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I'm Italian, now living in the US for some months. As you may know we like pasta. I tried Barilla here, our best known pasta brand. Well.. the taste seems a little bit different to me. It is actually produced here and not imported, so it could be different. Looking at the Italian/US versions of the package there doesn't seem to be a big difference, except for the fact that the US version is enriched with vitamins (which shouldn't change the taste). To dig deeper into the question and avoid any other factor (cooking water, sauce, subjectivity) I want to bring a box back to Italy and run a test with a panel (10 friends basically). I would cook the same quantity of the same pasta shape of Barilla (ITA/USA) in the same pan (keeping them separated of course), so same water and same salt amount. Then same sauce (same quantity) for both. Suppose A is the Italian pasta and B is the US pasta. Now.. how should I give it to the participants? Same amount of A and B in a blind test and ask whether they are different or not? Maybe give to some participants A-A or B-B (always blind test). Or maybe give A first (which they already know, so not blind) and then give someone (blind this time) A or B again and ask which one they think it is.. Looking for suggestions. I want to be as scientific as possible. I also contacted Barilla, who claim the pasta is exactly the same. Thanks

The best approach is to use a triangle test. This would be the standard used in sensory sciences. It is easy, and it will be a fun thing to do with friends. Basically, each friend (panelist) is provided with three blind samples. Two are the same, and one is different. The objective is for them to tell you which one is different. The validity is enhanced if you randomize the possible combinations across your participants. The linked site provides all the necessary information, but the practice is quite common and further detail can be found from multiple sources. I would be curious to hear the results!

When I make my paneer and store it, it is firm and I am able to cut it into cubes. But when I add it to a curry sauce at the end or when I try to shallow fry it, it melts like Moz. I make it with whole milk and curdle with vinegar. Any tips? Thanks!

The Swedish kladdkaka is pretty similar to the brownie, even though it's mostly classified as a cake, rather than a cookie. (It's typically served as a segment of a round cake, often with either icing sugar or whipped cream on top.) And if you're looking for border-crossing items in general, there are lots of things on the border between 'bread' and 'cake' or 'cookie'. Panettone, donut and taralli all straddle this border at different places.

I recently discovered that honey stored in containers with the comb does not seem to crystallize (or certainly not as fast as when stored without). What is the mechanism that causes this? Is there a real downside to storing with the comb?

Bees add enzymes to honey that prevent crystallization. These enzymes are destroyed by many of the processing techniques, like heating, but such techniques also physically destroy the comb, so they're not used on the honey that is in the comb. This type of honey is also called raw honey sometimes. As a side note, crystallized honey is fine for consumption. If you want to get rid of the crystals you can easily do so by heating the jar a bit.

Hello I go scalloping every year and every time I cook them fresh without freezing them they taste great, but when I have an abundance of scallops I freeze them and eat them at another time but they are always so fishy tasting after they've been frozen. Is there any way to get rid of or atleast take a little bit of that fishy flavor away from it?

Technically, this "fishy" smell is there because it's no longer fresh. Here's a link that scientifically explains what causes the "fishy odour" in our seafood. Below is a layman term of explaining the fishy smell. Have you ever been to fish market for example in Singapore? There's always a slight lingering"fishy" smell (let's be honest), because the fish are not exactly 100% fresh as they are often caught at in the wee hours and sold to fish monger. By the time the fish are delivered to their shop, it isn't as fresh as it is when it is caught alive. However, if you ever go to a fish market in Japan, you hardly smell any fishy smell. Instead, you smell a fresh sea. Why? Fish market in japan often bring their fish to sell upon catching them from the sea (24/7) and it's a common practice in their country unlike other countries. Not to forget, a freezer is a place where you often place your meat and fish and leave it there for like days or weeks because people often assume that freezing your poultry or fish will keep it "fresh". Technically, it does prevent your items from going bad so quickly, but it definitely DOES NOT KEEP IT FRESH ! Therefore, fresh scallops will smell fishy after leaving them together with other meats in the freezer for too long. So, there are some ways you can get rid of the smell. Soak it in the milk for about 10-20 minutes and tap it dry. Marinate the scallops with some fresh / grated ginger with salt and pepper. Ginger is a common item used in chinese cooking to remove any fishy smell from seafood such as fish maw . Soak it in lemon juice!

I hear that chicken breasts can be cooked in microwave and that it's the best way to get it juicy and tender. I have also seen some articles about it on the internet. I wonder if this is just a myth or if professionals also use this trick? Wouldn't you risk that parts of the chicken is not cooked properly then causing infection?

While yes it can be done, I wouldn't choose to do it over another technique unless that was my only option or I just needed some chicken cooked quickly for a recipe where it is used in the cooked form and will have a lot of other flavors added (chicken salad). Remember that a lot of flavor is due to browning and cooking in the microwave eliminates those flavors. At least with poaching, if the liquid is REALLY well seasoned you'll still impart flavor. Any cooking technique can lead to tough and dry meat, including poaching where it's being cooked submerged in hot liquid. Regardless of the technique, if the proteins heat too hot and too quickly they will constrict quickly and squeeze out the juices. The result will be tough, dry, saw-dusty chicken or other protein. This is the same thing that happens when scrambled eggs are rubbery...cooked too long over too high of heat. The proteins act like sponges that are being wrung out. Personally I think you have much less control over meat cooked in a microwave because the cooking occurs from the inside outward and the residual heat continues to build more intensely than if it was cooked in a saute pan or on a grill. Is this something that professionals do? No. Microwaves in a professional kitchen are mainly used for melting butter, chocolate, reheating things quickly...much the same as I recommend people do at home. We do not use them for "cooking". Although I do use it for sweating onions if that's the only thing I'd be dirtying a pan for...put the onions in a bowl with a little butter, cover and nuke for about a minute until tender.

Coming back from 10-day vacation, we found that our fridge was off the whole time. Fruit and packaged ham in the fridge, veggies fruit and meat in the freezer. Oops. Obviously everything has thawed and became really smelly. Even tbough the meat was in bags, some of the "juice" may have still leaked. There was quite some liquid in the freezer drawers, though most of it probably from fruit/veggie. What nasty things could have grown in there? How do I clean up this mess without throwing away the fridge? We've already applied both the steam cleaner and boiling hot water (the latter only to plastic drawers and glass shelves). What else should we do? What chemicals? I'm concerned that something may have gotten into all the platics or air circulation. In case it matters, the fridge is a 2-year fairly expensive bosch - probably not the most vulnerable thing, but not all glass and stainless steel either.

you don't have to throw out the fridge, you just need to clean it. Forget steam and boiling water, just get a bottle of spray surface cleaner and a bunch of rags, or a tub of soapy water (use dishwashing liquid). Take out the shelves and drawers and clean them separately, then clean the inside thoroughly with your spray cleaner and/or soap. If you've used soap then rinse with clean water and let it dry. Air it out for a few hours. There's nothing you can do about the air circulation, but you probably don't have to. It's not as if you actually put food in there, the worst that could happen are maybe some mold/fungus spores and they won't like the dry and cold environment of the fridge. You may have some residual smells in the air ducts, those should work themselves out fairly quickly, a plate of baking soda will help absorb these although there are purpose made fridge deodorizers which are better.

"When boiling lobster, how do you tell when it's done? Is there a rough estimate of cooking time (eg: time/ounce, etc...)?

I worked as a coffee roaster for a number of years and met a lot of people. There is a lot of variation to this answer. What I found works the best is 10-11 g of coffee per 6 oz cup, or 180 mL, so 12 cup maker would be 120 g. Also, the coffee should always be ground to suit the particulars of the brewing method.

A local Asian supermarket used to sell this stuff that the proprietor referred to as dried tofu. In came vacuum packed, and seemed to be dehydrated tofu that had been marinated in Chinese barbecue or chili sauce. It was soft, but slightly chewy, and totally delicious. That closed down, but by happy coincidence I switched jobs and had a colleague with a Chinese wife. They would buy this stuff on visits to China, in an even wider variety of flavours, and were happy to bring me some back when I asked. I've now moved on. I've been searching the other local Asian markets for this snack without success - indeed most staff in the shops seem visibly confused when I ask for "dried tofu", as though they have no idea what it might be. Searching online for "dried tofu" turns up a variety of products that are obviously meant for cooking: unflavoured blocks or strips of tofu that need seasoning or rehydrating before use. This isn't what I'm after at all. "Flavoured dried tofu" doesn't bring up much different either. This made me wonder if this stuff has a different name other than the "dried tofu" I was given? And whether anyone knew of anywhere I could order it online for UK delivery?

You need to incorporate the butter into the flour such that the butter is in hazelnut sized lumps, without melting the butter. If you chop it that small on a board it will soften as you handle it. So you have to do it in the bowl. You could buy a pastry cutter/dough blender but to be honest they are a pain in the wrist. If you have a food processor, you have a perfect pastry making tool - just blitz the butter and flour with a couple of pulses, then dribble in some cold water, blitz again, and repeat until you have a coherent (but not too sticky) dough with the aforementioned hazelnut sized lumps of butter mixed through.

I've been braising food for a number of years as a home cook. PROBLEM: Whenever meat is braised (pot roast, short ribs, oxtail etc.), the flavor/juice/water from the meat leeches out onto the cooking liquid that it is braised in. The result is a tender, soft, texture of meat but lacks a lot of flavor, which ends up in the cooking liquid. I know some might say, very low heat at shorter time, would help (and it does) but the flavor always leeching out into the cooking liquid is inevitable. It seems that sous vide, very low temperature to soften the meat without the high temperature where meat loses too much juice is the only solution (other than eating it raw, where tenderness and juice is retained). Is braising the same for you in the above? It would be good if someone's technique was better and it saved a lot of the juice and flavor in their braise.

Hervé This has an interesting discussion on this problem in this book. The process of losing juice when cooking a piece of meat is in big part mechanical. Meat is basically composed of muscle cells tied together by collagen, which is sensitive to heat. Quoting Hervé: When a temperature of 50°c (122°f) is reached in the outside layer, the collagen contracts, compressing the juices inside (although the degree of compressibility is small because the juices are mainly water) and expelling the juices of the periphery outward. The center of the roast, composed of liquids and largely incompressible solids, cannot receive these juices. Anyone who is not convinced of this has only to roast a few pieces of beef, weigh them, and determine their density before and after cooking. Since heat is transferred from the outside towards the inside by convection, the core of the piece of meat is usually at lower temperatures and retain most of the juices which were not expelled by the contracting collagen in the outer layers. Thus the importance of resting the meat after cooking. Outside the heat, you lose this compressing force and the liquids concentrated at the core diffuse towards the outside and redistribute, giving an improved feeling of juiciness. Following your question, Hervé suggests: Given that the juiciness of the meat depends on the amount of juice it has, why not use a syringe to reinject the juices that have drained out from the roast during cooking? From this simplified physical picture, I suppose cooking-sous vide for long temperatures and below 50 degrees (temperature at which the collagen contracts) will avoid this phenomenon of expelling juices.

I had a batch of sauerkraut fermenting in the basement. During the fermentation I had to leave for over a week and left my roommates with the basic instructions to check it a couple times and skim off any mold that might form. They forgot about it, and when I returned I found the brine level was down to the weights (but not exposing the cabbage), and that there was a full cover of dark greenish/grayish mold on the brine surface. I've removed the mold carefully and found the submerged cabbage smelled and appeared ok, with the exception of some being slightly darker where the weights were not directly on top of it. This kraut was removed and thrown out, and only totaled about 1 cup. The mold did not contact the kraut, and the kraut itself seems to have remain submerged. Overall I'm leaning towards it being ok, and might try small samples in cooked dishes--is this reasonable, or should I just toss it and start a fresh batch to play it safe?

Per NC State's Extension's article on pickles and sauerkraut (some emphasis added): Pickles or sauerkraut mold during fermentation. Answer: Unsafe—microorganisms are growing improperly. Possible reasons Fermentation temperature was above 75°F. Too much salt was used, not allowing adequate lactic acid production. The cloth on top of the kraut was not kept clean during fermentation (may need to be replaced after skimming). Per Penn State Extension's Saurkraut Guide (emphasis added): Do not taste it if you see mold on the surface, feel a slimy texture, or smell a bad odor. Their PDF on Saurkraut says: To avoid surface mold growth, keep the cabbage submerged at all times by covering it with a plate just small enough to ft inside the fermentation container or with two or three clean quart jars filled with water. An acceptable alternative is to fill a large, sealed, food-grade plastic bag containing 4½ tablespoons of salt and 3 quarts of water. Again, no indication of acceptable types of mold. I cannot endorse the existing answers which indicate that mold is an acceptable part of the saurkraut making process, unless credible science based evidence is presented, from reputable sources such as University Extension Centers or, better yet, peer reviewed journal sources.

I am looking into replacing my hob with an quick, induction type electric hob, but they stipulate that the the cookware must be ferrous. I have decent cookware, but how do I know if it is correct?

If a magnet sticks to it, it's ferrous. I'd like to give a more elaborate answer, but there isn't anything more to it.

I've heard that "honey never spoils", but I'm incredulous. Is this true, and if so, how? Isn't there some indicator that I should throw the honey in my cupboard away?

Honey is very stable for a number of reasons. The main ones though are the low amount of water (most honey is under 18% water) and the high amount of sugar (which is a preservative). Both of these things keep things like mold and bacteria from being able to grow. Over a long period of time (and if left unsealed) the honey could absorb moisture and then ferment (the sugar would turn to alcohol) but if sealed then your honey should be fine for a long time. This PDF from the National Honey board http://www.honey.com/images/downloads/shelflife.pdf says that a shelf life of 2 years is often stated. On Chowhound I saw a discussion that said that in the UK the "best by" dates are usually 4 years out so I'm guessing that those dates have far more to do with decisions by the respective governments (i.e. laws that state a maximum best by date no matter what the food is) then the actual shelf life of honey. As the honey in your cupboard, if it's only a few months or a year old as long as it's been in a sealed container then it most likely should be fine.

My new wall oven with the hidden lower element will not bake lasagna properly, no matter what I do. The cheeses and sauce don't meld into the pasta well. It takes forever to get the center of the lasagna hot but the pasta noodles toward outer pan are cooked to mush. The middle remains cold for entirely too long. The edges of the lasagna turn very dark before middle gets warm. This is so upsetting because I make a wonderful lasagna but can't cook it correctly as I have many times before in double exposed element ovens. The instructions in the manual simply say you may need to turn up the temp alittle when using pyrex. Does anyone have any advise on rack placement and temperature adjustment with this type of oven? I cooked it according to recipe which calls for 30-40 mins, covered at 375. Then uncovered for 15-20 mins. I've been using the middle rack. I miss my old school oven! Thank you in advance.

First, purchase an oven thermometer so that you can verify your oven temp. Ovens can easily be off by 50 degrees or more. Lasagna is pretty forgiving. So exact temperature and time is not all that important. My process is similar...cook covered, then uncover. Pasta turning to mush might be a result of overcooked noodles before the bake, or the lasagna being too wet. It also sounds like you might be getting uneven heating. Try rotating the pan halfway through the bake.

When boiling potatoes, most guidance is to heavily salt the water which in turn internally seasons the potatoes. When it comes to steamed potatoes, I’ve achieved fine results salting after they’ve steamed. I’m wondering if seasoning or marinating the potatoes in advance of steaming would be better. What is the best way to achieve flavorful results when steaming potatoes? Edit: for context, I am tossing russet potatoes into the steamer basket of a rice cooker while the rice cooker cooks white rice. I typically cut the potatoes in halves or quarters to ensure they fit. I keep the skin on.

