What can make a radish lose its flavour in a dish? I wanted to try something new so I had the idea of putting radish in with my tuna salad. I really like the spicy punch of radishes so I was excited to taste the end product.

I got a bunch and chopped them all up, then I added some miracle whip, Philadelphia cream cheese, a chopped up pickle, a little mustard, and a touch of the maggi liquid seasoning (oh and I used a little bit of pickle juice). I thought I had too many radishes and it would over power the dish, but it turned out that it didn't really taste like radish at all. I don't understand what caused the radish taste to be completely absent.

Is there something among my ingredients that would react with the radishes to make them lose their bite?

When preparing a radish dish, should you be careful about including acids or bases?

If I were to make it again, how can I keep the radish strong?

I don't think anything reacted, just that you smothered them in other stuff.

Some of your additional ingredients (the cream cheese and the miracle whip) will soak up any taste present and dilute it. If you just made cream cheese with radishes, it will still taste a bit like a radish, but much weaker.

But you didn't just dilute it, you combined it with other, very strong tasting food. Mustard, pickle and liquid "seasoning" are all little taste "bombs" which will easily overpower lots of other stuff (and tuna isn't so weak either). Especially the mustard has a taste and aroma which is very similar to radish, but much stronger - it will probably mask the radish. The actual radish taste (beyond the hotness) is very delicate and easily covered up. The hotness itself is the same as mustard hotness, only weaker, so it disappears into the mustard taste.

With this mix of concentrated tastes and dilutants, it's no wonder if your radish taste just went under.

If you want your salad to taste of radishes, you should remove most of the stronger seasonings. Or just replace the miracle whip with radish paste.

I doubt that adding an acid or a base will have much effect, or that you'll be adding any bases at all. Basic food doesn't taste too good, especially in combination with fat.


If a US recipe specifies 'vegetable oil' what type of oil should I use in the UK? The recipe requires heating the 'vegetable oil' to exactly 375 degrees Fahrenheit with the aid of a candy thermometer.

But aren't most oils made from vegetables? Some have a smoke point less than 375.

I'm thinking of using groundnut (peanut) oil or rice bran oil as they can both cope with the temperature and don't impose too much taste.

Are there any culinary transatlanticos who could please venture an opinion on my proposed plan?

I also need to find out what the UK equivalent of 'yellow squash' is. Could it be our readily available butternut squash?

Peanut (groundnut) oil is a great option.

In the US vegetable oil generally means soybean oil or a soybean oil blend. The main things are that it be neutral (little or no taste of its own), with a high smoke point. On those scores, you can't do much better than peanut oil.

I have not used rice bran oil.

Yellow squash generally means this:

(the long one)

It can also mean the other yellow vegetable in the picture or this:

What it is not, is butternut:

That is a different flavor entirely. Yellow squash is more like zucchini, butternut squash is more like pumpkin.

Welcome to Seasoned Advice.


Cinnamon Roll Filling There seem to exist two different camps of people when it comes to cinnamon rolls and their filling.  Some say to use regular granulated sugar, cinnamon, and butter while the opposing view states that one should use cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter.  Why would one choose one over the other?  What advantages or disadvantages does it bring to the cinnamon roll by adjusting the items within the filling?

What I learned researching this question:

Brown sugar has anywhere from 3.5 - 6.5% molasses depending on whether it is light or dark brown sugar. Molasses is what makes brown sugar brown.  Brown sugar has a smaller granule than white sugar.

What all this means to a cinnamon roll filling:

When brown sugar and cinnamon (and butter) are used in the filling, the brown sugar becomes more liquidy and less gritty than white sugar.  The flavor is richer and more complex.  When I make rugalach or almond rolls, I prefer white sugar, cinnamon and butter for the filling which lets the almonds or walnuts bring the flavor to the pastry.  Cinnamon rolls do not usually have nuts so the pastry requires more flavor from the filling ingredients (and the icing, of course!)

Here's the site where I read about brown sugar:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_sugar


Spaghetti Fund Raiser Lunch How do I figure out how much spaghetti, sauce, etc that need for a fund raising lunch that is targeting 100 to 125 people...we want to be generous in our portions but no clue how much to fix, how to keep it from turning into a mushy mess

Well... sounds a little weird but you could search for military recipes. They usually have the ingredients amount for 100 people.


Do I cover a pork roast? Cooking baby  potatoes  and small carrots with it.  It is only about 2 pounds.
Hoo
Honestly never cooked a pork roast beforeand there are  so many different ways I am really confused.

The purpose of covering anything is to retain moisture as steam in the pan, instead of letting it evaporate away. So, using a pan that has a tight cover allows you to control the amount of moisture in the resulting cooked food.

Because you're cooking vegetables along with your pork roast, being able to cover the pan for at least part of the cooking time, can be helpful because it will allow the vegetables to steam, so they won't get dried out.

If you leave the cover on for the entire period, you'll steam the meat — it will cook, but it won't be as appealing. Start out with the oven preheated to a high temperature (at least 450F or so), and with just the roast in the pan, uncovered, just until the outside begins to brown. For a small or medium roast, this should be no more than about 15 to 25 minutes, and you may wish to turn the roast once or twice during this period.

Now add your vegetables, cover the pan, and turn the oven down to a slow temperature (285-315F). In addition to your potatoes and carrots, you may wish to add some chopped onion, celery, and/or green pepper. Those vegetables will release lots of moisture (especially if you add salt), and along with the meat, create a nice broth so your other vegetables won't dry out.

Cooked slowly along with the vegetables, the roast will be very tender and flavorful. It may take an hour or more, depending of course, on the size and shape of the roast. A meat thermometer is the best way to determine when the roast is cooked. For pork, the coolest temperature in the center should be 170F (77C), but take it out a couple degrees lower because it will still cook a bit after coming out of the oven.


How to compensate for the unavailability of Italian basil in authentic Italian pasta sauce? I'm making my own pasta sauce from fresh tomatoes but unfortunately Italian basil (ocimum basilicum pilosum) is not widely available in my country. Here are my options:

leave it out entirely (so the sauce will only contain garlic, onion, tomatoes, evoo and salt
replace with indian holy basil or tulsi (ocimum tenuiflorum) which is widely available - even have some in the garden
try to make up flavour with dried herbs (I only have oregano, sage, rosemary and thyme in my pantry) for this option can someone please recommended an appropriate flavour combination of these dried herbs for 2 pounds (1kg) of fresh tomatoes? E.g 1/2 tsp rosemary, 1/4 tsp thyme, 1/4 tsp sage, etc.  I'm not familiar with their flavours and don't know how to combine them properly
also have chilli flakes so could try making an arrabiatta (sp?) style sauce - does this require basil?

Okay so let me first say I'm a novice with Italian food. However I have faced the exact same issue.

Follow these steps that I've created:

Put a teaspoon of dried rosemary in a mug of water and microwave for two minutes. Pour the water into the sauce. Discard or re-dry the rosemary sticks.
Put a tspn of dried oregano straight into the sauce.
A pinch of sage OR thyme won't hurt but a tiny, tiny pinch.
Add the Tulsi - one handful of the leaves or more - it will be fine, trust me. Just make sure there's nothing sweet in the sauce as it'll make it taste a tad Thai.

And yes - lots of garlic!!
Always garlic


marinated vegetables on food dehydrators? So there's a party I'm going to and I promised to make jerkies, but a few of them are vegans.

I'm wondering if there are vegetables (or anything non-meat) that can be marinated with roughly the same kind of stuff you use for jerkies, and then dehydrated to become some kind of tasty, savory snack?

I once had some pretty tasty dried peas which were quite savory, would using the same kind of marinade with jerkies and putting them on the dehydrator work? They were pretty crunchy, but the last time I tried dehydrating banana slices they ended up being rather chewy instead.

What about tofu? It can be "jerkyfied" pretty easily. For example: http://www.ehow.com/how_2128547_make-tofu-jerky.html


Tenderizing fava bean skin without overcooking inside For the umpteenth time I'm going to give fava beans a try, never having achieved satisfactory results thus far. I love them when someone else makes them, or even the canned ones ready to eat at my local Middle Eastern store, it's just that every time so far either the skin was too hard and the inside fine (1.5-2 hrs cooking total) or the skin was tender but inside mushy (3 hrs total cooking).
I soak the beans over night, then just boil the beans alone with salt for 1-2 hrs (regular white and black beans only 30-45 min), then mix with fried onion and other stuf and cook another 45 min - 1 hr.
Is there any way to tenderize the skin without overcooking the inside of the beans?

Peel the beans after soaking.
The outer skin is very tough, and is generally intended to be removed unless you are cooking the beans to mush.
Note that favas are a mushy/crumbly bean regardless of how they are cooked.  You get the best texture by cooking them fresh.  But peeling the soaked beans should improve texture for you.


What role do eggs play in baking? Why do we use eggs in cake baking?

There are basically two types of cakes: butter and sponge (or Génoise).   In a butter cake the egg proteins, like the gluten proteins, help build the structure of the cake.  Additionally, the egg yolks have emulsifying action, helping create a smoother batter and more stable air bubbles.  In a sponge cake the eggs additionally act as the main leavening agent, helping create and retain the bubbles that will expand during baking.

The eggs also add fat, flavor, and color to the cake.


What are the best apples for juicing, and which ones should I avoid? I make cider as a hobby, and I juice quite a lot of apples, and have tried quite a few types.

I've noticed that some apples are great for juicing, and some are very poor.  You generally get less juice from softer apples, than you do from crunchy apples.

I'd like to know which types of apples are good for juicing, and which ones should be avoided.

All edible varieties are welcome; cooking apples, desert apples, and cider apples.

I've done some searching online, for apples rated by their suitability for juicing, but have found lots of conflicting information.

I thought it might be a good idea to ask about it here, and then we can get a better collection of answers that can help more people.

Note: I am aware that there are specific varieties of cider apples, but I tend to make blends that include desert apples, as I find using more varieties adds a better depth of flavour to the end product.  Please don't feel the need to constrain answers to cider varieties.

