What is the fastest way to cook a Meat Salad? Meat salad is made with large sized sausages, chopped into thin pieces like carrots or cucumber; then steamed and fried a bit, then served together with regular salad stuffs.

Looking to specific alternatives, what is the fastest way to cook a Meat Salad (Beef/Buff) using a Microwave Oven? I have grill, convection and microwave modes in my Microwave Oven.

Since I cannot speak to the benefits of the convection or grill modes of your microwave, I would use the main setting.

In the context of a salad setting, although you want moist meat, sausage would produce a bit much grease. If the grill setting can actually cauterize the meat without creating too much grease, or if you can capture the runoff (i.e. with a bacon microwaving plate), it would be more beneficial. In many cases, though, the microwave will soften the sausage, then cause it to dry out (again, you will want to capture the grease for the sake of the salad). Nonetheless, it seems like the microwave is a poor alternative, and (if it is smoked/pre-cooked sausage) you might better to just eat it cold.

That said, if the problem is that you are just looking for an alternative to steaming and then frying, have you consider braising, searing, grilling (if possible)? You could also do a marinade to moisten the meat and then do a quick, very high-temp fry (in a skillet) to just crust the marinade and heat the meat. These all seem faster or simpler than steaming and frying.


Can I roast in glass? All,

Recently we moved house, and took it as an excuse to ditch a bunch of old and dying roasting pans.

We kept some glass trays (suitable for cooking in) though, and have ended up using them for just about all our oven cooking. On the top I still use either the steel covered copper bottomed things or cast iron cookware, but in the over it's mainly the glass.

Everything seems to turn out just fine - am I missing something? Committing a heinous sin I've somehow forgotten? Do I need to run back to buying some proper metal roasting trays?

Dude you said you have cast iron. Cast iron rules. And it performs very well in the oven. No contest against glass and you can make pan sauce on the stove-top after the roasting is finished. My favorite pan to make roast chicken with is my 12" Lodge cast iron skillet. Glass is probably better at roasting than cheap cookie style sheets, because it keeps the heat distribution fairly smooth. But glass will not hold up well to heavy roasting use and will eventually ruin your dinner when it cracks or shatters. All Clad makes a great roasting pan with wire rack. But for most roasting a simple cast iron skillet works well and is indestructible.


Are there any sugar substitutes for preserving food? A quote from the Live Strong website

  Just like with salt, some forms of sugar can draw water out of food and tie up water within the food so it is not available for biochemical reactions. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, fructose and sucrose are very effective for preserving food while glucose is not. Sugar may also encourage the growth of healthy bacteria that prevent bacteria that will make you sick from growing. High concentrations of sugar also exert osmotic pressure that will draw water out of bacteria, preventing them from growing.

Are there any substitutes that will do the same? Bonus: without altering the taste :-)

It's hard to understand what you are asking about here.

If you mean a substitute as something you drop into an existing recipe instead of the required sugar, then no, there aren't any.

There are other methods for preserving food instead of sugar-based ones though. So, if you don't like pumpkin jam, you can make pickled pumpkin instead. If this is what you meant, then there are "substitutes".

There are no methods for food preservation which don't alter the taste. Freezing comes closest. It preserves flavor, but not texture.


Are there any variable temperature electric kettle which boil water before letting temperature drop to the desired temperature? I am a green tea enthusiast so I'm looking for a variable temperature electric kettle but since the water in my home is not very clean I don't want to buy one which just heats the water to a given temperature without boiling it first.

Are there any electric kettles which can bring water to a boiling temperature and let it cool until, say 80 degrees Celsius and then make a sound indicating the water is ready?

There are some appliances that do what you're asking for, but they're not exactly kettles.  They have a reservoir of water that gets heated, and then they hold that temperature, and they have a button to dispense hot water as needed.  Most have an option to boil the water first.

As best I can tell from looking at them on amazon, they're labeled as "Water boiler and heater", but you might also try "hot water dispenser"

They're rather useful if you drink a lot of tea through the day ... you can fill them up in the morning, and then you'll have hot water at your preferred temperature when you're ready for your next cup.


Can lemon juice concentrate be used after the use-by-date? My lemon juice concentrate's use by date passed a few months ago. It was kept it in the fridge the whole time. Is it still safe to use it?

I also typically use bottled lemon juice, as my budget does not allow for fresh lemons.

Stilltasty says you should use the bottle within a week, but I've had success with keeping it much, much longer.

That said, this is one item that will not usually work well past its best-by date, I've found.

Maybe in the future, you could freeze it in cubes if you can't use it soon enough?


What brand of tupperware-style (kitchen storage containers) are the easiest to clean? I'm trying my best to keep this from being too opinionated, but I won't be offended if this gets closed.

I'm looking for a new set of storage containers and while there are a lot of factors that would weigh my choice (nesting/stacking, ecology, etc), the most critical would be ease of cleaning.

Factors to consider:

Materials, and how prone they are to stain, scratch or get food stuck
on
Texture and Corrugation. I hate, HATE, the embossed brand names
on my current cheap set. It's like they're specifically designed to
capture scraps in them that are a pain to wash out!

Please include in your answer available brands that are a good fit for the above.

Glass containers will be the best one to use for liquid and or dry goods that can stain (some spices...)

Either mason jar type of containers or jars with clamp lids; both type can have replaceable lids or seals.

The upside of glass is that it is inert and will clean up easily.
The downside of glass is that they break more easily than plastic.

Plastic containers are good for dry goods (rice, grains, pastas...); they wear down in the long run, but good quality ones will be good for years if taking good care of them.

The downside of plastic is that it can take up odor of what it contains and can stain easily (depending on the plastic quality).
The upside is that they are cheap, and will not break that easily.


Stovetop Flank Steak Let me start with some background info:

99% of the steaks I cook are strip skirt steaks because they are delicious and thin.  This makes them ideal for stovetop cooking.  I usually use a non-stick pan on high heat to brown each side, then medium for 5 minutes to cook the insides.  This works well enough for me, but isn't going to win me any medals.

The Problem:

I'm planning on making steaks for that special someone tomorrow and went to my local butcher today to pick up the skirts.  Unfortunately, they were unavailable, so I picked up a monster flank instead (~2.5 lbs).  I've had incredible flank steaks before, so I like the cut, but I've never cooked it.  The problem is two fold:

1) I assume I cannot cook it the same way as skirt

2) I'd like to aim a little higher on the culinary totem pole

So my question to you is what is the proper way to cook a Flank Steak on my stove or in my oven? Specifically, what are the differences I need to watch out for when preparing a thicker, larger steak.

Some Extra Info:

I have a 12 in non-stick pan and 12 in flat cast iron pan at my disposal
By "proper" I mean the method which will result in the most tenderness.  I've read through this very helpful question and this one as well and certainly plan to take the advice provided.
I have a wonderful dry rub that I plan on using (so no marinades as a mechanism for tenderizing)

Thanks in advance!

The best way, imho, is to use your basic broiling pan...Put a little water in the bottom before you start, or the pan may warp. Put the rack in your oven as high as it will go (while still allowing the broiling pan with steak to fit), then turn the oven on "Broil".

Leave the oven door cracked (you don't want it to pre-heat, and turn the element off), and cook it like you would on the grill, flipping it halfway through. The radiant heat from the element will give you a little char, though no grill lines, obviously.

Anything over medium rare is going to be a bit chewy. Let it rest, then cut it into strips across the grain of the meat. Flank steak responds well to marinades (my favourite: 1 tbps soy sauce, 1 tbsp sherry, 1 tbsp dijon mustard, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 1 tsp ground ginger.)

You could try to cook it on the stovetop, but that much meat will be too much for most pans.


Can you make croissants with compound butter? Has anyone ever tried making croissants (or leavened puff pastry) with compound butter (e.g. basil butter, cinnamon butter)? Are there any practical issues with this? Will particles in the butter break the layers of dough? Will sugary butters burn before the dough is fully cooked?

I have made garlic-butter laminated savoury rolls, using roughly the same method as for croissants. It works reasonably well, but I have found that I need to grind the garlic pretty finely. If there are lumps they end up tearing the dough during the lamination. Another issue is that it's even more important to keep everything cold. I work on a chilled marble slab, and that works pretty well.


How does one peel and puree chick peas with a food mill for hummus? Hating having to peel each individual garbanzo bean/chick pea by hand to make hummus, I read online that a food mill will press out the "meat" of the beans while leaving the skins behind. The food mill I have has three different disks - coarse, medium and fine. To make hummus from ground chick peas/garbanzo beans, which disk should I use? How often should I clear away the leftover skins?

Grinding the chickpeas before cooking kind of defeats the purpose. To use a food mill to its best, you shouldn't do any grinding before you cook the chickpeas.

After you cook them, they will be more accepting of grinding or other techniques. Cook them low and slow just as you would any other bean. When they are tender (and cool enough to handle), put them in the food mill. My food mill only has one coarseness, so I assume that is about medium. So, cook your chickpeas and then use a food mill with the medium blade to remove the skins and proceed with your recipe.


Cooking Wine in a Gas Oven? I've got my first gas stove / oven. I'm wondering about cooking wine in the stove. Is it safe at all? I like putting a piece of meat in a all stainless steel pan, brown it a bit on the stove then throw it in the oven to finish off. For certain cuts I'd add something like burgundy wine and some vegetables as well. I'm just not sure about doing this in a gas stove and couldn't seem to find any existing questions or articles on the topic (Searched for "Cooking wine in gas stove" and similar).

I assume you are talking about the risk that the alcohol vapor from the wine mixes with the air and ignites.

Let's do some maths. I'll do my calculations with some pretty round numbers, but in the end you'll see that it doesn't matter.

Assume an average gas oven with a volume of 150l. According to Wikipedia, the absolute minimum mix of ethanol to air for ignition is 3%, so that's 4.5l of pure ethanol vapor.
Water expands at a rate of 1700 when it turns into steam. Assuming ethanol is in the same ballpark and add some entropy for higher temperatures, we'll assume a factor of 2000. That means we'll need 4.5l / 2000 = 2.25ml of pure ethanol.
In a typical bottle of red wine there is 12% ethanol, so for a 750ml bottle, that is 90ml.

