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Can we ferment cellulose (outside of our body) to turn it into food?
I recently read about (wild) fermentation of vegetables. I learned that:
By adding salt and water and keeping out the oxygen, we create a biome that favours cetain types of bacteria/yeast.
The bacteria/yeast metabolize certain molecules of the vegetables, grow/multiply and excrete fragments of those molecules.
This leaves both the excrements and the bacteria/yeast for us to eat, which are partly more easily digestible for us than the non-fermented vegetable (e.g. we can't digest inulin well, fructose works better), and partly we get molecules this way that were not even inside the vegetable in the first place - the bacteria/yeast produced them.
Then I read about ruminants:
They have certain types of bacteria in their stomach/gut.
The bacteria turn cellulose into smaller molecules and grow/multipy.
The ruminants then digest both the smaller molecules and the excess bacteria.
It is exactly the same. Since cellulose is everywhere, and if it were food, nobody would need to starve - the question comes quite naturally:
What ruminants do with cellulose in their digestive systems, can we do the same in a jar?
I assume people have tried that before and didn't succeed, since otherwise it would be part of food processing culture at least somewhere in the world. But I haven't heard of it. Why is it so difficult?
Don't take the question "in a jar" literally. Nowadays we have so much technology at hand that we can probably emulate the digestive system of an animal, with different chambers containing different types of bacteria, having different temperatures etc.. Has anyone ever done this successfully? And if yes, was the total energy yield positive?
If you think this question fits better into another stackexchange site, please leave a suggestion in the comments. | You may be asking 'why don't we eat grass, after all it's everywhere', and the thing is we already do. All cereals (wheat, rice, corn, barley, etc.) are grasses which have been selectively bred to increase the size of the starch bearing part of the plants. The way humans have been approaching food is to improve what is already edible or learn to replicate biological processes that occur naturally on food we already eat. Most of what we eat and drink is produced by methods that have been used for thousands of years, only produced on an industrial scale, it's only relatively recently that science has given us the tools to look beyond that, including how ruminants digest their food. So as for why we have never looked at how to get nutrition from cellulose, partly it's that we never really looked at it as we concentrated on what we could already eat.
The other reason we don't do it now is that it's not simple to do. You can't ferment cellulose, but you can ferment sugar. The problem lies in breaking the cellulose down into sugars in an efficient way - cellulose is designed to be tough and inedible by design, it's nature's way of giving plants structure. If it was easy to digest all animals would be eating it and it wouldn't serve its purpose.
Cellulosic Ethanol has been a goal for years, being able to convert prairie grass into biofuel for example and it can be done, but it takes more energy to make it than comes out of the process, which works like this: First you use an acid to break down the cellulose, then you put it in a container of water with the same enzymes in a cow's gut or fungi from a termite to extract sugars. At this point you have a weakly sweet liquid. Yeast can be used to create alcohol, then it needs several distillation cycles to turn it into alcohol of any strength. The problem for ethanol production is that all this takes heat, and by the time you add up the energy and other costs to collect, transport and produce something useful you use more energy than you gain. You also end up with a lot of byproduct that you have to find a way to dispose of in an environmentally friendly way. You can't feed it to animals as there's no energy left in the waste, you could possibly burn it but that's not good for the environment.
From a cooking perspective it is a bit different, as @rumptcho points out energy efficiency isn't a prime concern in home cooking. There's no reason you can't extract sugar from cellulose at home by replicating the industrial processes on a small scale, although you may need special equipment to control the production - perhaps modified home brewing equipment. Once you get the sugars extracted you could evaporate water off to create a sugar syrup, or even evaporate all of the water to make sugar granules. The thing to keep in mind is that sugar is all you get out of the process. Ignoring energy use, it's time-intensive way to produce prairie grass nectar. |
Minimum time/temp for clove-flavor infusion?
I'm tweaking a recipe for cooked eggnog. The first step is to bring a combination of milk, light cream, and cloves to a scant boil. After that, the cloves are discarded.
I want to see if I can get similar results without having to get that mixture so hot. But I'm concerned that a lower temperature won't extract as much flavor from the cloves.
Is there a good source of information for this?
Maybe this is unrealistic, but ideally I'd like to know, for a given cooking spice, what the trade-off curve is for (cooking time) x (max cooking temperature) x (size of grounds) vs. (amount of flavor extracted).
So far I've only found guides for how to create liquid extracts for various kinds of spices, e.g. here. But they all focus on creating extracts for later use, rather than directly infusing the flavors into something presently being cooked. | The formula you are looking for doesn't exist
Speaking in general terms, I don't think you'll find a one-size-fits-all answer for spice-temperature infusion times. Different spices will react differently with water vs fat vs alcohol. Spices (and foods in general) are complex plants where certain compounds give certain attributes, and those attributes will change depending on what you do to the spice.
Cold-infused vs hot-infused can give different flavor profiles. Hot coffee vs cold brew coffee is a good example of how varying time & temperature gives dramatically different flavor results, even given identical ingredients.
About that eggnog though
I always remember something a science teacher told our class when I was very young: "Whether you're making a solution, or dealing with more complex reactions, the three basic ways to speed them up are to shake it, break it, or light it on fire!"
Speed -- This is a key part, in that time is a factor. If you just let cloves sit in milk, eventually they (might) infuse sufficient flavor, even at fridge temp. But given the relatively short shelf life of milk & cream, time is not unlimited, so quicker is better. So time is a factor to consider.
Shake it -- Stirring, swirling, shaking, and agitating all count here. Stirring prevents a build-up of a gradient where the "stuff" saturates the liquid touching it, while the liquid at the other parts of the container are still virgin. I don't think that you can stir your way to extracting flavor from cloves into cold milk, though.
light it on fire -- More generally, this just means heat. This is the thing you're trying to do less of. You could try heating less, but for a longer time.
break it -- This seems like it might be the best choice in your case. Just use ground clove. It'll give off it's flavor much more readily due to the increased surface area. If it is finely ground, you can leave it in the finished product without completely removing it.
A combination of lower heat + using ground clove might get you to your end goal. But keep in mind that heat does more than just infuse flavors. The milk will change by being heated, and that might have downstream effects on the recipe, including the point where the eggs meet the milk. :) |
How do you soften pumpkin seeds for Chicken Mole?
I made chicken mole for the first time following this recipe. It was delicious, and I'm planning to make it again. However, the hulled pumpkin seeds (pepitas) didn't fully break down. So the sauce was unexpectedly crunchy.
I actually slightly altered the steps of that recipe and actually boiled them with the guajilo+ancho peppers in that step. It didn't seem to help. Maybe I should have run the blender a little longer, past the point where the contents were homogeneous.
So anyway, how do you make chicken mole without the pumpkin seeds giving it some crunch? Or is the dish supposed to be a little crunchy? | You should have pureed the sauce longer. A proper pipián or mole is ground until homogeneous and nothing is larger than a grain of sand. It's not a salsa.
Example:
The ingredients are ground together into a powder or a paste that creates a seamless layering of complex flavors.
Assuming that you did actually toast the pepitas properly (until they "pop"), the soak in hot water would not have hurt the texture. |
What is a silver tip roast?
I got this roast called a silver tip roast. I’m led to believe it’s the shoulder. Can anyone confirm this or know what it is? | Yes, a silver tip roast is a cut from the shoulder. It is generally a lean cut. It is the cut used for most deli sliced roast beef in the US. Most recipes I see sear, then roast. Because it is a lean cut, it is best to monitor the internal temperature as you cook. It will easily become dry when over cooked. |
How can I prevent vanilla seeds from sinking in a crème brûlée?
When I make a crème brûlée (using the recipe here) I scrape the seeds out of the pod(s) and put them, together with the pod, into the cream which I then bring to the boil.
I typically find that the finished product, although tasty and with the right texture, has the majority of the tiny vanilla seeds at the bottom of the ramekin, indicating that they have sunk during cooking.
Is there any good way to prevent this from happening so they are better distributed through the finished product? | If you modify the instructions so that you make a custard BEFORE pouring the liquid into the ramekins, this will help to suspend the vanilla seeds in the mixture so they do not just fall to the bottom.
original instructions:
Meanwhile put the yolks and caster sugar into a medium-sized heatproof bowl and stir until just combined. When the cream begins to
boil, remove the vanilla pod and then pour the cream on to the yolk
and sugar mix, stirring constantly to mix.
Divide the mixture between the ramekins and pour cold water into the tin until it comes two-thirds of the way up the ramekins. Bake for
about 40 minutes until the custard is set – it should only wobble
faintly when shaken. Cool and then chill until cold.
new instructions:
Meanwhile put the yolks and caster sugar into a medium-sized heatproof bowl and stir until just combined. When the cream begins to
boil, remove the vanilla pod and then pour the cream on to the yolk
and sugar mix, stirring constantly to mix.
2b. Return the combined egg/cream mixture to the pot, and cook over
moderate/low heat, and cook while stirring constantly until a custard
is formed. Be careful not to allow the mixture to sit too long without
stirring, and also avoid high heat. If you do not feel confident
making custard directly over heat, you can do this over a double
boiler, which will help to prevent scorching and making scrambled
eggs.
2c. Remove the custard from the heat.
Divide the mixture between the ramekins and pour cold water into the tin until it comes two-thirds of the way up the ramekins. Bake for
about 40 minutes until the custard is set – it should only wobble
faintly when shaken. Cool and then chill until cold.
having made a custard, the baking time will surely also be reduced, however i can not confirm how long it should be baked for using that particular recipe when employing a custard. |
How quickly does pesto lost flavor when kept cold but exposed to air?
I work at a supermarket chain deli, which has some unique food preservation needs not answered by the information I have been able to find, which mostly assumes people are storing food in their home fridge or freezer. We keep a 1/9-size food pan (sometimes shallow, sometimes deep) exposed to the air in the sandwich bar (kept below 40°F/4°C) filled with Armanino pesto, which omits pine nuts, a common food allergen. At the rate we use it, it would take up to a week to use up what's in the food pan. However, we daily top it up with fresh pesto.
I've tried researching how long pesto (without pine nuts) lasts. The information available talks about sealed containers stored in a fridge, not open containers stored in a sandwich bar (which is loosely covered over night). I've followed my food-preservation instincts and suggested keeping less pesto out and storing it in an air-tight container, but have been told it's no big deal. I know that basil is an herb that loses its flavor relatively quickly, but I can't find any information on the details.
Does basil in pesto lose its freshness mainly due to exposure to the air, or is it just a factor of time, unaffected by oxidation? How long can I expect pesto to keep fresh in deli sandwich bar storage conditions? | Never mind flavor -- what you are doing at work is lethally dangerous.
As a blend of garlic, herbs, and oil, pesto is a great incubator for botulism. While keeping it cold retards botulism, your practice of "topping it off" means that there's at least some pesto in the pan that is months or even years old, and how certain are you that the entire pan is 40F and not warmer? Even if it is, listeria is happy to grow at fridge temperature.
Sources recommend storing pesto in the fridge for between three days and seven days. So at the least, you should be throwing it out and cleaning the pan every week. |
Why can you eat raw oat flour but not raw wheat flour?
I see recipes that use raw oat flour. But I have read that eating raw wheat flour causes samonella. What is it about oats that allows you to eat them raw? | Oat flour is one of the few flours that is cooked (steamed) prior to milling, so it is safe to eat raw. But many other flours are not |
What's the French equivalent of Italian "panna da cucina"?
I've been living in France for a while yet have been unable to find something similar to Italian panna for pasta use. Does anyone know if such thing exists in here? | One convenient point of any Italian "Panna da Cucina" is it's thickness, which helps to bind the ingredients together without needing too much fat. An example is "Pasta panna e prosciutto". As explained in other answers, this comes from the carrageen, which acts as a stabilized and thickener.
So, to get the same results, the cream alone won't be enough.
The trick is to, somehow, replace the thickener with something else. You can try the following options to use the fresh cream:
Add some corn starch or flour (as already said)
Use a small amount of Roux (cooked butter+flour)
Add some grated cheese, like Parmesan or Grana (Of course here there will be a strong cheese taste, depends if it goes well in your recipe)
Boiling down the cream will reduce the cream's water content and concentrate the fat, resulting in a 60-80% fat amount: in the end, it will taste like eating butter, making the dish super heavy (beside having a huge amount of calories per bite).
PS: I am Italian, I have cooked with "Panna Chef" (one of the brands) many times, and tried the alternatives using fresh cream.
Edit: for who never saw this kind of product, "Panna da cucina"'s thickness is the same as a toothpaste (at ambient temperature), it's not liquid at all. This is why it cannot be replaced with just regular cream. |
What is the use of this strange contraption on this serving fork?
I just bought an old fork + knife set at a flea market. The kind of big cutlery that is used to cut and serve chicken, roasted meat, whatever.
The strange thing is that the fork has a moving part on the top of it. I don't know how to describe it, so here are the photos. This thing can be put up or down, and it doesn't have any spring, but it can stay in position (for both positions).
What is the purpose of this? I have never seen such a thing before.
For information, this was found in France, and the set is probably 50 years old or so. | I found the answer with a good illustration (from https://www.925-1000.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=41243):
The idea is that when you have a large piece of meat (such as a large prime rib or so), it's difficult to balance the meat to be able to cut it vertically. Instead, you cut it horizontally from the right with your carving knife (assuming you are right-handed).
To keep the meat from slipping away, you stick the fork in from the left, using your left hand. That puts the fork (and your left hand holding the fork) directly into the path of the knife when it exits the roast. The sudden lack of resistance could cause the knife to "jump" towards your hand.
With this guard, the knife hits the guard rather than the hand. |
What does this "France only" symbol mean on a coffee package?
This is a common pack of Lavazza ground coffee:
but at the bottom there is this symbol:
What does it mean? And what is specific about France here? | I think it's a recycling vs. trash thing.
If I understand the imagery, the coffee bag should go in the trash in France and it should go in the recycling bin in other EU (mostly) countries. |
Trying to recreate my grandmother's buttermilk biscuits
My grandmother made the best biscuits in the world. She made them 7 days a week, and cooked them on a cast iron skillet without any sides. They were always perfectly browned and the bread inside was "stretchy" (they were not layered).
I've been working on this for several years and I've gotten to this point from my childhood memories and a fair amount of experimentation:
2.5 cups flour. (not sure if she had self rising, but that's not really an option for me in Mexico)
around 1/2 cup Crisco shortening (I'm having to use Grasa Vegetal because Crisco isn't available). Cut in until the flour is sort of grainy/crumbly. Pretty sure she just used her fingers from vague memories as a child.
1 cup of buttermilk (Here I use one lemon and fill the cup with whole milk, nata is hard to come by and buttermilk is non-existent in the stores here)
3 Tbsp of baking powder (yea, it's a lot, but I'm literally in a boat at sea level and it seems to need that much)
1 Tsp each of sugar and salt
To get the stretchy part, I replaced part of the "butter" milk with an egg white, then with 2 egg whites, still don't have the stretch I'm looking for.
To get the browning I painted the tops with the yellow from the egg that I got the white from.
The browning is about the right color but appears painted on, something hers never did. The stretchy is proving very elusive and I'm curious how to get that. Her biscuits had a lot of air in them, they were super light, my mother never could reproduce them either.
Grandma's been gone for 30 years and even when I asked her to write down the recipe she didn't. I've come to understand that she was probably illiterate considering when and where she was born and the fact that farm women in the south in the early 1900s were not encouraged to be literate.
I do remember she kept her flour in a giant bowl and would mix "in the flour", then lift the dough up onto the powdered counter to cut and finish the biscuits (hence her lack of measurements).
