How do you know when your flavor base is thoroughly sauteed? I have read that sauteing is basically taking all of the moisture and bite out of aromatic veggies. My assumption is as long as steam comes out of the flavor base (not fat burning smoke) there is some moisture to cook off.

Is it true? How can you know when your flavor base is properly sauteed?

Usually when sauteeing (or more precisely, sweating) vegetables meant to form an aromatic base, you're doing three things:

Breaking down cell walls
Developing new flavors through mild caramelization
Driving off moisture

The first of these is really the most important; driving off moisture is a natural result of doing so. The cell walls in vegetables act as little "containers" that store all the moisture, nutrients, and flavorful compounds present in the vegetable. You want to break them down in order to release those contents, or the flavors won't have as much time to combine and mellow in the aromatic base. Of course, by releasing the moisture and compounds you're also giving some of the water a chance to evaporate, and some compounds like sugars a chance to caramelize slightly which deepens their flavor.

The usual guidance for knowing when you've sweated sufficiently for a flavor base is to look for transparency. Onions in particular will start to look glossy and softer around the edges, and you'll notice that you can see right through them in thinner layers. Like so; see how you can clearly see the color of the spoon right through these onions?

The same thing happens with other vegetables too but onions are the most noticeable, and fortunately they're present in quite a few traditional bases (mirepoix, trinity, and sofrito all contain onion for example).

Of course this does depend a little bit on what flavor you're trying to bring into the finished dish. Some preparations (French onion soup for instance) call for extensive caramelization, and for onions to be sweated until they've gone far beyond translucent and have become a rich brown color, which also develops a deep, sweet flavor. So if that's what you want, you can keep on sweating for as long as you like (or at least until you move from sweating to, um, burning).

Here for instance are some onions that have been cooking for a longer period of time; notice that they've developed a mild golden-brown color and are nearly see-through around the edges:

There's no specific temperature to look for here as it's more about time and breakdown; fortunately, sweating happens slowly, and it doesn't need to be overly precise. Look for glossiness which lets you know that moisture is escaping, and transparency which gives a visual indication of cell wall breakdown, and you'll be fine.


Is there any commercial stand mixer bigger than kitchenaids with bowl scraping paddle? the biggest kitchenaid with a bowl scraping paddle (called flex edge by them) is a 7 quart mixer. i would choose something bigger only if such paddle that also scrapes the side of the bowl when mixing was available. any knows if it exists?
thanks : )

In response to your comment:

If you really are interested in the 12qt Hobart Mixer with the Bowl Scraper Attachment I'm sure they'll work with you to sell you one. Here's the contact information for their international sales department.

Take a good look at this video, the way the 12qt functions is the same as this monster 80qt machine.


use of xanthan gum in tomato ketchup If we make tomato ketchup of 100kg tomatoes.

What would be the procedure to add the gum?
What quantity of gum should be used?

Currently we are using corn starch as a thickener but it does not give the desired result.

Xanthan gum is a polysaccahride obtained through a fermentation process.  It is used to greatly reduce syneresis, stabilize emulsions, and to keep particles suspended in mixtures. It is "shear thinning", meaning that liquids with xanthan are viscous when at rest, but fluid when stirring. It has other culinary uses as well, but would be a good experiment your ketchup application.  You will want to add in a concentration of 0.7 - 1.5% of your total batch.  Be careful of using in a higher concentration, as xanthan can impart an undesirable, mucous-like texture if used too heavily.

Credit to Martin Lersch, and his terrific pdf called "Texture: A Hydrocolloid Recipe Collection."


Tenderness of sous-vide pork chops I made some sous vide pork chops this week that didn't turn out as tender as I expected.  They were about as tender as when I grill them; maybe a little bit worse.

I had marinated them overnight in a Vietnamese soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar, lemon grass, etc., marinate and them cooked them at 132 degrees in the marinade for about eight hours.

What could I try to do differently?  Longer cooking?  Brining?

The actual minimum temperature which kills the roundworm Trichinella spiralis is 137F.

Therefore it is recommended that you sous-vide pork at a temperature of 138F or higher.  If you do not have a high quality immersion circulator with precise temperature control and your water bath temperature can vary by a few degrees, it is recommended to use at least 140F.

I use an industrial polyscience immersion circulator and I have found that cooking pork at 141F yields extremely tender meat that is both medium rare and safe.  I had whole marinated pork tenderloins that I cooked for 6 hours this way and they came out tender enough to cut with a fork.

I also put a quick sear on the pork with a hot cast iron pan immediately after taking it out of the bath for additional flavor from the Maillard reaction.

FWIW, marinating meat in a salty sauce (fish sauce / soy sauce) will draw water out of the muscle fibers and make the meat tougher -- this is especially true for thin cuts like your 1cm thick chops.

Try marinating in the spices and seasonings with a bit of oil minus the salt or salty sauces (at the very least, reduce the amount of salt in the marinade). If you have a chamber vacuum, you can marinate in the sous vide packaging under vacuum which will lead to more intense flavor using a lot less marinade. After sous vide cooking, apply a small amount of your salt or salty sauces when serving the pork.


What are good counter-top oven settings to reheat french fries soggy from refrigerating overnight? I have yesterday's French Fries (Chips for those of you across the Pond).
They were stored in a refrigerator overnight and now are cold AND soggy.

What's a good technique to reheat them in a small counter-top electrical oven?
E.g. temperature? bake/broil/convection setting? How long?

Constraints:

I must heat them on a sheet of thin wrapping aluminum foil (over a loose grill, no tray)
I would prefer a method that takes less than 5 minutes, but that's not a cut-off
The main goal is to have them somewhat crispyish on the outside, and tasty (not hard, not soggy) on the inside
The fries/chips size can be either McDonalds size (1/2 cm^2 square cross cut) or slightly larger diner size (~0.5cm x 1 cm cross cut)
The amount is such that - evenly spreading them on an aluminum foil sheet the size of the oven's tray - they cover pretty much the whole sheet, in single layer
this is at work, so I am unlikely to have access to any ingredients (e.g. any answer that starts with "sprinkle with xyz oil" is less desirable.

The fries are fully-cooked, from an order from an eatery, not home-cooked. So while I don't know the ingredients/coating/what they were fried in, a safe assumption is that the fries are either standard McDonalds recipe, or some sort of generic US Diner or midrange restaurant recipe, assuming one is known.

They won't be as good as when fresh (of course) but generally:

You want the oven pretty hot. How hot depends on the oven, size of fry, etc., but a good first guess would be 425°F–450°F. On most toaster ovens I've seen, that'd be as hot as it goes. Let the oven preheat. Unfortunately, heating the oven is going to take longer than your five minutes, probably ten to fifteen... But as long as you stay nearby (just in case) you can do something else while its heating.
Spread the fries evenly on your piece of foil. Fold up the edges of the foil a little to keep them from sliding off when you move it. (Note: A plain, uncoated aluminum quarter sheet pan probably fits in your toaster oven, and can be had for under $10.)
They won't take long. Listen for them to start to sizzle. Once they've sizzled for a little bit (say, 30 seconds) pull them out and flip them. Put them back in and let them sizzle a little longer. Take them out, sample one, put back in if not done yet. I can't give you a time (other than "a few minutes") because it's going to vary a lot based on the fry, and even how much it has dried out in the fridge. Judge when they're ready based on the sound (sizzle), smell, color (browning), and taking one out and tasting it.

Notes:

You may find adding some salt helps them a lot. Same with some finely ground pepper. Or other powdered seasoning mixes like Old Bay.
If the center isn't warm enough by the time the outside is browning, use a lower temperature next time. If the center is overdone (e.g., dried out) before browning sets in, use a higher temperature.


How to make softer biscuits? Sorry to ask a rather non-specific question, but I am actually trying to formulate an example. Suppose you have a recipe to make biscuits, but what you get is quite hard, and you would like to have a softer result. What do you need to add or change in the recipe?
It does not matter if it's not accurate. I just need a non-blatantly wrong process or component.

Normally if you want to increase chewiness and softness, you increase your egg and fat.  Also, instead of using water, use milk.  These are blanket rules, having no idea what your specific issue is.  Also, try using a flour that has lower protein count.  You don't want a bread flour for cookies, cakes, biscuits - pastries in general.  Of course if you are stuck with a bread flour, make sure to undermix your ingredients.  The more you mix, the more gluten is produced.  This is what you want for breads, but not the structure you are looking for in pastries, etc.


Jiaozi potstickers sticking to fry pan I've been having a problem lately with my potstickers sticking to my pan too much. This didn't start happening until recently.

I'm using my stainless fry pan rather than a nonstick. Mostly, because I like this pan the most. But perhaps I'm just using the wrong tool for the job.

I've tried to let them cook longer after the water has evaporated even until some of the bottoms burned as an experiment. even then some still stuck.

Here is my current method.

Get pan hot over medium high heat.
Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil. I've tried more and less with little change.
Let oil heat to ripple.
Add potstickers.
Add .5 to .75 cups of water.
cover and steam for about 10 minutes.
Let dumplings fry for a minute or two.

Your problem is probably between steps 3 and 4. When the oil is rippling, it is developing ridges and troughs of varying thicknesses of oil. The troughs, or thin spots are the most likely culprit for sticking.

After the oil has started to ripple, turn the heat down and tilt the pan so the ridges and troughs in the oil start to even out, then add the potstickers. Wait for a minute or two before turning the heat back up.


Can I cook Meringue on tin foil rather than Baking paper? I am making meringue's and don't have access to baking paper, would tin foil work or could I just grease the tin itself?

Joy of Baking actually recommends using parchment or foil:

  ... it is a good idea to use parchment paper or aluminum foil to line
  your baking sheets, not wax paper, as the meringue will sometimes stick to wax paper.

According to Living Strong:

  Next in line for substitutions similar to parchment paper comes
  aluminum foil. The flexibility of the aluminum foil allows you to
  easily lift the meringues off your baking sheet and gently peel them
  away from the foil, individually rather than trying to scrape them off
  the pan with a spatula or knife. Just like parchment paper and waxed
  paper, aluminum foil cuts down cleaning time by eliminating
  the need to scrub your baking sheet.

