How do you prepare a fresh deer for cooking? I'll be getting a fresh deer, gutted by the hunter that shot it, but I need to prepare it myself.

I've heard that it's a good idea to let it hang for a day or two before skinning it, is that true?

Also how should I go about skinning it? Is there a good place to start or something I should be aware of. Can I do it alone, or is it better to have a helper?

It's easiest to skin the deer when it's still warm, but since that isn't an option let it hang for a day or two, if the weather isn't going to get above around 40 degrees F.

If this is your first time, definitely have a helper on hand to help you hold the deer. Have a hacksaw and a sharp knife on hand. A small electric knife/chainsaw is helpful but not necessary. Growing up, this is how we did it:

Peel the hide off (start from top, go to bottom).
Cut out the tenderloins with your knife.
Quarter the deer with the hacksaw and bring the quarters inside individually to cut further.

Be sure to look up some more videos/articles, but it's not too difficult. Have plenty of freezer bags and freezer space on hand. It helps to have a "team" cutting up the quarters...it's not hard but it's a lot of work.

Enjoy!


How to Prevent Apples from turning Brown I love to use Apples in my Desserts. They look really delicious when I just make them, but by the time they are consumed as dessert, the apples have all turned brown. and suddenly the dessert doesn't look all that nice anymore. How do I prevent this?

UPDATE: I remember reading somewhere that dipping apples in lemon juice prevents the oxidation which turns them brown, but this effects the flavor of my recipe. What else can I do?

The fast food chains that sell pre-cut apples in bags use Nitrogen or similar food inert gas. But I can't see this being practical in a normal kitchen

Acid is the answer, try slightly less noticeable acid sources such as fresh (as in you squeezed it) orange or pineapple juice

They should not taint the taste so much if you just lightly brush it on the exposed surfaces, don't soak the apples in it


Using garbanzo flour instead of canned garbanzo beans If I wanted to substitute chickpea flour for a can of garbanzo beans in a recipe, how would I prepare the flour? should I mix a amount of water with it and cook it? and if so how much water?

Here's the recipe in question, Zero Sp Bananabonzo Bread.

Ingredients:

1 can drained garbanzo beans
3 very ripe soft bananas
5 eggs
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp salt
2 packets of Trivia (stevia)

For this specific recipe, you may be able to get away with this substitution, since what you're making is a bread, but also because it's a bread there's less room for error than in many dishes. Rather than try to substitute in this specific recipe, I'd look for another recipe for banana bread made with garbanzo bean flour - a cursory google found many - and alter sweeteners and spices as needed or desired to get closer to this one.  (Most artificial sweeteners have established, standardized subsitutions for sugar, so that's going to be an easier change than using chickpea flour in place of canned garbanzos.)


Foil Wrapping BBQ Ribs in Convection? Can you wrap spare ribs in foil and convection bake or should it be conventional baking when wrapped in foil?

There is no real functional difference. Only change between the two types of ovens is a fan blowing the hot air around...however...if aluminum gets too hot it was melt so don't let it touch any metal if you are baking over 385.


How do I thicken my dessert? I was making a new recipe for lemon cheesecake tarts, but the recipe was not clear.  It called for a "large package of lemon pudding". I used a package of cooked pudding and pie filling.  It was to be combined with a package of cream cheese and 1 1/2 cups of milk, well blended and added to the crust.  Needless to say, it never thickened.  After the fact, I realized it should have read "instant pudding".  I am now left with a very fluid (but delicious) bowl of lemon soup!  Any ideas on how to thicken this!  I am hesitant to cook it on the stove and bring to a simmer because of the cream cheese.  I hate to throw it out because it really is delicious.  I am leaning towards making lemon cocktails for the holidays. You know what they say, when given lemons, .....

Try taking a very small amount of your lemon soup and see what happens if you do heat it to a simmer. It might work, but if it doesn't you won't have ruined the whole thing.

If not successful, then you might need to reimagine the dessert. My first thought would be to fill and/or saturate some dessert shells or angel food cake with the mixture, and then firm it up by chilling or freezing it.


Pyrex that can be used in an instant pot What pyrex would be suitable for pressure steaming in an Instant Pot (also known as 'Pot in Pot' cooking)?  I am a new user and want to make sure I have the correct cookware.

That is commonly done, and yes, any pyrex is fine for it although metal has an advantage in that it wouldn't require extra time. Anytime you use glass, pyrex, ceramic or any other heat absorbent material for "pot in pot" cooking, add ~5 minutes to the time under pressure. Anything that is safe to use in the oven is safe to use in the Instant Pot.  Whatever you use inside the liner of the Instant Pot as your cooking vessel, use the trivet and add water (at least 1 1/2 cups or so) to the inner pot of the Instant Pot, and be sure there is some room (it doesn't need to be much) to allow steam to pass between your inner pot and the Instant Pot liner.

Here's more on the subject of 'pot in pot' cooking.


How much is a "splash" I've run into several recipes which asked for a "splash of" water, soy sauce, etc.  How much is a "splash"?  I assume if it's something more concrete like 1/4 cup, they would have said so.  Since it's a "splash", I just poured some (1/2 a cup) water into a coffee cup and poured once around the pan, although, my control isn't that good so I probably ended up pouring 1/4-1/3 of a cup.

Everything still tasted ok but I'm just curious what a "splash" is.

I would measure a splash by the second - that is, holding the container (usually bottle) about a foot above the pan, and pour about a second or two's worth of liquid.  Or to put it another way, stop pouring about when the stream of liquid hits the pan and consider that mid-air-stream a (medium) "splash".

I would usually get a couple tablespoons of liquid pouring this way.  Of course, stronger liquids usually come in smaller mouthed bottles so less gets poured - for soy sauce, I'd get a few teaspoons, for water (from a cup) a few tablespoons, for something like liquid smoke - a few drops since the bottle's opening is very small.

More generally speaking, I've always considered "splash", "dash", "sprinkle" and other such measurements to be an equivalent for, like oft cited for salt and pepper, "to taste".  Or perhaps "to texture", depending on the what-where-when that's being added.  The recipe doesn't have a measurement because it isn't recipe-critical how much is actually added, it's just to the preference of whoever is cooking.


Can I make potatoes sweet by cooking them? I've heard that cooking "breaks down" carbohydrates such as starch. I also know that starch is a complex carbohydrate, which is essentially made out of simple carbohydrates (sugars).

Potatoes contain a lot of starch, so I was wondering: is there a way of cooking potatoes that will break the starch down and make them sweet?

Of course, I'm not expecting to be able to make them sweet like candy, but I'm wondering if I can get some amount of sweetness out of them.

I'm just asking out of curiosity; I don't have any particular goals or dishes in mind.

A raw potato is 79% water, 17% carbohydrates (of which 88% is starch) and 2% protein. So your question is essentially: can starch be turned into sugar?

In theory the answer is clearly 'yes': this is what plants do when they break down the starch created as the final product of photosynthesis, and what happens in the human digestive system. Starch degradation is a complicated process involving several different amylase enzymes.

In practice, I think the answer is 'no'. In a raw potato, starch is present in many small granules. When cooked, the starch gelatinizes: the granules burst and water is absorbed. This is a irreversible chemical change that obviously has a big effect on taste and texture. But it does not produce significant amounts of sugars.

A closer match to the starch degradation process in plants occurs in brewing. When beer is brewed from barley by heating a 'mash': the natural amylases present in the grain convert starch to sugars; these are then fermented by yeast. The exceptionally sweet-toothed might try to mimic this process with potatoes, adding something like wheat, barley or sweet potato that has natural amylase. You could then boil the potato 'proto-beer' to extract the sugar.


Making culinary foams for cocktails I would like to make a foam using a cordial, lime juice and egg whites. SHould I add
lecithin and what would the portions be?
 Also what would the effect be if I used 1 charge each of NO2 & CO2?

I suspect that if you are using egg whites, you won't need to add the lecithin. The egg whites are more than capable of creating a protein-based foam on their own. Using CO2 will give you residual carbonation. I would just use the NO2 (unless you want the foam to be somewhat sparkling). Oh, in fact here is a recipe confirming that just the egg whites are sufficient: http://www.smallscreennetwork.com/video/476/raising_the_bar_how_to_make_foam_for_a_cocktail/


Thickening Alfredo sauce My girlfriend and I are huge fettuccine alfredo fans, so we have  been trying to recreate one of our favorite Italian dishes at home.  The trouble we keep having is thickening the Alfredo sauce without destroying the flavor.  We've tried tons of recipes (this one for example: http://www.cooks.com/recipe/ed5dy8k2/easiest-best-homemade-alfredo-sauce.html) but the trouble we keep having is keeping it thick without destroying the flavor.  When we are finished with a recipe and remove the sauce from heat, it never seems to thicken up.  It just stays a kindof milky consistency and gets cold ):

Reduce the liquid first before adding the cheese. My favorite recipe is to reduce heavy cream by half and then add in plenty of grated Parmesan. Some people add Romano, butter, and/or nutmeg as well.


converting dried measurements to soaked measurements I have a recipe which calls for 250g of tinned black beans.. i thought i would be smart and use some DRIED black beans i have already!

but.. obviously the dried beans will weigh less than the tinned black beans..

How can i calculate how many grams of the dried beans i would need to make 250g of cooked black beans?

I was going to soak them overnight and then boil them until theyre soft!

250g of canned black beans is about a cup of soaked/cooked beans, which is the same as a drained 15oz/425g tin.

The volume of beans increases from 2-3x. It is probably closer to 3x for black beans but I'm not certain.

So I would cook up about 80g-90g of dry beans, I think that will get you a bit more than you need without a huge waste. 70g would probably nail it but if I'm wrong you would be short. And I'd take notes on what the weight change is for future reference :-).


Raw Eggs in Hot Black Tea: Common in Ukraine? Correct Preparation? I just heard an account from someone who studied in the Soviet Union in the late 1950's, early 1960's.  She said when she was served given a glass with a raw egg in it, and then very hot black tea was added. Then, a pat of butter was put on top.

Is this true? Is this something common now? What is it called?

She said she was sick at the time. Is this something only for sick people?

It sounds tasty to me; I want to know how to prepare it properly, and the correct occasion for drinking it.

