What influence does the properties of fat in vegetable oil affect emulsification of oil? I am trying to make vegan mayonnaise. In my first attempt I used soy milk and corn oil as the major ingredients. I tried adding lemon juice instead of vinegar as the emulsifying agent and used the immersion blender to blend. However I could not get the creamy texture. The resultant product tasted like mayonnaise (at least in my imagination) and was white in color (due to soy milk?) but was watery in consistency. The volume did not expand.

Most of the recipes online calls for avacado oil or soy bean oil. I am wondering about the relation between length/saturation of the fatty chain and the ease of emulsification.

Are long chain fatty acids difficult to emulsify as compared to medium chain and short chain fatty acids?
How does the degree of saturation affect emulsification?

Fatty acids are not the emulsifiers here. Long chain fatty acids are excellent for emulsification, if they are deprotonated.  But then they would be called “fatty acid salts”, and their flavor would be soapy - bitter.  If they're neutral fatty acids, they're not ionized enough to retain a sphere of water around the micelle, and block aggregation of the droplets of fat in an emulsion.

Note that the term “fatty acid” is often misused. It is used to describe structural components of triglyceride fats, but in that form they are esterified, and not in their acid forms.  They only become free fatty acids after the saponification (breakdown) of a fat, which can happen when cooking fats at high temperature.  It's convenient to talk about them as fatty acids when they're still inside triglycerides because of their roles in nutrition (saturated vs. unsaturated vs. polyunsaturated, etc.).

An emulsifying agent like lecithin has two non-polar (electrically neutral), lipophilic (fat soluble) “fatty acid” (but still esterified) hydrocarbon chains, and a polar head consisting of a phosphate/choline (-/+) ionic structure that is very hydrophilic (soluble in water) due to having both positive and negative standing charges.  Because of its net electrically neutral structure, the flavor is mild and fatty, not soapy.  Phospholipids like lecithin are available in all cells, since they form the lipid bilayer that defines each cell.

Neither vinegar nor lemon juice would act as an effective emulsifying agent.  Acetic acid, citric acid, etc., are all too water soluble, and wouldn't stick to the surface of the fat droplets in an emulsion. Rather, components of the soy milk, particularly soy lecithin, would fill that role in this recipe for vegan mayonnaise. In traditional mayonnaise, of course, egg yolks are a rich source of lecithin.  The vinegar has little effect other than flavor.

The degree of unsaturation in the non-polar tails of a phospholipid would not significantly affect the stability of an emulsion once formed. Unsaturation of fatty acid esters in triglycerides does affect the texture of a fat, and how it varies with temperature.


How to make curry always come out dry\easily remove extra water? When I cook a curry I add water to help it cook and stop burning if it goes to low etc.  However I prefer my currys to be dry i.e where most water has evaporated.

I know you can just cook with less water to begin and cook slow or always watch the curry adding a little water but i'm wondering if the result can be achieved with less effort.

Are there any tools I could use which will allow me too cook and dry out a curry(leaving oil) in the same way a rice cooker dries out water?
In case where to much water has been added and the curry is complete, the best I can think of is to remove the liquid to another pot(saves accidentaly burning meat) and boil it down and then add remaining liquid back to pot(since i need oil\fat and other nutrients minus water)?  Can you think of an easier method to accomplish what i'm trying?

I always just let the curry simmer in a pot with the lid off to let the water evaporate more so I have thicker curries. The other option (and this is what my Indian family does) is to pour the liquid (so leave out the potatoes, chicken, whatever..) into a smaller pan and bring it to a rolling boil for a while to reduce the gravy and let it thicken. Finally, add in the rest of the ingredients when it is as thick as you want it.


How can I make a Taco Shell? I've never seen a mold that would shape them - any tips?

No mold required!

Simply heat about an inch of oil in a frying pan (less oil if you're making less shells - this is enough for about a dozen), then cook small, flat corn tortillas one at a time.

Cook for about 15 seconds on each side. Once you see bubbles on the tortilla, you're all done if you like soft shells.

If you like more crispy shells, go ahead and fold the tortilla in half, and continue to cook. Keep flipping it over so you don't get it too browned on either side.

You can blot the tortilla with paper towels if you'd like.

Similar topic - you can make your own shell for taco salad by placing a large flour (burrito-size) tortilla in an oven-safe bowl (shaped however you'd like) and putting a big ball of tinfoil inside it. You can also do the opposite - place the bowl upside-down and drape the tortilla over it. Either way, Bake at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes until it's lightly browned, and you're done! When you remove the tinfoil and the bowl, the tortilla will hold its own shape.


What is the maximum time for which the dough should be allowed to rest before making Parathas? Have heard that dough should be allowed to rest for the Gluten formation to occur.

Question: What is the maximum time after which resting the dough won't make any difference to the taste and the texture of the Parathas/Rotis?

Assuming: Dough is made of 100% wheat flour (no Maida), and water only.

Why resting longer?

Resting the dough not only let's gluten linking begin, but also allows enzymes to "transform" starches into sugars. There are some technics for making bread that take profit of that to extract more taste from the wheat, such as autolyse (invented by Raymond Calvel) or Pain à l’ancienne (which uses autolyse and other delaying methods that you won't use in not leavened breads).

Originally Monsieur Calvel stated an autolyse time of between 20 and 40 minutes (that link might be in Spanish, but I don't understand why it's not in English), but nowadays people are experimenting with 2 hours, and even 4 or 6 hours of autolisis.

That enzymatic activity won't be affected by lipids, so adding fat or oil for Parathas or Rotis will work the same. They can be affected by a PH<4 or 3.3, but I don't think you'll reach that PH in a Paratha's dough.

So, how long is too long?

The longer you let enzymes make sugars, the tastier the dough will be. But if you rest too long a dough, the gluten will finally get broken: the dough will look more like a puree than a kneaded dough. It will depend on the enzymatic activity of the flour, and can vary a lot from one flour to another. It is measured by a value called falling number (you can see why is it important here).

That index is very rarely labelled in packages, but you can try getting in contact with the millers and ask them. Or you can also try to find the answer to your question empirically for the brands of flour you use (that value shouldn't vary from different batches of the same brand of flour). Touch the dough every hour to feel if it still has a workable consistency.

Note that your dough will be stickier, due to the sugars released by autolisis.


How can I process Hot Pepper without killing the spice (capsaicin)? I am planning to make sauces using a local, very strong, Pepper called "Rocoto" which has 200 000 Scoville heat units.

The problem is, unlike Habanero or Chili, the pepper itself is kind delicate, so if I try to cook it most of the heat is lost, with vinegar the heat is also lost after only few hours, I tried to roast them and it' produced an invisible  toxic smoke cloud (my neighbor felt it and call the firemen hahaha)

I am thinking about freezing since in other cases it changes the molecular structure of plants, also I'm think about using alcohol.

What do think?

My personal experience is that, if you cook the rocoto peppers together with other ingredients in a pan, like in this recipe, or better simmer them in a tomato, cider, or vinegar-based sauce, most of the hotness is retained.  Capsaicin vaporizes well above simmering temperatures, so it's mainly high-heat frying or roasting that will drive you out of your kitchen and make the sauce bland.  Any cooking method that keeps them at 100C or below will still be plenty hot.

However, that's just the capsaicin.  Rocoto peppers also have a delicate fruity flavor, almost like peaches or papaya, that is lost if you cook them at all.  This is why the standard Peruvian rocoto sauce involves no cooking at all, but instead pureeing them into a crema.  If you're going to use rocotos, this is my recommendation.


How do I stop onigiri from falling apart? I'm experimenting with Japanese cooking, and I can't seem to get the hang of making rice shapes.

I want to make an onigiri rice triangle with a filling. The theory is simple enough: make rice and let cool, take rice in hand, dig a small crater, place filling in crater, fold around the filling and shape in to a triangle.
In practice, I must be missing something, because it simply falls apart. I'm not sure if this is the technique of folding, shaping, or even cooking the rice.

Things to try

Rice should still be warm
Handle rice gently, don't squeeze it

Does it fall apart because it is sticking to your hands? If so:

Use warm salt water on your hands (not dripping wet hands though)
Rinse the rice more before cooking to remove excess surface starches. The process is: Rinse in bowl of water, gently tumble, let stand 20 minutes, change water. Repeat until rinse water runs clear

If this still fails to solve this sticky issue, you can use cling film (plastic wrap) as a guide and release agent on your hands. Peel the plastic off as you wrap the nori on


Cookie Biscuits: What happened? My wife made some chocolate chip cookies tonight using the same recipe she has for years; it's the one on the back of the Tollhouse Chocolate Chips bag. The only modification she makes to the recipe is that she uses half the butter, which ends up being only a half cup instead of a whole. Usually the cookies turn out round, flat, and about 1 cm high, but tonight we discovered a surprise. These are around an inch high and weren't completely cooked through the center as seen below.

Both of us being engineers, we are curious as to why this happened. We used the following steps and ingredients when making them:

Ingredients

2.25 Cups of Pillsbury all purpose flour
1 tsp Arm & Hammer baking soda
1 tsp Morten salt
1 stick softened Fleichmanns original butter (normally uses Land-O-Lakes) (113g pure butter)
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups Tollhouse Semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preparation steps

Preheated the oven to 375°F (190°C)
Whisked together flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl
Beat butter, white sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla with mixer until creamy.
Added eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
Gradually beat in the flour mixture
Stirred in the chocolate chips
Dropped dough balls in place on a cookie sheet.
Cook for 9-11 minutes

The above steps are exactly what my wife did when we made these cookies. We noticed that the dough looked incredibly dense, sticky, and was very hard to mix after it was all combined. We used a mixer instead of hand mixing the dough like she has in the past, but I find it hard to believe that this would be the culprit (someone may very well prove the cooking n00b wrong though).

FWIW, please don't critique the recipe ;), as we really only want to know why they came out as biscuits when my wife has used this recipe exactly and successfully in the past. She has followed the same routine every time she has made them except for the use of a mixer and different brands of ingredients.

This looks to me like the symptoms of too much flour - probably way too much.

Measuring baking ingredients by volume instead of weight is always a crapshoot, although it shouldn't be that far off - my guess is that either the flour was heavily compacted, or perhaps the baker's mind wandered off and she accidentally added an extra cup.