They also say that if you don't have foil, as a last alternative, you can try spraying the sheet with baking spray (the kind with flour in it), or spray with regular oil spray and then dust with sugar.


How long should I cook a half goose? I have a 4.6 kg frozen goose from the supermarket. I have cut it in half along the spine and am planning to roast both halves separately. Presumably the bigger surface area means I don't need to cook as long as an intact bird. What would be a reasonable cooking time?

As @ElendilTheTall says, very correctly, cooking to time is a bad idea. However, it's good to have a working time figure for planning. In the case of goose the timeline is to cook 20-25 minutes per pound. 4.6 lb is a very small goose so I'm assuming it's 4.6kg, which is just over 10lb, so half that is 5 lb, which should take somewhere close to between 1 hour 40 minutes to 2 hours to cook. You would need to add at least 30 minutes for resting after cooking as well.

I would aim to have the goose in the oven about 2:45 before you want to serve, and then keep a close eye on the goose's temperature. Use an oven thermometer that you can leave in the bird in the oven, it's much easier than having to pull the goose out and check it every 5 minutes. A handheld one is also useful to back up your measurements in case your leave-in probe is out of position. Do not overcook goose, keep a good eye on that temperature because goose can go from underdone to overdone in a very short time.


Freezing a Peanut Butter Chip Pound Cake I need to make several pound cakes for Thanksgiving. I make a variety but the are mostly pound cakes. They will be made with fresh eggs. Is it OK to freeze these cakes and how does it affect the taste? How long in advance can I make and freeze?

Absolutely. Your pound cakes will be just as tasty and fresh tasting as if they were baked the same day. Even cake mix variety can be handled the same way and it is absolutely the way to store butter based breads.

I learned the proper storage of cakes from Rose Levy Beranbaum and her Cake Bible. This is not an ad for the book but a suggestion you will not regret if you are are a baker.

If you like, use a little simple syrup and brush over cakes...

You need to allow the cake to come to room temperature. Then, if baked in a bundt pan, put plastic wrap in the center hole. This is to emiminate as much air as possible. Wrap cake in a layer of heavy duty aluminum foil by folding lengthwise, then folding the ends up tightly. Repeat the process in the opposite direction.

The cakes can be stored and frozen for a month or longer. When thawing, bring to room temperature for maximum flavor. I've done wedding cakes this way.


Soaked chia seeds do not swell as expected I soaked chia seeds in milk overnight and kept them in the fridge. The next morning I did not find them very swelled.

What can I do to improve this.

It is possible that the seeds did not look like they had swelled. While the seed itself looks like its size stays about the same, the "swelling" really comes from the fiber soaking up liquid, forming a gelatinous "blob" around each seed pod.

And how much they swell will also depend on how much liquid they're soaking in. This is a time-lapse video of chia seeds swelling as they soak in water.

But always better safe than sorry: If you don't feel comfortable eating what you've made because you don't think it reacted properly, discard it and try again with a different batch. The more you experiment with chia seeds, the more you'll know what behavior to expect from them.


How to keep the surface of the cake from splitting? Possible Duplicate:
  How do you make a cake lift equally and minimize doming?

Or is it natural for it to happen because the top layer has expanded? what should I do if I wanted to make an even-surfaced cake? Not convex shaped as you can see in the photo? Should I cover the tin with an aluminium foil?

I have read and heard that to minimize the cracks you should tilt the batter back and forth in the pan prior to baking. If you let the batter climb the walls about 1/8" - 1/4" it supposedly helps with not only a consistent rise, but keeps the batter from clinging to the wall while rising and stretching the surface of your cake while it rises.

I have done this with white cakes since I began baking a few months back in a springform and had good results, however I have never not done it.


Why add in the eggs last when making chocolate chip cookies? In this video about making chocolate chip cookies, eggs are the last ingredient added.

This is different from what I've learned so far; what's good about this method?

In home recipes the eggs are added whole. They can't be added until after the creaming step or else they will dissolve some of the sugar. They are added before the flour to make sure that the yolks and whites are completely blended.

In this video- the process has been simplified for industrial quantities.

In the step that can't be skipped, the fat and sugar are creamed. All the other ingredients are then added at once and mixed. You can see that the eggs have already been blended with the vanilla so no extra mixing is needed for them.


When is it necessary to put foil over a pie's crust? In the past, when I have made pumpkin pie, I have never put foil around the edge of the crust of the pie.  Yesterday, I baked a pie with someone else, and they insisted that the foil was necessary to prevent the pie crust from burning.  I have noticed the a lot of recipes for pies other than pumpkin (frequently covered pies like strawberry-rhubarb) explicitly call for aluminum foil on the crust.

When does a pie crust need to be covered in foil while baking?

Generally speaking, when the length of the cooking time required to cook the filling correctly is such that the crust would burn if it wasn't covered.

It is usually more necessary when you have blind-baked the crust, but I must say I've cooked a lot of pies in my time and never covered the crust because I'm always careful to par-bake the crust just enough to seal it and no more.


How long do I boil store bought or canned tomato sauce for spaghetti? How long do I boil store bought or canned tomato sauce to use for spaghetti?

I know that tomato sauce can be cooked in cans that are available from the grocery store.  Why should it take 4-6 hours?

If the canned good is already "spaghetti sauce", it simply needs to be heated.  There is no need to cook it for hours.  If you are beginning with canned tomatoes, and making your own sauce, 20 to 30 minutes is usually enough to cook a basic Italian tomato sauce.


Cooking French fries with strainer from IKEA's Idealisk I want to make French fries, but I don't have a proper deep fryer, but just a dutch oven and a strainer from IKEA, Idealisk.
Is it OK to leave the potatoes in the strainer and submerge them in the hot oil? Like leaving the strainer in the hot oil.  Will the strainer be damaged from the heat?

If the strainer fits your pot so that it works as a fry basket, then it's fine to use it as such.  As long as:

It'll sit flat in the pot so it doesn't spill all the potatoes out;
The handle is long enough that you can pick it up without burning yourself on the oil;
You're not concerned if the strainer gets burned-on oil which might make it less useful as a general-purpose strainer;
The strainer is all-metal, which that strainer is.

If any of the above don't work, consider just dumping the fries in the pot and using the strainer to fish them out, but not leaving it in the boiling oil.


Polenta instead of breadcrumbs? I'm making flamenquin this evening and don't have any breadcrumbs available (apart from under the toaster, but some are suspicious).  Has anyone ever used polenta instead of breadcrumbs to coat meat?

Thanks!

You can use definitely use polenta/cornmeal for breading, but it'll tend to be noticeably more crunchy than breadcrumbs are.

An obvious comparison is cornmeal fried fish. People make it multiple ways: some just dredge in cornmeal so it'll add a definite crunch, while others use a batter which will soften it up. The moisture from whatever you've coated matters too. I'm guessing pork loin isn't going to release a whole lot of water, but if you're marinating it perhaps you'd get some from there.

Since polenta is coarser, I'm guessing you might want to err on the side of caution, to avoid crunchy turning into gritty.


Freezing turkey burgers? I have prepared a big batch of raw turkey patties that I would like to bag and freeze, now the patties are too soft to handle and to put in the bags...

What is the best method of doing this?
I was thinking of putting them on a plate and put them in the freezer unbagged so they harden a little bit, is this a good strategy? Or is there a better way of doing it?

I've done this with beef patties; so I imagine the application would be the same.

When I freeze my patties: I will first take a sheet of parchment paper, with my chef's knife I'll cut them into 4"-5" squares. The next step requires a gallon plastic bag. I will arrange four of the patties in each corner of the bag, and then layer another four patties on top. During this, I layer the parchment squares appropriately, so that the patties are sandwiched by the parchment squares. This will total eight patties per gallon bag.

The parchment will make the patties easy to separate from the bag and patty peers.

Of course, I'm sure more enlightened users on this site could offer better suggestions. But in my experience, I have found this method to be effective and practical for the "at home" chef.


Cooking thawed fish when it says cook from frozen? I have a pack of fish in the fridge that says cook from frozen, is it safe to cook now it has defrosted. I have had it for one day in the fridge

Yes it is safe.
You might have to adjust the cooking timing that is suggested though.


Is there a difference between US Worcestershire sauce and UK Worcestershire sauce? I recently bought a Worcestershire sauce from Costco called Lea & Perrins. They claim to be the authentic version of Worcestershire sauce. However I have read comments online that indicate that it is a knockoff or a fake version of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce from the UK.

Within the comments most people say that the difference between the two is that the US version uses distilled white vinegar as the main ingredient whereas the UK version uses distilled malt vinegar. Is there really a difference between the two?

There is some difference between the flavor, but seeing as there are so many other predominant flavors in Worcestershire sauce and that fact that you're (hopefully) not drinking it straight, it's fairly insignificant. It's very common for one product produced in different countries to have a range of manufacturing differences, sometimes arbitrary, sometimes to suit the local palate, and sometimes because of costs, hence people calling American Lea & Perrins a "knockoff."

I've had both, and can assure you that once you've mixed it into a casserole or marinade you won't really miss anything. If you're striving for needlessly authentic British flavor you could always add a little malt vinegar to whatever you're cooking!


Any tips on crushing garlic for alioli? I tried making alioli at home, but in the first step (turning the garlic into a fine paste), I didn't make much progress. I chopped the garlic fairly finely first, but when I tried crushing them with a wooden spoon in a wide low mug, the little pieces just ping off.

What's the trick? Is there some way of softening them up first?

Note that I'm not making it in commercial quantities, so the amount of garlic I'm using would scarcely reach up to the blade on my immersion blender.

I make garlic paste quite often, using this technique I saw on Bobby Flay.

Put the whole clove on the board.
Lay knife flat, and smack it with your hand.
Remove paper and root.
Dice finely.
Sprinkle with the quantity of salt your recipe calls for.
With the knife relatively flat, grind the garlic into the salt with the knife.
Typically, I'll make a pass in one direction with the edge on the board, leading with the spine, and then come back with the spine on the board, leading with the edge.  You need a wide knife (at least a french chef's knife, cleaver or santuko) in order to keep your fingers out of danger. I apply the downward pressure with the top of my palm, with my fingers curled back.

