How is one supposed to properly eat multi-level hamburgers? Well my question is exactly what is says in the title.

I come from a culture that has hamburger-style meal. Unlike hamburger, our plyeskavitsa (or pljeskavica using another type of transliteration) tends to grow in diameter when the portion size increases. That is to say, when I order a small plyeskavitsa, the patty will have (for example) diameter A and thickness B. When I order large plyeskavitsa, it will have diameter 3 A and thickness maybe 1.5 B. This way, the eating procedure is same for all sizes: You start biting at one end, you bite off a piece through the bun and the patty and basically repeat the procedure until it's consumed. If you buy a bigger portion, you'll just need to repeat the procedure more times.

On the other hand, with American burgers, when the portion size increases, the diameter will stay the same, but the thickness significantly increases as well as the number of patties (for example let's think of say BigMac or BigKingXXL). When I try to apply procedure for plyeskavitsa or say regular hamburgers, what happens is that when I bite down, the middle layers get pushed out of the sandwich, making a total mess of everything.

So my question is: How am I supposed to eat thick hamburgers without having the middle part spill out?

The trick to eating a large hamburger the size of a McDonald's Big Mac (or even a Double Big Mac with four patties) is to grip the burger firmly while crushing it down a bit. It may take a big of practice to get right, but it's something most eaters of hamburgers seem to do instinctively. So much so I can't really describe the technique in a lot of detail, but the basic idea is you're both making the burger somewhat smaller and holding it together firmly. You want to grab it in both hands with your thumbs underneath. Your fingers should be spread out over the top, compressing it down, while your thumbs pin everything in place.

If you watch pretty much anyone eat a hamburger, even normal sized ones, this is how they'll eat it. There's really nothing special in how you need to hold it, the trick is applying the right amount of pressure. Bigger burgers will need a more firm grip, while normal sized burgers can be held fairly loosely (though you'll still see people crushing them anyways). There's a limit to how big of a burger you can eat this way though. It should work with pretty much any burger normally sold by the big fast food chains like McDonald's or Burger King. There are however restaurants that sell enormous burgers that can't really be eaten in any sort of normal way unless you have really big hands.

I should also point out that you sometimes do have the option of going wider rather than taller with hamburgers. For example the Big Mac has two 1.6 oz (45.4 g) patties, while the Quarter Pounder with a single 4.25 oz (120.5 g) patty is both bigger and easier to eat.


How to bake a veiny cake? I had an idea for halloween, which involves baking a sponge cake and piping icing on it to make it look like a brain. For bit more authenticity, I was hoping to get some red jam or something to vein the cake.

After a bit more thinking about it, to get proper veins, I'd need something like strawberry bootlaces.

Has anyone done anything like this?
Any problems with it?
Is there a better way to go about it?

I wouldn't bake them in, for a start, as I wouldn't be confident of what the bootlaces would do in the oven. Thinking about it, a possible way of going about it is to 'thread' the bootlaces through the cake before you ice it.

Cut the cake in half (vertically), get a big needle like a darning needle or something similar, and (carefully) thread a few laces through, cutting them off flush with the surface, then stick the cake back together with icing or jam and pipe on the outer icing. The tricky thing will be getting them to follow curvy paths.

The other thing you could do is use said needle (or perhaps a chopstick) to poke little tunnels through the cake, then pipe red jam into them. This would perhaps give a nicer result - it might be a bit odd to be eating a slice of cake and then to suddenly be chewing a rubbery bootlace.


What do these additions to common spice mixes do with your dish? Where I live, supermarkets sell all sorts of "spice mixes" for specific dishes, like "taco mix" or "spaghetti mix". I used to buy these, but then at some point started experimenting myself and stopped buying them.

Occasionally when I'm lazy, I still use these mixes to prepare food. But on reading the packet ingredients, I notice that most of the spice mix seems to be made up of things that I normally never add to my food, but I don't taste much difference for it.

Why are these ingredients added to the mix, and what are the effects on the flavor, taste and/or texture of the dish?

The ingredients include:

A considerable amount of salt (at least 5 or 10 times what I would put in myself)
Dextrose or other forms of sugar
corn- or potatostarch

Salt:

Added as a preservative and taste maker. And usually indeed lots of it.
Very broad and coarsely put, salty is usually perceived as tasty.

Corn / Potato starch:

Added as a thickening agent. They also thicken sauces while keeping them more translucent than regular flour does, although I'm not sure if that's the reason they use those starches over flour, but I think it might.

As GdD mentioned, starch is also added as an anti caking agent: It absorbs moist to prevent lumps from forming.

Dextrose / Sugar:

Not sure, but I would guess mostly for taste, and partly to balance out any acidic ingredients. Again, very broad, and very coarsely put, humans like sweet. Sugar equals tasty.


How to store Soda Water or other Home Made Sodas? I have a SodaStream which I use to make soda water.  My wife recently started purchasing very tasty, but relatively expensive soda drinks from the store, including "Rose Lemonade" (here: http://www.amazon.com/Fentimans-Rose-Lemonade-Soda-Bottle/dp/B00513EV60), and a pumkin ginger root beer.  I offered to try to make equivalents at home, which worked out really well, by combining Torani Syrup, fresh ingredients (like Ginger Juice from Centrifugal juicer, or Lemon Juice from a lemon), and soda water from the Soda Stream.

OK, so everything is great, except now when I make a batch, my Soda Stream bottle is "in use" until we finish that batch.  So I bought a few of these on Amazon, with rubber gasket seals: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000CFMBL/.

But here's the problem:

when I transfer the soda water from the Soda Stream bottle to the glass bottle, it fizzes up and loses most of it's carbonation.  Is there any way to avoid this, or a technique I can use to pour it with less "fizz loss"?

Please let me know if more information would be helpful, and thanks so much!!!

More sodastream bottles is the best option if you are starting from a sodastream.

The best other alternative is to act just like a really old-fashioned soda counter.

Mix and store your syrups/flavors.
Measure syrup into the glass.
Add plain soda-water and mix.

Thus, your sodastream bottle only ever has plain carbonated water in it, not a specific flavor.


Nutrition value: cold or warm milk? What is better: drinking cold milk or warm milk?

My question is only from the nutrition point of view. I am interested to know which one has a better nutrition value regardless of their side effects and other considerations.

Assuming both have been pasteurized, the nutritional value is the same...You're certainly not going to be drinking milk at pasteurization temperatures.

For raw milk, you have to weigh the risks of bacterial contamination. It's rare, but it can be exceedingly nasty.


What is "Irish Moss"? I'm trying to reproduce a recipe mentioned in a novel for a beverage, and it mentions that the main character threw in some "irish moss". I assume this isn't literally just moss from Ireland. What is this? Does it have another name I might be able to buy it under?

Irish Moss, Chondrus crispus, is a species of seaweed, rich in carrageenan, an emulsifier and hydrocolloid.

Evidently, you can buy modern extracts as well from brewing supply stores, for use as a kettle fining to help precipitate unwanted proteins.


Does the order of preparation steps for soy milk make a difference? When making homemade soy milk with a blender, what is the difference between:

cooking beans -> blending --> straining
blending raw beans -> cooking --> straining
blending raw beans -> straining --> cooking

Is there any difference or advantage to using one method over another?

P.S. Since soaking the beans is always the first step, I left that part out in this question for sake of simplicity.

I know I am joining the conversation late, but I wanted to share my experience with making soy milk in two different ways.  First method tried: soak, blend, strain, boil. This method produced a milk with a strong soy flavor but also a LOT of okara (perhaps my blender is wimpy?).

Another time, I soaked the beans in a crock pot, and then, just out of habit from making other beans, I started cooking them after they had sufficiently soaked.  I LOVED the result.  Cooking the beans produced a much milder bean with an almost sweet flavor.  True, this version was much more like a soy cream (depending on how much water was added) when blended, but I liked it so much better than the grainy, almost vegetable-tasting traditional soy milk.

I think it much improved the flavor and texture, and plus, I could then add some of the cooked beans to various dishes to add extra protein where needed.


Why is my icecream bitter? I am new to making homemade ice cream. I just started to feel confident with plain vanilla, so it was time for the next step - adding fruit.

The custard recipe says it can be turned into fruit ice cream by adding 30g pureed fruit per yolk. I looked into the basket for a fruit likely to make a good puree, and settled for a honey dew melon. I made the custard base (yolks, cream and sugar with a pinch of salt), and, because I wanted more fruit taste, made 50g of melon puree per yolk and thickened it with a bit of guar gum, because I feared crystals from the rather liquid melon. I added the melon to the prepared custard, it wasn't exposed to heat.

After chilling and transferring to the freezing plate, I indulged in licking the thermometer, spoon and bowl used for the making of the ice cream. I was unpleasantly surprised at the lack of melon aroma and strong bitter taste. It was as if I was chewing the seeds of the melon, although there were none in the ice cream, I am sure I'd have seen them if they had fallen into the puree. Combined with the overbearing sweetness of unfrozen ice cream, I thought of throwing the batch out. But I froze it anyway. Frozen, there is much less bitterness (and of course much less sweetness), it tastes as if I am eating a raw gherkin. In fact, if I didn't know that there is melon in there, I probably wouldn't have recognized. It is eatable, but not especially good.

The aroma problem was solved when I ate a piece of the melon: this exemplar must have grown in a dark greenhouse. It was watery, only a hint of sugar content, only a hint of aroma. But it wasn't bitter, just tasteless.

But I am still wondering what went wrong. Does melon react with guar to create a bitter compound? Does melon react with cream to create a bitter compound (I know kiwies do, but melons?) Was there so much heat in the custard base as to cook the melon, and does cooked melon taste bitter? Would a better melon have made a difference, or would it have been bitter, sweet and aromatic at the same time? Is melon generally unsuitable for making ice cream?

