Do flavors remain on an enameled skillet? A simple test to determine whether particles from cooking remain in the skillet and get absorbed by a subsequent meal is to cook fish (or something particularly spicy) and then wash the pan carefully. If you can detect that flavor in the next dish, some kind of leaching is going on.

After many years of using tri-ply, I can confirm that I've never detected this pan-to-dish flavor exchange to occur. I've burnt food on stainless steel many times, and when that happens it takes a lot of scrubbing with Bar Keepers Friend to get the carbonized food out, but the pot comes out as good as new. The trouble with tri-ply is that the bottom of pots remain perfectly flat, but skillets warp, making them tiresome to use on ceramic stoves.

I'm contemplating a new type of cookware. Given the uncertainty of whether a cast-iron skillet's seasoning makes it into the food, I'm skipping this type of cookware. Instead, I am looking into enameled cast iron.

I'd like to focus on just the flavor. If we assume that the cook cares for the enamel so it doesn't chip or similar, will there be flavor transfer between dishes?

Enamel is a very hard-wearing, non-porous surface. It's very similar to the glaze on porcelain. A well-washed mug doesn't make your tea taste of coffee.

As a more personal example, we've got a couple of enameled cast iron dishes. While we mostly use them for quite strongly flavoured foods we don't hesitate to use them for more delicate foods as well. They go through the dishwasher in between. Here's what one well-known manufacturer says (among other things): "vitreous enamel surface is impermeable and therefore ideal for raw or cooked food storage, and for marinating with acidic ingredients such as wine."


Should I wait until the oil smokes when frying eggs? Making ordinary fried eggs, I heat up the (soy bean) vegetable oil. I usually use the smoke as an indicator of being in enough temperature to pour the eggs in.

I heard that in olive oil, bad chemicals emerges when the oil reaches smoke point. I wondered if this is the case with vegetable oil? Should I strife for borderline of hot enough oil that is not smoking?

Considering that you're using Soybean Oil - which has a smoke point of 450°F, you might be using far too much heat for your eggs. Even if you were making an omelette, which typical recipes demand a higher temperature of ~ 400°F - you'd still be far too high if you're smoking soybean oil. In any case, I would recommend frying between 350°F and 390°F.

As for you hearing that in olive oil, bad chemicals emerge when the oil reaches the smoke point - this is true of any oil. Heating any oil or fat past its smoke point causes rapid oxidation (peroxidation) and more-or-less mimics the effects of rancidity. Think about whether you want to be cooking using burnt, rancid oil. At that, you shouldn't be using olive oil (which has a lower smoke point than most fats) for high-heat cooking. As for the bad chemicals, any oil or fat that is taken past its smoke point will oxidize, and as a result, different chemical reactions will occur which may or may not release/create carcinogens. This is a topic that you should explore more with your dietician/physician than on this board.

Ideally, you should monitor your oil temperature - either visually by looking for a slight shimmer/sheen, or physically by using a cooking thermometer or a wooden spoon (look for air bubbles).


Cheesecake in or next to waterbath I've heard of two separate ways to use a water bath when cooking a cheesecake: placing the cheesecake in the waterbath, or placing a roasting pan full of water on the bottom rack of the oven, with the cheesecake on the top rack. I like the idea of not putting my cheesecake in the water, which avoids the need to wrap the pan in foil. Do these two separate methods create any discernible difference in the final result? Is one better than the other?

The purpose of the water is to cook the custard slowly- essentially poaching it. It takes out some insurance against it overheating and breaking.

Suspending the cheesecake over the water would not have the same effect- steam can get hotter than the curdling temperature of eggs. It would be a thermal mass that might even out some temperature variation in your oven and it would keep things humid. If your oven is working well these effects aren't needed.

Plenty of cheesecake recipes don't take out the water-bath-insurance. My opinion is that suspending the cake above the pan would not be helpful.


What hot sauce should I use for Buffalo wings sauce? After watching "The Wing and I" in Good Eats and being the one that always ordered Buffalo wings (I no longer live in the US), I decide to give it a try. The recipe for the sauce is:

butter
garlic
hot sauce

I wonder what exactly is hot sauce. Alton Brown said there are dozens of hot sauces. I tried to use plain tabasco but that doesn't work. Can I make my own?

The original Buffalo Wings are made with Frank's RedHot Sauce. The original recipe is simply equal parts melted butter and hot sauce.

However, you truly can use just about whatever hot sauce you want in even greater ratios if you want more kick. There are also some distributors that specialize in spicy wing sauces. I recommend Defcon 2 if you are adventurous and enjoy a very nice kick of heat.


How much sugar and vanilla extract should I use in 1/2 gallon of ice cream? I've lost a simple ice cream recipe I used prior to making custards, and I find occasionally I'd like to make it since it's much simpler and faster - can be made in the churn with no additional dishes dirtied.

The only part I remember was that it contained equal (3 cup) portions of milk, half-and-half, and whipping cream, and beyond that was just sugar and vanilla extract:

3 cups Milk
3 cups Half and Half
3 cups Heavy Whipping Cream
???    White Sugar
???    Vanilla Extract

Without the sugar and extract, this makes just over one half gallon of liquid (prior to churning).

What is the range of sugar and vanilla extract I should try for this volume of liquids for a typical American vanilla ice cream?

You're making what is (at least to Americans) called Philadelphia-style ice cream. The name makes it fairly easy to find the ratios. Checking three recipes:

http://www.culinate.com/books/collections/all_books/The+Perfect+Scoop/Vanilla+Ice+Cream
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2014/12/30-minute-philadelphia-style-ice-cream-recipe.html
http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/philadelphia-style-vanilla-ice-cream.html

all agree on ¾ sugar for 3 cups of dairy. So you'll likely want thrice that, or 2¼ c. sugar. (Sugar in ice cream isn't just for taste, it's also very important for texture.)

Then you'll want somewhere between 1–3 tablespoons of vanilla extract. This is a wide range, but actually vanilla ice creams available commercially in the US vary widely in the amount of vanilla flavor in them. I would recommend, if you remember what the melted ice cream tastes like (not frozen, as freezing will lessen the flavor somewhat), that you start with 1T, taste it, then mix in more as required.

Consider also a little bit of salt. Also, a 2:1 recipe of heavy cream to whole milk is common—saving you from having to purchase half and half.


How can I create a drinkable ice slurry? Based on the idea behind this question on the physics sister site to this site, how can I process ice to create a drinkable ice slurry?  When I stick ice cubes and water in the blender, the ice shards re-solidify into a block that makes it impossible to get into my mouth, let alone swallow.

Is there some sort of additive that I can put in my ice slurry to prevent the ice from re-solidifying?  Preferably low calorie or healthy?  Perhaps something that lowers the freezing point of water, but doesn't do it so aggressively that it causes the average temperature of the water to drop too low.

When you mix it, you're bringing everything to the same temperature, and if the amount of heat in your mixture isn't enough to bring all the ice up to 0C before all the water freezes, you're going to get a block of ice.

You could be careful about it, and figure out the temperature of your ice and your water, and get the right amounts, and perhaps even use warmer water (or warmer ice). But you can also just use less ice per water, and that's easy. Simply start with water and add ice, blending as you go, until you have the amount of ice and water that you want, stopping before you add so much that you just get solid ice. Once you've done it once, you'll have an idea how much ice and liquid to start with.

I don't really see why you'd bother lowering the freezing point. 0C is plenty cold for human consumption, and you can just as easily just use more water and less ice. If you do add things for flavor like alcohol, sugar, or anything with fat (e.g. dairy) then you will end up lowering the freezing point, and possibly making it softer when it's almost frozen, but this doesn't really affect the fact that you want to get it to the ideal temperature by controlling the temperature as you create it.

(Note that a smoothie is basically an ice slurry, with a lot of other stuff in it, and they're made just like this - blended with an amount of ice that can't freeze the whole mixture.)


Is there a kind of food like bread that I can use to absorb sauce but that doesn't dry out so fast? This is more related to eating than cooking: is there a kind of food that I can use to absorb sauce but that doesn't dry out as fast as bread?

I was thinking in the context of using bread to get the remaining sauce from a plate. And rice of pasta are par meals whereas this would be complementary to a meal.

  when you say "dry out fast" do you mean over the course of the meal, or that the loaf dries out over a few days before you can eat it all?

I mean over 1 or 2 days, which for me is a pretty short period of time, too short for it to be worth buying fresh bread ever.

  Depending on the meal, would thick cut chips be a suitable substitute? (UK chips FYI)

Yes I guess it could work, although not as well because chips don't absorb as well as bread, but it does take more effort and time to prepare. I had something easier in mind but I realize that what I'm looking for might not exist.

I was thinking of something like indian naan bread but I'm not sure that it is much better at staying fresh...

Here are a few ideas, starting with how you can make bread work, based on my comment:

Bread rolls often keep better than loaves, because they have a crust all round. You can often buy them singly. Demi baguettes are similar but about twice the size.

Part baked rolls keep for months (sealed, once open keep in the fridge and use within a few days). You finish cooking them just before serving, which is easy if you've got the oven on anyway.

Bread freezes well, at least for short periods, as does home made dough. You could form it into rolls, freeze, defrost in the fridge, and bake twice a week.

Many of these ideas require using an oven. If you don't have one or don't want to use it daily, you still have the option of flatbreads. Chapatis, for example, are intended to eat sauce with, and cook in a dry frying pan. They're simple to make fresh or, as with flour tortillas, you can buy or make a batch, keep in the fridge, and reheat in a microwave. You can often find prepacked flatbreads in 2-serving packs; until opened they keep for weeks, after that, seal them up and you've got a couple of days.

If bread is getting a little dry, toasting it makes it nicer (especially if you melt butter with crushed garlic and spread that on it).

Moving away from bread, rice and pasta don't really absorb much sauce, but couscous does (especially if you are a little mean with the water when cooking it. Boiled, jacket, or even roast potatoes can be mashed into gravy with your fork.


