Tempered Glass For Cookie Sheet I don't have a good cookie sheet available. Can I use a nice piece of tempered glass as a cookie sheet?

I could see two problems. First, glass isn't very thermally conductive, and it has a lot of thermal mass, so it might take quite a while for the glass to heat up, especially if the glass is thick. This means that you might not get the bottom/middles of your cookies cooked properly; if it takes long enough, they might just dry out.

Second, while tempered glass is made to withstand "reasonable" impacts and temperature changes, what you're describing may not be "reasonable", especially if the glass is thin. The corners and edges would heat up much more quickly than the center, setting up serious stresses. Too rapid a change, or too thin a glass, and the whole thing might shatter.

There may be a magic thickness which neither shatters nor slowly dries your cookies. I won't be doing the experiment; let us know if you do.


How do I achieve a crust like this fried chicken? I normally use a mixture of flour and cornstarch, dredging the chicken twice (in buttermilk, then flour, then buttermilk, then flour again) but I have not been able to achieve a crust like the chicken below

I do not know about the chicken in the photo, it appears certainly crunchy, but not very appealing to me...
anyway, the first dredging you do in buttermilk is useless: normally you have three phases for perfectly breading food for frying:

dredging in flour (wheat flour, starch or anything else, even a mixture of flour and powdered spices that also make the meat tastier) is important because it "dries" the chicken surface and consent a better coating of the liquid;
dip in a sticky liquid to coat:  the support for the crunchy finish. can be buttermilk, beaten eggs, milk... the denser the liquid the thicker the coating
the "breading", that can be made of flour, breadcrumbs, sesame seeds, natural rolled oat, crushed cornflakes...

For juicier meat is better to marinate or brine it the night before
for crispiness the frying temperature must be controlled and well kept at around 165°C


Is it possible to whisk egg whites too much? Just a though that I had today while whipping egg whites in the tabletop mixer.  Can you whisk them 'till they separate, curdle, develop off flavour, strange aroma or texture ?

Suppose they could cook from the generated heat if you'd whisk them for an hour or so, but I'm thinking more short term.

If you whisk egg whites to much they will definitely separate.

Basically you are over tightening their stretchy proteins which squeeze out all the water. You are left with useless protein fluff floating on water.

The flavor and odor will not change, however. That would be a sign off spoiling and unrelated to the whisking.


Hardcooked eggs by steaming (not boiling) Can anyone relate an exact, foolproof method of steaming eggs, to yield hardcooked eggs? I'd appreciate whatever clear, concise instructions are available on the process, including what not to do.

This may not be the fool-proof magical solution you are looking for, but I normally steam duck eggs or large hens eggs in a bamboo steamer over a pan of boiling water on medium-high heat for 15 minutes. 12 minutes would be adequate for a medium hen's egg.

These are the timings for a hard boiled egg, UK sizes, and always produce a delicious, perfectly cooked egg with a bouncy white and smooth, fudgy yolk.


Would honey and molasses be liquids or sugars in a bread formula? If 60-85% is the percentage range for the liquid amount in a bread formula, and 0-10% for the sugar amount, my question would be if you are using honey and molasses in the formula would they be counted towards the liquid portion or the sugar portion?

They are definitely counted towards the sugar.

The simple part of the answer is hydration. The primary purpose of the liquid in dough is to hydrate the starch in the flour. Honey and molasses are pure sugars and contain no water. Even though their phase is liquid, they shouldn't be counted as a liquid for making bread. You can't hydrate a starch with sugar.

In fact, the "liquid" part in the bread formula should mean water. There are breads made with liquids other than water (e.g. milk), but these liquids are mostly water with something dissolved in it. A liquid with no water in it doesn't count at all for hydration. This includes honey and oil.

The more complex answer should consider two other effects of liquid  in the bread formula. First, there is the dough consistency. Bread is about texture. A liquid dry ingredient will not hydrate the flour, but it will still reduce the viscosity of your dough. Big amounts of it will make a very soft dough which doesn't keep its shape well, has a big oven spring, and in general doesn't behave like classic lean dough. So a recipe containing lots of such an ingredient will still need an adjustment of the amount of hydrating liquid (like water) even though the ingredient (like honey) is considered dry.

The second effect of adding a dry liquid ingredient is that it will make your bread softer. First, you are introducing new molecules into the dough, which keep the gluten strands from finding each other. So you get a less sturdy gluten formation, resulting in a more cakelike bread (yes, cake is cakelike because it has sugar and fat). Also, baked bread loses water over time and gets hard, but sugar binds some of the lost water, and fat prevents the evaporation of the water. A stale enriched (=containing fat and sugar) bread is still stale, but very different in texture from a stale lean bread. So again, you might still want to adjust the amount of hydrating liquid downwards a bit because of this effect your dry ingredient will have on your recipe (or maybe not, if you view the effect as desirable).


Can I make buckwheat flour starting from toasted buckwheat? My wife asked me to buy "buckwheat" and I did, but she meant buckwheat flour (for making bread) and I got toasted buckwheat instead.

I don't want to throw it out if I don't have to.  We have a mortar and pestle.  Can I just grind the heck out of the toasted buckwheat to make the flour or is buckwheat flour something else?

Thanks!

Buckwheat is more similar to a sunflower seed than grass cereal grains like wheat, but they have similar characteristics. Buckwheat has a hard outer shell (like wheat's chaff), with a starchy endosperm inside. It's the endosperm you need to grind into flour. I'm not certain, but I would guess the wheat you have already has its husk removed and is not the whole grain.

You can make flour from buckwheat by hand. However, using a motar and pestle to grind will be tedious labor, unfortunately. (But not impossible!) You need to pulverize the endosperm, which sounds easier than it actually is. If your buckwheat is whole grain, you will need to first remove as much of the germ as possible.

I'd suggest using an electric grain mill if you're intensely about serious turning it into flour. A decent grain mill costs $175 or more.

Personally, I'd make use of the buckwheat as an additive or topping for other breads I make. A flatbread with millet and buckwheat flour (purchased or milled yourself) would be good.

Lastly, if you have no immediate use for the buckwheat: It'll keep for about 2-3 months in a sealed container in the fridge or 6 months or longer in the freezer.


How do baking supply companies blanch their hazelnuts? A friend of ours used to own a chocolate factory, and she would get blanched hazelnuts in big boxes. These were only lightly toasted, if at all, but they were perfectly cleaned - not a single recalcitrant paper skin in the bunch.

I've used both the roast & rub method and the baking-soda method (boil water with a couple tablespoons of baking soda, dump in the nuts and boil for a minute or so, rinse & rub) for blanching hazelnuts. While the latter is vastly preferable, it's hard to get the timing & baking soda quantity exactly right, so either you end up with perfectly clean nuts that are a little cooked (not to mention dyed) looking, or you get nuts that are only mostly clean. So whatever the big suppliers do, it doesn't seem to be either of these methods.

Does anybody have actual experience with blanching hazelnuts on a large scale? What method do they use to get those perfect results?

(Failing that, I'll accept pointers on the baking soda method, i.e. how do I tread that line between dye-bath and ineffective?)

I can't say which things are actually used, but this would seem to confirm my above guess, along with the other one - you can use more chemicals in industry than you would in a home.

Product and process of blanching nuts

  A product and process of removing the skins from nuts involves wetting the nut kernels with an alkaline solution and then with a peroxygen solution. The two substances react underneath the skin to liberate gas between the nut meat and the skin. The gas bubbles blister the skin, causing it to become loosened. Slight mechanical brushing is used to dislodge the blistered skins from the nut meats.

Method and apparatus for blanching nuts

  Two counter rotating rollers are provided having elastomeric exterior coatings into which ribs and grooves are formed for intermeshing to blanch nuts at a pinch point therebetween. Grooves in the lower roller hold nuts as ribs on the upper roller pass across the nuts to break skins on the nuts. The elastomeric exterior coatings have surface hardness values which measure around 30 durometer. The squeeze at the pinch point between the two rollers can be repeatably adjusted for running different sizes of nuts.

Not really helpful for doing it at home. Hard to say which ones are commonly used in industry, of course. You can find a lot more patents along these lines.


Apple Crumble doesn't turn out okay and takes forever I used a simple Apple Crumble recipe: equal parts by weight flour and butter, and half part sugar. It takes forever to bake in my electric oven at 180C. I made a very small batch today (25g butter and on) in 4" round pan (non stick pan which can be base separated, though I used butter paper). It took more than an hour and a half for the top to begin to brown (and the edges began to blacken), and when I took it out the apples in the base were either burnt or completely dried. Last time I made a bigger batch and it also took forever to cook, and then it burnt from the top when I increased the temperature to 200C to speed things up (I don't remember exactly but I think the apples were fine then) and I had used a steel pan.
So my question is, what is contributing to my apple crumble disasters? Are pans no good and I should be using ramekins or glass dishes? Is slicing the apples not the best way to do it? Am I supposed to use butter paper or not? And what is the best temperature to bake it on? Why is it taking forever, especially in a smaller pan? Thank you!!

It took more than an hour and a half for the top to begin to brown

I take away that this is what you are looking for as a sign of done-ness, but when you get it the rest of the thing is overcooked.

You can get the top to brown faster either by adding some extra sugar to the top (sprinkle it on) or toasting it under the broiler for a minute or two once the rest has baked.

It is also possible your oven is miscalibrated.  Maybe it is cooler than you think.   Bake an oven thermometer and see if it agrees with the temperature you think your oven is set at.


How to organize Goose and Duck for a Dinner? I have goose and ducks leg and like to prepare them together in the oven.
I checked these two recipes one and two and they seemed to be quite fitting.
Now my questions is :  one calls for oven heat of 135C  for the goose and   170Cfor the duck.
Can I just cook the duck at the 135C, since I want to have them both ready at the same time and I only have one oven.
It is my any hints on how to organize this would be great.

At my household, we used to roast duck whole, and it took many hours. Nowadays, we split our duck in half before placing it in the oven, which obviously takes less time to cook.
You can use 135C on your oven to roast the goose legs, alongside the duck legs each sliced into a certain number of pieces, depending on how long it's going to roast in the oven.