It's no surprise to me that you describe the final taste as being similar to a raw gherkin, because both melons and gherkins are closely related to the cucumber.

Melons actually do have bitter notes; according to McGee, they contain "green, grassy compounds" as well as sulfur compounds, the latter being the same sort of thing you'd find in garlic.

Since melons only get sweeter on the vine, I would assume that the general blandness was caused by the melons being harvested too early and possibly sitting on the grocery store shelf for a long time.

If there was noticeable bitterness beyond what you tasted in the raw fruit, it was probably just because you got a concentrated dose of it in puree form.  Overcooking it would also increase the bitterness, but you say it wasn't exposed to heat (could the custard still have been very hot when you incorporated the melon?).

There is no way it was a reaction with guar gum - it's a very common additive in melon-based drinks and desserts.  It's also extremely unlikely to have been a normal reaction with the cream; I've made melon mousse and other dairy items with melon and never noticed any kind of unusual bitterness.

The only other possibility I can think of is that there may have been a problem with the cream itself.  This varies quite a bit from brand to brand and region to region, but most of the time, the "cream" you buy does not just have cream in it; for example, I'm looking at a typical supermarket carton that contains cream, milk, skim milk powder, dextrose, and a bunch of E numbers, and even some sodium citrate.  These creams can easily take on bitterness before they go sour.  So if you were using the typical supermarket brand of heavy cream, and it was sitting in your fridge for a while, that may have been a contributing factor.

All in all, I think it was probably a very random and unfortunate combination of factors that would have been due to the specific ingredients used rather than the types of ingredients.  I doubt you'd get the same results if you tried again with fresh melons, cream, and eggs.


How can I cut lots of cherry tomatoes in half quickly and evenly? Is there a tool to cut cherry tomatoes in half? Since they are so regular it should be possible to build such a machine.

Alternately, what can I do to improve my speed and accuracy when halving them with a knife?

Yes there is. It's called a knife. I use a Shun 10" chef's knife, but you could certainly make do with a much cheaper one.


Do dishes used for preparing food need to be washed with soap? It seems to me that washing dishes with soap serves two purposes:

To remove food residue from the dishes
To kill bacteria that got on the dishes

As far as I know, the primary way bacteria get on dishes is from coming in contact with human saliva. But that wouldn't happen with dishes that are used exclusively for preparing food and not for eating it. So, assuming good residue can be removed without soap, is there any benefit to washing dishes used for preparing food with soap?

For the purposes of this question, assume we are talking about a home kitchen and not a restaurant.

Human saliva is not your only concern.  There are a variety of pathogens that could be problematic if food preparation items (hands, utensils, cutting boards, counter tops, and containers of all sorts) are not properly sanitized. This includes potential pathogens that already exist on the raw food itself. Soap is not necessarily required, but some type of sanitizer is.  Dish soap just happens to also remove grease, and is most commonly found in the home kitchen.


Bread and butter pickles without mustard seed I would like to make bread and butter pickles. I already have the sliced cucumbers, onion, and salt sitting in the fridge! However, my son is allergic to all forms of mustard. Can I simply leave the mustard seed out or is there something else it can be replaced with?

Mustard seeds and other spices are there for flavor only; it's perfectly safe to leave them out. But don't mess with amounts of salt or vinegar given in your recipe--those are important for preventing bacterial growth.

If your recipe also contains bay leaf or grape leaf, those too can be omitted, but you pickles won't be as crisp. Likewise if you omit the calcium chloride or calcium hydroxide.


Characteristics of lupin and soy flours I have to prepare something that will be eaten for breakfast or as a snack in the afternoon, using mainly lupin flour and (full fat) soy flour and without using eggs or milk/butter.

Since I'm not a chef, I would like to know which are the characteristics of these two flours so then I could choose the proper ingredients touse with the two flours.

Example of characteristics:

how they mix with liquids ?
does the high protein (~40g/100g) content influence the solubility ?
what are their strength (W) ?

Some soya flour in a recipe helps to replace the eggs as soy has more fat than regular flour. I don’t know about lupin flour. You could use aquafaba to keep it moist etc, it replaces an egg in a cake recipe.

Try google for ingredients and quantities as we can’t give them here.


What can I do with an arm roast? I have not had good luck with this tough lean cut so far. I usually get it when I buy in on a grass-fed cow. Braising it they way I normally braise cuts of beef in wine makes a very dry unappetizing roast. Maybe try a heavier tenderizing marinade? Grind it? Jerky?

Even though this thread is old, it's the first thing that comes up when you search "arm roast" at the moment, so I thought I would comment with what I ended doing after googling arm roasts two days ago! I also had a totally grass fed 4 lb. arm roast and it turned out amazing. Most importantly, I cooked it very long and slow, about 5 hours at 300F.

Chop 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk, half an onion and a slice or two of bacon and saute them together in a large pot until lightly browned. Remove from pot.
Salt and pepper the arm roast and then brown it on both sides in that same pot. Remove.
Deglaze pan with red wine, I had the tail end of a bottle of super cheap stuff.
Then throw back in the veggies, the roast, a large can of tomatoes (I used San Marzano), and a few sprigs of fresh rosemary (I really recommend not skimping with dry on that part because it's the main flavor that gets infused). I also put marjoram in because I have that growing, but I don't think it's as important. The top of the roast will be sticking out of the tomato/wine concoction so I studded it with numerous garlic cloves so they would roast.
Put the pot in a 300 degree oven for as long as it takes for the meat to just be falling apart. It was like, 5 hours for me, and I turned the roast over about 2 hours in. Add more liquid if needed; I didn't. When it was done I took the roast out and pulled out the bone and picked off the fat and threw it back in--it was semi-shredded by then--and served it on egg noodles.

It was the best roast I've ever made!


Baking bread during the day Why is it that bread made during the day is lighter than bread made in the early morning

All other factors - ambient temperature, humidity, oven temp, etc - accounted for, the specific time of the day doesn't make any difference, whatsoever.

But alas, this is the real world, we don't hold other factors constant.  Most likely your room is slightly warmer and potentially your room could be a bit more humid in the afternoon.  These could lead to a more risen product if unaccounted for.  But overall, its not the time of the day.

One caveat- There does appear to be some (and by some, I mean a single published paper that I can locate) evidence to suppose circadian cycles in yeast.  This would indicate a faster growth rate in the day.  But the evidence is underwhelming currently and is almost certainly overpowered by other environmental conditions if present at all.


How do you clean a seasoned cast iron skillet? I have a seasoned cast iron skillet, and I don't want to mess up the seasoning when I'm cleaning it.  What do I use and what don't I use to get it back to clean?

I've heard not to use soap and to make sure it is dry, but nothing beyond that.

Kosher salt and a small amount of vegetable oil.  Scrub the pan with the salt on a rag or paper towel, if there are stubborn bits mix a couple drops of oil with the salt, wipe dry with clean towel.  If you use a wet method to clean the pan re-heat it after cleaning to make sure it is completely dry before storing.


how can I store uncooked rice Should rice be stored in a sealed container in the refrigerator or should it be kept in a cabinet in sealed container?

Rice attracts quite a lot of moisture and may develop a moss-like smell in the longer run. Most of the rice that is used in India doesn't require airtight storage but shouldn't be exposed to moisture.

Some of the aromatic rice varieties such as Basmati are sealed and aged for perfection. These types of rice may lose their aroma if kept in the open air.

So if you are storing rice for long term use, keep in an airtight container.


Sugar substitute for cake recipe I ran out of granulated sugar for a cake recipe.  Will XXX sugar, or another sugar/sweetener be a good sub?  I also have brown, turbinado, and splenda.

The only functional replacement of what you've mentioned would be the turbinado, which is typically a slightly coarser, unbleached version of regular granulated.

Confectioners/XXX sugar is fine ground into powder and will not provide the aeration or structure/bulk to perform in a cake. Brown sugar could possibly work, but will alter your flavor profile. Splenda just isn't that functional.

Best of luck.

In the future, it'll help if you give more info on the type of cake/product you're making.


How to thicken Chili without compromising flavor I enjoy adding beer to a pot of chili for taste, but at times find the end result is too soupy. What's a good way to thicken it without overcooking or compromising the flavor?

As noted above, reducing the liquid through evaporation will thicken up the chili but you run the risk of burning/scorching the bottom and it can take a long time at lower temperatures. What I like to do is to take some of the beans (I prefer black beans in mine) and mash them up into a thick paste and then stir that into the chili. The starches from the beans will help thicken up the chili and you aren't adding anything that isn't already there. I have also seen people do similar things with cornbread.


Counteracting a metallic taste in canned tomatoes? I used some canned tomatoes to make chili, which normally works fine, but today it has a really strong metallic flavor. From what I can tell, this is just because they're probably low-quality, so I won't be using this brand again.

Anyway, is there anything I can do to save this chili? I didn't notice the flavor until I added everything else.

Metallic taste is due to the tannins in the tomato pomace and skins. A pinch of baking soda will alleviate the problem.


What to use in pressure fermentation I'm still pretty new to pressure fermentation and have been using it primarily to make sukimono - cabbage mixed with salt under pressure for about a day.

I would like to make a whole cabbage at a time or even a bit more, but I'm unsure what is the best container for this and a matching weight to close off the air.

Also, I would like to avoid plastics if possible.

I would advise if you are planning make often then I would invest in a gallon fermentation crock. It may cost you anywhere from $100- $200 but if you are making this often then i t maybe worthwhile for you as it will last you for many years and most come with weights already specific to the volume of the crock. My grandmother has one she uses for making kimchi


How to remoisten sweetened coconut after opening? My Baker's sweetened coconut is not moist after being stored in the refrigerator. How can it be remoistened?

