instruction stringlengths 2 23k | output stringlengths 3 23.1k ⌀ |
|---|---|
Why "Pre-oiled Pita"?
I have started buying Kontos Pre-oiled Pita, and am super pleased with the product.
They taste great and also seem to last forever on the shelf.
.. but I have never heard of "oiling" pitas! Is this something that is done? I can not find any references out there for it on google.
Also, what do you think this oiling process is, and does it preserve the pita? | It is really common to brush a pita with some oil prior to heating for an extra crispy treat. We sort of do that at my house, except be coat the heating device (a frying pan) with oil instead of the pita itself.
From kontos.com:
Pre-oiled Greatness
Our pre-oiled breads are infused with extra virgin olive oil for flexibility and rich taste.
So pre-oiled pitas have more flexibility, so to be more convenient for wraps, and pre-oiled pitas have a richer flavor and crisp better when heated. |
Why does inside of cooked canned chicken always taste cold?
Recently I’ve been getting canned chicken and then frying it, baking it etc. What I notice is that the chicken in general feels cold and the inside always feels colder.
You might say that’s normal but if I get raw chicken and then cook it the whole thing always feels tastefully hot inside and out.
Canned chicken(cooked or not) always seems to have a mushy texture unlike raw chicken. Do you know why and why does it feel like cooking still leaves the inside quite cold compared to other cooking methods. As you can see from pic, Even visibly the outside might become dark and crusty but the inside still looks very pinkish though I know these are precooked. Had it been raw chicken then cooked it would have all become at least white inside.
Thanks. | The product you're using is made of "mechanically separated meat", aka "white slime". It's produced by pumping or centrifuging ground chicken bones through a sieve to separate remaining bits of flesh. While chemically similar to regular meat, mechanically separated meat has lost its meat-like texture during the separation process. It tastes mushy because it is mush. Frying it will dehydrate and brown the surface, giving it a more palatable texture, but no amount of cooking will approximate the texture of regular chicken; it had that texture once, and then industrial food processing was done to it.
The pink color has nothing to do with rawness, or with chicken-ness for that matter. That product is designed as a lower-quality, less-expensive alternative to tinned formed pork products like Spam. In order to "sell" it as a Spam substitute, colorings are added to make it look approximately like ham (or, at least, less like mechanically separated chicken).
Incidentally, it is also possible (though perhaps harder) to buy tinned chicken which is just tinned chicken, not mechanically separated meat slurry. The texture of that is basically the same as that of boiled chicken. |
Where did my fennel go?
I made tomato soup based on Adam Ragusea's recent video. It's a simple reciple:
Chop a medium-large onion, shave a bulb of fennel and toss both into a stick of butter with some freshly ground black pepper (he adds celery seeds, I added two stalks of celery chopped).
Add two large cans of quality tomatoes, with the juice and a glass of water or some white wine.
Bring to a simmer and wait until mostly ready, you can use a potato masher to break the tomatoes and speed the process (so it's about 45 minutes).
Puree with a stick blender, then add salt, water and pepper to preference. Straining optional. Sugar is optional if the tomatoes are too acidic.
I did exactly that and got what I thought was a pretty basic and decent tomato soup. But while the onion was very pronounced (and not very cooked, to be honest, so I'd brown the onions a bit before adding the rest), there is no hint of the fennel.
Other than using two bulbs of fennel, what could possibly be the reason, and how do I make it more flavorsome? | Fennel is a fairly delicate flavor. I can see how caramelized onion and tomato would easily over power it. The bulb actually provide the most delicate flavor of fennel. If you want a more pronounced flavor, I would suggest fennel seed. I would further suggest you toast them first. They can then be used whole, or, if you want an even stronger flavor, grind the seeds. You could also garnish with the frond, but still that is rather delicate compared to using seeds. |
What caused leakage in my cheesecake?
I made a cheesecake this past weekend. The firing schedule was two stages, cook at 350 F for 25 mins; then apply a sour cream top and insert back into oven for 5 mins at 450 F.
When I went to put it back in to brown the sour cream, I noticed there was a fair bit of smoke (although not enough to be alarmed yet). As I inserted the cheesecake, I noticed what seemed to be a bit of liquid on the oven liner.
As the sour cream toasted, I thought about what could have caused the liquid. I wondered if maybe something I cooked earlier (like a roast chicken) gave off some spatter. I became concerned that at 450 F, the smoke would become worse. Looking in on it, the smoke was indeed worse, and I shut the oven off and gave up on the cheesecake.
I am wondering specifically what caused the liquid.
I have some guesses, but I am hoping someone more experienced than me would be able to say for sure.
First, I will talk about the ingredients of the base cake, and see if that could have caused seepage.
The crust was an Oreo crumb, frozen (not baked), and there were several places where liquid could have gotten through.
The cheesecake itself consisted of:
1.5 lbs cream cheese
2 tsp vanilla
4 egg whites
1 C sugar
I am thinking one point of failure could be the egg whites. The directions were to beat to soft peaks, then slowly incorporate the sugar and beat to stiff peaks. When I separated one of the eggs, a very minute dabble of yolk may have gotten through. I thought I read that if there were any yolks, then it would be nearly impossible to beat to stiff peaks.
After I beat the whites and sugar for what seemed like too long of a time, I settled for what I told myself were stiff peaks. The recipe called to fold the whites into the beaten cream cheese. This may have been another failure point: I am unsure I folded long enough. When I took the cake out to top with sour cream, it showed definite segments of the cheese and egg.
And lastly I am wondering if the oven liner may have caused the liquid. That is, I think the temperature of 450 F was too high and am wondering if that temp caused the liner to degrade.
Hopefully someone knows what the cause was. I am looking to make this to an edible product. | Spring forms are not entirely liquid-proof, so anything liquid can leak out of the form while baking. I personally set off the fire alarm a month ago trying to make potatoes au gratin in a spring form. In my experience, what tends to leak from a cheesecake is fat from the crust. Many recipes recommend baking a cheesecake in a water bath, which both helps the cake bake evenly and neatly prevents anything from leaking onto the bottom of the oven.
I will say that using beaten egg whites for an oven baked cheesecake is somewhat unusual. Most recipes include whole eggs, and you would try to avoid beating any air into the batter to prevent cracks from forming. |
Do I need more fermentation? Why my sourdough is flattened?
From a few weeks I've been trying to make sourdough. The most successful recipe for me and for the time I have I found is Easy Sourdough Bread Recipe using a stand mixer - Sourdough Lamination In the recipe it said that it needs 3 hours in room temperature + 30 min in refrigerator and then you bake.
Because I don't have that time in one I leave it on the counter for 1 hour then let the sourdough in the refrigerator overnight (10 hours) and bake it in the morning. The whole wheat flour I use is with 13% protein.
I found the dough "flattened" and without so much holes and somehow I feel like it's not so fermented. Is it possible for 10 hour fermentation in the refrigerator? How can I improve the dough and do I need more fermentation time maybe in room temperature? The dough is fine, not so wet it can be shaped. I added picture in the end to show what I mean.
The recipe is:
200 g. white flour
100 g. whole wheat flour
240 g. water
6 g salt
90g starter
40g pumpkin seeds
Totals:
345 g flour (45 from starter)
285 g water (45 from starter)
2% salt
82.6% hydration | First of all, that's quite a decent looking loaf. It doesn't look dense or overly pancaked. The crumb is consistent, with good bubble formation. A lot of amateur bakers would be quite proud to achieve that result. So give yourself a pat on the back before you start trying to improve further.
Now, 82% hydration is quite high, even for a whole wheat loaf. High hydration free-form whole wheat loaves are notoriously difficult to shape well, simply because the dough is so loose. Careful shaping and skillful oven control (including steam) are necessary to get a good loft in those circumstances.
Now, three hours at room temperature is not enough time to develop significant sourdough taste. Neither is ten hours in the refrigerator. (Ten hours in a cool room would be closer.) As more fermentation occurs, however, the gluten structure will weaken, leading to a flatter loaf.
So overall, I'd suggest you try a lower hydration and a longer cold rest (but, if possible, at a slightly higher temperature than your refrigerator). |
How much "compounded" asafoetida to use?
I have a UK-Indian recipe that calls for asafoetida (1/4 teaspoons). I have bought this:
This says it is "compounded" asafoetida powder. Is this any different from what would be used for my recipe? Do I use the amount called for, or less/more? The listed ingredients are gum arabic, wheat starch, and asafoetida. | Asafoetida is most commonly found in a "compounded" form. It's about 30% asafoetida resin mixed with rice or wheat flour, and gum arabic. Use it as your recipe directs. It's fairly potent. I use about 1/4 tsp at a time. |
Can you make fish broth with just fish flesh — no bones or heads?
When I ate a fish stew some years ago in a Hong Kong restaurant, the dish had no bones. The broth was made from giant grouper. Do you know if bones were used?
No local grocers sell fish bones. And I don't want to buy fish heads...the appearance of fish heads just dismays me. I live in the U.S. | Fish broth, like most stocks (except vegetarian), is almost always made from bones, and usually includes other parts of the fish like heads, tails, and fins. In addition to the flavor and protein from the fish bits, you need the gelatin from the bones to give the stock "body" and texture.
I also live in the US, and there's a very simple way to get the heads, frames (bones), and tails: buy a whole fish and fillet it yourself. You make a stock from the frame and use the meat for the soup.
If that freaks you out, or you live in one of those midwestern towns where you can't get whole fish, here's a workaround. It has decent flavor, even if it lacks some of the body of a proper fish stock: make a broth using dried scallops. You'll probably have to order them online, but they ship well. |
What are the limitations of aquafaba as an egg white substitute?
I learned recently that aquafaba is claimed to be usable as an egg white substitute, able to be whipped to form stiff peaks, etc.
Now an egg-white-and-cottage-cheese omelette is a frequent breakfast of mine. So it was with great experimental enthusiasm that I mixed up some aquafaba with cottage cheese, and set about cooking it as usual...only to end up with aquafaba and cottage cheese soup. :(
What is a more realistic assessment of where aquafaba can be substituted for egg whites? Or is there possibly some modification that would make an aquafaba-and-cottage-cheese omelette possible? | I don't think it is useful to think of aquafaba as a egg-white substitute. Rather, you should think of whipped aquafaba as a replacement for French meringue, in cases you are not relying on it setting under heat.
So, when you need a vegan foam, you can try aquafaba (after whipping) to get the right texture. To regard it as a general replacement for egg whites is an exaggeration. |
Should a gas Aga be left on when not in use?
We've recently moved into a house with an Aga GC3 cooker; though have no experience with this type of oven. Reading up on Agas, people talk about them being left on all the time; though this seems like a waste of gas for our usage (1 cooked meal each evening; unused the rest of the day). When people say they can be left on all of the time I'm not sure if they're envisaging scenarios where the Aga is an old solid-fuel style (where this would have been far more practical), or cooks who are baking throughout the day, or making use of the waste heat for drying their wellies and wet dogs.
We've found that it takes about 2 hours to get up to the required temperature for cooking; so if not left on all the time requires a lot more planning than the gas hobs we're used to; but leaving it on feels wasteful.
Is it best (in terms of efficiency / our described usage pattern) to leave an Aga on full time (e.g. is it more efficient to keep it at temperature than to have to bring it up to temperature each day), and if left on, when not in use is it best to keep it on the Full setting, or to put it to Low Heat or Pilot Light mode? | Looking at the economics angle the Aga is expensive to run. Energy prices in the UK (not sure where you are but most of the Agas I know of are there) are about £.15 per kWh. If an Aga uses 20,000 kWh of energy per year to run, which is a reasonable figure if it's on all day, it would cost £3000 per year. If you modernize it with a schedule to run 8 hours per day, say, it's £1000 per year. Those figures could be less with your model, exact information is hard to find.
If you scheduled it to only heat up for an evening meal then it's probably 4 hours per day, which would be about £500 per year with those energy estimates, which doesn't sound too bad, however that would limit you your flexibility.
A good quality new cooker (i.e. range in the US) costs about the same as 8 hours usage on an Aga for a year, and would be ready when you need it. Used Agas in good condition get around £3000 on Ebay, you could potentially sell it, buy something different and come out cash positive from the deal.
So Agas are expensive to run unless you need the heat from it, if you buy a programmer it can save you money, it's still probably more economical to replace it with something else. It all comes down to whether you like the Aga style of cooking, if you do then spend the money happily, if you don't it'll get snapped up on the used market faster than I wrote this. |
Stem on tomatoes
I have noticed stores selling tomatoes with the stems left on. Usually 3-4 tomatoes per stem.
Is this just a new marketing gimmick? Or do tomatoes taste or store better with the stem left on?
We grow our own tomatoes, but I am wondering if I should copy this technique with the tomatoes we don't can. | It's supposed to be proof that the tomatoes were "vine ripened", instead of being picked green, but the definition is such that there only has to be some sign of color change when they're picked to be sold as "vine ripened", so they're generally still picked mostly green.
So yeah, pretty much a marketing gimmick, although not all that new. (it's probably been around for at least 5 years near me). If you want good tomatoes, you typically need to grow the yourself or go to a farmer's market. (or have a step father that grows way more tomatoes than he can deal with)
It's possible that leaving the vine attached might help protect them from moisture loss, but you can also just store the tomatoes upside down. |
Cookies end up with a wavy bottom
My baking papers seem to absorb water a lot. Whenever I bake cookies with a bit wet batter such as lady fingers or cat's tongue, my cookies end up with a not flat but wavy bottom. Is that because of the type of baking papers I used or I did something wrong? | Yes, I would say this is completely normal. It is how paper acts when in contact with liquids.
If you don't like the effect, don't use baking paper under the cookies. |
What is this vial for in this package of grass jelly?
Recently I bought a package of grass jelly. My understanding of the instructions is that I should mix the powder in the package with a liter of cold water and 100g of sugar and then heat on a stove until it thickens. However, there is also a little vial of liquid in the package labelled "dầu chuối" which google translate tells me is "banana oil" and I don't see anything about it in the instructions. Is this something optional to add at the end for flavoring? Should I add it at the beginning? Or should I just not be consuming it at all? | Ok, did a little more hunting and found this link which says:
Some packages contain a sugar packet and a small tube of banana essence. The banana essence can be a bit strong, but if you enjoy it, add during the last minute of cooking. |
Can I use the stovetop while a dough is leavening in the oven?
I usually use my (turned off) oven as a safe place for leavening doughs for hours.
I always get amazing results and never had any issue with that.
But... what if I need to use the stovetop?
Will the oven heat up and ruin my dough? Or the temperature change will be imperceptible, having no effect on the dough? | Do you have a thermometer? Place it in your oven. Check temp. Turn on your burners/use stove for a bit. Check temp. You will then know for sure. |
How can I get a better looking crust on my baguettes?
I've been making baguettes using the "stretch & fold" method instead of kneading. The resulting baguettes have great taste & texture, but the surface is covered with coarse, unsightly ropes of gluten, as below:
Is there a way to get the benefits of the stretch & fold method (texture; open crumb) without the ugly appearance? | Regardless of the kneading method you use your loaves need to have a taut skin on top after shaping or they will look ragged. Another consequence of a ragged top is that it doesn't trap the expanding gasses as well and might not rise as high.
Boules are easier as you can pull all the dough to the underside in a circle to stretch the top. Baguettes are trickier.
One method is to push a finger into the underside of the baguette while stretching the top surface around it and then working down the length of the loaf.
This is a good description of this method:
https://www.theperfectloaf.com/guides/shaping-baguettes/
Another method is to pull the loaf along the table with the tips of the fingers on the edge of the loaf to let the friction with the table stretch the top of the loaf.
Don't forget to score the proofed loaves of that nice top will tear in the oven. |
I made challah dough and it was still sticky after 9 cups of AP flour
I only needed a few more tablespoons of flour, but I had run out. Instead I substituted half the amount of cornstarch. Will my bread still have the right texture when baking?
Here is the recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/132319/sweet-challah/
Below are the ingredients:
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
⅓ cup white sugar
2 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 eggs
½ cup vegetable oil
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup white sugar
6 cups all-purpose flour, or as needed
1 egg
1 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 teaspoons white sugar
1 teaspoon water | I have conflicting experience to @Benjamin. I often add a little extra starch to my bread actually, specifically potato starch or sweet rice flour. While all starches gelatinize a little differently, I would not expect you to have any issue shaping the bread, or with rise. What I would expect is a little extra chewiness to the crust and perhaps a bouncy quality to the interior, and maybe a tighter crumb with finer bubbles. The first time I added starch to a bread as an experiment (and far more proportionately), I joked that I had successfully invented storebought bread at home, because that's what the texture reminded me of. That said, I would not expect the textural differences to be huge in your case because you added very little.
Since percentages and math are on the table (I'm sorry but I love math), let's break down the amount of gluten and starch in here.
The recipe calls for 9 cups of flour total, and there are 16 Tablespoons in a cup. So how much gluten is in one of those cups? If we say it's ~12% (I asked Google), then in one cup of flour, there are about 1.92 T gluten, and about 14.08 T starch. If you round, that means about 2 T gluten, 14 T starch. That's a proportion of 1:7.... and I'm rounding up the gluten.
So what difference does a few tablespoons of corn starch make, proportionately? Well, for every T of corn starch you added instead of AP, you were missing one-seventh of a Tablespoon of gluten, or less than a half-tsp, but more than a quarter-tsp. And that amount counts up with every T you added. So, if you added a quarter-cup of corn starch, then you're "missing" almost 2 teaspoons of gluten. If you added a whole half cup, you're missing a little over a Tablespoon of it. But again, we rounded the gluten up before, so... you aren't even missing that much. This is an overestimation.
In the recipe as a whole, you have 144 T in those 9 cups of flour. That means you have 17.3 T of gluten total, and 126.7 T starch. Even if you added the whole half-cup of corn starch, changing the amount of starch to 134.7 and the total amount of "flour" to 152 T.... You've only changed your gluten content from 12% to 11.4%, which would still be within range for all-purpose. Some brands have higher gluten. Some have less. King Arthur brand's all-purpose flour has as much gluten as some other brand's bread flours. And again... I'm assuming you added significantly more than a few tablespoons. That drop from 12% to 11.4% represents a worst-case scenario.