Check this for a similar technique - http://www.howdini.com/howdini-video-6688064.html  (The mincing starts around 2:40
After 5 or 6 passes, you should have a nice fine paste.


Save de-glazed pan drippings? I just de-glazed my new All Clad pan after frying up some chicken breasts.  I was not sure how to get the pan clean so I de-glazed it with water. Should I keep that for making broth or something or just throw it out?/

Yes, you can save it. I transfer it to a small container, label it (with the date), and stick it in the freezer. At some point in the future I'll rediscover it and add it to broth, soup, or a sauce. (Generally, the advice is 6 to 12 months, during which time it loses flavor rather than becoming a health risk. I've used it safely long after that.)

Most of the time, of course, you'll use it to make a sauce for the dish you're cooking. But if you don't use it now, it's a generic meaty-brown flavor that pairs well with a wide variety of things. You could throw it in a pan with sauteeing vegetables, or on top of sauteed scallops, or add it to beans.

You could also refrigerate it; use it within 5 days.


Can I just substitute fresh ube for the "frozen ube, thawed" my recipe asks for? I got a recipe that asks for "frozen ube, thawed", and looking around my local stores and a quick google shopping search has failed to bring up any frozen ube, but I have found I can order fresh ube. Seeing some of the similar questions about fresh vs. frozen has me worried that it might not work or that I might have to do something besides sticking it in freezer and later taking it out.

Other details that I guess might be helpful:
The recipe is for bread for an extra blue blueberry jam sandwich with extra batter being used for blueberry muffins (will consider doubling each ingredient to ensure extra batter). The frozen ube is apparently counted as one of the wet ingredients to be mixed with the other wet ingredients before being combined with the dry ingredients.

EDIT: Oh, and the recipe calls for 16 ounces of the "frozen ube, thatwed".

Frozen ube is usually grated, raw, and packed in liquid. It comes as a solid block of ice.
Frozen ube is easily found in Asian grocery stores. Especially those that carry Philippine products. In my experience it is much easier to find frozen ube than raw. I expect that is why your recipe calls for it.

I haven't personally used fresh ube but from what I've read, grating it will give you all of the color and more flavor than frozen. Grating it would be messy but would also produce quite a bit of liquid that your recipe would require. I fear that shipping fresh ube you would receive a dryer than average specimen in which case you would have to adjust the liquid of your recipe.

Another alternative is ube flavoring. It ships easily and a tiny bit will stain your muffins ridiculously purple.


Is there anything wrong with keeping oil, salt, and vinegar together? Possible Duplicate:
  Need to refrigerate vinaigrette?

I am curious if there is anything wrong with keeping oil, salt, and vinegar together.

A month ago, I made a small mixture of those and brought it to my work, to use it for salad. Do some of them cause some unwanted chemical interactions? I use rapeseed oil, sea salt, and ordinary vinegar. I didn't refrigerate them.

No, as you can keep them separately for a long time, The point is, no chemical reaction accur because they don't have right particles for a chemical reaction, it's just a mixture and no new substances is made. I think they are still healthy like that.

Also, accroding to a very nice article about keeping oil and vinager ( http://oilandvinegar.cruets.com/keeping-oil-and-vinegar ), despite they can be stored for a long period of time , depends on the place and container you keep them in:

  Olive oil and vinegar have four deadly enemies. They are:
  1. Age
  2. Heat
  3. Light
  4. Air

  One of the above or a combination of any of these four can damage
  olive oil and vinegar beyond measure.

So in a dark and cool place and not a plastic container,they can be stored for 15 months.


Do I need to remove clove stems before grinding? I have whole cloves and need to crush/grind them. Should I break the berry parts off the much-harder stem and just grind that, or is the whole thing meant to be used?

(I'm using a mortar and pestle, not a spice grinder, so non-mechanized manipulation may make a difference!)

One clove is "the berry part", as you describe it, and the "stem". Use the whole thing.


Rule of thumb for cooking or baking different quantities? I often want to cook double quantities from that stated in a recipe - say, twice the quantity of pasta bake or casserole (all in one dish), or two cakes instead of one (in separate tins).

Is there a rule of thumb for extending the cooking time from that stated in the recipe, and should I adjust the oven temperature up or down as well?

The answers that exist are incomplete, somewhat misleading, or too specific.

The amount of time that you will need to bake items depends mostly on the following factors:

Major factors

The shape of the item, especially its thinnest dimension (usually height for a cake or casserole)
The temperature of the oven

Minor factors

The air circulation pattern within the oven
Other items in the oven (due to changes in air circulation, and creating infrared shadows)

Except for cookies which are much more sensitive to local temperature variation within the oven since they are so thin and cook so quickly, the minor factors are very minor indeed.

What happens when you increase food volume?

If you double the volume of an item, you might be changing its dimensions.

If you double a cake recipe, and use two cake pans instead of the one, the dimensions of each pan are going to be the same.  The total bake time will be very close to the same as baking one cake.

Now, take a typical brownie recipe designed for an eight inch (20 cm) square brownie pan.  If you double it, but bake in a 9 x 13 pan, or quadruple it and bake in an 11 x 17 half sheet, the total area of the pans increase approximately proportionately to the total volume of batter.  So the thickness of the batter will remain close to the same.  Again, the bake time will not change significantly.

However, if you double the amount of a lasagna recipe, but only use as lightly larger casserole, the 2nd lasagna will be much thicker.  It will require more time to bake through.  If it will over crisp on top during that time, you might even need to decrease the temperature to compensate, and lengthen the baking time.  Or perhaps cover it with foil for part of the cooking, so that it doesn't crisp up and brown early in the baking. There is no set rule.

As you can see, the trick in increasing quantities of a recipe like a cake or casserole is to keep the thickness of the product close to the same, so that you can bake at the same temperature, for close to the same amount of time.

Caveats, exceptions, and stuff

When you add more items or volume of food to the oven, several things happen.  The most important of these is that you have more mass of food to heat.  Every oven has a total amount of heat it can produce per minute or hour.  If there is enough food in the oven that it cannot keep the temperature up because the foods are absorbing the heat faster than it can be produced, you will have a problem.  However, this is almost never a factor in practice, because ovens can produce a lot of heat over time.  They normally operate in on/off cycles to prevent raising the temperature higher than desired.

Secondly, if there is more than one pan or tray in the oven, they cast shadows on one another, preventing the radiant heat (infrared) from the oven walls, floor, ceiling, and so on from equally reaching all portions of the food equally.   The air circulation patterns in the oven also change, creating hotter and cooler spots.  This is why when baking two sheets of cookies in the oven at the same time, you want to swap the top and bottom trays, and rotate them from front to back.

Every food item you bake is going to have some natural variation.   Because of these variations, you cannot bake to an exact time in any case.  You must have a test or indicator to know when the food is done, such as it hitting 200 F internally for a bread (different breads need different internal temperatures), or a casserole being browned and crusty on top, or a cake pulling away from the sides of the pan.

The timing will help you know when to check, and to plan your cooking logistics, but you will still need to test for doneness.

If you have followed the guideline of maintaining the thickness of the food as you adjust the quantity, the doneness test will still tell you when you are finished, and the total time required will be very close to the original single recipe time.  The additional baking time will be within the noise, and not something to worry about.

When it matters

Savory casseroles like lasagna, baked ziti, potatoes Anna, gratins, US-style "stuffing", macaroni and cheese, and so on are very tolerant of a wide range of temperatures and times, within reason  (lower temperature, longer time, higher temperature, shorter time.)
You generally just need to heat them through, and crisp or brown the top.  You can inhibit over browning by covering the casserole for part of the baking period.

For this reason, when scaling these recipes, even if the thickness changes a bit, you can change the temperature (down slightly, perhaps 25 F) or time, and watch until it is done.  However, it is difficult to give a set rule.  Experience will guide you.

For cakes and other baked goods, the interaction of time and temperature with the chemistry of the recipe (such as gelatizing starches, setting protein networks, triggering chemical leavening, setting crust before collapse) and so on is much more important.  It is far trickier to adjust time or temperature successfully.  In these cases, you want to maintain thickness by using more than one pan, or increasing the area of the item in proportion to its volume.


How accurate are kitchen scales? I read about weighing coffee to the 0.5 gram, but what's the margin of error for a typical 5kg/11lb kitchen scale?

Every scale should indicate its accuracy in its manual.

A good guess if you have no manual is that the accuracy is approximately half of the size of the smallest unit it reports (for example, my digital scale reports down to grams, so its accuracy is probably within about 1/2 gram).  If the scale is analog, you can get an idea by the smallest interval on the dial or indicator.

Still, only the manual will tell you for sure.

Scales that go up to 5 kg are unlikely to be good for measuring 0.5 gram quantities like coffee.  You will want a scale specialized for that level of quantity.

The exception is laboratory quality scales, which have higher accuracies and greater accurate ranges, but they are not pretty and are expensive.


Where to find a large individual brownie pan? I'm looking for a large baking pan for cooking individual square brownies, preferably at least 8cm x 8cm (3.14 inches) but I can't find anything anywhere!! Can anyone suggest where I can get something like this from? Or am I missing something?

I don't want to go for a large tray and then cut them because I want all the brownies to be identical.

Thanks!

Amazon has some individual brownie pans that are, I believe, what you may be looking for.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=individual%20brownie%20pan


How much dry cake mix, water, oil and eggs to use for two 4in round cakes? I have a 15.25oz Betty Crocker box mix. On the back it says to use it all with 1 cup of water, 1/2oil and 3 eggs and that makes two 8 in rounds or 24 cupcakes.

I don't know how much I need, please help.

I'll assume you want your 4" round cakes to be the same height as the two 8" rounds the box would make.

The area of two 8" rounds is 2*pi*4^2 = 32pi. The area of two 4" rounds is 8pi, or 1/4 as much area. So you only need 1/4 of the box, and 1/4 of the ingredients you'd add to it.

So, if you have a scale, you could measure 3.8oz of the cake mix, and otherwise you'll need to measure the whole thing by volume and take a quarter of it. Then you'll need 1/4 cup of water, 1/8 cup of oil, and... 3/4 of an egg, which you can probably round up to an egg. If you really want to be careful, you can also just beat an egg in a small bowl or measuring cup, and then spoon out 1/4 of it to leave 3/4 to use.