Edit: I just got a clarification, she was studying in the Ukraine SSR, not Russian SSR. I have edited the title to fix it.

I think what you've stumbled across here is an interesting implementation of a technique, and not really a specific dish. The technique (simplified) is poaching. It's just a very unique way of doing it.

I've had eggs poached in black tea in Macau, and you'll also find the technique used in English and French cooking. There's an old recipe for scallops with demi-glace that calls for the scallop to be garnished with a quail egg poached in tea with bergamot (Earl Grey, commonly). I wish I could remember the name of it and my French isn't nearly good enough to search effectively.

My eggs were cooked until just runny, but it's not uncommon to have them warmed just to hot and gooey with the white still translucent (and delicious with noodles).

There's probably a colloquial name for what she described, but it's essentially an adaptation of a technique that (very likely) originated in China.


What is the science behind Magic Cake? Magic Cake has a seemingly simple batter, that is mixed and baked as a single entity.  (See link for the full recipe and method).  When it is baked, it separates into three distinct layers:

A dense bottom layer
A custard middle layer
A cakey top layer

(Photo and baking by Rfusca)

What is the science behind this?  How does the single batter separate and create three separate and well defined layers?

As many photos of various magic cakes show (such as those at the recipe author's Part II,  page), there is a definite edge effect on the layers, so it is not simply separation of components due to differing density.

In case you are interested, the magic comes at least partly from the milk.
I accidentally forgot to add it (but other than that, I followed the recipe to the letter), and I ended up with a regular vanilla cake, no layers at all.
I imagine this cake part should've been the (partly) the upper layer.

As milk is heavier than some of the other ingredients, it sinks to the bottom and creates the custard layer. I would like to expand this answer, with a remark on what we call 'flantaart', translated as 'custard pie'. There is one batter, and after baking, a well defined crust and a custard on top. I'll look it up when I get home, to look for similarities between the two recipes.


Hand made pasta with wholemeal flour I made some pasta using wholemeal flour instead of white flour. My ratio was one egg to 100 grams of flour.

However, I noticed the following things when making it.

It took a good half hour (and lots of sweat) to knead it to develop the gluten and to get it somewhat silky and smooth.

It seemed to take longer to cook than package dried pasta, which is strange because I'd expect it to take less time given that it's fresh pasta.

Is all this normal for pasta made with wholemeal flour, or could it be that my egg to flour proportion is wrong? Also, I made this using ONLY egg and flour, with a teaspoon of water here and there to help soften it. Am I missing anything?

I make partially wholemeal-flour pasta, and have tried 100% wholemeal also; I prefer the former.

Let's start with the dough. I think a couple things are at work:

wholemeal flour will take a bit longer to hydrate than refined (e.g., all-purpose) flour;
wholemeal flour will generally absorb (require) more water to fully hydrate than AP flour.

I'd suggest the following:

After mixing just until incorporated (still perhapas a bit ragged) allow the dough a period of rest (wrapped in clingfilm/plastic-wrap) on the bench, for perhaps 15-30min, before the major kneading phase. It will allow the dough to hydrate and relax a bit more. With this rest, you can probably get away with closer to 5min of kneeding (phew!). Compare this SA question and this Fresh Loaf for a discussion about bread dough and resting.
If it's still dense, consider a further teaspoon/5mL or two of water per egg. Note, though, that this water is best mixed when you're first mixing the egg and flour (it's more messy and difficult (albeit possible) to add later). Large eggs are perhaps 50mL per egg so keep that in mind -- too much hydration will make things hard to work with.

As for the cooking: are you drying the pasta first, or are you putting it straight into the water?  I find wholemeal pasta takes perhaps 50% longer to get to the cooked'ness that I seek (but not more than 4-5 mins in rapidly boiling water), but certainly not as long as commercial pasta (10+ mins).


Can I use a Lid for a glass vessel for cooking in microwave? Can you use a lid for a glass vessel when cooking in microwave?

What is your lid made of? What are you cooking? Some lids won't be safe, some dishes can't be sealed airtight or they will explode. If the lid is glass or some other safe material and you aren't creating a lot of steam pressure or the like, you'll be fine.


how to grind pistachio nuts so that they stay dry I've become a bit obsessed with making macarons and have actually managed to make them come out nicely, so I'm looking to take them to the next level and start using different nuts from almonds.

When I tried to grind up pistachios (or hazelnuts) into a fine powder they become more of a paste (i'm presuming due to the fact that they are more moist), and was wondering if there were any tips for grinding nuts into an extremely fine powder without them becoming a paste?

Thanks!

The more liquid texture is a result of the oils in the nut being released as it is crushed. To avoid releasing the oil, start with cold nuts and shred or grate rather than crushing. Any kind of blunt trauma will squeeze the oil from the nut, making it gloppy. Keeping the nuts cold will cause the oil to solidify, keeping the final product fluffy.


What are the advantages of serving fries in a metal cone? We ate at BURGR a few weeks ago.  And we had a burger and fries.  The burgers were good - 7 out of 10.  The fries were served in a cone.

Now when my wife and I were eating the (truffle) fries we both thought they were dramatically under-seasoned.  Now I can eat salt straight so I felt like maybe I shouldn't complain but the wife doesn't like much salt on anything.  Of course we ate the fries (because we paid for them - BURGR just gives you a burger).  As I got to the bottom of the cone I got a surprise.  Little fry piece, garlic salt, salt, truffle powder, pepper, and other deliciousness (that should have been on my fries).
Me having no manners just ate the bottom part.  The wife didn't partake.  So my question is - is there any taste benefit in serving fries like this? I strongly get the feeling if someone on Ramsey's show served him fries like this he would say something like, "You dumb cow.  You don't understand how gravity works.  Where in the bloody hell do you think your salt will fall?"
Note: There are some pretty good comments about it being normal for fries to be served inside a paper wrapped cone in some parts of the world.  Yes.  But this is different.  First the seasoning is not a dressing/liquid, second with a paper wrapper you can shake the fries around, and third the paper cone can be sat on its side more or less.  The configuration here cannot be adjusted without spilling condiments and people looking at you funny.

In a traditional British chip shop, you would have got your chips (fries for Americans) in yesterday's newspaper, wrapped into a cone shape. These days of course, it's food grade greaseproof paper, but it's still in the same shape.

I suspect the reason for serving chips in a cone is that simple tradition. Also, there may be thermal reasons, that it allows the chips on the top to get cool enough to eat, without the chips at the bottom getting too cold by the time you get to them.

I can't speak about the seasonings. Traditional chips would just have salt and vinegar poured n from the top by the customer himself.


Is it safe to consume packed tea leaves after their expiry? Is it safe to consume packed tea leaves after their expiry?
After all they might have lost their flavor, but can they be harmful in any way?

Yes, generally, especially if you've kept them in good conditions. (If the package has been open and it's damp and they might've grown a little mold, that's obviously bad.) The expiration date is for purposes of quality, as you've noted; it doesn't indicate anything about safety. So give them a quick inspection, see if there's enough flavor left for them to be worth using, and go for it.


How can I improve my barbecue sauce recipe? I've been trying to refine my BBQ sauce lately and I'm really curious if I can improve it, or if I'm mixing a sauce for a wrong purpose. The times I've made it, it have been used as a marinade for steaks, and a spread on the steaks while they've been on the grill, though if found the base of it as a ribglaze.

So far I have:

A dash of Jack Daniels
2 cups of ketchup
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 cup of cider winegar
A dash of orange juice
2 teaspoons of Worcesthershire sauce
3 clovers of garlic
1/2 teaspoon of dry mustard

Am I using it "wrong" (debateble since you can't tell what's right and wrong anyway)...should I look more at a non-galizing sauce for a steak instead?

I use a similar recipe, unfortunately I don't remember the original source, but I've changed over time anyway.

Things I don't use that you have in your recipe:

Sugar
Jack Daniels
Cider Vinegar
Worcestershire sauce
mustard

Things I do use:

Lots of fresh ground spices. Typically 4 or 5 cloves, teaspoon of cumin seeds, tablespoon of fennel seeds, black pepper and salt.
Fresh herbs, including Rosemary, Bay and thyme
Balsamic vinegar - about half a bottle of inexpensive stuff
Orange zest - zest of one whole orange
Smoked Paprika - about 4 heaped teaspoons
Olive oil - about 4 tablespoons

grind-up the spices and place in the marinade tray. medium fine chop the fresh herbs (leave the fresh bay leaves whole) with the orange zest and a whole bulb of garlic, then add to the spice mixture. To that add juice from an orange, the Balsamic, followed by the ketchup and olive oil. Mix well.

Score the meat well and add to the marinade tray. rub the marinade mixture into all the scores so that the meat is well penetrated.

Cover the tray with foil and cook in an oven for about an hour (depends on the meat and the amount) once it's out of the oven it can be placed on the barby.


Making toad in the hole with duck eggs I've been keeping ducks for a couple of years, and therefore I cook with duck eggs, since they're effectively free. They're Indian runner ducks, which aren't very large, and the eggs are pretty much the same size as a large hen's egg, so I just switch them one-for-one, although the duck eggs have a bit more yolk and less white than a hen's egg. And they're better than hen's eggs for most purposes, with the exception of toad in the hole.

I use the Delia Smith recipe with double quantities of batter, and it always comes out big and fluffy with hen's eggs, but flat and stodgy with duck eggs, and takes 50% longer to brown properly. What's going wrong, and is there any way to fix this other than switching to hen's eggs, which I would have to buy specially? Use three whites and one yolk? Use different quantities of the other ingredients?

Toad in the hole batter, which is the same as yorkshire pudding batter, uses eggs for lift and partly as the binding agent. Lift comes from expansion of gases, including water vapor. Egg white is 90% water, yolk is somewhere around 40% water.

A large egg is usually somewhere around 60g out of the shell. With a hen's egg 2/3rd of that is white, so call it 44g of water in total (36 from the white, 8 from the yolk). A duck egg is usually about 1/3 white, so about 34g water in total (18 from the white and 16 from the yolk). So using duck's eggs you get 20g less water overall in a doubled delia recipe. Given that there's 260ml of water and milk already this isn't much of a difference, maybe about 6-7% total water content. This doesn't sound like much but it can make a big difference.

