What brine ingredients are effective? I frequently brine chicken and pork, and mostly it's just salt and water, sometime sugar, and occasionally garlic.

But I've seen all sorts of other "goodies" people add in, like spices, herbs, sometimes oils, alcohol, acids, fruits, vegetables, etc.

The question is, what actually makes it into the meat? Salt and sugar seem to make sense, and acid or alcohol may affect texture, but I have difficulty imagining that the other brine ingredients are adding any more flavoring than on the outer surface of the meat.

The great benefit of brining is that it opens the fibers of the meat and allows the water, and what is dissolved in the water, into the meat. I suggest you convince yourself of this by adding a fragrant herb such as rosemary to a chicken breast brine, and comparing it side-by-side with an unbrined breast. The difference, deep into the meat, will be noticeable. It is not large chunks of the herbs that find their way into the meat, but the oils and dissolved parts. That is why you heat and steep the water before cooling it for brining.


What can I make with vinegar-soaked chilli peppers? I misread a fermentation recipe and ended up putting a pile of chopped chilli peppers in a jar of vinegar with huge helpings of rock salt. It’s been left overnight, unrefrigerated.

Can I recover this into some kind of hot sauce?

This sounds like it would be an excellent condiment on deli-style sandwiches, serving a similar role to giardiniera.  Just make sure to be careful with portioning, as vinegar/salt/spicy is a combination of flavors that could easily take over if you use too much.


Vegan Alternative to Monte au Beurre? I was just in my kitchen making pasta and a wild thought appeared when I mounted my sauce:

Can I do a vegan monte? What alternatives could provide the same bind and richness?

Been looking for a little while, but can't seem to find anything. Has anyone figured this one out?

(everyone note that I'm not vegan myself, but i have friends who are and I would love to extend this method to vegan dishes)

Yes-ish. Managed to make something similar with margarine, almond milk, flour and nutritional yeast flakes (was going for a cheese-style sauce for mac and vegan-cheese).

Don't ask me for the recipe, I don't have exact ratio but here's my order of operations: boil almond milk, add mustard, flour, salt and any other seasonings you want, then once a boil has reached start adding margarine until it wont take it anymore, then add flour to get a roux consistency, and from here on out just keep whisking continuously then add more almond milk cold and nutritional yeast and whisk continuously until it seems to be coming back up to a 2nd boil. That's it: let cool a it and my vegan cheese sauce is ready.

To make it a vegan monte beurre, you'd want to skip the nutritional yeast (added for cheesiness flavour) and the mustard (added primarily for colour).


Crust separating from crumb in white bread. What gives? The last couple of loaves I have made have had large air-bubbles which form at the top of the loaf, separating the crust in places from the crumb.

Before shaping, I have been degassing my dough using the King Arthur Flour recommended technique of folding the dough over itself a few times. To shape, I form a rough rectangle, then fold the lower side to the middle and seal it shut with my fingers. I do this a couple more times until I have a nice loaf shape.

Is it possible that I am over-proofing the dough before putting it in the oven? Or is it my shaping technique?

It sounds like the gas from the yeast is getting trapped just under the surface of the loaf.  The surface layer may have gotten a little dryer and stiff while rising, and definitely sets first in the oven, that might explain why the gas can get through the rest of the loaf to collect there.

If you're otherwise pleased with your loaf's raising and crumb, you might, just before baking, lightly prick the top of your loaf, or add a light slash, to hopefully pierce that top pocket and deflate it before your bread bakes.  If you pierce too deeply you might affect the rest of your loaf's rising, since it will let the gas out instead of using it to rise the loaf with.  But if you're careful to keep it to the surface, you might pull it off.

Otherwise, if you want a fluffier loaf, you might want to double check your kneading - better developed gluten will trap the bubbles of gas better, so you might not have as much gas collect just under the top crust to form the pocket.  If this works, your loaf should be more consistent in crumb - I noticed the bread seemed to be denser towards the bottom (little pockets) and fluffier towards the top in your pictures.  This may still happen, depending on causes, but it would be less of a gradient.

Ii also might be that the difference in airiness from the bottom to the top of your loaf is affected by shaping.  In your description, you mention folding the bottom of the dough rectangle over - so if your folding is directional (say, top to bottom) instead of even, that might mean the "lower" part of the loaf has been a touch more compressed or worked than the top.  In this case, you might try baking the dough "upside down" in your loaf pan - that is, whichever side was down, ends up on top.  It might not look quite so nice, if there's a seam (or you might edge the seam to one side), but it might tell you if the shaping method is contributing to the uneven rising.


Why is buying meat online so expensive I buy meat from a supermarket which is around £5-£10 per kilo for most types of meat.  At my local bucher, I buy high quality meat for ~£10/kg.

I think perhaps online I could get a better deal, buy bigger quantities etc.  But no!  Normal online prices seem to start at £20/kg all the way up to £55/kg!  So many sites sell rip off 'meat boxes' as well.

Why is it so expensive?  I want to make regular 10kg beef orders (1 per quarter probably) to make lots of beef jerky but I just can't find anywhere online where this wont bleed my bank account dry!

Why is it so expensive online?

1) Because the meat is ostensibly higher quality and 2) because of the relatively high cost of refrigerated shipping.

Your local butcher is probably a better option for bulk buying. Tell him you plan on regularly buying a large amount of beef and he should be willing to cut you a deal. If not try another butcher!


Does Arabic gum help keep frozen yogurt soft? I'm trying to make frozen yogurt manually (no machine), but I would like it to be soft-scoop. My first batches froze hard (tasty but hard), regardless of whether I stirred them every half-hour or not. I was advised to try Arabic gum, but that doesn't seem to make any difference. Am I trying the correct additive? If not, what should I be trying?

Basically you can't actually make soft-serve style yogurt in a regular freezer. It's just too cold.

However, you can make it softer by doing one or more of the following:

adding additional sugar. After a certain concentration, sugar prevents ice cream, sorbet and frozen yogurt from freezing as hard.
Adding some concentrated source of alcohol. I often use an ounce or two of spirits or liqueurs in my ice creams (usually a 5-6 cup batch), which prevents the mix from freezing as hard because of alcohol's very low freezing point.
Adjusting the fat ratio. I don't know the exact magic ratio of fat, though I'm sure someone else can find it for us. I've found that low fat and very high fat ice cream tends to freeze very hard.
Adjusting the amount of air in your batch. The churning process that an ice cream maker would buy you adds a fair amount of air between the crystals and results in a softer batch.

An ice cream machine can also produce a result that you can serve up quickly after making so that you never get to the "hardening" stage that American-style ice creams go through when you put them in the freezer after churning.

I don't use gums in my ice creams, but the advantage that they give you has more to do with stabilization of the ice crystals, not softening, as far as I understand. They primarily help cope with the conditions of transport, as you tend to slightly melt the ice cream/frozen yogurt when you take it home from the store and then you refreeze it.


How do I remove a black residue after seasoning cast iron waffle maker I just seasoned a cast iron waffle maker.  It now has a black residue that is flakey in the thinner spots and somewhat sticky where it is thicker.  Should I just bake it longer, start over again, or something else?

You might consider removing all that seasoning with oven cleaner and starting over to get a thin, even coating. Thick, gummy seasoning is not going to perform properly.

These are the best instructions for cast iron seasoning I know, using multiple very thin layers of flax seed oil:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoIO8YOpyN4


Purging air from a pressure cooker Many years ago, while instructing me in the use of our pressure cooker, my father told me to always let steam escape from the top stack for a couple of minutes before putting the weighted cap on it. This, he said, would purge air from the cooker and thereby prevent oxygen from attacking the food at the elevated pressure and temperature inside.

This makes a lot of sense to me, but I never see it mentioned in pressure cooking books or instructions. What's the deal?

In pressure canning, the USDA says:

  Air trapped in a pressure canner lowers the temperature obtained for a given pressure (for example, 10 or 15 pounds pressure) and results in underprocessing. To be safe, USDA recommends that all pressure canners must be vented 10 minutes before they are pressurized.

Which might be where your dad borrowed that idea from. The effect in that case is more from the air taking up space that should be filled with steam, and preventing it from being filled with steam (rather, being filled with a steam/air mixture), making the transfer of heat from steam to jars less effective.


Is it true about a dull knife being more likely to cut you? I've heard people argue that a dull knife is more likely to cut you than a sharp one.  The argument is that you are more likely to cut yourself by applying too much pressure with the dull knife.  When too much pressure is applied, you jeopardize your control over the knife and it puts you in a position to cut yourself.

Is this true?

To my experience, the cutting "trajectory" (not sure if that's the right vocab) of a dull knife is less consistent and less controllable than a sharpened one, and is more subject to be influenced by the texture of the material being cut, especially cutting something hard, thick and fiber-ish such as carrot or big melon.


Is it safe to freeze soup that uses previously frozen stock? I have a lot of frozen stock. I would like to use that stock to make a tomato, leek and basil soup which will be eaten one or two days later.

Is it safe to re-freeze the soup that contains the previously frozen stock?

Am I better off not freezing the soup that I will be consuming in just one or two days?

Soup (and any food) is safe to freeze and re-use as long as you keep in mind these things:

The time the food has been 'out' does not reset when you freeze it. You are putting any harmful microbes on pause, not killing them. Be aware of the total time since your food has been cooked both before and after freezing. Remember that putting something in the freezer does not result in 'instant' freezing unless you have Carbon freezing equipment.
Soup is often fully re-heated to boiling. This does reset the clock on safety, and is one thing that makes soup easier to freeze and re-use than other foods.
Stock also often changes less with re-cooking than something like meat or vegetables, so you damage the end result less (if at all) with frozen soup than with other re-frozen ingredients.


What is the difference between corn flour and corn meal? I have a recipe that calls for a mix of corn and wheat flours, but my local grocery stores (in the south east US) only carry corn meal.

What is the difference between corn flour and corn meal?
Can I safely use corn meal in the place of corn flour?

