than the palms of your hands, as your palms are warmer. Depending on how sticky the dough is, you can sometimes roll balls out on the counter or cutting board, using just one hand, which might also help reduce how much you warm them. |
Is there a way to dilute oil?
I like to drink protein shakes, but I find that it's very hard to dissolve the protein powder into water or milk. You get clumps, and unless you want to get your blender dirty or spend ten minutes whisking you're out of luck. Recently I've started experimenting, and I've made some discoveries that could solve this problem.
First off, my protein powder dissolves in oil. I can dissolve it in oil then add water, and then instead of clumps I'll just have two separate layers, one with protein powder dissolved in oil and the other water. This is still better than clumps and tastes super creamy, but obviously this is much more calorie dense and kinda defeats the purpose of drinking protein shakes.
My next experiment was to try adding as little oil as possible. I added just enough oil to the protein powder to get the texture of wet sand, then added my water and stirred. This seemed to create an emulsification although there were some small clumps, but I think with some refinement I could get clump free emulsions using this technique. My theory is that when I added the water it mixed slowly with the oil and protein since the oil protein mixture was still in mostly solid form, and this allowed an emulsion to form while it could not in the previous case. But that's just a guess. Just like with the previous method, this was delicious but unhealthy.
So, is there something else I could try dissolving my protein powder in, or something I could dilute my oil with so it will still dissolve the powder but be less calorie dense? I'm using some sort of vegan protein powder with added emulsifiers. I can tell you what kind of protein it is later if it helps, but I suspect I'd get similar results with whey protein. | It doesn't actually dissolve. It disperses (easily seen as some will eventually settle out). The distinction is important, as dissolving could be solved by time or heat.
A few things may help when mixing with water (or milk):
Make a paste with the powder and a little water, then dilute
(this is what I do for protein shakes) Put a little water in the bottle. Add the powder on top and put the lid on. Shake briefly but vigorously. Add more water to about 1/3 full, shake again. Top up to 2/3 full, shake a final time. If you insist on using a blender, a similar approach might be good. It stops the clumps forming stuck to the sides where they're hard to get free. This is normally with whey derivatives. I've tried it with a plant-based powder but it was too disgusting to drink.
I've never used them (because they wouldn't fit in the bike bottles I use for shakes) but there are mixing balls. They're basically a whisk made of wires and makes the shaking more effective. |
Is there residual alcohol in various vinegars?
How much, if any, alcohol is left when vinegar is made from alcoholic products? Does this differ between different types of vinegar, such as malt, red wine, white wine and spirit vinegars?
The context is a desire to absolutely avoid alcohol. This includes de-alcoholised products that may contain trace quantities. | Yes, there is some alcohol in vinegar.
Estimates of Ethanol Exposure in Children from Food not Labeled as Alcohol-Containing, Gorgus et al., Journal of Analytical Toxicology 2016 discusses a range of sources of alcohol exposure, some of which might be surprising.
Among them is white wine vinegar, which is quoted as having 2.6 g/l. That's around 0.25% ABV (vinegar is mostly water, and acetic acid has a similar density to water, so close enough). I can see no reason for other real (brewed) vinegar to have appreciably less. Consuming a unit/standard drink of alcohol would mean drinking large quantities of pure vinegar (a UK unit is 8 g of pure ethanol, so that would mean drinking about 3 litres of vinegar), so for the majority of people this wouldn't be an issue; indeed the human body produces several grams per day (Wikipedia link, but see the cited source for this claim for a full review).
However if someone is trying to completely avoid consuming any alcohol, vinegar would seem to be off limits. There are alternatives, such as "non-brewed condiment" a malt vinegar substitute made from industrially produced acetic acid, water, and flavours. Similar products may legally be allowed to be sold as vinegar in some countries - they should be cheap, and include "acetic acid" on the list of ingredients (see Wikipedia's article for links to other languages).
It appears to be possible for consumers to buy food-grade acetic acid at high concentrations. This would need to be diluted significantly. One brand I found was described as 70% acetic acid; as common vinegar is no more than about 5%, you'd need something like 1 part of that 70% product to 12 parts water (or fruit juice, or a mixture of the two) and undiluted it should be handled as a nasty chemical rather than as a food (protect eyes and skin, avoid inhaling fumes).
Industrial production is done directly, without the alcohol intermediate step, so can be assumed to be alcohol-free and would also allow some distance from the alcohol industry, if that's related to the motivation.
Returning to the paper I linked at the start, some other foods may be surprisingly high in alcohol. Some breads, for example have over 1% by weight (though others have no detectable alcohol). Very ripe fruit has some, and fruit juices contain tiny quantities, with the highest figure detected in the juices around 1/3 of that in vinegar, at less than 0.1%, though of course fruit juices are often consumed in larger quantities than vinegar. Perhaps the natural level found in fruit juices could be regarded as a practical threshold to consider functionally zero, barring any medical reason to go still further. |
Why did my oatmeal and raisin cookies end up tasting soapy?
I've made oatmeal cookies twice, and both times they have ended up tasting "soapy" and a touch bitter - the first time really strongly, the second less so, but still badly enough that I have to throw them away.
The details of the first attempt are lost to time, but the second time I used this recipe. I think I followed it pretty accurately.
The only theories I have right now are:
The bicarbonate of soda has a naturally soapy flavour (does it?), and I didn't fully finish cooking the cookies (I like them quite chewy - they definitely had a tan on top but probably could have had at least another 2-3 minutes in the oven before burning I suspect). But I baked them for around 15 minutes, more than the recipe anyway.
The oats were a little old (the packet was probably about two months old), and maybe they'd gone bad? But they looked fine, and when I cooked some not that long ago for breakfast, they seemed fine.
Do either of these seem plausible, or is there another possible explanation? | Soap is effectively a base (eg baking soda) reacted with a fat (eg oil). Also, heating baking soda can cause it to convert into sodium carbonate, which is a much stronger base.
I would suspect you're on the mark with suspecting the baking soda. The recipe calls for only a quarter of a teaspoon, so it would be very easy too add too much. |
Dumping hot water without steam burns
Does anyone know a technique to prevent rising steam from burning you when you are dumping hot water into a sink?
For example, putting a strainer into the sink and pouring off water from spaghetti. The rising steam hits your hands and face. I have tried running cold water into the sink as I pour off the hot water. Helps some, but not enough. | Do not hold your hands (and especially not your face) over the strainer. Hold the pot to one side, and don't turn it upside down, just tip it. If you need to look over to be sure the water is headed to the right place, pour slowly until you've established that, then move your head out of the steam and pour more quickly.
If you can't keep your hands away from the rising steam (because of the size of your pot or your sink or whatever) then wear oven mitts on your hands as you hold the pot to drain it. |
How is this lasagna pasta supposed to be cooked?
I will try to do lasagna and I have doubts about how to deal with the pasta. The bolognese and bechamel sauces are fine (at least I know how to approach them).
The problem I am having is with these "pre-cooked" lasagna pasta sheets (this is in France, Barilla is a very common brand of pasta over here)
Instead of a written description of how to use them, they only went for a few icons:
What does the first icon mean?
It could be a part of the bechamel sauce recipe, but it misses everything else (the roux, etc.).
Am I supposed to boil 0.9L of milk, pour it in the flat bowl, then put the sauce (I cannot believe that, maybe a first layer of pasta on top of the milk? - still does not make a lot of sense) and then the layers of bechamel and sauce?
In other words: where does this 0.9L of milk go?
EDIT: on The French Barilla site they have a section with recipes, including a few lasagnas using the pasta I have. https://www.barilla.com/fr-fr/recettes/collezione/lasagnes-a-la-sauce-napoletana-et-legumes-grilles for instance mentions milk only in the context of the bechamel sauce.
FINAL EDIT: I got a message from Barilla telling me that the first icon is "the recipe for bechamel"... Well never mind. I had the bolognese sauce done my own way and I used a 50 g flour + 50 g butter (roux), + 0,9L milk and the texture & amount was perfect. Thanks everyone. | Barilla say their lasagne is no-cook (not all lasagne is), so I can only assume they expect you to make your béchamel with 900ml milk, then use a jar of their bolognese sauce in the alternate layers. It's a tad lacking in precision, for sure.
Personally, i'd just search a no-cook lasagne recipe online, as the liquid balance is pretty important for lasagne - too much & it's like soup & slime, too little & it's a brick.
I just checked Barilla sites & recipes around the world, most Barilla is no pre-cook - it also says that on your box - only their wavy lasagne is pre-cook. |
Swordfish Ceviche
I messed up my ceviche. I totally forgot to use frozen fish ( I used swordfish). I did The whole process until I realized my mistake. Should I throw it in the garbage? Or washed and freeze it.. or what.. please help | Obviously, you'll have made your decision by now, but for posterity:
Swordfish is a deep-sea fish. As such, there are very few parasites that can cross over from its flesh to humans; pretty much the only ones are a few species of roundworm, the worst of which is the Anisakis worm. Swordfish are less prone to roundworm infections than some other fish, but such infections are not unknown. Marinating in acid kills some roundworm larvae, but not 100%.
This means that whether or not you're willing to eat marinated swordfish that has never been frozen is really dependent on your personal risk assessment; we can't give medical advice here. All I can say is that the risk of infection is very small, but not zero. |
English mustard vs. "german" mustard
I am from Germany and I want to cook a recipe that has "English mustard" in it. I don't really know the difference between different kinds of mustard.
For example, the mustard I mostly use here in Germany is this one:
https://www.bautzner.de/de/Produkte/Senfklassiker/Senf-mittelscharf
It's just called mustard. Is english mustard something different? Is the one I know more of a yellow/ american mustard or something else entirely? | The German „Mittelscharfer Senf“ ist pretty wimpy compared to the average English mustard that looks deceptively similar.
You need something that packs more punch, if you can’t get proper English mustard (the Coleman’s in the other answer is occasionally available in German stores), a Dijon mustard (Maille is a commonly seen brand) will do, or a „Scharfer Senf“ (strong/sharp mustard) of a German brand. |
Is there anything I can use in pumpkin custard to replace salt?
I am on a strict low salt diet. Have been looking for pumpkin custard recipes and all have salt. If it's for flavor only, which spice(s) could I add or increase to kick it up a bit? | You can certainly omit salt from a pumpkin custard recipe. It's there as a flavor enhancer, to provide contrast to the sweetness. The texture of the custard will be just fine without it. Desserts without salt can sometimes seem insipid, but the mixture of spices in pumpkin custard should prevent that issue. I wouldn't add any additional spices.
Sometimes I forget to add the salt to a pumpkin pie, and no one notices the omission. Pumpkin pie filling is basically the same as a pumpkin custard.
Some pumpkin custard recipes have a pecan topping, which would add some additional texture and flavor. The pecan topping is a mixture of pecans, brown sugar and melted butter, sprinkled on top of each custard before baking.
Or you could make candied pecans as an optional topping. As with the custard it will be fine to omit the salt. If you're serving guests and not all of them are on a low-salt diet, you could make two batches of candied pecans, one salted and one unsalted.
edit: as chasly mentioned, if you are on a low-sodium diet there are various salt substitutes that don't have sodium, such as potassium chloride. I can't specifically recommend them because I haven't tried them. Potassium chloride is often described as having a metallic taste. The benefit of having some saltiness might be outweighed by the metallic taste, but it might be worth experimenting. You could split a batch of unsalted custard and add salt substitute to one half. |
Can I dehydrate homemade sausage with a dehydrator?
