What does one use a saw for? In the 1939 illustrated book Madeline is a kitchen scene. On the counter are plates (or bowls), a colander, a ladle, a saucepan, a large knife — and a hand saw. Is a hand saw a kitchen implement? If so, what's it for?

Any Kitchen I worked in –that does a bit of butchering– has one (any butcher also). It's for sawing bones.

At the time you would not throw anything out of an animal, and a lot of people would make their stock or put a piece of bone in a stew or soup for taste. But, as far as I know, they usually look like a hacksaw not like a the one you're showing.

Maybe the illustrator did not know what a kitchen saw looked like. He's been asked to draw one and did a hand saw by mistake.

This type of saw could be also used in a pastry shop. At some stage (and still, apparently according to @divi) wedding and other momumental cakes, but also smaller ones, were consolidated with pieces of wood or other non comestible material.


Baileys ice cream stabilizer I'm planning on making Baileys ice cream from the recipe given in Larousse Gastronomique, which calls for 1 tsp of stabilizer. Ice cream stabilizers are briefly listed in the preceding paragraph as edible gelatine, egg white, agar-agar, and carob but are not discussed any further. I find the stabilizer reference vague and the 1 tsp measurement further puzzles me because I wouldn't expect them to be used in the same ratios.

Please help.

150 g egg yolks
1 tsp ice cream stabilizer
1/2 cup castor sugar
2 cups milk
1 cup heavy cream
175 ml Baileys

I've used xanthan gum with great success. You can get it in powdered form at places like Whole Foods and health food stores. You might find guar gum also, although I haven't tried it. The teaspoon measurement is about right for a standard home recipe that makes a quart of ice cream, although you can add a quarter teaspoon at a time and stop when the consistency looks about right.  Add it while spinning the mix in a blender to prevent clumps. If you add too much, it'll become thick and sticky like peanut butter.

I'm assuming they're calling for some kind of stabilizer because Baileys has a lot of water in it, but you may find that you don't need the full teaspoon.


How to master homemade pasta? I've made my own pasta for the first time today. While the results were far from bad, it was not perfect. It looked a little bit too "fluffy" when compared to store-bought pasta (I mean the more or less fresh ones you get at the refrigerator and not dried) and once it was cooked it grew too much in size.
I've seen some discussions on this site regarding for instance adding more or less eggs, or only egg yolks, etc.
I would like to know how these proportions affect the pasta in itself. While of course I can eat it how I want, I like to do things as traditional and "rule-following" way as possible. Some questions that come on top of my head are, for instance: What is the effect of adding only yolks, more eggs, less eggs, salt (does it do anything besides taste)? Should the pasta be overworked, or very little?
I understand is a question with multiple questions, I am just looking for general advice on how to master the recipe based on a few factors.

Serious Eats had a pretty thorough discussion of this a few years ago:  https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/01/best-easy-all-purpose-fresh-pasta-dough-recipe-instructions.html
They discuss how different egg white / yolk / water proportions affect the pasta, and also touch on some other issues that you mentioned (like salt and that you need to work it sufficiently to develop the correct elasticity), and they also discussed how resting the dough affected it, and had pictures to show how things changed.
And if you're not used to fresh pasta, I would also recommend reading my answer to a related question : https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/112587/67


Vegetarian Alternative to Bacon-wrapped Sausages? I'm making a batch of Brown Sugar Smokies for a potluck, and wanted to provide a vegetarian alternative.

I know that brown sugar'd carrots are good, so I figured they're a decent substitute for the sausages.  Is there a good alternative for the bacon?

I was thinking of using mushrooms, which probably have the right texture, but I don't eat them enough to know whether that would be a decent taste or just gross.

I'm assuming your goal is to try and capture the main elements that make bacon wrapped smokies great: sweet, salty, meaty, and smoky.

For a vegetarian finger food, grilled tofu would be my first choice. This recipe mirrors the flavor profile of the bacon wrapped smokies pretty closely: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/crispy-barbequed-tofu-slices/detail.aspx

Straight up breaded, fried tofu is also very tasty and versatile (it is fried, after all), and you could serve it with a variety of dipping sauces.

If you're not a fan of tofu, mushrooms would be my second choice. Stuffed mushrooms that are grilled instead of baked would give you a nice subtle smokiness, and they are always a crowd pleaser: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/mouth-watering-stuffed-mushrooms/detail.aspx

And last but not least, I'm a big fan of grilled eggplant. This grilled eggplant and ricotta crostini recipe keeps a nice balance of sweet, salty, smoky, and rich: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/grilled-eggplant-and-ricotta-crostini-recipe/index.html


Tempered chocolate spheres in advance? I'm having a birthday party this weekend, and therefore I need to make some food for my guests. For dessert I want to make a chocolate sphere with some kind of stuff inside, and then pour it with caramel sauce.

In order to make the chocolate spheres I bought some half sphere chocolate moulds in polycarbonate. But the one I have only have room for 6 at a time, and I need to do 24.
So my question is, since I want the day of the birthday to be as stress less as possible, can I make these moulds in advance, while they still remain shiny (Of course only if my tempering is done correctly) and not the white spots, and if so, how should I store them, and can I do it 3 days in advance, or is 1 day advised ? :)

Basically: I need to make some tempered chocolate moulds, but I'm pretty sure I won't have the time to do all 24 the same day, since I will be having lots of other stuff to do as well. So can I do it in advance ? :)

Best regards

Chocolate will stay fresh for weeks or even months if stored correctly.
And yes, the spheres will stay as shiny and beautiful as you made them if you store them correctly:

in a cool, dark place away from sunlight
but not necessarily in the fridge - taking them out will lead to condensation on the surface
at rather constant temperature
and dry.

So in short:
A large enough foodsafe plastic container in a cool cellar or cupboard, away from (sun-)light and, if applicable, curious kids, pets or others that might feast on your stash in advance. Unless you have a high humidity environment, it's not absolutely necessary that the box be airtight. But if you want to be really sure, include some silica gel packs against excess humidity.

Do not stack them like nested bowls, or you could scratch or otherwise damage the glossy surface. If you have to, place one layer in your box, cover with parchment, foil or similar, add a sheet of cardboard for stability and another layer of parchment or foil, then the next layer of spheres.

Good luck and have a good party!


How to calculate the pH of a lye solution? I'm trying to figure out if I can substitute the catholyte from a salt water electrolysis system for a lye solution in pretzel making. In order to figure this out, I need to know the pH of my lye solution, which seems like a pretty involved calculation. Can anyone explain how to calculate the pH of a 4% lye solution? (example: 40g lye in 1 liter water)

The exact number will depend on what exactly your lye is composed of. Lye usually refers to either sodium hydroxide (NaOH) or potassium hydroxide (KOH). For the purposes of the calculations I'm going to assume that it is sodium hydroxide.

Because molecules are really tiny things, chemists use larger units to count them, namely the mole. One mole of a compound contains 6.022 x 1023 molecules of it. It is like how a dozen eggs means 12, except that instead of 12, it's 6.022 x 1023.

One mole of sodium hydroxide happens to weigh 40 g (Ctrl-F "molar mass" on the Wikipedia article). So, the 40 g of lye that you are using contains one mole, or 6.022 x 1023 molecules, of NaOH.

Each single molecule of NaOH dissociates, or splits up, into one sodium ion and one hydroxide ion: Na+ and OH−. The hydroxide ions are responsible for the corrosiveness of strong base, as well as the slippery feeling if you accidentally get some on your hands. In this solution, you're therefore going to have one mole of hydroxide ions.

You can now transform that into a concentration, which is defined by the amount of a substance, divided by the volume that it is in. Here, the amount is 1 mol and your volume is 1 L, so the concentration of OH− is (1 mol)/(1 L) = 1 mol/L. Concentrations are commonly denoted with square brackets, so it's common to write [OH−] = 1 mol/L.

Finally, we come to the last bit. The pH of a solution is given by pH = −log10[H+], where the square brackets [H+] denote the concentration of hydrogen ions, H+. There's a slight problem: the pH is looking for [H+], whereas we only know [OH−]. Thankfully, it's also a known fact that whenever you use water as a solvent at room temperature, the following relationship holds true:

[H+] x [OH−] = 10−14 mol2/L2

Therefore, [H+] = (10−14 mol2/L2)/(1 mol/L) = 10−14 mol/L. Taking the negative logarithm of this, you get pH = 14.

If your lye is actually potassium hydroxide, you'll need to run through all those steps again. The end result isn't very different, though; you'll get a pH of 13.85.


Can you use cookie cutters on sticky dough? I am a baking novice trying to make these oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. I'm trying to get them to be cute shapes with cookie cutters but the cookies keep spreading. I am wondering if maybe this type of dough is just too wet and sticky to hold a shape. Should I give up trying to shape these cookies?

That looks like a delicious recipe, but not one that will hold a cookie cutter shape. When a recipe says to space the balls of cookie dough four inches apart, you can expect them to spread in the oven. Cookies that spread will not hold a definable shape. There's no hope of getting this recipe to make cookies that hold a shape.
There are oatmeal cookie recipes designed to be rolled out and cut into shapes. For example, Chewy Oatmeal Decorating Cookies and Oatmeal Rollout Cookies. You might be able to add miniature chocolate chips, but they may make the cookies crack and fall apart. Finely chopped or grated chocolate would probably work fine.
If you feel like experimenting (and are willing to risk having some "failed"* batches of cookies), you can experiment with increasing the oats in your recipe. I haven't made this exact recipe, but I've made many batches of oatmeal cookies with varying levels of oats. I've found that you can use up to double the oatmeal called for in a typical oatmeal cookie recipe before the dough becomes too dry to hold together. Additional oatmeal gives a stiffer, dryer dough that will come closer to holding a shape. The finished cookies will be a bit dryer and a bit less sweet. The large oat flakes in your recipe (since it uses old fashioned oats) will still give the shapes slightly irregular outlines, so don't expect to get a lot of detail. But simple shapes like a heart, star or diamond should still be identifiable in the finished cookie.

*Where "failed" means not perfect, but your kids/coworkers/classmates will still eat them. If you are the only one eating your cookies, baking experiments can be hazardous to your waistline.


