Help making multigrain bread for first time Just bought a home bread-maker and I would like to try baking a multigrain bread which recipe is included in the machine booklet. The ingredients of the recipe, which include 3 kinds of flour, are written below:

Flour (240 g).
Strong whole wheat bread flour (140 g)
Graham flour (40 g).
Butter (20 g).
Salt (1 3/4 tsp).
Linseeds (2 tbsp).
Quinoa, wash in water (3 tbsp).
Water (280 ml).
Dry yeast (2 tsp).
Sunflower seeds (60 g).

I went with the recipe to a bio-shop and after discussing it with someone there they told me that:

Strong whole wheat bread flour refers to "type 150" wheat flour. I bought it.
Plain "flour" they suspected that it refers to just white flour. They do not sell white flour (since it was a bio shop) but offered me "type 75" wheat flour instead, which I bought.
They did not know what is Graham flour. Apparently this is not easy to find where I leave (Belgium) and nobody seems to know what is this about.

So my questions before starting my first bread making experiment are:

Is correct the assumption that in my recipe plain flour should be just white flour? If that is the case I would like to replace it if possible since to the best of my understanding white flour is not very good for health. Is a good idea to replace it by the "type 75" wheat flour I got (the actual name written on the product (in french) is: "Farine de froment 75%")? Or maybe another alternative is better ?
What is the best replacement for the Graham flour that seems to be difficult to find in Belgium ?

Thanks.

Is correct the assumption that in my recipe plain flour should be just white flour?

It's tough to know without context, but given that "flour" is contrasted in your recipe with "strong whole wheat bread flour" and "graham flour," it's reasonable to assume that "flour" likely just means a standard white flour.

If that is the case I would like to replace it if possible since to the best of my understanding white flour is not very good for health.

Nutrition is off-topic here.  I would merely note that it's probably more accurate to say that whole-grain flours tend to have a larger amount of beneficial nutrients and fiber.  What may be "healthy" for you is a matter for you and your doctor.

Is a good idea to replace it by the "type 75" wheat flour I got (the actual name written on the product (in french) is: "Farine de froment 75%")? Or maybe another alternative is better ?

I'm assuming the numbers here are referring to the French system, which measures ash content in the flour.  Type 75 flour in that case is still a somewhat "white flour," though that latter term can mean different things in different countries and to different people.  To some, "white flour" implies bleaching.  A Type 75 flour will be unbleached and therefore not quite as white as a very "white flour," and it will typically have a higher extraction rate (meaning some bran/germ is retained compared to typical white flour).  But for your purposes, a Type 75 flour is probably also better than standard "white flour" because it will have a higher protein content, which will likely allow a heavy multigrain bread to rise better.

So yes, you can use your Type 75 flour as a substitute, though you might need to add a bit more liquid to the dough as it may absorb more than a standard white flour would.  If you want to move toward even greater whole grain, you could use a higher number wheat flour, but likely at the expense of lightness in your bread loaf.  A completely whole-grain bread will typically be a bit denser.

I'd also note that the question specifies "multigrain" bread, but all the flours listed are wheat.  Should we assume that the recipe also includes other grains?  [EDIT: OP added complete recipe to clarify, and it does.] If so, the regular (white) flour is likely there partly to provide loft and to lighten the flavor from the various (whole) grains.  A Type 75 flour seems a good substitute if there are other added grains too, and you want to produce a bread that is not very heavy and dense.  (If you don't mind heavy and dense, perhaps try more whole wheat in the mix.)

What is the best replacement for the Graham flour that seems to be difficult to find in Belgium ?

Graham flour means different things to different companies these days.  Traditionally, it would have been a whole-grain wheat flour (sort of like your Type 150 flour), perhaps ground a bit more coarsely.  In the U.S., graham flour is often separated into bran, germ, and endosperm (as white flour would be), some or all of the germ may be removed (to allow a longer shelf life) and the bran and some germ will be added back to the milled white flour to create graham flour.  But the process and exact composition may vary.

Anyhow, I'd probably just use some more of your Type 150 flour in place of the graham flour.  (I'm honestly not certain why the recipe would request those two separate types of whole-wheat flours in the first place, as they are alike enough that it doesn't seem to make much difference, and the specific differences that do exist are unlikely to be that consistent even between different mills.  I'm guessing that the graham flour is meant to give a bit more coarseness from its coarser grind, resulting in a more rustic texture.)


Fish quality for ceviche In the US, can I buy fish from any reputable fishmonger for ceviche, or should I be using sushi-grade fish?

This is an opinion answer, but and noted in the US "sushi grade" is a marketing label only, not a legal, inspected standard so unless you trust the vendor means very little.  Other places it has actual meaning.  In all cases you should likely go by what your local standards are, the reputation of the source and your own feeling.  Something may be safe, but if it does not feel safe to you, then don't trust it.

In general, my opinion on Ceviche but not backed by research is that it is an "acid cooked" item so is not raw but also has not had heat applied as we know.  This says to me that some potential pathogens have been eliminated, but not necessarily all.  As long as fresh, quality product is used, the main concern in sushi and ceviche of common proteins is usually parasites.  The curing with kill some, but quite possibly not all, so ceviche has less of a worry than sushi, but is not free from fear.

So, my opinion would be to avoid any fish even of high quality which might be prone to parasites, so I would use no fresh water fish.  Fish like salmon spend part of their life in fresh, part in salt which makes them more susceptible, so I would tend to use them only if they meet sushi standards.  In the US that means hard frozen to kill parasites while in  some other places that means well inspected.  I would always avoid any farm raised item myself as the crowding and often poor water exchange in the rearing increases risk.  Of salt water creatures, I would tend to go for ones which are deeper water, not ones which habit shallow or possible brackish waters which would in my mind increase exposure.  If it was an item that seemed more at risk, salmon as an example, then I would want sushi quality only.  Mahi Mahi though, a fast growing salt water fish I would just look for good quality from a reputable source.  My choices would vary by variety.


How to make a longer "Cheese Pull"? Cheese pulls are trendy now a days. What are some ways to get a longer cheese pull and overall stretchy cheese?

Is there a particular type of cheese that is better than the rest?

Should I mix multiple types?

This is for general dishes like pizza or grilled cheese, nothing specific.

Would thickening the cheese with flour help for example?

The "cheese pull" is considered to be one of the oldest advertising tricks in the book. From  QUARTZ :

  In advertising, the cheese pull is more than just a tantalizing glimpse of melted goodness. It’s an idea, and an enduring one at that. Advertisers use it to communicate with the part of our brain that’s not verbal, with the primal core of our being that doesn’t understand words but responds with hunger, thirst, arousal, desire.

And:

  In food advertising, the cheese pull can “trigger deep-seated memories of food experiences” to “signal an enjoyable experience in you,” said Uma Karmarkar, an assistant professor of marketing at the Harvard Business School. “Food is what we call a primary reinforcer,” she said. “We recognize the value of food items even when we can’t touch them or feel them in person.”

(Interestingly enough, this article tells us about other ad 'gimmicks", as well.)

So, it makes sense that, if it works in advertising to make us want a certain food, it would work the same way in practical use, perhaps enhancing our perception of that food we are about to eat.

The first and most important thing is the cheese. While you can use any cheese in any dish, it's better to pair the cheese with the dish it will be used in. E.g., mozzarella is considered one of the best cheeses for a great cheese pull. That said, it doesn't have a huge amount of flavor. So you wouldn't want to substitute it for a more flavorful cheese, but you may want to mix some in with another cheese.

Another factor is temperature. If you want a good cheese pull, you need to let the food cool ever so slightly. Too hot, as in 'just done' or 'just out of the oven' and the cheese may be too liquid. Wait too long and you have the opposite.

Additionally you want a good melting cheese. This article from  Bon Appetit  discusses eight of the best melting cheeses for a cheese pull. They indicate that a young cheese will melt better. (I'm sure that anyone who has melted an aged cheese will agree with that.)

  Generally speaking, younger, fresher cheese is going to give you a better melt. You know, the softer stuff.

(I do disagree with them on one thing, however. I've not found fresh mozzarella to be a good 'stretching' cheese.)

There are some other hacks that can help you get a good cheese pull. E.g., for a commercial shoot, they may cut a slice of pizza (in the raw dough) so that after cooking it can be more easily lifted with a spatula without completely severing the cheese strands by a knife or pizza cutter.

So, for practical use, you could entirely slice the raw pizza dough to get the same effect.

The cheese pull has become quite popular. It's not limited to pizza and grilled cheese. Taco Bell is incorporating it in some of their dishes. From the QUARTZ article linked above:

  Taco Bell recently co-opted the techniques of its sister brand, Pizza Hut, to push its cheesy new menu item—the Quesalupa. The fast-food chain spent two years perfecting the messy practice in stores and on camera to ensure that the strands of pepper jack shown in ads resembled what customers encountered when they pulled the quesadilla-chalupa lovechild apart themselves.

And there are a lot of recipes online for pull-apart cheese breads - looking delectable, of course, because of that stretchy cheese.

Last, but not least, experiment. A good cheese pull can be created from almost anything that has a good amount of cheese.


Why is it called coffee cake? There is no coffee in any of the recipes I've seen for coffee cake, so why is it called that?

It is traditionally served with coffee when getting together with friends for coffee; kind of like tea-cakes are served at tea-time.


How to calibrate Polder instant read thermometer? I have a Polder instant read thermometer that is uncalibrated since changing the battery. I have tried and failed to calibrate it and I don't have the owner's manual. Does anybody know the proper procedure? This is a model with a digital readout of the temperature on the face, and 4 buttons: on/off, hold, max, and calibrate. I've tried putting the stem in boiling water and pressing the calibrate button. I've also tried holding it down for 10 seconds. I've also tried the same thing, but with a glass of ice water. Help!

You can download the manual for your particular model on the polder website.