Here's a link from eHow that walks through how to moisten coconut flakes:
http://www.ehow.com/how_8278347_moisten-dry-coconut-flakes.html

Although you are working with sweetened coconut that was once moist, this approach may still work.  They recommend you do the following:

Put a pan of water on the stove and bring it to a boil
Place a colander over the pan and put the coconut in the colander
Let the coconut absorb the steam for a few minutes and then pull the coconut off and pat dry it with a towel


Can one keep chocolate uncovered in the freezer? I bought a chocolate bar and only hate half of it. I want to store it in the freezer, but part of it will be uncovered. Is this a safe way to store it in the freezer ?

Food-safety-wise, putting chocolate in the freezer is not an issue and not even necessary.

However, quality may suffer:

Freezers do tend to have some off flavors over the time, and these can be absorbed by the food inside, if not packaged properly. To be safe, I recommend you put the chocolate bar in some kind of airtight package, either a freezer bag or a Tupperware-style box.
Humidity can be a problem for “crisp” fillings like wafers or, to a lesser extent, crispy caramel. The packaging and the chocolate coating protects the original bar, once you have eaten half, it is exposed. Unless you live in an exceptionally humid environment or store too long or in a humid environment where condensation can happen - like a freezer - , this should be a minor issue. Again, wrapping the half-eaten bar with a (mostly) airtight seal should do the trick.


How much gypsum is required to coagulate one litre/gallon of soy milk From what I could gather from the internet about homemade tofu, information on the subject is divided into two sources:
1. By gypsum manufacturers - they say one tsp of the coagulant is sufficient to 5 gallons.
2. Home made tofu bloggers - 2 tsp per gallon is required to coagulate the milk.

So, how much gypsum is required per gallon?! Confused...

I have The Book of Tofu by William Shurtleff, and the more recent Asian Tofu by Andrea Nguyen.

Shurtleff recommends 2 tsp of gypsum for 7 1/2 to 8 cups of soy milk.
Nguyen recommends 1 1/2 tsp for 8 cups of soy milk.

(These recipes are for about 1/2 gallon of soy milk. There are 16 cups in a gallon)

I can't verify with personal experience, as I use Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) as a coagulent, but have had success with both books.  So, I am sure they would both work.


How to turn a brownie mix into a cake? So, I asked my friend to get me a chocolate cake mix, but she accidentlt got me a brownie mix instead (Betty Crocker Brownie mix). I wanted to make a chocolate cake for tomorrow's Super Bowl. However, if there's no hope then I'll just make the brownies.

I can't turn them into cupcakes because I have no cupcake molds. I just have a rectangular pan. I also don't have baking powder.

So the insturctions on the box say to add 1/4 cup of water, 1/4 vegetable oil, and 1 egg.

I've seen some sites that says to add one more egg. Would that really help? Has anyone converted a brownie mix into a cake?

Adding one more egg will give you more "cake like" brownies.

If you have baking soda you could use that as leavening. If it were me I would add 1/4 tsp. baking soda to the dry mix and stir to combine. I would add additional liquid in the form of 1/4 cup of buttermilk or soured milk to activate the soda and use an extra egg. This should give you something that is more cake like, than brownie like.


How can I prepare left over Stir Fry for the fridge? I like making Stir Fry and I've tried several times to make two meal's worth so I can refrigerate half and take it to work, but so far every attempt has been sub-bar. It's veggie stir fry and I use a variety of sauces (most of which involve soy sauce) and a little vegetable oil.

The problem is mostly the sauce; I can't seem to drain it out, so it builds up at the bottom and gets nasty, or at the least it smells very strongly by the next day. I can't strain out the liquid from the bottom of my Wok very well and even after separating out the portion to be refrigerated I can't quite strain it; the sauce is there but just thick enough to not drain off.

Is there anything I can do to properly drain out the excess sauce or is there some method I can use to make sure the extra portion is edible, at least for a day? I know it's not going to be half as good, but it's completely inedible after a night in the fridge.

I make stir fry all the time and do the same thing as you. I would make extra, enough for 2 - 3 meals.

The thing I do to prevent the vegetables from getting too mushy in the refrigerator is by cooking the stirfry about 75%(I make sure if I am doing this that the meat is fully cooked first) and then take out the portion that I intend to refrigerate. This allows me to either finish cooking it in the microwave if I am taking it to work or reheat it up in the stove if I am staying home.

Also since I am taking the portions from the upper part of the stirfry, there is less sauce that the vegetables will be steeping in so that should solve your problem of too much sauce.

Another thing you should remember is that the types of vegetables you use makes a big difference. If you choose all vegetables that turns really soft when cooked(onion, squash, peppers) then reheated stirfry using those vegetables will be not as unpalatable. The trick is to use a variety of textured vegetables.

Also I dont want to state the obvious but if your problem is your sauce, have you ever tried using a different(lighter) sauce recipe?


Storage of uncooked french fries How long can you store uncooked cut fries?  Tried to make some other day, didn't finish. Had quite a bit left over.....am currently storing them in water in refrigerator.  How long will they be safe to fry and eat? Or, can they?

Would estimate it's been at least 4-5 days.

Thanks

4-5 days would be a stretch.  Oxidation causes a taste and sight change to the cut fries that is typically un-appealing.  While 4-5 days; it would technically be safe to eat; the taste may be off.

Typically in restaurant world we would pre-cut and store for 24 hours in a water bath in the walk-in.

Alternatively they would be frozen; but this alters the flavor also (somewhat less though)...


Split beans in a pressure cooker? I just got a Presto 6qt. Pressure Cooker. Its manual states that I shouldn't cook split peas in it; does that include split mung beans or dal, or does it refer only to "green peas?"

Split beans and peas are tricky to pressure cook and you should not be attempting this if you're new to pressure cooking.  That's because you first need to learn how to regulate heat so that it's not too high at the beginning (which will shoot the beans through the vent, muck it up, and cause a dangerous situation) and during pressure cooking.  Any over-pressure situation will be dangerous.

Learn to use your pressure cooker very well first, and then if you'd like to attempt this follow these precautions:

Ensure the gasket and valves of your pressure cooker are good working
order.
NEVER fill the pressure cooker more than half-full with split
peas and their cooking liquid.
Use at least a tablespoon of fat.
ALWAYS release pressure using ONLY Natural Release (do not use the
valve, don’t use cold-water quick, don’t use base immersion).
Clean the lid and pressure valves thoroughly after pressure cooking
Supervise the rise to
pressure closely to make sure the cooker does not go into
over-pressure.
Please note that since the booklet advises against it, should you pressure cooker be damaged or you be injured attempting to do this, the manufacturer is not responsible.

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How to cook a thin crispy pizza on a pizza stone Hello I am attempting to make my own thin and crispy pizza and am cooking it on a pizza stone however it keeps coming out a little bit soggy (its not too bad, its still nice its just not as crispy as I would like) and I was wondering if anyone had any tips as to how to make it a but more crispy?

I could just be putting too much topping on it I'm not sure (I'm not stacking loads on though, just maybe a little too much cheese)?

How does the temperature of the oven effect this?

Thanks very much for any help

The most important thing is for the stone to be hot.   That generally means you need to set the oven to its highest setting, and then let it preheat for at least 30 minutes.

I use a 1-inch thick paver from a hardware store, and I generally get my best pizzas when I set the oven to 500F and wait about 45 minutes before I put the pizza in.

For a thin crust, I like the results from leaving the oven at 500F and baking for ~13 minutes in my oven, but I'm sure some people would consider that "burned".


Preheating oven increases temperature? I use an old convection oven. I usually preheat at 180°C for 10 mins. Recently I bought an oven thermometer and found that the oven temperature after the said duration was higher than 180°C, around 210°C-220°C. Is this normal?

Sadly, yes.
Your oven most likely has been running too hot for a while and now that you are actually measuring it, you noticed it.
We have a lot of Q/As on the site that recommend using a separate oven thermometer whenever an oven behaves strangely. Thermostats can fail or be generally incorrect, like too hot or too cool. Plus many ovens fluctuate quite a bit.
If you noticed that your recipes didn’t turn out the way you expected or were used to, getting that oven thermometer was a smart move. Either adjust the temperature to the desired value, if possible (and note down what setting that corresponds to), or consider having the oven serviced or repaired. In some models, the temperature knob can be adjusted, which would be a super trivial thing and may even explain why the oven is set to a wrong temperature.
If your question was wondering more about the still rising temperature - ten minutes preheat is on the shorter end of preheat time, especially for old ovens. You can be dealing with quite a bit of thermal mass.


oil for tabletop working dough I'm working through a pizza dough recipe, and one of the instructions is to use oil on the worktop to stretch and fold the dough:

  Oil the worktop once more, dimple the dough out into a rectangle, then pull one side of the dough out and fold it back in upon itself. Do the same with the other side, then rotate the dough through 90 degrees and repeat the dimple, stretch and fold steps once more.

Now currently to do this, I'm using olive oil which is my standard at home oil... however, this is much to the consternation of my girlfriend, which I can understand and if I continue with this recipe I'm going end up wasting a lot of olive oil on work surfaces

Is there a cheaper oil that I could use for this and also other bread baking?

Oil in this case is only used as a lubricant. You can use any food grade oil you like. Most recipes will probably work best without distorting their flavor, so a neutral oil (refined sunflower, rape/canola, or just "vegetable" oil) will work well. Using the cheapest oil you can find will not hurt your bread.

In a few cases, the oil is supposed to give flavor to the bread. For example, a focaccia should be covered in oil. In this case, you should use the oil mentioned in the recipe, even if the application method means that you will lose some expensive oil. But this is an exception tied to specific breads. For a pizza dough, you are unlikely to ever taste a difference between oils, unless you happened to use something very assertive which changes the dough taste (e.g. nigella).


What are the chemical contents of beef stock? I am familiar with the average beef stock recipe. After the liquid is strained, what are its chemical contents, exactly? Is it just water + denatured animal cell proteins? Does it contain collagen? What would I see if I looked at it under an electron microscope?

