How do I keep dough moist while rising? If I'm rising dough for a really long time (at home), what techniques are there for keeping the surface moist?  What I'm finding is that the crumb comes out as I'd like (very aerated, mature), but that the top forms a skin, causing the side to burst despite scoring on the top with a razor.

The best recommendation I have seen is plain plastic wrap. If you have an oil mister, mist the wrap before using it. If you don't, pour oil into a bowl, enough to form a puddle, and toss your ball of dough in the oil. Then transfer your dough to the rising container (if you use the same bowl you used for oiling, take the dough out, pour out the superfluous oil, return the dough into the bowl). In the best case, the bowl will be deep enough for the dough to rise without the middle touching the wrap, but if it rises more (even with the dough pressing against the wrap), dough with enough gluten development will peel off the oiled wrap with minimal losses, even if it is wet.

The wrap will keep your dough surface moist in both the fridge and outside. It doesn't allow breathing, but this shouldn't be a concern in most cases. If you overyeast the dough, the collection of fermentation byproducts in the bowl will probably make for worse taste than if they are allowed to dissipate, but the correct solution for this problem is to not produce them in the first place. With your "very long times", this is probably not a problem in your case.

You can also use this method for the secondary fermentation. But in the final proofing stage, you have to make sure that your dough never rises enough to touch the wrap, or else the loaf will deform while you are removing the wrap. Also, if you are proofing in banettons, don't oil them, use flour combinations to prevent sticking.

If you are out of plastic wrap, substituting alu wrap is a bad idea, because yeast is very sensitive to metallic ions. Today's non-reactive metal utensils are safe enough for use with yeast dough, but untreated aluminium can be problematic. Try baking paper instead (you may have to tape it to the outer bowl walls).


What approach can be taken to create a sugar free Butterfingers clone? How could I make a sugar free version of butterfingers candy? I’m asking because I’m a diabetic. So any advice on this matter would be appreciated big time!

I think what you'd need is actually a sugar-free hard candy recipe - something like isomalt, or erythritol, with additional sweetner.  The crunch in butterfingers candy is actually thin thin sheets of sugar crystals, folded around, separated by and layered with peanut butter.   There are a number of sweets that use the same basic principle, using fats keep layers of sugar separate in fragile layers instead of staying in chunks or dispersing smoothly.

For a basic technique, you would need the hard candy recipe in a half-molten, taffy-like consistency, it needs to be soft enough to fold but sturdy enough to keep together.  When you add the peanut butter, you would use a flat spatula to mix, so that the candy would stretch and tend to lay in flat layers as it's being folded.

You would need to fold a lot - the more layers, the thinner each layer is (think how thin the layers in a butterfingers is, thousands and thousands), and although it is pretty messy at first, more layers means more surface area for the peanut butter to cling to instead of sloshing around in puddles, until they're not separating much if at all.  Once it's pretty well folded, the mix can be spread out into a pan and let cool.  The more carefully you fold, the more consistent and even the layers will be - but if you just want some crunch, a fairly sloppy technique should still get the job done.

You can warm the ingredients if it cools too much while mixing, you just have to be careful not to overheat, lest it turn into a smooth mixture instead of staying in layers.  Obviously the warmer the mix is the easier it will be to manipulate and fold, and the cooler the more likely to stay in layers instead of intermix - that's why the taffy stage is best.

Of course, this is a very basic explanation of just the technique - you would do better to find a sugar-free hard candy, and substitute it into a proper butterfingers clone recipe for things like amounts and ratios, not to mention supplementary ingredients.


Is there a term for the differentiating effects on loaves of bread? Say you make several loaves of bread which look very similar. You can put oatmeal on the white whole wheat, sesame seeds on plain white, poppy seeds on gluten free and cross hatches on rye. Is there a special term for the differentiating effects used when several varieties of bread are presented at one time?

The pattern of cuts on a loaf's crust is usually referred to as "slashing" or "scoring". I've never heard the seeds referred to as anything other than the bread being "seeded". I don't think that there would be a term for differentiating between breads using these techniques, as at most bakeries, differentiation is almost the entire purpose of using these techniques.


Do I need to clean an oven that's not been used in 10 years? My house has a built-in oven that I've never used since I moved in ~10 years ago. (I prefer to use the oven function of a combi-microwave.)

My wife, who has just moved in with me, wants to use the big oven but I'm rather worried about safety since its been standing there untouched for so long.

Assuming the thing even works, should I have it cleaned first?

(It's a fan assisted electrical oven.)

It should be fine to use.  It is probably dusty, perhaps greasy from other kitchen sources.  If it's self cleaning, go for it (and avoid using any harsh cleaners) It might get smoky at first, so you should have ventilation possible (window, fan, or whatever)
If not self cleaning, give it a good wiping-out with an ammonia based cleaner or use commercial oven cleaner(nasty stuff). If its possible that you have mice, you should probably make sure that they aren't nesting in the cabinet- get a technician if you aren't comfortable removing panels, etc. And buy an oven thermometer to check the oven thermostat. Self-cleaning or not, it will probably be smoky at first. Good luck.


Why do my snickerdoodles always come out flat? I've made a lot of variations of snickerdoodle recipes and I always seem to get the same results. I can make a thick chocolate chip cookie but snickerdoodles vex me. No matter what recipe I try, they always come out flat like this:

My oven is calibrated, my baking soda is fresh, and all of my ingredients are weighed. I preheat my oven and then wait 30 minutes until after my oven says it's up to temperature. I chill the dough 30 minutes before putting it on the sheets. This recipe I made today (results shown in the picture) is a merge of Cook's Illustrated's and Baked's (which were mostly similar anyway) but no recipe has ever given me the tall, fluffy cookie pictured in the cookbook:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2 3/4 cups AP flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs

The method is the standard creaming method.
Roll the 1.5 inch balls in a sugar/cinnamon mix.
Bake in oven for 9-11 minutes, rotating halfway through.

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

FWIW, the flavor is great, and if I fold them in half, the texture's great too. :-) Per request, here's a picture from Baked's cookbook that has results I'd like:

While I haven't made this specific recipe before, I have made the Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen recipe many times. As you say, it is very similar - it uses slightly less flour and it uses white sugar exclusively.

One thing I will say - Snickerdoodles are, in general, pretty flat cookies. There are dozens of photos out there that show this to be the case. This site follows the CI recipe and you can see that they're pretty flat from the image at the top of the page:

This recipe does not turn out cookies that look like the ones in the photo you've posted. Never has in the 5+ years I've been making them. The tiny changes in flour and sugar are unlikely to have that much of an effect on the outcome.

Now, I do think that you may have a bit of trouble because they do seem a bit flat, even for snickerdoodles.

I find the biggest error that gets made with this cookie is overbaking. To stay soft in the center, these need to be just barely baked, the edges just beginning to darken and crisp. The only brown on the underside of the cookie should be from the cinnamon.

If they look undercooked in the middle, that's good. Generally, when I bake them, they get really shallow at the edges and have a poof in the center, which flattens out after baking.

If they have any snap after fully cooling, they're overbaked.

It is also possible that the overcrowding is part of the issue. When the cookies glom into one giant cookie, they can't cook all around evenly, so the signal to look for I've mentioned (and that is mentioned in the recipe) to tell that the cookie is done can be either delayed or never come at all... which means it's easier to leave them in too long.

Bake times are averages. You really need to use them as a guideline and focus instead on the signals the cookies give, like fragrance, browning, and shape.


Honeycomb in honey - how long does it last? I've got some nice honeycomb (submersed in honey) in a big jar, but the "best before" date was over 4 months ago! I was saving it for a year or two. Just realised the date is gone.

Any possibility it's still OK? Any way I can be sure?

Background for people who don't know much about expiration dates:
Often expiration dates on food ("use by", "expires" or "best before") err on the conservative side, as the food producers can't guess very exactly when the food will turn bad.

So sometimes I'll eat a jar of something that lasts for 3-4 years on the shelf as much as a month or two after the date (expecially if it's a "best before" date, as that has a different meaning (by convention and possibly regulation, IIRC). But this is a bit long for me, so if anyone has some experience or good science for me...

Forever.

Honey, comb present or otherwise, does not go bad. It even acts as a preservative. The date you are seeing is solely referring to the "quality" degradation.

Completely edible honey has been found in 3,000 year old Egyptian tombs.


Why Do Bagels Take Longer To Toast Than Regular Bread? My brother's been bringing over fresh bagels in the morning.  I've noticed that it takes nearly twice as long for a bagel to develop a toasted surface than a regular slice of bread.  Why is that?  This is a bagel split in half, mind you. One would also think that since a bagel half is taller in height than a slice of bread it is closer to the heating elements in my toaster oven which should hasten toasting, but no. I tend to think that it has something to do with the chemical/molecular makeup of the respective doughs.  Can anyone shed some light?

Toasting is a form of browning, and browning requires temperatures in the neighborhood of 300 F (150 C…see Maillard reaction). There are at least two things that impede this progress when toasting a bread product: mass, and water.
The more mass the bread has, the more heat is required to be absorbed to raise the temperature of the bread by some amount. So naturally, a thicker, often denser bagel will require more heat to toast than a thinner, less-dense slice of sandwich bread.
Of course, a significant amount of the mass is water, and water at the surface of the bagel or other bread will prevent the temperature of the bread from reaching the level needed for browning. Heat must be applied long enough to drive off enough water to allow the temperature to rise high enough; there is more water stored in the thicker, denser bagel than in regular bread slices, and it takes time for enough of this water to work its way out of the bread that the surface can toast. †
Of course, a bagel also has a thick, relatively impermeable side which limits how much water can leave that side. So as the bagel heats up, moisture which is being driven off preferentially exits the sliced side. So not only is there more moisture to remove, the moisture isn't as free to move as it would be for sliced sandwich bread.
In other words, bagels need more total heat input to achieve the browning that is "toasting".
A typical toaster does not provide a way to control the level of heat during toasting. The main parameter that can be adjusted to account for toasting is time. I.e. to achieve the same total amount of heat input and subsequent toasting, an increased amount of time is required, because the same level of heat is being applied.
It is likely that a toaster could be designed that uses a variable amount of heat output according to the toasting setting, and which could toast a bagel in the same amount of time as thinner sandwich bread slices. But a higher heat level offers a much faster toasting over all and thus a narrower range of time for the right level of toasting. I.e. it'd be a lot easier to apply too much heat and burn the bread. The heat level for toasters seems to be designed to provide a good, user-friendly speed of browning, so that the casual user can easily achieve the desired level of browning without too much variability and over-toasted bread.