As you can see, we have about 40 times the ethanol we need to make a nice boom.

Now to answering your question:

I would deem it probably safe to cook red wine in the gas oven. The burners are usually not in direct contact with the air inside the oven, and both the burners and oven is ventilated, so the ethanol would probably escape even before it could meet the required saturation. And even if the vapor was allowed to build up inside the oven and not get in contact with the gas flames, the self ignition temperature for ethanol is 363°C, far hotter than it'll get in there.

The most convincing argument that it's safe is the millions of times chefs around the world have cooked with wine in a gas oven :)


Substitutions for canned diced tomatoes Can I substitute canned tomato puree for canned diced tomatoes?  I have a soup recipe which calls for diced tomatoes.

If the soup recipe is eventually going to be pureed, then yes, you can substitute with little problem.

If the soup is supposed to be a little chunky, the substitution will change the texture a little, but the flavour will probably remain the same, and all in all it should be fine.

Note that this assumes a can of pureed tomatoes. If what you have is tomato concentrate (it'll be marked as 22 or 28 Bx usually) then you can't substitute directly, as you'd need to dilute.


Dough whisk as a substitute to a mixer or wooden spoon I made a short bread recently(it was my first try at baking) and the recipe said that I should use a wooden spoon.

My question is this: could I have used a dough whisk instead of a wooden spoon?

And of course any comments on experience using a dough whisk would be appreciated.

My dough whisk, Vera, is one of the most useful utensils in my kitchen. There's something magical about the loops that cause whatever you're mixing to combine easier and faster than using a spoon.

Not to be confused with a wire whisk, a dough whisk won't whip very much air into the mixture — unless you want it to. For making your shortbread, operate it just long enough to combine the ingredients, but not so long that it starts kneading the dough.

After mixing, the dough whisk will do a superior job of scraping down your mixing bowl. It requires no electricity, takes up less storage space, and cleanup is a breeze compared to other kinds of mixers. They're so inexpensive, no kitchen should be without one. If you've never tried using a dough whisk, you don't know what you're missing!

Oh, and don't let the name dough whisk fool you. Just as an egg beater can beat things other than eggs, a dough whisk can be used for many things besides dough. Beating eggs, for example; it's so lightweight and balanced that you can flick it rapidly, whisking in air much like a traditional wire whisk, to create a fluffy mixture.

A dough whisk can simplify your kitchen and cooking workflow by replacing several other, bulkier, harder-to-clean utensils. There are many to choose from on Amazon, but they're essentially the same except for size:

My Vera is the larger 14" size, she sells for less than $8. I bought a second whisk which also claimed to be "large", but as you can see, is somewhat smaller. They both work great!


Papadum sauces - making my own In Indian restaurants you get usually Papadum as appetizer. It is often served with 3 sauces, one green sauce with a light peppermint taste, one red a bit sweet sauce and one very hot sauce.

These sauces seem to taste often (but not always) very similar regardless of the restaurant. I tried to copy them (especially the green one) but so far the results were a bit disappointing.

Does anyone have an idea what these sauces are called or how they are made?

The sauces are called chutney (plural chutneys).

The green one, called hari chutney in Hindi, is generally made with a mixture of coriander (cilantro) leaves and mint leaves. Hari means green in Hindi. The leaves (I have used them in a 3:1::coriander:mint ratio) are ground to a fine paste along with a tbsp of sugar, a pinch of salt, and about 2 tbsp of lime juice (to prevent oxidation of the ground greens and to provide a tangy taste). Some variations of this may add ginger (for flavor) or peanuts (as a thickening agent) to the mixture.

The red chutney, called imli chutney in Hindi, is very often made with the juice of tamarind (imli in Hindi). Tamarind is soaked in water, strained and mixed with sugar, rock salt, toasted and ground cumin, dry powdered ginger, and powdered pepper. Rock salt and dry ginger give this chutney its distinct taste. Very often restaurants add artificial red color to this chutney to turn the color from brown to red.


Why is garam masala in many curry paste/powder recipes? Garam masala, of course, is a blend of warming spices. However, many of those spices are listed individually in recipes for curry pastes and powders that also call for garam masala.

Since most garam masala mixes wouldn't specify ratios even if they do list the ingredients, doesn't that essentially mean you're randomly altering in unknown ways the ratios of key spices in the curry recipe?

When using garam masala within another spice blend rather than on its own, why not just list each desired ingredient of the main recipe in its ideal amount so everyone knows from which starting point they're tweaking and perfecting the recipe for their own tastes?

It sounds like you're assuming that recipes are scientific creations carefully engineered to achieve a precise result. But most "recipes" are an attempt to relay a rather imprecise series of steps based on available ingredients, familiarity, superstition, and habit in a way that is approximately reproducible by someone else.

Even within the bounds of attempted precision, most cooks execute the instructions slightly differently because their experiences of what works and what doesn't work is different, their skills vary, and because they interpret the instructions differently due to language ambiguity.

Imagine you're a cook who grew up cooking Indian food based on how your mom or dad cooked. When she says "we're having brinjals" or "we're making channa masala", that creates a picture in your mind of how the dish is supposed to taste. When you see mom grab a handful of garam masala, it's because she knows roughly what it will taste like, and tweaks the seasoning a bit based on her perception that dish X benefits from more cloves and dish Y benefits from more coriander seeds. Now you decide to write down the recipe so that you can reproduce it in case you forget the details. You are not going to send the garam masala off to the lab to analyze what ratio each spice is present in there. Garam masala is just the "spicy blend" and "biriyani masala" is just the blend of sweet spices you use as the foundation for a seasoned rice dish, and chaat masala is the starting point for things you put on fruit or snacks. You don't need a deeper level of detail, because that's what you've always used.

Then you go to work in a different region, and you find out that the typical garam masala sold by the spice vendors is completely different; this one has a ton of cloves and a lot less cumin. You react one of two ways: "Oh, I should add more of X to compensate", or "Well, it's close enough."

In your mind, the function of the garam masala is to provide a starting foundation so you don't have to give as much thought. It has the base notes you expect in a wide range of dishes; when the dish benefits from some other spice, you add a little of that.

This is how most of the world cooks. We don't necessarily start with a recipe and get a dish; we start with a dish and then someone asks us for a recipe, and we furiously attempt to write down the details of what we do the next time we make it, probably changing the dish in the process in our attempt to achieve some form of measurability and apparent precision. Why 1/4 tsp exactly? Well, that was the unit of measure I had handy when I decided I needed "a little of this."

And this is also why it doesn't matter so much. You assume there's some ideal; in practice, there is no ideal, there's just what you're used to. Basic technique often makes a bigger difference in the quality of the dish than variations in the exact ratio of the spices. Toast your fenugreek, but don't burn it. Sautee onions until they're tender. Simmer, but don't overcook. These kinds of steps matter more than whether your garam masala has a 1 part cumin or 2 parts cumin.

There's another factor, too. One of my Indian cookbooks actually does contain a canonical ratio of garam masala and a few other spice blends based on what the author expects; you can use hers, or just buy pre-blended ones, and you'll still get pretty good results. But if you are a cookbook author and every recipe contains a list of 3 ingredients plus a list of 15 spices, 12 of which are present in your usual garam masala, you'll get the opposite complaint that you're presenting: "Hey, this is too many ingredients for a weeknight meal. What is the author thinking? That we're all professional chefs or housewives with hours of free time?"

There are at least three very different segments in the world of recipe consumers. One is the person who attempts to follow the recipe with slavish precision, regardless of how complex, because they think that will give them the best result. Another is the person who will look at a recipe and say, "Huh, spicy tomato soup with shrimp. Oh, this combination sounds good. Except I hate tomatoes, so I'm going to use a white sauce as the base. And I have no shrimp, so I'll just use some clams I've got in the fridge. Oh, I don't like fenugreek very much, so I'll drop that and add some more cumin." The third is the mass consumer of recipes who doesn't actually like cooking very much, and they just want to add a little variety to their weeknight dinner routine and don't care about authenticity, precision, or detail, and they just want something a little new to them that they can put together in spite of poor knife skills, inability to understand complex directions, and so on. Nearly every recipe is a set of compromises designed to address the concerns of at least two of those constituencies.


Keeping cream pies set while browning meringue topping My cream pies set up great until I put them back in the oven to brown the meringue. When I take them out & let them cool, they are no longer set up. What am I doing wrong?

There could be a few things going on here:

If it is the meringue that is not holding - you probably need to beat it longer (stiff peaks will hold in bowl if turned upside down for a short time) and add the sugar slowly to ensure that it dissolves before spreading. To test if the sugar is dissolved, pinch a small amount between finger and thumb and rub; if it feels gritty/sandy then the sugar has not dissolved.
For the filling - most recipes (in my experience) say to spread the meringue over a hot filling, so you don't need to let it cool before adding the meringue. This may vary according to the type of filling you are using though. I'm most familiar with lemon-meringue and chocolate-meringue.
Also for the filling - this depends on the filling. If you are setting the filling using gelatin rather than using the natural coagulating properties of an egg based custard, the gelatin can re-dissolve upon re-heating, but should re-set when cooled. Cornstarch will also re-dissolve when reboiled (though browning your pie should only do this locally at best) and will no longer thicken when cooled.
To brown the meringue use the broil/grill function on the oven and a very high heat setting, not a regular bake. Keeping the door open a bit during the browning should keep the base of the pie cool, so long as you are not putting the pie back into an oven that has recently been used for baking something (i.e. is not radiating lots of heat anyway).
You can also  brown meringue by using a chef's blowtorch (who doesn't like flames!), these heat locally so you have to wave it around and take care not to scorch the meringue or blast holes in it. There is little chance of heating the rest of the pie with one of these.


Differences between heavy and light whipping cream? What is the difference between light and heavy whipping cream, and for what purposes would one want to use one over the other? What effects does the difference have on flavor, texture, etc.?