Why are vegetables often left unrefrigerated at the grocery store? At the large superstore, Real Canadian Superstore, closest to me, many of the perishables such as broccoli, carrots, etc. are stored just in bins without refrigeration. It is also the same for many stores of course, but I have chosen this store as one I know for sure follows these practices.

I imagine the temperature for storage of these vegetables is well within the "danger zone" of 4-60 degrees C.

Why is it that if I cook broccoli and leave it out for > 2 hours it is deemed unsafe to eat, but if I buy broccoli, carrots, etc. that have been sitting at the supermarket for > 2 hours it is OK to eat? Or is this not the stance of the FDA?

I often eat vegetables raw after buying them this way. Is this poor practice unless it has been stored safely the entire time until it makes its way to my refrigerator?

Oh, you haven’t read the food safety guidelines correctly. Not all foods are susceptible to quick bacterial or fungal growth and therefore need refrigeration to get them out of the danger zone. The fresh fruit and vegetables at the store are perfectly shelf stable for some time.

The reason why the cooked vegetables fall into “the 2-hour-max-rule” is that generally all cooked food are considered perishable. Just think of  the lukewarm cooked food as a suitable breeding ground for whatever nasties happened to float in the air. The intact plant parts (root, fruit,...) are not.

A freshly harvested plant part is still alive to a degree, at least on a cellular level. Roots are able to regrow into plants if planted and fruit continue their ripening process. Even flowers (e.g. your broccoli) are, just think of them as cut flowers that open over days in a vase. The dying process leads to wilting, drying out or getting mushy - and the vegetable being unfit for consumption. The speed of this depends on the plant and the storage condition. If you choose to refrigerate your raw vegetables once you bring them home, you can slow it down: Just think of salad at room temperature vs. in the fridge.

When you cook the vegetables, you destroy cells and stop the cell metabolism - and make them suitable for bacterial growth. It’s also important to distinguish between safe and spoilt: it’s the possibility of bacterial or fungal growth that determines safety and the actual growth of them that determines spoilage.

So you can safely eat your raw broccoli, provided you wash it first and it’s in otherwise good condition, e.g. not mushy and mold-free.

1 Note that not all vegetables benefit from refrigeration.


turkey with beautiful browned skin that doesn't stick to the meat I roast a turkey in a bag. The skin color is beautiful. But why doesn't  the skin stick to the turkey when I carve it.

When it's in a bag, the steam produced during roasting is trapped.  A layer of steam occurs between the skin and the meat, separating the skin from the meat.

The same process happens when cooking without a bag, just more slowly, as the steam fills the entire oven - and then some of it escapes through vents or out the door seal.

Turkeys release a surprisingly large amount of liquid when cooked, compared to other poultry, so the skin separation is more pronounced than in chickens.


enriching thai curry with milk? I come from Indonesia, but you might be more accustomed to Thai cuisine, so I use the term Thai curry in the title because the curries are similar. no, really. just a tad sweeter rather than sour.

So, from this "Indian Spicy" vs. "Thai Spicy"  ,
I gather the difference between thai and indian, and I want to enrich it with milk (no, I won't replace coconut milk, but I want to add milk to the coconut milk curry basically) .

how do I do that? or should I add Veloute,Bechamel etc to enrich Thai curry?
or is it not favorable (heh) to enrich a coconut-milk based curry with dairy?
I can't use ghee (hence won't go to Indian route) because it's too expensive in my country. and I will replace butter with BOS (butter oil substitute), real butter are quite expensive here.
any seasoned advice is welcomed. and... I use brown beef stock (roasted beef bone stock), if that matters.

EDIT: I won't use this with rice but congee. yeah, curry congee.

Growing up, my mom (Italian-American) would make curry using a bechamel-like white sauce plus curry powder.  She said it was her mother's recipe, and I can only assume it was attempting to recreate a meal that she had using ingredients and techniques that she knew.

There are is an advantage of using a white sauce over using just cream to enrich the sauce -- the starch will keep the sauce from breaking over higher heat, but it can get a bit too thick and keep the other flavors from really coming through if you make it too thick, and I don't know if the flavors meld the same way as with coconut milk.  (it's been years since I've had this dish, and I currently avoid dairy)

I've never tried mixing bechamel to something that already had coconut milk ... but I suspect that it could work.  I know that I've made a white sauce using vegetable molks before (almond & soy ... coconut is the wrong consistency on its own, but there's 'coconut milk drink' that might work, or you could try thinning it with water)


Shelf life of soft or medium boiled eggs? Its easy to google and find information on the shelf life of hard-boiled eggs from seemingly authoritative sources. It seems roughly 1 week when refrigerated is the going shelf life I see quoted.

Does the same apply to softer boiled eggs? Or should those be eaten more quickly?

What is the shelf life of eggs boiled at donenesses < hard (ie soft/medium boiled). Should they be enjoyed same-day or right away? Or does the doneness even matter if I haven't broken the egg shell? Will the egg shell protect the egg regardless of doneness?

Working in a professional kitchen where we cooked eggs in various styles. I would say from my experience:

Hard boiled eggs will keep for 4 days refrigerated in the shell, before they become unpalatable.
Soft boiled eggs(hard whites, creamy yolks) will keep in the shell, refrigerated for 2 days.
Poached eggs, properly cooled in ice water and drained, refrigerated will keep from one morning to the next or aprox 36hrs.
Hard boiled egg whites (separated from peeled eggs, immediately cooled in icebath after boiling) can keep on parchment, drained of excess water, and wrapped in cellophane for 2.5 days. These can be used to make deviled eggs to order for example.
Hard boiled yokes, kept dry and seperately from the whites can be used to make sauces, salad dressings, deviled egg mix etc. but this only keeps 24-36 hours, in a fully refrigerated environment. So, if it's being used during a dinner service, coming in and out for each order, toss the leftovers at the end of the night.
Short-order eggs (fried, sunny side up, over easy, scrambled, omelets) made from fresh eggs, once it gets cold, forget it, it will smell nasty and taste pretty icky.
Premix egg or egg white stuff that comes in a carton is heavily pasteurized, it will keep on a buffet (hot hold) as scrambled eggs or omelets for a few hours and may still be eatable later but also icky.
Mayonnaise and Caesar dressing made with fresh raw egg yolks shouldn't be used for more than 48 hours. Even if it's kept refrigerated most of that time. A lot of restaurants make their own and I've seen several places keep it far longer than they should. But to be on the safe side, 1-2 services. So you want to make a small portion, not a huge batch.


Turkey Fry Smoking Oil I am trying to deep fry a turkey for the first time. I let the oil get too hot and it was smoking very heavily for several minutes (10 minutes), but I was able to get the temp down where its not smoking anymore.

Is my turkey likely ruined cooking in this oil? Should I not risk serving it to my family, even if it appears to be OK?

Overheating oil causes it to break down, which, at minimum produces off flavors and poor performance.  There is some concern about adverse health effects, depending on the type of oil, but in a cursory search, I found nothing definitive. Most do recommend discarding the oil.


Reusing marinade JUST used for raw chicken Can I take raw chicken out of a mainade that consist of soy sauce, vinegar and other things and put ribs into it to marinade as well?  Its a couple days old and been in the fridge the whole time.

It's a bad idea to re-use a marinade, especially to marinade a different meat or poultry:

Chicken may contain salmonella, if yours does and you re-use the marinade you'll then contaminate the next thing
By the time you re-use it is old, the older it is the less safe it is to use
It will have lost most of its effectiveness: the flavors and acidity will have acted on the chicken, so the marinade will have lost much of its flavor and ability to tenderize.  Even if the marinade was safe to use again it wouldn't have the kind of kick to give you a good result on the next thing

It's a good thing to want to re-use things where possible and avoid waste. In this case it's not worth the risk, and unlikely to impart any flavor anyway.


How much salt should be used in dishes for the best flavor? Is there a way to determine how much salt per quantity of food is required?  For example if I use 1kg of ingredients then I need at most one tbsp of salt. Any such metrics?

The quantity of salt to be added to food is a major problem for many people just learning to cook.

There's a reason so many recipes say "salt to taste": there's no single answer. Most of the time, we use close to 0.5% salt by weight (so 1kg food has 5g or 1 teaspoon of salt), but "close to" leaves plenty of wiggle room about what exactly is best.

Different people have different tastes. What's perfectly salted for one person may be oversalted or undersalted for another.

Different dishes need different ratios too. Some things are supposed to taste a bit salty, while some just need a hint to amplify other flavors. Some ingredients need more salt to balance them than others.

Sure, you can get approximate starting points, e.g. bread might be around 1% salt by weight, cookie dough might be about 0.5%, soups and stews might be something like 0.5% (with tons of variation - that's a couple random recipes). So very roughly, 1kg of food often comes with 5 grams of salt (1 teaspoon) with exceptions ranging up to 10 grams (2 teaspoons).

But your best bet is always going to be to find a good recipe for the specific dish you're making, and possibly adjust it if you know your preferences lean one way or another. Failing that, when cooking something improvised or new, or using one of the many recipes that just says "salt to taste", letting you do what suits you, trust the instincts that you've developed for your own tastes.

If you're cooking for others, with possibly varying tastes, it gets trickier. For things where salt can be added after the fact, you can use less salt and let everyone individually salt to taste. For things you can't mix after cooking, you pretty much have to compromise somewhere in the middle and hope it works for everyone.

Beyond that, if you can't decide what the right amount of salt is, don't worry about it. There's surely a range that works for you, so if two different amounts both taste good, there you are. And if you find yourself disagreeing with someone about what amount of salt results in the best flavor, stop. You probably just have different tastes from the person you're arguing with.


Baking bread in smaller pans bake time question I usually bake my bread in loaf pan size 7/3.5 depth 2"and bake for 60 Min. I have to make a large number of loaves so will use pan size 5 3/4 x3 x 2 1/8 so how do I adjust for the cooking time or perhaps I don't need to?