† Note: one might assume that because of the boiling step used to cook bagels, they might absorb additional water during that step and thus have more water to be removed during toasting. A logical assumption, but one which turns out to be incorrect. Little or no water is absorbed during the very brief boiling of the bagel:

Boiling breads like bagels and pretzels effectively sets the crust before it goes in the oven. The water doesn’t actually penetrate very far into the bread because the starch on the exterior quickly gels and forms a barrier.

The starch on the exterior quickly gels and forms a barrier. This keeps the water from penetrating very far into the bread.

no, the type of water used for boiling has no effect on the flavor because the dough doesn’t absorb any liquid as its surface hardens.


oil disappearing from pan I have an aluminium hard anodized non stick pans. When I use oil for sauteing, it many times disappears - For example when i fry shallots or eggplants. Is this normal? Even if I use a large amount of oil, it still disappears, presumably into the vegetables. This leads both to the vegetables getting too oily, and for the need to use more oil once I start sauteing a new vegetable.

Simply put, your oil isn't hot enough. If you add vegetables to cold oil in a cold pan and then heat everything up, your veggies (or just about anything else) will soak up the oil. Heat the oil in the pan until it starts to shimmer and a drop of water sizzles, dances and disappears. THEN add your veggies.  The very definition of "saute" comes from "to jump and to dance". It's all about the hot oil. Be wary of your oil's smoke point, don't let it burn, but get it good and hot.

EDIT: A friend in chat dug up this video. I like that it shows using water to test the heat of the oil. If you're trying to brown slices of eggplant, the way she treats shrimp is very similar to how you want to handle eggplant slices. Stir-frying is a different technique, but the hot-oil rule remains the same. Saute Video


How to clean grease efficiently? I've started frying recently, but already the grip of the basket has become sticky with oil, grease or whatever you call it... I've put the basket in the dishwasher, but with no effect. I guess it could be cleaned without effort with ammoniac, but that's a substance I'm not to fond of.

Any suggestions, apart from elbow-grease?

If you can find it, the best stuff is industrial Viking degreaser or oven cleaner, undiluted.  It's what we use in restaurants, because a tiny amount will dissolve even the toughest grease with minimal scrubbing.  It's toxic and corrosive (it'll do to skin what it does to grease), so use it carefully and rinse very well, but the stuff is magic.

Positively magic -- spray a little on and then use a pot sprayer and the grease and grime just rinses off.  I swear they suck the souls from babies to power the black magic contained in those bottles.

Failing that, a prolonged soak in boiling hot water with a ton of concentrated dish soap will loosen grease.  "Magic eraser" scrubbing blocks work wonders for scrubbing off grease too, and take less elbow grease than the other scouring things.

Note:  degreaser is not for normal use on pots and pans, just for hard to clean greasy buildup, such as you see on ovens, stovetops, and friers.


How do I remove aluminum foil from the bottom of my oven? I had this brilliant idea to put aluminum foil at the bottom of my oven while I cooked pizza at very high temperatures. I was hoping it would catch any toppings that fell off so I could quickly remove them and prevent smoke. The result is that the foil bonded to the oven and now I'm not sure how to get it off. Any chemicals or tools I should use in this situation?

That looks a lot like melted aluminum.

I'd use a solution of sodium hydroxide to dissolve it; probably won't even hurt the oven paint.

Easy Off Heavy Duty Oven Cleaner is NaOH based, so that'll probably work for you, and is easier to find than straight lye nowadays.
Just follow the directions. If the aluminum is thick, you may have to do things twice.

Other brands of oven cleaner will likely work as well as long as they contain sodium hydroxide (lye). It will help A LOT for you people who need aluminum foil off your oven!


What is the diference between a quinoa burger, a quorn burger, and a soya burger? I would like to know, what is the difference between a quinoa burger, a quorn burger, and a soya burger? Are their ingredients all different, or are some of these in common to the above? What about the industrial preparation process? And are quinoa and quorn just brand names of soya?

The differences are as follows:

Quinoa is a pseudocerial coming from goosefoot wikipedia. It is one of the trendy "superfoods" because it has a very high nutritional value ánd is gluten free. I have always used it as a grain substitute and do not know if it's any good as the main ingredient for a burger.

Quorn is a meat substitute made of mycoprotein from fungus. wikipedia. In my personal experience quorn is a very acceptable substitute for ground beef, so a burger made of this material is likely to taste pretty decent.

Soy is a plant material traditionally used for instance in tofu. It has long been used as a meat substitute due to the high protein content. In my humble opinion it has been surpassed by other meat alternatives, mainly because soy based meat alternatives lack in texture.

All very different products then, where most likely the only common factor is the spicing.


Tips for cooking a whole lamb in a fire pit? A while ago we tried to cook a whole lamb in a fire pit.  Basically we dug a pit about 2-2.5 feet deep, lined it with rocks to try and retain the heat, made a large fire in it, and started to drink.  Then when the fire had died down a bit we lined the fire with some damp straw, put in the hessian wrapped lamb, put more damp straw on top then covered the whole thing with earth and left for 24 hours.

When we dug it up, the lamb was done beautifully on the fire side, but raw on the top.

What might we have done wrong, apart from getting drunk whilst the fire was burning?  Has anyone done this before and what are the things that we should bear in mind if we do it again?

In the past when I've cooked in the ground I put rocks into the fire. Don't really know what sort of rocks, but I've been involved in sessions that use bricks.

Point is that you needs some way to "envelope" the heat around the thing you are cooking so what we did was put the rocks into the fire to heat them up.

Carefully remove the rocks before putting the lamb in and then put the hot rocks on top of the hessian covered meat before putting the dirt back on top.

Let it sit for a while and you should get a much more even result


How long should I keep something in the freezer to chill it? I once placed a can of beer in the freezer for an hour. It did not freeze, and it was great.

However, now I need to cool some whipped cream (un-whipped), and the packet says I need to keep it in the fridge for 24h. But I don't have that long; and I'm worried that keeping it for 1h might be too long.

Is there a rule of thumb (perhaps in relation to weight), or do you have experience with how long I should keep this in the freezer?

One could probably figure it out, but imagine the variables:  (a) temperature of the liquid before entering the freezer, (b) volume of liquid, (c) shape of container, (d) temperature of freezer, (e) air circulation in freezer, (f) desired final temperature...I would eye-ball it.  Give it 30 minutes, check, and proceed one way or the other.


How should you saute in butter? Sauteing is pretty problematic for me with butter. It is difficult to find the sweet spot where you don't burn the butter but don't steam the veggies, and even then seldom I will not get a sizzle even thought I did not crowd the pan.

I know sauteing in butter may be a bad idea, but I like the flavor it gives to sauces, especially Marinara (and how can I make an Alfredo without sauteing mushrooms?? Ridiculous!)

Any methods for melting an sauteing in butter?

Sauteing in butter is not really all that different from sauteing in any other oil: it just takes an awareness of the smoke point, and avoiding it.  Consider investing in an IR thermometer that can tell you exactly the temperature of the pan (with or without the oil) so you can heat the pan to exactly the right point.  For butter, that is about 350°F, which is not all that much lower than other oils - including EVOO, for example.

One suggestion is to do as the French do (who sauté in butter all the time!) and use clarified butter, which removes the solids from the butter.  It's easy to do, and significantly raises the smoke point (as those solids start smoking much earlier than the oil does).  Clarified butter has a smoke point of 450°F, as high as peanut oil.  You don't even have to go to the extreme that the linked recipe does in clarifying; simply spooning out the bits you can easily see will often be sufficient.  You can clarify butter and then refrigerate or freeze it, if you want to do it in large batches.

Second, use a pan that retains heat well - a heavier pan.  That will allow you to cook at a lower temperature effectively.  A thinner pan will have more hot spots, which lead to smoke sooner.

Third, make sure you're cooking the right amount of food in the right order.  Don't crowd the pan too much.  I've sauteed mushrooms and similar with no problem in butter; steaming shouldn't be an issue if you have the right amount of food in the pan at once.  If you overload it, though, you do end up cooking too slowly and unevenly, and steaming or just mushing your food.

Fourth, salt is your friend when it comes to moisture.  If you're cooking something very moist, salt it before cooking it (but after chopping it), give it a bit of time (5-10 minutes at least).  This will let the salt remove some of the moisture, particularly from the outside.  Then, wipe off the excess salt and the excess moisture with a cloth or paper towel before sauteing.  (Don't give it a long time as eventually the moisture goes back in, and your food gets too salty.)  This works well for me with things like eggplant or zucchini - remove some moisture, then saute - as well as the thicker mushrooms (like portobello or white mushrooms).


Will bitter cucumbers ruin gazpacho? I plan to make gazpacho in a blender. I'll be using the following ingredients, all blended together:

3 medium-large tomatoes
1/2 cup cucumber pieces
1/4 cup onion
1/2 cup bell peppers
1 Tbsp. Red wine vinegar
A few ice cubes
1 drop Tabasco sauce
Salt and pepper

The problem is that the cucumbers we have on hand are somewhat bitter. Will using these make the gazpacho also taste too bitter?

This is kind of turning into a recipe question so it may get closed.

Most recipes call for peeled and seeded.  See how it tastes peeled and seeded.  You have a other strong flavors so unless unless it is very bitter it is probably OK.  Maybe cut back on the cucumber.


Frothing milk more quietly? I have a Mr. Coffee BVMC-ECM260 espresso maker. I'm kind of getting the hang of frothing it (i.e. I can make a decent cup of frothed milk) but every time it makes that loud "screaming" noise that I've seen others describe. I've tried different techniques, putting the wand in close to the surface, close to the bottom, etc. but it makes the same noise. I live in a small apartment building where the walls are very thin and making loud screaming noises with my espresso maker on a regular basis is not really ideal for me. Should I just go back to a drip coffee maker, or could there be a problem with the way I'm frothing the milk?