Fat-wise there's about 10g more fat in 2 duck eggs than hen's eggs. A hen egg yolk has roughly 5g of fat in it, and a duck egg double that.

Protein-wise white has a higher percentage of protein (7%) than yolk (5%), but that's not much so not likely to be causing issues.

It's probably the combination of less water and more fat which is causing your problem. Less water and more fat means less expansion, less expansion will mean it takes longer to cook and has a flat texture as you describe.

As for the remedy I think you should definitely try 3 whites and one yolk, that should bring the balance back just right.

One trick recommended by a few chefs is to wait until your toad in the hold or yorkshire batter is fully expanded, then open the oven for a few seconds to let the water-saturated air out. This will help the batter to crisp up.


What care should be taken to prepare dough and Chapatis with Rice flour? Yesterday I prepared the Rice flour dough with water (room temperature 17 degree celsius) and salt.
I noticed:

This dough did NOT stick to my hands at all.
This dough did NOT stick to itself even. Its pieces kept on falling as I knuckled it over and over.
The Chapatis made with this dough kept on breaking as I picked them. (I did NOT roll them too thin.)

What care should be taken to prepare dough and Chapatis with Rice flour so that the things don't break?

P.S. Never noticed any of these symptoms with Wheat flour.

UPDATE:

The hot water helped.

Does knuckling the rice dough for somewhat long duration help someway in preventing the dough from breaking further?
Does leaving the rice dough alone for an hour or so before preparing Chapattis help someway in preventing the dough from breaking further?

Your mistake here was using room temperature water. Unlike wheat flour, rice flour contains no gluten to give it structure.

Instead, rice contains a starch called amylopectin (and another called amylose, but that's irrelevant here). Boiling the rice breaks the amylopectin molecules, and makes the rice sticky.

So, in order to keep your chapatis in one piece, you need to use boiling  water. Recipes I have looked at seem to suggest adding the rice flour to water boiling in a pan and stirring until it comes together.


Why does soymilk take longer to expire? Normally, milk itself takes about two weeks to expire, at least from my experience buying it from our local grocery store.

However, after buying a carton of soymilk, I noticed a shocking thing; it takes more than 2 months for it to fully expire (I bought it at the end of May, it expires on "August 23rd, 2013").  So what's the reason behind this? I'd assume that most soymilk and milk don't use preservatives, which would rule that out, but what could possibly allow soymilk to take longer to expire?

What do the dates mean?

On their website FAQs, the Silk manufacturer describe the date on their package:

  Our refrigerated beverages and creamers will stay fresh in your
  refrigerator until the date stamped on the carton. Once opened, they
  need to be consumed within 7 to 10 days. It is not unusual for our
  products to remain good past the 10-day mark; however, we only
  guarantee that they will be good for 7 to 10 days once opened.

If the milk is labelled best by, that is an indicator of quality, not safety.  However, normally milk in the US is labelled with a Sell By date, and should be good for a week or so after that date, or for about a week after being opened, whichever comes first.

What are these milks?

Now consider what these two different products are.  According to the Go Ask Alice column published by Cornell:

  As with all other animal-based
  foods, it's a complete protein; that is, it supplies people with all
  the necessary amino acids to form proteins. Cow's milk contains 8
  grams of protein and 12 grams of carbohydrates per 8-ounce cup. Cow's
  milk is a rich source of other nutrients as well. One cup provides
  adults with about 30 percent of their daily calcium needs and about 50
  percent of their vitamin B12 and riboflavin requirements. Often, milk
  is fortified with vitamin D to facilitate the absorption of calcium.
  Vitamin A is usually added to milk as well. Depending on the
  selection, cow's milk can have a significant amount of fat.

  [ ... ]
  One cup of unfortified soymilk contains almost 7 grams of protein, 4 grams of carbohydrate, 4½ grams of fat, and no cholesterol. Although soymilk supplies some B vitamins, it's not a good source of B12, nor does it provide a significant amount of calcium. Since many people substitute soy beverages for cow's milk, manufacturers offer fortified versions. These varieties may include calcium and vitamins E, B12, and D, among other nutrients. If you do choose to use soymilk instead of cow’s milk, read labels carefully to be sure you're getting enough of these important nutrients or consider getting them from alternative food sources.

Milk is a complete food for a growing animal (or human).  This makes it an ideal growth medium for microfauna of all types, as it contains everything they need—including easily available sugars to jump start their growth.

Soy milk on the other hand, while derived from the seed intended to grow a full plant, is has a very different profile.  It is almost devoid of sugars are readily accessible fats, making it a less ideal growth medium for micro-fauna.  This is not say they won't grow, but they may not colonize as readily and grow as quickly.

Conclusion

Therefore, you would expect soy milk to have a longer unopened shelf life than milk as it simply is not as ideal a growth medium.  Silk implies it may last longer after opening as well, but being conservative they do not promise that.

Milk will have a shorter shelf life before opening (it is not sterile, and will go bad even in the refrigerator), and definitely will last less time after being exposed to the environment.

They are simply two different products, with very different contents; the fact that both are named "milk" is not an indicator.

See also:  Expiration Date on Milk


Can I use traditional pie crust to make ice cream pies For the past 2 weeks I have been working on an ice cream pie recipe and I’ve been running into a few issues(I have less than 2 months of baking experience).
I would like to know if I can use traditional pie crusts(for nut pies, cream pies etc) to make ice cream pies. I have attempted it myself but the crust was said to be either chewy or too hard. Any advice?
PS: I also added a picture of the final outcome for reference.

As you don't have much experience with baking, I would recommend that you find a recipe for a crust specifically intended for an ice cream pie, and then work from there.
It's possible that you'll find that there's something wrong with your technique, and the crust isn't any better than what you've made so far, but I suspect that your problem is that most pie crusts aren't meant to be served nearly frozen.
Starches and fats can change significantly when chilled.  Consider something like long grain white rice -- it may have been perfectly fluffy when cooked, but when cooled to refrigerator temperatures the starches form a hard crystalline structure.  Many breads get chewy after they've been frozen and thawed.  I suspect that this is your problem with hard and/or chewy crusts.
Our perception of tastes change with temperature as well, so it's possible that you'll need more salt, sugar, or spices in the crust.
I'm not an experienced baker myself enough to know what changes need to be made for ice cream pies, and that's why I don't think that you just need to "focus on making a good pie crust", as even the best pie crust for a fruit pie might make a horrible crust for an ice cream pie.  I suspect that there's a reason that many freezer pies use cookie crumb crusts, and not a pastry crust.


Are chillies hotter when they're ripe? This answer might vary between types of chillies, but I'm curious to know when they're hottest.

McGee writes: "Capsaicin appears to accumulate in the fruit concurrently with the pigment during ripening". (On Food and Cooking, p.212)

So yes, chilis get hotter as they ripen (that is, as they turn from green to red). Many chili varieties are picked and sold in stores while still unripe and green (e.g. jalapeño, serrano, poblano), but you will occasionally see ripe, red ones in stores.

All of the dried chilis I've seen in stores have been completely ripened before drying (e.g. chipotles, which are smoked, dried red jalapeños and anchos, which are dried, red poblano peppers).

I've personally observed this effect with padron peppers, which are usually picked green and mild, but can ripen to red, hot peppers if left on the plant.


Can I boil a peeled egg again? I prefer my eggs hard boiled. But sometimes I end up with boiled eggs that have runny yolks, either due to my own carelessness or the overeager nature of the house help. Is it okay to boil eggs after they have been completely peeled? Will the results be close to a normal hard boiled eggs? Will I face any issues like the egg opening up and leaching the liquid parts into the boiling water?

I poach eggs, remove and chill them in an ice water bath to stop the cooking and then 'reheat' them in the simmering/boiling water right before getting ready to nap them with hollandaise and then serving them. (to aid in creating mass quantities of eggs benedict to be served at the same time)

I suspect that you can further cook your under-cooked hardboiled eggs with no adverse effects (even AFTER peeling) in the simmering/boiling water. Hope this helps.


Can hollandaise be made with frozen lemon juice? In my other question -- Are there any reasonable substitutes for lemon juice? -- I learned a cool technique to preserve lemon juice by freezing it in an ice tray. I'm considering making a hollandaise, and the only lemon juice I have available is frozen. Will this affect my hollandaise? Could it increase the chances of splitting?

That will be absolutely fine, whether you make the sauce in the classic way by cooking the yolks with the lemon juice, or with one of the variations where the lemon juice is added only at the end. I would, of course, defrost it first, rather than add a whole ice cube of lemon juice to the pan.


Why has my cold smoking stopped working? I bought a cold smoke generator for a small meat smoker last year and the first go with 3 dry brined mackerel worked GREAT!  But the next 4 attempts have FAILED.  The meat has come out translucent and oily like lox, and tough.  Not opaque and whiteish like the cold smoked mackerel I buy from my Polish baker.  (I think he gets his from Canada) I thought perhaps the first batch I did succeeded because they were smaller but my last batch I fileted and got the same result.  I dry brine OVER 24 hours in 1 part brown sugar and 3 parts kosher salt.  Completely covered.  I even tried brining TWICE on the last 2 batches.
The fish have been very fresh in all cases and my temperatures have been below 60 F in all attempts but the 2nd.
Please help.  I wouldn't be so distraught if it hadn't worked PERFECTLY once, before I knew what details to pay attention to.

It sounds like you may be over-curing the fish. The salt and sugar draw water out of the fish, the longer it's applied the more is lost, and you can go too far. When I cold smoke a side of salmon it's only cured overnight, say 8-10 hours, not for a whole day.  I imagine there wouldn't be much left after that.
Try reducing your dry brining time to 4 hours, then rinse, pat dry and let them dry out overnight in the refrigerator.


French Rolling Pin Care and Maintenance I just received a new french rolling pin as a gift. I washed it once in mild soap and water and made sure it dried quickly by wiping it down. It is now a little rougher than before washing.

Should I oil it? If so, what kind of oil?
Should I refrain from washing it ever, and just wipe it down with a 'damp' cloth?
Should I just chuck it and buy a new one of a higher quality that isn't rough at all?

These are my main questions after searching online and finding conflicting advice about washing and oiling. I thought to put it to you guys here on Seasoned Advice!