So while there will be a difference, I'm guessing it will be subtle, maybe even undetectable if you aren't looking for it.
One thing I noticed reading the recipe is that they don't call for resting the dough. A short rest (often called "autolyse") after adding, say, two-thirds of the total amount of flour will give the flour a chance to hydrate and soak up some more moisture. That way, it will require a little less flour to get a workable dough, and your final product will be just a little softer and moister as a result. IF you make this recipe again, it might be helpful.
I'll be curious to hear how your experiment turns out (hopefully okay!) |
What's this off-white particulate stuff on my pickled asparagus?
I just opened a new jar of Foster's pickled asparagus and discovered off-white particulate matter on the stalks:
The stuff can be scraped off with a fingernail, but doesn't come off effortlessly to the touch.
The jar was opened just moments ago, and was thoroughly airtight prior to opening (I had a hell of a time getting the lid off). Is this mold that grew prior to pickling? Is this salt that has settled out of the brine for some reason? Something else? | From luv2garden.com:
Powdery Mildew “appears as a dusty white to gray coating over leaf surfaces or other plant parts. In most cases this fungal growth can be partially removed by rubbing the leaves. It might be identified incorrectly as dust that has accumulated on the leaves.
So it appears to be powdery mildew on your asparagus...
From Ask an Expert:
Soaking leaves in hydrogen peroxide will kill powdery mildew. However, I would not recommend eating leaves with powdery mildew on them. Powdery mildew is not toxic to humans, but fungi cause allergic reactions in some people.
But hold up! Since the asparagus is pickled, powdery mildew just might not be the case.
From reddit:
The flecks are actually a protein buildup called rutin, a natural flavonoid in asparagus that sometimes reacts harmlessly with the vinegar. Rutin is created within pickled asparagus when asparagus is heated within an acid such as vinegar in the pickling process. Through this process, rutin is drawn out of the asparagus.
So the white specks on your asparagus should be rutin. |
When getting coconut milk out of a coconut what type of drill bit should I use?
I'm aware there's wood, masonry, and metal drill bits, but what type works best for getting milk out of a coconut to put lime in it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tbgv8PkO9eo | I use a screwdriver and a small hammer to punch the eyes of the coconut in and then pour through a sieve into a receptacle.
It's important to have more than one opening to facilitate the juice coming out, otherwise an air-lock will quickly form.
Wearing a gorilla suit is recommended, but entirely optional. |
What should the texture of meringue be in a lemon meringue pie?
After the pie has cooked and chilled, what texture should the meringue be? I couldn't find an answer online, and it was hard to tell from photographs. I'm assuming it isn't supposed to be crispy, the way meringue cookies are. But should it be completely soft, almost whipped-cream like? Or should it be somewhat chewy? | This is one of those questions to which there are as many answers as there are chefs ;)
Personally, I would say - you want all three, at different depths in your meringue.
The peaks should be browned & just crisp.
A millimetre or two below that ought to have an 'al dente' feel to it, a hint of 'chewy' but only a hint.
Below that it ought to be barely set, but it must be set.
If you get it like this it will survive only briefly.
If kept for more than a few hours, maybe a day tops, the top goes from crisp to chewy, below will go from light to rubbery to sloppy… until you end up with the stuff you buy in supermarkets :\ |
If I am blending parsley for soup, can I use the parsley whole or should I still remove the stems?
I am making my Grandma's parsley soup - it's chicken stock, onions, potatoes, garlic and parsley. Since the whole combination is blended, can I use the parsley stems or might not removing them have an adverse affect on taste? | There is a lot of flavor in parsley stems, as is true of most "soft" herbs. In my kitchen, if it is soft/palatable, I use it. |
Pasteurized milk boiling dilemma
Experts tell drinking pasteurized milk from carton is fine. But sometimes, when I boil refrigerated previously opened milk carton with oats, it curdles.
Does that mean it is not safe to drink milk directly from carton without boiling it? Or, is the problem with cooking oats and milk together?
I faced this issue with cow's milk. Will using soy milk make any difference? | The answer probably lies in your question:
refrigerated previously opened milk
Products that have been made shelf-stable by a heating process will be susceptible to spoilage again once the package is opened. While unopened UHT milk will last for months without refrigeration and ESL milk gets up to three weeks (depending on process and refrigerator temperature), once the package is opened, all of them will stay safe for a mere days only. The same is true for plant-based milks like soy milk.
So unless you have introduced some substance that encourages curdling (typically an acid), the curdling indicates that your milk has gone off and is no longer safe. Boiling will not remedy that. |
Reason(s) for poor bread results
This past weekend I was fortunate enough to be gifted a standing mixer.
My first project was James Beard's white bread. The end characteristics that I wish to improve on were:
When attempting to de-loaf the bread to tap the bottom, the top crust was hermetically sealed onto the loaf pan
It smelled yeasty instead of a nice baked smell. It didn't necessarily taste as yeasty as it smelled
It was very, very dense
Some thoughts on why it had these issues:
I was advised to mix for 5-10 minutes. I mixed for a solid 10 minutes
For the 2nd proofing, I was advised to go 40-60 minutes. I barely went 40
During mixing, toward the start, I didn't feel I had the best we/dry mixture. I played around a bit with the water and flour. When I took it out to place it in the bowl for the 1st proofing, the dough was very sticky
Any suggestions to make better bread? | It appears to me that all you need is to give the dough more proofing time. Also, make sure that your pan is generously dusted with flour before placing the dough in and baking.
For the yeasty smell, the fix is quite simple; use less yeast.
This may seem like an ignorant piece of advice, but I'm serious. I used to follow pizza dough recipes that end up smelling way to yeasty. I didn't want to reduce the yeast amount, as I thought "that's what's written in the recipe, any less and the dough won't be as good", but over time, I've come to realize that a smaller amount of yeast can accomplish the same level of proofing (with more proofing time). |
Timing Stock/Broth Perfectly
I have been experimenting with different methods and I am trying to find the perfect extraction time for each of the elements of my stock. I first noticed this when one time I added celery leaves and parsley in the last hour of the cook, and it had such a nice fresh aroma to compliment the deep stock flavour and thought maybe it would make sense to add in every element of a stock at different times?
It's been my experience that Chicken Carcass and Feet are about done at around 4-6 hours, Veal and Beef Bone around 10-12. But vegetables are good after about 2 hours (carrots, celery, leek), is there any reason why I should not cook my veal stock for 8 hours and then right towards the end pop in the vegetable? It seems so intuitive for me but I have literally NEVER seen it done. Maybe I'm missing something? | Is there any reason why I should not cook my veal stock for 8 hours and then right towards the end pop in the vegetable?
No, and there are many reasons why what you are doing is what you should be doing!
It seems so intuitive for me but I have literally NEVER seen it done.
Well, I can find many sources that advise you to add the vegetables towards the end of the cooking time. For example, from The Kitchn:
Adding the vegetables too soon.
Vegetables cook a lot quicker than beef, so there’s no reason to add them to the pot at the same time. Add them too soon, and you’ll be left with mushy (and unappetizing) veggies.
And it makes total sense. At my household, we make bone & vegetable soup about once a week, and are pretty familiar with the timing of each ingredient. We usually just put in the "soupable" vegetables that are lying around in the house, so the recipe is always changing.
Here is our rule of thumb as to which sort of ingredients go into the pot before others, though other household may vary:
Bone and meat.
Medicinal aromatic ingredients *(like dried shiitake mushrooms) and salt.
Root vegetables (like carrots) and vegetable stalks (like cauliflower stems).
Leafy greens (like lettuce) and herbs. |
Does the foam from instant coffee always taste bitter?
I'm trying instant coffee for the first time and thought that it tasted like drinking a flat tire. After experimenting with different condiments I came to realize that the offensive taste was from the foam that appears at the top after stirring in the powder and not the liquid itself.
The taste of the foam is bitter and extremely distasteful. But if I spoon it off then the coffee itself is just fine.
I am new to instant coffee and have only tried Nescafé Taster's Choice and Café Listo de La Salvadoreña.
Is this a common theme among instant coffee? Possibly a result of the drying process? | With proper coffee the foam is referred to as crema. It is typically quite bitter itself (as coffee tends to be anyway), which seems to be a function of the emulsion of the aromatic oils in the crema and CO2 from the bubbles. I don't know that the crema on an instant coffee is any more bitter than the crema on an espresso
Instant coffee aims to replicate the crema to give the appearance of a quality coffee. I have found (I'm from NZ, where we drink quite a lot of instant coffee generally), that instant coffee tends to have a faint chemical taste in the crema that isn't present in an espresso coffee. I suspect this is a result of the process of manufacturing instant coffee, or even perhaps as a result of aiming to get a crema on the instant without the pressurized equipment used to make an espresso coffee |
How can even a small amount of citrus "cook" the outside of seafood?
Please see the sentence beside the red heart. What's the chemistry behind this?
From p. 68 in Williams-Sonoma Collection: Seafood 2005. | The "cook" in this case is not actually a cook. It is the acid in the citrus (all citrus contain... citric acid), which interacts with the proteins and precipitates/coagulates them, which is essentially the same process as happens when you heat protein.
In both cases the interaction causes loss of secondary structure in the protein, which results in essentially insoluble protein that then precipitates out of solution. Denatured proteins are generally whiteish ( e.g. egg white/albumen is ~10% protein, which is clear before heating, but white when denaturation then precipitation by cooking). |
Eating dehydrated uncooked red potato
I sliced some red potatoes and put them, without any prior processing (no cooking, no frying etc.), in a dehydrator at 45 celsius. Several hours later, they came out crispy and tasty. However, when I tried the same thing with white potatoes, they were not tasty at all (as in this question: Dehydrator potato chips). Although my dried red potatoes are tasty, I fear that there might be an unhealthy substance in them. Is it safe to eat those uncooked dehydrated red potatoes? | Short answer: no, it is unlikely. There are some concerns with eating potatoes, but these apply to any form of consumption of them.
Longer answer:
Maybe. The main risk from potatoes (along with most garden plants) is ingestion of pesticides, fertilizers etc added to the garden where they were grown. So long as the with-holding periods are observed for these additives, and the tubers themselves washed sufficiently, these should not be a problem.
There are additional concerns:
Potatoes (and tomato, peppers (chili), eggplant/aubergine) are members of the Solanaceae, which is known as the "Nightshade" family. Nightshades all contain something known as Solanine, which is an glycoalkaloid toxin. Glycoalkaloids largely result in neurological and gastrointestinal symptoms, resulting in muscle cramps, vomiting, nausea, headaches, diarrhea at low levels, and can even cause death at high levels.
Solanine can be found in any part of the plant, including the tubers and is not reduced by boiling or dehydration, although temperatures over 170 C (~390 F; i.e. baking and deep-frying) can cause a reduction in the level. Most of the solanine is found in the skin, so peeling the potatoes removes a large majority of it. There is also a suggestion that green patches on the skin of a potato indicate higher levels of solanine, and places like the US National Library of Medicine recommend against eating green potatoes.
It seems that there is some variation in alkaloid levels in different potato varieties (May be paywalled), and they are higher in organiclly grown potatoes than non-organic.
Apparently you can test for solanine by placing a small piece of the raw skin in your mouth for a few seconds. An itchy feeling or bitter taste indicates high levels of solanine and related glycoalkaloids.
Having said all that, it seems that alkaloid poisoning is rare in the general population, though possibly misdiagnosed as food poisoning in many instances as symptoms are similar. Masses of potatoes are consumed in the western world, and given the low rate of alkaloid poisoning, I think you will largely be safe. Sources indicate that eating up to 5 g (0.18 oz) per kg (2.2 lb) of body weight per day of green potatoes does not cause acute illness. If, as your name indicates you might be, are a typical Israeli male of 85 kg (187 lb; which is also a pretty typical western body weight), this equates to 425 g (0.9 lb) of green potatoes per day.
TLDR: most likely safe. |
Re-seasoning of cast iron skillet gone wrong?
So, we had some stir-fry burn up pretty badly in our trusted cast-iron skillet. Upon cleaning the skillet some of the coating came off with the burned food. I made a first attempt of re-seasoning it with avocado oil and putting it upside down in the oven for an hour at 375°F. The result was mediocre, there was some coating in the stripped areas but it didn't look like the rest of the surface, and you could see some bare metal shining through. Sure enough, food was sticking again to the stripped area.
My wife re-seasoned it again, this time following slightly different instructions that were on the internet: using olive oil and baking it for two hours right-side-up at 450°F. At the end of the process the skillet definitely had a new hard coating that was smooth and not sticky to the touch. However, there was an anomaly in the middle (probably around the same spot that got stripped originally, but we can't be sure). There was a raised ridge around the area, but the area inside the ridge still did appear to have a proper coating:
So, my question is: what went wrong here and how does it affect the usability of the skillet? Do we need to strip it and re-season it yet again? Can we ignore this anomaly? Is there anything we can do to prevent this sort of thing from happening? | It looks like the second attempt used far too much oil, which can lead to all sorts of uneven spots in the pan. Seasoning that thick tends to flake off when you cook with the pan. I would strip it and reseason immediately. In general you want to use a very very thin layer of oil, wiping out the excess from the pan with an absorbent cloth (I don't like using paper towels since they can leave residue in the pan) before heating. There should not be enough oil in the pan to drip down the sides or form a noticeable layer in the bottom like it has done in your picture. Placing it upside down in the oven is a way of ensuring that any excess oil drips out of the pan instead of forming drips in the pan or a too thick layer at the bottom. Then you repeat the process at least three times if you start from a completely stripped pan. It's normal to require several layers before the finish is restored. |
Thawing vacuum-packed fish
I purchased vacuum-packed Flounder and the individual wrapped filets bear the following statement:
Must remove from packaging before thawing. Do not refreeze.
Now, "do not refreeze" is straightforward. We were taught in grade school, don't re-freeze meat or food poisoning can result.
Does "must remove from packaging before thawing" have a similarly health-oriented cause? Or is it simply less damaging to the filet to remove it from vacuum-packing while it's frozen? This advice is contrary to the simplicity and neatness of thawing the fish while it's still vacuum-packed.
My question is, is there a health-related reason not to thaw it while still in the vacuum-pack? | Typically the plastic used for vacuum packed food is polyethylene, which has a low melting point, depending on the plastic it could be as low as 110°C, or 230°F. Once it melts you have liquid plastic on your food with the nasty flavors and potential health concerns.
The big thing here is microwaving can very quickly cause the plastic to reach that temperature (actually it raises the food to that temperature which heats the plastic), but explaining the dos and don'ts is complex so they just make a blanket statement so they can't be blamed if something goes wrong. In reality you can safely thaw fish in the plastic using any method you want as long as you are careful not to reach that temperature. If you microwave thaw do it on low and check it often to make sure you aren't overheating it.
Regarding re-freezing I won't cover it here as there's already a very good question and answer on this site here. The short answer is refreezing can be done safely as long as it's within certain parameters. |
Is it bad to be a 'board tapper', i.e. to tap your knife rhythmically when you're cutting vegetables?
I briefly worked in a restaurant kitchen in Hong Kong under a British chef. He objected to the sound I made when slicing onions, and warned me not to be a 'board tapper'. I duly spent the next weeks learning to slice onions his way, though I wasn't able to match the speed I'd been accustomed to using the method I'm more practised in.
I've lived in Asia for many years, and use a Chinese vegetable knife/ Chinese chef's knife (CCK - NOT a cleaver) to cut almost everything. These tall, relatively straight-edged knives are used by Chinese chefs for the majority of tasks, and are employed using either a 'push cut' to force the blade through denser materials, a 'chop cut' in which the whole edge hits the board more or less parallel to it, or a 'draw cut' in which the tip of the blade is drawn back through softer materials, the angle at which the knife is held and the depth of the material being cut together determining how much of the edge's length does the cutting.
European chefs typically use French-/ German-style chef's knives with long, pointed, curved blades and favour a 'rocker' cut (during which the tip of the blade stays in contact with the board) for slicing medium-density ingredients like onions, as taught by Jamie Oliver et al.
The rocker cut is quiet and sustains high frequencies, although like the push cut it does require some vertical force from the cook's arm. The chop cut also sustains high frequencies and requires little force, relying instead upon a heavier blade to let gravity do the work, but it is noisy. (The draw cut is almost silent and can be very precise, but is slower partly because it requires the movement of the whole arm.) Each has its different applications.
Through some cursory research, I found out that tapping one's knife on the board even when not cutting anything can serve a number of functions:
Activate muscle memory prior to cutting to avoid poor first cuts
Remove pieces of food from the blade after cutting
Warn others that a knife is about to be wielded
Attract attention (valuable to street-kitchen chefs)
Punctuate speech (valuable to television chefs)
Add flair to one's work/ annoy people around one.
Whilst this kind of non-cut tapping is a separate matter, its various reasons cast light upon the types of issues surrounding human sounds in the kitchen, amid the roaring and grinding and hissing, churning, and beeping of various machines. Noise itself, clearly, isn't the problem.
I've come across the 'board-tapper' criticism elsewhere, in books, and often wondered whether this is mostly a tech thing (curved blades rock, straight blades tap), a culinary chauvinism thing (Asians tap, and cheap CCKs are not welcome in non-Asian kitchens), or a kitchen-hierarchy thing (chefs de commis should be seen and not heard).
As the extra noise probably equates to extra wear on the blade it could be a 'maintenance thing', and reasonably so were it not that most cooks don't sharpen other cooks' knives. Although the vast majority of jobbing chefs in the West use standard, serviceable implements made by the likes of Victorinox, not artworks of folded steel by artisan knifemakers, a heightened awareness of luxury goods everywhere has inevitably led to a heightened interest how they should be cared for - but as the explosion of interest in craft knifemaking has been very much an Internet-enabled phenomenon, its roots don't go back far enough to explain the prejudice. Outside of Japan, at least, using posh knives for mundane work is a relatively new thing.