Heavy Whipping Cream (at least in the States I believe) has a fat content of 36% or greater. Light Cream generally sits between 30% and 36%. Heavier cream generally will have a "richer" taste. Light Cream will also not whip quite as thick and not hold it's form as well. That said, for most cases, I've successfully managed to use them interchangeably. I guess it might make a difference if you were doing something where holding a rigid structure for extended periods of time was important.

Note: What various grades of cream/dairy are called varies by region... Here in Canada we have Whipping Cream 35% and Heavy Cream ~40%. If I were somewhere where "Light Whipping Cream" sat closer to 30%, I might grab something a little higher.

More info.


What exactly do all the extra modes on my oven do? My KitchenAid dual fuel/dual oven has, in addition to bake and broil a few advanced modes.

Some are self explanatory, bread proof and keep warm, however a few others aren't and the manual says "best for cooking type X" rather than saying "oven acts like this"

So can anyone help with this?

What does

slow cook
roast
easy convect

Actually do?

Okay, both of the answers from Greybeard and Manu have part of it.  I know this is an old question, but I assume others with fancy ovens may wonder about such settings too.  Let's put it all together.

ROAST - note that for this oven, ROAST is a convection setting.  Although the manual doesn't state this explicitly, generally convection ovens with a ROAST setting combine heat from the convection element along with the top and bottom heating elements that would normally be activated on a non-convection BAKE setting.  The difference is that convection BAKE usually employs only the heating element near the fan (the convection element) to avoid excessive browning for baked goods and such.  Thus, in convection BAKE, the heat is primarily transferred only via air circulation.  But in convection ROAST there is radiant heat from the top and bottom elements as well, which will help to brown meats and such.  (For the record, BROIL under convection will typically employ the top heating element as well as the convection fan element, but no bottom element.)
EASY CONVECT - this one is explained clearly in the manual.  Or, well, maybe it's not explained clearly, but the explanation there implies what it does.  Essentially, you need to make adjustments when cooking via convection compared to traditional baking.  The air circulation can cause the surface of foods to heat up faster, which may lead to excessive browning (e.g., for many baked goods) or excessive drying out (e.g., for meats in some circumstances).  Normally, you need to convert a recipe from "standard" non-circulating air to "convection" yourself, usually by adjusting the temperature down (often by 25-50 degrees F) and sometimes decreasing cook time.  This oven allows you to simply enter the type of food you have -- MEATS, BAKED GOODS, or OTHER (which includes convenience frozen foods) -- and then enter the typical temperature and time you'd use for a standard recipe with a normal non-convection oven.  In this case, apparently the oven won't listen to you, but instead will do some magical math conversion that decreases the time and temp to try to approximate the way you should cook the dish using convection.  (For example, you tell your oven to bake at 350F for 30 minutes, and it instead chooses to back at 325F for 20 minutes.)  So rather than guessing on how to convert a recipe from "standard bake" to convection, you can let your oven guess for you!  Easy!  (Apparently...)
SLOW COOK - This one is the hardest to find clear info on, because these settings tend to do different things in different ovens.  This review of a Kitchenaid oven (which may be the model OP has) with the SLOW COOK setting claims it "keeps food just above the keep-warm temperature, providing an alternative to a countertop slow cooker."  I believe the clue here is in mentioning the KEEP WARM feature.  You see, most modern ovens have a minimum temperature of about 170F, because lower temperatures will not heat food fast enough to prevent food poisoning (and can allow it to remain in the danger zone below 130F for far too long).  Apparently the KEEP WARM setting on some Kitchenaid ovens however can go as low as 145F.  (Note in the manual that these settings come with a big warning about food poisoning when using them.)  The important thing is that these fancy Kitchenaid ovens are capable of lower heat settings.  Anyhow, one complaint about oven SLOW COOK settings compared to crock pots is that they often heat too quickly, and the food thus spends too much time at a high temperature.  My guess from the description in the above review is that these ovens in SLOW COOK mode attempt to avoid this problem by gradually increasing the temperature over a longer time span.  Another possibility is that I've seen some ovens even disable the possibility of temperatures lower than 200F or even 225F (again, likely to prevent food poisoning).  I can't find any specs on Kitchenaid ovens that state the "normal" temperature range allowed for the BAKE setting, but it's possible that they only allow very low temperatures (as low as 170F) to be entered specifically for the SLOW COOK setting, ensuring that people are consciously employing it and supposedly following the manual's recommendations for time and temperature for safety.  (I had a fancy slow cooker a few years back -- might have even been a Kitchenaid, but I can't recall -- that wouldn't even allow you to set it on "Low" with a time less than 8 hours, likely for similar legal liability reasons.)


How can I hold the flavor and texture of my spheres? I'm doing apple caviar using alginate in my apple juice and calcium lactate as my spherification bath. Everything worked out well, the result is amazing, but after one hour my caviar turn out to be flavourless and instead of nice juicy bursting little caviar ball, it was 100% jelly like I was using agar-agar. I did rinse my caviar in fresh water right after the process (not even 2 minutes after the drops hit the bath). How can I keep this from happening?

Once the calcium and alginate react the process will continue regardless of whether you rinse them or not. The rinsing will slow the process down but won't inhibit the reaction altogether. In order to ensure liquid centers you will have to heat the spheres to 85°C for 10 minutes (from modernist cuisine). However, you have a ton of calcium going on in your mix between the calcium in the apple juice and the fact that you're using calcium lactate as your setting bath so you are likely going to benefit from a sequesterant like sodium citrate to bind up some of the free calcium ions. I would actually suggest you go with a calcium chloride bath for this type of direct spherification. If you were doing larger spheres I would suggest reverse spherification but that won't do you any good for caviar.


Has there been some change in the varieties of broccoli sold in US supermarkets in the last few years? Having eaten broccoli all my life, in the last year or two I have noticed some differences in most any broccoli, either fresh or frozen. The primary differences I notice:

1) There are many small leaves near the top of the broccoli stalks.

2) Often there are stringy parts of the stalk, even just below the florets. Even when cooked they can't be chewed. Seems to be worse on frozen broccoli.

3) Stalks are waxy looking (kind of shiny).

Also I have noticed that it has become quite difficult to find really fresh broccoli. Usually most of what is available is gray on top and the stalk cutting is turning brown.

For reference I am in the western US (Northwest California). The supermarket I shop at is a large national supermarket chain, so the produce could be coming from anywhere. That is why I am wondering if there is another variety out there, especially on the low end side. I have not checked local health food stores (they tend to be pricey) or farmers markets yet.

Could anyone say what might have changed? With all the news about new varieties, imports and GMO's, I am curious if there is something to this.

First, there can be a difference in varieties that are sold in supermarkets. Calabrese, which is a member of the broccoli family, is what is most often sold in grocery stores. The other variety that may be found is 'Italian Green Sprouting'. (Note that I am not referring to other types such as broccoli rabe, broccolini, etc., but just what we think of as 'regular' green broccoli.)

From  seedaholic.com :

  Calabrese & Broccoli is a confusing series of plants:
  Supermarkets have helped to confuse the issue of what is broccoli and what is a calabrese by calling both by either name. Most ‘Broccoli’ sold in the supermarkets is actually Calabrese not broccoli.

  Broccoli has small heads (mainly purple, sometimes white or green) which mature slowly and can occupy the ground for almost a year. (The word broccoli means 'little sprouts' in Italian). Calabrese are smaller plants that produce larger crowns.

  Keep in mind is that broccoli is an over wintered crop but calabrese produces its crop the same year before winter. Sprouting broccoli can be harvested from late winter to late spring. Calabrese can be harvested from mid-summer to mid-autumn. If you grow both calabrese and sprouting broccoli, your kitchen will be kept in broccoli for most of the year.

  To add to the confusion, this variety, called "Italian Green Sprouting" is a "heading" broccoli. The name refers to the multitude of sprouts it produces once the main head is harvested.

Next, and what may be an even larger factor, is how it is stored on its way to market or production and in the store. I would suspect that this may well be the source of your issue. From  farmtotable.colostate.edu :

  Safe Storage and Handling

  Broccoli should be stored unwashed, in loose perforated bags in the refrigerator. Broccoli left unrefrigerated will quickly become woody and fibrous. Wet broccoli can become limp and soggy as well as support the growth of microorganisms, so wait to rinse it until just before eating.

And...

  Why is my broccoli so tough and chewy?

  At room temperature, harvested broccoli will convert its sugar into a fiber called lignin. The more time spent at room temperature, the more lignin is produced and the more fibrous your broccoli becomes! Keep your broccoli refrigerated to extend the shelf life.


Why do you marinade steak with onions? Most recipes call for onions when marinading steak, but...why?

Because onions contain a lot of flavour compounds that we like, and which are synergistic with meats.


How to save hardened fondant? I make cakes with fondant decorations and figurines. To harden the fondant for these figurines, I add tylose or CMC powder. Sometimes, I just color the white fondant to get the desired color without tylose. Once done, I store this fondant by rolling into balls and wrapping in cling wrap before storing in an air tight container, so that air does not get to the fondant and harden it. However, after a few months, when I open the box, I find that the fondant has harden and I can't use it anymore and end up throwing all that fondant.

Can someone please suggest:

How to store fondant better?
How to soften the hardened fondant?

I often soften Fondant by microwaving it for between 5-20 seconds. This does work on fondant that hasn't been left for more than 2 months. Once fondant has been left for this long, albeit in an airtight container, it isn't likely to be salvageable.

Most manufacturers of fondant quote 2 months as the lifetime of fondant stored in an airtight container.


What can I use instead of swede (rutabaga) when making pickle relish I want to make a British-style pickle relish at home. I think the best recipes involve swede (rutabaga in the US), because it gives texture and flavour, but isn't overpowering.
Unforunately, I can't get swedes where I live.

What would make a good substitute?

I am a big fan of swedes/rutabagas. When I can't get them I use turnips, beets, daikon radishes. Carrots/parsnips add some interesting flavor as well.

A couple other vegetables that are crunchy and nice-flavored but more exotic are celery root or jicama.


Sous vide without plastic bags? I really like the idea of cooking steak using sous vide. However, I am very wary of heating food up together with plastic, and then eating the food, as I believe that at high temperatures, chemicals from the plastic will leech into the food. *

Is there an alternative to plastic bags for sous vide?

