Why do you need to fry onions and garlic before adding other ingredients to a dish? I've been using an online Paella recipe that instructs you to sweat some onions for 5 minutes, then add garlic for a few minutes, followed by the vegetables, tomatoes, rice and stock.

Is there a reason the onions need to be added and fried first (and before the garlic)? Does it affect the taste at all?

Recipe was Saffron Seafood Paella

It's not so much the taste as the texture. If they haven't been sauted first, the onions stay relatively crunchy during the rest of the cooking. The same is true of the garlic, but you'd usually have cut the garlic into much smaller pieces so it doesn't take as long to soften up, hence kicking the onion off first and adding the garlic a bit later.


Calories pre-cooked vs cooked When I look for the calorie count of ground beef, for example, I see 480 for 8oz 85% lean ground beef. Fair enough. But this site shows 34g of fat, precisely 15% of the 8oz I started with. Seeing how much liquid is left in the pan, I imagine some of the fat had to have melted out. Yet, I'm unable to find a site that will at least hint at a better estimate based on the cooked product. Another site shows cooked calorie/fat count but the fat calories are actually higher for 8oz than with the uncooked from the first site.
Clearly, I'm missing something. I was expecting to find a pre-cooked count, then a post-cooked with a warning "based on medium well" or similar. Obviously the cooked products won't be identical.

You can easily calculate a maximum calories difference, and not so easily approximate an actual difference.

If you measure the weight of your meat pre- and post-cooking, you can regard the difference as the maximum amount of fat that has been lost from the meat.  Multiply that difference by the number of calories per same unit, and you will have a good idea of the maximum difference in calories.

If you want a more exact number, catch all the drippings and try to determine the percentage comprised by fat. You could boil your drippings for some period, and what is left should be (mostly) fat.  That seems like an awful lot of work, but you may be able to do it once and decide that for your purposes whatever you came up with on that one calculation is good enough to apply universally.


What substances are good for spherification with algin? Using sodium alginate, I know you can make "caviar" of many ingredients. For those who are not familiar with the process, here is an online explanation.

Looking online, however, I keep seeing the same ingredients repeated over again: blueberries, pineapple, and a few other fruit juices.

What other substances are good, any surprising non-fruity ingredients?

Basically anything that's liquid. Fruit is very common, but we've also done herbs (mint and sage specifically). I've also had vegetable spheres like pureed peas and beets as separate spheres. At restaurants, I've had beer sphere's served with pretzel (at Cyrus) and I've seen cointreau spheres used in a drink.

They pop like caviar, and that's what releases the flavor, so they either need to be quite large or have a strong flavor. Otherwise the taste is lost and you're left with just the (fun) "texture". It also often helps to use some food coloring if your liquid isn't a strong color. With small spheres, light colors will disappear and you're left with relatively transparent spheres. I'd also recomend trying reverse spherification (i.e. mix calcium chloride with your liquid and then drop in to an alginate bath), as this doesn't use your flavored liquid to make the shell, leaving you with more "pop".

So look for a strong flavor and a nice pairing. Make it easy to get the spheres in to your mouth. It's easier if the spheres are on another piece of food, as cutlery will often break the spheres. The best thing about spheres is presentation and the caviar pop, so use that experience and look to your advantage and feature it in whatever you're serving. Here's my Sushi Dessert revolving around spherification.


Does jerky need to be preserved with nitrites? I found some chicken jerky in the store that does not contain nitrites/nitrates or celery extract. Is it safe that way? Is it because it is dried? Thank you!

These are the ingredients from their website:

INGREDIENTS: CHICKEN BREAST, BROWN SUGAR, SUGAR, CHICKEN BROTH, FLAVORINGS, LESS THAN 2% SALT, SUN-DRIED TOMATO, GLYCERIN, FRUCTOSE, YEAST EXTRACT, BROMELAIN (FROM PINEAPPLES), ORANGE JUICE POWDER(CORN SYRUP, ORANGE JUICE SOLIDS), WATER, CITRIC ACID.

And the pork one:

INGREDIENTS: PORK, SUGAR, WATER, LESS THAN 2% SALT, SOY SAUCE [(WHEAT, SOYBEANS, SALT), MALTODEXTRIN], FLAVORING, SESAME SEEDS, YEAST EXTRACT, SESAME OIL

Yes, your nitrite-free jerky is safe to eat. Nitrites are only one possible method of preservation, along with smoking and salting the food.


How do I make liquid glucose from powdered glucose I recently decided to make something that required liquid glucose, 140g of it. No problem in general, but for some reason none of my usual suppliers had stock (even tried pharmacies). The closest I found was glucose powder.

Unfortunately, having no clue how to "re-hydrate" the powder to a liquid form, I experimented. :-)

I can safely say that 100g glucose powder was way to much as a substitute for 140g of liquid glucose (which I expected).

However, I was wondering if any of you had a convenient method of turning powdered glucose into the wonderfully thick and sticky liquid glucose, in case I ever find myself in that position.

Well, the answer is "it depends." This is pretty much the same as asking, "I have sugar, and I want sugar syrup. How much water do I add?" It depends on the concentration you're looking for. If you're looking for a 24% solution, it's 24 grams of glucose in 76 grams of water. A 30% solution is 30 grams of glucose in 70 grams of water, etc, etc.

Unless you have some chemical reason to avoid dextrin, you can just substitute corn syrup. The only reason they use glucose in Europe is because they don't have our superabundance of corn.


is cheese safe to eat when the refrigerator was 57 degrees soft and hard cheeses were left overnight in the refrigerator with the door was a bit open and the temperature was at 57degrees in the morning . Is the cheese safe to eat?

Yes, cheese is a very resilient food. That's why it was invented/discovered: to enable people to have the benefits of milk without the perishability. According to   http://www.cheesemaking.com/learn/how-to/make-a-cheese-cave.html    ...

how you want to age your cheese is at "A proper and as constant Temperature (45-58F) as possible", so assuming you are talking about Fahrenheit (ha-ha.), that's an OK temperature for cheese (even for extended periods like aging). Keeping it at colder, refrigerator temps is better for slowing down unwanted mold development, but 57 degrees F, overnight: it's fine.

Not sure about the rest of the refrigerator contents though, like the milk maybe.


What can you surmise about coffee beans that have oil on them at the time of purchase? I find myself favoring the purchase of coffee beans that have visible oil on them.  My inference was that this bean had some extra flavor or awesomeness.

Am I right, are beans 'better' if they are oily, or more simply, what does that mean about the flavor profile of the bean?

Coffee beans have a natural oil in them. Often beans that have been roasted longer will have more visible oil on the surface. Not really an indicator of quality, though, but a longer roast will be darker, have a stronger flavor, and (paradoxically to some) less caffeine.

(At least, this is what I learned when slinging Cappuccinos at a Canadian coffee chain during my college years a long time ago. Someone correct me if I'm mistaken.)


Is my Anchor Hocking Oven Basics glass measuring cup inaccurate? For measuring I usually use my red plastic Betty Crocker cups.
While rearranging some dishes, I noticed the 1 cup line on the 2 cup Anchor H one looked off - greater than one cup. I poured one cup from the plastic one into the 2cup Anchor Hocking one and there was a discrepancy. See photo. Also true of the glass 1 cup AH one.
This seems enough to make a difference in some recipes and general measuring. I appreciate any thoughts.

I'd get a third measuring tool to see which one is wrong.

One way to test this is to measure by weight (and IMO, all recipes should list ingredients by weight instead of volume)

1 cup of water is about 236ml which is 236g.

Get 1 cup from your red cup and weight it.
Get 1 cup from your glass cup and weight it.

It should tell you which one is right.

And to answer your question, yes, for some recipes, if you add too much or too liltle liquid it will not result in different results (either too dry or too wet).


What is the best way to make purple butter icing? Will mixing red and blue food couloring work or is there a better method?

Yes. Buy purple food colouring. any baking supply store will have it, and there are plenty of suppliers online. Powdered colour is much more intense than liquid.


What can I use to replace onions on sauces? Is it possible to replace onions with another vegetable on sauces and get a similar flavour?

I'd say shallots would be your best bet. While they are both part of the allium family, shallots tend to have a sweeter taste that's less sharp than your average onion. Spring onions, leeks and chives might work as well but do keep in mind that they're hardly perfect substitutes as they're more peppery than they are sharp and pungent.

However, if you don't want to use onions due to an allergy, I can only recall having read about an ingredient known as "asafoetida" but that's the extent of my knowledge. You might want to check that out.


Garlic powder clumps up When I put garlic powder in a shaker, it ends up clumping.

I tried putting in some rice, but it still clumps.

Any ideas?

It sounds like you've got at least two problems:

First, without a lid, it absorbs moisture from the air.
Second, shaking it over hot food delivers steam directly to the powder
Possibly third, the holes in the shaker may be small enough to block as soon as the smallest clumps form.

Rice will act as a desiccant and absorb water, but its capacity to do so is actually quite limited.  I have a few pre-mixed spice grinders (garlic, chilli flakes, salt etc.) and they specifically say they're not meant for grinding directly over hot food.

So what can you do about it?  Using a small shaker (so it doesn't hang around too long) with a lid for storage will help but, maybe not enough . If you really want the garlic powder sprinkled rather than spooned, then you could keep it in an airtight container and spoon some into a tea strainer when needed.


Why non-flavored variant is usually vanilla? Usually the "flavorless" version of various desserts or drinks is in fact vanilla flavored -- why not leaving the product just as it is, especially when the "flavoured" versions usually don't contain vanilla? Any why vanilla, not anything else?

Why Vanilla???

Vanilla is a rich and powerful flavor, with over 200 flavor compounds besides the basic vanillin.  Due to its complexity and neutral flavor, it can be combined with a plethora of other flavors without conflicting.  It just provides a good neutral base to build on.  The vanilla also enriches the products if they are combined with additional flavorings, adding body and depth to the final result.

Ok, so Vanilla makes sense, but why add ANY flavoring?