Almost impossible to give a consistent apple, because even some of the most praised apples will vary radically by location and year to year.  Do note though that many cider apples won't hurt you, but are generally not culinary apples as they are far too astringent.  Even within cider apples there are three categories, sharp, bitter and sweet and the best cider often are a combination.

Some of my personal favorites will be considered poor by others, but I will mention them anyway.  A Northern Spy requires considerable chill, is a huge tree, tends to biannual, and take a long time to produce, but is an old time traditional tart fresh cider apple with nice body and lots of juice.  A newer and popular apple, honey crisp is very juicy, and makes a nice base but I would tend to mix is with something with more body.  Winesap, a great fresh cider apple, but also tends to biannual, is a northern apple and has fallen out of favor.  My personal favorite, Cox Orange Pippin, but it needs to be an English version by this name, the US version is inferior, and it is not cold hardy.  It is however an excellent fresh apple, makes a very good fresh cider and is an apple that makes a nice hard cider even without mixing.  If you are in the wrong environment it simply will not grow though and "real" ones are often difficult to find depending on where you are.  Local extensions are a great source for this though they typically will only test common varieties.

I would suggest though that most important is to find what varieties perform well in your location, it will vary, and know exactly what you want and like, sweet, tart, hard-draft, hard-dry.  Then I would recommend you are on the correct line wanting a mix to build a deeper body.  And do not be afraid of using crabs.  A few crab apples can make all the difference when added to otherwise drab juice.


Why is the milk used in latte steamed and not boiled? Does it make a big difference in the flavor of my latte if I boil the milk, versus steaming it?

A latte is similar to a cappuccino but with different proportions. It's unsurprising that a similar method and equipment would be used. Cappuccino needs steamed milk to get the froth, so a coffee bar machine has a steam pipe. To boil the milk for a latte would require an extra piece of equipment and the associated space.

Is perfectly possible to make an espresso-based drink with milk heated on the stove or in a microwave, that would be a close approximation to a latte -- possibly indistinguishable. But if you boil the milk, it will change the flavour.


Is it okay to use a microwave in convection mode without the turntable? I just bought a muffin tin which is too large and certainly won't rotate on the turntable. My microwave doesn't have a "stop turntable" button. So is it okay if I remove it altogether and use just an oven rack to place my muffin tin on? Will it result in uneven baking?

I'm specifically answering your question "Is it okay to use a microwave in convection mode without the turntable?" -- Yes.

Your own answer points out the reality that if a pan is too large then the turn table will simply hit the sides of the microwave oven and then stop turning. There is nothing wrong with this. There is nothing wrong or damaging to have a metal tin touch the metal sides of your oven.

How was your baked items bottom? If you can sit your tin up so there is air flow under your tin, then you will improve the baking efficiency and it will bake more evenly.

CAUTION: If anyone else is reading this question and wondering about their own machine, then you really need to take caution about the "convention only" mode. You have to make sure there are NO microwaves in this mode or else your metal will conduct and you could have a serious explosion or break your microwave oven.


How to set cookie crumbs When a receipe uses cookie crumbs mixed with melted butter for a base, it usually requires it to go into the oven for about 10 minutes. I am wondering why it needs to go into the oven as opposed to the fridge. I'm thinking that the fridge will help set the butter and make it more solid so it can be sliced, unlike the hot oven. Does anyone know the reason for heating the crust? I know the oven will toast the crust a bit, but the directions on the receipes usually say that it is to "set the crust".

When you bake a crumb crust, a few things happen. Related to "setting the crust" the baking step allows the butter to seep in to the crumbs, making the whole thing more of a unified unit. It also toasts the crust as a whole, giving the crust some imperviousness to the liquid in the filling, helping the crust to avoid becoming soggy before the whole cheesecake or pie is baked. Lastly, baking brings out the aromas of the ingredients in the crust. If you don't bake a crumb crust prior to filling, it'll just be butter moistened crumbs, not a "crust".


Sous-Vide Chicken Thighs - Effect of temperature swings? Perfect fried chicken is the Great White Whale in my kitchen. It seems I've tried everything, well almost everything, I have not tried sous-vide.

I'm still on the fence as to whether I'm going to invest in a immersion circulator, and this experiment could put me over the edge, one way or another.

I can reasonably approximate sous-vide in my rice maker by switching it on and off and using my digital thermometer. It actually works pretty well, I can stay within about 5-7 degrees F my target temperature without too much trouble as long as it's not for an obscenely long time. 4-5 Hours is probably my upper limit.

I'm planning on doing roughly this: ChefSteps (thanks @moscafj for the link).

I'm using thighs, and they're big suckers. I prefer thighs cooked quite bit more than other pieces. Should I up the temperature? How much?

Secondly, I have historically found thighs to be extremely forgiving. How much of a temperature range can I allow? Say I'm aiming for 155F (68C). Can I let my rice cooker go until it reaches 160F, turn it off, and then turn it back on at 150F? Over and over again?

I think your temperature range is good.  155 to 160 is a good place for thighs.   You will need an hour to an hour and a half.  As long as you don't drop into the danger zone you will be fine.  You could just check a thigh with a probe thermometer at the end of an on-off session to see where the temp is.  Sounds like a bit of a pain, but certainly doable.  One caution...that looks like a small pot.  If you are doing more than one or two thighs, you will crowd the bag and might not achieve even cooking...this could create a danger if the center of the package did not reach 140.  Advice:  Get a circulator!  If you enjoy eggs, for example, the price is worth egg cookery alone, in my opinion. :-)

By the way, while many people prefer this route toward fried chicken, I actually have had the best success with, and prefer Keller's Ad Hoc recipe.


Fermented cucumbers without or with minimal salt possible? Cucumbers can be made sour by giving sugar to lactic acid bacteria (I do not like vinegar).

Do you really need salt and can it be avoided, or what is the minimum if you do need it as preservative?

Example: "You want to make a very salty solution of at least 5 percent".

Why?

Yes, you need salt. Salt selectively inhibits mold and bacteria which would otherwise out-compete the lactic acid bacteria. I'm sure you've seen vegetables rot; that's fermented cucumbers without salt.

There's no absolute minimum salt concentration. The less salt you add, the funkier and slimier the final product will be, and the more likely you'll be to end up with rotted vegetables. If you're using less salt, you'll also need to be more careful about fermentation temperature, and you may need to directly inoculate the pickles with a selected strain of lactic acid bacteria to help them compete.


What makes a chewy brownie? I've tried many different brownie recipes and most of mine bake to a cake-like consistency. The brownie holy grail for me is crusty top chewy brownies. What can I add/remove/do that will make my brownies chewier?

One of the most important factors in achieving a fudgy, chewy brownie is cooking time. Essentially you should be slightly undercooking the brownies so they don't dry out in the middle.

Use the cooking times given in recipes as a guide only, because each oven will vary. 5-10 minutes before they 'should' be ready, start testing the centre of the brownies with a toothpick or cake tester: unlike a cake, you want a good amount of sticky crumbs on the skewer (but very little liquid batter). Remember that the cooking process will continue even once the brownies are out of the oven.

Another factor that contributes to chewiness is the sugars you use: adding some sticky, dense, dark sugar will help create a fudgy brownie. The brownie recipe I use, which is pretty damn good, uses 1.5 cups of granulated sugar and .5 cup of packed dark brown sugar.


Canning grapes (unknown type) I separated the skins from the pulp/seeds, threw them in my blender with a little sugar and they turned brown during processing. The pulp also turned brown while simmering. I added them together, added sugar, began cooking and it became a medium purple color however, just before I finished the cooking process...the jam again turned brown. I was using all steel/ glass equipment.
Would/could it be the type of grape I used? It appeared to be concord grape from an old wild vine but does not tasted like concord grapes.

A lot of jam recipes call for adding some lemon juice to help guard against oxidation, which could be your source of browning.  Did you use any kind of acidic additive?

Turning brown, in and of itself, is more a cosmetic/aesthetic thing.  If it tastes fine, I wouldn't worry about it.  Label it, so you don't get it mixed up with other jams/preserves that are normally brown.


How to make pre-baked pita bread I'd like to pre-bake pita bread so that I can store it in the fridge and use them one at a time by heating them in a pan. Any idea how to do that?

I normally make a full batch of pitta, freeze most of it and then defrost using the toaster.
Contrary to Joshua Engel's answer, I've never had any trouble with the pitta toasting rather than defrosting; for contexts where I want pitta I'm happy for it to be hot. My toaster has a 'defrost' setting which I think reduces the heat intensity, and I'll typically set it at the shortest setting, then turn the pitta over to heat the part that was sticking out of the top of the toaster. I also sometimes leave it in the oven for a few minutes to defrost instead but have never felt a need to wrap it in foil beforehand, and I don't think it's suffered as a result.


Does this type of frosting have a name? I've previously asked about converting a family recipe for a cocoa frosting to a coffee frosting instead, and got a pretty good answer, but it's all very theoretical and "try this" and "try that", and I just don't have the time or, to tell the truth, the patience, to experiment like that. I think what I want is an established recipe, or rather, a way to search for an established recipe. Problem is, if you search for "coffee frosting", you get various types of buttercreams, all of which involve copious quantities of powdered sugar.
If I could instead search for "coffee [insert type of frosting here]", I might have better luck. Problem is, haven't the faintest idea what this frosting method/technique is called (assuming it has a name).
Here's the recipe:

Ingredients: 2 heaping tableserving spoons Dutch-processed cocoa (the original recipe just calls for 2 big spoonfuls, but in family practice, this has morphed to a whole lot more cocoa than that), 3 to 5 tablespoons granulated sugar (depending on how heavy-handed you were with the cocoa), 5 tablespoons water, 8 egg yolks, 2 sticks unsalted butter.
Method: combine everything except the butter in the top of a double boiler. Cook slowly, stirring pretty much constantly, until very thick and sticky. (It'll take a while, and your arms will get pretty tired.) Let cool. Meanwhile, whip the butter until light and fluffy. Combine the completely cooled chocolate mixture and the butter.

Does anyone recognize this type or method of making frosting? Does it have a name?