Overmixing (i.e. by using an electric mixer) is a common problem with cookies but the symptom of that is a hard and gritty cookie that doesn't rise - not one that rises too much and has unbaked flour in the center.  As far as I know, that can only happen with a huge amount of flour.  Obviously, too much flour would also result in a much denser dough.

What you ended up with seems to be more like a quickbread - almost a scone - and there is indeed not an awful lot of difference between the two aside from the ratios and the creaming of butter.

Excess flour probably wouldn't result in a stickier dough, but stickiness is more due to temperature than anything else.  If you're finding the dough too sticky to mold then make sure it's thoroughly chilled - that will make it easier to work with.


Can I leave out raw already-formed cookies for close to an hour while I wait for the oven to be available? I'm making a cookie dough and forgot that I already had something in the oven. I prepared a baking sheet of cookies to go into the oven - but there is something already in there that requires another 45 minutes to an hour of baking (I can't fit both in at the same time). Can I leave my cookie sheets with raw cookies out on the counter until the oven is ready? Will this alter the taste of the cookies? (Will they get hard and yucky?) What about the cookie dough that is still in the mixer (and hasn't been formed into cookies yet)? Is there anything I should do to preserve it - i.e. cover the dough/cookies, put it in the fridge, etc?

You're going to have more issues with cookie-spreading than anything else, because your fat is going to get all warm. If you have a lot of fat in your cookies, you're definitely going to want to put the dough back in the fridge. If the dough is a hard dough, and you don't expect your cookies to significantly change shape during cooking, I wouldn't worry about it.

There is no concern for spoilage for an hour or less on the counter.


How long in fridge for sushi steaks? I ordered some sushi grade steaks online.  They came frozen, as they were shipped with dry ice to keep them nice and cold.  Frozen, I cut them into pieces and put them back in the freezer, taking out one chunk at a time and thawing in the fridge.

Sushi grade steaks do not need to be cooked, since they are kept frozen at temperatures where parasites cannot survive so there is no concern of the meats contaminating anything.

Once thawed, how long do I have to keep them in the fridge until they pose a health risk?

Since this might depend on the type of fish, I will leave the question open to all fish types.  However FYI I ordered yellow fin tuna (Ahi), yellowtail tuna (Hamachi), and salmon (Sake).  Also Capelin roe (Masago), and salmon roe (Ikura).

I have always made sure that I only defrost enough to meet the needs of the moment for sushi.  If you cut the blocks into 4 to 8 rolls worth, they should defrost under running water in just fifteen to twenty minutes, just about the time it takes me to do a batch of sushi rice.  That said, fish once defrosted will start to lose flavor immediately but will remain edible for 2 days.  Once it starts to smell, get rid of it immediately, and I would play it very safe on that "starts to smell" the faintest whiff should be enough to send it to the bin.


Raw sugar vs. refined sugar in making kombucha Can one use raw sugar in making tea for kombucha? Most recipes recommend refined sugar, but I wonder if it is for any particular reason.

Absolutely you can.  I typically use a Turbinado sugar when making mine because it's what I buy in bulk and because I like the robust flavor.

In my searches, I did come across this article indicating that you shouldn't use such raw sugars because they're more difficult for the scoby to digest, but as long as you start with a healthy one you should be fine.  Maybe just don't go as far as using a brown sugar, or something very raw like muscovado.


Why use both milk and cream in a waffle recipe? I live in Europe and use a lot of European recipes. Here, traditional waffle recipes generally use a mixture of cream and milk as the liquid. The recipes include melted butter, so I don't understand what the cream is doing. Any ideas?
Bocuse recipe for waffles (as an example) (found in Paul Bocuse "Die Neue Küche" Heyne Kochbücher 1976) - but representative of a great many traditional European recipes for dessert waffles.

500 g flour
a pinch of baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
250 ml milk
750 ml heavy cream
8 egg yolks
100 ml rum
300 g melted butter
4 egg whites

Is there a technical or chemical reason to use cream, even if you are already using butter?

I can't say with absolute positivity on this, but I suspect it's because butter in Europe is often cultured, i.e. made using partially fermented cream, which changes its flavor and makes it a bit acidic. Cream is not cultured, so it has a 'neutral' flavor, the ratio of butter to cream is balanced to give the right flavor profile.


Is pink salmon the same as Alaskan? I'm new to salmon. I've been trying new dishes but I read online that Alaskan salmon is not the greatest. But is pink salmon the same as Alaskan salmon?
I've been using chicken of the sea pink salmon wild caught, for quick dishes like sandwiches or salad etc..
Just wanted to make sure I'm eating the right kind. Any suggestions for canned/pouched salmon are welcome.

I live in the Pacific Northwest, so I know quite a bit about salmon.  You have to, or they exile you.
First, I have no idea why you'd think that Alaskan salmon is bad. Given their extensive river networks and vast areas of untouched wilderness, Alaskans catch some of the best salmon in the world.  The salmon that is categorically inferior is farmed salmon, or salmon that's raised in a pen.  Now, farmed salmon tends to have a lighter, "pink" color to it compared with wild-caught, so I can see how you might get confused between that and Pink Salmon.
Pink Salmon is a specific species of salmon.  It's not considered as desireable as Coho, Chinook, King, or Sockeye, mostly because the shorter lifespan of the Pink Salmon means that it has a less well-developed flavor.  However, its short lifespan also means that it bounces back quickly from fishing, and as a result is the most sustainable and ecologically responsible salmon to eat.  They catch a lot of Pink Salmon in Alaska, but it's also available from Canada, Washington, Oregon, and Russia.
And ... since you're using commercially canned salmon, you're really not going to taste a lot of difference between salmon varieties anyway.
If you want to try a little better quality canned salmon, I'd suggest any of these brands: Wild Planet, Crown Prince Natural, or North Pacific Seafood (although, to be fair, Chicken of the Sea isn't bad).  You can also splurge and order from a tiny specialty place like Totem SmokeHouse.  You can also try Canned Red Salmon, which is generally Sockeye, and has a different flavor.


Are these small yellow things on my lettuce worms? I found these in my baby lettuce leaf, are they worms? They didn't move and one fell out being stiff

These are probably insect eggs.
Being unmoving, tightly clustered together, and uniform in size, these are most likely insect eggs.
A number of common insects lay oblong yellow eggs similar to those in your image, including ladybugs and cabbage white butterflies. Yours look more like ladybug eggs to me, or perhaps some other kind of beetle egg.


Is there a replacement for cheese on pizza? How can I make pizza without cheese? Isn't cheese the most important thing on pizza? It allows pizza toppings to stay in place.  I tried without cheese, and on bread, but the toppings did not stay in place.

Depending on how much she doesn't like cheese, and what she doesn't like about it, you have a few options. You may even be able to preserve the appearance of pizza.

Ricotta is sometimes used (even without tomato sauce and with a green vegetable); while technically cheese it doesn't have the texture or the taste you'd normally think of as cheese, but will help things adhere.
Some of the vegan cheese substitutes now melt like cheese, and some taste like cheese, but few do both - a careful reading of reviews may find one that fails to match cheese in the way she doesn't like.

But assuming they don't go far enough, you'll have to get more creative. Folding over the edges of the dough will help stop things falling off. A much thicker sauce is also useful; with some (e.g. corn) starch in it, it will thicken further around the topping as it cooks. Mixing the toppings into the sauce will help stop them overcooking. Flatter toppings like sliced tomato/sausage, or bacon cut from rashers rather than cubes, will also stick better than round things. Or go cross-cultural, and use refried beans under salsa for a "Mexican pizza" that's neither Mexican nor pizza.

A fairly thinly topped base with more on the side than you'd normally expect would be a practical way to serve it, if you're still worried about things staying put.

There are plenty of ideas for pizza without cheese. Most are vegan, but you can adapt them assuming you're not.


Why it is not recommended to mix the milk of different days? A vendor supplies a half liter of milk daily. Some times, due to variety of reasons, I arrive at a situation that I need to handle milk of 3 consecutive days i.e., 1.5 liter.
Elder and experienced members of my family asks me to deal each 1/2 liter of milk differently. But, they fail in providing a valid reason for not mixing them.
Is there any issue with mixing milk of different days and use them for my purposes?
Note that the milk is not too old. All the individual milks are edible.

Even when kept refrigerated, milk gradually spoils due to micro organisms. In case the first day's milk was on the threshold of spoiling, you are effectively bringing the third days milk also to that condition by mixing it with the first day's milk (which by now may have significant amount of microorganisms).
First day's milk bottle/vessel might have been retrived from the fridge, opened, and kept at room temperature (very short durations), and kept back multiple times by the time the third day's milk arrives. This gives microorganisms opportunity to enter and multiply even if the original milk was Pasteurized and sealed airtight in a sterile packaging.
In fact, curd is propagated by mixing fresh milk with leftover curd. Same with sourdough starter.


How to bake low carb bread in a Zojirushi bread machine model #BBCC-x20 In a Zojirushi bread machine model BBCC-x20, what cycle would I bake a low carb recipe on as it does not have a low carb setting?  Also, where would I find low carb recipes for low carb bread specifically for this machine?  I have already checked the Zoji site and there are no low carb recipes.
Thanks!

According to comments I found on the internet about diabetics discussing this same question using this same model, one person recommended this:

  I changed the crust selection to light and reduced the flour by a tablespoon and the problem was solved.

You don't really need a recipe specific for this exact model, here is a low carb bread recipe designed for bread machines, you can also try the above tip.

http://www.food.com/recipe/best-low-carb-bread-bread-machine-102631


Is baking powder the same thing as baking flour? Are the two the same? I have no clue. A brief google search didn't provide much help.

Update:
Here's an example of baking flour

If you're talking about "cake flour" or generally flour used in baking, no. In fact, I don't know of any product that is called a flour that would be the same as baking powder.

Baking Powder is a leavening agent; it makes things rise, much like yeast. It leavens by combining an acid (like Cream of Tarter) with an alkaline component (usually Baking Soda), and also usually contains an inert starch like cornstarch to prolong shelf life.

If your recipe is calling for cups of something, it's probably not baking powder :)


What does karate chop in a french bread dough mean? http://www.steamykitchen.com/75-baking-the-perfect-loaf-of-french-bread.html

  Now do a little “karate chop” lengthwise down the middle of the bread and stretch out the long ends again. Fold over in half. The karate chop helps get the middle tucked inside.

