What's the difference between a French oven and a Dutch oven? I've been haunting the discount cookware sites looking for Le Creuset pieces that won't put me in the poorhouse. I found two pieces that are similar size and price - one is a French oven and the other is a Dutch oven. There's nothing in the descriptions of them that tell me what the difference is between the two. Can anyone clarify?

Edited to add specific pieces

2 quart French oven

2.5 quart Dutch oven

Ok, so the "Smart XXX Alec" in me wanted to start out by saying: "The French oven is more arrogant and less useful."  But I refrained until I learned I was right.

Looking at these two similar products Dutch Oven vs. French Oven I notice that there is not much difference except that the "French Oven" is 4 times the price & only good to 350 degrees in the oven where the Dutch Oven is rated for 400 degrees (F).

So I think I have to stand by my original thought.


Soaking fruits and things in alcohol So I got a wild hair one day in Feb and filled a bunch of Mason jars half full with random things and started soaking them in whiskey, vodka and sweet whiskey.

I put a few pickle Spears in some whiskey (80 proof) was that a bad decision and will this make someone sick?
I cut some strawberries in half and put them in vodka, 100 proof and some in the 80 whiskey.
I then put some blueberries in vodka
Quartered plums in whiskey
I threw some halved strawberries in Tennessee honey

Other than one jar of strawberry/vodka, I didn't add sugar to any of these.
I've been keeping them relatively dark and at room temperature. My plan is to bust them open near the holidays.
Is any of this setting off red flags for someone who has done this before or does this regularly?
I just don't want to make anyone sick unless its from drinking too much. (Kidding)
My biggest concern is the pickle whiskey....
Everything else seems pretty normal as far as what I've looked up.
Thanks in advance for any insight.

You made something what in Poland we call tincture Nalewka . But we usually use 160 proof spirit.
Fresh fruits in alcohol will infuse it with it's taste and sweetness. Very good with clean alcohol. Not so great with one that already have some aroma in it. May produce strange things as whiskey wood may not go well with some fruit freshness (for me anyway).

But the first things may be a red flag. First, what was the pickle made of? Vinegar, sugar, herbs, salt? If yes you may get something close to Smokey Martini.

Or did your pickles are type of polish ones? Not pickled but, you know, fermented, more salty, acidic ones?

The best way to check on how the infusion is going is to check bottom of jars, there should be some "dust/mud" at the bottom, this show that the alcohol is filtrating through the fruits. that bottom dust should not be drank. Also the nalewka should be more dense and sticky at it will absorb sugar.

You can open them and check the taste (I usually us syringe as not to stir the slime). And I would do that on the pickled ones.


What is a good fish for cooking crumbed / battered? I love cooking fish in a batter or crumbed. I usually use flathead which is nice, but I would like to know what other fish works well when being cooked in a batter or crumbed?

When I fancy fish and chips I tend to use either cod or haddock and create a rich beer batter. Serve that with some home-made chips and you're set.

If I want something lighter, but still with a crust, I'd tend to go for mackerel. If that's not available, I'd be looking for seabass or snapper.


Why baste bread with cornstarch? In this sourdough recipe, it suggests basting the bread with a cornstarch slurry. I would assume this is meant to promote crust development, but how does that work? I usually see such a slurry used to thicken liquids.

Other recipes that use this method:

Yankee Harvest sourdough
"Secrets of a Jewish Baker" glaze
Jewish Sour Rye on The Fresh Loaf
What's Cooking America bread machine tips

It appears to be a presentation thing (makes it look "professional") and possibly a Jewish tradition.

Edit: Do note that the question is "Why cornstarch? How does that work?". I understand the desire for a good crust, and I understand that the slurry is meant to promote crust development, but I fail to understand what it is about cornstarch that mimics good crust development.

I've seen bread recipes like the one that you described.

When bread is baked in an oven with steam- the starch in the crust is able to gelatinize before it all dries out and becomes crispy. This is what makes the crust crisp, shiny, and delicious- characteristic of "artisan" breads.

Most people don't have steam enhanced ovens (or the ability to hack their oven to add steam: How can I create steam in a normal oven to promote bread oven spring?)

The recipe you linked has water added for steam but then takes out extra insurance (they cheat) by adding the cornstarch glaze to mimic the effect. By adding extra, pure, starch on the surface of the loaf more gelatinization occurs. Additionally, cornstarch gelatinizes at a lower temperature that wheat starch. Conceivably, you should be able to use any starch and see similar results but, in the US at least, cornstarch is by far the most common.

It shouldn't be necessary if you are able to produce enough steam in your oven.


How deeply will the flavors in a brine penetrate chicken? I'm not asking about salt or "juiciness". I think there is enough evidence here and elsewhere to answer that question with "pretty deep, or all the way to the bone". My question concerns spices and other flavorings in the brine. I want to know not only how far the flavors can go, but also what qualities in specific flavorings help those flavorings penetrate more deeply, and why?

There is yet another question within my answer. I hope that someone can shed more light on the subject. I'll happily accept an answer that clarifies things, even if it debunks my hypothesis as to "why".

I am answering this question, but I am not going to accept this answer, at least not without further research and/or experimentation and editing this answer to reflect that. I am hoping that somebody with a greater knowledge of chemistry and the nature of brining can add to or even credibly contradict the science of what I am saying here. My conclusions are based on the evidence from one experiment. My theory as to "why" barely actually reaches the level of "hypothesis".

THE EXPERIMENT

Making the Brine

For this experiment, I wanted a very strongly flavored brine with a lot of different flavors. I filled a stock pot with water, brought it to a boil and added whole spices in a concentration four times as high as I used in a recent pho (star anise, cinnamon stick, cloves, fennel, broken open cardamon pods). I let that simmer for a few hours and set it on the porch overnight to cool.

The next morning I strained the flavored water and made a 5% salt brine (10 cups flavored water to 4 ounces kosher salt or 3 liters water to 150 grams salt) and included 4 ounces of brown sugar. I brought that to a simmer and proceeded to add just about everything flavorful I had that wouldn't clash. Finely chopped preserved lemon, a full third cup of Ras el Hanout, lots of harissa, lots of grated ginger, an entire head of crushed garlic, about a half cup of dried minced onion (I knew I'd find a use for that) and enough cayenne and red pepper flakes to make the brine about three times as hot as a good hot and sour soup. After adding all that the brine actually measured 12.5 cups so I added another ounce of salt. I'm sure that brought the brine up a little over 5%, but fine for this experiment. I simmered the whole mess for an hour, then set it outside again to cool overnight.

Another poster had shown me pictures of a cross-section of meat that had been brined in a brine that had been colored. That photo was intended to show that the brine barely penetrated the meat. Indeed the color was only visible in the outer few millimeters of meat. That inspired me to do the same, I added two bottles of food coloring to the brine. (A funny aside - I bought food coloring for this experiment. My intention was to use a perfectly appetizing red/orange. I didn't realize that boxes of food coloring came in other than standard colors. I got home with "neon", giving me the options of purple, pink, blue and green. That's why my chicken you'll see in later pictures is fuchsia.)

Brining and Cooking and the Chicken

I used a completely defrosted, 6lb, Foster Farms Chicken. I submerged the chicken in the brine and also lifted the skin as much as I could to get the brine under the skin. I got as much brine as I could under the skin, but I took care to not pierce the meat.

I left the chicken submerged in the brine for 36 hours, refrigerated, flipping and pouring brine under the skin every few hours. Upon removing the chicken from the brine, I rinsed it thoroughly including under the skin, patted it dry with paper towels, and left it uncovered in the fridge for 12 hours to air-dry. I put it on my "set-it-and-forget-it" rotisserie, basting for the last 15 minutes in Mr Yoshida's. Would you believe it? It was one of the best chickens I've ever made! But that's beside the point.

RESULTS

I carved the chicken in layers. I washed the knife after every slice to be sure that I wouldn't carry flavors with the knife. Once the bird was carved, I asked a friend to join me in the tasting. We started tasting at the very inner layer and moved out. At each layer, I asked him what he was tasting but I didn't tell him what I was tasting until we were done. While it was in no way over salted, salt was evident to both of us all the way to the bone. Neither one of us were sure about sugar, it kind of seemed a little sweetened, but if it was it was just too subtle to say for sure. The outer-most layer below the skin was the furthest "in" either of us could sense heat or any other specific flavors other than the salt and possibly sugar already mentioned - with one flavor exception which I'll cover in just a moment. The skin and outermost layer were deliciously flavored, the rest of the chicken was also very good, very juicy.

As you can see in the above picture, the food coloring didn't penetrate at all. I don't think it even would have penetrated the skin if I hadn't separated the skin from the meat to get the brine in-between. That surprised me a bit, especially since I had seen the results of a colored brine on pork, and the color at least penetrated a few millimeters.

Beyond the salt and possibly sugar, there was one very subtle flavor and effect that I noticed in every slice, all the way to the bone. I couldn't put a name to it, so I asked this question a while ago: The name or chemical compound responsible for a specific quality of some spices (numbness) Very quickly, AllisonR gave me the answer I needed. It was eugenol that I was sensing all the way through the chicken. My friend/guinea pig said that he sensed it too, but only after I specifically asked him. Further research into eugenol confirmed something else that I was thinking. Beyond the effect of a subtle numbness, eugenol has its own mild aroma and flavor. That leads me to a theory...

MY THEORY (and a question within an answer)

How the salt in brine penetrates meat has been covered here ad nauseam, so I'm not even going to touch upon that. What I will address is the flavors beyond salt that can be added to brine, as many chefs advocate.

If brine can carry flavors with it into the interior of the meat, why didn't the food coloring penetrate? One of my colors was made of Red 40, AKA Allura Red AC. The molecular formula of Red 40 is C18H14N2Na2O8S2. Blue 1 was another of my colors, molecular formula C37H34N2Na2O9S3. The other colors in my box were Red 3 and Yellow 5. They are similarly huge molecules.

As I said earlier, my brine was very spicy hot. There was some heat evident in the skin of my chicken and the outer layer of meat. Interior of that, there was no heat in the chicken. The molecular formula of capsaicin is C18H27NO3. Now that molecule isn't as huge as the food coloring molecules, but it is still a pretty big molecule.

