Custard vs raw eggs in ice cream I've recently started making homemade ice-cream and have found most recipes require you to make a custard using egg yolks, however the Ben and Jerry's recipe book asks for whole raw eggs to be used instead.
I understand cooking the egg yolks removes the risk of salmonella however in the UK most UK sourced eggs are safe to eat raw.

This leaves the question that I am struggling to find the answer to:

Aside from removing the health risks of eating raw eggs is there any benefit to texture and/or taste by making a custard instead of using raw eggs or egg yolks in ice cream?

Before I say this and it sounds like a slam, I use the Ben & Jerry's method and like it.  That said, it is a cheat on creme anglaise.  If you beat the eggs the recommended amount you get it to behave similar to creme anglaise but without the effort and risk of actually making one.  Consistency wise, I find it a bit more air than a if I were to actually make one, but much easier and more consistent.  A proper creme anglaise, to my taste, is better though slightly denser, but not only does it take more effort, it is easy to mess up as well.  Whipping the eggs for 4 minutes on the other hand comes out just about the same each time.  I tend to opt for product that I would consistently score about 90 on a 100 point scale over one that might be a 99, and next time might be a 70 plus takes more effort.  But that is me.  They airy vs dense is more of a personal preference and to me is fairly slight difference but others may have different results.

On the safety side, if you use pasteurized eggs, the risk of raw should about the same as cooked, and unless you are careful with temps, it is easy to have creme anglaise and some other custards not really be at temperature long enough to match pasteurized.  I personally do not worry about it as I am using my own eggs so am confident my birds are clean, but if I were using commercial eggs I likely would use pasteurized.  Maybe not in UK where the birds are vaccinated though.


brown sugar has gained some moisture, want to remove I assume this question generalizes to items such as flour.

I kept brown sugar in the plastic bag it came in, in the refrigerator. Due to frequent use, it has built up clumps due to moisture. I've just recently gotten a glass container to store it in. Solutions I have considered to now remove the moisture are:

Use a little uncooked rice to pull the moisture out

but then I think I should use a mesh bag to keep the rice in, where would I find something like this?

coffee filter, too slow/cumbersome?

Give it a little heat to dry it out, such as:

place the glass on top of the oven with the oven on, as my oven top gets quite warm when the oven is on.

Any ideas?

Refrigerating things usually dries stuff out in modern refrigerators, which tend to remove moisture, rather than retain them.  I agree with sourd'oh that drying is likely your issue.

It sounds like you are asking how to remove clumps.  I use a sifter, or try to move the grains through a strainer with a fork.  What are you using the brown sugar for?  Will it dissolve during mixing anyway, removing clumps (as in when beating cake batter)?


Is jerky safe concerning parasites? In the commercial production of beef (or any meat) jerky, how is the threat of parasites handled?

The at-home recipes are simply soaking the meat in a salt solution, then drying.  Is this sufficient to kill parasites?

In the US, commercial jerky is inspected by the Food Safety and Inspection Service help ensure safety.  See the FSIS Compliance Guideline for Meat
and Poultry Jerky Produced by Small
and Very Small Establishments  for detailed information on commercial jerky preparation methods, which must include a "lethality" step based on heat, acidity, or other means to ensure pathogens are killed.  They may also use more sophisticated methods to ensure proper drying.

Googling "jerky safety" will yield a wealth of University Extension results based on FDA research, providing specific recipes for safely creating jerky at home.

Traditional methods (soaking in brine, then drying) are not sufficient to kill all pathogens (not just parasites).  The FDA now recommends the the "hot pickle cure" method as the most effective way of creating safe jerky.

See for example the recipe published via Cornell.  In summary:

Treat the meat carefully prior to jerking, using proper refrigeration and so on.
Prepare a brine of the proper strength, and bring it to a boil.
Dip the jerky pieces into the boiling brine long enough for them to turn grey.
Dry in a temperature controlled dehydrator, checking for sufficient drying (the meat should crack when bent).


What preparation is done to banana peppers? I only recently moved to an area (Northeast Ohio) where banana peppers are a common topping on pizza and sandwiches, and have discovered I quite like them. When used as a topping, if I were to grow them in my garden next summer, what preparations would I have to do before putting them on a sandwich to get the same flavor? My suspicion is that they are pickled -- is that true?

In addition, I enjoy them because they are relatively mild. Is this natural or does something have to be done to make them milder?

Most Comercial banana peppers are indeed pickled. This is relatively easy to do yourself or you can eat them fresh.

Eaten fresh their taste varies depending on the capsaicin present but the vary from a bell pepper flavor to a flavor similar to a jalapeno. The amount of capsaicin varies widely between cultivars so ask your plant/seed vendor to inform you of the variables that affect heat (alternatively you can ask on gardening and we'll do our best to help you grow them).

If you prefer the pickled flavor but want to make them yourself canning them is pretty trivial (I've done it, so it has to be pretty easy). I used a hot water bath canning method that involved a weak vinegar solution and some garlic following normal hot water canning procedures (I can't dig up the exact recipe at the moment, but any canned pepper recipe should do). I had enough for about a dozen pint size jars so I needed to put them up, if you only have enough to last you a few weeks it would be worth looking into a refrigerator pickle recipe as mentioned in the comments (or freezing and pickling as you want to eat them, although I'm unsure of the results this would give).


a good substitute for pineapple when cooking a ham I want to make a Dr. Pepper glazed ham, which calls for pineapple juice. Unfortunately, my child is allergic to pineapple. What can I use to replace the pineapple juice and pineapple bits on the ham?

Pineapple brings a touch of acidity, sweetness, and general fruitiness.  I am going to assume you would have been using canned pineapple, so the enzymatic action is not really a factor (and it would be stopped as part of the cooking process).  It is also hearty enough in texture to stand up to the baking.

For the juice, I would recommend basic orange juice, perhaps cut with a little extra lime juice for complexity and acidity.  For a fruit garnish, peaches (frozen or canned since it is not peach season) should work quite well.

If you can find good mango, that would also work very well.

This application is very flexible and forgiving.  With the soda, and the cherries, you could even omit the pineapple part entirely, and still have a good outcome.


Is it best to slice roast meat if eating the next day? So I have just roasted a chicken, a lump of beef (not sure which cut) and some pork shoulder.

We will be eating the meat over the next few days.

Would it be best to slice the meat now (after resting), or leave it uncut until just before eating?

Leave it uncut, if you slice it now your slices will dry out more.


What are the differences in bleached/unbleached flour for baking? I've heard various rumors suggesting that using unbleached [wheat] flour is better than bleached [wheat] flour when baking (cakes, squares, cookies...).  Is this true? If so, why?

Good Answer Hobodave....tacking onto that:

Most southern U.S. brands (White Lily, Martha White) of all-purpose flour are bleached because southerners tend to make more quick breads (biscuits, cornbread, hoecakes, pancakes, as well as cakes, pie crusts, cobblers) where tenderness is desired.  White Lily has just started producing unbleached all-purpose flour as well.

Brands from the Northeast (King Arthur) and midwest are usually unbleached because those regions tend to make more yeast breads and the additional gluten forming capability of unbleached flour produces better results.

National U.S. brands (Pillsbury/Gold Medal) often produce both types or stick with unbleached.

Cake flour is always bleached (usually chlorine gas).

More information on differences in types of flour can be found in my article titled "Flour Power"


Does cooking in a nonstick pan affect the finished food? Whenever I cook in a nonstick pan, the food doesn't seem as crispy as compared to when I use simple aluminum pans. Is this due to the pan material or is there another factor behind it?

IMO, it's about firstly, temperature, and secondly, cooking time. Proposed solution is in the last paragraph. =-)

Explanation:
non-stick pans (referring to the coated type), while being convenient, is not steel to oil, thus the oil is not heated at the required temperature consistently for the required length of time.  This affects the crispness that you mentioned.

Take for example fried chicken, to get it "crispy on the outside, moist on the inside" requires a high enough temperature, and the oil needs to hold this high temperature somewhat consistently for long enough to cook the chicken. in non-stick pans, the temperature drops drastically as soon as you drop in the chicken pieces, and typically takes more time than one expects to get the temperature up again.

Solution:
If non-stick pan is preferred, get one with a thick heavy base, preferably 2 layer designs. A deeper bowl design to hold more oil for the frying is preferable. Use medium heat to get the oil temperature up, before dropping the chicken pieces in. turn the heat up a notch after, for a short while to get the oil temperature up again, then turn it back down to medium again. experience will tell you what to do over time and practice. =-)


Kale vs Spinach in Zuppa Toscana lasting I know that kale is the original recipe, but I've always liked spinach better. I think it has a nice sour kick to it. The problem is that spinach gets soggy much faster and quickly loses its texture. Is there any way to make the spinach stay firm longer in the soup?

It's common to add the spinach to a soup like this by putting the raw spinach in a bowl and ladling the hot soup over it. This protects the spinach from overcooking and losing both flavor and color before being served. Once the spinach is actually in the soup, there isn't much that you can do to keep it from getting soggy.


To finely spray a thin layer of warm liquid Coconut Oil? Online, I've been seeing these metal, glass, poly/ plastic bottles that are said to keep & spray cooking/ edible oils.

Let's assume the oil is warm & liquid, not cold & frozen, which happens at times.

Does anyone here have any actual experience with using them? Are they able to create a Fine Spray of small droplets and hence ability to leave a well spread layer on incident surface.

If so, would it work well long term for using unrefined all natural cold pressed Coconut Oil, given its consistency, viscosity and stickiness.

Also, at times I use a warm/ hot water bath, in a larger vessel to warm the oil in its container for liquid usage. Any other ideas/ techniques so that I can do a warm liquid spray of it.

And what would / is its cleaning & maintenance routine be like?

(this is more a comment, as I haven't actually done what you're asking, but based on what I know ...)

I've used two types -- there are ones that you pressurize and then it works like an aerosol, and there are ones that are just your standard pump sprayers like you'd have on bottles of cleaning solutions where each trigger pull pumps a bit of liquid..

I prefer the pressurized ones, although over time they can get gummed up and may require a thorough warm soak to clean so they continue spraying well.  I also prefer the clear ones, as you can see what the level is inside and orientation of the feed tube as you get towards the end.

