How do I cook chicken and asparagus over an open fire? I have some chicken breasts and some asparagus that I want to cook tomorrow whilst we're out camping for midsummer.

The fire will have a grate over it probably.

Is it better to wrap the food in foil to prevent it being touched by open flame? How can I make sure the chicken doesn't get too burned on the outside whilst being cooked on the inside?

You have two delicious choices. Both require a bed of coals, so I'll start with that.

You'll need to build a fire with the logs stacked 'log cabin' style, and let the fire burn down to coals. You want a deep red coal, just starting to darken on top. The coals should look something like this.

You can bake, or bbq the chicken and asparagus. Both are delicious methods.

To bake, wrap the chicken, asparagus and a starch like potato gratin style in layers of tinfoil. Use the starch around the outside, you'll sacrifice a layer of it as some of it sticks/burns to the tinfoil. Put the most delicate item in the middle, in this case the asparagus, and the chicken around the asparagus. Add a generous amount of butter, salt and pepper and bake for about an hour buried in the coals. Corn or green beans are also very good, and can be sacrificed a little around the outside to preserve your meat and vegetables.

I would layer it this way.

 1.Coals
 2. Tinfoil
     2. Potatoes
     2. Generous dollop of butter
     3. Salt & Pepper
     4. Green Beans
     5. Asparagus
     6. Chicken
     7. Potatoes
 3. Tinfoil
 4. Coals

Now, BBQ. You'll do it very much like a charcoal BBQ. Keep the grate close to the coals, you can generally test the heat by holding your hand above the grate, you should only be able to keep your hand there for a second or two at most.

Grill the chicken like you would on a bbq, and roast the asparagus on a cooler part of the grill. I'd marinate both before putting them on the grill. I'd also try to get an aromatic wood like hickory or mesquite, pine will impart a resinous taste.


Can I keep home-made salad dressing un-refrigerated? My salad dressing has extra virgin olive oil (EVOO), raspberry wine vinegar, chives, sugar, salt & pepper, lemon juice and lemon zest. Can I keep it un-refrigerated for 18 hours?

Me think you should be OK.

The dressing does not contain garlic which can be an issue in regards of botulism.

I don't know if chive has the same botulism problem as garlic, you might check that out


Do more peppers mean more heat? I see a lot of the hottest foods having multiple peppers used in their sauce, with the infamous ghost peppers being among them. If the ghost pepper is the hottest pepper in the dish, do the other peppers really add any more heat to the recipe or do they actually dilute the ghost pepper's fire?

To put it simply: if you increase the amount of capsaicin per bite of food, you'll make it hotter.

So if we're talking about just a sauce that's basically pure peppers, then yes, the mixture of a very hot pepper and a more mild pepper will be somewhere in between the two, and the addition of the mild pepper dilutes the sauce - a spoonful of it will not contain as much capsaicin.

But if we're talking about a dish that's mostly other things, with ghost pepper for heat in the sauce, and on top of that you add another pepper to the sauce, then yes, the other pepper will add heat - there'll be more capsaicin in each bite. Will it be noticeable? If it's a banana pepper, no - it's orders of magnitude milder, so you'll never notice. If it's a habanero, probably - it's not that much more mild than the ghost pepper.

Other peppers may well add great flavor, though. There's quite a variety among all the chilis, and it's perfectly reasonable to use half a dozen different ones in a single dish just to get the nice full flavor you want. This is still true if you're making a really hot dish. That said, if you're talking about "the hottest foods" and ghost peppers, it sounds like your goal is really just to make something really hot, not something you can actually taste - you can definitely get plenty of heat from other peppers. If you're using the hottest possible peppers, it's probably either a gimmick, or the whole point is to burn your tongue off so you can't taste anything else anyway.

This is of course all assuming you're actually using the whole pepper, in order to get all the heat from it. If you're not, then... why are you bothering with ghost peppers? See Cos Callis' answer for more explanation.


100% Rye Pizza Base Recipes? I'm looking for a 100% rye pizza base recipe. The recipes I can find all combine the rye with other flours (typically wheat based). I know it is possible to create 100% rye based pizza bases as I know of one pizza place in town that sells them.

I understand that they had to do something special to keep the pizza base from falling apart. I don't mind experimenting a bit to find a recipe that works, but I could use some ideas on where to start - what sort of ingredients might bind the rye so that it doesn't crumble as a thin pizza base and maintains a low glycemic index for my diabetic wife.

The only dietary requirements would be that the various ingredients maintain a low glycemic index or a specific ingredient with a high glycemic index can be counteracted by some other ingredient. And only using rye flour.

Have you considered using 100% rye bread as your beginning and going from there, rather than pizza crust?  Peter Reinhart's Bread Baker's Apprentice has a 100% rye sourdough bread that might suit your needs, although it will be a time consuming process.  A preview is online in Google Books.  The recipe is similar to a Neopolitan pizza dough - just basic ingredients with no fat.  Because of this, I'd roll out the pizza very thin, New York style, for a crackling crisp crust.  If you don't want to buy the book, many local libraries carry it in the US, at least.


How long Pasteurized Eggs can be refrigerated? I routinely pasteurize eggs in batches of 12 so if I don't have time for a full breakfast in the morning, I crack a few open in a glass of milk with some protein powder.

The approach I've been using so far is like so:

To pasteurize large eggs, place them in a saucepan filled with water and fitted with a digital thermometer.
Turn on the heat and bring the water up to 140F.
Keep the water temperature at 140F for 3 minutes (and no more than 142F), reducing the heat on the burner if necessary.
Remove eggs from hot water and rinse thoroughly with cold water.
Store in the refrigerator until needed or use right away.
Jumbo sized eggs need to 5 minutes in 140F water.

I've been doing this for several years now, and haven't had any issues. It also lines up with the method proposed in other similar posts on Cooking.StackExchange.com. Additionally, I bring the eggs up to the target temperature of 142F slowly over the course of about 15 minutes, using a simple dairy thermometer to keep track of the temperature. My theory is that if the eggs reach the target temperature slowly, it gives more time for the temperature inside the egg to match the temperature of the hot water, so the thermometer reading is indicative of the actual temperature of the inside of the egg.

How long is it safe to keep pasteurized eggs (using the method outlined above) in the fridge before I should toss them out? I've kept them in the fridge as long as six days prior to drinking them. Most posts I've read on cooked eggs suggest eating them within a couple days, but I don't know how that applies to heat-pasteurized eggs, since they aren't technically "cooked".

References

How to pasteurize eggs at home, Accessed 2014-09-03, <http://bakingbites.com/2011/03/how-to-pasteurize-eggs-at-home/>
What's a good technique for pasteurizing eggs?, Accessed 2014-09-03, <https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/4265/whats-a-good-technique-for-pasteurizing-eggs>

The lower bound seems to be at 2 to 4 days in the fridge. The upper bound is probably at 7 to 10 days in the fridge at less than 4°C (32 F) 1

1 Source: Swiss journal about poultry farming. This information refers to the storage of whole eggs. Two sentences before, the text says that cracked eggs stored at 4°C must be cooked within 48 hours to be conformable to Swiss law. I am not sure whether the information about pasteurized eggs is coverd by Swiss law or is just a recommendation of the article's author.


How to make rice crispy treats with no marshmallows, eggs or gelaten I'm trying to make rice crispy treats but I have no marshmallows, gelatin or eggs
What can I do

Aquafaba

Aquafaba (/ˌɑːkwəˈfɑːbə/) is the name for the viscous water in which legume seeds such as chickpeas have been cooked.
Due to its ability to mimic functional properties of egg whites in cooking, aquafaba can be used as a direct replacement for them in some cases, including meringues and marshmallows. Its composition makes it especially suitable for use by people with dietary, ethical, or religious reasons to avoid eggs.1

Aqua Faba features heavily in Vegan cookbooks. You can get it by capturing the liquid when you drain a can of chickpeas.
Here's a recipe that might get you started.


Why does adding sugar to sour things cause them not to be sour? This is one of those things which I've always thought to be obvious and never really noticed as strange.

"Obviously", if you add sugar to something sour, it makes something sweet. Take for instance Bramley apples in apple crumble, or lemons in lemonade. This is just something that people know!

But if you add sugar to something bitter (coffee, say) it doesn't stop tasting bitter! It just tastes like sweet coffee.

Any explanations?

Sugar does not cause sour food to be any less acidic. The difference is purely one of perception; we are wired by evolution to prefer sweet tastes and tend to perceive less of other tastes when a high sugar concentration is present.

Sugar does not ionize - it is not basic or acidic. Acidity itself is a chemical property, and only a base (such as baking soda or trisodium citrate) can actually neutralize it. Two other compounds - miraculin and curculin - actually alter our mouth chemistry and really do cause sour foods to taste sweet, without actually sweetening the food itself.  But plain sugar does nothing at all - there is no chemical reaction happening. It's just masking other tastes, not neutralizing them.

The reason sugar doesn't mask bitterness as effectively as sourness is that sweet and sour have roughly similar taste thresholds, while most humans are extremely sensitive to bitter tastes. We can detect quinine (the reference solute for bitterness) in solution at 0.5 ppm, whereas sucrose isn't normally detectable at levels below 5000 ppm. The amount of sugar needed to mask a significant bitter taste is simply not practical.

If you want to neutralize a bitter taste, use salt instead.


Moldy food left in oven, safe to cook? So we cooked some corn a couple weeks ago, left extras in the oven. Fast forward to tonight, I discovered we left it there. The pan it was sitting on was white as a ghost. Tossed that pan.

Is it safe to throw new food in there and cook it? I already got a cassarole baking now. Is it ruined? Only thing I can think would be mold spores, but 400F should kill them.

p.s. I'm paranoid about this stuff, sorry.

You will have mold spores in your oven, but the temperature will take care of them. All it means is that you might have some mold spore dust on your food later, which you won't even notice and is perfectly safe. Next time give your oven a good wipe-down with a damp towel before using it again.

There's no need to toss a pan after that sort of thing, just clean it with soapy water and it should be good to go.