Try a magnetically stirred milk frother

They use a small jug sitting on top of a heating element, with a rotating magnet below the heater. A small magnetic stirrer dropped into the jug therefore spins, and froths the milk, nearly as well as a steamer does

The Nespresso one is crap


How to make alfredo creamier longer? I make a simple alfredo sauce that is absolutely delicious.

It´s as easy as melting butter in a pan (about 2 or 3 tablespoons), adding a glass of 18% cream, and then shredding parmesan into it.

The problem is that after 10 minutes, while the food is on the plate and being consumed, the cheese hardens and sticks to the pasta I poured it on. How do I make it maintain that smooth, silky consistency? Is it possible? Could it just be a matter or adding more cream and /or butter?

I hope some of you with more scientific cooking knowledge can help me with this.

This is almost certainly due to cooling. Serving on heated plates will buy you some time. If (at home) you use microwave plate warmers you can place them under the plates after you've used them and the residual heat will keep the plates hot. You need to strike a balance as you don't want it to cook too much after serving.

Cream thickens on cooking (unlike butter which solidifies as it cools). So cooking the sauce for a shorter time might help as well. In fact the recipe I've got for this cautions against overcooking the cream (without saying why).

You don't say how much parmesan you add in proportion to the other ingredients, but you may be onto something with reducing it. Unfortunately this will reduce the flavour, and it's not like you can replace it with a much tastier cheese.

The other thing that's commonly done is adding a little pasta water to the sauce. If you're stirring it together, this can simply be a matter of not draining the pasta too much (this also depends on the shape). If you're spooning it over the top, taking a little of the starchy water just before you drain the pasta, and adding it to the sauce, could be worth a try. Again I don't know your exact quantities (like how big your glass is) but anyway it's a matter for experimenting. A tablespoon or two might be a good place to start. You probably need to put it in slowly while stirring.


How long to sous vide shoulder lamb chop? How to Sous Vide Lamb says:

  Blade Chop: Medium-Rare: 131°F for 18 to 24 Hours (55.0ºC)

  Shoulder:   Medium-Rare: 131°F for 1 to 2 Days (55.0ºC)

Sous Vide Lamb Chops with Chimichurri Compound Butter says:

  132°F for 2 hours

I know sous vide is very forgiving with cooking times, but there is a big difference between 2 hours and 24 hours that can't be accounted for by the 1C° temperature difference.

I would expect at least one of these to be a bad idea, but which one?

Time will determine texture and your target texture is really up to you. Folks typically recommend the “pinch test”. Squeeze the bag and feel it out as you go. Once it’s pasteurized (id refer you to Baldwin for that data) you can shock it and throw it in the fridge and hold until whenever you are serving, so it’s best to start early.

I haven’t personally processed this particular cut SV, so I don’t have a personal recommendation for you. I recommend keeping a log of every cook you perform with notes about texture so you can refer back to it in subsequent cooks.

My gut tells me that anything in that listed range will work for you. They will just provide different textures. If you’re looking for tender, go longer.


Xanthan gum in bread baking I was under the impression that Xanthan Gum could be used in bread in order to increase the hydration and make it fluffier. I have tried it three times (0.5% - 1% of flour weight) in two different recipes (croissants and regular buns), but the dough was not noticeably easier to work with, nor did it rise quite as much as normally. (I did not do a controlled test, so it's hard to pinpoint the cause.)

I know that Xanthan Gum is normally used in gluten free bread, but that's not what I'm after here. I have read (but can't remember the source) that it can be used in regular bread to make the crumb airier, but in my limited experiments, that does not appear to be the case.

What should I expect from adding Xanthan Gum to bread dough?

I have also seen some cookie recipes that call for it, but I couldn't understand what role it was supposed to have.

You seem to have misunderstood something, or been misinformed.

The only reason that xanthan gum does something in gluten-free bread is that gluten-free bread cannot trap any air for rising and is a very moist and dense thing on its own. The xanthan gum is a kinda OK gluten replacement, imitating its role somewhat.

It has no such effect in normal dough with gluten. Indeed, it might make it less airy and generally worse, like dough which has too much gluten added. Or it might have so little effect as to be unnoticeable. But it certainly has no mechanism by which it would improve your normal bread dough.

I cannot say much about the cookies, but it might be that they needed additional binder. This depends on what kind of cookie it was, but some kinds are full of filler and very prone to crumbling, xanthan may help with that. Or somebody backconverted a gluten free recipe to a wheat one and didn't understand that this makes the xanthan obsolete. There are many possible explanations.


egg-wash role in having soft bread buns As a follow-up question, I keep following the recipe to the letter and thank goodness I get pillowy and soft buns each and every time. The thing that bothered me a bit was the smell of the egg-wash when the buns are still hot.
I read here that you can use anything as a glaze, milk or even water, so I decided to brush the buns with milk (plus a pinch of saffron for extra bonus!), and sadly I ended up with buns that developed a crust and were not as soft as the previous batches.
I wonder if the egg-wash plays a role as important as making the buns soft and shiny, painting the buns with milk was the reason behind the crust? So only egg-wash makes the buns soft?

The egg wash is very important for the crust of your buns.
Different types of glazes and egg washes produce different results on bread's (or pastry's) crust, due to the combinations of proteins, fats, and sugars they contain. I would guess that one of two things is the problem with a milk glaze.

In your case, the baking temperature is too high for a milk wash. The sugars in the milk caramelize and the crust dries out and becomes hard before the inside of the bun is cooked.
You over baked your buns. An egg wash would darken in color sooner than a milk wash, so if you waited for the same depth of color as you had with the egg wash, you would have waited longer and the crust would have dried out more, becoming harder and crustier.

I think a combination of the two is most likely. A quick google will turn up a variety of articles about the different kinds of egg washes and glazes and their effect on bread, but I would start here and here.
If any further experiments also turn out results that are too crusty (or you decide to stick with a milk glaze), you should note that you can also brush the finished but still warm buns with a fat of some kind, like melted butter, which will soften the crust. This may salvage a crusty batch of buns.


Do meat grinders need to have cutting blade I got a Game Winner meat grinder #8, but it did not come with cutting blade. Do you need this to grind meat?

Here is the relevent description on a site selling that particular meat grinder:

  The Game Winner™ Hunting Gear #8 Grinder grinds up to 4 lb. of meat per minute and features a powder-coated cast aluminum body, 3, 4.5, and 7 mm stainless-steel cutting plates and a stainless-steel cutting blade* for durability. The Cam-Lock locking mechanism and thermal reset button offer safe operation, while the feet-forward design helps prevent tipping. Full-power grind, reverse and off modes. 400-watt motor.

  Features and Benefits •stainless-steel cutting plates and cutting blade for durability

It definitely looks like you'll need the cutting blade and cutting plates.


How do you make popcorn with "indian corn" I bought a couple ears of this corn at the farmers market and the woman at the stand said to throw it in the microwave.  Does anybody know how long it should be in the microwave for?

When popcorn pops, it makes a distinctive popping sound (unsurprisingly). I would microwave the ear of corn until the pops come about ten seconds apart - at this point, you're well into the tail of the normal distribution which describes how long it takes each kernel to pop. If the corn doesn't pop after about two minutes, it probably won't pop at all.


Reheatable pizza dough Let's say I'm using a 100% white bread flour 70% hydration dough (with or without oil) for pizza to be baked in a home oven; how should I change the formula, or how can I tweak the recipe for a reheatable pie instead of one to be eaten fresh out of the oven? The aim is to avoid dried out crust, fat separation from the cheese, and burnt bits.

I don't think the dough formula is the issue.  Instead, you might experiment with par-cooking your pizza.  The first comment from @Sneftel has it right. Maybe start with a half-cooked pizza.  Adjust from there. Any fully cooked, then reheated pizza will likely over cook, or incur the problems you are trying to avoid.


How do restaurants chop up garlic? If I buy dishes, such as garlic chicken, from take-away restaurants, the garlic appears to be in small white particles in the meal.

How do restaurants chop up the garlic for this purpose?  Are they using some kind of food processor, or do they purchase pre-made garlic sauce from a supplier?

Having worked in Institutional Kitchens, I'd bet the rent that the garlic came from kilo plastic jars of the minced preserved variety.

Restaurants of some quality cut up there own raw as needed for each sauce or even for each order. A paste of roasted garlic can be made daily with several heads of garlic covering the needs of a dinner shift.


Pan-fried hamburgers, what temperature? I am trying to cook hamburgers in a 12" pan on my stovetop. I am attempting to replicate some hamburgers I have had at a "local" place around here (read: 1.5 hours away), where the burgers are not well-formed patties but kind've jagged patties that get nice and crisp and also are relatively thin and spread out, cooked by the burgermeister on a large commercial griddle.

My question is, what temperature should I use for with this type of burger? My thought is that I will roll out 1/3 lb balls of 80/20, flatten out on the pan with a spatula, roughen up a little, then let cook until done. At some point, I'll add some cheese (monterey jack or muenster, no comments on the cheese!).

What I'd like is a bit of meaty flavor, greasy of course, but also crunchy to a degree (but not a lot). Should I pre-oil my pan?

Thanks!
Jared

The way to make a proper griddled hamburger:

Start with beef that is between 70/30 and 80/20.  You need to use a fatty beef because you are going to be doing a few things that will restrict the amount of juice in the burger and the extra fat will mitigate that.

Season your beef and roll into balls less than 1/4 of a pound.  Let the size of your patties be determined by the size of your pan, you need them small enough that once you smash you won't be touching the sides of the pan.

You then want to preheat your pan.  You want your pan to be as hot as possible.  A commercial griddle can range in heat between 375 F and 650 F, so the temp here can vary quite a bit between places, I find hotter aids crust formation and allows the interior stay closer to medium.

Do not use oil.  I can't stress that enough.  Your beef will put out plenty and oil will fry the burger instead of allowing a seared crust to develop.

