Can fondant be frozen before covering the cake? I am making a shoe box cake for a birthday and am freaking out a bit about the sharp edges on the cake. So, I was thinking about cutting out fondant to exact sizes for the sides of the shoebox and freeing them before sticking them on the cake to get a perfect finish. But I am scared a bit of freezing the fondant because my friend refrigerated her fondant covered cake once and it started sweating. Has anyone ever tried freezing fondant and has any tips?

There's really no point to freezing them, because once you take them out of the freezer, they start to accumulate moisture, which will cause the fondant to melt, or at least get all goopy, as you said. The only way to avoid this when you freeze them is to wrap them airtight, but you have to leave them totally wrapped until they thaw, so why bother? I would just air dry them for a few days and apply them to the sides of the cake. Better yet, why don't you do this with gumpaste instead of fondant? That will dry a lot faster and better and won't lose its stiffness when you apply it to the cake, so you'll get a more box-like effect.

I just used this method for a wood crate and found this tutorial : http://sugarsweetcakesandtreats.blogspot.com/2010/04/wine-bottle-in-crate-cake.html

I would to ensure it dries firm and is strong enough to stand on end. I can't remember the exact amount - I just added a little bit at a time until I noticed the color start to lighten, slightly. Once dry, I attached the panels to a fondant covered cake with a little buttercream. The panels stayed in place and remained firm. When it was time to serve, we just removed the panels and then began cutting.

the precolored fondants are so saturated with color, you can also add a little gumpaste to your black fondant without it affecting the color. Not sure what brand you're using, I'd used Satin Ice for this purpose as it will dry firm. I did for the panals on my shoebox cake and my Alamo cake - both times they were ready to use within 24 hours (flipping a few times during drying time).then measured the crumb coated cake and cut out the fondant panels with those measurements adding about 1/3" on both the front and back panels (cut the two sides exactly as measured).The panels dried for 48 hours (they were still a little flexible, but stiff enough to work with). then cut out four strips of black fondant and put them on the four corners of the cake (wrapped around the edge). it helped because any small gaps between the sides of the panels were largely disguised by the black underneath instead of white BC showing through.

I didnt have to re-cut/re-size the panels once appllied to the cake. I found that with the black fondant underneath and by simply applying or scraping off BC where needed to make it fit, it all worked out. Oh ya, I applied gumpaste/tylose glue to the fondant corners so that the panels fit nice and tighltly.


Frozen Octopus or fresh Octopus for recipes? Yeah, I wonder with grilled, fried, steamed, salad recipe, which is better?

Frozen Octopus or fresh Octopus

Can you compare Frozen Octopus and fresh Octopus, which recipes for which?
Thank you so much, sorry for my bad english.

This is my favorite reference for octopus.  Near the end, Harold McGee considers the fresh v. frozen octopus debate.  His results are not exactly conclusive. McGee found fresh octopus, lightly blanched, to be "sweetly scallop-like and not too chewy.  But cooking it turned it bouncier than ever." His conclusion: "Freshness isn't the key to relevatory octopus."  So, based on my reading, if your preparation only requires a light blanching and thin slices, go with fresh.  Otherwise, you are better off considering the cooking technique as the most important variable.


Aluminized Paper Wrapper Sides At a local shop, I regularly get burritos.  They come in a wrapper that is paper on one side and aluminum foil on the other.

They consistently put the aluminum on the outside.

This seems incorrect to me.  The aluminum should go on the inside to reflect heat back into the burrito, and the paper should go on the outside so that it doesn't absorb burrito goop.

Am I correct?  If so, are these reasons correct and exhaustive?  If not, why?

It actually makes no perceptable difference as far heat retenion. The paper has a miniscule insulating effect too. Once heat hits foil interface, it is partially reflected.

The paper does absorb some of the fat and liquids from the wrapped contents and helps keep it from making the 'bread' mushy and if the paper is out, you MIGHT have a bit less messy hands or is it the other way around?

Similarly, Reynolds will be the first to tell you that shiney side in or out on foil makes absolutely no difference

End result = it doesn't matter!


My posset curdled, is it salvageable? Today I tried my 1st posset.  Everything was going good until I added the lemon juice.  It immediately curdled?  Is there anything I can do to save it?

Assuming that you are making a modern yolkless posset like this one: https://www.cooksillustrated.com/articles/173-introducing-lemon-posset

This kind of recipe is very dependent on the ingredients ratio and the acidity. You have to pick a recipe which has sufficient fat (and you cannot substitute anything - use real dairy cream, not any kind of nut milk) and sufficient sugar to withstand the curdling. Also, you cannot have too much acidity - so pick a ripe lemon, and be sure to measure properly. If you have either not enough buffers (fat and sugar) or happen to have an extraordinarily sour lemon, you will get curdling.

The recipe I linked also suggests partly evaporating the cream, which will be further help against curdling, but it should work without it too.

It is impossible to change anything about the curdled dessert. You can either choose to enjoy it as it is (try thinking of it as a dessert on a tvorog basis) or toss it. You can also try dressing it up (add fruit or marmalade) or incorporating it somewhere (e.g. add rum raisins and use as strudel filling) but you will not get rid of the texture, so if you hate it, be aware you might waste more ingredients and still not like the result enough to eat it.


How to make home made corn flakes? I looked at the history of Corn Flakes on Wikipedia but it doesn't really tell me how I could go from raw ingredients to the final product. Should I use corn flour ? What should I do to make the final product in shape of flakes ? Should I cook it in a oven or in a pan ?

Reference 1 in your Wikipedia link, the patent, describes the process as it was in 1895.
Flakes of "corn, and other grains" appear to have been a bit of an afterthought.
The basic process is: hot soak, cook, roll, steam cook, roast dry. Looks pretty tedious to do in a home kitchen, but possible with some effort.


How much thermostat "range" in oven temperature is too much? I recently renovated my kitchen and have a new Bosch wall oven. I've noticed many baking recipes that used to be reliable are no longer so. I have a ThermoWorks ChefAlarm and calibrated my oven according to the procedure on their website. The accuracy of the oven is pretty good - usually only 5-8 degrees lower than the display says. But the temperature swings are surprising: they're +/- 30 degrees. So if I set my oven for 350, the temperature ranges back and forth from 320 to 380 over time.

I've never checked the range on previous ovens so I can't say if this is normal. It seems to me to likely be a problem, especially when a cookie might only be in the oven for 10-12 minutes. Does anyone know? And a follow on: I'm tempted to reach out to Bosch customer service to see if there is a field modification to change this behavior. Anyone know if that's realistic?

This is fully normal. Ovens are not stable, temperature-wise, and I have frequently seen such large amplitudes in temperature. Of course, it is much nicer if your oven can hold a constant temperature, that's why some people will accept the expense of an Aga. But in principle, baking recipes can handle that. Note that from a historical point of view, people used ovens with solid fuel, which had much larger temperature amplitudes and no temperature display, and their baking goods were still tasty. Ovens are not temperature-accurate, and recipes are robust for that.

As for the recipes which are no longer reliable, the most likely explanation is that your old oven was also inaccurate, but in a different pattern. Another possibility would be a different mix of radiant, convective and conductive heat, which means that the same recipe in the same pan can require a different time. In general, a recipe which specifies time is reliable for a specific combination of pan, oven and amount. If you bake until ready instead of waiting for a time given in the recipe, the problem disappears.


Gritty texture in cookies I made this recipe last weekend and while it came out very tasty, there was the occasional gritty texture/crunch similar to sand at the beach getting in your mouth. This was more of an issue since the recipe produces a more cake-like cookie, so the grit stands out more.

The batter was pretty thick and difficult to stir, but it seemed fairly well mixed.
I have a feeling this is somehow related to the baking powder/soda, but not entirely sure.

[EDIT]

SAJ14SAJ mentioned the creaming method being a possible source to the issue. I wasn't entirely sure with that step, how exactly would you "cream together" sugar and butter? It said only to soften and not melt, and it definitely didn't appear "creamy" when I was done with it.

It is unlikely that the chemical leavening was a contributor to perceived grittiness.  If you had extra leavening, especially in clumps large enough to perceive, you would also have a very metallic off taste, that surely would have been worth mentioning.

These cookies are made by the creaming method, and have very little water.   The most likely suspect to cause graininess is the sugar.

If there were clumps in the granulated sugar for any reason, they might not dissolve completely during the mixing or baking, leaving a gritty texture.

The way to prevent this, if you consider the effort worth it, is to sift the sugar through a very fine strainer prior to using it in your dough.


How to make Banana juice I have looked up how to make Banana juice because I wondered if it was possible. It turns out that it is.

I read that it is best to use a blender for this.

Wouldn't I just end up with a banana puree if I use a blender to try to juice it?

If you microwave bananas for a few minutes in a bowl covered with plastic wrap and then dump everything into fine mesh strainer to sit for about 15 minutes, you will get a bunch of juice out.  Freezing the bananas before microwaving them works even better.

This technique was used in a (really good) banana bread recipe from Cooks Illustrated several years ago.  Once the juice is extracted, it is reduced, allowing more real bananas in the bread without making it too wet.


What ingredient changes will make this cookie dough more workable? When I make a particular cookie, the rolling and shaping steps are very frustrating because the dough gets very soft and tends to fall apart when I'm working with it.  Chilling the dough makes it more workable, but I only have a short time to shape the dough before needing to chill it for another half hour.

Here is the recipe:

½ cup (110 gr) butter, softened
1 cup (208 gr) shortening
1 cup (225 gr) sugar
1 egg
12.5 oz (1,562 gr) flour
1 tsp (5 gr) baking powder
¼ tsp (1.4 gr) salt
3 dozen Andes Chocolate mints

Stir together flour, baking soda, salt. Cream butter and sugar.  Add egg, then flour mixture to creamed mixture. Divide in half, cover and refrigerate overnight.  Roll out dough into two 1/8" thick rectangles; refrigerate when not working. Evenly space mints on one portion of dough, and place other portion of dough on top; cut between mints and press edges down to make individual cookies.  Bake at 400° F (200° C) until brown at edges, about 12 - 14 minutes.

I can get the dough rolled out OK; the problem is in the cookie shaping (mint-adding and cutting) phase.  Since the dough is flattened out, it warms up very quickly, and I'm constantly fighting the softness and stickiness of the dough.