Well, partially this depends on what kind of bread you are talking about.  There is likely to be a bit of difference in how you scale the baking time depending on if it is a really wet quick bread (generally made with baking powder or baking soda like most banana bread) versus if it is a yeast leavened bread. Depending on the type you may need to adjust time more or less.  Additionally, the timing could be affected by many other factors including how many pans you have in the oven (2 medium pans will bake very differently than 6 small pans if the oven is crowded and there is less heat circulating).  Similarly, timing could even be different for different loafs if when you say your are making more loafs you end up baking on multiple racks in the same oven at the same time (top and bottom rack in the oven may not bake at the same rate).

However, the better answer is that the best way to know if bread is done is by using a thermometer.  Depending on what sources you read the list slightly different temperatures, but most sources I've ever read agree that most bread tends to be done when it reaches an internal temperature between 195 - 205 F (ex: a probe thermometer with the probe inserted into the middle of the loaf, if you don't want to take every loaf's temperature, at least take the temperature of the loaf in the coolest spot in the oven).  Some other cues to look for in knowing if bread is done is for quick breads, make sure the probe thermometer and/or a cake tester inserted into the center come out clean and not sticky with gummy dough (just like checking if a cake is done).  For yeasted breads, people often say it should sound be firm on the bottom and sound hollow when tapped on the bottom, but that may or may not occur depending on the type of pan you are using (shiny aluminum pans bake very differently than dark non-stick pans).

Sorry I couldn't give you a simple answer, but there are too many factors that could affect the timing.  My recommendation would be to set the time for notably shorter on the first time you bake in the new pans and then check it for doneness and adjust accordingly.


When "sorting" lentils, what exactly am I looking for? When a recipe calls for lentils, sorted and rinsed, what am I looking for? I've heard debris, such as leaves or sticks, but also "bad" lentils. Is there anything else I should be looking for before rinsing and using lentils?

Also, does the same hold true for dried beans?

It is not unheard of for small pebbles, or pieces of the pod the lentils came in to find their way into the drying process.

There is also occasionally a lentil (or bean) that was a bit dodgy before it was dried. These usually appear as discolored lentils, which should be thrown away. It is rare for more than three or four to appear in a pound of lentils though, and the drying means that one bad one doesn't affect the rest.

The same is true for beans and chickpeas too, but is rarer the larger the beans get.


Avoiding injuries from kneading I've been working on my pain au levain and after a couple 15-20 minute kneadings, I have some pain in my wrist flexors. I'm using Bread Alone as my guide and Mr. Leader mentions off-handedly the importance of having a kneading surface at a correct height.

I am an unusual height and suspect that my counter is not at the correct elevation. How can I find the correct height to make a kneading surface? Is there a way other than changing it up and seeing if I continue to injure myself?

I see two questions here that are connected.

The right height of a kneading surface.

As a rule of thumb, the surface for kneading should be about 10 cm / 4 inches lower than for chopping. You want to be able to ever so slightly lean on your dough, using your body weight to support your hands and arms. Too high means you will inadvertently pull up your shoulders and are more likely to put pressure on your hands and wrists at a bad angle.
I, being on the shorter side, have occasionally used a small step, especially when working with heavier or lots of dough.

Good technique to protect your joints.

If you knead with the part of your hands where the fingers meet the palm, you are putting a lot of pressure on a piece of your anatomy that is designed for finer tasks. Plus you are likely splaying out and bending your fingers more or less backwards, which you will also feel in your wrist.

Imagine yourself leaning on a table, for example during a conversation with a coworker who is just telling a captivating story. You will almost certainly use the base of your palm, near the wrist. And that's roughly what you should use for kneading as well.

Apart from that, don't bend your wrists to far backwards. Even with a lower surface, I aim for 45 degrees (give and take) between my forearms and the counter and I keep my hands on the same axis as my forearms, never turning them in- or outwards. If I need to adjust, I will work nearer to my body or keep the dough a bit farther away to compensate for the height.

Keep your back mostly straight and your shoulders down - most of us sometimes go "hunchback-style" after a while, so check yourself. (You don't want to have an aching back instead next time!)


Do induction cookers increase risk of cracking cast iron? I recently purchased a counter-top, one element 1800W induction cooker, mostly just to see how well the technology worked compared to my gas range.

I took it out of the box and immediately threw about a half inch of water in a cast-iron skillet as a test and set the coil to max power. I noticed that the water began boiling almost immediately (impressive) but in very tight hot spots (two very clear concentric rings, presumably the shape of the coils or some magical physics property of the magnetic fields), taking a long time to spread to other areas (as expected with cast iron).

In fact, the hot spots heated up so quickly that the water was almost completely boiled before the handle had even a hint of warmth, and areas as close as a half inch or so to the hot spots remained cool to the touch for some time after the hot spots were hot enough to boil water.

My question is: Due to the rapid heating and large temperature differentials seen here, in practice does this lead to an increased incidence of cracking cast-iron with induction cookers? If so, what precautions should be taken (e.g. preheat cast-iron at a lower power first, only use cookware designed specifically for induction, etc.)?

Cracking? No, not in my experience. I own like 20 cast iron skillets (I've been told I have a problem).

Warping? Yes. I have a 2,800 watt per burner commercial induction stove with a very small pattern like yours. If you repeatedly overheat a pan on high for searing, it will eventually bow outwards. Warping can be mitigated by preheating your pan gently.

That said, if the pan is full of water or oil (for deep frying, not stir fry) there is nothing to fear. I have had the same stainless stock pot for 8 years and I roast it on high all the time (with liquid). Water is a very effective coolant (it's what keeps your car engine from overheating). The likelihood that a pan full of water will overheat is very unlikely, nigh impossible.

RE: comments. Yes it is a lot of skillets. This is what 14 looks like.


Is there REALLY a difference in powdered milk brands for baking bread I reading a new to me bread recipe it calls for a specific brand of nonfat dry milk powder (such as Alba). I wonder if there is a difference in brands/ makers or is there something special about this brand?? Is it just a suggestion OF a brand due to what is popular in the area where the recipe is from? I do so want to try the recipe for "Kindered's Milk Bread" and I don't want to mess it up. So.. I guess the question is .. stick with the brand name that is mentioned or use any good, non descript brand.  Thank you ever so much with the help here..

There are some differences between powdered milk brands -- most significant is in if they have fat in them or not.  Most powdered milk are non-fat, but there are a few such as Nido that contain fat in them.

Your recipe specifically says nonfat powdered milk, so it significantly reduces the differences.  There might be some variety because of how they're produced (vaccuum only, vaccuum plus mild heat to dry it) or what the source of the non-fat was (eg, if it came from butter-making).

There are also come companies that fortify (add vitamins) to their powdered milk -- Nido again comes to mind.  Some of the vitamins (eg, vitamin C) can make a difference in yeast activity.

That being said, the majority of times when a recipe calls for a specific brand**, it's because the recipe was distributed by a specific company, and they're trying to get you to use their brands. Pillsbury, Kraft and Campbells are quite common in this regard, and I wouldn't be surprised if other companies did so as well.

** Except in the case of hot sauces.  Although there are some hot sauce cookbooks distributed by Tobasco and such, the differences in heat and spicing are quite significant, and some cookbooks will say things like "1 TB hot sauce (such as Frank's Red Hot)".

My personal recommendation would be to try to look up the nutrition information for the variety they call for, and the one you have.  If they're similar (same amount to reconstitute to a cup of milk, and similar sugar levels), I'd go ahead and try it -- you might even like it better with the different brand.  If it doesn't come out quite like you're looking for, then go ahead and try to find the specific brand from the recipe.


How much Saffron to use? I'm a bit confused with how much saffron to use in a paella recipe. I've seen numerous recipes that state to use 1gram. However I have a 1gram jar and that seems like a lot of saffron to me. I've spotted some recipes that say to use 1/2 a teaspoon and they state that this is about equal to 1gram. But my jar of saffron is a lot more than 1/2 a teaspoon.

I agree with the others that 1 gram is way too much saffron.  Unless you're making one of those huge outdoor pans of paella which feeds 20 people.

Exact quantities depend on how much paella you're making, and the freshness of the saffron involved.  I tend to use a hefty pinch, which would be around 12-20 threads, for a paella for 6 (2-3 liters).  I'll adjust that downwards for very fresh saffron, and upwards for old stale saffron.  You can tell how fresh your saffron is by (a) smelling it, and (b) soaking it in a small amount of warm water.  Fresh saffron will smell strongly floral/spicy, and will turn the water bright yellow very quickly.

I like saffron a lot though, and also tend to err on the side of more rather than less.


Is the stainless steel pot pitted by salt water a food safety problem? I added salt and cold raw eggs to cold water in an All-Clad D5 18/10 stainless steel pot before turning the burner on.  After the salt water was boiled and eggs were taken out, I saw a lot white spots on the bottom of the pot.  I tried to clean with Bar Keepers' Friend, but could not remove the white spots.  All-Clad said the white spots were pits etched by undissolved salt in cold water (i.e., I should have add salt to boiled water instead) and the pits were harmless.  Does anyone know what the white spots are chemically and if the white spots render the pot unusable according to food safety?

Chemically the pits etched in your pot are the absence of the stainless steel material that makes up the pot. In other words the white spots you're seeing are where a small amount of the stainless steel has been removed from the surface of the pot, much like it had been scraped off. So the pits are completely harmless because they're not actually any kind of chemical substance.
Chemically what causes the etched pits to appear is that the chlorine from the salt attacks the passive film of chromium oxide that normally protects the surface of stainless steel. Stainless steel gets its corrosion resistant properties through the addition of chromium. When exposed to oxygen the chromium in the steel oxidizes and forms a very thin layer of chromium oxide on the surface the metal. This layer prevents oxygen from going further into the steel preventing it from further oxidation (rusting).
Normally stainless steel isn't harmed by salt dissolved in water or by the chlorine found in tap water. However things are different when a grain of salt sits at the bottom of a pot. It will dissolve into chloride ions (along with sodium ions) that are concentrated against a small spot on the surface of the pot. What exactly happens then isn't entirely clear, I've read conflicting descriptions, but the reaction seems to reinforce itself causing the chromium oxide layer at that spot to be removed. This exposes the steel underneath to damage by both chloride from the salt and oxygen dissolved in the water.
(The Chemistry Stack Exchange has a question on how chlorine attacks stainless steel if you want a more scientific explanation.)
There's really nothing you can do or need to do fix the spots at the bottom of your pot. You can't remove something that's not there. A new chromium oxide layer has already formed over the pits and your pots is as corrosion resistant as before.