Why is my custard eggy? I have followed the instructions in this video from Delia Smith precisely, twice:

https://www.deliaonline.com/cookery-school/second-term-perfect-eggs/lesson-6-separate-ways-eggs-part-2

What I get from the final product is a custard which is very egg-like is taste. Not overpoweringly so, but enough that it puts people off eating it.

Is this because there are 6 egg yolks or is there an obvious mistake that a newbie like me is likely to make?

Is it simply that 6 egg yolks is too much? Would the custard be a lot thinner and runnier if I reduce it to, say, 3?

The recipe in full:

6 egg yolks
600ml heavy cream
125g caster sugar
1 level table spoon of cornflour
2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

Heat the cream on the lowest setting.

Sieve the cornflour and sugar together.

Mix the egg yolks into the cornflour and sugar until smooth.

Mix the vanilla essence into the egg yolk mixture.

When a single bubble appears on the surface of the cream, indicating the cream is just about simmering, pour the pan of cream slowly into the yolk mixture, whisking constantly.

Once the cream is all mixed in, return to the pan and place back on the same low heat and continue whisking until the desired thickness is achieved.

Put in a dish and serve or cover with cling film and place in the fridge.

With the full recipe, it does not seem to me that the egg ratio is particularly high.  Most recipes I have seen and use tend to be around 2 eggs per cup (US), and yours is 6 for about 2 1/2, so slightly higher than what I have seen as about average, but well within range.

To me, egg custards always have some amount of egg taste, which is pleasant or offensive according to taste.  When skimming the video given (had no audio available, so I am just going by visuals) I felt they were adding cream mixture too quickly to temper the eggs without cooking, but that is opinion only.  If the hot is add to quickly though, it will scramble the eggs and give a much stronger egg taste.  One technique is to sieve the custard after tempering to remove any solidified egg, and some are happy with this result.  To me, it removes the solids, but not the flavor.

I will give a personal critique of the video, I frankly have never heard of breaking a custard and expecting it to come back together in a reasonable tasting form, but the video maker obviously disagreed.  I can only say that I assume they are happy with a stronger egg taste than many of would be.

If you wanted to experiment, I would think dropping 1, maybe 2 eggs might still give you adequate setting power, but going all the way to 3 would seem too big a cut.  Try experimenting, reducing 1 yolk at a time and see if you like the results.  Also try slowing you introduction of the hot cream mix to the egg and see if this helps.


How long to boil crab for? I bought some Frozen Crab.  How long should I boil it for before eating it?

(I have some snow crab and King crab legs)

Not very long. Steaming is a better choice over boiling, but that can be kinda tough in a home environment. Here is the method I have used successfully with lobster for years, with a slightly shorter cooking time.

Defrost your crab legs first, of course. Gently, in the fridge overnight.

Arrange your defrosted crab legs in a heatproof container. Bring enough water to a hard rolling boil to completely cover all of your seafood. (Ensure that the water is salted, of course; as a rule of thumb it should be approximately as salty as the ocean.) After you are at a hard rolling boil, pour the water over the crab legs, cover tightly with foil (or a lid) immediately, and leave alone for seven minutes, eight if the legs are particularly thick. Remove from the water and eat.

You may optionally add other ingredients into the container with the crab: dill, fennel fronds, roughly sliced lemons (or any citrus; I love lime with crab), peppercorns, bay leaves, tarragon... the possibilities are functionally endless.


Where do you want 90% lean beef? The burger recipes I've found online called for rather fatty ground beef, like 80% or 73%. (Spruce eats: 15 - 20% fat), Smoked BBQ source: 15 - 20% fat, Taste of Home: 20 - 40% fat (sic!), Spoon university: 20 - 30% fat, The Kitchn: 20% fat, Serious Eats: at least 20% fat, Steve Raichlen: 20% fat.) I didn't pay attention and bought some 90% lean beef.  I guess the burgers will still work out, but it got me thinking.
If everybody says you need fatty ground beef for flavor, in what kind of recipes do you actually want these 90+% ground beefs, and why?

This is partly down to taste. When you make burgers much of the fat runs out by the time it's done, so you need to start with a high enough fat content that the burger isn't dry when it's done. I've made burgers with 10% fat when that's all I can find rather than 20% (my personal ideal), and they are very tasty as long as you don't overcook them. I find the extreme of 30% which I've seen recommended in places to be too greasy, but again that's my taste - I find too much fat covers the flavor of the meat.
Where you have to be very conscious of fat, whether minced or not, is in dishes where the fat has nowhere to go, like stews, braises and casseroles. Very fatty meat in these can end up with a greasy end result, which is not to most tastes. I use around 10% mince and lean cuts for those types of dishes.


Do these fish have bones, and are they dangerous? I'm looking to start eating fish but I have never prepared any and never ate any except for smoked fish. I went to the store and saw that at least where I live, we don't have many fillets.

The best fish that I found were these, and I have no idea if they have any bones that are dangerous (the small ones), and if so, what's the best way to prepare them in a way that I wouldn't have to spend an hour eating it? I hate that!

The fish are: smelts, flounders, sprats, mackerel, rainbow trout, catfish (some weird species that I had to google up, they aren't even called catfish in my language!).

Any advice is appreciated, as I will be eating fish daily!

All fish have bones, some have more complicated bone structures than others. Generally the ones which you will find in the store are ones which are easier to deal with as that's what people want.

Preparation of them varies widely depending on whether they are smooth skinned, scaly, whether the skin is edible, and bone structure. Some fish like mackerel and trout can be cooked whole (just gutted and cleaned), without any scaling or filleting. Mackerel can be de-boned using your fingers.

Cooking and eating fish is not complicated or dangerous. It will be a better experience if you learn the skills to do the preparation work, youtube is your friend here as there's loads of videos on how to prepare and cook fish available.


How to make coffee that closely resembles early 16-17th century coffees? Making my coffee this morning, I found myself wondering what early coffee tasted like. I'm guessing quite different to modern coffee, both in how the beans were, and in how it was prepared or customarily expected to be drunk.

Foods and drinks change over time. I know that it's possible to find places and drinks that are said to more closely resemble historical "chocolatl" drinks. But I can't find the equivalent for early coffeehouse coffee of the 16-17th centuries, or how it was customarily prepared or expected to taste, in those days.

Also, perhaps early middle-eastern coffee from 16the century Turkey and Yemen were different again from the versions that gained popularity in Europe.

I also suspect that I'd have to use a specific type of bean, or prepare the beans a specific way, because the beans themselves have surely evolved and had some traits bred in or out, over time and with massive commercialisation.

Hence my question - if I wanted to experience these early coffees, what should I expect and how can I achieve it?

To be clear, I am excluding coffee that was so early it was basically chewed or bare berries - I'm thinking of early popularised coffees in both Islamic/Middle East areas, and in European areas, if that helps (they could have been quite different).

As an aside on this, if any "novelty" or "niche" source these days is actually claiming to make/sell something like this, it would be interesting to know for informational purposes or to perhaps try from them as well. I'm in the UK if relevant, for buying/availability purposes.

I can't answer for the 17th century, but Townsend's has a nice (but long) video on how they prepared coffee in 18th century America.  That'll bring you closer to the year you're looking for.

Also, note that, in Europe at least, imitation coffee was quite common. Both deliberate imitation, and fraudlent sales of not-really-coffee.


Is food with hair in it (or food which had hair in it) safe to eat? Occasionally I'll find a hair in my food. If I find one in say a restaurant, I won't eat my food, but I can't just throw out an entire platter of food if at home where my own grandma worked hard to cook it for me. In that case, I'll generally pick the hair out and continue eating (at least in that case I know where the hair has been).

If a hair falls into food in preparation, is the food still safe to serve/eat once the hair is removed? What are the potential hazards of serving food with a hair still in it?

--
Hair is a protein mostly keratin

  Keratin refers to a family of fibrous structural proteins. Keratin is the key of structural material making up the outer layer of human skin. It is also the key structural component of hair and nails.

There's nothing special about it as a protein, so as long as it doesn't wrap around your tonsils and get stuck in your throat, or contain dyes, hairspray etc. it's safe to eat.
However, the long stringy nature of the stuff can cause problems if you eat too much of it.


Is Salmonella from eggs a US-only problem? A google for "Europe egg wash" will show up a lot of interesting results about differences in Egg processing and storage.

NPR says European chickens are vaccinated against Salmonella; and that US ones are not, but the egg washing has the same safety effect.
Forbes suggests that unless egg washing is done correctly, it is more likely to cause Salmonella infection than leaving unwashed. And thus implies that Eggs in Europe are safer because they don't run that risk.
The TV show good eats, as I recall, suggested the US egg washing was purely a matter of looks, and was partially responsible for Salmonella outbreaks.
io9 states: other countries don't need to refrigerate their eggs.
Salmonella is a living creature (rather than chemical caused by molecular breakdown etc), so presumably it can just simply be less concentrated in some areas.

I read a lot about egg related Salmonella in reference the the US. The wikipedia page only talks about Eggs in a US context, so it is kind of unhelpful for answering the question.

An excellent answer to this question would cite statistics talking about cases of egg related Salmonella in the US (per egg), vs similar statistics from other countries.

The short answer is "No," it's definitely not a US-only problem.  Since the question makes comparisons between the US and Europe, I will focus mainly on those two areas.

Unfortunately, it's hard to estimate illnesses from eggs only, because frequently Salmonella outbreaks from eggs are due to how they are handled in the kitchen and what other foods they may contaminate.

If we just look at Salmonella cases overall, the most recent figures I could find from the EU (2014) list:

88,715 reported (confirmed) cases, 23.4 cases per 100,000 population
9,830 hospitalizations
65 fatalities

The most recent figures I could find for the US (2013) list:

7,307 reported (confirmed) cases, 15.2 per 100,000 population
2,029 hospitalizations
30 fatalities

(Note: these figures appear only based on a sample of the US population, so I'd pay attention to the incidence rate per 100,000 when comparing with the EU numbers.)