... but I don't know how well it would work with coconut oil if you're in a cold climate.  At the very least, I would treat it like a can of spray paint, and after using it, turn the container open and hold the spray button down until it's only blowing air.  This way, you won't leave (as much) oil in the areas where it'd be difficult to melt it.

I'd also look for one of the sprayers with a filter at the end of it, but that doesn't mean that you could just warm up the bottom of the oil to use it -- you'd need to warm up the sides sufficiently for the air pressure to transfer and you'd need to make sure that the intake tube in the center is warmed up.  (and the spraying mechanism, so it doesn't seize as you try to use it).


Moose Drool Beer Bread in a Bottle OVER 10 YRS. OLD I bought Moose Drool Beer Bread in a bottle which contains flour and yeast while vacationing up north in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan over 10 yrs. ago.  I never uncapped it and was just wondering if this could still possibly be good.
There is no expiration date on the bottle.  I checked on line but could not find any info on this product.

I never uncapped it and was just wondering if this could still possibly be good.

Probably not... dry yeast is made up of living yeast cells that are in a dormant state, and they become active again when they'r rehydrated. Over time, they degrade and once enough of them have died you won't have enough yeast to ferment the dough. Also, flour doesn't last forever -- the shelf life of white flour is usually a year or two. So, even if the kit works in the sense that you can get the dough to rise, the bread probably wouldn't be really good.

I wouldn't waste time on a 10-year old bread kit: toss it and find a recipe for bread in a similar style that you can make with fresh ingredients.

Update:

It occurs to me that this is a beer bread recipe, and many of those are quick breads that use chemical leaveners (e.g. baking powder or self-rising flour) instead of yeast. That doesn't really change the answer, though... the flour is still going to be way past it's stopped-being-delicious-by date, and like yeast, chemical leavening agents also lose their effectiveness over time.


What are the pros and cons of using clarified butter as opposed to regular butter? I am about to start making clarified butter and I want to know how removing the milk solids affects the end result when sauteing, making flavor bases and other things. I like the idea of cooking with butter that is harder to burn but I want to know what I am giving away here.

Pros:

Higher smoking point. Regular butter's smoking point is 325-375F while clarified butter is around 485F. But it can still smoke and burn! However the higher smoking point means it'll be much more applicable in terms of sauteing food without worrying about burning the butter.
100% fat. Often times its hard to calculate the exact replacements in baking when you want to replace a fat with butter because regular butter isn't 100% fat. Using regular butter, you would need to factor in how much extra water you are introducing into the recipe.
Longer shelf life. Without the water and milk solids, the shelf life of the clarified butter will be much longer. Can even be stored without refrigeration.

Cons:

Less buttery flavor. The milk solids that you are removing makes up a lot of butter's flavor. By removing this, you are removing flavor.


Is the typical value (as consumed) refer to the product after cooking or before cooking? Looking at the Typical Values under Nutrition for Morrisons Free Range Egg Noodles, does the "(as consumed) per 100g" mean that 100g of uncooked noodles provides 107 calories when it is cooked, or 100g of cooked noodles provides 107 calories?

Nutrition tables give the value for the product alone, as is, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Cereal sometimes describes a serving as Xg cereal plus Yg milk of a certain fat content, for example. But there should always be the “pure” values for 100g, as most food labeling laws require.

The product description confirms this by explicitly stating “as sold”:

  A 1/4 pack (as sold) provides... Calories 110 5.5%, Sugar trace trace, Fat 1.5g 2.1%, Saturates 0.1g 0.5%, Salt trace trace of your guideline daily

If you check the table carefully, you’ll notice that for a 1/4 pack (slightly over 100g) the value for fat is 1.5g. This fits what the eggs in egg noodles would contribute, but is significantly less than what per the cooking instructions should be added for stir-frying.

If you want or need to calculate your calorie intake, weigh the product before your chosen preparation method and use basic maths to calculate the calories or other nutritional values. Any additions (like the aforementioned oil) need to be calculated separately.


How do I encourage funnel cake cohesion? I tried making funnel cakes this weekend.

The recipes I looked at were all very similar, basically pancake batter that is deep fried. I used this recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/funnel-cakes-recipe-1947494

Instead of AP flour I used whole wheat.

I expected that the stream of batter would fry into a mass of crispy snakes as I recognize a funnel cake to be. Instead, when the batter was drizzled into the oil, it fractured into a million tiny drips. The result was more like crispy rice than funnel cake.

I tried cooler oil at 300F and hotter oil at 365F. I tried drizzling through thicker or thinner orifices. I tried letting it stream longer and shorter (more and less batter). In every case the result was the same. The batter practically exploded.

I realize that whole wheat flour has more fiber and less available protein than AP. In other recipes, I've only ever had that make minor differences in texture.

Was the flour substitution enough to precipitate this calamity or is there some other factor I should consider?

I will try again someday. At the moment I'm kind of put off the whole experiment.

The whole wheat may be your issue. Try adding at least half AP flour or bread flour, which are both better at forming glutinous strands that will keep everything sticking together. If you want to stick to 100% whole wheat flour you could try adding an extra egg to help bing everything together.


Does dairy (e.g. crème fraîche) spoil faster if using the same spoon in older and newer product? If I'm using up the last of one package of crème fraîche and then starting on a newer package (later "best by" date), I avoid using the same spoon because of a theory that the newer package will get spoilt quicker.

Does anyone know if there is any sense in this?

Food in general spoils when bacteria, fungus, and other little bugs eat the food, multiply into more, create waste, and then die. I would imagine that the increased population of "bugs" found on a old, used, not washed spoon would cause the decomposition of new creme fraiche to accelerate, but if you wash the spoon, then no-problem.


What can I do with paprika jelly? I've made paprika jelly before (combined with raspberry flavour), and I quite like the novel flavour. It kind of reminds me of chili chocolate, but more water based - in a sorbet over ice cream kind of way. I don't think I would eat it by itself though, as it didn't feel like it could hold up on its own. My question is if anyone has any ideas for how to combine it, or use it in a dish/complete meal?

Some ideas I have are:

An inbetween dish to clear the palate - I found that the spiciness of the paprika and the watery-ness of the jelly was good in clearing the palate of meaty tastes
Some savoury jelly, like on the top of pate

You could try a gourmet grilled cheese sandwich! If it's very sweet, you could combine it with a more savory cheese and perhaps a fruit like fig. It reminds me of something the patron saint of grilled cheese would use on her blog: http://www.grilledcheesesocial.com/.


How to avoid collapse of yeast-raised dough? I prepared yeast-based bread with both hand and bread machine. The dough looks perfect, but when I try to bake it whether in bread machine or oven, it starts to collapse upon heating.

The dough preparation was based on common bread recipes, e.g. 300ml water, 450g all-purpose flour, yeast, sugar, salt. The process was conducted by bread machine within 90min (programmed for dough preparation).

What is wrong? And how to avoid collapse of yeast-raised dough in the course of baking?

There are three major things that will cause collapsed yeast raised breads:

Underdeveloped gluten (possibly from insufficient kneading), which doesn't create enough of the gluten network to hold the gas from the yeast, especially during oven spring.  This may be exacerbated by using low-protein flours, which do not generate as much gluten as high-protein flours (called strong flours in Europe).  This tends not to manifest as a collapse, so much, as a failure to rise.
Considerable overkneading, to the point where the gluten network begins to break down, and cannot hold the gas (this is quite unlikely, unless machine kneaded)
Over-proofing (allowing to rise or ferment too long), which creates more gas than the gluten cells can hold, leading to their rupture and collapse when the heat of the oven causes expansion and oven spring.  This leads to collapse of the loaf.

Without more information, it is difficult to tell which of these you are experiencing.


What is the shelf life of gelatin sheets? Earlier this year, I found a package of gelatin sheets in my cupboard, which looked extremely old. I couldn't exactly tell how old, but the packaging mentioned a refund procedure with the refund price not in Euro, but what I think was either Dutch Guilders, or Belgian Francs, although the price was quite high, mentioning something around 200 of the currency. I assumed that this meant that the package predated the Euro, which meant it was over 10 years old.

I tried to use it in a recipe I learned in a cooking class, but the packaging was already completely broken, making the gelatin exposed to the air. The recipe wasn't that successful, with shreds of undissolved gelatin littering my chocolate mousse. I later was told that the only reason we used gelatin in the cooking class was because we didn't have enough time to properly set the mousse.

Does gelatin keep 12-13 years?

In a sealed package, (not getting into what date may be printed on it for "expiration") practically speaking, sealed and dry, it appears to keep "essentially forever."

Once opened, not nearly so long, though that is not something I've done much personal experimentation with.


Any way to reduce the tangy taste of homemade coconut milk? I make different kinds of non dairy milks (nut, rice, etc). I rather like coconut milk, but would like to reduce the natural tangy coconutty flavor.

I was looking at the following question:
Homemade coconut milk in coffee compared to store bought

Someone was suggesting that the industry adds tri-calcium phosphate. I have no idea if that is available to the public or even if that would work. Any thoughts?

Edit: I believe my question is somewhat different from the one above as it doesn't specifically relate to coffee. I think this small factor might influence the answers. This question has generated different answers to the question.

Best method is simply to heat the coconut.

My current method:

Heat shredded coconut and water (1:4 ratio). No need to boil.
Let the mixture cool. I usually forget about it and come back a few hours later
Blend and strain

Although someone had pointed out to me that tricalcium phosphate is used in commercial brands, today I would tell them this is a bad idea.

I have now tasted about every brand available to me and they all taste pretty awful. The worst in terms of taste have tricalcium phosphate.

Homemade is truly the best. Just use a bit of heat to mellow out the taste.

I have experimented with baking soda. This works rather well, however it does leave a taste/sensation of its own. Although I didn't put much I will try to use less the next time. Nonetheless, I am submitting this as an answer. I will try to get my hands on tricalcium phosphate -- if I can -- and report back.


Can you preserve zest? If a recipe asks for zest, I always use fresh fruit.
I'm wondering if you can preserve it nicely.