What will give me stretch that was close to a sponge cake and yet still leave me with a biscuit? She had no fancy ingredients available to her but she might have substituted lard for Crisco. | Miscellaneous thoughts:
Egg whites are not going to give you "stretch" in a biscuit. The fat will interfere with that. The elasticity will come from the gluten. That means at least a little bit of kneading; it means not using "cake" or "biscuit" flour; and it means keeping the fat level under control. (Half a cup sounds reasonable, but try it with less, and don't blend it in too finely.) Better gluten formation will also lead to more of a rise. You might try mixing in some tortilla flour, actually.
Buttermilk would ordinarily be used with baking soda, not baking powder (or at least, not just with baking powder). Using baking powder and lemon juice together may be pushing the pH too low, weakening the dough. If you're using baking powder, leave out the lemon juice.
Egg yolks will always give you a "painted on" glazed look. If you want more of a browned look, put the yolks in the dough, and perhaps increase the sugar. You can also brush the tops with milk, that'll give more of a matte look than egg yolks. |
Dot's pretzels seasoning
I made a batch of homemade Dots pretzels (pretzels with garlic salt, lemon pepper, cayenne pepper, etc.) They turned out to be too salty. My wife thinks that we can keep the same amount of seasonings and pretzels per batch but with double the oil to make them less salty. I say the same amount of oil and pretzels but half the seasonings. Who's correct? | If you want your pretzels to be less salty then you simply need to add less salt, there's nothing complex about it. Doubling the oil will just make them more oily, it's not going to dilute anything because you're still adding the same amount to the pretzels at the end of the process. If you like the balance of other herbs and spices then just reduce the salt and leave everything else the same. |
Alkaline foods with a pH higher than 8
I wonder if there is any common food with a pH higher than 8? Or is it simply that we humans don't eat anything alkaline because the taste would be soapy/bitter?
I searched around the Internet only to find very weakly alkaline foods, in the range of 7~8, which is very weak alkalinity (1 2)
I'm asking this out of sheer curiosity, not to fix overly sour tomato sauce for example, so just don't say baking soda or lime please! | Lutefisk!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutefisk
Microbiota of lutefisk, a Nordic traditional cod dish with a high pH
Most foods have either a neutral or a slightly acidic pH, whereas only
a limited number of products have a pH above 8. The Nordic traditional
fish dish lutefisk is an exception, with a pH around 12 during
production and a ready for consumption pH above 10. Lutefisk is
prepared from dried Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua), soaked in water and
thereafter treated in a lye solution.
That lutefisk looks pretty good to me! And it is as alkaline a food as you will find, I think.
What, you can't find lutefisk in the supermarket in your part of the world? Well, you must be in the wrong part of the world to find lutefisk. |
Can I use baking powder to soften dry beans or chickpeas?
Dry beans or chickpeas don't easily soften up after boiling.
Can I use baking powder (not baking soda) to soften dry beans or chickpeas? | No, you can't use baking powder. Baking powder is part baking soda, and part acid, the two will react with one another and balance each other out, so you won't get the alkaline properties you need. |
Accidentally ate raw corn starch, is it safe?
So I was heating up some canned soup over the stove, and it felt a bit thin. So I thought to use some corn starch to thicken it up.
After pouring some in, some of it landed on my hand and I licked it off before I realized "Oh crap you probably aren't supposed to eat this raw".
Furthermore I didn't "boil" my soup after putting the starch in, more of a medium simmer-ish for a few minutes after putting it in.
I know raw flour is very bad because of bacteria/etc....but does the same apply to corn starch? | While it is never a good idea to make raw flours part of your diet or base a dish on them, eating raw starch is not so risky that you need to be worried about licking up a half-teaspoon of it. While overall figures are not available for corn starch, less than 3% of wheat flour in the US carries some kind of pathogen, and the percentage of contaminated corn starch can be assumed to be lower because corn starch is more heavily processed. Further, your body is adapted by thousands of years of evolution to dealing with minor amounts of food pathogens.
So, unless you are immunocompromised or someone in your family is, the raw/undercooked corn starch is less of a risk than many other things you eat and drink.
The bigger culinary issue is that, if you did not bring your soup to a boil, you did not fully activate the corn starch as a thickener. |
Could a pizza gas oven with only an under-the-stone burner work well?
I've been looking at options of for-home pizza gas ovens. The Ooni Koda stuff cost about twice than I'd like to spend, and even then I saw some YouTube review which showed it doesn't really get to stated temperatures after an entire hour.
So there's a cheap-ish used option of some rebranded Chinese-made oven, for whom I can't find any reviews. On the importer's website they claim it can reach 400-450 Celsius, that it is made of stainless steel, has 1 burner, a closable glass door and an adjustable chimney to contain or release heat. Stone size is about 13", and it should supposedly be able to cook the pizza in 90 seconds with a BTU of 13,000.
The seller said it has a burner only under the stone and said that after preheating it for 10-15 minutes it took between 120-150 seconds to cook the pizza. They only used it once "because their landlord decided he doesn't allow anything gas-operated in his apartment".
So you can see why I'm not sure if this oven form is problematic. Perhaps the upper heat would be too low, burning the underside of the pizza before the upperside is ready.
What are your thoughts?
EDIT: Image of the oven:
Plus this product on Amazon seems kind of similar:
https://www.amazon.com/Mont-Alpi-MAPZ-SS-Table-Stainless/dp/B018O164E2 | Heat directly under the stone would not work for a Italian-style pizza oven.
Neapolitan pizza is cooked from the top down. In a traditional wood-fired oven, the air temperature is higher than the temperature of the brick or stone floor, and gets higher the closer you are to the top of the oven. Gas-fired pizza ovens like the Koda attempt to simulate this by running the gas flame across the top of the oven. Heating from the top down encourages the crust to puff and the toppings to cook before the dough is done. To quote one retailer:
As the oven itself warms, it begins to release a slow, steady heat, creating two different cooking zones: a conductive cooking surface on the floor that reaches 650 to 750 degrees and a convective cooking zone of 900-degree air circulating in the dome, above the pizza. This temperature difference is essential for a good pie. The air above the pizza needs to be much hotter than the oven floor to cook the sauce, cheese, and any toppings (traditionally applied raw). The lower-temperature floor cooks the crust thoroughly yet quickly enough that it doesn’t dry out or become tough.
(temperatures in the quote are Farenheit)
An oven that was heated only under the oven floor would have a floor that was hotter than the air in the oven. This would result in the bottom crust being burnt before the cheese melted. I'd also be somewhat concerned about the stone cracking with use due to the rather extreme thermal change.
Based on your added photo, this means that the effectiveness of that particular oven is going to be dependent on how effectively hot air convects around the stone and into the air chamber of the oven. Since that's how a conventional gas oven works, it can work for pizza ovens.
The advantage to that oven design is that they provide you with an adjustable chimney, which means that you can tinker with airflow. However, there are two major disadvantages that make me think the oven will not actually work.
First, there's the huge door with no dome overhang. Take a look at a few different portable pizza oven designs:
One thing you'll notice there is that those ovens all have an front opening overhang with a fairly narrow opening for inserting the pizza. This traps the hot air in the top of the pizza oven. The Stanley, on the other hand, has a wide open front which means that every time you open the door all of the hot air escapes. Even if that were the only problem, that would mean that you'd have 30-60 seconds every time you insert a pizza for the oven air to get hot again -- and 90 seconds is the normal total cooking time for a Neapolitan pizza.
However, that's not the only problem. The Stanley in the picture has huge non-closeable air vents at the back, above the level of the stone. With those vents, there is no way for the air in the pizza oven to ever get hot enough -- and the cute chimney is essentially pointless.
Given this design, I would expect the Stanley to work poorly as a dedicated pizza oven -- or to work about the same as your regular in-home oven. If you're looking for an affordable solution, I would recommend a kettle-grill pizza oven conversion as a more reliable (and cheaper) one.
(incidentally I own a 12-inch Koda and have produced many, many pizzas in it. It heats up to 400C in around 20 minutes) |
When corn starch is added to icing sugar, has it been cooked?
My icing (powdered) sugar has 97% sugar and 3% "maize starch".
Answers to a recent question accidentally ate raw corn starch say that corn starch, like wheat flour, is meant to be cooked before eating, but icing sugar isn't usually heated. Does this mean the starch is pre-cooked (or otherwise processed to kill any bacteria) or that this isn't really a worry? | It's raw.
Raw cornstarch generally shouldn't be eaten raw, due to risks of causing digestive issues . But it's relatively low-risk when consumed in micro-quantities.
Here's a recipe on YouTube on how to make icing sugar, and it uses 1 cup of sugar and 1 tsp of raw cornstarch: How To Make Icing Sugar At Home
Many other store-bought items also use cornstarch as an anti-caking agent, such as candies and shredded cheeses (some brands, not all). |
Can I cook with the olive oil from canned sardines?
The olive oil from canned sardine is delicious to eat with the sardines themselves on toast.
However the olive oil doesn't seem to pair with any other food. In the past I tried to use the oil with lemon juice/parsley/garlic/green beans, the food turned out to have a very potent unpleasant fishy smell.
Why is it that olive oil from canned sardine does not go with any other food?
Is this oil useful for cooking? | Yes, you can use the oil for other purposes, although due to the strong fish aroma and taste it would probably best be used only in a fish dish. I frequently use the oil from anchovies to fry onions to add to a Bolognese sauce to add a depth of flavour, a few anchovies being frequently added to this dish as "Italian MSG". It also works well added to tomato sauce for pizza toppings.
I would use the oil to fry onions and garlic for say, a fish casserole or stew. I would add some additional olive oil as well though, as the smoke point may be affected by the soluble fish oil already in the product.
Fish is a very strong aroma as you say, so you have to be careful what you use it in as it will overpower and dominate. Although I have not tried it, it may also work well as a replacement for fish sauce in some Thai dishes. |
How do I know if a Hello Fresh shipment is ... fresh?
We recently received a Hello Fresh box as a gift. However, due to snowstorms in the area, it arrived four days late, and I'm sure that extra time was spent on a truck or on a shelf in a shipping center.
The ice pack in the box was still frozen. I'm sure the potatoes and other dry ingredients are ok, but I wonder about the packages of ground meat and chicken breasts.
How do I know if the (meat/dairy) contents are safe to eat? | The short answer is you don't know, there's no certainty. Even with food bought from a supermarket there are no guarantees, there could be handling errors which reduce the shelf life or you could get it home and find it's spoiled.
With your package if the food was still very cold to the touch and the ice pack was still frozen then there's a good chance the food is still fine, however a cold pack can feel chilly but not be cold enough so unless you measured the temperature you can't be sure.
I would treat the meat with suspicion, and play it safe. If you think it was kept refrigerator temperature the whole time and the meat looks and smells fresh then it may be safe, if not I'd chuck the meats as it's not worth the risk. Cheeses may be fine, many get aged above refrigerator temperature, so if they didn't stay that cold they're a better bet. |
Is it safe to reheat mushrooms?
According to this very popular Bright Side video (https://youtu.be/P2BVyHOdFUo) , it is not safe to reheat mushrooms as they not only lose their nutritional value, but can also make you ill. This, clearly, is a very simplistic position as we would not have such delicacies as tinned mushroom soup, and pre-cooked mushrooms on pizza toppings etc.
So what precautions should one take when reheating mushrooms? Is it a particular variety that is prone to this? I have been cooking and reheating fresh white and brown mushrooms in dishes for many years now in stews and casseroles without any ill effects. Have I just been lucky? | That's a myth, and as such your follow-up questions are moot.
There is no scientific evidence of any kind that any particular method of reheating mushrooms -- or not reheating them -- is dangerous or problematic in any way. The popularity of that video does not automatically make it valid; videos about "slenderman" are equally, if not more, popular.
What's problematic about leftover mushrooms has nothing to do with reheating them, but rather with storage. Mushrooms, like garlic, potatoes, and onions, are dug out of the dirt and as such carry an array of dirt-loving bacteria. If the mushrooms aren't properly washed in the first place (and many people think you can't wash mushrooms because of another myth), and then they are not refrigerated promptly and correctly, they become incubators for those bacteria, including the dreaded Clostridium botulinum.
However, if your mushrooms are contaminated, those bacteria and their toxins are present whether you microwave your leftover stroganoff or eat it cold.
The idea that the microwave destroys the nutritional value of the mushrooms is just the old hoax, promulgated when home microwaves were introduced in the 70's, and equally nonsense. |
Can flour be made from breadcrumbs?
Can flour be made from breadcrumbs, or is flour → bread an irreversible chemical reaction?
I'm wondering if new bread can be made from ground stale bread (i.e., breadcrumbs). | You can use breadcrumbs to make food like dumplings or puddings, but you won't be able to use it as flour to make new bread. The cooking process is an irreversible one in this case. |
Can you make pasta dough in a breadmaker?
Is it a good idea to buy a breadmaker instead of a food processor for making pasta dough (and bread, obviously)? | No. Pasta dough is much firmer than bread dough and could possibly break the machine or the blade. |
Why we use bronze die (and not steel) for pasta extrusion?
I found many research papers on differences between Teflon and bronze die for pasta extrusion but there are no comparisons between bronze vs steel/brass/any other metal dies. Why we still stick to bronze dies instead of using steel as cheaper alternative? Are there any differences of pasta structure after extrusion (steel vs bronze)? | I too have been trying to find a satisfactory answer to this question, as it seemed like bronze was wheeled out for primarily marketing reasons and served more of a default when not using PTFE, rather than being honestly motivated by material properties. This, combined with some food pseudoscience, can be pretty frustrating.
My reading of the situation has been that Teflon/PTFE is effectively superior in every way for dried pasta producers. It presents minimal extrusion friction and heat, is easy to machine and replace, creates pasta that looks good on shelves, and even improves shelf life of dried pasta due by reducing likelihood of grain weevil infestation, leaving the no-PTFE producers in a high-cost niche that feeds on marketing.
However, in more recent reading, it seems like bronze may be more of an intentional choice. I do not have a hard answer to your question, but the literature seems to circle around a few key aspects, particularly heat dissipation. I hope that, even if this doesn't answer the question, I can give you a few sources and bibs to continue the search.
Some Reading
Extruding and Drying of Pasta, Manthey/Twombly; technical overview of extruded pasta
Pasta. History, technologies and secrets of Italian tradition, Barilla; lighter read, but gives a lot of context
The Study of the Behaviour..., Trasca; not enlightening but a good bibliography and gives some context around motivations for PTFE that can be used to backsolve a little
Example Barilla die insert from Barilla Archives
Takeaways from Reading
Twombly, Pg 8 Sec 6
"Die support is made from bronze or stainless steel. The support must be capable of withstanding a tremendous amount of pressure over time without yielding. Stainless steel can tolerate higher pressures, but tends to retain more heat than bronze"
"Inserts are generally made from bronze, due to their low heat retention."
This is what I see again and again. Bronze is chosen for its thermal properties, and it's specifically chosen over SUS even when other parts of the die assembly are made from SUS. You've noted above that the thermal conductivity of the two metals are not incredibly different, but bronze's k will depend a lot on the copper content, and it's not rare to find >70W/m-K bronze. SUS, in contrast, tends to have quite low (<25W/m-K) thermal conductivity. For high-volume pasta production, this would result in a large difference in pasta extruded over time, as SUS die inserts would need to be run slower. I have not been able to find the specific alloys used in the insert manufacturing, but would assume from the surrounding data that the bronze is a high-copper alloy.
Twombly, Pg 7 Sec 4
"Excess heat generated by friction during extrusion is removed by use of a water jacket which surrounds the extrusion barrel. A high volume of warm water is used to maintain both the barrel and dough temperature near 45°C."
