Slow cooker - start from 'cold' or boiled? I'm pretty handy with my slow cooker. I use it a lot - pot roasts, stews [curries, chilli, paysane etc]

However, I've always been a little paranoid about having everything completely up to temperature before I drop it into the slow cooker element itself.

I start by frying off, browning, sweating; add my liquids & then bring to a full boil before allowing it to simmer 10 minutes... the same as I would were it to just be in a saucepan for a couple of hours.
Only at that point will I transfer the pot into the slow cooker & let it take over for the next 4, 6, 10 hours.

Do I really need to do this?

Can I [or should I] just transfer it to the slow cooker as I drop my liquids - so at the point I have seared/fried/browned 'solids' but cold or only warmish stock &/or a couple of cans of tomatoes or beans etc I just dumped in & gave a quick stir.

Am I being over-safe by bringing it all to the boil first? Should I trust that the slow cooker, given sufficient time, will do the job eventually?

I am never in any rush doing this, so either way is fine. I just wondered if I'm being over-cautious.

Bringing it to the boil is standard practice and recommended by most manufacturers along with preheating (the latter isn't as necessary for metal inner pots as it is for crockery ones).

It's a good idea as the heating power is rather low, and it will take a long time to get up to temperature (as I found when using one for mulled wine, which isn't a hazard kept warm).

However your simmering for 10 minutes isn't usually necessary (kidney beans should be boiled for 10 minutes, or even 30 in some sources so they're an exception). The surface of items in the liquid has already reached almost boiling point by the time the dish comes to the boil, and the interior of each piece won't heat up appreciably faster on the stove than in the slow cooker. The interior temperature is much less of a concern anyway; think how long it takes a roast joint of meat to cook through.

There are plenty of foods that are suitable for just putting in and adding boiling liquid, without bringing the whole thing to the boil. These are generally low risk and low thermal mass, like porridge oats, then of course there are things that use no liquid like jacket potatoes. Slow roast meat (like a whole chicken) is generally nicer if browned before putting it in, but there isn't any liquid to bring to the boil - preheating is more important then.

I often assemble hot ingredients in mine using it as a reserving dish and giving the final stir, but we're talking about adding fried veg, then boiling stock, beans etc. (I can't remember the last time I cooked meat in mine, though I sometimes use meat stock). At all times the food in it is above the danger zone.


Do Dumplings Mind Being in the Fridge? I made dumplings from white flour and Atora vegetable suet. The suet is in hard pellets so I'm not worried about having overworked the mixture. I made them at the same time as the stew to save on wash-up. Then I stored them in the fridge for 4 hours before putting them in the pot for 20ish minutes. The pot was in the oven at 140C. They quickly puffed up and filled the top layer of the pot. But when cut open they had a different texture inside and (presumably) the taste of raw suet and flour. Is it likely the fridge or sitting time can explain the failure?

Edit: I still have some spares in the fridge and the pellets of suet are still visible in them. So I definitely did not overwork the dough.

It's not putting them in the fridge that is the problem, it is the fact they were cold when you put them in the stew. The effects of this would be:

Longer cooking time: the 20 minute time assumes that the dumplings are at room temperature, if they are cold they will take longer to cook as their internal temperature is lower. 20 minutes is a guideline anyway, you should test their doneness after 20 minutes even when starting from room temperature
Closer texture: cold dough into hot liquid is going to result in a closer texture because the outside is going to cook long before the inside gets warm enough to expand

The way to fix this is to take the dumplings out of the fridge and let them come up to room temperature before cooking, probably 30 minutes or so should do.


Undoing the flavor effects of baking soda in cooking I recently learned that if you put a bit of sodium bicarbonate on onion when frying it, the onion will literally melt away. This is absolutely amazing, and I love that trick.
But I tried it now when I was cooking some tomato sauce, and while the mouthfeel was incredibly creaming (as opposed to a bit chewy when I do without), there was a clear and ever present sensation of the baking soda at the back of my throat.
Is it just because I've put too much baking soda (about half a teaspoon for one small-medium onion, and also two and a half plum tomatoes that came in shortly thereafter), or is there something else to do to resolve this without changing the intended flavor profile too much? (I don't want to add vinegar, for example, if that causes the sauce to taste like vinegar)

You cannot remove a flavor that's been added to a dish once. There are very few exceptions to this, and I would say this isn't one of the exceptions.
You will find people telling you that baking soda is neutralized by acids. While chemically, baking soda can react with an acid, I would say that this won't help you here:

baking powder is a combination of baking soda and acid and I personally easily notice the metallic taste in anything made with baking powder. So the reaction products don't taste much better than the baking soda itself.
a tomato sauce likely also has fat. Some of the unpleasant soapy taste of adding baking soda to food happens due to its reactions with fat, and I don't think that the products of this reaction will react with acid.
your sauce has quite some acid already, through the tomatoes (and possibly more, if you used canned tomatoes or more ingredients which add acid, like vinegar). If acid was enough to prevent the bad taste, it would have happened already.

So, if you want to enjoy the effects of baking soda, you generally also have to live with its taste.


How to improve the taste of sour coffee beans? I was given a few packs of grain coffee. The smell was pretty nice and it was written that it's 100% arabica. That encouraged me to grind some and brew it in moka pot.

The result I got was not horrible, but way to sour for me. I tried one bean and indeed it was little sour, compared to Starbucks Espresso Roast, which is not sour at all and has great almost black color.

I am sure this will not be my coffee of choice, but it would be nice to upgrade it somehow (before I throw it away), though I have no idea how to do it. I thought about roasting it in the oven (210-225 Celsius; 410-437 Fahrenheit) for 10 minutes.

Do you think it might be a good idea?

I don't think I would re-roast them.   I think you would be better off trying a different grind, or preparing the coffee with a different method.   Find ways to work with the acidity, basically.

A coarse grind and a french-press might work a bit better with the brightly acidic beans.


Frying pan - Heat Distribution I have a frying pan and I want to fry 3 sausages.

I want to heat them thoroughly, and want to know the most effective way to distribute
heat when frying multiple items in a single frying pan.

Do I put them together, or do I spread them out across the pan?
What is the most effective way to heat multiple items, and why?

Summary:  Loosely, so the food doesn't steam.

Heat distribution

As your question implies, the heat distribution through a quality pan is not perfectly even.  It will be hottest directly over the hot spots of the flame or element.

Still, if your pan is well matched in size to the burner or heating element, and is of reasonable quality, that effect will be minimized, especially if you preheat the pan sufficiently long.  Even a poor a relatively poor heat conductor like cast iron will begin to heat up across its surface if given more time.

In practice, the heat distribution qualities of the pan are not something you worry about.

Coupling

In order to fry your food, the heat must conduct from the pan into the food item.   Air gaps, and water do not help very much with this.

Fat is used in frying, not just for the flavor that it imparts, but to provide a heat conductive coupling between the hot pan and the food item.   The heat is actually transferred to the oil or fat which is direct contact with the pan, and then from their into the food item.

Therefore, you need a reasonable amount of fat, to prevent their being air gaps between the food and the pan.

Fat is preferable to water, because although it has a lower specific heat, it can be heated to temperatures above the boiling point of water, which is one of the key elements in a good fry.

Steaming

As is well known, water evaporates at 212 F / 100 C.   It actually requires considerably more energy to launch a single water molecule into the air as steam than it does to get it up to the boiling point in the first place (this is called the enthalpy of evaporation).

Because of this effect, whenever food is steaming and giving off water, any excess energy above that needed to bring it to the boiling point goes into the ethalpy, vaporizing the water, and not into further increasing the temperature.

Therefore, you want your food to be as reasonably dry as possible.  If left packed together, the moist steam will surround the food, preventing it from getting as crispy and brown as desired.  Instead, fried foods should have a certain amount of gap, to allow the steam to escape into the general kitchen air, and to more rapidly allow the food to desiccate to the point where its temperature can rise above the boiling point, facilitating browning reactions which create flavor.

This is the controlling factor in how tightly food should be packed into the pan.

So the three example sausages should be distributed at least an inch or so (a couple of cm) from each other, if there is enough room, although this is not something you should use a ruler on, or obsess about in any case.

Overall, frying transfers energy to the food very quickly, and with basic good technique, you should get excellent results:

Pre-heat your pan (unless it is PTFE coated non-stick) long enough for it to get to temperature
Add enough fat to come up to at least the bottom of the food, depending on what type of frying you are doing
Don't crowd the pan with food items
Relax and enjoy; there is a lot of margin for error generally.  In fact the greatest danger is burning or scorching the food, so be patient.


Do you need a pressure cooker to can home-made salsa? I grew my own tomatoes this year and had success with making my own salsa.  Do you need a pressure cooker to can home-made salsa?

You cannot preserve just any salsa recipe (unless you're just freezing it).

Tomatoes are on the border between acidic and non-acidic foods. What this means is that they can be water-bath canned if they are sufficiently high in acid; but, if they are low in acid, they need to be pressure canned.

If you want to be sure to avoid trouble, follow a tested recipe. Salsa recipes will have a careful balance of low and high acid ingredients. Do not alter the proportion of acids (tomatoes and vinegar or lime/lemon juice) and low-acids (other vegetables, peppers, etc).

The recipe you choose should specify if it requires pressure canning or water-bath canning. One of those two methods must be used, though... you can't just put it in jars and save it.

For tested recipes, see the Ball Blue Book, the Ball website, or the National Center for Home Food Preservation.


Egg and gluten free custard ideas? How can I make custard for a friend (as part of a desert) who is egg and gluten intolerant? Should I just not bother?

Panna cotta is the closest thing I know to custard that is egg-less.  Sugar, cream, milk, gelatin - should be acceptable.


What can I do to fix/improve a dry cake? So a lot of times a cake is really dry, whether the recipe author intentionally does that or if I did something wrong I'm not sure (maybe it's how it's meant to be but it doesn't suit my tastes).

What can I do after the cake has been cooked and finished to make it not so dry?

And similarly, what can I do before it's been cooked to make it not so dry? I figure adding butter would help, but I'd rather not add more fat / calories, so I'd prefer an alternative.