I put some in the fridge, but there was some mold after quite a while. I wanted to get rid of the moist, so I put fresh lemon zest in the oven on a low temperature. But I think I left it a bit too long, it's a bit brown now, instead of yellow. However, it still smells and tastes nice, a bit crunchy though. So I'm not satisfied with this result.

Anyone else who has experimented and knows what works or what does not?
Is it possible to preserve zest for months (or even longer), without losing too much flavour?

I've successfully frozen yuzu (a Japanese citrus fruit slightly similar to lemon or grapefruit) zest for two or three months without much damage; the flavor isn't perfect, but it's usable as long as you don't get serious freezer burn. I've kept it in a small Rubbermaid container. There is a potential problem because citrus oils can damage certain types of plastic over time, but this didn't affect me; however, plastic bags won't work so well.


Gluten & MSG free substitute for Parmesan? Gluten, MSG and aged cheeses all give me migraine headaches. Is there any substitute for aged Parmesan that might be safe for me?

No, there is no such substitute, sorry. The flavor of parmesan is dominated by both the tyrosine and the MSG it contains. If these two are triggering migraine, then there is no alternative which will be even close to the original in taste. Everything one can suggest as a substitute (marmite, certain fungi) is high in MSG.

You can of course use "substitutes" in a recipe just to provide bulk or a texture contrast, without attempting to match the taste at all. What you choose in such a situation will depend on the recipe itself and your personal preference for taste combination. It will be more like giving a completely new twist to the recipe than trying to imitate the original. We cannot give you a blanket recommendation on "what will work" for that case, because there is no such single thing.


Can I use thicker pastry dough in place of fillo / wonton wrappers / lumpia wrappers? I just concluded making bourek (sp. var.) yesterday and everyone commented how great it was.  I have also made the Filipino appetizer lumpia, and some sort of triangle pastry with pine nuts (I forget the name), using wonton wrappers in recent past as well with some success.

But my greatest anxiety in cooking (more than anything, including deeply cutting myself with a 12 inch dull blade when I am chopping) is working with this very thin fragile dough.

Can I use a thicker dough for such a recipe?  Is it entirely necessary for the dough to be paper-thin?  Is it a taste thing?  Why is it necessary to use this dough for this type of appetizer / dish?

Phyllo dough, in particular, comes in several thicknesses, from the thinnest which is used for baklava up to horiatiko (country) style which is used for rustic pies. You can substitute, but there is definitely a noticeable difference and I think you'll appreciate why a good traditional recipe calls for a specific type. Saveur has a nice reference chart.

Also, keep in mind that although phyllo is very thin and tends to tear, in many cases a small amount of tearing is no problem. You are making multiple layers and any small imperfections will disappear. Just be sure to keep the pieces you aren't currently working with covered so they don't dry out too fast.

For wonton wrappers, they are also often available in at least two thicknesses in good Asian groceries. Again, there are traditional uses for each. When using them in a non-traditional context such as ravioli, you'll have to decide for yourself which you prefer.


Is there a "common" ratio for dumplings and added water when adding to a soup/stew recipe? A while ago, I ran into this problem of trying to figure out how to adjust a stew recipe for added dumplings - I had made a dumpling recipe (for a family dinner), my brother had planned a stew, we could put one in the other to cook and be done.

Needless to say it did not work out.  There was not nearly enough water for both, which made the stew settle and scorch a bit on the bottom.  We hadn't been checking throughout, because the dumpling recipe in question (kinda) suggested a tight seal would help them expand and cook properly, and the stew recipe was alright with cover-and-cook.  We did manage to rescue it, by adding water, and gently loosening the stew back up - but the results were just a little bit watery, and the dumplings were a bit waterlogged and falling apart by the time the extra loosening happened... everyone said the flavor profile was pretty good, but clearly in the process of rescuing the stew, I had been a touch overeager on the added water.

I actually had made the dumplings before, but I had started with a very loose and brothy soup, since I was testing the dumpling recipe and flavor profile and avoiding distractions.  And my brother and I are both bad with recipes, but in different ways - I tend towards fast and loose, he is very by-the-book - so perhaps my quantity of dumplings was off (calculated for guests and not for amount of soup), and he had picked a recipe very specific on amount of water and cooking time.

So, is there some way to figure out how to adjust a stew/soup recipe for added dumplings?  How much water to add (per dumpling, or per volume of dumpling dough, or per volume of flour in the dough, or something) so it doesn't end up dried out, or watery?  Or maybe just how much liquid there needs to be in the stew in general per dumpling, etc, to make it work?  Anything needed to balance the seasoning of the extra water? I had thought not, since the dumplings and stew were both already seasoned, but if I am asking anyway... (shrug).

This is less about fixing that particular recipe combo, than figuring out how to make adding dumplings work for future stew plus dumpling dishes, since we have rarely cooked them in the past.  I figure there should be a way to adjust recipes generally, especially for those that need to stay closed to cook, which means they can't keep being checked along the way.  But if it helps, the dumplings were a (vegetarian) variation of a suet pudding, clootie dumplings rolled into little balls and free cooked in the stew, and the stew itself was a thick one of lentils and vegetables.

I have long since given up on trying to do this, because it varies according to stew/soup and according to dumpling. I have taken a different approach. Set aside some meat stock or broth, add water and bouillon or gravy mix for flavor, and cook your dumplings in that until they are almost done and don't soak up much liquid anymore. Then transfer them to the stew for the last few minutes, to take on the flavor of the stew.


Yoghurt after use by date I'm awfully paranoid about getting food poisoning after having it once before. I bought a pot of live yoghurt with mango and after eating a couple of spoonfuls remembered I didn't check use by date when I bought it a few minutes beforehand. It was a day past the use by date.

No visible mould and tasted fine to me.

Should I be worried?

On this site, we will not and can not give medical advice and that includes answers about “should I be worried” or judge whether a food is spoiled (apart from blatant cases like “it’s covered in mold” or “it smells foul”). What we can and are happy to do is answer questions about food safety based on the recommendations of government sources or other qualified authorities.

In your case, see the Food Safety Authority of Ireland’s webpage, which basically states that you yogurt is no longer safe after the use by date.

Now, you may want to remember that food safety and a food being spoiled are not necessarily directly correlated. Food safety deals with statistics, so that the manufacturer can basically guarantee that before that date the risk of food poisoning from consuming said item is near zero (it can never be zero), even for very sensitive consumers like small children, pregnant women, the elderly or people with a weak immune system and this will typically include a bit of a safety margin as well . After that date, the “safety” can’t be guaranteed. The food may or may not contain a critical amount of microorganisms that can cause food borne illnesses.

Many consumers are willing to take a small risk by consuming foods after that date, especially for products that are not in high-risk groups like fish, shellfish or meat or that have a bit of “protection” built in like live “good” bacteria. And many will do so without negative consequences. The longer the time difference, the higher the risk, obviously, and of course any visible sign of spoilage should always be a warning sign.

Bottom line: The basic rule of “When in doubt, throw it out!” still applies.


How to get that crispy skin on a roasted turkey or chicken I love making roast chicken, but I don't seem to be able to get the skin to crisp to that nice mahogany color, like this:

Some of the things I have tried:

butterfly and roast at 500 (Alton Brown method)
pat dry and brush with oil before roasting at 375
flash under broiler
brown breast on the stovetop in a very hot cast iron skillet before placing in oven

results: #1 & #2 don't seem to work at all -- The skin cooks but it doesn't crisp. #3 only the peak of the breast gets seriously brown. parts further from the broiler are less and less brown. #4 just the parts touching the pan brown

I do have an in-oven thermometer, so I know the temps are correct

UPDATE: added #4

Place bird on a rack over a pan.  Salt skin, do not add oil or marinade.  Place in refrigerator, uncovered, for up to two days.  This will help remove moisture from the skin, which will allow it to crisp more readily in the oven.


How to decide the baking temperature when recipe doesn't mention it? On what factors does the temperature setting depend?

Of course if I have to bake a stone, I would need to set the temperature at 900C perhaps :rolleyes: ;), but in normal cakes where you have a banana or an orange as an extra ingredient, how do you decide the temperature?

Example: How much temperature difference can there be in a plain cake and a banana cake?

If you bake a banana cake on 200C instead of 180C, is that going to make a difference somewhere? In which way?

Cooking temperature and time are determined by a number of factors. The idea is to get the inside of the product properly cooked before the outside dries out, becomes tough, or becomes unpleasantly dark or even burned. At the same time, you usually want the product to get nicely browned (adds flavor and looks nice) before the inside is overcooked. So it's a balance.

Factors which influence appropriate temperature and time include:

ingredients: High protein ingredients (like meat or eggs) easily become tough when overcooked. High sugar or starch recipes will tend to brown or burn more easily.
moisture level: For some products, such as popovers or many kinds of pastry, steam is an important leavening agent, and a high temperature is called for. In other products, like cookies, one of the goals of baking is to drive off excess moisture. And in still others, moisture is absorbed into the other ingredients.
shape: A fat, round loaf will usually need a longer cooking time and lower temperature than a thin, flat pizza or a long, skinny baguette because it takes longer for the center of the loaf to heat up.
pH: Changing the pH of the product will change how it browns.
leavening: Some chemical leavening, like double-acting baking powder, activates at a certain temperature.
personal preference: At the end of the day, the most important factor is whether you like the way the product turned out. If you like a crispier crust, change the temperature and/or cooking time to suit your taste.

Any baking recipe should specify the temperature and cooking time, unless perhaps it's from a book that specifies those things for a number of recipes at once. If not, find a similar recipe and use the temperature specified there, but keep a close eye on the product during the baking process. Learn how to tell when the product is done. For cakes, you usually go by color for the outside, and by temperature or using a toothpick or wooden skewer for the inside. (Briefly: poke a wooden toothpick into the center of a cake; if it comes out with wet batter, keep cooking; if it comes out clean and dry, it's probably overcooked; if it comes out with a few crumbs stuck to it, it's probably perfect.)


How to get chocolate of chocolate covered strawberries shiny? Yesterday, I made strawberries covered with chocolate.

