How to flavour iced green tea? I'm currently making iced green tea by placing two green tea bags into 500 ml of water and moving the bags arround for 2 to 5 minutes before placing the whole mixture into the fridge in a sealed container. After a few hours I remove the tea bags leaving the iced tea in the fridge until it is wanted.

So far I have made flavoured iced green tea by either using flavoured tea bags or by adding honey and/or lemon. I would like to be able to add flavour without using flavoured tea bags and would like some ideas on other flavours to try as honey and lemon is pretty basic?

Have you tried using one green tea bag and one bag of herbal tea? There are many herbal tea sampler packs that you could get to try several flavors of tea. Since you are making iced tea, I would also recommend adding chopped fruit once the tea has chilled - I would imagine some crisp apples or even a fresh melon would add a really refreshing profile. You can even let the fruits steep in the chilled liquid, like a tea-sangria.

Another option is to create a flavored simple syrup in order to sweeten your iced tea. It's always better to use a simple syrup in a cold liquid than any kind of 'dry' sugar. Simple syrup is easy to make on the stove or in the microwave, and just add some flavors you might like while heating it. I wouldn't recommend vanilla for green tea (gut reaction), but maybe lavender, orange or cardamom?


Is "vanilla extract" the same as "pure vanilla extract"? My cookie recipe says to use 1 tsp of vanilla extract. I have "pure* vanilla extract. Do I still use 1 tsp of it or should I use less?

Vanilla extract and pure vanilla extract mean the same thing. Artificially flavored vanilla extract is also used the same way, with the same measurements.


Smelly chicken - is it unsafe? I have a fresh raw chicken breast that has been in the fridge covered for a few days (still in date) that doesn't smell 'normal'. It doesn't smell terrible but it had some clear bubbles/dots on it that wiped away when I touched them with my finger which I haven't seen before, and I'm not used to having a smelly breast so to speak.

I've never smelled bad chicken before so I'm not sure what to look for. Obviously if the meat is spoiled I won't cook it.

Are the smell and bubbles/dots a sign it's become unsafe, or something normal and safe? I've had breasts in the fridge for longer that haven't gone bad.

Not trying to be flippant, but to me it is easiest to apply and old kitchen rhyme to meat:  "When in doubt, throw it out."

Chicken is notoriously prone to spoilage.  Having suffered from food poisoning more than once, for me it is a zero tolerance.  Unusual smells on raw poultry, unexpected discolorations and such make it not for my consumption.  The dots, well, I would have to see them because they could be any number of things from congealed fats to fungus.  Without personal evaluation it is an unknown to me, and unknowns are potential danger in food, especially raw meat.


What material/metal is typically used under the layer of coating in 'ceramic' frying pans? I am looking at different ceramic frying pans, e.g. this lagostina one, but from reading the product description it is really hard to figure out what metal is the main body of the pan made of. For health reasons, I'm hoping to find one that uses steel rather than aluminum, but the manufacturers seem reluctant to explain it. Is there a general recommendation for how to find a ceramic pan that uses safe metals?

There is no material which is "typically" used. The ceramic coating works on different bases, and I have seen both aluminum pans and steel pans with it. There are probably other types too.

If the manufacturer won't tell you what a given pan is made of, there is no way for anybody else to tell.


How do you develop the knife skills to properly use a Chinese cleaver? So I have recently been moving into the world of Asian cuisine, and I recently learned that the Chinese use a cleaver as though it is a chef's knife.  Apparently, it is a great multitasker but requires a completely different technique set to use properly. Where do I go to find out about this?

Update I should mention that I am already highly proffiecent with a chef's knife. I was mainly looking for what I need to learn from scratch and what will carry over.

One important thing to keep in mind is that the blade always stays against the knuckles of your opposite hand to control it. That is true with all knives but I find it is especially important with a cleaver. (Well probably except when you are doing giant hacking moves, in which case your other hand should be nowhere in the vicinity).


Should I default to higher or lower power when the recommended power is not an option in a microwave? I often cook takeaway dishes at home. Some of these dishes ask for 4 minutes at 850 Watt (for example, ravioli with mascarpone sauce). My microwave oven supports 750 Watt and 950 Wattt, but not 850 Watt. Should I go for 4:30 at 750 Watt or 3:30 at 950 Watt in this case (pasta with sauce)? and is this the same for all dishes, or does it depend on the dish?

One way to approach the problem is to ask the question in a slightly different way: how do I generate the same amount of energy in a 750 Watt microwave that would be produced in a 850 Watt oven over four minutes?

Watts times time will give energy, and since we are not in a Chemistry or Physics forum, let's throw units out the window.  850 Watts times 4 minutes will give us 3400 units of energy (W min to be picky).  To get the same amount of heat from a 750 Watt oven, solve the equation 750 * min = 3400 which is 4 minutes 32 seconds.  In the 950 Watt oven that would be 3 minutes 35 seconds.

Since the power button on microwaves simply cycles the oven on and off (e.g. 80% does NOT mean that a 1000 Watt oven is operating at 800 Watt, but that it is only on 80% of the time), then we can include that in the equation as well for more general problems.  So we have

WATT * time * power = energy

This equation should allow one to determine the time or  % power to use to get the same amount of energy when cooking in an oven with a different power rating than the recipe calls for.


Why did my soy (Silk) milk suddenly become as viscous as rubber cement? I used about half of a quart of Silk Milk and returned it to my refrigerator.  Two days later the remaining liquid had been replaced with a colloidal mass with a gooey consistency not unlike rubber cement.  Why?  I see no signs that anything froze in the refrigerator which was in continual use.

Soy milk can spoil, just like ordinary cow's milk. That seems to be what happened.

While spoilage in cow's milk is usually souring, and the smell is unmistakable at fifty paces, soy milk spoils by turning gooey.
I'm not sure about the details, but it's something in how the proteins react to oxygen. In soy milk, if I'm not mistaken, they turn into longer, stickier chains.

As for why it spoiled, it was probably just open for too long. Even in the fridge, soy milk has a life of about 4-6 days once opened. The seal may have been damaged somehow even before you actually opened it, allowing air into the carton to cause the spoilage.


Melted vs softened butter in cake recipes I was making Victoria sponge cake, and the recipe called for using softened butter, which should then be mixed with sugar using an electric mixer. I did not have an electric mixer, so I decided to melt the butter, and mix the melted butter with the sugar. The cake turned out to taste okay.

Is there any difference between softened butter + electric mixer, and using melted butter?

Welcome to the site! This is a good question, the answer is that there would be no difference in taste, the difference is in the texture of the sponge. Victoria sponge, and some other types of sponge cakes get some of their their lift (expansion when bakes) from air trapped in the batter. Beating softened butter and sugar together, which is called creaming, traps air in the mix, giving the cake more lift and a more open structure. Mixing melted butter and sugar does not trap air, so your cake will be more dense and less open.

You can cream butter and sugar by hand with a whisk instead of a mixer, it just takes more time and a lot more effort. If you don't have the money or space for a stand mixer (or just don't want one) a handheld stick blender with a whisk attachment is a low cost and minimal space alternative which works extremely well.


Cast iron, forged iron or carbon steel pan for induction? I need a new pan for non-stick applications (eggs) and I want to try using a well-seasoned iron or carbon steel one. I use an induction stove.

Normally, the arguments I hear in favor of carbon steel are that it heats quicker, because it can be made thinner. But isn't this reversed on induction? Won't the bigger mass of metal heat quicker, or at least as quick as the thin one, if I don't have to wait for the heat to get conducted through the heavy material? And of course, I want to keep all the advantages created by the thicker pan's thermal mass.

I also have the option to get forged iron pans, which are thinner than cast iron ones, but still have the physical properties (thermal coefficients and whatnot) of iron, not carbon steel. Is there an advantage in doing so (maybe a smoother surface?)

I would be especially happy to hear from somebody who has compared both kinds of cookware on induction, to know how they compare under real conditions.

Here are the pans I am considering:

1 Carbon steel

2 forged iron. For some reason, one doesn't have the marks I have come to associate with forged iron pans. I already have one (a very big one, 30 cm) and I am not too happy with it. Are the marks important, do they say something about production quality?

 or

3 Cast iron

Induction cooking works by generating an electric current in the metal cooking vessel and converting that current into heat, which requires a resistive material (i.e. a poor conductor).

It's a bit of a catch-22, because you need a good conductor to actually distribute that heat. This is why some of the best induction cookware is clad metal - two layers of (magnetic) steel around an inner layer of highly-conductive aluminum or sometimes copper, sometimes layered multiple times this way. The thick magnetic sheets generate heat, and the thin conductive sheets transfer it.

Thicker metal means that the surface is slightly farther away from the magnetic field source, but also has significantly more resistance (since resistance is proportional to length, and we are talking about doubling or even tripling that), so theoretically it should be much more effective at converting the electric current to heat, and heat up faster.

The disadvantage of a thicker metal - assuming that there is no additional heat transfer material - is hot spots. This doesn't matter at all for a skillet, but if you're trying to cook with, say, a cast-iron stock pot or dutch oven, you'll find that the hot spots are even worse on an induction cooktop than an electric or gas cooktop, since the surface heat is generated very rapidly but takes forever to spread.

Carbon steel is a pretty good compromise, which is why it's generally the material of choice for woks, and that's the material I'd choose for an induction cooktop for any vessel other than a skillet or frying pan (assuming I had to choose a single material; again, copper/aluminum-clad stainless steel works better). For pans/skillets, you want the heat to stay focused on the surface, which makes heavy/thick cast iron a better choice.

I can't honestly say that I've had much experience with forged iron, but all my instincts are telling me not to bother with it because it would be combining the worst of both worlds - lower resistance at the surface but still relatively high resistance up the sides. The only caveat to this would be a possibly significant difference between the magnetic susceptibility/permeability of forged vs. cast iron, but this is likely going to vary from vessel to vessel anyway (not all cast/forged iron is the same) so I think your best bet there is to try sticking a magnet to it. If it sticks much harder to the forged than cast iron (doubtful) then it might be good for surface cooking; I still wouldn't choose it for a larger pot.