Can I substitute corn syrup for honey in bread? I have a white bread recipe I use frequently I'm pretty happy with. It calls for 3tbsp (64g) of honey. I have a bottle of karo light corn syrup "with real vanilla" that I would like to use up, instead.

From the label, honey and corn syrup have the same calories per tbsp. Searching the web, they seem to be 1:1 substitutes for one another. But bread is a bit special, right? The sweetness isn't just for flavor—it also has to feed the yeast so the dough rises.

Is a 1:1 substitution (by weight, if it matters) appropriate here, or should I add more corn syrup than I would have honey?

Yes, I would do a 1:1 substitution. I think your recipe will work fine and should taste good, but the flavor profile will be different (obviously honey has a very different taste from corn syrup).

Second, there will be different proportions of sugars between the two, so even with the same number of calories the sweetness will be different (honey is sweeter than most corn syrups). Fructose, for example, is much sweeter than glucose, which in turn is sweeter than maltose.

Honey has about the same sweetness as sucrose (table sugar), but acids, enzymes, heat, and other processes can convert sugars into other sugars. Sucrose, for example, can be broken down into glucose and fructose, making it sweeter.

You may also want to try the recipe with dark corn syrup which has added molasses and a deeper flavor. You can add some vanilla to your recipe if you want that as well.


Using Agar agar beyond its use by date A friend of mine came over the other day to borrow some agar agar from us. We had two boxes in the cupboard, and handed him one that was within its use by date, not knowing the ramifications of using the one that was past its use by date.

However, we were thinking about it, and couldn't really find any reason not to use agar agar even well after its use by date. The box in question is a year over.

My question is this: is the use by date merely there because everything must have one, or does agar agar go "off" beyond some point in time?

If you store it properly (i.e., dry), it won't go bad in the unsafe sense. It has a pretty long shelf-life. Its possible that it'll lose some gelling strength eventually, particularly if stored in harsh conditions (elevated temperature, exposure to humid air, exposed to sunlight, etc.). Like anything else, it could conceivably pick up off-flavors if not stored in an air-tight container.

I'd make a small bit of agar-agar gel with it, to see if its still OK. I expect it is.


Should I under-cook vegetables if I plan on microwaving them the next day? I usually make chicken and stir fry veg for my lunch the following day. Obviously I cook the chicken fully but I was wondering if I plan on only eating the meal the following day and heating it in the microwave for 2 mins @ 1000w, should I under-cook the vegetables a little bit?

The vegetables are usually onions, peppers and spinach.

The vegetables are likely to cook more during the reheating process, so if you don't want that you'll have to cook them less initially. They won't be the same as if you'd stir-fried them to perfection and eaten them straight away of course, but this is something I do myself when preparing meals to reheat at work.

So, basically, the answer to your question is "yes".


Do pickled sausages need to be refrigerated? We have a jar of Hannah's Red Hot Pickled Sausages that we just opened last night.  I couldn't find any "Refrigerate After Opening" indication anywhere on the jar, so we left them out overnight.  I'm still uneasy about it, but the only way to ask Hannah's is to have a facebook account.  I don't have one since I don't use facebook (yes, only person on the planet), so I was hoping you may know for sure.

I have a jar of "Big John's" pickled sausages and right on the bottom it says "NEVER NEEDS REFRIGERATION"!  They sit at stores and bars for for many days if not weeks and are sold by the sausage.

I found this on Hannah's Facebook page.  "They do not need to be refrigerated after opening in temperatures below 75 degrees. Recommended refrigeration for temps higher."


Can I blend hot soup in a ninja? I want to make broccoli cheddar soup tonight and it says to blend the stuff after you add the broccoli. I have a blender but it sucks and would rather use my ninja. Can I put hot liquids in this? How do I deal with venting the steam?

According to the manual of the Ninja Professional Blender:

  CAUTION: Do not process food or liquid that is hotter than 180°F/82°C. Allow very hot ingredients to cool before processing.

Source: http://www.ninjakitchen.com/manual/BL500_30_IB_ENG_110223_2.pdf


Cast Iron Skillet with Lid Rusted togethe I want to use my mom's cast iron skillet which she used primarily for frying chicken but the lid is sealed/rusted/won't come off from the skillet.  How can I get this lid off without breaking it?

There is a product called Naval Jelly that is designed to remove rust from metal items.  Its available in our area at most hardware stores.  Menards has it. Use a toothbrush to work the jelly in between the lid and the skillet and let it sit for 10-15 minutes.  It literally changes the rust into a water-soluable paste that you can wipe away with a clean, wet cloth.  Then you will be able to season your skillet (and lid) so it can be usable again. Hope this works for you.


Sous Vide Beef steaks look overcooked at 59°C and 56.5°C I have just started cooking steaks in my sous vide machine.

I am getting results when cooking sous vide that do not agree with the theory and instructions I have read.

For my experiments I have cooked “rostas,” which is a beef part close to the filet (see link). I cooked two pieces for 1½ hours. One at 59°C and one at 56.5°C.

Result at 59°C:
Result at 56.5°C:

The white balance is off, but there was only a slight hint of red meat inside the piece cooked at 56.5°C.

What could be wrong? I get very different results from e.g. this page. I have checked the temperature of my sous vide machine and it seems correct.

If your sous vide machine is cooking to the right temperature then your steak is not overdone. That's the beauty of the process, your meat will go up to the temperature you set and no higher. You need to take the temperature of the center of the meat when you take it out. If the temperature of the meat is higher than you set the machine to then something is wrong with your machine. If the temperature is right then that is how the meat looks when cooked, unless you have marinated it or it's getting coloring from something in the bag. Maybe it's old, or hasn't been aged at all.

Different cuts of beef have different textures and colors before and after cooking, and depending on whether the meat has been aged or not, how it was aged if it was, and if it's close to spoilage. It's very hard to say in this case, what you need is data.


Preparation Techniques for Tilapia Filets In my freezer, I have two thin tilapia filets that need to be eaten.  I realize that I can:

wrap them in foil with seasoning and cook
bake or broil them with butter, wine, lemon juice, and/or other seasonings
bread and fry them
grill them

What I'd love to know is what I'm missing: what's are techniques to use with this mild-flavored fish in it's preparation?

I've found two good things to do with this fish (I dislike it broiled/baked): fish curry or soup, and fish tacos. I find the fish too bland to really do much on its own, but it serves as a decent base to the different pepper sauces that i put on tacos.

For curries, the Indian state of Goa has some good ideas on what to do with fish, as do the Thais. You can find many recipes in different books and the internet. Talapia will generally sub in for whatever whitefish they call for, although it has a bit less flavor than most.

My personal favorite fish soup is the Hungarian halászlé. I don't have a good recipe--I usually make it up as I go along--but google should find you some.


When can I not substitute Romano for Parmesan? I noticed that good Romano costs 1/3 as much as good Parmesan.

I know that Romano is aged much less than Parmesan is and that accounts for the difference in cost. However, the flavors of the two are very similar to me.

In what situations would it be important to use only Parmesan instead of substituting cheaper Romano cheese?

It's a different flavor. Romano is sharper, more grassy; parmesan is nuttier and sweeter. I actually prefer romano where I have a lot of other strong flavors. If there's other sharp flavors in a dish, such as olives, chili pepper, or capers (e.g., puttanesca), I'll go with romano which seems to stand up better to the robust flavors. For something with a more subtle flavor such as a ragu bolognese, butter or cream-based sauces, risotto, etc. I feel that a good parmeggiano reggiano can stand up to the other flavors in the dish without overwhelming them.

If cost is your main concern, I've had some parms from Argentina that are actually pretty good. Reggiano is definitely better, but depending on what you're using it for, it might be an option. I wouldn't use it in something like a risotto or fettuchine alfredo where it plays a key role in the dish, but if you're just grating it on top it will work fine. An in-between option is Grana Padano, which is advertised as a "budget" substitute for reggiano. In my experience, it's pretty good, but where I live it's only a little cheaper.


How do you keep dehydrated broth (powder) from clumping? I have some dehydrated store-bought broth mix (chicken and vegetable) that has clumped into a large solid block. I haven't been able to find any information on the Internet about how to fix this.

I suspect it is a matter of hydration (too hydrated or too dehydrated). I could experiment by adding drying agents/water, but I figured I should ask first before making my broth go funky.

The clumping is a result of air and moisture entering the container with the substance. This especially happens if you pour the mix directly from the container over a hot dish - the steam enters and immediately clumps the spices. What you can do is to transfer your mix into a new dry and airtight container. Hope this helps :)


How dangerous is it to refreeze meat that has been thawed? I've often been told by people that I shouldn't refreeze meat (particularly hamburger meat) once it has been thawed.  However, this seems a little silly to me.  I can't imagine how meat that hasn't been bought fresh and local could find its way to my kitchen with out thawing and being refrozen a couple of times.  How much damage can one more thawing and refreezing really do?  Can it really be that dangerous disease wise? Or is this just one of those urban myths?

In theory you could thaw and refreeze as many times as you like, though the changes in temperature would definitely alter the quality of the meat's taste and texture.

What matters most is how long the meat has been in the so-called "danger zone" speaking from a temperature perspective. The "danger zone" is defined as being between 41 to 135 °F (5 to 57 °C).

Here is an excerpt from The Professional Chef, by the Culinary Institute of America:

  Foods left in the danger zone for a period longer than four hours are considered adulterated. Additionally, one should be fully aware that the four-hour period is cumulative, meaning that the meter starts running again every time the food enters the danger zone. Therefore, once the four-hour period has been exceeded, heating, cooling, or any other cooking method cannot recover foods.


Using melted butter vs rubbing it into flour? Let's say I'm making a crumble topping or some biscuits.  What, if any, differences would it make to the finished product if melted butter was used instead of rubbing it in to the flour? Thanks.

Melting the butter would create a more homogeneous mixture of butter and flour. This may sound like a good idea, but actually preserving little clumps of butter and flour in the final mixture for your crumble (or streusel, or pie crust, or US biscuit) is what gives the finished product its flaky texture. If you try using melting butter you will a lower-volume, denser, harder results which is undesirable in the applications you are describing.