How can I increase the workability (either the stiffness or the amount of time I have to shape it) of this cookie dough?  I would prefer to change ingredients - rather than my process for cooling and working the dough - for the sake of simplicity.

Sounds an like you may just need more flour. That recipe has more fat per flour than common cookie recipes - for example, the canonical chocolate chip cookie recipe has 10 oz of flour for 1 cup of fat, while yours is only about 8 oz flour per cup of fat. So I'd definitely expect the dough to be on the soft side to begin with, and since the fat softens at it warms up, as you've seen, it just gets worse.

If your kitchen is on the warm side, it's possible that you'll also need to chill in the freezer instead of the fridge, but I'd certainly start with more flour (or less fat).


Is bread that can go mouldy better than that which does not? I've recently moved from Holland to the UK, and one thing I've been noticing is that the available bread here (which I feel is highly inferior to Dutch bread) does not go mouldy. When  left in the open, it merely goes hard.

Then I've recently found some nice Polish bread with sour-dough, hidden away in the foreign section, and that one does go bad, like I'm used to from Dutch bread.

So I've been thinking: I've observed that most foods that are nutritious or fresh go mouldy after a while (vegetables etc) and foods that aren't very good for you (like sugar, chocolate, but also frozen foods) often are very preservable. To me (someone who is not very knowledgeable when it comes to chemistry or baking) it makes sense, because I figure the mould feeds off the nutrients.

My question is; Am I right? And if so, does that mean the English breads, that don't go mouldy, aren't as nutritious?

Bread which is left out can have any number of things happen to it, all of which are usually progressing at once, although one will win out as the primary thing you experience:

It goes stale, that is, the starches in the bread lose their hydration and re-crystallize giving the bread a harder texture
It dries out, losing moisture to the atmosphere (or if it is very humid, it can get soggy, gaining moisture from the air)
It molds, if it is moist enough for molds to thrive
Its gets eaten by humans, insects, dogs or other large scale breadophilic creatures

The only question is which happens first or most dominantly.

This can depend on the moisture level in the bread, natural anti-bacterial or anti-fungal agents in the bread (like honey) or artificial preservatives, the particular environment the bread is in (and how many mold spores there are)--any place that has had moldy bread is going to have more mold spores for future moldy bread than average.

I would not try to relate any of this to nutrition, or to a veiled evaluation of the relative quality of benefit of the bread that is available in one country or another.

The notion that mold requires nutrtion is true,  but it is not the whole picture:  it also requires a hospitable environment (pH neither to high or low, not to much osmotic pressure from salt or sugar, sufficient moisture) and so on.  Chocolate is extremely nutritious in the sense that it is composed nearly 99% of things that are metabolized, but it does not host molds because it is also 100% dry.  Dried salted cod, again, highly nutritious, but not hospitable to molds.

You cannot take only the growth or non-growth of molds as an indicator of level of nutrition.

Furthermore, the notion of "nutritious" is extremely complicated.  It involves requiring sufficient calories (as from fats or sugars), as well as vitamins, minerals and other micro nutrients.  It is not a simple yes or no thing.


Egg yolks vs Whole eggs I'm about to make cinnamon rolls & one recipe calls for 2 whole eggs. The other recipe calls for 3 egg yolks. Which one will give me a moist, soft, cinnamon roll?

If you want soft and moist, you need egg yolks. Their emulsifier and fat content makes dough pliable, soft and smooth, and retains moisture.

Egg whites dry out a dough. This is sometimes desirable, e.g. in pate a choux. Eclairs made with whole eggs often have wet planes in the middle, resulting in an underbaked impression. If you remove some yolks from the dough and use a mixture of whole eggs and egg whites, you get a firmer, drier dough. But in many cases, people want softer, moister end products, and in such cases, recipes which increase the ratio of egg yolks to egg whites (by using more yolks than whole eggs, or yolks only) will give you a better result.


How do I stop my flatbread from going hard like pizza crust? Whenever I make flatbread, I can never get it soft and chewy on the inside AND outside, like storebought flatbread.

It always ends up like pizza crust, crunchy on the outside and somewhat softer inside; in addition, when left overnight, it just goes rock-hard, crunchy throughout.

Any thoughts on how to get softer flatbread?

Store-bought has had time to allow crust to soften.
The inside/surface moisture balances out especially when wrapped.

Mostly it's the other way around trying to hold onto crisp outside and still soft inside!

Don't overtake and after a short cooling down, wrap and wait.

Otherwise, adjust baking to hold more moisture by partially covering or introducing steam.


Low Carb Pizza Dough Recipe - How Will This Make Dough? I have found a low-carb pizza dough recipe where you add 6oz of Cream Cheese and 6 eggs to make the dough (also includes some garlic, spices, and cheese).  The recipe claims to be deep-dish, but I just can't see this recipe working out, or tasting good.

I would like some feedback on this, because I really don't have much time when I come home to cook, so if I make it and it doesn't turn out right, I won't have much of a backup plan.

Don't think of that as dough. This looks like basically making a quiche base to put pizza toppings on.

I don't see any reason to think this recipe won't be stable but it won't be anything like pizza crust. Still it sounds tasty.


How do I tell bucatelli pasta size and thickness I am trying to find Bucatini pasta.  I don't want the really thick one...I have seen it with #14, #16, etc.Which ine is the smaller diameter?

See:  What's the numbering system for spaghetti and does it matter?

The number assigned to pastas is particular to individual manufacturers.   You would need their data sheet, if they offer one, to know the details based on their product numbers.

On the other hand, many pastas are packaged so that you can see product, and make comparisons.   If that is not the case, pasta is not terribly expensive--you could buy a couple of different ones and see which one you like.


Is there a Guide to non alcoholic ice cream floats? Is there a guide to making kid friendly ice cream floats? In other words no alcohol content. Note that I come at it from an Australian perspective so ice cream floats from places like Mexico might not be as relevant as a focus on Australia or the UK or the US.

This could be a book or something else like a Youtube channel.

In the US, ice cream floats are simply ice cream and carbonated soda, and so are naturally kid friendly.

One of the most well known is the root beer float - vanilla ice cream and root beer. Another that seemed to trend some years ago was orange sherbet and cream soda.

The flavor combinations are endless. Use your imagination and fix what suits your taste.


How to mix pasta and sauce evenly? When I make pasta I usually try to finish it by mixing the freshly drained pasta with sauce in my saucepan, adjusting the thickness a little bit with pasta water etc. The problem is with pasta sauces that have larger chunks of something - be it meatballs, shrimps or pieces of sausage. No matter how hard I mix the pasta with the sauce they usually don't distribute evenly and make it difficult to plate uniform portions. I suppose I could take the shrimps or whatever out and top the plates with it when finishing, but that seems like too much of a hassle. Is there a better way of doing it?

Don't put the shrimp etc in the sauce in the first place and cook it separately, that way you don't have to take it out. Then just top your pasta with it and if say you are cooking meatballs and want a little sauce on them mix a little sauce in with your meatballs and then put them on top. If you want that mixed in with the pasta look then do the same thing I said above and mix the pasta in your individual serving bowls or plates if you are using one after you have dressed your pasta.

Your just not going to get an even distribution with random variables, all you can do is pick and count if you want everything evens.


Pan roasted meats: burned fond We have a carbon steel pan that we love and use a lot. We get boxes from Hello Fresh lately and we seem to have the same problem over and over: We will get a recipe that calls for pan roasting a piece of chicken or beef or whatnot and they expect you to make a pan sauce with the fond.

In our case, however, by the time the meat is cooked acceptably (and for beef that's medium rare and for white meat chicken that's 155+ in my book) the fond in the pan is invariably charcoal, and totally unusable for a pan sauce. We wind up either cleaning the pan and reducing the sauce "nude" from the remainder of the ingredients or accepting a muddy black colored pan sauce that isn't very appetizing.

What are we doing wrong?

If your fond is burning, your pan is too hot.  Preheat your pan over medium or low heat.  Add your protein. Monitor the cooking so that you get browning, even deep browning, but not burning.  It is ok to remove the pan from the flame if it seems to be smoking or getting too hot.


Does putting salt in coffee really remove bitterness? I have seen people claim that putting salt in coffee enhances the flavour or removes bitterness. Example.

Does this really work? If it does, how does it work? Is there something chemical going on, or is it just a trick of the taste-buds?

In a Good eats episode from the 13th season (The Ballad of Salty and Sweet), Alton Brown explains how salt (specifically the sodium) blocks your tongue's taste buds from sensing bitterness. Sweetness however is not blocked. It also is known to enhance other flavours. Salt on chocolate is awesome for example. Salt also has the ability to still taste salty while doing all the rest.


Do I need to adjust slow cooker recipes for high altitude? I live at a high altitude and love to use my slow cooker, but I don't think the meals are coming out as expected when I follow the recipes. Do I need to adjust the recipes for high altitudes?

It really depends on the length of time recommended. Due to the usual long length (>4 hours) of slow-cooker recipe cook times most elevation differences would be negligible. However if a recipe calls for a cook time of less than 4 hours you may see some foods not cooking as usual. Legumes might especially be sensitive to this as they take a very long time to cook completely. Below is a table from Wikipedia on elevation vs water boiling temperatures.

Altitude, m Boiling point of water, °C

(0ft)   100 (212°F)

(984.25ft)  99.1 (210.3°F)

(1968.5ft)  98.1 (208.5°F)

(3280.8ft)  96.8 (206.2°F)

(6561.68ft) 93.3 (199.9°F)

(13123.36ft)    87.3 (189.1°F)

(19685.04ft)    81.3 (178.3°F)

(26246.72ft)    75.5 (167.9°F)

You may need to experiment with longer cook times for foods that you are having trouble with.


Temperature for dutch oven curry with venison I'm making a slow cooked curry with venison in my dutch oven and I would like to know what temperature would be a good medium between what I need for a tender venison without overcooking the rest of the curry contents.

I've seen many higher temperature suggestions for the venison in recipes (375F-400F) but for curries much lower temperatures even to 225F. I plan on doing 300, would this suffice for a tender venison over 3-4 hours?

In Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's river cottage cookbook, he says -and I fully agree- that venison, along with most game, should be minimally marinated in acidic things like lemon or vinegar as it gets pickled, hence tougher. He then makes a case for game being better and softer when braised rather than marinated.

