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Any success with gumbo in an Instant Pot?
I love cooking my grandmother's seafood gumbo recipe, and I have done this successfully many times. Recently, my husband suggested we try this in the Instant Pot to save time with the roux, which I did not advise.
There are many questions about roux here. We have tried similar gumbo recipes twice specified for the Instant Pot, and it's just not the same. His impression was that the high-heat of sauteeing to make roux in the Instant Pot for less time (10 minutes) yields the same result as doing this on the stove top for longer (30 minutes). Both times, our gumbo was the consistency of light soup, and it did not thicken.
The roux was not the same consistency as when we've done this on the stove-top. It was not smooth and a much lighter color than a dark roux. I suspect the constant high-heat can be problematic for a roux. Was it the roux (or lack of a dark roux) from the Instant Pot or cooking in the Instant Pot in general?
I might just be a purest and skeptical of the Instant Pot for some dishes to believe that a good gumbo and roux are just not the same with this method. Has anyone had success cooking gumbo or roux in this vessel? | Some thickeners will lose thickening ability if you heat them too much, and as a pressure cooker allows you to get past the typical boiling point, it’s possible that this has happened.
But you should be glad that it did— because you shouldn’t cook really viscous things in an instant pot.
Basically, you can’t stir things in the sealed vessel, so you need to rely on thermal convection. If there is insufficient convection, you risk it scorching on the bottom, which acts as an insulator. The instant pot will recognize that it’s gotten too hot, and displays a ‘burn’ message.
Once it cools off sufficiently, it will try cooking again, but if it triggers too many times it will shut off completely.
If I were to try making gumbo in an instant pot, I would hold back the roux, and not add it until after the pressure cooking |
Bread maker paddle cylinder bored round; inner flat side gone
I have a Zojirushi BB-PAC20 two-paddle bread maker. It had been working fine for years, but recently it stopped mixing right, leaving huge chunks of unmixed flour. I found that the problem was one of the paddles; it rotated freely all the way around the post it mounts on, so when bread ingredients were there holding it in place, the post would have rotated freely within the cylinder, without rotating the paddle.
Originally the cylinder had a flat side, matching the flat side of the post it mounts on and which rotates the paddle. The paddle's cylinder had been bored completely smooth and round; no vestige of the flat side.
The other paddle had only a tiny nub remaining from the flat side; it would have failed in the same way soon.
My question is, what happened to the metal that had constituted the inner flat side of the cylinder? I'm pretty sure we didn't eat bits of metal, and I never saw bits of metal when cleaning out the pan and paddles between loaves. Where did that metal go?
UPDATE:
Tetsujin asked for pictures. Here's the paddle:
This shows the posts at the bottom of the pan that the paddles mount on:
This shows the paddles mounted on the posts: | From my comment
It depends which way up the 'plug' & 'cup/socket' are. If the 'cup' faces down, you ate it. if it faces up, you probably washed it down the sink when you cleaned it. Pictures would help.
After pictures added…
You ate it.
It's very unlikely to do you any harm. |
How can one cook corn on an open grill?
I’ll be camping with limited access to water. I have a grill in the outside kitchen, however this grill doesn’t have a cover. Is it possible to grill corn on the cob on a cooking surface without a cover? If so, how? | Is the corn still in the husk ?
Do you have aluminium foil ?
Keep the corn in the husk and roast until cooked; it's better to remove some of the leaves and dip them in water to add some moisture to the corn before putting on the grill.
If you have aluminium foil, you can either keep the corn as is and wrap in foil, or remove the husk and wrap in foil and put on grill until cooked.
If your grill is really hot, you can finish the corn to add some color. |
What container for olive oil for longest shelf life?
I have bought a 5l container of olive oil which is impractical for daily use. I intend to decant it into something smaller but I'm not sure what to buy.
I know that olive oil is affected by light and temperature. However particularly on light I don't know whether a green bottle is enough or is it better to block all light? How long does it take for light to spoil it? | From my research on this, it sounds like you should be minimising the following as much as possible (two of which you've mentioned in your question):
Exposure to light
Exposure to heat
Oxidisation
To avoid this, it sounds like the best option is a fully opaque, thick-walled vessel, that is sealable. This article on the Kitchn recommends a ceramic cruet, which seems like a sensible choice, but sounds like anything along these lines would work. So if I had the choice between tinted or attempting to block all light, I'd block all light.
Even storing in these conditions, most of what I've seen says it is ideal to consume within approximately 3 months of opening (some sources say a little less, like that Kitchn article which quotes 1 month, and some say a little longer - around 6 months) - though unopened oil should keep for about a year or 2. I don't know that it's possible to say how much more quickly the oil would go rancid in a clear container, however, I think leaving it out for 6+ months will have an impact on flavour. |
What are the benefits of dried ingredients?
I've been cooking from Every Grain of Rice: Simple Chinese Home Cooking, and I most recently made Braised Chicken with Dried Shiitake Mushrooms. This made me wonder about what the dish could have been if I were unable to find dried shiitake mushrooms.
What are the benefits of using dried ingredients over fresh? How would my dish have turned out with fresh shiitake mushrooms? | If I'm not mistaken, you're probably cooking the Cantonese dish "braised chicken with dried shiitake mushrooms/'winter' mushrooms". Yes, using dried shiitake mushrooms (in Cantonese, also called "winter" mushrooms) is quite essential to this recipe. The sun-drying process breaks down proteins to amino acids, so it increases the umami flavor of the mushrooms, providing strong flavors that could not be matched by fresh shiitake mushrooms. For some references, see this page.
In Chinese cooking, dried raw materials are often more prized than their fresh variant due to the higher intensity of flavor. For example, dried scallops vs fresh scallops, and dried abalone vs fresh abalone. The dried variant provides much more intense flavor, and is thus much more expensive.
If you really can't find dried shiitake mushrooms, you could use way more fresh shiitakes, maybe squeeze the water out of it to reduce the volume. You could also use other means to make up for the lost amino acid content by using chicken stock, or, er, MSG. However, the amino acids in chicken stock and/or MSG wouldn't be the same as those in dried shiitakes, so the flavor would be still somehow different. Yet another alternative is to enrich the flavor in other ways: for example, add some Cantonese barbequed pork belly meat to the braise to create a thicker flavor (as is done for many Cantonese braises). |
Can you freeze food with cream in it?
I have been told that you can't freeze meals with cream in them (soups, etc). Is that true? | It's safe to do, it's just a quality issue. The cream or milk may "break" once thawed, which could ruin the textures or cohesiveness of the dish. But it's not such a big deal if the dish is smooth and homogenous to start with, as you can just whisk it back together.
In the winters, we make large batches of soups that call for cream, but we omit the cream and add it back in when it's serving time. |
Storing spoiled meat with fresh meat in a freezer
I just bought a new chest freezer to store some lamb and beef. I placed the fresh lamb meat in a couple of metal containers (not covered) and put these in the freezer. I did the same with the beef but in different containers (not covered) and put them into the same freezer. However, after already dropping a couple of the beef containers in the freezer, I noticed a pungent smell of spoiled beef coming out of the one last container.
I immediately opened the freezer and removed the other beef containers out of it. They must have been in there for like 5-10 minutes tops. The thing is that the freezer is ridden with the rancid smell of spoiled meat and it just doesn't seem to go away. The lamb is fresh and unspoiled. But that's what I'm worried about: if that spoiled batch of beef had an effect on the lamb and spoiled it as well.
Can that happen? Can you spoil fresh meat in a freezer by putting spoiled meat next to it in the same freezer (in uncovered separate vessels/containers, of course)? Or is it just the smell of that spoiled batch of meat and nothing to worry about? | The chemicals associated with the odor of rancid or spoiled meat can indeed float around in a freezer and condense on other surfaces, such as the other meats.* Since these chemicals are detectable at extremely low concentrations, even a small amount of migration would make those objects noticeably rotten-smelling.
That probably didn't happen to the meat, though. Vapor doesn't want to condense just anywhere; it wants to condense on cold surfaces. And the coldest thing in your freezer, at least for a few hours after you initially filled it, is the freezer itself. I think it most likely that the surfaces of the freezer -- and the air in it, for that matter -- are the only things with a significant residual odor.
If you like, scrub down the sides of the freezer with a dilute ammonia solution (aka window cleaner). But I don't think you need to do anything about the rest of the meat.
* On one occasion, a roadkilled skunk was stored for some time in a refrigerator. The mercaptans from the scent glands turned the butter (it was not a roadkilled-skunk-specific refrigerator) into, well, skunk butter. "You can't pick your family", as they say. |
Is it feasible to cook via a forge?
I was playing the Sims Medieval the other day, and at one point, the blacksmith proves s/he's a capable cook by... taking a piece of meat, firing up the forge, and hammering the thing into a steak.
It's obviously done tongue-in-cheek, but it got me thinking - is it somehow possible to use a forge (bellows, coal, anvil, the works) to produce something actually edible?
If 'yes', what sort of constraints (e.g. necessary preparations, limitations on what kind of foods you could prepare) would there be?
Putting aside issues of cost and practicality. | Amateur blacksmith here.
So, first, let me caution that two of the things that are around any forge are toxic chemicals like borax, and lots and lots of tiny metal fragments that would be very bad to get inside you. So I don't recommend ever actually cooking around a forge.
If you were to do so anyway, though, how you would do it is by heating a large flat piece of steel to red-hot in the forge, and then holding that steel above or below the thing you wanted to cook. There's actually a standard medieval cooking tool called a salamander that works on this principle, just starting in a fireplace and not a forge.
I cannot comment on whether anyone actually cooked this way at one or more ABANA meetings, given how unsafe it would have been to do so. |
Do different "regions" really have a "general common taste"?
I have now numerous times heard things such as:
In the final step, the factory adds custom spices for the specific region for which this batch of hotdogs are supposed to be sold.
It is strongly implied, if not explicitly stated, that different "market regions", even within countries/states, have a "general taste".
This strikes me as very odd. Why would that be? After all, we are not talking about radically different kinds of food here, but mass-produced food with "taste customizations" to fit "the palette" of a specific area of people.
I'm not saying that I don't believe that this is done, or that it doesn't have some grounds in reality, but I don't understand it. Especially not these days when every little town needs to have every imaginable race all living there together. How can these different people with only the geographical location in common have a common "taste" in food?
"If the product is sold within these GPS boundaries, add 2.5% sugar and subtract 4.7% salt"? How can this be? How does it happen? Does it really sell more food compared to just coming up with a general "recipe" which is used for every place where the product in question is sold? | This has less to do with any existing general cultural preferences of the region, and more to do with how that particular product type was first introduced to the region and what it tasted like at the time. The flavor profile of an imported food, and even some native foods, tends to get set in the popular preference in the first few years it's eaten there.
For example, mayonnaise in Japan is both richer (more egg yolks) and sweeter than mayonnaise in the US. This is because, when Toichiro Nakashima manufactured the first mayonnaise in Japan in the 1920's, that's how he liked it. This makes it the "flavor profile" of mayonnaise in Japan, and if an American company were introducing a mayonnaise-based product there, they'd add extra sugar and saturated fats to it so that Japanese people wouldn't think it tasted "odd" or even "wrong". |
Why did my pot get so blackened after boiling some eggs?
I bought this pot a few weeks ago. I've only used it a couple times since, but yesterday I decided to boil some eggs in it.
I ended up forgetting about them for a minute, when I came back the water was not enough to cover them anymore. About 10% of the eggs surface were exposed to air, however, the pot was this very dark color.
I've never seen a pot blacken like that, at most something like a kettle if you let it run dry for a while.
The pot has what looks like a machined bottom, with some casting bubbles that you can see as the light spots at the bottom. Which leads me to believe this might have been caused by scrubbing, given the strange uneveness? But the coloring only manifested once I used it again.
By weight, and the fact it is so poorly cast, I think it might be aluminium, but there are no markings specifying the material of the pot. I even went back to the store and the label doesn't specify either. | I am pretty sure it is the sulphur in the eggs that is doing this. It is present even in the egg shell.
When iron and sulphur react under heat, it forms iron II sulphide which is black (or brown) in colour. |
What are the layers in this cake?
I want to make this cake (image below), but I can’t figure out the third layer.
Obviously it is 2 layers of chocolate cake and 1 of chocolate mousse, but what is the caramel-like layer?
Can anyone identify it, please? | Looking at the way it is cut, teared and smeared by the spoon in the video my best guess would be that it is some kind of custard or pudding that gets its consistency most probably from yolk and/or starch.
Please be aware that a definitive identification only from a picture will remain an impossible task as no one will be able to see if this mass contains maybe some coffee, rum or orange blossom water to add a different taste to it. So in the end you will have to fill up these gaps with your creativity and imagination. |
When downsizing a recipe for bread, do you need to cut down every ingredient equally for it to come out well?
I have a bread recipe that is slightly too large for my bread machine, so I need to downsize it a little, but I don't want to make it a full 25% or 50% smaller, meaning the ingredient amounts end up with weird values that don't fit normal measuring spoon sizes well even if I round them a bit. This makes the measuring part a bit annoying.
If I wanted a 15% smaller loaf of bread, would it still come out well if I only reduced the flour and yeast by ~15% and left the other values normal, or do all the ingredients need to have the ratio given in the recipe? The taste being affected a little is fine, as long as it rises properly and has normal texture/consistency. | Yes you do have to reduce all ingredients proportionally for the dough to come out the same. The best way to measure for baking is by weight in grams rather then in volume as weight in grams is extremely accurate and makes for much easier adjustments like those you need to make.
The most critical measurements to get right are the flour and the liquid ingredients to ensure your hydration remains the same, a 15% difference in water is huge in bread baking. Salt's also important, but less so as a 15% increase in salt isn't going to make a massive difference. Yeast you can eyeball to a certain extent and take just a bit off, you'll likely need to play with the amount anyway as bread makers often balloon bread dough - make it rise too quickly - reducing yeast helps to keep rise speed under control.
Again accurate weighing is the easiest way to make consistent bread. 1ml of water = 1g so I weigh the water too. |
Why do my falafels taste so boring?
I've been making falafels from scratch for a few times now and I've started to get the hang of it. I've got the texture of the falafels pretty great but the flavour of them isn't really... anything?
I've been following this recipe as a guide, so I've been putting in tons of garlic, onion, coriander and parsely but the final product doesn't really taste like much, compared to the falafels at local restaurants.
I'm wondering if I need to up my salt game or maybe if the quality of the dried chickpeas has a big impact? I'm scared of oversalting but I am pretty generous with my salt and cumin. What makes a falafel taste good? | From a different answer:
When you're looking at a recipe and it's too bland, the first thing to ask yourself is "what more". What flavor isn't coming through that you'd like to come through? Is some ingredient overpowering everything else? Are the flavors too simple, or too subtle?
In the case of falafels, I would especially wonder whether you've used enough fresh herbs (note: dried parsley and dried cilantro leaf are useless non-entities), and whether your ground coriander and ground cumin have been sitting in the cupboard for a year and have lost their potency. Salt and garlic you can play with to taste. Keep in mind that nobody eats just a bowl of unadorned falafel. They need to have amped up flavors to serve the whole dish. It's okay if they're too strong when eaten by themselves. |
Slow cooker cooked too fast
Supposed to cook a 3 lb. pork loin on low 6-8 hrs., (was on low), to an internal temp of 160. Meat reached temp at 2 hours. What to do so it can be served in 4 more hrs. without being overdone or dried out? | Pork loin is very lean and tender, so it's a bad cut for a slow cooker. Slow cookers work best with fatty or collagen-rich cuts that should be held at a high temperature for long enough for the connective tissue to "melt" and create a super rich, tender result. Pork loin will simply dry out. I would remove it from the cooker and chill until dinner. Either reheat gently or serve cold tonight. In the future, be wary of recipes that involve lean, tender cuts in a slow cooker. |
Can I half-bake muffins now, and then complete bake them the rest of the way a couple days later when I want them "fresh"?
This is inspired by those bake-it-yourself items I see in shops which are e.g. quite pale baguettes they expect me to throw into the oven for 10 minutes to end up with a "freshly baked" good. I know it's not the same thing as actually freshly baked but it is still vastly better than a few days old chunk of bread sprinkled with water and reheated in the oven.
Is there anything specific I need to do to my muffins to do them like that? Would a similar procedure to par-baked breads work (i.e. baking them first at lower temperature and then finishing off later with a higher blast?) I'm curious about any thoughts.
BTW Those are going to be whole wheat breakfast muffins with freshly foraged bilberries :) This is also the reason I'm asking - I need to use them right now but I don't expect to have people around to consume them until later in the week... | There's a big difference between what's possible with bread and with muffins or cakes because bread is from a dough and the rest is a batter. Bread dough has a lot of structure to begin because of the gluten, so you can partially cook it to set that structure and then crisp it up later.
