How can I make sugarless chocolate brownies more moist I am making chocolate brownies without sugar using the following ingredients:

cocoa nibs, 1 & 1/4 cups
carob powder, 1/4 cup
margarine, 125 g
flour, 50 g
stevia, 1 tablespoon
vanilla essence, 2 teaspoon
baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon
2 eggs

How can I make the brownie less dry and have more flavor? I don't want to add sugar as it aggravates my skin.

That 1/4th cup margarine and the 2 eggs are not enough to give those brownies the moisture they need.

I suspect you want something low in sugar and fat.  Evelyn Tribole, MS, RD created two books that talk about substitutions for fat and sugar in recipes.  One technique to replace fat (like butter) in a recipe is to use baby food prunes or applesauce.

Does it work?  I made her brownies that substituted baby food prunes for traditional butter.  The brownies were super moist and I couldn't taste anything "prunes".  This recipe is in her first Healthy Homestyle Cooking cookbook.

For right now, substitute cup for cup baby food prunes or applesauce for the butter/margarine.  I suggest half margarine and half the chosen substitute.  That way you get the flavor of margarine but without the fat.

Or, if you don't mind the fat just add more margarine.  The average brownie recipe usually calls for nearly a full stick (or more) of butter or margarine.  It's the margarine that adds moisture to brownie crumb.  Or oil, or any kind of fat you prefer.


Pasta: is simmering equivalent to roiling boil? I recently got into a surprisingly heated argument with a friend about what level of boil you should cook your pasta at. He (an engineer) argued that the heat transfer would remain the same regardless of the level of the boil and that anything above a simmer would be a waste of energy. I looked at it less from a heat transfer point of view and argued that a higher boil would increase agitation and cause the noodles to stick less to each other.

So what is it? Is a higher boil actually a waste of (a minuscule amount of) energy?

Actually you're all wrong. The twin myths that we must use a rolling boil and abundant water have been rather soundly disproved. Most recently by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt over at seriouseats, an MIT graduate who later became a chef.

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boiling-tips-the-food-lab.html

is the article in question. I have used his method at home with great success. Have not yet been brave enough to try it at work, as chef doesn't much like it when that sort of dogma gets challenged. But that's all it is, dogma.


Oven Jerky a Possibility? I was thinking a lot about comments on my posts that claimed that the oven would dry out foods meant to be cooked on a stove.  This got me thinking that I could make beef jerky in the oven.  Any tips, gotchas, or suggestions for oven jerky?

I believe you will want to use the lowest setting on your oven and have the oven door propped open so the moisture has a place to go and to keep from cooking the meat.


How to thicken a sour cream-based pastry cream? I did some research, but can't find the answer to my problem: I need to thicken the cream that I am making for my layered cake. The cream is made of sour cream and sweetened condensed milk. The cream, the way it is - is runny. It is good (and also preferable) for getting the layers of my cake moist. But then, I need to keep a layer of the same in between the layers of the cake and that's where I face the problem: it all runs off. I would like to thicken it. What I had in mind is consistency of a vanilla pudding or, maybe, even a bit thinner. I tried xanthan gum, but I don't like the texture: it is too slimy. I tried tapioca flour, but nothing happens (maybe I did something wrong). Anyone has the experience? Until now, I kept thinking that heating was not an option and that I had to keep the sour cream cold, but now I thought that maybe it is what I will have to do. I am just not sure if heating it will degrade its quality as the end product will be the type of cake that needs to be refrigerated.

I'm wondering if mixing in some cream cheese in addition to, or in place of a portion of the sour cream, might help thicken things without altering the taste profile too much.

Sour cream is roughly 73% water, while cream cheese is only around 53% water. That may be a way to reduce some of the water content without having to resort to heat.


Can you make pie crust from cookie dough? I recently bought several packs of frozen cookie dough, sugar cookie, and I wanted to know if it's possible to reshape them and make a pie crust?  If so what is the technique involved: cooking temperature, ect...

My recomendation would be to roll out the dough and pat it into the pie-plate and cook it with out any fillings (blind baking) you will probably need to poke holes into the bottom to keep it from bubbling up (docking).  After it is fully cooked pull it out and let it cool.  I would only use no-bake fillings in this, I don't think the cookie crust would react well to baking twice, maybe a french-silk type filling.


How do you sear tilapia fish? I tried searing tilapia as a steak on the stove like I do with salmon... Big mess.