Which spices are best fried in oil, which are best toasted and which are best cooked in water? I've been learning a bit about spices and experimenting a little with dry toasting and frying spices rather than just adding them all to the water component. I keep reading that some spices go best in the water component, like saffron and nutmeg, but I can't really find anything with much more detail than that. Does a list exist of how the flavour profile of each of the common spices will be changed at the end of a dish when cooked in each manner?

Thank you :)

Generally? whole woody pieces such as star anise and cloves fry nicely. tiny dry leaves like oregano and marjoram with less success.

If a brief rub in the fingers disintegrates and releases a lot of aroma, water is best bet. Rule of Thumb


Is "sealing in the flavor" an actual thing? Someone mentioned searing food to "seal in the flavor". My response was that searing was a way to add a delicious crust, and nothing more or less. However, I recently noticed a frozen food mentioning their ground beef product is "flash frozen to seal in flavor".

These are really just buzz words, right? Even if you're talking about juices as opposed to "flavor", you can't seal them in, can you? When the product rests the juice will be redistributed, won't it?

Searing on a grill to "seal in juices" has largely been disproven.  Meat loses juice at roughly the same speed regardless of searing the meat first.  Searing does produce the Maillard reaction and caramelization which enhances flavor; however, searing first doesn't produce better results.  A test performed by Alton Brown in 2008 demonstrated that searing at the end of the cooking process loses less water than searing at the beginning.  For more information see this link.

For the Alton Brown results see this link (video).


Salad onions -- any way to make them sweet but not soft? Possible Duplicate:
  How do I tone down the intensity of raw onion?

I like the taste of caramelized onions (I think Ruhlman's book had mentioned it was removing or changing the sulfur), but they are sometimes too soft for salads. What are good ways at lessening the sharp taste of raw onions for salads? I've tried soaking them in water, but it didn't seem to make a large difference -- they were less sharp on the outside, but once you bite into them, they had the same "harsh" taste.

(Also, I've mostly been thinking of red or vidalia onions...)

A nice trick is to soak them in a mixture of balsamic/water/sugar for a few hours.  They take on the flavour of the balsamic, the sugar helps to lessen the sour and the water just makes the cost of it all a little less.  The onions should remain somewhat crisp but if you leave them in too long then the vinegar will start to do it's job and soften them up.  You'll have to find the best time for you.


How does one tell if a jalapeno is spicy? It seems like it is always hit and miss when it comes to eating jalepenos.  What are some ways to tell if the jalapeno is hot or not, besides tasting it?

Thanks.

The only way to test for capsaicin besides tasting is chemical testing, namely liquid chromatography. Problem is, the same kind of chili can be quite different in heat, even on the same bush it can be quite different from my experience. No idea why, though.

Here is one tip on how to check the heat of a chili without actually eating part of it, but still cutting it apart: Cut through the chili below the stem, touch the membranes, touch your tongues, feel the heat.
http://www.chow.com/videos/show/chow-tips/78517/how-to-test-the-heat-of-your-chiles

You can adjust the amount of heat a chili adds to the dish by removing the white membranes. Just add the colored flesh, check for heat, and add membranes until the desired spiciness is obtained. Capsaicin is only produced in the white mebranes in the center. It may move inside the fruit, though. Areas closer to the membranes will be hotter (like, the seeds), than other parts.


What are the differences between slow cooking and poaching a chicken soup and how does slow cooking/poaching soup affect salt absorbtion? 1.What is the difference between poaching and slow cooking?  I believe in poaching you are meant to remove chicken 20 minutes after boiling so the meat doesn't dry out while In slow cooking I believe you leave it for longer so that the meat becomes more tender?
Is the temperature for both between 140F-180F?
Are there any other differences between the two when it comes to cooking soup e.g. will one give more flavour in the soup while another gives more flavour in the meat?

2.I was trying to get the chicken in my soup to absorb as much salt as possible.  Somebody told me use slow cooking while somebody else said slow/fast cooking won't affect salt absorbtion.  I have tried but one day noticed absorbtion and on another day didn't. it could have been due to another factor other then speed of cooking.  Anyway which is correct, does slow cooking actually affect salt water absorbtion to the point that the chicken in a soup will absorb more salt? Will poaching chicken soup cause salt water absorbtion also but to a lesser extent?

Poaching is about cooking something gently, until just done. This is good for chicken breasts: white meat has very little fat and connective tissue, which makes it well-suited to this. It's at its most tender when it's not overcooked. Dark meat will be fine too. As with most other methods of cooking, it just needs to reach the appropriate temperature in the center.

Slow cooking, on the other hand, is about bringing something up to temperature and cooking it there for a long period of time. (There's no temperature to reach - it'll have been hot enough for a long while.) With meat, this is good for tougher cuts, as the long cooking helps break down connective tissue and soften it up. This is amazing for something like a pork shoulder, which can be cooked for hours and hours, until it's completely falling apart. You can probably get some fraction of that effect with dark meat. White meat will be iffy.

As for your favorite topic, salt absorption, longer cooking will get you more penetration into the meat, especially if it begins to fall apart. That won't happen easily with white meat, though, so it'll be a small effect - possibly you could cook it a while then pull it apart with a fork to help. It'll be a bit better for for dark meat.

Finally, since you've posted so many questions asking basically the same thing, my two cents: the best thing to do is probably just to roast chicken (don't overcook it!), shred it, and add some kind of sauce with a decent amount of salt. Cook it a little bit longer if you like, and there you are. You can only go so far with boiling/simmering/poaching/slow cooking, no matter how much you try to optimize it, and you've already gotten the main advice in other questions: possibly tenderize it, cook it in salty liquid, and perhaps help pull it apart once it's mostly cooked.


Unscored loaf is sealing up I'd like to do an unscored loaf of bread where instead of scoring you let it burst along the seams. The examples I've seen say you proof it seam down. The problem is that I tried this and the seams closed up completely. I baked it anyway and got a brick out of it. The loaf did burst at places on top but not at the seams.

What is the trick to actually getting this to work? I proofed for a couple of hours and then retarded in the fridge for about 12 hours.

Does this style only work if you do not retard?

An unescorted loaf of bread, in a loaf pan, generally bursts along the top of the loaf pan.  If you want a "burst" look you need to score the area you want a burst using a razor blade or sharp knife.

Are you making a no-knead loaf in a Dutch oven?  They generally burst along the shaggy seams.

Rob is right, scoring and bread turning into a brick are not really related.


How does one know if one can eat raw saltwater fish? As I go spearfishing a lot, I have always lots of fish at home.
After testing a variety of recipes, I was thinking of trying some sushi variations (sashimi, maki, uramaki, nigiri, tempura rolls).
However, thinking in terms of safety, how does one know if one can eat saltwater fish raw?
Also, what are some methods to make it safer?

Because you know you have previously frozen the fish.
A lot of shop bought "fresh" fish is likely to have been frozen and defrosted, before sale. Often there is legislation about freezing fish if it is to be eaten raw.
Note that home freezers may not be as effective as commercial freezers and blast freezers so you may need to keep the fish frozen for a few days and it may help if it is sliced thinly so that it cools faster.
Some background info

FDA Detailed Advice That is an 8 page pdf download on parasites in fish. It does open as a viewable tab in my browser (Firefox).
How to Enjoy Sushi Without Getting Infested With Parasites A shorter general answer. Includes reminder you may need to freeze it for a week to be safe.
Rules in my country [England] requiring freezing of fish intended to be eaten raw.


How to time the blanching of potatoes for freezing I've read numerous articles on the procedure to peel, blanch then bag and store potatoes in a freezer. The procedure states to bring a big pot of water to boil than put in the potatoes and blanch 3-5 minutes. Of course when you drop in potatoes the temperature of the pot goes down. So do you start your 3-5 minute timer for blanching after the pot with the potatoes start boiling again or do you start timing 3-5 minutes as soon as you put the potatoes in?

If the temperature drops, you are doing it wrong. The whole point of blanching is to bring up the temperature of the vegetables up very quickly. This means

slice your vegetables small
use a very large pot
blanch in small portions

A 1:10 ratio is typical, so if you use a 5 liter pot, you can blanch in 500 g portions. Put your vegetables into a strainer. Submerge the strainer in the water (which should be at a roiling boil), start the clock immediately (the water should only need several seconds to get back to full boil) and when ready, plunge into iced water to stop cooking immediately.


I would like to make my own food coloring with natural vegetables, what is the technique? I read that you can use Beets to make a natural Red food coloring, how would I go about doing this?

Anything that's hard to get off of your counter can make a good food coloring. Regarding natural sources, remember that you run the risk of also adding additional flavors so take that into consideration. Among other companies, Annie's makes all natural foods including colorful fruit snacks. What they use for the coloring in these snacks are: turmeric, black carrot juice concentrate, and annatto. (I've cooked with turmeric and annatto before and they DEFINITELY stain.) Aside from Google searches, you could probably find practical natural food dyes by looking in the ingredient list from other all-natural foods.

Back to your specific question about beets, this is from eHow:

  1 Put your fresh beets in a glass or enamel pan with just enough water to fully cover them. Bring to a boil and turn the heat down a bit to simmer for 30 minutes. Make sure the water doesn't boil out. Take them off when the beets are not quite done - When a knife goes into them but they're not as soft as you'd like for eating. Remove them from heat.

  2 Strain the beets, reserving the beet juice. Peel, slice and chop up your beets. Return them to the beet juice. Soak for four hours.

  3 Strain the liquid out and take out 3/4 cup. Add your 2 teaspoons vinegar to this. This is your red dye.

  4 Use canned beets and you can skip half of the work. Drain the can reserving 3/4 cup liquid. Add 2 teaspoon of vinegar to this and you're done. You can still eat the beets, too. The fresh ones aren't terribly appealing after this.


Sous Vide Interrupted I'm trying to cook beef short-ribs sous-vide at 140° for 72 hours.  Imagine my shock this morning when I went into the kitchen and found the machine had turned itself off!  It could not have been for long because the temp had only dropped to 80° so given the heat in my kitchen I'm guessing it was only off for an hour or two.

I've since set it back to 140° for at least another 36 hours of cooking...but any damage done from this drop?  I'm more worried about bacteria and the like than any effect it will have on the meat.