I had a lot of steamed potatoes growing up, but it's almost always seasoned afterwards with sauces. I find it's a good alternative to boiling, as you still get the moist texture, but it's much harder to overcook. If you season the water, it might not work for some types of seasoning (e.g. salt), therefore marination will probably work better: Increase the marination time to overnight. Increase the surface area (e.g. cut them into thick slabs instead of large chunks, cut grooves, poke holes, etc.)

I just made a Turkey meatloaf, using a standard recipe that usually turns out good with ground beef, but it was too dry - any help would be appreciated.

Avery's "fattest turkey" advice is solid. I try to find ground turkey breast as opposed to ground turkey, no matter what I plan to do with it, because it's easier to keep it from drying out in various recipes. As he said, ground turkey is so easy to overcook. You could always add some moisture by throwing some bacon grease into the mix, which I have done in the past with regular (ground beef) meatloaf to help make it as unhealthy and delicious as possible. This should effectively counter the health benefits of using ground turkey over ground beef, but boy is it good! When my mom makes turkey burgers for the grill, she adds some italian dressing into the mix and swears that it helps keep the burgers from drying out fast. Haven't tried it myself, but I can see how the oil (and water and vinegar, but moreso the oil) would help. It will likely affect the taste of the dish...but that isn't always a bad thing, as I find ground turkey to be significantly more "boring" tasting by itself than ground beef is by itself, probably because of the lack of fat.

On a recent trip, I ate at an authentic Irish pub that served the best bangers and mash I've ever had. As there's nowhere around town that regularly serves the dish, I've decided to try my hand at making it at home. While I think I can manage the potatoes just fine, I'm at a loss as to what type of sausage to use. So my question is: what brand of sausage would best approximate a traditional recipe? Ideally, it would be something I could pick up at the local supermarket.

The good thing about Cumberland sausages is that the meat is supposed to be coarsely chopped and in of itself has a very high meat content. However, all good sausages have this quality also! So in essence look for a sausage with a high meat content (80%+) and you can't go too far wrong.

So we cooked some corn a couple weeks ago, left extras in the oven. Fast forward to tonight, I discovered we left it there. The pan it was sitting on was white as a ghost. Tossed that pan. Is it safe to throw new food in there and cook it? I already got a cassarole baking now. Is it ruined? Only thing I can think would be mold spores, but 400F should kill them. p.s. I'm paranoid about this stuff, sorry.

You will have mold spores in your oven, but the temperature will take care of them. All it means is that you might have some mold spore dust on your food later, which you won't even notice and is perfectly safe. Next time give your oven a good wipe-down with a damp towel before using it again. There's no need to toss a pan after that sort of thing, just clean it with soapy water and it should be good to go.

I made a dish that used a small amount of wine and now I'm wondering how long I can keep the rest of it for next time. I know you wouldn't want to keep good drinking wine around long after opening it, but does the wine get too bad to use in cooking quickly? It's Chardonnay, if it matters. Thanks!

Opened wine spoils fast. Red wine lasts about 1 day, white wine lasts about 3 days. You can prolong this slightly by putting it in the refrigerator, but only by a few days at most, and it depends on the wine. It may be "safe" to consume for much longer, but the taste will be way off, even for cooking purposes. If you've opened it - finish it. ASAP. There are exceptions: "Cooking wines" such as cooking sherry and rice cooking wine have an array of preservatives added and will keep for much longer. But don't leave perfectly good Chardonnay just sitting around to oxidize.

Can one use raw sugar in making tea for kombucha? Most recipes recommend refined sugar, but I wonder if it is for any particular reason.

Absolutely you can. I typically use a Turbinado sugar when making mine because it's what I buy in bulk and because I like the robust flavor. In my searches, I did come across this article indicating that you shouldn't use such raw sugars because they're more difficult for the scoby to digest, but as long as you start with a healthy one you should be fine. Maybe just don't go as far as using a brown sugar, or something very raw like muscovado.

I don't tend to keep any white wine in the house for cooking and have a bottle of rice wine vinegar to use up - only used it once and don't know what else to use it for. Could I use rice wine vinegar at the start of cooking a risotto?

I would not use any vinegar. You will not want the sour taste that vinegar will leave. You will have a better final result if you just omit the wine. If you feel like it needs a little acidity at the end add a light squeeze of lemon (or even a couple of drops of vinegar). However, I've made risotto plenty of times without wine or extra acid...no problem!

I'm making tomato relish and my recipe requires 10 fresh green cayenne peppers, which aren't available at this time. I can buy Jalapeño peppers and would like to substitute those, but I don't know if I should use 1 to 1. I use a bushel of tomatoes, peeled, cored, seeded; lots of work involved. Add peppers, onions, sugar, vinegar, a little canning salt and cook til real thick. Recipe calls for 8 cups of coarsely chopped tomatoes; I double or triple the recipe most of the time in order to can enough to use til next summer. It's canning season in the southeast USA!

I'm not sure you're familiar with it but I'd like to introduce you to the Scoville Scale: The Scoville scale is the measurement of the pungency (spicy heat) of chili peppers or other spicy foods as reported in Scoville heat units (SHU), a function of capsaicin concentration. The scale is named after its creator, American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville. His method, devised in 1912, is known as the Scoville Organoleptic Test. Unlike methods based on high-performance liquid chromatography, the Scoville scale is an empirical measurement dependent on the capsaicin sensitivity of testers and so is not a precise or accurate method to measure capsaicinoid concentration. [emphasis added] This scale is subjective but having many people rate peppers at similar levels gives a pretty decent scale of relative "hotness". On the scale, the Jalapeño rates between 2,500 and 10,000 Scoville units It is of mild to medium pungency, 2,500 and 10,000 Scoville units in general. While the cayenne rates around 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville units: It is generally rated at 30,000 to 50,000 Scoville units. It is unclear whether this range includes the immature, green varieties, though some charts place the cayenne at 50,000, so that could give the lower 30,000 as the rating of the green peppers. So, even at its lowest rating, the cayenne pepper is three times hotter than the jalapeño's higest rating. Relative hotness aside, I don't believe there's any reason you can't substitute the two. There are two important factors to be mindful of: different flavor profile Classified, as a hot pepper, Green Cayenne chiles are not as hot as in their more mature red form, yet still offer a pungent heat with a fresh grassy, chile pepper flavor. The crisp and juicy flesh of the Jalapeno pepper offers a vegetal flavor and a spicy bite with heat increasing as the pepper peaks in maturity. different water content the jalapeno is more wet as it has thicker flesh while the cayenne has thinner flesh. This alone could affect your final product a bit, though you say you cook it down a lot, so it may be less impactful than a fresh salsa. I'm would not recommend increasing the ratio to 3-1 to make it more hot because I'm not certain that having a higher ratio of heat producing content will actually make it taste as hot as the cayenne ever would - and it will add some volume to your relish. In the end, using jalapenos instead of cayenne will certainly be a different product but that doesn't mean it will be bad. You can always taste as you go and add more spice before it's finished cooking if the flavor is too mild. Remember, though, that spicy flavors can change as a product ages, the way chili always tastes better the second day.

I'm trying to figure out a convenient way to bring fresh rice for lunch. Cooking it the night before and leaving it in the fridge causes it to become dry and hard and unpleasant, and I've read that it's not safe to leave cooked rice out at room temperatures for long periods of time (such as overnight). So I thought it would be nice if I could at least save myself the trouble of having to wash it in the morning. Would it be safe to wash it the night before, and cook it in the morning? If so, what storage methods should I use? Just leave it out on the countertop? Or should I leave it soaking in water? Or either dry or soaking in an air-tight container? Or should it be refrigerated? I'd also like to hear any methods anybody else has for having fresh rice at lunch! I should mention I'm referring to short grain Japanese white rice. Thanks!

I did this in my restaurant for years, it really does work great. Make your rice in a huge batch, cook it as if you're planning to eat it then, but then let it cool until handlable. Once it is cool enough, bag it in individual servings and freeze it. Refrigerating cooked rice quickly ruins it, freezing it, however, works great. If your servings are fairly small, snack sized ziplocks work great for this, otherwise use sandwich sized. Make sure you press the air of the bags, I take all of the small bags and seal them together in gallon sized ziplocks to give them one more layer of protection in the freezer. Either with the rice solidly frozen, or at lunchtime (defrosted, cool rice), throw the baggie in the microwave. You don't even have to open the baggie, when it pops open that's a sign to check it. It may need a bit of a mix and a few more seconds in the microwave, or it may be done, it just needs to be heated through. The hot rice will be almost indistinguishable from freshly cooked. If you don't have a microwave, you can drop the sealed baggie into simmering water, or take the frozen or cool rice out of the bag and steam it to heat.

I'm having a hard time letting go of using cooking time & internal temperature as metrics when it comes to cooking BBQ, especially when using the oven. For example, I'm currently baking baby-back ribs wrapped in foil. This recipe calls 3 1/2-4 hours at 275 degrees. However, the ribs reached an internal temperature of 200+ degrees after only 2 hours. I took the ribs out and tested for done-ness, but found the meat cooked well done but chewy. After letting them sit (wrapped) on the counter for about 15 minutes, the ribs went back in the oven at 225 for the remaining time. If the issue was simply that I need to cook them lower and longer, I'd be fine with that- but it's not. People achieve great results using various times, temperatures, and recipes. This is definitely a problem with technique. My question is this- is an internal temperature of 200+, after only 2 hours, not excessive?

The temperature you are reading is heavily flawed. There is no way your probe's reading will not be heavily biased by proximity to bone, and the relative thinness of the meat. Regardless of all that, barbecue is done when it is done. When cooking meats whose connective tissue needs to be broken down, the final temperature will be well beyond food safety levels. You need to examine other metrics to assess whether or not your ribs are ready for consumption. Is the meat pulled back from the ends of the bones? Usually a quarter to half-inch is a good sign. Does the rack bend easily when picking it up from the middle (with a pair of tongs)? Does a probe slide in and out of the meat with ease? If you tug on one of the bones, does it loosen from the meat ever so slightly? This is what you should be looking for. TLDR: taking the temperature of ribs is wildly inaccurate, and you should not be doing it anyway. Use tactile and visual cues to determine if you are done cooking.

I am new to gluten free baking and I am having much trouble getting my breads to rise. I have tried several recipes, with no luck. Can anybody give me some fool proof suggestions? I am desperate. Thank you

I imagine you have tried recipes already with an appropriate quantity of xanthum gum and starches... are you making any substitutions, or omitting ingredients? Substitutions really change the game significantly, even unwitting substitutions like sweet rice flour vs white rice flour, potato flour vs potato starch. Substituting an alternative flour directly for wheat flour in non-GF recipes won't work (unless you find a GF flour blend that specifies so - for bread, I haven't). And when I started GF baking I omitted some tiny amounts of ingredients as I didn't want to go out and buy a whole packet/bottle of something just to use a few grams. Turns out some of those little things were absolutely essential. Don't skimp on them. Also, if using yeast, you can take a little bit and proof it to make sure it's not the dud. Try finding a specifically gluten-free bread recipe with many positive comments, so you are sure it's not the recipe that's the issue. Personally, my first proper attempt with no subs or omissions at making bread (my first GF bread, and first bread loaf ever - so it had to be foolproof for me) was with this recipe and it rose nicely, much to my relief and delight. Maybe give it a try, and once you got the rising bit down, work on other recipes from there? If they are not working even though you are following them to a T, perhaps temperature is your issue - is the water too cold or hot for the yeast? Are you leaving the bread in a cold spot? I have a cool kitchen, so when my oven is pre-heating while rising I place the loaf above the stove to rise, as it receives ambient warmth from the heated oven.

I was inspired after seeing a hot dog with a pretzel bun. I have the recipe pretty close to where I want it, but I'm not sure what to use as a wash. I tried egg whites so far and wasn't very happy. I'm open to all suggestions as I'm not sure what I want or what the expectation of a pretzel hot dog bun should be. Also would you doing anything special with the boil? I'm just using the standard baking soda and water at the moment.

If you want the hardcore, traditional pretzel flavor and crust, lye is really the only way to get it. You can dip it in a boiling bath of baking soda or washing soda for a minute or so. This can have the downside of giving the bun a really thick, leathery crust like a bagel. Alternately, to do a lye dip, you add one ounce of lye to one liter of water (add the lye to the water, not the water to the lye), stir and give it a few minutes to dissolve. The dough can be dipped in or brushed with the cold lye solution then baked. This will give you the really dark, thin, papery crust with that distinct pretzel flavor. While the lye certainly isn't a chemical to be careless with, if you obey proper precautions (keep it off your skin, don't splash it, etc) it's nothing to be afraid of either.

I love fried potatoes, and I love them even more when there are some delicious vegetables mixed in, like onions and bell peppers. The problem is that I can't figure out how to cook all these things so that I end up with crispy potatoes with the cooked onions and peppers. I've tried a few methods: Cook onions at the beginning, then add potatoes. Result: overcooked onions, mushy potatoes. Cook the potatoes, get them about how I want them, then add onions&peppers and cook. Result, good peppers&onions, soggy potatoes. Cook the potatoes, remove them from pan and set aside, cook onions and peppers, add cooked potatoes and toss. Result: almost what I want. this might be the best way to go, but still end up with slightly soggy potatoes. Are there any factors I'm missing that could give me better results? I've had better results at restaurants before, so I know it's possible...

You probably should keep #3, but use a much higher temperature for the vegetables. Non-starchy vegetables contain lots of water. If you shallow fry them at a leisurly pace, their juices flow out and stay in the pan, making everything a bit soft. You also get a bit less grilled-like taste. If you saute them instead, you'll end up with dry vegetables. Their juices will evaporate the moment they hit the pan. When you add the potatoes, they will stay crisp. You'll have to use a non-nonstick pan for that, it needs temperatures which will destroy a PTFE coating.

I was given a few packs of grain coffee. The smell was pretty nice and it was written that it's 100% arabica. That encouraged me to grind some and brew it in moka pot. The result I got was not horrible, but way to sour for me. I tried one bean and indeed it was little sour, compared to Starbucks Espresso Roast, which is not sour at all and has great almost black color. I am sure this will not be my coffee of choice, but it would be nice to upgrade it somehow (before I throw it away), though I have no idea how to do it. I thought about roasting it in the oven (210-225 Celsius; 410-437 Fahrenheit) for 10 minutes. Do you think it might be a good idea?

Sour could be under-roasted, but it could also just be that particular bean variety, or the age of the bean. I would not try re-roasting already-roasted coffee. What I would do is blend those beans with something to complement them. You can find flavor charts around the internet, such as this one from Coffee Bean Corral. I'd probably look for something in the "Earthy" and "Chocolatey" realm. Maybe a Brazilian or Colombian. And if you like the roast flavors, look for something that's been roasted to a city+ or so. In addition to the color, oil on the beans is an indicator of a darkly-roasted bean.

In short, is it safe to make pickled eggs where the yolk is still soft? I want to make some jars of pickled eggs to give as Christmas presents but I hate hard boiled eggs. I have a technique down pat that results in solid egg whites and yolks that are orange and have a gel texture. Having never even seen pickled eggs with anything other than hard boiled yolks, it got me wondering whether there's some kind of food safety reason behind that. I've done some searching around on everything from food safety websites to food websites, to pickling blogs, to here and I can't find anything relating to yolks that are anything other than hard boiled. Can anyone advise me on any possible safety concerns with using eggs that have yolks that are still not entirely set in the middle?