You don't need to oil it. Don't wash it, just wipe it as you suggest, and the oils it absorbs from pastry etc will do the job for you.

Your current one may smooth out a bit once it's absorbed some oil. If not, grab a new one.


Can you freeze fruit pies after baking - Will this ruin them? I was thinking about apple, but would apply to any fruit.

I've done this both ways and prefer to freeze my fruit pies before I bake them.  You have to bake them longer (20 min to 1/2 hour) and will need to use foil to be sure the crust doesn't come out too dark. No soggy crust this way.


How do you avoid getting burnt by hot oil? I find myself getting hit too much by boiling oil. Even when I keep my face really far from the pan it hits me.

Are there any general guidelines or best practices to avoid getting hit by boiling oil?

In a hot pan, the oil droplets jump off for three reasons usually:

When you add oil to a hot pan that is not completely dry yet (i.e some water present in the pan). This residue water will boil, turn into steam and splatter oil.
When you are adding wet food to the hot oil. The water turns into steam and splatters oil. Solution: Making sure the food is fairly dry before putting in oil. E.g. drying vegetables with a paper towel.
When you are turning food. Solution: as @Wayfaring Stranger said, flip to food towards the opposite end, not towards you.

Another thing might be that you are using a very shallow walled-pan, but mostly, splattering oil is due to water being present.


Issues with salt loss and dry curing I want to cure fish so that the maximum amount of salt penetrates into all parts of the fishs' tissue.

I know that with beef or chicken it is impossible to make the wet or dry brine go all the way into the meat.  It only penetrates the surface a few milimeters from my experience.  However with fish tissue being lighter can the salt go all the way into a 1 inch thick piece at a concentration of say 0.2g in the centre?
I have seen videos where after dry curing on a flat surface the liquid comes out and the fish is sitting in  a few milimeters of water or more.  Would this not liquid not lead to salt from the bottom end of the fish to come back out?  therefore shouldn't one be useing a grill rack or similar so fish is not in contact with released liquid?
I noticed that after some people dry cure they wash the surface of the fish with salt.  As in question 2, doesn't this cause salt to be released from the initial surface cells of the fish?

I'm not sure about the possibility of getting the salt all the way into the center of a fish, but I can perhaps address some of your other questions.

First, if you do manage it with a simple salt cure - I expect your food will be inedibly salty.  You can look at simple salt curing as it was used as a historical preservation method - recipes using such show that the pieces would have to be soaked or even boiled and the water discarded, sometimes repeatedly, to remove the extra salt content before it was in a state suitable to cook with.  Because if this, I expect not having the salt penetrate too far in was a good thing - it would be easier to get the salt back out before cooking.

Second, I don't think a grill rack would be needed, or even desirable, if dry curing in salt.  Actually, I think that released liquid may be necessary for the curing to work.  The liquid dissolves salt, you see, and salt needs that mobility to get itself into the fish (or whatever is being cured).  The released liquid will be much saltier than the food - it has access to all the dry salt it can physically dissolve - and that gradient is enough to keep the salt flowing inward and the liquid flowing outward.  If the fish is on a rack, it looses contact with the salt still in the liquid, and it will take a lot more time for the salt particles on the surface to dissolve, and osmosis their way into the food, with all the extra salt being dripped away, and the food potentially drying out (and stopping the salt transfer for lack of medium) even faster.  Salt won't come loose just because you see a liquid, you understand, the liquid itself only releases when the concentration of salt is higher outside the fish - and as long as you have more salt outside your fish than inside it, the salt will keep going in as long as there's water to carry the salt.

Third, washing the surface after curing may release a little salt, but the emphasis is on very little.  It takes time for the salt to osmosis its way into the food, and it will take time again for it to osmosis its way out - so the rinse will only take the salt on the very surface, and not any that has spent that time to have made its way inside the fish.  In addition, the time it takes for salt to move from just under the surface means it will almost certainly not happen until the rinsing is over, so it may re-balance the salt gradient of the outermost edges before they dry, but not more than that.  And the edges will have the highest salt concentration anyway, because of physical proximity to the salt, so losing a bit of that is probably only going to help in the process of not making it inedibly salty.

If you honestly want the salt all the way through - probably the best way is to make a weak solution, with the percent of salt you want (remember to take into account your fish's volume), and let the fish sit in the solution for a very long time, so it reaches full equilibrium.  The more salt outside, the more water it will draw out of the center - and the presence of water is what lats the salt osmosis inwards, so if the concentration is too high, the salt will 'dry out' the middle before the salt can reach it.  Piercing the fish through in a couple places will also help, since it cuts down on the edges, and gives a shortcut in to the center of the fish,so it will reach equilibrium faster.


Brown spots in purple sweet potato I've noticed that some of the Hawaiian/Okinawan purple sweet potatoes I boil will have brown spots inside the flesh, while others do not. What causes these brown spots? Are these safe to eat? I've tried to be careful when selecting the ones I get from the store, insuring there is no visible mold, discoloration, abrasions, or soft spots, yet I keep getting potatoes like this.

Brown spotted potato on left, normal color potato on right in the image.

Those dark spot could be either due to physical damage.

For instance like banana or potato, if you hit them too hard, they will "bruise". That could be one of the cause. The other cause you see dark spot in potato means it is starting to show sign of rotting. Usually potato that are about to spoil tend to have this dark spot. If you leave this potato uncooked with the dark spot for another few days, you would realize root will start growing and by then the potato is not recommended to be eaten. This happens in both normal, purple or sweet potato. So either you can choose to cut off the dark part away from the potato before eating or you can throw it away ( if you're very particular about things like that.

P.S : If you always pick potato like that, i recommend you giving suggestions to the shop where you are buying them from. Fresh potato will look like the one on the right. To be honest, some shop may buy "poorer quality of potato" at a cheaper price and pass it off as "fresh" potato, so do be careful about that too. Just my two cents, not generalizing shops that sell such potatos.


Coconut milk/cream vs cow milk in recipes I want to know if I can freely substitute coconut milk and/or cream for cow milk in dessert recipes.

The reason I wish to substitute is to try new flavors and explore new frontiers. I have never used or even seen coconut milk or cream before, therefore I have no idea not only if I can substitute them but what to look for in said products.

I saw that my local store sells canned coconut milk and cream, however I am not sure about their quality and have no way to tell from my experience.

In addition what is the difference between coconut milk and coconut cream? Are they like cow milk and cow cream?

If you are not expecting a dairy-specific reaction, you can generally substitute fairly freely. Caveats are things like cheese- or yogurt-making, or whipping cream -- you can make yogurt or whipped cream but the process is not identical; non-dairy cheeses exist but I have never tasted one that approximates a flavor or texture that I associate with cheese; on the other hand, I don't think I've ever had one made from coconut, either.

One issue you may have, though, is in the terminology of defining coconut milk and cream. :-)

Coconut Milk #1 - In the US, you will find something called coconut milk in the refrigerated dairy section of well-stocked grocery stores in places where they cater to vegans and the lactose-intolerant. This is a good 1-to-1 substitute for regular dairy milk in most cases. I personally find that coconut milk is a lot closer to dairy milk than most soy or almond milks, and I think they have to work less hard to get it that way, meaning potentially fewer ingredients and stabilizers to mess with the chemistry of what you're cooking.

Coconut Milk #2 - In the baking section and/or the Asian food section, you may find something called coconut milk in cans. This is a good direct substitute for dairy cream as long as you're not trying for whipped cream (if you are, you need to chill it first to separate the actual fatty cream from the liquid). Check the ingredients. There should be no added sugar, it should look something like this:

Coconut Cream #1 - In the US, most products called "coconut cream" are cans of a combination of coconut milk with various stabilizers and flavorings (to make it taste more coconutty -- real coconut milk has a distinctive but mild flavor) and a lot of sugar. These are generally intended as mixers for tropical drinks, but they are sometimes found in the baking section as well. Check the ingredients. If it has a lot of sugar, it's not meant for baking and it is not a good direct substitute. (you'd have to adjust other ingredients, and depending on the brands and what else is in there you could get some weird flavors.) If you see an American recipe that calls for coconut cream, you may need to use some judgment to determine what is actually intended, unless it gives a brand name like Coco Lopez.
Not good for substitutions:

If you have a good Asian market nearby, you have some other options.

Coconut Milk Powder - In addition to tins of Coconut Milk #2 from above, you may also find Coconut Milk Powder (Maggi brand is common in Indian markets) which is an acceptable substitute for either dairy or coconut milk or cream in baking or curries (adjusting the liquid to powder ratio gives you the distinction), but it is a little harder to get fully reconstituted to a smooth texture, so while I do like to have some on hand and I do use it in my baking, it isn't really quite as simple a substitution.

Coconut Cream #2 - You may find pressed blocks of semi-dry coconut cream, the fatty part that was separated out when you chilled your can of coconut milk to make whipped coconut cream. This is another one that is great to have on hand and can work but it's not as easy to work with as a direct substitution.

EDIT: I didn't answer all of the question, I think, regarding what coconut milk is like.

Coconut milk has a very mild taste. It is mostly fairly neutral (reasonably similar to cow's milk) and not what you think of for "coconut" flavor (or at least, for me, that is more the flavor of the toasted coconut flesh). It does impart a distinctive flavor to foods, but it is still a mild flavor and can be overpowered by other ingredients and may not be as pronounced as you might expect at first.

The drinking style of coconut milk (non-dairy cow's milk substitute) is pretty much just like cow's milk in texture, or as close as they can manage to get it.

The baking/cooking style of tinned coconut milk is a little fattier than heavy cream, and tends to separate, but mixes back up to a similar consistency to dairy cream. (It mixes better at room temperature, or when just a little bit warm.)


Legume-based pasta and phytohaemagglutinin Most legume-based pasta specify a cook time of fewer than 10 minutes. Is that sufficient to deactivate the phytohaemagglutinin?
I initially thought that the bean flour may have been precooked before being formed into pasta, so to confirm this, I contacted one of the manufacturers (Tolerant Foods) and they replied "our raw material is not precooked."

