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How to prevent filling getting squeezed out of chocolate coated candies?
I made some chocolate coated peanut butter candy-eggs, and after I dipped the first egg in chocolate and set it on the rack to cool, the filling is getting squeezed out. How can I prevent this?
For context, here's the recipe I'm using
2 lbs (.9 kg) confectioner's sugar
16 oz (453 g) peanut butter
12 tbsp (170 g) butter
1 tbsp (15 mL) vanilla
Mix those ingredients, add milk as necessary until it becomes a thick cream
Chill in the fridge for an hour, form into egg shapes, chill in the fridge for another hour
Just barely melt some semisweet chocolate chips, dip the eggs in there
Here's what the filling looks like as it's getting squeezed out | If I had to guess I would say your filling is not cold enough when you dip it so it starts to melt and pockets of air form when it comes into contact with the warm chocolate, which then doesn't cover the egg properly, causing filling to leak when it warms up a bit.
Try putting the fillings in the freezer for a bit (30 minutes to an hour) after you've shaped them, if possible. This will allow the chocolate to harden far quicker since the filling is much cooler, it should potentially stop the leakage (assuming the problem is the temperature).
For a nice looking coating of chocolate, try adding some cocoa butter to your melted chocolate. This will add a glistening sheen. |
have these avocados gone bad?
Having googled it, it says that avocados with black spots have gone bad. However I asked someone and they said that it fine and you can eat it - it’s like a banana which has gone slightly black on the outside.
Are they correct? Based on the pictures would you say it has gone bad and unless it’s bruising, any avocado with multiple black dots has gone bad?
Thanks | Your friend is right. The avocado is not spoiled or in any way dangerous, just changed during storage. You can eat it without any ill effects.
There are people who would throw food out for cosmetic reasons, you can do that too, if you prefer. |
Can I dissolve mint in water and drink it?
I like mint and sometimes put some in a cup of water. My question is can I grind the mint into a fine powder and dissolve it? Maybe if the water is warm? Usually mint like in this pic
just settles on top of the water and the flavor slowly seeps into the water. If I grind it up even finer will it dissolve? What should I use to grind it? | No, mint won't dissolve in water (leaves are mostly cellulose), but it does make excellent tea.
Boiling water, steep 5-6 minutes.
For best results, I recommending purchasing whole leaf mint intended for use as a tea. That way you can experiment and determine which kind of mint you feel makes the best tea (or make your own blend, I like spearmint tea with a single peppermint leaf thrown in). |
Even after I heat and oil, why does food stick to my stainless steel pan?
I've had this pan for 8 years. It's low priced and average — I see no brands or names on it — not even on the bottom! I followed What’s the Difference Between Nonstick and Stainless Steel Cookware?
So here’s the crazy thing: stainless steel pans can be nonstick, if you’re doing it right. If you heat up your pan with oil or butter until it’s hot enough then add your food, things will not stick. Stainless steel pans can withstand really high temperatures, so you can sear and brown things like meat in them, and you can also add water to the pan to deglaze the brown bits from the bottom and create a delicious sauce.
and How to Turn a Stainless Steel Skillet into a Nonstick Pan | Epicurious
You can season a stainless steel pan and make it more or less nonstick. Here's how:
Heat a stainless steel skillet over medium or medium-high for 2 minutes. Add enough vegetable oil to coat the entire bottom of the pan with a ⅛ inch of oil. Heat the oil until wisps of smoking begin to appear, about 6 minutes. When the oil begins to smoke, remove the skillet from the heat and cool the oil completely. Once the pan has cooled, pour out the excess oil and wipe up the remaining oil in the skillet using a paper towel. You want a glossy sheen left in the base of the pan—that's your nonstick surface.
Question 1
Please see pictures below. Please approve my pictures? Can you confirm if this is stainless steel?
Question 2
If it is, then why does food stick to it? I tried to — separately — home fry potatoes, stir fry rice, boil pasta with filtered water. The potatoes rice, pasta all stuck to the bottom of the pan!
I thought that all stainless steel pans were non stick? Was I wrong? Do some stainless steel pans stick? If so, how can I deduce which stainless steel pans are non stick? I'm thinking of buying a new brand name, high quality NON STICK stainless steel pan!
https://i.imgur.com/xtiKrxz.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/GlBFLOa.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/hw9f5cO.jpg | Stainless steel pans are not non-stick by default, since they don't have a non-stick surface/coating.
You can recognize a non-stick pan by the non-stick coating on the inside of it. (It's usually Teflon (a black coating), but there's also things like ceramic)
As far as your pan goes, it looks like a plain stainless steel pan to me, no coating to make it non-stick. |
Care and warping of wooden chopping board
I bought a new 1.5 inch wooden chopping board around a month ago. I have been trying to take good care of it: I never submerse it, clean it with a cloth, applied mineral oil when I bought it.
However it still has some slight warping. Is this normal no matter what you do? The warping is very minimal, only around 1mm, but it still makes it rock when on the convex side
Is that normal and should I be doing more/less to keep it in perfect condition? | Wood is always working. Even if you plane a board and leave it in a room overnight, it might warp. There's really no way you can avoid that in principle after a piece has been finished. (Now, this particular board should do a bit better than sawn wood, since it is glued, although it does not seem as if special care has been taken to orient the growth directions alternatingly, which is what you should do in such a case. An even better solution would be to put orthogonal strips onto the end-grain with a tongue and groove.)
Anyway, that's likely not really bad in your situation. Since the wood is always working, it doesn't have to stay that way: maybe it's just wet now and will warp back in a couple of hours or days. In my experience, you can sometimes speed up things by trying to dry the piece evenly (for example, by leaving it in some dry place with a gap underneath to let the air through), re-wetting it on one side, and letting it dry again. And when you have a board for some time, you'll know how it reacts.
The oiling is a good idea for the surface but does not help very much with warping. What does help is to keep moisture always even: when you wash or wipe the board: do so on both sides. When you dry it: keep moisture and temperature the same on both sides (e.g., avoid standing it up next to your oven or something like that). That means you can submerse it (and should even do so, to wash it) -- just don't let it stand in water, and wash it from all sides equally. Avoid drying in an oven or other drastic temperature changes.
One thing you really want to watch out for, though, is splitting between the individual strips, which can happen due to the stress of repeated warping. In that case, there's little left you can do (save shortening the board). A split is not technically problematic (the whole thing will still be stable), but the groove can collect nasty stuff (still OK for cutting bread, though). Quality boards, specifically made for kitchen use, will be less prone to this, though. |
Are all stainless pans necessarily non stick?
Are all stainless steel pans coated with nonstick? Can stainless steel saute or frying pans be distinguished by the quality of their nonstick coating?
I'm just afraid of accidentally buying a stainless steel pan that happens to lack, or to have shoddy, nonstick coatings. | I would go further than the other answers and even say that it is the opposite of your understanding:
The terms "non-stick pan" and "stainless steel pan" are mostly mutually exclusive in their usage. That is, when a cook speaks of a stainless steel pan, or a product description is titled as a stainless steel pan, this is usually taken to mean that the pan has no non-stick coating.
I am saying "mostly", because technically, they are not mutually exclusive, they are orthogonal. You can have a stainless steel pan with or without nonstick coating, and pans of another material with or without nonstick coating. This is why you can still see a product page which has the title of "nonstick pan" and somewhere in the description you will see the material listed as "stainless steel". But this is a minor detail, if you go shopping for a "stainless steel pan" you will almost certainly get only pans without a coating.
Pan materials and coatings can be a confusing topic, and if you have never experienced them live, you may not be able to recognize them from a picture. In your situation, it might be better to buy a pan offline, from a specialized store, and ask a salesperson to show you the different materials so you can start recognizing them. Just don't believe any claim the salesperson or the packaging makes about the durability of nonstick coatings, be it the teflon or the ceramic kind. |
What's the 'opposite' of mise en place?
Mise en place definition for those unaware.
Mise en place (French pronunciation: [mi zɑ̃ ˈplas]) is a French culinary phrase which means "putting in place" or "everything in its place". It refers to the setup required before cooking, and is often used in professional kitchens to refer to organizing and arranging the ingredients…
The practice can be applied in home kitchens.
My google-fu fails me on this. Dictionaries tell me what it is, but it has no antonym.
The idea cropped up as I was …ermm 'mentioning' that my partner's anticipated meal-time would be easier to hit precisely if everything was ready-prepped leaving only the actual cooking (I'd secretly estimated her dinner time would be half an hour later than she thought… shhh, she's now prepping it all in advance after some small discussion;) I then wondered what you would call my more common method of 'just in time' prep.
Depending on the dish I'm making I will either do a full mise en place, everything prepped & ready to go, or I will run a 'just in time' process where each ingredient is prepped just in time for it to be needed, eg prepping onions after rice goes on, then chopping the tomatoes whilst the onions are sautéing. Salad prep after everything hot is on the boil etc. Everything comes together only at the very end, at plating.
Is there a specific term for this 'just in time' prep? | I think the nearest opposite would be a la minute (at the minute). This is usually used in restaurant kitchens to refer to items that are cooked/prepared "at the minute" they are ordered. However, it's not fully the opposite.
For example, at a brunch buffet the omelettes would be cooked a la minute when they are ordered, rather than being pre-cooked with the rest of the buffet. However, even though the omelette is cooked a la minute, the ingredients will be prepped with proper mise en place to ensure that efficiency in cooking to order.
Therefore, the way I would describe "the opposite of mise en place" using fancy chef lingo is perhaps "doing all prep a la minute." |
Danish rye bread (rugbrød) gone wrong?
A couple weeks ago I tried making a danish rye bread using Magnus Nilsson's recipe from "The Nordic Cook Book."
The recipe basically calls for a preferment of rye, yeast and buttermilk which you let sit for 72 hours before adding the rest of the rye flour, buttermilk and rye kernels and waiting another 24 hours.
The problem is that by the end of those 96 hours, my concoction was so foul smelling that I can't imagine it turned out correctly. It was the usual rye scent with a strong hint of vomit, and I didn't even try to bake it.
What should the dough smell like after four days of fermentation? How can I tell if it's gone wrong?
For this type of recipe that requires buttermilk or cultured milk, is it possible that the milk+lemon juice substitute simply doesn't work? You need the actual bacteria from real cultured milk?
If my dough did go bad, was it just a matter of bad luck in getting the wrong bacteria, or was there something I could have done? | I definitely think buttermilk is required. If you don't want to invest in a whole jug, you might be able to find some plain kefir instead, or even yogurt will work in a pinch.
Sourdough starters (like the preferment like here) contain a combination of yeast and bacteria. It will definitely have a sour and somewhat funky smell, but generally speaking we've evolved to recognize good funk smells from "I'm not going to eat that" smells. It's not perfect, but it's helpful.
Yeast and bacteria are naturally present.... Everywhere basically. We get yeast infections on our skin and in embarrassing places because they are literally everywhere. Ever had dandruff? That's a yeast thing too. But there are lots of varieties of yeast. Beer and wine yeasts have been cultivated to produce/tolerate different amounts of alcohol for example. So even though yeast is everywhere, you added bread yeast to your preferment because you wanted that one. you didn't want some weirdo yeast chilling under your fingernails or something.
The thing with the milk and lemon juice substitute for buttermilk is that it only mimics the acidity and sweet-sour flavor for baking. But the bacterial profile is not the same. It could be anything! Some bacteria naturally present in milk produce iodine, which is bitter. For all I love my ferments, I can't predict whether my milk will become a delicious mesophilic buttermilk or a jug of bitter sadness if I let it spoil naturally..... But that's kind of what you did here.
Your milk and lemon juice both contained bacteria in small amounts to start, and nobody knows what they were. After several days, those bacteria multiplied by a lot, and your nose told you that whatever they were, they did NOT make something delicious. I think you were right to toss it.
So, while you might not have to use buttermilk, I would definitely use some kind of cultured dairy. Buttermilk or kefir would be best because those are room temperature mesophilic ferments. Yogurt will work in a pinch, but they're typically predominantly thermophilic cultures, meaning they flourish in a warmer environment. |
How hot can my Frigidaire electric induction cook top heat up to?
https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/99595
Heating nonstick pans above 500°F or 260°C will burn off the nonstick coating
I own the Frigidaire FFED3025PW 30" Drop-In Electric Range with Expandable Elements. I'm using nonstick pans just on the cook top, not inside the oven. Can my cook top and nonstick pan reach anywhere near 260C? | Yes, absolutely it can get hotter than that.
Per Reviewed:
On average, induction cooktops reach a maximum temperature of 665.5°F
While I don't know the specifics of your model (call Frigidaire and ask), high heat is one of the reasons people buy induction ranges. I would be very surprised if it wasn't capable of heating your pans past 260C/500F, and very quickly too.
Some induction cooktops have a "temperature" setting on each element as well as a wattage, but even if yours does, I'll warn you not to trust that temperature setting at the top of its range. It's an estimate.
So yes, you need to be careful not to overheat your nonstick pans. Take the usual precautions: don't heat them empty, to leave them on the heat without watching, etc. |
Can you use sundried anchovies for myeolchi yuksu (Korean anchovy broth)?
I am wanting to make myeolchi yuksu (Korean anchovy broth) which is based on dried anchovies. My local Korean supermarket only has these Chinese sourced dried anchovies, which were also labelled as sundried anchovies. They look quite different from the ones in the recipe I was following.
Would there be any issue using these? | Yes, you can.
It looks like the Korean dried anchovies are very similar to the ones you have, just with the skins, heads, and guts removed, then flattened or 'spatchcocked'. For a fish stock like this, the specific type of fish you use won't matter too much. Also, I noticed the ingredients on your pack include salt, so you might want to taste and adjust the salt levels in wherever you're using the stock. |
How can I separate the lid from a can that has a pull-tab/ring without flinging food everywhere?
When I try to separate the lid from a can that has a pull-tab, the moment the lid separates from the can, the lid flings food everywhere. It's not always a lot, but it goes far because the lid has so much spring-tension.
I'd keep the last bit of the lid on the can, but sometimes I need the lid off to get everything out or to fully clean the can. (I don't want any remaining food in the can afterwards. My house pets will try to steal the can, and wild animals will try to steal the can from my recycling bin.
What methods can be used to avoid the mess and keep the kitchen clean?
(Image from self.com) | For most of the removal, leverage rather than brute force will give more control, so you don't accidentally pull the last bit off.
At the end while pulling gently on the ring, rock the lid from side to side, so you're only trying to open one side of the remaining seam. It's much less likely to flick that way. While my right hand does that, my left hold the can in such a way that it would probably be in the way of anything flying, but it rarely needs to.
Another approach is to open the lid most of the way, remove most of the contents, then push the lid inwards to finish breaking it off (or in/out until the metal fatigues and it breaks easily). This works well for things like beans or custard, that come out easily with a pour/scrape. |
Can a food contain 'extra' sodium?
I have always heard how food companies deliberately add 'extra' sodium to make foodstuffs like fried snacks and instant noodles addictive. But my question is, if I were to make the same food at home, won't I add an equivalent amount of sodium to get that taste? Or is some of the sodium content somehow 'hidden' in the food industries' products?
I get that flavour enhancers like supersalt and MSG have sodium in it. But doesn't the addition of those in packaged foodstuffs compensate for some of the salt that would otherwise be added?
Update: I am talking about extra sodium being added without an effect on taste, or it being added in a way that we get a greater 'kick' from the food, rather than the sodium being hidden in some way. | I think you've misunderstood people talking about sodium; I would expect they are generally just talking about table salt, NaCl.
Addressing your question about quantity, it's very common that when cooking, people judge ingredients by eye and by their expectation of what a normal quantity would be, so use much less salt than a restaurant or commercial preparation. (Something similar is true of butter.) Commercial ice cream, for example, will contain salt, but home ice cream makers are unlikely to include much if any.
If you want to think of that as 'hiding' sodium in products, I suppose that's reasonable, but it's not being done through mystery sodium compounds you're not aware of. |
Should I sharpen a brand new knife?
I recently bought a Wusthof Chinese chef's knife. When I tried it out the other day I was a bit disappointed by how sharp it is. Compared to the no-name £20 knife I have had a few years and sharpened myself on a 6000 whetstone (I'm not an expert by any means, but I guess I did a reasonable job) I had trouble getting through whole carrots and onions.
Would it be crazy to sharpen it out of the box? Or am I just using it wrong? | I'm by no means an expert on this, but a couple of thoughts…
Firstly, I wouldn't risk an amateur hand-held re-shape on an expensive factory-edge knife without due caution.
In the past, I've often thought that a knife fresh out of the box is not as sharp as once I've sharpened it myself - but as my sharpening skills are a bit hit & miss, I've been hesitant in the past. My current favourite veg knife spent 10 years in the drawer unloved because it just didn't cut well. After some TLC on a series of whetstones, & more recently a 'pro' electric sharpener which really pulled it into shape, it's now almost never out of my hand.
Having said that, before sharpening it, I'd most definitely try just honing it. The current factory edge might actually be just a bit too smooth, something a quick hone might see improvement on.
Secondly - drag. How much drag there is on a deep-bladed knife compared to a slim blade. An onion is kind of middle ground on this factor, a whole solid white cabbage might be your decider.
A skinny blade [both narrow and shallow] will make short work of a tomato, so long as it can make the initial incision in the skin.
By the time you're up to cabbage, then drag becomes a much bigger factor. A blade that is too deep [top to bottom] yet skinny [thickness] will quickly lock in a cabbage. A fat blade will push the cut portions apart & prevent this sticking.
So you have two things to consider before you risk taking off a good factory edge - not just how sharp is the blade, but also how 'fat' is the blade?
I'd try the tomato test for sharpness, & a cabbage for 'fatness'. See how they both feel. |
Can I rescue an old cake mix?
I have some ~year out of date dry cake mix in a sealed bag.
According to Does it Go Bad it's still good to use, but it wont' rise the same.
The dry mix usually contains baking powder or some other leavening agents, and these gradually lose potency. So while an ancient one might be perfectly safe to use, the cake will most likely turn out flat.