Place your balls of meat on the pan and smash them flat with a spatula.  You might need a second spatula to remove the patty from the smashing one, as you lack the space space to heat it like you would on a griddle to prevent sticking.  Allow it to cook about two to three minutes, then flip and top with cheese, if desired.  Two more minutes and remove.

As an added bonus, you can toast/fry some bread in the beef juices to create a patty melt style burger that will be oozing beefy goodness.  You can drop the bread in right after the flip and it will be perfect by the time the patty is done.


Cure for burns from hot peppers / capsicum oil? So, I foolishly ignored advice about wearing gloves while handling hot peppers. I thought since they were "just" anaheim peppers I'd be fine... I was wrong, and I repent.

Does anyone know of a way to stop the burning? I have washed my hands repeatedly with soap in hot water and tried OTC burn spray.

I'm really worried about getting it off b/c I have a little baby & I don't want to get it on her, too. Can the oil transfer to someone else still?

Capsaicin is oil/fat-soluble so try washing your hands with a little whole milk, or rub with sour cream or vegetable oil and see if that helps.

Just as you can get it in your eyes if you rub them with your fingers, I'm sure you can easily transfer it to your baby.

I'm just surmising here, not speaking from experience so if you try any of these, be sure to let us know how they worked....or what you did instead.


How to select a coffee powder for preparing Turkish Coffee? This is what I can get here:
http://www.devans.in/product.html

What kind of roasted (mild/medium/strong/very strong) powder/beans should be selected for Turkish Coffee?

Can the coffee powder meant for preparing Filter coffee be used for Turkish coffee?

I'd prefer a sweeter taste of coffee rather than bitter.

This is something that is likely to depend somewhat on your preference. That said, when I cannot get purpose-made turkish coffee, I usually use a very dark roast for turkish coffee, mixing it with a bit of cardamom (about one tablespoon to every twenty tablespoons of powdered coffee).

From the offerings you have available, I would recommend the Very Strong "Arabica french roast". You may very well find that this is too bitter for your palate. If so, I would recommend sweetening the coffee using sugar, rather than going for a lighter roast, but again, you may find a lighter roast.

If you have one of these roasts in your house already, I would recommend starting out by trying that, then playing around with spicing it with cardamom, and sweetening with sugar before getting a different type of coffee. This will help you determine what way you want to go with your finished brew.


How long and how can I hold meringue before macaronage? I have high hopes (I always do) for my next batch of macarons. I've decided to do lemon and lime. I want to do half lemon, half lime.

My stand mixer isn't perfect, I fear that it won't perfectly whip a small batch of egg whites (so I don't want to halve the recipe), yet I want two distinct colors of cookie. I'm doing the same with the filling, but that's easy.

So, my thought is to whip up all of the meringue with yellow and then do the macaronage with half of the meringue. As those are baking, I'll add green to the meringue left in the mixer, briefly whip that, and then do the macaronage on that half. Between the two sessions of macaronage and piping, I suspect I'll want a break.

Can I do that? Is two hours too long? Should I cover it in the meantime? Any other hints or caveats?

BTW, I don't intend to flavor the cookie part at all (or very subtly with lemon oil); the lemon and lime flavor will be pronounced in the filling.

I suspect you'll be fine. I often do simple unfilled baked meringue cookies and at least some of the recipes suggest letting them stand for several hours before baking. I've tried it both ways and notice little difference - but assuming your macaron cookie part includes a substantial amount of sugar, my evidence says it should be very stable for the course of a couple of hours.


Tempering raw cacao for coating I have a 2-pound block of dark no-sugar-at-all chocolate, and I want to use some of it as coating for candies or popsicles. It's 100% raw cacao, so I'm thinking of melting some and using honey as a sweetener (from a previous experiment I know it'll take a lot of honey!), because I think powdered sugar or any other sweetener will have a hard time dissolving in it. I was thinking of using the cacao/honey mixture to coat the final product, but I'm doubtful if it'll work like that.

I've never worked with raw chocolate before, so I'm wondering if it's advisable to temper it, and how to do it, or just try and use it as is (just melted, that is). Also, if anyone could advise on the honey  as sweetener I'd appreciate it. I once tried stevia, but it took a lot of it and the difference was not very noticeable. I also read somewhere that using agave or corn syrup would not work because of their high water content, so I'm hoping honey works better for this purpose.

Thank you in advance.

I think most chocolate is already tempered when you buy it.  Assuming that's the case with yours, you just need to be careful not to break the temper when you melt it.  That means not letting it get too much warmer than its melting temperature.  If my memory is correct, you have to keep it below 125 deg. F to avoid breaking temper.

Coincidentally, I mixed pure cocoa powder and honey earlier this evening (in a glass of hot milk).  I found that to get it to taste good, I had to use about 3 Tbsp of honey to sweeten 2 Tbsp of cocoa.  Honey is usually about 17% water.  I don't know for sure whether that will cause a problem for you, but I suspect it would.  As you have already discovered, it takes a LOT of sugar to make chocolate sweet.  I don't think you'll be able to make it solidify using honey.

I'm curious why you seem to be avoiding sucrose (table sugar).  I guess there must be some reason why you got no-sugar-at-all chocolate.  Are you interested in stevia because it is lower in calories?  If so, you might consider pure sucralose.  It's not usually available in stores, but you can order it online.  I recommend pure sucralose instead of splenda so that you don't have the extra maltodextrin filler getting in your way.  1 gram of pure sucralose is enough to sweeten 250 grams of cocoa powder, so if you know the ratio of cocoa butter to cocoa solids in your chocolate, you can calculate the right amount of sucralose to use.  I guess if you're thinking of using honey, you must not be worried about calories, though.  If you're just looking to create a little more exotic/different flavor, you could use turbinado (e.g. Sugar in the Raw) instead of regular sugar.  I think it will solidify a lot better than honey.

By the way, how are you planning to coat popsicles in chocolate?  Won't the molten chocolate cause the popsicles to melt and turn the whole thing into a mess?  Maybe if you got the popsicles down to liquid nitrogen temperatures before dipping them it might work....


How to have a weekly baking sourdough starter plan I want to start baking 2 loaves of sourdough bread every Sunday evening.

I have to start from scratch. So I do not have any starter yet.

Can someone please help me with a plan to do it?

How and when should I start with the starter so that it results in enough starter to bake 2 loaves of bread on a Sunday?

How do I maintain the sourdough starter to make it a weekly routine?

Your question should be broken down in two parts:

How long does it take to get a starter going?
How to schedule my sourdough feeding to fit my schedule?

For 1., if you have no starter to build on, you won’t be able to get a reliable one ready within three days. Sorry. The time until a new starter establishes, stabilizes and gets usable is at minimum four to five days1 (and would still need additional yeast just to be in the safe side), ideally longer. And that’s not even taking into account that it will likely still change it’s characteristics over the change of seasons and your interactions with it. So as today is Thursday, you may want to postpone your new Sunday baking routine by a week. If on the other hand you can get your hands on a spoonful or two of an established starter (and many bakers will be happy to share what they would otherwise discard), you can go straight to 2.

Regarding part 2., If you have a stable starter, you’ll want to establish a routine that fits your needs. To calculate your sourdough requirements, you ideally start at the end - depending on your recipe, you will need an amount X at a time point T. (Plus you‘ll need some more that you can keep for the next week!)

Now, if you are using the „sourdough on the counter“ method, you’ll be probably feeding your sourdough twice a day, discarding half of the mix and adding equal parts of water and flour. (Alternative approaches use only 10% starter and feed once in 24 hours...) In any case, you can increase the amount of sourdough by simply not discarding the excess, but also feeding that instead. Depending on the chosen method, the amount of starter needed for your baking and the amount of starter you will preserve for the next week, it should be easy to calculate how many cycles you should plan for.

If you don’t want to keep your sourdough on the counter all week, you can also keep it in the fridge (without feeding inbetween) and pull it out in time to get it ready for the next baking session. Sourdough starter can get a bit “sluggish” if stored in the fridge, so you may want to do one “get it back in shape“ feeding. I am usually going for the “feed once a day and use only 10-20% of starter” method, so for your schedule, I would
- pull the starter out of the fridge on Friday, do a “wake-up feeding” overnight, do an “increase amount feeding” on Saturday and bake on Sunday, putting the leftover starter back in the fridge until the next Friday.

You may want to experiment a bit, but the principles are always the same: Determine how much you need, increase the amount during the previous feeding(s), preserve a small amount of starter for the next cycle.

A slightly different approach (and maybe easier as you can basically skip the math completely) is to separate the cultivation of your starter from your baking. That means feeding your relatively small starter on your chosen schedule and using the excess - that what you would discard when feeding - as the basis for a leaven that will ultimately go into your dough. A tablespoon or two will go a long way here. Emma Christensen from The Kitchn explains the process in this article.

1 Unfortunately there’s always some risk that a starter attempt can fail. That’s why in baking a starter is not made again for each batch, but propagated and maintained carefully.


temperature settings on my Electric Stove. I do not own a gas stove In cooking a Beef Bone Stock on my electric stove top, the recipe calls for long cook time of 24 hours at temperature set at simmer.

It's been claimed to simmer on a electric stove top is NOT ideal bc the temperature setting "simmer" on the electric stove top is to be used to keep food cooking "warm" and NOT ideal to use for simmering sock.

Is the above correct? Does this mean I cannot cook my Beef Bone Stock on
my electric stove top in my stock pot?

Any setting on a stove is a relative estimate. The energy it puts out will have different effects on different sizes of pots and what is in it.

You should get your pot on the stove, bring it just to the boil on a higher setting, then reduce the heat a little at a time.

You will get to a setting where the broth is just barely bubbling. This is simmer, regardless of what the knob says.

And, as another comment said, monitor and add water for a 24 hour cook time.


Re-processing pickles I'm all set to make pickles (intending to hot-water can them for shelf-stable pickles) and I realize I don't have any more jars, so I'm making the brine and putting the whole batch in the fridge. I plan to buy more jars and do the processing next weekend. When I do this, should I make fresh brine so I can boil it before adding the pickles? Or can I heat the whole thing as-is before processing?