Worth noting. Keep in mind that a water jacket cannot be used (without complex cooling channels) for the aperture end of the extruder due to the fact we're extruding dough. So, you want to move heat energy away from the insert contact surface as quickly as possible so that it can be carried away by the water cooling.
Barilla Archives, Picture 2
Depiction showing that the largest pasta producer's PTFE dies are made from bronze and PTFE, not steel and PTFE. This suggests that there are still properties of the bronze that are still desirable, even when the dough does not contact the metal, the company cannot advertise using a bronze die insert, and when the producer has more than enough capital to afford machined stainless steel. This backs up the thermal properties theory.
It may also just be the case that the economics of SUS don't work out here. The lifetime of the insert will be higher, but the machine will need to extrude slower, in order to account for thermal conductivity, and the production costs for each insert will be higher.
Barilla, Pg 111-112
Apparently, Barilla's pasta die supports have been cut from what Barilla calls "Bral," their name for an aluminum-bronze alloy. I have not seen this mentioned in other publications, but makes sense if they are trying to balance thermal conductivity and pressure tolerance.
My understanding is that aluminum-bronzes should beat out bronze in practically every aspect that matters here, so that reason may be significant to the reason that bronze is chosen. I have no experience buying nor machining that alloy, but it seems like it may be more expensive and harder to machine than bronze.
Barilla, Pg 65 (Bonus History)
"Dies were made with materials such as copper, red bronze, manganese bronze, etc., which were resistant to the acids formed during the fermentation process."
I'm going to guess that the origin of bronze as the material of choice all comes from the high workability of the metal combined with its chemical properties. At the time (~17th century), this was probably the best that metallurgy could do (more research needed). It's interesting to consider that the thermal characteristics would have basically been mostly irrelevant until the dies were worked much harder. |
why does commercial labneh uses different ingredients from traditional?
Labneh is also called yoghurt cheese. It is traditionally made by draining yoghurt. The store bought labneh however has many additional ingredients in addition to milk and live cultures which make up yoghurt, such as cream, skim milk and whey protein concentrate.
Why do manufactures use cream, skim milk and whey protein concentrate instead of simply whole milk which does not require additional processing? | Commercial food production has a stronger focus on consistency than homemade stuff; a company making a food product usually wants to be very sure that they can offer exactly the same product every time, regardless of time of year, which facility it was made at, and other factors.
As such, many companies will try to ensure consistency by strictly controlling their input ingredients; instead of culturing regular whole milk which could vary based on supplier or time of year, they will mix together various parts of milk (the cream, skim milk, and whey protein you mentioned) to get a mixture with very precise levels of protein, fat, sugars and such, so that they know it will always turn into the same yogurt, and therefore into the same labneh once drained. |
Should an oven be left to cool if cooking at a lower temperature?
For example, if I cook some veggies in the oven at 450F and then need to cook steaks at 250F, is there any point in letting the oven cool to 250F?
My expectation is that the amount of heat in the oven when it's at 250F vs when it's at 450F is negligible for something like a steak and that the significance of the difference in temperature setting is the amount of heat the oven continues to add to maintain the temperature. Is that the case? If so, are there other foods where it would be better to let the oven cool first? | This depends very strongly on what kind of oven you have. Since there are many, many variations in oven design, I'm going to go over three contrary options based on my own personal experience.
Gas oven, freestanding and thinly insulated: with an oven like this, you can turn the heat down to a lower temperature, put the new food in, and expect that the new food won't cook a lot differently than it would if you allowed 10-15minutes for the oven to cool. Gas ovens depend heavily on hot air convection from the gas flames to transfer heat to the food, and when you turn down the temperature, if the oven is not well-insulated, the temperature will fall almost as quickly as the food heats up. The only food I wouldn't do this with would be something which was very sensitive to rapid overcooking.
Electric oven, built-in and well-insulated: my current electric oven, on the other hand, is very well insulated and relies on radiant heat from the walls of the oven to cook foods. As such, if I turn it down from 450F to 250F, I can expect that foods inside the oven will still be exposed to heat higher than 300F for at least 1/2 hour. As such, if I need to drop the oven temperature for cooking reasons, I prop the oven door open.
High-end electric oven with exhaust fan: I've also had the chance to cook in higher quality ovens that contain an internal exhaust fan with an exhaust pipe to the outside. These ovens actively cool themselves off when you lower the temperature, so going from 450F to 250F would take less than 10 minutes, despite the thick insulation. With this oven, you just turn the heat down and put the food in. |
Georgian dessert based on walnuts
When I was a kid, some 40 years ago, I visited the country of Georgia and had a dessert I still (vaguely) remember but could never find a note on.
It was based on a whole unripe walnut (I think it was a walnut - it could have been a large nut) that was in some kind of syrup (or at last fluid). I do not remember the taste but the texture was crunchy.
Does that ring a bell?
I searched for Georgian desserts and the only ones notable I could find related to walnuts are Churchkhela and Gozinaki but both are made of ripe walnuts (the semi round, brain-like inside) and not unripe whole ones. | It was most likely a simple preserve.
Unripe walnuts are commonly eaten in Eastern Europe, and preserve is one of the widespread preparations. (Maybe even the only widespread one besides liqueur - they are mostly eaten raw). I don't know about Georgia, but this certainly exists in other countries. It is a somewhat exotic preserve, compared to more common ones like strawberries, but something ordinary people know of (at least people of a jam-making generation).
For the preserve, the walnuts are cooked in sugar syrup and then sterilized, similar to other fruit like figs. Since the whole walnuts are used, the texture is indeed crunchy - the protoshell is left within the nut during the preparation, and while it isn't toothbreaking-hard yet, it does give a crunchy bite.
The way you describe it, it seems that it was served pure, to be eaten with a spoon. This is also typical for Eastern Europe and other cuisines with Ottoman influences. It is not the only way to eat jam and preserves, but it may be surprising for people from cultures where less sweet desserts are preferred.
For some background, you can read the Wikipedia page for this type of whole-fruit preserve (it is not specialized about the walnut preserve). Apparently, when cooked in the Caucasian region, the local word is "murabba". |
Efficient method to peel onions?
How do you efficiently peel an onion, so both time and material wasted is minimized?
The way I do it: I cut off the stem part farthest from the roots (which has to go anyways, and gives me a nice flat bit to stand the onion on for the next cut), then slice it in half. At this point comes the crux: to peel off the brown outermost layer, I can worry at it with my fingernails or a knife, but that brown stuff mostly flakes/brakes off and doesn't detach in a nice way, except in very rare occasions. Even though it's material efficient, it takes too long.
Alternatively, I can peel off the next-to-outermost good ("meaty") layer together with the brown skin, which goes very fast but wastes that layer.
Is there a way to very quickly and cleanly get off only the brown skin? | Kenji Lopez-Alt, cookbook author and NYT columnist, has mentioned offhand a couple of times in his Youtube videos that he feels most people don't peel off enough layers when preparing onions; that the semi-dry, slightly tough outer-layer-ness extends further into the onion than many people think.
It's possible this attitude is a result of his chef background, however, where the quality of the final dish is prioritised more highly than efficiency of ingredient use, et cetera.
Ultimately, the decision is yours; if the value of saving one extra layer of onion is worth the time spent carefully flensing the brown skin off of it and the possibility of a slightly worse texture in the final dish, then go ahead and carefully remove only the brown. Personally, I take off the first white layer; onions are cheap, time and effort are precious, and the scraps are useful anyway. |
Is there an ultimate way to make a rotatable pizza stone?
So I've bought a gas-powered pizza oven reminiscent of the Ooni Koda 12. It gets the crust done alright, but as I expected earlier it is quite difficult to rotate the dough using a peel without ending up with some parts burned and without an overall unevenness of baking level.
I've looked anywhere but couldn't find enough information on how to construct a (non-motorized) rotation mechanism into a pizza stone which could healthily withstand temperatures of 500 Celsius and perhaps a bit more.
Possible issues I suspect: pizza stones are cordierite — I don't think it can hold screws; so you consider gluing — is there any chemical glue which doesn't release toxic fumes at such degrees? And then considering the types of bearings available — most don't mention it but aren't they likely oiled with stuff that, again, might prove unhealthy within a gas oven?
I suppose this question isn't exactly food related, but I haven't found a definite SE category for this. | Yes, I can recommend a method because I did this*. Per my blog post, the secret is to buy a round corderite stone of the correct size, glue that to a stainless steel turntable, and bolt that to a thin metal sheet. The steel turntable works because it's not sealed and there is no grease in it, so it won't boil off.
Since I published that blog post, I've learned that there are other high-temperature adhesives that might be better than the one I used, so you might try one of those.
As an alternative to an adhesive, you could get flat steel bars and screw them to the holes on the top of the turntable, and then bend the ends to firmly hold the round corderite stone. In my particular case, I didn't have enough clearance for those, hence the adhesive.
(*link to my own blog because it's the best source of information on this particular task) |
Why do gelatin sheets have a diamond pattern?
Why do gelatin sheets have a diamond pattern?
Are they perforations?
Are they for measurement?
Are they for brand recognition or marketing or just aesthetics? | I think it is a side effect of the drying process. If you look at about the 5m50s mark, the drying conveyor is a diamond pattern.
YouTube video of the process |
What to look in a truly dishwasher friendly non-stick cookware?
Dishwasher + Non-stick = Disaster. I know that, but still I'm wondering what type of non-stick cookware I can buy which would be more resilient towards dishwasher?
I know ideally you don't want to put your non-stick cookware in dishwasher but let's say if I choose to do so, what sort of non-stick cookware would last longer?
Are there certain non-stick technologies that are more dishwasher "friendly"? Would choosing steel over aluminum help longevity of the cookware considering daily dishwasher wash?
----/ Update 1 /----
Just to show why I'm looking for a more durable nonstick solution, here is the Heritage Rock Nonstick pot I used and washed in dishwasher everyday for 6 months.
Heritage Rock pot
Nonstick is gone!
Rim is destroyed
Nonstick is peeling
Compare to less used one from the same set
How nonstick used to look like
----/ Update 3 /----
In case anyone is interested, Starfrit (the company behind the Heritage Rock brand) did decline my warranty claim on the basis of incorrect use.
They mention high temperature and metal utensils. I have induction stove so there is no direct heat, and the generated heat at the base of the pot should be very balanced. Also I mostly made rice which you don't use high heat for. I never use metal utensils on nonstick. It is the dishwasher that killed it and they don't want to admit that.
Anyways, I think this is how most of warranty claims end up. I think a $20 pot from Ikea would do better than my pot in 6 months :D | Look for one with a ten-year guarantee that states specifically is is dishwasher-friendly.
Keep the receipt.
There is a general rule that the more you pay, the longer it will last, but even just cooking in it if you can get more than a couple of years' useful life out of a frying pan without it getting sticky, you're doing well. Maybe 5 on the expensive stuff.
Personally, I wouldn't dream of putting my non-stick pans in the dishwasher. You can just about rinse them in hot water if they're good. |
How close is the liquid in canned vegetables to vegetable stock?
My mother taught me to never throw away the liquid in canned vegetables. She says that is the basis of a good soup or sauce. The both of use that liquid as one would use stock. Is that good practice though? We don't like throwing anything away. | "How close" is really a matter of taste.
Canning liquid generally consists of water, salt, and preservatives, plus particles from the cooked vegetables in the can. For example, the can of chickpeas in front of me contains "Chickpeas, water, salt, disodium EDTA". Since a vegetable stock is usually made with water, salt, and an assortment of cut vegetables, this makes it at least somewhat similar.
However, it's different in detail. First, the liquid in cans is generally flavored only with one vegetable, and not usually the same vegetables you'd put in stock. It also tends to have more salt and preservatives than most people put in their homemade stock. Finally, the liquid usually has a much more concentrated and "cooked" flavor than you'd generally want in a vegetable stock -- it tastes like a stock that was cooked for way too long.
And, of course, it contains none of the amino acids and gelatin you'd find in a meat and bone stock.
So, could you make a base for a vegetable soup using the liquid from canned vegetables? Certainly, yes, and it might or might not be better than just using water. But it certainly won't be as good as a purpose-made stock. |
Are different pasta shapes easier/harder for factory machines to make?
This weekend, I was shopping at the grocery store and found that the Lasagna was priced at about double per pound compared to other pasta shapes. That got me wondering if different pasta shapes are more/less hard for factory machines to make, or if these prices differences have more to do with consumer preferences? Is it somehow harder to build machines that make certain shapes? Are there other considerations I am missing that might cause some pasta shapes to be costlier than others to manufacture? | It's likely the handling and packing that's responsible for the higher price.
Among all the common dry pasta shapes typically sold in the grocery stores, lasagna sheets seem to be the most fragile.
Unlike many dry pastas that are kept relatively compact in plastic bags, dry lasagna sheets needs to be kept in like-shaped boxes to minimize breakage, and even then, a few sheets may get cracked from shaking around.
I'm not entirely sure if this is the main reason, but that's how I reason with it. |
Does protein powder still work after a few days in overnight oats?
I've been getting into overnight oats recently, and thinking about getting more protein in them. Some recipes (for example, here) suggest just adding protein powder.
But, at least one manufacturer says this:
/nhuman: Will my protein drink lose potency if I pre-mix ahead of time? | Not necessary – but, it will spoil if it’s not stored properly or used too long after it’s prepared. For best results, mix-up no more than a day’s worth of protein at a time, store it in the refrigerator (in a covered container), and use within 2 days of preparation.
I usually make a few days to a week's worth of oats at a time, and not knowing what exactly causes protein powder to "spoil," I'm wondering if protein powder will indeed spoil in overnight oats specifically over up to five days. |
What batter was used on Birds Eye potato fritters?
Birds eye sadly no longer make these, a very common potato side in the 70s and 80s which I'm trying to recreate. The batter was very light and golden, almost like a tempura batter, sort of flaky but crispy at the same time. The potato was quite dense, if memory serves correctly, it was whole potato pre-cooked, rather than a croquette like mixture.
I've tried using a seasoned plain flour and water batter (using both plain and self-raising flour with sparkling water), but the consistency was too doughy.
I suspect they have added some ingredient to the batter in the same way professional bakers add flour improver to bread.
Any suggestions as to what I could try? I was thinking of a very thin tempura batter with smoked paprika to give colouring using par-boiled potato discs, but I'm not sure if this would adhere properly or be the correct thickness. The batter on the fritters was a few millimetres thick, but nowhere near as thick as you would get on fried fish for instance. | Spar used to have a page* for "Birds Eye Oven Bake Potato Fritters" listing the ingredients with "Batter (Wheat Flour, Skimmed Milk Powder, Salt, Baking Powder (contains Rasing Agents E450, E500))". Sunflower oil is used.
* Lost, and not even available through the Wayback Machine as far as I can find: https://www.spar.co.uk/deals-and-groceries/frozen-foods/frozen-potato-products/other-frozen-potato-products/birds-eye-oven-bake-potato-fritters-650g |
Can I use regular gas (stove) cookware (pots and pans) in a fireplace?
I went somewhere with a fireplace. Let's say the place and cookware are mine. The kitchen works with fire (gas stove), so the cookware works for gas (I've used it before for a long time).
According to my research, a gas stove can go up to +-1650C and a fireplace +-550C
I know that to cook in fire usually it's required to do it in the embers. E.G: some bricks to make a support, add a BBQ grill, and there you go (Done it. Messy because of oils dripping there, but works). But what about regular cookware which will be in touch with the embers (SUPPOSING that with regular cookware you do it that way) Imagine heating up a pot with popcorn kernels (it'd be hot enough), making some hot chocolate, etc.