Yes, according to the common food-handling procedures, having food in the 'danger zone' for some time is bad ... however, you've likely pasteurized your meat, as you only need to hold it at 140°F for 12 minutes to pasteurize pork against its normal pathogens.

Mind you, it's more than 12 minutes to get the middle up to 140°F, so it's not simply 'it needs to be cooked for 12 minutes'.

As you had pasteurized it for 24+ hrs before it was in the 'danger zone', you would've had a significant reduction in microbes, and the vacuum seal would've prevented it from being re-contaminated.

The only problem might be botulism, as you have to hold it at 185°F to kill the spores and destroy the toxin:

... so if there's garlic in the bag, and it's not in an acidic environment, you're at an increased risk.

You might be able to 'test' the contamination by holding it the warmer sections of your fridge for a week, and if the bag doesn't puff up, assume it's not at risk of botulism.  Of course, if you hold it too cool the botulism won't give off enough gas to indicate that it's a problem, so I don't know if it's a 100% accurate test.

I'm not going to say that it is or isn't a problem, as everyone should make their own decision on risk.  I wouldn't recommend serving it to others, especially not without informing them of the situation.  You should be able to ensure safety by holding it at 185°F for 15-20 minutes, but that would likely defeat the purpose of your sous-vide cooking.


Baking Steel/Pizza Steel Design I use pizza stones all the time, but recently have heard about pizza steel/baking steel which is claimed to produce better results.

I have the know-how and materials to make my own, but do now know the best dimensions, and I also wonder about any potential drawbacks? So I was wondering what your experience was with Baking Steel and similar products?

It there any reason not to fill the entire tray from edge to edge with baking steel If I have a use for that much cooking area, or does the oven need a certain amount of unblocked area to function properly?

Additionally Steel is affected by temperature far more than ceramics. The examples I have seen did not seem to include any bracing to prevent warpage. Does anyone have any experience with their baking stones warping? I am thinking of a lip around the edge to help prevent spillage and retain the shape and flatness.

Which leaves me only my most important question. Thickness and efficiency. I am hearing that these steel should pre-heated for 1 hour, and obviously the thicker the steel the longer you would pre-heat them for. How does this effect energy usage? Obviously the oven is running for longer, but does this greatly effect the energy usage? Has anyone measured this directly, or perhaps knows how inefficient the average oven is at keeping its heat?

TL;DR:
1) How thick should Baking Steel be?
2) How much if any area do I need to leave open around the sides for the oven to function?
3) How much energy am I wasting by running the oven for longer? How much If I do not have a chain of items to cook after the pizza that require less and less heat (bread, cookies, etc)?

1) How thick should Baking Steel be?

Opinions vary.  Standard thicknesses for these seem to be in the 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch range.

Advantages for thicker:

Heat at faster rate for the initial burst of baking, if you're trying to reduce bake time as much as possible and approach Neapolitan style pizza (generally better ability to get some charring on the bottom, if that's your thing)
Significantly improved ability to bake multiple pizzas with little recovery time in between

Advantages for thinner:

Weighs less: this is a significant issue with larger steels -- my 1/2" steel weighs more than 30 pounds and is a bit awkward to move around, not to mention making thin oven racks sag a bit
Faster pre-heat time

To me, the improvements of the thicker steel are worth the weight.  I can do 3 or 4 pizzas in quick succession before I start to see the steel cool enough that I want to give it substantial recovery time.  But it might be difficult to move around if you are concerned about heavy things.  And if you only tend to bake one or two pizzas at a time, the thickness may not give you a huge advantage.

I've never heard of noticeable warping with steel plates this thick.  If you go thinner than 1/4", maybe it could happen, but then you'd begin to lose advantages of the steel over a decent stone in terms of heat retention and "burst."

The only advantage of a lip, in my view, would be for the rare occasion when I miscalculate and have sauce that significantly overflows the pie, or a pizza gets stuck to the peel and ends up partly right on the edge of the steel with stuff bubbling over.  More likely, it would just be in the way most of the time.  But I have heard of people using steels as griddles on flat-top stoves -- in that case, having a groove (not really a "lip") near the edge could be helpful to catch grease, depending on what you're cooking.

2) How much if any area do I need to leave open around the sides for the oven to function?

Depends a bit on the type of oven, but you need some room for air circulation.  The standard recommendation is at least about an inch on all sides in your oven, but you might be able to get away with less on some sides if you have adequate circulation on others.  (For example, most ovens are wider than they are deep, so you might be able to get something closer to a square steel that has less clearance in front and back, as long as air can easily move around the sides.)  And again, type of oven matters a lot: for example, if you want to run convection, you want to ensure proper clearance for air circulation.  And gas ovens often assume more air circulation for proper operation than electric.

But from a practical standpoint, you may want to consider size vs. weight.  I wouldn't really want a 1/2" steel that went edge to edge on my oven racks, as it would be even more heavy and awkward.  (Tip: if you really want a very thick steel and want it to cover most of your oven, and you're having it custom-made, just have it sliced in half to make two smaller pieces that are easier to handle.)  But with a thinner steel, I'd probably go as large as would be practical (with the 1" clearance or so).  That's what I have with my thick baking stone.

3) How much energy am I wasting by running the oven for longer? How much If I do not have a chain of items to cook after the pizza that require less and less heat (bread, cookies, etc)?

The general philosophy is that cooking energy use (including baking) is generally quite small compared to all the other uses for electric and/or gas in your home (like heating/cooling, other appliances, etc.).  I've seen stats that electric ovens are generally less than 2% of electricity use in homes (on average).  For those who cook regularly (probably not most folks), the percentage is likely higher.  Even if you double your oven use by preheating your oven for longer periods, it's probably not going to make a huge difference in your utility bill.  But of course your situation may vary -- if you're baking pizzas at super-high temperature every day, and you're doing it in the middle of the summer with the A/C fighting the oven, that might be significant.

Lastly, the question asks in general if there are potential drawbacks, and I can say that I haven't noticed any for pizza.  For years before buying a steel, I was known among family and friends for excellent pizza, so I had my doubts about the improvement.  But the noticeably greater oven spring, the improved texture throughout, the faster bakes, the speckled charring on the bottom, the possibility to easily cook a "well-done" crispy pizza for those with such tastes (while using a dough that generally produces soft, thin crust) -- the steel to me is a much more efficient and flexible cooking tool for pizza than a stone.

For other baked goods, the choice is more up to the specific application.  Large bread loaves can more easily char on the bottom at higher temperatures with the steel.  But with lean breads I've seen improved oven spring and crust in some recipes.  The only other minor disadvantage I can think of over a stone is that rust may be possible if you don't use it frequently and don't store it properly.  But it's not a huge issue, and compared to the greater fragility of stones, I'd say it's a toss-up in terms of maintenance/durability issues.


A definitive method of dicing an onion It bugs me that I've just sort of self-taught a method of turning a whole onion into a nicely diced pile. I'm going to assume my method is inefficient and wasteful.

Could someone explain how I should be dicing a whole onion?

Unusual and clever methods also appreciated!

First, remove some, but not all, of the end.  Make sure to leave a little of the root intact, as this will make the next steps easier.  Peel the onion and discard the peel.

Stand your onion on one of the now-flat ends.  Chop in half with your chef's knife.

Lay a single half on the flat end.  Working from root to cut end, make several cuts at dice width that cut almost to the root end, but leave a little bit still attached.

Working perpendicular to your last set of cuts, make another set of cuts at dice width.  This will leave you with cut pieces.  When you get to the portion with the root, discard it.

Repeat for your other onion half.

During cooking, the layers should flake apart leaving dice sized pieces.


How to add more toppings to frozen pizza? I generally buy frozen Pizza Margherita in store for making a quick lunch if I am running out of time. However, I don't really like the taste of the baked Pizza because it is just Tomato and Cheese. I am a vegetarian and I would like to add toppings but when? Should I directly add veggies on frozen pizza and put it in the oven or let the frozen pizza bake for a few minutes and then add the toppings ? Suggestions are most welcome.

The method I've used to add toppings to frozen pizza is- use frozen toppings. For example, green peppers are in my opinion a great addition to pizza. I usually keep frozen green peppers and other pizza-worthy vegetables for use with many things, and frozen pizza is one of them. This way, I simply add the toppings to the pizza before baking and viola! Easy, simple, and much more tasty frozen pizzas.


Honing Steel Forward or Backward I'm really confused before I thought when you hone a knife you bring the edge towards you however the other day I was watching gordon ramsay bringing the edge away when honing. I tried searching on this topic however couldn't find anything. Could someone explain to me if this is a different technique or what? Thanks appreicate it.
The video of him doing it is linked below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBn1i9YqN1k

I have a very simple reason for taking the edge away:
It's less dangerous - for you, don't do this before someone.

I don't know if it makes for better or worse honing (should be the same as long as the angle is the same I'd say).


What is this dipped powder cookie called? After hunting around online for "black and white cookies" and "powdered sugar and cocoa powder cookies", I can't find what kind of cookie I am looking for.

Not the black and white glazed cookie:

I am thinking of a cookie I had as a kid that is made of a slightly sweet, heavy, and egg-sized lump of dough. The lump of dough is baked, and then one half is dipped in powdered sugar, and the other half is dipped in cocoa powder. Then you eat it.

If you can help me figure out what it is called, I can send pictures of the cookies once I make them :)

Found it!
The recipe was in a book at my house called Cookies and published by Reader's Digest (ISBN: 0-7621-0593-3).
This recipe is typed up verbatim from the source mentioned above.

Two-Tone Cookies
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon milk
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter two cookie sheets. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl and make a well in the center. Add the butter, sugar, eggs, and milk. Use your hands to knead the mixture into a smooth dough. Form the dough into balls the size of walnuts and place 1 inch apart on the prepared cookie sheets. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until just golden, rotating the sheets halfway through for even baking. Transfer to racks and let cool completely. Dip half of each cookie in the confectioners' sugar and the remaining half in the cocoa.
Makes 26 cookies. Prep: 35 min. Cooking: 15-20 min. Level: 1. Keeps 5 days.

