How can I fix my dry crumbly cookie dough? After following the recipe for sugar cookies, I chilled the dough wrapped in plastic for 2 days (recipe specified that I could chill anywhere from 2 hours to 2 days).

As I'm trying to kneed/roll the dough it is very dry with cracks forming, and I'm afraid if I just roll it out and cut cookies that the cookies will crack easily.

Is there anything I can do to "fix" the dough?  Should I even worry about it?

My own sugar cookie recipe is quite dry as well. It cracks along the edges when pressed or rolled and is easily "broken".

I've never experienced a problem with the dough being so dry it doesn't take to cookie cutters, but if your dough is literally falling apart you may want to just spritz (or in the absence of a kitchen water spray bottle, sprinkle with your finger tips) cold water on it. (Like adding water to pie dough) Give it one sprinkle/spritz and kneed it in. Repeat until it just stops breaking. Don't go overboard and make it gooey.

I'd use water over oil or milk because it's the least likely to change the structure of your cookie in the baking process. Such minuscule amounts of water shouldn't yield a detectable change in the end product.

If this is a consistent problem with the recipe, in the future I'd decrease the flour by a tablespoon or two and see if that helps.


Fermenting pickles - sun or shade? I am fermenting pickles in a glass jar, using a brine of 1 TBS salt to a glass of water and a bit vinegar. Should I place the jar in a sunny location or in the shade?

In general, cooler temps mean slower fermentation, and, in my opinion, better flavor.  I would go for a cool, dark place.  Beyond that you'll want to make sure that you have the correct percentage of salt to pickle...3.5% by weight at least.  Too low a concentration, and bad bacteria will survive.  There are lots of internet resources, but Sandor Katz is the expert This is his site.


What does "until fork tender and the juices run clear" mean and how do I tell? Many texts I see say that chicken is done when it is "fork tender and the juices run clear". What does that actually mean and how do I tell?

I found Is "until juices run clear" a valid test for poultry doneness? Why or why not?, but this discusses the validity of "juices running clear" as related to doneness, it doesn't really deal with how to figure out if the juices are running clear.

I am very inexperienced in the kitchen, and maybe this is a silly question, but I don't really understand this, because:

When I poke the chicken with a fork, it's not like enough juice comes flying out to tell what it looks like. Poking from the top doesn't lead to juices coming out due to the laws of physics, primarily the ones dealing with gravity. Poking from the side doesn't help much either. I suppose I could pierce the side and then try to squeeze some juices out, but in some cases this damages the  appearance and in any case:
The juices are never clear when I'm actually cooking chicken, because I don't generally cook bare pieces of meat. All juice I see is inevitably clouded by whatever else the chicken is cooking in; oils, batter, etc., often browned due to cooking.

How do I check the juices of a chicken in the oven?

Also, I also don't really understand what "fork tender" means. Pretty much any meat can be pierced with a fork at any stage in its cooking cycle. Even trying to focus on a more subtle "feel", the feel of the fork is about the same to me throughout the majority of the cooking except in the very beginning.

I end up just using a thermometer to check internal temperature, or pick temperatures and times that I know worked in the past for similar cuts of meat. Still, it would be nice to have another metric that I can use.

It is a "metric" which requires experience to recognize.

First, juices "running" clear doesn't mean that they will flow freely. You have to cut into the meat and look at the juice inside it. Is it clear or not?

Second, there is a difference between the feel of meat at different stages of doneness, when you poke it with a fork. If you cannot notice it, this means you haven't trained yourself sufficiently. Noticing the difference is a skill which has to be learned.

As you can see from the other question and the comments, the thermometer is the recommended way to do it. The old thermometerless way is both inaccurate and has a learning curve, making it hard for people to learn cooking. In fact, it is not really a metric. Experienced cooks recognize meat which is done by look and feel, including a look on the inside (cooking) and feeling with a fork instead of burning their fingers. What the recipe really says is "stop cooking when it's done". But because this sounds like a tautology to inexperienced cooks, the experienced ones try to describe in words what they should be looking for. And so this rough description is created, and the inexperienced ones use it as a guideline while learning to recognize doneness by trial and error.

Of course, it is always good to pay attention to your meat when you are cooking it. Do look at the state of the juices and the feel when poked with a fork, and you'll learn to recognize it with time. But before you have become comfortable with your knowledge that the meat is done, rely on the thermometer instead of the feeling. Also, if you want to comply with food safety rules, you have to use the thermometer every time, as meat cooked by feel is not guaranteed to have reached the recommended temperature and will be sometimes unsafe.


Baking soda to cancel acidity? Simple question: can you generally use baking soda to cancel acidity in your dishes?

For instance, sometimes tomato sauce is too acidic, or you put too much vinegar in some dish, etc.

The simple acid$+$basic$=0$ concept should make it work, but do you get undesirable side effects?

The production of CO₂ should not be that much of a problem if you let your dish breath a bit after adding baking soda.
I guess the reaction is exothermic, so maybe you get heating…
I'm not sure if you can get a a chemical reaction producing harmful stuff, depending on the type of acid you start with.

So, what's the verdict?

I regularly use baking soda for that purpose to protect what is remaining of my enamel. To allow for the increase in volume as a result of any foaming, use a large container so that the top of the liquid does not go higher than the 3/4 mark.

It is also advisable to leave it overnight in the fridge to let the baking soda dissolve completely.

The taste is slightly saltier. You may want to start with a ratio of a teaspoon to a liter of fluid.


Does coffee in a cafe press keep brewing after being 'squeezed'? I've recently gotten a Cafe Press for making my coffee, and I'm pretty bad with proportions. If I make too much and leave it sitting in the press with the grounds pressed to the bottom, does the coffee on top keep 'brewing'? Does it otherwise adversely affect the flavour? Does it affect the caffeine content?

The brewed coffee stays in contact with the ground, even though you pressed the sieve to the bottom. It will eventually release the unwanted flavors it contains, albeit slowly. The ground coffee should be in contact with the hot water for about 30 seconds.

See this answer for the caffeine content.


How can I add more "chew" to veggie burgers with only vegetables? I, like many, have been on the search for the perfect veggie burger. And to my mind, there is a difference between "burgers" derived from a combination of legumes, grains, and/or fungus (ex. tofu, tempeh, and seitan) and "burgers" that are recognizably and predominately vegetables. In other words, there are  burgers that qualify as vegetarian, and then there are vegetable burgers. It doesn't mean that these other foods can't be part of the mix. But when you rely too heavily on them, it stops feeling like you are showcasing the vegetables.

The problem is the lack of "chew." You know, the satisfying gets-stuck-in-your-teeth-like-grizzle experience that's hard to replicate without meat--and even harder if you bar the usual meat substitutes. And then there is the related problem of veggie burgers always falling apart.

So can it be done? For instance, I've tried incorporating shredded potatoes and carrots into the mix, trying to create a kind of mesh, but no dice.

Vegetables are mostly water. Water isn't chewy, protein is. What has a lot of protein in the vegetable world? Legumes, grains and fungi. Your "usual substitutes".

I feel like the requirements that you have laid out are self defeating.

Instead of not allowing the known chewy foods you should instead figure out how to use them for bulk and still showcase more flavorful vegetables.

I prefer white wheat that has been boiled until it bursts. Lots of texture but the flavor is easily overridden by whatever else is added.

As for a binder- the easiest is an egg if you don't need vegan. Otherwise you can use starch such as flour but you have to be gentle.


Substitute whole eggs for egg whites I will be baking a weight watcher friendly brownie https://sweetsweetrecipes.com/one-point-weight-watchers-sugar-free-chewy-chocolate-brownies
that calls for 3 egg whites. I want to use whole eggs instead. Is this doable and if yes, how many whole eggs should I use?
Thanks

That would be a difficult substitution, because egg whites and egg yolks have very different roles in baking. It is even worse that the recipe is already not a robust standard recipe, but a lowfat, low-sugar recipe, where all tolerances have probably been used up in engineering a texture which works with the current substitutions. It is doable, but it is not a matter of "one look and one can tell what will work out", you would have to go through a process of trial and error.

To kick off your recipe redoing, start with the eggs only. The closest results will be by obtained by using two whole eggs. This will certainly give you a different outcome than intended by the author, it will be wetter, and may bake differently. If you don't like it that way, for the following attempts, start reducing the applesauce in 10% steps. This will dial back on the wetness problem. If that doesn't work and the change in applesauce amount only moves you between a dry, crumbly texture and wet, soggy texture, you might have to dial back to using only one whole egg and adding one or two egg whites, doing half the substitution so to speak. Another improvement may be gained by adding more fat back in, for example in the form of using cocoa powder with a high fat content.

In the end, it also depends on your personal preferences. For some people, only the best texture will do, and then the task is very difficult. For others, any brownie is a good brownie, and you can just drop in those whole eggs and enjoy.


Flavorful beef broth without bones? is it possible to make flavorful beef broth as a base for Pho/Soup etc without bones?

I'm not minding the body/gelatinous or not, just the flavor.

on our market here the butchers sell meat scrap gained from bones i'm planning to use that for economic reasons

To have the most flavor, you will need to roast/brown the meat scraps.

Let them get a nice brown color.

you could add aromatic vegetables (onion, carrots, celery) as well to the roasting pan.


I'm cooking two dishes that need to cook at different temperatures in the oven, what do I do? For dinner tonight, I am making roasted corn on the cob and some roasted broccoli as well. However, the two recipes I am using call for the corn to be cooked at 350 degrees while the broccoli is at 425. I've heard of people roasting corn at 450, but I've never tried it. Should I cook them both at 425? Any advice is appreciated!

Neither broccoli nor corn is going to be all that picky regarding oven temperature, you'll be fine just splitting the difference. Since corn is the less picky of the two items, I'd go 400F. Expect the broccoli to take slightly longer than the recipe, and the corn to take less time. But don't make yourself nuts about it. Neither corn slightly more done than the recipe expects nor broccoli slightly underdone is going to ruin your meal. Don't overcook your broccoli though! BLECH!


Why do people put Coke on their ham? Why do people put Coke on their ham? What purpose does it serve? Is there another more specific and specialized ingredient that does the same thing?