Is it safe to dry homemade sausages that have been cured with Cure #1 in a dehydrator instead of hanging them out to slowly dry? The dehydrator I have goes from 90F to 190F. | Safety concerns aside (although this is related), the issue with this approach is case hardening. That is, the sausage, salumi, or whole muscle dries too quickly and unevenly. The exterior becomes too dry, while the interior is not dry enough. The hardening of the exterior, then further limits the drying of the interior. Hanging meat to dry, in the appropriate environmental conditions, leads to an evenly and appropriately dried final product. I would not recommend a dehydrator in this situation. With a constant warm airflow, case hardening is inevitable. |
Is there a reason to not grate cheese ahead of time?
Suppose I know that I'm going to eventually end up grating all of my cheese. Is there a reason to not just toss it all into a blender and store it for later? To be more concrete, I'm particularly interested in the answer as it pertains to Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano, both the bonafide sorts and any variations that can be sold under the same name in the United States. | You should only grate cheese as needed, particularly the cheeses you mention. When you grate cheese you create more surface area. That is more surface exposed to air and oxidation, which will degrade the flavor and aroma of the cheese. It is also more prone to drying out further degrading the quality. The cheeses you mention are best when grated for immediate use, but stored in chunks, wrapped and refrigerated. |
Are any corn products in the United States made from nixtamalized corn?
I believe polenta, corn meal, grits, and corn flour are not. But how about tortilla corn chips you buy at the supermarket? This is what I am looking for!
I have a link to a quora question that I believe is wrong in that it says most corn products in the United States are but I read just the opposite on other sources.
Still searching, this is a tough question. Here is the link which gives various opinions. https://www.quora.com/Why-isn-t-nixtamalization-a-standard-process-for-corn-production-outside-of-Central-or-South-America-European-settlers-seem-to-have-just-ignored-and-eliminated-the-process
P.S. After posting this I discovered a corn chip made with mesa flour! It's called Calidad. It's the only one so I assume the quora answer is incorrect. If it does not list as mesa flour probably the corn meal is not nixtamalized. | Masa Harina is nixtamalized corn flour, as is anything made from it. So, most corn tortillas you can buy are, as are premade tamales, sopes, etc. While you may come across varieties made from non-treated corn flour (be suspicious of anything bright yellow), most are treated. Corn/tortilla chips are a little bit more of a mixed bag; some are made from corn flour and some from masa, and it's pretty hard to tell from the labeling which is which.
Hominy is also nixtamalized, as are grits, and any product made from/with grits (no, grits and polenta are not the same thing). There's another kind of masa, called masarepa, which is used to make arepas. This isn't an exhaustive list, but should be sufficient to show that yes, we are eating nixtamalized corn in the United States. |
How can I hold a battered Mars bar in a deep fryer without leaving any chocolate exposed?
I made a deep-fried Mars bar today. When I was initially lowering it in the oil I held it with tongs, and when I released, the part where the tongs were touching had left the chocolate exposed. I hurriedly fished it back out, holding it by another part (already slightly crisped by then) and dipped it back in the batter to seal the exposed part. It worked ok but I couldn't help thinking there's a better way. | Put in on a stick. Depending on the size of the bar a toothpick may be sufficient. Just make sure the batter covers the stick a little where it goes into the bar. |
Identifying a type of Pizza Topping
I was looking at the tiny nation of Brunei on Google Maps, and I noticed they have a Pizza-Hut there, not too many details but a few photos were attached and there was a Pizza that I didn't recognise, although I must say it looked rather intriguing!
If I'm totally honest, I don't even know if it is savoury or some kind of dessert, so I have attached a copy.
I did attempt a reverse image search but I couldn't seem to see a very similar match, so I hope that the experts here might know?
.
I will be very grateful if someone can identify this, or even perhaps have a recipe?
Yours, Humbly!
Hungry from Heanor :) | I can understand your confusion, but this is assuredly not a dessert pizza. The white circles of sauce, while they look like icing in appearance, are actually Ranch Dressing.
For comparison, here is a pizza that someone made themselves on Reddit. While I wouldn't say it is common to put ranch on pizza, it is definitely something that people do, for better or for worse. (See Edit)
The rest of the pizza is a bit more difficult to identify. I can see that there are chunks of lean meat, which I initially assumed were tomatoes, but I believe the texturing and crisp edges indicate meat more than tomato. It's hard at the moment to know which, specifically.
It might be the end of the answer here. However, the piece of information that this is specific to the Brunei pizza hut allowed me to finetune my search a bit, and I found this:
There are higher res images of this available on Google, if you want to look into it. This Pizza is a Brunei specialty, "Honey Garlic Chicken Pizza." Looking at the various sample images, I feel fairly confident that this is the pizza in question. The biggest difference is how much less green the flecks of green are in your image, but it wouldn't surprise me that a real Pizza Hut would use slightly less ideal-looking ingredients than their marketing images would suggest.
While it does not seem to come with ranch by default, Pizza Hut allows for customization of orders, so probably this pizza had Ranch added to it, whether by the restaurant or by the customer afterwards.
If you'd like more pictures of the pizza in question, minus ranch, you can search for "pizza hut brunei honey garlic chicken".
Let me know if anything doesn't quite check out.
Edit: Pulling this into the answer from comments below, for posterity.
I found this near the end of my investigating as well: pizzahut.com.bn/upload/images/pizza/ButterChickenMasala.jpg the image is labeled 'Butter chicken Masala' and has the trademark swirl, which I originally thought was ranch, but actually might be milk or cream.
Essentially, I have very little confidence in my original answer at this point. I would give 70-30 odds that your pizza is actually a Butter Chicken Masala pizza rather than the Honey Garlic that I initially thought, and odds are good that the white topping isn't even ranch like I originally assumed. |
What is meant by "skim" a caramel?
I am trying to make caramel ice cream from the Silver Spoon. I'm not entirely sure what they mean by the word "skim" at the start of the recipe:
Put the sugar (100g) in a pan with 1 tbsp cold water and set over a low heat until it has melted. Increase the heart to medium, skim and, when it goes golden red in colour, pour in 5 tbsp hot water and remove from the heat.
There was a bit of a crust of bubbly sugar on the top surface of the pan, but how are you supposed to skim that? Perhaps it's something lost in translation from the original Italian recipe? | I am also rather puzzled by it, but I must also say that the recipe is somewhat unusual. There is the dry method for caramel (sugar only) and the wet method (sugar dissolved in sufficient water), I have never seen it done with such slight wetting of water though. So I am not that surprised by the further irregularity.
I can see two possibilities for interpretation here. The first one would be that it is a translation/editing/autocorrect mistake, and that you are meant to stir the caramel. While one expects recipes to be better proofread than that, it can happen, and in this way of doing it, this is indeed the correct time for stirring (and it is a good thing to say so explicitly, so you don't try stirring earlier, which can ruin the caramel).
The second one is that it is indeed meant for skimming foam. Sugar solutions can form foam, which is usually noticeable in jam making. I have never had any significant foam form during caramel making, but it is possible that either the author made it under conditions which somehow produce more foam, or that they believe that the minimal foam formation that likely happens when the water boils off needs skimming. I wouldn't personally see this as an important step, but as I said, the recipe is already unconventional.
In the end, if you feel uncomfortable following these exact unusual instructions, you can either disregard the skimming step, or make a caramel in a way you are comfortable with. By "caramel" I mean pure caramel, not the combination of caramel and cream and/or butter that is also commonly called "caramel" in English speaking countries nowadays. Then proceed with the rest of the recipe as per the book. Or, just find another recipe for caramel ice cream - recipes which are confusingly written are always at a higher risk at failure, either because the author didn't know what they are doing, or because they didn't manage to transfer the knowledge well. |
What would result from not adding fat to pastry dough?
I'm preparing some form of pastry. The usual ingredients: flour, water, and shortening. What would happen if I don't add shortening? | You'd end up with something somewhere between unleavened bread, pasta & laminate flooring, depending on what else you did with it.
The first two are what you'd get if that's how you treated them, the last is what you'd get if you thought you were going to get shortcrust pastry ;)
Late edit
This started out as one of my more flippant short answers, but has since hit the HNQ* list so naturally falls under more scrutiny.
The point of the 'flooring' aspect is that simple flour & water can be used as anything from wallpaper paste raw, or heated & dried as 'hard tack' which really is hard enough to break your teeth.
Pasta can also be made this way, you can omit both egg & oil, then dry it. Try eating dried pasta without re-hydrating.
Of course, such as chapattis are also made simply with flour & water (a splash of oil is optional) This, rolled & dry-heated is of course, absolutely delicious - so it's the treatment after mixing that determines the end product… & its actual edibility.
What you will never get from omitting all fat is pastry… & we're back round to my flooring joke.
*Hot network questions - in the side bar on the right.
From Comments (Thank you PLL) - Glen Baxter said it best (even if he had a different flour in mind) |
Is there any benefit to mixing bread dough by hand?
A lot of bread making guides recommend mixing the dough by hand (as opposed to a wooden spoon, dough whisk or electronic mixer). Is there any actual benefit to the dough from this method? Or is it just a tradition? | You can achieve great results by hand or using a machine, it's a matter of technique. I prefer kneading by hand as it has the advantage that you can feel the texture of the dough change, and through experience you know when a dough is right. Hand kneading also is good for gauging the hydration of the dough, as you can feel if it seems to dry or too moist and act accordingly. Through practice you get to know when a dough too sticky, and sprinkle just the right amount of flour on to get it just right, or add a few grams of water to open it up.
A machine is less work, but as you aren't feeling the dough as you go it's harder to gauge when it's kneaded right, and it's easy to overdo it and get a tough dough. With a machine it's also harder to know if the hydration level is right as you aren't feeling it. You can remedy that by stopping often to feel the dough, which is what some people do, and through experience get good results. |
Are these Indonesian milk products cheese, yogurt, or curd?
In Indonesia there are various traditional milk products (excluding tofu, which is made from soya milk, which isn't really milk at all)
This is one I found on an Indonesian e-commerce site:
This is called 'susu/dali/bagot horbo/kerbau' ('milk buffalo' in Batak/Indonesian language). As far as I can tell dali and bagot both mean milk, or possibly breasts. There is not an obvious etymological connection between 'dali' and 'dahi', which is a Hindi word for 'curd'.
They seem to use papaya leaves, sisal, grated unpeeled pineapple or pea eggplant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaEVi-4_0Bo
Essentially the fresh buffalo milk is cooked with an acid to reduce the water. I think there is not necessarily any process of pressing, but you end up with curds, which I'm not sure is 'cheese'?
This is 'dadih', which is from the Minang region, which is not far away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ybKzbAXkKU
It seems to involve buffalo milk being boiled to kill bacteria, and then placed in bamboo where presumably lactic acid bacteria are, which fairly obviously make yogurt. (Which is not cheese) The word 'dadi(a)h' here seems to be close to Hindi दूध (doodh), or milk. There was a lot of commerce between Sumatra and India so this is not surprising
This is another 'cheese', dangke, from another island, Sulawesi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWQbA7pd7-0
The process involves the sap from papaya skin being extracted and added to boiling fresh milk to curdle it. The curds are then strained in a sieve and lightly squeezed, then traditionally placed into a coconut shell.
