Getting sourdough to rise not spread Any pointers on getting a 75% hydration wheat sour dough loaf to hold more shape and spread less?

Full details of current method:

I have a 100% wheatflour levain with a 75% hydration. It is stiffer than most I see online but grows well. It lives in the fridge all week until I make a loaf. It then gets fed with 40 g flour per 30 g of water and left to expand.

I then make a kilogram loaf using 400 g flour and 300 ml water. This is vigorously kneaded for 10 minutes by hand or a good 5 minutes by a Kenwood Chef Mixer with the dough hook.

After being left for an hour in a moist environment then folded and added to a cane banneton it is left untouched until it has expanded by varying amounts (somewhere between 50-100 % extra in volume).

It is only touched once more when the oven is preheated -it is turned out onto a silicone sheet on an oven tray and then placed on a preheated, upturned glass dish to warm the bottom of the loaf. It's then baked in an oven at 220 C for ten minutes and then 200 C for another 30 minutes.

Invariably, the loaf produced is very flat compared to the banneton with a nice crumb and flavour. The crumb is stretchy and a little chewy.

I have tried adding less water than this with similar results. This loaf was proved in fridge overnight and baked in the morning. The loaf looks similar when proved at room temperature over shorter durations.

All I want is to produce similar results except the bread holds its shape more and produce a taller. Any tips?

As my partner and I only eat one loaf per week it's a slow trial and error process varying hydration and watching for expansion.

When you put the dough into the banneton do you shape the dough to develop a surface tension? I have found that makes the major difference when I make sourdough bread. Here is the site I got a lot of info on shaping from.  https://www.theperfectloaf.com/guides/shaping-a-boule/


Prevent syneresis effect in agar-agar fruit jam I'm trying to make strawberry jam with agar-agar as replacement of pectin, where for it I'm using 0,4% of agar (of final product). I have read in many places that by replacing 0.1-0.2% of agar with locust beam gum is possible to prevent syneresis effect. My problem is that I tried but it does not work very well. After a single day water starts to show up. On the contrary, the same recipe but with pectin is syneresis free. So, is it possible to totally prevent syneresis using agar-agar?

Unfortunately, syneresis is a byproduct of an agar gel.  It is the nature of the molecular structure formed in the gel.  This can be desirable, especially when using agar as a clarifying agent, however, not good for your jam.  According to www.molecularrecipes.com, you can prevent this by replacing 0.1 - 0.2 percent agar with locust bean gum. I see you've tried this, but it is the common wisdom/suggestion. Maybe up the lbg a little? Alternate thickeners are gelatin, arrowroot or chia seeds.


Turkish Delight is too wet I've made a few batches of Turkish Delight in different flavours. The Rosewater, Vanilla and Ginger flavours have set beautifully but the Orange and Mint flavours have set to a point, and are delicious if eaten immediately, but the cut squares remain wet and keep absorbing the icing mixture coating. As I'd like to package them together in cellophane packets (for Easter gifts) I'm afraid that the wet ones will ruin the lot. Can I do anything to fix them now, after the fact, or should I just start again? I've currently got them in the fridge, uncovered, with as much as the icing mixture dusted off as possible in the hope that this will dry them out.

What you're observing is called syneresis.  Most gelling agents such as gelatin and agar will tend to lose water over time, especially as the temperature goes up (i.e. from refrigerator to room temperature).

What is in fact happening is that the squares are drying out and pushing water out to the surface, which is why the powdered sugar gets soggy or even absorbed (the starch in that powdered sugar keeps it stuck to the jellies).

Gelatin being thermoreversible, you can simply melt it and set it again; it'll be a little on the sweet side due to the increased sugar but otherwise fine.  Of course, you'll just end up with the same results.  You need to add a stabilizer.

Xanthan gum is very good at controlling syneresis and is pretty easy to obtain in health food stores or even supermarkets nowadays.  Add a pinch of that and you'll get much stabler results.  Another additive I've used to stabilize agar-based Turkish Delight is locust bean gum (carob), although I'm not 100% sure if it works as well with gelatin.

Sometimes, you can just let them dry out - periodically wipe the excess water off the surface and hope that it stabilizes.  But be careful; if it's not stable because you didn't use enough gelatin (or didn't use strong enough gelatin) then you might end up with a puddle of goo instead.  So if you plan to try this, monitor it carefully.

Personally, I'd recommend tossing it all in a pot, melting it, throwing in a bit of xanthan gum, and setting it again.  It'll be fine.


What ingredient, besides beans, creates a complete protein together with rice? I want a cheap option for complete proteins, which includes rice. But I do not like beans.

Which other ingredients can I combine with rice in order to get a complete protein? I do eat meat, but I am looking for cheaper solutions.

Rice tends to be high in the sulfur-containing amino acids, cysteine and methionine, but low in lysine.  So want you need to complement the rice are foods high in lysine.  Remember that the average adult male only needs about 3g of lysine daily which is easily provided by 3-4oz (90-120g) of meat, eggs, dairy, or soy protein (tofu, tempeh, lufu, miso, etc).  Since you do eat meat, all you need to do to save money and still get a complete protein is to eat less.  If you need more bulk in your meals, include a variety of vegetables, or a salad topped with nuts or seeds.

People who eat meat and other animal products to meet their recommended protein intake don't need to worry about not getting enough of any individual amino acid. Even vegetarians usually don't have a problem with this as long as they eat a variety of different plant-based protein sources, since beans with grains, beans with nuts or seeds and grains with nuts or seeds are all combinations that provide enough of all of the essential amino acids.

Also, it is not necessary to take in the full complement of essential amino acids in one sitting, as long as you eat at least the minimum required amounts over a 24 hour period.


Frozen bread dough that has been thawed out in the refrigerator for five days Is it safe to use frozen bread dough that has been thawed in the refrigerator for five days?  It was on a metal tray and dough covered with wax paper to keep it from drying out.  It did rise already some.  Not using it to make a regular loaf of bread so not concerned about it rising as much.

Safe, yes.  Some recipes call for intentionally keeping the dough in the fridge for at least several days.  However, keep in mind that the flavor may be altered.  The yeast makeup of the dough may change over time.  Generally the dough will become more sour the longer it sits.


What do the numbers used to differentiate Chinese slicer knives mean? I have a Chinese slicer knife which I bought quite a few years ago, but never much used, it is a stainless steel 3 rams number 2.

I am doing more Chinese cooking now, but when reading in my cooking books what to look for in a cleaver struggling to work out what number it refers to (as that's how they are set out in my local Chinese supermarket).

I'm trying to work out if I have the correct sort of knife for the uses in the book, mainly chopping veg, and meat where necessary, but not through bones.

What are the knives of different numbers used for?

Thanks

3 Rams is the brand. Pretty popular Chinese Cleaver manufacture. The number 2 is the weight of the knife. I think the numbers range from a #1(heaviest; bone chopping) down to a #5 (lightest; vegetable knife). If you're looking for a vegetable knife yours is probably on the heavy side. It's more suited to chopping up poultry/fish.

A couple articles/forums, which seem to confirm my guess that lower is heavier:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1989-01-26/entertainment/8902280958_1_cleaver-chopping-high-carbon
https://forums.egullet.org/topic/143953-is-this-chinese-knife-sufficient-for-chopping-poultry/

Edit and Disclaimer: The numbering system is also manufacture dependent; some go from a 1-3, some from a 1-5. I am sure there are others as well. Best place to verify, would be if you could scope out a chinese market/store that sells the knives to compare what you have.


Are recipes for Antonin Carême's original mother sauces available? Did Carême publish actual recipes for his mother sauces?
I'm not looking for recipe suggestions, or Escoffier's revisions, or anyone else's revisions. There are numerous recipe suggestions available from many reputable sources, many with impactful variations. (Plenty of them are effective in dishes and meet current textbook and conventional wisdom definitions.)
The intent here is to find the originals, if those originals exist.

You can find a digital version of a treatise on French cuisine written by Carême (in French) at this link.
There are recipes and instructions in it; I don't know if there is any English version of it, though.


What are these small salty peppers from The Cheesecake Factory? I recently had a dish at The Cheesecake Factory that had these small salty peppers in it that I really enjoyed. Stupidly, I didn't ask the waiter what they were. I made a mental note to google it later, but so far my efforts have been fruitless (or pepperless).

The dish I had was called "Pasta with Shrimp and Sausage."
Here's a link to their website.

Does anyone know what these peppers are and how I can make/buy them?
Thanks in advance.

Clarification: These peppers were not only salty, but also had a bit of a spicy kick to them. They were small and probably not roasted red peppers because of their size and spicy kick.

So I found this camera in my pocket and it turns out it makes phone calls, too. Technology! I called the local Cheesecake Factory and the guy on the phone said:

  Nothing fancy, they're roasted red peppers.

He sounded pretty agitated, it's 7PM here so I probably caught him in the middle of dinner service.

You can buy them canned or roast them yourself. Much of the taste may have come from the sauce, or perhaps some special prep when they are roasted.

That said as pointed out in comments I am also now convinced that they look a bit on the small side. Tomorrow,  during off hours, I'll call them back for a confirmation with more detail. We may have to try a corporate phone call and a tweet, too.

PS I've actually had that same dish and I also enjoyed it.


How do I get a chewy crust from homemade pizza dough? There's a local pizzeria that makes a crust I really like and I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong in reproducing it. The crust (under the toppings) is about a 1/4in thick. If you look at it as a cross-section, there's a thin layer of cooked crust topped by a more soft, doughy layer, almost like a "dumpling". Looking at the bottom, the crust is medium brown on average.

The dough is homemade, rises for about 2 hours, worked into a crust (about 1/4in thick), and only sets long enough for me to top it. I've tried cooking on a pizza pan, a stone, a cookie sheet, 350, 400, etc.

CLARIFICATION: The dough that I made is NOT from the pizzeria. It's from a recipe book on pizza doughs.

CLARIFICATION 2: The specific part that I'm trying to reproduce is the "doughy" part. If you look at the pizza from the side it has a layer of what appears to be "not completely cooked" dough. No air pockets/bubbles/etc, just dough. I know I'm not explaining this very well, I apologize.

Any suggestions?