This recipe is an example, but it isn't the only recipe that lists Coke as an ingredient. What's the point?

sugar. With all the effects it has in a marinade.
caramel coloring. Well, it colors and caramels.
acid. Both the (volatile) carbonation and the phosphoric acid (not that much of it - undiluted phosphoric acid is a potent corrosive!). Possible tenderizing effect, taste enhancer, and will influence browning reactions on the surface (probably balancing the quick browning of all the sugar). Some cola brands are as acidic as plain vinegar!
various spices/spice extracts, some of which would also be well suited to savory cooking: Cinnamon and nutmeg, citrus oils (and also vanilla, which is of debatable merit in a savory recipe).


How much salt in "liberally season"? I've been reading and watching content about cooking and when the instructor says, "liberally season with salt", I am left clueless as to how much I should apply. As a complete novice in cooking, I don't know how much is too much, or how little is too little. What do they mean by that ?

You're not alone in being confused.  Here's a few "weasel phrases" that recipe authors use:

"Liberally season"
"Season to taste"
"Season as required"
"Add enough"
"A bunch of"
"A generous quantity"

In a lot of cases, what these phrases stand for is "I didn't bother to measure this".  That means you, as the recipe reader, need to guess.

Salt, though, is kind of a special case.  Depending on how much salt you're accustomed to eating, personal tastes vary a lot in terms of how much salt a dish needs.  For example, I'm used to cooking for someone on a low-salt diet, so even when I cook for myself I tend to use 1/4 as much salt as, say, Chef John of Food Wishes does.

For that reason, "season to taste" when used to talk specifically about salt added, for flavor, towards the end of the recipe, really means "season to your taste".  That is, if you like salt, use a lot; if you don't, use a little.  Unfortunately, "a lot" or "a little" are still only meaningful in the context of the recipe.  For example, 1tsp of salt is a lot if you're putting it into 1/2 cup of salad dressing, but it's very little if you're adding it to three liters of chili.

So, as a first time cook, my recommendation is to add a very small amount of salt when you first try the recipe, regardless of "liberally season".  You can always add more salt at the table if you find it too bland, and next time you make it you'll know how much it needs.


Is It Possible to Make Elbow Pasta At Home? I love making egg, semolina, and wheat pasta at home, but my home pasta maker (a KitchenAid attachment with a roller and two cutter blades) does only basic fettucini and spaghetti shapes plus whatever I cut the sheets to myself.  Is it possible using either a by-hand technique or another machine to make elbow pasta or other round shapes at home, or is this something I have to stick to buying?

You should be able to buy a pasta plate that will get you what you need.
The link is not a recommendation, just am example of what you are looking for.

Pasta plate for KitchenAid mixer


Name of the snack (possibly Indian) I wanted to ask if anyone have any idea what is the name of that snack that can be seen on top of a salad, between burgers.

I know the name in my country, but now, in Canada I can't find it anywhere.

Appreciate any help!

Tom

This is funny because:
In English they are called " fried snacks" :)
But it's a polish thing, they are called "przysmak świętokrzyski" or "crates". It's basically wheat flour (97,5%) and water. Then fried.
I think there is only one company that make them https://www.wspspolem.com.pl/produkty/snack-przysmak-swietokrzyski/snack-kratka/ and although they write there are other shapes I have never ever seen anything beside crates.

BUT
I have eaten something similar in England but they were sweet, it's called Jalebi.


Trying sous vide techniques with an induction cooker I have a Nu-Wave induction cooker and the normal pans, and I want to try to use it as a sous vide cooker for steaks.  I plan to get it going with the steaks and then move on to everything else, finishing with searing the steaks at the very end, right before serving.

The nu wave has a digital control that goes up or down by 10 degree increments (farenheit).  from other experience I have found that it maintains the temperature very consistently and accurately.

Since I will not be using a more pricey rig, I know I will have to make sure to occasionally stir the water bath.  I'm not going to try to rely on convection.

Before I plunk down the cash for some good steaks, will this work and what things am I overlooking?

Any advice to prevent me botching this would be greatly appreciated.

Make sure to clip the bags away from the bottom of the cooker, where it heats from. If a bag ends up flat against the heating surface, without water between, then it could heat up far past the water temperature and melt the bag.

Beyond that, if you're willing to stir reasonably frequently and it really does maintain the water temperature well, then you'll end up with a good replica of what happens in a normal sous vide bath.

That said, 10 degree increments are really large, especially for steak. See for example The Food Lab's sous vide steak guide - rare 120°F, medium-rare 129°F, medium 135°F, medium-well 145°F. You won't really have any ability to tune for exactly where you like it, though you'll be able to avoid overcooking.

So... does this work? Well, it depends. A few of the big benefits of sous vide:

Precise temperatures: avoiding overcooking, and getting it just right
No drying out: the food stays with whatever liquid it releases.
Hands-off: just put it in and forget about it til it's done.
Flexible timing: leave it longer? No problem.

You're getting some of the temperature precision, and the avoiding drying out, but it's not hands-off and the timing isn't really flexible since you're not going to want to keep stirring longer than you have to. To me, this sounds like a good idea to try sous vide, and see how you like the results. But it doesn't sound like a replacement. The convenience is a huge deal.


Will changing the setting on my Crock Pot reset the timer? If I have a Crock Pot "Smart Pot" set to "High" (or 4 hours) and then I change the setting to "Low" or 10 hours, does the time start over or will it just cook for 10 hours from the time I changed it?

For instance, if I put the crock pot on high at noon, it will turn off at 4 PM; say I change it to low at 2 PM - will the slow cooker turn off at midnight (10 hours later) or just cook on low until 4 PM?

From experience cooking chili in Crock-Pot brand slow cookers, each time you change the setting (at least from high to low or vice versa), it resets the timer. Also, of course, so does high->off->high.

So, (at least my Crock-Pots) would cook on low until midnight in your example.

Well, unless the power went out for three seconds. (It'd be off after the power blip.)

Personally, I've switched to non-"programmable" slow cookers.


Is Japanese kasutera the same foodstuff as Korean kastera? The Japanese term カステラ (kasutera) and the Korean term 카스테라 (kastera) are etymologically derived from the Portuguese "Pão de Castela". But does "kasutera" and "kastera" refer to the same foodstuff, or a different foodstuff?

KOREAN CASTELLA CAKE says:

  I’ve come to the conclusion that Koreans use “kastera” to describe
  almost every type of baked product that’s Western in origin.

Castella = Kastera = Kasutera says:

  These baked products are a cheap, guilty indulgence -- they are good
  -- but I don't consider them "genuine" Japanese kasutera, which I have come to understand is not as spongy and comes in a rectangular shape.

Are they the same foodstuff, or are they different foodstuffs? Would it be more logical to say "I prefer kastera over kasutera", or would "I prefer the way Koreans do kastera over the way Japanese people do it"?

There is a particular baked good called kastera in Korea, but they pretty much use the term as a generic name for any Western-style sweet cakes (source: my Korean mother-in-law). So the answer is yes and no. You will find a kastera equivalent to Japanese kasutera, but it is a subset of the kastera set.

The closest comparison I can think of would be the term "barbecue." It would very specifically mean slow-smoked meat in certain regions of the United States. In other regions, "barbecue" is a bigger tent, and includes, among other things, anything that is cooked on a grill.


added more yogurt to curry - can I fix it? I've accidentally added more yogurt than I should've (I tipped the box of yogurt rather than spoon it out) and now the flavour / smell of yogurt and its sourness are overpowering and coming through. I've cooked another onion down  separately and added a tbsp of demerara, a glug of milk (suggestion from my girlfriend) and added it to the sauce (which is in the slowcooker as I type this) but the flavours/smells coming out of it is just too overpowering. Anything I could do to mellow it out?

You can't take the yogurt flavor out, what you can try to do is balance the undesirable flavors and smells out. This may or may not be effective but it's worth a try. You can balance the sourness with sweet and/or bitter flavors. You've added some demerara sugar which is a good idea, for bitterness you could add fenugreek if available. There are comparatively few bitter spices in most people's kitchens, but you will likely have instant coffee and unsweetened cocoa powder, and you may have bitters if you make cocktails. I would shy away from these though as the flavors they would add aren't compatible but YMMV.

If you don't have fenugreek (or you have added some bit it still isn't enough) you could try to add more curry spices like cumin, coriander, and mustard and try to overpower the yogurt taste. How I would do this is to put a small amount of oil in a pan and heat, then cook the spices in it for a short time, say one minute. Then add a couple of ladles of your cooking liquid, and simmer it for a 3-4 minutes before adding it to the dish. This will get the flavors out of the powder and help get them into the dish, if you just add powdered spices to liquid you can sometimes get a powdery taste from them, especially when using a slow cooker.

This may end up making your curry way too strong, even if the flavors are in balances, if that happens remove some of the liquid and replace it with weak stock or water.


Dough is super springy and sticky. Tears while stretching I work with 950 gms of 00 flour and 50 gms of wheat gluten to make it 1000 gms. I  knead the dough at 65% hydration with 1/4 tsp Instant dry yeast  for 1000 gms of flour. 2% Salt and 4 tabsp Oil .. I knead till windowpane test and let rest for 24 hours.. but next day my dough becomes super springy and soggy. Never looks smooth. Looks like orange peel skin. I make balls and leave them to rest before I make my pizza. It tears while I’am stretching it to make thin crust pizza. What could be the problem? Am I over kneading my dough? Is my gluten content less? Please help!!!!

Are you resting in the fridge? 24 hours is a long time to leave a yeast dough at room temp. Try letting rise for a shorter time or in the fridge a max of 12 hours.


What does it mean if human DNA is in hot dogs? According to this report on hot dogs by Clear Food, some hot dogs have human DNA in them.

2% of the overall samples had human DNA present.

What would cause human DNA to end up in the hot dogs? Does this have any food safety implications?