How to reheat pork belly: keep the crackling crackly? I cooked a kilo pork belly yesterday with a very nice crackling in a roasting pan with a rack so that the pork does not touch the pan. Once we had dinner, I put it in the fridge without covering (in the same tray with the rack I roasted it).

I have reheated pork belly in the past in a microwave but that just makes the crackling chewy. Is it possible to reheat pork belly without losing the crackling or over-drying the meat?

I would recommend separating the crackling from the meat and re-heating both separately. The meat can go into the oven (or the microwave), the crackling can go under the grill (aka broiler).


How can I save bread from mildew? Because of mildew we waste breads. How can I save breads from mildew?

You can eat it quickly, or you can freeze it. Keeping it in the fridge is sometimes an option but for bread that is to be eaten as bread (rather than toasted) you end up with stale/dry bread (safe but a poor texture).

Warm, humid rooms encourage bread to go bad more quickly, so you can sometimes get slightly better life by choosing your storage location carefully.


Can freezer jam not be frozen if sealed? I make my jam in sterile jars and use a freezer jam recipe. I then seal using a hot water bath for 15 minutes. I know you don't need to seal it but I always do. Something about it makes me feel safer especially if you gift it and they don't freeze it immediately. My question is can I leave it in the pantry on the shelf since I did seal it. The jam was only "cooked" during the hot water bath.

Only recipes from trusted sources should be used for shelf stable canning, as they are proven to produce a product with a sufficiently low pH to be safe when stored at room temperature.
The boiling water bath process is a way to create a vacuum seal, it is also a way to get the contents of the jar to near boiling for a certain amount of time, this will kill most microorganisms (any remaining will not be able to thrive in the low pH high sugar environment).
As you are not using a recipe specifically designed for a shelf stable product and you are not putting very hot jam/jelly into the jars prior to processing (you have no way of knowing how hot the center of the jam gets), your jam will not be shelf stable.


How to take care of Silicone cookware I am starting to collect various piece of Silicone cookware. I would like to find out how others keep their silicone cookware clean or if they try.

I put my Silicone cupcake tray into the dishwasher last night and sure enough its does not clean well and feels greasy still. In the past I just wipe it out and learn to ignore the greasy part. But it still makes me wonder.

Thanks!

You're doing all you can. When I first started using Silpats (love them) I noticed the greasy feeling after washing. I googled and googled but all I ever found was that this just seemed to be a fact of life. I personally wash mine in the sink, and I think it turns out better, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's just my imagination.

From what I can tell it does not affect the quality of my food. I'm also pretty sure that it's not "grease" per se, but probably just some feature of washing and using silicone regularly.


Is it safe to reuse steamer water? My youngest is a fussy eater, and we have problems getting him to eat vegetables.  Recently we've tried using a wide steamer and he likes it, because its wide enough to keep all the carrots from touching while cooking (yes - that's his reasoning)

However he also only eats carrots and broccoli when there's a trace of sugar in the steaming water - a teaspoon or so.

My wife is happy to leave the water in the bottom pot and let it cool, then reheat it the next evening.  I feel this is a bad idea but can't put my finger on why....  The water boils so it reaches temperatures that should kill anything bad.

What have we missed ?

Your wife probably thinks "It's just water and thoroughly boiled, so all is well.". Unfortunately, it is not.

If you look into your pot after the first use, you'll notice that the water contains traces of the vegetable, meaning it technically falls under the "food that becomes unsafe after 2/4 hours at 40-140 °F (4-60 °C)" category and should be refrigerated quickly or discarded. More on this on our canonical post on the topic.

Perhaps you argue that cooking will kill any "nasties" that might have grown since the day before, but while this may be true for most bacteria and fungi, it does not work for some of the toxins they produce. Boiling does not make unsafe food safe.

Weighing the cost of a bit of water and sugar agains the the risk of a child's health, I'd dump it and clean the pot every time.
You could put the pot in the refrigerator, but must heat and cool it as quickly as possible (keep in mind that the time is cumulative) - which sounds to me like a lot of excess effort and takes up a lot of refrigerator space.


Why Did the Duchess Potato Collapse? Thanks for the view. I wanted to make this (recipie):

Got this far (not quite as in the picture but OK for a test, didn't have the right size piping nozzle ):

And then when I put them in the oven they completely melted going down to a depth of about 10mm, here is a picture of a remnant:

In terms of supporting information my skill level is home cook, quite happy making a huge mess in the kitchen to get a delicious meal for four together in about 2 hrs that gets compliments such as that was better than I expected.
As far as the recipe goes I boiled the potatoes until they were easily pierced by a knife, returned to the stove to evaporate moisture, used a potato rinser, added the butter (recipe called for one cup for a kilo of potatoes), seasoned and stirred it together. I went a bit off the recipe by simmering fresh cream and sliced truffle instead of using heavy cream as it was what I had to hand. The mashed potato tasted great and was properly cooked, nothing seemed wrong at this point.
I then produced the examples seen above in the second photo and placed these in the fridge overnight before expecting to put them in the oven (220 Celsius / 428 Fahrenheit, 20 mins) the next day and have them come out the same shape but cooked, this did not happen.
I've no idea what sort of potatoes I used but I did specifically say to the lady in the shop that these would be used for mashed potatoes (located in Spain if this has any bearing) and she told me which ones were best. As such I'm pretty sure I didn't use the wrong potatoes and didn't miss any ingredients that would naturally explain why the potatoes melted down to a thin layer (baking soda [probably not], yeast [never heard of yeast in mashed potato]) I'm pretty sure I've made an error so rookie it just doesn't occur to me.
I would like to know why the potatoes became completely flat and how to prevent this in the future please.

Here is the recipe I followed as suggested in the comments:
1 Boil the potatoes: Place potatoes in a medium to large pot (3 qt) and cover with a couple inches of cold water. Add a couple teaspoons of salt to the water. Bring to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender (the tines of a fork easily pierce), about 20-25 minutes.
Did this
2 Melt butter, preheat oven: While the potatoes are boiling, melt 2 tablespoons of butter and set aside. You will use this butter to coat the potatoes right before they go in the oven. Preheat the oven to 425°.
Didn't do this, I brushed with olive oil, cold the next morning
3 Drain potatoes and let them release steam: When the potatoes are cooked, drain in a colander and put the potatoes back in the pot set over low heat. Allow them to release steam for a minute or so.
Did this but right after the potatoes were boiled
4 Mash with butter, then with spices and cream, then with salt and egg yolks: Add 2 tablespoons of butter and mash the potatoes until the butter has been incorporated. Add the nutmeg, black pepper, heavy cream and continue mashing the potatoes.
Didn't do this at all, instead I simmered sliced truffle and fresh cream for about 20 mins and stirred it in to the mash
5 Pipe onto a baking sheet, brush with melted butter: Using a piping bag with a large star point, pipe the potatoes onto a cookie sheet. Alternatively, you can just fill a casserole dish with the mashed potatoes, and use a fork to create lots of peaks on the surface.
Did this but used olive oil, not melted butter, piping nozzle was very small (8mm, star shape)
6 Bake: Bake in the 425°F oven until nicely browned, about 20 minutes.
Did this after leaving the finished piped potatoes in an oven dish in the fridge wrapped in cling film overnight

Substituting olive oil for butter may have been part of the problem. Olive oil is considerably thinner. "Fresh cream" may also have been problem, since (depending on country) things labeled as "cream" may contain significantly more moisture than heavy cream.
I don't think that letting the potatoes sit overnight would have been a problem. In fact, I would suspect it would work in your favor. But the big, heavy, cold glass dish would really work against you. The way these things are meant to "work" is that the surface rapidly dries and gels, keeping the shape while the heat spreads to the inside. In a metal dish, the bottoms would have heated and dried first, because the large area of the dish would have conducted heat to them. But your refrigerated glass dish would have held down the temperature on the bottom of the potatoes for much of the cooking process, as the mixture heated and thinned.
EDIT: I also see in comments that you left out the egg yolks. Don’t do that. They’re necessary.


What should go in an Italian Sub sandwich? I think its provolone, salami, ham, prosciutto, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, oil and vinegar.

But I know that is just one variation.

Is there a standard Italian sub that all are measured against?

I know of three ways for a recipe to become standardized, and I doubt that any of them applies to your sub.

The first one is: someone creates a recipe and is well-known enough for people to imitate him. Then it gets called the name he gave it originally. Example: Sachertorte. There is just one recipe for it, created by Franz Sacher, and any deviations are considered non-classic. I doubt very much that this is the case with your Italian sub, but there is a tiny chance that this is how it happened. It is what happened with "Italian beef" in America: obviously it is a known and imitated meal, at least in the Chicago area, but there was one restauranteur who started it, so you could say that his recipe is authentical. For more info on Italian beef, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yevJMRceuvE&feature=related (thanks to @hobodave for the link).

Second, you have a case a well-known meal of unknown origin, which everybody prepares the same way. At some point, a name sticks, and nobody knows why. This is what happened to the Wiener Schnitzel. Even though it is a well-defined recipe, and undeniably Austrian, cook books listed it under different names until at least the beginning of the 20. century. The recipe has so little variation, you can be always sure what the real Wiener Schnitzel is. As you say yourself that there are many variations of an Italian sub, this is clearly not the case here.

The third possibility is when a dish is prepared in many variations and there isn't a clear-cut name, but an established author comes along and codifies a taxonomy which becomes so popular that everybody starts to follow it. This is the case with French sauces. Even today, I know lots of people who confuse Hollandaise, Bearnaise and Mayonnaise. In fact, the stuff you can buy in a tube in a supermarket and is often eggless shouldn't be called mayonnaise at all. But since Carême wrote his work on French cuisine, and Escoffier elaborated it, cooks know that there is a difference a layman is often not aware of. This case supposes that there is a reference book recognized by the whole industry, and I am quite sure that nobody has written such a book on American cuisine. While I am sure that many have written books with such content, none has become influential enough to be considered canonical. So the Italian sub can't have become standard in that way.