How do I keep cookies from burning on the bottom? Every time I make cookies they burn on the bottom. Is there a way to prevent this?

It's always helpful when cooking to think about the different ways that the heat is being transferred to your food.  In the case of baking we have (primarily) conducted heat from the pan to the bottom of your cookies, convection taking place from the hot air circulating to the top of your cookies, and radiative heat from the heating element in the oven.  It's more than likely the heating element in your oven is on the bottom, which is causing the pan to transfer the heat to the pan faster than ideal, causing the bottoms to burn.

One way to mitigate this is to adjust the distance between the heating elements and the pan by moving it to a higher rack or adjusting the rack height.  If, on the highest rack, you're still getting burnt bottoms, you might try putting an empty sheet pan, casserole dish, pizza stone, etc. to try and block some of that direct heat.

Alternatively, you might also try, as moscafj suggests, bumping the temp down to 350F.  Depending on how well-done you like your cookies, you might have to extend the baking time a minute or two to compensate.


Why did my vinaigrette emulsify so quickly? When I make salad dressing, I usually don't expect my vinaigrette to emulsify particularly well. I don't do any of the steps described in this question about vinaigrette emulsification, such as drizzling the oil into the acid slowly with much stirring.

However, last week I decided to try to make a vinaigrette using some aged balsamic vinegar that I just bought. I've used aged balsamic in the past and had the same experience that I normally have with the vinaigrette -- that the mixture doesn't stay together -- I need to stir just before dressing the salad.

I poured olive oil into my bowl, added my new vinegar, and some salt, pepper, and herbs -- and almost immediately, the mixture turned into the texture of thin mayonnaise. No matter how much oil I added later to thin it down, it didn't break the emulsion. (I ended up saving it as a sauce for chicken, since I don't like thick salad dressing.)

Why did this emulsify so well? Could there have been something about that vinegar? (It's aged and thicker than most, but not so much that it compares unfavorably with other aged balsamic I've bought. It's just vinegar -- no added ingredients.)

You answered your own question here (emphasis mine):

(It's aged and thicker than most, but not so much that it compares unfavorably with other aged balsamic I've bought. It's just vinegar -- no added ingredients.)

Viscosity promotes emulsification by physically slowing down separation. This gives you (and your whisk!) a wider window in which to break the oil into very small droplets. Once established, the viscosity promotes stability. According to Cook's Illustrated, it's due to melanoidins in the vinegar:

These compounds, abundant in aged balsamic vinegar, are formed when sugars and proteins are heated and undergo the Maillard reaction, the chemical reaction that generates deep browning and flavor. Because the molecules of these compounds are extremely large, they increase the viscosity of emulsions so much that it becomes difficult for the oil droplets to move around and coalesce into larger droplets and eventually separate from the water; thus, the dressing is very slow to separate. (Melanoidins also happen to be responsible for the aged vinegar’s inky color.)


What is "Buttered Sugar"? What is "Buttered Sugar"? Is it something specific?

I got the term from this image floating around the net. I'm trying to understand what specifically the different sugars are.

A search of the internet for "buttered sugar" comes up exclusively with variations of the this list on various websites that list alternative names for sugar.
Of these only one "Returning to nature" lists it as a synonymy for buttercream.

It is possible that site is correct and "buttered sugar" is a possibly rarely used alternate name for buttercream. I would suspect that it is more likely that there has been an error at some point in the past that has been copied between these sites.


Help needed to identify the seeds I've received the following seeds from one relatives, used in our for some recipes. I want to know what this seeds are.

They taste bitter like fenugreek seeds, and the person who bought it calls it Irani Seeds.

Any help would be appriciated.

They also look like fenugreek seeds, and Irani Methi is fenugreek. Fenugreek has a very typical perfume when crushed and/or cooked, that would also help in identifying them


Going to make my first pizza tonight, can a large, thick griddle pan substitute for a pizza stone? Going to make my first homemade pizza tonight, but I do not have a pizza stone.  Would a large (9" x 16" x 1/2") cast iron griddle work in place of a pizza stone?  The griddle is super black and well seasoned.  I also have a new oven, that will be broken in tonight.

I have some dough from a local pizza joint, and all the ingredients for a pepperoni pizza.  Any help/advice would be great.  Thanks in advance.

It should work just fine.  Preheat your oven, with the griddle inside, for at least an hour.  Build your pizza on a peel that has been sprinkled with some cornmeal so that it slides off.  If you don't have a peel, use the back of a sheet pan and some parchment paper underneath.  Then slide the pizza and parchment onto your griddle.

If you have a new oven, you may need to go through a preheat/burn-off without food first...check your manual.


Chili beef fat substitutes I'm working on a vegetarian version of a brisket chili recipe. It takes 20 hours to make, so effort involved is not an issue.
I need a substitute for brisket fat. I render the fat, strain out the proteins, and toast the seed-based spices, along with salt, in the rendered fat. I then char the aromatics, and use this mixture to make a stock that is the base for my chili. It lends a noticeable "cured" body to the finished chili.
What can I substitute for the beef fat to make this vegetarian?

Not going to accept this, because a couple of professional cooks get primary credit, but here is the first draft for anybody interested. I am also still interested in any answers:
Coconut oil offers the saturated fat and body that I will be missing with a non-meat fat. Also palm oil, but I have several cups of cooking-grade coconut oil on hand already.
For nitrates, there are various seasoned salts that were suggested. I will be going with a mixture of sesame salt and a friend's line of umami salt.
For umami, powdered mushroom. I will be putting dehydrated shiitakes through a microplane, and sifting the results to remove any dirt.


Do breadcrumbs really act as a binder in meat preparations? I routinely hear that breadcrumbs are added to burgers and meatballs to bind them.  For example, see the answers to this question: how to stop meatballs falling apart. On the other hand, I have heard professional chefs say that the bread does not bind the meat. The egg is added to bind, the bread is added as filler.

I have never put bread or breadcrumbs in my meatballs or burgers and I don't have problems with them falling apart. I do however, put an egg yolk in and work them long enough that they don't break when pressure is applied.

So which is it? Filler, binder or both? If it's a binder, by what mechanism does it bind the meat?

Actually it is neither filler nor binder, but moisture retainer. Breadcrumbs in your ground meat will absorb much of the natural juices during cooking and then will release that moisture back into the meat as it rests resulting in a 'juicier' burger, meatball or meatloaf.


18 hours fermentation of Biga I am following Tony Gemignani's recipe for Pizza dough. For making a dough with a starter, he suggests making a Biga (which he calls "Tiga", link follows). Once the mixture is ready, he asks to let it ferment at room temperature for 18 hours. A few questions:

There is a connection between time, amount of yeast, temperature. Given that "room temperature" is not an exact measure, I guess that there should be some other measure of "when the starter is ready" and not specifically that 18 hours have passed.
18 Hours is really an inconvenient amount of time. If I start the Biga before going to work, that means I have to put it in the fridge in the middle of the night. If I start it later in the evening - I might be at work when it's time to put it in the fridge. So that's a really inconvenient schedule. I would prefer to use my fridge which has a constant temperature and have more control over the process and schedule.

Any ideas?

Thank you so much!

Master dough with starter: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/master-dough-with-starter-51255340

Tiga:
https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/tiga-51255350

1: Done is when you are happy with the result, less than 18 hours means less fermentation, more means more fermentation, it all depends on how much flavor you want to get out of it. 18 hours is approximate and as you say there are many factors. For a biga I'd use my nose, you will get a feel for when it is ready. Much more than 18 hours might get a bit strong.

2: Refrigerators are great tools for bread baking because they slow down the processes without stopping them or killing anything. You can ferment your biga/starter, or prove your bread in the fridge, it just takes longer. You could leave it out for 10 hours and then 16 in the fridge for example, or start it 2 days early and keep it in the fridge the whole time. A refrigerator is also very consistent in temperature, whereas room temperature varies from day to day

Keep in mind that the starter fermentation is about flavor development, and is an optional step. I always use a starter (a starter is a biga you don't ferment, you use it to get a good, healthy base for the rest of the dough) when making pizza dough but I rarely ferment it and I still get excellent results. Often I will make the dough and then refrigerate it for a day, I get the flavor development later in the process. So if you have 6 hours you can ferment the biga do it for 6 hours, it's not critical.


Foamy cakey layer on top of lemon squares Every time I bake lemon bars (regardless of recipe), I seem to end up with a foamy cake-like layer on top of the lemon curd. I'm not really sure where I am going wrong, but it is definitely a technique over recipe thing because regardless of the recipe I have this problem.

EDIT:
I make my own lemon curd, I don't buy it. Despite me varying recipes, and trying to vary my technique I still end up with a foamy cakey layer on top. The lemon mixture on top of my lemon bars consists of around (depending on recipe):
4 eggs, 300g sugar, juice of 2-3 lemons, zest and 55g flour.

I make my lemon squares the same way and get this top.  I haven't noticed it effects the end result.  I lowered my oven temp a bit to help with it, and it doesn't eliminate it, but it's thin and not overly browned.  And once the powdered sugar is on top, no one is any wiser.

The only way I've seen to not have this is to do a stove top version that's finished in the oven.


How to distinguish cream of tartar from bread improver A few months ago I bought a pocket of cream of tartar (unlabeled) and after a few days I bought some  bread improver. Now that I transferred both from their unlabeled pockets to air-tight containers, I can't seem to find out which one is which! Is there any way to distinguish them?

This depends on what is in your bread improver. Cream of tartar is salt which acts as a buffer. If the bread improver also contains acid (ascorbic acid is sometimes an ingredient), it makes it harder to distinguish, because it will react similarly in many circumstances.

The first simple test would be to add baking soda to a solution of each ingredient. If only one sample fizzes, this is the cream of tartar, and the bread improver has no acid. If both fizz, the bread improver has acid and you cannot tell from this test.