The difference between the two can be seen below (the post it is from is an experiment comparing corn meal and flour used in anadema bread):

The corn flour is the white, finer ingredient on the right. The first obvious difference is that the texture will differ between the two. The second is that it would have different uses. Both would be effective at displacing gluten-containing flours (as in, neither would be helpful in gluten formation).

In terms of substitution, however, corn meal is likelier substituted by something like semolina flour and corn flour is likelier better substituted by quinoa or garbanzo bean flour.


How do I control the smoke from a chimney starter? I'm seasoning my new Weber Smoky Mountain smoker according to the excellent instructions, given for free, on Amazon, by a 20x BBQ grand champion. (What an amazing thing for this guy to do!)

Anyway, I'm using a Weber RapidFire chimney starter, and both times I've used it so far, it's completely filled the entire backyard with wood and paper smoke.

My upstairs neighbors sleep with their windows cracked when it's warmer (which is when I'll be BBQing), and so I'd really like to not smoke them out of their own bedrooms at 6 in the morning. Any advice for minimizing smoke when using a chimney starter?

There's some advice here about using only one sheet of newspaper doused with a bit of oil, but I don't know if that mitigates smoke.

First off, I'd cease using paper as your tinder. While it is the cheapest way to get your charcoal started, it does create a lot of smoke and ash flying around. And avoid oil-soaked paper. This will create even more smoke (I speak from experience).

I started using firestarter cubes, as they burn hotter and longer, meaning my coals are ready for cooking faster. Also, another side effect has been that the only smoke I see is from the charcoal itself. I started using the Weber ones, but they are expensive and don't burn as long. So I switched to a different fire lighter. You'll have to forgive me, as the name escapes me -- once I get home I'll edit this answer with a picture of the bag. Anyway, they're cheap, at about US$ 5-6 for a bag of 72. And they burn long, hot, and smoke-free.

The only remaining problem you'll have is that when charcoal begins igniting from a low starting temperature, it puts out quite a bit of smoke. If you are still worried about smoking your neighbors out, you will probably want to experiment with different brands and types. Stubbs briquettes are a bit less smoky on ignition, as is most lump charcoal. If you use lump, though, you should make sure you pack the charcoal ring in your WSM nice and tight, or it will burn very hot and fast. Also, put a piece of expanded steel on the charcoal grate to keep the small pieces of charcoal from falling through.


How do I peel prosciutto from wax paper without it coming off in strips? Anytime I've purchased prosciutto from a store it's sold in slices separated by pieces of wax paper, but when I try and peel it off it doesn't peel evenly. The lines of fat in the ham offers less strength when peeling, and the prosciutto often tears along these lines.
When trying to make sandwiches it isn't too much of an aesthetic issue, but if I'm trying to make a charcuterie board having thin strips isn't as appealing. Is there some best way to scrape the meat from the wax paper, peel from both ends simultaneously? Or is this an inconvenience I'll just have to deal with?

I usually use a palette knife (frosting spatula) to separate the slice from the paper by sliding it betwixt the two.  It is quick, but does require some care.


Making a decent pie crust? I have tried many pie crust recipes, it either sticks to the cutting board or rolling pin. I've even tried wax paper or plastic wrap with a generous amount of flour and it still sticks.  If I'm lucky enough and it doesn't stick, it breaks up when transferring to the pan. What am I doing wrong?

Sticking could be because the dough is either too warm or too wet. So it's possible you're not letting it chill fully. It's also possible the dough's too wet because you added too much water in order to get it to come together. I suppose it's also possible that your definition of a generous amount of flour isn't actually very generous, and you're letting either the surface or the rolling pin get sticky, but that seems less likely.

If it breaks in a crumbly way when transferring, it's probably too dry. That could happen if you add too little water, or perhaps if you let the ingredients get too warm while you're mixing it up, so it seems to come together thanks to the fat melting, but then once chilled it's too dry and ends up crumbly. If it's just tearing easily, you could be rolling it too thin, or even just letting it hang under its own weight too much.

So it's hard to tell you exactly what you've done wrong, and it could well have been different things each time. It's even possible that some of the recipes you used were actually bad. For what it's worth, this recipe has worked reliably for me. If the recipes you've used are significantly different in any way, that could've been the problem. (It calls for a food processor, but even doing my best imitation with a pastry blender it's always worked well.)

Beyond that, all I can really do is try and give some generic advice:

Check your measurements. Consider using a scale for the flour for more precision.
When mixing flour and butter, make sure the butter is well-chilled and work quickly. Use a pastry blender, or a food processor if you have one, so that your hands aren't adding heat. If the room's warm, be extra careful about this (or crank up the AC, or do this at a cool time of day instead).
Add only enough water to make the dough come together. The amount in the recipe should be pretty close, but sometimes there's a range. If you have to really force it all together and it's threatening to crumble, you probably have too little. If it comes together really easy, without having to push it into a ball at all, you probably have too much.
Chill the dough thoroughly before rolling. You probably need at least a couple hours in your fridge, but you can be extra sure by giving it several hours or even overnight.
Work reasonably quickly when rolling it out. Especially if the room is warm, taking a long time to roll the dough lets it heat up too much, so it'll get sticky. (Again, AC or cool time of day if possible.)
Make sure to roll somewhere close to a circle. It doesn't have to be perfect, but if you're way off, you'll have to roll it too thin in order to make it big enough to fit your pan.
Make sure you really are using enough flour. You don't want it bathed in flour, but you do need to get a thin layer across everything, and it's fine to add more if it starts to stick. You shouldn't need any tricks with wax paper or plastic wrap; a decent amount of flour on the work surface and rolling pin will do just fine. It can be hard to dust evenly enough, so if you notice it's patchy, rub it around to make sure things get covered. (You can swirl the disk of dough around in the flour before starting, then flip it over and repeat. When you add flour on the rolling pin you can rub it around with your hand.)
When transferring the dough, be sure you're lifting it securely. Get both hands under it (shouldn't be hard if it's floured). You can also roll things out on a flimsy plastic cutting board and just slide them off into the pie dish. (That's especially useful for lattice tops.)


Are there other parts of a Lobster that are edible apart from the Tail and Claws? I was thinking of the innards - specifically the white parts inside of the main body and what looks like eggs.

The only parts that you need to avoid are the intestinal tract - the black line that runs through the tail, and the sac right behind the eyes which includes the brain, stomach, and other organs.

The tomalley is the edible yellow-green pasty substance which serves as the liver and pancreas. However, there are advisories in place by US federal and state agencies advising against eating the tomalley of Atlantic lobsters due to the high concentration of toxins present. I've eaten it before if that matters; it's delicious.

The roe present in female lobsters is also commonly eaten.

Anything else is edible, but not frequently eaten.


How can I marinate meatballs without making them "mushy"? I like to marinate my meatballs in a sauce on the stove for several hours, but they always seem to be "mushy" after cooking for so long. Is there a way to marinate the meatballs without having them cook?

Will the meatballs marinate while sitting in the cold sauce just as well as in the hot sauce?

I would crispen the outside a bit by frying or baking them first. To improve the outer crust, you might dust with flour and corn starch before frying. Typically I have not previously had problems with meat balls in sauce becoming mushy using minimally breaded mix, spices, and lean -ish (90%) ground meat. Here are some additional points to consider;

If you use bread in your meatball mix, you might tilt the ratio more in favor of the meat
If you are not using egg or some other binder, you might try doing so to create a tighter bond inside the ball
If you are cooking the sauce at too high a heat (I normally have mine set as low as possible when doing a long cook) it may come to a simmer, making the sauce likelier to disrupt the meatballs. Maintain a lower heat or use a heavier pot
If you are using ground meat, there is more room for the sauce to creep in. Make sure that they are packed sufficiently tightly when rolling them

Short of leaving the sauce and meat overnight, flavors will transfer more quickly in warmer temperatures. I am having trouble locating definitive resources to back this claim up, so I am speaking mainly from experience. However, one caveat exists particular to collagen and connective tissues in meat; here it is explaining why stews and other foods taste better the next day. Mixing water and strong acids is an exothermic process (gives off heat, does not benefit from warmth). However, this process is about mixing strong acids and fats. I would also mention that you are supposed to store tomatoes at room temp as the cold does not preserve their flavor and inhibits ripening, though I'm not sure this is relevant.


Does nutritional yeast expire or go bad? I have a tub of nutritional yeast with a "best by" date of February 2012 (at the time of this posting, it's about a month past that). Is it still good to use? It still looks and smells the same as it always has.

In general, what is the shelf life of nutritional yeast?

Does nutritional yeast ever expire or otherwise go bad? Or just lose nutritional value?

Your question: is it good to use. My answer: yes.

You say it smells and looks normal. That's an important clue.
We are talking about a dry product. No moist means no growth, no toxins...
Best before date. Wikipedia:

  Most shelf life dates are used as guidelines based on normal and expected handling and exposure to temperature. Use prior to the expiration date does not necessarily guarantee the safety of a food or drug, while a product is not always dangerous nor ineffective after the expiration date


Why would a steam rice cooker suddenly make my dad sick? My dad has owned the same rice cooker for years and it always worked fine. Recently, every time he makes rice, which is all it has ever been used for, he gets sick to his stomach almost immediately after eating it. No amount of cleaning and rinsing to make sure all soap is out of it makes any difference. It also doesn't matter what brand of rice, even the same ones we have always used. What is the problem? The unit seems to work just fine.

The big question is: what changed? Some possibilities:

The rice cooker isn't being cleaned properly. Doesn't seem likely that the residue on an even poorly-cleaned metal pan would significantly contaminate the results.
The water or other cooking ingredients. Doesn't seem likely since the water is probably the same stuff you drink, and generally there aren't any other ingredients when using a rice cooker.
Your dad. Has he developed some sort of allergy or reaction to the rice?


Is a (British) wedding cake just a tiered fruit cake I'm trying to find a good recipe for a wedding cake. I'm going to keep it fairly simple, one or two tiers, plain icing with some small decorations.

Many recipes seem to be variations on classic fruit cake or Christmas cake. Is that the case? Am I safe scaling up a recipe like Delia's Christmas Cake (a favourite of mine) or is there something specific about the flavour of a wedding cake I need to be sure to include or omit?

