Is there any way to make an egg pancake without sugar or white flour? I'm trying to figure out if there's a way to make a healthy breakfast pancake that I can put in a container and take to work with me.

Most pancakes need white flour and sugar; but is there something that can be made with oatmeal or something similar?  (Low-GI carbs basically)

You likely need to define 'egg pancake', because to me, it would seem that the ideal solution would be something without flour or sugar at all -- an omelette.

And there are many other similar items that could also qualify, if you want more than just eggs in there -- if you add potato, you can make the Jewish latkes (aka, 'potato pancakes') or Spanish tortilla de patatas.  If you used mashed potatoes and a little bit of a flour (not necessarily wheat), you could make French matafan (which looks more like an American pancake).

If you add shreaded vegetables, and mayme some sort of flour (again, not necessarily wheat), you can make the Japanese okonomiyaki or the Korean jeon.

If you use cornmeal instead of wheat flour, you can make the New England (likely Native American in origin) jonnycakes -- some recipes call for sugar and/or some wheat flour, but there are plenty that don't.

If you're really set on using oats, then look for recipes for Scottish oatcakes (again, some recipes call for sugar and flour, but not all).  Although they're cooked like a pancake (or 'drop scone' for the Brits), they come out more cookie-like in texture.  (or biscuit-like for the Brits).

update : I should've also mentioned that many of the items that I've listed are can be served at room temp, which makes them ideal for transporting ... and while adding this, I remembered that you said 'slow carbs' ... so the potato-based ones are out.  The tortilla de patatas or the matafan could likely be made with sweet potatoes instead.  For the latkes, I'd specifically look for a recipe that calls for sweet potato, rather than trying to adapt it on your own.  And for those without the potato restriction, there's also German potato pancakes (which can be similar to latkes)


What olive is a good taste substitute for Kalamata? I am aware that wikipedia has a nice list of olive varieties including tastes (sometimes). However, I'd prefer a considered answer, so this is the place.

I'm looking to substitute based on taste, not looks, as my local supermarket has messed with its Kalamatas and I don't find them nice anymore.

Googling indicates Gaeta, Amphissa, Nicoise, but it's an ambiguous mess.

I use a vinegar + brine-cured variant. What is the closest taste approximation?

Flavor-wise Nicoise and Kalamatas are somewhat close, probably the closest most readily accesible substitute for most people.


How do I make 1/3 cup liquid glucose for toffee apple recipe? I'm about to make Toffee Apples for the kids and have chosen this recipe:
https://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipes/toffee-apples-recipe/22mx42pc
I don't have or can buy the liquid glucose.
How can I make ⅓ cup?

The purpose of the glucose is to make the caramel more stable. Glucose contains sugars that do not crystallise as easily as regular granulated sugar, so adding it will make it less likely that the caramel will fail. Making glucose at home is not really possible: you need a small chemistry lab to pull it off (you can hydrolyse corn starch with sulphuric acid to get glucose syrup). Instead, you can substitute the glucose with another sugar that also doesn't crystallise easily. Which one is available to you depends on your location, but golden syrup, corn syrup, or light molasses would all serve the same purpose as the glucose.


What is ideal temperature for baking cupcakes? I baked two batches of cupcakes at 180˚C but both collapsed in the middle. I guessed I must have used a little extra baking soda in the first batch so I used lesser amount of baking soda and baking powder in the second batch. The cakes rose nicely for first few minutes (I watched through the glass door of the oven without opening it) and then collapsed in the middle finally resulting in hard on the outside, sticky in the inside mess.

Recipe: Adapted from an eggless cake recipe.

Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 1 cup granulated sugar; 1 cup flour; ¼ cup milk; ½ teaspoon vanilla essence; 2 teaspoons cocoa; ¼ teaspoon baking powder; ½ teaspoon baking soda.
Process: I cream the butter and sugar together and then add milk and vanilla essence. I then mix dry ingredients and fold them lightly in the batter. Then bake them in cupcake moulds at 180˚C (356°F).

The most common reason for cupcakes to sink is an oven temperature that is too high. 180C is equivalent to 356F. Most recipes in the US for cupcakes call for an oven temperature of 350F. 180 and 350 are just round numbers signifying a moderate oven. Cupcakes are picky though, a very slight difference in temperature can make a big difference in the final cupcake. So try dropping your temperature a bit, and be sure to use an oven thermometer.

Opening the door during baking can cause sinking, so don't do that! (I see that you didn't, so that's one possibility down)

Use fresh baking powder. Baking powder that has been opened for just a matter of a few months starts losing effectiveness. Baking soda on the other hand, lasts pretty much forever if stored properly.

Are you by any chance using Dutch processed cocoa? If so, try adding a small amount (a quarter teaspoon or so) of white vinegar. Baking soda needs acid to work properly, and Dutch processed cocoa has been made nonacidic. Since your recipe also includes baking powder, that is unlikely to be the problem unless your baking powder is stale.

Finally, follow the recipe carefully regarding beating. Overbeating the batter can cause sinking.

That's the best answer I can give based on your limited information. We can help you narrow it down further if you give us every little bit of information you can.


What does "season it to taste" mean? I hear chefs like Gordon Ramsay say this and many, many others.

When a chef has boiled potatos or bacon or spinach...

Be it my family or Betty Crocker ...
What are the "seasons" they are talking about????

[Please note] I am not asking "How much" but "What is"

Add your preferred level of salt and pepper
Seasoning usually refers to salt and black pepper, but occasionally to other flavor-enhancing ingredients in the dish such as acid (vinegar, lemon, etc.) and heat (red pepper, sriracha, etc.). "To taste" means to the degree you enjoy it.


Is it normal that I keep burning my seasoning off my cast iron? I use cast iron, a lot.  But I've got a problem, whenever I do something that requires high heat or really anything over medium (which is somewhere around 450-500F on my stove according to my IR thermometer), the seasoning burns off my pan!  There's smoke and all that and then by the end of the cooking, large parts (mostly in the middle outward where its hottest) of the pan don't have any seasoning left and I can see the bare cast iron. Above 600-700F, I definitely expect it but it happens just above/around 500F for me.

Am I doing something wrong?  Is this normal?  Is there a way to season the pan that keeps this from happening?  I've just been using canola oil.

No, this isn't normal. A little flaking, perhaps, when you go over 600°F, but 500°F shouldn't do anything. It shouldn't even smoke.

Something is wrong with the seasoning on your pan. From the fact that its smoking, I'd guess its not sufficiently baked on. Alternatively, maybe the pan wasn't clean when you applied it.

If its just not baked on, I'd remove all the flaking bits (with some harsh scrubbing, sand paper even), clean it thoroughly, then bring it to around 300°F (stovetop or oven). This will make sure it is completely dry. Spread a thin layer of high-iodine value oil (flax seed is great, soy is pretty good and cheap and easy to find: look for the bottle that just says vegetable oil and check the ingredients, it's probably soy). Spreading is easy with a paper towel.

Next, toss into a very hot oven, 400–500, smoking is expected. Bake for 90 minutes, then turn the oven off. Allow pan to cool with oven. Once its cool, touch it. If its at all tacky, put it back in the oven, and bake for another hour (once again, allowing to cool with oven). It should be a shiny black at this point, and not at all tacky.

You can repeat the process to add more layers. Two should be reasonably non-stick to start cooking on.

If it still peels off after this, you're probably going to need to strip the seasoning and re-season the pan, after stripping it to bare metal. See What's the best way to season a cast iron skillet? to season it from bare metal.


Can I substitute olive oil for butter/shortening in pie crust? I was making a pie the other day -- a mock apple pie*, to be exact, which is unusual enough. But I came up short on butter and don't keep any shortening stocked in my kitchen. Desperate, I searched online for any substitutes, including olive oil, and found a small number of hits and recipes.

I ended up erring on the safe side and just made a brown sugar crumble topping, but I've been curious about an olive oil crust ever since. Has anyone attempted it? What are some of the differences between olive oil and butter or shortening? What would be the result of using a combination of all the fats?

* Mock Apple Pie uses no apples, and is a carboholic's dream. It was for a themed party and I don't intend to make it often. But it's quite a fun surprise to try out on unsuspecting guests at least once!

The trick to incorporating olive oil into your crust is to freeze it first until it's opaque and congealed, "like the consistency of slightly melted sorbet." From the recipe for an olive oil double crust; it has a "surprisingly neutral taste... [and by freezing it] helps the fat blend into the dough in little pockets, creating the flakiness you crave (Moskowitz, Vegan Pie in the Sky p. 39)"


Is it safe to smoke a 20lb turkey? I just spatchcocked a 12 lb turkey, smoked it in temperature around 225-275 F (107-135 C) for about 3 hours. I did it in a kamado joe classic 3 with SloRoller.  It came out amazing. Fully cooked, tender and flavorful
I’m wondering
Is it possible to do the same thing with a 20lb turkey?
Some random sources I googled suggested that that’s crossing into the “danger zone” anything above 12lb.

The main concern with smoking large whole turkeys is that heat may not get into the cavity, so the inside may not get up to temperature fast enough. When you spatchcock a turkey the heat can get to both sides evenly, so you take away this problem and a 20lb turkey should be fine. Kamado Joes (I have a Classic 2) have excellent heat circulation so I wouldn't expect you to have a problem with a whole one, but spatchcocking will give you better results.


What is the shelf life of homemade compote? I made a cooked compote with dried fruit and am wondering what safe refrigerated life I can expect.  Ideally, please provide some reasonable rationale or reference for the advice.

If you placed it in a sterilised jar (boiled for ten minutes, compote added, jar sealed, then boiled for another ten minutes), and assuming it had a decent amount of sugar, it should last weeks even outside of the fridge, especially of unopened. This is standard practice for making homemade jams.

Once opened, it should be kept in the fridge to inhibit mould growth. It should still last a couple of weeks.

If you didn't do all this, I would think it would last a week or two, but there's really too many factors to give an accurate answer. You'll just have to judge its look, smell and taste.


Is there evidence that adding salt to water prior to boiling can damage a stainless steel pan? In the context of boiling water for pasta or other purposes, all over the Internet the advise is oft-repeated that salt should not be added to the water when it is cold in order to prevent damage to the pot such as pitting over long term use.  The reasoning is that the salt stays on the bottom of the pot for longer without dissolving, and has a chance to interact with the surface metal.