The requirements for the new type of container must be that it is airtight, waterproof, and of course able to withstand heat.

Call me paranoid, but I do believe this to be the case - and I do not want to ingest these chemicals

First of all, I agree with the others that there is no harm done by plastic bags for sous vide. I have read a statement by the manufacturer that brand-name Ziploc bags don't release anything below 76°C. If you think how much a lawsuit could cost them if the information turned out to be wrong, I trust that they are telling the truth. For other brands, you may have to do some research about safe temperatures.

If you are still unconvinced, your choice of material is very limited. You say it must be airtight and waterproof; I'll add that it must be pliable, so it can cover an irregular steak shape perfectly, without leaving air pockets, and it must somehow be able to create a seal. Also, it must not release any harmful chemicals by itself.

About the only thing that fulfills all criteria would be a wax with a high melting point, like carnauba wax. You could paint the steak with the melted wax, or, probably better, you could soak a piece of gauze in the melted wax and wrap the steak in it, pressing out any air bubbles. Then let it cool and set before cooking. The downside: not only is the food grade wax difficult to source for private people, it also can end up costing quite a bit.

Another option would be silicone, like the one used for baking pans. Unlike plastic, food grade silicone does not contain any chemicals which could leak - the medical sector uses the same stuff for prostethics and implants; it is safe to have it inside your body, so it is definitely safe to cook your food in it. The problem is that you'll need a sealable bag made of silicone, and I don't know if anybody manufactures such bags.

You might consider very tightly wrapping the meat in a caul (not necessarily an amniotic caul, a peritoneum should do nicely) and binding it, but I don't know where you can get cauls. Maybe you can ask a butcher. Also, it probably won't be 100% watertight (but still enough to keep the tasty juices in the steak where they belong, instead of having them flow out into the water).

If you are willing to relax your rules a bit, you can solve the problem much easier. I think you will agree that whatever hypothetical substance might leak from a plastic bag, it cannot travel far through a solid medium. So a steak wrapped in something protective and then sealed in a plastic bag should be safe - you just discard both the plastic bag and the presumably contaminated protective substance. Yes, it is possible that meat juices that have come in contact with the plastic bag end up on the steak, but the possible contamination should be hundreds of times less than if direct contact is allowed between the plastic and the meat.

If you can live with this option, the usual insulators used in the kitchen should do. They are plant leaves - I'd use grape leaves, but you can use practically anything that is big enough - and batters, like tempura batter (breading leaves an irregularly shaped surface, so I won't consider it here, you'll end up with lots of miniature air pockets). If using a batter, you will want to first set it in a pan with very hot oil, just hold it there long enough to set the batter, but not enough to warm the meat on the inside above the sous vide temperature. Both of these options wont't function on their own, as they won't create a sealed waterproof barrier. But combined with a plastic bag and later discarded, they should be a good solution. The leaves will also add a nice taste of their own.


Why the common basic taste of energy drinks is tutti-frutti? With extraordinary exceptions, most of the basic energy drinks has the same basic flavour: tutti-frutti.

Why was it chosen instead of an already known flavour, like cherry or something?

Is it like a marketing idea, like the unique taste of cola or Dr. Pepper?

A lot of the defining ingredients of energy drinks have very strong flavors. Caffeine is quite bitter, B vitamins can be very sour, and Vitamin C is tart. A strong sweet-tart flavor is one of the most palatable ways of masking all of these flavors.

There's also a certain amount of brand copying going on. Red Bull was probably one of the first big brands on the market. Since their flavor is cloyingly sweet & tart, a lot of their competitors went for a similar flavor profile.


What methods make tomato chopping less messy? Chopping tomato is real mess sometimes. I just want to know that what is the best chop tomatoes without any mess?

One trick I did was to deep freeze tomatoes before cutting them and then used to chop them. But if we don't have time to deep freeze i.e 20 mins then what are other options?

You need a sharper knife. With a dull knife, you'll have trouble getting through the skin, and end up tearing and smashing, releasing a lot of juice. With a sharp knife, you'll get through the skin cleanly and leave the tomatoes much more intact.

Serrated knives are another common option: they get through the skin very easily. A dull serrated knife will tear the flesh up a lot, though, so you still do need a reasonably sharp blade, and while a cheap bread knife or steak knife might be better than nothing, it's not ideal. The best ones are probably the ones actually marketed as tomato knives: they're sharp, not too thick, and have a serration pattern that's meant for this.

If you're forced to make do with an inadequate knife, you can break the skin with the tip, then extend that with the blade and slice from there. If the knife is so dull that it still makes a mess, you might be out of luck. This is pretty time-consuming, though, so I wouldn't suggest it as an everyday method for a lot of slices.

Freezing, as you suggested, doesn't sound like a great idea. If you freeze tomatoes thoroughly enough to make them firmer and easier to chop, then you'll have formed a lot of ice, and once they thaw, they'll tend to disintegrate and release all that juice. It won't affect the flavor, but it's kind of pointless, since if you're willing to mess up the texture that much, you might as well just hack it up whatever messy way you like.


Salt in dry ingredients versus salt in water? Food:

Baking focaccia.

Ingredient and step in question:

3 grams of salt called for pre-mix.

'Problem':

Normally I put the salt in the dry ingredients. Yesterday I put the salt with the wet mixture (1/2 tsp yeast, 2.5 cups water, 2 tbs honey). Noticed a less-than-normal rise at about the 8 hour mark, with no improvement at 10 or 12 hour mark.

Question:

Is this expected behavior for putting the salt in the wet mixture? Does salt in the wet mixture impede growth more than salt in the dry mixture?

Yes it does - here's the reason why:

Yeast need some salt to grow properly, but they only need a very small amount (see 3rd para of intro). When you added the salt to the wet mix (sponge), you made it into a high enough concentration to inhibit the growth of the yeast, so it didn't reach the log-phase growth that you would expect when generating a sponge mix. This delays how the yeast behave later in the process by altering the slope of the growth curve and allowing it to reach the stationary phase (where an essential nutrient is depleted) without ever growing at a fast enough rate to make the dough as you expect.

The reason there was no further improvement with longer incubation, is also due to the depletion of that same essential nutrient. Basically this is rate limiting, so the gas generated from growth is equal to the rate at which the gas is escaping from your dough.

When you mix the salt into the dry ingredients this volume change relative to the wet mix, dilutes out the salt to a concentration where the yeast can grow effectively, but they are still limited by what has happened during the sponge growth. Where the log-phase is delayed, it will take much longer to start growing rapidly, and there isn't enough free water in your dough to allow the yeasts to easily reach log-phase in the full dough, so this limits what happens with the final product.


Help with making pavlova bases I constantly am having problems with the removal of baking paper used to line baking tray when making Pavlova bases. I have tried oiling the tray and then dusting the baking paper with cornflour to make it easier to remove the baking paper  from the cooked Pavlova base, but it always sticks and tends to destroy the base. Any suggestions?

Pan release spray (such as PAM in the US) can help hold the paper in place (to aid your piping) and prevent the finished meringue from sticking to the paper once cooled. I've used this technique in both professional kitchens and in my own kitchen at home.

Spray a light coating on the pan, then lay down the paper.

If necessary, spread the coating evenly with your fingers or a towel (for some reasons, the consumer/home versions of these products often emit more of a "blast" compared to the finer "mist" of the professional ones).

Then repeat the process on the top side of the paper.


What cooking/grilling applications are more suitable for smokers than standard BBQ's? More specifically, I'm looking to determine if there is value in acquiring a smoker to accompany my current grill.

While it would be helpful to know:

What kind of grill you currently have.
What kind of smoker you're talking about acquiring.

I think I can still give you some decent feedback.  Generally speaking, a smoker is better suited for cooking foods for a long time at a low temperature -- which is the traditional definition of "barbecue" in America -- than a grill would be. Conversely, a grill is better suited than a smoker for cooking foods at high temperatures over high, direct heat.  This is not to say you can't cook on indirect heat using a grill, nor is it to say that some smokers can't be adapted for grilling. It's just which is the more suitable tool for what job.

For barbecue, a smoker offers the advantages of better heat control at lower temperatures, and greater food capacity in the cooking chamber.

I would suggest that if you want to do a lot of barbecue, particularly things that require really long cooking times (a pork butt or brisket can go as long as 14 hours), it would be worthwhile to get a smoker.  If not, it would make more sense to adapt your grill for barbecue on the occasions that you would need it.  Actually, I'd recommend you do that first, anyway, to see if you like doing that kind of cooking. An entry-level Weber smoker can run you $300, and I would not recommend going on the cheap with your smoker.  The ones on the low end of the market do not work very well, and they will sour you on the concept.


How long can a bread dough containing eggs wait before going to the oven? I am waiting until the bread has grown enough. Naturally, outside fridge. However, the dough contains a cracked egg among other ingredients. Will it become unsafe to eat?

I suppose the oven will kill any organism that may start to multiply in the dough.

The USDA recommends that raw eggs should not be left at room temperature for more than two hours. They also recommend that any recipe including raw eggs should be cooked within 24 hours.
However, the USDA always errs on the side of safety - they also recommend (in the same section of the website) that eggs should be cooked until both the white and yolk are firm, which is not necessary to kill bacteria.
Keeping in line with the USDA's recommendations, you should let the dough rise for a maximum of two hours at room temperature, then move it into the fridge until it doubles in size (or until it rises appropriately).


Confusion about chicken leg & thighs nutrition facts (calories) First of all, the nutrition facts given by USDA doesn't make sense to me. I'll refer only to skinless facts. Chicken breasts have 120kcal and chicken legs have the same. I know chicken breast have more protein and less fat, however I think chicken legs are much fattier.

When the are roasted, chicken legs have a higher caloric value (174 kcal) than breasts (165 kcal). The same applies for chicken thighs, which have very similar values.

I tried to calculate the amount of nutrients/calories in a chicken leg, but I got incongruent results.

I weighted full chicken headquarters without skin and it was 266g. I bake it in the oven at 400F/200C for 40 minutes and it reached and internal temperature of 200F/93C.