I made the cookies a couple nights ago- they are a bit time-consuming to bake and dip, but I ended up with the cookies that I remembered- light and covered half with cocoa powder and half with confectioners' sugar. I used little bowls of powder to dip the cookies in. Here is a picture that I took of the finished cookie:

In terms of eating them, I recommend eating the entire cookie in one bite. If you decide to have a little nibble, you won't really enjoy the whole mixture of the flavors of the cocoa and the sugar at once :) Enjoy.


Glass still safe after boil-off? I accidentally let all the water boil off in my standard glass kettle (if it matters, it's a Medelco WK112 OneAll Stovetop Whistling Kettle). It didn't crack, and cleaned up fine.

But might there be a lingering chemical change that's left the glass unsafe? (E.g., is there anything it might leach into the water I'll be boiling day after day?)

As per the suggestion of @moscafj, I asked the manufacturer, which replied:

  Hi- we do not recommend you to use that kettle any longer if it was
  boiled out dry as stated in our instructions."

But I am still interested in the question. (I'll get a new kettle to be on the safe side, but not because I "always trust the manufacturer.")

While @Brendan's answer is the correct one as it comes directly from the manufacturer, the risk with glass and other ceramics is not that it will start to leach chemicals into the water, but rather that the glass has been subjected to heat in an abnormal and uneven fashion (the heat is at the bottom and localized, the top will be coolish).

This uneven heating could potentially lead to stresses on the glass that are not visible to the naked eye, but have resulted in microfractures or general weakening of the glass structure. As a result the kettle could potentially collapse/shatter, especially if filled to a high level and boiled. This would result in large volumes of boiling water being released and could result in burns from direct contact with the water and from steam.


adding vanilla extract to cooled pudding I made a pudding from scratch and put it to cool in fridge. Three hours later realized I had forgotten the vanilla! Can I add vanilla to the pudding and whisk it really well? Or just forget about it?

Yep, that should be fine. If you have trouble mixing it in thoroughly, try reheating the pudding in the microwave, a few seconds at a time, to make it thinner and more stirrable. (It’ll re-thicken when cooled.)


Can I use mulled wine for deglazing a beef stew? In the middle of preparing a beef stew when I realised I have no red wine (I may or may not have drunk it all, you can't pin anything on me!). I have copious amounts of mulled wine though. Will this do for deglazing or will the sweetness/spices mess up the flavour of my stew?

Of course you can use it.  You can use any edible liquid:  water, wine, chicken stock, pineapple juice, whatever.

The real question is whether the flavors the wine was mulled with are compatible, and you enjoy them.  If they will compliment your dish, go for it.  I cannot speak to your taste in stew but the sweet spices often used in mulled wine may give it a Mediteranian or middle-eastern feel--or they may be too faint to detect.

Contrariwise, you probably will do just as well with plain water, or if you are so inspired, vodka.

One reason (among many) that deglazing or cooking with wine or spirits is popular is that some flavorful compounds are not soluble in water or fat, but are soluble in alcohol (which, contrary to myth, does not all "cook off")--and so the residual alcohol from the wine can synergistically make the dish seem more flavorful.  This is the science behind the vodka sauce fad, for example.

Its stew--its not haute cuisine :-)  I say go for it, either way, and enjoy.


How do I make homemade Salsa thicker? I have been playing with homemade salsa for a few weeks now and I can't seem to figure out how to get that thicker tomato texture that a lot of southern Mexican restaurants have.

Right now I play with these ingredients:

Tomatoes
Onion
Jalapeño
Cilantro
Lime Juice
Garlic Salt/Cumin

This seems pretty basic stuff for salsa, but it has a pretty watered down feel no matter how I swing it. How do I get the tomato base that some of the classic salsas have in order for everything to hold on the chip a little better?

Update

I really wanted to accept two answers because I like both depending on what I am doing. For a fresh salsa (pico de gallo) straining the juice from the tomatoes seems to work really well. But for the thickness I was going for the key was experimenting with Tomato Paste/Cooking the salsa. I am able to get a much thicker salsa that I enjoy much more. I did learn how to create killer pico de gallo from this though.

Have you tried straining the salsa? Put it in a coffee filter or in some cheesecloth in a sieve sitting over a bowl. Let drain until the salsa's the texture you want.


Is there any alcohol remaining in beer-stewed chicken? We once tried to use beer instead of water when stewing cubed chicken breast pieces on a lark, and it turned out pretty tasty (surprise, since we don't actually like to drink beer).

However, we were leery about offering the result to the kids since weren't sure how much alcohol would remain in the dish after it's done.

Is there any reliable information about how much alcohol from beer would remain after stewing for 1/2 to 1 hour?

The short answer is:  it depends, on exactly how you cooked the dish, and what other ingredients are in it.

In practice, for a long simmered dish, the answer is going to approach about 20% as documented in the USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors Release 6 under the table entry "ALC BEV,STIRRED,BKD/SIMMRD 1.5 HR".  Increasing time to 2.5 hours would go down to about 5%.


What are some grilling tools that everyone should have? What are some grilling tools that a beginner should have when purchasing a new grill?  Additionally, are there tools that are useful for the more advanced outdoor cook?

The tools I use the most are:

Tongs,
Spatula for stuck things,
A small towel to apply oil,
thermometer,
a long handled basting brush
a brush to clean the grill with
spray bottle with water (for flare-ups)


Can fruit juice be used to hold a cheesecake crust together? I'm thinking of changing a Mocha-Mint Cheesecake recipe of mine to a more plain Peach Cheesecake.

Among the other things that need to be modified, I was thinking of instead of using butter as an "adhesive" to hold the (oreo) crust together, I would use graham crackers mixed with a small amount of peach juice. The idea being that the sugar in the juice would caramelize while cooking, and hold the crust together.

Does this sound feasible? If so, can anyone with relevant experience give me tips on how to have this work out as well as possible?

Provided it would work, the only downside I could immediately see was that the absence of butter in the crust may make it drier. Is this actually a concern? I'm currently using 3 tbsp of butter for 1 1/2 Cups of crust

It's baked in a 10" springform at 375F for 70 minutes; if any of that info is required.

I've experimented a bit with liquid flavorings in tart crust (not specifically replacing butter -- I still had butter in there) and I find that it does tend to make the crust soggy, but if you are baking the crust first, you can cook it longer to counteract this and it comes out a little more like shortbread. I don't think I would recommend it, and I actually try to keep as much room-temperature liquid out of my crusts as possible.

On the other hand, one of the most famous NY cheesecake places, Junior's, uses a spongecake base instead of a traditional crust. If you really want to add peach to the crust, maybe you could work off of this? Maybe replace one of the eggs with pureed peach? (I was surprised and pleased to find that Epicurious has the official Junior's recipe online, actually.)

Another option would be to keep your normal crust recipe and put a layer of peach jam or compote on top of the crust (if you have a baked crust, or even the sponge cake method). You would want to make sure there is as little liquid as possible in this layer or you're still going to have soggy crust.


What to do with over cooked quince jam I ended up overcooking my quince jam. It is really overcooked. It's not burned or anything but the quince pieces have harden up due to loss of water. Can I use it for something else? I don't wanna through it as it would be 6Kg of waste.

You might consider making your own membrillo.

  Quince cheese, also known as dulce de membrillo, is a sweet, thick, jelly made of the pulp of the quince fruit. Quince cheese is a common confection in several countries, where it goes by various names, such as [. . .]

It's a really great option and pairs beautifully with cheese and crackers. I've never made it before but there are some guides on the web and, considering it's essentially a very dense jelly, it may be ok with your dense quince fruits.


Mothballs in the pantry: is it safe to keep food there? My roommate put some mothballs in the pantry and when I came home and saw them, I took them out.

They were probably only there for a few hours, but is it safe to store food in there?  Should I throw out the food that was in there together with the mothballs?  I'm leaning towards 'when in doubt throw it out' but I'm unsure whether that is overkill in this case.

Mothballs work by sublimating (evaporating) a toxic substance into the air. That substance, be it para-dichlorobenzene or napthalene, recondenses on whatever else is in the area around them, and makes those objects toxic to moths etc.
However, the sublimation takes a long time. You can leave mothballs in a closet for months, and still not see very little weight loss in the balls themselves. That means that not much will come off in 'a few hours' to wreck your food.
Tell your roommate that a pantry is not a good long term storage spot for mothballs, but eat the food with confidence. It hasn't had time to get contaminated.


What to do with grapefruit seeds? I have several grapefruit trees and get tons of grapefruits almost year round. When I eat the grapefruits, which is fairly regular, I typically eat a good amount of the seeds with the fruit for nutrition, though I do get tired of them after a while.

Is there any recommendation as far as what to do with grapefruit seeds that might break the monotony of just eating them raw? Any way to prepare them or mix them into something... I've put them into smoothies which works fine, but I'm trying to see if there is anything more creative out there that I haven't considered.

My first reaction was to think that grapefruit seeds have cyanide, don't they? Nope, that's apples, apricots and peaches.

I did find an application you might find interesting: Grapefruit Seed Extract

  Self-made pure GSE processed without solvents is prepared by grinding the grapefruit seed and juiceless pulp, then mixing with glycerin.

A few sites suggest that it's not quite that simple, but a Google Search for "grapefruit seed extract homemade" will give you quite a bit of reading material.

If you try this, I hope you let us know how it goes!


How long do sharkfin melons keep? I read somewhere that sharkfin melons (Cucurbita ficifolia) keep for years, if kept dry. Is that really true? It seems an awesomely long time. I have some seeds on order, so even if no one else has experience here, I plan to find out.

It's definitely an unusually long-lasting melon, although sources list a few different timeframes.
Sowing New Seeds says

  if kept in a cool, dry, frost-free place, they keep very well for several months, and reportedly over a year.

The Curious Gardener increases that:

  If kept dry after harvest, a fruit can last several years.


Why do milk products stay fresh longer when stored in glass? Over the years I have noticed that when I buy milk in glass bottles it will stay fresh-tasting longer than milk bought in plastic jugs or paperboard cartons. This includes other milk products such as whipping cream and half & half.

What I don't know is why this happens. Most US grocery stores sell these products in plastic or paperboard containers, with dairies being the place to get them in glass bottles.