You can even inadvertently get this result if you warm the butter up too much with your hands while creating the mixture; in such cases it can be helpful to return the dough to the fridge for a few minutes and letting the butter re-solidify before crumbling any large clumps apart again.


How to make a pie with no yolk? I had a great low fat recipe for a squash pie that had in it four eggs.
I tried to take only the egg-whites with no yolk but the pie didn't come out right.
It just didn't coke completely, it took about 2 hours till it was almost cooked (instead of 1 hour) and the inside wouldn't cook while the top was almost burnt.  it didn't rise i.e. it was shallow in its height.
In addition to not putting the yolk in, I also forgot to preheat the stove.

Does anybody know how can I make the pie well without the yolk? Was this only a preheating the stove problem?

Since my wife is on a low-cholesterol diet, I often substitute egg whites for whole eggs in may recipes.  I have never had the rising issue you describe; if anything, egg whites have more rising power than egg yolks.  Think of a souffle; it's mostly egg whites.

So if your pie isn't rising, it's for some other reason.  Given that you cooked it for 2 hours without it being completely done, I suspect that in addition to not pre-heating the oven your oven never really got up to the right temperature -- or you got the recipe wrong, or it's just a terrible recipe.


Oat Flour for pasta not rolling well? I experimented by substituting all purpose flour with oat flour that I ground up myself from organic oatmeal for pasta intended for ravioli.

I used roughly 3 cups of oat flour : 4 eggs ratio,
Kneeded it into dough, let it rest for 30 minutes before attempting to roll it in my pasta roller.

The problem is I couldn't get the texture right, plus the oat flour kept absorbing all the moisture and became dry, brittle and unrollable.

Adding more water made it too moist and sticky that I know it would get stuck in my pasta roller. Kneeding water or more flour into the dough made it eventually dry and brittle again.

The oat flour dough is like a weird sponge! I can't get the texture right.

What am I doing wrong?

I've made pasta from all purpose flour before and have not had this problem.

EDIT: Just experimenting because I had extra Oatmeal on hand. I don't have Gluten sensitivity.

Pasta relies on gluten development for its strength and structure.  Only wheat and its close relatives have the necessary precursor proteins, glutenin and gliadin, from which gluten is formed.

You simply will not be able to make pasta from 100% oat flour using a recipe designed for wheat flour, as oats do not contain gluten (well, technically, its precursors).

If you desire a gluten free pasta, you should search for recipes specifically for that purpose.  They are often bound together with xantham gum or other hydrocolloids.

If you are just looking for an interesting pasta as an alternative to the more traditional ones, you need to make sure you have enough gluten available to support the structure (and overcome the weakening that will come from using oat flour, which will physically interrupt the gluten strands).  I would suggest making sure you are using high protein wheat flour (such as bread flour), and only substituting a portion (no more than say 25%, and you might want to start with smaller amounts to see how it works) with oat flour.  I haven't tried this, so you will need to experiment to find a good balance between oat flavor, and the ability for the pasta to hold its shape and structure.


What variety of squash produces "flor de calabaza"? In Mexico, flor de calabaza is sometimes served on quesadillas, in soups, or in other dishes.  The literal translation of flor de calabaza is "flower of pumpkin/zucchini/squash".  As calabaza is a rather broad term in Spanish, I don't really know specifically what kind of flower(s) are used for this.

I'm interested in cooking with some of this myself, and am happy to grow the squash plants in my yard, but which type of squash plants shall I grow?  Or are various varieties of squash equally suitable for the harvesting of their flowers?

They're commonly called squash blossoms in English - as you might guess, this is because it doesn't matter too much what kind of squash they're from. They'll most commonly be from smaller summer squash plants (e.g. zucchini) though, since they produce many small squash instead of a few large squash (like pumpkins), so you can get more blossoms for your trouble.


What is the proper way to brine fish? My query is regarding fish in general and specifically types like salmon, tuna and trout.

How long should fish be brined for? Some recipes say 4 hours and others say 8-12 hours.
Should the saline solution be 6% as usual.
How do you know if it has bined properly?  Do you expect it to be plump and juicy as with poultry or how exactly?

Thanks

To answer your question, my goal in brining is to simply get as much salt as possible into the cells of the fish. . I do not care about taste, flavour or anything else, I just want salt to penetate into all parts of the fish.  As you know if you want salt in your meat brining is the best method and better then normal and slow cooking which do not absorb to the same extent and in the same way.

It depends on why you're brining. I don't smoke fish so longer brining may be warranted for that use. I brine to keep fish juicy coming off the grill. For this I agree with Cook's illustrated:

We found that, for up to six 1-inch-thick steaks or fillets, the optimum concentration was a 6 percent brine (5 tablespoons of salt dissolved in 2 quarts of water) and the ideal time was 15 minutes. It worked no matter the species, improving the texture of the fish without over seasoning....
And brining works a lot faster on fish because the structure of muscle in fish is different than that in meat: Instead of long, thin fibers (as long as 10 centimeters in meat), fish is constructed of very short (up to 10 times shorter) bundles of fibers.


Availability of pure alcohol in the UK (or alternatives as fuel for alcohol-burning cookers) My friends from Portugal have a chorizo cooker (something, I believe, a bit like this), and they would like to use it in the UK. In Portugal they burn pure alcohol in it, which they purchase from pharmacies.

As far as I am aware, in the UK we are not able to buy alcohol so freely. Does anyone know of where alcohol can be bought, or of a suitable alternative fuel?

You can't use methylated spirit to cook that way. Methylated spirit contains 1% pyridine to deter people from drinking it, and it will taint the sausage (and no, they don't say what is in it on the label).

The way that excise tariffs are set up, you could buy pure alcohol in UK, but the duty would drive the price to about £75 per litre.

Better to buy pure alcohol in countries that are used to selling it retail (I always bring back a couple of litres from Italy, about €16 / litre).


What size pan should I use if I want to split a recipe in half that calls for a 13x9 inch pan? I have a recipe that calls for 13x9 glass pan, which I have used over and over successfully. This year for holidays I would like to split the recipe so that I get two smaller end products to give as gifts. How do I do this? What size pan should I use?

I have a couple of 8.5" x 6.5" pans (designed for toaster ovens) that I use for exactly this. The height is about the same as a standard 13" x 9" pan. I've split solid dishes like carrot cake or Spanish Bar Bread and looser ones like Spinach Marie or macaroni and cheese successfully. Just remember to check on the dish earlier than usual as the smaller portions will bake quicker.


Folding dry ingredients into the cake batter: at once or in 2/3 portions, does it make a difference? The following is my go-to sponge cake recipe:

6 eggs
2 and a half cups flour
1 cup oil
1 and a half cups sugar
1 cup milk
2 and a half tsp baking powder
cardamom and saffron

First I separate eggs, then I cream egg yolks and sugar. I add oil and mix well, then I stir in lukewarm milk. at this time, egg whites are beaten until stiff-peak forms. Then it's folded into the yolk mixture. dry ingredients (sifted) folded at the end. Goes into the oven (pre-heated/180) until the edges are golden.

The issue is, at the stage where I add dry ingredients, sometimes I add it in three portions and I sift it over the batter. But some other times I do it at once. I get different textures, soft and fluffy or quite sense. Is adding flour at once causing an undesired texture?

You want the dry ingredients to be fully moistened and dispersed throughout the liquid with no dry clumps.  You also want minimal agitation so that you don't destroy the retrained air, introduced by the whipped egg whites, which acts to give a fluffier texture to the finished cake.

If you sprinkle the dry ingredients over the batter in multiple steps and gently fold in each addition, it requires very little agitation to moisten and incorporate; little more than lightly pressing over the surface with a spatula and a gentle fold or two.

If you add all at once, you have to mix the batter more vigorously to get the dry ingredients to fully incorporate.  This will cause the batter to deflate and will produce a denser cake.


Pie Crust -- Cutting to mix Why is cutting in butter the right way to make pastry dough?

This Serious Eats article explains it very clearly:

First he presents the "old school" understanding of what is happening:

  Old school pastry books will tell you that when you cut butter or some other solid fat (like shortening or lard) into flour, what's happening is that you are encasing pockets of flour inside a shell of fat. Add water, and the flour is moistened, whereupon gluten—the network of proteins that lend structure to baked goods—is formed. When you subsequently roll this dough out, these pockets of fat stretch and stretch, eventually forming sheet of fat that separate sheets of gluten-enforced flour. Then, as the pastry bakes, the fatty layers melt, allowing the floury layers to separate from each other, solidify, and form the layers you see in a great pie crust.

Then he points out that this doesn't really make sense:

  For starters, how could the action of cutting a solid fat into a relatively fluid mass of flour possibly cause it to coat pockets of flour in distinct bubbles? And even more importantly, if the fat is really coating these pockets of dry flour, then how would they get moist when you add water to the mix? Wouldn't the fat prevent any water from reaching the flour?

Then he states his understanding of what's actually happening:

  You see, it turns out that when it comes to pie dough, our existing model has it wrong. In fact, it's not the fat that's coating pockets of dry flour. It's the reverse. It's the flour that's coating pockets of pure fat. With this model, things make much more sense. You can easily and intuitively see how fat gets coated with flour (think about dropping a pat of butter into a pile of flour, but on a much smaller scale), and with this model, when you add water, you are indeed moistening dry flour so that it can form sheets of gluten.

From there, he goes on to present his method for getting great pie crusts by over-saturating the flour and then adding more flour to bring it back to the correct consistency.


Could malt used in bread show up as dark brown "grains" in the finished loaf? I get my daily brown bread from a bread outlet down the street. In the last two weeks I found, more than once, torpedo-shaped dark brown objects, approximately the size of a swollen grain of rice in the bread. I was concerned these might be mouse droppings.  When I retuned to the outlet, the shop attendant contacted the baker and they told me that it was from the malt they use to darken the bread. I was really surprised and never expected to hear such a thing.

When I cut the bread open the dark brown grains were as soft as boiled rice, and when I rubbed them between my fingers they looked and felt like paste, and after a day or so left out in the open, they hardened.