My guess is that apart from getting the pots dirty and probably harming the handles if they are made out of anything different than the material the pot is made (usually hard plastic or w/e), it should work fine. Although in this site I usually ask and also experiment to try out and post the results , I really don't want to risk it this time. Temperatures are higher in a gas stove (although not constant, not everywhere in touch), so these variables make me doubt. | It's not impossible, but you should choose your pans with care. That 550°C figure is for the outside of a wood-burning stove, and would be faintly glowing red in a dark room. In practice the stove has to be burning pretty fiercely to get that hot. You could put pretty much any cooking pot on top and you'd be fine.
But you say "in a fireplace", not "on a wood-burner" so it will get a lot hotter than 550°C. It's done when camping, but it's also how many people cook all the time - the 3-stone fire (google images) is very common, though not very efficient. You usually need a sturdy pot support as resting it on burning wood isn't good for the pan or the food, especially when things move, hence the three stones. Cooking in the embers is possible, but that's normally done by letting them die down, and partially burying the pan for slow cooking.
Cast iron pans have been used for cooking since before gas stoves were invented, so they'd be fine. My cast iron is enamelled and I wouldn't because I want to keep it looking nice. Also the hottest burning bits of the actual fire are potentially a bit too hot for the enamel.
A pan full of hot water or milk is limited in how hot it can get, which will protect many pans. That means that thin aluminium camping pans can be used right down in the fire, but not if they boil dry. They don't last for ever if you make a habit of it, but they do work.
Given what I have available, I'd use a stainless steel pan with a stainless steel handle and lid. Obviously the handle has a high chance of getting hot enough to burn you. |
Green lump in the middle of lamb meat
I have bought a fresh half leg of lamb today and there was a big disgusting green lump in the middle of it's fat. I'd like to know what it is and what should I do with the meat?
Would anyone be able to help me please? | I have sent the picture to the New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS) and asked them about it. This is their answer:
Thank you for contacting New Zealand Food Safety (NZFS) regarding your
enquiry about the strange lump which you found in your piece of lamb
meat.
I have sent these photos to experts within the team who have looked
over them.
They have confirmed that it is most likely a lymph node, due to the
grey/brown appearance and placement within the fatty area of the meat.
Lymph nodes is considered a very normal element of the carcass and the
ones seen in these pictures appear healthy. Unhealthy/abnormal lymph
nodes (enlarged, hard, or full of pus) may have a very small risk if
they were handed raw, but these would typically be discovered and
removed by routine post mortem inspections.
Because these lymph nodes appears healthy, the expert’s advice is that
the meat is safe for consumption.
I have chosen this as the right answer, because it was a response from the officials, otherwise, @moscafj's answer was right. |
Are there pressure-cooker specific foods?
According to the answers in this question, pressure cookers are primarily used to cook foods faster by changing the boiling point of water. (They are also used for preservation, but that's beside the point for this question).
Are there pressure-cooker specific foods? I've been looking, but I'm surprised that I can't seem to find recipes that absolutely require a pressure cooker. Surely the increased pressure will do something unique to certain types of foods, and that can be exploited to create new types of foods.
I know it's impossible to prove a negative, so if such foods really are virtually non-existant, then why is this the case? | Pressure speeds cooking by increasing the temperature from 212 to 250 Fahrenheit, but it also creates browning via the Maillard reaction.
Nathan Myhrvold says in "Modernist Cuisine at Home" on page 28:
The high temperatures inside the cooker also promote browning and caramelization, reactions that create flavors you can't get otherwise in a moist cooking environment.
According to Harold McGee, The Maillard reaction begins to occur at 250 Fahrenheit ("On Food and Cooking", Page 779).
Myhrvold gives a recipe for Caramelized Carrot Soup (p. 178). So there is an example of a recipe that requires a pressure cooker (i.e., it is not just the same results but faster). |
What parts of Italy should you go to for anchovy pizza?
Is there a specific region of Italy that is known for anchovy pizza? Can you get that in all of Italy or is that specific to a region?
Can you actually get a buffalo mozzarella anchovy pizza?
Im trying to flesh out the specifics of my culinary bucket list.
I’m assuming Italians actually do anchovies on pizza. I know they have nothing but disdain for those who put pineapple on pizza. | Napoli.
Prior to the blessing of Pizza Margharita as the official pizza of Napoli, the locals equally enjoyed pizza with tomato sauce and anchovies. So much so, that this pizza is still known as Pizza Napoli.
So if you're looking for a traditional, "canonical" anchovy pizza, that's the place to go. |
Are red beans supposed to look pruney when soaking?
I'm a teen trying to cook for himself and I wanted to make some red beans and rice.
After I boiled the water, I started soaking the red beans and in just 5-8 minutes, the beans pruned up like your fingers in bath.
I got so scared (I still am), because I think I did something wrong because my grandmothers red beans never looked like that. (At least when I ate them.)
My mother got the beans from a free food place and they've been in the cabinet for a few months now.
The beans:
2 lbs (900 g) of Morrison Farms light red kidney beans in 8 cups of boiled water.
The boiled water has 1/4 cup of kosher salt dissolved. | It's normal for beans to sometimes do that during the first stages of soaking, particularly if you soak them in boiling water. They should plump up and become normal after 40min to an hour. |
What can I use in lieu of bacon in boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin?
Boeuf bourguignon, coq au vin, even many pot roast chicken recipes call for a few slices of bacon.
A dietician nicely approved of everything in my diet, with the exception of the bacon (fried nitrates are a known carcinogen, I believe was the reason).
Yet from subsequent experience I know that bœuf bourguignon simply doesn't taste the same when I omit the bacon—and replace the fat rendered from bacon with butter. Instead of heavenly it tastes ordinary and mundane.
What can I use in lieu of bacon in boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin? Is this just one of those hopeless problems? | You could perhaps take some ideas from vegetarian recipes. Obviously, I know chicken isn't vegetarian, but if you need to avoid bacon there are vegetarian options for imparting the flavouring that you would otherwise get from bacon.
If it's a smoky flavour I want, I use Spanish smoked paprika. I frequently use it in lentil soup when cooking for vegetarian friends to avoid using bacon/ham. I use it in combination with vegetable stock cubes. Another smoky-flavoured spice is chipotle chili flakes - obviously this is much spicier than paprika, so be careful!
Another possibility is to use something like dried mushrooms, such as porcini; these have an almost pork-like concentrated umami/savoury flavour. I've also seen porcini mushroom powder, which can be used similarly, if you want to avoid pieces of mushroom.
Perhaps you could use a combination of all of these.
Another option, not vegetarian, is what is often referred to as Italian MSG - salted anchovy fillets. I know it sounds a bit weird, but these can add a wonderful salty meaty/umami flavour to dishes. Maybe just use two or three fillets. They will dissolve almost completely in a sauce. They're a strong flavouring but in small quantities they don't add a fishy flavour at all. |
Dutch oven vs. water pan for bread baking
I see a lot of successful home bread bakers using dutch ovens in their home ovens. They preheat the dutch oven, bake the proofed loaf inside the oven, and eventually remove the cover of the dutch oven to promote browning.
I also own a few books on bread baking and this method isn't seemingly popular amongst the pros. I'm quite fond of "The Bread Baker's Apprentice" by Peter Reinhart and he suggests sliding the loaf on a baking stone/steel and to put a cast iron pan on the floor of the oven with water in it. Both methods presumably lead to moisture being present around the loaf.
What are the pros and cons of each method? Would they lead to almost identical outcomes, or are there some key differences? | I've tried both, for my kitchen and oven, I get a much better oven spring with a preheated and initially covered dutch oven. A third alternative is to put your loaf on a stone and invert a large stainless mixing bowl over it. This eliminates the potential of burning your hands when dropping the loaf into the preheated dutch oven or when removing the finished loaf. In either case, the lid or bowl is removed after about 20 minutes. In my experience, the trapped steam is better than steaming the entire oven (unless your oven is equipped with a steam function. |
Cooking pasta longer to get it al dente?
Up until now I was more than sure that the longer I cook pasta, the more soft it becomes. And if I want to have an al dente pasta, I simply need to cook it 2-3 minutes shorter than I'd cook it to get it normal.
Until today when I saw this on a package of my past | Is this some kind of print error or I don't understand something obvious. How cooking longer can make pasta more crispy (rather than soft)? |
How to tell if wok is non-stick?
Someone gave me a wok. It's black and I scraped through the black coating so the metal is showing. I assume a regular wok (without non-stick coating) wouldn't have a black coating that could be scraped through?
Also I intend to use this wok like a wok. That is, I won't be using it at lower heats that are acceptable for non-stick coatings. My understanding, based on the "2 second google search" is that while this will destroy the non-stick coating (assuming that's what I have?), it's not unhealthy.
So my 2 questions are:
How can I know for sure if this has a non-stick coating?
Even if it is, am I correct in assuming it won't be unsafe to cook at high heats?
Edit: Here are a couple pictures. The only stamping on the entire Wok is "CHINA". | It looks like non-stick to me, judging by the way the damage looks around the edges of the scraped parts…
You can't season non-stick & this 'smooth' type of non-stick tends to be the 'old fashioned teflon' type, which will not be good at high temperatures.
There are modern non-stick coatings which do work at wok temperatures [& the woks are not actually particularly expensive, $£€ 25-35ish depending on size. I have one at home.]
You could test it empirically, but you'd need to do it outdoors over a grill/barbecue or indoors with good ventilation. ['Teflon' is not good to breathe.]
Subject it to one or more heat cycles as though you were going to high temperature cook or season it. This is far too hot for 'teflon' to survive, hence the ventilation - this is a 'kill or cure' method.
Rub it round with a thin layer of oil for seasoning each cycle & see how it looks after several layers.
Then once cold, leave it to soak for a couple of hours in water & see what happens if you give it a scrub round with a plastic pan-scrub.
If it survives that treatment, use it. If the surface starts to peel off, either sand it all off & treat as 'raw' pressed steel, or bin it & get a proper high-temperature one. |
Blender for mincing bell pepper?
I tried to grate bell pepper on a grater and it doesn't really work.
It worked on a meat grinder but I prefer some kind of smaller device.
The blenders work best for fruits, they only have the blades at the bottom of the container. Is there some types of blenders that work well for bell peppers? Probably having blades in the middle too, not only on the bottom.
Or other simple machines - manual or electric.
Later edit: This one seems to be what I need:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH3xKp3tk0g&t=35s
Does it have a name? How can I find one on Amazon? | The device pictured at the beginning of the video you attached is called a food processor. There are several sizes and ranges of quality. Just type "food processor" into the Amazon search bar. |
What are these small black specs inside my peppers?
Inside my pepper (pic) are these small black/brown specs. What are they? Are they safe to eat? | They are infertile seeds. If you notice, they are on the ribs of the pepper, where the seeds develop. Because they are infertile, they have not developed beyond the very early stages of development. |
Home-made Kimchi lost all water after being put in the fridge
I've made Kimchi using this recipe (german link, but I think it should be a pretty standard recipe).
I let it ferment for a week at room temperature and everything looked fine (it was covered in water/brine throughout).
I put it in the fridge today (to keep fermenting for another 2-3 weeks), and after a couple of hours in the fridge it now looks like all the water has been removed (I assume it was soaked up by the vegetables).
I am worried that it will go bad now, as it's not covered in water anymore. But I am unsure what to do.
Is this normal? If not, what went wrong, and how can I prevent it in the future?
What should I do now? Refill the glasses with water? And if so, should I use salt water? | Brain cells acquired, turning my comment into an answer:
The first thing you should do in a situation like this is to open the container and press the vegetables back down. As fermentation occurs, the active bacteria produce gas as well as acid. The gas will get trapped in pockets under the vegetables, and once enough pressure builds can lift the vegetables out of the brine. When the ferment is chilled, those air pockets will shrink, just a tiny bit. But due to friction or other forces, the vegetables might be stuck in place, and not be able to sink back into their original positions so easily. And so the brine "sinks" to fill the space instead, which causes the appearance of vanishing brine. Ideally, you shouldn't add anything to your ferment once it's under way (unless you're specifically doing a secondary ferment, which is totally different), so attempt to press first before you top off.
But if you do need to top off the liquid in order to keep everything submerged, always use a brine rather than plain water. Your fermenting vegetables are tightly packed, and adding plain water on top could give other undesired bacteria a chance to multiply before the existing salt/acid can diffuse through it. Not to mention that the plain water is going to leach salt away from the top layer of vegetables first, which is more likely to give you uneven results.
If your ferment doesn't call for a brine, a ~3% brine solution is generally reasonable, but if you dig a little you'll find plenty of recommendations. |
Why would boiling spinach decrease the iron content?
I've found a lot of articles that say spinach contains more iron when boiled. However, I also came across someone saying the iron content would decrease as the boiling time increases. I was wondering why this is, if someone could answer, that would be great! | So, it turns out people have looked at this, and we can answer with science.
Basically, while the iron content in spinach is high relative to many other vegetables, it isn't very bio-available (i.e. not readily taken up by our bodies). This is because of some compounds found in plants, called polyphenolics. These prevent absorption of the iron by our bodies. So, while iron is at around 2 mg/100g (0.07 oz/3.5 oz) in spinach, the amount we take up is only 1.7% of that amount; 0.044 mg/100g (0.00155 oz/3.5 oz).
There's a handy infographic at compoundchem.com, which shows this:
Now, you didn't ask about that, but to make the answer more useful for other people looking on the same topic, I've included this for background. So, onto the cooking; what effect does that have.
It turns out that in the paper1 (I've linked it here, it may be paywalled and is a PDF, abstract is here), iron is more available after cooking, as you can see from table 2 in the linked paper, where the extractable iron goes up after cooking:
I haven't been able to find out about whether this actually increases the bioavailability of the iron or not (I suspect not), but there is certainly more extractable iron in cooked spinach than uncooked.
1: Yadav SK, Sehgal S. Effect of domestic processing and cooking methods on total, hcl extractable iron and in vitro availability of iron in spinach and amaranth leaves. Nutr Health. 2002;16(2):113-20. doi: 10.1177/026010600201600205. PMID: 12102364. |
Chowder without flour
Is there a gluten free alternative for flour in clam or mussel chowder? The recipe calls for a couple spoonfuls. | Yes, certainly. The flour is only there for thickening. You can use pretty much any flour or starch from a gluten-free grain or tuber, and it will thicken just as well.
Depending on whether you want to add another flavor, you can go for a flour with a strong taste on its own, like buckwheat, and/or whole grain flour. If you don't want that, go for a starch.
As for the amount, do a 1:1 substitute by weight. You can employ it with whatever technique is prescribed in the original - a roux, a slurry, or dusting the solid pieces before adding them, it will all work. |
Polymer fume fever probably detected
I have a mildly scratched teflon pot and recently contemplated about throwing it to the bin but online pages suggested that it's fine as it is a recently bought one (less than 4 months ago in an EU country).
Yet when I heated the empty pot at 6th level of my electric stove I smelled a strange odor close to that of a burning plastic. Consulting the internet, stoves can heat up to 220 Celsius degrees and polymer fumes are released at 300 degrees. Can it be that the phenomenon starts appearing early when the pot is empty? | Electric stove elements can reach 800C if left on high with nothing on top. While an empty pan won't quite reach that maximum (which is also bad for your stove), they can certainly get well over 400C.
As such, if you heated an empty nonstick pan for a while and smelled it burning, the nonstick coating may be ruined. That's easily tested; fry an egg in it. |
Compensate for low-performance gas stovetop
Disclosure: this question and topic relates strictly to kitchen gadgetry rather
than anything else.
