Does butter reduce perceived sweetness? In another question I ask about the ideal flour, sugar, butter ratio to use in crumble. It appears that the amount of sugar people add in their recipes depends more closely on how much butter is added than how much flour is.

I theorised that butter reduces perceived sweetness, and I remember reading that fat acts as a taste inhibitor. I googled a bit to check this, but some say it can enhance taste.

So, does butter reduce perceived sweetness or enhance it? Surely it can't do both.

You've got to understand what the purpose of the ingredients is. In a crumble or streusel topping (my go-to in the category is an apple crisp), the (gluten/wheat) flour, butter, and sugar are actually all binders/structural components. Taste/flavor is part of it, but as in your experiments in the other answer, you really can't vary one element wildly (separate from the others) without significantly changing the results.

With that in mind, the butter in a crumble/streusel topping will affect the tenderness of the crumb (similar to cake/pastry). Tenderness will also be affected by whether you used cold, melted, or softened butter (or a non-butter shortening, like margarine or lard/Crisco). The tenderness goes to mouth-feel, which will affect how/when your tongue picks up on the diff flavors.

Similarly, the temp/state of the butter/shortening affects how & how much the sugar will dissolve/interact with it. Depending on what type of sugar you're using (granulated/white, dark/light brown, raw/demerara, liquid sweeteners like honey, corn syrup, molasses, or agave), cold/melted/soft butter will just have a different holding capacity for sugar, which cooks can take advantage of to "super-sweeten" or "under-sweeten" given fundamentally the same amount of sugar.

And of course in a crumble, your perception of the sweetness of the finished topping will be impacted by the filling, since there's (delicious!) flavor interaction during cooking.

So it comes down to ingredient preparation & choice and cooking techniques - not just raw proportions. Cooking is a sort of applied chemistry - sometimes how you put things together is as/more important than what you put together.


Is it possible to turn Rice Krispies back into rice? Specifically, would it be possible to turn Rice Krispies into rice suitable for serving with chicken teriyaki?

One of the main characters of the webcomic Leftover Soup is an expert cook. To establish the character's skills, the author has him prepare a restaurant-quality meal from the contents of an extremely understocked kitchen, with only one hand. One of the feats involved in preparing this meal is reconstituting Rice Krispies into rice, to go with chicken teriyaki.

I have no idea how realistic this scene is. Is this actually something you can do with Rice Krispies? If this is possible, how would you do it, and would the results be any good? The author's notes say it'll be explained in the strip how this works, but by the time I stopped reading, it hadn't been explained yet.

Rice Krispies are made from a sweetened, malted and cooked and partially dried rice that is then "popped" similar to popcorn.

The manufacturer writes:

  Each piece is made from a single, toasted grain of rice (...)

The physical/chemical process is basically the same as for popcorn.
Unlike corn, rice grains contain very little water so the initial boiling step introduces enough humidity inside the kernel. The partial re-drying to harden the shell allows it to hold it inside while the water turns into steam and pressure builds. When the grain can't contain the steam any longer, it will expand and the gelatinized starch forms a sponge-like texture. Note that a careful balance of humidity and drying is required to get the best results.

As you are changing the structure of the starch, consider this a one-way process. Neither popcorn nor puffed rice can be transformed back to their original "kernel / grain state":

  All the king's horses and all the king's men
  Couldn't put Humpty together again.

The "modern" puffed rice method using pressure / sudden release is attributed to Alexander P. Anderson, who stumbeled about it when testing the humidity of grains in the early 1900s. The process was taken over by Quaker Oats and used for other grains as well.


What type of salt for sourdough bread baking? I have a sourdough bread recipe that calls for either Real Salt or unrefined salt. I do not have either of these and I’m not sure if these salts are fine or coarse. I have Himalayan pink salt coarse for grinding, coarse kosher salt & Morton’s iodized salt.
Are any of these comparable?

This may come across as a little cynical ;)
Don't believe the hype.
Salt is salt.
The difference between Himalayan, iodised & kosher is so small you'll never taste it. They're all 98%+ sodium chloride. To a 1Kg loaf you're going to add something like 10g salt.
As it will completely dissolve before you bake it, not even the granule size is important.


Tricks to ensure Mailliard/Browning reaction? Seems like a question that would've been asked before, but I couldn't find a pre-existing question.  Sorry if this is a duplicate.

Anyway, I do a lot of stir-fry, usually with chicken.  My usual method -- I cube the chicken, then brinerate it in soy sauce, brown sugar, a bit of oil, and ginger.  Then I dry it off with paper towels, heat a cast-iron to 400-500*F, then add a little peanut oil and put a small amount of the chicken in at one time.  I wait for that to cook, pull it out, make sure the pan's reheated, then add another small amount of the chicken. Repeat until all the chicken is cooked.

I've run into a couple problems though.
1) It takes a very long time to follow those steps.  Drying the chicken is slow and messy, and seems overly pedantic.  The amount of chicken I can cook at one time and still get a maillard reaction is very little.

2) The browning reaction is very inconsistent.  Sometimes it's perfect, sometimes it doesn't work at all.  Usually if I follow these steps to the extreme (like, 4-5 small cubes of chicken at one time) I can always get a reaction, but that just takes waaaaay too long.

So, what tricks can I use to help ensure that a Maillard reaction occurs?  Are there any ways I can speed up the whole process?

I've added some baking soda (specifically to onions while making French Onion Soup) to accelerate the Maillard reaction in the past and it seems to work rather well.

A few more general steps can be taken to encourage this reaction:

  add protein (egg, milk), reducing sugar (glucose, fructose or lactose), remove water,
  increase temperature/pH

I read this article a while back on accelerating the Maillard Reaction and found it very interesting; I think it may be helpful to you as well! http://blog.khymos.org/2008/09/26/speeding-up-the-maillard-reaction/


How do I increase the amount of store bought peanut butter from 1/2 cup to 1 cup in a peanut butter brownie recipe? I have a chewy peanut butter brownie recipe that uses 1/2 cup JIF peanut butter. The recipe also includes 1/3 cup butter; 1 cup flour; & 2 eggs.
I want to increase the amount of peanut butter to 1 cup, so that I end up with a significantly higher percentage of peanut butter in the brownie, but the same amount of batter. What adjustments do I make to successfully increase the peanut butter to 1 cup? Since I am ONLY doubling the peanut butter how will the measurements of flour, butter, & eggs be affected?
I also have a fudgy brownie recipe that is my go to. Can I just match the measurements of the peanut butter brownie ingredients to the measurements of the fudgy brownie recipe with the exception of the amount of butter? The quantity of butter (I do use real butter), used in the fudgy brownie recipe is 1 1/4 cups. Would decreasing the amount of butter from 1 1/4 cup to 3/4 cup and adding 1/2 c of peanut butter work?
I want a chewy & fudgy peanut butter brownie.

It is possible to substitute regular butter with any nut butter (like peanut butter), it will add a nutty flavour of course but this shouldn't be an issue since there's already peanut butter included. The difference is the fat content however, have a look at this post that explains it quite well.
They mentioning adding oil to the peanut butter and mixing it to get a more butter-like effect. So you could add 1/2 cup of peanut butter (this is in addition to the 1/2 cup that's already included making it 1 cup of peanut butter total) with 1/2 cup of oil (I recommend coconut for best flavour with baking) and change the amount of butter to 1/4 cup (removing 1 cup as the substitute).
1 1/4 cup butter = 1/2 cup peanut butter + 1/2 cup oil + 1/4 cup of butter
This gets pretty complicated but is likely the most accurate. If you're open to experimenting a bit, I would honestly just try it without the oil and see how they come out, hopefully the difference in texture isn't noticeable enough.


Has anyone ever tried birch sap as a tonic? According to this blog posting, birch sap is very popular in Russia as a drink. Further, I read in wikipedia that it is popular enough to be bottled and sold commercially.

Finally, (and most importantly) I found this article in the Guardian, detailing the steps to take in order to enjoy fermented birch sap (AKA 'birch wine').

Has anyone tried this, and if so would they relate how successful the attempt was?

I've tried unfermented birch sap before (I got it at a local Russian supermarket). I was expecting it to taste somewhat like Birch Beer. Instead, it was surprisingly tasteless; like maple, I suspect one would have to reduce/concentrate it quite significantly to get a pronounced birch flavor. It had the taste and consistency of a thin/diluted simple syrup with only a faint hint of birch flavor.

I made a cocktail using birch sap and ROOT: a liquor modeled after a pre-temperance liquor called "root tea" that was the predecessor to root beer (which is, ironically, non-alcoholic), one of whose primary flavorings is birch bark. I forget what else (if anything) I put in it, but I seem to recall that it worked quite well.

I asked a Russian friend of mine if he had ever heard of fermented birch sap.  He said that, although birch sap ("берёзовый сок", if you ever want to find it in a Russian store) is very popular in Russia, he has never heard of anyone fermenting it.  However, he did add that "Russians would ferment anything…"

On a somewhat related note (at the risk of going off topic), there is an extremely popular low-alcohol drink in Russia called kvas (квас) which is made from fermented rye bread.  Despite the fact that birch sap is also popular, every Russian for whom I've served root beer or birch beer absolutely hates the stuff.  Likewise, I love root/birch beer, however, I hated kvas the first time I tried it (but I have since developed a taste for it, over time).  I have developed this theory:

  Anyone who liked the taste of kvas the first time he/she tried it will undoubtedly dislike the taste of root/birch beer the first time he/she tries it.  Likewise, Anyone who liked the taste of root/birch beer the first time he/she tried it will undoubtedly dislike the taste of kvas the first time he/she tries it.

I have surveyed dozens of Eastern Europeans and Americans alike who have tried both, and I have yet to find a single person that invalidates my theory.  Is there anyone out there who has tried both?


Way to Differentiate between Necessary vs Additional Ingredients in Recipes I'm mostly cooking for myself and I'm inexperienced with cooking, so when I go onto any recipe website, I can't tell the difference between the ingredients & steps that are necessary to make a dish, and the ingredients and steps which are additional. For example, in an ideal world, I'd like a recipe to read something like this:

Base Ingredients:
    X g of A
    X g of B
    X ml of C

Ingredients for Improved Taste:
    X g of Some Exotic Herb
    X g of Some Additional Spice
    X ml of Red Wine

Steps:
    Base Dish: (Takes 15 minutes to prepare, 20 to cook)
        Step 1:
            ...
        Step 2:
            ...
        ...
        Step n:
            ...