As far as I can see, phytohaemagglutinin should be mostly present in red kidney beans or fava beans. (from wikipedia and https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3153292/)

I looked at Tolerant Food product list on their web site and they only use lentils (red and green) and Chickpea products.

So, you should be good; but in any cases, if you feel unsafe, don't eat them.


Cauliflower: mildew, or just darkening with age? Unless the cauliflower in the market is extremely fresh, I usually see at least a couple specimens with tiny blackish freckles on the bumpy "flower" surface.

I have assumed the spots were mildew, and tried to avoid them. I even shave that part of the cauliflower a little bit (for esthetics) if I get a head that has them. But they don't seem to taste moldy and aren't ever fuzzy. So I'm curious: is this really mildew, or just a color change that occurs as the cauliflower ages?

It's just oxidation from the cauliflower aging. In the state the cauliflower in the picture is in, I wouldn't even bother removing the spots unless you're preparing it in a way that makes you think they'd be unsightly. If the curd/florets are still firm, you're good.


Preventing my toast from becoming wet when I put it on the plate Since I moved to my new flat, I have a problem when heating bread in any way. What happens is that if I put it on a plate, it gets very wet on the plate side. This is so acute that drops appear on the plate. If I put paper around the bread, both get wet. The only way I found to get dry heated bread is leaving it in the toaster/grill until it is cold... but then it is obviously cold!

What can I do in order to get warm and dry bread?

Warm your plate.

The moisture in your toast is coming off the toast and then is getting condensed into the cold plate just like a glass of ice water attracts the moisture from the warm air around it.

If you heat the plate, the moisture will not condense on top the plate.


What is the lesser evil, degassing too early or too late? Suppose that I have made bread dough and it is supposed to be degassed around 90 min after kneading (t+90). Suppose that I have to leave home at t+30 and will be back sometime between t+120 and t+150.

What is better for the dough, to degas it too early or to degas it too late? I know I can try to influence the duration of the first rising by changing the temperature (I could either put it in the fridge or in an oven preheated to 50°C, turned off and cracked open). But I doubt that the dough's internal temperature will change substantially during these short times.

So, what is the better strategy? Warm it and degas early, or cool it and degas late?

For the record, I am talking about a high-hydration bread (86%), with sugar, but no fat, 2.8% yeast. But if the hydration, leanness and yeast amount have an influence on the decision, I would like to hear about that too. (Assume that for any yeast amount, the time period before degassing has been calculated to be correct for it).

In my experience (and I'm only an amateur baker), you could leave this until you get back and knock it back then.  If you leave it really long (e.g. 24 hours), you might find it just doesn't have enough life left in it to rise again properly after, but an extra hour or so will probably improve it - I've always found that recipes err on the side of speed.

For a 2 hour prove time, I'd keep it slightly cool but not fridge-cool.  Since you're using a very wet dough, you will find it gets a little stickier the longer you leave it, so might need slightly more flour when shaping.

Having said that, I've recently been experimenting with really long rise times (12-24 hours, for ciabatta) - I just haven't found a happy medium yet that suits me.


Why won't my beans soften? I have an old jar of 9 bean soup mix which is basically dried beans. In order to cook them, they must first be softened and according to some prior research a few methods exist, though the most common method is to soak the beans over night. I have done just that. They have been soaking for more than 12 hours now and they are still quite hard. When I began soaking them I used boiled water from the kettle so that the process might be sped up.

Is there a better way to go about this?

Would adding an acid help to soften the beans?

Am I doing something wrong?

Soaking beans will not soften them.  If done for a very long time (i.e., days), some beans will eventually begin to sprout or ferment, at which point they will become softer.  But that is generally not desirable for basic cooking.

Instead, you'll need to cook the beans to get them to soften.  Bring to a slow boil and then simmer until the interior is the desired texture.  (A common test is to take a few beans out on a spoon and blow on them; if the outside of the bean breaks open a bit when you blow, they are likely soft and cooked through.)

By the way, the main purpose of soaking is to hydrate the seed coat (the outer covering of the beans).  Once that happens, the moisture can more easily penetrate the interior when cooked, allowing the beans to soften.  If you don't soak, you'll simply waste the first part of your cooking hydrating the seed coat.  Depending on the type of beans, their age, and other factors, that could increase your cooking time by anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour or so.  (For more details, see my previous answer to another question here.)

Also, do NOT try using an acid.  Acids can actually toughen the seed coat, making the beans take longer to cook and soften.  This is one of the reasons chili recipes (for example) often recommend cooking the beans first, before adding to acidic ingredients like tomatoes.

(Note that cooking times for beans and lentils can vary significantly, depending on type of bean and age.  For a mixed bean soup, I'd expect about 1-2 hours of simmering for pre-soaked beans, and perhaps as many as 3 hours.  Older beans can take longer, and I've occasionally had old batches of dried beans which never quite softened to a consistent texture.)

EDIT: Just to add onto Joe's great advice from the Dry Bean Council, Harold McGee has this to say about beans which never soften (from On Food and Cooking):

  "Hard-to-cook" beans... are normal when harvested, but become resistant
  to softening when they're stored for a long time -- months -- at warm
  temperatures and high humidities.  This resistance results from a
  number of changes in bean cell walls and interiors, including the
  formation of woody lignin, the conversion of phenolic compounds into
  tannins that cross-link proteins to form a water-resistant coating
  around the starch granules.  There's no way to reverse these changes
  and make hard-to-cook beans as soft as regular beans.  And there's no
  way to spot them before cooking.  Once cooked, they're likely to be
  smaller than normal and so may be picked out before serving.

McGee also mentions that occasionally you may encounter batches of "hard-seed" beans, which hardened during particularly hot and humid growing conditions.  In such cases, the beans will be tough no matter how early they are used; they may take much longer to cook than usual (and sometimes may never soften).


Could I get sick from accidentally cooking an olive can metal lid in my spaghetti sauce? I accidentally cooked a metal lid from an olive can in my spaghetti, but didn't find it until everyone had already eaten. Could my family get sick from it?

Very unlikely.

Cans are made from either steel (uncritical) or aluminum (dito), covered with a thin layer of tin (dito) or epoxy coating. These materials are explicitly choosen because they are food-safe1, even at higher temperatures than you use with home cooking: Tin cans are sterilized after filling to make the food inside shelf-stable.

So the only way where non-foodsafe components might be introduced would be any printing/laquer/paint, which is typically on the side of the can, not on the lid.

1
The epoxy in the cans may contain Bisphenol-A, which acts as endocrine disruptor (influences the hormone system) and is banned for baby bottles in some countries, e.g. all the EU. The FDA considers its use for food packaging safe.


How can I cover an egg-washed dough? I'm working from a bread recipe that tells me to brush the dough with egg wash before the final rising and then let rise, covered, until doubled in volume. How can I do that without the cover sticking to the dough when I try to remove it? Right now I have an aluminum foil tent over it, but I'm guessing there's a better way.

I'm assuming the shaped dough is either on a flat surface or in a bread pan of some sort?

In a pinch, the simplest thing is often an inverted large bowl or similar container.  That will prevent air circulation.  In general, dough is mostly covered during the final rise to prevent a "skin" forming if the outer layer of the dough dries out.  (A skin can be a hindrance to a complete rise and/or impede oven spring, not to mention potentially changing the texture of the final crust of the bread.)  With the combination of an egg wash (which already moistens the dough) and a bowl or other container inverted to prevent air circulation, that's probably enough to prevent the exterior from drying out too much.

If you're still concerned about keeping the exterior moist, the next level is to use a larger inverted bowl or container that's big enough to allow a small cup of hot water to sit beside the dough underneath it.  Unless it's a very long rise, the initial heat from the cup will humidify the air and prevent the surface of the dough from drying out.  (For longer rises or in a cold kitchen, you can refresh the cup with more hot water periodically.)  Another option I've heard that some people use is to put the dough and the hot cup of water in a microwave and shut the door.  The microwave isn't turned on; it's just used as a relatively small somewhat sealed area.  You don't usually need something perfectly sealed or that fits the dough precisely -- as long as you prevent a lot of air flow around the dough, it's often enough to prevent a skin from forming.

The cup of hot water step probably isn't necessary when using an egg wash, but it's a way to keep dough from drying out in general, simulating a "proofing box" as used by professional bakers.  (Professional proofing boxes usually have more precise temperature and humidity control, however.)  After doing these sorts of tricks for a couple years, I eventually cut the top flaps off a larger cardboard box, taped up the bottom to seal it, and used that as an inverted makeshift "proofing box" which was big enough for a few loaves.  You could also buy a larger plastic bin or something for this purpose.  If you do things like this often, it may become worthwhile to invest in a small electric proofing box that allows you to control temperature more precisely.  (I was given one as a gift one year, so that's what I now use for this purpose.)


I added yeast to a recipe calling for baking soda, what will happen? I have added yeast to a recipe that also calls for baking soda and baking powder. I am curious what will happen to the bread?

I combined a bread maker recipe with a gluten free walnut cranberry rolls. I just took them out of the oven and although they look good they didn't rise much. I mixed the gluten free with yeast as instructed but was dry so I opened up recipe from my bread maker which called for baking soda and baking powder.

Yeast is a levening agent that needs some time to do its job. It eats sugar and makes CO2 gas to ride your bread.

Baking soda and baking powder are chemical levening agents. They'll make your bread rise while its baking.

If you out in yeast as well as BP and/or BS, and you bake it right away, probably nothin will happen and it will be a bit more nutritive, if you wait, you might find yourself with a handful of a mess when it rises way too much.


What is ground beef? I keep hearing about Ground Beef, but I'm from Australia and I've never actually seen it before.

Is it the same thing as Minced Beef? Or different? Is Minced beef an acceptible substitute if they're not the same thing?

Here's a picture of some raw ground beef from the Wikipedia ground beef article so that you can see for yourself.  Basically it is beef that has been run through a meat grinder, great for making taco meat, hamburgers, and the like.


Doubling ingredients on panettone cake The recipe below makes a small panettone cake. I would like to make a cake twice the size, is it ok to just double all the ingredients?