Emphasis mine.
Would adding extra raising agents help? What can I do to 'rescue' it? | How something has been stored is almost as important as how long it's been stored. If the packaging is intact, and it was stored in a cool, dark place, odds are that it will still rise just fine.
If you want to take some extra precautions to ensure a rise, there are two simple things that you can do:
Add a little extra baking powder (not baking soda) to the mix. Maybe 1/4 to 1/2 tsp, as it's not really all that old.
Add extra air. If it's a cake mix that calls for eggs, separate the eggs, whip the egg whites (in a clean, non-plastic bowl), and then fold that into everything else (that's already been mixed together).
You do risk ending up with a cake that might be a bit too light -- more chiffon / souffle like, rather than the standard texture.
You can also use the cake mix as an ingredient in other dishes. Besides the various 'dump cake' recipes out there, as it's mostly sugar and flour, you can add oatmeal and butter to it to make a streusel topping.
It's also worth noting that a 'flat cake' generally isn't that bad. Forgetting to add leavening to a chocolate cake was supposedly the origins of the brownie. Even the worst cake can be used as layers in a trifle, be dried and crumbled over ice cream or a parfait, or used to make a bread pudding (but avoid sugar in the custard so it's not overly sweet) |
Why adding soda without vinegar to the cake batter?
I have this well-rated chocolate cake recipe that I have not baked yet.
It's ingredients (among others) are
175g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
My understanding is that soda is needed to make the cake fulffier, and it only works when it is dissolved in vinegar (or there is something acid in the batter, e.g. kefir). And there are no acidic ingredients in this recipe (sunflower oil, self-raising flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda, caster sugar, golden syrup, eggs, semi-skimmed milk).
So what's its purpose here? | Both cocoa powder and milk are acidic, and will be reacting with the soda here. Bicarbonate of soda will react with any acid, not only vinegar.
There is also a process called thermal decomposition, where the soda releases CO2 under high temperature without needing an acid, although less than it would in a reaction with an acid and leaving a compound with an unpleasant flavour. See Wikipedia for more detail:
Heat can also by itself cause sodium bicarbonate to act as a raising
agent in baking because of thermal decomposition, releasing carbon
dioxide at temperatures above 80 °C (180 °F), as follows:[16]
2 NaHCO3 → Na2CO3 + H2O + CO2
When used this way on its own, without
the presence of an acidic component (whether in the batter or by the
use of a baking powder containing acid), only half the available CO2
is released (one CO2 molecule is formed for every two equivalents of
NaHCO3). Additionally, in the absence of acid, thermal decomposition
of sodium bicarbonate also produces sodium carbonate, which is
strongly alkaline and gives the baked product a bitter, "soapy" taste
and a yellow color.
In your recipe, I imagine the soda reacts with the acidic ingredients to avoid this important taste. |
Prevent sticky residue from oiling seasoned pan before storage
I have a variety of carbon steel pans and after I use them I dry them using a paper towel and then warm them up to make sure they are completely dry. Once I'm sure the pan is dry I spread a little bit of sun flower oil over the pan to make sure it does not rust. Sometimes the pan is hot, warm and sometimes cooled back down when I put the oil.
When I go to use the pan again (about 1 week later) sometimes the oil has become this gummy, rubbery residue.
Getting rid of it through cleaning is very difficult without damaging the seasoning. My best experience is by either heating it to the point where the residue melts and can be wiped off, or put it in the oven to bake at 250°C and basically create a layer of seasoning with it.
Why is this happening and how can I prevent this? | You really have to combine all those stages in one.
If you have to wet it at all, rather than just wipe it out after use, then dry it on the heat, wipe round some oil [the smallest amount you can manage] then heat it until it smokes off.
Cool & store.
The only way to truly avoid gummy oil is not to have any oil left, only seasoning. |
How does adding one ingredient to a dish prevent another from burning?
I hear this in cooking videos all the time. Make sure to add ingredient X to prevent ingredient Y from burning.
This could probably be applied broadly and the answer would be different depending on the situation, but I wanted to ask just incase its a rule of thumb.
Ex: https://youtu.be/gFk0LZi8qr4?t=98
In this video he says the peppercorns will burn easily, so add the ginger shortly there after to prevent them from burning.
Is there some sort of property of ginger, or is it that the ginger will cool down the oil slightly enough to prevent the peppercorns from burning? | There is only one way that adding an ingredient prevents another one from burning: it brings down the temperature.
Usually this is because the added ingredient has a lot of moisture in it. Boiling off water, whether that water is in liquid or inside an ingredient like onions, requires a lot of heat energy, and while the water is being boiled off, the temperature of the cooking vessel drops towards 100C.
That's the case with the ginger in that recipe; ginger has water in it, and that water has to steam off, and will lower the oil temperature. However, since the ginger doesn't have much mass, it won't lower it very much or for very long ... which is why the chef adds the sliced potatoes less than 30 seconds later. The potatoes also have a lot of water, and they have a lot more mass.
Sometimes the ingredient will also lower the temperature because it is cold, and is being added to a cooking vessel with the heat turned off. A common example of this is adding cold butter to finish a sauce.
Now, sometimes online chefs will tell you "add X to prevent Y from burning" wholly inaccurately. If the added ingredient doesn't follow one or both of the criteria above, they're talking nonsense. |
How to make Luxury White Pancakes
Please HELP!
I have a burning desire to know how luxury breakfast restaurants (I'm talking like expensive yuppy brunch places like Waldorf Astoria hotel and Sweet Maple in San Fransisco) make their pancakes. It is IMPOSSIBLE for me to find correct information on how to do it because everyone that I read online is looking for the exact opposite of what truly makes a good pancake. If you look online for the best pancake recipe, all you'll see is recipes talking about ways to make the pancakes as fluffy and light as possible. At Sweet Maple, they are called Buttermilk Thin Pancakes.
However, from my experiences dining at these luxury restaurants, their delicious pancakes are completely opposite from that: they are thinner (not as thin as crepes or Swedish pancakes mind you), not fluffy, and they also are NOT fall-apart crumbly. They are actually quite chewy and sort of dense in a way! It's hard to explain to most people that haven't tried it why this is a more desirable pancake texture, but trust me, once you have these pancakes, you'll never seek out recipes of the typical American diner being thick, light, and fluffy.
The only piece of info I've been able to discover about these mysterious pancakes is the restaurant told me they are more of a European style than an American style, but that doesn't tell me much. Are they using different types of flour that only restaurants can get? Are they leaving out baking soda/powder to get that texture?
I need a pro/restaurant baker to help out here! I would be so grateful.
PS: Yes I've seen the other thread of someone asking essentially the same question (How can I make NON-fluffy pancakes?), I only hope I can get better answers from the right people this time around.
Update, here are some pics of the pancakes I found online. Hard to see the thickness though. | The difference between "fluffy and fall-apart crumbly" and "thinner, chewy, and sort of dense" is precisely governed by baking powder/soda. Baking powder/soda creates the fluffiness. If you want thin and chewy, omit the baking powder. This should get you 90% of the way to the texture you want. The next variable to experiment with would probably be the water/flour ratio (more water = thinner pancake). This should get you 95% of the way to what you want. The next 5% comes down to more subtle things (whole milk vs 2% vs skim, bread flour or cake flour, etc.), but the key point is baking powder/soda. |
Can I source fat and sugar in a recipe from chocolate?
I've been looking at chocolate flapjack recipes but they seem to contain relatively little chocolate, so I'm wondering if it's possible to replace more fundamental ingredients (butter, sugar) in a more basic recipe. A look at some milk chocolate suggests that it's 36% fat (cocoa butter and milk) and 55% sugar by mass, which is similar to the ratio in the recipe (1:1 by mass) but a little low on fat.
Can I replace most of the butter and sugar in a flapjack recipe with milk chocolate? Will I need to add additional butter? Will the resulting mix still be able to integrate items like dried fruit?
I have consulted this answer about using chocolate to substitute sugar but want to know whether milk chocolate will be an adequate binder for flapjack, particularly if I add additional dried fruit.
I also note that milk chocolate is prone to burning at temperatures as low as <50 degrees C, flapjacks are usually cooked at much higher temperatures around 180 degrees C so perhaps this is a fatal flaw? | That recipe is merely chocolate-topped, so you will find better, probably using cocoa powder.
However that may still not go far enough. I have tried to make chocolate chip flapjack by using dark chocolate chips and stirring into the melted mixture before baking. I did this after the adding the oats and after a bit of cooling, with as little stirring as possible. They still melted into the mixture before I could get it into the tray. Further cooling, and perhaps chilling the chocolate first might get round this. They weren't very chocolatey, but the texture was still good.
If you tried to replace all of the butter and sugar with chocolate, you'd end up with an oat-loaded chocolate bar, rather than flapjack. It would be too hard (unless you like your flapjack rock-solid, in which case the chocolate might burn).
Using your chocolate, you'd still have some butter (to keep the fat:sugar ratio the same), which would help, but the sugar in that particular recipe is all golden syrup. Many recipes use a mixture of olden syrup and brown sugar, both of which bring little flavour.
I see two routes to experiments:
take your favourite recipe, add cocoa powder (perhaps lose the apricots in the recipe you linked, and add 100g cocoa powder to start with). I'd then drizzle with milk and/or white chocolate for the contrast in appearance.
I've just tested this. My batch was smaller, only 150g of oats (and very similar to your more basic recipe), and I added 50g of cocoa powder. That gave it a nice flavour along the lines of dark chocolate truffles. The texture was good: I was aiming for chewy and got it, not crumbly or hard. If I wanted even more of a chocolate flavour, rather than increasing the cocoa powder I'd add some milk chocolate
Substitute. For ease I'll round everything and call your chocolate 50% sugar and 33% fat by mass, your butter 100% fat (it's more like 80% with most of the rest water), and your golden syrup 100% sugar (again, it's nearly 20% water). As a starting point I'd put in 200g of chocolate, taking out 100g of syrup, and 60-70g of butter. I'd still melt the butter and sugar together, then stir in the broken up chocolate with the oats after turning off the heat. Once mixed in the chocolate won't burn easily. You could also add cocoa powder of course. This may be too stiff; adding some water to the melted butter and syrup, then the oats, then the chocolate might help.
Overall, flapjack is fairly forgiving. If it falls apart, that's not ideal, but press it firmly into the tin and it shouldn't. Scoring when hot and cooling in the tin helps too. If it's overcooked and hard, possibly just round the edges, this is nice smashed up and served as a topping for ice cream. So give it a go and see what happens. |
Brisket been cooking for 4 hours and rock hard -- what am I doing wrong?
I cut it up into 1.5 inch cubes and cooked it at 200 degrees F. I'm trying to make brisket curry and It's just been simmering at that temp for the last 3-4 hours. It's still super hard. Did I ruin it already? | Brisket takes a long time as it's so tough to begin with, just keep cooking it. It may take another 2 or more hours to get tender. Just be patient, with brisket you have to cook for a result not a time. |
Smart idea to buy the woks that Chinese restaurant chefs use, for my home's electric induction cook top?
I need a non stick wok for my Frigidaire electric induction cook top. What do you think of the the copycat technique? Why don't I just buy the type of wok used by Chinese restaurant chefs?
But what type of wok do Chinese restaurants use? Carbon steel? Cast iron?
How often do these chefs season their woks? But will this work for me at home? I've never seasoned a wok before! I'm afraid I can't maintain and preserve these woks like these Cantonese restaurant chefs can. What if I don't have enough time to season? | You don't buy a wok like a Chinese restaurant uses because you can't use a round-bottom wok on an induction hob.
You can buy induction hobs specifically for woks, but they're a bit specialist, as are those colossal burners in the picture above.
Generally speaking, for a wok you want as much of it heated as possible. Induction [or any electric hob] will only ever heat the flat surface in contact with the ring. Domestic gas is better, & you can tilt the wok to aid ingredient distribution rather than having to leave it flat on the ring all the time.
Home-cooked Chinese-style food must necessarily adopt a different technique because you simply cannot generate the same amount of heat as a commercial kitchen.
If you don't have time/skill/patience to season a wok & keep it seasoned, then get a non-stick. Just don't get a cheap one, or it will peel off in three months.
My own wok is one of these - Masterclass - and has withstood everything I can throw at it for over two years, without showing any sign of scratching, burning, evaporating or anything else detrimental to the surface. I treat it with little respect, though I only use wooden or plastic utensils for all my pans, & wash it in regular washing-up liquid (dish soap) with the same brush I use for everything else. The outside is scuffed & scratched, but the inside still looks as new.
And it only cost 30 quid [bucks/euros].
When you're throwing food around in this, you will quickly realise why you don't want a cast iron one… the weight. |
Why is my cake sinking after baking with a soggy-like line in the middle?
I've lately been facing an issue with my cakes whereby they sink and have a soggy-like line near the bottom.
It's strange since I am using the same ingredients, same oven, same recipe however the cakes are turning out like this..
It's quite frustrating since these are commercial cakes and I can't sell such cakes to customers. | Those cakes are underbaked, that line at the bottom is a clear sign that the batter hadn't crystallized when it was removed from the oven, so it could not support the cake above. There's a few things that could be happening:
You changed the recipe or ingredients: if you've made a substitution or changed the recipe you should look at changing it back
You aren't baking them long enough: changes in the starting temperature of the batter can change the baking time. In the winter your kitchen may be colder so your batter may be colder, or maybe you're pulling ingredients straight from the fridge, if your batter is colder than you need to lengthen the baking time
Your oven is cooler: it's possible your oven thermostat is mis-reading and your oven is cooler, or maybe you're cramming the oven with many cakes and your oven can't keep to temperature. Also, maybe you're opening the oven door lots and losing heat. Try using an oven thermometer to check the temperature
I would suggest you start testing your cakes for doneness before taking them out, it's not uncommon for ovens to fluctuate so you can't assume that a cake is going to be done at an exact time. Use the poke test and/or an instant read thermometer to check them. |
Is "mintiness" a well-defined thing?
I perceive a similarity in taste and odour between spearmint and peppermint, and I describe both as minty. The smell, taste and cooling sensation of peppermint are reproduced almost perfectly by pure menthol. But spearmint, despite being very closely related to peppermint, contains very little menthol, and it apparently gets its character from R-carvone, which is also found in caraway, which exhibits a vaguely minty aroma.
To me, lemon balm smells primarily like lemon, and not at all minty. Wild watermint (from which peppermint is obtained by hybridisation with spearmint) smells, to me, vaguely minty but also disagreeably vegetal, like lots of inedible greens do. Likewise catnip. And most other mint varieties sold in garden centres for culinary purposes (pineapple mint etc) smell, to me, similarly like weak mint with unpleasant off-notes.
On the other hand, pennyroyal and hyssop both smell unmistakably minty and pleasant to me.
What, then, do the two best-known mints have in common that makes them identifiably minty? Is it anything inherent to their makeup, or is it just mental association?
I've seen some Americans describe wintergreen as a type of mint. Botanically that's not true at all, and wintergreen oil's chemical composition is very different from the mints. I'm from the UK, where wintergreen is very rare as a food flavouring, and its smell is primarily associated with medicines and liniments. I don't perceive it as having a minty quality at all. I can recognise that it's pungent and herbal, so it has similarities to (for instance) eucalyptus, camphor, pine, rosemary, juniper etc, and in that sense, it's vaguely like the mints, but no more so than any of those other plants listed.
So I believe that when an American describes wintergreen as minty, it's because a) for them, the flavour is associated with the herbal candies referred to as "mints", and b) in broad terms, it's in the same sort of category. Is it the case that I similarly consider spearmint and peppermint both to be "minty", just because I'm used to using the word mint for both of them, even though they're very different chemically?
Addendum: here to illustrate the chemical differences are gas chromatography analyses.
Peppermint oil is primarily eucalyptol, menthol, menthone, menthofuran, menthyl acetate and iso-menthone
Spearmint oil is dominated by limonene, carvone, myrcene, beta-bourbonene; the spikes for menthol, menthyl acetate etc are tiny
(I believe that the distinctive characters of eucalyptus and wintergreen come primarily from eucalyptol and methyl salicilate respectively.) | The mints in general - spearmint and peppermint - have the cooling mouthfeel associated to ligants to CRM1 (now named TRPM8) receptors. The various nuances in flavor are given by other molecules, like limonene and carvones in spearmint; and menthol, menthone and menthyl acetate in peppermint.
Wintergreens do not contain those ligants that provide a cooling mouthfeel, so they're not considered mints per se, but it is very common practice to combine wintergreen with mint (or just add menthol) when using it as flavoring, especially in products where the consumer expects a "cool" mouthfeel, as it enhances the perception of cleanliness (e.g. toothpaste, mouthwash, chewing gum, breath mints, throat lozenges...). This could be the reason why many people describe wintergreen as being "minty".
From a technical perspective (toothpaste manufacturing, specifically), wintergreen is not the same flavor family as mint. When transitioning from a wintergreen flavor to a mint flavor, the cleaning cycles for the processing equipment are far longer than when transitioning between wintergreen flavors or between mint flavors, as the acceptable levels for cross-contamination are FAR lower, since it is very highly unlikely that an average consumer can spot a bit of peppermint residue mixed in with spearmint toothpaste, but it is far more likely that they can spot a bit of wintergreen residue mixed in with any minty toothpaste |
Can any potatoes be cooked in the microwave?
I bought these baby potatoes from sainsburys and it says on the packet you can microwave them in 7.5 minutes and they will be ok to cook. I imagine they are not precooked or am I wrong?
This got me thinking if I get any potatoes and cut them into small enough pieces can I heat them in the microwave without oil and butter same as with these baby potatoes?
Thanks | Yes, you can cook potatoes in a microwave. If you have not cut them up, poke a few holes in the side with a fork or knife point to allow steam to escape. |
Converting bread recipes for an overnight rise?
I often find myself with an urge to bake things in the evening, but without enough hungry mouths left to justify actually producing anything substantial by the time the recipe is done.