The second test needs six jars of water (or smaller things, like espresso cups) and pH strips. Dissolve each of the ingredients in two jars, and fill pure water into the third pair. Add some baking soda to one of the water jars, and a colorless acid to the other one. Use a pH strip to see that you added enough to be able to measure it, a change in pH by 1 step should be enough. Then add the same amount of soda to a cup with ingredient A and a cup of ingredient B. Repeat with the same amount of acid. Measure the acidity of the new cups. The ingredient whose solution remained at a neutral pH is the cream of tartar. There is a small chance that both will do this, because we can't know if the dough improver also have a buffering quality, but I think this is not so likely.

A third test, if you don't have pH strips for the second: whip an eggwhite with a pinch of each ingredient. The more stable foam will be the cream of tartar. With some luck, the bread improver eggwhite will whip even worse than pure eggwhite, if the dough improver has emulsifiers (intended to soften the bread). But this test is not perfect either, because ascorbic acid or other ingredients used to make stronger bread could also stabilize the eggwhite - they are intended to strengthen gluten, but will work on eggwhite proteins too.

The best test would be to use not chemical behavior, but taste. For this, you need a new, labeled sample of either cream of tartar or the same brand of dough improver. You can just dip your finger in it and lick. Then repeat (with a different finger) in each of the unlabeled ingredients. As long as you are sure that these two are indeed food additives (you don't have an unlabeled box of NaOH sitting in your cupboard, for example), there is nothing dangerous about the test. The taste should be distinctive enough.


What cut of short rib do I have, and how do I prepare them? I have beef short ribs that I'm not sure how to prepare. I'm not even sure what cut they are. They consist of only bone and intercostal meat. The blade fat and meat have been removed. They are then cut in ~2" wide strips. They are not "flanken" ribs. As far as I can tell this cut doesn't really exist. In short they look like long strips of pork spare ribs, but are beef.

I was intending to grill them, but with the way they are cut I think they will be too tough. Should I braise them?  Should I remove the bones and just braise the intercostal meat?

Do they look like this?

If so, the traditional preparation is to braise them for a good long time at a low temperature (use a slow cooker, and keep it just simmering) in beef stock and onions.  When they fall off the bone, take them out and remove any gristle, and re-assemble (for appearances sake).

Take your braising liquid, strain it, and boil it until it starts to thicken up. Add acid to taste (balsamic or wine).

I like to serve it on a bed of barley, and pour the sauce over.

This is tough meat, but very flavourful and it needs to cook slowly at a low temperature to soften the fibres.


Is there a tradition where eating something sweet before something savory is the norm? I have a preference for eating sweets before a main savoury. Are there any cooking traditions where this is the norm? Secondly, why has the tradition of having a main savoury followed by sweets arisen? Why not the other way around?

Its pretty common in indian culture to eat sweets before eating savory stuff,


What is the Key Difference Between Nougat and Meringue? Both are made from whipped eggs and caramel syrup. Why nougat is viscous and meringue is soft and can become dry and crunchy?

The basic difference is consistency: meringue tends to be lighter, airier, and drier, while nougat is more chewy.

This is achieved by different ratios of sugar to egg whites. Nougat has significantly more sugar in proportion to egg whites. (Compare this nougat recipe, ~4 cups sugar/honey to four egg whites, and this meringue recipe, 1/4 cup sugar to four egg whites.)


Help with ground beef seasoning: flavors are weak So I routinely serve up very simple style burritos in my apartment (beef, sour cream, cheese and white flour tortillas), and I've grown well past the days of using pre-mixed seasoning packets to flavor the ground beef.

However, after a particularly tired night where I reneged on that and used a packet that I had leftover sitting in the pantry, I realized just how much flavor it managed to impart into the beef comparative to what I normally get out of my manually done spice blends.

Typically speaking, I use a blend of:

Chili Powder
Chipotle Powder
Cumin
Mustard Powder
Freshly Cracked Black Pepper
Touch of Salt
Cinnamon (just a touch for some
sweetness)

I brown the beef, drain off the fat, and then get it back in the pan to simmer in a mix of red wine vinegar and water for volume. When about half of the liquid is gone, I then add the spice mix.

Generally I get the heat just right with the chili/chipotle, but it's not quite salty enough and the cumin flavor doesn't seem to really impart itself enough to the point I'd like. Likewise, there's only a hint of the vinegar flavor, which isn't necessarily a bad thing when all of the other flavors are weak, but if the other flavors came more to life, I'd expect the vinegar flavor to be at least a bit bolder as well.

Is there an ingredient I'm missing for this type of cooking that aids in making those flavors really stick to the beef? Or is this possibly just a case of "add more X"? Possibly a technique / timing issue? Alternatively, is there a spice out there that you could recommend as a stronger version of any of said ingredients? I'd really like to NOT overload the salt levels, and I'd also prefer to keep straining off the fat from the browning process.

Thanks in advance!

edit: Thank you all for the suggestions! I'm making them again tonight and will be trying a combination of Bob's and Mrs. Garden's answers. Going to be adding Worcestire Sauce, replacing water with Beef Stock, upping the amount of Cumin and using some fresh minced garlic towards the end of the simmer (and maybe some onion powder as well). I'll update when the verdict is out.

edit 2: The fresh garlic and extra cumin definitely brought out some more flavor, and the Worcestershire definitely gave a bit more punch than I would have thought it could possibly do. The flavor was fantastic, albeit a bit overpowering, but that I'll attribute that to having to readjust the amounts of everything with the new ingredients / ratios. Thank you all for your suggestions again.

To get more flavor out of cumin, you can use whole seeds, and toast them briefly in a pan before grinding. If you don't want to put forth that extra effort, you'll just need to add more cumin. If it's not salty enough, the best solution is to just add more salt (sorry). Salt will enhance the other flavors as well. A bit of cornstarch would help make the spices stick, and dry out the mixture. I'm not sure how much water and vinegar you're adding, but you may just be watering down your beef too much. I usually add just enough to keep the spices from sticking to the pan, but not so much that there is a lot of extra liquid that needs to be reduced.

Your spice mixtures may also contain some form of MSG. You can get a similar umami "punch" by adding a dash of Worcestershire sauce.

Edit: I don't know how I missed this, but the other answers point out the lack of garlic and onion. Your store-bought spice mixtures definitely contain plenty of those in powdered form, which you can use, but fresh is tasty too. Don't add fresh garlic too early, as it can easily burn and turn bitter.


When should I put salmon in my rice cooker? I have found what sounds like a delicious recipe for salmon and brown rice .  This is to be cooked in a rice cooker .  The brown rice is to be cooked as usual   .  Once it has been cooking for 30 - 35 min   you are to remove the lid and place the steamer basked with the salmon inside and continue cooking for 10 min .
The rice cooker I have recommends letting the rice sit in the warmer for 15 min after cooking and before serving.

My question is,       should I put the salmon in after cooking the rice for 30 min  OR should it really be put in after the rice has cooked its full 45 min  and let the fish steam during the 15 min  warming phase ...  I don't want over-cooked salmon

It's hard to say without knowing more. What's the temperature inside the rice cooker during the 15 minute resting phase? How big is the rice cooker? How much salmon are you adding, and what will that do to the temperature inside the cooker?

Ultimately, you want to get the fish to its target temperature, but you don't want to exceed that temperature. If you've ever poached fish, you'll probably know that it's the temperature more than the time that affects the outcome. The trouble you face with the rice cooker is that its temperature while cooking is probably much higher than you want to cook the fish to (salmon is "done" somewhere around 135°F, but steam has a minimum temperature of 212°F). Once you turn the cooker off, its temperature will start to drop and keep dropping until it reaches room temperature. Adding a mass of cold fish is going to speed up that process, so the amount of fish you add will make a difference. A larger rice cooker will have a greater amount of latent heat, so that makes a difference too. And taking the lid off the cooker periodically to check the fish only adds to the degree of difficulty.

I think your best bet is some educated trial and error. For a small amount of salmon (~two servings) in a medium-sized cooker, I'd add the fish a few minutes before the rice is done cooking and then leave the lid on for maybe 10 minutes after the rice has stopped cooking. Check it at that point, and if the salmon is done the rice will probably have rested enough to be tasty. If the salmon isn't quite done and the temp inside the cooker is still above the target temp for the fish, put the lid back on (quickly!) and let it sit for a while longer. If the salmon isn't quite done and the temperature in the cooker is close to or lower than the target temperature for the fish, finish the fish in a medium (say, 300°F) oven for a few minutes.

Remember that you're dealing with a number of variables. Be sure to write down the times and quantity of ingredients each time so that you can refine the recipe, and be aware that changing the quantities may require changing the times too.


Is it okay to eat gorgonzola cheese mold? My pack of Gorgonzola came with greenish/blue mold. is it okay to eat that mold? I intend to eat the cheese by itself.

Gorgonzola, like any other blue cheese, is supposed to have mold. It should have blue mold radiating from "veins" through the middle, like so:

Normally this pre-existing mold actually helps prevent other molds from growing, but if you see more than one type of mold (especially a different colour like green or black), then you should throw it out, because it is a soft cheese. If it's just the blue, it's perfectly fine and expected.


Is it safe to roast marshmallows over a sterno flame? It's become common practice around my apartment to use a sterno to roast marshmallows because it's easy, cheap and (primarily) because we can't have a campfire in my living room.

Is this dangerous?

After contacting Sterno with the same question, they indicated that the only safe gel product for direct food heating is marked “ethanol” on the canister. Those marked “methanol” are not meant for direct food heating.


Replacement for Thyme Im making a strawberry tart where the sauce is made from boiling thyme, port/tawny and strawberry juice. Is there any replacement for thyme in this?

The flavour of thyme can't be imitated by substitution. You can either omit it or devise a different sauce. Various herbs (basil for example) are combined with strawberries in various dishes, but the proportions are up to you. You may want to search for recipes using both strawberries and each of the available herbs to help with both selection and quantity.


Eggwash/Milkwash on Partially Baked Quickbread? Some quickbread recipes I make do not result in a great looking top surface, even though they taste fine. They would benefit from either an eggwash or a milkwash. Obviously I can't brush a wash on a quickbread batter the way I would on a pie crust or cookie dough, i.e., before baking.

Does anyone have experience pulling a partially baked quickbread out of the oven to brush on a wash to get a nice-looking top? At what point in the bake should I do this? If so, which is preferable, egg or milk? I'm looking for shine and depth of color.