I didn't understand this "karate chop" thing. What exactly does it expect me to do after I fold the sides of the dough?

In context, it means to press down with the blade of your hand, to facilitate folding into thirds:

I put an orange line near the part of the hand you would press with.

This is not a standard culinary term, by the way—the recipe author is being cute.

In practice, you could use the handle of a wooden spoon, or press a little groove in with your fingers, as well.


Is it possible to have a keto stew? Is it possible to have a keto stew?
I would guess no since you need a starch eg a fair quantity of onions and carrots?
Is there anyway it can be accomplished?

There are literally  keto stew recipes when you search keto stew on google.
From
Delish.com:

When making keto stew:

choose low carb vegetables
replace potatoes with less starchy root vegetables
use onions and garlic judiciously
small amounts of colorful vegetables add visual appeal
add the vegetables at the last 40-60 minutes of cook time

Also, you can add heavy cream to your stew as the thickening element.


Fat Head Dough Optimum Thickness I saw Cooking eggs too soon for Keto dough earlier this week and determined this "Fathead Dough" was something to be tried. How thick should the 'dough' be rolled, particularly for 'other applications' (taco bowls and nacho chips in particular)

Both thicker and thinner can work as long as you roll it out evenly.

In my experience, rolling it thinner makes it feel more like "real" wheat dough. However that way it feels more like flatbread than proper pizza crust.


Does sauteing onions produce alcohol or something similar to alcohol? I came up positive on test for alcohol after eating sautéed onions.

SCRAM bracelet recorded alcohol in my system from 5 pm to 7 am. I did not drink alcohol, or use alcohol to make the onions. I read on another site about how cooking process of making sauteed or grilled onions can produce glycerol from the onion sugar and the heat from cooking. Glycerol is actually two alcohols.

Could the onions have caused this?

Some conditions can cause alcohol to be produced in the human body (look up auto-brewery syndrome). Sauteed onions are common enough that if they made people come up positive on alcohol tests, I bet we would all know it.


How do smaller but good restaurants keep/reheat roasted meat, particularly Prime Rib? Even if Prime Rib is a popular menu item, a smaller place may not get orders fast enough to sell the beef at the requested doneness while it is still at the appropriate temperature. So how is it handled? It's such a spendy item, you wouldn't want plates returned. Heaven forbid a large portion of roast become overcooked by keeping it warm. Is there a standard?

I've no idea about a standard, but a 90-seat restaurant where I used to work served a veal chop intended for 2-3 people by cooking it sous vide to 130F, then finishing on the grill to medium.  We could thereby get a piece of meat that would have to grill or roast for at least 45 minutes to the table in around 15, and the sealed chops could be kept in their bags for 2-3 days.

Treating a whole prime rib roast this way might be a bit difficult, but perhaps you could use smaller slices, sous vide to very rare, and finish quickly in a hot oven (or get all French Laundry and use a freaking blowtorch on the edges).  Or perhaps the other way around - roast, slice, seal, and keep hovering just outside the danger zone until needed, at which time you bring up to temp.  A bit questionable if an inspector catches you, and a bit tough to deal with carryover,  but some enterprising chef might have tried it.

I would venture a guess though that this is why you don't see too many smaller places serving prime rib.  I typically see this featured as a nightly special or only in larger steakhouses, and it often seems to be gone by the time I get there.


What is the difference between a wilted salad and a massaged salad? What is the general difference between preparations and use cases of a wilted salad compared to a massaged salad? As many wilted salad recipes call for warm dressing, does this mean the wilted salad will lend itself better toward cooked ingredients compared to massaged or raw greens? Does wilting the greens in the salad have any particular impact on the profile of the flavor and texture of the end result that gears it toward pairing with flavors that massaged greens, or raw, would not?

I've only heard of massaging kale.  If you rub the greens together they get softer, darker and more tender and useable in a salad.  Never done it with anything else. Wilted is steamed or blanched greens. Wilting definitely changes the texture and can make the greens more palatable and less bitter.  I won't eat raw collards. I also always salt and squeeze my cooked spinach before using as it knocks out the bitterness.


How long should I wait before I lift the lid of my sauerkraut crock? I have 5 - 6 lbs of sauerkraut in a crock with a water vacuum seal.  I read that the first 24 - 48 hours are crucial to the success of the kraut. I also read that the kraut should develop its own liquid during this time, and that one can pour boiled water on top  if it doesn't. However, I also read that it shouldn't be disturbed for a fairly long period of time.  I am a bit confused.  Should I check on the progress after a few days, or not?

Don't check on it.

When I lived in Virginia I used to drive up to Pennsylvania every year to this little Amish farm to buy a gallon of the best sauerkraut I've ever tasted. They showed you how they made it, and I remember the farmer stressing two things: (1) sterilize the jars, (2) don't touch it for 2 months.


How can I store leftover puff pastry or make it more durable? I am going to be attempting a recipe for tarts which use shop-bought puff pastry. I am fairly new to baking and this will be the first time I am using puff pastry. I am unsure what I can do with the remainder of the puff pastry once I have cut the circles that I need.

Can I just squash the piece together and stick it in the fridge for another time? Should I just bake them along with the tarts to use them up? Will they need to be thrown away?

My concern is the butter in the pastry and the fact that it will have warmed up by my rolling and handling and what impact that will have on subsequent use.

No, you probably don't want to just squish leftover puff pastry dough together to save it.  While it would be perfectly safe, it would ruin the layering that gives the rise and flakiness that is the reason for using puff pastry.

If you have a large enough section still intact, you could put in the refrigerator for a day or two, to use later.

Otherwise, a typical thing to do would be to prepare sweet or savory snacks with the surplus pieces.   Cut it into convenient shapes.  If you have large enough pieces, sticks would be good, even twisting them to give them an interesting texture.

Then, brush the pieces with butter (or oil), and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar; or grated Parmesan cheese; or rosemary and salt; or some other complimentary flavor.

Bake the pieces up until they are puffed and golden brown and they are very nice snacks or treats.


What are the effective ways to wrap a pita? I love pitas, but I've never been able to wrap them properly. Whenever I attempt to wrap them they always come out in a crescent-moon shaped, making it a lot more difficult to eat, and the toppings being too spread out. I initially thought I was just putting too much into the pita wraps, but after some experimenting this doesn't appear to be the case.

The end result I'm looking for is something similiar to the picture below. Where the toppings are put inside the pita, and the pita is tightly wrapped, and each bite allows me to get a good mix of topping, instead of only getting one type of ingredient in each bite.

What are the effective ways to wrap a pita?

although written instructions would work, a video or written instructions making use of a diagram would be ideal

Pita bread is a small "pocket" bread, they are not really designed for rolling. You normally slice the pocket open, and just stuff it. Like this

Some bakeries make large or jumbo pita bread, that are generally not useful as pocket breads. These can be folded into a cone by taking the left and right sides and pulling together making a cone shape, then wrap in paper to hold it together as required

Also, you can get Lebanese style flat bread in large squares or circles. These are ideal for making wraps. Add filling in a line to one side of a square or in the middle of a circle. Then roll into a large burrito or Sushi like shape, wrap in paper if needed, slice as desired


Can pasta salad be preserved long-term? Can I preserve pasta salad in bottles that can last for months?

The ingredients are cooked pasta shells, diced onion, diced green and red pepper. The dressing is: boiled together: vinegar, sugar, tomato sauce, curry powder, salt.

Can this recipe be done and bottled to last for months, keeping in mind it will be kept in the fridge?

With industrial testing and equipment, it might be possible.

As a practical matter, for a home cook, no this is not possible.

The reason is safety:  long term canning requires ensuring that the product is shelf stable and safe for longer term storage, which means killing or preventing the growth of all pathogens that might be in the food.   Possibly the most difficult and dangerous to manage is botulism, whose spores are fairly ubiquitous, and which can grow in low-acid, low oxygen conditions—the exact conditions that prevail inside a canned product like this.

Even though your dressing may be acidic, the entire volume inside the jar including the pasta and other ingredients will almost certainly be insufficiently acidic to inhibit botulism growth.

The only way to know for sure that a recipe (and the associated canning methodology) is safe is with expensive industrial testing (the kind food companies use when bringing new products to market), or to exactly follow a recipe designed by a reputable source such as a University Extension program.

Unless you can find such a recipe (I failed to do so in a quick check, but it is hard to search for), you should not proceed; but even if you do, you would have to follow that recipe, and not use your own.


Can I use my oven for sous-vide I have an electric oven which has a temperature setting, starting at 50c and goes up in 5 degree increments; [50,55,60,65,...]. It also has a fan to circulate air. (pictured below)

Will this be accurate/stable enough to do sous-vide? I'm asking about modern domestic electric ovens in general as opposed to my particular brand (whirlpool).

If I put my bagged meat in to a pot of, say 65deg water, and put it in the oven set for 65deg. Will the water ever get more than a degree or two above 65?

I suspect that even if the oven fluctuates +-10deg, the thermal mass of the water won't allow it's contents to fluctuate in temperature change so much, assuming of course that the oven will average at 65deg.

Has anyone tried sous-vide with their oven, or are the thermostats so inaccurate that it not likely to work?

Accuracy of the temperature is going to vary by oven, so there's no definitive answer there. As GdD said, you'll just have to get a thermometer and try it.

However, I think this will probably work fine for most sous vide applications. While sous vide is all about precision, a couple of degrees fluctuation isn't going to make a huge difference for most preparations (eggs are a notable exception), particularly given the thermal mass of the water. You could also throw a pizza stone or something in the oven too to help keep a more constant temp.


How do you get a smooth surface on cakes? I've been making a lot of cakes recently and I've been noticing that tell all have bumps, wrinkles or holes on the surface. Although it doesn't matter much, does any know how to get a smooth surface on cakes? Thank-you!

Frost it.
Most surfaces will be rough when looked at closely enough. Bubbles are introduced when you mix the ingredients together (perhaps more if you use a high-speed machine beater & less if you do it by hand) and as a natural part of baking, from baking soda etc.  That's what makes the cakes more light and airy as opposed to thick.