Onions are onions everywhere... So why does board-tapping matter so much to some people? | I know, this isn't really an answer, but it's a bit long for a comment:
There are people in this world that get annoyed by different things that don't bother other people. For some of those people, it's noise ... someone tapping their foot, chewing gum, etc. It's possible that there's a legitimate reason for this pet peeve, but sometimes it's something really odd like 'I had a friend who used to do that, and my partner left me for them, and so when I hear it reminds me of that' ... but it's subconscious, and they couldn't explain it without a year or two of therapy. I've also known people who were sensitive to sound (and he complained that I spoke too loudly ... but he always spoke loudly, and I'd subconsciously match my levels to his ... and he hated wearing hearing protection).
For reasons that most other people would understand:
The person may be using sound cues in their cooking (how something sizzles as it hits the pan, or how the sound changes as something is frying), and if there is too much noise, they can't hear those cues.
The person may have difficulty concentrating (possibly even ADD), and they find the noise distracting
In a noisy kitchen, people have to talk louder, which means that other people have to talk even louder ... and after a while, the noise is just unbearable, and in the US, can actually become an OSHA violation.
A noisy kitchen may cause people to not hear or mishear instructions, resulting in slower or bad service.
Of course, if the chef is also shouting at people all the time, then it's difficult to accept the above items as good justification. (except maybe #4).
There have been a number of articles on noise levels in restaurants in the past few years and most focus on the patrons (and there are even apps for patrons to track noise levels, but many of the observations about lack of sound dampening still hold true:
https://www.vox.com/2018/4/18/17168504/restaurants-noise-levels-loud-decibels
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/may/09/great-food-but-please-do-something-about-the-noise-the-battle-for-quieter-restaurants
Sometimes, we have to factor in multiple considerations when deciding how to do something. In project management, there's the adage of "good, cheap, fast. pick two", in how you have to sacrifice quality, cost, or speed and can't have all three. Some chefs will cut off the top & bottom of bell peppers so that they can make equally sized sticks. I cut off the sides and bottom so I waste less. Neither way is "bad", but we just have different priorities.
In your particular case, the chef has decided that the noise level (or at least, lack of tapping noise) is more important to them. Someone else might optimize for speed and be okay with a certain level of noise. Someone else might have space for you to do your prep further away so you're not bothering them. There are just different trade-offs to try to get to the optimal solution for a particular situation. And it may not even be constant with a given chef -- someone who would otherwise prioritize speed might have a hangover and have a day when they'd prefer quiet. |
How to scale Indian cooking?
What are the best practices for scaling up Indian dishes such as chicken curry, butter chicken, palak paneer, etc. that follow these generic steps (albeit with different ingredients):
oil -> whole spices -> onions -> ginger garlic -> tomatoes -> chicken/veg
The process above yields extremely tasty & authentic dishes that serve 4-6 people and I have used various recipes with good success.
But when I double/triple/quadruple the quantity (i.e., the amount of chicken or spinach) things go awry. I increase the base curry ingredients (onions, ginger/garlic/tomatoes/spices) but not necessarily twofold, threefold, or fourfold, etc. The result is a dish that lacks flavor or balance.
The question is, should all ingredients proportionally increase? | Cooking is as a rule of thumb more forgiving when you tinker with the ratios than e.g. baking. That said, if you have a recipe that works and you want to increase the number of servings, the first step is to increase all ingredients by the same factor, keeping the ratios consistent. This should bring you at least into the vicinity of the desired results.
Unfortunately, this can still be somewhat off target, as recipes depend not only on ingredients, but on basic physics (and chemistry), e.g. evaporating a percentage of liquid, or heat transfer to and from a body of food, may it be a roast or a pot with a given volume. A shallow layer of something in a wide pan will cook differently than the same amount in a tall and narrow pot. Whenever you scale up or down, you need to take these factors into account. And yes, this can influence not only the cooking time, but also the flavor profile. Just think of frying a small amount vs a large amount in the same pan - there’s a reason some recipes recommend searing some ingredients in batches.
It’s almost impossible to give a generic answer, but if you follow the principles of
scale proportionally
determine cooking time by doneness or desired intermediate states, not time alone
optionally, adjust liquids according to surface area
you shouldn’t be too far off and only need minor tweaks. Everything beyond that would need looking into the specific recipe. |
My whipped cream can has run out of nitrous. I want what's inside anyway. What's the least destructive method of doing so?
I have a circular saw meant for cutting metal, I have pliers, I even have a can opener, but I'm not certain others encountering this problem and looking it up on DDG/Google may have these. So, what's the solution to a commercial can of whipped cream being unable to empty on its own? Assume that I want the cream edible but don't care anymore that it won't be foamy.
EDIT: There is concern that this might not be safe. Ensure that your answer, therefore, is safe. | Circular saw will fill it with metal filings - not great for the mouthfeel, I'd think.
Pliers aren't sharp enough to puncture.
Can opener will have no lip to grab.
Your first issue will be the container skidding out of your control - with potential for finger-loss & furniture damage. You're not going to easily find any implement you can squeeze slowly to make the first cut, you're going to have to hit it with something sharp.
Your second will be how much gas is actually left in the container & what that results in.
Messy but possible, grip it in a vice & puncture with a hammer & fine wood chisel. Then use something like aluminium sheet cutters (they're like big, tough scissors) to finish cutting around the perimeter.
Cons:-
Spray/spatter on your first puncture, assuming you can hit it hard enough to penetrate the top face without going straight through & pouring the rest on the floor.
Sanitising the tools.
I'd just bin it. |
Is there any botulism risk in homemade cold brew coffee?
Cold brew coffee is known to be less acidic and it stays airtight in fridge overnight. It's not heated before consumption.
There are news on the internet about a well known coffee producer recalling its coffee cans for botulism risk. Is there any botulism risk in homemade cold brew coffee?
Also, does covering the can that contains cold brew in fridge (overnight) airtight increase botulism or any alike food poisoning risk? Should I cover it or keep it open to decrease the risks? | There's probably a near zero probability to get botulism from home brewed cold coffee if done properly (clean containers/vessels, clean fridge, cold fridge temperature... )
As long as you keep it cold, it should be ok.
(I've not made a thorough google search)
There at least one report from 2017 of a recall for nitro cold brew; it's pretty much the only report I've seen.
Here's a report of the findings, taken from this reddit thread.
I might have missed it, but it was probably an issue with their processing. |
Too much wine used in coq au vin
The NYT coq au vin recipe called for 3 1/2 cups red wine and marinate overnight, then reduce to make the sauce. Husband added an extra 2-3 cups of wine to the marinade. It is now the morning after. Which should I do? Reserve 2 cups only of the marinade to reduce (as probably 1 cup has been absorbed by the chicken?), or take the time simmering all of the wine down. | Marinades are generally surface treatments, especially in thicker cuts. With the exception of salt (if any in the marinade), I doubt your chicken has absorbed any marinade. So, your issue is the higher quantity of liquid, and flavoring of the wine. I think you could go either way...remove some, or reduce. If it were me (so as not to be wasteful), I would just cook as normal, reduce longer, and taste and re-season along the way. |
Margarine vs vegetable oil in baking
Since the ingredients of margarine tend to be vegetable oil hydrogenated to be firm, is there any point in using it over vegetable oil in baking where it will be melted into liquid anyway?
Same question for any other applications where it's not spread on toast | Yes, it certainly matters. Baking is not about what goes in, it is about the structure in which it goes in (and as a consequence, the structure in which it comes out). If you start using oil instead of margarine, the results will be anything between "different" and " a disaster". Flour soaked in liquid oil behaves very differently than flour in contact with margarine, and until the time the margarine melts, a lot of other interactions should have happened, which will prevent the flour (or the other ingredients) to behave as if they had been in contact with liquid oil from the beginning.
Simply "different" is something you will get in some forgiving batters such as muffin batter (when made by the mix-everything-at-once method, also aptly named "muffin method") and some types of cookie, which will show difference in spread behavior and variables such as chewiness. Yeast doughs, which usually use the fat simply as a form of enrichment, will likely be the least affected, in fact many of them may direct you to melt a solid fat for easy mixing.
You can expect a very bad result in any short or flaky dough (pie crusts and many types of cookie), in recipes which rely on creaming the margarine (many cakes and cupcakes for the batter, and all sorts of buttercream), and laminated doughs. Probably also others, these are the ones that come first to my mind. |
What alcoholic drinks are popular with out alcohol?
I don't drink alcohol do to a Psychiatric drug.
There has to be some alcoholic drinks that taste okay with out alcohol.
What drinks are popular to get with out alcohol? | I'd google "virgin cocktails" or "mocktails"
There are more and more non alcoholic recipes out there.
Most mocktails are variations on regular cocktails, using different juices and aromatics or bitters to simulate the alcohol taste and flavors
For example, a virgin pina colada more or less just omit the rhum. |
Reasons my sourdough attempts failed?
Last March I started adventuring into the world of Sourdoughs by following the advise of The Fresh Loaf Bakers's handbook but using wholegrain rye flour all the way and it went pretty well; after a week or so I started having nice sour rye breads. For context, this was a typical spring in Mallorca, known for its usual high humidity, with temperatures at home between 18-20ºC to about 30ºC by the time I left.
Then, I moved to Vigo (northwestern Spain) in the middle of July and sure shortly after I decided to make a new sourdough from scratch following the same recipe, but this time no orange juice.
For context, I set up a humidity/temperature sensor and got some values ranging 70% and 99% (crazy weather here) and intense 29-32ºC at home. The result was a rather smelly (and not in a good sense, nowhere similar to what I had before) sourdough after a few days, which after four or five days developed a thin white layer of something I thought would be mold.
I had searched for this at the time and found it might be mold, so I discarded it. Then I said to myself, it must be the orange juice, so I went and tried again with orange juice only to obtain the same results. This experimentation process went for about 4 cycles.
I tried feeding it twice a day, I changed the jar in which I was keeping it, I covered the jar, I uncovered the jar, I sealed the jar, all to no avail. By then I decided not to waste more time and wait for colder climate maybe (haven't done so yet, though).
Now I'm thinking I want to start again, but I'd like to get some feedback from more experienced users into what might had gone wrong. I even started to suspect it was related to the quality of water (which I purify with one of this Britta filters, any thoughts?) or of the air.
For reference: my sourdough would get a layer, not as bad, but close enough, to this: The Fresh Loaf post | The temperature is indeed the most likely reason behind it. In sourdough, you are creating a small new ecosystem niche, and depending on the environmental conditions, different strains of yeast and bacteria will "win" and outgrow the others. And for microorganisms, there is a huge difference between the 18-22 C when your successful colony established itself and the 32 C when you made the second try.
The air humidity is less important, since it is the humidity within the sourdough itself that drives the growth of the microorganisms. There may be a small effect in the initial seeding, with different microorganisms drifting in the air in the different climates. However, I am not sure how much that matters - there are all kinds of conflicting information out there on where your microflora comes from (air or not) and how much influence it has on the final outcome.
I don't think there is much you can do about the whole thing, if you cannot control the temperature. I am not aware of sourdough recipes developed for fermenting at 30 C. If you want to use this recipe, you will have to find a temperature-controlled environment at the right range. Assuming that you don't have that, but have a fridge, you might alternatively try a recipe intended for starting in the fridge. These will give you a different style of sourdough, you will have to decide if you like baking with it. |
If pickling destroys Vitamin C, how is Sauerkraut rich in Vitamin C?
My understanding is that pickling destroys Vitamin C. However, apparently Sauerkraut is very rich in Vitamin C and is used by the German Navy to offset scurvy. What am I missing here?
Because early sailors suffered from scurvy and I must assume they brought preserved fruits and vegetables with them but that wasn't enough (or maybe they didn't? But if they did not I do not know why unless Europeans did not know about pickling but that seems unlikely). What is it about Sauerkraut that is different?
EDIT: Question has been extended to Why weren't pickled fruits and vegetables part of (European) rations during the Age of Sail? | Vitamin C is destroyed by heat and light. If you use a preservation method that relies on heating the sauerkraut at any stage (hot pickling liquid, water bath or pressure canning the jars) then some vitamin C is destroyed. Exactly how much depends on the process: not all vitamin C is lost immediately so different processes will have different amounts of vitamin C left. And if you use a preservation method that doesn't rely on heat like lacto-fermentation, no vitamin C is lost to heat (some may be lost to light, depending on how you store it). |
Milk powder doesn't dissolve
I'm following some recipes making chocolate, candies and cookies that use milk powder to enhance the flavor. I tried several milk powder brands, different types skim vs full cream, but I never can dissolve milk powder completely. My dough/batter always end up with a lot of milk powder chunks. How can I avoid this?
To make chocolate, I mixed milk powder, cocoa powder and icing sugar with coconut oil.
For cookie dough, after creaming butter and egg, I added flour and milk powder.
To make candies, I melted butter and marshmallow then finalized with milk powder. | From Chocolate Making Adventures (paragraph 4):
Milk powder won't dissolve into cocoa butter, so the trick is to make the powder so fine that the tongue cannot detect the grains. If your milk powder already has the consistency of flour, you can use it 'as is'.
The same would likely apply for butter, as the main focus is the fat. So if your milk powder already has the consistency of flour, you can try to grind it down until it is so.
Finally, instead of scooping/pouring the milk powder into the mixture, use a sieve to gradually sift the powder in as you stir. |
How to open a malfunctioning tamper-proof bottle cap?
I have a bottle of oil I want to open. It is a glass bottle with a threaded metal cap. It is the type of cap which is connected in a few places to a lower ring. Usually, one just unscrews the cap, and it tears off the ring, which stays below the threads.
I now have a bottle whose cap+ring system is too loose. When I turn the cap, the whole thing, cap+ring, rotates freely without unscrewing or exerting a tearing force on the connection places.
What I tried, unsuccessfully:
turn it vigorously
grip it with a towel while turning
exert an upward pull while turning it
holding the lower ring with the fingers of one hand while gripping the cap with the fingers of the other hand through a towel, and exerting force in opposite directions
trying to cut the connection places with a knife tip (doesn't get cut, but it feels like the knife might slip and hurt me any time).
Note that this is a different problem than the much more common one of both not turning and my fingers slipping on the cap instead. I can grip the cap perfectly well, and it rotates very easily, it just doesn't unscrew or separate from the ring. | I've had this before, and solved it by breaking the join between cap and ring with a small screwdriver, one section at a time. Long nose pliers may be handy towards the end. You might manage to get the tip of a butter knife in the join instead of the screwdriver.
Trying too hard when it's not coming off tends to deform the threads in the cap, so it may not go back on securely later - you might need to decant the contents. |
Why do my English muffins have such a tough crust?
I'm new to the baking of English muffins. I follow the recipe for sourdough English muffins published on YouTube by Culinary Exploration. After accounting for the 100% hydration of the starter, the recipe calls for about 62% hydration. The procedure involves pre-baking in an open skillet to form a light crust followed by oven baking to finish the center. I use Sir Galahad flour from King Arthur, which contains 11.7% protein.
My EMs taste great and the crumb is exactly what I want, but I get a paper-thin outer crust which is very tough to bite through and chew. The crust seems to be the same on both sides of the muffins; i.e., there's no distinction between the side that was exposed vs the side that was against the parchment paper during proofing. Lowering the heat of the skillet and the oven has no discernible effect, other than reducing browning. The crust does soften a bit with storage, but it's still too rugged.
I fear that changing hydration will alter the thickness to diameter proportions of the muffins. Any other suggestions? | I strongly suspect that it's the trip to the oven that's making those muffins tough.
My personal recipe for sourdough muffins does not involve baking them; they are cooked entirely on the griddle. I checked three different sourdough muffin recipes (1, 2, 3) and none of them used the oven either.
So my suggestion is that you try cooking them entirely on the stovetop and omit the oven. This will require longer cooking on the griddle to make sure they're done all the way through; I suggest checking with an instant-read thermometer (should be 90C in the center). I don't suggest lowering the griddle heat, which should be around 175C ... cooking them longer may actually toughen them.
The second thing I notice is that almost every sourdough recipe I've checked has some kind of fat in it, usually butter or whole milk, and the recipe you linked does not. The recipe I've tried that doesn't is Arizmendi Bakery's, which are also very chewy and tough to bite into (I like them, but I suspect you wouldn't). So adding some kind of fat to the recipe would probably help your crust texture; it generally does with bread.
There's other general tips to peruse, just in case you're running afoul of something else like using way too much flour during kneading.
It's also true, though, that different sourdough cultures can result in chewier (or less chewy) crusts. So if eliminating the oven step and adding fat doesn't work, I'd suggest testing a non-sourdough recipe to see if you're having the same issue there. |
Recipe calls for Tapioca pudding - none to be found!
Any suggestions on what to use? I want to make a recipe called "Orange Creamsicle Salad. You boil the tapioca pudding, gelatin and pudding. Any ideas on what I can use other than Tapioca pudding? | I have a jello recipe something like the orange creamsickle you mentioned.It calls for 1 box vanilla tapioca pudding and I can't find it either anymore. I used 1/4 cup instant vanilla pudding and 2 tablespoons granulated tapioca instead,both of which i can buy bulk. It turned out just like i remembered it with the vanilla tapioca pudding. |
What is the purpose of adding baking powder to a recipe that contains yeast?
Example, this recipe: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/food-and-wine/recipes/recipe-traditional-cypriot-tahini-pies/article25201735/
In addition to yeast it calls for a small amount of baking powder. What is the purpose of that?
I found this thread, from which I basically concluded that there is no real leavening effect of using baking powder and yeast together because if you bake it quickly, the yeast fails to leaven as it does not have time to work, and if you bake it after resting, the baking powder would fail to leaven because it is already spent by the time baking starts.
So is there any other reason one would add baking powder to a yeast-leavened dessert? One of the answers in the link above talks about a possible reason for adding baking soda to yeast but nothing on baking powder. | Most baking powder available today is double-acting baking powder. The "first" action is when it gets wet. The "second" action is when it gets hot (above 140°F/60°C).