Both my strawberries and milk chocolate were at room temperature. I heated the chocolate in the microwave together with a drop of peanut oil, stirred and dipped the berries in it. I let it all cool down in my cellar (+-15° C /+-60° F) on a piece of parchment paper.

While the taste was great, I didn't like that they looked a bit 'dull'. I would prefer it if they shone.

I added the oil, because I read it somewhere as a tip to get shiny strawberry-chocolates. I don't think it was as much as they adviced me to do though.

Can I do anything to make the chocolate shiny?

Chocolate which has been melted will look dull when cooled down again. Cocoa butter contains crystals, and when heating and cooling chocolate, there will form crystals of different sizes.  Because of this, your chocolate look matt. You can use the technique of tempering chocolate to get great shiny chocolate. There will only form 'right' crystals with this technique. If you google 'tempering chocolate' you get lots of good results, which give you a better description of what to do then I can.  For example you can use this sites description:
http://candy.about.com/od/candybasics/ht/temperchoc.htm
Or this site which give the description using both Celcius and Fahrenheit:  http://allrecipes.com/howto/tempering-chocolate/


Are there any resources specifically on cooking with high-heat wok burners? I recently got myself a high-power wok burner, like the ones they use in professional Asian restaurants. Cooking with it is a ton of fun, but sometimes I find myself overwhelmed by the heat output. The wok is getting too dry, the seasoning is burning off, stuff starts to stick like crazy, and so on.

Are there any books/video guides/websites on specifically cooking with high-power wok burners? I know there are many Asian cooking channels on Youtube, but the ones I found just cook, and don't explain any theoretical basics.

You're in luck -- there was a paper earlir this year than analyzed the physics of making fried rice by professional Chinese chefs:

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsif.2019.0622

My take away from that was that you have to flip things fast when you're dealing with high heat -- three times per second.

Almost every list that I've seen of wok cooking recommendations calls for re-seasoning at the beginning of your cooking.  Most go into wok selection and what's needed to initially season a wok. Some discuss prepping all of your food in advance, as when you're cooking with that sort of heat, taking a minute to chop up the next ingredient means you've already burned what's in the wok.

Here's a small sampling, although not all are specifically about high heat cooking (except maybe for the one that's from a manufacturer of stoves, so it seems a little spammy):

https://inquiringchef.com/how-to-cook-with-a-wok/
https://www.epicurious.com/expert-advice/how-to-cook-with-a-wok-article
https://www.seriouseats.com/2010/06/wok-skills-101-stir-frying-basics.html
https://firstwefeast.com/features/2016/10/how-to-cook-with-a-wok/wok-two
https://www.bluestarcooking.com/top-10-tips-for-mastering-wok-cooking-at-home/


Do I need to coat beef in flour mixture for slow cooked stew? I've recently bought a slow cooker and my first meal will be a simple beef stew.

According to this recipe, step one is to:

  In a small bowl mix together the flour, salt and pepper; pour over meat and stir to coat beef with flour mixture

My question is, why do I need to coat the beef in flour mixture rather than simply add to the cooker?

Browning your beef with some flour adds depth of flavor. The flour will act as a thickener, and by coating the meat with it you won't have problems with it clumping and getting little flour balls in your stew. However, unless you are browning the meat before adding to the cooker I would recommend you leave it out as uncooked flour might give your end dish a raw flour flavor. You can thicken it up at the end if you like with a cornstarch slurry.


Do I have to peel red potatoes before baking them? I recently made some potato wedges in the oven. I shared this recipe with my relative, who admonished me for not properly peeling the red potatoes before baking them.

She claims that there are disease and viruses that lie on the skin, so peeling it will get rid of it.  I bake it, so I assume that even the high heat in the oven would kill bacteria and germs. And besides that, I make sure to wash potatoes thoroughly before cooking them.

Am I in the wrong here? Should I have properly peeled the potato wedges before baking them? Personally I feel they add more flavor, and from all the pictures on the recipes online, it seems they also do not peel it.

No peeling is needed.

A good wash and proper cooking will handle all of your food safety needs.


Bread crust separated from interior I'm an amateur baker, been making bread weekly for about 9 months now, working out of Ken Forkish's "Flour Water Salt Yeast" cookbook mostly. I had something happen to my bread this week that I would like to understand.

I was making a recipe in the book called "Overnight White Bread" which takes a very small amount of yeast and then rises for 12-14 hours. As a variant suggested in the book, after shaping the loaf in the morning I placed the proofing basket in the refrigerator and then, after work, set it on the counter while pre-heating my oven (I bake in an enameled cast iron Dutch oven). This let it work with my work schedule.

The bread came out pretty good, with an excellent taste. It has great big holes, which this recipe does usually, but I notice that the bread itself sort of separated -- there were extremely big holes near the top of the loaf, but it was relatively dense near the bottom. Basically, it looked as if the bread collapsed some on the interior, but after the crust had already risen and solidified enough to hold itself up. As a side-effect, with just a few gluten filaments beneath it, the top of the loaf couldn't conduct heat away and so blackened more than I would like..

It's not a huge deal, but I'd rather have a more evenly-distributed loaf if possible. Why does this happen, and can I do anything to prevent it?

That sounds like you allowed the bread to dry while it was rising.  And also that you allowed it to rise too long.  The latter will produce large air pockets, and the former will make them form just under the crust.  Cover your rising bread with a damp towel, don't let it get more than twice as large as it started, and you should be fine.


What can I use as a replacement for cumin? I've just run out of cumin and rather than go to the shops for more I wonder what I could substitute for cumin?

I'm making a lentil soup, which calls for sweating onions and the finishing the onions with cumin before adding the stock.

What can I use instead for variety or desperation?

The problem is that a lot of substitutions are based on what you have on hand.

For instance, I have both liquid smoke and smoked paprika, both of which would add that smoky quality that people associate with cumin.

We also need to consider what other ingredients are going into the dish.  I have spice blends that contain cumin in varying degrees (garam masala, taco seasoning, a rub for ribs), and if they contain other ingredients that I might be using anyway, I'd consider replacing all of them with the spice blend.


Keeping Donuts fresh Is there a way to preserve donuts and sell them in retail packaging, similar to how you would buy chips and cookies at the supermarket. I see Entenmann sells packaged donuts but I'm curious to know how they are able to maintain freshness. Any thoughts

Instead of fresh eggs, use powdered egg yolks.
Make sure any oils you use are high in saturated fats, such as palm or soybean oil — and use their hydrogenated forms wherever possible.
Replace some of the flour with polysorbate thickening agents and gums of xanthan, guar, and cellulose.
Add moisturizing agents such as glycerin.
Finally, be sure to include one or more chemical preservatives — potassium sorbate, for example.

Reference: Entenmann's Donuts List of Ingredients


bread dough always too sticky I have two recipes for bread; one is Julia Child's Sandwich bread and the other is honey wheat bread using the recipe on the back of the King Arthur wheat flour bag (can't find the recipe online for some reason).
I've made both breads twice and I have the same problem: the dough is always too sticky. When mixing the ingredients together, it looks like dough but almost like a batter (if that makes sense). But as soon as I try to knead it, it becomes super sticky, getting stuck on my hands and work surface the more I try to work with it. So I ended up adding A LOT of flour to get it manageable, sometimes almost double what the recipe calls for. And even then, it starts to stick to me so I add more flour. The last time I made the breads, I used a stand mixer and after 4 minutes the dough was becoming more batter-like and drooping from the dough hook, so I ended up kneading it by hand (and adding a lot of flour).
Yes my bread always ends up a crumbled mess when I try to cut it and I know I shouldn't be adding so much flour but I don't understand why my dough is so liquidy that I have to add more flour.
I have done a few different things. Like using less water at the start and sifting the flour before using it, and I even made it at different times of the year (summer vs winter in south-central US), and the dough is always too liquidy.
Someone told me I should wait awhile for the flour to absorb the water before I start kneading it (by hand or in a stand mixer) but I'm worried that would affect the yeast.
I'm also a novice baker (I guess you could call bread making baking?) but I run into wet dough issues all the time, and I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas what I'm doing wrong (aside from adding way too much flour for kneading).
For reference, I always do the scoop and level method and use the same measuring cup for measuring water.
Edit: thank you all for the tips and suggestions! I've never used an actual cookbook or used any books for cooking, just online and occasionally videos. So I will definitely look into getting a book for properly making bread especially.

There are many potential causes, it is impossible to say which one (or maybe multiple ones) is the problem in your case.

Wrong measuring. The only way to exclude that for sure is to start baking by weight.
Wrong flour. You mention that you are in the southern US, I have some vague memory reading that they use bread terms a bit differently. Look at your flour package and make sure that it lists at least 9.5% protein. But if you want to have it easier, I suggest making it with bread flour (11-12% protein). Also, these recipes are made for standard wheat flour, don't do any substitutions.
novelty. Maybe you are simply not accustomed to working with doughs on the wetter side. Especially if an elderly relative taught you to make stiffer doughs by hand, they may have told you to do it without measuring and just add flour until it stops being sticky. Many bread recipes are made with doughs that are sticky during work. If you want to start using them, you will have to get accustomed to them. If not, just disregard any recipe above 70 or 75% hydration.
wrong kneading process. Maybe you are kneading for too little time, or not resting properly.

I am uncertain how to interpret your descriptions, and whether it is predominantly the novelty factor or a problem with the dough. "super sticky, getting stuck on my hands and work surface" - for the Julia Child recipe, this is not super sticky, it is normal for dough with 83% hydration and some butter to stick during initial mixing. "batter-like and drooping from the dough hook" - if it was a ball that was slowly drooping from the hook of a turned-off mixer, then it wasn't batter like. Or did you mean that it was dripping from the hook?
In any case, it seems that you are not getting the results you want, and your attempts at troubleshooting are not helping. So, I would suggest to stop using shorthand recipes from random sites, and learn making bread from a book that describes the whole process of making the dough, proofing it and baking it, as well as containing proven recipes and info on proper troubleshooting. Once you have gathered this initial knowledge, you can start hunting for additional recipes again.


Can I freeze bread dough after the first rising? The bread dough that I am making calls for it to rise for 1 hour, knead for 5 minutes, then rise for another hour, shape into loaves, rise for 45 minutes, then bake.  So can I freeze the dough after the first rise?

