How did my Turkish Delights/lokum end up tasting like orange? I made lokum, or Turkish Delights yesterday. I used the more traditional ingredients - cornstach, cream of tartar, sugar.  From what I've researched of the dish, you can have flavors of lokum different than the traditional one (rosewater), usually using some form of flavor extract. But, I didn't have any extracts laying around my house.

So, instead... I used coffee. I figured it would probably end up tasting lightly of coffee, given all the sweeteners. But, instead, it ended up tasting... acidic, citrus-like. It tastes like candied orange peel. I figure I must have done something wrong, but I don't understand how I got to this flavor. Should I have used espresso? Stronger coffee? The grounds? A coffee extract?

Here are the ingredients:

4 cups sugar

4 1/2 cups water

1 cup cornstarch

2 tsp cream of tartar

2 tbsp medium roast coffee, liquid

Red + green food coloring

1:1 powdered sugar & cornstarch coating

I strongly suspect that your food coloring may have had something to do with it if you were using liquid food coloring as these often have flavors you wouldn't expect. That plus the acidity from the coffee (yes, coffee is acidic) and the cream of tartar (powdered acid) could simulate an orange flavor.

Gel colorings are much better as they give much more color without flavors, I'd suggest those in the future, just remember a very little bit goes a long way.


How to make low carb crispy fried cauliflower? Typically I would use a slurry of all purpose flour and cornstarch (with curd/buttermilk) to coat the marinated florets and deep fry them. Resulted in crispy fried cauliflower. An example of a recipe : https://www.kitchenathoskins.com/2017/05/26/crispy-crunchy-buttermilk-fried-cauliflower/#wprm-recipe-container-19056
I need some help in finding out how I can make a low carb version of the same preferably without eggs - am happy to use curd or buttermilk as the slurry base if need be.
Glucomannan is a replacement for cornstarch - but from what I have tried and found it might be a replacement for when cornstarch is used to thicken gravies. I tried coating florets in glucomannan powder, slurry (more like jello) and that did not help in making a crispy end result. And I still need to work my way on finding a low carb APF replacement for frying.
How does one make low carb crispy fried cauliflower?

When I was low-carbing, I would use almond flour mixed with plenty of seasonings. I also used crushed up pork rinds that I would mix with freshly grated parmesan or the green container parmesan when fresh was not readily available.


Mustard seeds for tempering lentils brought out a little bitter after taste I am fond of using whole spices for tempering therefore used mustard seeds along with cumin seeds, curry leaves, asafoetida & nigella seeds. Thereafter used some cilantro and kasuri methi for finishing. What I noticed was that the lentils had a lil bitter after taste. Although previously I have used this spice blend minus mustard seeds a number of times without fail. What I know for sure is that I can take out mustard and make the tempering good again but somehow I want to use mustard seeds along. What else should I incorporate to bend mustard seeds in the spice mix to make it balanced?

There's quite some bitter components in there:

Fenugreek
Nigella seeds
Mustard seeds

In general to balance bitterness, you either add salt, fat, or sugar.

In yours case, maybe the addition of the mustard seeds pushed the bitterness just beyond what you like. So quite possibly you could also choose to reduce the amount of nigella seeds and fenugreek.


In place of cream of tartar to stabilize egg whites? https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/sky-high-chocolate-mousse-pie/#tasty-recipes-69503

Using this recipe, calls for cream of tartar. I don't have that, I've only got tartaric acid. Would that work? Or anything else in substitute?

Thanks

Your acid will work in place of potassium bitartrate, AKA cream of tartar.
Lemon juice, vinegar, or even baking powder will also work.
Six good substitutes: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cream-of-tartar-substitutes
Most common baking powders are a mix of sodium bicarbonate and cream of tartar. As per link, add 1.5 tsp baking powder in place of 1 tsp cream of tartar.


Cooking potatoes - baking covered in salt for mashing I was wondering about a detail of a recipe I recently read in a magazine.

The recipe is for Gnocchi, so basically it's about making a potato mash dough.

Instead of just boiling the potatoes, the recipe was roughly like:

  Put the whole, unpeeled potatoes into a large casserole, cover them
  wholly with ample stone salt, and slowly bake them for 2 hours. (...
  then peel cooked potatoes and put them through a ricer ... ...)

What gives? I'd just put them into a steamer and cook them, what's the point of putting them into the oven for 2 hrs covered with salt?

(Note: It was a recipe from a posh restaurant, so it may well be more complicated than necessary :-)

Here is the original (german) recipe for reference.

The only answer that makes any sense (other than the "just for show" hypothesis) is that baking in salt does create a fluffier potato. That assertion is backed up by Cook's Illustrated and the Idaho Potato Commission [citation]. So, for the lightest possible gnocchi, start with the fluffiest possible potato.

I've got to say though, roasting potatoes in salt for gnocchi would be too fussy even for me.

EDIT: One other possibility just occurred to me, and the more I think of it, the more I think it's the key. Maybe the restaurant always bakes potatoes that way and it's just as easy to add extra for the gnocchi or to use leftovers. So, they wrote the recipe the way they actually do it.


Heat diffuser for ceramic cooktop I have seen similar questions on here, but not directly answering my question. I recently purchased a tagine, which is a ceramic slow cooker. It comes with, and says to use a diffuser when cooking on the cooktop. But the diffuser that came with it says not to use it on ceramic tops, as it may scratch.

Does anyone have any idea what type is best? I did some research online (which is actually how I found this site), but could not find any explicit answers about it, except that the cast iron diffuser I found also said not to use it on a ceramic top.

Edit: Thank you, Joe. I had already seen those posts before I posted the question. They agree that you should use a diffuser, but no explicit information on what material diffuser to use. I am hoping someone would be able to say: "use a brass diffuser" (or some material that actually would work on my ceramic cook top).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Use a aluminum plate or disc that your tagine can sit on. The plate needs a minimum thickness of 0.25 inch, any thinner and it may badly warp. The aluminum will heat very evenly, conduct heat better than cast iron, is much softer than glass or ceramic, and is much lighter than brass or cast iron.

Just don't leave it by itself on the stove, it can be damaged by overheating, similar to overheating other aluminum based cookware.

You can buy 6061 aluminum plates at metal suppliers, and even online at places like amazon.


Mexican Achiote (annatto) Chicken - alternative to achiote This is not a spice that I would normally use.

ACHIOTE

However I was given some and then looked for how to use it. Food52 has this to say about it:

  Achiote paste is a beautiful blend of spices which give the chicken a
  wonderful complex flavor.

(Great recipe here)  I became a bit suspicious of the spice's freshness, so threw it out - however would like to make the Mexican chicken - but need an alternative to achiote.  The question being: What spice can I use instead of achiote to achieve a similar flavor?

It may be more commonly known as 'Annatto' - see answer below.

Achiote, commonly known as annatto (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annatto), is  seed from the achiote fruit.

The seed is used for coloring more than for flavouring, often to mimic the colour of saffron. The flavour is very subtle - slightly peppery and lemony.

Saffron would, therefore, be a suitable subsitute for the colour. It would introduce a new flavour to the dish, but generally not one that would be out of place. Alternatively some yellow/orange food coloring or leaving the achiote out altogether would be easy replacements.

Subsitutions for the flavour could be pepper, pink peppercorns or nutmeg, in very small amounts

The spice paste known as 'Achiote paste' is different, but includes achiote seed as a main ingredient. Here (http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/achiote-paste) is a recipe for it. The annatto in the recipe can be replaced as described above


Is it possible to freeze chocolate covered ants? I have a recipe for chocolate covered ants and wanted to make it a few weeks ahead of time before a party - if I freeze them will they still be good in about two weeks?

You probably don't even need to freeze them. Chocolate has a very long shelf life in your pantry, from 1-2 years depending on fat/milk content.

You can freeze it, but it may affect the texture or appearance.


How long can rye bread last? A while ago, I obtained, on a Friday afternoon, a bag of pareve rye bread from the supermarket. The ingredient listing was:

  high gluten flour, rye flour, water, yeast, salt

The bread was also covered in caraway seeds.

The best before date (or possibly expiry date -- it was not clear to me which) was a week after the date I bought the bread. I am unsure if the bread was released on the same day, since I generally do my grocery shopping on Fridays anyway, but I'm inclined to suspect that it was indeed put on the shelf on the same day I bought it, since I have only ever seen kosher bread sold around the weekends at my supermarket, presumably put there in time for Shabbat.

In any case, I was suspicious of the week-later best before date, since the ingredients listed no obvious preservatives (beyond salt) and the packaging claimed that the bread had no preservatives.

Is this normal "behaviour" for rye bread? Or is this reliant on cooler North American climates and possibly the inclusion of salt? (But I would assume that the salt was merely there to restrict the amount of rising in the dough.) Or perhaps I can assume the label on my bag of bread was wrong?

While legal specifics vary from place to place, the "best before" on a product is often a requirement, but exactly what it is is left up to the manufacturer.  In other words, they have to provide one, but it can be anything they want (there may be rules about guaranteeing nutritional content for the duration, if that is subject to degradation).  So presumably they want to make it as long as possible, but not too long, because they need to discourage distributors from distributing and consumers from purchasing product which will tarnish the image of their brand.

With bread there are probably three concerns about degradation: drying out, getting stale, and going moldy.

  Is this normal "behaviour" for rye bread?

Pure rye breads are made with a sourdough starter and no wheat, so they do not rise to the same extent as normal bread.  This is part of why they are more dense and moist. I think the "high gluten flour" ingredient in yours implies it is not pure rye, but it probably still has this advantage over pure wheat.  Dense, moist breads stay moist longer versus light, dry breads -- although on the other hand, lighter breads go stale more slowly.1

But more importantly, the sourdough starter is what provides most of the leavening in a pure rye bread, not normal yeast.  Sourdough is pre-fermented and acidic, which discourages foreign bacteria and mold from taking hold -- i.e, it is a natural preservative.  It is also not an insignificant part of the bread's mass, and the flour in the sourdough starter has undergone chemical changes which make it less likely to give up the water with which it was combined -- hence sourdough based breads are considered to have a longer shelf life than any other bread.

  is this reliant on cooler North American climates

Rye is a northern grain, which is why rye bread is associated with northern cultures.  However, I think the logic of rye flour + sourdough starter will hold regardless of climate.