These days, wedding cakes can be pretty much any kind of cake. A traditional wedding cake is certainly more or less a Christmas cake - a dense, dark, 'matured' fruit cake with marzipan and royal icing.

However, nowadays you will find that anything goes - flavoured sponges are extremely popular. The main criteria is that the cake should be sufficiently dense to hold the weight of a tier or two. This means your standard light-as-air Victoria Sponge won't cut it - it will just collapse. You need to be looking at denser, moister cakes.

Basically, a wedding cake is whatever the happy couple want it to be!


Can you refreeze chicken after it has been cooked from frozen I buy chicken breasts already frozen from my local supermarket. I want to let them defrost naturally (IE leave the breasts out until thawed at room temperate) and then cook them in a fruit sauce. At this point, I want to refreeze it.

This will then allow me to defrost the now frozen cooked and flavored meat over night and use them cold in sandwiches the following day.

I can't find anything to advise if this is or isn't safe?

The issue here is not the refreezing after cooking, but rather the method of initial thawing.

Thawing methods should ensure that food does not enter and stay in the danger zone (40 F - 140 F, 40 C) for any longer than absolutely necessary, and certainly not for time measured in hours.  Doing so risks the growth of pathogens and resultant foodborn illness.

Thawing foods by leaving them out at room temperature—especially, for example, while you go to work—is not a good idea for a couple of reasons.  The food on the outside may be too warm before the center is thawed; and if not monitored, there is no way to know when it about to enter unsafe temperatures.

The recommended methods of thawing are:

In the refrigerator
As part of the cooking process
Under flowing cool water
In the microwave

One or more of these may be appropriate depending on the food item and how it will be prepared.

You should use one of these methods to thaw your chicken.

Assuming that food has been treated safely throughout its lifetime including during thawing, there is no safety reason why it cannot be refrozen.  This may reduce quality and affect texture, but it is not a safety issue.


What is the purpose of heavy cream in a mushroom duxelle? I'm planning on preparing a beef wellington for the holidays and am following a recipe whose duxelle recipe is defined:

  In a food processor, pulse the mushrooms until finely chopped. Then, finely chop thyme.
  Over medium heat, melt butter in skillet. Add mushrooms and combine with butter. Add thyme. Using a garlic crusher, crush garlic and add
  to mushroom mixture. Continue to combine over medium heat for about
  10-15 minutes or until the mushrooms are caramelized.
  Once the mushrooms are caramelized, add a generous splash of Cognac and stir to deglaze the pan. Add heavy cream and cook for several
  minutes or until all the moisture is gone. You should be left with a
  paté-like mixture.

Most of the ingredients make sense to me in their contribution to flavor and/or texture but I can't seem to figure out why heavy cream would be added to the duxelle. I thought the mushroom pâté would be thick enough alone, so I can't imagine the heavy cream contributing to the duxelle in that respect.

The heavy cream is basically protein and fat, with some water which you're cooking off.

I think the cream is there to bind, as the mushrooms will probably not quite "stick" well enough.

It also adds to the volume of the completed paté.

Last, but not least, I have been told that cream is tasty. It's there, among other things, to add to the flavour.


slow cooking chicken thigh in a spice mix I have a 'Parampara' branded Butter Chicken spice mix packet that is meant to be cooked with diced chicken thigh.
The directions on the packet suggest frying the chicken (5 mins) and then simmering it in the sauce (10 mins).
My question is: would it be an improvement to cook the chicken and sauce in my electric slow cooker for a few hours?  Would this result in nicer, softer chicken pieces, or would it just taste overcooked?

Bonus points: what vegetables to add?  I was thinking chickpeas and/or cauliflower florets

There is almost no such thing as overcooking chicken thighs. Chicken thighs are simply the most forgiving piece of meat known to man. The only thing that concerns me about your plan is that you plan to dice the chicken. There is nothing wrong with that, but diced chicken thighs are very slightly less forgiving than whole chicken thighs. If you do dice them, you should be aware of them, don't leave them for hours on end.

You will be able to tell at what point you've reached the point of diminishing returns (referring to taste) just by tasting frequently once the thighs are safely "done". What I mean by that is that the thighs have reached a safe temperature (165F/74C). How long that will take will depend on a lot of factors, not the least of which is the setting you choose for the crockpot. Wait for a few minutes after the thighs lose their illusion of translucency. Once they look opaque, they're pretty close to being safely done. At that point, if you continue to cook them at whatever setting you have chosen for just a few more minutes (maybe 25 minutes more on low, 10 minutes on high), you will almost certainly be safe to taste the dish.

Especially if you're relatively new to cooking, I recommend backing up that visual method with a thermometer. It's a little harder to get an accurate reading on diced chicken than on whole chicken pieces, but it is totally doable as long as the pieces aren't tiny. Figure at least an inch square, roughly. Just stick an instant read thermometer into an individual piece or two, and also just in the center of the mass of food (not hitting the bottom of the crockpot). If all of those readings are reasonably similar, all of the readings are at at or above 165F, and the chicken passes the "opaque" test, then you can start tasting.

Cooking chicken thighs in a crockpot is one of the easiest ways to make chicken, and it works great. You can leave whole chicken thighs in a crockpot on low all day. On high, you might want to take them out in four or five hours (ish). If you debone and cut the thighs into approximately 1 inch cubes, then figure about 50% of the time that you would use for whole thighs.

If you Google "chicken thighs crockpot recipe", and "diced chicken thighs crockpot recipe", you will find many recipes that you can use as guides.

If I were making chicken thighs tonight with a spice blend or sauce, I would certainly consider a crockpot for the task.

One small caveat is that you want to use less water in a crockpot than the instructions say for stovetop preparation. You can always add a little more water for the final several minutes of cooking if you want the dish to be more liquid, but you barely need additional moisture at all to cook chicken thighs in a crockpot. I would actually consider using the spice blend like a rub, and then just adding a few teaspoons of water to the crockpot. One of the golden rules of cooking is that it's a whole lot easier to add more (of anything) than to take it away.

As far as the bonus, your ideas sound good. So do peas or potatoes. That question is more subjective than most we see here, so I'll reiterate the Google suggestion. Let the recipes you find and answers here be a guide, but decisions of taste are ultimately yours to make.


Baker's Percentages for Baked Doughnuts? I recently purchased an electric doughnut maker and am about to embark on a baked doughnut spree.  Having consulted the few recipes included with the machine along with some online options, I have noticed considerable variation in the recommended batter composition.  I was wondering if anyone has seen or established a reliable set of baker's percentages for baked doughnuts they could share.

The two most consistent ratios among the recipes I've seen are:

Flour - 100% (naturally)

Sugar - 50%

After that, all bets seem to be off:

Fat (some combination of butter/oil) - 20%-35%

Egg - 25%-35%

Liquid (some combination of milk/buttermilk/sour cream/yogurt) - 70%-80%

I'm not concerned with the salt, spice, and leavening amounts - I'm more interested in the variations of the ingredients that contribute significant weight to the recipes.

Aside from the King Arthur and Epicurious recipes I found, no other recipes were able to supply weights so the percentages I supplied above are mostly estimates based on the assumption of a 5 oz. cup of flour (which I know is not universally applicable). My guess is that, as with most quickbreads, the recipe is probably robust with the amounts supplied more likely to correspond to simple volumetric measures and whole egg inclusion rather than weights (I'm pretty sure that the King Arthur recipe is based on volumes and the weighted versions you can query online are just conversions to weight based on their own established system - for example, in King Arthur's world, a cup of flour always weighs 4.25 oz.).

Anyway, can anybody offer me a reliable set of baker's percentages or weights for baked doughnuts that you have tested personally?  I like to have these things worked out before I try new things.

I'm a big doughnut fan. I've watched a lot of Unique Sweets episodes and it seems that the shops with the best doughnuts usually use a standard brioche recipe as it is rich in flavour, but also yeast risen... Thus it gives you the perfect texture and flacvour.

I wouldn't use ANY bread recipe that it measured in volume. Weight is far more accurate, especially for something with sensitive chemistry like bread.


Is there an easy way to trim the ends off green beans quickly? A staple in our house is green beans.  It's not uncommon that I'll buy 5-10 lbs and blanch or cook them all in one session, to reheat or eat cold in lunches all week.  I also buy fresh beans in bulk when in season, and trim/blanch before freezing.

For a pound, trimming the ends off the beans is no big deal, but when we're talking 5 or more pounds, I find the trimming process extremely tedious and more importantly, time consuming.

Similar to this question, I'm looking for some kind of trick or tool that may help with this preparation.

Right now, here is how I do it:

Hold chefs knife in right hand, blade flat on surface of cutting board
Grab 5-10 beans and press them against the blade of the knife so they line up flush
Chop ends
Turn beans, press against blade again to line up other side
Chop again

This method isn't terrible, but it can be tedious trying to get the ends to line up for chopping.  If I grab 10 beans, I feel like I'm spending too much time lining things up because they're different sizes and curvatures.  If I grab 5 beans, I feel like I'm not doing as much as I can at once.

I've also tried pinching the ends off by hand, using my thumbnail as a sort of mini knife.  However, going one at a time like this feels very inefficient as well.

So...Is there a more effective way to trim the ends green beans than what I'm currently doing, and are there any tips or tools that will make my job more efficient?

I have found that scissors is the answer to this particular problem. Simply grab a few bean, snip the ends and then turn the hand over and snip again.  This doesn't wield beans that are uniform in length though, so if you need that, you will still have to do some cutting. I would say that you could blow through a batch of five pounds in a few minutes once you get the rhythm.

P.S. I say scissors but what I really use is tin snips a la Alton Brown.


Is it possible for a potato to catch fire after 10 minutes in the microwave? Yesterday on reddit a user posted this picture of a potato:

He said that he followed an online recipe. He put it in the microwave for 5 minutes, turned the potato, and put it back in for 5 more minutes. When he came back to check on it, the potato was on fire.

But the picture looks so surreal, it is even possible for a potato to start to glow red? Especially after only 10 minutes in the microwave? That would mean that this video recipe is actually quite unsafe. Or could it be a microwave malfunction?

