How does imitation cinnamon flavor differ from real? To me, imitation cinnamon flavor (like the extract, or artificially flavored candies) tastes pretty harsh, and not all that much like cinnamon. I can only assume it's an artificially-made form of the main aromatic compound in actual cinnamon.

So why do they seem so different? Are they actually identical? And how much of the real cinnamon aroma comes from that versus other things?

Imitation cinnamon is primarly pure cinnamaldehyde, or a related chemical. That's chemically identical to what's found in cinnamon sticks and ground cinnamon, so you're not consuming anything you wouldn't also be getting from real cinnamon. It's what produces the piquancy (burn) of cinnamon, as well as the scent and flavor.

It's actually probably derived by extracting it from cinnamon bark (likely poor quality cinnamon bark that wouldn't taste good added to baked goods), though that can be labeled "natural" rather than "imitation". "Imitation" may indicate that some of the other flavor chemicals in it are synthesized, or that they will include some synthesized cinnamaldehyde if that turns out to be cheaper.

Natural cinnamon is made by dissolving cinnamon bark in a solvent like ethanol. Imitation cinnamon will also come with a solvent, with the same concentration of cinnamyl. It also contains a few hundred other chemicals, some of which are known, some of which are unknown, that are also dissolved from the bark.

If you buy a bottle of "imitation cinnamon" it will have at least some of those chemicals added in as well. The imitation versions have a more one-dimensional version of the taste, while the natural versions are more well-rounded. Adding in other chemicals tries to give it a less one-note taste.

For commercial flavors, like those added to candies, they'll use different sets of additional chemicals depending on their desired flavor profile, and the cost. More complex mixtures are more expensive to develop and make. Cheap candies tend to have just a few: their goal is to hit you with the heat and with a really obvious "this is cinnamon" effect.


How important is isolating food in a fridge? Sometimes I feel like a fridge is too "open", so that mold, bacteria, rot, etc. can spread easily. Also, meat and vegetables can't really be kept apart well. Am I right in thinking this?

Is this problem worth combating by using air tight bags, for example?

The air movement in a fridge is required to keep the fridge at temperature. While it is true that more mass keeps a more even temp than less mass, you still need to keep enough room for the air to circulate. That circulating air will not contaminate the other food, although there are a few things you should do to maintain good food safety in your fridge.

Place food in the proper spot The proper order to stock your fridge is (from bottom to top) uncooked poultry -> uncooked meat -> fully cooked meals -> raw, washed veggies. This order prevents any dripping bacteria reaching your food before you cook it. (Note that you might need to switch meals and veggies, depending on your storage needs. I use this order since I store all cooked products in sealed Tupperware but the recommended order has them switched)
Make sure that your fridge is cold enough Temp range is 34 F to 41 F and you want it toward the lower end of that scale.
Keep your fridge clean You should be cleaning your fridge, including the rubber gaskets around the door, at least once a month and more frequently if you begin to notice any kind of build up. Use a mild detergent (like dish soap) and warm water (you can also use bleach if there is staining or you are cleaning a spill), making sure to wipe out the sides and backs and the undersides of all shelves.

If you follow those three steps, you will have an almost zero chance of spreading bacteria around your fridge, with your biggest risk factors being your own hands. If you don't have enough shelves to keep each type of food separate, you can mix cooked food and veggies and the uncooked poultry with uncooked meats, but you should never store cooked food and uncooked food on the same shelf.


Does there exist a non-rust substitute for an iron-cast pan? I recently bought a new cast-iron pan and I am enjoying very much the upgrade in the quality of my food.

As I understand it, the reason why food cooked in an cast-iron pan tastes better is that the pan heats the food more evenly (due to its thickness). On the other hand a main downside is that cast-iron cookware requires significant maintanance and care.

Is there a substitute that achieves the same effects as an cast-iron pan but does not rust? If the iron in an cast-iron pan was just replaced with another metal that does not rust so easily (but has a similar conductivity to iron) would the results not be the same?

It does exist, is the best of both worlds and what I use and it's called Enameled Cast Iron and I use Le Creuset...

It's cast iron below the enamel finish
Doesn't stick as much as real old-fashioned cast iron
lasts forever as long as you don't drop them. (Your kitchen tiles will break too)
once every 2-3 months boil them out with bleach for 5 minutes to keep them looking like brand new for >20 years...


Water content in beignet dough When I add the indicated amount of water to my beignet recipe, I end up with humid flour: not enough moisture to form a dough of any kind. It seems apparent to me some minor adjustment to the water is necessary, but I can't find much information on what I should be aiming for. What should the target consistency be? What will the end result be if I add too much, or too little water?

Each country has different flour, and the temperature also has a big influence. You will probably laugh but to find the right consistency of your dough take your earlobe between two fingers...this is the right consistency it is not a joke, my grandmother taught me this and now I am a grandmother


What combination of flours can be used as a substitution to a bread flour? Following is the list of flours that I can get hold of in India easily:

Whole wheat flour
Semolina flour
Chickpea flour
Maida
Multi grain flour
Corn flour
Rice flour

What can be the combination of these flours which can then result in a substitute for the bread flour?

None of those flours on its own is a good substitute for bread flour, at least for making yeast raised breads.

Yeast raised breads require the development of gluten, which is possible only with a wheat based flour.  This leaves you only three choices:

Whole wheat flour
Maida
Semolina

Comparing the characteristics of each of these to bread flour:

Whole wheat flour, depending on the wheat from which it is milled, may have higher or lower protein levels.  Your particular whole wheat flour has a moderately high protein level, at the bottom end of the bread flour range.

However, the bran that is a component of whole wheat flour is very sharp at the small scale, and does not participate in the chemistry or physical structure of gluten creation.  In fact, the sharp edges of the bran actually serve to physically block formation of gluten strands, and even cut already formed strands.

For this reason, whole wheat flour is less than ideal for some bread making.  In general, you would want to substitute only a portion of bread flour with whole wheat flour; in fact, it is better to use it only in bread recipes specifically designed for it.  If you do choose to use it in lieu of bread flour, consider starting with only 25% of the total flour amount.

Finally, whole wheat flour has a different flavor than white flours, due to the additional components in the flour from the entire wheat berry.  The bran, the germ, and the endosperm all ground together (thus the term whole wheat), giving the flour its own flavor from each of these components--mostly the germ.

This is also what leads to the shorter shelf life of whole wheat flour.
Maida flour.  According to Wikipedia, maida flour is a soft (low protein) flour comparable to cake flour or pastry flour.

This means that it has much less protein, and much less gluten formation potential than bread flour does, on a weight for weight basis.
Semolina.  Semolina is a hard wheat flour with a high protein level, but is typically very coarsely ground.  Generally, you can feel the individual granules when you pick it up and hold it between your fingers, and can see them when you look quite closely.

This is a much larger grind than bread flour.

You can make bread with semolina, as this recipe from King Arthur Flour demonstrates.

With these components available to you, you would need to experiment to find the best possible outcome—and unfortunately, that is not the best place to start if you are not already a a fairly comfortable bread maker.

My best guess is that your best outcome would be from a mixture of semolina and maida, probably about 50-50.    However, the dough may take longer to hydrate and come together than expected, due to the larger grains of the semolina.

If you wish to incorporate whole wheat flour, I recommend starting with 25% of your total flour, and no more than 50% total.

Note:  India Curry article refers to an Indian flour called atta which is much closer in its description to bread flours... is it not available in your region?


What's the recommended temperature for chocolate to set? I have been making various kinds of chocolate bonbons for about 8 months with great success. (Once I had mastered tempering, that is.)

I had read somewhere (but I can't remember the source) that chocolate that's allowed to set in the fridge will not set with the desired crystal structure, even if it was properly tempered, so I normally leave it on a kitchen counter overnight to set. In winter it worked very well, but these past weeks we have had serious summer heat, and the kitchen has been above 25°C, and the past couple of times my chocolate has ended up rather grayish and out of temper.

The last time I tried to let it set in the fridge, and it looks better. It's got the right gloss, but I'm not 100% sure that it has the same snap as I'm used to.

What is the recommended temperature for properly tempered chocolate to set?

The recommended temperature is 20°C. This is 12 to 13 degrees Celsius difference to the actual chocolate temperature. 1-2 degrees deviation will not be a problem, but more than that and you will get subpar results.

This temperature should ideally be the same on all sides of the new chocolate shape. This means, if you are covering something in chocolate, you also have to balance the temperature of the surrounding air, the covered thing ("core"), and the chocolate. In this case, you also ideally have 20° covered thing, 20° air and 33° chocolate. But if you really have a deviation, you should try to at least have air and core at the same temperature, so 22-33-22 is better than 18-33-22.

I also once wrote an answer which adds detail from an article on tempering truffle couverture, you can find it at this question.


Is there a difference in how to store something that was frozen that has been cooked versus how to store something that was fresh and has been cooked? There are many questions on here about how long you can store cooked food, and I have been using StillTasty for more specific answers following some of the comments.

However I notice that StillTasty has information listed for many foods for "Fresh, Cooked", "Fresh, Raw" and "Commercially Frozen".  Is there a difference in storage of  "Fresh, Cooked" food and food that was frozen and thawed before cooking?  Or is this just an oddity of their descriptions?

Edit: Assuming the thawing and cooking has been done thoroughly to "safe temperatures".

If I'm understanding your question correctly, there is no difference in storage time. Regardless of whether the food was fresh or frozen & thawed, once cooked, storage time is the same.


How to stop waffles from sticking to pan? How can I keep waffles from sticking to pan? As I grease the pan with oil before putting mixture, but the waffles stick to pan and it becomes difficult to get waffles out of pan.

Make sure the pan is properly preheated to cooking temperature before pouring the batter in. If you've oiled it, and water sizzles and skips when splashed on the pan, you should be good to go.


Are stainless steel frypans oven safe? I have a Cr-Ni stainless steel frypan which I'd like to toss in the oven. It doesn't have any plastic/wooden components ; the whole thing is SS including the handle.

Is it oven safe?

Typically "oven safe" indicates that none of the components will break down in high heats. As there are no plastic or wooden components, and the utensil is all metal, it would appear that it is oven safe. Assuming there are no other chemical compounds used in the fry pan that would break down you should be good to go and toss it in the oven as long as you wear a mitt when you pull it out.