Of all of the flavorful "stuff" I put into my brine at very concentrated levels, there was only one flavor/effect beyond the salt and (possibly) sugar that I could perceive deep into the meat. That flavor/effect has been identified as coming from eugenol. The molecular formula of eugenol is C10H12O2.

Relative to the food coloring and capsaicin, eugenol is a small molecule, and eugenol was perceptible in my chicken all the way to the bone.

The molar masses of the relevant molecules are: Sodium chloride: 58.44 g mol−1, Sucrose: 342.30 g/mol, Red 40: 496.42 g mol−1, Capsaicin: 305.41 g mol−1, Eugenol: 164.20 g/mol

So my question within an answer is this: Can the size of the molecules explain why most flavors don't seem to penetrate and food coloring definitely does NOT penetrate chicken, but eugenol does?

CONCLUSION

I will continue almost always to brine poultry (and pork for that matter). There is no question to me that brining improves the texture and flavor of the meat. The fact that I could absolutely sense the eugenol in my brine all the way to bone of the chicken concretely supports the idea that brine does, in fact, deeply penetrate poultry. There are advocates here for dry-brining and I'll certainly give that a shot.

Considering the huge variety and the strength of the concentration of flavors in my brine, it is significant to me that none of the flavors (besides the eugenol) seemed to penetrate the chicken. I am now convinced that adding flavor to the brine is a waste. In the future, I will save my spices, fruits and garlic for rubbing the chicken, basting the chicken and adding to sauces. They do nothing for the brine. The one exception seems to be eugenol, and that is a nice (if very mild) flavor, so spices high in eugenol might be worthwhile in brine.

I will continue the search. If my theory that small molecules can travel with the brine is correct, maybe there are other small molecules that can be responsible for nice flavors in chicken. But the straight 5% salt solution seems to be what matters. If I find another flavor that actually flavors the chicken, I will update this post.


Nixtamilizing Corn for Tortillas I am new to the process of making tortillas from corn, I understand that the nixtamalization process and using heirloom corn are important to make traditional tortillas. I do not want to use pre-nixtamalized and ground corn, and am attempting to do it from scratch. Living in Canada makes this process difficult as most companies will ship within the US but not to Canada. I have found a local producer of Native corn that would be appropriate for this product, but the corn is fresh.
So, can fresh corn be nixtamalized for tortillas, or must it be dried and then processed accordingly?

Too long for comment so:
I should think fresh would work. It's just dried that comes prehydrated. I'd cut down on boiling time. Say 5 cup corn, 1.5 gallon water, 1/4 cup CaOH (Cal, slaked lime, pickling lime). Boil gently 30 min (instead of hour). Let sit overnight. Rinse 4-5 times to remove excess CaOH, put thru your corn grinder to make massa. add a tablespoon or two of salt, about 2 cups water to get texture right, mix well. Should make about 2400 g masa -> enough for 40 tortillas. If unlucky, your prehydrated corn will turn to useless mush, but I don't think that's what happens. Don't rinse the nixtamalized stuff too many times. That removes CaOH, but also the corn coating that holds the tortilla together while cooking. CaOH is bitter. Crumbly tortillas are no fun.

I made my press out of maple wood, with sheets of flexible storm window plastic to keep massa from sticking. No need for that expensive metal contraption to make 5" tortillas Cooking goes smoothest if you have two 2 tortilla size griddles. That way you can cook 4 at a time. The timing works out to keep you busy, not waiting. If you have vertigo though it will make you dizzy.


Is heating rate important with sugar syrups? I make hot fudge syrup ; heat  chocolate , sugar , butter, etc, to 240 F ,then put in half and half . I end up with a spoon-able viscosity at room temperature but warming to 100 F makes it pour-able. Does it make any difference how fast I heat it ? I don't need it to firm up into fudge.

The limiting factor for how fast you can heat your syrups is how evenly that heat is distributed through the liquid. If you have a runny liquid, a thick pot that distributes well and you stir constantly, you can heat very fast. The heated liquid is immediately mixed throughout.

On the other hand, if your syrup is viscous it won't mix easily. If your pan is thin then there will be hot spots. The syrup will get too hot and burn at those points.

Another consideration is precise temperatures needed for candy making. If your syrup is destined for a denser candy then you want to hit a final temperature that is within about a 5F range. It might be hard to hit accurately if you are heating too fast.

Personally, I start my syrups on medium-medium low until the sugar is dissolved and then bump the temp up to almost high. If I'm making candy I'll go back to a medium high when it starts getting close.

As for reheating- just use a microwave. The syrup won't burn.

Some recipes need to be heated gently. Eggs, for example, are more likely to curdle when they are heated abruptly- even if they are only heated to the same temperature.

This does not apply to sugar syrups.


What is Zwieback toast and where can I find it? I am baking a black forest cake and it calls for zwieback toast.  I cannot find this anywhere.  Does anyone know what this is or where I can find it?

Zwieback toast is a twice-baked sweetened toast fed to teething children. It is also known as teething toast, and can be found in the baby aisle of most grocery stores.


How do you stop limes from drying out? I bought a bag of limes and decided to leave them out on the table in a bowl after the last bag dried out in the fridge. They also dried out super-fast in a very few days. Should I keep them in a plastic bag? I don't live in a very dry climate. Thanks!

Cook's Illustrated recommends storing lemons in the fridge in a tightly sealed ziptop bag with the excess air removed. I would imagine that the same applies to limes. As I understand it, the idea is to prevent air circulation in order to reduce the rate of dehydration.

Ref at thekitchn.com


Should steak be broiled crosswise or lengthwise? When broiling steak in an oven, is there any difference between positioning the steak lengthwise or crosswise relative to the flame?

There is no difference in whether you place your steak perpendicular or parallel to the flame, however, what's your goal?  If you want a crust or char over most of the surface, you would probably want to turn it part way through the cooking.


Is there an upper time limit when simmering stock? I'm making veal stock that's later going to be reduced to a glace viande.

In the past, I was always close enough to observe the process and strain the stock when done. I also realize that an hour or two and even longer isn't an issue when making stock.

But today I will be away for most of the day and my stock pot will remain unattended on the lowest possible heat on the stove. I don't expect any problems from this procedure. But it prompted a question:

How long could a pot of bone stock be simmered?
Is there an upper threshold when unwanted substances are extracted from the bones? When the flavour profile does not get "better" but starts to deteriorate?

Clarification:

I am not talking about cooking a day or two, I know that this is typically no problem. And yes, if necessary I could add water to counter evaporation. For this question, you may assume "no time limit".
I am familiar with the concept of perpetual stew. But for a perpetual stew, parts of the stock are removed and new ingredients added. I'm asking explicitly about one unchanged stock: a pot of bones in water, optionally some spices and mirepoix.

You could implement a perpetual stock, where you keep it simmering indefinitely and renew it by adding fresh ingredients over time. The tradition of keeping a perpetual stew boiling for weeks or even months dates back centuries, and was a way to keep the ingredients from going bad in days before refrigeration.

https://alehorn.com/2016/01/07/is-medieval-perpetual-stew-for-you/

If you just want to simmer a single pot of stock indefinitely, you can do that safely by adding water on a regular basis in small quantities (small enough that the stock temperature does not drop below 140 degrees) but if you're not using some and replacing the ingredients, over time (several days) the stock will eventually acquire a sort of acrid taste (speaking from personal experience.)

I think the issue is that there's a limited amount of the aromatic compounds which produce the desired flavor, and over time, these tend to evaporate. Replenishing water doesn't replenish the flavor. The smell of stock simmering means those aromatic compounds are now in the air and no longer in the pot. Eventually, the amount of nice flavoring compounds leaving the broth to the air exceeds what you can extract from the remaining bones etc. Oxidation of the remnants leads to a less pleasant flavor. There is also the question of the pot itself adding metallic flavors if the stock is at all acidic.


What is the shelf life of cookies made with Greek Yogurt? After baking cookies with greek yogurt,
How long would they be good if stored in the freezer or fridge?

Will they still be safe to enjoy?
Is this the same with greek yogurt cakes/pies?

In general, the yogurt is not going to affect the shelf life of any baked goods. You're going to kill the culture when you bake it, so it's just a question of how long that particular baked good lasts.

And so the answer varies drastically depending on what you've made. It's mostly a function of how moist it is. Dry cookies last several days or even weeks at room temperature, just slowly getting stale. Don't bother putting them in the fridge; it'll just make them go stale faster. Very moist cookies might start to mold at room temperature, so they're best eaten quickly. Pies and cakes generally need to be kept in the fridge. They'll generally last at least several days, with cakes tending to dry out and pie crust suffering a bit.

If you want things to last longer, freeze them. Everything essentially lasts forever in the freezer: it's safe forever and all you have to worry about is decline in quality. You just need to make sure they're stored airtight with as little extra space as possible so that they don't take on smells and they don't accumulate a lot of frost.


I have been cooking yogurt cakes in the US for a while and each time it has to cook for an extra 20 min. Why? I like the Gâteau au Yaourt (Yogurt Cake) as describe here (in French):

http://www.750g.com/gateau-au-yaourt-r45540.htm

I uses Yogurt (x1), Flour (x3, see below), Eggs (x3), Oil (x1/2 to x1), Sugar (x2), and whatever flavor you like... (vanilla, chocolate, nuts...)

The recipes always say to cook the cake for about 35 min. I always end up leaving the cake in the oven for another 20 min. or so.

What would be the reason why the cooking takes longer here? Wouldn't 180°C be the same in the US? (I use 350°F for the oven settings...)

Also, I put less flour (I use 2/3rd instead of the French quantities to avoid getting a piece of stone out of the oven), however, the texture is very similar. Also most often I add chocolate to it, making the batter generally thicker.

However, I think that there is quite a difference between 35 min. and nearly a whole hour...

My first suspicion would be your oven. Home ovens are notoriously inaccurate, and it may be that yours is just slow, which is to say that it doesn't quite reach the temperature to which you set it. If you don't already have one, buy a good oven thermometer (the kind you leave in the oven all the time) and use that rather than the indicator on the oven knob or the oven's display. You may find that when you set your oven to 350°F, you actually only get 310°F.