There is definitely no food safety concern here. While the report you cite makes a big deal out of this, implying that there's some kind of serious problem being detected here, in their FAQ they say:

The most likely cause is hair, skin, or fingernail that was accidentally mixed in during the manufacturing process.
It is unlikely that human DNA is harmful to consumer health. In general, we consider human DNA a hygienic issue that degrades the quality of food more than a public health concern. Human DNA in products in our opinion speaks more issues [sic] of truth in advertising, pricing, and overall transparency.
What most people don't know us [sic] that some amounts of human DNA may fall within an acceptable regulatory range. That means that some human DNA is often allowed, regulatorily speaking. The amounts we detected in our research all fell within the acceptable regulatory range as we understand them.

It seems they're saying that this is all totally safe and allowed (by the people whose job it is to keep our food safe), and that the issue is one of transparency. I guess they think that food manufacturers should tell us that, as permitted by regulations, there are possibly tiny and completely safe amounts of human cells in food. But that seems pretty over-the-top; it's true about all food, so we'd have to slap that label on everything we eat.
Bottom line, food is not produced in a clean room environment. It's not a bunch of workers in bunny suits, being careful to not let a single skin cell float into the air and end up in your food; that'd be incredibly expensive and not provide any real benefit. So naturally, there's an opportunity for small amounts of human skin and hair to end up in your food.
And as Stephie pointed out, this is basically a DNA testing lab. Of course they have very sensitive equipment (which they also brag about in the FAQ), so they're able to detect things at a level that really shouldn't concern you. So as Lars also mentioned, it's kind of incredible that they were only able to find human DNA in 2% of samples. That means that 49/50 hot dogs are actually produced to a significantly higher standard than required!
Frankly, I think that report is presented fairly dishonestly. They deliberately neglected to mention in the initial results section that this is all safe, and instead implied that it was a problem you should worry about. Saying in the FAQ "What most people don't know..." hammers this home; they know that most people don't know this, and still didn't bother to say so.


Rubbing eggplants in salt I saw somewhere they rubbed sliced eggplants in salt and leaving them out up to an hour before putting them in the oven.
From what I understood it had to do something with the eggplant's bitter taste...

I want to cook sliced eggplants in the oven myself now, and some in with a pasta sauce.
Should I rub them in salt? Why do people do that?

Eggplants differ in bitterness. You can cook some of them and never notice a problem. But other exemplars are quite bitter, and can overwhelm a dish. That's why it is a good idea to preemptively do something to remove their bitterness.

I have read dozens of suggestions how to do it. Some are OK, others are downright terrible. Have you tried soaking eggplant in water with lemon juice? An eggplant being basically a sponge, you end up with pieces bloated to three times their original size, dripping water into whatever dish you try to use them in. Also, they stay rather bitter.

The logic behind the salt is that it will suck out the bitter juice of the eggplant through osmosis. You can then remove the mushy salt and use the eggplant pieces. You can certainly use it if you want, but it isn't the best method. First, osmosis does occur when you salt food, but nowhere near the rates claimed. You don't end up with a dessicated steak if you salt it 10 minutes before frying, and if you salt a slice of eggplant, you have to make thin slices (doesn't work for ratatouile 2-cm-cubes), give it some help (press the slices with a weight so the juice will be pressed out) and wait a long time. Even then, the results can be inconsistent.

The good news is that one of the few veggie-themed Food labs posts is dedicated to the problem of disembittering eggplant. The tests seem to be as rigorous as usuall, and the best practice recommendation is to not salt the eggplant, but bake it.

Microwave is the best method, as it dehydrates well and does so quickly. If you don't have a microwave, the second-best method is the oven.

Slice the eggplant, aiming for even thickness
Put absorbing paper towels on a baking sheet (oven) or a wide plate (microwave)
Arrange the eggplant slices in a single layer on the towels
Cover them with another layer of towels
Optional: stack another layer of slices and towels to get all the eggplant ready at one go
Anchor the towels with some weight. (I use all-metal serving knives laid across the slices; another plate on top would work in the microwave).
Microwave for 3 min or roast at 175°C for 30 min
Use your eggplant as intended

Obviously, this isn't good for all applications, because it dehydrates the eggplant. For example, I don't think you can make a good imam bayildi with the dry roasted eggplant (but then, maybe it will be OK, I've never tried). But for the typical uses in Western cuisine, it should go fine.

The original article is also highly recommended reading, as any of Kenji's stuff.


How can I prevent egg casserole from deflating? I have a simple egg breakfast casserole made of Bisquick, eggs, milk, a can of chilis and cheese.  It tastes great, but when in carafe single serve dishes, it puffs up beautifully as it bakes, but collapses as it cools.  Is there anything I can add so it remains puffed up after baking ? I don't think separating and whipping the whites would work as all the other ingredients are so heavy.  Thx Steve

What you're making is basically a savory Dutch baby or popover. Not to discourage you, but it's going to be really hard to come up with any way to make them consistently stay puffed; pretty much all egg-puff baked items deflate after puffing.

One easy thing you can do is to use the same step one takes with cream puffs, and prick them with a skewer right after they come out of the oven.  This releases steam from the center; the cooling moisture is actually what causes rapid deflation. You also want the interiors of the puffs to be as dry as possible.

The other things to do are experiment with adding slightly more bisquick, and cooking them slightly longer.  The additional flour should make them "sturdier", but you don't want to add so much they don't puff properly.  Cooking them longer is aimed at drying out the interior.

Of course, if the centers of your puffs are moist and you like them that way, you're going to just have to live with them deflating.  Also, realize that, even after you achieve the best stays-puffed recipe, sometimes (due to weather or timing or oven wonkiness) they'll still collapse on you.


Bumps on carbon steel seasoning, can I repair it I've just got a new De Buyer carbon steel pan and I'm 3 seasons in (oven method) and I'm noticing quite an uneven surface (especially little bubbles). I've tried as best as possible to keep the layers of oil used very thin. I'm wondering if I should strip it down and start over or just forge ahead?

I think you are fine.  I personally feel the best way to continue to season a pan is to actually just to cook in it.  The first things I like after the oven or range top seasoning is to use onions, green onions and other inexpensive ingredients.  Perhaps also to deep fry some onion rings or french fries as well.  This will have the correct heat and also plenty of oil to seep into the pan.  Hope this helps.


Adjusted cooking time for an already-baked pie shell I have a pumpkin pie recipe that calls for an unbaked pie shell. During the cooking step, it cooks first at 425°F for 15 minutes, and then at 350°F for 30-40 minutes (until toothpick can be inserted cleanly). My understanding is that the first bit of cooking, at 425°F is to finish off the (frozen) crust, and then the 350°F is to cook the filling through.

At the moment, I have no unbaked pie shells, but I do have some graham cracker crust pie shells that I would like to substitute in their place. I figure that since the shells are 'ready to eat' already, they don't need the initial 425°F cooking step. Since the pumpkin still needs to cook and set, I would need to somehow extend the 350°F step accordingly to account for the cooking done in this initial stage, if I omit the 425°F step.

My basic plan is to fill the crusts and then bake at 350°F for about 50 minutes. Then continue baking until it passes the toothpick test (checking every 5 minutes or so.)

Is this a reasonable plan, or should I instead retain the 425°F initial baking phase even though the crust itself doesn't require any cooking? Or are the graham cracker crust shells entirely unsuitable for this project for some reason I'm overlooking?

(I'm following the basic Libby's "new fashioned pumpkin pie" recipe, which I've used previously many times with frozen pie shells.)

Most pie recipes that begin with a high-temperature setting and then lower it are to bake the crust.  It isn't necessarily for frozen crusts only, but also for fresh-baked crusts that often need high heat to set and create the "flaky" pastry texture that many people desire.  (Also, unbaked crusts can absorb too much liquid on the bottom before they set without this high temperature step.)

If you're using a pre-baked pie shell, you're correct that this high-temperature step likely isn't necessary.  In fact, it's probably better not to use a high-temperature step on a pre-baked shell unless a recipe calls for it, as excessive crust browning is a problem with many pies that bake a long time to begin with.  (Which is why people often use foil or pie covers toward the end of baking.)

Anyhow, your plan sounds reasonable -- bake for a bit longer than the original total recipe time to account for the decreased temperature, and then begin checking periodically for doneness.  (And as there are a number of pumpkin pie recipes that use graham cracker crusts, I assume they should be fine for most recipes.)


How to avoid cooked pasta soaking up sauce when stored? I often make up a box of pasta (dried) with some sauce that I make from leftover ingredients for work the next day. The sauce is always either tomato or cream cheese based.

By lunch the next day, the pasta has soaked up a good amount of the excess sauce that was previously filling the base of the box. Aside from storing the pasta and sauce in two separate boxes, is there anything I can do when cooking to avoid this happening? It does not appear to be a problem in supermarket ready meals.

If I plan on storing my pasta in the fridge with the sauce, I take the pasta out of the boiling water and immediately rinse it in cold water. I rinse until the pasta has cooled completely. Make sure to drain it well. Afterwards, I either mix a little sauce in the pasta to help keep it from sticking or just put the sauce on top.
Basically I'm trying to stop the pasta from continuing to "Cook" in the sauce.


Can texture affect taste? I was about to write to a friend: "...but texture affects taste", when I stopped to wonder if this is in fact the case. After some research I'm still not sure of the answer.

Wikipedia's article on taste tells the expected tale of taste, discerning some Basic Tastes:

Bitterness
Saltiness
Sourness
Sweetness
Umami (since start of 20th century this is usually included)
Metallic (somewhat controversial still, used since 1950s)

Can these 6 "basic" tastes be influenced by the texture of food?

On a side note, I'm not sure about the following: when food experts speak of the "taste of food" do they mean "taste" in the sense of the 6 tastes mentioned above? Or do they use it in a broader sense? In the latter case, my question would probably be more accurately described as:

Does texture affect taste (in the broad sense, as the word's used by food experts)?

Yes, there are two different meanings of taste, as you already mentioned. One is the salty-sweet-etc. multidimensional space of sensory perceptions felt with the mucous membranes of the mouth (many authors add astringency and pungency/hotness, which are not felt by the tastebuds themselves), and the other is the overall impression of the food. The overall impression includes also the aroma - citric acid and acetic acid in a solution at the same pH level are both equally sour, but you can tell them apart by aroma - and the texture. An example for the texture would be to try confectioner's sugar and pure rock candy - both are 100% sucrose, so have the same narrow-meaning-taste (sensory perception of sweetness), and both have the same aroma (provided they are produced from the same plant at the same degree of refinement, which is often the case with white sugar), but your overall feel of them (taste in the broader sense) will be entirely different due to the different texture.