Process according to the recipe:

Salt cucumbers to dehydrate
Heat vinegar, add sugar to dissolve, add seasonings
Boil mixture
Add cucumbers, heat until heated through
Jar and process

What I did:

Salt cucumbers to dehydrate
Heat vinegar, add sugar to dissolve, add seasonings
Combine cucumbers and brine. Refridgerate

What I plan to do once I have jars:

Heat brine (with or without cucumbers?)
Jar and process

I have stored and used pickling liquids in the frige for up to 10 days, and it has been fine.

The guys here

http://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic/food/food_safety/preservation/hgic3101.html

(Second question down)

State that it is fine as long as you have not used the brine, but to throw if any mould growth occurs (which I think we all probably might do!)

I hope this helps


Identify this unusual spicy appetizer A friend of mine years back related a story about an appetizer that he ordered at an Asian restaurant that was apparently quite unusual. It was a bowl of something (possibly peppers or another vegetable) where each piece looked completely identical, but one out of every 15-20 of them was extremely spicy. The rest tasted rather mild, so he and his friends would go around the table basically playing a kind of Russian roulette with spicy food.

Does anybody have any idea of what this could be?

It sounds like it could be Shishito peppers, which about 10% are spicy, and "even experts may not be able to distinguish relative hotness on the same plant.".


Using half-eaten bones to make stock -- sanitary? Is it safe use half-eaten bones from a family dinner meal to make stock? Or is this unsanitary, and it's better to just obtain bones through filleting and deboning while raw or after slow or pressure cooking?

It's not sanitary, in the sense of following the health rules. Especially since it's unlikely that you're following the two-hour guidelines: the gnawed bones have been in the danger zone enough to potentially pick up an enterobacter that produced heat-stable toxins. Boiling will not fix that. And having been in somebody's mouth increases the chance that such bacteria is one that infects humans.

Consider it this way: even if you're not squicked out by the basic concept, how would you feel if the bones had been left out on the plate for a day? A week?

As for whether it's safe, the short answer is "no".

The odds it being actually dangerous are pretty low. The food safety rules are designed to keep the most at-risk people safe: small children, people with compromised immune systems, etc. Given how many other opportunities there are for food-borne infections to be picked up, I'd consider something that I picked up and simmered for many hours to be about as free from pathogens as anything I got out of the dirt, i.e. vegetables, which we often eat raw.

So I'll admit to having done it, but I wouldn't feed it to anybody except myself.


Why add soda water to beer batter? Why "soda water", in the sentence above my red heart?

Seafood Basics: 86 Recipes Illustrated Step by Step (2012) by Abi Fawcett,
Deirdre Rooney.

The carbonation in soda water (or beer...or the use of a whipping siphon) is added so that the batter becomes more "airy", leading to a lighter and crispier final result after frying.


Substitute for sugar/golden syrup as binding agent in breakfast bars for kids I found this recipe for breakfast bars, and I would like to make some ahead of time and then give them to the kids on the go, to make mornings easier.  As my kids will be eating these most days, I want to remove the sugar as much as possible.

First question:  what is the binding agent in these?  Is it the sugar or the syrup, or something else?

Second question:  if I wanted to remove the added sugar (to Weetabix levels), what is another binding agent I could use?  I see some people using banana, but I would like some other options as one of the girls struggles when she eats too much banana.

The syrup and the oats appear to be the binding agents in your recipe. If you don't plan on omitting the golden syrup no substitution is necessary. If you want to do away with the golden syrup, coconut oil is commonly used in vegan protein bar recipes as the binder. Another way would be to add some "sticky fruits" (like dried dates or raisins)


Does adding brandy to whipped cream make it fall quicker? I make whipped cream frequently, but this was the first time I added "real" alcohol, and it fell within 20 minutes.  I put both the bowl and beaters in the freezer until cold.  Then, I whip heavy whipping cream by hand mixer until stiff peaks form.  I mix in sugar on a 1:3 or 1:6 ratio (depending on dessert) and add 1 Tbs flavoring per 1 cup cream.  Generally, it stays in the fridge for a few days before falling, but when I added brandy, it fell within twenty minutes.  I wasn't expecting it, since I have no trouble with Bailey's or Amaretto. Is this normal, or did I perhaps mess up somewhere else in the prep?  I'd like another stab at making brandy snaps, but I'm nervous about fallen cream with all the work that goes into the cookies.

Anything that dilutes the cream is going to make it less firm/stable - whipped heavy cream can last for hours, while whipped light cream (such as Reddi-Whip) won't last more than five-ten minutes. I've never had any whipped cream last for days, however, unless it contained a stabilizer such as gelatin.

1 tablespoon brandy per cup of cream does sound a bit much - just for comparison, you'd use maybe a third that much vanilla extract for the same amount of cream. (You were probably using much less Amaretto, and Bailey's contains cream so it doesn't dilute things as much.) If you can't get the flavor you want with a reduced quantity of brandy, you could try making a hard sauce (butter + alcohol) to serve with your dessert, in addition to or instead of plain whipped cream. Or you could try a whipped cream stabilizer - either the stuff you can buy specifically made for the purpose, or unflavored gelatin carefully dissolved in a part of the cream.

Note that for best results, you should add the sugar and flavorings to the cream before starting to whip. It sounds like you already know to keep everything as cold as possible.


What are the Standard Terms Used to Describe Liquid Viscosity in Cooking? When describing the thickness of a sauce or other liquid when cooking, what are the standard terms that should be used?

I've heard things like "gravy-like" or talk of coating metal spoons, but I'd like to know if there's a list of "standard terms" that are known to most chefs/cooks.

The one I hear most often in professional kitchens is nappe, which is the "coat the back of a spoon" test. That is the general starting point for an average sauce that you can use in a wide variety of dishes; it is thick enough to cling to food without being stodgy.

Beyond that, I'm not familiar with other standard professional terms specifically for viscocity. Usually just thin, thick, stiff and so forth. Sometimes it is useful to talk in terms of percent reduction, as in "add 2 cups of wine and simmer until reduced by half", although in many cases this is done more by eyeball than with precision.


When I make apple juice, what's in the foam on top? I juiced my peeled apple seconds. What makes the foam on top? It seems to have good flavor, but this juice is going into the fermenter for apple cider when I collect enough (freezing until then) so I'm wondering how much sugar is in the foam.

The foam is probably made up of various proteins and carbohydrates.   If you have a refractometer, you can collect some of the foam and let the bubbles fall down, and then put it on the measuring window of the refractometer, just like you would use it for the must for a wine or wort for a beer.


Is it bad to be a 'board tapper', i.e. to tap your knife rhythmically when you're cutting vegetables? I briefly worked in a restaurant kitchen in Hong Kong under a British chef.  He objected to the sound I made when slicing onions, and warned me not to be a 'board tapper'.  I duly spent the next weeks learning to slice onions his way, though I wasn't able to match the speed I'd been accustomed to using the method I'm more practised in.
I've lived in Asia for many years, and use a Chinese vegetable knife/ Chinese chef's knife (CCK - NOT a cleaver) to cut almost everything.  These tall, relatively straight-edged knives are used by Chinese chefs for the majority of tasks, and are employed using either a 'push cut' to force the blade through denser materials, a 'chop cut' in which the whole edge hits the board more or less parallel to it, or a 'draw cut' in which the tip of the blade is drawn back through softer materials, the angle at which the knife is held and the depth of the material being cut together determining how much of the edge's length does the cutting.
European chefs typically use French-/ German-style chef's knives with long, pointed, curved blades and favour a 'rocker' cut (during which the tip of the blade stays in contact with the board) for slicing medium-density ingredients like onions, as taught by Jamie Oliver et al.
The rocker cut is quiet and sustains high frequencies, although like the push cut it does require some vertical force from the cook's arm.  The chop cut also sustains high frequencies and requires little force, relying instead upon a heavier blade to let gravity do the work, but it is noisy.  (The draw cut is almost silent and can be very precise, but is slower partly because it requires the movement of the whole arm.)  Each has its different applications.
Through some cursory research, I found out that tapping one's knife on the board even when not cutting anything can serve a number of functions:

Activate muscle memory prior to cutting to avoid poor first cuts
Remove pieces of food from the blade after cutting
Warn others that a knife is about to be wielded
Attract attention (valuable to street-kitchen chefs)
Punctuate speech (valuable to television chefs)
Add flair to one's work/ annoy people around one.

Whilst this kind of non-cut tapping is a separate matter, its various reasons cast light upon the types of issues surrounding human sounds in the kitchen, amid the roaring and grinding and hissing, churning, and beeping of various machines.  Noise itself, clearly, isn't the problem.
I've come across the 'board-tapper' criticism elsewhere, in books, and often wondered whether this is mostly a tech thing (curved blades rock, straight blades tap), a culinary chauvinism thing (Asians tap, and cheap CCKs are not welcome in non-Asian kitchens), or a kitchen-hierarchy thing (chefs de commis should be seen and not heard).
As the extra noise probably equates to extra wear on the blade it could be a 'maintenance thing', and reasonably so were it not that most cooks don't sharpen other cooks' knives.  Although the vast majority of jobbing chefs in the West use standard, serviceable implements made by the likes of Victorinox, not artworks of folded steel by artisan knifemakers, a heightened awareness of luxury goods everywhere has inevitably led to a heightened interest how they should be cared for - but as the explosion of interest in craft knifemaking has been very much an Internet-enabled phenomenon, its roots don't go back far enough to explain the prejudice.  Outside of Japan, at least, using posh knives for mundane work is a relatively new thing.
Onions are onions everywhere...  So why does board-tapping matter so much to some people?