1. Staling, a gradual hardening, is not the same thing as drying, since moist bread may become stale (and attempts to keep bread moist will not prevent staling). Also, stale bread may be made less stale by heating it.  This is because "staleness" is actually a crystallization in the starches.


Is there a name for the mushy sludge that forms around/beneath meat as it cooks? I've found the terms "aspic" and of course "drippings" and "gravy", but I don't think any of those quite describe what I'm asking about — for example, we just baked some meatballs and between each one there was a mix of both liquid fat and a grey-ish/pink-ish sludge. With chicken meat it tends to be whiter. It has a texture somewhere between cooked liver and jello.

Is there a proper name for this "sludge"? Are there any particularly traditional uses for it?

UPDATE: another question calls this same thing "scum", and the answers deal with what it is: What's that scum at the sides of my home-made burger when I cook it?

I'm wondering here what it's called, i.e. if there's a more generous term for it than "sludge" or "scum".

The sludge you speak of is actually proteins called myosin (denatures at 120f) and actin (denatures at 150f) going through the stages of denaturing, coagulation and ultimately gelantization.  Protein coagulates when it is denatured, that is destroyed.  Gelatization is a follow on the process of breakdown in connective tissue.


Using Chakki Atta instead of whole wheat flour? I bought a bag of chakki atta from an Indian grocery store. The back of the bag says that it's 100% whole wheat flour. It was cheaper than traditional American style whole wheat flour, so I decided to buy a bag to see how well it would work.

At home, the main thing that I noticed was that chakki atta looks different. The whole wheat flour that I'm used to is tan with dark flecks. Chakki atta is a more uniform yellowish tan without any flecks, or maybe the flecks are just really small. I've used it a few times in bread baking, and it seems to work well.

My question is, does anyone have a better idea of how packaged chakki atta is different from whole wheat flour, and what kinds of things it is good for?

In theory chakki is a flour mill, and chakki atta is flour fresh from that mill.  Realistically of course nothing you find on your grocery store shelves is fresh from a mill.

Atta flour is made from hard wheat, which has a high gluten content.  This means that your flour is probably better for bread than typical all-purpose whole wheat flour from the baking aisle.  If it is hard white wheat this might explain the color, as ground white wheat doesn't look that much darker than all-purpose flour.

Like typical grocery store whole wheat flour, atta flour is coarsely ground.  This may give your bread a more grainy texture (not a bad thing), and makes atta unideal for cakes, biscuits, and quick breads unless you like them with a coarse texture in the crumb.  If you would like to use whole wheat for baking other than bread, whole wheat pastry flour is the usual suggestion (or grind wheat yourself to a very find grind).


is electricity smell from microwave after metal was put in it mean the microwave is ruined? A spoon was placed in the microwave.  No sparks were noticed but now when you use the microwave for more than a minute, there is a smell of electicity.  The microwave still heats food.

No. If the microwave still heats, it's not ruined.
Here's a nice video of the aluminum coating of a CD being burned off by a microwave.
Notice the plasma balls rising to the top of the oven. They'll produce ozone, which has an electrical burning sort of smell.
You can get the same plasma balls using a match or candle. That doesn't wreck the microwave either; makes a heck of a scary sound though.
You can also smelt aluminum, or even silver and iron in your home microwave without damaging the device.
If you make a habit of doing things like this, it's best to have a dedicated oven for the job, as melted plastics, heavy metals, and metal oxides do not mix well with food.

Washing out the microwave's insides should take care of any residual smell for you.


How is this machine used? (for, I think, peeling the skin from the tomatoes) I received as a gift this machine, which I am told is used to make spaghetti sauce. I believe that its purpose is to remove the skin of the tomatoes, but it simply looks like a grater....

Can someone explain to me how to use it and when I should use which size of grater? Should the tomatoes be boiled first or not?

Thanks.

That's a manually operated Food Mill/Ricer/Puree-Maker.

The Wikipedia Article for Food Mill shows a pic of the same model you have and from that article:

  Uses of a food mill include removing the seeds from cooked tomatoes,
  removing pulp or larger pieces from foods (creating apple jelly or any
  type of purée), and making mashed potatoes or
  spätzle.

It's not likely that you could uses this for peeling the skin from tomatoes though.


Can you add seasoning halfway through cooking with sous vide I plan to cook a brisket for 48+ hours. However I ordered some liquid smoke online and it wont arrive until the next day. I cant wait for it to arrive or I will not have enough time to finish the brisket.

Is there any problem with cooking the brisket for 24 hours, then opening the sous-vide bag. Adding liquid smoke and then cooking for the remaining 24?

That is not a problem.  If you are just lifting the bag, adding an ingredient, and returning it to the water it should not be an issue.  You are not going to change the temperature in that amount of time.  In this scenario I would suggest a ziploc freezer bag, rather than vacuum sealing, so maybe even double bagged.  Normally for a long cook, I would recommend vacuum sealing.  The reason that vacuum sealing in this situation is problematic is that after a few hours your brisket will release quite a bit of liquid.  This would make re-sealing a challenge.  I don't see a real issue here.  Lift the bag, open, pour in your liquid smoke (not too much), reseal.  You don't even have to take it out of the bath.


What's the difference between jam, jelly, and preserves? I assume the difference in name is due to their cooking processes, but am unsure what exactly makes them different.

according to the Ball canning book (paraphrasing)...

JAM is made by cooking crushed or chopped fruits with sugar, and is made of one fruit or a combination of fruits, is spreadable, and is firm but will not hold the shape of the jar.

JELLY is made from juice strained from fruit, usually prepared in a way to keep it crystal clear, and is gelatinized enough to hold is shape when removed from the jar, yet is still spreadable.

PRESERVES are fruit preserved with sugar so it retains its shape, is transparent, shiny, tender and plump. the syrup generally has the consistency of honey, and a true preserve will not hold its shape when spooned from the jar.

to add to the confusion, i'll also add their descriptions of...

CONSERVES, which are jam-like and made of a combination of one or more fruits, nuts and raisins, cooked until it rounds up on the spoon.

MARMALADES are a soft jelly containing pieces of fruit and peel evenly suspended in a transparent jelly. similar in structure to jam.


How to change a chocolate cake recipe to a vanilla cake I have a recipe for a moist chocolate cake that requires 3 cups of all purpose flour and 1 1/2 cups of unsweetened cocoa powder.  I would like to turn this moist chocolate cake into a white cake and was wondering if I should substitute vanilla bean powder for the cocoa powder?  If that is possible, what amount would I use? Or can you suggest another substitute?  I've included the instructions

Ingredients:
butter and flour for coating and dusting the cake pan
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

instructions for cake:

*Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter three 9-inch cake rounds. Dust with flour and tap out the excess.
*Mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a stand mixer using a low speed until combined.
*Add eggs, buttermilk, warm water, oil, and vanilla. Beat on a medium speed until smooth. This should take just a couple of minutes.
*Divide batter among the three pans. I found that it took just over 3 cups of the batter to divide it evenly.
*Bake for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
*Cool on wire racks for 15 minutes and then turn out the cakes onto the racks and allow to cool completely.
*Frost with your favorite frosting and enjoy!

My honest answer is you don't without a lot of experimentation. 1.5 cups of cocoa powder is a significant portion of the recipe, taking it out will throw out every other measurement and there is no easy way to calculate what adjustments you'd need to make. Vanilla powder is much stronger a flavor than cocoa powder and cannot be a direct substitute.

If you take out the cocoa powder you have to reduce the sugar level, but removing that much dry ingredient will make your cake too moist so you'd need to reduce wet ingredients to compensate. The buttermilk adds a sourness to it that counterbalances the bitterness of the chocolate, so that would need to be factored in. By the time you consider all that there are too many factors to make it worthwhile, you're better off finding a vanilla cake recipe. There are plenty out there which have buttermilk in them (I like buttermilk so I'd give that a try), I've had good luck with recipes using custard powder as well.


Why did I get wrinkled bagels? I made bagels for the first time yesterday. I followed the instructions...my bagels tasted great...but they ended up "wrinkled" after baking. It was a copycat recipe for Panera cinnamon crunch bagels. It may be possible that I didn't boil them correctly, it called for 45 seconds on each side, but I didn't have a timer and kept losing count with family interupting constantly. It only called for "flour" and I used some bread flour and some all-purpose. It didn't call for rising after shaping, only letting it rest 10 minutes. Any ideas?

It sounds to me like you've already diagnosed the problem. Just to cover the basics, though, here's some of the reasons why bagels are unsightly, based on my personal experience making bagels and a few internet resources (links below):

Failure to knead the dough adequately, leading to inadequate gluten development.
Overhandling of the dough while shaping the bagels.
Inadequate proofing after shaping.
Putting them into a roiling boil instead of simmering water.
Leaving them to get cold after boiling before baking -- they need to go into the oven still warm from the pot.
Making them during Passover*.

Per your description, inadequate proofing was certainly one of the reasons your bagels were lumpy.  You may have been affected by the other reasons as well.
Resources:

Smooth bagel recipe
Bagel Troubleshooting
Reddit Q on wrinkly bagels

(* the bit about Passover is a joke.  However, I did once make the mistake of making bagels during Passover, a Jewish holiday during with you don't make or eat leavened bread, and they were lumpy and flat, so maybe check the calendar just in case)


How should we determine the proportion of yeast in thin pizza? It's my first try at making pizza. I have a question that I'm curious about and I can't find an answer for.

I would like to make a pizza that is thin, crispy, and a little soft. In my research, most of the recipes used yeast. I know that yeast adds flavor to the dough and that's why I want to use it.

I do not know anything about the ratio of yeast to other ingredients.  I am using instant dry yeast. How can I calculate the correct ratio for AP flour? In my first try, I put one packet (30 gr) instant dry yeast for 5 cups of AP flour. I have no idea if it is correct or not. The result was not so good. I want to make a good thin and a little soft pizza for my daughter and wife and I am searching for a good recipe.