I haven't tried it, however whereas dali ni horbo seems to be sold in the same way as tofu, floating in its 'whey', dangke seems to be slightly drier, and is usually sold in banana leaves:
This blog claims that cheese is fermented
https://thehungrybiologist5889.wordpress.com/2018/03/15/indonesian-cheese-dangke-from-enrekang-south-sulawesi/
and it's possible that 'being fermented' is part of the definition of cheese. (E.g., yogurt is made by fermenting milk with bacteria; if you strain yogurt then you have what I believe should be called cheese.)
However I don't see any fermentation in this process. The milk curdles, because of the papein, or acids, or whatever, and then it's squeezed a bit, placed into coconut shells and then banana leaves for sale. It seems unlikely that there's any significant impact on flavour due to banana leaves. Possibly you could age it, in the same way that rotten tofu or tempeh is often considered tastier than fresh, but this does not seem to be an essential part of the process.
Perhaps the definition above of 'cheese' is wrong, or overly prescriptive. Is there a reasonable boundary between when something stops being 'curdled milk', and starts being 'cheese', or indeed stops being 'strained yogurt', and starts being 'cheese'? | As for the background of the question - no, there is no "reasonable boundary", and it would be highly irregular to have one. Linguistic categories (as opposed to, say, mathematical sets) always have clear centers and partial membership, which creates fuzzy boundaries and a lot of overlap. Especially in cases such as you describe, using a classification which was created in one cultural context (the distinction between cheeses and yogurts in European food) to describe items from a different cultural context (food from Southeast Asia), it is absolutely normal to find that most items do not fit any category particularly well.
And now to the concrete question you are asking. In the classification you are using, a cheese is created by curdling milk with rennet into curds and then draining and ripening them to get the final product. Prototypical cheeses in Western European cultures would be Gouda or Emmental. However, "unripe cheeses" are also known, which basically mean you consume a product that is closer to curds than to ripened cheese - for example, quark, cream cheese and cottage cheese. Yogurt and other fermented dairy wasn't even that popular I believe, before Mechnikov started promoting it in the 20th century. But it is made with only lactic fermentation, with the intention to be spoonable and sour, rather than firm and salty. It also behaves differently from fresh cheeses - if you try to bake a yogurt mixture as a pastry filling, you will end up with it splitting, while a quark mixture will work well. Cheese can be fermented after curdling (feta ferments in its brine, and the holes in Swiss cheese come from bacterial activity), this doesn't make them any less of a cheese.
Your confusion here may come not only from the classification, but also from a minor linguistic hiccup - in Indian English, the word "curd" means the same product which in British and US English is called "yogurt", it is just a false cognate. So don't be surprised when you find blog posts written by Hindi-speaking authors who use it this way. The word "curd" exists in BE and AE, but it is never used for a finished product, it is an intermediate stage in the making of cheese.
So for the three examples you mentioned (just based on your description, I haven't eaten Indonesian food):
Essentially the fresh buffalo milk is cooked with an acid to reduce the water. I think there is not necessarily any process of pressing, but you end up with curds, which I'm not sure is 'cheese'?
This is cheese, more specifically it should be categorized as an unripe cheese. Most Europeans would likely consider it a form of paneer.
It seems to involve buffalo milk being boiled to kill bacteria, and then placed in bamboo where presumably lactic acid bacteria are, which fairly obviously make yogurt.
Your description here is unclear. If a yogurt culture is added, then it is yogurt. If the fermentation depends on wild cultures, it is not a yogurt, the proper English term would be buttermilk (used in the modern sense, not in the classic one).
The process involves the sap from papaya skin being extracted and added to boiling fresh milk to curdle it. The curds are then strained in a sieve and lightly squeezed, then traditionally placed into a coconut shell.
This is again not a yogurt, but a cheese, and again it seems to be an unripe cheese. Again, just because the prototypical cheeses are curdled with rennet, it doesn't mean that cheeses curdled by other methods are not cheeses. |
Weird air pockets/bubbles on bottom of cake
I've been baking this recipe for over a year now, flavour and texture are wonderful, the guests love it but half of the time I get these air pockets on the bottom of the cake.
The air pockets appear at the center of the bottom and also at the sides. Sometimes they're barely there, sometimes they're big enough that I'm unsure if i'll serve it to guests (for exemple when they're 3cm height).
Recipe is as follows:
150g cashew nuts (roasted, unsalted) chopped in a food processor
30g white flour
125g sugar
pinch of salt
4 egg whites, lightly beaten with a fork
150g butter, heated untill brown
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Everything at room temperature.
Preparation is staightfoward: mix dry ingredients, add egg whites, add butter and vanilla. Cooks at 160~180C for 45~50m untill golden brown. Lower temperatures do not make the bubbles disappear.
What causes these air pockets? Has anyone faced a similar issue before? | That happened to me as well. Luckily it doesn't change the taste, but it is annoying! It comes from air pockets which formed because you whisked/mixed your cake batter too intensely, and/or for too long, which creates air bubbles. So first, it is best to mix your ingredients delicately, try to avoid incorporating too much air (easier said than done), and stop whisking once your batter reached the desired homogeneous consistency (overwhisking is a common mistake). Then, when you pour your cake batter in the pan, it's better to avoid pouring it all at once in the center, it will also create air bubbles. It's better to pour it delicately from one corner and let it spread by itself in the dish. Finally, before putting in the oven, tap (delicately) the bottom of your pan on the counter to free the remaining air bubbles and let them reach the surface before cooking.
I hope that will help, let me know! |
How do I increase the amount of store bought peanut butter from 1/2 cup to 1 cup in a peanut butter brownie recipe?
I have a chewy peanut butter brownie recipe that uses 1/2 cup JIF peanut butter. The recipe also includes 1/3 cup butter; 1 cup flour; & 2 eggs.
I want to increase the amount of peanut butter to 1 cup, so that I end up with a significantly higher percentage of peanut butter in the brownie, but the same amount of batter. What adjustments do I make to successfully increase the peanut butter to 1 cup? Since I am ONLY doubling the peanut butter how will the measurements of flour, butter, & eggs be affected?
I also have a fudgy brownie recipe that is my go to. Can I just match the measurements of the peanut butter brownie ingredients to the measurements of the fudgy brownie recipe with the exception of the amount of butter? The quantity of butter (I do use real butter), used in the fudgy brownie recipe is 1 1/4 cups. Would decreasing the amount of butter from 1 1/4 cup to 3/4 cup and adding 1/2 c of peanut butter work?
I want a chewy & fudgy peanut butter brownie. | It is possible to substitute regular butter with any nut butter (like peanut butter), it will add a nutty flavour of course but this shouldn't be an issue since there's already peanut butter included. The difference is the fat content however, have a look at this post that explains it quite well.
They mentioning adding oil to the peanut butter and mixing it to get a more butter-like effect. So you could add 1/2 cup of peanut butter (this is in addition to the 1/2 cup that's already included making it 1 cup of peanut butter total) with 1/2 cup of oil (I recommend coconut for best flavour with baking) and change the amount of butter to 1/4 cup (removing 1 cup as the substitute).
1 1/4 cup butter = 1/2 cup peanut butter + 1/2 cup oil + 1/4 cup of butter
This gets pretty complicated but is likely the most accurate. If you're open to experimenting a bit, I would honestly just try it without the oil and see how they come out, hopefully the difference in texture isn't noticeable enough. |
Blackstrap molasses vs regular molasses
I'm aware of how molasses and refined sugar are made from sugar cane and how brown sugar is white sugar with molasses added back to it.
But -- how "different" are the three grades of molasses (light, dark, and blackstrap) when they can be used together with sugar?
I understand light molasses have more sugar than dark or blackstrap. But does that simply mean that light molasses is exactly the same as "white sugar + dark molasses" ? And likewise, dark molasses is identical to "white sugar + blackstrap molasses" ?
I'm curious if I can simply just use blackstrap molasses only and just add however much white/refined sugar as needed (to balance out), rather than having to specifically use "light" or "dark" molasses (especially in things that might get blended, where everything is going to get very "well-mixed" anyway!). | Blackstrap molasses isn't exactly just light molasses with less sugar. It's been cooked for longer during the refining process, leading to more Maillard browning. But that's not a major effect. If you add some sugar and a bit of water to blackstrap molasses, you'll basically have light(er) molasses. |
Does liquid smoke differ in intensity from brand to brand and if yes, how to compensate?
Does the intensity of the flavor of liquid smoke differ significantly from brand to brand?
If yes, suppose I'm following a recipe that calls for a certain amount of liquid smoke. If the brand I'm using is different from theirs, the results could be wildly different. Is there any good method to compensate for any such differences other than just to try and see? | Yes, I have seen gigantic differences in potency. There’s not much you can do about this; if possible, try to use the same brand as the recipe refers to. A saving grace is that liquid smoke doesn’t need to be cooked to release its flavor, so you can be conservative when adding it initially and then add more near the end if you think more smokiness is needed. |
Are non-brisket cuts suitable for corned beef?
I was about to make corned beef brisket again, but I just realized that perhaps brisket is traditionally used only because it used to be the cheapest cut available.
Eye of round for instance is currently half the price of brisket, but it has far less fat and that might significantly change the resulting product.
I'd hate to waste it experimenting, so how should I expect the result to compare with brisket if other cuts are used instead? | I successfully sous vided two 2kg inside rounds:
One I cooked for 36 hours at 160°F, and the other for 10 hours at 180°F.
Slow cooking lost 28% of the weight, while fast cooking lost 36% and made the meat much denser and dryer.
(This demonstrates that it's temperature that forces out the juices, not cooking time.)
Because the fat content was much less, even the slow cooked version was much more solid and dryer in texture than with brisket.
They were still flaky and delicious though, but definitely needed to be served with mustard, mashed potatoes, or other lubricant.
When cold, it was easy to slice them very thinly for sandwiches without their falling apart.
I'll definitely do this again (slow method only), perhaps with some other cut. |
What to add as extra starch for a burger?
A classic burger consists of a beef patty, some salad/ tomato/ onion, a burger bun and some sauces. That already has all the components of a well balanced reasonably healthy meal but a typical burger bun doesn't provide much starch. The classic solution is to take an order of fries on the side. That works but I'm looking for something I can add as an extra layer to the burger.
My first thought was to make a double burger with a beef patty and a vegan burger patty but the vegan patties are usually high in protein because they try to imitate the meat.
What are good options to add as an extra layer in my burger to make the burger a more balanced meal? | One option would be a hash brown - that's mainly potato, so starchy and tasty. It's like putting the fried in the burger. You could also add another layer of bread of some sort, as in some commercial double burgers.