Scottish venison definitely works like above, unless you have a very prime cut or the liver which are better eaten bloody. I would either forget about the curry and eat the prime cut with minimal spices/processes or I would follow the mantra brown-deglaze-braise if I had a stewing cut. It sounds like your curry would be ideal for the latter so why not just do that? Brown the meat in small batches in your dutch oven over very high heat so as not to get the meat boiling - it will stick off the hot surface when it wants to be turned. Then use some neutral alcohol to deglaze (or experiment if you feel like it - I had a beef stew I deglazed with port and south Indian lemon rice worked incredibly well with it!).

Finish with your curry recipe in 120 Celcius for however long it takes for the venison to be melt-in-your-mouth tender (for small size chunks 3-4 hours should be OK).


White foam when boiling presoaked beans The way I cook beans (always dry, never canned) is A) I soak them the night before, B) boil just the beans for 45 min, and C) then add other ingredients and cook another 1 hr.

Most of the time, and depending on the kind of bean used, the beans in the step B while boiling release lots of white foam.  I usually skim the foam and throw it away as it takes too much space in the pot.

Should I discard the foam, or keep it, and why?

The foam happens because legumes are rich in saponines (see my longer answer here). It contains nothing more and nothing less than the water in which you boil the beans, it just happens to trap air bubbles because of its physical properties.

There are no specific culinary reasons for or against keeping the foam. If it is in the way, you can remove it, but nothing bad is going to happen if you keep it. It is not much of a waste anyway, as a large volume of foam contains a very small amount of boiling-water-solution per weight.


Is it safe to drink dark tea dating to 1970? The tea has been saved in a glass bottle with metal top, stored in dark kitchen cabinet all these years.

Safe probably yes, you will use boiling water (or as close to boiling water).

Will it be good ? maybe.

It will probably taste stale,


What can I use to substitute for Italian sausage to make it appropriate for vegetarians? I want to make a butternut lasagna which calls for sausage. Is there something I can substitute the sausage with to make it vegetarian that will still taste great??

You can substitute the sausage meat itself with any suitable veg that's normally used as the star of a dish, such as eggplants or firmer squashes, however if you want that sausage taste the principle flavoring spices of Italian sausage are caraway seed, sage and sometimes paprika. If you want to add an umami element (meaty taste) substitute all salt with soy sauce, and perhaps add a little extra soy (experiment) to get the level of taste you want without making the lasagna over watery.


Could Agave syrup be used as a substitute for Golden Syrup? I found a UK recipe calling for "Golden Syrup" and have read thru what is posted already. I'm wondering if Agave Syrup might be used. I do use it for many things because of it's low glycemic index and have had good luck with it in most cases. Like honey, it does have it's own flavor and doesn't work with everything.

It'd probably work. It won't be quite the same, as golden syrup has a distinct flavour of its own, but it may well still be quite tasty.

Agave syrup, as far as I recall from last time I used some, is a bit runnier at room temperature so depending on the recipe you may have problems with it being too liquid unless there's something else holding it together.

Flavour-wise, I believe the golden part of golden syrup comes because it has a small amount of molasses in it, so you might try adding a very small amount of that - but it may not be a strong enough flavour to make it worthwhile to go to that much trouble. As you mention, agave syrup has its own flavour so the result could still taste great.

The big thing to be wary of is comparative sweetness. Agave syrup is almost entirely fructose, while golden syrup is a mixture of fructose and glucose. Fructose tastes sweeter, so agave syrup may oversweeten if you use it 1:1 as a substitute.


I am cooking beef stew in the crockpot and accidentally put a little flour in the beginning not end I am cooking a beef stew in the crockpot and instead of adding a little flour at the end I accidentally added it at the beginning. What do I do to fix this? Will it mess the stew up? There was extra broth so will it just not thicken and still cook ok?

You should be fine, as long as you mix it in thoroughly.

Flouring the beef and browning is a very common first step, so there is maybe some in there already? Any extra flour to thicken needs some time to cook or it will make the gravy feel grainy.

Stir, stir, stir, and if you see any lumps, take them out. Be careful that this does not over-thicken the broth, as that might stick and burn during the simmering time that makes stew so stewy.


Using Glucose instead of Fructose My recipe calls for 100g of fructose, I don't have any. Can I use Glucose instead? If so would the amount be the same? If not what could I use instead of the fructose?

I'm not much of a pastry guy, and I haven't worked with pure glucose before, but it looks like this probably isn't an ideal substitution.  Regular table sugar (sucrose) is composed of glucose and fructose, and of the two, fructose is more than twice as sweet.  So a simple substitution will leave your end product much less sweet than it should be, and increasing the amount of glucose instead could mess up your recipe in other ways.

You could try a slightly higher amount (maybe 125g?) of a high-fructose sweetener such as high fructose corn syrup or agave nectar to attain a similar sweetness without altering the proportions too much.


What is the difference between a hen and a chicken? In terms of cooking, flavor, price, and anything else culinary related. I have a recipe from James Peterson for chicken stock that asks for a chicken carcass and a stewing hen. So I'm wondering what the difference is. The problem is that my local grocery store only sells Cornish hens(I don't even know what a Cornish hen is.

What you're looking for is sometimes called a Heavy Hen.

In the supermarket, it will look much like a large roasting chicken, however the bones are larger and the meat is much tougher than chickens sold as roasters, broilers, or fryers.

Heavy hens aren't as common in supermarkets as are roasters, but if they have them, it should be labeled as a stewing chicken, stewing hen or a heavy hen. Ask your butcher, or someone in your store's meat department.

Note that this is completely different from Cornish hens— they are tiny little birds by comparison, and not what you want for a stew.

If you can't find a heavy hen, you could substitute a large roasting chicken. There'll be a slight difference in the texture of meat, and the overall "chicken flavor" may be slightly less intense. Also, because a roasting chicken has smaller bones, there will be less gelatin released into the broth.

This may or may not make a difference in your recipe— but it won't be a big difference. A heavy hen might be preferable, but a roasting chicken will probably work just fine.


Is it possible to get veal that is not incredibly fatty? I have not had such good success with veal. I prefer leaner meats, and every time I get a cut of veal, it is extremely fatty. Is there a way to get leaner veal? Are there specific cuts I should ask for? If so, where are some places I should look to get better cuts?

The nature of veal, being a milk fed calf, means that the meat is going to be extremely fatty.  It is the nature of the meat and not a function of poor butchering.  If you don't like the flavor I would suggest that almost anything that calls for veal can be made with pork chops or other lean cuts of pork, although you might see a rise in the toughness of the dish as a result.


Should I close the vessel while soaking nuts? If I want to eat nuts like mung bean, ground nut, etc., then I should soak them in water for certain amount of time before eating.
Is it recommended to close the vessel used while soaking nuts? Why or why not?

It doesn't really matter much one way or the other, if you do it on the counter. Oj16 is making the case for preventing an insect getting in - at least where I live, this basically never happens. The other concerns in that answer are for me misplaced - some dust will fall in, but it is the same dust I breathe when I walk around in the kitchen, and if it is present in large enough amount to be a concern, something should be done about the kitchen, not about the beans! And putting a lid on something never made it pathogen-free, the bacteria were there before you put the lid and will start happily multiplying once you give them the moisture.
If you do it in the fridge, a lid can prevent smell contamination. Nuts are neither likely to give off much smell (to contaminate other foods) nor are they very "soaking" of other smells the way milk is. So, you can cover them as a kind of best practice, but if you don't, it's unlikely that you will notice much difference.


How do I get crispy but thin bread crust? On a handful of occasions I've had bread in a restaurant where the crust is thin but very crispy, almost as if it had a couple layers. It looks crackly and gives easily to pressure. It's not a thick hard-to-chew crust. The inside is wonderful and soft. I'd call it "Italian bread" but I don't think that necessarily describes it.

My crust tends to turn out nicely colored, but 1/8"-thick and sort of soft/damp (like leaving bread out on a humid day) but also not terribly easy to chew.

Does anyone have any tips on how to get a crispy thin crust like this at home?

Bonus: What do you call this kind of crust? (It seems like "crusty" usually means hard thick crust, which is not what I want).

Assuming that this is what you want:

This kind of crust is made with steam injection. Normal household baking methods will give you a thick crust, which is usually also hard. Wetting and covering it right out of the oven will give you a chewy crust. If you bake the bread in a fitting pan and tweak the recipe, you can get thin, almost non-existant crust, but also soft, like sandwich bread.

For what you see in the picture, you need standard French bread dough (60% hydration, AP flour) and a blast of steam in the oven at the beginning of baking. Sadly, homemade steam methods which rely on evaporation won't work, because there is a limit to the amount of water which will evaporate even of high temperatures, and you need to get more steam inside than that. So, you'll either need a pro oven or a steam modding (which only works on an oven with vents, unless you are prepared to drill a hole into the oven cavity).

For extra tweaking the crust, you can use a glaze. We had a question explaining the different glazes and their results.


What's the best approach to baking bread with whole grains? I have a plethora of whole grains (barley, rye, wheat berries, kamut, spelt) sitting around my kitchen, and I'm getting bored with soups and salads.  Is it possible to use these in bread (yeast, preferably, but quick/tea breads are also okay)?

If so, what are the best approaches/ratios?  Should I cook them first?  Let them sprout?  Pointers to recipes would be greatly appreciated.

I use whole grains in my bread- wheat, oats, quinoa, etc.

There are a couple considerations:
1- rehydration
If the grain won't be adequately rehydrated from just sitting in water for an hour then it should be precooked. Wheat berries, for example, definitely need to be cooked. They just won't get enough water or time in the dough while it is rising.

A little experimenting may need to be done to get the water ratio right.

2- sharpness
Adding hard ingredients will change the dynamic of your dough kneading. For example, if you knead in a mixer then you might have to go at a slower speed to keep from shredding the gluten.

Sprouting grains is fantastic. Sprouted grains are very nutritious and have a completely different flavor that I find very interesting. Sprouts also have a lot of sugar in them. I sometimes replace some of the sugar in my recipes with sprouted, dried, and ground wheat berries.


Is that bechamel that Gordon Ramsay is adding to the lasagna? In this video, you can see Gordan Ramsay piping a white substance into his lasagna.

Recently saw a post about substitute for ricotta or cottage in a lasagna. Several members agreed that bechamel is traditionally used.