Is it safe to eat a cake with semi spoiled lemon rind? I made a lemon cake and used a little bit of lemon rind. I had the lemon in my fruit basket for around a month, it still had it's shape and colour so I thought it was alright and decided to bake a lemon cake so I grated some lemon rind. Once I cut the lemon in half, a little section of it turned to a light brown colour so I discarded it. The cake has come out of the oven and tastes fine, although a little bitter from the lemon rind. Is it safe to eat? The lemon was only a little bit spoiled.

Of course if an item is spoiled this means you should throw out anything that contains the spoiled item. However, based on your description, I have an alternative hypothesis. Brown discoloration in fruit does not mean the fruit is spoiled. Discoloration can be normal, especially if there was no unusual smells or changes in texture in the lemon. You said the lemon still appeared fresh on the outside.

The more likely scenario is that the bitterness is from the lemon rind itself. The white pith underneath the outer bright yellow layer of the lemon rind is very bitter. If you go too deep while zesting a lemon your dish can easily be ruined by nasty bitterness. Only scrape the outer yellow surface when zesting a lemon. This can be quite challenging and takes some practice before you start zesting like an expert.

Without a further description of the lemon, it is impossible to say whether it is spoiled or not (it very well could be), but even if it was I doubt the spoiled lemon is causing bitterness (it would probably cause a different but equally undesirable flavor).


What is instant pudding mix used for in baking cookies? In some recipes instant pudding mix/cornstarch are called. What is the main point of adding these two ingredients in your dough.

Thank you

Flour is basically a mix of gluten and starch (about 10% gluten to 90% starch for all purpose flour, the ratio varies for other types). Whenever a baked good asks for the addition of pure starch, it is made under the assumption that you have no easy access to low-gluten flour types. Its purpose is to reduce the gluten-to-starch ratio.

Gluten makes dough tough and is also the substance which makes it hold together. With less gluten in your dough, your cookies will be less tough, have more of a tender texture. They will also crumble more easily.

Instant pudding is an ingredient which is more common in some kitchens than pure starch, so it is used as a substitute. It usually has sweeteners and aromas in addition to cornstarch. It is less controllable than using pure starch and adding the best amount of sugar and the desired flavoring itself, so it trades quality for convenience. In my experience, recipes which call for instant pudding also cut corners in other respects, and are unlikely to be of high quality overall. So I prefer to not use them. If you want the low-gluten type cookies, choosing a recipe with cornstarch (or directly cake flour instead of a mix of AP flour and starch) will probably give better results.


How can I get my bacon flatter? When frying bacon, it tends to curl up. I don't like it because my bacon doesn't cook equally and it's hard to get it crisp that way.

Is there a technique or a tip so I can have flat bacon?

This is how I cook bacon, and also produce almost perfectly flat bacon. No special tools required (Well, I'm assuming most people have the following in their kitchen).

Tools

Sheet Tray
Cooling Rack (slightly smaller than the sheet tray)
parchment paper (Optional, but makes for easier cleanup).
BACON (I like the extra-thick cut).

Steps

Take the sheet tray and line with parchment paper.
Lay bacon down on parchment paper. You can fill the tray up, but I make sure the bacon stays in a single layer with no overlapping.
Place the cooling rack upside down onto the bacon. This should keep it from curling.
Place into oven and turn oven to 400 F. I don't find I need to pre-heat it, as, well, bacon isn't very complicated to cook.
In about 15 minutes or so, you'll have cooked, flat bacon. (Adjust cooking time depending on your preference of crispiness.
Take out of oven and remove from tray. (The tray and fat are hot, the bacon will keep cooking if you don't)

The cooling rack should keep it from curling while the fat slowly renders out. As a bonus, I don't need to clean my stove after.

Alternatively, the mention of the George Forman grill reminds me of an idea I saw somewhere (might have been Good Eats), use a waffle Iron! Use it just like the grill in Ward's answer.


Can I serve a hot soup recipe as a chilled soup? I make a spicy red pepper soup that is made with chicken stock. Is it ok to serve this soup chilled even though it has chicken stock in it. If I take it from the freezer, do I have to heat it first and then chill?

There's no food safety issues here, you don't have to reheat food to make it safe if it was handled properly before it was frozen. Just thaw and serve.

From a non-safety perspective if it's a soup that's meant to be served hot it will have a very different flavor cold, often being bland. You may want to test it out and tweak the recipe to make sure it tastes good.


Do tomatoes lose their nutritional value when they are made into tomato sauce? Do tomatoes lose their nutritional value when they are made into tomato sauce? What about canned tomato sauce?

Nutritional changes in cooking foods (including tomatoes) are not simple to answer:  cooking can reduce some nutrients, and it can make other ingredients more available.

Tomatoes are a case in point, as cooking has both effects.  According to as study in the Journal of Food and Agriculture, as reported in Cornell Chronical, both effects happen.   Vitamin C is reduced as it breaks down under heat, but certain lycoenes and anti-oxidants increased.

  Tomato samples were heated to 88 degrees Celsius (190.4 degrees
  Fahrenheit) for two minutes, a quarter-hour and a half-hour.
  Consistent with previous studies, vitamin C content decreased by 10,
  15 and 29 percent, respectively, when compared to raw, uncooked
  tomatoes. However, the research revealed that the beneficial
  trans-lycopene content of the cooked tomatoes increased by 54, 171 and
  164 percent, respectively. Levels of cis -lycopene (which the body
  easily absorbs) rose by 6, 17 and 35 percent, respectively; and
  antioxidant levels in the heated tomatoes increased by 28, 34 and 62
  percent, respectively.

See related:  Does cooking in a pressure cooker destroy nutrients?


Prevent pepper spray effect when cooking raw hot peppers Something I've noticed when using raw, fresh jalapeños and adding them directly to heat. It can sometimes put out a "pepper spray" which can make you and others around the area you are cooking cough and have trouble breathing.

So my question is, how to prevent this? And other tips for working with even hotter peppers that need very little to create a spicy atmosphere.

EDIT: Don't think the linked question is very helpful in terms of cooking with hot peppers, seems more to do with oil use.

You have a couple of options, one is to wear a respirator or a bandanna that is soaked with water over your mouth. There really isn't any way around these fumes being created when you put peppers on a hot pan unless you cook them at a very low temperature.  The reason is that the capsaicin molecules become airborne when heated.

Whenever I cook with peppers I incorporate them in with the dish after I have done any sort of frying.


Yellow tail tuna (hamachi) -- is it possible that the sweet taste comes from sugars present in the fish's flesh? It feels like this might be a stupid question but I can find nothing from googling this and in my experience, anything that tastes sweet tends to have sugar or sugar substitute.

Meat/fish do not contain significant carbohydrate - glycogen is the sugar found in meat, but it is stored in the liver, which DOES contain carbohydrate, though not necessarily sufficiently for liver to be perceived as sweet.
Fish tastes sweet because of free amino acids.

Free amino acids are not to be confused with protein, which is tasteless. Protein is amino acids bonded together. Most amino acids are bound.
This provides total amino acids: https://www.healthbenefitstimes.com/yellowtail-fish/
But it does not list free amino acids.
This appears to be a paywalled study of yellowtail FAA https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1982.tb05006.x
You could buy that and study.
82% of crab body meat free amino acids are glycine + alanine https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33721749.pdf
This explains why crab meat tastes sweet. The sweet taste of yellowtail (which is not tuna) could be best evaluated by comparing the FAAs with fish that don't taste sweet. You might also consider the LACK of other flavours in the fish - as something that contains a lot of bitterness might not taste sweet, even with the same amount of sweet-tasting amino acids in it.


Baker percentages, weights, volumes, and such So a basic bread recipe might look like (off top of head, not sure if these amounts make any sense)

100 Bread Flour
 30 Water
  1 oil
....

I know the flour is in weight ounces, but often times in side-by-side recipes I see the water converted into fluid ounces (8 ounces of water equaling 1c).  I know sometimes it just so happens that they're the same, but with water that is not so.  1 fl oz water ~= 1.05 av oz water.  Close, but off by near 1/2 oz by the time you add 8 of them.

So which do bakers use with fluids?  Do they use av or fl?  Should I expect to be able to weigh my fluids along with everything else or do I need to convert to fl?

If specific units are not given (i.e. you just have a ratio), then you should always go by weight, not volume.

Everything that happens in baking, every chemical reaction, is based on the actual number of molecules of a particular ingredient, which corresponds to its weight.  Volume is simply a rough approximation used in many home cooking/baking recipes.

Note that if using metric measurements (g or mL) then the weight vs. volume measurements actually are the same for water.  So consider using metric for baking, if you can, because that way the conversions are much easier and you can measure out your liquids in a measuring cup without having to do any conversion math.


How to store squash? I live in a small apartment with lots of windows.I do not have a basement.I read you can store squash a in cool, dark place for up to 3 months. Can I use a dark plastic bin to store it in or will it begin to rot without having a way to vent?

To start with I want to store spaghetti squash but I would also to look at storing acorn, butternut, zucchini. I live in an area where can buy lots of fresh vegetables and fruits and would like to buy more in bulk if possible.

It is safe enough to store hardy squashes in an apartment, but more delicate ones such as zucchini and other thin-skinned squashes should probably be stored in the crisper of a refrigerator if you're planning to keep them for more than a week. If that space is not available, you can extend the "keep" time of less hardy squashes with just a bit of advance prep before storing. Seal the stem and blossom ends of the squash with melted candle wax, beeswax or paraffin. In a very clean sink, create a mixture of sterilizing water by making a strong brine, then adding one tablespoon (yes, tablespoon; it is, after all, a sterilizing agent) of bleach per gallon. Sink each squash in this rinse for a few seconds (I generally don't do it for more than 3 seconds, 5 if the peel is uneven or has scarring) and pat excess moisture off with a clean, non-abrasive, absorbent cloth. Allow the exterior of the squash to air dry before storing per the method for hardier squash.

For hardier squash, find the coolest location in your apartment that doesn't include a damp place like a bathroom or laundry. If it has a closet, you just found your storage place. Put down either a few small boards or a few bricks with several layers of cardboard. Perfect base. You can store your squashes right on there, or put them into cardboard boxes on top of that base, which is what I usually do. Don't let the squashes touch each other, as every point of contact is a potential weak spot. Turn your squash once a week; handle very gently to prevent even shallow, minor cosmetic bruising or abrasion of the skin, again in the interest of avoiding weak points. If you live in a relatively humid climate, melt candle wax or paraffin onto the squash where the stem meets the fruit -- after ensuring it is completely dry, of course -- to minimize the formation of molds and fungi.