Yes, you absolutely can - this is the common way to freeze dough, actually.  It's better to freeze after the first rise.  Often the second rise will be done in the refrigerator along with thawing; and most of the recipes I've seen skip a third rise (so you freeze the dough shaped, and you're rising in shaped form alongside thawing plus a warming stage while you preheat the oven).

See for example this guide to freezing different doughs; or King Arthur Flour's article on the subject.


Stir-fry pan choices We like to make stir-fry occasionally, and we do so currently in a medium-sized stainless steel wok over a gas burner (but, a regular one, nothing that is super-stir-fry powered).  It's a pretty good quality wok (Cuisinart), but not too huge.  Cooking for a family of four.

We also use frozen veggies, so it's quite hard to avoid mushy vegetables.  We're guessing one of our options is to change our pan to get faster heat, but disagree over how to do so...

My wife thinks we should try cast iron.  Thick, holds heat very well, doesn't transfer it as well though.  Heat it up in the oven and/or just leave it over the burner for a long time, then keep heat on high and cook the stir-fry.

I think we need a bigger wok.  Stainless steel (with perhaps an aluminum and/or copper inner layer and base) transfers heat much faster, so hotter stir-frying, but contact with the pan is key - so a bigger wok will transfer more heat to the food.

We may need to start using our grill instead... but if we stay indoors, which of us is right?

Other stir-fry tips are always welcome, but please focus the answer on the pan choice specifically (and cast-iron versus steel).

A billion Asian households use a thin carbon steel "wok like" device to cook on quickly and efficiently. I have never seen anything work as well, or last as long. Daily use for 20+ years is normal

After the first 10 or 20 uses, the patina is well developed, and they work as intended

Buy one from a Asian food supplier for a few tens of dollars, there is no point in getting a fancy brand name one, it will not be as good

The heat transfer issue, is a factor of your burner. The heat output rating of your burner will dictate how much food you can stir fry at once. If you want to do more at once, you need a bigger burner, not a fancy pan


What juices to use in cake? I usually use pineapple juice or apple juice while preparing a cake instead of milk.
However some juices sound heavy in a cake, for ex. mango juice.

What will the cake result in if I used Mango juice, or another heavy juice? Or, could I dilute it with water, or will the cake fail then?
If I used orange juice, will it be OK? Will the acidity of the orange juice affect the cake recipe?

I use this simple recipe for the cake:

2 eggs

1.5 cups flour (all purpose)

0.75 cups sugar

1.25 cups oil

0.75 cups juice

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

You say you are substituting the juices for milk.  You have to ask yourself, what roles does milk play in the recipe, and how well will the juices in question fill those roles?

What does milk contribute?

The milk adds:

Liquid, to gelatinize the starch in the flour to create the structure of the cake; the water will also contribute to some gluten formation, but in most cake techniques, this is minimized
Very minor acid component
A small amount of fat, but compared to the oil in the above recipe this becomes negligible
A small amount of sugar, but compared to the sugar in the above recipe, also negligible
Some proteins and other milk solids which will interfere slightly with gluten formation, again enhancing tenderness; they also help to retain moisture so the cake stays fresh longer
A very milk neutral flavor that comes out as a general contribution to the richness

The fruit juice

In contrast, what do fruit juices bring to the recipe?  I am ignoring the heavy/light or thin/thick distinction because it means very little.

Water--exactly the same as the milk
Significant acid.  Fruit juices tend to be much more acidic than milk.  You might wish to experiment with reducing the baking powder, and adding some baking soda to use the additional acid to power the chemical leavening, while neutralizing some of the overall acidity
Most fruit juice is essentially fat free, but as the fat contribution from milk is negligible, this is not an important distinction
Possibly some pectin or other long polysaccarides which will contribute to the overall structure and mouth feel of the cake, but this effect is probably negligible
Flavor.  The fruit juices will have a strong and significant flavor--of course, this may be a positive, but it will influence the outcome of the cake
Sugar.  Fruit juices tend to be sweeter than milk, so the overall cake will be slightly sweeter.  This is probably somewhat mitigated by the increased acidity, and again, compared to the overall sugar in the recipe, probably not a large contributing factor.
Fruit solids (proteins, minerals and so on).  Much like the milk solids, probably contribute somewhat to the more tender crumb, but hard to characterize.

The truth is, the "heaviness" or "thickness" (by which I infer you mean viscosity, or how fast the juice flows or pours--or how easily it coats a spoon, which is an easier way to see it) is not that important.

You could use pureed fruit with almost the same result--for example, canned or pureed pumpkin or mashed banana. Even pureed fruit is still mostly water.

Still, every juice or fruit puree is its own entity.  I would keep a little diary of how each trial worked out, whether you like the results, and adjust the next try accordingly.

Edit:

What juices to use?

I realized I never specifically answered the question, what juices to use?

Use whatever juice (or fruit puree) you like, based whether you like the flavor and how the cake turns out.  Each time you try something new, there is some risk, but you should soon find ones you like, and which perform well.


How long can I keep sauteed onions in the fridge? I'm a working mom, so I'm always trying to find ways to cut down on cooking time. My newest trick is to saute a huge batch of onions and keep it in a container in the fridge, so that I can skip the onion-frying step of recipes. How long can I store sauteed onions in the fridge? I want to freeze any onions that I won't be able to use within a safe period of time, so I'm wondering how long that is.

Stilltasty.com gives you 3-5 days on cooked onions in the fridge - after that, tightly wrapped and airtight into the freezer.


Fresh spices vs Dried spices I am new to this community and I have a question in mind.

Spices like garlic , cinnamon etc after drying lose the volatile oil content in them. [HERE, HERE]

Though We see fresh garlic in market being sold but that is not the case of other spices like cinnamon , black pepper, cloves etc.

Why don't people prefer them fresh? After all if there was a demand, there would have been supply.

Spices are generally comprised of bark, buds, fruit, seeds or stems of plants.  They are almost always dried.  Garlic is not a spice, rather, it is a vegetable, like onions or shallots.  You can, of course, get dried garlic, onions, or shallot.  But the drying process does not make it a spice.  While spices have a fairly long shelf life, they should be used when fresh.  Purchasing whole spices and grinding them yourself increases the shelf life, as ground spices, with more surface area, lose freshness more quickly.


how to get the salty taste out of your cupcake I was making cupcakes from scratch with my kids and I tasted the batter after we mixed everything into it .The batter was really really good but it tasted really salty.We tried adding milk but it didn't REALLY help it!Do u have any ideas?

Could it be a combination of salt and baking powder. Sometimes people can't put their finger on it so the say salt when it is too much baking powder.


Are Twiglets an “extruded snack”? This is a question not about home cooking, but about working out how an industrial food is cooked — I’m not a regular here, so apologies if it’s judged as off-topic.

Extruded snack seems to be the technical term for manufactured not-quite-chips snacks like Cheetos, Cheese Puffs, Wotsits, Twisties, Cheezels…  It comes from the way they’re manufactured, by extrusion from a press.  It may also involve other technical details beyond this, I’m not sure.

Are the popular British snacks Twiglets an example of this, or are they produced in some other way?  Also: pretzels?  Rice cakes?  Hula hoops?  Pringles?

(Twiglets are rather love-it-or-hate-it, flavoured with yeast extract, so a bit like Marmite, except that even people who love Marmite may hate Twiglets.)

Carried over from this english.se discussion.

The additional technical details on extruded snacks are that they are not just extruded but do so under high pressure and temperature, so that as they come out of the extrusion nozzle they puff up and solidify. The rapid transition to lower pressure causes water in the dough to vaporize suddenly, creating air pockets (puff) and removing moisture. Since baking is primarily a process of drying this completes the cooking.

I haven't had a twiglet, but based on the little bit of info available they would appear to be made in the same manner as the bumpy sort of Cheetos, which would indeed make them an extruded snack.

It is conceivable that they are extruded at room temperature and pressure, and then deep-fried, which is the case with some Japanese snacks that otherwise resemble extruded snacks.


Sugar and Salt Solutions When making bread dough, can sugar and salt solutions be used or should the sugar and salt be added dry?

Either is fine, so long as you account for the liquid.

I normally add dry sugar or (rarely) salt at an early enough stage that the "proto-dough" is effectively still liquid and they will quickly dissolve, so it makes little difference. If adding at a later stage, a solution might be preferable for even distribution. Bring on the uptight bakers claiming you can't add stuff later (guess what, it still comes out bread...) And, of course, when using honey, molasses, or syrup, it's a solution whenever you add it.


brined turkey and fat I had a brined turkey that someone had cooked for the 1st time this Thanksgiving.  Typically we eat one that has been cooked in a roasting bag.  My daughter and I both noticed that the brined turkey seemed greasier. Is the total fat higher for a turkey that has been brined, compared to cooked in a roasting bag?

Brining shouldn't have any real effect on fat content, just moisture. The issue is, that fat and water can have similar cooling feelings on the tongue, and dried fat may not feel as greasy to the hand.

I have noticed that if you take the bird straight from the brine to the pan, the skin doesn't crisp as much, leaving it feeling mushy and greasy. The best thing you can do here is after you're done brining it, dry it off thoroughly, and have it rest in the refrigerator for 3 or more hours. This will dry out the skin, and make it crispier, and the subcutaneous fat should effectively fry it.

Alternatively, you could have just gotten an unusually fatty bird. It's hard to say from just one sample.


How to ensure that the bottom of blind baked pie crusts brown properly? This happened to me yesterday with pâte sucrée, and it has happened before with other kinds of dough too (like the traditional American flaky dough).

When I try to blind bake a pie, I usually do as follows: I lay out the dough over the bottom and sides of an aluminum pan.
I then chill or freeze the dough, and once it's sturdier line the insides with aluminum foil, and pour some beans or sugar over it to act as pie weights.

The pan is then set on a preheated oven (about 180°C) and baked.
I used to set the pan directly on the oven's grid tray, but as the butter melted it would drip onto the bottom of the oven and burn with an unpleasant smell. I now generally lay the pan onto a baking sheet, and then stick everything into the oven when I want to bake.