So is that what Ramsay is doing here?

Gordon says "white sauce", which is a simpler term for bechamel-based sauces and is quite common when making lasagna.

Yet the stuff that gets stirred in the bowl looks somewhat "fluffier" than classic bechamel and when it's piped has a "raggedness" that plain bechamel doesn't have, but smoother that pure ricotta.

My conclusion: it's hard to say for certain, but to me it looks like a mixture of both.


What is the difference between a wild yeast starter and a sourdough starter? Many people only seem to distinguish between 'regular' bread (made with store bought commercial strains of yeast) and sourdough (made with 'wild' yeast). If this is the only distinction - was all bread before 1850 sourdough? Is there no naturally occuring non-sourdough type of yeast?

There are many ways to achieve a “pure” strain of yeast or other microorganisms. Modern technology with sterile environments are today’s method of choice, but another is to create an environment that is especially favorable for one kind and allow this to outcompete all others. The principle is not limited to yeast, another important field is cheese making when the raw cheese is aged in an environment with a specific mold - Roquefort being the classic example. In this case, humans use the already existing colonies in a specific environment or ecological niche.

Even sourdough today works in a similar way, but for sourdough the baker creates a stable mix of yeast(s) and lactobacillae - and by adjusting hydration and temperatures can even regulate acidity and yeast activity.

The earliest bread yeast was a by-product of brewing (hence the name Saccharomyces cerevisiae). And brewers, especially those that brewed on a large scale like monasteries and commercial brewers, carefully guarded and cultivated their yeast strains that had developed over time. The yeast was and is a huge factor for the flavor of the beer. This lead to the first “just yeast” leaveners. You could still obtain some barm from a hobby brewer and give it a try. Ensure that they are brewing with a top-cropping yeast like S. cervisiae, not a bottom-cropping yeast like S. pastorianus.

The main difference between “wild yeast” and sourdough is ratios: you can use for example raisins soaked in water to get a yeast-rich liquid as opposed to a classic sourdough. Elderflower is also rich in wild yeasts. In short, all plants that ferment easily are suitable sources for wild yeast. I doubt that setting up near a tree will have much of an effect.


How to make Meatloaf bond? I just made meatloaf by mixing 90% ground beef with shredded cheddar cheese, milk, an egg, and oats. I cooked it on 350 degrees for 50 minutes. It tastes fine but the mixture is kind of mushy and losses its shape. How do I make the meatloaf bond together better?

1lb ground beef
2/3 cup cup milk
1 egg
1 cup cheese
1/2 cup oats

There are several factors, but the texture of meatloaf primarily depends on the ratio of binder, filler and meat.

In this case, your binder is the egg. Specifically, the protein in the egg white helps hold the meat proteins together.

The filler is the mixture of milk and oats. I've heard that toasted panko is more effective at absorbing milk, and also that cooking it can help. I haven't tried these options though, so I can't recommend them.

One thing I've done is replacing a portion of the beef with ground veal, which contains more collagen. This breaks down into gelatin in the oven, and gives the meat a silky texture without loosening it - allowing me to use less filler.

You can simulate this effect by using a small amount of powdered gelatin in your filler directly.


DIY herb preservation My (garden) pot is overflowing with oregano. How can I preserve it to use later?

Is it possible to preserve rosemary not in fat - butter or oil? If I have to use oil, what kind has the least inherent flavor but will take on the rosemary flavor strongly?

I've successfully dried both rosemary and oregano in a dehydrater, and I see no reason why you couldn't do the same in a warm dry place. Drying is a prerequisite for making herb oils anyway.

The flavour of rosemary in particular changes on drying, so it's not as good for some recipes as fresh


When smoking ribs what is the 3-2-1 or the 3-2-2 method refer to? I've read a couple places regarding smoking ribs and utilizing the 3-2-1 or the 3-2-2 method. What is this all about? What do each number signify?

TLDR;

This method is used many professionals for smoking ribs.

Each number signifies the number of hours per phase.

Smoke as normal for 3 hours, followed by 2 hours cooking wrapped in foil, and finally 1 more hour unwrapped and finish with bbq sauce and/or on direct flame for appearance.

Unabridged version

Three

The first phase is the smoking phase. The meat should smoke for 3 hours to develop the right amount of smoke.

Two

This phase involves wrapping it in a foil. This phase is when one braises the ribs so that the texture of the ribs is tender. Usually a liquid is involved here. Typically, some use apple juice or vinegar. The braising liquid is typically an acid.

One or Two

The final phase is appearance. During this phase one cooks the ribs so they have this perfect char on it. This can last from half an hour to two hours depending on the size of the portion or one's preferred doneness. The purpose of it to simply get some char on it. Some finish this phase with bbq sauce on a grill.

Variances

Baby back ribs on the other hand sometimes utilize a 2-2-1 method; because of the size of the portion. It's not an exact science.

Sources:

About.com
Youtube - Traeger 3-2-1 ribs
Youtube - 3-2-1 explained


Aleppo Pepper + Heat I'm testing out a meatball recipe with aleppo pepper flakes, and although it's good, I want a little more heat. Do you think adding a touch of cayenne would do the trick? Would it pair well with the aleppo or could it possibly overtake the aleppo's unique flavor?

Try it & see ;)

Aleppo isn't particularly hot; I haven't checked it on the Scoville scale, but just from experience, though it's got a little kick to it, & that kick can be quite variable depending on your source of the pepper, to me, aleppo is used for its flavour rather than its kick.

Cayenne, on the other hand, I always consider to be "free heat". Its largest contribution is to add the 'burn', it doesn't really have much flavour, it's mainly heat.
I always think that by the time you can actually taste cayenne, you have other concerns ;)

On an anecdotal note - I always put a little cayenne in meatballs & most tomato sauces that would go with them. It's just a family 'thing' - we like it that way.


What's the difference between a deep fryer and a chip pan? As described in the Wikipedia article, a chip pan is a pan that contains oil for frying. The oil is heated to a high temperature, and then usually a metal basket is lowered into the pan for frying of things, such as chips.

The article contains this sentence:

  Chip pans are commonly used in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, although are slowly being outmoded by deep fryers.
  Chip pan

When I look up the article for deep fryer on Wikipedia, it described what seems to me to be the same thing:

  Deep fryers generally have a basket to lower the food into the oil tank and raise it when the food has finished cooking.
  Deep fryer

These descriptions appear to be the same to me, are there any differences between the two that I don't understand?

The part that handles the food is comparable, as you noted: A container for the hot oil plus a basket to lift the food out again.

But the difference is in the periphery:

A chip pan is just a pan (or what you may also call a pot), but the heating is done on the stove, like for all other pots.

A deep fryer has its own heating system, either via a heated thick wire in the container or by heating the exterior walls. It’s an independent unit and actually shouldn’t be placed on a stove for various reasons. It typically has an insulated exterior and often a lid to minimize splattering and keep the oil from dirtying up the kitchen. If you see a built in fryer  in a commercial kitchen setup, it’s still a separate unit.


What am I doing wrong that is making my dishes spicier when served as leftovers. Am I not simmering long enough? For some reason the last three dishes I've cooked seem to get spicer leftover the next day. When they do obtain close to room temp they've all been stored in Pyrex and placed in the same fridge but cooked in different intervals (weeks apart). All three dishes have been cooked in the same 12 quart cast iron dutch oven.

The three dishes are from scratch and do contain fragrant spices:

Chili
Jambalaya
Chicken Tikka Masala

All three are tomato based but for some reason they all seem to get spicer as leftovers. After I bring them to a boil I do simmer them from anywhere to 10-30 mins depending on the recipe. Am I possibly not simmering them enough or am I missing something in the process?

When I search for an answer the closet read I could find was: "Why do spicy foods get hotter in the fridge?"

"Capsaicin is soluble in alcohol, but very little in water. Because of the burning sensation caused by capsaicin when it comes in contact with mucous membranes, it is commonly used in food products to give them added spice or "heat" (piquancy)."

Time was your magic ingredient. More capsaicin became soluble. I find rich dishes have no surprise punch reheated:

"Food that's high in oil or fat dissolves the capsaicin, so it can't continue to bind heat receptors. ... Full fat sour cream or ice cream."


easiest way to peel/skin a tongue? So I've boiled a couple lamb tongues -- as per this recipe -- and have them cool enough to handle, however I'm having difficulty peeling the skin/film off them with just my fingers alone.

Is there some trick to doing this?

You'll need a lot longer than 20 minutes that the recipe suggests.  For cow tongue, we usually let them sit in a crock-pot for about 4hrs.  My guess for lamb tongue is about 90 minutes on low simmer.

The skin tends come loose from the muscle underneath when done. The best trick I've found is to cut the skin down the center of the tongue (lengthwise). Use a sharp knife and try not to cut too much of the muscle or some of the meat will peel with the skin.

You can then peel off the skin easily ending up in two sheets (one for each side). Wearing latex or dishwashing gloves helps buffer some of the heat, but as long as they are above room temperature the peeling should go fine and easy.


Distributing small amounts of oil around a non-stick pan I have difficulty evenly distributing oils (butter, chicken or bacon fat, and other oils) around a non-stick pan.  Of course I can use cooking spray, but I need a solution for all fats.

If I don't evenly distribute the oils, when pan frying things in small amounts of oil, I get spots on the food (breaded fish, etc.) that turn out great and other spots that obviously made no contact with the fat.

There is no really good solution for this, as non-stick pans are by nature slick, and oils bead on them.

My preferred solution is to use the right tool/technique for the job. Breaded items are normally meant to be fried in a puddle of oil at least half as high as the item (so it will have been submerged after flipping). If you insist on frying them in less oil, you should use non-coated pans. The items meant for non-stick (eggs, pancakes, etc.) do well without any fat. Dishes which indeed need a little bit of oil, but not too much, tend to be stir-fry or sautee type, and there you can start in a coated pan with the food on the bottom, then drizzle the oil on it and start stirring.

But if you don't want to change the technique or the pan, you can try distributing the fat. As long as the pan still works well, you will get disconnected beads as opposed to a thin film. The usual option is to use a silicone brush (non-silicone works too, but may burn if the pan is already hot). Pour the oil in the pan and brush it everywhere.

The second option, for liquid fats, is to fill your own oil sprayer. Normal water sprayers don't work well due to the viscosity of oil, they create a thin beam of oil as opposed to a spray. But there are special oil sprays on the market, e.g. the Misto one. I hope that they work better (I haven't tried them personally).