I know, this isn't really an answer, but it's a bit long for a comment:
There are people in this world that get annoyed by different things that don't bother other people.  For some of those people, it's noise ... someone tapping their foot, chewing gum, etc.  It's possible that there's a legitimate reason for this pet peeve, but sometimes it's something really odd like 'I had a friend who used to do that, and my partner left me for them, and so when I hear it reminds me of that' ... but it's subconscious, and they couldn't explain it without a year or two of therapy.  I've also known people who were sensitive to sound (and he complained that I spoke too loudly ... but he always spoke loudly, and I'd subconsciously match my levels to his ... and he hated wearing hearing protection).
For reasons that most other people would understand:

The person may be using sound cues in their cooking (how something sizzles as it hits the pan, or how the sound changes as something is frying), and if there is too much noise, they can't hear those cues.
The person may have difficulty concentrating (possibly even ADD), and they find the noise distracting
In a noisy kitchen, people have to talk louder, which means that other people have to talk even louder ... and after a while, the noise is just unbearable, and in the US, can actually become an OSHA violation.
A noisy kitchen may cause people to not hear or mishear instructions, resulting in slower or bad service.

Of course, if the chef is also shouting at people all the time, then it's difficult to accept the above items as good justification.  (except maybe #4).
There have been a number of articles on noise levels in restaurants in the past few years and most focus on the patrons (and there are even apps for patrons to track noise levels, but many of the observations about lack of sound dampening still hold true:

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/18/17168504/restaurants-noise-levels-loud-decibels
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2019/may/09/great-food-but-please-do-something-about-the-noise-the-battle-for-quieter-restaurants

Sometimes, we have to factor in multiple considerations when deciding how to do something.  In project management, there's the adage of "good, cheap, fast.  pick two", in how you have to sacrifice quality, cost, or speed and can't have all three.  Some chefs will cut off the top & bottom of bell peppers so that they can make equally sized sticks.  I cut off the sides and bottom so I waste less.  Neither way is "bad", but we just have different priorities.
In your particular case, the chef has decided that the noise level (or at least, lack of tapping noise) is more important to them.  Someone else might optimize for speed and be okay with a certain level of noise.  Someone else might have space for you to do your prep further away so you're not bothering them.  There are just different trade-offs to try to get to the optimal solution for a particular situation.  And it may not even be constant with a given chef -- someone who would otherwise prioritize speed might have a hangover and have a day when they'd prefer quiet.


Chow Mein: What is the starchy sauce called and how can I cook it? This is a two part question, both relating to Chow Mein:

When ordering Vegetable Chow Mein from various Chinese restaurants in New York and New Jersey, I find that the dish is prepared with two different sauces depending on the restaurant. One sauce seems like its a typical Chinese "brown sauce," but the other is pretty much uncolored, is starchy, and not oily at all. I'll call this second sauce "Sauce X."

What is the correct name for "Sauce X," and how can I specify it when ordering Chow Mein at a Chinese restaurant?

How can I cook this sauce for use in homemade chow mein?

The x sauce you refer to is just plain corn starch added to stock for thickening it does contain salt ,pepper, ajinomoto, you may have come across this more in indian chinese restaurants in New Jersey. Just enriched stock .chicken, veg or shrimp whatever reason the chow mein.


How to cook fish bones(ideally without oil)? I'm wanting to eat fish bones.  What is the best way to cook them?  I imagine it is deep frying if you want quick though it's messy with oil.

I had another thought that I could just wrap them in foil paper, heat them on a pan, turn over etc.  Would this work or might this method introduce any other problems e.g. bones burn, foil sticks to pan etc?

Can the bones be heated on pan without foil paper or oil, might this introduce any problems?

Please note the question is asking about cooking fish bones only i.e. flesh already removed.

If they are the bones of fatty, oily fish, the grilling would work, assuming there are still some scraps of meat/fat attached. This will achieve a crunchy texture. Your suggestion of cooking the fish in a pan, wrapped in foil, might also achieve similar results (again use an oily fish).

You could also simmer them in some sort of flavoured broth until they are very soft - I know of a few southeast asian recipes for fish that are slow-cooked in a salty broth for a very long time until the bones are the same texture as the meat and the fish can be eaten whole.

Frying is, in my eyes, the best option for taste and texture - it can be done in relatively little oil, and avoiding too much mess


Cooked food (+seafood) left out overnight - common practice in some parts of the world? My partner and I made some shrimp pasta last and forgot to put the leftovers in the fridge. The next morning I promptly proceeded to throw it away, but my partner stopped me and said it was still good to eat. I was very surprised and told him no way should we eat this, and he in turn was very surprised that I would think it was unsafe. He claimed maybe it's a culture thing-- He's from Japan and said people do it all the time there, but noticed his friends in the UK (where we live now) are much more careful. He claims it's also common practice in other places he's lived. I told him it's definately not considered best practice in my home country, but to be fair food freshness in the US is sometimes questionable (e.g. it's not necessary to store eggs in the fridge in most parts of the world).
Am I missing something? Is he just taking a massive risk or have I been raised with overly sanitised food safety practices?

I know I'm going to get panned for this… ;)
Eating something left out overnight can only kill you once; every other time it doesn't.
If bacteria were growing in it they've had sufficient time to build to harmful levels. This is not a 'good thing'.
However, people have been eating last night's leftovers for today's lunch since time immemorial & most of them lived to tell the tale.
Food safety authorities write guidelines for restaurants & commercial kitchens, reducing the potential risk as far as is possible. Restaurants must follow these guidelines because not doing so can kill people.
If it goes awry in a restaurant it can kill many people.
Killing people is not good for business.
These authorities say that keeping food at higher than 4°C & under 60°C for more than two hours [cumulative] is no longer guaranteed to be safe.
This is true.
If it's your own leftovers, it's your call.
Most people do it, most people survive. Some don't.
It's a numbers game. The only one at risk is you.
Right - time to microwave last night's curry leftovers…


What general rules should I follow to ensure that my measurements are accurate? Can technique really make big enough difference to effect the final result?

There are already excellent questions and answers here regarding specific measuring issues Cup measurements: shake or scrape? but I'm looking more for more general "how to measure" advice.

When does it matter?

Only worry about highly accurate measurement when it matters.   This is generally when two ingredients or aspects of a recipe must be held in a close ratio to be successful.

This occurs more normally in baking than in savory cooking (except for modernist or molecular methods, where accuracy is extremely important).

The classic example is balancing the amount of baking soda and lemon juice in a recipe, so there is enough acid for the baking soda to react with and provide good leavening.

In savory cooking, many ingredients just provide bulk, flavor, or texture, but are not reacting chemically with other ingredients in a significant way.  In this case, you generally do not need highly accurate measurements.

Volume versus weight

The goal when measuring ingredients is that you want to have a reproducible amount of the substance.   The only true way to ensure this in the general case is to use an accurate scale, which measures by weight.

The reason is that some foods are compressible, and can be squeezed or fluffed to different densities.  The classic example is flour:  depending on how you measure (sifting into a measuring cup and then leveling, to dip and sweep, for example), a single cup could weight as little as about 4 ounces at the low end to over 5 ounces at the high end.  That is a variance of over 20%!

For ingredients which are highly compressible, or whose density can change, measuring by weight is simply going to be more accurate, and more repeatable.   4.5 ounces of flour by weight is always, well, 4.5 ounces.

Economical kitchen scales are available that measure digitally down to 1 gram (about 28th of an ounce).

Switching from Volume to Weight:  Common Conversions

Switching from measuring primarily by volume to primarily by weight is somewhat scary.  How much flour should there be in a cup?  What does a cup of sugar weight?

A quality cookbook for baked goods will give you ingredients by weight, or if not, in the front matter, will tell you what weight they are using for a standard up.  Similarly, the quality websites for baked goods will tell you what weight they use for a standard "cup" of flour, or they will simply provide weight information as part of the recipe.

If you don't have recipes specified by weight, and cannot find a specific conversion or standard cup size for your recipe source, here are some good values to get started for the most important ingredients.

Flour - 4.5 oz / cup
Sugar - 8 oz / cup
Brown Sugar - 7 oz / cup
Cocoa - 4.25 oz / cup
Water - 8 oz / cup
Vegetable oil - 8 oz / cup (surprisingly, it is not that much less dense than water; you would need to measure 10 cups worth to be off by one full ounce by weight)
Sour cream - 8.1 oz / cup (in most cases, rounding to 8 would be fine)

Web searches, such as Online Conversions can be very helpful in finding conversion factors.

As a side benefit, once you are measuring by weight, you may actually find it is more convenient, and has less cleanup, as you can measure each item into a common bowl (pressing the tare or zero key each time).  No more little pile of bowls and measuring spoons to wash!

When is measuring by volume okay?

Things that don't compress, and are not mixed with air are fine when measured by volume.  The scientific reason is that their density is constant, so a given volume will always have the same weight.

Examples of items that can be measured accurately by volume include:

Liquids of almost all sorts - water, oils, juices, extracts, milk, and so on
Fine, solid powders, like granulated sugar

Spices are another exception.  While measuring by weight is in fact preferred and more accurate (if you have a scale accurate to below the gram level), they don't usually participate in the chemistry of a recipe, and are adjusted to taste in any case.  Therefore, the inherent inaccuracy of measuring them by volume is less troublesome.

Salt: the Gotcha

Salt is an unusual ingredient.  Depending on how it is crystalized, it can have surprisingly different weights per volume.

For this reason, if you can, measuring salt by weight is always more accurate.

Still, it is often used in small quantities, and it is fairly in-compressible, so measuring by volume should be okay, as long as you always measure the same type of salt.

Be aware that different salt brands and types have differently shaped granules, crystals, or flakes, some of which have air inclusions, so the weight to volume conversion depends on the particular type of salt.

While all granulated table salts are fairly similar, kosher and specialty salts can weight as little as half as much per unit of volume in comparison, and can vary by brand.

Common US salt volume to weight conversions:

Granulated (table) salt - 10.3 oz / cup
Kosher Salt, Diamond - 5.01 oz / cup
Kosher Salt, Morton's - 7.68 oz / cup

Dry volume

If you do measure by volume, use the right type of measuring tool.   A measuring spoon or dry measuring cup is appropriate for, well, dry ingredients like sugar.  To use it properly, overfill the bowl of the spoon or the well of the cup, and then sweep off with something straight (like a chopstick or the back of a knife) to make it level.