The instructions for the model 574 (not sure if that's yours) are:

  Calibration function: Put the probe into iced water (32 F); wait until the reading value stabilizes. ␣ If the value reads between 23 to 41 F (-5  to 5 C), press the “CAL” key for 2 seconds. “CAL” will appear on the display for 2 seconds: the unit will then be calibrated automatically and return to its normal state and display 32 F.

You can always give them a call too.


Can cinnamon rolls be frozen after they are shaped? Can you freeze cinnamon rolls after they are shaped? Also, about how long does it take for the dough to come to room temp?

I would use parchment or wax paper and then aluminum foil wrapped tightly around the pan when freezing. Do not freeze more than 2 weeks in a regular freezer as they may develop freezer burn taste. Then, instead of letting them come to room temp, I would warm them in an oven for 15-20 minutes and then ice/frost them.


Pasteurized eggs in homemade mayo? If you are using pasteurized eggs or pasteurized egg yolks when making mayonnaise is it still necessary to leave the mayo out at room temperature for the recommended 24, or more, hours?

The main rationale for the "room temperature rest" for homemade mayo is to kill off potential Salmonella in eggs.  Most other ingredients in mayo recipes should not be contaminated with bacteria, so I can't imagine any benefit from the room temperature rest when using pasteurized eggs.

In fact, given that mayo will degrade faster at room temperature (in terms of flavor and quality), it would keep the mayo fresher for longer if you refrigerate immediately.


Very old sourdough starter; how long is too long? For quite some time, my grandmother has had a sourdough starter kept in the fridge. I observed her making muffins and whatnot on an infrequent basis, with the intervals sometimes increasingly greater than the 14 days I see recommended on various sites. My first question is did I just miss her "washing" the mix or is there a secret way to store the starter long term that I am not observing?

The jar has been stored in a static location in the back of the fridge, and is mostly full with a clearish layer (presumably the alcohol layer), apparently airtight, and without noticeable discoloration. With my grandmother's increasing age and decreasing health I doubt this has been touched in between one and two and a half years.

My second question is what beyond obvious (pink, blue, green) color changes am I looking for that tell me that I have to chuck this and start over?

My third question is if I do not get any "stop" signs (from question two) what would the best way to extract a viable sample for my own mix without contaminating or making significant modification to the existing jug? My first thought is to us the trick where you put your finger over the top of a straw to lift out a liquid. And then can I just pick up where I am reading elsewhere about washing and resurrecting old starters?

Thank y'all for your help!

I had two that I neglected for 8 years in my fridge. I thought several times about tossing them.

Glad I didnt!
I recently washed & fed both several times and they are alive and well. Totally amazing how durable they are.


Making the most out of stock I came across a page (http://www.traditional-foods.com/bone-broth/) where the author used the same beef bone 12 times to make stock*. It got me wondering: when I make stock, am I leaving behind that much more flavor in a bone, or did she do something wrong? What should I do to extract the most amount of flavor out of my bones?

Use a higher bone/water ratio? Does the water saturate with the contents?
Cook it for a longer time?
Use a different cooking method? She uses a crock pot, I believe.

I use a 10qt pressure cooker for my stock, and I usually cover my ingredients with water plus an inch as a rough guide. I also plan on reducing the stock afterwards, so if more water doesn't help with extraction, I don't want to waste time boiling it all away in the end.

*Since she calls it bone-broth, I'm guessing she's from the Nourishing Traditions camp where they are interested in extracting nutrients, etc. from the bone. I don't know if getting extra gelatin out of a bone means more flavor was left behind originally.

From a culinary viewpoint, there is little to no reason to use bones more than once in making stock.  Even the author of the article you reference indicates the first go is the one that tastes best.

To maximize the quality of your stock:

Use good clean or filtered water; add hot water as the stock reduces over time to keep the level above that of the bones
Use good bones, chopped with a cleaver to reasonable sizes (a few inches)
Optionally roast the bones prior to stock making for a deeper, browner flavor
Skim the scum in the first part of the stock making process (obviously not an option in a pressure cooker)
For a more clear stock, don't allow it it boil, but rather than let it go at a slow simmer (again, not in your control with a pressure cooker)
Simmer it long enough for reasonably full extraction, which will leave the bones either bendy (more in the case of poultry or long bones) or somewhat fragile
Include good quality vegetables for flavor
Don't salt the stock, as during reduction it can concentrate and become overwhelming

In other words, apply basic cooking common sense and you will have a good outcome.


How to bake 3 large pans of lasagna in a regular size oven I need to bake 3 large pans of lasagna in our conventional regular size oven.  The pans are "13 x 9 x3" in size so I will need to use two oven racks.

Stack them, like this:

Rotate them 1/3 and 2/3 the way through cooking, figuring perhaps 25% longer cooking time than each would call for separately. Use an instant read thermometer, look for about 165F (74C). Also look for a bit of browning and bubbliness. It may be that they won't be done at exactly the same time, but they'll be close enough that they can be served at the same time.

I figure you might as well stack all three, and remove a shelf from the oven, but to do two and one (rotating each third the way through baking time) would accomplish pretty much the same thing.

If you can fit 2 pans on one shelf and one on another (like normal), that would be fine too, but you might have to rotate even more often. Swap shelves and front to back.


Can I toast pecans the night before? I'm making pecan bars in the morning and I was thinking I'd get a jump on the work by toasting the nuts tonight. Is there a downside to toasting the pecans and then letting them sit overnight vs toasting them tomorrow and tossing them right into the recipe?

Nope, no problem with that at all. Toast away!


How did grease get in under cooktop on stove? Even though I don't fry things often somehow there is grease all along the gap between my gas cooktop and the rest of the stove (above the knobs) which I suddenly noticed. The cooktop does not lift up so I will have to clean what I can from the front.

There doesn't seem to be any hole big enough where the gas comes out for grease to go down so I don't know where it came from. But I do sort of worry since my stove is about 15 years old what if there was plant matter such as garlic in with the grease? Or could this be from cleaning the surface and grease getting stuck in the gap? It's still puzzling since I rarely fry things. And the grease is mostly at the edges of the stove rather than close to the burners.

Most of the dishes we cook do have at least some oils and fats in them. Even when we are not explicitly frying, or even sauteeing, the delicious fragrant vapors which fill our kitchens when we cook waft around and get into every nook and cranny of our walls, cupboards and stoves, even places where we can't reach to clean. These vapors contain tiny droplets of oil from our cooking. Over time, this deposits lots of grease in inaccessible places.

After a few years, even the blinds above the sink on the other side of my kitchen are lightly coated with a gross mixture of dust and grease. I do fry and sautee a lot, so it may take longer in your kitchen, but that's where that greasy residue comes from - through the air.


How do i cook pizza dough before adding toppings? As we know, normally pizza dough is cooked after adding toppings to it. I want to know how I can pre-bake pizza dough, before adding toppings. I find that sometimes pizza dough is not cooked properly after I add the toppings.

So we have two different things here: first, can you precook your pizza crust, and two, why is your pizza crust coming out "underdone" when you cook it with toppings.

Of course you can precook pizza dough.  Just roll it out, and put it in the oven for somewhat less time than you would for a finished pizza.  For example, if cooking a pizza with toppings normally takes 12 minutes, parbake the crust for around 5 minutes.

The second question, though is why is this a problem for your pizza dough in the first place?  I'm going to assume by "underdone" you mean "doughy and wet", because that's the usual problem with poorly-cooked pizza (aside from burnt, which is the other end of the spectrum).  There's a few common reasons why your pizza crust would come out doughy and wet:

Too many toppings: if you have a thick layer of heavy toppings, the heat cannot penetrate to finish cooking the crust.  Use fewer toppings
Toppings are too wet: fresh tomatoes, raw mushrooms, watery tomato sauce, uncooked leafy greens, and other "wet" toppings give off a lot of water when cooking, and can cause your crust to be soggy.  The solution is to pre-cook these toppings before adding them.
Dough is too thick: if you are making a pizza crust with a really thick layer of dough, like over 2cm, then it will take a long time for it to cook through.
Oven isn't hot enough: pizza needs to be cooked in an oven that's at least 225C, and better if it's 300C or higher.  If your oven is at a lower temperature, or if there is no heat coming from the bottom, then the dough may never completely cook.
You're making pizza in the microwave.  I suggest this based on some of your other questions.  Making pizza in the microwave doesn't work, and you cannot make it work.


What can cause honey to crystalize quickly? Yesterday I opened a sealed jar of raw honey (blackberry).  Over the course of a not-very-long meal (at which the honey was being used as a condiment) I watched it go from liquid to crystalized.  I've had honey crystalize after having been opened for weeks or months, but I've never seen it happen in a matter of minutes before.  Googling led to lots of explanations and rebuttals about why raw honey crystalizes slowly, but I found nothing that addressed what I saw.

I store my honey in an interior pantry cabinet, so it's at room temperature -- lately around 65-70F.  (I specify interior because I've found that storing it in cabinets on exterior walls leads to faster crystallization, presumably due to winter cold seeping through the wall.)  I have another unopened jar of this honey in that cabinet right now and would prefer to not have it immediately crystalize when I open it.  I understand that crystallization isn't bad, but liquid works better for many uses.  So I'd like to understand what happened and what I need to change to get a different outcome.