On their own, sweet products may not have much flavor (remember, ice cream is just milk, sugar, and cream).  Vanilla gives them a little flavor as a starting point.  It also masks any unpleasant flavors present as a result of ingredients.  For example, truly unflavored yogurt has a  fairly strong lactic acid flavor of its own; this is something where you can get a TRULY unflavored yogurt and see what I mean.   It's a whole different animal, and brings to mind that it's simply soured milk. Carbonated water similarly has a fairly unpleasant bite to it when no flavoring is added, as a result of the carbon dioxide reacting with water to produce carbonic acid.

Why can't I find stuff without ANY flavoring?

You can, if you know where to look!  The truly unflavored products are generally used differently than their vanilla-flavored "unflavored" counterparts.  Club soda / seltzer water is simply unflavored soda, and is stored with the stuff for mixed drinks, since that's where it is normally used. Unflavored yogurt is used in cooking savory Mediterranean dishes, and may be to the side of the flavored yogurts.  As the comment mentions, unflavored ice cream is available as sweet cream.

I can't think of any other normally-vanilla flavored products, but if you can come up with some, I can probably find them for you under a different name.


Why should I use olive oil? So many recipes list olive oil in the ingredients, as the oil to fry things in. What are the benefits or reasons that I should use olive oil over regular generic "cooking oil" and should I always use olive oil over other oils?

According to Harold McGee, using olive oil to fry is basically a waste of money. "After I’d heated them, none of the olive oils had much olive flavor left. In fact, they didn’t taste much different from the seed oils."

According to a Spanish study I have access to, you could use high oleic sunflower oil for frying as it degrades better.


Do frozen ahi tuna steaks need to be seared? I have a bag of frozen ahi tuna steaks purchased from Costco. Some of them have been quite tasty when seared. That said, I heartily enjoy raw tuna, so I am intrigued with the idea of trying them raw.

Fwiw, the steaks are not labeled as sushi grade, but I am not sure how much that really matters. From my brief research, it appears that the primary determining factor for what qualifies as sushi grade is the fat & oil content of the fish. That might imply that these wouldn't be as tasty as fresh sushi, but it does not really have any bearing on whether or not these steaks would be good without searing.

Is there any reason that they specifically need to be seared?

With fish, you have two safety concerns: parasites and bacteria.

Freezing gets rid of parasites. It does not kill bacteria. You need heat to kill bacteria, that's why officially, food is only considered safe after being cooked to a specific temperature. Eating thawed uncooked fish is officially unsafe, and if you tried to sell it to people, the FDA would come after you.

This being said, if your personal safety standards are not as high as the FDA's (which are extremely conservative), nobody will stop you from eating it. It shouldn't be more dangerous than sushi, as long as you eat it immediately after thawing. There is the small probability of it being kept around some time before freezing (as opposed to sushi-intended fish which should be frozen on the boat immediately), but as fish deteriorates really quickly after death, you should be able to notice it smelling fishy if this is the case.


Letting batter with baking soda wait before adding into the oven I want to bake a cake with 3 layers, but I only have one baking pan and thus I will have to bake them one by one (already thought about making one big cake and dividing it into 3 parts but I pref not to use that method).
The problem is it takes 35 minutes to bake one layer and the batter contains baking soda and baking powder and I'm worried it will affect the outcome since I'm not baking the other 2 layers immediately after adding the baking soda.
So my question is, can I let the batter for the other 2 layers wait before adding to the oven?
Making the batter and separating into 3 and then adding the baking soda and powder isn't an option since I would have to mix it again which will affect the result. And I also don't want to make the batter for each layer separately.

I doubt the raw batter will survive 35-70 minutes out of the oven.
Many times when I made homemade cake, things like

forgetting to preheat the oven

taking too long to scrape all the batter into the baking pan

taking too long decorating the top of the cake batter when its in the pan

rewards me with a flat cake.
On the other hand, after adding the wet ingredients to store bought cake mix, surprisingly, letting the batter sit for a long time (like 30 minutes) before popping it into the oven, doesn't really change the finished product!
What I recommend you do is have your wet ingredients combined and dry ingredients combined all ready in two separate containers. For each cake, mix a third of the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients; this would be more practical then making the batter three times.


What is the difference between good quality chocolate and cheap chocolate? There are many types of chocolate out there, some higher quality than others. What are the main differences between good quality chocolate and cheap chocolate? And in practical applications in baking and confections, what "benefits" do higher quality chocolate offer?

The short answer is that good quality chocolate has a high proportion of cocoa constituents with little or no substitution.

What to look for:

High cocoa solids content. Chocolate with less than 50% cocoa solids will have little real chocolate taste and those with more than 70% will have a much more complex and fine chocolate taste.
Cocoa butter content. Chocolate makers tend to substitute vegetable oil in place of cocoa butter to reduce costs. Cocoa butter prices have increased in recent years due to demand in the cosmetics industry.
Smooth texture. This comes from the cocoa spending a longer period being crushed in the concher.

Conversely, these are indications of a poor quality chocolate:

Low proportion of cocoa solids
Use of vegetable oil instead of cocoa butter

Chocolates with low cocoa solids content, such as milk chocolate, are usually inappropriate for baking due to their proportionally low chocolate flavor. Baking cocoa powder itself is in fact just another word for cocoa solids, and this is why it is favored when baking: it is the pure chocolate flavor.

The milk constituents of milk chocolate may also go rancid, giving the chocolate a'bad olive oil' taste as described here.

In this image the cocoa solids go up from 0% in white chocolate to a maximum of 100% in the highest of quality chocolates.

As white chocolate contains no cocoa solids, look instead for cocoa butter and vanilla in place of vegetable oils and vanilla extract.


Pasta dough for orecchiette I've made fresh egg-based pasta quite a few times already. Usually used Marcella Hazan's recipe.

Now I've wanted to make orecchiette, which is made without egg (i.e. just flour+water(+salt)).

I thought the dough I've made turned out alright. Kneaded for >5 minutes. When I "rolled it out" to those thin sausages you need to make orecchiette, the dough always retraced/stretched back a lot. Trying to form orecchiette was unsuccessful.

I tried to remedy it by adding more flour and kneading more. The dough retracted less, but forming the orecchiette (knife + thumb) wasn't successful either, the dough always seemed too soft and didn't hold its shape.

Maybe it didn't work out because the dough was a bit too wet in the beginning and I started to adjust too late after too much kneading.

Before I give it another try, I'd just like to know whether any of you have made it, whether you've had similar problems, and whether it's easily doable. Some of the vids on youtube from Italian nonnas make it look way too easy.

PS: I was using regular 00 flour.

Orecchiette is frequently made with two parts semolina flour to one part AP flour, and one part water.  You can find multiple recipes online.  So, I would begin your troubleshooting with a recipe that uses semolina.  Then, be sure to allow your dough to rest after kneading, at least 30 minutes.  This allows the flour to hydrate fully and the dough to relax. I find resting more important than kneading.  It really doesn't take more than a few minutes of kneading...but you probably can't over knead.  From there, as long as you have the proper hydration, shaping should not be difficult.


Lactic fermentation related question: Is there a relationship between pH, salinity, fermentation magic, and heat? I am trying to figure out if there is a way to abstract out heat in the Lacto fermentation equation. In fact, I am not even sure if heat is part of the equation.
I know there seems to be a relationship between heat and yeast, but I don't know how or if heat could be a factor in controlling pH after the fermentation process begins, or if heat is just a useful tool independent of pH at that point.

Your question is missing the word 'bacteria'.
All bacteria have a growth curve. These will vary quite a lot by species.
This is the growth curve for salmonella

As you can see the growth peaks around 40C, and there is no growth at 47C.
Salmonella is a pathogen, and we store food at low temperature to inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria.
'No growth' is not the same as death.
The death curve is different:

If you are trying to KILL bacteria, then it's a combination of temperature and time. Bacteria are killed in seconds around about 72C, so that's a safe internal cooking temperature. If you cook sous vide, you can cook at much lower temperatures safely, as an internal temperature of 54C for several hours would also kill the salmonella.
If we are talking about LAB, then we could be for example making yogurt. When we make yogurt, we add a culture of known bacteria to milk, which may have been heated to 72C to kill existing bacteria. Typically a yogurt culture consists of just two species. For the classic yogurt, using S. thermophilus, and Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. Bulgaricus, these both grow well at temperatures around 42C. However some yogurts are made with other species, some of which grow better at lower temperatures. For example Lactoccus lactis is much happier around 37C.

If you look at that table, then you can see that L. lactis is relatively more acidophilic than the main yogurt cultures.
The target pH for yogurt should be a fixed number, in that if we were to taste test yogurt at say 4.6 pH against yogurt at say 4.4 pH, then it's likely that we can find an optimum pH which is correct, perhaps +- 0.1 or whatever. Here it follows that if we want to consistently produce good ferments, then we should spend a couple of hundred dollars on a pH testing setup.
It should be apparent that not only do bacteria have a temperature growth curve, they also have a pH curve.
Many pathogens (Salmonella, E. Coli) are classed as neutrophiles:

Many LAB are acidophiles.
By fermenting vegetables with LAB, we reduce the pH to levels unfavourable for neutrophiles. The 'safe' pH of foods is often given as 4.6, but could be 4.4 or 4.5 depending on regulatory requirements.
If we consider the fermentation of, say, a cabbage, then it is likely to be desirable to ferment it anaerobically. This is because LAB do not require oxygen, so by excluding oxygen our LAB still grow but moulds and yeasts do not. The lack of oxygen is so that the specific organism we are targeting (LAB) is the one that is favoured.
In terms of salinity, salt is again there to inhibit bad bacteria. Many harmful bacterial species are salt-intolerant, for example Clostridium Botulinum. This graph shows that L. plantarum, a  very important species in vegetable fermentation (though these graphs are strains isolated from Stilton cheese), has roughly the same growth at 0 or 3.5% salinity, slightly slowed at 5%, barely any at 8%, and 10% salinity kills the bacteria.