Liquid Volume

Except for very small volumes like measuring vanilla extract, where measuring spoons are used (and some accuracy is sacrificed), for liquid measurements, use a liquid measuring cup, which typically is transparent and has graduations marked up the side.

When you fill the measuring cup, you will notice that the liquid curls up or down at the edge of the cup.  This curve, called the miniscus, is a result of how the surface tension of the liquid interacts with the material of the cup.  For the most accurate measurement, you would read at the center of the miniscus, where it is level, not at the edge.

The measuring tool you use should be about the same size as the amount you want to measure.  It would be very hard to measure a teaspoon of vanilla correctly in a 10 gallon drum marked off in quarts.  Similarly, measuring a gallon one half cup at a time is no fun, and an invitation to inaccuracy.

Measuring cups are available in many sizes, from shot glass sized (suitable for measuring teaspoons and tablespoons) to very large ones that can measure gallons.  A home cook should probably have at least 1 cup, 2 cup, and 4 cup versions.

A cone-shaped measuring cup like this:

is a nice tool, as it is very accurate a range of scales.

For this reason, if you do measure liquids by volume, it is best

Reading the recipe

Recipes are a code, telling you how to recreate the dish in their author's minds.  Sometimes, the code is fairly crypic.

Do you measure, for example, the nuts before or after chopping them?

Well, if you are measuring be weight, it doesn't matter—just one more example weight is easier.

If you are measuring by volume, then the way the recipe phrases the ingredient and its preparation is key:

One cup, hazelnuts, chopped — measure a cup of hazelnuts, then chop them
One cup chopped hazelnuts — chop hazelnuts, then measure one cup of the resulting product

Temperatures

One of the most important things we measure in the kitchen is temperature.  It tells us when a steak is done, when butter is at the best plasticity to make croissants, and when milk is at an unsafe temperature, among many other things.

Temperature is very tricky to measure because it is local.  One part of a chicken thigh in a sautee pan can be much hotter than another.

The right thermometer

The most important factor in getting an appropriate temperature reading is choosing the right thermometer for the job.

The most common themometers used in the kitchen are:

Instant read thermometers (the kind every chef and professional cook should have in their pocket):  the generalist of the kitchen thermometer world.  Useful for measuring almost any food temperature, except for sugar work.

Every cook should have one of these.

To use them properly, stick the probe into the center of the food item (if it is solid) or stir a liquid and then insert the probe.  Weight for the temperature to stop changing rapdily, which could be 2-20 seconds depending on your model.

This is your reading.
Probe thermometer.  These are convenience for roasts and items placed in the oven for a long period of time.

Insert the probe into the thickest part of the meat, and set a temperature.  The probe goes inside the oven, and the main unit sits outside.   Most have an alarm that will go off when you reach a set temperature, making it very easy to target a particular temperature for doneness.

Probe thermometers can only check one spot on a roast or dish.  You should then verify other spots with your instant read to confirm the dish is fully cooked everywhere (this is most important with poultry which is oddly shaped, and where you have a safety issue in terms of bringing it to temperature).

Sugar or deep fry thermometer.  These are often marketed separately, but they are the same type of thermometer, and are generally inter-changable for either use (although sugar thermometers may be more accurate).

They clip to the side of your sugar pot or deep fry pot.  They are accurate for temperatures in at least the 200 F to 400 F range, where deep frying and sugar work is done.

Some instant read thermometers are accurate at these temperatures as well, but they should not be left immersed.  Read your individual manual.

Don't worry, be happy

This answer stresses the most accurate ways to measure.  In some baking, and in molecular gastronomy applications, this matters.

In practice, even in most baking, recipes are remarkably forgiving.  10% more or less vanilla, or 15% variance in the amount of eggs is not going to make or break a recipe at the scale used by home cooks.

So use good practices, which will give you better consistency in your recipes, but don't stress out too much.

Some things, like spices or vanilla extract, are just easier to measure by the spoon, even if a gram scale would be more accurate.  That is okay.


Purpose of condensed milk in mango ice cream? Purchased condensed milk (so expensive!) to make mango ice cream as per this recipe.
After mixing up everything, the mixture seemed a bit softer in texture as compared to my Mom's way of simply mixing mango puree, milk and sugar to make mango ice cream.

Mom saw me making it and said that it's un-necessary to use condensed milk. I couldn't explain to her why it's necessary either, because the recipe doesn't mention it. I thought it was required to prevent crystals from forming in the ice-cream, but Mom says that crystals will form anyway. Even if I take the mixture out of the fridge and whisk it.

So what exactly is the purpose of condensed milk, and how can I prevent those crystals from forming so that my ice-cream is smooth and soft?

The ultimate goal of ice cream is a creamy texture. You could take those same ingredients and freeze them in a paper cup and make a fantastic mango popsicle. Popsicles and slushies are not nearly as magical as ice cream.

Creaminess in ice cream is achieved by keeping the ice crystals as small as possible. The bigger the crystals the more grainy the texture.

There are two good ways to prevent large ice crystals from forming: Reducing the amount of available water and mechanically destroying the crystals. The ice crystals are reduced mechanically by churning or in your recipe by blending- but this is an answer for a different question.

Reduce the amount of available water.
 Many ingredients in ice cream will tie up some of the water and prevent it from coalescing into monolithic crystals.

Alcohol and sugar are used in sorbets
Gums, such as carageenan and xanthan gum, are used in commercial ice cream
Egg custards are used in French style ice cream
Starch gels tie up free water in Italian Gelato
Large quantities of fat

Removing water from the recipe, and sometimes replacing it with fat, will go a long way towards making creamier ice cream.

The condensed milk in your recipe is a convenience. Using milk that has had a lot of the water removed means that there will be more fat and less water in your ice cream. This will make it much easier to make your ice cream creamy.

You could use regular milk but you would be relying on your blender to chop up the large crystals that would inevitably form. If the canned milk is too expensive, and if you have some time, you could reduce your milk yourself and get the same effect.


Is lots of red juice normal when making sous-vide steak? So I made a 1lb hanger steak via sous-vide the other day and cooked it for 45 minutes at 130F.

After I seared in a cast iron pan, I took the meat off of the pan and let it sit for a few minutes and then sliced it up(against the grain) into smaller portions.

I noticed a lot of red juice in the plate as I was slicing it up but after I put it on a plate and it was sitting at the table, the meat almost ended up swimming in red juice.

When I order medium rare steak at a restaurant and it comes out pre-sliced, I don't usually notice this much red juice.

Is this normal?

UPDATE:

Found this great article explaining what was going on:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/12/how-to-have-juicy-meats-steaks-the-food-lab-the-importance-of-resting-grilling.html#continued

He has another article about sous vide ( http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/03/how-to-sous-vide-steak.html ) where he claims that you don't need to let the meat rest after searing. This is the one that originally led me to not need to rest the steak.

Looks like there is some resting that is required. Will post up with results next time I make some steak.

Pretty much...yes, but you can fix it!.

When you properly sous vide or very slow cook anything, you'll retain more of the myoglobin color because of the even cooking that often doesn't go above 140 at all.  So a properly cooked steak like this will retain much more of its red colored myoglobin.  Simply put, the meat will have more red juices to release! (Its a great, great thing about sous vide.)

As @Ronald mentions, the other thing is the resting of the meat.  It's an important step as the muscle fibers relax after the heat is off and hold juices better then.  An often misstep for the home cook is they allow a hot piece of meat to rest on a flat, solid surface.  This causes the bottom of the meat to steam against the board, open the fibers in the meat more, and release the juices on to the board.  Rest your meat on a raised baking rack so that it has air circulation all around it.

After a short rest - for most steak 10 minutes is fine, then you can cut into the steak.  Use a very sharp knife to slice.  The meat here is essentially a sponge and you don't want to compress it and squeeze out the juices.  A dull knife will do this and you'll lose more juice on the cutting board again.  Use a sharp knife and apply steady, even, but light pressure while slicing - let the edge do the work (if it won't, sharpen the knife more).


Is candle wax and cheese wax the same thing? I hope to preserve the cheese I make in wax alla Gouda but the books keep talking about cheese wax. Is this a special kind of wax and if so what is the difference between it and regular wax?

Also is it a rule that you have to brine your cheese if you wish to wax it?

Candle wax and cheese wax are quite different.

Candle wax is very stiff.  If it were flexible, you'd get bendy candles.

Cheese wax has additional ingredients to keep it pliable and prevent it from becoming brittle:

  This wax is pliable and will not become brittle as will pure paraffin wax.

It also has food-grade dyes.  Remember that candle wax is generally not designed to touch food.

As to brining.

The instructions on the About Waxing tab mentions that it's important to clean cheese before waxing to prevent mold growth:

  Before the cheese can be waxed, the mold needs to be removed. This can be done with a brine wash or vinegar wash. Both high acid and high salt will discourage mold from growing. I prefer the brine wash with ~ 1 tsp salt to a cup of cool water. As you can see in the photos, the mold wipes away easily. Photo at left shows the clean cheese ready for waxing.
  The cheese will dry and be ready for waxing in an hour or two.


Home-school science curriculum using cooking My sister has decided to home-school her children (all daughters, ranging from 5-14 years old) this year and has asked me, her physicist brother, for help creating a science curriculum. I would like to suggest to her to teach concepts using practical things so at the end of the year they will have useful skills.
I would like to have most of the concepts taught by cooking, but I'm not a great cook myself. So, I'm looking for suggestions for things that I may be overlooking. There are other questions here asking about the science of cooking, but are generally geared towards adults. I'm hoping to get ideas for something that teaches science to children and is useful for everyday cooking. Here are some of the things I have so far:

Maillard reaction
fermentation/yeast (making yogurt, kefir, sourdough)
Carmelization
Osmotic pressure (pickling, curing meat, etc)
Altitude effects (boiling point, adding flour, pressure cookers, etc)
thickeners (molecular structure, etc)
germs and bottling/preserving

Thank you for your help!