No matter what kind of cake you've made, if it turns out too dry, you can moisten it with an appropriately flavored liqueur or syrup. Use a skewer to poke holes every inch and a half or so, then use a pastry brush to paint on the liqueur or syrup getting more into the holes. Coffee syrups come in sugar free varieties if you'd rather not add more sugar.

As far as what is happening, since it is happening with different recipes, I suspect your oven. Is it running hot? Use an oven thermometer to be sure that you are getting the temperature you want. Also, check cakes frequently in the last 10 minutes of baking, using the method recommended in the recipe to gauge the doneness. Usually, the toothpick test works. Stick a toothpick into the cake and remove. If there is no batter on the toothpick (a few moist crumbs are OK), then the cake is done. Cakes that are overdone will always be dry.


To boil frozen food with chicken without microwave Assume you have microwave food dishes with chicken and you have no microwave.

What is the recommended time to boil the food?
The temperature is less than microwave can reach.
I think the time should be longer, but how much?

There is no recommended time. You just cook it until it is done.

If the food is pre-cooked (which is common with microwave-ready food), you only have to bring it to the temperature you like to eat it at. Else, you cook it until whatever is inside is cooked through. You can use a thermometer to determine the exact moment, but I wouldn't bother for a microwave-ready dish, as it is unlikely to be sensitive to overcooking.


Bubbles on the Noodle surface I observe lots of bubbles on the noodle surface after frying. What causes this and how can I control it?

Deep frying noodles is likely to create bubbles, depending on exactly how the dough was formed; this is normal and expected.  You see this on almost all battered fried foods.

The actual mechanism is that the heat of the oil partially sets the starches on the surface of the noodle fairly quickly, creating an a barrier to the further escape of water or steam.  As the water under the surface converts to steam from the heat of frying, it expands dramatically (about 1,700 times the volume of the water), but has no where to go.  The pressure created from the steam pushes out the surface noodle, creating a bubble.

As the frying continues, the starches completely set, making the bubble surface crispy and brittle.

I don't think there is a simple method to control this process.  You could try frying at a slightly lower temperature, which would slow the process down, and perhaps allow more steam to escape rather than create bubbles, but I haven't tried this, and am not confident that it would work.


Challah bread -- too crusty? Just made my first loaf of Challah (traditional Jewish braided bread). Bread came out great but the outside was a little crustier than I was expecting. The recipe called for an egg wash (also a first for me)... is the crustiness a result of too little or too much egg wash? Or to hot an oven?

Edit with more info

Here's the recipe I was using (from Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice):

4 cups bread flour*
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 1/3 tsp yeast
2 Tbsp oil
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
7-9 oz water

*I did add a decent amount of flour while mixing because the dough seemed quite sticky.

Basic steps:

Knead for 10 minutes, let rise for 1 hour
Knead/degas for 2 minutes, let rise for another 1 hour
Braid into 1 large or 2 small loafs, brush with egg wash.
Proof for 60-75 minutes, then brush again with egg wash.
Bake at 350˚F for 40-60 minutes depending on loaf size

I made a large loaf so I checked it at 45 minutes and it was quite a dark golden brown on top already so I pulled it out. The consistency of the inside was great and the crust was fine too, just a lot crustier than I was expecting.

I've found that the crustiness of my challah is dependent on how long I leave it in the oven... If you want it less crusty I'd say you should just try taking it out a bit earlier. You can also try turning the oven temperature slightly lower.

(I bake my challah in tins, and find that the bottoms of the challah are often too soft when the tops are just the perfect crustiness, so I flip the challah and bake for another minute or 2 upside down to crust the bottom. If you're aiming for a soft crust, maybe you can also try covering the top with aluminum foil? I've never tried this though.)


Coca Cola's Secret Recipe If only two executives know the secret recipe of Coca Cola at any one time, and it is so well guarded, then how do they manufacture Coca Cola in plants without giving away this secret to the workers?

It's no secret, here it is! Complete with the cocaine that was removed from Coke's production in 1903:

Picture and text from This American Life
The radio broadcast recording on the above link makes a very compelling case that the picture at the top of the page is really the original formula for Coke. Of course it has changed over the years; it's not exactly the same thing now as it was way back when. In addition to removing the cocaine, they've also cut the caffeine, switched from sugar to high fructose corn syrup and use phosphoric acid now instead of citric acid. The proportions of the 7X ingredients had to have changed as well over time, as the ingredients themselves have changed. Extracting oils is a very different process now than it was over 100 years ago.
The idea that the formula is ever-so-secret is a marketing gimmick. Sure, the actual formula is a trade secret, but the massive effort to keep the world's biggest secret thing is just a bunch of theater.

Photo and caption from NY Daily News
The "down to the gram" specifics of the production recipe today is a trade secret, but no more so than just about every trademarked, brand name food item sold today. No one person mixes and measures the whole batch (that's just practical, it's not even necessarily a security measure), so keeping the "super-secret-recipe" as it stands today from being published is no more difficult for Coke than it is for KFC. Nor are there highly-paid super-slueths trying to steal the formula against whom Coke needs to take extraordinary measures.
EDIT 9/20/15 This American Life has added the following to their story:

Much of the press about our story takes at face value Coca-Cola's statements that we have not found the recipe for Coke, present or past. But when asked if the company has actually checked to see if this formula matches the original formula - which archivist Phil Mooney assured me they still have - company spokespeople always politely sidestep the question. So it seems entirely possible that no one at Coke has checked. If they'd checked to see if the formulas match, why not say so?
Phil Mooney even admitted something interesting about the recipe in our interview: "Could it be a precursor? Yeah, absolutely." He then went on to express, as his opinion, not as fact: "Is this the one that went to market? I don't think so."

They're just goofin.
Addendum
When I wrote this answer, I had no idea that it was going to get so "big" or that Skeptics.SE and Chemistry.SE had taken on the same issue. Had I known, I would have spent a little bit more time researching. I have since done quite a bit more research and I am now even more strongly of the opinion that the secret-formula of Coke is just a normal trade secret, and the hype is just hype for the sake of marketing.
Furthermore, the recipe for the 7X (that's even what Coke calls its "ever so super-secret" formula) in the old book pictured at the top of this answer is genuinely either the original formula or a precursor to it. At any rate, it's darn close.
If you're interested in learning more about the handwritten recipe in the book, I strongly encourage you follow this link: This American Life and listen to the recording of the radio broadcast about the book, the formula and the hype.
Early in the broadcast they make a point that I've been saying since I first got wind of this completely over-the-top marketing gimmick. One of the legends of "the secret" is that it is only known by two people, and they never fly on the same plane (you know, like the President of the United States and the Vice President).

“The company has always said, and as far as I know it’s true, that at any given time only two people know how to mix the 7X flavoring ingredient,” Mark Pendergrast, historian and author of For God, Country and Coke told This American Life. “Those two people never travel on the same plane in case it crashes; it’s this carefully passed-on secret ritual and the formula is kept in a bank vault.” Time Magazine

Think about that a second. If the vault contains "the secret" known to only the two men, and the two men died in the same plane crash, wouldn't someone at the company be able to open the vault? If the two men know something beyond that (or somethings, one version of the legend held that each man only knew half the secret) why wouldn't they put that information in the vault as well?
Furthermore, if you have a really big secret that you'll go to any lengths to keep, would you shout from every mountaintop, "I know something YOU don't! Nee ner nee ner nee ner!"?
So I say again, yes it's a trade secret, it's just a normal trade secret. It's not the Manhattan Project. The hype is just hype, the fact that we're talking about it now just emphasizes how effective the marketing is. Buying into the hype is just drinking the Kool-Aid.


What is a substitute for celery root in a soup? I don't have access to celery root (celeriac). What can I use instead? Are there any suitable alternatives?

From Cook's Thesaurus

  turnips OR celery ribs (weaker flavor)
  OR parsley root OR (in salads of
  grated vegetables) carrots + dash
  celery seeds.

Enjoy!


Konbu discoloration still edible? Some of the Konbu that I recently bought has a whitish discoloration as opposed to a black/green color.  I am wondering if it can still be eaten/used in cooking.
Konbu

Thanks!

This is perfectly normal. Many people believe the flavor is most concentrated in those crystallized bits. Embrace it!

In fact, you want to avoid washing off the konbu before using it so as not to lose the white powder, which results from natural, slow, drying.

WiseGeek on Konbu
Practically Edible on Konbu


What is a Vienna Schnitzel? I have heard this term frequently used, but I haven't been able to find a definition, even in the extensive Wikipedia Article on Schnitzel.

The article you linked to references this dish as "Wiener Schnitzel". That article defines it as veal--pounded, breaded, and fried--garnished with lemon, and served with potatoes.

"Wiener" refers to its Viennese origin, and Schnitzel to the type of preparation (pounded, breaded, and fried). There are many varieties of Schnitzels, made of several different meats, and with various sauces. Jaeger Schnitzel, for examples, is served with a creamy mushroom sauce. The one from Vienna is served with lemon and potatoes.


What is this discoloured patch in my smoked prosciutto? I bought an Italian selection of cooked meats from a well-known British supermarket chain, which begins with T and rhymes with Fresco.

Within this selection is smoked prosciutto. However, it appears to contain discoloured patches which range from light brown to black, and I’m unsure as to whether to be concerned.

My initial thought was that it may be peppercorns but, on closer inspection, it doesn’t appear to be, and I’m unsure as to whether to return the product to the store.

It looks like lard to me. The cut side of a ham is covered with lard to prevent drying out when curing, often mixed with spices. I wouldn't worry about it. Smoked cured ham is called speck in Italian, and mainly produced in the north, notably in Alto Adige.


Homemade salt water taffy Are there any techniques to aerate homemade taffy, particularly saltwater taffy.

The professional saltwater taffy makers in Atlantic City, NJ and Ocean City, NJ use machines that pull the taffy over and over. But they are making massive quantities at a time.

I need a tip, trick, hack or technique that would do the same thing, but on a smaller scale.

To manually pull taffy, either you can stretch out the taffy between your arms by gripping one end of the taffy with each hand and extending your arms. This is extremely strenuous, and a lot of work especially when the taffy is cold or when starting.