I want to do the same thing. Here's an article about acidification and its effect on pathogens in commercial egg pickling. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24215686/ It basically says that eggs must be held in refrigeration while approaching the correct acidity of less than or equal to 4.6 pH, but that the bacteria won't actually die until the acidified eggs are allowed to sit at a higher temperature (room, or ambient temperature), after the target acidity is achieved. After about 14 days, no pathogens were detectable, using the methods they outlined, but they knew their exact acidities. Below a certain temperature, the metabolism of a bacterium slows down to the point that is virtually in stasis, and it needs to be active in order to absorb something that is toxic to it. Most sanitizing and disinfecting agents are designed to work at ambient temperatures for that reason. You kill germs more effectively using the exact concentration of an agent specified by the manufacturer, too. Higher concentrations may make it harder for bacteria to uptake the agent, due to hypertonicity. So, the antibacterial action of many agents depends on the temperature of the solution, the concentration of the solution, and the pH of the solution. This might explain the rationale for specifying that the eggs need to be held at ambient temperature for a period after brining completely under refrigeration. Another site, dedicated to egg safety, said that whatever cooking method must heat eggs to a uniform temperature of 160 degrees Fahrenheit, or hotter. https://eggsafety.org/cooking-eggs-right-temperature/ You would need to test your cooking method by temperature measurement before cold shocking them, and then be very careful to always use the exact same process to ensure reproduceable results. That means measuring an exact amount of water and an exact amount of eggs, placing all of your eggs in at the same time, and shocking them precisely after they are pasteurized to keep them from getting hard yolks. The December / January 2020 issue of Cook's Country does an excellent breakdown of achieving perfectly consistent egg yolk doneness on pages 24-25. I can't legally upload images of their copyrighted material, but I can say that they cover the measuring, timing, and cold shocking, and then give nice pictures of egg cross-sections from soft to hard boiled, in one minute intervals of increasing cooking time. The yolk is the part where the bacteria normally grow the most, so, it's kind of important to achieve a safe yolk temp and then refrigerate during acidification. There is more at stake than salmonella, too. If done improperly, it is not widely reported, but possible to end up with botulinum toxic in pickled eggs. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4934a2.htm In that instance, the man who was hospitalized had pricked his eggs to speed up brining, but he ended up contaminating the eggs internally. Another thing to note about botulinum toxin is that it can be broken down by boiling. There was a tragic case in the early 1900s of a family of 12 people who all died of botulism from improperly canned beans. A photo of seven of their caskets grouped around a church altar appears in some college microbiology textbooks. The editors of the textbooks say that the great shame of it is that they could have survived if the beans had been boiled for 10 minutes before serving. Still, it is best not to get sloppy with canning or pickling safety, and not to rely upon a final heating before serving to remove potentially lethal pathogens.

I'm making a half white flour, half whole wheat flour bread, with garlic, olive oil and dried herbs. After kneading it for about 20 min I left it to rise even though it wasn't as springy as I'd like. It was also a bit sticky, but was afraid to make it too dry since I'm using high gluten flour and whole wheat which both need more water. After the first rise it still didn't feel springy enough, and I gave it another knead and let it rise again for 15 min. After this, and when shaping the bread, I noticed there are little holes in the dough as seen in the pictures. For some reason the gluten didn't fully form to which I attribute the little holes and tears to, but I can't think what to do different. Any ideas?

What kind of whole wheat flour are you using? An organic supermarket near me offers a mill to use on-site, and I once bought a package of wheat and milled it there, to see how bread tastes with unoxidized flour. The roughly milled bran teared my gluten badly, and I had much difficulty getting the dough to perform well. The bread didn't rise well either. Your dough looks rather irregular to me, and I believe to see tiny beige dots which may be bran. Adding all those spices doesn't help, neither does working with high gluten flour when you are using whole wheat. The whole thing looks like too much and too tight gluten to me, that gets torn by the bran and pulls together, leaving holes. Also, home bakers tend to use too much yeast, and I suspect that getting the air pockets expand too quickly or even too much (overrising) increases the problem. Standard recipes start at 2% yeast (2 g fresh or 0.7 g instant per 100 g flour) but artisan breads use less, to allow for longer rising times. So my advice would be: use finely milled whole wheat flour (not home milled) try also getting your spices finer milled - if you are doing it in a coffee grinder, use a Turkish grind use AP flour instead of high gluten flour use more AP and less whole flour work your dough with frequent breaks, so the gluten can relax a bit use the proper amount of yeast.

I love the flavor of sharp cheese (especially cheddar) and was wondering what exactly it is that makes aged cheese taste sharper. I was also wondering if there are any ingredients that emulate this sharp flavor.

The term/process you are looking for is acidity or acidification. During the cheese making process lactose is broken down into lactic acid. This lowers the pH and creates the tart, sour, or acidic taste you are referring to. Higher acid cheeses (lower pH) present as "sharper", an old cheddar, for example. Ever have a salt and vinegar potato chip? I get a similar flavor perception (minus the lactic, cheese flavors of course). So, other acidic ingredients (vinegar, lemon) can easily get you in the same flavor perception ball park.

I've been making my own homemade coconut milk recently because I don't like the list of ingredients (thickeners, emulsifiers, etc.) typically found in store-bought coconut milk. The problem is, I really like the taste of store-bought coconut milk when I use it in coffee, because I think it tastes remarkably similar to real milk. So, I would actually like to mimic the store-bought version at home. I don't care as much about the consistency as I do about the richness and flavor (or lack of flavor, actually). At first, I thought I could just water down the coconut milk I usually make and that would be the end of it. However, it's still not quite the same. The homemade version tastes fine by itself, but when I use it to make lattes in the morning there's a certain bitterness/sharpness I can taste. (Note: when I make homemade almond milk, I can also taste that same bitter/sharp flavor as soon as I pair it with espresso). The store-bought version tastes smooth and clean by comparison, just like real milk. I know it's not the espresso at fault, because it tastes good when I make an Americano or a regular dairy milk latte. So, apart from the thickeners, emulsifier and fortification, store-bought coconut milk must be processed differently. In short, how do they take the coconut taste out of coconut milk while still keeping somewhat of a rich creaminess?

Are you talking about canned coconut milk, or the newfangled coconut "milk" beverage in cartons, meant as a non-dairy replacement for milk, like So Delicious and Coconut Dream? The latter is formulated specifically to taste and behave as close to dairy milk as possible. The (tri)calcium phosphate not only fortifies the milk, but also buffers it and makes it behave and taste more like real milk. Non-dairy coffee creamer and cheap half & half have dipotassium phosphate or similar phosphate salts for the same purpose. I don't know if I can suggest anything to help. If you try regular canned coconut milk (with no dilution, stabilizers, or fortification), is it any better than your homemade coconut milk? You might try experimenting with heating your coconut milk, or adding small amounts of salt and/or sugar, or blending the warm coconut milk to better emulsify it.

I think I may make some traditional food for Easter this year. What I love most is a type of rich sweet bread called kozunak. The perfect kozunak is defined by many qualities, but what I find hardest is the texture. First, it should be really tender. Second, it must be very airy. Third, it should be juicy, not as dry as normal bread, but not doughy. Fourth, it should have threads. This means that the bread is broken instead of cut, and the dough should easily separate along lines made by pulling while kneading it. The best way to imagine that is to think of collagen-rich meat taken out of the slow cooker and pulled apart into its muscle fibers. Here is a picture of what the threads should look like (I hope the colours of the original are off, else it isn't the perfect kozunak with that colour ;) and the crumb is denser than usual). The ratio of the recipe is probably important. It is a very wet dough for yeast, and has enough fat to make a quiche envious. (Also, this is the only bread I know of which is kneaded in oil instead of flour to prevent sticking). A typical recipe is: 1 kg flour [assume all purpose] 55 g live yeast 300 g white sugar 250 g milk [can be partially or wholly substituted for cream] 250 g butter 8 eggs lemon rind, zests vanilla extract 1 tbsp rum yolk for glazing raisins (optional) almonds (optional) I am not very good at getting it this way, because there is at least a year between each of my tries, meaning that I don't remember what I did when it went good and when it went wrong. My grandma and all of her friends love to give "surefire advice" on how to get it that way. And the advice of one friend contradicts that of another one (if it isn't internally inconsistent at to start with). I think that you SeasonedAdvicers are less likely to just perpetuate old myths without understanding them than these nice old ladies. So if you are experienced with yeast doughs, I will appreciate your opinion on following factors. Fat type. This recipe says butter, but there is lots of advice to use lard instead, to make it "more tender". I am not sure that this has any consequence in yeast dough, probably some well-intentioned home cook decided that if it works for pie crust, it works for bread too. But I'd like to hear your opinion. How many times should I let it rise? The usual procedure is something like Rise yeast in milk - mix everything, knead - rise (ca. 2x volume) - knead - rise (ca. 3x volume) - knead, pull, braid - rise (ca. 2x volume) - bake. But some leave the middle rising out, letting rise a bit more the other times. Is it a simplification, or is the procedure outlined overkill? Are there disadvantages to that much rising? How much should I knead it each time? Some say lots of kneading in the beginning, the least amount at the end. Others say that the least amount of kneading every time is best. What do you advice? Optimal oven temperature? It gets thick, because it increases in volume another 2x to 3x before setting, 10 cm isn't unusual. That would speak for a lower temp, around 160°C. But the years I followed this instinct, it got quite dry (maybe I didn't check properly for doneness). So maybe less time at a higher temp. But this is theory, what would an experienced baker suggest? I think that's about it, but if you have other useful suggestions, please tell. This type of dough has a reputation for being tricky (or is it just the fact that it is rarely made so home bakers are inexperienced? Or that the expectations on the final product are high?) and I'll check the theory again, but help from more experienced bakers would be appreciated. Edit: maybe I didn't make it entirely clear what puzzles me most. As I see it, I need exuberant gluten formation for the threads (and the long rising supports this theory). But to make it tender and airy I'd think that I want less gluten. So the theory just confuses me this time. I hope that at least the juicy part is taken care of by the abundant fat.

Damn, that looks good. I've never made this particular type of bread before, but here are some things that I do know which might help: Butter is (roughly) 10% water and 90% fat, while lard is 100% fat. So if you substitute one for the other, you should adjust the amount of water in the recipe accordingly. The flavor will be a little different, but I bet either one would work. I would not assume AP flour. In fact, I'd assume high-gluten bread flour. The gluten is what creates those fibers. It's the fat that keeps it tender. This looks very similar to a brioche, so you might want to look at brioche recipes to learn some of the principles. One thing that most of them will tell you is to to knead the dough to develop the gluten fibers, and then add the butter. This I think is the key. I know that fat can keep gluten molecules from sticking together into strands, so if you add the fat later, you should wind up with strands of gluten surrounded by fat.

I have a very challenging task every time I buy vegetables in preserving them even though I have a refrigerator at home. Tomatoes, carrots, beets, and bottle gourd always collect moisture in the plastic in which I store them. How do I avoid this?

I tend to be kind of lazy and store my vegetables in plastic produce bags from the supermarket. I have found two things that help the produce keep longer: Put a dry paper towel in the bag to absorb moisture. Leave some air in the bag when you tie it, so the plastic is not resting right up against the vegetables. Also, I'll sometimes put the produce right in the crisper drawer without a bag or container.

I understand that it is hard to define when pasta is properly 'cooked'. It's a subjective topic. But I think that 'really not cooked enough' is a state that most of use would agree on. I noticed that regardless of the continent, city, stove type (electric or gas) and pasta type, pasta will never be 'cooked enough to eat' if I follow the time on the box. I always lived by the sea, at sea level, so I'm assuming all these years, water boiled at the same temperature (100c) I'd had cooking ranges from high end Viking models to some no name crap ones. When the box says cook 11min (as in tonight's Barilla Penne Rigate), they start to bee cooked enough to eat at 17min. I never cover the cooking pot, could it be it? Unless I have a life long curse regarding cooking pasta, why is it that following the box instructions has never resulted in pasta cooked enough in my 30 odd years of cooking them? :)

One very likely explanation: did you start your pasta in cold water? These times are given for pasta that gets immersed in a very large amount of already-boiling water. If you either started from cold, or had a rather crowded pot of pasta (such that the water cooled down when the pasta was added), then the time needed will increase. For me personally, using the boiling water method, the times on the pasta box have always been correct.

I'm trying to find a reliable way to make a good base gravy for British Indian Restaurant (BIR) curry -- for those that don't know, this is essentially the adapted form of Indian curry cooking used in Indian takeaways in the Western world (I know, glamorous!). Base gravy is essentially some alliums and sometimes tomatos / carrot / celery cooked for a long time and then blended to a soup-like consistency (after this, spices and other flavorings are added to achieved a finished dish). The basic sauce of the curry world, essentially. The key determinant of success seems to be sweetening the onions. I can carmelize them using the standard technique (frying and deglazing), but I'd ideally like something that only uses boiling because it is less work (also, adding a lot of oil to base gravy and then again in the finished dish - to temper the spices - seems unhealthy to me). And even in the more varied base gravy recipes in which carrots/cabbage/tomatoes have been involved, these ingredients have only been introduced towards the end of the cooking process after a base of well-sweetened onions has already been achieved. TL;DR Can brown / sweet / onions that don't taste raw be achieved without frying? Even if you start with frying, can the sweetening process continue to take place while the onions are boiling (once cooking temperatures are below what would be required for the Maillard reaction to take place)? And if so, how long would the onions need to be boiled to achieve reliable results? I notice that some base gravy recipes call for boiling the onions for very long periods of time (2 hours) but I didn't achieve what I expected using a slow cooker. (I feel a little stupid even asking this, but take solace in the fact that learning to produce tasty, consistent base gravy is apparently something that it takes every Indian chef a while to master.)

Cook's Illustrated recently published a recipe for caramelized onions that took only 20 minutes. The key points: Cook them in some rapidly boiling water to break down the cell walls, about 15 minutes. After they are fully cooked, add a small amount of baking soda (about 1/4 tsp to three pounds of onions). The slightly basic solution aids the quick conversion of starches to sugars, and aids browning. In five minutes, you cook off the excess water, as well as rapidly browning the onions without turning them crispy. The small amount of baking soda suffices to change the reaction rate, without substantially altering the taste. The result is a big pile of sweet, brown caramelized onions; they can be turned into French Onion Soup simply by adding some stock. Cook's Illustrated recommends slicing pole-to-pole (Lyonnaise) rather than across for this preparation. Apparently it makes them firmer; otherwise, they risk collapsing entirely. Give this experiment a try, and you may be able to adapt the technique. I don't know if it would adapt well to smaller quantities, but you could cook three pounds and set the rest aside for many, many other uses. (Top goat cheese; put it on a pizza; add to green beans; save for another curry.)

On the Folgers website, it has a calculator. Place the number of 'cups' of coffee you desire and it tells you how much coffee to use and how much water to use. I put 8 cups, and it gives the following. 'For 8 servings of coffee use 8 tablespoons of ground coffee and 6 cups of water.' What?!?!?! is this 6 eight ounce cups for 8 six ounce cups of coffee?

Yes. Strangely, a standard "cup" of coffee (at least in the US) is 6 ounces (177ml). That's especially weird since most of us drink huge mugs. Go figure. So according to Folgers, to make 8 "servings" (48 ounces, 1.4 liters) you should use 8 tablespoons of coffee (42 grams) and 6 cups (48 ounces, 1.4 liters) of water. See also: Is a "cup" on a coffee maker always 6 oz? Is this a standard in the US?

Making royal icing today, for a rather overdue Christmas cake. I always end up with too much icing sugar, based on my normal recipe which asks for 4 large egg whites and 500g icing sugar. So today I used 3 egg whites and as much icing sugar as "felt right". Is this fair enough? If it's taking a long time for stiff peaks to form, is this a sign of too little icing sugar? And if I overdid the icing sugar how would I tell?