It follows that if you use WAY TOO MUCH salt, then you may kill some of the bacteria that you want to keep, and if you don't use enough salt then bad bacteria can grow.
This is a combined pH/salinity graph for C. botulinum

If we consider what C. botulinum is, it is not an infectious bacteria like salmonella, but rather one that produces a deadly toxin. Botulinum toxin is not a bacteria, but a protein produced by the multiplying bacteria. So it is desirable for us to have enough salt to keep such pathogens away.
If we return to L. lactis, mentioned earlier, then it follows that if we made yogurt at 37C using a L. lactis + S. thermophilus + L. delbrueckii subsp. Bulgaricus starter, with a target pH of 4.6, then the flavour of the yogurt is going to be quite different from if we made it at 42C, in which case the latter two species would dominate. That is because the resulting yogurt will contain amount of various different compounds (acids, alcohols, esters, ketones, terpenes) depending on which bacteria gets do most of the work, which we can influence by temperature.
Fermenting using naturally occurring LAB from the source is slightly less exact, in that we are typically relying on the naturally occurring LAB (while inhibiting other things using an anaerobic environment, and salt), which could vary depending on what we are fermenting, where it was grown, and so on.
This graph shows the various LAB in a typical sauerkraut ferment over time:

The key thing to note is the effect of Leuconostoc mesenteroides in the early stages of fermentation. L. mesenteroides is referred to as a 'heterofermentative' LAB. This means that it produces not only lactic acid, but also other compounds such as alcohol and flavour compounds. Subsequent LAB during the sauerkraut process are considered homofermentative. This means they produce only lactic acid.

As can be seen here, L. mesenteroides will grow at quite low temperatures:

Comparing to the main homofermentative LAB in sauerkraut

which likes higher temperatures
The result of this is that if you ferment sauerkraut around, say 18C, then the conditions are better for L. mesenteroides which produces flavour, to grow compared to other acid-only species. And, if you consider for example fermenting in a warm environment then it would be useful to start with a cooler temperature. Referring to the population size graph above, it turns out that L. mesenteroides is neutrophilic and is all dead when the pH reaches a lower level, so when the pH is acidic enough, there's no longer much point in cooling things down.
So:

salinity matters mostly to keep bad stuff away, but too much will also inhibit good stuff, and at different amounts for different species, but somewhere starting from 1% is possible, but 3% may be safer.
heat (as in 'not too cold') is required to get things going and different species with different flavours will be active at different rates at different temperatures. When you've reached your target pH, you can stop the fermentation by chilling down a temperature low enough that bacteria no longer grow at all. Or you can kill all the bacteria by heating at this point, which means if kept sterile, then your product can keep for a long time without refrigerating
low pH keeps bad guys away, but too low will taste bad. Not low enough will allow bad bacteria to grow. pH also influences which bacteria are currently growing and as pH drops, then you will get different chemicals produced because different species are taking over, so that a particular compound may become much more concentrated if you allow pH to get too low (and this might taste bad, over and above tasting 'too acid').
If you consider something like a fermented salami, it can keep a long time because it has a low enough pH will act as a preservative almost indefinitely. If you are not storing the meat, then this might be less important.
fermenting more slowly can often give better results, but you'd have to know roughly the bacteria you are working with and which ones are heterofermentative, and their optimum growing conditions for this to happened - it won't always help to lower the temperature.
LAB have different strains, and a cabbage in Thailand is going to have different strains and even LAB species from one from Germany, so it's a little tricky to be sure about exact temperatures and pH levels and such like referring to a book when you are using wild cultures. Safety rules will stay the same, but the conditions required for best flavour are not necessarily the same using vegetables in different countries, so ultimately you might want to experiment with different combinations of time and temperature.


Do popovers serves as the starch and the bread in a meal? I found an interesting recipe for Roquefort popovers and wanted to serve along side of filet mignon and grilled lobster tail, with potatoes and salad.  Should I leave out the potatoes?

I personally would skip the potatoes. Though bread is a standard accompaniment for meals, unless the bread is interesting I fail to see the point. So if you do have an interesting bread, skip the other starchy parts of the dish as unnecessary.


Is pork ok if seared and left in crockpot 1hr before turning on? I seared a 6 lb pork roast, put it in crockpot, then forgot to turn it on for about an hour.  Then turned on low and will cook 8hrs.  Is it ok?

It should be fine. There are no absolutes in food safety, only probabilities, and the probability of pathogens growing to dangerous levels should be well under any safety thresholds. Searing first should make the surface of the meat an instant kill environment. It's not ideal that you sat at room temperature for an hour before starting the cooker, but your cooking environment should heat up sufficiently within a tolerable time frame to prevent new bacterial growth.


Turning Left Over Broth From a Roast Into a Soup Or Stew Two nights ago, I made a roast. Not wanting to waste anything I kept most of the left over beef broth (about 3-4 cups).

My current idea is to turn this beef broth into a soup or a stew. Here's what I was thinking:

Skim the fat chucks off the top of the broth (left there by the roast)
For a stew I would add in carrots, celery, onions, garlic, and use a potato to naturally thicken the broth as it cooks.
For a soup, I would probably just add the vegetables mentioned above minus the potato and then thicken a bit with some cornstarch.

Is this the best way to go about it? Is this a good use of the left over broth?

The broth can be used for pretty much any soup...if the soups says to add in stock, use the broth instead.

I use broth from ham for making lentil soup, and from a roast use it in pretty much any kind of soup!

Sounds tasty :)

Enjoy!


How to prevent calzones from getting soggy on steam table? How do i keep fresh made calzones from getting soggy while displayed on a steam table?

Sorry no good answer to keeping calzones dry and crisp on a steam table, even if you wrapped it in foil.  You may need to look at other equipment, such as heat lamp, food warmer or a food merchandiser/heated display (eg Pie, pizza display box )


What differences are there between reconstituted dried mushrooms and fresh? I'm new to the idea of cooking with dried (reconstituted) mushrooms and am wondering how they would differ from fresh when cooked.

Specifically, is the texture noticeably different?  What types of (cooked mushroom) dishes and cooking techniques are appropriate for dried vs. fresh?

Related questions: 1, 2

Dehydrated mushrooms usually have a really intense flavor, and are a bit tougher than fresh mushrooms. Reconstituted they can be use in risotto, filled pasta, duxelles for an enhanced mushroom flavor.


can I freeze jalapeno peppers then use them for pepper jelly when my green peppers comne in? My jalapeno peppers plants are loaded, but my green peppers aren't ready to pick yet. Can I freeze the jalapeno peppers  then thaw them out to make pepper jelly?

Yes you can. Just take the peppers out of the freezer and thaw and drain. Then use them as usual in your jelly or pepper mustard...whatever recipe you want. I freeze mine all the time.As a matter of fact, doing so now.


Can I put meat on a broiler rack without using foil? I have a sturdy broiler I use for broiling meat. It is very similar to the Cook N Home Nonstick Turkey Roaster, a rectangular cast iron deep walled pan with a rack inside of it.

Formerly I have always put foil on the rack when cooking something, but recently I have thought, why not put the meat directly on the rack?

Are there any reasons to use foil?

After cooking without foil for a week or two my experience is that there are two problems. One problem occurs if you are cooking anything that can fall apart or fragment like fish or stew meat. The pieces can fall through the rack into the pan. The other problem is that without the foil shield the waste oils and fats in the bottom of the pan get hotter and spatter more. Also, without the foil in place it is easier for them to spatter out of the oven onto the cook. So, overall I think foil is probably a better way to go.


Does the dish lose flavor when it releases a lot of smell? If we taste with our smelling sense, and in the process of cooking aroma is being released into the air - does that mean that the more smell you fill your kitchen with, the more flavor you lose?

Is the iconic experience of aroma filled kitchen actually counterproductive to cooking flavorful food?

No, not really. Yes in another way.

Scent is a great indicator that you have achieved your objective. Recipes will often say things like "sauté until aromatic". With experience, bakers can often tell that bread is done by the smell. Things simply smell done. If you stop cooking before you can smell that doneness, it is likely that you will miss out on what that dish could be.

You are correct in that every molecule your nose picks up without the palate is one that your palate cannot experience. But once your nose is really tickled by the aroma, that is a strong indicator that your food is ready to release those flavorful molecules in a way that our palates (along with our noses) can interpret.


How to do creme brulee 'to go'? I used to sell desserts and baked goods - I'm thinking about 'reopening'.  I would like to offer creme brulee as an option since its one of the more popular desserts when I make it for friends and family.

The problem is, I can't figure out how to make it 'to go'.  I can't raise the price enough to give them a traditional ramekin.  If I provide it in a styrofoam container, I can't blowtorch the sugar on top without melting the container.

I've already pretty much assumed I'll be cooking it in one container and scooping it into another to give to them.  As such, I'm open to less traditional and more innovative solutions overall - mainly on how to provide it to them in a 'take out' container AND have the crunchy top.

Is there an established way to do this or does somebody have a simple solution that I'm overlooking?

I've eaten from the creme brulee cart in San Francisco before, which is basically a food cart that sells nothing but. They're presented in one-serving disposable aluminum ramekins and the crunchy top comes from caramelizing as people order. I've seen similar in bakeries and restaurants that sell creme brulee to go. Presumably this is far easier than cutting up large batches or trying to come up with ways that don't melt styrofoam! :)

More pics from the cart: http://hoodscope.wordpress.com/2009/05/04/street-food-redefined-the-creme-brulee-cart/


How to avoid cream breaking / splitting in oven? A peculiar Swedish recipe calls for ladling curry flavored whipped cream over chicken and baking in the oven, at 225c for 20-30 minutes typically.
During my childhood, this resulted in a creamy, emulsified result.

Now, when trying to recreate it, it always comes out thin, with visible butterfat and coagulated proteins.
Does anyone know why this happens? When reducing cream in the pan, this never happens. Id suspect the whipping to be the culprit, but it was never a problem during my childhood.

Should I try lower heat for a longer time, higher heat for even shorter time, or could it be that I use enameled ceramic cookware while my mother used ovensafe glass cookware?

The splitting of cream depends a lot on the ratio of fat to water in the sauce, and can be influenced through stabilizers. Some possible reasons for the change are:

the chicken or the bacon of your childhood might have exuded less liquid. Nowadays, chicken meat gets injected with water for "plumpness", and that water seeps out in the oven. The same happens with bacon.
the chicken of your childhood might have been fattier. Due to customer preference and economic pressure, today's food animals are raised to have lower amounts of fat than several decades ago.
your mother might have been using a different recipe, or might have stabilized the cream somehow. This can be done with packages of "whipped cream stabilizer" from the supermarket, or adding some flour or starch to the sauce, or using other thickeners. Or she might have been using a brand of curry made with emulsifiers.