Generally speaking, the yeast would provide the pre-bake rise, and then the baking powder would assist with additional spring once it's in the oven.
Interesting about this recipe that you link to is that the yeast gets a very short amount of time for the yeast to proof before baking. The recipe calls for a 5 minute rest after mixing, but no additional proofing time after shaping. I'm not familiar with these particular cypriot pies at all, but my first impression is actually that because there isn't a step to let the pies rise after they are shaped, the baking powder is likely somewhat necessary to ensure a decent lift. |
What is my fish's story?
I purchased salmon that seems to have an interesting history:
[Norwegian flag] NORWEGIAN* SMOKED SALMON
FARM RAISED AND COLOR ADDED
harvested in the icy Norwegian waters of the Northern Atlantic and delicately smoked with a mild, low salt cure
*PRODUCT OF GREECE
I'd be interested in knowing my salmon's provenance. How did it get that label? | All Atlantic Salmon* is farmed, so for it to be "Norwegian" it had to come from a farm off the coast of Norway (which is the world's third largest source) then shipped to Greece for further processing. The colour is added in their feed because they're pale compared to wild salmon otherwise; so Greece was potentially where it was filleted & cured. The trip to Greece would have probably been by ship, whole, frozen. Possibly on ice, by truck, but Greece is a long way from Norway by road.
It could even have been processed before shipping or en route, so Greece was left to do just the final packaging.
Some details & numbers on this page - 5 Key Differences Between Atlantic Salmon And Wild Salmon.
Shipping information from SeafoodFromNorway.com
*Atlantic Salmon is the species, there's only one in the Atlantic, whether it's called Canadian, Scottish or Norwegian. |
How to clean/wash (Sichuan) peppercorns?
Tragically, I spilled over a bottle of Sichuan peppercorns on the kitchen floor, which is fairly dirty (we walk on it with outdoor shoes, and if you wipe at the floor with a cloth it will pick up a thin layer of dirt/grime).
To avoid eating dirt/germs, do I have to throw out the split peppercorns? Or can I "sanitize" them someway, either by washing with water, baking to a certain temperature, etc.? | It probably isn't worth washing them. You could try washing them with water alone but this certainly won't remove many types of dirt such as oils. The main flavour compounds in most spices are not highly soluble in water, so most of the flavour (Hydroxy-alpha sanshool in this case) will remain. However, if you used a detergent to remove any oils, it is likely that this will also wash off some of the flavour compounds, and likely be difficult to remove from the seeds. You would also need to dry them thoroughly after washing, especially if you wanted to store them.
You may be able to bake them - it seems that the Hydroxy-alpha sanshool has a boiling point of 574 C (1065 F), which is much hotter than most ovens will reach. However, this risks burning them and thereby destroying the flavours before you can sterilize. Dry heat at 176-232 C (349-450 F) is sufficient to sterilize food with dry heat (see section on sterilization by heat in chapter here (paywall?)), however these are baking temperatures and will cook the seeds quite rapidly, so you will most likely burn them before you could cook off any dirt and before most bacteria get killed. With this method you would still be eating dirt, it just wouldn't be able to make you sick.
A third option is to just pick them up individually - so as to not scrape them across the floor any more than they already have, then place in a sieve, shake up and down a few times to winnow (in the intransitive verb form) out any particulate dirt. Then store, and consider that cooking them will very likely kill >99.99% of any contaminating bacteria/fungal spores. |
Alternatives to borax for minced protein recipes (fish balls, kebabs, etc.)?
Borax (sodium salt of boric acid) is used in some recipes as a texturizing agent.
From Wikipedi | borax imparts a firm, rubbery texture to food.
It does this by binding polymers in the food:
Borax acts on these polymers just as it acts on other polymers and will bind polymers together forming cross-linkages which change the texture and structure of the proteins.
However, it is banned as a food additive in several countries due to concerns about its safety.
What is a safe alternative which will have the same textural/binding effect on meat proteins but without the possible risk? |
Is steaming causing food to lose more flavor than baking?
I made two banana nugget with two different method. For those who have never heard one, that basically a thin (3 cm thick in a pan of 5x5 cm) banana cake with a lot more banana than flour.
One is done with baking in the oven and the other with steaming. Both aimed so that all part of the nugget is cooked. Baking in oven takes 20 minutes in 160 C, and steaming takes 30 minutes.
Even with the exact same recipe, I realized that the product has different flavor. The baked one is definitely more dry, more fragrant and I can feel the strong banana flavor when I eat it.
The steamed one is less fragrant, I can't really taste the banana flavor, and of course a bit more wet.
How is that possible? Is steaming really diminish/reduce the flavor? Or maybe I missed something?
For those curious with the recipe, the banana nugget basically consist of 6 part of banana, 2 part of flour, and 1 part of other ingredients (sugar, fat, baking soda, etc). | Yes it does, and you actually already described some of the mechanisms in the question already. It is an effect that is more widely known in vegetables (roasted have more taste than steamed), but I suppose that this is much rarer to steam cakes.
First, you already mention that the baked one is drier, and the steamed is wetter. This is already a factor - try dipping a bite of the baked one in water and eating it, then eat an undipped bite, and you will notice a difference there already. The "waterlogging" itself is already a reason for the taste to change.
Second, steaming leads to much lower temperatures, especially on the outside of the cake. If you have oil added, either in the batter or brushed on the pan, you are also missing out on reactions which happen between the hot oil and dryish batter in one case (these are the reactions which make fried food so tasty) and are impossible, or very reduced, between the not-so-hot oil and the wet batter (that is also covered in condensation where not in contact with the pan) during steaming.
Third, banana flavor itself is brought out by heat. For many applications using bananas, it is normal (but not so widely known) that heating/precooking your banana changes its flavor and makes it more intense - you can use this for ice cream, for example. And I suspect that the lower heat in the steaming case is not sufficient for this to happen as much.
Fourth, there is the concentration issue Spagirl mentioned in a comment, which is partly overlapping with the first one, but I suspect that there is a separate effect beyond the intermediate experience of wetness on the tongue.
So yes, it is very normal to notice such a difference, and it goes beyond banana bread and its relatives. |
How to make a meringue cake layer that is not cracked?
I have been trying for some time to make a meringue cake layer (like for Pavlova, but flatter, thinner) and I have not had any luck.
The recipe I use is 50 grams of sugar per one medium egg white, and 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar if using 3 egg whites.
So I use 150 grams of sugar, 3 medium egg whites, and 1/4 teaspoon of cream of tartar. (I stopped adding flavourings because I think they might contribute to my failure.)
I use glass or metal bowl that has been washed, dried, and lightly wiped down with a lemon sliced in half. The mixer beaters are also washed and wiped with lemon juice. The egg whites are at room temperature when I start mixing.
How I make it - I use a hand-held electric mixer and beat the egg whites (oh high speed) until somewhat stiff peaks form, and then I start adding in the sugar, a spoonful at a time, beating well between each addition (15-20 seconds on high speed) until it becomes almost shiny.
I draw four circles on the baking paper (15 cm in diametre), divide and spread out the egg whites with a spoon, and put it immediately in the oven at 100C (212F), for 60 minutes, then I turn off the oven, leave them in for 15 minutes more, and take out.
I have tried baking (drying, essentially) them at 90C, at 120C, all with varying results, but they almost always come out cracked and not white.
I know I am doing something wrong, but I do not know what... If anyone can help, I will be greatly thankful. | I am not entirely sure that what you intend is doable. A pure French meringue, when baked enough to get hard, will generally go brown on the outside. Also, I don't think the idea is very functional - first, most fillings and icings will likely wet your layers through, and second, if you can keep them dry, eating the cake will not be especially pleasant, getting worse with every layer you add.
You may instead look into existing recipes for cake layers designed around a meringue. These are usually dacquoise cakes, but I recently also found out that there is a popular cake in Serbia made with what was called orehovka in eastern bloc countries, essentially a merengue-and-walnut cookie, which gets blown up to cake layer size for that recipe.
If you absolutely insist on using pure meringue, you will get better behavior from Italian meringue. Be very precise in measuring the temperature of the eggs and the syrup correctly, in getting it to the right stage without overwhipping, pop it in the oven (your 90 to 120 C range sounds right) and keep your fingers crossed.
In case you continue trying the pure-meringue-route, there are two more things to try. One, you can also add a vessel full of water on the bottom of the oven to reduce the probability of cracking. Two, if you use a silicone or fiber mat instead of the baking paper, you will have more insulation from below, and also less risk for cracking after the baking, during peeling off the mat. |
Cooking a mix of raw and cooked meat
I have cooked meat that is fully prepared, I like its taste but not its texture. I want to mince it, add it to some raw minced meat and prepare something from the entire mass.
What is the correct way to do it?
Safety concerns, the meat will be cooked thoroughly, but still are there any concerns regarding mixing the meats pre cooking.
Texture and taste, what is the best way to cook the entire mass without overcooking the already cooked meat?
Should the raw meat be pre cooked separately and only combined when cooked? What is the best way to do it? | Once the meat is cooked, there really isn't a way to turn it into minced meat without there being a noticeable difference in texture. However, it is not unusual to see fully cooked meat getting finely chopped (in fact) to become, for example, filling, and used in ways sort of like how one would use fried minced meat.
Also, from The BBQ BRETHREN FORUMS:
You can grind cooked meat, no problem. Some sausage recipes, actually call for ground cooked meat.
You best bet is to cook the raw minced meat as you would usually cook it, and dump in the cooked meat, that's all chopped up, at the last moment to heat it up. |
How to obtain the soft and pillowy texture in bread?
Here's a bread recipe (probably a type of Turkish bread):
1 cup of warm milk (200 ml)
1 tea cup of warm water (150 ml)
1 tea cup of oil
1 tea spoon of salt
1.5 tablespoons of sugar,
half a
pack of fresh yeast (21 grams)
1 egg white
5 cups flour
50 grams butter
(glaze: 1 egg yolk + milk)
Preparation: Warm water in a bowl, warm milk, salt, granulated sugar, liquid oil, egg white and fresh yeast, and mix them together. Then knead the dough by incorporating flour gradually. let the dough rest until doubled in bulk, then make 12 equal portions from the dough. put about 5 gr butter on each portion, pat the dough and then roll it and form a spiral out of it. cover and let rest for 20 minutes, then egg wash and bake until golden brown.
The only change I made was using instant yeast instead of fresh, and oat milk instead of regular milk.
This is how it is supposed to turn out like and this is how it actually turned out.
I tried the recipe twice, and it never came out as soft and pillowy as they look in the original recipe. The recipe poster advised that if the final soft texture is desired, cover the tray with a damp towel right when it is done baking and out of the oven for about 5 minutes. I did the same, but alas! | Milk is used as a kind of "tenderizer" in breads. Milk makes a softer crust and otherwise improves the texture of bread, so in this case, I think its your substitution that's giving you a problem. Oat milk may be a reasonable substitute for the liquid required in the recipe, but it just won't have the same effect on the finished product.
If you're not vegan, I would recommend using the regular milk next time. If you are, it may be possible to add a tiny bit more sugar and fat (in addition to the oat milk) to the recipe to compensate for the missing milk sugars and fats, but I'm unsure if that will produce the desired result. You may need to do more research into vegan breads to come up with a substitute for the milk in that case. |
Is synthetic astaxanthin (salmon "dye") safe?
TL;DR Is synthetic astaxanthin safe for humans to consume?
Background
Synthetic astaxanthin is available as a supplement, and is also commonly consumed by humans in the form of farmed salmon.
Wild salmon eat a lot of shrimp-like krill, which contains lots of astaxanthin, which is what gives salmon it’s red/pink flesh. In farmed salmon, they’re not fed the same diet, so they don’t get the same colour (they’d be grey or off-white). So farms feed them synthetic astaxanthin to give their flesh a red/pink colour.
This says that humans that eat the farmed salmon end up consuming the synthetic astaxanthin via the salmon's flesh.
I found the following:
An article saying:
... one company has announced it will bring a synthetic astaxanthin supplement to market for human use. Their argument for its legality is that it’s already approved as a color additive in food (salmon). This may be a legal loophole that could potentially bring this far inferior supplement onto health food store shelves sometime in the future. The question that remains to be answered is whether or not synthetic astaxanthin is safe for direct human consumption.
Astaxanthin may cause stomach pain in large doses (but so do many foods in large quantities).
Also:
Synthetic astaxanthin is significantly inferior to algal-based astaxanthin
Note that being 'inferior' doesn't imply that it's unsafe.
Question
Is human consumption of synthetic astaxanthin (via capsule, salmon, or any other means) safe? | Yes, the FDA has determined that astaxanthin is "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS), at 0.15 mg/serving. This doesn't indicate whether there are any health considerations associated with it (that's not on topic for this site), but it's not poisonous. |
What is a stem pan?
I have a vintage cookbook, from Charlotte, North Carolina and about 1958, that has a recipe for “Different Applesauce Cake”. It says to “Cook in stem pan approximately 1 hour, 10 minutes”.
Searches for “stem pan” brings up pan definition lists that don’t include “stem pan”; searches for “stem pan baking” brings up a lot of pages on how to teach STEM using baking. There is one patent that appears at first to be about stem pans, but on reading seems to be about stems on pans. Though it could be that stem pan is another word for skillet.
In all cases, search engines like to replace “stem” with “steam”. There does appear to be something called a “steam pan”, but it appears to be the kind of pan used by buffet restaurants to keep food warm, not something for baking.
Searches on “stem pan” with “apple cake” do bring up some variations on some odd sites; but they don’t explain what it is. Some recipes use a variation of “use a loaf pan or a stem pan” and others a variation of “use a bundt pan or a stem pan”. Some suggest using it ungreased, some greasing and flouring the pan, others lining the bottom with greased paper, which seems a bit difficult if it’s just another word for bundt pan, or even if it’s another term for “tube pan” which is what I most suspect.
On the idea that this might be a dialect around Mississippi and North Carolina, I tried a search for “stem pan” and “southern” and found two contradictory recipe pages with images of the pan in question. A recipe for corn bread that has a photo of the corn bread in a skillet; this may be a stock photo, however. And a recipe for tomato soup cake that has a photo of it being poured into what looks like a bundt pan. So it may be that this is a term that applies to multiple items.
I did image searches for various forms of “cake pan advertisement”, such as “mirro bakeware advertisement” and “old bakeware advertisement”. I found several for tube pans and bundt pans and none advertising stem pans.
I did a search specifically for the phrase “stem pan” limited to the site archive.org; the term appears to be exclusively found in older organizational cookbooks (five church organizations, one library association, one high school club, and one college club). They range from 1911 to 1982 except for two: one from 1991, but it’s the submitter’s grandmother’s recipe, and one from 2006, but it’s a reprint from the organization’s 1981 cookbook. (Of course, also, since it’s archive.org it’s likely to be weighted toward older books.)
There are no photos, as is normal for such cookbooks. There are no definitions, either, although there is one parenthetical: “Bake in greased and floured stem pan (I use cast iron bundt pan)” which could of course be read either as an example or an alternative. One intriguing set of directions ends, for Texas Pecan Cake, with “Bake in stem pan 10x4 inches”. I suspect that this means a 10-inch diameter, 4-inch deep pan, especially given the quantity of ingredients; it’s an odd direction, though, because by that point the batter has already been poured into “a well-greased tube pan”. However, it matches something I saw in The Joy of Cooking while trying to look up the term, that a 9-½ by 4-¼-inch plain tube (angel cake pan) is “Conventionally described as 10x4-inch plain tube” (p. 701 in my 2006 copy).
Recipes of Yesterday and Today (1991)
Our Favorite Recipes (1965)
The Arizona Cook Book (1911)
Centenarian Cooking (1971)
Feeding the Flock (2006)
National High School Rodeo Association (1979)
Entertainment Cook Book (1919)
Heavenly Delights (1982)
What is a stem pan? A skillet? A bundt pan? A tube pan? A loaf pan? A variation? Or something else? Or more than one item? I am at this point almost certain that it is either a tube pan (most likely), or a variation on a tube pan, but the lack of any definition or photo keeps me from knowing for sure what variation, if any, the term might mean. | I also believe a stem pan is what we would call a 'tube pan' or 'bundt pan', as in Joe's answer. I have, however, found a few links to back me up.
Here is a comment on a Chowhound question suggesting a recipe using a stem pan. When asked what a stem pan is, the poster replied: "basically, a stem pan is what they now call a tube pan".
This recipe for Sour Cream Pound Cake, from Adams Extract, calls for the use of a stem pan, and has a reproduction of a 1950's-looking recipe card depicting a bundt cake. The relevant text is:
Pour into well greased, lightly floured stem pan (or loaf pan).
And the image is clearly a cake made in what is now called a tube pan:
Adams Extract is a Texas company; their Classic Original Adams Recipes contain several other recipes that call for stem pans. Their Butter Rum Cake, Coconut Pound Cake, German Chocolate Pound Cake, Lemon Pecan Cake, and White Fruit Cake all call specifically for a stem pan. The accompanying photo for each of those recipes except the Coconut Pound Cake show a cake made in a simple tube pan. The Coconut Pound Cake shows a cake baked in a bundt pan.
At least at this company, or this part of the south, the term seems to have been used to refer to simple tube pans and segmented bundt pans.
Some recipe cards call for tube pans or bundt pans instead of stem pans; unfortunately, the cards are not dated, so that it is difficult to say whether this was a term that changed over time or was simply interchangeable. |
Should I have been able to melt white chocolate and marshmallows together?
My daughter and I were making cake pops, and were a little short of white chocolate for the coating. We thought we'd try a white chocolate/marshmallow coating instead. I didn't weigh the marshmallows but they were no more than 25% of the total.
I used a bowl over a pan of simmering water as I usually do for melting chocolate. The white chocolate had mostly melted when I stirred in the marshmallows that were on top. They started to melt then the whole lot seized solid. Further heating didn't help. I was left with something that could be shaped like fondant icing
I've had that happen when heating white chocolate (alone) in the microwave, and always assumed it was local overheating, hence using the bain marie this time.