For solid fats, just take the block of fat as it is in the packaging and slide it along the room temperature pan bottom, just like using a sponge to clean the pan. It will leave a thin layer of fat which will melt into smallish beads when the pan is heated.

Lastly, if you have older pans where the coating starts to fail, use them for this application. You will get a more even distribution.


How can I make regular rice more sticky? I have two children under four and the little one (15 months) likes rice a lot but he has trouble eating it because the grains separate, making it difficult to pick up with his uncoordinated fingers.

To help with this, I was thinking that I could make my normal (long grain) rice stickier than it usually is and press it into small balls that would hold their shape. I'm not, to be clear, trying to make "sticky rice", necessarily... just regular rice that will clump more easily and hold up to a little handling when made into balls.

It seems like there may be a few ways to go about this:

don't rinse the rice (or rinse less) - I generally rinse 3 times or so
add a little extra water (how much extra?)
give up on long grain and switch to short or medium
use water only (I often add stock in place of some of the water)

I use a "fancy" rice maker, a Zojirushi with "fuzzy logic" and I'd like to use that because I do whole meals (I add vegetables and chicken to the rice cooker and steam everything together).

So am I on the right track? How can I make this work?

Those are all good ideas, and will work together.

For "use more water", what you really want is to use more water but not end up with wetter or softer rice. (For rice I want to be sticky I'll generally use about 1.25 volumes of water to one volume of rinsed and drained rice, but this will vary widely with cooker and amount of rice.) A good way to do that is to stop cooking after the prescribed length of time rather than when your rice cooker detects that all the water is gone, and then spread the rice out on a plate immediately after cooking, to promote evaporation. (You can also do stuff with stirring and fans - check out videos of preparing sushi rice - but it's probably not necessary.)

I've never gotten rice to be sticky if made with stock or any sort of fat.

Long grain rice won't be as sticky as short grain rice, but it won't be far off either.

Finally, if you just want to cheat, sprinkle some rice flour in with the rice. Like not rinsing, but arbitrarily moreso.


Rice Recipe for Instant Pot Lux 5 quart I have an older instant pot pressure cooker (ip-lux50 v3) and am looking for a recipe for cooking plain white rice. For reasons I don't understand, different pressure cookers cook rice differently and I haven't found a recipe that works very well for mine. Does anyone have experience with this model or a similar one that can suggest a good recipe?

It really depends of the amount of rice you are cooking and what type of grain it is (according to the recipes I find online), so try and figure it out yourself. Here are some tips I have when cooking rice.

Use the same amount of rice as the measurement of your water. Add a bit more if the rice is a bit dry.
Wash your rice at least 3 times to clean off any unnecessary starch or dirt (if you don't trust the rice all too much, hehe).
Choose the "Manual" program for your cooker to choose the time you'd think the rice would be cooked enough. Soon then, you could identify how long you need to cook the rice.

Check out this site I found for the basic tutorial of using a rice cooker.
Still didn't work? Just stick to using a metal pot and gas/electric stove to cook your rice, like I do.


How to plan the portion size for a vegetarian bourguignonne dish? I like the taste of beef bourguignonne and would like to create a vegetarian version of it. For that, I plan to use oven-dried, tempura-fried aubergine slices instead of meat (egg-containing tempura, fried to a golden crust), and mushroom stock for the sauce.

The problem is that I am not sure how filling this substitution will be, and how many calories it contains - the aubergines probably close to nothing, but the fried tempura is rich.

How should I go about calculating the portions, so they are roughly equivalent to a portion of standard beef bourguignonne?

For bourguignonne, most of the calories are going to be in the noodles anyway.  The beef amounts for bourguignonne are smallish, and the flavorings (mushroom, possibly carrot, broth, wine) are pretty much non-existent nutritionally.

I would just go by mouth-feel.  Cut the aubergine in amounts that approximate the texture and flavor of the original dish, and don't much care about the differences.


Why in this one recipe parsley is used in 2 different ways? I found a "Shrimp and Pasta" Recipe here.  It's a nice and simple, but I don't quite understand the way it uses parsley.  Why part of the parsley is fried with shrimp and the rest are just mixed with pasta?  And what does TB mean?

Parsley is both a flavoring herb and a decorative element for plating the finished dish.  By adding it during the cooking, it imparts flavor to the shrimp.  By adding it to the finished dish, it provides color and flavor.  The cooked parsley will have a slightly different taste to it than the fresh parsley.  This is how cooks layer the flavors in a dish.

TB stands for Tablespoon.


Black apple crumble! I used the apple crisp recipe from Joy of Baking and I'm quite sure I followed it to the dot (didn't add blackberries, though, only apples). But for some reason, after I took it out, let it cool a little and cut into it, I saw that the apple had turned a strange purple/black color! These were perfectly good (not rotten or bruised) apples that I bought a few days ago. Any reason that this could have happened?

EDIT:
Here's a picture. I managed to salvage this one piece of cooked apple, since I had thrown out the rest of it - sorry for the crappy quality and excuse my face in the background! As you can see, half of it is tinged a strange purple/black!

Walnuts are most likely your culprit.  Black walnuts have more of this tendency than common cooking walnuts, but I have had it occur with both.  I especially have seen in with port chops stuffed with walnuts and applesauce getting a very purple stain to them.  I have seen multiple theories on why purple, but with walnut breads a common suggestion seems to be that iron reacts with the walnut to cause the purple, and some flours are higher in iron than others.

And idea, but just a suggestion, is toasting the walnuts first might reduce this tendency.  In fact, here is an article from Cook's Illustrated https://www.cooksillustrated.com/how_tos/6672-preventing-purple-walnut-bread.  They indicate that they believe it to be Gallic acid in the walnuts doing it, and that blanching for 1 minute before using them will reduce the effect.

ETA:  Looking up Gallic Acid was interesting.  It was used as a key ingredient in "Iron Gall Ink" in the 12th through 19th centuries as a standard writing and drawing ink, giving some idea of its ability to color.


How do I fix crystallized butter cream filling made with ghee? I made 9 times this recipe for filling Brave Tart's Homemade Oreos.  I made it exactly as the recipe stated, but even after 15 minutes in the stand mixer, it was grainy and chunky, not creamy.  I tried using an immersion blender, but it didn't work at all.  I tried reheating it, and it made it worse.

I probably shouldn't have tried making that much at once, but now I have 1,500 cookies to fill and I hope I can save this filling.  Any ideas?

Here's the recipe (9x the original):
54 oz. unsalted butter (melted, water cooked off and solids strained out)
3 T. vanilla
1 1/8 tsp. Diamond Crystal salt
76.5 oz. confectioners sugar

Strain the hot butter into a stand mixer bowl.  Add vanilla, salt, then sugar.  Beat until creamy (original recipe said for about 5 minutes).
Note:  This is meant to be used warm, as it sets up between cookies and is quite firm.

One problem is, making a larger batch just may not work - especially since this recipe needs a lot of precision in timing.  Specifically, the need for it to be mixed while hot makes larger batches problematical.  The second point is, the recipe states it can't be made in advance - which makes maintaining it at temperature, or reheating if it cools too much during filling, very problematic.  For the future, I would recommend making each smaller batch sequentially.

Is there anything you can do to fix it?  Maybe not exactly as intended, but I think adding a bit, a little bit, of water may work - it should loosen the filling enough to reach creamy consistency.  At worst, this batch of cookies may have a softer filling - which is not a terrible fate, even if not ideal.  But if you use very less water, and heat the filling when re-mixing, especially with smaller batches, you may lose enough water to evaporation (in the heating and cooling) to minimize this effect.

I would suggest making a few very small test batches to see how the filling holds up to these ideas - how much water to add, if heating (post-water addition) helps the texture, if the taste is still good, even if the filling as-is would be okay once in the sandwich.


Are those black spots on the inside of kaki safe to eat? I bought some kaki / sharon / persimmon (Rojo Brillante, from Spain) and left them for about a week. Now that i cut them open they are full of black and brown patches

What is this and is it safe to eat? It looks fine from the outside and doesnt affect the firmness of the flesh like mold or bruises usually do. Having tasted a small bit of "clean" and "dirty" parts, i found no significant difference in taste.
I found some brief descriptions of a "japanese chocolate persimmon" kind but the pictures looked quite different, either with a flat shape and uniform brown speckles or entirely rotten

I'm a big fan of Kaki. And among some strains, this is commonly observed. The tree my grandfather had in his garden used to have the same patterns. I don't think this should be causing any food-safety concerns.


How do I lessen the effects of thickening caused by roux? I recently made slow roasted pork shoulder in the oven. I cooked the pork at 225F for 12 hours and after it was done roasting, I took the juices at the bottom of the pan and made gravy with it.

I did this by chilling the juices for a little while, and skimming the fat off the top. I got about 1.5 tbsp of fat out of that. I combined an additional 1 tbsp of butter and 2.5 tbsp of flour into it and cooked it until it was a dark brown. Then I added the juices into the roux along with some stock.

At first I tried the gravy and it tasted magnificent. Great mouth feel and concentrated meat flavor. But I noticed that it got thicker and thicker. So I added more stock into the gravy to thin it down. Eventually I got it to the thickness I liked by adding more stock. But tasting the gravy again, it had nowhere near the glory it had before the addition of stock.

Note that I don't really want answers that focuses on the pork roast or gravy making aspect. I only added that information as background information. I'm not too interested in fixing the already diluted gravy I have. I'm more interested in knowing if I could have done something else originally to lessen the thickening caused by the roux in my gravy.

I believe that rather than "diluting" your gravy with stock, you could instead use less roux (fat and flour) with the same amount of juices (and perhaps a bit of stock).

The extra tablespoon of butter, for example, meant you were "bumping up" the thickness of your final gravy to the next level. Here's some typical ratios from an earlier Question I had about what makes a white sauce "medium":

  Medium refers to the thickness level of the final sauce, and is
  controlled by the ratio of roux (butter/flour) to [liquid]. For 1 cup of
  [liquid]:

  thin = 1 tablespoon each flour/butter
  medium = 2 tablespoons each flour/butter
  thick = 3 tablespoons each flour/butter

So instead of using 2.5 tablespoons of fat and 2.5 tablespoons of flour, you could leave out the butter; a 1.5/1.5 tablespoon roux with the same volume of liquid might give you a texture closer to what you're hoping for.