My suggestion for you is to try some kind of thickener. The simplest way would be to dredge the chicken and bacon through flour and see if this helps. If not, consider making a slurry with a tablespoon or two from the cream and some flour or starch, or some emulsifier like xanthan, and folding it into the whipped cream.


How to keep the fruit on an upside-down cake? I made an upside-down pineapple cake. It consisted of a layer of buttered caramel, a layer of pineapple pieces, and a layer of batter, baked together. I pressed the batter between the pineapple pieces before baking, hoping that it will "flow in" and keep them in place, but the pineapple was already sunk into the caramel, and it seems to have gotten quite moist during the baking. Result: when I turned the cake, half the pineapple pieces fell off. I replaced them, but I am not sure they will stay in place, even when the caramel hardens a bit, because there is no caramel between the pineapple surface and the cake.

How could I have kept them in place?

Instead of worrying about how well the pineapple is sticking to the cake, I'd try different pan preparations to make sure the pineapple doesn't fix itself to the pan.

Looking at the recipe that Holly linked to -- it says specifically not to stir the butter and sugar together, which I assume would give you a better separation as there's butter against the pan, and you're doing it in a pre-heated pan, which helps to prevent sticking (but normally isn't done for most other cakes, as it'll cause them to dome on top)

If you're not making the caramel in the same pan (and so you wouldn't have that layer of melted butter), I'd be inclined to use a parchment circle with another layer of fat over it, so after you invert, you'd then have to remove the parchment (which shouldn't be too bad if done quickly, before the caramel sets)


Sanitizing Carbon Steel Chefs Knife I'm looking for information on sanitizing carbon steel blades. I have 2 high quality knives that my girlfriend wants me to spray with Clorox cleaner as I wont put them in the dishwasher, but my manual says that I shouldn't use corrosive agents like bleach and citrus. Is there anything comparable I can use to sanitize these knives after cutting meat that won't compromise the knives? The manual says soap and water but that doesn't really sanitize anything.

Hot water provides perfectly acceptable sanitizing without corrosive chemicals I'd not want in my food anyway...

Immerse in hot water that is 77C (171F) for 30 seconds. Reference here.


How to open a malfunctioning tamper-proof bottle cap? I have a bottle of oil I want to open. It is a glass bottle with a threaded metal cap. It is the type of cap which is connected in a few places to a lower ring. Usually, one just unscrews the cap, and it tears off the ring, which stays below the threads.
I now have a bottle whose cap+ring system is too loose. When I turn the cap, the whole thing, cap+ring, rotates freely without unscrewing or exerting a tearing force on the connection places.
What I tried, unsuccessfully:

turn it vigorously
grip it with a towel while turning
exert an upward pull while turning it
holding the lower ring with the fingers of one hand while gripping the cap with the fingers of the other hand through a towel, and exerting force in opposite directions
trying to cut the connection places with a knife tip (doesn't get cut, but it feels like the knife might slip and hurt me any time).

Note that this is a different problem than the much more common one of both not turning and my fingers slipping on the cap instead. I can grip the cap perfectly well, and it rotates very easily, it just doesn't unscrew or separate from the ring.

I've had this before, and solved it by breaking the join  between cap and ring with a small screwdriver, one section at a time.  Long nose pliers may be handy towards the end.  You might manage to get the tip of a butter knife in the join instead of the screwdriver.
Trying too hard when it's not coming off tends to deform the threads in the cap, so it may not go back on securely later - you might need to decant the contents.


Why are my apple fritters too doughy in the center? I'm making deep-fried apple fritters, and the recipe I am using has me drop them into oil as batter (a bit runny). Dropping them in as batter gives them the kind of crispy-bumpy outside I like.

My problem is that they always end up doughy in the center, because if they cook all the way to the center, the outside will be burnt. I have tried making them more doughy (less water) but that gets rid of the crispy-bumpy outside, and makes them quite dense.

Is there some way for me to make them thinner so that they are not doughy, or how else might I be able to get the center well done, and not lose the crispy-bumpyness?

The overcooked exterior and undercooked interior indicates that your oil temperature is too high or your fritters are too large. You should be able to solve your problem by frying at a lower temperature and/or making the fritters smaller. 340°F-360°F seems to be the temperature used by many recipes for fritters.


Is smoked beef cooked 100% For the first time in my life I tasted smoked beef. It tasted mostly like ash. It didn't have any raw taste but just wondering when meat is smoked, does it get cooked thoroughly?

If the smoked beef you tried tasted of ash then it was not done right.
If done correctly and cooked to a safe internal temperature then, "YES" it is 100% cooked.
You should note that it is the internal temperature and not just "smoking" that is the rule for "doneness". Smoking can occur at a lower temperature. Smoking can be used to "cure" or preserve beef, as @TFD & @Aaronut point out. These process yield a product that is 'ready to eat' so I would say it is "100% cooked".


Is it safe to use non-sashimi grade fish to make gravlax? Background: I am trying to make gravlax, but some recipes I see use sashimi quality fish, and others do not, see:

Recipe without sashimi quality fish:
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/fish-recipes/super-quick-salmon-gravadlax/#zYOgHzcRRMYwGDTe.97

Recipe with sashimi quality fish:
http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/04/how-to-make-gravlax-cured-salmon.html

So my questions are:

Is it safe to use non sashimi grade fish to make gravlax, as in that first recipe?
Was it safe to eat traditional gravlax before people knew about parasites and freezing?
What does Ikea do to its gravlax to make it safe? Or is Ikea gravlax not the same as the ones produced by the above recipes?

The first question was my original main question, but subsequent discussion has led me to think questions 2 and 3 are related and relevant as well.

I do know that salmon can have parasites and sashimi quality means it has been frozen to kill the parasites.

IMO.

Gravlax is not technically "raw" it is cooked (cured) with salt and sugar, both of which have been used to preserve food for eons.

In any case, use as fresh as possible fish you can find from a reputable fish monger.

Yes; as long as you properly cure the fish and properly store the fish in the fridge.
Was it safe before ? The "traditional" gravlax, was fermented salmon buried in sand. don't know, there are still Scandinavian people, so I assume it did have such an impact.
They so it the same way we do it, with salt and sugar, and vacuum pack it. (I cannot find the ingredients list for it online); maybe they add a little bit of preservative, but I would be surprised.


Oil separating from fried onion/spice mixture, why does it happen? I was always taught when cooking Indian dishes to fry spices in a chopped/pureed onion and garlic mixture to release their flavour and essential oils.

I was also taught that when the oil separates from the mixture, the spices are done and you can carry on with the next stage of the dish.

That's the principle technique I've always used.

Can someone please explain why the oil separates and what this signifies? Have the spices absorbed as much of the oil as they can and release the rest?

I'd really like to understand this process.

When you cook a vegetable, such as a cut up onion, it will release water. The water initially will create an emulsion with the oil in the pan, so you won't see them as clearly separated elements, but the water will also be evaporating. When enough (perhaps all) of the water has dissipated, the emulsion breaks and you see the oil separate from the rest of the ingredients.

The breaking of the emulsion doesn't tell you anything in particular about the doneness of the vegetables, nor about the extraction of the spices' oils into your cooking fat, since the time it takes for the water to evaporate will depend on the strength of the burner, the geometry of the pan, and the amount of onion and other vegetable that is present.

If you are always using the same stove, pan, amount and cut of onion, and amount of spices, then you will be able to gauge the readiness of the mixture from cues like the water having evaporated. In general, though, it would be best to evaluate the mixture's flavor by tasting it. In some cases, you may even want to add a little bit of water (or stock) to the pan to let the onions continue to sweat!


How do you safely bottle or "can" bbq meat drippings? I want to bottle (and store) about 16 oz of barbcue drippings I captured from cooking brisket.

Do I have to use the "pressure canning" method to can the drippings, or can I just bottle it using the boiling water bath method?

I would prefer the latter. But either way, do I need to add citric acid to make it safe? And if so, how do I know how much to use?

Because meat stock is low-acid you're going to need to use a pressure canner. Follow the pressure and times indicated in a reliable guide such as this one from the Montana State Extension

You won't need to add acid to make it safe.(edit)


What should be the material of the vessels to be used in an electric oven? Could you please provide a general guide figure out if a piece of cookware can be used in the oven, based on what material it is made of?

The usual materials used in an oven (no matter if electric or gas) are almost all food-safe non-melting materials used for cooking vessels. If you can use it on a stove top, it should be OK for the oven too (unless it has a handle from a different material).

Metal. Oven pans are made from non-reactive metals (like stainless steel) or reactive metals with a protective layer (e.g. seasoned cast iron). Don't use metal vessels which have non-metal parts, like wooden or plastic handles (except for oven-rated handles, like the phenolic handles on Le Creuset enameled cast iron, which are rated for up to 200°C). Else, all metallic pans and pots meant for stove top are good for the oven. Also, pay attention to temperature: PTFE (non-stick) coated vessels shouldn't be heated above 250°C.
Ceramics. If glazed, you should make sure that the glaze does not suffer under high temperature or does not leach dangerous chemicals into the food under high temperatures. There are many glazed ceramic pans meant for the oven, such as lasagna pans, quiche pans, tagines, gyveches, etc, and you can be sure that these are oven-safe. You can also use table porcelain for some limited scenarios, e.g. poaching an egg in an individual serving of soup, but don't risk your finest porcelain, and don't do it if the plates are decorated with adhesive designs. If unglazed, you should make sure it is intended for the oven, some types of earthenware may be damaged by the heat. The ones meant for the oven (like römertopf) should be fine.
Glass. If it is borosilicate glass (sometimes called Jena glass), you can use it in the oven. Don't subject it to temperature shocks, use room-temperature glass pans (don't layer a lasagna the day before in a glass vessel and then bake it straight from the fridge), and don't put them in too hot an oven (up to 200°C should be OK). You can't determine if it is borosilicate glass or soda lime glass from its looks, so here you have to be sure that the manufacturer markets the vessel as oven safe.
Silicone. Food-grade silicone is great for baking and practically indestructible (unless you cut it). If the manufacturer gave a temperature range, go by it, I'm not sure it will hold up at above 250°C, but it is no problem in the normal cake and pastry baking range.
Plastics. Some plastics may be able to withstand heat, but you can't usually recognize that from their looks, and you don't know if there may be other problems (such as melamine, which releases toxic chemicals when heated). In theory, I would trust a big manufacturer who markets a plastic pan explicitly as oven-safe, but in practice, I haven't seen such pans. So don't use plastic vessels in an oven.
Wood. Don't use wood in an oven. It shouldn't be able to catch fire at normal oven temperatures, so it is not a hazard, but the heat will damage your vessel. While it will still be usable (especially if you take care to wet it beforehand), it will lose its smooth surface, and it will probably warp. Glued wood can also split along the glue lines. If you have a cheap bowl you don't mind damaging, you can use it in the oven, but I don't see why, when other materials are much better suited.