In general, you're going to be unable to reproduce pizzaria crust at home oven temperatures.  They are most likely baking their pizza at between 600F and 800F for only a few minutes, which produces a crust texture you can't achieve at 400F or even 500F.

This is the reason so many people are trying things like turning backyard grills into ad-hoc pizza ovens.

However, these general tips will help:

use a pizza stone and put the pizza on the stone directly
heat the oven to 500F for at least 1/2 hour, with the stone in it, before baking
roll your pizza dough very thin
don't put a lot of wet toppings on it

You also might want to consider cultivating a sourdough pizza crust, which will be chewier than one risen with commercial yeast.


Would it be advisable to partially pre-grill hamburgers and freeze so that they can be pan fried when a customer orders? I have a small restaurant and we serve hamburgers. But we are trying to speed up service and thinking of ways to do that. We don't have a commercial grill, so heating up a grill takes too much time. I thought that it might give our hamburgers the benefits of a grill (marks, smokey flavor) if we grilled both sides of the patty for a minute each and then freeze them. Then, when a customer orders a burger, just grab one patty from the freezer and pan fry it the rest of the way. Could that possibly turn out well? If so, any tips or tricks?

I understand the challenges of running a small restaurant, I've experienced the extremes of the problems. During tourist season I always hired help, but during winter it was just me - Bartender, waitress, cook, dishwasher, bookkeeper, janitor - you name it. Occasionally buses would pull up and unload 30 people on me at once, of course I was never prepped for that. I had some tricks up my sleeve just for that occurrence.

As far as par-cooking your burgers in advance, don't do it. You will lose juiciness, I know this from experience. Besides, if you fully cook par-cooked burgers from frozen, you're really not saving any time after they're ordered. Grill marks don't matter, you don't see them anyway. You're much better off being sure that the patties are of excellent quality to begin with.

The scope of your question is such that all I can really say is, "Don't do it." I do have about about a gazillion things I could share with you that might help speed up your service, minimize waste and put out a great product. Meet me in chat, I'm here quite a bit. You could also write questions that are a bit more broad. I'd love to help in a meaningful way.


Is there a general algorithm for calculating the amount of time to roast meat? Often, when you buy meat from the store, it comes with guidance on how long the meat needs to be roasted, presumably calculated as a function of its weight. Is there some well known general algorithm for calculating how long to roast various types of meat (e.g. for display on packaging).
Perhaps something like:

roasting time = c * weight of meat

Assuming the algorithm is this simple, is there some reference of ideal oven temperatures and scaling constant c for each type of meat (chicken, beef, pork etc)?
Relatedly, is there a well known set of algorithms for converting between say, fan oven, AGA, and/or gas mark standards for oven temperature?
I'm assuming these facts must be well known in meat supplier's product development departments, due to the labeling I see on meat that I buy. However, having Googled it a fair bit, I can't find these details summarized anywhere.

What would "ideal" mean? Most items that you can roast in 2-3 hours can also be thrown in the slow cooker for 10-12 hours. It depends entirely on how the dish is prepared, how much fat/water you're using, whether or not you incorporate steam or convection, and more.

Anyway, if there were such an algorithm, it would be highly inadvisable to try using it at home, due to the huge variation in freezer temperatures, refrigerator temperatures, oven temperatures, rack positioning, how and where and for how long it was thawed, whether or not you open the oven door, etc.

In fact, if you happen to come across any cooking times that are based on weight, ignore them, because the weight is probably being used as a proxy for thickness, which is normally what matters in an oven.

There are many, many areas of the culinary arts where ratios and formulas are useful or even critical (especially baking and mol-gas) but cooking time isn't one of them. Please, just use a thermometer and the USDA temperature chart. That is how you cook meat safely; as long as you do that, it really doesn't matter what the oven temperature is or how long it's in there.


deli ham left in warm car I bought some ham from the deli the other day and forgot it in the car for about 5 hours. It was a 77 degree day. When I ran out to go get it the meat still felt cool so I threw it in the refrigerator right away. Is it still safe to eat?

This is really an issue of risk.

The USDA's recommendation is not to consume meat that has experienced more than four hours of cumulative time between 40° and 140° F. Essentially, that means that the level of risk of illness from food-borne pathogens is acceptable in that range. The government's position is that 5 hours beyond a level of risk that they are willing to expose the public to.

Also be aware that (sliced) deli meat is more prone to pathogens that a whole ham.

That said, it comes down to what level of risk you are comfortable with. Personally, I would probably eat it myself, but not serve it to others.


When a recipe calls for a can of condensed soup, is the water implied? There are many recipes that will use a can of cream of mushroom soup, for example, not as soup, but as flavoring or sauce.

When this is the case, and the recipe does not mention the "add water" step, is it implied?  Is it just expected to add water to condensed soup, or in the context of an ingredient, is the condensed soup used for more flavor and shouldn't be diluted?

In casseroles, pot pies and the like, condensed soup is usually added without additional water. It serves as a thickening agent and will pick up sufficient water from whatever vegetables etc. you also have in the recipe.
That's not to say you never add water along w the soup, it's just that the desired end result is more often some sort of solid casserole-like dish than merely a souped up soup. If you've uncooked, dry, noodles in there too, you will have to add some liquid beyond the condensed soup, so as to allow them to hydrate properly.


Why boil and cool jam before using it in a cake? When putting marzipan on a fruit cake recipes sometimes state that we should first boil and cool the apricot jam used to coat the cake and make the marzipan stick. I have now found the same advice for the strawberry or raspberry jam used in the centre of a Victoria Sandwich.

Why?

Jam is boiled and cooled when it is made, why do it again?

This step is not about food safety, it's about consistency and in fact about three properties of your jam: Jam comes in a wide variation of consistencies, one parameter is "stiffness", another "water content" and a third "smoothness".

In baking, you want smooth (no lumps) jam that is speadable enough to form a thin layer (especially if used as a "glue"), yet thick enough not to "bleed" into your baked layers.

What you basically do is play with the pectin in your jam - a warm pectin solution (aka jam) is soft, cold pectin solution is solid, softening goes quickly, re-solidification takes some time. But enough "kitchen chemistry", here's the practical approach:

Warming your jam makes it liquid enough to be easily spreadable and, if necessary, to strain out any lumps of fruit. Sometimes a good stir can give similar results, but stirred jam won't solidify again afterwards.
Boiling the jam lets water evaporate, thus thickening or "hardening" the jam (once it solidifies again). This can be advisable if you have a rather thin or soft ("watery") jam in the beginning. Especially under marzipan you want no excess liquid in the jam to avoid softening the marzipan layer or cause it to slip. The boiling is optional, it needs some experience to determine whether it's really necessary for the specific brand of jam and the specific use.
Cooling down the jam again has two reasons: Not all baked goods take well to being drenched with hot liquid and the possible thickness of a layer is partly determined by the consistency of the jam. Especially sponges etc. tend to soak up liquid jam, resulting in a coloured stripe of dough instead of a distinct layer of jam. (Note that there is also the technique of brushing hot baked goods like danishes with hot apricot jam for a glossy sheen, but that's not what we are talking about here) But you also don't want to wait until the pectin has solidified the jam again, because then you would be back to square one. Depending on the intended use, you let the jam cool until it has reached the desired consistency - still rather liquid under marzipan (as it will solidify on the cake quickly) or almost solid but easily spreadable for a distinct layer in your sponge that still can hold the cake layers together. Note that most recipes say "cool" but not "cool completely".


How do you finely grind coriander seeds? Whenever I grind coriander seeds the outside seems to separate like a husk and doesn't grind well.

I use a pestel and mortar.

Is there a trick to getting finely ground coriander?

I recommend a dedicated, rotary style coffee grinder for home spice grinding. Whole spices last longer, usually taste better, and are often less expensive than pre-ground. In many food cultures, whole spices are often toasted whole, then ground. It makes a big difference for not a lot of effort.

I picked up a rotary style coffee grinder for $3 at a thrift store.

I use it to grind all kinds of spices. It never needs to be washed. If it starts to taste like last weeks spices, I just grind up some rice and shake it out. It works great, I've ground spices in the same grinder for 5 years.


Adding water to a pan-fried burger I picked up this trick from one of the restaurants I used to work at.

When cooking a beef hamburger on a med-high stove-top, they would add a half ounce of water midway through cooking and cover the pan. It's the only way I cook my burgers now, as I've noticed a significant difference in fat content reduction.

Can anyone explain the science behind this reduced fat content?

With this method, you are effectively steaming the meat which allows the top of the burger to cook directly, instead of the gradient heating that happens from pan to bottom to top of the burger. Therefore the cooking time will be reduced because you can cook for less time once you flip to the other side.

I've not seen this technique used to reduce the fat content before, and I can't comment on the science behind that.


In writing a recipe, when should I remove the bay leaves in the process? I'm trying to write down a recipe for Italian sweet sauce that is used for salads but can also be used on pasta and meat. It has bay leaves in it but I'm not sure when to add and remove them?

I've written a first draft of the recipe and method on Food.com.

  2 1⁄2 cups water
  4 cups Italian dressing
  1⁄8 teaspoon salt
  2 bay leaves
  4 tablespoons sugar
  1⁄3 cup paprika
  1 cup five-spice powder
  1 cup Egg Beaters egg substitute
  1⁄2 cup cream
  1⁄3 cup Dijon mustard

  Bring the water,dressing & musturd to a simmer.
  Add salt and bay leaves.
  Stir in sugar gradually with the spices.
  Temper the egg beaters and cream with the simmering liquid in the cooking vessel.
  Remove the bay leaves and then add the Egg Beaters and the cream to make the sauce richer and more creamy.
  Reduce to 1/2 and pour over whatever you want to serve this with!

Considering the method I've written in the draft, do these timings for adding and removing the bay leaf make sense or is there a more standard time to add or remove them?

I would put the bay leaves in right at the beginning (with the water, dressing, and mustard) and remove them right before you temper the eggs since you don't want to accidentally grab a bay leaf and whisk it into the eggs when tempering.

Also, just a tip for recipes, list the ingredients in the order you use them in the recipes (that means put the mustard amount right up after the amount of Italian dressing, for instance).