If you actually want to get closer to dietary guidelines, you'll need to up the veg. Veggie/vegan burgers are quite variable, so check the labels if you're buying them. Bean burgers for example have a fair bit of carbohydrate as well as being a decent source of protein. |
Yogurt has stopped thickening properly
I've been making yogurt for a bit less than a year, in a multicooker. My first starter was a single-serve cup of skyr, but since then I've just been using the last of the previous batch as the starter for the next. However, for the last few batches, I've been getting much more cloudiness in the whey when I strain it. The last batch, I got four times the volume of slightly-thickened-but-too-thin-for-a-strainer white liquid as I did of yogurt, which is enough loss to make me concerned enough to ask here. I saved the liquid (now jarred in the fridge), and left it to settle; a little normally-clear whey has separated to the top, but that's just the top quarter-inch or so of two pint jars that are otherwise full of white. Is there anything I can do to make yogurt or cheese or something from the liquid? Can the yogurt be salvaged to make good batches again, or will I need to start over with a new store-bought cup? | That happens sometimes, it means that the ecological balance in your yogurt has shifted to some less tasty bacterial strains. There is even a small chance that you picked up something slightly pathogenic.
There is neither a need nor a practical way to shift it back to the original strain. It is best to start with a new, known-good culture. You can get either store-bought yogurt, or pure starter from a type you enjoy.
You can expect this to happen again and again after a long chain of reinocculations, because in home conditions, you don't have perfect control over your fermentation process. It is just part of the life of a yogurt maker to get back to a fresh culture when the homegrown one weakens. |
Name of this jar?
I love this jar for making sauerkraut. Its mouth is as wide as the jar which makes stomping sauerkraut much easier than Ball/Kerr jars. Its glass is thicker than Ball/Kerr jars as well. I bought it at a flea market while visiting Dalton Ohio so there is no one to contact to get another jar. That is Amish country, so I am thinking it might be an Amish made product?
Can anyone identify the name this jar so I can find it on Amazon or google it? I have searched Amazon for "sauerkraut" and ever other variation of fermenting that I can think of. Nothing even similar comes up. | The clips look a lot like my Weck jars. Here is one with a fermenting lid. However, I don't see the fermenting lid on the Weck site. |
DIY Baking Steel?
I am interested in baking on a baking steel. I was wondering if there is an inexpensive DIY way to make one out of steel plate purchased from a local metal retailer or if it would end up costing the same as purchasing a baking steel as a finished product? I found one DIY page on the web at https://www.kamadoguru.com/topic/39939-diy-baking-steel/
but would want to know that the process yields a food-grade result. Any advice or suggestions that someone might share with me would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. | Steels are alloys of different compositions of iron carbon and other metals. Not all steels are considered safe for food as some contain metals or additives that could in some circumstances leach into food, so not just any steel will do.
Baking steels are usually made of A36 steel or stainless steel:
A36 is not stainless, it's commonly used for structural members but is also a popular choice for restaurant griddles. It isn't stainless so it will rust, so you will first have to get the rust off and then oil the steel after every use or season it. It's cheap and has good conductivity
Stainless steel (316 or 430, not 304 as that tends to pit) is more expensive and doesn't conduct heat as well as A36 steel, but it's a lot less maintenance as you don't have to worry about keeping up the seasoning. You can wash these to clean them
Depending on where you are you can get just about any steel cut and shipped to you at any size and thickness. If you ask the shop may soften the edges for you, which is important for safety, if they don't you can do it yourself with an angle grinder and a metal grinding disc. This sounds scary but it's actually pretty easy, just wear eye protection, gloves and old clothes. Whatever steel you buy will need to be cleaned to get any coatings or industrial by-products off before use. |
How to master homemade pasta?
I've made my own pasta for the first time today. While the results were far from bad, it was not perfect. It looked a little bit too "fluffy" when compared to store-bought pasta (I mean the more or less fresh ones you get at the refrigerator and not dried) and once it was cooked it grew too much in size.
I've seen some discussions on this site regarding for instance adding more or less eggs, or only egg yolks, etc.
I would like to know how these proportions affect the pasta in itself. While of course I can eat it how I want, I like to do things as traditional and "rule-following" way as possible. Some questions that come on top of my head are, for instance: What is the effect of adding only yolks, more eggs, less eggs, salt (does it do anything besides taste)? Should the pasta be overworked, or very little?
I understand is a question with multiple questions, I am just looking for general advice on how to master the recipe based on a few factors. | Serious Eats had a pretty thorough discussion of this a few years ago: https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/01/best-easy-all-purpose-fresh-pasta-dough-recipe-instructions.html
They discuss how different egg white / yolk / water proportions affect the pasta, and also touch on some other issues that you mentioned (like salt and that you need to work it sufficiently to develop the correct elasticity), and they also discussed how resting the dough affected it, and had pictures to show how things changed.
And if you're not used to fresh pasta, I would also recommend reading my answer to a related question : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/112587/67 |
Bread maker - is this even a collapse or did it not get started?
I have used the machine successfully several times but something went very wrong today. My machine is an Oster. The top surface is powdery and underneath it is as hard as a rock. Almost looks like power was lost part way through. We did hear it operating for quite a while. What went wrong? | That looks like a measurement error. Not nearly enough liquid. |
How should fully cooked refrigerator stored chicken be reheated to retain moisture?
Why do instructions to reheat already properly cooked and stored chicken say to check internal temperature to 165 if you want to warm it up? The logic escapes me here, does anyone have a clue they can share with me?
The chicken has been already cooked. And is loveingly know as "leftovers". Good in the fridge for 4-5 days and in the freezer much longer. I was looking for a way to keep it moist while wanting to heat it and did not expect this other issue to develop in the process. All the directions on the internet say to check internal temperature for 165 degrees for an already cooked chicken. My logic tells me I don't have to heat it at all, it's already cooked I can just as easily make a cold chicken sandwhich with it. According to google if I choose to have it warm instead of cold then all of a sudden it decides to grow bacteria. Maybe take google with a grain of salt? | Fist, what do you mean by "proper?" If your chicken was correctly cooked, then chilled to refrigeration temperatures within the window for food safety, and stored within the window of safety, you can obviously eat it directly from the refrigerator...or warm it and eat it. No significant bacteria are going to grow, for example, if you remove it from the fridge, stick it in the microwave (or in pan on a stove) and warm it for a few minutes, and eat it. There is just not enough time for anything to incubate. Again, the preceding assumes that you've followed general food safety protocols for your raw product, preparation, cooking, and storage...and you are consuming within the storage life of your food.
Now, if you've got some time, and your goal is to reheat to have an experience as close to the original cooking as possible, the then best tool is to use a sous vide device. It is the most gentle and thorough tool for this job. This is a good explanation. All you have to do is set the device to a degree or two under the original doneness temperature, bag it, and put it in the bath. It's the path toward moist leftover chicken...among other things. |
Why braise pork in milk?
Just reading how a high end caterer is fielding requests for pork in milk for Christmas dinner. I've never heard of that. What advantage does braising pork in milk give? | Maiale al latte, or milk-braised pork, is a classic northern Italian preparation, with variations in Tuscany, Veneto, Bologna, among other locales. Some claim the lactic acid tenderizes the pork. I don't know about that, but when done correctly (IMHO), the milk caramelizes, often curdles, and becomes a delicious, albeit broken, sauce. |
Yellow tail tuna (hamachi) -- is it possible that the sweet taste comes from sugars present in the fish's flesh?
It feels like this might be a stupid question but I can find nothing from googling this and in my experience, anything that tastes sweet tends to have sugar or sugar substitute. | Meat/fish do not contain significant carbohydrate - glycogen is the sugar found in meat, but it is stored in the liver, which DOES contain carbohydrate, though not necessarily sufficiently for liver to be perceived as sweet.
Fish tastes sweet because of free amino acids.
Free amino acids are not to be confused with protein, which is tasteless. Protein is amino acids bonded together. Most amino acids are bound.
This provides total amino acids: https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/yellowtail-fish/
But it does not list free amino acids.
This appears to be a paywalled study of yellowtail FAA https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1982.tb05006.x
You could buy that and study.
82% of crab body meat free amino acids are glycine + alanine https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33721749.pdf
This explains why crab meat tastes sweet. The sweet taste of yellowtail (which is not tuna) could be best evaluated by comparing the FAAs with fish that don't taste sweet. You might also consider the LACK of other flavours in the fish - as something that contains a lot of bitterness might not taste sweet, even with the same amount of sweet-tasting amino acids in it. |
Resting meat - room temperature and bacteria
Many cooks/chefs recommend resting meat. There's a saying of "rest for the same length of time it was cooked".
For steaks this is fine, a 6 or so min cooking time means 6 mins at room temp is okay. But what about a full chicken or turkey? Depending on the size, they're cooked for 2-3 hours or more. Surely it's not safe to let those sit at room temperature for 2-3 hours?
It could rest at room temperature, for example, one hour, then the remaining time in the fridge, but this makes the meat cold, and in fact loses the "freshly cooked" essence to a degree.
So if you want to rest a chicken or turkey for the 3 hours of cooking time, must half of that be in the fridge to avoid bacteria growth? Or is there a better way than the fridge which seems to make chicken/turkey a little tougher after it's been cooled? | There is a rule of thumb
This is not the full story
A cooked turkey should be at 72C. When you take it out of the oven it will start cooling down. As it cools into the 40s bacteria will have good conditions to grow. The turkey is sterile because of cooking but bacteria can attach to exposed surfaces. Cutting the turkey will expose more, and probably your hands will spread bacteria.
It follows that a whole turkey is safer, especially if it is covered, since the inside of the bird will have no bacteria, only the outside.
So the 2 hour rule, which states a turkey rested for 3 hours must be eaten and not refrigerated is not really a one size fits all fact. But it's a rule of thumb when you don't have a lab and culture tests. Ignoring such rules is at your own risk but you can use common sense.
At home you might happily rest a turkey for 3 hours but in a commercial setting this could violate local laws if you kept the leftovers and someone got sick, you wouldn't have a defence and could be criminally liable for failing to follow defined rules. Most commercial health and safety rules err on the side of being more conservative than is necessary, because a dry turkey is better than people getting sick and suing you. Remember that bacteriology is about numbers and we might talk about 6.5D reductions (10^6.5) and McDonalds might use a higher level, and an expensive restaurant is almost certainly on a lower level as shown by many food poisoning cases in fancy restaurants. That's because McDonalds have a huge number of customers so even 1 in 10 million getting sick might be too much for their lawyers, whereas if you are cooking at home then you won't even eat that many meals in your whole life, so probably follow less stringent standards and get sick rarely. |
Pour over coffee : what is needed for a good pitcher replacement?
My pourover coffee pitcher just broke. Its the second time it does this this year, so i guess the maker of this pourover kit is making flimsy glass for their pitchers.
So is there a good replacement for those kinds of pitchers? What is important in a replacement? Does the mouth of the pitcher need to contain the whole filter? Do the sides really need to follow the filter?
Here is how the filter looks like | There are plenty of pour-over coffee funnels with a flared bottom so the funnel can sit on top of a normal pitcher, carafe or coffee cup.
So presumably the pitcher doesn't need to cover the sides of the funnel. Try using a mason jar or any similar heat-resistant container that the funnel fits into the mouth of. If you don't notice any flavor difference, then you know you don't need the glass sides.