Arlo, assuming you're talking about relatively dense quickbreads such as zucchini, pumpkin or banana bread or the like, I have not had any trouble with collapsing.  I use egg or egg white wash sometimes(*) around the time I do my first toothpick test and it comes out just a bit wet.  So, call it maybe 7-8 minutes before it's finally done. I've not tried a milk wash.

Honestly, while this does give it a nice sheen, these breads are so dark already that it doesn't really do anything for the color.

For a sweet bread like banana etc, you can also get a nicer looking top by evenly sprinkling fairly large crystal sugar across the top of the dough (batter) before it goes in.

(*) If I'm presenting to non-family members like at a work potluck.  For the kids, who cares?  Haha.


making cream with almond milk and fat I want to make a replacement for heavy cream. I'm considering almond milk blended with a fat. I have a high powered blender on the way for this purpose (yes, it will blend).

Some fats I'm considering:

Coconut Oil
Butter
Tallow (wet rendered, pretty neutral in flavor)

Blending the almond milk and fat together, is it possible to create a reasonably stable suspension with a consistency similar to cream this way?

Will the fat invevitably separate after a few hours?

Do I need to add an emulsifier or other ingredient?

You should be able to mix almond butter into almond milk to raise the fat level to that of cream. That should be enough, assuming you want the cream as cream, or for a ganache or something. I've certainly done this with coconut milk and coconut oil, and used in a ganache for a chocolate cake.

For whipping, you'll need something with more stability than almonds. Adding gelatine or xanthan gum should help with that.


Expiration dates vs. "Best before" dates? This has been discussed briefly elsewhere (e.g. here), but it doesn't seem to have been asked generally.

In the USA, there are a variety of dates printed on foods. Unfortunately, there seems to be little convention. The list includes at least the following (feel free to add more!):

Best by [DATE]
Best if used by [DATE]
Best before [DATE]
Expiry date: [DATE]
Expiration date: [DATE]
Expires by [DATE]
Use by [DATE]
Use before [DATE]
Freeze by [DATE]
Eat fresh or freeze by [DATE]

What meaning is implied/conveyed by each of those?

For example:

What do each of those mean in terms of taste, quality, safety, etc?
Are any of them firmer deadlines than another, and are any intended to be mere guidelines?
Common sense tells us that "expires on [DATE]" means it's assumed to be unsafe after [DATE]), but does it say anything more -- or less -- than that, and what of the others?

Here is a fairly extensive and generally accepted write-up http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/do-food-expiration-dates-matter

The only federally mandated expiration date in the US is infant formula, but some states do have others especially on dairy.  Most of the labeling in the US is through voluntary programs, while some are strictly marketing gimmicks like beer "born on" dates.  In general, most of the regulations are metered out by state, not federal rules and can mean slightly different things in different states.  For example, milk is generally considered still usable for 5 to 7 days after the labeled date.  But that date may be different in different states.  In most places, sell by date is in the 21 to 28 day range from pasteurization.  Montana though, the rule it 12 days, which would mean on the surface that milk should last an additional week or two past the label date in Montana.  Not necessarily though, as in Montana the milk may be allowed to sit in storage for longer before it is pasteurized.  Eggs in some states may get a 21 day sell by date while other states are 28 days or more and different states have very different rules on how those eggs are handled.  Having been licensed in one state for eggs myself, I can tell you their rules included any egg collected in that state had to be labeled for 28 days from collection, but if the egg was from out of state no labeling laws were applied at all, the egg could be of any age.  Yeah, how crazy was that rule?  It allowed old eggs from other states to be blindly dumped into that state.

In most states, as long as it has been correctly stored, most food is still fine beyond the label dates, though quality will be dropping more rapidly after that date.  Many states do however have regulations stating that items beyond those dates cannot be sold or even donated after the date in some categories of foods even if the food would still be considered good.


Pulled Pork in a slow cooker. To brown or not to brown? I'm going to make some barbeque pulled pork in a slow cooker. I've done it a few times with some good results, but I'm always looking for ways to improve.

Here's what I've been doing:
1. Brine pork for a few hours
2. Slow cook all day with carrots, celery, and onions
3. Shred and toss with Montgomery Inn or Hickory Brown Suger Sweet Baby Rays bbq sauce

Here's the question:
Would browning the pork help in any way? Could the pan drippings be used to jazz up the bbq sauce?

EDIT:
this also popped into my head: Should I sautee the onions ahead of time?

Thanks.

A few things...

I brine for 12-24 hours. It really does make a difference.
Don't bother browning the meat... you don't want a crust, you want the meat to break down.
Make your own barbecue sauce! There's a zillion recipes, and it always tastes better. When I make pulled pork, I take the cooking liquid (you are cooking in liquid, yeah?) and reduce it right down to almost a demiglace, and use that as the base for my bbq sauce.


Why is freshly-chopped garlic sticky? When chopping garlic the blade of my knife, and any fingers used to handle the garlic, become sticky.

What causes this reaction?

Is there any way to counteract it?

EDIT: After trying both suggestions out on my own, olive oil worked best for me. This feels very much like a results may vary situation, so I encourage anyone curious to try both ways.

When crushed or chopped, garlic releases mercaptins from within its cells (sulfur containing compounds). Sulfur readily forms bonds with other amino acids, notably cystine which itself contains a sulfur atom in its chemical structure. When two sulfhydryl groups (S-H) come into close proximity, a disulfide bridge can be formed, creating a relatively strong chemical bond between the two molecules. This chemical attraction between the proteins in you skin and the garlic compounds causes the sensation of stickiness, much like hydrolyzed sugar sticking to your skin. Since lipids (oils) have a stronger attraction to the oils that coat your skin, they displace the sulfurs and prevent your hands from being sticky.

When garlic is roasted, the proteins within are denatured (lose their function) and lead to a milder taste and less sticky chemicals.


Troubleshooting Oven BBQ Cooking Times I'm having a hard time letting go of using cooking time & internal temperature as metrics when it comes to cooking BBQ, especially when using the oven.

For example, I'm currently baking baby-back ribs wrapped in foil.  This recipe calls 3 1/2-4 hours at 275 degrees.  However, the ribs reached an internal temperature of 200+ degrees after only 2 hours.

I took the ribs out and tested for done-ness, but found the meat cooked well done but chewy.  After letting them sit (wrapped) on the counter for about 15 minutes, the ribs went back in the oven at 225 for the remaining time.

If the issue was simply that I need to cook them lower and longer, I'd be fine with that- but it's not.  People achieve great results using various times, temperatures, and recipes.  This is definitely a problem with technique.

My question is this- is an internal temperature of 200+, after only 2 hours, not excessive?

The temperature you are reading is heavily flawed. There is no way your probe's reading will not be heavily biased by proximity to bone, and the relative thinness of the meat.

Regardless of all that, barbecue is done when it is done. When cooking meats whose connective tissue needs to be broken down, the final temperature will be well beyond food safety levels. You need to examine other metrics to assess whether or not your ribs are ready for consumption. Is the meat pulled back from the ends of the bones? Usually a quarter to half-inch is a good sign. Does the rack bend easily when picking it up from the middle (with a pair of tongs)? Does a probe slide in and out of the meat with ease? If you tug on one of the bones, does it loosen from the meat ever so slightly? This is what you should be looking for.

TLDR: taking the temperature of ribs is wildly inaccurate, and you should not be doing it anyway. Use tactile and visual cues to determine if you are done cooking.


How can I tell the difference between unmarked sugar and stevia? My wife just started back on her doctor-recommended ketogenic diet (due to a medical history of high blood pressure and Crohn's disease in her family). She's to have reduced carbohydrates and sugars, and to use artificial sweeteners for anything she would normally add sugar to.

While making our morning coffee, I found a clear plastic container with what looks like stevia stored away - a taste confirms that it has a slightly different taste than the sugar I have on hand.

But I want to be absolutely sure before I recommend she use it in her baking - is there any surefire way to tell if this is stevia and not sugar?

Note: It may also possibly be Truvia.

Don't throw it away.  Worst case you use up the mystery sweetener on yourself, and use a new pack of Stevia for your wife and anything you share. That's what I recommend if you're not convinced by my solution or don't have sensitive kitchen scales.

At room temperature, sucrose (normal sugar) is very soluble in water: about 200 g of sugar will dissolve in 100 g of water.

It's harder to get a figure for the solubility of Stevia as it's not a single compound but a mixture of related compounds.  However various patents claim "high solubility" stevia preparations of around 30 g per 100 g water, or around 1/7 as much.

This is enough of a difference to test: If (with plenty of stirring but no heat) the mystery sweetener will dissolve in an equal mass (weight) of water, it's sugar. If not it's stevia.  This only works if you weigh it.  You can't do this by volume.

You can always compare to known sugar; a comparison to know stevia is less useful unless it's identical, and brands evolve. The conclusion holds for fructose too (that's even more soluble), but glucose, which you're unlikely to have as pure powder at home, needs slightly more than its own weight of water to dissolve it.

Pure stevia is much sweeter than sugar, and when concentrated may have an aftertaste. It's also sold blended. When blended with other sweeteners the solubility test probably still applies (certainly in the case of erythritol, find in Truvia). Sometimes stevia is bulked out to make it a more direct substitute for sugar. The bulking agents may well be rather soluble and a source of carbohydrates (maltodextrin is sometimes used).


Homemade coconut milk in coffee compared to store bought I've been making my own homemade coconut milk recently because I don't like the list of ingredients (thickeners, emulsifiers, etc.) typically found in store-bought coconut milk.

The problem is, I really like the taste of store-bought coconut milk when I use it in coffee, because I think it tastes remarkably similar to real milk. So, I would actually like to mimic the store-bought version at home. I don't care as much about the consistency as I do about the richness and flavor (or lack of flavor, actually).

At first, I thought I could just water down the coconut milk I usually make and that would be the end of it. However, it's still not quite the same. The homemade version tastes fine by itself, but when I use it to make lattes in the morning there's a certain bitterness/sharpness I can taste. (Note: when I make homemade almond milk, I can also taste that same bitter/sharp flavor as soon as I pair it with espresso). The store-bought version tastes smooth and clean by comparison, just like real milk. I know it's not the espresso at fault, because it tastes good when I make an Americano or a regular dairy milk latte.