Check hardy squashes for soft spots or mold each time you turn them, and immediately remove — and use — ones showing those signs. More delicate squashes should be checked every three days and should not be stored longer than two weeks, in case there is spoilage from the inside.


Cooking defrosted then rechilled beef in a slow cooker Is it  safe to cook 500 grams of browned diced beef in a slow cooker?
This beef was defrosted in the fridge, browned and placed back in the fridge overnight to place in the slow cooker the next morning.

From the sounds of it: Probably, yes.

It's about total time spent in the 'danger zone' (40°F - 140°F,5°C - 58°C).  Total time shouldn't exceed two hours.

According to your process, the only time should be been whatever cooling time happened between it being browned and placed back in the fridge.  Your slow cooker is going to bring it up to above that temp slow enough that there is a time there that will happen.

So, on the very safe side,  if you slow cooker takes 1 hour to get up to that temp and you kept your cooked beef out to cool before going fridge for less than 1 hour (that would be 2 hours total) - then you're safe.


Blown sugar globe with smoke enclosed inside - is it a plausible candy to make? There is a candy called "smoke sugar", that was made by a character in a story - it was a bubble of blown sugar, with a breath of hickory smoke in the center.  The ingredients as listed were powdered sugar, grape acid (equivalent to citric or tartaric acid), and hickory wood for the smoke, and probably water as an unlisted ingredient.

I was wondering how realistic this candy is, especially to be made by a home cook.  I did some research into making sugar-glass, which is made by heating sugar and water, and a small amount of acid to make a candy with.  I also saw that blown sugar bubbles are sometimes used decoratively.  I'm less sure if sugar-blowing requires special equipment to keep the molten sugar at the right temperature, or tools work with it without burning anything - or how dangerous it might be, with a possibility of inhaling the molten sugar.  Perhaps the blown sugar globes I saw pictures of are made by commercial kitchens, or at least high-skill enthusiasts, who might have the necessary equipment and skill to make it safely.

I am also uncertain about the feasibility of adding the hickory smoke to the center.  It seems to me that keeping the sugar-glass at workable temperatures for blowing globes with would be tricky enough without also trying to produce, and catch, hickory smoke to enclose in the bubble.  I'm picturing using a mouthful of smoke to blow the breath that expands the globe (drawn into the mouth similarly to cigarette smoke, perhaps?), since the globe would have to be sealed off while still hot.  But perhaps there's a better way?

Of course, the story character had pyromancy to keep the sugar at the right temperature, and control the smoking of the hickory wood, and tolerance to very high temperatures to keep from burning himself.  But is this kind of candy possible for someone lacking these advantages?

I will likely cheat a bit to make something similar but easier by adding a drop of liquid smoke to regular sugar-glass for the flavor profile, to satisfy my curiosity.  But I was wondering about the feasibility of the recipe technique as described in the story.

Almost exactly what you describe can be done, it’s shown in this video.

The sugar isn’t hot blown, it’s isomalt, a lower-calorie sugar substitute used in lower calorie candies and by foodies because it is formable into interesting shapes, like your sphere. It's a sugar alcohol, derived from sugar, and is considered "natural" (see What does "natural" actually mean?).

In order to make your spheres by this method, you would need isomalt, wood chips, a smoking gun, a way to pump air, protective gloves, a heat source, scissors, a small cutting form and a fan. It will also probably require boatloads of practice. The video links to a kit with most of what you would need.

Don the gloves, warm the isomalt, and then knead the isomalt by stretching and folding, taking care to get it all to the same temperature. After it’s well kneaded, form it into a ball just bigger than a golf ball.

Poke the ball with a finger, creating a deep hole to wrap around the nozzle of your blower gizmo. Warm the hole and fit it over the nozzle of the blower gizmo. Now it’s a little like filling a balloon, but he shows a lot more finesse.

Once you’ve got the sphere blown, cool it with a fan.

Warm the scissors and cut the sphere from the blower.

He cuts a larger hole for filling the sphere with smoke, but I don’t see that that step is really necessary, if you’re smart with the scissors step. But, what do I know?

Fill the ball with smoke using the smoking gun.

Turn it hole side down onto a plate and serve immediately.

I'm sure with practice you could plug the hole for an even cooler presentation, but you'd still have to serve it pretty quickly.

You can flavor isomalt, and you can add interesting color designs. It seems like it could be a pretty fun project.


How can I make buttermilk? I have a recipe that calls for 16 ounces of buttermilk...but don't have any. How can I make buttermilk? What is a substitute for buttermilk?

You can make a buttermilk substitute. You'll need milk and lemon juice (using a ratio of 1 Tablespoon of acid per cup of milk)

Place a Tablespoon lemon juice in a liquid
measuring cup.
Add enough milk to bring the liquid up to the one-cup
line.
Let stand for five minutes.


Identify this brownie-like dessert When I was a kid, there was a dessert that would frequently be at pot-lucks that was a brownie-like dessert. It's been a long time since I had it so don't remember the details exactly but it was like a brownie with a greenish mint cream/marshmallow layer on top and then a thin chocolate layer on top of that.  I'd love to make it again but have no idea where to find the recipe.  Does anyone know what this dessert would be called?

It sounds like you're describing a "Grasshopper brownie" which is a sort of "grasshopper pie and brownie mashup" dessert.
Grasshopper pie is a chocolate crust pie with mint cream filling. And for grasshopper brownies, it lends that minty cream filling to a layered brownie variation.


Bagels: Flat, no rise, gummy inside. Over kneading? Edit: thanks for all the advice! I worked these half as much, and made sure to let them cool. Great, round results!!

To start, I'm using this recipe: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/bagels-366757

My first try I used AP flour and honey (both in the dough and the poaching liquid). Resulted in bready bagels that didn't have any of that chew on the inside, or the outside.

Second, I switched to diastatic malt powder on the dough, and bread flour instead of AP. I also increased the cooking time to 12 minutes per rotation (because after 8 and 8 they weren't golden brown).

The second resulted in almost crispy outsides (probably a little long in the oven, and the use of a dark pan, causing this), but gummy insides, and flat bagels. There was almost no rise at all, and cutting them resulted in most of the insides ending up on the knife.

Is this a proofing issue? Are the bagels not being allowed to come up to temp long enough outside of the fridge (they are passing the float test after 60 minutes)? Am I over-working the bagels (I'm doing 3 minutes per round, with a 5 minute break in the middle, on a pro series kitchenaid stand mixer with the dough hook).

Which step results in an underbaked-tasting gummy inside? What do I need to do to get a more tender (albeit chewy) interior and a good rise?

Attaching three photos. You can see the lack of rise in two of them (flat bagels, and holes that don't seem like they closed up very much). You can also see the knife in the background, with the gummy insides all over it. Last one is the dark bottom (again, I think this is pan related).

It is essential to allow the bagels to cool completely before slicing. The recipe says at least 30 minutes, but my experience suggests longer might be needed: if you slice too early you'll get a gummy inside, since it's still saturated with water vapour, rather than the chewy texture you want.


Can a beef brisket be tenderized by cooking a second time? A neighbor gave me about 2.5 pounds of cooked brisket. He said he cooked it overnight but he did not say  a temperature. I have roasted several briskets overnight in a tight roaster at 210 to 220 F and they have always been very tender. This roast looks cooked but is relatively tough. If I cook it several more hours at about 210 F , is it likely to get "fall apart" tender ?

Yes, you can cook it a second time and it may help. When you cook meat two things will happen (well, more than two...).

One is that it will lose moisture. The longer you cook it the more moisture (i.e. water) you will lose, and there's no getting it back.

The second thing that happens is that the connective tissues break down to collagen, which is what you are perceiving as being moist and tender when you cook it for a long time. If it is cooked but not to the point where these connective tissues break down then it is likely a second cook will make it more tender. It will also continue to dry out the meat.

After your second cook, be sure to let it rest. I would also suggest slicing it thinly against the grain after cooking as this will make it easier to chew, further helping with the mouthfeel.

Finally, be aware that the amount of time the meat stays between 40°F-140°F the more risk there is of food poisoning. Cooking a second time does not eliminate any toxins produced by the bacteria up to that point (it will only kill bacteria), so be sure to eat it right away as letting it cool and reheating it again introduces more risk. Guidelines say meat should be kept for only one hour between 90°-140° (up to four hours 40°-90°, but less depending how much time was spent above 90°).


What gives Vietnamese Chicken the red tint? A local oriental restaurant used to sell "Vietnamese Chicken", a hot plate dish of big chunks of chicken breast with onion and spices. The distinguishing feature of the dish was a deep red tint of the chicken meat (on the surface; the inside was normal chicken meat color), even stronger than in the photo:

At one point they must have changed their recipe and the chicken is no longer red, just common yellowish typical to any fried chicken:

I can't really notice a difference in taste (maybe because it was a couple months since I had "red" until I bought "Vietnamese Chicken" and it was now yellow) - still, I'm curious what spice (or whatever other means) can give chicken meat this red coloration, and try making this dish myself.

(there's a bunch of recipes for this dish, but as I want the "red" variant, I'd like to be able to tell the "red" ones apart from the "yellow".)

Can you help me?

My Vietnamese girlfriend uses "hạt điều màu" (annatto). She heats the nuts in oil and then uses the oil without the nuts to fry the meat in.


Stir fry - garlic burns if I put it in first, what am I doing wrong? I read everywhere that I should put garlic first in the oil for a stir fry. However, whenever I do this the garlic burns into little brown chunks. What's the proper amount of time for letting garlic sit before adding other stuff ? Thanks

You have a few options, as you're dealing with high-heat cooking

Only fry the garlic for a few seconds before adding something else to cool down the pan.  You don't want it to cook 'til it shows color ... just a few seconds then toss in some onion or other high-moisture items.
Add the garlic with something else (eg, ginger), to keep it from burning quite as quickly.
Leave the garlic in larger bits, so it'll take longer to burn (as the moisture doesn't cook off immediately).
Really crush the garlic well.  Not chopped, but pulp it into a paste before using it, so it both holds together as a mass, and releases all of its moisture.
Move the garlic to the edge of the wok after cooking it (use a wok scoop or rounded spatula to make sure you get it all) ... then add your next ingredients, but don't bring the garlic back down 'til plenty of other stuff is in the pan.