Is there any objective evidence--preferably scientifically based--that this phenomenon actually occurs in practical kitchen-type conditions, or is this another piece of common wisdom that is often shared but not backed by evidence, much like now debunked common wisdom that it is necessary to use very large volumes of water to cook pasta?

There is empirical support for the effect of temperature on pitting corrosion, although from what little I'm able to understand of the very complicated metallurgy, the common explanation given is far too simplistic and the actual behaviour is not nearly as clear-cut as "colder = more salt crystals = more pitting", but rather due to something called transpassive dissolution (searching for this will give you lots of scholarly results on stainless steel corrosion).

I'll get straight to the point by referencing this chapter on pitting corrosion from the Metals Handbook (textbook) which has the following convenient graph:

More pitting happens at lower temperatures. As the link explains:

  At low temperatures, extremely high breakdown potentials are observed, corresponding to transpassive dissolution, not localized corrosion. Just above the critical pitting temperature (CPT), pitting corrosion occurs at a potential that is far below the transpassive breakdown potential.

But you can see from the graph that that's not the whole story, either. Excluding what happens at very high temperatures (above the CPT), the impact of temperature looks to be maybe 20-30%, but there are much more significant variations based on other factors, the most notable kitchen-applicable examples being the material (described as the PREN - Pitting Resistance Equivalent Number), surface condition (grit), and inhibitor elements in the solution (traces of which may or may not be found in tap water).

While this does certainly support the conclusion, it's also obvious, if you read the explanation of pitting or look at the lovely reaction diagram on page 2 of the textbook link, that it has literally nothing to do with undissolved salt. In fact, pitting is caused by the Cl- ions specifically, and so can only happen after it is dissolved in the water. If you just poured salt on a dry pan in a dry environment, it shouldn't corrode.

Moreover, pitting is a stochastic process - it's quite literally random even when you know all the other parameters, so while one can certainly average it out over many experiments and thus quantify the correlation with temperature, that ends up having little meaning in a kitchen setting because you are cooking with one pan/pot and the random variation seems to be a lot more profound than the effect of the temperature variable.

Anyway, in case anyone was thinking that it sounds pretty simple so far - it's not. The experiment that produced the graph above was performed under one set of conditions - using just salt, water, and stainless steel. While that's certainly comparable to cooking, it's interesting to see what another source (Inﬂuence of the electrolyte composition and temperature on the transpassive dissolution of austenitic stainless steels in simulated bleaching solutions - PDF warning) says about oxalic acid:

  The addition of oxalic acid has accordingly a much bigger impact on the transpassive corrosion rate at 70° C than at room temperature [...] In the solutions containing organic additives at 70° C, transpassive oxidation starts at significantly lower potentials than at room temperature.

In case you're not familiar with oxalic acid - or wondering why you should care - it's the primary ingredient in Bar Keeper's Friend, which many "premium" stainless steel cookware brands such as All Clad recommend using to clean your cookware - and nearly every cleaning guide recommends warm, but not hot, water. Admittedly, I just looked at the label and BKF doesn't specify a temperature, so the warm-water recommendation is entirely anecdotal - but looking at the above, it makes sense; you want to use warm water in order for it to be more effective, but using hot water (or even warm water for more than a minute or so) increases the risk of corrosion, especially if what you're trying to clean is caked-on salt or charred food.

The effect of pH is more generally supported by various studies, where neutral is better (i.e. less corrosion), not to mention that strong acids cause the other type of corrosion (called intergranular), and yes, vinegar counts, although the effect is very slow, but still appreciable over time if you like to deglaze with boiling vinegar, for example.

Even of the type of salt makes a big difference, if you scroll further down on that same previous link. Ammonium chloride is, for example, often found in sea salt, and it would appear to cause pitting corrosion much faster than the sodium chloride in table salt or kosher salt.

Here's what really does matter in a practical sense: Pitting is a reduction reaction, it's caused by a lack of oxygen available to the metal surface - unlike, for example, rust, which is caused by oxygen. Quoting the last link:

  If debris of any kind is allowed to accumulate on the surfaces of stainless steel equipment, it will reduce the accessibility of oxygen to the covered areas and pits may develop in such locations because of the reduced oxygen concentration. [...] ...carbon deposits from heated organic compounds are typical examples of this source of [pitting] corrosion of stainless steels.

If you really want to protect your stainless steel cookware, just don't ever let it boil dry, and make sure to clean it properly if you start to see "stains" or "scum" on the bottom of your pan; those are dissolved salts and some organic compounds from the water and sometimes the food, and when they stick to the pan's surface, they do exactly what's described above - they block oxygen, and they do this for a much longer period - all day all every day as opposed to the 10-20 minutes you spent heating/boiling some water. That long, slow starvation of oxygen over hundreds or thousands of hours, as opposed to the minuscule amount of time it spends on the stove, is exactly what causes pitting.

Short answer: Theoretically, yes, salt water at low temperature pits stainless steel faster than salt water at high temperature, although the popular explanation for the mechanism appears to be completely bogus. Practically, this factor is dwarfed by a dozen other factors and probably isn't worth worrying about at all. It typically takes thousands of hours for a pH-neutral, not-too-concentrated saline solution to cause any appreciable pitting corrosion at any temperature. What's more important is how clean the cookware is while it's stored, as that is the state in which it will spend the majority of its time, and as long as it's kept clean, salt-water temperature should not be a major concern.


What is the ingredient that gives a sichuan (szechuan) hot pot the mouth numbing experience? I'm curious if it is from the Sichuan peppercorns.

Depending where you live it can be hard to get hold of useful Szechuan pepper. What you want is just the outer shell of fruit, not the contents

Many governments force importers from China to use high heat to sterilise these on import, and most of the active ingredients seems to get whacked during this process

Find the most "Chinese" shop you can, and buy packets that look like they where sealed in China (No local language print or contact detail, only Chinese characters). These hopefully haven't been heat treated and will still be good. Keep it airtight until needed

Sometimes it's labelled "Red Prickly Ash" or "Prickly Ash", or look for this on the label 花椒

To use, lightly dry roast the whole shells and grind into a powder. Then measure the fresh ground powder to match the recipe. It is only a subtle effect compared to Kava or Kawakawa and I think it needs lots of chilli too taste great


Can I start to cook on a cast iron pan while it's smoking? I like to think that I have nailed the Maillard temperature on my stove. It's my go-to temperature for preheating tri-ply pans, as well as teflon-coated hard-anodized aluminum pans.
After years of relying primarily on tri-ply for cooking, I'm now returning to cast iron. (I lost a perfectly seasoned cast iron pan during a move, and couldn't see myself going through the labor of starting another).

As I preheat my twice-seasoned (once at the factory and once upside down in my oven at 375F for 90 minutes) cast iron pan, I see smoke rising.
Seeing some liquid oil after the second seasoning, I had (carefully and gently) washed (with mild dish soap and the blue-variety scotch-brite) the pan and dried it thoroughly. As I preheat it, it's smoking—despite the washing.
Can I start to cook on a cast iron pan while it's smoking?
It continued to smoke for a few minutes, and I suspect that that means it's not ready for cooking, but I'm not quite sure what the smoke means. Does it mean that the oil has not properly polymerized and it's still burning? Would just leaving it like that (still on the stove at the Maillard setting, not in the oven) for 30 minutes do the trick? (I'm reluctant to use the oven because the drips from the upside-down pan were far too messy.)

Yes, you can - for foods that are cooked at high temperatures, like steak, the oil is commonly heated until smoking anyways.
I suspect that the reason your pan is still smoking is due to the fact that you put too much oil when seasoning it - "I'm reluctant to use the oven because the drips from the upside-down pan were far too messy". When seasoning your pan, all you need is the thinnest of coats, and if there is so much extra oil that it drips out, you should wipe most of it out. Having too much oil results in a sticky or tacky surface rather than a smooth patina, and even if you manage to polymerise such a thick layer of oil, it tends to chip off more easily.


Sour pickles with Calcium Chloride? I've read that putting grape leaves with your brine will help pickles stay crunchy. But those are hard to find. I've also heard that Calcium Chloride does the same thing. Bubbies uses it, in fact. It's on their ingredients.

I got a can of Pickle Crisp (it's just Calcium Chloride) and the directions say to add it to boiling liquid - maybe this stuff isn't for brine/sour pickles. At least, I haven't been using boiling water.

Can anyone tell me if I can put Calcium Chloride in my non-boiled brine?

Yes! You can use Calcium Chloride to keep your pickles nice and crunchy! I have used Pickle Crisp. I've have had pretty good results. I have also just used generic food grade Calcium Chloride, which I also use in cheese making.(I order this online through my cheese making supplier).

The best tip for crunchy pickles is to avoid over cooking them at high temperatures. I use a thermometer in my hot water bath, to ensure that I do not go over 185 to 190F at which time the cucumber starts to break down. I know, I know people get so upset that I don't "boil" it, but I maintain the temperature for slightly longer at lower temps to achieve the same safety. I've never had a problem and if the ph is acidic enough it shouldn't be a problem. If you feel concerned with safety you can always make them as refrigerator pickles. Which I do sometimes.

I'm not sure of the process you are using, but I do pack the raw cukes into the jars, and fill the jar up with hot brine that was previous boiled. The Calcium Chloride goes into this brine.

P.S. You can buy calcium chloride in both dry form and liquid form. I prefer the liquid form. Hope this helps!


Using a French press with finely ground coffee I usually make two grinds for my coffee - a fine grind for my Moka and a coarse grind to take to work so I can put it in a French press.

Today I zoned out and ground everything finely, and I don't have beans left for another batch. I've tried using my Moka grind in a french press before, but it always tastes burnt or extremely bitter.

Is there a way to make coffee using a French press with finely ground beans, without it becoming bitter?

This question seems quite similar, though the answers deal more with the sediment than the taste of the coffee itself.

If you use immersion brewing (which is what a French press does) with more finely ground coffee, you will want to reduce the time as extraction is faster.  I wish I could give you an exact time, but I have not experimented with this; I would start with approximately 2 minutes.