Crystallization involves two stages: nucleation (the formation of the crystals, either spontaneously, influenced by solids like the walls of the container or a foreign substance, or influenced by existing crystals) and growth (where the size of crystals increases from microscopic).
Nucleation is most likely to occur when there are impurities in the honey around which crystals can form, or there are existing crystals of honey (which may be very small). Impurities could be introduced from the air or more likely on a spoon or stirrer, and existing crystals can easily form on the walls of the container or at the opening. Stirring brings these into contact with more of the rest of the honey, enabling more nucleation to take place.
As for the growth rate, my instinct is that this will depend in a complicated way on factors like the specific composition of the honey, the temperature, air pressure and perhaps even humidity of the surrounding air. In your case, it seems that the conditions were perfect for secondary nucleation and crystal growth, so as soon as an initial crystal appeared the whole jar quickly crystallized (similarly to how supercooled water will freeze suddenly when nucleation is triggered).
In terms of your second jar of honey, all I can recommend is:

make sure you use a clean utensil (preferably made of something with a smooth surface like metal rather than wood)
try not to let honey that you have spooned out rejoin the rest of the honey in the jar (in particular, if your spoon has been sitting out of the jar don't put it back in)
insofar as you have control over the temperature, don't do the whole exercise while the honey is especially cold
if you do notice any crystallized/dried honey around the rim of the jar, clean it off with a damp cloth rather than let it mix with the liquid honey

It's also worth saying you can get crystallized honey back to a liquid state by heating gently (I use a microwave for short bursts; be careful as it can get very hot and remains sticky – you do not want to get it on you!); because of the residual crystals on the container it tends to crystallize again within a few days but it's useful when you need it.


Chances of getting sick from reusing utensils after checking chicken doneness So last night I was cooking dinner for a friend, not at my house, and they don't own an instant read thermometer.  I put the chicken breasts (boneless with skin on and wing attached from a local farm) into a preheated 375 degree oven.  After 45 minutes I checked them and they looked done but the juices we're still a bit cloudy, but not any pink.  I decided to be on the safe side and put them in for another 15 minutes.

Afterwards when I checked them again and then cut them into pieces I used the same utensils I'd used to check them the first time.

What are the chances of someone getting sick from this? I'm assuming very low, but she has a 1 year old that ate a couple bites of it as well.  I'm usually very careful around chicken but I wasn't thinking.

The chances are very low that anyone would get sick from that because the chicken was probably already safe when you first checked it. Although the recommendation is to cook until the chicken is 160F, anything above 140F will start to kill salmonella pretty quickly, with 4 minutes at 145F being enough to kill it off. A handy table from this page gives good info:

Min Internal Temp °F  6.5 log lethality   7.0 log lethality
    130°F                  112 min             121 min
    135°F                  36 min              37 min
    140°F                  12 min              12 min
    145°F                  4 min               4 min
    150°F                  67 seconds          72 seconds

6.5 log means 99.99997% is killed 7.0 log means 99.99999999% is killed. At 160F the 7.0 log time is 4 seconds, which is why there's a recommendation to cook to that temperature.
From your description it sounds like your chicken was close to being done but not quite done, so you erred on the side of caution and cooked longer, it was probably above 150F, so the salmonella should have been dead.
But, just because you got away with it this time doesn't mean you should make a habit of it! As someone who has experienced the great fun that salmonella poisoning is I would encourage people to wash their utensils if there's ever any possibility that they've come into contact with undercooked chicken (or seafood for that matter, not salmonella but just as bad or worse).


Why do some rolling pins only have one handle? I've been looking into getting a new rolling pin as I've been making more and more homemade pasta. One rolling pin that I came across has only one handle. At around the 5:15 mark of this video, you'll see that the knob of the handle is laying flat against the work surface. I'm sure there is a reason for this technique, but it's not immediately obvious to me. Would appreciate your insight!

As Megha says above, this kind of rolling pin is rolled by pressing on the pin itself, as you can see in the video.  I have two such rolling pins in different sizes.  The knob is not used when rolling out dough.

The single knob is there for picking up the pin, both by itself, and for transporting rolled pasta, pizza, and tart crust dough.  In the video, you can see Sra Simili rolling up the dough around the pin, and using the pin to move it.  If the dough has been stretched large enough to be the length of the pin, then you use the knob handle so that you can still pick it up.

The knob is also a useful handle when you use the pin to chase children out of the kitchen.


Is there any way to revive popcorn that is making too many duds? I've got some popcorn that I've had for a while, and when I try to pop it, a lot of the kernels remain unpopped. Is there anything I can do to revive it, or does it go in the compost?

I store my popcorn in the freezer in an old mayo jar with the lid tightly screwed on. As Michael says, dud popcorn has lost moisture. Add a tablespoon or so of water to the jar and put in the fridge (not the freezer for this part) a few days and see if that helps.

Storing uncovered in the fridge or freezer will remove moisture if you have a frost-free refrigerator.


How 豉椒炒蜆 (stir fry clams in black bean sauce), without black beans? I don't want buy any thing from China because of politics. Korea Japan are OK. But Toronto got just black bean and black bean sauce made in China.
Can I just skip black bean sauce for 豉椒炒蜆 ? If not, what substitute?
Stir-Fried Clams in Black Bean Sauce | The Woks of Life

1 1/2 pounds fresh manila clams, scrubbled/washed thoroughly
2 tablespoons oil
4 slices ginger
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 scallion, cut into 2-inch pieces
1 long green pepper, sliced (you can seed the peppers if you like)
1 long red pepper, sliced
1 tablespoon fermented black beans, rinsed and drained
1 tablespoon Shaoxing wine
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
1 teaspoon soy sauce (optional)
2 tablespoons cornstarch and 2 tablespoons water, mixed into a slurry
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro

Madame Chu's Clams in Black Bean Sauce Recipe - NYT Cooking

18 to 20 littleneck clams (about 2 1/2 pounds)
2 cups liquid, preferably the juice of the clams
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4 thin slices fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tablespoons crushed fermented black beans (see Tips, below)
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 ½ tablespoons cornstarch dissolved in 3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons chopped scallion, green part

Since no one more knowledgeable has come along, I'll go ahead and put together an answer.
Based on the recipe, it looks like you're actually intended to make your own black bean sauce using fermented black beans, or douchi. It seems that Chinese douchi are made and known as "hamanatto" in Japan as well. Searching online, there are retailers that you could purchase Japanese dried hamanatto from, but I have not done so myself. It looks like that would be the best direct substitute for douchi.
As a substitution for the resulting black bean sauce, I would personally recommend Korean chunjang. Chunjang, which also translates to black bean paste, is the major flavoring component in Jjajang sauce in Korea, and you can even find Jjajang (or "chajang") sauce premade.
I have Lee Kum Kee brand Chinese black bean sauce on hand as well as Assi brand Korean chunjang, so my mother and I did a small taste test (and included some other bean sauces, like doubanjiang, akamiso, and some zhajiang I prepared a while back.) We agreed that we of the options we had on hand, Korean chunjang would be the best substitution for a Mongolian beef recipe we love that also calls for Chinese black bean sauce if we ran out.
The black bean sauces were both predominantly salty, with some pleasant bitterness to them and a little sweetness. The Lee Kum Kee reminded me a little of bitter chocolate, but it was very mild. The chunjang on the other hand was much more aggressive all around, which makes sense since it's a paste rather than a prepared sauce. The bitterness and sweetness were both stronger, and it also had more acidity. It was also saltier, being more concentrated, but the other flavors seemed stronger proportionately. I might describe it as a little smoky, rather than chocolatey, which makes sense if black caramel color is added. But other than the acidity we both detected in the chunjang, the flavors were very similar. Both are complex flavors and can't be fully described, but while certainly different, I think chunjang would work well in a pinch, potentially with some extra salt, to taste.
My only other suggestion would be to look into fermenting your own douchi. You can buy black soy beans online, and you should also be able to purchase an aspergillus starter. It seems the basic process is to inoculate the steamed black soybeans with the aspergillus spores to create koji. After a week, the koji is washed (to remove bitterness), then dried and combined with salt (I saw references to a 15% brine as well as 15% salt by weight.) and then aged for several weeks or months. Again, I have not done this myself, and would recommend doing significantly more research before attempting. But based on what I've read it should be quite doable.
Good luck!


What is the difference between a brie and a brie de meaux? Often in the supermarkets, you can find lot's of brie cheese, but also "brie de meaux". What is the difference between the two cheeses. Is it just a different level of protection or do the production methods/ingredients differ? Is there a difference in taste or texture?

From cheese.com:

  Brie de Meaux, named after the town of Meaux, is a French cheese produced in the region of Brie, located 50 kilometers to the east of Paris. [...] Brie de Meaux, an AOC cheese should be matured in the regions of Seine-et-Marne, Loiret, Aube, Marne, Haut-Marne, Meuse and Yonne.

See also Wikipedia.

So it's primarily a regional indication. Since it's an appellation d'origine contrôlée (AOC, "protected designation of origin") brie made in other regions can't use the name:

  Under French law, it is illegal to manufacture and sell a product under one of the AOC-controlled geographical indications if it does not comply with the criteria of the AOC. AOC products can be identified by a seal, which is printed on the label in wines, and with cheeses, on the rind. To prevent any possible misrepresentation, no part of an AOC name may be used on a label of a product not qualifying for that AOC.

Brie de Meaux is an unpasteurized brie, with an average weight of 2.8 kg (6.2 lb) for a diameter of 36 to 37 cm (14 to 15 in). As for all other bries: they can be made from pasteurized milk, and they can be made anywhere (globally), so it's hard to make distinctions with them all. Usually, cheeses from unpasteurized milk have more flavour. As e.g. 'Life and cheese' writes in Beautiful Brie – raw versus pasteurised?:

  Immediately you’re hit by the extra power of the raw milk. It has oomph. It intoxicates with its caramelised vegetal flavours, which relax into a savoury, umami tang, ...

Note that according to the New York Times (1981 post) Brie de Meaux in the United States is rarely the real thing:

  But French restrictions on Brie labels do not apply in American markets, and cheeses labeled that way are probably not the same as they are in France. The United States Food and Drug Administration prohibits the import of cheeses made from unpasteurized milk that have aged less than 60 days. Since Brie de Meaux, the most popular type, is usually aged only about five weeks, the likelihood of any authentic Brie de Meaux being legally available in this country is virtually nil. Still, some of it manages to find its way to select shops and restaurants in this country.

Interesting read, confirming the US FDA rules anno 2016: Inside the World of Black Market Cheese


What oil/fat is best for basting sunny-side-up eggs? I've recently gotten into sunny side up eggs. I definitely like the top to be set up a bit, so I baste them in the hot cooking oil. I'm wondering what oils and fats people find best for this. So far I've tried coconut oil, lard, ghee, and whole butter. They all work (and taste) fine, but there's definitely a difference in how well the oil runs off the top of the egg.