I dropped it on boiling hot olive oil. All the skin stuck to the pan and I did not manage to get a medium rare at all.

How do you sear tilapia as a steak? There is nothing on YT about the subject.

Are you sure tilapia steak can be eaten medium rare?

I'm 100% sure that tilapia must not be eaten half cooked. Half cooked fish has a lot of bacterial such as bacterial bathogens, parasite, natural toxin etc.

Please be careful because tilapia isn't a sushi grade fish. All tilapia in japanese cuisine or any cuisine in the world must be fully cooked.

Anyways, assumingly you wanted your tilapia steak to be fully cooked and nicely seared, there's a few ways my mom would do and other chef would usually do.

Usually, my mom would score the the fish and then place it on a large sifter and allow any excess water in the fish to dripped out. At the mean time, this will allow the temperature of the fish to be brought down to room temperature so it will be cooked evenly.
When you are about to cook the fish, tap the surface of the fish with kitchen towel and coat an extremely thin layer of corn starch. The corn starch helps to soak up any "leftover" water you missed out as well as giving the fish a pleasant crisp when fried.
Heat your pan with your oil until you see mild smoke omitting from the pan. Please do not let the pan smoke till you could see grey colored smoke as this shows that the pan is way too hot to cook the fish as fish are often more delicate compared to meat. Alternatively, you can use a wooden chopstick and place it on top of the oil and once you see bubbles at the tip of the chopstick, the temperate of the oil is ready.
Place your fish down and DO NOT FLIP IT. Flipping it would cause the meat to stick to the pan and fall apart. Flip it when you start seeing a brownish shade at the bottom of your fish and do it the same of the other side. Do sear the skin as fish skin are always nice when it's light and crispy.


How can vegans alleviate the effects of spicy food? It's well-known that if you eat spicy food, you can neutralize the flavor (and thus stop your mouth from burning like a forest fire) by drinking milk.  This is due to casein. Simply drinking water or something cold does not achieve the same effect.

But I'm vegan, so I don't drink milk. So what else can I consume (that's vegan) to quickly neutralize spicy flavors?

This is not a duplicate of How can I wash down spicy food?, as the advice there concentrates on dairy products.

I have done no testing of this at all but I was surprised to find on this site that they recommend trying a spoon full (or cube of) sugar.

  Perhaps the easiest way of calming down a flaming mouth is by sucking on a sugar cube or holding a teaspoon of sugar in your mouth. This helps by absorbing the spicy oil that is coating your mouth, as well as giving you a different, strong taste to concentrate on. A bit of mind-trickery and science combined!

Other things I've eaten in the past include starches, like bread or rice.

Here's a fun infographic and most of the items on it are vegan:

from here


culinary difference between dill and fennel Many salmon recipes use Dill (Anethum graveolens) as the usual ingredient as condimentary herb.

In my place, I have fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) available outdoors, so I opt to use it instead. And I like it.

Why is it never mentioned as a substitute? what is your opinion?

I assume you're speaking of using fennel fronds, specifically. The fronds look a bit like dill, and are often used as a garnish, but certainly taste different than dill.

I think the main reason is that most people usually only get fennel fronds when they also buy a fennel bulb, so it's usually inconvenient to only use the fronds for a garnish when you're not using the bulb. Also, some people (my wife) just don't like the taste of anise/fennel at all. If you have it growing in your backyard, and you like the taste, there's no reason you can't use it.


Why boil adzuki beans for anko twice? This anko recipe calls for boiling the adzuki beans twice, draining and re-filling the water in between. Why is this done? Is this necessary?

Please see the excerpt below from this  site . All of the recipes I've seen for anko recommend changing the water but this is the only explanation I've found.

  Amy Escobar MARCH 12, 2014, 3:13 PM

  Hey Nami, do you know why the boiling water is emptied and then refilled? Cooking With Dog uses the same method and I don’t know the reason.

  REPLY

  Nami MARCH 14, 2014, 12:52 AM
  Hi Amy! Thank you for asking the question.

  Traditional method usually includes a process of emptying water for 1-2 times. The reason is to remove impurities (we call it “aku” – English translation is “scum” – not sure if that’s the right word) from the azuki beans. They taste bitter and you don’t want to cook with them, so we get rid of it by changing the water. Some people do once, some do twice, but you don’t want to lose too much of azuki flavor, so I believe one time is good. Hope this helps.