Yeast                 1⁄2 tsp
Strong White Flour    300 g (11 oz)
Sugar                 2 tbsp
Butter                15 g (1⁄2 oz)
Salt                  1⁄4 tsp
Ground Cardamom       1⁄2 tsp
Grated Lemon Zest     1
Medium Sized Egg yolk 1
Milk                  140 ml
*Mixed Peel           50 g (2 oz)
*Raisins              100 g (4 oz)

I have made larger cakes by doubling the recipe with no problem. Often when changing a recipe, the ratio of dry ingredients to wet can change, but it will remain the same with simple doubling.

However, do NOT double the cooking time. It's going to cook for longer, but not nearly twice as long. After the regular time, start checking it with a cake tester or toothpick to see if it's completely cooked.


Why does flatbread have to be microwaved / cooked / toasted? I was eating at a Subway restaurant the other day and they asked if I would like my flatbread toasted... I responded with a "No thanks."

They said, "Well technically the flatbread still HAS to be toasted, so would you like the meat toasted ?"

In confusion, I asked, "Why? I would prefer it un-toasted."

They said, "We are required to toast all flatbread, as it releases some chemical... or something."

Can anyone clear up what they may be referring to?  Does flatbread (non-homemade) HAVE to be toasted / cooked / microwaved ?

Edit:

  Ingredients: Enriched flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine
  mononitrate (vitamin B1), riboflavin (vitamin B2), folic acid, malted
  barley flour), water, soybean oil, yeast, contains 2% or less of
  nonfat dry milk, salt, wheat gluten, sugar, dough conditioner (acacia
  gum, guar gum, ascorbic acid, L- cysteine, enzymes), calcium
  propionate, baking powder (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium
  bicarbonate, corn starch, monocalcium phosphate), and sodium stearoyl
  lactylate.

Most likely the flatbread is not very pliable when cold. I believe that Subway forces the heating of the flatbread to keep it from splitting when they fold it.


at what temperature should apple-choco pie be prepared? I have done this in the past but didn't really get the pie to turn out like I expect. I am wondering if I am not cooking it at the correct temperature since all the other aspects of the apple-choco pie recipe have been followed.

Here is the recipe:
ingredients

  For the chocolate pastry:
  3/4 cup plain wheat flour (maida)
  3 tbsp cocoa powder
  5 tbsp powdered sugar
  4 tbsp butter/ghee

  For the filling:
  2 apples chopped in small pieces
  2 tbsp brown sugar
  2 tbsp chopped nuts (walnut, cashew)

  Make the pastry:
  mix all the ingredients in a bowl and add the butter into the flour, till it resembles bread crumbs. Add 1 tablespoon of cold water to gently knead it into a firm dough. Refrigerate for 15 minutes. Roll out 2/3 of the dough into a circle. Prick with fork at regular intervals and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Bake it in a pre-heated oven at 300°F for 15 minutes.

  Make the filling:
  mix the apple(chopped), sugar, walnuts & keep aside.

  Place the filling on the half baked chocolate pastry and sprinkle the sugar mixture on top. Cover with the remaining rolled out chocolate pastry and seal the edges.  Prick the top of the pie with a fork at regular intervals. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 300°F until
  golden brown.

But it still didn't have the taste I wanted. In fact, it wasn't baked properly. What mistakes were there that resulted in the base of the pie being sticky?

What other fruit can I use instead of apples, other than dry fruits? Which tastes better than apples?

The pre-baking of the pastry is missing a "how to tell when it's done" instruction. My guess is there's a good chance you didn't bake it long enough. In general, when pre-baking plain pie crusts, you're aiming for golden brown. It's a bit harder to tell when it's got the brown from the chocolate in it, but if you look closely you should still be able to see the change in color. It should also just look cooked - a bit of texture develops on the surface and it appears to have dried out. As SAJ14SAJ suggests, you also normally pre-bake crusts with weights in them to keep them from bubbling too much. (This is also why you poke holes.) A common method is to cover with a piece of foil, then fill with dry beans.

As for temperature, in my experience, pie crusts are generally pre-baked at 350°F. But the important thing is to check and know when it's done.

Now, baking the filled pie. This is the weird thing - usually apple pies don't use pre-baked crusts, because it takes more like an hour to fully cook the apples til they're soft. Maybe you didn't like the apples because they were still crunchy and a bit raw, and the flavor hadn't smoothed out with the nuts and sugar? If that's the case, you may want to skip pre-baking the crust, and instead fill and cover the pie and bake it all together, for 45 minutes to an hour. If the crust browns too much, you can loosely cover it with foil.

If on the other hand, you like the apples like that, or the quantity of apples is sufficiently small that they're actually cooking fully, then sure, stick to the recipe. (You could increase the temperature to 350°F here too, but that'll mean the crust is done when the apples are even less done.) If you've properly pre-baked the crust, you shouldn't have problems with the bottom of the pie being undercooked.


Why do some meats get tougher with higher temperatures, while others become more tender? I am looking for example at a sous vide recipe for goat on the joule app. The tenderness seems to increase with the temperature, while with beef steak it's the other way around. Is that true and why is that? Which meats get more tender with higher temperature, and which get firmer?

This is a product of the cut more than of the animal. You're comparing shank with steak, which are two very different cuts.  In general, to get a tender cut with high temperature cooking you want a cut with lots of fat and connective tissue to render.  Leaner cuts will become dry and tough.

The shank is a cut you could also get from a cow, so you could just as easily be working with beef (or veal) shank, in which case you would follow the same principle of higher temp = more tender.  This is due to the large amount of connective tissue (and fat, to a lesser extent) in the shank, as well as the fact that its a harder working part of the animal.  Cooking to a high temperature breaks down the connective tissue in the meat, leading to a moister, more tender finish.

A steak, however, has less connective tissue, so overcooking it just makes it dry and tough.  You don't necessarily want it too rare though-- while for leaner steaks many people would say the rarer the better, for very heavily marbled and fatty cuts (like ribeyes) leaving them too rare fails to render the fat, which remains in tough, white streaks and interferes with the texture of the steak.  It should be noted that you could theoretically get a goat steak and the same principles that apply to beef would apply to it as well.


what is a good liquid to replace tequila with? I'm looking to try a marinade recipe I found recently that calls for tequila. However one of my friends is unable to consume alcohol. What would be a good flavorful liquid to use? I'm looking for a flavor that is fairly similar or at least somewhat close.

Here's the recipe I'm looking to make courtesy of Alton Brown

Ingredients

3 cloves garlic
1 cup packed cilantro leaves
2 limes, zested
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup tequila
1 pound tilapia fillets
1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions

Put the garlic, cilantro, lime zest, cumin, salt, and pepper in a small food processor bowl and pulse until combined, approximately 20 seconds. With the processor running, add the tequila. Put the tilapia fillets into a 1 gallon resealable bag, add the garlic mixture and move around to coat each fillet. Set aside at room temperature for 15 to 20 minutes.

Heat an electric nonstick griddle to 375 degrees F.

Brush the griddle with the olive oil. Cook the fillets until just cooked through and opaque about 3 to 4 minutes per side. Cut into strips and serve in warm tortillas with crema, shredded red cabbage and lime wedges.

The tequila probably plays two roles in the recipe: as flavor and as a solvent.  The alcohol in the tequila will dissolve certain components in spices that water or oil do not. On the flavor side, tequila is basically a floral smell, so (and sniff together before you say no) why not try rose essence and honey with maybe a tiny bit of some cinnamon.  You can find cooking rose water in ethnic food stores.  It is used in Persian and Indian cooking.


Is it safe to bake dough in a microwave? I heard that meat isn't safe to bake or grill in a microwave because there may be tiny areas that contain less moisture and hence not cooked through as microwave cooks moving water molecules.

So what about baking a pie?  Is it the same?  I tried to bake something in a microwave actually, but I put a large amount of water (as for pancakes) so it would become very hot.

But what about thicker dough like people usually use for pie or bread? Are there any government food safety recommendations about that?

(I'm not concerned about whether this is a good way to make a pie, or bread, just the potential food safety aspect.)

First of all, just about any food of reasonable size is safe to be cooked in a microwave, assuming you do it correctly.

  I heard that meat isn't safe to bake or grill in microwave because
  there may be tiny areas that contain less moisture and hence not
  cooked though as microwave cooks moving water molecules.

I'm not sure what the source is for this, but it's not true in general.  One can't really "grill" meat in a microwave, but one can bake/roast it.  It's true that microwaves heat unevenly, so for thick cuts, that means cooking using a lower power level and/or cooking in stages.  Most microwaves with lower power settings actually just cycle on and off, which allows the heat already present in the food to distribute itself farther inside.  It's not unlike the process by which you roast meat in an oven: the outside heats faster, but the interior has no direct contact with the hot air, so you depend on the fact that the heat will gradually be conducted throughout the food.  Microwaves instead target water molecules (as you note), but with periodic heating and enough time, the hot parts of the food will heat up the rest.

(If there is one thing to note about microwaves, it's that people tend to just use them on high heat, expecting them to cook faster.  If you want to cook a large cut of meat, you need to allow time to distribute the heat while cooking, which means you can't cook very fast or you'll dry out some parts completely before the rest gets done.  Perhaps that's where you've heard about the "safety" issue -- people who have used microwaves incorrectly to try to cook large pieces of meat too quickly and ended up with parts that were still raw.  Like any cooking tool, microwaves need to be used correctly for different applications.)

Anyhow, to the question about baking: yes, microwaves can be used safely for baking too.  Browning is harder to achieve in microwaves (though it can be done in some limited ways, and there are gadgets to enhance it somewhat).  Pies baked in microwaves generally will bake the crust first for a few minutes before adding filling to ensure the crust bakes better.  It won't brown much and likely won't have a very nice crust texture (particularly if you like "flaky"), but it's perfect safe.  The results overall will vary based on the type of pie (though reading a bit online seems to indicate that custard pies are often a good candidate for microwaving).

As for bread, again, it's perfectly safe, and there seem to be several online recipes for it.  Again, you won't get much of a crust or browning, but if you don't like a dry crust on your bread, it might actually be an okay option.  Typically, you should get a result closer to a "steamed bread" rather than a crusty bread, which might be feasible for some types of bread.  (Cakes are often a better option for baking in the microwave, as they often don't require browning or crust development for good results.)