I also can't find answers to the following questions related to thin, soft pizza of this type:

I will stretch the dough thinly. The yeast I use will make this dough rise. But I want a thin pizza. Isn't that contradictory?
It is said that I need to use fat for the pizza to be slightly soft, but the use of fat also weakens the gluten network. Doesn't the weakening of the gluten network prevent me from making thin dough? Every recipe says that gluten network should be strong.
In some recipes, they use a fork before baking the dough. Is the purpose to reduce the effect of yeast?  Can't I make a thin pizza without a fork?

Thanks for your help.

First, the title of the question is about the "proportion of yeast" in pizza dough.  As the question doesn't elaborate further on that point, I'm not certain what that question might be.  Yeast proportions in pizza dough are typically similar to other breads, though sometimes a bit less, as pizza doesn't need to rise high.

As to the specific questions:

Yeast is used to improve the texture.  You can make pizza without yeast (or other leavening, like baking powder), but the result will have a flatbread texture that might be more cracker-like or doughy (depending on thickness and how long it is baked).  Traditional Italian-style pizza generally at least has a risen edge that is thicker.  And even thin-crust pizza is often improved in the center by having small bubbles that give a more leavened "bread-like" texture.  Also, yeast provides flavor during fermentation, so that's another reason it's typically added.
Yes, added fat will reduce the strength of the gluten network somewhat, which is one reason why many recipes don't add any fat to pizza dough.  However, a small addition of fat (generally olive oil) does produce a softer crust.  Using a high-protein flour (like bread flour or high-gluten flour), as well as making sure to develop the gluten well by kneading, folding, and shaping, will ensure that it's plenty strong enough for stretching.  In fact, a little added oil can actually help to make the dough easier to stretch into a thin pizza shape in its process of softening the dough.  My standard pizza dough recipe has some olive oil, and it stretches very easily until it's so thin you can almost see through it, but it rarely tears unless I'm not careful.
I don't really see the need to stab the dough randomly with a fork (though I have seen recipes that recommend that).  But some people use a fork or other utensil to pop any large bubbles in the dough before topping and baking.  It is useful to get rid of large bubbles, as they can grow significantly, and then burn or pop and cause toppings to get distributed unevenly.  This step isn't strictly necessary (depending on your recipe and how long you let the dough rise before making your pizza), and I usually only bother getting rid of particularly large bubbles.


Does an activated carbon filter in a kitchen hood dry the air? Clearly, an activated carbon filter can be expected to collect what comes from the cooking plate with the air. But what happens to the moisture, how much of it what gets sucked into the hood with the air will also leave the hood?

(if it heavily depends on the model, its Juno JDK4575E and let's take not fried egg but say cooking noodles).

I assume the moisture/vapour gets sucked in by the vent and eventually condensate (sp?) at some point in the duct and then evaporate normally.


Is non-stick aluminum foil safe to use on the grill? Is non-stick aluminum foil safe to use on the grill? My personal grill is propane.
I'm concerned that using this for a foil packet style of cooking will heat the non-stick so hot that it degrades. Not sure if the non-stick coating would be problematic from a flavor or health concern in this case?

I'm not certain what a "non stick aluminum foil" is, something like this?

Whether in the oven, on the grill or anywhere in between, Reynolds Wrap® Non-Stick Foil gets the job done anytime and anywhere. You can cook, cover, freeze and store with ease.

Usually, when using aluminum packets, we cook them on an indirect flame.
If your grill has 2 burners, you close one up and keep the other one open and put the packets on the closed burner side.
It'll act more or less like a regular oven.
The link above says that it can be used (with a link to recipes) for grilling.


what noise is the water boiling pot making when boiling water? I tried to boil water in a Whistling boiling water kettle tea pot on a stove. The stove has electric stove top coil burners. So when boiling water with those,  there is some noise and sometime a sudden big noise like something hit the pot. I been living with the phenomenal forever but today, I just wanted to know why? what is the noise that the pot is making?

cavitation noise - The noise produced in a liquid by the collapse of bubbles that have been created by cavitation.


Why add sugar at the end when making strawberry preserve? What happens when sugar is added to cooked fruit near the end of cooking process? Why sugar is added to cooked fruit near the end of the cooking process?

You need the juices from the fruit to release so the sugar can melt into it. If you add it before then the sugar will burn. In making preserves, there are only two steps, cook fruit till juices release, then add sugar and stir till dissolved.


Why does does vegan pulled pork specifically require jackfruit? I'd really like to try a vegan pulled pork recipe, but all of those I've come across require jackfruit. This ingredient comes from the other side of the planet, so I'd like to avoid adding it to my carbon footprint, and replace it with something more common in western Europe, with similar properties.

Can anyone tell me the reasons why those recipes use jackfruit, and if/how I can replace it?

It is simply because jackfruit has a consistency and texture that makes it very well suited in a substitute for pulled pork.

Apparently, you can also use hearts of palm, but according to an earlier question, it's harder to acquire and not as good as jackfruit. Here's a mushroom-based recipe. A google search for "vegan pulled pork -jackfruit" renders many more recipes without jackfruit.

In Sweden, where I live, we have pulled pork substitutes made from soy protein available in grocery stores. Perhaps something similar is available to you.


Is it possible to destroy the seasoning on cast-iron by getting the pan too hot? Yesterday I thoroughly cleaned my cast iron pan, reseasoned it four times for 30 minutes at 450 with liquid canola oil. The seasoning looked really good, and I had a great sheen across the entire bottom and sides of the pan.

I cooked bacon this morning, then cleaned by scouring with a sponge. I dried with a paper towel, buffed some more canola oil on with a new paper towel, and turned my stove on high. After 15 minutes, the iron was up to 700F-800F. I turned it off, let it cool down and it looks like the seasoning has been stripped from where the pan was hottest, pictured below.

Is there a temperature at which the seasoning is destroyed? If so, what is it? If that's not what caused my problem, what did?

As Jolene linked to in comments, one can certainly burn off cast iron seasoning at a high enough temperature.  The exact temperature where it will begin to disintegrate depends on exactly what the seasoning layer is like (composition of oils etc. used to treat it, thickness and number of layers, how thoroughly the oils may have been polymerized, etc.).

Depending on the exact seasoning layer composition and thickness, you'll see a number of different possible scenarios -- the layer could effectively "evaporate off" mostly through smoke, it could flake and degrade, and/or it could turn into a layer of powdery ash (sort of like what one sees after a self-cleaning oven cycle).

There's a lot of kitchen "lore" surrounding cast iron seasoning, even on websites that claim to be based on "science."  Everybody has their favorite seasoning methods and materials.  So, I'm really not certain of all the chemical details here.  But my personal experience is that a "young" seasoning that is rarely or never heated very hot is more likely to "smoke off."  A very old seasoning that is quite thick will often leave ash residue (and will require a higher temperature to strip down to bare iron).

No matter how good your seasoning is, though, it will be destroyed by heat long before you get close to damaging the actual iron structure of the pan.  There's an old traditional method of stripping seasoning off a cast iron pan that involves throwing the pan into a hot campfire.  So this is a very old practice.


Whipped egg whites in Gnocchi? I have been wondering what would happen if I tried to make Gnocchi with whipped egg whites instead of egg. I was imagining it might make them light and fluffier. Has anyone ever tried it?

It's not traditional, but adding egg white is not unheard of, though in this example, it is not whipped.  There are recipes for gnocchi with whole egg, egg yolk only, and no egg as well.  It might contribute to fluffiness, but it also might throw off the consistency of the dough.  As you do some research on gnocchi, you will note several other variables that impact the consistency of the final product...type of potato and how it is treated, amount of flour, kneading/mixing time...egg or no egg.  It's certainly worth an experiment, and it is not unheard of for posters to do the legwork to answer their own question.  Try it out.  Let us know the result.


What causes some fish to get texture like mashed potato suddenly? Sometimes a fish I cook disappointingly becomes of a mushy texture like mashed potato. One particular species where this seems to happen very easily, is Lethrinus miniatus: sweetlip emperor (also called trumpet emperor or sweetlip swoose) I've eaten other similar fishes (other sweetlips or emperors) and I didn't encounter the same problem.
Cooking is done on a cast-iron electric cooker, on a cast-iron pan, putting a little ghee on the pan and no water added, cooking on the lowest power (140 W) for an hour or two, of the whole intact fish, with skin and scales. Using a lot more butter, when the fish is fully covered in hot liquid ghee, avoids the problem, but with large specimen (~ 2 kg) its quite impractical and expensive, as it takes several kg of clarified butter to immerse the fish.
So having success with the immersed in ghee method, I am trying to make it work without so much butter, but the result is disappointing, the fish seems to transform from undercooked (when it's not possible to pull off the skin without taking a lot of meat with it) to mushy, mashed potato in almost no time. Often one part of the fish is still undercooked and not far from it is already mushy. As I am cooking it quite slowly and at low temperature, and cast-iron has a large heat mass, it would seem it should cook quite uniformly, but it appears it doesn't.
I did this also with a thermostatic controller with a probe both inside the fish body or probing the thin layer of ghee under the fish, with 65°C (149°F) or 80°C (176°F), but it seems the temperature differs a lot between parts of the fish, with some parts being undercooked and others mushy already.
I want to try not exceeding 60°C (140°F) but this would mean extending the time, so I am not sure it will yield the desired result.
Considering it doesn't happen when fish is immersed in clarified butter, I would like to know what physicochemical properties of the fish meat makes this happen and most other, even similar species it doesn't, and are there any other ways to avoid it, preferably regarding time and temperature control?
Another thing to consider, is that the sweetlip emperors I cooked in butter, were also mostly cooked from fresh (same-day caught), while the one I cooked today which turned out mushy was frozen by me from fresh and then unfrozen and cooked, but I am not sure it was always the case with a few mushy ones I had and some which turned out fine in butter bath. I am trying to isolate the cause of the mashed-potato-like mushiness, having several variables.

You have already diagnosed both your problem and the solution. Your intended cooking method is to poach the fish in ghee, you are not poaching it (for poaching, you will have to immerse it in a generous amount of liquid, in this case ghee) and thus it overheats.
You should either accept that this dish takes several kilograms of butter, or choose a different preparation method for large fish. What you cannot do is take away what makes the method work (the ghee) and then still expect it to work.