If you can find more on the origins on Italian subs, there is some chance that you will strike a nice story like the one behind Italian beef. But it is much more probable that countless sandwich places just put the two or three Italian-sounding ingredients they have lying around in a sandwich and call it "Italian".

Oh, and to make it clear about the name: The fact that it is called "Italian" doesn't mean that it is a standard sandwich made in Italy. It is very common for food called after a country to be either totally unknown in the country itself, like this sub or Italian beef, or to be used for a single of many preparations known in that country - "Belgian chocolates" applies to a specific style of chocolate, no matter where it was manufactured, and you can find many different styles of chocolate in Belgium, the internationally known "Belgian chocolates" being only one of them. The sub sandwich is a very typical American meal, and while it is well-known around the world by now, giving one variation the name "Italian" shouldn't make you think that this is how Italians eat their sandwiches, or that all Italians eat their sandwich the same way, or that they have even heard about this specific sub.


Is it safe to remove the rings on jars for long-term storage of home-canned goods? Is it okay to store the canned goods without the ring screwed on it?  I know someone who removes the screwed rings off her jars once they're processed and then stores her jars with the seal lids only.

If the jars are properly sealed the vacuum in the jar and the waxed edge will hold the lid safely sealed. Undisturbed those jars will remain sealed until they are opened. The ring will reduce the risk of "unintentional" opening and that is really all the ring does. There are two real advantages to removing the ring once the seal is set.

If something spoils in the jar it is likely to pop the lid open. Spoilage would give off gasses that would increase the pressure inside the jar and break the seal. This is more obvious if the ring has been removed.
When it comes to juices, unintended fermentation is an issue. Even if raised to a temperature that is expected to kill yeast sometimes some of the little buggers get through and will ferment juices. Without the ring the fermentation breaks the seal. This prevents jars from exploding under pressure (yes, it can happen). I had a grandmother who would can grape juice, but did not want 'wine'. When the lids popped it identified the jars that had fermented, and which could be disposed (sometimes not the way grandma intended).

I prefer to leave the rings on as when the jars get stacked up in the pantry jars can get jostled and a lid may get accidentally opened, but there is nothing "wrong" with taking them off.


What is the hottest part of a chili/chilli/chile pepper? I often hear different points of view to this question - some say the hottest part of the chili is its seeds, yet I've heard some (arguably more believable) sources claim that the white part that holds the seeds to the flesh is the hottest.

What part of the chili fruit is the hottest?

The Wikipedia article on Capsicum reads, citing a FAQ on a page of the ollege of Agriculture and Home Economics of the New Mexico State University:

  Capsaicin is present in large quantities in the placental tissue (which holds the seeds), the internal membranes and, to a lesser extent, the other fleshy parts of the fruits of plants in the genus Capsicum. Contrary to popular belief, the seeds themselves do not produce any capsaicin, although the highest concentration of capsaicin can be found in the white pith around the seeds.

Cisneros-Pineda et al. measured via gas chromatography the content of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin in the pericarp, placenta, and seeds of seven cultivars of chili peppers and the results confirm this:

For dihydrocapsaicin, the difference is not so large, but the placenta still has a higher concentration.

In terms of concentration considering fresh mass the difference won't be as dramatic because while the seeds lose around half their mass by drying, the placenta will lose 90%.


Left Grill Knobs ON and LP Tank Valve OFF-Why did it mess up the tank where valve screws in? Scenario:  I left the KNOBS on my gas grill in the ON position.  I turned OFF the VALVE on top of the propane tank.

Now when I turn propane tank to ON via the valve on top of it, it spews hissing gas out through the area where the valve screws into the top of the LP tank. It is coming out around the actual threads of that screw in valve.

Someone please explain what might have happened.  Thanks.

(I am going to swap out the tank at the store where I got it, hopefully for free cause it was darn near full, but I am just very curious about what happened.)

The 2 parts to the question are unrelated.  The valve on the top of the tank will allow gas to flow to the grill when open.  The burner valves allow the gas to continue on to the burner(s) when open.  All the valves do is let the gas go by when open.  When you replace the tank YOU are making the connection from the tank to the hose which feeds the grille.  If gas leaks from that connection you have incorrectly made the connection.  It's likely you have improperly aligned the two pieces and believed that the connection was tight when it actually could not go any farther.  The grille instructions should say to check for leaks after changing the tank.  You can do this by mixing dish soap and water and applying with a brush or rag on the fittings with the valve open and the burners closed.  If there is a leak you will see bubbles form.  Then close the tank and fix the connection.  If you get stuck take pictures with your phone and show your propane people and they should be able to guide you.  PROPANE IS AN EXPLOSIVE GAS.  Keep the tank valve closed (turned clockwise all the way down) when not in use and if you're not sure what you are doing, DON'T!


Preheat and baking temperature I got a new otg and I found a bit of discrepancy with oven temperature.. When I preheat, the temperature is fine but after keeping the cake/ cookie, it shows a lower temperature.
Example:
I set it at 180°C and preheated for 20 mins - my thermometer records 180°C. After opening and keeping my trays inside, I set the timer (I did not change the temperature knob or the baking mode) and I see that it is 150°C. It's the maintained at 150°C throughout the entire baking process. Is there anything wrong with the otg or is it normal?

After opening the door the temperature is supposed to drop a few degrees since it's exchanging heat with the outside air (which is usually colder than in the oven...).

The cake batter should also absorb part of the heat put out by the oven, by heat transfer. So if your oven is very small (like an oven-toaster-grill), weak, leaking large amounts of heat (through openings or cracks) or you're putting a huge amount of really cold cake batter the temperature might not rise back to previous levels.

So I'd say it's not normal - at least I never saw such a large temperature drop for such a long time. Trying bake a smaller cake, or checking that the baked goods are not blocking the heating element or the air circulation inside the oven.

Try also putting your thermometer in a different position inside the oven and see what's the difference - maybe just part of the oven is not getting up to temp, since you said your cakes are baking fine.


What will happen if you bake seized chocolate into a batter? Melted chocolate is known to seize badly if it comes into contact with small amounts of water. Ideally, when wetted more and mixed, it should get better again, although I think I remember cases where this didn't work.

I wonder what would happen if the chocolate is supposed to be used in a cake batter afterwards. Has somebody had experience with this? Does seized chocolate bake into a nice smooth cake, does it create an unpleasant grainy cake, or is it somewhere in between? How much does the texture differ? Also, if there are noticeable differences, does it matter if the chocolate seized due to water contact or to overheating?

Using seized chocolate in a cake recipe is going to impact the texture of the cake. The chocolate can't distribute properly throughout the batter, and it won't incorporate cleanly during baking, so you will end up, at best, with inconsistent flavor (and possibly color, depending on other ingredients in the recipe) throughout the cake.

Using chocolate that seized because of contact with water is not as likely to produce a grainy texture and shouldn't affect the overall flavor (except as noted above). Overheated chocolate, however, will affect the flavor and the texture, giving the cake a slightly burned taste and a grainy/gritty texture.

In general, you're better off just starting over with the chocolate than trying to use it after it has seized.


how to cook nondescript venison in a cast iron pot so its tender? Imagine you bought a piece of venison (unknown which part of the body, and exact species unknown, but probably red deer), and I have only a Le Creuset cast iron pot to prepare it. What would be the procedure to have the best chance of the meat ending up tender and tasty? Frying is not allowed because of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), nor is any method which will cause these to form in high levels. But I don't want to end up with a tough, dry, difficult to eat piece.

Please post an exact procedure to cook it tender, including things you think are obvious, as I am not very experienced in cooking so maybe I am missing something obvious, and so it turns out tough and dry when I tried to braise it, and the longer I cooked the tougher it was.

it turns out tough and dry when I tried to braise it, and the longer I cooked the tougher it was

Then it is impossible to achieve what you want.

All "low and slow" methods overcook the muscle tissue, making it tough. At the same time, they melt the collagen in the meat, turning it into lubricating gelatine. The cooked meat then consists of muscle fibres embedded in the melted collagen, and is fall-apart-tender. You have probably had it as pulled pork or similar dishes. The requirement for this type of cooking: you need a high amount of collagen. If you don't, you will just end with the tough muscle fibres sticking to each other instead of swimming in collagen, so it will be one piece of tough meat.

How do you know that a piece of meat has enough collagen? You can use heuristics such as taking a look at it and recognizing the amount of connective tissue present, and also your knowledge about the animal and its parts (older animals and more supportive parts have more collagen). But the final test is cooking. If the longer you cook, the more tender the meat, it has enough collagen for low-and-slow. If it turns tougher, then it is not suitable for slow cooking.

The second option is hot-and-fast. It always produces AGEs. You excluded this.

The third option would be sous vide. As you 1) specified a cast iron pot, and 2) probably don't have a sous vide stick to suspend in that pot, and 3) don't know enough about the meat to look up the proper time and temperature even if you have the stick, that seems also out of question.

It seems that you need to buy some other meat. From there on, the proper procedure is to follow any recipe for low and slow cooking you choose.


Soaking fruits in fruit juice Can I soak fruits in fruit juice for a fruit cake? If yes, do I need to boil the juice? Thanks a lot.

Yes you can, but I'm guessing you want an esthetic effect somewhere in your recipe... maybe using the juice somehow as an after glazing effect or something like that? Post your true final purpose :)


Steaming while boiling food Can you use the steam from boiling one thing to cook something else?
E.g. Boiling potatoes and steam broccoli in the same pot at the same time.
Thank you!

Yes, if you have the right pot, namely one that has a steamer insert that is well above the bottom of the pot, or even stacks.
In fact, in several cuisines this is the standard way of getting several ingredients ready at once.  For example, it's common to steam couscous in the steam from the Moroccan stew cooking below, using a stacking pot called a couscousiere.
Just make sure that the food in the steamer will take less time to steam than the food below takes to boil.


where is the oil in a cumin seed? Apparently the whole cumin seed contains oil which the ground version doesn't.  However when I crunch one down I never notice any oil coming out.  Where is it? I would like it to mix with my cooking oil.