    Additional: (Takes 35 minutes to prepare, 25 to cook.)
        Before beginning, Prepare the X, Prepare the Y and Prepare the Z.
        On step 2, add X to the dish and add 3 minutes to the cooking time.
        On step 4, add a splash of red wine to the pan and cook for 2 minutes longer.

Or something to that effect. Just something separating the two.

This however is not what I find on recipe websites. So I need some way to differentiate the basic thing from the "chef's touch" you could say. I just need to be able to make things that taste reasonably good, quickly, and not be spending hours.

What ends up happening is since I can't differentiate, I find that my shopping list becomes very long, and cooking takes far too long for someone inexperienced like myself. I want to build up from the basics ideally.

Get a stack of 10 or 20 trustworthy recipes for a dish - and compare.

Also take advantage of ingredient slots that seem optional in one dish - sometimes they are a way to use up something that you bought for another recipe where it is not optional.

Classify ingredients by the role they play in the dish:

What do they do to the balance of the basic six tastes? Can the balance be kept by using another, more generic ingredient (eg add vinegar or lime if you leave out a sour ingredient)?
Is there a functional reason for a sour/alkaline, salty, sweet, fatty ingredient? pH can matter to how something cooks; salt and sugar can interfere with liquid balance; sugar can be textural; fat can do heat transfer; fat or alcohol can put aromas into solution.
Is there an aromatic role - and is there something with a similar aroma?
Is there a textural role? If yes, is it ONLY textural because seasoning overwhelms the taste/aroma anyway?

Also - there are a lot of "exotic" ingredients that exist across ethnic cuisines in a similar form but under different names - though sometimes salt/fat/sugar balances can be different. One example would be korean doenjang and japanese dark miso. Experimentation might be needed at first.


If I use a diffuser will I be able to use a pressure cooker to can food on my glass top stove? I have a glass top stove and just purchased an All American pressure cooker/canner. It's very heavy and will hold 7 quarts or 19 pints. If I use a diffuser will I be able to use my stove to can food?

Glass stove top manufacturers sometimes recommend not using pressure canners because the weight and heat distribution can be too much for them and the glass surface can crack.

A diffuser would probably not help with that problem. The diffuser is not likely to be so much bigger than the canner that it would distribute the weight. If it was that large then it would diffuse the heat too much.

Sometimes stove or canner manuals will place restrictions on the size of the canner vs the burner size. If the canner is too large it can transfer heat out of the burner area and damage the surface.

Another common problem mentioned is that some canners have concave bottoms. Obviously, only flat bottomed canners should be used otherwise the weight distribution will be bad for the burner and the canner might not heat properly.

You should check with the manufacturer of your range and see if your range can be used with a pressure canner. If they say it can can then you can can without the diffuser. If they say it can't then you may just be out of luck.

We use a camp stove and do a lot of our pressure canning outside- especially in the summer to save AC bills.

Anecdotally- My mother once, 20 years ago, had a glass surface crack while canning. I have been canning on a glass surface for two years without incident.


Thermometer Precision in Different Temperature Ranges I need a thermometer for a variety of different applications. As such, it has to be fairly precise (plus/minus 2 degrees) at different temperatures. Do I have to worry that, if I buy a thermometer which has a large range (0 to 300 C, for example), that it won't be sensitive to small changes in temperature near 40 C?

There are several type of thermometer. Since you didn't specify exactly what you will be using for the thermometer It's hard to tell which type you are getting. However the two most likely kind you will use are bulb thermometer and bimetal thermometer.

The way bulb thermometer works is there is a liquid inside of a thin tube. Heat expands the liquid so the higher the heat the more it expands. The liquid is calibrated to expand to the markings on the thermometer.

However, the sensitivity of a thermometer does not depend on it's range but rather on several different factors:

The size of the bulb on the thermometer. If the bulb is smaller it absorbs heat faster thus expanding to the appropriate notch on the thermometer faster.
If the walls of the thermometer is thinner, it will also result in the heat being absorbed faster.

A bimetal thermometer operates on the principle that different metals contract and expand to different degrees when exposed to temperature changes. Two strips made of different metallic materials are fused together as a spiral or rod. The strip will wind, unwind or bend as the temperature changes because one of the two materials in the strip will contract or expand to a greater degree than the other will. The free end of the strip is attached to a pointer that will indicate the temperature.

Once again because the dial moves base on the expansion (this time metal) which will stay constant, the range of the thermometer will not be affected.

Please note that over time these metal might degrade and lower the sensitivity of the thermometer but that is an issue of the longevity of the equipment.

Also note that is it harder to read the smaller changes by the human eyes if the range is larger since is scale is smaller but that has nothing to do with it's sensitivity.

EDIT:

If by chance you are refering to the uncertainty of a thermometer or how "incorrect" a thermometer can be, as Rumtscho mentioned, the uncertainty is usually given in the specs of the thermometer and you will need to do some research to find the one that will fit your needs. Just for example Tel-Tru boast an uncertainty of just +/- 1/10th degree Fahrenheit for it's products. You can usually find this sort of information on the product's website.


Need Help Identifying Characteristics of Vinegar in a Carolina BBQ Sauce A year ago I made my first Carolina-style BBQ sauce (specifically a Piedmont-style sauce). It was perfect, exactly what I was looking for in every way. I've never been able to replicate it.

The first batch was made with whatever red-cider vinegar we had in the cupboard; I didn't take notice of the brand, but I believe it was a supermarket generic brand, possibly either Giant or Harris-Teeter. The second batch I made was very, very harsh, and through trial and error I determined that it was the brand of vinegar that I used (Heinz red cider vinegar). The next batch was made with red wine vinegar and it was much better, but still not as good as the first batch (I still have a tiny bit of the first batch left). My latest batch is even better still, using the Giant-brand red cider vinegar -- but it's still not as good as that first batch.

I don't have words for why the first batch is better, other than "less harsh". Logically I know that vinegars can vary tremendously, and if I use a store brand, that will likely vary even more from batch to batch than a name brand; how can I make something that consistently excels if I can't define what I'm looking for?

My husband jokingly told me to find someone with a mass spectrometer, but I'm seriously considering it. Is there a better way? How do I go about figuring out what is different about that first batch? My supply is rapidly dwindling, just a few tablespoons, now.

The way that brands of the same kind of vinegar can vary is often water content, i.e. the concentration of acid in the vinegar. Some will be more concentrated and therefore more acidic than others, when you switch to a vinegar that is more concentrated than another your result is more acidic and therefore harsh. There's no real standard or rule that I know of when it comes to vinegar strength, and it's not on the labelling, so it's hard to know what you're getting. In general I've found store brands to be weaker than more expensive brands, so I think you're getting inconsistent results because of inconsistent acidity in the vinegars you buy.

If you are going to get a consistent result you need to develop a method which will compensate for the inconsistency, there's more than one possibility that comes to mind:

Be scientific and use PH strips to measure the acid content of the vinegar you are using. Measure the acidity of the vinegar you've had the best success with and then add water to a stronger vinegar in order to make the PH match. You could also get an expensive electric tester for this but PH strips are cheap (a hundred for less than $10), reliable and accurate
Use your sense of taste. If you are using a stronger vinegar you'll need less of it, so start with a lower amount, say half, then add small amounts until it has the flavor you want. The consideration with this method is that adding less vinegar means less liquid overall, giving you a thicker sauce. You'll probably want to add a bit of water to compensate for that, but when you do it will dilute the flavors, including the acidity

The scientific method's main benefit is that it gives you the most consistency, you'll get the right acid balance every time without guesswork. One's sense of taste can change significantly depending on many factors, for instance if you have a cold, what you've eaten recently, even mood, so if absolute consistency is what you want then a bit of chemistry is the way to go.


Grilling on an iron fire pit While walking home yesterday, I found a discarded fire pit (I initially thought it was a portable grill, but then then realized that it had only a mesh cover).
Some details:

it's essentially an iron bowl with no bottom vents
the lip is ~23", including the outer rim. ~22" excluding it
the grate inside is ~11"

I would like to use this while spending as little money as possible. I assume the biggest downside versus an actual grill is that without a solid cover, I hit lower temperatures, and I'll lose some smoky flavor.
Some questions:

Should I get a wider grate that rests on the lip instead? Or can I get by with having a few coals that the small grate can rest on?
Should I try to find a solid grill cover instead of the mesh?
What would I miss out on if I don't have a cover?
Any other equipment I should have to avoid surprises?
Is it ok that I don't have any bottom vents? Unfortunately I sold my drill a while ago and don't have access to one right now.

Note that while I cook a lot, I grill very rarely and this will be the first time I grill without someone experienced with me - so I'm not looking to get into anything complicated right away; I'm hoping that this will help me practice some basics.

This can easily work as a grill.  A cover is not necessary. You simply need a grate that fits over the surface. I would go for a grate that fits over the rim, you don't want to worry about shifting and balance while cooking.  Holes in the bottom for air flow would be nice, but again, not necessary.
Start a fire, burn down to coals.  You can use the "hand test" to check the temperature.  Grill your product.
In a grilling situation, the flavor is initiated from drippings hitting the coals, it is not necessarily a smoking situation, though you will pick up some smoke depending on your fuel.


Is it okay to boil milk (making steel cut oats) I am trying to make simple oatmeal (steel cut), and on the package the directions say to boil milk, add the oats, then simmer for 25 minutes. But the milk is starting to get a film on top and is becoming a cheese-like consistency which doesn't look too appetizing in my oatmeal. Up until now I've always boiled oats in water and added cold milk after. Is this desirable?

I should add that the milk is actually a bit old and while past the expiration date, still smells okay and has not spoiled yet. This is also my first time making steel cut oats but I doubt that makes a difference.