There are also pour-over sets that use a stand to hold the funnel, for example:
You could probably improvise a stand. All it really needs is a ring for the funnel to sit in, and a stand to hold the ring the proper height over your pitcher or carafe. An erlenmeyer flask stand or a tripod for using over a bunsen burner would work, eg
(This one is only 5" tall which might be a bit short, but taller ones are available.)
As moscafj pointed out, some carafes are made of boro-silicate glass so they can be used on the stovetop. If that is your intended use, be sure that your substitute carafe is stovetop-safe. |
How to get flavours to infuse into rice
When I try cooking some asian rice dishes, Nasi Lemak, or Hainanese Chicken rice, I always add the "active ingredient" straight into the water used for boiling the rice (Coconut milk and sesame oil respectively in these cases) When cooking they smell really good, however when the rice is done and I taste it tastes bland like normal white rice. How can I make the flavours "go into" the rice? | Nasi lemak means fat rice. The fat is from the coconut milk, which is up to 20% fat depending on how you make it. The fat will change the flavour and mouth feel of the rice but it is not particularly going to give a strong flavour .
The nasi lemak needs aromatics in the rice. These would be lemongrass, ginger and pandan leaf. Pandan leaf is particularly important. The lemongrass and pandan are whole and don't disappear in cooking so will continue to impart aroma to the surrounding rice even after it is cooked.
Nasi lemak is mainly about the condiments so the rice is not supposed to be too strong since you have fried fish, sambal, etc. But with the herbs you will get a good aroma in the rice.
You could also try adding shallots lightly fried before cooking (in addition to the aromatics)
Rice is not really boiled but steamed in SE Asian cooking. Just use a rice cooker. The other ingredients are optional, but coconut milk and pandan leaf are the only 100% essentials.
If making Hainan rice then you should start by frying ginger/garlic paste, then add star anise, cinnamon, cardamom (I am not sure all of these are required), then coat the rice in that. The rice should not be cooked in water but in chicken stock from poaching the chicken. Sesame oil is not for cooking, it is a garnish, so always add it at the end of whatever you are cooking. Again you need pandan leaf in the rice cooker, and lemongrass is unlikely to be a bad idea either. You can add sesame oil when serving. |
What are these brown lines in my apple?
Any ideas on what’s going on in this apple?
I cut into this apple and it had these small brown streaks. The apple itself was firm and looked good on the outside with no obvious spots or bruises. I accidentally ate a small piece and it tasted normal and sweet.
It doesn’t look like a typical maggot nor rot. | From Ask An Expert:
These symptoms are characteristic of a physiological disorder called bitter pit, which is the result of a calcium deficiency. This may be the result of inadequate calcium in the soil.
Bitter pit does not necessarily indicate low soil calcium, although consistent bitter pit for several years certainly points in that direction. Anything that results in excessive foliar growth can cause bitter pit, because calicum gets diverted to the foliar growth. Heavy pruning, excessive nitrogen fertilizer, and excessive irrigation all can lead to bitter pit. |
Recipe word for "not trimmed"
I'm trying to write up a recipe by weight and include both the "cleaned" weight and the "uncleaned" weight. I can't find a good word for "uncleaned" and I'm hoping someone here knows one. "Raw" means "not cooked". "not cored or skinned" is awkward.
For example:
60 g celery, trimmed (start with 1 stalk, uncleaned)
70 g onion, skinned (start with 1/4 onion, uncleaned)
50 g granny smith apple, skinned and cored (start with 1/2 apple, uncleaned)
Is there such a word? | You don't need the "uncleaned" word there at all.
All of the qualitative amounts are just approximates, so "(about 1/4 onion)" works fine. |
Why are Built-in/Wall Microwaves Above Ovens when Stacked?
I've noticed that stacks of built-in/wall ovens and microwaves are almost always installed with the microwave on top and the oven at the bottom, regardless of whether they are single or separate appliances.
This seems counter-intuitive to me for at least these reasons:
A lower hotter oven is more dangerous to roaming children than a lower colder microwave.
When both appliances are operating, the colder microwave might be passively heated by the hotter oven, possibly shortening the microwave's life.
When baking with oven's door partly open (for whatever reason), trying to operate a microwave right above it seems inconvenient with the hot air rising from the oven.
So what am I missing? Why are the appliances always stacked with the microwave on top? | Three reasons:
The microwave oven itself is lighter than the conventional oven, and putting the lighter item at the top makes good construction sense, especially for freestanding oven/range/microwave units. Such freestanding combo units were a lot more common in the early days of home microwaves, so folks got used to that configuration.
The space over the range/above the wall oven was also generally not used for anything important, and that's still the case. So homeowners re-making a kitchen will put the microwave over the oven given that the space is "available".
Items you put into the microwave tend to be lighter than those you put in the stove, so it makes sense for the oven to be lower down. For example, you might put a whole turkey in a heavy basting pan into the oven, but are unlikely to put anything half that large into the microwave.
Of course, if you're designing your own kitchen, it's possible that none of those reasons apply to you. Certainly I did not put my microwave over my oven. |
Which measuring scale should I buy?
I am trying to buy a measuring scale so that I can stop using cups and start measuring by weight. I’m personally not sure which to buy. Here are two options:
Can some experienced bakers out there tell me which would be more convenient (in terms of time, dirty dishes, durability etc.)? If you prefer neither, is there one that you really do prefer?
Note: I’m currently deciding about the “type” of scale, haven’t decided on models or brands yet. | Get a flat one.
You can put a bowl on the flat one & use tare weights*, or even negative weights (put a full pack of something on it then spoon out -150g etc.
The one that's got a built-in bowl has you locked into that system.
It also takes up a whole lot more space.
Personally, I like the completely flat, single surface, glass-topped ones. The glass can be scratched if you're not careful with rough ceramic bases etc, but it's pretty tough & very easy to wipe clean. The more 'fiddly' the top is, the harder it is to keep clean.
From comments
Some cheaper scales apparently cannot do negative weights - which is something I would very much miss. Apparently all modern Salter scales can do this - & as their entry-level is about $£€ 12 & even an expensive one is only about $£€ 30-40 I'd pick one of theirs at whatever suits your price-point. Not expensive for what is essentially a lifetime purchase.
*For sake of completeness, tare weight means you can re-zero the scales at any time - so you can put a bowl on, then zero. Add 50g flour, re-zero… saves you having to keep a running total in your head if you've a complex recipe.
To do negative weights you put a full pack on the scale, zero it then remove the required weight, which will then show as minus figures down from zero - again avoiding any complicated calculation.
Another very neat trick with the tare function is you can weigh 50g flour, then add 'an egg' re-tare & add 140ml water or even 'half a pint', just by swapping units after you press tare. It makes the whole structure very flexible.
Late edit
There is some debate as to whether you want totally flat, or with a sloped display so you can put a bigger bowl on it & still see the numbers. Also, whether you can read the display in low light.
Mine is large enough for every bowl I own. Until this cropped up I'd never even thought of ever putting a plate on it, but yes, that might be an issue.
Mine has a large LED display, so room lighting is not a factor.
Of course, you want one you can always reach the buttons even when loaded.
I suppose, TL:DR
You want anything except one that forces you into always using their bowl ;)
Last note - the 'flat' one in your picture looks like it curves away at front and back. Avoid that too - it makes the useable surface much smaller than it looks. |
Lactic fermentation related question: Is there a relationship between pH, salinity, fermentation magic, and heat?
I am trying to figure out if there is a way to abstract out heat in the Lacto fermentation equation. In fact, I am not even sure if heat is part of the equation.
I know there seems to be a relationship between heat and yeast, but I don't know how or if heat could be a factor in controlling pH after the fermentation process begins, or if heat is just a useful tool independent of pH at that point. | Your question is missing the word 'bacteria'.
All bacteria have a growth curve. These will vary quite a lot by species.
This is the growth curve for salmonella
As you can see the growth peaks around 40C, and there is no growth at 47C.
Salmonella is a pathogen, and we store food at low temperature to inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria.
'No growth' is not the same as death.
The death curve is different:
If you are trying to KILL bacteria, then it's a combination of temperature and time. Bacteria are killed in seconds around about 72C, so that's a safe internal cooking temperature. If you cook sous vide, you can cook at much lower temperatures safely, as an internal temperature of 54C for several hours would also kill the salmonella.
If we are talking about LAB, then we could be for example making yogurt. When we make yogurt, we add a culture of known bacteria to milk, which may have been heated to 72C to kill existing bacteria. Typically a yogurt culture consists of just two species. For the classic yogurt, using S. thermophilus, and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. Bulgaricus, these both grow well at temperatures around 42C. However some yogurts are made with other species, some of which grow better at lower temperatures. For example Lactoccus lactis is much happier around 37C.
If you look at that table, then you can see that L. lactis is relatively more acidophilic than the main yogurt cultures.
The target pH for yogurt should be a fixed number, in that if we were to taste test yogurt at say 4.6 pH against yogurt at say 4.4 pH, then it's likely that we can find an optimum pH which is correct, perhaps +- 0.1 or whatever. Here it follows that if we want to consistently produce good ferments, then we should spend a couple of hundred dollars on a pH testing setup.
It should be apparent that not only do bacteria have a temperature growth curve, they also have a pH curve.
Many pathogens (Salmonella, E. Coli) are classed as neutrophiles:
Many LAB are acidophiles.
By fermenting vegetables with LAB, we reduce the pH to levels unfavourable for neutrophiles. The 'safe' pH of foods is often given as 4.6, but could be 4.4 or 4.5 depending on regulatory requirements.
If we consider the fermentation of, say, a cabbage, then it is likely to be desirable to ferment it anaerobically. This is because LAB do not require oxygen, so by excluding oxygen our LAB still grow but moulds and yeasts do not. The lack of oxygen is so that the specific organism we are targeting (LAB) is the one that is favoured.
In terms of salinity, salt is again there to inhibit bad bacteria. Many harmful bacterial species are salt-intolerant, for example Clostridium Botulinum. This graph shows that L. plantarum, a very important species in vegetable fermentation (though these graphs are strains isolated from Stilton cheese), has roughly the same growth at 0 or 3.5% salinity, slightly slowed at 5%, barely any at 8%, and 10% salinity kills the bacteria.
It follows that if you use WAY TOO MUCH salt, then you may kill some of the bacteria that you want to keep, and if you don't use enough salt then bad bacteria can grow.
This is a combined pH/salinity graph for C. botulinum
If we consider what C. botulinum is, it is not an infectious bacteria like salmonella, but rather one that produces a deadly toxin. Botulinum toxin is not a bacteria, but a protein produced by the multiplying bacteria. So it is desirable for us to have enough salt to keep such pathogens away.
If we return to L. lactis, mentioned earlier, then it follows that if we made yogurt at 37C using a L. lactis + S. thermophilus + L. delbrueckii subsp. Bulgaricus starter, with a target pH of 4.6, then the flavour of the yogurt is going to be quite different from if we made it at 42C, in which case the latter two species would dominate. That is because the resulting yogurt will contain amount of various different compounds (acids, alcohols, esters, ketones, terpenes) depending on which bacteria gets do most of the work, which we can influence by temperature.
Fermenting using naturally occurring LAB from the source is slightly less exact, in that we are typically relying on the naturally occurring LAB (while inhibiting other things using an anaerobic environment, and salt), which could vary depending on what we are fermenting, where it was grown, and so on.
