Why is the chicken in Indian food so tender? I used to go to an Indian restaurant that had the most tender chicken I've ever had. In general, it seems like Indian curries have very tender chicken. Could somebody explain if there is a secret? Is it marinading in yogurt, the tandoor, an industrial tenderizing agent? The closest I've ever achieved is in a recipe I have where chicken is marinaded and cooked with pineapple. I know pineapple contains a protease enzyme which helps tenderize meat, and in extreme situations, will entirely dissolve shellfish proteins. Is there a spice or something that is used in Indian food that works similarly?

It is a combination of the marinade (with yoghurt and lemon juice probably being the main factors in the tenderness) and the hot, fast cooking in the tandoor, further enhanced by the use of metal skewers which conduct the heat to the middle of the meat quickly. A good tandoor chef will time the cooking perfectly so that the meat is safely cooked but hasn't dried out.


what material should i use for cutting board? What material should I use for cutting board? And which dulls more the knives?

As many cookers might know that wood cutting boards can be bad for use if it is not cleaned after use, because the growth of bacterias and even mold on there, also wood absorbs moist, color, and smells of what was chopped like garlic for example, I have also read that plastic ones also might be bad for use.

I have tried a glass cutting board which are really unconfortable for use, but safer for cleaning, though I have one but I don't use, because it's unconfortable when cutting and harmful because very it's sloppy though.

Also i think it would dull the knife a lot. I wouldnt use an iron,steel, or aluminium cutting board (if them exist) for same reason. btw i always keep my knives sharp with help ofthe bottom of a mug when they need some sharping. btw do you any trick to clean a wood cutting board of bad smells?

There's a huge standing debate on that, and you'll find several articles contradicting each other.

While wood seems at first like a bad choice (it porous, so it harbours bacteria) it's quite the opposite.

  Researchers discovered that used, knife-scarred wooden cutting boards harbored no more bacteria than new boards, while knife-scarred plastic boards were "impossible to clean and disinfect manually." When the researchers scanned the plastic boards with electron micrographs, they saw "highly significant damage" to the surfaces from knife cuts. Bacteria inside wooden boards don’t multiply and gradually die. Comparing the bacteria found on wooden boards to those found lurking on plastic ones when both have been cleaned manually, the researchers found more bacteria on a used plastic surface than on a used wood one.


Flavourless Carb Free Thickeners Can you suggest any Carb Free thickeners that don't affect the flavour of soups/casseroles?

Xanthan gum and methylcellulose both are used in such small amounts that any carbohydrates in them would be of miniscule quantity.


Artisan sourdough bread We buy artisan white sourdough bread from a baker.  when we first got it the loaves were lovely for sandwiches.  Lately for a couple months now the loaves having been coming with large holes maybe in the middle on the top side or even lacey big holes making it hard to use and sell to customers.  I have talked to the bakery about the issues we are having and tryed asking why this is happening.  One double large loaf I could only use 6 slices to make sandwiches from.  Help I really want to support local and we love the flavor of the bread.  They say its just how artisan bread is  but why was is so good for 6 months and now for 2 months so different.  The holes are about 2 to 3 inches  I don't even mind 1 inch every now and then on the bread  Its the 3 inch and lots of 2 inches like lace that I just find hard to serve  my customers.  Any explaination for this big change and difference in the bread.  If I bought whole wheat sourdough would I have these problems.
Thanks so much for taking the time

As moscafj mentioned in comments, the baker likely changed something in the process or recipe.  If the general question is why big holes happen in lean artisan breads sometimes, there are several possibilities, some of which I enumerated in answer to a previous question.

In very general terms, the more bread is "handled" during the process of a rise, the more even the crumb will be.  (That is: "even crumb" = very fine small even holes.)  This can involve additional kneading or folding or "punching down" periodically during the rise.  The most relevant, of course, is handling and shaping before the final rise where the final air bubbles develop.

The baker is correct that many "artisan bakers" value a texture that has large (often irregular) holes.  And many consumers like that.  It may not be great for sandwiches, but that is not the only use for artisan bread.  If, however, the holes are not evenly distributed but are gathered in certain places (like the middle of the top of the loaf, as you mention in the question), that could indicate inferior kneading or shaping technique, as well as perhaps an overproofed final dough before baking.


Keep fettuccine from sticking/clumping while cooking? This question addresses how to keep pasta from sticking after it has been cooked. This question is what I want, but was wrongly closed. All the answers from the first address the sticking post-boiling, and my problem is the sticking during boiling. How can I prevent this from happening?

Simply put, you have to stir them the first three/four minutes of cooking. Be sure to boil them in enough water (at least 1 liter per 100 grams). In addition to that be sure to buy some good quality pasta. From my knowledge pasta tends to stick when the wheat used is of poor quality. A good pasta should not be transparent when seen in direct sunlight, but it should be of a nice pale yellow color and opaque. Good Italian pasta brands that you can find outside of Italy are De Cecco (which I fear might be quite expensive, and probably not so easy to find), or Barilla (easier to find). Both of them has cooking instructions printed on the package. You might want to cook them for 2-3 minutes less than what's printed, then eventually cook them the remaining couple of minutes together with your sauce.


Mysterious "spoon" in family. Requesting specific name/buying source Does anyone know if this utensil has a unique name or know where to purchase one like it?

My mom received this spoon from "A wok set from our wedding" (early 1980's) and loves it. She has named it The Triangle Spoon.

My siblings and I have been looking for a way to purchase/make more for several years now with very little luck.

That is a pretty neat spoon.

The closest I could find is these spoons.  They are handmade, so you may be able to speak to the maker for modifications if you're preferences are only a little off.  This spoon is also kind of similar.

There is also this spoon - it has the angle and some curves, but is a bit flatter than your spoon, a bit more spatula-like.  I don't know how much that matters.  Here's another one.  Or this one.

I also found this one, it is more available, but it is much more spatula-like and cannot be used for scooping... but if you're interested in the scraping side it might do

Most of these showed up under wok spoons, though it took some going through the listings to find them.  I didn't find a better term, though, than wok spoon or scraper spoon.

A bit further afield, I found this or this, both much less similar in appearance but seems similar in function, ie, scraping and ladling.

Of course, it is possible you've already seen these or ones like them... the first couple seem decent, the rest are less of a match.

On the other hand, you mentioned making them?  A wooden spoon (serving spoon, probably, has a deeper scoop) could be cut and/or sanded at an angle to achieve much the same effect.  Or else look at people handcrafting cooking utensils - wood is more common, but there are some metalworkers that might work - and see if they can quote a price on making such a spoon to order.  I would suggest looking at etsy.com as a starting place for that.


Is there a trick to getting spices to fix to raw almonds? I am trying to make a hot / spicy almonds using raw almonds and cayenne pepper.  Is there a simple non-messy way to get the cayenne pepper to stick to the almonds?

I imagine I could mix the almonds with olive oil before spreading it or similar but was hoping there is a better "hack" that is not as messy.

That's the trick to getting spices to adhere to nuts. If you are worried about the messiness perhaps your method can be improved. Put your nuts into a tossing bowl and slowly drizzle the oil over them. If tossing is a technique you are skilled with you can do that, but I'm guessing it's not, in which case you can stir with a spoon. It won't take much oil, maybe two tablespoons per pound. Maybe less. Then toss nuts again while sprinkling with cayenne. Or spread on a tray and sprinkle with cayenne there.

Lastly, if you are still struggling with the oily mess. Try enclosing in a sealable container and shaking. The oil will distribute and the mess will be contained.


Flat Yorkshire Pudding Why does my Yorkshire Pudding always flatten within minutes after I remove it from the oven? I always use a very hot oven and make sure the batter is at room temperature befor I put it in the oven. It rises beautifully in the oven but falls as soon as I take it out.

I just realized that you said 'minutes after' before you said 'as soon as I take it out'.

If it's as soon as you take it out, it's a problem with it being undercooked.

If it takes a few minutes to deflate, it can be an issue with cooling them too quickly.  You can get around this problem by taking a sharp knife or skewer and poking a couple of holes in the top of each one.

This will allow any built up steam to escape (which will unfortunately cool it off), but it will prevent the trapped air from creating a vaccuum as it cools, causing it to collapse.


Is this white flaky powder in this tea "vanilla flavor"? I got some tea from Thailand as a gift, and it has some vanilla flavor to it:

Obviously, it smells a lot like vanilla. This is how the tea looks like:

Is the white powdery stuff (looks a bit flaky when it's larger), mostly on the left this "vanilla flavor"? Is this natural vanilla, or synthetic? If it's not the white stuff, what is it?

I don't think so. This looks like very low quality 'tea', where they put in ground stalks instead of (only) leaves. Given that quality, there could be any other 'ingredients' in it.


How can I make my sourdough crust chewier? I'm making sourdough bread and am pleased with the results except that the crust is too hard and crunchy. Inside it's great, moist and a good even crumb. It makes great toast too, but I would sometimes like a chewier crust. Could the oven be too hot? I'm baking at 200 C Fan (the recipes usually suggest 220 C but that burnt my loaf! I think my oven might run hot.

How do you store your bread after baking and cooling it? Because I live in a desert climate, I can't keep it uncovered or in a bread box, so I put it in a big Ziplock bag. This tends to soften the crust into a chewier texture for me when I go to slice it the next day.


British "pot" of whipping cream? In Great Britain, recipes often call for a "pot" of something.
Is a "pot" of whipping cream whipped or un-whipped?

A pot of whipping cream is 270-290ml whipping cream.

Whipping cream is somewhere between single and double cream.

I'd love to get scientific with you but it's Christmas eve and the alcohol is flowing.


Is no-knead bread method compatible with stretch and fold during the bulk rise? Using the no-knead method (as decribed by Jim Lahey), instead of leaving the dough undisturbed during the initial fermentation period, would it be harmful to add in some stretch and folds to build dough strength? Would this be counterproductive, helpful or have no effect on the outcome?

I'm thinking just randomly throughout the period, stretch and fold whenever fancy strikes. The idea is to make the dough stronger than it would otherwise be using the pure no-knead method.