You are also likely to ge ta muddier, grittier cup as the mesh in the press will not catch all of the more finely ground coffee.


Fudge as a cake layer? I have seen countless recipes for cakes that involve a fudge frosting, a soft, gooey layer of fudge that goes between layers of sponge.

I have yet to find any cake/sweet recipes where traditional fudge, the type you make or buy in blocks, is used as a layer in a cake.

Why is this not done? Does anyone know any recipes?

Fudge icing is actually not made with fudge believe it or not, often it's a chocolate buttercream but there are other recipes. There are a few problems I can see with using traditional cooked fudge as a cake layer:

It is not the right texture for a cake: Imagine you're eating nice fluffy cake and then you run into hard, gummy fudge which welds your mouth shut
Fudge would be very hard to work with. You cannot spread it, you'd have to roll it out which would be messy
Traditional fudge would not keep the layers together. Part of the role of the filling is to stick one cake layer to another so that they stay put, and pieces stay together when cut and put on a plate. A cake with a hard fudge filling would would be hard to decorate as any sideways pressure on the top cake layer would make it slide, and when cut it would fall apart.


Making jerkies less salty So yesterday I made my first ever home-made jerky. It tastes great (I suppose I followed a good recipe).

However, it is quite salty. I thought I didn't use a lot of salt, but I did use a lot of soy sauce.

I heard that the saltiness is important for curing the food. What should I do then?

You can also crust the meat with salt, removing the crust after dehydrating (or smoking).  The goal is to

pull the moisture out, and
to season

Note that traditionally, some bacons and hams are preserved by burying the meat in coarse salt, then hanging + smoking.  You can jerk in the same manner, by using salt to pull out the moisture, then remove from the salt (or remove the surface salt) and dehydrate. The trick is in balancing the need to remove the moisture, and the desired flavour.


Is it safe to eat marinated beef that has been frozen for three days? What if I marinated beef with oyster sauce, salt, sugar, soy sauce, garlic and onion but put into freezer for 3 days. Is it still good to eat?

As far as safety goes, you're fine, assuming the meat didn't stay unfrozen for too long before you refroze it.

As far as the efficacy of the marinading process, I'd think that the freezing/freezer burning process would go a long way toward preventing the marinade from imparting a lot of flavour and/or tenderness. Still, 3 days frozen is nothing. Shouldn't hurt anything.


Lemon zest in large volumes I need a LOT of organic lemon zest.  Is there a commercial machine that can zest faster and better than a hand held zester?  How do the dried zest companies produce their lemon zest?  There's gotta be an efficient way.

Thank you,
Dina

A Google search for "lemon zest machine" and "lemon zest machine commercial" found this and this. Both will surely zest faster than a hand zester, but probably will not zest
better than a hand zester. The caveat of zesting a lot of fruit in house is that you will then have a lot of peeled fruit that you will also need to find a use for. This frequently works well for places making custards or fruit curds where they will need both the zest and juice. If only the zest is needed, it would be much easier to just get the zest from a produce company or frozen food supplier.


Initial start up of food freezer I purchased 7 cu ft Frigidaire at auction. Previous owners stated it had been working well, and was just emptied a few days prior to auction. The freezer coils forms the shelving. Should I fill it with water containers, and freeze them before starting to place food in it? The main purpose for the freezer is so that we can buy larger quantity of beef from local farmer. Beef will be processed and packaged by a state inspected butcher shop. I will continue searching online for Frigidaire manual. I am guessing the model to be 20+ years old.

That would be a good idea since you want to be sure it works properly before putting a lot of food in it.
Water bottles should be a good volume, but I would not go by ice alone to judge the temperature since it is not accurate. Use a fridge thermometer to check for appropriate temperature.
And I would do this for a few days just in case some mechanical problem occurs. A freezer alarm would be a good idea too.


Can nonstick pans go in the oven? I have a heavy bottomed sauté pan with a non-stick surface (could be Teflon). The handle is stainless steel and there are no plastic or rubber parts.

Can this go in the oven? If so, what are safe temperatures for a non-stick surface?

Some pans have 'oven safe' labels on the bottom. That may help.

If not: DuPont studies show that at 446°F Teflon starts offgassing toxic gasses (Multiple sources).

Generally, I wouldn't put my non-stick pans in: use stainless.


Should you "rest" a roast? I recently made roast beef that cooked for ~ 8 hours. I took it out of the crockpot and let it sit for about 10 minutes. Then I sliced it into pieces and we ate it. It was pretty good. The leftovers were packed away. The odd thing was the next day at lunch, the meat, which seemed uniformly brown the day before, was now a nice pinkish color in the middle (keep in mind I had cut the entire thing, so the slice I'm eating is brown on the outside and pink on the inside, maybe 1/2 thick). It also seemed much more tender.

What happened here? The leftover roast seemed much better than the meat from the night before. I am discounting the probability that the roast beef fairy came by and swapped out our leftovers with better ones. Should I have let the roast rest longer? What is the procedure for letting something cooked at such low temperatures rest anyways? It's not like a steak that was cooked at high temperature on a grill.

Let it rest anyway. Even at low temperatures, the juices will be flowing through the meat. Resting stops this process.

As for the strange colour-changing meat, I suspect you just weren't observant. Meat that has gone brown will not spontaneously go pink again.


How do I properly use a ceramic honing steel? I have a set of Global knives and I went ahead and ordered their G-45 ceramic honing steel as well.

I cannot find a good picture of it, but the rubber piece on this steel has a flat edge. I want to make sure I am not honing my knife improperly. If I were to rest my knife against this flat edge and then press lightly and move downwards, would that ensure that I am honing at the proper angle?

Your link has directions for use: "To properly hone the knife, hold it at a 20-degree angle and draw the blade across the steel. Never stroke the same side of blade more than once in succession."

In general, ceramic rods are more forgiving than the grooved steel ones -- which, in my opinion, should be avoided on good knives.  (But that's another discussion.)

The primary purpose of a honing rod (of whatever composition) is to straighten the edge, not "sharpen" it.  Polished smooth steel rods are useful for that purpose, but many people have found that ceramic rods have enough abrasiveness to smooth the edge very slightly while also straightening it.  (They are also useful for deburring after sharpening with a stone.)

Generally speaking, you'll want to use your ceramic rod at a slightly wider angle than the edge of the knife.  Global knives probably have a steeper angle on their edges than, say, traditional German knives: they're probably something like 15 degrees, so the recommended 20 degrees in your link instructions is probably about right, though slightly wide.  If you don't know how big 20 degrees is, look at a protractor.  With a honing ceramic, you're not going to ruin your edge with a few light strokes, so try your best to maintain that 20-ish degree angle in just a few long strokes alternating sides.  (Do NOT do like the chefs do on TV with a grooved steel and rapidly stroke the blade dozens of times -- it's probably better to do a touch-up with a ceramic rod with just a few slow even light strokes on each side periodically as needed.  You should be able to feel the difference in the edge.)

If you know what you're doing and are sharpening your knives yourself, you may find on Globals that a slightly steeper angle (e.g., 15-18 degrees) for honing gives better results in terms of maintaining the edge longer between sharpenings by keeping a more consistent bevel.  But it really depends on your maintenance schedule, angle you use to sharpen, and how hard you use your knives.

If you are inexperienced with honing knives in general, though, I'd highly recommend just talking to someone who knows what they are doing.  It's nearly impossible to describe good technique briefly in writing.


What is the ratio of tomatos/onions to egg when making omlette? I don't know exactly what I'm doing wrong but my omlettes don't have the rigidity as seen in restaurant omelettes and ultimately I get this mixture consisting of chunks of tomato's , egg and onions.
So, I think this has to do with the ratio of vegetable to egg I use which is 1:1:1. What should be the correct ratio of vegetables when cooking omelettes?

In most styles of omelette vegetables are optional. The obvious exception is the Spanish tortilla, where sliced or grated potato (and possibly onion) adds strength, but that's cooked more slowly and not turned.
Tomatoes in particular are tricky, as they're so wet.  The same would apply to courgette, for example. Large quantities of veg also make it harder, as the egg will be too deep to cook through, so you end up breaking it up.  You can try finishing it off with top heat (grill/broiler) but I've never bothered as it means heating up another appliance.
Cooking small quantities of veg in with the egg is possible for some things (onion, mushroom, pepper, for example) but it's not easy to get it cooked just the right amount, and too much will lead to collapse.
Instead, what I do is pre-cook the veg by frying in the same pan, then drain and reserve.  After that I cook the seasoned egg into a nice flat omelette, return the veg and any other fillings such as cheese to one half, and fold, for a filled omelette.  This way you can put as much or as little veg as you like. You can also microwave the veg.


Should I separate grape skins when making jam? Recipes for grape jam (e.g. from Gourmet) commonly say to separate the skins, puree the skins for inclusion in the jam, cook them, cook the pulp, and remove the seeds with a food mill.

Is there any reason one couldn't instead just cook the entire grapes for long enough for everything to intermingle (i.e. long enough to fully cook the skins), then use a food mill to remove the seeds and skins?

I did actually do two batches with the two methods within a few weeks of asking the question.

Just cooking it all together, then removing the skins and seeds with a food mill, is definitely a lot faster. Removing the skins first then pureeing, so that you only remove the seeds later... well, though it is easy to remove the skin from each individual grape, time-consuming is an understatement unless you're making small quantities. It took me a few hours for (if I recall correctly) 10-15 pounds of grapes.

Including the skins has a moderate effect on the texture - it's slightly thicker and more opaque. You get the feeling there's just more stuff in it. As long as you're cooking it fairly long, though, there's not a very noticeable difference in flavor. On the other hand, if you're using a recipe with pectin instead of cooking it down until it sets, I definitely prefer having the skins in, for both flavor and texture.

So there's some personal preference involved; I do rather like the texture with the pureed skins. But if you're doing large quantities, and the grapes are on the small side, and you don't have help, you might want to skip it.


Gas burner is "clicking" - how can I stop this? The ignition is clicking on my burner even though I turned it off. How do I stop this?

I unplugged the cooktop, but I don't know if it is safe to leave it this way. What should I look for? Can I keep it unplugged safely for any length of time?