Cooked weight was 225g. Bones was 64g. Therefore:

Raw meat: 266-64 = 202g ; 202g * 120kcal/100g = 242 kcal
Cooked meat: 225-64 = 161g ; 161g * 174kcal/100g = 280 kcal

So 280 kcal / 202g raw meat = 139 kcal / 100g raw meat

Why didn't they match? I think the are very well done, so they should have lost a lot of water. But they would have to lose more water so the calories match (In particular meat would have to weight 139g cooked).

The numbers in the USDA are empirically derived. They take several pieces of raw chicken (or rather, find others who have done that) and measure the calories. Then they publish the average number of calories between these pieces. Separately, they find measurements for cooked chicken, and publish that average.

Empirical measurements are never exact. The chicken pieces vary in calorie content, the measurement procedure varies, the calibration of the instrument varies, etc. So, you can expect quite a bit of spread. And it seems that this is what you are seeing here. The measurements of raw and of cooked chicken don't match up - this can happen. You usually cannot say which factor was responsible.

This also is a good reminder that it doesn't make sense to calculate calories to the gram, since the piece of chicken you hold rarely has as many calories as given on the label or in a database. The exceptions tend to be highly processed foods which have little variation.


When baking what works well as a sugar substitute? I'm curious about what I can use for a sugar substitute while baking. I'm not interested in artificial sweetners, really. For instance, I've found that apple juice works well in some muffins. Are there any substitutes that work particularly well with other baked goods? Any general rules for selecting a substitute?

It's going to depend greatly on what you're baking.
Sugar serves several different purposes beyond just providing sweetness.  Besides sweetness:

tenderness by interrupting and minimizing gluten formation.  Sugar promotes spread in cookies
Retain moisture and extend keeping quality (in baking sugar is actually considered a "liquid" ingredient due to its hygroscopic qualities - the ability to pull moisture from it's surrounding atmosphere).
Promotes browning and caramelizing
Assists in aeration and leavening (as in creaming butter and sugar to aerate the dough)
stabilizes egg whites
Provides food for yeast growth and fermentation

In some instances you might be able to use a syrup (honey, corn syrup, molasses, etc.) but not in all cases.  For instance the granular nature of sugar is necessary for aeration of cookies and cakes because the jagged edges create air pockets as they pass through the fat.

Syrups primarily serve the purposes of sweetening, browning, and moistening.  Honey could be used in muffins that are being made using the muffin method (aka two-bowl method) because this method would use a liquid fat (melted butter/oil) but not in the creaming method (producing a more cakelike structure from the creaming process).  When using syrups you have to account for the addtional moisture that they provide.
From:  "How Baking Works" (Paula Figoni)
"The National Honey Board recommneds the substitution for using honey in place of granulated sugar.  This accounts for both the amount of water in honey and for its intense sweetness:  use 1 pound honey in place of 1 pound granulated sugar; reduce water (or other liquid) in the formula (recipe) by 2.5-3 ounces."

Overall, when making substitutions of ingredients that are critical to the structural and eating qualities you probably will not be able to replicate the same results with the substitution.  In the end, it will often be a case of "what is the next best thing" and realizing there will be quality differences in the finished product.


For salad dressings, replacing mustard with lecithin as an emulsifier? So every time I make a salad dressing, I can't help but rely on mustard (or sometimes mayonnaise) to emulsify the mixture.  However, oftentimes, I don't want mustard as part of the flavor profile of my salad.

So is there any neutral emulsifier that could help prevent my need for mustard?

My thought was lecithin since it's already a common ingredient in store-bought salad dressings, but I don't really know.  Ideally, the ingredient would be easily available online and easy to use in the kitchen (e.g., only requiring a scale).

Lecithin is indeed a good emulsifier, available from egg whites or soy. Both egg whites and soy lecithin are available in powdered form and should be shelf-stable and usable with normal kitchen tools (scales and measuring spoons).

Another powdered option is gum arabic (also called acacia gum), which comes from acacia resin. It's used a lot in commercial food products and candies.

These are all readily available online, but you may also find them in some grocery stores (in the US, the Bob's Mill brand offers a lot of things like this) or restaurant supply stores (but the quantities might be more than you want) or you may find some gums among the spices at larger Indian markets, or certainly in a large spice market like Kalustyan's in NYC.

I know you asked for neutral, but I figured I'd also mention that garlic can be used as an emulsifier but it isn't quite as stable (it may separate some over time in the fridge) and, of course, it is NOT neutral. But the flavor profile of garlic might fit in some recipes where mustard doesn't. (There is a tasty Lebanese dip that demonstrates this well -- it is pretty much just garlic, salt, lemon and oil, and whips up into something thick and creamy.)


How do you get this pie top? So I made a pecan pie, which turned out delicious.

However I was not a fan of the top of the pie.

How would I go about getting a top like that? How is this done in general?

Typically, you layer the pecans in the bottom of the pie shell, and then pour the custard/syrup over it.  The pecans then float to the top, creating a two layer pie.  You do want large enough pieces to float to the top--whole is traditional just for looking pretty.

Note also that you want to avoid beating air into the custardy/syrupy filling, which will rise to the top and help create the dryer layer above and around the nuts.

See for example, this recipe from Dear Martini, with an embedded video showing the method.


pizza with baking soda instead of yeast I have a friend who is allergic to yeast so I'm looking for a way to make a pizza dough with baking powder instead of it.
Should I add a bit of lemon juice to counteract the baking soda?

You can make yeast free pizza base using baking powder, it will be a bit crumbly, but it works fine. You could use baking soda, but then as you state you need acid to react with it. Using lemon juice is an option but I would recommend against it as you don't know the exact amount of acidity you'll get and your crust will taste lemony which you don't want. Go get some baking powder instead and use about 3/4 tsp of powder per cup of flour.

You'll want to knead your dough to develop the gluten, otherwise the base will just fall apart.


How to soft boil an egg Is there a fool proof way to make sure the white of the egg is set but either all or some of the yolk remains runny?

Very few people have tried a perfectly cooked soft boiled egg.  There is a tradition among chefs of trying to show each other how perfectly they can cook something as simple as an egg.  Chef Fernand Point, who serves as inspiration for the affable chef Gusteau in Pixar’s animated movie Ratatouille, would test his apprentices by asking them to fry an egg.  With a responsive thermometer, such an infrared one, you can approximate their work at home.

If you ever get that mad scientist feeling, try cooking the egg in a bowl of water placed in the oven.  Start with cold tap water in the bowl, place the eggs in the water and the ensemble in an oven set to its lowest setting.  Every five minutes, check the temperature of the water in the bowl.  If you are using an infrared thermometer, stir the water before measuring.   Let the water hover between 65°C to 68°C for an hour. In most ovens you will have to turn the oven off and on to keep the water in that range.  The result will be a bright yellow firm gel.  I have a picture of the gel for the fried version of the mad scientist egg (what I call Eggs Mondrian):

If you want the yolk runny, then the temperature of the water should be between 63°C (to cook the whites) but below 66°C to keep the yolk runny.


Ribs in oven - foil method I've seen numerous online recipes for ribs stating to either 1) cover the ribs in foil 2) cover the baking sheet the ribs are on in foil

Which will yield the most tender ribs?

I doubt you would find a significant difference as long as option 2 means placing the ribs on the pan and putting foil over the ribs...and, it was sealed tightly, but Meathead Goldwyn suggests wrapping the meat itself.  The idea is that you are creating more of a braising environment. The wrap also significantly reduces evaporative cooling from the surface of the meat.  This helps in being able to more consistently predict time until they are done.


How to keep sauce spices in suspension I make a very simple BBQ sauce for chicken that's composed of butter, vinegar, and an assortment of dried spices (lots of paprika, some cayenne, salt, etc).  My problem is that the spices won't remain in suspension; they drop to the bottom very quickly.  I have to stir a lot before each application, and even if I do the last bit in the pan is much more concentrated than the first.

I'd like to be able to make larger batches and refrigerate it for future use, but that's out of the question since it would harden with all the spices at the bottom.

How can I get the spices to remain in suspension without affecting the taste?

The easiest solution would be to add a thickening agent to your sauce.  Which agent will depend on how much you are willing to have the texture of the sauce change in order to achieve a good suspension.  One of the easiest methods, if you are also willing to alter the flavor profile in the direction of South Carolina or Germany, would be to add mustard.  Natural emulsifiers in the mustard will help keep the butter from separating and also provide a bit of thickness to keep the spices in suspension.  If you don't want to change the flavor profile, many recipes intended for the home kitchen suggest thickening the sauce with cornstarch.  Most commercial sauces will use a combination of modified food starch (which isn't readily available to the home cook) and xanthan gum (which is becoming increasingly available at most mega-marts), the usage of which has been discussed on this site previously [here and here].


Possible to make sourdough starter quickly? I was hoping to use a recipe that requires sour dough starter tomorrow for dinner.  When looking online for recipes I found several, but all of them required several days (examples here, here and here)
 to make.

Is it possible to prepare a sourdough starter in around 24 hours or is it too late in the game for me to get something going for tomorrow night's dinner?

You aren't going to be able to get a sourdough starter from flour to ready-to-bake in 24 hours. You could easily make a poolish or pâte fermentée in that time, and get some of the flavor. You might also be able to use some yogurt whey or another source of lactic acid to get some of the sour flavor. Unfortunately, a sour starter is something that you kind of need to keep going and have on hand.


How do I make a Leek foam from Agar or Egg Whites? I have tried 4 times now and either the foam never truly stands up or there is too much agar and the thing starts to harden.

I only have agar or egg whites. I don't have any lecithin powder. What I am doing first is creating a leek juice. I have tried it a couple ways. One is to stick a bunch of leek bottoms in a Cuisineart. Then I cook for a few minutes, strain through a cheese cloth and let cool. I take about 100ml of that "juice" (once it is cooled) and add in about 1 gram of agar. I have tried 1.) beating it in a bowl by hand 2.) mix it, then heat it, then beat it by hand. Both ways fail.