The second suspect would of course be the ingredients, especially the flour. Flour varies a lot between countries, and the fact that you're using American flour and also changing the quantity could impact cooking time. You also didn't mention what type of flour you're using -- common types in the US include all purpose flour, bread flour, and cake flour, and these each differ in protein content. One thing you could try (after checking your oven temp, of course) is to use French-style flour and see if that makes a difference. If that does the trick, then you might experiment with blending two flour types (like all purpose and bread flour) to approximate the protein level of the flour that you're used to. Yogurt also seems to be different in different countries, and it could be that ours has a higher water content than what you're used to.

All that said, if you like the cakes you're making, then perhaps there's no need to adjust anything. A good cake is worth an extra 20 minutes of waiting.

Note: as Sobachina points out in a comment, altitude can make a difference. King Arthur Flour has a summary of changes to expect if this could be a factor.


Effects of reducing sugar in cookies If I want to reduce the amount of sugar (to reduce sweetness) in a cookie recipe, how would that affect the end result (mainly with respect to texture) and what can be done to negate it?

Sugar isn't added to baked goods just to sweeten them: it also does things to the fats and starches to help create the texture. This is related to why some recipes require castor sugar (i.e. very fine crystals) and others do not.

One solution you could experiment with is changing the sugar. Dextrose is noticeably less sweet than cane sugar, for instance, for the same quantity.


Why did my attempt at pan-searing beef filets fail miserably? Background: I am very much an amateur cook; I would consider myself a novice at best, so pardon my ignorance!

I decided to try to cook a nice dinner for my family recently. Part of that dinner included some small (~6-7 oz., 1.5-2" thick) beef tenderloin steaks. After doing some Internet research I decided on a preparation method that included pan-searing them for a few minutes on each side (with the goal of getting the steaks to the approximately "rare" stage), followed by a stint in the oven to finish them off. This seemed straightforward to me, so I decided to give it a try.

As a novice cook, the only skillet that I had on hand that was suitable for use in the oven was an old cast-iron one, so I used that. Following the recipe that I had found, I added 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil and ~1 stick of butter [*] to the pan and put it on high heat. After the foam subsided from the butter, I placed the steaks in the pan. The Internet consensus seemed to indicate 3-4 minutes of searing on each side would get the steaks to rare, so I waited patiently.

Unfortunately, after 3 to 3.5 minutes, it became apparent that something had gone wrong: the kitchen began to fill with smoke, and when I turned the steaks, the side that had been seared was burned horribly. I had to abort cooking them at that point to mitigate the smoke; I later found that the steaks had cooked through much more than I would have expected by that point.

While my result was discouraging, I'm trying to do some post-mortem analysis to try to determine what went wrong so that if I get up the nerve to try this again, I won't ruin another meal of expensive meat! Some possibilities that came to mind:

Was cast iron a bad choice as my cookware in this case?
Should I have lubricated the pan differently?
Is there some other detail that I missed that could have changed the outcome?

[*] "A stick of butter" is a US measurement, it denotes 113.5 g of butter

Butter is a very bad choice for frying at high heat, as it burns extremely easily. Cast iron is the ideal pan material though, so you are halfway there.

Take a flavourless oil like sunflower and brush it
directly on the steaks - don't put the oil in the pan.
Preheat the pan until it is ridiculously hot.
Preheat the oven if that's the
method you're going to use
Season the steaks generously with salt and
pepper
Sear the steaks and cook in the oven until desired level of
doneness is reached.
Rest the steak on a wire rack (or failing that, a plate) for 5 minutes so it doesn't leak juice all over the plate.

Personally I would omit the oven stage and just cook the steaks in the pan, turning frequently. Add a knob of butter near the end and baste it over the steaks with a spoon.

A probe thermometer is a great investment to make if you plan on cooking meat properly. You cannot rely on rules of thumb like pressing the steak or just timing it. There is a good chart here for the temperatures at each level of 'doneness'.


How to fix separating spaghetti sauce? I am making spaghetti sauce from home-grown tomatoes. They were standard garden tomatoes - not Romas or anything you'd traditionally use for sauce, but hey, they're what I had.

The sauce has been simmering for a few hours and is reducing nicely. To stir, it has a lovely consistency, but when it sits, water collects at the bottom and the sauce becomes almost mealy until I stir it all up again.

In other words, it's not just thin and "watery," but the liquid (virtually clear by itself) is actually separating out.

The sauce doesn't necessarily need to be "thickened" (although it could be), but I'd like to stop it from separating like this. I'd rather avoid using canned tomato paste if possible. Any other ideas?

Par-blending the sauce (eg with a stick blender) could thicken/emulsify it just enough to stop it from separating but without adding any thickener.


What is Okinawan "yushi tofu" made from? Here in Okinawa where I'm currently travelling, there is a dish called "yushi tofu" (Japanese: ゆし豆腐).

So far I've only noticed it offered as a variety of Okinawa soba. (Okinawa soba is different to regular soba made of buckwheat.) I tried "yushi tofu soba" tonight in Naha and enjoyed it - but I'm still not sure what it actually is or what it's made from.

Image thanks to the Japanese Wikipedia.

I've asked a few locals and none have been able to tell me what it is. English Wikipedia doesn't cover it and the mentions it gets in the Japanese Wikipedia do not translate well with Google Translate.

I'm pretty confident that "yushi" is Japanese "油脂", which means "fats and oils" - but that doesn't tell us very much.

In particular, apparently the word "tofu" is sometimes used for foods not made from soybeans so I would like to know if this is made from soybeans combined with fats and oils, made with the fats and oils that can be extracted from soybeans, or is made with fats and oils rather than soybeans. Or something else (-:

Food.com actually provides a recipe for making it, saying:

  Yushi doufu is tofu that has not been pressed and formed, but simply scooped out after tofu coagulates...

The ingredients are soy beans, water, and nigari.


Can I use a tagine on a glass cooktop, and do I need a heat diffuser? I somehow ended up acquiring not one but two tagines recently. Unfortunately, I have neither a gas nor charcoal stove (the ideal cooking surfaces for tagines, AIUI), only a smooth glass cooktop.

I've already tried using the W-S tagine, with a heavy cast-iron skillet as a makeshift heat diffuser. It worked out okay — the dish turned out great, but it took forever to cook, much longer than previous times I've cooked the dish using a cast iron Dutch oven. In the end, I had to turn the heat to high so that the dish would finish in a reasonable amount of time. This also resulted in stripping the seasoning from the skillet, which I'd rather avoid every time I want to cook a tagine.

Is there a better way to use a tagine on a cooktop?

Should I be using some sort of heat diffuser (which variety?), or can I place the tagine directly on the burner, and just keep the heat low? I'm hesitant to try the latter: both tagines have a small rim around the bottom, so the area of direct burner contact would be very small.

Should I give up and just stick to using the tagines in the oven?

My name is Tom Wirt, with Clay Coyote Pottery.  I'll try to shed some light on the intricacies of clay cooking pots, especially tagines.

You can use any flameware tagine directly on the glass stovetop.  This includes, Emile Henry, Le Crueset, and Clay Coyote flameware.  These are pots with either a metal base (Le Crueset) , or a type of ceramic called flameware (Emile Henry, Clay Coyote which is formulated and made to take direct heat.

Normal stoneware clay pots and earthenware pots will not do this.  Stoneware should never go on a direct heating source, gas, electric or glasstop.  It will crack with or without a diffuser.

Earthenware ceramic pots, typically identified by a reddish clay color and some absorbency by the bare clay (typically the bottom), do need a diffuser and should be started over a low heat.  They can crack if used over sudden or too high a heat. Remember that these pots were originally used over charcoal fires.

Metal, obviously is fine.

The flameware ceramic pots, are designed for direct heat and are actually especially good on glasstops as the top spreads the heat better than electric or gas.
Clay is a insulator, not a conductor.  Thus the heat doesn't spread much, but, with a highly liquid food like a tagine, the liquid spreads the heat.  Basically a tagine is cooked at a simmer, even though the pot would take the heat.
Induction stoves require a metal plate with ceramic cookware to turn the electromagnetic force into heat.

You can find more info on my blog.


What's the best way to tell that pasta is done (when boiling)? I've tried a number of different ways to tell when spaghetti, capellini and other pasta types are done, but I'm curious if there are more specific rules of thumb.  With regular spaghetti, I've tried biting-in-half to see if it's still white in the middle, throwing it against the fridge (which seems more amusing than useful), etc., but are there better and more reliable ways?

Also, how much does pasta 'cook' once you take it out of the water?  So if you want an al dente pasta, do you take it off slightly before done?  If so, how much?

Since al dente means "to the tooth", I always taste it and see :)

To my way of thinking, texture and cooked-ness are two different things. The heat cooks the flour which makes up the pasta, but the time in the water allows the water to be absorbed and soften it. A dry noodle soaked overnight in a cup of water might attain an edible texture, but wouldn't actually be cooked.

Taking pasta out of the water stops the texture from changing, except that too long sitting out and it can get dry again on the outside. Too long in the heat and it would overcook. Lucky that water boils at a pretty constant temperature (for your location/altitude), so once you get the timing right for a particular type of noodle, results are very repeatable.

I only remove pasta before it's done (par boil) when you're adding it to a casserole.


Can a fish living in fresh water be called seafood? Pangasius (Wikipedia) says:

  Pangasius is a genus of medium-large to very large shark catfishes
  native to fresh water in South and Southeast Asia.

  ...

  In 2011, Pangasius was sixth in the National Fisheries Institute’s
  "Top 10" list of the most consumed seafood in the United States.

If I understand correctly, fresh water is not sea water, and has little salt.

So why can a fish living in fresh water be called seafood?

Thanks.

Don't read too much into the "sea"; there's no rule that every word in the language has to stick precisely to its etymological roots.

Seafood just means edible aquatic life, i.e. fish and shellfish in general. It's a food word, not a biology word, and fish on your plate looks pretty much the same whether it's freshwater or saltwater fish, so generally it all gets lumped into one category.


How long will Jalepenos last in the freezer? I have a big bag of ~50 jalapenos in my freezer, frozen less than a day after being picked. How long will they last in there, and how will I know they've gone bad?

First off, pretty much everything stored in a properly cold freezer (0°F/-18°C) will be safe to eat forever.