The consistency of royal icing depends on many things, including the size of your eggs, but also the humidity/weather. So if you know what stiffness you want, it's perfectly valid to add sugar until it "feels right". (I usually make royal icing with meringue powder rather than fresh egg whites, which removes one variable from the equation [the size of the eggs], but I still have to adjust the sugar to get the right consistency.) As far as troubleshooting, if you've been whipping away and it's still gloopy, by all means add more sugar. If you overdo the sugar, you'll know immediately: it'll be too stiff to mix. (In which case, depending on the quantities involved you can either just add a teaspoon of warm water, or you can whip up another egg white separately until soft peaks form, then fold it into your icing.)

There are white and green Brinjals too. Are the purple ones known by some special name?

In Britain (and France), the large purple varieties are known as aubergines. Other (pale and/or small) varieties aren't usually found outside of Asian supermarkets, where I imagine they are still referred to as brinjal. The name 'eggplant' is used in the US, Canada, and the Antipodes, mainly because the lighter varieties are more common there, which arguably have the colour of eggshell. They are, however, all just different varieties of the same plant, like yellow and red tomatoes.

Besides the noticeable cost difference between these two, what is the difference between pimenton ahumado and pimenton de la vera? Both are purported to be Spanish smoked paprika.

I suspect it depends what kind of cheese the whey came from. Whey has all of the water soluble components of the milk. It loses the casein and fat. How much of the albumin and lactose it loses depends on the cheese. If the milk was heated enough (190F I believe) then the albumin will denature and not be in the whey. If the cheese was acidified with a bacterial inoculation then the bacteria will have converted some of the lactose into lactic acid which will both be in the whey. Riboflavin is water soluble and is what gives the whey that greenish tint. Either way- most of the nutrients that bacteria like are not in the whey and it is always highly acidic. I have personally kept whey for a couple weeks with no ill effect. I usually use my whey soon by making ricotta. If the cheese it came from didn't denature the albumin in the milk then you can gently heat the whey until the the albumin precipitates out. A gallon of whole milk makes almost a pound of mozzarella and then a little less than a cup of ricotta. That's a lasagna right there.

Japanese curry (カレー, karē) is its own distinct style, made with a roux base, mild curry powder, and grated apples or apple puree. It also has a well-documented origin, having been introduced by British/Indian sailors during the period of British-Japanese naval alliance. This also includes an explanation for why Japanese curry uses a roux base (the navy wanted to add vitamin B1-bearing wheat to the sailor's diet). What it doesn't include is an explanation for when, how, and why the apples became a key ingredient. Per Chopstick Chronicles: The ultimate Japanese curry rice secret ingredients “kakushi Aji”, which literally translates to “hidden taste”, are Apple and Honey. These are well-known Japanese curry rice ingredients among Japanese people so it’s not much of a secret anymore. Adding grated apple and honey gives the Japanese curry rice the signature sweeter flavour and is a staple for any Japanese mother’s home-cooked curry. Apples are not used in Anglo-Indian curries that I've seen or been able to find online. So this leads to several related questions: Were apples added to standard Japanese curry when it was introduced to the 19th century navy? If so, were they added for nutritional reasons? Or were apples common in British curries of the time (the book "Curry" does not mention this, nor are apples mentioned in Mrs Beeton's) If the apples were added later, how did that come about? Was the Vermont Curry company responsible for it? Thanks for any leads or ideas.

Curry and apples were both introduced to Japan in the late 19th century. Curry did not receive widespread popularity until the beginning of the 20th century and apples were not introduced to the curry rue until the 1960s (When the sweeter honey and apple curries increased their popularity with children). In 1963 House Foods Corp introduced House Vermont Curry made with honey and apples. https://gogocurryfranchise.com/the-evolution-and-spread-of-japanese-curry-rice/

It is well established in the scientific literature that those cooking on stainless steel cookware get a portion of their daily iron intake from the iron in the pan that makes it into the food: Geerligs, Brabin, and Omari, Food prepared in iron cooking pots as an intervention for reducing iron deficiency anaemia in developing countries: a systematic review, J Hum Nutr Diet. Aug 2003, Vol. 16, Num. 4, pp. 275-81. Kollipara and Brittin, Increased iron content of some Indian foods due to cookware, American Dietetic Association. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 96, Num. 5 (May 1996) Kuligowski and Halperin, Stainless steel cookware as a significant source of nickel, chromium, and iron, Arch. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. (1992) Vol. 23, Num. 211. For most people that's not a bad additional nutrient, and those who saw family use a stainless steel pan surviving a lifetime know that the lost steel will not wear a pan out, not even after decades of use. I'm now giving up on finding a tri-ply skillet whose bottom will remain perfectly flat. Since I cook on ceramic, a cast iron skillet is a good option. I'm hoping this would lead to steaks cooked perfectly evenly. Suppose I'll use the cast iron skillet for literally just steaks, I'm concerned about the burned fat from the skillet's seasoning that will leach out to the steaks—in analogy with what happens when cooking in stainless steel cookware. When you cook with cast iron, how do you know that some of the fat from the food you're cooking makes it to the skillet, but never the other way around. How do you know that the burnt pan "seasoning" does not make it into your food? Without some kind of confirmation that the burnt pan seasoning is safe, it would be nice to confirm that this does not occur in even trace amounts? I'm guessing that deglazing the pan after cooking steaks would only increase the chance of this leaching in the undesirable direction. Hints for safe deglazing are also welcome. update: A possible litmus test to determine potential leaching is to wipe with a paper towel.

You don't know it. In fact, I think that trace amounts of it end up in the food. With very new seasoning or also badly made seasoning, I have seen some "wear out" on pebbly pans. Not outright flaking, simply the hills of the pebbles looking a different, unseasoned color after dryish cooking on higher temperatures. The sources you read are a further hint. The one you linked is the only one I've ever seen claiming that stainless steel provides dietary iron, and it is written confusingly, starting to talk about SS but later saying that it is iron pans which contribute to dietary iron. There is some exchange in matter between the pan itself (beneath the seasoning) and your food, and as far as I am aware, also between the seasoning and your food. Third, the above is about standard, well made seasoning, which still gets somewhat abraded and repaired in microscopic amounts with each cooking. If you manage to burn stuff onto seasoning (carbohydrates in combination with high temperature are the worst there), it won't clean completely with scrubbing, but will continue coming of with use. No visible residue in the food, but months later, the rough charcoal structure will be gradually gone. I don't have any firm sources from somebody who measured this in a lab. But from everything I have observed while using and misusing seasoned pans, there is some transfer happening in both directions, in trace amounts.

I did a slow roast pork today putting pork knuckles on the bone cooking for 8 hours in a dash of apple juice. After cooking, I left it to cool for an hour with the lid on. When I lifted the lid, I noticed a 'lightness' to the smell of the pork, almost the lightness you might get when smelling a bouquet of flowers. (Sorry to those who feel this description is overdone - I'm trying to capture an idea in words). It almost reminded me of the caramelisation of onion when cooked on a frying pan. Help me out here - what is the term I'm looking for? Is it caramelisation? My question is: What is the name for the 'sweetness' of cooling roast pork?

IMHO, there is no single answer to this question. It largely depends on the way you are "chilling". It ranges from: Leave the pot on the counter until cooled to room temp, then stick it into the fridge until cold. Could be anywhere in the range of 2-6 hours, I guess. with a bunch of variations up to: Transfer custard from hot pot into a flat, pre-chilled metal bowl or baking tray, plunge bottom into a salted ice bath (or pile of snow if it's freezing outside) and stir constantly with a rubber spatula. Should be cold within minutes. So what would I do? I'd make the custard a day in advance, let it cool somewhat, then freeze the cubes over night. Never bother about the given 4 hours first freeze, because I assume this is a minimum time to get the cubes frozen fully. Finish the ice cream 4-5 hours before planned serving time the next day, because it might get too hard if frozen too long, but this depends on the recipe and I can't say for sure what the texture would be in this case.

I very rarely buy avocado, but now I happen to have two of them in my kitchen. I'm used to ripe avocado having this colour: Now, mine are more brightly green, like this: They aren't very soft, so I guess they aren't ripe yet, but I'm wondering if the colour will change or if this is just a matter of which variety of avocado it is?

Most avocado's are the Hass variety, which will go very dark when ripe It look like you have bought a Reed or maybe Gwen variety. They are perfectly fine. Their skin colour will not significantly change as they ripen, so to check, gently squeeze near the point, and if it is soft it is ripe. If not a few days by the window at room temperature will fix it

I was reading a question and in it, burnt garlic was a topic in which the answerer said that burnt (very brown, not black) garlic is bitter. They went on further to say that any dish with burnt garlic is ruined, and you should throw it out and begin anew. I was first curious if there was any way to save the dish (a couple sources said no), but I was then curious as to dishes that utilize that burnt flavor. I know a lot of dishes like to capitalize on the most bitter aspect (I know a few with bitter gourds), so I'd like to see if this is something that can be capitalized on. Do dishes exist that capitalize on the "burnt" flavor (very brown, not actually blackened burnt) of overcooked garlic? Note: I wasn't sure about the closability of this. If it's off-topic, please let me know and I'll delete it.

I've seen a handful of different recipes that utilize burnt garlic as a main flavor ingredient. One that seems particularly interesting is "Burnt Garlic-Sesame-Chili Oil", which can be used as a condiment in ramen noodle soups. I haven't tried making it, but I'm pretty sure I have eaten something like this before. It has a spicy and smokey flavor. I'm not sure if I should paste the whole recipe here, but here is the link: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/09/burnt-garlic-sesame-chili-oil-for-ramen-recipe.html Enjoy!

I'm thinking to buy manual juicer. I considering two options: plastic auger one or thick aluminium press. Like this: And this:

Looks like the top apparatus gets my vote: takes care of breaking up the juice vesicles and the pressure of the top plunger helps squeeze it out. I find so many unpopped juice vesicles in my Mexican citrus press (bottom picture). Too much pressure and I get unwanted bitterness from oils of peel

I am new to making sushi and have gotten the hang of rolling it with the nori on the outside. The problem is when I am trying to cut it into individual pieces, I often end up mangling it to the point where it looks like it would be unpleasant to eat it. Is there a trick to getting a nice smooth cut through the roll? The first one of the day seems to always be the worst.

ok get a very sharp knife (straight blade) put the blade under water tap the blade on the counter to rid of excess water cut roll in half repeat the process on the two portions make sure that you're using a long knife, and when you're cutting, don't seesaw, rather it should be one fluid motion EDIT or do it as the comment below says :P

I'm growing some Bhut Jolokia's (world hottest pepper aka ghost pepper) amongst other hot peppers. Anyone have any recommendations what I can do with them? I picked one off the plant last night. I'm looking for something other that hot sauce or chili.

Depending on exactly the recipe you are using it in, I'd either go for a meaty white fish such as Cod, haddock, or the cheaper fish like pollock. You may also be able to get away with something like mackerel, which isn't as white and chunky but is much cheaper. You should be able to get all of these in a UK supermarket. You could also try a fishmonger (either in the Supermarket or independent) - ask them what you could use instead.

All three are available at my local mexican market. How are they different?

The primarily difference is where they are made. But there's also a play on its acidity. Kind of like milk vs. buttermilk or different types of plain yogurt. I always thought of El Salvadorian crema was more acidic for my tastes. I think of Honduran as a less acidic, more creamy taste and I really enjoy it.

Is it possible and necessary to temper store-bought quality chocolate like Lindt? Say, for example, you want to use it to make chocolate moulds - would it be possible to melt and temper the chocolate and have the same result as that of couverture chocolate?

Yes, you absolutely can (Lindt dark chocolate bars work just fine). Whether you can temper chocolate is simply a matter of whether there's enough cocoa butter (the fat that is actually crystallizing during the tempering process). You will want to have at least ~30% cocoa butter by mass if you want to temper the chocolate, but even 20% will work. When you see a chocolate bar that says something like, "70% cocoa," that is the sum of the fat (cocoa butter) and non-fat parts (cocoa solids) of the cacao bean. That 70% might be divided between 30% fat and 40% cacao, for example, which is definitely sufficient for tempering. If you want to know if a particular bar can be used for tempering, here's a quick test: Read the label, and see if the primary fat is real cocoa butter Make sure that the bar is at least 30% fat by mass Small warning: different chocolates have different tempering curves. This is why dark, milk, and white chocolates generally have slightly different tempering curves. If you have a good, instant-read thermometer, it will help in the process of learning how to temper your chocolate of choice.

I'm looking for a dietary fiber or a mix of dietary fibers (and other ingredients which act like dietary fibers such as sugar alcohols) with really low (even zero) food calories that I can create a crunchy (as in chips) or crusty (as in bread) texture. Please think of molecular level fibers not as in fiber-rich food. For example a common dietary fiber is Inulin (which is a fructan) and can be used as a sweetener. Another one is Glucomannan which is used as a thickener and a gelling-agent. Both of these have no calories. I thought of using Isomalt, which to some extent acts like a dietary fiber, to make hard candy, but I think it's not going to be as low calory as I want since it's just half the calories of sugar or flour. I'm looking for recommendations to achieve such a texture, which could be considered suitable for a calorie controlled diet. As a response to the close requests: I'm not asking for a recipe, the question is about ingredients and techniques I don't think it's broad for the following reasons: I'm asking for a very specific texture and how to achieve it. I don't know of any combination that could result in such a texture with low calories. Think of a combination before voting close for this reason (better yet, write it on the comments :))

Kiwi. Don't knock it until you try it. It will have a similar acidity and texture to pineapple. Use ripe kiwi and maybe a touch extra lime juice!

The last time I cooked the chicken, it had a strong chicken smell. I know that the chicken was not bad because I was fine after eating it. Also, I defrosted it for 24 hours and immediately cooked it. I'm not sure whether the flesh smell comes because of the marinade (something we need to add), or the way it is cooked (like don't air fryer it, or don't use 200 Celsius for cooking, or keep the gas grill on low), or do we need to wash chicken after defrosting it (WHO recommends not washing chicken to avoid the water splashing around, and I guess store bought chicken might be pre-washed, but not sure whether we need to wash it to remove the water that gets accumulated after defrosting it), or is it to do with adding more oil while cooking, or is it that I must be careful to discard all marinade that's left over in the bowl rather than use them to coat the chicken one last time? I'm totally at my wit's end about to get rid of the chicken smell.

Add your preferred level of salt and pepper Seasoning usually refers to salt and black pepper, but occasionally to other flavor-enhancing ingredients in the dish such as acid (vinegar, lemon, etc.) and heat (red pepper, sriracha, etc.). "To taste" means to the degree you enjoy it.

How can I salvage hardened peanut butter from the bottom of the jar? Is there anything I can put in it that will soften it but also add to the taste, or at least not affect it negatively?

As long as the peanut paste at the bottom of the jar hasn't gone rancid, I'm pretty sure the bottom of the jar gets hardened and dry because the peanut solids have sunk to the bottom while the peanut oil has floated to the top, and as you use the peanut butter, a deficit of peanut oil develops at the bottom of the jar. I usually try to keep re-mixing the jar as I use it, so I haven't really tried this, but I'll bet if you stir in a little peanut oil, that dry peanut-plaster would soften up and become like its old self again.