(if I read the question properly)
" I would like it to mix with my cooking oil."

If you want cumin flavored oil, you can simply steep the cumin seed in a neutral flavored oil.

You will have to experiment for quantities and steep times.

I'd crush some seeds, put them in a pan and add some oil (whatever quantity, start small) and slightly heat the oil and turn off the heat; let steep for a while until cool.
Use a fine mesh sieve to remove the cumin seeds from the oil.


Why did my sauce get lumpy after being frozen? Two months ago, I made a fish sauce (roux + milk + fish stock + lemon juice + cheese + mushrooms). I made way too much, so I decided to put a good amount (0.5 l / about 2 cups) in the freezer.

I wanted to use it this week, so I got it out of the freezer, and I put it in a sauce pan on a low heat, when it was still frozen. However, the result after it was fully heated, was not so good: it contained lumps (but not roux-lumps) so not at all the desired consistency.

Why/how did the lumps got there? Was it because I didn't properly defrost the sauce? Or was it a consequence of the freezing itself? What can I do to avoid this the next time?

There were no lumps when I made it.

Assuming your roux is flour based, the original recipe mixture was able to be a sauce because the proteins in the flour formed gluten and created that lovely thickness we enjoy (your seasonings sound like a nice combo). The water from the other ingredients are trapped in the gluten. Unfortunately, when you freeze it, the water molecules form sharp shapes like knives and cut your gluten strands. This isn't a noticeble problem until your defrost it.

It doesn't matter how quickly or slowing you defrost. The damage was done when it was frozen.

To work around this issue, you have to freeze it faster! Professional establishments can super freeze things super fast. Freezing faster will make smaller knife-shaped ice crystals and that reduces the damage.

TIPS:

freeze in smaller portions and shallower depth on a pre-frozen metal
cookie sheet.
Defrost and strain the sauce. Make a new roux and add the defrosted &
strained sauce. The flavor comes from the frozen sauce and the new
roux recreates the gluten.


Do I need a special recipe for mini cheesecakes? I found a bunch of mini pie tins on sale at the grocery store and decided that instead of a regular sized cheesecake I would make mini ones for Thanksgiving.

I've yet to decide on a recipe, whether to go with straight pumpkin cheesecake, a layered cheesecake, or a marbled, but I do know I want to make the smaller ones.

I know that it's unlikely, but do I need a specific recipe for the smaller cheesecakes, or will a full-size, but divided recipe work? Also, in the case of a full-size recipe, is it worth layering or marbling a mini cheesecake?

A full-sized recipe should be fine for putting the mini-cakes together. The taste of your cheesecake will stay the same regardless of size, so long as your ingredients are mixed well and you don't overfill the cups of your pan. Marbling shouldn't be a problem either.

You may want to watch your cooking time. The cakes will be smaller, so it won't take as much time in the oven to cook all the way through. I'd set the timer for half the time that the original recipe calls for. If the mini-cheesecakes aren't done by then, monitor very closely for the next couple of minutes. It won't take much more time than that.


How to remove olive oil stains from cotton/wool cloths? I think any cook have came across these nasty stains. What is the best home method of removing them from cotton/wool cloths? I know that the best method is to act proactive and wear protective clothing, but this has happened by accident after the meal was ready.

Thanks!

A surprisingly good way to remove oil stains (even that have set in and gone through the dryer) is using dish soap.  Rub it in, let it sit for a bit, and then wash it out.


Small black specks on wok food When I bake vegetables in my wok, I see small black specks appear on the vegetables. Does this mean that the fire is too high, or that my wok is not well enough prepared? How do I find out?

This could be either just soot - but assuming you clean your wok well between uses, it might be that the anti-sticking layer is coming off. If it's the latter, replace the wok - this stuff is pretty toxic when ingested.


can onions be caramalized completely in the microwave? If so, how? I've seen that you can precook onions in the microwave, discarding the liquid and then put them into a pan in order to quicken caramelizing process, with a bit of added fat of course to prevent sticking. Unfortunately, I've further cooking in the microwave past a certain point simply dries them out, but still fails to allow them to actually caramelize.

Would there be a method of getting microwaved caramelized onions that I might be missing? A product that produces browning? Addition of fat? Something else?

There are tricks with vinegars and other compounds, if what you are after is chemical breaking down of complex sugars into simpler sugars. Sure you can do this in microwave, technically, but it will never produce the flavor you get from contact heat. Microwave will boil and dry the ingredients. Vinegar acts helps to do this in a water solution – here I mean onion juice.

Or you can improvise with surrounding onions with oil – this way you will get microwave-powered deep fryer. This should produce contact-heat-like conditions and caramelization. But then deep fryer would be more energy efficient.

In other words – there is no substitute for contact heat.


Manual Grinder/Food processor do you know a tool that can grind hard things like raw chick peas but manually, I mean, without electricity. Maybe a windmill?

My goal is to make falafels.

The Wondermill Junior Deluxe claims that it will grind chickpeas, it's over $200 American. I've found several articles (example) that claim you can do it in a manual coffee grinder. Here's a reasonably priced, highly rated manual coffee grinder from Amazon. Amazon will let customers ask questions of others that have purchased a specific item. I asked if that particular grinder will grind raw chickpeas. I'll update this post if I get a credible answer.

EDIT: I did get an answer from somebody on Amazon who owns that particular coffee grinder. She tried it (just for you:) It didn't work. The beans were too hard for the machine.

Other articles recommend a meat grinder.

You mention a windmill though. Are you wanting to do huge amounts?

Another point of clarification: Are you grinding dry or soaked chickpeas? If you want to grind dry chickpeas, the coffee grinder is almost certainly the better option (although maybe not since this one didn't work at all). For soaked chickpeas, you'd probably be better off with the meat grinder. Since I've seen recipes for falafels starting either way, I can't know which way you are wanting to do it.


How do I prevent burned chicken breasts when cooking on the stovetop? Ok I'm going crazy with this. I've tried everything, but no matter what I do, it always results in my chicken breast burning and becoming black. Here is what I usually do:

Grab a chicken breast, wash it with water.

Next, I season it. I usually add salt, pepper, curry, and lemon pepper.

Then I grab a pan and I've tried these things to cook the chicken with:

Olive Oil
Vegetable Oil
Butter

All of them usually result in me burning my chicken. I set the temp at like 5.5/10 on the knob, so that it takes its time and doesn't burn. What am I doing wrong and what should I do instead?

I suspect the blackness comes from the spices you put on the chicken burning.

Try this technique I learnt from Jamie Oliver: Season your chicken as normal. Put the pan on a high heat until it's hot (not stupid-hot, just hot). Add olive oil and the chicken skin-side down. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, take a square of baking parchment or greaseproof paper big enough to cover the pan. Fold it in half until you have a 'folded fan' shape. Hold the point so it's roughly over the middle of the pan, and tear off any excess that goes over the side of the pan. Unfold and you should have a circle of paper. Scrunch it up, then run it under a cold tap and give it a shake.

Turn the chicken over, turn the heat to medium low, then place the wet paper (a 'cartouche') on to the chicken. Finally put a heavy pan lid (the lid from a casserole is ideal) on top. Cook for another 20 minutes.

The moisture in the cartouche helps keep the chicken moist and prevents it from burning. Cooking time will depend on the thickness of the breast, so do check it's cooked through before eating (cut it open and check it's not pink).


Why not blind bake with two pie plates? Based on this question, I got to thinking about alternative ways to blind bake, especially since I always have issues with butter crusts slumping.  One thing which occurred to me is: why not use two matched, nesting glass pie plates?  This would seem to provide maximum support to the crust, as it would exactly mirror the shape of the pie plate on the bottom.

I always thought that the reason why nobody does this is that the crust needs to vent moisture, so the weight on the inside needs some porousness.  However, Stella Parks uses aluminum foil filled with sugar, which would have no ventability at all.

So, my question is: is there any reason not to use a nesting pie plate as the weight for blind baking?  If so, what?

I use two nested pie plates all the time when I'm blind baking a crust, but glass plates don't work well. Glass plates actually have a much bigger difference between their inner and outer profiles than you might expect, so I usually use metal pie plates instead of glass because they nest a lot tighter (the thinner sheet metal stamped on a die allows for much more precise nesting).

Just be sure to dock the crust, ensure there is no gap between your pie plates and the crust itself, and remove the inner plate a couple of minutes before removing the crust from the oven to allow any excess moisture to escape and brown properly.


How to rice potatoes I was wondering if anybody know a method to rice potatoes without them turning into mashed potatoes.  When I do it to raw potatoes, they mush or just stay too crunchy and with cooked potatoes, just forget about it.  What I am looking for is discrete, small bits of potato that will still have a pillowy mouth feel.

One avenue that I haven't tried yet is starting from mashed, but I can't figure out a way to segregate the bits so that they won't reform into mashed potatoes once a fork hits them.

What an interesting idea. Essentially you're looking to make rice out of potatoes, yes?

I can see a couple of options. You could make potato orzo (a small pasta that looks like rice) I suppose; googling recipes for potato pasta should point you in the right direction.

You could also, I think use the reverse spherification method. Make mash as you normally would, and then put it through a ricer into an alginate bath. This should preserve the individual 'grains'. You will need to have milk and/or cream in the mash to ensure there is enough calcium for the alginate to react with.


How is King Arthur bread flour made? I checked out their website and other sources but could not find any details as to what their bread flour is actually composed of. Does it include both the bran and germ or is the bran removed? And if bran and germ are removed then how is it different from the all-purpose flour milled from high protein red wheat?

I suspect they add pure gluten powder to it

They make whole wheat flour, but their bread flour is definitely refined; it does not contain bran or germ. Their bread flour is milled from a specific hard red spring wheat from North and South Dakota. That particular wheat is higher in protein than the wheat and wheat blends of other brands of bread flour.