Separated, grainy ganache (Dark and Stormies from Grewelings's book) I tried making "Dark and Stormies" out of Greweling's book (Chocolate and Confections). The center is a white chocolate ganache infused with vanilla and ginger and with rum. Both times I tried it, the ganache came out grainy or almost spongy in appearance.

I've never had this problem with ganache (although I'm aware that it is very common). I've also never used Greweling's technique for ganache. It has two primary differences:

The chocolate has to be tempered prior to using it for the ganache.
The chocolate is melted at 86 F (for white chocolate) before the cream is added.

Normally, I would use chopped up unmelted chocolate and pour hot cream over it. I wanted to try Geweling's method, though.

Attempt 1:

I know the chocolate was over heated (probably to around 130-140) during tempering, but the chocolate didn't show any signs of burning.

Attempt 2:

This time the chocolate was kept at the right temperature. I also stirred the ganache slightly less. The result seems to be better, but still separated.

Thanks!

I don't know the details of this particular recipe, so you'll have to excuse me if this comes across as a bit of a shot in the dark, but here are a few things that could have gone wrong:

Grainy chocolate is usually a sign of seizing.  White chocolate still contains cocoa butter and can still seize.  Therefore it's important not to let any liquid touch the melting chocolate and to not let the temperature get too high.
130-140° F is definitely way too high.  White chocolate will normally burn or seize at temperatures higher than around 110° F.  You mentioned that the second time you used the right temperature, but it's worth pointing out anyway: Be very careful with the temperature, don't use direct heat preferably, use a double boiler or a stainless steel bowl placed over a steaming pot, and stir frequently to keep the temperature even.
Don't dump hot cream into the chocolate.  It's strange that almost every recipe tells you to do this; water causes melted chocolate to seize, period.  The only way to avoid this is to use a very large amount of liquid for a very small amount of chocolate, so what you have to do is go the other way; incorporate the chocolate into the cream, a small amount at a time.  This is especially important with tempered chocolate because you've essentially raised the melting point!
Also be careful not to let any water get into the chocolate as it's melting; use dry utensils and make sure you don't have any steam condensing over top (use a large bowl over a small pot if you don't have a double boiler).
Finally, as Joe commented, make sure you're using the right kind of white chocolate.  I've never seen baker's white chocolate, so when I need white chocolate for melting I generally use the white chocolate chips.  If yours didn't burn at temperatures as high as 130° F then you might have been using coating chocolate instead.

Follow all those precautions and you should end up with a very smooth mixture.  I've done this for ganaches and even foams and it's never a problem if you're careful about both the temperature and moisture.


Naturally occuring mono- and diglycerides? If you read ingredients on processed foods, you will see mono- and diglycerides listed frequently. Fats are triglycerides - there are three chains of fatty acids trailing off the glycerol head of the molecule. Mono- and diglycerides act as emulsifiers because they can bond to both water and oil, and I believe they may also be used as dough conditioners. Lecithin is the best known diglyceride; it makes up a large part of egg yolks and is famous for its ability to emulsify. My question is, what are other naturally occurring mono- and diglycerides, and do they have any use for the home cook?

Lecithin is a mixture of stuff, which also involves mono and diglycerids.
As far as I recall, there is no product naturally produced in nature which is pure mono or diglycerid. Fats in nature follow a lot of synthetic paths, not only for energy storage, but also for structural needs (the cell membrane, for example). For this reason, you are very unlikely to find a biological system synthesizing only one molecular species, and I would be surprised it actually exists.

As for what kind of mono and di, it's hard to say. The metabolic pathways synthesize oleic, palmitic, stearic, arachidonic, butirric chains, among others. The broad set of different combinations, and their proportions lead to oil, or butter, or whatever else. In addition, some residues are phosphated, or they are used to create Sphingolipids. The proportions are decided by the plant/animal metabolism and general conditions.


Last few times I bought "fresh" stone fruit the stone was gone The last few times I bought plums or nectarines the stone appeared to have rotted out.

However, when eating one today upon noticing this same effect I noted what appeared to be a rectangular cut out where they stem had been attached to the fruit, this then made me think has this been mechanically removed to be sold off elsewhere to increase corporate profits.

I'm located in queensland Australia.

Has anyone else noticed this and does anyone know the reasoning behind it.

I've seen it, and I was told that the stone fruit pits are often sold to drug and other remedy companies. The young man I spoke with said that apricot pits, for example, have compounds useful in fighting or treating cancer. I'm not sure if that is why the pits are removed, but it makes a lot of sense to me. Removing the pit lessens the weight of the fruit, so someone must be buying that missing weight for as much as or more than the amount for which you are buying the rest of the fruit.


Substituting garlic powder for garlic salt? I love using garlic powder but I also see recipes call for garlic salt. I thought that you could just add garlic powder instead of garlic salt (which of course is sold separately!) and then just add some actual salt if necessary. What is the difference in doing this as opposed to using store-bought garlic salt?

Thanks!

Taste-wise there will be little to not difference in the result. Just be careful to use the proper ratio of garlic to salt (generally 3-to-1 salt to garlic powder).


Kosher salt vs. Table salt for rib eye steak I don't have any Kosher salt on hand and I'm cooking a rib eye steak tonight. Can I just use table salt, or would that drastically effect the taste of the steak?

Why is Kosher salt better to use?

The reason people choose Kosher/Sea/Rock salt over table salt is mainly down to the crystal size and the lack of additives like iodine.

Kosher salt is less soluble and less dense than table salt.

The large crystals in these salts mean that unless there is a fair bit of water present they don't completely dissolve. This means it is less likely you'll over salt steak even if it's caked in crystals.

Table salt will dissolve with far less water present and will, therefore, get absorbed more easily into the meat.

Also the lower density means you can liberality sprinkle Kosher/Sea/Rock salt on things and even if it does all dissolve you've actualy added less salt than you would think. It looks like a lot but 1g of Kosher/Sea/Rock salt takes up a lot more space than 1g of table salt.

1tsp table salt would be way too much. I'd go for about half the volume of Kosher salt if you were dissolving it in liquid and maybe as little as quarter the volume if I was using it as a rub (as in salting a steak).


My Cheese Melted while in the Fridge? I have a sandwich that says "sell by 11/4". The sandwich is white bread, provolone cheese, turkey breast, and some lettuce wrapped in a plastic bag.

I went to go eat the sandwich today and found that what appears to be the cheese has melted into a liquid goop. Within the sandwich the cheese was sitting on top of the turkey.

The provolone cheese says: pasteurized milk cheese culture, salt, enzymes.

I didn't know cheese could melt in the fridge?

No power was lost to the chilly bin since the turkey butty was put it in there.

Update:

So I pulled out my backup sandwich which is a little more recent in the aging period and it looks like the cheddar cheese is melting in this one too but not yet like the previous one's attempt to become school's next favorite Elmer's glue, although a little sour.

This ham butty has been in a different chilly bin so no connection to a power outage.

Is it the meat that's melting it, such as the salt in the meat, or something else?

My guess is that you don't have real cheese in your sandwich.

I've seen this before with things called cheese that were really types of American cheese. It happened when then product was exposed to moisture that it seemed to absorb, which then caused it to turn soggy and glue-like. If you'd have said that you had tomato in your sandwich, I'd have been sure this was what was going on.


What can be used as a substitute for potassium nitrate as a preservative? I want to substitute another preservative for an Italian antipasto recipe. The original recipe calls for granulated potassium nitrate (saltpetre). I had a 16oz box, but it's empty now. What can I use instead?

Nitrates and nitrites have very few practical substitutes. They work well as antimicrobial agents, have a not unpleasant taste, and are easy to work with. This is a surprisingly unique set of characteristics.

Using just salt as a preservative would work really well... as long as you are careful to keep the meat in a single piece, and are careful to cultivate the right bacteria. In the right conditions of temperature and humidity, these bacteria break down some of the meat into nitric oxide and, well, nitrates and nitrites.

Celery juice works really well.. except that it's high in nitrates that then break down into nitrites in the curing process. It's also hard to predict how much nitrites will be released into the final product.

If you are really worried about nitrates / nitrites, can safely omit them, but there are some important caveats. First, your antipasto will look... less cheerful. The hemoglobins in the meat will oxidize, and turn from red to grey without the nitrites. Nitrates and nitrites do create other flavors in meats besides just saltiness. You will also need to eat the antipasto fast- without the powers of preservatives, it'll spoil at the same rate as fresh meat. I would treat the final product as such, and would not leave it unrefrigerated for any amount of time

In short, without nitrates, you can make a delicious fresh sausage. Just please cook it, and don't call it a cured meat.


Why have all of my quality pans started smoking at once? Okay, I have a situation here that is blowing my mind and hopefully someone here can help me. The other night, I attempted to cook a burger on the stove. Smoke was coming up (eventually pouring up) from the sides of the pan, but I initially ignored it because I just figured that was, um, normal. Within minutes, my smoke alarm went off. Once that situation was taken care of, I gave up on the burger, and attempted to bake some homemade granola in my oven. Soon enough, smoke was coming out of my oven. Nothing was ever on fire during either of these situations, just a lot of smoke.

During both occurrences, I was cooking/baking with coconut oil. I usually use coconut oil, but this time I had purchased a new brand I had never tried before. I originally blamed these two mishaps on the "cheap" oil I purchased. Also, another note: I am using Calphalon Contemporary pots and pans from Crate & Barrell and have been for the past year. I am using an electric stove.

Anyway, I have set the coconut oil aside with an intention to exchange it for my regular brand. So the next day, I go to boil some water for my tea. Smoke is pouring up the sides of my small sauce pan! This NEVER happens! I turn on my vent and halfway panic while I quickly call it quits and pour the simmered water over my loose tea. Steam is coming from my teapot which really isn't normal.

Later on, I try to scramble some eggs in a different pan. Same thing happens. Smoke pours up the sides.

At this point, I figure there must be some coconut oil residue covering my stove as it must be impossible for every Calphalon pot/pan to go bad at once. So, I clean and scrub my stove. I clean each pot/pan just to be sure. Now, with a pristine stove, I grabbed my one pot that I have literally used only ONCE in my life...there's no way there can be a problem now, right? I put some brown rice in this hardly used pot, and as the water starts to heat up, sure enough, lots of smoke starts coming up the sides!! HOW can this be?! My mother thinks my pots and pans are garbage and I should return them, but to me, it just seems impossible how every pot is all of a sudden "ruined". Is my stove ruined? What did I DO?!