I regularly making Panforte which involves heating an equal parts mix of honey and sugar to 115c. Due to the quantity of sugar a jam thermometer doesn't normally reach the mix in the bottom of the pan to work effectively. My technique at the moment is to stir it and every now and again tilt the pan to pool the honey and then use a normal but cheap probe thermometer. However, sometimes the mix visually looks much hotter (small bubbles, more 'activity') but still reads lower than my desired temperature. In the finished bake I am getting very inconsistent results in terms of consistently; sometimes they are very soft and other times very hard and brittle. Given the baking times are the same I can only assume the inconsistency is due to the inaccuracy of measuring the temp of the sugar/honey mix. So my question is is there anything wrong with the technique described above? Why might it be inconsistent? Or is there a better way to accurately take the temperature of the sugar honey mix? Would an IR thermometer be more useful than a probe?

IR thermometers are not accurate enough for sugar work. They make some assumptions (like reflectivity of the surface) which are not exactly met in real life. My way of making small amounts of sugar syrup is to use a small pot with a long handle. I have a 12 cm stainless steel one with a long handle that's very comfortable, and similar vessels exist in even smaller sizes. This has the added advantage of not having too thin a layer of syrup, which can overheat quickly. If your amount is too small to fill even a tiny pot, you might consider simply making more than you need. Sugar is cheap (OK, I know honey isn't always, but I doubt that you need the best honey if you are heating it) and if you don't feel good at the thought of throwing away food, simply making enough additional syrup to have for two glasses of lemonade will probably be enough to work with a 8-cm pot.

I have a gas hob and metal-bottomed pots. The support for the hob is made of metal and is coated in black plastic, like the image below. The previous owner has worn away at the layer of plastic that allows pots to move freely and quietly, so the metal is exposed. The problem I'm trying to solve is that skillets and pots squeak horribly when they are moved due to the metal-on-metal scraping. One option is to replace the support, but this seems wasteful and it will crop up again; Another option would be to heat the metal and use a plastic dip; in school we used a heat-and-dip treatment to treat metal products to give them this nice finish, but I don't have the equipment. How can I mitigate this noise? Is there a nice way to completely stop it?

I've only made Aji de Gallina a couple of times and this was several years back. So, I searched through several recipes to get an idea of what some of the variations may be. Across the board, I couldn't see how the peppers alone could impart that much color, given the total volume of the recipe. Especially the lighter yellow peppers. As your dish tasted great, I don't think you are doing anything wrong. So, here are a few ideas: As you noted in your question, turmeric is an option. Most recipes call for such a small amount that it probably wouldn't affect the taste too much. You may get more color by substituting Aji Amarillo paste for part of all of the peppers. Most that I've seen have a very nice color. I used this when I made Aji de Gallina as the peppers were not available at that time. Here's one example: Annatto (achiote) paste, powder, or seeds may be incorporated as it also gives a nice color. I haven't tried it with this dish but, as with other things, I would only use a small amount so as to not alter the flavor too much. Last, but not least, is my go to. I've kept a bottle of Amarillo yellow coloring in my pantry for years. Any time I have the flavor on point, but need the color, that's where it comes from. It takes a very small amount (think pinch) and does not change the flavor of your dish. Works great for rice, paella, sauces, etc. And, because it's also sold to foodservice, it's quite feasible that restaurants use it.

I've made too much beef stew, and I'd love to be able to freeze it instead of letting it go bad. It's a stew with cooked vegetables and chunks of beef. Will this freeze and defrost well? (If it matters, I bought the beef frozen, not fresh -- but I think the "don't refreeze" guideline is before cooking.)

Yes, you can freeze stew. You may find that the vegetables are a bit softer or broken into smaller pieces after thawing. If you used a thickening agent (flour, cornstarch), it may separate as it thaws in the refrigerator overnight. To remedy that, remove a bit of the liquid, simmer with a bit more thickener and whisk so that it stabilizes. Then, gently stir into the stew as you reheat it. And, you're correct, 'don't refreeze' applies to the raw meat, not to when it has been cooked.

I'm sure this has happened before... you're bringing the cheesecake to the party, only to realize the recipe you're using tells you chill it for 12 hours! Is there any way around this? Will it come out horribly if we try to use the freezer? Our recipe says chill for 12 hours but we saw another that said 5.5 hours, so I'd be interested as to whether there's a rule of thumb to shorten any given chill time. Could we freeze it for say 3 hours? (Then let it thaw in the fridge for some amount of time before serving) Could we try a few freeze/chill/freeze cycles? Or should we just suck it up, chill it the 12 hours and then tomorrow just eat it ourselves? ;)

Don't freeze it. I tried that. The ice crystals that form at the lower temperature make the cheesecake texture awful and can cause cracks. However, people will eat warm cheesecake so just chill it in fridge for whatever amount of time you do have.

The microwave is usually frowned upon by ambitious chefs. It provides a convenient way to quickly heat ready made meals or the leftovers from the day before, but it is usually not regarded as a serious kitchen utensil (as is testified by one of the answers below). However, it seems to me that the unique way in which a microwave delivers heat should open up possibilities for food preparation that simply did not exist before the introduction of this device. Not being an experienced "microwave chef" myself (in fact I never had access to one until very recently) I ask myself: Aren't there any crazy avantgardistic or molecular cuisine type ways of preparing food that exploit the specifics of a microwave oven in an unconventional way?

One creative invention that requires the use of a microwave oven is the Frozen Florida - a reverse Baked Alaska. And seeing as this was invented by Nicholas Kurti, it surely counts as Molecular Cuisine. (see https://blog.khymos.org/molecular-gastronomy/history/ ) The inverted baked Alaska, described as a Frozen Florida, consists of a container made out of meringue. The container is filled with an alcoholic liquor and put in the freezer. After a couple of hours, the container is taken from the freezer and put into a microwave oven. The result is a dessert which is hot inside, but remains cold on the outside I just found something else - a Vacquelin is an egg-white foam stabilized in the microwave oven. I haven't tried it, but it sounds a bit like a cross between warm ice-cream and meringue.

I think it would be nice for me to have a rugged computer based networkable device with a touch screen mounted in the kitchen to bring up those difficult recipes. Does anyone here have any experience with such equipment and so point me to a reliable one?

I've been using an iPad as others have suggested. Option 1 is to vecro it to a cabinet or the fridge etc. where it is not in danger of getting caught in a spill. You can navigate just fine with a nuckle or the back of your wrist if your hands are a mess. Option 2 is put it in a gallon zipper bag. I recommend the 'storage' type over the freezer type as the plastic is thinner and won't interfere with the screen. If you are going to be using it for something with audio it won't sound good, but if you have something with airplay (I use a in the kitchen you can shift the audio over there, which is a good idea anyway as the volume level of an iPad really can't compete with kitchen noise. I'm considering putting in a permanently mounted 50" LCD screen when I remodel. If so it will be connected to a computer in the basement under the kitchen, and have a touchscreen overlay added to it. The overlay uses light beam interruption and senses 'touch' without you really having to make contact with the screen. This is probably more than most people want to mess with though.

Yesterday I started working on a six pound butterflied roast chicken a little too close to an evening meeting. I butterflied the chicken and patted it as dry as possible inside and out with paper towels. I then mixed up some olive oil, lemon juice, salt, cracked pepper, chili powder, onion powder, and cumin and liberally applied it all over the skin. I'm not sure I really managed to completely flatten the chicken, as I'm fairly weak and it was a large bird, so the butterfly technique wasn't perfect. I put it under a pre-heated broiler and started out following this recipe, with the chicken cooking for about 6 minutes skin-side up, then 6 minutes meat-side up, then I put the oven on 375 degrees F (190.5 degrees C) with the chicken skin side up. Ever time I flipped it I poured some of the collected juices over the bird. Because the bird was so big, it wasn't done after about an hour of cooking when I needed to leave, so I put the broiler on low for about 3 minutes before leaving, and then I shut the oven off to keep from charring my chicken and burning the place down. At this point the thigh was around 140 degrees F at the thickest part. I was gone for about an hour. When I returned, my spouse didn't want to eat the chicken until we'd verified that it had come to temperature, so we turned the oven back on to 400 degrees F (204.4 degrees C) for a few more minutes. The bird went way beyond minimum temperature - the thickest part of the thigh was well over 175. I expected it to taste disgustingly dry. Instead what we had was the most moist, tender roasted chicken I've ever had. The skin was crispy, the meat fell off the bone (literally when we moved it off the rack). What was it about this accidental cooking method that worked so well? Did the time in the hot-but-not-on oven do anything? Was it just the initial recipe and the size of the bird? The basting? I'd love to reproduce the flavor and texture of my chicken, but do I need all the accidental steps?

I suspect you may have created a poor-man's slow-cooking environment in there. You had meat, and liquid, and a median temperature of around 200° F, and you probably also got the bird close to "done" during the first broil, before you even left the house. This is obviously easier to do when the meat is covered (was it in a covered roasting pan?) due to the steam, but the oven does provide some insulation to begin with. Technically when slow-cooking you should theoretically be able to speed up the process by quickly bringing the meat up to just below doneness/moisture-loss temperature (130° F) and then switching to a moisture-preserving slow-cook method like braising. I think that's what you accidentally did, but it's hard to say for because nobody was there for an hour and it sounds like you didn't check the temperature before the second round in the oven. My guess is that the second roast at 400° F was probably unnecessary, and that the bird was already done, having been cooked in a very slow roast. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the basting that helped. It seems to be regarded as a myth these days that basting keeps the meat moist, because the baste really doesn't penetrate the skin (and it's not the skin you're worried about). Basting is done to add flavour, not preserve moisture. The recipe itself also doesn't strike me as anything special in terms of keeping the bird moist, aside from having a relatively short cooking time (as with any grilling/broiling) and letting the meat rest afterward, neither of which really apply in your case. It was probably the slow heat that did it.

I've been making sushi for a while at home and now decided to get a set of knives specifically for this purpose (as I have only a couple of general-purpose knives which are horrendous). The question is - which types of knives should I get? Is there a one universal knife for cutting rolls & carving fish & making sashimi or there are several and what are their names? Maybe there is a standard set for this?

The traditional knife for sushi and sashimi is the yanagi sashimi. It features a long blade (approx 10in or 270mm) that has a chisel ground blade which is often hollow ground on the back, called urasaki. The long blade allows you to cut thin slices in one continuous motion so that you don't you don't have slashes marks from changing direction. There are also other traditional Japanese knives for specific food preparation tasks such as vegetable chopping and meat preparation. If you already have European-style knives you are comfortable with, there is no need to purchase Japanese-style knives for those tasks.

Tonight I'm going to make potato dauphinoise but I don't have any cream - at all - and all the recipes call for it! I should also note I have no creme fraiche or fromage frais or plain yoghurt e.t.c just milk and cheese (cheddar, unfortunately no gruyere or ementhal). Can I make it without cream or should I make a bechamel instead?

At first I thought there wouldn't be enough moisture in a potato/bechamel combination to cook the potatoes, but a little searching on Google reveals a few recipes with non-parboiled potatoes and bechamel sauce - so go for it. Example: Bechamel Potatoes

I always have trouble pouring coffee or cocoa powder. The containers are never designed with a spout so I use a spoon or pour it from tiny plastic container and my fine motor stability isn't fantastic. How can I avoid spillage?

Who’s right? In a way, all of them are. The weight equivalent of volumetric measurements will depend on the packing, which in turn will depend on the baker. The probably lowest value you will get if you use slightly older flour, stored in a dry environment, sieved, then spooned into the measuring cup and leveled. That’ll be pretty close to, I’d say 110 g. In contrast, a flour from a humid environment, that has settled during transport and storage and was then scooped directly with the measuring cup - you can get easily close to 150g in that case. Admittedly, the latter isn’t good practice, but it shows the difference and the Achilles heel of measuring by volume. When a recipe requires precision and reliability, it’s usually written in weight-based measurements and ratios. In daily use, many recipes have enough tolerance built in for the kind of errors introduced by volumetric units, and some will explain the method (e.g. “spooned and leveled”). In baking there’s often a final step that says add “1-3 tablespoons of milk” or “as needed” - aiming to get the batter to the desired consistency. If you need true precision, use a scale. There are e.g. macaron recipes that start with weighing the eggs, then weigh the other ingredients based on that. Likewise commercial recipes that will list “350g egg” instead of seven eggs - which is roughly the same amount, but not necessarily exactly the same.

I'm looking at slow cooking a beef stew on a workday. The stew includes raw beef. Recipe: http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/14685/slow-cooker-beef-stew-i/ Is it safe to combine the ingredients the night before, refridgerating the crock overnight, then cooking it in the morning?

Assuming it's a proper removable (some old ones weren't) inner crock pot you could (as in your other answer). BUT That pot will take a long time to warm up when you put it in and turn it on. I would suggest assembling all the ingredients in another container (which may also fit better in the fridge) and turning them out in to the (ideally preheated) crock pot in the morning. Otherwise you will probably need to add some time even on top of the extra time for starting all ingredients at fridge temperature. This is roughly what the manual for our previous slow cooker recommended. Our new one is a non-stick steel inner pot (for easy browning) and will warm up much faster - there's no recommendation to preheat this model.

I recently found a piece of black substance in my Navel Orange. When I rubbed it against my finger, the blacked thing smeared on my finger like coal. It was less the 1 cm wide and kind of look like a jagged piece of gravel. Could anyone know what this could be?

If the substance was soft and smeared easily, as you describe, it was most likely mould - sometimes cells die in a part of the fruit, often through exterior damage, and these rapidly start to decompose. Left long enough, the whole fruit would have gone black. Harmless so long as you don't eat the section that's got black in it, and even if you consumed it, it's only a bit dodgy to eat for people who are mould sensitive.

i purchased sizzler plate last month. I am using it once or twice in a week. However it is getting lots of rust on it. within 5 minutes of washing plate, it turns back to rust one. I am using lemon juice for a while and it does the trick. But i am looking for some permanent solution for this. Thanks for stopping by....!!!

It is actually quite simple. After you have cleaned it, simply coat it lightly with vegetable oil. You can rub it on with your fingertips or a paper towel.

I've made whole wheat chocolate chip cookies from Good to the Grain many times with King Arthur Flour's whole wheat flour and they come out great. http://food52.com/blog/9497-kim-boyce-s-whole-wheat-chocolate-chip-cookies When I mill hard red wheat and use it in the cookies (from finely milled to coarse) I get flat, barely edible cookies. Anyone know why this happens and how I can fix it? Edited to add: With the King Author wheat flour I use a 3T cookie scoop and the cookies flatten slightly and then raise. They have a slight crunch to them. Using the milled flour and the same cookie scoop they at least double in diameter, do not raise much, and are very flat. They are really hard to bite and can only be eaten when dunked in milk. I wish I had pictures, but the times I tried making them I didn't think to take any.

My suggestion would be to just go with the sugar increase, it might be sufficient to increase moisture. You can combine it with less baking time, if you want to - try using a thermometer and bake to 94 C, maybe 96 if it gets out underbaked. If it still feels dry, you should add fat, not water. Increase the butter, and maybe add one more yolk. You can also use an artificial sweetener instead of sugar, but it will again increase your dryness problem. An interesting option would be to use another form of sugar - replace part of the original sugar with some molasses or a syrup (corn syrup, agave syrup, whatever you find). It will make a moister, heavier cake, but also change the flavor profile. I must also say that people rarely find pound cake to not be moist enough. If you don't like it that way, you might be the kind of person who likes cakes extra moist, so it might be worth looking into cakes soaked in syrup after baking. You will find most recipes for that from Middle Eastern sources. If that's what you like, you might want to try syruping this one too, it will solve both your moisture and your sweetness problems.

When making lasagna noodles from scratch, do you need to cook the noodles first? If I was making it the regular way, layers, I wouldn't think it would need to be cooked. But I'm rolling the noodles around the cheese mixture and so I was wondering if that was going to make a difference.