Now it's cooled, I'm left with something resembling out of date or badly stored white chocolate - grainy rather than creamy.
Is such a coating possible? Should I have gone about it differently? Or is there too much water in marshmallows? | This is definitely possible, though I should add that the addition of melted butter would be crucial.
Do not simply toss "raw" marshmallows into the melted white chocolate, as they will start to cool down the chocolate more than you'd think (I once tucked my hand into a bag of marshmallows, it was relatively cold in temperature).
Here is how I would do it:
Melt some butter in a pan (don't skimp!).
Toss in your marshmallows and constantly stir them, until all melted and silky.
Pour the melted white chocolate into the melted marshmallow & butter, and continue to heat and stir for a few minutes. |
Freezing prepared dry salted fish
How does prepared dried-&-salted fish hold in the freezer?
The fish has been (properly) desalted, and, other than that, the recipe contains tomato (boiled down to a paste), tomato puree, onion, garlic and madame jeanette. There's tons of minor twists, but mostly it boils (haha) down to that.
I'm not worried if it's safe, I'm mostly wondering how it will keep texture wise.
The whole thing can (in general) be prepared in about two hours (including desalting), but I'm wondering if it's worth making it in bigger batches and freezing it. Desalting the fish produces quite a powerful smell, but refrying small batches of the prepared doesn't (as much). And while I don't mind the smell at all, my better half does ;)
Edit:
The salted fish is cod, and the fish has been desalted before cooking it with rest. The idea was to freeze the whole thing, but it's actually just as interesting to know if just the desalted cod will freeze nicely. | For freezing the desalted cod, see one of the answers to this question. Apparently frozen, desalted cod is a common supermarket ingredient in Portugal, which suggests that it's as good, or almost as good, as "fresh". This is not a surprise, since salted cod has already been dehydrated once, so a trip through the freezer is unlikely to hurt it any.
For freezing the whole recipe: yes, I'd expect that it would freeze well. The cod will freeze fine, and tomato sauces also freeze well, so I'd expect portions of the finished dish to be a good keeper. |
Letting batter with baking soda wait before adding into the oven
I want to bake a cake with 3 layers, but I only have one baking pan and thus I will have to bake them one by one (already thought about making one big cake and dividing it into 3 parts but I pref not to use that method).
The problem is it takes 35 minutes to bake one layer and the batter contains baking soda and baking powder and I'm worried it will affect the outcome since I'm not baking the other 2 layers immediately after adding the baking soda.
So my question is, can I let the batter for the other 2 layers wait before adding to the oven?
Making the batter and separating into 3 and then adding the baking soda and powder isn't an option since I would have to mix it again which will affect the result. And I also don't want to make the batter for each layer separately. | I doubt the raw batter will survive 35-70 minutes out of the oven.
Many times when I made homemade cake, things like
forgetting to preheat the oven
taking too long to scrape all the batter into the baking pan
taking too long decorating the top of the cake batter when its in the pan
rewards me with a flat cake.
On the other hand, after adding the wet ingredients to store bought cake mix, surprisingly, letting the batter sit for a long time (like 30 minutes) before popping it into the oven, doesn't really change the finished product!
What I recommend you do is have your wet ingredients combined and dry ingredients combined all ready in two separate containers. For each cake, mix a third of the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients; this would be more practical then making the batter three times. |
Verdigris on copper-bottomed pan
I have a small stainless steel pan with a copper bottom. The diameter is around 4in or 10cm, so it is really small. I use it exclusively for tempering or what is known in India as tadka. That is, I heat a couple of spoonfuls of ghee, add the necessary spices (mustard seeds, cumin seeds, curry leaves, chili peppers, asafœtida, whatever the recipe calls for), then add the tempering to the main dish, usually lentils or a stew.
Since the pan is tiny, my usual method of adding the tempering is just to dunk the entire pan into the larger pan that has the main dish. Then I scoop up some of the main dish with the smaller pan, swirl it around to gather any fat or spices left in the pan, and pour this back into the main dish, repeating the process a couple of times.
The last time I tried this (a couple days ago), I was horrified to notice that the copper bottom of the pan was beginning to develop verdigris. Here is a picture:
I'm obviously concerned about this. I have three questions:
Should I give up the habit of dunking this little pan into the larger pan? Will the verdigris get into the food and make it dangerous to eat?
Is there any way I can get the verdigris off the bottom of the pan?
Assuming there is, what can I do to prevent a recurrence? For example, I usually put this pan in the dishwasher. Should I be washing it by hand instead?
I want to avoid replacing the pan if possible. It is very useful and I don't know where I'd find a similar pan; the pan was gifted to me many years ago by someone who in turn had had it for some time before she gave it to me. | Corrosion like that can be scrubbed off with copper polish (or, in a pinch, with salt and vinegar). The result will be bright copper, which will quickly tarnish and darken through regular use. The pan is absolutely not ruined. As with other solid metal cookware, if it isn’t literally broken in pieces then it can be scoured into a like-new state. That pan likely has centuries of use left in it.
Dunking the pan like that doesn’t sound like a problem. The upper surface of the pan comes into contact with food, after all; no reason the bottom surface can’t. I think it’s a clever technique.
The dishwasher is your real enemy here. It’ll strip away the patina and bring the surface into contact with some pretty harsh detergents, leading to that sort of corrosion. Copper should be hand-washed. |
Simmering, rather than caramelizing, onions (plus garlic and ginger)
I can caramelize onions, garlic, and ginger over 30 minutes, stir frying.
But this requires me to stand in front of the stove for 30 minutes. Instead, I prefer to spend 90 minutes, adding a bit of water and a touch of oil, then letting them simmer, with the onions taking half the time alone before the others are added. I can then do something else during that time.
Does this process have a name? Does it still qualify as caramelization? Would a self-respecting chef do this once a week with larger quantities and freeze small containers with the mixture for use throughout the week?
Update
I say the following only half in jest. Since Tetsujin slapped the entirely derogatory "fairgrounds" term on boiled-down onions, I'm wondering whether I can elevate this method ever so slightly by giving it another term, and a French one at that.
Isn't boiling down onions exactly how you make French onion soup?
Update 2
Correction to self: as pointed out by Preston in the comments, French onion soup is caramelized onions plus (beef, usually) stock. The description above is my past-years attempt at reducing the time I spend preparing F.O.S., and it stuck in my mind as a correct method.
Well, now I know why I complained about onion soup tasting with overwhelming onions. It's because I multiplied the quantity of onions in an attempt to avoid the caramelization step. | Often, cooking onions over low heat so they turn translucent without browning would be sweating as was already mentioned, but the name would technically mean cooking them until they gave up their liquid.
With a little bit of water in the pan, and the lid on, I'd be inclined to call it steaming, but if you then cooked it without the lid some to get rid of the liquid (like a steam-sauté technique, but at lower heat), I'd just consider it a shortcut to sweating, as this is also one of the many shortcuts that some people suggest for caramelizing.
If there were more than just a touch of water (as it looks to be in your image), then I might consider it to be braising. It would need to be completely submerged to be boiling.
But that's just the initial stages of it before they take color, if you're cooking them all the way to brown, it's still caramelizing, just not using the 'classic' technique. |
Why did my bagels flatten?
This weekend, I made Peter Reinhart's water bagel recipe from The Bread Baker's Apprentice. The bagels taste yummy, but they're flat wrinkly discs! What can I do next time to get nice puffy bagels instead?
The recipe is basically:
make a sponge and let it ferment for 2 hours
add more yeast, salt, flour, and sweetener (I used Wheat Montana all-purpose flour, which yes is all-purpose but has a protein content closer to bread flour...so I was hoping it would behave more like bread flour)
knead (I kneaded for about 20 minutes, until I got a nice smooth dough that passed the windowpane test)
divide, form into rolls, rest for 20 minutes
form bagels (after I was done forming them all I also went back and stretched out some of the first bagels I'd shaped a bit more)
let rest for 20 minutes and then do the float test (mine passed the float test after the 20 minutes)
Here's what the bagels looked like at that point:
put in refrigerator for up to 2 days (I had them in there for a little more than 24 hours)
take out of the fridge and boil as soon as they pass the float test (mine did right away), 1 minute on each side. This is where things started going wrong. Mine puffed up nicely in the water, but then they started to deflate as soon as I took them out.
bake. I saw my somewhat deflated boiled bagels and thought "they'll spring up in the oven!" but alas...basically no oven spring. You can see the result above.
The finished bagels are tasty and chewy, and the crumb is somewhat dense but not THAT bad:
But they're so flat!! The uncooked formed bagels almost look taller, like they spread out during/after boiling instead of poofing UP.
Here are my current hypotheses about what could have happened:
I think I added the extra instant yeast and salt to the fermented sponge at the same time, so maybe the salt killed some of the yeast? But the bagels did poof up and pass the float test, so the yeast must have been active enough for that.
I was using all-purpose flour instead of bread or high-gluten flour, and my understanding is that higher-gluten flour soaks up more water. So maybe the dough was too wet, using the same amount of water with all-purpose flour? I also didn't end up adding all of the flour the recipe called for - I was trying to pay attention to the dough foremost, so I stopped when it seemed to have a nice consistency with just a couple tablespoons of flour left to go. However, other bagel recipes (like this one https://cooking.nytimes.com/guides/81-how-to-make-bagels) say you can use all purpose flour yet have an even higher hydration, and my dough did feel quite dry.
Another potential downfall of that all-purpose flour: maybe there wasn't enough gluten development to hold up to the boiling. But I did knead it extensively, got the dough texture Reinhart describes, and have seen other bagel recipes that use all purpose flour without such flat results. Moreover, it seems like people recommend bread/high-gluten flour for "extra chewy" bagels, not poofier ones...and mine were chewy enough for my tastes.
It seems like some other bagel recipes call for only 30 seconds of boiling on each side, so maybe my 1-minute on each side boil killed too much of the yeast to get a nice oven spring? But Reinhart's book says you can boil it for up to two minutes if you want extra chewy bagels.
What do you think? What should I try next time to get poofier happier bagels?
Update
Per Johanna's diagnosis of overproofing, I tried halving the yeast and then otherwise making the bagels as I did above (just with a bit of extra rise time for the sponge), and they turned out so much better!!
I pulled out a couple after 4 hours in the fridge, and they puffed up well but were not particularly flavorful. The rest I took out and boiled after 24 hours, and those were great! | Bagels tend to flatten when you remove them from the water if the dough is overproofed or you boiled them for too long. Next time, let them proof for shorter time in the fridge (I find that doughs get overproofed in the refrigerator after about 12 hours, so 24 hours is a very long cold proof) and possibly boil them slightly shorter. |
Is there a difference between boiling water and almost boiling water?
When cooking noodles (ramen or pasta), recipes often call for it to be thrown in boiling water.
I’m often impatient and can’t wait for the water to go from almost boiling (95C) to full boiling (100C) In some cases, it can be a couple of minutes to go to a full boil.
Aside from extra cooking time is there a difference between almost boiling and boiling viz a viz noodles? | There are two main differences, obviously: five degrees, and no boiling action.
As Cascabel mentioned in a comment, dried pasta will "cook" even in water that's well below boiling temperature. However, a rolling boil serves to constantly stir the contents of the pot, much more than convection in heating water would. Without that mechanical action, pasta is more prone to stick to itself and to the bottom of the pan. So stir a few times.
For fresh pasta, it's more important to use boiling water (and lots of it), because adding the pasta to the water will significantly cool the water below the point where the pasta can actually cook. The sticking concerns apply even more there: fresh pasta has more loose surface starch to cause sticking if you don't stir.
Incidentally, you mentioned in the comments that you assumed it was slow to bring water to a boil "because of the phase change involved". But there is no phase change involved below 100 degrees. In an uncovered pot, it takes a while to push water from a bare simmer to a rolling boil because the evaporation cools the water more quickly as the temperature increases. Covering the pot will significantly decrease the time to come to a full rolling boil (or to return to the boil once you've added the pasta). |
Where can I find strong sharp tasting olive oil in the US?
I was hoping you could all educate me. I remember living in Turkey and travelling around the Mediterranean in general and a lot of the Olive Oil was sharper or you might call it bitter, and I know it was fresh. I loved the taste. In the US where I'm from, all the store bought olive oil that I've purchased is smooth and doesn't have any special kick to it. Why is that?
I assume it's for one of three reasons
I am not always the cheapest but I won't go all out and spend the most on something usually, and I wouldn't know what bottles to choose anyway.
The manufacturers know or think they know their market, and they think, probably correctly, that American's wouldn't go for that.
The process of storing and transporting it either reduces the sharpness or requires they refine it in a way that reduces it.
I'm interested in EVOO of course. I assume the stuff in the Mediterranean I ate was Extra Virgin but if it wasn't, that's fine too. I know it was fresh.
Am I correct with my reasons above, and more importantly where can I find sharp strong olive oil like I remember (including on Amazon)? | Your best source for quality olive oil with strong flavors in the US is going to be a specialty market, either an upscale "gourmet" one, or an ethnic market, such as a Greek, Arabic, Italian, or Turkish market, or even a specialty olive-oil only store. Farmer's markets can also be a good source of premium olive oil. Once COVID is over, you can even find markets that will let you taste their olive oils, so that you can pick the one with the degree of pungency you're seeking; many producers create a range.
The bitterness you're talking about is hopefully from oleocanthal and is a sign of quality. I say "hopefully" because there is a lot of fake virgin olive oils out there, and the wrong kind of bitterness comes from "deodorizing" low-quality oils. These taste different, but you'd have to try both to recognize it.
You are also right that most Americans don't like pungent or bitter olive oils. That's why the oils you buy in mainstream supermarkets are usually bland, and why you usually need to go outside of them to find better oil.
The fake olive oil problem is why I can't recommend trying to find any high-quality Turkish olive oils here in the the US. While Turkish producers to create very fine olive oils, overwhelmingly what reaches the US is fake olive oil with Turkish labels, and there are no reliable brands available here I've found. So I'd recommend getting an oil from Greece, Lebanon, or Israel instead, since all of those countries do have import channels that follow labelling laws and their oils should be fairly similar to Turkish.
This is also why I'm avoiding the term "extra virgin" in this answer. The US does not enforce conditions on "extra virgin" labelling, so seeing those words on the bottle tells you absolutely nothing. Instead you need to go by producer and recommendations. |
One time sourdough starter
Is there a way to make sourdough bread without the long term commitment of feeding a starter?
My kids and I love sourdough bread, but I also work 2 jobs, so making bread is, sadly, a once in a blue moon type of thing. Taking good care of starter would get lost in the shuffle, and I don't want to waste/ruin/starve any starter. Essentially, I want to make sourdough bread once. | I would recommend you find a (hobby) baker locally. Almost everyone who maintains a sourdough has some extra that they would otherwise discard. I have read about local Facebook groups etc. of people sharing their starters during the pandemic (when sourdough suddenly was “a thing” and weirdly enough yeast was hard to get at times), including contact-less drop-offs and similar. I have shared my starter(s) freely with everyone who asked for it in the past. Even repeatedly for one-time-bakers as you are planning to be.
The charm of this approach is that you can make new acquaintances that way and that the shared starter most likely will come with a bit of an explanation as to the specific culture’s temperament. They might even be willing to share a few favorite recipes and give you some hits that a generic recipe doesn’t have.
That said, if you have an established starter, it’s really not that much of a problem if you bake only once in a blue moon. Mine is parked in the fridge, sometimes for months on end, without further care. A bit of pampering and it’s as good as new, ready to climb out of the jar. |
How to use frozen patties in recipes asking for ground beef like chili, meat sauce, and meatballs?
I have 40 pounds of decent quality beef patties (75/25) which came from the store as patties and I want to use it for something other than merely burgers.
How can I take a frozen beef patty and turn it into meatballs, meat sauce for pasta, chili, or other recipes which call for ground beef? | If the patties are just ground beef, then use them the same way you'd use any other ground beef; pull it apart with your hands or break it up with a spoon or spatula in the pot.
It may be that your burgers include other ingredients for flavour, in which case those other ingredients will also be in whatever you make, but they shouldn't significantly affect the cooking.
Some burger patties could include things like egg or breadcrumbs for binding and to bulk up the mixture, but it doesn't sound like that's the case from your description. If that is the case, then they will still work fine for things like meatballs but might make something like chilli have an odd texture. |
Can you make a burger from pepperoni?
I was just thinking and I love pepperoni. Could you make a whole burger out of pepperoni? I wonder what this would taste like? It wouldn't be cheap of course.
It might be near to incorporate shredded pepperoni in a beef burger using ground beef, but I wonder if you can make a full burger out of pepperoni? | to answer the primary question, yes you could, but pepperoni is already cooked and processed and is hard (dried),it's easy to eat in small thin slices, but not in big chucks.
You could try grinding it down again and find a way to bind it in a patty (egg?breadcrumbs?) but the final texture might be weird,
pepperoni is also usually quite strong in taste and making a whole burger out of it would be overwhelming flavour (IMO).
As someone (SnakeDoc) wrote in the comment, you could finely chop pepperoni and mix it with your burger meat.
pepperoni is more or less ground pork (or beef or mix of both) with spices and smoked.
As a substitute,
You could make a patty of ground pork and beef, add some pepperoni spices, including smoked paprika (or some liquid smoke) and use that as a burger meat. |
Arugula is very salty, and doesn't look like arugula
I recently bought some arugula, partially to make salads with. I tasted some leaves though, and it's incredibly salty. It also doesn't look like any arugula I've ever had before:
I'm used to more "serrated spear"-shaped leaves. This looks more like spinach than anything. If I tear it up though, it releases the distinct, sharply-bitter smell that I associate with arugula.
I thought that the salt may be a result of a pesticide or something that was added to the leaves, but the packaging claims it's pesticide free, and also that it was grown via aquaponics. The salt taste also survives several rounds of washing.
Is there something wrong with the arugula, or is this a particular variety? If I search for "salty arugula", the results are almost exclusively recipes that involve adding salt, which isn't very helpful. | Round-leaf arugula is apparently an actual variety that exists. However, it is not noted for having a particularly salty flavor.