Absolutely!  The Tartine recipe, the Ken Forkish recipe, the Jose Baker recipe and the America’s Test Kitchen recipe all do stretch and fold with their “no-knead” recipes to build the gluten structure. Definitely do it.


What's a good way to taste a variety of alcoholic beverages? I've never been too keen on alcoholic beverages since trying things growing up and not liking them. However, I try to keep an open mind and would like to taste more. My problem is I'm hesitant to buy my own packs of beer or bottles of wine or drinks when I'm out, as that might get expensive. Is there a way to taste a variety of beverages without breaking the bank or sampling off friends' drinks all the time?

As far as beer goes: Many brewpubs will offer a sampler (or flight) of beer that includes small (few oz) glasses of many of their beers from IPA to stouts and wheat beers. You get a few sips of each beer for the price of a pint (or so) and you can determine what you like or don't like. Also, sometimes brewpubs offer samples of their beers if you ask. I went to a place offering habanero beer, and definitely wanted  a sip before buying a pint. It's not always advertised but worth asking if you have an interested in something in particular.

For wine: Many places that sell wine also offer tastings on occasion, also wineries generally have tastings if there are any in your area. Wine stores usually will have a red and a white available during tastings and the person in charge of the tasting can recommend what kind of food to pair it with. Tastings are a great way to get to know what kind of  wine you like!

For liquors: Finding a local distillery can be tricky if there are none where you live, but I'm lucky to know of a few near me that have tastings for a small fee. A caveat, though, liquor can be hard to drink for some without being mixed with some sort of mixer (juice, soda, etc). So just keep that in mind, when you sip some gin, you may enjoy it mixed with tonic even though you dislike it on its own.


Peanutbutter cookie dough problem When I doubled my last batch of peanutbutter cookie dough I only added one egg instead of two. Now it is crumbly and won't form a ball. Can I add another egg now? Or is adding some water better?

You can, but you should take care to not overwork the dough when you add the final egg. Whisk the egg lightly on its own and then mix it in as quickly as possible to avoid developing too much gluten in the dough. You will need the binding power of the egg for the cookies to hold together well after baking. Water will not help with that.


How can I add yogurt to a quickbread recipe? I stumbled upon a recipe for Yogurt-Zucchini bread, and I like the idea of adding yogurt to other quickbread recipes for the texture and flavor, especially whole-wheat ones.

What guidelines should I follow when adding yogurt?

I am guessing that yogurt won't significantly alter the liquid/solid ratio in a quickbread recipe, as the bread batter is usually pretty runny already.

Is it safe, therefore, to simply add roughly ½ cup of yogurt to a loaf of bread? Or should I alter the recipe in other ways to compensate?

Unstrained yogurt has the exact same ratio of water/protein/fat as the milk that it was made from. The amount of sugar will be different as some of the sugar was converted to acid during the fermentation.

This means that yogurt can be substituted 1 to 1 for milk, and sometimes other liquids, in baking. Know that the pH of the batter will be lower and if that will be a problem then add a little more baking soda to compensate for it. The lost sugar won't usually adversely affect a recipe because they usually have plenty of sugar added.

Quickbreads don't usually have a lot of added liquid and adding a significant amount of yogurt would throw off the batter. It could still be good but it wouldn't be the same thing.

To mitigate that problem your recipe uses Greek yogurt. Greek yogurt has been strained which simply means that the yogurt was stirred to break up the protein mesh and some of the whey was allowed to drain off. The whey will be mostly water but will also contain some sugar, lactic acid, and riboflavin. Even with the whey drained off Greek yogurt is still mostly water. This water, however, is locked up in the protein mesh. Where normal yogurt will weep whey when cut, Greek yogurt will not (at least not so easily).

The yogurt will regardless add some liquid, a fair bit of protein and potentially fat, and some acid. The acid and fat will add some wonderful flavor while the protein and fat will interfere with gluten development. In quickbreads you don't need gluten so this is a good thing.

To compensate for the additional acid your recipe includes a little extra soda along with its baking powder.

In summary:
Yes you can add strained yogurt to a quickbread for flavor. Be careful not to add so much that the added water will throw things off and remember to add the extra soda to compensate.


Why does my olive oil smoke/burn when I fry with it? I see many chefs/people in food channels who use olive oil to fry stuff (like salmon). However, when I add olive oil for frying it quickly burns releasing dark smoke. Is there a specific type of olive oil that they use for frying that doesn't burn? or am I just possibly doing something wrong?

You're heating the oil past its smoke point.

There is no trick or technique that will prevent oil from smoking and oxidizing ("burning") at temperatures above the smoke point. It is literally being slowly destroyed at that temperature.

I honestly don't know why TV chefs are so attached to the idea of cooking with olive oil when most serious attempts to compare it to other oils (for frying purposes) strongly indicate that it loses all or almost all of its unique taste by the end. Some cite dubious health benefits, but the low smoke point of virgin/extra virgin olive oil may also make it worse for you health-wise due to exactly what you've witnessed - smoke and oxidation.

EVOO is great as a dressing but it's a terrible choice as a cooking oil. If you absolutely must imitate these confused TV chefs, you can either fry at very low temperatures (as in, just barely a sizzle), which will take considerably more time, or used a refined (not virgin) olive oil which has a much higher smoke point. These would typically be the "cheap" olive oils you find in large plastic or metal containers.


Bread bowls verus loaf of bread I am making bread bowls for soup.  I made extra dough for a loaf, do you think there is a difference making a loaf from a bread bowl recipe?  The Bread Bowl recipe seems like a pretty standard bread recipe.

It will make a wonderful bread with lots of holes and a tough crust. Whether that's good for you or not is really whatever you like or not.

It bake the bread bagette style or free bread style right on the stone instead of using a loaf pan, but that's just me.


How is the lamb meat made in lamb gyros? I've been to several Middle Eastern inspired restaurants around where I live and in most of these restaurants, the customers are able to see into the kitchen as they prep our food. In the middle of the kitchen I normally see something like this:

I asked the waitress what they were and she told us that the "blob" on the right is lamb. My friend then went ahead and order a lamb gyro platter. We watched as they carved thin slices off of the lamb. These slices look something like this:

My friend let me try a piece of the "lamb" meat but it didn't really taste like meat. It was tasty but the texture seemed too "smooth" to taste like meat. The texture almost reminded me of vegan meat substitute. Its texture was nothing like what ground beef felt like. How did they prepare the lamb that they got such a texture? And is this authentic or just an American bastardization of the authentic gyro meats?

For the times I've done gyros as such, you basically make a 'paste' out of it in the food processor.

Throw ground lamb in and give it a whirl, mix your spices and such in, put it on a spit, fridge to give a bit hard, and then on the spit.  It comes out with a texture like that.  That's how that kind is often done.

For 'proper' tasting meat (more like the one on the left), its alternating layers of razor thin meat and fat.


What ingredient or method causes a mixture to be a bread versus cake? Sometimes I try to make a bread but the texture comes out more like a muffin even when I use a loaf baking pan. I have even tried premixed bread (similar to premixed boxed cakes) and while the taste is nice, the texture is not what I am looking to have. I'm trying to figure out what ingredient gives bread that coarse texture versus the smooth texture of muffins. I am thinking along the lines of coarse crumby breakfast type breads or dark breads you generally have with coffee such as Friendship Bread. b

Multiple factors give cake and bread its distinct attributes:

Fat/sugar content: a bread is generally very lean. Most traditional breads do not have any fat or sugar in it at all. Cake will generally have a high fat content from either butter, oil, or milk. Breads will taste "drier" than cake because it lacks this fat content. Cake will also have a large content of sugar compared to bread. Often case the sugar is creamed with the butter to give the batter some of its structure. The more air that is incorporated into the sugar/butter mixture the "lighter" the cake will be.
Leavening: Cakes will be leavened using baking soda and/or baking powder. This type of chemical leavening is very quick and will result in lots of little holes within the dough resulting in uniform "soft" texture. Bread on the other hand is primarily leavened using yeast and requires time for the yeast to eat the simple sugars in the dough and produce carbon dioxide which creates the bigger and uneven holes in the bread.
Preparation of batter/dough: Cake will very often use AP or Cake flour which are low in gluten. These cake recipes will generally ask you to "mix until just incorporated." This is to insure that the batter is evenly mixed but not over mixed. This is to prevent gluten formation. Bread on the other hand want this gluten formation so it uses a flour with high gluten content such as bread flour. The kneading and working of the bread dough will align these gluten strands and give the bread the dough structures that make it chewy and "bready."

Note that breads like banana bread, and zucchini bread fall under the category of quickbreads which  is actually more a cake than a bread.


How is basil prepared for pesto most efficiently? I'm typing this with a case of "pesto-finger" - the stubborn stains that take a few days to fully wash off my thumb and fingertips from hours of picking basil leaves (mostly after harvesting all the remaining basil in the face of a frost.) I always wonder (for a few days a year while I'm doing it) how basil is prepared (before the grinding in a pestle or food processor) both "traditionally" and/or in a large-scale or even commercial operation to make pesto, as I'm tediously picking leaves off of the stems in my annual home production. Is there a better way than tedious hand-picking?

My personal pesto has wandered fairly far from "pesto Genovese" but that really has no impact on this question, as it's still mostly basil.

Looking carefully at the picture Lars provides, it would appear (upon examining the picture at full scale) that the basil is being harvested fairly young (no flowers) and simply being cut off (you can see a sickle-bar type cutter at the base of the harvester) and pulled up (unfortunately the picture appears to be posed, with the harvester stopped and not actually harvesting, based on nothing on the belts nor coming out the chute.) This actually makes some sense - the stems at that point would be fairly tender and might not be objectionable when ground up. While it will take some discipline to finish off basil that could grow more (after years of trying to give it as long as possible and getting it right before frost), I'll have to try some this way next year. I might also try a side-by side taste comparison with some (of the same age) hand-picked (or fist-stripped) from the stems and processed, to see if there's any detriment form the young stems.

The picture shows a basil harvester. The stems remain in the ground, as you can see on the right; those stems that get harvested are processed together with the leaves.


What is this flat metal sieve that came with my pressure cooker for? What is this tool used for and how to use it? It came with a pressure cooker I've bought...