Microwaved potatoes sound like a good idea, but now I don't think I would dare try.

Additional pictures:

Second potato angle

The glowing insides of the potato

The potato still in the microwave, just after he put out the fire

Burnt microwave plate

The brand of potato used

"Should be fine" is like saying 'well, there's really low odds of something going wrong'.  I have no idea what the odds are, but yes, it's possible.

I had microwaved potatoes many times, and then had a rather strange incident that I described in another question about microwaving potatoes, and included links to other incidents of people mentioned it happened to them.

I've since had a few years to think about what happened, and there's a few possibilities besides what I originally mentioned:

I don't know how old the potatoes were.  They might've been older and a little bit dry.
I was half asleep, and it's possible that I didn't poke them a few times.  I don't know if that could've led to the skin separating from the meat of the potato and that drying out & catching fire.


What's the secret to getting restaurant-quality frozen drinks at home? A while back I purchased one of the Ninja blenders so my GF and I could make frozen margaritas at home.

So far, we have been pretty displeased with the results.  Instead of getting a "smoother" frozen drink, we end up with more of a margarita-flavored snow cone.  The ice is still very crunchy and it's possible that towards the end of the drink you drink up all the liquid and just have bland granules of ice at the bottom of the glass.  I've even let the blender go for quite some time on high speeds in hopes to break down the ice more, but no real luck.

I do want to mention that we don't make our margaritas from scratch.  Still live at home and my parents are not big on alcohol, so instead of having all the ingredients on hand we buy the pre-mixed margarita mixes.  (Although, we would prefer making them from scratch.)

So, what can we do to get better quality frozen drinks at home?  Are we not getting good results because we use the mixes?  Is it the blender maybe?  Or possibly the ice (we use ice from the ice machine from a fridge, so it's in pretty big cubes starting out)?  We go out and get frozen drinks all the time and love them, but have not yet been able to get anything close to them at home.

You might have better luck if you use ice that is composed of margarita ingredients (lime juice and water, I guess). Unless you're referring to margaritas on the rocks, many restaurants actually have something akin to a slushy machine that is used for margaritas, so there is no ice added to the drinks. Instead, the actual margarita ingredients are frozen while stirring to prevent adding anything that will water it down.


Dried garbanzo beans not expanding when soaked I recently tried soaking dried garbanzo beans for the first time. The 'quick soak' method which involved boiling them for 5 minutes and then letting them sit an hour didn't seen to change their overall size as much as I expected, and neither did leaving them to sit in water for another 12 hours. Does this mean they are bad to eat?

The soak doesn't swell them to 'cooked' level; the cooking does that.
It is true that very old beans will never be tender, but you have no good way to find that out before you spend the next two hours simmering them. [Change the water first & don't salt them until the last half hour].
This covers most of the basics, over several methods - How to Cook Dried Chickpeas (Ultimate Guide)


What sour spices are there? Are there other predominantly tangy/sour spices, similar to sumac? I'm thinking of things for dressing roasted vegetables, where you might use something like lemon juice, but a dry spice can be more convenient.

Amchoor (mango powder), anardana (dried pomegranate), and, if you include pastes, tamarinde come to mind.

They all have a tangy/sour taste, and are used quite often in Indian curries, and cooking in other parts of (South East) Asia.

Apart from mango powder (which is rich in citric acid, I use it as a replacement for lemon when I want sour, but no additional juices), I don't have any experience using them outside the realm of curries, so you'll have to experiment your way through them ;)


Does yogurt maker keeps object at optimal temperature maybe around 40 centigrade, or current temperature of object? First of all, I'm in Korea, and sorry for my bad English.

I'm trying to make yogurt at home, so I've searched out the best yogurt machine on the internet.

Something weird is that most yogurt machines do not have any temperature controllers. I thought that a yogurt machine would keep steady temperature of milk. But how? If temperature of milk is at 80 centigrade, does a yogurt machine keep temperature of milk at 80 centigrade? or let milk be cool, and keeps milk at the optimal temperature for making yogurt, which is in this case around 40 centigrade.

Have a good day everyone!

There are a variety of ways to make yogurt. One that might be "easy" would to use a thermal cooker (giant thermos flask) if you happen to already have one, which would be under the "maintain temperature" (actually temperature will fall, but slowly) classification - but if you already have one, it's no extra cost or equipment needed.

Others have a thermostat and heater, but it's rarely an adjustable thermostat. I am currently using a dehydrator which is adjustable as my temperature control device; I have in the past used an oven with a standing pilot light (not adjustable, but a good temperature.)

Regardless of which type you use, you need to cool the milk (after scalding) to 35-40c before adding the yogurt culture (a small amount of any yogurt with live culture) or you will kill the culture - so you can't just dump 80C milk into "whatever" and expect yogurt, regardless of temperature controls or lack of temperature controls.

My research and personal testing W.R.T. the tradeoffs of time and temperature has lead me closer to 35C (for up to 24 hours) than 40C as a default setting. On the other hand, some go as high as 45C.


Yogurt made with heavy cream I like to make yogurt from heavy cream so when it's frozen, it keeps creamy texture when stored in the freezer in several days. Do you think this works? Does high fat content affect incubation process of yogurt? Should I use heavy cream or half heavy cream half whole milk?

This is a very normal thing to do. The result is not called yogurt, but sour cream. You can use yogurt, especially lactobacillus yogurt, as a starter for full-fat sour cream of the Eastern European type. The fermentation process is the same as for yogurt. It gets a very nice characteristic smell which is different from that of yogurt. It might stay slightly soupier than yogurt, even after sitting in the fridge, that's normal.

There is nothing special you need to consider, just go ahead and make it.


Homemade sport drink I'm trying to develop a recipe for homemade sport drink as Gaterade and the like contains unhealthy and/or unnecessary ingredients that I dislike.  I found a base recipe I'd like to work with to variate and tweak: http://wellnessmama.com/2575/natural-sports-drink/ .  Is there any obvious aspects in this recipe that need modification and/or can be improved?  One particular question is if the tea liquid will be chemically reactive to the calcium tablets and be health-wise unviable?  The goal is to make the drink all at home and let it be healthy and well suited for drinking during performing sports.

This recipe is essentially sugar and salt added to a "normal drink," so the rest of the recipe ought to be fine assuming good quality ingredients.


Is it true that even quality knives with wood handles can warp and be contaminated with bacteria? I was at Bed Bath & Beyond and I spoke to one of the employees about knives with wood handles. She said that wood handles are no good because they warped from water and heat and were difficult to sanitize (especially if you're . But what about knives such as the Wusthof Ikon knives with blackwood? I find it hard to believe such an expensive knife could have those flaws, especially if one is properly cleaning, drying, and storing them properly. (My question isn't speficially about the Wusthoff knife, but about knives with wooden handles in general).

Knives are very hard-worked tools in the kitchen, and need to be easy to clean and maintain.

At all quality levels, unless resin impregnated or otherwise treated, wood does not stand up well to harsh treatment, such as frequent trips through the dishwasher.  Even if washed by hand, you want to wash it and then dry it, so the water doesn't soak in and lead over time to cracking and warping, plus a rough, unpleasant feel in the hand as the fibers expand and separate.

As to sanitation, wooden handles are much akin to cutting boards.  If treated properly, it is not an issue.  You can even, occassionaly, use a mild bleach solution (followed by rinsing and drying) to sanitize them.

If treated with reasonable care, by handwashing and immediate drying, wooden handles will perform very well, and of course they are very attractive.

Still, on balance, wooden handles require more care than some of the resin, plastic, or metal handles.  Choosing among the options is about balancing the feel and beauty and maintenance to your needs and desires.  For me, personally, I choose the resin handles as they are very durable and low maintenance.


Food that is high in protein and is not solid for people with wisdom teeth removed? I recently got some of my wisdom teeth out and I'm trying to cook food that is not solid due to my oral surgeon's instructions. I have found a bunch of food I can make including pasta, mashed potatoes, ice cream (to cool the swelling), variety of soups, rice porridge, etc.

However, I am having trouble finding/preparing food that is high in protein that isn't solid. I know there are things like hummus, but it's really high in fat. I'm trying to avoid too many carbs specifically because I have so many options already. I was also suggested protein shakes but I would rather cook something rather than just throw powder into a smoothie.

Any suggestions on how I can prepare certain foods high in protein to fit my agenda? I believe the only requirements include that the food has to be soft and non solid. I think pasta is an exception because of how soft it is and it won't have issues getting into the holes of where the teeth were.

Your common 'non-solid' high-protein items are:

peanut butter, or other nut butters
eggs
yogurt
cheese (cream cheese or served melted)
tofu

Depending on how strict you're being with the fat intake, you can go even further ... low fat or non-fat yogurts and cheese (eg. neufchâtel instead of cream cheese); whites only for the eggs, etc.  Be warned that if you try to go too low-fat during this time, your body might actually crave more feed, making the problem worse.  If it's not a problem with your body being unable to process fats, you might want to reduce protein but increase fats during this time.

The good news is that unless you're a body builder, having a lower protein diet for a week or two  while things heal won't cause your body to start eating itself -- in fact, most American diets have more protein in it than our bodies need -- about 3-5oz of meat per day (not per meal) is enough; exact amount depends on your size and build.

As you can get away with soft foods, and not just non-solid:

Scrambled eggs (leave out a few yolks if you're really sensitive to the fat).
Pulled pork, roja vieja, pot roast cooked 'ragout', or similar (you might need to also chop it up if the bits of meat are long).
Pasta with an egg sauce (like carbonara, but might have to avoid the black pepper and/or crispy meat ... might be able to use a soft ham and/or add extra salt or worcestershire) or a cheese sauce (eg, macaroni and cheese, alfredo)
Tuna fish (canned in water; can either make into a tuna salad (avoid celery.  Use a grater to extract onion juice for flavor without solid bits of onion.  Pickle brine can help brighten it up while being non-solid)
Refried beans (make your own, and you can cut down the fat significantly)
Many soups.  (either make a strong stock, cook the meat 'til it's soft, or put it through a blender ... or egg drop soup)
Cheesecake (use neufchâtel cheese, or find a recipe that uses soft tofu)
Flan, custards, or ice cream (made with a custard base, but low-fat milk)

You can also work some extra protein into other dishes ... thin your mashed potatoes with (pre-heated) stock a bit more than you typically would, then while still hot, blend in a egg or two.  Or add neufchâtel cheese instead of milk or butter (add stock if you still need to thin it further for your tastes)


How to know whether the whole unpeeled garlic is still edible or not? My whole unpeeled garlic has turned "very soft". Its internal texture has changed too.