Is only roe from sturgeon considered as caviar? Is only roe from sturgeon considered caviar? As sturgeon can only survive in cold waters it cannot occur naturally near the equator. What are substitutes for the sturgeon caviar so that one would be able to utilize fresh unpasteurized caviar in a country like pakistan?

It's even more specific than that: traditionally, only eggs from the sturgeon of the Caspian or Black Seas are considered caviar.

Other fish eggs that are eaten in the same manner as caviar are: sturgeon eggs from elsewhere, paddlefish eggs, salmon eggs, trout eggs, carp eggs, or lumpfish or whitefish eggs.  Of these, only the carp is adaptable to warm climates; all of the others are cold-water fish.

So, if you want fish eggs that you can use as "caviar" that you raise & eat fresh in the hot areas of Pakistan, you'd be limited to carp eggs. That said ... Pakistan has high mountains and cold areas as well, presumably you could raise salmon or trout in mountain streams/lakes for their eggs, which are enjoyed by more people than carp eggs.


Can you add cheese to a veloute? Nacho time!
The urge to make nachos overtakes you, and you set to make them excellent.
But alas, seems like you've forgotten to get milk! You can't create a proper Mornay (cheese) sauce, since you can't create Bechamel.
You do, however, happen to have a very good stock at hand.
Thus, the question - would you be able to make a veloute sauce (roux + stock) and add the cheese to it to create some form of Mornay? Or would that sauce just not work?

You don't need milk.  There are two common ways to help prevent the sauce from splitting on you -- starch (used in mornay), and acid.
When Alton Brown did his "Good Eats: Reloaded", he admitted that his original recipe for fondue was a problem ... he had used a more acidic hard cidre, which meant it worked fine for him, but caused major problems for people trying it at home.  His updated fondue recipe calls for both cornstarch and lemon juice.
This also typically means that "processed" cheeses won't break (as they typically contain a little bit of starch and acidic salts), and that pre-shredded cheese has less problems (as they coat it in starch to prevent it from clumping back together).  So if someone develops a recipe that works for them, but you shred your own cheese, it might not work.
I suspect that adding cheese to veloute would work, but you want to work the cheese in slowly, over a moderate amount of heat, and you may wish to add a little bit of extra acid for insurance.


Can I use rice wine vinegar in risotto? I don't tend to keep any white wine in the house for cooking and have a bottle of rice wine vinegar to use up - only used it once and don't know what else to use it for.

Could I use rice wine vinegar at the start of cooking a risotto?

I would not use any vinegar. You will not want the sour taste that vinegar will leave.  You will have a better final result if you just omit the wine.  If you feel like it needs a little acidity at the end add a light squeeze of lemon (or even a couple of drops of vinegar).  However, I've made risotto plenty of times without wine or extra acid...no problem!


what is the appropriate cook time for cumin before it turns into a smoky flavor? I am cooking a salsa that requires cumin in a large industrial kettle.  It takes at least 2 hours to cook it down.  When cooled off, it has a smoky flavor.  So far, I don't want to use a substitution.  I have thought about adding the cumin in for the last 30 minutes to see if it wouldn't cause the smoky flavor.  Can someone tell me if there is an appropriate cook time for cumin before it turns smoky?

Cumin always has a earthy flavour, tending towards smoky especially if fried or toasted.  So if you currently fry the cumin at the beginning you may get some benefit from not doing so and adding it to the salsa when you add the water-based liquids, but the chances are the best thing to do is omit it, or reduce it significantly.  You may then get into experimenting with alternatives, but I suggest doing so in a scaled-down batch.

I went into a little more detail on flavour extraction and temperature in a recent answer.


Firming up Neapolitan Pizza Crust We cooked some pizza last night and had a good time. However, the crust was limp. I was expecting to tap the bottom and hear the tap tap tap sound but it was too soft.
We have an Alphaforni 5 Minuti Wood fire oven running at 500°F. The temperature was measured using the built in thermometer. I had preheated the oven for over an hour.
The dough was sitting out of the fridge for about 2.5 hrs before we got it into the oven.
How can I get the bottom crispier?
What would cause such a soft bottom?

500F is not really that hot, in terms of Neapolitan pizza.  Traditionally, they are baked for 2 minutes or less, at 700F - 900F (371 - 482C).  So, this could be a temperature, and/or a cooking surface issue.  What type of oven are you using?  On what type of surface is your pizza cooking?


What ginger compound is responsible for the 'kick'? Mint's minty kick mostly comes from menthol and pepper from capsaicin.

What is the equivalent dominant compound in ginger that gives it the characteristic kick?

All i can tell is it's water soluble :)

You can thank gingerol for the kick in fresh ginger, and shogaol and zingerone for the heat of dried ginger. Gingerol is chemically similar to capsaicin in chilis and piperine in black pepper, but undergoes changes when heated or dried converting it to the other compounds. You can see where gingerol and shogaol fall on the Scoville scale here.


Can I make Chocolate Chip Cookies last for months by adding preservatives? I have a small cookie business and I would like to start selling packaged (soft baked) cookies, that last longer than a week, hopefully a few months.

However, cookies prepared with fresh ingredients only last for 5 days. (After 3 days they don't taste that good anyway.)

I have heard of special ovens making them last for months, as well as special packaging and preservatives, but I don't have any information on any of these.

Do any of these work? Or do I have to change my recipe completely and use powdered eggs, whey powder, etc.?

I don't know enough about this to give you a good answer, and since no one else has chimed in, I think your best bet may be to try to contact some commercial packaging operation and see if they have suggestions.  Your quantities probably won't be big enough to interest them, but maybe they can point you in the right direction.

I think packaging is going to be your biggest hurdle.  A complete air seal does amazing things for cookie shelf life -- a traditional tin often seems to double or triple the shelf-life of my cookies compared to other less sturdy or air-tight containers.  Even things like the plastic trays that packaged cookies come in are no accident: they often keep the cookies well-spaced (no mass of them sticking together) and won't absorb or give off moisture.

As for the recipe, I don't think you'll need to go as drastic as dried eggs, etc. if you have proper packaging.  The recipe may require some tweaks or preservatives, particularly for soft-baked cookies.  The earliest packaged cookies were generally dry and hard -- think "animal crackers."  At home, I can make cookies like that which last for a couple months stored in a tin.  But I think "soft-baked" cookies only became common in commercial packages in the 1980s or so.  (However, the texture of those "chewy" cookies was generally horrid.)  I imagine one reason for that may have been the increased use of hydrogenated oils at that time, which would have allowed higher fat content without the fats going rancid at room temperature during storage.  Rancidity is probably your next problem to solve after achieving a good air-tight seal and packaging.  (Lecithin in very small quantities might be a little helpful too, but it can impart a strong flavor.)

You might need to tweak the recipe a bit if it's too moist, and that should help to avoid microbial problems or mold.  (Yes, cookies -- particularly moist ones like soft-baked -- can grow mold, but we generally never see it because the oxidation causes staleness and rancidity long before we generally see mold growth.)  Aside from lowering moisture, increasing sugar and/or salt content might also help.

Those should be the main concerns.  Other preservatives may add a bit longer, but the biggest hurdles are packaging (including a real air-tight seal), rancidity, and mold.  Conquer those, and you may already looking at a shelf-life of at least a month, maybe a few months.  Beyond that, and you'll probably need to start experimenting with recipe tweaks like the big cookie companies do.  Unfortunately there aren't that many "magic" preservatives that will push staleness off forever: a lot of it just has to do with getting the recipe with the right fat content, moisture content, etc. and packaging them well.


Challah rolls open up when baking in the oven I cook Challah rolls very often.

Sometimes it all goes great. Some other times I encounter an issue I cannot identify where it comes from.

The baked challah roll comes rises in the oven and opens up in a not very nice way. Taste is great, but the look is obviously not very good.

Here is a picture. That crust kind of opening where the roll is folded is the issue I am dealing with.

This is a very common problem with challah (and any braided bread).  As mentioned in comments, it seems likely that the splitting happened in the oven because the bread continued to expand too much after the crust had set.  But the braids also complicate the reasons why this may have happened.

Here are a few common things to try:

Be sure not to braid too tightly.  The gluten can only stretch so far, and if the braid is too tight, the yeast expansion in the oven will have nowhere to go.  When you braid, start with the strands spread apart a bit, and don't stretch and pull excessively to make the braid tight.
Be sure not to braid too loosely.  This seems less likely to be your particular problem from the photo, but sometimes if the strands have big gaps between them during the rise, they won't properly join together.  When they are put in the oven, they can pull back apart.  (Generally, this only is a major issue when there's some other problem on this list.)
Be sure dough is fully proofed.  If a large loaf has not risen enough before you place in the oven, the interior will continue to expand for quite a few minutes.  If the crust sets before that expansion has slowed, it can result in bursting.  Also, don't depend on time to determine when rising is complete.  Changes in humidity and kitchen temperature can easily double the necessary rising time on occasion.
Try increasing the humidity in the rising conditions.  When a braided loaf's surface dries out, it can develop a dry "skin" before going in the oven.  Sometimes this can prevent proper expansion in the oven, and the strands don't bake together properly, leading to bursting.  If your kitchen is very dry, you might try to find an enclosed space (or even make one out of a random box), and place the dough in it along with a cup of very hot water.  Replace the water with fresh hot water periodically if the rise takes a long time; this will keep the surface moist.
Use egg wash right after braiding.  This is related to point (4).  Egg wash can help maintain a wetter, softer crust and avoid the "skin" formation I mentioned.  You might try applying it both immediately after braiding and then again before putting in the oven (to avoid light gaps of color that are too big).  That said, being overly aggressive with egg wash can sometimes lead to the strands becoming too melded together, which leads to a final product with less distinction.
Be sure oven is not too hot.  Many ovens have inaccurate thermometers.  With a very hot oven, you can often increase oven spring.  But it can also cause the crust to set more quickly.  For large braided loaves, the interior rise can continue too long after the crust has set.  This may also be a particular problem if you tend to refrigerate braided bread to rest it before baking, which means the interior lags even further behind the crust in the oven.
Don't be aggressive in stretching strands.  I've read about this being a problem for some folks, though I'm not quite sure whether this is a real problem that could lead to bursting.  Basically, if your strands are springing back excessively while rolling, you might have a tendency to try to "force" them and thus tear the gluten.  Some people say this can lead to weird things happening on the edges of the strands and thus separation in the oven.  In any case, tearing the gluten isn't a good thing in general, so if you are sensing a lot of resistance, let the strand rest for a couple minutes and let the gluten relax before stretching it further.
If all else fails, try a different braiding pattern.  In particular, there are some braids (like one six-strand variant) that are quite flat and have more "joints" between strands on the top.  When you only have a couple places for the bread to break apart in the oven, it puts a lot of stress on them.  With more strands and a flatter braid, the stress can be relieved in more places, making it less likely to get big separation in any particular place.