Can I make Irish Brown Bread using a covered loaf pan? Have a recipe for Irish Brown Bread that says to use a shortening pan & mentions the lid.  Would a loaf pan with foil over the top work the same way?

The only "loaf pan with a lid" I'm familiar with is the "Pullman" pan. I have seen suggestions to use a board wrapped in foil or foil under a casserole dish set on top of a regular loaf pan if trying to emulate that form without the right pan. Foil alone would probably not hold. I don't own one and have never emulated it. I suppose if someone was using a bread pan to store grease in for use as shortening, a Pullman pan would help to keep things out of it. But as with @miken32 I can't find any reference to a pan by that name.


Using beef fat for baking I have a large amount of very good quality dry aged beef fat (not suet). I would like to try making cookies using the beef fat in place of the butter. I was thinking of using a simple shortbread-style recipe or something similar (i.e. no other flavourings apart from the fat and sugar), just replacing the butter with rendered beef fat. I am, however, aware that the melting point of beef fat is comparatively low.

Is this possible, and what adjustments should I make, if any?

Shortbread dough made with lard is delicious. I have never used beef fat, but both pork fat and goose fat have worked perfectly for me in this setting. I prefer the texture over the texture of shortbread baked with butter. So go ahead and make it, it's very likely that you get very similar results to pork or goose fat.


Will dried buttermilk react with other ingredients in dry mix with oil, stored in fridge? I would like to make a (dry) pancake mix in a large batch, and then store it in the fridge. I have done this before with no problem, and would now like to do the same thing, but add dried buttermilk. I was wondering if the dried buttermilk will store well with other ingredients, while stored in the fridge.

The other ingredients include oil. The full ingredients are:

4 cups King Arthur white whole wheat flour
1 cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
3 1/2 cups old-fashioned or rolled oats
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 cup vegetable oil

The source for this recipe is:
http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/homemade-whole-grain-pancake-mix-recipe

The baking soda and acid from the dried buttermilk should not react in any significant amount until you hydrate the mixture, so it should work.   Remember, baking powder is acid and sodium bicarbonate in the same can, and there is little except acid and reactant; your mix will have a lot of buffer ingredients as well.

I would not add the oil to the dry mix though until you are ready to make the pancakes, along with the water.


Can condensed milk be safely used after it's 'best before' date? It's just that I have an unopened tin of condensed milk which is a couple of months past it's best before date. And I don't feel like throwing it away :(

Yes, as long as it hasn't been opened. 'Best Before' dates refer to quality, not safety, and reflect the date at which the manufacturers believe that it is not up to normal quality standards. Have a taste, and if you think it's OK, go ahead.


Unroasted beans for Arab coffee? I have seen coffee prepared as in Qatar: It was mixed with cardamon, and had a light brown colour. The taste was excellent. I was told that the coffee beans were roasted only very little. Which kind of coffee beans are typically used for this coffee in Qatar, and can one get them in Europe.

Arabic coffee can refer to black coffee, similar to Turkish coffee or the lighter, greenish-brown coffee drunk in Saudi and the UAE. Both are commonly flavoured with cardamon.

There isn't any specific type of coffee bean that needs to be used, as long as it's only been lightly roasted.


What is this type of (Greek?) chilli pepper? The chillies pictured below are fairly common in Greece (particularly the north of the country). They are known as "kafteres" (καυτερές) which roughly translates as "spicy".

I'd like to have a steady supply of them, however I don't know what they are called outside of Greece. What is the name of this variety, and would it be feasible to grow them in the UK?

It's a Frigitello pepper, although in the states they're called pepperoncini. You can grow any spicy chili pepper in the UK provided you have a greenhouse or maybe a conservatory, otherwise don't bother, it just isn't hot enough.

You can find these types of peppers in any turkish and many asian supermarkets, so no need to grow them.


Rubber like skin on surface of chocolate mousse When I make chocolate mousse, I usually end up with a slightly rubbery surface on the mousse.

To make the mousse, I do the following:

Melt dark chocolate in a bowl over simmering water
Separate 2 or 3 egg whites from the yolks
Whip the egg whites
Mix the yolks in with the chocolate and add a bit of sugar
Fold the egg whites in with the chocolate mix
Transfer to bowls and put in the fridge

Usually when I go to eat them the next day, there is a rubber like surface on the mousse, but underneath it's nice and soft.

I am just wondering what causes this, and how to prevent it?

The cause is that the mousse dries out on the surface. It builds a skin of dehydrated mousse. It happens with most cremes, not only your yolk foam.

To prevent it, put plastic wrap on the mousse. Don't span it over the bowl, press it on the surface itself, without leaving air between the mousse and wrap. Your mousse will stay soft. This also works for custards and starch-thickened puddings.

In general, also cover other things you put in the fridge, or they can get an unpleasant odour.


When should garlic be added to the pan to get maximum pungency? When you crush raw garlic and use it as seasoning for vegetables, is it best to put it the pan first and let it begin to cook before adding any other ingredients, or is it best to add it later on?

Which order is best if you want the garlic flavor to be strongest?

Garlic's pungency is released by cutting it.  The more finely the garlic is cut-up, the stronger its taste will be.  So minced garlic will be stronger than chopped garlic.  Chopped garlic will be stronger than sliced garlic.  Etc.

Cooking mellows the sharp pungency of garlic.  More cooking - milder flavor.

In order for garlic flavor to be strongest, you should mince the garlic and cook it briefly.  Assuming you are trying to flavor vegetables, you should add your minced garlic shortly before they are cooked to the point where they ready to be served - give the garlic 30 seconds or so.


Adding lemon to cookie recipe What is the best way to add lemon flavor to a cookie recipe? I know lemon juice is highly acidic, I don't want to throw off the PH of the dough. Is lemon extract the same way? Lemon zest? Is there a way to compensate for that?

The easiest way is just use a recipe for lemon cookies. I'm sure you can find lots of them online. If you really want to use a recipe for normal cookies (because you really like it), you could certainly add lemon extract to a regular batch. Don't add too much, the flavour is really concentrated. Since you won't use a lot of it (a teaspoon will do), the liquid:dry proportion practically won't change, but to be sure, you can cut back the milk by the amount (e.g. a teaspoon). You can also add a bit of zest without a problem.

I wouldn't add lemon juice because you're adding milk in your cookies. The milk would curdle (in some cookies that is exactly what you would want to achieve). However, you can try to add lemon juice instead of milk.


What are those little holes in some meat? For example this ham:

I see them in ham, sometimes chicken, salami, and similar.
They seem to be small sphere shaped half to one millimeter in size.

My experience comes from making salami sandwiches... In order to allow myself the luxury of eating something so grease-filled without guilt, I'll zap it in the microwave for 20-30 seconds to render out the fat.  Since packing the salami with ground up fat is part of the process. Cooking the meat melts the fat globules and leaves little hole where the fat use to be.  This more apparent when done with sliced salami and bologna.

In chicken and certain cuts of beef, I think the holes are the result of cutting across veins.  Also, I know that from preparing raw chicken for cooking, I am sometimes able to pull out lengths of veins that leave behind perfect little holes where they came out from.


Pizza dough didn't rise, maybe yeast cells were killed off I made a pizza dough and I left it to rise until doubled in bulk. However, it didn't rise at all. After reading here I can just guess that I killed the yeast cells:

  Yeast Is Too Hot. Recipes that call for active dry yeast direct you to dissolve that yeast in warm water. Sometimes the recipe calls for the liquid to be heated with fat and then added to the yeast. Either way, if the liquid is too hot it will kill off yeast cells. Yeast is pretty picky. It doesn’t like it too cold and it doesn’t like it too hot.

If this is the case and after waiting more time, it still doesn't rise, is there something I can do with the dough? I wouldn't want to throw it away.

Thanks

Very possible your yeast was killed or was dead to begin with. The recipe you linked has no sugar, and sugar usually is used to speed up fermentation. The recipe does call for salt, which tends to inhibit fermentation. The recipe calls for pretty intense mechanical mixing for 2 minutes, which is going to raise the temperature of the dough by the friction generated. A lot of potential things working against you.

I've had pizza making disasters and have managed to salvage some dead doughs and at least get something on the table that can be called a pizza; but you aren't going to get great results unless you cut your losses and start over with new ingredients.

To prevent waste of that flour, you could salvage it and at least cook it as a flat bread or garlic knots, etc.

The way I salvage dead dough is by putting about 10g of yeast in a tablespoon of water with 10g sugar, let it become active to prove you have action happening, then mix into your dead dough, then let rise.


Dipping Cakepops in Callebaut Callets I just received my Revolation machine and will be tempering my Callebaut callets in them tonight.

I will be using it mostly for dipping cakepops. I roll them and stick them in the freezer for just a few minutes and then dip them in the chocolate.

I had previously tempered the chocolate in the microwave without using a thermometer and the chocolate came out dull and definitely soft and pliable.

I am using Callebaut Belgian White and Dark Chocolate Callets. Did I get the right chocolate for this kind of confection?

Will the chocolate eventually harden after dipping and become less tacky? (I place my pops in cello bags)?

Based on your comments, you probably didn't temper the chocolate correctly the first time. Tempering chocolate can be a really delicate thing and being off by several degrees can affect whether the chocolate is tempered well.

Because your chocolate wasn't tempered correctly, it would not have harden completely. The chocolate's cocoa butter is composed of glycerides of fatty acids that needs to solidify at a certain temperature to ensure a stable formation. It is this stable formation that makes the chocolate firm(non-tacky) and shiny.

Here is a guide to tempering chocolate using a microwave and a thermometer: http://chocomap.com/chocolate-making-tempering.php

I have taken a look at the chocolate you have bought and there should be no reason why it shouldn't temper correctly. Your new Revolation will melt your chocolate at a very precise temperature so your chocolate should come out tempered. It will be shiny and firm.


Turkish Coffee necessities I was in Turkey this summer and I drank Turkish Coffee every day, I like it very much. I had some conversations with the coffee house owners and I tried to learn how to do it best, how to grind coffee, how to make it and even how to serve it. I really enjoyed the traditional methods that they used so I came to home, Florida, and now searching to find the all necessities for making and serving Turkish Coffee. Does anyone knows about where can I buy and any details about Turkish Coffee?