And of course, make sure that you've cut up everything before you add the garlic -- you're cooking over such high heat that you want to be able to quickly add other things, otherwise you risk cooking the garlic for too long while you're dealing with some other ingredient.


Is it bad to cook frozen meat without thawing it? I wonder if it is bad to cook frozen meat (chicken, fish, beef,...) without waiting for it to thaw?

Sometimes, I realize I forget to take meat out of my freezer beforehand, when I am too hungry already.

It's really a question of taste.  It's not going to hurt you, but there will be some undesirable effects.  For example, to cook turkey properly, it must come to an internal temp. of 180. If the meat is frozen, it is going to take a lot longer for the internal temperature to rise that high, so the outside of the bird will be somewhat overcooked (compared to roasting a thawed bird). That meat will be much tougher than it would be otherwise.

If your question is querying as to whether it will cause ill health, then no, it will not. My mom does it all the time.  Her roasts are tough, though. I have done this, but only when I am braising the meat, or using a slow cooker, which will cause the meat to be tender either way.


How do I keep long grain brown rice moist? I'm starting to cook long grain brown rice at night, and I usually make enough to last about 4 days or so. The issue is that it gets REALLY dry when I put it in the fridge. I also usually don't warm it up before eating since I'm always on the go.

How can I keep brown rice moist?  Should I not put it in the fridge? I don't have a rice cooker, so I cook it in a pot.

According to Alton Brown, talking about why a short-grain rice salad won't get hard when cold:

  But it won't be hard, the way, say,
  refrigerated Chinese take-out
  restaurant rice would be. Why is that?
  Well, long-grain rice, which is
  usually what's inside one of these,
  contains a very, very high percentage
  of amylose. [holds up the model]
  Remember this guy? When this cools,
  the amylose and water come together to
  make a structure that's kind of like,
  well, kind of like a crystal, which is
  why it's hard as a rock. The process
  is called "retrogradation", and it's
  reversed when the rice is reheated.
  Now since medium-grain rices have more
  amylopectin in them, this never
  happens in the first place, which is
  why I use medium, and sometimes
  short-grain rices for all
  refrigerated-bound applications.

If you can't heat up the rice, have you tried making some sort of short-grain variety?


Trying to improve a vegetarian wrap by adding spinach I am trying to come up with a recipe for a wrap (in a tortilla) and my idea features slightly fried vegetables and spring onion, sour cream, spinach and mozzarella.
I would usually try out different approaches and come up with a recipe through trial and error, but this time I don't have this luxury and yet I want my wrap to be tasty and well balanced.

The current plan is to slightly fry the vegetables in a pan with the lid on. After that, while still hot, I plan on adding the sour cream and mixing it up. The mozzarella is added inside at the end so it melts while the wrap is in a closed toaster or on a grill.

The main idea is super simple and actually my only concern is about the spinach. I don't want it to dominate in the dish, but still give that hint in the wrap. I don't have any specific amounts for the the other products.

What suggestions would you give me for the preparation of the spinach and how much should I use?

Fresh uncooked washed baby spinach would be best. Just the leaves, no stems.

If you wanted to, you could lay the spinach out over the wrap, then put the fried ingredients on while hot, so that they partially cook the spinach, add your sauce, then roll up.


What's the difference between using stock and water? I realise this sounds like an odd question.  However, to use an example, when I make cottage pie, a lot of recipes suggest using beef stock.  Okay, so as I understand making beef stock, you basically take some scrag ends of beef (bones, etc), and boil them.  So what's the difference between doing that, and adding the water directly to the cottage pie when you make it?

While the liquid that you end up with in your pie will be similar to beef stock in that it has had beef cooked in it, the difference is that the flavor compounds will have cooked out of the beef already in your dish. This means it's basically just diluting the flavor of your beef.

If you start with stock on the other hand, there is beef flavor is in the stock itself so it's actually adding more flavor compounds to your dish rather than just spreading around the ones already there.


Is there a special Wasabi paste/powder I should use when I'm making Wasabi ice-cream? A friend of mine once made Wasabi Ice-cream. I remember she was saying she had used some special 'Wasabi Powder' Unfortunately I can't reach her, and I wanna try to make this Wasabi Ice-cream at home..

I am wondering if it's anything special I should consider when using Wasabi to make ice-cream (wondering about the cream curdling, etc) or can I just use the standard Wasabi (or horse raddish) paste I get in the Asian section of the supermarket?

To my knowledge wasabi paste is just wasabi powder that has had the water added to it by the factory.  So if you are looking at paste vs powder I would go powder.  The question to me would be to make it a paste before you add it to your ice cream base or to add the powder directly to the ice cream base.  I would venture to say you should be just fine adding the powder directly to the ice cream base.

Now, for the ugly truth.  Pretty much all you wasabi powder sold in the US or Japan for that mater isn't really wasabi(or contains very little wasabi).  It is horseradish, that is colored green and has some sort of mustard or turmeric added.  And really not what I would want to try in an ice cream.  Plus the flavor of the pastes are not like fresh (even with horseradish).

If I were doing an ice cream, I would want to stay away from the powder all together. I would visit my local specialty food market or online specialty market and see if I could source real wasabi.  But cost might be prohibitive for you as it is very expensive.  Next the good news is, there are some powders out there that are actually dried ground wasabi powder such as this one at "The Spice House".  It was most likely something like this that your friend used if she did use a powder.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful to you.  And good luck.


Home made jam consistency and taste Am very new to cooking and baking. Trying on homemade organic ones.. everytime I make jams, the taste differs in spite of using the same ingredients.. when I ask around everyone says that's what makes homemade food 'special'.. but to attain perfection, I feel that everytime I make the taste should be the same..
It would be great if anyone can guide me..

I think that may be unavoidable.

Even if (as @Chris H is hinting with his question) your fruit is coming from the same place every time, even if its the same farm, your raw fruit is unlikely to have the exact same taste and sugar content every time.  That will always lead to differences in taste.

Sweeter fruit will need less sugar, but if you're always adding the same amount then some batches will come out sweeter than others.

Differences in the taste of the raw fruit are likely, as you're purchasing at different times of the year.  Even just a couple of weeks can affect the taste of fruit significantly-- compare early season berries to mid- or late season ones, for instance.

In my experience those differences only be come more pronounced with cooking, especially when its done in small batches.  Mass-produced jams have consistent taste by using large quantities of fruit, so the differences between each individual farm's fruits become smoothed and averaged out.

In my opinion the difference in each batch of homemade is part of the charm, but if consistency is really what you're after I would suggest making slightly larger batches and combining the fruit from several different sources.


Why are some kind of packets-soups boiled up in lukewarm water, while normally just stirred into already boiling water? Inscription on packets-soups from supermarket states:

  Stir the soup-meal into lukewarm water, boil it up, and wait 5-10 minutes. Ready to eat.

Normally the inscription says that you should boil up water and then stir the soup-meal into it. At least for all noodle and broccoli soups I regulary buy.

Whats the reason, that, in my case, a potato-soup and very few noodle soups needs to/should be boiled up in lukewarm water. Can somebody explain the cooking-physics/purpose behind this procedure?

I cannot imagine is has to do with cooking time like other boiling-tagged questions at first made me think (because the inscriptions are different on packets of same company, there seems to be a different reason), I suppose more that those soups would get lumpy/agglutinate? Cannot think of other reasons.

Some ingredients do not dissolve well in hot water - the starch swells and thickens, forming lumps that may have raw powder in them and are nasty. They need to be added to cold or lukewarm water and heated after they are dissolved. Other ingredients, most notably pasta, will partially dissolve in cold water making a thick gloppy soup. But if you add them to hot water they will "seal" (in a way) and stay together as they cook.


Chicken Stock gelatinous I made chicken stock recently from chicken thigh bones and skin (just needed the thigh meat and the bone-in-with-skin were cheaper).  After cooling it in the fridge I ended up with gelatinous semisolid stuff underneath a layer of fat a few mm thick.  I removed the fat, but am wondering whether the "stock" underneath it is useable for anything.

This is normal, expected, and desired.   The long simmering of the bones will dissolve collagen in the connective tissue, creating gelatin, which will cause it to quite literally gel when cooled.

This gives the stock a body and texture that is considered a virtue in using it for soup or as an ingredient in other recipes.  When heated, the gelatin will melt again.


What are some ways to season that don't rely on garlic and onions? I am looking for some alternative ways to season food. I am very familiar with currying, pesto, and chili. My difficulty is that each of these relies on onions, tomatoes and garlic.

What are some other ways to season food that don't rely on these three ingredients?

My wife is having difficulty with them during her pregnancy when in excess. At the same time she is having difficulty eating plain and bland foods. We also don't use any vinegar for its alcohol content.

Aliums (the garlic and onion family) can be a trigger of both allergies and food intolerance.  Unfortunately, they're two of the most common flavorings in foods.  There's already a question on here about removing aliums: Replacement for alliums?

Tomatoes, are a separate problem, but it's not particularly prevalent in Asian cooking, other than on the Indian sub-continent.

I'd recommend looking for Jain cooking (an Indian caste that doesn't eat anything that's grown below ground), as there are lots that don't use tomatoes.

You might also want to look for FODMAP-friendly recipes.  It's a new-ish restrictive diet for people with severe food intolerance.  It's not 100% alium free, though, as they allow garlic flavored oil (so long as you remove the garlic) and they allow the greens from the alium family.  After you've been off aliums for some time and your wife isn't having any problems, you can try adding back one or the other and see if your wife can tolerate them.

As for your comment about vinegar -- sour is one of the under-appreciated flavors, and it can really help to perk up bland dishes.  You might want to consider citrus juices, such as lemon or lime to add more flavor to dishes.  Pineapple and other tropical fruits may also help.  But I'd also be careful about too much acidity -- that might be why your wife has issues with tomatoes.  (And if it is ... you might try finding yellow tomatoes at farmers markets, as they tend to be lower acid.)


Can I use a stoneware 9x13 pan instead of a metal 9x13 pan for Caramel Rolls? I decided to make some caramel rolls for treats for work and realized I only have one metal 9x13 pan. I have a couple 9x13 stoneware pans, but I've never used them for something like caramel rolls before.