Without pictures, it's hard to say for sure, but that doesn't sound like malt. Malt syrup (barley being the standard grain used for malt) is fairly dark (between honey and molasses in color), but it's also transparent and would be dissolved in the dough. Malt powder isn't significantly darker than flour, and should be distributed evenly through the other dry ingredients. Neither are used as a "darkening agent", aside from occasionally being used to darken the crust of bread slightly. As rumtscho points out in the comments, there is a "rye malt" which is used as a darkening agent in some traditional breads. If this is used, it could be a lump that didn't get mixed in? A much more common darkening agent would be caramel color, which is still very unlikely to lead to dark lumps, as it dissolves easily in water.

Depending on the type of bread, it could be a kernel of some type of grain (rye maybe?) or a lump of unhydrated flour. Without more details, there's no way to give a definite answer, but it doesn't sound like malt.


Which BBQ grill is better: cast iron or steel I am going to buy a BBQ and I am torn between a cast iron BBQ and a stainless steel BBQ. What are the advantages and downsides of each?

Assuming you are talking about different types of grill grates:

Choosing Grill Grates

In general, cast-iron gives you better heat retention (flip-side: slower preheating) and better non-stick behavior if well seasoned. However maintenance with cast-iron can be a bit of a hassle. You have to develop and maintain seasoning and also take precautions against rust.

Stainless steel does not rust and is easier to maintain, however it is less non-stick and won't give you the same grill marks that you get with cast-iron.

Ceramic coated cast-iron is supposed to be a good compromise, however, I really hated the ones I had as they were very hard to clean and the coating eventually cracked, rusted AND chipped off.

tl;dr - If you are willing to put in the maintenance, cast-iron is generally the superior choice. If you aren't, go for high quality stainless steel grates (like these) -- you won't be missing all that much.


What is the best way to store and manage tahini? I don't use my tahini too often, and sometimes when I open a can that's been sitting on the shelf, the oil has separated from the pastey part so much, that the pastey part is like a rock.

Is there a way to store tahini longterm without this separating happening?
Once it happens is there a way to recover it?  A food processor didn't work.

The oil will always separate from the rest of the product. (home made or natural/bio peanut butter will behave the same way)

When that happens, just spend some time and elbow grease to mix it back together again.

if the tahini was stored in the fridge, it might take longer because everything will be harder.

Just leave it on the counter for a while until it gets to room temperature before mixing it back together.

(after googling) People suggest to keep the jar upside down and when you want to use it, just put it back straight and let it stand for a while, it will mix itself (a little bit) together again.


hardened residue after high heat cooking (carbon steel and cast iron) Here is my one month old De Buyer pan:

I've seasoned it off and on in the last month at least 10 times, using thin layers of oil and on the stove top.  It's very dark brown to black over the entire cooking surface.  This is my first pan that requires seasoning (carbon steel or cast iron) so I'm just feeling my way in the dark here.

I had some initial traumatic experiences with bacon.  The "internets" claim that bacon is fatty and great to break-in a newly seasoned pan.  Lies.  Lies.  The sugar in bacon burnt into the pan and I had to boil water to remove the stains, which took some seasoning away.  Since then I've cooked eggs, pancakes, Kartoffelpuffer, char kway teow, and caramelized steak with great success.  I'm finally starting to feel this pan is living up to the hype.

After charring some sous vide steaks over high heat this morning, I noticed black splotches on the pan:

I've cleaned the pan (water, brush, plastic scrubby) probably more than I should already, so this is not something that can be cleaned off.  That makes sense as the high heat used to char the steaks is very similar to a seasoning session.  It's just uneven.

Is this (making the pan bottom slightly uneven) a problem?  Is this to be expected?  Is this the type of thing repeated ad infinitum that makes heirloom cast iron so valuable?

Your residue looks like burnt on carbohydrates to me. It can happen with both sugar and bread, but bread gives it a different shape, it chars in a crumb-like texture. Yours seems like viscous caramel flowed until it burnt on.

The seasoning of a young pan is indeed quite sensitive. Don't make sticky stuff in it.

What I have found to work well in new pans is meat with sufficient amount of fat, such as marbled chops or steaks. You also need to do some decent deglazing after that, to remove the stuck-on meat.

If you get protein residue, make something with wet eggs to clean it. Crepes work great for leaving you with mirrorlike pan seasoning. Use a little bit of oil between every 2-3 crepes. If you can do good scrambled eggs or an omelette, this is also a good pan "cleaner", and the residue taste fits better. But if you are likely to dry out the eggs, it can happen that they take off the not-yet-settled seasoning with them.

Wet carbohydrates (such as the flour in crepe batter) are no problem, but once dry carbohydrates burn on, I don't know of any method to remove them without damaging the seasoning (and sugar syrup counts as a dry carbohydrate if it stays for long enough to caramelize). Just don't use them on new pans. Once your pan is seasoned well with use, you can start using them, but always combine them with sufficient fat - you should be shallow frying the items which have them, not grilling.

The oil which you used for seasoning also matters. I've seen lots of sources to recommend flax and other unsaturated oils, because they polymerise easier. The problem is that they are also stickier after polymerisation, especially if the polymerisation wasn't complete. Try seasoning with something which has a larger percentage of saturated fat (lard, coconut oil) and cooking with it the first few times. If you are doing a multi-layer seasoning, you can start the first one or two layers with flax, for a better grip between polymer and metal, but seal it with a saturated oil.

If you cannot physically remove the caramel residue but want to strip the seasoning and start anew, remove it chemically. Use a strong base, I prefer a lye soak. Don't use acid, it will rust the pan in seconds. You can also leave it there, but it will reduce the evenness of heat transfer and increase the chance that the new seasoning flakes off.


Is there a special way to dry bread out to make breadcrumbs? I have a recipe for making Italian Breadcrumbs. If I leave the bread out on the counter it molds before it dries enough. I thought making breadcrumbs would be a great way to use some of my homemade bread. I love making bread but unfortunately it dries out to fast for sandwiches, but not enough for breadcrumbs.  Is there a way to dry it out before it molds? I have tried all kinds of bread, some hydrated more than others.

You don't want to dry it on the counter... put slices or small pieces in the oven on low heat or grind it in a food processor and toast it in a skillet until it's crisp and brown.
Stale bread is not "dry"... it's stale and it's only on the surface. If you want truly dry bread, you need to toast it and really get rid of all of the moisture.
From Serious Eats, they discuss the difference and Kenji explains their preferred method (though this is for stuffing, the information is the same):

Drying involves the evaporation of moisture from within a piece of bread. The structure of the bread remains more or less the same, though it becomes less pliable because of the moisture loss. Dry but not stale bread will be crisp like a cracker and crumble into a fine powder.
Staling is the process by which moisture migrates out of swollen starch granules and into the spaces in the bread. The moisture-deprived starch molecules then recrystallize, forming tough structures within the bread. The moisture may remain trapped within the structure of the bread, giving you a loaf that's simultaneously moist but stale. It'll taste leathery and chewy, but not cracker-y or dry.
Staling occurs most readily at refrigerator temperatures, so it's best to store bread either on the counter or in the freezer (well wrapped, to prevent drying).
So, knowing this, we realized that despite all the recipes that call for stale bread for stuffing, what we're really after here is dry bread—bread that has had plenty of moisture driven out of it, giving it more room to absorb flavorful stock. Staling takes time. Luckily for us, drying is fast.
I dry my bread by toasting it in a low (275°F/135°C) oven for about 45 minutes, tossing it a couple of times halfway through. By drying the bread like this, you make enough room in two regular-sized loaves (about two and a half pounds of bread) to absorb a full four cups of chicken or turkey broth. It's so much broth that it almost tastes like you baked it in the bird, even if you decide to do it in a separate pan. I recommend starting it with foil on top to trap some moisture, before removing the foil and crisping up the top.

So, please don't waste your lovely home-made bread by leaving it out to go stale. Dry it using heat.
Also, I'm going to hazard to say, if your recipe doesn't already call for truly drying your bread, you might want to find a better one.
You can always make lots of it and freeze it... my dad's been freezing his breadcrumbs for decades and they work great.


Malai Chicken Curry is curdling in the Pan I am trying to prepare a rich, creamy malai chicken curry but it's turning out to be a disaster as the marinade curdles when I put in into the pan.

Here are the steps:
I marinated the bite-sized cut chicken breast pieces with 1/2 cup yoghurt, 1/2 cup fresh cream along with salt and ginger-garlic paste. The marination time is about 24 hours inside the refrigerator.

When I am ready to cook, I take out the marinated chicken from the refrigerator and add it to heated oil in a pan and simmer for 10 minutes with the lid on. When I lift the lid after 10 minutes, its an unappetizing sight of curdled cream and whey floating on top instead of a creamy texture.

Where am I going wrong?

Thanks in advance,

Suddha Ray

The cream and yoghurt will separate and curdle if you bring it up to a boil. If you cook the dish longer at a lower heat, you should be able to avoid this. Slow cooking will tend to make the chicken more tender as well.

You need to keep the temperature of the yogurt below 190F (88C) to avoid having the milk proteins (mostly casein) react with acidic ingredients in the recipe and curdle. The acid comes from the yogurt itself and the ginger-garlic paste (most commercial, prepared ginger-garlic pastes have citric acid or similar as a stabilizer). You need to cook the chicken (and marinade because of its contact with the chicken) thoroughly, until it gets to up to at least 165F for food safety, but you do not want the sauce to get to 190F or boil.

If you've made kadhi before (a curry from yoghurt thickened with chickpea flour), it is the same concept -- it will separate and curdle if you let it boil.

Likewise, if you're making paneer from milk you want to get it close to boiling so that it WILL form the protein bonds when you add acid in the form of lemon juice or vinegar.


Looking for some advice on cooking the puff pastry in Beef Wellington We usually have Wellington for Xmas. I usually cook at 350 or so and rely on a thermometer to tell when its done. I was thinking this year of cooking it at something like 275 for a longer period of time, like 45-55 min. I'm concerned, though, that the puff pastry might not cook properly this way, so any input on how viable this idea is would be appreciated, thanks.

