Madhur Jaffrey recipes - Indian/traditional names? My girlfriend recently bought me "Curry Easy" by Madhur Jaffrey and I've been making some of the recipes from it but would like to know the Indian or traditional names for some of the recipes. All the recipes are listed like "Roasted Moong Dal with Mustard Greens" for example.

Does anyone know the proper names of these:

Cucumber salad, North Indian style (peeled + chopped cucumber with seasoning, lemon, mint leaves and chilli powder)

South Indian potato curry (potatoes, spices, curry leaves + coconut milk)

Karhai broccoli (wok-fried broccoli with asafoetida, cumin seeds + mustard seeds)

Ideally I would like a traditional/proper name for all in the book but not sure if that's possible :)

What do you mean by "traditional/proper"?

A lot of Indian food is named simply after the ingredients in it - cucumber salad would probably just be cucumber salad.

Sometimes they are named after the type of cooking method or vessel they are made in. Your Karhai broccoli is an example of that; the karhai (or karahi) is a type of pot used in Indian cooking. It's similar to a wok and usually looks something like this:

If you're looking for the single definitive name that goes with each recipe in that book, you won't find one. The "traditional" name for each dish would just be the recipe title translated into whichever Indian language is most prominent in the region the dish came from. But the translation isn't going to be a "proper" name because it will still be generic; there are so many regional variations on common dishes (variation in ratio of vegetables or meat, or in types and amounts of spices, etc.) and so many languages spoken in India that no dish has a single name or way of making it.

Take any dish that is a staple of Indian food and search for that dish name + "recipe". I guarantee you'll come across nearly infinite variations. (Try something like "aloo gobi" - the translation of these Hindi words is literally just "potato" ("aloo") and "cauliflower" ("gobi"). I've seen hundreds of recipes for it, and no two are exactly the same, but they do contain common ingredients.) Depending on where you are in India, they are sometimes called by English names, too; you might go to a restaurant and see "cucumber salad" on the menu with no explanation of what type of cucumber salad it is.

P.S. "Roasted Moong Dal with Mustard Greens" is a hybrid Hindi-English dish name already (another common trend in urban India). "Dal" just refers to a dish made with pulses, which are usually cooked until soupy/mushy or occasionally pureed. "Moong" is the type of bean used; you sometimes see it spelled "mung" or written "mungbean" (one word) - you can take a look at the Wikipedia page for a more exhaustive list of varieties on the nomenclature.


Why are my commercial fries going soggy almost immediately? I really like the french fries from a nearby takeaway shop, so I asked if I could buy a bag of commercial fries (par-cooked then flash frozen) from him, which he agreed to. However, my chips turn out nothing like theirs.

I deep fried in an electric deep fryer according to the instructions:
175C for 2-3mins until golden brown - cook from frozen.

The problem is, even though they are golden brown, they get soggy within 2 minutes. The exterior shell is not quite thin. The chip interior is not oily, the texture is how a chip should be. It's as though the steam from the chips is causing the exterior to immediately lose it's crispiness.

Some points:

I don't overcrowd the fryer
I leave the chips to "air" after frying for around 30s before moving to a wide bowl
If I cook the chips for longer, they become overcooked and brown
The oil is not new but not terribly old either

How can I get my chips/fries to not immediately get soggy?

It's hard to know without more information, but one thing to keep in mind is that it's the release of steam from the food that keeps the fat out when you deep fry. It sounds like the frozen fries are keeping enough steam from releasing. You might try letting them come to room temp first before frying them.


Is there such a thing as a dish being bland from too many flavors? My girlfriend has asked for my opinion on a few dishes that she has been experimenting with, and not being particularly well-versed in the language used to discuss food, I have been having trouble expressing my opinion on two specific dishes (namely, a stew using ground beef and a Thai curry with chicken).
I have eaten several different versions of both dishes over several months, so I have developed a pretty good sense of which versions of them I like the best. We have also tried similar dishes from local restaurants in order to have a common reference point. Generally, I think that the dishes taste fine, but sometimes I feel that they become "bland" (for lack of a better word) from too many spices.
What I mean is that sometimes when she prepares them she will use only a few specific spices or none at all and more fresh ingredients. To me, these versions taste the best. They have strong, distinct flavors, and I think that they taste more like the restaurant dishes that we've compared them to. However, she usually finds these versions under-seasoned, so she also experiments with adding lots of different spices. When she does this, she still isn't happy with the result but she says that the dishes taste more "complete" or more "harmonious" or just generally better. On the other hand, I think that these versions taste same-y or bland, which she doesn't understand since there are objectively more flavors in the dish. I have tried to describe it like the flavor equivalent of that color of brown you get when you mix all the paints together or if an orchestra just played all the instruments at once without regard to the timing.
To me, these versions sort of feel like filling in all the nooks and crannies of the flavor landscape to make the experience boring and flat. She says that I just don't understand flavor and that that's not a thing that happens. She says that adding more flavors complement and round-out the taste.
I am nowhere near as knowledgeable about food words as my girlfriend, and she also has a much more sensitive and discerning palate than I do. So it may be possible that I am just a bad food critic, but I would really like to understand my experience better and hopefully communicate it better to my girlfriend. My question is this: Is there such a thing as "the flavor equivalent of the color brown" in the sense that too many different flavors can make food sort of taste bland? If so, is there a technical way to describe that sensation?

I think the description you're looking for is what is often described as "muddy flavors" or "fighting flavors" or "muddled flavors" (though the latter is also a term used for a specific technique, so searching the internet will give lots of results for that).
This doesn't mean that it tastes like a mix of dirt & water--but rather that the flavors are no longer distinct, and possibly fighting with each other.
When you create recipes, the goal is to get all the individual pieces to come together to "sing" like a harmonious chorus. Each element comes together to do it's individual small role so that when it comes together it create a beautiful song. If you use too many strong flavors, they fight with each other--like trying to build a choral group out of egotistical soloists who all want to shine as the center of attention.
That "group of egotistical soloists," in food, creates "fighting" or "muddy" flavors.


Do commercial yogurt starters (i.e.: store-bought yogurt) actually degrade over time? I've seen quite a few sites make the claim that commercial yogurt starters will stop working after a few generations (example), so home yogurt makers should use "heirloom" starters. However, many of the people making these claims seem to be trying to sell or advertise something. So I'm really curious whether there have been any studies showing the multi-generational success rate of commercial v. heirloom yogurt starters.

Does anybody know?

Off the top of my head, I don't know of scientific studies that have tested this.  But even if there were, I don't think they'd necessarily be meaningful in comparing a particular store-bought culture to a particular "heirloom" culture.

The general thing to remember about store-bought cultures is that they are bred for rapid and consistent fermentation (generally in very clean and precise conditions), and they are propagated on a regular basis.  (That is, they generally aren't expected to survive intact for many days or weeks in a fridge before growing again.)  They also tend to have a few very specific bacterial strains added in specific amounts, and that mixture is kept constant.  (Usually, companies add bacterial cultures directly for each new batch, rather than inoculating with a "starter" from an old one; this ensures consistency.)

"Heirloom" cultures may have a greater variety of microorganisms, some of which may be adapted to surviving longer times between batches or fermenting in less precise conditions.

I'd say that when store-bought cultures "fail" or become "less potent" after a few batches at home, it could be due to a few different factors:

Culture was stored too long between batches, and some components died off
Storage conditions between batches were problematic (e.g., less optimal temperature, bad pH)
Less precise culturing conditions caused the "equilibrium" between various microorganisms in the culture to be messed up, perhaps leading to overgrowth or undergrowth of some elements, making the resulting product less consistent
Other microorganisms were introduced (usually inadvertently through contamination), which compete with or otherwise imbalance the growth of the original culturing ones; sometimes storage can also affect relatively relative populations here too

There's no guarantee that a product advertised as an "heirloom" culture will necessarily do better for your particular yogurt-making regimen.  I have certainly heard of people having mixed results ordering online yogurt cultures.  But if it is a culture that has gone through many cycles of less-precise ("home") propagation, it may last longer and be more adaptable to various changes in yogurt-making regimen than the specific mixtures found in commercial store-bought yogurt.  Such "heirloom" cultures have been literally "bred" for a different purpose.


Why do my hamburgers smoke? Whenever I fry hamburgers I can't help but notice that they create a lot of smoke. I have brand new non-stick pans, and an electric stove. I cook them on setting 6, where the stoves max is 8. I don't add any oil because if I do it pops and goes everywhere.

I have a thermometer that I use when cooking, and I keep cooking until they reach 170 all around. I think I'm doing it right, I put the burgers down, let them cook for about 4 minutes, poke the thermometer in to create some venting holes, flip them over. Repeat this process until they reach 170. Usually about half-way through they start to smoke pretty bad. Am I cooking them too high? It already takes what seems like forever to cook them through.

There are a couple of things that jump out at me:

170 F (77 C) - This is overkill for ground beef. The USDA guidelines recommend 160 F (71 C).
Venting holes - This is unnecessary. There is no need to "vent" a hamburger. What you're doing is creating holes for the juices to flow out of and get vaporized on the pan. This is likely a significant source of the smoking you describe. Keep those juices in!

I'm not familiar with electric stoves, so I'm not sure if 6/8 is too hot or not, but it might be. I cook my burgers on a gas stove at medium-high flame and generally do 5 mins per side for a medium burger (I grind my own beef). My burgers are about an 3/4" - 1" thick too. So you might have your stove too hot, try turning it down a smidge.

Update

I want to clarify regarding the "blood" you are worried about. It's a common misconception that the red liquid packaged with beef is blood. It's not. Beef is drained of virtually all blood when it is slaughtered. Beef is 75% water, so the liquid you see is mostly water and the pink hue comes from the iron & oxygen binding protein myoglobin which exists in muscle tissue. When cooking, the juices you are releasing are taking a lot of the flavor with them. This liquid is a combination of liquified fat, water, and proteins. You can verify this at the USDA site for beef.

Another common misconception is that a completely grey-brown interior indicates well done. According to the USDA, 25% of burgers turn brown before being fully cooked; this can happen as low as 135 F (57 C). The inverse is true as well, some beef can be cooked to the USDA recommended safe temperature 160 F (71 C) and still retain some light pinkness in the center.