Taste in the narrow sense can also be slightly different with different texture, due to the difference in availability of the taste-creating chemicals to the taste buds (and to the rest of the mucous membrane). The obvious difference comes with density. Cotton candy does not feel as overpoweringly sweet as the same volume of table sugar, because it is mostly air and doesn't trigger as many taste buds at once as the sugar. This is a difference in the strength of taste, not in the taste profile - cotton candy doesn't start tasting more-salty-than-sweet due to the different density, it just tastes less sweet.

Another thing which might happen to taste is that the structure which creates the different structure isolates some of the taste-causing molecules from the taste buds. I know from experience that this happens with aroma. Adding xanthan gum to food reduces its aroma, I assume that it traps the volatile molecules which would normally reach the olfactory sensory cells. But if it does reduce the taste too, it doesn't do so in the same proportion, as there is much more taste left than smell. If somebody knows for sure that it reduces the strength of taste too, I would like to see conclusive information on it; I only include it here as a hypothesis.

Summary, texture changes taste in both the narrow and broad sense. It does so more strongly for the broad sense, which is the one most people care for.


Blanching time for different vegetables Well my rule of thumb is to boil the following vegetables for that time before putting them in the ice bath:

1 minute for broccoli
3 minutes for carrots
2 minutes for beans
1 minute for flat beans
4 minutes for cauliflower

Is there a master list out there for the amount of boiling before bathing that will perhaps have better timing and more vegetables on it?

I don't think it is really possible to name exact times. It depends on the age and toughness of the particular batch of vegetables, how thick they are and how you've cut them. The way I do this is to make my initial judgement based on color change, and then start poking at them with a cake tester every 30 seconds or so until they reach the perfect degree of tenderness, then shock them in a bath with plenty of ice immediately.


How can I stabilize a souffle? In baking souffles, I find that they start deflating from the moment I remove them from the oven. One chef suggested adding xanthan gum which is hard to find and quite expensive. Do you think arrowroot might work, or can you suggest another alternative to stabilize them?. Many thanks.

Try a small amount of cream of tartar instead of xanthan gum. Cheaper, more readily available, and the acid stabilizes the protein matrix.

Also, some tips from Better Homes and Gardens: use a collar, beat your egg whites to a stiff peak but remember to GENTLY fold them in, and don't open the oven door for at least 20-25 minutes to prevent cold air from collapsing the rising souffle.

And yes, even properly cooked souffles do deflate somewhat. Serve immediately and be gentle when removing from the hot oven - no banging the pan down onto the table.


Changing baking tins I have a recipe that uses a 20cm round tin (7.5cm deep), I want to make the cake in three 20cm shallow tins, do I need to alter the time and temp?

Hope this makes sense.

Trish

The thinner cakes will cook faster. I can't get more specific without knowing what type of cake you are baking.


Why is there a luminous orange hue in this piece of tuna? I just sliced this piece of tuna that had been in my freezer for about a week and had been thawed in the refrigerator for a day - to find this luminous orange colour to it. It was on the outside of the slice too but not as much.

This is from the supermarket and I have no idea how long it had been sitting in their refrigerator, although they claim that their product is fresh.

Is this some kind of unusual preservative or maybe the fish has gone bad?

From Cooks Illustrated

  The rainbow effect is caused by the reflection of light off muscle
  fibers, technically known as double refraction or birefringence. It
  occurs when the muscle fibers are cut crosswise and can be observed
  for several days after slicing the meat. Light striking the ends of
  the fibers is reflected in two different directions, appearing to the
  eye as a rainbow of colors. Just like a real rainbow, the multicolor
  appearance is fleeting, visible only when the muscle fibers are cut at
  a specific angle relative to the grain of the meat and when the meat
  is viewed at a certain angle.

  One more point to keep in mind: While the rainbow effect is harmless
  and doesn’t offer any indication of how fresh the meat is, there is
  another color change that is a sign of meat that has passed its prime:
  the development of a green pigment. Meat with a green cast is
  contaminated with bacteria and should be avoided.


Is ginger a good substitute for galangal in Thai green curry? Is fresh ginger a good substitute for galangal in a Thai Green curry? (I cannot get fresh galangal here anywhere)

Would I use less or more ginger than galangal quantity?

Scottish,

Use equal amounts of ginger to substitute for galangal.  And yes, it is the best substitute available from your average non-Asian grocery store.

If you can get your hands on dried, powdered galangal, however, you can do better.  Add about half the amount of ginger, and around midway through cooking add a teaspoon of powdered galangal for every tablespoon of fresh in the recipe.  The combination of fresh ginger and powdered galangal will be very close to fresh galangal in flavor.

Also, if you make a field trip to an Asian market, peeled galangal cut into chunks freezes quite well.


Using homemade pasta instead of dried in a bake I'd like to use fresh homemade pasta tonight in place of bagged egg noodles. My question is, should I prep the noodles in boiling water in anyway, or should I skip that step and add the freshly made noodles where the recipe calls for it?

here is the recipe:

1 lb ground beef
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
8 oz tomato sauce
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup sour cream
8 oz egg noodles

Brown and drain ground beef. Add beef back to the pan over low heat and stir in minced garlic, salt, pepper, Italian seasoning and tomato sauce. Simmer for 5 minute and remove from heat. Meanwhile, boil egg noodles for 2 minutes less than the lowest time on the package directions. (They WILL continue cooking in the oven. No one likes an overcooked noodle!) Drain noodles and combine them with the cottage cheese and sour cream.

Spray a 9x9 baking dish with cooking spray and put the noodle mixture in the bottom. Top with reserved meat sauce. Cover with cheese and bake for 20 minutes or until bubble and cheese is melted. You can broil the top for a minute or 2 if you want the cheese to brown. Remove from oven and serve!

I've made lasagna several times with homemade egg pasta. The pasta cooks in the steam generated by the ingredients you're baking and there is no need to blanch, parcook or do anything to the homemade pasta before using it in your recipe.

The noodles can be quite fragile and moving them around once they are cooked can easily tear them or stretch them out to breaking thinness.


Can a slow cooker meatloaf get a browned crust? So my wife cooks a few times a year.  She saw a recipe in one of her online magazines for Carla Hall's (Top Chef) meatloaf.

The picture in her magazine clearly shows the meatloaf has a very brown crust on the top.  It was cooked with big chunks of carrots, onions, potatoes with a little stock - on low for 6 hours.

The picture of this clearly showed a deep browning and crust on the meatloaf.

Wife did a pretty good job following the recipe.  The meatloaf... well it was more like pate.  The recipe was rather basic.  Really bottom barrel for carrots, potatoes and meat in a crock pot.

To me the question is really stupid but I need to still ask it - can you get a brown crust cooking a meatloaf in a slow cooker (and how about on low)?

Seems like the magazine might have duped her and I feel bad.

It's very difficult.  The trapped moisture can keep the meatloaf from drying out sufficiently to brown well.  ... but if you vent the steam, you're also releasing a lot of the heat, so it might cool off too much.

I'd personally try turning up the heat to high and leaving the lid askew for the last 15 minutes or so of cooking, and see if that gives you the desired effect.  You may also want to remove some of the liquid (but not all, as it'll help to regulate the heat and prevent the bottom from getting too far overcooked)

I suspect that the laws regarding 'food styling' as it applies to recipes in magazines aren't as vigorous as for advertising a product they want to sell you in stores or a restaurant.  (where they have to use only the same techniques and ingredients as what's being advertised ... although if it's for cereal, they don't have to use milk ... and if it's pie, that doesn't have to be real ice cream, etc.).

If you just want it 'brown', then a spray of soy-sauce will do it.  If you want it actually 'browned' (ie, with an actual crust), you can take a propane torch to it.  (although I'd do it out of the crock pot -- ceramics don't take well to high heat from one side only)


How to dry fruits without sunlight or a dehydrator? I need to dry amla (Indian gooseberry). I live in India so we get plenty of sunlight but I live in the city and it's very dusty outside, so I can't leave fruits out, otherwise they'll be covered in dust.  But the indoor temperatures are quite warm (around 30 degrees celsius). Can I just dry the fruits (preserved in sugar syrup) indoors or will they spoil?  thanks for your help :)

The key to drying fruit is not temperature, but humidity - or rather, lack of humidity.

If you want to avoid mold,you need to speed up the drying process. And for that, you need to keep a few points in mind:

Place fruit in a single layer, not touching each other. Ideally you would place them on some sort of "drying rack", which could be either some kind of screen on a frame or even some metal mesh like the ones used for cooling cakes. This ensures that they can dry from all sides. Otherwise, turn them regularly.
Maintain a dry environment. If in doubt, always choose a cooler, but drier place over a warmer, but more humid one.
If available, constant air flow can speed up the process considerably. Perhaps a fan could be placed nearby?
If necessary, fruit can be dried in an oven, but at the lowest heat possible (40 to 50 C should be fine, use the oven fan, if you have one) and with the door slightly ajar.


why did my liverwurst get crumbly? i'm pretty decent at doing rustic pates in a terrine mold, but wanted to expand my skill set... so i decided to make liverwurst for the first time.

I used 1:1 ratio of pork liver and very fatty pork shoulder and followed this procedure - per recipe I found online:

Ground pork, then liver, then ground combined mixture all through small die
Mixed in spices, powdered milk and onions - chilled, then ground again through small die
Wrapped in muslin, twisted ends to create a tight casing and tied off
Dropped in boiling water, reduced water to simmer and poached for 3 hours
Drained water, dumped in ice water to chill - then set into fridge overnight

when i unwrapped it the following day i was expecting a nice firm, well bound sausage.  instead i have something that crumbles when i cut a thin slice.  it's really more like a pate.

i know that there are many many things i could have done wrong.

any ideas on what i should change up when i try again?

A probable answer is that maybe it wasn't intended to be firm at all.