KA's whole wheat flour (not the white whole wheat) is also milled from hard red wheat, but it's unclear if it's the same "hard red spring wheat" as in the bread flour. The protein level is higher in the whole wheat flour than in the bread flour.

Notice that the bread flour is enriched (see the ingredients), as is required by US law for refined flours. The whole wheat flour is not enriched.

You might find this information regarding whole grains helpful: What is the meaning of the term whole grain? Notice from the graphic that there is not a lot of protein in the bran and germ.


Food safety concerns regarding cooked steak stored in the fridge I'm thinking of cooking some steak and storing it for later use in a cold salad. If I cook it to medium rare and cut it into strips and store it in the firdge, will it be safe to eat later? I know any bacteria mostly grows on the surface of the meat so that should be killed when cooked, but is there a higher danger of contamination on the now exposed, less cooked surface area?

If I put it in a clean container I'm guessing the pink parts are just as prone to further contamination as the outer surface.

If kept in this condition, how long should I expect this meat to stay good for in the fridge?

What would be different if we were talking about a partially eaten steak stored for later consumption?

As you mention, cooking the steak to medium rare does indeed kill the bacteria on the surface of the steak which is where most of the risk of contamination exists, so immediately after you've cooked the steak, if you eat it, you're probably pretty safe unless there happened to be bad organisms living inside the meat.

Assuming that you've got a good piece of meat, with nothing terrible inside it, after you cook the meat, what you need to worry about most is bacteria that you introduce to the meat, and so to answer your question, cutting meat shouldn't affect the safety of storing meat after cooking at all (as long as you use a clean knife/cutting board).

While cooking the meat does initially kill all of the surface bacteria, the fact that the surface was once cooked doesn't really do anything to deter new bacteria from moving in and going to town on the meat.  What this means is that you need to be very careful to keep meat in sanitary conditions regardless of whether the exposed surface has been previously cooked or not if you're planning to eat it without cooking it again.

So, to recap, if you take a piece of meat where all bacteria has been killed via cooking, and seal it without introducing new bacteria, you should be safe to eat it.

The one remaining issue is that we're not talking about a steak that's necessarily had all bacteria killed.  There's a possibility that some bacteria survived the cooking inside the meat.  If this is the case, you may be safe to eat the meat right away if there are very few of these bacteria present (depending on what they are), but the longer you wait - even if you seal the whole thing up - the longer you're giving those bacteria to multiply into large enough quantities that they can destroy the meat and/or sicken you.  To avoid this, you want to put the meat in the refrigerator, as soon as possible to slow bacterial action, and eat it as soon as possible.  Like John, I've had success with around 3-5 days, but it really depends on what you're starting with, so I'd highly recommend that you have a good look/sniff before you eat to see if there are any signs of spoilage and discard if so.  Again, this is a risk whether you cut the meat or not, so that isn't really a factor here.

Regarding partially eaten steaks, this is just introducing one more place where bacteria can get on the steak before it's sealed up and refrigerated.  I could see this being no issue (if you're cutting off a piece of the steak, and sealing/refrigerating the rest while eating), or a significant issue if you're cutting the steak with utensils that have been in your mouth, or worse, trying to store a piece of steak that's been in your mouth.  In those cases you're almost certainly introducing more bacteria and decreasing the amount of time you'll have before spoilage occurs.

So, in summary, cut the meat if you like - that should make no difference.  Get it sealed up as soon as possible without exposing it to anything non-sterile.  Put it in the refrigerator as soon as possible.  Throw it out if at any point you detect spoilage.  Following these steps you should be safe to keep your leftovers for 3-5 days and only rarely need to discard spoiled food.


Corned Beef in a slow cooker? I have my corned beef cooking in my crock pot for about 6 hours on low.  Should the meat be falling apart by now?  It is still one big hunk of meat.  I thought it would be ready in about 1.5 hours.  Should I bump it up to high?

Thanks!

This year, I slow cooked corned beef for about 8 hours in my crock pot.  The slow cooker was set to high for the first 4 hours and set to low for the last 4.  The meat didn't "fall apart" when I took it out, rather it kept its form and allowed me to slice it (against the grain).

I should mention that I had the corned beef submerged in a water/beer mixture during the entire cooking process.  I used 1 bottle of beer (optional) and filled the rest of the slow cooker with water until the beef was submerged.


Cooked pork left out overnight I left cooked pork out overnight. Will this present a danger? Since this morning when we realized it was out still, we have been refrigerating it ever since. Also we wonder if when reheating the meat if we heat it very well will that help kill any existing bacteria?

In these sort of circumstances, as the cooked pork would have been left out for an extended period of time, it would be safer to throw the meat out. Even if no visible mould is showing. The meat would have been sitting in the correct thermal conditions for bacteria to begin growing, which is 4-60 Celsius.

Although it is common to hear that re-heating will kill the bacteria, the produce of the bacteria, i.e. protein toxins, cannot be killed off and can cause damage to your health if ingested. It is better to be safe than sorry in situations such as these.


What is substitute for rum in baking? Some cake recipes calls for rum, and there is none available. How to substitute? If possible, it should be non-alcoholic.

Also, what is its role in baking or cooking?

The most accurate substitution would simply be rum extract. It is concentrated rum with a huge kick of flavor, and much less alcohol. A little goes a long way.

If you're going to stick with a strong liquor my first choice would be a bourbon, it's a similarly "sweet" liquor that tastes good in baking. Another good option would be cachaça.

If you're avoiding liquor, then you may be able to use vanilla extract. Non-alcoholic varieties are available. According to Ochef you can also use molasses thinned with pineapple juice.

The rum is used simply for flavor.


Marinara Sauce recipe I've been trying cook Marinara Sauce for a while now, I visited the states and had that sauce in their pizza hut. When I got back i tried cooking the same Pizza hut Marinara sauce but can never get the same taste or anything close aha. The only thing I have been able to do is get the texture and consistency right.

I have been looking at copycat ingredients but they haven't seemed to do the trick, or maybe it's just me? The recipe i am using is written below:

1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce

1⁄4 cup water

1 teaspoon sugar

1⁄4 teaspoon dried oregano

1⁄4 teaspoon dried basil leaves

1⁄4 teaspoon dried thyme

1⁄4 teaspoon garlic powder

1⁄4 teaspoon salt

1⁄8 teaspoon black pepper

1 whole bay leaf

1⁄2 teaspoon lemon juice

Does this seem correct? Thanks for the help in advance. :)

Some things I can see:

  1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce

You want to use good canned whole peeled tomatoes. Put them in a bowl, get your hands in there, and crush them very finely. But you have to let that tartness cook out a bit.

  1 teaspoon sugar

Try very finely grating 3/4 cup (about one) peeled carrot instead of using sugar. The sugar isn't doing what you think it's doing if you're just tossing it all in together. Very finely grate it, you shouldn't be able to see it in the sauce, you're just grabbing the sweetness.

  1⁄4 teaspoon salt

Start with that, you're probably going to need more.

  1⁄4 teaspoon garlic powder

You probably want to use toasted minced garlic, crushed using a mortar - or use a few cloves of fresh minced garlic instead.

Here's what I recommend:

Start with a large can of whole peeled tomatoes. Get them in a bowl, crush them. Finely grate one whole carrot into the tomatoes, set aside. Taste them; notice that sour, sort of tartness? It's your job to get rid of that.

Get an appropriately sized sauce pot going over medium heat. Crush your dried thyme into it and let it wake up in the pot for about a minute. Pour in the crushed tomatoes and carrot mince, bring to a boil then lower the heat. Let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Taste it - you want the tartness cooked out of those tomatoes. If it's still tart, give it another 15 minutes. And even another, depending on the tomatoes that you used. When it's not tart any longer, Add your salt, pepper, bay leaf and garlic. Stir and let simmer for a few minutes more. Taste again, adjust for salt. Make sure you cook out that tartness.

Let it gently bubble on medium-low heat, don't touch it for 30 minutes.

Again, taste for salt. If you can't clearly taste tomatoes, or if it tastes sweet, add salt a pinch at a time. Salt, here, is what makes those tomatoes the star of the sauce. Too much and you ruin it, too little and it's bland or sour.

You may or may not want to add more water at this point to thin it out. If you add more water, walk away after doing so and then come back in 15 minutes. Taste again for salt.

Let it cook another 20 - 30 minutes on medium-low heat. It should just be bubbling. Do a final taste - add sugar or salt if you think it needs it, add the basil and oregano then let it cook for another 15 minutes, and it should be ready to go.

Grate in some parmesan (but if you do, hold a little salt back in previous steps, as parmesan is salty).

That should get you pretty close. There's a conspicuous lack of onion here, I'm not sure if you're omitting it intentionally. If not, finely chop and saute one medium onion in a bit of olive oil until it turns translucent before you add the thyme or tomatoes. And, if you use fresh garlic, get it in there with the onions.


Yeast rolls spread when rising I make yeast roll dough in my bread machine, then form them into rolls and let them rise. They are delicious but when rising they seem to spread out and not rise very high. What can I do to make them taller?

Most baked rolls are placed closer together to encourage rising, and limiting horizontal spreading.


How to prevent my marshmallows from melting in my hot cocoa? Whenever I make a hot cocoa, adding powdered cocoa in a hot water (not boiling), and add my marshmallows in it, the marshmallows just melts until they are completely gone. I really want to feel the mushy marshmallows melt in my mouth, not in my cocoa.

How can I prevent my marshmallows from melting in my cocoa?

Marshmallows will dissolve ("melt") in your hot cocoa for the same reason that they "melt" in your mouth: both provide heat and moisture. If you could somehow treat the marshmallows so that they didn't dissolve in the cocoa you wouldn't get the desired effect in your mouth either. It comes down to a matter of timing: how can you keep the marshmallows intact until you drink the cocoa?

I can think of three options:

Drink the cocoa more quickly.
Use larger marshmallows.
Add more marshmallows as necessary.