Coconut oil seems to run off pretty quickly and get back in the pan to heat up again (which is what I want). The others seem to stick on top of the egg a bit more, which makes it harder to keep getting enough fat in my spoon to baste them continuously.

It's not that there's anything wrong with coconut oil, but I'm curious to try other methods. So what fat (or combination of fats) have you found most effective and delicious for basting sunny side up eggs?

My favourite oil for basting is none: I just put a glass lid on the pan, add a teaspon of water and let the top of the eggs cook in the steam.  The few times I have basted, the olive oil I've used for cooking the eggs has not seemed to run off very well.


How to make raspberry donut filling How do I duplicate the raspberry flavored jelly filling of Dunkin Donuts jelly donuts?

Emeril's Raspberry Filling uses a combination of fresh raspberries, simple syrup, and cornstarch. Seems almost foolproof and you could probably substitute frozen raspberries when fresh aren't available.


Finding the Right Coffee Grind I just purchased a burr grinder to use with a chorreador coffee maker. A chorreador is functionally similar to a pour over, but the cloth filter will likely have different characteristics.

I've read that the grind should be "fine to medium-fine", and I imagine the specifics are left to taste and depend on other characteristics (roast, amount of beans, etc.). I will tune my grind based on some experimentation, but what are the characteristics I should be looking for? In general, how does coarseness or fineness affect the coffee profile? What characteristics should I expect to vary?

Are there particular characteristics that are "bad" and I should tune to avoid (for example, I've heard the silt in coffee can be hard on digestion)?

I'm not looking for an answer to "how fine should I grins my coffee?", but rather what are the parameters I should look for when experimenting with the grind?

In short, it's about extraction.  Too fast, and you don't get the right flavours and too slow and you'll get off and bitter tastes.

With a setup like the one you describe you can't change the speed the water passes through coffee (unlike espresso, for example) so you control how long water spends with your coffee (and the surface area of contact) by the size of the grind.

The water will tend to stay and mud up super fine grinds.  If you were to try to filter through turkish grind, you'd be waiting a long time and might taste something harsh.

Too coarse of a grind and the water will run through and not pick up enough (low extraction).

Aside from colour, taste and aroma, what you are looking for is how long it takes for water to pass through the coffee grind.  I can't tell you how long for your specific setup, but if you're going slower than 20 seconds per ounce of water, it's likely too fine of a grind.  Also note that the longer water spends with coffee, the more caffeine it'll pick up.

Finally, if you can, keep an eye on the drips as they leave the filter.  When the drop or stream is no longer cloudy and starts looking clear, that's about when you've extracted what you can with that grind (both amount and coarseness).


Can cheap vodka be used for cooking (with good results)? A friend left about half of a bottle of some questionable, admittedly very cheap plastic-bottle of 80-proof grain vodka at my house. I should have remembered the name, but I'll edit it in when I get home if need be. Anyway, I don't drink very often, but have a few recipes in mind, so I just want to know if A) low-quality vodka will lead to the same culinary results as, say, a low-quality wine, and B) is there anything I can try to see whether or not this particular bottle is suitable? In case you're wondering, I'm looking to make my grandfather's borscht recipe and some hazelnut liqueur (for baking and occasionally adding to coffee).
Also, I did read this answer, and like the... ah... answerer, I suspect that any differences in this vodka have something to do with it being at the very bottom of the price range.
EDIT : Both the borscht and liqueur came out great. At first I thought the liqueur was far too harsh, but it seems that letting it sit for a few days after filtering let it smooth out.

Cheaper spirits can certainly be used in culinary applications. The results won't be identical, but inexpensive liquors are a lot more cost-effective since the subtle differences in flavor between middling and quality spirits tend to get masked by other flavors. This is especially true when you're applying heat, which will burn off much of the alcohol (though not all) and change some of the volatile flavor compounds in the spirit. For things like a tomato sauce made with wine, a pan sauce deglazed with brandy, or a dessert flambeed with rum, the difference between bottom-shelf and high-end product will be evident only in the cost.

Poor-quality vodka will have some "rough" flavors if you're drinking it straight, and those might carry over into the liqueur in particular. Chilling will help, so you probably won't notice much difference in your borscht, and once you bake the liqueur into something I doubt any flavor difference will be noticeable in the final product. As a rule of thumb, the more you manipulate the spirit, the less you'll notice its provenance.

I can say confidently that using free, leftover plonk in a culinary application will be a much better use than drinking it!


What to do with layer of fat on pork spareribs? So I got a nice big rack of ribs from an excellent butcher, and it has a fairly thick layer of fat.

Previously when I've bought ribs for smoking/slow cooking, That fat hasn't been there, and the ribs have been ready to receive my spice rub.

So my question is this:
What should/could I do with this fat?
Since I'll be putting it in my Kamado for slowcooking, I'd normally prepare the ribs similar to this video as seen in this picture

Currently I'm thinking of trimming most of the fat off and see how it goes...
Over the course of 4-6 hours, it should rend nicely, but I also want my spice rub on the meat itself...

Suggestions please? :-D

Seems like you get the importance of the fat rendering but still want the spice rub on the meat. I would trim the skin and fat off in one piece, if possible, using a very sharp filet knife. (A small amount of fat left on the meat is okay.)

Then rub your spice mix over all sides of the meat. Place the fat cap back on the meat where you removed it. On the top of the skin/fat season with salt or your spice rub and go to cooking.

The fat will render and you should still end up with well seasoned, moist, tender ribs. Bonus, you should get a well seasoned crispy skin. If the skin doesn't crisp enough with the cooking method, you can remove the fat cap when the ribs are done and place it on a pan under the broiler to finish the crisping.


Can you bake or grill well done lamb chops that are also soft? I bought some grilled lamb chops from the shop and they were soft, juicy and medium rare.
I reheated them and quite quickly the outside browned and went crusty and the inside got cooked.  The result was tougher meat with a not soft surface.
Is it possible to have soft, tender lam chops by grilling or baking while having it well done too?

No, you absolutely cannot. "Well done" is primarily a description of texture, and that texture is not soft and juicy. When you bake meat (or any other protein), it goes through many different stages, depending on the temperature, and you stop when you have reached the desired texture. If you stop at the texture of "well done", you can never return back to the soft texture of "medium rare".


What is the world's hottest pepper? I'm growing some bhut jolokia peppers, and they are almost ready for harvesting.

However, I've since seen that the naga viper pepper has beaten the bhut jolokia as the hottest pepper.  I've also seen that a variety of Trinidad Scorpion pepper has beaten out the naga viper.

The store I bought my bhut jolokia from now is selling "the world's hottest pepper" called naga jolokia.

Is the naga jolokia the same as the naga viper?  Is it the same as the bhut jolokia?

I understand that the naga viper was an unstable hybrid.  Presumably this means that it cannot be reliably sold for home gardeners.  Is the Trinidad Scorpion variety stable?  If not, how do the stable varieties compare with the naga viper and bhut jolokia?

To summarize the questions:

What is a naga jolokia, and where does it stand in comparison to
the other "contender" peppers?
What is the world's hottest pepper?
What is the hottest pepper that the average home gardener can purchase, and then grow
at home (local climate permitting)?

What is the world's hottest pepper?

According to the Scovile Scale the hottest pepper is Bhut Jolokia. The one you are currently growing

Scovile Scale Visualized

  What is a naga jolokia, and where does it stand in comparison to the
  other "contender" peppers?

Bhut Jolokia or Naga Jologia

According to some sources, they indicate that Bhut and Naga are the same pepper. Naga means Ghost.

MSNBC has a great article covering this world record chili:

  The pepper is known by any number of names across India’s northeast.
  It’s the “poison chili” in some areas, the “king of the chilis” in
  others. Just to the south of Assam is Nagaland, it’s eaten in nearly
  every meal. As a result, it is often called the Naga mircha — the
  “Naga chili.”


What to use to tame my chicken tikka masala? I love chicken Tikka Masala but I’m afraid it doesn’t always like me.  If I cut the masala portion in half what can I use in its place? Maybe double the yogurt?
Note: The dinner is a meal kit with the masala sauce provided in a sealed packet.  The sauce is in liquid form, not a powder.  The amount of sauce is meant to go with 1/2 lb of chicken thigh meat.  The meal kit is meant to serve two.

You're thinking along the right lines with using yoghurt. In fact because yoghurt is often used to tone down spice, you might find that you can use more than half the sauce, if you increase the yoghurt.
But you probably wouldn't want to double the yoghurt to make up for the missing sauce. Instead replace the sauce you didn't use with yoghurt. So if the packet contains 200 ml  of sauce, and you only use half of it, you'll be short 100 ml, so use an extra 100ml yoghurt. You might find that's a little runny, so might want to use a bit less.
If you have tomato puree/paste or even passata, you could mix some of that into the extra yoghurt. Most tikka masala recipes include some tomato, so this will maintain the flavour without the heat. Puree will have a slight thickening effect compared to yoghurt, while passata will be thinner,unless you simmer it long enough to reduce.


Options for non-stick frying pans - not using teflon Just for everyday things - frying eggs, making pancakes, steaks, bacon.

Also, what is temperature reached by such frying. Teflon decomposes at 250c - does normal home use ever get near such temperatures ?

Cast iron or carbon steel. Both require seasoning with oil and neither are non-stick immediately, but rather after seasoning and some use, the pans become more non-stick over time. But once they're properly seasoned, they're as non-stick or nearly as non-stick as teflon and the like. They do, however, require the use of fats in cooking. And they can last 30 or 50 years. Or longer.


Dangers associated with sous-vide temperature and time What's the risk associated with leaving pork (vacuum sealed) in water at 35 °C (95 °F) for 12 hours? It's probably a common mistake with sous vide cooking, forgetting to turn the bath on.