There are different types of liverwurst in Germany. The most commonly sold one is indeed firm, but from its texture, I'd guess that it has gelatin added. It is more rubbery than the naturaly gelled meats I've eaten. But there is no guarantee that your recipe was intended for this kind.

Another common type is the spreadable liverwurst. It is a creamy mass which is intended to be spread on bread similar to cream cheese. If you want to make this kind, the meat grinder is probably only good for the first pass. I'd make sure to puree it really fine, a blender is probably better. (Unless you specifically want to make the chunky type).

I am not too sure that pork shoulder is such a good choice, probably the fat wasn't enough.  The most popular recipes on chefkoch.de (a site similar in quality and popularity to allrecipes) call for pork belly, the part which is made into bacon. Some of them also say to add speck, which is the non-rendered subcutaneous layer of fat of the pig. It also tends to come from the belly (sometimes from the back), but has less or no meat attached. Many specify that the meat gets cooked first, then ground. The raw liver gets ground separately (after removing fascia and the ducts). Then everything is mixed, pureed (or regrinded for chunky). Then it is filled (some use natural casing, most fill it into jars, nowhere was muslin mentioned) and sterilized. I found some variance among the methods, but as I haven't tried any of them, I can't tell you which works best. I didn't find a recipe which was explicitly for firm liverwurst, but many of them explicitly mentioned spreadable liverwurst.

I also found some discussion on the proper ratio. This varies (depending on taste) between the liver being 20% to 33% of the whole mass. A higher ratio seems to cause both dryness and bitter taste.

This is probably helpful if you can live with spreadable wurst. If you insist on the firm kind, you may have to experiment with gelatine, because I couldn't find any homemade recipes for that.

Edit: some more research suggests that the denaturing proteins in the liver are enough to bind the leberwurst to be firm, and adding some of the fatty water in which the meat cooked makes it spreadable. The one who wrote it seemed to have some authority on making sausages (at least he made lots of posts and the others didn't disagree with any of them). Again, this isn't my opinion, just a translated summary.


What to do with butter that has been mixed with baking soda? I was making sugar cookies andI had a baggie that had about 1/2 cup or more of baking soda in it but I thought it was powdered sugar so I added it to my butter! I don't think I can use it for the cookies.  Doesn't taste too bad in the beginning but it has an aftertaste.

How can I get rid of the taste of baking soda in the butter?   Can I salvage it into maybe icing or something?   I am just having a hard time with throwing it out!   Please tell me there is something I can do with it!

Honestly, if you really don't want to throw it away, I would suggest sticking it in your freezer, and slowly using it up when you need baking soda and don't mind a bit of added butter.  Baking soda is water soluble, so the butter shouldn't change it too much or activate before its time, I hope.

Maybe you can mix thoroughly before freezing, and separate into chunks or portions based on about a teaspoon of baking soda - that will make it easier to measure (or guesstimate) the baking soda portion into recipes, and either adjust any fats... or just leave it be, the additional butter may not be enough to upset the recipe, most recipes I can think of that need a teaspoon of baking soda can absorb up to a few tbs of extra butter without much difficulty.  It's just much more likely to find baking-soda recipes that don't mind extra butter than finding places you can use butter that don't mind the extra baking soda.

Alternatively, you might take Joshua Engels's suggestion and trying to make ghee out of your butter - it would probably settle out with the milk solids and be left behind, though I couldn't swear there would be no residual taste.  Probably best to keep any ghee produced this way for very aromatic or spiced dishes to cover up any minor off flavors.  This will likely kill your baking soda, though, between the heat and the water content of the butter (before it is clarified) and the milk solids getting mixed into the residue, so it's still a waste of one ingredient.

As for your cookies, you should probably just go get some more butter.  I don't think you can salvage the butter for this batch, or icing, or any other purpose that puts butter first - the amount of baking soda is just too much, the butter will almost certainly taste off and likley ruin any ingredients you're using to try and cover it up.


Udon Noodles break too easily I tried making Udon noodles several times and even though I've gotten a rhythm to do them, I still can't figure out why they break so easy when I blanch them. I use

1tsp lye water
8 ounces (1 cup) warm water
2 1/2 cups unbleached bread flour
1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

I blanch them for about 7 minutes and roll it until 1/16 of a inch thick.

When eating them with chopsticks they don't even make it that far because they break. It might be the weight on them but they break.

How can I improve my udon noodles so that they don't break?

I've found that kneading pasta too long has the same effect. Try reducing the kneading time.


How can I make onion tomato paste taste more punchy? I batch pan-fried a paste of onions and tomatoes for using them in future dishes.

I love the flavour of garlicy onions and tomatoes! How can I make their flavour stronger?

I believe restaurants for all kinds of cuisines make use of it.

This is how I make them right now:

I semi-grind onions, garlic and tomatoes in the ratio of 1 : (handful of garlic) : 1.

Then I roast them on the pan with a little oil starting with onions + garlic, and then once they're translucent adding tomatoes + salt. Next I roast it on a simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

I would like to make the onion and tomato flavour a lot more punchy. How can I achieve this?

A. To make the flavor of tomatoes stronger in a sauce:

start with better-tasting tomatoes. Depending on time of year these will often be canned. There are many reviews of canned tomatoes, so I'll not
pass judgment here but there are some excellent ones out there.
reduce the sauce more to intensify the flavor.
Tomatoes are an umami flavor. Adding another umami to it could intensify the flavor you're looking for (such as marmite, anchovies, etc.).
if you want to get really fancy you can try playing around with a centrifuge such as a Spinzall.

B. To make onions and garlic stronger you can try combining sweated fresh onions and garlic with powder. Be sure to activate the powder in water before cooking directly in fat or the flavor enzyme will be
deactivated before it can go to work.


What is this brown deposit at the bottom of my Oil can? We use Filtered groundnut oil for cooking at home. However, we recently changed the brand due to non-availability during COVID-19 lock-down. While pouring the last bit of oil I saw this at the bottom. The brown coloration was stuck to the walls of the can and some of it was floating in the leftover oil (not clearly visible here). It looked flaky.
Was the oil impure/adulterated/unhealthy? Or is this normal for filtered groundnut oil?

This is just fine material from the grinding process that got through the filters and settled over time. It's pretty normal, it just means this company's filtering process isn't as effective as your previous brand. There shouldn't be any food safety considerations with that, my only consideration would be that suspended fine particles will lower the burn temperature of the oil some. There doesn't seem to be that much in there, if you are having no problems using the oil then you look good to go.


Milk instead of water for sourdough? I have a nice, healthy Type 110 wheat-based sourdough starter that I use to make bread and pancakes.

I've recently discovered that it may be possible to feed the starter with milk instead of water. Is this true? I'm a bit paranoid that rotting milk will introduce unwanted bugs that rotting flour won't. How would it affect my starter? Or should I just stick to water in the starter, but add milk to the bread, instead?

Adding milk works because milk is mostly water. It might even work better, as it also contains sugar (lactose) which will be eaten by your starter's yeasts and bacteria.

But it also contains other stuff, such as fats. And fats, after some time, get rancid. You probably won't want that taste in bread or pancakes. I would stick to water (which quite probably you'll find cheaper than milk).

Don't worry about rotten milk: your starter is already rotten. And it's a hostile environment for most microbes. It's very very improbable new microbes would survive there. But if they do, they'll be quite similar to the already existing ones.


What is "reconstituted" milk? Here in Chile nearly all milk you can buy in supermarkets is UHT milk in tetra bricks. Some brands state on the carton that the milk is "reconstituted", while others state that it is "not reconstituted".

What is the difference between the two? Are they processed differently? What part of the milk does the "reconstituted" refer to? And would it make any difference using one or the other in the kitchen?

If I remember correctly the "not reconstituted" milk is usually a little bit more expensive. The taste to me seems to be the same (I didn't do any side-by-side comparison though).

It's the equivalent of 'from concentrate' on fruit juices.  Only in this case, it's made from dry milk powder.


chicken shish kabobs the night before cooking I want to prepare Hawaiian chicken shish kebobs the night before cooking.  Do I need to be concerned about the raw chicken touching the veggies overnight in the fridge?

Having the vegetables and meat marinate or assembled together is fine, so long as the finished item is thoroughly cooked.

When grilling skewers, you cook long enough to have the meat to a safe temperature, so the vegetables should be cooked through by then.

For greatest safety, make sure there is a little spacing between the items on your skewer, and if this is not done make sure they are cooked through.


Where did my creme brûlée go wrong? I’ve watched and read a lot on creme Angela is, brûlée and caramel. In two attempts the final product has improved a lot, but I’m not sure where this is going wrong. Could someone help, please?
Recipe:
This is only a small, test batch.
150ml thick, double cream
3 medium egg yolks
2 tbsp caster sugar (sorry for the mixed metrics)
2tsp vanilla essence
Method:
Slowly heat the cream and sugar to just boiling, gently stirred with a wooden spoon.
Add vanilla essence and take from heat to cool. I poured into a glass jug and sat that in a bowl of cold tap water (no ice, just as it is from the tap) until the jug was not warm to the touch.
Use a hand whisk to beat the eggs until slightly lighter in colour and smooth.
Gradually (very!) pour in the cooled cream and mix the egg/cream mixture (not beating.)
Pour into 3 small ramekins stood in a baking pan.
Pour freshly boiled water into the pan and insert into a preheated oven at 140 Celsius (fan, though I don’t have an oven thermometer) for 25 mins.
Result:
At 25 mins the tops were I nice yellow, just turning very light brown but we risen in the middle with a gentle curve from side to side. Reminded me of baked eggs.

I see two problems going on here, 1) overbeaten eggs, and 2) overbaking.

Use a hand whisk to beat the eggs until slightly lighter in colour and smooth.

Don't use an egg whisk. You can use a dough whisk if you have one, if not, use a fork. Try to not get any air in at all (it's impossible to actually do it, but the closer you get, the better) and certainly don't beat until it has become lighter, just the lowest amount of gentle stirring until it becomes uniform.

Pour freshly boiled water into the pan and insert into a preheated oven at 140 Celsius (fan, though I don’t have an oven thermometer) for 25 mins.