The problem, of course, is that in both the EU and the US the number of reported cases is only a small fraction of the total.  A major study from the EU estimated that only 1 in 58 cases of salmonellosis is reported, which would suggest an annual incidence of perhaps 5 million cases.  The CDC report from the US linked above estimates approximately 1.2 million cases every year.

Given that the population of the EU is around 500 million and the US is about 325 million, the incidence of Salmonella poisoning appears to be roughly double in the EU compared to the US, but again these are only estimates.  (Also, it's notable that that last study says the incidence rate in various EU member states likely varies between about 16 per 100,000 and 11,800 per 100,000, which is obviously a huge range.  Some countries are much more safe than others.)

Now, the question is: how many of these cases can be linked to eggs?  Most studies suggest that eggs are the most common carrier of Salmonella leading to illness.  From the above EU report:

  Salmonella was rarely found in table eggs, at levels of 0.3% (single samples) or 1.0% (batch samples).  The most important source of
  food-bourne Salmonella outbreaks was, however, still eggs and egg
  products.

In the US, one study from 2000 estimated somewhere around 180,000 illnesses annually from eggs, but another report estimated that the proportion of foodborne illnesses associated with eggs decreased from 6% in the late 1990s to 2% in 2006-2008.  This was all before the new egg safety rule passed in 2010.  (That link estimates 79,000 Salmonella cases annually associated with eggs before the rule.)

Compare that to the EU, which estimates 5.4 million cases of Salmonella in 2010, about 17% of which were likely attributable to eggs, or 928,000 cases in 2010.  Given the differences in population, that suggests that Salmonella cases caused by eggs were about 7 times more prevalent in the EU compared to the US in 2010.  That's the most recent year I could find decent figures for eggs alone to make a comparison.  (Note that incidence various significantly across the EU member states. Those countries that have stricter policies, like the UK's vaccination policies, have much lower numbers.)

Estimates of the fraction of eggs in the US contaminated with Salmonella have often suggested a number around 1 in 20,000 (or 0.005%), based on a study from 2000.  But that was before the new egg safety rule was introduced, and the numbers are likely somewhat lower now (given more frequent monitoring of infected flocks and their removal from production).

With all of that said, I sense in the question and the links provided a skepticism about US egg policy in general.  Just to clarify a few points related to those sources:

Chickens are much more likely to be vaccinated in the EU compared to the US, but the percentage of infected chickens still varies significantly from country to country in the EU.
Improper egg washing is a problem, but guidelines for appropriate temperatures, etc. have become much more strict in the US over the years.
Egg washing is most definitely NOT just done for appearance.  The US successfully lowered its Salmonella rates significantly earlier than many European countries through egg washing and refrigeration.  Similar gains in safety have only recently been attained in Europe mostly through vaccination instead.  The vast majority of Salmonella cases from unwashed eggs come from shell contamination.  Without washing eggs, the only way to ensure safety is to make sure the exterior isn't contaminated in the first place (which means ensuring chickens aren't infected in the first place, e.g., through vaccination).
The last report I linked from the European Food Safety Authority states in its abstract: "An effective way to minimize any increase in risk during extended storage is to keep the eggs refrigerated both at retail and the household."  The practice of not refrigerating eggs in the EU is likely a major contributor to the higher incidence of Salmonella cases mentioned above.  In the US, refrigeration is required partly because of the washing process as well, which does increase shell porosity somewhat.


How should I organize my fruits for storage? As I learnt from this post, there are some fruits that should not be kept together with the others (e.g. watermelon and apple). Which fruits should be kept separately in order to prevent rotting?

Anything that outgasses ethylene should be kept away from other items (both fruits and vegetables), in a well-ventelated area, if possible.

Apples and bananas are the two most common culprits, but the list is much longer.  Subzero has a list of etylene producers and ethylene sensitive items, which I'm reproducing below in case of link rot:

Ethylene producing foods

apples
apricots
avocados
ripening bananas
cantaloupe
cherimoyas
figs
honeydew
kiwifruit
mamey sapote
mangoes
mangosteen
nectarines
papayas
passion fruit
peaches
pears
persimmons
plantains
plums
prunes
quince
tomatoes

Ethylene sensitive foods

unripe bananas
green beans
Belgian endive
broccoli
Brussels sprouts
cabbage
carrots
cauliflower
chard
cucumbers
eggplant
leafy greens
lettuce
okra
parsley
peas
peppers
spinach
squash
sweet potatoes
watercress
watermelon


How to keep homemade soup and cooking stocks/broths consumable without refrigerator? Since there is a way for fruits, vegetables, meats, grains, seasonings and other stuff, I assumed there was a way for these flavouring liquids as well. Right now I'm wanting to preserve japanese dashi and korean kimchi but I think would be super nice to know of a method to preserve all types broths/stocks as well.

When laboratories need to grow bacteria in a dish, they use a medium which is basically broth with gelatin--the bacteria love it. Not even normal canning will sterilize broth enough to be safe. Broth must be pressure canned, and for a long time (75 minutes at pressure for pints, 90 minutes for quarts). Many soups can be canned this way as well, but be careful not to add dairy or thickeners of any kind--the liquid must be able to distribute the heat of the pressure canner evenly throughout the jar to ensure sterilization.

I preserve vegetable, chicken, and beef stock this way with good results. Dashi has a more delicate flavor that might not hold up to it, so probably the traditional method of dehydration is best.


What can I substitute for vegetable oil in a recipe? Is there something that I can use as a substitute for vegetable oil in a recipe? I'm actually making cornbread (I think it matters), and normally the recipe calls for 1/3 cup vegetable oil. Unfortunately I just realized that I'm out. Can I use butter or shortening instead? If so, roughly how much would I try?

On first blush, you will probably want a fat or oil with similar qualities as the "vegetable" oil you're replacing, such as olive oil. Butter has a much lower a smoke point, however, cornbread recipes exist that use butter or lard. I'd be willing to experiment, particularly if you're used to cooking with butter. (Just be careful with heat.) As far as quantity, I'd use a bit less than 1/3 of a cup, but that's me being defensive as I don't know the recipe you're using.


Shatter resistant tea carafe/pitcher/pot First let me explain how I make tea.

In the morning I take a pot of boiling water and pour it into a carafe.
I let the the water sit for a minute. I then pour the tea into an old pot from a coffee maker, put the tea bags in the original carafe and pour the water over the tea, let steep.
Pour into another large pot to dilute with water. Over the day I either nuke the tea or I pour it over ice when I want some.

For more then ten years  I had a nice pitcher ( from Ikea ) for this.till one morning it shattered. Now a second pitcher shattered after about two months.

So I need another pot.  I would prefer for obvious reasons that it did not shatter. I do not want to use a stainless steel pot because I notice stainless steel leaves  a taste when I boil water in it. The initial amount of tea I make is approximately one quart, and I have not found a measuring cup that large.

Can anyone make a  suggestion?

Heat-resistant glass is called for, which will be much better suited to withstand the thermal shock of boiling water than regular glass.

I'd use a Pyrex measuring cup -- which are available in one quart (4 cup) sizes, my mother owns one. (I generally just stick with two 2 cups if I need that much liquid, but that won't work for your tea steeping process.) This may require hunting through a few stores (large places dedicated to kitchen goods generally have them) or buying online. I even found a 2 quart measuring cup on Amazon, which I've never seen in a store.

You could also get a second old coffee pot, which is similarly designed to cope with hot liquid, or do the steeping in your existing old coffee pot before diluting.


How to Make Nutella Icing without Powdered Sugar I received so many good tips on how to make a sugarless no-bake cheesecake:
How to Replace Icing Sugar in a No-Bake Cheesecake

As a final touch I want to put Nutella frosting on top of the cake. A layer of Nutella will be amazing, and it really complement the basic recipe. But nutella is very thick, and rigid. Spreading it on top of cheesecake will be tough, and I thought why not change it into an icing ! I found a number of recipe to do this, but they all involve powdered sugar. For example (I got this from http://juliatylerfoodblog.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/nutella-frosting/):

Ingredients:

3/4 c butter, softened

1/4 Nutella

1 tsp vanilla

1 Tbs milk

3 c powdered sugar

Blend all ingredients in a bowl until smooth. Adjust consistency by adjusting with a little more milk if too stiff, or a little more powdered sugar if too runny.

Can I still make a frosting out of this recipe without a powder sugar?

A simple alternative would be to make a ganache flavored with Frangelico or another hazelnut liqueur. This has the advantage of having much less sugar, and probably better overall flavor, than an even-more-sweetened Nutella, assuming you start with a reasonably dark chocolate. All you do is boil cream, and pour it over a similar quantity by weight of chopped chocolate, into which you've added a healthy splash of hazelnut liqueur (or the liqueur can go into the cream as you bring it to a boil; either way works in my experience). Then stir vigorously until all the chocolate is smoothed out. You can pour it over while the mixture is still moderately warm and refrigerate it with the cheesecake. It will not be Nutella, but from experience it will be good, and evoke the same basic flavors.

Alternatively, most cheesecakes I am familiar with aren't topped with an icing, but a mixture of say cream or sour cream and other ingredients, sometimes added in the last few minutes of baking. These usually spread out reasonably well. You could consider softening the nutella in the microwave and mixing with a bit of cream, which will be a sort of less heavy ganache.


Is it okay to freeze a cheesecake for a shorter period of time as opposed to chilling it longer? I'm sure this has happened before... you're bringing the cheesecake to the party, only to realize the recipe you're using tells you chill it for 12 hours! Is there any way around this? Will it come out horribly if we try to use the freezer? Our recipe says chill for 12 hours but we saw another that said 5.5 hours, so I'd be interested as to whether there's a rule of thumb to shorten any given chill time.

Could we freeze it for say 3 hours? (Then let it thaw in the fridge for some amount of time before serving)
Could we try a few freeze/chill/freeze cycles?
Or should we just suck it up, chill it the 12 hours and then tomorrow just eat it ourselves? ;)

Don't freeze it. I tried that. The ice crystals that form at the lower temperature make the cheesecake texture awful and can cause cracks.

However, people will eat warm cheesecake so just chill it in fridge for whatever amount of time you do have.