Yes, it's fine to boil milk - or at least to simmer it. Milk gets really foamy when it boils, and tends to boil over, so you probably don't want to actually boil it, but rather quickly turn the heat down when it shows signs of boiling, and let it simmer. It does develop a film on top sometimes, but nothing that can't just be stirred in and dissolved, and you should be stirring your oats reasonably frequently anyway so they don't stick to the bottom.


How can I be sure I'm buying the right KitchenAid beaters? My daughter has a KitchenAid Architect stand mixer. Through a series of moves, she's misplaced the wire whip and the dough hook and I'd like to get her replacements.

Easier said than done! Stores don't seem to carry them. The KitchenAid website is useless. Amazon sells plenty - but they have descriptions like Tilt Head, Narrow Bowl Lift, or Wide Bowl Lift. I don't know which of these the Architect is. How can I figure out this terminology and get the right replacement beaters?

Okay, to explain the 'tilt head' vs. 'bowl lift':

On a 'tilt head' mixer, the bowl attaches with a screw motion into the base of the mixer.  The motor portion of the mixer is hinged at the back, so the front of it can be lifted up.  There's a lever to lock the head from moving on the right side (near the motor, opposite the speed control lever).  And if you don't engage it, you can make a real mess

On a 'bowl lift' mixer, the bowl has two little tabs on each side, which attach to two arms that protrude from roughly half way up the mixer.  The motor portion of the mixer is fixed to the stand and cannot move, instead, there's a lever on the right side of the base (near the arms) that will move the arms up and down so the bowl moves instead of the motor portion.

As for narrow vs. wide ... I have no clue what the corresponding measurements are.

And I took the images from an answer from Doug that's been deleted.  If someone has pictures from the other side (showing the relevant levers), feel free to replace them.


How can you melt chocolate without it getting wet? I've tried a (few times) to melt chocolate but am obviously doing something wrong:

Put a pot of water onto the boil
Place a metal bowl over the pot
Put chocolate into the bowl
Wait for chocolate to go off!

(Obviously the steam is rising from the pot and going into the bowl)

What am I doing wrong?  I'm not against using the microwave, would that be a better way?

The way you've described is precisely how I melt chocolate.  If you have a double boiler, that's even better, but a bowl on top of a pot is fine too.

I can only think of two things that might be affecting the quality of your end result:

Is the bowl big enough?  The melting bowl should be larger than the pot if possible; you want the steam to be forced under and around it.
Is the water temperature reasonable?  You want it to be at a simmer.  If it's rapidly boiling, the heat is too high.

As long as you keep those two things in mind, your chocolate should melt fine!

Edit: Thought of one other thing:

It's possible that the steam is actually rising above the bowl, then hitting something (like your range), condensing and then falling back into the bowl as water.  You shouldn't even be getting much steam with this method, but just in case, turn your fan on, to make sure you aren't getting any condensation.


Storing chocolate at home in the summer In the summer while I'm at work I'd like to set the temperature of my small apartment higher--roughly 83 degrees as per US department of energy recommendations.  I'm planning on keeping it between 76-78 when I'm home.  However, I don't want my chocolate to to deteriorate.  Let's assume we're talking about a thin bar of Lindt milk chocolate.  It's been fine so far with the apartment set at 78*F and the chocolate in a dark cabinet.  I definitely don't want to put it in the refrigerator as this is too cold for it.

What is the maximum temperature I can leave my apartment at when I'm not around to keep the chocolate reasonably stable?  Should I use a cooler or box to keep the chocolate cooler than the rest of the house?    Is there a cheaper/better/easier option I haven't thought of?

There are three different crystal types in solidified chocolate with one of them being the prefered type.  This is why we temper chocolate, because it promotes crystallization of the prefered type.

From what I recall, the ideal temperature for chocolate is 70°F and the first type of crystal in chocolate starts melting at around 82°F.  So while not ideal, you should be fine with the room at 78°F.  Keep in mind Lindt chocolate with milk is a little softer than their darker chocolate line.

You can simply place the chocolate in a cooler (like a coleman) along with a pop can that has been in the fridge. The cool can should prevent the chocolate from getting too hot. Switch the can with another cold one daily and that should keep the snap sound in the chocolate along with the taste.


Does it matter if I make waffles in a frying pan? I have some waffle batter ready (here is the recipe) but I don't have a waffle iron. Is it okay if I make it the way I make pancakes, by pouring batter in a frying pan?

Sounds like your question is actually whether you can make pancakes with waffle batter. You can certainly give it a try, especially since you already made the batter. Not sure exactly how the texture will turn out, but the ratios are pretty similar to pancake batter so they'll probably be good enough you'll be happy eating them.

They won't be waffles, though. Waffles are defined by their shape, which allows them to cook from both sides at once, getting all the surfaces nice and brown, with plenty of extra surface area from all the holes. If you don't have a waffle iron, you're not going to be able to make them.


Is this kebab roll ingredient referring to the seed, outer star or both? I am referring to star anise.  This is an ingredient list for store bought kebab rolls(I think they’re also referred to as sheek kebabs).  I’m under the impression that the seed and outer star if star anise have different flavour profiles.  When it mentions star anise I’m this list, would it be referring to the ground seed, ground outer star or both?

This likely refers to the ground spice, and probably the whole thing.  Spices used on an industrial scale are usually sourced economically.  In other words, the most inexpensive ground star anise.  It is likely that this is the whole thing ground up.


How to sequence better while cooking I often struggle with sequencing specific cooking activities in the kitchen, and either panic, screw something up, or more often than not the dish takes a lot longer to cook. I've tried prepping more, but I find that takes long and my cooking is delayed. If I follow a recipe, things usually turn out well, but when I'm free-cooking I tend to run into trouble. I know this problem is relating to something called sequencing. Does anyone have any good basic pointers that I could start with for sequencing so I can be more capable in the kitchen?

I actually routinely peel thing 2 while thing 1 is frying. To me the key is to work out your critical path. But you don't have to plan as I do. Just work out what your goal is:

get everything done in the least time possible
get everything done as calmly as possible
make sure nothing burns, dries out, overcooks, or cools and gets gluey

Say you want to make a piece of panfried meat (steak, chop, chicken etc) that needs to rest, along with mashed potatoes and some steamed veggies. So work out all the steps and how long they take:

sear meat 3 min each side, 10 min in oven (oh ooh, need to preheat oven), rest 10 min
peel potatoes 5 min (or however long you need), water come to boil 10 min, boil 10 min, mash 1 min
prep veggies 5 min, heat up steaming water 5 min, steam 5 min

(You can adjust all these numbers of course.)

Now you can sort it out into order so that you take as little time as possible and end up done at the same time.

dinner - 26 minutes: start searing steak. Preheat oven.
put potato water on to boil
peel potatoes (partway through, turn steak)
should be about dinner - 20 minutes now. Put steak in oven.
wait 5 minutes (tidy up?)
dinner - 15 minutes put potatoes into water
turn on steaming water
prep veggies
dinner - 10 minutes, steak out to rest
dinner - 5 minutes, put veggies into steam
dinner - 1 minute, mash potatoes, put into serving bowl, put veg into serving bowl, put steak onto serving plate, dinner is ready

The exact order will be different every time but you work it out by finding the longest chain and starting that first. For each thing you want to end up serving, you need to work back the steps to get you there and therefore when you want to start that chain. Keep in mind that an oven can preheat or a pot can boil for a few extra minutes without consequences.

Now this approach keeps the overall time the lowest and gets it all on the table at once. But you might find that too stressy. So you could do it like this:

preheat oven
peel potatoes and put them in a pan of cold water.
prep the veggies and put them in the cold steamer.
pan fry the steak, focusing on nothing else for 6 minutes
put the steak in the oven
turn the heat on under the potatoes
after 10 minutes, take the steak out of the oven to rest
turn the heat on under the steaming veg
after 10 minutes, everything should be ready

This takes 10 minutes longer because you "get your mise en place together" (that is do all the peeling and prepping) before you do anything else. But it spares you doing two things at once, and if your peeling takes 7 minutes instead of 5, all that happens is you eat a little later, you don't throw other timings off because you haven't started anything else yet.

It doesn't matter which of these approaches you take, you can still work out the order and the times when you just need to wait for a bit. As you get faster at prepping and more confident in your prep time, you may naturally start to take a more overlapping approach.


Delay time in cooking brined meat I'm taking my day and a half brined chicken breast out of the brine today.  Unfortunately I can't cook them for 2 days since I won't be home.  Is it okay to cook brined meat at a later date?

You'll be 100% fine, as long as you store it like you would store any other raw products, same rules pretty much apply, but you can probably get a few more days of life out of it because of the higher con


Which one is better in Samosa dough,Ghee or Oil? Which one is better in samosa dough, ghee or oil? some people use ghee in dough of samosa and some people use oil.Is there any difference in taste and texture of samosa while using ghee or oil in dough after frying it?

It depends on the oil otherwise I would recommend ghee, it has a nice nutty aroma and it’s more stable with high heat compared to other oils such as vegetable, canaola and olive oil. The only oil I would use, would be coconut oil.


Quick and Easy Beef Stew and Dumplings I want to combine two off the shelf products with existing recipes into a single off the shelf heat and eat ready to go meal.

Dinty Moore Beef Stew & Dumplings

Pillsbury Slow-Cooked Chicken and Dumplings

Both recipes call for the addition of water, but if I am combining the canned stew with the refrigerated dumplings do I need to add water?  How should the combination be prepared?

This recipe will be used to create a meal for several people while camping.

The Dinty Moore recipe adds water to thin the stew so the dumplings will boil properly. Otherwise it will be difficult to get your dumplings to cook evenly as they won't sink into the thick stew and the stew won't have enough convection around them.

I would follow the Dinty Moore recipe including the dilution.

Pillsbury calls for 25-30 minutes but that is in a slow cooker and your stew will be hotter than that. Check the dumplings after 10 minutes just to make sure they are done. Under cooked dumplings are not good memories.


What makes sea food have similar smell? I never ate fish, I always disliked the smell and had a little bit of trauma with my father forcing me to eat it while I was a kid. I had two experiences:

Some years ago, I tried sushi. It doesn't have a strong smell of fish and I found it edible. But there is a very faint smell of fish.
Some days ago, I bought some chips made of Nori algae. They were vegan chips and yet, I felt the same soft smell of fish.