The flavor will eventually go, e.g., by getting freezer burn and also by enzymatic degradation (if not blanched). How long this will take depends on exactly how you've stored them. In general, airtight packaging with no air inside seems to be best. For example, vacuum-sealed thick bags work well. Cheap, thin plastic "storage" bags don't work well. You can get around 8 months according to UNL. Colorodo State believes you can get 12 to 18 months.

edit: It also occurs to me that it matters what freezer you're using. The one on my fridge, for example, has fairly large temperature swings (yet mostly stays below 0°F) and automatic defrost, it freezer burns things much quicker than my chest freezer (which has a temperature variance of maybe 2°F, staying in the -3° to -1°F range)


How much salt does brining a turkey add? I want to brine a turkey for Thanksgiving, using Alton Brown's recipe for brining.  My wife is concerned that this will increase the amount of salt and sugar in the turkey, making it unhealthy.  How much salt and sugar from a brine would end up in say a 12 pound turkey?

I suggest starting with this Cook's Illustrated brining article for more information on brining.

Much of what would be transferred into your turkey is liquid from the osmosis, but some salt, and sugar if you choose to use it, would be added as well.

If you purchase an "enhanced" turkey that has already been injected, you don't want to brine it.  The injection has a similar effect.  If you've made an enhanced turkey in the past, you've already eaten a bird with added sodium.

Harold McGee states that the turkey will gain 10% of its weight in a combination of water and sodium.  Your brine comes out to about 3.9% salt, so your 12 lb turkey will gain ((12 lbs * .1) * .039) = .0486 lbs = 21 grams of salt from a 3.9% brine.  Your average soda has 55 milligrams of salt per serving.  The total amount of salt from your brine will be spread over the entire turkey, so divide that amount by the number of servings you expect that turkey to provide to get the number of additional milligrams of sodium per serving of turkey from brining.

If at the end of the day you don't want to brine, in that same article McGee also suggests a way to keep turkey moist without a brine.

EDIT: I did my math wrong above, and have corrected the formula and results.


Can water kefir grains be turned into milk kefir grains and if so how? I make water kefir but would like to try milk kefir, can I convert my water granules to milk kefir granules?

It might be technically possible (with a lot of work) to get water-kefir "grains" (or, more correctly, SCOBY, a Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) to survive on milk, although I'm not sure what kind of drink that would produce.
But if your question is, as I suspect, whether you can turn the water-kefir SCOBY into what people commonly refer to as "milk kefir", then the answer is an absolute no because they are completely different cultures.
This is a common point of confusion, and it arises from the fact that "water kefir" is a misnomer. The word kefir properly refers to the culture and related drink based on milk, and it probably originates from the Caucasus area.
On the other hand, what we informally call water kefir is actually a completely different culture and drink, more correctly called tibicos, and it probably originates from the Americas.


Won't fresh pasta sheets in lasagna overcook? Most lasagna recipes require 30-45min of baking. Fresh pasta however only requires 2-4min of cooking. If I use fresh pasta in lasagne, will it not overcook?

Edit: The linked duplicate question is about a very different, even the opposite topic: how not to undercook pasta. I am talking about overcooking it.

Lasagna, using freshly made pasta, can be constructed by (a) pre-boiling the noodles, then building the lasagna, then baking, or (b) layering the lasagna with uncooked noodles, then baking.  Both methods result in a good final product, though you may need a bit more liquid (sauce, for example) in the version that is not pre-cooked.  I've tried both and prefer to cook my noodles first, then bake.  In either case, the noodles do not "over cook".  They should be soft (except perhaps the edges, which I like crispy).  It might seem counter-intuitive, but noodles in lasagna hold up just fine.  By the way, I prefer  most of my fresh pasta cooked longer than 2 - 3 minutes, especially more hearty types, but I get your point.


How to get rid of plastic and residual weird taste from food stored in tupperware? When I store leftovers in plastic tupperware and eat them later, I sometimes taste plastic. I do have some glass pyrex containers and they don't leave this aftertaste, but I would like to be able to use my plastic tupperware since I have so much of it.

Is there a special way to clean plastic tupperware? I tried handwashing and after it's dried, putting newspaper in there to absorb stuff.

On another note, it seems like some of my plastic tupperware absorb some food material onto itself. Kind of like forming a seasoning on a cast iron pan, except this is a waxy-food-weird-tasting film on the insides of the tupperware. Anyway to get rid of that? Soaping doesn't seem to work. This film is way too waxy.

There are many different types of plastic, but it sounds like your tupperware is made of the porous kind, which will hold on to food particles and explains your note.  Heat will expedite the leaching of chemicals into your food, so you should use the containers only for storage, and heat up and eat food from an actual plate or bowl.  If you have to continue using them, you could always wrap your food in paper to minimize contact.

Here's some more info


When pan searing, why does all of my oil keep disappearing? So it seems that every time that I pan sear something, any oil I have in the beginning seems to be gone about half way through and it turns into me dry searing whatever I am cooking.

My guess is that I have the heat too high and the oil is evaporating or burning off.

Is there a simple way to know when the oil is hot enough to pan sear but not so hot that it burns off?

If the oil is of too low temperature, it'll have a tendency to get soaked up by the food you're preparing or get evaporated together with the water that's leaking out, so that's where it's disappearing. (Some vegetables like eggplant, zucchini, ... tend to soak up oil like sponges regardless of the temperature.)

To test whether the oil is hot enough, I always use the empirical method:

slice off a sliver of whatever you're going to sear
throw it in the pan

if bubbles start forming: oil is hot enough
if not: throw away sliver, rinse and repeat

Works for anything  you're going to sear!

Having said that: Don't be shy on the oil: it doesn't just sear, it adds flavour too!


Why/when would grapes (and other fruits) have better flavor/texture when served chilled? I thought fruit would be more flavorful if served at room temperature. However, recently I had the opposite experience with a bunch of grapes. I'm wondering "why?"

I bought a bunch of unrefrigerated, room-temperature, grapes at the local market. I tried eating them right away, but was very disappointed by the texture and flavor: mushy, and not very sweet. I thought the grapes were from a bad batch, or had been out too long (in the sun?). Or maybe the grapes needed seeds to be flavorful (I think these grapes were bred to be missing the normally huge, bitter seeds).

Anyways, I put the grapes in the refrigerator. A few days later, I was surprised by the totally different texture and flavor when chilled. They had the more solid texture I had originally expected, as well as the sweet grape flavor. There was a tangy/tart flavor that had originally been missing when I ate them unchilled.

Can anyone explain my recent experience? Usually when I try the same fruit before refrigeration and afterwards, the unchilled fruit tastes much better, or at least the same (with peaches, for example). I think I've even eaten room-temperature grapes without a loss in flavor.

The exact type of grape I was eating were Kyoho grapes ("Geobong" grapes in Korean)

It's because different taste buds are activated differently depending on temperature.

A new study reveals why our taste perception is enhanced as the temperature of food and beverage products increases, explaining why beer is more bitter and ice cream is sweeter when consumed warm.
......The study... identified microscopic channels in our tste buds - termed TRPM5 - as being responsible for different taste perception at different temperatures.
According to our researchers, the reaction of TRPM5 in our taste buds is much more intense when the temperature of food or fluid in increased, sending a stronger electrical signal tot he brain and resulting in enhanced taste.

Note, this particular article is over 10 years old.  There has been a lot of research that has both confirmed and extrapolated greater details on this.
Food temperature affects taste, reveal scientists - Food Navigator
Other, more recent articles -
The Guardian (2013): Hot or not? How serving temperature affects the way food tastes
Flavors Fluctuate with Temperature - Scientific American (2012)
In the case of your grapes, there is probably some kind of flavor profile or combination that is greatly enhanced by temperature. If the skins have a pungent bitterness that is enhanced at a greater temperature, it might overpower the flavors you like, while at a lower temperature, it gives a hint of those flavors that is more pleasing, while the grape also has enough sweetness that still carries through while cold.
That is probably a much more likely scenario than the particular food rapidly ripening or decomposing to that degree.


How do I roast a whole duck so that fat drips out easily and the skin gets crispy? Duck is high in fat, so when roasting a whole duck you can end up with a lot of fat left with the duck inside the skin and soggier skin. How should the duck be prepared to avoid this?

Among poultry, duck is exceptionally fatty, and a lot of its fat is directly underneath the skin.  This can present a challenge when cooking, because we want the fat to render out and the skin to become crispy and delicious.

The most common way to do this, classically, is to:

Dock (or less commonly, score) the skin all over, to permit the fat an exit path (when doing this, be careful to cut through the skin into the fat layer, but hopefully not into the meat itself)
Roast at a relatively low temperature for to permit the fat time to melt and drip away; many recipes then finish on a higher temperature for crisping and browning

Like all poultry, salting the duck a day ahead, and then letting it sit in the refrigerator will also promote crispiness, but it is far less of a factor with duck which cooks and renders for a longer period of time.


Making "long(er)-life" homemade mayonnaise Most recipes I've seen for mayonnaise suggest that homemade mayo should be kept in the fridge for no longer than between 3 and 5 days.

What techniques or ingredients can be used to increase the shelf-life of homemade mayo? It's probably worth mentioning that I'm not after a solution that'll make the mayo last for the same length of time as commercially produced products, a week or two would be nice though!

I make a pretty large quantity of homemade mayo and have never had a problem keeping it longer than that -- Good Eats uses a week for their recipe and for me it lives a month, easy, with no detectable reduction in quality. There really is enough acid and salt to deter most bugs if you like it strongly flavored (and let's be honest, mayo should be strongly flavored because it's a sauce made of fat and you might want to minimize the quantity applied). I'd also take the advice of stilltasty.com that while color, flavor, or texture may change it's generally still safe to eat refrigerated mayo even after it's notional "use-by" date.

In short, I strongly advise more salt and acid if you're worried (and also because it's tasty), but I also strongly advise a lack of worry.


What is the relationship between starchy vegetables/fruits and root vegetables? I am battling with rosacea and was recommended by a doctor to not eat starchy things, including starchy vegetables and fruits.  I know that starchy vegetables include: corn, potatoes, yams, etc.

So...I was at a restaurant the other night and I was talking to the waiter about vegetables/fruits, and I was telling him that I cannot eat starchy things.  He replied, 'okay i'll remove the root vegetables/fruits' from your plate.  And this totally threw me for a loop.

I dont understand if there is a relationship between root vegetables and them being starchy.  I can't seem to find the answer online so I thought I would ask here.