Given the strong salty flavor, and the appearance, it's more likely that you got orach instead. A nutritious and tasty green, Orach is known for its high salt content, making it excellent in salads (just don't add more salt to it). |
Skillet cooking Medovik (Russian Honey Cake)?
Medovik traditionally calls for baking individual pancake shaped layers in the oven. Would frying in a skillet be a workable alternative? | Apparently, yes. What you'll end up with will be a somewhat different texture than traditional medovik, but I bet it'll still be delicious. |
How can I restore and keep a built-in cutting board in good condition?
I have somewhat recently bought a house that has a cutting board as a part of the counter. I have had no experience with this and haven't found anything online really.
I know that there are ways to season a wooden cutting board, but I don't know if that applies to this.
There are a few gaps between the boards - can this be fixed with regular wood filler?
Do I just season the counter top as if it was a regular cutting board? If not, how would I go about protecting it? | I wouldn't use that board any further. Some of those gaps where the block laminate is separating go right the way through. I don't see how you could realistically sanitise it, even if the other side looks a bit better.
Not only would I replace it, I'd also seriously consider replacing the counter top. The chipboard is swollen due to repeated wetting & is not going to be anything like hygienic any more. If you do consider only changing the chopping board, at least make sure the chipboard is properly sealed before you replace it, & consider mounting the new board with silicone sealant around the edges.
Perhaps this may not apply world-wide, but in the UK that style of square-edged countertop hasn't been in use for at least 30 years. Pretty much everything since then is bullnose or semi-bullnose (half-round or quarter-round) - meaning there is no separate mica piece on the front edge, it's all made in one continuous, watertight, piece.
In consequence that chipboard could have more than 30 years of contamination in it. |
How to prepare and use fresh herbs with woody stems (thyme, oregano)
For quite a while I have wanted to grow a selection of fresh herbs in my kitchen. I have managed to set up that works wonderfully growing my most used herbs but now I’m running into questions about how to use them, particularly herbs like thyme that have small leaves and woody or fibrous stems.
I prefer to include the herbs into whatever I’m cooking rather than use a bouquet garni. But picking individual leaves from a plant such as thyme is incredibly work intensive and not really worth the time involved. Is there a more efficient way to harvest these sorts of leaves?
This question has been linked to a similar question, which is fine, but I believe that Stephie’s answer here is more complete & helpful than any given for the linked question about oregano. | There are two ways to deal with herbs like thyme.
First, you can strip the leaves by pinching the stem with two or three fingers and pulling up towards the tips. Nails can be helpful, too. That should dislodge pretty much all leaves and when some of the tips tear off as well, it’ll be the soft bits that can be used just like the leaves.
For some herbs, you can also tear in the opposite direction, e.g. for savory.
Second, if you are planning to cook the leaves anyway, note that they will detach from the stems during cooking. After a while, you can simply fish out the woody stems and discard them. You will end up with the whole individual leaves, which is great for thyme, but may be a bit large for rosemary - I don’t worry too much about that in most of my dishes and if it is an issue, choose the first option. |
Oven features required/desirable for baking bread at home
I am considering to buy a new built-in electric oven for my kitchen because the old one does not have top or bottom heat (believe it or not). I regularly bake heavy rye bread (e.g., of the Danish kind), but would also like to bake other kinds of bread, both sourdough and yeast variants. For this purpose, which features and functions should I be looking for in a new oven?
Just top and bottom heat, or anything else?
I have seen steam functions in some brands (e.g., AEG), which I guess would come in handy (?).
Are special bread baking settings (e.g., NEFF) useful?
Is a proofing function useful, or is leaving on the light just as effective?
Would a food sensor/oven thermometer be useful? Some ovens come with one that you can stick into meat (I guess probably also bread...), and it displays the temperature on the outside or stops when done. Good or bad for bread?
People have recommended getting telescopic rails (e.g., Bosch and other brands). Are they still worth it if the oven is below the worktop?
Anything else I should look out for with a view to baking bread? Or is a basic model with just top and bottom heat useful enough for all kinds of bread? | Probably also not a complete answer (can there ever be for such questions?), but the main criteria for me with a focus on bread would be (in no particular order):
Maximum temperature.
For bread, 250°C is usually good, but speaking from experience, the step from bread to pizza is small and for those, the hotter the better.
Sturdy rails and racks.
I bake my bread either on a stone (2.5 cm thick, rectangular, almost as large as a baking sheet, not the flimsy round ones sometimes sold as pizza stone) or in a rather large Dutch oven. Especially the stone is heavy and I still pull out the rack halfway for some breads, because it’s easier to maneuver them. That’s a serious bit of load.
A non-fan top and bottom heat option.
Yes, people make good bread in fan ovens, but I have also had issues with hot air blowing onto one side (remember that turning a half-baked bread is not a good idea, as opposed to some cakes), and the fan can also prematurely “blow away” the very important steam. If you can set top and bottom heat separately, it’s nice, but not that important.
A non-crucial but actually neat feature for bakers can be a timer that starts or stops your oven at a given time. My stone needs quite some time to heat through and a timer means that I can set it to pre-heat well before I get up, then I can just take my overnight breakfast buns straight from the fridge to the oven when I get up and we have them for breakfast with maximum convenience. But that’s just a very personal preference, not a determining feature in my opinion. I have also used it for other timed applications and it was especially handy when the kids were smaller and life a lot more unpredictable in general.
Apart from the specific use case, there’s one feature that I miss a lot at the oven I am using at the moment:
A self-cleaning function.
Of course running the pyrolysis cycle uses a lot of energy, but I hate scrubbing the oven, especially the little nooks and vent openings and roasting a chicken or something that does splatter leaves a mess, no matter how careful you are. And instead of harsh chemicals, you just need a humid cloth and perhaps some all-purpose cleaner to wipe out the ash.
A few thoughts about the various extras:
Unless you already know what you are going to use the specific features for, I wouldn’t pay extra for them, as there’s a good chance that you won’t be using them. If the oven you selected for its basic features anyway comes with some of them, fine. If your budget is large enough and you just want them for a reason (even “just because”), that’s of course another case.
And remember that the more features you have, the more can fail - a separate meat thermometer can be exchanged cheaply (or you can use multiple ones or one that connects to an app, or...), a built-in one would need either a costly repair or you would switch to a separate one in that case. Just for example.
I struggle to see how “special programs” for bread would cover the many cases of bread - your Scandinavian rye needs a totally different baking temperature gradient and time as, for example, a fougasse. But I admit I haven’t explicitly researched the feature. |
Yeast in sausage
Apparently people (esp the British) use rusk in making fresh sausage rather than breadcrumbs because it's a "yeastless bread". The yeast is meant to be bad for the sausage. However:
When I make bread, I cook it to an internal temp of at least 190F. Doesn't that kill all the yeast?
Adding (alcoholic) cider, wine etc to sausages seems common. Doesn't that have yeast in it too?
Is yeast actually detrimental to a sausage in any way? | None of those things have significant amounts of live or sporulated yeast. All flour-based baked goods are cooked to a temperature that will kill yeast; wine and cider are filtered and have preservatives added. Moreover, bread yeast is essentially inactive at refrigerator temperature.
Biscuit rusk is quicker and more efficient to make than bread rusk, and is more economical as a filler because it absorbs more water. Yeast is not a factor in the quality or longevity of fresh sausages. |
What happens when you reduce stock all the way?
If you have fully filtered stock or broth, and you boil it until all of the liquid evaporates; what would you be left with. If you boiled only until a bit before that point would you have super compact flavor? | If you reduce filtered broth all the way, you get portable soup. It dries down into a solid that looks a bit like leather. Because of the gelatin from the bones, portable soup is bendy and flexible. It was used in the 18th century as a portable food item, eg by soldiers and people traveling through the American wilderness. There's an excellent video by historical reinactor J. Townsend: Easiest Way to Make Portable Soup. I summarized the method below.
(images is from the same video)
Put about 5 pounds of bone-in meat in a slow cooker and cover it with water; don't add any seasonings. Cook until falling-off-the-bone tender. For beef, that's about 8-10 hours on low. Townsend recommends beef shank, neck or brisket, but says poultry will also work. Choose a cut with lots of collagen, so you end up with plenty of gelatin in the broth.
Remove the meat and bones; you can use the meat for another purpose. Let the broth cool until the fat solidifies on the top. Skim off the fat. Strain the remaining broth through a cloth. Now you have clarified broth.
Rinse out the slow cooker and put the clarified broth back in it. Turn the slow cooker on low and let it cook for 18-24 hours with the lid off, until it's reduced to a "medium brow, gluey substance." (Yum!) Don't overcook it, or it will burn and ruin the flavor. You'll probably want to time your cooking so that the end of the 18 hours happens in the morning, so you can spend all day checking on it and don't have to stay up all night waiting for it to finish.
Turn off the slow cooker and let it cool. Remove the portable soup from the crock. At this point, it's still pretty wobbly and gelatinous, like Jello cubes. Put it on a cloth or cooling rack to finish drying. The final drying has to be done with just air, without heat. You can use a food dehydrator on a "no heat" setting, or put the rack in front of a fan, or just let it air dry for a week or so, flipping it at least once a day.
Once the portable soup is dried to the texture of leather (solid, but still somewhat flexible), cut it into convenient portions. Store them wrapped in brown paper or cloth. They will continue to dry and harden over time.
You can also make portable soup on the stove or over a fire, but apparently it's really difficult to do without burning. The slow cooker provides a much lower heat, so it's less likely to burn. You can actually speed up step 3 by starting on a higher heat - either simmering on the stove or using the slow cooker on high. The final stage of cooking should be done on low to minimize the chance of burning. Have a look at Townsends' follow up video, Troubleshooting Portable Soup.
To use the portable soup, rehydrate it in hot water and use it as you would broth. |
Why is a pig-skin like substance floating on top of my vinegar?
Apologies if this is off-topic.
Every year, I make about 25 litres of cider vinegar. I wash the apples in a bucket of tap water, press them, add a sachet of yeast and leave the fermenting vessel in the garage. The juice is very acidic so not very pleasant to drink. It does however make tasty vinegar.
I have several fermenting buckets in the garage each with a different vintage of vinegar. Floating in each is a jelly-like mother of vinegar. Today I discovered that the yeast in one of the vessels (18 month vintage) has gone a bit wonky. The mother is about an inch thick. It's mostly jelly-like but the very top has the texture of pig skin, is very tough, and smells like cheese. The vinegar has lost its acidic taste and also has a hint of cheese.
Can anyone tell me what might have happened? Why has the mother become so tough? Why does it smell like cheese? Is it safe to eat? | That looks like a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast -- a SCOBY.
As to why a SCOBY developed in one vessel and not the others, only guesses can be made. I found a blog post that may offer an explanation:
So a SCOBY is typically a SCOBY for all starting vinegar and kombucha fermentations when slow processes like vat or barrel fermentation are used. Both terms can work at this point. However, for vinegar around 1% acidity the yeast die off and at higher acidities the lactic acid bacteria die off as well leaving only acetic acid bacteria to feed on alcohol. At this point it is only a mother of vinegar containing one type of organism. Kombucha acidity usually ends between 0.5-1% while vinegar is 4% minimum and usually 5%. So calling a fermenting vinegar mother a SCOBY isn’t strictly accurate.
It may be the case that the yeast grew faster than the lactic acid bacteria and the solution never reached >1% acidity in that vessel. I would be interested to know if the pH of that vessel is higher than the others. |
Will brownies remain fresh if sent by post?
My friend makes baked goods, and I would like her to send me some of her brownies by post. Is this feasible?
Would the brownies remain delicious, and how would we keep them delicious? I live about two hours away from her by car, in the same province in Canada. | Brownies should stay excellent for several days at room temperature. For several more days they will have diminishing quality, but still remain tasty enough to be worth eating. After about a week to ten days, they're usually more stale than most people will consider worth eating. Of course the difference between "worth eating" and "not worth eating" is subject to personal preference. Any brownies that you won't consume within the "still worth eating" window, you can store in the freezer for several months. Thaw at room temperature, or by gently heating in the microwave.
Usually you can get one day or two day shipping, which would arrive within that "still delicious" window. In COVID times, shipping services are having lots of delays, even if you pay a premium for fast shipping. So it's difficult to predict whether your brownies would arrive while still delicious, or even still good to eat. I suggest having your friend weigh a batch of brownies (don't forget to add the weight of the packaging). Use the shipping calculator on the website for Canada Post (or whatever shipping service you want to use) to calculate how much that package will cost to ship. Then decide whether you're willing to gamble that amount of money. You could have her send you just a couple of brownies as a test.
To ship them, your friend should make sure the brownies are completely cool before packing them. (If they're still warm, they will release steam inside the packaging, which will make them soggy.) Wrap them tightly in plastic wrap and place inside a plastic bag with a zipper. Put the bag in a box. If there's loose space in the box, fill it with crumpled paper or other packing material to stop the brownies from moving around and getting crumbled during transit. Particularly dense brownies might do alright in a padded envelope, if you want to save costs and are willing to risk them getting a bit smooshed. |
Storing lemon juice with crushed mint
I really enjoy grinding mint with lemon, then adding that to various drinks. I buy fresh mint but mint leaves wither pretty fast. I thought about grinding the entire mint bundle in lemon juice at once and keeping it in fridge. For how long would it be safe to store it like that? | I'd make it into ice cubes.
They'd add decorative interest too.
Fridge, maybe a week, freezer, more like 6 months.
There's a full list of storage times in How long can I store a food in the pantry, refrigerator, or freezer? |
Small Hard White Thing In Whole Wheat Bread - Mold Or Grain?
I just bought a loaf of bread yesterday, and went to use some to make a sandwich. I found a tiny white spot on it that is about the size of a rice grain, but it doesn't look like normal mold. And when I touch it, it is hard.
Is this some type of mold? Or is it just a bit of grain that got stuck in the bread? | I'd go with grain or more likely flour/unmixed dough
It's very unlikely to be mould in between slices like that, even if pre-sliced, and essentially impossible if you just cut it.
Bread is also generally made and shipped pretty quickly, so if it's got a few days left on its date (or was bought loose, meaning it should have been freshly baked) it shouldn't have had time for mould to form.
As you say, it doesn't look (or feel) like any of the mould found on bread, which is usually fluffy, hairy, or even scaly. It does look like inclusions I've sometimes seen on home made bread when barely cooled enough to cut - no chance for mould.
So I'd eat it without worrying. It does look a little like a grain, but if I see that in my home made bread, it's flour that's got wet but not mixed in properly (often near the top as it was stuck to the pan while the loaf was rising). |
Thickening cream in a blender to increase fat content?
I've established that it's not possible(or a compromise at best) to mix other things in single cream to increase its fat content.
I have 25% and 30%(rarer) cream available where I'm at, and I'd like to have whippable cream with a fat content of 35% or more to use in homemade ice cream.
I've considered and rejected the following methods already:
Adding gelatin. This recipe is vegetarian so gelatin is not an option. I have not tried agar-agar or carrageenan yet.
Mixing butter in the cream or whole milk. This'll lead to a grainy ice-cream so, no.
Is a blender or food processor an option? If a cream can be thickened using a centrifuge, will a blender be powerful enough to thicken it by separating out the buttermilk?
If not, what else can I do? Heating the cream on a low flame? | The centrifuge doesn't thicken the cream by mechanical action, but by separating the fat and water by their different densities. The blender allows you to spin, but not to draw off either liquid. There's a chance that when allowed to settle you'll get layers, but you're more likely to make butter so you'd have to stop just in time, then let it settle.
It might be worth experimenting with freezing the cream - not until solid but until ice crystals form - and then allowing it to defrost in the fridge without stirring. This should break the emulsion and cause it to separate, hopefully into layers. |
Can I shorten bean soaking time if they'll be slow cooked?
I'm making something using butter beans (fasiola gigandes) which will be cooked for a long time (12+ hours) in a casserole dish with liquid covering them.
Normally I would soak the beans first for a long time before discarding the water and using them. Can I reduce/skip the soaking stage given that they will be soaking and cooking in the oven for a long time? | I use a slow cooker almost every time I cook dried beans, and I don't recommend cutting down on soaking. I typically soak overnight (with a little bicarbonate of soda), and start cooking in the morning, so 10-12 hours soaking + 8-12 hours cooking, avoiding adding (much) acid/salt until towards the end.
It's possible your beans soften more easily than mine, but with a much shorter soak (say 4 hours, and 10 hours cooking, because I forgot to soak them overnight) I've found several types to be barely edible - I ended up cooking down my chilli , blending it, and eating it as bean burgers. |
Do bread bins really keep homemade breads fresh?
I usually keep my homemade breads for a day or two in a ziplock bag. I recently felt like buying a good-looking bread box/tin to not use plastic bags that often (I keep the bags for as long as possible unless used for something like cinnamon rolls) and a bread box looks good on the breakfast table. I was reading some reviews that people complained about their bread going moldy in the box although it was a pretty fancy/expensive one. Since I wouldn't spend money on something useless which takes some space in my small kitchen, I'd like to make sure it is a good buy.
I also read this question on plastic bags keeping the bread fresh for a few days and ask myself whether I should keep using ziplock bags.
Also, there different types of them, | I would avoid anything that can't have a good wash. I've had wooden bread bins in the past and crumbs in crevices can go mouldy and spread the mould to bread until you give up and throw the bread bin away
These days I either use the enamelled cast iron pot I bake in (and which therefore fits my boules perfectly) or a plastic box that originally held a lot of biscuits (if I bake in a loaf tin or use the bread machine). Both can go through the dishwasher; the cast iron additionally gets sterilised at 240°C before baking. The plastic box is presumably more airtight, but both keep home made bread fine for a few days, which is as long as I need. It's important to make sure the bread is completely cool before putting it in, to avoid condensation, but not to leave it too long. |
Could I use a blast chiller to make modern frozen meals at home?