My concern is the puff.  Generally, to get great results,puff depends on the heat to separate and fluff the layers.  I would suggest the following:
1.Get a piece of the puff pastry you will be using, and cook it at 275 to see if it puffs, or looks sort of flat like a Napoleon.  At the same time, wrap a bit of your duxelles in the same pastry, and see if the moisture changes your result.
2. By all means, use an accurate thermometer in place to get your meat to the doneness you want.  (Thermoworks.com has some good, accurate, inexpensive ones)
3. If your meat is not getting done by the time the puff is ready, consider partial pre sous vide of the meat.
3.  As the first answer, I don't see why this change will improve your results.  Lower temps generally produce more tender meat, but you are starting with filet, which is already very tender.
4.  The last concern is that at the lower temp, you may end up with a soggy bottom.  If this is so, then reduce the amount of residual moisture in the duxelles.


Flaky pie crust for sweet fruit pie: butter, shortening, lard, or combination? I specify sweet fruit here because I think there would different good answers for a savory or a custard based pie.

It actually depends on the quality of the shortening you're able to get.  You might think they're all the same, but you'd be wrong.

When I was taught how to make pies, we used shortening, and the crusts were perfect.  However, I was told that for home baking, the shortening you buy in supermarkets (Crisco, normally) just isn't going to cut it and to use Tenderflake (lard) instead.  I actually verified this once and found out that he was right - using the exact same technique, the supermarket shortening just didn't turn out the way the "industrial" shortening did.  The crust is always too mealy and dry and tastes "off" somehow.  Unless a lot has changed in the past 5 years, lard is actually much closer to the good shortening that's being used in bakeries.

Butter would, obviously, impart a much richer flavour than shortening, but I wouldn't use just butter in a fruit pie.  You won't get anywhere near the flakiness of shortening or lard.  Half-and-half is a decent compromise, but the result is neither as flavourful nor as flaky as lard.

So, generally, I would stick to lard.  You could take plor's suggestion and mix it with some butter, but I've found that the flavour and texture is very good with just lard; if you do decide to mix, be careful not to overdo it, otherwise you'll lose all the wonderful flakiness that the lard imparts (I'd recommend 75% lard).

Don't mix lard with shortening.  That can only take away from all aspects of the quality, and unless you're worried about nutrition (in which case, why are you using lard at all, or eating pie for that matter?) then there's absolutely no reason to "taint" the lard this way.

P.S. Don't forget to add some sugar.  A little goes a long way in pie crusts.


Making Fudge - temperature/humidity calculation? About 15 years ago as a student I used to work at a fudge making store.
I remember it was not quite as straight forward as boil, cool, sell.

There was a certain calculation to determine the correct temperature to stop boiling the fudge mixture. I know the general idea is 234°F or 112°C, but I can remember we had a humidity sensor reading, and that had to be used in a calculation to get to the correct or precise temperature to pour out the fudge mixture onto the huge marble table to start cooling and shaping the logs of fudge.

Is there someone out there who knows how this calculation works?

Here is a link with some good advice

I think you have it backwards. They weren't measuring humidity to calculate temperature. Rather, for home cooks, temperature is used to determine humidity.

In fudge making, the goal of cooking is simply to reduce the water in the sugar syrup to a specific concentration. Sugar syrups produce different hardness of candy at different concentrations.

When cooking other things- such as meat- the temperature is important because bad bugs are killed or meat proteins denatured at specific temperatures. Sugar, on the other hand, isn't changed at the temperatures used in candy making. Water is just boiling away. It's usually a bad thing when the temps get hot enough to start changing the sugar, ie caramelization.

Sugar syrups happen to boil at higher temperatures as they become more concentrated. Therefore the temperature can be used to determine the concentration. Temperature is much easier to measure than water concentration. Unfortunately, the boiling temperature of water changes dramatically depending on elevation. I moved from sea level to the mountains and the boiling point of water changed by 9 degrees F. That is a significant difference in candy concentration and I have to reduce the cooking time for my recipes.

In a commercial setting, it is worth the cost and effort to measure the syrup humidity directly. It's more foolproof. However, for home cooks, thermometers are cheap and easy to use. Therefore, most recipes are written in terms of temperature and not sugar concentration.


Resources for cooking for a person with type 2 diabetes I am a private chef and will have to cook for 16 days for a person recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.

The meals I'm required to prepare are lunch and dinner. There will be six people and dinners are served family style.

I have occasionally cooked for the family in the past and the meals have always been simple, eclectic and very healthy made from the highest quality ingredients which I have access to. I have never baked for this family and don't see any reason to start now.

What I need is information and resources on low-glycemic, diabetic diets. We also love to eat creative, fun and interesting foods so that should make it easier. I'm just curious what ideas are there, so please share.

Recently diagnosed Type II Diabetes patients are frequently prescribed a low-carbohydrate diet. The type of carbohydrate ("slow" or "simple" are familiar terms) doesn't matter so much as the total number of carbohydrates.

A person with this dietary prescription would have learned to count gross carbohydrates and to eat the same number of carbohydrates at every meal. Their calories ought to come primarily from protein and fat, but also from a modest portion of carbohydrates.

Therefore, something such as a salad w/ dressing, a protein, a vegetable side, and a modest portion of starchy food would probably be most appropriate. Legumes, and other fiber-rich sources of carbohydrates, have the added benefits of being more satisfying and nutritious (as opposed to, say, white rice). They also sport a low glycemic-index.

For example: Salad, a reasonable portion of a creamy-type chicken dish, a steamed (non-starchy) vegetable side, and a modest portion of whole grains, legumes, or starchy vegetables.

Dessert, for the recently diagnosed, is probably too optimistic. Something along the lines of a low-sugar lemon sorbet might work. Sugar substitutes, although they taste bad, are medically acceptable.

You can find specific recommendations on the number of carbohydrates for diabetics on various websites, but it's probably easiest to just ask your client about their individual situation.

There is one extra consideration that is easy for a cook to miss: thickeners, such as cornstarch or flour, can have a very high carbohydrate content; certain vegetables, while they do not seem starchy, actually have quite a bit of sugar. If your client is seriously following the diet I've described, then such carbohydrate sources must be taken into account.


Can I cook two types of dried beans simultaneously? My bean cooking method is to soak overnight, then cook in a crockpot on low all day. By dinner time the beans are ready. I have only ever done this with a single type of bean at a time. However, I would like to make chili and I have two types of beans (white beans and red kidneys) and am wondering if this method would work if I mix the two types of beans together. Would this be generalizable to other types of beans cooking together, or more than two types of beans at a time?

Most beans can be soaked and cooked together with two exceptions.

The beans should obviously have similar cooking times. For example I wouldn't cook chickpeas with other, harder beans because the chickpeas would be mush. Most varieties do have similar cooking times so this isn't often a problem.

Second, black beans shouldn't be soaked with any other beans because they will stain the other beans a very unappealing gray color. Admittedly this is cosmetic but I soak my black beans separately


Should my oven have a hole like this? I moved to a new apartment and under the far left burner is a hole into the oven:

That is my pizza stone you are seeing through the hole.

I understand that the oven needs some ventilation, but this seems like it would cause a lot of heat loss. Indeed the burner and any pan sitting there get quite warm while the oven is in use, I can boil water with the excess heat if a kettle is left there long enough (and the oven is very hot, like when I bake bread).

That looks like a opening below a surface burner; I have seen stoves that vent that oven like that.Use the heat if you can.


Masa Harina and a pasta roller? I've got most of a 5 pound bag of masa harina left from a semi-successful foray into the world of tamales. Recently I've really enjoyed my pasta roller. It got me thinking. Is there some way I could roll out something fun made with masa harina? Obviously, that's not a traditional way to handle masa harina, but it could give me something fun to play with. I'm thinking maybe a riff on "Mexican Lasagna". My initial thinking is masa harina and warm mater in the same ratio as to make tortillas, give that a good whir in the food processor, and then add about the same amount of basic pasta ingredients (egg, flour,oil, salt) except use bread flour to give the combo some gluten. I could use the exercise, I would expect that combo to require a lot of kneading and a good rest between kneading periods. I'm not married to that combo or ratio and I'm open to suggestions. I'm not expecting to go as thin as pasta, but think I'd like to go as thin as my dough will let me. Once I have something rolled, I'd happily experiment with boiling, frying, steaming, baking or any good suggestions you might have. I'm not trying to make pasta or tortillas, but something entirely different using techniques and ingredients from both traditions.

So, do you think it could work? What pitfalls would you anticipate? Is there anything you would add or do differently? Finally, assuming I have a dough that I can stretch (I wouldn't risk it otherwise) do you see any way this could damage my pasta roller?

I have mede pasta years ago with regular corn flour (not cornstarch, but just a non-nixtamalized version of maseca or very finely ground cornmeal if you wish) and I don't remember much in terms of the recipe, but I remember that it worked well in the roller and that the result was awesome. And I don't see a reason why you couldn't do the same with masa harina to add a little bit of the delicious nixtamal flavor (like they did here) =)

I tried to google a corn pasta recipe to link to (as I couldn't remember mine) ... and one of the first hits was - guess what - with masa harina. Here is the video, where it seems like they also use a pasta roller with no problems, but they were trying to make something gluten free, but there are a lot of other cornmeal pasta recipes online that use regular flour mixed in.

Just some thoughts on masa flour: in my experience when you making a firmer dough it often tends to come out a bit more crumbly ... but I had good success (if I wanted a bitt more compact workable dough) by mixing it 1:1 to all-purpose flour. The nixtamal flavor is strong enough that you still taste it well even if you use more wheat flour. Sometimes I also add a couple of drops of oil so that it isn't so sticky (you can also use other fats ... like the masa for tamales often calls for lard).


How do I impart the flavor of mint to a tomato sauce? I have dumped 2 tbsp of dried mint and 2 handfuls of crushed mint leaves into a reduced 28 oz tomato sauce but it only made a dent of mint taste in the sauce. I don't get it - a little dry or fresh basil or oregano is enough to give marinara a strong herb flavor. I dumped a LOT of both dry and fresh (it had strong smell) mint leaves into my marinara and it only gave a very weak mint flavor.

What am I missing here?

The aroma and flavor of mint is destroyed very rapidly by heat.  If you want a big mint impact, I would eliminate the dried (dried herbs can be good, but are a completely different flavor profile from fresh) and add a lot of fresh mint immediately before serving.