Can you use wine for cooking even after it's past it's drinking date? They say you should drink your wine in the 24 hours window since you have uncorked it. But what about using the wine in flavor bases to give sauces a sweet taste? Is it ok to use white wine for sauces even 2 weeks after you have uncorked it as long as it does not have a foul taste?

There's no rule that you have to drink your wine 24 hours after un-corking it, in fact some wines can taste better after 24 hours. 3 or 4 days is fine in many cases, and some wines are still drinkable a week after opening. This can be extended by refrigerating your wine after opening, white or red, you can get 2 weeks out of a bottle of wine if it's stored in the fridge. With reds let the glass stand for 10 minutes or so after pouring to get the optimal temperature.

2 weeks out of the fridge and it's probably vinegar, but if it still takes ok you can cook with it no problem.


Does a 15,000 BTU Burner require a larger gas line? I'm thinking of upgrading my cheap apartment stove to one with more heat.  The current stove's hottest burner is around 8000BTU; I'm looking at one which has one 15K BTU and two 9000BTU burners.  I'm located in California, USA.

My question is: if I have an apartment gas line which was installed for the old, low-heat stove, am I likely to need a larger pipe going into the kitchen for a hotter stove?  Or does a standard apartment stove natural gas line already supply more gas pressure than I can use?  And if the answer is "it depends", what diameter am I looking for?

I believe that the size of the piping does matter. In Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck Cookbook he tales an interesting tale from the early days of the restaurant. I found the story online (2nd paragraph):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2001/nov/17/weekend.hestonblumenthal

Excerpt from the article:

  Traditionally, we have always been told to plunge green vegetables
  into a large quantity of boiling, heavily salted water, so that the
  quantity of cold beans added was not enough to bring the water off the
  boil. The old Fat Duck kitchen was fuelled with gas from a domestic
  pipe. This meant that we could not, in fact, bring a particularly
  large quantity of water to the boil. Because of this, we had to cook
  our green beans in batches of about eight at a time. Any more than
  this, and the water would come off the boil, leaving the beans more or
  less to stew and develop a murky brown colour.


Canning Tomatoes: When are they too blemished and why does it matter? In every canning recipe I have seen, the recipe calls for unblemished tomatoes, but this has never been explained further.  The sources of these recipes has been on various internet sites (the kind with the interminable story preceding the recipe about how the great-aunt-twice-removed used to love this recipe), on recipe cards left by my relatives, and in that venerable bible of preservation: The Ball Blue Book.
What is the reason we should avoid a blemish?
Surely there is some good reason blemish = evil.  My guesses on the matter:

A blemish makes it harder to blanch.
The blemish through the surface of the skin allows bacteria to penetrate into the flesh.
A blemish may indicate the presence of a bigger problem with the tomato.

Are all blemishes equal?
Consider the following from my wife's garden:
Case 1

This tomato (heirloom: Principe Borghese) has been over-watered and has begun to split.  The split has begun to show blackening on the edge.  When I was canning the batch when this tomato was picked, it was still fresh and unblackened.  To me, it looks someone made skin cut too deep prior to blanching.
Case 2

This ugly looking specimen is typical for the "Purple Cherokee" heirloom variety.  The large fruit grow quickly and every specimen we have picked shows the same radial splits.  The green and dark red is typical for the variety as well.
Case 3

This is a tomato, another Principe Borghese which has been attacked by an unknown insect.  The little black dots are very small bore holes through the skin.  I assume that this tomato is the most obvious unacceptable example, but I wanted to include it anyway to see what the experts think about this kind of defect.
Is this some old piece of granny wisdom which has been lost to us?
Ideally, I'd like to have a reference for this.  Scientific literature is a plus.

It's exactly what you suspect: blemishes indicate the possibility of contaminants, or provide an avenue for invasion, inside the tomato flesh. And while pressure canning kills a lot of organisms that would cause contamination, the higher the bacterial/fungal load, the more likely a few spores or cysts are to survive(PDF, large) and eventually germinate in the canned food.
To quote Michigan State University:

... the tissue damage and a rise in pH can create conditions that promote the growth of other potentially dangerous microorganisms ... The condition of the food item will not improve once it has been canned or frozen.

Tomatoes are particularly risky because they hover around the border of being acidic enough for low-pressure canning, and most home processors don't want to kettle them too long for texture reasons.
So it may be "granny wisdom" but it's solid, scientific granny wisdom.
In terms of your specific blemishes: yes, the skin splitting on otherwise fine tomatoes is still a problem.  One thing that does is provide an avenue for botulism spores to embed themselves in the flesh of the tomato.  Normally when you can tomatoes you remove the skin, and with it the vast majority of spores.  But any spores that got into that split are still there.
(note: the long PDF on heat-treatment was included to show that spores die over heat/time as a percentage of the spores originally present.  Hence, more spores, more risk)


how long does swiss meringue last? I've just discovered swiss meringue as a dairy-free option for frosting cakes and am not sure much about it, including how long it lasts, whether to store it in the fridge or room temperature, how far ahead can I make it  and does it freeze.

Please note that I am not talking about swiss meringue buttercream, but just swiss meringue (egg & sugar).

It seems such an easy, delicious frosting I'm surprised I haven't encountered it before. Maybe I'm not aware of the downside?

Swiss meringue is a very stable meringue compared to the more commonly used French meringue.

Swiss meringue is a meringue that has been heated and cooked so that the sugar has melted and reached a certain temperature whereas the French meringue is a raw meringue.

I won't go into too much details about the preparation of the Swiss meringue but due to the cooked nature of Swiss meringue, it can be stored much longer than the French meringue. The cooking helps make the meringue denser which allows it to keep its form better. The cooking also provide the secondary effect of pasteurizing the egg mixture which also extend shelf life.

A Swiss meringue can be prepared a day in advance and should be stored in the refrigerator, covered. It will not leak as a traditional meringue typically do. It is not recommended to freeze it though.

Nonetheless is it still a meringue which is unstable at heart. Its structure will slowly deteriorate  but it isn't too noticeable until 2+ days. And if stored properly in the refrigerator it should fall apart before it becomes unsafe to eat.


Is there a method for desalinating bacon? Bacon contains a rather large amount of salt which can pose problems for people who are trying to find ways to reduce salt in their diet.

Is there some method that can be used to reduce the amount of salt in bacon?

If you're buying bacon at the store, and trying to reduce the actual sodium in the product you've just purchased - you're out of luck.  Like most things, you can't un-salt it.  You can reduce the flavor, but in your case, the sodium is still there.

Alternative options include:

Buy reduced sodium bacon
Make reduced sodium bacon
Use less bacon, in order to reduce the total sodium intake.


Are smoked pork chops from the butcher safe to eat without any further cooking? I bought a smoked pork chop from the butcher yesterday, and assumed I would cook it like any other pork chop, but after looking at it, it seems like it may be edible as is.  The appearance is close to that of a cooked ham.

I saw some suggestions online about using it in soups or as breakfast meat, but nothing mentioned just eating it fresh from butcher.

OK - for my bona fides, I'm a microbiologist and have made a career of quality control in food processing including meat processing so I know what I am talking about.

There are two kinds of smoked pork chops, cold smoked and hot smoked. Cold smoked pork chops aren't heat processed, so they aren't  cooked. They have the redder color and the more resilient, moister feel of raw meat. You are only apt to run into them in specialty meat markets or at small local butchers. These need to be cooked to 145F to be safe and palatable to eat. What you find in the grocery store and most meat markets is almost always hot smoked. It is heated during the smoking process and is fully cooked, just like a smoked ham. It looks and feels to the touch liked cooked meat. That sounds like what you have. If you aren't sure ask the butcher or meat department manager. They should know. If they don't, buy your meat elsewhere.

Having said all that, it is common to find the smoked pork chops in the meat case right alongside the raw pork. Being exposed to raw meat undoes the kill step the heat of cooking does to foodbourne microorganisms. Salmonella, e.coli and other organisms are easily transferred from utensils, trays and workers hands back onto the cooked meat. This could be done in the meat case, or in wrapped product it could happen in the back room where the chops are cut up and wrapped. Organisms that find their way onto the meat quickly grow and spread over the meat's surface and may find their way into the interior of the cut through any break in its surface. Unless you are certain it has been factory wrapped, sealed and labelled rather than in the store you should treat it as raw meat and heat it to 145F before serving. At the least be sure the surface of the meat has been seared before serving. I just don't trust the expertise and commitment to providing safe foods you are apt to find in a grocery store or butcher shop. On the other hand, if it looks like it came from a factory already sealed in plastic wrap I would feel certain it was processed on a line that only processes cooked meat and is promptly sealed. I would have no qualms about eating it cold right out of the package.


Why is the handle of sauce pans tilted and not horizontal? Why is the handle of a saucepan tilted upwards now-a-days rather than the old fashioned horizontal handles?

The answer from the 'Product Manager - Cookware' of Zwilling, translated to English:

[Snipped introduction]
Different factors  influence the design of the handle during the product creation process. At the first step there are optical reasons. This is the phase of the first design drawings.
As soon as we decide internally on a draft, we craft plastic prototypes that are attached to the corresponding pan body to see the size ratio "live" and verify the look and feel. If we feel that one of the two factors is not optimal, we do another design round.
Stability does essentially not play any role for the tilt angle, more decisive are the handle connection and material thickness.