I also tried with egg whites. Same procedure for the juice, but I added in 1 egg white per 100ml. Way too runny. Would never foam. I then added in 2 egg whites. Still never foamed. I even added a 1/4 tsp of sugar. Nothing. I also want this to taste like Leek, not eggs ;)

Agar is basically just a gelatin. Lecithin is a surfactant and emulsifier, which is what you ideally need for your foam. The agar probably isn't sufficient to create the necessary tensions between the oil and liquid and when you introduce air into the mixture it isn't being held in suspension, which is why your foam isn't 'holding up'.

I'd strongly recommend trying lecithin along with a more vigorous air injection method such as an electric hand blender.

I don't believe it's anything do with your leek jus, but your method of foaming.

There's a useful article on this here.


How can I make a quick bread mix less sweet? I have one of those quick bread mixes to which you only need to add water, oil, and eggs. The problem is that it is too sweet for my taste.

Are there any tricks to make it less sweet?

You can change the flavor profile of mixes by adding more flour to cut the sugar. In the case of quick breads, I would suggest using self rising so that your quick breads will still have enough leavening.

Another way to cut the sweet would be to add ingredients that are savory, such as nuts or vegetables.  Depending on the mix, additions could vastly change how sweet it tastes.  They also make mixes that have reduced sugar in them that you could try.  Some of the health food mixes and specialty diet mixes (things like gluten free and vegan) might be more up your alley.


What should roasted pistachio oil smell like? I've had a bottle of roasted pistachio oil sitting in my refrigerator for about two years now, that someone gifted me.  Every day I open the refrigerator and it stares at me.  Today I decided that enough was enough, and I'd try and finally get it out of my life by substituting it in a biscotti recipe.

It's over a year past the expiration date, but I've been storing it in the fridge ever since I got it.  Now, I'm very familiar with what rancid neutral oils smell like, and even rancid olive oil.  But I'm not sure how to detect whether a roasted nut oil has gone rancid.  It has a very strong smell, but when I taste it, I don't notice any bitterness.

What should it smell like, if it is in fact still fresh?

You are the best judge here. and you have stated that it doesn't smell bad.  Go ahead and use it - it will be ok.  The fact that it is a 'roasted' nut oil is no different from it being an 'unroasted' one.


How to properly use alcohol when cooking something? I remember one time where our father decided to use some liquor on the food we/he was cooking, and he says it gives more flavor. Yes, it does work, but I fear getting drunk or even having that strange feeling when tasting alcohol.
Since I'm still a freshman high schooler, or specifically a minor, I would prefer to stay away from alcohol, even for cooking, but just to be safe, I need to know more about cooking with alcohol.
I found this site upon searching answers and saw this quote:

You know why you drink alcohol. But why cook with it? When used properly, alcohol improves your food. It bonds with both fat and water molecules, which allows it to carry aromas and flavor. In a marinade, alcohol helps the season the meat and carry flavor (not tenderize). It functions similarly in cooked sauces, making your food smell and taste better.

This does seem to answer the question I had in mind ("What does alcohol do to the food?"), but this brings another question. The "When used properly" part could be identified further, but all I really have in mind is the "Don't put too much or you get drunk when eating." type of thinking.
How to properly use alcohol when cooking something? It seems obvious that I shouldn't use undrinkable alcohols for it.

This is borderline too broad as there's many ways alcohol can be used in cooking, but in reality preparation method doesn't actually make much difference, alcohol doesn't cook off nearly as quickly as people seem to think so it's good practice to expect there will be almost as much alcohol in the end dish as you put in. Some techniques like flambe will burn off some, but there will still be plenty left.
I think the way to go is to understand how much alcohol goes into different foods so you understand you may end up eating, you can then steer away from things that may have too much. It would be unusual for you to ever feel the effects of alcohol when it's used in food because the generally the quantities are very low compared to the bulk of the food. A good example of this is using red wine in a tomato sauce, you may add 250ml of wine to say 1.5 liters of sauce overall. At 17% alcohol that's around 43ml of actual alcohol in that wine, if you have 1/6th of that sauce in your meal you're having about 7ml of alcohol in that sauce, which isn't enough for you to notice any effects.
That's not true across the board though, looking at the other end of the scale you have something like Rum Babas, where you have alcohol at about 8x the concentration of the tomato sauce. If you ate one of those you'd be having about 20-25ml of alcohol, depending on the serving. That's about the equivalent of 1/2 a glass of wine. That's not really that much, even for a teen, but you might notice an effect.
An extreme example would be vodka marinated tomatoes, this involves soaking peeled cherry tomatoes in 500ml (2 US cups) of pure vodka for hours. I served this at a party and a vegetarian guest ate a ton of them and got completely lit!
The upshot of this is that it's about the quantity of alcohol you will end up eating or drinking, preparation only makes a bit of difference in that.


No water in the Crock pot I have beans cooking in the crock pot and I'm at work. Just realized there is no water. I forgot the water!! What should I expect to come home to?

At best, you'll have toasted beans. At worst they will be burnt. I'm guessing these are dried or otherwise you wouldn't worry. Curious what you find out.


Do I need sugar for zabaglione? I want to make zabaglione and think that the taste could benefit if I sweeten it with honey instead of sugar. But I am not sure whether the sugar crystals have a physical effect on the fluffing up. Can I do it, or will it be flatter without the sugar?

Honey, for me, makes zabaglione terribly heavy. However, you can buy Crumiel, a dehydrated honey product from the Texturas line by Albert and Ferran Adria. My understanding is that it can essentially be used as a substitute for sugar while retaining the honey flavour.


Should ghee be kept out of light? I have ghee in clear glass jar on a shelf in my kitchen, would it keep for longer if I try to store it in a dark place? Does light speed up oxidation?

According to IndiaCurry, it should be stored in containers opaque to ultraviolet light for long term storage:

  The UV rays from sunlight, florescent lights, and other sources
  accelerate oxidation process. The storage container container for ghee
  must be opaque to filter out UV rays. Preferably ghee must be stored
  in a dark place

I was unable to find credible sources with more detailed information that indicate exactly how this affects storage life.  In fact, it was hard to find any references at all--most were far more concerned with keeping it from being exposed to air (oxygen).

However, as it is such an easy thing to arrange--just put the jar in a cabinet for example, or use an amber glass jar--that it seems worth doing.  My guess is that in practice, unless you are using your ghee very slowly, or have an extraordinarily large amount, that it makes very little difference, but again its easy, so why not?

I did find lots of references to using ghee in lamps--this is the power of Google! :-)


Substituting Cream without Coconut I'm mastering my vegetable curry recipe and while it is spectacular in its current form using heavy whipping cream, I have some wild notion that the recipe would be more appreciated if I could manage to replace the heavy cream with a vegan option. I tried coconut cream but that has far too distinct a flavor, plus one member of the family hates coconuts and can detect it easily.

So I am looking for a substitute for heavy cream that's not coconut based, and ideally not soy, but I'll try just about anything.

I am also ok with having to concoct something from a variety of sources. So if I have to use almond milk, but thicken it with an almond butter or some other ingredient then I can handle that.

I'm not 100% sure why the heavy cream benefits the recipe. To me heavy cream has no flavor. So maybe what I'm looking for is to create a cream of similar viscosity that is vegan and has as little to no flavor as possible... or I guess it could be the heavy cream uses the other flavors in the curry as a catalyst.

The goal is to make my 100% organic vegetable curry to be vegan without hurting the flavor.

I see some pointers here but I'm wondering if there's a more specific technique others know of meeting the requirements here.

I've had good luck substituting cashew cream for heavy cream in soups and curries. I've had a lot of people actually prefer it!

To make it, you follow the basic procedure for making nut milk, but skip most of the steps. Soak cashews in enough water to cover them for at least an hour or two, then puree in a blender until it's as smooth as you can get it. Add a little more water until it's the thickness of cream, throw in a pinch of salt, and you're done.

It's good for things where you need the richness of cream, but don't want other characteristics like sweetness or tanginess that other substitutes might have. I've even seen it used as the base for cheesecakes, and vegan cheeses and cheese sauces.


Adding uncooked rice to a slow-cooked stir fry I'd like to make this slow-cooked chicken stir fry recipe.

It is suggested that it be served with rice.  But I know rice itself can be made in a slow-cooker.  If I don't mind having the rice already mixed together with the stir fry, can I simply add 2 cups of uncooked brown rice to the slow-cooker, along with 4 extra cups of water?

If so, is it best to add the rice on the bottom layer, or the top layer, or all mixed together?

You can certainly add rice to the slow cooker--but it will end up more like a rice stew, rather than a stir fry ("slow-cooked stir fry" is also an oxy-moron--the recipe that you link to is in fact a vegetable and meat stew with a vaguely asian flavor profile and has nothing whatsoever to do with a stir-fry). However, the rice you cook in the slow-cooker for several hours will be gummy, overcooked, and the starch that the rice exudes will make the whole thing a gloppy mess, more like a badly cooked risotto than anything else.

My advice would be to cook the rice separately. If you really want to cook the rice in with the other ingredients, I would add it as a top layer, so that it steams rather than boils. But, again, it seems like a much better idea to cook separately--you can even make it in advance.


Are hardware store themocouples food safe? I recently finished reading The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee: Growing, Roasting, and Drinking, with Recipes. The authors of this book put a strong emphasis on accurate measurements and measuring tools, both for coffee and baking, and regularly make use of general purpose thermocouples as shown in the excerpt and picture below:

One of the greatest kitchen gadgets you can have is a thermocouple (shown below). A thermocouple is an electronic temperature sensor that can be purchased at the hardware store, and is typically used in science and industry for testing the temperature of ovens and air conditioning. They’re fairly inexpensive, absolutely accurate, and very easy to use and clean. I use mine for verifying my oven temperature and for taking temperature readings on sugar syrups and other temperature-sensitive recipes, such as Homemade Yogurt. It’s an invaluable and extremely accurate tool that is worth investing in for both baking and coffee preparation.

I can see the appeal of these "hardware store" thermocouples, but are they really safe to use in and around food or drinks? None of them claim to be suitable for cooking. Is there a likelihood that they could leave behind undesirable chemicals or metals?

You are correct to be concerned.