I have never had a problem with my stove or my pans until I attempted to cook that burger. I am going crazy trying to figure out what all of a sudden happened. Tomorrow I am going to buy a new pan from Target just to test it out. Any insight is greatly appreciated as this is really bothering me! Thanks in advance!

**Edited to add: My oven is electric/glass top and the smoke is coming from the INSIDE of ALL my pans!

It is possible you have some soap or oil film from the washing process that has not been cleared off these pots and pans.  From what I read, all of them have been washed at least once.  I suggest the following steps:

Replace your dish washing sponge with a new one and wash the pans properly by hand and and rinse them thoroughly under running hot water.  If you see any suds anywhere, rinse more (dish soap is carcinogenic).  Don't place them in the dishwasher (at least for now).
If you're going to Target buy a new pan, buy a heavy bottom Stainless Steel one (they are better for cooking anyway).
Pour 1/2 inch of water in a pan or pot.  If you see a film or any funny color on the water surface, wash and rinse again.
Turn the heat to medium and wait for smoke (if any).  Oil smoke is usually thicker, and heavier whereas soap smoke seems (to me at least) lighter and ghosty.


How to remove the flavor from whisky stones? I made the mistake of buying these awesome whisky stones (soapstone) to chill my drinks. Besides the fact that they don't cool the drink down a lot, they acquire a freezer taste and ruin the flavor of the beverage.
How can I eliminate this taste? I tried to wash them with soap and water, but I can still taste them.

To eliminate any off flavors that may have been absorbed, soak them in warm water for a few hours. Be sure the stones are covered by at least a couple of inches, so that there's plenty of volume to absorb flavors.  Agitate them every now and again as well.

When you place them back in the freezer, be sure they're dry (any surface moisture will more readily absorb flavors) and keep them in a sealed bag or container.

For what it's worth, it sounds like your sub-par experience is similar to that of many whiskey nerds and my own.  There's really not much need for these things.  You can get a similar amount of chilling by using a thick-bottomed glass placed in the freezer for at least 15 minutes or so.


How can I thicken heavy cream without changing the flavor? I am trying to make a thickened heavy cream that would be the same texture as "Creme Fraiche", but have not yet come to a desirable solution. As you guys know Creme Fraiche has a tangy taste similar to Sour Cream which is not what I am looking for. Please advise how I can make thickened heavy cream (not whipped cream) either with any available cultures in the market or individual experiences. Thanks everyone.

There are several ways to thicken without turning it into whipped cream or imparting other flavors:

Boil until reduced to desired thickness (whisk constantly, do not burn which will cause the flavor to change)
Add and incorporate gelatin
Add and incorporate corn starch or flour

Your desired thickness will dictate how long you boil or how much you incorporate.


Is it possible to make onion Bhajis without a deep fryer? I love these things. Is it possible to cook them in e.g. a frying pan if I keep turning them around? Or maybe by just filling up my crockpot a little way with oil (enough to cover the Bhajis but not so much it will spill over or spit everywhere)? Is that safe?

Yes, you can cook them in about 1" of oil in a steep sided frying pan or wok. Just turn them reasonably frequently to ensure even cooking.

If you're dubious about using a lot of hot oil, you can use less by making your bhajis a flat, patty shape and shallow frying.


What is the benefit of Pressure Cooking (other than faster cooking)? What are some of the benefits of a Pressure Cooker over a Slow Cooker (crock pot) besides that it's much faster, less nutrient loss (maybe) and less heat in the kitchen?

I do not know that there are any benefits aside from what you have already mentioned. Pressure cooking is a technique, like using the slow cooker. It is similar to a debate on broiling vs. pan-searing. They both do something similar in slightly different ways.

The only other (and totally subjective) advantage I have seen, since I primarily use the pressure cooker for stocks, is better gelatin extraction from the bones and tendons with the pressure cooker. My stocks are thicker than the old-school "simmer it all day" approach, but it may just be I'm getting better at making stock since I gave up using anything but a pressure cooker for stock years ago. Therefore my case series is a retrospective review and subject to inherent biases from the study methodology.


Can any harm come of eating watermelon seeds? Is there any harm in swallowing watermelon seeds?  Or will they simply pass from one end to the other?

Um, no.

You can even buy them.

The only common potentially dangerous seeds I know of belong to almonds, apples, apricots, peaches, plums, cherries, and other stone fruits. These contain a cyanide and sugar compound known as amygdalin. When metabolized it breaks down into hydrogen cyanide (HCN). In all cases the toxin is inside the seeds and will not be exposed to the body unless the seeds are chewed. Of these, the only seed commonly consumed would be the apple seed, usually inadvertently, or by daring children. It would take a large amount (can't find a reliable reference - one source said 1 cup) of well chewed seeds to poison you. Regarding almonds, only the bitter almonds have cyanide levels to be concerned about (we eat sweet almonds).

So, besides the apple, these all belong to the Prunus genus of plants. Cyanide is just their thing. Watermelon belongs to the Citrullus genus.


How do I determine if my knife must be honed and/or sharpened? My grandparents never altered their WÜSTHOF 4596-7/20 Classic Ikon 8-Inch Cook's Knife since buying it on Aug 1 2018. It could effortlessly slash coconut and raw Winter Squashes, but now it can't even cut paper or pears or zucchinis! Undeniably they must alter their knife.

Before they buy a honing rod and/or electronic sharpener, how can they infer if it must be honed and/or sharpened?

That's a good knife. All knives need to be sharpened and honed: honed frequently, and sharpened occasionally. If neither has been done to the knife, it's likely that simply honing it will bring back the blade, but eventually it will require sharpening as well. A dull knife is dangerous and should not be used.

Be careful with electric sharpeners. There are decently good ones available, but bad ones (and the majority of electric sharpeners are bad) will damage the knife over time. Still, they're a lot more convenient than sharpening stones and require less practice. You might also consider a Tri-Angle Sharpmaker, which is somewhere between an electric sharpener and a sharpening stone in convenience and ease of use.


Where can I find the most complete possible list with raw products and their respective pH? I'm looking for the most comprehensive list of raw products such as vegetables, fruits, meats, seeds, etc. used in the kitchen (Oriental Cuisine) and their respective pH. I found so many things about alkaline and acid foods, which is good to know, but I really need the pH of each one. How alkaline is it?

For example:

Fruits ----- Figs (raw) ----- Alkaline (How Alkaline? 7.5, 8, 9 ??)

This list is probably the extensive I've seen on the Internet with some scientific accuracy behind it. A more condensed list with great references at the bottom can also be found here.

The numbers seem to jive with my own experience, especially in the high variance of some of the foods.

As some of the commentators alluded to, if you are looking for specific pH values of dishes rather than ingredients you'll probably want to use some pH strips to figure it out.

Also, if you are looking for more pH numbers on the internet, stay away from sites related to the "alkaline diet" as they seem to use some other system to determine alkalinity which doesn't appear to be related to pH. I found several sites that refer to lemons as "alkaline" which seems to be as far from the truth as I could imagine.


How far ahead can I prepare this coleslaw recipe? I'm making a coleslaw to accompany dinner tonight which consists of:

1 Apple, julienned
1 Carrot, grated
2 spring onions, sliced
1tbsp Mayonnaise
10ml cider vinegar
10g chipotle paste
1/2 red chilli, de-seeded and chopped
Juice of half a lemon
1/2tbsp tomato puree
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2tsp dried oregano
1/2tsp olive oil

All the ingredients (bar the apple, carrot and spring onion) are combined thoroughly before adding the remaining two ingredients.

As there's lemon juice in the mix, I'm not concerned about the apple browning, but I am concerned about the dressing splitting or spoiling the veg in some way.

I've not made this ahead before, is there anything in the recipe that would prevent it being prepared several hours ahead of consumption, or make the end product less desirable if that's done?

That looks to me to be a lot of 'wet' to 'dry', so without really having a definitive answer I'd have 2 considerations.

How far you want your fresh garlic to 'mellow' [I really don't know the correct term for leaving crushed garlic so the sharpness goes off a bit.]
How much water is going to be pulled from the apple.

1 could be affected by simply making up the dressing part early, then leaving it to mellow.
2 might be a bit trial & error, but that's the one I can't think of a way round other than 'leave it out til late.' Better crunchy than soggy with a runny dressing.

Carrot [& most other things in regular coleslaw - cabbage, onion etc] I'd give one to three hours in the dressing before serving, but even that may come down to personal preference. The standard coleslaw I'm right now going off to make will be eaten in about 3 hours ;)


How to store homemade pasta without freezing I'm curious how to make pasta (and in this case I'm talking about say, spaghetti, angel hair, shells or lasagna noodles, no filling) and store it dry like I would find in a box at a store. I would try to take a day where I have not much to do and make ~25 pounds of pasta for the year (or every six months, happy to keep food fresh) Should there be adaptations of a recipe? Or would any do?

How would I go about storing pasta (without filling) without a freezer for long periods of time?

Any standard pasta recipe (basically flour, salt, water or egg) should do. Unless stated otherwise, fresh pasta can be cooked right away or dried and stored for months. Cooking time will vary, of course, with fresh pasta done in a few minutes, dried in roughly the same range as store bought.

When drying pasta, use the same aproach as for laundry: Separation, dry conditions, slight air flow if possible. For long pasta, it's usually hung to dry, e.g. on (clean) broomsticks or poles, smaller shapes can be put in a thin layer on dish towels or table cloths, pro's use wodden frames with thin mesh, like one would for drying fruit. Tagliatelle are sometimes gathered into little nests (= 1 serving), then dried. For pictures, search for "pasta drying rack". Usually you'll need about 2-3 days for pasta to dry thoroughly.