This graph shows the various LAB in a typical sauerkraut ferment over time:
The key thing to note is the effect of Leuconostoc mesenteroides in the early stages of fermentation. L. mesenteroides is referred to as a 'heterofermentative' LAB. This means that it produces not only lactic acid, but also other compounds such as alcohol and flavour compounds. Subsequent LAB during the sauerkraut process are considered homofermentative. This means they produce only lactic acid.
As can be seen here, L. mesenteroides will grow at quite low temperatures:
Comparing to the main homofermentative LAB in sauerkraut
which likes higher temperatures
The result of this is that if you ferment sauerkraut around, say 18C, then the conditions are better for L. mesenteroides which produces flavour, to grow compared to other acid-only species. And, if you consider for example fermenting in a warm environment then it would be useful to start with a cooler temperature. Referring to the population size graph above, it turns out that L. mesenteroides is neutrophilic and is all dead when the pH reaches a lower level, so when the pH is acidic enough, there's no longer much point in cooling things down.
So:
salinity matters mostly to keep bad stuff away, but too much will also inhibit good stuff, and at different amounts for different species, but somewhere starting from 1% is possible, but 3% may be safer.
heat (as in 'not too cold') is required to get things going and different species with different flavours will be active at different rates at different temperatures. When you've reached your target pH, you can stop the fermentation by chilling down a temperature low enough that bacteria no longer grow at all. Or you can kill all the bacteria by heating at this point, which means if kept sterile, then your product can keep for a long time without refrigerating
low pH keeps bad guys away, but too low will taste bad. Not low enough will allow bad bacteria to grow. pH also influences which bacteria are currently growing and as pH drops, then you will get different chemicals produced because different species are taking over, so that a particular compound may become much more concentrated if you allow pH to get too low (and this might taste bad, over and above tasting 'too acid').
If you consider something like a fermented salami, it can keep a long time because it has a low enough pH will act as a preservative almost indefinitely. If you are not storing the meat, then this might be less important.
fermenting more slowly can often give better results, but you'd have to know roughly the bacteria you are working with and which ones are heterofermentative, and their optimum growing conditions for this to happened - it won't always help to lower the temperature.
LAB have different strains, and a cabbage in Thailand is going to have different strains and even LAB species from one from Germany, so it's a little tricky to be sure about exact temperatures and pH levels and such like referring to a book when you are using wild cultures. Safety rules will stay the same, but the conditions required for best flavour are not necessarily the same using vegetables in different countries, so ultimately you might want to experiment with different combinations of time and temperature. |
Grilling on an iron fire pit
While walking home yesterday, I found a discarded fire pit (I initially thought it was a portable grill, but then then realized that it had only a mesh cover).
Some details:
it's essentially an iron bowl with no bottom vents
the lip is ~23", including the outer rim. ~22" excluding it
the grate inside is ~11"
I would like to use this while spending as little money as possible. I assume the biggest downside versus an actual grill is that without a solid cover, I hit lower temperatures, and I'll lose some smoky flavor.
Some questions:
Should I get a wider grate that rests on the lip instead? Or can I get by with having a few coals that the small grate can rest on?
Should I try to find a solid grill cover instead of the mesh?
What would I miss out on if I don't have a cover?
Any other equipment I should have to avoid surprises?
Is it ok that I don't have any bottom vents? Unfortunately I sold my drill a while ago and don't have access to one right now.
Note that while I cook a lot, I grill very rarely and this will be the first time I grill without someone experienced with me - so I'm not looking to get into anything complicated right away; I'm hoping that this will help me practice some basics. | This can easily work as a grill. A cover is not necessary. You simply need a grate that fits over the surface. I would go for a grate that fits over the rim, you don't want to worry about shifting and balance while cooking. Holes in the bottom for air flow would be nice, but again, not necessary.
Start a fire, burn down to coals. You can use the "hand test" to check the temperature. Grill your product.
In a grilling situation, the flavor is initiated from drippings hitting the coals, it is not necessarily a smoking situation, though you will pick up some smoke depending on your fuel. |
What is the physical effect of sifting dry ingredients for a cake?
I notice that for recipes that call to sift the dry ingredients, most usually cakes or cupcakes, there is a noticeable difference in the batter after the wets have been incorporated.
What are the physics for sifting dry ingredients? How does this process result in a light batter? | Originally, before flour was as processed as it is now, sifting helped remove things like twigs and other contaminants.
Sifting just helps remove clumped up dried ingredients (flour, powered sugar, etc, ) so that when you add in the wet ingredients you do not have to mix too hard to remove the clumps.
Edit : When mixing the mixture too hard or too long you risk of "creating" gluten and that will render the cake mix too "bread" like (too dense, too chewy)
You could just use the flour as is and whisk it in the bowl to try to remove the clumps.
see : https://www.thekitchn.com/is-sifting-flour-for-baked-goods-really-necessary-213894 |
Can I bake cookies without baking paper?
I just returned from the store with all the ingredients for baking cookies, and now I notice that I am out of baking paper.
Is there some common household item I can use instead (Regular paper? Tinfoil? Just put them on the raw baking tray?), or do I have to make another trip to the store? | First of all, if your baking sheet is nonstick you may not need baking paper at all. If it is not, then either directly greasing the baking sheet, or putting tinfoil on it and greasing that works reasonably well as a substitute. |
Stop marzipan drying out during storage (eg. on Battenberg)
I bought a Battenberg cake and ate it over the course of a couple of weeks. To try and stop the marzipan wrapping drying out I stored it in clingfilm; however, after a week, the marzipan had still somewhat dried out and become more brittle. Am I missing a trick? Is there a better way to store it that will help keep it in its original state? | Chill it in the fridge for an hour or two (aids slicing) before you open it, then slice it all immediately.
Wrap each slice separately & freeze.
I'm not sure I'd want to eat 2-week-old sponge cake whether it was wrapped in marzipan or not, kept anywhere except a freezer. This type of product is only shelf-stable until it's opened, after that its life-span is short. |
Can you use woks on an electric induction cooktop in an apartment?
Can I use woks on my electric induction cooktop at home? My guess is NO. Because woks are designed for Chinese restaurant gas ranges with tremendous BTU, and woks must rest inside the range and the flame envelops the wok. If I use a wok on electric induction cooktop, induction just heats the bottom, not the side of, the wok.
I live in an apartment. I don't have a gas wok range like Chinese restaurants. | Yes, but it depends on your wok and your induction stove.
First, please understand that Cantonese restaurant cooking, with the huge 150,000 BTU gas burners is not Chinese home cooking, nor is it what "woks were designed for" (discussion in video). Those really are a restaurant-only thing, just like a 100,000 BTU salamander is an European restaurant-only thing. What you should be aiming for is "Chinese home cooking", which is achievable.
You're going to want a compatible wok. I recommend a flat-bottomed carbon steel wok like this one. You need the flat bottom in order to get good contact with the induction surface. It's also a good idea to get a smaller wok; 30cm/12" or 35cm/14" diameter, not 16" or greater, because the induction contact simply won't produce enough heat to heat the whole wok (this is a general problem on home ranges, not just induction).
Many guides also recommend the Lodge Cast-Iron Wok for its induction-friendliness, but I recommend against it based on experience. Not that it doesn't work well with induction (it does), but because it's a terrible wok. A big part of wok cooking is taking advantage of the fast responsiveness and steep temperature gradient of the wok, and the Lodge has neither of these. I have one; I use it exclusively for deep-frying. Clearly, though, others disagree with me.
The next challenge is harder to control: it's the question of whether your particular induction stove can heat the small flat bottom of the wok adequately, since that's the only part in contact with the stove. Some can, some can't, and there are too many variables in induction stoves for you to figure this out via stove stats.
But, since woks can be heated dry, this is easy to test:
Borrow a flat-bottom carbon-steel wok
Put it on the induction element and turn it to max (both temp & power)
Wait 1-2 minutes
Use a contactless thermometer to see if the wok bottom gets to at least 225C/450F (it will also smoke at this temperature)
Take it off the heat and oil it
Speaking of which, you will need to do any initial wok seasoning over a gas flame or on the grill, since seasoning requires heating the whole wok.
Also: if you're going to use a wok in an apartment, regardless of heat source you need a hood or other fan ventilation. |
White sugar vs refined sugar
What's the difference between white sugar and (pure) refined sugar and which one is better for baking? | These are technical terms that are meaningful only in the original Thai. The English translations are meaningless and have no relevance to cooking.
http://www.ratchakitcha.soc.go.th/DATA/PDF/2552/E/132/15.PDF
So you should say 'น้ำตาลทรายขาว' ('white sugar') and 'น้ำตาลทรายขาวบรสิทธุ' ('refined sugar')
น้ำตาลทรายขาว is further divided into 3 classes.
This results in 4 grades:
น้ำตาลทรายขาว grade 3 99.0% sucrose by ISS standard, 0.2% max reducing sugars
น้ำตาลทรายขาว grade 2 99.5%, 0.1% max reducing sugars
น้ำตาลทรายขาว grade 1 99.5%, 0.1% max reducing sugars
น้ำตาลทรายขาวบรสิทธุ 99.8%, 0.04% max reducing sugars
Max humidity and conductivity ash each then then 0.1% for น้ำตาลทรายขาว, and 0.04% for น้ำตาลทรายขาวบรสิทธุ.
These numbers are almost certainly useless to the cook.
The FAO has more useful standard names:
http://www.fao.org/input/download/standards/338/CXS_212e_u.pdf
white sugar - 99.7% pure sucrose
Plantation or mill white sugar - 99.5% pure sucrose
icing sugar - white sugar which has been finely powdered
soft white sugar - Fine grain purified moist sugar, white in colour with a
sucrose plus invert sugar content of not less than 97.0%
Soft brown sugar Fine grain purified moist sugar, light to dark brown in
colour with a sucrose plus invert sugar content of not less
than 88.0% m/m
Raw cane sugar Partially purified sucrose, which is crystallised from
partially purified cane juice, without further purification,
but which does not preclude centrifugation or drying, and
which is characterised by sucrose crystals covered with a
film of cane molasses.
Both น้ำตาลทรายขาวบรสิทธุ and น้ำตาลทรายขาว are in fact highly refined.
Tesco Lotus charges 22THB for น้ำตาลทรายขาวบรสิทธุ and 21THB for น้ำตาลทรายขาว
However if you refer to
น้ำตาลทรายขาวบรสิทธุ this is 22THB/kg
and this is 34THB/kg
I believe that legally this is also 'น้ำตาลทรายขาวบรสิทธุ' under Thai classification
Caster sugar may also be referred to as 'superfine' sugar. This is quite different from powdered/icing sugar as it is a process of making small crystals, not of grinding sugar to a powder. The smaller crystal size makes it very good for baking as it blends with butter etc. more easily than larger crystals.
Highly refined sugars as all those mentioned here are not necessarily good in that there are lots of flavours in sugar cane (all Thai sugar is obviously cane sugar), and personally I prefer to make for example banana bread (which is cake, not bread) using completely unrefined aren sugar made from arenga pinnata, which is around 0.5% ash, typically slightly fermented, and contains numerous impurities. The taste of the cake is far better than using highly refined sucrose. I'd probably use dark brown sugar if it were cheaper, but where I live aren is the cheapest so I use that.