Can I use the stoneware pans in the same way I'd use a metal pan or do I need to do something different to get the rolls to turn out well.

Thanks!

If your caramel rolls are the kind with a sticky, gooey mass in the bottom of the pan that is flipped upside down out of the pan, then I would say that the rolls won't really get good and caramely in a stoneware pan. You'd be better off baking one pan of rolls at a time in the metal pan. While one pan is rising and baking, just chill the other part of the dough... either plain in a bowl, or prepared into a log that only needs to be cut.

If the caramel rolls are more like a cinnamon bun, then the stoneware dishes should do fine in a pinch. This is assuming they are glazed stoneware and not terra cotta. Cooking time will increase a bit as the stoneware will take longer to heat up (it will also retain the heat longer when removed from the oven).

You could always just go out and buy some foil pans. I do that when I make rolls (caramel, cinnamon, and sticky) for the local fire company's carnival. They go through 17=20 dozen rolls each year.

I know baking rolls can be a lot of work, so what I have found to be very helpful, is to make the dough the night before baking. Cover with cling film, and let it have a slow rise in the fridge all night. (you will get improved flavor too.) The next day, divide the cold dough up and prepare as usual. They will take a little longer for the rise in the pan after shaping, but it sure is a lot easier on you.


Is it safe to eat fish that has been left out in the cold overnight? It's snowing over here, and we had made a fish delivery that we assumed had been canceled. (The fish store didn't answer their phone yesterday and most schools and businesses were closed.) However, it seems that the fish was left at our door late last night. It was probably there around 9 hours...? Normally I would toss it, but it's really cold out there and the fish is cool to the touch. I live in an apt building, so it was not actually outside in the snow, but the temperature in the hallway outside our front door is nearly as cold as outside. I have no way of measuring the temperature out there. Is it safe to eat...? How cold does it have to be to consider it safe? (And yes, we will complain to the store.)

I hate throwing away food, for me (and I stress "for me") I would use the "Smell By" test and then make sure it is cooked really well through.  Make a stew, curry or pasta source (something where it is cooked through and in small bits). BUT DO NOT sushi, light pan fry or similar of it.

If you are in doubt do not use it, you do not want a dose of something a week before holidays.

Other factors
Was the fish cleaned?
Was it in bag or one of those polystyrene (Styrofoam) boxes?
Was it in ice?


Smoking a whole duck - when to remove from heat? I am going to be smoking a duck on my grill in the next few days, and I'm finding a ton of conflicting information. I was hoping you all could help sort it out.

What breast/thigh temperature am I trying to get to for medium rare? I'm looking for the real answer, not the FDA approved politically-correct 165 degree answer. I've seen anywhere from 130 for rare, to the 165 for a hockey puck. There seems to be a lack of decent recipes.

I'm thinking a 200-225 degree smoker for at least a few hours should get rid of any actual danger from salmonella (though I honestly doubt duck is as much of a concern as, say, turkey or chicken since duck tartare and duck prosciutto aren't too hard to find).

You cannot find the correct final internal temperature for a whole duck, because it doesn't exist. If you stop the cooking when the white meat is tender, you'll have very tough red meat. If you cook until the collagen is melted, you'll get very tough white meat.

With whole birds, it is more popular to go the collagen route. Especially a duck, with its darker meat overall and sufficient fat in the breast area to insulate the breast meat during smoking and then lubricate it, is a very good candidate for it.

To melt the collagen, wait until the duck thigh has gone up to 70 Celsius (160 Fahrenheit) and from then on smoke for 2-4 hours. In this case, the lower part of the range (2 hours) is probably better, to have a chance of a little bit of juiciness to remain in the breast.


How do you make the green beans served at Din Tai Fung? Does anyone know how to make these?  I'm pretty sure they are just blanched and fried (w/garlic), but I can't seem to get it right.

I think the problem lies in that the beans are not water blanched, but rather oil blanched.  The technique is called "dry frying", and is a traditional Sichuan cooking method.  The oil temp is kept low to dry out the inside while cooking the outside of the food.  After the dry frying you can then stir fry the food.  This technique should give you the required look and texture to the food.  Hope this helps.


What is the magic in packaged pudding mixes? I have tried making pudding from recipes that have cornstarch and one with flour. Neither has the same smoothness of the cooked packaged mixes. What is the magic in the packaged mix? I am looking for a more smooth pudding recipe.

The Industrial Product

By way of example, this is the list of ingredients from Jello Vanilla Instant Pudding and Pie Filling mix (a very common brand in the US):

Sugar
Modified Cornstarch
contains less than 2% of Natural and Artificial Flavor
Salt
Disodium Phosphate
Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate (for Thickening)
Mono- and Diglycerides (prevent Foaming)
Artificial Color
Yellow 5
Yellow 6
BHA (Preservative)

The ingredients that are not well known, or are that are relevant to the texture are:

Modified cornstarch.   The label does not specifically say how the cornstarch has been treated or modified, but it is likely that it is pre-gelatinized which is what allows it to be "instant pudding", thickening with the addition of cold liquid.
Disodium Phosphate.  Anti-caking agent.  This allows the mix to flow freely after storage.
Mono- and Diglycerides. Emulsifiers.
Tetrasodium Pyrophosphate.  Per Wikipedia:

  Sodium pyrophosphate is used as a buffering agent, an emulsifier, a
  dispersing agent, and a thickening agent

Note that this both emulsifies which helps create smoothness and uniformity, and thickness.

What you do not see in the mix is any true dairy or egg products.  The pudding is entirely a creation of these thickening agents, and the flavor only from the natural or artificial flavors (which might or might not include vanilla extract, but more likely are vanillin and other flavors).

Home Production

Puddings (at least in US usage of the word) are a variant on custards, where the thickening power of eggs in a basic custard is supplemented with a starch.

It is not really possible to achieve a consistency identical to that provided by the industrial ingredients, so if you are using that as your standard, you will fail.

Still, an extremely smooth product with a delicate mouth feel (which in my personal opinion is actually superior) is possible by creating a pudding based on:

Rich dairy, about 10-18% or more milkfat (half and half, or richer)
Egg yolks (but not the whites), for thickening.  The natural lecithin in the yolks contributes smoothness, and the proteins contribute thickness.  Omitting the egg whites removes the somewhat rubbery mouthfeel that the albumens in the white contribute to thickened dishes.
Cornstarch for supplemental thickening and to help bind the pudding.

The ratio is very very approximately:  1 quart (1 liter) dairy to 6 eggs yolks to 4 tablespoons cornstarch.

These puddings can be created stove top or baked in the oven, and can be flavored in a variety of ways.  In either case, you must use good technique to avoid curdling the eggs.

Beat the yolks to  light golden color.
Mix the cornstarch, sugar (and other dry ingredients) with a small amount of dairy, just enough to create a smooth slurry.  Then add the remainder of the dairy and egg yolks, and mix.
Bring to a slow bubble (about 180 F, 82 C) on top of the stove.
Strain and chill.


Keeping ripe pears for canning later I picked my pears Labor day weekend like I always do but when I went to can them the following weekend only about 1/4 of them were ripe. Now the rest are all very ripe and there is no way I can get to canning them until Sunday (4 days). What is the best way to prevent them from being over ripe by then?

You could put them in the fridge, and hope they stay good, or you can blanch them and freeze.

Blanching:

Prepare the pears just like you would for canning (peel & cut).
Dip the pear in hot water (or water with sugar) for about a minute.
From the hot water, dip into an ice-bath.
Plastic bag/container and into the freezer.


How do the various methods of roasting beef compare? I can think of 3 ways to roast beef:

Rotisserie Oven
Regular Oven
BBQ

What are the pros and cons of each?

A roast is a roast is a roast.

Roasting is a method of cooking that involves the aplication of a lot of dry heat to a peice of meat. You can obtain a great roast from all the above the cooking methods as long as you take into account the various ways they work.

A rotisserie offers all around even heat and will remain juicy although you can lose some juice from the skewer through the center, but may not cook the roast as perfectly as you lack good tempature control.

The oven is a great way to roast meat as long as you use the two tempature method.  That means you start high and finish low or vice versa.  I tend to side with Alton Brown on this and start low (normally 200 but you can adjust according to time requirements) until my roast is ~25-to-20 degrees of medium rare, pull it out and bring the oven to 450, put back in and remove to rest at 15 degrees short of desired doneness.  You also have to make sure that you raise the roast off the bottom of the pan because if you don't you will end up braising the roast in it's own juices.

Your grill can work as long as you keep the lid closed and the roast from directly over the coals, but it is going to be the method that needs the most constant attention and will be easy to end up with a overdone outside and a underdone interior.


Making vegetables (those with leaf) more "crunchy" (bite/tear off easily) Are there any solution to make leafy vegetables more "crunchy"? (I usually boil my leafy vegetables in water but it seems that when I bite them, they usually does not tear off easily. They become quite "sticky" like pan pizza.)

Example of leafy vegetables: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-O075MxiwT4U/TYNSsUyvxpI/AAAAAAAAAHo/ToW_w0Uel6I/s800/vegetable.jpg

Leafy greens generally tear quite nicely when they are raw.  If you apply any moist heat to them, they will wilt and no longer tear as nicely.  In fact, certain leafy greens can become downright tough if you cook them to long.

If you'd still like to cook your greens, but retain a little of their crunch, you can always grill them.


Pudding vs. laundry starch - Add water gradually or all at once? I recently watched a YouTube video "How to use old fashioned starch" by  Constance MacKenzie about how laundry was starched in ye olde time. The only relevant information for my question is that you can use potato, wheat or rice starch and that it must be made into a paste with water and boiled, very similar to a pudding / blancmange / custard. Laundry starch has only those 2 ingredients: starch and water.
The process in the video started by mixing the starch into a little amount of cold water. This was then put on the stove at medium heat and roughly "a kettle full" of hot (but not boiling) water was added in very small increments under constant stirring. The mixture only started boiling after all of the water was added.
This process reminded me of making a roux sauce. You start with melted butter and flour and have to add the liquid in small increments to avoid lumps. It makes sense to first evenly mix butter and flour because the butter would probably stay seperated otherwise. But laundry starch doesn't contain any butter or fat.
If you added some flavors to the laundry starch you would end up with an edible pudding / blancmange / custard. Those are usually made by mixing all the ingredients and then heating them up with all the liquid already incorporated. This has the benefit or avoiding lumps. So I see no reason why the laundry starch needs to start with such a small amount of water that needs to be tediously increased in increments.
On the other hand, I learned that our ancestors weren't half as stupid as we make them seem and probably had reasons for starting with less water. They may not have understood the chemistry and physics behind the process, but they had much more practical experience.
My question is:
Is there a difference in the physical or chemical properties of starch if you:

start with a small amount of water and gradually add more while heating the mixture, or
add all the water before heating the mixture

assuming you never stop stirring during the process and you let the mixture boil until it looks translucent? It may be important to keep in mind that the quality of the end result (starched laundry) depends on the properties of the dehydrated, coocked starch.