What are the indicators of non-edible whole garlic?

There are three signs you want to look for on garlic that indicate you may not want to use it:

Signs of mold, especially black mold.  Discard the garlic.
Soft to finger pressure.  It is rotten.  Discard.
Sprouted.  While it is still safe to eat (if it doesn't have other issues), it may be bitter.

Good garlic should be quite hard when pressed with your fingers, and preferably is not sprouted.  Some people even remove the green core of partially or beginning to sprout garlic when they prep.


How to figure out where is the best place to store homemade cookies: in the fridge or on the counter, in an airtight container or elsewhere The other day I baked some Nutella cookies (the famous four ingredient recipe which calls for egg, Nutella, vanilla and flour), they tasted awesome but the next day they became hard and chewy. A little Google search and figured they must be stored in an airtight container in the fridge. I bake several types of cookies but I have problem storing them so that several unknown factors don't affect their taste and texture. How do you figure out where is the best place to store homemade cookies to preserve flavor? Does it depend on the ingredients, as in if there is milk, store in the fridge?

If the cookies are baked, I cool them completely. Then, I put them on a plate and under a cake dome. They look nice, don't get smashed or crumbled, keep their flavor, and maintain their texture for a few days.

I do not store baked cookies in the refrigerator because I have had problems with the cookies becoming dry (even in an airtight plastic bag).

If I don't need to bake all of the cookies at once, my best results come from freezing the cookie dough and baking on demand.

I mostly bake chocolate chip or sugar cookies. So, my answer is based on those types of cookies.


What's the difference between broccoli from China and broccoli from Australia? They look pretty similar except the Australia ones cost more than twice the ones from China. Taste-wise, there are only subtle differences according to my tastebuds.

Is there a reason Australia broccoli is more expensive? Is it a nutritional thing, a taste thing, or a supply thing (I supposed they grow more broccoli in China)?

EDIT: Forgot to mention, I'm located in Singapore, so that might make a difference :)

I imagine that the following things make a vegetable more expensive:

quantity of supply (if a shop has more product to move in a limited time they make it cheaper)
quality of supply (eg organic)
distance to supply (if it costs more to move it from source to destination)
age of supply (products near expiration are cheaper because the shop needs to sell them)


Why is my green tea yellow? I make Japanese green tea. I use Gyokuro Imperial, a high quality shaded green tea, so it should be green not yellow.

Sometimes when I make it, it is indeed green, but other times yellow.

Is it because I am putting too much tea in, or too little?

Fresh Japanese green tea leaves (even after they're processed) should look green. The Japanese steam the leaves which is why the leaves maintain the green colour. However, you've to keep the green tea dry. If it's exposed for too long (or too often) to air and humidity, the leaves will start to oxidise and turn yellow. In such cases, it also often starts to loose it's aroma and flavour.

I hope this helps!


How can I judge if vacuum-packed mussels are fresh, when they're invisible behind the seal? I work in a small town in northern Canada that has only 1 supermarket, which sells only 1 form of mussels: see beneath. There are no other options for mussels. It feels impossible to judge freshness by the little aperture at the top. I already know that I should choose the farthest 'Best Before' date as possible.

Unfortunately I don't think you have a good option. You can try to determine what you can through the small tight section at the top. You should also be prepared to take them back and ask for your money back if you get them home and the freshness isn't acceptable.


Why is a head of cabbage green, yet it appears white when chopped for cole slaw? Cole slaw can be purchased as either a dry mix of chopped cabbage (and perhaps other veggies), or dressed and ready-to-eat.  In either form, the cabbage appears white.  Yet a full head of cabbage appears green.  Why is there a color difference?

There is a transition in color between the outer cabbage leaves and the inner ones. A few on the outside are green, but they become significantly paler as you move towards the inside of the cabbage (see cross-section at right below). Also, the outermost leaves may be removed and discarded before the cabbage is processed (they're most likely to have dirt, blemishes, insects, etc. from growing outside).

Since most of the cabbage's volume is in the inner white leaves, the majority of chopped or sliced cabbage will look white. (Adding white dressing in a coleslaw will lighten things up even more, masking pale green leaf shreds.)

There are also varieties of cabbage that are whiter than others (e.g. white cabbage), which will appear even paler. But even red cabbage has some white on the inside!


Why fry a teaspoon of dal to start an Indian dish? Some Indian recipes ask the cook to fry a very small quantity of dal, e.g. "3/4 teaspoon of urid dal", at the beginning of cooking a dish which doesn't otherwise contain dal.  Examples here and here, and I have enough examples in my cookbooks to verify that this way of starting a dish is both traditional and not limited to a particular dish.

I made such a dish a week ago (from a Madhur Jaffrey recipe), and I can't say that the browned dal was in any way detectable in the finished food.  So ... what's the point?  Why fry 1-2 tsp of dal like it was a spice?  Is this maybe a way of testing when the oil is hot enough?

In a dry dish - eg lemon rice, or a dish following the thoran pattern - a teaspoon  of urad dal will definitely be noticeable by giving a crunchy element.

Do not forget that indian recipes tend to use old school spoon sizes for measurement - a random piece of contemporary flatware will not give you a good approximation here.

Washing and soaking the urad dal for an hour or so can be a good idea if you do not know hold old the dal you are getting is (especially if cooking such dishes when not in India) - too crunchy urad dal could turn into a molar menace.


Are avocado seeds edible? I've seen article about great benefits of eating avocado seeds. And another here.

Does it mean avocado seeds are edible? How do you eat it then?

On Wikipedia page we can read:

  Avocado leaves, bark, skin, or pit are documented to be harmful to animals; cats, dogs, cattle, goats, rabbits, rats, guinea pigs, birds, fish, and horses can be severely harmed or even killed when they consume them.

How about humans?

Somebody from here suggested that the avocado pit is mildly toxic.

I can't advise on any of these, so I'd normally put this in a comment, but it's a bit long.

Searching on 'how to cook avocado seeds' found a few articles on the topic:

http://www.livestrong.com/article/31737-eat-avocado-seeds-nutrition/ : calls for grinding it in a 'powerful food processor' and warns that it might damage lesser ones.
http://www.wisegeek.com/can-i-eat-avocado-pits.htm : calls for drying it for several days, smashing it with a hammer, and then putting it in a food processor or blender (against warning that it might damage them)
http://eattheweeds.com/forum/index.php?topic=973.0 : mention roasting then grinding (and has links to the various reports on toxicity in animals)
http://www.veggieboards.com/forum/188-raw-food-support-forum/138169-eating-avocado-seeds.html : mentions drying then grating it (but they were making a facial scrub, not food).
http://www.ehow.com/how_8171238_boil-avocado-pit.html : calls for grating it (without drying) then boiling it (but this one also seems to be for facials, not eating)

The only common thing between all of these is that they call for getting it smaller before eating.  Most make it into a powder first if they're planning for consumption.  I don't know if grating it first might make it safe to go through a food processor without damage.  (or if you could grate + boil then process)


How can I word "add bread crumbs until it feels right"? I'm writing a recipe for publication on a site not written for expert chefs. It's a contest with a very nice cash prize. One of my recipes includes meatballs. My final ingredient is dry commercial bread crumbs. The point is just to add them if the mixture feels a bit loose to shape. You know, ground meat varies in moisture content, so if your meat is loose, you just add some crumbs...right?

So how do I word that in a recipe that's supposed to sound professional and polished?

Mods: If you feel this question is better suited to ELU, feel free to migrate it.

I see two things to address, first identify a few physical properties of your ideal meatball mixture, and second have a verifiable way for the reader to compare their current mixture to what the meatballs are "really" supposed to be like at that stage.

Depending on how many words you want to use for this part of your recipe, outlining a very simple "test" for the reader to try may be helpful. Maybe a sidebar section on the page with some instructions would visually unobtrusive, allowing those users who've already made your recipe to focus on your other recipe steps when needed.

What comes to mind is using a tablespoon to scoop out a quantity of the meatball mixture, followed by inverting that spoon onto a surface(not slamming, inverting).  The ideal meatball mixture probably behaves in a certain way(doesn't spread out more than "x" centimeters/won't leak moisture/etc...I suspect you can come up with the right variables to emphasize).

Another example would be to say, "...when the mixture is right, a golf ball sized portion should be easy to roll into a ball and not begin to sag within "x" timeframe(seconds?), or something like that. Pick out the physical properties of the mixture that make the consistency or shape right.  Work backwards, try a few trial run "tests"by making a tiny batch that has too much  or too little water/fat/breadcrumbs/etc.  How does that incorrect-ratio-mixture behave with your tests?

Off the top of my head, the easiest descriptors to identify would be: moisture content(how easy is it to squeeze out liquid & how much should come out), consistency comparisons(how much sticks to your hand/feels like wet spaghetti/whatever),and height/spread under specific conditions.
Hope this was helpful.


Questions about shaoxing wine What kind of shaoxing wine should I be looking to buy?
My supermarket has shaohsing rice cooking wine which has salt added.
After looking online, there seem to be people saying that the added salt is to get around selling it without the need for a liquor license and that it is similar to other cooking wines. I am also worried that the extra salt may ruin the recipes I find online.

All the other information presented here is correct and the main problem is liquor licenses. I use the salted variety often out of convenience and price, but it is a lower quality and well, heavily salted. Typically, if I'm using the wine, I'll just reduce salt elsewhere.