I conjectured that perhaps, part of this smell is common to all things in the sea. Lately, I decided to do indoor farming and when studying about fertilizers, I heard someone saying that "certain fertilizers with phosphorus have a smell of fish and that the sea is rich in phosphorus" so, this seems to be my first guess. I understand that my question is a bit vague.

The American Society for Nutrition explains it thus:

The answer has to do with some interesting physiology unique to sea
creatures.Water in the open ocean is about 3% salt by weight, but the
optimal levels of dissolved minerals inside an animal cell is less
than 1%.In order to maintain fluid balance, ocean creatures must fill
their cells with amino acids and amines to counter the saltiness of
seawater. Ocean fish tend to rely on trimethylamine oxide (TMAO) for
this purpose.

Now this compound does not in itself have a particularly pungent odour, however:

The problem is that when fish are killed, bacteria and fish enzymes
convert TMAO into trimethylamine (TMA), which gives off the
characteristic “fishy” odor.This smell can be reduced in two ways.TMA
on the surface of the fish can be rinsed off with tap water.Treating
the fish with acidic ingredients such as lemon, vinegar, or tomato can
also cause TMA to bind to water and become less volatile.Thus the odor
compounds do not reach the nose.

This trimethylamine is something that is produced in small quantities by our own gut microbes, and usually is no trouble when kept under control - some however are unfortunatley prone to "Fish Odour Syndrome".

I am not able to find any definitive evidence for the reason that nori smells of fish, however, an uncorroborated suggestion behind the scenes on a Wikipedia wiki page states this:

Please. Fish smells of algae, not the other way around! For the same
reason DHAs are not "fish oils", but "algae oils".--Rfsmit

Bolding Mine

As they are so ubiquitous in nature it would seem likely that the bacteria that convert the TMAO into TMA and make the smell would be present on the algae as well as in the fish and in our own guts.

Conclusion.

I'd claim that the bacteria and what it eats and it's waste products are to blame for the similar smell: it would seem to be the case that Japanese Nori (There mis-classified as genus Porphyra) contains amino acids and nutrients not inconsistent with the culprit bacteria growing on it (As it also like fish flesh). As I say I can not offer anything definitive.


What can I use to replace the tomato juice in gazpacho? I'm trying to find cold alternatives to hot soup. A friend pointed me to gazpacho. I tried that, and we really liked it.

However, I will be cooking for someone who does not eat cooked tomatoes (ketchup, tomato sauce, and tomato juice), and the recipe I have for the gazpacho is based on tomato juice.

What can I use as a replacement for the tomato juice? I was thinking carrot juice maybe mixed with some lemon juice or vinegar (for the acidity that tomato juice has), but wanted a more "professional" opinion before doing so.

What can I use to replace the tomato juice in gazpacho?

According Niki Segnit's The Flavour Thesaurus, strawberries and tomatoes share many of the same flavour compounds so that might an avenue to explore; obviously you might want to increase the vinegar/lemon juice if the stawberries are particularly sweet.


How do you add ingredients to fudge without stiring it? There have been a couple of questions recently about making fudge, and a comment which came up twice in answers has got me wondering about something.  (I'll admit, both answers are by Sobachatina, but I think my question could be answered by anyone.)  Both the recipe for fudge I grew up with, and another recipe I found online instruct ingredients to be added as the fudge is taken off the heat (butter and vanilla, in the linked recipe).  But Sobachatina seems very adamant about this being a BAD time to disturb the fudge, as it will cause crystal formation.  So, if I'm not supposed to stir the fudge, how do I add the butter and vanilla?

Butter is typically added when the fudge is first taken off the heat- but it isn't mixed in. The butter is allowed to melt across the surface to keep it from forming a skin on top.

Vanilla, nuts, and all other additions are mixed in at the end of the cooling period when the fudge is stirred.

Alton Brown, with some help from Shirley Corriher, explained the process well.


What temperature should "simmer" be for candying fruit? I want to make Candied fruit more efficiently, and all the recipes I have found say basically "bring simple syrup to a boil, then lower to simmer with the fruit/peel in until translucent"

So my question is:

What temperature should the syrup be during the infusion phase?

I would like to use my SV machine and a zipock to take the guessing and hands on part out of this recipe, but don't know what to set this temperature to.

I found this: To what temperature should you take candied citrus peels?, but it doesn't give the actual answer :(

And I have seen this, (www.chefsteps.com/activities/half-candied-blood-orange) but it has a chamber sealing step I can't do - so don't know how that affects the temp and time hold, if at all.

Thanks in advance for your advice!

I don't think you physically can achieve the same results with a sous vide machine. Typically, those are designed to hold a water bath at a specific (relatively low) temperature. You can't hold water above its boiling point in an open container, because it's, well, boiling and will eventually evaporate. (You could do this in a sealed container, which is the principle behind the pressure cooker, but that's very different than sous vide.)

Here's the thing: simmering is gentle boiling, and by definition it occurs at (or just under) the boiling point of water. You cannot raise the temperature higher than that without adjusting other variables like pressure. Because solutes (like sugar) raise the boiling point of a solution, syrups will often come to a simmer well above the boiling point of plain water. So even if you placed your syrup in a bag, placed it in the water bath, and raised the water bath to a boil - the syrup in the bag wouldn't be boiling. You would have to add pressure or another solute (like salt) to the water bath to get the temperature high enough to also boil the syrup, which could very well damage your sous vide heating element.

The "half-candied" recipe you've linked is an interesting one, because it's really not traditionally candied. Instead what they're doing is infusing the orange with a high sugar content in order to preserve it in a similar way. That can only really be done in a low-pressure, vacuum-sealed environment, because it's using the lack of pressure to force the orange to absorb the syrup instead of boiling out the liquid to be replaced with syrup.

tl;dr: The temperature you need for the syrup to boil is higher than the temperature you can achieve in a sous vide bath. You will have to find another way to streamline the process.


Most optimal pizza type or style for home oven? I have an electric oven with a "broiler" function. Its not bad, but temperature-wise it doesn't get close to the 450°C required for "real" neapolitan style pizza. I think it is below 250°C on the highest setting.

So I was wondering, since I can never achieve real pizza with what I have on hand, are there styles of pizza, I could actually nail with my oven?

I was thinking, that Sicily style and other deep dish pizzas should be a good fit for an oven with low maximum temperature?

What about Roman style pizza?

"Optimal" is a matter of taste and opinion with regard to this question.  I am not sure we can answer that. I would start with a calibrated oven thermometer and crank your oven, so you know what temperature you can achieve.  In my home oven, I can achieve a decent Neapolitan style pizza using a pizza steel and oven temps slightly below 260C (500F).  This is well-below the ideal temperature, but with a long pre-heat, and longer than typical cooking time, it works out well.  Alternately, there are thick crust sheet pan pizzas, deep dish pizzas (Chicago style), and pizzas that can be made in a cast iron pan...all of which should be easy to do in any home oven.


substitution of whipping cream for water in jello This is the first time I have been on the internet for over 5 years so please excuse my slowness with this site.  I have been successful using heaving whipping with unflavored gellatin mix  with added sugar and vanilla.  I have used both a mold and a big crystal bowl, depending on how much I was serving and how much I made.  May I substitute heavy whipping cream instead of water to make flavored jello or gellatin mix.  I would now like to use lemon or strawberry flavored jello or some other flavor of jello mix that has the sugar in it and the color to make a desert and use the directions as if using water.  To enhance it, I use fresh fruit or even cooked preserves such as raspberries or sour cherries.  This desert is called "Russian Cream".  I am also thinking of using lemon curd to put on the side, which is where one would put the cooked preserves or drizzle on top, slice fruit, lemon curd, whatever sounds good to you.  Other additions can be added to  the unflavored gellatin to make it lighter like half and half (diet version) or bolder like cream cheese or even slice up fruit very small, dry and mix.
Update in answer to comments---Here I am again with news of what has happened with the substitution.  It came out okay.  I realized I had to play with the sugar as the gellatin mix or "Jello or Jelly" already had sugar in it.  I did heat up the cream and mixed things up accordingly and put in the fridge.  I looked up Pannacotta and found that different various versions resembled what I was making, Russian Cream.  It is interesting that various cultures have the similar versions of same things and I realized that Flan was also included in this mix.  Today I made the original and nothing beats it.  Thanks for the adventure of the site.

There are a variety of recipes on the web for making creamy jello.

There seem to be a few options including:

Method 1 - Using the quick-set method, add 8 oz of defrosted whipped cream topping (cool whip) after icing the Jell-o.
Method 2 - Using the regular or quick set method, replace some of the cold or cool water with cream
Method 3 - Using the regular or quick set method, replace some of the cold or cool water with melted ice cream

The links take you to examples of recipes with more in-depth discussion of the specifics but there are many others out there.


Can I bake 2 cakes at a time on 2 different shelves in my oven toaster grill? I have a 45 liter capacity oven toaster grill, with 3 rack levels. Can I use the 2 shelves at a time, to bake 2 cakes simultaneously?

It will most likely not work "just like that". Even if your otg has both top and bottom heating elements, the cake on the upper rack will have the heat to its bottom blocked by the cake on the lower rack, resulting in an overcooked top and undercooked bottom part, and for the cake on the lower rack it will be the other way round.

You can try to swap the two cakes after some time (probably between half and two thirds of the baking time) to compensate. But opening the oven door partway through the baking (thus letting hot, humid air out and colder, drier air in) might itself negatively impact the outcome.

If your otg has a convection fan, that is probably your best bet. The circulating air will distribute the heat much more evenly onto all sides of both cakes.

To convert a conventional recipe for convection baking, you typically reduce the temperature by 20°C, maybe put a bowl of already boiling water in the oven along with the cake (to make the air more humid and thus compensate for its movement, which would otherwise evaporate more water from the cake, causing it to dry out), and start keeping a close watch on the colour and texture of the cake's surface about 10-20 minutes earlier than the recipe says the cake will be done.