My range is horribly lacking in multiple ways, and it has (despite my best efforts to accommodate for it) compromised countless baked/cooked resources.
Specifically, the entire stovetop component retains burners that supply a low-output BTU (the value of which I'm unsure of and wouldn't really trust if I could find it anyway), and this situation results in many dishes being destroyed or made too complicated, which in turn manifests in all other async operations being made avoidably difficult. For example, I have an All-Clad 8QT stockpot that takes ~20 minutes for 6QT of pure water to come to a boil, and that's unacceptably long. Moreover, it's made worse during thermal recovery when I plunge meats or pastas/dumplings into said pot (forget how awfully this gets when I'm working in batches, it's like scuttling your own ship), and the boil takes (at a minimum) 1-2 minutes to regain the boiling state, at which point (especially for pastas), the resource is totally ruined.
Without purchasing an entirely new range (or stovetop), what are some smaller, portable options I can use that will resolve my issue described here?
I've researched induction and other gas options like this but want some SME insight on a recommended path forward here. | I don’t know anything about your stove, but when I’ve been in a similar situation, I use more burners or alternate methods of heating large volumes of water.
For instance, if you have an electric kettle or even a microwave, you could use that to heat some of the water, while you only attempt to heat half of the water directly from the burner.
You might also want to check to see if any of your burners are more powerful than others. I had a similar issue at a friend’s house, and it turned out I was using the ‘simmer’ burner, and should’ve used the rear burner which had higher output. If they’re all having issues, you might want to get your stove serviced. There might be some sort of issue with it, such as a place that’s using LP but the stove is set for natural gas (which has a different amount of energy per volume) |
"tall can of evaporated milk", how big is it?
We have a recipe for chocolate fudge that is 40+ years old. That recipe calls for a "tall can of evaporated milk" and one (8 oz) jar of marshmallow creme.
In the last few years we've been having trouble with the fudge (too thick and hardens too fast), so I wanted to check the ingredients proportions.
One problem is that the major brand marshmallow creme jar (western US) is now 7 oz.
The other one is figuring out how big the "tall" can actually was. It seems there was such a thing in the more distant past but I don't recall.
I did find some comments online indicating it was 14.5 oz. The major brand evaporated milk can here is now 12 oz.
So I'd like to find some more concrete conclusion on this. If it was 14.5 oz, then I'm obviously shorting the recipe now. | From my previous research into can sizes, I suspect that the can may have been either a #1 tall (16 fl.oz) or a #2 tall (24 fl.oz). There was also a #3 tall, but it’s large enough that I don’t think anyone would have been selling evaporated milk in it.
You might want to look at other fudge recipes to determine if either of those amounts might be enough fix the problems you’re having.
You might also want to post the rest of the recipe so people can see the proportions to other ingredients. |
Making butter at home
I decided to make home made butter. I haven’t done this since I was a kid. We shook the jar until the liquid separated. I wasn’t sure if this meant it was done or not even though I kept reading the instructions over and over. Now I have a cream that looks like soft cream cheese. Have I over shook? Can I still use this if I have, or do I keep shaking? | Keep at it.
You have made butter once you see distinct lumps in the liquid, indicating that the fat and liquid have separated.
What you described is pretty close to whipped cream. And all bakers know not to over-whip their cream or they make butter unintentionally. You can’t over shake butter, at least not with the jar method |
Should you stream sugar into French meringue?
I’ve heard several opinions on preparing French meringues:
stream sugar into fluffy egg whites
-or- combine sugar and egg whites ahead of time (e.g. the day before)
-or- dump all sugar into egg whites and then start whipping
Any concrete facts about the efficacy of either method? Does either have more stable foam or with better overrun? | Personally, this is the sort of situation that I think is fantastic for experimentation. My recommended medium would be a chiffon cake that depends on whipped egg whites for structure. Keeping every other aspect of the batter the same, try each method, bake the cake the same way, in the same pan, and look at the crumb. Is it even, fine, loose, dense, airy? How thick is the crust? How does it feel when you bite down? Crumbly, soft, spongey, firm, dry? That's going to give you the best answer (and an excuse to eat cake.) Alternatively, or additionally, just bake 2-3 egg whites worth of meringues directly to avoid excess. Take some pictures of your experiments if you decide to perform them a few weeks apart.
Generally, this is what I've gathered for myself from various sources and/or experiments and accidents:
The longer you wait to add the sugar, the denser your final product will be. One potential issue is that the sugar might not thoroughly dissolve before you've finished whipping your meringue, leading to extra caramelization on the outside, possibly even graininess, or (depending on the use) a separation of sorts. I've had a few cakes come out with a denser layer at the bottom with a much lighter, but drier crumb higher up.
I can't precisely explain the physics, but you can overwhip egg whites into a grainy mess. That kind of curdling is caused by proteins coagulating too much together. So, the addition of sugar not only adds stability to the meringue, but inhibits the proteins from binding together quite so quickly or easily, and so helps prevent that curdling. Based on this, I think it's reasonable to assume that if you wait too long to add sugar to a meringue, some of the proteins will have already bonded too tightly together for the sugar to properly interfere. As a result, you wind up with some tighter egg protein matrix and some looser, as well as sugar syrup that's not as well distributed throughout the foam - meaning the sugar doesn't always get where it needs to be to stabilize the foam, and instead weighs it down unevenly. Not great texture-wise, and worse than that, unpredictable.
So what's the problem if you add the sugar too soon? Basically, it works too well to stabilize and inhibit the foam's formation. I've done that multiple times because I personally prefer it for chiffon cake. The sooner you start adding the sugar, the more thick and velvety smooth the meringue becomes. That can be an issue because when you bake it up, the texture is very fine. It dries out easily, and where it's not chalky, it's marshmallow-y. I've never bitten into a piece of insulation foam, but I imagine it has a similar texture to a meringue that got sugared at the beginning. Not bad, IMO, and fairly predictable, but definitely not ideal by most standards for most applications.
I've never actually tried adding the sugar to the egg whites the day before, so I can't speak to that specifically. I'd imagine it would result in an extremely fine foam, and lead to a dry or spongey final product as well - either of which might be exactly what you want for a given application.
That's the most difficult aspect of this question to completely address. French meringue can be used in multiple applications, piped and baked to dryness, broiled or torched on a pie or for baked alaska, as a last minute dairy-free sub for whipped cream, for pavlova, as the non-chemical leavening in cake, a base for a buttercream... The desirable amount of sugar and best time to add can vary by application, and more importantly by person.
I'd imagine various people swear by their own methods for their own reasons, possibly because they favor different textures, or different desserts entirely, or their mixer runs at a different speed, or their preferred bowl is a different shape, both of which could be significant. So again, I really think this is the kind of question you're best off answering through direct experimentation. There is no one best method, any more than there's one best cake. |
Can you add vinegar to chicken stock while making it to get calcium from the bones into the stock?
I got this tip from my mother, she says it helps bring calcium into the stock and break down the bones so the marrow can come out.
It seems like it would change the taste but I'm not sure how. Also it seems like the best way to get the marrow into the stock is to break the bones. I've had to use pliers and a cleaver to make that happen though, especially with turkey thigh bones. | One study found that:
"The stocks with and without vinegar did not differ in calcium content and all were poor sources of calcium, providing from 6 to 11 mg of calcium per cup"
and
"In contrast to the soup stock, one quart (four cups) of skim milk provides 1,184 mg calcium".
While another concluded that:
"prolonged cooking of a bone in soup increases the calcium content of the soup when cooked at an acidic, but not at a neutral pH"
In summary:
The cooking of bones in an acidic soup can (relative to a neutral soup) increase the calcium content provided that the cooking is for an extended period, however the calcium increase is minor/negligible, therefore vinegar-based soup stock should not be relied upon as an important source of dietary calcium.
Sources:
Calcified Tissue International 1994 Jun; 54(6):486-8
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8082052/
Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Volume 89, Issue 12, December 1989
https://go.gale.com/ps/anonymous?id=GALE%7CA8266359&sid=googleScholar |
Is my rice pot still safe to use?
The bottom part metal of my rice pot has turned into darker colour as shown below. May i know if it is still safe to use and what causes it to turn colour? I think the pot is made up of anodised aluminium ? (Correct me if I am wrong) | Your rice pot looks like it has an uncoated aluminum insert. Which also explains the discoloration: aluminum easily discolors from hard (alkaline) water, or even from minerals from the rice itself. These chemicals cause the surface of the aluminum to oxidize.
This discoloration is harmless and you can ignore it if you choose. If it bothers you, it can be removed with various household cleaners. |
What exactly is this residue and how do I clean it off?
I have a grill pan with some cooking residue on it. I'm not exactly sure which food caused it (usually oven cook chips, pizza or grill sausages, burgers, sometimes mackerel) but something left this and I'm struggling to clean it.
It's very black, and also very smooth. It's been in the dishwasher, soaked in washing up liquid and also tried sodium percarbonate on it. I've tried scrubbing with both a sponge (rough green side) and some natural scrubbing thing we have. Nothing has touched the perfectly smooth finish and removed any of it.
The only way I've found is to scrape it off with a metal utensil. I successfully removed quite a lot (just the right amount of pressure makes it lift ok) with a wide palette knife. But this method is high risk when it comes to scratching the non stick coating off, so I'm looking for a safer alternative if anyone can help? | This is polymerized oil - the same stuff that people build up on iron pans as seasoning.
There is no good way to remove it from a coated surface. It is quite resistant to both chemical and physical methods, as you discovered. Most mechanical methods will scratch your existing coating, and as for chemical methods, the only reliable one is lye. If the existing "nonstick coating" is enamel or teflon, it shouldn't be damaged by the lye, but we cannot tell for sure from a picture.
You can also leave the spot there. The problem is purely cosmetic, it is perfectly well suited as coating for a pan (as said above, it is created on purpose on reactive surfaces). |
What are the risks to store a digital scale under an object?
The storage space in my kitchen is rather limited. For that reason, I store my digital scale under a (rather lightweight) salad spinner.
Is there any risk to mess up the calibration of the scale and getting
out wrong measurements?
Would it matter if the object stored on top
of the scale was heavier (a pot for example)? | With a digital scale it shouldn't matter at all, the sensor is an electronic strain gauge, increasing weight changes the voltage the sensor returns, the scale is calibrated to the change in voltage, translating that to the weight. There are no major mechanical parts to wear out. With this type of sensor having a light weight on it shouldn't make any difference to it long term. I have a measuring cup sitting on mine when it's in the drawer, and I've done that for years without an issue. A larger object should still be okay as long as it doesn't exceed the capacity of the scale, at some point it will damage the sensor. Although, if you are concerned you can just stand it up on its side instead of putting something on top.
Mechanical scales are a different story as most of them use springs, keeping a load on a spring long-term can lead to it deforming and/or weakening prematurely, leading to errors in precision. |
My new convection/convention oven will not bake anything correctly
I just bought a KitchenAid oven which, has both convection and conventional settings with a convection conversion setting. I have been baking for over 40 years, and nothing I have made in this oven is edible. I am using the conventional feature (as with a typical conventional oven) to make breads, quick breads, cheesecake, etc.
I have had 5 technicians out who say that my temperature is correct. They have calibrated the temp up and calibrated it down. Nothing works. I have had to increase the baking time on the recipe by double (or longer), and at times, I still have raw liquid dough in the center. I am not doing anything differently from the 40+ years of baking these recipes.
What is the problem and how do I fix it? | The first thing to do is buy an oven thermometer to see what temperature your oven actually is. Technicians have no real way of knowing what the temperature is when you are using it; what you need is hard data. Oven thermometers are very cheap, and it will give you a better idea of what's going on. Put one in your oven and then turn it to the temperature you want, then see what temperature it actually gets to.
Next, read your oven's manual thoroughly to make sure there's not something you're missing. One of my ovens wasn't working--I set the temperature and mode but it wouldn't heat. I thought it was broken before I figured out it wouldn't work if the clock's time wasn't set. Don't ask me why it was designed that way, it doesn't make sense but there it is. Some ovens have a start button and won't change the temperature unless you press it. |
Why does spinach come in an airtight bag?
When I buy spinach from the supermarket, it comes in a sealed plastic bag. There is always quite a lot of moisture inside the bag on the leaves. I used to find that spinach would last about 3 days in the fridge inside this bag, and then go mushy and bad.
I realised recently that the moisture is the problem. If I open the bag and spread the spinach out to dry for a couple of hours before putting it in the fridge, I find it lasts for up to 2 weeks. Given that the spinach lasts so much better this way, it seems strange to me that the supermarket does not put holes for ventilation in the bag, to keep it from getting so wet.
So, why does spinach from the supermarket come in an airtight bag?
(I live in the UK, and have only ever seen spinach in bags like this. I would also be interested to hear if people have experiences of different types of spinach packaging in other places) | The airtight bag has an atmosphere of mostly nitrogen. This displaces the oxygen in regular air, which in itself prevents decay but also reduces the moisture content which further prevents decay. Inflating the bag before sale also helps cushion it during transit:
Nitrogen is a popular gas for food packaging because it displaces
oxygen. This is important because oxygen can carry moisture. Oxygen is
used by bacteria to grow and thrive on organic material.
By removing as much oxygen as possible, bacteria find it more
difficult to grow. Additionally, oxygen can cause foods to undergo
oxidation, which can cause foods to become foul-smelling and inedible.
In addition to keeping foods from going bad or stale, nitrogen
flushing can also help cushion the products during transit (as you see
with easily-crushable foods like chips).
Source
Once you open the packaging, regular air is reintroduced. If you seal it again using a clip, then the moisture is trapped inside and the spinach can decay quickly. At this point the most valuable thing to do is to make sure that air can circulate freely so the surface of the spinach is dry, as you have found. Putting a piece of paper towel in with the spinach can also help by absorbing free moisture from the air. |
What could be the history of this pan?
I inherited this aluminum frying pan from my grandmother who passed away in 1998. Since then, it has mostly sat in the cabinet thanks to its distinct downward bulge in the center, and its inconveniently small size at about 12" upper-inner diameter. The handle has a wooden outer "shroud" painted black (well worn).
The exceptions to sitting in the cabinet, for this pan, for us, have been mostly to fry rueditas on the sideburner of the grill. This is due to the downward bulge in the center of the pan which makes it wobbly and a bit unsuitable for any sort of normal use.
Can anyone shed any light onto the age and history of this pan? Who made it? What year(s) was it in production? Etc.? Also owing to its center-bulge, most of the maker's markings are worn off. I'm not sure if I'm dealing with something from the $1 stores of the mid 90s or something from the late 40s shortly after my grandmother's marriage.
Thank you!
++ | That logo seems pretty clear: it's Club Aluminum Cookware. The unpainted finish, "hammered" brand, and wood handle suggest that it's from the early history of the company -- between 1923 and 1933. However, it was a mass-market brand and such pieces are not particularly valuable.
Value aside, it's a servicable pan and you could use it for a couple decades yourself if you wanted to. |
Using pistachio paste instead of an extract - what proportion of paste should I use?
While I have a specific baking goal in mind, if there are answers that apply generally to all cooking/baking that'd be great.
I have a biscotti recipe that I often adapt with different mix-ins and different flavor extracts. But I want to make a pistachio version now and want a strong pistachio flavor flavor.
Can pistachio paste be substituted 1:1 for an extract? I'd guess the paste is going to be weaker in flavor than an extract, so am I looking at a 2:1 or even greater substitution? | I haven't used pistachio paste, and it's a while since I've used extract, but I'm pretty certain that the amount of paste you'd need would be enough to change the texture of your biscotti.