I don't know if you mean you didn't measure the oven's air temperature yourself, or if your oven doesn't have a knob to set the temperature. But your oven was definitely way too hot if it managed to get this overbaked result after starting from such a cold mixture after only 25 minutes. So, whatever the setting was, use a lower one. Also, make sure that your water is high enough - ideally, higher on the outside of the ramekin than the level of the custard is within the ramekin. Disregarding the clock, take out when done (80-83 C with an instant thermometer - if you don't have one, you will have to wait until you have learned to recognize it by sight and jiggling before you get consistently good results).
When you get better at working with custards, you can also optimize the process and not go through this extreme heating, extreme cooling, then careful tempering (in fact, you don't need to temper at all, if you have waited until the cream is down to body temperature). But if for now, since you are combating overheating, you should probably first stabilize your process as it is, before playing with steps that might lead to an overheating before the oven.
I am pretty sure the association with baked eggs comes from the texture and taste of overheated custard. But if it turns out that you are still sensitive to it even when the temperature is managed correctly, you might look into reducing the yolk ratio. Be aware though that your recipe is not currently overegged, so you odn't have that much wiggle room before it gets runny when reducing the yolks.


How to pump same amount of paste every time? I am not sure if I am on the right site for this, but here it goes. I have a friend, named Jason, who makes a hot sauce for a company he runs. It is very pasty (made of pepper flakes in an oil).

The problem is, when Jason makes a batch, he's got to continually stir up the batch while trying to pour an equal (and evenly distributed) amount of the paste into the bottles.

He wants a system that makes it easy and predictable to do this faster. Ideally, he would make the paste, put it in something that keeps it stirred so the flakes don't settle, and from there fill each bottle with the same amount of paste.

What kind of contraption would do this?

This thought came to me, and is so different from my first answer I don't think it makes a good edit to that...

If the product is really

  made of pepper flakes in an oil

rather than mix a batch at all, measure out a bottle's worth of each, funnel in the flakes, pour in the oil (and seal/heat-process if that's normally done.) Might need some vibration/shaking, but two easily dispensed components mixed in the bottle might be a lot easier than getting the mixture nicely dispensed.


Can you use sweet potatoes in a no-bake pie? Can sweet potatoes be substituted for pumpkin in a no bake pumpkin pie recipe? It seems there are a lot of no bake pumpkin pie recipes but no bake sweet potato pie recipes are not as common.

Yes, I think you could successfully substitute sweet potatoes, with perhaps a few considerations.

Peel your sweet potatoes and steam until tender, then mash and whip by hand, or with a food processor or blender.

Sweet potatoes will be somewhat sweeter than plain pumpkin, so adjust any sweeteners in your recipe accordingly. Canned pumpkin may also have a higher water content, so be aware of that as you assemble the ingredients.

Note that canned pumpkin pie filling is different than plain canned pumpkin, in that it has sweeteners and spices added. Depending upon which kind of pumpkin your recipe is calling for, rely on your own sense of taste to fine-tune the sugar and spice.


What is the purpose of sifting dry ingredients? What is the purpose of sifting dry ingredients (esp. with flour)?

I heard in one place that it was because this is the best way to mix them well. I heard somewhere else that this is a carry-over from when flour used to still contain some chaff. What's the real reason? When does one still need to do this?

Fix Compacted Flour. Flour will compact over time (and during shipment). You could sift the flour to fluff it back up. Or, you could just stir it before measuring and be sure to spoon the flour into your measuring cup in order to get a correct volume measurement.

Remove Unwanted Material. Yes, sifting would also remove larger pieces or bits of chaff. It would also remove insects. However, neither of these are problems with modern store-bought flour. If you grind your own flour (my sister-in-law does this), then you may still want to sift it, though.

Mix Ingredients Together. Sifting can also be used to mix other dry ingredients into flour. I bake quite a bit, though, and I've never had a problem with just using a spoon or whisk to mix dry ingredients together.

In summary: don't bother. Just use good measuring techniques and stir your ingredients together well. No one likes a lump of baking powder lurking in a muffin!


Why does lemon juice thicken condensed milk? Or is it the other way round? For instance when making a cheese cake.

Anyways, the more chemical the explanation, the better!

Lemon juice thickens condensed milk in the same way it would "thicken" regular milk, i.e., by curdling.

Basically, milk has two general types of proteins: casein and whey.  The casein is what forms the "curds" in "curds and whey."  Both proteins are somewhat unusual in that they don't tend to coagulate with heat (as eggs proteins do, for example).  Thus, they will survive largely intact even with the processing of condensed milk.

Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking explains what happens when they encounter acids, though:

  The casein family includes four different kinds of proteins that
  gather together into microscopic family units called micelles.  Each
  casein micelle contains a few thousand individual protein molecules. .
  . . Around a tenth of the volume of milk is taken up by casein
  micelles.  Much of the calcium in milk is in the micelles, where it
  acts as a kind of glue holding the protein molecules together.  One
  portion of calcium binds individual protein molecules together into
  small clusters of 15 to 25.  Another portion then helps pull several
  hundred of the clusters together to form the micelle. . . .

  One member of the casein family is especially influential in these
  gatherings.  That is kappa-casein which caps the micelles once they
  reach a certain size, prevents them from growing larger, and keeps
  them dispersed and separate.  One end of the capping-casein molecule
  extends from the micelle out into the surrounding liquid, and forms a
  "hairy layer" with a negative electrical charge that repels other
  micelles. . . .

  If [milk] gets acid enough to approach pH 5.5, the capping-casein's
  negative charge is neutralized, the micelles no longer repel each
  other, and they therefore gather in loose clusters.  At the same
  acidity, the calcium glue that holds the micelles together dissolves,
  the micelles begin to fall apart, and their individual proteins
  scatter.  Beginning around pH 4.7, the scattered casein proteins lose
  their negative charge, bond to each other again and form a continuous
  fine network: and the milk solidifies, or curdles.

Thus, if you add lemon juice to regular milk, it will curdle and thicken, just as milk does when it sours naturally or when it is fermented into yogurt, kefir, cultured buttermilk, etc. (which all involve bacteria that acidify the milk).  The same process happens if you add acid to condensed milk.


How can I find out how to make clothbound cheddar cheese? I am interested in learning more about the processes of making clothbound cheddar cheese as it is done in Somerset, England.

In the United States I like the clothbound cheddar made by Jasper Hill Farms.

So far, the best book I have found is The Cheesemaker's Apprentice: An Insider's Guide to the Art and Craft of Homemade Artisan Cheese, Taught by the Masters, but I get the sense that important steps and information missing from this books. Also, like many books, it focuses on "kitchen" methods using generic equipment, not specialized equipment.

I have mechanical ability, a shop, a biological laboratory and other capability to fabricate harps, centrifuges and other specialized equipment so I am interested in finding out the most advanced techniques for making high quality cheddar. How can I do this?

The quality of cheddar is largely dependant on the skill and effort shown in the aging process. This means providing a suitable environment for the lactose bacteria to flourish. Remember it is the bacteria that coverts the lactose into lactic acid that is the crux of the matter. That is the main source of flavour.

Somewhat cool and somewhat humid. I would aim for a coolish 10 - 15 degrees Celsius and a moderate amount of humidity.

Realise that making these types of artisan cheeses are a huge undertaking especially if you are interested in doing it well and on a large scale. Although I have seen 3 month old aged cheddar the true types would be aged at least six months if not a year.

You are going to have to have a large enough store room that can house all the wheels of cheese. Along with the atmospheric condition the room also needs to be clean and rodent free.

You also have to at least dialy check on your wheels to ensure there is no unwanted  mould growth. You would have to turn those wheels, check the humidity and temperature.

Ultimately there is no short cuts. The effort you put into the making of the cheese will directly influence the taste and ultimately the success of your endeavour.


Freezing meat in Tupperware vs freezer bag What's the difference between freezing meat (mainly, but vegs not excluded) in a Tupperware instead in freezer bags? Does the space and air between the meat and the recipient imply any change in texture, taste?

I'm conscious about the environment, but I also think it can be more convenient storing boxes in the freezer than bags.

"Water and foods freeze differently", according to the Penn State Extension. First, you want to freeze items as quickly as possible.  The faster the freezing, the smaller the ice crystals in your food.  The smaller the ice crystals, the less damage to the cell structure of the food.  Remember, your freezer will go through freeze-thaw cycles.  This is where the potential damage occurs. Evaporation occurs during these cycles.  This is known as freezer burn.  One way to protect against freezer burn is to package your food with as much of the air removed as possible.  So, a freezer bag will be better than Tupperware, and a vacuum sealed bag will be even better.  At the very least, with a zip-style freezer bag you can use a straw to suck out much of the air...or, even better use Archiemedes principle.  In terms of convenience, bags are much more effective, not only do they take up less space, but items can be spread out in the bag, as flat as possible, making thawing faster.


Why do I need to melt butter with chocolate? When I bake with chocolate, especially for cakes and brownies, the recipes always say to melt butter along with the chocolate. Why is this? Would melting them separately cause some sort of problem?

Melting them together makes the chocolate less sticky and therefore less likely to stick to your melting pot.

Probably wouldn't cause any other problems if you did them separately; there is no chemical reaction between the chocolate and the butter.

Either way its convenient to melt them together so that you can do it all at once and save time.


Do they count calories in fried chicken accurately? Personally, I never eat my fried chicken to the bone. There is always the veins left as well as some meat and skin.

In a frozen dinner, do they calculate the calories assuming the chicken was licked clean? Or do they take a more realistic approach and account for loss?

Unfortunately the nutritional values given on packages aren't accurate enough for it to make a difference whether you eat chicken to the bone. Compliance testing in the United States and Canada only requires that an average of a certain number of servings be within 20% of the stated number. Individual servings can vary even more and still be in compliance, so long as the average of the random samples tested remains within 20%.

With something like a frozen fried chicken dinner there probably isn't going to be a wide variance in the actual numbers, but some variance is unavoidable. Chickens aren't all the same, some will be bigger, smaller, fatter or leaner. There's only so much any food processor can do to ensure that every chicken part that gets used in an product has the same weight and nutritional composition. There would also be some variation in how much batter gets coated on each part, and how much oil ends being absorbed when cooking.