Egg Substitutions in a Quiche I'd like to make a quiche this weekend (for the first time!), but I really want to reduce some of the fat and cholesterol due to health issues. Can I use an egg substitute (one of those that comes in a carton) instead of whole eggs in a quiche?

I'm not really sure why you would want to bother making something that by definition is fatty when you are trying to avoid fatty foods. Egg substitutes simply don't have the same flavour or richness. So, yes, you could do that. It just won't taste recognizably like quiche.You may suffer from denser texture, also.


Is the cover of Parmigiano-Reggiano edible? It seems that the "cover" is harder than the other parts...

It would be edible (for true Parmesano Reggiano, anyway), but it may not be very pleasant, as it is where most salt from the brining period will be, and it is dry and hard.

It is traditional to use pieces of it in soup to add flavor to the broth.


How do we escape the cycle of bad college eating? Mouseover text: And yet I never stop thinking, 'sure, these ingredients cost more than a restaurant meal, but think how many meals I'll get out of them! Especially since each one will have leftovers!'

Randall Munroe really hit the nail on the head with this comic and especially the mouseover text. There's this sort of cycle that I seem to follow when I try cooking, and I need to get my way out of it. It goes like this:

Decide I should cook something.
Thumb through my recipe books, find one or two recipes I like.
Write down the ingredients for the recipes in a list.
Go to the grocery store, stumble around for a while and eventually find exactly those ingredients.
Go back home; at some point in time soon after, cook each recipe.
Whew, that was a lot of work! Spend the next week or two eating junk again, until I decide I should cook something. (repeat)

Very similar to the comic; sometimes I too let the leftovers go bad (usually not). And every time I rack up a huge bill at the supermarket and think to myself it's justified because of the leftovers or the amount of food. Not to mention, that's a lot of work for just a couple of meals, and a long list of ingredients.

I love cooking fresh meals but that's just so much overhead and so time consuming! So I always resort back to Easy Mac, Ramen, frozen dinners and frozen pizza. Yuck.

How can I escape this cycle and cut down on the overhead? How can I focus on more than 2 recipes at a time without buying giant lists of ingredients and spending tons of money? Is it really worth the trouble or should I just chock it up to being a college student and wonder about the years ahead of me where I'll have much more time to spend cooking one meal at a time?

I'm in the same situation as you are, I'm a college student on a budget. What you need to do is convince yourself that it's better to cook your own food. I accomplish this by tracking how much I spend on food at the grocery store each week, and comparing it to buying fast food. I've been doing this since Summer of 2010 and trust me, cooking yourself is a lot cheaper. Per day, I spend about the same that I would on one meal (pizza, whatever), only that includes breakfast, dinner, snacks, etc. If you track it yourself, you will quickly find it's more expensive to eat out, although it is convenient.

I also make a list of meals I would like for the week (I shop a week at a time), and use this list when purchasing and stick to it. You'll find that when you follow recipes, you can make a lot of substitutions for what you have on hand instead of having to buy another ingredient.

To avoid losing ingredients, just stick them in the freezer! Meat, vegetables, whatever you're buying, most of it can be frozen. And frozen stuff lasts for weeks (minimum). Leftovers can be frozen too. When whole chickens are on sale for example, I buy them up (2-3 at a time) and freeze them until needed.

The worst thing I find is (as you've probably seen) the time commitment. It takes time, but you if you cook more you get better at it.

I also find that the less "processed" food is, the cheaper it is. For example, buy whole chicken or split chicken breasts instead of boneless/skinless/etc. and cut it up yourself. Look for the "reduced price" meats when their sell-by date is close to expiring, and freeze them. They are fine. Buy potatoes, canned vegetables, and avoid meals that come in a box! They seem cheap but they are more expensive than what you can do yourself.

... and finally, the real motivation (for me at least) is that I got sick of the options available around campus. If you make your own food, you're not limited by a menu and eventually it will taste better!


How to make white aioli? Whenever I make aioli with the traditional recipe of egg and oil it always turns out yellowish. It's obviously because of the color of the egg yolks. However, recently I've noticed some good restaurants serving quality aioli that is really white. Also some store bought ones are more white than yellow.

I'm wondering how they make the aioli to be that white instead of the golden version I always get.

The original Valencian allioli and Maltese aljoli don't have egg yolk in its receipe. Egg yolk makes emulsification easier but it isn't necessary. Garlic itself is already an emulsifier.

Allioli is made by pounding garlic with olive oil and salt in a mortar until smooth. The oil should be added little by little -- otherwise the emulsion breaks.


Why do we like dessert, but not extremely salty, sour, umami, or bitter foods alone? This is a "soft" question that's been bothering me for a while.

When cooking savory dishes, we usually try to balance out the five basic flavors (sweet, salty, sour, umami, and bitter) so that none of them dominates. None of these flavors should overwhelm the dish, but when present in the right ratios we will perceive a dish as tasting good.

On the other hand, we also enjoy dishes that are mostly sweet. In Western cultures these are eaten as dessert, usually after the savory portion of a meal, though in some other cultures (e.g. in Japan) sweet foods are traditionally eaten separately from savory meals. We do like having hints of the other four flavors in sweet dishes (e.g. salt in chocolate chip cookies, bitterness in coffee-flavored ice cream, etc.) but sweetness is certainly the dominating flavor.

My question is: why don't we have salty, sour, bitter, or umami equivalents of "dessert"? In other words, why do we not, for example, have a separate dish at meals which is overwhelmingly sour, which only a hint of the other flavors? Why is sweetness unique in this regard?

There's also probably a bit of biology involved: sugars are calorie-dense, and thus good sources of calories when you're struggling to survive on what you can forage. Bitter foods are often dangerous or poisonous in some ways; sour foods are often unripe, and thus harder to digest, and umami is a fairly neutral indicator. Salt can be dehydrating in large quantities. I have heard that this explains why little children need no coaxing to eat sweets but rarely like bitter or astringent foods.


How can I adapt rice cooker steamed fish to cooking in a pot? I have seen steamed fish dishes where the fish is cooked on top of the rice in a rice cooker.  I'd like to try this, but I don't have a rice cooker and always cook my rice in a pot.  Does anyone know how to adapt this style of cooking to work in a pot?

My usual method of cooking rice is as follows:

2 c basmati rice
2.5 c water

Bring to boil, then turn down to minimum and cover.  Cook for 15 minutes, then remove from heat and let stand (leaving lid on) for 10 minutes.

So would this method be similar to how a rice cooker works?  When would I add the fish?

To clarify:  I'm looking to cook the fish directly on top of the rice while it's steaming, like you could do in a rice cooker. If possible I'd like to do this without any additional cooking equipment.

Easy! I steam fish about 1x per week with a bamboo steamer. You need to take advantage of the steam rising from the pot which can steam your fish in exactly the same way as the rice cooker - so you get a Bamboo Steamer like this one (available in tons of different places, including cooking-supply stores, Asian Foods stores, etc): http://www.amazon.com/Norpro-Deluxe-3-Piece-Bamboo-Steamer/dp/B00005EBH8

This steamer is basically open at the bottom (with bamboo slats) so you set this on top of the boiling pot, and it fills with steam, cooking the fish. It's recommendable that you wrap the fish in wax paper (I use baking paper in a pinch) and that will keep it from sticking to the bamboo.

Hope this helps! I recommend buying a bamboo steamer like this one - it's a common kitchen item that you can use for a ton of steaming - i.e. veggies, broccoli, fish, etc. No need to even be cooking rice - you just place this over a pot of boiling water, and it works great!


Brown Basmati rice -- How to prevent mushiness? I have been cooking regular white Basmati for years and have perfected the method to get it to perfection (solid, tender, not mushy).

Recently, I decided to try brown Basmati because I heard brown rice is healthier.  I first tried cooking it the same exact way as white but, once the water was all evaporated, I realized the rice was still really hard and needed to cook more, so I added more water.  After the second addition, the rice was alright but also turned mushy and grains stuck to one another.  I think it takes 50% more water to cook than white Basmati.

Typically, what I do with white is I bring 3.5 coffee mugs of water to a boil with 1.5 tsp of salt and some oil to prevent sticking to the pot.  Note I am not using a rice cooker.  Then I add 1.5 coffee mugs of rice and reduce the fire just down to where only very small 2-3 bubbles are coming at a time.  That gets my white Basmati to perfection.  I used 5 mugs of water with brown rice, the rice finally got necessary tenderness but also was mushy.

I understand that  brown rice is much better for you but the biggest reason I am so much in love with Basmati is the texture, long grain and being able to cook it yet each grain can be separated.  If I can't learn to cook brown Basmati like that, I might just go back to white.

Can anybody hint how to achieve the same texture with brown Basmati?

The basic differences between white and brown rice is explained below (as written here):

  An important first question to ask about all rice-and for that matter, most foods-is how much it has been processed. In the case of rice, processing usually involves milling and polishing. The outermost layer of rice, called the hull, is removed to make brown rice. Brown rice is rice with the whole kernel intact and the kernel is still surrounded by all layers of bran.

  To produce white rice, the bran layers of the rice have to be milled off. Most of the rice germ is also removed during this abrasive grinding process. At this point in the process the rice is called milled, unpolished white rice. Finally, a wire brush machine is used to remove the aleurone layer that remains on the rice. This step is called polishing. As polishing is not an all-or-nothing process, semi-polished rice may still contain parts of its aleurone layer.

Additional information about brown rice (here):

  [Brown rice] has a mild nutty flavor, and is chewier and more nutritious than white rice, but goes rancid more quickly because the germ—which is removed to make white rice—contains fats that can spoil. Any rice, including long-grain, short-grain, or sticky rice, may be eaten as brown rice.

So, because they are processed differently and have different parts of the grain intact or removed, your method of cooking is going to vary.

I have used this method of cooking brown basmati rice with pretty good success. It includes washing the rice a number of times prior to cooking and adding salt. This method advises adding oil after the cooking process, but I typically add it into my rice while it cooks, or even sauteeing the grains in oil then adding water to the pot to cook.

It is also suggested that leaving your brown rice to soak for 15-20 minutes (and sometimes even longer) can be beneficial as well.