You will need to have a Turkish coffee pot, a spoon, sugar and coffee that has been ground to a fine powder.  Although most people use the Arabica beans, it really doesn't matter what kind of coffee you use.  However, it should be a medium roast, because you will actually roast it again while making it. You can get the Turkish coffee in several different ways:

A. Purchase a special Turkish Grinder (regular electric grinders with blades spinning at a high speed will NOT do the job) and grind the coffee yourself.  We do have these available at our store if you are interested.

B. Grind it at your local grocery store!  Yes, that's right.  You may not have noticed, but most grinders (99.9%) at your local grocery store in the U.S. have a Turkish coffee setting!  Just select the "Turkish Coffee" setting and grind your beans.

C. Buy it ready made from Turkish Coffee World.  We sell it in our store but you can also find it at most Mediterranean stores if you live in a big city.

Preparation

Measure the amount of cold water you will need.
Place your pot of water on the stove and turn the heat to medium-high (just until the water heats up).
Add about 1-2 heaping tea spoons (or 1 tablespoon) of coffee per demitasse cup (3 oz).  Do not stir it yet. Just let the coffee "float" on the surface because if you stir it now you might cause it to clump up.
Add sugar to taste. Do not stir it yet, Let the water warm up little bit as above.
When the coffee starts to sink into the water and the water is warm enough to dissolve your sugar,  stir it several times and then turn down the heat to low.  You should stir it several times, up until it your brew starts to foam (you can also vigorously move your spoon side to side to encourage to start the foaming).
When you see the bubble "ring" forming on the surface, turn down the heat a little bit more or move your pot away from the heat source. Pay attention to the bubbles that are forming at this stage. Bubbles should be very small in size.
From this point on watch your coffee carefully.  Do not let the temperature get hot enough to start boiling. (NEVER LET IT BOIL - many instructions on how to make Turkish coffee use the term "boiling" but this is totally inaccurate) The key idea here is to let the coffee build a thick froth and that occurs approximately around 158 F or 70 C (i.e., much cooler than the boiling point of water which is 212 F or 100 C at standard pressure.  If your brew comes to a boil, you will not have any foam because it will simply evaporate!).
Keep it at the "foaming" stage as long as you can without letting it come to a boil.  You might even gently stir your brew a little bit at this stage.  The more froth, the better it will taste. Also your coffee must be fresh or it will not foam as well. If your brew gets too hot and begins to "rise", then move it away from the heat or just turn it down.  You are almost done.  Repeat this process until your foam has "raised" and "cooled" at the most couple of times (NOT 3-4 times like some instructions. Even once is enough).  Then pour in to your cups (quickly at first to get out the foam, then slowly) while making sure that each cup has equal amount of foam!  If you are serving several cups then you might be better off spooning the foam into each cup.


Ideal fridge temperature accounting for temperature spikes I've read the question on the ideal fridge temperature, but am asking a more involved question about a baseline temperature and temperature spikes. How will a few hours each day at 10 C effect the contents of the fridge? What about two smaller spikes to 7 C?

Background: I live in a small studio. The fridge makes noise. I'd like it to be quiet at night. If I can do so without frequent food spoilage, I'll get a timer and turn the fridge off from 2300 to 0800. If this is a bit too much time without cooling, I plan to turn it off while I fall asleep (2300 to 0200), turn it back on (0200 to 0400), and then have it be quiet in the mornings again (0400 to 0800).

I've put some temperature loggers in the fridge and unplugged it manually during the 2300 to 0800 time. The graph is attached below. The mean temperature is 3 to 5 C, rising to 10 C.

The 2nd day was 'bad' data: I added a few gallons of water to increase the thermal capacity of the fridge (temp spike), but added them too late in the evening. The water did not cool to 4 C, and when I unplugged it the temperature shot back up. The first day, with an almost empty fridge, is a worst-case scenario. When the fridge is full I expect the max T at 0800 to be 8 or 9 C, not 10 C. I am collecting that data now and will update the post in a few days when I've checked the variability.

If 6-8 C for a few hours, then 8 to 10 C for a few more, then a quick return to 3 C is bad for the food (mostly OJ, soy milk, cheese, and some veggies), then I'll cool it in the middle of the night when I'm in a deep sleep.

So... to the question: How important is a 4 C fridge? Is a few hours per day up to 10 C bad? What about up to 7 C? Any other suggestions how to quiet the studio as I try to sleep?

Another possibility to consider would be adding ice blocks from a freezer during the times you want to not be running the compressor.


Whisky instead of wine in marinades? I know that almost every one of us use wine or vinegar for marinades or meals. Recently I was cooking a Chinese food and tried whisky instead just for a difference. That bitterness of the whisky tasted good in my opinion. What are the downs of this compared to a wine or vinegar?

The main factors a base liquid can contribute to a marinade are:

Bulk -- enough volume to reach all of the food.
Acidity -- helps tenderize the surface of meats, and provides a bright flavor balance
Sweetness -- helps provide a flavor balance
Viscosity -- helps the marinade stick to or coat the target food
Enzymatic activity -- some liquids (such as pineapple juice) have active enzymes which can break down proteins, tenderizing them in the short term (with the danger of turning them mushy in the long term)
Flavor profile -- contribute flavor to the marinade, and thus to the food it adheres to or sauces it is eventually incorporated into

You did not provide a recipe, but in most Chinese dishes, the vinegar or rice wine in the marinade contributes some acidity (rice vinegar not always being as strong as western vinegar), possibly some sweetness, and of course, the characteristic flavor.  However, Chinese marinades are not normally used for long enough periods, nor are they acidic enough for the acid to be an active ingredient; it is just part of the overall flavor balance.

Therefore, whiskey should serve well for most purposes, assuming you like the flavor it brings.  While it probably has less acid than  vinegar or wine, this is unlikely to be a significant difference.


Is it generally better to cut chicken breast with or against the grain? I realize it may depend on what you're doing, but as a general rule, which is preferred and why?

Alton Brown talked about this on an episode of Good Eats, and here's what I remember:

If you cut with the grain, you'll end up with long strands of protein, like this:

------------------------
------------------------
------------------------

From what I understand, this means that it'll be pretty chewy.  Your mouth has to work harder to break the strands up into smaller pieces to be more easily swallowed.

If you cut against the grain, you get strands like this:

||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||
||||||||||||||||||||||||

You can see that the strands are much shorter, which means the meat will fall apart more easily (each strand doesn't have as much surface area to connect to adjacent strands) and will therefore be more tender.


What causes butter to make risotto shiny? Why does the addition of butter make risotto shiny?  Is there a chemical explanation?  I was taught to initially saute onions and garlic in olive oil, then risotto Arborio rice with warmed broth until the dish is almost complete, when the rice is still quite al dente.  At this point, I add butter, which invariably makes the risotto beautifully shiny.  Without the addition of the butter, the risotto does not develop this sheen.  I would like to know if anyone knows why?  I am also interested in knowing if there is a specific chemical reaction associated with this process?

There is no special chemical reaction. Melted fats are glossy, look at any oil in a bottle.

When you add the butter, it coats the rice, and this coat of fat is glossy. That's all there is to it.

I don't know the exact explanation of why all oils are glossy, but it probably involves quantum physics. You could ask it on Physics or Chemistry SE, it is beyond our scope here.


What north atlantic fish can we use to make a good ceviche? I am planning to do a ceviche entrée in Ireland but I am limited in the choice of seafood and most likely won't find Peruvian/Pacific ones. Any recommendations for? substitutes

I think just about any large flaky-fleshed fish that's not too fatty is a good candidate for ceviche. Salmon can work, though it's a tad fatty. Tuna is not a good choice, in my opinion. Cod and any kind of bass can work really well. I would think haddock or even sole or flounder could work too.

There is lots of white-fleshed fish available in the North Atlantic, and many will do great in ceviche. Take a look at the flesh and see if it seems similar to what you would usually use, and when in doubt ask the fishmonger for advice. Even if they don't know ceviche, if you can tell them what fish you'd usually use, they can probably advise you on substitutes.


At what point is a beef stew being overcooked? I made beef stew last night in my slow cooker. At seven hours I felt like it wasn't ready so I set an alarm to wake me up at ten hours and moved it into the fridge around 1 AM.

Let's say I left it in the pot the whole night, would 17-18 hours be too much? Is there such a thing as overcooking stew, and how long does it take until you reach it?

If you're cooking low and slow, with enough liquid, you'll end up with a style of stew called ragoût.  The trick is to not add the vegetables during the cooking, unless they're either something that you want to break down, or you've added enough acid to the cooking liquid to prevent onions and potatoes from fully disintegrating.

Personally, I prefer to take pot-roast to this stage, as it's what I grew up with.

You might not get the 'cooked to rags' quality of the meat, as you may not have agitated the meat before cooling.  In the Good Eats episode 'Stew Romanace', Alton Brown cooks the meat, then lets it cool so it'll firm back up.  It's possible that this might happen in your case (although in his, he drains the liquid before cooling).


Non-cow's milk replacement for Parmesan cheese in Genovese pesto My family loves Genovese pesto and we'd started making our own (with varied success). One of our number has been diagnosed as intolerant to cow's milk. This rules out pretty much all shop-bought varieties, so we now have to take the homemade route seriously. To help us out, please can you suggest non-cow's milk cheeses that we could use instead of Parmesan?

Finding a non-cow subsitute for parmesan is a difficult task - Grana, the closest, is made from cow milk as well so it's no good.
You can try using Pecorino which is made from sheep milk, and has a slightly stronger flavour.
I've never tried it personally, but it's not rare in some regions of Italy to make pesto with pecorino, so it's definitely worth a try!


Can I use sprinkling of sugar in pie pan before the crust? I put a sprinkling of coarse sugar on top of a pie crust that's been brushed with egg, to crisp it a little. Can I put a sprinkling of the coarse sugar directly in the pie pan before putting the bottom layer of crust in it, to give a little bit of crispy bottom crust when baked?

I'd be afraid of the sugar caramelizing and burning on the bottom with the direct and increased heat from the glass or metal pan you are baking in, combined with any trapped moisture coming off of the dough, you will likely end up with a burnt caramel on the bottom, trapping your pie in the pan. [long story short, it depends on the moisture of the dough, the oven heat and baking time, etc]. I wouldn't recommend it.

it works on top because the excess moisture has somewhere to go, and is probably in or just above the oven temperature as opposed to the scenario listed above.

to achieve a crispier bottom crust, perhaps brush the bottom of the pan lightly with melted butter, essentially "frying" the dough as it bakes, or possibly increase the amount of sugar in the actual dough. Alternatively, maybe start off at a really high temperature with your pan on the lowest possible rack to encourage quicker baking/browning.