On the other hand, the scraps you're leaving on the bone are probably only have tiny fraction of the total calories of the fried chicken part(s). I can't see it being more than 5% and it could easily be less than 1% of the total meal, depending on what else is included in the frozen dinner.

I should also say I think you're doing yourself a disservice by trying to fudge the numbers like this, for two reasons. The first is that when I eat fried chicken I love going over the bones trying to get the last of the meat and that tasty, tasty batter stuck to the ends. It's almost like getting to eat another piece of chicken, but one with practically no additional calories. The second reason is that you're heading down a slippery slope. Sure the nutrition information isn't very accurate, but they're the best numbers you're going to get. You don't have the information or tools to make a better assessment yourself. Trying to make up your own values will just lead you to more and more inaccurate estimates of the number calories you're consuming.


Should I preheat glass and ceramic pans before baking bread? I never bake a loaf of bread before and I would like to bake a no-knead bread. For your information, I have an electric oven, a glass and ceramic pans. Should I preheat the glass and ceramic pans in the oven before baking?

Assuming the pans are made for the oven (e.g. Pyrex or a similar brand), I would say no.  At least, I never do.

Also, unless a recipe specifically calls for it, I think you are risking overcooking the outside of the loaf, especially with glass baking dishes.

If you are worried about some sort of thermal shock cracking the dish, I think this would be more likely to occur if you have a hot dish into which you pour cold batter, and put it right back in the oven.  The water in the batter will suck heat away from the inside, while the oven is adding even more heat to a hot exterior.  This temperature difference is the kind of thing that can lead to thermal shock and cracking.

So, no, I would not suggest you preheat the dishes unless specifically told to by a recipe.


Egg shells speckled after cooking I made some boiled eggs and they were white when they went in! I did water, two inches above the eggs (18 of them). 1/3c Apple cider vinegar, and 1T salt... I was using a cheap Walmart pan as we just moved and I bought it for like $5. It’s really thin. I brought to a boil and then cooked for 11-12 mins.

As you posted a high-res picture, I can clearly see that this is exactly like my grandmother's white eggs would look like after she boiled them in an aluminium kettle.  AFAIK they don't sell these any more, so I'm surprised to see eggs like this again after 30 years.

After peeling, the discolouration wasn't noticeable any more.

If both assumptions above (Aluminium pot and not visible any more after peeling) they are safe to eat as Al2O3 is probably the root cause and it's safe according to this document published by the WHO.


Can I use washing soda to cook noodles? I found a recipe for homemade ramen noodles that calls for 'baked baking soda'. Based on some research, baking sodium bicarbonate will convert it to sodium carbonate. Na2CO3 is more basic than NaHCO3 and apparently basic water is good for chewy noodles.
Sodium carbonate is also known as washing soda. Can I use store-bought washing soda instead of making my own baked baking soda?

No, you cannot use normal washing soda for cooking because you cannot count on the purity of the product.
Even if the chemical formula is identical, the standards for manufacturing chemicals intended for human consumption are considerably higher than those for cleaning.
You can, however, purchase food-grade sodium carbonate as a food additive from a variety of manufacturers.


May I use cacao butter in place of coconut butter? I'm out of coconut butter and am making fat bombs that call for coconut butter.  I have plenty of cacao butter on hand.  Can I use that instead?  Thanks!

Not knowing your recipe (but I did some general googling re. fat bombs in general), I'd say go for it.

The main differences are based on the higher melting point for cocoa butter, which can actually make storage easier. At the same temperature, the cocoa butter based treats will be firmer - again a matter of taste.

But: The coconut oil based fat bombs will probably give you a "cooling" mouthfeel, caused by a combination of high enthalpy of fusion and a melting point below body temperature, it's the key ingredient in "ice chocolate". Cocoa butter with a melting point around 30-38C / 86-100F will not do that.

The taste will differ a bit as both fats have their specific taste, in combination with other ingredients neither should be overpowering, though.


What does a Thai Scented Candle impart? Amazon Link

There is a traditional cookie that is pretty much just a thick sugar cookie that is baked and then put in a covered bowl with the candle overnight. I ran into it because I was looking at candy recipes, and some of the Thai candies called for sugar smoked like this.

Other than smoke, what flavors come from one if these? Are they ever used for savory applications?

I have learned from SheSimmers that the primary ingredient and scent of these candles is frankincense. It "imparts the scent of frankincense, ylang ylang, patchouli, and mace oil to the food." I will expand upon this answer after my candle arrives from Amazon within a few days.


What is "Zest" - In particular: lime/lemon zest? I saw a recipe that asked for Lime Zest and was wondering what it was?

The very thin outside layer of the Lime, Lemon, Orange, and other citrus. It contains aromatic and flavorful oils that will enhance your meals.

When you zest your citrus fruit (usually with a fine grater) you need make sure that you only pull off the zest and not the white pith that lies underneath. The pith is bitter and generally not something you want in your dish.


Sweet plums going tart as I chew I have noticed that when I eat a plum that at least near the skin layer my sweet receptors are first activated by the plum juice and flesh but the more I chew it(doesn't matter if it is flesh or skin) the more tart it gets and if I were to continue chewing it could probably get as sour as a lemon.

So why does the plum become tart when I chew on it but with the initial bite it is sweet?

Saliva breaks down sugars and starches. That is why candies dissolve so well, and it's why bread or crackers taste sweeter the longer you chew them. What saliva does not break down are acids, which are tart or sour. The longer you chew the fruit, the more sugars and starches are broken down and swallowed, leaving the tangier acids intact.


What is the best substitute for Provolone? Having recently bought the Frankies Spuntino Cookbook I want to have a go at making braciola. The recipe calls for pork steaks to be stuffed with pecorino romano and provolone.

However, in the UK provolone is hard to come by outside of Italian delis, and Italian delis are relatively rare. I understand that it's similar to mozzarella but drier.

So, what is a good substitute for provolone? Is it usually used for flavour or for its melting texture?

There are two main types of provolone: piccante (sharp) and dolce (sweet).  Most braciola recipes I've seen call for the sharp version.  Sharp provolone tastes very similar to cheddar, which I assume is abundant in the UK.  The issue is that "real" cheddar is a hard cheese and provolone is only semi-hard.  Here in the US, we have a softer version of sharp cheddar-style cheese that is made in Wisconsin.  If a similar semi-hard sharp cheddar variant is available in the UK, I would recommend that.

It should also be noted that the term "braciola" (or sometimes "braciole") means a lot of different things to different people.  To most Americans, likely including the author of your book, it takes on the Sicilian meaning of an involtino.  Sometimes the meat will be filled with a soft cheese mixture like mozzarella mixed with grated pecorino romano.  However, if the recipe calls for a harder cheese like provolone, it is likely referring to a variant that is very popular in the US in which the provolone is cut into thin slices (usually using a deli slicer) and layered on the meat before the meat is rolled.  Therefore, any substitute for the provolone should ideally be thinly sliced.


Will meat overcook in a boiling water pot? I recently ate at a restaurant that had you cook your own food. They had a heating plate in the middle of the table and they would set a small pot onto it and add in spices/vegetables to the water, after which you would receive a platter of raw meats (chicken, steak, shrimp, etc) to cook yourself.

The waiter mentioned that when you cook the meat you should leave it in for 1.5 - 2 minutes depending on what it was (shrimp for less time than the chicken/steak). If you leave the meat in for an extended period (say 15 to 25 minutes) would the meat over-cook in the boiling water?  The small cuts of steak would cook to a 'medium' or 'medium-well' consistency for 2 minutes depending on the size of the cut.

This was the first time I have ever seen small cuts of meat (especially in that variety) cooked in a boiling water pot.

Thanks!

Yes.

Water boils at about 212F (100C) and meat is cooked from 140F to 160F. If you left the meat in there for a very long time it would eventually approach 212F and start to get tough.

The time that they give you is going to be the time it takes to ensure that the meat is safe to eat. Generally I like it to be closer to the rare side as it is more tender that way.


Do raisins have a maximum shelf life? I have a box of raisins in my cabinet that have been there for many years. Should I discard them or can they still be salvaged for use in baking or cooking?

According to this Sun Maid specification sheet, the shelf life is up to one year, and they contain about 15% water.

This is probably not sufficiently dehydrated for truly long term storage, and mold would be a risk.  Also, if they did dry further in storage they would be rock hard, and probably quite nasty.


Oven temperature vs time adjustments My cake recipe calls for baking at 350°F for 55 minutes.
I had to bake it for 15-20 minutes longer for inside to be done.

Can I adjust the temperature to 360°F to bake for 55 minutes without burning the cake?

If you used a reputable recipe, followed it without variation, including using the same size pan as was specified, and adjusted for altitude, if appropriate, then:

The problem was likely with the thermostat calibration on your oven. The best thing to do is get an oven thermometer and use it to find out how much you need to adjust your temperature control. This answer to a question similar to yours may help with that.

If you can't do that right now - adjusting the temperature up in small increments (10-25 degrees F) and noting what happens, until you get the desired results, is a good plan. Remember that there will always be variables that can affect the cooking time and that most times given are approximate.


Does this tool exist? Perforated disc for making stock There's a piece of kitchen equipment (described below) that I frequently find myself wanting, but I can't find any sign that any such thing actually exists. Perhaps I've looked in the wrong place. Perhaps there's a reason why it wouldn't actually be as useful as I think. Does it exist? and, if not, why not?
The thing that (I think) I want is a disc of food-grade stainless steel, somewhere around 25cm across, maybe 3-5mm thick, with lots of smallish holes in it.
It's meant to address the following problem: When you're making stock, you have a big pot containing bones, vegetables, and whatnot, in water. You want to be able to skim foam and fat off the top, but that's difficult because on that top surface there are also (1) floating things (e.g., peppercorns, bay leaves) that you don't want to remove and (2) larger things that aren't floating but that reach all the way to the surface (e.g., larger chicken bones).
So you put the metal disc in your stockpot, once everything else is in. It doesn't sink very far because of all the stuff underneath it, but it's heavy enough that it pushesthose bones down enough that they no longer reach up to the surface of the liquid in the pot, and it mostly stops smaller floating things getting to the top too. Now you can skim off the fat and foam more easily.