It's not clear from your question exactly what kind of marshmallows you're referring to. I suspect that you're talking about the crunchily dehydrated "micro-mini" marshmallows that come in a packet of hot cocoa mix. Call me a snob, but those things hardly qualify as a "marshmallow" at all; you should perhaps be happy that they dissolve, or else sift them out of the mix and throw them away! If you like them, though, you'll be happy to know that you can buy more: Amazon carries 12 oz. bags of dehydrated micro-mini marshmallows, and adding a spoonful to your cup when you're ready to drink should solve the problem.

If you feel like an upgrading your brew, pick up a bag of mini marshmallows and add a handful of those. Minis should be large enough to last for quite a while, and since they're not dehydrated they'll be somewhat sturdier in the cup. Marshmallows come in a number of sizes... if the minis don't last long enough for you, go with a few standard sized (approximately 1 inch) marshmallows. I've seen jumbo marshmallows in the store lately, but you'll probably need a larger cup if you want to have any room left for the cocoa. Try one of these lovelies.


Thick Chocolate Sauce Is it possible to do something with chocolate so that it does not get hard anymore so that its consistency gets something like the caramel in a mars/snickers bar? What precisley would I have to do to achieve that?

Perhaps a thick ganache might meet your demands. It wouldn't be as sticky as caramel though. But take a look at this question. It mentions adding some honey and butter to the standard ingredients, cream and chocolate.

If you have questions on how to make ganache, watch this video or one of the many others available on the internet. Simply said, heat up heavy cream and pour it over chopped bittersweet chocolate. Stir till all the chocolate is melted and you have a nice, smooth consistency. For your purpose, use at maximum the same amount of cream as chocolate. Add some more chocolate if it's too runny. But know that the ganache will become harder/thicker when cooled.


Is the yellow skin of a raw chicken indicating that it has been dyed? Yellow skin in raw chicken is seen is some parts of Mexico and I was wondering if that color is obtained using dyes. I've done lots of research both online and asking people who have knowledge about raising chickens but have received a lot of conflicting information.

To be clear, this is the kind of yellow I'm referring to:

So far, I have found the following things, which some contradict each other:

The yellow skin is caused by eating marigolds.
The yellow skin is caused by dipping the chicken in hot water and removing quickly.
The skin is dyed yellow due to cultural reasons.
The skin is dyed yellow to help with gutting the chicken.
The skin is dyed yellow to give it a more tasty look.
The yellow skin is caused by eating grass.
The yellow skin is caused by eating special bird feed to puff up the chicken.
The yellow skin is caused by eating carotenoids.

Does anyone have more information about what really is causing this intense yellow? I'd appreciate a paper, research or official information so I can use this to stop the spread of misinformation among my local community.

The skin is yellow probably because the chicken was fed with maize.
Age and race of the chicken are a factor, too.

In Germany (and propably Europe) you can explicitly buy „Maishähnchen“ that is fed purely with maize.

If you compare this with the standard grain (wheat) fed chicken you can see the distinctive difference in Color


Chili pepper size vs heat Does the size of the pepper have any affect on how hot/spicy the pepper will be?
ex. Is a smaller ghost pepper less hot than a ghost pepper twice its size?

As an overly broad generalization, yes, smaller peppers tend to be more spicy.

To answer in more detail, the heat in peppers comes from a molecule called capsaicin. The concentration of capsaicin is what determines how spicy peppers are relative to each other.

Incidentally, this is also how spiciness can be measured. The Scoville Scale is a measure of how many times you need to dilute the pepper's capsaicin before it is no longer detectable by taste. While this is subjective, it's a decent point for comparison between different varieties.

Larger peppers like bell peppers or banana peppers are low on the Scoville Scale (0 & up to 500 Scoville Heat Units respectively), while smaller peppers like Serranos (up to 25,000 SHU) and Habaneros (up to 350,000 SHU) are usually much hotter. Thus you have a trend with smaller peppers being hotter.

NB: Scoville units per pepper listed as 'up to xx', as there can be huge variations dependent on things like soil composition and climate. This is why you can get some Jalapenos that aren't terribly spicy, but then get others that are (relatively) really hot. SHU listings from Wikipedia.


Cooling cooked onions before adding to raw mince In Masterchef The Professionals (season 8 episode 11), Marcus Wareing demonstrates his skills test and cooks a burger. In the process, he rapidly cools the onions after sweating them by placing them on a freezing tray. Would it make a noticeable difference to skip that step? I never did this and my burgers did not fall apart as he suggests. Is there some other reason for doing this?

You can see the episode here (skip to 17:30).

I don't buy his reasoning, though I don't know for sure. So, if someone knows better, I am happy to be corrected. However, I do have two theories:  1.  I suppose it is possible that the heat from the onion will start melting the fat in the ground meat...but would that keep it from holding together?  I doubt it. Plus, that looked like a fairly lean mixture.   2.  I could see cooling the onion as a safety precaution, in the event the burger wasn't going to be cooked right away.  I think this is a much more plausible reason to cool burger additions.


Why do turkey tail mushroom experts say to tear up the turkey tail, and not powder it? I've seen a few videos on making turkey tail mushroom tea, and they suggest ripping it up. Why rip it up, and not blend it into a powder so you can have the whole mushroom effect?

We have a few Q/As about cinnamon in liquids ([1], [2] et al.) that can help answer your question:

If you grind the mushrooms to a powder, it will form a sludge in hot water that is nearly impossible to filter out and likely unwanted in a “tea”. Without personal experience I can not say for sure (but strongly suspect) that the flavor profile is different than from small pieces - but the phenomenon is known for example from black tea, where different leaf / cut sizes or amount of “dust” matter. From what I heard of turkey tail mushroom tea, it’s rather bitter and that’s likely even more so if cut super finely or powdered. If the majority of sources recommend tearing them up, it’s probably the best balance of extraction, flavor and texture. But you can always run a few experiments yourselves and decide according to your taste and preferences.

If you want the “full” mushroom compounds, you could look into other preparations, e.g. powder in capsules, but that’s way outside this site’s scope.


Bread breaks in the middle while in the oven Would like to ask a question based on your experience in bread making. We have made in our house several loafs of bread in various shapes and sizes and with many different methods, manually, robot assisted, etc. Right now, the one we are doing involves Bio German Spelt 630 flour, water, olive oil and powdered baker's yeast. the only thing we don't place is anything with any gluten (or at least that has anything beyond just a very tiny portion of it) They all come out yummy :)

So what is the problem? Well they all break in the middle of it when they grow and are baking, even in the English cake tin we are currently using for it. It's really frustrating because we have used several recipes, oven temperatures, metal and silicone based utensils, everything.

Is it related to low gluten and the fact it's obviously not as elastic as your normal wheat bread?

Thanks in advance.

Alban

I would like to clarify a couple points from the question and the comments here.  First of all, remember that flour (wheat or spelt) does not contain gluten.  Gluten only forms as a complex protein once two simpler proteins in flour, gliadin and glutenin, are hydrated.  And while not all of the protein in flour will form gluten in the presence of water, the overall protein content in flour is usually used a  proxy to represent the gluten-forming capability of the flour.  So flours that are higher in protein typically form more gluten in the presence of water and kneading.

Now, having said all that, spelt 630 flour actually contains much more protein (~16%) than wheat 812 bread flour (~13%).  While 3% protein content might not sound like much, it makes a significant difference when making bread.

Again, your spelt 630 flour will generate MORE gluten in your dough than a typical bread flour.  It is considered a high-protein flour.

I would suggest that much of your problem might stem from over-kneading your bread.  Gluten in dough is a bread's best friend only up to a point.  If your gluten network in the dough is over-established, your baked bread will bake-up dense and dry and could conceivably split through during baking.

So a dough with overdeveloped gluten would be something like the proverbial hardwood tree in a storm - the tree that breaks because it doesn't bend.

While I believe the scoring point made above is absolutely relevant, I don't think an un-scored loaf would split through if there wasn't a problem with the bread dough itself.

I think the best solution to your splitting problem would be to mix-in some different lower protein flours to drop the protein content of the spelt flour.  If that option is off the table, then consider kneading much less (probably stay away from the mechanical kneading unless you're making batches too large to manage by hand).  If you can manage the kneading by hand, you should feel that magical dough elasticity that signals when it's time to stop.


Why is my Aji Gallina not yellow? After a recent trip to Peru, once back home, I have tried to make one of their typical dishes, Aji Gallina.
I have compared about a dozen recipes from various sources, and the one I used is quite typical. The result tasted great, and everything worked well, except - it was not as yellow as we got it everywhere in Peru. The color of the sauce was more grayish with a slight yellow touch, not very appetizing really - it looked more like melting snow/slush.
Edit: I did have original aji amarillo peppers in it, and they were quite yellow.
What am I doing wrong?
Do they use food coloring in the tourist restaurants in Peru (or maybe all the time, also for home cooking)?
After some googling I found that some people recommend to add turmeric. I'll try that (I like turmeric) but I doubt this that will make that yellow.

The picture shows the typical yellow/orange coloring as seen in Peru.

Don't doubt that turmeric will turn anything yellow. It doesn't take much T. for an extremely bright, fluorescent yellow.


Alternative for Celery salt and Coconut flour I'm trying to make this recipe:
http://www.platedwithstyle.com/2015/03/01/cajun-garlic-butter-shrimp/

I know i can find "substitues" for celery salt and coconut flour online
but I want to know if i can use regular salt and all purpose flour for this specific recipe?

The "celery" component of the salt is just there for flavor, and shouldn't affect how the dish cooks. Celery has a deeply vegetal flavor that can enhance others in the dish (hence why you see it in many soups, stews, and braises) but there's enough else in this preparation that you probably won't miss it much.

I wouldn't try to use regular flour, though. The coconut flour is being added here at the last minute to thicken the dish; regular flour will do this too, but unless it's cooked for several minutes it will retain a grainy, bready flavor. You might want to try a different common substitute like cornstarch, which thickens quickly and has a neutral flavor (it's also used in many American Chinese recipes). Whatever you do, be sure to follow the advice in the recipe and add it in very slow sprinklings, stirring in between so that it doesn't clump.