Toss it. That's right in the middle of the danger zone, and hasn't been at a high enough temperature to impede bacterial growth. Not worth the risk.


Shelf life of Sesame Oil? I love the taste of sesame oil, I can easily go through an 8 ounce bottle in a couple of weeks if I'm on an Asian kick, an 8 ounce bottle of my favorite brand has never lasted more than a couple of months. Right now, Amazon is offering a 56 ounce metal jug of my favorite brand of sesame oil for less than 3 times the price I pay at the grocery store for an eight ounce bottle. Ounce for ounce it's a great deal, no shipping costs even. Can I make an open jug last a year? My thinking is to transfer 8-12 ounces at a time into a glass bottle and keep the metal jug in the back of the fridge where things have the tendency to freeze. Is that the best way to handle it? Should I get the bulk of it out of the metal and into glass?

According to StillTasty, you should get at least one year, refrigerated.

They note it may become cloudy and solidify, but that this does not affect quality.  Allowing it to come to room temperature will bring it back to a liquid state.


Baking My Own Sweet Potato (Yam) Chips - Help Correct My Current Methodology A while back I tried baking my own sweet potato (yam) chips and I ran into some problems. Here's what I did on my last attempt:

Using a mandolin, I sliced the potato into one-eighth of an inch size medallions.
I placed those medallions on a baking sheet that had been covered with a greased sheet of tinfoil.
I set the oven to 350 (it was a total WAG in terms of temperature) and placed the baking sheet on the middle rack.
I watched as the potatoes began to curl and shrink. "Hooray!" I thought to myself. "I should flip these suckers over just to be safe".
I flipped the chips over (still soft) and returned them to the oven.
After another 5 min or so I took the chips out of the oven. They were hot, some were burnt, but none were crispy or chip-like.

My question is: What was my fundamental flaw? was it temperature? timing? What is the fundamental secret to getting them to be crisp without frying?

The dense nature and high sugar content of sweet potatoes can make them difficult to turn into crisp crunchy chips without burning, even when you ARE frying them.  This is the reason so often sweet potato fries are soft rather than crisp.

I have never tried baking them into chips but your method seems to be very sound.  Any higher temp is going to burn them even more quickly and a lower one is going to just turn them to mush by the time you cook them longer to try crisping them.

Here's a slightly adjusted method:  Try slicing them closer to 1/16th of an inch and then place them between two pieces of greased foil or parchment paper.  Preheat two baking sheets in the oven for about 15 minutes so that they're hot when the sheet of potatoes goes onto it.  Put the sandwiched sheet of potatoes on the first hot pan and place the second one on top to "press" them so that they're essentially "oven frying" between the sheets of paper/foil.  This still may not work as the steam will be trapped but pressing them between two preheated pans may help.

My primary suggestion:  Fry them and don't eat the whole batch.  OR Fry AND eat the whole batch and don't do it too often.

Many times it's just best to do things the traditional way and enjoy it, than to try substituting and having a less than ideal result.


Coffee roasting, worth upgrade from popcorn popper I've been roasting for about 3 years and have gone thru about 3 or 4 poppers for roasting coffee. The machines wouldn't stop working I'd just notice they slowly started  taking longer and longer to roast my coffee beans.

I've been looking at the FrenchRoast sr500 and wondering if the $170 price tag is worth it over just getting another popper. I have no complaints over the coffee I roast from the poppers other than a few gripes over the actual roasting process.

Will the FrenchRoast produce a better roast over the popcorn popper? If not is it mostly convenience? I don't have to roast outside, it has a cooling function, etc. Anything else I'm missing that can sell me on the $170 price tag?

Domestic coffee roasters are usually 'fluid-bed', barrel or 'stirrer' type.

Popcorn poppers and most low-end purpose built roasters are fluid-bed. That is you agitate the beans by pumping hot air to roast the beans.
Barrel types have a rotating barrel with fins inside to agitate the beans.
Stirrer types have a pot and arms inside that are turned to stir the bean ensuring an even roast.

Upgrading from a popper to another fluid bed usually just buys you some convenience and increased roasting capacity. That being said, I had an iRoast 2 fluid-bed and that lasted at least 2 years. It was still functioning when I upgraded so it probably still works. So it may also be overall cheaper.

IMO, it's more worthwhile to upgrade to a barrel or stirrer type like the Behmor or the iCoffee. They take longer to roast, but you can achieve much better roasts and they have more capacity than fluid-beds.

Edit: Differences between roasters

Just a note between the differences in roasters.

Fluid-beds tend to roast very quickly. 10-15 mins total roast time. But this means that the outside of the bean roasts first and the inside is often lighter. The result is often a bit more acidic or 'bright'. The forced air however, does disperse smoke very quickly and it's a bit cleaner. It still has the capacity to set off your fire alarm.

More traditional designs tend to have longer roast times. I clock about 28 minutes. The slower process gives you a bean that has the same colour inside and out. Anecdotally, I would say most people prefer this. Many of the barrel type also produce a lot of smoke and not suitable for indoor roasting. However, the models I mentioned - the Behmor and the iCoffee - have after burners. This means they actively vent the smoke through a stage that burns up the access smoke and are suitable for indoor roasting.


How to remove sour taste from curry? My curry become too pulupu (sour)  due to too much yogurt. There is too  much sour taste in each bite. Now how can i remove sour taste from curry?

Butter is the opposite of acidic/sour so adding butter can help balance the dish and remove the taste of sour.


Imported Italian canned tomatoes vs. American tomatoes Why are imported Italian canned tomatoes more tender than the same American product?

Unfortunately, it's a known problem.  Much of the produce in the US has been bred for profit: size, color, amount produced per acre, and ability to survive handling (mechanized pickers, shipping long distances, etc).

It's that last one that tends to be the problem with tenderness -- a tomato that's tender when ripe will get squished when it's being picked in the field and transported to the canning facility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rhu21aNUlxQ

(summary of the video : vines are cut and stripped, then tomatoes are flung into a large container where tons are collected at once, then they're washed, sorted, stripped of their skins, and possibly diced or crushed, sorted again, then canned and sterilized)

Now, canned tomatoes are better than the ones you get in the grocery store -- they don't have to be shipped cross-country (or even from South America), they only have to make it from the fields to the canning plant ... which are typically built in areas where there's lots of tomato production.  But they're still shipped in large containers, so the bottom ones need to be able to survive the weight of the ones above them, and they need to be sturdy enough to survive the dicing process.

And so there's one other trick that North American companies do -- they'll often add calcium chloride to the tomatoes to keep them firm.  But this also makes it more difficult for them to break down when cooking.

Cook's Illustrated did a review of canned diced tomatoes years ago, and they mention that different brands use different varieties of tomatoes ... but you'd have to get a subscription to see what they preferred.  They also mention different levels of citric acid used, and acidity can slow the breakdown of some vegetables (onion, potatoes, etc.).

Your best bet is to get tomatoes from a local, small farm but then you'll have to peel them yourself.  If you're making sauce, you can ask them for 'seconds' which might not be as pretty or blemish-free like the ones they put out at farmer's markets.

If it's not the right season and you need to used canned, check out the labels and look for one that doesn't mention calcium chloride.


Submerging chicken carcass twice I need to make chicken stock so I bought a 3 lb fryer chicken today. Obviously my plan was to roast the chicken tonight, take meat off the bones and then use the carcass to make the stock tomorrow.

My roommate, however, is begging me to make my chicken and sausage gumbo. To do this, I usually boil the chicken whole in a large pot of boiling water for an hour, take out the chicken, use the water as the base for the gumbo, add the chicken to the gumbo, and discard the bones.

I really need chicken stock though. Can I make the gumbo tonight and then boil the carcass again tomorrow to make stock? I'm worried the stock will be weaker in flavor since the bones already went through a similar process, but maybe its no different than roasting it.

Anyone have experience with this?

Once you've boiled the carcass, most of the juices, fats, etc. have been released. Trying to do a second pass will result in a much weaker stock. There's only so much that can be released, and it's already happened on the first pass.

You should just choose one thing to make, or buy a second chicken, I'm afraid.


Jar opened once - is it still good for pickling? I have recently been making pickled beetroots and they mostly came out fine except for one jar which has failed to get a vacuum seal. Now I put it back in the pan and simmered the jar for a good half hour, but that didn't seem to change anything.

I then gave up on it and thought that I might as well just eat the beets in the upcoming week. And so I opened the jar and took out one slice and then put the jar in the fridge. To my surprise, after a few hours the jar has actually sealed itself, but I have no idea what to do with it.

Is it still safe to pickle it as normal after it has been opened once? Or should I keep it in the fridge and eat it soon?

Keep it in the fridge and eat it soon.  There is a chance that you contaminated the product when you  opened the jar and took out a slice.  It is no longer sterile.


Where to store boxes/cases of Carbonated Energy Drinks (Like Red Bull) Fridge or Room? I hope this is the right place to ask this. And sorry for the bad english. I didn't know whether "box" is right for what I have or "case", or "pack" !

I'm a self-admitted Energy Drink junkie! So I thought I should buy boxes of them to save money, because the stores in my town sell them in a higher-than-usual price of the distributor! (Some even sell them twice the actual price!) So now I've bought Two boxes of 24packed 250ml cans (48 cans). And for several reasons I don't want to/can't store all the cans in the fridge, most important of which; don't have enought space in the fridge to store all of these in.

I keep my room chilly because basicly I just like it~! (Unlike my family! :D) I don't have a thermometer or I would have just told you the room temperature. The outside temperature is about 12C to -4C (decreases to 7C and lower and lower after 6PM, then increases again after 8AM...) And I keep my window a little bit open (Like 30%) all the time...

So based on this explanations, What would you suggest? Will they lose fizziness or go flat if they aren't kept in fridge? ... I'm sure you've understood what I mean by now :) if not, please tell me to make myself more clear. Thank you very much in advance.

Storage? Doesn't matter so much so long as the drinks are not subjected to broad temperature swings. Put them in the fridge at least 24 hours before you want to drink them so they can get chilled nicely.