How to make dry bulgur wheat? I am fond of bulgur wheat and often cook it with lots of veggies and season it with fresh herbs. What turns me off is the stickiness. It turns out to be too sticky when completely cooked. I want to cook bulgur wheat but at the same time keep it moist and dry. Someone please guide.

When you refer to cooking Bulgur wheat, do you boil it in a pot of water? Admittedly the only thing I have ever done with Bulgur wheat was Tabbouleh, where you just reconstitute the dry Bulgur wheat by pouring boiling water on it and letting it soak that way until it softens and fluffs up real nice & golden with every grain separate from the others. I.e. not sticky or gluey.

One time, on bad advice, I bought "cracked wheat" which is, I gather now from Wikipedia, not the same, even though some people think the two are identical. On that occasion, my "Bulgur" wheat did soften but was grayish in color and the individual grains stuck together kind of like oatmeal.

Wikipedia says that Bulgur wheat has been parboiled already, so you wouldn't need to boil it a lot to cook it, but merely re-hydrate with just the right amount of boiling water. So ... if possibly you are using "cracked wheat" like I did, maybe this info can help with the stickiness problem.


Should I store root vegetables with or without the dirt? When you buy vegetables at a farmers market, often you will get root vegetables (e.g. potatoes, carrots) that are unwashed and with its dirt still clinging on them. I heard somewhere that this will prolong its shelf life. Is this true? If so, how?

Not really, the dirt's there because of:

Authenticity: dirty veggies make people think "garden-fresh"
Laziness: farmers don't want to spend much time cleaning their vegetables

Washing to remove dirt won't shorten the shelf life, but mechanically removing dirt (as in with a hard brush) might in some cases as it could remove or puncture skins or peels.


Marcato Atlas 150 spaghetti head I use my Marcato Atlas 150 for fettuccini and occasionally to make lasagna noodles. One side if the fettuccini head has a spaghetti roller. I've used it a only a couple of times because the pasta is so thin it appears to be angel hair or capellini rather than spaghetti. Am I wrong in my assessment?

No, you are not wrong. The roller you describe produces a noodle that is closer to capellini than spaghetti.


How briny should the water be when soaking broccoli to remove bugs? I've seen advice to drop homegrown broccoli in a pot of salted water for a while so the bugs come out.

What's the right salt:water ratio and how long should I soak?

Ah... I remember doing this growing up. Usually used a small handful of table salt in a sink full of water, and the worms would be floating on the top after about 5-10 minutes.

Most of the worms.

Sorry I can't give you a more precise ratio; I actually suspect soaking in water does more good than the salt - the worms don't swim.

At least, most of them don't.


Is sarsaparilla used in cooking? I love the taste of sarsaparilla.  It's a key flavor in root beer, and I know Aviation Gin has some in it, but I've never seen it used in a food.  Are there any ways to cook with it?

You can make a great great BBQ sauce with:

Some sarsaparilla (..or root beer)
Pureed, drained tomatoes
Some soy sauce
Spicy Mustard
Dill
Little vinegar
Other spicings to flavor

Add the sarsaparilla a little at a time and just mix in half your base at first so you can work the flavor out as you go. Simmer 5 or 10 minutes and let cool. Make it really thick. Put that on some ribs, chicken wings or steaks...mmmm. tasty.

I've also had some Chinese and Thai food that had some and turned out pretty good. Not sure if it was 'authentic' but good.


Uses of leftover vegetables from slow cooker After slow cooking my pork over a bed of carrots, celery and onions. The pork gets eaten, the juice gets reduced to an amazing sauce base.

What can I do with the vegetables? They are tasty to eat as-is, but I want something a bit more creative?

Some idea (please chime in if you've tried something like this):
-puree the vegetables with the juice, then boil, reduce, mix in other ingredients for a heartier sauce
-use as toppings (pizza, burgers)

Also, with this in mind, are there other veggies I could add to the slow cooker? ie, adding veggies not just for how they flavor the meat, but adding veggies that will taste amazing after being cooked with meat for 12 hours.

My children love this kind of vegetables in a quiche (with some ham and olives as well).


How to adjust baking time if I adjust the quantities in the recipe? This video gives the following bread recipe:

1 kg flour
600 ml water
15 g yeast
18 g salt

After doing all the preliminary stuff you'd expect, you shape the dough into a ball and bake it in a Dutch oven at 250 C / 480 F for 30 mins, then lower the heat to 230 C / 430 F for another 30 mins.

The bread it produces is delicious, but that's a huge loaf of bread! Which leads to this question: if I halve all the quantities, do I also halve the baking time?

You would not half the baking time, but it might take slightly less time.  The best way to determine if it is done will be to measure the internal temperature.  Most bread is done when the internal temperature hits 190F (88C).


Chilis that taste like habanero I like the fruity taste of habanero a lot (the red ones if that matters). But I usually get stomach pains after eating them (not that it stops me). Are there any chilis that taste similar to habanero but burns less/are easier on the stomach/have less scoville rating?

Allepo pepper has a fair bit of fruitiness, but it's typically only available dried in most areas, not fresh.  And I suspect it may be harder to get these days with the conflict in the area where it's grown.

What you can do, however, is change how you use habanero peppers.

Add them whole to recipes and remove them before serving.  As the capsaicin is mostly on the inside, you'll get some of the fruitness, without the full hit from the heat.  If you want a little more heat, stab it with a knife before adding it (but don't cut it open fully).

One of my former co-workers made groundnut soup this way, and it had great flavor without knocking people out.  (I think he had 3 or 4 in there; I don't know if they were punctured or not)


What flavor should you highlight from an oyster? I've noticed some seafood restaurants put so much stuff on baked oysters, it completely overpowers the oyster.  You could have baked a napkin, and it would have tasted just as good.

And then it can go the other way with raw oysters.  I never understood the oysters when it doesn't taste like much at all.

An oyster has three key components that you want to be aware of when accenting their flavor: salinity, texture, and finish.

Oysters are naturally salty since their blood is basically seawater. Depending on where the oysters are from they can vary rather significantly in salinity, from 12 to 36 parts per thousand. Oysters from northern colder waters are typically saltier and crunchier than those from  warmer waters. Acid is a natural counter to salt which is why lemon juice or mignonette are common flavorings for an oyster. If you're eating an oyster that is saltier than what you're used to an addition of an acid can help mellow out the punch of salt.

The texture of an oyster is my favorite part. The only way to eat an oyster is raw in my opinion. Baking just doesn't do it justice. There's something sublime about the feel of an oyster on your tongue and that burst of flavor and sweetness you get when you begin to chew.

The finish is the hardest part to discern. Detecting, and accurately describing the finish of an oyster is much akin to describing the flavor of a wine. Cucumber is often used to describe the finish, as well as melony, or even just fruity. If you drown your oyster in too much of any flavor you will miss out on this completely. How do you enjoy this and learn to detect it? I suggest tasting different varieties side by side. My favorites are Blue Points, Apalachicola, and Malpeque's. See what's available in your area from a good fishmonger. Try to get some from the Atlantic if you can and compare them to Pacific oysters. There's a very noticeable difference there.

In summary, let your oysters speak for themselves. They do have a taste that is completely unique, but you have to respect it and not mask it. Stick to the classics for flavoring: tabasco, lemon juice, horseradish, and mignonette. Venture out and try others if you want, but avoid sweet or salty additions, the oysters take care of that themselves. Acid and/or heat are what you want to add to accentuate the flavor of an oyster.


Best way to cheat at hollandaise? While I've been making it for years, hollandaise remains a fussy, error-prone sauce where the slightest error in technique, measurement, or timing results in an oily mess and a huge waste of expensive butter.  I've tried the blender hollandaise, the immersion blender hollandaise, and of course classic double-boiler hollandaise, and all of these take way too much time and fail way too often (for example, Kenji neglects to mention in the 2-minute hollandaise that those 2 minutes do not include the 10-15 minutes required to clarify the butter, and that if you try to double the recipe it'll fail).  And, of course, there are cheater hollandaise recipes that are completely reliable, except that they look and taste nothing like the actual sauce.

Is there a way to cheat at hollandaise, using stabilizers, additives, or alternate ingredients, that tastes approximately correct, always works, and scales up or down easily?

it all “boils down” to setting the sauce at the right temperature. To make it fool-proof, you need precise temperature control, which you can achieve with a sous-vide setup.

To make sous-vide hollandaise, you just need to combine all your ingredients together and cook at 75°C for 30 minutes (these figures are from a chefsteps recipe, you can play with the numbers to get to your desired consistency), and blend them while they are hot to finish your sauce.


Can I sharpen a knife with sandpaper? So I was thinking, instead of purchasing a dedicated (and expensive) whetstone with limited coarse(ness?) range, why not use patches of sandpaper in increasing grit numbers (getting finer), stretched on some small flat surface? This way I can have as many grit steps as required, to the fineness level required, for relatively cheap and disposable?

Yes, I've heard this suggested, using wet/dry sandpaper and a mousepad. It is a very inexpensive way to match a whetstone, and you can use sandpaper with the same grit to produce an excellent edge.

You duct-tape the sand-paper together so it wraps around the mouse pad, and then pull the knife along the sandpaper with the edge trailing. This is to say, you use sandpaper in the opposite direction as a whetstone.  Once you work up to the finest-grit papers, you can use jeweler's polish and a leather strop for a truly razor-sharp edge.

Because the mouse pad's rubber/foam has some give, this method produces a convex edge which remains sharp for longer that an V-cut, because it has more metal behind the edge.  It also still presents a very sharp point for cutting, moreso than an equivalent V-cut front bevel.

Using sandpaper will also cost a small fraction of what you spend on a good sharpening stone, which will run you $50 or more PER STONE.

Wondering what grit to use?  There are comprehensive tables here and here.  However, here is a quick-reference mini-table for you:

Name / US Grit Rating / Use

Coarse / 100-400 / Remove lots of metal.  At the low-end of the range, used for reshaping blades, taking out large chips, or restoring snapped points.  At the higher end of grit range, used to establish a bevel angle and restore very dull edges.
Medium / 400-700 / Remove moderate amounts of metal. For refining an edge established with coarse grits, and for restoring moderately dull blades.  Can be used to establish a bevel angle, but it will take considerably longer.  600 grit is a common point to start at for standard sharpening.
Fine / 800-1200 / For finishing a blade or touching-up a slightly dull blade.  At about 1000 grit, you will get something equivalent to a factory edge, assuming you use the same bevel angle. Ceramic steels have grits in this range.
Extra-Fine / 2000+ / For polishing.  Higher grits create a shinier and sharper edge, until at 8000+ grit you get mirror finishes and sharpness equivalent to a straight razor.  If you're going to bother using grits this high, a leather strop and polishing paste may serve you better than even a ceramic steel; the steel would actually be reducing the edge sharpness with use.