All of that aside: if you're looking to stick with a flavor and texture similar to that of white rice then brown rice may not be your thing. I know that as a jasmine rice eater I do not particularly care for the texture of brown (even brown jasmine). As mentioned above it does have a "nutty" flavor and is "chewier" regardless of how well/properly it is prepared. It changes the flavor and feel of every dish I serve it with. Just a heads up.


Fastest way to peel 2 dozen bananas? The bananas do not need to stay whole. Halves and quarters are fine

Surely kitchen professionals have come up with a way

(Note: apparently, banana peels are edible. I found an example of someone cutting the ends off and blending it into their smoothie, which is my use case. I'll try it, but still want a fast way of peeling)

When I've had to peel a bunch, I work in stages:

Top and tail every banana
Slit peel on every banana from one end to the other
Use thumbs to split open peel and invert over a bowl

You can rip through a whole case of bananas rather quickly that way.


Why isn't Almond Milk (and other non-animal based 'milk') considered juice? As per the title, I consider "Milk" to be the substance secreted by living being to sustain their young, whether they be human, cow, dog, etc...

Almonds do not produce milk to sustain their young, in fact they are simply crushed. This reminds me more of juice than milk. So why don't people call it "Almond Juice"? Wouldn't this be more accurate?

The only reason I can think of as to why they would call it Milk would be to attempt to market it as a "milk alternative". Is that all there is to it? Or is there some defining feature that actually makes it fit the definition?

EDIT- Looks like I'm not the only one who finds this strange

One reason is simple appearance, I think - opaque white liquids or saps have long been called "milky", including nut milks, coconut milk, dandelion or milk thistle saps, and several other white substances.  Nut milks get called milk because they look like milk to the eye.

Another reason is that nut milks behave like milks in recipes - they are emulsions with sugars, proteins, and fats... fruit juices tend to have nutrients and sugars, mostly, they behave rather differently in cooking.  Almond milk was a long held substitute for animal milk in medieval times because it was more reliable - the nuts would be shelf-stable, while actual milk could spoil within hours.  It is worth pointing out that nut milks were substitute for so long because they worked in dishes calling for milk, at both the chemical level and for rough flavor profiling.

Also, it is probably worth noting that nut milks taste like milk, as well - a mellow flavor, very mild and a bit rich.  The flavor isn't strong or sweet like other juices.  They are different from cow's milk, true, but perhaps nut milks are not immensely more different from cow's milk than it is different from sheep's milk or goat's milk.

In the end, nut milks get called milk because they seem similar, and there's no other category they fit into more neatly.  If it is to label them as an alternative, it is a very old label, and for an alternative that works very well in nearly all applications.

Ps: if it helps, the nutrients extracted from the almonds into the milk were produced by the parent tree and intended to sustain the baby almond-plant... so the major difference is that the plant stores the milk in solid form, not whether it was meant for the next generation or not


How do I prevent grainy fudge? I want to make peanut butter fudge. My dad can make it perfect by just eyeballing it and dropping a spoonful in cold water to know when it is just right. but I have never been able to do it that way. I have also tried it using a candy thermometer, and i know the soft-ball stage is between 235 deg and 245 deg, but it always seems to come out grainy. I also know that the outside/inside temperature  plays a role in how it turns out as well. I make several batches of caramels every December and they turn out great using my thermometer when cooked to 239 deg, sometimes they are a little softer than other times, but always within reason.

Can anyone tell me the best temperature to shoot for with a thermometer for peanut butter fudge?

Update

Actually the recipe does call for marshmallow creme, in addition to evaporated milk, granulated white sugar and peanut butter. Additionally, something I forgot to mention before, the fudge sets up very fast, like when I am pouring it into the 8 x 8 pan to cool. Most of the time, when my dad pours it into the pan, it is like like cake batter, the top surface will be smooth, whereas when I do it, I have to spoon it out (like brownie dough). Mine, you can't really pour it out. If I could get it to pour out like cake batter, cooling wouldn't be a problem.

The directions say to stir the milk/sugar mixture constantly until it reaches the soft-ball stage. I could try the buttering the side of the cooking pan. I remember Dad saying that the recipe calls for a tablespoon (or maybe a teaspoon) of butter, but he never uses it, and I don't remember him ever saying that I am to use it to butter the sides of the cooking pan.

Fudge is technically a crystalline sugar candy so a true fudge should have have the feel of tiny sugar crystals when you bite into it, but it should not be grainy.  Controlling the grain in fudge is a matter of controlling three things:  the temperature that you cook your mixture to (the soft-ball stage you referred to), the way the mixture is cooled, and the addition of certain crystal interfering agents (e.g. corn syrup, fats, marshmallow).

I, personally, believe that controlling temperature is far superior to the drop-and-mash test from which the "soft-ball stage" inherited its name.  I also have had better results with the lower end of the range (235 °F) than with mixtures that have approached the higher end of the range (245 °F).

Marshmallow fudges, in my experience, rarely have the micro-crystal bite of fudges made without marshmallow.  Marshmallow fudges are sometimes called creamy fudges to denote their more-creamy/less-fudge-y mouthfeel.  Most marshmallow fudges don't really need careful attention to the cooling stage like fudges made without marshmallow.  I assume you are making a peanut butter fudge w/o marshmallow?

Now, having said that, for fudge that I make without marshmallow, I use a little bit of corn syrup (1 Tbsp. per 2 cups sugar per 5 oz. condensed milk - plus the chocolate or peanut butter or whatever) - I heat my mixture to a boil, then I allow the mixture to boil without stirring until the mixture reaches 235 °F, then I remove the pot from the heat and allow the mixture to cool undisturbed until the temperature lowers to 130 °F (keeping the thermometer in the mixture).  By doing this the goal is to create a supersaturated sugar solution - a mixture that is holding more sugar in solution than it normally should.  At this point I stir the mixture as vigorously as possible until it loses some of its gloss and it becomes increasingly difficult to stir - then transfer it into a heavily buttered pan to cool to solidify.  Losing the gloss and changing consistency are two signs that the sugar is re-crystallizing out of the supersaturated solution - the vigorous mixing should prevent larger sugar crystals from forming in the fudge (and prevent graininess).

It is also important to prevent stray sugar crystals from "seeding" your mixture and bringing crystals out of your supersaturated solution prematurely and creating a grainy fudge - people usually control for this in one of three ways:  by buttering the sides of the cooking pan, by briefly covering the boiling mixture so that condensation drips from the lid onto the sides washing them down, or by brushing down the sides of the pan gently with water.

As a short summary - I shoot for 235 °F and focus more on the cooling of the fudge to prevent graininess.


Why is vinegar not applied to rice used for onigiri like rice for sushi? So sushi and onigiri (rice balls) are similar to a naive eye to me wherein there's some shaped rice.
Sushi usually gets some vinegar for taste and to help it stick to my understanding.
Yet onigiri doesn't? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onigiri At most the rice gets plainly salted?
I was wondering if there are particular reasons whether for construction, taste etc for the difference in handling. Both can be eaten hand held so my possible theory of sticky vinegar undesired for onigiri doesn't make sense.
Is it a cultural or traditional reason?

Not a Japanese chef, but I do homemade nori rolls and onigiri:
The purpose of the vinegar in sushi rice is to flavor it, not to make it more sticky.  If anything, the vinegar makes it less sticky due to adding a little acidity and moisture.  Sushi rice is supposed to be delicate and "crumble" when you bite into it.  In contrast, onigiri rice should be tough and springy, almost like a dough, so you want to maximize stickiness.
For this reason, while sushi rice is specifically cooled to room temperature before being formed, onigiri rice is not; it's best to make the balls with the rice still warm from the cooker. Mixing the vinegar into the rice would cool it, and make it harder to form firm balls that hold up to being stuffed into a lunch sack.


Gritty Chocolate Ice Cream Texture I made this recipe for dark chocolate ice cream. I did a double recipe, using 3 egg yolks + 1/2 cup cream instead of 12 egg yolks, and I left the cocoa nibs in until right before  churning to try to extract as much flavor as possible.

The taste was excellent but the ice cream had a somewhat gritty/sandy texture. I am fairly sure that the sugar was all dissolved, as I cooked the custard slowly and whisked constantly. I think the issue is either the cocoa nibs or the cocoa powder. I was originally planning to leave the nibs in for a crunch, but I tasted one after cooking the custard and it was not good - starchy and bland. Why did my ice cream turn out gritty?

I've had gritty chocolate ice cream when I didn't get the chocolate melted all the way. I was using a combination of unsweetened chocolate squares and cocoa powder. I've found that if I heat it on the stove with the milk until it starts to bubble (stirring often), it changes from looking like milk with little specks of chocolate in it, to smooth, consistent, chocolate-colored cream. That's the point to take it off the stove, and it's always super smooth.


Do black metal vessels cook food more quickly than normal steel? http://www.hawkinscookers.com/1.1.5.hawkinsconturaHA.asp

Those pressure cookers are made of hard andonised Aluminum.

Does it make any difference to cooking speed when cooking in Aluminum as compared to the steel non black cooker?

First, what you linked seems to be a pressure cooker. Pressure cookers cook completely differently from normal cookers, and yes, they are quicker, but not due to their color.

Now on to the actual question. The answer is: probably not. There are lots of factors involved, and the color isn't that important.

In baking, you get lots of infrared radiation cooking your food, especially in a small oven with uncovered elements (toaster oven). There, the color can have a significant effect on the rate at which your food is warmed, all other things being equal. Simple example: a steel pan and the same pan colored black. The steel pan will transfer more heat into the food in the same time period (even though the added dye layer already complicates it, because it reduces the effect somewhat).

But let's make the example more realistic. Steel pan vs. alumunium pan colored black. There, the material's thermal coefficient and its mass will be more important than the color. There are several factors acting in different directions here, so I can't tell you which pan will be able to output a specified amount of heat in shorter time (in fact, I suspect that if you wold plot the needed time against the specified amount of heat, the lines will cross somewhere). A really good explanation of everything important for understanding these factors is found here.

But your example wasn't for a cake pan, it was for a stovetop pot. And there, the color is even less important. On stovetop, the pan is in almost direct contact with a heating plate, and conduction plays a greater role in heating than radiation. The color only matters in radiation, not in conduction.