How can I get cuts of beef I recognize when in Italy Almost five years ago, my husband and I retired to the Abruzzo region of Italy from the U.S. I've made a lot of cooking adjustments, but beef cuts have me beaten. I want steaks and roasts. Research has helped very little. Dialect gets in the way in villages and I'm a long way from the closest large city, Roma. Photos are met with quizzical looks. The closest we have gotten is "girello", from the shoulder. I want top round, sirloin tip roasts, and NY strip, T-bone, and rib-eye steaks. The only time I sort of got what I wanted was when I recognized a piece of meat that resembled a filet, but it was huge and there was no "mignon" about it. It was good, but pretty expensive. I have seen few cuts with marbling, but a lot of stringy tendons. They don't seem to cut meat in the same direction I'm used to seeing. We have a good butcher who is willing but doesn't seem to be able to help. I welcome any suggestions as to how I can shop without being so frustrated. Thank you for any assistance.

As someone who has moved from the US to another country I can relate and have some general advice. Rather than spending time trying to find the US equivalent of something try to take advantage of what's good and plentiful locally. If there's something you desperately miss there's always an online store to help, the trick is not to miss those things as much.

I wrote a meat app years ago and did a lot of research as I wanted to make an equivalents table for meat cuts across the world. I gave up because it was impossible: cuts are very different from country to country, there may be no exact equivalent for what you are looking for. Instead I would suggest you try a different approach by describing what you want out of the meat and how you plan to cook it and relying on the butcher to give it to you. Rather than saying 'New York Strip' tell the butcher you want a tender cut for charcoal gilling, for example.


What's the difference between confit and fondant potato? So they both seem to always require relatively long cooking in some kind of liquid containing fat. The only difference I seem to be able to find is the shaping of the potato and colouring of it by frying of the fondant potato.

Is this correct? Is this the only difference?

I'd also like it if someone can provide a generic definition of both!

Yeah, the main difference is that fondant has a different shape and the crisp top and bottom verses the evenly cooked and consistant texture to confit. Also typically confit is slightly more seasoned.


What variety of green beans make the best pickled green beans? I grow bush and pole bean of various varieties, mostly to make pickled green beans. I want to find a variety to grow that is string - free, long and straight, bright green, with good flavor. I like my pickled beans to be crispy.

The tradition has been to use the Blue Lake variety for canning and pickling, even though Kentucky Wonder is judged as having a fuller flavor.  One has to be careful with Blue Lake, as it is being bread for easy mechanical harvesting, with less attention being paid to flavor, according to the UCSC Agrecology Center.

When I grow stuff, I buy my seeds from Burpee.  The customer favorites list for snap peas (what they are now calling string beans, as the string is gone in many varieties) lists a stringless cross between Blue Lake and Kentucky.  That would be my choice for a pickle.  I would try to grow them slowly by not overwatering, as that increases the calcium content of the plant and how well the beans keep their texture submerged in a jar.


What's the point of hot food? Many people prefer certain dishes and drinks to be hot (or cold).  I can understand the impact it has on mouthfeel for some foods (cold pizza has a very different texture than hot pizza, for example), but for liquids like soup and coffee that doesn't seem to be a factor.  But both of these are often seen as disgusting when they're at room temperature.

Why do we prefer food at a certain temperature?  Is it just conditioning?  Does it impact taste?  Is there some physiological reason?

(Obviously, some foods, like ice cream, can only exist at certain temperatures.  This isn't what I'm asking about)

I'm assuming you're asking why food is often served hot, not why food is often cooked.  Cooking can obviously have a major transformation on food.  While people often debate whether cold pizza is better than hot pizza, I haven't heard anyone arguing uncooked pizza is the best.

The main reason why foods are often served hot is because higher temperatures  increase our perception of taste.  However since this increase not uniform across different compounds it can also alter the balance of tastes increasing some more than others, possibly creating a better or worse overall flavour. Temperature can affect how the texture of foods is perceived and even the amount of pain felt when eating spicy hot foods.

Probably the easiest way to test this yourself is would be to compare either soup or coffee served hot as normal and cooled down in a refrigerator. You should notice when served cold the soup has less flavour, and the coffee is noticeably less bitter.

Another thing to try would be beer.  It's hard not to notice the difference between an ice cold beer and a room temperature one.  While most people prefer their beer as cold as possible, the recommended temperature for craft and specialty beers is often somewhere in the cool range. That's so you actually taste the beer you spent more money on.


How should I add wine to the sauce for my duck? I have some chicken stock that I've made, that I want to use as a base for a sauce for some duck.  I am roasting the duck bones at the moment and will simmer them in the chicken stock for a while.

If I want to add red wine to this should I reduce the red wine first then add the duck/chicken broth and reduce further, add red wine to the broth and reduce at the same time or reduce the broth and add red wine then reduce that.  Or not reduce at all?  What would be the consequences of each?

Your question makes me think of demi-glace. From your question, I would say that you're trying to get a nice shiny thick sauce for your duck, one that tastes of red wine.

If that's your goal, I would recommend you

Reduce your stock down until it's about the total volume of liquid that you're going to want. The stock reduction should be roughly the consistency you want your final sauce to be.
Add an equal volume of wine
Reduce down to desired consistency (so about by half).

This will give you a lovely sauce, with lots of that sticky goodness that reduced stocks deliver so nicely.

You might do this with all of your stock, then freeze cubes of unused sauce for later; they make a great addition to other bases.

Left-over alcohol is not going to be an issue here, by the way, you'll have long since boiled/simmered it off.


Oven temperature for multiple ducks? Do I need to adjust the oven temperature in a roast duck recipe if I want to put more than one duck in the oven at a time.

I suspect I should keep the same temperature but keep them in longer.
Should I cover each duck in foil individually or together?
Does it matter if they are on the same pan?

Let's do some physics again:

All culinary aspects aside, a roast is a (more or less) solid "blob" with a certain mass and volume.

To get the roast to the desired doneness, you want to reach a certain temperature at the center of the meat. The crucial properties are the thermal conductivity and thermal diffusivity of your meat or, very simply put, how fast your meat transports the oven heat towards the center of your roast, which again is calculated on oven heat and starting temperature of your meat.

This depends on geometry, or, the maximum thickness of your meat. Hence the rule to stick your meat thermometer in the thickest part of your meat.

Two ducks next to each other are two separate masses, which heat up independently, not one roast of greater thickness:
Two ducks in your oven need basically the same time as one duck of the same size.
(A good oven should be capable of heating enough that the second duck won't lower the temperature significantly.)

Now to the practical points:

For the reasons discussed above, it is easiest if you choose two ducks of about the same size and weight. If not, one will need less time than the other and you might have to take one bird out of the oven sooner. If both shall be done at the same time, the smaller one needs to go in a short while after the bigger one - how much time difference is very hard to say, even with those handy "roasting time by weight" charts in cookbooks or on the Internet: Use a thermometer, not a timer, to determine doneness. (And don't forget that the core temperature will rise a few degrees even after you have taken the bird out.)

You ask about positioning in a conventional oven:
By all means roast your birds side by side, not one above the other. Stacked, they will be very close to the top or bottom heating element, which will at least dry them out but more likely burn the top or bottom, while shielding the other bird from the heat on one side. Even if you switch positions occasionally (do you really want to juggle hot pans?), you get the same effect of a "burned-but-undercooked" bird. And no, foil will not prevent this.

And just because we repeat it again and again:
Do not determine the doneness of your roast by a watch,  use a meat thermometer.


Bold Setting on Coffee Maker I have a 12-cup programmable coffee maker (of the now - defunct Sears variety) and used the "bold" setting to brew a stronger coffee for a specific recipe. But, it now seems stuck on bold. How do I get it back to regular? I read the manual and have tried unplugging it, which reset everything but that. I then tried selecting bold for my next pot to see if that would turn it off. I have now brewed 5 pots of strong coffee when I only needed one pot for my recipe.

All other things being equal (water, bean, grind, filter...) the "mechanical" effect of a bold setting is to constrict the flow rate so that the water is perculating with the coffee for a longer period, thus rendering a 'stronger' (or more bold) flavor. (see https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/20202/6279)

If you feel like your coffee maker is 'stuck on bold' I would give the machine a thorough cleaning as the flow control is probably 'stuck'. I don't know that I would say clean after every use (if you use it daily...) but you are probably long overdue for a deep cleaning .


Egg bread recipe calls for 2 eggs and 2 yolks, can I use 4 whole eggs? The recipe for egg bread calls for 2 eggs and 2 yolks. What would result from just using 4 whole eggs?

Let's put it this way - you can, but there will be consequences, so you probably shouldn't.
Bread dough that behaves like you expect it to depends on a given amount of liquid for a given amount of flour. Using whole eggs instead of just the yolks called for increases the liquid, so you'll have a runnier dough while its raw, making it harder to knead, so then you're tempted to add more flour and everything gets out of whack.
.................
In bread making, an egg is a liquid. One egg yolk is about 20 grams of liquid. One egg white is about 40 grams.
So four eggs are 460=240 grams or milliliters (a bit more than a cup of liquid), while two eggs and two yolks are 260=120 grams plus 2*20=40 grams for 160 grams of liquid (a bit less than 3/4 of a cup).
So what to do with the leftover egg white? There were good suggestions here already, but I like to either freeze it for later use, or stir it with something flavorful (anchovy, parmesan, garlic, and then fry it up and eat it now or chopped in a salad later :)


Why doesn't my conventional-oven Naan bread taste authentic? I recently tried this recipe for Naan bread in an oven, and followed it diligently, but the product that came out did not have that characteristic flavor of Naan. It was more like a pizza bread without topping. Also, it was a bit puffier than the Naan they serve in restaurants, which is of a flat nature.

Is the flavor that you get in an authentic Indian restaurant solely because of the clay oven? What can I do to improve this recipe?

EDIT: Thanks for the answers. I tried the stove top method and although it charred, it did not give that flavor. It was more like overcooked roti :). Which makes me wonder how come roti and nan taste so different (they have similar recipes)
EDIt#2: Some of you have suggested doing this on a bar be que grill. Can nan be done on an open campfire? That would be something!