Source: Sandpaper-mousepad sharpening

Source2: Sharpening techniques and explanation

Edit: Another way to use sandpaper in sharpening -- expanding the grit range for a Spyderco Sharpmaker

I'm currently using sandpaper to make a very coarse stone for sharpening extremely dull edges on my Spyderco Sharpmaker.  I wrap both of the normal triangular stones with a strip of emery cloth or 220-grit wet/dry sandpaper, and then hold it in place with medium binder clips.  Since the lowest stone the Sharpmaker comes with is 800-grit ceramic, this saves HOURS versus using the normal stones. It is also considerably cheaper than the diamond stones they sell; for a big tub of clips and a package of sandpaper, I paid $7, versus about  $37 for the diamond rods.


How can I improve the texture of my home-made sausages? I am experimenting with home made sausages.  Grinding chuck to make the sausage.
Typically I pass it through the grinder 2-3 times (kitchenaid grinder, small die).

I've gotten the flavor nice, but when cooked the sausages are mealy and soft.  When I reduce the number of grinds I get a sausage that is grainy and feels like hamburger in the mouth.

No matter what cooking technique I use (steaming, simmering, sloooow grilling, fast grilling) I get a sausage that is so flimsy it falls apart on the way to the plate.

What am I missing?

Chuck? As in beef chuck? Not that it won't work, but it'll be slightly different taste and texture wise than the more common pork sausage.

I don't think the # of grinds is the issue. I'd be looking more at:

temperature. Do you put the meat in the freezer for an hour or so before grinding, and are your bowls/grinder/etc cold? If your meat gets too warm, it'll separate from the fat, resulting in a mealy sausage.
are you beating the ground meat & spices with the paddle blade and a bit of liquid at the end? You want to do that to produce a bind and end up with a tight (not crumbly) sausage.


Reverse-Engineering Trader Joe's Garden Vegetable Soup I'm trying to reverse-engineer Trader Joe's garden vegetable soup. I have the full ingredients list and the nutrition facts. However, I don't know what ratios to use (the recipe itself is very simple) for a 12-cup batch.
I'm guessing that reverse-engineering this soup formula is going to take some trial and error, but I'd like to make this as efficient as possible. Any suggestions?
Here is the ingredients list:
VEGETABLE BROTH (WATER, VEGETABLE BROTH CONCENTRATE [MIREPOIX {CARROT, CELERY, ONION}, SALT, ONION POWDER]), DICED TOMATOES IN JUICE (TOMATO, TOMATO JUICE, CITRIC ACID [ACIDIFIER], CALCIUM CHLORIDE), SWEET POTATO, CARROT, ONION, CELERY, TOMATO CONCENTRATE, MIXED GREENS (KALE, SWISS CHARD, SPINACH), POTATO, TOMATO PASTE, ZUCCHINI, RED BELL PEPPERS (RED BELL PEPPERS, WATER, SALT, CITRIC ACID [ACIDIFIER], CALCIUM CHLORIDE), LEEKS, EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL, SEA SALT, GARLIC, SPICES (BLACK PEPPER, THYME, RED PEPPER), CITRIC ACID (ACIDIFIER).
The ingredients are supposed to be listed from (largest amount used) to (least amount used)
The nutrition facts per cup are linked here
I know that based on the amount of fat per cup (2g), 4 tsp oil would be used per 12-cup batch.

I would sweat one of each of the vegetables (chopped) in 4tsp oil, beginning with the onion, leek, carrot, celery, and 2 sliced garlic cloves.  Then add a TBS of tomato paste. Add zucchini and sweet potato, one each, chopped, Cook for a minute or two.  Add 1/4 tsp black pepper and red pepper.  Add 1/2 tsp thyme.  Toss in one roasted red pepper, chopped, along with a 14 oz can  of chopped tomato.  Add 12 cups veg. broth and bring to a simmer.  Toss in a couple of cups of chopped mixed greens.  Cook until potato is done. Salt to taste.


Best before date of cooked dairy I am planning on making a cooked white chocolate sauce, sealing it in a bottle while hot, and selling it in my shop.
It contains dairy, and so I am wanting to work out the best before date.
My questions are:1. does cooking and sealing make dairy products last for longer, if so, how much longer?
2. Do I just take the earliest best before date of the dairy products that it contains as the best before date, and advise to refridgerate after opening?  But this does not take in to account the fact that it is cooked and sealed.
Thank you

There is no way to safely can dairy products to be shelf stable, without using industrial equipment and processes. If you plan on refrigerating it, the best by date on the dairy you use should be good. You need to check with your local health department for specific requirements.


How can I remove excess fat from stews or soups without refrigerating? I've read that adding cork (from wine bottles) absorbs the fat. I'm not sure if this works or not.

Are there any other ways to remove excess fat without standing there and spooning out or refrigerating and then removing the solidified fat?

If you want to be really lazy about it, just get yourself a fat separator.  Pour in the soup, the fat will rise to the top, and you can do what you want with it (i.e. dump it).

If you're reading this in an emergency, you can do this with just a strainer.  You'll get better results if you chill the strainer before each skim, i.e. by rinsing it with very cold water.  The fat will tend to congeal on the cold strainer the same way it congeals when it's actually chilled.

I've also heard that the fat will cling to certain leafy vegetables, like lettuce.  If you have a lettuce head kicking around, try peeling off a leaf and dusting the top of the pan with it.


Identify this seafood from the Black Sea known in Romanian as "rapane"? Here on the Black Sea in Romania people are eating a shellfish called in Romanian "rapane" which they translate as "oyster" when I ask.

But they are elongated spiral shells which to me look nothing like the chunky flattish oyster shells in Australia. Besides which there is another Romanian word "stridie" for oyster and I can't find "rapane" in my print dictionary or any online dictionary. One person told me these are "sea oysters" as opposed to "ocean oysters". I've also been told they're not a native local species.

Here is a photo of a dead rapane shell on the beach and another of raw rapane waiting to be cooked:

This is definitely a rapa whelk. These are indigenous to the seas in the far East, but got somehow imported into the Black Sea and overtook the ecosystem.

First, people around the Black sea didn't have much use for them. The waves washed the shells of dead whelks ashore and these got crafted into souvenirs for tourists. Then, people started fishing them and selling them to the Japanese, who ate them. At last, around the summer season of 2000 or 2001, restaurants along the western shores of the Black sea started offering them as food to their guests. Still, I think that much more of the catch is exported than consumed locally (but have no hard numbers for this).

Since the only people who eat them seem to be Japanese and recently also Bulgarians and Romanians, I highly doubt that they have a kitchen-specific name in English, or that you can buy them at all outside of the above locations.

Biologically, they're not related to oysters. My speculation is that innovative restaurant managers who wanted to serve them had to come up with a name which sounded like something posh (sea oyster) as opposed to one which is both common and associated with kitschy ashtrays (rapane).


Is it possible to heatproof (insulate) stainless steel pot handles? I made a mistake of buying a Cuisinart 6 qt stock pot with two major downsides:  opaque lid (can't see inside) and non-insulated, metal handles.  I wasn't thinking about those features much as I was shopping and the latter now pretty much renders the pot unusable for me because I have a gas stove and the handles get so hot that I have to use a rag or pot holders and I'd rather not have to.

My question is: is there some sort of plastic putty (like Sugru) that can be applied over the handles to heatproof it ?  I was thinking maybe electrical tape but I thought that would melt.

There are a variety of heat resistant silicon accessories that will serve your purpose.
Here a couple from Amazon.com*

Duncan-2-Piece-Short-Handle-Holde
JAZ Innovations Cool Touch Lid Handle Cover

Not an endorsement of either Amazon or these products.


What makes bacon chewy? My mom likes bacon crispy (and dry enough to choke on). I like bacon to be chewy.

I have noticed some techniques that will make bacon chewy or crispy but it sometimes seems like luck. Making it crispy is easy. I just cook it in a well drained pan for too long. Chewy is more elusive and it seems like a fine line between raw and floppy to dry and the chewiness is lost.

Is it just the temperature it is cooked to or is there some other magic that can ensure chewy bacon?

According to this America's Test Kitchen video, you can get plump crisp and tender bacon by barely covering your bacon with water in a skillet over high heat, turning the heat down to medium when the water starts boiling and down again to medium-low once it has all evaporated and cook until ready.

Having water in your skillet will keep the cooking temperature low while preserving the bacon's moisture. As in explained in the video, once the water reaches its boiling point, the fat will be pretty much all rendered, so you'll be less likely to burn the meat while waiting for the fat to cook off.

It would seem the secret, whatever the method, is to preserve the moisture in the bacon to prevent it from going dry, while of course thoroughly cooking it. Perhaps cooking it covered with a lid would achieve something similar.


What is the function of salt in chocolate? Iv'e recently seen, for the first time, chocolate coins filled with caramel and "Atlantic salt". I did a bit of searching and found some more of these types of sweets:

To the food simpleton that I am, adding salt to chocolate and caramel seems counter-intuitive. I realize that these are small amounts of salt (at least compared to the sugar). What is the idea behind this practice?

Also, what is "Atlantic salt"? Salt from the Atlantic ocean? Does it really make a difference which salt is used?

Salt tends to enhance tastes, and make flavors pop, and is used in many foods for this purpose.  Even most sweet foods, desserts or baked goods, will have some amounts of salt added for this purpose.  Some certain kinds of salts - including many kinds of sea salt - are also called out for additional tastes or textures, caused by trace minerals or crystallization patterns - such are usually known as finishing salts, since dissolving looses many properties (including texture, and some elements of taste which are easier distinguished in concentration).  I would assume Atlantic salt is one of these finishing sea salts.

Also, contrasting flavors and/or textures are fairly common in cooking - in this case, sweet and salty.  This often seen in savory dishes (sauces for meats, for example) where sweetness is added - sometimes quite a bit - even though the resulting dishes are generally considered savory.  And while such foods quite different from foods without that added sweetness, if well balanced they can be well received.