So, apart from the thickeners, emulsifier and fortification, store-bought coconut milk must be processed differently. In short, how do they take the coconut taste out of coconut milk while still keeping somewhat of a rich creaminess?

Are you talking about canned coconut milk, or the newfangled coconut "milk" beverage in cartons, meant as a non-dairy replacement for milk, like So Delicious and Coconut Dream? The latter is formulated specifically to taste and behave as close to dairy milk as possible. The (tri)calcium phosphate not only fortifies the milk, but also buffers it and makes it behave and taste more like real milk. Non-dairy coffee creamer and cheap half & half have dipotassium phosphate or similar phosphate salts for the same purpose.

I don't know if I can suggest anything to help. If you try regular canned coconut milk (with no dilution, stabilizers, or fortification), is it any better than your homemade coconut milk? You might try experimenting with heating your coconut milk, or adding small amounts of salt and/or sugar, or blending the warm coconut milk to better emulsify it.


How to keep shallots from overpowering vinegarettes Most recipes call for minced shallot in a basic vinegarette.  However, whenever I use it, the taste of shallot overpowers everything else in the dressing, leaving an aftertaste that usually lasts through to the next day.

I've tried reducing the amount of shallot, but no matter how little of it I add, it always takes over.  The problem is, I like the taste of shallots, and I think they taste great with greens.  I just want to eat a salad that tastes of things besides shallot.

So, is there a way to keep the taste of shallots in my dressing without it being the main course?

I always rinsed onions and shallots, to remove the compounds released when slicing through the cell walls. Since reading the following article in Cook's Illustrated March 2011 edition, I prefer its baking soda method.

  Toning Down Raw Onion’s Bite

  We’ve often heard the claim that soaking sliced or chopped raw onions in liquid can mellow their harsh taste by drawing out the pungent sulfur compounds known as thiosulfinates that are produced when the onion is cut.

  But what kind of liquid and how long of a soak? We tested three of the most commonly recommended liquids—water, milk, and vinegar—by soaking the cut onions in each for 5 and 15 minutes. We found that 15 minutes was necessary for any of the treatments to be effective.

  The vinegar soak did rid the onions of much of their burn, but it was replaced by an equally strong sour taste, even after thorough rinsing. Milk was also very effective at removing the sulfur compounds, but it left the onions tasting washed-out.

  The best method—better than even plain water—was our own: a baking-soda solution (1 tablespoon per cup of water). Unlike the other methods, which merely do their best to leach away the offending sulfur compounds, the alkaline baking soda neutralizes sulfenic acid, the immediate precursor to the harsh-tasting thiosulfinates, and prevents them from forming in the first place.

  Just be sure to rinse the onions thoroughly before using to remove any soapy baking-soda taste.


What would the drawbacks/benfits be to making French toast with egg alternatives (Egg Beaters, etc) Would there be any benefit to making French toast with a low cholesterol version of Egg alternative? Or possibly just using the whites for French toast? (I'm currently using the very basic 1 egg/3 Tbsp. of milk recipe)

There's not a lot of difference between egg substitute (e.g., Egg Beaters), and egg whites. So the options you mention, they are roughly equivalent to one another.

The obvious thing both of these substitutes are missing is the yolk. An egg yolk adds a LOT of flavor to this sort of cooked egg dish.

In a french toast, whereas egg white is soaked up by the bread and creates a fairly unique texture, the egg yolk is the key to the flavor and it is what makes it rich. I think the egg white french toast is doable[1] but I don't think it will taste wonderful.

In other news, may I quote Thomas Keller in relation to a recipe of cheesecake (again, paraphrased by me) - If you are worried about the fat, have a smaller portion, and don't do my recipe with low fat alternatives.

I think it applies to cholesterol too.

[1] I certainly haven't tried this since I'm already way too fat to eat any french toast anyways...


Why does inside of cooked canned chicken always taste cold? Recently I’ve been getting canned chicken and then frying it, baking it etc.  What I notice is that the chicken in general feels cold and the inside always feels colder.
You might say that’s normal but if I get raw chicken and then cook it the whole thing always feels tastefully hot inside and out.
Canned chicken(cooked or not) always seems to have a mushy texture unlike raw chicken.  Do you know why and why does it feel like cooking still leaves the inside quite cold compared to other cooking methods.  As you can see from pic, Even visibly the outside might become dark and crusty but the inside still looks very pinkish though I know these are precooked. Had it been raw chicken then cooked it would have all become at least white inside.
Thanks.

The product you're using is made of "mechanically separated meat", aka "white slime". It's produced by pumping or centrifuging ground chicken bones through a sieve to separate remaining bits of flesh. While chemically similar to regular meat, mechanically separated meat has lost its meat-like texture during the separation process. It tastes mushy because it is mush. Frying it will dehydrate and brown the surface, giving it a more palatable texture, but no amount of cooking will approximate the texture of regular chicken; it had that texture once, and then industrial food processing was done to it.
The pink color has nothing to do with rawness, or with chicken-ness for that matter. That product is designed as a lower-quality, less-expensive alternative to tinned formed pork products like Spam. In order to "sell" it as a Spam substitute, colorings are added to make it look approximately like ham (or, at least, less like mechanically separated chicken).
Incidentally, it is also possible (though perhaps harder) to buy tinned chicken which is just tinned chicken, not mechanically separated meat slurry. The texture of that is basically the same as that of boiled chicken.


What's the correct way to garnish with greens? So a number of dishes I've constructed have called for me to garnish the final dish with a bit of parsley or mint or something similar for color or taste or overall visual appeal.  However, it seems my technique in this area is slightly off and it always ends up looking like I just trimmed the hedges over my plate.

How to best do this? Chop them into tiny bits? Whole leaves? Large pile in the center?

The key is how you expect the person to eat it.

Some garnishes are not for eating at all - the sprig of mint or entire stalk of rosemary that the eater is expected to just remove and set aside. I don't do this - and plenty of judges on plenty of cooking shows have intoned "never put anything on the plate that I am not supposed to eat" - but if you do, make it as large as possible and just one piece so it's easy to remove.

Assuming I'm supposed to eat it, am I supposed to get a little in each bite? Cut it up small. Am I supposed to get rather a lot in each bite? Leave it bigger. Is it a herb that tastes different chopped than whole? If so, which way do you want it to taste?

If the item is picked up to eat (eg an hors d'oeuvre) then typically you leave the pieces larger so they're less likely to cascade off. Search for images of chive garnish and you'll see tons of teeny little pieces on a tomato salad, and single or double 2" pieces draped across a devilled egg.

Above all, practice and confidence. If you know why you're putting parsley, mint, cilantro or chives on the plate at the last minute, you'll also know what size, how many, and whether they are in one little pile or all over. And when you know all that you'll bring out the plate with confidence.


Substitute for eggs in Macarons (No Legumes) My absolute favorite things to bake are French macarons. I make them for family gatherings, potlucks, or just to give to my public library. A huge issue, however, is that often times I just make them at home for my family, but my mom is allergic to eggs, so she can never eat them. For a while I've wanted to find an alternative to egg whites for the meringue. I found out about chickpea water (Aquafaba) and other legumes, and started to plan getting those and making meringue using Aquafaba. But then I ran into another issue. My mom told me how she's allergic to not only chickpeas, but ALL legumes. Now I am completely lost on how to make macarons for her.

I thought about whipping up heavy whipping cream into hard peaks (assuming it could function the same as meringue). You're whipping air into something and I thought that's the most important part of macarons. Does anyone know if this works or does anyone think I should try using heavy whipping cream?

Finally, is there anything other than legumes that I could use in place of egg whites in meringue? A reply would be greatly appreciated.

I believe you can use sun-flower lecithin (make sure you don't get soy-lecithin) as the foaming agent, optionally together with xanthan gum some or some other thickener to get the desired thickness you want.

You'll need to beat the lecithin+water+sugar until it gets foamy. And then fold in the almond flour.


What is the easiest way to grind poppy seeds? When I prepare a poppy seeds filling (e.g. for a pie), I currently use an old-style coffee grinder. It takes small amounts (like 2 tbsp at a time) of poppy seeds and grinds them into powder in 2-3 minutes. The resulting quality is OK for me, but the process is not very easy as I often need to stop for the grinder to cool down, to move around the seeds that got stuck to the inner walls, and it takes quite some time when you need to process 200-300 g of poppy seeds that way.

So, my question is: Is there any kitchen appliance or just some other way to grind poppy seeds easier without losing on the quality?

You need to acquire a poppy seed grinder (picture #1). It's still not easy to grind a lot of poppy seed — you will need to break out your supply of elbow grease — but it's much more efficient than a coffee grinder. It also does a better job, because it actually crushes the seeds to release all their oils and other goodness, rather than haphazardly cutting apart some of the seeds and not others. (They do make electric grinders [picture #2], but they're aimed at bakeries and the like, not for home use.)

1.  2.

If you're stuck using what you have, namely the coffee grinder, try adding sugar. It helps keep the poppy seed from sticking everywhere you don't want it to. Naturally, you then need to take the sugar quantity into account when you're actually using the poppy seed.


Make lemon balm tea - recommended method I get a ton of lemon balm in my yard and I'd love to make a tea from it - especially an iced tea. I'm a total tea newbie, so I have a few questions:

Should I dry it first (in my food dehydrator) or should I use it fresh as-is?
What ratio of lemon balm to water should I use?
Lemon balm seems relatively subtle - should I use it in tandem with other herbs/teas or can it stand alone?

The flavors will be different; try both and see which you prefer. Personally, I love teas made from fresh herbs.
I'd start with, say, 6 fresh leaves in a mug of tea. Roll them and unroll them first to bruise the leaves and release essential oils. Depending on how you like that, adjust up or down next time.
It is in the mint family, it should make a tea somewhat similar in character to mint tea. You should just try it alone first and see. If you decide it needs something else, any of the herbs that go with mint will make sense here too.