And last, let's say that you have somehow found a pan which outputs the same amount of heat in a shorter time only because of its color (this will probably be the black-dyed steel pot from my simple example). Does it mean that you will spend less time cooking? No, it doesn't. As a general rule, food which has been warmed gradually tastes much better than food which has been exposed to high heat. There are some exceptions (most notably, you don't get caramelization and Maillard below certain temperatures), but normally, you don't want to pump all the heat you have available into your food. You would end up with food which is scorched on the outside and raw on the inside. This is why most foods are prepared on a medium heat setting. And if you find a pan which transfers more heat to your food than usual, it doesn't mean that your food will cook faster. It means that you will have to turn down the heat to avoid burning your food. This can have its advantages - especially for your electricity bill - but it doesn't result in faster cooking.


Can one create any flavor combination by breaking down the five modalities of taste into their chemical form and adjusting proportions accordingly? Can one create any flavor combination by breaking down the five modalities of taste into their chemical form and adjusting proportions accordingly?
Namely, if you broke down sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness, and umami into their rawest chemical form, could you combine these chemical to create virtually any taste?

While your wording is somewhat ambiguous, the answer is a resounding "no" for both possible senses of the word taste. To avoid confusion, I will use the word taste for only the sensation of sweet/salty/sour/bitter/umami, as in "tastes slightly salty", and the word flavor for what we perceive when we eat a given food, as in "tastes of strawberries".
Starting with the sense I think you meant: flavor.
This is a highly complex sense involving many different types of receptors.

The main ones responsible for flavor are the smell receptors. Every human has receptors for several thousand molecules, and the set of those receptors varies somewhat between individuals. Alone the task of recreating the exact combination of molecules which create the smell of a single food is impossible (usually the full list of molecules is not known anyway).

And if you want a perfect match, you also would need to include

the receptors for taste (the five I mentioned above)
the receptors for temperature. While every given food can be eaten at a different temperature, there are cross-communication effects both on the level of the receptors in the mouth (e.g. sucrose loses a lot of its sweetness if consumed very cold) and on the level of the brain (you might not recognize beer if somebody served it to you piping hot, because you are not accustomed to tasting it in this context)
the receptors for touch - texture is an inseparable part of the flavor experience
the receptors for fat - we don't usually notice their contribution, but they exist in our mouths and participate both in the experience of taste and the feeling of satiety
the receptors for pain - relevant for hot/spicy foods
previous knowledge/priming of what you are going to taste. It may come as a surprise to you, but we are not all that good at recognizing flavors. I have seen manufacturers create a "guessing game" by releasing new flavors short-term and have the customers send their guesses to win a prize. While I have never sent a letter, I have tried such "mystery flavors" and usually had no idea which flavor it is supposed to be. And while these are artificial flavors with a very limited complexity (see below), first they include the most characteristic smell of the real thing, and second, I am pretty certain that if I ask an average person to close their eyes and feed them a small piece of a typical supermarket-issue fruit, most will have difficulty recognizing it.

Of course, you don't have to create an exact match to invoke an association of a given flavor, this is how foods with artificial flavoring "work". They tend to contain 3-4 of the most prominent smell molecules of the given food (a single one in the cheapest case), roughly match the flavor direction of the original (I have never seen somebody put strawberry flavoring in pringles-style chips - but note that you don't want a perfect match, nobody would want a candy that has the sweetness levels of a real strawberry) and the rest - and it is a big rest - is labeling, to give you the knowledge mentioned above.
So, to the second sense of the word: taste in the strict sense.
This is also impossible, simply because there is no "rawest chemical form" of any of the five tastes. See this older question for more background. Each of the taste receptors can be triggered by different molecules, and produces a different taste profile - the bitterness of quinine tastes very different from the bitterness of bitrex, for example. You cannot even use one kind of bitter to imitate another kind of bitter - so you certainly cannot match any possible combination of the five. The best you can do is to do is a very rough imitation, which will lack all nuances.


Which is the better substitute for tapioca: corn starch or potato starch? Which is the better substitute for tapioca in Chinese/South East Asian dishes, e.g. for thickener of soups and for meatballs? Is it corn starch or potato starch? I am asking because both corn starch and potato starch are more readily available in general supermarkets, whereas tapioca is a bit harder to find.

Both potato and corn starch would work equally well in the preparations you describe. When substituting flour, the proportions are equal, e.g., one tablespoon flour to replace the one tablespoon of tapioca. With cornstarch, it would be less: i.e, one tablespoon of cornstarch per two of tapioca. Were you to use pearl tapioca, it would be two of soaked pearl to the one of the quick-cooking version.

If it's available, it may be better to replace the instant tapioca with an equal amount of arrowroot starch. Both tapioca and arrowroot contain the same kind of starch, amylopectin, which differs from the amylose found in flour and cornstarch.


I forgot the milk in the mac and cheese Help!  I made my mac and cheese last night; the cheese sauce was not creamy, I poured it into the noodles.  This morning I realized I forgot to add the milk when heating the sauce.  Can someone help me find a fix?  Can I warm the milk and put in the casserole dish before i bake it?

please help me, i need this for guests this afternoon

You can't just warm the milk and add it, but you could warm the mac and cheese mix and stir the milk in to combine. You'd want to transfer it to a bowl to do that, then back into the baking dish. You should be fine.


Can you make milk chocolate bars with fresh milk or cream? I have a bizarre idea that milk powder is bad tasting, therefore I wonder if it could be possible to make chocolate bars with fresh milk or cream.
If not, are there some top quality milk powders?

I know you can't use fresh milk or cream. Any water introduced to your chocolate would cause it to start seizing. Basically the cocoa powder would start hydrating and clumping up. If you do it right, you get ganache or modelling chocolate. If you do it wrong, you get weird curdly chocolate and sadness.
As far as milk powder tasting bad... I really don't know the answer except to ask how you tasted it? It definitely tastes different (very concentrated and cooked) on it's own, but should be fine in a hot cocoa mix or chocolate bar, I'd think.
One thing you might look into it getting a full-fat milk powder, since most of what you'll find in stores (in the US at least) are skim milk powder. That might be part of the weirdness you detect.
The other thing you might look into is trying to find freeze-dried milk. My understanding is that most milk powders are made through an evaporation process, which would necessarily cook the milk and make it sweeter. Some people seem really averse to the "cooked milk taste," while some people (like me) enjoy it. Freeze-drying would perhaps do a better job of preserving the fresh taste, but I really don't know. I don't think I've ever had it.


What is the correct ratio to make self-rising flour? I have a recipe that I've used a couple of times that asks for self-rising flour. Unfortunately, I only have regular AP flour where I am right now.

I know self-rising flour is a mixture of AP flour and baking powder, but I don't know the ratio.

I've found some estimations online, but they vary quite a bit.

How much baking powder do I need for 1 kg of AP flour?

For 1 cup self-raising flour, add 1½ tsp baking powder+ ¼ tsp salt to 1 cup all purpose flour. (http://www.joyofbaking.com/IngredientSubstitution.html)

Edit: Calculation added by Sebbidychef:

According to http://www.jsward.com/cooking/conversion.shtml 1 cup of un-sifted all-purpose flour is equal to 120g.

Therefore 1000 divided by 120 is 8.3 recurring (1000/120=8.3).

8.3 multiplied by 1.5 (1 1/2 teaspoons) is 12.45 , so let's round it to 12.5 (12 1/2 teaspoons or 4.167 tablespoons, rounded to 4 tablespoons), (8.3*1.5=12.45). In metric this is 45g of baking powder.

8.3 multiplied by 0.25 is 2.075, so let's round it to 2 (2 teaspoons), (8.3*0.25=2.075). In metric this is 10g if salt.

So for 1kg of flour you will need 45g baking powder (4 tablespoons) of baking powder and 10g (2 teaspoons) of salt.


How to soften diced meat that was has had too much of its juices leave from being cooked too long? I have a bad habit of wanting to over cook meat on the frying pan. It's from a phobia that any juices or red/pink coloring inside the meat may contain bacteria/germs etc. So when I cook diced meat on the frying pan I leave them on till there is not red/pinkness left in them, but they are then dry and hard. It is unpleasant to chew.

I would like to know if it is possible to soften the meat again and maybe add some juice from a sauce maybe into the meat to make it more tender and tasty. I tried boiling or sautee but this did nothing.

EDIT: this applies to beef and lamb

In the general case, it is not possible.

As you cook meat past about 165 F, all of the proteins will have denatured and contracted, squeezing out moisture.  This is what makes well done meat tough and stringy or rubbery.  This process cannot really be reversed, although you can try to mask it with a sauce.

In the specific case of certain cuts--the ones famous for braises or barbecue, the "low and slow" cooking techniques--there is some hope, but it is a thin one depending on what you have been doing.

These cuts, the most active working parts of the animal such as the shoulders (chuck for beef or butt for pork) have a great deal of intramuscular fat, as well as connective tissue made of a protein called collagen.

Over time, when cooked slowly at temperatures of about 180 F, the collagen in the meat will turn into gelatin, which has a silky, smooth mouth feel, and the fat will lubricate the meat.  They still have their proteins irreversibly dentures and tightened, but the gelatin and fat provide a new kind of moisture and unctuousness that is highly prized.

The cooking techniques for this (braising, barbecuing, slow roasting) are rarely employed for chops or steaks that you would do in the frying pan.  They also simply don't have the collagen or the fat to make it possible.  That is why they are better off with the higher temperature, faster cooking methods, but should not be overcooked, as you have discovered to your dismay.

Your best option is not to try to recover from this situation, which is very difficult to do, but rather to learn to prevent it:

Get a good instant read thermometer to check the internal temperature of your steaks or chops
Learn what the safe temperature is for that type of meat.  For example, poultry and pork should both be cooked to at least 155 F (and for poultry, many people have learned to like even more done meat)
The FDA recommends 165 F for ground meat (which is quite well done)
Measure the temperature of your meat and learn to recognize when it is done
Assess what level of risk you are willing to accept

Over time, you will learn to recognize when cuts are done to your liking by how they feel when you poke them with your finger (which is a pretty good indication of how done they are, based on how resilient they are), but the thermometer will be your guide until you build that experience.