How do I convert volume to weight for soft cheeses like ricotta and mascarpone? Ricotta and mascarpone are messy to measure in measuring cups, so I'd rather use a scale. How much does one cup of each weigh?

I don't have mascarpone to check, but the Internet says that there are on average 225 grams per cup. Mascarpone being mainly a mix of water (density 1 g/cm^3) and fat (density 0.9 g/cm^3), this sounds about right.

I don't think it is possible to give a reliable conversion for ricotta. First, many countries don't have normal ricotta, so people use all kinds of substitutions, frequently not being aware that they are not the same thing. So it is possible that whatever you can buy in your supermarket under the name "ricotta" is not the same thing as whatever the recipe author can buy. Second, real ricotta is made from whey, and the amount of whey left in the cheese varies, so you will have a different amount of water between brands, which will change the density.

With this difference, I guess you could just assume that ricotta has the density of 1, measure out 235 grams and call it good enough. This will usually be a different amount from what the recipe author uses - but then, so will be measuring out a cup by volume.


How quickly do I have to use my thawed pizza dough? I have never used frozen pizza dough before so I didn't know how long it would take for it to thaw out. I plan on using it tonight for dinner (in about 7-8 hours) and I thought it would take much longer for the rock hard dough to thaw out. I have had it covered and sitting on the kitchen counter and it's almost completely thawed out!

So once it's thawed can I keep it in the fridge until I'm ready to use it?

The short answer is yes, you can keep it in the fridge until you're ready to use it, up to 4-5 hours I would think. It will be too cold to over-ferment. It's better to defrost it in the fridge to avoid it getting too warm.


Making whole wheat bread in a bread machine? What kind of flour? Disclaimer: I may not know what I'm talking about, feel free to correct me if you think I'm making a fundamental error.

I just got a bread machine and I love it.  It's so easy!  But I'm experimenting.

The first time we used it, we used a store brand white all-purpose flour, and the bread simply wasn't very good.  It was crumbly, it collapsed a little in the bread machine, etc.  I mean, it wasn't bad, we ate it.  But I wanted better.

After that, we bought King Arther white bread flour, and it worked much much better.  The bread was delicious with a wonderful texture.  I don't know how much of this is because it's bread flour (I assume mostly this) and how much is because it's a nicer brand (I assume this is a smaller factor).  It's great bread!

However, I'm told that white bread in general is not as healthy as whole wheat bread, although I'm not exactly sure what whole wheat means or how much healthier it really is.  Therefore I want to make "whole wheat bread," whatever that means, in the interest of health.  And to be honest, I've had some very boring whole wheat bread, and some incredibly delicious whole wheat bread.  It varies.

So, what do I need to do?  I assume it's a question of getting the right flour, but I didn't see "whole wheat bread flour" in my store- is this because it doesn't exist, or because my store doesn't carry it?  What should I be looking for?

Any tips, specific or vague, would be appreciated.  Thanks mmuch.

Bread flour has more gluten, which is a protein that makes bread stretchy and less crumbly when the dough is prepared right. There is plenty of whole wheat bread flour out there, and you can often get mixes which are specifically made for bread machines, I'd start with those and see how you go. If you cannot find them in your local store you might be able to find them online.

You can also read the label on the back of the flour, higher protein flours generally mean they have more gluten. You can sometimes find non-bread flours that have almost as much protein as those marketed as bread flours, so next time you are at the store have a look.


How to make Honey Roasted Peanuts just like Planters? I tried to make honey roasted peanuts looking at some blogs.
But I didn't come out so well. It was not very crisp and sticking with other peanuts definitely not like what you get from store.

Any help. Truly appreciated.

The best first resource and guideline for replicating specific commercial products is always the nutritional fact information on the back of the package.

http://planters.com/varieties/nutrition-information.aspx?Site=1&Product=2900007345

Ingredients:  Peanuts, sugar, honey, oils, corn syrup, salt, fructose, & stuff.

The lesson, here, is that Planters Dry Roasted Honey Roasted Peanuts (two roasted-s?) are actually sugar-honey roasted.  Most honey-roasted nut recipes swap butter for the oil (I think that would be a desirable swap!) - but if you're looking for that Planters flavor, you're going to need to make sure your recipe calls for more sugar than honey.

Getting heavy-handed and sloppy with the honey is going to take you in the direction of some failed foray into honey peanut brittle territory - you're looking for a delicate flavoring touch here so be delicate with the ingredients.

Also, for what it's worth, please note that the Planters information would imply that their peanuts are made with no flavorings or spices.  Evaluate your recipe accordingly.


How do you make Ketchup Doritos? I have been craving these for years, and I can't find a recipe.

Frito-Lay made Ketchup flavored Doritos a few years ago. Unfortunately they didn't sell very well and were discontinued not to long after being introduced. Me and a few friends were obsessed with them. I won't admit to how many bags I ate, but it consumed most of my snack budget :)

I've called Frito-Lay many times, and talked to a few of their delivery staffers about their lack of Ketchup Doritos, and the response was not good. The chance of them ever coming back is very bad.

So I turn to my last hope: Making them myself! Do you have a recipe for them? Even if it isn't the actual recipe, if it's your own proprietary blend I'm willing to give it a shot.

I don't have a recipe, but if you had say a dehydrator, ketchup, and whatsit--dextrose?--that helps dry things resist clumping, you could make your own. I believe Ferran Adria carries a powder product, on his website albertyferranadria.com.

Add the powder to your own tortilla chips that you've just fried, and should work.

Alternatively, multiplex movie theatres often have several different shakers of flavourings--cheese, sour cream/onion, that sort of thing. Perhaps Costco would carry something similar.


Do pan "pores" exist, what are they, and what are their effects? There are a number of common cooking lore techniques which revolve around the idea of "pores" in the surface of a pan.  Two of the ones I've heard most often:

(1) When heating a pan where sticking is a concern, one should wait until the pan is hot before adding oil/fat.  Supposedly the "pores" will close as the pan heats, leaving a flatter surface for the oil and less places where the food can get caught.  This is often cited for cooking on stainless steel, but sometimes for other materials as well.  (Some of the answers to this question, for example, cite this as a rationale for preheating pans before adding oil.)

(2) When seasoning cast iron (and sometimes other metals), one should be sure to heat the pan before applying oil.  Supposedly, the "pores" open up as the pan heats, allowing the oil/fat to penetrate the surface better and create a better seasoning.  (This has been mentioned a number of times here too, and it also is referenced on the Wikipedia page on seasoning pans, where preheating will "open the 'pores' of the pan.")

One obvious problem here is the contradictory logic of these claims: in the first case, one heats the pan to "close" the "pores," but in the second case, one heats the pan to "open" the "pores."  Which one is it?

I've heard these claims about "pores" and their very existence disputed.  At best, many commentators who seem to know something about properties of metals will say this is a strange shorthand term for the uneven surface of pans at the microscopic level.  (The end of this post and the discussion in comments, for example, contains some speculation along those lines.)

For years, I dismissed a lot of this discussion of "pores" as some sort of weird cooking lore myth.  For example, it's good to heat cast iron before seasoning to ensure it's thoroughly dry, regardless of the status of the "pores" in the metal.  And some people have done experiments claiming it doesn't matter whether you preheat a pan before adding oil to avoid sticking.

But I recently came upon a reference to these "pores" in Shirley Corriher's Cookwise, where she refers to the first claim I listed above: heating a pan to "close the pores" before adding oil/fat.  Alton Brown cites Corriher's claim too in a couple places, including in his Gear for Your Kitchen, where he refers to it as something you had to worry about to stop food from sticking in those ancient times before Teflon existed.  Corriher and Brown have been known to be wrong occasionally, but they generally are careful before citing random cooking lore.

So, are these "pores" real?  Do they expand or contract when heated?  Are their supposed culinary effects real?  Or is there some other mechanism or surface feature of metals that is being referenced here?

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm hoping someone may be able to point to a more reliable discussion of what's going on from a reputable food science (or science in general) source. I have my own thoughts about what may be going on here based on my knowledge of thermodynamics, metallurgical crystalline structures, and general materials science. But in cursory searches, I haven't been able to find any solid discussions of these supposed "pores" based on actual scientific evidence.

This is the microstructure of SAE 304, a steel type commonly used in pans:

At this magnification, its "pores" look like cracks. Now see it at other magnifications (still a SAE 304, other types of steel look completely different, especially if you look at martenistic steels):

It gets even more complicated than that, because steel structure differs between the surface and below the surface:

As you can see, the holes are nowhere "pore" shaped. But they exist; steel is not even at the microscopic level.

I cannot point you to more cooking-relevant sources, but this at least confirms that holes exist in the type of steel used for pans. Somebody else will have to tell us what happens to them when heated.

Note that there is a version of the "pore" theory which insists that the "pores" are still moving at certain temperatures and static when the pan is properly preheated. I'm not sure if it's true. On the one hand, it's presented in a rouxbe video, which is generally a very good source, and I can imagine steel doing funny things on the crystal level. On the other hand, the use of the "pores" term and the lack of explanation of the underlying mechanism make me doubt it.


"Overly sour yogurt is a sign of inconsistent inoculation" - What is inoculation? From here: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/13533/6168

  Overly sour yogurt is a sign of inconsistent inoculation

From: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/inoculation

  The act or an instance of inoculating, especially the introduction of an antigenic substance or vaccine into the body to produce immunity to a specific disease.

What is that quote talking about? How can "inconsistent inoculation" be prevented?

In this case, inoculation refers to the introduction of yoghurt bacteria (lactic acid bacteria) that transform the milk into yoghurt.

If anything goes wrong - from unclean conditions that let other bacteria grow to unfavourable temperatures that inhibit the proper growth of your desired lactobacillae - you speak of improper inoculation.

The effects on taste and possibly food-safety have been discussed in your linked posts.

So work in a clean environment, use a good strain of bacteria and maintain the recommended temperature range to prevent this.


Sunflower oil for seasoning cast iron Can I use sunflower oil to season my cast-iron pan? I know the oil needs to be able to tolerate high temperature and I'm not sure if this oil is fit for purpose.

Absolutely!

You can use most any oil on hand. Sunflower oil is a little pricier than others, but works well and has a neutral flavor. I use it occasionally for maintenance/cleaning on my Griswald #10.