You can't do the same with a batter as there's no structure. When you bake a batter the heat turns water to steam, and the leavening agents react, causing air to form. At the same time a crystalline structure forms around the sugar and starch, which traps the expanding gases and the structure expands upwards, i.e. rises because the shape of the pan restricts it to one direction. Once the expansion is complete cooking then completes the crystallization of the structure, making it semi-rigid. If you interrupt that process before it's complete the cake/muffin won't have the strength to hold up its expansion and the whole thing collapses into a dense, undercooked mess.
Fortunately for you muffins keep their freshness longer than bread, and also freeze well. Some fruit muffins actually get better with a couple of days in the refrigerator, you may want to try it with yours. |
Is there a way to get bacon crispy if you wrap it around potatoes and stick it in the oven?
I wanted to try and make the “Gotcha Pork” dish from anime series Food Wars. It requires you wrap bacon around mashed potatoes and put it in the oven. Is there a way to bake it so the bacon comes out crispy? Thanks | The bacon should naturally come out crispy, as the oven cooks the bacon more evenly and the heat surrounds it. You can find here an article that lists a couple of advantages of cooking bacon in the oven including extra crispiness.
I think the trick with dishes like “Gotcha Pork” is, to make sure you refrigerate or chill the dish, especially your mash before putting it in the oven. As the bacon will need around 20-40 min to get brown and crispy when it's wrapped around the potatoes (depending on the thickness of the bacon slices). You want to make sure, that the mashed potatoes don't run away but the bacon has got enough time to get brown and crispy.
Also to consider is that thicker bacon will take longer to fully cook and crisp up in the oven. My own experience is, when cooking bacon-wrapped chicken for example, that regular-cut bacon cooks the best (doesn't get burned too quickly but also gets fully crispy).
By googling it, I found a couple of recipes inspired by “Gotcha Pork”, that include instructions regarding refrigerating, etc. I personally found this one very straightforward but would still take regular instead of thick bacon cut. |
How far can I stretch the "Use within X days of opening" warning?
Many refrigerated products (Bacon, ham, black pudding etc.) have this warning on the packs. I assume this is due to being packed in a protective atmosphere. Provided I wrap the remainder securely in cling film or Saran wrap and use it before its "Use By" date, will it still be safe to eat past that time? Or is this warning purely about food quality (e.g. drying out in an open packet in the refrigerator)? | This is trickier than the case of "use by"=safety and "best before"=quality.*
If there's an additional "use by" date, as there often is, that shouldn't be exceeded, but if you open the packet on the day of purchase there can be a big gap between the two. This warning is often combined with "packaged in a protective atmosphere", and that gets complicated. Modified atmospheres in food packaging (Wikipedia) can have different effects on microorganisms that cause detectable spoilage and that are harmful. Restoring to the normal atmosphere changes that again. So it might be possible for the manufacturer to set a longer safety period and a shorter quality one - but they don't.
So I can't advise you to stretch that time in case it's safety-related for that specific product and timescale, even if I might be a little incautious myself. If I'm planning on keeping this sort of stuff longer after opening than it says, I freeze it. All but the cheapest (water-filled) ham freezes well, but you can't separate it frozen so I put non-stick sheet in between and can defrost a couple of slice at a time. I haven't cooked bacon in years, but have frozen that too in the past.
* In UK terminology, though others tend to be similar. |
Whilst honing, if I already push the knife away from my hand, must I still push the knife towards my hand?
Doubtless, it's safer to push knives away from your hands. When I hone, I always do this like
this GIF.
Source for first image below.
But I just saw these images where the knife is being pushed TOWARDS the handle and your hand! Source for image 3.
Why would you push the knife towards your hand?
Do I gain anything by pushing the knife towards my hand? Does proper honing require me to push the knife away AND towards my hand?
I'm trying to hone my Wusthof knife with my Grosche Zweissen 12 in. Ceramic Honing Steel. | While it doesn't really matter in which direction you hone your knife, honing towards you is (a, but not the only) standard practice when you don't use the technique you pictured first, where a towel is placed under a vertically placed honing rod.
The reason is this: if you hone "freehanded", with the rod in one hand and your knife in the other, would you rather swing your blade outward toward another person, or toward you, where the honing rod grip usually has protrusions that stop the blade in case you slip? In a kitchen with multiple people working, blade honing outwards would endanger other people, hence why most chefs I know hone inwards.
Gordon Ramsay demonstrates the protrusions stopping a blade here, although he hones outwards, but with the back edge of the knife first. |
When honing with a ceramic rod, why alternate edges of your knife? Why not hone each edge separately?
Starting at 0:58, Owen in Vancouver counsels you to alternate the knife's edges. Each time Owen pulls the knife, he alternates as he advised. But why? Why not hone one side with 15 consecutive strokes first, then switch to the other side?
Bob Kramer and Lisa at America's Test Kitchen alternate too. | Honing is the act of 'pushing' the edge of the blade into alignment.
Were you to do one side only, it would push the edge to the opposite side, then when you swapped, it would push it all back again. No net gain.
Image from Serious Eats - How to Hone a Dull Knife |
Mimicking Lipton's Green Diet Iced Tea Citrus
My girlfriend is absolutely obsessed with this bottled tea, Green Diet Iced Tea Citrus. Personally I think it's kind of gross, but I don't really like tea to begin with. That's personal taste for you.
I purchased a huge amount of the stuff for her to drink while she was visiting, and it's only during the aftermath that I realized just how much unnecessary plastic I was having to deal with. I tried looking around, but Lipton doesn't sell a powdered version (which would produce far less waste) of the Diet product and probably be cheaper to boot.
I'm a pretty stubborn person though, so I figured I'd take my own swing at it. How hard could it be, right?
They have the ingredients for their Citrus Green Iced Tea Powder Mix listed on their website (the non-diet version, anyway) which consists rather simply of:
Cane Sugar
Citric Acid
Green Tea Powder
"Natural Flavor"
Soy Lecithin
Okay, easy enough. I also know that the Diet version uses Aspartame instead of Cane Sugar. A closer inspection of the Ingredients label on the Diet indicates it has some Ascorbic acid, too.
So I went out and bought some Equal, Green Tea Powder, Ascorbic Acid, and Citric Acid. Added on some Lime and Lemon juice for those "natural flavors", whatever that means.
I left out the Soy Lecithin because my research indicated it was an anti-clumping measure, which I don't think I'd need with separate ingredients?
I'm not sure how to feel about the ingredients I've assembled, nor do I really have much of a clue on what ratios to use here. I want the prep for this to be a surprise so I can do a blind taste test with my girlfriend, but the drink tastes awful to me to begin with, so I don't know if I'm the best judge of similarity between the two. I'm willing to just bang it out through repeated attempts, but maybe somebody here would know a good starting point for how much of each ingredient to mix in?
Thanks! | I think this is going to be difficult to do without taste-testing, so you might have to learn to like green tea just a bit. ;)
First, after a quick search I found that another person who tried to tackle this problem ended up using crystallized lime powder (e.g., True Lime) to get to the intended result. It looks like these recipes use orange extract too, so that might be an additional purchase for you — it's usually in the baking aisle of a supermarket.
Assuming you wanted to try with the ingredients you have, this will be a lot of trial and error, but here's how I would approach it (with a notebook to write down everything I'm adding!):
Note: Watch tablespoons vs. teaspoons here, as they could make a big difference when making small adjustments.
Start with the tea
I'm not sure what kind of green tea you bought, so I would start by making the tea using the powdered mix per the instructions and ratios on the package. For example, it looks like the Lipton green tea mix is 4 tablespoon:1 cup of water. There are 16 cups in a gallon, maybe experimenting with 1/2 gallon (8 cups water) at a time will give you a little margin for error without as much waste.
You might try mixing a small amount of your powder with water first to make it a smooth paste before adding the rest of the water, which will help avoid grittiness of the powder (you could do this with any powder you add).
When you taste this, you're tasting for the tea flavor: it should be earthy and bitter. If it tastes too weak, you need to up the powder, one teaspoon at a time. If it tastes just too strong, hold off adding water before you add other ingredients, as they might lessen it a bit. You can always add water, but you can't take it out. For you, I would shoot for too strong of a tea taste.
Add the citrus/acidity
Next, I would work on the citrus/acid. When they say "natural flavors," it's possible they're using citrus oils, which come from the skin. (You can buy these at the store, too.) The citrus juice has a lot less of the flavor we would recognize as strongly lemon or lime. The acids will also give you a slight citrus flavor. Using what you've got, you might try using a bunch of citrus juice with a bit of the acid to supplement it, which might taste more "natural" in the end.
Citrus juices: start by adding 2 tablespoons of lemon and maybe 1 tablespoon of lime juice per 1/2 gallon. If you do try getting orange extract, this is when I would add it 1/8 teaspoon at a time, since it is quite strong. Try incrementing by those amounts until you get the right citrus flavor. If the flavor is right but the tartness isn't there, move on to the acids.
Acids: Your ascorbic acid and citric acid will more or less be doing the same job of adding tartness, with citric acid being a bit more sour. For your purposes, I'd only test one at a time. This will take a lot of experimenting, but I would only add 1/4 tsp of the acid a time until it tastes tart enough.
Add sweetener
I don't personally use sugar substitutes, so I can't speak to how this works or tastes. The recipe linked at the top shows a ratio of 1 1/4 tsp (5 packets) per half gallon, so that seems as good a starting point as any.
If after all of this, it tastes like too much, you could add 1/2 cup of water at a time.
Here's this starting point written in a list, using your ingredients:
1/2 gallon green tea, following package instructions
plus 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice, more as needed
plus 1 tablespoon bottled lime juice, more as needed
plus 1/4 teaspoon ascorbic or citric acid, more as needed
plus 1 1/4 teaspoon (5 packets) Equal, more as needed
then add water to dilute as needed
Good luck! This is a really sweet thing that you're trying to do for your girlfriend and I hope you enjoy the process of experimenting — it would be a fun thing to share your process with her! |
Yeast in Poolish
I have two different recipes for poolish with equal parts of bread flour and water. One calls for 1/2 tsp. of yeast and the other only calls for 1/4 tsp.
Which amount should I use to make artisan baguettes and does it matter when I use the same recipe for other breads? | The amount of yeast you use heavily depends on your proving time, and vice-versa. You can use either amount, but your proving time will be vastly different. As highlighted in this recipe the fermentation time gets longer the less yeast you use.
Basically the yeast rises the bread, and the more yeast you use, the quicker it can get it done (like an increased workforce). This means you can use either amount, but you should adjust your proving times accordingly, and check manually whether you've gotten the correct proving result rather than use a set time limit.
Depending on how much time you have, most people would recommend less yeast and a longer proving/fermenting time, allowing for better gluten development and a deeper flavour. |
Is there a way predict proving times of dough (without experience)?
I make homemade pizza dough and other breads and baked goods quite regularly, but only have started to do so recently. One of the issues I have run into is that recipes always come with their own recommended proving times, some with better results than others.
The issue I have run into is that I want to be able to vary my proving times to be longer or shorter depending on how much time I have between kneading and baking. I have found that longer proving times often lead to nicer flavours (especially with pizza dough), and would like to maximise the time I have. However, I have no idea how to go about this. Without the experience of a seasoned veteran, I don't know how much more or less yeast to add to get the proving time to fit the amount of time I have.
I realise this depends on various factors (heat of the environment, heat of the yeast water, etc.) which make it more unpredictable, but I can keep these factors fairly the same with a constant temperature at all times. Is there a way to tell how much I should vary the yeast, which doesn't consist of me making every recipe I know three times with varying degrees of yeast to see what happens? | Yes, there are, although the formulas would vary according to the baked goods you're using.
For pizza, there are working formulas out there, such as one by TXCraig or this one that calculate the relationship between hydration, temperature, yeast, and proving time. I personally use the PizzApp and can attest that it's fairly accurate for any non-extreme combinations (that is, you're kinda on your own with a 72-hour rise).
Presumably there are similar formulas for other baked goods, although pizza is the only one I have personal experience with. |
using bread machine as toaster oven
Can I bake/heat some frozen spring roll in my bread machine since it has bake function and would this damage my machine? Seems like a good toaster replacement. | It is unlikely to do the job well.
A toaster oven is designed to toast: to produce relatively high heat for short periods of time. A bread maker is designed to bake: to produce a lower temperature for longer periods of time. The bread maker is also likely to trap more moisture inside the space than the toaster oven (especially relevant if you are using it to defrost something, since ice will probably melt and form a puddle of water which will slowly evaporate and make the space humid).
Further to that, if your bread maker is like the model in the photograph, it is limited to preset routines and will not give you much (if any) direct control, or even information, over temperature and time (although of course you can take things out early).
I think a bread maker should certainly defrost and heat your spring rolls safely, but if they are designed for a toaster oven the end product is likely to be worse than intended – certainly less crispy. (On the other hand, it may well come out better than in a microwave, so it depends on your point of comparison.) |
What is the best way to store cucumbers? Do I refrigerate or not refrigerate?
I purchase the cocktail and snackable Persian cucumbers from my big box store because I enjoy the taste of the smaller cucumbers over the larger varieties. I always store them in my refrigerator because I purchase them from the refrigerated produce section at the store. I never really finish eating the cucumbers before they go bad, which seems like a waste.
Is there a specific cucumber variety when refrigerated, will have a longer refrigeration shelf life? Is there a proper way to store cucumbers so they don't start decaying and developing a film of slime, start sweating or mold in the refrigerator? I've tried to leave them out on the counter like I would leave out tomatoes, but they tend to develop wrinkles and lose their moisture. What is the proper way to store cucumbers? | For maximum life, refrigerate them wrapped in a dry paper towel inside a plastic produce bag, in the produce drawer. If you have more than 3 cucumbers, ideally store every 3 cucumbers in separate bags, since one that starts to go bad tends to take others with it.
I started storing cucumbers this way based originally on Cook's Illustrated's advice on storing lettuce, and trying it discovered that putting any produce that wilts in bags with a dry paper towel extended lifespan. I compared this with CI's advice to wrap them in plastic wrap, and found that the paper towel method worked better for me, but feel free to try their plastic wrap method instead and do your own head-to-head.
As I'm currently harvesting 3-5 cucumbers a day from my garden, I've been doing it a lot lately. I find I can store a fresh-picked cucumber this way for 2-3 weeks. |
Can I season a wok on an induction cooktop?
I just got a new wok and realized that I have no idea how to go about seasoning it on my induction cooktop. It's a flat-bottom, carbon steel wok, so I don't have to worry about contact on the bottom, but my concern is how do I get the sides?
The one idea I had was to season the bottom of the pan as normal, and then heat a neutral oil and something like sliced onions until they caramelize or char and push them up the sides to distribute the seasoned oil, then discarding the oil/onions and repeating. I'm not sure how effective this would be, and it seems like it would take a lot of repetitions (5+) and waste a lot of oil (and onions; but oil is harder to dispose of.)
My old wok I seasoned on a gas stove, but where I currently live I don't know anyone who has a gas stove -- most everyone has electric. I don't think seasoning it in the oven like cast iron is an option; I'm pretty sure at least one of the wooden elements isn't detachable. | The idea with the onions is unlikely to work as intended, and you'd be off just as well if you simply kept basting the sides instead.
Your best bet is to season the wok upside down in the oven for the most even seasoning result. The way to protect your wooden handle is to wrap it thoroughly in a wet towel, and wrap that in tin foil. The towel will dissapate the heat and keep your wood from burning, and the tin foil will keep the moisture from escaping for long enough to complete the process (about 20 minutes). Just make sure not to use your fancy new towels!
Also, you should note that a baked wooden handle might look a bit worse, but is still perfectly useable (sometimes even unavoidable in more used woks). Something to keep in mind if you're not bothered about aesthetics too much.
Further reading |
Replacing Cornstarch with Flour in Potato Pancakes Recipe
I have followed this recipe for Korean cheese potato pancakes a few times, and the results come out as expected. I don't have a lot of corn starch on hand and would like to make a larger serving of the pancakes. Is it possible to replace the corn starch (partially or fully) with flour? Would this effect the crispiness of the pancakes? | Based on personal experience with other Korean pancakes, you can replace the cornstarch with flour, but at the cost of making the pancakes less crispy and more chewy.