The sieve-like item is a steamer insert, used to cook things that do not cook well if submerged in the comparatively large amount of water a pressure cooker needs to operate. The wire is a stand for this insert, to raise it above the waterline.

Unless you bought it used: Pressure cooker makers tend to give free books away with their pots, often a classic about a spanish guy called Manual. Good reading while watching a pressure cooker.


Is Bottle gourd and white pumpkin same? I would like to know whether the Bottle gourd and white pumpkin both are same?

I found no answer in googling.

From the picture and your description "Inside It was like cucmber. Some seeds and soften stuffs", I would say that it is most likely a zucchini. Zucchini come in white (which is actually a pale green), green (which is pine green) and yellow, and the inside looks cucumber-like, although it is not as pleasant to bite into while raw. A further clue would be the hardness of the rind - zucchini slices as easily as a cucumber, while other related plants (including gourds) have a rather hard outer rind which requires some pressure to split.

If it is not a zucchini, there is probably no better way to classify it. There are tons of cucurbitas and hybrids between them, and cooks don't have precise names for all, only for the most commonly eatem ones. So "pumpkin" might be the best you are left with. You can of course also say "white pumpkin" if this is the preferred name regionally, but don't be surprised if you ask somebody from a different region for a "white pumpkin" and you get either a puzzled look or a random pumpkin-related plant with whitish skin.


How are commercial protein bars made so dense? I am trying to make protein bars at home from protein powder and natural sweeteners. I have basically all the ingredients mentioned on the pack, but mine come out much softer, whether or not I cook them. How are they made so dense? Are they processed under pressure perhaps?

Yes, they would be processed under pressure. What I'm not seeing in your ingredient list are any thickeners or binding agents, which definitely works against creating density in the final product.

Now, I've never made protein bars (because I'm a fat kid and don't eat them (not that I'm actually fat)), but I have made granola bars, and in granola you use a combination of molasses and butter (or butter, honey and brown sugar, in some recipes) to hold it all together and create that density. Not the nutritional effect you're looking for, but in terms of physics, the same idea.

As far as the ingredients you don't have, both are readily obtainable. Soy lecithin, or any kind of lecithin, is an emulsifier, which basically means that it assists in mixing ingredients of differing types. Most commonly, that means mixing an ingredient that is water-based with one that is oil-based (mayonnaise and pretty much any baked good other than yeast breads are all good examples of this - the lecithin in the egg yolks is what holds everything together). Not sure what your grocers are like, but I could buy soy lecithin from the baking aisle at mine. Bob's Red Mill manufactures bags of the stuff.

As for polydextrose, it's an "artificial sweetener" made from natural sugars (dextrose), sorbitol (a low-GI sugar alcohol that can either be made by reducing glucose or found in peaches, pears, apples, etc.), and a little citric acid. Note that it's considered artificial because the substance is man-made, not necessarily any of the component parts. What it does is help hold everything together, because it's also used as a thickening and hardening agent (which is ironic, because it's also used as a humectant, which means it keeps things moist). In other words, without this one ingredient, not only is your recipe not going to be able to hold any kind of density without something to replace it, but it's also likely to taste like flavored cardboard. The good news is that you can buy it on Amazon.

My honest advice would be to obtain the missing ingredients - the polydextrose at the very least - and use something heavy - perhaps a tortilla or burger press with a couple weights on top? - to press the mash before you cook it (and yes, you should cook it, I think for 10-15 minutes? Play with that.). Then refrigerate it all for a couple hours to harden it, then cut.

If all else fails, give up, and make granola bars with lots of nuts for protein. :-) In any case, here's a link to a pretty good explanation of how to make granola bars. I know, I know, not what you want to come up with, but I would imagine the process should be roughly similar.


Which cream should I use for cream sauce? I was making a cream sauce last night to put over tortellini.  My choices of cream at the store were heavy whipping cream and half and half.  I used both and it turned out watery.  Which should I have used?

Tortellini is a typical pasta from the region on Emilia in Italy, a stronghold of Italian dairy. It is the region where Parmigiano cheese and the company Parmalat originated, for instance. It is also the region of Parma ham. No surprise this recipe brings all of that together.

The traditional recipe asks for Panna fresca liquida, which in Italy would look something like this, and would be in a refrigerated area in the supermarket. It has between 20-30% of fat and is fairly liquid.

The traditional recipe asks for cooked ham (optional), butter, Panna liquida fresca, Parmigiano, nutmeg, salt and pepper. Thus no flour. The trick for consistency is on the right quantity of Parmigiano (a lot!). After cooking the tortellini, drain well and mix in the sauce over low heat in a hob until the right consistency. The starch coming from the pasta will also help to thicken the sauce. One way to gauge is to first cook the pasta, add to the cooked cream and add Parmigiano over the low fire until you get the desired consistency.

The consistency is of course a question of taste. For example, in this recipe the famous Emilian chef Massimo Bottura uses 300g of Parmigiano (24 months) for 200g of cream. Very intense!


Can I use sweetened condensed milk instead of evaporated milk for pumpkin pie? The recipe calls for evaporated milk, but I only have sweetened condensed. Can I use it instead?

Sure, you just have to have an appropriate recipe. Google "sweetened condensed milk pumpkin pie", you will find several recipes, including one by a major maker of sweetened condensed milk.


Canning cheese spreads? I've been doing some research on canning cheese in half pint jars. A few videos I watched showed some good success with cream cheese but cheddar's seem to change a bit in texture and become a bit porous after the process. My thought here was to turn the cheddar into a spreadable cheese before canning.

Looking at the FDA canning site I notice they have no recommendations for canning cheese and in fact they haven't even tried to can cream cheese. No tests at all. My question is, has anyone had success with making then canning cheese spreads? What would be the best method for making the spread so that I minimize failure and what would be some of the possible risks that might not be noticeable to the naked eye or by smelling if it did go bad?

Canning cheese may carry with it a risk of botulism, according to Clemson University Extension and the National Center for Home Food Preservation. Soft cheese is of particular concern.

This practice has not been scientifically validated and we cannot recommend it. Cheese and cheese milk can potentially be contaminated with Clostridium (C.) botulinum, the botulism-causing bacteria. The pH of cheese qualifies it as a low acid (pH 5.1 to 5.9) food and thus is in the canning danger range. Although uncanned hard cheeses (Asiago, Cheddar, Edam, Feta, Gouda, Parmesan) will not support growth of C. botulinum, the canning process may add available water to them. How much water is added by canning has not been tested. Increased available water may allow C. botulinum to grow and make canned hard cheeses unsafe. In addition, boiling waterbath canning processes kill the competitive “good” bacteria that help prevent the growth of C. botulinum. It is the dryness (low available water), salt content (lowers available water), acidity (produced by lactic acid bacteria) and competitive “good” bacteria that provide safety for hard cheeses; because of these factors, they can be waxed and stored for aging for years on the shelf without safety problems.
The incorrect assertion that it is possible to safely can soft cheeses such as cream cheese is of major concern. Soft cheeses are higher in available water and must be refrigerated to delay spoilage. They contain sufficient available water to support the growth of botulism-causing bacteria. A boiling waterbath canning process does not kill spores; therefore, canning soft cheese clearly raises the potential for serious health problems.

So, until more testing is done by a very reliable source, I would consider canning cheese to be unsafe. At least I wouldn't consider it to be shelf stable.


Induction unit makes buzzing sound I was fed up with the low quality electric hobs which are installed in my 1 meter wide "kitchen" (I forgot a crepe on the smaller one on the highest setting, and 25 min later it wasn't even browned, just dried a bit), so I recently bought a small induction cooking unit. It is a big improvement in terms of cooking convenience.

However, I noticed that with most cookware, it produces a strange buzzing sound. I don't mean the sound of the fan cooling the electronics. It produces a distinct fan-like sound, and I can clearly hear it when it works (it is self-regulated and doesn't blow all the time). But the buzzing occurs independently of the fan. It sounds like an old-fashioned phone, but not as loud and a bit muffled, as if the phone were under a duvet two rooms away. It definitely isn't supposed to be there (such as a warning buzzer). The device communicates its state primarily through a small number-outline display, and it also produces electronic beeping sounds to confirm the press of one of the touch sensors (really, who thought that this was a good interface for anything?! The thing is so unsuited for everyday use, they had to add annoying acoustic feedback because the normal tactile one is missing. But my accidental activation rate is still well above acceptable on all devices using it. [/rant]) and also to catch my attention if needed, such as when the overheating prevention mechanism turns the heat off. No buzzer of any kind is mentioned in the user's manual, and anyway it would be too 20th century to be included in this design.

The buzz isn't constant, it continues several seconds, then stops, then appears again, and so on. Sometimes it is completely missing. It seems to be dependent on the weight of the cookware. Once I cooked with an enamelled dutch oven, and I had no buzz at all. But with all other pieces of cookware I tried, I had the buzz. These include: a cheapish stainless steel pot, I think it has a plain thin stainless steel bottom; a good quality stainless steel pan with copper-sandwich bottom and mineral-based nonstick coating; a plain cast iron pan. I have noticed that the buzz seems to stop when I fill the cookware with enough food, and as the dutch oven weighs more than the other items, I think there might be a weight relation.

3-4 years ago I had access to another portable induction unit, and never heard such a buzz. That one was a vintage model from the mid 1970s. So if the buzz is normal for induction cooking today, why did they drop the non-buzzing technology used in this old piece?

I found an explanation on the Internet which claims that the buzz is caused by microscopic vibration of the layers of a sandwiched bottom. This cannot be the case, as the cast iron pan definitely has no sandwiched bottom, and yet it does generate the buzz.

Does anybody know what causes the buzz? Is it a malfunction of the induction unit, or is it normal to have it? And, because I find it somewhat annoying, do you have any ideas how to prevent it?

EDIT: I don't believe the explanations I have heard till now. "Poor sandwiched construction" is out of question, as it happens with a pan cast as a single piece. "Bottom vibrates against glass" sounds OK at first glance, but I put the pans on a thick fluffy cotton wool pad, and it didn't even reduce the buzz, so it couldn't be the reason. As for the fan - the sound is present before the fan switches on. Still, I am choosing an answer as the accepted one, because it tells me that it isn't a defect in my unit, and this is what I needed to know most.