[The last paragraph was likely in reference to my question about having a certain tilt angle for better hanging on a handle. "Better" was interpreted as 'more long lasting'.]

The answer from the 'Consumer Service WMF', translated to English:

[Snipped introduction]
The pan body shapes and the handles are only attributable to the design. As every human has a different taste, we have an assortment of different designs. There is no other technical reason for the handles and shapes of sauce pans.

Summary:
An aesthetically pleasing hanging on a handle is at least not such a concern during the design process at Zwilling that it was mentioned. WMF flat out says it's just design.
If the premise of the question is actually true, that there was indeed a change over time, which is questionable, then at least these days such issues play no longer any role for large companies.


Why does cheese have an expiry date? I am wondering why there are expiry dates on cheese. Sorry if I am not very clear about how cheese is made, but isn't cheese made from rotten milk? Some cheeses have molds on them too.

Cheese is not made from "rotten" milk, let me clarify that. Rotting is an uncontrolled process in which bacteria, molds and other life forms colonize milk, eat it, release waste into it and die. The resulting, rather unpredictable, crud we call rotten (or more precisely spoiled) milk.

Most cheese is the product of highly controlled action by bacteria that produce acids that coagulate the casein in the milk. The type of bacteria, the temperature, the amount of time they are allowed to act, the amount of water you drain out of the curdling milk, all control the end result in terms of texture, taste and flavor.

The kicker, though, is that cheese is by no means a sterile product - not even cheese made with pasteurized milk. Bacteria remain inside the cheese, and of course bacteria (and molds and yeasts) land on its surface through its processing and shelf time. While the action of these bacteria can be slowed down by cold and dryness, most cheeses will go bad after a while. How long is "a while"? It depends. At room temperature, mozzarella will go bad in a matter of hours while an aged unopened Parmesan may sit happily on a shelf for months and even years.

(apologies for the short and brutal definition of cheese: I have omitted curdling by other methods and the various surface treatments that can be applied to cheese crust)


What are the breads with big holes and small holes called? What keywords should I search in Google or look for in recipe books when I need to bake a bread with big holes like this:

For smaller holed breads is the name "sandwich bread" sufficient for searching Google?

How to know by reading the recipe whether the resultant bread will be big holed or small holed?

I don't think there is a general answer to this question.  There are hundreds or perhaps thousands of styles of bread around the world, with a a great variety of textures and distributions of the holes.

There is no particular word that covers this aspect of bread...  for example, both challah and brioche are finely textured enriched breads with small holes, but there would not likely be found under "sandwich bread" and I cannot think of a single keyword that would include them both.

Similarly, the Italian bread ciabatta and the now-famous "no knead bread" are both large holed breads, but I am not sure what search would encompass them both.  (The link is to Kenji Alt's recipe, if you want to try it.)

The closest you may come is the notion—which may be particular to the US, I am not sure— that "artisan bread" has large holes, since it seem to be a code word for a particular type of loaf made with a long fermentation and high level of hydration which therefore causes large holes, and a very chewy and crusty texture.   (Personally, I find that label silly, as if the notion that brioche, a highly enriched finely textured, small-holed bread doesn't require just as much artisanship to create.)

If you really want to explore this topic, I suggest learning more about bread in general through one of the many excellent books available on the topic.  They will give you both a survey of some of the world's breads, and an introduction to the techniques used to create them.

Three choices that may get you started include:

The Bread Baker's Apprentice.  Very highly regarded by many.
Beard on Bread.  A classic.
The Bread Bible  More current, and from an author you have previously indicated you liked.  She also has very well laid out and easy to follow recipes.

Personally, I own all three of the above.

Edit:
In advance of trying a recipe, there is no single way to know whether the outcome will be large holes or small holes.  There is no sufficiently standard terminology that you can apply all of the time.  Some terms that come to mind to look for include:

For large holes:  Open crumb, open texture, airy.

While not strictly directly addressing the size of the holes, loaves labeled "artisan" or "rustic" likely fit this category.
For small holes:  Closed crumb, fine texture, dense.

Again, while not absolute, enriched breads (lots of eggs, dairy, or sugar, or all three) tend to fall in this category.

Still, the only way to know the intent of the author for sure is to read the description they provide carefully, and look at any pictures they may have shared (assuming they show the cut loaf, and not just the crust).


Normal coffee vs decaf I have a De Longhi Espresso machine that takes ground coffee. When I use normal coffee (for example with Illy Classico), the coffee is foamy and generally very good.

When I do exactly the same thing with decaffeinated coffee (for example Illy Dek), the coffee comes out watery and actually quite bad, with the filter getting almost blocked and steam coming out of the side. With decaf, the coffee seems to block the water, making the flow very slow. I tried to vary the quantity and compactness of coffee in the handle to no avail. I also tried to descale the machine, but the decaf remains watery and undrinkable.

Is there anything I'm missing? Why is decaf behaving so differently?

The decaf process alters the grind and other properties in the coffee.

You should first try a more coarse grind.

And don't use a bladed cutting grinder, to much clogging dust, use the grinders with two spaced ceramic disks for better results. Fine tune your grind size.


How do I make Pad See Ew with Fresh Rice Noodles Really, that's all I want to know. Whenever I try to make it with the store bought "dry" noodles and soak my dish comes out terribly.

What are the best sauces to use? Best way to keep the egg from clumping? etc?

Thanks!

I live in Thailand so I feel I'm qualified to answer this question.

The key sauce for pad see ew (ผัดซีอิ๊ว) is figured out from the dish's name. See ew (ซีอิ๊ว) is a Thai soy sauce that is either dark or light and sweet or salty (yes, four versions in total). The dish also contains fish sauce.

In my opinion, pad see ew tastes best using the dark sweet sauce, which has a deep molasses flavour.

Use only sauce made in Thailand and there are no substitutions. Look for this on the label: ซีอิ๊วดำหวาน (dark sweet) or ซีอิ๊วดำ (dark not sweet). Since you probably can't read Thai I suggest you play a spot-the-difference game.

My personal favourite is this sauce but it's hard to get outside Thailand.

If you do substitute using normal soy sauce you pretty much end up with pad khii mao (ผัดขี้เมา).


How can I emulsify cod liver oil, or otherwise mask its taste? Background

I have some cod liver oil to take a supplement, but the taste is sufficiently unpleasant that I am not sure how to finish the bottle off. In the past, I have found emulsified cod liver oil fully tolerable, even pleasant, and I would like to know if it would be simple to make a similar product at home from raw cod liver oil.

The Twinlab website states that the product is

  emulsified with natural soy lecithin
  and apple pectin making the EPA and
  DHA more readily available to the
  digestive system for better
  absorption, assimilation and
  utilization.

And the ingredients are (in order):

water
cod liver ois
glycerin
sorbitol
soy lecithin
cellulose
orange flavors
tragacanth gum resin
apple pectin
alpha tocopherol
ascorbyl palmitate
beta carotene

But it is not clear to me which of these ingredients are required, what quantities, or how to blend them.

Questions

Is there a way that I can emulsify cod liver at home in such a way that will accomplish this?
Are there any other suggestions for how to consume cod-liver oil without having either the initial taste or the residual flavor in the mouth and breath?

This should be no problem. It is basically the same process as making a vinaigrette, only using water instead of vinegar, and lecithin instead of mustard. Here's how I would go about it. Let's say you have 1 cup of oil to emulsify. Go buy soy lecithin at a health food store. Take 1/2 cup of water, and dissolve 1 teaspoon of the soy lecithin in it. Use a blender or immersion blender. With the blender running, slowly drizzle in the cod liver oil. It will emulsify - the oil will disperse into ultra-fine droplets in the water, and presumably the taste will be both diluted and somewhat hidden by being locked up in little droplets. If this doesn't work, you just need more lecithin, so dissolve a bit more in another 1/4 cup of water and drizzle the whole thing back in to the blender.

Naturally you'll want to take 50% more, since the oil is now only 2/3 of the volume.

Those other ingredients are for flavor and anti-oxidation, not needed for the basic thing you are trying to accomplish.


Bundt Pan Substitution? I have a cake recipe that calls for baking in a bundt pan (it's a sweet potato spice cake). Can I use another kind of pan, or will it affect the quality of the cake?

The best substitution would be a a simple tube pan.

Besides the unique appearance, bundt and tube pans are used for particularly dense and moist batters. They might be used for a cake that might dry out on the outside before the center cooks through.

If you don't have a tube pan, then there are a couple alternatives. You can use two loaf pans, this should approximate the bundt pan. Another alternative is to use a deep circular cake pan with a ceramic ramekin in the center of it to create the hole. With either method you may need to adjust your cook time a bit depending on your results. (likely 25F lower and baked for a little longer) It also might simply just work without changes.


What is an easy-to-make dessert that goes well with Indian food? We are making vegetable curry with rice and need a dessert to go well with it. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Plain yogurt.

I had it several times in Indian dish. It refreshes the mouth and takes away the the lingering of the spices from Indian curry and clear the hotness away from a spicy Indian dish.


How do I deal with a really wet, messy dough? I have been experimenting with bread recently and today made some really basic white bread with this recipe.

I found that the dough was really messy and sticky, so I ended up using quite a bit of flour during kneading, which I'm afraid messed up the flour to water ratio.

What is the best way of dealing with this kind of dough? Should I just work through it or was it not supposed to be like that? What about for other recipes?

A third of the flour was wholewheat, but apart from that I didn't deviate from the recipe.

For very high hydration loaves, you want to create your gluten development without adding an excess of flour which would reduce the relative hydration.

This video from Italyum Recipes shows the classic stretch, slap and fold method, using a 70% hydration dough.  Basically, you lift the entire dough from the work surface, allow it to stretch under its own weight, then slam it down again.  Rinse and repeat.