How to pick ripe plantains for maduros? I'm trying to make sweet fried plantains (maduros) but I'm not having much success.  I've tried frying on low, medium, and high heat and with varying amounts of oil.  The plantains never come out soft and sweet but dry (depending on cooking time) and starchy tasting.  I suspect it is because the fruit is either not ripe or bad quality.

Compared to a ripe banana, how soft should the plantain be before peeling? Once peeled, how soft should the flesh be?  Also, should it be sweet prior to frying?  The pic below shows a fruit prior to preparation.  Does this look ripe enough?  I have also tried letting it ripen until the skin was almost completely black but at that point the fruit seems to have gotten bad.

For fried or oven-roasted maduros you want the plantain to be a bit riper than the one you pictured.  I usually wait until they are closer to the following:

The flesh should be yielding and have a slightly sweet flavor, but not be completely mushy or soggy.  It's ok if there are a few mushy spots.  If your final product is starchy tasting, then they were not ripe enough.  If you can't get riper plantains make sure to keep the slices thin enough (<1/2" or 1cm) so that the interior can get fully cooked before the exterior burns.

They should be fried in oil or lard that is around 350˚F (180˚C)


Less salty sauce based on soy Basic ginger soy sauce:

Mostly soy sauce, grated ginger, scallions, some rice wine.

Some people find it too salty. What other liquids could I combine with the soy to end up with something a bit less salty in the same space? Just cranking up the rice wine isn't very attractive.

I may be jumping the gun here and making unwarranted assumptions about what this sauce is being used for, but assuming it's something like a marinade, rice, stir-fry, etc... I usually use some combination of the following:

Soy or teriyaki sauce (or both)
Toasted sesame oil
Honey or brown sugar
Chili oil (small amount, obviously)
Grated ginger
Grated garlic (very small amount, that's strong stuff)
Rice wine (usually I skip this, actually)
Water!

Sometimes the combination of oil and water doesn't hold together so well; if you add a little tapioca starch and heat it up, it will thicken and bind.  I use this all the time in stir fries.

Also, if you happen to have any prepared oriental sauces like hoisin or black bean or chili garlic sauce, those can be used in a pinch to cut the salty taste of soy sauce.  Fine-tuning with pure ingredients to get the exact taste you want is always better, of course.


Is it safe to recook partially cooked steak the next day? I prepared one steak too many yesterday.

One of the steaks went into the oven (from about room temperature) for 7 minutes, but then we never pan seared it after.

We let it cool, and it's been in the fridge.

Is it safe now to fully cook the partially cooked steak? I'm not sure that the 7 minutes did much to "cook" it (at 370)

If so, what's the best way to now cook it?

Thanks!

you can reheat it in a frying pan, or... if it's not raw inside, slice it for steak salad or sandwiches.  not bad.


Replacing vanilla wafers in rum balls I have a coworker with a dairy/whey sensitivity, yet I love making rum balls around this time of year and plan on bringing a batch to work.

Are there any close substitutions I can use in place of wafer crumbs that will stay fairly true to the original recipe?

Graham crackers should work well for you. I have used graham crackers and vanilla wafers interchangeably for several recipes. There are rum ball recipes that list several different crushed cookie options (using the same volume of each.)


Using liquid nitrogen for tenderizing octopus? I recently had an idea to try and rapidly break down the "rubberizing" connective tissues in octopus using a different method than the tried and true boiling or hammering. It is well known that freezing will cause cell ruptures but ordinary home freezing probably would be too destructive for octopus, so I was thinking about liquid nitrogen since it creates smaller ice crystals due to the rapid temperature change. I have never worked with LN and I would hate to try this as my first experiment with it so I was hoping maybe someone who does use LN may have tried this (or would be willing to try this) to see if it makes the octopus more tender. I am thinking maybe the octopus should be well hydrated before the freeze, and then immediately cooked afterwards to force the cell ruptures.

The most delicious octopus I've ever eaten was tenderized by freezing first for a couple of days and then letting it sit at room temperature for a couple of days.  Then it was baked with onion, salt and coconut cream.  The smell while it was baking was unbelievably ... organic?  Okay, it smelled like boiling jockstraps.  I think it wouldn't work for people with delicate stomachs, but for people who still have the gut flora to handle naturally macerated meats, the octopus was soft and tender and the flavor was incredible.


Safe to leave eggs in water overnight? I want to have boiled eggs in the morning when I wake up. For this I want to use a standard rice cooker.

My plan is to add the eggs and water before going to bed, set a timer and go sleep.

Is it possible and safe to leave the eggs and water in my rice cooker until a timer starts the cooking? Will soaking the eggs overnight change their consistency or flavor?

Note: This question asks something very similar for rice.

Go for it. Eggs in their shell are pretty sturdy. Technically, a very small amount of water will be absorbed by the eggs, but unless you weighed them, you probably won’t notice.

I do have a small caveat, though: eggs are susceptible to smells, the chalky shell is pretty permeable. So if your tap water has a lot of chlorine or other strong tasting stuff, it’s probably not a wise idea to let the eggs absorb that. The same is true if you live in an area of the world where tap water may be contaminated by bacteria. In such a case, you need to boil the water first before adding the eggs.

In short: if the water is good, no problem.


What makes egg whites and almonds a good combination Macarons, financiers, ricciarellis are all made from egg whites and almond flour.
Is there a reason why egg whites get along so well with almond flour, and why yolks do not have a place in these recipes?
It is easy to see why in macarons since macarons are meringue based cookie, but financier does not use meringue and still calls for egg whites only.
Maybe the fat in the almond suffices to make the products rich, or maybe the coarse texture of almond needs to be countered with the moistness of egg whites, but they are just wild guesses I am making up.
I would like to know if there is an 'official' reason why egg whites and almonds go together.

There is nothing special about the combination, you seem to have stumbled over a case of confirmation bias :)

Here I made a table with examples. The table is by no means complete, it contains the first things that came up in my head. As you see, all other combinations of whole eggs or egg yolks work with almonds, other nuts, or no nuts at all. If the combination you noted were somehow special, I wouldn't have been able to find examples for other, not-working categories.
So, combining almonds and meringue is the perfect combination for a macaron, and combining almonds, egg whites and flour is the perfect combination for a financier, but only because that's what makes a macaron a macaron and a financier a financier. You can use any combination out of {egg whites, eggs, egg yolks} and {almonds, other nuts} and each of them tastes good and has been used for something in the kitchen.


How can I take apart almonds? I buy and freeze whole almonds when they go on sale. I use them whole, chop them coarsely for things like bread and chop fine or food process them for things like pastries.

When I chop them by hand there are some large and small pieces. I assumed this was because of poor knife work so I practiced. Since the nuts are so hard it is almost impossible for me to get uniform sizes.

When I chop them in the food processor the pieces are uniform but too small for many applications.

What is the best way to take apart almonds so I can get uniform pieces? Slivered or sliced almonds would be the best if that is possible without industrial equipment.

From:
http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/sliveredalmonds

Slivered almonds are almonds that have been sliced very thinly into little sticks. They differ from sliced almonds, which are almonds sliced across their diameter giving you much bigger pieces. If you can't keep the shape distinction clear in your head, think of getting a sliver in your finger and what that is shaped like.
To make sliced or slivered almonds, commercial producers have special machines that will process about 4,000 pounds of almonds an hour. The machine heats the almonds to about 160F to make them pliable, so that they won't shatter when being cut
Sliced and slivered almonds are just about impossible to make at home. The food processor won't slice them, it will chop them and then grind them. It's really not something you can do by hand, either; they will split like crazy on you and you may lose a finger in the process. If they weren't so readily available in packets at the stores, no recipes would be calling for them.


Have I over oiled the wok when seasoning I've recently purchased my first wok and attempted to season it following guides on Youtube.

It has turned a nice dark colour however it is slightly sticky to the touch and has some raised surfaces that are likely excess oil.

Does this mean I have seasoned it wrong or will it be okay to use as it is?  If I've done something wrong how can I fix it?

Thanks

You have used too much oil, or you haven't wiped enough off before heating the pan, the end result is the same.

The best thing to do would be to remove the oil and try again, making sure that you have wiped the wok properly.
Also, 1) make sure the wok is a bit warm before wiping it with oil (At least if it is cast iron) as this helps it absorb the oil properly; 2) When "baking" the wok in your oven, put it in upside down to prevent the oil "pooling" (And put something in the bottom of your oven to catch any oil that might drip.

Good luck.


What is the value of the "Texas Crutch"? In US barbecue tradition, the so-called Texas Crutch is the act of wrapping large cuts of meat like beef brisket or pork shoulder in aluminum foil or butchers' paper during the smoking process.

What is the value of the Texas Crutch? When should it be done? Are there negative effects?

The primary benefit of crutching a large piece of meat on the smoker is to reduce evaporative cooling.

What is Evaporative Cooling?

When water is heated, it evaporates into vapor that we call steam. The state change from liquid water to gaseous steam is an endothermic process. That means that energy is consumed—as opposed to exothermic processes whereby energy is released.

Evaporative cooling is the effect that this state change has on the meat itself. Liquid steaming off of the meat has a net effect of cooling the meat. This is the same process the human body uses to cool us down in warm weather. We produce sweat which then evaporates, thus cooling our body.

When cooking a big cut of meat it is not uncommon to lose a quarter or more of the weight from the time it hits the smoker to the time you are ready to eat. Most of that lost weight is water.

Why reduce Evaporative Cooling?

When a piece of meat reaches the temperature required for the surface to begin steaming aggressively, the evaporative cooling effect becomes significant enough to halt or significantly slow the overall warming trend of the meat.

In barbecue parlance, this is called "The Stall." The stall can last several hours. By the nature of the variables at play, this stall often happens in what is essentially unproductive time on the smoker. Meaning, the meat is not yet hot enough to be fully into the process of breaking down tough connective tissues, and it's already past the point where it is gaining significant flavor from the smoke. Essentially, it is just sitting there. Using up fuel and time.