As you probably know, induction burners produce an alternating magnetic field that induces a current in the cookware. This process can produce attractive and repulsive forces as well that cause vibrations.

The problem can be caused not only by poor sandwiched construction but by an uneven bottom surface, or loose parts or lids.

I have read that some people have successfully used silicon baking pads to dampen the sound.

This page has some useful information on the subject:

http://theinductionsite.com/proandcon.shtml


Why doesn't chocolate go bad? After all, chocolate has oil and sugar in it. Why don't bacteria love it? Thanks!

Simple: it has no water.

Chocolate is a suspension of cocoa solids and sugar in cocoa butter. It is made from fat and carbohydrates only. Bacteria, as everything else, need water to live. They can't survive in something hygroscopic (like jam or honey) or something with no water at all (flour, chocolate, pure fat). Similar for molds. So, independent of temperature, chocolate won't go bad in the sense that it will never grow colonies of bacteria.

As Hobodave mentioned, it can "grow bad" in another sense. If held at high temperatures (somewhat above 30°C), the chocolate butter will separate from the mix and form a dull yellow-grayish crust on the chocolate surface. Also, if you leave it in contact with oxygen for long enough (many months), the cocoa fat will go rancid. In both cases, it is perfectly safe to eat the chocolate without risking food poisoning. However, the taste is much worse than in normal chocolate.


Tres Leche Without Homemade Cake? I've been wanting to make a tres leche cake and I have a few cake box mixes at home (yellow cake, spice cake and a chocolate cake).  Could I use the yellow cake and then just fork it and pour over the tres leche sauce or is there something about typical tres leche cake recipes that makes them better suited to the sauce and the overall dish?

Tres leches cake is always of the sponge variety.

It is much higher in eggs and the extra protein lets it hold up to sitting in a puddle of milk overnight. A regular white cake would not be a good plan. It would be at best pudding in the morning.

If you are trying to get rid of boxed cake and want it to be a sponge cake you could try beating egg whites and folding them into your batter.

Personally I think sponge cakes are so easy that I would rather just make the tres leches from scratch and save the boxed cake for a trifle or to give away to someone who doesn't care.


Will different kinds of sugar or coffee affect coffee syrup flavor? This coffee syrup is basically a 2 to 1 ratio of sugar to coffee, and you boil it to a thick syrup. A person who tasted the final dish said it tasted like espresso!

What kind of effects would it get from different kinds of sugar? Would brown sugar give it a molasses taste, for example?

Would different coffees have any effect on the coffee syrup?

Coffee syrup, like anything else cooked, will taste of the ingredients used. If you use brown sugar it will syrupy and have a molasses flavor, if you use floral honey it will taste of it. If you use a richer coffee bean it will have a richer coffee taste.


How to make tofu that is crispy and flavorful outside and soft inside? I know how to fry tofu to make it firm, and also how to dry fry it and marinade it to make it flavorful.  Neither of these cooking techniques mimics the tofu I get at my local Thai restaurant.

When I order tofu there, it is perfectly fried to give it firm texture on the outside, but when you bite in, it's juicy and melts in your mouth, making the tofu experience much better.  It literally blends with the other flavors this way and I can't figure out how they do it.  I'll also note that the inside is not seasoned, it's the internal texture that makes it taste so good.

Is it the type of tofu maybe?  Or the frying time?  Any ideas?

Most likely, they are using a softer tofu than you.

For whatever reason, the US is infatuated with unusually firm tofu, and supermarkets emphasize the "extra firm" varieties. In Asia, especially Japan and Korea, but even in China, most applications call for a softer, more custard-like tofu.

If it's soft inside, when you deep fry the tofu, it should stay fairly soft inside. The cornstarch or potato starch you coat it with will make the outer bits crispy.


Can ghee replace butter in lemon curd? My mother-in-law believes she is allergic to milk solids, but that ghee has the solids removed.  She loves lemon meringue pie.  The lemon curd in the pie calls for butter.  Can I substitute ghee successfully?

Yes, you can; for example, from Charlotte's Lively Kitchen we have the following remark:

Can lemon curd be made with clarified butter?
OK, this is maybe a slightly unusual recipe adjustment to have tested.
However, I decided that as lemon curd is such a classic recipe, I’d
see how it was made in an old Victorian cookbook I was given by my
Granny, and that recipe used clarified butter so I thought I’d give it
a try.
It was delicious. However, I didn’t think it tasted like lemon curd as
we know it today so I decided to stick with regular butter.

Note that butter is about 80% fat, 18% water, and 2% milk solids (varies according to the butter).  So, you may wish to reduce the amount of ghee and adjust the moisture content based on your recipe.


What are some kid-friendly dishes from Kenya? Background: Last year, my kids' school play was The Sound Of Music. I was asked to make food for the cast party. No problem. My family is from Austria; I made schnitzel for 75. It's mentioned in one of the songs and, of course, I did not make it with noodles because nobody in Austria eats it that way.

The cast party was such a success (and everyone was thrilled with the themed food) that I was asked to do it again this year. My problem is that this year's play is The Lion King. What do I make? This is middle school in the US, so it's 6th - 8th graders.

The Kenyan Food Overview: 20 of Kenya’s Best Dishes by Mark Wiens should point you in the right direction. He lists ugali (cornmeal), irio (mashed peas and potatoes), githeri (beans and corn), pilau (spiced rice), stews (beef, goat, chicken, other animals), wali wa nazi (coconut rice), sukuma wiki (collard greens/kale), roasted maize (corn), bhajia (fried potatoes), mandazi (fried dough), Masala chips (french fries), chips Mayai (french fries and egg), coffee, and some cross-cultural items such as samosas and chapatis.

Masala chips might be very relatable to the children:

  The dish starts with a greasy plate of freshly deep fried french fries (chips). Tomato sauce, chili sauce, herbs, cilantro, and whatever else the chef decides are all added to the fries, coating them in a luscious sauce that will have you licking your fingers and the plate!


Recipe calls for a heaping teaspoon of a liquid ingredient I'm looking at a recipe for chickpeas (garbanzo beans) roasted in a spice mix, which looks yummy, but I'm confused by some items in the ingredients list.

I'm happy with this:

  1 heaping teaspoon curry powder

I simply take my 5ml measuring spoon, and get a heaped scoop of curry powder.

But for

  1 heaping teaspoon sesame, coconut or olive oil

  1 heaping teaspoon sriracha

I can see that sriracha might well hold its shape enough to form a heap. But what about the oil??

Obviously you can't "heap" a liquid.

What helps is if you remember that in cooking measurements are not set in stone. The amount given in a recipe can basically always be tweaked to your liking - a tablespoon need not be the "perfect" amount, but should be a good starting point. E.g. the siracha: some like their dish hotter, some less so.

In your case I'd interpret "heaping" as "generous" or "a bit more than". (The opposite of "scant", where you'd fill the spoon not quite full.)

I'd start with a spoonful and add more to taste, if necessary.


Is this a Confectionery Ganache frame? I have been trying to search for this device for days. I’ve used the terms “dough rolling frame, caramel ruler, confectionery frame, ganache frame, adjustable ganache frame, dough leveling frame, confectionery bars/rulers” and nothing comes up.

Is there another name for this thing that will help me find it? I'm specifically looking for a frame that is adjustable and has those little notches in it.

After some additional searching I found something similiar but they just call it a frame >.<

To me, this looks like a tart ring. In commercial kitchens, tarts are not baked in pans, they are baked in ring walls arranged on baking sheets.

The traditional rings are round (duh), but the word has stayed for the square and rectangular versions. And of course, it can be reused for purposes other than baking tarts, since the shape is convenient for many tasks.

So, look for purchasing a "rectangular tart ring" and you'll likely find what you need.


Why does my chocolate seize when I add brandy to it? I have many recipes that require mixing brandy into melted chocolate. I find,  in every case, that the chocolate seizes and I have chocolate shards instead of a smooth mass.  What am I doing wrong?

My guess is that you're adding the brandy cold, and the chocolate may also only be partially melted.  Try:

Ensuring that the chocolate is thoroughly melted;
Heating the brandy first (to just below boiling);
Gradually adding the chocolate to the brandy (not vice versa).  Chocolate seizes the worst with small amounts of liquid, so you're doing the opposite, adding a tiny amount of chocolate at a time to a relatively large amount of liquid).


Why the Australian Tomahawk steak is larger then US? If you do a search for Tomahawk steak on Google Image, you will see two very different Tomahawk steak, the US ones, some simply referred it to Rib Eye Bone-In French Cut, are much smaller, with smaller bones at the tail and much more elegant looking.
While the proper Australian Tomahawk is so much larger in pic, and weight in 1.8Kg+.

What are the different between these two parts? Are they even made with the same cuts?

They are the same cut.

Quoted from Meat 102: Cuts, Anatomy & Preparation (emphasis mine):

  Some restaurants will call the ribeye a “tomahawk steak” if the entire rib bone is left on and french cut by the butcher, since it then looks like a small hatchet.  It is common for butchers to cut the bone down a bit, however, for packaging purposes ... Sizes and portions range from anywhere between 14oz to 36oz, most often hovering around the 20oz mark in restaurants.

36 oz is about 1 kg, or half as large as the "Australian Tomahawk" -- which can be attributed to having the full rib bone, as well as probably a thicker cut (and a generous pinch of marketing-speak and publicity).

  The Tomahawk is one of largest steaks in Australia, weighing in at
  1.3kg – 3.6kg (1.8kg average). Each Tomahawk is a rib-eye, or scotch fillet on the bone...

(see also StockJournal article)

EDIT: It's also called a cowboy steak or cowboy chop. So, the uncut rib bone seems to be the primary difference between "Australian" and "US" tomahawk steak.


Softened butter vs over softened butter Many baking recipes call for “softened” butter. What is meant by term "over softened", as in many places it is written that " over softening causes flat cookies or hard dough" etc. Isn't softening mean to put the cold butter in the microwave for 10 to 20 seconds. If so, then what do the recipe mean when it says that we have over softened butter? I am confused between these two terms as I was going through some baking recipes, and ways to trouble shoot baking issues. I now am confused. Am I mixing these two terms or "over softening" refers to melting butter.

