How do I prevent filled pretzels from blowing out? A little while ago I made cream cheese and jalapeno filled pretzels.

I used a standard, mall-style, pretzel dough.

The filling was cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and minced jalapenos.

The dough was shaped into balls, allowed to rest and then spread into disks. One or two teaspoons of filling was placed in the center and the dough was gathered around the filling and pinched shut. The pretzels were formed into small logs about two inches long with the seam down.

They were then dipped in a baking soda solution, salted, let proof, and baked at 450F for around 10 minutes.

On baking, the majority of the pretzels burst open and the filling partially leaked out. They were still delicious and were eaten almost instantly by my guests.

How do I prevent my filled pretzels from blowing out?

I would suspect that it's steam from the filling causing your pretzels to split during baking. I would try freezing small globs of the filling before cooking, hopefully then it won't get hot enough to steam and split. This is a technique they use in the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook to make "Bagel Bombs". http://www.amateurgourmet.com/2012/04/everything-bagel-bombs.html


How to make Pancakes with Almond milk? We've been experimenting with using almond milk as a substitute for actual milk in my household. The biggest failure so far has been with pancakes. The pancakes taste okay, but they are far stickier in the pan than batter made with milk, scorch more easily, and don't brown well. What can I do to get a more satisfactory pancake with almond milk?

I use almond milk as a milk replacement, almost exclusively.  I was about to say when I made pancakes with almond milk they turned out fine, when I realized I made Buttermilk pancakes instead of just regular pancakes.  I compared recipes for normal and buttermilk and noted that there was far less milk called for in the Buttermilk recipe (makes sense).

In short: you may try finding a recipe that does not call for so much milk, such as a buttermilk pancake recipe.

For reference, the recipes I compared had 1 1/4 cups of milk in the original recipe versus 1/4 cup in the Buttermilk recipe.


Is my food spoiled after a power outage? My power went out for about 20 hours today, from 1am to 9pm. I'm wondering if the food in my refrigerator and freezer are spoiled.

Here's some info:

High temperature was about 100F outside, but only reached 90F inside. Fridge and freezer had no power the whole time, but I didn't open them at all while the power was out.

The items I'd be concerned about:

Fridge: Milk (opened), eggs, cheese (pre-packaged, but opened), bacon (opened)
Freezer: sausage, ground beef

Actually, the ground beef stayed frozen, but the sausages are now soft.

Left to my own accord, I'm inclined not to throw anything out, but I figure I should check with the experts on this site first...

I had a similar issue just recently, where my apartment lost power for twelve hours before being restored. With the doors closed for the entire time, the temperature raised only a few degrees, even the milk had no difference in taste, with it only being cool as opposed to cold like usual. Like yourself, it was also at the peak of summer.

Fridges are usually pretty well insulated (as they'd have to be, or else the motors would never stop running to keep cool during the peak of summer), so outside of the eggs, if it was never opened, I wouldn't be too concerned. I only put a caveat on eggs because as someone that cant' stand eggs, I never buy them, and hence have no knowledge of how susceptible to temperature changes they are.

EDIT: Personal opinion. Do not take this as a green light to start making bacon omelettes with a big heaping glass of milk today.


Temperature needed to make crunchy toffee I'm trying to make chocolate nut toffee and all the recipes I've found tells you to boil the toffee until it's dark brown. What temperature does it have to reach to achieve that?  The toffee should be crunchy and not sticky.  Thanks!

Toffee is a confection made by caramelizing sugar or molasses
  (creating inverted sugar) along with butter, and occasionally flour.
  The mixture is heated until its temperature reaches the hard crack
  stage of 149 to 154 °C (300 to 310 °F). While being prepared, toffee
  is sometimes mixed with nuts or raisins.

As stated here - https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=toffee+temperature

Hope that helps...


How should I store beansprouts? Bean sprouts are a common ingredient in stir-fry recipes, but they don't seem to last very long in my fridge.

How can I keep bean sprouts fresh for the maximum amount of time?

Looks like ehow has the best reference guide thus far to storing bean sprouts

After purchasing Bean Sprouts should be stored and washed after purchasing in growing. The article indicates that the best methods for storage are the following:

Wash them after you purchase them.

  Wash bean sprouts after purchasing or growing. Wash them in cold water to remove seed
  coats, roots and other residue that may be present. If you are using
  them within a day, store them in the refrigerator at 40 to 45 degrees.
  Place the sprouts in a plastic bag with a wet paper towel to keep them
  moist.

Store in icy water and change the water few times a day

  You can also store sprouts in a bucket of icy water and change the
  water a few times a day. Depending on how long the sprouts were in
  transit or on the store shelf, they should last longer than when
  stored in a plastic bag.

Freeze them

  Freeze sprouts for the longest storage. Wash sprouts as described in
  Step One. Then heat one layer at a time in steam for three minutes.
  Cool right away in icy water and drain. Put the sprouts into plastic
  containers and seal.

It also mentions in the article to just grow them to provide the best freshness.

Apparently the shelf life of beansprouts should only be stored up to 3 days

Source: http://www.ehow.com/how_6178837_preserve-bean-sprouts.html#ixzz1pAEZ12Jp


How do I keep soup from being bland? I've been experimenting with soups recently and trying different recipes, and I've found that I often come out with a good soup that's a bit too bland in taste. And yes, salt and pepper makes a huge difference... but it needs something else. Beyond finding the right spice for the right soup, what are some general things that I can do that won't greatly change the flavor but will add some fullness to the flavor?

This doesn't answer your question directly, but spices are only a small part of the picture. Below are some techniques to get more flavor in your soup.
Longer Cooking
Depending on the type of soup you're making, you may just need more time. Some flavors just need more time to get out. This is especially true of meat and bones. It's possible to make a ham and pea soup in an hour, but simmer that ham for 3 hours and it's night and day.
Rest overnight
Many stews, chili, etc. seem taste "better" the next day. Give an overnight rest in the fridge a shot and see if the flavor improves.
Add volatile flavors later
There is a caveat to go along with longer cooking. Some items work over long cooking times, while others lose flavor. In addition to meat/bones, garlic, onion, bay leaves (and others) benefit. Many fresh herbs, pepper, vanilla, saffron (and others) lose their flavor from the heat. If you are cooking for a while, you might try adding some more volatile flavors later in the process.
Add salt early
Salt helps to extract flavors, so add it early on in the process. Do be judicious with it, however. Long cooking tends to concentrate flavors, so you can easily make it too salty.
Sweat vegetables / brown meat
Before getting any water involved, sweat your onions, celery, peppers, mushrooms, or whatever vegetables or playing in this game.
Likewise, brown your meat. The maillard reaction is necessary for developing great flavor from the meat.


When you try to "catch" yeast from the air: is it normal for the flour and water to split I'm trying to "catch" wild yeast for the first time. 36 hours ago I mixed a cup of flour and a cup of water and left it out on a shelf with a paper towel over the top. It's been between 45 and 70 degrees here over that time.

Since then, the water and the flour has separated so that the water is sitting on top of the flour.

Is that supposed to happen? Should I just keep waiting? Should I give up and try pineapple juice?
What is the best way to catch wild yeast for sourdough?

Yes.  It seems like you should be stirring occasionally (when you feed your starter).

This site seems like a reasonable reference and, in the section called "Making your starter" it says:

  In between stirrings it's normal for the mixture to separate and for a small layer of water to be on the top.


Acid content of wine vs. vinegar? I'm making bone broth, and the recipe says to add 2 tablespoons of vinegar or lemon juice (to 5# bones and 5 qts. water) to help draw the minerals out of the bones.  I'm wondering about using verjus or wine instead of the vinegar (or lemon juice).  In general, how does the acidity of (1) wine and (2) verjus compare with that of vinegar?

Verjus (the non-fermented juice of unripened grapes) is going to be more acidic than wine, but I have been unable to find a number/concentration.  Probably because a lot depends on the grapes at the time of harvest.  The acidity of various vinegars also ranges, so comparing verjus to vinegar would require much more specificity of the types of products you are intending to use.  So, if you are choosing between wine and verjus, go for the latter.


Does microwaving eggs kill salmonella? If eggs are thoroughly washed and of course beaten before microwaving, and after the process I can find no liquid, is there a possibility that salmonella is still there, or does it die from high temperatures?

Microwaves do not kill bacteria, heat kills bacteria. The higher the temperature, the faster those bacteria will die off.

"Instant death" for most bacteria (including salmonella) is about 160° F (71° C). You only need a few seconds at this temperature. The notoriously strict USDA recommends 160° F for egg dishes but is considerably more lax about whole eggs and just says to cook until firm. Very few eggs are contaminated in the whites or yolks, so the risk is very low.

Pasteurization begins around 57° C (135° F), so many bacteria are killed before the egg coagulates (at 63° C / 145° F), which is why the USDA is not very strict about it; if an egg by itself is "firm" then it's generally already been hot enough for long enough to ensure safety.

Unfortunately, microwaves tend to heat (a) quickly and (b) unevenly, so if you are concerned about food safety and insist on making eggs in the microwave (not recommended), be sure to use short bursts and stir several times, otherwise you might end up with a combination of uncooked and overcooked parts, which is bad for food safety and for general taste and texture.

Note that there is not only a possibility but actually a certainty that some salmonella is still there, assuming that there was any to begin with. Cooking is equivalent to pasteurization and that does not kill every single bacterium, nor is it meant to; it just kills about 99.9999% of them which makes the cooked item safe enough to consume.


Can I keep herbs fresh by spraying them with fertilizer? I tend to use a lot of fresh herbs for cooking so over time with trial and error I have come up with this:

It is possible to keep herbs fresh (Parsley and Dill mostly) for around a week or more but putting them on an EMPTY jar (without water) and spraying water on them, then a plastic bag would loosely cover it. Since I use herbs bit by bit every day so I re-spray water on them every other day or so.
The herbs are almost entirely green and crispy, with virtually no difference from fresh.

If I mixed water with fertilizer and sprayed it on the plants would they keep alive indefinitely or long time?

EDIT: I know that once a vegetable is picked it will start metabolizing its own nutrients at certain rate before it goes bad.

Now if I place herbs' stem ends in a pot with soil (well-fertilized), will it stop it from metabolizing itself? Since it can get nutrients from soil?