Depending on your goals, you may also want that moisture to be inside your meat.

In this graph you can see that the internal temperature of the meat actually dropped during the stall, in spite of the temperature in the smoker itself remaining consistent. It took about 5 hours to regain the heat lost to the stall. This graph was generated by a smoker temperature controller, emphasis mine. One could argue that the stall begins earlier than indicated. There exist more cut-and-dry examples, but I chose this one because of the significant internal temperature dip shown.

What is the value of the Texas Crutch?

In short, it saves time and fuel. Wrapping the meat reduces the evaporative cooling effect so you waste less time in the stall. You're essentially braising the meat in your humidity-controlled environment within the wrap. The steam cannot escape, so the cooling effect is reduced.

What's the catch?

Wrapping your meat to power through the stall will soften the bark (the highly desirable seasoned crust that this food is famous for). When you do or do not crutch is completely dependent on 1) how much time you have to perform your cook and 2) the goal end state of your food. If you're smoking a pork butt, for example, and you plan to pull the meat and mix it up with sauce to make sandwiches, the state of your bark may not be very important to you.

Personally, I am a "bark guy" so I usually make sacrifices in favor of maintaining it. I want shards of chewy bark to contrast the tender texture of the rest of the meat. This usually means giving myself extra time. This is sometimes a more reasonable goal at home than it is in a commercial or competitive environment.

Note that the general principles at work here apply to roasting in an oven as well. Some smokers are indeed very similar to ovens.


What's the functional different between a skillet and a saute pan? I see that a skillet or a fry pan has sloped sides...for easy tossing. A saute pan has straight sides.

I see that a skillet/fry pan as more of a all-round pan to have...and if I complement it with a lid, I don't see why I would ever need a saute pan.

Am I missing something here?

Skillets are not designed to hold much liquid; as you point out, the curved sides are optimized for easy flipping and turning (i.e. with a spatula). They also normally do not come with lids; I'm sure there are some out there, but even my All-Clad skillets didn't.

You can really only use a skillet for high-heat searing or frying due to their low profile. Don't bother trying to poach or even shallow-fry in one.

Sauté pans, on the other hand, have more height, and usually do come with lids. They're a little heavier, and don't make it as easy to turn, but they can also be used for shallow-frying and moist-heat cooking methods like braising or poaching.

I've seen people make sauce or chili in sauté pans as well; sometimes they're more convenient if you're only going to make a small quantity, since the large exposed surface area (relative to a saucepan) makes it easier to reduce sauces. It's a no-brainer if your recipe starts out with sautéing garlic, onions, vegetables, etc., and then has you adding the liquid ingredients; if you have a large enough sauté pan then you don't need to bother transferring to a saucepan afterward.

I think you've got it backwards; of the two options, a sauté pan is definitely the more versatile option. I use both, but if I only had the space or budget for one, I'd choose the sauté pan, because it can do everything a skillet can do (just not quite as well) and many more things a skillet is useless for. A skillet is really only necessary for people who do a lot of pan-searing.

Note that as commenter Owen suggests, there are "French skillets" sold which have higher bases; these are not really skillets, and are not normally sold with lids, but assuming you can find or improvise one, they would make semi-decent multi-taskers. I maintain that cast-iron skillets, while taller, are not nearly as versatile due to their reactive material and weight - I only ever use mine for searing/grilling.


Are Yukon Gold Potatoes available throughout the year Is the Yukon Gold Potato a seasonal potato offering?
It seems like up to a month ago I could find them anywhere but now POOF, nowhere has them, and when asking in stores they keep telling me they have them because they have yellow or golden potatoes which is seriously not the same thing when wanting specific qualities in a finished product.  The YG is royalty in my cookbook and now they've all been kidnapped.  Please advise.

You don't say where you are located, but in most areas potatoes are sold year round at the grocery store or market. Yukon Gold potatoes tend to mature earlier than other potatoes.


Pumpkin pie in a crust that requires a shorter cooking time I'm trying to make a pumpkin pie in a crust I normally use for cheesecake, it's about 1/8th inch thick, and bakes for 25 min @ 325 and I usually top it with a nonbaked cheesecake filling of cream cheese and gelatin.

I want to top it with a pumpkin pie filling recipe that cooks at 350 for almost an hour.

Will it burn or overcook inside a springform with the filling completely covering it?

Is it possible to reconcile the two? Should I just plan on somehow baking them separately and then stacking?

This is the crust:

115 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
30 grams dark brown sugar
30 milliliters honey
125 grams all-purpose flour
35 grams whole-wheat flour
7 grams unsweetened cocoa powder
3 grams kosher salt
1 gram ground cinnamon

Honestly, it seems like your crust recipe is basically trying to create a buttery graham cracker crust from scratch, plus cocoa powder (that sounds interesting).  Here are the ingredients of Nabisco graham crackers, from their website:

UNBLEACHED ENRICHED FLOUR (...), GRAHAM FLOUR (WHOLE GRAIN WHEAT FLOUR),
SUGAR, SOYBEAN OIL, HONEY, LEAVENING (...), SALT, SOY LECITHIN, ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR.

So I expect that you'd be fine baking it (creating the consistency of grahams, which are cooked) and then topping it and cooking again, just as if you used crumbled graham crackers in the first place.  Not seeing your crust, though, my only concern will be if it's not dry enough to stand up to the moisture you'll pour on top with a pumpkin pie recipe (a custard).

All that being said, I'd be very tempted to just crumble grahams per usual and add a little cocoa powder to simulate your crust.


Determining sugar content of liqueurs My girlfriend and I have been experimenting with making different flavors of chocolate truffles. One difficulty with this is that different flavorings have different amounts of sugar, meaning we need to adjust the amount of other sweetening in the truffle to keep it from being overly sweet or bitter (usually by changing the ratio of unsweetened to semisweet chocolate). Obviously getting the sweetness exactly right is going to take some experimentation, but we'd like to be able to start by making the total amount of sugar in each truffle the same, no matter what flavor it is.

We can figure out approximately how sweet most flavorings are are by using their "Nutrition Facts" labels. Unfortunately, alcoholic drinks don't come with these labels, which means we need a different strategy for liqueur-flavored truffles. Neither of us drinks very much alcohol, so we don't have a very good intuition for which potential flavors might be sweeter. Googling gives several sites with widely varying numbers, and I don't know which ones to trust. For example, this site claims an ounce of Kahlua has 11.2 g of sugar, while this site claims it's 15 g.

Is there a good way to determine how much sugar is in a given liqueur? Ideally, I would like either a pointer to a reliable source, or a simple experiment I could do myself to determine sugar content.

What you need is a refractometer, also known as a Brix meter. They can be quite inexpensive. Brix is essentially sucrose in baker's percentages, so 1 gram of sugar in 100 grams of water is 1 brix. You just need to choose a model that measures in the range you are interested in. Here are some on Amazon.


Why did my vegan croissants come out flat? I tried to make vegan croissants with the following recipe:

120g water
15g wet yeast (I used 7g dried yeast)
250g bread flour
30g sugar
5g salt
50g butter (I used vegan margarine (stork?))

The pic shows what I got (I’ll wait a moment while you laugh - hahaha)

Anyway- can anyone tell me why it happened - I think it’s because I did a straight swap from butter to margarine - and will be something about how the oils react (I’m literally just trying to work it out based on what I’ve read on google so far but I can’t seem to crack it).

Also because I used dry yeast instead of wet but I’ve seen you can make croissants without yeast so doubt it’s that alone... please help!?!

Would it be better to make my own butter for the croissant dough as I can’t seem to find a pre made one that has the same components (ratios) as butter... I’m based in London...

If I should make my own butter- which recipe would you suggest? I’ve tried three now and still no luck... I can’t seem to get the components to combine fully - which leads to solid butter chunks when I truly to use it for laminating the croissant dough...argh!

If they're your first batch, you did great! Can you show us a cut cross-section? A croissant will have "intra-layer" (inside the dough layers) rise and "inter-layer" (between the layers) rise: The intra-layer rise comes from the yeast and moisture action in the dough itself, and the inter-layer comes from the steam generated as the moisture in the butter/margarine integrates with the dough. I would guess that you didn't get a lot of inter-layer rise, but that's just a guess.

I use the Tartine recipe for croissants (with regular butter), and from memory you work a small amount of flour - say 10% - into your butter before forming the butter sheet. I have seen plenty of recipes that don't do this, but I'm wondering if it would help to stabilise the margarine a bit during the bake.

One other tip, make sure everything stays cold during the laminating. I put my sheet into the freezer for 15 minutes between turns, and I know some methods call for a couple of hours in the fridge (which presumably helps with hydration as well as keeping things hard). If the layers are cold, they stay distinct, which means they separate cleanly during the bake.

Last thing, I think you could bake hotter and perhaps double-glaze (glaze half way through final proof, and then again right before you bake), to bring out the colour on the outside shell.

Good luck!


Why is my pizza coming out "soggy"? I am an owner of a small pizzeria. Im noticing my pizzas are coming out "soggy".. The crust and bottom of the pizza is cooking good, nice golden brown. But there seems to be an excess of water on the pizza sometimes. The more toppings the worse it is. I use canned mushrooms but I drain them and squeeze them out, but it happens on pizzas that have no mushrooms as well. I use a middleby marshall oven set at 475 degrees cook time 9 minutes.

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.

First of all, like Max said you should definitely be cooking your pizzas at a higher temperature. In any case, this doesn't sound like an oven problem. If the more toppings you put then the more watery your pizzas get, it would only makes sense that your toppings are releasing water. Even if you strain canned mushrooms they will still retain a lot of water. Some cheeses have a lot of water in them, but this mostly happens with fresh mozzarellas. In general I'd say experiment by cooking pizzas with only one topping to see which are releasing water, then make the necessary adjustments.