Another option is to get a Taffy Hook, which looks like this:

It doesn't have to be anything specialized, any stainless-steel hook you can mount on the wall or temporarily attach to a surface will suffice. The idea is to hook the taffy on the loop and pull towards you or the ground, re-loop and repeat until the taffy is the desired consistency.

There are a number of home contraptions in various price ranges that work either by a motorized system or a hand-crank:

Youtube video of a hand-crank taffy puller

There are even homemade taffy pullers that you can find by searching the internet if you are more mechanically inclined.


How do the ingredients in baking powder work? Baking powder is baking soda (sodium bicarbonate), corn starch and creme of tartar mixed together. Can anyone tell me what the effect of these different ingredients have (and have on each other) and how they work together to leaven baked goods?
Like- why cornstarch? I understand it being used as a thickener and to coat things to keep them from clumping, but how does it help leavening? Or is it just to keep the creme of tartar and baking soda from reacting to each other or mixing unevenly?

Baking powder is like a fast-acting yeast; it is used to infuse air into baking mixtures by way of carbon dioxide bubbles, created by a base reacting to an acid. Baking power is made of three different parts:

An acid
A base
A filler

All three need to be dry powders that can be mixed together, common ingredients are cream of tartar (acid), baking soda (base) and corn starch (filler). The role of the acid and the base are to combine together to produce carbon dioxide bubbles when reacting with water or other liquids. The filler helps keep the baking powder dry, so that it remains free-flowing and so that the base and acid don't get moist and interact in the container.

Resources:

This article explains the reaction process in further detail: http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/baking-powder.htm
This piece  provides further insight on different types of baking powder, it's history, substitutes, etc.: http://m.cooksinfo.com/edible.nsf/MobilePages/baking-powder


Instant coffee melts like chocolate After my instant coffee (with chicory mix) powder got hard due to moisture I decided to heat the hardened coffee in a pan, and it got soft stuck to the pan like chocolate, and even had strings when I broke it (something like when you pull a caramel bar). I expect it to form a powder on heating, instead of turning into candy. Was it because of the water content?

This also happens with common unsweetened instant coffee (without chicory) if you allow it to cake and then try to heat in a pan or any other kind of heat that is concentrated on a specific spot or surface.

Instant coffee (a.k.a. soluble coffee) is made by spray-drying brewed coffee, and not by finely grinding coffee grains. You are not dealing with a moist powder that can be dried by local application of heat, like when you have wet flour or wet coffee grounds.

The coffee was partially dissolved by the moisture but it lacks the crystalline quality of other solutions that naturally form grains or crystals - like salt or sugar - it then becomes an amorphous mass and when you try to heat it up, it melts instead of crystalizing. This will also happen if you try to heat it up in the oven.

You can still use it as is - it will take longer to dissolve and need more stirring than you usual powder. The only way to fully recover it is to replicate the process used to make it - re-dissolve it and spray-dry (which is very difficult to do in a domestic setting)


How to infuse coconut flavor into nuts? While traveling abroad, I purchased a small bag of salted cashews at a convenience store.  I immediately noticed that they have a distinctively different taste from what I'm used to; slightly more sweet than salty.

I took a look at the back of the package and found the ingredients list; to my surprise, it ended with "coconut cream".  Thinking of all the coconut-flavored dishes that I've had at home, I immediately recognized that the distinctive taste was from the coconuts.

However, coconut dishes I've had at home usually consist of something cooked in a coconut-based broth.  Other than dried coconut chips, I can't think of any "dry" coconut flavor food I've eaten or cooked.

Starting with raw cashews or other nuts, how can I prepare a product of these nuts infused with coconut flavor?

I've done something similar, although not with coconut cream. I'd cook the nuts in whatever flavored mixture (with extra salt and sugar) for about 5 min, then leave them soaking for a few hours. After that I'd bake them in the oven with low heat, like 170 C (otherwise you'd burn them very easily). Check every 5 min and toss them around a bit to even up, and depends on how moist they are, take out when brown and crisp in the center.


Are these pots suitable to cook in? My mother recently bought these from an old second hand shop because she thought them pretty, but I am just wondering if they are suitable to cook on the hob.
I tried to google them on Google images but it kept showing me Serveware. Does anyone know if this is actually cookware?
We think so but just want to be sure. We use a solid plate hob.

Click for full size

These are enamelled pots - perfectly fine and intended for cooking, albeit a bit sensitive to chipping if not handled carefully. You can find various listings of that exact set on the Internet, e.g here or here.
Enamel is a hard, glass-like, non-porous substance and pretty non-reactive. As long as you are not exposing it to extreme temperature changes (when it can crack like glass) or excessive scrubbing, it remains pretty much the same even with prolonged use. So buying them secondhand is a good investment, if they are in a good condition. Do not use enamelled pots with chipping, less because of the rust from the iron core, but because in that case there’s a (small) chance of enamel shards or splinters ending up in the food. With good care however, enamel pots can be used a long time.
Note that the surface is quite hard and scratch-resistant, so not bad per  se and reasonably well to clean. It’s not non-stick, though, so you will want to use a bit of fat if you intend to fry or roast something in them. Some cooks like the light inside color, because it makes it easier to judge the color, e.g. when browning onions.


Sous vide bath cooled after reaching cooking temperature, still safe to eat? I was doing boneless short ribs for 48 hrs at 140. I had to leave town suddenly and unexpectedly for a day and I added enough time via WIFI to continue to cook for an addition 16hrs.

My water level dropped below min while gone and the Sous Vide shut down before I was able to get home.

The temp of course started to drop.  By the time I get home here in a few hours, the short ribs will have been in water that has been slowing cooling for 8hrs.Current temp 89.1

Is the meat unsafe to eat?

The danger zone is between 40 and 140 degrees F for 2 hours or more. The closer to the upper end of the scale, the less time you have.  It doesn't matter how it was packaged or prepared.  Your short ribs spent far too long at too low a temperature.  I would not consider them safe.


What is the difference between whipped cream and whipping cream? I am searching for accurate stock photos to represent both products. While I really only need to figure out what visual differences there are (if any), I would like to understand why they are different.

Whipped cream is whipping cream after it has been whipped.

Whipping cream is just cream with at least 30% fat content (that would be called Light Whipping Cream in the US). Heavy Whipping Cream contains at least 36% fat and up to 40% and rarely (in the US) even higher. Until these creams are whipped, they are just liquid. After they are whipped, they're fluffy. A way to know that whipped cream is "done" is that it holds "peaks", like in the first picture. Higher fat cream will thicken more readily, and hold its structure longer. Other countries use different terms for various levels of fat in cream. Wiki

Whipped Cream:

Whipping cream:


Chili/Stew - Is it necessary to cook all the meat before adding to the rest of the ingredients? I'm planning on making a big batch of chili this weekend. Usually I brown/cook all the meat before putting everything in a pot to simmer for several hours.

I just read
On Browning Ground Meat in Recipes | Serious Eats
which suggests only browning a portion of the meat before cooking the rest.

I understand about browning & flavors from the Maillard reaction.

My question is: Since I'm going to be simmering everything for several hours, do I need to cook the rest of the meat before mixing with everything else? Should I?

Update: Wish I could mark all the answers as accepted! Mouth feel is something that I hadn't considered in thinking about cooking the meat before simmering.

FYI, I'm using a combo of chopped chuck & Italian sausage. My current plans are to brown one side of the chuck, and cook/drain the sausage, reserving the fat for a roux as suggested by @CosCallis

What do you mean by "need"?

Will the stew have a deeper, richer, more savory flavor if you brown the meat first?  Absolutely yes, due the maillard compounds you alluded to.
Is it necessary to brown the meat before the long braise in the stew for food safety reasons?  Not at all.  You can cook it unbrowned, and it will be perfectly safe assuming you otherwise practice good food safety:  bring it up to cooking temperatures fairly rapidly, and cook it long enough.  Neither of these are usually a problem in stews.

In fact, some cuisines don't generally brown meats before boiling or poaching them, and still have outstanding outcomes--I am thinking of Tex/Mex taco fillings (not the ground beef kind, for example).

Now, as to should?  Personal preference.  I would choose to because I like the beefy flavors browning brings to the table.

Kenji Alt is now recommending just browning one side well, and then beginning the stew or braise, which I think is a very reasonable compromise.  See his Carne Adovada article for discussion on this.  This is the article that lead to his thoughts on browning ground beef that you cited.

. . .

On re-reading your question, I wonder if you are implying that you are using ground meat.  Since you said stew, I was assuming the meat was not ground.

If you are using ground meat, as in chili, which is essentially a ground beef and chili stew, you still have options.

Browning will lead to more flavor, but require longer stewing to have a fully tender mouthfeel, as the browning will initially make the meat tough.

Just cooking through (greying, as it were) will lead to a firmer mouth feel than beginning the stew with raw ground meat, which leads to a soft, silky type of texture, almost.  This is actually traditional in some Cincinnati Chili recipes.


Can you make orange juice with a blender? I have a box full of clementines. Can I make orange juice in a blender?

Sure, you can juice with a blender, as long as (a) the blender is of reasonably good quality and (b) you're not expecting the same kind of yield or quality you'd get with a juicer (electric or manual).  You'll also need a very fine strainer, or cheesecloth if you're like me and hate any amount of pulp.

You'll have to peel them first, and try to remove the pips as well (clementines shouldn't have very many, and might even be totally seedless).  The pith is less of an issue - some people remove it, some people don't, it's a matter of personal preference.  Once the oranges have been "cleaned", start blending them on the lowest speed and gradually bring it up to high.  Oranges should have enough juice to blend on their own, but regardless of what fruit you use, be prepared to add water if the blender doesn't seem to be doing much.

Once you've got a fairly consistent purée, pass it through the strainer and mash the pulp against it with the back of a spoon or the bottom of a glass jar.  There's your juice.  You can throw some pulp (purée) back in if you like that texture.

Fruit purée from a blender doesn't really have the best flavour - it tends to turn out somewhat bitter - so you'll probably want to add a small amount of sugar and/or citric acid to compensate.