Dousing your herbs with fertilizer is not going to preserve your herbs, and could make you sick as many fertilizers are toxic.

If you want really fresh herbs you can keep them in pots on a windowsill, otherwise your spraying water method is about as good as you are likely to get.


How to re-fold paper cupcake liners? Paper cupcake liners are made from circles of paper, then the outer parts are are crimped to create the (mostly) vertical sides. The shape of the liners should match the indentations in the muffin tin.

In my stash I found a few batches of liners that mysteriously got "flattened" a bit. Now when I place them on the tin, they don't sink to the bottom, but sit on top. If I simply push them down, on one or two places the pleats will fold towards the middle, getting enclosed by dough on both sides. Which isn't just aesthetically "meh", but also tears the cake when unwrapping.

Is there a reasonably easy way to get the liners back in shape?

I don't want to throw them away because they are really pretty.
But I don't want to spend hours to gently reshape them pleat by pleat either.
Sometimes filling the cups very slowly by piping the batter with a pastry bag while gently pushing the liners down and distributing the pleats helps a bit. But a fitting liner makes the work faster and easier.

Maybe try reshaping a whole stack at once.

You might slowly bend them back into shape by hand, holding the stack and in place with your thumbs and wrapping your fingers around to bend the edges of the circle back towards the proper shape.  Only the top one or two liners might fold in towards the middle, because the liners would layer together, and make the stack as a whole less flexible so there isn't room for the middle layers to fold in - and you can gently reshape them and distribute the pleats on the top few as you're bending, because even if you wouldn't want to do so for every liner, shaping the whole stack at once is a lot less time and a lot more done at once.

Alternatively, you might set a stack (or partial stack) on top of the muffin tin, and weigh them down.  If you have a second tin, or individual silicone muffin cups, or a stack of liners that are still the right shape and well wrapped, you can set that on top, with extra weight if needed, and let them get pushed down into the muffin tin.  The less weight and more time it takes will probably give a better result (since the reshaping is gentler) but it's up to you how neatly you want t done.  You might still get smaller pleats out of place, but overall the shape should match the muffin tin fairly well.  This can also be done with nestling round cookie cutters - the point is to brace the inside with something rigid so it doesn't have room to just fold in.

Or something in between, brace the inside of the liner stack with something of the right diameter, flip it upside down, and smooth your hands down the stack to slowly narrow the diameter back down.  you can leave them in between sessions, or use a rubber band (once they're shaped enough), and let them settle back into shape by themselves.


Substituting Chicken Broth in Split Pea Soup I want to make some split pea soup and have everything but am wondering if I can substitute the water with chicken broth and not ruin the taste of the soup.  I will also be adding a meaty smoked ham bone with NO glaze on it.  Thanks in advance...
Electric Mike

See no reason why not, all you will do is add more flavour. Which is never a bad thing if you ask me. Adding the ham bone will not have any adverse effects either. The recipe you are following will not have used chicken stock/broth to either make it vegetarian or for simplicity.

Personally any time I make soup or broth at home I will use chicken stock as a base even if its just an oxo cube. At work ill use vegetable stock to keep those non-meat-eaters happy.


How to make sure that I do not break the glass bowl in a double boiler? I used a glass bowl as a double boiler for making scrambled eggs and it broke.  I know that rapid cooling and heating caused glass to break.  for some reason I thought the thick glass bowl would not break.

so how do I ensure I do not break another glass bowl while double boiling?

Thickness is not an indicator of heat-proof glass, just think about laboratory glassware, which is sometimes quite thin. It’s rather the other way round, thermal conductivity is low for glass which can increase inner tension when heated quickly. Thicker glass will be more robust against mechanical force, simply because it’s thicker.

If you want to be sure, get a bowl that is labeled as “heat-proof” or similar (terms may vary). It’s still a good idea to avoid sudden temperature swings, just to be sure although some manufacturers claim that their products can withstand temperature swings of 150K. It shouldn’t be an issue with melting chocolate, because you should place the bowl over (not “in” or “touching”) barely simmering water anyway and not have the water in the lower pot at a full rolling boil. There’s a good chance that even non-ovenproof bowls will stand up to this, but as you experienced, it can go wrong.

Another, often overlooked factor is the tension within the heated glass, especially if the temperature distribution is uneven (again: don’t boil the water at full speed). The glass will be more sensitive to shocks, so don’t bang the bowl with a metal spoon when stirring or getting leftovers off the spoon and don’t set it down hard on the table or counter.


Will a hood vent increase rate of evaporation? I'm boiling down some maple sap this year on the stove top.  A bit late but thought I'd give it a whirl even if it only yields a quart or two of maple syrup.

Will keeping the hood vent on increase the rate of evaporation?

Conventional logic makes me think yes, but I just read a few threads on this topic and left feeling a bit confused since some people indicate that the hood reduces the surface temp and creates an inconsistent boil which can decrease the rate of evaporation.

EDIT:
Since there has been some discussion below in regards to the type of hood vent being used so I'll add this: It's a fairly standard residential hood vent that vents to the outside through the ceiling (not the recirculating kind).  When it's on it is definitely pulling steam out of the kitchen — I can see the steam flowing up through the vent.

Also, the pot is on at a simmer. The amount of steam being produced here is not a large quantity and the hood seems to do an adequate job of removing all of it. For purposes of answering this question, please assume that the vent is removing steam.  The question in this case is, will removing steam at the rate which it is produced increase the rate of evaporation.

I'm boiling down some maple sap this year on the stove top. A bit late but thought I'd give it a whirl even if it only yields a quart or two of maple syrup.

It takes between 20 to 60 quarts of sap to make 1 quart of maple syrup.

  Will keeping the hood vent on increase the rate of evaporation?

You'll want to do it outside, too much steam; sap is mostly water. If you are insistent on doing on the stove top then keep the hood fan on, enjoy the smell, and be prepared for flies and bees to have an inexplicable attraction to all the surfaces near your stove.

Your kitchen stove's hood fan is too far away to affect the boiling, or capture all the sticky steam. 20 quarts is 5 gallons, and 60 is 15. A 6 gallon pot is approximately a foot diameter and a foot high. Providing those measurements in metric won't make it seem any easier. :)

  Conventional logic makes me think yes, but I just read a few threads on this topic and left feeling a bit confused since some people indicate that the hood reduces the surface temp and creates an inconsistent boil which can decrease the rate of evaporation.

Venting is necessary, even outside it's desirable, just to get rid of the steam. In your case you'll want to vent, and there'll be no effect on the temperature. Professionals vent, those that don't say that the next thing they are doing is inquiring about getting some vents.

Check out these two threads, it's all steam; everything will be soaked.


Storing simple syrup What is the best way to store simple syrup, made from equal parts of sugar and water? Do I store it on the counter, or in the refrigerator?

While a similar question to this one, as @Athanasius points out, I think this question is different enough for a re-visit!

The short story: Though it doesn't require immediate refrigeration, it's best to keep simple syrup tightly sealed and in the refrigerator; it will last longer. Even so, using it within a week to 10 days is best; it might last a month, but best not to keep it for longer. It will eventually grow mold or perhaps other nasties.

References: Some people say to use within about a week (e.g., Morgenthaler). These people say it will last more like a few weeks or a month (e.g., Food Republic; the kitchn; Kitchen Riffs).

Slightly longer story: a 1:1 sucrose/water simple syrup won't crystallise at refrigerator temperatures (even at nearly freezing, this ratio is nowhere near saturated; reference). That is, there's no disadvantage to storing simple syrup in the refrigerator. In contrast, stronger mixtures like honey may sugar. As an aside, measuring 1:1 by-weight or by-volume are similar result; sugar measures lighter per volume by about 15%.

Stronger syrups (e.g., 2 parts or more of sucrose, 1 part water) will have greater resistance to critters because of the preservative properties of sugar. An anecdotal experiment was done by  alcademics showing increased "freshness" time with increased sugar concentration.

Still, however, this is not canning; you'll eventually get mold or other critters. Since it's not necessary to boil simple syrup to mix (since sucrose is so soluble in water), so (depending on how you make the simple syrup) you're not getting the full effect of sterilization of the storage vessel nor the foodstuff (e.g., as you would with canning jams).


Cooking too long, or too hot? I have just moved into a new apartment, and am learning the ins and outs of this new oven.  But being new to cooking/baking in general, I find that everything comes out burnt, one way or another.  Cookies, frozen pizzas, etc.

I find that the bottom of everything I put in the oven winds up burnt to a crisp.  The edges wind up overdone and burnt, basically, while the center tends to be slightly undercooked.  I am trying to experiment with the times and temperatures, to get it right.  However, being inexperienced, I am wondering if my oven just cooks hotter than the temperature I'm setting it to.

For instance, my cookie dough says to cook at 350 in a preheated oven for 10-11 minutes.  Cooking to 10 minutes, the center is still undercooked, and the edges are nearly black.  (The bottom tends to be all black)

Aside from the obvious "get a thermometer" response, does this seem to show signs of cooking too long (without preheating long enough), or cooking at too high of a temperature?

It's definitely a sign that the oven is cooking too hot somewhere; the under-done tops and middles are the give-away. I suspect your oven has a malfunctioning thermostat, which is quite common.   Try setting temperatures 50 degrees below suggested, and see if it solves the problems.  Failing this, purchase an oven thermometer to check it.

Another possibility is that there is poor airflow within the oven. In this case, hot air is heating the bottom of the pan, but cannot get around the edges of the pan to heat the top of the baked good.  The solution to this is usually to use a smaller pan, and ensure only one pan at a time is loaded into the oven.  My oven has problems of this nature when I try to bake in both racks with half sheet pans.


Why didn't the whey separate from the curds when I tried to make Shankgleesh cheese? I frequently make yogurt at home, and I decided to try to make Shankgleesh, a spicy Middle Eastern cheese that is difficult for me to find at local markets. Several recipes said to heat the yogurt until the proteins coagulate and separate from the liquid. They should look like clumps or curds. Then the liquid is drained off and the curds strained for several days. When I heated the yogurt, it just got soupy. It never formed curds or separated. I simmered it for more than a half hour. There didn't seem to be anything difficult about the recipes. I wondered why I could not get it to work. The only thing that is unusual about my yogurt is that it is fermented for 24 hours so that the bacteria consume all of the lactose. Could this have affected the coagulation of the proteins? Thanks for any help.