"Softened" butter will flex if you try to bend the unwrapped stick.  You can actually get the ends to 90 degrees to each other when you have it just right.

"Over softened" is when you can't even pick it up to try to flex it.  This actually happens before it fully melts.

The problem is that you need the butter to be at the right consistency when you're creaming in the sugar.  "Creaming" is really about cutting little holes into the butter to get air into it.  If it's too stiff, the butter just stays as a lump or maybe crumbles into pieces, but the butter never really gets any air into it.  If it's too soft, the bubbles won't stay in the butter after the sugar cuts it in.

Microwaving doesn't really help as you end up with an over-softened outside, while the middle is too firm.  You really have to leave it out at room temperature for a few hours, but if you're in a rush, you can slice it up so there's more surface area so it warms up more quickly.  (but there's the problem that "room temperature" is a cultural thing, and seasonal, so one area's "room temperature" might be too warm or too cold either all year or for some part of the year)


How long does flour and oil last? I made some cloud dough for my daughter (made of 8 parts all-purpose flour to 1 part olive oil) and I was just wondering how long you think it would last. I am currently storing it in a plastic container with a lid outside with plastic toys in it.

She won't be eating it as it's for playing but I don't want her playing with rancid dough and some might make it's way to her mouth for a taste or because it got onto something else while playing.

Thanks

Oil should last several months before becoming rancid - olive oil specifically is supposed to last minimum 15 months if properly stored.  Being played with is not "properly stored", but oil that is expected to be regularly opened for use might be exposed to air a comparable amount to a dough played with for longer but on fewer occasions, and otherwise held in an airtight container.  Flour is shelf-stable, especially since it isn't meant to be eaten.  Without water in the mix, I don't think there will be enough moisture to spoil badly.

The olive oil may become rancid faster, especially if is is exposed to the open air a lot (I would still expect months).  However, olive oil gone rancid from oxidation is not supposed to be dangerous, merely unpleasant.

Obviously you can replace the dough when you notice the difference, if you're worried, better safe and all that.  But a taste of rancid oil while playing shouldn't be harmful, maybe not enough to panic over in a small exposure while playing - and may be unpleasant enough discourage the taster from trying to eat any similar playing dough in the future.


Should rice be washed with hot water or cold water? For both long-grain (Jasmine) and short-grain rice I typically rinse the rice with cold water to remove some of the starch and to clean the rice a bit.  What temperature (hot/warm/cold) should I use to wash the rice, and why does it matter?

Thanks!

It is usually recommended that basmati and jasmine not be rinsed because they are not overly starchy and the taste is better unrinsed. American style short grain rice and japanese rice is usually rinsed to provide a cleaner flavor, but this can also wash away some of the vitamin fortification. Do not rinse risotto rice, since the starchiness is important to the dish.

When you do rinse rice, the purpose is to clean it and reduce the starch, but not to cook it, so cold water is probably best, but it likely does not matter much.

In the end, rinsing or not is not terribly noticeable, and mostly comes down to taste. You will definitely see both sides argued well. To me, this usually means either way is fine.


How can I smoke a large chicken on an outdoor grill and still keep the skin edible? I smoked a large chicken in an off-set barbecue pit using burning wood only (no charcoal). The meat turned out great, but the skin was saturated with smoke, bitter, and inedible.  I would love to be able to keep the skin edible, any ideas?

You need to first let the wood burn down to coals before adding your smoking chips and the bird.  The excessive smoke from the burning wood is what made it too bitter.  What type of wood were you burning?


Cooking chicken in a risotto without it drying out I was following a recipe for a chicken risotto, which said to brown the chicken (breast meat, cut into small pieces, maybe 3/4 of an inch or so) in the pan after browning the onions, and then add the rice and stock to the same pan afterwards (so the chicken was in the pan the entire cooking period of the rice). However, when the dish was complete, many of the chicken pieces had unfortunately dried out.

What can I do to prevent this next time?

Brown the chicken in the pan where you will cook the risotto.  This will give your risotto some nice flavor if you make sure to scoop up the browned bits during cooking.  Then remove it.  Let it rest on a plate, tented with foil, throughout the whole time you are making the risotto.  Towards the last few minutes, put the chicken and any accumulated drippings from the plate back in.  This will warm the chicken and add the flavor from the drippings.  I use this technique whenever I am doing any sort of single skillet dish with meat, starch, and veggies.


Why do frozen vegetables go bad more quickly after thawing than fresh cut ones? I left a pack of frozen vegetables (brocolli, carrot, cauliflower, green beans) in the fridge so it thawed. It went sour and slimy after a few days, (maybe 5) -- why?

If I cut the same fresh vegetables and store it in a plastic bag or container, it will be fine in a week or more.

What's the science behind that? Why do bacteria grow more quickly in frozen veggies being thawed than in fresh cut ones?

Very simply; freezing breaks the cell walls.

As ice takes up more space than water, as the vegetables freeze all the cells rupture.
Once defrosted, each cell is then little more than a slowly-leaking bag of nutrient, exposed to the open air. Whether or not any bacteria gets in & starts to breed is almost irrelevant by this time, as your 'leaky bag' is going to dissolve into a pool of its own juices pretty quickly.

This is why frozen veg is cook-from-frozen not cook-from-thawed. An hour might be OK, a day is starting to get a bit much. By 5 days, I wouldn't do anything other than move it to the recycle using tongs.


What is the shelf life of my home made coleslaw dressing? I made about a gallon of dressing today from Kraft mayo, apple cider vinegar, and sugar.  What is the shelf life of this?

Also, what is the shelf life of balsamic vinegar, salad oil, garlic, honey, salt and pepper?

Your coleslaw dressing is almost certain to be sufficiently acidic as to have an essentially unlimited (call it at least a month or two) in the refrigerator.   Commercial mayonnaise is acidic enough off the shelf to discourage bacterial growth pretty well, and you have enhanced its acidity with the cider vinegar.

The balsamic dressing--it is difficult to say.  It depends on how acidic it is, and that depends critically on the recipe.

See also:

Room temperature "rest" for fresh mayo?
Making "long(er)-life" homemade mayonnaise


Is there a rubric for what ingredients go into a Chinese stir fry? Looking at these two recipes:

https://omnivorescookbook.com/tofu-and-broccoli/
https://omnivorescookbook.com/ginger-chicken/

they are quite similar but have minor variations. This seems to be the case for a lot of Chinese cooking - there are many recipes that use slightly different quanities or omit a single ingredient but are recognised as a different dish.
For example the ginger chicken contains
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon dark soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon rice vinegar

but the tofu stir fry by the same chef contains
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
2 teaspoons dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons Shaoxing wine

And then for another ginger chicken recipe (https://thewoksoflife.com/ginger-chicken/), the sauce has
1/4 cup Shaoxing wine
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon dark soy sauce
2 teaspoons oyster sauce (optional)

What confuses me is that distinguishing between ginger chicken and another chicken stir fry seems to rely on these small variations in flavours.
But these variations aren't consistent between chefs, so is there really just one "mother" stir fry recipe that you can tweak to your preference? Or do the variations actually result in something that you could tell apart by what you get on the table without knowing what its called?

Is there a rubric for what ingredients go into a Chinese stir fry?

Usually, some optional mixture of liquids, vegetables, noodles, fruits, and meats.
A bit of a facetious answer, but really- stir frying is just a method of cooking food.
While there are certain ingredients that we usually associate with stir frying, the existence of a 'mother stir fry recipe' is about as real as a 'mother grilling recipe', or a 'mother microwaving recipe'. It's silly to say, isn't it? You can grill whatever you want, however you want.
So why do two different recipes have minor, small variations?
Well, because they're different recipes. Those chefs just decided that's what they wanted their recipe to be, so it is.
Your implicit follow-up question seems to be "Are those small differences enough to make a difference?" and of course, as always, the answer is 'it depends.' The difference in 1/4 cup of Shaoxing wine to 1/2 teaspoon of rice wine? That's a pretty huge difference. You'll taste that. You might not know what difference you're tasting, but that's not the goal, is it? Just the fact that it's different is enough for it to be, well, a different recipe.
If you look around enough, I'm sure you'll find two recipes that are essentially identical with different names. That's okay too, isn't it? Two different people could eat the exact same thing and experience the taste of that in different ways, and thus name it two different things. If a dish contains hot peppers and garlic in equal measure, one person might call it Spicy Pepper Dish and another person might call it Sweet Garlic Dish. They're both valid names.
Hope my long rant was at least a little bit helpful. Thanks.


Why do some plant based milks require more emulsifiers than others? I used to making milk from sunflower seeds and I always add the same amount of xanthan gum. I made my first raw quinoa milk and the water separated - but just a bit, maybe 1/4 of an inch - despite the fact that dry amounts of both sunflower seeds and quinoa and resulting liquids were pretty much the same. Next time I added a bit more of xanthan gum and it was ok. I'm thinking that could be because sunflower seeds have higher fat contents? 36% vs 2%.

Some plant products carry a good amount of lecithin, which is itself a potent emulsifier, so there is less need to add an extra emulsifier. Soy beans and sunflowers are both commercially exploited sources of lecithin isolates, so one can assume they have a lot.

Lecithin is also contained in eggs in a high concentration, and the reason eggs are often helpful in mayonnaise making - BTW, eggless mayonnaises can be homemade from soymilk, though not as easily as traditional mayonnaise.


Cooking white (cannellini) beans: What went wrong? I cooked some white beans but they came out kind of crunchy and it seems like every bean had a shell that was loosely attached that made the texture unpleasant.

Here's what I did: Rinsed and drained the beans, then soaked over night for 9 hours. Rinsed and drained again. Filled a pot with water, added basil and onions and brought to a boil. Scooped away any foam and floating bits, such as loose shells. Simmered for 2 hours and stirred occasionally.

The end result was edible, but all the beans had shells that I had to spit out. It was like eating the shell of a shrimp, albeit not as tough.

What did I do wrong? How else am I supposed to cook white beans so that this doesn't happen?

Update: No salt was added at any point, only what was stated above. Also, I let it cool for about 20-30 minutes before I ate them.