I have researched quite a bit and found some very interesting information, but most of it is in regard to nutrition or environmental, production, and transortation information.

Does anyone know why milk products stay fresh longer in glass?

First off I want to point out the term "fresh". While some containers might keep milk from spoiling for longer, it may not taste as nice.

Several things might be why:

1.) Plastics leach flavor and odor into the milk. Cardboard cartons are also lined with plastic, not wax since about the 1940s. I would say this is likely the biggest impact-- I've always found plastic containers make drinks and food taste downright funky.

Plastic milk jugs are made of high-density polyethylene. The FDA considers this material safe, but just because something is safe doesn't mean it doesn't impart a flavor.

Study from Journal of Dairy Science showing glass having least effect on taste:

  "...overall, the development of water off-taste occurred least in
  glass containers and most often in high density polyethylene
  containers..."

2.) Glass bottles feel colder. Ice cold milk tastes better(fresher) to most people.

The thing is, it's not actually colder while in the fridge. Glass has a higher thermal conductivity than most plastics. That means heat can transfer through it faster than plastic. The second law of thermodynamics demands equilibrium, so while your hand makes the milk hotter, the glass of milk makes your hand colder. Because of glass's higher thermal conductivity, it does this faster than plastic and we sense the glass as being colder.

So while it's not -actually- colder and wouldn't keep the milk from spoiling for longer, it would affect our perception of how cold it is and therefore also the taste.

Packaging of milk varies so a thicker glass bottle might also keep the milk colder while it's sitting on the counter vs most thin plastic milk jugs. There are a lot of variables with packaging so it really depends on what you're comparing.

3.) Oxygen Permeability: Glass has no O2 permeability whereas most plastics do.

Starting in 1937  the Methylene Blue Dye Reduction Test used to be one of the main statutory tests for checking if milk was bad by checking how much oxygen is present in the milk. This lets you know how much aerobic bacteria is in the milk (bacteria that requires oxygen). This is actually a science experiment you can do yourself. While we do have newer, better tests for handling milk in bulk refrigeration these days, it's important to note for a long time this was a large part of measuring milk quality.

4.) It just takes time to process, test, and ship milk. You mentioned it yourself-- usually to get a glass bottle you have to get it from a dairy, something local and closer to home. So it hasn't traveled as far.

Also, while it's not legal everywhere, some people will sell raw milk in glass bottles so there isn't even time wasted processing or testing the milk. However, raw milk goes bad faster. Still, some people might prefer the taste while it's still good. Processing is done to kill bad bacteria(so it's not a bad thing), but it does take time that eats into shelf life. Milk delivered to you may only be a few hours old. The processing itself can effect the flavor of the milk. Processing plants can hold milk for up to 3 days.

5.) In many areas, the companies that bottle with glass are the ones that are making higher quality milk in the first place. Glass is expensive, and usually only people who are willing to pay more for higher quality milk are going to be the same ones who pay for a higher quality bottle. Glass bottles are good for the environment and so some people are willing to pay more for that. Refillable glass uses about half as much energy vs plastic counterpart. Note here that glass doesn't automatically mean "better milk".

6.) The way food looks affects our perception of taste.

  In a 1980 study, subjects were blindfolded and asked to tell whether
  the beverage they were drinking was flavored orange. Only one in five
  could. But when they were allowed to see what they were drinking, each
  of them identified the orange flavor. And when a lime-flavored drink
  was colored orange, nearly half of respondents thought it was flavored
  orange

You also see this with high-end restaurants-- they put a lot of value in how the food is plated, going as far as using a ruler to get a perfectly straight line, and wiping up small drips to make the food look perfect. Our vision influences our taste.

Since most glass is translucent and most plastic containers are not, there's a good chance this influences taste as well.


How to treat your saffron right? Similar to this question, but not the same (by the way, I like Hobodave's answer).

What's the correct way to treat saffron to get most of the flavor?

I've seen the following methods:

Let the stems soak in a cup of lukewarm water.
Warm the stems in oil on a slow flame.
Wrap the stems in aluminum paper and put it close to a heat source (so it can warm up).
Fry the stems.
Soak in white wine for 20' (as per Peter Taylor's comment).

I'm talking about expensive (stem only) saffron. Should the stems be crushed (before or after soaking)?

The method I usually use is the first one.

one Italian trick to extract as much as possible from saffron for risotto alla milanese is to fill a ladle with hot stock, add the saffron "threads" and then mash them into stock with a spoon. The stock will become a beautiful golden color. Of course stock contains water and fat...


Will freezing affect the quality of a dry-aged steak? I'm used to buying moderately-priced meat from the supermarket, with which I can generally never tell the difference between fresh and frozen - it's maybe a little tougher after freezing but that's about it.

Today I happened to be in the area of a good butcher and decided to splurge on a couple of dry-aged ribeye steaks. The first one was, of course, delicious, but I may not have time for a home-cooked dinner during the next few days, so I'm considering freezing the other steak.

Will freezing do anything to ruin or diminish that unique dry-aged flavour and give it the same taste and texture as the supermarket fare? Since dry-aged steaks are already, well, dry, will the additional water loss from freezing turn it into inedible shoe-leather? Should I be worried about anything else?

Or can I just toss it in the freezer for a week?

Dry-aging primarily breaks down the connective tissues in the muscle, naturally tenderizing it.  The concentrated flavor is just a result of the moisture loss that you've already identified.

Neither of these should be affected by freezing in any special way.  You'll want to be especially careful about further moisture loss, but as long as you properly package your steak for freezing you should be fine.


Can bananas really be ripened through oven baking? I am following a diet for IBS called the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD).
Only bananas that are ripe, i.e. well spotted, can be consumed. Green and non-spotty can not be due to a difference in sugars.

I've seen a few posts on facebook saying that bananas can be ripened simply through baking them in the oven.

Does this really lead to the same change and resulting sugars as a ripe banana?

No. Ripening is a specific chemical process. Baking the bananas has a similar effect in sweetening the fruit, but it is not the same as ripening, which is a process which occurs after exposure to ethylene gas (in a supermarket banana at least). Given that your diet seems very specific about the carbohydrates, I wouldn't diverge from its recommendations.


Do cinnamon, mint and saffron turn bitter? I have noticed that when I use either of the three (cinnamon-mint-saffron) spices/herbs in savory dishes they tend to turn them bitter. With the saffron I know that you only need a pinch but even that pinch seems to be turning the food bitter (stovetop cooking). Has the issue got to do with the heat or the quantities or both?

cinnamon, mint and saffron are bitter.

You probably know that "flavor" is roughly 90% smell. Our tongue identifies only the basic tastes, such as sweet, sour etc. When you "taste" mint, your tongue identifies a sour-bitter mixture, and it's your nose that absorbs the citrusy-herbishi-whatevery aromas that we call "mint".

When you cook spices, and especially when you overcook them, the gentle volatile aroma compounds veporize away or are destroyed by the heat. And you're left with the plant material, sometimes wilting, mostly without the smell.

Now, of course the "tongue" taste of these herb and two spices is not straight-out medicinal bitter. But I guess it's not what you meant either. It's just.. a bit yakkish, on the bitter side, right?

Here's what I do to avoid it: I add gentler spices towards the end of the cooking. Say, in a slow cooking dish, I'd put a whole cinnamon in the beginning, but the fresh chopped mint will be added only when I serve it. So to your question - yes, it's heat and quantity. Put more, heat it less.


Salad dressing- does it go bad fast if it is creamed in a blender? I made a salad dressing with these ingredents:

1 cup olive oil
1/2 cup Tahini
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1 Juice of a lemon
4 garlic cloves
6 basil leaves
1 handful of parsley
2 green onion

Then blended it all to a creamy finish.

Does it go bad fast if it is creamed in a blender?

If so, can it be placed in the freezer?

All the blender does is emulsify the mixture--it has no effect on how long it will keep before the dressing begins to spoil or go off.

Normally, oil and water do not like to mix.  The oil will coalesce into droplets, then rise to the top due to buoyancy, so that you will have a layer of oil above the water-based liquids.  Blending the mixture will break up the oil droplets into very small droplets.  These take much longer to coalesce together, so you have a creamy dressing for a time.

Over time, the oil can coalesce and separate back out.  If this happens, assuming the ingredients have not spoiled, you can always remix or re-blend the mixture--it s not a safety issue.

I suggest storing your dressing in the refrigerator, where it will be good for several days, probably up to a week, although the oil may separate out.

You can freeze it, but this is likely to encourage the emulsion to break.

Note:  I have not discussed emulsifiers like lecithin from egg yolks or mustard which help keep oil-water emulsions stable, because I don't see any in this recipe.


What can I substitute fennel pollen with? In this simple spaghetti recipe, fennel pollen is used. From googling it, it sounds like MSG :). I'd rather not buy it since it's so expensive, so is there any way to substitute this stuff in the recipe?

You might try ground fennel seed, or even anise, but they will not have quite the same quality.  You would certainly have to increase the quantity.

In situations like this, I have to point out:  it does not make sense to make a dish where you are forced to substitute for the ingredient which gives the dish its identity.  Instead, make something where  you can employ the star ingredient.


Will storing spices on the oven affect flavor or anything? The back of the oven is raised from the stove top and sits against the wall, forming a small shelf which is a very convenient location to store spices for use when cooking. Sitting there are things such as: garlic powder, paprika, basil, oregano, etc. in various plastic, glass, and metal containers they came in from the grocery store.

So, it turns out this area gets quite warm if the oven has been on for a bit, and I'm wondering if that will affect the spices sitting there?

I would keep them away from that area for 2 reasons - one is the heat, and second is that it's a dangerous location for the spices since the edge of most oven panels is generally very thin and not designed flat to be a shelf making it more likely for your spices to accidentally get knocked off than if you put them elsewhere.

Here is a link to a similar question answered by an expert: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_should_be_the_storage_temperature_for_spices


Can I rescue a bread preferment with unmixed flour lumps? I started a plain 65% flour+water+poolish, mixed it up and left it to sit for a few hours before kneading. When I came back, I discovered I hadn't stirred all the way to the bottom of the bowl. Stirring it in after the fact, I now have horrible lurking lumps of flour that hardened into damp cement. They flatten and stretch when I squeeze them, but still don't incorporate evenly.