A sweet-with-salt, like salted chocolates, or salted caramels, is very different from a pure sweet taste.  It isn't inherently better or worse, just different.  Too much sweet can overwhelm the tongue (one reason milk, rather than juice, is favored with many kinds of desserts), and adding salt to that sweet cuts the sweetness, adds flavor and contrast, and also adds texture as large grains of finishing salt, often sea salt, are used rather than fine dissolved salt.  The result can be very pleasant to some.

Also, while your example is a sweet with salt added for contrast, it may be worth noting that chocolate is not itself inherently sweet, but generally has a more bitter flavor profile (unsweetened chocolate) and so can be easily used in savory dishes - for example, Mexican mole sauces.  Sweet chocolate is very common, yes, and tastes very good, but the base flavor can certainly take salt without trouble - and the less usual pairing can increase the novelty factor and the pleasure one takes in the salt and chocolate pairing.


Correct temperature and technique for frying in cast iron I recently bought a cast-iron grill pan, in hopes to recreate the great taste of grilled salmon steaks I ate recently at a restaurant.

Before trying it, I had received advice that I should let the salmon stay in the pan until it was released from the pan by itself, instead of trying to turn it early. Then, according to the advice, it wouldn’t stick.

First attempt went bad. The fish stuck to the pan, I barely managed to turn it, in gazillion pieces. The opposite side of the steaks, after turning it, didn’t stick at all. Obviously, this might be because of all the extra fat in the pan after frying the first side.

By salmon steaks I mean what you see in the first picture here, that is, the flesh and not the skin had direct contact with the pan:

https://www.chabad.org/recipes/recipe_cdo/aid/4520/jewish/Salmon-Steaks.htm

Next time I tried pork cutlets (from the neck). In the meantime, I had found more advice, namely that I shouldn’t put the food into the pan before it was hot, but I didn’t know how hot it had to be.

This time, it worked exactly as the first advice had predicted: At first, the cutlets stuck immediately to the pan, in a tiny fraction of a second, like it had been glued with superglue. Then, when the time came to turn it, it wasn’t even the least bit stuck! It was completely loose, I could have easily turned it with one finger, without any residue, if it hadn’t been hot. Just like non-stick. But this time it was the other way around, after turning them, they stuck and when they were past done, they were still partly stuck. Despite way more fat in the pan, from frying the first side.

So, I decided to season the skillet. For three days I seasoned it according to the best advice I could find. Surface now dark, smooth and shiny.

So, I tried again with trout steaks this time. I used exactly the same oiling technique and amount as with the pork cutlets, and tried to replicate the frying technique w.r.t. heat and when to put it in the pan. This time it was glued to the pan when the time came to turn it.

So, this is not a question about seasoning, because there’s tons of advice about that on the internet. But the initial success with the pork cutlets was in a completely new unseasoned pan.

The question is:

What is the correct frying technique, as in, how do I know how hot it should be when I put in the food, does it matter w.r.t. sticking, basically, what are the details to achieve that effect that the food suddenly becomes released from the pan, that I had with the pork cutlets?

Finally, could it be a good idea to get one of the IR-thermometers, that measure the temp of the pan without touching it, to achieve the same level of control as with an oven?

There are a few things to keep in mind when cooking with cast iron:

It must be seasoned properly. The biggest mistake people make here is to have the oil too thick when seasoning. You need to wipe the cast iron with a dry paper towel to remove as much oil as possible. If your pan feels sticky when clean you've used too much oil and should start over.
Yes, you want your pan hot before adding fish (see below).
You want your pan evenly heated. Cast iron is a very poor conductor of heat and it takes a while to fully heat evenly. You're best heating it a lower flame/setting for a longer period before putting in your food.
A little oil rubbed on both sides of your food will help.
The advice you got about letting the fish release is 100% correct. That's a common mistake people make. As you found, it works like magic. Some things, like eggs, will always stick and are best for a non-stick pan rather than cast iron (even really well-seasoned cast iron).
In terms of temperature, I would suggest maybe 400-425° for the flesh side and 450° for the skin side. I generally cook the fish first on the flesh side long enough to leave the perfect color marks and then cook mostly on the skin side. If you score the skin it will be crispier (and salt also helps). A temp gun is really useful, and I highly encourage you to purchase one, but flicking some water on the pan will also give you a pretty good indication of how hot it is. If your water evaporates slowly it's too cold. If it evaporates quickly then the pan is hotter, but not hot enough. If it rolls around the pan and takes some time to evaporate, then your pan is hotter still (at least 380°F), and probably about the range you want. The reason it takes longer to evaporate when really hot is that steam under the water droplets is insulating the droplet from the pan, causing it to take longer to evaporate. (This is called the Leidenfrost effect.)


Can I use Chocolate Chips in place of Semi-sweet baking chocolate? I don't have baker's semi-sweet chocolate and recipe calls for a box with 8 squares. Can I replace with chocolate chips and if so what would be the ratio?

Yes, you can use the choco. chips.  One square of chocolate is normally one ounce.  Half a cup of chocolate chips is usually around three ounces.  If you are looking to use 8 squares (8 ounces), you will need about 1 and a quarter cups of the chips (maybe just a tad more).
Some folks may come on and say that the chips are sweeter, less intense in flavour, etc., but when you are in  a pinch, you can sub them out just fine.  Doubtful you will notice any difference.


toning down the fresh chilli picquancy I like to use green finger chillies in my curries more for the flavour than for the heat, but in order for me to be able to cook out the rawness of the chillies, I end up with the chillies all "melted" in the pan, looking more like leaves, i.e they lose shape. I was wondering if there are any tricks to make fresh chilli less hot and thus needing less cooking time in order for the chilli to be less picquant.

Most of the heat in a chili pepper is concentrated on the ribs and membrane that holds the seeds.

By cutting out those parts, and using only the fleshy part of the fruit, you will get less heat.

The heat can also be mitigated by dairy or fatty ingredients in the dish in which you incorporate the chili, as they tend to help wash away the hotness in the mouth.


Can I peel a mandarin orange like the commercial canners do? I can't stand the pith on citrus fruit. Canned mandarin oranges seem to have their segments magically removed from the outer membrane that surrounds it. I know how to supreme a citrus fruit, and that is what I do when I want to eat one, but the canned ones don't seem to have been cut.

Does anyone know if there is a process that accomplishes this, that can be done in a home kitchen?

In theory, yes you can. Whether you want to is a completely different question.

The segments are "peeled" by soaking them in hydrochlorid acid. Which sounds worse than it is, because the concentration is somewhere between 1% and 0.3% (sources vary). (1)
Once the outer skin is dissolved, the acid is neutralized by dumping them in a lye bath (sodium hydroxide).
Finally a good long soak in plain water to get rid of whatever might still cling to the fruit and then it's off to the canner.

Other sources claim that the segments are simply peeled by soaking in a lye bath and then rinsed. (2)
A third source quotes a Dutch magazine and claims it's lye first and hydrochloric acid later. (3)

Note that hydrochloric acid and sodium hydroxide form NaCl and H2O or, plainly put, salt water if the ratios are correct. So apparently the whole process is quite harmless for us consumers.

Sources:
(1)  German Wikipedia; Die Zeit (both in German)
(2)  English Wikipedia
(3)  nyceyenne (also in German)


Is it possible to effectively dissolve chocolate into coffee? The combination of milk chocolate with coffee is very good. The classic strategy is to take a bite of chocolate, chew it for five seconds, and then sip some coffee.
This strategy can be inconvenient at times, so I thought of dissolving the chocolate directly into hot coffee. However, this did not work very well due to the chocolate's fat content. How can I effectively mix chocolate into coffee? (Sometimes there are some tricks for these situations; for example, when you make hot chocolate, the trick to effective mixing is to make a slurry first.)

One classic solution is to make a ganache to make the chocolate liquid. Ganache is an emulsion that suspends the cocoa butter in water which helps it mix with the coffee. While this sounds fancy, you can make it in a few minutes.
The recipe I use is from The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee by James Freeman

Put 3 oz (85 g) coarsely chopped dark chocolate in a small bowl
Pour 1/4 cup (60 ml) boiling water over the chocolate and stir until smooth
You can pour your coffee directly over the ganache or store the ganache in the fridge for up to one week. Reheat in the microwave (gently) before using.

The original recipe uses espresso and tops the coffee with hot foamed milk. I have also always used espresso and foamed milk, but I believe coffee should also produce good results. If you don't use the foamed milk, I suggest using a less dark chocolate to balance the bitterness.
Ganache can also be made with heavy cream instead of water. I have not tried using a cream-based ganache in this drink.
One note is that this recipe works best for hot drinks. Cold drinks can seize the chocolate into lumps.


Cooking pasta in a water boiler A friend of mine cooks pasta in a modified electric water boiler which has been modified to keep going even after the water placed in it boils.

What are some advantages and disadvantages of this method over placing the boiled water in a pot and cooking it there over a gas stove?

Thanks.

Advantages:

You can make pasta in your water boiler.

Disadvantages:

Hard to clean.
Waste of energy, a water boiler is on or off, it will
expend full energy keeping the water boiling.
Incredibly dangerous, a big fire hazard. Because it's modified to ignore the internal temperature sensor it will keep heating and
heating even if all the water is vaporized. Once this is the case, it
will start getting so hot it will melt the boiler and the metal of
the heating element at which point your stovetop may catch fire.

Story about faulty kettle.


What to do if a turkey has been brined for too long I was going to brine my turkey for two nights til I found out that you can over-brine a turkey which is very bad. So what I have done is washed the brine out (after brining for 20 hrs) and put my turkey in the fridge til it comes time to cook it in 12 hours. Will my turkey still be ok or have I irrecoverably ruined it already?

According to Alton Brown (of Serious Eats fame) you can safely brine a turkey for days. However, you'll need to adjust the brine depending on the duration. Yesterday I roasted a chicken that was brined for about 36 hours and the results were delicious.