There seems to be a good number of scientific papers on what's in beef broth.
I'd say, take all this with a grain of salt (pun) and enjoy your cup of broth as is.
Minerals : https://honey-guide.com/2014/01/21/bone-broth-mineral-content/
Amino acids : https://www.westmont.edu/sites/default/files/users/user1231/V19No4/Nick%20Flynn_final.pdf
Collagen(ish) : https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29893587/
Collagen : https://journals.humankinetics.com/view/journals/ijsnem/29/3/article-p265.xml
"Bone Broth Unlikely to Provide Reliable Concentrations of Collagen Precursors Compared With Supplemental Sources of Collagen Used in Collagen Research"


Chocolate chip cookies with whole wheat flour I don't have all-purpose flour at hand right now, so I'm thinking of making chocolate chip cookies with whole wheat flour.

What difference will this make in terms of texture/taste/cooking time? Also, if I sift the flour using a very fine sieve, will it make the cookies better?

I made chocolate chunk cookies with whole wheat flour, sifted whole wheat flour and all purpose flour.

The picture didn't come out good, the cookies were thicker and lighter in color than what they look like here.

The cookie with whole wheat flour was denser and barely spread out while baking. It also had a very different "whole wheat" taste.

The one with sifted whole wheat flour was somewhere in between.

I won't be making whole wheat flour chocolate chip cookies (if the recipe calls for all purpose flour) again, but I won't mind the ones with sifted whole wheat flour.


Why is my cheese sauce sweet? I have made cheese sauce before and it has never been sweet. No problem with butter and flour and then I added milk like before. White sauce was fine. So I added cheese. Yes it was a package of shredded sharp cheddar cheese from Harris Teeters. I know fresh is better but it was what I had. The sauce itself was fine, smooth and creamy, but it was sweet. I used skim milk and I have used packed cheese before but it has been a while. Is it the cheese? Have they added something or is it the skim milk?

Carbs in some foods (mostly those that contain simple sugars and highly refined grains, such as white flour and white rice) are easily broken down once broken down they are literally a sugar.

Cooking at too high a temp, or for too long, causes the carbs in the white flour to break down. I think that may be why your sauce is tasting sweet.


How do I make my roti dough stretch thinner? I have made roti a couple of times now, and each time have found that I can't get the dough super thin before it tears in order to fold it correctly. I'm using this recipe:

http://chefinyou.com/2009/11/roti-canai-recipe/

And using salted butter instead of ghee.

When it gets to the dough stretching phase, I can get it thin but not super thin. After I've folded it it's at least a cm thick and I have to roll it such that it's flat enough for cooking.

How do I get my dough super thin and stretchy?

it also ends up very crispy and doesn't tear like it should after cooking. What do you think I'm doing wrong?

I would guess your main problem is the protein in the flour.  To get that stretchy dough that will not tear you need bread flour.  Your water, the proportion between kneading and resting of the dough, and the salt also matter.  The recipe you are using has way too much fat in the dough.  The leaner version suggested by bonCodigo is closer to the needed proportions.

YouTube has a video channel on roti canai.

Flour.  You can buy roti flour from an ethnic grocery store, but many of the chain supermarkets in the US now carry bread flour.  It has higher protein content without being whole grain.  Different flours have different proportions of gluten.  Those with lower content (called weak flours) being better for cakes and those higher content (strong flours), better for breads.  Gluten is not one protein, but a mixture of two protein families: gliadins, which give the dough its plasticity, and glutenins, which give the dough its strength.  Different strains of wheat have different ratios of gliadins to glutenins, hence the need to find an appropriate flour.  In the US and Canada, high protein flours tend to be optimized for loaf breads and not flat breads, so some hunting around for a good brand may be needed.

Ghee  The recipes on the net vary dramatically in the amount of fat added to the dough.  The basic process of dough making is to get the water to break up the gluten in the flour and then stretch those giant molecules to create a network of stringy, tangled molecules.  Too much fat interferes with this process.  About 5g of fat for every 100g of flour is a good ratio.  As ghee adds flavor, the trick to make a dough with higher ghee content is to think of it as a croissant and fold the fat in after the dough has incorporated some water.  This is done by brushing the ghee in later stages of stretch and fold.

Kneading and resting  Making the network of gluten proteins requires energetic changes. Lots of water and rest could do it (as in no-knead breads) and so could a little water, a little rest, and a lot of kneading.  With flat breads one does not need to wait for the yeasts to create the bubbles in the dough. The resting is for the water to do its work of untangling the gluten.  The trick is to know if the water activity, resting, and kneading have brought the dough to the right point.  There are many dough tests that are better explained through a video.  The dough in the leaner recipe is a wetter dough that is a bit trickier to knead by hand.  The basic idea is to place it on an oiled countertop, pinch a corner, and fold it over.  Repeat a few times and it will become easier to handle without having to add extra flour as it often suggested.

Water.  Don't use tap water.  It may be too alkaline, to hard, or too chlorinated.  Andrew Whitley in his Bread Matters book has a chapter on how guilty he felt using Evian to make his bread, but it improved his bread.  For flat breads one is less worried that the chlorine in the water will kill the yeast, but depending on your tap water composition, the other chemicals could be an issue.


Is it possible to make caramel that does not taste sweet? Since sugar turns into caramel when heated, caramel is not sugar. I suppose then, that caramel still tastes sweet because of the uncaramelized sugar mixed in the caramel. Is it practically and/or theoretically possible to remove the sugar from the caramel, so that it won't have a sense of sweetness anymore? How would that taste?

It is very simple, you just have to heat it long enough. It can even happen by accident :)

The taste is a mixture of bitter and sour, while the smell component is mostly towards something burnt.

Also, your assumption "because of the uncaramelized sugar mixed in the caramel" is incorrect, or at least incomplete. There usually is such sugar, but many of the caramelization products of the early stages of caramelization also taste sweet on their own. In later stages, you get more and more nonsweet stuff until you get into the state I described (barely liquid charcoal).


Is heated up bleach dangerous? I put my electric flattop oven on self cleaning. This heated up the top of the oven. I then bleached the flattop. The bleach steamed up and made it nearly impossible to breath. The entire room is now unenterable due to the fumes. It is not merely a typical bleach smell. I can't breath when I am inside and my eyes are on fire.

Is there something about heating up bleach that is particularly dangerous?

Probably generated some chloramines by reaction between the hot bleach and proteins on the stove surfaces. There's no telling exactly which chloramines you created, as we have no idea what amines were on your stove top. However, these things can be quite nasty.
Open windows if possible, and leave home for several hours. Your eyes and lungs are giving you important warnings. Heed them.


Why do you bake Crème Brûlée? I've seen that you can cook Crème Brûlée on a stove's hotplate, but most recipes call for it to be baked and that is the traditional way to do it.

Why is that so? Is there some benefit to baking it or is it just tradition?

And can you cook it on a hotplate like you would any normal creme or is there a trick to it?

It needs very even heat to cook through without burning (underneath if you cook it on the hob). presumably if you cook it on the hob you need to use a bain marie and for individual ramekins this is quite specialised and large.  In the oven you can just use a roasting tin for your bain marie for several ramekins.


how do you fix burnt gravy? If you are making gravy and accidentally burn it,than how can you fix that burnt gravy?

If it's just scorched on the bottom of the pan, and you haven't mixed the burnt material into the rest of the gravy, you can try just pouring the good gravy into another pan.

If you've tried to stir it and scrape the burnt stuff off the bottom, there's not much you can do. The human palette can detect very small quantities of burnt flavours, so you won't be able to mask it.


Substitute directory? Whenever I don't have an ingredient I thought I had, or it is not sold around me, I often find myself running to my old cookbooks which have substitutes in the back of the book(s).

I don't always find a substitute for the ingredient in question and not every online source is reliable and could make or break a dish.

Is there a reliable source for substitute ingredients?

Yes.  The Cooks Thesaurus.

Some entries are more extensive than others -- for instance, the eggs entry gives different substitutions depending on what you're using the eggs for.

They're great for the 'I'm out of (x)' or 'I can't find (x) in my area'.

Where they're more likely to fail is the case of restrictive diets -- like if you're specifically looking for a gluten free or vegan alternative to something.  But in those cases, it's often better to do a recipe search for "gluten free" + (name of dish) as the substitution may involve a change in technique or other dramatic modification of the recipe.


Baking two loaves at one time (from Artisan Breads book)- need to change amt of water added? I'm following a recipe from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book and want to bake two loaves at the same time.  For one loaf, you are supposed to add one cup of water to a container in the oven, which steams the bread while baking.  If baking two loaves, do I have to increase the amount of water or should one cup be enough?

The water is used to create steam used to promote crust on the surface of the bread. The only reason you would need to increase the water for steam would be if you started using a larger oven.


I love "Mastering the Art of French Cooking". Can someone recommend similar books for other cuisines? Mastering the Art of French Cooking does a fantastic job of teaching what you need to do to cook all of the classic French recipes and why you need to do it the way that is recommended.

Can anyone recommend similar books for Northern and Southern Italian, Spanish, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese (Cantonese, Szechuan ...) ... etc?

French Cuisine (other than JC):

Patricia Wells - Bistro Cooking, At Home in Provence

Paula Wolfert - The Cooking of Southwest France (if you love ducks, that's the book for you)

Elizabeth David - French Provincial Cooking

I've also heard great things about Dorie Greenspan's recent Around My French Table, although reviewers note that as a contemporary French cooking has a lot of influences from around the globe (Asia, North Africa and even USA). However, if you'd like to find out what French people are likely too cook at home these days, this has to be a great resource.