If your concern is merely safety, cooking the beef to an interior temperature of 160 F is sufficient, regardless of it's hue. If you you're cooking it beyond that just because you don't like the sight of pink meat, well you're overcooking your burgers and doing yourself a bit of injustice. :)


Does commercial bread use baking powder? My understanding of baking powder is that it supposed to be a chemical alternative to yeast, allowing a baker to leaven bread more cheaply and faster than yeast would do.

Is baking powder the primary method for leavening commercial breads that I would find in a grocery store like "Wonder Bread" and "Sunshine" and so on?

No way. I have 3 loaves of (different brands) commercial bread open at home now. None of them lists baking soda, baking powder, sodium bicarbonate or any other synonym I know of, and all three do list "yeast". In addition, Amazon website gives the ingredient list for the authentic "Wonder Bread classic white bread loaf", and it also calls out yeast, and not baking powder.


What are the rings on the bottom of a frying pan called and can you use them on a glass cooktop? I got a 12" frying pan as a gift and it has many raised, concentric metal rings on the bottom, on the outside, where it would touch the stove.

I don't know what this type of bottom is called so I can't find anything useful about it online. But since the pan's bottom is full of high and low points instead of being smooth it seems like it wouldn't heat very evenly on the glass cooktop?

Can anyone tell me what the official name is for the ringed-ridges on the bottom of the pan and if they can be used on glass stoves?

The concentric rings can serve a variety of purposes. In addition to helping to prevent the pan from sliding, they increase the surface area of the bottom of the pan, which helps it to get heat more efficiently from a gas range.

On some pans, these concentric rings are made of different metals (aluminum or copper) and act to more effectively spread heat around the pan.

I have used pans with textured bottoms on ceramic ranges before with no problems. As always, you will want to avoid repeated shaking motions (say, popcorn) but it's otherwise not a big deal either way.


Making my meringues form peaks Last week I made a meringue icing for my cupcakes and had problems making my meringue form peaks. This makes me ask what are some of your tips/tricks? What do you do or add to your egg white mixture in order to help it form peaks when you are having troubles.

It's important to let your eggs get to room temperature. I use this simple recipe for all meringues:

4 egg whites
2 Tbsp powdered sugar
Pinch of cream of tartar

The cream of tartar is what really makes the egg whites to firm up nicely.


How do I use a Chinese spoon? In Asian restaurants the soup comes with a flat-bottomed spoon.  It seems awkward to use this spoon as one would a "western" spoon.

Is there a special technique to using a Chinese Spoon?
What is the functional reason for having the flat bottom?

You would use the flat bottom spoon as you would use a regular spoon. The main different between the flat-bottom spoon and western spoons is as you can see the flat bottom and the fact that the flat bottom spoons are usually bigger and can hold more liquid. I'm not sure why it would be awkward to use it compared to a regular spoon. You don't need to stick the whole spoon in your mouth. There is a rounded edge around the spoon before it is flat. You put just the rounded portion of the spoon into your mouth and drink from it.

The reason for the larger spoon probably stems from the fact that many Asian soups have noodles and large chuncks of vegetables and meats in it. Using a western spoon, you would get some of the noodle or meat and have little room for the broth. But with the larger flat bottom spoon you can get the noodle, meat and still fit an appropriate amount of broth on the spoon.

EDIT:

Also note that it is common practice to use the flat bottom spoon and the chopsticks simulataneously while eating a bowl of noodle soup. One would use the chopsticks in their dominant hand (right hand lets assume). They would then use their left hand to use the spoon. As you have probably experienced in your life unless you are ambidexterous, using the left hand to do thing you normally do with the right can be hard. With the flat bottom, there is less chance of spilling than with a traditional rounded spoon.


Black Coalish Thing In Orange I recently found a piece of black substance in my Navel Orange. When I rubbed it against my finger, the blacked thing smeared on my finger like coal. It was less the 1 cm wide and kind of look like a jagged piece of gravel. Could anyone know what this could be?

If the substance was soft and smeared easily, as you describe, it was most likely mould - sometimes cells die in a part of the fruit, often through exterior damage, and these rapidly start to decompose. Left long enough, the whole fruit would have gone black. Harmless so long as you don't eat the section that's got black in it, and even if you consumed it, it's only a bit dodgy to eat for people who are mould sensitive.


What is the best way to making a great pavlova base? What is the best way to making a great pavlova base?

The secrets: (some are old wives tales, but hey, it's an old recipe)

Eggs: Room temperature (you don't put eggs in the fridge do you?) and not fresh

Contamination: Make sure everything you use to prepare the base is perfectly clean, especially no grease. Use boiling water to rinse everything first. Metal or glass bowls are best, as plastic is harder to get 100% clean. Also make sure no yolk gets into the egg whites

Beating: When eggs whites have gone firm, add the sugar a little at a time using a powerful beater machine going flat out. NZ'ers use their trusty but ancient Kenwood Chef with the glass bowl for ten minutes until the it looks like the Swiss Alps on a sunny day. You should not be able to feel the castor sugar when you squish some mix between your fingers. If they go dull you have over beaten. They will still work but will go extra soggy when cooked as the sugar runs out

BTW: Use ear muffs when using your Kenwood Chef, I kid you not!

Size: Height = radius, or a little less. A radius of less than 10cm means you won't get Pav, just meringue.  You can experiment with baking paper rings to hold the mix into a perfect cake shape if fussy. I wouldn't bother though

Problems:

Collapse: You opened the oven door ... DON'T
Cracking: Normal, don't worry. This is a messy desert and you'll be covering it with whipped cream soon!
Crystallisation: over cooking
Marshmallow like in middle: Normal, that's what a Pav is meant to be like. If it's not like that you have over cooked it, or you didn't make it thick enough. Foamed egg white is a self-insulator, once the outside cooks it stops the heat getting into the middle
Weeping: too much sugar, over beating, or not enough cooking. Cook for little longer on humid days

If truly stuck, go on a course http://www.creativetourism.co.nz/workshops_taste_pav.html

This is what they should look like


Can I substitute quark (40%) for cream cheese in basque burnt cheesecake recipe? Here's the recipe I'd like to follow:

MAKES ONE 10" CAKE
Unsalted butter (for pan)
2 lb. cream cheese, room temperature
1½ cups sugar
6 large eggs
2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
⅓ cup all-purpose flour
Sherry (for serving; optional)
SPECIAL EQUIPMENT
A 10"-diameter springform pan

I have all the ingredients except for cream cheese, I do have quark. Will it taste drastically different if I substitute quark for cream cheese? How about the texture?

When using quark instead of cream cheese, the main issue is that quark is overall “wetter” - especially when the recipe uses US cream cheese, which is pretty much a “brick” compared to the (same brand) product in Germany. You can mitigate that by placing the quark in a cloth-lined sieve overnight to drain it, but that’s optional. I find that most recipes that use quark instead of cream cheese are a tad crumblier, cream cheese fillings are a bit smoother (if you use a good brand).
That said, there’s a huge tradition of quark-based cheesecake in Germany and other European countries, and as long as your recipe contains enough binding agents, i.e. eggs and/or flour or starch, you will be fine. Looking at your recipe, it uses six eggs. That’s on the generous side even for a regular quark-cheesecake. So I’d say just go for it. If you are super worried, you could add a tablespoon of cornstarch, just in case, but I don’t think it’s necessary. I would suggest that you do a quick Google search for “Käsekuchen ohne Boden“ (crustless cheesecake) as that’s the German cousin of the basque cheesecake. You will see that the recipes are quite similar, just with quark and maybe a bit of flour, starch or semolina.


What's the Hungarian Ashkenazi Yiddish name for burned rice at the bottom of the pot? My mother-in-law used to make Chicken Paprikash, and she would usually burn the rice at on the bottom of the pot. Her three sons, my husband being the youngest would fight over it. There was a name for the burned rice at the bottom of the pot, but I can't remember what she called it and neither can anyone else. I don't know what to tell my grandchildren! What is it called?

Sorry, the best I could come up with is a partial answer.

Tah-dig is the Persian/Farsi/Iranian name for the equivalent of what you describe - the crispy rice crust left at the bottom of the pot.  It isn't usually "burned", per se, not carbonized, but rather golden brown and crisp, is only called overcooked or burned compared to the rest of the rice.  It is very highly prized.  The same technique, or texture, can also be found in some potato dishes, or even spaghetti, where the bottom-most layer is allowed to adhere to the pot after draining the cooking water, and become crisp and brown with added oil - very similarly to a western dish having the top deliberately browned in an oven, even if it was cooked stove-top previously.

The Iraqi version is named hikakeh.  This is served in pieces (unlike tah-dig, which is served as a single thick crust) and is a slightly looser layer.  The wikipedia article on hikakeh cites an encyclopedia of Jewish food, so it might be a starting place for to look for a yiddish version of the dish or name.

Beyond those two, I looked up and found Nurungji, the Korean version, Guoba which comes from the chinese, and cơm cháy for the Vietnamese, Okoge in Japan, and Cucayo (or pegao, concolon and others) along the Caribbean coast.  The translation of each dish tends to be something like scorched rice, or toasted rice, or bottom-of-the-pot rice, and refers to the the way the bottom-most layer of rice tends to overcook in traditional cooking (ie, over a fire), and which later becomes sought after in its own right - and can be extended to non-rice dishes with a bottom crust.

Unfortunately, I was unable to find a specific name for the Hungarian, Yiddish, or Ashkenazi versions of the dish.  If none of the above names are familiar to you, or you don't want to just pick one and go with it, they still might serve as a starting point for a) how to make the dish, if you want to recreate it, or b) how to ask for the name among the people in those communities (it's a bit easier to "translate" a dish name than to start from raw description, I found the above names because I knew about tah-dig).


Roasting vegetables that have been cut on raw bacon board? Safe or not? I cut raw peppers on the same board that I cut raw bacon on. I will be roasting these at 585F (305°C). Should I be concerned about contamination?