Those sound like fairly specific and advanced topics for the age range provided.  These standard guidelines might help you with a way to think about how to approach this. With some knowledge about what kids should learn at various levels, you can determine how kitchen experiences could meet those needs.
I don't know if this question will remain open.  In fact, you might get better answers here by posing a question like: How can I use the making of ice cream to illustrate the concept of states of matter?
Anyhow....I think you need to begin more broadly at first, then drill down with the help of curriculum guides.
Concepts that could be addressed in the kitchen:
The scientific process
Observation
State of matter
Chemical reactions
Mass, volume, forms of measurement
Acids and bases
basic math
fractions
conversions


Reheating Falafel without drying them out I'm planning to make falafel for lunch break for my colleagues, but I have to prepare them the evening before eating them. The only kitchen appliances available to reheat them are a microwave and an electrical water kettle. Fresh water and all kinds of plates, bowls and dishes are available as well.

What is the best way to reheat falafel without drying them out or making the outer layer tough and rubbery? Should I adjust my recipe in any way?

A damp paper towel draped or loosely wrapping the food will help keep the moisture levels up.

Also, most people reheat at 100%; this is the quickest way to ruin almost all food's texture. Use the microwave at 70% power for a bit longer time. This provides a more even heating and prevents the moisture from essentially boiling out.


What's the key to making thick soups? I looove soups, but I mainly eat vegetables and I do not use any store-bought spice mixes or "stocks". I also do not eat dairy for other reasons. And I also do not fry things.

I remember my grandma making nice, thick soups, ones that are not so watery... But I really don't know how to make them! My soups are either watery or they're overcooked.

So what is the key to making a soup that is thick and isn't overcooked? Or is there no key, it just depends? If that is so, then I want to know what it depends on. :-)

Make your favorite vegetable soup.  Remove 1/4 and puree in blender.  Return to the rest of the soup.  If it is not yet think enough, increase the amount you remove and puree until you find the consistency you are looking for.  If you don't have a blender, you can use an immersion "stick" blender, or even a hand cranked food mill. Alternately, if you have none of these devices, simply put the veg. in a bowl and mash with a potato masher.


Creating high-protein food for hiking I will go hiking for 10 days, and the food I get in the lodges on the way is practically all starch, wtih < 15 g protein per day. I did this once and felt terrible. So this time, I want to take my own protein, but in the logistically best way.

Normal foods are out of question, even beef jerky doesn't breach 40% protein, and I don't want to lug such a low density on my back for several days. Protein bars are in the area of jerky. So my ingredient of choice seems to be the protein powder used to make workout shakes (82% protein). I don't want to take the powder as-is, because it is hard to handle on the road.

What I want to do is to make my own protein bars with this powder, but with a much higher density than the store-bought ones. I want to mix it with the least possible amount of a gluing agent. The end result should

present no spilling danger (no liquid or powder)
need no special utensils to eat
have a long (at least 2 weeks) shelf life in a backpack under strong sunlight
preferably not require special packaging (so not too sticky, but this can be relaxed if the solution meets the other criteria)
not require any special equipment to produce (I don't have a dehydrator or such)
not cause me to gag (I don't insist on a pleasant taste, but I should be able to get it down)
have a really high protein density, in the best case over 70% (there are no other nutrition criteria; I am not worried by lots of carbs, E numbers, or lack of other essential nutrients)
can be conveniently prepackaged as single portions (maybe 30 g protein per portion)

It is OK if the stuff is so concentrated in taste and dry matter that I have to gulp down half a bottle of water with it.

Any ideas what ingredients and techniques can be used for a solution which comes closest to fulfilling above criteria?

I normally make cookies using 1 cup almond butter, 1 egg, 1 c. sugar, perhaps you can substitute some of the sugar for protein powder and see how it goes? Now I'm somewhat interested in trying that myself!

According to nutrional data it looks like protein powder and egg whites have the most amount of protein in them, the list Foods highest in Protein may help.

Update: I ended up making a new batch of cookies, and they turned out great. Used 1c. almond butter, 1 egg, 3/4 c. double chocolate whey protein powder, 1/4 c. sugar 1 tsp baking soda. Bake at 350 for 12 minutes. They are a bit soft, but hold together well and aren't too crumbly until eaten, they seem to hold better after they are a day old.


How to predict and adjust the spice level of dal? I have made countless recipes from popular Indian books and when I taste the end result, I always feel like the dish needs more spice. For example, I tried a recipe for Sri Lankan Dal with coconut found below and thought it could use more spice and it's usually too late by the time everything has been cooked since the dal needs to simmer with the spices. How can someone gauge the needed spice level of a recipe before hand? And how can someone amend the spice level after the dal has been cooked? Fry the spices in some oil and add it back to the dal?
Recipe:

450g red lentils

3 cardamom pods

coconut oil

1 cinnamon stick

3 whole cloves

2 brown onions, thinly sliced

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

2cm ginger, peeled and grated

2 green finger chillies, finely sliced

⅓ teaspoon ground turmeric

250g kale

200ml tinned coconut milk

salt

½ teaspoon mustard seeds

2 tablespoons desiccated or fresh grated coconut

juice of 1 lime

Recipe taken from Fresh India: 130 Quick, Easy and Delicious Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day by Meera Sodha.

Firstly, it has to be said - the way you learn to judge quantities is … practise.
However, there are several factors at play here…

"Indians" [sorry, I'm generalising a whole continent into one word for convenience] don't eat mouth-stingingly-hot food at every meal.
Some food is mild, some is 'go-for-it'. Some is rich, some is bland, some has heat, some has aromatics.
There is a North/South divide on 'spiciness' or 'heat' with the Southern continent going for hotter examples, Northern more dependant on aromatics.

Western "Indian" restaurants have tainted our view of what "Indian" food is.

Dal can be pretty bland anyway.

Your recipe is towards the bland end of the spectrum of possible dal recipes. The 'Sri Lankan-ness' in it is really only the coconut & perhaps the mustard seed.

So, that done with, in a broad sweeping generalisation kind of way, to your issue.
The recipe as written is missing a lot of what I would consider a 'basic' dal.
For a whistle-stop basic chana dal…
Boil dal with turmeric for half an hour
Fry cumin, garlic, onions
Add tomato, ginger, green chilli
Add chilli powder, turmeric, garam masala [or supermarket 'curry powder' depending on availability], asafoetida, coriander powder, dried methi
Add to dal mixture
Simmer until happy.
If you want to trick this up to feel more Southern or Sri Lankan, substitute coconut milk for some of the lentil boiling liquid, sub coconut oil for the ghee, add curry leaves & black mustard seed. Chillies, fresh green or ground red to taste.
Some of the ingredients you can add more later. Chilli powder, garam masala or 'curry powder' if you want a quick boost.
Other aromatics such as cardamom & clove, if you cheat & use them in powdered form, you can boost at any point. They're not as potent as whole, but they're a quick fix.
Another cheat is garlic powder, which is used by many restaurants rather than fresh - again, not the same as fresh, but can be used as a pep-up at any time [watch it doesn't go lumpy, make a thick slurry with water first to be safe.]


Why has my recently bought peanut butter such a liquid consistency? The title says it basically all. Below you see a glass of peanut butter of which the content is partly so liquid you could easily drink it. The label on the glass says "Creamy" but I have never had a glass with such a liquid peanut butter, may it be creamy or crunchy, not even of the same brand.

How come that this peanut butter has such a liquid consistency? Putting it in a fridge did not change the concistency.

What you can see in the jar is peanut oil, which has separated and floats on top. It means, you have bought a non-homogenized product, possibly an "all-natural" or "organic" product.

Just stir the oil into the thick paste at the bottom and use as usual.

For a discussion on how to best achieve this, see What's the most effective way to mix a jar of natural peanut butter?.


Fast caramelized taste for soup I want to make soup, a random soup.
suppose that I want to to give it a deep taste, like a caramelized onion taste.

because I only need the taste, I don't care about texture.
can I get the equivalent of caramelized onion fast? like, 15 minute fast?

I read somewhere that I can brown onion fast if I fry it first without oil,salt or anything, destroying interior speed up the process of carammelizing and browning.

or is giving the soup a storebought caramel bar able to give equivalent deep taste?
or caramelized carrots, garlics?
I only need the caramelized taste, because the main flavour will be from spice and herbs.
the question is this:
what are the fast ways (under 16minutes) to give a soup a deep,caramelized taste?

You can add a little bit of sugar to your onions while cooking them; this will help them get caramelized faster. (or at least get some caramel flavors).

But you will need to check them often in order not to burn the sugar too much.


Will my bread dough that has already gone through first rise be okay to bake after three days of refrigeration? I was making a loaf of bread in a bread machine on dough setting. This includes the first rise. Removed dough and put into a pan for second rise then bake. My oven died before second rise so I refrigerated the greased and covered dough. It has been three days will it be okay to bake?

From experience... No, it will probably not be 'okay to bake'. It's not going to rise, the yeast will most likely be spent.

Try mixing more dough and incorporate a third of your dough into that as a starter. Then, when that dough is finished mixing, cut a third of it and put it in the fridge for the next time you make bread. Then you've got a heck of a nice starter going.


My stock is too sweet As part of my Thanksgiving preparation, I made a chicken and turkey stock by first roasting the bones and then cooking them very low for a few hours. About an hour or so before the end of their cooking, I added roasted vegetables -- a combination of onion, carrot, celery, parsnip, turnip, and parsley root. I didn't add any other flavoring other than a touch of salt. (I know most people don't salt their stocks, but I tend to undersalt everything, so adding it at every step will help.)

My stock is tasty, but rather sweet. Is this a factor of too many sweet vegetables (or not enough celery)? Or is there something else I'm missing?

(I compensated in my gravy by adding a touch of soy sauce and fish sauce to add more umami flavoring. But I'd like to understand why it happened.)

Some vegetables are aromatics for infusing flavor without changing the underlying base, and certain combinations become known for cuisines.  Onion, celery and carrots make mire-poix.  Onions, garlic and tomato make sofrito.

Turnips and parsnips are not those kinds of vegetables, usually.  Parsnips get very sweet (a good thing usually) as do onions and carrots.  You just combined a lot of the ones that get sweet and intensified it by roasting.

If you are looking for a more neutral broth, stay with onions, celery and carrots and simmer, don't roast.