Over the last decade or so I have noticed that the quality of store-bought frozen meals has increased. And after heating, the quality of the frozen food is better than my own prepared meals that I freeze and reheat later. Vegetables, while usually not exactly crisp, are far less mushy than my leftovers even if they're vacuum-sealed. Pasta is pretty tender, sauces are pretty flavorful, and in pretty much every way my leftovers are outclassed after any length of time in the freezer.
As I understand, there is a fair bit involved in preparing those frozen meals at the factory but the most important element is rapid freezing in an extremely low-temperature freezer.
I recently saw a listing for a blast chiller small enough that it might reasonably fit in a residential kitchen, which led me to wonder: could I prepare food, freeze it in the blast chiller, and then heat it later, essentially making my own frozen meals with quality comparable to the mass-produced frozen meals available today?
For reference, here is a link to the type of frozen meal I'm describing (this is not intended to be an endorsement of or advertisement for this brand). Even if it worked as I imagine I'm not convinced that this is an economical practice for a home cook, but I am interested enough in whether or not it would work and if the flash-frozen food would last longer (or be more palatable for longer) than conventionally frozen leftover food. | Supermarket frozen food is not leftovers.
Aside from the fact that some things freeze well - chilli is almost impossible to break - & some things freeze badly … don't freeze leftover risotto, it is not a joyous reheat candidate … I think the significant difference is not in how fast they're frozen, but in the preparation method itself.
Supermarket chilled & frozen food is not leftovers, it's specifically cooked to be able to survive that last 15 mins in the oven or 3 mins in the nukerowave.
Pasta isn't cooked to be edible in the factory, it's cooked to be edible after having been chilled, then had some cold, half-cooked sauce dribbled over it, stored for 6 weeks, then nuked to death.
Rice, for instance, whether 'Chinese fried', 'Indian byriani', or 'Uncle Ben's plain boiled' never sticks because it was par-cooked (likely from already polished quick rice, then chilled & surface-dried whilst being separated further (see any online fried rice recipes for how this works to separate the grains) & not until then mixed with whatever 'chunks' or sauce are required for the final dish.
This then has been cold for most of its life already. It wasn't made to eat now.
Vegetables will be given little more than a par-boil (or microwave) so that they don't fall apart by the time they're married to whatever sauce. They're not fully cooked until the consumer has finished heating them. Can you even imagine giving garden peas an extra 5 mins in boiling water… no, so they won't even go in heated at all, they'll just go in raw, cooked only by you.
So, in short, your chilli will never need that kind of care & attention; your delicate broccoli florets will not survive having first been cooked sufficiently to eat.
Personally, I portion & freeze things that freeze well with no special requirements. Chilli, curries, stews are all completely unaffected by 3 months in the freezer (if they ever last me that long). Raw burgers, if a little more likely to get surface water whilst cooking don't suffer much. Pasta, no; rice, no (unless it was a 'dry' rice, plain boiled or similar, never in any kind of sauce) pastry, only uncooked… etc.
One thing I would say, as a home cook with nothing but "life experience" to tell me all this is…
"if it will freeze for a week, it will freeze for 6 months"
This is not a health recommendation, merely a guide as to what will ruin by the time it's frozen compared to what is indestructible. Compare frozen chilli to frozen beansprouts for a lesson you could learn in 24 hours ;)
(I realised I cannot comment on supermarket sauces, as I've never really found any that aren't just as bland as all heck compared to home-cooked.) |
How to season a carbon steel pan on an electric hob
I have a de Buyer Mineral B Crepe Pan. It's unused, because I don't know how to season it using my electric hob. Most of the videos I can find reference gas hobs or using the main oven. Previous attempts to season other carbon steel pans on my hob result in uneven seasoning, because the diameter of the element is smaller than the diameter of the pan
Whilst I have an oven, heating this pan (including the handle) is not possible due to the rubber "button" on the handle, which is not heat resistant for the long periods required by seasoning. De Buyer state that this pan can be heated in the oven at 400F (200C) for only 10 minutes.
Does anybody have tips or techniques for seasoning these carbon steel pans using an electric hob? | To the question as asked: No, there are no more tricks. When you use the wrong tool for the job (in this case a too-small electric hob), then you can't expect the job to go well.
Nevertheless, there is an easy solution for you: Use the oven. If you are that worried about your rubber button, remove it before putting the pan in the oven, and pop it back in afterwards. But I use my own Mineral B in the oven frequently enough (and don't always bother to remove the button), and have had no problems with it.
I had never heard of the manufacturer's advise you cite, but if you absolutely want to stick to it (e.g. because of warranty issues) and are against the oven, you just have to live with a badly seasoned pan. |
What is the 'malty' flavour added to tea to make it taste like biscuits?
I'm in Australia - and for my birthday I ordered some British tea - Yorkshire Toast and Jam. (Picture below.) Which was really nice, but at about 80c per bag, a little hard to justify.
I gave some to my wife and she said:
"That's just Berry flavoured tea added to normal tea"
That shattered my illusions a little bit, but then I got practical. I started mixing strawberry flavoured teas and English Breakfast tea to get that "toast and jam" taste. For the cost, it was pretty close, and I'll probably order some for my birthday next year.
My wife likes their other product - Yorkshire tea 'Malty Biscuit'.
So I thought to myself "I can engineer this one too!" But then I was dumbfounded. Short of breaking up actual malt biscuits to attempt to mix them with tea (leading to a crumby tea problem), how would you do this?
Now I imagine you can try adding some kind of original malt ingredient to it. But again you end up at the 'crumby tea' problem.
When I look at the ingredients list of both they just say "tea, flavouring".
My question is: What is the 'malty' flavour added to tea to make it taste like biscuits? | Not something I've ever tried, but I'd be tempted towards either the bottled malt drinks popular in the Caribbean (eg Supermalt), or Horlicks.
Or, you can just buy "malt flavour" - Random google search for liquid flavour manufacturers - http://www.weberflavors.com/products/liquid-flavors/
Perhaps your 'crumby' malt could be done as a separate infusion first, then just the liquid transferred to the tea.
btw, those tea-bags are about £1.50 in the UK - you could probably find a cheaper supplier than Amazon US ;) |
Non-plastic cutting board that can be cleaned in a dishwasher
We currently have the following dilemm | My wife does not want us to use plastic cutting boards because of the potential negative health effects of ingesting microplastics.
I really really do not want to wash cutting boards by hand. Yes, I'm aware that there is no alternative for sharp metal knifes and non-stick coated pans, but I don't want to add another item to that list of annoying exceptions.
We tried standard wooden cutting boards, but they tend to bulge and crack after a few rounds in the dishwasher.
Is there some alternative cutting board material that we could use which satisfies both requirements as stated above? Are there maybe special types of wood that are more "dishwasher compatible"? |
Should I start timer immediately after adding pasta to boiling water?
When I add cold pasta or ravioli to boiling water, water stops boiling. It needs a couple of minutes to boil again. So, the question is
Should I start timer immediately after adding pasta to boiling water?
or Wait for water to boil again and then start timer?
This may sound silly but I always wonder when to start timer. | You should start it as soon as you dump the pasta in the pot. I personally also turn off the heat at the same time, as you don't need your water to be boiling to cook pasta. Anything over 180 degrees Fahrenheit will do the trick. You could stick a thermometer in the water to make sure it's still hot enough, but I doubt it's possible to drop the temp by over 30 degrees unless your pasta is very cold. If you wait to start your timer and the water is still over 180 degrees, your pasta will be overcooked.
This is not true for ravioli. The pasta will get done at 180 degrees, but the filling will not. Using more water will cause the temp to drop less when you dump in the ravioli, and you should definitely keep the heat up so it starts simmering again as quickly as possible. Hopefully that's not long enough to make a difference one way or the other for your timer, as the pasta will become overcooked if it sits in hot water for a few extra minutes. I'd still start the timer when you dump the ravioli in and then check it when the timer goes off, but expect that it might take another minute to finish cooking. |
Would this be called matured cream?
I have some single cream or double cream in my fridge that's been there over a month & the flavour and taste has degraded into something sour and horrible on it's own but when adding other flavours like salty. Sweet & savory it brings out a nice flavour in dishes that you might not expect, which tastes a bit different from normal cream that hasn't soured.
I wouldn't call it sour cream because I don't know what enzymes & cultures are used to make it , this was just sitting in the fridge for too long but I guess most people would call this maybe gone off cream.
Is there such a thing as matured cream in the same way we have matured cheese? | Most people would say it's gone bad, or gone off, yes. Since you didn't ferment it intentionally, there's no telling what it is now, and you should throw it out.
Cheese is a fermented food which develops slowly as it ages. Maturation isn't random or by chance. The environment is carefully controlled to ensure the fermentation process continues smoothly, and that continuation is desired. Since you didn't intentionally begin or control this fermentation process, I don't think anyone would consider it "mature."
As far as other fermented dairy products go, they generally aren't intended to last as long. I suppose you could call an overripe creme fraiche "mature," but probably wouldn't, simply due to the fact that maturity isn't desirable in a creme fraiche or buttermilk. Those products are fermented quickly and then stored in a way that attempts to halt the fermentation process.
So, no, you don't have matured cream because what you have isn't the result of intentional, controlled, and desired fermentation. |
Vietnamese Coffee (cocktail) - what to sub for condensed milk?
If you've ever enjoyed a Vietnamese Coffee, they're to die for. Blend:
crushed ice
shot of espresso
condensed milk
... avocado
(add dark liquor like bourbon if a cocktail)
blend them together and this is where the condensed milk and avocado shine: ends up this buttery sweet thick ice cream texture, from a blender. I add bourbon to it (which really doesn't matter unless it impacts the substitution ingredient).
Question: if you are serving a milk-intolerant (not vegan) guest, what could you sub for the condensed milk? I'm thinking I could replace condensed milk with honey or sugar mixed with soy/almond milk. Maybe blend the whole crushed ice and all together ahead of time in order to avoid heating milk substitute.
Edit: here's a credible-looking recipe, as it says, this drink is quite common in SE Asia. | I would suggest that you use cream of coconut, which is the base for piña coladas as a substitute. It's thick and sweet, and should complement the avocado pretty well. Note that this is a canned produce, the most widely available brand in the USA is Coco Lopez.
Outside the USA it's harder to find, and can be pretty expensive. There are also products that are confusing, like creamed coconut, which isn't remotely the same thing. I make my own by spooning the cream off the top of coconut milk and mixing it with some palm sugar (regular sugar works fine too) and then cooking it down to thicken it. |
Dried herbs instead of bouquet garni?
I've only recently heard about bouquet garni via a recipe I want to try, but I don't always have access to fresh herbs. This particular garni calls for two bay leaves, one large sprig of sage, and one large or two small sprigs of rosemary. I know the bay leaf isn't meant to be eaten, and I know the taste will be different, but can I use dried herbs and just leave them in the pot?
(This is the recipe I want to make: https://rainbowplantlife.com/creamy-white-bean-soup-with-kale-and-gremolata/#comment-5951)
Thanks! | There's nothing really special about a bouquet garni. Don't let the French name make this seem more intimidating than it is. It is just a bunch of herbs. It has no special function other than making the herbs easier to remove than if they weren't bundled together.
So then the meat of this question is really: can you substitute dried rosemary and dried sage for fresh rosemary and fresh sage in a bean soup?
The answer is: probably
Dried herbs can vary more in quality than fresh herbs, since it's possible that the dried herbs have been sitting around for a very long time. Very old dried herbs will have lost much of their flavor and should generally be avoided.
But if your dried herbs are relatively new, they'll probably be fine. Here's what Cook's Illustrated had to say about dried rosemary and sage:
In all but one application, tasters preferred fresh herbs to dry. Chili was the exception; in this dish, dried oregano was the favorite. A common criticism of dried herbs was that they had lost many of the subtleties and nuances of fresh herbs, tasting “dusty” and “stale.” Meanwhile, fresh herbs tasted “clean” and “bright.” Still, there were a few instances in which some dried herbs, though not preferred, were a passable substitute. In addition to oregano, dried rosemary, sage, and thyme fared reasonably well in recipes involving fairly long cooking times (more than 20 minutes) and a good amount of liquid.
https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/9261-science-substituting-dried-herbs-for-fresh
The recipe linked in the question calls for 18-20 minutes of cooking, which is slightly less than Cook's Illustrated recommends there. I'd be surprised if a couple of minutes made much of a difference, but if you're concerned, you could cook this soup for longer. |
Does steak from a supermarket cook quicker than steak from a butchers?
I've recently made the jump from buying steaks at the grocery store to buying whole cuts of steak from an online butcher and breaking them down into steaks myself.
One thing I have noticed is the steaks I've bought from the online butcher take longer to cook. For example a ribeye of medium thickness bought from the grocery store would be medium if I cooked it for 2.5 minutes either side on a cast iron skillet. In contrast, I cooked a skirt steak half the thickness for about 3 minutes either side and this came out more medium rare.
I've been using the same pan, stove and temperature however it seems like its easier to overcook a mass produced steak.
Just out of interest has anyone had similar experiences? If so, does anyone know why? | Going to a butcher is a very good idea, and doing some of your own butchering on larger cuts is a great way to save money and get really good quality meat. It's not a question of butcher versus supermarket though, the factors that make a difference in cooking time are:
Cut: The word steak is a generic term for a small cut of meat cut across the muscle fibers, these cuts come from many different parts of the animal and have very different properties. Some cuts are denser because they do more work on the animal, these denser cuts like rump/round take longer to cook. Skirt steak does not cook at the same rate as filet, you can't compare them directly
Aging: Most of the time steaks are aged, this can be using a wet or dry method. Dry aging allows beef to loose moisture, concentrating the flavor and making it denser. Wet aging is cheaper and faster, but does not allow for this moisture loss. Dry aged steaks will be denser than wet aged steaks of the same cut, and therefore take longer to cook. There are plenty of butchers and supermarkets that sell both wet and dry aged beef, butchers are much more likely to be selling dry aged beef because you buy from a butcher when you want something better. Note that you can dry out wet aged steaks a bit by leaving them unwrapped in your refrigerator for a day, but it's never going to be the same quality
The key message is not to cook to time, but to temperature as all steaks are different. A good instant-read thermometer is well worth the few bucks to get the right result. |
What makes it possible to store this uncooked fish product in the fridge for up to a month?
I have bought what looks to be a defrosted raw salmon product in airtight packaging:
On the back of the package, it is written that this product can be stored in the fridge for up to a month from the day it was thawed, which is given.
Usually, this is not possible. For example, according to this great answer, raw proteins, specifically fish, can be stored in the fridge for 1–2 days.
I was unable to find more information on what makes this possible. I would like to learn what could make it possible to store uncooked fish in the fridge for up to a month.
I tried searching the internet, but I could not find any information regarding this, including in the Food Safety FAQ here. | I feel I must offer a contradicting opinion to @rumtscho's answer. The product you seem to have is indeed shown in the catalogue at the page of "smoked salmon" products, but note that it is the only one not being named "cold smoked", but "marinated".
And just by the looks of it I assume this is actually Gravlax: raw salmon, preserved by "pickling" in a marinade of lots of salt and sugar (and traditionally dill, but that's only for taste). It will not taste like smoked salmon at all, because it isn't. The marinade will be enough to prevent immediate bacterial growth (all the fluids go out by osmosis, and will turn into a highly saline brine), although in industry there are probably additional substances involved.
Gravlax is also easy to make on your own, in comparison to smoked salmon. Just get a raw salmon filet of good quality, google the right proportions of sugar, salt, and dill, and massage them onto the meat. Then you pack it in foil and leave it in the fridge for a couple of days. (I wouldn't leave it for a month, though.) You'll notice that the meat doesn't really cure, but gets stiffer, somewhat darker in color, and a bit "glassy". |
When can milk substitute for buttermilk in sourdough recipes?
I want to prepare buttermilk sourdough pancakes:
One part sourdough starter
Two parts flour
Two parts buttermilk
Sugar to taste (about a quarter part, depending on mood)
The idea is to leave it overnight and let the sourdough SCOBY incorporate the buttermilk culture. In the morning, the sponge can be used for pancakes, waffles, etc. At a chemical level, the yeast eat the flour and make sugars and carbon dioxide bubbles, the lactic acid bacteria eat lactose and other sugars and make lactic acid, the overall pH drops from a milky 8 to a sour 4, and the buttermilk effectively spoils but in a very controlled fashion.
I'm currently snowed in due to a blizzard. I don't have any buttermilk, but I do have some milk. From a chemist's perspective, surely the desired reaction will proceed eventually, and the only changes will be how long it takes for the culture to rise and sweeten, and the overall proportions of lactic acid bacteria. However, from a cooking perspective, those two things matter quite a bit. What are the consequences of substituting milk for buttermilk in sourdough recipes?
As a practical matter, I do have some lemon juice and can sour milk into buttermilk using that common combination. I'm mostly curious about whether there's a flavor or safety reason for preferring prepared buttermilk. | I think your understanding here is incorrect.
The idea is to leave it overnight and let the sourdough SCOBY incorporate the buttermilk culture.
With a mature, functioning starter, there won't be much of any "incorporation" overnight, in the sense of actually reaching a new equilibrium of species in the starter. I don't think the buttermilk is being added to change your starter, it is just there because it is a common ingredient for pancakes and the like.
So, just go ahead and do whatever substitution you like that would be appropriate for the same batter without sourdough. You can expect analogous results, maybe even closer to the original, since you already have some lactic acid production from the sourdough.
curious about whether there's a flavor or safety reason for preferring prepared buttermilk
Flavor yes, buttermilk tastes differently from buttermilk substitutes. Safety no, adding buttermilk to a batter doesn't make it shelf stable. |
Can gelatin change color of butterfly pea tea?
I can't find the answer for this question anywhere on the internet. My friend and I made butterfly pea jelly with gelatin and we used the same recipe. Mine came out fine with blue color of butterfly pea flowers but my friend's changed its color to dark purple after adding gelatin.
My friend lives in Asia and me in Europe, so I think our source of ingredients (gelatin, water, flowers) is different. Plus, our method is slightly different. My friend heated the tea to melt gelatin while I stired gelatin over hot water to melt it and then mixed it up with the tea.