I'm not sure if you did or not, but there's like an hour standing period with cannelinis afterward. That may have affected it if you ate them right away. You really should try doing your beans in a slow cooker as well. Try cooking normally, but then adding dry beans to slow cooked dishes is GREAT. Depending on the bean, and a nice sturdy bean like cannelini is great for that.

Enjoy!


What do you call eggs prepared with a broken yolk, in a skillet, with no char? What do you call eggs prepared with a broken yolk, in a skillet, with no char?
I crack 2 eggs into a saute skillet & break both yolks, cover with a lid & wait a couple minutes with medium heat, then flip them over & turn off heat for 1 more minute. I would like a quick easy description so I can order easily in restaurants

Where I come from, that would be called 'over hard.'

As a reference, the others would be over-easy (runny yolk), over-medium (soft, slightly runny), and the over-hard would be cooked solid.

Chefs will often break the yolk on an over-hard order, before flipping the egg, if it's not already broken.


What is the difference between a Sfogliatelle and a Lobster Tail (Pastry) What are the differences between Sfogliatelle and a Lobster Tail (Pastry).

There is conflicting information about them being either different or the same pastry.  Additionally, I'm curious of other variants besides the two listed above.

The difference is that in sfogliatelle the filling is made of Ricotta cheese, while in the Lobster Tail the filling is made of French cream.

Lobster Tail is not something prepared in Italy; you find it on New York City. I had to ask to friend of mine living in USA, to know what Lobster Tail pastry is.


Help roaster oven quit in the night! Possible Duplicate:
  How long can cooked food be safely stored at room/warm temperature?

I put 2 large pork roasts into my roaster oven to cook overnight for pulled pork today. I started it around 8:30 p.m. and cooked it for an hour and a half at 350 then turned it down to 250 to cook all night. Sometime in the night my roaster oven bit the dust and when I awoke at 7:00 a.m. this morning and went to check on it, the oven wasn't working, and the meat was not completely cooked and had cooled to an internal temp of 80 degrees.  I quickly put it in the regular oven to finish cooking, but will it be safe to eat?  I just don't know how long it had been off.  This was over $30.00 of meat and I hate to waste it.  I can cook it all day today, would you risk eating it?

I wouldn't eat it.

The usual guideline is that food shouldn't spend more than 2 hours in the "danger zone," i.e. the temperature range in which bacteria can grow -- 40-140°F. It sounds like your pork may have spent a lot more than 2 hours in this range, so you should toss it.

It may hurt to toss $30 worth of meat, and it's possible that nobody will get sick from eating this pork. But if someone does get sick, you (and they) will certainly wish that you had thrown the pork away. And if they get very sick, they may require a trip to the doctor or even the hospital, and that'll cost a whole lot more than $30.


Does (how does) cake batter consistency affect outcomes? I've made lots of cake... usually in the form of mini cupcakes.

Generally I find a full cake recipe for a layer cake or even a sheet cake or bundt cake and just put it in mini cupcake pans and bake for about 12-17 minutes, depending on the recipe.

One thing I'm starting to realize is that batter consistency is absurdly varied. Some batters are practically water, like this chocolate cake recipe I made last night. It has very little flour and (228 g) compared to 414 g sugar and 2.5 cups of liquid (water, milk, oil). Other cakes turn out batters that are practically cookie dough thick. Most are somewhere in between.

What are the benefits and hazards of these different consistencies of cake batters? Does it affect crumb, moisture, doming? In the case of cupcakes rather than layer cakes, will one consistency produce more stereotypical cupcakes than others (e.g, say that thin batters make for little doming in the cake, that would be bad for cupcakes, which you want a nice dome on).

For the sake of clarity, let's say that the "target" for cupcakes is one that is:

moist but holds together for hand-held consumption
well-domed rather than flat-topped
releases from wrapper easily

And, as a corollary, how can I determine (when picking recipes) which recipes will create different consistencies of batter - is there a liquid to flour ratio common to different consistencies?

I'll take a stab at this, based on my experiences and general knowledge of cake science.  I don't know of any reference resources that directly address this question broadly.

Does cake batter consistency affect outcomes?  Yes.

Can we straighforwardly predict the type of outcome based solely on consistency?  Generally no.

Well, you can make some very broad generalizations about how thicker batters all other things being equal are frequently used to produce denser cakes, but even then it depends on what you mean by "consistency."  (For example, some types of batter can be highly viscous but contain a lot of air, leavening agents that will produce such air in the oven, and/or lighter ingredients.)

But something brought up in comments is basically the problem -- there's too much "chemistry" to predict anything definite from batter viscosity (and whatever else is included in the term "consistency") alone.  A thick batter with adequate leavening can make a light final cake.  A thin batter without leavening can result in a dense "hockey puck."  Moistness is subjective and hard to predict too, because it depends on bake time/temperature (which will determine amount of evaporation during baking), as well as the amount of rise (more air can make the final product seem "drier") and other ingredients (e.g., fats, proteins, and sugar content can have an affect on how we perceive "moistness" or how it is held in the baked structure).

Part of the problem is also what makes the batter "thin" or "thick," etc.  This addresses the final question about whether ratios are predictable.  They are to some extent.  But unlike, for example, many types of "lean" bread, cake batters frequently have a complex set of ingredients that aren't easy as easy to predict as basic "hydration level" in bread.  Aside from liquid like milk or water, you often have moisture content from eggs, as well as things like liquid fats which don't contribute to consistency the same as water but nevertheless also contribute to "thinness" of a batter.  (And this doesn't even include possible other additions like fruit, syrups, etc.)  Air content will also greatly influence apparent consistency, so it's not just whether you add butter or eggs or whatever, but do you beat them as well?  How much air do they retain when the batter is fully assembled?

It might be possible to create a sense of appropriate/predictable ratios for specific types of cakes with the same general mixing method.  But I think there's too much variety among cakes overall to generalize for all cakes.

The final two points concern wrapper sticking and doming.  The former is perhaps related to moisture, but it mostly has to do with having enough gluten or other binding agent so wrappers can be pulled off without the cupcake crumbling apart.  Since so many different ingredients can contribute to hold the cake together, it's difficult to relate that directly to consistency.

Lastly, doming: again, batter consistency is very important here, but it's only one factor.  A persistent dome requires several things to happen:

Leavening amount has to be calibrated to be enough to cause the batter to rise, but not so much that only large bubbles are formed that rise and burst out of the top of the batter while baking.  Batter viscosity is important here, because a batter that is too thin will allow too much bubbling out, but a batter that is too thick may not rise adequately under the weight.  (Thin batters will obviously thicken during baking, so leavening has to survive until batter viscosity increases enough to create structure.)
"Crust" begins to form early enough to trap bubbles inside the top center of batter.
"Crust" must be flexible enough (not thick or firm) to allow the center to keep expanding.
Expansion of internal gases (either due to temperature rise alone or in combination with leavening-produced gases) must continue long enough to provide support while the structure beneath the dome "sets."
Oven temperature and browning agents must be calibrated so the batter sets completely internally before the exterior burns.  Also, some structural proteins can shrink significantly as they lose moisture, so baking must be completed before too much of this can occur.

Bottom line is that there's a lot of consistency-related factors in this process, but very different types of batters can still produce a sufficient rise and a dome (as well as "moistness" and other factors in the question).


Why does Phillips Crab taste like chemicals, unlike M&S's Orkney Crab that tastes natural? BC supermarkets  stock only Phillips Food for  picked crab meat. Thrifty Foods sell them in plastic cylinders:

To me, Phillips's crab always tastes wacky, like chemicals. Does anyone taste this or know why?
In England, I stumbled on White and White & Brown Orkney Crab at M&S Foodhall. It tasted truly crabby, delicious and fresh, unlike Phillips. Why?

A quick comparison of the listed ingredients shows only crab meat for the M&S products (clearly visible in the photos in your question), whereas the Phillip’s website of the pictured product says:

  Ingredients: Crab Meat, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate (SAPP) added to prevent the formation of struvite crystals.

Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate is also called Disodium pyrophosphate and the Wikipedia article states:

  Disodium pyrophosphate can leave a slightly bitter aftertaste in some products,

In short, you taste something because there is something other than just crab meat. If SAPP tastes unpleasant to you, avoid products with it and choose ones without a preservative or with a different one (if a taste test is ok for you). In a pinch, masking the off taste may be possible, but not necessarily what you are looking for - you’d also be masking the crab flavor.


Can I make a sponge cake without sugar? I want to experiment with making a savoury sponge cake. The idea is to make something that has the texture of a sponge cake but isn't sweet, and I'll fill it with some creamy savoury sauce that I haven't decided on yet. It's probably a daft idea (blame lockdown fever) and feel free to tell me so if you wish, but what I really want to know is can I take a recipe for a sponge cake and just leave out the sugar?
I want a fairly sturdy sponge. More like the texture of a light fruit cake sponge than a Madeira sponge. If it isn't just a matter of leaving out the sugar then any suggestions of recipes that will achieve what I want will be greatly appreciated.

You may want to look into quick bread recipes instead.
Examples of quick breads include muffins, scones, coffee cakes — often made sweet, but savory versions certainly exist. The primary difference is whether or not there's any sugar, and what sort of additional flavors are mixed in (such as fruits or chocolate in  sweet quick breads, cheese or meat or herbs in savory quick breads).
There are quite a lot of "basic quick bread" recipes available, and so I'll let you search on your own rather than post links which may go dead. Just make sure you look for a version that involves oil (and milk/buttermilk) instead of butter; some sweet sponge cake recipes get texture impacts from creaming butter and sugar together, which you couldn't do without sugar.


wet cured ham spoilage I left a frozen wet cured fully cooked ham still in the shrink wrap in a cool water circulation last night to thaw it. At some point my wife used the faucet and set the temp on the tap up. When I reached in to pull the drain, the water was warm and so was the ham. It had been in this warm state for no more than 3 hours. I shot a temp on the exterior of the ham and it read 100.2F. I immediately put it back in the frig to wait till the morning to cook. Will it be safe to consume after reaching 160?

I am usually loath to say out loud that you can feel safe going outside of government guidelines, even if I wouldn't hesitate to eat the food myself. In this rare case I will throw caution to the wind. Oh for heaven's sake, cured ham? Warm for <3 hours? Yes, you can eat it.