Is there a way to force them to incorporate, or do I chuck this 1kg of flour and start over?

Details:

400g 50/50 bread flour poolish from my ongoing starter
800g bread flour
450g water

It's not a big deal, you can use it. Just add all the water for the next step of the process when you're ready and mix it up really well, getting the lumps out, then add the rest of the flour and other ingredients.


Why does tomato sauce spatter more than other sauces? Of all the (thick) sauces and creams I prepare in a hot pot, tomato sauce is the most jumpy.

When it's hot, it's impossible to cook properly without having it jump everywhere and repaint the walls, and in general the surroundings.

Of course, using a lid helps to solve the problem, but I'm curious:

Why is a hot tomato sauce so prone to jump out of the pot and repaint everything around?

Short answer: tomato sauce is a non-Newtonian fluid. Another interesting link can be found here.

Tomato sauce is an interesting creature. Think about ketchup. You try to shake some out and nothing happens. So you tap the bottle a little bit, still nothing. Tap it a little harder, and a little harder, and suddenly boom: a flood of ketchup. The "jumpiness" of tomato sauce is caused by the same physics.

Basically, tomato sauce has two things in it that contribute to this characteristic: water and tomato pulp. At first, the tomato pulp is just lying around every which way, which makes the sauce act a lot thicker. But when the strands of pulp are aligned, it makes the sauce act a lot more like water. Heating up the sauce increases the pressure on the sauce, allowing areas of the sauce to become much more fluid, resulting in bubbling, popping, and the flinging of tomato sauce all over your clean white shirt. The same effect is what makes ketchup come flying out of the bottle - when you whack it hard enough, the pressure changes the state of the ketchup, and the ketchup literally flows like water.

Edit: updated with relevant information

Unfortunately, when I managed to get a hold of Mr. Steingarten's lovely book, The Man Who Ate Everything,* I discovered that the passage regarding tomato sauce as a non-Newtonian fluid was exclusively regarding ketchup, and not general tomato sauce as I thought I remembered. However, this description is still a valuable one, and it does help explain this particular characteristic of tomato-based sauces (after all, ketchup is a tomato based sauce) [p 96]:

  It was only after I had send a stream of ketchup streaking across my
  wife's favorite tablecloth, a lovely hand-printed Indian cotton from a
  shop on the rue Jacob, that I telephoned Professor Malcolm Bourne at
  Cornell for a lesson in non-Newtonian fluids. Sir Isaac Newton wrote
  the laws governing liquids that flow like water: the more force you
  exert on them, the faster they flow. But ketchup is different.
  Composed of tangled red tomato fibers suspended in a sweet and acidic
  colorless serum, ketchup behaves like a solid both at rest and under
  low levels of pressure: but then, at some higher threshold, it
  suddenly begins flowing like an ordinary fluid. That's why the
  frustrated ketchup lover who loses patience with gentle taps on the
  bottle's bottom and prematurely shifts to a powerful wallop ends up
  with a gush of ketchup over everything. Ketchup and mayonnaise are
  known as Bingham fluids, named after the scientist who characterized
  them early [last] century.

*Personally, I think that The Man Who Ate Everything is a must-read for anyone interested in culinary science, and a should-read for anyone interested in food.

Second Edit:
Due to a handful of downvotes that I received while I slept last night, I guess some clarification is needed:

I just want to be absolutely clear here, I am in no way implying that ketchup == tomato sauce. I offer this information as an example of how tomato pulp suspended in liquid acts.
The fact that "tomato sauce is thick" doesn't really hold up. The question even clearly states: "Of all the sauces and creams I prepare in a hot pot, tomato sauce is the most jumpy", which presumably includes thick ones. If thickness was the only factor (and I'm not saying that it isn't a factor), we would see similar actions from cheese sauces, bechamels, gravies, and a variety of soups. While these sauces/soups do splatter, tomato sauce is significantly more "splattery." Put a pot of tomato sauce next to any other sauce/soup, take your pick, and heat them to the same temperature. I can pretty much guarantee that given similar conditions, you're going to be wiping up a lot more tomato sauce than the other one.

One last edit:
This article on Slate indicates that it's a combination of the above (being a "plastic liquid"), the viscosity, and pectin, as pointed out by Brendan in a comment below.


Can you create brown butter directly from heavy cream? The other day I made cookies with homemade brown butter.
I first churned the butter from heavy cream, separating the butterfat from buttermilk. Then I took the remaining butter and melted it in a pan then browned the milk solids to make brown butter. Then I cool it in a glass container and let reform as a solid.
I am wondering if you could directly make brown butter by skipping the churning process for the heavy cream. Is there a way to heat heavy cream such that the water / buttermilk / etc. evaporates and leaves melted butterfat and milk solids?
I would think that the water would evaporate and leave only the butterfat + milk solids but I am not sure.

I had a pint of heavy cream so I went ahead and tried it to see what happens. I left in a small saucepan over medium / medium-low heat for a while with minor agitation (stirring every few minutes). It looked about the same for the first 45 minutes. Then I could actually start to see what I assume is the butterfat. However I also saw a large amount of milk solids (I assume), much larger than typical churned butter.
See oil + solids:

Then I waited a little longer and it seems they separated further:

A little longer and it smelled toasty like the usual smell from brown butter when I make it. I took it off the heat because it also ruined my pan pretty nicely. I poured it in a glass container and here's what it looks like after separating:

So my follow-up questions would be: Is this brown butter? Are the solids just milk solids or are they something else? Is the oil actually butterfat? Is this safe to incorporate into cookies as butter?
I enjoy the taste that toasted milk solids add to cookies but this is so much more milk solid than I was expecting (if it is milk solids).

Another update now that it's solidified. It looks and smells just like how my normal brown butter smells except it has way more milk solids (if that's what they are). I would estimate about 1/2 cup of clarified butter + slightly less than a half cup of toasted solids.

It doesn't look like 1/2 cup clarified butter but keep in mind that the butter also settled into the gaps between the solids while it was still liquid.

It smells delicious. I'm tempted to soften it and mix it into a batch of cookies but I'm also not sure if the solids will be over powering in the taste.

Yes, this is a brown butter. You can use it in pretty much all applications which call for standard-made brown butter.
In the traditional process, first almost all of the water is removed from the cream, along with a large part of the nonfat milk solids. This gives you butter, in which the butterfat is emulsified with a small amount of water, and the remaining milk solids are dispersed. When you heat it, the water evaporates, and the solids undergo browning processes (caramelization, probably some Maillard for the proteins).
In your case, you are simply skipping the mechanical removal of the water. Instead, you are evaporating all water by heat. No milk solids are removed - from my point of view, this is an advantage, as you now have more stuff that goes tasty while browning.
You can certainly use this in cookies. As for the question of the taste being "overpowering", this is up to your subjective taste. If you don't like it, you can switch back to more standard browned butter, or mix this one with normal butter, ghee, or some other solid fat.


What makes lye food grade? I've been looking around for lye to make pretzels and found few solutions for food grade lye.  I want to continue using lye in my baking and would like to make my own lye going forward.  The process looks cheap and easy but I'm not sure what I need (or don't need) to make food grade lye.

What part of the lye making process makes (or doesn't make) lye food grade?

What is food grade lye

Pure lye is by itself always food grade. There is nothing toxic about lye (although it's corrosive even at low-ish concentrations).

When a manufacturer sells you food grade lye, they are guaranteeing you that it is not contaminated with anything unpleasant. After all, a chemistry plant will make a lot of different chemicals using the same equipment, and you don't want to use lye which was mixed in the same erlenmeyer flask as a batch of pesticides. Also, the equipment used in an industry processes can leave unpleasant traces too, some search shows that one of the more common setups in the 20th century used an asbestos barrier for the electrolysis process of lye creation.

The problems of making lye from sodium and water at home

If you make your lye at home, you'll only have to ensure that your ingredients are food grade. There is nothing in the process which can make the lye accidentally toxic. Even if you use wrong ratios: if you add more water than intended, your lye will be diluted, which does nothing bad, and even makes it less corrosive. If you add more sodium, you get more concentrated lye, which you can dilute. You don't need any catalysts, solvents, or other intermediate reagents about whose possible residues you should worry. All you need is food grade sodium.

But here we come to the first problem with your plan. It is much easier to find food grade lye than to find food grade sodium. Retail lye is used for household purposes, including baking pretzels and cleaning cooking utensils. I don't know of any use for retail sodium beyond seventh grade chemistry class demonstrations.

The second problem is that storing pure sodium at home is a PITA. First, you'll need to find some food grade liquid for the airtight seal, and it will react with cooking oils. You obviously don't want to use kerosene, so you'll probably need to get medicine grade liquid paraffin. Should you ever have a fire in your kitchen, the sodium will also burn with a much hotter flame than anything else around, and you probably won't get it extinguished until it has burned itself out - non-watery fire extinguishers are not very effective on it, and water-based ones will actually accelerate the fire.

The third problem is that you should pay lots of attention during the reaction. Sodium powder is prone to spontaneous explosions. Luckily, there isn't that much chance that you'll produce powder from it unwittingly. But the byproduct of the reaction, pure hydrogen, is also explosive when mixed with air at certain ratios, and you cannot control the ratio you produce.

The fourth problem is that the reaction is quite exothermic. You can mitigate it somewhat by adding very small amounts of the metal to the water (but not small enough to make a powder), but you'll still get some heat development. And it is happening right under a possibly explosive hydrogen-air mixture - not a good idea.

So my recommendation is to just buy food grade lye and use that. It will save you from lots of headaches.

The problems of making lye by brine electrolysis at home

You clarified that you had planned to use electrolysis. This is possible, and sodium chloride is certainly a more benign ingredient than pure sodium. The resulting sodium hydroxide should be safe for consumption. Still, I think it's more trouble than it's worth, and purchasing commercial lye is the better option.

First, you still have to manage your byproducts. You'll get elemental hydrogen and elemental chlorine bubbling up. You don't want either of these gases floating in your living space, hydrogen being explosive and chlorine plain poisonous.