I bought a used cooktop off ebay once that did the same thing. I discovered it to be one of the dials which was catching in the ignite position (although the dial didn't look depressed).
Give the dials a good workout when the ignitor is clicking away--you might release the switch.

That fixed it for me and I soon identified the culprit dial. Every so often the constant ignition would come back but I'd just smack the guilty dial and it would stop.


How to do hot spiced apple cider without apple cider? When I lived in the United States, I developed an addiction to hot apple cider. I relied on powder mixes (Alpine, Mott's and so on) - just adding hot water to the content of a package...

Now I'm back to Italy, and I need to make the hot spiced apple cider myself.

The first problem, in Italy is difficult to find apple cider. I've found only French cider from Brittany or Normandy, which is the fermented alcoholic drink.

Questions:

which version of apple cider should I ideally use?
can I use the French cider instead?
can I just use non-alcoholic apple juice instead of the cider?

Edit: it seems that a source of misunderstanding is the word cider, that may indicate different drinks. In the USA it may be a fermented alcoholic beverage made from apple juice, or an unfiltered apple juice. Which one should be used to make hot spiced apple cider?

According to Wikipedia, apple cider (US usage) is different from apple juice (US usage) in that:

  "Apple juice and apple cider are both fruit beverages made from apples, but there is a
  difference between the two. Fresh cider is raw apple juice that has
  not undergone a filtration process to remove coarse particles of pulp
  or sediment. Apple juice is juice that has been filtered to remove
  solids and pasteurized so that it will stay fresh longer.

Or, in translation, "apple cider" is apple juice; "apple juice" is filtered apple juice.

So in Italy you should look for brands of apple juice with words like "with bits" or "unfiltered" on the label.


Is possible to create a transparent caramelization? When you heat the sugar his color turns to yellow.

I'm doing something that heats the sugar(~110ºC), but I don't want it to become yellow.

It is possible and not particularly difficult to make candy that is completely clear.

However, it is not possible to have caramelization that is clear and colorless. When sugar is caramelized the sucrose begins to decompose from the heat. This gives us the distinctive delicious flavor but also changes the color of the sugar. It will go from yellow to brown to black... and then to the trash.

110C (230F) is not nearly hot enough to caramelize sugar-- that starts happening around 170C (340F). If you simply keep your syrup from overheating it will stay clear. As with all candy making, this is easier to do with an accurate thermometer and slow heat.


Using skim or low-fat milk in recipes When a recipe calls for milk, does using skim or low-fat milk over whole milk matter?

Even though the difference between whole and skim milk is about 2 percent fat, will it affect the result?

Is this more important in baked goods (like muffins and cakes) or in cooking?

There is less of a difference than you might think.  Heck, with the addition of a little calcium chloride (to help bind the milk particles), you can even make cheese with skim milk.  I flipped through Harold McGee's section on low-fat milk, and he doesn't give any warnings about using it in cooking.

Of course, keep in mind that your result won't have quite the same texture.  I doubt you'll notice unless the milk is the primary ingredient in the sauce (and there's no other thickening agent) or primary liquid in the dough.  If I was forced to come up with a way to adjust to using low-fat, I'd probably add a little more milk if I was going for flavor, or a little less if I was going for texture.


Substituting butter for oil: Does it matter for baked goods? When a recipe (like for muffins) calls for vegetable oil, does it matter if I substitute the oil for butter because I want that buttery taste in the muffins?

Do I need to compensate for the difference by adding/subtracting the amount of butter added?

Butter is at most 82% oil and the rest is water. So, you're going to need to add more butter for the same amount of oil. Besides, you need to adjust the liquid content accordingly since you are going to have more water than you planned.

If you are going to use the same amount of oil, then it will not make any difference other than the taste. Just make sure they are of same state (i.e. melted butter instead of vegetable oil or vice versa)


Why does Brining help food to retain water, but adding salt will draw the moisture out? I saw a recipe that called for brining a Turkey in order to retain the moisture, but when you cook with salt it causes the foods to get less moist - Why and how does this happen?

For the brine, it's because of osmosis When you have a semi-permeable membrane, like a cucumber skin, water will tend to move from the higherlower solute mixture (the salt water) to the lower higher solute mixture (the water with organic material inside the cucumber). This will cause the cucumber to absorb water AND some salt, until the point where the water in the cucumber is as soluble as the surrounding brine.

When you add solid salt to an item, steak for example, Osmosis is no longer at work. Instead, you're dealing with absorption , a completely different chemical process.


Is it possible to make bacon at home? So, I am from India. And it's very difficult to find bacon in local super-markets here. I was wondering if there is a way that I can make bacon at home or any other alternative to bacon.

Sure. Michael Ruhlman has a post about it, and I think there was an episode of Good Eats that described the process pretty well, too. I'm not sure what you can get at the butcher in India, but you'll want to find the belly of the pig.

What you do is rub the meat with a cure, which is a mix of salt, sugar, seasoning, and "pink salt" (a curing salt that is part regular salt and part sodium nitrite). Leave it in your fridge in a ziploc bag for a week or covered on a tray, flipping it over daily so that it cures evenly, then rinse it off. At that point you can roast it in a low oven, smoke it, or hang it to dry.


Baking below sea level I now live on the Sea of Galilee (600+ feet below sea level), and my cakes all seem to fall, no matter what I do. Is baking affected by being below level?

Your altitude won't matter in your baking. Whatever reason your cakes have for not rising, it's not that you are a tiny bit below sea level.
First of all, some personal observations on altitude: I've baked frequently at about 750 meters (let's round it to 2500 feet) and also in my current home at about 130 meters (about 425 feet). The same recipes work without noticeable differences in rising. A reduction of over 2000 feet doesn't bring much visible difference, much less the difference between "working perfectly" and "falling". Even if your recipes were perfected for 0 feet (which they aren't, cooks don't do it that precisely), a reduction of only 600 feet will be unnoticeable.
Second, what could the theoretical effect on rising be? Well, the air has less pressure due to altitude, so you'd expect slightly higher density; the thousands of air bubbles in the cake won't expand as much. How much is this "slightly"? Don't forget, air density depends on both pressure and temperature. For comparison, I calculated the air density at different heights and temperatures: It is the same density if your air is at 600 ft below sea level, heated to 175 Celsius (a common cake baking temperature), or sea level at 165 Celsius.
Now, our ovens have nice knobs graded in small intervals, but they are actually very bad at keeping temperature. It's not only that their mean temperature is badly adjusted (I've frequently seen ovens running 40 Celsius low), but also that their temperature fluctuates all the time with an amplitude much higher than these paltry 10 Celsius. And this is only the temperature outside of the cake; the air inside the cake (which does the expanding) never reaches 175 Celsius. A cake is ready at 100 Celsius internal temperature at the latest (all starches have gelated by then), frequently below that.
So, to summarize: A cake's height will change a lot more during a bake due to random factors than due to your altitude. Even if you had a perfectly controlled process, you'd need vernier calipers to measure the difference in height. But when using an only reasonably controlled process at home (ingredients at room temperature, measuring weight with a digital scale, controlling oven temperature with a thermometer), you will already see fluctuations larger than the effect of 600 ft altitude difference.
Appendix
My calculation (formula and gas constant from Wikipedia, air pressure at different heights from engineeringtoolbox):


Can you eat lambs hooves? My local farm has some sheep that will be slaughtered soon. I'm challenging myself to find recipes (and non-food usages) of every part of their bodies, so that at least we'll not let them rot away.

I've managed to prepare ligaments and tendons for consumption, but I've never tried to eat hooves. Is it possible? Is it part of any existing cuisine?

Hooves are generally not eaten directly but make great soup. If you Google 'trotter soup', you will find recipes from many different culinary traditions, most of them middle-eastern or from the Indian sub-continent.

This page has some typical recipes: http://www.khanapakana.com/recipe-search/s/trotter

Although trotter generally means pig's hooves in the west, it's used to mean any hooves in the east.


What is the difference between expensive wine and regular wine? It's fairly known at most supermarkets and stores you can get regular, cheap wine.  However, at some stores who dedicate themselves solely to liquor and spirits, they sell incredibly expensive wine, even up to $2k from where I've been.

As someone who has tried a bit of wine and not quite fond of the taste, I'm mainly curious if there really is any difference to expensive wine as opposed to store bought, "cheap" wine.  Is there a vast, noticable difference between the two? Is the only reason I would pay more for the age of the wine or how rare it is?

One of my relatives who drinks lots of wine told me that there's relatively no difference between expensive and regular; it's noticable after your first glass, but after subsequent glasses it starts to taste the same. Is this true?

There are several factors that increase price. Some are related to the objective quality of the wine, some indirectly linked, other are rather disconnected from quality (but not necessarily irrelevant, as we'll see).
It's also worth noting that being of high quality doesn't necessarily mean being appealing to the average consumer.

Apart from the stuff listed below, mass-market wines tend to be made in a non-challenging, easily accessible style. Lower tannin levels, less acidity and a generous amount of residual sugar (say 10-30g/l) makes for easy quaffing but little complexity or elegance. They can be very well-made, but the agriculture may not be very sustainable, and the fruit probably isn't of the highest quality. (If you visit a winery at harvest when they bring in the bulk wine fruit, the meaning of "quality" becomes rather apparent.)

Wines targeted at connoisseurs, wine snobs and wine geeks (such as yours truly) tend have more structure (tannins, acidity) and are more often completely dry (although there are of course high-quality off-dry, semi-sweet, and sweet wines).

There's a limit to how much a producer can spend to increase quality, a limit which varies with location (because of salaries for workers etc) but around $100 per bottle is probably in the right order of magnitude. This does not mean that all wines above this magical limit are equally good, though.

A dirt-cheap wine will also have a cost associated to it which will be payed for by someone else, like under-payed harvest workers, the environment around the vineyard, etc.

Below are some factors that have a more or less direct link to wine quality and/or character:

Yield per acre: Limiting the vineyard's yield per acre (which can be achieved by sparser planting, thinning/green harvest, old vines, etc) increases the quality of the fruit, but you will produce less wine with more or less the same amount of work, which means you'll have to adjust the price.