If you can't find an unsalted variety and really want something that works well, as an alternate suggestion you can use a dry sherry. It will usually be cheaper than a proper bottle of unsalted shaoxing wine. Note that sherry will also come in salted, cooking varieties and similarly you don't want those.

If you live in an area where the liquor licenses aren't a problem, I hear good things about the Pagoda brand.


How can I tell if my chocolate is tempered? How can you tell if chocolate is already tempered?

I have some bulk Bernard Callebaut milk chocolate chips.

If it has a shiny/reflective surface and doesn't melt or bloom (much) at room temperature or hand temperature, then it's already tempered. Virtually every packaged chocolate is already tempered.

Untempered chocolate generally needs to be refrigerated for longer-term storage, so if a package doesn't specify refrigeration (and I've never seen one that does), you can assume that it is tempered.


3:1 ratio of oil:vinegar, vinaigrette -- how can I use this in soups? The introduction in the book, Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking mentions that this mixture can be used to flavor meat and many other dishes.

I have created many soups and I would like to learn to quantify my soup cooking. Could I use this 3:1 ratio oil:vinegar to flavor soup (perhaps substituting pepper)? Or does vinaigrette work better with other dishes (not soups)? If so why? Could this 3:1 be pepper:salt ratio?

I have currently used 3:2:1 ratio pepper:orange flavour:salt and it tastes good.

Ruhlman's ratios are very useful for baking, where the ingredients play an important role in the physical structure of the end result and a bad ratio can result in a bad cake (why didn't the bread rise?, etc.) They are OK for sauces to ensure a pleasant consistency (and partially because of the physical constraints of emulsified sauces), but much less important there. In fact, I generally make bechamel with twice as much milk as he says, and get a thinner bechamel which I find much nicer than his version. There is no structural problem with it (the way there would be if I tried to use twice the specified amount of milk in something like crepes).

In seasoning, there is no need to consult an external ratio at all. Sure, if you find exactly this ratio tasty, use it. But you can add any amount of fat and vinegar to your soup and get a good soup; your own taste preference is the only reliable guide there.

This said, it is rather unusual to add oil as a seasoning to a soup, and most Westerners don't add vinegar either. A soup is more nourishing when it has some fat, but it usually comes from the meat. It is also popular to sweat the onions (and sometimes some other long-cooking vegetables like carrots) in oil before adding the water, and the oil gets incorporated into the soup. The amount of oil in this case is judged by the onions: they should be evenly oiled, but not swim in a puddle of oil.

Some acidity usually improves a soup, and if you don't thicken with yoghurt, vinegar (or lemon juice) is a good choice. But most people who add it at all add pure vinegar when the soup is ready (to the pot or individually to each plate), and generally just add a squirt, then taste, add again, etc., until it tastes good to them. There is no ratio to follow.

I don't know of a tradition to add vinaigrette instead of vinegar of this point, but preparations containing vinaigrette are possible. For example, the garlic for tripe soup can be held either in pure vinegar or in a vinaigrette (but this is less common), and it gets spooned together with its fluid into the soup. However, if you decide that you like to use vinaigrette as a seasoning, just go ahead.

There is no point of using emulsified vinaigrette for soup (the emulsion will break). If you want to avoid fat bubbles swimming on the soup, make a thickened soup, the flour should bind them. This assumes a "standard" soup, a cream soup should have no trouble absorbing a bit of oil.

There is no need to use vinaigrette instead of pepper (although again, you can do it if that is what tastes best to you). It is better to use both, because they enrich the taste of the soup in very different ways.

The same applies to any other seasoning: no need to use a ratio, go by your own taste. Use as much pepper and salt as you like, nobody can prescribe you to like it exactly 3:1.

As for the traditional use for vinaigrette, it is a basic salad sauce. It can be used as-is, or turned into one of countless variations (actually Ruhlman explains it and gives some interesting variants). But for salads, it is preferable to emulsify it (usually with mustard), else it wilts the leaves. There was a Food lab article on that, but Ruhlman doesn't mention it and gives almost all vinaigrette recipes without mustard (except for the classic one, which of course has it).


What is the best ingredient to add to a normal French toast recipe to make it taste pumpkin flavored? I'm just wondering. I like experimenting with French toast recipes. What is the best ingredient to add to a normal French toast recipe to make it taste pumpkin flavored?

Not meaning this as a snippy answer at all, but I would say: pumpkin.

I would suggest substitute pumpkin bread and continue as normal.  This one I have done before.  It is a heavier French Toast (or eggy bread, pain perdu or many other names around the world), but turned out quite nice in my opinion.

Another option would be a stuffed version with pumpkin as the stuffing.  And also coming to mind would be a pumpkin butter or compote topping on a recipe you already use.


Need to replace my "Bean Pot" what should I look for? I have this 5 quart, aluminum nonstick pot.

It is my go-to pot for candy making (fudge, toffee and brittles), jams and jellies. It also gets used for stews and chili.

The non-stick finish is wearing off so I'm looking to replace it. I really like the nonstick surface for candy and jam making, but don't like that it wears off.

I'm considering an enameled cast iron Dutch oven as a replacement.

Would enameled cast iron work well for candy making, jams and jellies, where controlling the temperature is very critical? (I'm sure there would be a learning curve).  I know that one these will be considerably heavier, but also more durable.

Or should I just replace my current pot with the same pot, and plan on replacing it when the finish starts to wear?

(There are also ceramic coated pots. I've never used any of these and don't know if I should be considering one.)

Ceramic does not quite have the nonstick properties of "true" (based on some kind of PTFE-ish material) nonstick, neither does enamel. Especially not for applications like jam making where charred jam might get stuck to the bottom. Also, from my anecdotal evidence, ceramic coatings hate thermal shock (eg when adding cold liquid into a hot pot to deglaze) and can stain.

The damage shown in the photo does not look like normal wear, but like wear from using tools that aren't inherently nonstick-safe too forcefully - metal-based immersion blenders, metal wire whisks, metal spoons....

But then, wear of "true" nonstick surfaces happens - slower if treated gently, faster if treated rough, so eventually, non-stick cookware that is seeing regular use will need to be replaced.


Does the "German" in "German chocolate cake" refer to the chocolate or the cake? A friend insists that the "chocolate" is the German part of German chocolate cake, the evidence being that there are no palm trees in Germany (for the coconut frosting). Is this correct?

A Baker's (now owned by kraft foods) employee named Sam German developed a chocolate recipe that was sweeter than semi-sweet chocolate, as well as containing a blend of chocolate liquor, sugar, cocoa butter, flavorings, and lecithin. Baker's honored Sam by naming the chocolate that he created Baker's German's Chocolate.

In 1957 the recipe was published in a Dallas newspaper, although nobody is sure exactly when the recipe was originally created. Generally Foods - who had bought the brand - noticed that alot of people liked the recipe and started a PR campaign for German's Chocolate using the recipe. They started sending it to newspapers all over - and people liked it. At some point the "'s" got dropped from the name, introducing all of the confusion we have about the origin of the cake today.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_chocolate_cake
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Baker_%26_Company
http://www.joyofbaking.com/GermanChocolate.html


curdling cream in lemon spaghetti My question is about adding heavy cream or half 'n half to a dish. Olive oil is in a skillet over low heat. Next add lemon juice, a ladle of pasta cooking water and the cream.  The cream always turns slightly curdled, but the dish still tastes good. What can I do differently?

One thing you could do is reduce the amount of lemon juice, and add some lemon zest. This will give you much of the lemon aroma without so much acidity. Try adding some zest to the cooking and then grate a little more on the finished plates, just before serving. Use a microplane.


Shelf life of apples in muffins Some muffin recipes incorporate sliced apples inside muffins. My question is, will these apple slices become either rancid or old-tasting inside the muffin while being stored inside the refrigerator?

The long cooking and high heat from the oven will definitively kill most of the bacteria and inactivate some enzymes present in the apple such as the famous polyphenol oxidase
 responsible for the oxidation process that makes raw apples brown when sliced.

However, this won't stop the apples (and of course the whole muffin) to spoil on the fridge over time. Moulded apple can be particularly bad because of patulin.


Coarse Kosher Salt In Salt Mill We recently are starting to run out of coarse sea salt, and I was wondering if it is okay to substitute out coarse sea salt and instead use coarse kosher salt to grind inside of a stainless steel grinder salt mill. Are there any real differences and which would you recommend personally? I would really appreciate the help!

There's no chemical difference between the two, assuming they are both sea-salt originally. Kosher salt tends to be more in flakes composed of small crystals than coarse sea-salt, which is a more rough individual crystalline form.

Both should work just fine in your grinder, though the spacing between the two surfaces of the grinder might affect how well each type grinds in the mill.


What provides the acid for leavening in this banana bread recipe? I have made this banana bread recipe a couple of times. The ingredients are:

All-purpose flour
Salt
Brown sugar
Baking soda
Bananas
Butter
Eggs

My understanding is that baking soda requires some acid such as milk or yogurt to provide leavening. But this recipe doesn't call for anything that is an acid that I can see. Yet it does produce a perfectly edible loaf and not a dense brick.

What is reacting with the baking soda to provide leavening?

Most of the ingredients in this recipe are acidic.

ph values:

flour 5.5-6.5
brown sugar slightly acidic
bananas 4.5-5.2
butter 6.1-6.4

The salt is neutral and the eggs are not acidic, ph 7.1-7.9

The combination of these ingredients is acidic enough to interact with the baking soda to leaven the bread.

Even without the bananas, there would be some leavening. Consider the standard ingredients in chocolate chip cookies: flour, sugar, butter, eggs, salt, baking soda and chocolate chips. Though they don't raise nearly as much as banana bread, they do poof up a bit.


Will freezing preserve invertase The age deterioration of the enzyme action of invertase is slowed under cold storage.  I am wondering though, with freezing stop/slow it even more, or will it damage the enzymes beyond normal aging rates?

A quick google return some scientific papers saying that the process is slowed down.

For example : "...Freezing resulted in a marked decrease in invertase activity...."

How does it affect candy storage? I don't know enough to help; you could try a batch.