Why should I use garlic making roasted potatoes? A recipe of roasted potatoes calls for some garlic to be put in the oven with potatoes that are covered with salt and black/red pepper and rosemary. I don't understand what's the role of garlic here, could someone explain?

I assume the recipe says to put the garlic in the pan with the potatoes, not just in the oven with them, in which case the garlic will flavour the fat you are roasting the potatoes in, and so will subtly flavour the potatoes themselves.


Is there a Scoville scale for "coldness" (e.g. mint)? Certain foods taste hot like peppers and are measured by the Scoville scale. Some foods also taste "cold". Mint is the main one that comes to mind. Is there a similar scale for this kind of taste?

If there isn't (or maybe even if there is) is there any reason we couldn't just use the same methodology as we do with the Scoville scale?

There are thermal sensation scales, and they are applied in food research too, although their primary use tends to be focused on clothing or environment. They tend to be categorical rather than ratio scales, and don't depend on the presence of a single compound the way scoville does. Despite checking several likely sources (a book on neurogastronomy, a thesis on measuring the perception of food - mostly focused on texture, but also discussing thermoreceptors) I didn't find a mention of a specific culinary scale that measures menthol concentration.

Instead of a specialized scale, industrial users of menthol products seem to simply use the relative menthol content, such as selling an essential oil that with "60% menthol". And the general public doesn't seem to have created a cult around menthol content the way it has done for capsaicine content - personally, I know more people who care for the scoville number of the chilli they are eating than people who can tell the difference between spearmint and apple mint.

I suspect that, while creating such a scale is possible, nobody has bothered to. And even if some food scientist did do it, it doesn't seem to have caught on, especially outside of professional circles.


"Cream Biscuit" a little raw in the middle After having some problems initially, I managed to get my "cream biscuits" to rise by measuring the ingredients correctly according to this recipe.

However, after 15 minutes of baking, the inside is a little bit under-cooked. It still tastes good and is light and fluffy but I felt it could have been cooked more.

Should I simply leave it in the oven longer? Or am I doing something wrong that could cause the inside to be not-so-cooked?

Baking times are never exact, as there can be considerable variance in the product and environment.  The three most likely variables to affect total necessary baking time are:

How thick the biscuits were rolled
How moist they dough was
Actual oven temperature accuracy

For this reason, there is normally a test or indicator for doneness.  The best possible test is internal temperature of the biscuit, but this recipe does not give that information, and it is difficult to get an accurate reading for something as thin as a biscuit.

The recipe indicates browning as the test, but that does not indicate the state of the interior of the biscuit, only the exterior.

Still, there are several things you can do:

Use an oven thermometer to verify the temperature of your oven
Roll the biscuits so that they are slightly less tall
Be sparing with the cream, adding only as much as necessary to bring the dough together
Of course, bake them a little longer.  The trade off here is that you will get more browning on the outside the longer you bake them to get them cooked through to the center.  If you are at the max time the recipe indicates already, and are getting sufficient browning, one of the other factors may be in play

Assuming your oven temperature is accurate, the most likely factor is how thick or thin the biscuits are.  The cooking time will pretty much directly related to this, all other factors being equal.  Even the amount of cream has less effect than you would think, because doneness is related to the internal temperature achieved (the starches will hydrolyze and taste cooked around 195°F / 90.5°C) regardless of moisture level.

I have never tried the toothpick test on a biscuit, but fundamentally, they are quick breads, much like a muffin, so it may be worth trying:  stick a wooden toothpick into the biscuit to its center.  When it is pulled out, there should be only minimal slightly moist crumbs sticking to the toothpick when it is done.  Wet crumbs indicate under baking, perfectly clean indicates over baking.

In the end, biscuit making is a matter of experience, and you will get better at it with more  batches.


Does sour-cream go bad? I have had a container of off-brand sour-cream I bought from the grocery store in my refrigerator for almost two months. When will it go bad or will is ever go bad?

Eventually, yes...  but it does have a fairly long shelf life.

According to Eat by date, you should expect 1 to 2 weeks after the date on the package.  They say:

  You can tell if sour cream has gone bad if you notice dark mold on
  its surface, bright bacterial marks, pockets of watery liquid and a
  sharp, bitter flavor. First the liquid will begin to separate, at
  which point it can still be used but within a week you will need to
  throw it out when you notice mold on the inside of the lid and then in
  the product.


How does curry shop keep their curry hot without reducing them? So when you buy curry , wether in Japanese or Indian style they will give you piping hot curry.

how do they maintain that temperature without incidentally reducing the water hereby making them more salty?

or do they have a vat of room temperature curry and only reheating the portion that'll be eaten?

Many curry shops and other varieties of fast service restaurants and take out places will indeed keep a variety of broths, soups, stocks, and sauces hot during service hours.

Other components of the dish are kept cold, and heated when the dish is ordered. Some parts may need to be quickly cooked, then the broth added. A curry shop will do exactly this.

When you order a green curry with chicken, they will take a portion of chicken and some vegetables, sautee them until the vegetables are cooked and the chicken hot, then add the sauce. The sauce might be cold or hot, depending on how busy the place is.

Now, to really get to your question...

If a sauce or soup is kept warm for hours, you are exactly correct, it will reduce and get overly salty. There is a very easy fix!!! Add water !!! In any restaurant I have worked I would add water or stock throughout the service period. I would be tasting as needed and adjusting, but it just that simple. Add water. (or heavy cream for cream soup)


Old-Fashioned Candy/Deep-Fry Thermometer - How Shallow Can I Go? I have a thermometer like this:

Today I'm making tostadas. I don't need or want deep oil for that, just over a centimeter would be plenty. In order to submerge the bulb of this thermometer in oil that shallow, the bulb would almost be touching the bottom of the pan. Would I get even close to an accurate reading that way? Is there an accepted minimum depth for using a thermometer of this type?

That is probably not deep enough to get an accurate reading. It varies with the thermometer, but usually you need at least a couple of centimetres to be submerged to get an accurate reading. Also, unless you are super careful, it will be nearly impossible to stop the thermometer touching the bottom of the pan. In my experience the clips on these doohickies are terrible for adjusting the angle of the thermometer.

When shallow frying in this manner I usually just go by rules of thumb. One that has never let me down is to use a wooden chopstick. When you think the oil is getting hot enough, place the tip of the chopstick in the oil. If bubbles rapidly appear around the chopstick, you're hot to trot.


Can I cook gnocchi with sauce in the microwave? Today for lunch at the office I have a package of gnocchi and a jar of tomato sauce. We have a microwave and a water cooler/heater. Is it possible for me to actually cook this up?

I'm going to propose a different cooking method that's closer to cooking it on the stovetop; gnocchi when cooked wrong can be quite dense.  It's still edible, but it's not as enjoyable.

take your cooking vessel, and heat up your cooking liquid (I'd go with just water, as we don't know how much liquid it's going to absorb, and we don't want too runny of a sauce)
Float a toothpick in it, or something else microwave safe.  (note: this is for safety ... we need nucleation points so you don't get scalded in step #5)
Microwave on high 'til boiling**
Remove the toothpick
Add the gnocci
Microwave on high 'til boiling again
Microwave on low until floating.
Drain
Add sauce
Microwave to warm the sauce.

** as you said you had a combination water cooler/heater, you can start with hot water, and skip steps 2 through 4.


Holding mashed potatoes in fridge before serving I have some issues with holding mashed potatoes before serving them. Of course, it's not practical to make them from start to finish everytime someone orders them. I am trying to figure out how I will do this in a restaurant setting. I estimate that the potatoes will need to be good for at least 4 to 12 hours after making them.

I have tried keeping them in a slow-cooker at the lowest setting, but found that this setting causes bits of it to burn, and also makes them more over-cooked and gummy after 2-4 hours.

I have thought of putting individual servings in small containers in the fridge immediately after they are made and microwaving them just before serving. Will this cause the starches in the potato to change significantly and affect the flavor in any way?

I would suggest getting them to the riced/passed stage and then refrigerating in a tightly sealed container. When an order comes in, scoop out a portion, and bring it up to temperature with the use of hot milk (which could be microwaved) and a few minutes of on the stove. That way it's still reasonably fresh tasting.


At what stage should Dark Soy sauce be added while making noodles? I'm new to soy sauce and have heard that it's essential in chinese cuisine. But it doesn't seem to add any flavor to my noodles. I'm adding the sauce before I put my cooked noddles in. And what's the optimal quantity to add without darkening the color of the dish?

The soy sauce can be used alone or added with other sauces like fish sauce, tomato sauce or squid sauce to enhance the flavor n color of the noodles. and remember there are two kinds of soy sauce one dark and the other light. you need to add the amount according to the dish you are planning, say for two serves two spoons will do good. And as u said its generally added to the veggies before adding the noodles to get even color. Doing the other way wont hurt thou' .


How to get my croissant flakier and bigger? Is it possible to get a hollow inside? I am slightly new to the puff pastry process and have gotten the layers and and folding. I use a three fold, and the temperature remains at a cool degree so the butter does not melt or seep out of the dough during the process.

I just can't seem to get them bigger and flakier. I am using 7in / 18cm triangles and I stretch them out and roll them into the classic croissant shape. Then I egg wash them, sprinkle a little sea salt on top, let rise for 40 minutes, bake at 400F/200C for 10 minutes, and then at 350F / 180C until golden brown on top.

Any suggestion or any way to get the results?

Croissant purists state 32 is the "perfect" number of layers a croissant should have.

In this link seeking the croissant perfection, you can find:

  NOTE11, I had the misconception that the more folds, the more layers, the flakier it will be. Wrong. With too many folds, butter layers would be thinner and thinner, and it will be more likely for the butter to melt and leak. Even with perfect rolling, too may layers would mean smaller honeycomb "holes" in the crumb. With no sheeter and TX weather, I find 3 folds sufficient, any more it's risky.

You can get up to 27 layers if you make 3 3-folds. Doing one more folding would make 3^4=81, too many layers.

It's not compulsory, but you can get those 32 layers doing 1 normal-folding and 2 book-foldings:

(image source)

Another reason your flakes are not large enough is the flour used.