If you have tapioca starch, potato starch, or even rice flour, that would work somewhat better. |
My mom uses dish washing detergent to wash her tomatoes and I'm freaked out it'll seep in to the tomatoes
Is washing tomatoes, apples, oranges etc. with dish washing detergent normal? She's literally unmovable no matter how I tell her she still keeps doing it. I am freaked out. | Dish washing liquid is quite mild and safe.
As long as she properly rinses the produces, you should be ok. |
Preventing flash rust after tempering a carbon steel wok
After just 2 days of using my new carbon steel wok pan, I noticed something suspicious inside it:
Looking back on it, it was probably just burnt oil and nothing to worry about. However, I mistook it for rust, and began my arduous journey to get rid of it. (Let me know what you think it was and what to think of it in the future, please)
First I scoured the spots with water and plastic scouring wool, then added some dishwashing liquid and continued the process, but it had practically no effect on the spots even after tens of minutes of work. Eventually I just chose to nuke the pan and start the seasoning process all over again.
I decided to try soaking the pan in acid and filled it up with water, adding some grams of citric acid into the mix. After some 20 minutes of waiting and haphazard scrubbing, the inside of the pan looked shiny enough for me even though there were still some bits of crud left. I removed the acidic solution and, just to be safe, filled the pan with water and some grams of baking soda in order to neutralize the acid. (Looking back, I do not think this was enough)
After that, following the guidance of numerous internet guides (e.g. 1, 2), I wanted to temper the wok again. I assumed that the protective oxide layer formed while bluing the pan for the first time had been erased along with the rest of the seasoning.
However, after I had blued the pan and waited a couple of minutes for it to cool down, a horrible sight awaited me:
I am almost certain that this was rust—the infamous flash rust.
I was petrified. Too demotivated to start the process all over again, I tried to season the pan, hoping that the "rust" was just a harmless byproduct of the bluing process. (Though I had not seen it when tempering the pan earlier)
This ended just about as well as anyone could expect:
I had clearly botched the seasoning. In hindsight, I think I may have tried to polymerize the thin coat of rapeseed oil over heat too high.
Thus, my main problem is as follows: how do I prevent flash rust from appearing after tempering the pan? I quite clearly cannot just rub oil on it to protect it while it's at 350 degrees celsius (≈660°F)... Do I just have to cool it down really quickly with water? Also, what caused it? Acid residue?
In general, how should I proceed? Can I, or should I, even repeat the bluing process again while reseasoning the pan? How acidic should the initial nuking solution be; is more acid better, or less? | Your first picture might be the beginnings of a seasoning layer, though a bit lumpy & uneven from poor technique.
"it was probably just burnt oil and nothing to worry about" - yeah… but that's what you actually want. That's the seasoning, or the very beginnings of it.
In the later photos, I see no evidence of any seasoning remaining… nor, in fact much blueing. Personally, I think the blueing* is a waste of time so long as you make sure to get rid of any industrial oil from the surface before you season it. I'm sure the thrashing you've given it will have done that. What's left is an unseasoned pan that will rust if you so much as look at it askance.
It's the seasoning that prevents rust. You can scour it all you like, but until you get a proper polymer coat on there it will just keep rusting again. Seasoning is not oil - it's what oil turns into after heating to a high temperature for a long time, almost a plastic; a polymerised coating. The first layer or two will look yellowish to brownish [but not red like rust]. The more layers you get on it, the further towards black it will go. Many very, very thin layers are far better than one thick layer, which will just peel or chip off.
Neither of those links gives me much confidence, tbh. Try What's the best way to season a cast iron skillet? instead, & just do it upside down in the oven, 5 or 6 times… once you've got the rust off again.
*heating mild steel until it goes blue isn't really 'blueing', which is a chemical process, it's case-hardening - similar to what a swordsmith would do. It has two purposes, to harden & to resist rusting. Unless done properly it actually achieves neither.
By far the best way to protect an iron pan or wok is to season it. Do it properly, use it often & you'll never need to do it again. |
Fastest way to peel and dice vegetables?
I find that most of the time I use when cooking is the prep time for the vegetables. I have a nice peeler (I fully recommend that one, it peels whatever you throw at it), some knives and a cutting board.
It's still way more time that what I'd like to invest. I've tried some of those gadgets where you place pieces of veggies and they are diced, but the ones I've tried are flimsy for the use I give them they last a few months, is there a top of the line brand that can withstand the test of time and hard vegetables (like sweet potatoes or eggplant)?
I imagine that the other option would be to perfect my cutting technique to be as proficient as a chef. Would you recommend a resource to learn how to cut like a chef?
So, to sum up, can you suggest creative ways to speed that part up? | ...a sharp knife and practice...seriously. First, there are a couple of types of peelers. I prefer a Y peeler for most situations because, for me, I find it more maneuverable. Peeling time is really quite minimal, unless you are prepping for a crowd. Knife skills are probably more important, but you have to build up speed and efficiency given the need to be safe. These knife skills begin with good, quality tools, which you must maintain to keep sharp. You then need to learn safe and efficient ways to prep various items. Over time, you will get faster. There is nothing creative about it. All those "fancy" devices and tools just slow down someone who is efficient with a knife, because they have to be put together, taken apart, cleaned...etc. |
Why might beautiful looking morello cherries be tasteless?
I've just eaten the most beautiful looking morello cherries grown in Kent (England} but they were tasteless! Why? | Same as most supermarket food - forced, greenhoused, picked before ripe, kept cold until it arrives at the supermarket, often in an ethylene environment which causes some plants to actually ripen. These are known as climacteric.
See Wikipedia - Ripening
Cherries are actually non-climacteric, which means they only ripen whilst still on the plant. This means the time from picking to selling needs to be kept very short; if they're picked once fully ripe their shelf-life is hopelessly short for the supermarkets to sell through.
Also responsible may be big, fat, fast-growing strains of the product. Look good at the expense of flavour.
The solution… find a local greengrocer who actually cares, or at least pay the premium for the 'supermarket posh name' [Finest, Taste the Difference, etc] or organic [though that's still no guarantee].
My own personal gripe is supermarket coriander [cilantro to our transpondian friends] which from the supermarket is … just green stuff. From my local Turkish store, who import it themselves, you can smell it from next door. Chalk & cheese.
I remember, as a kid being taken to Blackpool for a weekend on the beach [50 years ago] you could smell the tomato greenhouses from the main road, a hundred yards away. The ones you bought in the town were picked yesterday. These days, that's why they sell 'on the vine' tomatoes - because the vine itself holds that smell long after the tomato has lost it. |
Baking juicier chicken breast without brining?
Over the past few months my go-to meal prep has been to bake a bunch of skin-on, bone-in chicken, typically breast but occasionally leg (wing+thigh). My technique has been:
Season the chicken (mostly skin, but not exclusively) heavily with salt/pepper, leave sitting in the fridge for 20 minutes, then pat dry excess moisture.
Brown the skin on medium (or medium high) heat (gotta love the Maillard reaction), while basting the chicken in it's own juices + some butter, thyme, garlic (either in a cast-iron or stainless steel skillet).
Throw in the oven for 20-25 minutes at 425F.
This works great with chicken legs, but recently I've been getting these absolutely gigantic chicken breasts, which take way longer to get to temperature in the oven (~35 minutes). The skin is always fine and tasty, but the inside is often drier and tougher.
How can I adapt my technique to cook juicier thick chicken breast, preferably without brining? I find brining skin-on chicken ruins the texture of the skin, unless you leave the skin to dry for a few hours in the fridge, but I'd prefer not to do that. Could a different oven temp achieve better results?
By the way, I typically take my chicken out either when it's >160F internal temp, or when I'm sure it's been at >150F for more than 10 minutes (the latter gives a juicier result, and from what I've researched it doesn't seem like this poses any health risks).
Edit: Maybe I should clarify that by no means are the chicken inedible. They're merely "fine". I'm wondering if there are any secret pro techniques that could help here. | Since you sear the meat first you could probably lower the oven temp, but that will probably take longer to cook... You'd need to experiment with times and temps. I'd cover the chicken with aluminium foil to avoid losing too much moisture and uncovering it on the last few minutes to avoid a soggy skin.
You could also try reverse searing (oven first then sear), that would give you more control of the internal temperature before you can get the outside crispy (and the fact that the oven helps drying out the skin should help you get it crispy more easily, Serious eats has a great article on that technique).
The other alternative is to use sous-vide: find a temperature you like your meat (150F sounds good to start) and fine tune it up or down until you achieve the desired meat texture. In this case I'd advice to sear it after cooking - you can pre-cook in bulk and quickly sear it just before serving.
The downside of sous-vide is that it won't be any faster than in the oven (it will take you at least 1h). The upsides:
you'll never overcook if you leave it too long (and circulators have a timer)
you'll get the exact same texture every time
it's great for meal prepping (I typically cook a batch of chicken each in separate bags, freeze most of it and just thaw + sear whenever I want to eat one) |
How should red wine be used in Spaghetti Bolognese?
The classic Spaghetti Bolognese recipe adds red wine right at the beginning to the fried minced beef until its all absorbed with little liquid remaining. In theory, this makes sense to me in enhancing the flavour of the beef, yet I can't taste any difference: it still tastes 100% beefy to me. On the other hand, it does add a red-wine flavour to the sauce if its added at the end into the whole simmering mixture. Yet the recipe also adds beef stock to the simmering mixture which then clashes with the red wine, so its purpose is confusing to me. | In general, when meat or vegetables are fried in hot fat, sugar and amino acid particles are formed. To capture this roasted aroma caused by this reaction (called Maillard reaction), you pour water or wine over your beef. So the main reason for deglazing is to capture this special taste of "roast".
The reason why you add the wine directly after frying i.e. to deglaze is that you wanna keep the good aroma of the wine but get rid of the alcoholic taste. When you add the wine directly or at the end, the alcohol tastes strong and the wine is the dominant flavour of the dish.
I think the solution/ trick to solve the flavour problem you describe, is to add the wine in small batches rather than "pouring it over /extinguish the minced beef". For Bolognese, I would add a small amount of wine, let it boil down and "sizzle" and repeat this 3-4 times.
This should help to preserve a stronger wine flavour.
But at the end of the day taste is subjective and if you would like wine to be the dominant flavour of the dish, you can always add it after. I personally can also recommend using red wine vinegar instead of red wine, if you like it tangier. But that's a question of personal taste. |
(How) Have I ruined my titanium pan?
I have a Zwilling Forte titanium pan with a five-layer T-Ix non-stick coating (which I understand is just the name of the titanium Layers). According to description it's supposed to be super durable (even using metal utensils; that's why I bought it) and suitable for oven up to 250 °C. It's just over a year old and so far I was very happy with it.
Recently it's started to lose the non-stick qualities. I noticed some black spots as well as scratches. I have to admit I'm not very good at caring for it properly so I wondered if it's just burned-on food.
I couldn't get it off, so I was googling how to clean very burned on food. I used just soap (Amway dish drops) and hot water. The final attempt was sodium percarbonate and some boiling water. I was scraping with a plastic spatula. The water came out pretty brown and now it reveals what appears to be peeled-off spots (see picture), and quite a lot of them.
Have I done that with the sodium percarbonate or some other way? I have used a metal spoon literally a handful of times when cooking, never a knife or anything sharp. It's been used a lot in the year, cooking basically everything, including acidic foods. It's been used in the oven quite a bit too.
I noticed some minor scratching after my first use of a metal spoon, but nothing too bad and it still worked pretty well.
Can I still use this safely? Should/can I season it like a cast-iron one to make it work again? | I'm no chemist, but a quick googling shows hydrogen peroxide [sodium percarbonate in water] to be quite aggressive on aluminium.
I'd guess that some light surface scratching, which would otherwise have been quite survivable* in itself, allowed the peroxide to leech under the non-stick surface, attack the aluminium substrate & allow larger flakes to break away.
Been there, done that, with similar aggressive chemical cleaning methods.
In future I wouldn't use anything other than Barkeeper's Friend &/or a mica block to remove any surface patina. See Removing long-term residue from teflon
Judging by the pattern of the damage, I'd say the pan has been used too hot on too small a burner. All the damage & discolouration is in the centre. 'Teflon' & non-copyright substitutes, no matter what toughened aspect the manufacturers claim, really can't stand very high burner temperatures.
As to whether you can use it safely - sure, most of these modern surfaces won't peel off in sheets like old-style teflon, nor are they 'poisonous', so it's reasonably safe to use. Can you get it back to truly non-stick… doubtful. You can kind of season aluminium, so you could give it a go - oiled, upside down in the oven, same as iron or steel, but don't expect miracles.
Personally, I'd mark this one down to experience & treat your next one more kindly. I'd also studiously ignore any claim you can use metal utensils &/or put in the dishwasher.
*A lot of these new style 'not teflon' pans seems to have a roughened surface, which I imagine allows the very tops of the 'bumps' to suffer some abrasion, whilst keeping the majority of the surface unscathed.
I now have a couple of these, one cheap as chips, the other an arm & leg; and shall be monitoring their progress over the next few years. So far, so good. |
Do certain spices really go bad? or will people without refined palates usually not tell the difference, specifically chili powder?
All my seasonings/spices are at least a year old (most several years). I recently threw out nearly a full bottle of paprika because it was so strong (thought it went bad). I realized I was just applying too much paprika in the first place (and the old one would have been good enough to taste the same). I read this and became puzzled:
mediocre chili is usually the result of mediocre or old chili powder. Chili powder that’s been sitting in your pantry for 6 months just won’t be as flavorful and punchy as fresh, high quality chili powder.
https://katiesconsciouskitchen.com/vegan-chili-template
I am about to make chili. Should I get new powder? Does it really matter? I believe I do not have a refined palate. (I mostly can just tell differences between good and bad cheese ;)
From this question, it seems the potency will just be less:
Does cinnamon "spoil"?
Here they say chili powder is good after years:
Indefinite: Vanilla extract, salt, and that's about it. (Other extracts will fade in 2-3 years).
Whole spices (unground, such as peppercorns, whole
allspice, caraway seeds, and more): 3-4 years
Ground spices (such as cumin, ginger, paprika and chili powder): 2-4 years
Ground and whole leafy herbs such as basil, oregano, rosemary and most seasoning blends: 1-3 years
https://www.mccormick.com/articles/mccormick/how-long-do-spices-last
Very similar question
Shelf life of spices
Related questions
What should I know about storing my homemade chili powder?
Why did my red chili powder turn brown? | tl;dr : it's complicated.
If you're relying on cooking by blindly following recipes, and hoping that they come out the same every time, then yes, you probably want to replace old spices. So professionals are going to give that advice, as it's easier for every chef in the restaurant to be able to re-create a given dish, or for home chefs to have a chance for the recipe to come out like the recipe writer intended.
But the thing is -- even different brands have different potency.
You may know how long it's sat on the shelf since you bought it -- but how long was it at the store? How long was the jar sitting in a warehouse before it was sent to the store? How long were the whole spices sitting around before they were ground and put into the jar?
And what type of jar, even? A glass jar is going to hold in essential oils better than thin plastic bag or a plastic jar. And an almost empty jar is going to have more air for the essential oils to mix with and disperse each time you open it vs. a mostly full jar.
Really, you need to smell and/or taste your spices. Don't just throw them away because you've had them for a year -- they might be fresher than the ones that you replace them with if you buy it from a store that doesn't have good turn over.
If your spices seem to have no scent, then you can try using more to try to get the flavors back in balance. Although beware, because sometimes an herb or spice might lose one chemical (that's more volatile), but still have others -- so if you get to the point where you're more than doubling it, you might start to notice off flavors (because of other less volatile chemicals that are now in a higher concentration)
If it has an off scent (I had it happen with za'atar blend, as it has oil and sesame seeds in it) or seems weird for some other reason (like absorbing too much moisture from the air and clumping), then you should consider replacing it.
I'm not sure where I'd put color changes -- I'd probably smell and/or taste it and see if that qualifies as 'losing potency' or 'has gone off'.
And sometimes, as was your case with the paprika that you thought was too strong, sometimes people prefer the older stuff. I remember someone telling me that he had a mustard that he really liked, but he got more, and it was insanely hot. (because he had bought the first one on sale, as they were trying to clear out old stock).
So what matters is -- did you like it? If so, it's fine. |
What is this metal rod with attached razor blade? Found in Nana's Kitchen
Our Nana passed, and we found this in her kitchen. It appears to be well used. That is an ordinary razor blade it is holding. The screw forces the blade into a curve. | This appears to be a bread lame - a tool used to score the top of bread (mostly, but not entirely, for aesthetic reasons). |
Will using a stick blender 'chop up' the gluten in my Yorkshire pudding/crepe batter? If so, does it matter?