Number of harvesting tries: At harvest, you can pick all the fruit of one vineyard at the same time and be done with it. Unfortunately, not all bunches ripen at exactly the same time, so to avoid over- or under-ripe grapes, you can make multiple tries (French, pronounced "trees") over several days and pick each bunch at optimal ripeness. More tries inevitably means more work, and so, price increases.

Selection: When the harvest is brought in, you can throw all the fruit into the press, or you can select the best grapes to make your wine (and make brandy or a second wine of the discarded grapes, or sell them on to a bulk wine producer). Being picky reduces the amount of wine produced, and so, prices increase.

Drying: Some wines, like Amarone and straw wine, are made from partially dried grapes, and drying decreases the amount of wine you produce (apart from being extra work) which means - more expensive wine.

Sparkling: Sparkling wines made with the traditional method - like Champagne and Cava - need to be disgorged after bottle fermentation, which leads to a certain amount of waste (a Cava producer I talked to said that around 10% of the original wine is lost in disgorgement).

Oak aging: Many wines are fermented and/or aged in oak barrels, which greatly affects the character of the wine compared to other types of containers, like concrete or stainless steel vats. (More oak doesn't mean better wine, of course.) Oak barrels are horribly more expensive than the alternatives (and European oak is more expensive than American, and they impart different character), and so, the more oak you use, the more expensive the wine gets.

Aging in general: Most high-quality wine receive a bit of aging before consumption to let all components integrate; some designations of origin even require aging prior to selling. Rioja Gran Reserva, for example, must be aged at least three years, with at least one of those years being on oak, while vintage Champagne is mandated to rest three years on the lees, etc. Apart from time being money, you also need a suitable storage location (cool and humid but not too cool and humid, secure but accessible to yourself, etc) which is far from free. The price increases.

Other factors aren't causally linked to higher quality, but tend to be connected:

Reputation: If you're an unproven winemaker you will be able to charge more if you're operating in a district of high repute than if you're working in an area where no-one has made quality wine before. Conversely, a well-known, high-quality producer expanding their operations to a somewhat less proven district will likely be able to charge more than their new neighbours.

Brand: Marketing can take many forms, such as it advertising, tailoring wines to suit influential reviewers, and tends to push prices up. Wineries can even try increasing prices just to seem more exclusive. You can also be lucky and find some great, undiscovered producer (don't tell anyone! except me, that is) selling their wines at more-or-less cost price (which probably still won't be dirt cheap, though).

Land prices: Some spots are better for growing grapes. If you're in unexploited territory, you might find a great spot and pay next to nothing, but if you're in a region with an established wine industry, odds are all the good spots are taken... and it'll cost you to buy an existing vineyard.

Know-how: Making wine is hard. Unless you are good at it yourself (or a friend, or perhaps your nephew, or your sister-in-law, is), you can hire some hotshot consultant œnologist like Michel Rolland to help you make the most of the fruit you produce... but the consultants will cost you lots of $$$, and your customers will need to pay.

Vintage: Vintages vary in quality and quantity. If a vintage is high quality but low in quantity, we will see less supply and likely higher demand. Having said that, a good year isn't always a guarantee for a good wine (if the winemaker screws up the quality of the fruit doesn't matter), and in a hard year, auspicious microclimates and competent vintners can produce great wines anyway. Furthermore, some years can be very good but have an even better "sibling" year, and don't receive their due hype. For example, 1995 was a very, very good year in Champagne, but 1996 is perhaps one of the greatest vintages evur, so the 1995s can be something of a bargain compared to 1996s.

Some things might not increase quality at all but still have an effect on price (and some of these may still be worth the price!):

Use of pesticides: Using pesticides to counter disease, parasites, pests, etc can increase yield without affecting quality negatively, which lowers the price, but on the other hand you spew out poisons into nature and expose your vineyard workers to them. (The residues left in the finished wine tend to be negligible, though.)

Labour: Paying decent wages to your harvest workers means a costlier wine. Find some illegal immigrants you can pay less than minimum wage and the wine gets cheaper.

Taxes: Some countries have different alcohol taxes for for different ABVs. For example, in Sweden (where I live) the tax is relatively lower for a 15% ABV wine than it is at 16% ABV (which isn't very common, but for example Zinfandels and Amarones can reach that amount). Furthermore, in some countries the alcohol tax depends on the alcohol content solely (which favours expensive wine, as alcohol tax will end up being rather negligible), in others it may be a percentage of the retail price (which favours cheap wine).

Price regulations: At least historically, some districts have regulated the minimum price (and sometimes also the maximum) price a farmer can charge for their fruit when selling it to a winemaker, which inevitably affects the end price.

Export/import: If you buy wine from far away countries, not only are you paying for the transport, but you may also be paying import/export tariffs.

Organic certification: Organic farming doesn't necessarily mean organic certification. The organizations issuing certifications charge a fee, which can be quite hefty for a small producer, so some organic producers aren't labelled as such since they can't afford the certification fees.

Adding gold: Yup, there are wines with actual gold added to them. I can't see that affecting quality in any way, but it'll surely affect the price!

So, to conclude - quality costs, but not all costs impart quality, and quality doesn't equate appeal.


How do I get good results with marinaded venison? I had some deer ragout and let it marinade one day in wine, brandy and with some spices. Then I added some fresh vegetables, cold water and put the heat on. Let it simmer for a couple of hours.

The result was OK, but not great (and don't we all aspire for greatness?). How can I improve on this technique? Should I have pan fried the meat first?

Venison is, generally, an extremely lean meat. This means it responds well to two cooking methods: very very fast and very very hot (grilling, perhaps roasting with a lot of basting, or lard the meat first), or very very slow and moist (braising). This is of course dependent on the cut; loin is best grilled, shoulder is best braised (due to the connective tissue), leg is best roasted.

I wouldn't use plain water as a braising liquid. 50/50 water and red wine, or stock and wine, or just stock... cider would be lovely, so would various juices.


Is salt really necessary for cooking pasta? I never put salt into the water when I boil it to make pasta even though cooking directions always suggest I do that and the pasta comes out fine. How necessary it is?

Salt is not necessary, it's just a flavour thing, a common personal preference

I suspect you'll get a saltier taste by putting it in the water, than putting it in the sauce for the same volume of salt

Hot water is not necessary too, you can prepare dried pasta with cold water. But it doesn't taste right to me, so does salt less pasta :-)


Is it necessary to store purchased sealed Coffee powder in freezer? Why? I purchased few packets of 100 gms freshly ground and roasted Coffee powder.
These packets do NOT have air filled in them like the chips packets.

Is it necessary to store purchased sealed roasted Coffee powder in freezer? Why?

It is NOT necessary to store coffee in the freezer.

It can be helpful if you want to store it for long periods - i.e. months.

Ground coffee should NOT be thawed and re-frozen, nor opened frequently and put-back in the freezer. Think of your freezer as long-term storage, and take out a week's worth of coffee at a time.

Also, it's not going to make a huge difference either way - if you want better tasting coffee the best bang-for-buck would be buying whole-bean coffee and grinding it as you need it.

Here's an obsessively detailed taste-testing account:

http://www.home-barista.com/store-coffee-in-freezer-conclusions.html


Freezing bread, sliced or whole I make bread once every 2 weeks for lunch. Is it best to freeze, them slice as quickly as possible and get back into the freezer. Or slice then freeze. Which one keeps it fresher?

This is not that big of a decision.

Two weeks is a short enough time that, if the bread is sealed well and kept frozen, you are unlikely see much of a difference in quality either way.

Sliced bread has more surface area and so doesn't keep as well. Unsliced can be inconvenient to slice when fully frozen.

The worst thing you can do is to let the bread thaw before slicing and refreeze. From your question it seems you recognize this.

If you only plan on consuming a few slices a day and all the bread within two weeks, I would recommend slicing before freezing just for the convenience.

I have done it both ways but usually freeze my loaves whole because we consume them a loaf at a time.


Whipping cream that has been frozen won't whip I have whipping cream that has been frozen; it is now separated and won't whip. Is there anything I can do to make it whip?

Sorry, no.

Whipping cream that has been frozen is perfectly fine to use in many dishes, but it won't whip.

As far as I know, this is irreversible, so no, you can't make the cream "whipable". If you are very lucky, you will get it to a sort of semi-stiff stage, but nothing that would be suitable for cake decorating or similar.

Not part of your question, but possibly interesting for next time:
Whipped cream can be frozen, so if you have leftovers, you could pipe little tufts or similar, freze them and use them to decorate desserts.


Daikon in place of pasta I remember seeing somewhere that one could use daikon in place of pasta, but I can't seem to find how one would prepare it.

Have you done this? If so, what should I be aware of when I try it out?

I think that someone was pulling your leg. You might be able to turn daikon into long, stiff, strands for decoration, but I don't think that any cooking process will yield something mistakable for pasta.

In fact, the recipe that the OP posted in an answer describes the situation as 'daikon posing as pasta.' The texture is not claimed to be even slightly similar; it's a visual pun.


How does a Miracle Thaw work? Miracle Thaws are utensils for rapidly thawing foods. Put an ice cube on one and it melts before your eyes, yet the whole thing stays cool to the touch. How do they work?

(Inspired by this question: Utensil to thaw meat)

reference: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/conductive-heat-transfer-d_428.html
Let's take a moment to look at the heat transfer equation. Looking at it, we can see the ways to get more efficient heat transfer
q / A = k dT / s

q / A = heat transfer per unit area (W/m²)
k = thermal conductivity  (W/(m·K))
dT = temperature difference (°C)
s = wall thickness (m)

use a material with a high thermal conductivity constant (like copper)
thinner (!) material
maintain a higher difference in temperature

The way these thawers work should now be easy to understand. (1) They are made of a material that has a very high thermal conductivity constant, like copper. The higher a material's thermal conductivity, the faster it can equalize it's temperature with that of the surrounding material.
Things that touch each other want to be the same temperature. When you put an ice cube on a sheet of room temperature copper, they are very different temperatures. But as soon as they touch, they want to be the same temperature, so heat transfer begins. Heat "flows" from the copper to the ice, increasing the temperature of the ice (melting it), and decreasing the temperature of the copper. Heat also flows throughout the copper itself, meaning that even the parts of the copper that are far away from the ice are losing heat.
With the copper losing heat, it quickly falls out of temperature equilibrium with the surrounding air. But the air and copper also want to be the same temperature, and so heat from the air "flows" into the copper, bringing it back closer to room temperature, which in turn allows the copper to heat up the ice some more.... But of course there aren't distinct steps to this process: all of these heat transfers happen simultaneously and continuously. And as long as the air has some circulation, you can consider it to be an unlimited supply of room temperature heat.
The top of the copper plate is probably flat, to increase the amount of surface area in contact with the ice. The bottom of the copper plate, however, is probably ribbed or finned, to increase the surface area with the surrounding air, but without (2) creating more thickness!
We could also address (3) and heat the copper electrically, above room temperature, but then we run the risk of heating part of the food to that temperature as well. The benefit of using a passive copper heatsink is that the temperature will never rise above room temperature!