Figuring out gas oven temperature numbered 1 through 7 New apartment, old oven and a lot to bake with precise temperatures.
Thermostat is numbered 1 through 7 and no idea what temperatures they represent, couldn't find any identifying company logo or other signs on the oven itself or inside of it and not the owner nor any of the previous renters knew anything useful.
I have seen too many different gas mark temperature charts, none of which are scaled 1-7 and all of them are different from one another. (the one that came up the most said that 7 is 220 Celsius, but still it wasn't consistent)
I was hoping anyone here might know more than what I could find so far or even, if the gods are righteous, someone here owned/still owns that very oven and still got the manual.
Here are some pictures of the whole oven, the top part and the thermostat itself:

Lastly I'm guessing it's made in the UK since the labels are in English and the little Celsius orange light, but that's just speculations.

The mode selector dial looks more appropriate for an electric oven, but it's still (almost) certainly a "Gas Mark" scale.  It used to be common, though modern gas oven usually have Celsius.  I know such scales often go hotter, but 7 is high enough for almost all cooking, and I've certainly seen them stop at 7.  It's rare for electric ovens to use that scale but not unknown.
The conversion isn't usually quoted precisely, which is throwing you off.  The Wikipedia page I've linked above gives the exact conversion but rounding to the nearest 5 or better 10 °C is much more useful.opf a top
Here's a more practical table (rounded to the nearest 10°C), but gas ovens tend to be a little approximate; 1 is about 140°C and 7 about 220°C.  If you're still in doubt, you might want to get an oven thermometer, but the suggestions broadly line up with the conversions above (cakes Gas 4-6/180-200°C, roasting 5-7 or 190-220°C, meringue as low as it will go - 140°C is a bit hot really, gas 1/4 is often called for).
In fact given that you want precise temperatures and it's old, maintained for safety (at most) and not performance, an oven thermometer would be a very good idea.  This may be a cheap basic model - likely in a rented house and the lack of gas marks 8 and 9 fits with that too.  Preheating times can be quite long on some such models.


How to extend the freshness of salsa? I often make salsa containing tomato, onion, garlic salt, green pepper, red pepper, lemon, and salt. I store it in a Glasslock container in the refrigerator. By the second day, the taste is still reasonable. By the third day, though it starts to get a strange smell and has a strange appearance, sometimes with white dots, perhaps from mold.

Is there anything I can do so that the salsa stays fresh for at least three days?

Acid is your friend here. You have some lemon, and tomatoes are acidic, but apparently that isn't enough. You should get at least a good week out of fresh salsa (mine lasts longer than that). Try adding a good shot of plain, distilled vinegar. Many recipes for salsa (including my own) include vinegar; add as much as you can without negatively affecting the flavor.

A bit of salt wouldn't hurt either, again, just to the maximum for good flavor.


My oven seems to cook the outside faster than the inside I'm not in any way any kind of good cook, I just eat a lot of chicken breasts.
I used to have a bargain basement janky gas oven that I would run on full heat, and I would put a Costco precooked frozen chicken breast in ("cooking time 35-40 minutes fan oven 180 degrees") and after 43 minutes it would come out absolutely perfect, with crispy skin and not too dry or tough.
I moved house and now have a more expensive oven, which is electric.
I have tried to cook my chicken breasts but the results are always disappointing. Generally, the skin seems to cook then burn. The instructions say 180C so I have used a laser temperature probe pointed at the chicken and adjusted the dial so that this value is 180C.
I find that after 33 mins the skin starts to burn. So I often cook it for around 30 minutes but it's a little bit tough and doesn't taste as great as my old oven.
I can't really tell what I should change to improve it. I feel like I need to cook the inside longer without burning the outside, but I am not certain.
The variables I can think of are to increase/decrease the temperature and increase/decrease the cooking time.
Is there a general rule of thumb about temperature vs time based on what aspect of your food is cooking incorrectly?

so I have used a laser temperature probe pointed at the chicken and adjusted the dial so that this value is 180C

That's not how you are meant to do it. 180 C is the oven temperature, not the temperature of the chicken skin. If you turned it up until the chicken surface became 180, that's way too hot, and of course it causes the exact symptoms you describe.
You should just set your oven dial to 180 C and use it that way. If it continues to burn on the outside, go down in the temperature until you find one at which, when you wait until the inside is done, the skin is not burnt. Then write down the time and (dial setting) temperature it needs, and continue using that, no matter what the package says.


How can I mimic glutinous rice inexpensively in Latin America? I know that certain rice should be bought for cooking meals like sushi (glutinous rice which is almost 5 dollars per kilogram). In Latin America the most common rice is about 1 dollar per kilogram.

Is there a possible way to get the same sticky effect with regular rice instead of glutinous "expensive" rice?

Sushi rice is not the same as "sweet" or "glutinous" rice.  Sushi rice is simply a short grain rice.  It is seasoned, after cooking, with a sugar/salt/rice wine mixture that helps flavor it and hold it together when used for making sushi.  If that is your goal, you could probably come close  by experimenting with other short grained rices.

"Sweet", "glutinous", or "sticky rice" is soaked then steamed.  It sticks together naturally, and is often eaten with the hands in small clumps.

So, I guess the more important question is what is your goal?


What do I need to do to use my current recipe for thin-crust pizza? When I make pizza dough, I use a variation on Bobby Flay's recipe - instead of 3.5 - 4 cups of bread flour I use 2 cups of bread flour, 3/4 cup AP, and 3/4 cup white wheat, with maybe a touch more AP if the dough is too wet. I also use AP when kneading. This makes 2 ~14" pizzas for me, which means a fairly thick crust - especially at the edges, which can get 1" or higher after cooking.

I make 14" pizzas largely because that's the size stone I have, but also because I can't get the dough to stretch much more without tearing. If I want to make slightly larger / thinner pizzas, do I need to modify the recipe? Is there a difference between thin-crust recipes and thick-crust recipes (and deep-dish)? Or is it a matter of technique before / while shaping the dough? Could I use this to make a truly thin crust pizza, or would I need an entirely different recipe?

Edit: The suggested duplicate is similar, but in my case the dough is able to be shaped exactly how the recipe indicates - yielding 2 ~14" pizzas. I do not have problems working it to get the yield specified by the recipe, but am instead interested in using this same recipe to make more and/or bigger (thinner) pizzas.

Tl;Dr Yes, let it rest

It is going to be difficult to give you a perfectly canonical answer to this question because, as moscafj commented, there is a lot of variation in pizza recipes.

Dough Recipes

Thin crust pizza dough, such as the popular Neapolitan style, is typically made with high protein dough. Your recipe, before your modifications, called for 100% bread flour and would definitely fall in this category. If there isn't enough protein thin crusts will not have the structure to stay together when sliced.

Thick crust dough can get away with a little less protein because they have more space for structure. The less protein the more the crust will be bready instead of chewy.

There are, of course, many other variables that make the difference between thin and thick, for example; thin crusts are often baked at higher temps. In general a good pizza dough recipe can be used for either.

Your recipe, including your modifications, is very similar to the recipe I use and I have had good success with both thin and thicker (I never go thicker than .5") pizzas.

Getting it thin

With all bread dough- especially high protein doughs- as you work the dough the gluten gets very tight. All bread recipes have resting periods for the dough to relax before it is shaped.

If you are using that much bread flour, you should be able to get your dough so thin that light will shine through.

If you can't get there because the dough isn't smooth and just comes apart then you don't have good gluten development.
See one of the many questions here on that subject.

If you can't because the dough is too stiff then you might be working in too much flour and you should learn to work with wetter dough.

If you can't because the proteins are too tight and snap back then let the dough rest a little longer.


Why when I add garlic to an existing flavor base with veggies, it rarely gets golden brown? Many sources suggest to add the garlic a minute or so before adding the main ingredient (tomatoes, cream etc) because if you start with the garlic, by the time the mirepoix has properly been sauteed the garlic would have burnt.

So I start by adding the mirepoix and add the garlic afterwards. Problem is that since it rests on the veggies and not directly on the oil (unless there is so much oil the sauce will get too greasy), it doesn't get properly golden brown.

That leaves me with either adding too much oil, or not reaching golden brown status on my garlic.

One thing you can do is push the rest of the contents aside and make a little well into which to add your garlic directly onto the bottom of the pan. Give it a little stir (I assume it's crushed or finely chopped) and then mix the other veg back in. If you haven't got room to do this your pan is probably too crowded already.  You may want to add a few drops of oil to this clear spot just before the garlic, up to a teaspoonful.  This would be my preferred approach if the garlic doesn't get much more cooking, e.g. in a stir-fry (which can also tolerate a little more oil).

Another approach is simply lots of of stirring and a nice hot pan - if the other ingredients burn you added the garlic a touch too late.  It can be hard to tell when the garlic gets golden brown this way as it disperses into the rest of the veg, but it works well for slower-cooking dishes.

With onions I've found that recipes frequently imply a much quicker process than in my kitchen, and the same may be true for garlic.  I suspect that the pros use a hotter, heavier, pan, and having everything prepped already keep things from burning by lots of stirring.


How do I know if my cast iron dutch oven is preseasoned? So I bought a cast iron dutch oven. It doesn't say anything on the box about it being preseasoned or not. So I looked up some guides online to see if there was anything special I needed to do before using it, and I found this page which says:

  If not pre-seasoned, the first thing you’ll notice is your new Dutch oven will be coated with a thick layer of wax.

This is weird because I don't notice any kind of wax on my Dutch oven. It's a dark black and is slightly shiny. I expected that if it was already seasoned it would probably say so on the box, or am I wrong?

What is the wax supposed to look like? How do I know if mine is seasoned or not?

You would know if the dutch oven was covered in wax. Cast iron prior to seasoning is a light grey color. It will rust very quickly just from atmospheric moisture, so they cover it in paraffin wax to preserve it. The process of seasoning the utensil forms a tough, yet smooth, black coating of polymerized oil. If your dutch oven is a slightly shiny dark black, it is safe to say that it has already been seasoned. With the proper care your dutch oven will last you many lifetimes-- enjoy it!


Can you boil spinach with less water? I usually boil spinach in quite a bit of water.  The spinach becomes tiny upon boiling leaving quite a bit of water with nutrients in it.