Do all blenders have the problem of food sticking to the side away from the spinning blades? We have a fairly cheap (50$) blender and when we puree food the food constantly sticks to the sides so we have to stop the blender 10 times to push the food back down so that the blades hit it. Is this common, or would a nicer/more expensive blender solve this problem?

In short, if you have enough liquid then a good blender shouldn't get stuck and you shouldn't have to scrape it down.  Read the answers to my question here - Blender Buying - Square vs. Round Container - that basically addresses the same thing.

Go for a square, glass container with ridges.


How to increase the shelf life of Bechamel sauce? how to increase the shelf life of bechamel sauce and what is the actual shelf life of white sauce?

You cannot increase the shelf life of random food. There are databases with food lifetimes, if you can't find your food there, assume 3-5 days for any cooked, ready to eat dish - that applies to bechamel too.

You can try freezing it and see if it comes out well; there is a chance it will separate on thawing. If freezing does not work, there is nothing you can do. Adding random things like acids or salt will not increase shelf life. Conservation methods which rely on acid and salt require a certain concentration, which very much changes the taste of the food (think pickles), is not applicable to just any food, and each recipe requires extensive testing before it is declared safe. So you have to accept shelf lives as a fact of life, and work your schedule around them.

See also How long can I store a food in the pantry, refrigerator, or freezer? for a rough overview of shelf life of food types, and visit databases like STillTasty for exact shelf lives.


What is ganache, and how it is used in truffles? Does it differ from chocopaste? I need to know what ganache is and how it is used in different truffle recipes. Also, how it is different from chocopastes?

Ganache is a mixture of cream and chocolate, made by heating the cream and mixing in the chocolate until smooth and fully incorporated.  Butter is then often added to give the final product a characteristic "shine".  Ganache can be used as a filling or as a coating/topping in truffles and is a frequent component in other desserts.

I've encountered "chocopaste" at an Indian grocer before, and it is essentially a homogenized mixture of chocolate and milk with other ingredients.  It has a similarity to ganache in that it contains chocolate and dairy combined.  The commercial chocopaste I've seen have also had other ingredients (added fats and/or sugars, stabilizers, preservatives, etc.), unlike ganache made at home which would contain only cream and chocolate.  In this way chocopaste is somewhat like Nutella, the chocolate-hazelnut spread.  In fact, the chocopastes I've seen came in similarly-shaped jars.

Chocopaste appears to be used as everything from a dessert topping or filling to a base for making chocolate drinks.

Here is an example of chocopaste, containing the following ingredients:

Sugar
Hydrogenated Vegetable Fat
Alkalised Cocoa Powder
Milk Powder
Permitted emulsifiers
Added flavors

In terms of substituting one for the other, the added stabilizers, sugars, and flavors in chocopaste may affect the final product.  Hydrogenated vegetable fat isn't the same as butter either, so mouthfeel and flavor will not be the same.

I would expect different chocopastes to potentially vary in terms of flavor and sweetness.  For uses as filling/topping/etc, I would just try out whatever products interest you and compare for yourself.


How can I remove burnt smell from white sauce? I was preparing white sauce from milk.
I started with boiling one half litres skimmed milk for the above.
The bottom was getting burnt as I was not stirring continuously.

Finally the white sauce for pasta had the pungent smell of burnt milk.
I have tried adding peeled raw potatoes but no idea if it worked as the burnt milk smell and taste prevailed.
Then, tried adding sugar step by step while stirring...still the smell was persisting.
I have tried increasing garlic and onion but the taste and smell remained.

Please let me know how the burnt smell of milk can be removed in these kind of sauces.
Thank you.

There is nothing you can add or do to your sauce to remove or mask the burnt taste.

Really. Don't even try. Throw it out and start over, being careful not to burn it this time.

For some foods, there are various tricks you can try for removing the burnt taste, but they all start with removing the burnt bits. With a sauce where you've already thoroughly mixed everything together, that just isn't possible.

A side note: you don't need to boil the milk for white sauce. If you have trouble with remembering to stir the milk while it's heating, just use a method that involves adding cold milk to a hot roux. Of course, in that case you need to remember to not burn the roux, but for Béchamel/white sauce, you're basically barely cooking the fat+flour before you add the milk, so it shouldn't be an issue.


What juicer is best for leafy greens and vegetables (like carrots)? There are many juicers out there and not any one juicer is best at juicing everything. I am specifically interested in juicing leafy greens and vegetables like carrots.

Hydraulic press juices such as the Norwalk first grind the produce into a pulp, then press the juice out of the pulp. The theory is that malic acid in green apple pulp can release more vitamins and minerals from the other vegetables and fruit. The hydraulic press action squeezes more juice out than other types of juicers. But you're looking at $2500 for a Norwalk.

Macerating juicers would be next, up around the $400+ mark. Gear crushing action, leafy vegetables no problem. Not as much juice extraction as the hydraulic press machines.

Then would come auger style juicers, they easily handle leafy vegetables and wheatgrass, but give a little less juice than the macerating juicers.

Finally the cheapest powered juicers, the centrifugal juicers. I've had trouble using them for leafy greens as there are not solid enough to be forced chopping blades. Usually more solid vegetables are required to follow them to force them through.

Here's a paragraph from the popular Breville centrifugal juicer seen in the movie Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead:

  "If you are juicing herbs, sprouts or leafy green
  vegetables either wrap then together to form a
  bundle or juice them in the middle of a combination
  of ingredients to obtain the best extraction.

  If juicing herbs or leafy green vegetables on their own, the juice
  yield will be low due to the nature of centrifugal juicing, it is
  advised to juice them as with a combination of other fruit and
  vegetables"

Carrots are fine in all the juicers.


Why does cooked chicken taste different after a few days in the fridge? I have observed that cooked (fried) chicken tastes a little bit different when left in the fridge for 2-3 days. I don't observe this with pork or beef. Is there a way to get around this or is this really normal for chicken meat?

There are a few reasons why leftovers taste different. Here I will base my answer from the chapter on meat of On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee (Which I highly recommend to anyone wanting to learn the whys of cooking).

  At the same time that cooking develops the characteristic flavors of meat, it also promotes chemical changes that lead to characteristic, stale, cardboard-like “warmed-over flavors” when the meat is stored and reheated.

The reason this is observed in chicken earlier than with pork or beef is the following:

  The principal source of off-flavors is unsaturated factty acids, which are damaged by oxygen and iron from myoglobin,
  Meats with a greater proportion of unsaturated fat in their fat tissue (poultry and pork) are more susceptible to warmed-over flavor than beef and lamb.

Here are a few ways described in the book to minimize the development of off-flavors:

Season the food with herbs and spices that contain antioxidant compounds.
Use low-permeability plastic wraps to cover the meat, and eliminate air pockets in the package.
Reheat the meat properly.
Of course, eat as soon as possible.


To much green pepper in my chili, can I fix it? Can I fix it? What can I add, everything I see says about pepper. It has to much green pepper in it.

Add more of the other ingredients
Add dairy
Add acid
Add a sweetener
Serve with bland, starchy foods

Options 1 and 5 provide a solution which will not alter the flavor of your chili too much.

Source of ideas: The Kitchn


Criteria for silicone utensils What are some things to look out for when looking to purchase silicone utensil sets?

I submitted an edit to fix up your question because it sounded like a product recommendation.  Can you also provide more info, like what you would be using them for?

Here are a few characteristics I looked for in my recent purchase:

Thickness - thinner spatulas would be easier to slide under food
Stiffness in the handle - better for stirring soups, stews
Blade shape - for getting into the corners and curves of your jars, bowls, and pans

Of course, read up on reviews of the products you're researching.  These will attest to build quality, construction, ease of use for other customers.


Canning with water bath While canning tomato sauce today using the water bath method, three lids "pushed outward" while in the water bath.  After they were removed at the end of the canning time, they all seemed to seal, but still have a dent where they were pushed out.  What caused this and is it safe to used this sauce?

The cause of the lids bulging during processing is pressurized air trapped in the jar. This happens when the lids are too tight (not leaving sufficient head space can also be a factor). The bands should only be finger tight - From FreshPreserving.com

  CLEAN mason jar rim and threads of jar using a clean, damp cloth to
  remove any food residue. Center lid on jar allowing sealing compound
  to come in contact with the jar rim. Apply band and adjust until fit
  is fingertip tight. Place filled jars in canner until recipe is used
  or canner is full. Lower rack with jars into water. Make sure water
  covers jars by 1 to 2 inches.

Creased or dented lids have a high failure rate, as such, storing them on the shelf would not be considered safe.

To be safe, the jars with buckled lids can be reprocessed with new lids within 24 hours, refrigerated and treated as if open, or the contents could be frozen.


Stockpot double as beer brewing pot I wanted to buy a large stockpot for canning tomato sauce and be able to use the same pot for the double purpose of beer brewing. I'm considering Update International Stainless 40 Qt. stockpot. It has stainless encased aluminum base to make thickening sauce less likely to stick. Does this sound like a reasonable solution? I also would use the pot to make meat or vegetable stocks which I freeze ahead in portions for later use.

Brewer here. Yes, that should work fine.

Material-wise, you want stainless steel so there is no leaching of metal when you start to boil, and no break down if you use chemicals in it later for cleaning (don't ever leave any chemicals in the pot though, follow directions, many chemicals will even eat away stainless steel if left too long). Either stainless steel or aluminum can handle the heat. Stainless steel encased aluminum pots actually tend to heat more evenly though (not much of a concern when brewing), so that's nice.

The only consideration you have is size.  40 qt. is 10 gallons.  Most intro batches of beer are 5 gallons. This would be perfect for a 5 gallon batch.  If you mash (as opposed to extract), you will collect about 6-7 gallons of wort (pre boil). This will boil off leaving you the amount you want.  See where I'm going?  If you up the brew from 5 to 10 gallons, the next most common homebrew size, the 10 gallon pot is not big enough.  There are tricks to get around this though, such as boiling less liquid and topping off with water to desired amount, but having less liquid affects hop utilization (not too big of a deal on a homebrew scale though).