As such, it'd be handy to have some guidelines for how to modify a recipe so that I can do part of the preparation in the evening, leave the dough to rise overnight (either at room temperature or in the fridge), and continue with the recipe the next morning.
Things I imagine might come into play:
A conversion from counter rise times to fridge rise times - does 90 minutes at room temperature correspond to a certain duration at 40F? Is the risk of over-proofing more or less, if I sleep in and miss my target?
Reducing the amount of yeast in a recipe by some fraction, so that it doesn't rise as quickly (but what fraction?)
Specific features of a recipe that make it an especially good or bad idea to try this kind of modification - certain ingredients, cooking temperatures, whatever.
Any advice along these lines would be appreciated! Interested in guidelines for both bread and other yeast-based doughs (rolls, buns, pizzas, etc.). | There are no strict formulas or conversions, the mathematics of bread baking are too complex for such predictions.
Rising at room temperature overnight is not recommended, it is generally way too warm in our homes.
The thing you can do is to take any recipe you have, and stick it in the fridge as-is, either for the first or for the second proofing. It should generally turn out OK overnight, but if it tends to overproof or underproof, you will have to adjust the amount of yeast in the future. You have to find this out by trial and error. In the morning, you will have to give the dough time to warm up back to room temperature before continuing to work with it.
There aren't that many things to be said about ingredients. Doughs with very high amounts of butter will tend to change their handling with refrigeration and are more demanding about the temperature at which you shape them. |
How to maximize shelf-life of freeze-dried food beyond 25 years? How far can this be exceeded?
Many manufacturers will sell and advertise emergency preparedness food packs to still taste "great" 25-30 years into the future (or at least maintain a consistent taste over this period).
For instance, they will cook eggs, lasagna or vegetables (anything really), then place it into a freeze-drier unit, which eliminates the water via sublimation. They then place the food product into a mylar or aluminum pouch (sometimes polyurethane), insert an oxygen dissector pouch in it, then instruct the customer to store it in a cool (less than 16 degrees Celsius or 60 Fahrenheit) and dry environment for long term storage.
What process happens after 25-30 years which limits its shelf life? It is the accumulation of oxygen diffusing within the bag over time? It is the oxygen pouch that reaches it absorption limit? Is moisture sneaking in? Is the organic structure of the food break down due to normal thermodynamic forces over time (increase in entropy)?
What if one wanted to increase the shelf-life to say 50 years, maybe even 100 years? What food break down processes will be encountered as the limiting factor, that would need to be countered? | The question is rather difficult to answer since it is based on false assumptions. I will try addressing those.
What process happens after 25-30 years which limits its shelf life?
There is no reason to assume that there is such a process. Imagine that I tell you "tomorrow at 2 PM, I will be at home". This contains no information about whether I will be at home tomorrow until 2:15, or until 6, or any other chosen time after 2 PM. Similarly, a "best by" date of 25 years makes absolutely no claims for the food quality at any time point after 25 years have passed. The existing foods may still taste good enough after 50 or 100 years.
if one wanted to increase the shelf-life to say 50 years, maybe even 100 years. What food break down processes will be encountered as the limiting factor
The assumption here is more subtle: it equates "food break down processes" with "the limiting factor". But it is also quite certainly false. It is not clear if there are any food break down processes that prevent longer shelf life. But if there are some, it is highly unlikely that they are also limiting factors. The hardest limiting factors you are likely to face are:
Developing a testing process that can prove that the food keeps its quality for 100 years with reasonable certainty, without actually waiting 100 years. This could be possible, but it will be quite hard. It will certainly not be as easy as creating such a process for something with a much better describable behaviour, such as electronics.
Convincing the FDA or other relevant regulators that your test results are correct
Establishing yourself in an already filled small niche market, despite having higher production costs than the incumbents (due to points 1 and 2).
I don't have answers to the other subquestions, but as I said, they are most likely based on a false assumption and thus unanswerable. If it turns out that they do have an answer in principle, the points above still render them pretty much irrelevant for practical purposes (which in itself is difficult enough). |
Why should rice be cooked uncovered?
The recipe on rice packs I buy says rice should be boiled uncovered. Why is that? I tend to cover it while cooking as it lets me use much less power. Do I miss something taste-wise? | You can cook rice covered or uncovered, it will not impact the flavor. The amount of liquid you begin with, and your cooking time, could certainly be impacted. There are several methods for cooking rice (covered, uncovered, and both). If you are using pre- or par-cooked rice, the directions are likely just a finishing step, formulated so that you don't over-cook the product. You could still use a cover, but would likely need to keep a close eye on it or experiment a bit to get a result you like. |
Cake not rising - too many wet ingredients?
I've tried making this three layer cake twice in the past two days. I think the issue is too many wet ingredients. It’s from a cookbook I trust for the most part, but after two failures, I’m not sure what else to change.
If the issue is too many wet ingredients, how do I substitute or alter the recipe to remedy this?
For reference, it calls for:
2.5c AP flour (12.5oz)
2t baking powder
1/2t salt
3/4c room temp unsalted butter
1.75c sugar (12.25oz)
1/3c maple sugar
1/3c canola oil
1t vanilla
2 egg yolks
4 eggs
1c milk room temp
Approx 1/2c “burnt sugar” syrup (mixed in with room temp milk
I started typing this last night and have now discovered that my pans are also an inch too wide, but I’m almost positive that additional batter will still be somewhat too dense. Is that the issue or do we think it’s the high proportion of liquid to dry?
Attaching photos for reference:
The flat cake from my second attempt (first picture), and then what the cookbook says it should look like (second picture) | I would suggest viewing it a different way: the recipe did not fail. It is most likely performing exactly as expected by its author.
First, there is the matter of the different pan. You might intuitively think that 1 inch is not much of a difference, but you have to remember that the height of the cake will vary proportionally to the pan area, not to the pan diameter, which means a quadratic relationship. At typical cake sizes (if you went from 8 to 9, or from 9 to 10) you will have ~25% more height if you use the smaller pan. The exact area numbers from 8 to 11 inches are: 50/63/78/95 square inches.
Second, you are correct that a cake of this type, with milk and oil, and additional egg yolks, is going to rise less than other cake types. This doesn't mean that the cake is rising improperly, it means that you have chosen a cake which doesn't fit your needs (assuming you have a reason for creating a high cake). This doesn't mean that there is a simple way to get this cake recipe to rise more though; the amount of work you would have to invest is the same as in creating a new recipe from scratch. And if you succeed, the taste and texture will not be the same as the cake from which you started. So, the typical thing to do is to choose a recipe which produces higher cakes, and stick with it. |
Why it is not recommended to mix the milk of different days?
A vendor supplies a half liter of milk daily. Some times, due to variety of reasons, I arrive at a situation that I need to handle milk of 3 consecutive days i.e., 1.5 liter.
Elder and experienced members of my family asks me to deal each 1/2 liter of milk differently. But, they fail in providing a valid reason for not mixing them.
Is there any issue with mixing milk of different days and use them for my purposes?
Note that the milk is not too old. All the individual milks are edible. | Even when kept refrigerated, milk gradually spoils due to micro organisms. In case the first day's milk was on the threshold of spoiling, you are effectively bringing the third days milk also to that condition by mixing it with the first day's milk (which by now may have significant amount of microorganisms).
First day's milk bottle/vessel might have been retrived from the fridge, opened, and kept at room temperature (very short durations), and kept back multiple times by the time the third day's milk arrives. This gives microorganisms opportunity to enter and multiply even if the original milk was Pasteurized and sealed airtight in a sterile packaging.
In fact, curd is propagated by mixing fresh milk with leftover curd. Same with sourdough starter. |
How do I make 1/3 cup liquid glucose for toffee apple recipe?
I'm about to make Toffee Apples for the kids and have chosen this recipe:
https://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipes/toffee-apples-recipe/22mx42pc
I don't have or can buy the liquid glucose.
How can I make ⅓ cup? | The purpose of the glucose is to make the caramel more stable. Glucose contains sugars that do not crystallise as easily as regular granulated sugar, so adding it will make it less likely that the caramel will fail. Making glucose at home is not really possible: you need a small chemistry lab to pull it off (you can hydrolyse corn starch with sulphuric acid to get glucose syrup). Instead, you can substitute the glucose with another sugar that also doesn't crystallise easily. Which one is available to you depends on your location, but golden syrup, corn syrup, or light molasses would all serve the same purpose as the glucose. |
How many years does canned jelly stay safe to eat?
I have several jars of canned grape jelly that are at least 10 years old. Are they still safe to eat? | Canned food basically never expires. That being said, check to make sure there isn't any rust, dents, or swelling on the can, and make sure the food smells okay and there are no cloudy, mushy, or moldy bits of food. It should be safe if it passes all these checks. |
Can I add body to vegan stock with carrageenan?
Carrageenan, a seaweed extract, is used frequently in vegan cheese and other vegan and vegetarian preparations as a thickening agent.
However, I have never seen it recommended as a way to add "body" and texture to a vegan stock, as a replacement for the collagen in meat stocks. Particularly, I'd like to experiment with it for vegetable stocks intended to be thickened into a sauce.
Is this because it works poorly for that purpose, or just because few cooks have tried it? Or some other reason? | Carrageenan is not suitable for the application you propose.
First, you need iota carrageenan, since the kappa variety is inhibited by salt.
Second, you need a source of calcium ions for the iota carrageenan to form a gel (kappa needs potassium). I doubt that it will be sufficient to chuck a piece of kale in there, you will probably need something more. I don't know for sure how it is done in vegan cheeses, but this type of preparation is frequently firmed up with inorganic salts. If you were to add calcium sulfate to a stock, you would end up with something rather unpleasant, I imagine.
Third, the carrageenan action is also inhibited by long heating at low pH. A stock is usually not too low in pH, but it is lower than neutral.
In short, my suggestion is to pick a better suited thickener. |
Is buttermilk another term for sour milk or some part of sour milk?
Is buttermilk another term for sour milk or some part of sour milk?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttermilk says:
Originally, buttermilk referred to the liquid left over from churning butter from cultured or fermented cream. Traditionally, before the advent of homogenization, the milk was left to sit for a period of time to allow the cream and milk to separate. During this time, naturally occurring lactic acid-producing bacteria in the milk fermented it. This facilitates the butter churning process, since fat from cream with a lower pH coalesces more readily than that of fresh cream. The acidic environment also helps prevent potentially harmful microorganisms from growing, increasing shelf-life.[3] | Buttermilk is the byproduct of butter making.
Butter is made by agitating cream (-> the fatty part of milk) resulting in clumps of fat and a milky white liquid that contains nearly no fat and some protein. If the cream was soured before (either by aging or by inoculating the cream with lactobacillae), the buttermilk will also be sour. If the butter was made from unfermented cream, the buttermilk will be mild.
Uncultured buttermilk is rarely sold, even if butter is made commercially with regular cream, the resulting buttermilk is soured afterwards.
As buttermilk is made from a fraction of whole milk (the cream), you could say it’s a part of soured milk. I outlined the process of butter making in this answer, that should also help understanding buttermilk. |
Are these small yellow things on my lettuce worms?
I found these in my baby lettuce leaf, are they worms? They didn't move and one fell out being stiff | These are probably insect eggs.
Being unmoving, tightly clustered together, and uniform in size, these are most likely insect eggs.
A number of common insects lay oblong yellow eggs similar to those in your image, including ladybugs and cabbage white butterflies. Yours look more like ladybug eggs to me, or perhaps some other kind of beetle egg. |
Why does slightly cooked (wilted) spinach give me dry mouth but not raw or fully cooked?
I used raw spinach in salads. I use it well cooked in soups, pies, and sauteed by itself. For some recipes (mostly in omelettes) I like it flash-fried, just to the point it starts wilting. And in those recipes, it leaves me with a dry mouth for an hour after I eat it. Any clues?
If it is of any relevance, I only buy fresh pre-washed baby spinach so I cannot compare to other kinds, or to frozen, or to spinach I wash myself. | Oxalates most likely.
Cooking doesn't change the oxalates but I reckon how it is chewed, more vrs less, might be the reason.
Wilted seems the chewiest to me.
"Spinach contains a high amount of oxalic acids which contain small crystals that do not dissolve in water. These oxalate crystals are released from spinach as you chew, coating the teeth, resulting in that chalky or gritty feeling" |
Storing Self-Made Cookies/Brittles/etc longer: ingredients and techniques
I like to make a large amount of pan sheet cookies or brownie brittles as something to crumble over my breakfast yogurt. Something in the style of variations on the following recipe: https://www.instagram.com/p/CENLDHlJTp-/?epik=dj0yJnU9aWNEWTNma0ZEdVZsUjN2X2tVd2hSa1BvUVNtZXlBVUkmcD0wJm49V0ZxTlJMakQycmcwWUFWTzBtclZRdyZ0PUFBQUFBR0NYMGZB
I let the brittle bake for fairly long, and let it cool and harden over the entire day so that it has no moisture left. Then I store it in a closed glass container in a shelf at room temperature.
They keep fairly well but after 2-3 weeks, a tiny bit of mold starts to form, faster than I can eat them.
Any ideas on how I could keep it longer? Ideally, they would store for up to 4 weeks.
Any other techniques or additional preservatives I could add? | I would freeze it. Crumble will defrost pretty much instantly when you take it out of the freezer, so you can just pour it straight from the freezer container onto your yogurt. If you freeze it on a tray and then dump it into a container, it should stay crumbly rather than freeze into a block so it's easy to handle. |
What are the reasons for using an egg whisk to cook scrambled eggs?
When cooking scrambled eggs in the frypan I use a spatula to gather the egg together. To me this doesn't damage the pan, and avoids the egg forming 'nodules'. It also saves the time-consuming hassle of cleaning cooked egg off the egg whisk, and possibly saves the hygiene risk of not properly cleaning all of the egg off the egg whisk.
Now I could be completely wrong or have missed something. I know of people who are strongly in favour of using an egg whisk to cook scrambled eggs.
My question is: What are the reasons for using an egg whisk to cook scrambled eggs? | I think, like several questions on this site about scrambled eggs, this comes down to ones preferred curd size. There are many different ways of making scrambled eggs: at one extreme one heats very slowly, stirring gently with a spatula, and getting very large curds. Some people say this gives a sloppy texture, others prefer the smooth mouth feel. At the other extreme, one heats quickly and whisks, breaking up the curds entirely, and giving a fluffy mousse like texture. |
Does starch thickened custard get thinner after a few days?
A few days ago, I did a crème pâtissière (thick vanilla custard), using
milk (300ml/1.25 cup)
egg yolks (2)
sugar (15g/1tbsp)
potato starch (10g/1tbsp).
The end result had a relatively thick consistency, fit for my purpose. I had a bit left over, so I put it in the fridge after it cooled down. After a few days in the fridge, the custard got thinner, like a crème anglaise (thin vanilla custard, picture an eggnog-like consistency).
I wonder what happened. One of my guess is that the amount of starch was too small, but I can't explain the change of consistency. | It is not the starch alone, but the combination of starch and egg yolks. Yolks contain an enzyme which digests starch after some time, making the whole custard thinner.
If you absolutely have to use a custard with both starch and yolks, either consume it quickly, or boil it well (at least of minute of visible bubbling) to deactivate the yolk enzymes. |
Aside from saving gas or electricity, why cover the pot?
There are some recipes that insist that you have to cover the pot when cooking. For example, in this video recipe for Bolognese sauce (at 7:36).
I understand that this might save gas or electricity by reducing heat loss. But does it serve any other purpose?
I do not consider it to be essential for the food not drying up, since you can leave the pot uncovered and just add a bit more water at the beginning, or add water at the end if you notice that too much has evaporated.
The only thing I can think about is that this might increase the humidity inside the pot, and perhaps the steam will help cook the food or change the flavor somehow. If this is true, what types of food would benefit from cooking with the lid on in terms of flavor?
PS: This is related to Why not cover the pot? but not the same. | It retains heat & steam pressure, so you achieve a simmer or even a boil with less power input & less water loss.
Great for long-cook sauces. Not so good for starchy things which may boil over if you're not careful, or have the pan too full.
As with most things, familiarity with how your stove/pan/lid combination reacts to a slow simmer will determine how well this works for you. If your stove won't drop low enough, you'll burn things, or need to get a simmer ring to reduce the risk. If you tend top make things too wet, you need to adjust over time.
Making anything to an online recipe needs you to be fully aware of how your own kitchen responds to wet/dry/timings. I don't think I ever blindly follow a recipe, I modify to how it needs to turn out based on my own experience with similar ingredients/quantities.
If I guess wrong, then I'm reducing sauce in a flat panic over the last 10 mins… not a good feeling, but familiarity breeds content ;))
There was at one time folk wisdom that said, "if it grows above ground, lid off, if it grows below ground, lid on"… which I have pretty much ignored for most of my adult life.
Sure, potatoes boil best with the lid on, as you obviously retain the heat, but I'm pretty sure I've never boiled a leafy vegetable in 20 years, I steam them… incidentally using the 'spare' steam from my lid-on potatoes. |
How do I peel prosciutto from wax paper without it coming off in strips?
Anytime I've purchased prosciutto from a store it's sold in slices separated by pieces of wax paper, but when I try and peel it off it doesn't peel evenly. The lines of fat in the ham offers less strength when peeling, and the prosciutto often tears along these lines.
When trying to make sandwiches it isn't too much of an aesthetic issue, but if I'm trying to make a charcuterie board having thin strips isn't as appealing. Is there some best way to scrape the meat from the wax paper, peel from both ends simultaneously? Or is this an inconvenience I'll just have to deal with? | I usually use a palette knife (frosting spatula) to separate the slice from the paper by sliding it betwixt the two. It is quick, but does require some care. |
Can agar be melted in oil?
This recipe for vegan parmesan apparently has no added liquid apart from melted coconut oil.
Does the agar actually melt and bind in this case?