Yogurt is very sensitive and there are many possibilities here regarding why this recipe hasn't worked out, however the very main point that stands out for me is that you heated the yogurt to coagulate the protein.

This is not how it is done in traditional shanklish making. The yogurt is poured into an elongated container and gets covered and put on the floor. Then you need to sit on the floor and shake the container from front to back. Every ten minutes or so stop, uncovers the container and skims the butter which has formed on top. Continue doing so, until half of the butter is removed and the yogurt has become low in fat (partially skimmed). At this point you should be able to use the skimmed yogurt (known as shenineh) to heat it up and separate the curds from its water and make the cheese.


What is the most practical pan for a deep-dish pizza So over the weekend I wanted to make a deep-dish pizza and ended up with a thick crust as the pan I have is only about half as deep as I would need and two inches wider than the recipe called for. For deep-dish should I bother with spending forty dollars on a black steel 2-inch high 12" pan (that would only be used for pizza basically), or would I be better served to pay half as much for a two-inch high cast iron Lodge skillet (which would be much more versatile)?

I really like the crust you get from a heavy aluminum baking pan (thick-crust must be some kind of nostalgia thing), and already have a large stone (so good to go on thin crust), so I am looking to round out my options. Is there an alternate material or pan combination that works as well as cast-iron but might be lighter or even less expensive?

Am I traveling the total wrong route to a great deep-dish, or do I just need some fine adjustment?

A 2" or 3" deep round cake pan (i.e., fairly thin aluminum, but nowhere near as thin as the disposable things) actually works pretty well. These cost under $10 each. For example, Walmart sells one for $9

That's a 9" wide pan, but 12" cake pans are available too—and only a little more expensive. Maybe expect to pay $15 for one.


Having trouble getting gluten free bread to rise I am new to gluten free baking and I am having much trouble getting my breads to rise. I have tried several recipes, with no luck. Can anybody give me some fool proof suggestions? I am desperate. Thank you

I imagine you have tried recipes already with an appropriate quantity of xanthum gum and starches... are you making any substitutions, or omitting ingredients?

Substitutions really change the game significantly, even unwitting substitutions like sweet rice flour vs white rice flour, potato flour vs potato starch. Substituting an alternative flour directly for wheat flour in non-GF recipes won't work (unless you find a GF flour blend that specifies so - for bread, I haven't).

And when I started GF baking I omitted some tiny amounts of ingredients as I didn't want to go out and buy a whole packet/bottle of something just to use a few grams. Turns out some of those little things were absolutely essential. Don't skimp on them. Also, if using yeast, you can take a little bit and proof it to make sure it's not the dud.

Try finding a specifically gluten-free bread recipe with many positive comments, so you are sure it's not the recipe that's the issue.

Personally, my first proper attempt with no subs or omissions at making bread (my first GF bread, and first bread loaf ever - so it had to be foolproof for me) was with this recipe and it rose nicely, much to my relief and delight. Maybe give it a try, and once you got the rising bit down, work on other recipes from there?

If they are not working even though you are following them to a T, perhaps temperature is your issue - is the water too cold or hot for the yeast? Are you leaving the bread in a cold spot? I have a cool kitchen, so when my oven is pre-heating while rising I place the loaf above the stove to rise, as it receives ambient warmth from the heated oven.


Flash Rust Under Wok Seasoning This was my first attempt seasoning a piece of cookware. I used the following approach:

I scrubbed the wok down on both sides with a scouring pad and dish
soap.

I then heated the wok up and moved the wok around the flame until it
was blue all over.

I then took the wok off the heat, cooled it down with a bit of water,
and gave it another scrubbing with the scouring pad and dish soap.

I then wiped the wok off with a kitchen towel. I left it for maybe a
couple of minutes, and when I came back I noticed rust already
developing on the wok. I believe this was flash rust.

I then heated the wok up on the flame to dry it. I took the wok off
the flame and let it cool.

I then put some oil in the wok and heated it on the flame until it
was smoking to season it.

After all that, I think I have some flash rust under the seasoning. Please see the red circle in the picture. Is this rust, and does this mean I need to strip it and re-season it? If so, how could I avoid the having this happen again?

It's hard to tell with those lighting conditions, but no it does not look like rust.
It looks like either another layer of (partial) seasoning or the bare steel that has been partially heat tempered: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Tempering_standards_used_in_blacksmithing.JPG
Rust is a dark burgundy color and red rust in particular will wipe off with a paper towel.
If this happens to be red rust, you can just clean it off with soap and a sponge and season over it.


pb&j taste like soap So I got some scented dish washer soap the other day and my wife used it the first time the other day in the dish washer including by sandwich container. Today when I eat my pb&j she made it tasted like scented soap. Do you think this is from left over water/soap or from it being scented soap?

It seems likely that there was some form of residue left behind in the container; whether this was actual soap or just the scent is difficult to determine.  I have found that soap scents do tend to cling a bit more stubbornly to plastic than they do to other materials, but that's just my experience.

Next time you might try rinsing the container and drying it out with a clean towel after washing.

Alternatively, you might simply discontinue using this particular soap.  It may be particularly clingy or perhaps you're just sensitive to its scent.


How long can i cook a bone in Pork Shoulder? I have cooked bone in pork shoulder many times before and I am about to do it again but I feel the need to experiment slightly...
My plan is to cook the pork shoulder in the oven for 8 hours at 100 degrees celcius (212 degrees faranheit) then transfer it to my smoker, where i shall smoke it for another 8 hours between 90-100 degrees celcius (194-212 degrees faranheit).  I'll have internal thermometers etc so i know it will hit the correct temps, i am just wondering if I will end up drying the crap out of it.  I can't give a weight on the pork shoulder as I don't have it yet, it will be the entire shoulder though around 4.5 kg maybe

What do people think, good plan or bad plan?

I will be using a temperature probe, I forgot to mention that there would also be a cider bath in the oven and smoker as well. Can't change the order of the cook as I won't be there for the time it spends in the oven (I would have just gone for smoker straight through if I had). Thanks for your advice, I'll let you know how it goes.

Don't cook by time, cook it until it's done (you can slide a probe into all parts of the shoulder with practically zero resistance. That said, 16 hours for a 4.5 kg (10 pound) shoulder doesn't seem outrageous. In fact, at those cooking temperatures, I would be surprised if your pork was done cooking by then. Bear in mind, I am assuming that your intention is to make pulled/shredded pork.

I would suggest starting the shoulder in your smoker, and transferring it to your oven to finish, rather than vice versa. The reason you would want to do this is because you can kick up the temperature in your oven to speed cooking and get past the stall. Temperature control will be much easier in the oven, and it will be the latter part of cooking where you would want to vary temperatures. Otherwise, you are dooming yourself to being stuck waiting an extra 3-4 hours waiting for your shoulder to finish cooking.


Defrosting pizza dough correctly? Last time I made pizza dough I was a bit...generous with the ingredients - not a problem, I thought, as I'd read before somewhere that pizza dough is nicely freezable. So, I broke the dough in half, sealed up one piece and placed it in the freezer - this was done immediately after kneading, with no time given for rising.

Now I've got a frozen lump of pizza dough in the freezer, and I'm not sure how I defrost it so it also then rises correctly and cooks well.

If I just leave it out uncovered it will presumably rise inconsistently because the middle will take much longer to defrost?

So should I leave it in the fridge first?
Or, is it better left somewhere warm through the entire defrost to help fire up the yeast?

Or have I "done it wrong" and may as well dump this particular piece?

Since my pizza dough recipe makes three 12" pies and I usually make two at a time, I regularly freeze extras just as you did.

To thaw, I have used both the countertop and refrigerator method.  Thawing on the countertop produced the best results.  The dough rolled as usual and the crust (a thin one) was crispy on the outside and chewy on the inside after baking.


How do I prepare prawns such that they are straight after boiling/steaming? I'd like to make a sushi roll or a vietnamese prawn roll but can't seem to get the prawns to straighten, which would make them much easier to roll up. They were still curled up after I cleaned them before the boil.

Wash the shrimp and remove only the head.
Insert a bamboo skewer along the shrimp from head to tail, running along the legs without touching flesh
Drop into boiling, salted water for 3-5 minutes (do not put a lid on); after this period, they'll change color and rise to the top. If they feel firm, they are cooked.
Quickly place them into ice water, which helps them have good color and stops the flesh from shrinking and becoming hard.
When shrimp are cold, remove from ice water and drain in a colander.
To remove the skewer, use a screwing motion.

For nigiri-sushi:

Remove shell from around body, but not the tail.
Butterfly cut open, cutting from head to tail along the belly with the knife only going halfway in.
Use the knife or your fingers to open it up and flatten it carefully, without further breaking the flesh.
Remove vein and rinse with lightly salted water. Lay on papertowels to drain.

If using for sushi rolls, remove tail and cut in half lengthwise.


Cocoa powder stays stuck at the bottom of the cup I am trying to make a warm drink using cocoa without much additions.
Basically I boil water and the slowly add it to a cup with cocoa powder while I stir. I also add some cold milk.
When I stir with a spoon, I see that it becomes sticky and liquid and looks like butter melted.
The problem is that when I fill the cup with boiling water and some cold mild and start drinking it, in the end most of the cocoa powder have stayed stuck at the bottom of the cup.
How can I make it so that it is completely dissolved but only using water and a bit of milk?
Please note, that I don't have a microwave

Cocoa powder does not dissolve in liquid, it prefers fatty liquids like milk.
You need to create a liquid think enough so that the cocoa particles stay suspended in it.


Large mesh cheesecloth? Straining pulp (not juice) from plums for jam Each year I have huge quantities of small cherry plums (roughly 2x cherry size).
The problem is the pits.  Is there a large mesh cheesecloth available I could try?

I've tried cooking partially, then a food mill.  The pits get jammed under the wiper.
I've tried a cherry pitter. Messy and slow.
I've tried a paperclip to get the pits out.  Slow.
I've tired of cutting the pits out.