I've always made Yorkshire puddings and pancakes using a stick blender. I'll typically make the batter, leave it to stand for an hour or so and give it one last whizz about 5 minutes before pouring it into the tins/pan as appropriate.
My flatmate saw me making them for the first time, and was horrified. He thinks I should use a wooden spoon so I don't 'chop up' the gluten and affect the rise. My Yorkshire puddings always rise well and are light, so I'm tempted to stick to my easy speedy method.
My thoughts are that the gluten won't really have formed into chains when I first blend it, so there's nothing to chop up. I'm prepared to concede that it might in the second, but because it's a wet batter you don't really have the same sort of network as you would in a dough. I've looked at recipes and have found a few people (including Mary Berry and Delia Smith) who use an electric whisk, which I would think would also be quite robust, but I suppose it doesn't have blades in the same way.
So, is there any evidence that using a stick blender would
Chop up the gluten?
Make any difference to the final Yorkshire pudding/pancake? | As GdD and Tetsujin alluded to in the comments, Yorkshire pudding is an eggy, high-hydration batter that relies on steam for its rise - so gluten is not the main factor here.
From what I can tell, using a stick blender would not 'chop up' the gluten (and anecdotally I can think of recipes such as making seitan, where food processors and blenders are very commonly used at the start of a process to start developing gluten bonds). When it comes to gluten development, it seems like the most important factor with Yorkshire puddings is simply your rest time, as outlined here (also generally just a great article on the science of Yorkies). A long rest equals stronger gluten bonds. So if you were to alter any part of your recipe I would maybe suggest not whisking again after you rest your batter - or perhaps using something gentler like a hand whisk or even just a wooden spoon at that point if you really want to give the mix a stir.
Using a wooden spoon for the whole process seems like a poor substitution, because something that is important to a good Yorkshire pudding is to have a lump-free batter (I'm guessing this is because the batter is so light that lumps could inhibit the rise, or could form unwanted air pockets in the wrong places). So all things considered, I think switching to a wooden spoon would likely hurt your final product. |
How to use a ridged cast iron griddle?
While shopping the other day, I purchased a cast iron pan that has ridged griddle lines in it. I thought "oh, this might be nice for cooking meat!" but I'm not actually sure that's the case.
How to use a ridged cast iron griddle? Or rather, is meat the only thing I can use with such ridges built in? It seems like food will just get stuck in the deep ridges and be annoying to clean off / not that helpful when cooking. Did I make a silly purchase, or is there some sort of benefit to the ridges that I'm not seeing? | What you have is a ‘grill pan’
They work well for meat, but the real advantage is that if you have something that gives off a fair bit of liquid, the food doesn’t end up swimming in it.
Mind you, the liquid is still there, and doesn’t drain away, so it’ll still cool off the pan from evaporation, and slightly steam your food, but if it’s pre-heated, you’ll still get decorative grill lines.
My mom used to use it when cooking burgers inside in the winter, or she just didn’t want to be bothered with the outside grill. It’s also useful for cooking vegetables that have been marinated (and left in large slabs).
I have one, but honestly, I tend to put things under the broiler (top heat only in the oven, I know that’s called a grill in other places) for the type of scenarios where you might use this sort of pan.
I would also recommend looking in kitchenware stores for the grill pan scrapers from lodge. (You can get them on Amazon, but they’re often 2 to 3 times the price to cover shipping). There’s also a set that has one of the grill pan scrapers, and one of their regular scraper (which has lots of curves to match multiple pans) |
Why do some products have different nutritional composition stated on different containers, even when accounting for serving size?
I've been looking into nutritional composition of beverages and I've found something weird: sometimes, when the same product is served in a different container, the nutritional contents on on the packaging changes even though it's supposed to be the same beverage. And yes, I am accounting for serving size. For example, from the Dutch website of my local grocery store:
Lipton Original sparkling ice tea served in containers of .15 liters say they contain 4.5 grams of sugar per 100 ml and 20 kilocalories;
Lipton Original sparkling ice tea served in containers of 1.5 liters say they contain 8 grams of sugar per 100 ml and 35 kilocalories.
My assumption was always that in the factories that produce and bottle these beverages, they make these in giant vats of thousands of liters and then assign part to the .15 liter containers and part to the 1.5 liter containers. If this is the case, then why do these contain such massively different nutritional value differences? | I can only guess at it needs to be a different recipe for the can compared to the bottle.
The ingredients list, though not hugely helpful, lists tea-extract at 0.3% on one pack & 0.32% on the other. If they've changed that, they could change anything else & not have to report it in ingredients, only in nutritional value.
In fact, putting it through Google Translate, one claims stevia & fructose, the other just sugar. Completely different recipes, regular & 'low-cal'.
Can
Carbonated water, sugar, fructose, tea extract(0.3%), food acids (citric acid, malic acid), acidity regulator (trisodium citrate), lemon juice from concentrated juice (0.1%), aroma, antioxidant (ascorbic acid), sweetener (steviol glycosides ).
Bottle
Carbonated water, sugar, tea extract (0.32%), food acid (citric acid), acidity regulator (trisodium citrate), lemon juice from concentrated juice (0.1%), flavourings, preservative (potassium sorbate), antioxidant (ascorbic acid). |
What is the net (absorbable) carb content of Psyllium Husk?
I want to make ketogenic bread with Psyllium Husk. I am confused from looking online at the nutritional value of psyllium husk.
Some websites reports in the nutritional values that it has only 1.7g of carbohydrates per 100g of product. Other sites state that 100g of product have 80g of carbs.
This is really confusing. My questions are:
Are there different psyllium husks processing methods that produce different carbs values?
are there brands that report 80g of carbs just because they include the total carbs of psyllium husk including fiber (which is a carbohydrate), but since fiber is indigestible those carbs are not going to be digested? (Hence why some brands reports only 1/2g of carbs on their label).
Is there any absorbable carbs difference between psyllium husk and psyllium husk powder? | There are two carb count, total carbs (including fibre) and net carbs (excluding fibre). There are also two types of fibre and they are not always noted in the labelling, although that's mostly irrelevant for this question.
Another parameter that changes is the "serving size", in your example you can get 0.5g of net carbs if your serving size is 5g (a tablespoon) and in fact that's the case if you check out the serving size on your link.
Here is the USDA data for psyllium husk powder: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/1742558/nutrients
Now, can different brands and treatments and origins can have different distribution of carbs, for sure! Try to buy brands you trust and follow their label, as it supposedly comes from lab testing that specific product.
The USDA link above shows that that NOW branded powder has about 11 grams of net carbs on 100 grams of powder. |
How do you properly and consistently pan-sear shrimp?
Anytime I attempt to pan-sear shrimp, I struggle to achieve a perfect char. I typically turn the stove on high, pre-heat a stainless steel pan, use butter + olive oil, and then add the shrimp for a couple minutes each side. I also use a fish spatula to make sure they're flat to the pan. I find after a few minutes each side, the shrimp are done but not charred or crisp, but if cooked much longer, the shrimp become too well done.
Do certain pans help accomplish this? Does type of shrimp matter? Is oil / butter preferred? What is the proper way to effectively pan-sear shrimp? | There are a few things you can do to help your shrimp get a nice sear.
First, make sure they're as dry as possible before adding them to the pan. Use paper towels and pat dry. Especially if you're using shrimp which you had to thaw, they can be pretty wet, and that'll cause them to steam instead of sear.
Another thing which can cause your meat to steam instead of sear is if you overcrowd the pan. Use a larger pan or do less shrimp at once. When I cook shrimp, I can see at least 2/3 of the bottom of the pan through the shrimp. If all you can see is shrimp, it's way too much, and the water it releases will get trapped instead of quickly evaporating off.
Getting your shrimp to room temp can also help, as the colder your meat is when you put it in the pan, the more your pan will cool down when you add it. A thicker pan is another solution, as it has more capacity to hold heat. Cast iron is ideal for searing for this reason. Adding less shrimp at once will also reduce this effect.
By using the fish spatula, do you mean you're pressing down on them while they're cooking? I'd skip this, it can squeeze out liquids, so it might hurt more than help. Shrimp are pretty flat, so just toss them in the pan and then leave them alone until they need flipped.
Lastly, I might skip the butter and only use an oil which can tolerate high heat. Butter will burn at high temps, so you have to keep your pan cooler, which means less of a sear. Your butter/oil should not be smoking at any point, that means the temp is too high for that type of oil. Shrimp in butter does taste better though IMO, so you can try changing this as a last resort. |
Had my frozen hot dogs gone rancid?
Where I live is currently in Covid lockdown, so when I was cooking dinner tonight, I decided to pull some old hot dogs out of my freezer and boil them. However, rather than sinking to the bottom of the pot, they floated, and during the boiling process, a sort of yellow foam could be seen coming off of them through holes in their skin. Finally, when I removed them from the pot after they'd been boiled, I noticed that they were unusually firm, and when I cut one open, the meat (or fat?) inside had gotten a bit of a yellowish hue.
When I checked the packaging, I saw that they'd had a best before date of 2019. While they had been in the freezer that entire time, and had never been defrosted, so I didn't have to worry about them going bad from bacterial growth, but I remember hearing that frozen meat can go rancid from oxidation over time.
Is this what happened to my hot dogs? If so, would they have been safe to eat? Is there any way to tell if frozen meat is starting to go rancid, so that it can be eaten before it goes fully inedible? I figured "better safe than sorry" and threw them in the rubbish bin, and made myself something else to eat instead, but now I'm sort of wondering about what I should do in the future if this recurs. | When storing meats in the freezer, it is not generally recommended to extend the best before date by more than 4 to 6 months, depending on how much before the best before date the product was frozen. The link posted by Carina in the comments gets it bang on.
There are several reasons for this, but the biggest one is probably sublimation, more commonly known as freezer burn. The low temperatures in your freezer slow down the evaporation of liquids in your products, but don't stop it entirely. This means that the liquids in your products evaporate, leaving you with dry rubbery leftovers. You can notice this when your hotdogs feel firm and slimy after thawing, as the evaporating moisture draws the inside oils out with it. When boiling, they will indeed float as the moisture inside has been replaced with air. They might very well foam yellow, as the now freeze dried ingredients that were mixed with the moisture now recombine with the cooking water. (Fun fact, a controlled version of this mechanic is used in a process called freeze drying, which is used to produce instant noodles, coffee, or any kind of "Just add water" products on the market).
The second is the one you named, known as lipid oxidation. This is the normal mechanic of meat spoiling, and is again slowed down by the freezer, but not entirely stopped. This kind of spoiling in the freezer is more common in processed meats like hotdogs and sausages, rather than whole cuts. This is because processed meats have several additional ingredients making them "impure", these additional ingredients give the meats a less dense structure allowing for faster sublimation and increased spoiling. Whole cuts can commonly be kept in the freezer longer, up to a year in some cases.
The last reason is a minor one, but not to be disregarded. A well used freezer is opened several times a week, or even several times a day. This means that the products inside are regularly exposed to fresh air with live bacteria. Again, freezers slow down the working of bacteria, but don't stop it altogether. When a product is supplied with fresh bacteria regularly, the product will be contaminated beyond the safe point eventually, it is only a matter of time.
That being said, if even from a food safety standpoint your meat would be safe to eat, the freezer burn alone would make your hotdogs rubbery, dry, and tasteless, and there is very little chance you would have enjoyed eating them at that point. |
Is there a pattern that when sliced into bread dough - causes the bread to be fairly level?
When I bake bread, every loaf tens to swell in the center and each end of the loaf is smaller. The result is that sandwiches cut from different sections of the loaf vary dramatically in size.
I asked a question on this forum about a bread lame and a commenter mentioned that slices in bread dough changes how the bread swells during baking. Is there a pattern, that when sliced into dough, causes the bread to not swell so much in the center? So that there is not as large a variation in bread slices cut from one end to the other? | If it is a standard white loaf with close crumb, would be known as Toastbrot in Germany ie nice even slices.
Either 3 equal tightly rolled balls or a 3 strand braid (ends tucked under) in the loaf tin, will help the raising to be more even.
For truly flat top, tin needs a lid.
For a nice 'M' top, a knife or better, a metal scraper, dipped in oil, is poked lengthwise to a depth of an inch.
Helps a bit with evenness of top but mostly it prevents sides from ripping. |
Can I change a recipe sequencing (parallelising consecutive steps)?
This highly-rated recipe for Penne al'arrabiata calls for frying chilli, garlic and the basil leaves, then removing them from the pan, adding chopped tomatoes, then adding back chilli, garlic and the basil leaves.
What will I lose if I fry them separately: chilli, garlic and the basil leaves on one pan, and tomatoes on the other pan, then combine them? This will obviously be faster, but what's the downside? | The idea is that the oil where you fry the chili, garlic, and basil grabs their flavor and aroma. And then the tomatoes are fried in that flavorful oil, which ends up in a much deeper and tastier flavor overall, as the tomatoes combine with the flavors present in the oil.
If you do it separately the tomatoes won't grab as much flavor from the chili, garlic and basil and you'll get a blander result.
The other question one could ask is about why can't we leave the chili, garlic, and basil in the pan. And the reason for that is that they can burn if you fry them for too long. |
Should jalapeno slices go on the pizza pre or post oven?
I have bought a jar of sliced jalapenos, in an attempt to make a pizza simulating the ones I used to eat as a kid. This is the first time ever I see this product for sale to normal consumers.
Now I wonder if I should put the slices on the pizza BEFORE or AFTER it's gone into the oven. I fear that they might turn into disgusting, dry lumps of coal if I put them on before, but I'm not entirely sure that it's correct to put them on when the pizza is already done (has been in the oven).
I have a feeling that the right answer is that they go on after the oven, but I want to make sure before I ruin my pizza tomorrow.
I can't recall what they used to do in the pizzeria, but from what I can remember (which is quite foggy), the jalapeno slices on the pizzas I used to buy after my "paper boy" route was done seemed very "preserved", as in, most likely not cooked inside the oven. I suspect that they simply sprinkled them on after the pizza has come out of the oven. | I agree I would definitely put them on before, I don’t know of any place that puts them on after. They would just fall of the slice and be annoying. I don’t think the baking would ruin the jalapeños at all they’re pickled so they’re pretty moist, but I guess it’s possible you might prefer them slightly more “raw” but I would be pretty surprised if you did especially since you chose canned which is already very cooked. I say give it a shot putting them on before they will very likely not turn into charcoal they’re not a super thin herb. |
How can I make corn tortillas as thin as store bought?
From watching videos and going to local Mexican restaurant, it seems the tortillas are much thinner than how I am able to get them when I try to make them at home.
Should I be pressing harder all the way down? It feels like there's a limit to how much I can press before it starts sticking to the paper too much, is it possibly a problem with the dough consistency?
I use Masa Harina and follow Rick Bayless' video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRwMu9ERCKk | There are a variety of reasons your tortillas might be thicker than you'd like. My first tip to you is to line your tortilla press with a thick plastic sheet on each side instead of paper; I use a circle cut from a freezer bag. This makes it easier to peel thinner tortillas loose.
Beyond that, some troubleshooting:
Flour consistency: grainier doughs, such as those made from hand-ground hominy, can't be pressed as thin as ones made from very fine ground masa harina. I've made tortillas from our local Oaxacan market's masa para tamales, and those are pretty chubby because of the coarse grain.
Dough consistency: if your dough is too sticky you won't be able to press it thin without it sticking hopelessly. If it's too dry it'll be too stiff to press thin, or will crack. It takes some practice to get exactly the right consistency.
That aside: enjoy your thick tortillas! Those are actually a legit tortilla style, and they help keep your taco from soaking through and coming apart. |
What mill would you recommend to grind allspice?
I recently buy allspice berries thinking that IKEA grinders could grind it. However, the berry is just too large to this mill.
What type of mill or grinding appliance should I be looking for when I need to grind allspice? | I use a mortar and pestle without any problems. It also works for other spice seeds and is good for garlic, basil, etc. |
Dealing with excess liquid in a rice dish
I was making hoppin' john and realized I added too much chicken stock relative to the rest of my ingredients -- 8 cups instead of 6. When I reached the point where I would otherwise take the pot off the burner and let it sit for 5 minutes, then fluff the rice and serve ... well at that point I had a soup.
I tried doing what I would do if I ended up with too much liquid when making rice: I spooned off the excess liquid and let it simmer uncovered on low for 5 minutes; then let it sit, fluffed it, etc. The end result still ended up a lot wetter than I'd like; the rice was more like a gloopy risotto than anything close to dry, distinct grains. The taste didn't seem to be affected.