In all likelihood, the hardware store thermocouple is not suitable for food use as it would contain metals you don't want to ingest. Here is a table of industrial grade thermocouple materials, note presence of some undesirable metals:

Source.

You would want a thermocouple specifically made for food use. Example. I found that one by searching NSF thermocouple, a cautious approach since NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) certification entails high standards. But most thermocouple advertised for food should suffice, such as this $16 one.


Can I use diastatic malt in applications which call for non-diastatic? I am interested in a few different applications of barley malt some of which classically would use diastatic malt and some use non diastatic malt.
I’d rather just purchase one malt for everything. Assuming I can find a diastatic malt powder without any added flours is there any reason I wouldn’t/couldn’t use it in a traditionally non diastatic scenario (such as a malted milkshake)? Many sites claim that diastatic is used for yeast growth, not for flavor but if it’s not diluted with added flours to the powder I don’t see why it couldn’t be.

diastatic malt powder is milled malt that hasn't been heated to deactivate the enzymes.  To deactivate it to use as non-diastatic malt, heat to 130F/55C


How to minimise sugar in meringue My wife just complained that she can't eat my meringue because they have too much sugar in them. She suggested I cook them with less sugar. However, without sugar the meringue won't work right. What is the minimum ratio of egg white to sugar required to get a stable meringue.

Technically, the minimum ratio of sugar is zero. You can definitely create a stable meringue without any sugar at all, although you'll have to mind your conditions and preparation - use a spotlessly-clean bowl, room-temperature egg whites (separated when chilled), initially foamed up on low speed with an acid such as vinegar or cream of tartar, superfine sugar (if you're using any at all) added very slowly after the soft peak stage, and a starch (e.g. corn starch or icing sugar) at the end for added stability.

The main problem, of course, is that as you allude to, when you bake it you'll basically end up with dried-out egg. It won't have any flavour at all. If you're just reducing the sugar then maybe this isn't a problem. If you're trying to eliminate the sugar entirely or almost entirely then you need to replace it with something - generally, a savory bomb, like very old cheese (for example Reggiano and chives), or very dark chocolate if it must be a dessert.

To do that, just grate or finely chop the strong/savory elements, whip the eggs up to the shiny peak stage, and fold in the shavings at the very end. The meringue will hold up.

But again, and I'm going to repeat myself here - you don't need a lot of sugar for stability. You can easily halve the sugar measurement for a traditional meringue recipe and still have it come out OK (albeit less tasty) - especially if you make one of the more stable meringue types, such as an Italian meringue where the sugar is combined as boiling sugar syrup. But you don't have to do that; simply reducing the sugar is fine if you're careful.


Croutons from scratch? All the recipes I've known for croutons required pre-made bread, fresh or old.
Do restaurants always use pre-made bread as well?
Is there ever a case for making croutons from scratch, and what would be a basic recipe?

I can't speak for all restaurants, but those where I've been served obviously home made croutons also served similar bread with other dishes. Bread is cheap and readily available. Why would a restaurant bother doing anything more difficult? If you can get day old bread from a bakery it's even better, because that's really cheap, and works at least as well as fresh

As for making them from scratch, I would indeed start by making a loaf of proper - yeast-based - bread (I like soda bread but the texture doesn't work here and it would fall to bits).


Difference between fermentation and leavening? What is the technical difference between fermentation and leavening? Both cause bread to rise.

Does fermentation only refer to the chemical process of one substance converting to another, which causes bread to rise?
And is "leavening" rising by any means?
Classic white bread, for example - it undergoes fermentation.  Does it also qualify as leavening?
Whereas banana bread undergoes leavening, but not fermentation?

Leavening is rising by any means, so baking soda and baking powder (chemical leaveners) both apply here, as does yeast (fermentation).

Chemical leaveners like baking soda and powder work by mixing an acid (varies, depending on the recipe) and base (usually baking soda in some form) to produce carbon dioxide gas.

Fermentation is the process of yeast converting sugars to carbon dioxide and alcohol.  In bread making, the carbon dioxide is the desired product.  In beer or wine making, the exact opposite.  In both cases (beer/wine and bread), other byproducts produced by the yeast add flavour and are highly desirable.

There are other types of fermentation by bacteria (such as those used in yogurt-making, pickles, or sauerkraut) that produce lactic acid; but those are somewhat outside of the scope of this answer (although lactic acid fermentation by bacteria is responsible for the taste of sourdough breads).

To specifically answer your question - yes, yeast breads undergo fermentation (which is also leavening).  Quick breads like banana bread use chemical leaveners, which are not fermentation.


Is there an English word for the Spanish pepper called Ñora? Is there an English word for the Spanish pepper called Ñora?
I have translated the following from Wikipedia

The ñora is a cultivated variety of Capsicum annuum or pepper, called
"bola" in Alicante and Murcia, where it became popular. It is small in
size, round in shape and red in color when ripe, and is then left to
dry in the sun. It has a sweet flavor and is widely used in the
gastronomy of the Spanish Levante, especially in the Region of Murcia,
the Valencian Community (Alicante) and in Catalonia.

Almost certainly not. They look and sound a lot like cherry peppers, aka pimiento peppers, but are apparently a distinct cultivar. With the exception of commercially important (“Maris Piper”) or widely renowned (“Honeycrisp”) names, cultivars tend to be quite local in penetration, and are unlikely to have translations in other languages.
You’d probably do fine to substitute cherry peppers, if you’re trying to make a particular recipe which calls for them.


What is the difference between various types of flour? Is there a difference between the various types of flour that you see in the stores (i.e. Cake, Bread, and All-Purpose?  Is it really necessary to stock 3 types of flour in my pantry or is this just a scheme from the manufacturers to get more money?

There are actually quite a few differences between the different types of flour. The number of different types you store will really depend on your particular requirements.

All purpose (or plain) flour is a blend of different types of wheat and has a relatively low protein content.

Bread flour is typically made from a single, high protein wheat. It also has a higher gluten strength. It may also contain ascorbic acid (vitamin C)

Cake flour is also typically made from a single type of wheat (different from the wheat used in bread flour) and has a high starch content, it also has the lowest protein content.

There are many other types of flour, all of which server specific purposes, for example;

Self raising flour, Whole wheat flour, Chick pea flour, Rice flour, Semolina flour

And others.

Essentially it's important to use the right type of flour for a give recipe.


What is the difference between pectin and pectin NH? I've seen recipes calling for pectin, others call for pectin NH, so there is a difference.

Could anyone please explain to me what is the difference between them and how to they behave different? Also is there any rule of the thumb when to use what?

Pectin is a polysacharide found in the cell walls of plants. There are two main divisions of pectin used in cooking: high methoxyl (HM) and low methoxyl (LM).

The high methoxyl is used in most jam and jelly recipes. It requires sugar and acid to gel. When the pectin is dissolved out of the cell walls it is very dilute and picks up a negative charge that prevents the molecules from binding to each other and gelling. Adding sugar isolates the pectin molecules from some of the water while dding the acid removes their charge.

Pectin HM is thermally reversible which means it can be set, melted, and set again.

Instead of using sugar and acid to encourage gelling, low methoxyl pectin gels in the presence of calcium. It is used in glazes and reduced sugar jams. It is not thermally reversible.

Pectin NH is a type of LM pectin that has been modified to be thermally reversible. The more calcium in a gel the less able that gel will be to melt. Pectin NH gels with calcium but unlike other LM pectins it requires less calcium. This would mean that it could still be melted and reshaped. The recipes that I have seen that use pectin NH both have less sugar and require remolding.

From what I have seen pectin NH tends to be more expensive. It is typically used in low-sugar pastry fillings and glazes.

http://blog.ideasinfood.com/ideas_in_food/2008/02/a-brief-overvie.html
http://www.allenhemberger.com/alinea/2010/07/raspberry-transparency-yogurt-rose-petals/
http://www.lucidgroup.com/knowledge-center/pectin.pdf


How long can I keep raw-egg based salad dressing refrigerated I made salad dressing with, raw egg, mustard, olive oil, vinegar, minced garlic, salt & pepper.  How long can I keep this refrigerated?  Thanks

Without testing samples regularly to track the rate of growth of harmful bacteria, this is a hard question to answer, doubly so without proportions of ingredients.  Salt and vinegar will slow bacterial growth, but will not stop it unless you add unpalatable amounts.  Garlic has some antimicrobial activity, but it has not been well quantified, and does not operate against all bacteria.  Refrigeration also slows growth, but each fridge is different, and how the family uses the fridge (staring at the contents while deciding, for instance) can alter the true effectiveness.

Personally, I would treat the salad dressing the same way as plain raw egg yolk -- four days if kept well chilled.  The salt and vinegar probably buy another day or two, but I would not count on it.


Carbon steel seasoning I know there's dozen of posts and discussion everywhere, but I'm getting pretty confused. Everyone has something different to say : use rapeseed oil, coconut, olive oil, flaxseed, someone in the oven, someone on the stove..
I found two good videos, made by professional people, but they use a different process to season them:

here and here

The eggs are moving much better in the second video than any of my non stick pans, and I would like to obtain that result, and possible mantain it, without removing the seasoning.

Which one do you recon works better? I also have an electric stove, so it may be better using the oven instead.

My knowledge is never to wash them under the water. Just remove the sticky stuff using a spatula, put some oil to keep them well and if you need use salt and a paper towel to scrub.
I read that someone is deglazing using some water in the process, or scrub them with a a brush under the water (My old chef told me never to do that so.. I'm a bit confused)
I am seeking help from the experts... :)

For any plain steel; carbon steel, cast iron etc, but not stainless or non-stick

Remove previous bad seasonings, or on a new pan remove containments and manufacturing residues

Check the pan surface for any metal protrusions, usually a quick scrape with a hard metal spatula will remove these, if not, consider other methods to remove them. You should be able to run your palm over the surface without cutting yourself

I use a steel scourer pad and some dish soap and scrub it hard and thoroughly. Then heat on a stove or in an oven till it stops smoking. Best to do this outside if you can. Scrub clean again

Polymerise with high temperature oil

Use the highest temp oil you have in kitchen. I don't think it makes any difference which one you use

Apply a light coating and heat until it starts to fully smoke, let it cool a bit, then apply another layer, repeat until you get bored, or the pan is black

Finish by heating a complete layer of salt, until the salt has fully discoloured. The salt will have absorbed the non-polymerised oil from pan surface

When cool, the surface of the pan should be shiny black, and smooth to the touch. Any sticky bits need more work, any metal protrusions need to be removed

After the pan is uses to cook anything, wash it out with water and soap using a brush, oil very lightly, and re-heat until smoke starts
For Soft sticky things like eggs, do the salt treatment again, just before cooking the eggs


Will vegetables and fresh herbs last longer in the refrigerator in a plastic bag? Is there a difference between how long fresh herbs and vegetables last if they are in a plastic bag or in the open?  If it does, is there a break-down of which ones it does make a difference for - example: cilantro seems to get mushy very quickly in a bag but last for a week in the open, but scallions last much longer in a plastic bag and deflate almost immediately in the open.