Can I cook up the jam partially then run through a large mesh bag, to separate the pits?  Maybe a woven polyester?  What kind of mesh bag would be large enough to pass pulp, small enough to hold pits, strong enough to survive the twist and squeeze,and also food safe?

I use nylon straining bags for making wine. You can get them in various sizes at homebrew stores. (for example: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/nylon-straining-bag-18-x-32-coarse-mesh.html) I'm sure they'd do the trick for what you need. Although this may only work for passing juice, you might inquire at your local homebrew store if they have a slightly larger mesh size.


Bone-in fried chicken pieces not cooking through I always fry a whole fried chicken in 12 pieces (bones removed from breast, tenderloins separated and remaining breasts cut in half) and haven't had any problem with the white meat cooking evenly.
However the dark meat is another story.
I seem to only be able to get the skin done well and crispy but then find the mean near the bone isn't done, or using a thermometer I can get the meat fully cooked but then the skin is getting burnt.  Most of the time I end up with the former, then bake it for a little longer to finish, but that has some soggy effects on the skin.
Any recommendations?
I haven't tested it yet but I was thinking of getting the white mean done and the dark meat skin crispy and then lowering the oil temp (from 350°F [180℃]) a bit and finishing the dark meat that way.

Props for butchering your own chickens; this is an important kitchen technique, and yields lots of nice scraps for stock. It can also save a good chunk of money at the grocery store. You should be able to get cooked-through meat and perfectly cooked crust through frying alone, for both white and dark meat. This is a matter of chicken size, oil temperature, and cooking time.
Your trouble cooking the meat through suggests that you are using a chicken that is too large. A frying chicken should be between 2.5 to 4.5 pounds [1-2kg]. A larger bird, like a 5 to 7 pound [2.2-3kg] roaster, will take much longer to cook through, and is not generally appropriate for frying. If you are stuck with a larger chicken, save it for another cooking method.
Once you get the right bird, a thermometer plays two import roles in this process. First, it lets you check the temperature of the oil. Since the oil cools when you add food, you may need to adjust the flame to maintain the desired temperature. Second, a thermometer is the best way to gauge doneness of chicken: dark meat should read 165°F [75℃] at the thickest part.
This recipe from Bon Appetit instructs you to heat the oil to 350°F [180℃] and, after adding the chicken, maintain it at 300–325°F [150-160℃]. At this temperature range, they are getting good results in about 12 minutes. Hopefully this time and temperature work for you.
If not, you can resort to baking at 350°F [180℃] until the chicken comes to temp; 10 minutes tops. Make sure to put the chicken on a wire rack inside a baking sheet: this stops oil from pooling under the chicken and makes sure it stays crisp on all sides.
These instructions take a further step for maximal crispiness: they fry for 10 minutes at 300°F [150℃], bake for 5-10 minutes, cool in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour, and re-fry at 400°F [200℃] for 5 minutes. This is a lot of steps, but if it solves your problem it might be worth it!


how to not get burned keto flour pancakes? I make keto pancakes out of a bought keto flour pancake mix (almond flour and cassava and coconut flours are main components). I mix these with either water or whole milk, making not too thick mixture, and cook on a cast iron pan with a pad of butter placed on heated pan first.
A problem I run into consistently is this: the first pancake cooks very well--well browned outside and cooked inside. But subsequent pancakes come out slightly burned outside while under-cooked inside.
I make sure to keep the pan on medium heat throughout and add butter in between pancakes in order to keep the pan well-greased. I make sure to turn pancake from one side to other when bubbles form. However, that doesn't help it.
Is there something else I can do to make sure to have several pancakes in a row come out well-cooked inside and not burnt outside?

Your pan is getting too hot.
Cast iron has a lot of" thermal mass", which means that it takes a good bit of energy (and time) to heat up, then it holds on to that heat and takes time to cool down.
Most likely, your pan is still heating up when you cook your first pancake. It's at the right temperature, but still on the upswing and getting hotter. By the time you get to the other pancakes, the pan is too hot.
There are two easy solutions to try:

turn the heat down a bit, and also wait longer to cook the first pancake. At a lower temperature, it'll take even longer to reach maximum/equilibrium temperature, with the goal to max out at the temperature of your first pancake.
use the same procedure for your first pancake, but once it's in the pan, turn down the heat, just a little. You've hit the ideal temperature, but you need to reduce the heat to maintain it at this temperature, rather than continuing to get hotter.

It'll take a little experimenting on your cooktop to find just the right adjustment of heat, but it should just be a matter of finding a slightly lower temperature.


Does an induction stove require flat bottomed vessels? Does an induction stove require flat bottomed vessels? What materials besides stainless steel works for an induction stove?

Most reputable sources say that curved surfaces such as woks don't work as well on induction stoves. They even make special tools and cooktops for inductively heating woks.  This phenomenum could be because of the angled surface or the extra distance from the cooktop, but it's probably both.  It's not that these surfaces are immune to induction heating, just that they aren't efficient.

Angled surfaces won't respond as well to induction stoves since the maximum amount of energy is generated in a surface when it's flat with respect to the stove.  (Magnetic induction is proportional to the cosine of the angle between loops, for those of you who want to know the physics).

Distance is probably the biggest factor.  Induction works at a small distance from the stove (there are numerous examples on the web of induction heaters working through newspapers or a magazine.)  However, the design of these cooktops makes it so the magnetic field that drives the heating dies off over a very short distance (For example, the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health determined when studying their effect on pacemakers that the field is negligible after 10 cm or 4 in).

As far as what materials work, usually cookware that's induction cooktop compatible has a curly icon on the box to indicate this.  Common compatible materials include magnetic stainless steels (not austenitic steels), iron, and carbon steel.  The article on induction cooking on Wikipedia has a great explanation on what cookware works for induction cooking and why.

There common rule of thumb is that if a magnet sticks to the bottom of a pot or pan, it's compatible with an induction stove. Surface resistance is a more scientific measure, but to get the  complete picture of why certain things do or don't work would require a college course in material electromagnetics. For a more detailed analysis, see the wikipedia page I linked. For most cookware these are only minor concerns compared to the magnet test, until you accidentally leave aluminum foil on an induction stove and it starts to melt.

It should be noted that cookware needs some inductive metal in it, but not all of it needs to be an inductive metal.  Some cookware designed for an inductive stove has an iron bottom with aluminum sides because aluminum conducts the heat better for more even cooking. Clad cookware with a mixture of the right metals works too.


Is there a safety issue with freezing raw chicken with raw stuffing? I was planning on making stuffed chicken capons and freezing them raw. This is with fresh raw chicken and raw stuffing (no eggs), and then freezing the chicken stuffed with stuffing and defrosting and cooking at a later point. I was told that it's a safety issue and I should instead half-cook the capons and then freeze. I don't see the logic in this and haven't been able to locate any proper source. Is there any reason why this would be unsafe?

Your method of stuffing and freezing raw should be safe. Assuming you are following safe food handling and freezing methods, you will be fine.

Just prep your chicken and get it into the freezer within the recommended window of two hours that it can safely be in the "danger zone" of 40-140 F.

As it pertains to bacteria, you can think of freezing as stopping time. You are essentially putting all those pesky microbes on pause, so they can't multiply and have a big ol' botulism party on your chicken. So if your food is clean and safe when it goes into the freezer, it should be clean and safe when it comes out.

I can't see any point to par-cooking your chicken, and as James points out, it seems to complicate the process unnecessarily.

Also check out the USDA guide on Freezing and Food Safety.


How long can a vinaigrette last if emulsified with raw egg? Started a new job and walked in to some vinaigrettes that are 2-4 weeks old, some of which contain raw egg. Obviously, I'm a little concerned. How long can a vinny last with raw egg?

I'd recommend only keeping vinaigrette for 7 days or less (refrigerated, of course). It's not that difficult and you'll be avoiding a lot of quality and safety issues.

Another thing you need to be aware of is that raw garlic can cause botulism, which can result in hospitalization and death. I think close relatives of garlic, such as shallots also contain botulinum spores, as well as honey. If they sit in an anaerobic medium (oxygenless), such as oil in a vinaigrette, they can start to grow and produce deadly toxins.

Also, after a week I feel like fresh ingredients such as herbs will start to go bad. And olive oil can definitely go rancid after 4 weeks!

Discuss your concerns management and if they don't listen then I'd email/call your local health department and I am sure they'd help you make sure everything is safe. Best of luck!


How to tell doneness of a boiled egg besides time I live at 7000 feet, so when I want to make a soft-boiled egg, I either undershoot the boiling time when I follow times online, or over shoot it into hard boiled by adjusting too far up. Is there any real way to tell the doneness besides time (or the obvious crack one open)?

Try an egg timer that measures temperature.

Here's an example (that I don't necessarily endorse): Egg Perfect Timer

The idea is, the device supposedly absorbs heat similarly to an egg, and gives a visual signal of the level of heat absorption. If the water is colder than typical, because you're at a higher altitude, the time it takes to heat the eggs and egg timer will lengthen, but the amount of heat the eggs and egg timer need remains consistent.

I had one very similar (perhaps that same brand) when I was much younger.  I remember it being hard to read, but I think it was accurate.


Why do my grains smell like my room? My rice smells like my room and it's kinda weird. It tastes fine but I moved the rice to another location that smells different and I can still smell the strong smell of my room whenever I sniff the rice, even after rinsing and cooking.
However, this isn't only my rice, I have oatmeal that I keep in cabinets and it smells exactly like my cabinet before and after cooking.
My main concern is: is my stuff safe to be eaten? In both cases I've eaten them both and nothing bad has happened so far, they both still taste as if they were original (hence they are also not even expired or best by date yet).
But I am wondering how they absorbed the smell. I can't find any information on grains absorbing smell anywhere.

Anything absorbent will absorb smells. That's why fabric picks up smells easily, wood will over time, and glass won't. As I'm sure you know from cooking grains, they are quite absorbent, and that applies to smells as well.
All techniques I can think of to remove smells from other items aren't ideal for using on food, so your best bet is probably to cover it up with some strong spices. To prevent your grains from picking up smells in the future, store them in something airtight so air and smells won't permeate the container and reach your food. Open containers are the worst, tightly closed cardboard boxes and thin plastic bags are a bit better, sturdy airtight plastic containers are better still, and glass containers with metal lids are the best.