Spanish Cuisine

Penelopa Casas - The Foods and Wines of Spain, Tapas

Portuguese

Jean Anderson - The Food of Portugal

Italian

Marcella Hazan - The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Mexican

Rick Bayless - Authentic Mexican, Mexico One Plate At a Time

Russian

Anya von Bremzen - Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook

German

Mimi Sheraton - The German Cookbook: A Complete Guide to Mastering Authentic German Cooking

Japanese

Shizuo Tsuji - Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art

Chinese

Irene Kuo - The Key To Chinese Cooking

Barbara Tropp - The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking

Thai

David Thompson - Thai Food

Indian

Julie Sani - Classic Indian Cooking, Classic Indian Vegetarian and Grains Cooking

Madhur Jaffrey - Indian Cooking, An Invitation to Indian Cooking, A Taste of India

Middle-Eastern

Claudia Roden - The New Book of Middle Eastern Food

Greek

Susanna Hoffman - The Olive and the Caper: Adventures in Greek Cooking

Diane Kochilas - The Food and Wine of Greece

South American

Filipe Rojas-Lombardi - The Art of South-American Cooking

Copeland Marks - False Tongues and Sunday Bread

Elisabeth L. Ortiz - A Taste of Latin America


How far in advance can I prepare a fruit cup? My work used to sell fruit cups that were simply just plastic cups filled with cut fruit pieces, no syrup or anything. I quite liked having a mini fruit salad like that, and would usually buy ones containing pineapple, grapes, apples, and/or strawberries depending on the season. But they don't have them anymore :(

Obviously cut fruit doesn't last very long, even in the fridge. I could probably prep a cup the night before to take with me in the morning. But is there any way I could prepare it on the weekend to use sometime during the week? Do any of the fruits I like freeze well? Are there any fruits that would work better? What if I vacuum-seal the fruit? Can it in syrup like you find at the supermarket?

I would recommend vacuum sealing. I have found that, if done properly, vacuum sealing should remove all of the air and thus prevent the oxidative process that discolors and deteriorates foods

I have tried this with various cut fruits and vegetables including, but not limited to, avocados, apples, onions, tomatoes, etc. and have found that within 2 or 3 days there was no discoloration or deterioration. I can't speak to longer periods of time as I have always used the cut fruits and vegetables within one to three days, but it works well for up to 2 or 3 days.


Method of canning without pressure canner? I'm debating canning but I don't have a pressure canner. I was just wondering what the best method to can would be since I don't want to get botulism and I want the canned food to last for a long time.

Without a canner you are limited to canning high-acid foods.

Botulism spores don't die at 212F, the boiling point of water. A pressure canner boiling water at 15PSI raises the boiling point to 250F or so which will kill the spores.

The bacterium cannot grow in a high acid environment and so high-acid foods such as fruit and pickles do not need to be processed in a pressure canner. Look for recipes for such foods. As use2199 said they will involve boiling the jars for a while to kill things.

An excellent resource is the Ball Blue Book that can often be found near the canning supplies in grocery stores. It always calls for Ball products of course but it has a ton of good canning recipes and instructions.

Don't experiment. Botulism is not a fun thing. Your lips get tingly and then you die shortly aftwards.


What is a bolo roast. I'm trying to make bultong (South African meat jerky) for a friend from there and he said I need bolo. What cut of meat would this be in America?

The information provided by both Paparazzi's answer and logophobe's comment is correct. The bolo is from the forequarter of the cow, specifically from the shoulder area.

I don't know of one single whole cut in the US that would encompass the whole bolo roast. However, we have three cuts that make up the three primary parts of the bolo roast.

Round bolo = mock tender roast
Shoulder bolo = shoulder roast
Side bolo = boneless blade roast

This picture shows it quite well. (Cropped to remove ads.)

And this picture shows the three pieces together as a whole bolo roast:


Is MSG necessary or what to replace it with? I have always heard that you should stay away MSG. For example when buying bouillon crystals we should always make sure that it doesn't contain MSG. Yet I came across this recipe for spinach soup that calls for 1/2 teaspoon of MSG. This got me wondering are there any pros to MSG. Should we stay away from it or should we incorporate it into our diet and if so should we limit how much we ingest? If it is 'bad' then is there something I can replace it with when a recipe calls for it?

You should refer to the discussion here:
Are MSG and Accent (Seasoning) the same thing?

Some relevant points:
MSG is found naturally in seaweed and other things. It is used to enhance the flavors it is combined with.

It is completely harmless unless you are limiting your sodium intake. Check out the wikipedia article on the subject as a starting point:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosodium_glutamate#Health_concerns

In short there has been no linkage to any adverse effects found in many controlled studies.

As far as replacing it- You can leave it out altogether or add a little salt.


What are the signs that indicate that raw honey has spoilt? If the raw honey goes bad, how would I know?

What should I keep on looking for? Floating fungus?

Honey might go bad in two ways - one involves stuff growing on the surface of the honey, the other involves the honey itself fermenting.  In both cases, the spoilage is connected to exceedingly poor storage - as other answers mentioned, honey is difficult to spoil... but difficult is not the same thing as impossible, right :)

Honey that ferments is usually linked to high water content - some honeys have a higher water content naturally, some might have water added at some point (for example, to deter crystallization), some might have water leaked into a container and puddled on top or along the edges, and honey will absorb moisture from the air if left unsealed, and eventually reach a saturation where the water is no longer a limiting factor to yeasts.  In any case, part of honey's preservative qualities is the lack of available water and too high concentration of sugars inhibits most spoiling organisms - so when that extra water becomes available, honey turns from "never goes bad" to "potent food source for yeasts", especially since as the yeast eat the sugars, they also lower the concentrations from something inhospitable to yeasts, to something that can support more yeast growth - so the fermentation will continue progressing.  A small puddle of water can gradually lead to a whole container fermenting because the local dilution is much greater than the total water percentage, and once given a foothold the yeasts will keep eating the concentrations further down into yeast-inhabitable ranges.

Some fermentation is more problematic than others - for example, mead probably originates from a spontaneous fermentation of honey that was enjoyable, on the other hand, different yeasts may give off bad odors and off flavors.  If your honey has fermented to the point of spoilage, it will smell bad, look cloudy, and taste terrible.  It will also foam (carbon dioxide production), may separate, may bulge if the container permits, all that good stuff that warns if any foodstuff in fermenting.  There is some stuff on that page about natural beneficial fermentation and typical crystallization patterns, but that isn't relevant to the question of spoilage

The other way honey might go bad, is having some debris accumulate on the surface of honey (cross contamination), that gives some mold or other bacteria enough food to get a foothold.  Again, honey itself is a poor source of food if properly stored - not enough water, not enough available food to get a foothold - but add debris, crumbs, or whatever that can spoil more easily right on the surface, and that can give mold or whatever enough of a toehold to build a floating colony, as you envisioned.  If there's enough debris or moisture on the surface, the mold might start nibbling at the surface of the honey - which will start lowering the sugar content to something mold can find hospitable, much the same way fermentation can progress.

You might be able to simply remove the colony or even the top layer to salvage the honey, if you are willing to risk it, since honey is known to be rather inhospitable to dangerous organisms.  And if the honey is properly stored afterwards, any critters left shouldn't be able to re-colonize since they needed the crumbs to get a toehold in the first place - but only you can decide what you will risk.


How to best store not-yet-used frying oil? I occasionally deep fry using peanut oil. The small amount used in my deep fryer (around one quart/1 liter) is easy enough to store in a polypropylene container that came with the fryer. Originally, I was storing it, after filtering, in the fridge, but it'd still develop off flavors within a month or so. After Cook' Illustrated informed me (sorry, subscription required) that freezing works, I started freezing it, and it does indeed keep the oil fresh much longer. A quick run through the microwave warms it enough to dump into the fryer.

Unfortunately, refined peanut oil is sold either 1 gallon (~4L) or 35lbs (~15.8kg) containers. Those do unfortunately go rancid once opened—even if stored in dark place. Of course, 35lbs is half the unit cost (but is way more than I'd use before it goes rancid, if stored in its original container).

I'm wondering, is a good way to prevent unused peanut oil from going rancid? Would something like 1qt mason jars, with the lids vacuum-sealed on, help (stored in the pantry)? Alternatively, are there some additives that would help (and not prevent its use in deep-frying)?

Getting a gallon in the freezer is possible, but 35lbs is way too much freezer space.

It should be stored in a cool-dark place. Your cupboard is just fine.

You're overlooking an important distinction in the Cook's Illustrated snippet: their oil is used. Used oil is already damaged by the high temperatures required for frying, this greatly shortens its shelf life and makes it much more prone to rancidity. Storage of used cooking oil is covered in other questions here:

Frying oil reuse
How to keep deep frying oil usable?

For peanut oil specifically, the shelf life is two years if unopened and one year if opened.

I have a nearly empty 10-14 month old bottle of peanut oil in my cupboard right now. I used it last night, and it showed no signs of rancidity.


Does meat marinate while it is in the freezer? Put a skirt steak in a plastic bag with a marinade and then promptly put it in the freezer.  It has been in the freezer for a couple of days now. I want to thaw it out for dinner tonight, but I'm wondering if the meat has had a chance to marinate in its frozen state?

Marinating steak - apart from very acidic marinades - will affect only the outer few mm of your meat. While these are the first to freeze, they are also the first to thaw, together with the marinade.

Your total marinating time will be

(time until outer layer is frozen) + (time since outer layer thawed, before cooking)

Unless you flash-froze your meat and thaw in a microwave, this can be a few hours. In frozen state, marinating is basically stopped. So do the math, according to your desired total marinating time. You can always leave the meat thawing/marinating in the refrigerator for a bit longer, if neccesary.


How can I turn my pasta salad into a pickle? A pickle that would preserve it for a week?

Would it ruin the taste of the pasta salad?

You should use pickling when you want something to last months not days.

In regards to your second question: it certainly wouldn't be pasta salad any more.