Is there a better way of dealing with an "oh shucks, everything's cooked but I have excess liquid" situation when cooking a dish like this? I found that spooning the excess liquid off was quite difficult, I kept scooping up little bits of stuff that I'd otherwise rather stayed in the dish like beans or rice grains or bits of onion.
(For those unfamiliar, hoppin' john is basically stewed black-eyed peas and rice. Fry up some salt pork, onions, and garlic; add peas, ham, red and black pepper, cook for an hour; add rice, simmer 20 minutes until tender; rest 5 minutes, fluff with fork. Variations/family derivatives abound.) | This kind of meal is something which my grandmother would typically prepare in the oven. If you make it there, in a wide and flat casserole dish (the depth should be 2-3 cm) at not too high a temperature, you can easily leave it inside until the water has evaporated completely, without fear of burning. It will take a long time to happen, but that is acceptable and even desirable in an oven stew.
If you insist on doing it on stovetop, using a sieve would be much easier than spooning. If you don't have a large sieve that can do it in a few batches, you can also try a colander, catching the liquid with all the rice falling through the holes, and then pouring the liquid through a smaller sieve to retrieve the rice. Also make sure to catch at least some liquid, so your dish won't burn when you return it to the stovetop. Let it cook a little bit. It probably won't taste exactly like the original, since the waterlogged rice kernels will stay wetter than usual after a short heating, but it will be a solid dish and not a soup. |
How to make vegan mayo with soy lechitin, oil and water without failing
I have soy lecithin with me. How do I blend this with water and oil to make vegan mayonnaise? I have tried a lot of times but every time I get a thin oily watery stuff.
The procedure is-
1)Mix 2 tbsp lecithin with 3 tbsp water.
2)Add the mixture with 1 tbsp oil and mix in the blender.
3)Repeat step 2 four times.
No matter how much oil I add, it doesn't work. When I use homemade soymilk instead of water+lecithin, it works. | When you add soy lecithin to your water-oil mixture and agitate it, it only helps to combine oil and water but does not give it the consistency of egg-based mayonnaise. It's way more fluid/watery. This video explains the chemical process behind this emulsion and gives you an idea of how this mix would look like and why. If you are really interested in the chemistry behind it.
To give your vegan mayo the body and stability of egg-based mayo when mixing it, you would need to add a base like vegetable or tofu when mixing soy lecithin, oil, and water.
The Soya milk works as it contains natural emulsifiers which bind the oil to make it nice and fluffy and mayo-like.
I found this blog post very helpful when making vegan mayo with a friend for the first time. The eggplant really does the trick! |
What is "layering flavors"? What does it accomplish and how do I do it?
Recently I've been into cooking videos and tutorials and something that stands out to me is this concept of "layering flavors" that some chefs use when they add ingredients.
Example:
We're only sweating the onion, afterwards we'll add some garlic and that way we'll have a nice base layer to work with, remember its all about layering flavors
What? What does that mean? How is layering flavors going to help? Is it going to change taste as you chew? Or is it just a fancy way of saying it’s going to have a bit of added taste and it’s going to be wonderful?
And how do I do it? The only thing I see is people adding ingredients to a sauce and cooking them in some way. | It is mostly a fancy way of saying that they are combining flavors. There are no solid, physical layers involved anywhere.
Still, there is a reason why the "layering" metaphor is more apt than simply saying "combining". Flavor is mostly about aroma, which leads to two aspects of "layering".
First, aroma is not perceived all at once when you bite off. You first notice the most volatile smell notes when the food enters your mouth, go through a kind of "middle" and only at the end, while swallowing, you notice the "heavier" flavor. So, when seasoning, you can work with food such that you don't mix up too many flavors in one of the three aroma "layers", but also to make sure that there is something noticeable in each of the three.
Second, people are accustomed to some flavors being present as a metaphorical "background" taste. It can happen that, if the expected aroma is absent, you can add all the spices you want, and the eater will still experience it as underseasoned. This is what is happening in the example you cited: the "base layer" are the onion and garlic, which are probably the standard for the dish, and then you can take that dish in different directions by your choice of additional herbs and spices. In that case, you can see the metaphor as akin to clothing - once you have a basic shirt on, you can always make the outfit nicer by layering a scarf, jacket or jewelry on top of it.
All in all, it is not "all about layering flavors". It is just an expression which helps some cooks go about creating harmonious flavor combinations. If it works for you, use it. If not, learn to think about your seasoning in other terms. |
How can I dispose of garlic remnants without making the bin smell?
If I use a garlic press, there is a remnant of crushed garlic which needs to be disposed of. However, I usually find that this then makes the whole bin (trash can) smell of garlic until I empty it, which can be several days to a week later. (This isn't an issue with the smell lingering on other items; once the bin bag is gone the smell is gone too.)
Is there anything I can do with the garlic remnant to stop this from happening? | One option is to stop using the garlic press. This is a tool that results in the waste that you describe, plus it takes time to clean after use. Instead, just use a knife. With a chef's knife, for example, you can slice, chop, mince, or crush (more options than a garlic press!). The advantages are many. First, you can prep your garlic in a variety of ways. The flavor and aroma garlic adds to a dish can be greatly controlled by how it is prepared. Then, you only have the peel to dispose of, and the knife can simply be washed off. |
How to neutralize spicy vapors if inhaled during cooking to stop nostril burning sensation and coughing?
Yesterday I did something wrong when adding some pepper flakes into an extremely hot pan with oil. The air around me instantly got spicy, and everyone standing in my kitchen or within its vicinity started tearing up and coughing. I believe I inadvertently created a pepper spray effect, and my nose and throat began to sting. Is there something I can ingest or do to relieve the pain immediately? Is there something I can apply inside my nostrils to alleviate the burning sensation? | I get the same situation repeatedly when preparing stir fry. Fragrant dry spices (like red pepper flakes) intensify in flavor when roasted in hot oil for a short (!) amount of time, lest they burn.
To circumvent the peppery air that can be quite unpleasant if you're not used to it, you could:
not add pepper flakes or other highly aromatic compounds into hot oil at all, but toss them in later with other ingredients that "catch" them, or omit them completely (if you want spiciness that's a bit of a useless answer though)
reduce the temperature of your skillet to medium heat or so; not really that good an answer if you are cooking a wok-style meal that needs the intense heat to quickly fry stuff
turn up your exhaust hood to the maximum; additionally, open a window in your kitchen
gas mask ;-)
But I am not aware of anything that can really draw the peppery vapors out of the air in your kitchen. |
Is a partially translucent banana safe to cook with?
I let my bananas get very ripe prior to making banana bread with them. This time one of the bananas had become translucent at the top towards the stem. See attached photo. Is this banana still safe to cook with? I would chop off the translucent part and bit use the remaining non-translucent banana for cooking. | The whole thing, including the translucent part is fine to cook with.
As they ripen, fruits convert their starches to sugar. Starch isn’t water soluble, but sugar is. So as ripening happens, the sugar dissolves into the moisture of the ripe banana, giving it that translucent appearance. Additionally, as bananas ripen they deploy enzymes to weaken their usually firm cell walls, so that is why bananas soften over time.
That’s also why super ripe bananas are actually much sweeter and great for cooking/baking. This banana looks great for banana bread to me! |
How many grams is "1 can" of beans?
There is a recipe for bean burgers which I am trying to make.
The recipe calls for 1 can of beans.
First of all, bean cans are typically measured in milliliters.
Second of all, they come in various sizes.
For instance
398 ml can,
540 ml can
I know that I should not use the liquid from the can, but how many grams of drained beans should I use? | In my experience, a 400 gram can of beans contains about 240 grams of drained beans. That will vary slightly by the type of bean. |
What is the point of frying and then poaching a sausage?
This recipe calls for first frying the sausage until fully cooked and then poaching it in pasta water. Many other pasta recipes from this vendor use similar technique.
What is the goal here? Is it to improve the texture of meat, imbue it with some "pasta" taste or make kale taste meaty? Is it important to use "starch" water? | It would certainly taste fine if you simply poached the sausage, but frying first creates an environment for the Maillard reaction, and caramelization. These two effects create desirable flavors, which both enhance the sausage, and, in the case the entire dish. |
When a recipe calls or 1/2 cup of raisins, should the raisins be packed or not packed?
You can get more raisins into a 1/2 cup if you pack them tightly.
So, when a recipe calls for 1/2 cup of raisins, should I loosely pour them into the cup measurer, or pack them tight? | If the writer has chosen not to mention this, it implies that either it doesn't matter (most likely, for example if the exact amount of raisins is a matter of taste), or it's badly written, in which case all bets are off.
I did an experiment using British style sultana raisins (which are slightly different from US sultanas) and a 200ml cup. I found that 1 cup of loosely packed raisins was 120g and tightly packed was 155g. So for a 118ml ½ cup, loosely packed raisins would be 71g and tightly packed raisins would be 91g.
For comparison the website linked in another answer gives 80g for a half-cup The variation of -9/+11g would hardly be noticeable in a fruit cake.
Raisins, are a natural product and will vary depending on the variety of grape used, some will be slightly sweeter, or more acid. So even if you use exactly 80g, you will get some variation in result.
So for ½ cup of raisins you are free to pack them in, if you like a slightly more raisin-y mixture, or not if you don't. You are also free to use 80g on the scales, or go crazy and see what the result of using ¾ cup in the recipe. It probably won't be a disaster. |
Why can't I keep chicken in the refrigerator for more than 2 days when the supermarkets can
So I have this raw chicken breast that I haven't opened (sealed shut in the original plastic container) in my refrigerator for 5 days now and there is still 2 days until the expiry date printed on the label. Also note that, when I bought it from the supermarket they were keeping it in a normal refrigerator, not a freezer.
So my question is, if we're not supposed to keep chicken in the refrigerator for more than 2 days, how can supermarkets keep it in a refrigerator and sell it until the expiry date? | If your chicken remained below 40F (4.5C), and in its sealed package, the expiry is valid, regardless of whose refrigerator it is in. Any time in the danger zone (between 40 and 140F or 4.5 and 60C) reduces your window, and could reduce it dramatically depending on the temperature and time. If you have 2 days left, and you have kept it refrigerated, I would use it or freeze it. |
Is my wild yeast starter a throwaway or salvageable?
I followed this YouTube video to make a wild yeast starter. My intention is to use them for making bread, hamburger buns, and maybe even try them out in a 1-gallon experimental homebrew!
The TLDR; of that video is:
Mix 3 tbsp flour + 3 tbsp pineapple juice into a mason jar and lightly cover
Whisk every few hours for the first 24 hrs
Then, starting at the 24-hr/1-day mark, add another mixture of 3 tbsp flour + 3 tbsp distilled water every day, for 4 more days
By the end of the 5th day, you should have a vigorous yeast starter, foaming with lots of bubbles
So I followed this and I am now on Day 5, and I see 2 problems:
Although I do see lots of tiny bubbles on the surface of the starter, and it smells doughy/malty/toasty, it doesn't look as "bubbly" as the mason jar on that video. It looks like I'm not even half-way to where the jar in that video was at by Day 5. So I'm not sure if my yeast is activated enough to be useful for baking.
Every time I added flour + water, I mixed it in, and accidentally scraped/wiped the fork off on the inside of the jar, above the starter. So over the course of a few days, there's been "wipe off residue" clinging to the side of the jar several inches about the starter. Well, I am now seeing little bits of mold forming on the wipe off (that my fork left behind), which got caked on to the upper part of the jar. I'm guessing this happened because, whereas there's enough yeast down in the starter to fight off any bacterial/mold infection, there's not enough of it up on the caked on "wipe off" parts higher up in the jar. So mold is being allowed to form up there. Not much, but visible.
So I ask:
How can I tell when I have either enough yeast, or enough "active" yeast to use for baking, and is it safe to transfer the non-infected (not moldy) starter from my one mason jar to another, clean one? | Mold: wipe it off. It is not dangerous once your starter reaches its healthy acidic state… that can take more than 5 days.
Incidentally, if you neglect your starter on the counter for a week, it can start to stink… you can resuscitate it by dumping 3/4 of it or more, and adding clean flour and water, and build up a healthy starter with the right bacteria. It is very low maintenance.
As for no bubbles: Try to use an unbleached flour, whole wheat flour, or some flour that might have some existing natural yeast and bacteria. Don’t use all purpose flour, it may be too clean.
My starters have taken a week or more to start from scratch. Just keep going. And also, the consistency of your starter will depend on how much water you add. I add only 50% water each time I feed, and so my starter is pasty, not soupy, and I can only tell how active it is by how tall it is.
How can i tell if I have enough yeast?:
One test is to drop a spoonful of the unmixed, fresh out of the jar, starter into a glass of water. If it floats, it is ready.
The way I normally tell is by height: each time i feed it, i throw away half, add fresh flour and water, and mark the height with a rubber band. Then, when it doubles (room temp affects duration), I know it is ready. |
Rice finger rule for figuring water quantity
I've seen some videos where people recommend the "finger rule" (as opposed to measuring) when figuring out how much water to put in a pot to boil rice. However, the explanations are pretty vague. Can someone explain this? | Put your rice in a pan. Spread out the rice to it is evenly spread out in the pan. Put the tip of your index finger on top of the rice and then add water until the water level is at the first knuckle of your finger.
Personally I don't use that technique, if you don't pay enough attention the rice might burn, but this is the idea. I usually just throw in too much water and get rid of the left-over water afterwards. |
I want to make straight spaghetti
I want my spaghetti to lie straight and flat on the plate. How will I cook the noodles without getting them all tangled up? Can I bake them in a bread pan with sauce and meat? | To add to the existing answer. The easiest method would probably be to bake the spaghetti.
If you cook the spaghetti in a casserole in the oven instead of cooking them in a pot of water, they get less tangled and stay straight. You can take them out with a spatula which should help them stay in shape.
I found this article/recipe that follows a couple of simple steps to make baked spaghetti without stirring them (so that they don't get tangled up) and also provides a picture of the result.
Coat the spaghetti with olive oil. Since you will not cook the
spaghetti before placing it in the baking dish (added: and put them
straight into the casserole and not toss or turn them during the
process), it’s important to coat the spaghetti with olive oil to
make sure it doesn’t stick together while baking in the oven.
Salt the spaghetti before it bakes (added: and add the other ingredients). Just as it’s important to add salt
when cooking spaghetti traditionally, it’s the same idea when baking
spaghetti. Add the salt right to the pasta in the beginning for best
flavor.
Make sure to use enough liquid for the spaghetti. These one pan meals
can be tricky to measure the right amount of liquid for pasta. But in
general 4 ounces of pasta will take about 1 cup of liquid. I like it a
little saucier, so I use 5 cups of liquid for 16 ounces of pasta. A
good rule of thumb is to make sure there is enough liquid to cover the
pasta in the baking dish. |
Why does peanutbutter become dry when mixed with orange zest and juice?
Last night I mixed some peanut butter (consisting only of peanut and peanut oil) with some orange zest and raisins. After adding the orange zest the peanut butter became too dry to my liking so I gave the orange a good squeeze. Much to my surprise the peanut butter became even dryer!
I tried searching this online but failed, I presume because I don't have the slightest clue which attributes of the peanut butter and the orange are at play here.
Why does peanut butter become dry when mixed with orange?
PS Adding a couple of tbs's of extra oil fixed it and thankfully the raisins caused no extra surprises. I have some yummy but slightly dry peanut butter in the cupboard. | Peanut butter is a suspension of ground peanuts meal in oil. Adding water (juice is a water based solution...) to that would cause a phase separation of the oil and water. I suspect that during this process, the oil will generate a bunch of fine droplets that can no longer hold the peanut meal in suspension, and result in it crashing out and becoming a dry mass.
One way to prevent this would be to stir small amounts of the water into the oil to create an emulsion. This is similar to the process for making mayonnaise, where the emulsion is between oil/egg yolk and an acidic water based solution, often vinegar or lemon juice. |
Is there some "trick" to be able to eat jalapeños without getting an "upset stomach"?
As a young teenager, I used to eat pizzas full of jalapeños and Tabasco on them, and very much enjoyed the spicy taste. In my mid-to-late 20s, I started feeling really sick when I ate these, even though at that point, it was far more infrequent.
Now, in my post-35 age, I tried making a pizza at home with jalapeños (no Tabasco) on it for the first time in a long time, and the eating experience was indescribably good. As in, it turned the entire pizza into a completely different dish; from something rather bland into an explosion of taste in my mouth! This is what pizza is supposed to be like! Wow! I immediately told myself that I'm going to buy those little glass jars with jalapeño slices in them every time I make pizza from now on...