So, I'd say if you're just starting out, this pot size is fine. It will get you through intro size (5 gal) and will even work at 10 gal, depending on how you do it and what you want to do.  Anything bigger, you'll probably want pro and/or dedicated equipment.


Undercooked beans in chili? I made a bit of a mistake, being a lazy bachelor and inexperienced at cooking.  I was making chili and when it came time to add beans I discovered I didn't have any canned beans.  I did however have some dried beans.  I decided to save time and add these directly to the pot of chili and add some water.

However, after much simmering the beans maintain a certain unpalatable crispness.  I have also read that undercooked beans contain a chemical lectin which can cause stomach discomfort.  I have also read that beans should be soaked, the water discarded to remove the lectin, and then boiled to cook them.

Is there any way to salvage this?  Should I just continue cooking the chili for hours?  Will I have to throw out my potentially delicious chili?

It looks to me like you have a couple of things going on here:

You are worried about the safety of undercooked beans
You want your beans to be palatable

To address the safety issue, I think we'd need to know more about the kind of beans you're using. Kidney beans are the ones most well known to be toxic if they are undercooked. Other beans, say, great northerns, or pintos, wouldn't have the same problem.

Then again, you still want a chili that is edible.

You certainly can cook dried beans, but there are a few factors getting in your way.

They do take a while. I cook beans fairly often in our house. Even after an overnight soak, they still often take (depending on the kind of bean) 2 1/2 hours at a low simmer.
Then you have the acid issue. Most chili is tomato-based, and even those that aren't usually have some other sort of acid. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that yours does. Acid does inhibit the softening of beans, and this can work for you or against you. Many (non-texan) chili cooks find that the acid keeps the pre-cooked beans from turning to mush. On the other hand, the amount of tomatoes in most chilis means that you could boil for weeks, and those beans will probably remain hard.
Lastly, I'm guessing that you don't cook with dried beans too often. I don't mean that to be an insult--I've actually done the exact same thing as you, and found myself coping with a pot of chili full of hard beans that I owed to a football party. The reason that I bring this up is that, believe it or not, dried beans actually go stale. If they're old, they may never soften.

As I mentioned, I did have this same thing happen to a pot of my chili. If memory serves, I sat there fishing out each bean for probably longer than it was worth.


should my sour pickles be sealed while pickling? I'm making sour pickles. A lot of recipes say that the lid should be loose or upside down so that the pickles have room to "breath". I keep the jars out, often coming into contact with light from outside.

Does leaving the top on loose pose an increased risk of botulism? I understood that botulism bacteria multiply rapidly in an anaerobic (no air) environment.

The brine is pretty darn salty (1tb : 1cup of water), and it contains no vinegar.

Those pickles create their own acid. Wild bacteria that can handle the very high salt content produce lactic acid, thus preserving the pickles.

Botulism won't grow in that much salt and with how acidic the pickles are going to be when they're done. That's kind of the point of pickling in the first place.

The instructions say to leave the lid loose because the fermentation may also produce gas and it needs to escape. You don't want a half-fermented-sour-pickle bomb to go off in your kitchen.


What is coriander root and where can you get it? I mentioned the book Thai Food in an answer to another question. This reminded me of one of my longest running quandaries with it. Many of the recipes mention “coriander root”. I am aware of being able to buy the seeds (whole or ground) or the leaves, but I have never seen for sale anything calling itself coriander root.

Has anyone managed to source this, or am I missing something obvious?

It is just the root of the coriander plant. Certainly at least here (UK) you can buy living coriander plants in the supermarket; you could pull one out of the pot and use the root from that.

Apparently you can also subsitute 2 stems of coriander for every piece of root called for in the recipe, but I've never tried this.


Crushed tomatoes - sub with diced or whole? I have a barbecue sauce recipe that calls for 1 can of crushed tomatoes. I have cans of whole & cans of diced. Could I just run one of those through the food processor and deem it "crushed"?

EDIT: I also have a few pounds of fresh Roma tomatoes.

Drain some of the liquid off either of those, whiz it in the food processor, add liquid back as needed to reach the "crushed" consistency.


Is there any difference between bakers yeast and regular yeast? I'm looking at this bread recipe and it says to use "Bakers Yeast" but when I make pizza dough I just use regular yeast (which I also have in my cupboard at the moment). So I'm wondering if I could just use my regular yeast instead of bakers yeast?

There is certainly a difference between different yeasts. Different kinds of yeast react differently, are "happy" at different temperature ranges, produce different amounts of gas, live for different amounts of time. In my little world, however, it's better to use a yeast that you use commonly and understand than it is to experiment with a different yeast that may not behave the way you expect.

The thing is "baker's yeast" is a generic term. If it called for rapid rise yeast, and all you had was active dry yeast, I'd say to go out and buy some, or your bread would become flat. Chances are, you have one of those two kinds. They both work in most recipes, but each have their peculiarities, and you need to adjust.

I'd give it a shot, and see how it comes out. If your bread ends up "whacky", then try something else.


How do I boil down a gravy? I'm following a recipe that required an hour of simmering, first 30 minutes covered, then 30 minutes uncovered. I guess I didn't get the simmer correct as by the end of the hour; the liquid should have boiled down into a thick tomatoey gravy. However, I still have a lot of liquid left.  The sauce consists of chopped tomatoes, white wine and red wine vinegar.

How do I get down to a thick gravy without cooking for over two hours?

There are two ways to thicken gravy:

simmer down
Requires time, patience and a wide pot to get a large surface area for optimum evaporation. Simmering down results in very concentrated flavours (including salt, so be careful with salting in the beginning).
use a thickener
This is often something starchy like flour or corn / potato starch that binds the liquid. Note that the flavours won't be as concentrated, sometimes even a bit dulled by the starch.

So try your sauce and depending on the flavour level you have reached now, you should simmer longer, use starch or do both sequentially.

(If your guests are hungrily gnawing at the tablecloth already, whip out the starch, adjust the seasoning and serve asap ^_^)


Is there such a thing as pumpernickel flour? I've recently started making my own bread, and would like to try to make pumpernickel bread. A friend of mine once mentioned that this uses pumpernickel flour, but I'm unable to find this. The recipes I've seen for pumpernickel bread use rye flour and molasses (or other additives).

Is there such a thing as pumpernickel flour? If so, is it a darker flour that gives its color to pumpernickel bread? Or is traditional pumpernickel bread made with regular rye flour, and is dark because of a very long baking time?

Pumpernickel is made from rye flour.  If a recipe refers to "pumpernickel flour", they are probably referring to coarse-ground rye flour, which is coarser than you'd use for regular rye bread.  Coarse ground rye flour allows you to make the superdense pumpernickel breads you may be familiar with from Germany and Skandinavia.  This style of pumpernickel, which is the traditional variety, is dark colored not from molasses or other additives, but from very long cooking (as in 8 to 16 hours).

If you want a lighter pumpernickel, more like the pumpernickel sandwich bread sold in the USA, use regular fine-ground rye flour combined with wheat flour, plus coloring agents.  This is also the mix used for pumpernickel bagels.

As a personal recommendation, I suggest using dark malt syrup as your sugar and coloring agent for American-style pumpernickel rather than molasses.  Dark malt syrup can be obtained from brewing supply stores, and some food stores with large "natural foods" sections.


What's the difference between "English" & "American" bacon? Prompted by Is it possible to cook bacon without melting as much fat? where I answered in an "English" way…

I've had crispy bacon - you can get it on pre-made sandwiches or in chilled packs in the cooked meat section in supermarkets, but bacon in the UK isn't normally served that way, it tends to be 'wetter', for want of a better term.
Smoked or not, back or belly, dry-cure or wet-brined, fried, grilled or even done in the oven [mass-catering-style] it still comes out "English".

Cue images of greasy-spoon cafés the length & breadth of our motorway system…

 Credit: The Telegraph - The 15 most British foods ever

Also cue jingoistic comparison from a chat site -

So, national pride aside, what's the difference?

I'm aware there's a cultural element, but does it come down to cooking method or curing method? Can I take my "English" bacon & cook it like "American" bacon, or do I have to look for a different 'type' altogether?

Note that I usually cook what in the UK is called streaky bacon - which looks like the same cut as "American" bacon - as opposed to back [as in the pictures of "English" above] but I still have never attained  that complete crisp end result.
If I just keep cooking it until it's crispy, I don't get the same end product - I get 'over-cooked' [or in extremis, 'burnt'], but still recognisably "English".

 Google for this seems useless - it serves up page after page of opinionated "which is best" with no facts at all.

Late Edit:
Prompted by a recent upvote for this question, I did recently discover that pancetta cooks similarly to American bacon. It still starts out looking very much like English 'streaky' but the slicing is thinner.
i'm beginning to wonder if that might be it - simply the thickness of the slice.

There are many things called bacon in many places, and all cook different.  I will hit a few and hope I am mostly right, please feel free to edit where I may be speaking from mistake.

British Rashers is typically made from the loin with a bit of the side to belly still attached.  This would be a meatier cut and tend to have more of the taste and texture of ham to those used to American style bacon.

Irish Bacon, from my limited exposure to it is similar to Rashers but tends to have more of the streaky belly included.

What I know as Bachelor or Cottage bacon is really more of a ham, made from the shoulder, cured, usually smoked and sliced thin and fried like streaky bacon but with far less fat and more of a ham taste unless a very high heat is used.

Canadian bacon in the US, or just Back Bacon to all Canadians I have known it the loin round, cured and smoked.  Much more of a ham flavor than that of streaky bacon and mostly very lean.  Typically a fairly firm cured product.

Pancetta and similar products I would personally call a ham, not bacon, but it is your choice how you choose to classify.  I would never fry and serve like bacon though.

Jowl Bacon is common in Southern and Soul cooking in the US, if from the fatty jaws of large hogs and is typically used as a flavoring component in other dishes and to add fat and salt.  It would typically be sold as slabs.

Old West Bacon as talked about in old western movies being cooked over the fire is not what most Americans would think of as bacon, it is more Salt Pork.  Leaner than streaky bacon and heavily cured to allow for preservation without refrigeration and cooked as a main protein, not a side dish.