To my mind, a "strong pistachio flavour" means almost as strong as pistachios themselves, meaning that you'd need 10s of percent of paste in your dough, instead of less than about 1% extract. |
How to make a split oil sauce
I am watching masterchef: the professionals
They have a few recipes about a split oil sauce
Google shows how to fix a split sauce. That is not my question
My research shows this is where they purposely combine a water based and oil based sauce
What would a basic recipe look like to achieve this split oil sauce? | A simple Asian style dressing or dipping sauce would qualify as a split oil type sauce from that description, containing as basics Soy Sauce, Toasted Sesame Oil, Rice Vinegar and/or Mirin.
So would a simple Italian style bread dipping sauce, with Olive Oil and Balsamic Vinegar (and herbs, garlic, etc.) |
Sushi Salmon left uncovered overnight in fridge safe to eat?
I thawed raw sushi salmon the day before and then wrapped it in papertowels and put it in the fridge overnight, but I forgot to put a lid on the container.
It the salmon still safe to eat? Since the papertowels were also a lil wet due to the frozen salmon leaking some juices. | There is nothing you've identified that would make it unsafe. As long as you've kept it below 40F (4.5C) you are good. Covering is not a critical issue for safety, temperature is. |
Can beans be overcooked?
Can beans be overcooked? Coffee beans, for example, are incredibly roasted. Falafel is baked or fried garbanzo beans. Is it possible to overcook beans, or is this good for breaking down the sugars, phytic acid that cause flatulence, indigestion of legumes? | Beans can absolutely be overcooked.
Coffee beans aren't really beans--they're seeds from a fruit--but they are very temperature sensitive when roasted. There is a wide range of roasts, but dark roast in particular is essentially brought right to the edge and stopped before burning. For folks who like lighter or medium roasts, even dark roasts of coffee can be unpalatably burnt tasting.
As far as legumes and "real" beans go--absolutely. Beans can still be burnt (such as over-fried falafel, or grilled haricots verts), or overcooked until they just turn to mush. If you simmer bean soup long enough, the beans will just disintegrate and lose their shape.
Dried beans in particular are fairly forgiving--there's a pretty wide range where they are edible & enjoyable. The long cook time on dried beans means hitting the doneness between "not crunchy" and "not mushy" is fairly easy.
Fresh beans (haricots verts, green chick peas, fava beans, etc) are quite the opposite. Like other fresh vegetables, the cook time is relatively short and thus it is easy to turn them into a mash by overcooking for just a few minutes. Some people do like mushy vegetables--but many would consider mushy fresh vegetables (including fresh beans) to be a culinary sin. |
What are the effects of resting (or not) carnitas meat after the initial braise
I just read a pork carnitas recipe and part of the workflow/steps went like this:
braise meat (e.g. pork shoulder, pork butt) for 8+ hours
remove meat, keep braising liquid available
shred meat
return shredded meat to braising liquid for another 30+ minutes
remove meat
broil meat for 5-7 minutes
In between steps 2-3, there was no mention of resting the meat. Perhaps that was implicit. Even if it was, it got me thinking. If you are returning the meat (post-shred) back to the braising liquid without ever having rested the meat, are you very likely compromising flavor and/or texture of the final product? If so, is that also a function of the animal and cut? Assume that any bled liquids from the shredding step are passed back to the braising mixture. | Slow-cooked meats that get shreddable (pork butt, beef chuck, etc) are a little different than other cuts, like steaks and rare roast beef.
As a pork butt (or similar cut) cooks and breaks down, it loses the structure that holds juices in. Instead, the braising liquid contains much of that "juice"--including gelatin & melted fat. This is essentially why the meat is even shreddable. The act of shredding/pulling the meat just separates the meat in the spots where the connective tissue has already released the muscle fibers from each other, compared to slicing where you are cutting the muscle fibers apart where they would not naturally separate.
As a general rule, shredded or pulled meats are shredded while still warm/hot, then dressed with the braising liquid, sauce, or gravy to keep the meat juicy. If a recipe calls for letting the meat sit a short period before shredding, it us usually related to allowing it to cool to prevent burning yourself, rather than allowing it to rest, the way we do for a steak. |
What goes into tom yum soup?
I've bought some tom yum paste. The label says 2 tbsp per cup of water, add meats and vegetables as preferred.
What would be good, reasonably authentic solids? | Standard would be shrimp, mushrooms, and green onions.
Possibly some hot peppers, but if the paste is sufficiently spicy, you might want to use a more mild pepper for texture |
How long to slow-cook a small corned beef?
In honor of the day I want to cook corned-beef in our slow-cooker. I've read several recipes that say to cook a 3-4 pound brisket for 9-10 hours. However, the corned-beef I bought is only 2 pounds.
Should I still cook it for 10 hours? | Yes, you should. The long cooking time breaks down the connective tissue in the meat, making it tender. It will take less time to get a two pound brisket up to temperature than a four pound, but we aren't talking hours difference, and longer is definitely better. |
Why different techniques for mayonnaise and hollandaise sauces?
There is very little difference between mayonnaise and hollandaise sauce; each is basically an emulsion of egg yolk and fat, with various emulsifiers and flavours added.
The significant difference is that one uses oil that is already liquid at room temperature, and the other uses butter, which must be melted at a higher temperature.
The question is, why can't they be made exactly the same way, but at a temperature that is just high enough to melt the butter, not more than 40°C or 100°F?
I.e. why does hollandaise also require being effectively cooked as well? | You can make mayonnaise with butter, using the same technique. The probable reason you don't find it on shelves is that it hardens up in the refrigerator, nobody wants to have to warm up their mayo to use it. You can make hollandaise with oil instead of butter.
Although both are emulsions, mayonnaise and hollandaise are different consistencies, achieved with different methods. |
Can Le Creuset Dutch Oven be used in the microwave in convection mode?
I am reading that cast iron may pop or crackle in a convection oven, and aluminum is best for it. Since Le Creuset Dutch Oven is just enameled cast iron, I couldn't help but have a safety concern over using it in the microwave's convection mode. | Le Creuset and convection ovens work well together.
One issue may be that some microwave ovens turn on the microwave part even in convection mode. More honest ones call this combination mode, and have a separate convection mode (like mine).
There are a couple of potential issues even with decent convection microwaves. One is that it will take a long time to heat through in a fairly weak oven. Another is that it's likely to be quite tricky to get a full size one in.
If you're using it with the lid on (if it even fits), the lid will come very close to the element. That's where the biggest issue arises, because the (oven-proof plastic) knob on the lid can't take that much direct heat. In some models the (top) element is far enough back that it won't directly heat the knob. In others I wouldn't trust it not to damage the plastic. |
What is difference between Greek and Danish feta cheese?
I see both version and was wondering what the difference between the two is? | These are two different cheeses. I don't know how they came to be called by the same name, but they have a very different taste and texture.
The Greek-style Feta is a subtype of the standard cheese on the Balkan peninsula. When I say "standard", I mean that it is so entrenched, there is not even a word for it - linguistically, "cheese" just means this type, and all other kinds are an exotic afterthought.
This Balkan-type cheese is a semi-hard white cheese, for which the curds are ripened in a salty brine, without culturing. It is crumbly, and has a characteristic aroma, especially when well-ripened and when made from sheep or buffalo milk. I am not sure whether the Feta PDO only covers the sheep-milk type, but the process is suitable for all milks. It is quite salty, and melts only partially when heated.
The Danish Feta is an entirely different beast. It is a soft cream cheese, similar in texture to American cream cheese. The taste is a bit stronger than American cream cheese. Typically, it is not marinated, even though the product you show is sold in marinade - but this is more of an "additional treatment", not part of the cheesemaking process. The only similarity to Greek Feta is that is also white in color, and that it happens to bear the same name (at least until the PDO laws and their application get sorted out). |
What is the name of the tool which involves a ball inside a sealed container that is shaken to grind up spices?
I have seen a tool which is in two parts. In either part, you place both the plastic ball that comes with the tool and spices. You then screw the two parts of the tool together (it's plastic, it's easy). Now that you spices and the ball are sealed within the container, you can violently shake the tool to grind your spices to near dust. I've owned one, but because it was made out of plastic, the violent shaking smashed it.
What is the name of this tool? | I haven't seen this type of device as a home spice grinder, but in commercial/industrial settings, this type of device is called a ball mill.
Industrial ball mills will have a cylinder filled with balls. The item that needs to be ground is added, the the cylinder is then turned on an axis so that the balls & material tumble, with the balls pulverizing the material. (picture a laundry dryer, filled with steel balls, and using that to grind up "stuff".) These basically use the tumbling movement and the strength of the spheres (usually made from something like steel or ceramic) to pulverize the subject material (usually something softer than the spheres).
While ball mills traditionally use multiple balls, and a mechanized tumbling motion, the spice grinder you describe would work on the exact same principle.
I'm not sure if there is a specialized name for the specialized version of the ball mill you describe that is meant to be shaken & used for spices--but it would certainly be a derivative or subclass of a ball mill. I also suspect that a steel version would be much more durable--as you noted the plastic version would eventually shake itself apart from frequent use, or using it with very hard spices. |
How can I cook parboiled rice in absorption method?
How many cups of water (not liters) should I add to 1 cup of parboiled rice in case of the absorption method of cooking?
How many minutes should I cook? | In general, the amount of water to use while cooking parboiled rice is "whatever the packaging says you should use."
However, if you bought your parboiled rice in bulk or have lost the packaging, parboiled rice is generally cooked the same way as regular rice, but with slightly more water. So parboiled medium-grain rice like the kind you have would use 2.25::1 ratio of water to rice by volume. Drier rices, like basmati, would use 2::1 (non-parboiled basmati is normally 1.5::1).
Cooking times are the same as they would be for regular rice. So for medium-grain parboiled, you could cook it like:
Boil 450ml of water.
Add in 200ml of rice
Cover and simmer over low heat for 15-20 minutes
Turn off heat and wait for another 5-10 minutes
Open, fluff, and serve
Like regular rice, parboiled rice can be cooked using pasta or steaming methods as well. |
Can I add double cream to my cake batter instead of sour cream?
First of all, the reason I ask is because I wanted to follow this recipe for making a keto tiramisu cake but this person is adding sour cream to the batter which I don't agree with(isn't it going to taste weird?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RWlUuaktsA
I want to use double cream instead. Do you think I can make this substitute?
Recipe:
CAKE:
1/2 cup (115g) sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup (65g) butter - melted
1/3 cup (78ml) brewed coffee
1/2 cup (100g) sugar substitute (I used erythritol)
3 eggs
2 cups (200g) almond flour
1 tsp baking powder
ICING:
1 1/8th cup (250g) mascarpone cheese
1 cup heavy cream - whipped
1/2 cup (100g) sugar substitute
1 tablespoon vanilla | Adding sour cream isn't going to make it taste weird, so you could use it no problem, in fact it's a really good ingredient - more on that later. You can use double cream, but you've got to make adjustments - it's not a straight substitute for 2 reasons:
Fat content: sour cream is 20% fat, double cream is 50%. If you substitute double cream you'll be increasing the fat in the recipe by about 50% (the butter is 80% fat). If you mix 1 part double cream and 2 parts milk and add that you'll have about the same amount of fat. However, sour cream will be much thicker, so you will get a runnier batter, and you will not get the same structure in the end result
Acidity: Sour cream has lactic acid added to make it tangy. Your recipe. Many recipes have baking soda in it, and may have baking powder as well. Baking soda must react with an acid in order to work, if you substitute double cream for sour cream you are removing the acid, so you'll need to replace the baking soda with baking powder. (Note, I first wrote this when there was no recipe in the question, I'm keeping it because many recipes do use baking soda, and I like a complete answer as it helps a broader set of readers)
When the acid in sour cream reacts with baking powder the acidity is reacted away, if there is baking soda your batter won't be sour anymore. In the case of your recipe there there is only baking powder, so any tartness is the intent of the recipe. Perhaps it is there to help balance out the bitterness of the coffee.
So, you can substitute double cream with some measure of success, but I personally would trust the recipe and use sour cream. |
How does the UK nutrition "Traffic Light System" work?
I have been trying to understand the UK "Traffic Light" system of labelling food nutrition as a helpful guide to maintaining a healthy diet and to focus this question on one nutrient, I am concentrating on saturated fats.
The UK guidelines state that the RDA for saturated fats is 30g per day for men and 20g per day for women.
If you take the following labels I have photographed, they are confusing.
Note that each pack is a portion size pack
The top one is a pack of sandwiches (2 slices of bread, with filling, cut in half), the bottom one is a "crunch mix" snack.
How can one of these be low on saturates at 2.2g per portion (11% RDA) when the other pack is "medium level" at 1.2g per portion (6% RDA and 55% of the "low" pack)? | With much government information they do not like to give us firm details of what they do. I have failed to find details of how they do it [1], but one way they could would be to assume a person ate only this, and see how much saturated fat they would eat. The top is 398kcal and 2.2g sat fat, the bottom 159 kcal and 1.2g sat fat. If one ate 2,000 kcals worth of the top you would get 11g of saturated fat, and of the bottom 15g saturated fat. This could indicate that the bottom is worse than the top.
[1] The closest I found was the last page of this document, but that states for sturated fat the limits are low < 1.5g < medium < 5g < high but this is not consistent with your images. |
How can I make my baguette dough softer and more elastic?
I've been practicing making french baguettes at home and am currently exploring the poolish method. I've collected numerous recipes and tried different variations.
My baguettes are OK but I'm looking for a way to improve all of my steps to make the end result as good looking and tasty as possible (still lots of room for improvement).
One thing I noticed is my dough doesn't look as soft and elastic as I would like after kneading it.
Here's how I would love it to be:
Source: https://youtu.be/DkHsbchF2-g?t=228.
It looks very soft and elastic, you can stretch it and it looks like a veil, making it almost see through (AKA the window pane test).
What I end up with it this:
It looks like an over-chewed bubble-gum and does not really stretch; but rather breaks apart.
I have a few ideas to improve that texture, but I'm afraid trying them all (and their combinations) would take me a long time, so I'm sharing them with you:
Try another flour. I bought mine at my baker's place asking the one they use for baguettes, but I'm afraid the shop assistant didn't hear this and gave me another one (or they add some other ingredients I'm not aware of).
Knead less. I'm currently relying on my home stand mixer and knead for about 5 minutes on low speed and 1 on medium.
Knead by hand. I haven't tried yet as it can become messy with kids running around :)
Change recipe ratios. I compiled my recipe research in that tool (personal-use and French only for the moment) and am currently using the default (Baguette > Tradition) settings. See below for details.
Adapt temperatures. Same here, I'm using my tool's bottom calculator for the water temperature.
The recipe
Prepare poolish with 2g fresh yeast, 196 g water and 196 g flour
Let rest covered for 3 hours at room temperature
Knead poolish with 196 g water, 6g fresh yeast, 12 g salt and 392 g flour, for 5 to 10 minutes on low speed and 1 to 2 minutes on medium speed
Let rest covered for 1.5 hours
Steps after that don't matter ;)
Here's how my recent batches looked like:
What do you think?
Is one of those numbered steps the obvious reason to you?
Or do you see something else that could lead to my not-so-pretty texture?
"A few days later" Update
I bought a pack of T65 flour and tried another batch. Here are its nutrition facts:
Description
Percentage
Fat
1%
Carbohydrates
69%
Fibers
4%
Proteins
12%
Salt
0%
And here's the resulting dough:
Sadly I don't see any improvements. I guess the flour wasn't the issue and I still have to do my research. Any help is appreciated! | It looks to me definitely like a kneading issue.