AB Fan: Can I brine an 18-pound turkey overnight, or is this too long?
Alton Brown: No, it's not too long. Technically, you could brine a turkey for several days. The trick is in two things--brine concentration versus mass. You could either soak a bird for a long time in weak brine, or for a short time in a stronger one. You're better with weaker brine and a longer soak, so take the standard brine that we use in "Good Eats," and you could easily do that overnight. If you're afraid of it being too salty, you might cut back to 3/4 cup of salt instead of the full cup, but leave the sugar amount the same. I've gotten to where I really like to thaw my turkeys in brine, because I can make my brine, keep it in a cooler, toss in my frozen bird, and leave it for days if I want without worrying about the temperature getting too high. It will stay really cold, but, at the same time, the water will help thaw the bird. So when it's thawed, it's already brined. But that is an imprecise science, so you have to work with it. If I feel the brine will get too warm, I'll add a bit of ice. So far, that hasn't happened. It stays around 40 degrees.

Quoted from a forum post.


Botulism risk from anchovies in the refrigerator? A few months ago, I opened a can of anchovies, and to avoid wasting the leftovers, I pureed it into a paste and saved in a container in the fridge, in olive oil.

The anchovies are very salty and the pH is somewhere between 5 and 6, based on a litmus test strip. It's been kept in the fridge the whole time. They also smell fine, no hint of spoilage.

But: could this be a botulism risk? The original product was commercially canned, so it was probably safe (and eating it then was fine). My understanding is that these conditions ought to prevent botulism growth, if there was even any to begin with. But since the consequences are so serious, I'd like to be sure.

First a little perspective.  Botulism is very rare. According to the CDC in the US:

  From 1996 to 2014, there were 210 outbreaks of foodborne botulism reported to CDC. Of the 145 outbreaks that were caused by home-prepared foods, 43 outbreaks, or 30%, were from home-canned vegetables.

So this is not a common occurrence.  It doesn't mean we should not pay attention to potential risks, but I don't think canned anchovies are much of a concern.  Add to that, the acidic environment that you report, plus the salt content, plus the fact that commercially canned anchovies are processed at a high temperature (and anchovies are not known as a source of botulism), I would say from a botulism standpoint you are safe.  I can't, of course, speak to how you handled the anchovies during your processing, but if you were relatively clean, you should not have a problem.  I would make sure they are not in the can, and submerged in oil.

Finally, please understand that smell is never a reliable indicator of spoilage.  Many things can go wrong with food before you can smell it.


Does adding turmeric to meat marinade negate the bacterial buildup at room temperature? I've learnt from this site that after applying marinade to meat, it has to be kept in the fridge for marination because meat at room temperature for more than two hours can have bacterial buildup, resulting in food poisoning.
In local meat shops in India, it's common for beef, chicken and fish vendors to leave raw meat at room temperature for most of the working day and yet do terriffic business. I havent had trouble with beef from such vendors but chicken and fish have caused food poisoning multiple times. Yet, no customer complains. These practices are too common.

The question:
An elderly acquaintence (he is a building contractor; not a chef) was explaining how to marinate beef. Grind all the spices, mix salt, turmeric powder, corriander powder, mix well with the beef and leave it at room temperature for at least two hours.
When I interrupted to say I keep it in the fridge for marination, he said I should never do that since the flavours would not seep into the meat. Then I told him of the bacterial buildup and he promptly said: well, that's why we add turmeric powder for marination. Apparently the turmeric kills the bacteria.

It sounded like hogwash to me, but I still wanted to ask here, since even I have felt that marination would work better if the meat is not too cold.

From the description in your question it looks like you're from India and Indian cuisine uses its native spices optimally and turmeric is proven to be antibacterial, however:

  How it works is still something of a mystery. The researchers know that curcumin tends to hang out within the bilayer more than in the vesicle’s central space. They suspect that when the sugar on the vesicle surface sticks to the cell wall of a passing bacterium, curcumin migrates into the cell and kills it from the inside.

Now onto the question what you should do: will the marinade be as tasty if you put it in the fridge?  Yes, of course, so both granny and you are correct:

Turmeric is antibacterial (though not a total disinfectant)
Putting the marinade straight into the fridge and leave it to marinade for 2 hours at 5°C will work nearly as well as leaving it out in 20-30°C from a pure taste perspective.

So use the best of both worlds: use granny's herb mix and refrigerate!

P.S. I leave my marinades for 2-24 hours in my fridge and I'm from a much cooler climate than you...
P.P.S. Don't freeze as -21°C will slow down the marination process too much and −273.15°C (absolute zero) will stop it completely!  ;-)


What level of heat is best when caramelizing? When you caramelize onions, carrots or mushrooms - what is the best heat level for the fire? Or rather - what should be the temperature of the oil where you can caramelize the food quickly yet not burn it on the sides too much?

In my personal experience, "caramelizing" and "quickly" are not things that get along well. I happen to have done a small batch of caramelized onions last night. It took two hours, which is faster than some larger batches I have done, but not anything I'd call "quick" - quick leads to burnt onions, not caramelized ones, in my experience. So - low heat, and forget "quickly."


Why not to cut into the meat when scoring duck breasts? Every recipe about searing duck breasts I've seen says that you should score the breasts cutting through the skin, but not too deep: you should avoid cutting into the meat. I do follow this instruction but don't completely understand why. What harm could be done if I cut through the meat, just a little? What exactly should I avoid?

The little bit (about 4 - 5 grams after cooking) of fat in the breast itself will render out faster, and you could end up with a dryer over-crispy duck breast by the time it's done in the center. A tiny ding shouldn't present a problem, but if you actually get the whole or most of the edge of the blade into the breast, you'll have to pay close attention to heat as you cook it. If you score it that deep, you're probably better off poaching it in butter after searing.

The juices in the breast make it moist, and you definitely don't want to lose those either, but that tiny bit of fat in the breast once you've rendered out what's in the skin makes it delicious. You really want to keep that in.


Is it necessary to only boil vegetables (or chicken) or can they be pressure cooked and later be boiled for the flavour to seep in? I was following this recipe (I've pasted it at the bottom of the question) for which the cooking time mentioned is 30 min. Although for me, it took around 45 min for the vegetables to get cooked.
Three questions:

Instead of waiting 45 min for the vegetables to get cooked, would it have been better to fry the onions in the cooking pot and meanwhile put the vegetables and some water into a cooker, wait until the first whistle, then take out the vegetables and add it to the onions in the cooking pot? I'm assuming that this would reduce the cooking time a lot, and hence save a lot of LPG gas too.

As asked above, would it be advisable to first cook chicken in a cooker before shifting it into a cooking pot for further boiling? It took me an hour to make chicken curry, starting from the onion frying, until the meat getting properly cooked.

After cooking, I noticed that the vegetable curry tasted bland. There was none of the spicy or tasty feel to it. Perhaps I added too less salt, but how exactly does one make the gravy (tomato puree was the gravy in this case) tasty? Is the salt added in-between meant to seep into the vegetables and give it a better taste or is the gravy supposed to form a greasy layer on the vegetables and give it a good taste?

The recipe
Mix Veg Recipe: Indian Mix Vegetables Recipe
AUTHOR: dassana
RECIPE TYPE: side
CUISINE: indian
PREP TIME:  20 mins
COOK TIME:  30 mins
TOTAL TIME:  50 mins
SERVES: 3
Simple and tasty recipe of mix vegetables made in indian style
INGREDIENTS
(measuring cup used, 1 cup = 250 ml)

2 cups of mix chopped veggies – cauliflower, carrots, potatoes, french beans, capsicum, peas.
1 onion chopped finely
2 tomatoes chopped finely
1 green chili chopped finely
1 tsp ginger-garlic paste
2 tsp coriander powder/dhania powder
½ tsp turmeric powder/haldi
¼ tsp chilli powder (use more if you want it to be spicy)
½ tsp garam masala powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
8-10 paneer cubes (optional)
2 cups water
2 tbsp cream or malai
2 tbsp oil
a few sprigs of cilantro/coriander leaves chopped
salt as per taste

INSTRUCTIONS

In a kadhai or thick bottomed pan, heat oil.
Add cumin seeds. Once they splutter, add the chopped onions.
Fry the onions till they become transparent.
Add the ginger-garlic paste. Fry for a minute or till the raw smell disappears.
Add the tomatoes. Keep on stirring till the tomatoes become soft and pulpy. When the mixture becomes smooth and one, then add all the spice powders mentioned above.
The process of frying the tomatoes takes a little longer. If you want to quicken the process, add some salt to the onion-tomato mixture. Fry the tomatoes on a low flame as you don’t want the tomatoes to get burnt.
Now add all the spice powders one by one.
Stir the spice powders with the onion-tomato mixture. Add the green chili.
Mix in the chopped veggies, salt and water.
Cover and let the veggies cook.
Once the veggies are semi cooked…… that is they are half cooked. Add the cream. Give a stir.
Cover again and simmer the veggies till they are done.
Don’t forget to check the veggies after occasionally.
Add more water if the water dries up and if the veggies are still to be cooked.
If using paneer, then add the paneer once the veggies are cooked. Simmer without the lid for 2 minutes.
You can also garnish mix vegetable dish with fried paneer cubes.   Otherwise simply garnish with chopped coriander leaves.
Serve mix vegetables dish hot with pooris, parathas, kulcha or chapatis.

This recipe confuses me in a number of ways.
First the simplest: It calls for adding the remaining spice powders in two places, steps 5 and 7.
One of my favorite food ethnicities is Indian, and in all my years of cooking and eating it there has always (with very rare exception) been one very important rule:  Cook the spices. The difference in both taste and texture is what really what makes the food.

In my opinion, this is what you should be doing:  In a small skillet heat a couple of tablespoons of oil until the oil is shimmering, the add the cumin seeds and fry until they become aromatic.  Add the remaining spices; coriander powder, turmeric powder, chili powder and the gharam masala and cook about 2 minutes, stirring constantly.  Set this pan aside.  In your cooking vessel, fry the onion and the chopped green chili until softened, then add the ginger-garlic paste, sauté just until aromatic, then add the tomato and the pan of cooked spices.

As far as your first question regarding boiling or pressure cooking the vegetables, not sure I understand why you would want to.  Have you thought about cooking everything in the pressure cooker, including the chicken?  If that sounds appealing then use the above method for the spices, onions and green chili, then add the veggies, water and, if using, the chicken (par-cooking the chicken can save time).  This is the method I use when using a slow-cooker which should work for this.

As to question 3, go ahead and add salt at the beginning when adding the veggies, and the add more to taste after the major cooking.  And yes to both of the final parts regarding the salt and the "greasy" layer (prefer the word "oily").  Adding salt early in the cooking process can make a lot of difference in both taste and texture, and the oily layer (which comes from the frying of the spices) carries a lot of flavor.