If you want to experiment with pasta pickle then sure it sounds like a good idea, if you want to preserve pasta for a week split it into several air tight containers and stick it in the fridge.


Why is the paddle and not the whisk used for making cake batter in a planetary mixer? And would there be a difference in the cake using the whisk and the one using the paddle?  If so, what would it be?

In the recipe book for my Kenwood (I'll try to find it to post examples), there are some whisked cakes, but most are beaten. This is a UK model, and we tend to use solid fat rather than oil in our cakes. The whisk tends to collect the fat inside, rather than mixing evenly, so you need to knock it down more often. With unsoftened butter the whisk also flexes quite a lot which may not be a good thing long term.  When mixing slowly the beater definitely mixes more evenly than the whisk (a reasonable approximation of folding at minimum speed).

Whey baking other recipes I use the whisk for a whisked recipe (usually folding the flour in by hand), and the beater otherwise. It is quite easy to over-mix though.


Refrigerator with humidity control I just moved into a house which has a fridge that has humidity control on a couple of it's doors. The scale simply reads "low" to "high".

So, aside from the question of how this fridge is actually responding to the scale (I suspect it is not doing much), does anyone know what to store at "low" humidity and what to store at "high" humidity?

My instinct would basically be to store everything at low humidity - low moisture, low change of spoilage - but obviously I am missing something.

Leafy veggies such as lettuce and arugula should be kept in the high humidity drawer so they don't wilt.  Some peas and beans also.

Fruits generally go in the low humidity drawer as they can emit a gas that causes other fruits and veggies to rot faster.   Strawberries are susceptible to this gas and should be kept in high humidity.

I'd recommend a Google search for an exact list but I always just did V-High and F-Low for veggies and fruits respectively.


Is this tenderloin safe to use? I have a vacuum sealed 8 lb. beef tenderloin that was in my refrigerator.  The door was not closed completely and the refrigerator warmed to 42 degrees just at the beginning of the danger zone.  The refrigerator could have been at that temp for 6 to 8 hours.  The tenderloin was in the middle back of a bottom shelf.  Is this safe to use?

This is a really, really tough case.  From a strict interpretation of our canonical answer for such food-storage questions, the answer is unfortunately: no. This cannot be considered safe according to the guidelines used by the FDA and other food safety agencies. It's impossible to know exactly what temperature the beef reached and for how long, so this must be considered suspect.

From context I'm guessing that you're cooking this at home, but you cannot and should not serve this in a commercial setting, period.

Now, here's where we get into strictly my opinion. You must evaluate your own consideration of the risks involved.

If you are certain that the refrigerator reached no more than 42 degrees F then I think that the risk presented is relatively low.  8 pounds of beef has a decent amount of thermal mass, and assuming that it started closer to 35 degrees F and was properly vaccuum-sealed I think there's a good chance that it never crossed into the danger zone, and most likely wasn't there for long if it did.  FDA guidelines are famously conservative (for good reason, as they're designed to reduce risk for everyone!) and to me that's a rather expensive cut of beef to just throw away.

I wouldn't feel comfortable serving this to children, the elderly, the pregnant, or anybody else with a potentially compromised immune system. Remember that food poisoning is no joke and can be fatal, especially for such at-risk people. You may want to reconsider cooking this for the holidays and serving it to your family. But I'd probably be comfortable eating it myself if I was certain of the conditions that you describe. You may justifiably be less comfortable, and the FDA would back you up. If you decide to cook and serve this, you must do so with an awareness of the risk presented.


How to make Lebanese chicken wings I have been going to a lebanese restaurant for a while now and they do the best chicken wings i have ever tasted. i want to know their secret. they are chargrilled over coal and i know that they put butter on them to help with the browning. what i cant replicate is that they are sticky, the seasoning goes right to the bone and they also manage to get a sort of citrus flavour to the bone also. i imagine that some sort of brine would help with the seasoning going into the flesh but the citrus notes have me stumped. if anyone actually knows a recipe or even just has some suggestions id be very appreciative. thanks.

Consider asking the people at the restaurant how they do the preparation, since you like it so much, and explain that you are curious to understand how these are different from other varieties of chicken wings.  People who cook professionally are often flattered when people want to understand how they prepare things.  They are unlikely to give you an actual recipe, since restaurant preparations vary greatly from recipes for home cooking, due to process/quantities, etc., but you can learn a lot from asking.


How long, optimally, should you marinate chicken or beef? When cooking meat, marinating is a frequent technique. However, what's the optimal amount of time that one should marinate your meat? Is it different for different kinds of meat? What are some guidelines, generally, for marinating meat in different circumstances? E.g. when preparing steaks for grilling, or chicken for baking, or cubed beef for stir-frying, what are optimal times for marinating?

Yes, optimal time to keep meat in a marinade varies drastically. It depends on the type of meat, the cut of meat, the marinade, and the intention. For instance, Sauerbraten is traditionally marinated for at least three days. On the other hand, there are many applications that call for very short time in the marinade. "Velveting" is common in Chinese cooking, that's a marinade of 30 minutes or less. The variations of techniques concerning marinade are endless.


Why doesn't Bailey's go bad? I realize it can go bad after a long time, but why does it take so much longer than other dairy products? Does it have to do with the alcohol content? If so, what is the process that is happening?

Here is a quote from the company that makes the registered trademark Baileys Irish Cream:

Baileys® is the only cream liqueur that guarantees its taste for 2 years from the day it was made, opened or unopened, stored in the in the fridge or not when stored away from direct sunlight at a temperature range of 0-25 degrees centigrade.
One of the keys to achieving this 2 year shelf-life is in our patented process of blending of fresh Irish cream with the spirits and the whiskey without the use of preservatives. The alcohol acts as a natural preservative for the product.
Under normal conditions of storage Baileys has a shelf-life of 30 months.
If you are concerned about a bottle of Baileys® please check the best consumed before date on the bottle - all bottles now carry a best before date. This number is located on the bottom left hand side of the back label. Example : Code 11 20XY would mean that we guarantee the product would taste perfect until that date (XY is the year 2 years from the date of manufacture)

(source).
The alcohol content is the sole preservative listed.


Rehydrating Dried Rosemary for Bread? I love the flavor of rosemary but I don't like its prickliness. It's worse dried, but I don't even like that particular quality in fresh rosemary. I'm experimenting with a yeast bread that will include both water and fat (in this case, bacon fat). I want distinct pieces of rosemary (although they can be small), so I don't want to grind the rosemary. I also want to avoid a green tinge in the bread itself. I'm thinking of manually crushing the rosemary into a couple of tablespoons of water and bringing the mixture to a boil in the microwave, letting it cool, straining and adding the rosemary to the bacon fat and giving it a quick saute. I guess I'd add the rosemary water to the water in the recipe if it isn't too green. Does that sound like it would work? I want the flavor, but no sharp edges.

Edit...Hmmm, I've reached the point in the experiment that the crushed rosemary and water have been in the microwave and cooled. At first I was optimistic, the texture seems like what I am going for. However, the flavor is strong - even bitter.

I would suggest heating some fresh rosemary in the bacon fat. Then discard the rosemary.  You will get the flavor without the part you don't want.


Baking Bread in a Dutch Oven Can I bake a regular loaf bread recipe in a Dutch oven? Do I need to change the temperature or time?

You can bake bread in a dutch oven, as long as you have one big enough, in fact it's a great way to do it because the lid seals in moisture, preventing the crust from drying and allowing the bread to expand. You get a ton of oven spring this way, and a great crust.

The method is:

Preheat the oven for at least half an our with the dutch oven inside
Shape the bread, flour, semolina or corn meal the bottom well, then put it in the dutch oven, being very careful to not burn yourself. Use mitts if you can. It's often best to take it out of the oven to do this. If your DO is not much bigger than the shaped dough then make sure you flour/semolina/corn meal the sides as well, or put it on baking parchment or it will stick to the sides like glue. Flour the parchment well on all sides or it will stick to the parchment instead
Put the DO with the dough back in the oven and cover it with the lid, which should also be pre-heated
Bake for about half the normal baking time for that loaf, then remove the lid to let the steam out, this will allow the crust to solidify and get crunchy. The bread will have expanded all it is going to by then
Bake the bread until done, then take it out. Some use the tap test, I back this up with an instant read thermometer, the bread will be done when it gets to 98°C inside, about 210°F

You may find that depending on your oven or your dutch oven the crust may overcook on the bottom. It's hard to predict this - you just have to try it and see how it goes. If it does get a bit too done turn down the oven 20°C/35°F during the preheating, then up to the full temp after the bread goes in.

About parchment, I don't like baking bread on parchment as I don't like the kind of crusts you get, however sometimes its the only way to keep it from sticking, again it varies with your recipe and equipment. I prefer to use semolina or coarse corn meal instead of parchment, if do use parchment I will pull the loaf out and remove it once the crust has formed enough not to be sticky.


How do you infuse the flavor of a sauce into chicken? I have cooked some chicken in a pot with honey sauce. The sauce was very flavorful, and while the chicken had a great texture none of the sauce's flavor was in the chicken! It was almost flavorless.

I have seared the chicken and put it in a covered pot with some wine and honey as sauce (sauce covered about eighth of the chicken?). What can I do next time to infuse the flavors of a flavor base together with chicken when it is pot cooked?

You can't do it, it's physically not possible. Your meat will always taste of meat, not of sauce. Meat is not some kind of sponge which can soak up sauce, it's a dense muscle.

If you want more flavorful meat, you can buy more flavorful meat. Most meat you can get in the supermarket is tasteless, because 1) people don't really like meat flavor if they are not accustomed to it (see the recent mutton question), 2) it's cheaper to raise tasteless meat (young chicken vs. soup hen) and 3) you need a fattier meat to have more flavor, but people prefer lean meats nowadays. Still, the meat will then taste of meat, not of sauce.