Yes, both processes are valid ways of making pudding (not roux). You can either dissolve the starch in a little cold water first and then gradually warm it up, or you can dissolve the starch in all of the cold water and then start warming it up. After it is warmed up, you can bring it to a boil.
The "dump all together" method is the more tedious one, because you have to stir constantly until you are ready, else the starch sediments and burns on the bottom, especially if you are an old-time cook using direct fire. If you warm up most in the water in a kettle first, your time of cooking the slurry (and stirring it) is reduced a lot, which makes it the preferred method.
Another reason is that most people cook blanchmange with milk, not with water. To reduce the amount of water used, they make the slurry with only a little water, then add the slurry to the warmed milk.


Pressure cooking Sun chokes (jerusalem artichokes) Anyone experimented with pressure cooking jerusalem artichokes to reduce the flatulence factore (inulin)?

As far as I can tell, cooking jerusalem artichokes in a pressure cooker won't help much if the cooking liquid is not acidic.

Inulin's chemical stability will decrease by heating in an acidic environment where pH <= 4. Simply cooking the jerusalem artichokes in an acidic liquid will help reducing the flatulence caused by inulin.


Can a broiler function as a grill substitute when making kebabs? When grilling is not option, but broiling is:

Can a broiler + broiler plate function as a substitute for a grill when making kebabs? If so, what must I do to prevent overcooking beef, lamb and/or veggies?

The first thing I have to say is kebabs and overcooked are synonymous. If you want all your meats and/or veggies to be cooked right, I would advise you to put each item on it's own skewer so you can take them off as they are finished.

As for a broiler and broiler plate functioning as a substitute for a grill, I would say that it won't be an exact substitute, but you will at least get the high temperature cooking and caramelization you would expect from a grill (you will just be missing the smoke flavor).


Riced potatoes recipe called steurens or steritz? Trying to find a recipe for my older neighbors.  they think it's called steurens or steuritz... seems to be riced potatoes made into either dumplings or noodles... can't find anything named that online.... has anyone hear of this?  Many thanks!

It might be the dish called "Sterz", common in Switzerland, Austria, and a little further away in Slovenia and Croatia.


What are the ranges of Pork Temperature that are flavorful and safe? USDA guidelines for Pork state that you should cook it to 160F. I have heard over the years that you can undercook from that, which seems desirable, as 160F is going to be pretty dry.

I know the general temperature safety rules, but I'm curious about texture. Does anybody have a range of temperatures and descriptions, a-la beef for Pork? Are there other, non-bacterial concerns for keeping pork up at 160F?

The main goal with temperature is to kill anything nasty. Those nasties die based on temperature and exposure. Much like a human could live forever at 95 degrees, for a long while at 110, shorter while at 150, and would die instantly at 750, so for all the stuff in Pork. 160 is considered a safe temperature because at 160, everything dies instantly. The FDA has a chart for all this, here. You'll see that even 120 degrees is safe IF you cook it for 21 hours!

I cook a lot of sous vide, so these temperatures and times are easy to get and be precise about. The thing you need to be careful about is that the time table shows the amount of time that the whole piece of meat needs to be at a given temperature, so make sure you heat it through before you start counting.

I'll regularly do pork chops in the 135 range, and it's lovely and moist without the stringy overcooked texture you get when well done.


How does harvest time matter with tea? At my regular tea webshop, you can always see what year and month the tea was harvested. Just recently they have brought in this spring's harvest of Darjeeling. But they also have tea from 2011 (in this case a black tea). How does harvest time matter with teas? When is a tea considered "old"? Do they lose flavour when storing for more than two years? Would a more recently harvested tea be considered a better buy or does it depend on taste and type of tea?

Harvest time can have a large effect on the quality of the tea. First off, whether it was the first harvest of the year or a later one will greatly change the character of the tea.

The dates can also be used similar to the vintage dates of wine. If you got a tea from a specific region and know the date of the harvest, if you find another tea from the same region and same date, it will have been grown under similar conditions.

Also, since black and oolong teas have been oxidized, the oxidation process will continue to some extent as the tea ages, further changing the flavor. The date can be used to predict freshness, and also to find a tea that suits your tastes better (for instance, I know that I like many black teas better after they have aged for a year or two).


Can I put frozen meat in a slow cooker? I was wondering if I can put meat directly from the freezer into a slow-cooker. I want to be able to put chicken in the slow-cooker without having to let it defrost for a whole day in the fridge.

It is possible?

Per the USDA guidelines, frozen chicken should not be cooked in a slow-cooker or a microwave. It can only safely be cooked in the oven or on the stovetop.

A similar warning is given for beef as well.


Why is my gluten so weak? I’ve been making sourdough bread regularly for over a year now. But since about half  a year ago, the bread has consistently come out badly because the gluten doesn’t seem to develop properly:

the dough doesn’t hold its shape: immediately after taking the dough from the proofing basket it flattens out considerably and doesn’t rise evenly in the oven (mostly in the middle)
the resulting bread is way too dense (in some places it’s almost gelatinous rather than doughy)
all the gas has concentrated into big bubbles.

I’m following (more or less) the recipe for the Overnight Country Blonde from Ken Forkish’s Flour Water Salt Yeast, performing 4–5 folds. My modifications are as follows:

I’ve reduced the water by around 40 ml because I’ve found the dough to become too hydrated otherwise.1
I store my starter in the fridge and take it out to feed around 12h before starting the dough. This means that I do only one feed, rather than Ken’s two (skipping step 2 from p137).1
Bulk fermentation happens in the fridge because when I do it at room temperature, it gets ruined (see below).
I proof for around ½h rather than several hours. I used to proof for longer but the dough overproofed every single time. The finger test indicates that my proofing time is sufficient.

A word on fermentation and proofing: if I perform bulk fermentation or proofing at room temperature for the indicated time in the recipe, I get a hopelessly over-fermented … “jelly foam” rather than a dough. The result is completely unworkable, sticks to everything (even when dusted way too liberally with flour), and can’t be shaped: it either fails to develop a skin when pulling the dough together, or it develops a skin that breaks immediately, repeatedly, and the sticky dough almost “pours out” (I’ve thrown away several batches).

As far as I can tell my sourdough starter is extremely active and produces strong fermentation with lots of gas. By contrast, it seems that no matter how diligently I perform the folds, the gluten structure is too weak to make a fluffy dough which holds its shape. I also tend to get a dough that’s too elastic to perform proper folds: I used to get a dough consistency somewhat more like wet clay, which somehow simply felt “right” and had just the right elasticity to pull out and fold over. Nowadays the dough has lost all its clay-like consistency and, as indicated above, it feels more like a foamy jelly.

Here’s the problem: with the exact same procedure I used to be able to produce much better loaves, some of which were darn near perfect (though I didn’t always get there). Now, without having changed anything in my procedure, the result is consistently terrible. I have no such issue baking other, yeast-based breads.

What could be responsible the sudden change, and the weak gluten development?

1 I’ve also tried adhering strictly to the recipe in this step. It didn’t change the outcome.

You have two pieces of evidence that your starter has changed - the bread itself, and the "jelly foam" that happens during room-temperature proofing.

I suspect your starter has been contaminated with some other micro-organism.

You should toss your starter, clean your refrigerator carefully, and get a new culture.


How can I make my pumpkin pie thicker? My preferred recipe for pumpkin pie uses (approximately, to avoid going into recipe details) a pound of pumpkin, sugar (I use brown), an egg, a cup and a half (total) of evaporated milk and cream, mace and cinnamon.  There's quite a bit of liquid in total, and I find that the pie comes out a bit softer than I like.

I'm wondering what the best approach would be to make it thicker.  Should I reduce the amount of evaporated milk and cream, or could I do something like add another egg?  Or maybe both?

In the accepted answer to this question, it says that you can try wringing the pumpkin purée out in cheese cloth; or in a comment, that you can let it drain in a colander.


How to avoid fluffy pumpkin pie Possible Duplicate:
  How can I make my pumpkin pie thicker?

The pumpkin pie of my childhood was very dense, not like almost all pies I find today. I have tried a few recipes that claim to make dense pumpkin pie, but they just don't seem right.

In a typical pumpkin pie recipe, what is it that keeps making the pie fluffy? What can I do to make it dense?

example: http://andreasrecipes.com/pumpkin-pie/

Since nobody has answered yet, I took a shot at this one from the opposite direction: searching for solutions to a too-dense pie hoping to find some steps that were "wrong" for the questioner but would be right for your opposite goal of denser pie.

This is how one remedied his too-dense pie; in the link is the recipe from which he made his modifications:

  This pie is just too dense. Not enough liquid. I will always add one
  can of condensed milk which provides lightness, no extra fat and a
  wonderful texture. Don't add the whipped cream to the pie use it on
  the top.

http://www.landolakes.com/recipe/2923/classic-pumpkin-pie

Another one recommends whipped egg whites into your filling for fluffier pie – would whole eggs, and/or not whipped, have the opposite effect?

  There are those who would say it's just not Thanksgiving without a
  pumpkin pie - and those who can't abide the pie's dense texture. A
  simple way to keep all of your guests happy: Fold two whipped egg
  whites into the filling for an airier, soufflé-like consistency.

(recipe for starting point is in link)
http://shine.yahoo.com/shine-food/tips-were-thankful-225000108.html

This one seems to clarify that, suggesting three whole eggs and less evap milk for a denser pie:

  The vast majority of people tell me this is the best pumpkin pie
  they've ever had. It's light and fluffy - however... if you want a
  heavy, more dense pie, use 3 eggs instead of 4 and 1 can of evaporated
  milk instead of 1.5)

http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinpie.php