How can I tell if a steel rod is for sharpening or honing? I bought one of those rod tools before I fully understood the process. Now I'm not sure if the steel rod I bought is meant for honing or for sharpening. Is there a way to tell the difference simply by the look/feel of the steel?

If it's a rod, it's for honing, not sharpening.  As stated in this article from Serious Eats:

  One of the biggest misconceptions about the particular type of kitchen tool you see above is the belief that it's a knife sharpener. It doesn't help that many manufacturers sell their honing steels as such. But a honing steel is not a sharpener. Ridged, rod-like honing steels, or "stropping irons," as they're sometimes called, do not sharpen blades; they realign them.


How often should knives be sharpened? I've a Wusthof classic ikon knife which i've had for about 5 months, it seems to be losing it's edge. It's regularly honed with a grooved honing rod, but I'm unsure if I'm doing it correctly.

I've watched several videos on how to do this, keeping the blade at a constant angle of around 20 degrees. So, what is the norm for sharpening knives? Have I been doing it incorrectly which has resulted in the knife losing its edge, or is this normal?

Parts of the knife seem sharper than others, for instance the heel, whereas the tip seems pretty dull

For a home cook: Honing should be done before or after heavy use or once every couple of weeks, depending on how finicky you are about the blade itself. Proper honing can stave off the need for an actual grind/sharpen for years.

-Honing realigns the existing edge. Just a few strops on each side of the honing steel. It doesn't take much.
-Sharpening grinds it down, takes away steel, and makes an entirely new edge. It's not something to be done often, or even routinely. I get mine professionally done at a kitchen shop.

If you're a pro, you want to hone any and all serious knives before each shift.


Why should you remove the core of garlic? I have read it is better to remove the core of a clove of garlic. I actually see no reason for doing this. Does it have a different flavor, or is there some other good reason for it?

-edit-
In addition to the question as reaction to the answer 'because the green middle is bitter', I was wondering:
-Then should you only remove the core when it is green, and not if the garlic is still very young?
-Is there some easy way to remove this core?

The green shoot in the middle of a clove of garlic is said to have a somewhat bitter flavor.


Why do we slice some meats thinly and not others? Subjectively speaking, thin-slicing makes the same ham taste much better, perhaps by increasing its surface-to-volume ratio?

Why do we slice some meats thinly and not others?

Some meats are sliced thinly to break up the muscle fibers that run through it.  A properly sliced flank steak is tender, while unsliced or improperly sliced it's tough and chewy.

Not all cuts of meat require the slicing, however.  If it doesn't have long, strong muscles, it may be fine without.   And this is a function of cooking.... tougher working muscles can. E slow cooked until it falls apart on its own, such as for pulled pork.

Most cuts of meat from larger mammals may be sliced thickly or thinly, but the decisions soon often comes down to tradition more than anything else.  There may be national or regional dishes that prepare a specific cut of meat in a specific way.  Not only in how it's cut, but how it's prepared and possibly how it's presented and accompanying dishes.

When it comes to sandwiches, I'm of the opinion that shaved meat is always superior to sliced (except possibly when we're dealing with some that weren't a whole muscle to start... meatloaf, liverwurst, etc.... although salami, bologna, formed ham and many others are still better shaved). But I agree with Cindy that thick slices are often better when served on a plate.  (and more convenient to turn the leftovers into a casserole)


Bananas - too many - so how can I preserve them? It must be banana season as the supermarkets are full of them at silly prices.  I am beginning to think that I have come across and tried every banana recipe known to mankind.  Is there a method of preserving banana?  The weather here is quite dry so I have thought about drying banana slices.  How about preserves, is there a way to preserve banana without using any sugar?  Unfortunately freezing is not an option for me, since my freezer space is at a premium.

You don't mention what variety of banana you have access to. There is a host of banana varieties and they all have different characteristics in regard to flavor and texture.

I will assume that you are referring to the Cavendish variety that is ubiquitous in the west.

Cavendish bananas, when ripe, are very fragile. They go mushy easily and oxidize quickly. Before they are ripe they are more starchy but relatively flavorless with kind of grassy overtones.

Drying them is easy and great if you like eating a lot of banana chips. Recipes are easy to find. You want to use bananas that are slightly under ripe. If they are fully ripe they get leathery instead of drying crisp. Some recipes will call for spraying or tossing them in acid or other mixtures to improve the color or flavor. Obviously, living in a dry climate will help a lot making the drying process much faster and so reduce the chance of mold.

You don't often see banana preserves (chunks of fruit bottled in a syrup) because the ripe fruit falls apart when cooked and the under ripe fruit doesn't have a strong or pleasant enough flavor.
Instead, an option that is used often in SE Asia where there is a huge variety of bananas is banana jam. This is more like what I would call a fruit butter. The bananas are pureed and cooked with sugar and sometimes pectin and then bottled. Sometimes chunks of fruit are left but they are much more tender than your typical preserves. It tastes good and will keep almost forever. If you haven't bottled before, the bottling process is more involved than drying. It is easy to find recipes. Many of them will include lime juice or other acids to reduce the browning. Often spices are added which will vary according to the local cuisine.

The strangest preservable banana application I have seen was Filipino banana ketchup. Not bad but I can't imagine using enough of the stuff to preserve any quantity of fruit.

While writing this post I discovered that banana ketchup is made everywhere bananas are more common than tomatoes. It looks like banana ketchup from other cuisines has a greater ratio of banana and is appropriately yellow.


Why does mass-produced cheddar cheese vary from package to package? My question is about commercially mass-produced cheddar cheese sold in vacuum-sealed plastic packaging. The particular variety is a medium-age marble. I find that sometimes, when a package is freshly opened, the cheese has a firm almost crumbly consistency which cuts cleanly and easily with a dinner knife (which I prefer), and when I open a different package of the identically labeled product, it may be softer and somewhat gooey. The taste is also a bit different. I find that the cheese does not noticeably "age" after opening over a couple of weeks in the refrigerator, so it doesn't seem as though it is a "shelf life" issue with the sealed product. For a mass-produced product, I would have expected a consistent product in every package.
What would cause the variation? Would there be batch-to-batch variations before packaging due to manufacturing? Is it caused by differences in handling after packaging?

Depends on how large the production is. You would expect extremely large scale production to be tightly controlled, but something that is quite large might just be made from a series of large batches. Large batches, particularly in dairy production, can allow very high levels of variance between the beginning and end of a batch.
Your issue sounds like a quality control problem though. Contact the manufacturer.


How do you source meat that will be minimally cooked? I was recently asked where one could find meat that could be prepared "blue to blue-rare". What kinds of meat (other than fish) can be prepared this way and how would one go about finding a reliable source?

I imagine chicken and pork are out due to salmonella and trichina, but what about (non ground) beef? Are any other land animals typically prepared this way?

The thing to remember, vis a vis bacterial contamination, is that it's almost always the OUTSIDE of the meat that's contaminated, not the inside. With pork and chicken you're worried about an internal parasite/bacteria, which is why they're not cooked rare.

With beef, if it's grade A, it's good to go, and most everything you buy in the grocery store is fine. With tuna (which is another one people like super-rare) the story is mostly the same, though the chance of getting a parasite from fish is higher. In both cases, do a hot sear on the outside, and it'll take care of any bacteria that may be hanging around.

The reason ground beef is considered a higher threat is because the "outside" is pretty much the whole thing after the grinding process.


How do I know if a frying pan is suitable for a glass ceramic cooker? I had a set of great looking frying pans with layered bottoms that I was unable to use on my glass ceramic cooker.

The problem was the bottom would bend when heated up and lose close contact with the cooker surface. Once that happened it would take an hour to boil the amount of water that is normally boiled within five minutes - heat would just not go into the pan, so using the pan was just a waste of energy and time.

I got rid of that pan and instead used the cheapest most basic pan with single layered bottom; it doesn't bend too much and maintains contact with the surface so it works alright.

However if I want a more advanced pan than the most basic one I use now (for example, with ceramic coating), the local retailers only offer pans with layered bottoms. And of course it'll be close to impossible to return a pan just because doesn't accept heat well on my stove - that hardly counts as manufacturing defect. I'd rather not risk buying a pan if there's reasonable chance that it bends while heating up, making it unusable to me.

Is there a way to be sure that a frying pan with layered bottom won't bend too much when heated and that it is suitable for use on a ceramic glass cooker?

From what I've seen, encapsulated-aluminum disk bottom pans and straight aluminum pans are simply prone to warping.  The aluminum is just too soft and can't take the mechanical stress, and the disk-bottom pans have problems with dissimilar metals.  Different metals expand at different rates, and thus will separate over time if heated and cooled repeatedly.

Now, it's possible to get a disk-bottom pan that won't warp or separate, but the outer jacket of stainless must be quite thick, at least 2 mm.  The disk in the bottom also has to be completely covered by the steel -- if you can see a different looking metal peeping out, the pan is a no-starter for you. It'll probably be a heavier, thicker pan, with fairly thick walls as well.

The simplest solution is to use a pan that's cast-iron, all-stainless, or multi-ply AKA clad aluminum/copper.  Cast-iron is too thick and rigid to warp, and is a homogeneous material, so it isn't prone to problems from dissimilar metals.  All-stainless is stronger and more elastic, and again homogeneous.  It has lousy heat conduction though.

Multi-ply pans avoid warping because they're better made and incorporate thicker outer layers of stainless, which hold the pan rigid against warping.  I think the process by which the aluminum or copper is contained in the stainless is also more robust.


What caused my homemade "Nutella" to go bad? I had a first try on a self-made recipe for a chocolate-hazelnut cream, in short Nutella.

Question Even though I used ingredients that wouldn't have gone bad singularly, the cream as a whole had an intolerable acid smell after 1 week from the preparation. What could have been the cause?

How the cream was prepared I prepared a chocolate-mousse only using 70% dark chocolate and water, then I blended it together with brown sugar, hazelnuts and olive oil. Immediately after preparation the cream was fine. Then I left it on a shelf, and when I came back after 1 week it had a strongly pungent acid smell, the taste was in line with the smell; the situation was bad enough to force me to throw everything away.