Do modern ovens bake the same as the old ones? Is the new oven the reason popovers don't rise? My popovers always popped over perfectly tall and golden using an old recipe handed down from the 40's, which called for baking at 400 °F and using old-fashioned glass custard cups.  Now with my new electric oven, the popovers do not rise at all using this same method. They look like flat yellow pancakes.  I've tested the oven temperature and had the oven checked professionally. Do the new modern ovens bake differently the old ones?

I'd guess it's not the new oven that's wrong, but the old one.
Older ovens has less accurate thermometers & were maybe 20° hotter at the top than the bottom. The chances are your hand-me-down recipe was based on this phenomenon & your new one is accurate… & therefore not hot enough.
I'd never heard of popovers until 10 minutes ago, but reading through recipes online, they seem to be exactly same as Yorkshire Puddings, just served with sweet toppings instead of roast beef & gravy. [How two sides of the Atlantic arrived at that difference, I'll never know nor understand ;)
Most say to use 450°F [230°C] which is more like I'd use for Yorkies - in fact for Yorkies, the hotter the better, preheat your tins too. My rule of thumb has always been, once everything else is done [roast dinner, remember;) just turn the heat to max, add your oil & put your tins in the top half [high as you can but leaving room to rise], then give it 15 mins to come up to temperature. The oil should be smoking before you drop your batter.
Pour quickly & get that door shut. Once in, never open the door until they're ready.
After comments
I've never known anyone to drop the temperature half-way through [but then again, 'crispy' is not something I'd want from a yorkie [only supermarkets & restaurants think they should be crispy, ordinary Yorkshire folks don't]), but I still think you're not getting enough heat into them right at the start.
Maybe your oven really does slump the temperature easily; maybe you've got the door open too long or the element isn't fast enough to get back up to temperature; tins aren't hot enough to start with.
I'd try at least once with the oven simply "on full" - whatever it thinks it can go to - but watch it doesn't switch mode right at the top. if I turn mine full then back it switches to rotisserie/fan grill rather than 'oven'. That might be a little excessive ;)


Cooking beef for pepper steak From American-"Chinese" restaurants, I usually order a dish called "Pepper Steak with Onions". This seems to be a simple enough dish, mostly a straightforward stir-fry, except for one unique characteristic: the beef comes out soft and easy to chew, much like chicken.

How is this achieved? Is it a certain cut of meat? A certain cooking technique?

Meat in stir-fries is often velveted. That makes for a supremely soft chunk of meat, and it can be done with any type of meat. This answer actually addresses chicken: How to cook extremely soft chicken?, but it applies just as well to beef. It's usually done with egg and cornstarch, but sometimes it's done with a small amount baking soda instead, as in this recipe for Beef and Broccoli.


How to substitute chicken broth in a vegetarian soup? I'm making minestrone soup (for the first time) and, on reading the recipe, it calls for chicken broth. Normally this is no problem, but my vegetarian brother is visiting this weekend and I was going to make enough to share.

I'm assuming that chicken broth is non-vegetarian. I've asked him if he's willing to eat it, but for the time being I'm assuming it's verboten.
Not having the broth will obviously change the flavor. (I've never had minestrone before, so I wouldn't have any basis for comparison.) What should I replace it with for best results? Plain water, something with more body (red wine, which the recipe also calls for), or something a little more fun or exotic?

Your question seems to have two parts:

With what do I replace chicken stock to make the dish vegetarian and
How can I add some zing to the dish for added interest?

To answer 1, I'd make a hearty vegetable stock from scratch. Recipies abound. Alternatively you could rely on a bought stock but I find that these can be overpowering and of course you have less control over the flavour.

To answer 2, consider adding a dollop of pistou to each bowl of soup when serving. Freshly made pistou is easy and adds interest and flavour. See, e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/pistou_89874.


How to get instant pudding to come out smooth? How can you make instant chocolate pudding come out smooth and even consistency instead of having little chocolatey clumps in it? Could something be wrong with my technique? The box says to beat pudding mix into cold milk and then whisk for 2 minutes, should be simple, right? Whisking longer doesn't seem to remove the lumps, so it must be something else.

I like to put the pudding mix in the bowl first and add the milk a little at a time, stirring or beating well after each addition, until you have smooth emulsion. Once the pudding mixture is smooth, add the rest of the milk and beat with your whisk as usual. Of course an electic mixer will help smooth it out as well.


Curries with yoghurt-based marinade When cooking a curry using meat that has been marinaded in yoghurt tikka masala for instance, I have noticed that it often curdles/splits/gets grainy when cooked. I use 3.5% fat yoghurt, Balkan style - but this tends to happen with any yoghurt. Is there a way to prevent that from happening?

Any advice at all on this subject would be helpful!

You can use sour cream - tastes the same and won't break.


What cookbooks do you always come back to? Like me, there are probably a lot people on here that have a lot of cookbooks, but I find I keep coming back to the same 1 or 2 books to give me the basis of most of the stuff I cook.

For me, I find myself coming back to the Jamie At Home book and Jamies Italy but I'm interested to see what other cookbooks others have as their "go to" cookbooks?

Definitely the Joy of Cooking.  It's not a convenience cookbook for people with busy schedules or low patience - the majority of recipes in there are geared toward flavour and not specialty diets or quick prep times - but at least 9 out of 10 recipes I try in there have near-perfect flavour and texture.

IMO, this should be in every cook's kitchen, even the ones that don't really use cookbooks.  It has all the classic recipes, and you never know when somebody will ask you to make Chicken Kiev.


Sous Vide Roast: What should I do with the excess liquid in the bag? I am new to sous vide. I am currently cooking a roast at 140 F. I can see there is a bit of liquid, and probably blood around the meat in the bag. It has been going for 8 hours now at or above 140, so all should be well as it is at it's largest, ~2 1/2" thick. I am going to serve with potatoes, onion, and carrot. I plan to stew the left overs.

What should I do with the liquid currently in the bag? Would it be best to discard, or use for broth or to cook the vegtables?

I considered draining and catching the bag of the liquid, and resealing the roast in a new bag to go back in the water bath. I could then use the liquid to cook the veggies. What would that do to the roast, if it cooked another 30 to 90 minutes?

Note, I do plan to brown in a cast iron skillet for Maillard.

Suggestions? Thanks.

If you are planning to stew the leftovers, I would use the juices there: as a gravy base.


Is it ok to pre-mix dry ingredients a few days before baking? I've been asked to bake at someone else's house that I'm traveling to. I thought it might be easier to measure all the dry ingredients at home and combine them in airtight plastic bags until ready to use - like a store-bought mix. Is there any reason this might not work? For example, are any ingredients problematic: cocoa powder, corn flour, or leavening like baking soda/powder (just throwing those out as examples)?

If it matters, I'll be making cornbread and chocolate cake.

The cornbread is probably uncritical, but double-check your recipe for the chocolate cake:

If it is a "mix-all-dry-ingredients / mix-wet-ingredients / combine-and-bake" type of cake (like for muffins), you are ok. But if the cake requires creaming butter and/or eggs with sugar and folding in cocoa and flour at the end, you are in trouble if you dump everything in one bag. (Two or three bags might work, depending on the recipe steps.)

Apart from that, your dry ingredients stay safe if they stay dry. Any humidity can lead to lumps or the baking powder activating prematurely and thus flat cakes.

So keep your mixes in airtight containers and you are good to go.

A few practical tips:

You might want to take a few extra materials with you - like flour or cocoa to dust your pan or extra flour if you need to shape or roll the dough. Confectioners sugar or cocoa can come handy for a quick dusting should you need to hide a few, ahem, cosmetic flaws.
Not all ovens are callibrated well, so if you have a separate oven thermometer, take it with you. Also, keep an eye on your product while it is baking, you might have to adjust baking time or temperature (elevation!) a bit.
Your dry ingredients may settle during transport, aerating them helps a lot for better results. Either sift them or stir with a wire whisk.


How to store a banana that was cut in half to preserve the other half? I can usually only eat about half of a banana, and usually when I get sick of it I just throw it away. In the past, I've seen bananas cut in half at hotels and other places that provide breakfast, etc, and thought maybe I could do the same - just cut it in half, eat one half now, and eat the other half later.

My question is, how do I need to store a banana that is cut in half like this? Obviously the bottom part of the banana is exposed to the air and not protected by the peel. As well, how long can I keep a half banana around before it just plain goes bad? Or does the fact that it's cut in half even affect how it should be stored / how long it keeps?

Cut it in half before peeling, so that only the end is exposed.   Wrap the exposed end with plastic wrap, and place in the refrigerator.   The skin may darken, but that is okay.

You should get a day or two easily.

Or put all the half bananas in the freezer, and when you have enough, make banana muffins.


How can I make a raw vegan shrimp paste substitute? I would like to make a raw vegan shrimp paste substitute. I have seen people suggest using mushrooms --  yes, but.. how would you make it taste like Thai shrimp paste?

As far as I know, shrimp paste is ground shrimp fermented with a lot of salt. You may have a hard time replicating this exactly with easy-to-find vegan ingredients, but I think what might work well as a substitute is a mixture of miso and dried seawead or kelp powder. The seaweed would give you the fishy taste and the miso - which is salted, fermented soybean paste - would give you the funky salty part.

I'm not sure if you consider miso raw, because it's often pasteurized, but you might find unpasteurized miso at a health food store or Whole Foods. It wouldn't be as "safe" as pasteurized and might have other stuff growing in it. If you want to make sure it's raw, you could also make the miso yourself. I won't tell you how to do that here, but there's sources online. You can also get you sick if you ferment it yourself and don't pasteurize it.