What do you mean by "raw" bacon?
In a lot of with world bacon is only available cured and smoked -- in which case see this question (If you are unsure see that question also. There is some debate about this.).
The bacon itself is probably safe to eat without further cooking, and the peppers certainly.

On the other hand some people in some places (the British(?)) have this thing for unsmoked bacon which is basically just raw meat.
In which case you have contaminated the peppers.
But it doesn't matter because you are cooking them anyway.
And any contaminants are probably not going to have time to multiply, and produce non-heat destructed toxins between last night and when you cook them.
(If not you probably have other problems, like the bacon already being spoiled)


Toasting and blooming spices From what I've read, to make some spices more "potent", you have to toast or bloom them. Take cinnamon stick for example, in most Indian recipes, they call for it to be fried in oil (blooming). Other spices like coriander needs to be toasted first.
Different spice calls for a different treatment. What about if I toasted the cinnamon stick first and then fried it in oil? Will it somehow make it more potent? The same case goes for coriander; will it "improve" the coriander if I toast it first, ground it, and the fried the powder in oil?
For more context, lets say the cinnamon stick is for biryani and the coriander for some stew.

Toasting followed by blooming would not make spices "more potent" than either toasting or blooming alone, but would make them taste different.
Per Serious Eats:

Frying spices in oil gives them a completely different flavor than dry-roasting. When dry-roasted, a spice's flavor changes in fundamental ways: volatile aromatics begin to cook off, while compounds in the spice recombine to form new flavors that are often deeper, roasted, and earthier. Frying them in oil, on the other hand, tends to enhance the original flavors of a spice, making them bolder and more intense, almost as if they've become more sure of themselves. In short, oil-fried spices have a brighter and fresher aroma compared to dry-roasted spices.

For this reason, you might use spices that are dry-roasted but not fried, spices that are fried but not roasted, or even spices that are roasted and fried. In the last case, you're trying to spread the nuttier/earthier flavor of the roasted spice through more of the dish by infusing the oil.
There's a caveat, though, which is that spices that have already been roasted will burn much faster than raw spices, particularly if they've been ground.  As such, you'll want to add them to less hot oil, or to oil that already has other things in it bringing the temperature down (like chopped onions).


lemon zest substitute I have a cookie recipe that calls for 1/4 cup of lemon zest.  Can I substitute dried lemon peel, and how much?  Or should I use lemon extract,  how much?  Or would it change the consistency of the cookie?

I would definitely use lemon extract over dried lemon peel. According to eHow, use half as much lemon extract. That seems like a lot, but then 1/4 cup of zest is also a lot, and I don't know your recipe so use your best judgement.

You could also use a bit of each. The downside is that extract is VERY strong, and peel can be a bit gritty once it's dried.


Head space in Weck jars I splurged and bought some Weck jars for canning.   I purchased the .5 liter tulip jars.   I notice that they have a substantially larger mouth than Ball/Kerr jars.  They also appear to be both fatter & shorter.   I tested with my canner, and can get only 5 jars per level instead of 6 jars with the Ball pint jars.
Does the difference in shape mean any changes I should adjust any recipes from the Ball Canning book?  I am particularly wondering if the head space should remain the same.

I use the cylindrical jars from Weck and would say that the headroom can be kept the same in general. At the end of the day you just don't want any stuff to swell over and not have too little in there so it spoils.
In my experience keeping about a fingers worth of space to the rim will not cause you any major issues.


If I use instant mashed potatoes for my potato bread, what do I iuse to replace 1-3/4 cup potato water? I am making potato bread. I want to use instant mashed potatoes. The recipe calls for 1-3/4 cups potato water. Is there a liquid substitution for the potato water?

Sorry if this comes over a little curt…

  Is there a liquid substitution for the potato water?

Water. 1:1 ratio.
Check for seasoning.

It won't taste like potato water, but then again instant mash doesn't taste like potato, so it won't really hurt overall.


Do restaurants use acidified pesto? Do pizza restaurants usually make their own pesto or use commercial acidified pesto? Found pesto squished between plates this morning (about 11 hours old) and concerned about a low-acid situation and how to clean it up safely. Or this this a non-issue even if not acidified?

first question: it depends on the pizza restaurant, smaller pizzeria might do the pesto in house, bigger pizza chains will use commercial pesto.

second question: in the case of washing, normal (very hot water and soap) washing procedure will clean up everything.


How to keep sausage cases from splitting? I make the sausage mix and put it in the casing. Although, when I twist them to make them into individual sausages it splits and I have wasted the casing and sausage meat.
The sausages split literally as I twist them. I use 'Single dry beef collagen casing 28mm' cases. I store them in a dark safe cupboard where they cannot get damaged. Before filling them I wash the to make sure they are no snags
Any help would be appreciated,
Domford

Collagen casings are quite fragile, unfortunately, and can’t easily be twisted off. You can try filling them less and pinching the meat away in the area you’ll twist, or tying them off with kitchen twine, or use natural casings instead.


Substituting pancake mix for flour Can I use pancake mix (just whole wheat flour and baking powder ingredients) instead of regular flour to make a cake? (I have a recipe for whole wheat chocolate cake). Would I just leave out the baking powder or add less baking powder? Thanks!

Are you sure that's all that is in your pancake mix? You normally have some baking soda, baking powder, oils, salt, sugar, corn starch in there (You'll find all of these in Bisquick, plus some conditioners to make the gluten stronger and things like that). Possibly some egg and milk products depending on the type of mix.

Even if that's all the stuff in your baking mix, you don't necessarily know how much baking powder is in there to compensate for in your recipe (you may need to add more or the pancake mix may have too much leavener). Too much baking powder can affect texture (not structurally sound enough) and flavor (bitterness).

That being said, you may want to experiment. Some recipes will take better to substitution of the pancake mix than others. See also this question.

However, if you have only one shot at the recipe (or don't want to deal with the possible wastage of ingredients), go buy the appropriate flour. And then use the pancake mix for pancakes (or not great waffles; despite the marketing spiel on the box, pancake mix makes for OK pancakes and bad waffles).


How long does it actually take to extract tea compounds from leaves using the boiling method? So, I'm looking at the intersection of multiple brewing style of tea extraction, and the boil-it-to-death style of brewing, and I would like to know about how long does boiling actually work to extract more flavor from already-steeped tea leaves, and when is it just extra time.

In general, I usually steep my tea once or twice, with the time and water according to the temperature on the directions.  It makes pretty good tea, especially since I usually use a lot of leaves, and brew lightly the first time.  In any case, once the tea is spent - I save the leaves up and make a third and sometimes fourth cup by boiling the tea leaves to death.

The tea isn't bitter, since so many of the tea compounds are already extracted in the first few brewings, but it isn't weak because the leaves are brewed for extra heat and time, and also there's a larger amount of leaves (the used leaves from several brewed cups making one boiled cup), both combine to make a drinkable tea.

So my question is, does anyone know how long does this boiling needs to take?  Any suggestions for when the boiling has extracted as much tea as is coming out in that round (due to saturation of the water or equilibrium in the compounds between the water and tea), and when the boiling is unnecessarily long?

It's clear to me that there's a point after which more boiling isn't helping - some teas will take two or three boils to exhaust what's left in the tea, and longer boiling for the first brew doesn't necessarily mean the third less strong, so clearly there's some equilibrium being reached with that amount of that specific tea and that amount of water.  So maybe there's no need to boil it for an hour, if all the flavor that will come out is done in fifteen minutes - or else maybe there's no need to keep it simmering for three or four hours, when 45min to an hour is what it actually takes before the tea strength stopped changing.

If anyone has an idea of when boiling the tea stops extracting flavor, I can cut down on the extra time I leave it simmering because I'm not sure.  I would really appreciate any insight others have on the topic.

I agree with the above comments that it really depends on the tea. The best way to find out is to boil the leaves let's say for 5 minutes in not too much water, then strain out the leaves. Now boil the leaves again for 5 minutes in fresh water. Does this second boil result in coloured tea liquor? Then this confirms that boiling it for more than 5 minutes is worth it. If so, then go for the next 5 minutes boil it for the next 5 minutes and so on, until you can confirm that you can't get any color and flavour out of the leaves.

Let me know the result!


Make chocolate with a high melting point? Is there something that can be done to chocolate which will raise its melting point?

I ask because this question wanted a way of getting space dust into a cake, which might be able to be done by encasing it in chocolate chips, but to have the best chance of success the chocolate needs to have a higher melting point.  So can this be affected, and if so by what?

Chocolate chips made for baking have a higher melting point.

The typical tricks used by chocolate manufacturers is to change the viscosity of chocolate by adding a gel like xanthan gum or glycerine.  The other trick is to incorporate more water into the chocolate with the aid of an emulsifier such as lecithin.   All these techniques are hard to do at home as they require many hours of stirring the chocolate to avoid grittiness.  Patents often give recipes.

One can buy chocolate with higher melting points.  Callebaut Volcano melts at 55°C,  the highest melting point for a commercial chocolate that I know of, but is not yet on sale.  Many of the commercial chocolate bars, such as the wartime Hershey's Tropical Bar use chocolate that incorporate these techniques as do the Nestle Toll House morsels.


Should bubbles be forming only in center of pot when simmering? (Dutch oven on gas burner) I'm cooking Marcella Hazan's bolognese/ragu recipe using a brand new Le Creuset 7-quart round dutch oven. For the long simmering stage, the recipe says to keep the heat very low, which is what I'm doing. I'm noticing that the bubbles are appearing only at the very center of the pot (presumably because the flame is so small). Around the edges, I'm able to dip my finger in the sauce and keep it submerged without burning, and I can touch the handles and sides of the pot, too. Is this temperature variation typical and/or acceptable?  (I am stirring occasionally, so I guess that might help give everything a turn in the center.)

It tastes OK so far, but I'm just wondering if I should do something differently next time (e.g., using a pot with a smaller diameter or better conductivity, or even trying to simmer in the oven.)

The reason is almost certainly, as you suspected, because the flame is small.  Neither the ceramic coating nor the cast iron body of a Le Creuset dutch oven are going to conduct the heat around the pot very much; it will go into the food basically right above the flame.