I can't swear that it is actually safe, but you're probably more likely to be struck by lightning than to be made sick by that ham (unless by some weird twist of fate, it was tainted to begin with).

The official USDA line is that 40F - 140F is the "danger zone", and any food that is susceptible to becoming dangerous is dangerous if it has spent more than 2 hours (cumulative, as in ever) in that temperature zone. That is obviously very, very conservative. Curing adds another layer of preservation/safety to the meat.The USDA would say that your ham needs to be thrown out. I say pass the mustard.

If any member of your family is pregnant or immunocompromised, give them actual "safe" food.


Why does some cookie recipes both put sugar and brown sugar? Also can we use sweetener like stevia instead of sugar in recipes? Why does some cookie recipes both put sugar and brown sugar? What is sweeter regular sugar or brown sugar? Also can we use sweetener like stevia instead of sugar in recipes? Will it give a sweeter taste? If it works what amount would you put in if the recipe calls for 1 cup of sugar?

Thank you :)

You are asking a surprisingly lot of questions.

First, to deal with this question, you need to understand "creaming".

So look here and here.

Nothing "creams" as dramatically as granulated sugar with room temperature butter. Those particular ingredients are special for that. Brown sugar doesn't accomplish nearly the creaming effect of granulated sugar, but combined with granulated sugar the combination is greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, a 50/50 mix of brown and granulated sugar can achieve nearly the leavening effect of granulated sugar only with room temperature butter.

The sweetness of brown and regular sugar are pretty much equal. In the US and I think almost everywhere else, brown sugar is just granulated sugar with molasses added. Brown sugar adds the molasses flavor, and not surprisingly, some browning.

To use non-sugar sweeteners, choose recipes that don't call for The Creaming Method, they simply won't work right. If you want to use a sweetener other than sugar, pick a recipe with a fat that is unsaturated (liquid at room temperature), or melted butter. Also, be sure that your sweetener of choice will maintain its sweetness if baked.


Thawing frozen seafood mix is a lot of work I buy 1-lb bags of frozen seafood mix from Trader Joe’s. It includes shrimp, calamari, and scallops. I usually want to fry it in a pan, so I first need to thaw it and remove as much water as I can — otherwise it becomes boiling (or soup) instead of frying.

My process right now is:

Separate the 1-lb bag into two bowls
Put both bowls in the microwave oven in “defrost” mode, which takes about 9 minutes.
Drain the water from both bowls. Mix the seafood in the bowl to make thawing more uniform.
Put both bowls in the microwave oven for another round of defrost mode.
Drain the water from both bowls. Mix the seafood.
Put both bowls in the microwave one more time for another round of defrost.
Drain again.

That seems like a lot of work, taking about half an hour before I even begin cooking it! I find it hard to believe that everyone who buys this mix goes through this — but I really do get a lot of water after each round of defrosting, so I don’t think I can skip it.

Am I thawing this seafood in the best way?

Any time you cook the seafood mix it will shed moisture, which it has a lot of and probably on the outside of it as well. I love that mix and I just soak it in a bowl of cold water then drain it. If you keep driving the moisture out before you use it, it will be shriveled up and dry. As you simmer it over time, the level of moisture you want to drive out of it will steam off.


What is a good mortar and pestle crushing technique? You'd think using mortar and pestle would be pretty straightforward, yet when I try to make pesto half of time is spent spooning the stuff that sticks to the pestle and shuffling around the contents inside the mortar so they don't spill over.

This serious eats video makes using one look so easy. If I tried to use my Ikea granite M&P like that video all the contents would spill over.

Were you just working from the video, or following the recipe?  They added some coarse salt when they started with the garlic, which isn't apparent in the video.  The salt acts as an abrasive when you're crushing wet things (garlic, herbs, etc.), so it takes a lot less time and effort.  I also tend to use the 'smash with knife' technique (even if they're already peeled, and crush them really hard after they're peeled), so they have a head start.

They also added the basil a little bit at a time -- too much and it'll just slip against itself, taking much longer to break down.  Although he was adding a 'handful' at a time, if we look at the version annotated with pictures, we can see that he's got a rather large mortar.  If you're working with something smaller, you'll need to add less with each addition.

As for when things start coming up the sides, I'll grind with a more downward motion (almost pounding), as I go around the edges to push things back in.  But this also be a sign that you're filling the mortar too much.  (Mine is about 4" across, but rather deep.  I don't know if this technique would work as well for the ones that dished without having the vertical sides)

All that being said, I normally make mine in a blender.  (which does require blending in the oil, as you need the liquid so it'll move).  In part it's because it's how I learned to do it from my mom, but I also tend to make huge batches** (like when things start getting cold and I strip all of my basil plants yielding a lot of leaves.)

**Pesto (at least, blender pesto) freezes well if you leave out the cheese.  My mom would use ice cube trays to freeze it in, but if you're doing that, make sure you keep a separate tray (or 6, if making large batches) so you don't end up with garlic flavored ice.  I tend to freeze an ice tray or two, and freeze the rest in muffin tins.

...

I can't help with whole spices -- I've never gotten the hang of when you pound vs. grind, and how much to add at time, or what order to go in (hard to soft?  soft to hard?  large to small?  small to large?) so I tend to make a bit of a mess of things.


Where does the shape of pretzels come from? I wonder where the shape of pretzels originated.

My guesses:

The holes make it easy to put them on a stick or rope and store them in a place (under the roof?) where mice would not get it.
Originally the pretzel was a long thin stick, but it was impractical to transport. The pretzel shape provided stability to carry it around. It could be broken into smaller stick-like pieces and eaten.
It resembles some symbol.
Just for fun, because the kids liked it.

According to the Wikipedia article, the following is a likely story (or something similar to it, anyway) but may not be exactly right:

The very beginning of this youtube video of Alton Brown's Good Eats explains it rather well:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZR_evWiDbY

Essentially, it was created by a monk as a reward for children who did their daily prayers.  The shape looks somewhat like a person folding their arms across their chest, which is an older way to pray.

There is also the possibility that the loops make it practical to hang on sticks, more for display than for keeping the food safe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretzel


My sourdough started hasn't yet risen! What am I doing wrong? I had started my first batch of sourdough starter a week back. Its just wheat flour and water (haven't added any pineapple juice or any other fruit juice).
The first 2 days had vigorous activity and the mix stank, a lot! After 3 days the smell has changed to a slightly fruity acetony/alcoholish smell with some remnant of the previous stink. I have been feeding the starter once everyday.

Its been 6 days now and I still don't see any rise that growth of yeasts is suppose to bring with it. The past 3 days I have always observed a slight layer of clear liquid form over my starter. And every time I throw the top part and a little of the starter away to add fresh flour and water. I live in India and its always hot and humid in the day, so room temperature isn't the problem.

My starter has just had a few bubbles in it nothing vigorous like I see in the pictures online. It never rises! There's no rise and fall.

What am I doing wrong? Don't want to waste flour if its dead. Would appreciate any help.

Attaching pics in link for reference

Sourdough starter pics

Edit: Forgot to mention before. I store the starter in a pyrex bowl, with the lid on it. Its not air tight, but neither is the starter getting the kind of air that covering the bowl with a cloth would let. I store it in a dark warm place inside a cupboard.

UPDATE1: So with accurate measurements (S:W:F= 1:1:1), there was a drastic change. No hooch whatsoever, the starter seems more active, there are bubbles throughout the batter. But there's nothing vigorous. There's no rise and fall at all.

Without the overnight rise and fall, is my starter ready to be used for leavening? How can I know if the yeast population is sufficient enough for baking a loaf?

UPDATE2: The sourdough starter rose very well. 2 days was all the difference I needed. The starter tripled in size once the yeast activity was good and going.
Have added the result pic in the same album linked above.

While feeding I take half cup measure of flour and then take the same
  cup measure of water and mix it in the starter.

And there is your problem to some extent. Always weigh your flour, water, starter and everything else when baking bread. Water weighs about 25% more than flour. This means you have about 25% too much water (or more).

Great bread recipes take into account humidity, temperature, ingredient weights and the fact that not everybody's measurements will be exactly the same size. Always weigh your ingredients.

So now take 4oz or 100 grams of your starter, add 4oz or 100 grams of water along with 4oz or 100 grams of flour, stir that all up and see what happens in 24 hours.

Then repeat the process again, twice a day, though you may notice great changes as soon as tomorrow. Report back as you do.

If 4oz is a bit much for your container, you can reduce it to 2oz. Making half of the flour wheat--and not just white--helps in the beginning along with a tablespoon of rye if you have it. (Yeah, I'm not picky about the tablespoon here.)


Can't I just grease the Baking Sheet instead of using Parchment Paper Recipes such as http://paleoleap.com/avocado-banana-chocolate-cookies/ say to line baking sheet with parchment paper. Why can't we just grease the baking sheet?

Usually you can - our great-grandmothers didn't have parchment paper.

There are a few cases where parchment is preferrable, usually with very, very sticky dough. It saves time when it comes to scrubbing the cookie sheet.


Is there a good reason not to add crushed tomatoes to chicken soup? Is there a good reason not to add crushed tomatoes to chicken soup?

I am new at cooking soup, but I think tomatoes taste good and that's why I want to add them. But I've also had garlic bread just before chocolate and it ruined the chocolate. Is there a similar flavor clash from tomatoes and chicken soup?

The soup's ingredients are:

A whole chicken
Carrots
Onions
Celery
Water

I might add some pepper too.

I added the tomatoes and it made the soup taste better. I tasted the soup without the tomatoes first. I think if I was better at making broth I would have wanted to preserve its flavor. As it was tonight, it needed something more and the tomatoes helped


Defrosting chicken breasts in marinade I want to defrost chicken breasts and would like to marinate them.  Since time may be an issue, can I place frozen chicken breasts in zip lock bag with marinade?

As long as your normal marinating time isn't significantly less than the defrosting time, then I believe that'll work fine. If the normal marinating time is much smaller, then you'll end up over-marinating your meat; if the marinade is acidic that would produce undesirable results. If it's the same or longer, then you'll be marinating for the right amount of time, and it'll be defrosted when you're done. Note that you should expect it to marinate a bit more slowly, since the outer part of the meat will have to thaw before the marinade can start doing its thing.