Croissant dough usually has butter in it, and long fermentation time; so a strong flour (high W value) should be used.
In order the dough doesn't stretch back, and the layers of dough won't beak (letting butter from 2 layers get toghether), a value of p/l≈0.5.

That's something in common with pizza dough, as I wrote in this answer, so if you don't find flour specific for croissant, you can try with pizza one.


Where can I find/buy Peruvian Parsnip (AKA: Batata Baroa or Arracacha) in the US? Not to be confused with the common parsnip that is usually found in regular supermarkets. Either online or in specialty markets that ship via FedEx would be ideal.

Thank you.

Peruvian Parsnips seem to be pretty difficult to find, even online. I found this link that has an "Email me when available" option: https://www.greenharvest.com.au/Plants/SummerLeafyGreens.html#PeruvianParsnip

But the website appears to be in Australia and may not ship to the USA, or perhaps if exorbitant shipping costs. I would recommend to also check local health/specialty food stores, they might be able to special-order it through their supply chain.

Another option would be to try and find a substitute that would be "close enough". I don't have suggestions as I have never had Peruvian Parsnips.

Another option: growing them!

I found this link which mentioned growing it.

  Root vegetables are easy to grow for gardeners at any level. In most parts of the country, roots you plan to harvest in the fall and winter need to be in the ground by mid- to late-summer. If you live in a warmer climate, you have additional time. Whether you’re going to squeeze in a few roots this year or are already planning next year’s garden, use these tips for root gardening success.

Seems like this tuber mostly grows in more tropical climates, so it may be difficult. I also found this other article which has information about growing unusual tubers.

If you have questions about that, feel welcome to try our Gardening Stack Exchange site!


Should I pre-cook sausages before scrambling into eggs? I have some fresh longaniza, maybe about 1 1/4" thick. Normally I'd throw them in the oven for 30-40 minutes or so then fry them real quick for texture.

I want to skin them, mash them, then mix them in with scrambled eggs or omelettes.

In terms of safety, should I still bake them before preparing them? Or mash them up raw and fry them for a while before adding the eggs? Or can I just throw the raw meat and eggs in the pan all at once?

They'll start cold, going from the fridge (~38F) to the oven/pan.

It takes more heat/time to safely cook sausage than it does to fully cook eggs. This would be especially true for omelettes, where the egg is in contact with the hot pan, and the filling only warms indirectly. Add your expectation to start with cold sausage, and cooking the sausage and egg at the same time seems like a really bad idea. (Yes, you could just cook the whole assembly longer, but you'd end up with seriously vulcanized eggs.)

Be safe: cook the sausage, and then add the eggs.


What's the purpose of adding water to a skillet when cooking solid food? I recently came across a recipe for cinnamon skillet apples. One of the steps was to put the chopped apples into a skillet, along with half a cup of water and ground cinnamon. This reminds me of the instructions on seasoning packets, which involves stirring the contents into water, and then pouring it on top of meat in a skillet.

Is there a technical term for this cooking method? Does the water impact how the apples cook, or is it there for the sole purpose of evenly distributing the seasoning?

In this case, you are braising the apples.  The water is the braising liquid, which helps to cook the apples, reduces, integrates with the other ingredients, and becomes a sauce.  It also keeps the apples from sticking to the pan and burning.


What happens if you cook pureed pancakes? Okay to begin with, I know this is an odd question, but I've been reading The Flavor Bible and they mention an experiment where they made pancakes, pureed them with milk so it looked like batter again, then squirted that onto a frozen griddle to firm them back up. What would happen if you cooked this mixture again? Would you get bubbling? Would it burn right away?

When you cook it, the mixture would go from firm to melted as the temperature increased above the freezing point. Also, your egg proteins that previously held it together will have already been denatured (no way to undo this step mechanically) with the first cooking episode so I'm not aware of anything that would hold the batter together once it melted unless you added more egg. Also, you would not have the bubbles expected in pancakes without adding more baking soda/ powder (as previously mentioned) or putting the mixture in a siphon with nitrous. Either way, probably not a very pleasing result unless you put the batter in a siphon, charge it up, freeze it, and make sure it remains frozen until consumed. In that case you would have frozen pancakes not much different than freezing the original subject other these would melt into a mess with the consistency of the batter upon thawing.


Why boiling water, then cold water for this shaobing recipe? I'm trying to make this Chinese pastry called Shaobing.  Some recipes I've found call for first adding boiling water then adding cold water.  There's no yeast, just some salt and flour.  FYI, these recipes are from pretty old cookbooks.
My question is, what does adding boiling water first, then cold water do to the flour?

Adding boiling water to flour causes the starch granules to swell and gelatinise, allowing the dough to absorb more water, resulting in a softer and/or fluffier finished product. However, a dough made entirely with boiling water lacks extensibility (i.e. can't be stretched) because some of the precursor proteins to gluten are denatured at such a high temperature. This may be desirable as less gluten means the dough is easier to roll out thin.
On the other hand, dough made entirely with cold water has high extensibility, especially when gluten is allowed to develop through time and kneading, giving the finished product more chewiness.
Your recipe uses a combination of both types of dough, balancing between both extremes so that the finished product is not too soft but not too chewy.


Roasted duck carcass - what is this dish called? I've never broken down a duck before, so I found myself briefly watching this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTJR6-HU6OY

At the end, the chef mentions that in southern France, the carcass is sometimes sprinkled with coarse salt, roasted in a fast oven for some amount of time until it is GBD, and then picked apart by hand as a finger food. For the life of me though, I can't seem to find any references to this at all. Is anyone familiar with this dish? What is it called??

I've got fleur de sel on hand, and I think it would work great!

I found this recipe on
supertoinette .

The name of the dish is "Carcasses de canards grillées" which translates to roasted duck carcasses. It states below the name that "These carcasses of roasted ducks are a specialty of the Southwest!"

If you use Google, you can translate the page and get the recipe and instructions. This particular recipe uses ingredients in addition to the salt but, as with most recipes, I would expect that there are many variations.


Chicken comes out salty... occasionally A particular honey-and-mustard chicken I make frequently has, on a couple of occasions, come out tasting extremely salty, the saltiness overpowering the flavor of the chicken and the sauce. I'm trying to figure out what happened here, so I can avoid it in the future.

The sauce is simple honey, mustard, curry powder, and a bit of pepper. Nothing salty in it. I cover the chicken and bake it 1.5-2 hours; usually uncovering it for the last bit.

This has happened to me twice; I've made the recipe many times. This past time, one chicken I made came out salty, another didn't (or significantly less so) - same sauce, but different pan and cooking time.

One friend suggested that this might be because I'm using kosher chickens, which are kashered with salt. But I've been eating kosher chicken all my life, and I don't remember getting an oversalted chicken ever before.

Does anybody have any idea what might have caused this? Could this be a consequence of over-baking, or is kashrut a likely culprit? Something else?

Thanks muchly :)

While this isn't a definitive answer, I've given it some further thought and believe that my original suspicion is probably correct.  That is, the saltiness is probably due to the chicken itself, and the kashrut is a likely root cause.

For the benefit of anyone unfamiliar with the koshering process for poultry, in a nutshell it involves removing the feathers and various other parts, then thoroughly coating it in koshering salt, which are flat, coarse-grained crystals that are ideal for sticking to the meat (unlike table salt crystals which would dissolve, or sea salt crystals which would just fall off).

The koshering process desiccates (dries out) the meat - the salt crystals absorb moisture, and then they are washed off, taking the moisture with them.  It's mainly done to remove the blood, but at the same time removes a lot of other moisture.  The entire process only takes about an hour and does not add a significant quantity of salt to the meat. Kosher salt crystals can absorb quite a bit of water before they dissolve and without being in a solution, they cannot actually penetrate the meat.

This is in contrast to brining, where the chicken is immersed in a saline solution and actually absorbs up to 10% of its weight in brine (which adds up to about 0.05% of its weight in salt for a typical solution of 5% brine).  This actually does makes the chicken saltier throughout, although very few people actually perceive this as "salty" - it just enhances the flavour of the chicken.

So if a brined chicken, which has actually absorbed salt, doesn't taste particularly salty, then a kosher chicken should definitely not taste salty, and normally it won't.  The caveat is that this assumes that the plant was diligent in its preparation of the chicken before packaging, and depending on where you live, many if not most kosher factories are anything but.

Specifically, there are a few ways a kosher processing plant could, by virtue of carelessness, produce chicken or other meat that's way too salty:

They can apply far too much salt to begin with;
They can salt it for too long;
They can wash it poorly or not at all.

All of these factors will compound each other leading to roughly the same effects:

The meat may become noticeably dry;
Crystals of salt may be deposited on the exterior, undissolved;
Over time some of those crystals may actually absorb enough water to dissolve, creating its own "brine" of sorts and even diffusing the super-saturated salt-water back into the meat.  Koshering is a time-sensitive process.

If you're also noticing any dryness in the meat then I would definitely think they were being less-than-thorough at the factory and suggest looking into different brands or even filing a complaint.

Even if that's not the case, or if you don't have that option, one thing you can probably do at home to compensate is to simply rinse the chicken thoroughly before cooking it.  Note that this is not for food safety, and rinsing a chicken is known to actually raise your risk (slightly) due to cross-contamination concerns.  But you are not doing this for food safety, you are doing this to get rid of non-bacterial contaminants (salt, and maybe other things) that the factory left behind.

Undissolved salt on the surface is definitely going to taste the saltiest since you'll be putting actual whole crystals on your tongue, and I think that's a very likely culprit here.  Salt and other solids really have a hard time penetrating the exterior of meat or poultry, so it's less likely for the salt to be inside the chicken, even if the processing plant was truly sloppy.

So try giving those kosher chickens a good rinse - don't forget to sanitize your work area when you're all done preparing them - and see if that helps you at all.  If not, then probably all you can do is find another brand or try to mask the saltiness with a lot of spices and sauce (find a recipe that's normally heavy on salt, and cut the quantity of salt used).

P.S. Note that this is quite speculative and I do not actually have first-hand evidence of this happening at a kosher factory.  Nevertheless, it is the best explanation I can think of for a kosher chicken coming out too salty when there is no salt at all in the recipe.  I've never had it happen with an unkosher chicken.