Another vegan alternative, but not raw - is to get some Taiwanese meat substitutes. I live near an importer in NYC that sells tons of stuff online, include shrimp and other fish substitutes. In my experience they are very fishy tasting, but that might work for this application. Here's a link to their seafood section. http://www.maywahnyc.com/SearchResults.asp?Cat=1819


How to translate a baking recipe for box mixes for cast iron skillets? I recently purchased a skillet at the advice of a trusted friend. I have seen a number recipes for a lot of foods including baked goods. But, the recipes are all "from scratch". Now, I realize that this is probably the best way to go. But, I saw recipes for making chocolate chip cookies and brownies in a skillet in the oven (in Dorie Greenspan's cookie book). I have some box mixes at home.

How can I modify the baking instructions for the box mixes for use in a cast iron skillet? Are there general guidelines for this?

The only thing I could find after searching online was on the Jiffy Mix pages for using their various box mixes in a cast iron skillet.

I follow the directions on the package, with one modification: when preheating the oven, I preheat the skillet in there as well.

I add the batter or dough to the warm skillet then bake. I use the baking time on the box as a reference, but monitor by eye toward the end. It usually is done within -5 to +3 minute range as listed on the box.

I've done this with Jiffy corn bread, cake mixes, brownie mixes, etc. Usually very good result. Sometimes the bottom crust is thicker, but the kids liked that. I've never had anything come out as a complete disaster.

Oh.. I also spray the pan with non-stick just before pouring the batter.


What went wrong with my cookie dough? This is my latest attempt at making chewy cookies.

I used:

220 g butter, melted
200 g brown sugar
100 g white sugar
320 g all-purpose flour 320g
1 whole egg + 1 yolk

I don't understand why it turned to a dark color. Is it because of the brown sugar? Chewy cookies need a high brown to white ratio, don't they?

One more thing I noticed while mixing was that the sugar (both white and brown) didn't mix easily with the melted butter.

Also, are chewy cookie and softbaked cookie the same thing?

Here's the result after baking for 12 minutes

form the look of its bottom i think there might be something wrong during beating sugar in melted butter,isn't it?

Your egg and butter mix has curdled/split you need to put it in a fresh floured bowl and keep mixing till smooth.

The brown is, as you mentioned, the brown sugar. Nothing to worry about.

Personally I wouldn't use melted butter at all. Rather I would use soft butter. Creaming sugar and butter with melted butter is impossible, especially if the butter is melted to the extent where the fat and milk have separated.

Soft bake is soft, like cake. Chewy bake is ... Chewy, like brownies.


Can I thaw frozen spinach that´s meant to be boiled frozen? The frozen spinach package says to boil while frozen, but I never seem to manage to get it cooked the way I like it. Either the center stays frozen (the package says 3-5min with boiling water and I need to keep it over 10min), or a big percentage of the spinach is way too bland.

I thought maybe thawing before, and then boiling, or even cooking in the pan would solve this. I don´t use fresh spinach primarily because of the money and convenience.

Can anyone tell me if this is a good idea?

In my experience frozen spinach will never be close to fresh, so I guess it depends on what sort of consistency you are hoping to get. In any case boiling from frozen sounds like the world's worst way to prepare it! There is no reason you can't thaw it before you cook it, but I wouldn't boil it in any case. I'd that it and drain it well, maybe even squeezing excess water out of it before pan frying it. Season it well with salt and pepper, a bit of butter never hurts.


In what way is kosher chicken different from brined chicken in terms of salt absorbtion? Ideally I want all parts of my chicken to absorb a good amount of salt. I think brining is best but somebody has suggested kosher chicken.  How is kosher salted differently and will all parts of kosher chicken be salted to the point where it is plump and juicy as you get when brining?

Thanks

I explained several of the differences in my answer to Brining a kosher bird and also discussed some issues relating to salt consistency in a much earlier answer to Chicken comes out salty... occasionally.

To make a long story short, kashering is a long process with many steps, but the part you're concerned with is similar to the "dry brining" technique some people are fond of using for Thanksgiving turkeys. The meat is salted directly - no water is used - and it is left to rest for a much shorter period, about 1 hour, before finally being rinsed and packed.

Kosher meat isn't "juicy" like brined meat at all; in fact, all other things being equal, it will come out much drier and tougher than unkosher meat, because in the process of drawing out blood (the reason for salting in kashering), a good deal of moisture is drawn out as well. Brining adds moisture to the tune of about 10%; kashering takes moisture away by a similar amount.

Aside from drying out, the only culinary differences you'll find with kosher birds (or other meat) are (a) less blood, uric acid, and other "undesirable" components, and (b) they are naturally saltier than unkosher birds. However, because the kashering process has nothing to do with flavouring, you can't expect any kind of consistency, and it's not uncommon to find that some parts are much saltier than other parts coming from the same bird.

Kosher birds are going to absorb roughly the same amount of salt and water from a brine. The difference is that because they've already been salted, you run the risk of over-brining to the point of being inedibly salty. That's the whole story.

If you want flavourful and moist then get a regular bird and brine it. If you care more about flavour and want to save some time (at a significant cost premium) then go ahead and use a kosher bird, no brine. You can brine a kosher bird (see first link in this answer) but you're going to have to do a little experimenting to get it right - and if you're going to brine anyway, then why bother spending the extra money on kosher meat?

Don't pay any mind to the oft-repeated claims that kosher birds are "pre-brined" or similar nonsense. The inherent saltiness of a kosher bird is significant but also incidental and thus inherently unreliable.

(Please also note: Assuming this is a follow-up to your previous question, none of this is going to make the slightest bit of difference if you're just going to plop the chicken parts into a pot of boiling or poaching water. If you're making broth, then you flavour the broth, not the meat.)


How to prevent sweet thick glaze/sauce from setting after cooling? I attempted to make a sweet balsamic glaze/sauce from a simple recipe that called for 1 cup balsamic vinegar and half a cup of brown sugar. To my own tastes I added a bit of Worcestershire sauce, a splash of soy sauce and a little bit of rosemary. I may have added a bit too much sugar, I was doing rough measurements.

Regardless, I cooked the mixture for about 8 minutes on high heat until the syrup coated the back of a spoon.

The issue is that after the glaze was done, as it cooled, it entirely set. It ended up being more like a soft caramel, sticking to your teeth.

Did I add too much sugar? Or did I cook the mixture too hot or too long?

until the syrup coated the back of a spoon

Then you made syrup, and that's why it had the texture of syrup. You should not have cooked it, just warmed until it dissolved, if you wanted a sauce texture.

If the directions in the recipe are for cooking until it gets so thick, then the recipe intends the sticky texture, and you might want to use a different recipe. Or maybe they intended the thinnest possible syrup at say 102 C boiling point, and you misunderstood the vague suggestion of "coat the back of the spoon" and let it climb up to maybe 106 or 108.

In candymaking, the ratio of the sugar to liquid is not important, because you just boil the mixture until enough liquid has evaporated to get to the right stopping point (the one which corresponds to the desired texture after setting). It only has an influence on the time of preparation, not on the final result. If you would prefer a dissolved version (not heated until you get a syrup), then the ratio becomes important.


Can I learn to like wine? Wine, especially combined with the right food, seems to be a great deal among gourmets. I'd love to enjoy those highly-praised combinations too, but unfortunately, although I'm 22 years old by now, I still don't like the taste of wine at all.

Can I learn to like wine? Are there any methods or tips how to train my sense of taste? Or is it a process that will simply take its time, and the only thing I can do is "waiting to become older"?

There's no point drinking wine and not enjoying it. The point of wine with food is that, if you enjoy the wine and enjoy the food, you'll enjoy both together even more. But if you don't enjoy the wine, you'll enjoy the food less if you force yourself to drink wine with it.

Is there anything you do like about wine? If not, I suggest you ignore it for the time being. If you're curious, you'll come back to it in your own time, whenever you're ready. If you're not, it doesn't matter: there's nothing wrong with not liking wine.

If there is something you like about wine, for example, the aroma or some component of the taste, I suggest you keep trying it but don't force yourself. Taste it every now and again and, if you still don't like it, wait until you want to try it again.  This is what I did with whisky.  As a teenager / young adult, I really liked the smell of whisky but didn't like the taste – in hindsight, it was probably the alcohol content that was the problem.  Every now and again I'd have a taste from my father's glass or from somebody I was drinking with at a bar.  For a long time, I didn't like it but I still liked the aroma so I kept trying a couple of times a year. Eventually, I started drinking it.

A few things to bear in mind about wine.

Avoid cheap wine and don't waste your money on expensive wine that you won't appreciate. Low price isn't a guarantee of low quality and high price isn't a guarantee of high quality but it's worth spending, say, twice the price of the cheapest bottle if you're at the supermarket. That's likely to lift you into wines that you're disliking because you dislike wine, rather than because they're bad.
Red wine, poured straight from the bottle often tastes rather harsh. Open the bottle half an hour or so before you want to drink it and let it sit in the glass for a couple of minutes before you drink.
Wines (especially red) with just one or two grape varieties named on the bottle usually have simpler, less challenging tastes.
Sweeter white wines will probably be more appealing to you than drier ones. Try something like a sauvignon blanc or unoaked chardonnay, rather than, say, a pinot gris/pinot grigio. Riesling can be anywhere from super-sweet to mouth-puckeringly dry depending on what the winemaker did.
Supermarkets in the UK sell quarter-bottles of decent-but-not-amazing wine. That's a good way to try lots of different styles without having to spend a lot of money or feeling that you're wasting a whole bottle if you don't like it.
This suggestion is heresy but... consider chilling red wine. Chilling tends to make harsher flavours less noticeable. If you find you like it chilled, try chilling it less.
Ask a wine merchant. Specialist wine merchants love to talk about wine. Don't be embarrassed to walk into one of their stores and say, "Hi. I like the idea of wine but I've never found a wine I like drinking." Their eyes will light up because this is a challenge to them to use their skills to make a customer really happy. If you buy a couple of bottles on their recommendations, you'll be their favourite customer of the day, I guarantee. Doubly so if you go back a week later after liking what you bought. Go for it!