In general, it's perfectly safe to bake dough in the microwave as long as your final result is done all the way through.  I'd do a search for some recipes with good reviews or from a reputable source before trying them, though, since a lot of baked goods made this way tend to be inferior to those made in a more conventional oven.

EDIT: While the question asked about food safety, I found some general guidelines on baking in the microwave that may address the quality issues that came up in comments.  For bread:

  Select whole grains or products finished with a topping or icing as microwaving does not brown the bread crust.
  Microwave yeast breads at 50% power and rotate at least once.
  Reduce baking powder by at least one fourth in coffee cakes.
  Use extra shortening in yeast and quick bread to prevent toughness and dryness – 1/4 cup shortening per 2 1/2–3 cups flour in yeast bread
  and 1–2 Tablespoons of shortening for every cup of flour in muffins
  and coffee  cakes.
  Decrease liquid in dense quick bread batters or very liquid batters. Additional egg can be used as a binder in  very liquid
  batters.
  Bread must be heated uncovered to avoid sogginess.

For pies, the document notes that "fruit pies will become soggy" by the time they bake completely and:

  Double crusted pies cannot be made in the microwave as the bottom
  crust becomes soggy and the top does not  brown. Microwaved pies need
  to be prepared in a precooked shell and topped with a crumb rather
  than a crust.


Why does rice expand by more than the liquid volume it's cooked in? Does air get trapped or sucked into the rice during cooking?

Starch is composed of two polymers (linked chains) of glucose (sugar): Amylopectin and Amylose. Amylopectin is a branched and much larger molecule than Amylose.

Starch molecules in a grain of rice are actually arranged in a semi-crystalline state. The granules are about 2μm in size in rice (different plants have different granule sizes).

Starch becomes soluble in water when heated. The granules swell and burst, the semi-crystalline state is lost, and the smaller amylose molecules leach out and form a network that holds water. Although the network of molecules holds water, it will of course have a larger volume than the volume of neatly-aligned molecules plus water. This process is called gelatinization.

So you can imagine that in a dry rice grain, the strands of starch are like the fairly neatly stacked threads in my T-shirt, some shorter, some longer branched nets. As you heat it, the threads get moving and tangled up, absorbing the water, but also expanding even more in size like that big mess of lint in my clothes drier.

A similar process happens with popping corn, except the water is contained in the kernel of corn and not added. It's quite apparent to see how much larger the volume of a bowl of popped corn is compared to the small package of unpopped corn with water inside.


Does anybody recognize this Finnish dill sauce? My husband brought back a homemade sour cream dill sauce from Finland. It was thick, perhaps with a puréed vegetable, but I couldn't taste cucumber or the like. There is definitely some texture there. Any suggestions?

A very common fish condiment in Sweden is "dillsås", dill sauce.

10 oz gräddfil. A light sour cream. (yoghurt?)
A few tablespoons of mayo
A generous amount of chopped dill.
Season with salt and white pepper to taste.

You can add some mustard and lemon if the mayo is bland.

The taste is smooth and quite neutral with the dill as the lead actor.

A note on the sour cream. It can't be a thick, heavy consistency. It should be quite light and slightly uneven in texture (whisking makes it smooth). It is almost yoghurt like and contains about 10% fat.  I have seen suggestions that low fat sour cream can be quite similar. I get the impression IKEA stocks it globally.

It should look something like

Image from http://chezsofia.bloggsida.se/2009/08/dillsas-till-saftiga-grillspett/.


Is it safe to prepare a crock pot recipe the night before? I'm looking at slow cooking a beef stew on a workday. The stew includes raw beef.

Recipe: http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/14685/slow-cooker-beef-stew-i/

Is it safe to combine the ingredients the night before, refridgerating the crock overnight, then cooking it in the morning?

Assuming it's a proper removable (some old ones weren't) inner crock pot you could (as in your other answer).

BUT

That pot will take a long time to warm up when you put it in and turn it on.  I would suggest assembling all the ingredients in another container (which may also fit better in the fridge) and turning them out in to the (ideally preheated) crock pot in the morning.  Otherwise you will probably need to add some time even on top of the extra time for starting all ingredients at fridge temperature.

This is roughly what the manual for our previous slow cooker recommended.  Our new one is a non-stick steel inner pot (for easy browning) and will warm up much faster - there's no  recommendation to preheat this model.


How should I modify my vanilla frosting to convert it into a chocolate frosting? I have a really good recipe for whipped vanilla frosting that I want to use, but I want to make a chocolate frosting.  What kind of chocolate should I add to the frosting to make it a chocolate frosting? How much should I add? Should I reduce the amount of vanilla in the recipe or keep it the same?

Whatever your type frosting is, ie Italian meringue or confectioners' frosting, you can simply add enough (cooled) melted chocolate or cocoa powder (sifted to remove lumps) until it tastes good to you. Since neither cocoa powder nor melted chocolate will curdle the frosting it is simply a matter of taste. However, if you are going to refrigerate the frosting, remember that the chocolate will solidify and thus your frosting will become firmer.

For some rough guidelines I recommend  1/4 cup cocoa powder for every 2 cups of frosting and 3 ounces melted chocolate for every cup of frosting.

Use a good quality dark chocolate, with a high proportion of cocoa solids, for a strong chocolatey taste. Or, if you don't like dark chocolate, use a half and half mixture of milk and dark chocolate.


How do I drain sauerkraut? One of my favorite sandwiches is the Reuben. One problem I tend to have when making this at home is the sandwich is damp from the sauerkraut.

I buy sauerkraut from the store. Before putting it on the sandwich, I put a little bit of sauerkraut in a small strainer and push on it with a fork. I mix it up and keep pushing until I hit diminishing returns on time spent v. liquid removed.

However, my sandwiches still are damp from sauerkraut juice, and have liquid running down the sides and making the bread soggy. It appears I am not removing enough liquid. I would rather not spend an hour squeezing the liquid out.

Is there a better way of draining the liquid from sauerkraut than the method I describe above?

At every restaurant I've ever worked at we warmed the sauerkraut on the griddle while the bread and meat were grilling. This evaporated much of the moisture in addition to making sure the sauerkraut was warm enough to not make the sandwich cold.

So we'd have the sandwich warming up open faced, cheese on each face. Then meat and sauerkraut would be warming individually. Once the bread was crisp and the meat/sauerkraut were warmed up you'd place the meat one piece of grilled bread, then the sauerkraut, then you'd squeeze on either mustard, thousand or Russian dressing and then top with the other piece of bread.


Which parts of fresh Fenugreek am I supposed to throw off before attempting to dry them out completely? The fresh Fenugreek which I bought contains:
- long stems
- green leaves
- yellow leaves

I wish to know what parts of fresh Fenugreek am I supposed to throw off before attempting to place them drying out completely?

I would just pull off all the little stems with leaves on them off the big main stem and leave it at that.

You can remove the yellow leaves if you wish, but there's no harm in leaving them on. I presume once dry you will crush all the leaves and small stems for storage, so leaving the yellow leaves on will not make any difference.

Removing the big main stem will simply help speed up the drying time.

For convenience of moving and turning you can leave them complete, but you should remove the smaller stems with leaves once they're dry, the large stem doesn't generally get used.


Is it normal for the Chickpeas to develop white froth after being soaked for 12 hours? Yesterday at 08:00 I had soaked white Chickpeas in water and left the container in the kitchen. Daytime temperature here is 44C.

At 20:00 the same day I saw the container covered by white froth. Is it normal for the Chickpeas to develop white froth or was it caused by the heat?

Not sure if that's edible.

Yes, it is normal for pulses to develop froth when soaked. I've seen it at lower temperatures and shorter soaking times. They can feel slimy too. This isn't a sign of bacteria development in itself. Chickpeas, as well as other legumes, contain lots of saponins. Saponins are a type of detergent, and they form a foam when dissolved in water. An example is found in Saponin content of food plants and some prepared foods by D. Fenwick and D. Oakenfull, published in Journal of the science of food and agriculture, vol. 34-2 (no free version available). Chickpeas, soy, lucerne, and other legumes all had significant amounts of saponin, 56 g/kg in the case of chickpeas.
Note that soaking dissolves also lots of other molecules contained in the beans. Some recommend to soak and throw out the soaking water in order to remove the oligosaccharides contained in most legumes, because bacteria breaking down these indigestible sugars produce gases as a side product, which is felt as bloating. McGee reminds us that this soaking also dissolves many of the micronutrients contained in the beans, and advises against the practice. If the beans are soaked (for shortened cooking times), the soaked water should be used for cooking. If the eaters experience bloating, the beans should be cooked for a longer time, to give oligosaccharides time to break down under temperature.
This is in the general case, but now a note on your current situation.
The conditions of your chickpea soaking were risky. Your chickpeas can have developed bacteria independently of the froth. In temperate regions, soakers aren't a problem, because bacteria growth in them is not especially quick (the 2 hours rule is short enough to cover things like meat, and a soaker doesn't even have enough hydrated bacteria food initially). But I have noticed that food I would have had no problem with at 22°C goes bad in short time at 28°C. The relationship between bacteria growth and temperature is not linear, and with growing heat, bacteria growth can speed up a lot. So I don't know if I would eat the peas - not because of the froth, but because of the conditions you had them in. I would recommend that you soak in the fridge next time - you don't need any fermentation to take place, so the low temperatures aren't a problem.


Sushi rice should be transparent when cooked? How in the following picture the sushi rice is transparent, and when I made home sushi rice, it would white as snow ?

I soak rice in water for 2 hours.
And by the way, why sometimes even with a good knife, when I cut a sushi roll, the inside ingredients start to fall off and got a bad shape sushi pieces ?
And why sometimes ingredients on top of rice do not stick to it (like mangos or avocado ) ? Is it the rice ? Or some ingredients are making the nori wet.

Many questions here!!!

Sushi is simple but very difficult to do properly.

The rice is not transparent; it is only "shiny" (probably doctored for the picture). (well, maybe it is transparent and I have not seen it! :-) )

When you prepare you rice, do you add sugar and rice vinegar ? this will make the rice sticky and lump together so that the rolls do not crumble away.
When you roll the rolls, do you apply enough pressure to make a solid roll ?
Also, use a sharp and wet/humid knife to cut the rolls and do it in a single stroke (no see-saw movements).