Whether the pasta is rolled for cannelloni or flat for lasagne won't make a difference, just make sure that the tops of the rolls are covered with sauce, too, or they will dry out and taste not nice. For the pros and cons of fresh vs. dried pasta in "al forno" dishes, see the almost duplicate lasagne Q/A.

If I brine a turkey in a solution of 1/2 cup of salt per 1 gallon of distilled water, how do I tell how cold it can get before the brine freezes? Here in America, we all know water freezes at 32 degree Fahrenheit... if pure. Salt reduces the freezing point of water, which is why we salt our roads to melt ice in winter. Since my fridge is fairly full, I would prefer to keep the brine bucket in the garage overnight. However, it may get as cold as 26 degrees F tonight. Will a brine with 1/2 cup salt per gallon distilled water freeze at that temperature? Is there a good way to calculate the temperature to make an answer applicable to multiple brine ratios and temperatures? Wikipedia has a page on saline water and its freezing points but this requires calculation of molar masses and more chemistry than I am capable of - is there a way to simplify this in the context of cooking proportions? I.e. cups and gallons, not g/cm3 and other measurements. To be more specific, I am using Alton Brown's brine recipe. 1 quart of store-bought vegetable stock mixed with one gallon of water, 1 cup of salt, and 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Boil to dissolve/mix, then chill in the fridge. Combine with another gallon of chilled water and store chilled (fridge or outdoors in a cold climate, in a detached garage in my case). However, a good answer will not assume a specific recipe: it will specify ratios and explain "X cups salt, Y cups sugar, Z gallons water = W% brine concentration" since not everyone uses the same brine. I am looking for an answer that anyone can use to convert cooking volumes (cups/gallons) into temperatures: "I put X cups of salt into Y gallons of water, how cold can it get before this freezes and the brine fails to do its job?" Actual results: the brine appears not to have frozen. When I checked in the morning it was liquid without any ice chunks floating in it. I am still interested in a more scientific approach to planning this, however.

The tomato paste in your recipe is a large contributor to the sweetness. You could reduce the amount you are using or substitute with tomato sauce. The addition of an acid would also help balance the sweetness. A splash of vinegar or wine for example.

I started thawing a thick cut of London Broil (maybe 1.5 lbs) in cold water and then I realized I didn’t want to start cooking it yet. I’ve moved it to the fridge. While thawing in cold water, I had not sealed the meat completely in a zipper bag, but instead wrapped it in cling wrap. It was pretty well covered (double wrapped), but some water may have gotten in and it wasn’t sealed off entirely from the air. (Research has left me concerned that this may have been bad) Is this a problem? Background info: In total it was out of the freezer in cold water for maybe 45 minutes, and the outside has begun to thaw. I’ve put it back in the fridge after washing the container it was in with soap and hot water. I plan to cook it in a crock pot for 8 hours after browning it on the stove top.

Safely? Yes. Cold water thaws are fine. It's hot or warm water thawing that's bad. Cold running water will thaw faster than cold still water, but cold still water is okay as you basically have a giant ice cube in the water (the thing you're thawing), so the water stays at a safe temperature until you're towards the end of the thaw ... it just takes a really long time compared to thaw running water. The only issue here would be the meat getting wet. If it's clean water, and you don't drip it on other things it shouldn't be a problem from a safety standpoint. It can change the quality of the food being thawed (wash away flavors, cause the food to absorb too much water), so if you're going to do it intentionally, it can be worth adding salt to brine the item being thawed. So, from a safety standpoint, what you're doing is fine ... so long as your fridge temp is set well.

I followed a recipe for sat and pepper chicken, where I fry for 5 minutes, then let it rest then fry for a further 2 minutes before adding to the pan with the veg and seasoning. The recipe said I could refrigerate some of the chicken (after the 5 minutes) for tomorrow. I just wondered how long I need to re-fry it for tomorrow to make it safe, and Is it ok to add straight from the fridge or freezer to the oil

In your description, you've specified that you are intending to re-fry as the method for reheating the chicken that you've stored overnight in your chiller/freezer. However, the title to your question just mentions reheating, and there's actually another great way to reheat the chicken that works well whether the chicken is frozen or chilled. I would recommend using an oven with the broiler + fan mode or an air-fryer. Essentially, when reheating a fried chicken, you'll want to get back that nice crispy outer skin surface that you achieved when you first fried your chicken. So it is essential that you achieve a good dry surface on your chicken. When you chill or freeze the chicken after frying it, it soaks back up moisture and that is why it loses its crispiness. The combined effect of the broiler and the fan running allows for a very effective drying of the chicken's surface while simultaneously bringing the internal temperature of the chicken up until it is safe to eat again. For this you would also find a thermometer with a probe handy so that you can measure the internal temperature to verify. It works directly on a frozen piece of chicken well, because as you can imagine, a frozen chicken would accumulate ice crystals. These ice crystals will melt into water droplets as the broiler heats the chicken up, and these droplets are quickly vaporized and driven off with the fan running. On a side note, it is due to this reason, that especially for fried foods, or just any foods in general that have a crust or crispy outer layer, microwaving them does not give very good results because they get steamed rather than heated and dried.

I'm planning to do a Barbeque at the end of the month and I'd like to serve a variety of different 'Greek' style kebabs. I'm not looking for recipies, but what is the essence of creating grilled / barbeque food that tastes Greek. Whenever I have kebabs in Greece or in a Greek restaurant they taste different to kebabs I have had elsewhere but it's really difficult to tell what the difference is. One issue I think that might be important is the particualr mix of aromatic herbs such as Greek Basil. Does anyone else have any ideas what I can do?

The primary flavors of Greek meats are lemon, oregano, and olive oil. Typically either (or both) thyme and mint are present as well. I'd start with the following base for a marinade: 1/2 cup olive oil 1/4 cup lemon juice (2-ish lemons) 2 Tbsp oregano 1.5 tsp thyme 1.5 tsp mint I'd also suggest adding some garlic and onion to this. Maybe 1/2 an onion and 4 cloves of garlic. Adding a 1/4 to 1/2 cup of red wine could add some depth as well (I'm assuming lamb or steak, use white for pork or chicken). A good soak in this overnight, perhaps with some tweaks, should equate to Greek kebabs. Other herbs & spices common in Greek cuisine include: marjoram, paprika (sweet & hot), and pepper. You can also find, in small quantities: cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, anise, coriander, fennel, and allspice.

Many recipes require that you sweat vegetables (celery, onions, etc). Why not saute them and brown them a little instead? Would not that develop the flavors even more? Why would you not want that?

Onions The more you cook an onion, the sweeter it is going to get; heat breaks down the volatiles and complex starches and converts them to sugars. When an onion is completely brown then it is basically caramelized. The point of sweating onions is to draw out some of the pungency, but not all. If you cook them 'til they're brown (caramelized) then they will be very sweet, and not really retain any of that sulfurous "onion-y" flavour at all. So it's not really a question of how much you're developing the flavours, it's a question of which flavours you're developing. The more sweetness you develop, the more of the original onion flavour you lose. In my experience, caramelized onions are rarely used as an "ingredient" - they're more of a garnish or side dish, since they wouldn't really impart any significant flavour to the main dish. Celery and other aromatics These don't undergo the same drastic flavour changes that onions do, but the principle is the same: You sweat them to draw out moisture and aromas without starting a Maillard or caramelization reaction. The key is that sweating is a preparation step. Yes, frying/sautéing these for longer would develop more flavour (or at least more of a certain kind of flavour), but you don't want to do that too early, since they're going to sit in the pan for a while longer; sweating means softening them up slightly without eliminating all of the aromas or the natural crunchy texture. You generally don't brown vegetables during the preparation of a recipe; you only do that if you plan to eat them by themselves without any further cooking. If you brown them, then continue to cook, you will turn them into mush and possibly burn them, and there's no way to fix it after that happens.

European-style Japanese knives seem to be described (also here and here, and in my most recent post) in terms of "ratios" that always add up to 100. It's not exactly clear what this means in terms of angles off the center plane of the blade. It appears that, even on knife forums, there is some confusion as to what these numbers mean. My first thought was that they were actually angles, since a 30 degree angle is common on European knives. Upon reflection, though, that can't be--when you're sharpening a 70/30 knife, dragging across a stone at a 70 degree would be a catastrophe. What, then, is that magic number, and how does it vary in relation to these "ratios"?

I found this on chefknivestogo and I think it explains it quite well. RAY <> A "50/50" usually references an edge. So on the cutting edge, it is an even 50/50 "V". It can be 50/50 at 12 degrees or 50/50 @20, but each sides angle is equivocal. A double bevel is a knife design created by grinding. So from the spine to the cutting edge, there is a blade face that has been ground (most of the time). It can be a flat grind, a convex grind, a hollow grind, and any of these grinds can be symmetric (50/50) or asymmetric. So for instance, my Ginsanko Hiromoto Western Deba has an asymmetrical semi convex grind. It has a flat ground left blade face at around 30% of the total included angle and the right side blade face has a distinctly convex grind that is the other 70% of the total included angle, but the actual cutting edge has an asymmetry, as well. The actual cutting edge does not look like a "V" as it is, in fact, a 60/40 right-handed bias. It's a particularly unique blade, but exemplifies your point, quite well. :mrgreen: In short, the numbers like 50/50 or 70/30 represent the percentage of the included angle on each side of the blade. So, for a 50/50 knife with an included angle of 50°, it would be ground to a 25° edge angle on each side of the blade. See diagram below:

Im working in a restaurant that has pan-seared greenbeans and sauted chopped zucchini with onions&peppers. It seems were constantly waiting for the damned veggies or GB to complete our plates so the rest of the meal gets effing' cold! After a few batches the pan gets all charcoaly and the veggies get all grainy and ugly. (We use nonstick spray to do the greenbeans and in a separate saute pan we use a soysauce type mix for the zucchini stuff.)

I have seen various establishments par-cook their vegetables then finish them in whatever sauce is being used or quickly reheat them in a pan or on a flat top in oil or butter. Like part of your morning prep would be to cook off however many zucchinis (broil it? oven fry? up to you, you're making them in bulk so sauteing may not be the most efficient route) you're going to need for the evening, cool them on a half pan in a single layer, then store them in your line until the order comes through. Chuck them in the morning if they don't hold up well overnight, I'm not super sure how well zucchini holds up. Green beans should hold just fine for a day or two. All you need to do then is get a serving out and saute until heated through. Shouldn't take too long, and it shouldn't leave an unwieldy mess in the pan as long as it's oiled appropriately.

I wanted to make a Stevia-sweetened chocolate milk so I tried mixing some unsweetened cocoa powder with the milk and stevia, but I found that the cocoa powder doesn't mix with the milk at all. It tends to float on top, and even with a lot of stirring and mixing back and forth between two glasses it was a lumpy mess. Any techniques or natural additives I can use to help the powder dissolve more like Nestle Quick and the like?

Aw, you youngsters, spoiled with your Nestle Quick... :) To mix cocoa powder with a liquid (or really, to mix any powder with a liquid - salt and granulated sugar aren't powders), you need to make a slurry by mixing a small part of the liquid into all of the powder. Then you can dilute the slurry with the rest of the liquid. Note that if you're using sugar for sweetening, it helps to add it to the cocoa powder before you add any liquid, because the sugar helps the dissolving. However, since stevia is so much sweeter than sugar, you use too little of it to make any difference to the dissolving process. Thus, you can go ahead and add it afterward, so you can adjust the sweetness better.

What are the best type of apples to use when making Charosset for Passover? I'm torn between something more neutral like Gala vs something tart (which might work well with the sweetness of the rest of the dish).

Looking through recipes suggests a variety of apples. Gala showed up the most, with Fuji in second, and McIntosh and Delicious tied for last. If you want to go with the "source" of the recipe for Charoset, though, you'll want a sweet apple. The recipe has its roots in Song of Solomon/Songs, and the verse that refers to the apples reads as: As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. So, for authenticity, go for a sweet apple, but Gala is the most mentioned apple in recipes online.

are stove top griddle only for gas top stoves?

The stove top griddles I have used worked equally poorly on electric as on gas.

What is the teaching in choosing lemons—I know the obvious of picking heavy weight lemons, avoiding a dried-out looking lemon with significant pitting. I was reading that one must choose thin-skinned lemons but how would u know that without cutting the fruit? Any other recommendations for getting lemons with a bright, lemony, flavor without so much bitterness?

No. There are so many products used in so many different ways in crop protection and as preservatives for harvested fruit, that it is impossible to say beforehand what the most likely contaminants are and how to test for them. I was hoping only waxed fruit is treated with preservatives, and that i could test for wax easily, but it is impossible to say if a lemon was waxed, and unwaxed lemons may be contaminated also. I have not even been able to find a top 10 list of most-often found pesticides and preservatives on/in lemons. The name that does come up very often as a preservative applied after the harvest is Imazalil. The up-side is, it can be washed off to some extent. But this only focuses on the zest, and unfortunately 1/5 of Spanish lemons (and 1/2 of the Turkish) contain chlorpyrifos, which is neurtoxic pesticide that will be banned at the end of this year (2020). It is added to the ground so it is in the fruit, not just on it. In general however most of the preservatives and pesticides stay within safe margins (Dutch link). If the farm also sells to supermarkets and such the product will have to be clean enough to pass tests, which most fruit does. I have found little info about what organic farmers use to protect their crops, what i found seems pretty ok (Dutch link). Also the lemons are in season currently so they are anyway less likely to be treated after harvest. The best options are to contact the farm and decide how much to trust them or to rely on store-bought food that has some labelling and certification.

I lost the label on a bag of some sort of spice, and trying to figure out what it is got me really curious of what it possibly could be and what use it could ever serve. It is light brown, even slightly tan (reminiscent of natural sugar). It has a very slight woody smell, with possibly an undertone of heat. It has no real taste, possibly woody again, and is slightly gritty. It makes me think of ground up bark, if 99% of the flavor was removed. What spice does not have any flavor or aroma? This seems like an contradiction.

What spice does not have any flavor or aroma? A stale, old one. The flavors in spices are volatile— they don't last forever.

I bought butter in 1/4 sticks (one pound box) and left it in my trunk by accident. It's been very cold 35-50° F (2-10° C) at night/day. It's been 48 hours. Can I still use it? It's still in it's original container/box.

Yes, that should be fine. Plenty of people keep butter on the counter, so a couple days at below 50 is no big deal.

Given that the chicken is not contaminated by poison, and it simply dies of heart failure or heat stroke and not anything that makes it immediately inedible, how long does it take before a dead chicken becomes inedible?

I will post as an answer as too long for comment, but would support closing as opinion based with no definitive answer. When I raise meat chickens, my answer was zero. Even if the cause was harmless, the meat would be low quality at best due to lack of ability to remove blood. Even simple heart failure, besides the lack of ability to purge blood, could result in contamination from systemic issues related to poor circulation. Note that consumption of down birds was blamed for spreading Avian Influenza in Asia. The use of down animals was responsible for a widespread Mad Cow recall in US and Canada a few years ago. At times, and in many cultures, using down animals, either dead or dying, has ranged from acceptable to taboo. I personally side with the taboo argument. I hate to waste an animal, but the risks are too high for me.

What is the purpose of sifting dry ingredients (esp. with flour)? I heard in one place that it was because this is the best way to mix them well. I heard somewhere else that this is a carry-over from when flour used to still contain some chaff. What's the real reason? When does one still need to do this?