Difference between Spumante & Champagne When winter holidays come, I always find with my parents and the whole family. Sometimes we use Spumante, some other times Champagne, both to accompain with some sweet at the end of the meal, or during the meal.

In any case, I always wondered which is the difference between Champagne and SPumante (apart the fact that they come from different countries).

Are they the same?
Is one more precious than the other?
When do you use one or the other?

Champagne is sparkling wine that is produced in the Champagne region of France. The grapes used in champagne are usually Pinot noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Meunier. I think that there are a few sparkling wines that are grown outside of Champagne, France, that are allowed to be labeled as champagne but for a purist, they aren't actually champagne. The politics are complicated, and you can get an overview of the idea at the champagne wikipedia page.

Spumante, on the other hand, is a sparkling white wine from the Piedmont region of Italy. (It is also called asti or asti spumante.) It's made from the Moscato Bianco grape. More information can be found on the spumante wikipedia page.

I find spumante wines to be very sweet, whereas you can purchase champagnes that are brut (dry), demi-sec (half-dry) and doux (sweet). Most champagnes are pretty dry. Champagnes are also typically sold at a premium, whereas you can find bottles of spumante for about $5.

I think it's a matter of taste for when you want to drink champagne vs. spumante. If the cost is an issue, then champagne should be saved for special occasions. Spumante is good for a meal or occasion that calls for a sweeter sparkling wine. If I want a dry sparkling wine and don't want to shell out for champagne, there is always Prosecco, Cava, or other generic sparkling wines.


Will eggwhites clear my lobster broth I'm planning to do a lobster broth for New-Years.

Lobster shells, browned in oven
Shallots, parsley root, carrots and other suitable veg
Seasoning, tomato paste, I think I have a reasonable slurp of Cognac avaliable.

Boil for about 15 minutes.

When I strain this, it will be cloudy.  I was thinking whisking in egg-whites and straining it again to make it clear. Is this possible?  Will the procedure change the taste?

I have about 4 hours to make it on saturday. Any suggestions are welcome. I want it as consommé-like(clear) as possible.

Allow me to describe what happened.  (TLDR; complete success)

I started out with

The regular lobster soup starter pack.

About 1.5 liters of water, half a bottle of white wine.

This isn't clear at all.

Eggwhites.

Really slow boil.

Siphon to test.

I'm ok with this.

The end result was fantastic

What really surprised me was that I started with well over 2 litres of broth. In the end I had about 7 dl of clear stuff. About 1/3 of the original tasty broth.


How can I remove a stuck babka from a stoneware baking bowl? I just baked an Easter bread (Babka - Polish sweet bread) and allowed it to cool in a stoneware round bowl.  Now I can not remove the bread from the bowl.  Any suggestions?

My sister had this exact issue last Easter, we just couldn’t get the babka out.  Eventually, she just tore out what she could using a clean pry-bar, and then let the family dog clean out the rest of the bowl.  Then she soaked the bowl in water.


Bread recipe calls for dry milk powder. Can I use dry buttermilk powder? I'm making a white pain de mie. I'd like to try to use up some buttermilk powder in place of the dry milk in the recipe.

I've swapped out some of the water for fresh milk to substitute for dry milk before without any ill effects.

The dry milk has a bit more protein than the dry buttermilk, and the dry buttermilk has a trace of fat. I'm not finding any other relevant differences in the nutritional facts. The reconstitution ratio is the same.

The ingredients of the dry buttermilk are: A cultured blend of sweet cream churned buttermilk, sweet dairy whey, and lactic acid.

Should I expect any problems just swapping them out, 1:1?

You'll be fine doing a straight substitution.  Well, maybe I shouldn't be so definitive since these are powders we're talking about and it's not quite the same thing, but I've substituted buttermilk for whole milk in bread recipes plenty of times.  The only thing that changed for me was the rising time.  When I use buttermilk in my sandwich bread, it needs an extra 20 minutes or so on the first rise compared to the whole milk version.


Can I "fill" a chicken pot pie 24 hours before cooking it? I have made chicken pot pie filling. I was hoping to lay the pie pastry in the pie pan, fill it with the filling, lay the second pie pastry on top, and then refrigerate the raw pir in the fridge for a day. I want to do this so I can just pop it in the oven the next day without any work. This would work great preparing for parties and such.

My concern is that resting the filling on the pie crust for a day would affect the pie crust somehow. Perhaps the liquid would seep into the pastry and affect texture or cooking for example.

Can I "fill" a chicken pot pie 24 hours before cooking it?

Absolutely not. As the other poster said but I will say with no "I think", I will say I know it will ruin the pastry.  You will end up with a gummy crust that will never give you the flaky texture that pie doughs are famous for. It would probably also leave you with a somewhat dry filling as much of the liquid would then be in the crust.


Mixing mozzarella without clumping Whenever I use mozarella in a pasta dish, and attempt to mix it in like you would cheddar or anything else, I end up with one giant clump of mozzarella.
Ex) I cook some pasta, and add the cheese/milk right after draining and attempt to mix.

Is there a way to thoroughly mix this hardheaded cheese?

You need to add in your cheese in small quantities and stir after each addition.

I'm not sure what you're making, but you could make a cream sauce prior to mixing the pasta with milk/cream, cheese and butter.  Again, though, you'll want to add the cheese in small quantities and ensure that it's incorporated before adding another batch.


What causes egg-covered puffed rice cakes to become soft when pan fried (and how to control it)? While recently making fried bread slices dipped in egg (both white and yolk), I've run out of bread. Since I've already had everything else prepared, I've decided to go ahead and replace the bread with (Western-style) puffed rice cakes.

Anticipating the result would be not very palatable, I was instead surprised that the crispy and brittle (even after a long dip in the eggs) rice cakes became soft and mostly chewy during frying — turning out to be quite a viable substitute for this type of snack.

Interestingly, I've later tried to reproduce this process of softening up with just temperature and temperature and cooking oil, without success, implying that the egg dip has to be a factor in the transformation.

My question is: what in the combination of eggs and pan frying causes the softening of the puffed rice cakes, and what are the influencing factors in the context of controlling this process?

For completeness sake, some additional information:

the egg dip used was completely unseasoned, just egg white and yolk briefly stirred together with a fork,
the rice cakes were composed of puffed "pure grain brown rice" and 0.9% of "sea" salt (hence no seasoning in the eggs),
the cakes were submerged in the eggs for up to a minute (without losing rigidity),
they were pan fried on a Teflon pan in a small amount of rapeseed oil, near its smoking point, for about the same time you would fry bread.

They get softened up when the moisture from the egg gets hot enough to bathe the rice cake with steam, and rehydrate the starches with moisture and heat.

The rice cake was absorbing moisture while it was sitting in the egg - not too much if it still seemed light, and clearly not enough to start disintegrating, but some.  The texture of such dried products is open, but the strands (of gluten, or starch) are dried hard - the crumb can be heavy with moisture if soaked long enough, but it drives out the air not soaks into or softens the starch.  They will still be stiff (and dripping) after soaking, and they won't ever become soft and chewy from all the way dried out, with only added moisture.

Add heat, though, and the combination lets the inner structures absorb the moisture from the surface, reconstituting the starches to a chewy consistency (the brittle stiff structures swelling, and becoming flexible and compressible like bread and not just brittle or mush like soaked crackers) - and it becomes flexible enough to let the steam wick upward through the rice cake to bring the combination of moisture and heat to transform the interior.  If the moisture form the soak hadn't reached the center, though, it can remain  dry and stiff - especially if the edges also hadn't soaked enough to get water for the steam, which helps mobility (turns it from soggy-edge and dry-center to moist all through).

This process isn't limited to eggs, or to rice cake.  If you have bread that's gone bone dry and hard, soaking will soften the edges to mush but it won't reconstitute it to a bread-like consistency without heat.  Soak it in water or milk, though, then pan fry or toast it - and the heat and moisture will make the gluten absorb the water, swell, and become flexible again.  I have rehydrated bread, rolls, or pastries this way (usually with water, it changes less) if they become totally dried out without otherwise spoiling - soaked in water for a while, then heated to transform from wet-and-brittle to soft and chewy.

You should see similar effects in your rice cakes (becoming soft/chewy) if you soaked them in water or milk or whatever, before frying again, to those you got when dipping them in egg first, and again similar effects from using a toasting or using an oven rather than frying.  The combination of heat and moisture makes a difference in re-hydrating starches, not just the specific combo of egg dip and ricecake (disclaimer - obviously, there will be different results from using egg, water, milk, or alcohol, and rehydrating rice-cakes, breads, and other dried starches - just, similar kinds of results from moisture, heat, and starches)


Sheet pan/baking tray convention outside the US? In this video, a Frenchman visits New York and buys a half sheet pan, which he appears unfamiliar with (both the term and the device itself) despite being an experienced cook. So I'm wondering: is there not a sheet pan convention outside the US? I'd just assumed that the full/half/quarter sheet system was universal. Ditto for the sheet pan itself, since it's cheap and indestructible. Are those only used in the US?

(I did find this history of the standard sheet pan, which discusses patent filings and brand names in the US in the early 20th century, but that thread doesn't discuss whether it's unique to the US.)

I'm not aware of any standard size baking trays in Europe. Here in Germany your baking tray comes with your oven. As several manufactures produce basically the same product some trays may be used interchangeably, but there is no guarantee that they really fit.

You can purchase universal folding trays that can adjust to the different ovens but they come with their own issues.


Nut-free "Almond Paste" filling How can i create a closely matched "Almond Paste" (for croissant) without using almond meal/paste/butter/products/etc? I have a nut-free almond flavour that should be okay for the flavouring component, looking more for a texture match here.

Any ideas?

I wouldnt't do a starch-based "paste" (it will be a pudding) because it will have a completely wrong texture, way too creamy.

My first choice would be a bean paste. Make it with white beans instead of azuki to get a color more suggestive of marzipan, and add more sugar than usual to distract from the bean taste. A close second, if this is compatible with the allergy, would be chestnut paste.