The temperature differential in the pot from right over the flame to at the perimeter is doing neither the quality nor safety of your sauce any good.

You want the entire contents of the dutch oven at a safe temperature (at least 140 F, 60 C) as it stews, simmers, braises, or whatever.  It sounds like this is certainly not true for you right now.

I find the best way to do this sort of cookery is not to use the cook top (hob), but rather place the Dutch oven in a slow oven (about 300 F, 150 C).  This will envelope the entire pot with heat, and transmit to the food inside all around.  It will cook more evenly, without much risk of burning, and is very low maintenance.


What do I do about mold on my sourdough starter? I started my mother yesterday at 6:00am. with 2 tsp salt and 2 tbsp honey, 4 cups potato water, 4 cups unbleached natural wheat flour. I was told to wait two to three days. Well, 24 hours later I lifted my wicker top and the thing was absolutely frothing. I told my wife 2 hours later to check it and she said there was some green mold on it, but it smelled okay. Reading some of the question responses, it looks like I can scrape it off and put the mother in the fridge overnight. Is that true?

You should be able to just scrape the mold (I suspect due to the honey in the recipe) off and continue as normal providing there was only a little bit of mold on the surface.

If there was quite a lot or you're unsure about it then you could discard most of it then use just a tablespoon or two of the mother to seed another starter. Then if after 1 or 2 'feedings' it smells yeasty and is frothing nicely then it should be perfectly fine to use.


Dehydrating Apple Cider Vinegar? Someone at Alcohol SE suggested that I post this question here: Dehydrating Apple Cider Vinegar?

I've been experimenting with dehydrating apple cider vinegar

I'd like to concentrate it and put it into capsules. ~15 size 00 capsules are needed to contain 1 tbsp of apple cider vinegar. Since most apple cider vinegar purchased on the market is ~95% water, the result of putting it into gelatin capsules is that  the capsules dissolve. In theory, I should be able to separate out the water and be left with a substance that will not dissolve capsules made for oils. Also in theory, I could make 1 serving of apple cider vinegar fit into 1 capsule and have some room left over.

My current method is to dehydrate the apple cider vinegar at 145 degrees fahrenheit. I've ready that any temperature higher than 150 farenheit will break down enzymes in whatever substance I'm heating (I'm assuming there are precious enzymes to preserve in apple cider vinegar). The result after 3 hours is a brown syrupy substance that only partially dissolved a gelatin capsule. The result after 6 hours is a thick dark brown substance that I'm currently testing in gelatin capsules. My questions is, is it safe to assume that that dark brown substance is dehydrated apple cider vinegar that can be rehydrated, or would the dehyration process evaporate the vinegar away along with the water?

What might this left over substance be, in that case?

You might actually want to look at other methods - either alongside or instead of your current dehydration.

"Commercial" Vinegar powder (where it isn't actually just the acid components) is basically maltodextrin  sprayed with your vinegar and dried. There's a ton of references like this one, though admittedly I learnt this from watching how its made.

The nice thing here is you don't really need more heat (or high heat) to do this.  In theory you might also be able to do it with starch.

Since the water is 'locked away' its also less likely to dissolve your capsule

I'm almost half certain that I remember that spray drying or freeze drying would work too, but I can't find any sources, and these arn't processes one can easily do at home


How to use slow cooker for cooking meat without it turning into soup or stew? I was surprised when I completed using the slow cooker for the first time and it did not look like the ingredients anymore but the water I had added per the directions has turned into a thick brown broth.

Essentially, the beef, potatoes, and vegetables that came ready to go per a costco "slow cooker platter" that cost me $20, ultimately turned into a beef stew by the time it was done.

I did not like it at all and now I have over $18 of food I don't know what to do with because I don't like it.

But individually I love all the ingredients. When I cook those ingredients in the toaster oven it comes out great and I love it.

It's not the softness that bothers me, I like it being tender. It is the stewyness that bothers me and I didn't like that at all. Meat slathered in BBQ sauce is good. But meat with watered down gravy-like sauce is bad.

I would like to be able to actually use my slow cooker to make new things, but I hate stews and soups and don't want to use it for that. How can I use my slow cooker to make foods that do not turn into stew or soup?

As logophobe suggested in the comments, look for slow cooker recipes that aren't soups or stews. There are plenty, mostly in the direction of roasts. The general idea will be that you put a large piece of meat (and maybe some vegetables) in a slow cooker, with a very small amount of water (maybe half a cup), and you'll end up with some liquid in the bottom, but not a huge amount.

That liquid will generally be pretty flavorful, so most people would probably eat it somehow. One might eat it with the meat, turn it into a gravy, or use it in a different soup or stew. You should be able to make something pretty delicious; I wouldn't think of it as "watered down". But if you don't like liquid, you can throw it away.

If you don't like any of those ideas but it still seems wasteful (it is), I guess you might want to pick a different way to cook meat. Slow cookers are pretty much capable of stewing and braising, which can give you something pretty much like a roast, but there's always going to be at least a bit of liquid involved. If that's really not an option for you, the slow cooker might not be the best choice for you.


How to keep wild turkey meat moist What some effective techniques to ensure that wild turkey legs, wings, thighs stay moist when cooking them off for soup?

I would recommend using a pressure cooker. This will preserve the moisture of the bird while cooking it thoroughly with the added benefit of taking significantly less time. (45 min - 1 hour depending on the size of the bird).


At which temperature and how long should I cook tilapia on the grill? I have never done tilapia on the grill.
At which temperature, and how long should I cook it?

Very hot, and until it's done.

I'm not being a smartass here, I'm being serious. When grilling (especially fish), you generally want your grill as hot as possible; you want to promote the Maillard reaction quickly, in order to get nice grill marks.

Tilapia fillets are generally extremely thin. A minute or two per side should do it. The secret with grilling fish is to put it on and then don't touch it. If your grill is properly seasoned and your fish is dry (important! you don't want water here, it will make sticking worse) the fish will pull away from the grill cleanly when it is done on each side.


What does it mean to broil 4 inches from the heat for x minutes? I was looking at some recipes online and it said 'Broil 4 in. from the heat for 1-2 minutes or until lightly browned.'

Does broiling mean a specific temperature? I have never broiled anything before and I was wondering if there is a standard temperature range for broiling?

Incidentally, this is about making garlic toast, but I would like to know about broiling in general.

I'm going to assume this is an American recipe, as broiling has a slightly different meaning in Australia & the UK.

With broiling, the oven only heats the top element in the oven, and you turn the element or burner up as hot as it can get.  It's not a specific temperature, as in most ovens, that would cause it to cycle on & off.  (in fact, when broiling, you typically leave the door open specifically so the oven won't heat up so far that it decides to cycle the burner off to cool down).

It's about extreme high heat, from a single side.  (top in the US, bottom in the UK and Australia)

You typically need to pay close attention to whatever's under the broiler, as it can go from golden brown to charred very, very quickly.


Measurement of ingredients for baking 400g of brown bread I am not a professional baker, these days I have found love in baking brown breads at home.

I want to bake a loaf of 400g, for that I take below measurements

300g of wheat flour
100g of water
2 table spoon of Fresh Instant Yeast
2 table spoon of sugar
2 table spoon of Oil
1 tea spoon of Salt
0.5 tea spoon of bread improver

But some how when I finish making the dough the end weight is around 600g.

What should be a measurement of ingredients if I want to make 400g of bread loaf?

If out of 600g dough I pluk out only 400g and keep it to rise, it do not rise the way I want like the bread loaf of 400g which we get in stores.

2T instant yeast is ~17g, 2T of sugar and oil are both around 25g, 1t salt ~6g. ½t bread improver is going to be a gram or two.

So you've added together 300g flour + 100g water + ≈75g other stuff. By a pretty fundamental law of physics, mixed together that weighs 475g. Since you got 600g instead, there are two possibilities:

You've measured wrong (e.g., you added an ingredient twice, your scale is broken, you made a mistake when taring the scale, you accidentally included the bread pan weight, etc.)
You've got a Nobel prize coming.

As exciting as ② would be, I'm afraid ① is far more likely.

The bread rising probably has some effect on the weight—the yeast is performing a number of chemical reactions, using oxygen from the air and carbohydrates, water, etc. from the dough, and releasing CO₂—I'd guess it loses a little weight here, but I'm not sure—either way, pretty sure it's not a significant change.

When you bake the dough, of course, some of the dough (mainly the water) is going to evaporate. Not entirely sure how much. But of course you can find out by weighing the dough before it goes into the oven (remember to subtract the bread pan weight) and then after it comes out and cools. Then you can use that to scale your recipe to get reasonably close to 400g.

Personally, I'd make my first stab at it with a dough weighing about 450g. Scale down everything proportionally—and if you convert everything to weight, and use an accurate scale, that's much easier than taking 6% out of 2T (which is about ⅜t).


Is it safe to use plastic wrap in boiling water? While I've come across one or two recipes that call for using plastic wrap in pots of boiling water (for example, to cook eggs), I've always been a bit wary of putting the wrap in boiling water. Can someone confirm or deny whether it is safe (or a good idea) to put plastic wrap in boiling water?

Agree with ceejayoz that melting isn't the issue.  Melting is just the upper bound for problems.  The common concern is about leaching, the diffusion of chemical toxins from the plastic into the food.  It's known to be accelerated through fats and at heat, hence the concern.  There seems to be consensus that "some" leaching occurs; the issue is that it's unclear how much, from which plastics, whether the body absorbs or excretes it, and if it matters.

Alarmists will tell you that the chemical run-off is toxic and causes everything from cancer to birth-defects.

Governments have looked into the issue but not come out with a hard no.  Industry groups are fighting the issue, but losing public opinion on things like waterbottles (see nalgene, which removed Bisphenol A (BP-A)from their formula).

Chefs generally care more about results than fringe chances of non-lethal toxicity and they have been using plastic wrap for as long as it's been around.

What should you do?  It depends.  Weigh fear with convenience.  Use good quality products if you do use it.  Don't do it too often. Or just enjoy it.