Also, if you want a decent lye concentration, you usually do the reaction in a container where the electrodes are separated by a semipermeable barrier, else it reacts right back to salt. The problem is that your product will corrode most barriers quickly. I have done it as a kid in a u-shaped part of a drinking straw, with a piece of sponge in the middle. The lye ate the sponge away, and before that the chlorine turned the water in its part sickly green (yes, you have to dispose of that byproduct too somehow, it doesn't get out so quickly).

If you use this method, it will be very hard to either find a barrier which is not corroded by the lye, or accept some corrosion but make sure that the product (which will contaminate your lye) is not harmful when eaten. Then there is the part about electrodes Wayfaring Stranger mentions in a comment: you want to choose a cathode material which is not dangerous when ingested, especially no heavy metals. To complete the equipment safety part, use a glass container for the whole bath, not a plastic or metal one. And of course, don't use phenolphtalein drops to check for the proper concentration, get dry strips for dipping.


Safety and quality of low-price imported beef sold in US supermarkets As a recent resident of Southern California, I noticed in a supermarket very impressive looking sirloin strip steak for $4.99 per pound. Regular prices in other markets range from 10.99 to 29.99. The beef at this incredible price is from Mexico.

Is this beef safe? Does anyone has experience with the quality of Mexican beef?

Exporting meat into the United States is not a simple or easy matter.
From the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS):

Checklist for Importing Meat, Poultry and Processed Egg Products
This checklist is provided as an overview of the steps needed to be taken when you want to import meat, poultry, or processed egg products to the United States.

Products must originate from certified countries and establishments eligible to export to the United States.
The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services (APHIS) restricts some products from entering the United States because of animal disease conditions in the country of origin. For information on restrictions related to animal diseases and information about APHIS, contact the APHIS Veterinary Services, National Center for Import and Export.
Countries and establishments become eligible following an equivalence determination process by FSIS.
Imported products must meet the same labeling requirements as domestically-produced products.
After filing the necessary forms for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and meeting animal disease requirements of APHIS, all imported meat, poultry and processed egg products must be presented for inspection by FSIS at an official import establishment.

Mexico is one of 33 countries that can legally export meat to the US. In Mexico there are 74 companies authorized to export to the US (As of May 3, 2017).
USDA Source
Also from the USDA Website:

So, in the United States, beef from Mexico has been determined by the US Government to be as safe as domestic beef.


How to decorate extremely fine details I have seen some pretty well done decorations, but these ones by a chick named "Christine McConnell" really take the cake.

So I was wondering firstly how one does such fine details and secondly how does one even name them? All my attempts to scour the web for "master decorations" or similar were met with complete failure.

They = cake decorators

They have an artistic hand (I don't have one and cannot decorate anything).
They have lot and lot and lot of practice.
They have wasted a lot and lot of cakes and icing and fondant to achieve that level of perfection.

They have a lot of experience with making their own icing (and fondant) that will work well when decorating bags in their own controlled environment (temperature/humidity)

They usually use small pipettes (or syringes) and small pastry/decorating bags with fine points couplers.

As for "naming them", I assume you are talking about "cake decorators" and google will return gazillions entries.

Max.


Why do you  slice whole ducks in half when roasting but not for other poultry? Last time I made a roast, I used a recipe from BBC good food. Since I have had luck with those recipes, I decided to go for their roast duck recipe.

That recipe involves cutting the whole duck in half and roasting the halves with the skin pointing up. I have never roasted a bird like that before, and I am wondering why someone would do it. Does it have to do with the flavor of the meat? Proportion of fat? I don't think I'd ever do that to a chicken because I'd be afraid the meat would go dry. But obviously the flavor of duck is different, and maybe if I know why people do that, I can use it intelligently in my cooking.

I agree with Jay's answer that one of the reasons is because of keeping the skin crispy, but I don't agree about the difference with other types of poultry and have a bit more background info.

The root difference between duck and other poultry is that duck is much fattier, and most of that fat is stored under the skin. If you don't do anything about the fat, you'll get a bird that will be too greasy to enjoy; and also the skin won't crisp as nicely as, say, chicken skin would with similar preparation, because the skin will be soggy with the fat that's rendering underneath. There are more ways than one to get rid of the fat; a popular one is to steam the duck before you roast it, usually after sticking a fork into the skin a few times so that the rendered fat can get out easily. This seems to be a different solution to the same problem: if you cut the duck in half and put the cut side down (which is the same as putting the skin side up), the fat will have a much easier way out than if you cooked the duck whole.


Is it safe / advisable to use a nonstick baking sheet on an induction cooktop for pancakes (375 F)? I bought a large non-stick baking pan and I would like to use it on my thermador freedom induction cooktop to make pancakes. The cooktop will apply energy evenly to the rectangular footprint of the pan. The pan is coated with or made from the same material as just about all bakeware that I have used before.

After washing it I heated it up on a low setting (3.5 out of 9) and monitored the temp with an infrared thermometer. When it reached about 200 F it released a plastic-y smell. It also deformed slightly which I know I will not be able to prevent and I can live with as long as it mostly maintains contact and doesn't shoot pancakes across the kitchen.

I took it off the cooktop after that and fired up the exhaust hood.

My concern is the material. Is it safe at pancake temperature (375 F)?

EDIT:

Is there a difference between the pan being heated in an oven from convection plus a relatively weak infrared source versus the heat being generated within the pan by induction? Is the induced heat more effective at decomposing the PTFE (Teflon)coating? Does the magnetic field in the pan affect the PTFE coating itself, or only kinetic heat?

I'm using nonstick pans on my induction cooker without any issues. Also frying pancakes is fine.

So, if something smells weird, it must be a particular issue with your pan, not a general induction-cooker-vs-nonstick-pan thing.

375 F (190°C) should not be a problem for any decent cookware, regardless of the cooker the cookware is being used on. This holds true, regardless whether you're using Teflon, Ceramic or a stainless (uncoated) pan.


How can you make bread from pizza dough? This answer to a previous question gives a way to make bread from pizza dough. It said to roll the dough into a loaf. I took it out of the refrigerator, rolled it into a loaf and let it sit in my oven after warming it to 100 and turning it off. I left it in there for 3 hours but it spread out to end up only about 1 inch thick and 8 inches wide. This has happened to me before trying to make a "loaf" of bread without using a loaf pan. What the heck am I doing wrong?

Pizza dough is supposed to be stretchy and pliable, so it is going to be a bit loose. Given those characteristics it's not going to be able to hold a shape that well. You're best off aiming for a ciabatta shape, putting it into a tin or shaping basket. Best of all make a focaccia type bread with it by just spreading it out flat, letting it rise, then dimpling it with your fingers and pouring some olive oil and salt on it before baking.


Watery whites of the egg I moved from the US to beautiful Portugal a little over a year ago. I buy free range eggs, which are not refrigerated. The whites are so watery, that then almost never set, no matter how I cook them (I’ve been cooking eggs for 50 years, so it’s not a new thing for me). I started refrigerating the eggs, which helps a little for fried eggs, but not meringue, baking, or soft boiled eggs. Anything I can add, especially for baking? Cornstarch, maybe? It’s weird...

Storing eggs in high temperatures and low humidity will speed up the ageing process and cause whites to become watery.

Try sourcing some eggs from another producer as another coop may have better conditions and therefore better quality eggs. In the summer, hens may lay eggs with watery whites even though they are kept in good conditions. The older the hen, the more likely the egg whites will be watery.

If you are trying to bake with the watery eggs, try reducing the liquid ingredient by a tablespoon for each egg in the recipe.


Will pizza dough stick on steel platform in conventional oven? I'm trying to avoid cornmeal, although it used to be the ideal choice since the dough tasted too much like flour when I used corn flour.

But now I've moved on to using a steel surface to bake.

Should I worry about adding semolina, flour, or cornmeal to the steel in the oven? Or will the pizza not stick to the steel platform?

I saw this thread, any reason to put cornmeal/semolina on hot pizza stone or steel?, but it sounded like it depends on the dough hydration, and I'm clueless as to how to determine that.

Would putting the dough on parchment paper, then sliding it in work?

I ended up skipping the parchment paper. I had 6 small-medium pizza worth of dough, and padded all pizza-dough with semolina, as well as padded peel with semolina prior to each slide-in-to-oven.

Prior to first pizza I put some semolina on the steel in the oven (though it might've been unnecessary... yet to confirm)

All 6 pizzas turned out great, with quality crust.

It wasn't really messy, might've been two three burnt spots, simply before the steel cooled off, I grabbed a wooden cooking spoon, lightly scratch, and pushed it out onto another plate.

 Update

Confirmed you don't have to add anysemolina flour or anything to the steel, pizza won't stick.


Can salt make sour fruit seem sweeter? I got a little debate started via the comments on this answer. The poster suggests the use of salt to make a sour kiwifruit-sauce taste sweeter in the same way you would use salt to make something taste less bitter.

I was interested to see if this would really work, so I did a simple experiment. I'll repeat the details from the comment,

  Salt will only make fruit taste sweeter if it is already sweet. Here's
  an experiment I tried with two glasses of dilute lime juice. I added
  enough sugar so that the mixture was just a little too sour. I added a
  very small amount of salt to one glass, stirred until disolved and
  tasted. The glass containing salt was noticeably more sour. [...]

And the poster's reply to this,

  Kiwifruit typically has more sugar content than grapefruit, which is
  typically 'made sweeter' with a touch of salt. It is certainly much
  sweeter than lime juice; kiwifruit averages over 8 grams of sugar
  where the same amount of lime juice (as in your example) averages just
  over 1.5 grams.

My assumption has been that salt acts as a flavour enhancer and so will accentuate whatever taste is predominant (unless the taste is bitter). My little experiment bears me out, but one experiment is hardly conclusive as any number of things can go wrong. In any case, I'm willing to believe that things are more complex than I have assumed.

Does salt help sour fruit taste sweeter?

It seems at the least plausible, on two fronts.

If I'm reading http://ajpgi.physiology.org/content/291/6/G1005.full correctly, saltiness and sourness can cancel each other out to some extent.
Salt can increase perceived sweetness: T1r3 taste cells have sodium-glucose co-transporters which may provide the explanation.