From https://greenevi.com/vegan-parmesan-sliceable-grateable/
3/4 cup of cashews
3/4 cup of pine nuts
3 tbsp nutritional yeast
4 tbsp refined coconut oil
1 tsp agar agar powder
salt
INSTRUCTIONS
Place cashews and pine nuts in a food processor, and grind until you get a fine crumble.
Heat up coconut oil in a small pot over medium heat. Once it melted, add agar agar and cook for about 5 minutes, whisking constantly.
Add agar agar and coconut oil mixture, nutritional yeast, and a generous amount of salt to ground nuts, and pulse until incorporated.
Place cheese into a mold of your choice (I like to make one out of parchment paper, to resemble a parmesan shape), and press down lightly, if needed. Place in the fridge for at least 4 hours to let it set.
Cheese will keep for 7-10 days in the fridge. Enjoy! | Here is the molecular chemical structure of agar.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agar#Composition
It is a polysaccharide and like all polysaccharides will be strongly hydrophilic. To answer the question: there is no way a molecule like this will dissolve in oil. You might be able to make an emulsion but you would need an emulsifier and there is none I recognize in this recipe.
As regards the larger question of why this recipe calls for agar I do not know. |
Hard and brittle fat as cocoa butter alternative
What are some hard and brittle fats, similar to cocoa butter, that could be used as an alternative?
Taste is secondary but the more neutral the better. Preferably the fat should also be reasonably easily accessible and not extraordinarily expensive. | Such a thing doesn't exist. Cocoa butter is absolutely unique in that respect, to the point where even thinking of cocoa butter only is not sufficient - only two of its six crystal forms give you the desirable texture, that's why we temper chocolate. With anything else, every halfway mindful eater will easily recognize that what they are eating is not real chocolate, and has a quite different texture.
The closest you can get are commercial replacements. They are sold under names such as "baking chocolate", usually in the baking aisle. If you have never used them yourself, you probably know them from eating commercially prepared foods with them, for example they make up the chocolate glaze on ice cream, or on the packaged marble cake in supermarkets, or on other products such as jaffa cakes. They contain a high percentage of real cocoa powder, the fat is specially formulated vegetable fat, and at freezing temperatures, they do have a satisfying snap (see the ice cream case), while at room temperature, a thin layer of them is somewhat comparable to a dry ganache. They do work well as a cheaper alternative of adding a bit of chocolate to baked goods, but not for pure chocolate work.
The cocoa fat somebody else mentioned is hard at room temperature, but has a completely different texture. It also has the unique quality of melting at body temperature, taking its energy from the mouth. This is why it is used in "ice confections", candies which cool down your mouth when you hold them on your tongue. Beside this very noticeable effect, it has no snap, and while it does make solid confections, they won't be mistaken for being made with actual cocoa butter.
The third option you can use, if you are trying to save money and not to work around an allergy, is to work with the cheapest unfilled chocolate bars you can buy. They use a mixture of cocoa butter, heavier fractions of vegetable fats, and special emulsifiers which make the texture somewhat closer to real chocolate. They do have a slightly different, waxy consistency, but in some parts of the world (e.g. the USA), this is what people actually associate with chocolate, due to the use of these emulsifiers in the most popular brands of chocolate bars. You can melt and shape these bars reasonably well, as well as make ganaches and similar with them, and the taste and texture is not worse than when you bite into the bar as-is. If you like the taste, it should be a viable option for you. |
Can excess salt in a cured gammon joint be removed after it has been roasted?
It's my first time of cooking cured gammon joint and I wasn't aware of how salty it is until after roasting it in the oven.
I need to know if the excess salt can be still be removed even after it has been roasted in the oven.
If it can, what is the best way to remove it?
Will it still be ok to eat after excess salt being removed after it has been roasted? | The best way to remove salt is by soaking it in non-salted water for several hours before cooking it. Theoretically, you could do the same thing after cooking but I would advise against it. Soaking cooked meat in water will likely result in an unpleasant waterlogged texture. I would instead suggest serving it with sides and sauces that are deliberately undersalted (or even cooked completely without salt). That way, the meal as a whole will even out and not be too salty. |
What characterizes a soup that holds well in a buffet setting?
Maybe there is good reason buffets seem to have the same short list of soups: they hold well ie flavor and color; do not separate or split; heavy ingredients do not sink to bottom.
What should I avoid in soup recipes that they can be held hot for up to 4hrs? | I was really hoping that someone still in professional food service would answer this, but they haven't, so here's my list of rules based on memory from when I was:
Soups that are no good for holding:
Egg-drop soups and seafood soups are risky because of rapid spoilage
Miso soup settles out
Soups that are thickened with a butter or heavy cream emulsion; these tend to separate after being heated for hours
Pasta, barley and rice soups are problematic because the grains both absorb liquid while sitting and sink to the bottom.
Bread-thickened soups tend to turn to porrige
gazpacho actually does not do well; even though it is cold, after a few hours out it can ferment unless you keep it well-chilled
Soups that are good for holding:
Just about any pureed vegetable soup
Cheese-and-emulsifier thickened soups, like broccoli-cheese soup, do well
Bean soups with a moderate amount of beans do well (thick bean soups tend to solidify though), like vegetable/lentil, or brunswick stew
Chicken/noodle soup is a good standby if the noodles are very small and less than the chicken (see above)|
Thin dal, like a classic South Indian sambar, is designed for long sitting
Tomato/vegetable soup
"Chowders", including corn chowder, hold well from a suspension/serving standpoint, but see above for the risks of holding seafood
Any clear broth, such as bone broth, consomme, pomegranate soup, etc.
That's all I have; hopefully someone with current buffet-running experience will speak up. |
How to make coffee-infused butter?
What are some ways to make "coffee-infused butter"?
By that I mean cow butter but injected with espresso, somehow. Essentially, produce a block of butter with strong coffee flavours in it (the color, I imagine, would be medium brown rather light yellow). Strength per block of butter is roughly equivalent to that of one cup of coffee or double shot espresso.
I've been consuming my mokapot coffee with some butter on side, and really enjoy the taste combination. It is especially good when the coffee is let to become cold a bit (the bitter notes really come through and cut through the milky goodness of butter).
Note: this is different from what is known as 'bulletproof coffee' (which can be described as butter-infused coffee). | A simple way to do this is to place 250 grams of whole bean coffee and 500 grams of butter in a ziploc bag. Then place that in a water bath with a sous vide device set at 90C. Cook for 3 hours. Alternately, you can do this on the stove top. Very low heat, same amount of time. The longer you cook, the stronger the coffee flavor. Strain, discard beans, use the butter. Credit to an old ChefSteps formula. |
What is this substance in my canned ground beef?
Do you know from pic what the yellow jelly like substance is on what seems to be the side surfaces of my corned beef(I can’t see it on the top or inner part)?
The ingredients say: Cooked Beef, Beef, Water, Salt, Sugar and Sodium Nitrite.
So not sure what it is. If you say it’s fat shouldn’t it be white and solid like normal beef fat and why does it migrate to the sides, assuming it’s fat to begin with.
Product link:
https://www.penguinfresh.com/products/corned-beef-halal-canned-grace | It's a jelly formed of water and proteins from the meat, primarily collagen. More or less the same substance as aspic, though "aspic" normally refers to an intentionally created dish of this stuff, rather than a little bit forming as a byproduct of canning.
It's normal for a small amount of this stuff to form naturally at the edges of canned meat products. It's safe to eat; there's nothing in it that isn't also in the rest of the product. It will melt down and disappear as you cook the meat. |
Food safety of custard slice
A recipe to make custard slices involves cooking egg yolks with milk, sugar, flour and gelatine to 80 degrees Celsius, then folding in beaten egg whites (beaten with a small amount of lemon juice and sugar). After folding, the mixture is about 40 degrees Celsius, and is ready to be chilled to set. What are the food saftey guidelines that apply to the egg whites in this case? All I could find was that egg mixtures should be heated to 71 degrees Celsius, but that is for whole eggs. Do egg whites require the same temperature?
For reference the full recipe is at https://zsuzsaisinthekitchen.blogspot.com/2011/04/hungarian-custard-slice-kremes_16.html | There’s a fundamental difference between food safety and what is considered acceptable risk - the former is calculated to be virtually risk-free and statistically contain not enough bacteria etc. to potentially cause illnesses or infection, plus a bit of a safety margin. The thresholds are so that even the most sensitive and vulnerable consumers are still protected, for example young children, the elderly, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems. These consumer groups are also especially likely to suffer or even die in case of salmonella or similar food borne diseases. This is one of the reasons why pregnant women are warned against certain foods.
But there are many recipes that are not “safe” in this strict sense. That doesn’t mean that your custard, mousse au chocolat, sauce hollandaise (all with raw egg), unpasteurized cheese (raw milk), steak tartare (raw beef) etc. will automatically make you sick. In fact, in the vast majority of all cases nothing will happen. And in most other cases, a healthy adult will suffer, but survive.
To be very clear:
Just because some cooks and some recipes work outside the boundaries of food safety guidelines doesn’t invalidate these guidelines.
The recipe in the link is not safe by official standards if made with raw, unpasteurized eggs.
The temperature you found is correct without additional time constraints, there may be ways to produce a safe custard if you can hold the mixture for a certain time at a given temperature (bacteria destruction is a function of temperature and time to be exact, food safety guidelines often give a simpler version using a temperature where the holding time is near zero, so “instant” killing of bacteria), but that would be beyond the scope of the question at hand, suffice to say that this constellation is nowhere near that range.
So if you want to make the custard recipe in your link, make an informed decision, considering your personal health status and your individual risk tolerance. I personally would never serve this kind recipe for the groups listed above or for a potluck where I can’t be sure who will participate. Especially for eggs, food safety may depend on locale, and in some areas pasteurized eggs are available in stores. |
Can uncooked rice be stored in the freezer or refrigerator?
I just bought some Carolina Plantation Gold rice in a sack. It says to store it in the freezer or the refrigerator. Can this be right? | First, in general freezing is possibly the best method for storing grains long-term if you're not going to use them up within a few months. So it's never a bad idea to freeze dried wheat, rice, buckwheat, etc. if you have the space. Certain grains, like wheat germ, contain oils that oxidize quickly and have to be stored cold or they go rancid in a few weeks.
This is also the issue with Carolina Gold Rice, according to Anson Mills:
With regard to your fresh cold milled to order hand pound emulation Carolina Gold Rice... because we choose to emulate how rice was prepared from scratch paddy rice a la minute for cookery before the industrial revolution, we hull/mill so that we just nick the outer bran of each kernel leaving the inner bran layer and germ intact... this form can oxidize and/or spoil stored at room temperature even though we vac pack on CO2 envelope at -10 F. to protect this rice for shipment at ambient temperatures for about 2 weeks only. We mill this way for flavor..
So, the rice bran is still attached to the rice, and contains easily oxidized oils, which means it will lose flavor or even develop off flavors within a few weeks at room temperature. Tip: freeze it in the quantities you'd usually cook it in, makes it easier to take some out for use. |
Shoulder Steak vs London Broil
I bought a piece of shoulder steak. Can I cook it like a london broil - marinating it and then broiling for around fifteen minutes? | Can I cook it like a london broil - marinating it and then broiling for around fifteen minutes?
London broil is traditionally prepared using flank steak, but the technique works well for other lean/tough cuts. Your shoulder steak may have more connective tissue than one would typically find in a flank or skirt steak, but not so much that most would find it a problem.
Marinating and grilling or broiling along the lines of London broil will work fine, as long as you're prepared to accept the extra gristle. Otherwise, consider a longer braising approach to break down the connective tissue.
For more information, see e.g.:
Shoulder Steak
What is Shoulder Steak? What is it Good For? How do You Cook it?
Which cuts of beef are suitable for slow cooking methods? |
Options for adding sauce to naked ribs?
I live in a condo complex where having a smoker or any sort of BBQ is difficult. I'm also on the Keto diet and I don't use most standard, store-bought sauces.
But I love some good St. Louis ribs and I want to order some naked ones from a local store. What is the best way to go about adding my own sauce to naked ribs? I was thinking about maybe saucing them, wrapping in foil and then baking them? Or just add sauce on top and re-heat? What are my options here? | The trick here is to not cook the ribs any more as you run the risk of making the meat tough. And tough meat on ribs is suitable only for the trash can.
Personally, I would put a nice layer of sauce on the ribs and broil them just enough to caramelize the sauce and warm (but not cook) the ribs. Don't want to over cook them after all...
"Nice layer" being an amount that appeals to you but enough to coat the meat and give you a nice caramelized crust while still allowing the meat beneath to warm without cooking. |
Using manual egg beater to cream eggs and sugar
So I don’t have a whisk or an electric whisk and a lot of baking recipes say to cream eggs and sugar and I used to do it with those tools.
Can I cream eggs and sugar with a manual egg beater (in picture below) or using a stick/immersion blender? | You have a whisk; the object in your picture is a whisk and you can use it to cream ingredients for your recipe. The gearing system makes it easier to get a high speed but you could even use a fork or a (totally manual) balloon whisk once the mixture is soft enough.
I would avoid using an immersion blender as it will be hard to get air into the mixture without careful technique; see this related question for more. |
Sourdough Starter: Very fast rise (doubles in an hour)
I started a sourdough culture a week back and have some questions about rising time.
I did not add any yeast to the culture.
I am using regular whole wheat flour.
The temperature at my place is 30*C(at 1 pm)
Day 1-6 I used 10 Gram Flour. Day 6 I used 20gram, Day 7 I used 50gram
The progress so far has been as follows with 100% hydration:
Day. Status
Equal parts water and flour.
Equal parts water and flour, No Activity, smells rotten!
Equal parts Fresh Orange Juice and flour, Doubles after a few hours Repeat Same feed after 10 hours.
Equal parts Fresh Orange Juice and flour, Doubles after a few hours Repeat Same feed after 10 hours.
Discard 50%, Equal parts water and flour: Doubles in an hour. Smells Yeasty!
Discard 50%, Equal parts water and flour: Doubles in an hour. Repeat feeding 3 times a day when the dough starts falling.
Discard 50%, Equal parts water and flour: Doubles in less than an hour!
Now most Sourdough bread recipes that I see online are based on an assumption of 8 hours rise time With my dough doubling in an hour or less, I had the following questions:
Is it the "right culture"? Should I be using it for baking?
If it can be used for Baking Is there a modified recipe available for fast acting yeast?
My Starter Jar right now looks like this!
Edit 1: I Made a whole wheat bread with the started.
The hydration was low(70%),
the crumb a bit dense.
There was little or no over spring(Did not use a dutch over, used a pan with boiling water and a tea towel on lower shelf)
...but the bread was tasty :) | I'm not surprised your starter is very active given that it's being incubated at a cosy 30C. But the only way to know for sure that it has a suitable population of yeasts is to use it to bake a simple loaf. Just take a simple recipe and go for it. Your starter looks healthy so I expected you'll get good results.
For a very quick check, just fry a couple of teaspoons at about 100% hydration: if you can see bubbles forming on the surface there is active yeast. |
Why should entrecôte meat apparently be cut into slices before served?
Recently, I went crazy and bought an entrecôte -- a very premium cut of beef to me. Over $11 USD for one. It was heavenly. I nearly cried when it was all gone from the plate.
The instructions said to put it out from the fridge for 30 minutes before frying it, which I did. While in the grill pan, it caused so much fat to melt into it that it quickly started "boiling" in its own fat rather than frying, so I had to repeatedly take the meat out from the pan and put it on a plate while pouring away all the liquid fat from the pan into a container. I repeated this many, many times before it finally looked done. The instructions said nothing about this, but maybe they consider it "obvious". If I had just left it in the pan, it would've been "caramelized" rather than fried/grilled. A lump of coal!
Anyway, once done, the instructions said to let it rest on the plate for two minutes before slicing it up into slices and then serving.
My question is: while I understand the need to wait for it to cool down, and possibly "set" (not sure if that's the right term) outside of the frying pan before serving, why do they tell you to slice the whole thing into slices? I actually didn't follow that last advice, but instead just kept cutting pieces from it as I ate. (As I've always eaten meat of any kind, including in any restaurant I've ever been to.)
This time (yes, I couldn't help myself from buying another one!), I'm going to try to cut it into slices as instructed, before eating, after waiting the two minutes. Unless you all can tell me a good reason not to, that is. Does it make the meat taste better? If so, why? | To directly answer your question - you slice it for presentation.
Entrecôte should be cooked at as high a temperature as you can achieve. This will tend towards charring the outside before the inside is cooked. As you should serve it towards medium rather than rare because of the fat content, you want to avoid over-cooking by doing it too slowly.
You are correct in allowing it to rise to room temperature before cooking. Some people would also salt it 30 - 45 minutes before cooking [others would object to that - your call, experiment]. If it was vac-packed, definitely allow it to come to room temperature between towels to help dry it out.
Once it hits your pan or grill, it should really only need a couple of minutes each side; this should be fast enough that it doesn't swamp your pan before each side is done.
After that, you either leave it to rest for at least 10 minutes, or place in a slow oven, depending on thickness. This is to allow the temperature to equalise & finish cooking the inside.
Because it is heavily charred on the outside, for presentation you slice to present the tender inside as it's served.
Image is waygu, but best I could find royalty-free. - https://www.dreamstime.com/modern-style-barbecue-dry-aged-wagyu-entrecote-beef-steak-lettuce-tomatoes-offered-as-close-up-design-plate-image194816166 |
Why not incorporate eggs at the last moment when making crepes?
My question is about the sequence/timing of adding the ingredients.
In all crepes recipes I have seen, eggs are added before the batter is mixed. I wonder if it would make sense to add them after.
Two possible advantages:
I believe if eggs are mixed too much, whites can get a rubber-like texture. This is especially true when an electric mixer is used. Is this correct? Incorporating eggs at the last moment will allow using electric mixer (on milk and flour) without compromising the texture.
Eggs are fresher when they are in their shell. I guess if the batter is left for 2-24h so that flour can absorb liquid, it does not gain much by absorbing egg, right? In this case, adding eggs shortly before baking will only have advantages (like increased food safety) and no disadvantages.