Homemade liquid sweetener from Stevia I am using Stevia Hermesetas. Can I make liquid sweetener from Stevia powder for diabetic dessert - sweet soup with fruits and jelly? Any requirements during cooking?

I buy bulk pure Stevioside powder online. It's much cheaper to buy the pure powder that way and make your own stock solution.
I make my stock strong enough so that 1 drop equals 1 teaspoon (4g) sugar in sweetness, 3 drops per tablespoon (12g).

For 100 ml:

23.5 gram Stevia powder

20 ml 95% ethanol

Bring to 100 ml with water.

The alcohol is added both because Stevia isn't that soluble in plain water, but is in 20% ethanol, and as preservative. I've kept a single jar for over three years now, opening periodically; no mold, no growth problems.

I find the powder just too fiddly to work with in the kitchen; tiny scoops, or always weighing out 100 mg. Plus the pure powder likes to puff up into the air. A good strong stock solution is far easier to handle cooking-wise.

Note: bottle lasted through June 2016 at room temp, with no spoilage or degradation. So 2-3 year shelf life, at least.


Is it customary to use pigs pluck to make sausages? Looking to start raising my own pigs and researching how I want to process a pig I am aware of the pig's pluck (larynx, trachea, lung, heart and liver) and I'm a huge fan of making sausage (I'll be grinding and stuffing).

I do realize I will need to add fat but is it common for the pig's pluck be used for making sausages? Upon my recipe research I didn't see anything mentioned and I was curious to know why people do not use those parts of the pig. I do believe the use that for hot dogs but I may be wrong.

Historically, absolutely pig organ meats were used for sausage making. (The old joke "everything but the squeal" comes to mind.) In fact, I suspect that the notoriety of pig organs, due to their association with food adulteration, is largely responsible for them going out of fashion so entirely.

Pigs liver has a strong, distinct taste. It's used in a number of sausage recipes, but largely those which are based around it (e.g. scrapple). Lungs are illegal to sell for human consumption in a number of jurisdictions, but hearts show up in a lot of "industrial" sausages I've seen.


Is it safe to cook in discolored stainless steel pots? I sauteed some fresh cut veggies in a stainless steel wok and it has a rainbow tinge on the inner bottom? Is it safe to continue using this wok for future cooking?

If the pan has been always used in the kitchen and for cooking,

then is absolutely safe.

The phenomenon you observe is due to thin film interference. Is the same iridescence that we observe on soap bubbles or where a thin film of a greasy matter spread on a water surface.

In the pan case, the thin film causing the interference and the related coloured fringes is formed by metal oxides already present in the pan. Actually these oxides are exactly what makes the steel of the pan stainless and resistant to corrosion.

The phenomenon can be amplified if the pan has been overheated for instance while sauting to dryness.

The rainbow might be an annoyance but does not compromise your pan nor the quality of your food.

For those onto the physics and chemistry of this here are two possible starting links:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-doesnt-stainless-stee/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin-film_interference

In principle a thin layer of grease/oil can give the same effect. This is obviously not the case for a washed pan.

EDIT: As for OP mentioned a stainless steel pan I forgot to say that obviously also a non homogeneous thickness of reticulated fat can lead to fringes or spot in a seasoned iron pan.


Is it Safe to Fry Honey? I have honey and porkchops. Is it safe to marinate the porkchops in a honey based marinade and then fry them in a blend of cooking oils?

I've heard of adding sugar to stir-fries, to make a caramel flavoured sauce/glaze in Vietnamese cooking, as in this recipe.  Although I've usually seen sugar used, I see no reason why a similar effect could not be obtained by using honey.


Is it possible to make rice porridge without simmering for 1 hour+? Every rice porridge recipe that I have seen calls for the rice to be simmered for 1 hour or more with constant stirring. Is there any way to make rice porridge without that hefty time investment?

I make rice porridge in the oven. I bring the rice and milk to a boil on the stove and then place the entire pot, lid on, in the oven on ~90 degrees C for 4-8 hours, depending on the amount of rice. I'm basically using a DIY slow cooker. I imagine there are methods involving an actual slow cooker as well. The total time for my method is longer, but you don't need to stir constantly after bringing it to a boil.

If you have a pressure cooker, that can be used to make rice pudding much quicker. A pressure cooker recipe will according to my Google-fu take about 30 minutes total, and no stirring.


Grinding dried chiles in a mortar and pestle? I purchased some dried chile peppers from a local market thinking that I might be able to grind them up in a mortar and pestle. That completely failed - the peppers didn't grind at all, and instead mushed up.

Is there any way to grind peppers in a mortar and pestle, or is that purely a job for a blender?

Thanks!

That sort of grinding only works with seeds and such.  Chiles are too fibrous.  I use a cuisinart mini mate chopper/grinder for all my spice milling needs.  There's a dull side to the blade for grinding stuff like peppercorns, and a sharp side for stuff like chiles.  About the only thing my mortar and pestle ever gets used for is grinding kosher salt to a more useful grain size.


Is it okay to measure flour by weight by converting from volume? I don't have a big jar to put my flour in so it's hard to measure by volume (you have to fluff the flour, pour it into a cup and then remove the excess - which cant be done outside of the original bag).

It it okay to just look up the conversion (for example, 1 cup of flour is 120 grams) and use that?

Short answer: YES.  Measuring by weight is actually the better way to measure flour.

In fact, measuring flour by weight is the preferred method of measuring it in most places.  This is because while measuring by volume is more convenient*, measuring by weight is more accurate.  If you weigh your flour, however, you will always know you are using the same amount, whereas two individually measured cups of flour (done by volume) can have wildly different weights.  This makes recipes where you measure by volume much harder to repeat reliably and perfect with small tweaks.

For a more detailed reference on converting cups of flour to grams, see this answer. As noted in the answers to that question and in the comments below, the average weight of a cup of flour can vary greatly, between 4 and 5 ounces (about 110 to 140 grams), though a heavily packed cup could weigh much more. I personally use 1 cup = 4.5 ounces (125 grams) when I need to convert from volume to weight, but your results may vary depending on the recipe you're using

*There seems to be some contention here.  I'm from the US, where most people don't have kitchen scales (I'm the only one I know who does, despite being friends with lots of foodies).  For us, measuring by volume is practically mandatory, and if I want to measure something by weight, I have to convert the measures myself since they're usually given as volume only.  In other parts of the world, the situation is exactly the opposite -- everyone has scales, cups are nowhere to be found.  Convenience is obviously relative.


On a naked chicken (skin on, but no coating, batter) is there any benefit of double frying? So I have stumbled upon a recipe on seriouseats about double frying chicken wings in this case to get it to the most crispy buffalo wings possible. It makes me think will it helps with getting “ayam goreng” chicken legs and breast, which is traditionally cooked without any coating or batter (just marinated beforehand) to be the most crispy and juicy possible. Seriouseats mentioned to “confit” it first for 225-250F for 20 minutes and then letting it cool before final frying it at 375-400F for about 10 minutes.

I believe you are referring to this article? https://www.seriouseats.com/2012/01/the-food-lab-how-to-make-best-buffalo-wings-fry-again-ultimate-crispy-deep-fried-buffalo-wings.html

Funny enough, I was reading this yesterday. And if you go through the end, Kenji gives a very scientific explanation on how double-frying your wings can make them more crispy.

Basically, frying first in a 250°F will melt the colagen in the skin, transforming into a gelatin and adding a ton of moisture and juiciness. Then, frying into a 400ºF oil will dehydrate the skin, making it crispy.


How to carry a knife around a kitchen safely? How do I carry a knife when moving between my cutting station and the sink for cleaning safely?  Any way I hold it feels like I'm either endangering my fellow cooks or myself.

Context:  I'm not a chef, I cook at home, but my kitchen is large and there are often multiple people cooking simultaneously (up to 4)

One should try not to situate the cutting station away from the sink.  Most of the time you clean what you are going to cut and you have scraps to put down the garbage disposal.  If you need to clean the knife you also need to clean the cutting board.

If I had to carry a lone knife around I would extend my arm down the knife next to my thigh blade pointing behind me. I used to work as a cook and that is how I carried my knife to my station.  Coming back I would typically have a number of dirty items so I would just place the knife in the bus tray.

Other way is wrist bent with dull side of the knife against your forearm.

Mistake I see is people want to start cooking before they prep.  You start producing dirty pans and use up the prep area and things just go to shit.  Here is what I recommend:

Clean (and disinfect) the kitchen. Sink counter, pots, and dishes
Soak and clean vegetables and fruit
Cut / prep vegetables and fruit and put them aside
Quick clean
Cut / prep meats (if marinade then do that first)
Cook - clean as you go
One full sanitize
Assemble / serve


How can I scale down a high-yield recipe that calls for a single egg? Recipes for muffins and the like often involve eggs and the recipes are usually designed for a yield of about 20. I have a small oven and only want/can make about 5 muffins at a time. What do I do with recipes that have a yield of 20 or 10 muffins, but requires a single egg? Should I beat the egg in a bowl and use a proportional amount, or are there any special rules to be aware of?

An alternative that wasn't presented in the link above would be to mix the white and yolk together and measure the appropriate amount of egg by volume.  A large egg consists of about 2 - 2 1/4 Tbsp. white and about 1 Tbsp. yolk.  The whole egg, mixed, would total about 3 1/4 Tbsp. (which would be 3 Tbsp. + a little less than 1 tsp. - or just about 10 tsp.).

So for a half egg, you would use 5 tsp. and for a quarter egg, you would use 2 1/2 tsp.  If you are cutting a recipe to 1/3 or 2/3, I would recommend just going for 3 tsp. or 6 tsp. respectively.

Aside from scaling down the volume of the whole egg in your recipe, the next best idea from the link above is probably the recommendation to go by weight (if you have an accurate food scale).

Also worth noting:  Whenever you scale-up or scale-down recipes where ingredients are not specified by weight (recipes that use, say, cups of flour and sugar), the recipe might not turn out quite the same as it would have if you had made a full recipe.  Recipes that don't specify weights are typically not very robust.  If you're going to scale-down, you'll probably have better luck with a half-recipe than you would with a quarter-recipe.