Drying herbs and lettuces before storing them in plastic is a good idea.  You can also lay them in the bag on top of a paper towel if you aren't able to remove all the water droplets from those pesky nooks & crannies.


Which other spices besides cloves will react with plastic? I am reading that cloves can cloud the plastic in my grinder at Cooking for engineers

Does this happen with any other spices?

I've had a good look and as far as I can see only cloves and allspice have this property. Most websites specify that it's due to an oil present in cloves however according to Wikipedia the main chemical components in clove oil (admittedly not cloves but fairly similar) are:

Bud oil is derived form the flower-buds of S. aromaticum. It consists of 60–90% eugenol, eugenyl acetate, caryophyllene and other minor constituents.
Leaf oil is derived from the leaves of S. aromaticum. It consists of 82–88% eugenol with little or no eugenyl acetate, and minor constituents.
Stem oil is derived from the twigs of S. aromaticum. It consists of 90–95% eugenol, with other minor constituents.

As neither eugenol, eugenyl acetate nor caryophyllene have this property the oil that does cause 'plastic clouding' must be fairly low.
Likewise the main chemical components of allspice oil according to Essential-oils.co.za are:

eugenol, menthyl eugenol, cineol, phellandrene and caryophyllene.

None of these chemicals have chemicals with that property. However many of the chemicals in allspice and clove are also present in nutmeg, black pepper and cinnamon.


Browning reheated food with only a microwave I recently was given a Corningware Microwave Browner as a gift, which looks very cool and promising, but I have not tried it yet.  It seems to me a special apparatus such as this would be necessary for browning in a microwave, because the default conditions inside one are quite far from what is needed for the Maillard reaction.

It got me to thinking: Are there any sure-fire ways to brown meats in a microwave?  I don't necessarily need to know how to cook the meat from raw; I'm thinking more about the dry-rubbed steak I grilled last night becoming soggy when I try to reheat it at work.  Techniques for raw, of course, are also encouraged if they exist.

We only have access to a microwave, and although I could probably bring in a Foreman grill or something, I have a feeling it would be frowned upon in this particular organization.

I was thinking along the lines of those special sheets of gray "paper" (for lack of knowing the correct term) that come with, say, a Lean Cuisine Panini.  Any ideas?

Or, does anyone have any experience with the Corningware Browner (or a similar item) that can offer some tips?

The CorningWare browner works on a simple principle. It is lined with a material that can absorb microwave radiation (just like water does) and therefore become hot. Then when you add your food, the hot surface of the pan browns it. Seems like an effective solution in the situation you describe, where you really want to cook with a hot surface but can't use normal means in the enviroment you are in.


How long to boil curry sauce left sealed in fridge three weeks to make safe Please this is not a duplicate: This is not a general question about food storage time and safety, about warming stored food but about boiling food that is possibly spoiled. Or even let's say spoiled.

I am not talking about simply reheating but about raising the temperature to at least boiling and keeping it there for at least an hour.

I didn't bother freezing it because I was planning on returning home after the weekend. But things turned out to keep me away for three weeks.

It's a tomato sauce based curry with some ground meat. I'm thinking to add a bit of water bring it to a boil and let it simmer for the afternoon.

Safe?

You might get lucky and not get sick if you eat it, but it would be risky to eat it at this point.
Boiling won't fix the kind of spoilage that happens with tomatoes and meat over time.


Downside of 'Turbo' mode on rice cooker? My rice cooker has an optional Turbo mode when cooking rice.  The mode is off by default.

As I understand, the upside is that rice cooks faster.  What's the downside?

I have one of the Cuckoo cookers with a Turbo mode. The one (slight) downside is that white rice will come out a bit more... gooey? with the Turbo cooking. It's not bad and seems to primarily affect smaller batches. If you let the rice rest a bit and plan on tossing it with oil or butter (or just don't mind stickier rice), it's definitely workable.


Cooking "steak tips" on the grill - how to avoid making them tough? Recently we bought some "steak tips" from a local farm, and cooked them on our grill and were very unhappy about the result - they were very tough, although the flavor was ok. I wanted to see if someone could see my mistake (I have lots of broiling / pan frying steak experience, but very little on the grill).

These steak tips (which I'm assuming were "beef flap") were like 6" long, 3" wide and 1/2 - 1 " thick. First time, no marinade. They came frozen, so we thawed them in cool water.
Preheat the gas grill to over 500 F.
Throw the steaks on
Cook 2 minutes a side, flipping frequently (as per Cook's Illustrated's advice).
Cooked to ~130 F in the middle, which was cool pink to hot pink, roughly what we like. (different sized steaks were done slightly differently of course).
Tent for 5 minutes in foil.

And they were very tough. Second time I tried an overnight marinade, and also attempted to slice the steaks across the grain (which is how we prepare skirt steak), and they were still very tough.

I've seen lots of advice, which is mostly where I came up with this basic procedure. Where did we go wrong?

(I'm hoping for some advice specifically about steak tips, but if my method is flawed I would like to know that as well!)

Tough meat boils down to 3 factors:

The way it's cooked, the way it's cut and the quality of the meat.

I know this is an old question, but next time you encounter tough meat on the grill, perhaps try pan frying it. If its still tough as rocks, I would question the quality of perhaps that batch of meat, provided it was cut properly.


How to make sugar glass without corn syrup or cream of tartar? I'm trying to make a relief sculpture copy out of sugar glass. I don't live in the US, so the corn syrup is not easily available. I read in multiple recipes that cream of tartar can be  substituted with any edible acid, like citric acid.

I'd like to know more about the chemistry behind the ingredients, and find edible substitutes. Additionally, how can I make sure that it doesn't lose transparency and go brown? And what about preventing it from cracking too soon?

I was composing as @Melissa was responding...  here's some more detail to append to my comment above.

Sucrose is a disaccharide consisting of fructose and glucose.  When boiled with water, it forms a syrup.  When this syrup cools, depending on the relative concentrations of sugar and water, different properties will result (e.g., liquid, thread, firmball, soft crack, ...).  However, sucrose by itself has impurities; these impurities will tend to cause (or help to form) small grainy crystals (think granulated sugar) instead of a smooth, transparent, uniform, glass-like candy. This potential for crystal formation is why, e.g, ...

stirring or disruption of cooling sugar syrup is not recommended;
other things are added (fats, other sugars, etc.) for things like taffee or hard candy;

As noted by @Melissa, other sugars (such as fructose and glucose are found in corn syrup), are added that help to reduce the likelihood of "bad" (undesired) crystal formation.  You should be able to find corn syrup or other alternatives by mail order.  Other options include pure glucose syrup.

You may be able to find golden syrup, which has basically similar properties to corn syrup, but it probably has too many other impurities to make it suitable for candy making. I don't know about maple syrup, honey, or agave syrup.

Your question about acid is an excellent one: Acids aid in the formation of invert sugar.  Invert sugar is sucrose ("table sugar") that has been (partially or completely) chemically broken down into its constituent monosaccharides: glucose and fructose.  Heating alone will start this "inversion" of sucrose into glucose and fructose; acids will help speed this reaction.

Other possible acids include citric acid, but I wouldn't recommend lemon juice; again, it's got too many other impurities.  Powdered, purified citric acid can often be found at Indian grocers; it's useful for cheese-making also.

Basically, the addition of corn syrup and the addition of acid fill a similar purpose: providing monosaccharides to prevent the formation of undesirable sucrose crystals in your cooling sugar syrup. Strictly speaking, you don't need to add anything to get a glass-like candy; however, it's difficult. Adding invert sugar or catalyzing invert sugar formation with an acid will help improve the margin for error.

Also, as I said in comment above, you might consider using isomalt instead of sugar (i.e., only isomalt in place of all the other sugar; no sucrose, no corn syrup, no acid).  It's basically edible in small quantities, but I wouldn't eat a lot of it (of course, I wouldn't eat much sugar, either...:). Please look up information on the edibility and safety for more information on the quantities you're discussing. That said, sugar sculptures aren't often intended for actual consumption...? Isomalt melts directly (no water needed) and doesn't crystallize as quickly as sucrose.  It's more expensive but easier to work with in some ways.  It's less hygroscopic (water absorption) than sucrose, and won't caramelize (browning) as sucrose.

HTH; respond to comments and I could provide more detail if helpful.  Good luck with your sugarwork!


Is there a significant difference in flavour between real Mirin and Mirin-like products? I read everywhere that there are generally two types of the sweet cooking wine mirin:

A) the real, hon mirin, a sweet rice wine with 14 % vol. alcohol

B) the ersatz, or shin mirin / mirin fu, with less than 1 % vol. alcohol.

I'd like to know if it makes a significant difference in flavours or otherwise if one uses the ersatz mirin instead of the 'real stuff', e.g., for sushi rice or other dishes. Is 'hon mirin' the first choice among the Japanese?

I used hon-mirin exclusively when I lived in Japan, simply because it tasted better.

My Japanese neighbor was surprised that I could tell the difference, and confessed (somewhat embarrassedly) that she used aji-mirin since her family couldn't tell the difference.

However, I cannot buy hon-mirin in the US (I'm not 21, and hon-mirin is sold as wine while aji-mirin is cooking wine) so I've been using aji-mirin without detrimental effect.