Thank you very much for your interest!

This is a basic fact of food safety. It doesn't matter how long each of the ingredients take to go bad separately. Prepared food will go bad soon unless you do something special to preserve it.

In your case, you had hazelnuts, which don't go bad because 1) they have too little water, and 2) bacteria cannot enter their tissue, which is made of intact cell walls. You also had chocolate, which doesn't go bad because it doesn't have enough water for bacteria to survive in it. Ditto for sugar. Then you mixed everything together and added water, the one thing which was missing in order to keep bacteria out. And you also pureed it, which destroyed the protective cell walls. Bacteria found your food and started multiplying in it.

To address your comment too: water by itself doesn't usually go bad, because it has all the water a bacteria needs, but not nearly enough food content. So, bacteria cannot survive in it, at least for a short time. Were you to leave out a mix of water and carbohydrates out, you'd notice vigorous bacterial activity - this is what fermentation is. But there are some classes of bacteria which can survive on the minimal amount of debris caught by a water reservoire sitting around for weeks, and one of them is indeed pathogenic, causing a dangerous form of pneumonia. So, water does deteriorate, just not as quickly as the usual types of wet food, which are hospitable to many more pathogens.

In general, all human food is great food for bacteria, often including pathogenic bacteria. You have to take something away to make it inedible for bacteria. Any mixture of two shelf stable foods can turn out to add exactly what the foods separately lacked, and make it a bacterial breeding ground again. So, never assume anything about food shelf life based on the shelf life of its ingredients!


Dietary Fiber with Crunchy Texture I'm looking for a dietary fiber or a mix of dietary fibers (and other ingredients which act like dietary fibers such as sugar alcohols) with really low (even zero) food calories that I can create a crunchy (as in chips) or crusty (as in bread) texture.

Please think of molecular level fibers not as in fiber-rich food. For example a common dietary fiber is Inulin (which is a fructan) and can be used as a sweetener. Another one is Glucomannan which is used as a thickener and a gelling-agent. Both of these have no calories.

I thought of using Isomalt, which to some extent acts like a dietary fiber, to make hard candy, but I think it's not going to be as low calory as I want since it's just half the calories of sugar or flour. I'm looking for recommendations to achieve such a texture, which could be considered suitable for a calorie controlled diet.

As a response to the close requests:

I'm not asking for a recipe, the question is about ingredients and techniques
I don't think it's broad for the following reasons:

I'm asking for a very specific texture and how to achieve it.
I don't know of any combination that could result in such a texture with low calories. Think of a combination before voting close for this reason (better yet, write it on the comments :))

I want to explain few things about dietary fiber.

Soluble fiber is not digested in the small intestine but it can be fermented in the large intestine by normal intestinal bacteria into nutrients (which are absorbed) and gases. Soluble fiber can have 1-3 Cal/g (sugar, starch and other digestible carbohydrates have 4 Cal/g) and can cause bloating and gas. For exact calorie value of the exact fiber, you need to check the Nutrition Facts labels. Or you can check in MyFitnessPal, which says that, for example, 1 tsp of glucomannan has 10 Calories.

Examples of soluble fiber (naturally present or added to foods):

Fructooligosaccharides (FOS), inulin, galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS), isomalto-oligosaccharides (IMO), lactosucrose, mannan-oligosaccharides (MOS)
Beta-glucan (in whole barley and oats)
Pectin (in apples, bananas...)
Gums: acacia (arabic), beta-mannan, carob (locust bean), fenugreek, glucomannan (konjac), karaya, tragacanth, guar, tara gum
Resistant starches (in potatoes)
Algae and seaweeds agar, alginate, carrageenan
Other: arabynoxylan

From the digestion viewpoint, sugar alcohols (isomalt, maltitol, mannitol, sorbitol, xylitol) are similar to soluble fiber; they have ~2 Cal/g, except from erythritol, which has close to zero calories.

Insoluble fiber is not digested in the small intestine and not fermented in the large intestine, so it has practically zero calories and does not cause gas.

Examples of insoluble fiber:

Cellulose (in whole grains, in cabbage family of vegetables, in fruit skins...), hemicellulose and methylcellulose (as an added thickener)
Lignin (in wheat bran, flaxseed...)

Many of these fibers are available in markets. Before buying, find the info about "relative sweetness."

Here's the source with links to all individual fibers.

Here's an one page comprehensive article about Texture modifying agents, such as gelatin, corn starch, pectin, guar gum, methylcellulose, etc.


Equipment: Intense candle for nabemono. What is it? I went to a Japanese Nabemono (Chankonabe?) place, in Tokyo. The meal was basically a hot pot. But instead of the typical small candle or small methanol pot/gel I've seen used elsewhere, they had a sort of gel that came wrapped in a foil. Unwrapped, it stood on small metal legs.

Once lit, it burned like crazy. Scary even. Nothing like the run-of-the mill methanol burners for fondue. Brought the pot from refrigerator cold to boiling in under 15 minutes. It also happened to stop burning just at the right moment, so I figured it was sized accordingly to the pot. I'm looking for the name or description of this burnable material. Search engines don't seem to bring up anything with this level of power output. I can only find the usual candles or small gels I've seen used in North America.

Anyone familiar with these? I feel really bad now for not having taken a picture.
(I tagged the question fondue, but the level of power would definitely be too high for cheese fondue. This is something for water-based hot pots)

Sounds like they were using タブレット型固形燃料 taburetto-gata kokeinenryou, literally "tablet-shaped solid fuel":

(courtesy メシ通)

The market leader is a company called Nitinen, who offer a wide range of different sizes and shapes.  The primary ingredients are methanol and alcohol, blended with fat in much the same way as soap.


Why are amaretti mixed as they are? Most recipes for amaretti call for the sugar to be combined with the ground almonds and then added to beaten egg whites. When making meringue, on the other hand, the sugar is beaten into partially-beaten egg whites. What is the reason for this difference?

Most recipes for amaretti call for the sugar to be combined with the ground almonds and then added to beaten egg whites. When making meringue, on the other hand, the sugar is beaten into partially-beaten egg whites. What is the reason for this difference?

When making meringue you want clean equipment and to avoid oil or grease in order to be able to whip the eggs and obtain the correct foam with stiff peaks. Sugar is added in spoonfuls between the soft and stiff peak stage. See #2 for information about adding almonds.

Sources:

Felicity Cloake: "How to make the perfect meringue":

  "One of the golden rules of meringue making is that all of your equipment must be scrupulously clean, without a speck of grease, or it will be much more difficult (although not impossible, as is often claimed, according to the food chemist, Hervé This) to produce the desired foam with your ingredients.

  ...

  Most recipes call for the sugar only after the whites have been whipped to soft peaks – add it too early and you can kiss goodbye to a good strong foam.

  ...

  You need to put them in at 60C, 70C, overnight." You don't cook meringues so much as dry them out, apparently; evaporating the water to leave only the rigid structure of the egg and sugar mix, and the air bubbles in between.".

If you grind almonds by themselves they will become oily, so some or all of the sugar called for in the recipe should be added to the almonds.

Sources:

David Lebovitz: "What is Almond Flour?":

  "... To make your own almond flour, I highly recommend that you grind the almonds with some of the flour or sugar called for in the recipe (use the weight equivalent for better accuracy); nuts ground on their own can heat up during the pulverizing and get oily. Flour or sugar helps prevent that. Generally about 2 tablespoons of flour or sugar is the minimum you should use per 1 cup (120g) of nuts. Avoid processing more nuts than that at a time. If you need more, work in batches.)

  To make your own almond flour, put the untoasted nuts in a blender or food processor and pulse them with the dry ingredients until the almonds are pulverized. Grinding the nuts with the motor running in a continuous stream will make them oily so be sure to pulse if using a food processor, or run the motor with an on-off motion if using a blender.".

Note: In a comment someone named Lucie suggested: "To prevent almonds from getting warm and oily during the processing try to freeze them before". David replied: "That’s an interesting idea and would probably work ~!".

Casey Thaler: "Almond Flour: What You Need to Know About This Grain-Free Substitute":

  "Be careful to not let the nuts get oily (at that point, you might want to make almond butter). This can be avoided by doing a stop-start motion with the on and off switch. The continuous heat (if you leave the processor on) will start to make the nuts oily, which will not be ideal when making flour.".

Alice Medrich: "How to Make Your Own Nut Flours (Without Making Nut Butter)":

  "To pulverize nuts in a food processor without turning them to paste, be sure that the processor bowl and blade are dry and cool (not hot from the dishwasher) and the nuts are at room temperature (not cold from the fridge or freezer and not hot from toasting in the oven). Pulse until the nuts are as finely ground as you like, scraping the sides and corners of the processor bowl with a chopstick from time to time.

  If you follow these rules, there is no need to add flour or sugar from the recipe to keep the nuts from turning to butter, as is sometimes advised, although there is no harm in doing that either!

  p.s. You can also make a fluffy nut flour or nut meal in the processor, using the fine shredding disk instead of the steel blade: the same precautions about the temperature of the nuts and the disk apply.".

Eileen Troxel: "Italian Amaretti Cookies":

  "Combine the almonds, cornstarch, and powdered sugar in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse the mixture until a fine powder. (The almond meal would become oily if ground on its own.) Transfer the almond-sugar mixture to a bowl. Using a wire whisk, stir the mixture to break up any lumps, and set aside.".

Other Info:

In the making of Macarons (almond-meringue cookie sandwich with filling) there are two styles explained on Wikipedia's webpage:

  There are two main methods to making a macaron - the "French" method and the "Italian" method. The difference between the two is the way the meringue is made.

  In the French method, egg whites are whisked until a stiff-peaked meringue forms. From there, sifted, ground almonds and powdered sugar are folded in slowly until the desired consistency is reached. This process of knocking out air and folding is called macaronage.[15]

  The Italian method involves whisking the egg whites with a hot sugar syrup to form a meringue. Sifted almonds and icing sugar are also mixed with raw egg whites to form a paste. The meringue and almond paste are mixed together to form the macaron mixture. This method is often deemed more structurally sound yet also sweeter and also requires a candy thermometer for the sugar syrup.