Looks like I need to edit to make it clear that it's the method that I'm after, not a vague resemblance of the ingredients.
So, the method, in more detail: combine starch (cocoa powder, in this case), sugar, a relatively large quantity of egg yolks, and a relatively tiny quantity of water. Cook in a double boiler, stirring constantly. If you find yourself scraping thickened mixture off the bottom of the pot while the rest of the mixture isn't as thick, immediately remove from the heat and stir like crazy until smooth. Rinse and repeat, until your arms are screaming, and the mixture is so thick that when you lift the whisk, the cream slowly falls off in clumps, rather than in a solid stream. Let cool completely. When cooled, the mixture is about the same texture as butter, just stickier. Thus, you can simply dump the entire cooked mixture into the butter (or the butter into the mixture, makes no difference), without worrying about curdling or separating, and whip away until no streaks remain.
As you can see, there's no cooking of sugar syrup, there's no hoping-the-sugar-will-cook-the-yolks-without-curdling-them, there's no dropping-the-butter-into-the-cream-in-small-cubes-and-praying-it-incorporates, and there is starch, so it is absolutely, positively NOT a French buttercream. The relatively tiny quantity of liquid means that this doesn't really resemble a German buttercream or a "flour buttercream", either, though a German buttercream made creme mousseline style (i.e. with pastry cream instead of custard) gets tantalizingly close...

Looks like the term you want is "French buttercream".

American buttercream is, as you say, full of sugar but rarely has eggs, relying on powdered sugar and butter with a bit of wet in the form of a dash of milk, cream, or alcohol.

French buttercream is based on egg yolks and contains relatively little sugar and is cooked over a double boiler.

  French buttercream is made by heating a sugar syrup until it reaches soft ball stage and then whipping it into beaten egg yolks and soft butter. This is the shiny, rich frosting of your dreams.

Italian Buttercream is similar but uses egg whites rather than yolks, so it's more of a meringue.

  It's similar to French buttercream in that you use a boiling syrup of sugar and water and cook it to soft-ball stage but then you pour it over beaten egg whites to create a meringue. As the meringue cools, you slowly add butter and mix like your life depended on it.


I want to halve a cream cheese cake recipe, how do I adjust the pan size, so I can keep the same cake height? I found a 9 inch cream cheese cake recipe I want to try for 12-15 people and I want to halve the quantities.
How do I adjust the temperature, baking time and pan size? Thanks

Assuming you're baking in a round pan: The volume of a cylinder is pi * r^2 * h. You halve the volume and want to keep the height the same. That means you want to scale the radius of the pan by a factor of 1/sqrt(2). So for example, if the recipe is intended for a pan of diameter 25 cm it has radius 12.5 cm and you want to use a pan with radius 12.5*(1/sqrt(2))=8.8 cm, or diameter approximately 17.6 cm.
Adjusting the baking temperature and time is a bit trickier. I would start by lowering the temperature by about 25 degrees Celsius and start checking the cake with a pick about 15 minutes before the stated time in the recipe.


Can I use low-temperature cooking for foie gras I used to cook my meat (beef, duck) at 58°C, but I never cooked foie gras of myself. Is it possible to use this cooking method for this?

I am wondering this because I saw a recipe with a beef piece half-opened with a raw foie gras inserted in. Then all of this baked but with normal cooking temperature+time and I would like to try low-temperature cooking.

Thank you

You should be fine if you your product is in the oven until the center reaches 58C.  Carry over cooking will cause the temp to increase slightly, and your fois will be in the safe zone.


Tricks for knowing when a cheesecake is correctly done I have just made a cheesecake, (not my first), but will admit that for me it is a bit of a guessing game to know when it is perfectly done.    I know that the sign is when the middle still jiggles, but how big of a middle?  Dime size, nickel size,  quarter size, or salad plate size?  Fortunately, luck was on my side and it turned out perfect, but not without worrying about its doneness!  Other than the "jiggle", is there any concrete way of knowing when it is done?  Is it possible to use a thermometer for the middle and what would the temperature be?  Luckily, even if a cheesecake is under or over done, it's still delicious, but when serving it to company, it an added bonus if it turns out perfect!  Any tips?

I use a therometer.

King Arthur flour suggests measuring 1 inch away from the edge of the cheesecake and looking for a temperature between 165F and 170F.

Americas Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated has recommended 165F in the center (checked in 20 minute intervals, provided that you're not close to 165F). However, I remember on the television show that they said 150F many years ago (their blog uses 150F in the center for some recipes too; others say 150F but don't say where to measure it).

I find that the King Arthur method comes out a little bit overdone, so I generally err a bit lower to 160F for 1 inch away from the edge of the cheesecake.

This is all assuming a 9 inch springform (certainly, this will make a difference for the edge based methods, not sure for the center based methods if you change the size of the pan); Your desired temperature will vary based on recipe, but I've tried this with a few recipes and had good results. I generally use recipes which have just cream cheese, eggs and sugar (and maybe a bit of flour) along with add-ins (pumpkin puree+spices for pumpkin cheesecake or lemon zest + berries for a berry cheesecake) for the filling (no sour cream or ricotta or other stuff). Some of the recipes I've tried don't use water baths, others do.

As for aesthetics, I always poke in the same place, and make sure when slicing that I cut through the hole. People don't notice -- they're too busy stuffing their face with cheesecake.


Is there a way to make jam or chutney without Gelatin / Pectin? I was wondering if there is a way to make jam without going through a gelatin type product. There is no real motive behind that question, except for curiosity

I'm not sure if you can with all fruits, but some fruits, like fruits like apples, blackberries, gooseberries, crab apples, cranberries, and grapes are naturally high in pectin and might produce the desired effect without extra help.


How to know when to remove lemon squares from oven? I'm making a lemon bars/squares recipe that I've made a few times before, and I keep having trouble deciding when to take it out of the oven. I don't want to overbake it, but I don't want to underbake it either as I won't be able to cut it properly into squares. The recipe says "until set, about 25-30 minutes". My lemon bars have been in the oven over half an hour; the top has gone light brown, but it still jiggles around like liquid when I move it. How do I know when it's "set"?

Custard without any flour or starch should be baked to about 83 Celsius internal temperature. Below 80 is underbaked, above 90 it curdles, so you have a very small window of good texture. It may be even narrower, it depends a bit on the other stuff you have in there, sugar gives you wiggle room but acids (including lemon juice!) will make it harder to get right.

If you have starch or flour, you need to reach almost boiling temperatures. 95 Celsius should be OK.

If you want high confidence, you really need to measure the internal temperature. External signs are not reliable, and time even less so.


Kneading dough with long nails; latex gloves? Is it possible/recommended to knead dough with disposable latex gloves on?

I'm asking because I have quite long nails and don't find it a very hygienic idea to knead dough with long nails. Not to mention the amount of dough I'd have to pick out from under my nails later on...

Will it transfer any smell/taste to the dough?
Would washing your hands with the gloves on change this?

Long nails will puncture smooth thin latex gloves (the surgical type) very quickly, especially during something like kneading where the gloves slide against your fingers all the time. Thick latex gloves, like the one for washing dishes, will be more durable, but they are also grippy and a lot of dough will stick. Also, they are usually not food safe.

If you really need something, I guess clear wide plastic gloves, like the ones in hair colorant packs, will work better, but I don't know where you can get them as explicitly food safe.

Personally, I would just knead barehanded. The underside of long nails can be washed just as easily as the upper side, and nobody finds it unhygienic to have the upper side of nails (short or long) touch dough. The real problem would come if you keep short nails and cannot remove the dirt which sticks between the nailtip and the meat of the finger. Long nails are much easier in that regard.


garam masala powder to paste I am going to make chicken saag. I have bought garam masala powder but my recipe says that I need 5ml of garam masala paste. Can someone tell me how do I convert garam masala powder to a paste?

Curry pastes are just powdered blends in oil for convenience. Just use a teaspoon of powder and fry it gently in a couple of tablespoons of oil to release the flavours.


How to store cooked Quinoa for few hours at work? I want to cook red grain quinoa while making breakfast at home in the morning, and then pack it and have it later for lunch at work with a salad. How should I store it after cooking for about 5 hours?

More details:
I'm planning to cook it and immediately put it in a plastic container, then go to work (travel time: 15 minutes) and then keep it in a refrigerator at work. Then re-heat in a microwave for 20 seconds at lunchtime and consume hot.

You should always try to first bring hot quinoa to room temperature and follow the rest which you already mentioned. That works great, else if you try to pack it when it like burning hot, then the steam kind of stays in the packed room which later creates moisture and later spoils the food even though you keep it in the refrigerator.

Best worked for me is by cooking quinoa in the night. Now I have lot of time to bring it to room temperature followed by pack it, store it and use it.


Rendered pork fat vs lard vs bacon fat? What is the difference between "rendered pork fat", lard, and bacon fat?

I've seen lots of references to rendered pork fat in the Momofuku cookbook, references to lard in one of my Schezuan cookbooks, and well everyone knows bacon fat...   so what is the difference ?  Can you substitute them ?

Not a lot, bacon is basically brined and smoked pork (the process/recipe depends on where you live)

Fat does not actually change in flavour as much as the flesh does when smoked

"Rendered fat" is just the fat that has run off when heating meat. It should be pure fat, with all the impurity left behind, or skimmed off

Depending on where you live, lard is either just pork fat, or a common word for animal fat

In Asian cooking if it specifies pork fat I would use that. Most Schezuan recipes are not smokey flavour based, so it may be noticeable, and appear unusual


How can I avoid chocolate truffle mix curdling? We are trying to make chocolate truffles by heating cream and adding to chopped up chocolate but it keeps curdling. Are there any tips to avoid this happening?

I have made a lot of truffles, and even more ganache for other purposes, and I have never had this happen. My guess is that you are boiling the cream too hard and that is causing the curdling.

How to make ganache:
You will need by weight one part 35% cream to 2 parts chocolate of your choice.

Chop your chocolate (if it's in blocks or chunks), put into a heatproof bowl (stainless steel is best) away fro your heat.