There is a mid-strong correlation between starchy vegetables and root vegetables, but not a perfect one.

Plants have many types of roots. Some of them are thin and fine, others are large. Their primary purpose is to extract nutrients and water from the soil and pass it up to the rest of the plant, but some plant families have started using their roots (and underground parts of the stem, which non-botanists mistakenly call "roots") for storage purposes. This is why some plants have rhizomes, tubers and bulbs.

Starch is a very efficient way to store energy in a small volume and without much risk of spoilage, so many plants employ it for that purpose. (The other efficient carbohydrate-based storage molecule class is the sugars). So underground storage organs frequently contain high levels of starch, for example potatoes and yams.

Over the centuries, humans have selected food based on mainly calorie density, taste, and obtainability. Starchy roots are better than many other roots for both calorie density (explained above) and obtainability (it is easier to pull 100 clean gram of potato out of the earth than 100 g of dainty clover roots, for example). So many of the roots humans eat are, in fact, starchy. But we also eat other roots. Onion bulbs contain stored energy primarily as sugars, not as starch. Other roots like radishes are much less calorie dense (their main macronutrient is still starch, but they have little macronutrients per unit of weight when compared to e.g. potatoes), but they are eaten for their strong, pleasant taste, and still easy obtainability.

But a root is not the only place where a plant can store energy, and different plants employ other places. The fruit is a very common place. And while some plants store mainly sugars there, other store mainly starches. Botanical fruits (some of which are called "vegetables" in the kitchen) are eaten frequently, and are a major source of starch in the diet. Peas, pumpkins, chestnuts and plantains are all examples for high-starch fruit vegetables. Other fruit vegetables are like the radish - there is not much starch stored in them, but even less of everything else, so they are still considered high in starch. An example would be tomatoes. So, there are many non-root vegetables which are high in starch.

You may want to note that starch needs to be cooked, while sugars don't. So, if you have a dish of cooked root vegetables, most of them will be high in starch. Assuming that the waiter wasn't bringing you a salad, it was probably a good decision to take out all root vegetables.

But it isn't a good decision to stop at the root vegetables, because there are non-root vegetables high in starch. It could be that the waiter didn't know that, or that he knew it, but also knew that this specific dish doesn't contain any non-root starchy vegetables. Whatever it was, you are better off by memorizing a list of the vegetables you can't eat, than by trying to follow generalizations of the kind "don't eat root vegetables".


Is there any diminishing return on grinding spices for a "tea"? I'm actually making root beer, but I've found the best way is to boil herbs and spices the same way one would make a tea, and then I add sweetener, leave it to chill, and use a carbonation device to add bubbles.

So far I've been using ready made root beer ingredients that come either in extracts or in bags of herbs, like a loose leaf tea. Now I want to go the next step and make my own blend.

I've got a recipe I want to try and have bought all the ingredients I need in whole form. I'm wondering if there is any advantage in grinding them up. This answer on this site leads me to believe that it's workable to leave spices whole, but I feel like that wouldn't be the case with a whole nutmeg nut. Surely the flavour would not be accessed by boiling water in such a hard and thick nut?

I also learned that in the case of tea, it's actually inadvisable to boil or steep them for too long, as it releases bitter tannins. So I wonder if grinding down spices to "release" more flavour might also have adverse affects.

So, bottom line, maybe you can boil spices whole, but maybe it's better to chop or grind them a little? And if so, how far should one take it?

If you're boiling them it isn't necessary to break them down at all unless time is a factor for you.

Nutmeg also works well boiled whole as you can see in many traditional hot beverage recipes.  However, if you want to be able to add all of the spices at once, grinding some of them is advisable.  Otherwise you'll have to add the spices to your mixture at different times to avoid flavor imbalances.

The finer that you grind the spices the quicker the volatile organic compounds will be released.  In this way you can control the strength of flavor in the final product if all of the spices are added at once.

I've not been able to find any reference to boiling a spice for an extended period changing the character of the flavor(just the potency) which makes sense for a spice since we usually eat the whole thing in ground form anyway.

The same does not apply to herbs.


Is there a difference between "magret of duck" and "fillet of duck"? In my local supermarket, they have 2 kinds of duck breast meat: something called magret and something called filet. If you'd ask me to recognize which is which based on just the meat itself, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. There also doesn't seem to be much of a difference in price: both are a little under 21 EUR/kg, with magret being slightly cheaper.

Is there a difference between these 2 meats?

From  Wikipedia  magret refers to a specific breed (the Mulard, not to be confused with the Mallard):

  Magret refers specifically to the breast of a mulard or Barbary duck that has been force fed to produce foie gras.

From  dartagnan.com :

  Sometimes called “duck steak,” the magret (breast) of the Moulard duck is known for its rich flavor and dark red meat. Try it pan seared and find out why the French swear by the duck.


Change of volume mixing dry & wet ingredients 4C Water ~ 4 C Sugar ~ 1C instant Coffee[dry]  1QT Vodka

Water & dry ingredients mixed-simmered & cooled prior to adding Vodka.  Need to know volume as must let sit 30 days in glass vessel & stirred/swirled daily.

Would like to know amount volume of output

This question helps, from it, we learn that 1/2 cup table sugar + 1/2 cup water results in a volume of 3/4 cup.  The second answer claims that 2 cups of sugar + 2 cups of water equals a total volume of 3 and 1/8 cup.  Slightly different from the first response, but in the ball park.  I will assume that the combination of instant coffee and water leads to a similar result.  Therefore...I would calculate:

4 cups water + 4 cups sugar = 6 1/4 cups.

6 1/4 cups + 1 cup instant coffee = 6 3/4 cups (Same assumption as addition of sugar).

6 3/4 cups + 4 cups (1 QT) vodka = 10 3/4 cups.

Total volume = 10 3/4 cups or 2.69 quarts...or a bit more than half a gallon.

Feel free to correct my assumptions or math.


Mold on salami, is it safe? I took a salami and removed the outer plastic packaging and hung it in my refrigerator to dry. After about a week it got white mold on it. Is this normal/safe? I know that real/fancy salami has molds rubbed on. This salami does not contain any bacteria or fungus (at least it’s not supposed to) ingredients are beef, water, salt, flavorings, sugar, potato starch, sodium phosphate, ascorbic acid, sodium nitrite

It's one thing to buy salami which comes with its own built-in mold, but to let one develop some possibly different mold spontaneously in the fridge?  If nothing else the fridge would not provide the ventilation which I understand is an essential part of the process (that's why you hang them and don't pile them up on a shelf).

Worse, I see a seam on the casing, which implies that it's a plastic casing and not a natural one.  I would not eat something which grew on plastic..


Is it a known technique to serve hot crispy-crust sandwiches on edge? So, I'm not a chef and there are few foods I'm good at cooking. Grilled sandwiches, however, I would say are one of these few. Of course, for such sandwiches, with grilled or toasted bread, the crispness of the bread from toasting or grilling is a major component of the food experience. However, I have found that serving a sandwich the standard way, with on bread slice down, often results in a severe reduction in crispness, especially if the sandwich contains meat or other juicy items. Even if the sandwich insides are not so juicy, like for a grilled cheese, the release of water vapor due to the fact that the sandwich is hot, and having it trapped there between the sandwich and the plate, is enough to completely nullify the crispness of that piece of bread.

My personal solution to this is to cut the sandwich, typically diagonally, and plate it with the cut side down, so as to allow the release of water vapor to the air, and to mitigate juices going straight to the bread. I have found this to work quite well, as long as the sandwich is one that basically holds itself together decently well. (a toothpick can help.)

My question is whether this is a known plating technique for sandwiches, where the purpose of such plating is to maintain bread texture properties.

I think this is a perfectly legitimate question. Flat plating of a grilled sandwich will almost always result in the bottom piece of bread being steamed by the time it is eaten. Grilling with thicker or denser bread somewhat alleviates the problem, as well as grilling with a roll sliced and grilled on the cut side.

As for presentation, your method is definitely not unheard of. The comment about the Club Sandwich is point on. You might also consider serving your sandwich with one half of the sandwich laying against some chips or veggie slices (carrot or celery sticks). That would keep the steam from developing under the sandwich. Then place the second half on the plate, barely overlapping the first. Grilled sandwiches are just one of those things that don't hold too long for service.


How to make chicken absorb more salt when cooking a soup? This is a really important question for me, it can actually make the difference between me recovering from a chronic illness or not.

Basically I have been cooking a basic soup : 1kg chicken: 1.5 litre water and 4grams sea salt.  Note there is no vegetables for testing purposes.  I add the ingredients at the beginning, bring to a boil, simmer and then eat.

The problem is that on some days it seems the chicken absorbs a lot of the salt making  the chicken it taste nice and leaving the water seemingly less salty while on other days the chicken doesn't absorb a lot of the salt and this ends up leaving the soup water too salty.   I need it the first way as my stomach tolerates it however if the water is too salty my stomach starts giving me problems.

Since ingredients/ solids weight are the same I am convinced the problem is in the way I am cooking. I am doing something which is affecting the absorption of salt by the chicken.  I wondered about possible causes and thought about the following:

1.May be slow/quick heating affects  absorption
2.Maybe as the chicken gets softer any salt it absorbed starts to come back out, so it’s a question of timing
3.Maybe washing the chicken at the beginning has an effect,
4.Maybe cooking time affects absorption

I tried and tested various scenarios in the above but I cannot figure out what the specific cause is, perhaps you can kindly help me out with an educated/tested opinion.
The one thing I believe I noticed was that on those days it comes out right during the simmer the water seems to go low, perhaps evaporates or gets absorbed.  In either case I imagine it may be temperature issue but I am not sure and could even be mistaken about the water being low.

Do you guys have any ideas, please this is a major issue for me and only if I cook the right way will my stomach start to recover.  My nutritionist didnt seem to know the answer and she said 'you'll just have to keep cooking and note what you do differently'.   Any help will be highly appreciated.

Many thanks

Speaking as pure theorist here, because I've never compared the saltiness of cooked chicken.