How can I make coffee with a minimum of equipment and maintenance? My household doesn't regularly drink coffee, but we occasionally want to provide coffee for our guests, or need to use coffee as an ingredient in other dishes.

We do have a coffee maker (a "free" one with a subscription to mail order ground coffee beans) - but it's been sitting the garage for ages.  It's now dusty, and requires too much cleaning and counter space for the intermittent times when we do want to use it.

What's the bare minimum of easy-to-maintain equipment that I could use to produce plain old coffee?

I'd pick up a simple cone filter at the local coffee shop.

Insert a paper filter, add grounds, pour hot water through.


Can you make fermented, oil-stored Giardiniera at home? I'm wanting to try to make Chicago-style giardiniera at home. However, some food-safety site says that

  The Italian condiment, Giardiniera, CANNOT be made safely at home. This mixture of raw, hot peppers and vegetables in an oil base can support the growth of Clostridium botulinum. Therefore low-acid foods, such as vegetables, that are mixed with oil must be kept refrigerated. They can be kept refrigerated for up to 10 days. Commercially prepared products contain specific levels of microbial inhibitors or acidifying vegetables for use in an oil-based product in the home environment.

Most recipes I look up for fermented giard are touting it's mystic gut-flora curative powers, and don't discuss storing it under oil. The oil recipes I find just have the vegetables soaked in brine for a day, while refrigerated, so practically nothing microbial is going to happen there.

As to the warnings, I'm not sure if the "low-acid foods [...] that support the growth of Clostridium" include fermented vegetables. From what I can tell, fermented vegetables are more likely to be attacked (in the short-term) by mold, and only if oxygen gets in.

The "proper" Chicago recipe is cited in the Tribune article as broadly:

  According to Shay of Local Foods, making Chicago-style giardiniera is a two-step process. "First, you pickle the vegetables," he says. Then, "you drain everything, and then cover (the vegetables) with oil." Shay lets the vegetables pickle for two weeks before tossing them in the oil, where he leaves them to infuse for another two weeks.

My question is basically, what is the expected shelf-life/hazards (refrigerated or not) if I do that (2 week ferment, drain, oil, 2 week infuse).

If it's pickled properly (i.e. a successful lacto-fermentation, in this case) it's no longer low acid (you could even check the pH post-pickling to be sure.) It's been acidified (kinda the whole point of pickling...)

So, mixing raw (as in not processed) vegetables and oil is not the same as mixing pickled (but not cooked) vegetables and oil. Or that's the way I see it...but I'd probably still leave it in the fridge once oil got involved.

Edit: but I'd not be too concerned about shelf-life in the fridge - as an acid (not supporting botulism) food similar to sauerkraut, refrigerated life should approach "indefinite."


Elementary Tomato Canning I don't have the stomach for a proper recipe for tomato canning. I simply "binge" bought an enormous box and am now trying to salvage what I can.

Here is my recipe:

Gently simmer 6 quarts/litres of tomatoes in a batch on the stove for 24 hours, with a modest one tablespoon of salt as preservative.
Wash one-quart/litre mason jars in the dishwasher, along with their covers.
Wait until the tomatoes are slightly less than 100C to avoid cracking the jars.
Once they're at a still-hot but not boiling temperature (70-80C?), fill the jars.
Seal the jars while the tomatoes are still hot.
Let cool down, and then put in the fridge.

The tomatoes are still somewhat whole, and so they're versatile. They can be turned into a sauce or used as is in recipes. I could diligently add them right and left to go through them quickly.

Will the tomatoes keep for three months in the fridge?

The reason that people talk about "proper" trusted recipes in canning is that with anything less than that, all bets are off. Might keep, might not.

That's definitely true of your suggested process: they might keep in the fridge that long, might not, and as a bonus, if you get unlucky, there might be nasty undetectable botulism in there! Tomatoes aren't quite a low enough pH to avoid that, boiling isn't a high enough temperature to kill it either, your process won't even seal the jars, and refrigerator temperatures don't stop it from growing. You're really just using the jars as containers; there's nothing about the process that's actually "canning". You'd get the same results from putting tomato sauce in plastic containers.

And, honestly, a proper recipe is not even much more work than what you're talking about. For example, here's a trustworthy recipe for canned crushed tomatoes, pretty similar to what you want. It's pretty much:

blanch and remove skins
cut into quarters
mash some of them a bit and heat to boiling
add the rest
add acid (citric acid or bottled lemon juice)
put in jars and process (essentially, boil the filled jars for the time specified in the recipe; exhaustive description here)

So basically, that's your process with the addition of acid, and boiling the jars after filling, and it will make them keep at room temperature.