  Either Italian or French meringue can be combined with ground almonds.[16]

  A macaron is made by combining icing sugar and ground almonds into a fine mixture.[17] In a separate bowl, egg whites are beaten to a meringue-like consistency.[18] The two elements are then folded together until they are the consistency of "shaving foam", and then are piped, left to form a skin, and baked.[19] Sometimes, a filling is added.

  [15] "French pâtisserie technique: Macaronage". Le Cordon Bleu.
  [16] "How to cook perfect chocolate macarons". The Guardian.
  [17] "Macaron troubleshooting tips". Better with Butter.
  [18] "Macaroons". BBC.
  [19] "Macaron Myth Buster: French or Italian?". The World of Anges. February 22, 2015.

Le Cordon Bleu: "Making homemade French meringue"

Le Cordon Bleu: "A Fasinating Recipe: Lemongrass Macaron" (Almond meringue with lemon ganache)

Le Cordon Bleu: Video: "Making Macarons with Pierre Hermé at Cordon Bleu" (Italian meringue method)

IronWhisk: "Macaron Mania: The Recipes of the World’s Top Pastry Chefs" compares the recipe and technique of 5 of the world's top pastry chefs.

In all cases the egg is whipped to medium peak and then the dry ingredients are added. Doing it differently will provide a different (wrong) result, you won't have fluffy eggs; the whole point of meringue, and without which you simply have mixed egg whites.


What else can I do with Caputo Blue Pizzeria Flour? So I use Caputo Blue Flour to make pizza dough, but out of the 25kg bag I use I only use 24kg per batch.
I tend to measure a kilo out of the bag and put it aside and then use the rest of the bag to make my dough. However this leaves me with a lot of left over flour, I could use it for pizza dough but that would mean either waiting (and storing) the excess flour until I have 24kg worth, or splitting bags and increasing the complication of making a batch as I'd have to weigh everything.

So instead I'm wondering what else can I use it for?
I've made bread with it, but only out of excess pizza dough rather than specifically aiming to make bread, and the results are ok but not particularly better than a strong bread flour (though this could be because it is an afterthought).

I've also found (because it is very fine flour) it makes good sauces, and I've used it for Yorkshire pudding and that's quite good too.

I've linked the official fact sheet above, but I think the important properties may be;

Protein - 12.75%
Dry Gluten - 12 / 13 %
Absorption - 55/57

But would it make decent pastry? Or be any good for cakes? Is there anything other than pizza that a flour with these specific qualities would be best for?

00 flour is the closest to 'plain white flour' in English speaking countries. For instance, if you were in Italy and would like to do a pastry you would use 00 flour. However, it is quite difficult to compare to 'plain white flour' because this term is not well defined, and you find wide variations in different brands of plain white.

Technically speaking, the classification 00, 0, tipo 1 and tipo 2 refers to the ash level in the flour, as regulated by italian law. For example, 00 refers to a maximum ash level of 55%, and as you can see from your technical sheet the Caputo exactly fits in that since it is around 50%. If you are familiar, it is completely equivalent to the T45 (45% ash level), T55 (55% ash level), T65 (65% ash level), etc. classification of the French.

While ash level is a good indicator, I personally find that it not always describe well what the flour would be good for. I usually like to use it together with protein content. As you can see, although this Caputo is quite refined (ash level 50%), it has a high protein content (13%) - common for grains grown in sunny places like meridional italy - compared to the most common supermarket 00 I find. It likely absorbs more water and has a better flexibility - which is good for 'caky' and 'bready' things, and even good for elastic pastry like pate brisee but worst for flaky preparations like biscuits.


Coffee Biscuit doesn't come out in Knock Box We have a Breville Dual Boiler Coffee Machine, my husband even made a barista course to learn all about it.
But when we try to knock the coffee biscuit into a knock box, it doesn't work. It never comes out and if you use more force, the filter pops out before the biscuit (hope it's clear what I mean). So you need to get a spoon and scrape the coffee out of the filter (and avoid doing a big mess).

Does someone knows a trick or has an idea why it happens? I though, I use to much pressure to compact the coffee at the beginning, but according to my husband it's okay.

IF this is the machine you have, we're using the same.

Overdosing is the most likely cause. Please try to adjust the weight of your coffee dose.
We've found that 20-21 grams is still OK for the double-shot.


Is it safe to eat a cooked steak that (briefly) touched the plate that was holding the raw meat? So I just finished preparing a perfect-looking steak, and as per usual, my apartment's hypersensitive smoke detector decided to go off.  Not wanting to put the steak back into the pan, in one brilliant flash of boneheadedness, while I was scrambling for a rag to start whipping away the smoke, I dropped the steak in the only other vessel that was on the countertop - the same plate that was holding the meat before I cooked it.

I figured that since the inside has already been cooked, I could probably just sear the outside again on high heat for about 30 seconds to kill any surface bacteria that it might have picked up.  Which I did.  Doesn't really look any the worse for wear, but I haven't totally convinced myself that this is safe.

Anyone run into this scenario before and survived it?  Is there anything else I can do to guarantee safety without totally ruining the steak?

If you're at all like me, you are reassured by hard numbers and measurables. This should help.

In this situation one of the likely pathogens would be one of the Salmonella species. Salmonella is killed by temperatures in excess of 130 F (55 C). However, it's not an instant death. The time to kill Salmonella decreases exponentially as the temperature increases.

The following table represents all the temperature and duration to kill 99.9999% of the most heat-resistant strain Salmonella senftenberg. This species is as much as 30x more heat resistant than a "normal" S. typhimurium.

   Temperature | Time
---------------|------
 140 F (60 C)  | 60m
 150 F (65 C)  | 10m
 160 F (70 C)  | <2m

For any given temperature the proportion of bacteria killed is constant. 1/6th the time kills 90%, 1/3rd kills 99%, 1/2 kills 99.9% etc.

USDA guidelines to kill Salmonella and E. Coli are as follows:

   Temperature | Time
---------------|------
 135 F (57 C)  | 86.4m
 140 F (60 C)  | 8.6m
 145 F (63 C)  | 2.7m
 150 F (65 C)  | 51.9s
 160 F (70 C)  | < 6s
 165 F (74 C)  | < 2s

So, needless to say, re-searing your steak at a typically high stove top temperature (at least 300 F [149 C]) for even a fraction of a second will result in utter devastation to whatever beastie population you may have picked up in recontaminating your meat. Chances are, if the steak came hot out of the pan, and you removed it from the plate quickly, the residual heat alone would be enough to kill it. The re-sear certainly doesn't hurt though.

A good rule of thumb is to wash plates as you go. If this is not possible or convenient you should minimally remove the plate from your vicinity by putting it in the sink or dishwasher as soon as you have taken the food off of it.


Does Tapatio red sauce equate to Frank's hot pepper sauce? Does Tapatio red sauce equate to Frank's RedHot Original Cayenne Pepper Sauce?

I would say they are quite different. Tapatio is spicier, and thicker. Frank's Red Hot is thinner, has a more vinegary flavor, and is less spicy.


Braising boneless skinless chicken thighs? Is it worth braising boneless skinless chicken thighs? All the braising videos and recipes I see call for bone-in, skin-on. The way I understand it, the stew will take on the flavor of the meat through the fat liquifying into a broth.

I'm specifically trying to make Dak Dori Tang or Dak Bokkeum Tang (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dak-bokkeum-tang).

I've seen 4 videos of this on YouTube. Some sear the meat first, and set it aside. Some don't sear the meat at all. Some simmer it for almost an hour (I simmered my batch for 20 minutes, and it was stringy and heavily overcooked, though it was breast), others simmer it for less. All of them pretty much put in the potatoes right as the chicken goes in or well after, never before. My broth tasted like nothing. Luckily, the vegetables--onions and sweet potatoes--were nicely cooked after 15 minutes simmering.

Asking if something is worth it is opinion based, so I will address the differences between the results you get braising chicken thighs skin on and off as I've done both many times.

Chicken thigh skins have a lot of fat, when you braise the fat stays in the end result because there's nowhere for it to go, which can make it too greasy for some tastes. The chicken skin takes on a very limp consistency, which is also not to everyone's taste but you can pull it off before serving to cater to preferences. The chicken flavor is a little stronger with the skins on

Skinless gives a less fatty result, the chicken flavor is a bit less but still pretty strong. I've tried browning the meat directly, I personally don't like the result as the texture changes aren't worth the flavor you get from doing it, but you'd likely want to try it yourself.

I personally find leaving the skins on ends up being too greasy, but I like the flavor you get from browning the skins, so I've come up with a hybrid method. I skin all the chicken, then I fry off 4 skins in the braising pot until they get nice and brown, remove them and discard before adding all the chicken pieces, stock and everything else. This gives a good balance.


What temperature should I use for sous-vide chicken breasts? I'm finally going to advance my sous vide repertoire from just steaks to poultry.  I know the safety issues and am familiar with the salmonella death rate chart.  What I'm wondering about is the texture of the meat itself.

I've been cooking chicken on the grill and in the oven and in the pan and have grown used to a particular texture for the meat.  Most of these techniques end up taking the breast meat up to the 160-165 F range.

With sous vide I have a much better control over what temperature I can safely eat the meat at, however I don't want the texture to drive me away from the experience.  I was thinking of preparing the chicken at around 150-155.

Does anyone have any experience with poultry at these lower temperatures?

Go for 145. 2 hours.

Salmonella dies even at "low" temperatures (from 135) as long as you cook it for longer.

135 for at least 87 minutes, will kill salmonella.

However, I like it best when cooked at 145 for 2 hours.


Is there a significant difference between Indian and Chinese star anise? I’ve just bought some star anise, but I'm not sure of its origin.   It smells zingy which kind of reminds me of Chinese food.

Taste-wise, is there a difference between Indian and Chinese star anise? I wanted the Indian one, as per a recipe, but I’m wondering if I have the Chinese one and if that will give the same taste the recipe intended?

In my experience, star anise is star anise.  I don't think the origin matters much for your recipe, but there might be a marginal difference.  I've never paid much attention to the origin of my star anise.