Yet, in all recipes, eggs are added in advance. What am I missing? | Your supposed advantages are not correct.
I believe if eggs are mixed too much, whites can get a rubber-like texture.
No, this is not correct. Are you thinking of gluten? That is the ingredient that gets tough with overmixing. So by that logic, you should be adding the flour last - but the whole point of recipes which are being held for a long time is to allow time for the starch in the flour to hydrate, and with the longer periods (you mention 24 hours), to allow for the building of slight sourdough flavors. So you cannot add flour last either - or you can, but then you don't need to keep the batter around. Anyhow, there is no change in toughness when you add eggs first.
Eggs are fresher when they are in their shell
They may be "fresher" by common sense understanding of the word, but by food safety rules, the two batters (the one with the eggs added before a rest, and the other with eggs after the rest) are equally safe. The food safety is not increased.
On the other side, if your suggestion is followed, there may be some slight disadvantages in handling. They are not so terrible as to make your suggestion unworkable, but together with the lack of advantages, they provide a good reason for recipes preferring early mixing.
A list of some of the disadvantages:
Not only is it more convenient to only get out a whisk once, but there are also people who prefer to mix the eggs with the flour first because this is their preferred method against getting lumps,
There are the recipes which require you to start with an egg and then adjust the consistency with incremental additions of flour and milk
There is the slight effect of possibly less-well beaten egg diffunding better into the mixture during the resting period. Basically, if you want to go to the trouble of doing a resting period, whose purpose it is to get everything to settle together, you'd better add everything before you rest it.
I must say that personally, I actually do add "egg last", but that's more of a side effect of my method. I use a very simple recipe (only eggs, flour and milk) measured by weight. I whisk by hand, and I have noticed that I get the least lumps when I first whisk the flour with the milk. This automatically means that the eggs (separately stirred, without whipping) come in last. I don't rest my batter, so there is no question of adding it after the rest (and if I did rest, I would add it before the rest). So you see, egg last is not impossible, just like Willeke said, it just has no special advantages, and in some cases it comes with disadvantages. |
Thermal Properties of Seasoned vs Anodized Aluminum?
I recently made an Aluminum baking "Steel" for baking pizza. The entire point of Aluminum is that it is orders of magnitude more thermally conductive than steel and (relative to its weight) has a higher thermal capacity; While not sharing the same sort of cost as copper.
But one thing I have never heard mentioned is the thermal properties of adding an anodized/oxidized layer or a seasoned layer. Is their any research or scientific theory on what thermal peripheries a layer of seasoning adds to an aluminum cooking surface vs just lettings the surface oxidize/get professionally anodized? | A surface insulating layer (whether deliberate anodising, natural oxidation, or seasoning) will only really affect the heat flow through that layer from the bulk metal into the food on top. It won't affect the heat-spreading effect used for even cooking, and it won't affect the heat capacity.
So now we're considering the difference between various surface layers. These will probably have a similar thermal conductivity to a ceramic pizza stone (to order-of-magnitude precision), but being thin layers between the food and the aluminium sheet heat reservoir will have a small effect compared to the temperature drop between the core of a pizza stone and the food on its surface. This means whatever has happened to the surface you'll couple the heat from the sheet to the food better than with a pizza stone, which would appear to be your goal.
The thermal conductivity of most foods that you'd cook on a stone/steel will be far lower - most consist of dough with gas bubbles in, basically insulating foam. That's what will limit the time for the middle to cook through. Perhaps a smoother layer will give better contact, but clean seasoning and anodising are both quite smooth.
More of an issue than thermal effects will be sticking. This is an application where you really don't want the food to stick, as it will carry on cooking while you free it up. It will also be a pain to deal with as I find with my home made aluminium pizza peel on thin bases. Hopefully the thorough, fast cooking will avoid sticking in the first place, but spills of sauce etc. will still need to be cleaned up, so a bigger question than heat flow would be ease of cleaning. |
Flatbread dough turned red
Today I made some flatbread and while cooking them I noticed a reddish coloring of the dough. I didn't add anything red in particular, so I am very surprised they turned out this way. Why did that happen?
I mixed whole spelt flour and regular wheat flour, yogurt, 2 tablespoons baking soda, some olive oil, flax seeds and sesame seeds, salt, garam masala and turmeric. First I kneaded it with a mixer, the by hand, I left it to rest for 15 minutes, maybe bit more. I rolled it quite thinly with a rolling pin. I fried it on a non-stick pan.
I am actually not sure if this was safe to eat, maybe something reacted in an unexpected way?! | As Joe mentioned, there was something acting as a litmus paper!
Turmeric placed in an alkaline solution will turn bright red!
quoted from: https://foodcrumbles.com/how-turmeric-gets-its-color/
Most probably there wasn't enough yogurt or it didn't react with baking soda and left the dough alkaline. |
Why did my cod turn into a hockey puck
I have a way of cooking cod loin which has never failed me before. This time, large parts of each loin became so rubbery as to be unchewable. I know several things that deviated from my usual recipe, but I'm wondering which thing was the culprit.
First, the recipe: Cod is dipped in milk and egg and then rolled in panko mixed with Cajun spices. A little olive oil is heated in a cast iron skillet. Cod is fried for a couple minutes on each side. Then the heat is turned to low and the lid is put on the skillet. The fish "bakes" in the cast iron for about 11 minutes. This has never failed to give me nice white flaky cod.
A couple things were different this time:
These were from a bag of frozen cod loins (maybe from Sam's Club or HEB.) These were the last two, so they'd been in the freezer a while.
I had gotten these last two out a couple weeks ago, and then didn't make the fish, so they went back into the freezer.
Instead of 11 minutes, they got more like 20 minutes of "baking".
On the first piece of fish, I took a bite off the end and it was fine. The next bite I couldn't cut with my fork. It was almost exactly the texture of that triangular piece of cartilage one gets on a chicken breast: rubbery, tough, bleh.
I would think that if over-baking were the problem, then the fish would have been tough at the ends, but the ends were the only edible bits. If it were that Sam's Club just stocks bad fish, then I'm incredibly unlucky/lucky in that out of a bag of 15 pieces, I chose two at a time over the months and only the last two were bad. That leaves "refreezing." Only these two pieces were thawed and then refrozen. Could that have caused the puck-ness? | So the challenge in determining what happened is "tough and rubbery" is the universal failure result for cod. It can result from overcooking, from undercooking, and from freezer-burn dehydration, and all three of those are possibilities given your story.
However, the detailed description -- that they were good on the ends, but hopelessly chewy in the center -- makes me lean towards undercooking as the primary problem. That is, that the cod was somehow not thawed through in the center when it went into the pan, and you were effectively trying to eat undercooked, and slightly freezer-burned, cod. This would have the texture of "couldn't even cut it with a fork" that you describe.
The fact that you thawed and re-froze it could have contributed to this. Sometimes during a freeze/thaw/freeze cycle, specific portions of a fish (like the center) become solid ice, which then takes much longer to thaw than they did the first time. I'd recommend never refreezing cod, or for that matter most fish. |
Can you create brown butter directly from heavy cream?
The other day I made cookies with homemade brown butter.
I first churned the butter from heavy cream, separating the butterfat from buttermilk. Then I took the remaining butter and melted it in a pan then browned the milk solids to make brown butter. Then I cool it in a glass container and let reform as a solid.
I am wondering if you could directly make brown butter by skipping the churning process for the heavy cream. Is there a way to heat heavy cream such that the water / buttermilk / etc. evaporates and leaves melted butterfat and milk solids?
I would think that the water would evaporate and leave only the butterfat + milk solids but I am not sure.
I had a pint of heavy cream so I went ahead and tried it to see what happens. I left in a small saucepan over medium / medium-low heat for a while with minor agitation (stirring every few minutes). It looked about the same for the first 45 minutes. Then I could actually start to see what I assume is the butterfat. However I also saw a large amount of milk solids (I assume), much larger than typical churned butter.
See oil + solids:
Then I waited a little longer and it seems they separated further:
A little longer and it smelled toasty like the usual smell from brown butter when I make it. I took it off the heat because it also ruined my pan pretty nicely. I poured it in a glass container and here's what it looks like after separating:
So my follow-up questions would be: Is this brown butter? Are the solids just milk solids or are they something else? Is the oil actually butterfat? Is this safe to incorporate into cookies as butter?
I enjoy the taste that toasted milk solids add to cookies but this is so much more milk solid than I was expecting (if it is milk solids).
Another update now that it's solidified. It looks and smells just like how my normal brown butter smells except it has way more milk solids (if that's what they are). I would estimate about 1/2 cup of clarified butter + slightly less than a half cup of toasted solids.
It doesn't look like 1/2 cup clarified butter but keep in mind that the butter also settled into the gaps between the solids while it was still liquid.
It smells delicious. I'm tempted to soften it and mix it into a batch of cookies but I'm also not sure if the solids will be over powering in the taste. | Yes, this is a brown butter. You can use it in pretty much all applications which call for standard-made brown butter.
In the traditional process, first almost all of the water is removed from the cream, along with a large part of the nonfat milk solids. This gives you butter, in which the butterfat is emulsified with a small amount of water, and the remaining milk solids are dispersed. When you heat it, the water evaporates, and the solids undergo browning processes (caramelization, probably some Maillard for the proteins).
In your case, you are simply skipping the mechanical removal of the water. Instead, you are evaporating all water by heat. No milk solids are removed - from my point of view, this is an advantage, as you now have more stuff that goes tasty while browning.
You can certainly use this in cookies. As for the question of the taste being "overpowering", this is up to your subjective taste. If you don't like it, you can switch back to more standard browned butter, or mix this one with normal butter, ghee, or some other solid fat. |
Making how much batter will result in over-mixing?
This page, tip #9 "Don’t Double the Recipe" suggests that making too much batter results in over-mixing, and, consequently, in a dense (as opposed to fluffy) cake.
Is it correct? Could you give some guidelines on how much batter is too much? E.g. for crepes mixture? Or for flour:sugar:sunflower oil:milk 1:1:1:1 batter, 1 egg per 50g of flour, batter? | The amount is only restricted by the capacity of the tools you have at hand. The point is, don't mix too much. If you have a bowl, filled to the brim, you will have to mix a lot more to get all of the ingredients incorporated. If that same bowl is half full, a few quick strokes is all it takes to mix. Over-mixing risks building the gluten structure too much, which results in a "tougher", less light, final product. Bakeries, restaurants, and catering services probably do more at once than most people do at home...it is just that they have larger capacity tools. |
What is different about "sprouted barley"?
I have two bags of barley in my pantry. One is labeled "hulless barley," which I take to be regular barley, and the other is labeled "sprouted barley." But they appear identical. My idea of "sprouted barley" would be a grain that opens up with a shoot coming out. I've encountered the same thing with rice - so-called "sprouted rice" appears identical to regular rice. So what is the difference between sprouted and non-sprouted barley, rice, etc.? | What does "sprouted" mean?
germination is the process by which an organism grows from a seed or similar structure while sprouting is the process by which seeds are induced to sprout or germinate for commercial purposes.
In the case of sprouted food grains such as barley and rice the seeds are allowed to start the growing process (germination). It won't have a shoot because the process is usually stopped early, but it's enough to change the nutritional value of the seeds.
As explained here,
Recent studies have shown that if we actually allow those seeds to begin their growing process and then bring that to a halt before eating, their nutritional punch is multiplied significantly.
So sprouted or germinated grains will be easier to digest, therefore higher nutritional value than the regular (non-sprouted) variety. |
How Rough Should the finish on a Pizza Peel Be?
I have read over and over that you want a rough finish on a wooden pizza peel for best results. But other people seem to state that it is simply the moisture absorptive nature of wood that causes wooden peels to work better.
I purchased a cheap wooden peel with a slick shellac like coating and would like to fix it, but I am not sure how rough (i.e. what grit sand paper) is optimal for the surface of a peel. Has anyone ever done any tests or have any experience with different roughness's to find the optimal finish to put on a peel?
Quotes:
A wooden peel tends to have less problems with sticking as the wood is rougher, absorbs water and doesn’t get condensation. - https://www.crustkingdom.com/how-to-use-a-pizza-peel/
"Raw," unfinished wood peels have a rough, porous texture ... they actually tend to be more nonstick than coated peels. - https://www.businessinsider.com/best-pizza-peel#wood-versus-metal-pizza-peels-7
Here is a post written by a profession who apparently uses peels so rough that their employees get splinters - https://thinktank.pmq.com/t/wooden-pizza-peels-to-sand-or-not/15723/2 | Based on personal experience:
The critical issue is that the peel be textured enough to "hold on" to flour or semolina, allowing the pizza to slide off of it. This means the ideal texture is the same as a new cutting board, oiled wood sanded to 120 grit or so. It's not rough as such, but rather just not smooth like plastic. I once got a bamboo pizza peel that was high-polished, and I found that 15 minutes with some steel wool was enough to make it usable.
The other issue you're going to have it that shellac is probably going to melt or catch fire in the pizza oven. So, while a light sanding with 100grit paper or even steel wool would probably do it for "roughing up" the pizza peel, you might find you have to strip off all the shellac to actually use it. |
Cooking custard for crème brûlée macarons
I'm planning to make crème brûlée-flavored French macaroons, which will consist of vanilla-flavored macaroons, topped with caramelized sugar for the shatter-y effect, and a vanilla bean custard filling. However, I'm unsure of the best way to cook the custard filling, since I'm not after the same consistency as the custard in real crème brûlée; I'd like something a bit softer and more spreadable. I doubt that cooking the custard the same way for a shorter period of time would work, but I also don't have much experience cooking crème brûlée, so any ideas would be appreciated! | I think your flavor ideas seem fine, I'd advise against a custard filling for two reasons. First, custard is squishy, even if you make it harder it's going to squish out when the macaron is bitten into, which isn't the result you want. Second, the excess moisture in the custard could make the macarons soggy, also not the result you want.
Almost all the macaron fillings I know of use chocolate ganache or butter cream fillings because they have the right combination of spreadibility and resilience, and their low moisture content will keep the macarons from getting soggy. I would suggest you change your approach to use one of these two options. You could try making a vanilla butter cream with toasted white sugar to get a caramel flavor, it's an extra step but makes a big difference flavor-wise.
If you want to try a custard then a cornstarch (aka cornflour depending on where you are) thickened custard is likely the way to go as you can get a thicker set than an egg yolk custard, and it's easier to modify through experimentation to find out how much you will need to get the consistency you want when cooled. You will also want to give the inside of each half a thin layer of white chocolate to prevent them from absorbing moisture from the custard. |
Are these pots suitable to cook in?
My mother recently bought these from an old second hand shop because she thought them pretty, but I am just wondering if they are suitable to cook on the hob.
I tried to google them on Google images but it kept showing me Serveware. Does anyone know if this is actually cookware?
We think so but just want to be sure. We use a solid plate hob.
Click for full size | These are enamelled pots - perfectly fine and intended for cooking, albeit a bit sensitive to chipping if not handled carefully. You can find various listings of that exact set on the Internet, e.g here or here.
Enamel is a hard, glass-like, non-porous substance and pretty non-reactive. As long as you are not exposing it to extreme temperature changes (when it can crack like glass) or excessive scrubbing, it remains pretty much the same even with prolonged use. So buying them secondhand is a good investment, if they are in a good condition. Do not use enamelled pots with chipping, less because of the rust from the iron core, but because in that case there’s a (small) chance of enamel shards or splinters ending up in the food. With good care however, enamel pots can be used a long time.
Note that the surface is quite hard and scratch-resistant, so not bad per se and reasonably well to clean. It’s not non-stick, though, so you will want to use a bit of fat if you intend to fry or roast something in them. Some cooks like the light inside color, because it makes it easier to judge the color, e.g. when browning onions. |
Gelato disappointingly icy
I recently attempted to make this gelato recipe which required procuring some special ingredients (liquid glucose and powdered dextrose). I had high hopes for a very silky-smooth, creamy gelato. I followed the instructions closely, except I did not cool the mixture over an ice bath (I let it come to room temperature then put it in the fridge). But the result after churning and freezing was a very icy mixture that resembled more of a sorbet. The flavor was good but texture obviously off. I assumed this stemmed from the 100ml of brewed espresso which has a rather high water content, but this doesn’t seem to be too different from other coffee-flavored ice cream recipes. Any ideas of where I went wrong? | That recipe has a pretty low butterfat content and no real stabilizers, plus a lot of water. Commercial gelato is usually made with low butterfat also but with a lot of stabilizer, sometimes several different kinds. Although gelatin isn't usually used, you can think of how it affects liquid, and stabilizers sort of do the same to compensate for the lack of butterfat. Gelato is also not usually frozen hard, but rather served at a warmer temperature because it generally doesn't freeze well.
I made gelato once by starting with a commercial mix that had stabilizers included, and it came out great. But most of the home recipes I see for gelato either turn out like yours did, or they're really just ice cream recipes with lots of whipping cream but they're calling it gelato -- which they can do, because unlike ice cream, gelato has no regulation as to what percentage of butterfat is required.
If you really want to make gelato, I'd suggest trying to buy a commercial mix, or experiment with stabilizers such as xanthan gum powder. |
Making a gelatin-based and non-sticky "salmon"
I am trying to make sweet sushis that look like standard (savory) ones.
Most of them I can make easily (using black-coloured pancakes as nori sheets, grapefruit as salmon, kiwis as avocado, and s.o.).
But I am stuck when I try to simulate a slice of salmon around the rice.
Something like that
I read a hint from a (french) recipe : using a mixture of gelatin and fruits purée, spread over a silicon sheet.
Unfortunately, I have tried it many ways, but kept encountering the same pb : it's sticky and nearly impossible to remove from the silicon without tearing it miserably.
My question is not about how to simulate the salmon slice (I will find other ideas), but about how I can (or IF I can!) make such a gelatin-based slice that I can easily remove from the silicon (or whatever tool you may suggest)
Any idea/hint? | I can't read French fluently (or quickly), so I missed any specifics there.