If you find your food way too tasteless, you can also consider preparations such as a meatloaf, where you can physically mix spices into the protein.


How to cook the eggplant in trader joe's eggplant roll style? I want to learn how to make similar style eggplant roll. I cook eggplant many times, but I have no clue how to make the eggplant moist but not wet. I see the eggplant in trader joe's eggplant roll, it is exactly what I want. Should I bake the eggplant?

We have used this recipe as a template for eggplant wrap type dishes.
In this recipe example they use a grill but you can also use a rack inside the oven either baking or broiling:

PREAHT a stovetop grill pan or outdoor grill over high heat.
CUT the eggplants lengthwise into 1/4-inch thick slices (about 6 slices each eggplant).
BRUSH the eggplant slices evenly with olive oil on both sides.
GRILL the eggplant slices in batches for 3 minutes each side.
ALLOW to cool slightly

http://mediterrasian.com/delicious_recipes_eggplant_rolls.htm


Biscotti with chocolate drizzle in batter I make biscotti. I want to introduce chocolate — not chips, but melted chocolate — drizzled through the dough without turning it completely into chocolate. Any suggestions on how to do this?

You'd have to do it at the time you form the loaf for the first bake.

One way would be to use a layer or two of chocolate sticks (as used in pain au chocolat but seemingly sold as "croissant sticks"). This would be very suitable chocolate as even melted it's not too runny. You could probably split them to get more, thinner sticks.  You could melt chocolate and allow it to cool in strips to make your own, which could be longer, thinner and less even. You'd need to have the dough mixed and then mix in whatever chocolate you use as little as possible.

A different approach would be to make a half batch of normal dough and a half batch of chocolate dough then combine those without mixing, as if making a marble cake. But this may not be what you're looking for.


Hard Candy Hardens Too Quickly I recently made some hard candy;

2 cups sugar
3/4 cups corn syrup
1 cup water

Heat to hard crack

I was hoping to be able to work with the result, coloring two halves and twisting them together to make a candy cane like confection.

I was really surprised by how quickly the mixture hardened, while it was still quite hot.

Is there a technique for producing my desired result?

Generally you have to work with it when it is still exceptionally hot.  Hence the use of taffy-pullers and such devices.  Silicon/heat-resistant gloves possibly, if you wish to work by hand, traditionally always "oiled hands".

I've seen examples where the mixture is arrested, allowed to cool for a couple of minutes and quickly reheated slightly to return some pliability.  Speed is certainly of the essence though.

Few videos about, look for sugar pulling, even if it is not the sort of manipulation you had in mind, it will show you how to deal with hard crack sugar.

Overall, asbestos hands seem to be required!

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-pull-sugar-for-making-sugar-art-151725/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6WRd7JZFdQ (warning, a few expletives, it is very hot stuff!)


How to properly prepare a beef escalope (from the topside)? I've read a number of recipes that call for different cooking times, so I'm a bit baffled.

Normally, the escalopes are cuts from the topside (that's the bottom) of a cow. These are then hammered with a mallet, salt & peppered, passed through flour and sautéed. A pan-sauce is made from the fond and the escalopes are added back in.

The question is: How long?
I've read times ranging from 15' to two hours...

Does it depend on the age of the animal? Or the race? Is there any objective way to determine when it's properly cooked?

Topside is quite a tough cut, so I'd tend towards a longer cooking time; as 'low and slow' as possible, really. With other meats, escalopes are usually made using leaner cuts, like chicken breast or pork tenderloin, which would be cooked relatively quickly, so I'm surprised your recipes call for topside.


can you prepare vicyssoise a day ahead, then add cream and serve? Can vichyssoise (cold potato soup) be prepared ahead, refrigerated and the cream added the next day?

Using this recipe as a baseline, I don't see any reason why it would not work.

Of course, the entire soup is chilled.  There is no reason not to completely prepare it the night before, refrigerate, and then serve it the next day.  You will want to allow it to warm up to almost room temperature for service, as the linked recipe indicates.


Is sugar a thickening agent? Is sugar a thickening agent? Palm sugar for instance?
Let's say if sugar has a role in thickening liquid then how does it do it?

While sugar makes a liquid thicker, it is not considered a thickening agent.

Sugar is a crystal. When you add it to water, what you get is a simple solution. A solution of a solid in water is always thicker than water. This happens with all kinds of everyday substances. Whenever you add a thick liquid or a solid to a thin liquid, the result is a semi-thick liquid. The "thickening" here is roughly proportional. In that sense, you are not thickening the thin liquid, but creating a mixture whose thickness is the average of the thicknesses of its components.

A thickening agent, on the other hand, really thickens. It does not dissolve in liquid in the sense that it breaks down into ions swimming freely among the polar water molecules, but creates a hydrocolloid, also known as a "gel". This is a very special phase combination in which a few solid strands of matter trap lots of liquid in such a way that the liquid cannot flow easily. This results in a thick consistency.

Because a single molecule of a hydrocolloid building substance can trap lots of water, you can add little amounts of this stuff to create really thick liquids. Starch is added at a ratio of about 1:10 to create pudding, and some others such as xanthan can be used at ratios as low as 1:200 to create a creme and 1:1000 to create a milky-thick liquid out of water. At these consistencies, they rarely have consequences for flavor or nutrition, but really change the texture of your food. This is opposite to dissolving solids like sugar: if you wanted to add enough sugar to get your solution to a milky-thick consistency, you'd have an unbearably sweet liquid. For achieving a creme-like thickness, you actually need a supersaturated sugar solution, which is basically a candy (you'd have to stop heating somewhere below the soft ball stage).

So, while sugar does thicken somewhat, you will not use it for the purpose of thickening. If you were to choose the amount of sugar to add based on how thick you want your food, you will change all of its other properties, starting with making it overly sweet. The exception is when you are making candy: here, you are really using the thickening power of sugar, and you are controlling the amount of sugar such that you get the desired final consistency. Another exception is making jam - while it also has pectin together with the sugar, the amount of sugar is high enough that it also contributes a lot to consistency.


Will gum arabic stabilize a watery sorbet? I’ve been struggling with getting an iced tea based sorbet to not end up as a chunk of ice; I believe the canonical answer here is “use a stabilizer.”
I grabbed some gum arabic (mastic to be specific) recently to play with gomme syrup for cocktails, which gave me an idea: will it stabilize a sorbet? It should have the nice advantage of not requiring cooking the way gelatins do, AFAIK it can be activated by blending.
Will this work to make a sorbet less icy? If so, what concentration should I use?

The base recipe for a sorbet is normally sugar water and fruit puree. Sorbets can also be made with juices or beverages like herbs or tea. The main cause of the "icy" texture is the high water content. To avoid that, you don't necessarily need a thickening/emulsifying agent (rather than a stabilizer per se). Normally those kind of additives are put in the base recipe to avoid the splitting of the sugar that may occur if the sorbet is kept for a long time, especially if it's made with a really watery juice (as lemon for example). On the market it's possible to find some sugar syrups made specifically for sorbet that contains pectin.
But even with a thickener introduced in the recipe the main things that keep a sorbet smooth and airy are sugar (for its anti-freezing properties, the higher the sugar softer the end product will be) and the air that gets incorporated in the sorbet during the mixing in an ice cream machine. Plus the trick to the perfect ice cream or sorbet is to mix it in the ice cream maker until it feel "dry" to the touch, this way it'll keep the proper texture longer.


How do I prevent an egg cracking while hard boiling it? Sometimes when I cook hard boiled eggs they will crack in the saucepan, and some of the egg will seep out into the water.

Am I boiling the water too vigorously, or can I add something to the water to prevent it?

I used the method here before with good success: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_make_perfect_hard_boiled_eggs/

Basically you start with the eggs in the pan with cold water and bring the water to temperature, right when it reaches boiling you pull the heat back and let the eggs cook for 10 minutes.

You don't need a full on boil to hard boil the eggs.


Red kidney beans, break up long cooking time Since they take so long to cook I was wondering if I could do  something like cook them half the time one night and then finish cooking them the rest of the time in the morning or if there would be some problem with that.

It will be inconvenient, and you are likely to run into food safety problems. You would have to somehow make sure that they cool quickly enough after the first cook, and then heat up quickly enough for the second, and then cool again, that the total time in the danger zone is below 4 hours.

The more practical thing is to soak them before cooking. You can soak them overnight, for example. Then the total cooking time is much less, I don't have numbers in my head for kidney beans, but other beans are done in about an hour after a good soak. They are also a bit tastier that way (better hydrated) and it is an easy way to save energy.


Baking Powder, Baking Soda, and Yeast I've read one cook say,
"I add baking soda when I make bread using buttermilk. The buttermilk is acidic enough that it interferes with the environment that commercial yeast needs to reproduce well, resulting in a somewhat dense, poorly risen loaf.
I add1/2 teaspoon of Baking Soda per 8 ounces of buttermilk, and the result is is a beautifully risen, light bread with beautiful color and texture.
The Baking Soda neutralizes the acid in the buttermilk, producing CO2, which adds to the bread's leavening."

Does adding them all together(or one and yeast) really work that way, or is it overkill!? I have seen other recipes use all three and they also had buttermilk in the recipe. So is it the buttermilk that changes it all, to have to use all three(or one and yeast)?

The buttermilk is acidic enough that it interferes with the environment that commercial yeast needs to reproduce well

I don't think this is the case. Yeast prefers a mildly to moderately acidic environment: pH 4.5 - 6 (7 is neutral). The various sources I've found give a pH of 4.1 - 5 for straight buttermilk, and of course that pH is buffered (brought closer to neutral) when you mix it into your dough with the other ingredients. If anything, I'd say that a buttermilk dough would be ideal for yeast growth, provided there's enough water available.