A somewhat less labor instensive method is described at The Fresh Loaf (the article has a lot of introductory material, keep reading and there are really clear instructions with lots of photos):

Initially stir the dough together until it is is a thick and cohesive liquid, which the author describes as "like porridge."
Use the stretch and fold method of kneading to create some development:

Flour your work surface moderately
Pour the dough out onto the surface
Use your bench knife knife (also called a dough scraper) to lift and drop the dough back on itself, stretching it. See this image from the Fresh Loaf:

Allow the dough to rest and autolyse, that is, develop gluten from the reaction of the water and precursor proteins in the presence of enzymes naturally in the flour.   This limits the amount of hand kneading you have to do.
Repeat the stretch and fold method a couple of times to get the final development

Finally, note that very wet doughs can also be kneaded entirely in a stand mixer simply by beating them for a couple of minutes.   These doughs are wet enough to be nearly pourable, and do not climb and clump onto the paddle; if they do, the hydration is not high enough for this method, and you need to use the dough hook instead.


What makes vacuum fried food retain and concentrate the food's flavor? I recently tried some vacuum fried banana chips and pineapple chips from Trade Joe's. They were delicious. Does anyone know why this process helps the food retain and even concentrate the flavors? According to the article, since the frying environment is under a vacuum, this allows food to reach a fried state at ~130 C (normal atmospheric frying is ~170 C).

Because you are frying at a lower temperature, the food is closer to it's natural state (no browning) and is less cooked.  That coupled with the significant drop in moisture, you are concentrating the flavor of the food (just like syrup, only with solid food).  It's also typically done with food that is more susceptable to burning, foods with higher sugar contents, so you are often left with a sweeter product.


What is a substitute for Poblano Peppers? I have a recipe that calls for Poblano peppers but our store does not have them. I found this which references using Anaheim Peppers but they don't have those either.

What is a good alternative?

It is a roasted stuffed pepper dish that I need them for.

You can stuff any pepper which is large enough.

Poblano are moderately spicy.  You can use bell peppers, but they will not be spicy.  You might want to make up for that by including some spicier small peppers in your stuffing, perhaps a serrano or a jalapeno or seventeen, depending on your personal taste.


Method for how much cinnamon to add to recipe I have an apple pancake recipe I would like to add cinnamon to. Cinnamon is not part of the original recipe. How can I determine a good starting amount for cinnamon in any recipe?

The original recipe uses 3 tablespoons of sugar. Comparing this to another recipe, I eventually went with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon. My wife says it doesn't need any more but I'm wondering if I should step it up to 1 tablespoon (3 teaspoons).

EDIT: In his book "Ratios", Michael Ruhlman says there are fundamental ratios between ingredients that can be applied to cooking and baking. I am wondering if there is a fundamental ratio that can be used for cinnamon and, perhaps, sugar content in a recipe.

And, no, cinnamon is not in the book.

There aren't really any hard and fast rules when it comes to deciding how much cinnamon to start with.  There are certainly considerations when thinking about how much flour, milk, fat etc. to use in recipes and this is thrust of the book to which you refer. Baking is essentially chemistry and you need to get the proportions of the chemicals right to produce fluffy pancakes and light sponge cakes etc.  When it comes to flavouring the results of that chemistry there is less restriction but balancing the flavours should be a consideration.

One thing to think about is 'what do I want to end up with'? For example, are you aiming for apple pancakes, apple and cinnamon pancakes or cinnamon and apple pancakes.  If you only want a background cinnamon flavour to an apple pancake, then start with a smaller quantity of cinnamon.  If you'd like something that's more balanced in apple and cinnamon flavours then add more cinnamon to the same quantity of apples you used before.  If you're after something that's essentially cinnamon in flavour but with some apples there to add body then have at it with the cinnamon and go easy on the Bramleys'.

I've done some reading in the copies of Larousse Gastronomique and McGee on Food and Cooking we have at home and also consulted a book called The Flavour Thesaurus. None of these suggest any ratios of cinnamon to other ingredients. The addition of flavouring will always be subject to both personal taste and the needs of the recipe.  The proportions of the 'building blocks' of a recipe, particularly baking, can be much more easily defined and, to a degree, calculated.  Consider this, if you left the cinnamon out of your apple pancakes completely, they'd still be pancakes and have flavour. If you omitted the flour you'd have an mess.

As an addition, in series 2 episode 3 of Jamie Oliver's 30 Minute Meals, he raves about sprinkling cinnamon over Sicilian fish dishes. This is an example of there being no set rules about how much of a flavouring to use or where to use it.

I'll try and add some inline references to this tomorrow.


Mystery ingredient in cookies with cream tartar The attached picture is of a cookie recipe from my grandmother who passed a year ago. I would like to make the cookies, especially since they share my daughter's name, but there is one ingredient that I can't decode. It appears that the recipe calls for:

Nora's Cookies:

2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup ????
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp cream of tartar
1 tsp soda
salt
vanilla and lemon extract
flour to roll out

What might the 3rd ingredient be?

It's "spry"... which is actually what it looks like.

Spry was apparently a brand name shortening.

This related question "Is there anything special about "homogenized" shortening?" recommends simply using any type of vegetable shortening, like Crisco.


How long can you keep pizza dough in the fridge? We usually keep pizza dough in the fridge for three days before making the pizza.
We use the normal ingredients such as flour, sugar, salt, yeast, olive oil and water. I think this specific one has garlic powder and dried herbs added.
Due to circumstances, we might have to keep it longer than three days this time. Will it be okay to keep it for a week?

"Will it be okay" could mean a few different things.  Are you concerned about safety?  Flavor?  Other dough characteristics?

In terms of food safety, it's not the best practice to do with dough that lacks preservatives (added or natural, like in sourdough), but a week under refrigeration is pretty unlikely to result in anything really bad happening to dough unless it was already contaminated with bad bacteria or something.  If it's very moist and stored in a way that accumulates moisture on the surface, I suppose it's possible to start growing some mold, but even that's pretty unlikely to be significant within a week.  If you want to be extra cautious, be sure to cook the dough thoroughly (though generally with pizza you're unlikely to end up with raw dough in the center anyway).

Regarding flavor, here's where growth may cause problems.  Excess yeast growth may result in a flavor that's overly yeasty or alcoholic in tone, perhaps a bit "off."  More likely, you will probably get some lactic acid bacteria growth starting, resulting in a slight "sourdough" kind of flavor.  However, mature sourdough cultures are meant to be relatively stable, where the lactic acid bacteria will easily outcompete other microorganisms in the dough and sour it enough to prevent other things from growing.  Your dough (presumably made with commercial yeast) hasn't stabilized into a cycle like sourdough, so it's also possible that other things will grow during the week, potentially leading to various "off" or "funky" smells or flavors in the dough.  Again, I think the most likely outcome is a "sourdough" flavor that will probably be somewhat good, but it's a bit unpredictable when you store dough this long.

Finally, you might be concerned about how the dough will behave.  Generally, about three days is the maximum for most typical dough mixes before yeast start to use up their food and other microorganisms might start to interfere with further yeast growth.  There's usually a gradual decline starting after day three or so: by seven days, you may get significantly less yeast growth if you take it out of the fridge and expect the dough to proof before baking.  (I don't know what your procedure is.  With my pizza dough, I typically degas and shape thoroughly after removing from the fridge, then let my dough sit for a few hours at room temperature to grow more bubbles before baking.  You may not be able to get much rise out of this dough after so long, so you might consider how you want to handle it.)  On the other hand, it really depends on how much yeast was in the original mix and what starts growing over the week.  A thorough degassing and redistribution of the yeast could actually reinvigorate the dough and allow it to proof fine even after several days.

If the dough is not tightly sealed or has some areas more exposed to air, they may dry out after so long.  This can lead to tough spots in the dough.  Perhaps of a greater concern is the effect of acid, alcohol, and other waste products in a dough this old.  While unlikely to cause a lot of problems after a week in the fridge, my experience with overproofed doughs at room temperature and overproofed sourdoughs is that eventually you'll start to see breakdown in the gluten structure, which can cause the dough to tear much more easily or not stretch evenly when making pizza.  (I once had an overproofed sourdough pizza dough that literally tore apart into about three or four pieces as I was trying to load it into the oven; all the acid made it much more fragile.)  Again, this is probably not a huge concern for normal pizza dough with commercial yeast, but be prepared for the dough to behave more erratically when stretching and preparing for bake.  Seven days of fermentation will also change various chemical characteristics of the dough (like sugar content, enzyme breakdown of some elements, etc.), so be prepared for the baking to be a little different.  In particular, browning may happen at a different rate than you normally expect.

In general, it will probably be fine, though it might have somewhat different flavor notes and will rise less.  However, it's a bit unpredictable, which is why most people don't retard dough for more than around three days.  If this situation recurs, I'd strongly recommend simply freezing the dough: pizza dough can be frozen for at least a couple months with few concerns about quality.  A few hours to defrost and you're likely to have a much more predictable experience.


safety of "tin" cans dented in shipping I bought a case of canned fish on Amazon, and when it arrived nearly every can was dented in some way.  A total of two cans had no discernable denting, six had mild denting on the side, and four can had serious denting around the tops. It seems pretty obvious this is because a dozen 15 ounce cans were simply packed into a cardboard box barely large enough to hold them and without any extra padding they were then shipping across the county.

I have done a bit of reading and am seeing some conflicting advice.  The general consensus seems to be that it's not the actual dent in the can that is the problem, it's bacteria.  But this could be caused either by bacteria producing gases which cause the can to swell, in case the can should be thrown out immediately, or the denting could compromise the integrity of the can allowing bacteria into the can in which case it seems like more of a gray area.

All of the cans seem to still have their seal, which is bordering on amazing (to me anyway) for the cans which appear to have had a run-in with a shark.  See picture below:

If the cans are safe to eat I'm fine with keeping them, and I'm a bit hesitant to immediately return them because first of all I was planning on making my lunch from one of the cans today, and second, it appears this may be the norm for shipping - this is a "subscribe and save" item and the original label suggests this is actually how they are shipped from the manufacturer to the local distribution centers.

Is it safe to assume that if I open the can and there isn't a hiss from pressure being released and everything smells ok then it's probably safe?  And if so, is there some reduced shelf life, or should I refrigerate everything to be safe until it gets eaten?

From the  USDA :

Is it safe to use food from dented cans?
If a can containing food has a small dent, but is otherwise in good shape, the food should be safe to eat. Discard deeply dented cans. A deep dent is one that you can lay your finger into. Deep dents often have sharp points. A sharp dent on either the top or side seam can damage the seam and allow bacteria to enter the can. Discard any can with a deep dent on any seam.