I think that there are two things you will have to think about. The first one is osmosis (water that gets soaked into the meat through cellular membranes), the second one is transport through porous media - like a sponge, the open ends of muscle fibres of your chicken soak up the liquid you put them in. What you want to do is to prevent osmosis into the chicken (because only pure water will go in through osmosis, concentrating the salt outside) and maximize absorption. I will assume that 0.9% saline is isotonic for a chicken, and I think this is a safe assumption, because veterinary saline isn't marked as species-specific. Seeing that your soup liquid is 0.27% saline, you can expect some osmosis to happen. *

Let's tackle the more interesting part first. You want more absorption to happen. The absorption is described by the Washburn formula,

and you want to maximize your L.

L improves with time. Luckily, a soup is meant to be cooked for a long time anyway. But when you wonder whether to give it some more time on the stove or not, more time is probably better. Keep the temperature lowish for less evaporation, and a lid on which will drip back evaporated water.
L improves with lesser viscosity. No way to influence it in your basic recipe, but in a real soup, avoid thickening. So don't use starchy ingredients, or at least, wash them before adding.
Surface tension should be kept high. Again, this is ingredient-specific. No way to influence it in the basic recipe, but it could turn out that some vegetables are reducing your surface tension a lot - I can't think of a soup vegetable or a herb or spice which is famous for a high saponine content, but it could happen. Also, you should give your pots a finishing wash with clean water if possible - detergent and dishwasher finishing liquid reduce surface tension a lot.
Pore size. My intuition says that this should have the biggest effect in the soup case, as you probably can't influence viscosity and surface tension too much. Obviously, the bigger your holes, the more water comes through. A good way to do that is to thoroughly denature your proteins. The first and most common way for that is prolonged cooking time. Second, brining in concentrated saline (6%) and/or acid before you cook will attack the meat surface, again denaturing proteins. However, I don't know how wise it is to use this option, because some of the brine will get absorbed into the chicken, which will leave less space for broth and will increase salt content as a whole. (This assumes that you salt the broth; Brian's idea of not adding salt to the cooking water after brining has merit). Third, you can use meat from the freezer (this is a very likely reason for the mixed results you saw until now). Freezing produces ice crystals, which rupture cell walls. When you use the thawed meat in a soup, there are more holes for water to flow in.
The Washburn formula is for a single capillary. But the more capillaries you have, the more absorption you get. So, what you want to do is to cut the chicken meat perpendicularly to the muscle fibres. And cut it into many small pieces instead of a few big ones.

Now we took care of the absorption, let's look into the osmosis. You can't change the salt content of the chicken's cytoplasm. But for osmosis, you have to separate the two solutions by a semipermeable membrane (the cell wall). Poke a hole in the wall, and the osmotic gradient vanishes when the liquids mix. So everything from the third point on absorption helps you reduce osmosis too.

As for your suggestions: 1. I see no reason why slow or quick heating will change absorption. I guess the products of a Maillard reaction could clog some pores, if you sear before cooking, but it won't happen during boiling. As I said, cook slow because of evaporation. 2. The chicken shouldn't absorb salt, but salty water, see the footnote. Although, if there is a hole in my theory, this is a likely place for it. 3. I doubt it, but if you wash it, you could free eventual clogged openings. 4. Certainly, cook longer.

To summarize: Cook meat which has been frozen, cut in small pieces perpendicularly to the grain, and stew it for a long time.

* I don't see a mechanism for the chicken absorbing a higher percentage of salt than what you have in the broth. I assume that in your "normal" cases, you are left with salt content near the initial 0.27%, and in bad cases, this gets concentrated.

Update As requested in the comments, I am providing an explanation about "cutting across the fibers". Short story, meat is made up of muscles, and a muscle is made up of fibers, or bundles of bundles of cells. You can easily see them in raw meat. You want to slice across them, so their ends are open, as opposed to along.

The good, long explanation with pictures can be found on Serious Eats


substituting black treacle/molasses for brown sugar I would like to replace some of the brown sugar in a dark fruit cake recipe with black treacle (similar to molasses I believe), as I like the rich taste and think it will add to the moistness of the cake. But I don't know what quantity to use instead. The recipe calls for 200 grams of brown sugar, so I was thinking of replacing half of it maybe? I've seen a different recipe for a similar size cake that uses 150 g brown sugar and 1 tablespoon of black treacle, so perhaps that would be a better idea? I'm using the dark soft muscovado sugar as the recipe suggests, but I really want a dark, rich, moist, almost sticky cake, almost more like a Christmas pudding in texture. Hope someone can help :-)

A standard substitute for brown sugar is to take 1 Cup = 200 g of white granulated sugar, and mix-in 1 tablespoon of molasses/treacle.  There's a lot of flavor in that tablespoon.

My own recommendation would be to either supplement your full 200 g of brown sugar with a tablespoon of treacle or consider using 200 g of granulated sugar and mix-in 2 tablespoons of treacle.

Since you are planning to use dark soft muscovado sugar (which is already flavorful) in your recipe, I think supplementing the full 200 g amount with 1 tablespoon of treacle would give your cake a terrific taste.


Too much lemon in beef stew help! I have a fruity beef stew with plums, carrots, beef, onion, beef stock and far too much lemon juice and lemon zest.
It tastes too lemony, what can I do to counteract it?

Try discarding one cup of liquid, and add one cup of water; reduce until desired. Taste the result, and if it is still too lemony, repeat the process until it is to your liking.

Some unsalted butter after the reduction may also help.


What is the difference between tomato puree, paste and sauce? I was looking for a recipe for an Italian tomato sauce when I came across an old cookbook from an American Creole Chef I like, but I'm really confused about the terminology he uses for some of the ingredients and wondered if someone could clarify exactly what he's referring to.

In the recipe he asks for -

2 cans (6 ounces) of tomato paste
2 cans (10 3/4 ounces) of tomato sauce
2 cans (10 3/4 ounces) of tomato puree

I've always assumed that tomato paste and tomato puree were the same thing, but clearly not. Can anyone clarify the difference between these two?

Tomato sauce in the UK comes out of a ketchup bottle, is he referring to passata, sieved tomatoes? If not, what is he referring to?

In the US at least, common canned tomato products include:

Paste, cooked down tomatoes, to the point where they are scoopable with a spoon but will not flow.   Very thick, like peanut butter.  Often sold in six or twelve ounce cans.
Pureee - cooked tomatoes that have been--well--pureeed, but are mostly at their natural density; also called crushed tomatoes.
Sauce - cooked down, strained tomatoes, a little thicker than tomato soup. May include herbs, spices, or some flavoring in addition to pure tomato product.
Diced - solid chopped tomatoes, usually in tomato juice.
Whole - whole cooked (usually peeled) tomatoes, usually packed in tomato juice.  These will still have the seeds.


Combining chicken and vegetables in sous vide Any suggestions to offer as I attempt to sous vide chicken in one bag, while, at the same time, cook vegetables in another? The chicken cooks at 150F while the veggies cook at 185F.

Cook the vegetables, chill and refrigerate.  Cook the chicken, toss in the vegetables to reheat...or, use two circulators.


How can I make my turkey gravy look darker and richer? When I make gravy to go with roast chicken and turkey, it is flavourful but always looks a little pale. Could you suggest a way to make it look darker without adding gravy browning?

As @Eric Hu notes, a dark roux is the way to go. It's interesting that he mentions Alton Brown, as it's his turkey gravy recipe I use. His recipe also uses red wine, which further darkens the gravy, richens it, and adds a fantastic flavor. I'd only change one thing: next time I'm going to make the roux and finish the gravy in a separate pan after deglazing. The roasting pan is too big and unwieldy.

As noted in Eric's answer, a roux is just flour cooked in fat until it turns the color you want. I usually end up a little darker than here before adding the liquids back to the pan:

I probably wouldn't go this dark unless making gumbo:


Is this extremely soft "French raclette" cheese actually meant for raclette? I bought some cheese labeled "French raclette" that's quite soft even when refrigerated. (In the store it seemed almost gooey, losing it shape, and in my home fridge it's still soft but a bit springy - maybe like a very very soft havarti, maybe way on the soft side of semi-soft.) It seems like you'd just make a giant mess by melting it, and it looks impossible to slice cleanly, so it seems like it'd be impossible to use as raclette cheese in typical ways (slicing and melting over things, or melting a layer and scraping).

Is this cheese really intended to be used as raclette cheese, or is the label a misnomer, or is there perhaps something besides melting meant by raclette here?

(In case it's relevant, I have the tabletop variety of raclette grill, where you put the cheese, or things with cheese on top in trays underneath, not the original kind where you melt half a wheel of cheese and scrape it.)

Turns out it's not mislabeled: it's actually "spécial raclette livradoux". Embarrassingly enough, I just noticed that there's a fragment of the whole-wheel label wrapped up with it, with a "vradoi" that let me find it, and it's consistent with this picture:

Different pages describe it as semi-soft or semi-firm, which still seems a bit of an exaggeration to me. It's possible to make irregular slices, but definitely nothing super-clean, and I'm afraid if you tried to melt a layer you'd melt a lot more than that. But cutting off a hunk/slice and melting in the tray does work just fine despite my initial impressions; while it's pretty soft before heating, it doesn't melt that much more liquid than a firmer cheese. And the flavor is definitely similar to other raclette cheeses I've had!

So it seems quite plausible that it's intended for this version of raclette, but not the older traditional version. (Of course, I was wrong about "completely impossible to slice" so I could be wrong about that as well.)


Cook with no hood - how to control smell I am planning an extended stay in an efficiency apartment. Kitchen has no stove (hob), exhaust, or window.

Install an exhaust or recirculating hood is not an option as I don't own the apartment.

I have a sink, fridge, toaster, microwave, and sufficient counter space.  It is still tight - over the microwave and crock I would like to keep it to 2 small additional devices or less.

In the efficiency is just a small under fridge but there is an outdoor fridge with freezer I think I will be able to use some of the space.

A crock pot is good for controlling smell so I can do a pretty wide range of foods in the crock pot. Most crock dishes re-heat in a microwave just fine.  Crock takes a while and often need to prepare a meal for immediate consumption.

I have access to a charcoal briquette BBQ so I can cook batches of poultry and ground meat and refrigerate as I don't mind those foods reheated in a microwave.  I could do single serving on the BBQ but I don't want to spend the 30 minutes it takes to get it up to heat for a single serving.  On cold or rainy days I just don't want to BBQ.

Fish and steak does not re-heat microwave very well in my opinion. Not just taste but fish is often an odor problem re-heated in a microwave.