If these are not acceptable, you can also try a semolina pudding cooked in water, not milk. Some prebrowning as clurect suggests for his roux will help too. But this will not come very close.


Cooking Tasks for Children One of the positive things about lockdown has been cooking more with my children (6 and 9). They enjoy the obvious tasks to give them peeling & washing veg, grating, picking leaves of herbs, and stirring saucepans. I’m pretty safety conscious so while they sometimes chop things these are only things that can be chopped with a table knife, like mushrooms. They also enjoy opening packets, etc. I like them doing these tasks as it can be a genuine help as they prefer that to invented jobs. But, these tasks unfortunately all tend to be clustered at the beginning of most recipes and I’d like to find things for them to do. But, I want to keep them away from boiling water, hot fat, chefs’ knives, and the inside of the oven until they are a bit older.
I’d love suggestions of other things they can do so they don’t wander off disillusioned. Equally, I’d be super grateful for  suggestions of recipes where they can contribute throughout. Or if there is equipment or other ways to make other activities safer that would also be great. I’m not terribly interested in baking type things which we already do.

Dumplings! (The minced meat fried with vegetables wrapped in dough kind)
It's a tradition for many families to make dumplings together at the holidays, which in many cases, are when family reunions take place. It's really common to see children helping out, as there is usually a task for everyone.
Your children can help you with the dough, as it's very hard to mess up. Simply measure some flour, salt & water (we don't even measure in my household), knead, and you're good to go. While the dough is in progress, either being kneaded or resting in a covered post, you can make the filling. Not much to it, just seasoned minced meat stir-fried with finely diced vegetables.
When the dough and filling are all set, the fun begins!

You roll out the dough into multiple narrow log-shaped portions, and constantly slice the logs forming cylindrical chunks.

With each slice, you pass the chunk onto the next section of the "production line", well dusted with flour, where your 6 year-old can roll out the cylinder into a flat circle.

With each rolled out dumpling wrapper, your 9 year-old can scoop some filling onto the center of the wrapper, fold the wrapper around the filling like a taco, and seal by pinching the edges of the wrapper with their fingers (or with a fork).

Of course, your children won't be able to keep up with your slicing, so you can transition to rolling out the dough or wrapping dumplings here and there.


As it relates to the Hospitality Industry what is a par level of product? What does this mean in the Hospitality industry?

As in the Hospitality Department will establish par levels of products

Is this kind of like when your boss in IT tells you that there should always be 2 spare toner cartridges and that should should attempt to keep them at this level?

Can it also be based on the past history of the usage of a product for a particular month?

It's the same thing as in any other industry ... a minimum stock level.

As for what it should be for your particular place, yes, it will be based on how quickly you tend to go through things.

These might be commonly used ingredients, but can also be other consumables like paper towels, aluminum foil, wooden skewers, takeout containers, etc.


What would be the best order for folding whipped egg whites and yolks into cookie dough? What would be the best order to mix them in without deflating the batter/dough(along with flour, baking powder and soda)? Should I add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter and sugar and then add the whipped yolks and whites mixture at the end, or add the mixture to the creamed butter and sugar and then add the dry ingredients last?  Thanks!

It all depends on what you want the whipped egg whites to accomplish. Generally you use the wipped-egg-white-method in order to incorporate more air into the batter, which is mostly used for cakes. In this case you definitely want to add them at the end, so the air stays in the batter.

For cookies, this is probably not necessary, because you can't incorporate much air, as the batter is much thicker than a cake batter. However, depending on the exact recipe, you could want to beat butter and sugar until airy and fluffy. I generally first cream the room temp butter, then add the sugar, beat both fluffy, add the whole egg and beat further, then add the flour, baking soda, and other ingredients, and fold in. If your cookies are made from a even thicker dough, on the other hand, you can just dump all your ingredients in and just mix or knead them together to form the dough. In this case you'd probably want the butter cold, though. In both cases: don't overdo the dough. And don't overthink it.

The leavening generally comes from the baking soda. The freshness of the egg can also have an effect on the leavening, I suppose, but I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes. This effect is more prominent in cakes that contain a lot more egg than cookies do.

(Side note: For cakes, my general method is to first beat the butter and sugar until fluffy, add the egg yolks and beat further. Then add (sifted) flour and other ingredients. Finally, I add the whipped egg whites in at least two, mostly three batches. So first add about a third of the egg whites, incorporate them (you don't have to be too careful here, it is only to lighten the batter), then add the second half and fold in, then add the third half and carefully fold in. Bake immediately. )

This methods give me the best results.

Additional notes:

if you want to use whipped egg whites, always remember, that egg whites don't like fat. This is the reason why you separate the eggs before beating, because egg yolks contain quite a nice amount of fat, which prevents the whites from whipping up.
You can stabilize egg whites using sugar. However, be careful not to add to much of it add once, or the egg whites will collapse. I also noticed that the whites collapsed more easily when using powdered sugar. My explanation is, that the sugar crystals are much smaller in powdered sugar and they can destroy the egg white bubbles.
Whipping egg whites with a pinch of salt and at room temp will make the whipping a lot easier and faster.

Additional, additional notes:

If airy cookies are your thing, you should definitely check out macrons. Although the french ones are the most popular, there are several other types, that have a meringue as a base, gently mixed with ground nuts or other things. They generally don't contain much fat, except for the fat contained in the nuts or whatever. For a personal favorite of mine, search for "german hazelnut macarons" on google. :)


Does it take a special type of blender to make smoothies? Or am I just doing it wrong? I have what I consider a typical blender that you might find in any American kitchen. It's a glass container with a cross shaped blade. The problem I have is that pieces often get underneath the blade and don't get blended at all. With smoothies in particular as well, if it's too thick the blade tends to spin too fast and keep everything pushed out to the sides and not actually blend. This is mostly a problem if trying to make a thick milkshake.

I have tried adding in thing like fruit while the blender is going in hopes that it wouldn't make it to the bottom without being blended but that doesn't seem to work really well. I've been reduced to blending multiple times (starting with a small amount of well blended material and slowly adding in the "chunks" from the previous attempt while the blender is running), but that is fairly time consuming.

Ahh, the complexities of blending. Have you tried pulsing the smoothie? Short bursts tend to stir up some of the stuff that sneaks below the blades.


Store eggs upside down or not? This may be an odd question, but someone told me it's better to store your eggs upside down (the pointy side down).
The explanation was that there's an air bubble on the bottom of the egg that wants to go up.
If you put it upside down, the pressure on the membrane is less and it stays longer.

Is there any truth about this?

By "it stays longer" do you mean that the egg stays good longer or the membrane/air pocket stays around longer?

I don't know why you would care about the air pocket so I'll go with the other.

Orientation is not going to noticeably affect egg quality. I don't use egg cartons. I store my eggs in plastic tubs (carefully). The eggs end up in a random orientation and there is no noticeable difference between any two eggs.

I have heard to people storing the eggs differently to center the yolks in preparation for boiling. This is purely a cosmetic thing.


High altitude adjustment for a small rib roast needed I am endeavoring to very slow roast a 3 lb. / 1.4 kg. Boneless Cross Rib Roast. This is a first for me. I want to cook it in a ceramic surfaced Dutch Oven in an electric oven. The articles that I have been reading do not mention any adjustment to time or temperature for high-altitude (7300 Feet /  2134 Meters). Can anyone suggest an adjustment for this altitude for my project?
Thanks for any thoughts.

No adjustments are needed. The main reason that high-altitude cooking is hard is the reduced boiling point of water at low altitudes. But here, where the meat will be under the boiling point of water for the whole cook time, this is hardly an issue. Check out this article from the Spruce Eats:

Dry-heat cooking techniques like roasting or grilling are not affected in the same way because high altitudes don't alter the way air is heated.... Note that the temperature isn't affected, just the moisture content of the food. So a grilled steak might be drier at high altitude than at sea level — even if it's not overcooked temperature-wise.

I don't think that the issue of dryness is a big deal here; since you are cooking a large cut, only the surface will dry out. In fact, increased surface dryness would be a benefit if you plan to sear the meat after cooking. I highly recommend searing the meat if you plan to serving it hot; browning adds great flavor and texture that I think you will miss otherwise.


Avoid crumbling pork? When I broil pork tenderloins, they tend to crumble apart when cut.

By contrast, when I get marinated tenderloins from the supermarket, they stay together like beef.

What is the method to achieve this? One factor might be that the Supermarket is using a steam oven.

The crumbling is caused by the muscle fibers tightening up to the point where they've become brittle, which can happen when they've been exposed to too much heat and/or acid. I'm guessing that your tenderloin is either being overcooked, over-marinated, or both.

Tenderloin differs from tough cuts like pork shoulder, because they don't contain a much collagen which provides structure when less cooked (think: a tough cheap piece of steak,) or turn into rich gelatin when cooked for a long time (think pulled pork or pot roast.) Since tenderloins have little connective tissue, it will be nice and tender if the muscle fibers are treated gently, (think: medium-rare steak) but won't have all of that nice collagen and connective tissue in there to mitigate over-marination or overcooking (think: dry, crumbly meat.)

Switch to a flavorful wet or dry brine, or cut down on the acid in
your marinade and only marinate them for a couple of hours.
For doneness, I prefer my tenderloins cooked to about 140F, but
you should be able to get closer to well-done without them falling apart, especially if they're brined. Once you start getting into the 165F+ zone, you're going to be looking at a pretty dry piece of meat.


How often should I clean my coffeepot, and what is the preferred method? We use a typical drip coffee maker with a thermos-type pot. Naturally I rinse the pot and filter holder every day, but how often do I need to clean it more thoroughly? I've heard that it is bad to use soap and water, but is that just an old-wives tale, maybe out of fear that it could leave a soapy residue? Once a month or so, I'll run a few cups of white vinegar through it, which seems to improve the flavor a lot, but is a surprisingly expensive proposition. Any suggestions on frequency and method?

Your specific coffee maker should have instructions.  Mine says every 30-40 pots you brew and it uses the same typical white vinegar method.

I do think it's a little expensive - you basically drain a whole bottle of vinegar.  However, compared to the cost of the machine and, more so, the cost of the coffee it's not a bad deal at all.