What are common techniques for adding eggs to soup? I have seen different techniques for adding eggs to soups. They seem to be a polarizing topic - I have known people to find the sight of "raggy" soup disgusting, and I have family members who won't eat a clear soup.

These are the methods I know of, but if you can add to the list, I'd be happy to hear about it.

yogurt: Mix egg with yogurt, don't overmix/froth. Pour it in one big glob into the prepared soup the moment you remove it from the heat, stir. Should result in very fine grains distributed perfectly throughout the soup, making it opaque. Sometimes results in big rags floating on top instead.
pure egg: Pour slowly a mixed, slightly frothed egg into the soup while stirring vigorously. Should result in big, spongy rags floating in the clear broth.
egg and cheese: Mix the egg with finely ground hard cheese (parmesan works best). Slowly drizzle into the broth. Not sure what the perfect result is supposed to look like.
egg and flour: This is more of a thickener. Slowly pour it after the soup is removed from the heat. Should result in an even, slightly thickened broth with no visible rags and no fat spots swimming on the soup.
emulsified egg. Emulsify egg with oil (or use mayonnaise or hollandaise) and add it to the soup after it has been cooled to serving temperature. Should result in evenly thickened soup without visible rags.

All these are used in a usual "meat, broth and veggies" soup, not a pureed soup or something fancy, although I suspect there are egg methods for those too.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of each method? How do they influence texture, richness, rag size, taste? Are there special conditions under which I should prefer one method above the others? Is there a consensus among cooking professionals for which method is to be used with which kind of soup?

Edit

The answers are interesting, but I would like to see more information than a simple list: What type of soup should the method be used with, and why? How does it change taste?

In Poland some soups (notably żurek or a sorrel soup) are served with a hard boiled (separately) egg added.


Is salt caking really a big problem, or are anti-caking agents just cheaper than salt? Moving back to the US from Europe after 8 years, my wife and I thought we were going crazy when salt seemed ... less salty here.  Taking a look, almost all salt has anti-caking agent mixed in with it.  Morton Sea Salt was the only one we could find without it, and indeed it's just as salty as salt oughta be.

So what's the deal? You know how often I had a problem with salt caking during my 8 years of using normal salt abroad?  Zero.  Is this really a problem, or is anti-caking agent cheaper than salt and they're just saving a buck by diluting it?

At the time of writing, sodium aluminosilicate (AKA sodium silicoaluminate, E-554, or just "anti-caking agent" - by far the most common in salt and probably the least expensive) costs about $35/kg.  Here is one source.

You can easily find sea salt or table salt for $1/lb ($2.20/kg) or even as low as $1/kg if you buy in bulk.  And this is retail, not wholesale.

So, using anti-caking agents as "filler" - not a very shrewd business move.

Even if a distributor wanted to waste enormous amounts of cash putting unnecessary amounts of anti-caking agent in salt, regulations don't allow it.  The FDA, and most other international food agencies, limit the amount of anti-caking agent to 2% by weight (except in baking powder).

2% - trust me, that's not going to make it taste any different.  It's all in your head.

I can personally attest to the effectiveness of anti-caking agents in salt because I have purchased sea salt in the past without it - fine sea salt in one of those cardboard boxes with a tiny metal spout.  I could never get it out of the box; I had to jam a knife inside to break it apart first, and even then it was difficult.  And this is in Ontario, in the wintertime, when it's dry enough to get painful shocks from petting the cat.

Most likely, the reason you never had a problem with salt caking is that you were using salt with anti-caking agent.  Maybe you didn't happen to look at the ingredients (it is salt, after all) or maybe they didn't list it - not every jurisdiction requires it as long as it's under the regulated limit.


What is the historical origin of the sauté cooking technique? Although the term sauté is used colloquially in the US to refer to other types of frying, it is a specific cooking technique that involves high heat and constant movement of the ingredients in the pan.
According to Wiktionary's entry for the word sauté:

Definition: To cook (food) using a small amount of fat in an open pan over a relatively high heat, allowing the food to brown and form a crust stopping it from sticking to the pan as it cooks.
Etymology: Borrowed from French sauté, past participle of sauter, to jump, in cooking, diced onions jump in the pan from the hot oil, resembling a ballet dancer performing a "saute".
Sauté - Wiktionary

So the word sauté comes from the French verb "to jump".
Did this high-heat, constant-movement cooking technique actually originate in France, or did the English language just borrow the word because it was popular there? Do we have any records of where and when this cooking technique originated historically?

According to The Oxford Companion To Food (1999 ed.):

  Originally, in France, a sauté was a dish of meat of poultry cut
  into pieces and cooked only in fat, but the French now also use the
  term for dishes which simply involve browning a food before adding a
  liquid.

It also says:

  The word ... has succeeded in migrating to English in both [noun and verb], with
  the same accent.

So, the answer is that it did come from French, because it was a word in French for a cooking technique, and crossed over to English for the same technique.

The Oxford doesn't give a year for when this crossover supposedly occurred, but my guess is sometime in the mid-19th century.  This is because the word originated in French supposedly in the early 1800's, so it couldn't be older than that.  And the English version is likely to be younger than the popularity of the dish
Sauté d’agneau, because that dish uses the later French meaning of the word, to fry and then cook in liquid, which is "braising" in English and definitely not sauteing.

But we can narrow it down further.  The first mention of the word I can find in an English-language cookbook is in the 1827 edition of  The Art of French Cookery.  It does not appear in the 1822 edition of The Cook's Oracle, nor in the 1823 edition of Domestic Cookery.  So it seems to have appeared as a French term in British & American recipes the 1820's and been appropriated as an English term sometime later.

ADDED TO ANSWER:

There's good reason to believe that the sauté technique, at least as a widespread practice, did not exist for more than a few decades earlier than the word in French did.

The reason for this has to do with cooking technology.  Through most of the 18th century, a majority of cooking was still done on open hearths, using a spider pan rather than a frying pan on a stove. Moving the pan to make ingredients "jump" -- an essential element of sauteing -- is very difficult with a spider.

So sauté as a common cooking technique would not have preceded iron stoves as common cooking surfaces, which didn't happen until the end of the 18th Century.


Do eggshells let flavours pass through during boiling? If i had 2 eggs. 1 i boil in plain water. The other i boil in say a curry sauce. After boiling and peeling, would they taste different to one another?

Do the shells let any flavour through?

Yes, they will taste different. Egg shells are porous in order to provide oxygen to the developing chick. While the egg is still uncooked, it will take on the tastes of outside ingredients fairly easily. As it cooks, the albumin coagulates and forms chains that prevent moisture and vapor exchange, so it becomes resistant to absorbing outside ingredients. As a result, your egg will pick up more curry taste if it is boiled from raw in the curry sauce than if you boil an already-cooked egg in the sauce.


Using salmon in 2 days, freezer or fridge? I have a fresh cut of salmon I plan to cook for dinner in two days. I know that fish is best cooked as soon and as fresh as possible or should go right into the freezer.

Which is the best storage method? Should I put it in the freezer for just one day, and then take it out tomorrow to thaw overnight? Or should I leave for two days in the fridge?

It depends. Temperature works on a scale, the cooler it is, usually the less active bacteria will be.

With this in mind, my fridge has a special zone for meats and fish, very very close to zero degrees. The food won't freeze, but bacterial activity will be slowed enough that I would put it there a couple of days without worrying.

Freezing goes way beyond zero, usually - 13 to - 21 in some fridges, but it changes the quality of the product, specially if not vacuum sealed.

If your fridge has a special zone for meats like mine, I would use it. If not, freeze it just to be safe.


Wok Cooking on a Home Stove I work with woks at work and know about the wok pit used to cook on for heat, to hold the rounded bottom, and to toss the food. Is there a tool or way to use my at home gas stove for my wok (specifically round bottom) or would I have to install a wok pit.

I know of flat bottoms and have one of them as well but I'm dissatisfied with them.

You can find flat bottom woks that work on flat ranges effectively. They are sub-optimal though, as they don't evenly distribute the heat across the sides. In this use a high sided saute pan is just as useful. I have heard of mounts that sit over a burner as well. These are usually useless for home-use because stove heat output is too low.

A wok ring stand will work with most(gas) stovetops and will make your rounded bottom wok usable. They still aren't ideal though because the heat output is still focused on the lower apex of the pan and the sides get much less. therefor heat distribution is still off.

There are also small individual wok burners that run on propane. but most of them are large (think outdoor grill size) and may/or may not, be the solution you need.


Brown Blob in natural maple syrup? I was pouring out  my natural maple syrup today and found gelatinous dark brown blob in it. This syrup was stored in the refrigerator in a large plastic bottle. It is not past date on the bottle. Once I pulled this blob out it would not rinse down through my sink strainer very well. What is this blob and is my syrup still good?

Maple syrup can develop a skin of mold but a number of afficianados suggest removing the mold then reboiling the syrup and then continuing to use the syrup:

Chowhound.com maple syrup mold growth discussion


My netting is not, perhaps, the best Take pity, is there any way I can be better?
Here's a close-up (in case that, you know, helps)

I heat only normal real chocolate (i.e., normal bar eating or cooking chocolate), that is to say I am not open to using EZ-Net fake chocolate or any sort of additives or chemicals; FTR I melt it in this guy:

(Apart from anything else I don't really know how to get it the hell out of there and start netting; I guess if you had an incredibly steady/variable hand you could pour straight from the double boiler there; basically I just use a normal spoon and, as you can see, valiantly try my best.)
Laughter understandable, help appreciated!

Take a plastic zip top bag, and put it inside a pint glass or tall quart size container. Fold the top of the bag down over the outside of the mug/container. Essentially, you're just using the mug to hold the bag up and open.
After you've melted your chocolate, dump it into the bag, squeeze out extra air, and zip the top closed. You've got a single use pastry bag!

Edit: Adding a suggestion from Graham: You can melt your chocolate directly in the zip top bag by placing your chocolate pieces in  the bag, then placing that bag directly in your water bath to melt--thus saving the entire "transfer messy, warm, gooey chocolate into a zip top bag" step entirely.
Nearly all freezer zip top bags will happily survive the water bath. Thinner, or budget bags may not keep together at the seams as well when heated, so read the box, or test first by filling the bag with plain water & heating. This way you can test durability without wasting a batch of chocolate.