In Thailand, Indonesia and probably quite a few other neighbouring countries sugar prices are highly regulated, and the terms น้ำตาลทรายขาว and น้ำตาลทรายขาวบรสิทธุ are likely to reflect political issues both as a key grower and exporter, but also consumer prices. Unregulated sugars for rich consumers could be much more expensive.
It does follow that น้ำตาลทรายขาวบรสิทธุ is slightly higher quality than น้ำตาลทรายขาว, in that the goal of both is simply to be pure sucrose (which actually varies slightly because cane sugar and beet sugar, due to different carbon isotopes), and if you were to choose only one, you might as well have the one with the smallest crystals and highest purity (in that order). But the purity is much less important than crystal size. |
How much does a tuppenny loaf weigh?
I recently found an old recipe dating from (we think) the mid 19th century. It states to, "grate a stale tuppenny loaf".
How much is that? Pounds, ounces, kilograms -- I haven't been able to find a weight that I can use, and none of my older relatives know.
Location could be Cornwall, but that's based purely on where my family came from, rather than any knowledge or certainty
Does anybody on here know? | Depends when.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assize_of_Bread_and_Ale
The price directly related to the cost of the wheat so would have fluctuated over time, and even where the bread was sold.
There were also several types of loaf. I think this would typically refer to white bread, the most expensive.
This is from 1765 in London
I'd say around 'one pound', but it's massively variable and not really answerable without much more context. |
Does salty water become more or less salty after boiled?
If I have water containing a certain concentration of salt and I boil the water to the point that I have, say, half of the initial water left, will the leftover half have a higher, lower, or equal salt concentration than the initial whole? | It will be higher. If (for example) there was 1% salt in a volume of water, then that water halved, you will be left with 2% salt content as only the water has evaporated.
This is actually how salt is made commercially. Salt water from the sea or lakes is evaporated until no water is left, leaving just the salt residue afterwards. |
If the supermarket farmed salmon says "Not for raw consumption" on the label, can I still use it to make sushi?
I have done my homework and read several reputable sources on this (e.g. this). The consensus on sushi-grade fish seems to be
There is no real "sushi grade". It is a myth.
Follow certain guidelines
Stick to tuna and farmed salmon
Freeze for 7 days at home to kill potential parasites
I just bought some fresh, never frozen farmed salmon, but the label says "not for raw consumption". Can I still use it for sushi/sashimi? | Can I still use it for sushi/sashimi?
Assuming you mean the standard raw-fish preparation method, no.
When the label points out clearly not for raw consumption, believe it or not, it's not even worth the risk.
Take my advice: Make some golden-brown crusted seared salmon! |
Different ways of making the gravy in butter chicken.. which is better?
Can someone tell me the science behind the following scenarios:
a. Boil tomatoes, onions along with other dry masalas and then make a puree
b. Stir fry tomatoes, onions along with dry masalas and then puree
c. Make the onion, tomato puree and add then put it in the curry pot with masalas.
How will taste be different in each case? | Your question is not totally clearly phrased, but basically you seem to be talking about three things:
frying onions
frying tomatoes
toasting spices
Separately spices can either be dry roasted or oil roasted.
The interesting thing about oil is that a lot of compounds from spices are considered fat soluble. There is a longer discussion here: https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/07/indian-spices-101-benefits-frying-spices.html
but essentially frying spices in oil dissolves those compounds in the oil, and this oil will then form part of the dish. If you dry roasted then obviously this would not happen
There is a 455 page treatise on the Chemistry of spices here https://catbull.com/alamut/Bibliothek/Chemistry_of_Spices.pdf from the Indian Institute of Spices Research in Kerala.
For example nearly all of the volatiles in coriander are monoterpenes which are very poorly soluble in water. This is why perfume is generally made from an alcohol base. Here fat (oil) is the base.
If you dry toasted it's likely that the release of moisture from the spices would affect the flavour profile differently.
For ginger, specifically:
"Ginger owes its characteristic organoleptic properties to two classes of constituents: the odour and the flavour of ginger are determined by the constituents of its steam- volatile oil, while the pungency is determined by non-steam-volatile components, known as the gingerols. The steam-volatile oil comprises mainly of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons, monoterpene hydrocarbons and oxygenated monoterpenes"
Gingerols are flavour compounds themselves, and are converted into zingerone, shogaols and some remain as gingerols. Gingerols are the spiciest, then shogaols, and zingerone is considered sweet.
This study found:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316827626_Changes_in_6-Gingerol_Concentration_in_Ginger_under_Various_Types_of_Cooking_Conditions
"The ratio of 6-gingerol to 6-shogaol concentration in raw ginger was 98:2. After boiling and steaming for 60 minutes, the concentration of 6-shogaol increased by more than 3 times; this difference was statistically significant (p<0.01). However, it was also confirmed that a sufficiently high amount of the 6-gingerol in ginger was retained after boiling (93:7), steaming (92:8) and stir-frying (97:3)"
It would seem that frying ginger first would result in a different flavour profile to if it was cooked in a curry base which would not exceed 100C (boiling temperature of water).
As far as tomatoes go, they contain a lot of water. This means that if you add them first, then you are no longer getting the high heat oil based reactions with the spices. So probably if you want to fry spices it's best to do them separately.
Frying tomatoes and onions is mostly about the Maillard reaction:
Frying tomatoes releases more of these flavours than boiling would.
For onions, there is a study here:
https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13411-015-0034-0
comparing three techniques - sué ('sweating'), sautéeing, and pan frying.
*Sué onion preparation: 30 g of sunflower oil were added to a saucepan heated to 100 °C and 1 kg of onions was then added. The onions were regularly stirred for 25 min. Cooking was stopped when the onions were translucent.
Sautéed onion preparation: 30 g of sunflower oil was heated to 155 °C in a pan. Then, 1 kg of onions was added and was evenly sautéed for 10 min. Cooking was stopped when onions had a homogeneous caramelized appearance.
Pan-fried onion preparation: 30 g of sunflower oil was heated to 130 °C in a pan. Then, 500 g of onions were added and were evenly sautéed for 18 min. Cooking was stopped when onions had a shiny appearance and some of them were burnt.*
There were very significant differences with the pan-fried onions:
https://flavourjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13411-015-0034-0/tables/3
Much higher levels of:
2-Methylpropanal (spicy) was found compared to the saute (present), and the sweated (absent)
Various sulphurous compounds - much higher in the saute
3-Methylbutanal (malty/animal feet) - absent from the sweated, present in the other
2,3-Pentanedione (buttery) - only in the saute
Caramel flavours - higher in the saute and the pan fried
This is only for different methods of frying. It seems likely that the further process of cooking the curry would tend to break down the spicy and sulphur flavours that are left behind after a saute, so the difference would be less than this presents, but it should still be present - a long slow cook of the onions will make them taste seeetest. On the other hand flavours introduced by first browning the onion would be more durable
So I would fry spices first in oil, keep the oil as a minimum. Whether you want toasted onion flavours in your butter chicken seems like it would be a matter of taste, but cooking them long and slow will give them sweetest taste. For tomatoes frying will add flavour compared to boiling, though baking adds even more flavour. |
Best method of cooking an Almond PearTart decoration/top layer
I followed this recipe yesterday because I made an pear tart for today. I still have some time to do the top layer but the recipe did not explain anything after that (or I missed it): Pears, milk, flour, almond, sugar, eggs and salt AND 2 PEARS FOR THE TOP LAYER (If you want the quantity in grams, I can also put it). The texture of it before baking was very similar to a cheese cake (and so does now after baking). It doesn't have any kind of crust underneath it.
This is how the top layer and cake should look like (The source is the recipe, a screenshot, I'm sorry I cannot do more).
Only two things come to mind, by seeing in the ingredients 2 pears for decorating:
Decorating regularly adding on top honey or sugar/cinnamon and burn it a little bit
Doing an pear compote (might be too sweet for the smooth sweet taste of this almond/peartart?)
The top layer of my cake looks brownish, so that might be the brownish color of the recipe picture... But I'm really not sure.
EDIT:
RECIPE::
500g peeled and cored pears
250g whole or semi milk
200g all purpose flour
100g ground almonds
180g sugar
3 large eggs
2 big pears for decorating
a pinch of salt
Mix all the ingredients in a blender until the batter is homogenic and pour it in a 23cm springform mould. Bake for 50-55 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius with top and bottom heat. If it is a bit raw (check with a toothpick as usual) you can leave it outside, so the residual heat will finish it | Okay, maybe I did not explain properly what my problem was in the question, in which case I apologise. An already baked pear-almond cake recipe did not specify what to do with the top layer, so I baked it regularly without adding regular pear on top of the batter before baking it.
As a result, I thought of making an improvised pear syrup
2 pears
150g sugar
1/2 ts of vanilla extract (depending on your liking)
75ml water
Cinnamon
Boil the water with sugar and vanilla extract. Add the pears once everything has integrated. For the pears, I peeled, cored and cut them in thin slices and added them to the pot. Finally, add that to a tray/mold, add cinnamon to your liking on top, and bake for half an hour at 175 degrees Celsius.
Let it cool. What I did: brush the liquid of the syrup into the cake , add the pears in your decorating liking, and brush again a bit on top.
Final result:
Final advice after seeing it:
I think the best would have been to add the raw pears on top of the batter once it's on the tray/mold before baking it. I did not do it, so in order to fix it:
Adding less water might make the syrup more dense, which would be nice in this case
The green mould, as you can see, is quite small. I think the bigger and more spread the pears are, the better the final result will be for them
If you have flavourless gelatine, definetly it'd have been a good idea to add it on top of the pears. I didn't have so, bad luck.
BURNING with a kitchen torch on top of the syrup (or adding a bit more sugar and then burning) would give it a very nice texture and flavour in my opinon. |
Help identifying a tea
I was given a tea that my understanding is came from China (so I can't go to the store and get more). I am interested in getting more, but don't know who sells it (if I can buy it online) or even what type of tea it is.
The tea comes in a metal box, with a pressure-fit lid under the decorative one. | This container is awfully ambiguous, as are the tea leaves. What I can say is tentative, but I am confident enough to post an answer: it's probably black longjing-style tea, made from lower grade material. Finding a direct comparison image is not likely to happen.
What follows is why I think I'm right. But bear in mind - I am not as knowledgeable about longjing, and I could be wrong.
The tea is from Hangzhou, which is commonly known for its longjing tea. Longjing is a very particular style of tea, in which the leaves are flattened significantly, and processed in larger pieces. High-grade longjing comprises whole leaves that have been flattened and pan-roasted, of consistent color, of consistent size, and are free of sticks, twigs, and smaller bits of leaf. It looks something like this, though can be even greener:
However.
Longjing also comes less commonly as a black tea, in which the leaves have been oxidized as a part of production. This changes the color of the leaves significantly. Overall, this strikes me as pretty unusual, but this is out of my domain of knowledge for tea, so it's difficult for me to say precisely.