Since I don't see any sign that anyone makes these things, my guess is that there's a reason why it wouldn't be useful, but the reasons I can think of don't seem very convincing:

It would need to be the right size for your stockpot, and stockpots aren't all the same diameter.

It would need to be roughly the right size, but I bet a few different sizes would be enough.

When making stock you should use more liquid, so that you don't have a problem with bones etc. reaching up to the top.

I'm pretty sure this isn't true, and have at least one cookery book of impeccable provenance that specifically says to add just enough water to cover the bones. But maybe I'm badly misinformed? Also, however much liquid you add there will be things that float to the top.

When making stock you should have just barely enough liquid to cover the bones, so if you do this the metal disc will just sit on the top and not do anything useful.

You want enough that it does cover the bones, and at least in my experience that means enough that if you push down on all the bones you absolutely can push them a centimetre or so below the surface.

It's somehow important for the bits that end up on the top to be exposed to the air.

Seems super-implausible to me.

The floaty bits will just make their way around the edge of the disc to the surface and so it won't do much good.

That certainly won't happen to bones, or to any but the smallest floaty bits.

You shouldn't be bothering to skim off fat or foam while making stock. Just remove scummy bits when the water first gets to simmering point, and then leave it completely alone.

I have definitely seen recipes that explicitly say to continue skimming, but maybe that's pointless? I think most of what comes to the surface after the initial foamy stuff is just fat, which obviously you're going to remove later anyway (or maybe leave there, for flavour at the cost of clarity). But it seems like this would be useful even if the only thing you remove is the initial foamy stuff: it would make it easier to get more or less all of it out.

What will actually happen is that the grot you want to remove accumulates under your metal disc, so it will make things worse rather than better.

I wouldn't have thought that would happen. But I could be wrong.

So ... what am I missing? Would this be useless? Does it already exist? If so, what's it called?

Have you considered repurposing a steamer insert? I don't know how the weight would suit you, but if you're handy, you could probably chop the feet off and add a weight to the top stem thing. Although the feet shouldn't cause too much of an issue. The main problem I foresee using a steamer insert in this way would be cleaning it. But as long as you don't let it sit around, that wouldn't be too much trouble.


Cooking pinto beans in a pressure cooker So I have read some of the questions and answers regarding soaking and cooking pinto beans and I am still trying to figure out the best process for my needs.  I cook a bunch of pinto beans at one time and then freeze them.  Because I cook a lot of beans at a time, I like using the pressure cooker.  My main concern is loss of nutrients.  I have been soaking the beans for 24 hours and then cooking them in a pressure cooker. Does this method compare well to others in retention of nutrients?

There doesn't seem to be much of a difference in nutrition between pressure cooking and boiling beans. Cooking at pressure cooker temperatures at 10, 20, or 40 minutes instead of boiling in a pot changed the nutrition/antinutrient content and digestibility by less than 5%.

Soaking prior to cooking was generally found to be advantageous. However, the results were not unanimous, and it didn't change very much in terms of nutrition. Soaking and discarding the water was found to:

reduce the carbohydrate fraction and maintain/increase fiber content.
reduce mineral content, but increase bioavailability.
reduce the oligosaccarides that cause flatulence.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814604004649

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.2010.02395.x


What is the best way to re-serve day old meat balls? I've noticed that meatballs are one type of food that often tastes much better the next day.  So whenever I make meatballs, I make lots of extras and put them in my fridge to allow the flavors to "develop".

However, when I warm the meatballs up in the microwave they sometimes get dry or have slightly tough and rubbery spots -- especially on outside edges.

What is the best technique to re-warm / re-serve meatballs that you have made the previous day (or a couple days prior) so they stay moist and delicious?

My preferred method by far would be heating them in a pot along with some kind of sauce.

Failing that, I think I might try putting them in a tightly covered pot in the oven along with just a little water (just a tablespoon or so)--that would gently heat them and also keep them moist.


How to contain trash/waste food smells? After using certain foods e.g. fish, spinach the remaining trash/waste food starts to smell and my tiny flat starts smelling of fish etc.  I cannot take the rubbish out daily and if I put them in plastic bags I notice the smell keeps coming out, maybe these bags are porous.

I'm thinking the best thing is to put them in plastic containers and take them out once a week.  Any ideas?  If I get those small plastic bags with air tight written on them will that be sufficient to contain any smells?

In the same light, when putting foods inside a fridge/freezer is there a specific type of bag one should use to ensure odours do not travel.  I notice that some refrigerator bags are so thin they might not actually contain smells?

I put potentially malodorous food scraps in the trash if I know I will have enough to take the trash out that day (I hate wasting trash bags, blame my OCD). If not, I will put scraps in freezer bags and leave them in the fridge temporarily. The difference between freezer bags and regular plastic bags is they are much thicker and tougher. If you get a good quality bag the zipper part seals air-tight and the plastic will not breathe. The key here is don't be cheap: You get what you pay for.

Freezer bags easily hold in odors for several days until you have enough for a load of trash to take out to the dumpster.


Making bread fast and with few ingredients so I'm writing a story where one of the characters is trying to make some bread with minimal ingredients in a short amount of time. I'm not having much luck with my normal means of researching so I came here for some help. I'd like to know what bread takes the shortest amount of time. Breads that can be made with minimal ingredients. And also I would just like to know if you have to knead flat bread.

A basic flatbread can be made by mixing flour, a little oil (if possible) and just enough water to make it stick together. Salt is often added.  No real kneading is needed, just mixing, but a little kneading helps.  Then roll/pound/press flat and cook in a frying pan or on a hot stone. In Egypt I've seen something similar cooked on the side of an old jerrycan over a wood fire.  This is basically what a chapati is, so very recognisably bread (but not risen).


Chemistry of making carbonated water? I've found guides online for making carbonated (soda) water at home using a CO2 tank, a regulator and a plastic bottle. The guides suggest using "ice cold" water, filling the bottle 1/2 to 2/3 full, but differ on how much to shake the bottle, how many times to refill the bottle and what pressure to fill the bottle to. I was wondering if someone could provide an explanation for what the effect of temperature, pressure and agitation plays on the carbonation process and what a best practice might be for making soda water at home on demand.

EDIT: A regulator tells you the pressure in the bottle--it doesn't tell you how much CO2 has entered the bottle. So my question is two parts: What's the "optimal" amount of CO2 per 1L H2O for a carbonated beverage and how do you tell when you've hit this amount? Say I have a 1L bottle filled with 0.5L H2O. At what pressure should the bottle be at 10°C for "optimum carbonation"?

Cheers

CO2 actually dissolves better in cold water vs hot water. that's why warm soda bottles will usually look more bubbly inside. Shaking the bottle greatly increases the surface area of interaction between water and gas, helping to speed up the process of carbonation.


Beef Bourguignon Vs Daube Provencal How does daube provencal differ from beef bourguignon?

The main differences:

Bourguignon is made with a red wine from the Burgundy (Bourgogne) region. Daube is a southern dish, from provence/languedoc, and would typically be made with a richer red (occasionally, and originally, white) wine from that region
Bourguignon is almost always garnished with small onions, carrots, mushroom and bacon, nothing else. Daube, being from the south, often has more mediterranean ingredients, such as garlic, tomatoes, larger onions, olives etc. and herbes de provence (vs a standard bouquet garni in a bourguignon)
Though bourguignon will use braising cuts of meat, it will typically just be cooked until the meat is tender, then served. Vegetables are often added at the end to keep their appearance and texture. Daube will typically user even cheaper cuts of meat with more sinew and collagen to break down e.g. shin, cheek, blade. It will be cooked for a long time, often with all the vegetables added from the start or half way through, allowing the meat to become very soft and break apart and thicken the braising liquid
Daube is traditionally cooked in a Daubiere, though what difference this makes to the end result is minimal

Effectively, bourguignon is perfectly braised meat in a rich onion-bacon-burgundy sauce, with some perfectly cooked mushrooms, carrots and baby onions as garnish.

Daube is a thick and hearty red wine and beef stew with meltingly soft meat and well cooked vegetables with mediterranean influenced flavours.


What could I use in a vegetarian b'stilla? I love the idea of b'stilla but not sure I have any great ideas for a vegetarian version. Searching the web I see people trying it with winter squash, chickpeas or seitan. Any other suggestions?

I'd like such a dish with courgettes, or mushrooms. Chickpeas sound like a good idea, butternut squash might be good as well. Sweet potato, perhaps.


Newly seasoned carbon steel pan sticks when cooking After doing reasearch I decided to try a less expensive pan when buying a 12".  Bought a Paderno and did a mix of seasoning with organic flax seed oil.  I did about 5 coats on the stove top per instructions (heating, adding small amount of oil and rubbing it down with paper towel, heat/ cool / repeat.  For good measure I also tried rubbing the entire pan with oil and cooked in 400 degree oven for 2 hours and let it cool in oven for 2 hours.  The 2 times I've cooked anything in it (eggs with onions) everything sticks.  Never had this problem with my small de Buyer crepe pan.  One chef recommended 11 coats, I think I've got 7.  Wondering now if I put on too many coats of oil or if this made in China pan is just an inferior metal.

High temps and flaxseed oil (essentially linseed oil) don't mix so I'd be suspicious of using flaxseed oil for seasoning. Try using a different oil and see what happens. The baked coating may then be less sticky/grabby.


Is there a technique for making larger batches of roux? Following along the approach of freezing roux, I would like to make some in bulk. I am also trying to do more batch cooking for freezing and making 8 quarts of mac and cheese ends up taking a lot of roux for the starter.

As such, is there a technique for creating quite a few cups of roux (ie. 6 cups) at a time?

Currently the most I have created per batch is about 4 tablespoons butter to 4 tablespoons flour (~1/2 cup), mixing with a fork (pretty tiring as I have no whisk). Obviously a whisk could just be necessary, but is there a thresh-hold where moving to an electric or mechanical tool might be more efficient?

There is no problem at all doing this. At a restaurant where I worked, we would make up a couple pounds of butter worth of roux at a time. The main thing you want to do is use a pan with a lot of surface area, so it cooks evenly. A whisk will work fine. You don't have to stir constantly, just frequently.