French bread falls after scoring, how can I achieve a tall loaf My neighbor shared her delicious french bread recipe with me.  Her loaves always turn out tall and fluffy.  My loaves fall when I score them and the result is flat, saggy crisp crust bread.

Things I have tried - keeping my bowl warm, letting it rise a third time after scoring (it's never the same).

She even came over with her uncooked loaves when mine flattened right before a dinner party.  Guess what?  Hers sagged and flattened and never rose in my oven.  Could it be my oven???

If bread falls after you score it, it's because the bread is overproofed. Basically, the bubbles of carbon dioxide have reached the largest size that the structure of the dough can support and the stress of scoring causes it to collapse.  They key is to either score it earlier and let it continue rising a bit, or to score & bake it earlier (this works great if you have a very hot oven and can find a way to get some steam into it).

If your neighbor came over with bread and it flattened in your oven, it's possible that hers also overproofed in the time it took to transport it (or the extra jostling of transportation caused them to fall).


How can I get gross, bloody stumps in my Halloween punch? I like this for a Halloween offering.

The effect is achieved by filling a powder-free latex glove with water and freezing it.

I'd like to step it up a notch by making the hands look like bloody stumps. My punch is a great slimy green made with lime sherbet, and the hands themselves will be a touch brown. How can I make the wrists of the hands look like they've been chopped off with an axe?

Part of the problem with trying to do this is that you have to select something that's going to stand up to the liquid.  I have a possible solution, but the problem is that the hand itself is going to deteiorate in the process.

Find a glove that's longer, so you have enough "wrist" to work with.
Insert two white plastic rods into the glove as the arm bones;  Trim to length so youcan still seal the glove.
Fill with blood orange juice (not always the easiest thing to come by; I have to go to an italian specialty market that imports it) or cherry jello.
Freeze
Trim the glove to expose the wrist & bones.

If you can't find longer gloves, it might still be possible to make an enclosure to hold the glove upright while it freezeds.  The problem is, you need to put enough pressure on the sides of the glove so that the palm doesn't balloon out too much. It might be easier to freeze the glove normally (with a weight on top to shape the palm), remove the glove, transfer it to a new one, drill to insert the 'bones', then freeze the 'wrist' portion in the new glove.

other notes :

it might be possible to add gelatin to the blood orange juice so it'll last longer; I don't know acidic the liquid can be for gelatin to still set.  (do not use agar; it won't work).
as an alternative to the plastic bones, the only other thing that I can think of (other than using real bone), would be a panna cotta (milk jello) but maybe use coconut milk as it's a brighter white).  But you want the bone to stay solid while the rest of the hand is deteriorating around it.
normally when you do this, the "hand" melts, but the glove still contains the liquid that was in it.  In this case, as the wrist is exposed, the liquid is going to slowly leak out.  For this reason, it might be good to fill the fingers with something solid (or test how quickly jello or similar hold up in liquids over time.


Storing onions and potatoes in the same cellar Potatoes and onions have the same storage guidelines: store them in a a well-ventilated area in the pantry.

However, I have read that onions should be kept away from potatoes as onions will absorb moisture from the potatoes, causing the onions to spoil.

Since my cellar is quite small, I wonder what distance should be kept between the onions and potatoes so that they don't hurt each other?

I believe that advice is mainly meant for people storing a large quantity of potatoes and onions (like two 10lbs bags) for long periods of time (like 2-3 months).  I can't imagine it applies to a few potatoes and onions stored in a basket.

I have a pantry which is consistently between 60F and 68F, with a humidity of 60% to 80%.  I have stored potatoes and onions together in a hanging wire basket for up to 4 weeks at a time. While the potatoes will turn green and sprout in that time (I buy organic) the onions are still good (although somewhat stronger after a month).

So my answer is: ignore that advice.


Halloumi ended up too soft I made halloumi at the weekend using this process with cows milk. The rennet I used had a best before June 2014 date on it.

The cheese came out fine and tastes good after being brined.

However when I fry the slices of halloumi the result is that the cheese is too soft (by general concensus in my house) and doesn't 'squeak' like a true halloumi should.

So my question is what might be the cause for my too soft halloumi? and what can I do to make it firmer next time?

My initial thoughts are that I could 'press' the curds more before poaching, or it could be the rennet (although they seemed to work fine). Or it could be the cows milk rather than ewes milk.

It may also be that it will firm up whilst it sits in the brine. Does anyone know if this is the case?

Any thoughts?

You are right that you need to use pressure to get enough whey out of the curd to get a firmer cheese like halloumi.

I am surprised that the recipe you're linking to tells only to drain the curd in a sieve or cloth. Just draining the curd will give you a very loose or moist product similar to cottage cheese or quark.


Adding fresh herbs in no-knead Bread I am experimenting with the no Knead bread recipe and want to add herbs to the recipe. I have added fresh rosemary (great) and fresh oregano (not so) to the recipe.

What other herbs would you suggest?

I love a bit of thyme in bread. Pairs well with the rosemary, too.


Ways to prevent smoke when grilling I've been grilling hamburgers and steaks but my neighbors complain about the smoke. Are there ways to reduce the smoke but still let me cook basically the same way?

I'm currently using a Weber Kettle. I'd be willing to consider buying something new if it could keep the smoke down somehow. Currently using briquettes. Have been told lump might less smoke but wondering if it's enough.

Do any smokeless grills exist? Something with a short chimney+fan+filter? Or are there other solutions? Switching to electric or propane seems meh as no flavor.

Using actual charcoal rather than briquettes will make much less smoke, particularly the more objectionable "coal" smoke from getting the briquettes burnt far enough that they are useable.

In my personal experience actual charcoal lights (to a usable state) faster and if you have a good tight grill can be put out by sealing the grill for re-use, much more effectively than briquettes. If your grill is no longer tight you can put it out with water, then dry it, and re-use it.

You'll still get some smoke from burning fats dripping off the meat. But proper charcoal is effectively smokeless, itself.


Why add vanilla extract after removal from the heat, and what about fake vanilla extract? Recipes for pralines, for fudge, even for hot cocoa say to add vanilla extract only after removing the dish from the heat.

Why?
Does that apply to artificial vanilla extract also?

Liquid vanilla extract has alcohol in it, so if you add this extract to hot cocoa, puddings, fudge, or anything you make with heat, the alcohol burns off and so does most of the flavor.  If you wait for it to cool off the flavor stays strong.  Same thing goes for artificial vanilla also because of the alcohol levels (but the flavor is just not there to begin with with artificial flavor).  If you use vanilla beans, open up the pod and scrape the inside of it and put it in the beginning with the hot mix.  That is another story.  It is very delicious, but you see teeny tiny little beans swimming in your lighter mixes like vanilla bean ice cream.


Homemade Coconut Yogurt Turned Yellow on Top Overnight I'm making my first little foray into the wonderful world of cultured food making, and have been trying my hand at Coconut Yogurt (this is attempt #4). I have a crock pot that I fill with water, plug into a thermostat, put the probe in the water and set it to 110F. I put the yogurt in a mason jar in the crock pot, make sure the water is higher than the yogurt line, and leave it overnight.

Precursor: yesterday I made a batch, but neglected to sterilize my jar, so I grew both pink and yellow something (I assumed bacteria, rather than mold, because of the colors) overnight. I then learned that pink seems to be the first color your yogurt will start to turn generally when something wasn't quite sterilized properly.

This bring us to my most recent batch - I washed the jar with soap, water, and coarse salt. Shook it for ages, scrubbed with a brush, rinsed with hot water. Boiled twice in a stock pot (I was determined to get it right this time) as well as the lid. I brought my coconut milk to 180 degrees while stirring in 1tbsp of tapioca flour as a thickener, and 1tbsp of granular white sugar, to give the cultures a bit more food. Once I hit 180F and was almost simmering, I pulled it from the heat, and let it cool down to 110F. I opened a new store-bought coconut yogurt with live cultures, plain, unsweetened, and put a spoonful into my coconut milk mixture, stirred gently, then put the lid on and set it in the crock bath at 110F for about 12-14 hours.

This morning I pulled out the jar to take a look. About 1/8th to 1/10th of the top of my volume was a layer of watery liquid, I assume Coconut's equivalent to whey. This may be tinted slightly yellow, but looks relatively clear to me. When I look down from the top, though, there's a brighter shade of yellow that's formed in splotches on the surface. To me, it looks similar to the pink I saw yesterday, only yellow. I've never successful made a batch before and do know there should be some yellow tinting to you whey, at least when it's cow's milk. I'll attach the best picture I could take. My question is: how do I know if this yellow is okay or not okay? If it's grown some alien again today after boiling the jar twice, how can I keep things even more sanitary to prevent this?

Update - after an extra ~12 hours or so (24 hours total) at 110F, the yellow is now way more profound. Now it clearly looks off to me, but hoping someone can tell me what's up with it. Here's a picture of how it looks now:

I don't know if sterilization would be that important as I never made it. When you're cooling down the coconut milk, make sure to cover it with a clean (sterile?) cover so no offending bacteria or yeast floating in the air can contaminate it. The air is full of various microorganisms and they might've been a cause of your previous unsuccessful attempts.


Baking time for paper vs metal Have made many fruitcakes in a 7" metal angel food pan, for ease of time and cleaning. I was excited to try the 7" paper tube pans, but what I ended up with was soup on the inside. The paper pan was slightly thinner in width and higher in depth, so it held the same amount of ingredients.

I played with the time and temperature but for the most part I got dried out, and/or burnt, or gooey. What can I do to make this work?

In general, metal is much more thermally conductive than paper (see http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/thermal-conductivity-d_429.html).  The heat is very likely not making its way through to cook the bottom of your fruitcake as quickly as it would with metal.  I would suggest extending the baking time by about 25%, but also dropping the temperature about halfway through to prevent drying out or burning.

That, or go back to the metal pan that you've had success with in the past.  If it ain't broke...


Must a lid for a pot used for steaming be vented? This is a follow-up to my earlier question about steaming using the Instant Pot. The answer there said that the "steam" function of the Instant Pot was only for pressure steaming; for ordinary steaming, one needed the optional lid that has a small hole for a steaming vent.