Care and warping of wooden chopping board I bought a new 1.5 inch wooden chopping board around a month ago. I have been trying to take good care of it: I never submerse it, clean it with a cloth, applied mineral oil when I bought it.
However it still has some slight warping. Is this normal no matter what you do? The warping is very minimal, only around 1mm, but it still makes it rock when on the convex side
Is that normal and should I be doing more/less to keep it in perfect condition?

Wood is always working. Even if you plane a board and leave it in a room overnight, it might warp.  There's really no way you can avoid that in principle after a piece has been finished.  (Now, this particular board should do a bit better than sawn wood, since it is glued, although it does not seem as if special care has been taken to orient the growth directions alternatingly, which is what you should do in such a case.  An even better solution would be to put orthogonal strips onto the end-grain with a tongue and groove.)
Anyway, that's likely not really bad in your situation.  Since the wood is always working, it doesn't have to stay that way: maybe it's just wet now and will warp back in a couple of hours or days.  In my experience, you can sometimes speed up things by trying to dry the piece evenly (for example, by leaving it in some dry place with a gap underneath to let the air through), re-wetting it on one side, and letting it dry again.  And when you have a board for some time, you'll know how it reacts.
The oiling is a good idea for the surface but does not help very much with warping.  What does help is to keep moisture always even: when you wash or wipe the board: do so on both sides.  When you dry it: keep moisture and temperature the same on both sides (e.g., avoid standing it up next to your oven or something like that).  That means you can submerse it (and should even do so, to wash it) -- just don't let it stand in water, and wash it from all sides equally.  Avoid drying in an oven or other drastic temperature changes.
One thing you really want to watch out for, though, is splitting between the individual strips, which can happen due to the stress of repeated warping.  In that case, there's little left you can do (save shortening the board).  A split is not technically problematic (the whole thing will still be stable), but the groove can collect nasty stuff (still OK for cutting bread, though).  Quality boards, specifically made for kitchen use, will be less prone to this, though.


How to explain why aluminum won't work on an induction stove? Those cooks who use induction ranges love them, but some lament the limited type of pans available. Alas my powers of explanation are not good enough to explain how an induction stove works well enough to explain why aluminum is not suitable.

Now I think I could build one, but apparently I cannot explain them simply.

A induction stove is a high frequency transformer. The primary winding is built into the stove, the secondary winding is the bottom of the pot or pan placed on it.

In principle, such a transformer works with all types of conductors as the secondary. The problem is, you want to have a high electric resistance in the secondary. Because that high electric resistance is what produces the heat inside the bottom of the pot or pan.

And here's where aluminum and copper drop out. They are good conductors and have a low electric resistance.

Iron in contrary has a very high electric resistance because of one special feature: because it's ferromagnetic AC currents can only flow in a very thin layer below its surface. This is called the skin effect. Again, every metal shows that skin effect, but for iron it's 80 times higher than for aluminium and copper. And so is resistance and heat production.

That's why you need an iron sheet in the bottom of your pot or pan.


How to spice up a carrot cake I have made a carrot cake several times, and I like the way the cake turns out but I want it to have more spice flavors. The recipe only calls for 1 tsp of cinnamon, but since I want it to have more spice flavors I have tried adding varying combinations of the following spices:

cloves
allspice
nutmeg

I have tried amounts between 1/2 tsp and 1 tsp of each of the above spices but it seems the taste is always the same - good but not spicy enough. I'm afraid to go too far overboard and ruin a good cake, so does anyone have any suggestions on how much to add or other spices that would help the cake be more spicy?

Cayenne pepper.

I'm actually serious. I haven't tried it in carrot cake but a little capsaicin actually works well with a little sweet to offset it. Chile powder also works well in sweet things.

Cardamom is my wife's favorite and so it goes into many baked goods I make. It would work and be interesting but not spicy.

You can always put in a good extra dose of cinnamon if you want it to punch you in the face.


How can you tell when flour has gone off? I was just reading another topic about grinding flour where someone suggested that their flour supply would go off within two weeks if not kept in the freezer. I buy my flour in 20lb bags that last me several months. Is this wrong? How do I know when it's bad?

Whole wheat flour goes rancid. There is a lot of fat in wheat germ and when it oxidizes the flour becomes very bitter and has a very noticeable, unpleasant scent.

First of all- if you use bleached white flour there is little to worry about. Bleached flour has had much of the wheat removed to give it a longer shelf life. At the expense of flavor and nutrition of course.

Keeping whole wheat flour out of light, sealed from oxygen, and cold will keep it from going rancid. Any one of those will extend the life of the flour- putting it in the freezer sealed from air will keep it good indefinitely.

In the cupboard I will start noticing off flavors in my fresh ground flour in a couple weeks. In the freezer I have gone as much as a year with no discernible degradation.

You will notice if it has gone bad because it will smell and taste bad. This rancidity isn't dangerous so if the flour smells and tastes fine then it is.


What's the best replacement for "solid vegetable oil" in pastry recipes? I want to make some chickpea delight. I don't know what it's called in English; it is a Persian recipe, and literally translates to "little chickpea confectionary" (شیرینی نخودچی, "shirini-e-nokhodchi").

The recipe has solid vegetable oil; I think it is hydrogenated/solidified vegetable oil.

I used butter instead, but my dough turned out a dry sand-like mess! No matter how long I kneaded it, it still didn't come together. (I finally added some olive oil to it! to get it together.)

What is a good replacement for solid vegetable oil available in US groceries?

EDIT: as also suggested by @derobert , it turned out that the main problem is with the chickpea flour, what I got here is raw (or at least not roasted), the one the recipe calls for is traditionally made by first roasting the chickpeas then grinding them and then putting them through a sieve to get a very fine flour. I would try to roast the raw flour to see if I can modify the recipe.

EDIT: I roasted the flour, it burns very easily, but with care and patience I managed to roast it well, although it's not as fine as I remember the traditional version is, it smells and tastes almost the same (I guess it needs some salt but I didn't add any salt).
I tried it again with butter and a couple of tablespoons of water, it went well (the dough was fine I could shape it) but the end result was not what I expected. It was a good tasting cookie but nothing like the traditional one, it's not even close in consistency, not tastes anything like what it should. I'll get some proper oil and try it sometime soon!

The "solid vegetable oil" you're describing sounds like Crisco (shortening), which you can find in any US grocery. You could also try refined coconut or palm kernel oil, both of which are solid at room temperature.

Another possibility to note is that the butter may be fine, but maybe the chickpea flour you're obtaining in the US is different.


Blending pineapples and coconuts whole, safety and experience? A coconut and a pineapple are blended in their entirety, shell, leaves and all. Resulting in a smoothie like drink.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XbKCA1KUeqQ

Is this safe? As for example, it contains the woody part of the coconut.

How does the experience, such as taste and texture, differ from the usual, more selective approach?

Clearly, the Blendtec, "will it blend" videos, are a marketing tool designed to illustrate the power of the product, as opposed to illustrating recipes for delicious smoothies.  Is it safe to drink?  There is nothing here: http://www.coconutresearchcenter.org/ that I have been able to find, which deems the "woody part" inedible or unsafe.  So, strictly speaking, that concoction is probably safe to drink (but I am no expert on coconut shells or pineapple leaves).  The more important question is, why would you want to?  I imagine the shell of the coconut and the outside of the pineapple would add bitterness and grassy flavors that would be off putting, plus, who wants to drink something that looks like that?  I further imagine the texture would be somewhat uncomfortable to swallow. It just doesn't look appetizing.  One of your tags is "efficiency."  There are reasons that we peel our fruits and veggies, even though it may be less convenient.  Safety may be one reason (maybe concern over pesticides?), but more often it is flavor and color that we are after.


How large is "1 large beef bouillon cube" for risotto? I am am making a bell pepper risotto. The recipe calls for 1 large beef bullion cube. I have packets that are roughly .15oz (4g) per packet. Is a normal beef bullion cube considered large? What size is the large?

I would check the recipe and see how much stock that requires, and then compare that to how much stock your bouillon cubes make. If it's close, you're probably fine. This assumes you make standard stock before using the cube, of course, and not concentrate. Does the recipe give any other clues?

If you can't get any joy this way, I'd suggest you just guess, erring on the side of bland, and taste as you go.


How do you get the flavor out of dried peppers? A recipe calls for dry chili peppers for my Moroccan fish. I know sweating fresh chili peppers will release the flavor, but how do you release the flavor of dry spices like dried chili peppers?

In some recipes (eg chinese kung bao, some thai and south indian soups), you score the peppers or cut them into coarse pieces, so cooking oil or a broth with some fat or alcohol content can enter and exit the inside while the peppers are sauteed/stir fired with the rest of the food. This tends to dissolve a lot of heat into the liquids without too strong a pepper aroma.

In others (a lot of thai and goan recipes), the peppers are mashed, sometimes with other spices and aromatics, in a mortar and pestle.

In both cases, you have to decide whether to soak the peppers in very warm but not boiling water beforehand. Also, you can shake the seeds out or leave them in. Look at specific recipes for guidance there.

Oh, and a warning: sauteing dried chili can liberate a surprising amount of capsaicin into the air - if you are dealing with, say, a dozen dried thai chili, it can happen that you find yourself coughing violently in a corner. Ventilate well, and if you feel like you are getting overwhelmed, make sure the kitchen is safe and grab some fresh air ASAP.

Oh... and if you are going the first route, it is inadvisable to put any other ingredient in the dish that has the same color as the dried chili. They won't be THAT hot anymore when cooked out, but still not exactly mild, AND many varieties are texturally and flavour-wise unpleasant if accidentally eaten whole.


Beer Batter - let it rest before using or use immediately? I just purchased a deep fryer and have been looking at different recipes for making beer batter.  I noticed that some instruct you to let the batter sit for a number of hours before using it to coat veggies, meats, etc., while others do not mention this.  Does letting the batter rest make a difference in the flavor, texture, or anything else significant?

Yes, it changes the texture.  If you want it light, you need to use it quickly, as the bubbles will disappate over time.