Your estimated storage time of six months should be fine, even up to a year, but only for basic recipes with white flour. If you like to try whole grain, other grains (buckwheat, spelt) or more exotic flavours/colours (tomato, beets, spinach, curry...), I'd aim for three months just to be sure nothing goes rancid or looses colour. Paper bags (food grade) are ok, as is cellophane or plastic, but make sure the pasta is really, really  dry, when packing in plastic. Store in a cool, dry , possibly dark (for coloured pasta) place.

side note:Have fun and remember to take pictures once you've flooded your house with drying pasta ;-)


What temperature would a "quiet oven" be in old fashioned temperature vocabulary? I’m looking at a couple of recipes from the early twentieth century.  One calls for a quick oven.  The temperature for that (375 - 400°F) was easy enough to work out, several places online have it, including a 2010 Q&A from this site.  The other one, quiet oven, is proving a little more challenging.  (If this is a mistake, it was a typo/typesetting mistake in the original article: it is a newspaper article and is pretty clearly 'quiet'.) I am leaning toward ‘slow oven’, 300-325°F, because it is difficult to imagine anything being cooked at lower temperatures.  (It is a sweet potato biscuit if that makes a difference to anyone’s logic process.)

So, any ideas what a ‘quiet oven’ might be?

Google Books has a number of results calling for a "quiet oven" in older recipes, but it seems to have been such a ubiquitous concept that they didn't feel the need to explain what it meant. The only source I could find that gave any indication at all was this book by Robert Carlton Brown, published in 1955, which indicates that it was an English term for a "moderate" oven. He doesn't say what that specifically means, or when it fell out of favor as a term (I would assume with the advent of electric ovens), but I would posit that it's somewhere around 350-75 degrees, based on modern usage.


What is the difference between saute and caramelizing toppings? I'm a huge fan of cooking up grilled onions, peppers, mushrooms, and many other toppings.

When I worked at a local sub shop I was always the one volunteering to grill up some onions and saute the portobello mushrooms.

When I made the mushrooms and the grilled onions it was the exact same process.

I would add butter to my fry pan, slice up the ingredients, and then add them to the pan to cook.

According to my past employer, I was sauteing the mushrooms while caramelizing the grilled onions.

I never added any sugar or anything to my grilled onions. I did cook them a wee bit longer because when you slightly burn(darken) the butter before adding the ingredients you get an amazing flavor. (This was my own step that I added and did not inform my boss so the process to her was the same)

My question is why was my employer saying I was doing two things when the process they told me to do was the same?

Is there a major difference between the two, or is it just depending on the time spent cooking? I just want to be saying the correct term when I'm cooking so I feel more fancy. :}

Any tips and advice?

Caramelising is a chemical process in which sugars decompose under the influence of heat (pyrolisis). It happens to any heated sugars, no matter if they are free (as in heating refined sugar for making candy) or bound in something else (such as the sugars naturally occurring in an onion). The outcome of the process are compounds which have a dark color and pleasant aroma.

Sauteeing is a cooking technique. It consists of frying small pieces of solid food on very high temperature with very little fat while shaking the pan all the time, so they won't overheat and/or stick.

Many people don't know the technical meaning of sauteeing and use the word for plain shallow frying at medium temperature and without shaking the pan. This seems to be the definition your employer was using.

In fact, you were shallow frying both kinds of vegetables, which resulted in caramelisation plus other changes for the onions and in these other changes only for the vegetables which don't contain significant amounts of sugar.

Cooking recipes frequently avoid saying just "fry the onions", because onions have to be brought to a different state for different recipes. So they usually use a word which implies a desired final state, such as "caramelize". For many other vegetables, which only have a single usable state of doneness, they specify the technique instead. This is why different words can be used for the same process - one describes the technique you are using, the other describes the changes which are happening, it is like saying 'I am going sunbathing' or 'I am going to catch some tan', which are indeed the same process.

Incidentally, true sauteeing is a bad idea if you want to caramelise onions. Low and slow is the way to go if you want caramelised onions, while during the high temperatures used in sauteeing they go from translucent to burnt without passing a nice caramelized stage. But just leaving them in the pan for some time is a good technique.

You also say grilling. This is a completely different technique, and it is done on a grill instead of in a pan. I can't imagine how you would caramelize cut onions on a grill, unless you put a griddle on the grill, which is equivalent to frying.


Using soft apples to make apple juice My question is a kind of follow-up to this.  When apples have turned soft or have started to shrivel, is it possible / advisable to but them through a juicer?  From the linked question is would appear that they have started to dehydrate, so I wouldn't expect to get much juice from them.

It's not going to hurt anything. The apples they use for cider are usually pretty rough, so a little wrinkling isn't going cause a health issue. You very well may not get as much juice, but the juice you will get will be more concentrated.

The same principle applies to grapes used for wine...Ideally they will get very little water in the weeks leading up to harvest, so you'll get all the good sugars and flavours, and less of the undesirable water.


How do I cut an acorn squash? A recipe I have been learning requires acorn squash wedges. I have been using my 8" chef knife to make a shallow cut in the outside, then kind of jabbing it with a small knife like carving a pumpkin until I have enough of a cut to split it in half.

How should I cut acorn squash into wedges? Techniques to make it easier?

Acorn squashes are notoriously difficult to cut.

There are two techniques, short of a bandsaw, that can make it easier:

Using a sharp chef's knife, chop into the side.  Now, lay a folded towel over the top of the blade, and tap it with a wooden meat mallet similar, slowly pushing it through.
Use a cleaver (not the delicate oriental style).  You won't have the precision, but it does the job.

I have not tried it, but I suspect an electric knife will also do the job very well.


Old bread-slicing tool Here is an image of an apparently old (and for me, unknown) bread-slicing device from Richard Bertinet’s book “CRUMB” (2019, ISBN: 9780857835543, pg. 105):
What is this particular tool referred to as?

I Googled for "Raadvad" which seemed to be the text embossed on the tool, and found this video suggesting this is a 'bread guillotine'. A subsequent search for "Raadvad bread guillotine" suggests either 'bread guillotine' or, simply, '(Danish/Scandinavian) bread slicer'.


How do I know if US lettuce is safe, given the E. coli outbreak? I'm gonna order a turkey and swiss sandwich soon, on a spinach wrap.

Is it safe to get lettuce on it?

I know that in 16 states, over 50 people have gotten e.coli from lettuce, so I'm not sure whether I should get lettuce or not.

The CDC's current advice as of April 20 2018 is quite simple:

  Do not buy or eat romaine lettuce at a grocery store or restaurant unless you can confirm it is not from the Yuma, Arizona, growing region.

So, by the CDC's definition of safety, it's not safe if it's romaine possibly from the Yuma area. It has nothing to do with where you are; things get shipped all around.


How can I convert a muffin recipe to make crumpets? If I have a recipe that I like for muffins (in the original English sense of the word, i.e. a fat disc of bread that's made from cooking a yeasted batter on a griddle in crumpet rings), what do I have to do to convert it to make crumpets instead? Looks like I need more hydration (maybe 120% instead of 100%) and to use plain flour instead of bread flour, but is there anything else?

(The muffin recipe in question is from Peter Reinhart's Artisan Bread Everyday. Except that he calls them English muffins, because he's American.)

English muffins and crumpets are very similar, the only difference being that crumpets are wetter to allow the bubbles to rise out of the side off the heat. Without seeing a specific recipe, it's hard to know exactly what adjustments to make, as some muffin recipes are also quite wet.

If you think your muffin dough is wet enough, you could just try cooking it as crumpets. If it doesn't bubble correctly on top, try making it a little bit wetter until it works.


"Tempura" setting on induction cooktops I was reading this comment while once again wondering if I should get a deep fryer for the few occasions I would use it and I stumbled across "tempura" or "deep fry" modes on some induction cooktops.  At the time ~2012 one of the commenters indicated that these weren't available in the US.

Is this still true?  A quick internet search didn't turn any burners up that had these features but I'm not giving up the search.

Most anything that can heat a pot or wok to 180-220°C CAN be used to deep fry, with the appropriate caution.

With all stovetop deep frying, use a thermometer, avoid straight-sided vessels like stockpots - boil-over events are a far greater and more dangerous mess if there is oil involved, do not leave things unattended, be prepared to deal with a fire, be VERY prepared to handle a boil-over, be careful adding water-rich things ESPECIALLY at low temperature.

The question is what such modes really do. They could enforce an upper limit to temperature - which I would consider unreliable unless there is a sensor IN the oil. The temperature range useful for deep frying is ~140-210°C, whereas upwards of 230°C things start to get dangerous.
Alternatively, they could just DISABLE a temperature limiter that would usually not even allow the pot to get as hot as it will get in deep frying (significantly above 100°C usually indicates the cooking vessel has boiled dry).
In either case, it is doubtful whether there is a safety benefit vs any other non-flame stovetop deep frying technique.


What factors to consider for a long lasting salad? I'd like to make salad in bulk for the week ahead on a weekend, which I will store at home in the fridge, to take to work. My gut feel is that what I'd typically put in salad (leaves,  tomatoes, cheese etc)  won't last long enough to be worth making in bulk, even if I store it at work. If it matters, I typically leave my salad at my desk, as I don't like cold salad at lunchtime.

What factors should I consider when picking ingredients and storage,  for a long life salad? What sorts of food should I look for and how will I know they are more likely to last?

-Make slaws of hardier vegetables - bell peppers, carrots, unripe papaya, hard cabbages. Both kinds - the ones that are slightly cooked with a boiling vinaigrette, or the ones prepared raw (som tam for example) , can last a few days in the fridge.

-Pickles tend to be a hardy ingredient.

-Keep a cold but not freezing fridge (I recently started a discussion here ... Why do fridge temperature standards between US and other countries differ?  read what EVERYONE wrote )

-If there are leafy greens involved, either store dressings separately, or only put the acid and/or oil on the salad before storing but nothing that brings in salt or sugar. The acid could help, esp when there are fruit in the salad, but could also cause problems...

-Look at plant based proteins - TVP, tofu (optionally smoked), burmese tofu, tempeh, seitan... fried and maybe spice rubbed and/or marinated and/or breaded... cooked beans and lentils... less risk of meat-related dangers... keep fried items in separate container so they do not get waterlogged

-Potato and pasta salads could work for you...


Why is the texture of my chocolate chip cookies foamy? The last couple of batches of my chocolate chip cookies went from delicous to foamy tasting although I was using the same recipe and ingredients and sam measuring methods. I'm confused as to why the texture changed so drastically.

Your dough warmed up and the fat started to melt.  In between batches, keep the dough cold in the fridge.

Over-mixing the dough will also contribute to cake like cookies if a whole batch comes out like that.