The flavor you want is from the high heat of the clay oven (around 900F, much like a wood-fired pizza oven). Probably nothing you can do to truly replicate it at home, but here are some things to try:

Use a pizza stone in the oven, and turn the oven to MAX, as hot as it will go (above 500F). Let it preheat for 45 min at least to get the stone to full heat. Put the dough right on the stone (either by hand - risky but traditional, or with a pizza peel or upside down sheet pan covered in corn meal). The naan will cook much quicker, maybe 3-5 minutes at most. If you can get the oven hot enough, you'll get a little of the "char" that is part of the flavor.
After mixing the ingredients, let the dough rest overnight in the fridge. The next day, pull it out, let it warm to room temp and resume the proofing process. That will let more sugars be created from enzymes converting starch to sugar, and will slightly improve browning (part of the flavor you are looking for).

Of course, if you want to get fun, you could look into one of the many tutorials on building a wood-fired oven in your yard. Lots of great baking to be had there, including a more traditional naan bread. For more tips, read up on all the things people do to their home ovens to bake better pizza - they will all apply to clay oven baking as well. Things like hearth inserts, faking out the "cleaning cycle" and other tips are common.

Based on comments and some more thinking, my first recommendation would be a grill - charcoal if you have it, gas if you don't. The procedure would be similar to making grilled pizza (well described in Peter Reinhart's "American Pie"). Using a charcoal grill with hardwood charcoal, a dough that is stiff enough to not immediately slide through the grate on your grill (may mean slightly less water in your dough), and making sure to brush the surface of the dough with oil or ghee before flopping down on the grill, you could probably get even closer to the clay oven. It still isn't the same thing, but you might get more of the smoky charred flavors you seek.


If I only want to use part of a can of beans, what are my options with the rest? I typically cook eggs in the morning, and would like to add some legumes to add a little more heft. I'm looking for the easiest way to do this, so I thought of canned beans. However, I don't think I want the full can. What can I do with the rest so that I can use them the next day or two?

As rfusca says, they'll be fine for a few days in the fridge; HOWEVER, if you want to transform them into something more delicious and less perishable to go with eggs,  you can cook them into black bean fritters.

First, cook the beans with garlic, minced onion, and chile powder to soften them.  Mash or puree, and reduce until thick, then add salt. Done right, this can be pan-fried into something delicious to go with eggs.  Probably one of my favorite breakfast items from a summer in Guatemala.

Depending on how much water you remove from the fritter base, it should be fine in the fridge for 3 days to a week. It can also be shaped into patties, stacked between layers of wax paper or baking parchment, and frozen indefinitely.


What causes scrambled egg patties to turn greyish green on the inside? I ordered an egg and cheese bagel from a restaurant. The egg patty was unusually thick, uniformly bright yellow on the outside, and grey on the inside (although the computer photo shows a greenish tint).

What could have caused this? Does it tell us anything about the cooking practices of the restaurant? For example, could the patties have been premade in batches from liquid egg yolk, put in the refrigerator, and then microwaved on demand which caused too much heat on the inside, like overcooked hard-boiled eggs? Is something like this safe to eat?

Yes, too high temp will/can turn egg yolk blue-is/greenish/grayish.
But doing it in microwave will probably not. Mostly beacuse it's harder to heat anything inside than outside in a microwave.
From experience I can tell that in places made to feed a lot of people in short amount of time any breakfast items are premade and then just keep warm. So the patty would be cooked in temperature allowing inside to be done an then kept in an oven or over the lamp. Making inside of the patty to still boil (as energy exchange is slowed) allowing sulfur o bond with water in patty. The longer the heat is provided the longer this process take place.
A) the patties are safe too eat but they might be rich in sulfur
B) you might bought the food some time (few hours) after it was made and it wasn't made fresh
Overall nothing bad but personally that is something I would expect from a food stall rather than restaurant.


Holes inside a sweet potato We bought some sweet potatoes from the store and a few days later we chopped them up to make some roasted veggies.

To our surprise, the insides of the potatoes were full of holes or cavities.  There was also a small amount of milky white substance that would gather in tiny droplets around the edge of the cut.

I had no idea what was going on so we threw them out.  What's the deal?  Were these bad?  Was throwing them out the right thing to do?

The outside looked pretty normal, so I'm not sure how to identify this in the future.

Okay, after looking around a bit, I think the proper description of the sweet potato in your picture is 'pithy'. And I saw some pics where this condition had progressed much further than it had in yours. It seems that what causes this is temperatures too high during the storage time. I found references to this in several places.

From  the University of Arkansas :

  Sweet potatoes: proper curing improves quality, shelf life
  By Will Hehemann
  The Cooperative Extension Service
  U of A System Division of Agriculture

  PINE BLUFF, Ark. – Sweet potatoes are not very sweet when initially harvested, Shaun Francis, extension horticulture specialist for the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, said. Farmers should cure their sweet potato crop for a period of time to ensure the correct taste and a longer shelf life.

  “Sweet potatoes remain metabolically active after they are harvested,” Francis said. “As the tubers continue the respiration process, their starches are converted to sugars, hence the sweet taste.”

  Another purpose of the curing process is to heal any abrasions or bruises the sweet potatoes sustain during harvesting, he said. As the potato cures, a corky layer of cells develops just below the surface of the abrasions, which serves as a barrier against disease-carrying organisms.

  The curing process can begin immediately after sweet potatoes are harvested. First, remove them from the field as soon as possible to prevent sunscald damage.

  “If you are harvesting during moist conditions, allow the soil around the roots to dry for an hour or two,” Francis said. “Though you can remove excess soil around the roots, remember not to wash freshly harvested potatoes.”

  Store the potatoes in a warm, humid room for four to seven days. Ideal conditions for curing are a temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit and a relative humidity of 90 percent.

  “As these conditions may be difficult to establish inside a household, consider using a shed on the farm or a garage,” Francis said. “Some farmers can achieve the correct conditions for curing in a room with a space heater, thermostat and humidifier.”

  If the temperature decreases during the curing process, increase the number of days the sweet potatoes spend curing. If it is 80 degrees Fahrenheit outside, let the potatoes cure for up to 10 days, he said.

  Good ventilation is also important in the curing process, as it can prevent a buildup of the carbon dioxide that is released by the tubers. The circulation of air also enables excess condensation to escape, which prevents rotting.

  After sweet potatoes have cured for the correct amount of time, they should be stored at an approximate temperature of 60 degrees Fahrenheit and a relative humidity range of 85-90 percent, Francis said.

  “Keep the storing conditions constant, as fluctuations will cause the deterioration of root quality,” he said. “Low temperatures cause the potatoes to develop too tough a center, while high temperatures will cause the roots to sprout, shrivel and become pithy.”

  Francis said sweet potatoes stored in cool, constant conditions have a shelf life of up to several months.

  For more information on cultivating and preserving sweet potatoes or other tubers, contact your local county extension agent or visit www.uaex.edu.

(Emphasis mine.)

So, while they probably wouldn't have hurt you, they were obviously inferior quality and most likely wouldn't have tasted very good. Good call on tossing them!


Inexpensive vacuum sealer not pulling out air I bought a Seal-a-Meal for sous-vide cooking. It felt like a bargain at the time, it was very inexpensive because it was a close-out model. It seals great, I'm not having any problem with leaking, but it only pulls out the air maybe one out of five times. Other times it doesn't seem to suck any air at all. So the bag wants to float and there is too much air insulating the food from the water bath.

I don't want to spend any more money at this point, I want to make this machine work for me. Is there a trick I'm missing?

One of the things I've found critical with getting a vacuum using a fairly similar style unit is to make sure the air has a way to escape from the bag reliably. The best bags I've found are ones that are smooth on one side and have a cross-hatch ribbing on the other side, I've had limited success with bags that are smooth on both sides that presumably are OK with commercial machines.

Apart from that it seems important to cut the bags fairly straight if not using pre-formed ones and to make sure the end of the bag is in the center of the channel right the way along. I've also found it's worth trying to keep the end of the bag slightly open so don't try and push it down just let it sit there and rely on pressure from the lid to hold it down while operating it. You also seem to get best results with a nice even pressure on the lid, I use my palms rather than fingers to press down and keep them towards but not right on the end of the lid.


Baking batter-covered chicken instead of frying? Yesterday I made Sweet Chicken according to this recipe: ding!

It was very good. However, I really don't like making and eating deep fried food, so I figured I should try oven-baking the chicken. But I'm afraid the batter will "drip" down from the chicken, or that it won't turn out as crisp.

Do you have any tips/approaches I can take while trying this?

Thanks!

I may be off base here, but Wondra Flour is the first thing that comes to mind.  Its’ an instant flour aka pre-cooked.  You could really cut back on the liquid in order to make a drier batter and use an egg and a little milk/water and other desired seasoning.

Use two bowls, one for dried Wondra Flour, the second for the batter.  First toss the chicken in dried Wondra Flour, then into batter, pull out then back into dried flour. You will have to experiment a little to get the right combo, just keep in mind you can always rinse off the chicken and try again.  Using an Oil Spray Bottle spray the back then put on racked baking sheet spraying the top.  Halfway through the cooking process, you will need to turn over the chicken pieces as moisture will accumulate on the bottom.  This also works best in a convection oven.  If you are heavy on the oil spray, you are defeating the purpose of oven baking, so keep it light.  Also, you may want to cut the chicken in larger pieces to give the batter a chance to brown.

If your supermarket doesn't carry it, just go to customer service and requested they start to carry it.  You may have to talk to a Manager, but they usually will order it in. There is always online.


What are the basic tricks to prevent the bottom layer of cake from burn when making it without an oven? I have tried making a cake without an oven, but the bottom layer of the cake burned. How can I prevent my cake from burning at the bottom?

I am guessing from your question that you are making a stovetop cake.

Burning the bottom of the cake is probably related to too much heat transfer directly to the cake pan.  Most recipes that I have seen incorporate some method to separate the pan from the direct heat.