My thought is to get a counter top two burner stove. Either electric coil or induction.

Stuff that has no or little odor is steam vegetable, pan grill vegetable with just a little or no oil, and boil noodle/rice.

Finally getting to the meat of the question.  I don't see a good option for cooking or browning raw meat (red, white, poultry, fish) without smell. Any options either in cooking equipment (other than crock) or method for meat and control the smell?

For fish I might be able to poach. I have not tested but I fear that has bit of odor. I might be able to steam fish. Steam would have very little flavor but for a salmon salad it could work.

I know I can use canned for fish and I will. Looking for cook from raw options if any.

I know nutrition is out of scope.  I happen to chose a low Na (sodium) and low fat diet.  Low Na eliminates many canned foods and most lunch meats.

Is there a bathroom with a fan? Setting up a portable electric hob just outside the bathroom with the door open might help, especially if you can also leave the front door ajar during cooking to provide a through-draught. You could use a folding table if the existing furniture isn't sufficient.

Covering as much as possible, choosing thing with short cooking times, and clearing up promptly will all help a bit, but won't make the problem go away. Low fat approaches are very suitable as frying causes a lot of odour compared to simmering. The low sodium approach cuts out a lot of prepared sauces, which would mean more cooking of flavour ingredients like onions or spices.

A camping stove on top of the BBQ would give you a few more options, but still relies on having good enough weather to cook outside. Compared to the BBQ it gets going quicker and it's better for all wet forms of cooking.


How can I figure out cooking times for an Instant Pot? If I want to make dal (let's say) in an Instant Pot, I google someone else's recipe and find that the pot should be at pressure for 12 minutes if you're using red lentils and 15 mins. if you're using green lentils. Is there a way to calculate that on my own (i.e., some equation or formula that people use to develop pressure cooker recipes)? Or does everyone just figure it out by trial and error?

Instant Pot has a page with cooking times for various things on it:

https://instantpot.com/instantpot-cooking-time/

However, there are also lots of good pages out there with more specifics.  For example, chicken thighs (fresh, frozen, bone in vs. out, brown first vs. not):

https://paleopot.com/recipe/instant-pot-chicken-thighs/


Exact difference between demi glace and bordelaise? This feels like a stupid question, but I've spend a fair bit of time reading about this without finding an answer...
I'm trying to understand the French mother sauces and their derived sauces. I am confused about the differences between demi glace and bordelaise, their place in the 'system', and whether roux is used in either.

Reading about espagnole here, I learn that espagnole

Starts with a brown roux, and
Can be used to make demi glace AND bordelaise.

This confuses me, because I've encountered recipes for either, which have not mentioned roux. For example, this demi glace recipe by ChefSteps makes no mention of flour or roux - only reduced wine and stock.

Similarly, this bordelaise recipe, for instance, is virtually identical (except for adding butter towards the end).

Hence, I'd be grateful if anyone could help me understand

Precisely what is the difference between demi glace and bordelaise?
Is roux used in either? If not, how can they be derived from sauce espagnole?

Demi glace is usually used as a base to make other sauces, it can also be used by itself.

Demi glace is used to make Bordelaise sauce.

Roux is not used in either cases.


Lots of water coming out of chicken breasts when cooking in pan. Why? When I cook chicken breasts in a pan, a lot of water comes out of them.

I've seen this answer: My chicken breasts release a lot of fluid when cooked. How do I prevent this?

where some people suggest that this has to do with the quality of the chicken and that certain producers/supermarkets will actually "pump" their chickens full of water.

However, what i don't understand is that I'm buying those from Whole Foods and that they are supposedly air chilled (which someone in the above-quoted answer suggests getting), so shouldn't they be high quality?

Is the reality that even WF is scamming its customers by pumping chickens full of water? Is their chicken just not that high quality?

If that's the case, where can you possibly get good chicken? (Serious question if you know a place, I live in Cambridge MA, US)

Liquid naturally comes out of all meats as they cook. If you're using high heat and a frying pan, you don't really notice it because it evaporates quickly. That brown stuff you see in a frying pan after cooking meat on high heat are the evaporated juices.

If you're baking them at around 350 F, you'll also notice water being released. This is amplified if you overcrowd the cooking vessel. You don't see it in a whole roasted chicken or roast beef for example because the liquid coming out caramelizes and creates those lovely browned bits to make a sauce or gravy.

I doubt that WF is selling water and phosphate tumbled chicken breasts.


How can I produce a more soggy Neapolitan pizza crust? I've been following the Serious Eats recipe for Neapolitan pizza dough(exception I use bread flour), and cooking it on a baking steel. I cook it at 550 degrees(preheated for 1hr) for 2mins exactly, very near the heating element at the top of my oven, with the broiler set to high.

I do not use 00 Flour "Tipo". Instead I have been using bread flour. This is for a few reasons. I have learned that 00 Flour works well above 700 degrees, which I do not have. And it also has a much higher cost for me.

The crust comes out with nice char both on the top and bottom. The toppings are cooked well too. What I don't end up with is a nice soggy crust that I prefer in Neapolitan style pizza. Instead the crust is quite crunchy near the center and could easily stand up to tons of additional toppings(not my preference). The cornicione(edge) of the pizza is puffy, full of bubbles, and somewhat chewy. I'm quite happy with the cornicione but the center should be floppy/soggy/wet and I'm not sure how to achieve that, or if I can at all without a 900 deg wood fired oven.

Some wonder why I would want a soft, soupy, soggy center of my pizza. Having that is one of the main characteristics of Neapolitan pizza. I thoroughly enjoy using a fork and knife to cut and then scoop up the gooey amalgamation of favors in the middle of a fresh pie. As stated on Serious Eats:

  Unlike a crisp-crusted New York-style or hefty Deep Dish Chicago-style
  pies, a Neapolitan pizza will have a soft, tender, nearly soupy
  center. Some folks find this off-putting. I personally like the sauce,
  oil, and whey-soaked bits of tender crust that form down in there, and
  I'll fight my wife for my share of it.

This is what my pizzas look like currently:

It sounds like you're doing several things differently than the recipe (different flour, different temperature, different baking surface...) though I don't actually see shaping/baking instructions on the recipe you linked. If you want to stick closer to that recipe (than the other answers...), here's a few other thoughts of potential problems and a few things to try to alleviate these potential problems.

Baking too quickly or overcooking. the baking steel will transfer heat more quickly than a baking stone, a perforated pizza pan, or a sheet pan. Try one of those other baking surface options if you have them, or preheating your steel for a shorter period of time, or cooking for a shorter period of time.
Different flour. doppio zero flour is (likely) much more finely ground and more highly refined than your bread flour; these differences will impact how your bread behaves, such as water absorption and retention (in addition to the temperature comment you made). You might want to try increasing the water, to see if that does something you like (this recipe is about 65% hydration, so you've got some room before the dough gets really sloppy). Bread flour and 00 flour  will (likely) have similar protein content, but you could check that from the respective producers, also.  Despite your cost and temperature concerns, have you tried 00 in this recipe just once to see if there's a difference?
Shaping.  Looks like you have a system, but perhaps you've got the dough just a bit too thin in the middle?  Might be worth making the center slightly thicker as a test.  Also might want to try making one a bit bigger.
If you're cooking one at a time, try cooking two at a time.  They'll each be absorbing some heat, so baking will happen slightly more slowly.

Other questions:

are you indeed letting the dough ferment and rest for this long? 8-12 hours of initial ferment seems uncommon for conventional yeast. I've seen this long initial mix-and-rest for a (no-yeast) autolyse step, or for (very) sour sourdough.  I wonder what the intended effect is...
I'm also surprised there's nearly zero kneading; gluten development will be... different. It seems like the dough will be lumpy, and the gluten development wouldn't be as uniform. Or, perhaps after 2.5 days fermentation this is enough time to have the dough work itself out on its own.  The "bread in 5 minutes per day" franchise also suggests multi-day fridge storage, so I think this is probably a good thing in this case.

Looks good; I think I'll have to try this.  Good luck!  Post back if you discover some improvements...


Sous vide: why do cylindrical / cylinder-like and spherical / sphere-like foods cook faster than slab-like? The Douglas Baldwin's "A Practical Guide to Sous Vide Cooking" has charts for sous vide cooking times.  Unintuitive to me, cooking times are drastically shorter for spheres and cylinders than slabs.  Does anybody have an explanation?

A picture really helps here:

There's your slab, cylinder, and sphere with the same thickness.

The time to cook does depend on thickness, since that's the distance the heat has to travel from the surface to the interior. But it also depends on the ratio of surface area to volume (and thus shape): the more surface area per volume you have, the more area you have to transfer heat compared to the amount of heat you need to transfer to fully heat the meat.

So unsurprisingly, at constant thickness, a slab takes longer than a cylinder, which takes longer than a sphere.

Of course, the typical thicknesses of the various shapes are different, so it's not all that meaningful to compare things at constant thickness. A slab might be a fish filet, a steak steak, or many smaller pieces of meat packaged together in a bag - nothing all that thick, unless it's a really full bag. A cylinder might be a pork tenderloin or a decent approximation of a chicken breast - still not that thick. A sphere might be a single steak medallion, or maybe an okay approximation of a large pork shoulder - a pretty wide range.

That said, in the end we often think about things in terms of the amount of meat, i.e. the volume.  A 2 by 10 by 10 cm slab, a 5 cm diameter 10 cm long cylinder, and a 7.25 cm radius sphere all have about the same volume. According to that table, the slab needs 1.25 hours, the cylinder needs 2.75 hours, and the sphere needs 4 hours. So if you were thinking of similar quantities of meat, perhaps that matches your intuition better.


Can Escallion be replaced by onion? Green onions are said to be milder than onions, which would suggest that if one do not mind the more powerful onion flavour in a particular dish then onions could be used in place of green onions.

My assumption could be wrong here; I am not a chef but a poor father trying to cook. I want to substitute green onion for Escallion in some Caribbean recipes, and several internet sites say that Escallion is green onion - but, confusingly, some Caribbean cooking websites are saying that Escallion is not green onion.

Could someone clear this up for me? Is Escallion the same as scallions (green onions)?  And can Escallion be replaced by onion in a recipe?