How do you make Paillets Feuilletine? Paillets Feuilletine, dried caramelised crepes. I have looked and cannot find any method for the making of this product. As it is in many of my books and recipes but not readily available in australia, im looking for some information on the making of it.

After considerable searching, I found this tidbit buried in an an old Callebaut product catalog:  Pailleté feuilletine is broken up pieces of crepes dentelles.

This video from Bryan Talbot shows how to prepare crepes dentelles in considerable detail.  He indicates that he had to reverse engineer the recipe because none were available.  His ingredients are:

1/4 lb Butter
1/2 Cup Sugar
1/2 All Purpose Flour
1 Egg White
Pinch Of Salt

Mix the ingredients, spread very thinly on a parchment or silicone mat lined baking sheet, and bake at 400 F until golden brown, about 5 minutes.  If you are going to roll or mold them, do so when they are still very hot.

You could then crush it for pailleté feuilletine.  If you are going to do crush them, there probably is little point in rolling or molding them.

Voici une autre vidéo, mais elle est en français.  It does not show the ingredients in the batter, but the outcome is very similar, which lends credence to the Talbot video.

Here is another video from Jennifer Field showing her process of reverse engineering the crepres dentelles (one of her commentors points out this means "lacey crepes").  The video is long and shows the development process.  The final recipe and technique is somewhat different, as she paints the batter onto a hot griddle with a pastry brush, and gets a much more delicate product.  Her blog entry has her recipe.

Update:  Another recipe, from Brave Tart, where the author simply calls it feuilletine, rather than crepes dentelles.


Ceramic non stick pan, light scratches after first use? I bought a new non-stick pan yesterday which is stone/ceramic non stick. I triple checked it before I got it home to see that there are no scratches already from shop etc etc.

After I heated it, and fried some chicken, using plastic equipment to flip and remove food etc etc, then I cleaned it with a sponge (not from the harsh side) and after I dried it I noticed some light scratches on the pan. No deep scratches that you can notice on a quick look but when you examine it under the light they are there, tiny ones.

I noticed that after using it a second time they kinda increased. Remembering.. something similar happened with my Weber Kettle bbq which is ceramic coated. I took really great care of it cleaning it etc etc only then to find these type of scratches when I examined it under light.

Is this something to do with ceramic after heating or am I doing something wrong unknown off?

There are two different substances that are known as "ceramic nonstick". One is a coating of ceramic material and silicone, offered as an alternative to PFTE (Teflon), and the other is actually a PFTE coating with tiny ceramic "buttons" that protects the PFTE against abrading off when you use metal utensils.

For either coating, one possibility is that you're not actually scratching off the coating.  Instead, your plastic utensils are themselves scraping off tiny bits of plastic from their edges on the ceramic material and leaving a "smear" of plastic on the pan.  This is similar to scraping the edge of an American dime on granite; it leaves a mark, but that's the metal scraping off on the stone, not the other way around.

The way to verify if that's the case would be both a touch test of the "scratches", and trying some utensils made from other materials (like wood or fiberglass) and see if they also leave marks.

The second possibility is that your plastic utensils in fact have fiberglass, bamboo fibers, or something else extremely hard in them.  This could actually scratch the underlying nonstick substance (PFTE or silicone), which is quite soft, especially if the plastic untensils consist of something like fiberglass encased in relatively soft plastic.


What is a pan max stove temperature? I often put my stove to maximum for a while with the pan and some oil and whatever meat in it (I wanna specify that the goal of this post is not discussing the why I cook this way and if it's good for recipe).
My question is, can it be bad and damage the pan if the pan is on the stove at max, with oil/butter in it and whatever I cook.
I'm asking because I always assumed, until someone told me, that you can never damage a pan when cooking on stove if it has something in it, disregarding the material and all.

The type of pan, how long it is on the heat, and whether or not damage occurs, probably matters here if there is nothing in the pan. If the pan has food in it as it is heating, you will almost always burn your food before you could possibly damage your pan.


What is the rise / fall / feed cycle of a sourdough starter? I'm following this recipe to make a sourdough starter for the first time.

The recipe says to wait 3 days before the first feed.
On the morning of day 2, the starter had increased 3 times in size.
By the evening of day 2, it had reduced in size back to about 2 times the original volume.

My question is: what's the best way to judge when to feed the starter?  If it is reducing in size now, does that mean it is "hungry" and running out of food?  Or should we expect a couple of rise & fall cycles before the first feed?

Is feeding time best judged by time elapsed, or by volume of the starter?

For sure this method will work, but it can be risky starting with grapes as you're introducing more than just airborne wild yeasts. With so many bacteria strains active in a new starter, it very well might rise and fall multiple times, but an established starter will have one rise and fall cycle every 12-24 hours unrefrigerated, and then will need feeding.


Why would a recipe call for bone-in, skin-on chicken and then never use the bone/skin? This America's Test Kitchen recipe for Slow Cooker Chicken with "Roasted" Garlic Sauce
has the ingredient:

  bone-in split chicken breasts, skin and ribs removed, trimmed of all visible fat

The skin and ribs are never used in the recipe.

ATK generally does a great job of simplifying recipes but needing to de-bone the chicken rather than simply buying boneless, skinless chicken breasts seems silly. Plus, I generally find bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts to be harder to find than boneless, skinless chicken.

I asked my butcher if there's a difference between them doing it and doing it myself and he said that there wasn't (assuming they're never used).

Is there something my butcher didn't think of?

Yes, I know that there's a cost difference but let's ignore that, as that's not generally a consideration in ATK recipes.

Bone in = the breast plate is still there.  The ribs would typically be removed because in slow cooking the rib bones often have a habit of coming loose and being an annoyance or even a choking hazard while adding little or nothing to the taste.  Leaving the breast plate however is referred to by many as cooking on the crown.  Cooking on the crown is considered by many to give a better flavor, be it poultry, beef, pork, or whatever.  Additional, with slow cooking, the cartilage and bone may add some thickening effect to your broth.


How much oil is necessary to fry/cook eggs? Say I want to cook sunny-side up or scrambled eggs, I would ask help from my family, but I wanna try it on my own.
I have a non-stick pan which as of now kinda sticks and it's what we usually use when cooking something, apart from our wok, which is less stickier. What I would want to do first is heating up the pan, adding the oil, then inserting the egg. Cook for a while then serve it on a plate.
Under what circumstances should I use oil for cooking eggs, and how much?

Technically, an egg is not "fried" unless there is at least some oil involved.  So even though you could cook an egg in a very well-seasoned cast iron pan with no oil, it wouldn't technically be a fried egg.
The primary reason you use oil, though, is to keep the eggs from sticking.  So in a pan like yours -- a worn-out nonstick pan that's not really nonstick -- you're going to need oil, and probably a fair amount.
The exact amount is going to vary according to three factors:

How large your pan is
How many eggs you are making
How "sticky" the pan is

So if that nonstick pan is only 6"/15cm, just a tiny bit scratched, and you're making two eggs, you can use just 2 tsp of oil.  But if you're cooking 8-10 eggs in a 14"/35cm nonstick pan that's completely scratched up, then you'd need more like 4oz/100ml of oil.
Which brings us to the other reason to use oil: flavor and texture. Some ways of making fried eggs use even more oil.  For example, the standard Thai fried egg is cooked in a pool of oil 1/2"/1cm deep or more, in order to get lacy, crispy whites.


Taste of pre-frozen lasagna I want to assemble a lasagna with cooked noodles and freeze to be thawed out and cooked for Christmas. I am concerned that taste will be compromised because of not being completely freshly made. I am stressing about this because it's for such a special occasion but I'd love to free up time for that day, if possible. Anyone have any thoughts about your experience with final taste results?

I have done this, and it seems to come out fine.

Note, though, usually I will cook a lasagna almost all the way without a layer of cheese on top, and just put the top cheese layer on to melt in the last little bit of oven time. For this reason I freeze the unbaked lasagna without the top layer of cheese. I just mention this in case the freezer might do some harm to a top cheese layer (don't know if it will, just that I didn't try that experiment).


Is there a water kettle or dispenser that can keep the water lukewarm? I'm looking for a kettle or a dispenser that can keep or warm up the water around 100 F. The hope is to drink the warm water directly. All the devices I've found so far are made for boiling the water for making Tea, etc. I could get a dispenser, mix hot and cold water. However, I'd need to be careful every single time to mix them in the right proportion; just hoping to avoid any risk.

Update

I was hoping to find a make-human-lazy sort of tool for this but didn't succeed. Thanks for all the answers. I'm going to use the good old stove for warming up and a vacuum flask to store them. I might consider something like this in the future - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4WYPDX?ref_=pe_623860_70668690 .

The easiest tool I can think of is a thermos - fill it with water at or slightly above your desired temperature and enjoy your supply for a few hours.

On a larger scale, a tankless heater can give you a basically unlimited supply of water, but is almost certainly overkill.

Please be careful with all devices that keep water at around 100F / 37C, this lukewarm water will encourage the growth of microorganisms, aka a biofilm. This is also an issue with all water dispensers / coolers, which should also be cleaned regularly.


Can I add tomato paste afterwards, instead of during cooking, for a tomato sauce? So I have a pizza tomato sauce recipe that called for adding 6 tablespoons of tomato paste during the cooking. Unfortunately, due to being very disorganized, I only realized half way through cooking that I didn't have any tomato paste in the house and the local 24h corner shop didn't stock any.

I carried on cooking the tomato sauce topping without adding the tomato paste and then put it in the fridge overnight. Should I pick up some tomato paste and add the "finished" product to the frying pan, heat up and put in the tomato paste or should I just leave it. Does the tomato paste add anything bar depth of flavour?

In general you need to consider the purpose of the ingredient, and what would happen to it during the cooking that it's missed.

For example, there's no point stirring a spoonful of flour into a sauce after cooking, since the flour needs heat in order to thicken the sauce.

In the case of the tomato paste, not much will happen to that particular ingredient during cooking. It may have caramelised a little, depending on the cooking method. It would have infused more deeply into some of the other ingredients. But these are subtle things. Taste your finished product. If you feel it would benefit from an extra boost of tomato flavour, by all means stir in some tomato paste.