I definitely would be hesitant to use any cans dented like the one in the picture. And as per my comment above, I would contact Amazon.


Question about mirror glazes and freezing I'm trying my hand at a layered mousse cake with a mirror glaze (I guess this is an entremet?). I've read several places that it is advisable to freeze the cake prior to glazing. My question is then: am I supposed to eat the cake frozen? Seems like it would be hard? Or should I let it thaw in the refrigerator? If so, for how long?

You want to glaze the cake when it's only just frozen: a couple hours should do, all you want is for the surface to be cold enough to fix the glaze in place.
 Once you've glazed it, leave it in the fridge just a few minutes, mousse doesn't take long to defrost.


Would almond flour work for macarons? I've been trying to make macarons using almond meal, and they turn out very lumpy and grainy. Should I be using almond flour instead? Or doing something else to make the powder finer?

Here I'm assuming that you mean macaroons as in the French patisserie macarons rather than the simpler coconut or almond based macaroons.

In any case almond meal and almond flour are essentially the same thing, both are almonds ground into a fine (or not so much in your case) 'flour' or 'powder'. Apparently, almond flour is made from 'blanched' (almonds which have had their skin removed) almonds whereas almond meal can be made from either almonds with their skins on (whole) or 'blanched'. I have, however, always found them to be used interchangeably.

If your problem is graininess, then you could either sieve the ground almonds before using or blitz/grind them finer in a food processor until the desired consistency is reached, however if you're grinding them in a food processor make sure you do it in small batches or if you're making macarons blitz them with the icing sugar (for the tant pour tant) to avoid making almond butter. Personally, I would do both to achieve a fine powder.


Can I use only urad dal to make dosa? I've been making dosa lately and was wondering if you could make the batter using only soaked urad dal (black lentils)? Or, do you have to include soaked rice, as well?

I am diabetic, so I am trying to make dosa batter more "diabetic-friendly," because I love them so much!

If not, what's the smallest amount of rice you can use?

Currently, I use 3 cups rice and 1 cup urad dal. I am using brown basmati rice, because it's a little better, carb-wise.

Thanks in advance for answers!

Main ingredient for making a traditional dosa is rice. Rice can't be substituted. Although you can definitely reduce the amount of rice you are using.

From what you've mentioned, you are using 3:1 rice to black lentil ratio. Using 2:1 rice to lentil ratio can also yield you similar batter without compromising the crispiness.

I am assuming that you only use rice and black lentils. You can try adding more types of lentils like Moong (Split Green Gram lentil with skin removed) or Toor Daal.
The point here is to reduce the amount of rice in per serving by adding lentil. I usually follow 4:2:1 rice to black lentil to Moong Daal ratio.

If you completely cut out rice, you can still get similar crepes using substitutes but they won't be authentic dosa. You can try Rava Dosa (Semolina Crepe) or many other substitutes mentioned here


Could you brine steak? I have read that brining pork chops is a good idea but can you brine beef steaks of various cuts? Would this achieve anything good or spectacular or is it just a waste of time?

There certainly are proponents of brining beef to impact texture and flavor.  In my looking across the internets, it appears that dry "brining" is more common than wet, but both are used for steaks.  Whether or not the results are "spectacular" is up to you. So, I would give it a try to see if you like it.  For me, I generally don't prefer the texture of brined meat, with the exception of boneless pork loin chops.  Given their leanness, I think a couple of hours in a salt/sugar brine helps.  If you like the results, be sure to experiment with time in the brine.  As it is possible to over do it, negatively impacting the texture.


What could be the basic ingredients that potentiate sourness and bitterness? When it comes to basic tastes (saltiness, sweetness, bitterness, sourness, and umami), I can easily think of very basic ingredients that could be considered the essence of a given taste, something that you can add to any meal and potentiate that specific taste:

For sweetness, we have sugar.
For saltiness, we have salt.
For umami, we have monosodium glutamate.

I have doubts regarding sourness. At first I thought about vinegar or lemon juice, but both ingredients do modify the flavor of meals you add them into (and not just potentiate a given taste). And regarding bitterness, I just have no clue. Note that I am speaking about ingredients (something you can find in a kitchen), and not about chemical compounds in general.

So what ingredients can be considered the essence of sourness and bitterness?

About any acid will deliver a sour taste from H+, along with whatever taste the corresponding anion brings along.
Most alkaloids are bitter.The term covers a wide range of different chemicals, mostly including nitrogen qnd oxygen as part of their structure. There are likely quite a few bitter compounds which are not alkaloids, but none spring to mind at the moment. Bitter is a far more complex response than sour or sweet.


Should I pour off the liquified fat while cooking bacon? At home, I'm likely to cook bacon stovetop in a cast iron skillet. In commercial kitchens I've worked in, bacon goes on sheet pans in the oven. In each case, I usually pour off excess fat once or twice during cooking. However, I just watched this video at Chow that instructs to never pour off the fat. Does the pool of hot fat help or hinder in achieving a uniformly crispy piece of bacon?

If a recipe calls for you to drain the fat, drain the fat. If you are trying to lose weight, drain the fat. If you don't want an unattractive glossy skim on top, or for it to cool and harden, drain the fat.

Having too much fat in your pan will possibly interfere with the frying technique you are using, which will change the end product. That said, it sounds like you are just frying bacon. In this case, it is totally a matter of personal preference; some people like very greasy bacon, some want to pretend there was no fat ever and drain obsessively and dry on paper towels twice.

From my experience cooking bacon, long and slow, I prefer to have a moderate amount in the pan. Some bacon will render fat more quickly and in higher volume than others. This is problematic when you are trying to ensure a crisp product at the end as the bacon can end up partially deep fried. If you find the fat interfering with the actual frying, drain it.

I also drain the bacon to ensure there aren't pools of bacon, howeverI don't prefer to dry it; normally I do a haystack on paper towels. I have made chili where the primary fat was bacon fat from a few pounds of bacon; in this case you still want to drain it, into the pot you will be making the chili in. This helps ensure that you are rendering as much fat as possible and that the bacon can be used later.

As for getting rid of the fat, don't pour it down the drain. If you're going to store it, strain it, keep it air tight, and put it in the fridge. If you're going to use it for the next thing you are making, strain it (or don't) and put it aside, but don't let it interfere with the focus, the frying of the bacon.


What ingredient should I add to my cookies to increase shelf life? What ingredient should I add to my cookies to increase shelf life. I need my cookies, 6 months later to still be fresh (expiry date in 6 months).

No ingredient will make a cookie last 6 months. Some types of cookies last longer than others: for example, this recipe for biscotti can keep up to 3 months if kept in an airtight container in a cool place.

But again, there is no way to take a generic recipe for cookies and amend it to last this long. Something like American-style chocolate chip cookies simply has too much fat and moisture to keep. A possible alternative is to freeze cookie dough, possibly in pre-portioned scoops, and bake a fresh batch when you need them.


Pie VS Tart VS Quiche Pi day is coming up quickly!  What are the technical differences between pie, tart and quiche?  Tarts are sweet.  Here are my observation so far:

Pies can be either sweet or savoury.
Quiches must be savoury.
A pie can be with and without a lid.  Tarts and quiches don't have lids.  (See “Pie” vs “Tart”?)
Tarts can be small.  Quiches and pies are cut up and shared.
Both pies and tarts can contain fruits.
All have a pastry bottom.
All may be served hot or cold, depending on the filling.
All are rounded.

Please feel free to correct me.  Sorry to be too technical.  I'd like to avoid the embarrassment of bringing a tart or a quiche instead of a pie for Pi day parties.

Pie and tart are regional (North American versus Western European) terms for essentially the same thing.  Some will argue that the pans make the difference (see below), but I don't buy that story.

There are some stylistic differences that appear quite often, but nothing that makes them truly different things:

Pies tend to be deeper, and have more filling
Pies tend to be made in a shallow, sloped sided baking pan called a "pie pan; whereas tarts tend to be made with only a ring, or a tart mold which consists of an outer ring with a removable bottom plate.  Tart pans or rings tend to have vertical sides, not sloped ones.
Tarts usually only have a bottom crust
If the recipe is from France or cooks of a French cooking tradition, it tends to be called a tart; if it is from North America, it tends to be called a pie
Pies often feature a flakey short crust, or a crumb type crust, whereas tarts often feature a pate sucre type crust, but again this is far from universal
Pies are usually served from their pan, where tarts are almost never served from their ring—this may be as close to a defining difference as there is!

Both tarts and pies can be made in a variety of sizes, including appetizer or finger food sized, personally sized, or family sized.

In North America, sometimes a turnover (like an empanada or pastie, but hand-sized) which is baked or fried is also sometimes called a pie, hand pie, or even fried pie.

The word pie is also used in England and North America for a class of casseroles made with a top crust, such as shepherd's pie (mashed potato crust), steak and kidney pie, or chicken pot pie.

There is also the gallette which is a pastry made free form without a pan or mold, by making a crust, adding filling, and folding the sides partially over towards the center.  This is essentially a free form tart or pie.

Quiches are a savory pie or tart whose filling is based on an egg based custard, often with cheese as well.

Oh... and if it is from New York, made with a yeast raised crust, and covered with cheese and hopefully pepperoni, it is definitely a pie :-)


How do I stop my steak from leaking juice? I panfry the steak by searing on high both sides, then cook it at a low-medium temperature until medium rare. Then I let the steak rest for ~10 minutes before cutting it. During that time a lot of juice leaks out. What am I doing wrong?

A lot of people had good questions in the comments. The best being Kenji's article from serious eats .com. Read that.

Chances are if a lot of juices are coming out of your steak, its because you are cooking it past medium. I like to think the proportion of 'grey' meat in a cooked steak indicates how much red juice has been 'squeezed' out of the meat fibrils and is now on the plate. If your steak is still medium or medium rare, there is lots of 'red' meat that has the capacity to hold the juice!
-Most important: Let rest ten minutes (longer for bigger cuts/roasts etc) after cooking. Seems like you're doing that.

Heres one link to a Serious Eats article by Kenji. This one explains some myths, including 'locking in juices'.

Serious Eats - Steak Old Wives Tales