Fix Compacted Flour. Flour will compact over time (and during shipment). You could sift the flour to fluff it back up. Or, you could just stir it before measuring and be sure to spoon the flour into your measuring cup in order to get a correct volume measurement. Remove Unwanted Material. Yes, sifting would also remove larger pieces or bits of chaff. It would also remove insects. However, neither of these are problems with modern store-bought flour. If you grind your own flour (my sister-in-law does this), then you may still want to sift it, though. Mix Ingredients Together. Sifting can also be used to mix other dry ingredients into flour. I bake quite a bit, though, and I've never had a problem with just using a spoon or whisk to mix dry ingredients together. In summary: don't bother. Just use good measuring techniques and stir your ingredients together well. No one likes a lump of baking powder lurking in a muffin!

My question is about an herb that my mother used in her spaghetti sauce, and that I did as well using her recipe... And neither of us can remember what it actually was. I remember the flavor, but could not describe it. I believe I recall how it looked. Namely, small thin spines, black or dark green. Sharp enough that they could get stuck in your gums. I have looked through herb shelves, and couldn't find anything that spurred my memory. I've looked through lists of herbs, and none of them jumped out at me. Does anyone know what it is I'm remembering, or am I just imagining that such an herb existed? Thank you

The description as "black or dark green" makes me think this is a leafy herb, rather than a darker brown spice. Many dried herbs start out a dull green when they go into the sauce, but after cooking for a while they darken and become dark green or nearly black. I assume you've already considered and rejected basil and oregano, which are the most commonly used herbs in spaghetti sauce. Both tend to have fairly flat pieces of leaf, which are usually approximately square or circular, or at least not very much longer in one dimension than another. Other, less commonly used herbs in spaghetti sauce include: Marjoram Tarragon Thyme Rosemary Marjoram (image source) Marjoram looks a lot like oregano; the pieces are usually flat and round, so it's not a great candidate. But if you have a poor quality batch of marjoram with lots of stems in it, those could definitely get caught in your gums. Or if your mom put a lot of marjoram in her sauce, there might end up being a noticeable quantity of stems. It has a fairly mild flavor, so you could get away with a pretty large amount of it without overpowering the other flavors of the sauce. Tarragon (image source) Tarragon tends to come in pieces that are longer than they are wide, but usually still flat. It looks a bit like dried grass clippings, if the grass blades dried flat, without curling at the edges. But the edges could certainly curl in on themselves while cooking, which would give you more of a needle-like shape. Thyme (image source) Thyme leaves are pretty close to round when fresh, but once dry they do become rather skinny and pointy. I often notice them as a slightly annoying texture in finished dishes. They could definitely get stuck in your gums. They tend to be a fairly light green in color, but maybe they would darken when cooked in tomato sauce, which is both acidic and quite dark in color. Rosemary (image source) Rosemary leaves look a lot like pine needles, but they also tend to be thicker that what I would expect to get caught in the gums. The end of the leaf that was attached to the stem is much pointier than the tip of the leaf, so it could be the stem end pieces that got stuck your gums. It's not a very common addition to spaghetti sauce so it might be something you overlooked. A spaghetti sauce with rosemary in it has a distinctly different taste from a "normal" spaghetti sauce seasoned with just oregano and basil, but if you add only a very small amount it's difficult to tell that the different flavor is rosemary. Certainly rosemary by itself has a more herby and aromatic smell than the final sauce, so if you haven't tried adding it to a sauce you should try that. Since memory is rather malleable, it's possible you're combining the memory of several different herbs and spices. You might be remembering the smell or flavor of one herb/spice, but that's not actually the one that got caught in your gums. If that's the case it will be very challenging to narrow down. But you can expand your search parameters, eg, maybe the spice you remember wasn't actually green. If that's the case, consider long skinny seeds, like cumin, fennel or anise seed. If you're remembering the smell/flavor of multiple herbs, you can test for that by sniffing two different jars of herbs at the same time; just hold them next to each other and inhale while moving them back and forth under your nose.

I'm celiac and I'm intolerant to virtually all the grains (also to corn/maiz). So, the question is if I can make noodle/dumpling dough without grains? Yuca and potato starch are good for me, also chickpea and other legumes are fine. Any suggestions?

You could look into cellophane noodles. They're made from starch (often yam or potato), so it sounds like they'd work for you. If you have a decent Asian grocery store around, you may well be able to just buy them, too. You'll just have to be careful to check the ingredients, as they are sometimes made with corn starch too. (I'm not sure if it's whole corn or even the starch that you can't have.)

I've been trying to perfect my technique for cooking a steak indoors. It was recommended to salt the steak about 30 minutes before cooking. I used kosher salt, and cooked the steak on cast iron. Everything came out spectacularly, in fact it was the best steak I've ever made myself. However, the outer layer of the steak was significantly saltier than I think is normal. It didn't ruin the steak, but it was more than I would have liked. I would simply assume that I over-salted, but given the language people use when they recommend the technique, and the amount I actually applied, I am unsure. I fear that if I use less salt next time I will lose the perfect sear/crust and the incredible flavor of the interior meat that I achieved. So, given the similarity to brining poultry (in which case the meat is rinsed before cooking), I wonder if the salt should be rinsed off before cooking? I didn't get this impression from any of the recommendations, but now I am not so sure.

Definitely don't rinse the salt off. One of the nice things the salt does is pull juices to the surface of the meat--not enough to dry things out, but enough so that when the steak hits the hot pan you have a nice protein-laden coating (it's called a pellicle when talking about smoked fish--not sure about steaks) on the outside to caramelize. If you rinse it, you're rinsing that right off. If your steak was too salty, then just salt more lightly. You don't need a ton, as what you get on there will melt some and mix with the juices and spread out. I think I probably use 1/4 tsp or less per side, and some of that bounces off/misses. And you won't lose the crust with less salt--you won't even lose it with NO salt. It's just easier to get if you use the salt to pull some juices to the surface. If you have trouble getting good salt distribution, use your fingers and sprinkle it from a little farther up--like 8 inches from the steak. That'll make it easier to get an even sprinkle without dousing it.

I recently made Sanjeev Kapoor's butter chicken and found the taste too acidic/tomatoey. It was tasty but it lacked the authentic butter chicken flavor. This was surprising to me considering the amount of spices called for. I followed the recipe nearly to a tee. My leading theories are: did not cook tomatoes long enough (cooked about 15 min) did not cook tomato puree long enough (cooked about 15 min) too many tomatoes (8-10, followed by 2 cups tomato puree) Any thoughts?

I used to always have this problem cooking tomato-based curries. To balance out tomato-ness, you either need something bland like dal, something with body and sweetness like onion (I also usually add a little palm jaggery or coconut sugar to wet curries and other sauces that have tomatoes), or some oily fatty creamy rich stuff (or all of them :D). I watched the video and I noticed that the tomatoes he used were really dry, and the tomato puree he used was thin (not very concentrated), so if you have juicy tomatoes and concentrated tomato puree you should probably use less. If you want to make the dish lower in fatty ingredients like butter, oil, yogurt and cream, you need to reduce the quantity of tomatoes to avoid it tasting too acidic.

Background In relation to this question/answer. What temperature does the Maillard reaction occur? The answer to the question above states that over 400F/200C there is basically no maillard, only caramelization. It also states in the chart that you get most flavor full result between 250F/110C and 300F/150C. This goes against what I believed; I though the hotter the better (within reason). Therefore I use a blow torch. But maybe what I like is a mix of some maillard and some caramelization. Question With respect to the temperatures described in the previous question. Would my meat taste better if I used a 300F/150C pan instead of a very hot blow torch?

The meat will pass through various temperature ranges when heated. The moisture in the surface layers of the meat will gradually evaporate, and once they are dried out, the temperature will start to rise more rapidly. I think the balance of caramelization vs. Maillard also has to do with specific proteins and sugars available, but you're right -- around and above 400F/205C, caramelization proceeds fast enough that there's generally little opportunity for Maillard (the sugars break down too fast). In any case, the issue isn't how hot your heat source is as much as how long the surface stays within particular temperature ranges. If your meat surface actually gets significantly above 400F/205C for a significant period of time, it will start to burn. But even after a couple minutes in a pan, the meat surface may not be equal to the pan temperature. Why? Because generally moisture is constantly escaping from the layers immediately below the surface, and that moisture will keep the interior below the boiling point (212F/100C). That lower temperature steam needs to be heated as it approaches the surface, which will keep the surface temperature from rising too fast. In a very hot pan or under a very hot heat source, a significant dry crust will eventually form and ultimately start to burn if the heat goes on long enough. To get to your exact question -- if you use a 300F/150C pan, the following things will happen: You'll lose a lot of heat immediately when dropping the food into the pan, lowering the pan surface temperature temporarily. Now you might have a pan surface that is only close to boiling water temperature or something, and that's not high enough to cause significant Maillard browning in a reasonable amount of time. The surface of the meat will gradually come up to boiling temperature, requiring a fairly large amount of energy. That won't allow the pan surface temperature to recover significantly for a while. Once the meat surface hits 212F/100C, the water in the surface meat needs to boil off. It takes a huge amount of energy to evaporate water compared to the amount of energy it takes to raise the temperature. While that's going on, the meat will get "stuck" at boiling temperatures for a while. (This is quite visible, for example, when you crowd a pan with too much meat, and you get moisture pooling in the pan for a couple minutes that has to burn off.) Note, so far, you don't get any significant Maillard browning going on, and no caramelization at all. If the surface meat has taken too long up to this point, it can acquire a boiled taste/texture that may not be optimal and may change the kinds of browning reactions that eventually do occur. Eventually, enough water boils out and the surface layers become drier. Once enough surface moisture is boiled out of the meat, it can resume rising in temperature, which will happen much more quickly. But if the pan is still only going to a maximum temperature of 300F/150C, it will take some time. (Remember that the surface of the meat is still in contact with much cooler interior layers, which still have moisture that's generally not at a temperature more than 212F/100C.) And heat transfer rate depends on the difference in temperature between two things. So if the pan is 300F/150C and the steak is 212F/100C, you'll get a relatively slow temperature rise, and the closer the meat gets to 300F/150C, the slower the temperature will rise. Eventually, after a few minutes, you'll get close enough to 300F/150C that Maillard reactions will occur noticeably, and you'll get some browning. Even then, the browning may take a while, because you still have the moisture coming out of the meat, which would probably keep the surface layers below 300F/150C. Now, if you start out with a pan that's at 500F/260C (or even higher), the pan surface will transfer its heat (probably dropping down to 200-300F/95-150C in the process), and accomplish steps 1-5 in a matter of seconds instead of a matter of minutes. At that point, the layers of the pan underneath the surface will still have a lot of heat (since they started at 500F/260C instead of 300F/150C) and will transfer heat back to the pan surface. So after the first few seconds, the pan surface rapidly begins to rise again getting to 300F/150C fairly quickly, which will produce maximum Maillard reactions. Wait a little while, and you'll start getting significant caramelization. Wait further, and the meat will burn. What's the ideal pan temperature to begin to get maximum Maillard in a brief time? It really depends on the material of the pan and its size and thickness, as well as the amount of meat you plan to drop into the pan (which will influence how much heat is needed to get through steps 1-5 quickly). When starting out with a superhot pan (say, 700F/370C or so), you'll get a lot more caramelization, less Maillard, and you'll have to be careful not to burn the meat if you wait too long to turn. With a pan that's only 400F/205C to start, you should get more Maillard, but it will take longer to brown, which may not be ideal if you want to keep the interior of the steak cooler (medium rare or whatever). With a heavy pan that transfers heat slowly (e.g., cast iron), I'd generally go with something around 550F/290C personally, which seems to be a reasonable balance. If the meat is going to crowd the pan, I'd go higher to burn off all that excess moisture as quickly as possible. [Edit: As rumtscho noted in comments, the type of range -- gas, electric, or induction -- could also affect heat transfer and recovery time for a pan to come back to high temperature. Also, there are many specific properties of materials that will influence the heat transfer rate and recovery time, including the rate heat moves through the metal (thermal conductivity), the amount of heat stored in the pan (heat capacity), the rate heat conducts out of the pan surface (diffusivity), and the rate that radiative heat comes off the pan, which is mostly dependent on color (emissivity). Note that the heat capacity and thermal conductivity are often combined in one number to give a sense of "thermal inertia" or "effusivity."] With a blowtorch, the temperature is obviously quite high, and the heat will be continuously replenished (unlike a pan, which has a temperature "recovery time"). You can go through steps 1-5 almost instantaneously. Whether you get more Maillard or more caramelization will depend on how hot the flame is and how close you hold it to the meat surface. You might experiment with backing the torch away just a bit and use it for a slightly longer time. It might change the effect and flavor profile slightly, but I've never played around with this much myself.

My husband came home from America and proudly Presented me with about 4 cups worth of dried cilantro he bought from pensey's spices. I do love pensey's, but I don't see how coming from pensey's can save this stuff from it's existential crisis. What do I do with 4 cups of dried cilantro?

Cilantro (or as the rest of the world calls it, coriander) is one of the most ridiculously applicable cooking herbs I have had the privilege of using. That said, you are correct - when dried, it's application becomes far more limited (to a far greater extent than most other herbs and spices). I have successfully used dried coriander in english stews, curries, pies, ice-cream, fried/breakfast egg seasoning, salads and coffee. I have not successfully used it in stir-fries, any asian cooking, thai curries, or anything complicated or french, where fresh coriander does seem to work. Take this with a grain of salt, but I think it has something to do with the way coriander breaks down in slow-cooked or oil-heavy dishes, so fast stuff or with coconut milk etc doesn't work so well with the dried herb.

When I was growing up, my mother had a massive, MASSIVE cleaver that she kept in the kitchen. It was immense and heavy. My father had gotten it when he worked in a butchery. This cleaver has since been lost to us. I would like to find something similar. When I asked her what the specific type of knife was, she said it was a "bone cleaver." It was easily 60 years old when I was little 30 years ago. For the life of me, I can't find references anywhere to bone cleavers. I can find meat cleavers (but most have warnings not to use them for bone). They're smaller than this was, and also lighter. I can also find references to vegetable cleavers and Asian style cleavers. Again, they're smaller and lighter than this. They're hammers compared to the sledgehammer this thing was. My mom used to use it expressly for cutting through bone. You'd raise it up, give it a little force to accompany it's natural weight, and it could go through almost anything with relative ease (up to and including femurs). I know bone saws exist, and usually I just keep a spare blade around for my hacksaw to cut through bone when I break down a carcass. So, is there such a thing as a bone cleaver? Would it be a special order thing these days? I'm wondering if it may have been a custom made knife back then because I have never seen anything else like it.

Absolutely. I have this one here: J.A. Henckels International Classic 6-inch Cleaver ... it is billed as being designed "for chopping through joints and bones". These cleavers tend to have good, solid weight and a short blade bevel to give it endurance and power. You would not slice things with this. This is a momentum tool to crash through the target tissues with a confident swing. The hacksaw that you mention offers better control, in general. The opposite of this is an Asian style cleaver that is used primarily for vegetables. Lighter, faster blade with a deeper bevel which makes it sharper for slicing but it would wear down faster under the impact of bones/joints.

Having read the question How to get the flavors to meld when I add fruit and sugar to plain yogurt?, I still have a question. I enjoy vanilla-flavored greek yogurt. I know pure vanilla extract is a very strong flavoring. How much vanilla should I add to a cup of plain greek yogurt? How much Splenda to the same amount of yogurt?

This is a matter of taste. You should experiment and see what you prefer. Based on these blog entries chosen because they come early in search results for "homemade vanilla yogurt" Blissfully Content Life Vintage Mixer you might want to start your experimentation with the following ratios: 3 tablespoons of vanilla per gallon of yogurt 3/4 cup sugar equivalent per gallon of yogurt On a per cup basis, this works out to about 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla, and 2 1/4 teaspoons of sugar or equivalent.