Hold the bag with one corner pointing down. Use one hand to hold the bag on the top, so that squeezing will push the chocolate down (like a pastry bag). Now clip that corner off the bag with scissors. You can now drizzle in a nice steady stream, giving a squeeze, pushing chocolate down as you go.
With some practice, you'll be able to get a very even netting. And if you do it often, you can graduate to a proper pastry bag eventually, which makes things even a bit easier.
For a more detailed set of instructions with photos (albeit with a proper piping bag, but it's the same process), check out this.


How long can home dried herbs be stored? I am growing the "heal-all herb", Prunella Vulgaris, and am planning to dry the leaves and flowers in order to make a medicinal tea. How long is it safe to keep the herb once dried? I would prefer to do a large a batch as possible.

If properly dried and kept airtight, it will keep safely indefinitely. If it spoils it wasn't dried enough. Active drying should of course be started promptly after picking. But safety of dried herbs is rarely the issue. Loss of flavour is more likely to be the limiting factor.

Many herbs lose flavour just from the drying process, others stay tasty for a long time, and some are in between - they can handle drying but not for long. I've seen attempts to categorise herbs to predict how well they'll taste good after drying, but haven't found them convincing. Mint and some related species keep fairly well, but basil (for example) isn't really worth drying.


Should dry beans be washed before soaking? When making dried beans, generally I wash the beans, then soak them, then drain&rinse, then cook. I realized today that I started my soak without the prior wash (by accident), and then realized it shouldn't matter; after all,  I am going to drain&rinse them post-soaking anyway; that should take care of the wash step, shouldn't it?

tl;dr Do dry beans always need to be washed pre-soaking, or is post-soak ok too?

It's always a good idea to wash and "pick over" a bag of dried beans before soaking them. You never know what sort of grit or weirdness you might find. It's a lot more difficult to find the stuff-that-isn't-beans once it's all been soaking together for a long time.


How do I remove bitter flavor from lime rind in soup? I just made a large pot of soup. It's a Mexican Caldo de Res. I added a bunch of lime juice, and thought, hey, maybe i'll throw the lime rinds in there too for a bit. This was a huge mistake. Now the whole thing has a really bitter flavor. I've removed the rinds, are there any suggestions on how to save this?

You might be able to counter-balance it with other flavors (salt, sour, sweet, hot), but you're likely still going to have some bitter notes come through, it's just a question if it's tolerable or not, and some people dislike bitter more than others.  (I can't understand how people can drink beers other than lambics)

In looking at a similar thread on Chowhound, one of the recommendations is a bit of milk or cream.  If you're not lactose intollerant, it might be worth a try.

This could also be a chance for an experiment -- ladle it into a bunch of glasses, try some different things (sugar, vinegar, soy, hot sauce, milk, worcestershire, combinations of them, etc), and report back to us with what you think worked best.


Cooking times and temperatures for whole fish on the grill? I recently cooked some whole 7lbs salmon on the grill, wrapped in fig leaves, and left them on a bit too long; they were a little dried out.  So, based on the idea that I'm cooking "thick" whole fish such as salmon, striped bass, rockfish, etc., and I want to cook the fish all the way through to the spine, some questions:

What's the best level of grill heat to cook the fish at?
Around how long per pound size of fish does it take at that temperature?
How much cooking time does wrapping the fish (in leaves or foil) add?

I know from online searching that there isn't an easily accessible guide to the above questions, and James Peterson's Fish & Shellfish didn't have anything.  So guides from personal experience are great.

It's best to grill small whole fish, like striped bass or snapper, because the general rule about grilling fish is to do it quickly. Start by cutting 3 deep slashes across the top of each fish, and rub in any spice mixture or lemon zest, etc. that you are using to flavor the fish. Salt the fish lightly both inside and out. Medium-high heat is the best level of grill heat, which means you can hold your hand palm-down an inch or so above the grate for 3-4 seconds without it burning. According to the Jamisons' "Born to Grill", the hand test measures the temperature of the actual grilling surface, not just the air inside the grill. Make sure the grate is well-oiled, so the fish will not stick. Put the fish on the grill, with the tails away from the hottest part, so they don't burn. Cook 8-10 minutes per inch (not per lb.) of fish, but only 6-8 minutes for tuna and salmon or they will overcook. Add 2 more minutes per inch when cooking in foil or banana leaves. It's best to check for doneness by flaking the fish with a fork.


What alternatives do exists for properly squeezing lemons? This happened to me often when I go to some restaurants or be on a visit to somebody place. It just happen that I want to add some lemon to my soup or use it as an addition to my meals but they do not have access to a lemon crusher. Is that the name of the tool?.

I've seen people used forks, spoons and just their thumb for squeezing the juice of the lemon. But is there a method which has proven to work the best to take out all of the juice without trying to make much force with the hands or something?. Is there a tool that can be carried on maybe portable for this purposes?.

A lemon wedge squeezer may be what you want.
They are
and the lemon wedge .

(Pictures from Amazon.com)


The difference between suet and tallow? I just received a couple kilograms worth of raw lamb suet from a butcher free of charge. My understanding is that the fat surrounding the kidney (which this is) is suet and that rendered fat (starting from suet or otherwise) is tallow.

Tallow, to my understanding, has a much longer life that this raw suet that I have. I'm planning to render the suet down but was wondering if I could still use in recipes that call for suet after it has been rendered? Is it better in the raw state or does it make no difference?

My main usage would probably be in pastries and tortillas.

If you're making tortillas and pastry dough, you'd want to use the rendered suet = tallow.

If you're making something like a traditional English Christmas pudding or a spotted dick, you'd want to use the un-rendered (but cleaned and shredded) suet.

Either one would last pretty much indefinitely in the freezer. Suet would have a shorter lifespan at room temperature (since it's still got bits of meat attached).


How long do you cook the vegetables in a pasta salad recipe? Pasta salad is pasta cooked until soft with vegetables and an Italian dressing. I assume I need to boil the vegetables separately, but am blanking on how long is appropriate. Thoughts?

My answer would be "not at all". My pasta salad involves only raw vegetables - carrots, peppers, celery, and similar things you would put in a leaf salad. The contrast between the soft pasta and the crunchy veggies is part of the appeal. Just a data point.


How to make microwaved porridge thicker In the morning, I usually have porridge with a bit of fruit. The issue is that the porridge oats always seem to retain their shape and never become very sticky, even after I leave it for a few seconds after microwaving.

I use 40g of Kavanagh's porridge with 220ml of milk and put it in an 800 watt microwave for the specified time of 2 minutes and 30 seconds. I then add in cherries and blueberries then put it in the microwave for a further 30 seconds, before adding sliced banana. After waiting for a few minutes, the oats have absorbed the milk, but seem to retain their shape and don't become sticky.

I prefer to use the microwave instead of the hob, as their is less to wash up afterwards. I have tried adding less milk and putting the porridge in for longer, but this doesn't seem to have an effect.

How do I make my porridge thicker and stickier in the microwave?

There are 2 main points that will affect the thickness of your porridge :

The oatmeal/milk (or water) ratio
The temperature reached by the oatmeal. Litterature says the oat starch gelatinization (that gives said thickness) happens at around 80°C. From experience, higher is better (probably because heating isn't homogenous in a micro wave, and you'll need to be close to the boiling point on some parts of your bowl to reach at least 80°C everywhere).

So, what I would suggest is :

Put your 40g of oatmeal and 220mL of milk, and measure the exact time it take it to boil in the microwave. If it's significantly higher than 2min30, and the result is thick as you want, just microwave it that long every time.
If it's still not thick enough, add a bit more oatmeal untile you reach the desired thickness.


How long is sugar (mixed with minor ingredients) good for? Over a year ago I made flavored sugars and have recently remembered them. They are basically a sealed container (canning jar) with a cinnamon stick, lemon/orange zest, vanilla bean/pod, or a combination of two of the aforementioned.

They're good pretty much forever. There is not enough available water for things to grow in there. Mind you, the more aromatic and subtle parts of the flavor will dissipate over time.

The sugar absorbs water, giving the combination a very low water activity, meaning there's little water available for microorganisms to use in growth.  As long as your flavoring pieces are small and well mixed with sugar they will not spoil.


Why does this sunflower butter exude green liquid? The most recent brand of sunflower butter (Mara Natha) that I've been using left a green tinted liquid inside the glass jar after I attempted to wash it out for recycling with water ~200°F/93°C and left the water in over night.

The liquid was not just floating oil on top, but a consistent transparent green, close to the darker green check of the cooking.se background.

I washed it out again, and the second time I just rinsed with warm tap water and left it again as an experiment this time, and it was a lightly tinged yellow color that one would expect/imagine would be left since that is close to the color of the oil that separates out before you mix it in.

Note, there is a bit of sea salt in the mixture of this one. Also, the sunflower seeds are listed as being roasted beforehand. This is not an organic product.

I thought, just maybe, I could have 'burned' the sunflower oil, so I checked around and found This page, that lists many different smoking points for the same oils and redundant and various stages of 'refinement.' However, the water was no longer boiling, and the lowest listed temp was 225°F/107°C on the various sources cited. I would think that a roasted sunflower seed would qualify as 'more refined' and therefore increase the smoking temperature of the oil crushed from it. Discussion of sunflower oil vs. peanut oil here.

What am I dealing with here?

Sunflower oil turns green in the presence of bases, such as baking soda. Most tap water in the US is alkaline with a pH value around 8, so that could also turn the sunflower oil green.


How accurate is the window pane test? (breadmaking) I recently bought Michael Ruhlman's Ratio and started trying out baking. I knead my bread for about 10 to 15 minutes, but the window pane test (pulling a chunk of dough so that it's translucent without tearing) has never worked for me. I use about 80% all-purpose flour and 20% whole wheat.

Should I keep kneading until the window pane test works, or am I good with just looking at time? I've made two loaves of bread and I though both tasted good and had a pleasant texture. I'm curious if the whole wheat flour would have anything to do with this.

In my experience, the lighter the expected loaf, the more effective the windowpane test is.

The windowpane test will work best with high protein breads made out of very fine, or refined, flour with no gluten-interfering additives. This means "artisan" style loaves made out of bread flour, water, salt, and yeast. The gluten in these loaves is very well developed and they rely on this to create very light, open loaves.