It's not necessarily tolerance to heat that you're looking for in an oil, but oils that polymerize easily, which is (chemically) what you are doing when you season cast iron.

See also: What oil is best for seasoning a cast iron skillet?


Is it possible to sweeten chocolate without making it gritty? I read the following question earlier:

Converting pure chocolate to “bittersweet” chocolate

In this question, the OP asked if he could change pure unsweetened chocolate into bittersweet chocolate for cookies. In the answer, it was recommended not to add the sugar into the chocolate because the chocolate will take on a gritty texture, but to instead add the sugar to the cookie itself.

My question is, is there any way to change a darker chocolate into a sweeter chocolate without the grittiness? Likewise how would one change a sweeter chocolate into a darker chocolate?

Doing both is possible, but there is no point. For both, you need a conche, and this is a good contender for a gadget not worth its shelf space in a home kitchen. For a good chocolate, you have to mix the melted combination of base chocolate and additional ingredients for hours (Wikipedia says 6 for low quality, up to 78 for best quality), and this is what the conche does for you. For a nice structure and shine, you also want to temper the chocolate afterwards and cool it under appropriate conditions.

Chocolate is made by pressing roasted cocoa beans to cocoa liquor (consists of cocoa butter and cocoa solids). The dry remainder of the beans is then ground to cocoa powder (and sometimes also deacidified in a Dutching process). The cocoa butter can be separated from the liquor. The pure liquor can be tempered and sold as high-end baking chocolate, also called "unsweetened chocolate" in the US (low-end blocks of "baking chocolate" are mostly cocoa powder mixed with hydrogenated vegetable fat). To create bars of chocolate, chocolate creators like Lindt put cocoa liquor together with sugar in a conche to create different grades of dark chocolate (US name: semi-sweetened chocolate), or also add milk or milk solids to create milk chocolate. Lower grade semisweet chocolate has cocoa powder added, so a 72% chocolate will always have 72% cocoa bean products and 28% sugar, but depending on the brand, the ratio of cocoa solids and cocoa butter will vary, which will have effect on its behavior in confectionery (a higher ratio of cocoa butter will produce a smoother chocolate with more shine).

If you insist on changing the darkness of a chocolate you have and achieve reasonable quality, you have to throw together the needed ingredients, conche them, and temper them. For example, you could start with 100 g 60% semi-sweet dryish chocolate, add 80 g cocoa butter and 20 g cocoa powder, and you will end up with 200 g of smooth 80% semi-sweet chocolate, if you do it right. Given the prices for high quality raw materials, energy requirements and space taken up by a conche, and the availability of different grades of chocolate, I don't see any reason to go through all of this instead of directly buying good quality 80% chocolate.

This all assumes that the final product you want is pure chocolate. If you are making, say, a chocolate flavored custard, where you mix ganache into custard, and you have a chocolate bar darker than what the recipe specifies, you can get a perfectly good solution by first dissolving sugar in the warm cream and making the ganache with it, and then adding it to the custard. Other recipes which work with chocolate mixes (e.g. cake layer batters) function in a similar way - add your ingredient (cocoa powder if your chocolate is too light, sugar if it is too dark) to a wet ingredient which will dissolve it, and then mix the melted chocolate in as usual.


transporting roast beef I know how to roast beef in the correct way and let it rest before slicing, without wrapping it and making it sweat etc. etc.

My question is though that I'm roasting beef to take to a friends for dinner and I'm worried that after cooking if I transport it in a tupperware or something while warm, it will sweat and dry out and maybe even over cook. Do you think the best option after resting is to slice the entire thing and let it cool before transporting then just serving it cold at the other end?! Reheating the meat the other end will obviously over cook it...

It sounds like there's going to be some time between when it is cooked to when it is served, in which case the last thing you'd want to do is pre-carve it as it will dry out. Beef should rest after roasting, some chefs recommend roasting it as long as you cooked it, so don't worry if it takes 2-3 hours.

The important thing is to make sure you keep it warm and as moist as possible, so what I would do is wrap it in foil and put it in the bottom part of a tupperware container. The foil will keep it warm while the container will catch any drips. You can put the container at the bottom of a bag for transport, just keep the bag open. It's not going to overcook as long as you take it out 10-15 degrees F below the target temperature.

Just today I made a 2 rib roast and rested it by wrapping it in foil. The temperature climbed about 12 degrees after I took it out, and an hour and a half later it was still warmer than when I took it out of the oven, so the method works.


Which oils are considered flavorless? The cake recipe is calling for a vegetable oil. I have refined sunflower oil, and refined soyabean oil.

Do they qualify for flavourless oils? I haven't noticed any taste in any oil by now! Taste buds problem, perhaps.

Both refined sunflower oil and refined soybean oil are generally considered flavorless.

Also included among these are:

Canola (rapeseed) oil
Corn oil
Peanut oil
Safflower oil
Vegetable oil

The most reliable method of course is to taste the oil :). I'm sure you can actually taste the flavor of extra virgin olive oil.


How can I achieve the equivalent of "Slow Cook High" setting on my multicooker? So a deal site popped up for this KitchenAid multicooker.

I've been meaning to get a slow cooker for a while, and after checking the details of this guy, along with the rest of the stuff it does, I went for it.

Today, I was planning on putting some pork in for 6 hours, on "Slow Cook - High", but the only option was "Slow Cook - Low". I'm not sure exactly what's wrong, but with the other settings of the thing, I think I should be able to achieve just about the same from another setting, specifically the Manual mode,

So my question is, to you slow cooking maestros, what setting should I be using to have "Slow Cook - High" equivalence?

(This pork roast is the recipe I'm trying to try)

Looking at the table you've added, your "Low" is not far off a slow-cooker on high. It's just short of boiling but bubbles a bit from the hottest parts. You appear to be able to override the temperature upwards a little anyway.  Slow cookers are based on power input rather than temperature control and expect the ambient temperature to be that of a typical room.  I pointed my IR  thermometer at mine after a few hours of cooking; the outside of the crockpot a few minutes after I removed it from the outer unit was at around 90°C.  Unfortunately this was just out of curiosity and I didn't keep notes.

What's still not clear is where that temperature is measured -- if it's the temperature of the air surrounding an inner pot, the food will take a very long time to reach that temperature.  In that case you should probably start at a higher temperature for a little while.  The recipe book for your cooker may have more details.


Why is my lemon juice fizzing and smelling like yeast? I have an open bottle of lemon juice that I've been keeping in the fridge. I just took it out to dress a salad and it fizzed like soda when I opened the bottle and smells like... took me a minute to place it... yeast. What's going on? Should I throw it out?

It sounds like fermentation to me.  That's what you'd expect when you're making mead or hard apple cider.

I'd personally dispose of it ... partially because I can't think of a good use for alcoholic lemon juice, but also because you don't know exactly what the bug is doing the fermentation.


Why does food cook differently in a double-boiler? I understand that food cooks differently in a double-boiler than when cooked "directly" - but don't know why that is.

How does utilizing a double-boiler change how food cooks?

The double boiler maintains a steady, even temperature due to being heated by the surrounding liquid. Basicallly, (assuming the two pots don't touch) the heat in the internal pot will never exceed the boiling point of the water surronding it. Further, the liquid surrounding the internal pot has an insulating effect that makes temperature changes more gradual. When exposed to direct flame or heating element, the pot can do so easily, and temperatures may fluctuate more quickly.

The steady heat provides a good environment for tempermental foods/sauces that require a very specific temperature. Chocolate and Hollandaise are good examples of this.


How important is fresh ground coffee vs a good coffee grinder? Given a choice between using a good coffee grinder a few days in advance, or one of those whirly-chopper grinders immediately before brewing, which would you choose?

Both have downsides:

Coffee that is ground more than a few hours before brewing loses aroma, which is obviously an important part of flavour.
A blade grinder doesn't produce evenly-sized particles; big particles will under-extract (losing flavour) and small particles will over-extract (introducing bitterness).

My wife and friends didn't believe me about the over-extraction potential of blade ground coffee, so we did a blind taste test between coffee beans ground with a blade and ground with a burr. I identified the blade-ground coffee every time. That's not the comparison you have, but in the absence of a burr grinder I'd go for pre-ground, for convenience.


Are nectarine seeds edible? Eating a nectarine this afternoon, I found the pit was cracked open. Curious, I broke it apart and found an almond-like seed (or nut?) inside.

I remember hearing that some almonds, or perhaps their relatives (stone fruit?), may be poisonous in their natural form. Do nectarines fall into that category? If so, is there some treatment I can give it to destroy the poison (and yet keep it good for food, and a delight to the eyes, and to be desired to make one wise)? Will I surely die?

Don't eat it as-is. It contains cyanide.

Bitter almonds are the definitely poisonous thing you've probably heard of; they contain enough cyanide that just a few could kill a small child (according to On Food and Cooking). The poison is released when the kernels are broken, as defensive mechanism. The variety we eat is a "sweet" safe version which doesn't have cyanide. Other stone fruit kernels are essentially like bitter almonds; the plants are closely related.

Fortunately it's pretty hard to accidentally eat bigger kernels (apricots, peaches, and nectarines) that could carry enough to really be harmful. Smaller things like cherries of course don't contain as much, so it's no big deal if you accidentally swallow some, but you still shouldn't go out of your way to eat them.

The key almond flavor you're familiar with from almond extract is benzaldehyde, a byproduct of the cyanide production - unfortunately the poison and the delicious flavor come together. (The plants actually produce amygdalin, which is then broken down into sugar, benzaldehyde, and hydrogen cyanide.) The extraction of the benzaldehyde is a chemical process that you can't really do at home, so you can't just make almond extract/oil directly from them.

The best general reading article about bitter almonds I found was The Case of the Tasty But Poisonous Nut, from the LA Times in 2002. A few notable parts:

  The lethal dose of raw bitter almonds depends on the size of the nuts, their concentration of amygdalin and the consumer's sensitivity. But scientists estimate that a 150-pound adult might die from eating between 10 and 70 raw nuts, and a child from ingesting just a few.