Streaky Bacon can me from side bacon or belly.  In the US it will almost always be belly which will normally be more fatty than side.  Commercial stuff is fast force cured and will often be from older hogs so very fatty.  Home of custom butcher cured will often be from younger, leaner animals and therefore a higher percentage lean.

These are very different cuts of meat, and you are never going to get belly and loin to test the same, well at least not other than burning both to inedible.  ;)  Even within the types, curing, smoking, seasoning, and other ways of treating will result in different products.  Was the belly cured with nitrates, nitrites, both, neither, not cured at all, smoked, etc.

Having cured my own, even with two slices off the same cure and belly, I learned though that heat makes a huge difference in flavor though.  Higher heat with a searing pan or cast iron on a fatty piece of belly meat brings out what as an American I think of as bacon flavor, while lower, slower heat on that same piece is more of a cured ham flavor in my experience.  If through I take a piece of Cottage bacon, cured the same way, to get close to that same bacon flavor, I need a pan at or very near smoke point and added fat or it will taste like ham to me.


Why do you add the ingredients in sequences when stir frying? What is the reason for ingredients being added in sequences when stir-frying?

Stir frying is a relatively quick cooking process.  Different ingredients often have different cooking times.  You add ingredients at different times so that the longer cooking ingredients will have time to cook and be ready at the same time as the shorter cooking ingredients.  If you have ingredients with approximately the same cooking times, by all means, add them together. Also, however, sometimes ingredients are added in stages so as not to reduce the the temperature of the cooking vessel/environment too rapidly...so that it can recover, and remain at a high temperature.  This would be less of a concern in a restaurant situation, where more powerful burners are used.


Is salt important to the texture of dough? Does salt have any effect on the texture of doughs?

My mother in law has gone on an ultra low salt kick and has taken to not putting salt in anything. This includes her pierogi dough (you know the potato & often cheese filled dumplings common to eastern European peasant cooking).

I've noticed that her pierogi dough seems tougher (like she's re-rolled the dough, which over works the dough and as I under stand makes more gluten) without the salt that used to be with it. It's a rather simple dough: flour, water, vegetable oil and salt. I imagine I'd get the same effect with a pie crust as well.

Is the salt inhibiting the gluten formation or doing something else or am just imagining this effect?

Salt toughens gluten and makes the dough less sticky.  So with that said, it would make it much easier to work in too much flour and make the pierogi dough more dense.  Do a search on the following page for "biscuit" and read the few paragraphs before.

http://www.saltinstitute.org/Articles-references/References-on-salt-use/References-on-salt-use/References-on-salt-in-food


Turkish delight: cornstarch or gelatine? I've never made Turkish Delight. I've been looking at recipes and I've seen some using cornstarch and others using gelatine. As these two ingredients are completely different binding agents, the question arises which to use?

On the one hand, gelatine is easier for me, on the other hand I think cornstarch is more authentic (not sure about that).

The reason gelatine is easier for me, is that the cornstarch recipes call for cream of tartar and that's a bit difficult to obtain in Spain. I'll try to find it in a drug-store.

If you want to make real Turkish delight, use cornstarch and only cornstarch. Nowhere on the Balkan have I seen a gelatine-thickened Turkish delight. No Turkish person will recognize a gelatine-thickened candy as lokum. I would go as far as to insist that aromatzied sugar syrup+gelatine = gummi bear, while aromatized sugar syrup+cornstarch = Turkish delight, although some people will feel that this is pedantic.

Beside authenticity, gelatine-containing recipes are prone to weeping, I have seen questions about that around here.

Bottom line: I would always make it with cornstarch. This doesn't mean that candy made with gelatine can't be tasty; it is just that if you want what you get in a Turkish shop, you can't do it with gelatine.


What flour for crepes should I use? What type of flour should I use for crepes? What are the differences? I want to cook both sweet and savory, but not American style pancakes, just French thin ones.

In my experience, whatever wheat flour (aside from super grainy wheat meals) you use with crepes should be fine. The primary difference between bread flour, AP flour, and pastry/cake flour is the amount of protein, which in dough, will drastically affect the elasticity of it. More of the proteins glutenin and gliadin will form more gluten, which makes the dough much chewier. The water and fat content in crepe batters is too high for a whole lot of gluten do develop, so while there might be some very minor differences in texture, anything should work.


Gummy residue from baking spray/oil I'm sure everyone's seen this - that brownish stuff left behind when you grease an area of a baking dish that gets left exposed to the heat. Soap doesn't bother it too much, and it likes to gum up my scrubber. What's going on there, and are there any easy ways to get it off?

When oil gets overheated, it turns into a polymer that is insoluble in water, even with soap.

The best way to clean this up is with Barkeeper's Friend, Bon Ami, or a similar solvent (I think they're all alkaline-based solvents). It's non-abrasive, and safe to use on almost all cookware without leaving marks.

Edit: To help prevent this from happening in the future, use a paper towel to wipe off any excess baking spray on the edges of the baking dish that won't be covered by food.


Can I use cooking sherry instead of red wine in my stew? So I found some Sherry Cooking Wine ($6 CAD) at my supermarket and I don't want to go and shell out too much money on a real bottle of wine just for a stew, is it possible to use cooking wine like Sherry Cooking Wine as the base of the stew?

If it matters, the meat will probably be lamb or beef.

The cooking wine in question:

"Cooking wine" is unfortunately ubiquitous on US mega-mart shelves. It is notoriously bad. I mean really, really notoriously bad. It starts bad, and then they add obscene amounts of salt so that it can be sold on grocery store shelves for $6.  As pointed out by @Malvolio, "salted wine is supposed to be disgusting! Many US states have special licensing requirements for any store that wants to sell alcohol, even wine and beer, but wine that is so heavily salted it cannot reasonably be consumed directly is exempt." The salt literally makes it undrinkable, so underage and other sales that would otherwise be illegal aren't an issue. The added salt also ups the shelf life, but not nearly enough to justify the sensory assault of these stunningly awful "wines". Canadian "cooking wine" is the same thing, just with different levels of salt just like the 50 states.

(these are just examples, all "cooking wine" brands on US grocery store shelves are the same level of truly insulting):

Skip the cooking wine. Go to a liquor store and look at the inexpensive bottles of wine. You might be surprised - bargains abound.

Incidentally, if you don't generally love to drink wine but occasionally like to cook with it, you might try what I do. I keep a bottle of inexpensive but good dry sherry and another bottle of inexpensive but good dry vermouth tightly capped in the fridge. Those wines, along with marsala, port, and others are fortified with liquor, giving them a much longer refrigerated-after-open shelf life than normal wine. Fortified wine can often replace the wine in recipes, at an equal or slightly reduced volume of the non-fortified wine called for. Sherry is often actually called for in Chinese and other Asian recipes, and dry vermouth can generally sub for "dry white wine" in recipes.

Cook's Illustrated says:

  Our recipes often call for dry white wine. Its crisp acidity and lightly fruity flavor add depth to everything from pan sauces and pasta to risotto and steamed mussels. The problem? Standard wine bottles are 750 milliliters, and our recipes rarely call for more than 1 cup (roughly 235 milliliters) of wine. That leaves us with most of a bottle to finish in a matter of days. Dry vermouth, which can be substituted for white wine in equal amounts in recipes, is a convenient alternative. Like Marsala and sherry, vermouth is wine that’s been fortified with a high-proof alcohol (often brandy), which raises its alcohol content and allows to it be stored in the refrigerator for weeks or even months after opening.

I buy the dry vermouth recommended as the best buy by those same folks at Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen, which sells for $6-$8 in the liquor store that connects to the grocery store (barely more expensive than the hideous salt bomb on the grocery store shelf).

One of the Sherries recommended by the Cook's Illustrated taste test clocked in at under $6:


Does paneer have to be cooked? I want to just toss it into some indian food I have. Does it need to be cooked first or is it ok if it just warms up a bit when I throw it in the sauce?

Paneer can be used as is. Sometimes it is fried to extend shelf life. Cooks will also sometimes fry paneer until it is slightly brown and then put the fried cubes of paneer in hot water for a few minutes. This makes paneer very soft.

If you do cook paneer, it will not melt, like most other cheese varieties, because it's an acid-set cheese.


Thermador Convection Warming Drawer Can I use a Convection Warming Drawer at a temperature of 140 degrees to cook a green bean casserole?

This is not a good idea for two reasons:

140 F is at the very edge of the "danger zone" for holding food.   These warming drawers are unlikely to be very accurate, so you could possible end up incubating your food and allowing pathogens to grow, not cooking it.  This could promote food-borne illness.
140 F is probably not high enough to get a quality and palatable result. It won't thicken starch thickened sauces, which require about 180 F. It won't cook green beans very well at that temperature, leaving you a somewhat raw and nasty casserole.

For some context on this, this recipe from Sous Vide Supreme for sous-vide for green bean casserole uses 185 F.  The water in sous-vide transfers heat to the target food far more effectively than air does in an oven or warming drawer.

If you are short on oven space, buying or borrowing a counter top oven may be the better solution.


Baking in oven after machine kneading I want to remove the bread after it is kneaded and then bake it in the oven. When will I know that it is fully kneaded? I have a rosewill 2 pound bread maker

Well-kneaded dough should be smooth and supple.  Once you have experience, you can usually tell by the feel of the dough.

Sometimes the "skin" of the dough breaks over the surface; this also indicates that you're done kneading.

The classic test is to poke the dough with your finger: if it springs back, it's been kneaded enough.

(Incidentally, the way you know the dough is finished rising is that it doesn't spring back when you poke it).


Mole sauce without chocolate? Would you recommend a way to make mole sauce without chocolate? If so how? I'm diabetic and don't want a lot of sugar in my sauce.

Mole is often made with unsweetened chocolate or cocoa powder. No added sugars are involved. (There is a tiny amount of natural sugar in the cacao, about 1%.)

Chocolate is not absolutely necessary in mole. Mole verde generally does not contain chocolate; some recipes for mole rojo also leave it out. You could simply leave out the cocoa from a mole recipe, if you wish.

But you don't have to simply because you're diabetic. Seek a recipe which uses cocoa rather than Mexican chocolate; the Googles are full of such recipes.