You certainly have some good gluten formation. It is visible in the torn edges around the hole in the middle, in both of your pictures. At the same time, your gluten is way too tight. You can see this both in the tearing, and in the lumps present in the dough.
Intuitively, this looks to me more like a too-intensely-kneaded dough than like too-long-kneaded dough - although both are a possibility, and difficult to distinguish when I can't touch the dough.
The optimal way to solve this would be to first build a haptic understanding of well-kneaded dough. To do this, make some batches with manual kneading. Since you have a trouble with too-tight gluten, you should also incorporate a few rests, for example knead 3-4 minutes, rest for one minute, and repeat, until the dough is properly supple. You can also do a windowpane test after each rest, to get a better feel for the dough.
Once you have mastered the manual process, you have a base from which you can automate it. You can then start doing batches in the mixer while observing the dough coming together, and try to have it follow the same trajectory of development as the manually kneaded dough. It is OK if it happens quicker than by hand, as long as it doesn't get into too-tight territory. You might have to fiddle with the mixer settings and try out different regimes of knead-rest periods to get to where you want to be.
Luckily, mixers are quite consistent. So once you have found out which sequence of settings and rest works well for your mixer, you should be able to follow it blindly from then on, and even extend it to other bread recipes, as long as the ingredients don't differ too drastically. |
Russian Recipe Help Needed!
I need help converting this recipe and it's measurements into English! https://pin.it/30QV1w9 | Here are the translations.
Original:
Печенье 300 гр.
сгущёнка 2 ст.л
творог 250 гр.
сметана 2 ст.л
Бананы 2
Мандарин 4
киви 2
клубника 5-6
Translated to English:
Cookies 300 gr.
Sweetened condensed milk 2 tbsp
Cottage cheese 250 gr.
Sour cream 2 tbsp.
Bananas 2
Mandarin 4
Kiwi 2
Strawberries 5 - 6 |
Yogurt from raw cow milk has a gelatinous consistency
I've been making yogurt for a couple of years now, using commercial milk from the super market, with some very good success.
Recently decided to up my game by sourcing the milk directly at the farm, and I am now getting untreated raw cow milk.
However, the results are not satisfying, the yogurt has a gelatinous consistency, meaning that it does not break under the spoon. After cutting in the yogurt, the whey does not split neatly from the curd but they blend into a watery, soupy yogurt. The tastes is absolutely delicious however.
First I thought it had to do with fat contents. I then let the milk sit over night, skimmed the cream out of the milk and then used the skimmed milk as base for the yogurt. This improved the situation just a tad. Overall the yogurt remains gooey.
I am thinking of investing in a milk centrifuge to further extract fat from the milk, assuming the assumption about the fact is correct, but the process was not intensive enough to produce the expected results.
Or there is yet another factor I haven't thought about?
I am also doubting the theory, as I have had raw milk super fatty yogurt in rural India and it was definitely solid (perhaps more so than the yogurt made with skimmed milk).
Process:
Bring milk to 100F
Add yogurt from previous batch
Store preparation in a tupperware, and store that tupperware inside a portable cooler box for 6 to 8 hours.
Refrigerate the yogurt for 6 to 8 hours. | Your process skips the scalding step for the milk.
To get the proper consistency for yogurt, you have to boil it up once. This has two functions: it kills bacteria which might outcompete the culture, and it changes the shape of the proteins, making a difference in the way they cross-link together, and giving it the proper final texture. This is especially visible in your case of using unpasteurized milk, but it actually also has to be done with store-bought (pasteurized) milk for optimal results.
You don't have to keep it at the boiling temperature for long, but you have to bring it to 85-ish or above (Celsius) for at least a few seconds. Afterwards you have to let it cool down to the incubation temperature - and as said in the comments, 100 F is actually too low, it has to incubate at 42 to 46 C depending on the culture you are using and on the sensory properties you want to have in the final product. A higher temperature will give you a firmer yogurt, more whey separation, and a higher proportion of acids, especially acetic acid.
The fat won't give you a firmer or a less firm yogurt, but it does give you a creamier mouthfeel. Generally, full-fat yogurt is perceived as being more pleasant than skimmed yogurt, although if your personal taste goes towards dryness/firmness, it may add a different texture dimension which distracts from the taste you are after. So you can indeed experiment to find your optimal results. Before you invest the money in a centrifuge, consider making a few batches of yogurt with store-bought full-fat and skim yogurt, to see if you indeed like the skim version more. |
Sourdough hasn’t risen overnight
I mixed 400gr of flour with 200 of starter, plus 280 ml of water and a bit of salt. I worked it with the slap and fold method and left it overnight.
Sadly this morning I woke up to find it only about one third increased in volume.
I had a similar experience two days ago, when I baked the loaf but the crumb was dense and the loaf went in the bin.
Is there anything that I can do now to rescue the loaf before I bake it?
Would it be possible to mix in some regular yeast for example?
Thank for your help! | If it’s currently winter for many of us, it’s possible that your dough just needs more time as bread rises slowly when it’s cold.
If that’s the case, you can try moving it to a warmer location
Although there is ‘instant yeast’, which can be mixed straight into dough as you’re making it, I don’t think it’s intended to be added after the dough is made, and further manipulation to get it well distributed may over knead the dough.
You also mentioned that you used ‘brown flour’ in a follow up comment. If this is not the same type of flour as what you have been feeding to your sourdough starter, it may be slower as the yeasts haven’t been specifically bred to consume that flour. |
White bread without the "yeasty" or "bready" flavor
I'm trying to recreate a very specific brand of white bread from my parents' hometown, which isn't available outside about a 60-mile radius since the bakery doesn't use preservatives. But it's DANG good, and I'd like to be able to make something similar for myself in between trips to visit my parents.
The things I know about the bread are:
VERY pale, despite apparently using wheat flour - pure white inside and a very light tan on the crust
Extremely light and airy inside, with a fairly open crumb
Delicate, almost sweet flavor, with none of the usual "yeasty" or "bready" flavors in typical white breads
Makes a very lightweight but sturdy and crispy toast
Supposedly made from a German recipe from 1852, unchanged except for "the removal of lard" (I don't know what, if anything, replaced the lard)
The ingredients listed on the packaging are Enriched wheat flour, water, sugar, yeast, buttermilk, shortening (soybean and palm oils), malt, salt
I've made a few attempts at recreating the recipe, but so far haven't had any luck. The main problem is that no matter what I do, I can't eliminate the "yeasty" or "bready" taste. The closest I've gotten is by replacing half the water in a standard white bread recipe with buttermilk, substituting lard for shortening, and substituting all the sugar except what starts the yeast, with half the amount of malted milk powder (I've ordered proper diastatic malt powder but it'll be a while before it arrives).
However, among other issues, that recipe still results in the distinct "yeasty" or "bready" taste that I'm trying to avoid. I found this question which asks about how to increase the yeast flavor in bread, but I'm not yet good enough at bread science to reverse the answers.
How can I remove the "yeasty" flavor from my bread, ideally while also maintaining the characteristics listed above? | One way to reduce the taste of yeast is paradoxically to use more yeast.
With more yeast (and higher temperature, and more sugar) you can make the dough rise faster, which yields less of the yeasty flavour. (Normally the process is the reverse - in order to get more yeasty flavour, use less yeast and let it rise for longer (and at lower temperature)).
An other alternative is to use the Chorleywood process, but that's not really suitable for home use.
I also think you're a bit confused regarding the use of 'wheat' as an adjective. Most white bread is made with wheat flour (i.e. ground endosperm from triticum), but when some (American?) bakers say 'wheat', what they really mean is 'whole-wheat', which does not mean '100% wheat', but rather that the flour they're using is (at least partly) made from whole wheat grains. |
How to preserve this agar based dish for humans?
I am a cook that created a dish with the following ingredients:
agar
a raw egg (remains uncooked)
bee pollen
honey
water
I want to be able to preserve this dish for months, because right now it starts to mold after a week in the fridge, even in an airtight container.
I know I can't simply freeze agar, so I'm either looking for ways to either make it preserve longer in the fridge (by adding ingredients? applying techniques?) or ways to still freeze the agar-based dish. (it's okay if it becomes a little more mushy.) | If it lasts for 1 or 2 weeks at a time, then I'd suggest making 1 to 2 weeks' worth at a time. Alternatively make the whole batch, but divide into small portions and invest in a vacuum sealer to remove all oxygen before freezing. The vacuum bags provide convenient freezer store as well.
But.... Thing is that just reducing the risk of mold won't stop your highly nutritious human food from decaying in other ways. Once eggs are out of the shell, they don't last long. Something with high water content, honey/sugar, and potential bacteria from the raw egg, not to mention the environment, is going to start fermenting, and agar is straight-up used to make those little culturing plates used in labs. Fermentation will still happen at fridge temperatures, even if it takes longer. Your sludge sounds like a great substrate for nightmares, as you've evidently witnessed on the mold-front, so for the sake of any human interacting with this stuff, I'd honestly recommend preparing smaller portions.
You can do that more easily by blending the egg to really liquify it, then weighing the egg and the other ingredients. Once you know the weights of everything, scaling the recipe is simple, and the liquefied egg is easier to measure.
The egg liquid can be preportioned and frozen (use a silicone ice cube tray if the amount of egg per portion is too tiny. Then just put the egg cubes in a freezer proof bag for long-term storage and hope for the best.) The ingredients can be combined/frozen where appropriate.
Alternatively,you can try powdered eggs, which are reconstituted with water. My concern would be that the drying (or pasteurization) might affect the proteins in a way that these humans like even less, lol.
But as rumtscho said, this food is simply not intended to last. Barring some kind of commercial preservative/mold-inhibitor approach, you're going to have to prepare it differently, prepare less, or decide if it's still cost-effective to make your own with the amount of loss each month. |
How to avoid airy, thin whipped cream
I've always made my whipped cream with a 'stick hand blender, which creates the most amazing thick rich whipped cream!
I never liked the airy, oily w/c from Starbucks but I wanted to get a dispenser for convenience therefor I bought the Isi pro red... which I hated! It was airy, thin, and melted into 'oil/fat' floating at the top of my Latte. I know I'm using it right because it comes out looking perfect, but the thin, airy consistency is what I hate.
Is there a dispenser out there that can dispenser thick, rich w/c that holds its form much longer rather than melting quickly in hot drinks?
I returned the Isi Pro dispenser and went back to using my immersion blender | As you already noticed yourself, a siphon and a mixer create different textures of the whipping cream. These textures are a fundamental property of the technique used for whipping, and you cannot do anything to change them.
If you want to have mechanically whipped cream, then you have to whip it mechanically. You cannot turn a siphon into a mixer.
This is not to say that siphons cannot be used to produce stable foams, but then this is a chemical property of the foam and its ingredients (especially the stabilizers used). If all you are making is whipped cream, it will have the whipped-cream-from-siphon consistency. |
Is it safe to put silica gel packets in spices?
I know it's pretty safe (even recommended) to store food in cabinets that have silica gel packs. I'm wondering if it is safe (and a good idea) to put the sealed silica gel packets directly into the food.
So if I'm storing a spice mix, can I just drop a sealed pack of silica gel in the jar along with the spice mix?
I also read about non-toxic indicating silica gel beads. I'm also wondering if those could be used in this way.
Is there a better way to do this? | Food-grade silica gel packets are safe to use in the way you describe, however, I wonder if it is necessary. You might want to specify the issue you are having that leads you to believe they are necessary.
Silica gel packets are used when moisture will degrade a product. As long as you keep your spices in closed containers you should not have that concern, unless you are already experiencing clumping. Another reason not to use them in spices is that ground spices lose their aromas and flavors rather quickly. Storing with silica gel might encourage you to keep them around longer, rather than just keeping small amounts around or working with whole spices. |
How to clean tea stains from a mug with steel interior?
How can I clean this tea mug?
This is a Contigo mug and I believe it is stainless steel.
It has seen a lot of tea and there is a black coating that has broken in scales in the bottom.
I've tried to soak it with vinegar but it doesn't help and since the mug is quite narrow, it's hard to scrub, so I'm looking for a chemical way to soften, or dissolve that layer. | I had great success cleaning tea and other food residue with chlorine-free bleach (sodium percarbonate). Put a couple of tablespoons in, soak with hot water and leave overnight. Then scrub a bit, and everything comes off easily. |
My mango and lime achar is fermenting in the mustard oil
I made several bottles of lime and mango achar using this recipe https://cookpad.com/uk/recipes/8400937-mango-and-lime-pickle
I put it all in glass bottles and they are completely covered in mustard oil. They are now producing gas suggesting they are fermenting. They have been in the bottles for about 4 weeks now, out of the fridge.
Is this normal and how do I know it will be safe to eat?
Also, the limes were still quite tough, I tried one after about a week. | This is perfectly normal - for a rotting dish, that is. I’m sorry, but this preparation is by no means safe after four weeks at room temperature.
The recipe states:
This pickle is ready. Serve immediately or after few days.
And I would tend to interpret that as “after a few days in the fridge”. So while some pickles are supposed to age for a while before serving and some are safe at room temperature for months, this one isn’t. The difference is that in your recipe there is no step that would kill possible pathogens and seal the contents of the jars airtight (e.g. canning) or other means of reliability restricting bacteria and fungal growth (e.g. a very acidic environment). Frying the components is not the same as sterilization or pasteurization, covering with oil protects somewhat from oxygen, but anaerobic bacteria has a field day in the veggies and fruit beneath the oil.
Please be safe and do not consume this dish, discard it instead. |
What is this veggie sold as "leek sprout" in an Asian market?
What is this veggie I bought at the Asian market? It was called a leek sprout. | Yellow Chinese chives. These are the same as Chinese garlic chives, but they've been "bleached" by covering them; this results in a milder, sweeter flavor.
They're generally minced and put into dishes as a finishing step. |
Using A Combination of Ghee and Unsalted Butter for Croissants
Novice baker here. I live in South Africa, where it is difficult to find European style butter and the one we do have is exorbitantly expensive, around 50 euros for 500g.
The closest to European style that we've got is an 82.4% butter from Lurpak
I've already checked here and here for ideas on what to do and I'm of two minds.
I know that Ghee is basically the Indian version of clarified butter and that its taste is similar to that of oil but what would happen if I combined both the Lurpak butter and Ghee in order to create something that is of both worlds. It would both, have a higher fat content as well as not taste completely of oil. Am I hoping for too much? Would the croissants taste oily if I used this method? | My suggestion would be to use the Lurpak butter and not worry. If you run into any problems, they won't come from the butter.
On the "European butter is better" story
I have also come across the story of the high-fat European butter, and I am quite puzzled by it. I personally live in Germany, and have shopped in several other European countries too. The butter in the supermarkets in Europe is consistently 82% or 83% fat. The fresh stick in my fridge is declared at 82%.
I have no idea how the whole matter came to be so prominent on the Internet. But I don't see much behind it.
If people mean that in other locales, products labeled "butter" are noticeably less than 82% fat, then people should indeed try finding brands which sell 82%-fat-butter, or something close to it. You noted yourself that the Lurpak butter has that much fat.
If people think that in Europe, butter has much more fat than the 82% declared as legal minimum, they are mistaken. Maybe professional bakers can source some specialty butter that goes higher, I don't know. But the average home baker works with what is on the supermarket shelf, which is 82 to 83%.
The most unusual claim I have heard is that the difference in actual fat content is tiny (e.g. 80 vs. 82%), but the resulting difference in taste is huge. I find that hard to believe. If you are using 100 g butter in a recipe, 1.6 grams of fat more, or 1.6 grams of (bound) water less, is an absolutely tiny amount. It is below the accuracy of home scales, and it is also less than the amount that gets smeared on your bowl and spoon when you transfer the butter from a mise-en-place bowl to the mixing bowl. Its contribution to the final texture should be much smaller than other factors of butter quality, which you simply cannot read off the butter's packaging.