Why does apples bought at the market feel sticky? When I buy apples at the market, they always feel sticky. When I buy apples at the supermarkt they feel smooth. When I was younger we had an apple tree, and also that apples did not feel sticky in my memories.

The apples taste fine, but no matter how good I wash them, they keep feeling sticky, like there used to be coating of stickers on them.  Is there a reason for this? And should I clean them with a towel after washing? (The only way I can get them less sticky)  I assume there is nothing wrong with the apples?

I live in the Netherlands, if that matters.

It's wax. Apples contain wax in their peel naturally and the amount varies between different varieties. Some don't feel waxy at all. It is there to prevent the fruit of drying out and the industry sometimes adds wax as well (especially to fruits that will be exported long distances), to keep them fresh longer.

As for removing the wax, you could try this.


No Butter Sous Vide: What did they mean by this? I just watched an experiment on youtube, where they compare 2 steaks, side by side, the first one with added butter during sous vide (as many people do), the second one without butter.

It seems the second steak, without butter, was far better, and I have since read other sources suggesting to sous-vide without butter or oil for best results.

However, what should you do when searing? Should you also avoid butter there, or is butter OK, when searing? What about oil?

What about the advice, often mentioned, that if you put in herbs during sous-vide, you should add some oil in order to get the essential oils out of the herbs?

Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNtqr8x_u7I

The (alleged) problem with extra fat during SV is that, flavor molecules will dissolve in fat and subsequently be discarded.
The claim is that, this causes the loss of flavor.

For searing it’s fine to use butter or other fat.


Has anyone had experience canning with "Quattro Stagioni" Jars? I am in the midst of canning a variety of items that require either boiling water bath  processing or pressure canning. I usually use a two part lid and screw band (Ball or Kerr) with jars, but this year I found some really pretty jars made by Quattro Stagioni, that have one piece lids. There are directions for canning included, but they don't really advise whether the lids are appropriate for pressure canning. I am hoping that someone may have experience and can lend their advice to me.

I live in Italy - the Quattro Stagioni brand here has been around for more than 30 years, and it is considered the golden standard for in-house canning (other Bormioli glass products are well regarded, too); everyone I know who canned something in his or her life have been using them, and I've never heard of anybody saying anything but great stuff about them. It's rare that I go a whole month without eating something that is coming out of a Quattro Stagioni jar. The one-piece lids are indeed very handy, even if they are a bit pricey (but you probably already noticed that).

All of the Bormioli material (website) and instructions (I'm reading them now from the lid packaging) only mention canning with boiling (pasteurization to be precise), and I've only seen them used that way. This restricts the type of foods you can can (pun not intended) to highly-acidic ones: fruit conserves, tomato sauces, pickled vegetables, etc.

Of course, for maximum hygiene you should follow the instructions to the letter, and use a new cap every time. However, I've seen people successfully re-use caps for canning with less spoil-prone foods (e.g. pickled vegetables), but this is anedoctal and I don't think I can really suggest it.

The lid packaging also report a toll-free number “grandmother Amelia info” (not joking), but unfortunately it's late now as I write; I might call next Monday if I have time.

Happy canning!


how can I tell if my pots and pans are ferrous? I am looking into replacing my hob with an quick, induction type electric hob, but they stipulate that the the cookware must be ferrous. I have decent cookware, but how do I know if it is correct?

If a magnet sticks to it, it's ferrous.

I'd like to give a more elaborate answer, but there isn't anything more to it.


Is this the way to make good pies? I'm working in a small bakery shop and my boss is new to the business and have no passion in baking at all. He only learned it from his dad few years ago and his dad learned from other people too.
I love baking but was told not to try anything different than what he's told me to do.
At the moment, the pies I make, the flaky crust on top keep lifting up after baked and don't know why.
Here is how i make the bottom crust pastry:

7kg of all purpose flour
3.5kg of butter (forgot the brand name and the butter is ok to leave outside at room temperature)
2.1L of water
Mix it for about 7 mins roughly until it combine together and sometimes it's quite stretchy after 7mins of mixing (is this normal?)

Here is how i make the top flaky crust pastry

6kg of all purpose flour
1.5kg of pastry gems
3L of water
Once it's all well mixed, add 2.2kg of pastry gem on top and mix it for 1 mins just to roughly combine.

So normally I would just mold all the bottom crust into the pie trays and leave it at room temperature then add the filling then cover it with flaky top pastry that usually keep in the fridge for about 1 or 2 hours. I also notice that the top pastry need to be refrigerated for at least 2 or 3 hours before use, otherwise it is hard to cover the pie tray.

After I cover all the pies with flaky pastry top, brush with eggs then usually my boss leaving the tray at room temperature for about 10mins as he would turn the oven on after I have made all the pies.

My question is, are these the right way to make good crust pies and why is the top flaky crust keep lifting up after baked?

My question is, are these the right way to make good crust pies

You're doing things at commercial scale and with commercial equipment and ingredients, so your method is going to be somewhat different right off the bat. As well, the owner's goal isn't necessarily to make the very best tasting crust that he can. Rather, his goal is to run a profitable business, and that means making a crust that's sufficiently appealing to customers that he can sell it, and to do so as cheaply and efficiently as possible.

There's not enough info here to know whether you're just using regular old salted butter or something that's more shelf-stable. A bakery probably goes through huge amounts of butter, so maybe it's delivered every few days, and it's not unreasonable for butter to be kept at cool room temperature for a few days, especially in large blocks that have relatively little surface area.

Home bakers generally use as little water as they can to make pastry crust, and they'd mix it as little as possible and let it rest in the refrigerator to hydrate. The goal is to get the dough to hold together while forming as little gluten as possible, so that the crust is tender and flaky. Your recipe definitely contains much more water and calls for much more mixing than home recipes. It may be that more gluten is helpful to make a dough that works reliably with the machines you use to form the bottom and top crusts. Home bakers generally wouldn't have access to "pastry gems," which I'd guess are preformed lumps of shortening that give the top crust the desired flakiness.

You really have to be the judge of whether the crust seems good to you: how does it taste? Is it tender and flaky? Also, is it good considering the owner's goals: do customers like it, does it work reliably, and can you make money selling your pies?

  and why is the top flaky crust keep lifting up after baked?

It's probably due to steam building up inside the pie, and possibly even within the crust itself. Do you dock (poke tiny holes in) the bottom crust before adding the filling? Do you cut one or more vents in the top crust before baking? If not, steam is very likely the culprit.


Can I add extra eggs instead of xanthan gum? I want to convert my grandmothers pie crust recipe.
The whole recipe is:

3 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/2 cups Crisco (butter flavor)
1 egg
1 tsp vinegar
5 Tbsp cold water
Mix flour, salt and Crisco till pea size pieces. Beat the egg, add the vinegar and the cold water to it. Add liquids to the flour mix & blend, handling it as little as possible. Refrigerate for several hours.

I want to use coconut flour instead of regular flour.
Can I add extra eggs instead of xanthan gum?

If you want a flaky crust: No, you can't. A flaky crust is made from small pieces of gluten sheets formed when part of the dough reacts with the water, separated by melted fat blobs. The idea of making a crust with coconut flour instead of normal flour is already risky: it will give you some kind of crust, but nowhere as good as a normal flour crust. Maybe it is worth doing it in the case of food allergies, but not just for the flavor.

Provided that you want to make a flaky crust, you need the non-fat dough part to stick together well in sheets, and the fat dough part to form an uniform soft paste. If you use coconut flour, you need a protein to make the non-fat dough part stick together. As the wheat flour is missing, you can't use gluten. The only substitute I know of which indeed does make something sheet-like is xanthan (also, it does bind, but not as well as proteins do). Other proteins, like the ones in egg whites, will indeed bind your coconut flour, but the amount needed will be so high you will have dominant egg whites creating tough, leathery "layers", not crispy at all, and tasting very much of eggwhite. And I say "layers", but they won't be layers the way you would get them with flour, it is more likely to disperse with the fat part in irregular shapes, not flakes. This is if you only use egg whites; yolk will make the matter worse here.

The fat part of the dough will be even worse. The coconut flour won't absorb the fat, building a smooth paste. It will mix with the fat, but will stay in its way when it melts, preventing it from creating the very thin pockets needed for flaky crust.

Conclusion: I doubt that you can make any kind of flaky crust without flour. Xanthan may give you a not-so-good approximation; just eggs will give you nothing.

If you want a shortbread crust, you are better off. You don't need the gluten structure in the water part and the smooth starch of the fat part. There are lots of shortbread recipes which include substantial amounts of nut flours for flavor, although they tend to stop at 1:1 nut flour to wheat flour at most. I guess that you can go with nut flour all the way if you must, but then expect a crust even more crumbly than usual. Xanthan is a good ingredient to hold it together in this case, although it won't give the texture of a wheat crust. Additional eggs will work too (slightly beaten, but not whipped), but they will make it less of a crust, they will wet it a lot and push it in the direction of batter. Try using whites only, and drop the water altogether. For better, more tender texture, add starch, for example corn starch. And because you are already moving into batter direction, you are risking a dense, soggy crust. Add just a little big of baking powder to prevent it (not the same amount as for cake, maybe 1/4 of it), this will make it a bit more bisquit-like.


What does "spooned and leveled" mean? I'm looking at a recipe that lists the following as an ingredient:

  1 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and
  leveled)

What exactly does this mean? Is this literal - i.e. spoon it into the measuring cup and level off? If so, why does it matter if it's "spooned" or not?

The easiest way to measure a cup of flour is of course to take the measuring cup, plunge it into your bag of flour and just lift up a spoonful. The problem with that is that the plunging and lifting will compress the flour inside the cup and actually get you more flour than you wanted. If you spoon the flour into the measuring cup you minimize the compression and will get a more accurate measurement.


Can't find frozen cranberries anywhere. Can I use fresh instead in my cake recipe? I can't find frozen cranberries anywhere.  How can I substitute fresh cranberries for frozen?  Do I chop them up and add sugar?  Do frozen cranberries have added sugar in them?  My cake recipe asks for frozen cranberries.