  Schrade, who studied organic chemistry at Yale, learned that because hydrocyanic acid vanishes into the air when heated, cooking destroys the poison in bitter almonds and allows them to lend their flavor to a wide range of dishes, both traditional and modern.

  The FDA clarified the agency's position recently, saying that it would allow bitter almonds to be shipped interstate to professional chefs and bakers, as long as their dishes were cooked to be nontoxic.

  In any case, although it may be safe for most adults to nibble a raw bitter almond to experience its intense flavor, that would be unpleasant to most people. The nuts are not meant to be eaten as a snack food like regular almonds: They're used as a spice, like nutmeg or cinnamon.

So in summary: it sounds like fully roasting the kernel would make it safe, but since it should be something like a bitter almond, you probably don't want to just eat it like that, but rather incorporate it into something. And of course, I'm still unsure of the exact definition of "fully roasting" for complete safety. Dharini's comment below links to a suggestion that you need 10-15 minutes at 350°F, or possibly less if you've already removed the kernel from the pit, but other (also unreputable) sources I found recommended as much as 20 minutes in a "warm oven" for bitter almonds. Finally, the recipes at the end of the LA Times article are presumably safe, if you want to use them as starting points. (Obviously the risk is lower if you're just trying to eat a single kernel, but I don't want to make any unfounded recommendations.)


How large does an oven need to be to fit a 18 lbs turkey? Can anyone tell me the interior oven dimensions needed to comfortably fit an 18 lbs turkey?

I've searched around on the internet, but seeing as Thanksgiving is an American holiday, where most people have large, built-in ovens, I haven't had much luck pinning down an answer.

I don't know much of anything about cooking or turkeys or ovens, and I am living in China where ovens are rare and the sand-alone ones you can purchase tend to be small (more of a large toaster oven than what we're used to in the states).

The oven in a standard 20" kitchen stove will accommodate a bird even as large as 20 lbs (9 kg).

The very detailed chart here, the pertinent details of which are replicated in the chart below, establish the standard dimensions of such an oven as 18 X 16 X 14.5 inches (46 x 41 x 37 cm).

In their downloadable Thanksgiving pdf, for a turkey as large as 20 lbs (9 kg) Williams-Sonoma recommends a 16 X 13 X 3 inch (40 x 33 x 7.5 cm) roasting pan. A pan of this sort is available with a rack which rises just above the bottom of the pan, as here and pictured below.

This kind of pan keeps height requirements down to roughly the height of the bird plus 3" (7.5 cm) above the bird, plus the standard 2.5" (6.5 cm) below the bottom rack. With 14.5" (37 cm) worth of oven height to work with and about a half inch space between the bird and the pan, that still leaves room for a bird 8" (20 cm) tall. (We won't expect the bird to be half as tall as the pan is long.) Meanwhile, an 18" (46 cm) oven depth accommodates a 16" (41 cm) long pan, and a 16" (41 cm) oven width a 13" (33 cm) pan width. Also, as seen here and below, the pan's handles fold down.

Now, none of this is to say that there's anything the slightest bit convenient about roasting so large a bird in so small a space. But it can be done. It should just be done with every whit of safety in mind.


How to know when meringue has been over-whipped? I have seen many recipes, SO's and videos where the baker/chef/etc put egg white in a machine and whip it on high speed for anything up to and over 10 minutes.

I have been warned about over whipping my egg whites when making meringue...

Though I will start adding sugar from the stiff peak stage, how do I know if I have over whipped the whites?

The sad fact is: you usually know it when, half an hour after you are done whipping it, it floats in a puddle of liquid.

The problem is that it actually continues changing after you have stopped whipping. So, you really have to learn what the previous stage looks like, and stop whipping when that is reached. That's why I don't whip to really stiff peaks myself, instead I whip to soft and continue a bit, but stop before they have crossed the border to stiff, and when I let it sit, I have stiff.

This is assuming that you are making French meringue. If you are making Italian, the hot syrup stabilizes the proteins so they don't expell the water afterwards, and it reduces the volume, so whipping it longer is OK there.


How do I clean this silicone tray? I use this silicone muffin pan to cook things in the oven. It's supposed to be non-stick, but actually food sticks to it quite a lot.

Often I can just scrape dried food off with my fingers, but it's gradually building up brown stains and crusts that I can't remove even by scrubbing hard with a scourer. Is there some kind of trick to make it spotlessly clean again?

Try to put your silicon tray in boiling water for 3 to 5 minutes. I had the exact same problem and it worked fine for me.


What ingredients make powdered sugar not gluten-free? I am looking to start cooking more things gluten free for my girlfriend, and have heard that powdered sugar may or may not be considered gluten free. What do I need to look for in the ingredients to keep powdered sugar gluten-free?

The simple answer to your question is the kind of starch they use. Most use cornstarch or tapioca starch, neither of which contain gluten, so most powdered sugar shouldn't contain gluten. If the type of starch isn't listed, don't buy that product.

For absolutely no gluten, it gets a bit more complicated.

A Google search for "Gluten Free Powdered Sugar" only yielded a few brands that make a "gluten-free" claim. Since most brands of powdered sugar don't contain any ingredients that would normally contain gluten, look for the line "This product is processed in a facility that also processes wheat". Choose a powdered sugar that lists the starch used as cornstarch, tapioca starch or other non-gluten starch and that doesn't have that line on the label. Of course I can only speak to US labeling, other countries may be different.

One brand, Domino Sugar, stood out to really stand by their claim of gluten free.  Domino's Gluten Free Claim  (C&H is Domino, BTW). I happen to have some C&H powdered sugar, so I looked at the label. There is no "Gluten-Free" claim on the label, but the ingredients listed are only sugar and corntarch, and there is no "this product is processed in a facility..." warning. Walmart brand also pops up on the "Gluten Free Powdered Sugar" search, they say "Naturally gluten-free food". The FDA requires that claim not be misleading, so if they do use equipment to process the sugar that also processes gluten-containing ingredients, the sugar cannot contain more that 20 ppm gluten.

There is one way to know for sure about any ingredient you use, or to even to check your final dish. Elisa Technologies, a very well respected name in medical laboratory testing, has put out home test strips sensitive to 10 ppm, that's half the concentration of gluten the FDA allows for a product to be certified "gluten-free".  If a product tested contains less than 20 ppm gluten the US, Canada and the European Union allow that product to use "Gluten Free" on the label. FDA Announcement At over $10 a strip, you'd want to use them judiciously, but if I or someone I loved had serious health issues that did not allow gluten, I'd get these strips. Test Strips


How important is humidity when smoking a brisket? Recipes for smoking brisket typically recommend a temperature of 225 F. My weber smokey mountain has a water pan to help regulate the temperature. But what if I am able to maintain that temperature without a waterpan? Would it cook the same way or is the humidity necessary when smoking brisket?

According to Big Green Eggic, the main effect of the water pan is help keep the heat even and low in the cooker by:

Providing a buffer mass
Not heating above the boiling point (212 F / 100 C)

This makes it easier to hold even, low temperatures (like 225 F) for long, low and slow cooking.

They claim the humidity change is not really terribly important, as water evaporates from the surface of the foods relatively quickly in any case.

The article Physicist Cracks BBQ Mystery in the Huffington Post blog (which is very interesting in its own right) mentions that many successful competition barbequers are choosing to barbecue at slightly higher temperatures, which would make the entire point of the water pan moot.


When are pot lids useful? When I do anything on the stove - boil water, make rice, make a stew for 3 hours - I always wonder whether I should be using the lid.

The conventional wisdom is that the lid makes water boil faster. Is this true? Sometimes I have oddly-shaped pots which don't have a lid so I try to find a substitute (a plate, a sheet pan) if the recipe says to "cover". Do I have to cover? When I use a lid with rice, it always boils over, leaving me wondering why I even bother with it.

When do I use the lid? Does the lid have to be tight-fitting, or can it be something loose that mostly covers the top? How do I decide whether I can ignore the "cover" directive on a recipe? How does the use of a lid affect the food itself?

I realize this is a very silly question but it has always baffled me, and caused me no small amount of consternation when a recipe says to use one and I don't have a way to cover.

Covering a pan slows down evaporation of the water. As evaporating water takes a lot of heat, covering a pan will make the contents boil earlier.

If the recipe tells you to cover the pan, it's to make sure there's enough moisture for the full duration of the cooking; without the lid, you might end up with a dry (and usually burned) mess.

When cooking rice, the proteins and starch dissolving in the water will cause the bubbles that form on boiling to be more resistant, so they form a foam that lifts up the lid and escapes. Usually after the first foam is destroyed, you'll have no more problems (but do keep the fire low). And for at least one method of cooking rice, you want to keep the pot well covered, as the amount of water you add is just enough to fully cook the rice (the water is absorbed by the rice and makes the starch grains swell, without water the rice would stay very hard).

It all boils down to how fast you want the water to evaporate.


Stainless steel pan too hot? I have been cooking with my stainless steel pan for a while, and have tried many techniques to prevent sticking. Hot pan then oil did work to some extent, but I still had trouble with eggs, potatoes, and tofu. While I was doing this, I did make sure that water droplets were able to glide across the surface, and not evaporate.

Recently I have been trying to to "season" the pan each time before cooking by getting the pan hot, adding oil, then letting it cool all the way. This way, I could add eggs at lower temperatures as I might in a Teflon pan, and they were able to slide around and not just release. I found this to work well for fried potatoes as well.

However, I am having second thoughts about this method for several reasons. For one, I am not sure it is healthy. Second, no matter what method I try, I always have trouble making crispy skin salmon in my stainless steel pan. Therefore, I would like to revisit the hot pan + oil method properly.

One problem I had was that the temperature of the pan to be hot enough, the oil would always smoke when added, and would start to splatter when I placed the salmon. Is there a way to achieve the Leidenfrost effect without burning the oil? Also, if this effect is indeed due to the pores of the metal remaining open at a certain temperature, how can I cook proteins at lower temperatures? Finally, how can I achieve the food gliding effect of seasoning before each use without reheating the same oil?

Heat the stainless steal pan on medium-high.
After its hot add your oil.
You'll know your pan is hot enough when the oil has wavy movment when you tilt your pan.
Now raise the temperature gradually until the oil begins become only slighty darker.
If you've reached smoke point you are done (the pan should only be SLIGHTLY smoking)
Remove any excess oil and add new oil.