How to make restaurant style poppadoms When I buy 'cook at home' poppadoms or order from a restaurant/takeaway they are usually very crispy and expand and bubble up as soon as you fry them.
I tried a recipe for homemade poppadoms which consisted of gram flour and water (plus some seasoning and cumin), which I made into a dough and needed for a few minutes until it was smooth, rolled it into paper thin rounds, dried out gently then shallow-fried in about a cm of hot oil. They did not expand at all and turned out more like something between crackers and a flat bread.
I'm guessing they need some kind of raising agent to make them like the restaurant style ones? Are these style of poppadoms easy to make at home? Does anyone know the best way to make them?

I'm not an authority on poppadoms (I hadn't heard of them before today...) but after some searching online (and identifying three different brands of "cook at home" poppadoms), checking some ingredient lists, and checking other recipes, I think I'm prepared to say that the difference between the recipe you've used and the "ready to cook" prepackaged versions is indeed the raising agents, as you thought.
The next immediate question, then, is how much to add? One recipe that I saw used a 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda with an entire pound of flour. That seems on the lower end, to me, but like I already said, I'm not a poppadom expert by any means. Frankly, I'd recommend using at least 1/4 teaspoons of baking soda for every 1/2 cup of flour.
The exact amount will depend on your recipe. I hope this is helpful. :)


Baba au Rhum: Why am I not getting a good rum flavor? I've been wanting to make these for years after having some really good ones in Paris. Now I'm finding these are hard to duplicate!

I find I'm not getting enough rum flavor. There is definitely sweetness from the syrup, and a bit of orange from the orange zest, but I can't add more rum to the syrup because there is already a cup for the syrup made with 2 c water and 1-1/4 c sugar. I tasted a sample dipping of the baba and it actually gave me a buzz! (Granted, I am sensitive to alcohol.) I read a thread about alcohol and how to burn it off, so I put the syrup in a wide pan and boiled for 5 minutes or so. None of the recipes I looked at (and there were many!) said anything about using rum extract but I wonder if that's a possibility.

I don't know much about brands of rum, but I am using Whalers Dark Rum.

Does anyone have experience making baba au rhum, and if so, with what results?
How can I get a more intense rum flavor?
Has anyone making these ever used rum extract?

Mmmmmm- I loves me a good Rum Baba!
I'd personally go with Myer's dark rum. In my experiences I've found Myer's Dark to have the best/ most intense rum flavor out there (yes, it's a little expensive).
I think boiling the alcohol off would heat the rum to a point where you're going to alter the delicious rum-ness!
Heating the rum a little and then igniting the alcohol vapor would suffice to eliminate the alcohol without disturbing the other flavors. Just be careful and if things take a turn for the worst- stop, drop, and roll!


Can raw egg yolks gelatinized from being stored be saved by blending and for which uses? I had a recipe that called for four egg yolks, and I was saving the yolks in a little dish over a couple days until I had all four.  By the time I got the last, the first couple had dried a little and gelatinized - since it took time to use up the whites seperately.  I'm not sure if the problem was just being a bit dry, or exposure to the air.

In any case, I added a bit of water to loosen them up, and mixed them together (the dish asked for the yolks to be whisked anyway).  When there were still lumps, I blended them - I have a little milk frother that makes a fair tiny-sized immersion blender when working with small quantities.  so I have something that looks like beaten egg yolk.

What I'm wondering is, is there any way of knowing if or how the properties of the egg yolks changed from being set and re-blended?  I'm not worried about safety, I am pretty sure they would have been fine if I'd had a better lid or more moisture.  But I was wondering if the sauce made with them will now fail - because something that helped the emulsion or thickening when heated won't, since the egg yolks had already set up once.

There were some questions about freezing eggs which mention gelatinized egg yolks, but simply describes them as unusable or undesirable (which is fair if someone wanted a whole egg).  It doesn't mention whether blending them smooth again will do any good if someone was thinking of a recipe calling for blended egg or yolk - especially since I'm pretty sure mine were kinda dried and exposed to air, not just cold-set (so just heat might not do).

Finally reporting back, once I noticed I hadn't written this up yet.

The reconstituted egg yolks work, with a few quirks.

After blending them with water, I had let them sit for a while - to make sure all the yolk from inside the lumps had a chance to re-hydrate.  After a while (half hour or a bit more), I noticed the mixture had become thick.  I added a bit more water - I thought I had added less before, after all I didn't remember offhand how much volume four egg yolks was supposed to be and maybe I had underestimated them.

All told, the yolks took up maybe half a cup of water more before I was really, really sure that it was more water than the yolks would have started with - and they were still settling at a thick paste, given time to sit.  At that point, I said never mind and just made the sauce.

The sauce in question used a cupful of cream and some spices.  I made it, heated the cream, added to the yolks and spices, then heated the whole until it until it thickened (as the recipe required).  It worked just fine, giving a nice, flavorful, runny sauce.

About a half-hour, forty-five minutes later, it had thickened again.

So, the egg yolks definitely did not lose their thickening power.  On the other hand, they thickened a lot more than regular egg yolks - four egg yolks in a cupful of cream (and perhaps half again as much water) would normally not set up as a thick paste... at least, it didn't the next time I made the recipe, it's usually fairly pourable as a sauce.

This was not a problem for me, in my recipe.  I didn't mind the thicker sauce (it clung better), and anyway it stayed thin long enough to serve and plate when made, and re-thinned easily with a few spoonfuls of water each time I tried if I had needed, or wanted, the sauce to be thinner - it just didn't stay thin - and it didn't interfere with the flavor profile at all.  Even with the extra volume, it didn't taste watery or weak-flavored (perhaps because the water was locked away in the paste).  And while it looked just a bit gritty or grainy, it didn't feel like it on the tongue.  So I was pleased by it, and the fact that the sauce slathered rather than poured just made it easier to control.

So, egg yolks that have dried out and gelatinized can, in fact, still be used - for flavor, for thickening if one doesn't mind a tendency to keep thickening up, for emulsification, and so on.


Any tips on how to cook gruel? I like to cook rice gruel every now and then; however I usually encounter a basic problem.

First off, my rough procedure:

Mix (sticky) rice flour and water homogeneously
Pour into cooking pot (possibly hot, doesn't seem to make much of a difference)
Stir thouroughly during cooking, try not to go too high with the temperature so nothing burns.

What I have observed:

At a certain rice-water ratio, i.e. if I favor rice strong enough in the mixture, my gruel will very quickly turn into a blob of quite viscous mass, that has the undesirable property of not cooking evenly, so that I'm left raw patches of dough.

I have tried stirring the blob for a long time, but I'm not even sure of whether to use higher heat levels or lower ones; the predicament seems to be

Too much heat leads to burning (if not the blob, then the layer sticking to the bottom; too much burning there and everything tastes burnt)
Too little heat: Not enough heat dissipates into the inner parts of the blob.

I'm not yet sure how to avoid this in the best way; does anybody have a good general procedure?

Oh yeah, my specs:

Glass-top stove
Stainless steel pot
Lotsa love

Rice gruel or congee is made with whole grain rice like Megha said. Chinese congee has already cooked rice added to a meat broth and cooked long enough so the grains start breaking apart and becomes thickened.

If you attempt to cook glutinous (sticky) rice flour with water, you're making something more like mochi, although the traditional way is to pound cooked rice into mochi. Most home recipes for mochi use the microwave to cook the rice flour and water. If you want rice gruel, I'd advise you to use cooked rice. It's how I do it.


Sweet pickles for home canning I want to substitute some natural cane sugar for white sugar, because I don't have enough of the white to make pickle recipe. The recipe calls for 7 cups of sugar, and I have 4 1/2 of refined white sugar so I want to use the rest in natural cane sugar. Will this work?

Yes, you should be fine with a mixture of sugars as it is mostly for flavoring. The main point is to make sure the sweetener is fully dissolved in your pickling liquid.

One user asked a similar question about using honey, and searching the web also produced recipes for how to use sugar substitutes in place of sugar for pickling.


Can I add cocoa to chocolate to approximate a higher % of cacao? I have a recipe that I'd like to make that calls for 3oz of 72% cacao chocolate. I have plenty of 60% cacao chocolate, and I have Hershey's cocoa powder. The recipe is just for brownies, so absolute precision and supreme quality isn't required, but I would like to get the right level of "chocolatyness". 3oz = 85g. Going from 72% cocao to 60% cacao would leave me with a deficit of just over 10g of cacao. If cocoa is basically 100% cacao (is it?), then it would seem that just adding 10g of cocoa would be close enough to "right".

Since I'm dealing with chocolate, not anthrax, I'm disinclined to worry about the 10g (or whatever) surplus total chocolate weight. Would the semi-substitution work?

Sure, you can add cocoa - but think of it as adding it to the brownies, not to the chocolate. And the thing to worry about isn't extra weight, but rather whether you're adding enough dry cocoa to upset the dry/water balance in the recipe. With only 10g and something flexible like brownies, it should be fine, but you'd have to be more careful with larger amounts or more sensitive baked goods like cookies.


How to Calculate Scoville Heat? when combining hot sauces with different Scoville Heat Units (SHU), how do I estimate the resulting SHU? Say I combined 100 grams of a sauce that was 1,000 SHU with 100 grams of a sauce that was 2,000 SHU. Would the resulting SHU be the average: 1,500?

I'm trying to make a super hot sauce (perhaps around 400,000 SHU) using something like Frank's as the base and adding some (a drop?!?) of those sauces that's like in the millions of SHU. I need help with the math.

You cannot calculate it, you can only measure it.

Scoville is a subjective scale. Wikipedia tells you how it is measured - by testing with human panelists, using a certain protocol.

As all subjective scales, Scoville is ordinal. Even though it is expressed in numbers, these numbers are best understood as ranks - you cannot assert that "1000 SHU is twice as hot as 500 SHU", for example, or that "the hotness difference between 500 SHU and 1000 SHU is the same as between 1000 SHU and 1500 SHU".