In a saucepan or pot (depending on how much you're making), bring the cream up to a high simmer.

Pour the cream immediately over the chocolate and stir with a silicone spatula if you have one, a wooden spoon otherwise. The chocolate should completely melt within about two minutes; longer for very high percentage dark chocolates. At this point if you are making flavoured truffles, add your flavourings (unless your flavour compounds have been infused into the cream).

Chill until set, make into truffles.

Edited to add:

If you are using alcohol as a flavouring in your truffles, you will need to use either more chocolate or less cream. I have found that approximately for every fluid ounce of alcohol added, remove 3/4-1 fluid ounce of cream from the recipe. I prefer to infuse flavourings in the cream, and have had great success with beets, bacon (with a Guinness reduction added to the chocolate later), black truffle and pureed walnut, and honey. Be sure to strain, of course, before adding the hot cream to the chocolate.

I have also found that white chocolate will often need slightly less cream than a milk or dark.


Smoking without wood chips I am smoking baby back ribs using an electric vertical smoker.

Given that most food absorbs smoke for an hour or two before saturating, what will happen if I stop adding wood chips after about two hours? Will I get the same result as if I continued to add wood chips, given that the ribs are unlikely to absorb appreciable amounts of additional smoke? In other words, does the smoke serve a useful purpose once the meat is saturated with smoke flavor?

Note that I am not asking about changing the cooking method (e.g. transferring to an oven or grill) or temperature, nor am I asking about meat other than ribs. All I am curious about is if I stop adding wood chips after two hours in the smoker, but continuing to smoke for the full duration.

I have been smoking ribs (and other meat) for years, but I have always added smoke chips up until an hour before finishing. I am curious if I am literally burning money by wasting wood chips.

Related question: How much time do I need to achieve a smokey flavor in bbq? Please note that this question is different because I am specifically not switching cooking methods, nor am I asking when smoking is more effective.

The meat doesn't really "absorb" the smoke, as much as the smoke sticks to the meat, for the most part.

The real answer here is strictly what your preference is. While there are some preservative qualities that are delivered through smoking food, you should consider smoke a spice no different than salt, pepper, garlic powder, etc. Smoking food for two hours should be plenty for most people's palates. It is better to be a little light on the smoke than a little heavy (I know this from my own mistakes in the past).


What kind of steak to use for fajitas? Following Steven Raichlen's recipe, we used skirt steak to make fajitas on Sunday. I found the meat particularly chewy/tough and rather unpleasant overall. What can we do to improve the experience?

Genuine fajitas are made with skirt steak. The most important thing you can do when making fajitas is marinate appropriately. That recipe calls for a dismally short marination time (30 mins to an hour). When I make fajitas I marinate them a minimum of 4 hours, though typically overnight. I usually use a combination of soy sauce, lime juice, garlic, olive oil and salt in a zip-loc bag.

Another thing to be aware of is how you slice the meat. If you bought your fajita meat presliced from a good butcher, then chances are he cut it properly - against the grain. If it's a random supermarket butcher you may or may not have had it cut properly. If you cut the meat yourself, make sure you slice it across the grain, otherwise you'll be chewing some very tough long proteins.

Also, as with any meat, don't overcook it. Medium rare is just fine for a skirt steak.

Some people will substitute a flank steak for a skirt steak when making fajitas. Flank tends to be a little less tough, but not as flavorful. The above marination and cutting guidelines apply to flank steak as well.

Update - I also notice that the recipe suggests 3-4 minutes per side for medium rare. This doesn't sound right to me if the grill is on high heat. Skirt and flank steaks are rather thin and 2 minutes per side on a hot grill should be medium-rare.

Also, make sure you let it rest. I usually rest any steak for 5 minutes, not 3 as the recipe suggests.


I bought Cod fish on Sunday afternoon and cooked it Tuesday night.... It was a little chewy, was that because it was bad? I bought the fish from Whole Foods, so I assume it was good quality. The recipe that I used said to cut the fish into strips and cook 2 mins per side.  I wasn't sure if that meant top and bottom or all 4 sides.  I ended up cooking for about 7 minutes flipping periodically.  It was kind of chewy when we ate it.  I've never cooked it (or eaten it that I remember) so I'm not sure if this was normal.  My husband has had it twice on trips recently and he seemed surprised by the texture although he had eaten a different variety.

So, my question is: Did I ruin it by over cooking, or did I wait too long to cook it and it was going bad anyway, or is that just how it's supposed to be?

Cod tends to be fairly firm as compared to other white fish (tilapia, etc.) though it can vary a bit in texture depending on the variety.  White fish in general will also tend to overcook fairly easily and will lose moisture quickly.

Typically recipes that specify cooking times "per side" mean top and bottom - i.e. you flip the food over rather than cooking on 4 sides.  That would mean cooking for about a total of 4 minutes which sounds right to me for cod, rather than your 7 total minutes.  That's enough of a margin to result in overcooked fish.

2 days is just about the maximum for safe storage per our generally recommended guidelines (assuming you stored it properly wrapped and refrigerated) but Whole Foods does pretty well with rotating their stock, so it's not especially likely that the fish was significantly older than that.  If you didn't notice any sliminess, offensive or fishy  odor, or other outright signs of spoilage, you are likely safe.  In any case, this sort of decline probably wouldn't cause a change in texture - you'd notice the effect more in the flavor.

Now, unfortunately, since you've already consumed the fish, you might discover for yourself whether it had gone bad, but I think that's unlikely.  The most likely culprit is that it was moderately overcooked.


Cooking with chronic fatigue Anyone know of any good resources for cooking recipes/methods/tools for people with a medical condition that causes chronic fatigue? I'm relying too much on convenience foods and 'tv dinners', because frequently the effort of cooking a decent meal is beyond my energy limits at the end of the day.

I also have neurological disorders that cause symptoms similar to chronic fatigue. Here are a few tricks that have helped me with cooking dinner:

Make sure your kitchen is set up in an efficient organized way. Keeping your kitchen well organized is key to reducing the time you spend cooking.  Take your limitations into account when organizing your kitchen.  For instance, if bending down flares up your symptoms, keep the items you use the least in the lower cabinets.
Purchased pre-chopped veggies
Use tin foil / parchment paper on cookie sheets and casserole dishes as much as possible.  This will limit clean up.
Try sitting as much as possible while cooking. Here is a stool that rolls around.
As alluded to in other responses, try recipes that allow you to prepare much of the meal ahead of time - while you have more energy.
Look for recipes where the majority or all of the cooking is in the oven as opposed to over the stove.  While the cook times may be similar, you can take a load off if you are primarily using the oven.
Once every 3 months I cook up (in the oven) and shred a 'big buy' of chicken and store it in the freezer. I use the cooked meat for risottos, soups, pasta dishes that call for cooked chicken.
Finally, here is a resource for quick recipes: allrecipes


How to reduce the moisture when making tarte tatin I've tried making pear and apple tarte tatin a couple of times, using different recipes, and the result is always the same.

When I take the pan out of the oven and flip it over, the pastry is moist, and the thick caramel has turned very runny.

I've tried reducing the amount of butter used, and using different types of sugar, but nothing seems to have an effect...

Is there a way to keep everything "dry" ?

The reason, I think, that most recipes don't leave a thick caramel and it all goes 'runny' is that it's designed to go into a sort of caramel-y sauce when turned out.

Since in most conventional recipes you par-cook the fruit in the caramel then top with the pastry and bake, the fruit releases a lot of moisture into the caramel and making it runnier. Therefore, if you cook the apples separately (boiling them, say) then drain, add to the caramel and cover with pastry and bake, much less juice should leak out of them.

I would keep the caramel recipe the same as in the recipe but just follow the steps above. I don't think the type of sugar will make any difference other then flavor (although soft brown sugars do have more moisture in them).

Also, since everything except the pastry is cooked, try baking the pastry conventionally (in the oven) then grill it for a few minutes to increase the heat on the pastry directly to avoid it becoming soggy.


re:salad dressing shelf storage can I process salad dressing for shelf life in a water bath or pressure canner and if I can how long is the process time, I can't find out anything about it please help.

It REALLY depends on the recipe you are using.
Lots of salad dressings contain either dairy or oil and neither of these can be safely waterbathed OR pressure canned.

Something like a seasoned vinegar might be okay though however I am unable to give advice on how to process that safely.

check http://nchfp.uga.edu/ for guidelines and safe processes and recipes (their search feature on their website is pretty good)


Broil meringue cookies? I wanted to make these meringue cookies. The instructions say to bake them for 90 mins at 100, but our oven only broils and we're still waiting to have it fixed. If possible, how long and what temperature would I bake the meringue cookies at? Ty! :)

I would just heat the oven with broil. Then switch if off, wait until  temperature drop to around 110-120C and put meringue in. Then just wait until oven cool off.
Tat way the inside would be chewy, if you want more chrunch burn it with torch before putting in oven.


What is this Kenwood food processor attachment for? We've recently acquired a food processor, and can't work out for the life of us what this attachment does. The manual, and Googling, hasn't helped. Here's the attachment:

And here's the food processor (Kenwood FDP30)

Any ideas?

I will assume the other end of the attachment is not for cutting. It looks like a tool for emulsification. You can make sauces like mayonnaise using the attachment.
Edit:
The comment of @steve-chambers confirms that it indeed is an emulsification tool.


Hot chocolate and cheese (Colombian Special) I recently visited Colombia in South America and I'm trying to recreate one of their traditional delicacies.

They give you a lovely thick cup of hot chocolate and together with a few slices of cheese. The idea is you break up the cheese and put it into your hot chocolate. The cheese melts partially and you can then eat it with a spoon.

It sounds quite strange, but actually tasted great.

My question is, that I'd like to try to find the same cheese to make it (in the UK). I've heard that mozzarella is the closest, but it doesn't melt in the same way.

The only Colombian cheese I have found is called Queso Compasigna, which means country/rustic cheese). I believe they have another type of cheese, specifically for dipping in hot chocolate. I'd like to know what cheese it is, possible where to buy it or if not how to make it?