What is the least amount of water I could say boil 100g of spinach in? If I could boil the spinach and be left with just a small layer of green water to drink that would be great but most recipes seem to require boiling any sizeable amount of spinach in a sizeable amount of water.  What are the reasons for this?

Just to add, there are reason I was asking about boiling with more or less water.  I want the spinach to become very small which I notice happens with boiling but not to the same degree with steaming or other methods.  Also I want it to leach nutrients out and go into the little liquid. From Jefromis answers I can see that the spinach will cook, however I doubt it will go small, fibers will loosen, nutrients will leech to the same extent etc.  I'm bascially asking how much water is needed to for it to become very small, maximise fiber softening and nutrients leaching. I doubt this would occur in the in a little water or can we expect it to fully wilt with time?

You don't have to use any water at all.

Just heat it in a pot or pan, stir to keep it from only cooking on the bottom. It'll likely release enough water to end up essentially steaming itself, and yes, it'll be green water you can drink if you like.

You can also steam it if you like. If you use a very small amount of water to start, then the water released by the spinach will supplement it, and you'll end up with a bit more diluted water, but still probably green.

If you really want to boil it, you can use as little water as you like - a really small quantity will be enough that once it wilts it'll all be submerged. Of course, it's going to be substantially more diluted than if you didn't use water.

And yes, all of these will soften the spinach just as much and release plenty of the flavor and nutrients into the liquid, as long as you cook it long enough. Most people would likely regard that as overcooking, but you can cook as long as you want.


Tomato paste - why logically? What's up with tomato paste. I think it provides a unique taste you couldn't get with fresh tomato.. but why?? In specific, what's the difference between cooking fresh tomatoes or mixing tomato paste with water, both to the same consistency. There is a difference in flavor. but why?

Tomatoes contain high levels of glutamic acid and its sodium salt (mono sodium glutimate or MSG). In fact, the pulp contains over 4 times as much as the flesh of the tomato.  In a tomato paste, the concentration of glutimates is even higher.  The "unique" flavor is not only concentrated tomato, but the umami that comes with it.  Tomato paste packs a very high umami punch that distinguishes it from fresh or canned tomatoes.

By the way, next time someone suggests that they want to avoid MSG, ask them if they also avoid tomatoes, Parmesan cheese, soy sauce, and many other ingredients where it is naturally occurring.  Lot's of good info here.


What kind of sauce did I "invent"? One day I had an idea for a special "sauce" to use on (chicken) burgers. The basic idea was to give it some sort of "salad dressing" like taste.

The basic ingredients are cream cheese, mustard, vinegar and freshly ground black pepper. Plus a bit of salt and maybe some herbs I had lying around (mainly tarragon).

Now, I know I probably didn't invent something completely new, so my question is, what kind of sauce have I created? Are there similar widely known (named) ones?

Assuming you didn't over-use the vinegar, and mainteined the spreadable consistency of the cream-cheese, I think what you've invented is also known as a sandwich spread.


Why can't this ice cream scoop go in the dishwasher? I have an ice cream scoop that is labeled with something like:

  Do not immerse in water hotter than 140 °F / 60 °C. Do not wash this item in the dishwasher.

What is the real reason for these warnings? I have found mentions of things like:

Hot water will "dry out" the chemicals inside. (What chemicals? Why are they there? How would temperature affect them exactly?)
The finish on the scoop may change appearance and may rub off during later use. (Is this due to the hot water? Detergent? Bleach?)

I have a scoop that has accidentally gone through the dishwasher a couple of times without apparent ill effect. Is there now something deficient about my scoop? Is it not being as effective as it was when it was new due to the lack of some mysterious chemicals? Is the finish now coming off into my ice cream even if I can't see it? Is there any health or safety risk due to this?

The scoop is metal. Probably aluminium. Looks like this but not so shiny (don't recall whether it ever was):

I've accidentally run my scoop, a Zeroll with conductive fluid inside the handle, through the dishwasher. I don't know this for a fact because I didn't cut mine open to check, but I believe what happened to mine (and what's happened to yours) is that the fluid is meant to work at normal body temperature and when it gets too hot, like in a dishwasher, it solidifies. That's the clunking sound, the now-solid conductive liquid. So while it still works as a scoop, the conductive fluid is no longer doing its job and scooping will be a little harder. I definitely noticed that after mine went through the dishwasher.


How long does Star Anise keep? The jar or packet at either of my local stores is quite big.   How long does it stay effective, once opened?   Given Star Anise is quite hard, I'm thinking it may last a while.  But would I be better vacuum sealing half or 2/3?

[edited to correct grammar.  rmjf]

They should last a long while if properly stored in an airtight container in a dry place.


How can I thin out my ice cream mixture? I'm trying to make a McFlurry/Blizzard-like dessert in my blender, but the ice cream isn't coming out at the consistency I'd like. I tried adding milk, but that didn't seem to do much. The ice cream doesn't pour well out of the blender and is kind of clumpy. Is there anything else I can try? Do different types of ice cream behave differently in a blender?

Start with the milk and add ice cream till you reach the desired consistency. If you want to add 'bits' start when it is about halfway to the thickness you want


My soup tastes tart... Is it safe to eat? My soup tastes almost like someone poured some lemon juice into it. It smells fine, and other than being a little lemony, tastes OK. When I put it in the fridge a week ago, it didn't have that tart flavor.

What would cause this to happen? Is it safe to eat?

The soup was made from:

Chicken broth
Ground turkey
Ham
Broccoli
Green beans
Onion

I would not eat any soup containing meat more than a day or two after it was cooked, and certainly not if it smelled suspicious. The logic with this kind of thing is simple. If you have any doubts, chuck it out. Not getting food poisoning is worth losing a little soup over.


Rolling out after or before the leavening process? Assuming that you want to create home made pizza and bread, it's better to create the final shape when you create your dough or after the leavening ?

I think that part of the problem is the fact that the average oven can't generate the same temperatures that the industrial ones are able to produce or the ones specifically designed for the pizza; so I'm thinking that maybe a leavening process after the creation of the shape can possibly give more porous to the final product making it easier to cook thanks to the porous and the air inside them that conducts heat .

Or I should go for creating the shape just after the leavening and use something to revive the product during the final steps just before putting it in the oven ?

I'm using sourdough starter by the way.

In making bread or pizza dough, there is no step called "leavening."

While there is some variation in method, depending on whether a preferment is used, in general, the active culture (whether it is sourdough starter, commercial yeast, or a combination) is added very early in the development of the dough.

The dough is then kneaded to develop gluten structure, and proofed to allow flavor to develop.   This is normally described as allowing it to rest until it is doubled in bulk.

Then, it is "punched down", deflating most of the rise that happened during the proofing stage, and shaped into its final shape, and possibly placed into a mold or form.  It then rises again to a greater or lesser extent before baking begins.

There is no before or after the leavening.


Why prefer prime-cut sausage over MSM sausage Yesterday I saw a site that claimed their fairly expensive poultry sausages are made of prime cuts (thigh, breast), rather than the usual mechanically separated meat.

Why would one prefer a prime-cut sausage over MSM, as both are ultimately going to be minced into a fine paste and made into a sausage?

It's probably simple marketing.

People like the idea of eating 'prime' meat more than 'scraggy' meat, and tend to assume it makes for a better taste and texture (even when it might not).

This is probably the same principle behind things like high meat and low fat sausages - people buy them because they fear 'mystery meat' and anything with cheap content, even when that cheaper content is better suited - such as fat and rusk keeping sausages moist and soft.


What's the point of long/complex sourdough feeding techniques? About a year ago, a friend taught me how she makes her sourdough bread and gave me a portion of her starter.  It works great and makes fantastic loaves.  I've started to look at other recipes online and in various books (e.g. Flour, Water, Salt) to better understand how different types of sourdough breads are made and I've realized that the splitting/feeding of the starter in my recipe is quite a radical departure from every other Levain/sourdough-starter recipe I've found.  Otherwise, it seems to be the standard high-hydration (78%-80%), autolyse (2 hr), bake-in-a-dutch-oven approach that's so common these days.

Specifics:

I typically only have time to bake once a week, so I store my
sourdough culture in a glass jar in the fridge.
For most of the past year, when preparing my dough I would simply
take the starter out of the fridge, split it, and dissolve both
portions directly in warm water (~90 F).
The starter would then get some flour and be put back in the fridge
(100g starter, 100g water, 100g flour).
The portion for the bread would simply have the flour and salt added,
autolyzed with occasional folding, divided and allowed to rise
overnight (~12 hours).

In contrast to this simple approach of dissolving the starter directly in water and then adding the flour for autolysing, every other recipe I've found seems to require a 12 or 24 hour pre-feeding routine that involves feeding the starter first, then discarding most of this newly fed starter before adding this "revived" starter to the water/flour before either a long bulk fermentation or a long rise time.  Or some even require multiple feedings...

Why do people spend so much time and energy on long drawn out pre-feeding routines?  My approach obviously works - the bread rises just fine, the crumb is fantastic (that's mostly due to autolyse and cooking in a dutch oven), it develops a nice flavor and a little sourness over the 12 hour rise time (especially if it's a cold night).

What am I missing?  Better flavor?  I can seen an argument for getting the culture more active this way, but I don't see much difference between that and simply allowing my culture to warm up to room temperature. In fact, I've started letting my culture warm up before splitting it this past month, as well as leaving the newly fed cut at room temperature for several hours before sticking it back in the fridge - however, I haven't noticed any difference in flavor nor in how long it takes to rise, etc.

Absent a definitive answer here, I'm going to take a stab at this based on some experience I had with difficult sourdough starters.  Note that I make a lot of sourdough items but do not do any kind of multi-stage prefeeding ritual.

Sourdough is a culture of multiple types of bacteria and wild yeast.  Sometimes wild yeasts do not reproduce rapidly or produce as much carbon dioxide (for leavening) as commercial yeasts.  I've definitely had the problem before with a starter that it wouldn't produce anything other than a superdense bread, no matter how long the dough rise.

Most of us keep our starters in the fridge (unless we run commercial bakeries).  Thing is, at fridge temperatures, the bacterial culture will grow, albeit slowly, but the yeast will hardly reproduce at all, and will produce no carbon dioxide. So, when you take it out of the fridge, if you use the culture immediately you may have an imbalance of active bacteria but sleepy yeast (this is some inexpert armchair biology here, so a big pinch of kosher salt with it).