They have a bunch of variations if that's not exactly how you want them prepared.

If you aren't willing to put in that much effort, then I'd really suggest freezing. That removes all of the safety concerns with no complications at all. You can just prepare however you want, put into hopefully smallish containers so you can get at a manageable amount without thawing, and pop in the freezer.


How to salvage a totally nuked cast iron dutch oven? Please note: I don't believe this question is a dupe. There is this question, which has some excellent answers, but they are suggestions that don't apply to my situation because I have ruined my cast iron oven differently than the user who asked that question.

So last month I got a massive 16" cast iron dutch oven from Cabelas. I seasoned it by cooking it in a campfire for a few hours (w/ lid on), letting it cool, and then rubbing a little bit of olive oil into it. Last week I took it for a test drive and cooked some peach cobbler on it (again over campfire), and it was perfect. I cleaned it by boiling water in it for an hour, scraping off the crust with a wooden spoon, and then reapplying the olive oil to it.

Last night I decided to cook a pork shoulder roast inside of it. The instructions said to let it cook at 325°F for 3 hours. Since I'm still so new to campfire dutch oven cooking, I got a roaring fire going, and unloaded like 30 charcoal brickets into it and let them heat up. Definitely was blazing too hot, but I didn't know any better. (Subsequently since last night I discovered that there are actually formulas that correlate specific numbers of brickets and their locations with specific temperatures. In hindsight I think my oven was soewhere around 450°F.)

I put the oven on the fire (with the pork inside of it, and about 1/4" of apple cider vinegar resting underneath it). 90 minutes later I went to check on it and the pork was totally charred black and overcooked. So it was pizza for dinner! But, to my horror, the apple cider vinegar-herb-seasoning liquid had now turned into black carbonic rock in the bottom of the oven:

Under the lid was a buildup of a super thick tarry sludge that has the consistency of superglue.

I tried washing both the oven and lid with salt water (course grained). Very little came off. I tried boiling the oven over the same campfire for a few hours, and again, practically nothing came off. I went to the Google gods, and the best idea I was able to find was to soak both the lid and the oven in a 50/50 mixture of water + vinegar overnight. So I did that.

The oven remains unchanged, even after soaking in a vinegar solution for nearly 10 hours:

As for the lid, all of the surficial tar/sludge came off, but it is still super sticky to the touch, unlike it was before. And now there is almost a 'metal vapor' that its giving off.

What the heck happened here? Did I just cook at too high a temperature? Are you not supposed to cook apple cider vinegar in a dutch oven over the campfire? Much, much more importantly, how can I fix this and restore the oven to its full glory again?

Simply put you nuked your food. The temperature got too high too quickly and the moisture in the pot boiled off faster than it could be replaced by the meat, and then all the fat and juice plus the meat in contact with the pot's surface got charred on. Fat from the meat got stuck all around the pot and adhered, and the heat was intense enough to blacken the surface of the meat. It sounds like temperatures were far higher than 450F.

The good news is that there's probably nothing wrong with your dutch oven that you can't fix with some steel wool and good old fashioned elbow grease. The blackened stuff at the bottom is simply charred meat, I don't imagine the metal underneath is damaged, so scour it clean and re-season it. The lid got covered with lots of fat which has yet to come off which is why it's sticky, lots of dishwashing liquid and more scouring should fix that too. Personally I've never had any luck with boiling or baking char off pots and pans.

My own experience with dutch ovens is that they work better if you have heat coming from all around rather than just at the bottom. If you only have bottom heat it has to be more intense to heat the whole thing, and as campfires are not an exact science it's easy to accidentally char the bottom. Having less intense heat on the bottom and putting a shovelful of coals on the lid gives a nice even heat.


Is there a good way to cook a hamburger on a cast iron skillet? So I'm trying to find a consistent way of getting good quality, medium-rare burgers without firing up the grill.  The burgers always end up cooked on the outside quicker; the inside is still red (not pink).

I have a large cast iron skillet on an electric stove and usually use beef between 80 and 85%.  Any suggestions?

The right way is simple and straightforward: preheat the skillet for about 5-10 minutes on medium, add a few table spoons of oil to coat the bottom, and continue cooking at this temperature.  Flip regularly, to allow the sides to cook evenly, and wait for the middle to become fully cooked.