Time depends on the size of the pan, but the problem generally shows on larger pans; these are usually circular cake pans (so, vertical side walls) with removable bottoms.
For these pans, I bake them anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes.

Now, what happens is that generally the sides of the crust wil brown properly way before the bottom.
In fact, the bottom will generally have a soggy aspect, as though the fat in the dough did not cook properly and pooled in the bottom of the crust.
The bottom will be almost flexible or sticking to the pan, while the sides will be already crisp.

For smaller tartlets, I can usually remove the foil lining (and even the molds) and stick them back in the oven with good results -- yes, the sides will brown more, but not overly so, and the bottom will turn out okay.
For larger pies, this simply won't cut it, and the sides will overcook.
I've had good pie bottoms this way, but the sides ended up way too hard.

For these smaller pies I can even stick them back in the oven upside down to really get the bottom going, but this looks like a dangerous game with larger pies.
Indeed, the center of the pie's bottom (which is suspended -- the pie is upside down) will become soft in the heat of the oven and bow under its weight.
For smaller pies, the distance to the (sturdier) side walls is not so large and this effect is not significant.

  So my question is: what's a good way to ensure that blind baked pies brown properly on the bottom without overbaking the sides?

Would convection (in the oven) help or aggravate the problem? Is it a matter of using a lower temperature for a longer time?
Should I preheat the baking sheet together with the oven and set the pan directly onto the hot sheet? Now thinking about it, this should be a no brainer.
Shold I brush the bottom with something before sticking it back in the oven? Egg (whole, beaten? whites? yolk?), or cream? Or something else entirely?
Would other pan materials be better suited to the task (I've been thinking of grabbing a glass pan to be able to see how the crust's browning as it bakes)?
Should I 'shield' the sides of the crust (with foil?) and stick it back in the oven?
Are there other things that could help or solve this?

EDIT: I could salvage the crust and was pretty satisfied with the result.
I used aluminum foil to cover the side walls of the pie crust so as to shield it from the heat and hot air currents in the oven.

I placed the pie crust onto the bottom of the cake pan (so, placed it on a solid, thin aluminum disc).
I preheated the oven (I used an oven thermometer; it turns out my oven's internal thermostat is not reliable) and, with the fan turned on, placed the disc with the crust onto the oven's grid tray.

Soon enough, the pie crust's bottom/center was bubbling, and in about 10 minutes it had browned lovingly.
Moreover, when I removed the foil, the side walls had not browned noticeably more.

I then chill or freeze the dough

That's your problem, right there. Especially if you are using a ceramic pan, like a traditional quiche pan.

For a long time, I also followed the ubiquitous advice to keep pie crusts as cold as possible, even freezing, and struggled with the same problems as you. Then, with more experience and some experimenting, I realized that the "cold is good" rule gets overinterpreted.

Instead of all this craze of "more cold, more cold", it is much better to use "just as much cold as needed". And what do you need the cold for? First, if you use a "cut the butter into the dough" method for a flaky crust, it is easy for an inexperienced baker to overmix. Cold butter mixes slower, making the process more forgiving towards bad technique or missing experience (to recognize the right moment to stop). Second, if you want to roll out the dough into the pan as opposed to using your fingers to spread it, there is a right temperature range to do that. If your dough is too warm, it won't work properly. Actually, it won't work if it is too cold either, but you seldom hear about that.

And that's it. No more cooling needed. In fact, I once purposely made crust without using any cooling technique - started with room temperature butter, and the dough and all utensils were kept at room temperature throughout. I placed it by hand into tartalette tins because it was too soft for rolling. And I ended up with perfectly nice flaky crust. So I would say that, while erring on the side of "a bit colder" can be helpful in making the process more fault-tolerant, excessive chilling is not needed.

Now my crusts are in the 15-20 C range when they go into the oven. And the pan itself is room temperature, it has never spent time in the fridge or freezer. And the problem of "wet bottom, overdone sides" has been greatly reduced. I don't bother to do anything more about it if I'm going to eat the result alone at home.

If you are baking a perfectionistic pie, after starting at the right temperature, you have to stage your blindbaking. First, you bake for some time with the beans, until the "walls" are just firm enough to not fold in the heat. Then you remove the beans and the foil. If you want to fiddle, or left it a bit too long in the oven, add a strip of foil over the walls. Now continue blindbaking without beans, until the bottom is well baked. The walls will still be somewhat more baked than the bottom, but the difference will be tiny. Now you can continue with filling, etc.


Beverage Cooler vs Small Refrigerator for Raw Chicken? I'm entering a bazaar and I currently only have a spare beverage cooler (a Daewoo 123 watt beverage cooler) for my bazaar stall. This being the current circumstance, I want to know if a beverage cooler is cold enough to store raw chicken for at least 8 hours.

Do I have to buy another refrigerator?

Thanks! :D

If you're in the US, you are likely to be inspected. The inspector will use a thermometer to make sure that the chicken is being stored below 40F (4.5C). That is the FDA requirement as well. You may or may not need a refrigerator, it sounds to me that first you need a thermometer.


Does it make sense for a cake icing recipe to call for vinegar but not baking soda? See the making of icing in this video.

"cream cheese" frosting ingredients:
1/2 C coconut oil (solid but soft at room temperature)
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar
2 C powdered sugar
1 tbsp + 1 tsp unsweetened soy milk
Using a hand mixer beat the coconut oil, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, vanilla extract and 1 cup of powdered sugar to start. Once it's mostly combined add in another cup of powdered sugar and beat together. Then add in soy milk and beat until smooth and fluffy. Then ice the cake!

I'm worried that there's some kind of mistake and this will impact the flavour for no reason. Should I leave out the vinegar? Add baking soda? Leave the recipe as is?

It's fine as written.

Combining vinegar with baking soda (or any acid with any base) is usually done in baking to produce gas, which can lighten the finished product. This is an icing, which is applied after the baking process; it's not set to capture air bubbles, so any effect would be largely temporary and more easily produced through beating.

The vinegar here is intended to mimic the tangy flavor of real cream cheese. The lemon juice has the same effect, but apple cider vinegar adds a different mix of acids, better matching the flavor of the real thing.


Flavor of wasabi, horseradish, mustard, capers, and jalapeño What is the name of the flavor of wasabi, horseradish, mustard, capers, and jalapeño?

Unfortunately, I'm not fond of the taste of the above ingredients.
To me, they taste similar.
I don't mind the heat.
I love a home-grown scotch bonnet or the occasional Carolina Reaper, but the taste of the above ingredients have a certain taste that are very similar and don't taste good for me.
Does that taste have a name? What is it?

Disclaimer: While looking for related questions, I found out that I have not tried real wasabi. But I chose to include wasabi because 'fake wasabi' is based on horseradish, which I assume means that they taste similar.

Related questions that ask for substitutes:

How much of "wasabi" is actually wasabi in the United States?
Substitute for horseradish?
How can I maximize Wasabi flavor?
How can I approximate wasabi taste?
Mustard substitute
Is horseradish and Wasabi the same thing?

Mustard, horseradish and a few others are sometimes grouped together as "pungent", which can also include aliums, ginger, and other strong flavors.

But it's a pretty fuzzy category.  Some people might not include hot peppers (but still include other types of "pepper").  Some might include other objectionable flavors that can overwhelm a dish if not used sparingly (so for me, cilantro, for you, capers).


How to take care of the teflon coated cookware to ensure their long life? I know the following three rules:

Don't use metal spoons.
Don't put hot teflon utensils in cold water.
Cook on low flame.

Is there anything else important, which is often overlooked?

EDIT 1:
Q: I have a teflon Kadhai and a teflon wok (flat bottom and straight walls). Do we have to take some special precautions when dealing with the Kadhai (because of its shape)?

EDIT 2
Q: Does wooden spatula also causes scratches? If yes, then what's teh way out?

Be very careful heating it

Usually with a steel or iron pan I'll crank the heat under it and go do something else for a couple of minutes while it gets up to temperature. If it takes me five minutes to get back to it, maybe it's a little too hot and I have to hold it away from the burner for a few seconds before adding the oil. With teflon, that can damage the pan, so I keep a closer eye on it and hold my hand over the pan more often to see if its ready.


What makes spicy heat linger? I'm a total chili-head; I snack on pickled hot peppers from Mezzetta (the pepper is Cascabella, which I have never seen fresh) almost daily. What I love most about them is that they don't seem all that hot until a few seconds after I swallow. If I eat a big pepper in one bite, the afterburn is almost but not quite painful. The urge is then to eat another pepper. After I'm done snacking, I eat a big spoonful of yoghurt. The lingering heat sensation lasts a good 20 minutes.

Some peppers have that "lingering" quality. In Seoul I ate a lot of spicy street food that had that.

I have never been able to achieve that in a sauce.

I particularly want to make a sneaky sauce for chicken wings and gumbo.

I've lived (and eaten my way around) South East Asia for nearly the last fifteen years, and I think I know the effect that you're describing. Feel free to let me know if I'm off.

If what you're talking about is a slow and gentle burn that sort of creeps up, intensifies, and then mellows back down gradually (which is what I think you're talking about) then what you're experiencing is very likely an emulsion of a few types of peppers in a fat with a little acid, salt, and something sweet (sweet brewed soy, or even molasses).

A common street food is chicken gizzard over hot coals that's been marinated using the above method featuring bird's eye, serrano, calamansi (green, with zest) rendered fat (duck or pork) and something sweet. There are as many varieties of that as there are street vendors cooking up all of that goodness. I'm pretty certain it's the fat that causes the burn to linger longer on your palate.

Emulsification also helps maintain the pungency of chili in more basic (cream / curry) types of sauces in which it would otherwise mellow very quickly.

My experience is mostly in The Philippines, but I've been all over, and I don't suspect that it's done too differently in other places. This will definitely get you the sneaky kind of sauce you want, you just have to experiment with the types and ratios of chili.  With sweetness and an acid, something like chipotle is going to introduce itself before habanero, and then take the stage again once the habanero has finished wrecking your mouth.