I have a lid that fits the Instant Pot exactly, but it lacks the steam release vent. How much does this matter? This question suggests that the venting holes in lids are generally too small to make much of a difference; but that was in the context of slow cooking, which generates far less steam. For steaming, would the absence of a vent cause too much steam to remain in the pot? Would this in turn affect the food being prepared?

As an experiment, I tried steaming idlis in the Instant Pot using the lid I have. I used store-bought batter that simply needed to be poured into the idli molds and then steamed for 7–8 minutes. I steamed the idlis for 8 minutes. During the steaming, the lid "danced" a little on the pot rim and steam was noticeably escaping. The idlis came out okay, but were a little sticky on the bottom. I'm wondering whether the lack of a vent hole on the lid could have caused this, or whether I should look elsewhere.

If a lid doesn't have a vent and the pot does not have any sort of locking mechanism like a pressure cooker, then the pressure of the steam inside will lift the lid off the pot and steam will escape. That was the "dancing" of the lid that you experienced.  Venting holes in a lid just let some steam escape so the lid doesn't bang around, having a vent hole or not wouldn't make your idli's sticky.


Can I make pickled eggs that don't require refrigeration? This time of year I have a ton of extra eggs. In the winter I have fewer. I have, therefore, been experimenting with egg preservation techniques.

I like pickled eggs a lot. They aren't very versatile so they can't be my only preservation solution but they are tasty and interesting.

Unfortunately, pickled egg recipes always say that the product must be refrigerated. This prevents me from storing the eggs until winter as I do not have that much fridge space.

The brine is fairly acidic and very salty. Why do they have to be refrigerated?

What do I have to do to make my pickled eggs shelf stable?

Seems this is very common in Britain, where I come from, so google.co.uk did the business!

The recipe here allows storing in a cool, dark cupboard for up to six months, and it recommends leaving the eggs at least a month: http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/food/recipes/pickled-eggs

This one looks good, and I like the instructions for eating!
http://www.pubbuddy.co.uk/pickled_egg_recipe_kitchen.php


Accidentally bought a "butter basted" turkey. Can/should I still brine it? I was looking forward to trying out brining a turkey this year.  But I have ended up in the UK for Thanksgiving and have had to buy a "butter-basted" turkey.  I have done a lot of googling, but can't figure out exactly what this means and whether I can/should still brine it.

While trying to figure out if "butter basting" involves salt, I keep coming across the term "self-basting."  And it is usually associated with advice to avoid brining.

Can anyone out there help?  I just began to defrost the turkey and my original plan was to do the defrosting in a brine in the fridge.  Given that it's "butter basted" though, I'm wondering if I should go near it with salt at all.  Thanks very much.

Pre-basted turkey is indeed already brined. You can double check this by looking on the ingredient list of the turkey packaging and you should see a salt or vinegar solution listed.

You can still soak the bird if you would like, but either use no salt or a low-salt brine, like a 0.5-1% solution. In this case you will probably be pulling out some of the salt from the brine that's already on the turkey.

Here's a description from The Food Lab (a pretty rigorous source) on these types of turkeys:

  Self-basting birds have been injected with a salt and flavor solution
  to help keep them moist while cooking. They come out incredibly moist,
  almost wet, and can be cooked directly from the package with minimal
  pre-roast work required. They also tend to be dull and diluted in
  flavor.


Why does steak change colour after seasoning? When I have sirloin steaks, I take them out of the fridge and season them while they return to room temperature before I cook them.

I add various seasonings - salt, pepper, garlic etc. it depends on my mood.

I notice that after I season them, the more heavily seasoned areas turn grey. Why is this? Is it to do with dehydration from salt or something else?

The steaks are always delicious so it's not a concern, I'm just curious as to what causes the colour change.

Details on beef color changes can be found here.

Briefly:

When beef is first cut (or ground or whatever), it has a purplish hue, caused by deoxymyoglobin, a pigment that can only exist in the absence of oxygen.
When exposed to oxygen, a chemical reaction occurs, producing oxymyoglobin, which leads to the bright cherry red color most people associate with "fresh meat."
Eventually, the molecule oxydizes, producing metmyoglobin, which can no longer bind oxygen -- and this turns the meat brown.  (There are natural enzymes present which can convert back to oxymyoglobin when in the presence of sufficient oxygen, though these will eventually be depleted.  Packaging can preserve the strong oxygen-rich environment for longer, which is why grocery store meat stays bright red on the surface.)
When meat is cooked, the globin denatures and forms a tan/gray hemichrome pigment which can no longer convert back to the other myoglobin pigments.

Anyhow, this is all a preface to explain that certain chemical additives will change the chemistry here, pushing the reactions to move to or away from certain pigment states.

The primary one that you mentioned is salt.  As discussed in the linked article:

  If salt has been incorporated into patties or is present in the case
  of enhanced steaks, salt decreases metmyoglobin reducing activity
  allowing more MMb to accumulate [i.e., turning brown]. . . .  In addition, salt promotes
  heat denaturation, or breakdown, of myoglobin [i.e., turning tan or gray].

Basically, salt causes the pigmentation molecules to convert faster to states resembling old or cooked meat, causing the color change you see.


Best way to preserve excess tallow long-term I received a shipment of eight 14oz bottles of grass-fed beef tallow. I will use one bottle right away. What is the best way to preserve the rest of the seven?

One idea is to put the 7 bottles in a freezer, and take one by one out as needed. Will this work?

FWIW, from the FatWorks FAQ I located this; not sure how reliable that information is.

  Tallow is naturally shelf stable for years.

  You can freeze your fat for an even longer shelf life, years in fact.

You can freeze tallow.  Dehydration and the freeze-thaw cycle of home freezers are the enemies of long term storage.  You can't stop the freeze-thaw cycle, but if you minimize exposure to dehydration (freezer burn) by storing full containers, or even vacuum packing, you can keep them that way for quite a while.

You added a picture, which is helpful.  I might not freeze glass jars.  You could risk expansion and breakage.


Soya sauce. Are they different for variety of dishes? Soya sauce: Whenever I buy new Soya sauce, it tastes quite different. Normally I use it in noodles and manchurian.

Any tips to buy it. During my reading, people mentioned thick/thin soya sauce. But in groceries I did not found something like this mentioned in description.

The latest one I bought, (it's same brand as previous one, same colored bottle), tastes too hot :(

If you heard people talking about "thick" vs. "thin" soy sauce, they were probably actually referring to dark vs. light soy sauce.

Dark soy sauce does not actually refer to the colour.  It does tend to be darker than natural fermented soy sauce, but if you're comparing to the hydrolyzed kind (the most common sold in stores), it will look about the same in terms of colour.  What actually distinguishes dark soy sauce is that it is aged longer and has added molasses, which makes it thick, sticky and syrupy.

Dark soy sauce does taste quite different from light soy sauce, even when it's the same brand.  Dark soy sauce replaces some of the saltiness of light soy sauce with sweetness instead, and in general just has a "bolder" taste.  It's usually used as a cooking ingredient, not a condiment.  I've heard, but can't verify, that it is more common in Japanese cooking than other Asian cuisines (although I have used it with much success in Chinese and Thai dishes).

I've started to see a lot more ordinary grocery stores carrying dark soy sauce, but until recently it was difficult to find unless you went to an Asian grocery store, and may still be difficult in some regions.  Unless the bottle specifically says dark soy sauce, it is light soy sauce.

You should not directly substitute one for the other.

As for your comment about the one you bought tasting too "hot" - you must have bought a chili-infused soy sauce or something.  Ordinary soy sauce (dark or light) is never spicy-hot.


How long is the longest I can slow cook pork shoulder? Everyone seems to say "low and slow" for pork shoulder. 225f or 250f for 8 or more hours.

What is the longest / lowest you can do? (without big risk of illnesses) eg, what would happen if you did 225 for 24 hours? etc.

EDIT: presume a 10LB pork shoulder (about 4.5kg)
TIA

According to Modernist Cooking Made Easy (emphasis added):

  For medium rare cooked pork shoulder, the meat should be held at 135°F
  or 57.2°C, while medium cooked meat is done at 145°F or 62.8°C. If a
  traditional well done shoulder is desired, it should be cooked at
  155°F or 68.3°C. No matter what temperature range is used, the pork
  shoulder should be cooked for 1 to 2 days. For a crisp or well done
  outer part, sous vide pork shoulder may be finished by searing,
  grilling or torching.

Note that to safely maintain and control temperatures this low for the sustained period of time, you must have a proper sous-vide setup, with a means of maintaining the temperature of the water bath.

Even at 135 F, over several hours, the method is safe because the killing of pathogens is a function of both time and temperature.

Similarly, the conversion of gelatin to collagen which gives slow cooked pork its unctuous texture is also a function of both time and temperature.  While in more traditional cooking methods (oven or barbecue), reaching internal temperatures of about 180 F is necessary to get collagen conversion in a reasonable period of time, it can be done in the truly extended time periods sous-vide cooking makes possible.

For more traditional cooking methods, about 225 F is about as low as you want to go

See also:

Why would a pressure cooker shorten a braise time? which looks at this question from the other end, making the conversion more rapid, and describes collagen to gelatin conversion in more detail.


Is it safe to leave butter at room temperature? Is it safe to leave butter at room temperature? If so, for how long is it safe to keep it out?

Try a butter crock. This will keep your butter fresh at room temperature for a fairly long time (weeks, not days).


What is this yellow and white mass inside my red cabbage? My wife cut a head of red cabbage in half and found this yellow and white organic mass inside it. We never saw anything like it before. Can anyone tell me what it is? Would it have been safe to eat? Could we have just cut off this portion of it and used the rest? We ended up playing it safe and throwing the whole head away.

These are immature flower shoots from the cabbage. Over time these would develop into a shoot that projects out the top of the "head" of the cabbage bearing the flowers.

These are not purple as they are largely stem (check the stems/major veins on the leaves - they are mostly white too). The flowers of the cabbage are yellow - but these aren't the yellow bits you are seeing - those are the bracts; the same as the "leaves" you get around a broccoli floret.