When longjing is made as a black tea, it instead looks something like this:
What makes me feel fairly confident in this assessment is that your leaves are flat, like I'd expect a longjing to be (and it would be the right region), as opposed to full or curled. They're also the wrong color for a green tea, but they're the right color for a moderately to fully oxidized tea, which makes them likely a black tea.
The second thing to pay attention to is grade. I'd normally expect a high-grade longjing to be more consistent in color, leaf shape, and size across the sample. The color is a subtle giveaway - the inconsistency across the sample implies that the processing wasn't super delicate and the grade of the starting material would not be high. However, the dead giveaway is that higher grade longjing contains no sticks. Yours does. That makes it quite consistent with what I'd expect from a low to mid grade longjing.
The verdict? I would assess this tea to be most likely a black longjing tea, made during bulk processing from mid-grade material. (If I had to grade it by eye, I'd guess it to be somewhere in the mid-grade, likely around 3 or 4, but I'm not as familiar with how longjing teas are graded and you should take this with a heavy grain of salt.)
(I also want to say, while the grading is a useful ruler by which to measure whether a tea matches a specific type or style, it's not as much a judgment of taste. I'm only using it to gauge what I'd expect it to look like, were it the grade I think it is. The best cup of tea is the one you like.)
Unfortunately, black longjing teas can be somewhat hard to find if you don't live in a place with easy access to them. While longjing is one of China's famous teas, access to specific varietals or less well known processing methods is likely to be less fruitful. Poke around, though - maybe you'll find something that makes sense. |
Is there an English word for the Spanish pepper called Ñora?
Is there an English word for the Spanish pepper called Ñora?
I have translated the following from Wikipedia
The ñora is a cultivated variety of Capsicum annuum or pepper, called
"bola" in Alicante and Murcia, where it became popular. It is small in
size, round in shape and red in color when ripe, and is then left to
dry in the sun. It has a sweet flavor and is widely used in the
gastronomy of the Spanish Levante, especially in the Region of Murcia,
the Valencian Community (Alicante) and in Catalonia. | Almost certainly not. They look and sound a lot like cherry peppers, aka pimiento peppers, but are apparently a distinct cultivar. With the exception of commercially important (“Maris Piper”) or widely renowned (“Honeycrisp”) names, cultivars tend to be quite local in penetration, and are unlikely to have translations in other languages.
You’d probably do fine to substitute cherry peppers, if you’re trying to make a particular recipe which calls for them. |
Does soaking candied fruit in bourbon change the taste?
Recipe for fruitcake cookies calls for soaking candied fruit in bourbon overnight. Does this change the taste? Texture? Why do it? | Soaking dried fruit (in alcohol) is usually to soften it and deliver some flavour.
The same should be true here: It would have that effect with some candied fruit (citrus), but others probably wouldn't take up much liquid (cherries). The flavour may still change.
If avoiding alcohol (or the expense) orange juice is often used as a substitute in rich fruit cakes.
Note that cookie recipes, being rolled out rather thin, are prone to further drying fruit. Soaking will counteract that. It may be a bad idea to add the fruit to the rest of the dough too wet, so if the soaking liquid hasn't all been taken up, I'd expect to spoon the fruit in with a slotted spoon rather than tipping it in. |
Problems deep frying on induction stove
I recently bought an Aga Rangemaster 90cm range cooker with induction cook top. The oven and hob are great except when attempting deep frying, which seems not to work. I have nothing but induction compatible cookware.
The pans initially heat up fine, but refuse to come up to anything above approximately 150C (300F). Monitoring the temperature with a remote thermometer I can see the temperature cycling as the element comes on and off, but I am never able to get the pan up to say 180C.
I have reviewed the operating instructions and no mention is made of it not being possible to deep fry, so I wondered if this is something that others have experienced, or if there is some workaround. | While I can't say exactly what the issue is there are some possibilities:
Induction compatible doesn't mean ideal for induction. I've had pans which are compatible, as in they work, but they don't heat up well. Only ferrous metals will get heated by induction, many pans are a sandwich of metals with a ferrous base, how well the pans heat up depends in part how thick the base is, if it's too thin it won't be able to convert all the energy. You want something with a nice thick ferrous base, or even better cast iron
Your induction top may not be powerful enough. In the same way gas ranges are limited by the size of their burners induction is limited by the underlying electronics. A big pot full of oil is a lot of mass, the cooktop's electronics need to be able to create a large enough magnetic field to heat it |
When trying to fry onions, the edges burn instead of the onions frying up
When I fry onions, the edges burn and the onion never crisps up when I am using my fry pan.
Looks similar to this:
What am I doing wrong? New cook here. Thanks!! | This depends on the result you are looking for. I'm not sure if you want onions that are crispy or caramelized. You describe wanting them to be crispy, but it looks like the attempt pictured was aiming for caramelized.
For onion crisps, you need to deep fry in plenty of oil, as the comments suggest. You should take care that your onion slices of pieces are the same size. Deep fry until golden, then remove from oil and drain well. You should be able to crisp onions in a few minutes.
However, deeply and evenly caramelized onions take quite a while...40 to 45 minutes. The heat needs to be medium or lower. Also, slice evenly. Pieces of different size will cook differently. You do not need an excess amount of fat, in this case. 2 - 3 tablespoons of butter is fine for 3 - 4 large onions. Melt the butter, add onions and stir to coat. Then leave them alone for about 5 minutes. Stir and scrape up the fond. Repeat this every 5 minutes or so, reducing the heat if they are cooking too fast. They will not become fully caramelized and jammy until the 30 to 40 minute mark. You should also deglaze the pan at the end, to release the remaining fond. You can add 1/4 cup water, balsamic vinegar, wine, broth...really anything here.
If you just want an evenly browned, pan-fried onion. Begin the caramelization process described above, and stop when the onions are browned to your liking. In general, from the picture you post, I would say your heat is too high. |
Taste difference of bottled beer vs. canned beer
I think that the taste from a canned beer is different to the taste of the bottled beer. The same I experience for soft drinks. Is my sensory system distorted or do I suffer from an illusion?
Can this be true at all / could this be explained somehow by the used material? | According to the only study we have(PDF of original study) on the topic, it does not make a difference whether beer comes from a bottle or can. In this study, participants who were shown the bottle or can had a preference for bottles, but participants who were not shown the beer container did not.
Results from the blind taste test – when participants had no knowledge about the beers or where they came from – showed that there were no preferences for bottled or canned beer, one way or another. Nearly 45% of participants rated the canned beer better than the bottled, 41% of participants rated the bottled beer better than the canned, and close to 1.5% said they both tasted the same.
Of necessity, the participants in this study were drinking from a plastic cup. So it remains possible that you can taste the container directly if you are drinking straight from the bottle or can, with the glass or aluminum touching your lips. |
How is unsweetened plant-based yogurt possible?
For plant-based (soya, almond, cashew, etc.) unsweetened yogurt, how does the yogurt bacteria grow and develop without sugar?
From online recipes for soya yogurt, one tablespoon of sugar per 1 liter of unsweetened soy milk is needed to promote bacterial fermentation. As these plant-based milk alternatives themselves do not contain sugar (lactose/ milk sugar), for which is the basic food for yogurt bacteria (eg. Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus/ Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus/ bifidobacteria).
Also, there is not much sourness in some brands of soya yogurt (eg. Sojade etc). I wonder instead of sugar, what is added to cover the lactic acid that was produced by the yogurt bacteria during fermentation?
Would like to try making unsweetened soya yogurt at home. Appreciate any insights :) | Actually, the yogurt cultures, usually some strain of the group N Streptococcus and Leuconostoc species, mesophilic cultures, converts the lactose into lactic acid, which gives the diary product it's tart taste.
Furthermore, bacterial enzymes transform the milk carbohydrates into oligosaccharides, some of which have prebiotic properties.
Different LAB (Lactic Acid Bacteria) produce different fermentation products, although they have in common that they are alive in the product and can interact with microbiota during intestinal transit and the cells of the intestinal wall.
Fermentation of soy milk with lactic acid bacteria offers a means of
preserving soy milk and the possibility of modifying the characteristic
flavor and texture to make it more acceptable to Western taste.
It is possible to make soy milk yogurt-like products with acceptable texture
and clean acid flavor. The choice of fermenting organisms is limited to
those that can ferment the sugars typical of soy milk. i.e. stachyose.
raffinose or sucrose. unless sugars fermented by the desired cultures
are added to the soy milk.
SOURCE
SOURCE |
Can I hang cast iron pots and pans to air dry?
I normally use chain mail and warm water to clean my cast iron pan, then dry with a paper towel before stashing away in a cupboard. If the pans are well seasoned, is there any potential rusting issues with simply hanging them up to air dry? | The way you have worded it, the risk can never be reduced to absolute zero, so there is some potential risk. But the probability of rust happening is very, very low, so in practice, you can do this for ages and not experience any problems. Also, if you do, you can just strip and reseason.
Also there is an option you didn't mention: usually you still have a hot hob when you have just finished cooking, so you can wash immediately and place the slightly wet pan on the hot hob, where it will air dry in seconds. It doesn't work every time (e.g. if you served your food in the cast iron vessel in which it was prepared), but when it is available, it is best practice to make use of it. |
Should I be reducing salt amounts in recipes if cooking with tap water that has passed through a salt based water softener?
Should I be reducing salt amounts in recipes if cooking with tap water that has passed through a salt based water softener? Or is the amount of salt from the softener negligible? I'm probably over-thinking it.... :-) | No
Water softeners do not add any salt to the water. They use the sodium from the salt, not the salt itself.
This is known as an ion-exchange process
If your softened water tastes at all salty, you need to check with a maintenance engineer.
In 'health' terms, there is a slightly increased sodium content, but in flavour terms there is no additional salt. |
Gluten-free replacement for all-purpose flour in fried fish batter?
Recently, I've found a few good recipes for a frying batter for a fish. Unfortunately, all imply using all-purpose wheat flour.
exp. https://akispetretzikis.com/en/categories/pswmia-zymes/koyrkoyti
I'm looking for the closest possible (in terms of taste and crunchiness) drop-in replacement (mix of any, even relatively uncommon, flours, starches, and/or thickeners (exp.
linseed, guar gum) as long as they are gluten-free) for the wheat flour.
I've tested mixtures from Schar and they were somewhat acceptable in terms of crunchiness but completely tasteless.
Every gluten-free mixture I've tested so far burns too quickly compared to the wheat counterpart. Do you have any method to mitigate this? Like a heat-resistance increasing ingredient for the mixture?
I was thinking about adding a bit of white corn flour (maiz blanco) as it is used primarily to make tortillas, but it makes the frying batter behave more like plasticine and gives it a noticeable taste, not suitable for a fish.
What do you think about using a gluten-free mixture designed for pizza or bread (exp. from Caputo)? I suppose it should be more heat resistant and crunchy, and similar in taste to the wheat counterpart. | In general, if something is burning too quickly, you need to turn down the heat, and cook it for longer.
As for recommendations for gluten free batters, there are plenty of gluten free tempura batter recipes out there that use rice flour. Although it's worth noting that tempura is usually only cooked to 'golden' in color, not fully 'brown'.
And if you're willing to go with a three part breading instead of a batter, you can use rice flour, egg, and (rice or corn) cereal crumbs. |
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