The key difference between baking soda and baking powder is that soda is just the alkali, where baking powder is a mixture of baking soda and a powdered acid, usually tartaric or citric.

You can use baking soda alone with a buttermilk dough because the buttermilk provides the required acid component. For buttermilk pancakes, I like to use a combination of baking power, plus a bit extra soda: Think of it as if the powder reacts with itself, and the soda reacts with the buttermilk (although it's not really separated like that).

So, really any or all of those agents can make a buttermilk loaf rise. The important thing, I think, is that yeast and baking powder/soda have very different effects: not all rises are equal! Powder/soda reacts as soon as its wet, and then again when it gets hot in the oven. It creates bubbles, and that's about it.

Yeast does much more besides. As it ferments the dough it also creates a complex mix of enzymes, sugars, acids and alcohols which affect the flavour, structure and baking characteristics of the bread. The protein structure of the flour changes, and that has a big effect on the finished loaf.

Buttermilk also has some amount of fat in it, which has an effect on bread dough. The fat tends to coat the flour particles, which results in shorter gluten chains - this gives a softer crumb with smaller holes: think brioche vs. ciabatta. You might want to knead or fold your dough more than you would otherwise to compensate for this effect (depending on what you want). My hunch is this is what caught the original author out, not the acidity.

If you're making a typical 'bread', I would just use yeast. The buttermilk will contribute flavour and sourness, and give that texture change I mentioned. If you're just after the tang, a zero-fat natural yoghurt would provide a very similar flavour while affecting texture less.

Unless you're making Irish soda bread (and you should, it's delicious!), I wouldn't bother with powder/soda raising for bread. Yeast does too good a job - save the powder for cakes and muffins!


Heart shaped fruit cake: how to prevent uneven baking I have just made my first ever fruit cake. I used the BBC light fruit wedding cake for a 6" tin. I used the cake o later to increase the cake to a 12" one.

The original recipe said to bake for 30 mins, then turn oven down to 150C/ fan 130C/gas 2 and bake for another 1 hr 45 mins until risen, golden and an inserted skewer comes out clean. I increased it to 40 mins and 2 hours 30 mins.

I was worried about the point burning, but it was fine. It was the sides of the top curves of the heart that over cooked and the top burnt. The sides also got really dry and crispy. I double lined the tin, in and out. I can't find any help about heart shaped tins. What can I do?

Okay, there's a couple options I can think of.

One possibility is simply, to cool down your oven.  You're increasing the baking time anyway, a cooler oven will let the cake cook more slowly but more evenly - it is a classic way of not overcooking the outside of a large dish before the inside is done.

Another possibility is, you watch your cake a little more closely, and interfere when you notice any problems - for example, tenting foil over parts that are browning too soon, or adding moisture by the eyedropperfuls if the surface (or edges) are looking a bit too dry.  You can also turn down the heat more, or turn the heat off and let it finish in residual heat if nearly done, if the outside is browning faster than the inside is cooking.  This will take a bit more time, effort, and mindfulness, since you have to be there and paying attention for a fair chunk of the cooking time - but it is also the most generalizable advice for baking in odd-shaped pans.

Last possibility is, you can pad your pan before baking, focusing on any trouble spots.  You mentioned double lining the pan, and while it might have helped - it clearly didn't prevent the problem, so why not try doing more next time?  One historical technique was to wrap the outside of the pan with paper - newspaper, brown paper, or parchment paper, a few layers (and the air trapped between them) would slow down browning on the outside and give the interior a bit more time to come up to temperature.  Or you can use cardboard for the same purpose.

Or else you can use a more durable equivalent and try a silicon mat (plus or minus strips for targeted protection), or make up something using cheesecloth, or repurpose an oven-safe ceramic or glass lid or pan to shield known trouble spots, or something of the sort.  You could also make something similar to a crust shield, like is used on pies - which would use strips of foil along the edges to prevent them from overbaking while the center finishes cooking.  You wouldn't find pre-made ones like there are for pie, but you can use the same principles to position a few strips of foil over the tops of trouble spots to let them cook slower.

You would want extra padding where you expect problems (in this case, a few extra layers around the top curves).  This setup would shield the outer layers from radiant heat a bit more, and let the batter warm and cook a bit more slowly but also more evenly.  You might not want newspaper if you're putting any layers over the top of the cake pan, or where it might touch the cake, but it should work for just padding the pan with.

Clearly, this third option works best if you know, or can guess, the trouble spots beforehand.  Perhaps the first time baking in an oddly-shaped pan, it would be wiser to watch over it and meddle in person, and subsequently you can know where trouble is likely to develop, and can preemptively pad the pan or shield the cake to compensate.


Can I used lemon juice in place of ascorbic acid in canning peaches? Went to can my peaches and it's seven miles to the store....can I used lemon juice in place of ascorbic acid?

No, you should never make substitutions in canning recipes.

You are right that the ascorbic acid is in there for preservation rather than taste. But the problem is that with a lemon, you can't controll how much acid ends up in your peaches. Some lemons will contain more grams of acid per ml of juice than others, and in any case, you'll need really large amounts of the juice, to the point where you'll have a very pronounced lemon taste.

Don't forget that the pH scale is logarithmic, so a peach preserve at ph of 3.5 will have several times more acid than a preserve at a pH of 4.0. And botulism bacteria which will die at home canning temperatures in a pH 4.0 medium can survive at pH 3.5. So adding some juice and hoping that it will be enough is a very dangerous strategy.

If you are making a small amount of preserve only, you can consider keeping it in the fridge and consuming it within a week, instead of canning it with acid.


Food Safety of "Scavenged" Chicken Stock I happened upon an article entitled "Please Pass the Scavenged Bone Stock" and discovered that there are many different opinions out there about the propriety of saving chicken bones for stock. The article reads like a polemic, but I'd like clearer answers to the following questions:

Is it safe to use leftover untouched chicken bones/carcasses for stock? How long can they have been sitting out, and what if I want to freeze them for later use?
Is it safe to salvage bones for stock if people have been eating off the bone? Is this a common practice, or is it considered "disgusting"?

I use frozen trimmings and bones for stock on a regular basis and haven't ever had any issues (and I can't see why you would).  However, parts from food eaten by someone may have contamination issues unless they only removed the bones and/or skin with clean hands (which you could have done yourself before serving them).

I don't follow many rules for my "stock" either. I figure I can get vegetable flavor from vegetable stock, so I keep my meat stocks just to the meat trimmings and bones as much as possible (I do regularly and unavoidably end up with herbs and spices from rubs and marinades), let them simmer in a crockpot for days, and then reduce them. They are not clear like traditional stock, but I rarely need a clear stock--mostly I just want to extract all the good flavor for sauces, soups, and stews, and that is very successful with this method.


Will cooking tagliatelle in squid ink turn it black? I am planning to make squid ink pasta, but I do not have pasta machine. Since I am lazy, I want to boil dried pasta in squid ink water. Will it turn black...or not black enough?

Boiling it in ink will give some flavor and color, but it won't be part of the pasta.  Instead, you could make a squid ink-based sauce to toss it in afterwards.  Here's an example recipe: https://www.thespruceeats.com/spaghetti-al-nero-di-seppia-2018653


What else can rid the fishy smell of fish besides Casein? ATK says TMAO binds to casein but is there a dairy-free alternative that can bind to TMA?

I haven't been able to find anything else that binds with TMA other than from dairy products, thus no substitutes.

I have found several suggestions for getting rid of the fishy smell and taste. These include:

• Soaking fish in water with lemon juice added
• Soaking fish in water with salt added
• Soaking fish in  soda such as Mountain Dew or Sprite (look  here  )

As per the comments above, I don't get the cauliflower thing.


Is there any cut of beef that's close to Kobe beef? I have had the real thing in Japan and it was fantastic and very expensive. I don't usually eat steak at all. The Kobe beef steak was the first I ate in my entire life. It was very tender and tasty, cooked medium rare. I had it because there was nothing else on the menu I would consider eating.

I live in Canada. I want to know if there is a cut of beef that's available in Canada that's close to Kobe beef quality.

The problem with you stating Kobe beef is its not a cut of meat. Kobe beef comes from certain cattle raised in Japan. In Canada your best bet will be to find the best quality beef you can. Depending on preference I'd suggest sirloin for a good all rounder, rib eye if you don't mind the extra fat (my favourite cut) or fillet steak if you want the most tender steak you can get. The problem with fillet in my opinion is the lack of fat which ultimately results in lack of flavour plus the price is stupidly high (in England at least)


What pan can be subsituted for a Paella pan? I am making Paella for 20 people but unable to purchase a paella pan at this time. What pan can I substitute ?. I was thinking of using a chafing pan since it's not very deep like a paella pan.

You can use about any pan that you could cook rice in. I've made Paella in a stock pot, hotel pan, and a Dutch oven. Honestly, the paella in the Dutch oven turned out better than it usually does in a paella pan. The heavy bottom of the dutch oven allowed for a much better layer of toasted rice at the bottom.  For very large quantities a hotel pan is most convenient, but you may have better luck cooking the rice separately and tossing it together with the other ingredients at the end.


Why refresh lentils before making lentil soup I recently made lentil soup from a recipe that involved bringing the lentils to a boil and refreshing them before a more prolonged cooking together with the aromatics.

The soup turned out great, but I wonder why the refreshing step might have been necessary. Does anyone know?

It's been years since I've cooked lentils, and I haven't done it very often, but I'm going to guess that the issue is that like other legumes and grains, you can end up with a gummy exterior, so by rinsing it in cold water, you both stop the cooking process and rinse off any starch that might've been over gelatinized.

If you hadn't done it, the most likely difference would've been a a thicker soup, and possibly overcooked mushy lentils.  (I don't know how lentils behave when colled; some starches will behave differently if you cool then reheat it vs. if you keep it warm the whole time it can get mushy)