What remains is some experimentation that might ... err .. hurt a little :) But what you'll eventually end up with are a few really tasty pastes that you can add to any other sauce in order to get the desired effect. Also, don't feel bad about just using combinations of ready made chili sauces (sriracha, piri piri, etc) - this can save you a lot of work and give you a more refined taste. The sky and your budget for buying them are the limit.


How do I "cool" down very spicy tortilla soup? Thought the recipe asked for a full can of chipolte peppers, of course it was only one. was able to remove most but is still to spicy for company.

Basically, there are two ways to reduce how spicy any soup is:

Make more soup and dilute the spices
Add more starch and/or dairy to the existing soup

However, in your case, where you added about 8X as many peppers as you should have, I'm not sure either avenue is practical; you would have to at least triple the volume of the soup to have an effect.  I suggest starting over.


I dont have refrigrator what are ways to keep milk without that? What are old ways to store milk without refrigerator.
I boiled twice a day still it spoils.

You really just have to find a way to keep it cold. The only way to keep perishable food from spoiling is to keep it below 40F/4C. If you can't do that, you'll have to use it fresh. UHT milk may help with that, because it's shelf-stable before opening, so you may be able to get a larger number of smaller size ones that you can actually finish quickly after opening.

There are some things you can make out of milk that have longer life at room temperature, but they're not really milk anymore.

Boiling really can't fix this, because it doesn't kill everything, because the nasty stuff produced by bacteria can survive even if the bacteria dies, and because whatever's left (or whatever drifts in and recontaminates it) is just going to have a nice friendly environment to grow in after it cools back into the danger zone.


Is it possible to temper chocolate at home? I've read that tempering chocolate is the only way to get glossy, 'snappable' results. I've also read that it can be a complicated process involving precise temperatures. Is it possible to temper chocolate at home without lots of special equipment?

Absolutely.  I do it all the time, with great results.

The easiest way at home is to 'seed' the chocolate.  Get it up to the proper temperature as best you can - 115 °F/46 °C for dark, 110 °F/43 °C for others.  A thermometer obviously makes this easier.  If you don't have one, it will be just melted.

Doing this in the microwave is more difficult than a double boiler because it's difficult to tell when it happens exactly and you overshoot more easily.  Stir on a double boiler till the right temperature, take the chocolate off the heat and stir in additional, finely chopped, high quality unmelted chocolate (not chocolate chips).

Now stir it in as the mixture cools, it should all melt and 'seed' the crystals into the chocolate.  You'll want to test before you declare victory.  At this point, if it's wrong, just reheat, and reapply with more unmelted chocolate.  To test, simply dip a spoon in and let it cool in the fridge for a moment.  The thin coating on the spoon should be shiny and snapable.


How to make my sourdough sweet? When I was much younger, my father would bring home a really good bread about twice a year. He told me the mother of a coworker would make it and her son would sell it at work. I didn't know it was sourdough at the time, but when I thought about it recently and asked him, he said it was.

I remember that it was pretty much like a loaf of white bread in consistency, texture, and crust. It also had a shape like a loaf pan had been used and was a nice golden color on the outside. It may have been a touch dryer than white bread. I remember that my parents would get frustrated with me, because I kept going back and cutting off slices just to eat plain.

Does anyone know how to make a bread similar to this? Is it a certain style? Is there a particular way of making it that makes it turn out like this? I think I've seen recipes that use honey, but would the yeast not convert the honey's sugar? Or is it like alcohol yeasts where the yeast is only capable of processing so much sugar. I think that is regulated by the strength of the alcohol killing off the yeast at a certain point. I'd just like to know how to make this soft sweet sourdough bread. Thanks.

It depends on what one means by "sourdough."  Some people tend to restrict that word to a particular bread style, usually associated with "San Francisco sourdough" or some variant.  That bread tends to be a lean somewhat crusty bread, with sourness varying from noticeable to somewhat pungent.

But others use the word "sourdough" just to connote the use of "natural yeast" (as opposed to bakers yeast).  If your source was using "sourdough" in that sense, it's perfectly possible to make all sorts of sweet breads using natural yeast.  It was actually the standard way to make such breads before the widespread use of commercial yeast.

If you are going to do so, besides possibly adding sugar or some other enriching agents to match your memory (milk, butter/oil, eggs, etc.), I'd also recommend efforts to "tone down" the sourness in your starter.  Traditional French methods for natural yeast sweet breads tended to work on a multi-stage building system, where you'd start with a remaining hunk of dough from a previous batch (the "chef") and then gradually build it up in anywhere from 2 to 4 stages to the final dough size.  Each build would range from an intermediate to large dilution of the starter (to dilute any residual acidity in the starter), and you'd start the next build before the previous one had a chance to turn sour.

By doing this, you maximize yeast growth (which occurs earlier in the sourdough cycle) while minimizing acid production (which makes the bread sour).  After a few such builds, you'll have knocked down the bacteria population -- which lead to sourness -- enough that the rising of the final bread will mostly be just yeast activity.  The final bread is often more flavorful and complex than produced with bakers yeast, but won't have distinct sourness.

Also, this multi-stage method is less necessary if you are baking bread on a regular basis, like a bakery might do daily.  As starters sit for longer periods without feeding (more than a few hours), they will accumulate more acidity.


Yorkshire pudding - how do the proportions of the ingredient affect shape, texture and taste? Some very interesting posts, like this one, which has links to some more extensive discussions and websites that I consulted, too, describe some aspects of the method used to prepare and bake the batter, affecting the end result.

However, a sentence in one post:

  You can play with the ratio of ingredients every which way and still end up with a batter that rises tall.

left me quite baffled, because I thought: surely the composition of the batter must matter to some extent...

From a little research on the topic, I found that, indeed, the proportions of the ingredients vary widely between different recipes, but I could not find any extensive account of how that impacts the outcome.

See below the links to each recipe I looked at, and the % of ingredients, in order of egg to flour ratio.

Allegra McEvedy
Egg = 19%, Flour = 24%, Milk = 57%, Water = 0%, Egg/Flour = 0.80

Tom Kerridge
Egg = 26%, Flour = 29%, Milk = 45%, Water = 0%, Egg/Flour = 0.89

BBC food
Egg = 22%, Flour = 22%, Milk = 44%, Water = 11%, Egg/Flour = 1.00

Serious Eats
Egg = 36%, Flour = 27%, Milk = 32%, Water = 5%, Egg/Flour = 1.33

Mary Berry
Egg = 31%, Flour = 21%, Milk = 47%, Water = 0%, Egg/Flour = 1.50

James Martin
Egg = 33%, Flour = 18%, Milk = 49%, Water = 0%, Egg/Flour = 1.78

However you look at it, Egg/Flour ratio, (Egg+Flour)/(Milk+Water) ratio, there is a huge variability.

I experimented a bit, although I did not make all of them.
Allegra McEvedy's version is my favourite so far, whereas other recipes (I won't say which ones) gave me stodgy, undercooked puddings, a completely different thing, despite the fact that the method was to all practical purposes the same.

Q As per title of this post, would anyone be able to please point me to posts or websites describing how the batter composition affects the end result, e.g. in terms of shape, texture and taste?

I take it you didn't read Kenji's Serious Eats column The Science of the Best Yorkshire Puddings which is linked from the recipe column.

It discusses his experiments with various factors affecting Yorkshire puddings addressing some of your points including liquid (eggs + milk + water) to flour ratios and amounts of fats (yolks + milk) as well as technique.  The focus is on balancing expansion, crispness, and the hollow with some mention of richness (fats).

[EDIT]

Major points:

Let rest overnight ("Resting your batter is the single most important step you can take to improving Yorkshire pudding and popovers.");
Starting with colder batter gives denser, more cup shaped; warmer batter gives taller, crispier with a hollow core;
Water added to milk gives a crisper pudding (not needed for skim/1% milk);
Hydration at least 200% and no more than 300% (266% in his recipe) - higher hydration gives "a pudding shaped cracker", lower gives deeper cupping;
Pre-heating muffin/popover tins not required, but essential for cast iron pans;
You can open the oven without ruining it;
Beef drippings are best.


Why is black tea sold in crumbled form? The black tea is sold in a crumbled form. I am yet to see a brand, where I live, selling black tea as whole leaves.

I want to know why is that so? Does crumbled leaves have effect on taste which whole leaves don't have?

This issue is only with the black tea, not with the green tea.

What's the deal here?

Whole leaf black tea is available, but because it has to be processed by hand it is expensive.  Twinings whole leaf black tea is roughly 50 cents per teabag as opposed to the equivalent processed tea bags at about 8 cents.

To make black tea, the leaves are wilted and processed by various methods - none of the mechanical methods will produce whole leaf tea.


Orange sauce for goose I've been to this wonderful Chinese place where they served goose in orange sauce/gravy.
I've been looking for a recipe for it all over the Internet, but everything I found looked pretty far from it.

The main difference was that they served the goose with unpeeled orange quarters (more like 8th's of oranges, unpeeled) on it, along with the sauce, which was what made the flavor so special. Sometimes there were even seeds on it; that's how raw it was (although it was hot and steamy).

I don't really care about what to do with the goose, I just want to know how to make that sauce.

This is what I'm looking for; you can see that the oranges themselves:

I would make it with a duck demi-glace or some simmered down duck stock, juice from a bitter orange, and perhaps a bit of Grand Marnier or other orange liquer. If you're looking for a Chinese influence, you could simmer it with a star anise or two.

There are any number of duck a l'orange recipes online (duck and goose are fairly similar flavour wise) if you need inspiration.


How to wash vegetables without running water? I live in a subtropical climate where most people cook vegetables, rather than eat them raw, so when making green salads, I must be careful to ensure that everything is clean. I have seen recommendations in How to wash lettuce to wash lettuce under running water or in a salad spinner, but I do not have access to either. I have tried adding bottled water to a bowl, then putting the lettuce, onions, and tomatoes in this bowl to soak, but do I not know if this will clean the vegetables sufficiently, especially as the onions and tomatoes seem to already contains some water trapped inside, which is likely not safe to consume. How can I clean these vegetables?