If French bread is on one side of the glutinous spectrum, then a dense sourdough rye would be on the other. It would be very difficult to get a windowpane test to work with rye, because there is little gluten. It makes a very dense loaf.

Of course, your bread is going to be somewhere in the middle. 60% is a good ratio for standard sandwich types of bread. Any ingredients that will interfere with gluten development will make the windowpane test difficult. Coarse wheat flour will have less gluten and will cut the existing gluten; added fat will inhibit some gluten formation.

Either way, I wouldn't go by time. You want your dough to pull away from the side of the bowl and be "smooth and elastic". It should be less sticky and should spring back when manipulated. With a little practice it is easy to recognize this state while it is being kneaded and timing is no longer necessary.

Note

If the texture of your bread pleases you then the test isn't so important. If you would like to pass the windowpane test and make your loaves lighter and less crumbly there are a couple things that help:

If the recipe calls for fat, reduce it or leave it out
Fat gives tenderness and flavor. I often reduce it, but leaving it out may leave a flavorless loaf.
Use higher protein wheat flour
Bread should be made with hard red or white wheat. Soft wheat flour is used in Southern cooking that doesn't require as much gluten, such as biscuits.
Use finer wheat flour
The finer the grind on your wheat flour, the less it will cut gluten strands.
Add gluten
You can purchase essential wheat gluten. It is very helpful, especially with breads high in wheat flour.
Add acid
A small amount of acid helps with gluten formation. You can grind up a vitamin C tablet (ascorbic acid) or add a little citric acid. Sometimes I will use leftover orange juice, but remember to take into account the liquid and flavor that it will add.


What are the advantages of vanilla sugar? When/why would one use "vanilla sugar" instead of just plain sugar along with vanilla extract and/or beans/pods, particularly in recipes and baking?  Is it just a matter of convenience?

I understand that some people might actually like to have vanilla sugar for direct use, such as sprinkling on things (as people also do with things like cinnamon sugar).  I could imagine other "direct" uses, like flavoring coffee or tea with sugar that has a hint of vanilla.  Besides convenience, in these cases having the vanilla already mixed in could allow quantities much smaller than would typically be measured otherwise in extract or whatever.

However, I've also seen an increasing number of recipes listing, for example, a cup of "vanilla sugar" in something to be baked.  I can perhaps imagine a few cases where even the small amount of moisture or alcohol from extract would be undesirable (or something like that).

But aside from such unusual situations, when baking or making a recipe that has a decent quantity of sugar, are there advantages to the vanilla-infused sugar version compared to extracts or vanilla beans?  Are there significant flavor differences/advantages to vanilla sugar?

Or is there some other reason it is popular?

is there some other reason it is popular?

Yes: Vanilla beans are expensive, and once you've extracted the seeds, the husk, which still contains good vanilla flavor, is often discarded. Putting the empty husk in sugar allows you to extract some vanilla flavor that might otherwise be wasted. I usually save my empty vanilla bean pods and use them for making vanilla ice cream or some other dessert that involves hot liquids, steeping the pods in warm milk extracts the remaining flavor better than putting it in a container of sugar.


Can I turn evaporated milk into unsweetened condensed milk? I see how to change the evaporated milk to sweetened, but can I make it unsweetened?

Open the can, use it. That's what it is.


Chicken or quail have black or dark red spots on the meat Is this normal?

I've got about 10 quail meats and some of them have these spots.

Are these safe to cook and eat? Is it possible that they had a disease or were infected?

I'm scared of Coronavirus, and chickens and quails can carry influenza and Coronavirus is a type of influenza, so could this be related?

I've googled a lot but I can't find anything on it:
"Quail red OR black OR dark spot on meat"
etc.

My question is not a duplicate of: red spots on the chicken

It's just clotted blood.

Quail is a far more game-y meat than chicken meaning there is much more muscle and you end up with a lot of dark meat. You get the same with truly free range chickens.

This is nothing to worry about and I have never seen a quail which doesn't look like that.

Source: My mum had a poultry farm.


Making Banana bread but short on flour: can I use pancake mix? I'm making banana bread I am a half a cup short of flour what can I use to substitute? I have pancake mix could I use that to replace the half a cup of flour I do not have?

Me think you could do it.

A banana bread is more a cake than a bread, and the additional ingredients (mostly sugar) in the pancake mix will not impact that much in the result.


What exactly happens during the sourdough ripening? I am following a recipe from the well established Italian Baker Bonci, to make my liquid sourdough starter (with some success too).

In his recipe he says to refresh the starter with a 1:1:1 proportion every day for a month before it can be considered matured and ready to use.

I would like to know what happens during these 31 days and why this time frame is needed (the starter seems very active after a week or two and is capable of leavening bread already).

My understanding /theory is that the successive rounds of feeding, souring and re feeding help grow yeasts while acidity weeds out some of them, in fact selecting the right "genes" we want to keep in our starter.

I would like to know :

If my theory is correct and if it is
Exactly what traits/type of yeasts are we selecting for?
What are the typical proportion of a yeast types found in starter?
Is there any source describing the detail of this process (I'm interested in the selection part more than in the recipe part, but I don't won't a bio textbook)

Here is a small piece of the answer. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33496265/
It is not just yeast strains but especially lactobacillus bacteria that develops and helps to change the ph of the starter. This change in ph is what helps the sourdough bread retain moisture and results in the creation of acetic and lactic acids which create the tanginess.


Why doesn't my whole wheat dough pass the Poke Test? http://www.thekitchn.com/bread-baking-tip-how-to-tell-w-156772

  The Poke Test - Give that ball of dough a firm poke with your finger. If the indentation fills back quickly, you're good to go. If it stays looking like a deep dimple, continue kneading.

I use the water and the whole wheat flour only. After kneading the dough for 15 minutes I poked it. The hole didn't fill up.

Is there a proper way to knead the dough which I may be missing?

This dough is supposed to be used for making Parathas and Chapatis.

The "spring back poke test" is a function of gluten content. Whole-wheat doughs have a hard time building gluten networks, because the sharp edges of the bran cut through the gluten strands as you knead. In general, you should never use more than 50% whole-wheat flour in a standard bread dough. Cook's Illustrated successfully increased that to 60% by soaking the whole-wheat flour in milk for at least 8 hours before making the dough, and using bread flour instead of all-purpose for the other 40%.


Sous Vide Large Turkey Breasts All the turkey sous-vide recipes on the web presume 2 small/medium turkey breasts placed together for a 2.5 to 4 hour cooking time. But I have 2 very large breasts rolled together in a cylinder 6" in diameter. How should I adjust the cook time?

First, I'll echo Catija's comment and say that there's no major advantage to cooking these breasts together.  I know Kenji does it here, but his purported claim toward greater evenness in cooking isn't really something you need to worry about with sous vide.  In fact, by creating a thicker piece of meat for your water bath, you're guaranteed to make the cooking less even, since it will take much longer for the interior of the meat to reach water bath temperatures.

So, my first recommendation would be to just cook the two breasts separately, making sure water circulates around both.  In that case, you probably don't need to modify your cooking times at all.

But let's assume that you really want to cook your 6-inch cylinder for some reason (perhaps to create a large "meat tube" for slicing if you tie it up well).  Okay.  Assuming your sous vide setup circulates water well, one advantage of sous vide (in addition to the precise temperature control) is the significantly greater heat transfer from water to food compared to, say, air in an oven.

In practice, that means that even rather large hunks of meat come to temperature a lot quicker than they would in an oven.  The main reason to increase time with a larger turkey breast would just be to allow for the center of a large cylinder of meat to rise to the water temperature.

The following recommendation assumes you're going to be using a water bath quite a bit above the "danger zone" border, say at least 140F/60C.**

I played around with a bit of heat transfer modeling here just for kicks, and I'm pretty sure your 6" diameter cylinder wouldn't take that much longer to come to temperature.  Allowing the center an extra 30-60 minutes might be reasonable, but that's still well within the parameters of your 2.5-4 hour recommended window.  I'd tend toward the longer side of that time span (closer to 4 hours), just to guarantee sufficient time with the center above the "danger zone" limit to kill off bacteria.  You obviously could go over 4 hours without compromising safety, but eventually the outer layers of the breast will start getting softer and more mushy (which might be a less desirable texture).

Lastly, for large hunks of meat cooked sous vide for relatively short times, I'd strongly recommend putting in a probe thermometer so you know what the core temperature is and when it gets above the "danger zone."  (See this Modernist Cuisine video.)  If you don't have a thermometer to leave in, I'd check the temperature with an instant-read thermometer after a couple hours to be sure you're at least getting above 130F/55C.

** Note: Precise sous vide temperatures are CRITICAL here for safety.  The closer the center of the cylinder gets to the water bath temperature, the slower its temperature rise becomes.  Getting the center up that last 5-10 degrees or so takes a lot longer.  I've seen some sous vide turkey breast recommendations with water bath temperatures as low as 132F/56C.  In that case, the center of a large cylinder may be skirting the "danger zone" boundary for much of the cook time and might not be safe even after 4 hours in a bath.  In that case, you might need to add more cooking time to guarantee safety.  Alternatively, you could raise the water bath temperature by a few degrees for the first hour or two, and then lower it to finish cooking.  Either way, if you're not sure your breast will spend a significant amount of time near 140F/60C or above, I'd definitely check the core temp mid-cooking and consult sous vide guides to make sure you have enough time above 130F to pasteurize.

Whatever you do, I'd recommend choosing a temperature designed to get the center of your cylinder above 130F/55C within two hours.  Sous vide turkey usually isn't heated to the much higher temperatures that people have traditionally used for oven-roasted turkey.  Those higher temperatures not only guarantee killing off bacteria (and a drier turkey) but also serve as an additional safety measure because higher temperatures will break down some toxins that might be created by some bacteria during a longer period in the "danger zone."  Spending more than a couple hours in the "danger zone" can create toxins in poultry that could still be present if the final temperature is still only 140F/60C or whatever.  This is something not mentioned in most sous vide guides, which tend to be focused only on Salmonella death curves, but it's a legitimate concern if you're cooking a very large hunk of meat in a water bath at low sous vide temps.