Does reheating a roux based sauce thin it out? I made a sauce that was thickened with a roux, and refrigerated it to be used again for another day.  When I reheated the sauce it seemed to be thinner than it was previously.  I added more roux to the sauce but that made it too thick, so I needed to add more base.

Was this all in my head and it probably wasn't any thinner or is there a reason this happened?

I would think that if there were a change, that the sauce would be thicker, due to water vaporizing and the fridge that tend to dry things out.

So, I think it's in your head, but of course I could be wrong.

The one reason why it might appeared so, is because the sauce will become thinner if you reheat it, compared to the consistency it had when it was in the fridge or at room temperature.


Solubility of herbs and spices I am asking this question for reference mostly. My motivation comes from having a chef suggesting to place the saffron in white wine before using in a fish soup to "make the most of it". He said saffron's compounds you are after are soluble in alcohol so it's almost always worth adding it in white wine before using.

Fast forward to a recipe I made recently that called for parsley oil in which you would chop huge amounts of parsley, stuff it tightly in a container and fill the rest with oil before putting in the freezer for a few hours. You would then take out as much oil as you can from that container. Apparently the frozen and then defrozen parsley loses more (of its very few) oil-soluble compounds during this process. The result is a tiny amount of yummy, green (quite sweet, VERY parsley-y) oil in what was one of the most wasteful processes I have ever tried.

In Greece where I come from, folklore is that herbs like dill, parsley, mint you put in a bit of lemon juice to "make the most of", and oilier ones like rosemary and sage you fry a bit. So I am guessing it makes sense to say the former have aromatic compounds that are water or acid soluble (if folklore is right) and the latter oil-soluble (I am ignoring the heating process here 'cause it's mostly the solubility I am interested in).

Last time I checked in McGee, I remember finding scattered answers to what is best soluble where but not a reference collecting all the results. I understand this question might not have a straightforward answer so I am happy with a qualitative one so my question is:

Could someone make a list of popular herbs spices and other aromatics and grade their solubility to alcohol, acid(lemon), oil and water?

Again I understand that "popular" is different for different parts of the world so I am happy to award whatever reputation I gain from this (if any!) in bounties and patch the answers up to a community wiki.

I know that link-only answers are discouraged here, but I don't know that there's another efficient way of answering this question.  Here's a link to a document that gives basically most of the information you want, if you match it up to McGee's tables and description of chemical flavor components (e.g., pp. 389-395 in the revised edition of On Food and Cooking).

Basically, you look up the components in McGee's table for a particular herb/spice, figure out what chemical category they belong to (terpenes, phenolics, etc.; this might require some internet searching too), then read the PDF and see what it says about solubility.  If someone else wants to do the work to aggregate McGee's table of ~80 herbs and spices each with 5-7 flavor components, they can post a better answer.

From the PDF, you'll discover that in many cases solubility can be determined roughly by the chemical group (often something you can determine from the suffix of the chemical name).  But note that some chemical groups don't have easily generalization solubility rules.  For example, your first spice saffron has the primary flavor component safranal.  From the -al suffix, you can determine that it's an aldehyde, but aldehydes tend to have inconsistent solubility properties (and are thus not even listed in the linked PDF document, since they're unpredictable).  Smaller ones are soluble in water, but larger ones often only in alcohol or other stronger solvents.  Safranal really needs alcohol to dissolve efficiently, hence the advice you gave at the beginning of your question.

The problem is that even in doing this, you'll likely end up with a hodgepodge of advice for individual herbs/spices.  Some flavor components might be more soluble in oil, but others in alcohol -- what to do?  Use both?  Or use one and discover that the flavor isn't as "complex"?  The relative composition of these various flavor components is important too, so it quickly becomes impossible to predict the best strategy based on chemical composition.

I will just say that in general you will extract more flavor by using other solvents than water.

Oil is generally going to do the best, which is why we think of "essential oils" for strongest flavor extraction.  (While "essential oils" are often extracted through steam distillation, oils in general are soluble in other oils.  Also, the essential oils concentrate the non-oil flavor components because they are more oil-soluble.)
Alcohol is usually second-best, and in a few specific flavor cases will do better than oil.  (But to do so, it often needs to be strong alcohol, as in most alcohol-based flavor extracts.  The level of alcohol in wine may do something, but not much compared to oil; hence people resorting the vodka for some sauces, etc.)

Just glancing over McGee's table, I can tell you that almost everything has a flavor component which will be more soluble in oil or alcohol or both.  As I mentioned earlier in comments, that's the reason we often saute things in oil, then deglaze with alcohol, and only then move to water or less effective liquids.  Acids can sometimes increase solubility, but generally not as much as oil and/or alcohol (at least not for most common flavor components).

For example, regarding your Greek "folklore," basically all of the herbs you mention have small terpenes as their primary flavor components, whose solubility would be increased in oil or alcohol.  The lemon juice in this case is probably less effective (hence your recipe to put parsley in oil despite the folklore about lemon juice).  My guess is that the folklore may be more about using lemon as short-term preservative to keep the herbs fresher tasting, but I don't know.


How much CO2 does it take to carbonate water using a household Soda Siphon? A soda siphon seems to be the de facto device for carbonating water at home.

A search of reviews and comments on the consumption and cost of CO2 yields the following results:

70 cents or one charger per liter (Amazon Review)
20 cents per liter (see lotusmoss' blog comment)
50 cents per liter (see mbknight's blog comment)

The instructions for this popular iSi soda siphon seem consistent with an entire charger being required per liter of water, which works out to $0.90 per liter assuming you buy the recommended brand-name chargers.

So, the cost claimed seems to range from $0.20 to $0.90 per liter.  Since store-bought carbonated water typically costs somewhere in between, it's not obvious whether this device makes economical sense.  (I'm sure there are other advantages, but that's a different topic.)

My questions are as follows:

Does a charger like this really only yield 1 liter of carbonated water?
Is there a way use a single charger to yield more than 1 liter?
Is there an alternative to the iSi-style soda siphon that uses some other source of compressed CO2 that might be more economical?
Has anyone reproduced the $0.20 per liter figure claimed by lotusmoss?  If so, how was it acheived?

I own a 1-litre soda siphon like the iSi Siphon you pointed out. Some friends have a higher-capacity soda maker, I think from Sodastream.  To answer your questions:

Yes, the charger is single-use, and it carbonates only as much water as is in the bottle. My soda siphon holds about 1 litre of water. If I put in less water, then once the bottle runs dry I vent spare carbon dioxide uselessly into the air. If I put in more water, the carbon dioxide runs out and the remaining water won't leave the bottle.
Using the standard siphon product, there's no easy way to have a single charger yield more than one 1 litre. The charger is designed to deliver all its gas at one time; it doesn't reseal.
Consider the Sodastream product line if you want a step up from the 1-litre soda siphon with disposable chargers. Sodastream uses larger bottles of gas, which they describe as "60L". I think they mean that each bottle of gas carbonates 60 litres of water.
Sodastream's FAQ, What will it cost me to make a bottle of soda or seltzer? claims,

  After your initial purchase of a home soda maker package, you'll enjoy seltzer and sparkling water in reusable 1-liter PET bottle for just [Canadian]$.30 per litre and flavoured sodas for about $.88 per litre, before any applicable shipping charges....

From their wording, it's pretty clear to me that the $0.20-$0.30/litre claim is purely the marginal cost of carbonating water. It doesn't include amortising the purchase cost of the equipment, and likely is based on the cheapest way to refill the carbon dioxide bottles (exchanging filled bottles for empty by mail), and likely doesn't include shipping costs or taxes for the refills. It may be that one can drive the cost per litre down by adjusting the amount of water in the soda bottle, as well.


Why does my chicken get dry skin in the freezer? Sorry guys, but I suspect I have a bit of a newbie question here.

When I buy raw chicken breast, I like to open up the package immediately and separate it out into 3 portions because that's roughly the amount I use each time I cook it.  If I freeze immediately, it looks a bit like this after I defrost it:

... which is fine.  But if I open the packet, then freeze, it looks like this when defrosted:

Clearly the skin is drying out badly.  :-)  Is there a way I can stop this?  I'm thinking of immediately covering the chicken again with clingfilm before refrosting but will that work?  Or do I just have to keep it sealed in the packet?  If covering it will work, why is that?  Is the freezing process sucking moisture out of the skin?

The name for what you're seeing is freezer burn. It happens because water sublimates out of the exposed part of the meat while in the freezer, leaving it all dried out and unpleasant looking. To solve the problem, wrap your chicken (or anything else) tightly in plastic wrap, or place in freezer bags and press out all the air before sealing, and then freeze.


How do I store marshmallows? My marshmallows always stick together in a big clump. I keep them in a dry and cool place. This doesn't seem to work. Is there a way to store them so this won't happen?

Your best bet would be to place a desiccant into the container so that it absorbs the moisture which is causing your marshmallows to clump.

Silica gel packets would be fine and are often found in packets of jerky for this same reason. Alternatively some cornstarch would do since it absorbs moisture, but it may be harder to clean off of your marshmallows.


Are Asian Pears Bitter? Mine Was I bought an Asian pear the other day and let it ripen for about a week since it was still very firm when I bought it.  When I ate it, I found it to be very bitter and almost inedible because of its rotten taste.  However, it looked fine, came from a good grocery store and was stored properly.  I've never had one before, so I don't know if they are usually so bitter.  Did I have a rare experience or are they usually so bitter?

I was so surprised because the sign at the store for the Asian pears said they were sweat, juicy and the most flavorful of pear varieties.

I looked online and found no mention of Asian pears being bitter, so I suspect it was just this one pear, but maybe I just didn't do enough research.

I think you got a bunk pear.

I've never had a bitter asian pear. The grocery store sign is correct; they are sweeter and juicier than other pears.

Unlike other pears, asian pears are typically picked when ripe. They also are supposed to be quite firm and crisp when ripe. You should be able to smell the sweetness of a ripe asian pear. Maybe your week "ripening" it spoiled it? Not sure what the conditions were, but it is strange because they have an excellent shelf life.