Any ideas if its made with cows or goats milk or what sort of manufacturing process it uses?

Queso Blanco just means "White Cheese", which is kind of a catch-all term many locals use for simple cheeses. What is meant by Queso Blanco will likely change from region to region even within Columbia, and the chances of you being able to find it in the UK are pretty unlikely. Most imported Spanish cheeses tend to be the high-quality, specialist ones.

You haven't put what the cheese actually tastes like in your post, so I am assuming it was most likely pretty mild and it is the texture of it that really floated your boat. When I think soft, mild cheese I usually think cows milk, not sheep or goat, although there may be non-cheese alternatives as well in the following list:

Panir may work for you, it's soft and will get softer, also pretty mild flavor
Tofu: ok, not cheese but texture-wise a soft tofu may work great, and the flavor will work with chocolate pretty well.
UK white cheese: any major UK supermarket has a white cheese on sale, usually cheap, usually flavorless. Could be worth a try
Curd cheese: this is probably what would be called cottage cheese in the US. It's pretty liquid but if you drained it and compacted it you'd get a crumbly, easy-melting cheese

Let us know how you get on, I'm dying of curiosity!


Will frozen pearl onions caramelize as easily as fresh ones will? Will frozen pearl onions caramelize as well as fresh ones will? Besides draining the frozen ones, is there anything that I should do to them to aid their caramelization?

I don't have any experience with frozen or canned pearl onions (I assume canned because of the mention of draining), but I regularly cut and freeze 10lbs of onions at a time for ease of use later in the week/month (more info on how/why here).

With these onions that I freeze myself, caramelization seems to be the same as it would be with fresh onions.  I haven't done anything special when caramelizing with them, and there's been no increase in necessary cooking time or decrease in flavor.

If you really wanted to be safe, you could probably drop them in boiling water for a minute or two (or defrost them on the counter for an hour), but with how long it's going to take to caramelize anyway, I would think this extra step is unnecessary.

Also: if you're going to take the time to caramelize, but you're short on time during the week after work/school/etc, I recommend making a huge batch and then freezing the resulting caramelized onions as well.  Very handy!


Food Processor Feeder Tube Hole - What Is It Called and How Does It Work? I've seen a useful tool on some food processors before, where they have a small hole in the feeder tube that is perfect for making mayonnaise. If you fill the feeder tube with oil, the oil will fall through the hole one drop at a time, taking all the difficulty out of starting the emulsion by hand. I had a couple questions regarding this tool:

What is the right terminology for it? I always think of it as an "eyelet dropper" but I have no idea if that's an accurate term.
Is there anything special about the hole's construction that slows the oil to a single drop at a time? Or is it something about the viscosity of the oil that does it?

I enjoy making homemade mayo, but doing it with my blender is a real pain and I'd prefer to not have to upgrade to a larger food processor to automate starting the emulsion. I was hoping to just 3D Print a plug for my blender's lid that would include one of these holes, but I figured I'd ask first and see if the hole needed some special properties to work the same way...

From the cuisinart manual parts description section(emphasis mine):

  A small removable pusher that fits into a central tube in a large
  pusher. The small pusher is for processing food like single carrots or
  cucumbers, for continuous feeding of small, hard food like garlic,
  onions and chunks of cheese, and for adding liquid while the machine
  is running. A funnel helps when adding dry ingredients like flour and
  sugar through the small feed tube.

So it looks like you are using it correctly. I am going to have to try using this when adding milk or butter milk to my biscuits.


Using sous vide to warm canned vegetables Has anyone attempted to plunge a can of vegetables into the sous vide bath given it is already vacuum packed? I would, of course, take off the label.

If you were to do that it would be closer to poaching the vegetables assuming that most canned vegetables are in a liquid and the water in and out the can would be kept below the boiling point.

You would have to be carful of built up pressure by the heat (should be fine since you're not sous viding in boiling water nor is there air in the can.)


Would it really be possible to cook a fish in clay? Awhile back I read about in a fictional book a person who had no cooking utensils placed a gutted, cleaned fish in clay and baked it, and afterwards broke the pottery on the outside to get the fish out. If someone were to really do that

A) would it work? If so how long would it take?

B) What would the benefits of doing so be over skewering the fish and cooking it over an open fire? and

C) What would its flavor be like (i.e. would the clay impart any flavor in and of itself above any beyond any seasonings used on it)?

Baking fish in clay is like baking the fish in an impromptu duch oven: it keeps the moisture inside the meat, unlike roasting the fish on a skewer.

The clay should impart only very little flavour. If you use the clay directly on the fish, the skin typically sticks to the clay and is removed with the clay. Other methods wrap the fish in large leaves first and then in clay. Hay is also used occasionally, also for flavour. In all cases, the clay won't actually touch the bits you eat.

As for cooking times, this varies greatly, depending on

the size of the fish
the thickness of the clay layer
the heat and position in, on or next to the fire.

Sources vary from "ten to fifteen minutes on each side" (small trout in 1/2 inch of clay, right in the embers (1)) to "up to three hours" (2 inch thick clay layer, baked in heated stones and covered with soil (2)). The clay layer should be totally solid by the time the fish is done and depending on the type of clay, might show some cracks.


Which sourdough starter should i keep? I decided to make 2 sourdough starters, to see if one would come out better. I only want to keep one and I dont know which one to choose. One has formed a hooch, while the other has not but otherwise they are identical in size, consistency, and smell. Which one should I keep?

The easiest way to decide which starter works best for you and which one you like more is to bake a bread with each of them.

I would suggest to make them at the same time (or one after the other if you don't have the oven capacity), so you can have a direct taste comparison. Don't worry about having too much bread, you can freeze part of each loaf if you don't think you can eat it all while still fresh.


Why would the exterior of a cake cook and not the interior? I attempted to make the blueberry corn cake from "All About Cake" by Christina Tosi, and for both layers, the top of the cake got rock solid and started to collapse down, but the inside of the cake was goo - barely cooked. I'm pretty sure I followed the recipe, and have never seen anything like this happen to a cake before. Fellow baker family members are stumped - any ideas what might have happened?

May be the temperature of the oven was too high so the outer part got cooked too quickly leaving the inner cake raw.


Stuffed peppers that don't burn on to the pot My wife and I enjoy peppers stuffed with a meat/rice mix (with spices).  We start with raw peppers and uncooked meat, and put the peppers in a small pot (or tagine) with tomato puree or tomato paste-based sauce around them, and cook for ~40 minutes.  The result is usually to our liking (tasty, meat is cooked through, peppers are an appropriate firmness, etc.), with one exception: the peppers always burn on to the bottom of the pot.  This puzzles me, since the tomato-based sauce around them boils gently or simmers, which I would have thought meant that there was enough liquid to keep the peppers from burning on.  Apparently not!

Does anyone have methods for cooking this or a similar dish that avoids burning?  (Again, the dish tastes great--the burnt-on pepper just complicates clean-up.)

You need a small wire grid to put on the bottom of your tagine. You can make one by cutting up an old cake cooling rack

Also consider baking for 3/4 of the time and then switching the oven to grill with the tagine lid off for the remaining 1/4 time (or thereabouts) . This should still keep them moist, but just lightly crisp the pepper tops without burning the tops or bottoms. These results are not to every tagine owners liking though


Making two no-bake pies, double the recipe, or make the filling one at a time? I have a recipe for a no-bake apple pie. I'd like to make two pies, but I'm not sure if I should just double the recipe, or make the filling for each, one at a time. The filling calls for boiling the apples with one box each of lemon Jell-O and cook & serve vanilla pudding, which is why I am concerned about where I should just double the recipe.
I have doubled recipes before, but only once for a cobbler, and sweet potato pies.
I tried to Google the question, but the results generally were for making a double crust pie.

I would say that in that case, you can definitely scale the recipe without worrying.
Boil the apples with the other ingredients, and split the result once cooked to make two pies.

You can usually scale up or down a recipe. The rough idea is simply to multiply the quantity of the ingredients of your recipe by a factor. Doubling means multiplying by 2, making half, by 0.5.
There is some exceptions to the above rule :

When the recipe is dependent on the size of your cooking devices. For example, you can't scale a French omelette without scaling the size of the pan/your stove.
Some delicate recipes might be difficult to scale, like a soufflé. In that case, it is because it can be hard to fold a big quantity of whipped white eggs in the thick batter in a homogeneous manner.
Some ingredients are more tricky to scale : a recipe calling for 1 egg yolk might be difficult to scale down. Then, it is a matter of experience : if you are supposed to brush the egg over some pastry (to make it shiny and golden), then having 1 or ½ an egg does not make a big difference.

In general, savory recipe are easier to scale up or down. Just taste regularly what you are cooking, and adjust as you go. When it comes to pastry, this can be a bit more tricky, especially if you're planning to bake something delicate, but this is most of the time possible.
Final note: scaling is a lot easier when your recipe call for the ingredients in weight. I know this is not the case in some countries (USA, Sweden, to name a few), and to me, it makes scaling down those recipe a lot harder.


What can I do to make wood dust for cold smoking? In order to cold smoke, you need a fine wood dust.

I work with wood and have obtained, using a band saw, a very fine wood dust. The wood this dust comes from has been well seasoned.

Is it OK to use this wood dust in a cold smoker?
What can I do to prepare this wood dust for use in a cold smoker?

It is okay to use wood, you need to ensure that there is not pine or especially MDF dust in the sawdust that you are using. Approach with caution, unless you can absolutely guarantee the source of wood shaving/sawdust is what they say it is then leave it well alone. There are a lot of joiners using MDF and pine and to have a batch of oak or cherry contaminated with either of these products will render any food you smoke as inedible at best and actually quite dangerous.

If you'd rather enjoy a more DIY approach you can harvest wood after fresh autumn or spring winds. The best time for collecting wood is in the winter or very early spring before the sap rises. The sap will add moisture and a slightly bitter taste to your wood shavings due mainly to the higher resin and sap content of the wood. This can be avoided by choosing when to collect. I wouldn’t hold onto this rule, but if I had a choice, I would go for the winter harvested wood.