My friend is pretty sure it was because of gelatin because she didn't have this problem when trying with agar agar. Although I know butterfly pea tea is very sensitive to pH, I just can't find a good explanation for this. Is it really because of gelatin? | From the Gelatin Manufacturer's Institute of America "Gelatin Handbook": https://nitta-gelatin.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/GMIA_Gelatin-Handbook.pdf
Gelatin in solution is amphoteric, capable of acting either as an acid or as a base. In acidic solutions gelatin is positively charged and migrates as a cation in an electric field. In alkaline solutions gelatin is negatively charged and migrates as an anion. The pH of the intermediate point, where the net charge is zero and no movement occurs, is known as the Isoelectric Point (IEP) (28). Type A gelatin has a broad isoelectric range between pH 7 and 9. Type B has a narrower isoelectric range between pH 4.7 and 5.4 (29-32)
Emphasis mine.
So it does not seem impossible that your various brands of gelatin were produced by different processes and that one would be more acidic than the other. If you had a Type A gelatin and your friend a low-pH Type B, that would explain what you were seeing.
I do not think your method of heating had any effect. |
How to get rid of the rich iron and blood taste in certain beef cuts?
I sometimes get meat that tastes really strongly of iron and blood, usually when the meat is visibly bloodier, but not always. To me it's more of an effect or an assault on the senses than a mere taste and I don't like it, although to each their own.
What are some of the best ways to prepare and cook these cuts to reduce their bloody flavor as much as possible? Please include a way or two that is 'quick and dirty' when time is scarce, and also allow for still being able to serve it on the rare/medium-rare end of the spectrum. I also don't want to just completely cover the natural meat flavors up with spices and added ingredients (although I'm open to good pairings that naturally offset or complement what's going on- like the classic liver & onions).
Do people soak meat in water? Would letting the meat season overnight or let the meat air out do the trick? Also is there a way to predict which meat cuts will taste like this, through visual inspection or knowledge of the cuts? | If your beef has honest-to-goodness blood in it, complain to your butcher.
More likely, what you're seeing/tasting is myoglobin, which does have a bit of a metallic taste when it's not cooked. You can get rid of this in two main ways: osmosis and heat. So here's how to do that.
Dry brine it. Put the beef on a drying rack set on a paper-towel-lined baking sheet. Salt liberally on all sides and set uncovered on the bottom shelf of your fridge overnight. This will pull a lot of the myoglobin out, while also improving flavor, juiciness, and texture. Pat it dry with more paper towels before cooking/searing later.
Cooking with special equipment. If you want to serve it pink with no metallic taste, you'll want to cook slowly, and at a low heat. That's where immersion circulators (i.e. sous vide) and combi ovens shine. If you have access to these, try cooking your meat to 135F (medium rare, closer to medium) and then sear in a hot cast iron or carbon steel skillet (maybe with crushed up garlic, thyme, butter, etc.)
Cooking with common equipment. If you don't have access to these tools and the cut of meat is reasonably thick (2" or more), then you can set your oven to the lowest setting (other than plate warming) and just wait. Use a good thermometer to detect when your steak gets ~10F below your target temperature, then transfer it to a screaming hot skillet to sear.
Please include a way or two that is 'quick and dirty' when time is scarce, and also allow for still being able to serve it on the rare/medium-rare end of the spectrum.
You'll need to dry brine it, otherwise this is a "pick one" situation. However, if you're cooking skirt or flank steak, then you can still get good results by cooking very hot and very fast, though it will tend to dry the meat out a bit more. |
How to draw peanut flavor into rest of dish?
I've tried on many occasions to cook with peanuts into curries just by roasting them slightly and allowing them to simmer with the rest of the dish, and no matter how long I wait, the peanuts themselves always taste flat and the rest of the flavor just disappears.
Is there a conventional way to pull this off? The peanuts I'm using are stale which is part of it I'm sure, but when I eat them raw they still taste like peanuts. | If you want the full peanut flavour, use peanut butter; crunchy or smooth.
If you still want the texture effect of whole nuts, add them at the end.
It's a bit like using coconut oil to lift up the taste of coconut that you just can't get in any other way. |
Candy making in Dutch Oven when there is only one of you
I’m trying to make fudge and other hard candies such as peanut brittle in my Lodge Dutch Oven. The problem that I’m having is that I cannot hold the pot and scrape out the inside by myself. Definitely a two-person job. I can’t always depend on my roommate to be around for those three minutes that I need her there.
Is there any tool that can hold the pot by the handles so I can turn it out into my cooling pan with one hand while scraping with the other?
Fudge and especially brittles set up so fast that I end up wasting it in my fumbling. Not to mention how hot it is. | One option is to put the dutch oven on top of something next to your cooling pan then tip it on it's side, still on top, and scrape it from there. You could probably use an upside down pot or tray, depending on the size of what you have. This way you won't be holding the weight of the dutch oven so much as just keeping it from rolling side to side. |
Is a corroded copper teapot safe?
I bought what I thought was a rusted teapot recently, treated it with an environmentally friendly rust remover, cleaned it thoroughly, and only then realized the bottom says "chrome on copper". The inside surface is pretty rough copper (not patina), so I'm just wondering whether that's a reason not to use it for tea. | It is currently a matter of opinion, not science, whether or not cooking hot foods in an unlined copper vessel leads to unheathy amounts of copper in the diet. Many health authorities caution against the use of pure copper even for cold drinks. However, it is demonstrably true that many, many people use pure copper vessels for cooking various foods and have done so for centuries, and Ayurvedic practitioners even consider water from copper pots to be healthier. And most of us have copper pipes, at least for hot water, and don't worry about it even though copper leaching from acidic water in pipes is a widespread health problem.
I was able to find lots of opinions on whether or not to use unlined copper vessels and kettles. This Fine Cooking article is typical of all of them. What a literature search does not turn up is any kind of actual science. National and regional health authorities seem to take it for granted that copper kettles leach toxic amounts of copper, and don't bother to test it, and everyone else seems to ignore them.
As such, as long as there's no history of Wilson's Disease in your family, I'd leave it up you. If you really like the kettle, use it. If you don't, then use something with no doubts attached -- and much easier to clean -- like stainless steel or ceramic.
Since this is a teapot and not a kettle (per comment), you do need to be careful of the acidity level of the teas you brew in it. Strongly acid teas will cause the kettle to corrode, and whether or not that results in unhealthy copper leaching (again, no science on this yet) it will discolor the pot and make it impossible to clean.
(And yes, copper is a nutrient in very small amounts. However, like many minerals, what's beneficial in tiny amounts is poisonous in larger ones. For example, as a ceramic artist I have to be careful with copper glazes in their raw form.) |
What should I do if I forgot to dry fries before baking?
What should I do if I forgot to dry off my fries before putting them in to bake?
And now they're seasoned and oiled up. | Bake them anyway and accept that they might not be quite as good as they would otherwise be. A little extra moisture won't be fatal, and there's nothing you can easily do now. You could try patting them with a paper towel but it's likely to remove the seasoning more than it removes water. |
How to lower the melting point of a specific chocolate?
I want to use a specific brand of chocolate to make chocolatines/pain au chocolat. This chocolate is a stone ground dark chocolate that has been tempered. I attempted to use them to make chocolatines once but after baking I realized that the chocolate hadn't melted.
So I want to know what I can do to lower the melting point of the chocolate, just enough so it melts in the oven but not too much that it's liquid at room temperature. I read that you can ruin a chocolates temper by melting it again and waiting for it to solidify but I couldn't find much more information on "untempering" chocolate or reducing the melting point. I was also thinking I could try to melt the chocolate, mix in a small amount of butter, then wait for it to solidify again. Not sure this would work though or if it would ruin the chocolates flavor.
I don't want to use a different type of chocolate so I'm hoping people can provide suggestions.
EDIT 1:
The recipe I used the first time I tried this called for the oven to be heated at 400°F. Since they're basically croissants they only need to go in for 15 minutes, that could be the issue. The chocolate wasn't cold before use it was just room temperature. I'm now using a different recipe but it calls for the same amount of time and temperature.
EDIT 2:
I'm still wondering if there's any way to lower the melting point of the chocolate a little. I don't want to sacrifice the taste of the chocolate too much but I still want it to be a little softer at room temperature and melt more readily during the quick bake. | I don't think you can lower the melting point without melting the chocolate first.
Butter is very soft at room temperature and adds it's own typical butter flavor. A better alternative is hard coconut fat.
I always use this trick when I cover a cake with a simple chocolate glaze. If you simply melt the chocolate and slather it on top of the cake, it becomes so hard that it's hard to cut cleanly and (depending on the thickness) hard to bite. Of course that has to do with the ruined tempering.
Adding coconut fat to the molten chocolate makes it softer without turning it into a ganache or mouse. For a cake glaze I usually add half the weight of chocolate in coconut fat. The result is very shiny, still has a bite and unchanged chocolate flavor, but melts within seconds in your hand and wouldn't be able to hold its shape without the support of the cake. You'll probably want to add significantly less fat.
To the question of tempering: If you manage to melt the chocolate while baking, the end result won't be tempered anyways. Indeed, untempering can lower the melting point of chocolate without adding any oil or fat. Here's a very detailed blog post about tempering chocolate that explains the different crystal types cocoa butter can form and what their properties are. Tempered chocolate has only one type of crystal that is very stable. If you don't temper chocolate at all you'll end up with a mix of different crystals that might make the texture more gritty, but also lower the melting point.
Unfortunately I cannot offer any more detailled instructions, you'll have to experiment to find the best solution for you. |
Adding fresh fruit to a non fruited banana bread
I have a banana bread recipe that I love. I want to add other fresh fruit and nuts or chocolate to it. Do I need to adjust the other ingredients to take into account these additions? | If you add chocolate and nuts, no. They can be added without any adjustments, as they don't tend to affect the rest of the cake at all. Fresh fruit is a bit trickier, since it tends to release a great deal of liquid when cooked which can make the result soggy. In general, if you add fresh fruit to a cake you want to toss it in some starch (eg corn starch or potato starch) to absorb the liquid it will release. Each piece of fruit should be completely coated and then just folded into the batter. |
What are the slimy bubbles in soaked kombu?
I have made dashi a couple of times now, starting soaking kombu in water. And always I found these little bubbles on the leaves, containing white slime:
I have never worried about them much and simply cut them away when eating the kombu later, but what are those bubbles? My hypotheses are: 1. just random bags of alginate slime, or 2. natural growth due to parasites or other incorporated matter. | According to the "Handbook of Kelp Farming", Sporangia are usually close to the centre of the blade, so it is highly unlikely to be that.
As seen here: https://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland/view/observation/807675/rain-blister-39disease39
This appears to be what is called "Blister Disease", thought it is not really a disease but rather it "is caused by a sudden decrease in salinity due to mixing of rainwater with seawater. The disease often appears after heavy rainfalls and generally occurs in shallow bays which are vulnerable to salinity changes caused by freshwater run-off."
Source from FAO: https://www.fao.org/3/AB724E/AB724E09.htm |
Can I use cream of tartar instead of wine to avoid alcohol in a meat braise or risotto?
I admit it, if I open a bottle of wine to cook with, I am very happy to drink the rest and I need to not do that, but still make my Kümmelfleisch and risotto.
Wine does affect proteins - pork, beef, egg, differently than does lemon juice, sauerkraut juice and other acids based on acetic or lactic acids. My anecdotal experience is that wine softens and disconnects collagen, etc more efficiently, and I read that it contains more heat stable acids. And that of course is also one reason to use wine and not lemon juice in making a risotto. (Yes I am ignoring any other flavor that wine imparts)
I looked up the acids in wine and saw that it is basically tartaric acid, malic acid and acetic acid. Tartaric acid is heat stable, so it seems that is what is doing the trick.
Buying tartaric acid here, in Germany, is expensive and difficult, but I can now get cream of tartar. I am aware that this is a somewhat neutralized form, but I currently imagine that in fact I could use a gram or two to substitute for half a cup of wine in a braise.
Is there some other factor I am not considering? | There's a few misconceptions there. Tartaric acid, malic acid, acetic acid, and citric acid are all "heat stable" in the sense that they won't boil or decompose at the temperature of boiling water. They'll evaporate over time, just like the water will, but if you take a bunch of lemon juice and boil it down, you'll eventually be left with a precipitate of mostly citric acid.
(Note that lemon juice itself is not 'heat stable', because other flavor compounds in it undergo hydrolysis and oxidation at cooking temperatures.)
The reason wine is used instead of lemon juice in risotto is for the taste; different acids taste different, there are flavors in wine other than acids, and the taste of classic risotto is derived from the flavors in wine.
Finally, while acidity does affect the rate of hydrolysis of collagen, as far as I know this effect is entirely dependent on pH, rather than on the specific acid used.
Tartaric acid, or cream of tartar, can be used as a substitute for wine if you're just relying on the acidity of wine, but other, more readily available acids will work just as well. |
Cooking vs Soaking Lentils for Falafel
So most traditional falafel recipes call for "soaked chickpeas", and particularly warn against using the canned version. I've been experimenting with making falafel out of lentils (mostly because they are more likely to be in my house), but have mostly struggled.
One key difference between the two is that many lentil-based falafel recipes say to cook the lentils first, but of course this makes them very soft (much softer then soaked chickpeas), and they tend to dissolve when fried (although they can be baked this way).
So, I'm really interested in the difference between soaking and cooking for chickpeas vs lentils. Are they totally equivalent? Is there any danger in soaking lentils (but not cooking them further) before turning them into falafel? Does frying uncooked (but soaked) chickpeas result in "cooked" chickpeas, or are you basically just eating raw chickpeas? | If you want to make "falafel" out of lentils, then you should look to folks who actually make deep-fried lentil balls regularly, and that's Indians. Dal Vada, balls of lentils that are deep fried in vegetable oil, are always made with lentils of some kind that have been soaked by not cooked. Cooked lentils, like cooked peas, will not hold together.
My suggestion is that you look through the various dal vada recipes online, and change the spicing on them to match falafel spices (cumin, onion, garlic, parsley, and Aleppo pepper).
However, one thing to notice is that most recipes use chana dal (black chickpeas), moong dal (mung beans), or black-eyed peas. So it may still be the case that trying to get patties to hold together using grey/red lentils is very difficult, even if you don't cook them. |
Food safety and botulism indicators for pressure canned goods
Several months ago I canned some ham and pea soup, following this recipe verbatim. All went well and the jars have been sitting in my dark pantry ever since.
This was my very first time (ever) using a pressure canner, and so I have no idea what to expect. I'd like to crack one of the jars open and have some pea soup for dinner this week. At first glance, everything looks ok:
But then I noticed there is a lighter green (slimy looking) film on the very top of the soup:
Is this normal, or does this mean its gone bad?
More generally, with pressure canning recipes, what is a good way to tell if the food is safe to consume?
I've heard of the following approach:
Open the lid and confirm you hear the popping sound (the seal breaking), and let it sit in the open for a few minutes, then put the lid back on and put it in the fridge
Wait a day, take it out and inspect
If there is any white foamy substance that sprung up overnight (strong indicator of botulism) or if there are strong off-putting odors, toss it
Otherwise have a bite and wait a day
If by the next day you haven't developed any upset stomach or other GI issues, it is very likely safe to consume the rest
Is this a safe system to follow here? Any other practices or methods anybody can think of? Thanks in advance! | The layer on the top is either separated fat from the ham and bouillon cubes, or a bacterial and/or fungal growth (aka a "pellicle"). If it feels greasy and/or brittle and becomes transparent when heated, it was just fat. If it feels rubbery and maintains its coherence when heated, it was a pellicle. A pellicle is not an indication of a botulinum infection, but it's definitely an indication that you screwed up the canning process and that the contents are inedible.
There is no way for a home cook to determine if a can of food is safe to eat. That would require special expertise and lab work (including, when testing for botulism, injecting mice with the stuff). Instead, what you do is use a trustworthy recipe, make sure you're following the recipe properly (with a canner that reaches the appropriate pressure for the appropriate amount of time), and check that the vacuum seal has not been compromised before eating. That is, rather than seeing whether the food is safe, you ensure that your process guarantees safe food.
The steps you posted are horrible -- neither safe, nor effective, and betraying a fundamental misunderstanding of what botulism even is -- and you should no longer trust whoever wrote them. "Have a bite and wait a day"? Cripes on a cracker. |
I forgot to add butter to my king cake dough
I forgot to add butter to my dough when making king cake, I have kneaded it and left it to rise, will it ruin the dough to mix the butter in and then knead and let it rise again? | Unfortunately, if you attempt to combine the butter into the already risen dough, the dough's structure would most likely get ruined.
I wouldn't stress too much over the forgotten butter in the dough though, as the filling will consist of butter as well. Also, you may be able to salvage some flakyness by gently folding in thin sheets of butter into the dough. |
help understanding this recipe gluten free and vegan
The recipe is:
75g nut flour
55g rice flour
1g xantham gum
100g water
120g coconut sugar
30g coconut oil
20g cacao
1g salt
6g cake yeast
10g vinegar
125g sweet potato
I don't understand how this recipe works (and it works because I baked it) without potato starch or other ingredient that provides moisture to the cake. Can someone please explain to me the thinking behind it? | You have several oily ingredients like coconut oil and nut flour. Oil is one of the 2 ingredients that make a cake moist and it helps retain the moisture. The other is simply water.
In addition to plain water there is xantham gum in the recipe. Xantham gum binds a lot of water and retains it, keeping the cake from drying out. That's why only 1g of it is needed to incorporate 100g of water into the cake. If you leave the xantham gum out of the dough, the cake would probably be very soggy if it wasn't baked long enough or too dry if it was baked for too long. Hitting the perfect spot between soggy and dry would be much harder and the cake would dry out within a day or two after baking.
And lastly there is rice flour and sweet potato. Both of them contain starch (and the sweet potato also adds a little more water to the cake). When starch gets cooked (or baked in this case), the molecules swell and can retain moisture much better than uncooked starch. You can see the effect when cooking a pudding / flan / blancmange. |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.