Of course, X hours later, the next day, I "paid" for this lovely eating experience in the bathroom. What a nightmare. The less details I give about this, the better. You can probably imagine the kind of pain. I became completely sick and felt horrible for the longest time, shaking and freezing, lasting days. Clearly, my body is no longer able to handle/process the jalapeños, which couldn't make me more sad.
I don't remember ever having any such problems whatsoever as a kid, or even until my (roughly) mid-20s. Possibly it's related to stress-induced internal stomach wounds or something.
Is there something -- anything -- that can be done in order to allow me to eat these wonderful jalapeño pizzas yet not suffer that kind of torture afterwards? As fantastic as the taste was, I simply cannot justify putting myself through it again, knowing what it results in afterwards. | Well... First of all, no. As alluded to in a comment, as one gets older, one's digestive system tends to be less accepting of what one puts in it.
Nevertheless, "the dose makes the poison". You probably can't eat an inch-deep layer of jalapeños on your pizza anymore, but that doesn't mean you can't have an "explosion of taste".
For one thing: Pickled jalapeños aren't just spicy. They're also vinegary and salty. And if I had to pick out what about a jalapeño pizza makes for an "explosion of taste", I'd actually rank the vinegar above the spiciness. Now, brands of pickled jalapeños also vary quite widely in spiciness, and in vinegariness. So if you could find a brand that was quite vinegary, and not as spicy (relative to the vinegar), you'd likely regret things less the next day.
The other thing to consider is that when you eat the pizza you mostly taste the outside of the jalapeño; but your intestine is tasting the whole thing. Thick pieces of jalapeño, with a low surface-to-volume ratio, won't be much more taste-explodey than thin ones, but they will be more other-things-explodey. As an extreme example, if you swallowed a whole jalapeño without even chewing, it wouldn't taste that spicy... but you'd still pay as though it was. So consider mincing the jalapeños up. For that matter, consider sprinkling some of the jalapeño brine on the pizza after cooking. |
Is it possible to use wood chips on an electric grill to get a more smoky flavour?
There's a ton of content out there about smoking meat on a gas grill using a smoker box, or even gas BBQs that come with a built-in smoker box. Is the same possible with an electric grill?
If so, what's the best way to achieve a good, smoky flavour on an electric grill? I imagine it'll always be lacking in some part compared to gas or charcoal, but can it come close? | There are electric smokers available. Whether a particular electric grill is suitable depends on the grill, but I don't think there is a reason not to try an aluminium foil pouch of wood chips on it. In fact, here is a site describing how to use an electric grill for that purpose. |
Riddle: Deciphering (likely) wrong Nutritional Info
I bought some "Keto-Ice Cream" a few days ago, and I have been since questioning the trustworthiness of its Nutritional Facts. I would like some help to decipher them, as there is either something I am missing, or they are simply wrong.
First, these are the ingredients as written in the packaging (in the same order).
Cocoa Ice Cream: Water, Erythritol, Polydextrose, Low-fat Cocoa Powder (7%), Sunflower Oil, Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Locust Bean Gum, Guar Gum, Carrageenan, Sunflower Lecithin.
And this is the corresponding Nutritional Table (both for 100g of product).
Name
Value
Energy
34Kcal
Fat
6g
- of which Saturated
1.3g
Protein
10g
Carbohydrates
15g
- of which sugars
<0.5g
- of which polyols
13.5g
Fiber
11g
Looking at these, I think that at least one of the following statements is correct:
The ingredients are wrong (either in their order, or in the actual items)
The Energy (KCal) is wrong
The macronutrients values are wrong
MY QUESTIONS:
How is the reported "Energy" value possible with the given macronutrients?
Looking at the ingredients, how are the reported macronutrients values possible?
For instance, the nutritional facts reports 6g of fat, and since 1g of fat = 9Kcal, then this macronutrient alone should provide 54KCal, which is already above the reported value (34 KCal). I even question the validity of 6g of fats in the finished product by going over the ingredients: the only ingredients in that list that contain fat are the cocoa powder (which only amounts to 7% of the finished product, and low-fat cocoa powder has less than 20% fat) and the sunflower oil (which, being mentioned AFTER the cocoa powder, must be less than 7% of the whole product despite being 100% fat). Hence, unless the Sunflower Oil represents, say, 6% of the product, then I do not understand how it is possible for the finished product to have 6g of fat.
The same can be said for the Protein value: 10g of protein=40KCal>34KCal. And how are 10g of protein possible from those ingredients?
ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS assuming that either the nutritional table or the ingredient list are wrong:
what should be a (possible) Nutritional Table if the ingredients are correct?
what should be the (possible) ingredients list if the Nutritional Table is correct? | Your interpretation of the label is right, and so is your conclusion: the information of the label is internally inconsistent. The given calorie count is incompatible with the given nutrient composition.
From here, no other conclusions can be made, and your further subquestions are unanswerable. Any part of the information given could be wrong, and there is no way to say which one. |
Can I freeze cinnamon buns in unbaked roll form
We’re traveling with friends and wanted to make cinnamon buns. I feel the most convenient approach would be to freeze the entire roll, then cut it while frozen when we arrive, then letting it rise. However nobody seems to take this approach when I researched the question. Typically you cut it then freeze, or parbake. | You can certainly freeze it in roll form, but it will be virtually impossible to cut while still frozen*. You'd need to completely thaw the roll in the refrigerator, slice, and then rise in a pan.
It would be far easier to slice and freeze. You can always reassemble the roll with the slices separated by parchment paper if you want to transport it as a roll. You can then separate them and they will thaw faster and rise more evenly.
I personally prefer to transport it as a tray (I use aluminum trays when I do this because I often make and freeze several trays at a time) so I can just pull it from the freezer and then let thaw, rise and bake. They pack more efficiently as well.
*They do this in some commercial settings, but it requires industrial power tools (usually bandsaws made for cutting through bone) |
/nhuman: How long should Bolognese sauce be stored in the fridge?
We made a big batch of Bolognese sauce (ground beef, tomatoes, veggies) and are wondering if we should store part of it in the freezer and eat the other part over the next week.
What is the optimal time to store cooked Bolognese in the fridge? | You might see some improvement with the flavors melding if it spends a day in the fridge.
But after more than a couple of days, you start to get into the questionable food safety / food poisoning risk territory.
You also risk getting burned out on it, and wanting some more variety in your diet if you have it day after day.
If it were me, I’d try to keep at most 2-3 days worth in the fridge, and freeze the rest. If it gets to day three, and you haven’t finished it off by then, I would use it in a lasagne or some other casserole, rather than trying to add what’s in the freezer. |
Is it safe to drink Lipton green tea (tea bag) that has a production date of November 2018?
I have Lipton green tea that has a production date: October 2018. The box has 4 plastic bags, each contain 20 tea bags inside. Haven't open any of it...Is it safe to consume? If yes, when is the best time to consume a green tea? Thanks in advance... | Yes it is safe,
At worse it'll not have the freshest taste possible, but it will be OK. |
Exploding shelled egg in microwave
My partner, dissatisfied with raggedy poached eggs, found an alternative method. Most likely on Facebook :P
Break an egg into a glass, add a little water, microwave until cooked.
The first attempt resulted in perfectly shaped, but particularly unsatisfying, part cooked eggs with runny whites.
Today I thought I would have a go, nuking them for a bit longer.
Four eggs, four glasses, a bit of water in each. I opened the door to check after 1:30 and it wasn't quite enough to cook all the white. I added 10 seconds and as I opened the door to check, hilarity struck with a loud pop, including all over me.
What might have caused an egg to explode?
I have a couple of theories
The white at the top cooked and formed a seal, the rest of the egg expanded below it
The membrane around the yolk was strong enough to hold until the pressure got too much (unlikely I think) | Oh lordy. You're lucky you didn't get hurt. Ann Reordan did a good video about these microwave egg hacks. The segment with her many experiments starts around 6:00. (other hacks/myths are at the beginning and end of the video.)
https://youtu.be/vdaKrT9x1Zc
Short version: it's speculated that the microwave super-heats the interior of the egg and the internal steam pressure causes the explosion. Occasionally eggs will also pop dramatically in a frying pan, but not as often. |
How to cook orzo in oven?
A while ago I had an orzo dish in a restaurant, where the Orzo had been cooked in the oven together with vegetable stock, garlic, herbs, and cherry tomatoes. The waiter said that the trick is to put the raw Orzo into the hot olive oil with garlic and top it up with the liquid to cook it directly in the oven.
I tried to re-cook the dish but unfortunately, the orzo had either been too cooked/ sticky or not cooked through or got hard on the top.
I tried to find similar recipes online but the orzo always seems to be precooked or cooked in tomato sauce.
What would be the right liquid/orzo scale to cook orzo in the oven? | For most preparations the ratio is 1 cup of orzo - 3 cups of water. But if you want it al dente, the ratio is 1 to 2 and a half, while if you want it very soft, it is 1 to 3 and a half. |
Do dried peppermint leaves lose flavor quickly in cooking?
I'm trying to figure out at which stage of cooking should I add finely chopped dried pepppermint leaves to get some minty flavor in my cooking...
I tried a few times and all I get is the smell of mint but not the flavor, so I wonder if I been adding them in the wrong stage.
So do dried pappermint leaves lose flavor quickly while in cooking? | Generally speaking, music is a useful metaphor for this situation. In most cases, I think of dried herbs as bass notes. The deep, underlying flavor/aroma. Often dried herbs are added earlier in the cooking process, so that have a chance to rehydrate and contribute those underlying flavors to the dish. On the other hand fresh herbs are more frequently the provider of those bright, clean, high notes, especially when added at, or very near the end of the process.
Resinous herbs (rosemary, thyme, oregano) have a higher concentration of volatile compounds than fine herbs (mint, basil, parsley). So, mint, when dried, doesn't hold its flavor and aroma as well as the resinous herbs. It has a lower concentration of volatile compounds to begin with. You probably are not going to get the fresh, minty flavor that you are imagining.
Your best solution, if you want minty flavor, is to use fresh mint. By the way, it's easy to grow, even indoors. If that is not an option, I would add the dried mint at the end of the cooking process. That will preserve what little volatile compounds are left until that final moments. |
How many grams is "1 package" of stuffing mix?
This meatloaf recipe video calls for 1 package of stove top stuffing mix.
Some stove top boxes are 170 grams
others are 120 grams
Is there a size that is more common than the others? | (IMO) I don't think it should make a huge difference in such a recipe.
The recipe you link use the chicken one which is 170g.
If you only have access to the other one (120g turkey) , just get 2 boxes and mix enough to make 170g.
To answer your question, they should both be more or less common in regular supermarket ? |
Technique for filling vacuum seal bags without getting any food on the rim
I really like my new Vacuum sealer. However, I am having a lot of trouble keeping the top part of the bag totally dry & clean while filling it. It is my assumption that a good seal requires a perfectly clean rim.
To bag meat, I eventually resorted to putting the meat in another bag, putting the bag in the Vacuum Sealer bag, and shaking until the meat dropped into the Vacuum Sealer bag. This failed because the bag I used to get the meat into the Vacuum Sealer bag sometimes smeared the rim while I pulled it out. I also tried folding over the top 2". This failed because it put folds into the top of the bag and because I still got food onto the rim.
I would like to hear from others how they fill the bags. I am hoping someone has figured out a way to do so conveniently that keeps the rim perfectly clean. | It's hard to answer without seeing what your bags look like or how rigid the material is, but often it's useful to fold the top of the bag outwards over itself. Putting the bag in a suitable container or cup can also help keep things stable whole you fill it. This also makes it easier to wipe up any traces of food that aren't where you want them.
If you search online for methods to fill a piping bag you'll see illustrations of the basic method I'm describing. |
How to make (vegan) cheese saltier?
I have recently been making some quick vegan cheeses such as paneer and halloumi with similar methods to making the dairy version of these cheeses. The process I'm following is roughly:
Blend softened/soaked nuts with water and strain to create a creamy plant milk.
Bring milk to the boil, then immediately remove from heat and add coagulant (lemon, vinegar, etc.).
Gather curds in cheese cloth and press/chill until firm enough.
That is typically followed by various types of brining/other cooking/etc. depending on the style of cheese.
The cheese has actually been coming out really well, but I feel lacks saltiness. I have tried things like covering in cheese salt for storage, brining, etc. but I find this hasn't really helped. I would like the actual cheese itself to be saltier. As I have only been using plant milk I'm not sure whether this lack of saltiness is something that also happens with dairy milk or not.
So how do I make my cheese saltier? Can I add a fine salt to the curds before pressing? Should I add salt to the milk before boiling (or will this hurt coagulation)? I'm not sure exactly where to start! | The primary way that cheesemakers create salty cheeses is brining. And cheese brine needs to be quite salty to be effective, as cheese, even vegan cheese, isn't that absorbent. The standard is a "fully saturated brine", which is roughly 22% salt (ignore the egg in that recipe, it's just a float test).
You might think that, for a less salty cheese, you'd use a less salty brine ... but that's not how it works. Instead, you control the saltiness by brining it for less time. If you use a less salty brine, you risk not having the cheese absorb salt at all.
So my advice is: make a fully saturated brine, and try brining your cheese for varying amounts of time up to three days.
You can also add salt to the curds before pressing; this is called milling the cheese, and is mainly used in making cheddar. While it does make the cheese saltier, the primary purpose of milling is to make the cheese denser and drier. Whether or not this would work for vegan cheese is an open question; I could not find any remarks about milling on any of the vegan cheese forums/blogs. So if you try milling, it will be an experiment (and you should publish it). |
Preserve crustiness/freshness of toasted bread
In long trips i.e. over 3 hours long, I take some toasted break with either pb&j or something inside e.g. slices of turkey etc (toasted).
I wrap them with aluminium foil and place them inside those transparent food bags/freezer bags we use to for placing items in a fridge.
The problem is that the toasted bread becomes very soggy.
Is there a way to prepare/wrap/store them that would be more fresh after few hours? | As has been stated, you are trapping moisture vapour. I don't think it is possible to perfectly preserve the texture of toast over a prolonged period, but you will improve matters by letting the toast fully cool before you construct your sandwich.
Edit: when cooling your toast it is helpful to prop it vertically rather than lying it down as the underside will still get soggy. A toast rack is the perfect way to do this, but you can also just prop the slices against each other like a little tent.
You may also consider wrapping your deli-meats and any salad items separately and only adding them to your sandwich when you are ready to eat.
Mayonnaise will also tend to make your toast soggy, particularly if you use a low-fat version with a higher water content. Butter/spread applied when the toast is cold should only have a minimal damping effect. |
Given that fat has a lower specific heat than water, why do meats with higher fat content take longer to cook?
Meats with a low fat content, like shrimp and chicken breast are often suggested to be cooked at a high temperature for a short period of time. However meats with a higher fat content, such as beef brisket and pork ribs, are often to suggested to be cooked low and slow. Oil has a lower specific heat than water which means it heats up faster. Given this, I would expect high fat meats to have shorter cook times. Why is it the reverse? | The cuts you are talking abut don't just have fat, they have collagen. Collagen requires long cooking in order to be converted to gelatin and stop the meat being tough and chewy, and to add that delicious richness to the cooking liquor and succulence to the meat. |
Can pickles be made in brine without sealing them in vacuum but kept in the refrigerator for a few weeks?
If you sterilize a glass container in boiling water, add cucumbers + spices with a 3.5% salinity brine and close the container without creating vacuum, can you let it pickle for a few days and then keep it refrigerated for consumption over the medium-term? Many of the recipes seem to either speak of preserving the vegetables or using vinegar, which gives a different flavor.
So what process would be safe using a regular container without special vacuum and for how long may the pickles be consumed? | A vacuum is not necessary for either quick pickles or lacto-fermented pickles. Pickles made with vinegar are usually in the "quick" or "refrigerator" pickle category. The brine flavors the vegetable. This type of pickle should be kept in the refrigerator and consumed within about a month, especially if you keep your fingers out of the jar (which, introduces a mold risk). Though, the vegetables often get mushy over time, and you may not enjoy that. Because these are "quick", I often only make what I will consume in about a week.
Lacto-fermented pickles are usually prepared at cool room temperature (or cellar temperature, as a wine analogy). Vegetables are placed in a brine (or in the case of cabbage, simply salted and allowed to create its own brine from the leached water). A vacuum is not necessary, but the fermentation takes place in the absence of oxygen, so the product should be submerged. This type of pickle has a longer shelf life given the salt and acidity produced in the fermentation process. They can remain at cellar temperature, though the fermentation will continue. Refrigeration can be used to slow the process and preserve the "sourness" that you like.
Almost any container can be used for either process, though glass is useful because it doesn't retain flavors/odors. |
When ingredients float to the top when deep fried is this an accurate indication they are cooked?