Making a dip ahead of time I would like to make a chunky dip using cooked broad beans, olive oil, white vinegar and Parmesan. Would mixing it together, covering and storing it in fridge for several hours in advance, keep the texture and flavours fresh?

Vinegar will start changing the flavor and texture of your dip from the moment you add it. Putting your dip in the fridge might slow down the process, but it will still happen. Is adding the vinegar right before serving your dip a possibility?

Also, keep in mind that if you want your dip's texture to be just as when you made it, you need to bring it back to room temperature before serving it. Olive oil in particular can coagulate at low temperatures, so keep that in mind.


Yoghurt making : effects of temperature and duration As I am fairly new to making yoghurt at home I would like to understand the effects that temperatures and time have on the end product in both the initial heating/cooling step and the fermentation step.

So far I have made half a dozen 1.5 litre batches with three different cultures (currently using ABY-1 from CHR Hansen that I was able to buy from the Westcombe dairy in Somerset). I have a Luvelle machine that can ferment at 36C, 38C and 40C from 1 hour to 24 hours.

I want to understand what changes if I experiment with the following:-

When I heat the milk to 85C and hold the temperature I have made some batches with a 10 minute hold and others with a 20 minute hold period and see/feel/taste no difference - will holding at 30 minutes produce a difference?
I am currently fermenting for 24 hours at 38C and getting a strong tang/sourness to the yoghurt but what would I expect to get if I reduced the fermentation to 12 hours at 38C...or less?
I choose 38C for the fermentation process because it was recommended by the manual that came with the Luvelle machine but what happens if I use 36C or 40C and what length of time would I use?

So generally speaking I want to know more about the initial heating process and what options there are and what the different fermentation temperatures and durations can have on the end results.

Thanks in advance!

First, about the holding time: It is a safety feature. It is meant to ensure that the number of non-culturing organisms that survive is so low that the culturing organisms can overtake them and create a colony of their own, without pathogens. If you reduce it, sometimes nothing will happen, and sometimes you will get a dangerously high growth of pathogenic bacteria. To keep your yogurt safe, you have to do the 30 minutes.

Second, fermentation time and temperature. When you stay close to the prescribed temperature for a given culture, then you can trust that a higher temperature will give you the same sourness in shorter time, or more sourness in the same time. If you go far away from the prescribed temperature, your fermentation process again becomes unsafe (because some other bacteria are likely to take over before your culture multiplies enough to establish itself). From experience, a deviation of 2C from the optimal is close enough to still make good yogurt, so you can experiment with all three temperatures. What happens if you use 36 C is that you get less tangy yogurt, and at 40 you get more tangy. The length of time you use is pretty much a matter of trial and error, until you get the taste you prefer.

Note that, for establishing your preferred time, you should use an established culture. That is, you should either always use a new capsule of lab-bought culture, or you should first do a few generations of reinnoculation at constant conditions, and then start experimenting from there. This is because the first few re-innoculations from a new capsule are a kind of "adjusting" fermentations, and your yogurt will be changing its tanginess and consistency even when you keep the conditions (time and temperature) equal.


How to shape the perfect bao dough I made char siu bao for the first time last night and followed this recipe to make the dough. It came out great tasting but bad looking- I couldn't find advice on how to shape the bao correctly. Are there any instructions or tips I can follow so that it looks a bit nicer?

Below is a picture of one tier before steaming. I just folded up the sides and tried to spin the center. (Next time I'll definitely make the bao smaller and put in less filling, since some of these started leaking while they were steaming.) I put each bao in a paper baking cup, but when they were done, most of the bao were stuck to the cups and the bottom just broke open.

Thanks for any help!

Update: Here's my second batch- came out much much better by following the tips below:

Some tips I found useful while making the second batch of bao:

Start out by making small buns
Use a rolling pin to even out the dough (should be about 3-4 inches in diameter)
Add just a small amount of filling to the center
Gather up all 5 sides (not 4!!) and pinch them together in the middle
Generously spray oil in baking cups, and place buns in cups (this way the buns won't stick to the steamer or to the baking cups)
Steam for 15 mins, or freeze and steam at a later date for 20 mins


Little bit of an odd question, but what does pelican taste like? Oddly curious as to the answer - thought about it once and can't get it out of my head. Has anyone tried Pelican before? Or know what it tastes like? I had a look around on other sites but couldn't find anything.

I've never had pelican, but I have eaten a number of fish-eating birds, like loon/duck. There is a sameness in taste in fish eating birds: oily meat, dark, with bad fish flavor. Not advised unless closest store to buy food is more than 3 days walk away.


Half and half cream already curdled in a fresh carton What could be going on here? On several occasions recently, I have purchased small (half pint) cartons of half-and-half (10%) cream. The "out" date on the carton is at least four weeks into the future. My fridge keeps it about 2 deg C (35F maybe). Freshly opened after maybe a couple of days in my fridge, the product is already curdled. I often only see it when I pour it into my coffee, but I've also seen it already curdled in the carton (starting to look like cottage cheese). What could be going on here? Is this an issue I need to take up with the grocer? Is it a product quality problem from the dairy? Have I handled it improperly somehow (fridge too cold)?

If the date on your carton is more than four weeks out, the product is ultra-pasteurized and should definitely last more than a few days. As long as your refrigerator is not cold enough for the half and half to freeze, and you've not kept it out too long,  it's not likely that it's anything you have or haven't done.

That said, it's most probable that somewhere in the supply chain the product was not handled properly. But it's difficult to know where the breach occurred.

It may have been kept out of refrigeration too long when a delivery occurred at a warehouse or store. Or a customer may have decided not to buy it and set it on a shelf to be discovered later and placed back in the cold case.

There are any number of things that can happen between production and purchase and, unfortunately, we have no control over them and have no way of knowing what actually occurred.

I would definitely let your grocer know of the problem. He/she may be able to find and fix the problem if it's an ongoing issue.


Worm in dry bread, what is it? I was picking up some bread and I noticed something moving in the box. After some searching I found the thing and it turned out to be a worm or a larva. Any idea what it is and should I start throwing everything out of the food closet?

Picture: (The worm is in two pieces in the middle)

-You can right click and select "View Image" for a bigger picture.

(Sorry if this is a wrong place to ask, this seems food related so I posted it here)

-----     UPDATE     -----

I found another one:

-You can right click and select "View Image" for a bigger picture.

For size comparison that stuff is the residue from the back of this bread.

Those are larvae of the Larder beetle, related to carpet beetles.  Vacuum up all the crumbs and keep the area clean.  They infest many dry foods and areas where food debris collects.


What is a substitute for mascarpone cheese? I've found mascarpone cheese can be pricey. What would be a good (in taste and price) substitute?

I found a highly rated mascarpone cheese substitute recipe on food.com. I haven't personally tried it, but it's highly rated on that site, and is ridiculously simple.

1 16 oz block of cream cheese
1/2 cup sour cream
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
Blend until smooth

Try it and let us know? :)


Can I substitute gluten for eggs in coconut flour pancake recipes? I'm looking to reduce carbs, yet still have things like pancakes, waffles, and maybe even tortillas.

I've tried several coconut flour pancake recipes, but they all come out tasting like fried eggs to me.

I was thinking I could probably add vital wheat gluten in place of the eggs, but I'm not certain this would work. What amount of it to use per egg in the recipe?

The primary reason coconut flour recipes (especially a high hydration recipe like pancakes) end up tasting like eggs is because they are primarily eggs with very little flour.

Coconut flour is extremely absorbent, which means two things:

For the same amount of liquid, you need less coconut flour compared to other flours like flaxseed meal, almond flour, etc. Because you must use less of it, there is less flour "flavor" that comes through to the final product, if that makes sense.
For the same amount of coconut flour compared to other flours, you need more liquid. Because coconut flour has very little protein compared to other flours, that liquid tends to be eggs, which have the necessary protein to provide structure.

Take a muffin recipe for example (I've omitted all other ingredients besides flour and eggs for sake of clarity).

Flaxseed meal version:

¼ cup flaxseed meal (28 g)
1 jumbo egg (63 g)

Coconut flour version:

2 Tbsp coconut flour (14 g)
1 ½ jumbo eggs (95 g)

Now let's look at the baker's percentages of eggs to flour in both of these recipes. In the flaxseed meal version, we see that the weight of the egg is 225% compared to the flour (if the flour were considered 100%). In the coconut flour version, the weight of the eggs are 642% compared to the flour.

Something that uses 642% eggs is likely going to taste a lot like eggs. But wait, we're not done yet. Most pancakes recipes are simply flat griddle-cooked muffins, though they tend to have even more liquid than regular muffins. That likely means even more eggs, and egg ratios upwards of 800-900%. At those levels, it's more like an omelette with the coconut flour just going along for the ride.

Whether you can substitute vital wheat gluten (VWG) in place of eggs is really going to depend on the rest of the recipe. Without knowing what the other ingredients are, it's hard to make suggestions. If eggs are the only ingredient providing moisture, then substituting with VWG alone won't work without also adding a source of moisture. My gut feeling is that VWG would tend to exacerbate the requirement for moisture (it's also very thirsty), and tend to make leathery pancakes. Actually, I suppose it might theoretically be possible to replace the function of an egg by combining a small amount of vital wheat gluten (say, 6 g) with a non-egg source of liquid like buttermilk (say, 45 g). I'll have to try experimenting with that and report back. Until then, this is how I approached solving the "eggyness" problem:

EDIT: since posting this, I've developed a coconut-flour version of my low-carb Buttermilk Pancakes #12 recipe, which I'll include here. While I know this isn't a recipe exchange site, I think this recipe can help show how I approached solving the OP's original problem of too much "eggyness":

Buttermilk Pancakes #12 (Coconut Flour + Whey Protein Isolate)

3 ½ Tbsp coconut flour (*flour*)                          42.98%  24.5 g
1 Tbsp psyllium husk powder (*flour*)                     14.91%   8.5 g
¼ cup, packed, unflavored whey protein isolate (*flour*)  42.11%  24.0 g

¼ tsp baking powder                                        2.02%   1.2 g
1/16 tsp baking soda                                       0.51%   0.3 g
1 Tbsp Splenda (non-nutritive sweetener)                   2.96%   1.7 g
3/8 tsp Kosher salt                                        1.84%   1.0 g

1 jumbo egg                                              110.53%  63.0 g
1 cup buttermilk                                         429.82% 245.0 g
1 Tbsp unsalted butter                                    24.86%  14.2 g

A couple of things I'll note. First, this recipe has around 475% hydration, so it's still quite high, but it solves the eggyness problem by  using only 1 egg. To make up for the structure and liquid that the egg would normally provide, I replaced it with several ingredients which work together to function like an egg. First is the unflavored whey protein powder. When mixed with the buttermilk and cooked, it will set up similar to how an egg might set up. However, being a pure protein powder, it is an extreme "drier" (similar to egg whites), and would produce an inedible dense pancake by itself. To balance that out, I added a moisture retainer in the form of ground psyllium husk. The psyllium husk also acts like a binder and holds everything together similar to how an egg might. The end result is probably the equivalent to around 3 eggs or so without tasting like an egg.