There certainly are small artisanal dairies in Europe which promote their production as superior in quality. But their distinguishing criteria are not in the fat content. You won't be able to emulate the results produced with such butter by just having higher fat content. Also, this is such an incredibly tiny detail in optimizing quality, that you have to get everything else absolutely perfect before people with refined palates start noticing the difference. It may be the detail that decides whether a five-star bakery will beat another five-star bakery for the coveted spot on the food critics' list, but it is not something a home baker should worry about.
Lurpak is a brand by Arla, one of the major dairy producers in Europe, and according to its website, it is positioned as a "premium brand". It should be equivalent, or even better, to the butter that home bakers in Europe use for their baking. Using it as-is should give you the results your recipe was designed for.
On mixing butter with ghee
Sure, you can do that, if this is what you want. The question is, why would you?
First, the fat content of a 50-50 mix would be 91%, which is a lot more than standard European butter. If you think that your recipe may be off from just 1% difference, you would expect a disaster from 9% difference. In reality, I think that it won't be a disaster, but it certainly won't be what the recipe is aiming for.
Second, ghee is structurally very different from butter. It has been melted, destroying the complicated emulsion-plus-crystals-plus-semisolid-fat mixture that is butter. When you use ghee, that will have a much larger effect on texture (in unpredictable ways) than the difference in fat percentages.
Third, ghee is different not only in structure, but also in taste/aroma. The final taste will not be the same as when you bake with pure butter.
All in all, if you want to experiment with ghee, you can do it. But don't think that you are "correcting" a "problem". There is no problem to start with, and if there were (e.g. if you only had access to 80% butter), then the addition of ghee would be a risky move that gets you away from the original, not a correction. |
How many mg of acetic acid are in 1 Goli apple cider vinegar gummy?
The label says "Apple Cider Vinegar (5% acetic acid) 500 mg". Does one gummy have 25mg of acetic acid or 500mg of acetic acid? | 500 mg of acetic acid are in 1 gummy.
From Google: Two of our gummies are equivalent to having 1 tablespoon of ACV.
The "500 mg" is the dry acetic acid after the water from the vinegar has been evaporated. |
cooking with a round based clay pot on an electric stove
I have a clay cooking pot,
similar to this one here
and was wondering does anybody know of a heat diffuser I could use to cook with it over an electric Stove,
Its meant for a naked flame such as gas
but you know, Russia decide to invade Ukraine, so gas is becoming quite expensive. | I wouldn't recommend it.
You're going to be generating a large heat differential between top & bottom, even if you manage to find a heat 'spreader' capable of properly heating the entire lower half.
Heat differential & ceramics = cracking/or explosive shattering. |
Does oven spring differ between white and sourdough breads?
I see a ton of videos and photos of beautiful sourdough breads with amazing oven spring and ears like this: https://preview.redd.it/5h5dh6a898h51.jpg?width=960&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=3045d24e2922be3253092e9587032d3d0d825727
I've read on how to get better oven spring and seem to be following every method. Unfortunately the sections that I score tend to get very wide but I don't get enough vertical rise to create "ears" and very rustic looking loaves.
The main difference between what I'm doing and these great looking sourdough loaves is that my loaves are 100% standard bread flour with active dry yeast. These are not sourdough loaves. I don't know why that would matter, but maybe it does? I can't find nearly as many "ears" and intense oven spring in photos of white loaves. | In my experience, there’s no reason to assume that it’s because of the dough type. Both can get good oven spring and ears. Due to the way the yeasts and bacteria in a sourdough work, I find sourdough breads to be more finicky than pure yeast ones.They can get softer and flatten during the final rest, where yeast-only breads typically keep the surface tension and shape better.
I recommend you take a closer look at
Proofing time:
Aim for slightly under instead of fully or even slightly over. Note that the margin of error is smaller for yeast breads, especially if you use the “fast” recipes with a rather high amount of yeast.
Shaping:
A good surface tension helps the slashes to open better.
Slashing technique:
Flat, almost horizontal cuts with a swift blade gives the coveted ears, vertical cuts just open up like a blossom unfolding.
Humidity during the initial phase:
Don’t just spritz a bit of water in the oven and forget the “place a bowl in the oven” recommendations, that won’t give you a sufficient humidity level in the oven. You need quite a bit of thermal mass (some place a tray full of stainless steel nuts and bolts in the oven) and enough water that you should get to evaporate in one go. I usually splash a scant cup of water just off the boil right into the oven when I have just placed the loaf. (Careful, that’s a lot of steam and you can hurt yourself if you aren’t quick. Some ovens even can warp due to thermal shock, but I can live with that.) Open the oven door for a minute when the first phase is done and your oven spring has happened, usually by the time you lower the heat. Or bake in a Dutch oven. |
Zabaglione for Tiramisu
I'm reading recipes for Tiramisu that call for Zabaglione. Some say I can simply whip egg yolks with sugar in a stand mixer, while others insist I use a bain marie and that the mixture reaches a certain temperature (68 degrees Celsius). Why is it so? Is it for pasteurizing? If so, can I use my sous-vide to pasteurize the eggs (by setting 60 degrees) and then simply use my stand mixer on the counter, not a bain marie? If not, how does it affect the cooking? Thank you! | It isn't about pasteurization, it is about texture.
Egg yolks whip very differently at different temperatures. When you whip egg yolks with sugar at 60 C, you will get a very airy foam, which will also be more stable than a foam which has been whipped at room temperature. So, for optimal results, you should whip in a bain marie with a handheld mixer. It is not completely impossible to do it by hand, but you will need to whip for a very long time, until you have the perfect foam.
If you want to skip the bain marie, then you can do so. You will simply have a slightly denser zabaione.
I would be wary of trying to use yolks which have been pasteurized in a sous vide machine. The texture of a yolk which has been taken to 60 C without agitation is different than the texture of a yolk which has never been warmed up. If you want to pasteurize your yolks for food safety, and then go into the stand mixer, do so, but you will have to contend with a zabaione that is a bit worse in quality than if done with never-heated yolks. |
How to identify the exact point of caramelization?
I cant seem to find the point of caramel for my almonds or any other nut. Its either "grainy" (to much water evaporated) or like the batch I just did, too gooey.
Did this 4 times I believe and never managed to find the sweet spot.
I work with 1/1/0.2 (nut/sugar/water). ratio. | "Grainy" doesn't mean "too much water evaporated", it means "it crystallized". For caramelization in a pot on the stove, by the time you start getting any significant caramelization, virtually all the water has evaporated already. You need this to happen without the sugar crystallizing.
To prevent crystallization, add a second kind of sugar other than sucrose. Corn syrup is the most common thing to use in the US; invert sugar syrup is more widely available elsewhere.
I personally don't think that a candy thermometer is crucial for making caramel (some types of caramel, anyway). But if you're not experienced with the process, it really helps you identify the different stages and see what's going on. |
Muffin casing anomaly: detachment
Preface: This relate to cupcakes, too. Also, by "casing," I'm referring to the paper wrapper that surrounds the base of the muffin and/or cupcake. For example, this is the one I use. Lastly, there is plenty of info out there of how to avoid casing coupling to the baked product - this question is not about that.
Anytime I bake muffins with casings, they stick (and eventually rip of surficial parts of the base, which isn't grand). To mitigate this issue, I've noticed that the following (presumably very unconventional) workflow results in muffin casings cleanly detaching (or not sticking) to the baked product. Regardless of the fat or sugar concentration, this consistently works well. This workflow (to me) isn't really practical, but I'm curious to understand how it actually works.
After baking and letting the muffins sit on cooling racks (20-30 minutes), I then put them into (tied) bags and let them sit in relatively warm (80-90F), humid environment (RH, 60-80%) for 2-3 hours. Of course, residual heat from the muffins result in condensation within the bag, which slightly moistens the muffin crumb. For the muffins that I try to remove the casings right after or during cooling, sticking and ripping (some or a lot) occurs. However, for those that undergo this long, odd process, the wrappers cleanly, easily detach, and I'm profoundly confused by that. | Presumably the time in a humid bag moistens both the casing and the cake in contact with it. I would expect that what adheres to the casing is dried baked cake, and this has an effect similar to soaking dried-on food on a plate or pan, which loosens the connection between the two so that the paper comes off more easily. The other thing that comes to mind is steaming an envelope open (or to remove a postage stamp), which again involves using moisture to separate something stuck to paper. |
Yogurt + tahini = paste?
I had dip made with Target store brand plain nonfat Greek yogurt, minced garlic, powdered ginger, lemongrass paste, salt, and nothing else; the dip was soft and creamy. I added some Sprouts store brand tahini, which is VERY runny, about the consistency of soy milk, with about a 2 to 1 ratio of dip to tahini. You'd assume that adding liquid to a creamy dip would make it thinner… but instead, it became dense, sort of stiff, and very sticky! Can anyone explain what happened here? | Adding a small amount of water to tahini causes it to thicken into a paste because of carbohydrate binding. Clearly, the yogurt had just that amount of water. The solution to getting it to thin out again is to continue adding water or other liquid until it "unbinds", just as you do for tahini sauce. |
Botulism in regards to microwaving garlic, honey, ACV, lemon juice, olive oil and powdered ginger for 15 seconds
I am wondering if I mix 1 tbs of honey, ACV and olive oil with 1 crushed garlic with a squirt of lemon juice, then microwave it for 15 seconds (enough make the mixture bubble but not overflow) can that cause botulism if I immediately drink the mixture afterwards? | No, of course not. Botulism is the result of bacterial fermentation over a long period of time. If the ingredients are safe, mixing them will also be safe. |
Fruit that has been mistaken as olive fruit?
What fruit is this? I can't find it online. Can someone please help me identify it? | I took your picture and gave it as input to https://identify.plantnet.org/
, which is an online tool to help identify plants with pictures.
According to PlantNet, your fruit is most probably a climbing ylang-ylang.
It is native to southern India and Sri Lanka.
Its flowers smell very fragrant, but the fruits don’t seem to taste good. |
Best lid for glass jar of chutney contains raw garlic, herbs, hot pepper, all in apple vinegar
I intend to make a lot of chutney with raw garlic, herbs, green small hot pepper, salt, pepper, turmeric, all in apple vinegar. I want to store this chutney out of fridge, in glass jars for long time. I think mixture of apple vinegar, salt and hot pepper will keep the garlic and herbs preserved for months and not go bad, but I heard that any metal lid will rot in touch with vinegar. I also don't like plastic lid. Any suggestion? | You could consider Weck canning jars. |
How does no-knead bread not overproof?
Most sourdough instructions warn not to overextend primary fermentation, as doing so will exhaust the yeast's food supply for proving after shaping. Standard sourdough recipes call for a 3-4 hour bulk fermentation stage.
How, then, does no-knead bread not exhaust its food supply when such recipes call for more vigorous yeast variants than a sourdough starter (e.g. instant/active dry yeast) along with a 24 hour bulk fermentation?
Note: Chad Robertson's Tartine Bread notes that glutens in the dough begin degrading after a certain point due to increasing acidity. Perhaps this is an additional factor that separates the two methods, as the no-knead bread doesn't have an acid-laden levain to contend with?
References
No-knead bread:
Kenji Lopez Alt (12-24 hour bulk fermentation): https://www.seriouseats.com/better-no-knead-bread-recipe
Bread Illustrated (8-18 hour bulk fermentation)
Sourdough bread:
Chad Robertson's Tartine Bread Country Loaf (3-4 hour bulk fermentation)
Ken Forkish's Flour Water Salt Yeast Double-Fed Sweet Levain Bread (5 hour bulk fermentation) | This kind of rising didn't originate with the No-Knead recipe. Slow-rise breads are traditional -- more so than fast-rise breads, which are a relatively recent development in the history of bread. Slow-rise recipes are required with older methods of starting bread, including biga, poolish, sourdough, and pate fermentee.
So an 8-72 hour rise is actually "normal" and it's the crazy fast 2-hour rise that's surprising that it even works.
So how do slow rises in general avoid exhausting the dough? Via two simple methods: starting with very little yeast (as in 1g to 5g, or a dormant starter, or environmental yeast, depending on the recipe) and rising at low temperatures (8-15C). Both of these things slow down yeast growth and spread through the dough.
Probably the best way to see the math for this is the PizzApp, which is widely used by home pizza makers with Neapolitan-style pizza ovens. Since traditional pizza doughs are fermented for 12-48 hours, the app allow you to enter rising time and rising temperature, and it will give you the yeast amount. For a 24 hour dough, I've had it recommend at little as 0.25g of active dry yeast (which is challenging to measure). You can also play with it a bit and see how much ambient temperature affects the rise time.
Books for additional reference:
On Food and Cooking, Harold McGee
Six Thousand Years of Bread, Heinrich Jacob
White Bread, Aaron Bobrow-Strain |
Why are soaked dried soy beans cooked before fermenting?
Is it necessary to cook soaked dried soy beans before fermenting them? | No. Both tofu and miso require cooking the soybeans to work.
For miso, the soybeans must be mashed into a paste, which doesn't really work with raw soybeans. Further, the koji culture grows on the starches and sugars present in cooked soybeans, not raw ones. So creating a miso from raw soybeans would require you to obtain a different fungal culture designed for them, and the result probably wouldn't be miso.
Tofu is made through soymilk, which must then be boiled to make it coagulate. So while the soymilk itself is made with raw soybeans, if you don't boil it, you don't get tofu, just thickened soymilk.
Also note that raw soybeans are poisonous, so in addition to producing a product, you'd have to be sure that any fermentation process you cultivated would successfully breakdown all lectins and protease inhibitors in the beans. While fermentation is known to break down the saponins, the other two unhealthful chemicals usually require heat. |
Why is this spoon bent sideways
Can anyone ID this spoon? I took over a small kitchen and they have this thing. You can ignore the meat sticker, it’s a kosher thing. | If it is normal table spoon or dessert spoon sized, it is a spoon adjusted for people with limited mobility.
When adjusting for an individual, you would usually adjust the plastic as that is easier, but this is likely been factory adjusted, being a common enough adjustment that it is made in decent numbers.
I have considered training in the field but did not. Such a spoon was an example the school did show in the introduction material. |
Automated stirring in a domestic kitchen
I'm currently making 9 litres of quite thick lentil soup in a 10 litre stainless steel stockpot. It needs to simmer gently for an hour or two. Despite the sandwich base and my weakest gas ring on minimum*, it needs stirring every few minutes or it will stick, and soon burn.
I've found this with other similar soups too (e.g. split pea and ginger) and dal. What they have in common is that they're too thick to convect properly. Today's is worse because I'm making it extra thick thicker for further dilution to serve about 40 people. Small batches can be done n my 3.5 litre slow cooker, though even in that it can stick.
Because this cooks for quite a long time, I need to be able to get on with other things, not all in the kitchen. So I wondered about solutions for automated stirring. In small vessels in the lab, for example, there are magnetic stirrers built in to hotplates. Is there something larger for use at home, whether a product (perhaps something that could be repurposed), a DIY design, or something I haven't considered.
* I have a flame diffuser, but it's a bit small for the pan and couldn't be trusted to take the weight. A diffuser that clipped under the pan supports would be interesting, like the wire gauze sometimes used with bunsen burners. | When I am cooking very thick soups I often put the pot in the oven instead of the stove and cook it that way. Because the heat is distributed around the entire surface I don't run into problems of it burning and sticking. Be sure to manage the temperature though, just around boiling is good. |
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