How can I keep extra virgin olive oil cool and usable, while it's hot in the summer and when the fridge solidifies the oil? I've read Gut by Guilia Enders. It says that extra virgin olive oil cleans your heart vessels and has other beneficial effects. The oil binds free radicals in your body. But the oil doesn't wait to bind radicals, so if it's exposed to air it will bind the free radicals in the air, making the oil less effective.
Her advice is to close the bottle, and to keep the oil cool, in the fridge. When I do this, the oil solidifies, making it unusable. Waiting until it warms up takes too long. My kitchen is not cool in the summer. Temperatures can go up to 25ºC and higher.
So how can I keep oil cool in a warm kitchen or not too cold in a fridge?

As @GdD said in his comment - you can't, unless you have a way to cool it to a defined temperature such as a cooling water-bath. Olive oil is perfectly fine at higher temperatures than 25 - this would be on the cool side for a Greek (as big users and preparers of olive oil) summer, especially before the presence of air-conditioning:

Although summer in Athens began in June, on average the weather reaches its highest temperatures in July. The average temperature this month is 27°C (81°F), while the average low is a warm 22°C (72°F), and the average high is a stifling 32°C (90°F).

From here.
As to slowing down oxidation from the free-radicals, yes, keeping it in the fridge will work to some extent as in the crystalline phase the oils will be less susceptible to oxidation. Indeed I found one study that looked at oxidation and storage of olive oils at different temperatures and with different packaging types, who found that the shelf-life of the oils was best in green glass (GG) and at 6 Celsius - see quote below (EVOO is Extra virgin olive oil, TT is tinplate tin).

While shelf-life of EVOO was differently affected by packaging and storage temperature, the latter being critical for the oxidative changes taking place in oil, at the end of the observation period none of the oil samples showed significant changes in the visual descriptors of clearness, green and yellow reflections, and the basic positive sensory notes of bitterness and pungency were maintained. In particular, the oil stored in GG at 6 °C mostly preserved positive attributes, whereas the one stored in TT at 26 °C showed an enhancement of oxidative processes leading to a significant presence of the rancid flavour. Moreover, GG6 maintained the highest BI and did not show defects at the end of storage, further suggesting that storage in GG at a low temperature (6 °C), could represent a promising storage condition to slow-down the oil degradation during market storage.

Incidentally they found that storage under any conditions for more than a month meant that the oils no longer met the legal requirements for extra virgin oil. This would imply that your best bet for keeping oil is indeed to store it in the fridge and in a green glass bottle, and use it rapidly.
However, as you noted, storage in the fridge results in the oil becoming solid, so you either have to live with some solid oil and re-warm it each time you want to use it, or come to some compromise such as just storing it in the dark but not cold.


Chicken: How to prevent spices/seasoning from burning on Pan? Newbie cook here, I use stainless steel but it seems to be a paradox on this.

I am using bone-in chicken thighs and a dry lemon-pepper rub that I put on the chicken.  Pat it dry/let it cool down etc etc

I know you need to get the pan pretty hot to where water will form a ball on it, then add oil (I use vegetable) then wait for slight whisps of smoke.  Then add chicken.

My stove seems to get my pan very hot in even medium heat so maybe that's an issue but I start on medium.  Put chicken on skin down, get a pretty good "crackle" from the oil on it.

Here is where problems arise.  People talk about leaving chicken/salmon in this position for like 3-5 minutes and I find that if I do that.  All of my seasoning will be black and burnt.

How do I balance getting the steel hot enough to prevent sticking/get a good crust, but not burn the spices?

Should I start at medium (which seems more like medium-high) and then drop the temp after the first 30 seconds or so?

Stoves vary greatly in their heat output.  Cooks need to learn how their stove and pans respond together, and learn how to control the heat supplied to the ingredients you are cooking.  If your ingredients are burning, the heat is too high.  You can achieve a good crust without burning and by using lower heat, it may just take longer.  You are correct in that this is a balancing act.  It's not necessarily the high heat that keeps your food from sticking.  Use lower heat, and enough oil to coat the pan.  Don't move your chicken until a crust forms. It it is smoking or browning too quickly, turn the heat down, and/or remove the pan from the burner.


Cabbage Slaw w/ Teriyaki? I recently had some spicy chicken teriyaki.  It came with a side of what was just cabbage in some clear liquid.  I've not had luck identifying it online, any idea what it may have been?

It was a bit tangy and sweet, but nicely balanced out the spicy teriyaki.  It wasn't overly drenched in liquid, but there was a fair amount.  Again, I didn't see any other vegetables.  It wasn't creamy at all, like a coleslaw.

The cabbage was still mostly crunchy.

Sounds like a basic Asian Cabbage Slaw. Sometimes the dressing is made with rice vinegar, lemon juice maybe a little sesame oil to make a vinaigrette. I'm sure the dressing is dependent on the restaurant. where did you get it?


What skillet pan to use for making spring rolls wrappers? I'm trying to make spring rolls wrappers. My dough looks fine, but it doesn't stick to the skillet.

What skillet is the best? I'm trying with non-stick ones (teflon and seasoned cast iron) but I guess that the opposite is what I need. Must I use an old 'sticky' one?

I'm following the recipe below, and my dough looks like the video shows.

How To Make Popiah/Spring Roll Wrappers/Skin

I watched the video and after also researching some instructions in Chinese, I have decided that your problem might be more than just pan-related. However, please note, I have discovered that for things that are uncommon, or not commonly made at home (things that are usually store bought or ordered in restaurants), multiple Chinese websites have the exact same word-for-word recipes, so I actually only found 2 uniquely worded recipes.

Difference between your video recipe and other recipes:
The batter flour to water ratio is the same in the video and recipes in Chinese elsewhere. But, the video said to leave the batter for 20-30 minutes but all the other recipes said to leave it for 2 to 3 hours.

Pan:
One recipe said use a flat bottomed non stick pan, the other said to use a flat bottomed pan, but did not specifically say to use a non-stick one. The key is to allow even heat.

Heat:
The recipes I found said to heat the pan until it is warm, then immediately turn it to low, then put the batter in. Also, you should not be using oil.

The sources did say that the hardest part is getting the pan heat right, so you will have to experiment a little with this.


How do I find tart pans like these? I want to make a lemon tart, but I want tins with straight walls, like the ones in this image.

How would I find them - is there a name I can look for? I've been unable to find them online (and they need to be shippable to Australia).

First, those are not a "tin" which may explain why you've had trouble finding them. They are individual tart rings which must be placed on a baking sheet. Sometimes they're called flan rings or, if they're larger, cake rings.

If you do a Google search with Australia "tart ring" you'll see that plenty of baking supply businesses in AU sell them.

Good luck!


Unit price of olive oil: volume versus weight I am browsing olive oil on Google Shopping (the following problem also happens when I shop in local supermarkets). I found the information about unit price of olive oil is inconsistent. Sometimes only volume is available in liters and gallons, and sometimes it is weight in ounces and pounds. So I wonder how you can compare the unit prices between available information in volumes and weights? Do we have to know some common sense of the density of olive oil in order to convert between volume and weight using physics? Thanks!

According to this, a gallon of olive oil weighs 7.6 lbs.; 1l weighs .91kg.


What are the parts of the corn plant? Supermarkets sell cleaned, prepared cobs of corn. If I pick my corn from the plant, which parts are there, and how are they cleaned?

Corn has husk, silk and kernels. In the middle there is the cob, which only becomes visible after you have eaten the kernels.

The husk is, botanically speaking, formed of leaves, but it has a different texture from the standard leaves and encloses the cob with the kernels snugly. It can be left on the cob during boiling, or removed before boiling. For grilling and other preparations, remove the husk. It is not edible, historically it was used for crafting. In the kitchen, it can be used for wrapping a tamale, although wider leaflike matter is more convenient, if available (such as banana leaves).

The silk is called that because it looks and feels like silk while young. The silk in ripe corn tends to be sun dried and brittle, at least outside of the "package" of husk. It is not usually eaten. See also Tips for Removing Silk from Corn?.

The kernels are what you want to eat. Most methods call for preparing them while still on the cob. If you need them removed, you can "shave them off" the cob with a sharp knife.

The cob itself is the dry semihard thing in the center. It has no culinary uses.

The leaves are used to feed livestock, but not eaten by humans.

An ear is the name for the whole package you pick off the plant, so the kernels on the cob with their silk and husk.

The stalk is something not generally seen in a kitchen. It is thick and tall, supporting the leaves and the ears.


Would a fruit cocktail flavoured cake work? I am baking a Cinderella Princes cake for my daughter's first birthday party. I have now had the crazy idea of having a rainbow cake under the skirt of the dress.

Not only this, but I had another crazy idea of making each layer of the rainbow cake taste fruity, in the thought that it would make a fruit cocktail taste.

e.g.

Red = Strawberry
Orange = Orange
Green = Kiwi
Yellow = Lemon
Blue = Blueberry
Purple = Blackberry maybe?

Would this fruit flavour combination work? Do you know of any similar cakes?

Orange and lemon cakes are classics, so there shouldn't be any problem making those layers. I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about making the others, but there should be a way to incorporate fruit puree into cake batter so that the cakes still rise and set.

Blueberry, blackberry and raspberry can all be added whole or slightly chopped into a cake (think blueberry muffins), although they do make it moister so you'd want to be careful it doesn't end up too wet. This might work for kiwi and strawberry but I've never tried it with anything like those.

You might need a bit of food colouring if you want to emphasise the visual aspects of rainbow layers.


Is it bad if a sponge cake sits out for a couple hours before cooking? I am making cupcakes and was wondering if it is okay if you leave the batter out for a couple hours before cooking.

Yes, it is bad. Most baking powder will begin to produce co2 as soon it gets wet. If you let the batter rest before putting it in the oven, your cake will thus lose some of airiness.


Cheaper Gruyere Substitute for baking Cheese Puffs in Australia I live in Australia and what is a cheaper substitute for Gruyere Cheese for baking cheese puffs?

I do love gougères and have made them with Gruyere, of course, but have also used regular Swiss and a favorite, provolone. Other cheeses that melt well and you could try are Fontina, Gouda, or good old cheddar.