Freezing whole strawberries I'd like to freeze strawberries for winter, I read online that a method is to sprinkle sugar on them and put into a zip-lock or plastic bag or an air-tight container. another method is to make ice cubes with them. I wonder what the cons and pros of each method is and if one is preferred over the other. and do you know any other methods? I also read about strawberries in simple syrup but I don't like the idea.

Okay. You don't want them to lose their shape or flavor when thawed. I don't know of any way that is possible. Fruits that contain a lot of water are going to be mushy when thawed. No matter how you do it. No exceptions.

The only suggestion I have for you is to maybe dehdrydate them for future use and then they can be rehydrated. That's not a great solution, just an option.


How can I test my extracts for strength? I made a couple extracts with Everclear and Buddha's hand and with habanero peppers (not combined).  If I want to make some hard candy with them, how can I rough in how much to use so I don't end up with something either tasteless or inedible?

Mix your extract with sugar in half of the proportion as in your candy recipe and start from there. For instance, if your recipe calls for 1 tsp of vanilla extract and 2 cups of sugar, try 1/16 of a tsp of your extract mixed with 1/4 cup of sugar. Add extract by 1/16 tsp until you get the flavor you want. If you like the flavor after you've added 1/16 of a tsp 3 times, that means you want to use 1.5 tsp in your candy.


How long can I keep beef warm in a roaster oven? Can I keep about 10 lbs of already grilled hamburgers warm in a roaster oven overnight.  They will be submerged in beef broth......

It will be safe if the temperature is consistently above 140 F / 63 C, but it is almost certainly a very poor idea from a quality perspective.

If the temperature does not stay above 140 F, then you are incubating the hamburgers, inviting pathogens to grow:  that is dangerous and a very bad idea.

Hamburgers are one of those items that are best served immediately upon being cooked; there is no really good way to hold them or reheat them and have the same experience.

If you have to have them cooked in advance, I would refrigerate them and then reheat with the method of your choice, such as in a moderate oven (for a large quantity).


How to tell if a vegetable steamer contains titanium How do I find out why steamers sometimes have titanium, and which ones, if so? Also, why is it there in the first place?

If you mean metallic titanium - very unlikely. If you mean titanium compounds like the oxides - it is very likely. Titanium oxides are used in nearly all modern paints. I expect a fused ceramic coating is equally likely to contain titanium compounds. The people that write the info on the products are liberal arts majors and would not know titanium if it bit them. Metallic titanium would be easy enough to identify ; First is it magnetic ? If " yes" - not Ti. Does it feel "cold" ( assuming it is around 75 F), if "yes" - not Ti ( aluminum feels cold because of high conductivity) . Does it feel "heavy/dense ? If "yes" - not Ti ( stainless is about 50 % more dense than Ti). As these are relatively subjective tests ,it would be good to practice on known aluminum and stainless equipment first.  If necessary, grinding wheel spark test; aluminum - no spark . stainless - limited orange/red sparks, Ti -bright white sparks.


Homemade marshmallows not roasting, just melting I'm trying to make homemade marshmallows for smores. I found this recipe and the marshmallows turned out great (taste/texture):

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Marshmallows-15797

The problem is when I try to roast them over a fire to make smores, the marshmallows just melt. The store bought Kraft 'big' marshmallows I used to use for smores would usually burn/roast on the outer layer.

Is there a way I can get homemade marshmallows to be more 'roastable' over a fire instead of just melting? I also noticed that most marshmallow recipes do not use egg whites, but the one I followed does. Could that be contributing to the issue?

Thanks!

Yes, there are two schools of marshmallow thought - with egg whites and without egg whites.  Most recipes without egg whites have another difference that might better explain why your recipe acts so differently from what you see with commercial marshmallows.  Egg white recipes use corn syrup as only a fraction of the weight of the sugar in the recipe - recipes without egg white use a LOT of corn syrup.

A cup of sugar weighs about 7 oz.  A cup of corn syrup weighs about 11 1/2 oz.

In your Epicurious recipe with egg whites, you would have about 14 oz. sugar and about 5 1/4 oz. corn syrup - so the corn syrup to sugar ratio would be somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 - you have a fraction of your sugar weight in corn syrup.

If you look at various recipes without egg whites (Alton Brown, Joy of Baking, etc.) what you will see is the inclusion of corn syrup in almost equal weight to the sugar.

I make this point because a glance at the list of ingredients on a package of commercial marshmallows will show corn syrup as the first ingredient - that means that there is more of that ingredient, by weight, than any other ingredient.

I have only made marshmallows one time - without egg whites - and while they didn't behave exactly like commercial marshmallows, they were pretty similar and a LOT better.


What is the ideal grind for making espresso? I know that there is no "ideal" grind for making espresso (or rather, like most things, it depends on the machine and the tastes of the drinker), but I am looking for guidelines as to how different grinding levels effects the end product, so I know what to look/taste for.

In particular, is there any clear indication that the grind is too fine?

I use a Capresso conical burr grinder and a Delonghi EC155 pump espresso machine, and usually either Metropolis or Intelligentsia espresso beans (my local brands), in case this level of detail helps!

Grinding coffee for espresso is probably the most difficult to get right. The coffee grind needs to be fine enough to increase the pressure required to push the water through the filter and create a good crema. But if the grind is too fine, the ground coffee can block the coffee filter. Generally, espresso coffee grind resembles a mixture of powdered sugar and fine beach sand. Since each espresso machine is a bit different, you may have to experiment to get the coffee grind just right (Allmann Bros Coffee).

Brewing espresso is particularly susceptible to problems relating to an inconsistent grind. I am not familiar with a burr mill specifically, however burr mills are generally recommended for espresso grinds as they tend to provide consistency. Bear in mind that the grind can either be too coarse and the water will run through without much extraction due to the pressure and space between the grinds, or it can be too fine and allow for a backup of water and espresso water and grinds all over your counter.

NOTE: The pressure with which you pack/tamp the puck (the grinds when pressed in the brewing basket form a puck) will also play an important role in the extraction process and the crema formation. You can get a feel for how hard to tamp the puck by getting a scale and pressing down until you hit about 30 pounds of pressure; you want to pack the puck at that pressure of tamp.


How to make the Custard Bun so white? I'm trying to make Custard Bun following the instructions from :

How to make Custard Bun- Milk Yolk Buns

Everything goes well except the color of the dough and the bun. I can't make it so white as it looks in the images. Both the dough and the bun I made were white but yet a little bit golden.

What makes the bun so white? Any guess what step I might do wrong and by that get the little bit golden bun?

Thank you

There can be several factors here. The first is the flour. Are you really using bleached cake or pastry flour? If you are using all purpose flour, especially if it is unbleached (and bleached is banned in some countries), you will get a more yellowish hue of the dough. This is the most likely culprit. If you are in Europe, try mixing 405er flour (or the local equivalent) with starch in a ratio of 2:1.

The second is the color of the filling. The human visual system does not work in an absolute way, it constructs color relative to all information available. So if there is higher color contrast, and especially more yellow in the filling, the outside will be whiter. The original recipe requires you to use a custard powder with coloring. If you skipped that ingredient, or used an uncolored powder, or your eggs were not as dark as those in the original recipe, then your filling was maybe paler than the original, not creating enough contrast for the bun to appear white. You can add some food coloring of your own if you don't have access to that powder.

The third thing to keep in mind are your expectations. Color gets changed a lot from the capture in a digital camera to your perception on your monitor. Contrast gets changed in-camera and in post production, and most monitors are set up in a way which overemphasizes contrast. It is entirely possible that you would have a different impression of the buns if you saw them in person, than from the picture you are seeing in the blog.


How long will tuna salad stay good refrigerated? If you make tuna salad, how long is it safe to keep it refrigerated after the tuna is out of the can? I don't like to keep regular raw fish for more than a day but I guess this is different.

U.S. Gov't Food Safety Department says 3-5 days at 40º or below (where your fridge should be set).  The site also says that tuna salad does not freeze well.

For more info:  http://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/storagetimes.html


Broil pork chops before roasting? I've had great success preparing chicken using variations of the following procedure:

Arrange chicken pieces in a roasting pan with a lid
Add other flavorings (whatever I have on hand or am in the mood for)
Roast covered for 30 min at 425 F
Uncover and broil for 15 more min

The chicken skins crisp during broiling, but the insides stay wonderfully moist, exactly the way I like them. Now I'm thinking of adapting this for pork chops, but I'm wondering whether I might have more luck if I broil the pork before roasting it. Pork chops don't have skin, obviously, and I'm wondering if broiling first will help to seal in moisture and flavor.

There's really no such thing as 'sealing in juices' when it comes to meat. Skin-on chicken breast stays relatively moist because of the fat in the skin; because the skin is on top, it pretty much self-bastes. Broiling just crisps the skin afterwards and will do nothing moisture-wise.

With pork chops, however, the fat is around the side and so will drip off during roasting, and broiling beforehand will just dry out the surface of the meat. I'd suggest rolling the fat in some salt, then placing the chops fat side down on a warm pan for a few minutes. This will render out the fat. You can then drizzle this on to the pork to help keep it moist and impart extra flavor.


What cut of ground beef is ideal to mix with ground lamb for kofta? I'm attempting to replicate kofta that I had at a Mediterranean place last week. They were a mix of beef and lamb, yet neither flavor was more pronounced than the other, in fact it had a sort of flavor all its own. It wasn't at all fatty, yet it had an amazing seared crust on it.

I've tried, in vein, to replicate this recipe (which apparently they keep as a closely guarded secret). I've got the spices right, at least I think, the usual cinnamon, cumin, clove, etc that you'd find in kofta. To be clear, I can make kofta, getting the lamb and beef proportioned seems to be where I'm failing.

Where I think I'm going wrong is the fat content of the beef. I've tried chuck and round, and the results were kofta that tasted completely like lamb (round) and completely like beef (chuck). I'm using a 50/50 mix.