I hope this helps.  Ask more if needed.


How is Kiwifruit used to tenderize Meat? I just read today that Kiwifruit is used to tenderize meat. I wanted to make some fruit chutney anyway, normally I'd go for mango, but why not use kiwifruit fruit this time?

I read that the actinidin is responsible for this process but as far as I know it is denaturized cooking the Kiwifruit, thus I need the raw Kiwifruit.

So how should I prepare the raw Kiwifruit and the meat (I wanted to use chicken), how long should I let the meat marinade and how should I cook or fry the meat afterwards?

Yes Kiwifruit contains Actinidin, which is a great meat protein tenderiser

But it tastes crap, it is not a good accompaniment for meat, especially chicken. It is way too sweet tasting, sort of like serving chicken with fruit jam (preserve), if you like that, go for it!


Should a sourdough starter be left open/ajar after feeding? I keep my sourdough starter (spelt) in the fridge and leave it out after feeding it. Should the jar that the starter be kept in be left open/ajar in order to encourage more wild yeast to colonize it - or be left shut so that it doesn't go off/die?

I keep the starter in a glass kilner jar with a clip lid that keeps any air out.

It's actually a bit of an old wives' tale that the yeasts colonizing your starter are from the air. Almost all of the yeasts in a starter are from the grains used to make it. This is why starters are frequently started with either whole grain kernels or grains like rye that are left mostly intact when milled. All of the microorganisms on the outside of the grain kernel are then included in your starter.

As to leaving your jar open, I certainly wouldn't seal it up, especially if the jar is glass. The carbon dioxide produced by the starter could cause the jar to explode if it can't escape.


Why does bread taste raw if you stop baking it and continue after it has cooled? Unlike, for example, almost anything that is made on the stove and even cakes (of course, as long as your cake doesn't fall as you take it out of the oven), if you stop baking a loaf of bread for some reason before it's thoroughly cooked it will never lose that raw taste, no matter how much you bake or toast it later.

Why is this so? Is it a property of bread? Is it something to do with gluten?

To understand this, you have to understand what happens to bread while you bake it.  I get all of my information from The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart.

First you need to gelatinze your starches (which make up 80% of the flour in your bread).  During gelatinization starch absorbs and traps as much liquid as it can hold then bursts, flooding the liquid with starch molecules and thickening the mixture.  This happens between 180 degrees F and 212 degrees F.  So the center of your bread has to reach 180 degrees F for this change to take place.  Otherwise the texture will always be a bit doughy.  This is probably the main cause of your problem.

Second you need to caramelize sugar on the crust.  This happens at 325 degrees F.  This will happen early, as your crust reaches nearly the temperature of your oven.

Third the proteins in your bread need to be denatures, coagulated, and roasted.  Proteins are tightly coiled molecules.  They denature (unwind and straighten) between 140 and 145 degrees F, then as temperatures rise they wrap themselves with each other to create tightly bound chains of proteins (coagulate).  After that the proteins roast to create a nice flavor.  If you bread didn't even get to 140 degrees F it won't be quite right.

For a hard crusty bread you should bake to 200 degrees F internally.  For a soft, enriched bread it must reach at least 180 degrees F.

After baking cooling is also important to avoid a doughy textures.  As long as the bread is above 160 degrees F it is still gelatinizing.  If you cut into it you'll mess up the process.  You need to let it cool down.  Not only are your starches settling but your bread is sweating (moisture is evaporating) and the taste is intensifying.

So the main key to avoiding rawness is gelatinzation, and the two steps are baking to 180 degrees F and letting it cool down past 160 degrees F before cutting (but ideally cooling to room temperature for optimum flavor).

Your second bake probably didn't get to 180 degrees F in the center, as you would've quite burned your crust by then.


How to ensure that the chicken meat is not over cooked or under cooked? I am cooking the chicken breast (together with bones and cut into 4 main pieces) in a soup.

(The soup was cooked with some other ingredients first and then the chicken was pieces was thrown after 1 hour of cooking the soup. The fire was removed after boiling the chicken for 15 minutes)

However, I notice that the chicken meat when taken out, some are rather uncooked (the outside of the meat is OK but the inside towards the bones is not. Some are rather overcooked as the meat is tough to chew (the outside layer was like plastic and the inside towards the bones are rather hard).

How do I maintain the consistency such that all the 4 pieces of meat are not under cooked and over cooked?

It is fairly atypical to cook large, bone-on pieces of chicken—including breasts—directly in soup.  After all, who wants to find bones in their soup?  (Making stock is another story....)

Bone on chicken breasts difficult to cook evenly, due to their shape.  Some parts are thin, and will cook through rapidly, and other parts are thick and require a much longer time to cook.  This makes it easy to have overcooked and undercooked areas.  They are also a little unforgiving in soup if overcooked, as they tend to become tough or stringy in texture.

Normally, chicken would be pre-cooked via another method, and then cut up or shredded, and placed in the soup in the last few minutes in order to heat through for service. My favorite method of preparing chicken to use in soup or other recipes is to roast it, still skin on for flavor, but any method will do.  The skin can be removed prior to adding the chicken to the soup, if you desire.

Note that this method will not add the flavor and gelatin (for that rich texture) from the bones to your soup.  Instead, as cook chicken parts for other dishes, save the bones and other scraps in the freezer.  When you have several pounds (a couple kilograms), you can use them to make chicken stock.  Homemade chicken broth is a fantastic base for soup, and will help you achieve an excellent flavor.

If you absolutely want to cook chicken breast directly in your soup, I recommend that you de-bone it.  Cut it into bite sized pieces.  As one of the last finishing steps in preparing the soup, reduce the pot to a simmer rather than a full boil, and drop in the chicken pieces.   This will permit the chicken pieces to poach gently in the broth.  Your soup is ready for service. once they are cooked through—my guess is about 15 minutes, depending on the size of the pieces, but check them occasionally.


Muffins are fluffy, but crumbly I just made muffins, which turned out to have a great flavor and density, but are very crumbly.

I followed this recipe, and made the following substitutions:

1/2 cup of flour --> coffee flour
3/4 cup milk + 1/4 cup coffee --> 1/4 cup milk + 1 cup coffee

The recipe also calls for the butter to be melted before mixed. I'm currently thinking that both the small amount of fat (1 stick of butter), and consistency (melted as opposed to cold/room temp) is probably causing the crumble.

Are there any ways I can make the recipe less crumbly without increasing the amount of fat or oil? Or only doing so slightly?

It looks like you substituted fully a third of the total flour in the recipe with coffee flour. Admittedly I have never used (or even heard of) coffee flour before, but I bet it does not come out as sticky as regular all-purpose flour when mixed with water (or milk, coffee, etc.)

You can make paste (for sticking up posters and wallpaper) with wheat flour and water, so if your muffins came out crumbly and wouldn't stick together, I would suspect the coffee flour, or rather a lack of wheat flour. That novel ingredient does sound like an interesting idea, but one third of a critical component like flour might be too radical.

Both the milk and the coffee in the recipe are primarily water (at least for structural purposes), so I doubt if that substitution was your problem. As far as the butter, one stick sounds like a reasonable amount to me, and lack of fat doesn't usually cause crumbliness.

It would be a good experiment to make the muffins as specified once, just to see what they are supposed to be like, and then start substituting (conservatively at first) in the next batch.


What natural preservative to use to prepare homemade tomato paste for a 2 year shelf life? I make homemade tomato, chilli and curry pastes and I am thinking of selling them. I need a natural preservative that can increase the shelf life to at least 2 years.
What can I use?

I regularly make passata (tomato puree) home, and use a simple hot bath sterilisation (instructions below). I can usually keep it for about a year, but the result is not consistent and not 100% reliable: every 20 bottles I make, one leaks and gets spoiled. There are more sophisticated sterilisation methods that use a pressure pan (similar to an autoclave in the lab). Both of these methods rely on killing the bacteria naturally present in the preparation as well as in the residual air inside the can / jar.

However, as pointed by @Jefromi none of these techniques are 100% reliable for home preparation.

To be certain, you should use an acidity regulator. Lowering the pH of your sauce will prevent
a big class of bacterias to develop. A cheap option which is commonly used in the industry is citric acid, which you might find in supermarkets and surely in brewing shops. If not available, you could also use vinagre or lemmon juice (less ideal). In any case, note that acidity alone will not do the job. Always use together with sterilization.

For a reference, see this link for tomatoes in general, and this one for tomato paste specifically (thanks @Jefromi for these references).

Simpler water sterilisation process:

Before putting your mix in the jars, wash them carefully with hot water and soap.
After they have been filed, put your jars in a large pan.
(optional) Put a towel between the jars to avoid them hitting each other.
Pour water until the jars are completely covered.
Bring to boil. Low the fire so boiling is not violent. Boil for 30 minutes minimum.
Remove the jars and leave them to cool with the lid down. Turn them once cooled.

For this to work well, you need to be sure the lids are tight and no air can enter/scape. Be attentive to any leakage and use good jars.


Homemade Golden Ginger Ale I recently made some homemade ginger ale.  It was good, but it really tasted more like ginger beer.  I was hoping for a flavor that tasted a bit more like golden ginger ale, sort of like Red Rock.  It has a strong ginger flavor and a bite.  What could I add (or how much more ginger should I add) to or what should I change in homemade ginger ale to get this "bite" and stronger ginger flavor?

If you want a stronger flavor, and more bite, add more ginger.  I make a dark, spicy ginger beer.  I do not use yeast, but rather force carbonate.  I don't know the exact quantities of ingredients used, I just make to taste each time.

Below is my ingredient list:

Fresh grated ginger
Peppercorns
Molasses
Cane sugar
Fresh squeezed lemon (added after the mixture has cooled)

Molasses: Give the brew a thicker taste and darker caramel color, leave it out if you want it milder.

Ginger: Fresh ginger is key, don't use the powdered stuff. The more ginger you add, the spicier and more bitter it will be.  You may need to increase the sugar content a bit too.

Lemon: This adds a nice zing.

Peppercorns: It may sound a little bit odd, but the peppercorns go very nicely with the ginger and lemon.  Just add these to taste when you throw in the ginger.

I've also experimented with different types of sugars like Maple Syrup and Palm Sugar.  Those each impart different flavors and may be worth trying too.