If you take statistics, you will find that many methods are treating ordinal scales as if they were interval, and go on calculating averages and whatnot. This tends to work well enough for some applications. But in your case, you are dealing with human sensory perception. I am not 100% sure for the specific case of hotness, but typical human responses to a stimulus are logarithmic, not linear. So if you try to simplify your life and make a linearity assumption for Scoville, your estimates are likely to be so far off as to be unusable.

If you really need an exact Scoville number for your sauce, it is not math you need, but the resources to conduct proper testing in several iterations. I fail to see the relevance of such goals for the home cook though. You eat sauce, not numbers.


Matza balls 'explode' at high altitude We now live in the mountains at 8,500’ (2600 m) and I cannot make matza balls for chicken soup up here. They explode into dust in boiling water. Water boils at 190 F (88 °C) here, that's probably a factor.
I’ve even tried freezing the balls before boiling , but only about half came out right.

What else can I do?

Some recipes for mazta have chemical leavening. Chemical leaveners operate very differently at varied elevations. See here for conversion and tips. This is a very common problem. Judging by the problem, it seems like you were previously closer to sea level and this recipe worked fine. Am I right?
Basically [no pun intended], baking powder is a mixture of desiccant, baking soda, and cream of tartar. When water mixes to make a solution, the chemical reaction ensues releasing CO2 gas as a byproduct of soda bicarbonate and cream of tartar (an acid).
Higher elevation causes this reaction to carry out much faster, and this is how your balls are blowing apart. The solution [no pun intended] is to make a stronger dough with more flour, more kneading, and more powder so that the rise is slower, more controlled, and better tolerated by the ball.
Heat also causes the reaction to take place faster. It may be annoying, but try pulling the soup off to cool for a bit, then bring it slowly back up to temperature.


What is the name of this Ukrainian bread? As part of a welcoming ceremony, Vice President Joe Biden ate a certain type of bread in a salt and bread ceremony put on by the very hospitable Ukrainians in July of 2009.. It was not your every day loaf of bread though- it was very elaborate.

what is the name of this bread?

According to this site it is a bread called "korovai":

  Korovai. A traditional braided wedding bread baked from wheat flour embellished with little dough flags and figurines (sun, moon, birds, animals, etc). Its origin is ancient, and it is a relic of the pagan belief in the magical properties of grain. Women prepared it while singing traditional wedding songs at the new home of the couple about to be married. The bride and groom were blessed with it before their marriage ceremony. At the wedding the korovai was kept in a prominent place, and the bride was greeted with it when she arrived at her new home. After the nuptials, the best man served it to all the guests; some scholars consider this ritual a manifestation of collective communion.

It's possible that the name and recipe is regional... as this site says that it's not the wedding bread but a variation of the Easter bread called "Paska", which is similar to Challah.

  The Greeting Bread is basically the same recipe as the Easter Paska Bread, except that it has an indentation in the middle, for a small container of salt, accompanied by wine, which is used by the parents to greet the newlyweds, as they enter the reception hall.  The parents, and the bride and groom, partake of the Greeting Bread dipped in salt, which symbolizes the bitter moments of life, followed by a sip of wine, which symbolizes the sweet moments in their married life.  This also is a time when both families unite as one, and welcome the newlywed and their families into their family circle.

On this site, it seems to agree that korovai is correct, as the paska doesn't resemble the image you've included at all.

  Ukrainian braided bread. This main ritual wedding bread has a circular form and is decorated intricately with birds, periwinkles, other ornaments made of dough. Ukrainian wedding bread is made of special dough similar to dough used for babka. Some other types of sweet bread can be used during wedding ceremony in addition to korovai — lezhen, dyven, shyshky.


Sautéing vs Frying vs Caramelizing -- what's the difference? What's the difference between sautéing, frying, and caramelizing?

When I cook chopped onions in a pan with oil until they are brown and have a slightly sweet taste, which of the above is the correct term for what I am doing?

I've never really considered there to be a real difference between sautéing and frying. They both mean to cook in a hot pan with a little bit of fat. However there isn't a lot of consistency online. It doesn't look like there's any sort of definitive answer here. Some points of view:

They're the same, although frying might involve slightly more oil. The terms are essentially interchangeable. This is the top hit on a google search "sauteing frying" (although this question is on the first page!).
As Aaronut says, sautéing involves jumping the food while frying involves a little more oil and less flipping or stiring of the food. Here's another source for this definition. This definition makes a delineation between pan frying and shallow frying.
Frying is the same as shallow frying and involves partially submerging the food in oil. Food is normally breaded first. There's no distinction between frying and shallow frying. This is Martha Stewart's definition.

As you can see, it's really all over the map, and that was just from the first page of the google results. I think we're getting in to issues with language changing beneath us. However, I think the safest bet is probably that sautéing involves a lot of stirring,  frying doesn't, and I should consider refining my own definitions.

Caramelizing (which fortunately doesn't have any of the same confusion) is a process that happens during cooking when sugar oxidizes. There are many different ways that you can achieve this effect. One of the ways is to sauté or fry (depending on your definition) something until the water sweats out and the remaining sugar heats up.

So the answer is that you are caramelizing the onions by sautéing (or maybe frying) them.


Does heavy cream "go further" than light cream or milk in soup I know the chief difference between light and heavy cream is the amount of fat in it. What I'm wondering about is the flavor. The fat will give it texture, but I'm not sure that in a soup it would make that much of a difference. When I'm searching for substitutions online the answer is along the lines of "Sure! Just use that ____ instead!" but that's not exacty what I'm asking for. High cholesterol runs in my family and I very much would like to use a lighter cream when possible, but that isn't always possible. I don't always have it, and I'm not in a position to run out and get some, like just now when I had a pot on the stove and it's late at night.

So the question is, will the flavor be the same if I use, say, a 1:2 substitution for heavy to light cream. That is, can I use half as much and still get the same flavor?

This is a general question, but if you want a specific example, I was making a potato, kale and sausage soup.

Also, know that I make my soups more like stew, with very little in the way of "free" liquids.

For soups like this also consider evaporated milk.  It contains only about 8% milkfat, so it has significantly less fat even than half and half, which contains between 10% and 18% (cream of course has more).  Evaporated milk also comes in a can, so its easy to keep handy.  Texture-wise, because its so much thicker than regular milk, it makes an excellent replacement for cream.  As far as taste goes, I think in soups and other strongly flavored dishes where the cream is present only to provide creaminess you won't notice a difference.  In something more delicate or where the cream itself is a flavor component you may need to do a little experimenting, but generally I would say you could substitute it 1:1 for cream.

For your original question: "will the flavor be the same if I use, say, a 1:2 substitution for heavy to light cream. That is, can I use half as much and still get the same flavor?" I think it would depend on the quantity.  Generally, the larger the quantity called for in the recipe, the less heavy cream you might need to achieve the same result.  So, if the recipe calls for 1-2 tablespoons, I would bet that you would want to use the full amount.  However, in something that calls for a cup of light cream, you may be able to get away with 1/2-3/4 cup of heavy cream, depending on the dish and your taste.


How can I keep my blueberry pie firm without the flavor of corn starch? In the summer, I often make a refrigerated blueberry pie. The recipe calls for a graham cracker crust, and you make the filling by cooking one pint of blueberries with one cup of sugar and 3 tablespoons on cornstarch on the stove until the mixture becomes thick. It's then poured into the crust, and topped with another pint of fresh blueberries, and chilled until it's firm.

The flavor of the blueberries is delicious, but I always find that there's a pronounced corn starch flavor that detracts from the simplicity of the pie. How could I change the recipe or the technique to decrease that flavor while maintaining the firmness of the filling?

you could try some other thickeners, like xanthan gum, tapioca starch, arrowroot, or the like. not certain of the proportions, though, but i'm betting google knows.


Is it safe to eat non-green tea leaves I'm trying to understand if it's safe to eat tea leaves. Not as an evening meal, more about if I make a drink with loose leaf tea and leave the leaves in the bottom of the drink and drink some, will it cause any ill effect (drinking 10 cups a day).

My research on Google brings up many results, but everything I've found is about eating green tea leaves (and even that matcha is a powder made from green tea for consumption). My question is about white and black tea.

Some sites I've read explain how little difference there is between the teas, and ultimately I can't find anything on non-green teas to confirm that it is safe (despite my instinct saying "hey, it's still tea, yes it's safe").

Is it safe to eat white and black tea (before or after it is used to make tea)?

It is safe to drink the tea made from tea leaves and it's safe if you eat the tea leaves themselves at the bottom of the cup. People avoid eating the leaves because they aren't pleasant tasting, the consistency isn't very nice, and they aren't that easy to digest.


Sourdough bread uncooked from inside My sourdough starter is 9 days old. Today it doubled in around 6 hours.
Following this recipe, I performed following steps:

I mixed 400g AP Flour, 160g starter, 230g water and 10g salt.
Kneading: I kneaded it for about 20 minutes until I observed window pane effect.
Proofing-1: I left it for proving for around 3 hours. It significantly increased in size, although not doubled.
Shaping: I shaped the bread and put it in a container with tea cloth.
Proofing-2: I left it for proving for around 5 hours. It significantly increased in size, although not doubled.
Baking-1: I preheated the oven at 230°C, kept the dough on tray and put some boiling water on a small container beside the dough. I baked for around 20 minutes.
Baking-2: I removed the water tray and let the rest of the dough heat up for 20 more minutes at 230°C.

First of all, the bread is barely edible. The bread developed a tough layer of crust on the top which is really hard to bite on. The inside is soggy and barely has any bubbles. Also, the exterior colour is blackish instead of brownish.
Also, the crust developed a crack below and expanded around it. It didn't expand around the scar I gave it on the top.
I'm adding some images for enhancing the context:
What can I do to improve my bread?

Although it looks brownish, really it's very burnt color.

The crack that was developed on bottom.

EDIT:
According to Chris's recommendation I made following changes:

Baked bread for 230˚C with steam for 20 minutes and then baked the bread for another 20 minutes at 180˚C.
Didn't cut the bread immediately, let it cool for about 1.5 hours.