You are solving this via the use of 90F water.  I solve it by proofing a sponge for 7-12 hours.  However, there are clearly sourdough aficionados who feel that this is not sufficient to restore the yeast to full strength and that it needs more time and feeding.  The feed, split, and discard routine I believe comes from commercial bakeries that never refrigerate their starters because they use it every day; it is the advice given in the Berkeley Cheese Board's cookbook, for example.  Doing this over 36 hours or so could be assumed to get the sourdough into the same state it would have been for a sourdough kept constantly at room temperature and rotated every 24 hours, allowing you to use the exact same rising times/temps as they would use.

Now, back to my all-natural wild yeast starter that wouldn't rise very well.  I did not try feed-and-split for 36 hours; maybe that would have made it rise adequately and is the reason for this technique.  Instead, I started the starter-making process over and got a better strain of yeast the second time.


When should you sweat mirepoix, and when should you sauté it? The ingredients of mirepoix are consistently described as onion, carrot and celery in a 2:1:1 ratio, but there isn't much consistency advice on how to cook it. Most recipes I've found say to sauté it, while most articles I've found on mirepoix itself recommend sweating it. What determines whether you sweat or sauté mirepoix?

There are no real doneness rules on mirepoix per se (even raw is used in some dishes).  However, the recipe designer may say sweat versus sauté to give an indication of colour and flavour depth to match the 'headliner' of the dish (usually the meat).

Although not a rule, you may generally see sweat used more for lighter meats like fish and fowl and sauté for darker and gamier meat like beef and lamb.

That way a darker and more browned mirepoix will not overwhelm say a delicate fish (both in colour and taste).


Why is my chicken all rubbery? I'm an (very) amateur chef who's just started cooking chicken. I've tried cooking chicken by boiling and frying it.

I've managed to cook it right by boiling. The chicken is soft and tender.

But no matter what I try I just can't seem to cook it right by frying.

My fried chicken is all rubbery. I thought I'd increase cooking time to cook it more from inside. But that burnt it from the outside.

Does rubbery mean it is under cooked? Is it possible to make this rubbery-ness go away by frying it more?

(I am currently deep frying my chicken. Would frying it with less oil make a difference?)

Rubbery chicken is normally a sign that it is overcooked.

Frying is a challenging method to cook chicken, because it is very rapid, and easy to overcook the chicken.

Some of this, you will simply learn by experience, based on the typical size of the parts you are frying, and the type of breading you use.  You will learn to recognize from the pattern of bubbles and how the breading looks when it is done.

In the mean time, if you have a quality instant read thermometer, you can take a piece out and measure its temperature.

White meat should be about 158 - 160 F, dark meat about 165 - 170 F (depending on your preference).


Why does my LN2 evaporate so quickly? Just made my first attempt at cooking using liquid nitrogen.  Decided to start easy, and make a 0.5L batch of ice cream, along with some powdered peanut-butter and banana for toppings.  Overall I'd rate the entire experiment a success, but noticed something a bit strange when creating the powdered elements.

My technique was roughly as follows:

Place a bit of banana and a dollop of peanut butter in a small glass bowl with LN2, and leave until the 'boiling' mostly subsides (replenishing as needed; this probably took about 400mL of LN2).
Prechill a mortar and pestle with LN2, then transfer the frozen banana and peanut-butter to it (I did each one separately, though probably it would have been fine to do both together), along with enough LN2 to keep them nice and cold (probably about 300mL of LN2 to 'prime' the mortar and pestle to the point where it was holding a nice shallow pool of LN2).
Crush the frozen item(s) down to the desired consistency, replenishing LN2 as needed (this is where I needed the most LN2, I lost track of how much I was using but may have gone as high as 1L per item).  I was going for 'fine dust' but had to stop a bit before reaching that point.

The strangeness was observed during #3.  Basically what I found was the more finely I crushed the frozen food, the faster the LN2 would evaporate off, and the more I'd need to put in to keep everything nice and cold.  I wasn't grinding particularly aggressively, and towards the end it got to the point where the LN2 would disappear only a second or two after pouring it in, making grinding effectively impossible (unless I wanted to risk ending up with thawed mush, I suppose).  This ultimately ended up consuming more LN2 than it had taken to chill the ice cream, even though in terms of volume there was far more ice cream than banana or peanut-butter.

Is there a reason/explanation for this?  Maybe something to do with the effective surface area increasing as the frozen food is ground into smaller and smaller pieces?  Or was my technique wrong?  Is there a better way to turn arbitrary things into frozen powders using LN2?

Your 4 observations:

Quick evaporation first showed up when finely divided particles entered into the situation
The finer the frozen food was crushed the faster the evaporation
Not grinding particularly aggressively (i.e. probably friction-heat from grinding not generated faster as the experiment progressed)
Toward the end of the experiment evaporation completed before any grinding even took place

sound like your speculation: "Maybe something to do with the effective surface area increasing as the frozen food is ground into smaller and smaller pieces?" is on the right track.
The particles of frozen banana & peanut butter provide lots of places for the boiling of the LN2 to occur, just like if you dump a bunch of salt into almost-boiling water, it suddenly boils up like crazy where the grains hit the water.


Is it ok according to established practice to serve a salad in addition to crudités? I'm going to have a party and I was wondering if it is ok to serve both or if just one or the other should be served.

It is perfectly acceptable to serve both or just one or the other. Typically crudités are considered an appetizer but, when serving crudités, a salad is not always needed. I would base my decision on what type of gathering it is and the entirety of the menu.

From The Veggie Table:

  Crudités is a French term that refers to raw vegetables, so a platter of crudités typically consists of one or more types of vegetables served with one or more dips. These are great for parties and can be served as an appetizer, at a buffet, in place of a salad – the sky is the limit.

UPDATE - Based on the information provided in the comments, I agree with @Max - I would serve both crudités and salad.


What causes flavors to "marry"? I'm looking at vinegar-based BBQ sauce recipes, and a lot of them tell you to let the mixture sit for a day in order for the flavors to balance each other out.

I've also seen this advice for curries and stews - people say that they're tastier the next day because the flavors sink in.

What causes this to happen? I can understand if the meat absorbs flavor from the curry sauce as it sits in it overnight, but what causes the flavors of the sauce itself to "marry"?

Perhaps I'm missing some nuance to this question, but the basic answer is that flavors are made up of various chemical components, and it takes time for them to migrate throughout the sauce/stew/curry/etc.  Flavor molecules are often rather large, too, which means they tend to move quite slowly when it comes to dissolving or diffusing throughout a liquid/sauce.

Even if your herbs or spices are in small parts, in chunks, or even ground up, it will take time for the various flavor chemicals to dissolve into the rest of the liquid and then intermingle.  When those flavor components are wrapped up in a solid piece of something (even a small powdery piece of herb or spice), it can take time for the flavor to migrate out into the liquid; similarly, some flavor components may be absorbed into the solids or various chunks of food, and that happens at various rates.

Eventually, the mixture will attain a rough state of "equilibrium," where the concentrations have evened out and flavor migration slows significantly.  For some mixtures, this could happen within a few minutes, and for others it might take hours or days.

There are some more complex phenomena which might have a minor role.  For example, there are also times that temperature cycling can change flavor and texture, as in the stews and curry examples which you mention.  Such sauces often contain various types of molecules suspended together, from plain liquid to fats (both liquid fats like oil and solid fats from animals) to gelatin (from animals) to starches and other ingredients.  When such mixtures solidify, they can cause bits of the components to separate into large globules or sometimes separate into layers.  Since different flavor components are more or less soluble in different things (some dissolve well in water, but others are more soluble in fat or other things), these larger globules can sometimes dissolve different flavors or cause them to migrate through the sauce.  When they are mixed together again the second day and reheated, the flavor can seem intensified.  The texture can also be altered since the way these globules and solid layers melt back into a liquid can be different.  They may not mix back together in the same way they were on the first day, which can change the texture and "mouthfeel," and that can change the way flavor is perceived too.

In other cases, particularly in uncooked foods like raw sauces that are just mixed together, there may be natural enzymes present which may cause reactions that break down more complex molecules into simpler components (like simple sugars) which can also enhance flavor.  A lot of these enzyme reactions can take many hours to occur at any noticeable rate.  With raw sauces there also may be some small amount of fermentation that goes on with microbes present as well.

Anyhow, there are lots of possible things that could be going on in specific cases, but in the most general sense, it just takes time for large flavor molecules to move around and intermingle.


Why are poblanos sometimes called pasillas? Background information: poblano peppers are one of the most common peppers in Mexican food. Pasilla peppers are something entirely different - the dried form of the chilaca.

I'm originally from Texas, where poblanos are commonly found in grocery stores. I moved to California a while back, and here they're still pretty easy to find, but they're always labeled "pasilla". Even at a local produce market with a decent amount of Mexican food (and Spanish-speaking employees) - and just recently I noticed they even have anchos (dried poblanos) labeled as "dried pasillas". I did manage to find one local Mexican restaurant menu online describing a chile relleno as a stuffed poblano, but otherwise it seems pretty universal.

So where did this come from? Via the above-linked wikipedia article, I did find a website saying it's the fault of the California produce industry for labeling them this way, but that's not the original reason. Is it all just the result of a single person getting it wrong a long time ago, and an entire produce industry building off of that?

I have not been able to find any kind of detailed history of the pepper crop in California online.

However, I will observe that I've only seen chilaca peppers available in Northern California in the last 5 years.  Previously, one never saw them, even at Latin markets.  On the other hand, California grows enormous quantities of poblano peppers, which are larger, hardier, and have a longer shelf life than chilacas when fresh.  Based on that, I suspect that some enterprising, dishonest produce supplier started supplying ancho peppers as pasillas to Mexicans in California decades ago, and after several decades of misnaming, the new names stuck.

I'll also observe that the dried poblanos sold as "anchos" in NorCal are a bit hotter than the ones sold as "pasilla", so it's also likely that there's two different varietals, bred here.  So it's also possible that whoever bred the milder poblanos named them "pasillas" to differentiate them from the hotter ones, confusing everyone.