When deep frying sausages, chips, small pieces of coated chicken breast etc, a good rule of thumb seems to be when they are nicely browned and float to the top of the oil, that they are totally cooked through. The only exception to this seems to be anything coated in batter (especially with raising agents), which floats fairly quickly due to the trapped gasses.
Is this an accurate indication of the internal temperature and if so, what exceptions are there to this? | For foods that should not be consumed undercooked, no, floating is not a reliable mechanism for determining if the internal temperature of a food is within the safe zone. All it means is that a sufficient amount of water has been converted to steam and either trapped or expelled that the food has become more buoyant than oil.
Only really safe way to determine if the food is safe is to use a food thermometer. The good news is that cooking times in oil are very consistent. Once you know how long it takes to cook a piece of chicken of a given size, for example, if you maintain the oil temperature you can cook the rest of the chicken to be cooked. Always check the largest piece, and I recommend continuing to check the internal temperature of the largest piece in each batch though.
For food that can be eaten raw, usually they are cut into small enough pieces that you can use the external doneness to determine the internal doneness. |
Can I stack pots while cooking?
I have a one-burner induction cooktop and I use a stainless steel pot to cook various things, like rice and spaghetti. But I always get burnt rice or food stuck to the bottom of the pot, regardless of the heat level, and even if I put it on the lowest heat. It seems to me the reason could be the stainless steel pot has a very thin bottom. And I thought maybe I could solve this by cooking with another frying pan beneath the pot.
Is that a viable solution to my problem? Can I put the frying pan which has a thick bottom on the induction cooktop and stack the stainless pot on top of it? | I would not recommend it. The heat transfer is going to be abysmal, and "overheating" the empty pan to indirectly heat the pot is eventually going to damage the pan as well. Get a solid, heavy stainless pot; it doesn't need to be super expensive. Even the ones from IKEA's medium price tier are going to be okay. |
Do you know of a spinning plate for microwave?
I have a microwave oven that does not have a turntable. I have not had success finding something that will rotate my food to make food heat more evenly.
Does anyone have or know of such a product? | I think this is what you are looking for.
It's called a "micro-go-round", as you can see from the picture. Simply search for "spring loaded microwave turntable." |
Is there aroma transfer in wood fired ovens?
I love making pizza. And I've been reading this book "The Neapolitan Pizza", which is supposed to be, as they describe it in the subtitle, "a scientific guide about the artisanal process". I was fascinated by the amount of technical information available in there.
Though, I was in shock when I read the following, the authors were talking about wood fired ovens: "The concept of wood giving a particular aroma is false: there's no transfer of aromas from the wood to the pizza".
I remember getting some bread from a place called (now ironically) "Firehouse", great bakery. And I remember feeling this fantastic taste of a smoked delicacy in their loafs. Have I been fooled by my brain? I'd really expect that at least tiny particles of burnt wood and other chemicals from the smoke to somehow land on the baked good and give that a taste, why that doesn't happen? Or is the smoked flavour something different from the wood flavour? | The book is correct, for two reasons:
Wood-fired pizza ovens are not smokey, instead having very good draft in order to allow maximum hot fire burning.
A pizza is in a Neapolitan pizza oven for 60-100 seconds, which is not enough time for something to absorb smoke flavors, even if the oven were smokey.
The reason to use a wood-burning oven for your pizza is the intense heat of 450C or more, which is required for many Italian pizza types. That heat is harder to achieve in electric or gas ovens. If you get any flavor of wood at all, it would be only from any ash stuck to the oven floor.
However, where you noticed the smoke flavor was from bread, which cooks for up to an hour, in a much lower heat. Given that amount of time, a bit of smoke getting into the crust is a lot more possible. |
Over kneaded dough: what can I do with it?
I severly overkneaded my dough (I left it in the standmixer for over 45 minutes by accident).
What can I do with this? Can I use it for starter? Any other use-cases? | In addition to @rumtscho's answer, there is another option:
Dough that has active yeast in it can be used as a starter culture for future doughs. This is the method by which bakers used to propagate their yeasts before the advent of readily available dried or pure fresh yeast cultures. It goes under various names, such as poolish, biga and pate fermentee, though technically the poolish is higher hydration than the other two, so yours is more like a biga or pate fermentee.
Given that you are just at the kneading stage you would need to ferment ("rise" - though yours won't; it'll just go bubbly) the dough.
Then you can simply take some of the dough and add it to a fresh batch of ingredients. The amounts to add vary depending on what you actually want to do with the new bread and how fast you want it to rise.
You can also take this and divide it up into smallish amounts; 15 -- 30 ml (0.5 -- 1 oz) works well and freeze, then thaw for usage when needed. Silicone muffin/cupcake trays work well for this, as you can drop the mix in, freeze, then pop-out for storage in a bag.
There's some nice instructions here for how to use from fresh. For frozen the process is similar, just make sure that the "dough" is thawed and warm.
You will most likely have to play with the amount you use, but given the poor nature of the gluten in your current batch, I wouldn't go over about 25% of the total future bake. |
Why not stir the french press using a metal spoon?
I have a small French Press (roughly 220ml) that has the following written on it:
Always stir before pressing down, using a plastic or wooden spoon, not metal.
A metal spoon does not really damage the glass, so I assume there are other phsyics related reasons.
Symbolic picture demonstrating the stirring:
(Source: https://nmpinoncoffee.com/brew-guides/french-press)
Note:
The carafe is made of non-stain, heat-resistant borosilicate glass
The brew is to be stirred after at least 4 minutes
Why no metal spoon?
Is the metal having an effect on the coffe brew, like silver is having effects on some materials (like on sulfur)? | To expand on a couple of the comments:
A french press is a coffee system used to filter a suspension of coffee grounds out of (very hot) water and contain them at the bottom of the canister. In many cases the canister is made of glass. As the linked article says:
French presses with a glass carafe are an extremely fragile type of coffee maker, quicker to chip or break than most. In fact, brand instructions typically advise against using metal spoons when stirring so as not to damage the glass.
A metal spoon used without caution could easily cause minor chipping or scratching in the glass canister. While this might not seem like a problem, a french press is subjected to large temperature swings when the water is poured in. Temperature increases on glass cause thermal expansion of the glass, which subjects it to stresses, particularly where there is a temperature differential between different parts of the pot (e.g. hot bottom, cool top). These can cause minor chips and scratches to catastrophically fail.
In addition to this, during normal usage, the filter part of the press is plunged to collect and remove the coffee grounds from suspension. This results in some pressure being applied to the filter, especially if too much grounds are in the canister to be easily filtered out. The pressure on the filter is transferred to the liquid component. Liquids, are incompressible, which means that any pressure applied to them is directly transmitted to anything containing them. Under such pressures the chips/scratches could also cause failure of the glass. |
What happens when custard ingredients are reordered?
In the mathematics book How to Bake Pi by Eugenia Cheng in the chapter titled Sameness she mentions the making of custard. She explains that although custard has only three ingredients the order of how they are mixed together is important. In a more mathematical notation:
custard = (egg yolks + sugar) + milk doesn't equal egg yolks + (sugar + milk) = not custard.
So my question: What happens if we mix the sugar and milk first before whisking in the egg yolks, what is the result; and why do we not get custard?
Addendum: I appreciate I could simply try this experimentally, but I would prefer not to waste food unless I can then do something with the resulting mixture. If there is something I can do with the result, let me know too! | By and large, the statement in the book is wrong. You can certainly make custard with the second way of mixing.
I said "by and large", because the order is not completely arbitrary. It will be easier to make custard if you add sugar to the eggs first. This is because eggs are very prone to curdling when heated, and an egg+sugar mixture happens to be less curdle-prone. But this doesn't mean that the second method is wrong, it just requires more precise work in order to not fail. If you execute them properly, both methods will give you actual custard.
So the statement combination
custard = (egg yolks + sugar) + milk
egg yolks + (sugar + milk) = not custard.
is incorrect. The correct statements would be
(egg yolks + sugar) + milk = (custard OR curdled mass)
egg yolks + (sugar + milk) = (custard OR curdled mass).
Which result you get depends in both cases on the cook's skill and on a few external factors like precise temperature control. The contribution of the mixing order exists, but is relatively minor.
Without having read the book, I can only take a shot at the author's point from your description. Still, I think I get what she was trying to illustrate - not every way of mixing ingredients will give you the same dish. For example, in Ruhlman's classification of cake layer types, pound cake and sponge cake are made from the exact same ingredients in the exact same ratio, but with different mixing processes. Or you can stretch it further and note that making a crepe and filling it with Mornay sauce is not the same dish as mixing all ingredients in a blender from the start and baking cheesy pancakes.
If you want to experiment, just do it. Even if you fail, the result is perfectly edible. It just doesn't meet the expectations of people who want to eat professionally-made custard. (I say professionally made, because I know some families where the custard always gets overcooked, and they see it as normal and enjoy the dish fully). |
How can I unstick frozen fish/food quickly?
I have 3-4 kg size fish in my non-frost-free deep freezer. They always stick very hard to the base of the freezer and it takes me hours to get the fish out. I have to keep the freezer turned off, which affects other fish or food items.
Is there a way that I can get the fish out in a much shorter amount of time, so that I can thaw it outside of the freezer? | For the already-stuck fish: no, there is no way. Don't try to chisel them out, I've known somebody who damaged their freezer that way.
For any fish you will be placing there in the future: find a packaging material which will not stick to the freezer. Plastic bags are the most common way of doing it.
You also have to ensure that your freezer's bottom is dry. It is OK if it gathers a bit of loose frost over time, but there shouldn't be a big lake of frozen liquid on the bottom. If that has happened already (for example because you held in items which leaked, or because you defrosted it and didn't dry it before it froze again), you have to defrost the fridge until the complete lake is melted, then remove all the liquid, then let it freeze empty, without any food in it. Then package the food in liquid-proof packaging, and re-arrange it in the freezer. |
How can you convert Dried Seaweed into Roasted Nori, on a Frigidaire electric cook top?
My sister's Caucasian. We speak no Korean. We don't know the correct terminology, so I'm using pictures for clarity. He's leasing an apartment that has merely a Frigidaire 30'' Electric Cooktop like this, no oven.
He loves Roasted Nori. Every week, he visits his Korean supermarket to buy them.
One of the cashiers saw from his membership card that she buys much seaweed. His English was broken and rudimentary. As my sister heard, he vouched that making nori at home is cheaper and easier. He recommended these two different packs of Ito-Wakame Dried Seaweed, and she bought them both. But after opening the packages, sister doesn't know what to do! Help please! | First, that's not the right seaweed for making nori, and second it's unlikely that your sister actually wants to make nori by hand.
Nori is made from Porphyra yezoensis and closely related seaweeds, which are not used for any other culinary purpose, and thus rarely sold in stores in forms other than nori. That seaweed, Wakame, is Undaria pinnatifida, a completely different species with very different texture and use. It's usually used for soups and salads. You'll have to ask the cashier how to turn that into nori, because there's certainly no information on doing so online. I strongly suspect that this was a communication failure.
Even with the right seaweed, making nori is a labor-intensive process that requires special equipment. I'm also dubious that it would actually be cheaper than buying nori sheets.
What your brother-in-law can do, that might save some money and would certainly save storage space, is buy "raw" nori in 20-to-100-packs and roast it on the stove himself. No oven required; nori is normally roasted over a burner on the stove. |
What is the milk in Bratwurst for?
I'm looking at making homemade kosher bratwurst and I picked up this book to get a general idea of the recipes. I was surprised to find that many of the brat recipes call for either one cup of cream or one ounce of powdered milk per 5 pounds of meat. Many recipes online also call for dry milk but I haven't seen an explanation.
What is dairy doing for these recipes? If it's just for flavor I could omit it, but I'm worried it adds something important to the recipe. If that's the case, I'm interested in finding a suitable substitute. | None of the DIY-Bratwurst recipes I know over here (Germany) contains milk or cream (although in general we love milk and add it almost everywhere :-) ).
The general composition is always meat (lean + fatty to arrive at 20 - 30 % fat), spices (salt, pepper, herbs, possibly garlic). Homemade Bratwurst usually avoids adding water/ice, and also avoids starchy components - they are mostly seen as cheap components to dilute the Bratwurst in commercial settings.
OTOH, a friend with milk allergy always asks specifically when buying ready-made Bratwurst to be on the safe side, and told me they sometimes contain milk/cream.
The Austrian Codex Alimentarius lists milk as possible ingredient only with very few sausage types. (And in general is more concerned with limiting the amount of water and starch in commercial Bratwurst)
The predominant meat for Bratwurst over here is pork, which is rather fat compared to other meats (also Speck is often added to Bratwurst that uses lean non-pork meats such as game).
If you have looked for pork-free Bratwurst recipes, the required amount of fat needs to come from somewhere and that may be the reason for e.g. adding cream as an easily availabe non-pork source of animal fat (maybe try goose fat?). |
How to avoid shrinking bread loaf after baking?
I'm having a hard time making bread loaf at home. My breads after coming out of the oven always shrink. Here's the recipe I used:
320g flour (because I didn't have bread flour so I replaced with 315g all-purpose flour 11.5% + 6g gluten)
160g water
40g heavy cream
20g sugar
5g salt
5g instant yeast
30g unsalted butter
I baked in a pullman loaf pan 2.5 liters, 175°C 30 minutes. I tried to raise the temperature or bake longer, but in both cases, the bread crust was too thick and it still shrinked a bit at the side.
Can everyone share tips to avoid shrinking bread loaf after baking?
Edit: Here's the recent bread I made. It shrinks at the top, one side and a bit at the bottom | Looking at your method and recipe, a number of factors could be at play here. I have baked many loaves without the butter and cream in an open top bread tin, and have never experienced shrinkage, quite the opposite in fact.
First of all, the dairy components will lead to a much softer "Milk bread" consistency in comparison to a "Traditional" loaf. This will mean the texture is much lighter and more delicate, so when all the steam has evaporated from the bread, as it cools it will naturally shrink as it is not as rigid as traditional bread. Secondly, the bread is partially steamed being inside an enclosed Pullman tin. This will have a major influence on the texture and density as well.
What you want to achieve is for the bread to "Set" as quickly as possible, yet maintaining the delicate soft texture. In a commercial environment, this is done using flour improvers etc. You haven't mentioned how you prepared the dough, hand kneeding and using a food mixer will also have different impacts on the end result. Pre-rise time will also have an affect, as will using a pre-fermented poolish etc. All of these will affect the crumb size and texture to some degree though.
You could try removing the lid 5-10 minutes before taking the bread out the oven to let some of the steam to escape. I'd also be tempted to use full fat milk rather than heavy cream, as this may contributing to the shrinkage. |
Should I absolutely prepare raw chilled vacuum-packed meat immediately after opening?
When you open a pack of raw chilled (not frozen) vacuum-packed meat, should you prepare the whole pack once it's opened? Can you prepare some of it when you open it and prepare the rest later or is this not safe? | The food safety rules for safety-atmosphere-packed meat (it is not under vacuum) are the same as for classically packed or unpacked meat. Once you open the package, you get 3-5 days in the fridge for whole pieces of meat and 1-2 days for ground meat. Please see How long can I store a food in the pantry, refrigerator, or freezer? for a list of "how long does it last" for most food types.
The difference goes in the other direction. As long as you haven't opened it, what counts is the date printed on the package, which usually gives you more time than the 3-5 days for unpacked meat. |
When marbling cake, can density of chocolate cake impact the rising of the vanilla cake?
I have specific bakers who I really love their recipes for different kinds of cake - for example Stella Parks. Because she doesn't have a recipe for a marble cake, I'm trying to decide whether I'll be successful when trying to marble two of my favorites of her cakes.
Some of the concerns I have relate to density of batter - for example, a chocolate cake that's more fudgy/dense might prevent a lighter vanilla cake from rising properly. The two recipes I'm looking at are found on the Serious Eats website - Chocolate, vanilla. I've created a table below with the amounts of primary ingredients for comparison purposes, as a note, both recipes are supposed to be for a three-layer cake:
Ingredient
Chocolate
Vanilla
Flour
9 oz all purpose 3 oz cocoa powder
16 oz all purpose
Sugar
16 oz light brown
16 oz granulated
Butter
12 oz
8 oz
Liquid
12 oz coffee 6 oz chocolate, melted
16 oz whole milk
Eggs
6 large, cold 3 yolks, cold
3 large, room temp
Leavening
1 tbsp baking soda
4 1/2 tsp baking powder
With all of the extra eggs, the density looks concerning. Is it? Would I have more success if I find another chocolate cake recipe that's more similar to the vanilla cake?