I did one more thing, kneaded bread for around 40-50 minutes. I think this is a bit too much, but I did this since I couldn't see the window pane effect as described in the video.
Below I'm stating the improvements and lacking's the bread has.
Improvements:

The resulting bread, although on the edge, is edible unlike the earlier one.
The crust is no longer rock hard but it isn't a delight to bite on either.

What it lacks:

The bread didn't expand around the score I gave it.
The crust seems to be a bit disintegrated from the rest of the loaf.
The bread isn't as fluffy as I would like it to be.
The dough developed a huge crack in the bottom after the shaping phase. I think every shaping will have a weak corner, how do I prevent it from opening up? The crack is visible in the bottom image of bread. Same happened before as well.

Observations:
The top of the crust still has a burnt texture. To steam, I put a container with boiling water beside my bread. Usually it get split around the bread which might be the reason my bread has a nice colour on the bottom. I think the steam is not reaching the crust. Should I spray the bread for steam creation next time? (So that it reaches crust as well).
I'm attaching pictures for reference:

^The bottom of the crust can be easily peeled off from the rest of the bread.

Mine takes 40 minutes for 500g flour, just under 70% hydration. That's in preheated cast iron, with the lid on (and wetted inside) at 240C for the first 20 minutes, then down to 180. The hard crust seems like too hot to long, possibly too much top heat too.
Did you let it cool (almost) fully before cutting and tasting? If I'm impatient, it seems doughy and underdone. The absolute warmest it should be when you cut it is just warm enough to soften a little butter. The inside looks OK to me - a closer crumb than you might have been aiming for but better for sandwiches. I'm prone to handling mine too much or too roughly and knocking some of the air out as I transfer it to the pan, with this effect
Next time try turning the oven down a bit when you take the water out. To avoid wasting this loaf, if it still seems underdone when cold, toast slices of it (probably leaving the crust) and eat hot with butter.


I accidentally froze a carton of Half and Half. Is it ruined? My fridge got set a wee bit colder than it should've and most of my liquid stuff has frozen. Fortunately all I had in there at the moment was some bottled water, some fruit juice, and a carton of half and half.

I'm not worried about the drinks, but I know freezing can do odd things to milk and cream. Is my half and half ruined? I mainly just use it in my morning coffee, if that matters.

I store frozen milk for emergencies all the time... Once defrosted in the fridge, I shake it for a couple of minutes and it returns to normal. It even taste the same. Australian carton and bottled milk is slightly richer than half and half; and the water to fat ratios are lower... This doesn't seem to split badly after it is frozen. As I said, defrost for 24 hours in the fridge, shake and serve.


How does Korean chili powder differ from "US" chili powder? I've been looking at a number of kim chi recipes and they all call for 'Korean chili powder'.  My visit to the local Asian grocer only yielded 'Asian' chili powder and other nondescript chili powders.

Is there a particular chili powder that is Korean?  Can I simply use cayenne pepper or crushed red pepper flakes?

Korean chilli is a little different as it has a slight smoky flavour, in addition to being slightly sweet and also quite hot.

The actual name of the chilli use in kimchi and for that matter, most Korean dishes is gochugaru (고추가루). It comes in a variety of preparations, typically, finely ground, flakes and a paste.

You should be able to find this in most good supermarkets or an Asian store. If you can't get this, you can still use a good quality chilli powder or possibly, a paste.


What spoils breadcrumbs quicker, oxygen or moisture? Should breadcrumbs be packaged in a paper bag, or is a plastic bag preferred?

What spoils breadcrumbs quicker: oxygen, moisture, or both?

Oxygen will only spoil breadcrumbs if the bread was high in fat. The fat will oxidize and go rancid. Fat will also go rancid in the presence of light so a plastic bag on the counter would not be ideal either.

Moisture will spoil any bread immediately because it will allow bacterial and mold action. Where oxygen might make high fat bread go a little off after a week, moisture will make it mold in a day or two.

Just toast your breadcrumbs to drive out excess moisture before packaging in a plastic bag. If it is high fat bread then you might also keep it in the freezer.


is it okay to use shredded zucchini that smells a little sour for baking I've had some shredded zucchini in my refrigerator in a plastic container for about a week or two is it okay to use for baking bread or cake if it smells a little sour or maybe like vinegar

Fresh zucchini has a fairly neutral or sometimes "greenish" smell. An acidic or vinager-like smell is an indication of some kind of fermentation that has set in.

We can't say what exactly has started to grow (there is lacto-fermentation, which is typically induced on purpose, but also a good chance that your zucchini simply started to decay), but even if it were benign, the sour taste would remain present and likely prominent in your cake, so don't use the zucchini.

Always remember:
"If in doubt, throw it out!"


How do I use beer barm to make sourdough? I have been making sourdough now for the last six months or so, fairly successfully, using a starter that I created on the bread-making course that kicked this all off.

While on the course, I mentioned to the instructor that I also brew beer and he said I could use the beer barm to make bread. However, I'm not sure exactly how to do that.

Barm is defined as

  the foam or scum formed on the top of a fermenting liquid, such as
  beer[...]

Now, the first problem I have is that I do not have easy access to the top of my fermenting beer. In order to keep things sterile, the lid of our fermenter is kept firmly on until after bottling. I am therefore left with whatever we have left over after bottling. I have emptied this into a tub and the result is a lot of sediment at the bottom with fermented beer on top. I'm not even sure if this qualifies as "barm", although it must contain whatever was on the top of the liquid before we bottled.

This is a side view that shows the separation.

and here is some of the sediment scooped off the bottom.

Question: Can I use this to make a starter? If so, how? Which part do I use, and what do I do with it? I'm not even sure exactly what the sediment is.

And is there any part of it I shouldn't use, or can I just bung it together with some flour and see what happens next? :-) I'm more than happy to experiment, as long as it's safe!

What you've got there is a mix of precipitated proteins from the wort (the "trub") mixed with Saccharomyces cerevisiae spores, and also various compounds from the hops. It's on the bottom of the beer because you're making an ale; only lagers have the yeast floating on the top, and then only during active fermentation.

Taste a bit. Then drink something to get the awful taste out of your mouth. :-)

You can absolutely use those spores to start a sourdough starter. The hop compounds may slightly retard the growth of the bacteria which you want in a sourdough starter, but after a couple of feedings they'll be basically gone. If you're worried about that (or the taste) you can use a process called "yeast washing" to get most of the trub out of the yeast.

As for whether you should do this? I wouldn't bother. The ultra-pure strain of S. cerevisiae that's been selectively bred for beer fermentation is eventually going to be crowded out by some other, scrappier wild yeast. Honestly, the most successful sourdough cultures I've started have been made of flour, water, and kismet.

Historically, yeast cake from beer brewing has been used for baking bread directly (rather than through propagating a starter over time), because it was an easy way to get a large quantity of a pure strain of yeast. That is, it was used to make non-sourdough bread. Now we have packets of instant yeast, for beer and for bread. Since you're using the instant yeast for beer, I don't know why you wouldn't use (a different) instant yeast for bread.


Can I partially bake a pie? I am planning on making a pie for my dad for father's day. I know when you buy most pies at the grocery store, you have to pop it in the oven for a few minutes to heat it up. Is it possible to do a similar thing with a homemade pie - bake the whole pie (not just the crust) most of the way one day, and then finish it off the next? I don't want to fully bake it and then heat it in the oven because I am afraid it will burn or overbake, but I also don't want to underbake it and have it go bad.

I'd avoid the whole reheating issue altogether and simply keep the uncooked pie in the fridge, covered in plastic wrap, then bake it as normal when ready. The only issue you might have is if your filling is very runny, in which case you could par-bake it a little before filling to help it 'seal'.


Will peeled garlic cloves that are stored for later use lose their flavor? I find the act of peeling the garlic very painful so I just throw one garlic head into a pot, shake it and then all the skin comes off and I can slice it immediately for later use.

I wonder however if that could degrade the quality of the garlic's flavor?

In short, yes, but how much would depend on how long it is held and how it is handled.  Simply the act of removing the protective skin opens the clove to air and deterioration, but not enough I would be concerned if the cloves are used in a reasonable period, the sooner the better.

Now, the shaking in a pot will tend to bruise the cloves.  In doing so, you are rupturing cell membranes and increasing the deterioration speed.  Slicing, crushing, mincing, etc., you have just multiplied that effect.  The more you break down the cloves, the faster it is going to degrade on you.

Think in part this way, if you can smell garlic, or see the oils, you are losing some of its essence right there, and you are exposing it to air which is increasing any bacterial or chemical reactions.  I would stop at the point of peeling and retain whole cloves, not process further than that until read to use myself.

Also note, some people, if they are going to use oil with the garlic anyway, will go ahead and mince, chop, or slice and drop into olive oil.  Be cautious with this!  It will trap you garlic goodness in the oil, but it will also create an air tight low acid environment which is a danger zone.


how to fix a sharp carousel microwave after it has been used to heat a lot of food? I was reheating food from the fridge that had to defrost a little bit. I had reheated about four types of food, the microwave made a sound, and it stopped working. I had taken the food out and touched the top of the microwave. It was hot so I had unplugged it and let it cool down. What do I do now to get it to work again?

Three possible things to consider: steam in the electronics (which should be sealed from that so it would be likely to happen again); sparking when heating the last item, which can confuse the electronics; simple overheating, again of the electronics.

In the latter two cases, leaving it unplugged for a few minutes before trying again should be fine. This is less likely to help if the control circuit has got wet. I assume here that you've got a sensible electrical system with an independent safety earth (ground) and circuit breakers, like I'm familiar with testing appliances on. If you don't, I can't recommend that you test it. I don't suggest that you remove any covers, and definitely don't open it up without it having been unplugged for several hours, or power it up with any covers off, even if you'd do this on other appliances.


Recipes say not to boil butter for beurre monté - why? I made butter poached lobster tail today.  Every recipe on the internet warns not the boil the butter when making the beurre monté, otherwise the butter will separate.  No recipe explained why this is such a bad thing.  If you're just cooking the lobster in the butter, why does it matter if it separates or not?

Cooking doesn't equal boiling, mind. For example, sous-vide cooking cooks something at very low temperature.