Damp nori gets a little bit sticky; by applying a thin slice of mange or avocado, it should be enough to stick to the nori; also you can use the rolling mat to help "squeeze" the mango or avocado to the nori.


How to clean a big butcher block? I've seen huge butchers blocks that essentially is a table with a butcher block top. How do you clean such a thing if you can't wash it in the sink? Should those blocks only be used for vegetables and not meat because it can get messy and hard to clean (oil and 'juices')?

You can certainly cut meat on these, I have a large end-grain cutting board that is too large to wash conveniently in my sink.

There are a number of methods to clean them:

Soap and Water

Soap and hot water are best for regular cleaning. Just get a rag or brush and scrub it. Dish soap is just fine for this use. Make sure to rinse and dry it thoroughly.

Vinegar

If you don't mind the smell you can use undiluted white vinegar to clean and sanitize your surface. If you keep some in a spray bottle you can just spray it down and wipe it with a paper towel. If you have a big oily mess, I'd suggest starting with the soap & water method, and finishing up with vinegar.

Vinegar is apparently very effective at killing microbes, surprisingly more effective than harsher quaternary ammonium solutions.

Bleach

A little goes a long way with this. You only need a teaspoon or two for a quart of water. Just spray it down thoroughly, let stand 5 minutes. Finish with rinsing and drying. Like vinegar this is best as a followup to soap & water for a really messy board.

Lemon

If you have strong garlic, onion, fish, or other smells in your butcher block you can cut a lemon in half and rub the board down with the halves. Lemon juice is a weak antiseptic, so this should be used primarily for odor control and not as a sanitization substitute.

Note that regular cleaning also requires regular seasoning of your block surface. You should oil your board/block once a week, or more with frequent use.

See also:

http://whatscookingamerica.net/CuttingBoards/AllAbout.htm


Adding spiciness to indian curry at the end of cooking When making Indian curries, I usually lightly fry the spices (cumin, coriander, turmeric, and kashmiri chili powder), as most recipes state that this is needed to get rid of the "raw" taste. Sometimes though, towards the end of cooking after I added salt, I want to make the dish more spicy. Is it OK to simply add chili powder? Two possible objections to this are

1) The chili powder won't lose its raw taste since its not fried.

2) The chili powder won't dissolve in the curry, as this takes more time.

Is any of these true? And if so, is there any other way to make the dish more spicy without continued cooking? How does adding chili powder compare to adding green chili paste? And is it possible to add other spices besides chili powder (for example to add cumin powder to get a stronger cumin taste)?

You probably can't fix the sauce, but the common ways to add heat/spice/flavor to a S. Asian dish after it's cooked are to mix in a tempering oil and to use spicy pickles. The former's easy -- heat up oil and spices in a pan until fragrant, then stir into the dish. You're cooking the spices at the temperature of the hot oil, which is much higher than the temperature a water-based sauce can attain. The latter's easy too -- buy some nice spicy lime pickle at the Indian grocery store!


How do I get paper-skin duck breast? I want to make Cantonese-style roasted duck but a whole-duck is too much for me and I have only a small oven so I want to try using the thigh or breast only.

My problem is I can't make the layer of fat underneath the skin melt down. With a
whole-duck recipe you roast the duck at medium-high temp for 2-4 hours,
but because I use only part of the duck, if I do that the meat-side will dry out.

Here is what I tried:

Using fingers, separate skin and meat (still intact end-part), stripes diamond pattern
Brine duck part for 1-2 hour (with salt, sugar, water, soy sauce, ginger, garlic)
Boil water with distilled vinegar, honey, red coloring then pour over skin-side, skin tighten up
Rub with baking powder, uncover in fridge to dry the skin
I tried this step two ways:

first time I roasted with convection oven 140 c, still fatty skin
second,used aluminum foil wrapped all over meat-part, uncover the skin-part in fridge 48 hours, roasted, not better than first one, skin still thick but cracking (skin too dry?)

How can I get the skin to be thin and the fat to melt?

The secret is in varying the temperature. Toss the pieces in baking powder or corn starch and fine salt, with or without other dry seasonings. In a non-convection oven, bake first at 120°C/250°F for 30 minutes to melt the fat and thin the skin layer, then at 220°C/425°F for 40 to 45 minutes to "crispy it up."


Could Someone Please Help me to Identify What Type of Squash This One Is? So I can try and plan out some recipes using it..
Thanks in advance!
:D

It appears to be a Cocozelle Green Striped Summer Squash, a type of zucchini.


When cooking steak should the fat inside be cooked? I think that I've undercooked my steak... There are little lumps of fat inside the steak. Should these be melted into the steak? Or is it OK if it's still white?

I use cast iron pan on a regular electric stove.

If there really is fat inside the steak, it is terribly undercooked. But this is unlikely to happen.

Animal fat is a saturated fat which melts somewhere around 35°C. If your steak hasn't reached 35°C internal temperature, it will be very visibly raw on the inside, with no apparent difference from the cold steak from the fridge. It will still be oozing blood-like liquid even after resting for over 10 minutes, and the liquid will be thicker than the juices of cooked steak. It will be deep red and slimy, and cold to the touch. Even the rarest steak you can buy is taken above 40°C.

But not everything white inside meat is fat. Connective tissue/fascia are white too. They are not really lump-shaped, but I don't know how precise your description is. Try cutting through one of the lumps. If it is tough and rubberlike, it is connective tissue (and if there is lots of it, your meat is not meant for roasting, but for a slow cooking method). If the knife goes easier through the lump than through the meat, it is fat, and your cooking method is seriously wrong.

In any case, the best way to know when steak is done is to use a meat thermometer. Stop when it shows around 61°C, the remaining heat transfer after removing from the heat will give you a medium steak.


Why should I soak beans before cooking? Every recipe says I should soak beans in water overnight before cooking. Why?

I did some experiments. I have tried soaked and unsoaked beans from the same batch. There was no difference in cooking time, taste, structure or color. Even farts were the same!

Also, one time I read an interview with a cook that makes famous bean soup and he confirmed my findings. He said that he also experimented and he doesn't find a difference.

So what is the reason for soaking beans before cooking? What does it change?

One reason is to remove some of the indigestible complex sugars that cause gas.

Another reason is that beans are dirty, so you're just cleaning them with the soaking. If the recipe wants the beans to be cooked in the water used for soaking, the washing needs to be done before the soaking.

On top of that the soaking can reduce cooking time considerably, which might be the biggest advantage.


Cold Smoking in the Tropics - Condensation I am determined to find a way to cold smoke in the tropics.  The obvious problems we face here are a high outside air temperature (avg. 35° C) and high humidity (at times 85%)  In order to get around this I have had the idea to channel the smoke through a functioning freezer which I redesigned with copper tubing on the inner walls to cool the chamber.

This will lead to a large amount of condensation collecting within the chamber, effectively dehumidifying the air.

My question is: Will this condensation collect on the meat or will it only collect on the copper pipes and walls of the inner chamber?

Condensation occurs when the temperature of humid air drops below its "dew point". In other words, at ambient temperature (35° C), the amount of water in the air is 85% of what the air can hold. But the air near the copper will be quite a bit cooler, enough to make that, enough to rise the relative humidity to 100%.

So with that rough sketch in mind, back to your meat. While the condensation is collection on your copper because the copper is cool, your meat should be warm throughout the duration of the smoke--about the same temperature as the air in fact--which would not cause the humid air to condense on it.


Why can't you reheat pasta in a microwave, grill, or wok? I understand that to reheat pasta it must be done by boiling in water. Why must this be the case?

Why can't you just microwave it, stir fry, or even quickly grill it?

If you're going to reheat pasta, microwaving is a good way. Adding a few drops of water and covering helps the texture if it doesn't have sauce already on it.

You can actually do something close to a stir fry - heat some oil and use it to cook tasty ingredients (onions, garlic, herbs, spices) and then stir in the pasta (and things like olives or sweetcorn that might want heating but don't need cooking) over a gentle heat until hot enough to serve.

Grilling is less good, but still not impossible for some dishes. For bare pasta it will dry out it, but immerse in sauce and top with cheese and you can get something nice. Strictly speaking the grill doesn't do the reheating, the (hot) sauce does - a grill would burn the top before the bottom is hot.


Does liver reheat well? I have a large chunk of beef liver, too much to eat in one sitting. I would prefer to cook it all up at once, but would it be palatable reheated? Would it be ok cold?

So this turned out to be delicious. First, slice the cold, cooked liver into strips approximately 1/4 inch thick, then cut strips into bite sized bits, and set aside.  The liver needs to reach room temperature. I then cooked a serving of rice in beef broth instead of water, with the lid off.  In a pan I sautéed onions, bell pepper and carrot in olive oil, all cut fairly small. Once the onion was translucent I added about a 1/4 cup of merlot and let it cook from a few minutes.  I then combined the rice and the onion mixture, covered, and simmered until the rice was cooked.  The I carefully added the liver on top of the rice(do not stir it in) and steamed the liver for a minute and a half.  I removed the mixture from the heat and stirred the. I let it rest for a few minutes.  The liver was still tender and moist.  I will definitely try this again.


What cheeses work well for pizza that will be refrigerated and reheated? I make pizza pretty frequently, and I always have leftovers. I have a few go-to crust recipes that reheat well after being refrigerated, but I'm never happy with the cheese upon reheating. Usually I use freshly grated, part-skim, grocery store mozzarella and the leftover pizza never gets good and melty again. What other cheeses might give me better results when I reheat the pizza after a day or two in the fridge? I'm open to outside-the-box choices; I can tweak the other ingredients to complement the cheese. What I am looking for is a texture in the reheated pizza that is as pleasant (although, not necessarily the same) as it was fresh from the oven.

It isn't a perfect match for the flavor and texture of regular pizza cheese, but soy cheese (Daiya mozzarella shreds, specifically) reheats beautifully and is even good cold. We switched cheeses because of a dairy intolerance, but found the storage properties to be a great side benefit.

It does end up being a noticeable change to a pizza's flavor profile, but may be less of an impact if there are lots of other toppings on your pizza. If you find the flavor and texture of the Daiya cheese acceptable when the pizza is fresh, it will still taste the same when reheated.