Frozen cranberries usually do not have added sugar, and are usually frozen whole. So the sneaky solution would be to buy fresh cranberries, freeze them, and then use them however the recipe calls for :)

Since you're not worried about long-term storage, a few hours in the freezer on a baking tray should get them to the correct consistency.


How can I thicken an already cooked pie filling? I made a coconut cream filling using 2% milk as that was all I had.  Now, more than 6 hours later, it still has not set although it was thick while I was waiting for it to cool before pouring into the prebaked crust.  Does it need to stay overnight to set?  Can I pour it back into a saucepan and warm it up and add more cornstarch?  I hate to waste the ingredients.

If your filling is similar to a custard, consider adding a lightly whisked egg and baking on medium-low heat for maybe 20 minutes. If you must stove-cook it, stir only enough to combine the ingredients well, as whisking too much will weaken/break the proteins.

Protein is the key to thickening things like custards and other fillings. Coconut milk is lower in protein than cow milk. The heat will allow the proteins to coagulate and form a sort of net that traps the rest of the ingredients, causing a thickening action. Refrigerating it for a short time will also contribute to solidifying the protein network and help set it.


can one use a toaster oven to bake cakes and cupcakes? I am an amateur chef that has passion in cooking.m looking for a small affordable oven to use for my baking but I am not sure which one to go for. i.e a toaster oven,a microwave oven or a mini oven. please advise.

I don't know what a "mini oven" is, so I will skip this one.

You should not, under any circumstances, get a microwave. A microwave is not suitable for baking. There are models which are supposed to be a microwave and convection oven at once, but I have frequently heard of them not turning off the microwaves when in convection mode, despite the manual saying otherwise. If you happen to get such a model, you will not be able to bake cakes in it.

I have a toaster oven of this type:

It serves me well for all kinds of cake and bread baking. Whatever has gone wrong with my cakes, I never had the feeling that it was the oven which was the obstacle to them getting better.

As far as I am aware, you cannot use the tiny toaster ovens which are only about 15 cm deep. I have never tried it, but I would be afraid that the heating elements are too close, and also you cannot fit a cake pan in there.


Is soaking beans 24 hours unrefrigerated safe? It strikes me as an unsafe food practice to follow Cook's Illustrated's advice for soaking dried beans for 24 hours unrefrigerated.  I've also seen them suggest you soak steel-cut oats unrefrigerated overnight.

Is there some reason why these practices are okay?  Would there be any harm in refrigerating them, particularly the beans, while soaking?

From Cook's Illustrated:

  Dissolve 3 tablespoons salt in 4 quarts cold water in large bowl or
  container. Add [one pound] beans and soak at room temperature for at least 8 hours
  and up to 24 hours. Drain and rinse well.

In fact, although the risk is low, the Penn State Extension does recommend soaking in the refrigerator, or using the quick soak method as opposed to an overnight room temperature soak:

  To be on the safe side, it would be advisable to use the quick soak method: Bring water and beans to a boil, cover and boil for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand 1 hour. Drain and further cook.

Similarly, the US Dry Bean Council recommends (emphasis added):

  A 12-hour soak in cold water before cooking helps hydrate the beans and considerably shortens cooking time. Ideally, beans should be put to soak the night before they are to be prepared and be kept in a cool place, or in the refrigerator, to avoid any fermentation taking place. Before soaking, wash them several times in cold water and remove any damaged or split beans. Discard any particles floating in the soaking water, such as small insects from the harvest, specks of dirt or other contaminants.


Can you make your own black garlic? I've seen black garlic--fermented garlic with a complex flavor--used a number of times on TV cooking shows, but I've never tried it.  The description of the flavor is intriguing.  Is it possible to ferment garlic and make your own black garlic?  What is the process?

You can absolutely make your own black garlic. All that is required is to have the garlic in a vaguely air-tight container (preferably individual wrapped or contained) for 30 days at 140°-155°F.  My method, covered at my blog, is to put the garlic in mason jars in my light bulb heated black garlic oven, which can be made for about $30 and can ferment 12 bulbs easily for about $4 of electricity over 40 days. With the cost of garlic, glue, aluminum foil and the mason jars, the oven with one recipe is less expensive than an equivalent order would be online.

The first 30 days, the jars are kept sealed in the mason jars, to allow the garlic to ferment properly. After 30 days, the lids are removed and the heat in the box dehydrates the garlic, leaving a dried out head with shriveled black cloves inside of it. The flavor is reminiscent of balsamic vinegar and soy sauce, but without the sourness of vinegar or the saltiness of soy sauce. The oven design is easily doable for anyone of any DIY skill level with access to a hardware store and an Academy (where they sell the Huskee cooler I use for $25).


What is "White Moist Sugar"? Looking online at a copy of Mrs Beetons Book of Household management and I came across a recipe that called for "White Moist Sugar".

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Mrs_Beeton%27s_Book_of_Household_Management.djvu/1628

Anyone know what a reasonable modern replacement would be?

My guess is that "white moist sugar" is meant literally -- that is, white sugar that is not completely dry.

Granulated white sugar starts out wet, and is dried as the last step in the modern production process. At the time, sugar was sold in "loaves", which could be cut into pieces or more finely ground, rather than the hot-air convection process used these days. Drying would likely be seen as important for granulated sugar served in a sugar bowl with tea, but wouldn't matter for sugar to be used in baking -- except that it would affect the weight.

So at a guess, you'd want to just mix a bit of water into sugar until it clumped together slightly, and use half a pound of the result.


Is fresh cod with worms safe to eat? I have recently noticed a rather large amount of small worms in the fresh cod I am buying. I have tried to take them out as much as I can and of course have spoken to my fish supplier about them, but he assures me they are harmless. However, I don't believe my customers would be as assured. Is it okay to serve this fish, taking into account I might miss a worm or two?

Live parasitic worms are to be expected in raw fresh fish, and need to be dealt with in one of three ways:

Cooking: If the fish is thoroughly cooked, the worms will be dead and safe to eat.
Removal/avoidance: A skilled sashimi chef has an eye for parasites, and will either discard contaminated pieces, or remove the parasites.
Freezing: So called "sushi grade" fish is fish that has been frozen at a temperature/duration recommended by the US FDA. That's 7 days at -20°C, or colder for shorter treatments. Note that this is much colder than domestic freezers. It is said to provide a "parasite destruction guarantee".

There may be other ways to neutralise parasites, such as Eskimo-style fermented fish - but these are unlikely to be of use to you.

There is a difference between safety and palatability, though, and your customers might reasonably expect to be served fish without visible parasites.


How should eggplant be stored? I don't know if I should put it in the refrigerator or the pantry. Does it go in the crisper?

Eggplant should be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated. It will last 5-7 days this way.

It can also be frozen 6-8 months with the following process:

  Wash eggplant, peel and cut into 1/3 inch slices;
  Blanch (plunge into boiling water) for four minutes in 1 gallon of boiling water to which 1/2 cup lemon juice has been added (to prevent discoloration) and chill quickly in ice cold water;
  Drain off excess moisture, package in airtight containers or freezer bags and freeze immediately.

Source: StillTasty


Why is my dry rub almost tasteless when the meat comes off the smoker? I have a very good dry rub that imparts an excellent flavor to pork, chicken and fish. It is pungent to the nose when in the bottle and is always made fresh. It is applied liberally, covering the surface of the meat being smoked. The situation is this: I apply the rub approx. an hour prior to cooking. This allows me time to get my charcoal heated and prepare my smoker. The smoker is kept at a constant 200-225 degrees and I use various types of wood (oak, hickory, maple, pecan) depending on the type of meat and flavor desired. When the meat is ready to come off the smoker I always try a small portion at that time and I find that the rub is almost flavorless, however if I allow the meat to cool down considerably the flavor begins to assert itself. My usual method is to cook the day before, put the smoked meats in the fridge in either a plastic storage bag or wrapped in foil, place the meats in foil pans, covered, and reheat the next day for 1.5 to 2 hours at 200 degrees, either in the oven or on the smoker. The flavor is magnificent and the aroma is to die for! I am just curious as to why the rub flavors are absent right out of the smoker. Thanks for your input.

Do you just sprinkle the dry rub over the meat and just throw it in the oven straight away? or let it marinate for few minutes?

I let the meat sweat a little and let it take in the spices into it. and surely I make cuts and incisions for the spices to get in the meat.

and there is old saying by my grans you heat the spices too much you lose aroma. so use the rub sparingly few times during cooking.


How to avoid stiffness and crispness of toasted/oven baked bread sandwiches I would like to know whether there is any solution to avoid the stiffness and crispness of bread of oven baked sandwiches which uses normal white bread as the base. I used to make sandwiches with bread and always these bread after baking turns out really crispy and stiff and sometimes it get burnt. I butter the bread sometimes and sometimes not. Either way I end up with crispy bread sandwich which is difficult to bite and affects our mouth skin. How can we make the bread base of the sandwich soft?

Wrap the sandwich in foil before baking so the moisture stays in the bread. That will prevent it crisping up.


How can I make bread within one and a half hour? Since we have to make bread in cooking class, there is only one and a half hour. Should I use more time to knead, or rise?

I have made bread at home for 45 years, that's my only experience, I  have found that if you use very fresh yeast, allow the bread to rest for a few minutes after you get most of the flour in, and don't keep adding flour once you begin to knead, leave the bread slightly sticky, it will rise faster. there are single rise recipes, I have one using yogurt ,but if I am in a hurry, I add extra yeast.


Storing knives in knife sheaths Currently there is a question about magnetic stripes vs wood blocks, but I was wondering what the general concensus is regarding knife sheaths (like this one) They seem great if you only have a couple knives -- they don't require counter space and aren't at risk of causing accidental harm by falling off a wall. What are the pros and cons of using these instead?

I use these and love them. They really do simplify storage since you can just use any drawer. If you ever needed to travel with your knives (I haven't) they are a great benefit there as well. It's also nice to have your knife in one of these if it's just sitting on your counter while you get everything in place. If you're clumsy and you knock this off the counter you'll only end up with a bruise instead of a trip to the hospital.

The only cons I've found are rather insignificant. You have to occasionally clean them, and you have to go through that one extra step to get to your knife.