Cook.

Small amounts of oil are needed for fish without the skin.  But if the skin is on and your trying to get it crispy all of the skin on the surface of the fish must be submerged in water to get an effective crust.


How should I cook a ham bone for chili? I want to make chili using a ham bone (with a little meat on it). How should I cook it to make good use of both the meat and the bone?

If you're going to simmer your chili for a long time, just throw it in there.  If you made stock with it, you'd still be just simmering the bone for a long time to extract the same flavors.  (I'm not advocating not using stock here, just that I wouldn't make stock for the sole purpose of getting flavor out of the bone.  Use the stock you would otherwise.).

Simmer four plus hours and then pull the bone out, tap the meat off, and enjoy the chili (although I like to cool chili down, put it in the fridge, and eat it the next day better).

If you're going to make the stock with it though, @Cos definitely has the right idea with the pressure cooker.


Choosing between semolina and non-semolina durum flour I have a big confusion between flours, aggravated by the fact that I do not live in an english-speaking country and labeling and translations are confusing.
I like fresh pasta and have experimented with certain recipes and proportions of eggs, bread flour, semolina and durum flours. However, now I wanted to go into a little more detail regarding the flour but I am lost in translation.
My understandment so far:

Semolina is the specific way of taking a grain (which layers and parts) and converting it to "powder".
Durum wheat is different from the typical wheat used for white bread flours.
Semolina from durum wheat (sometimes seen in recipes as "semolina flour" or simply "semolina") is used in certain pasta recipes.
"Non-semolina" durum wheat flour exists and I cannot find the proper term for that in English. But I have it. And it's different from semolina.

First of all, are my understandings correct so far? Can some english native-speaker confirm the common terms for those things and what should I search for? Bonus points if there is any Italian speaker that can say them in Italian --that will allow me to search and understand more recipes, and I don't believe in automated translators for such niche terms.
And my main question, why and when may I use semolina and non-semolina durum wheat, and should I (may I?) combine it with bread flours? Should I change those proportions when doing egg-based fresh pasta? How will change the texture and flavour of the pasta when changing those flour proportions?

Your understanding is mostly correct. Durum flour is sometimes used for bread, generally mixed with softer flour. (Pasta is also sometimes made from a mix of hard and soft flours.) It's unusual (in my personal experience) to find soft wheat semolina labeled as "semolina". More commonly it's labeled as "rava", "farina", or "cream of wheat". Labelling will vary by region.
Pasta can be made from any of the flours you listed. Using semolina will give you a firm but tender pasta; coarse semolina will give you a rougher texture (but still firm/tender). Using part or all bread flour will result in a chewier, stretchier pasta (think hand-pulled Chinese noodles). Pasta dough with coarse semolina should be rested for a while before rolling out, as it takes longer to hydrate.


Does invisible mould exist? Sometimes I feel weird after eating food that by all appearances looked normal, including the interior.
For meat and produce I can understand there might have been bacteria that of course wouldn’t be observable or that the food was undercooked. But how about bread, frozen foods, and well cooked foods?

Yes, mould (or mold) can be invisible. When an item is visibly moldy, the visible part of the mold is actually the fruiting body. (You can think of a "fruiting body" like the flower on a plant. It's the structure that produces and distributes spores, much like flowers produce seeds.) The main body of the mold is a fine network of root-like structures called hyphae. The hyphae extend through the food item, digesting it to convert it into food for the mold. Once the mold has enough energy, it produces fruiting bodies, which in turn produce spores that allow the mold to spread through the air to other food items.
Hyphae are usually invisible to the naked eye. So yes, you could be eating food items that have mold hyphae growing through them that just haven't fruited yet. The hyphae cause chemical changes in the food which make it unsafe to eat.
I've noticed this myself with homemade baked goods that have sat around for several days. There's usually a period of a day or two where the item will taste strange, but before there's visible mold. (Interestingly, the particular strain of mold I have in my kitchen tastes a bit like cooked pineapple. I love pineapple, so it actually tastes good at first.) I often eat half a muffin or slice of bread before noticing that it has an unusual taste. But partway through eating that muffin, I'll start to notice the new flavor, and it starts to taste not so good.
My advice is to listen to your taste buds, and if you get partway through eating something and it starts to taste bad to you, take that as a sign that it might not be a good idea to continue eating it. That feeling is not always because of food spoilage, though. Sometimes it's because you're starting to get full, or the food is too salty, or one of a long list of other reasons why that food item might not agree with you.
Try to pay attention to what food items start to taste bad to you, and look for patterns over time. If it's usually with a particular type of food that's been sitting around for a while, then maybe you're not storing that food correctly and it's starting to spoil. If it happens repeatedly with different batches of the same type of food, you may have an allergy or sensitivity to an ingredient in that food, and you should consult a doctor or nutritionist for help in figuring that out. Some foods, like apples and potatoes, have a high satiety value. Foods with a high satiety value can make you feel like you've had enough to eat before you've actually eaten enough, and continuing to eat that food may make you feel nauseous. This is useful if you're trying to lose weight, but inconvenient if you have a small budget and you're trying to make that food item a staple of your diet.


using somthing besides onion in recipies So I was a cook and now I can be and have to reshape how I cook I became highly allergic to onions about 4 months ago and I'm having a hard time replacing them in so recipes I have tryed garlic but its now the same what else should I try

If you have a true allergy you would want to avoid all types of onions, garlic, shallots, chives, etc. Onions and garlic are aromatics. You could try some other aromatics such as celery, bell pepper, fennel, etc. They will add flavor and texture to your dishes although you will not get onion or garlic flavor.

If you do not have a true allergy you could try some other things. (Some people don't have a true allergy but suffer from gastrointestinal distress or "tummy trouble" after eating onions or garlic.) If this is the case you could try shallots, chives, garlic chives, scallions, leeks, etc. in small amounts to see if they bother you. Other options that do not tend to cause GI distress when small amounts are used would be dried onions, onion powder, dried garlic, garlic powder, or dried shallots.

Other than this, I would suggest looking for seasoning blends that could add flavors that appeal without containing onion or garlic. You may luck out and find something that satisfies your taste so that you won't miss the onion or garlic flavor. If you do find something, celery could add texture that may be missing.


Can you flambé in any skillet? Does it matter what kind of pan you use when flambéing something?

I want to flambé something and I was planning on using a non-stick pan.

Yes, it matters. You can destroy the pan.

Don't use a non-stick pan. The coating starts to decompose above 250 Celsius, and will probably fail completely if exposed to the temperatures of open fire.

Also don't use aluminium. Its melting point is under 800 Celsius, while a flame gets into the 1500s. You probably won't have enough energy to warm the body of the pan to that temperature, but I wouldn't risk it - locally melted spots on the pan surface are no fun.

Cast iron will certainly hold up to it, but I would be afraid to damage the seasoning.

What you are left with is stainless steel, if you want a stovetop-suitable pan. It will work perfectly without damage. If you are not constrained by stovetop use, ceramic/earthenware is also a very good choice. Don't pick one with printed decor, you may damage the image. But both enameled and naked ceramic or clay without prints will be OK.


I am sensitive to Caffeine, how could I prepare a chocolate-like sauce? I am sensitive to Caffeine as I suffer from a rare sleep disorder; I don't consume anything with caffeine rather on rare occasions.

I miss the taste of Chocolate sauces such as Hersey's.

How could I prepare a (vegan) decaffeinated chocolate-like sauce for pancakes, ice cream, and similar foods, if it is even possible by food engineering in December 2019?

There's actually very little caffeine in chocolate. So little in fact that decaffeinating it in any kind of economical fashion is next to impossible. Scientists have done it in the lab, but doing it on a scale where you could actually buy it at a reasonable price remains out of reach for most. If you feel like chocolate leaves you 'wired' it's probably down to the theobromine which is another chemical present in chocolate which is structurally very similar to caffeine, but it has a more pronounced affect on your body and heart rate than your head usually.

I'm not sure if this would work, but you could try steeping cocoa powder multiple times. Caffeine (and I'd assume theobromine as well) are very water soluble. For example, with tea approximately 75% of the caffeine will dissolve out of the tea leaves into the water after a single steeping. If you took cocoa powder and steeped it in hot water, and then filtered it through a coffee filter, and did this a few times you should be able to eliminate most of the caffeine and theobromine. You could then use the cocoa powder to make some sort of chocolate-like sauce by adding in some sweetener and coconut oil to make it vegan.

Or you could use carob.


In what kinds of dishes is asafoetida traditionally used? A friend recently gave me a small jar of asafoetida without telling me how to use it (or that it smelled horrible). In my googling, all I've been able to find out so far is that it's the dried sap of a Middle Eastern herb, used as a natural remedy, should be stored in a tightly sealed container due to its strong scent, and should be used "sparingly." I'm interested in knowing more specifically how I might use it in cooking (and if its flavor is better than its scent).

asafoetida is a digestion aid and helps to prevent 'gas'.  It is typically used in lentil/bean/pulse dishes in indian cuisine, with a pinch being added to the boiling pulses.


What are the uses of tzatziki sauce? I normally add tzatziki sauce when I eat roast left-overs. I cut the roast in slices (without warming it), and I add some tzatziki sauce.

Are there different uses for tzatziki sauce?  (I am sure there are.)

You can use it on its own as a dip with pita bread, use it as a spread on sandwiches, or as an accompaniment to fish and meat as you're already doing.


Peanut butter becomes dry I tried to make some peanut butter at home in a blender. It worked as expected, resulted in a somewhat smooth butter.

But after keeping it for about 30 minutes, it became too dry. The smoothness was all gone and started to appear powdery. How can I avoid this?

I had added some honey and a little bit of coconut oil.

It's a natural process in homemade peanut butter (and in 100% peanut butters). The fat from peanuts is stratifying from the rest. This is assuming you keept the mixture in the machine for longer time. So A) you squished the fat and b) mixed the fat in again.

If you stopped blending right after you "buttered" it then the fat is still not homogenised. Just toss it again in blender and blend for another few minutes. The mixture should be homogenous but when you take  little on finger or spoon and shake it off the oily film should be left.