P.S. I originally posted this recipe along with 3 other low-carb flour variations over on reddit.

Regarding the carbs in buttermilk (and yogurt): While the nutrition info for 1 cup (245 g) of buttermilk and 1 cup (245 g) of whole plain (unsweetened) yogurt will say around 12 g of carbs from sugars, in reality, that number is actually much lower. The reason for this is that most of the milk sugar (lactose) in buttermilk and yogurt has been converted by the bacteria culture to lactic acid. As doctors Jack Goldberg and Karen O'Mara explain in their book "The GO-Diet", you can count a cup of either of these as 4 g of net carbs rather than 12 g. (See this website for more info: http://www.lowcarbluxury.com/yogurt.html).


Difference between cocoa and cacao What is the difference between cocoa powder and cacao powder? Can they be used interchangeably (taste and function the same)?
I understand somewhat the processing difference. It's like cold vs hot pressed oils, cocoa is "hot pressed" and cacao is "cold pressed" so I would imagine that you wouldn't get some of the roasted flavors in cacao. I tried eating some plain powder of both. Bitterness was about the same, and the cocoa seemed a little chocolatier but kinda hard to tell from eating dry powder.

I'm not asking from a health perspective, only from a culinary one.

The 2 products I am comparing are standard Hershey's cocoa powder vs nativa cacao powder  https://thrivemarket.com/p/navitas-organics-organic-cacao-powder

This is in the eastern USA.

I learned* that before roasting, the (raw) beans are called cacao, after roasting it is cocoa.

And yes, that does noticeably change the smell and taste.

AFAIK, only special kinds of cacao are consumed without roasting.

I recently had some samples of raw cacao and roasted cocoa beans in the lab (same kind of cacao, same region + cooperative doing the fermentation) and they did smell very differently. Only the roasted samples had what I'd call the pleasant cocoa/chocolatey smell - I'd have said the unroasted samples were much different, not just a bit less chocolatey.

Differences in smell and taste can be caused by a variety of influencing factors such as region, cultivar, fermentation + roasting protocols, alkalizing (for the powder), ...

* in the academic context of botany, food and biotechnology

That being said, I'd suspect that cacao vs. cocoa could also be a caused by non-English product naming: In German, it is usually Kakao (before and after roasting), but occasionally Cacao is used, presumably to create an impression of old-fashioned quality produce. Or maybe to refer to the Spanish term.

Edit: about the linked product:

Your example cacao says on the backside that it is actually produced from unroasted beans.
It is degreased (cocoa/cacao butter removed), though: raw cacao beans have roughly 50 % lipids (cocoa/cacao butter) whereas that powder has 10 % lipids.
Degreasing is AFAIK part of the milling/grinding process: the beans or nibs are put through roller mills and the molten cocoa/cacao butter (melting at 34 - 38 °C, so roughly human body temperature) can then be removed by pressing. Thus, a certain amount of heat is involved, but far less than in roasting (e.g. 120 - 140 °C).


Danish rye bread (rugbrød) gone wrong? A couple weeks ago I tried making a danish rye bread using Magnus Nilsson's recipe from "The Nordic Cook Book."
The recipe basically calls for a preferment of rye, yeast and buttermilk which you let sit for 72 hours before adding the rest of the rye flour, buttermilk and rye kernels and waiting another 24 hours.
The problem is that by the end of those 96 hours, my concoction was so foul smelling that I can't imagine it turned out correctly. It was the usual rye scent with a strong hint of vomit, and I didn't even try to bake it.

What should the dough smell like after four days of fermentation? How can I tell if it's gone wrong?

For this type of recipe that requires buttermilk or cultured milk, is it possible that the milk+lemon juice substitute simply doesn't work? You need the actual bacteria from real cultured milk?

If my dough did go bad, was it just a matter of bad luck in getting the wrong bacteria, or was there something I could have done?

I definitely think buttermilk is required. If you don't want to invest in a whole jug, you might be able to find some plain kefir instead, or even yogurt will work in a pinch.
Sourdough starters (like the preferment like here) contain a combination of yeast and bacteria. It will definitely have a sour and somewhat funky smell, but generally speaking we've evolved to recognize good funk smells from "I'm not going to eat that" smells. It's not perfect, but it's helpful.
Yeast and bacteria are naturally present.... Everywhere basically. We get yeast infections on our skin and in embarrassing places because they are literally everywhere. Ever had dandruff? That's a yeast thing too. But there are lots of varieties of yeast. Beer and wine yeasts have been cultivated to produce/tolerate different amounts of alcohol for example. So even though yeast is everywhere, you added bread yeast to your preferment because you wanted that one. you didn't want some weirdo yeast chilling under your fingernails or something.
The thing with the milk and lemon juice substitute for buttermilk is that it only mimics the acidity and sweet-sour flavor for baking. But the bacterial profile is not the same. It could be anything! Some bacteria naturally present in milk produce iodine, which is bitter. For all I love my ferments, I can't predict whether my milk will become a delicious mesophilic buttermilk or a jug of bitter sadness if I let it spoil naturally..... But that's kind of what you did here.
Your milk and lemon juice both contained bacteria in small amounts to start, and nobody knows what they were. After several days, those bacteria multiplied by a lot, and your nose told you that whatever they were, they did NOT make something delicious. I think you were right to toss it.
So, while you might not have to use buttermilk, I would definitely use some kind of cultured dairy. Buttermilk or kefir would be best because those are room temperature mesophilic ferments. Yogurt will work in a pinch, but they're typically predominantly thermophilic cultures, meaning they flourish in a warmer environment.


Describing the taste of Illy coffee and similar brands I'm no coffee expert - I can't describe flavours well, but I know what I like.  And I'd like to learn to describe tastes better.

Illy is my favourite coffee (for French press use) - it seems a lot lighter than other brands. For example, Douwe Egberts seems too thick, and impossible to drink black.

How would you describe the main qualities of Illy?  And if I want to get more in depth and buy fresh beans, what types might share some of these qualities?

I don't know anything about Illy coffe but you may find these can answer the question I think you are asking. Here is a flavor wheel for coffee: http://www.flickr.com/photos/visualthinkmap/2741624371/ and here is a link and a great website for pretty much everything coffee: http://www.wholelattelove.com/articles/coffee_tasting.cfm.

Also just to be complete here is a direct quote from the site above, Whole Latte Love, about Illy coffee:

  "The world’s coffee of choice."
  Discover the extraordinary pleasure of illy, the celebrated Italian espresso coffee served in the finest restaurants and cafés and enjoyed by coffee connoisseurs worldwide. A blend so popular, it is served in Italy alone over 2 million times a day. Prized for its full, rich body and smooth, balanced flavor, illy's signature blend is meticulously selected and is 100% sustainably grown Arabica coffee. Espresso at it's finest!


Cooking Chicken meat with bones in soup is better than cooking Chicken bones in soup? Possible Duplicate:
  How do I optimize my chicken stock for the best flavor at the lowest cost?

Which soup will be better? The soup with just the chicken bones only or the soup with both the meat and bones of the chicken?

From my understanding, it require longer time to get a delicious chicken soup by only using chicken bones and if we put the meat together with the bones and cook them. Would the soup taste better (but of course the meat will be discard as it had been cooked for too long)?

If you create a soup with a whole chicken, the soup will be much better.
The chickenflesh could be used to create a vol-au-vent (this is a french dish) and is made with these ingredients

250 g meatloaf
250 g Parisian mushrooms
60 g butter
80 g flower
1 egg
1 big spoon of breadcrumbs
1 clove of garlic
1,5 l chickenstock
1,5 dl cream
a bit of sherry
lemonjuice
pepper and salt

Mix the meatloaf, egg and breadcrumbs together and spice it of with pepper and salt.
Divide the meatloaf into small balls and bake them in a pan.

Cut the mushrooms in 4 and bake them in hot butter in a pan. Crush the garlic and put it in the same pan. After the backing leave them a side.

Now get all the meat of the chicken and cut it in not to large pieces.

The sauce:
Create a roux, put the butter in a pan, add the flower and make it bake (it should smell like cookies). When you get the cookies smell, add the chickenstock (half of it).

Keep stirring to avoid clots, when the sauce thickens, add more stock.
You could optionally add a bit of sherry to give the sauce a nice taste.

The sauce should be like a thick soup. After that add the meatloaf, chicken and mushrooms.

It's a very nice dish.

For more info on this dish, see http://www.een.be/programmas/dagelijkse-kost/recepten/vol-au-vent
It is in Dutch but the movie is very clear.

Enjoy


Goldenberry Storage Conditions I have a question about goldenberries (aka Cape Gooseberry, Physalis, ground cherry.) Is it better to keep goldenberry in the fridge or not and for how many days maximum? My berries rotted in 3 days in fridge.

I used to grow them years ago so I could have some summer fruit in an area with little fruit other than strawberries (that I also grew) and crab apples in an empty yard. I had hoped to grow enough to make jam and pies but we ended up eating the fresh. The nearest grocery store with fresh produce was over 1 1/2 hours away.