I have a pretty awesome live blue crab hookup, but I can only get crabs there super early in the morning. I want to have a crab feast this coming weekend, but wont be able to have company over until late afternoon / early evening. I have heard they bluecrabs can live a long time out of water if you keep them in a cool humid spot, but i dont want to waste any of them. What are my options for having the best crabs when am able to have company over? I assume my options are as follows, but I am not sure what I should do: 1.) Steam them in the morning and resteam them for a short period of time to heat them back up for the party. Tips for resteaming or reheating steamed crabs would be helpful. I had always considered that kind of a no no. 2.) Try and keep them alive, to be as fresh as possible. I am just worried that there would be too long of a gap between when i buy them, and when i will be able to cook them.

I think it's a fine question. If I were in your position, I'd definitely go for option 2 - I think pre-cooked and re-steamed crab would end up a lot like oversteamed crab: mushy and gross. As for keeping them alive, when I was a kid we used to go crabbing every weekend. Mom would just keep them in a cardboard box in the kitchen until we were ready to eat them for dinner (much to my dad's dismay). According to Bluecrab.info: Crabs can live for several days out of water as long as they are healthy and are kept cool, moist, and stress-free. The optimal temperature is about 50° F., anything colder will ultimately kill them. If I remember correctly, mom would keep a damp towel on top of the box. But that may have been dad not wanting to look at them.

When I look at a lot of recipes, any eggs usually have to be beaten before they're added. If it's all going to be mixed anyway (and well, in dough for example) is it really necessary?

The main purpose of beating an egg is to "denature" the protein within the egg. Proteins are long chains of amino acids and they have lots of internal chemical bonds, which hold them together into tightly contained units. When a protein is denatured, those internal bonds break and the amino acid chains unravel and become elongated. At the same time, atoms that were previously bonded (as part of the internal bonds I mentioned) become available to bond with other molecules. When an egg is heated to 40 degrees celsius, its protein chains become denatured and elongate, which allows chemical reactions to occur. The egg changes from a liquid solution of protein into a solid mass. A similar thing happens with you beat an egg. The physical act of beating causes the protein strands to stretch, thereby causing the protein to denature (the internal bonds are broken as a result of the application of physical force). So, rather than the protein chains being bound up into tight balls, they become long strands. This is similar to gluten when it is developed. These strands form structures that allow the trapping of air, which results in a lighter texture. Beating eggs is not just about mixing. It's about changing the structure of the eggs to produce a physical effect. To read more about this, see "The Science of Cooking" by Peter Barham.

Recently I made 2 separate batches of salsa from the same ingredients: 1x Red Capsicum 1x Brown Onion 3x Green chilis Half a head of garlic Salt Sugar Lime Juice The first batch was great. I dirced all ingredients to smaller than 2mm pieces, mixed it all together and it was lovely. For the second batch I decided that I didn't have the time to dice everything by hand (I am not very fast with a knife) and so I threw everything in the blender and blended until it was a frothy brown liquid. The second batch was very bitter despite being made from the same quantities of each ingredient, all of which had been purchased on the day and everything was fresh. Is there something about the liquifying my ingredients that caused my second batch to be bitter that would not have been caused by dicing them?

While I haven't heard of it happening for the specific ingredients you list, yes, the blender can make stuff really bitter. There are two ways this can happen. First, a chemical reaction. A blender really churns the stuff through, driving lots of air bubbles into the mixture with some force. It also causes friction heat, especially professional grade blenders like vitamix. The heat, force and large reaction surface can cause the oxygen in the air to enter a reaction with the ingredients which doesn't happen when using a milder method for cutting up. Olive oil is a known culprit here, it usually turns bitter when blended, but it can happen with other stuff too. Besides oxygen, a chemical reaction can also happen between two ingredients coming from two different vegetables, which would not have been mixed well enough in the knife scenario to produce noticeable amounts of reaction product. The second possibility is releasing stuff which would have stayed "packed" without the blender. A knife will only damage the plant cells at the cut surfaces, and a blunt knife, if used with a somewhat inefficient technique, might even break very ripe vegetables along the cell walls instead of cutting through the cells. If there are mini-droplets of something bitter within the plant cells, it is possible that the blender (which really cuts cells into pieces) released these things. On a more macro level, it is also possible that we are not talking mini-droplets, but just plant parts which didn't get cut with the knife. Stray pepper seeds come in mind: you probably didn't cut any with the knife, they tend to be pushed by a knife instead of cut when you are cutting the pepper. The blender pulverizes everything that hits the blades, including these seeds. I cannot know which of these is the most probable source, or which plant contained the bitter matter exposed/created by the blender. But the different methods of mincing vegetables are not equivalent, and can have very noticeable effects on taste and texture beyond the obvious chunk size. The bitterness you encountered is only one example. In general, use the method specified in a recipe. If you are not working from a written recipe, try out a few and see which works best.

You commonly see recipes that call for sautéing onions before adding the rest of the ingredients. It’s not uncommon for me to sprinkle salt on the onions. However, if a recipe calls for starting with garlic in the pan I never think to salt the garlic. Would salting the garlic bring out different flavors or change the texture (or help slow the browning so as to prevent inadvertent burning.

I would generally advise against salting garlic before sautéing, but it depends on your use and style of cooking. Salting garlic is a French technique. It draws out moisture and makes it more difficult to brown (which may be what you're after). Garlic is difficult to get right as people often over-cook it causing it to be bitter. If you're cooking garlic by itself, start with it in the cold oil and heat them together. If you are sweating the garlic and don't intend to brown it, then salting is fine and may help. I sometimes use kosher salt when puréeing garlic with a chef's knife as this helps pulverize the garlic. A lot of your technique will depend on the recipe and how pungent you want the garlic. The more you cut, mince, or grind it (before cooking), the more caustic flavor you will get as more allicin is created. Cooking the garlic destroys the alliinase enzyme so no further allicin will be created once cooked.

I'm told Kohlrabi will soften when cooked, but I cut it in medallions and it still seemed really firm after stir-frying. How soft can I expect it to get?

I spoke with the farm that sold me the kohlrabi; they have seen people make something akin to mashed rutabaga by boiling kohlrabi for ages and ages, so it gets about that soft. Note that mashed rutabaga is apparently still firmer than mashed potatoes, but obviously soft enough to mash into a pulp. For a stir-fry, they suggested a match-stick shape rather than medallions; my second such stir-fry found them to have about the texture of halfway-cooked onions, soft enough not to crunch anymore but firm enough to hold their shape on a fork.

Our Toaster isn't doing well, planning to replace it with a toaster oven to get some more versatility on the counter top. What features are good? I've looked and there are ones ranging from simple $25 models to $250 with a laundry list of features. Just wonder what's useful and what's not, hope to find a good one that's $120 or less really, but I'm willing to pay extra if it's worth the money.

I actually debated asking a similar question last month, as I managed to set mine on fire the day after Christmas, and based on the new one I got, differences I've noticed (mostly features I miss from the old one; also a few things I've noticed at my neighbors and mom's house. Insulated top; If you frequently run out of space in your kitchen, and need to keep stuff on top of the toaster oven, it comes in handy. (and some allow the top to open up so you can expose the top so it could be a bread or plate warmer) Is the rack connected to the door so, when you open the door, the rack pushes out a couple of inches, so you don't have to reach in to extract things and risk burning yourself? (okay, I admit, there's a few drawbacks to this; it means the rack isn't easily removable to be cleaned or if you need to pull it all the way out because there's something that got pushed to the back, and the next item) Multiple racks or rack heights. The different positions might be useful for the broiler, but the multiple racks really aren't that useful; things won't toast right when they're blocked by another level, and they don't tend to cook evenly when in oven mode, either. (maybe if it's a convection .... it's my neighbor's toaster oven, so I haven't played enough with it) If you leave both racks in there, then you've barely got any space in between to grab things out, so you're risking burning yourself. (and well, they don't have that last feature where the rack pops out when you open the door) Location of the controls; some are on the side, some are on the bottom. Controls on the bottom are more prone to getting damaged by things getting pushed around on the counter, but I prefer it for a few reasons -- (1) the toaster oven's narrower, as there's no wasted space to the side; (2) the door opens higher up; this means you can have a large plate on the counter without it getting in the way when you want to open the toaster. Convection ; some have it, some don't. Broiler ; not all can do broil (top element) only. Depth of the unit; some of them bump out so they can fit a round pizza; if they also have a little bracket so you don't accidentally push it up against the wall, there's hardly any space left on the counter. How exposed the elements are; some of the newer ones have grills over the elements, I haven't had mine long enough to see if that'll protect it from melted cheese dripping on 'em, which I think was the cause of my toaster fire. Turn-dial vs. brown-ness setting. I don't know how to explain this one. All of the toaster ovens in the stores I looked in have a dial, where you have to turn the dial past 10 min, then back to the little reference marks for the darkness that you like your toast; My old one just had a setting at the bottom, you set it to toast, and hit the button. If you wanted to shut it off, you opened the door. Of course, with this style, there wasn't a timer on the oven, either. Turn-off-via opening the door : Some do, some stay on. I'm used to it, but of course, if that's the only way to shut it off, that also means you have to open the door to shut it off when there's a fire inside, which means better airflow. (or unplug it, but when the plug's on the other side of the toaster, that one's not a great option, either). Electronic controls : I personally view it as something else to break, but they might be able to do something special; I've never bought one, myself. Cord length ; only really a problem when you've got an old kitchen that doesn't have a plug every 12" or whatever the new standards seem to be; but you really don't want to plug a toaster into a power strip if you can help it, so if you know you're going to need to run it 3' down the counter, check the cord length. (and which side it attaches, just in case you're then going in the wrong direction with it) Crumb tray. I hear other people use 'em. They're supposedly important so you don't catch the thing on fire. Accessories. Some come with a little tray to use; some of them also have a little insert to turn it into a broiler pan (so you lift it out of the pan a little bit, so it won't stew in whatever drips off). And I understand that you need some air flow around the pan, but in my opinion, something's wrong when the tray that comes with the toaster is 1/2 the area of the rack; it's like they weren't even trying, they just tossed in a tray from some other oven. Others come with a little tool so you can pull the rack out so you don't burn yourself (which then gets lost or broken and thus sucks) Size. If you tend to make toast for lots of people at a time, then some of the larger toasters might be worth it; If you're single, the 6 or 8 slices of bread at the same time (but not the size of bread you like; you can only fit two of those) toasters might be a bit overkill) And they now seem to measure themselves by 'size of a pizza I can fit', which makes no sense to me, as everyone knows the correct way to size toaster ovens by pizzas is how many halves of an english muffin you can fit in at one time (to make english muffin pizzas ... avoid the bagels, as sauce and cheese drip out the middle) ... so um ... those are just some of the features I've noticed. Some people might care about the 12" pizza thing, I personally don't. The timer vs. push button for the controls are likely a personal preference, as is the attached rack to the door vs. height adjustable/removable rack.) The only really must-have is the removable crumb tray which Allison mentioned. (even though you can go years without worry until there's a fire)

My wife and I both love to cook and I'm looking to buy a nice, 6 qt, enameled dutch oven. Le Creuset is the first that comes to mind, but I've been doing some research and have since learned that the Lodge Enamel product line often comes up as a close competitor in quality (not aesthetics). Would you guys recommend purchasing a Lodge enamel dutch oven?

There is a good answer to a similar question, here What to look for when choosing a dutch oven? but since I had already written my answer, I'll leave it. It depends on why you are buying it. There are several factors that go into picking any Dutch oven. Weight/thermal mass. The ability of the oven to retain, and release heat evenly is determined by its thermal mass, which is why they are made of cast iron and very heavy. Cooking quality for both with be comparable. Both are VERY heavy. There are other brands that work...there is a Mario Batali Dutch oven that has gotten good reviews, and I even have a Tramontina that I bought in a grocery store that is very well made and works well. Lid fit. The lid has to be a good fit. If it is loose, or warped, when you are doing a braise the liquid will escape and your braise becomes a dehydrate or a burn. This is where "cheap" brands fail. However, either of these brands will do you well. Thickness/evenness of the finish. This is, in my opinion, more aesthetic and long term care based, but if you are going to buy enameled, make sure you get a decent finish. There are some that look more like the enamel has been painted on. This is mostly your call. The problem with enamel finishes is that you have the chance of cracking or chipping it, and once that's done, there is no cost effective way to fix it. But the enamel affects the cooking least of all. I cook most things in my Lodge cast iron (no enamel) dutch oven, and while it affects the color of some dishes, there is the additional iron that I get in my diet...no Geritol ™ for me. Cost. You can compare cost, but this will potentially be the biggest variable. It's why I own the Tramontina. Status. This is a non-factor for me, but if you take dishes to your gated community potluck, the Le Creuset has more status. It is, after all, French. Both are good brands, both will allow/help you to cook good food. You have to determine what the cost/status difference is between them, and how important that is. If both cost the same, I would probably go with the Le Creuset. Since they rarely do, I have more Lodge than Le Creuset in my kitchen.

So I'm at my sister's house, and it turns out she doesn't have any scales. I need to weigh 120g of castor sugar. What can I do?

This site will convert weights to volumes, and says that you should use .53 of a US cup.

I am at day 10 of a new sourdough starter. I started using rye flour and all purpose flour but due to the COVID 19 pandemic I had to eventually only use rye flour because it is what was available. The starter isn't rising as much as I would expect.. usually it rises 1 or 2 centimeters, but it does bubble and seem active. When I start mixing it before feeding it seems like it smells like eggs. I feed it every 12 hours and keep it in a warm part of our home. I am not sure if I should start over (finally found unbleached all purpose flour!!) with an all purpose flour and rye flour mixture or if I should keep going. Sourdough experts- please help!!!

Typically you can begin to give up at around day 5-7. (Especially if you've taken an aggressive feeding schedule.) With an aggressive feeding schedule (2-3 times daily), you should begin to see bubbling and sour notes by day three (and is a good indicator for collecting the Lactobacillus bacteria). Ref: Full Proof Baking By Day 5, I typically give up if there's no rise or sour notes. There's two common factors that make sourdough fermentation difficult. the Type of flour If you use plain/white, there's not enough nutrients - so adding rye, ground cereal, or anything with whole grains will help. The water quality Chlorine or other chemicals might be present in your source, so getting a tap filter and boiling/resting the water will assist. Summary: - try increasing the feeding cycles until you get the sour notes, keep note of the water/flour until you get some smell/reaction.

Here in Finland I have come across two types of milk. One is simple milk (maito/mjölk) and the other is milk-drink (maitojuoma/mjölkdryck). They also have variations like fat-free, light, whole (hel/täys) and lactose(-free). Lactose-free whole milkdrink and whole milk, and light milkdrink and light milk have different tastes. The difference between their ingredients is milk-based mineral preparations, mineral product or mineral preparations Swedish: mjölkbaserat mineralpreparat (Milbona) mineralpreparat (Valio) Finnish: maitopohjainen kivennäisvalmiste (Milbona) maitovalmiste (Valio) They have different nutrition values but the same mineral value (only compared Milbona whole milk). And both are placed in refrigerated compartments. (I found milkdrink's taste slightly better.) Question: What is the differences between (simple) milk and milk-drink?

If the milk is modified by removing the lactose, it is no longer considered milk, and must be sold under a different name, such as milkdrink. The fat content can be modified while still considering it milk however. The swedish FAQ of Valio (the biggest dairy producer in Finland) is very clear on this. http://www.valio.se/halsa/laktosintolerans/fragor-och-svar I couldn't however find the same quote in the Finnish FAQ (Via google translate). http://www.valio.fi/usein-kysytyt-kysymykset/ While the legislation could in theory be different between the two countries, I believe this is probably regulated on EU level.