Soufflé the day before? http://www.cookingchanneltv.com/recipes/sweet-potato-souffle0-2200751

I typically make this for Thanksgiving when we host, but I'm not hosting thus year.  Could I make this the day before, but skip baking it, and just pop it in the oven the next day to finish it at our hosts house?

I usually make it the same day, but since I'll be traveling I'd need to make it in advance, and I've heard soufflé s typically can't be prepped a day ahead of time.

The problem is that you want the soufflé ingredients to be room-temperature or above when you put them in the oven, so the soufflé will puff up. But this sweet-potato mixture would have to be refrigerated if you make it in advance (especially because it contains eggs), so that won't work well.

Here's what I would try. (You should check with your hosts to see if they have room in their kitchen and oven to do this). Make the topping in advance. Bake the sweet potatoes in advance. Take the other ingredients with you, allowing them to come up to room temperature. When you arrive, microwave the potatoes to reheat them, beat in the other ingredients, and bake.

Or bake the soufflé at home just before you leave, letting it rest before you transport it. It will be completely collapsed when you serve it, but it will still taste just as good.


How do we decide between gas, induction, and electric (ceramic) stoves? I'm surprised I only found one previous thread on this topic and it was 5 years old, so i think it's worth asking again since I'm sure some things have changed.

We're going to be remodeling our kitchen very soon. I'm not a professional chef, but i do like to cook. This will be the first time I've had the opportunity to actually pick out what stove to use rather than using whatever came with the house or apartment.

I'm trying to decide which type of stove to get. Gas I have the most experience with and seems like the simplest to use. It's also a bit of pain to keep clean.

The induction cook tops seem very cool, certainly seem to be easier to clean. But i'd have to replace a fair bit of cookware. I'm not really concerned about having to do that - buying a new set of pots and pans will be relatively cheap compared to the remodel.

The ceramic ones - the only reason that seems worth considering is it should also be easier to clean than gas. But it also feels like it would be too similar to those cheap stoves that use those coils - and I hate those things.

Can anyone list more pros and cons of each to help me make a more informed decision. E.g., this one will heat faster, etc. No opinions, just comprehensive facts, please.

Induction (I never actually read this, but thought it looked useful; used my own knowledge)

Only work with certain metal pots
Will not burn non-metal items, as long as they haven't had a metal (kid-friendly)
Cost-efficient once installed (if not in CA or other states with expensive electricity)
Easy to clean: water and soap

Gas

Works with all types of pots
Dangerous, may catch items on fire (stay away from curtains, plants, etc)
Generally less cost-efficient than induction stoves (unless in CA or other states with expensive electricity)
Harder to clean: occasional scrubbing is needed

Ceramic

Works with all types of pots
Remains hot and dangerous for a longer time than induction/gas stovetops
Less control over heat, may burn food or reduce quality
Takes a long time to prepare and heat up
Medium cleaning difficulty: no hard scrubbing, but not just a wipe away; may affect performance if not clean

Brands: There are sooo many brands out there. You might want to check out GE, Home Depot, Sears, and IKEA first. But for ceramic cooktops, a deeper search might be in question.

TLDR: Depends on what you're looking for. Induction is the generally best (cost, safety, maintenance, control) but only works with certain pots.


Can I test my oven temperature without an oven thermometer? I've got a new oven, I haven't baked in it enough to really gauge its accuracy. Is there a way to test it without an oven thermometer?

First, buy a thermometer, they're cheap. This one topped America's Test Kitchen testing: Thermometer

Barring taking the plunge and spending $6 on an oven thermometer, this method comes straight from an online class I'm taking from Harvard through edX.org. Course Description

  To test the oven, you can either use an oven thermometer, or you can find a material that has a transition at some critical temperature, and then tune your oven near the critical temperature where the transition occurs -- to find out if it actually happens.

  Jeff Potters has suggested a wonderful idea in his excellent book Cooking for Geeks.  Namely, he suggests that oven testing can be done with melting sugar.  His protocol is here.

  The calibration is based on the idea that the melting point of table sugar (sucrose) is 366 F (186˚C), [google "melting point sucrose"] and so if you put the temperature just above 366, the sugar should melt. And if you put it just below 366 F it should not melt.  It is important when doing this procedure to not use a lot of sugar, as otherwise the heating time for the sugar could be too long.

  Materials:

  ~ 1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar

  Procedure:

  1) Preheat your oven to 350F (177˚C).

  (2) Place the granulated sugar in an oven proof dish or on aluminum foil

  (3) Place in oven for 15 minutes

  (4) If the sugar doesn't melt, raise the temperature of the oven by 10F (5˚C) and repeat the experiment.

  (5) Continue raising the temperature until you find the temperature setting where your sugar melts.  Let's call this temperature Tmelt.

  (6)  You have thus found that the sugar melts somewhere in the interval Tmelt-10, Tmelt. (i.e., if you found that the sugar melted at 400F, but not 390F, the melting temperature is between 390 and 400.)

  (7) Your measurement suggests that your oven has the approximate calibration curve

  T = Tdial + 366 - Tmelt     (if you use degrees Fahrenheit)

  T = Tdial+ 186 - Tmelt   (if you use degrees Celsius)

  where Tdial is the temperature of the dial. Note that if your dial says that sugar melts at 400, this formula states that the actual temperature in the oven is the temperature that the sugar melts (366F)."

Here is another method, this one is from Cook's Illustrated, AKA America's Test Kitchen. I copied and pasted the technique from Water Temp Test

  Preheat oven to 350F. Start with 1 cup of room temperature water and check its temperature with an immersion thermometer. Adjust the temperature with either warm or cold water to make it 70F. place in oven for 15 minutes. Check temperature again and it should read 150F. Adjust oven temperature accordingly.

Another way to check oven temp is to simply boil water. Put a couple of cups of water in an oven proof pan and set the oven temp to 200F or 90C, the water shouldn't boil no matter how long you leave it in the oven. Set the temp to 225F or 110C. Eventually, the water should boil.

All that said, buy a thermometer.


Do I use pure glucose or sugar syrup for making a caramel filling for a cookie? I am trying to perfect my Dutch syrup waffles (stroopwafels). The cookies (waffles  are perfect but the caramel filling is giving me problems. I tried making the caramel filling from sugar, sugar syrup, corn syrup, and pure glucose but all of these make the cookies sloppy after a day. What is the best sugar for making the caramel filling? What is it what I do wrong?

It is possible that your syrup is not cooked down far enough, and the moisture content is softening the waffle cookies. It helps to batch-make syrups, using extended cooking times to ensure a thicker, less moist syrup, and just store what you don't use for next time (saves time and effort). You can also use gums or starches to provide extra thickening (modified corn starch is my shortcut of choice). Also, there is another cheat that works wonderfully: after the waffles are baked, brush the filling side of each one with undiluted egg white and give them all a few more minutes in the oven. That will create a shiny glaze that will help prevent moisture-leaching.


Black spots in the kitchen sink I just moved into a new flat and there seems to be some black spots in the kitchen sink(image attached).Is this black mold?How can I get rid of them safely?

PS: There is some black mold lining on the wall in the outer edge of the sink.And I am allergic to bleach

Update : I tried scrubbing it with dish soap and it washed away very easily. I am now more worried if that could be mold or just dirt/buildup :(

If you zoom in and take a look at some of the striation marks running through the suspect stuff:

... you can see that something was able to scratch through it easily, probably flatware or a knife. I personally use the same chainmail scrubbers that I use on cast iron to clean that sort of stuff off of stainless. It won't leave 'tracks' like steel wool / Brillo might.

Whether or not it's mold would be up to a field test to confirm, but I highly suspect it's just some muck / soot from a pan, you generally don't see mold settle in sinks outside of ring seals around them or the drain.

Some hot water and a good scrubbing should be all you need.


salmon + microwave = BLAM, any suggestions? Salmon fillets tend to go 'pop' and spatter bits of themselves around the container in the microwave. Anyone got a procedure that discourages this?

You can simulate steaming in a microwave. First defrost the salmon. Put it in a glass dish. Put some soy sauce on the bottom of the dish, say half a cm deep. Add some chopped ginger. Cover the dish with plastic wrap. Microwave for 5 minutes or so. Tastes great and healthly too.


Flavour matching with espresso in baking I am trying to create a few new recipes and I am stuck on what other ingredients (flavours) would go well with espresso in a baked item.

Diane,

You may want to consider flavors that are existing compliments to coffee.  Think of the many syrups that are available at your local coffeehouse.  Things that easily come to mind are chopped hazelnuts or almonds, caramel frosting/icing, cinnamon and nutmeg as spices, chocolate chips or cherries.


How can I speed up banana ripening? I need to make banana bread tomorrow, and the bananas I recently purchased with this in mind to not appear to be ripening fast enough. Is there anyway to speed the ripening without spoiling the bananas altogether?

(I have looked at this answer and it refers to how the fridge will speed up "blackening". @Sarge_Smith describes it as a different process chemically, so I am unsure that blackening == ripening for the purpose of making banana bread.)

Bananas are imported unripe and then ripened in the country of sale. This ripening is achieved by forcing ethylene gas through the bananas in special pressurised rooms.

Bananas naturally produce ethylene as they ripen, so you could just put them in a sealable plastic bag to contain that gas. Tomatoes also produce ethylene, so you could pop a couple of those in as well, but be aware that they'll also ripen faster too.