When mixing ground with lamb, what cut should I be using that has the best shot of balancing? Should I be going heavier on the beef or lamb in the ratio? I can keep going with trial and error, but after a lot of error, I thought it wise to look for a little help :)

Try half and half sirloin and chuck for your beef. If you're grinding your own or can otherwise get quite specific, use sirloin tips. Ground, they're just as good as the much more expensive top sirloin. Sirloin will be low in fat, but will still have great flavor. I have used a combination of 1/2 lamb, 1/4 beef chuck and 1/4 beef sirloin tips to great success in Gyros meat (the meatloaf type).
Avoid round. There's a reason that round is often sold as generic stew-meat. It's a cheesy way for stores to sell what is often not very good meat. It's good for a few specific purposes, this isn't one of them.
EDIT: I just learned something I didn't know. Since I don't know what terminology is used in the Philippines, I bring you this handy diagram from Wiki.

I use the American terminology for sirloin, top sirloin, sirloin tip, round and chuck.
From Wiki:

The sirloin steak is a steak cut from the back of the animal.
In U.S. butchery, the steak is cut from the rear back portion of the animal, continuing off the short loin from which T-bone, porterhouse, and club steaks are cut.The sirloin is actually divided into several types of steak. The top sirloin is the most prized of these and is specifically marked for sale under that name. The bottom sirloin, which is less tender and much larger, is typically marked for sale simply as "sirloin steak." The bottom sirloin in turn connects to the sirloin tip roast.


Can I store bread dough overnight? I would like to bake bread as soon as I get up.

Would it be possible to store bread dough overnight, perhaps in the fridge?
For how long could I store it?
Would it need to rise again next morning?

Yes, it is possible, and in fact usually results in better bread, because the yeast has more time to work and develop flavour. It depends on the recipe, but you should usually reduce the amount of yeast being used to prevent overproofing. You can keep most doughs for a couple of days in the fridge, depending again on the amount of yeast and how often the fridge is opened.

Simply mix and knead your dough as normal, cover it tightly with plastic wrap over the bowl, then put it straight in the fridge. You will usually need to allow a couple of hours the next morning for the dough to 'wake up' and finish a full proof, but if your dough has fully risen in the fridge (ie it has grown 1.5-2 times) you can go straight to shaping.


How can I remove discolouration on my ceramic dish? I have some very pale blue/grey dishes that have (what looks like) specks of grease that have "burnt on". You will see why I put that in quotation marks in the photo.

It looks like it would come off easily, or just with a bit of elbow grease and hot water, but it doesn't!

I use non-stick safe scourers, washing up liquid and hot water, as per the manufacturers instructions but can't remove.

Does anyone have any tips/tricks for how I can do this without damaging the surface?

So I wasn't sure how well it would work (since these appear to be some sort of burnt on grease stains) and it didn't get rid of everything but I think it might after a couple more careful applications.

I used astonish tea and coffee stain remover (I have no affiliation to the brand).

I figured it was the only tough stain remover I had in my cupboard that was safe on ceramic.


How long can I soak red kidney beans for? I have had red kidney beans (dried) soaking for 2 days now as I didn't get around to cooking them yesterday. Will they still be safe to eat if I cook them up tonight? Thanks!

Stir and watch for bubbles.

Beans tend to start fermenting after a day of soaking. It's not sure they will, but they often do. They will still be edible, if slightly sub-par if they just began, but a day more and you should toss them.
If you see the soaked beans to "fizzle" like carbonated drink, toss them. If they barely release a minimal amount of bubbles or none at all, cook them thoroughly and you're good. Also, if they start minimally fizzling, make sure to wash them thoroughly. Most of "spoilage" is in the water and on the surface.


What are these crispy bits on top of rice? What are these crispy bits on top of rice that look something like this, but are perhaps a bit smaller:

(Picture taken from this blog post.)

Those are fried onions.

They're pretty recognizable, but for confirmation I did a search by image and found this blog post in Finnish containing that exact image. The caption underneath the picture is:

  Kun riisi on kuohkeutettu, sipulit lisätään mukaan - n. kolmasosa jätetään koristeeksi.

Google Translate translates that to "When the rice is loosened, the onions are added, the -. The third of the leaves for decoration." I think the proper translation is probably something like:

  After fluffing the rice, the onions are added, one third as garnish.

The recipe itself says:

  Sekoita mukaan 2/3 paahdetusta sipulista. Tarjoa suurelta vadilta lopuilla sipuleilla koristettuna.

Which translates to (again with a bit of fixing):

  Stir 2/3 of the fried onion. Serve on large dishes garnished with the remaining onions.

(Google Translate thinks "paahdetusta" means roasted, but earlier in the recipe it's pretty clear that the instructions are to fry them.)

You ask about things that look like those but might be smaller. I'd assume they're still onions, just sliced smaller (or possibly shallots) since that's a fairly common garnish. Of course, it's certainly possible you've seen something else; hard to say without a picture of the exact dish you wanted to ask about.


How long should I let my bread dough rise the second time? How long should I let my bread dough rise the second time?

I am really having trouble with a lack of rising after the first rise. The finished product is fairly flat and a bit on the dense side.
Any ideas are appreciated.

I'm using a rich recipe:

2oz. butter,
2 egg yolks,
1/3 cup of sugar,
and 1 cup of whole milk.
No water at all.

Maybe use less or fewer rich ingredients?

Since you didn't say you have a problem with the first rise, I will assume that your yeast weren't simply dead.

There are a few factors that go into rise times:

How much yeast?
How much water is available to the yeast?
How much of yeast-inhibiting ingredients such as salt and sugar?
If there isn't enough water in the recipe or if the water is tied up by salt and sugar the yeast will only be able to divide slowly.
How warm is the dough?
Yeast, like everything else, work faster in a warm space.

Therefore, to increase the rising speed, you could make a wetter dough, add more yeast, use warm milk, put the dough in warm oven, reduce the sugar, etc.

It may be that your recipe just takes longer to rise.
Alton Brown's cinnamon roll recipe has a lot of fat and sugar and not as much water. The recipe recommends making them the night before and letting them rise overnight. Dough that rises longer generally tastes better.

I would recommend letting the dough go in a warm place and see how long it takes to reach the fluffiness you like. If that takes too long you could start tweaking the variables above.


Is there something better than mineral oil for cutting boards? I've been using mineral oil to oil my wooden cutting boards ever since I found out this was a good thing to do.  I had a couple of bamboo boards up until I bought a really great John Boos carving board (made of maple).

When I bought the maple board, I noticed they sold something called "mystery oil".  A few searches later, I found it appears to be a mix of mineral oil and linseed oil.

Since then, I have been using just mineral oil on the board(s) with no ill effects.  However, I have been wondering if there is a benefit to using something other than just straight mineral oil.

Can anyone weigh in on this?

"Better" might be a matter of interpretation. The oils will behave a bit differently, however.

Mineral Oil is a non-drying oil, which means that it will not polymerize (form a plastic-like substance) over time. This is good for oiling cutting boards because it will stay a bit liquid in the wood and flow into cracks and scratches. It is also food-safe and won't go rancid or support microorganisms.

Linseed Oil (AKA Flaxseed Oil, or Flax Oil) is also a good choice, for a different reason. Linseed Oil is a drying oil, which means it will fully polymerize and form a harder plastic layer. This is why it is about the best oil for seasoning cast iron pans. It may be more durable than mineral oil, but lacks the ability to "flow".

A blend of the two sounds like a fine idea. My favorite, Howard's Butcher Block Conditioner is a mix of Mineral Oil and natural waxes like Carnauba and Beeswax, which add a bit of that "durability" that Linseed Oil could add.

What would be a bad choice are most food oils like Canola, Olive Oil, Lard, etc. Unsaturated fats will oxidize (go rancid) and affect your food. Even oils high in saturated fats may have too many anti-oxidants (which are bad in this case), which will prevent polymerization and leave a gummy surface. These semi-drying oils are of no use here.

Whatever you use, make sure it is intended for food (Linseed Oil is a common woodworking finish, and not all versions are intended for use with food). Mineral Oil is probably more convenient for quick daily wipe-downs, while some of the blends are probably a bit more suited toward occasional re-finishing. Either way, regular application and keeping the board dry while not in use will make more difference than the exact type of oil.


How should I roast bay nuts? Bay Nuts are the fruit of the California Bay Laurel.  Few people have seen (or heard) of them, because the trees don't produce enough for commercial harvests.  However, I was gifted with a jar of them by a friend with a fruiting bay tree.

The way one is supposed to eat the nuts is to roast them and eat the seeds, which taste vaguely like chocolate or coffee and vaguely not.  However, that's where agreement ends; roasting times and temperatures are given as:

350F for 45 to 90 minutes
450F for 45 minutes
450F for 20 minutes
Various other temperatures and times, from 375 to 475 and from 20 minutes to 90 minutes, depending.

So my question is: approximately how long, and at what temperature, should I be roasting the nuts?  Does anyone have direct experience with Bay Nuts, or an authority which looks more definitive than the many blogs which lack rigorous testing of roasting conditions?

It's obvious why these nuts are not mass-produced: the environmental variables are just too disparate:

you need to harvest them at the correct time
peel them correctly
wash them correctly
dry them correctly
roast them for the right time and the right T°

So that's why you're seeing a large number of methodologies on how to roast them: it  d e p e n d s so we will not be able to tell you how to handle your nuts exactly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and you need to fall back to the empirical method.

As you've only got a jar of them, it doesn't make sense to put them in an oven as the quantity is too small.  That's the major difference between home cooking (small batch) and professional cooking (large batch) and in this case, you should use the non-professional method of dry-frying them instead:

Take a pan large enough to contain all of the nuts
Put the pan on medium heat and dry-fry one single nut
Put the pan on medium-high and dry-fry one single nut
Repeat with multiple heats and times until you've got the one single perfectly roasted nut

Now pour the jar in the pan ensuring the nuts are not stacked on top of one another and are all touching the base of the pan just like the one single nut did and repeat the process for the single perfect nut for all of the nuts you've got left in your jar.

P.S. And if you're still not totally nuts about how to handle these nuts, you might actually be able to enjoy your nuts! ;-)
P.P.S. Anyone else reading this who has an entire crate of these: yes you can use the empirical method for your particular oven, for your particular settings for your individual taste too... :-)