Still, this will require that you adjust your expectations of what completely cooked meat looks like.  Pork may still be a touch rosy, for example.


Expiry date of custard powder? I bought a pack of 'Custard Power' around 4 year ago. I placed the pack in my store room and completely forgot about it until now. The packet was 100% unopened until yesterday, when I found it. I cannot seem to find an expiry date, but the powder still seems fine.

Can I use it, or should I throw it and get fresh?

Products like custard powder don't come with a use by date, instead they have "best before".

To be honest I see no reason why if kept dry custard powder would ever be inedible. Especially if it is just the corn flour and colour mix.


Can "low fat" eggs have an impact on meringue formation? Yesterday I tried making a meringue-based dessert with a recipe I've used successfully a few times before, which calls for 6 egg whites and 1.5 cups of sugar. I made sure to have no egg yolk with the whites, I used a stainless steel bowl and mixer attachment, the eggs were at room temperature - everything to my knowledge that should result in perfect peaks after mixing thoroughly.

After getting everything together though, my first batch of meringue never got past a marshmallow fluff-like thick but somewhat runny consistency. I tried again two more times being very careful to make sure everything was perfectly clean, and ended up with the same results each time.

At this point while cleaning up, I notice the packaging for the eggs stating that they have "25% less saturated fat than regular eggs" eggs, due to a special diet.

Could lower than average fat content in eggs affect getting stiff peaks from a meringue?

I would look at the age of the eggs - take a look at the sell by date on the carton.

If the eggs are fresh it takes more whisking to get it to stiffen up, but once there it will hold longer.

If the eggs are older it doesn't take much whisking to get stiff, but you need to not let it sit out for too long or it will get runny and collapse.

You might also look at the temperature. If the eggs were room temp they would act more like older eggs. If the eggs were cold from the fridge they would act more like newer eggs.

Sounds like you did a good job of checking for a clean bowl and no yolks. Buying new eggs that are fresh, cold and not served a special low fat diet will probably do the trick.

Hope that is helpful.


How can I make my bread pudding firmer? I have a bread pudding recipe I like, but would like to make it firmer.  How would I go about this ?

Either:

Use less custard
Use more thickener (flour/cornstarch) in the custard
Bake it longer on a lower heat to dry it out a little more


Alternative thickener for soups and stews What thickener will add least calories to soups and stews, producing effects similar to "regular" thickeners? All the ones I know are either pretty high-calorie, or produce results that are quite off "regular".

roux - lots of fat and carbs
flour + sour cream - same.
potato starch / mashed potatoes / instant potato puree - lots of carbs.
mashed beans - high protein content
xanthan gum - weird texture (shear-thinning liquid).
gelatin - very temperature dependent, almost no thickening effect on hot meals.

What are my other options?

Take one or two scoops of your soup (prefer the solid parts), put it into a blender, blitz until smooth and put it back into your soup.

You'll get zero additional calories and zero awful stuff your grandma wouldn't identify as food.

This obviously only works if we're not talking about a broth.


Do all varieties of cocoa naturally taste bitter? Very simple question. I bought some roasted cocoa seeds and tasted them, they have a slight "bitter" flavour and not "sweet" as I imagined when I was a kid.

Now, chocolate is made by adding sugar to the cacao powder (obtained from the seeds). I am wondering if there are any varieties of "cacao plants" that produce naturally sweet cacao :).

The fleshy party of the fruit of theobroma cacao is is supposed to be sweet and pleasant.  However, it does not taste like chocolate.

Chocolate is made from the nibs or seeds within the fruit of theobroma cacao, after it is fermented ground, and processed, and is in no way sweet.

The nibs themselves are very low in sugar, and contain alkaloids (such as caffeine or theobromine) which are bitter.  This probably evolved to discourage predation or disease to the seeds themselves.

This is very similar to the way peach kernels (the seed within the pits) are not terribly sweet, although they certainly grow within a fruit that is.

So no—there is no such thing as naturally sweet chocolate.

A related tree, Cupuaçu (theobroma grandiflorum) is cultivated more specifically for its fruits, which are sweet and said to taste something like pineapple.  Again, the fleshy fruit is not analogous to the seed which eventually becomes chocolate.


What is the proportion of edible meat in whole live mussels? The price of one kilo of mussels (blue mussels) here in my town is around 60–70 SEK (9–11 USD). I think that makes a large enough portion for two people, but when checking if all of them are alive and when cleaning them, the price runs higher. I'm interested in what the price per kilo of the edible part (the muscle) of the mussels are. In one mussel, how much by weight is shell and how much is muscle?

The Tourism PEI site says that one pound of mussels is 20-25 mussels, about one cup of meat, and that you can serve one person that for a main meal or two people for an appetizer.

The Food and Agriculure Organization of the United Nations says:

  One bushel of whole mussels should yield from 6 to 9 pounds of cooked
  meats. Percentage yield by weight may range from about 8 per cent to
  as high as 20 per cent of the whole mussels.

Finally, this is 500g of mussels (my lunch in Brussels on a hot day - my companion has the same):

And this is how I can remember it was 500g:


Difference between bake and roast First question-
If the receipe says to bake without mentioning to preheat, readymade base for instance, should I preheat the oven?

Second question-
Is the receipe asks to roast, bell pepper for instance, does it means to preheat and bake? Or shall I just use at microwave mode??? Pls help

Any recipe which calls for you to bake, roast, or otherwise cook at a particular temperature, is expecting you to preheat the cooker to the specified temperature before adding the food, unless it specifically says otherwise.

"Roast" or "bake" never mean "microwave". If a recipe wants you to use the microwave, it'll say that. (There are, of course, things you can choose to do in a microwave or in some other cooker, like melting butter; that's up to you.)


what does it mean to incorporate in recipes I am reading a recipe and I noticed that in it it says "mix to incorporate" I am baffled. What does that mean?

It means mix until the 2 things are evenly mixed, so that they are 1 thing now.

You want to just mix enough so they are evenly mixed and no more as sometimes mixing more than necessary can spoil the recipe


Why does brining lead to firmer salmon? It often recommended to brine salmon with salt before sous vide, so it's firmer. On the other hand, salt tenderizes meat. What is the explanation of this opposite behavior.

Excellent question. The salt, through osmosis, takes humidity out of the meat. Less moisture leads to a denser product.

About meat:

  The main structural component of the muscle fibers in meat is
  myofibril, which is itself composed of thick and thin filaments.
  Higher-than-normal levels of salt cause these filaments to swell and
  separate from one another and depolymerize, or break down. This
  process makes meat more tender.

  For tenderization, salt is usually added to meat via a brine solution
  comprised of salt, water, and sometimes other flavoring compounds.
  Harold McGee describes the effect of brining in his book "On Food and
  Cooking"

Link

I hope that answers your question.

Edit I only answered half the question.

Link to a more detailed explanation about osmosis.


Achieve the same consistency as 8 hour slow cooked inside skirt steak in a fraction of the time? I have a process that calls for a 6-8 hour slow cooker braising of inside skirt steak.
The skirt steak becomes incredibly soft and the connective tissue adds a lovely gelatinous luxurious mouthfeel when large chunks of the skirt steak are served from it.

I want to replicate this in half the time. I tried with cooking approximately 15lbs of peeled inside skirt steak for 4 hours in a covered hotel pan with some water in the pan but while the steak was delicious it was not "fall off the bone" soft.

What are commercial ways of cooking large volumes of skirt steak quickly retaining maximum texture and flavor?

Tough beef becomes tender because the connective tissue breaks down into gelatine in the presence of heat and moisture. This can be sped up considerably using a pressure cooker, so that's your solution.

There are considerations to this: a pressure cooker that could take 15 lbs of skirt steak all at once would be very large, hard to handle, and possibly expensive. You would likely want to do it in smaller batches in a smaller cooker to make it manageable, but then you are creating a load of work for yourself. Whether the time saved versus the extra effort is worth it is something you'd have to think about.


Why does frozen food still have an expiration date? In a below 0°C environment, no bacteria or fungi may grow. How could time "spoil" frozen food?

edit: More concretely, I have lobsters and pizza dough that stayed really long in my freezer, are they completely useless now?

Frozen food does spoil over time. Much slower than even just thawed, sure, but don't expect that something that would spoil within few days at just above 0°C will last with unchanged quality for years at -18°C (even if it were always at that temperature). There are also physical and chemical effects contributing to spoiling of food.

Freezing refers to water forming ice. The spoiling of the aqueous parts (water and the stuff dissolved in water) is extremely slowed down due to the phase change liquid -> frozen.

But food is not only water, and e.g. lipids (fatty, oily) parts are much less affected by the lower temperature. The lipids in food are are often mixtures of fats and oils that get slushy and finally more and more still in the temperature range we're talking about. E.g. squalene (which is fairly abundant in some fish oils) has a freezing point of -75 °C - having such components helps keeping the mixture from freezing (crystallizing).

Lipids can go rancid by hydrolysis and/or oxidation. This is slower in cold temperatures (as a rule of thumb, for lipid oxidation I'd expect maybe an order of magnitude slower for 10 °C lower storage temp. So 3 weeks instead of 2 days. If you manage consistently -18 °C instead of +2 °C, maybe several months, but not years. Gas-tight containers help against oxidation by oxygen from the air - but it is extremely difficult to seal food really air-tight at a time scale of several months.
Hydrolysis would be hampered by forming of ice, so the prediction of the time scale isn't that straightforward. In particular glycerol (e.g. from hydrolysis of lipid) will act as anti-freeze and keep some tiny fraction of the water in a liquid phase where it can help hydrolyze further lipids.

Fish need to have lipids that stay suitably liquid at water temperature (i.e. for some fish even around 0 °C). Thus, while tallow is more-or-less solid already at +20°C, fish oils are liquid at close to 0°C. Which means that at the same -18 °C both oxidation and hydrolysis will be faster in cold water fatty fish than in the meat of warm-blooded animals.