While there's an existing question that focuses on baking temperature and time, I'm curious whether there are other factors worth considering. | I wouldn't mix those two cake recipes, personally. The chocolate cake is much more dense than the vanilla, with almost twice as much liquid. Further, in the recipe, the vanilla batter is fluffed up, whereas the chocolate cake isn't (and can't be). I would assume that, if you mixed those two, what would come out of the oven would actually be two layers, with the chocolate on the bottom.
When I worked in a bakery, how we did the marble cake was that the chocolate portion was exactly the same recipe as the vanilla, with 10% of the flour swapped out for cocoa powder. |
Substitute for Tomato Paste in Lentil Soup
I've been making a tried-and-true lentil soup recipe for many years and I now for dietary reasons have to eliminate one ingredient, tomato paste (or any tomato at all). I've tried a few substitutions but have yet to get the depth of flavor I get from the tomato paste.
Here's how I make it.
10 cups water
About 8 tsp. chicken base
1.5 cups lentils
Aromatics: onion, garlic
Spices/herbs: dried thyme, dried basic, bay leaf, ground pepper, salt
Vegetables: carrots, celery, green cabbage,
About 1/4 c tomato paste was added at the end.
Parsley or other greens are usually thrown in at the end.
I've tried two substitutions, neither being adequate:
soy sauce: added 1/4 cup
mushrooms (1.5 lbs sliced crimini cooked down with resulting broth part of the 10 cups liquid)
What other substitutions for tomato paste would give good depth of flavor to this soup? | If this isn't prevented by your health condition, I'd recommend sweet red pepper paste. This is what Turkish folks traditionally use in lentil soup instead of tomato paste, and in my opinion it's better. If you have a good international market near you, you can buy it premade. If you don't, you can make it yourself and keep it around as a general substitute for tomato paste.
If you have a nightshade allergy and peppers also aren't available to you, I would suggest using a little tamarind paste, maybe half as much, possibly with a little (like 1/2 tsp) added sugar. |
Sparkling strawberries in glass
I made several glasses of whole strawberries in syrup. Normally I do this:
sterilize the glass and the screw cap with boiling water
carefully wash and sort strawberries
make a syrup 300g of sugar to 0.5l of boiling water
put strawberries into glass and pour the syrup on them leaving approx 1cm from the cap
put the glass to the electric oven - 100°C for 30 minutes
Then I store them in the refrigerator and usually they are OK.
However this time the first 2 glasses were "strange" - when I open them the gas comes out and the syrup is sparkling. Also the strawberries are sparkling inside. The taste is very good, like sparkling water with strawberry syrup. No sour or bitter.
I think some fermentation processes started. I read the similar question Lemon liqueur has gas? and I think that the case is similar. However I used no alcohol.
The question(s):
Are the strawberries and syrup safe?
Can you speculate the reasons why the fermentation process started and suggest what to do to prevent such process in the future? | There’s a clear answer on the food safety part:
Not safe.
All unintended fermentation is potentially bad - you don’t know what exactly started to grow in your jars, just that something did - so the food safety verdict must be “not safe”.
If you want to prevent such an event in the future, stick to approved recipes and follow proper cleaning and preparation procedures. It’s hard to say what exactly went wrong, just that the problem was caused either by the parameters of the canning step (failing to reduce the existing pathogens) or by an improper seal (meaning bacteria reentering into the jars).
Home canning per the guidelines published by government agencies or other authoritative sources should give you a safe product, but the jar design will serve as a security mechanism: if the seal doesn’t work, the product is not safe. Failure of the seal right after cooling indicates a more mechanical problem (damaged jars, lids, or rubber bands, or a dirty rim), during storage is likely an indication of unwanted growths. Industrial canning also relies on such indicators, e.g. the “plopping” screw tops.
Further details as requested:
While oven-canning has been often declared unsafe by government agencies1 (although it was often enough done nevertheless), the German government has published instructions including a method for oven canning.
I am paraphrasing and translating the key parameters of the instructions into English below, please consider it as supplemental information only, not a full set of instructions. If you or future readers are inexperienced in canning, please do some further reading to learn about the basic principles before starting to preserve food.
For fruit:
Use a canning liquid of either
1/2 liter of water and vinegar plus 600g sugar or
250-500g sugar per liter water.
(I would personally choose the latter.)
Fill the clean jars with clean and prepared fruit or fruit pieces, do not use overripe, mushy or moldy fruit. Top with liquid, covering the fruit. Close jars, depending on chosen canning system.
Place the jars in a deep pan filled with water, the jars should not touch.
Heat the jars at 150-160°C fan-assisted or 150-180°C top/bottom heat until you see bubbles rising in the jars. (Personal remark: Make sure that what you see is truly steam, not just dislocated trapped air. If you see steady bubbling you should be fine.) Turn off your oven and leave jars in the closed oven for 25-30 minutes.
Note that the instructions above are for fruit, not for vegetables and not for meat.
Properly canned fruit should be good at room temperature for at least a year.
1 An - admittedly somewhat cursory - search on the website of the National Center for Home Food Preservation, set up by the USDA and others, yielded no definitive stance on the oven canning method listed above (with liquid covering the food in the jars and the jars standing in a deep pan or dish with water). There are warnings against “dry canning”, i.e. without liquid in the jars, because of improper heat transfer to the inside, and against heating the jars in a dry oven as not all types of jars can handle the temperature fluctuations and may break. |
How to cook kale and collard greens for someone who doesn't like them?
My farmshare vege box is forcing me to confront my least favourite vegetables. I have disliked kale and collard greens when I had them previously because of their bitterness and tough texture. Are there ways of cooking which minimizes these? I have previously tried:
Raw in salad (too bitter, too tough)
Sauteed (still too bitter and too tough), maybe I did it wrong?
In soup, I tried kale as a substitute for spinach in a beef-noodle soup. Toughness decreased after I boiled it for an hour+, but my entire soup became bitter, which I resented.
I've heard kale chips is a possibly promising option -- does baking get rid of the bitterness? I would prefer other suggestions as I was hoping to have them as part of a meal (instead of as a snack).
In general I love a variety of different vegetables, and these two are the only ones I've struggled with, so I was wondering if it ultimately came down to my preparation method. | Wondering if some folks just taste more of the bitter, I came upon:
https://www.wired.com/2016/11/edible-science-heres-secret-perfect-kale-salad/
"crushing the leaves breaks down the cell walls of two important chemicals naturally present in kale---the myrosinase enzyme and glucosinolates. When those walls deteriorate, the two chemicals interact and create a new, bitter compound that's biologically designed to fend off hungry enemies."
So there's something to avoid.
Caramelizing might disguise some bitterness. |
Seasoning steak with broiler salt
I’ve always wanted to season a steak by just applying kosher salt before putting it in the bbq grill.
A few months I tried using this technique (https://www.thespruceeats.com/seasoning-your-steak-keep-it-simple-995234) and using this broiler salt (https://i.stack.imgur.com/dUtdW.jpg ) on a thick ribeye steak (about 1.5”). Needless to say, it was so salty that I couldn’t eat it.
I want to do the same thing today, but with a thin tbone steak (about 0.5” thick).
My question: how do I season this steak with just the broiler salt in the picture? | Salt is just ....salt....no matter how it is labeled (assuming it is not a spice mix, with other ingredients). It might be more finely or coarsely ground, but....it's all the same. Just use less...a sprinkle on each side. You can always add more when you serve if you desire. |
Why is my package of cheese blown up like a balloon
This is a package of balderson old cheese,the package has ballooned up. Is it safe to eat? The expiry date is Nov.2021 | It’s most likely not safe to eat.
Something biological has occurred (like fermentation), creating a gas that has inflated the package.
There are food products that are meant to have this happen, but if it’s not, then you should not eat it. And maybe see about getting a refund if it was purchased recently. |
Foil wrap cooking fully assembled burger in George Foreman grill?
If I seal a burger, complete with bun, in tin foil, and cook it in a George Foreman grill...
Will the burger cook through without the bread burning?
Will the bread burn or potentially cause a fire?
Will this just fail to properly cook the burger? | This will not work. You will definitely severely burn the bun well before the patty cooks.
However, a George Forman grill has a catch tray that will capture all the released fat and juices that you could baste onto the bun or patty if you’d like. |
Does pistachio ice cream need pistachio nut chunks in it?
I have become a big fan of pistachio ice cream, and I do mean the ice cream. I feel the nuts in the store-bought containers I have gotten are to the detriment of the ice cream.
Is there some reason pistachio ice cream has to have pistachio nuts in it? Would the cream part of the ice cream (what I really like) have such a different taste if I made pistachio ice cream while skipping the "pour in pistachio nuts" step, compared to scooping around the nuts of a batch of ice cream that does have pistachio nuts in it? | I was at first a bit uneasy about your question, seeing the word "need" as potentially subjective. Then I realized that the core of your question seems to be:
Would the cream part of the ice cream (what I really like) have such a different taste if I made pistachio ice cream while skipping the "pour in pistachio nuts" step
No, there will be no different taste. The flavor doesn't come from the chunks.
To give you some background: Ice cream is made in following steps.
Mixing a liquid base. It is what makes the "bulk" of the ice cream. Each parlor tends to have its own recipe for the "base", which usually gets made in large amounts and refrigerated.
Flavoring and coloring the ice cream. Depending on the flavor and the parlor's recipe, this can be natural or artificial flavoring, or the name-giving ingredient in a pureed form, or a combination. For pistachio ice cream, if you want the real deal, it is pistachios ground to a paste, analogous to peanut butter. Specifically for pistachios, it is economically unfeasible for a parlor to sell ice cream made with nothing but real ground pistachios.
Churning the ice cream. The flavored base gets frozen under constant agitation, to achieve the desired texture.
Layering the ice cream. It gets scooped out of the churning machine and placed in a container. At this stage, manufacturers can add all sorts of mix-ins, either solid ones (like your pistachio chunks) or as a syrup. This is only a kind of embellishment, the ice cream itself doesn't change after churning.
As you see, the pistachio ice cream is ready, flavor and all, when it comes out of the ice cream making machine. The chunks are additional. Thus, by your definition for "need", the answer is clear. Pistachio ice cream doesn't "need" pistachio pieces in it. |
How to avoid/overcome seized tahini
I’m reading a recipe for hummus online: throw in chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon, cilantro, salt and jalapeño. Process to a paste. The. Add water while processor is running to smooth out mixture.
Prior recipes using tahini called for just tahini and water in the processor first, and then adding additional ingredients. I’m concerned that the recipe above will seize up and will be hard to undo when the tahini is already incorporated. Is this a valid concern? | Tahini "seizes up" when a small amount of water-based liquid is added but the emulsion has not yet inverted. It's not really a problem. As more liquid is incorporated, the emulsion will invert and things will become smooth again. Particularly if using a food processor, this is not something that you'll even notice (just like you didn't notice it happening with your previous hummus recipe.) |
What is the best culinary practice surrounding the water used to soak beans, pulses and rice?
Both my mother and grandmother, both now long passed away, would be horrified if when soaking beans, pulses, barley, lentils or rice etc. overnight for a soup or stew, the soaking liquid was used in the dish itself. My guess is that in their eyes, this action would reduce the amount of scum that floats to the surface during the cooking process, which to my knowledge, appears to be perfectly harmless protein which can be stirred back in.
Looking at similar questions, even the edge case of kidney or black beans, the liquid seems perfectly OK to use, provided it is cooked for the relevant period of time afterwards.
Is there ever a case when one should dispose of the soaking liquid rather than use it as additional flavouring to a stock (which is then cooked for a sufficient period)? Also, if that is not the case, should the pulses be stored in the refrigerator overnight as the liquid will have been stored well outside the safe temperature limits? | That water may contain all sorts of fungicides, dust, contaminants, rodent feces, insects, and so on. The process of production of beans is far from sterile. If you wash the beans thoroughly before soaking, you may avoid it, but a common kitchen practice is to just dump dry beans into water, maybe rinse once to get rid of the worst of the possible contaminants, then soak, stir a bit to detach whatever might have been stuck, and drain, and you have nice clean and well hydrated beans. |
Food is still undercooked on cast iron
I've recently gotten my pre-seasoned cast iron skillet and just tried to sear some meat.
1st attempt was on a rack of lambs and 2nd was on a salmon fillet.
I cooked try to fully cook them both on a preheated skillet. The outsides of the lamb/salmon looked nice and brown but when I cut open the meat isn't even cooked.
My salmon skin has even turned burnt but yet the insides were not even cooked.
My steps were:
Heat the cast iron skillet on a stove top
Add olive oil. Wait for the
oil to give off some smoke/ oil is hot.
Add in the lamb/salmon.
Wait/flip.
Skin looks burnt.
Cut open, and nothing is cooked - literally still raw and the cuts aren't even thick.
Throw them back in. They look burnt even more.
Take them out, insides are still not fully cooked.
Gave up, use a normal non stick pan.
I was just trying to get my lamb/salmon to medium. But it looks 100% raw.
Anyone has any idea what I did wrong? | Your pan was too hot. Cast iron pans can get ripping hot (which is good) and retain heat very well (which is also good). But, on the other hand, if you have a thicker piece of meat and want medium doneness, you should not start with maximum heat, depending on your stove.
If your pan is really that hot that the outside looks burned while the inside is still raw, the heat from the pan simply did not have enough time to penetrate into the inner layers of your food.
A few approaches to your problem could be:
take your food out of the fridge at least half an hour before throwing it into the pan, to allow it to get up in temperature - this does not make a big difference as per SirHawrks comment quoting Kenji Lopez-Alt
start with lower heat and sear your food for longer
start with high heat to get a good searing, then transfer the whole pan to a pre-heated oven and finish cooking in there
use a meat thermometer to gauge the doneness of the interior |
What is table cream? I livd in US and have never heard term
I have a new recipe that says I need table cream, sour cream and grated cheese. I have never heard of table cream and don't know what I can use instead. This is for a topping that goes over fish in the oven. | Table cream appears to be an ingredient from Mexican cuisine, also known as media crema. Nestle offers cans of it in the US.
This is what the website of Target says about it:
Nestle Media Crema Table Cream adds a special touch to all your sweet and savory recipes. Use it to cook, bake or top your favorite recipes and dishes. It has a neutral flavor that will allow you to enhance the flavor of all your creamy recipes. Nestle Media Crema offers you a double consistency: liquid at room temperature or thicker if you refrigerate it. Add Mexican crema in your pasta, tacos, stews, soups and sauces, or top fruits and desserts with the light cream for a tasty treat. Each can contains 7.6 ounces of shelf stable cream. Refrigerate after opening.
The BCDC has a comparison of various milk products that includes table cream:
Coffee cream, or table cream - contains 18% milk fat.
A more extensive description of the product and it’s use cases can be found at Nestle’s website.
For your recipe, you are probably fine if you
mix half and half with regular cream in roughly equal amounts or
add about a quarter of milk to regular cream. |
Pressure Cooker bottom and whistle got burned while cooking "Lasooni Dal Tadka", what could have gone wrong?
I was cooking Lasooni Dal Tadka (an Indian Lentil curry) following this Hebbar's Kitchen Recipe.
I followed everything as stated but only changed the water quantity based on what I usually follow which is:
2 cups of water for 1 cup dal.
1.5 cups of water for 1 cup of rice.
Of course, rice isn't included in that recipe but I pressure cooked it in a separate container simultaneously. The idea was to wait for up to 4-5 whistles as the recipe states but I started getting burnt smell after a few minutes of turning on the stove, so I had to immediately stop. I waited for about 5 minutes for steam to pass out and opened the cooker, the end result was something like this!
What could have gone wrong here? The obvious thing I'm thinking is the water quantity but I've cooked rice+dal many times like this and each time they cooked properly, could this be the cooker/equipment malfunction? What could be the case here? | So water ratio was indeed the issue as many commenters suggested. I cleaned the pressure cooker and again cooked the exact same recipe today with increased water ratio as follows:
For 1 cup Dal: 2.75 cups water.
For 1 cup Rice: 1.75 cups water.
And this time, it didn't burn and the results were as follows:
Rice:
Dal:
Considering that rice was still a bit moist and spilled some grains to the base area of the cooker, I think that water ratio was a bit much and 1:1.5 is still probably ideal for rice.
And considering that Dal was cooked but still quite thick (I had to whisk to bring a proper consistency), I'm thinking that 1:3 is ideal for Dal. In any case, the end result (Dal Tadka) after sauteing looked like this (the taste was so amazing that I ignored the tadka and consumed it as it is!):
This recipe has taught me the hard way that water ratio in cooking has to be exact and precise, we can't afford to get even slightly casual about this! |
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