A little research seems to suggest that escallion is not scallion :

Escallion - The escallion (Allium ascalonicum L.) is a culinary herb. Grown in Jamaica, it is similar in appearance to the British spring onion, American green onion, Welsh onion and leek, though said by Jamaicans to be more flavourful. Like these others, it is a (relatively) mild onion that does not form a large bulb.
(from Jamaica Cooking Dictionary )

Now ... 'Allium ascalonicum' is not what most countries consider 'scallions' (that'd be the 'Allium fistulosum'); ascalonicum is what we normally call 'shallots' ... so it's possible that they have a variety of shallot (aka 'multipier onion') that's bred for the green tops.
A little further digging suggests that the Allium ascalonicum L. is specifically 'wild onion', which I know I have growing in my lawn (but only really harvestable in the spring, before I start mowing for the season).  It's possible that there are regional variations, but I'd say that wild onion tops are closer to chives, but that might also come from my harvesting them before they've fully matured.
...
All that being said, I substitute things all the time.  I'd probably cut down the amount of onion (or use a milder red or yellow sweet onion), go with chives or shallots, or as @belisarius mentioned, go with leeks.
update: and in walking through my yard today, I noticed that the wild onions are back up above the grass, so at this time of year, you might have a free (and closer) substitute -- if your yard has areas where it looks like densely packed chives, and if you cut some, it'll have an onion-y smell, then you most likely have wild onions.


Do sulfites cook out? Do sulfites cook out when you reduce wine?

The main cooking mode I'm thinking of is a braise: coq au vin or beef Bourguignon, but would also be interested in the shorter cooking time recipes, e.g. a wine reduction pan sauce.

hmmm... I know that cooking (wine and other) alcoholic beverages will burn off the alcohol content, but according to this article, Hydrogen Peroxide will remove sulfites through oxidation. Go figure.


How to Rescue Too-Soft Cookie Dough Made with Butter Substitute? The other day I made a batch of sugar cookies intending to roll them out and cut into shapes.  I used the standard Martha Stewart's recipe, but didn't have butter, so I used Smart Balance Lite Margarine.  Needless to say the dough didn't get stiff enough to cut or roll, even though its been refrigerated for more than 24 hours.  Is there anyway to either use this dough as is OR to add ingredients to the dough to make it more stiff?

I don't believe you will be satisfied with any cookies you roll out and cut from this dough. That said, there are three options that may allow the dough to find a tasty future.

Make a 'Mega Cookie': roll the dough out and fit it onto a pizza tin and bake. This can be decorated as one large cookie/pizza.
Make 'Brownies': work the dough into an 8"x8" or 9"x13" pan and bake.
'Cupcakes': scoop a spoonful of dough into each compartment of muffin tin and bake.

Of course you will have to watch to get them done enough as the standard bake time probably won't apply.

If your recipe doesn't include eggs (or you are not concerned with the risk that raw eggs may pose) adding it to homemade ice cream would be a fourth option.

Good luck.


Béchamel and pomodoro Is there any traditional recipe that uses béchamel (white sauce) and pomodoro (tomato sauce) mixed, making a new (orange-ish) sauce?

Is there a name for this sauce?

I often do this mixture but I've never seen it in any recipe.

In Italy we usually mix béchamel and tomato sauce for "Pasta al forno" (or "pasta pasticciata") and lasagna, in order to not have a full distinction in the final dish between the two sauces and their tastes.

However this is not mandatory, but my grandma, my mum and me are used to do it (and I see some other people doing the same).

P.s.
I live in Italy and I'm 100% italian :-)


Are some flavour pairings known to work better than others (and if so, why)? It is commonly known that there are five "primary" flavours:

Sweet
Sour
Bitter
Salty
Savory (AKA Umami)

That leaves 10 possible pairs of two, 10 possible sets of three, and 5 possible sets of four.

My question is, are some combinations known to produce more favourable tastes than others?  And if so, why?  Are there objective reasons or does it vary by culture?

Also, are there other, "secondary" flavours (piquance, fattiness, pungency, etc.) that pair particularly well with any of the primary flavours?

I ask because I do seem to see certain combinations far more often than others.  Sweet and sour are often found together, and bitter and savory foods are often accompanied by saltiness and pungent foods such as garlic and onion.  As of late I'm also starting to see the "sweet and hot" combination more (chocolate and chili).  Yet it's rather rare to see, for example, sour combined with savory or bitter flavours, unless other flavours are added to the mix (as in Five Spice).

Knowing the most common/appropriate pairings would, I think, make one better-equipped to tweak seasonings, make substitutions, and improvise when necessary.  So, how does one determine whether a given pairing is destined for the gullet or the garbage?

N.B. This is somewhat related to Flavour combinations - structural analysis, but that question is more about how to pair foods, which is typically done by choosing ingredients that share basic/primary flavours, whereas this is specifically about how to pair the flavours themselves in an abstract sense.

This is going to be kind of a rambly answer, partially copypasta from something I've written elsewhere:

Someone else said: An example is a sandwich that is made with roast beef, boursin cheese and caramelized onions.

Well.. that’s a fairly classic combination.

Here’s why, roughly.

Cheese contains a lot of the fifth flavour sense, umami. This sense is, roughly, ‘savoury’; that is, those things you eat that have a great deal of satisfaction, essentially. Tomatoes, cheeses, anything fermented–these are high in umami. One of the things that umami does is to heighten and enhance ‘meaty’ flavours in your food. So pairing cheese with beef becomes more than additive, it is multiplicative; the cheese enhances the flavour of the beef.

Likewise, caramelized onions are full of complex flavours due to transformation of the sugars within the onion. Consider the vast flavour difference between white sugar and caramel. The complex flavours arise from heating the sugars. This is, by the way, the real reason why you sear meat in a pan before roasting it in the oven. Browning the proteins in the meat is known as the Maillard reaction, and creates more complex, intensely savory flavours. Adding caramelized onions (or, classically with a roast, roasted potatoes and onions) plays off those flavours.

Moving on to ‘how the hell do they do that?’

Tasty food (ignoring texture) is built on two things: complement and contrast, similar to basic understanding of art.

Let’s start with the example given of duck and blueberries. These are flavours that contrast; the fatty meaty richness of the duck with the tart-sweet astringency of blueberries. Duck with fruit is a classic pairing from the mists of time; the acid of the fruit cuts through the unctuous mouthfeel of the fat while the sweetness offers a counterpoint to the savoury flavours found in duck meat, enhancing the flavour by contrast. There are, of course, infinite combinations of this. Consider very everyday examples: beer nuts (salty peanuts with a sweet coating), ice cream sundaes (cold sweet solid ice cream with hot slightly bitter liquid chocolate/fudge sauce), or the MetaFilter favourite of peanut butter and pickle sandwiches (soft creamy salty-sweet peanut butter with crunchy sour pickles). In each case, the contrasts enhance each other; in the duck example the sweetness of the blueberries makes the duck seem more savoury while the duck makes the blueberries seem sweeter.

Then there are flavours that complement each other. The easiest to understand is the combination of coffee and chocolate. Each brings dark, roasted, complex flavours to the table which marry incredibly well with each other because they match. And then there is (unless using wholly unsweetened chocolate) the contrast between bitter coffee and sweet chocolate, each flavour playing off the other.

So when you are looking at flavour combinations, you want to look at three things:

1) Flavours which contrast each other: sour/sweet, salty/sweet, fatty/acidic. The list goes on.

2) Flavours which complement each other (more below).

3) And the gestalt; flavours which both contrast and complement, as with the coffee/chocolate example.

Finding contrasting flavours is relatively simple. But note that you are not looking for diametric opposites, necessarily; the bitterness of asparagus is unlikely to pair nicely with the sweetness of caramel, for example. Which is why you really aim for the gestalt.

Finding complementary flavours, I think, is more difficult. In my view, what you are looking for is a flavour note that is common amongst two or more ingredients, while ensuring that none of the ingredients has wildly clashing notes.

Consider these three ingredients:

Turkey
Cranberries
Chocolate

The first two go together by way of contrast. Ditto the last two. And turkey with (unsweetened) chocolate would work very well–think about a mole sauce. But all three would (probably) not work well together without a lot of very careful finessing. There’s a theory about any three ingredients, but I can't remember the link.

end copypasta

To bring it to more quantifiable terms, McGee explores a lot about flavour pairing in On Food and Cooking, paying specific attention to volatile compounds which work well together. In many cases, it seems, foods which share compounds go well together; this is how Blumenthal put cauliflower and cocoa together, as they share a dominant compound (I cannot remember what it is). So there's that, when we're talking about aromas. My copy of McGee is currently with a friend, otherwise I'd cite you chapter and verse.

In terms of the five basic (primary) flavours you were talking about, I think it comes down to balance. Sweet is a flavour we are hardwired to seek out, as it promises high caloric input, a useful feature thousands of years ago. And the flavour of 'sweet' seems to balance out any other primary flavour; too sour? balance with sugar. Too salty? add sugar. Too bitter? add sugar. Umami itself seems to provide balance in many cases, and pairs especially well with salt (unsurprising given that MSG is a salt itself).

I'd really like to map flavours based on the primary/secondary/tertiary classification you've mentioned, and then look at popular pairings based on those characteristics.


White stains and stainless steel cookware I know this question has been asked before in some form or another, but I can't seem to find a definitive answer. I've looked on SA, chowhound, martha stewart, about.com, etc., and answers seem to vary. Answers that I've seen vary from using vinegar to washing using special stainless steel soaps (which I'm not very keen on using) to only using soft sponges and hot water.

The one thing I always do is wash my stainless steel with warm soapy water and a soft sponge. If there's burned food stuck on the cookware, I scrape it off with a wood pot scraper (lightly, of course). And I always dry with a soft cloth immediately after washing. Yet I still get stains!

I'd like to get a general consensus on how to prevent those white and rainbow colored stains as well as minimizing corrosion.

These are just mineral (calcium) stains from your water source. They will not affect the stainless steel.

The quickest way to clean stainless steel from burnt on oil, food, and water stains is to use a polyprop/ester scouring pad (e.g. 3M's branded as Scotch-Brite).

Use a little liquid dish wash soap, a poly scourer pad, and a generous serve of elbow grease. It's cheaper than going to the gym :-)

Stainless steel is a hardy material, and does not need delicate handling.