Health considerations: hydrolysis is affects the sensory quality, but AFAIK does not have health concerns (triglycerides are anyways hydrolyzed in our lipid metabolism).
Oxidation of (unsaturated) fatty acids OTOH leads to so-called lipid oxidation products (duh!). They include mutagenic and carcinogenic substances. BUT: this is also something that happens inside our body during lipid metabolism, and sufficiently often that we do keep detoxification pathways up and running. We includes the animals of whom we're discussing the meat here. This detoxification uses antioxidants (that's why they are healthy), and in the cells they are stored together with antioxidants (e.g. vitamin E). Before lipid oxidation (and the formation of potentially unhealthy components) starts, the antioxidants are used up - that's their biochemical purpose. In terms of health effects, in this stage, we're not getting as much of the particularly healthy antioxidants out of this food as we'd have gotten by eating that meat earlier, but  also there aren't yet particularly unhealthy compounds in it.
All in all, I'd say also the oxidative rancidity is not very concering in this scenario:

we're quite good at detecting rancid fat (also from hydrolysis) so the risk of unknowingly eating dangerous amounts is low.
The lack of antioxidants from this piece of food can quite easily be compensated by adding some more fresh veggies or nuts to the meal. In addition, the potentially toxic effects from possible lipid oxidation products can to a certain extent be counteracted by eating yet more antioxidants. Add another big spoon of broccoli with some fresh nuts or almonds to your meal.
If you're frying meat/fish in oil, that may be a far more important source of lipid oxidation products in your diet.

Volatile substances (which are important for smell/"taste") also have lower vapor pressure but it's still above zero. Getting a container gas tight at a time scale of months is difficult. In the end, after a year or so in the freezer is is quite possible that all the food acquires the average freezer smell/taste.

Health effects well, we don't know what substances float around in your freezer. But the total amount you eat probably doesn't differ much whether you let one piece of meat "soak" in that atmosphere for a years vs. 12 times eating a piece of meat that was in there for a month.
If you flash-freeze food, there will be tiny ice crystals, but given enough time they will grow (depending on temperature again, the colder the slower, and the more gas volume the more). This has two consequences for the food: the crystals can grow so that they damage the cell walls (in fish/meat or vegetables): the thawed meat is noticeably more tender, for vegetables we call the same effect mushy and often do not appreciate is as much. (Freezing in a home freezer is sufficiently slow to get this effect)

The 2nd effect is that even at these low temperatures, water evaporates (that is part of how the re-crystallization processes work), and pure water crystals form. Over time and helped by temperature changes (due to opening, putting in new stuff, cooling cycles), pure water tends to crystallize outside the food at the wall of the container. This water comes from inside the food, which is dehydated (freezer burn).

Health effects none, or only indirect ones: destroyed cell walls may mean that microbial spoiling is faster once the food is thawed. But here again the time at -18 °C makes hardly any difference compared to the slowish process of freezing in a household freezer.
Dehydration/freezer burn also causes the protein to precipitate but that doesn't cause health concerns. And cooking/frying anyways leads to even irreversible protein denaturation (denaturation from drying may even be reversible).

In terms of packaging, vaccum sealing (in a material that is has low permeability for oxygen - not all plastics are gas tight on the time scales we're talking about, and permeability varies for different gases) helps. Frozen fish is sold glazed with a protective ice coating that also helps, both against freeze burn and by adding another barrier for oxygen.

  below 0C environment, no bacteria or fungi may grow

I wouldn't bet on this as a general fact of life, see psychrophile microorganisms.
But for the food-relevant microorganisms it is a good approximation.

For your lobster, all that I explained about cold water fish will apply. It may not taste well any more. In terms of microbiological spoilage, months at -18 °C matter hardly at all compared to the time spent not or incompletely frozen.

For the yeast (pizza) dough, while you can freeze yeast dough (dried yeast is usually produced by a freeze drying process), yeast can also die and your home freezing process may not be as nice to the yeast as an industrial process optimized to keep it "alive". But you'll notice if it doesn't rise when thawed - and as @GdD points out, you may not need it to rise after thawing.

If there are freeze burned spots, you may get away with thorough kneading like when  the surface of the resting dough accidentally dried a bit. Also, you can check the smell before putting any toppings.


How to thicken Thai curry I made some Thai red curry a few days ago. It turned out pretty well. The only problem is that it was fairly runny. I thickened it up with a slurry which helped a bit. I doubt a roux would have any more thickening power. I'm sure there's got to be a better way. Thanks in advance!

First, start your Thai coconut curry sauce in a separate pot (i.e. the coconut milk and later the seasonings; no meat , no vegetables, etc.). Make sure to shake the can of coconut milk before opening to ensure it is not separated. Add 1/2 the can to the pot. Bring to boil, reduce temperature and allow the mixture to reduce to almost a paste like texture. This will allow the coconut flavors to intensify, and give you a thicker starting point.

The key is to reduce some of your sauce before cooking everything else; if you attempt to reduce your entire sauce with the vegetables, they will overcook because the process takes too long. Once reduced, add the other 1/2 of the coconut mixture. You end up with a very silky, smooth coconut sauce. Afterwards add your curry paste, fish sauce, sugar, Thai basil etc.


Mixing Fondant Icing to make Pink I have some White and Red Fondant icing left over from a cake I made recently, I have another cake to make for my mother in-law, and need Pink icing.

If I mix the white and red together, will I get some pink icing which I can work with?

The Red can be seen here, it is what the red balls are made of.

Yes, you can mix red and white fondant to make pink fondant, red is just white that's dyed so mixing red into white will dilute the red dye. It takes a lot of dye to get a strong red color but very little to get pink, so start with 10% red to 90% white first and see how you get.


What is the difference between these tableware flatware and cutlery? 1) May i know specifically in words what the difference(s) are, if any, between
a fish knife
a master butter knife (butter serving knife) and
a fruit knife?

I have googled sufficiently and found plenty of images of the first two but kind of found no clearly differentiating issues betwen the two

2) Also I'd like to know more about the clasical fruit knife

3) While we are at it what is a salad knife and  afruit fork that pair with salad fork and fruit knife respectively?

4) Finally, how does one use fish server knife and fork pair (which i assume looks like a jumbo version of the regular fish knife and fork) to serve fish especially if it is in a sauce?  Any advantage of this serviceware compared to athe conventional service spoona nd fork?

Replacements.com Will provide you with all the discriptions you are asking.  There are so many, it would be easier for you to go to the link yourself.


If evaporated milk is mixed with water, does it have the same calcium and vitamin D amounts as regular milk? when you add equal amounts of water to evaporated milk, will it have the same calcium and vitamin D amounts as regular milk?

If 100g of evaporated milk contains 250 mg of calcium and milk 120mg then yes, adding 100g of water and then using half of liquid yeld the same amount of calcium.

But, depending on the brand and region ecaporated milk usually contains added vitamin D so  one could assume that even diluted the Vit D content would be higher than in regular milk.


Why does oil change the color of salmorejo? We did a few experiments last year with salmorejo, a cold soup made of very ripe tomatoes and bread, very similar to gazpacho.

We noticed that while blending, the salmorejo would turn pink. This is because the tomatoes get into contact with oxygen. We don't like the colour/taste of the pink salmorejo. Adding more oil to the soup would miraculously restore the colour/taste.

So, there's the question: why does adding more oil (EVOO) restore the colour of the tomato soup?

When tomatoes are fried, you can see that the oil becomes coloured red - so at least some of the colour components are preferentially soluble in oil.

I will hazard a guess that, under the circumstances mentioned, the oil coats the tomato particles, and some of the colour migrates into it to give a red surface. Because the oil forms a coating, that coat will inhibit oxidation.  The oil will also improve the mouth feel of the soup.

Just the way I see it ...


Can citrus be squeezed too much? I've seen bartenders stack squeezed lime halves and resqueeze them all together. I think that squeezing the peel would yield very bitter juice, but am I wrong?

Yes, you can squeeze citrus too much.

That bitterness you sometimes taste in citrus fruit comes from limonin, a compound that most people can detect at concentrations as small as a few parts per million.  In many citrus fruits the limonin is created once the acids of the juice vesicles interact with LARL, a tasteless substance in the fruit's tissues (Hasegawa, 1991).   In the juice of a squeezed lime the reaction from LARL to limonin takes a few hours to complete, so if it is very fresh it will not be as bitter.

Over-squeezing, as in using a pestle, will expose more of the tissue (and therefore LARL) resulting in more bitterness later on.  If the peels are in the mix, it will also extract some of the oils (mainly limonene) from the peel, which is very bitter.  So bitter, that industrial squeezing machines are designed so that the juice extracts never touch the peel.

During summer, guests often ask for caipirinhas at our house.  I like to imagine that it is because I peel my limes, remove most of the white pith including stem, and try to mash the limes just before mixing the drink.  This way it requires less sugar allowing those great citrus flavors to stand out.


Is there cultural variations on what is consider offal? Is there cultural variations on what is consider offal?

My mother bemoaned to me the other day that when she was young ox tail was not considered 'real' meat and that when beef was culled on the farm where she grew up the tail was given to the labourers that helped with the slaughtering. Fast forward 40 years and now ox tail has gotten the hipster treatment and now it is pretty much the most expensive meat there is.

So did what was considered tripe or offal change with certain cultural norms or values or has the definition stayed reasonably constant over the last century?

Short summary: views on these various body parts are never constant, whether over time or even within communities.

Part of the difficulty with this question is the very definition of the word offal and what it implies.  First, a little mini-history, taken partly from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Offal is literally derived from off + fall, i.e., that which "falls off" or is discarded during some sort of process; the word entered English around the year 1400.  This sense is rare in modern English, but it still occurs in some manufacturing processes, e.g., woodchips that are discarded from milling.

In the 1400s, it was applied in the same sense to butchers, who initially included only those things which were cut off/out of the carcass and truly considered inedible or useless from a culinary perspective (e.g., the contents of the intestines, which would contain the animal's waste and would rarely be consumed because of the potential for disease, parasites, etc.).  Gradually, this definition expanded over the years to include elements that butchers might discard or separate from the primary "meat" (i.e., mostly muscle).  As the OED defines it:

  The edible parts collectively which are cut off in preparing the
  carcass of an animal for food. In early use applied mainly to the
  entrails; later extended to include the head, tail, and internal
  organs such as the heart, liver, etc.

Given that many of these "discarded" or separated items were not considered as desirable for eating, the word gradually acquired a negative connotation, which the OED first finds in 1581:

  The parts of a slaughtered or dead animal considered unfit for human
  consumption; decomposing flesh, carrion.