It looks like you probably already cooked your fruit puree? If not, you should. Various fruits contain enzymes that will actively break down the gelatin protein and prevent it from setting properly. This would typically leave a bitter taste. But this might not be your problem.
The other thing you can try is simply using more gelatin powder. 2.25 teaspoons will set about 2 cups of liquid to a fairly soft consistency. You can increase the amount of gelatin to get a firmer, non-sticky gelatin sheet.
I will occasionally make gelatin "noodles" for dessert by 1) hydrating roughly 1/4 cup of unflavored gelatin with 1/2 cup of water, 2) and melting the lump of gelatin in 2 cups of whatever flavored/sweetened liquid I like. I let it set in a non-stick baking dish, or just a Pyrex dish, and generally gave no issue removing the sheet from the pan or slicing it into noodles. The edges might stick, but generally once the seal is broken, the gelatin can be slowly, gently pulled off the bottom of the pan. It will stretch a bit without breaking.
That works out to nearly 4 times the amount of required gelatin. I haven't experimented with reducing that amount since it serves my purposes, but there is plenty of room to do so. The texture of this gelatin is very firm, but it will still melt in your mouth, if more slowly, and is not rubbery or chewy. It also is not the least bit sticky. |
Name of an herb or spice that is small, dark spines
My question is about an herb that my mother used in her spaghetti sauce, and that I did as well using her recipe... And neither of us can remember what it actually was.
I remember the flavor, but could not describe it.
I believe I recall how it looked. Namely, small thin spines, black or dark green. Sharp enough that they could get stuck in your gums.
I have looked through herb shelves, and couldn't find anything that spurred my memory. I've looked through lists of herbs, and none of them jumped out at me.
Does anyone know what it is I'm remembering, or am I just imagining that such an herb existed?
Thank you | The description as "black or dark green" makes me think this is a leafy herb, rather than a darker brown spice. Many dried herbs start out a dull green when they go into the sauce, but after cooking for a while they darken and become dark green or nearly black.
I assume you've already considered and rejected basil and oregano, which are the most commonly used herbs in spaghetti sauce. Both tend to have fairly flat pieces of leaf, which are usually approximately square or circular, or at least not very much longer in one dimension than another.
Other, less commonly used herbs in spaghetti sauce include:
Marjoram
Tarragon
Thyme
Rosemary
Marjoram
(image source)
Marjoram looks a lot like oregano; the pieces are usually flat and round, so it's not a great candidate. But if you have a poor quality batch of marjoram with lots of stems in it, those could definitely get caught in your gums. Or if your mom put a lot of marjoram in her sauce, there might end up being a noticeable quantity of stems. It has a fairly mild flavor, so you could get away with a pretty large amount of it without overpowering the other flavors of the sauce.
Tarragon
(image source)
Tarragon tends to come in pieces that are longer than they are wide, but usually still flat. It looks a bit like dried grass clippings, if the grass blades dried flat, without curling at the edges. But the edges could certainly curl in on themselves while cooking, which would give you more of a needle-like shape.
Thyme
(image source)
Thyme leaves are pretty close to round when fresh, but once dry they do become rather skinny and pointy. I often notice them as a slightly annoying texture in finished dishes. They could definitely get stuck in your gums. They tend to be a fairly light green in color, but maybe they would darken when cooked in tomato sauce, which is both acidic and quite dark in color.
Rosemary
(image source)
Rosemary leaves look a lot like pine needles, but they also tend to be thicker that what I would expect to get caught in the gums. The end of the leaf that was attached to the stem is much pointier than the tip of the leaf, so it could be the stem end pieces that got stuck your gums. It's not a very common addition to spaghetti sauce so it might be something you overlooked. A spaghetti sauce with rosemary in it has a distinctly different taste from a "normal" spaghetti sauce seasoned with just oregano and basil, but if you add only a very small amount it's difficult to tell that the different flavor is rosemary. Certainly rosemary by itself has a more herby and aromatic smell than the final sauce, so if you haven't tried adding it to a sauce you should try that.
Since memory is rather malleable, it's possible you're combining the memory of several different herbs and spices. You might be remembering the smell or flavor of one herb/spice, but that's not actually the one that got caught in your gums. If that's the case it will be very challenging to narrow down. But you can expand your search parameters, eg, maybe the spice you remember wasn't actually green. If that's the case, consider long skinny seeds, like cumin, fennel or anise seed.
If you're remembering the smell/flavor of multiple herbs, you can test for that by sniffing two different jars of herbs at the same time; just hold them next to each other and inhale while moving them back and forth under your nose. |
Advice to making Boba Pearls
Today, I tried 3 different ways to make boba/tapioca pearls from scratch, and while the third time sort of worked I never got a "dough" that was of a playdoh consistency.
In reading several articles/recipes on the internet:
Joshua Weissman Video
Scientific American Article
Instructables Article
All use moderately different techniques, the essential technique appears to be:
Mix hot water and tapioca starch together, in approximately correct proportions, and you will get a playdoh-like doh.
All three of our attempts were with boiling water with brown sugar, and varying degrees of tapioca.
The first two were horrible non-newtonian liquid pieces, that were impossible to form. i.e. once we stopped applying pressure they oozed everywhere but had zero pliability.
Our third attempt, we let the brown sugar and water boil for a while (but not to a syrupy consistency) and that seemed to do better. It was manipulatable, but definitely NOT "playdoh" like consistency. Additionally, after about 10 minutes it was hard as a rock. We found 10 seconds in the microwave helped make it moderately pliable again, but again, nothing close to the consistencies we were seeing described or observed in the videos.
I'd like suggestions on how to improve. Various thoughts that have come to mind include:
Is there something wrong with our general approach here?
Are there "known" techniques for getting the right consistency?
Heat is pretty clearly important, is it just heat, or do proportions matter? Are there "sweet spots" in ratios of ingredients?
Does heating a partially dissolved starch help? Some recipes do that, some don't. I haven't found a clear discussion of how different techniques help/hinder the process. | I visited some Chinese language websites, and it seems that there really isn't any magic here. Since their recipe is basically the same as the first one you linked to, I won't post any links here. I've never made tapioca balls, but the technique used here is a technique common in Chinese cooking called "hot dough" (tangmian 烫面), which I often use.
The water mixture (syrup?) must be consistent and boiling hot, so boiling the mixture for a while might be a wise choice. Also, stir quickly and well. This might explain why your first two attempts failed: the phrase to remember here is starch gelatinization, and if your water-starch mixture doesn't stay hot enough, there wouldn't be enough gelatinization there.
It's usually better to err on the side of too much water (but of course, not way too much), as you can add starch to get the desired consistency.
Also, you are not supposed to leave it there for 10 minutes; it is normal for the dough to become hard after a while. You are supposed to make the tapioca balls from the dough _right away. Yes, it would be hot, so it would be wise to wear gloves. If you really need to leave it to cool down, covering the dough with a hot wet kitchen towel might help.
Once you craft your bobas, it would be just fine to leave it to harden. It might be wise to cover your bobas with (raw) tapioca powder to prevent sticking. |
I want my potatoes to be baked within an hour, but I forgot to preheat the oven. Should I put them in while preheating or not?
I forgot to preheat the oven while prepping my potatoes to be baked. Dinnertime is one hour away. I put them in anyway and turned on the oven. My spouse says I should not put them in yet because the oven will preheat more slowly with the potatoes inside. I think my spouse is right, but I still think the potatoes will be ready just as early (if not a bit earlier) the way I did it since they will start heating up with the oven.
Can anyone tell me for sure one way or another? | In the UK, we call these 'jacket potatoes'1.
As already mentioned, putting them in a cold oven as it heats might win you five minutes, but not much more. It's very slightly more efficient overall than waiting for the oven to be hot then opening the door.
Two additional methods of speeding up jacket potatoes.
Put a metal skewer through the longest centre, then bake in the oven.
Alternatively: Split the task, half microwave, half oven. Prick the skins with a fork first, or they may explode in the microwave. 15 mins* at full power, then 15 mins in the oven is a 'fair guess' at how long it will take. This, of course will vary depending on size/weight of potatoes, power of microwave & temperature of oven.
*I think the last time I ever actually did this, I had an 850W microwave. Reduce time accordingly if you have a more powerful one.
Though the mic should manage to have heated the centres in around 15 mins, you can still use the skewer trick once they're ready to go in the oven. The skewers would still be useful to test the centres are cooked in the mic before you transfer.
The essence of the microwave method is to get the centres cooked before you transfer to the oven, to add back some flavour.
I'd weigh up which method to try based on how much time you have. Skewers will bring the time down by maybe a third, so that might be borderline for your hour from cold. Mic + oven & you're down to half an hour or so, but the result isn't quite as good.
I suppose you could still use the microwave as a starter, even if your result is to be 'roast potatoes' ie, peeled, chopped, done in hot fat. It will be a lot messier, but should still be feasible. I've never tested this, so timings & quality of result you'd have to find out for yourself;)
[1]Addendum
This may be cultural/linguistic, but to clarify from a UK perspective, these are baked (or jacket) potatoes…
Comments suggest the same descriptions are true for the US.
…and these are roast potatoes |
Why do I sometimes “cream” and “beat until smooth”, and sometimes not?
I have enjoyed baking for MANY years and the basic rule of thumb is to “cream” the butter and sugar thoroughly, add the eggs one at a time then beat all other liquids until smooth before adding the dry ingredients. Over the years I have acquired a handful of favourites, (cakes and loaf cakes) that instruct to “add ALL ingredients, beat well, and add to pan. And, these recipes turn out perfect! I’m confused as to why “these” recipes don’t follow the tried and true method of basic baking rules, and still turn out perfect! | There are many different ways to mix ingredients, which will affect the final texture. Here are a few that I'm familiar with, but I suspect a professional baker would know even more:
Creaming : Beating the fat and sugar together first to encorporate air, then add your other ingredients. Requires having a solid fat. Typically used for cookies and some cakes.
Muffin Method : Mixing the liquids and dry ingredients individually, then mixing the two together. Typically used for quick breads (and muffins)
Sponge: Whole eggs are whipped, then sugar and flour are added. Used for pound cake. (some argue that it's no longer a sponge if you add chemical leavener)
Chiffon : Mix together everything but the egg whites. Beat the egg whites, then fold them in. Used for chiffon cakes. (rather similar to making a souffle, but the proportions for cakes are different and includes chemical leaveners)
Angel Food : Whip your egg whites, then slowly fold in the sugar, flour and other ingredients. Used for angel food cake (and requires a special pan, so it's upside down as it cools). Unlike other cakes, there are no egg yolks or other fat.
Obviously, if you don't have a solid fat, you can't use the creaming method. So an olive oil cake simply can't use the creaming method.
Muffin method typically uses a liquid fat (there are variants that use fruit puree and no fat). I'm not familiar with the "All at once" method, but I suspect that it would also use liquid fats.
The only other solid fat methods that I'm aware of aren't used for cakes -- they're used for pie crusts, biscuits, and puff pastry.
As for the question about "beat until smooth", it again depends on ingredients and desired texture -- you typically do not do this with cakes once flour has been added. If you do, you'll develop gluten, which creates a chewy texture. This might be okay for cookies or yeast breads, but it's a problem for cakes and muffins.
If you over-beat a muffin, you'll get "tunneling", when bubbles are trapped inside the batter and end up looking like a worm has burrowed through the item. This is why muffins, brownies, and pancake recipies often tell you to stir until "just combined" or even that few flour streaks are okay. |
What doneness is this steak?
I just cooked a thin rib eye steak. I took its temperature 40 sec after removing it from the pan (all cooked outside) and it registered 135 degrees F. However, due to it being quite thin, it was hard to find the middle. I aimed for med-rare, but I think it may have been too rare. Here are some pictures.
Could anyone please indicate how done this stake was?
I am particularly concerned this last piece was too rare. | It's impossible to address your concern of whether or not your steak is "too rare." Steak is safely eaten in a range of raw to well done. Safety depends on product quality and safe handling procedures. I would say your pictures range from "looking" rare to medium rare. The only way to be more explicit is to know the exact temperature, as sometimes color is not an accurate indicator. |
What got salisbury steak its name?
I love salisbury steak, ever since I first tried it in Wendy's, but now I want to know exactly why it is named the salisbury steak.
What's the reason it's called a salisbury steak? | Origin: Wikipedia
James Salisbury was an American physician and chemist known for his advocacy of a meat-centered diet to promote health, and the term Salisbury steak for a ground beef patty served as an entree has been used in the United States since 1897. Today, Salisbury steak is usually served with a gravy similar in texture to brown sauce, along with various side dishes. It is a common item in supermarket frozen food sections.
Dr. Salisbury recommended this recipe (somewhat different from modern Salisbury steak recipes) for the treatment of alimentation:
Eat the muscle pulp of lean beef made into cakes and broiled. This pulp should be as free as possible from connective or glue tissue, fat and cartilage...previous to chopping, the fat, bones, tendons and fasciae should all be cut away, and the lean muscle cut up in pieces an inch or two square. Steaks cut through the centre of the round are the richest and best for this purpose. Beef should be procured from well fatted animals that are from four to six years old.
The pulp should not be pressed too firmly together before broiling, or it will taste livery. Simply press it sufficiently to hold it together. Make the cakes from half an inch to an inch thick. Broil slowly and moderately well over a fire free from blaze and smoke. When cooked, put it on a hot plate and season to taste with butter, pepper, salt; also use either Worcestershire or Halford sauce, mustard, horseradish or lemon juice on the meat if desired. Celery may be moderately used as a relish. |
How much oil is necessary to fry/cook eggs?
Say I want to cook sunny-side up or scrambled eggs, I would ask help from my family, but I wanna try it on my own.
I have a non-stick pan which as of now kinda sticks and it's what we usually use when cooking something, apart from our wok, which is less stickier. What I would want to do first is heating up the pan, adding the oil, then inserting the egg. Cook for a while then serve it on a plate.
Under what circumstances should I use oil for cooking eggs, and how much? | Technically, an egg is not "fried" unless there is at least some oil involved. So even though you could cook an egg in a very well-seasoned cast iron pan with no oil, it wouldn't technically be a fried egg.
The primary reason you use oil, though, is to keep the eggs from sticking. So in a pan like yours -- a worn-out nonstick pan that's not really nonstick -- you're going to need oil, and probably a fair amount.
The exact amount is going to vary according to three factors:
How large your pan is
How many eggs you are making
How "sticky" the pan is
So if that nonstick pan is only 6"/15cm, just a tiny bit scratched, and you're making two eggs, you can use just 2 tsp of oil. But if you're cooking 8-10 eggs in a 14"/35cm nonstick pan that's completely scratched up, then you'd need more like 4oz/100ml of oil.
Which brings us to the other reason to use oil: flavor and texture. Some ways of making fried eggs use even more oil. For example, the standard Thai fried egg is cooked in a pool of oil 1/2"/1cm deep or more, in order to get lacy, crispy whites. |
What is the purpose of oiling a wooden chopping board?
I recently bought a wooden chopping board to replace my plastic one. In the course of my research I read that it's important to regularly rub mineral oil in (some people say once a week, some say once a month). It's said that it "protects" it and makes it last longer, but what is the oil actually doing? | The oil is not actually doing anything to protect the wood - the idea that it does so is a very widespread myth. This is the conclusion of the guy who wrote the book on wood finishing, and I can confirm it from personal experience. You can continue using it for cosmetic reasons, I am personally partial to the look given by flax oil - although there are people who prefer the opposite, because cuts are much less noticeable on unoiled wood.
To get real protection on an wooden item, you have to apply a layer that actually seals the wood. The substances which do this well are shellac, nitro lacquers, acrylic finishes and alkydic finishes.
While you could use a safe-in-trace-amounts finish on a chopping board, the mechanical action of a knife will soon damage such a layer to a point where it becomes useless. Most people are just not interested in refinishing their chopping board a couple of times per week.
As for the source of the myth: Long before good finishes were discovered, people tried protecting wood. Since it was known that wood is most damaged by moisture, they used all kinds of water-repelling substances, such as different oils and waxes, sometimes also natural resins. The protection afforded by those is minimal, but it was all they had - and to the naked eye, it does look like a great protection, since oiled wood has an entirely different appearance, and water droplets pearl on it instead of visibly wetting it.
This is a concept that is known in science as "face validity" - you look at an approach and your intuition tells you that it must be working, so you are likely to conclude that it works. Scientists try to prove that methods work independently of their face validity, but cooks and woodworkers rarely do so :) And since there is a tradition, which convincingly does something, people continue applying it and promoting it. |
How to properly use alcohol when cooking something?
I remember one time where our father decided to use some liquor on the food we/he was cooking, and he says it gives more flavor. Yes, it does work, but I fear getting drunk or even having that strange feeling when tasting alcohol.
Since I'm still a freshman high schooler, or specifically a minor, I would prefer to stay away from alcohol, even for cooking, but just to be safe, I need to know more about cooking with alcohol.
I found this site upon searching answers and saw this quote:
You know why you drink alcohol. But why cook with it? When used properly, alcohol improves your food. It bonds with both fat and water molecules, which allows it to carry aromas and flavor. In a marinade, alcohol helps the season the meat and carry flavor (not tenderize). It functions similarly in cooked sauces, making your food smell and taste better.
This does seem to answer the question I had in mind ("What does alcohol do to the food?"), but this brings another question. The "When used properly" part could be identified further, but all I really have in mind is the "Don't put too much or you get drunk when eating." type of thinking.
How to properly use alcohol when cooking something? It seems obvious that I shouldn't use undrinkable alcohols for it. | This is borderline too broad as there's many ways alcohol can be used in cooking, but in reality preparation method doesn't actually make much difference, alcohol doesn't cook off nearly as quickly as people seem to think so it's good practice to expect there will be almost as much alcohol in the end dish as you put in. Some techniques like flambe will burn off some, but there will still be plenty left.