Let's call a spade a spade: if you're in one of many areas where people don't eat vegetables raw, it's because nightsoil or unsterilized animal manure is used to fertilize the fields. A quick rinse won't render these vegetables safe to eat, because you need to kill the pathogens.

To start out, you should wash all dirt and sand off produce; for this wash it is okay to use tap water as long as it is well-filtered, because you will be following it with a sanitizing step.  From here you have two ways to render the vegetables safe.

Blanching is probably the best solution to keep most of the flavor and texture, while still avoiding illness.  To do this, briefly immerse the vegetables in boiling water, and then transfer them to a (boiled) ice water bath.  The exposure to very hot water should kill most pathogens, but by only briefly exposing them to hot water you won't cook them much.

An alternate, but not as effective approach is to soak in sanitizing solution for 15-20 minutes. According to this source, there are a couple good options. One is a ionized silver suspension; in Mexico this is sold as Microdyn or Bacdyn.  Another option is bleach, prepared at roughly 1 1/2 tsp bleach (5.25% hypochlorite solution) per gallon (4 liters) water.  After immersion, bleach should not be rinsed off until just before use, and final rinse should be food-safe water.  Note that rinses will not kill all bacteria, but will significantly reduce their counts.

Use caution if you use an alternate sanitizing procedure: a lot of vegetable washes are just intended to remove waxes and pesticide residue, not kill pathogens.  Even ones with mild antibacterial properties won't cut it, since you need to kill a wide range of pathogens AND parasites: Ascaris worms in particular are common in developing areas and potentially lethal.

Finally, be extra cautious about cross-contamination.  Any fresh produce should be handled as if it's raw meat, because it can carry almost any food-borne illness.  Cleaning should be done before cutting produce, so as to avoid introducing pathogens into the interior.  You'll probably also want to take anti-parasite medications bi-annually to supplement this, since they harder to eliminate from food and may slip through.

Oh, and if you're ever tempted to skip the cleaning steps, remember: there's a good chance your vegetables have poop on them.

Final footnote: there is an EXCELLENT resource on food safety in the Yucatan, by a PhD who worked in public health and for the EPA.  The advice is broadly applicable to anyone living in developing countries.


How to bake baking soda to produce sodium carbonate? I'd like to make sodium carbonate for ramen noodles. The instructions on the web however vary greatly. One source says to bake baking soda at 350 degrees for 2-5 hours. Others say 250 degrees for an hour. Another says just 200 degrees for an hour.

Does the temperature even matter at all?

How about if I use a higher temperature like 450 degrees? This would be preferable for me as I only need a small amount and I can probably bake it at the same time I'm baking bread.

The temperature needs to be high enough, that's all. 450°F should work fine.  (2-5 hours is a little silly, since the reaction is pretty quick once the baking soda itself is up to temperature.)

If you want to check that everything's gone okay, you can weigh the powder before and after. If it's converted properly, its mass should decrease to 63% (EDIT: fixed miscalculation, Matthias' number is the correct one) of the original. (Possibly a little further if there was some moisture in it.)


how to peel a pomegranate efficiently? Two well known facts about pomegranates:

they are yummy
they are a pain to peel by hand

do you know of any efficient ways to peel pomegranates? by efficient i mean two things:

quick
minimum number of 'hurt' arils

be blessed

Even easier than Michael's way:

Quarter the pomegranate. Hold it over a bowl of water, seeds down, and spank it repeatedly with the flat of a large knife. Done. (The water makes separation of pith and seeds easier; the latter sink and the former floats).


Bread baking: dough has little holes after first rise I'm making a half white flour, half whole wheat flour bread, with garlic, olive oil and dried herbs. After kneading it for about 20 min I left it to rise even though it wasn't as springy as I'd like. It was also a bit sticky, but was afraid to make it too dry since I'm using high gluten flour and whole wheat which both need more water. After the first rise it still didn't feel springy enough, and I gave it another knead and let it rise again for 15 min. After this, and when shaping the bread, I noticed there are little holes in the dough as seen in the pictures. For some reason the gluten didn't fully form to which I attribute the little holes and tears to, but I can't think what to do different. Any ideas?

What kind of whole wheat flour are you using? An organic supermarket near me offers a mill to use on-site, and I once bought a package of wheat and milled it there, to see how bread tastes with unoxidized flour.

The roughly milled bran teared my gluten badly, and I had much difficulty getting the dough to perform well. The bread didn't rise well either.

Your dough looks rather irregular to me, and I believe to see tiny beige dots which may be bran. Adding all those spices doesn't help, neither does working with high gluten flour when you are using whole wheat. The whole thing looks like too much and too tight gluten to me, that gets torn by the bran and pulls together, leaving holes.

Also, home bakers tend to use too much yeast, and I suspect that getting the air pockets expand too quickly or even too much (overrising) increases the problem. Standard recipes start at 2% yeast (2 g fresh or 0.7 g instant per 100 g flour) but artisan breads use less, to allow for longer rising times.

So my advice would be:

use finely milled whole wheat flour (not home milled)
try also getting your spices finer milled - if you are doing it in a coffee grinder, use a Turkish grind
use AP flour instead of high gluten flour
use more AP and less whole flour
work your dough with frequent breaks, so the gluten can relax a bit
use the proper amount of yeast.


Substitute yogurt powder for confectioners sugar when making royal icing When making treats, I try to make them as appealing as possible and like to decorate them.  I have been looking for an icing recipe that can be used for decoration that doesn't include sugar.  Most of the ones I have found call for yogurt, however they do not harden.  I recently purchased a mix which was yogurt based which worked really well however could get costly if I do a lot of treats.  I was wondering if I used a royal icing recipe and substituted the confectioner's sugar in the recipe with yogurt powder, would it work?

I wonder what those yogurt covered peanut contain? They are sweet but a similar setting agent minus the sugar might do the trick? e.g Agar agar


Cooked chicken stuffed with a can (of soda)? I just saw a bit of "Come Dine With Me" which is a UK TV show where people cook/host a dinner party for other strangers to win the prize money.

When she took the chicken out of the oven, the guy who was carving it took out a can of Irn Bru (which may be just because they're in Scotland and this is a popular drink over there)

Why would they put a can in the chicken before cooking it (as I missed that bit)?

There has been a belief, at times wildly popular, the using a half full can of beer (or soda, or other beverage) as a base when barbqecuing or roasting chicken helps keep it moist, and imparts flavor.

This is pretty much debunked.  As Meathead says in the linked article:

  No way the beer adds moisture. The method is supposed to add moisture to the meat. But the can is inserted half way up the cavity and blocks the meat from contact with moisture. It acts like a condom. so any vapor that escapes the top of the can, and there isn't much, will only come in contact with the upper half of the cavity. The surface area of the exterior of the bird is vastly greater than the surface area of the cavity, and after blocking off half the cavity with the can, there is very little surface area for flavor to penetrate.

He also explains in detail why beer cannot add much flavor, if any--there are very few flavorful ingredients in beer as a proportion of the whole which is mostly water.  While I am not familiar with Irn Bru, I imagine that most or all of the logic still applies.


Is sourdough more resistant to mold than other breads? My partner works at a restaurant where they serve sourdough as the bread you snack on to tide you over while perusing the menu. They are closed Sundays, which means any leftover bread on Saturday evenings goes home with the employees (since it can't be sold as day-old at the adjacent bakery the next day, as with other days). This means my partner frequently comes home with five or so loaves of sourdough.

Occasionally she'll also end up with a loaf or two of a different sort of bread. A nice wheat, or this particular bread full of nuts and herbs that they make.

It takes a long time for two of us to get through five large loaves of bread, so when she brings them home they go straight into Ziploc bags to keep them as fresh as possible for as long as possible. The sourdough loaves last positively forever (albeit with a little bit of loss of texture), but the wheat loaves or nutty-herby-loaves-I-forget-the-name-of always end up with mold spots after five days to a week.

I know nothing about sourdough bread other than that it tastes delicious. Is it more resistant to molding than other types of bread?

The short answer is yes, sourdough breads are generally more resistant to fungus due to the fermentation process of the sourdough starter. The reasons for this are only now becoming understood.  This study from the Journal of Applied and Environmental Microbiology says:

  Sourdough is different from traditional bread because it takes an
  extra fermentation step, which uses lactic acid bacteria to metabolize
  sugars and add that particular spunky flavor. The researchers found
  that during sourdough production, lactobacilli bacteria convert
  another acid found in bread flour--linoleic acid--into hydroxy fatty
  acids that resist fungus.

So there you have it, it's possibly better for you, tastes good (I think so), and lasts longer without going moldy.


Shelf life and preservation of home soaked and drained black beans I am looking to see if I can avoid store bought tin of black beans for our Mexican recipes, we typically decide suddenly to make a Mexican dish and usually dont have soaked beans handy.
Is it possible to preserve home soaked and drained black beans? What would be a typical shelf life.

It should be possible to store them in a food container in the freezer at -18°C for at least 3 months.


de-parasiting mackerel for sushi We've bought some fresh sushi-grade mackerel, and would like to make saba sushi from it. We were told that we should treat it with vinegar to kill any parasites.

Some online recipes I've seen recommend a two step process of first salting for 30-40 mins, then marinating in vinegar for 30-40 mins. Others extend the salt step to 3 hours.

Is the salting necessary for de-parasiting? I ask because the fish store guys, who are usually very knowledgeable, didn't mention it. If so, is 3-4 hours really necessary, or is 30-40 minutes more like it?

Clearly I'm eager to eat this fish, but I'd like to play it safe :)

The FDA recommends below, which is how every restuarant I have ever heard of does it as well.

A recent survey of U.S. gastroenterologists has confirmed that seafood-borne parasitic infections occur in the U.S. with sufficient frequency to make preventive controls necessary during the processing of parasite-containing species of fish that are intended for raw consumption...[]..Freezing and storing at -4°F (-20°C) or below for 7 days (total time), or freezing at -31°F (-35°C) or below until solid and storing at -31°F (-35°C) or below for 15 hours, or freezing at -31°F (-35°C) or below until solid and storing at -4°F (-20°C) or below for 24 hours is sufficient to kill parasites. FDA's Food Code recommends these freezing conditions to retailers who provide fish intended for raw consumpution