The OED adds that this last sense is "Sometimes used contemptuously," as in the first 1581 quotation that references "dirtie tripes and offalls."

In answering this question, there seems to be a conflict between two possible interpretations about the word offal: on the one hand, there's the "offal" that's discarded because it's truly inedible or difficult to use in a culinary sense, but then there's the "offal" that's merely separated out because some people or some cultures find it repulsive.

That latter "offal" is still generally used by somebody, whether it's

eaten by people who don't find it repulsive (and might even consider it a delicacy)
eaten by poor people who can't afford more desirable food (as referenced in the question when oxtail was given to "laborers")
ground up, processed, and disguised in processed foods
given to animals to eat

For a recent perspective, I quote from the book Offal: A Global History (2013) by Nina Edwards:

  What might the term "offal" include?  The Chambers Dictionary's
  definition sounds a little less than enthusiastic: "waste or rejected
  parts esp. entrails, heart, liver, kidney, tongue etc.: anything
  worthless or unfit for use."  Other edible innards not specified here
  include connective tissue, bone marrow, lungs, spleen, sweetbreads,
  testicles, udders, tripe, heads and the features thereof (brains,
  eyes, cheeks, snout or muzzle and ears), skin, tails, trotters, lard
  and blood.  Offal is sometimes thought of as inner organs and viscera
  alone, but I include all edible exterior parts.

Including all edible (yet undesirable by some) parts seems reasonable in the definition, given that even as early as 1660 the OED has a quotation lumping in sheep trotters with "offal."  But in some places the word carries a distinct connotation of "organ meat" specifically.

In any case, as said at the beginning, the perspectives on these various body parts are never constant, whether over time or even within communities.  Most cultures have entire classes of animals that are considered inedible or repulsive, whether pork in Jewish or Islamic traditions or almost all insects in various Western cultures.  The concept of "offal" is just an extension of communal dietary guidelines or preferences to the avoidance of specific parts of animals.

It's also important to note that there are various reasons for rejecting various foods.  Sometimes foods have unusual textures or flavors, but just as often they are rejected because of the associations of specific body parts (e.g., feet or snouts or tails being "dirty," tongues because of their associations with animal feeding, genitals or reproductive organs for puritanical reasons, etc.).  Or, in some cases the food perhaps resembles actual animal "parts" too much for our modern culture that is often divorced from butchering: in the era of the chicken "nugget" (or "boneless skinless chicken breast") and ground beef, an actual tongue or tail or ear tends to remind the eater that the food is not from some anonymous cut of "meat" but rather from an actual animal.

In some of these cases, the actual meat may not have a flavor or texture very different from the rest of the animal, but some people still reject it on the basis of its appearance or knowledge of its source within the animal.  (An oxtail isn't very different in flavor or texture from short ribs or even some parts of the chuck after long cooking.)

A final connotation to "offal" referenced in the question is that of social class, which is also often associated with cooking techniques and cuisine types.  A steak cut from a tenderloin can be cooked fast on a hot fire/grill and be tender and tasty in a matter of minutes, but the percentage of tender meat available from a cow is quite small and thus traditionally a meal for the elite.  An oxtail generally requires hours of slow simmering in a stew or braise, traditionally a meal associated with lower classes.  Also, many types of offal are more nutritious than "regular" meat (e.g., many internal organs) and/or have higher calories due to excess fat and connective tissue, which actually historically made them essential for lower classes to survive.  (In less developed cultures in various parts of the world, these types of offal are quite frequently given to children or esteemed elders because of the recognition of their nutritional value.)

As the question points out, there has been a recent shift in some Western countries to embrace certain types of "offal" among middle and upper classes.  Most cultures seem to maintain some random animal parts as delicacies ("sweetbreads" being one example in Western culture), but the recent trend seems to be a combination of adventurous eating (popular in an era of multiculturalism) and a desire not to be "wasteful."  However, despite the term "offal" with its etymological connection to waste, most "offal" has rarely been truly discarded.  It just tends to be eaten by the people who like it or who don't have other things to eat.


Should steaming water be used for stock/gravy? Should I use water from steaming to make stock or gravy?

Does it depend from what I have steamed (e.g., potatoes or vegetables)?

It shouldn't matter if you re-use the water you used for steaming or use fresh water. I would only use it in a few situations:

You want to season the gravy with whatever flavors ended up in the water
You want some of the starch in the water to help thicken the gravy
You want to be frugal and reuse the water and not pour it down the sink

The benefits of one and two are mostly negligible because the amount of flavor or starch isn't going to be that much.

Situation three is really the only reason I would reuse the water, but most of the time cooking water ends up watering the plants.


Make crispy brussel sprouts I need help!  I go out to restaurants and I can order absolutely succulent, crispy, crunchy, melt in your mouth brussel sprouts and I am completely incapable of reproducing them at home.  I have tried to cook them just about every way I know how...I cut the bottoms off, remove any loose leaves, cut them in half lengthwise, toss them in light olive oil, sprinkle with salt and then roast in the oven at a lower temperature for a longer period of time (like 325 degree F for 45 minutes) or roast at a higher temperature for a shorter amount of time (425 or even 480 degree F for ~30 minutes or less), roasted them cut side down and up, preheated the pan and not, I have broiled them at the top of my oven, sauteed them in a pan on the stove, I have even deep fried them and tried shaving them and I can NEVER get them crispy.  I always end up with overcooked, soggy brussel sprouts and tossing them in a balsamic glaze (or something similar) always makes it even more soggy.

Please show me the light and give me the run down on how to make the best, crispy and flavorful brussel sprouts.  Do I need to use small brussel sprouts over larger ones?  Toss them in a different oil (perhaps canola)?  Or perhaps just spray with oil to avoid putting too much oil on them?  Do I need to pull apart the leaves to separate them before tossing with oil?  Is oven roasting the way to go?  If so, how hot and for how long?  What internal temperature should the brussel sprouts be when I take them out so that they are not overcooked inside?  Do I toss them in the oil and balsamic glaze first and then roast?  Or oil first, then roast, then balsamic glaze and maybe broil to warm up the glaze and re-crisp?  I need all the steps...no detail is too little!  Help please!

Thank you,
Michelle

The secret is to steam them partway. Sprouts are tough and dense, if you roast them the outside tends to dry out by the time the inside is done, even if you cut them down the middle. I steam them until a fork starts to want to go in, then I get them out and douse them in ice water to stop them cooking. I usually saute them in some olive oil and butter along with slivered almonds, but if you want a crispier outside I would use an oil with a higher smoke point and roast them in a hot oven.

Sauteing them can lead to some of the outer layers getting pulled off, roasting them leaves them more pristine looking, it's all about what look you are after.


Are all species of CANNA edible? I was looking through a plant catalog, and noticed that only one type of CANNA is edible. Why aren't other species edible also?

Being Zingerberales it may be hard to track that information down, as it could be either production of toxic or unpleasant tasting compounds or lack of useful features.

However, what I did find is that this species (Canna indica, also known as C. edulis) has large rhizomes, which are the main agricultural component, though you can also eat the flowers and seeds. C. indica has been extensively cultivated and most likely selected for rhizome size during its agricultural history. It would seem that the other species have much smaller rhizomes, so might not yield much that is worth eating, and so C. indica is the only species that is commonly eaten.


What varieties of potato would be good for chips / french fries? What varieties of potato would be good for making chips / french fries that can be cooked in a deep fryer to give a nice golden crunch on the outside, but still be nice and fluffy in the middle?

The potato is probably not as important as the method. Simply frying them will not get you the fry you want. Basically you boil them, then double fry them. Here are the steps for The Perfect French Fry:

Ingredients
2 pounds russet potatoes (about 4 large), peeled and cut into
1/4-inch by 1/4-inch fries (keep
potatoes stored in a bowl of water)
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
Kosher salt
2 quarts peanut oil
Procedure

Place potatoes and vinegar in saucepan and add 2 quarts of water and
2 tablespoons of salt. Bring to a boil
over high heat. Boil for 10 minutes.
Potatoes should be fully tender, but
not falling apart. Drain and spread on
paper towel-lined rimmed baking sheet.
Allow to dry for five minutes.

Meanwhile, heat oil in 5-quart Dutch oven or large wok over high heat
to 400°F. Add 1/3 of fries to oil (oil
temperature should drop to around
360°F). Cook for 50 seconds, agitating
occasionally with wire mesh spider,
then remove to second paper-towel
lined rimmed baking sheet. Repeat with
remaining potatoes (working in two
more batches), allowing oil to return
to 400°F after each addition. Allow
potatoes to cool to room temperature,
about 30 minutes. Continue with step
3, or for best results, freeze
potatoes at least over night, or up to
2 months.

Return oil to 400°F over high heat. Fry half of potatoes until crisp and
light golden brown, about 3 1/2
minutes, adjusting heat to maintain at
around 360°F. Drain in a bowl lined
with paper towels and season
immediately with kosher salt. Cooked
fries can be kept hot and crisp on a
wire rack set on a sheet tray in a
200°F oven while second batch is
cooked. Serve immediately.

Worth reading is also the science behind the perfect fries.


What type of cheesecake is the most common in southern US SuperMarkets? I know there are dozens of types of cheesecake. But I have noticed supermarkets seem to all be making the same type of cake. It has a firm white creamcheese texture that is never tart.

What type of cheesecake is normally found in supermarkets?
The ingredients include (heavy) cream

Google search for various grocery store cheesecakes reveals:

http://www.gianteagle.com/entertain/entertaining-guide/dazzling-desserts (Scroll down a little)
http://www.grocerycouponnetwork.com/images/food-products/Safeway_Select_New_York_Cheesecake.jpg
http://s3-media2.ak.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/wN7AQw4j1DrckCZWxyMgYw/l.jpg
http://images.mysupermarket.co.uk/ProductsDetailed/77/177077.jpg
http://newyork.seriouseats.com/images/20091016cheesecake-sleebox.jpg

Is that what is meant? If so, it appears to be a fairly generic baked New York style cheesecake. Wiki says frozen ones often include sour cream instead of heavy cream, so they'll freeze better.