Jay suggests in the comments that extra water from the chicken thawing could be a problem. If it really is a large amount compared to the volume of the marinade, I guess it could be. Your options at that point would be: make a more concentrated marinade, increase the volume of marinade, or compromise and thaw partially, drain, then marinate while it thaws the rest of the way.

(I've not actually done this, and don't cook much meat, but since time is an issue, hopefully this answer is better than nothing.)


What going to happen to Dulche De Leche during baking? Dulche De Leche is condensed milk that boiled already. But what if put it in something that going to be boiled or baked. How it's going to be, how it's going to taste like? Do people do it?

It will taste like dulce de leche.  It's already caramelized, so it's not going to change in most recipes.  If you cook it on high heat for long enough in a baking recipe, it will become a darker caramel, but that's it.

It will become more liquid at high heat, so you want to make sure you cook it "contained", like in an empanada or pie crust.  Otherwise it might drip onto the floor of the oven and burn.


Why would coffee cause stomach cramps? Are there alternatives to Caffeine? As a student, I am (I was) caffeine-dependant. But whenever I drink coffee I get stomach cramps.

Is there a biological/biochemical explanation for this?

Why would caffeinated coffee have this effect for some, like me, but not others?

Is there a safe alternative to caffeine that could produce similar effects?

You probably need to distinguish between coffee and caffeine.

Caffeine is a chemical compound that is a central nervous system stimulant. It is basically just bitter.

But coffee contains a load of other compounds that create the coffee taste.

Those that affect the human stomach most are tannins, acids and bitters that stimulate the secretion of stomach acids which - in case of a sensitive or already damaged stomach lining - can cause discomfort and pain. The content of those in the beans is greatly influenced by the roasting process (hot and fast typically worse than low and slow, darker roasts more than light ones), type of beans and the brewing process. 1

The easiest answer for a caffeine fix would actually be caffeine - without the accompanying coffee. You should get the powder at your local pharmacy.

But where's the fun in that? So drink lighter roasts or go for a shorter extraction time - Espresso vs. Cowboy coffee are two extreme examples.

1 (Source: Deutscher Kaffeeverband)


Should I pre-season meat with salt even if it's skinless? I read a lot of mentions of pre seasoning meat with salt 24 hours before cooking, with the idea that it draws moisture out, which can make the skin crispy when you cook it. I've also heard that it can make it more absorbent of marinade, but not sure if that's true. Anyways, my question is is this worth doing even if the meat i have is just boneless skinless chicken breasts (for example)?

If the chicken is not left exposed to the air (see below), then seasoning ahead of time will not dry out the chicken; in fact, it will do the opposite. When salt is applied to the surface the osmotic pressure differential (the difference in salinity between the inside and outside of the chicken) will draw out moisture at first, then the salty water will be drawn back into the chicken, helping to break down muscle fibers and season the chicken inside.

You will lose less moisture when cooking, and your chicken will be more tender, moister, and better seasoned.

This is also true for steaks and other fleshy comestibles. The use of salt is a complicated subject and there has been a lot written about it. Unfortunately, there is a lot of false information out there, even from famous, professional chefs. For example: whether to pre-season eggs for scrambled eggs or not.

I have done my own tests with seasoning and also read a lot on the subject. One thing I found, for example, is when sous videing chicken, white meat and dark meat behave differently with regard to pre-seasoning and need different temperatures and different lengths of time. In the case of white meat I find it comes out better with no pre-seasoning, and with dark meat, which I sous vide for longer, the affect of pre-salting becomes less pronounced the longer you cook it for. I do my dark meat for eight hours.

If you are going to pre-salt, do it at least 45 minutes ahead of time. If you salt a steak, for example, 20 minutes before cooking it will be worse than salting right before cooking or an hour before cooking.

Note: Dry aging of meat and poultry can be done at home, and in this case you want to leave the meat unwrapped in the fridge. For example, when I make a whole turkey I spatchcock it then dry brine (with salt only, no liquid) for three days covered and then one more day uncovered. This makes really crispy skin and the salt gets deep into the flesh for better seasoning and moister turkey.

I could write a book on this subject, but fortunately, people much smarter than I already have. I suggest you read Harold McGee and Kenji López-Alt's books as a start.


What's the best/easiest way to de-vein king prawns? I often buy raw king prawns (maybe they're called shrimp where you are, they're about 3-4 inches long) - they are already shelled and beheaded, but they've still got the blue vein running down the middle of them. My current technique is to put the point of a sharp knife just under parts of the vein and then pull it out, kind of like unpicking a thread of cotton. This takes quite a while, there must be a better way..? Is butterflying a way to achieve this?

Have you tried the basic cheapo shrimp deveiner? A little practice, and it's actually quite effective.


What could possibly happen if I overmix the butter and sugar in a cookie recipe? I knew that the point of the creaming method for cookies is to use granulated sugar to create small air pockets in butter. But what happens if I overdo it.

I usually use melted butter and there's no problem with overmixing, but this time I didn't melt the butter before mixing.

Your butter can melt through friction heat.

You said that you are used to melting the butter. There are cookie recipes which require this, usually chewy cookies. Creaming the butter with the sugar produces a different texture, and you should not change the method between recipes. If your recipe already asks you to cream, you should never cream so much that the butter starts to melt (which can happen at rather low temperatures), as you won't get the texture of fluffy creamed cookies. The problem only occurs with real melting, softened butter is OK. In my experience, it is actually best to leave the butter out at least overnight before creaming, instead of only leaving it out for about an hour to get soft to touch, or cutting cold butter to whippable pieces.

While melting butter is the "upper limit" of creaming, it is unlikely to run into this problem unless you forget a stand mixer turned on, or you softened your butter at high room temperature (above 30 Celsius). With 22-ish degree butter and a hand mixer on moderate speed, your arm will go numb before your butter melts.


Discarding ox heart fat Most instructions detailing how to prepare ox heart often say something along the lines of "discard any fat and sinew".

Is there any reason why I shouldnt keep the fat?

In general, when a recipe says 'discard,' it means that the part to be discarded is not to be used in the scope of the recipe.  I see no reason why you couldn't save the beef fat for other recipes, it can be refrigerated for about a week or frozen for 2-3 months.

See this answer for tips on using the reserved fat.  The sinew I would probably just toss.  If you have enough saved, you could put it with animal bones to make stock, as the collagen in the sinew will break down into gelatin, but for me, it's not enough benefit to justify saving all those little bits and storing them.


Salad packaged with raw meat: is it safe? Sometimes I see in supermarkets (in Italy) packages in which rocket salad is sold together with raw beef, like in this picture:

This is clearly meant to be prepared in the form of tagliata con rucola, an Italian dish made with beefsteak cut in stripes and rocket:

As you can see, the salad is normally served raw with tagliata. The supermarkets seem OK with that, but this practice triggers my food safety alert: is it safe to consume salad that has been in contact with raw meat? Should I worry about eating it?
EDIT: further information:

these packages are found in the refrigerator aisle.
the bottom label says (among other things) "store at 0--4 degrees Celsius [32-39 Fahrenheit] -- cook before eating". It is not clear from the wording if this warning applies to the salad as well.
the label in the top right says "20% discount -- the marked price already includes discount". It doesn't specify if it is discounted for quick sale or for other reasons. In any case, I have also seen regular packages without the discount tag, and with the current day marked as packaging date.
It is not customary here to put salad or other edible items as decoration -- I have never seen this done with other fresh food on sale.
upon request, full translation of the white sticker. The notes in brackets are mine.

Il gigante [supermarket name] - the fresh food specialists. Corso Marche [address of the supermarket]
Net Wt 0.354 kg   price 4.43 EUR
tare 0.032        EUR/Kg 12.50
prepackaged on: 04 August 2014
Tagliata con rucola [name of the dish, see picture above]
Meat preparation NC16 [not 100% sure about the code, it's blurry. No idea what it means, I assume it's some bureaucratic category for the meat]
Ingredients: bovine meat, rucola, sunflower oil, salt
Store at 0-4 degrees [32-39F]. To be consumed after cooking. Cooking suggestions: in pan, 3 minutes each side. In oven 175 degrees [350F] for 30 minutes. Produced and prepackaged for immediate sale by "Il gigante", Turin.

Note that I did not take this picture myself; this one comes from the internet. I can take a similar one the next time I visit my local supermarket, but it's probably going to be 7-10 days from now.

What you're looking at is called (in the US) "cross contamination". You have a food generally considered "unsafe" (beef) that is coming into contact with a food generally considered "safe" (salad greens).

This contact makes the greens "unsafe" to consume raw.

  Cross-contamination is the transfer of harmful bacteria to food from other foods, cutting boards, utensils, etc., if they are not handled properly. This is especially true when handling raw meat, poultry, and seafood, so keep these foods and their juices away from already cooked or ready-to-eat foods and fresh produce.

The rule in the US is to always keep these products away from each other so that the "safe" foods stay safe.

The only way to make the greens safe to eat is to cook them, thereby killing off the bacteria that may have been transferred to them in the juices of the meat.


How much fresh potato to substitute for instant potato flakes when baking? I would like to bake hamburger buns from a recipe that calls for instant potato flakes, only I can't find instant potato flakes.

This is the original recipe:

1 cup lukewarm water
1/3 cup (3/4 ounce) instant potato flakes
2 1/4 teaspoons yeast
1 tablespoon honey
2 1/2 cups (11 1/4 ounces) bread flour
1 large egg
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

How much fresh baked potato should I substitute for the instant potato flakes?

Instant potato flakes are effectively dehydrated mashed potatoes.

In general for potato flakes you mix 3:4 volume flakes to water. They increase in volume by about two and a bit times, and weight about six times

For potato powder you mix 1:5 volume powder to water. They increase in volume by about three times, and weight about six times.

So roughly 3.75 ounces of water are required to rehydrate .75 ounces of potato flakes which gives 4.5 ounces of mash, or just less than 2/3 cup of mash

Remember to remove the equivalent water (3.75 ounces) from the recipe

This all varies slightly depending on the supplier of flakes and what variety of potato they used