Beurre monté is a sauce of emulsified butter, which will remain emulsified up to 80-85ºC (more or less). If the temperature goes up, your sauce will separate into fat (~80%) and water (a little less than 20%), will lose texture and you also might end up with rancid flavors if the temperature goes up too much and the fatty acids in butter hydrolize (as in break down with the help of water)


Sous vide vegetables packed in advance? Is there a reason to not dice vacuum pack vegetables and keep them in the fridge for å few days before cooking them sous vide?

As far as food safety is concerned there is no issue. A few days at fridge temps won't grow anything scary.

Food quality may be a concern. Vegetables want to be able to breathe. Some will handle being sealed worse than others. The problem is having the plastic in contact with the vegetables will hold condensation against them and promote spoiling. Luckily, the kind of firm veggies that can benefit from sous vide will also handle being sealed for a little bit.

Just don't hold them for more than a couple days and watch for mold.


Can you freeze a tomato pie? Can I freeze a tomato pie? If so, is it better to do this before or after I bake it?

It's probably better to freeze it before baking.
When baking the pie some of the ingredients release their flavors, and those can be lost during the freeze. For that reason - the pie would probably preserve more taste if frozen unbaked (But will take more time to be ready for eating after removing from freezer)


How do I time slow cooking to be ready for lunch? Slow cooker recipes often need to cook for 6 or more hours. As I mainly eat my main meals at lunchtime, that means getting up particularly early to prepare the dish.

Is it safe to delay the start of cooking dishes that use meats such as chicken/beef/etc?

If this is not safe, what process can I follow to have a safe meal ready at lunch without having to cook in the middle of the night?

You could leverage an approach I used when I had small children and wanted to make meals that would take 45-60 minutes, yet we needed to eat within about 10 minutes of getting in the door. I would make Tuesday's dinner after dinner on Monday, then put it in the fridge and warm it up the next day.

Here's how that would work for you: on Monday, after lunch, start the slow cooker. Let it go all day. in the early evening it will be done. Cool it and put it in the fridge, all tender and fully cooked. The next day, warm up your serving and you are all set.

If you alternate the kinds of tough flavourful meats that benefit from a long slow cook with those that cook more quickly and can be prepped right before your main meal, you can essentially alternate cooking and noncooking days, lowering overall effort.


Confused about the addition of garlic I keep reading online that garlic should be added at the end of dishes because they'll otherwise turn brown and bitter.

What confuses me is that a lot of recipes using various methods (sauteeing, frying, etc) begin with garlic.

What further confuses me is that I've had crispy browned garlic before, as an addition on top of casseroles and even some Asian dishes, such as rice porridge, and they're not bitter.

I'd like some clarity on this.  Is it that cooking garlic at the beginning of a dish ends up with softer flavor than one at the end? Or is one that everyone's doing wrong and garlic should be added at the end?  Or...???

I think it would be more correct to say that garlic turns bitter when it is overcooked or burned; a touch of browning is not going to do that.  Since it is usually sliced, minced, or crushed, overcooking it is easy to do in high heat methods.

Garlic, like many of the aliums family (including onions, shallots, scallions and so on) can present different flavors depending on how it is cooked.

The different cooking methods in the many cuisines of the world bring out different aspects of the flavor or use it differently.  Most cooking methods reduce the sharpness or pungency of  raw garlic.  How long you cook depends on how much of the sharpness you desire.

Raw, it has a sharp, pungent flavor
When sauteed or fried quickly at the beginning of a dish (common in both Asian and Western methods), it releases its flavor into the cooking oil, which will then permeat the entire dish with its perfume, as well as cooking the pieces through so that they are softer and more palatable.  The edges might brown a little bit, but they will not become a deep sienna color, indicating the burned flavor is present.
Roasted, the garlic mellows and can be used in much larger quantities for its aromatic qualities, without the pungency.

Recipes where it is fried until crisp will direct you to only go to a light brown (for example, as in this recipe for gnoccii with crispy garlic—and of course, the garlic must be sliced quite thinly to do this.  The goal is to get it crisp before it is overcooked, and avoid the burned flavors.

Garlic is normally added to recipes at the beginning of their preparation, in order to allow its flavor to permeat the entire dish.  however, in a salad dressing or similar (especially in a raw applicaiton), it may be added right before service so that it is at its sharpest without the ... stale... taste that some aliums can get when chopped but not cooked for a longer time.


How can I get a syrupy "mouth-feel" in sugar-free syrup? I viscerally hate low calorie sugar replacements - all of them, including Splenda (sucralose), except in one application. In my iced coffee I like sugar-free hazelnut syrup. The brand that I've been using is sweetened with Splenda (and sneakily, acesulfame potassium). It would be great except that it's very expensive. I spend $70/month just for that syrup. I have 50 grams of sucralose (that's enough to sweeten my coffee for years) which is the sweetener in Splenda. I also have hazelnut extract. I've made a "syrup" with water, sucralose and hazelnut extract and it turned out OK, but the coffee drink really lacks something without the syrupy quality of the commercial stuff.

The ingredients on the label for the commercial syrup: Purified water, natural and artificial flavors, citric acid, acesulfame potassium, sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate (to preserve freshness), xanthan gum, sucralose (SPLENDA Brand), caramel color.

I know that acesulfame potassium is a sweetener, Splenda generally contains maltodextrin and sucralose, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. There doesn't seem to be any maltodextrin in the product. Unless I'm missing something, that means that the commercial product gets its viscosity from an infinitesimal amount of xanthan gum. Could that be right?

Of course I can get xanthan gum. Say I'm making 2 cups of syrup at a time, I add 1/8 tsp sucralose and two teaspoons of extract to 2 cups of boiling water (off heat). Now what?

I don't have a good suggestion for what to use, but at least I can give you some info on xanthan.

Yes, syrup can take viscosity from an infinitesmal amount of xanthan gum. If you add 0.5% to 1% of the fluid's weight in xanthan, you get a pudding consistency. For a syrup-like viscosity, you need much less.

But xanthan is not a sugar, and does not make a syrupy consistency. It makes stuff gooey, not sticky. This may be enough for you, if all you need is some thickness, but the texture won't be the same as normal sugar syrup. I haven't tried commercial sugar-free syrup, so I can't make a comparison there.

Xanthan has also the unfortunate tendency to reduce aroma, although it may not be a problem in the little amounts needed for syrup-like thickness.


How to keep frozen beans soft? I like putting beans (e.g., mung beans, red beans) into my ice cream when I make ice cream at home.

What I do: soak the beans overnight, boil them, mash them, then mix them into the cream as it's being beaten, then freeze the entire mixture before enjoying.

The problem is that, after freezing, the beans turn into VERY hard bits! They're so hard, it's like I'm biting into crunchy pieces of nuts! I buy the same types of ice cream from the store and their beans don't exhibit this problem. Theirs are soft and chewy.

I'd like for my beans to be soft and chewy when my ice cream comes out of the freezer as well. How is it done?

I think some fats may help better than just sugar? I have never tried this but it is worth the experimentation. If you add heavy cream (dairy) it may help. Coconut cream is high in fat and could also help in keeping it soft at lower temperatures. It is the ice crystals that make it hard, so the key is to separate the ice crystals at the microscopic level. Fat droplets can help in that if they are mixed well.

If not, just work with some scentless cooking oil in small quantities. As @Ecnerwal mentioned, read through the ingredients of the store bought ice cream and see what other ingredients are present that you may not have in your recipe. Based on some mung bean recipes online, it appears that egg  yolks also help with the texture. Good luck!


How do you smoke water? Roux mention in this answer smoking water. How do you do this? What does it taste like? How do you use it?

Sounds fascinating!

Fill a basin or hotel pan with water.

Place in your smoker. Ensure the smoker heat is set below 100C/212F (adjust as necessary for distance above/below sea level).

Um... smoke. An hour should do fine. More if you want more. Optionally strain through a superbag or muslin to remove any deposited particulate matter.


Shelf life of marmalade I have 2 jars of orange marmalade with an expiration date of June 1998 and one jar of apricot preserves with an expiration date of November 2000 and they've never been opened so I'm just wondering if they're still good to eat? If this was a zombie apocalypse I would eat it with a spoon no questions asked!! What are your recommendations!?

If the seal is intact it's probably okay. Make sure you hear the "pop" when you open it. If there is no strange smell and it looks alright, then I think it will be fine.


How to drain zucchini and eggplant I am making a dish that involves roasted vegetables and couscous. I have often found, though, that the zucchini and eggplant are unpalatably watery after roasting them. I have read that if you salt and/or press zucchini and eggplant, you can reduce the amount of water left in them and give them a better texture when cooked. What is the best procedure to rid the zucchini and eggplant of their water before roasting them?

Update:

I sliced the zucchini and eggplant and placed them on a baking sheet, filling one layer of a large sheet. I salted them with about 1/4 cup kosher salt. Then I placed a cutting board that just fit inside the edges over the sheet and put my stand mixer on top. I let it sit for 20 minutes, then wiped off all the salt and water that had drained out. This resulted in a much better product.

However, I don't really know if I used a good amount of salt (too much? too little?) and if I left them to drain for a good length of time (too long? too short?) to get the best results. It worked pretty well—not too salty, veggie texture nice and chewy—but could I get even better results by using a more precise procedure?

I think your problem will disappear with proper technique. Zucchini and eggplant are indeed full of water.  You have to both salt them well, to draw out the water, and cook them long enough for the liquid to evaporate.

It sounds like you are both under-salting and under-cooking.  Try roasting for longer and/or at a higher temperature.  My personal favorite way to do them is on the grill, where the direct heat and lack of a 'pan' allows lots of evaporation and also delicious browning.


Preventing white sugar from clumping in the canister We store sugar in a ceramic canister, and we get some clumping. Restaurants in humid areas that will often add grains of a rice to a salt shaker to stop clumping. (The rice acts as a desiccant and absorbs moisture, keeping it away from the salt; I believe the salt also acts as a preservative for the rice.) Is there an equivalent common household item that will keep moisture away from the sugar, or is getting a better canister really the only way?

You can still add rice, just wrap it in some cheesecloth first, so it doesn't get mixed with your sugar.