I think the way to go is to understand how much alcohol goes into different foods so you understand you may end up eating, you can then steer away from things that may have too much. It would be unusual for you to ever feel the effects of alcohol when it's used in food because the generally the quantities are very low compared to the bulk of the food. A good example of this is using red wine in a tomato sauce, you may add 250ml of wine to say 1.5 liters of sauce overall. At 17% alcohol that's around 43ml of actual alcohol in that wine, if you have 1/6th of that sauce in your meal you're having about 7ml of alcohol in that sauce, which isn't enough for you to notice any effects.
That's not true across the board though, looking at the other end of the scale you have something like Rum Babas, where you have alcohol at about 8x the concentration of the tomato sauce. If you ate one of those you'd be having about 20-25ml of alcohol, depending on the serving. That's about the equivalent of 1/2 a glass of wine. That's not really that much, even for a teen, but you might notice an effect.
An extreme example would be vodka marinated tomatoes, this involves soaking peeled cherry tomatoes in 500ml (2 US cups) of pure vodka for hours. I served this at a party and a vegetarian guest ate a ton of them and got completely lit!
The upshot of this is that it's about the quantity of alcohol you will end up eating or drinking, preparation only makes a bit of difference in that. |
What type of mint are mint leaves from supermarkets?
I know mint is an umbrella term for different types of mint eg peppermint, spearmint, Orange mint and so on.
However when buying mint from say Tesco’s it Sainsbury’s do you know what type of mint it typically contains?
The packaging seems to just say mint.
Thanks | It is whatever they had on hand. There seems to be a statistically higher chance to get spearmint, but they sell other mints too. From the point of view of the supermarket, the ambiguity is not a bug, it's a feature. They just sell whatever gets delivered. |
Need help cleaning an old aluminum coffee pot
I use an old Wear Ever heavy aluminum coffee pot for boiling water. I don't allow unused water to sit in it. It has stains inside and needs a good cleaning. It has white residue at the water line that I cannot remove. For now I have been washing it out with soapy water but not using anything abrasive. Any ideas on how to clean it? I just want to be sure it is safe to use, if the stains cannot be removed so then they are meant to be. | You can buy kitchen-safe aluminium cleaner & descaler - the white could easily be limescale.
If you look at 'home-style' cleaning guides, then everybody seems to have a different opinion - some choose baking soda, some choose vinegar.
Now, I'm no chemist, but I fail to see how both of those would work, one acid, the other alkaline. I also don't know which would clean the aluminium or which may damage it. I did once manage to completely ruin 2 stove-top espresso makers by getting this wrong.
On the other hand, you can get a litre of commercial cleaner/descaler for a couple of quid/bucks/euros, so why not let the experts take over?
They're going to have figured out what removes scale & tarnish, yet doesn't harm the aluminium. A look at a data sheet says it's Orthophosphoric acid.
I checked data sheets for 'regular' cleaner/descaler & aluminium-specific cleaner/descaler. Both contain the same acid, though other ingredients may differ.
Google found this one in the UK, but I'm sure you can find something similar close to where you live. |
Effect of adding whole egg or yolk to filo pastry?
I had some success making filo pastry for apple strudel with a mixture consisting of flour, olive oil, lemon juice and white vinegar. The result was actually quite nice except the pastry was very delicate. I made the dough very thin using a pasta machine. I am wondering what would happen to the pastry if I used an egg. I am thinking it might be more crunchy... due to the egg introducing more protein fibers. What do you think? | In my personal experience, adding eggs to dough makes it softer, not crunchier. Adding an egg makes it an "enriched dough" that has the ability to hold onto moisture despite being baked.
Many apple strudel dough recipes include an egg or two in the dough, so you should just go for it.
Finally, while strudel dough is very similar to filo, it is not the same thing, which may be causing some confusion for you. Per one baking blog:
So the difference is simple, it's the fat! In the Puff Pastry the butter is folded in, in the Strudel dough the oil is part of the dough from the beginning and the Phyllo dough is brushed with oil before being baked.
So per your question, strudel dough sometimes includes an egg, whereas filo (phyllo) never does. |
How to Adjust Biscotti Recipe When Using Salted Pistachios
I am making biscotti. The recipe calls for the following:
2 C flour
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
3/4 C whole pistachios
The only shelled pistachios I could find were already salted, with sea salt.
Given these ratios, should I adjust the amount of salt I will add to the recipe?
EDIT: Thank you for the responses. Since there seemed to be no way to control the saltiness, I ended up seeking out an unsalted lot. This recipe was sweet, by the way. And it came out great. | The only thing you can do is not add any additional salt, although I think you might still end up with a result that's too salty. As a commenter mentioned, you could get an indication of the amount of salt from the nutritional information on the packaging, but my suspicion is that in 3/4 of a cup of nuts there will be more than half a teaspoon of salt.
There is a question elsewhere on the site about unsalting salted nuts, where the consensus was that it wouldn't easily be possible. Tap as much salt off the nuts as possible before you use them.
If the nuts are going to get wet anyway (because there are other wet ingredients in your recipe that you haven't mentioned) then you might as well try to wash the water off; do it quickly, and pat the nuts try with paper towel immediately so they absorb as little water as possible. Tasting a few of them should tell you whether you've washed most of the salt off (in which case add it back according to your recipe) or not (in which case don't add any additional salt). |
Storing cast iron in the oven
We store a few cast iron pans in the oven, on the bottom rack. We leave the pans in there while cooking other things. Occasionally, I worry that this might affect oven performance, by interfering with radiation or convection in the oven. While investigating the subject today, I found several guides to cast iron guide that mention oven storage, but none of them answered that question. However, a few of them did advise against the practice for a different reason: cooking with empty cast iron might ruin the seasoning.
If you store cast iron in your oven, do you need to remove the empty pans before cooking? Will empty cast iron pans affect the oven performance? Will it harm the pans or ruin the seasoning? | Will this effect how the oven heats up/cooks food?
The greater thermal mass means the oven will take longer to heat up, which is undesirable if you want to cook quickly, but it will also lessen temperature fluctuations from opening the oven door or the heating element cycling, which can be desirable. The block of metal is performing one of the roles of a pizza stone in this regard.
Depending on where the heating elements in the oven are situated, the size of the oven and the size and positioning of your cast iron, it may impact how heat distributes, for example by 'shielding' food from a lower heating element, and blocking the flow of air. Each situation is likely to be different so it is hard to say whether this will be a serious impact in your case.
Will it harm the pans?
Very unlikely; your cast iron is designed to be happy at oven temperatures. If there is food residue on the pan you may find that repeatedly heating/burning it and letting it cool can make it very hard to clean off without a tough abrasive, so make sure you clean your pans thoroughly before storing them.
Similarly, the whole point of seasoning on a pan is that it is formed in high oven temperatures, so it should not be damaged by exposure to similarly high temperatures. As discussed in the answer here, seasoning can be damaged by high temperatures, with the temperature necessary varying depending on the seasoning itself. If your pans' seasoning has survived so far, I would not expect this to change with further time stored in the oven, but if you season a new pan and store it in the oven you should not be surprised if the seasoning is at times damaged as described in that question. (This is the point I am least confident about, so would be open to correction in the comments if it is from a reliable source.) |
What to use on top of a baking stone: parchment paper, a silicone sheet or a thin steel tray?
According to the top-rated answer to this question, you cannot wash the baking stone (or else you can, using baking soda and a lot of care and time, which is not practical). I am mostly interested in baking at the temperatures of cr. 180°C (360°F), although sometimes I use 450°F (230°C) regime.
I wanted to compare three options that could potentially be put on top of a baking stone, to avoid hygiene concerns:
Silicone sheet - it's stated to be safe for temperatures up to 500°F (260°C), but I have read that the safety of silicone at high temperatures is disputed. Other than safety concerns, I see no downside;
Baking paper - it's stated to be safe for temperatures up to 420°F-450°F (210°C-230°C), and is single-use;
Thin steel tray - I have made it up myself, it's obviously safe, but does it negate the advantages of baking stone?
Is my analysis correct? What am I missing? What are your recommendations?
As per this webpage, a lot of people are using parchment paper to avoid sticking, and discuss silicone as an alternative. | Ideally you'd use nothing. Direct contact with the hot stone delivers the heat to the food best. Spilt food on the pizza stone can be scraped off when cold and any residue will be sterilised when the stone is preheated, as it should be for some time. It's best to leave the stone in the oven after removing the pizza (or put it back in) as the considerable residual heat will help char the residue to a loose charcoal/ash mix that can be brushed off, leaving what's effectively a seasoned surface.
Although I store mine in the oven, I usually take it out when I'm using the oven and not the stone, as it's 5kg of granite and that takes a lot of preheating, slowing my cooking and increasing energy consumption. If I'm not planning to use it for a while, or haven't used it for a while, I might leave it in while baking bread, being sure to preheat generously. You can also bake off residue by putting the already-hot stone under the grill (broiler). This can get a bit smoky though.
Having said all that, I have been known to use non-stick cooking liner, when I want to cook something on the stone but don't want to risk imparting a flavour to it (or picking up a flavour from it), or when cooking a really sticky dough like naan. |
Making a cremeaux lighter with whipped cream. Is there a name for this?
Making a cremeux lighter with whipped cream. Is there a name for this? I used this method to make a lighter filling and it was great. I know diplomat cream is similar but I was just wondering if there's a name for lightening a cremeux with whipped cream.
Edit: "cremeaux" to proper spelling of "cremeux". ;-) | The name for this is still 'cremeaux', nothing changes.
In English pastry jargon, "cremeaux" is a (somewhat rarely used) umbrella cream for any sweet filling with a creamy consistency. It is not connected to a specific recipe or technique. If the thickness is such that you can pipe it, and the texture is more similar to a custard than to, say, jam, then it can be called a cremeaux.
An alternative word for a substance of this consistency is "cream", as in "buttercream" or "shaving cream". The difference is that it is also used outside of the culinary context, and when it is used in culinary language, it can be confused with "cream" the dairy liquid made by partially removing the water from milk. I suspect that some people use the word "cremeaux" to avoid the confusion, and others just because it sounds fancier.
So, if you take a random recipe that can be called a cremeaux, maybe a custard of the right thickness, and then fold whipped cream into it, you still have something that is sweet, pipeable, and creamy in mouthfeel. Which makes again the word "cremeaux" applicable.
Depending on the final texture, the result may also fall under the term "mousse". The mousse's central characteristic is that it is very airy, while still spoonable. If you added a lot of whipped cream, and managed to keep most of the air in, it may be recognizable as a mousse. |
Yellow color from brand new Pre-Seasoned Lodge Cast Iron griddle (before seasoning or even heating). Is this normal?
I received my Lodge 10.5 inch pre-seasoned cast iron griddle today (and I'm very new to the world of Cast Iron). I washed it with water and soap and used the soft side of the sponge and on second wash I used the rough side. While waiting for the pan to dry (before I was going to start seasoning), I tried dabbing the sides with a paper towel to remove some of the moisture and I noticed a yellow stain of sorts coming off of the pan. I washed the pan again a couple of times but there still seems to be a yellow stain. Is this normal? I haven't seasoned the pan with oil or anything.
Also, I know cast iron pans aren't perfectly smooth like a nonstick Teflon pan but there's a very small grey bump on my pan. Is this acceptable?
Edit: The pan upon drying looks rusty and it appears yellow-orange like on kitchen towels if I try it rub it.
Edit 2: Thank you everyone for your comments, feedback and advice. I'm a complete newbie and I've been reading and watching as much info about cast iron usage and I, really, appreciate them. I don't own a oven so I've been using a stovetop to season the pan. After about 3 rounds of seasoning, I attempted a fried egg test with cooking canola oil(I think my pan was too hot/medium flame) but failed twice. Today (24 hours later), I attempted the fried egg test using a teaspoon of butter (preheated the pan and used a low flame) and it came off quite cleanly except for when I tried to flip it over and a bit of it got stuck. (check images 4 and 5). However, I've noticed a dark brown color tone around the pan (image 6) except at the periphery. I don't know if this is because I've seasoned it incorrectly. | If it’s kinda powdery, it’s likely rust.
Not quite fully polymerized oil tends to be orangeish, but you usually can’t see it unless it’s your first layer over shiny bare metal, and I wouldn’t expect it to rub off on a paper towel like that
I suspect that you’re going to need to strip and re-season your pan. You only do that first deep scrub with pans that are waxed for shipment, not for pre-seasoned pans |
Does the inside of a lid used to cook rice or steam vegetables have anything besides water on it?
After cooking rice or steaming vegetables the inside of the lid used to cover the pot has water droplets on it - is it just water or do elements of the food make the lid "dirty" and require washing?
Edit: I should have mentioned the assumption that the food has not made contact with the lid and that if the lid is removed after cooking and placed on the counter, the next day it has no visible residue on it. | Most likely yes, it has stuff besides water. Although I wouldn't lay my hand in the fire that it has it every single time.
The first scenario is the bubbling from starchy water, as Chris H already explained. This is not ruled out by "the assumption that the food has not made contact with the lid", since here it is the cooking water that makes contact with the lid, not the food pieces, and while it doesn't happen every time, you cannot tell that it hasn't happened when you lift the lid.
The second scenario is the steamed vegetables. The first suspect would be matter on the vegetable skins. Even if you are very thorough in washing, you probably won't remove all traces of whatever clings to them, be it dirt or the vegetables' own waxes. But even without this stuff on the outside, plant matter is perfectly distillable, that's how we get essential oils and many alcoholic beverages. Even if you steam whole vegetables with intact skin, the cooking process itself is sufficient to damage the cell walls and stuff starts coming in contact with the steaming water. Some of it is part of the water that condenses and drops down to the bottom (have you ever noticed that the water is green after steaming spinach or broccoli?) and some of it is dissolved into the water that becomes steam and starts clinging to the lid.
Even if you cannot see any residue visually (which is a rare case), there is probably stuff deposited there that is not water. |
Why does packaging indicate that a ribeye cut needs to reach 165 F?
Even though the FDA recommends 145 F as the safe temperature for whole cuts of beef, this ribeye I bought, as per packaging instructions, needs to reach a minimum internal temperature of 165 F.
Could this be an indicator of poor meat handling/quality (cut was priced at $50 per kilo)? | Without more information, it's not possible to give a definitive answer. The two main possibilities are:
The producer is unusually risk-averse. They are erring on the side of extreme caution in their labelling, because for whatever reason they believe if they label the beef with a lower minimum temperature they will have more trouble in some way unrelated to the actual safety of the beef for consumption.
There is some reason this beef should be cooked to a higher temperature. For example, perhaps the beef has been tenderised using needles which could transfer pathogens from the surface to the inside of the meat. The manufacturer knows their product and has deviated from FDA guidance for the reason of food safety or quality. |
Can you make vegan garlic bread? If so, how does the use of margarine effect taste and texture?
I enjoy a nice garlic baguette so much, but I have to drink a pre-emptive, schedule 5, painkiller not to die from being so lactose intolerant. I was wondering if a solution can be found that does not include narcotics, maybe substitute the butter for margarine? I know the French would call it barbaric, but can you do it? | Margarine will not impact the texture, and probably will not alter the end result dramatically. It, of course, is not butter, so as long as the flavor is fine with you. But, you also don't need butter or margarine. You can use olive oil. Sweat garlic in olive oil. Proceed from that point. |
What is 91/100 CV when referring to olives?
I often see numbers like 91/100 CV when buying olives.
Example: GREEN OLIVE MACARICO GORDAL 91/100 CV 500G
What do these numbers mean? I tried to do some research and I think it might have to do with the size of the olives, but I still cannot figure out what they mean exactly. | CV is a common abbreviation for cultivar (ALLACRONYMS q.v. and used, e.g., in here (pdf) and here). The Gordal olive weighs about 12 grams (search for "size").
Assuming they are pitted, and allowing for pit weight of about one to two grams, would indicate about 90 to 100 olives per kilogram as suggested by AMTwo.
(Note that Macarico states an average weight of 12.5 grams for the Gordal olive.) |
Measure First or Cut First?
How do I interpret the second item in the ingredients list in this recipe?
1 cup Grape Tomatoes, Halved
Do I measure out 1 cup of grape tomatoes and then cut each one in half? Or should I start cutting them in half and put all the half pieces into my measuring cup until it's full?
I can certainly fit more grape tomatoes into my measuring cup if they are all chopped in half than if they are whole.
I realize of course that most of the time the difference is probably too small to matter. But what if it did matter? | It really doesn't matter.
First off, I think that it is worth discussing whether or not it really does matter. From the looks of the recipe, it appears that you are putting together some kind of noodle salad—cooked and cooled noodles, some veggies and fish, and a dressing. There is no real chemistry going on here, hence the recipe is going to be very forgiving in terms of quantities of ingredients used. "One red onion" is a very inexact measure (and a red onion 40 years ago is probably half the size of a red onion today), and a cup of grape tomatoes (measured either before or after chopping) could vary quite a bit, depending on the size of the tomatoes you get your hands on. Personally, I would likely use significantly more salmon, as well—in my very rural community, I'll be lucky to find smoked salmon at all, let alone a 4 oz package; I'll use whatever I can buy.
Basically, the rough, inexact nature of the recipe is a reflection of the fact that these measurements don't really matter. Use as much or as little as suits your taste.
But what if it does?
As moscafj points out, if it really mattered, then the recipe would likely have been written more clearly. Instead of using volumetric measure, the recipe would have given a weight or mass (e.g. I would guess that a cup of halved grape tomatoes is probably somewhere around 6–8 oz), or perhaps a (slightly less precise, but still useful) count (such as "12 grape tomatoes, halved").
That being said, the construction of the ingredient list should tell you what's going on (assuming that the recipe's author thought about this at all). The ingredient is given as
1 cup grape tomatoes, halved.
This is a distinct instruction from
1 cup halved grape tomatoes.
In the first case, I would measure out a cup of grape tomatoes, then halve them. In the second case, I would halve grape tomatoes until I had filled a one cup measure.