Comparison between cast iron and forged pans I am on the search for a good general purpose frying pan.
However, I can't seem to find a comparison between cast iron and forged pans. I know that cast iron pans perhaps have longer life span but need seasoning while forged pans are lighter with less maintenance needs.
Is there a more thorough comparison between these two types or any advice why a person should go for the one vs the other?

Cast iron and carbon steel (aka “forged iron”) are fairly similar. Both require seasoning for best results, and can produce a decent non-stick effect when properly seasoned; both have high heat capacity but mediocre heat conduction; both are quite durable. Carbon steel is somewhat more lightweight than cast iron, making it more versatile (you wouldn’t want to flip the contents of a large cast iron skillet one-handed). Additionally, modern cast iron pans are rough-textured, which can make them  more difficult to effectively scrape with a spatula.
I own and use both. These days I use carbon steel much more than cast iron.


How to 'stretch' tomato ketchup? Currently, my home ketchup recipe involves using around 2.2 pounds of canned tomatoes to make 3.4oz/100ml of ketchup.

A full can of tomatoes costs me around USD$4.50 here. This means that 3.4 oz, or 100ml of ketchup costs me approximately USD4.50 to make. This is quite expensive if you compare to a bottle of Heinz ketchup which costs onl USD$2.80 for a whopping 32 oz/1 litre bottle.

How can I 'stretch' my canned tomatoes so that I can make more ketchup out of it?

I have thought of adding corn syrup.

This is my full recipe:
2.2 pounds of canned tomatoes
350ml white distilled vinegar
1 tablespoon lemon juice
100ml of water
45g sugar
Salt to taste

Add water and blend the canned tomatoes using a hand blender or food processor.
Run the mixture through a fine mesh sieve twice, until you get all the juice out.
Add the juice and vinegar to a saucepan and simmer the mix until you reach your desired consistency. It normally takes me 2- 4 hours to reduce it fully.

I think your answer is found by responding to the question: "Why do I make my own ketchup?"  Heinz ketchup is delicious.  It is also produced in mass quantities.  You'll never compete on cost because of economies of scale. If you are purchasing ingredients, homemade ketchup is just going to cost more.  This brings me to the question I posed.  If your answers are "it's fun"...."I like the flavor"...."I prefer my ketchup over Heinz"...anything along those lines, you may just have to accept that yours will cost more to produce. Maybe find a way to buy tomatoes in bulk? You might get even closer if you grow your own tomatoes. Even then, the cost would likely be more when you take all of the production variables into account.  Any "stretching" will change your recipe, probably at more cost, possibly at risk to the flavor you have developed.  If you are trying to make ketchup to save money, there are probably more impactful home financial strategies you could employ.


Should flour be thrown out past its expiry date? As the title says, is it safe to consume flour once its past its expiry date or should it be thrown away?

The main things that can go bad with flour, assuming it is properly stored are:

Rancidity
Insect infestation

If you don't see any insects, and it still smells good, you should feel free to use it.  If it smells off or nasty—trust me, your nose will tell you—then you will want to discard it.

The actual date on the bag is only a guideline.


How can I avoid an underbake in a bundt pan? I've made a Cardamom Cream bundt cake twice now and both times it's dense and under baked after an hour baking time.  I'm thinking of whipping the egg whites to lighten the batter/cake than folding into the dry ingredients and cream.  Any thoughts or advice would be appreciated.

If in doubt, a cake, unless it has a very sticky filling (fruit+sugar, chocolate...), can almost always be tested by pushing a toothpick/skewer right through the center (while in opened oven - oven gloves advised if inexperienced :), and checking whether the stick comes out clean - if not, give it extra baking time. If the exposed surface would brown too much by doing that, cover with aluminium foil.


How can I thicken this cranberry-pepper jelly? In my first attempt at making jelly, I seem to have veered off course.

I'm following this recipe for Cranberry-Pepper Jelly:

  Ingredients

  3 red bell peppers, finely chopped
  2 Fresno or red jalapeño chiles, seeded and finely chopped
  1 cup sugar
  1 1/2 teaspoons crushed red pepper flakes
  1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
  1/4 cup liquid pectin
  1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
  3 cups cranberries, fresh or frozen and thawed

I combined the peppers, chiles, sugar, pepper flakes, and salt in a large pot and brought it to a simmer over medium heat, as instructed. I then added the pectin and lemon juice and continued simmering for 10 minutes, as instructed. Finally, I added the cranberries and simmered for an additional 10 minutes or so until their skins burst.

During this entire process I observed the "jelly" was very runny. I sort of expected it to be somewhat runny based on the recipe reviews on Epicurious. The reviews stated that it was more of a relish than a jelly.

The problem is, mine is more of a soup than a relish. I put it in a jar in the refrigerator overnight, thinking that perhaps all it needed was cooling, but it is only marginally thicker than when it was hot.

Question

How can I fix this ridiculously soupy jelly? Can it be saved simply with additional heat, sugar, or pectin? I'd rather not go to the grocery store today (day before Thanksgiving) to get additional cranberries if it can be avoided. I have all ingredients but the peppers and cranberries on hand.

I found a site with another cranberry sauce maker complaining of the end product being too runny.  What I learned is that cranberries have lots of natural pectin that is released when they are cooked past bursting.

If it were me, I would:

cook it some more, keeping it at a boil but watching it carefully so
it doesn't boil over and does not start to scorch at the bottom of
the pan (in other words, stir and WATCH IT!)
When the cranberries have deflated from releasing their inards and
some of the excess liquid has either boiled off or thickened, your
recipe should be salvageable.

Best of luck!


Has anyone ever made margarine out of butter? It occurred to me that since margarine can be made by emulsifying fats with a suitable level of saturation with water to simulate butter, and clarifying butter is essentially just breaking the emulsion, driving off the water, and removing some solids.  So it seems to me that it should be possible to turn clarified butter into margarine by emulsifying it with water.

Doing this would probably be pointless, but I'm curious if anyone has done it just for the sake of having done it?

I'm not talking about margarine with butter derived flavouring or anything like that.  This is specifically about using butter as the fat in a margarine without significant additions or alterations to it beyond clarifying it normally and then emulsifying into margarine normally.

You may be allowed to sell butter as margarine since the the composition of the lipids for margarine allows also bovine lipids in general and butter fat in particular (and some margarines partially consist of butter fat).

But it doesn't make sense economically: margarines are butter substitutes prepared from cheaper lipids (mostly(?) vegetable oils that are hardened: saturated, but also e.g. tallow).

When you clarify butter, you keep the lipid fracton, the butter fat. For  margarines in the usual sense of the word, the lipid fraction of the margarine will not be the same as butter fat.

I see from the comments that you are actually wondering whether the clarification process can be reversed.

The traditional clarification by heating is probably difficult, since the proteins undergo heat denaturation, and that is irreversible.
However, industrially, butter fat is apparently prepared by a cold process, and that may be more suitable. The product also has less fat (>96 % compared to 99.5 % with the heating process), while of the remainder only up to 0.2 % - so the remainder are probably mostly leftover proteins. (source, sorry, in German)

German language Wikipedia says about clarified butter (Butterschmalz)

  Die europäische Butter wird zur Entwässerung – das entwässerte reine Fett ist das Butterschmalz – nur bis etwa 90 °C erhitzt und kann im Bedarfsfall durch Zugabe von Wasser wieder teilweise in Butter rückverwandelt werden. (Die Proteine bleiben denaturiert.) Ghee wird bei Temperaturen über 100 °C entwässert und ist gar nicht mehr in Butter rückführbar.

translation (deepl translator with small corrections):

   For dehydration - the dehydrated pure fat is the clarified butter - European butter is only heated up to about 90 °C and can be partially reconverted into butter by adding water if necessary. (The proteins remain denatured.) Ghee is dehydrated at temperatures above 100 °C and can no longer be re-converted into butter.

Side note: in German, "Butterschmalz" (the clarified butter obtained by keeping the butter molten for a time, maybe half an hour: the protein denatures and one fraction sinks to the bottom, another fraction yields a "foam" and the water evaporates) is subtly different from "geklärte Butter" (literally clarified butter, prepared by melting and immediately taking off the foam and decanting from the whey fraction below the molten butter).

Apparently, there was a time when emulsifying clarified butter would have made sense:

German language Wikipedia on Butterschmalz:

  Die Herstellung von Butterschmalz wurde eine Zeit lang von der EU subventioniert, um den (damaligen) Butterüberschuss („Butterberg“) abzubauen. Um eine Rückführung in Butter durch Emulgierung zu verhindern, was einem Subventionsbetrug gleichkäme, musste (gesetzlich vorgeschrieben) Stigmasterin dem Butterschmalz zugefügt werden, das dann als Indikator diente. Da der „Butterberg“ seit 2008 kein Problem mehr ist, endete die Subventionierung und mit ihr auch die Pflicht zur Beigabe von Stigmasterin.

translation, again deepl + a bit of help:

  For a while, the EU subsidised the production of clarified butter in order to reduce the (then) butter surplus ("butter mountain"). In order to prevent a return to butter by emulsification, which would have been tantamount to subsidy fraud, stigmasterol (required by law) had to be added to the clarified butter, which served as an indicator. Since the "butter mountain" is no longer a problem since 2008, the subsidy and with it the obligation to add stigmasterol ended.

(Stigmasterol is a substance naturally occuring in plants and also in [some] vegetable oils, but not in butter)


Making Herman the German starter using brown sugar I have a recipe for Herman the German cake and starter that calls for white sugar.  One of the comments said the person used brown sugar to feed Herman.  It wasn't clear if she used brown sugar to create Herman.  I love the flavors brown sugar gives.  Can I make a starter using brown sugar?  Or does it have to be white sugar to start and then I can switch to brown sugar when I feed Herman?