If you are making the cake with the assistance of a large pot or dutch oven, then it is important to make a rack to keep the cake pan off the bottom of the outer pot. The most common way of doing this is by creating a crunched up ring of aluminum foil, and placing the cake pan on top of that foil ring. You could also use an upside colander.  I've also seen techniques that use cleaned gravel or pebbles to keep the cake pan off the direct heat. (For example, check out this website: https://www.nigerianfoodtv.com/how-to-bake-cake-without-oven-and-on/)

If you are cooking directly on the stovetop (without using a dutch oven), then you probably need to decrease your heat and go for slower cooking. Lining your cake pan with foil or parchment may also help.

Good luck!


How to tell the difference between sugar crystals and mold in dried fruit? I am making dried pears and I noticed that there are some white lumps on the surface of the fruit:

This resource says that this phenomenon may occur in figs and that it is sugar crystallizing. However, pears are much less sugary than figs and therefore I am not sure whether this is the same phenomenon.

There is no bad smell and they still taste good. Is there some method that I can use to test whether this is indeed sugar?

The pears were pre-dried in hot-vent oven, then placed into a dedicated fruit dryer for a couple of hours, then placed on a clean sheet of paper on the radiator.

If you are talking about the cut surface of the pears, especially near the core cut-out, those little white dots may be not sugar, but a normal occurrence in pears, little gritty cells in the fruit. They are what crunch between your teeth when you eat a pear, aren't harmful, and are not mold. Mold would be in irregular patches likely with a greenish/bluish/grayish tint, and the larger patches would probably look a little furry, or at least have a matte finish, not shiny. This very uniform array of tiny dots (at least what I see) don't look like mold.


What makes food dyes heat-safe? What makes some formulas of food coloring, like AmeriColor, heat-safe and other formulas, like Wilton's icing color, not? For that matter, ground beets, beet juice or extract, and maraschino cherry juice are sometimes used in baked goods to provide red color. I do notice that the beet color does change (raw beets are cooler-colored than beet-colored cookies) and that maraschino cherry liquid is often artificially colored itself; however, they do seem more colorfast than reduced red juices, which begin to oxidize before the dough even bakes. Would it be possible to make a non-heat-safe dye heat-safe at home?

Nothing makes them heat-safe, that's how they are.

There are many different molecules which can have a given color. Each of them has its own structure and chemical properties. A food chemist creating a food coloring has to choose his molecules for a ton of different properties, like safety, stability over time, stability in the pH range commonly found in food, heat stability, solubility in water, alcohol and fat, supply, difficulty of processing, cost effectiveness, legal status, non-reactivity with other dyes (to create a mixed color) etc. etc. It is much easier to work if one of those constraints - heat stability - is removed from the equation.

Wilton's icing colors tend to be used by professionals who want a very wide palette to choose from, have additional requirements on quality, and are specialized enough to use these colors only in icing. This is different from, say, Dr. Oetker customers, who buy a few basic colors and have fun with their kids with them. So Wilton has no need for heat stability for this product, and does not constrain their food chemists to make products which comply to it.

You cannot make colors heat stable at home, no more than you can keep butter from being liquid at 100 Celsius. It is a basic physical property of the matter you are working with. And yes, most pigments including betalains (in red beets) and anthocyanins are very heat unstable. Carotenoids tend to hold up the best, but I can't think of an example for using lightly processed carotenoid-colored plants (e.g. juiced) to color sweet baked goods. You could try something like making your own annatto if you have a source for the raw fruit and the taste fits your food and you don't mind using a time-consuming process, but it is not clear how this is superior to buying ready made annatto as a condiment, or even just buying the coloring and skipping the "has its own taste" part.

In the end, making dyes at home is difficult, the results are usually unpredictable and rarely have all qualities people are looking for in dyes. If you want to color your food, commercial dyes work better. If you don't trust those, you are very limited in the results you can achieve.


Repeatedly softening ice cream in the microwave My wife is in the habit of making ice cream easier to serve up by defrosting it in the microwave for 20 seconds or so to soften it.  After serving, the ice cream goes back in the freezer until the next time.

I estimate that a 2 litre tub of ice cream may well be microwaved and then re-frozen 6-8 times.

Is it safe to do this? Is it safer, or less safe, than just letting the ice cream defrost at room temperature for half an hour?

It's perfectly safe to do this, it's not great for the ice cream's consistency to keep warming it and cooling it as you'll start to get big ice crystals. I'd suggest you get a metal ice cream scoop and put it in hot water instead.

If you have to thaw it to use it I'd leave it on the counter for 10 minutes instead of nuking it so you get an even thaw, using the microwave tends to melt one spot and leave another solid.


Cheesecake Reincarnation I significantly over-baked my cheesecake today (I forgot to check the temp extra early to compensate for the fact that there was a baking stone in the oven).  Now I'm trying to decide if it is possible or worth pursuing  trying to reincarnate the cheesecake into something else.  My first idea is to mix it with whipped cream to make a filling to pipe into lace cookie trumpets/cones.  I'd appreciate any insights into turning a cheesecake into a cheesecake filling or any other ideas of how to repurpose an over-baked cheesecake.

Add it in pieces to an ice cream after it is done freezing in the ice cream maker but before putting it in the freezer to harden.


Hitting specific color of orange in a sponge cake What could I use in a cake to make it stackoverflow-orange?

Would a copious amount of carrot ever turn a sponge cake that orange?

You cannot just use random ingredients and have the cake "become" their color. Even if you used 100% carrot, the color would change during baking. So you really have to use a colorant.

The best way to do it is to purchase a good quality ready-mixed colorant like the Wilton paste colors, and use the exact shade you want, in sufficient amounts. You will have to test it only on a few cakes (or maybe several cupcakes within the same batch) to find out what amount you need for the exact orange you want.

If you want to match it from cheaper and more ubiquitous dyes which are available in few hues, you will have to work with color triangles to match. I won't go deep into that, but you will need about 66 samples per test round, and probably 2-3 rounds. Each sample can be a mini cupcake so you don't waste much material, but you will need exact measuring instruments and lots of patience.

Many people have an instinctive negative reaction to that and want so stay "natural" in their colorant choosing. In principle, you can also try to use strong natural coloring instead of azo dyes, for example colorant based on anato or a mixture of turmeric and beetroot. The problem is that in sufficient amounts, they will give an undesired taste to your cake. Also, you will have more difficulty matching the color, since the colors you start with are not as pure or as saturated. So expect more than just 2-3 rounds of color triangle work.

If you don't even accept plant matter which has industrially been turned to dye, and want to produce the pigment in your own kitchen, this will be very difficult to achieve at all, and much more fickle. Basically, the final color will most likely not be at all the shade you wanted it, it won't be colored through and through but will have specks of a solid throughout the dough, and it will have a strong taste of something not-cake-like.

This all assumes you want to color the sponge of the cake itself. You can always achieve a celebratory cake by decoration. Mixing in Wilton colors into icing is much easier, because you can see what the final color is going to be right away, so you can always add color or icing until you match the shade (unlike the sponge where you add once and then wait for it to be baked to see the result). Or you can forget the coloring and just sprinkle candied orange peel or something similar to get a nice decoration which has the color you want.


Can I use this air fryer basket with a non-stick coating as a grill basket? Scenario
For (reasons), I have an extra inner basket for this model of air fryer. I have completely removed the handle assembly; what I'm left with is a single piece of non-stick coated metal. I've been grilling a lot recently and experimenting with ways to cook different types of veggies on the grill I came across the concept of a 'grill basket'. I was wondering if I could use this air fryer basket on the grill. I use a Weber kettle charcoal grill and I'd have the basket on top of the grate, not directly in the coals.
The air fryer itself maxes out at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, but I couldn't find any information about the temperature rating of the actual basket or even specifics on the coating used.
N.B.

I couldn't find any good information about this online except for fairly common assertions that 'one shouldn't use non stick cookware at very high heats' without much in the way of specifics.
Looking through this stack I found Why would a portable barbecue warn against using pots on the grill? which actually didn't include any info on my topic and also Cooking temperatures with non-stick cookwear which (surprisingly) didn't either.

Question(s)

What potentially deleterious effects might result from using this air fryer basket with a non stick coating on a charcoal grill?
Specifically what might be the possible negative outcomes from simply throwing some veg in there and trying it at least once?

Nonstick vessels don't mix well with grills. First, it is likely to get overheated - I assume the basket is PTFE, which starts deteriorating at a little bit over 200 C (compatible with your fryer temp rating). Second, with grilling, you frequently have a situation where a tiny amount of oil (e.g. from a marinade) gets smeared on the rack (or basket, in this case) - that small amount then polymerizes in the heat and, on a nonstick surface, becomes a sad, useless version of cast iron seasoning.
If you really want to try grill baskets, search for a stainless steel solution, or try repurposing something else like a collander or steamer insert.
Also, note that we cannot answer your question on "definitely dangerous, probably safe, or something else". Any potential health effects (or lack of those) of overheated teflon are off topic on the site.


Can I use a cheeseboard as a cutting board? Nowadays I see that most cutting boards sold are made up of several pieces of wood that are stuck together with wood glue. I'm not so sure of the safety of the wood glue that is used as most of the ones sold in my country are manufactured in China and not subject to FDA approval: Safety of glues in wooden chopping boards

I noticed that most cheeseboards sold are however made from one piece of solid wood.

Would I be able to purchase a cheeseboard and convert it to a cutting board instead?

This blog post shows people how to create cutting boards from pieces of wood that can be purchased from a hardware store and glue it together to create the final product. The cutting board is then rubbed several layers of mineral oil, walnut oil or beeswax to protect it and allowed to dry overnight.

Would it not be the same to purchase a cheeseboard that is already cut to an appropriate size and then just rub it with several layers of mineral oil, walnut oil or beeswax to protect it? Are there any disadvantages to doing taking a protected cheeseboard and using it as a cutting board?

You certainly can use a "cheese board" or other single-slab piece of suitable wood as a chopping board.

What you might want to consider is that there is a reason why even expensive, good-quality chopping boards are made from multiple pieces instead of one big slab:
Wood can warp and / or develop cracks if exposed to changes in humidity or when drying out. Using multiple pieces glued together in alternating directions counters that effect to some degree. This does not mean that your one-piece idea won't work, but that you should take good care of the board and avoid long exposure to water (don't soak it) or dry heat. Keep it well-oiled, clean and towel dry it immediately after use and leave it in a well-ventilated area between uses.