Note that both of these constructions are relatively common. Standard, even. In most professionally edited recipes,
[measurement] [ingredient], [modification]
means "measure the ingredient, then do something to it"; whereas
[measurement] [modification] [ingredient]
means "do something to the ingredient, then measure the modified ingredient".
Indeed, I have a brownie recipe which uses both: it calls for "1/2 c chopped walnuts" and "1 c semisweet chocolate chips, melted". In the first case, chop the nuts, then measure them. In the second case, measure the chocolate chips, then melt them (and the actual procedure reinforces this interpretation).
What should you actually do with this recipe?
With this recipe, my game plan would be as follows:
grab a measuring cup, a knife, a cutting board, and some tomatoes
measure the tomatoes into the cup; eat a few and refill the cup
dump the cup out onto the cutting board and start halving the tomatoes
eat a few tomatoes; grab a few more out of the bag to replace those that I have eaten
prepare the other ingredients, eating a few halved tomatoes as I go
halve more tomatoes as replacements
notice that my original container of tomatoes is almost empty; halve the remains, eat a few, and throw the rest into the recipe for good measure |
Does chocolate inhibit cornstarch gelatinization?
I recently made chocolate pudding by putting 25ml of cream, 410ml of 3% milk and 50ml of cornstarch (not a good way to measure cornstarch, I know) along with two handfuls of Callebaut milk chocolate into the bowl of my Kenwood Cooking Chef, set it to constant slow stir (stirring speed 1) and set the cooking temperature (this stand mixer can cook in the bowl, while mixing) to 94 deg C. After a while I reduced the stirring speed to "once in a while" slow stir (stirring speed 3).
The result was really great but I wanted to redo it with even more chocolate to get a more saturated choccy flavour.
This time, same measurements, save for the choccy, of which I put in 169g, which seemed like more than double the last time.
This time I found out the gelatinization temperature of cornstarch is 60 deg C, so I set it to cook at 70 (just to be safe). It did not thicken at all. Thinking maybe it will after refrigeration I put it in the ol' fridge but all that happened was that a very thick surface coating was created. From experience with Creme Brûlée, I think it's the fat in the chocolate that accumulated and solidified at the top.
Put it in again in the bowl, added about 100ml more of starch and set it to stir at 68 deg C.
(BTW from experiments with the same starch and water I can, indeed, confirm it gelates at ~60 deg. C)
It's still cooking but I was wondering - is there some reason adding more chocolate made it harder for the starch to gelate? | The problem is not the chocolate, it is the temperature.
I don't know what exactly you refer to by "the temperature of starch gelatinization" - the gelatinization of starch is a long, continuous process, that happens long after the starch has swollen and thickened. It is the process that is responsible for bread going stale - but not the process of thickening.
To thicken starch, you have to take it to temperatures between 90 and 100 C - the exact temperature differs between starches from different plants, and I believe is also somewhat dependent on processing. Some need 96 C, for others, 94 C is sufficient. The most common thing is to simply let the starch boil visibly, until you see bubbles form and plop, and then take it away from the heat.
The amount of chocolate shouldn't be a problem for the starch, there are many dishes which are slightly thickened with just a tiny amount of starch mixed into a main liquid with lots of fat or other ingredients, and they work perfectly well. |
Does preheating a pan before sautéing aromatics make a difference?
Many recipes call for things like garlic and spices to be sautéed first before combining other ingredients into a pan. I have always preheated the oil in the pan first to get a good “sear”, but is it possible to achieve similar, or at least serviceable, results from starting the aromatics in a room temperature pan and oil?
I would consider doing this only for the added time flexibility. A slower start could allow me time to focus on a more intensive task elsewhere, without the risk of overheating the oil. | I prefer to cook aromatics starting from a cold pan/oil, whenever possible. Starting with a cold pan makes it easier to avoid singeing the ingredients. (You really don't want a "sear" in most cases. Garlic, for example, becomes bitter and horrible when over-browned.)
Cooking food starting with a hot pan is important in other situations for two reasons:
To get a higher temperature differential, and thoroughly cook the outside without overcooking the inside (the "sear" you mentioned). Not really relevant for finely chopped aromatics.
To prevent food from sticking to the pan. In situations where you're sweating aromatics, they're generally suspended in the oil, and in any case they lack the starches/proteins that would tend to stick, so this isn't really a problem. |
Culinary purpose of frying pan foil sheet for cooking fish? (not wrapped in foil)
I came across some videos about how to cook mackerel (Chef Saito's Saikyo-zuke with Spanish Mackerel [Japanese Cooking] - Dining with the Chef) and several of them recommended the use of a "fish cooking sheet" that looks to me just like aluminum foil. They put this foil on top of a frying pan and then put the fish on top of the foil and then cover with a glass lid on low heat for 3-4 minutes before flipping.
Note, the fish is not sealed inside the foil with herbs and spices, and the recommendation is for low heat.
If any, what is the culinary purpose of using foil for frying pan (when cooking oily fish)?
It says one side is non-stick, but surely it is not just for help with clean up? Does it modify the heat in some special way not otherwise achievable without the use of foil?
The foil is from Japan, but the pictures on the packaging make it clear what it's used for.
[Bulk Purchase] Kitinto-san Foil Sheet for Frying Pans, Wide 11.8 x 2.6 ft (30 x 7 m) x 4 Packs | It's a silicone-coated aluminum foil.
It's just something that makes your life easier when cleaning. You could just use a regular non-stick pan to get the same benefits.
There's no "culinary purpose" for it. |
Identifying bulgur from cracked wheat
In an excess of zeal to remain tidy (or to get tidy, rather), I discarded the bag and can no longer recall whether it was bulgur (bulgar, bulghur, ..) or cracked wheat.
Cracked wheat is "raw". Bulgur is parboiled. Some recipes call for one; other recipes for the other.
How do I determine whether a particular container has bulgur or cracked wheat.
Possibly, the difference in use is small. Might one boil and adjust the cooking time by tasting (as if seeking some kind of al dente)?
Conclusion
Luckily the methods provided by Tesujin and by FuzzyChef give the same answer. It is bulgur. In an update I (or anyone) could post pictures comparing cracked wheat next to bulgur—perhaps with bright light to make the translucence evident. Meanwhile I'll check-mark Tetsujin's answer since it provides a method that anyone can use, not just me for this particular sample. | Cook some of each.
The one that's done in 20 mins or so is bulgur. [I tend towards 1:1.6 bulgur:water, 15 mins simmer, 15 mins rest.]
The one that eventually needs more water adding & takes at least another half hour is cracked wheat.
…then label them ;))
Alternatively, the heat-free method.
Soak both overnight in excess water. The edible one is bulgur. |
How does kraft mac and cheese or velveeta get that tangy flavor?
I'm on a mission to recreate boxed mac and cheese or velveeta shells and cheese.
I've used sodium citrate to make a creamy cheese emulsion from normal cheese. However, I feel that my sauce still lacks a certain tart/piquant/tangy/sour taste.
I've tried adding lactic acid, and while this helps, it only adds more sour, but no "salty tang".
I've read the ingredients list, but off hand can't identify the one thing that makes these "artificial" cheese sauces taste as good as they do!
FWIW, obviously it is easier/cheaper to just buy these sauces off the shelf, but I'm drawn to the challenge and learning that come with replicating at home!
I also understand that these sauces are industrially engineered products with many ingredients and that exact replication would take all ingredients in the original, but I have a hunch that there is a single ingredient that could take my sauce quite a bit closer in flavor. | When you say "salty tang", I immediately think "sodium citrate".* Increasing the percentage of that, and probably of the lactic acid as well, might get you close enough.
*Okay, that's the second thing I think of. |
Is there an organic preservative that I can add to homemade pesto to extend its refrigerated shelf-life?
I have a very large basil crop this year for which I am extremely excited.
In addition to drying and putting that up for myself over the winter, I want to put up pesto for me. I especially want to ship some to my sister and a friend, both of whom are a bit far flung, in the refrigerated coolers I get some of my medication in.
I follow the standard recipe: Genovese basil, nuts, olive oil, Parmesan, garlic and a pinch of salt. In my experience, filling a small jar with pesto and floating some oil atop it keeps it from turning brown for a few days, but pesto rarely lasts around here for more than a two days.
Google searches, in every iteration of "preserve pesto basil, pesto long term, shipping, &c." are giving me conflicting answers. A few of the food folks I follow on social media say it can be done with a vacuum packer and then frozen. That makes sense, as there would be no oxygen in the container. Some suggest the ice cube tray method. Still, others say my quest is hopeless. I have no vacuum packer.
I am semi-familiar with using citric acid in canning, but wouldn't the addition of acid to the mix instantly brown the basil, rendering that ugly color? I may be putting it in canning jars, but I would never process it like I do vegetables. I have tried the ice cube tray method, but the result is ugly-looking sauce that I feel would be difficult to ship cross-country. Freezing it ruins the texture anyway, in my opinion, likely because the Parmesan is not very freezer-friendly. (Maybe?) When I look at the ingredients on jars of pesto at the market, I see several preservatives, none of which I understand or want in my finished product, even if I did understand them or could get them...
I have seen this, but I am not sure it applies. How do you prevent pesto (basil) from becoming bitter?
Is there any readily available organic preservative that I could add to the sauce that would preserve the color, flavor and texture? Not only during shipping, but also in what I would like to put up for myself?
Update: It appears the consensus is to leave out the cheese, which is certainly doable. I am still holding out hope that some master of canning or food preservation has some advice on a preservative I might add. Especially if that preservative or process would allow it to remain shelf stable at room temperature. | I'm not totally certain whether you're trying to end up with room-temperature shelf-stable pesto. If so, you may have to look elsewhere. However, my family has grown bumper crops of basil before, and been left with the task of trying to preserve it for year-round pesto.
You noted that making pesto and freezing it doesn't work well due to the Parmesan cheese component. We would get around this by making a mix of the chopped/blended basil and olive oil, and freezing that combination. With that, you may also be able to add your salt & garlic as well, though I've not personally tried that, nor with including the pine nuts in the frozen package.
This does require the recipient to make additions on their end, but it does preserve the basil well. We would keep ziplocs of the basil-oil slurry in the freezer, and then done the end steps of adding the pine nuts/Parmesan/garlic and such.
I think that's fairly similar to what the answer in the question you linked does, but I can confirm that it preserves well and the mixture stays a dark green, not brown. If you're pretty sure that the packages are going to stay at freezer temperatures, I'd be confident in it working well. I'm not sure at what temperature you'd start having issues, as that's not something that we experimented with. |
To flip or not to flip...? (a steak)
Some chefs say the steak cooks more evenly by flipping it often. Others say this makes the juices run out. With so many different styles and recipes out there, one must wonder: who is right?
What are the reasons one would flip a steak regularly or only once? Does the type of meat have any influence on this?
Also, why would flipping the steaks frequently (supposedly) make them cook more evenly? If both sides are exposed to the same heat for the same amount of time, what is the difference? | There's a great deal of opinion on this subject, the majority of the testing I've seen favors the multiple flip method. My own tests agree, you get a better result from more flipping.
Type of meat has no influence on the method, although it impacts how long you cook it. For example a rump steak is a bit denser than a sirloin or ribeye so it takes longer to cook.
The reason that steaks cook unevenly when flipped once is that the top of the steak heats as you cook the bottom, when you flip it what was the top has a warmer starting point so that side ends up hotter at the end of cooking. You can get evenness from the one flip method by doing 2/3 of the cooking time on the first side and 1/3 on the other side (that's approximate from my own testing). The benefit of a single flip is it's less time spent on the steak, if you have a lot going on in the kitchen you have more time to spend on other tasks.
Other than that multiple flips are the way to go as you get even cooking, less curling (although you can reduce fat curling by cutting across the fat every inch, this gets a better result in general), and the steak tends to cook faster. Note this is for thicker steaks, for thin steaks you really just want to get a crust on as quickly as you can, so a single flip makes sense.
I've never noticed a difference in juiciness with either method, other aspects of technique are more important, for instance with a thick steak you want to cook it mostly on the cool side of the barbecue and then crisp it up on high heat as opposed to cooking it on high heat the whole time. |
How to properly fill the ice and salt into an oldfashioned ice cream machine?
I am making ice cream with an inexpensive electric machine that uses a dasher. For a test I put 2 quarts of water in the inner pot. Then I added 8 trays of ice to the space between the inner and outer pots. I am figuring 5 part ice to 1 part rock salt. How do I combine the ice and rock salt for the most uniform cooling?
I tried combining the ice and salt before putting the mix in the machine but that did not work. | Here is the chart that was included in the instructions in Mike's link. It suggested layering the ice to 3-4 inches deep and then adding 5oz of rock salt or 3oz of table salt and repeating until the bucket is full to the brim. Adding a cup of cold water at the halfway mark and again when the tub is full is recommended to help the ice settled and keep the motor from binding. |
Adding fuel to a grill during long cooking
I was thinking about cooking a whole chicken on the grill. This could take a couple of hours, and I might need to add some fuel to keep the heat going. Assuming I am using briquettes, I'm guessing the best bet is to light up a chimney starter and then add the hot grey coals into the grill? Is it safe, or advisable, to just add fresh briquettes during cooking? | First, it shouldn't take "hours"; make certain not to over cook your chicken.
You should spatchcock your chicken so that it cooks more evenly.
Using a chimney to prepare briquettes is a good idea, just be certain you have a safe place to keep and store burning briquettes, if you don't use them all.
I'd add a few briquettes at a time to keep the heat high; be pro-active. |
Pre pan-fry marinaded meat before oven roasting?
Probably the question's wording is not correct but here is what I wanted to ask:
I heard it several times that to avoid drying out the meat in the oven, it is advised to pan fry it to create a crust. Is it true for marinaded meat as well? I'm using livestock (pork, beef etc.), not poultry.
Or it better to sous vide with the marinade and then create the crust? | The concept that a "crust" on meat is protection for moisture loss is a myth. So, searing meat before roasting or braising is not a step to prevent drying. You may, however, want to sear to develop color and flavor. Depending on your recipe, this can be an important step.
When using sous vide, you have three options. A sear before the sous vide step, which can be especially helpful if you intend to do a very long, low temperature cook, as this removes any surface bacteria that might "bloom". Second, a sear after the sous vide step is almost always indicated, as that final crust formation is often desirable. Finally, a sear before the sous vide AND a sear after the sous vide. This allows you to more quickly achieve the final crust, reducing the potential to over-cook the protein you just carefully cooked at to a precise temperature. |
Oven is at the correct temperature but things are baking consistently slower than recipes suggest
I have a weird issue
I moved into a new house recently and I have some old oven in here I bought a thermometer which is hanged inside and it seems like the temperature is correct however, anything I put inside is not baking in the time it should.
For example I have cookies recipe that requires 160 degrees Celsius [=325f] for 10 min, but they are still not fully baked after 17min at 350f or ~22min on 325 [almost done though]
Same for a simple frozen pizza. Instructions are 400 degrees for 18-21mins, but it is close to be done after 25+ mins. The cheese at the top is still not fully melted after that period.
It may sound weird but the only thing I can think of is the baking sheet.
I have: Nordic Ware Natural Aluminum Commercial Baker's Half Sheet, 2 pack, 2-Pack, Silver
Maybe this is not the right sheet for baking and I should have ones from a different material and a different color [in my home country the sheets are black]
For the cookies I also put them after they were in the freezer. They should be cold while going into the oven, but maybe this is too cold and it contributed to the slow process
UPDATE:
Hey! So I checked and only the lower element is working. Here is the catch - The company is claiming that this is the baking element and the top element is the broiling, so only one of them will work at the time. Does this make sense to you all? | The colour of the baking sheets does have some effect, but not as great an effect as what you're describing. My guess would be that one of the heating elements is broken (probably the top one since you mention cheese not melting). The bottom element can get the oven to the correct temperature, but if heat is only radiating from the bottom that will affect how things bake. |
What are strategies to identify restaurants where you will learn as much as possible?
How do I identify restaurants that offer excellent training/education? I considered looking at the number of chefs that learned at a certain restaurant and afterwards achieved a Michelin star or won prices etc. However, I could not find any database for this kind of information. Does such a database exist? If yes, would it be a good approach? I don't know many people in the culinary world who could recommend a suitable restaurant to me. As an alternative, is there some kind of forum with this kind of expertise? Maybe the chat of this site? Or is there a ranking of restaurants with regard to their educational quality?
If it matters, I am interested in restaurants in Europe, especially in Germany.
TLDR: What are strategies to identify restaurants where you will learn as much as possible?
Edit Based on the advice from the comments some additional information: I don't have experience as a chef until now and my goal is to learn as much as possible within two or three years. I don't necessarily need a formal degree, but ideally I would also obtain one. | There is a forum: eGullet, which is an online message board for culinary professionals.
Try their Culinary Classifieds for staging advertisements, and Restaurant Life to ask about advice on how to find a good stage. |
Can I use a rectangular ceramic pan instead of enameled cast iron to bake bread without losing the nice crust?
My wife has been baking sourdough bread in an enameled cast iron Dutch oven and has been getting a very nice crust.
She preheats the pan and oven to 500 °F (260 °C), then puts the dough in the pan, cooks a while at 480 °F (250 °C) covered, then at 450 °F (230 °C) uncovered. Dutch ovens are round and our main use case is sandwiches, so it would be nice to cook in a rectangular pan. When I search for them, it appears they are all ceramic. Does the lower heat conductivity of ceramic make it not form as nice a crust? | Doesn't matter; you cannot use a ceramic pan with that baking technique.
If you heat the ceramic pan to 500F and then add the wet dough, it is likely to crack, and possibly even explode. Same goes for glass. Ceramic pan maker Emile Henry says:
Never preheat your ceramic baking dish dry, always add cooking oil or some type of liquid to the dish.
You should, instead, find a covered cast-iron loaf pan, such as the one by Staub, or a different baking technique, such as the traditional cold-oven cloche technique. |
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