Here is the initial recipe and the link for the site:

•   5 oz plain flour, sifted
•   8 oz castor sugar
•   1 packet of active dry yeast (OP recommends using 3 tsp instead of the approx. 2 tsp in a packet)
•   1 cup warm milk
•   2 oz. warm water

http://www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com/how-to-make-your-own-sourdough-starter-for-a-herman-the-german-friendship-cake/

http://www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com/friendship-cake-instructions/

http://www.hermanthegermanfriendshipcake.com/just-how-flexible-is-herman-the-german-friendship-cake/

The first link is to the starter recipe.  The second link is the instructions on how to feed Herman and the standard Herman the German cake you can make with it.  The third link is the recipe where she says she feed Herman with brown muscovado sugar (which Google tells me is similar to brown sugar) and wonders about starting Herman with muscovado sugar.

I'm not sure but I think brown suger can also be used to make a Herman. The Herman dough consists of Lactobacillales and yeast. Both need sugar to live. White refined sugar mostly consists of saccharose (99,96 % saccharose, 0,04 % inverted sugar syrup).1 Brown sugar is nothing else than white sugar mixed with molasses. 2 Therefore I assume that you can use brown sugar instead of white sugar. Due to the molasses in the brown sugar you might use a bit more brown sugar than the receipe says for the white sugar. Wikipedia says that "Based on total weight, regular brown sugar contains up to 10% molasses.". I think, about 10% more brown sugar and it will be fine.

1 German Wikipedia article about (the purity levels of) sugar says "Raffinade ist der kristallisierte schneeweiße Zucker mit dem höchsten Reinheitsgrad (99,96 % Saccharose, 0,04 % Invertzucker).", translated: "Refined sugar is the crystallized, snow-white sugar with the highest level of purity (99,96 % saccharose, 0,04 % inverted sugar syrup).

2 English Wikipedia article about brown sugar


What's the process of making black garlic called? it's not caramelized – it doesn't get hot enough.
it's not fermented – the process is enzymatic, not due to fungus, yeast, or bacteria.
it's not pickled – no acid brine is added
it's not curing – no salt, nitrates, nitrites, or sugar are added
it's not smoked
it's done at around 140F/60C, so it's not Maillard Reaction product, which only begins at 280F/140C in the absence of water

I've been referring to it as curing.

So, what's the consensus?  If an inventor is known, what did that person call the process?

What you're describing - a material being broken down by its own enzymes - is usually referred to as "autolysis".


How to stop erythritol crystallisation? While making a "sugar" syrup reduction with erythritol, I have noticed that the liquid crystallises upon cooling. Google-fu says two parts of water and one part of erythritol will not crystallise.
The two challenges with this are : One, upon boiling, the water content is sure to reduce so the ratio is out of the window and the important one is that the sweetness is diluted and hence reduced. The solution to bumping up the sweetness is to add in a few Stevia drops.
I now have access to some sunflower liquid lecithin - will adding 23 milliliter to one cup of water and one cup of erythritol avoid crystallisation? First time using lecithin - from reading on the internet lecithin will hold on to water and oil. There is no oil in this recipe. But people have used to stabilise xylitol based sugar syrups - hence the question.
How do I make a sugar syrup with erythritol that doesn't crysatllise?

This is simply the nature of erythritol. In my testing, I wasn't able to create any kind of viscous, syrup-like consistency by mixing it with water and heating it to reduce; rather, it would always form a hard crystalline structure. This most likely has to do with the fact that, unlike regular sugar (sucrose), erythritol is not hygroscopic at all. (Things that are hygroscopic like to hold onto moisture for dear life; erythritol simply lets go of the moisture and you end up with a hard crystal).
If you are in the US, I'd recommend looking into allulose. It's extremely hygroscopic and I've successfully used it to create a syrup-like consistency. (On a scale from 1 to 10 — 1 being the least hygroscopic and 10 being the most — if erythritol is about a 3, allulose would be a 9 or 10). Be careful, however, as it burns much more easily than regular sugar does. Some downsides of allulose are that it's more expensive than erythritol and it isn't approved in the EU.
I have less experience with xylitol, but I believe it is also hygroscopic enough to be able to form a syrup, but I'm not positive. (Just a note in case anyone wasn't aware: xylitol can be fatal to dogs and cats). I did one test with xylitol but had problems with it crystalizing, but after reading the guidelines at https://willamettetransplant.com/xylitol-simple-syrup/, I realized I likely wasn't careful enough in creating the syrup. It seems any undissolved crystals or stray crystals that come in contact with the syrup can serve as seed crystals to hasten re-crystalization.


Cleaning dark stone kitchen countertops I have lived in two kitchens where the countertop was a dark stone material. In one case, it was black granite with copper flecks and in my current kitchen, it is solid dark brown quartz composite. In both places, I have noticed that simply wiping the countertop with a damp sponge or dishcloth leaves it streaky and unsightly. Is there a solution for this?

Run a clean plastic mesh covered sponge (we call them "dobies") under hot water and then squeeze out excess water so it is wet, but not dripping. Apply a few drops of dish soap to the sponge. Using a circular motion, wipe the counter surface to be cleaned, creating a light coating of thin suds on the entire counter. Take a dry dishtowel and remove the suds with long, even strokes that go from one edge to the other, pausing to refold the dishtowel so that a dry portion is always in contact with the counter, which will remove the suds effectively. Use a damp dishtowel to go over the surface again to remove any remaining soap. The counter will be shiny and streak free.


Are these Bay Leaves? I bought what I thought were bay leaves because they were very cheap.  Physically speaking, they behave like bay leaves when cooked (they stay hard even when boiled for along time in a stew).  But, I get the feeling they do not give a true bay leaf flavor to the food (or perhaps not any flavor at all).  The flavor of bay leaves is sufficiently subtle, though, that I cannot be sure without doing a side by side comparison, which I have not yet had the time for.  They are a bit curly along the edges, which bay leaves are usually not, but maybe they're just a different variety that I've not encountered before.  So, here's the question: are they bay leaves?

Here is a picture of the questionable leaves:

And here is a picture of what I know to be bay leaves:

There are a number of different bay leaves, and the description and picture are consistent with what I've seen called "West Indian" bay leaf.

Regarding price, bay leaves are absurdly expensive at retail... Buying from a local restaurant supplier near me, dried whole bay leaves around $11 a pound and those are not locally grown or processed, just wholesalers.


Crock pot turned to warm for 45mins- 1hr I put beef in my crock pot with cream of mushroom soup and an onion soup packet around 1pm. I set it on high for 2hrs and meant to turn it to low. At 3:47 I realized I forgot to turn the setting to low so the crock pot was on the warm setting for about 45mins. My husband thinks its fine, but I am pregnant and have a toddler so I'm a bit concerned and thinking about throwing it out. Is it safe to eat or should I toss it? Thank you!!

The USUAL problem with "warm" (or off/unplugged) on a crockpot is when food that is not hot is placed in one and left on those settings, where it does not quickly warm to a safe temperature range.

If the food was on "High" for 2 hours, it was hot. Depending on the specifics of the "warm" setting on your crockpot, it's somewhere between no risk (warm is 140F or above, maintaining a safe serving temperature) or low risk if for some bizzare reason they set it lower (food would still take a long time to cool below 140 °F, and thus would not actually have been below that temperature for anywhere near the full 45 minutes.)

I honestly can't imagine that a manufacturer would have chosen the second (unsafe) option, but I don't know for sure what your specific model actually does.


Can beef stew be reheated several times? I purchased 2 pound of meat, and the same day cooked it into a stew.  For dinner I had a small amount of it, and then put the pot into the refrigerator.

The next day for lunch I would like to reheat the entire pot of stew to boiling temperature, let it cool to eating temperature, eat some, and afterwards put the entire pot back into the refrigerator.

I would like to repeat this pattern for a few days.  I am told there is a risk of bacterial contamination, and the proper way is to only reheat the small amount I want to eat each time, not the entire pot.  But as long as I reheat to boiling temperature, is that really true?

There is some very useful information for you in this thread.

The direct answer is, every time you re-heat and cool the entire pot, you're passing through the "danger zone" (40-140 °F or 4-60 °C) where bacteria will continue growing.  Even if you manage to kill all of them, this is a problem because:

  Some bacteria leave behind harmful protein toxins that cannot be
  "killed" (denatured) by cooking. Cooking food is only effective
  against live organisms, not their toxic waste products.

So yes, there is a very real risk.  To reduce this risk as much as possible, you'll want to follow the alternate method you describe of only re-heating the amount that you want to eat at any given time.

That's also desirable because:

If you bring the entire pot back up to boiling each time, you're continuing to cook it.  Besides the risk of contamination, that will also affect the quality and palatability of the stew because it will be drastically overcooked after just a couple repetitions.
It's a lot more efficient to apply just the heat needed to re-heat a small portion than it is to re-heat a larger amount that you're just going to let cool back down anyway.

Also, keeping your stew in the pot may be undesirable, especially if it has acidic ingredients like tomatoes, which can react with a metal pot (particularly aluminum) and give your stew a faintly metallic taste.

Do yourself a favor and don't try to to take this shortcut.  It's a bad idea for a number of reasons.  Pack the stew into individual servings instead and keep them refrigerated until you're ready to eat them.


Smen - Moroccan fermented butter.. best clarified or not? I am making a 20kg batch for my niece's birth (I like the old traditions of the world!), and was wondering if anyone could direct me.

There seems to be recipes calling for fresh butter (https://www.thespruceeats.com/smen-moroccan-preserved-butter-with-thyme-2394939), and recipes calling for clarified butter (https://www.thespruceeats.com/smen-recipe-plain-salted-preserved-butter-2394938)

I need one to store for decades, so am wondering about the clarified butter one without the herb 'starter culture'.. and as an aside (for interest), are the differences just regional?

Clarified butter has had most of the water removed and so has a much longer shelf life than fresh butter. I assume this is why it is often found in the cuisines of warmer climates.

Water is required for fermentation so if the butter was truly clarified it would not ferment. That's kind of the point of clarified butter.

The second recipe only partially clarified the butter. The milk solids are strained but the water isn't separated out.

I suspect this is done for flavor and appearance. The browned solids would add complexity to the flavor even after they were strained out. The color would be more vibrant when it is used without the browned solids.

I can't speak to the authenticity of either method but I suspect the clarified butter would be more authentic because it would be more common in Morocco. Kind of like how all Indian recipes call for ghee even when butter works fine. It's what they had on hand.