Since you grow them, you'll know they're similar to tiny tomatoes but their skin is very thin. I've found that with soft fruits (vegetables which are technically fruit too), the thinner their skin, the less keeping quality they have. I left our ground cherries on a large shallow bowl on the kitchen counter and never refrigerated them. They were never heaped in a pile the way grapes are naturally since they were soft.

I can't see why they couldn't be refrigerated for a few days (2 or 3 only). But I can see a couple of drawbacks that might increase the chances of them rotting though.

Did you wash them first?
Generally softer fruits/vegetables shouldn't be washed until you're ready to eat them. Most already have some natural waxes or such (?) on their skin to protect from fungi.  Mind you, I always wash grapes I buy from the store to remove dirt and possible/likely pesticides. But they're thoroughly rinsed after and then laid on a towel for a couple of hours til completely dry. They last much longer that way for me.
Did you put them in a container where they'd be 4 or more layers thick?
The weight of the top layers could easily have broken the skin or crushed the bottom layers. Even a small break or bruise would be enough to start decay, especially if any already had a small unnoticed break.

If your ground cherries are yielding lots, faster than you can eat them, you could try drying them instead. There are videos on YouTube showing how to as well as multiple blogs and different sites explainin. I had no idea ground cherries were now so popular. I grew them simply to have fresh fruit.


Help in identifying Scandinavian dessert recipe Background -- I made this recipe as part of a group project (in college) that was preparing different foods from around the world. My group had Scandinavia, but as I didn't find this recipe (one of the girls in the group did), I don't know which country the recipe originates from.

I recall it being a simple recipe, but I'd like to see if I can find the full recipe. From what I remember, it required:

2-3 egg whites, which were whipped into a froth
melting a mixture of dark and milk chocolate morsels together

Both of these were poured onto a cake/cookie layer that had been rolled out in a sheet like way, and then left to freeze overnight. This layer of the dessert was almost wafer like, but was very crumbly (but not very crunchy).

It may or may not contain nuts.

Maybe it was a variant of chokladbiskvier, a Swedish macaroon?


Green lettuce water? Typically I chop up a head of romaine, swish it around in some cool water, then spin it dry.  The swishing water ends up very green, however.  I'm wondering if it's getting doused in some dye prior to purchase, or if I'm preparing it wrong and leeching out the nutrients?

I never heard of lettuce dye, I wouldn't panic with that. You are not loosing nutriments either, like Michael said it might be chlorophyll, wich would explain the green color, but you are not losing nutriments for sure. I often have green water too, it's really not a big deal, don't worry!


Dumplings - What happened? I made chicken and dumplings today and after 20 minutes I checked my dumplings and they were done but disgustingly soft. I let them cook for 10 more minutes and still soft (but I do think they were "done"). After another 25 mintues they were still incredibly soft. What did I do wrong?

To make the dumplings I did the following

1 1/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 medium eggs
1/3 cup of almond milk
salt

mixed the dry ingredients, mixed wet ingredients, combined the wet into the dry and make a light dough (no kneading), and dropped the dough in the simmering broth (which was delicious :))

When cooking for for a crispy exterior you want to cook fast and hot. Most dumpling recipes I have seen call for similar ingredients and just about all of them say to boil for about 15 minutes in a broth or soup.
If you are already doing this try mixing up the different ratio of ingredients.
Cooking it longer will not make it harder with this cooking method.


Can I do Chow Mein without rice wine nor substituting it? I mistakenly bought "rice wine vinegar" instead of "rice wine". Now I am missing this ingredient from the recipe but I still want to do it. I could replace with red wine but I guess it's not a good substitute. I don't have any of the common substitutes for rice wine (gin, sherry, apple juice...).

I would say, yes, you can make chow mein without wine of any kind. I say that without hesitation because the first four recipes that come up on a Google search for chow mein (all highly rated) don't call for wine.


Roasting multiple vegetables at once I have plans to make a roasted vegetable soup. The tentative list of veggies (that need roasting) is: sweet peppers, onions, carrots, garlic, zuchini (maybe), small weird purple potatoes.

I've roasted potatoes and garlic before, but usually I do them separately, for different dishes. Ideally, I'd throw all of these in the oven and roast them at once (more efficient than one batch at a time), though I don't know if that will work: Do different vegetables need different temperatures and durations for roasting? If so, what's the optimal temperature/time?

I was very roughly estimating 375F for all of the above, for an hour, but I don't know if that will work or not. Any suggestions as to the most efficient way to roast all of these? I have a small toaster oven that can help, if it's just not feasible to do them all at once.

The carrots and potatoes need a longer roasting than the other vegetables. Also, roasting onion keeps it with a relatively "raw" flavor; if you want your onion to taste cooked and lose its sharpness, you should sweat it in oil on a stove before roasting in the case of eating the stuff roasted. If you are going to cook this stuff to a soup, don't roast the onion at all, just sweat it in the pot and then add the roasted vegetables to cook the soup.

Generally, roasting time for nonstarchy vegetables isn't that long. I would start with just the carrots and potatoes (carrots are not starchy, but they are woody and need a long time for the cell walls to break apart and soften; potatoes need some time roasting after the internal temperature has reached 70°C because of the starch). The garlic can also use a long roast, but I would cut it very fine and sweat it together with the onion. That depends on whether you prefer garlic-flavored oil infusing your soup or roasted cloves to bite on.

After the potatoes and carrots have been in the oven (tossed with a little oil) for 25-30 minutes (preferably covered, so they half cook, half roast in their own steam), I would add the tender vegetables (if you want to put the sweated onion in, that's the time for it too). Remove the cover to let the vegetables roast nicely. Then leave in the oven for another 25-30 minutes or until tender.

You won't get the strong roasted flavors of, say, a pepper roasted directly on a flame, but you will have some nicely cooked veggies. You can then cook them up for a very short time in a broth to make a soup (under a minute), or use them in other ways, for example as a side dish, or extending the recipe to become a casserole.

The two-step addition of the vegetables is important, because the tender vegetables like sweet peppers and zucchini become mushy when overcooked and dry when overroasted.

If you want to add spices, add them in the beginning, mixed with the oil. Dried herbs can also be added at the beginning, to have time to rehydrate a bit. Don't add fresh herbs at the beginning, they will wilt. Add them 3-4 min before the final dish (i.e. the soup) is ready.


How long does tortilla dough keep for? I am making tortillas with masa harina corn flour according to this recipe.

Can I make it a few hours in advance and cook the tortillas just before they are to be eaten?

Or should I cook them after making the dough and then reheat them just before they are to be eaten?

It's absolutely fine to make the dough in advance, just don't let it dry out. It even freezes well. There is more good information on Serious Eats on the subject.

Keep it on the counter for up to a day, refrigerated for up to three days, frozen for up to 6 months (for best quality). In any case that you want to hold the dough, be sure that your baking powder (if using) is of the "double acting" variety.


What preservative can I use to can my hot sauce I've made hot sauce for my family using the following ingredients:

peppers
onions
garlic
tomatoes
salt

And I would like to try canning it. What can I use instead of vinegar to preserve it. I really don’t like vinegar in my hot sauce at all.

With just those four ingredients (plus maybe some seasonings), your hot sauce will be a "low-acid food" which means that to be shelf-stable, it needs to be canned at 240F/115C.  This means that you will need to use pressure canning to seal it (pictoral guide).  If properly pressure canned, it should be shelf-stable for months to years.

This has two drawbacks for you: first, it requires getting a pressure canner (or using a pressure cooker and really small batches).  Second, it does mean that you're going to be cooking the hot sauce at 240F, which may lead to it being more "cooked" than you necessarily want it to be.  If you have a pressure cooker around, I suggest trying that with one jar and seeing how it tastes.


How can I reduce the richness of my homemade chocolates? Context: I've recently gotten into making homemade chocolates. So far I've just been melting the stuff in a microwave according to directions and putting it into molds along with whatever filling I feel like. While I think the results taste perfectly fine, I've been getting the complaint that they are "too rich" (whatever that means). Before I go and do experiments that might result in chocolate that I won't even eat, I thought I would ask here...

Question: Is there something I can mix into melted chocolate to reduce the richness like water or milk, and will I have to expect it to interfere with it hardening in my molds? Am I just going to have to get less-rich chocolate to mix into or replace the chocolate I'm currently using (Wilton's light cocoa candy melts), and if so, what kind should I choose?

What you are using is not chocolate in the strict sense, it is a highly engineered product made to be easy to use by the home cook and taste similar to chocolate. I would advise against adding anything - this kind of product has been balanced by armies of food technologists to behave just like it does. If you start changing it by adding stuff, you will probably start getting trouble using it (e.g. it could curdle, or start sticking onto the molds, etc.) or the final texture will be weird, or both.

If you want to keep the ease of making your molded chocolates, you can just switch brands of mold-intended chocolate product, until you have found something that the eaters enjoy. Alternatively, you can get into standard chocolaterie, where you have limitless options. It will however require the committment to learn how to do it properly, to invest in tools and ingredients, and to find out which recipes you and your giftees like. If you can imagine developing a pasion for that, go for it! Or if you are unsure, try a simple tempering once or twice and see if you feel drawn to getting it right and delving deeper. If not, the premade products you are using are your better option, even though they cannot be personally tailored to people's tastes.


Getting crispy banana chips My pan fried banana chips are crisp at the beginning.But later it looses crispines.This happens evenafter storing in air tight containers.What is the mistake i am making?

PS:I am asking about kerala(indian state) style famous banana chips.It is made from only a certain variety of banana available here. Usually made after chopping raw bananas in thin round slices,adding turmeric powder with salt and then deep frying.

The raw chips should be sliced directly into the hot oil for deep frying. The frying oil should not be too hot. Further the deep frying should be done on medium heat till all the moisture in the banana chips are completely evaporated. The oil should be pure coconut oil. After removal from the pan the deep fried chips should be stored in air tight plastic covers to prevent moisture regain.