What precautions should I take when preparing food while I have a cold? If I have a cold, what precautions should I take while preparing food to make sure that I don't transmit germs?

Wash your hands thoroughly and frequently.  See Clean Hands Save Lives.
Do not at any point cough into your hands.  Coughing into a sleeve is considered less likely to transmit germs.
To really prevent breathing on your food and potentially transmitting germs that way, you could consider wearing a mask.

Personally I'd consider the last step optional (and the other two not).


Necessary to change chemical leavener for sugar substitution in baking recipe? If I substitute raw sugar for white sugar, do I need to add more baking soda/less powder to offset any additional acidity raw sugar may contain?

in most baking recipes, the additional acidity from raw sugar or brown sugar being used instead of white sugar is in the noise in terms of leavening.  You should not need to make any adjustments for leavening.

On the other hand, they may be more hydroscopic, and so the item may tend to be moister.


Can mayonnaise be infused with coconut, without getting watery? I want to make a mayonnaise-based sandwich spread with coconut milk in it, but I'm concerned that adding enough coconut milk for any flavor will make the spread too runny.

Note, I do not want to make mayonnaise from scratch - I have seen recipes where you infuse the oil in homemade mayo first then use it to make mayo.
I'm talking about using packaged mayo as the base, ending up with the texture of mayonnaise and the additional taste of coconut milk.

You can add some liquid to mayonnaise without breaking it.  I've added smallish amounts of soy sauce and hot sauce and such to mayonnaise with success.  The question would be, could you get enough coconut flavor into the mayonnaise before breaking the emulsion?

Hard to say without trying.

If it doesn't work, you can try using coconut cream instead of coconut milk.  Like the name suggests, coconut cream has a higher amount of fat and a lower amount of water than coconut milk. This should allow you to add more of it to the mayonnaise without making it too liquid.


Making KFC-like chicken I brine my chicken and use only salt, pepper and garlic powder in bleached flour to taste. I think this comes close to the Colonel's. Can anyone taste other spices in the original recipe?

It's possible that the breading/spice mixture has been revealed, according to an article in the Chicago Tribune. They also provide a full recipe here, though as far as I can tell, the solid part is the spice mixture, and they're filling in the rest of the recipe.

They say it seems to be a good match... with the addition of MSG:

  But more important, did it taste like the Colonel’s secret blend of herbs and spices? It came very close, yet something was still missing. That’s when a reporter grabbed a small container of the MSG flavor-enhancer Accent (how did that get in the test kitchen?) and sprinkled it on a piece of the fried chicken. That did the trick. Our chicken was virtually indistinguishable from the batch bought at KFC. (Does KFC add MSG? A KFC spokesperson confirms that it does use it in the Original Recipe chicken.)

The full story: a nephew of Colonel Sanders spoke with a reporter and showed him a recipe he claimed was the original recipe, then later downplayed it:

  "That is the original 11 herbs and spices that were supposed to be so secretive," he says with conviction.

  (In a subsequent phone interview with a Tribune editor, Ledington dialed back his certainty and expressed reluctance about sharing a recipe that — if it's legit — ranks among corporate America's most closely guarded secrets. "It could be; I don't know for sure," he said about the handwritten list of ingredients, adding that this was the first time he'd shown it to a reporter. "I've only had that album for four years, since my sister passed away.")

KFC's official responses were of a "neither confirm nor deny" flavor, so it's pretty hard to say if this is real or not, but it certainly could be. The clearest they said was:

  "Lots of people through the years have claimed to discover or figure out the secret recipe, but no one's ever been right."

The handwritten recipe:

Transcribed:

  11 Spices - Mix With 2 Cups White Fl.

  1) 2/3 Ts salt
  2) 1/2 Ts Thyme
  3) 1/2 Ts Basil
  4) 1/3 Ts Origino
  5) 1 Ts Celery Salt
  6) 1 Ts Black Pepper
  7) 1 Ts Dried Mustard
  8) 4 Ts Paprika
  9) 2 Ts Garlic Salt
  10) 1 Ts Ground Ginger
  11) 3 Ts White Pepper


Why do some foods taste better the next day? Many people think that certain foods, like lasagna, many stews and hearty soups, tomato sauce and so forth taste better the next day. My question is, is that really true, and if so, why? The conventional answer is essentially, "the flavors marry", but that doesn't mean much. I asked this question on Dave Arnold's Cooking Issues podcast and he had some interesting answers but I'm curious to see what else this community will come up with.

For pastas at least, the noodles have a chance to absorb more flavor directly into the bland noodles. Same with potatoes in stews.

If the dish cools and is then reheated, more water is lost into the air. This effectively reduces the dish and intensifies flavors.


In what situation could we use black garlic? I read that there are something called black garlic out there. What is the common usage of black garlic? What is the difference of its from common garlic?

EDIT: Black garlic starts out as regular garlic and is put through a fermentation process that besides changing the color of the cloves to black, also mellows the flavor and reduces the sharpness associated with raw garlic.  The texture of the cloves become very soft, also.  While I have never used nor eaten black garlic, a website, linked below, is dedicated to everything related to black garlic, including how to use it in recipes.

Blackgarlic.com has a wealth of information on how this fermented version of garlic is made, its unique qualities including taste, texture and chemical properties, where to get it and...recipes!

http://blackgarlic.com/

NEW EDIT: And to balance out the linked info. so there's a non-commercial reference, I found this very in-depth article on black garlic's attributes that includes a reference to a scientific study: http://www.wellbeing.com.au/newsdetail/Black-Magic-Garlic_000553


I left stock out to cool overnight. Is it safe to use? I made a Peking duck stock, strained it while hot, then left it to cool overnight. My apartment is 24 degrees C. In the morning, I divided it into smaller portions and refrigerated it.

I'd never made stock before so I wasn't quite aware of all the issues. I want to freeze the stock but want the fat to solidify at the top first so I can store it separately so I've left it in the fridge for the moment. Then I read all these posts and am worried I may have ruined everything.

Can I still use it? Is it only safe to be used if boiling now (e.g. to make risotto)? What about the duck fat?

The correct way of cooling stock is to put the stock-pot in an ice-bath or in the sink with running water. If you put it in the sink, you don't even have to open the tap too much. Just a little stream of water is enough to cool the stock to room temperature in about half an hour or so. Then you can put it in the fridge.
A stock that's been left on the sink for more than 4 hours at 24ºC is a health hazard. You should take the stock at your own risk.
Harold McGee wrote an article on this very topic and the short answer seems to be that while you're not 100% safe with your stock, you could risk using it after a 10 minute boil:

I’ll admit to violating the guidelines in my own stock-making, though by a few hours, not days. When I cook a roast for dinner, I use leftover scraps and bones to start the stock, simmer it while I clean up, and take the pot off the heat right before I go to bed. At that point it’s too much trouble to cool the hot stock so it won’t warm up its neighbors in the refrigerator. Instead, I cover the pot, leave it at room temperature and reheat it in the morning, about eight hours later, before straining, cooling and refrigerating it. And my stock hasn’t made me or my family ill, either.
...
What about my lazy method of letting stock cool overnight, then reboiling and refrigerating it first thing in the morning? Dr. Snyder gave it a pass because it would spend only a few hours below 135 degrees, not enough time for the bacterial spores to germinate, start growing and reach hazardous numbers.
...
Any active bacteria are killed by holding the stock for a minute at 150 degrees or above, and botulism toxin is inactivated by 10 minutes at the boil.

The whole article is very interesting and worth reading in full.


Japanese cold soba broth? I remember having been in Japan and ate several meals of cold soba. Their cold soba broth taste like soy sauce with only a stint of saltiness; it doesn't taste like it's made of sushi type sweetened soy sauce; neither does it taste like a simple mixture of soy sauce and water.

Instead of using pre-made cold soba broth, I want to replicate these Japanese cold soba broth at home.  Googling directs me to different recipes: some suggest mixing soy sauce with chicken broth (I can't recall any stock-ish taste); some suggest mixing with Mirin (alcohol in a soba broth - I don't think so..).

Does any know how to make cold soba broth or at least know the essential ingredients?

The basis for any sort of Japanese soup dish is going to be dashi stock, a stock made of fish and seaweed. It has a much lighter flavor than chicken broth, so you might not have identified it easily. You can buy it in a powder form for convenience, and it can be sprinkled into other liquids rather than reconstituted.

This recipe is for soba with a dipping sauce, but it'll give you a good idea of the flavor profile you're looking for: Dashi stock plus kaeshi, which is made of soy sauce, mirin, and sugar (and simmered so it's not strongly alcoholic).


Could I use beer instead of/as well as water in my sourdough? The sourdough recipe I use calls for 300ml of water to 500g of bread flour (along with the starter). Instead of this water, could I use beer - or a combination of beer and water? The reason I thought this would be possible is because the beer would add taste and air to the sourdough. Along the same lines of adding more air to the sourdough, would sparkling water be a good idea, if beer is not?

You can easily replace the liquid in most bread recipes with beer. This can have a very pronounced effect on your final dough as there is a lot more chemical and biological fun happening in beer than there is in water. In my experience, the dough with beer will usually rise faster than a similar dough with water. Generally, the flavor difference won't be that pronounced (usually a much more "bready" flavor, unless you use a beer that otherwise has a strong flavor, such as an IPA).

The acidity of the beer won't actually have that much of an effect on your final dough as the ph will be a weighted average of all of your ingredients.


Other than gelatin what makes gummy bears chewy? From previous experiences, every time I try to make gummy bears they are more springy than chewy like gummies are supposed to be. I have been wondering, other than gelatin, what makes gummy bears chewy? I use 250 bloom gelatin powder.

From a package:

  corn syrup, sucrose, gelatin, citric acid, apple juice concentrate, sodium citrate,
      coconut oil, natural and artificial flavors, carnauba wax, red 40, yellow 5, blue 1

Likely the sugar types and their ratio is important. pH (citrate) shouldn't make a lot of difference unless you're using something weird instead of apple juice. Carnauba wax is likely a mold release agent, which leaves coconut oil as the most mysterious ingredient. I wouldn't bet on it affecting chewiness much, but these dense gel recipes can be pretty sensitive to minor ingredients.