Now I will tell you all the ways NOT to cook a hamburger with a cast-iron skillet!

Cook on "warm" for an hour or so.  Then realize it's not cooking, give up, and go to McDonald's.
Heat the skillet on maximum heat for a few minutes, and throw the burger on.  Just leave it there; it's not fully cooked if there's any hint of pink or moisture left.  After a while, your new charcoal-and-cardboard roofing shingle will be ready for use.
Preheat the skillet.  Don't throw in a burger or anything, just forget about it until the fire alarm goes off. Now you can learn how to re-season cast-iron!
For the storming-a-medieval-castle experience: throw a mostly-frozen burger patty into a frying pan with a half inch of exceedingly hot oil.  Dive for cover and a fire extinguisher as hot oil sprays everywhere.  When the barrage ends, maybe the middle will be edible?
Use pan as a bludgeon and steal a burger from an unsuspecting fast food customer. For particularly inept people this may be the only way to get a good hamburger using a frying pan.
Heat a frying pan full of oil on high heat.  When flames start, cook your burger over them using a metal spatula.  Accept the wails of the fire alarm as a little light musical accompaniment.
Microwave it.  Yes, that includes the pan.  When your microwave has finished burning, surely the burger will be cooked well-done!  For additional paddies, repeat with fresh microwaves.
Start cooking on high without preheating, realize the exterior is overcooking while the interior isn't done, then switch to low heat. It's still cooking too fast!  Take cast-iron skillet off burner entirely, and remove burger.  Allow pan to cool completely, and resume on low heat.  After 20 minutes, wonder why it's not cooking at all and the pan still isn't very hot, and try jacking up the heat again.  Ten minutes later, your burger is overdone outside and STILL raw in the middle.  Congratulate yourself that at least you saved yourself time on all that preheating nonsense.  Then look at clock and realize an hour has passed.

This message brought to you by the Hard Knocks Culinary Institute!


Can I blend pasta and add water to make bread or pizza dough? I am inspired by this video.  In the video, the person blends some pasta and adds water, and the result looks like dough.  Can it be used as bread or pizza dough?

Not exactly. Pasta is made from bits of wheat that are not flour or bran - otherwise known as semolina. Assuming that the pasta hasn't gone through very much more than drying as processing, you're going to end up with something fundamentally different from the grade of white flour - whether its type 00, or other kind of white flour.

You would get a dough, but something fundamentally different from just adding water to regular white flour, and it would likely have a very different taste and texture from regular flour.


Is there any advantage to adding salt to onion while frying? Is there any advantage to adding salt to onion while frying itself rather than adding it the last? My friends say it removes moisture from onion.

Is it true? Why is removing moisture from onion important?

It is true, in my experience. However, if your recipe does not require salt, you should not be adding it, of course. Removing moisture from onion with the aid of salt helps it reach its desired state (brown or translucent, as desired) faster.

I am most familiar with the use of onion in Indian cooking. I generally add a pinch or two of salt to onion when I start sauteing it. Onion starts sweating as soon as you add salt and start stirring.

The reason that salt draws out moisture from onion is osmotic pressure. The surface of the onion acts as a semipermeable membrane barrier. Since the solution outside the onion is more concentrated with respect to salt, water moves out of the onion to the general liquid side, to balance the osmotic pressure on either side of the onion surface.


What is causing my sauerkraut to smell sweet? I've been fermenting a batch of sauerkraut and it's been going for about a month. It's tasted great and has just recently started to develop some winey flavors.

Today I checked the crock and there is a strong sweet smell that reminds me most of those cinnamon-sugar pretzel places that they put in malls and airports. The kraut is still fine and doesn't taste sweet except for the smell.

The only thing in the kraut was cabbage and salt.

In my experience a month is a bit long (although of course this depends on the size of the batch, etc) for active fermentation - however I don't think that's the problem.  In fact, I don't think there is a problem.  Since Sauerkraut is a 'wild' food, there are some variables that you can't (and shouldn't) control.

The most likely (85% sure without knowing other factors) situation is that your kraut has picked up an uncommon variety of wild yeast and that yeast is doing its thing and putting-off this sugary/sweet smell as a byproduct of its processes.

Are you doing anything different with this batch that you've not done in the past?  Fermenting it in a different part of your house, maybe?  Is the temperature unseasonably warm/cold?  Regardless I think you'll be safe and come out with good kraut (which doesn't seem to be your concern) - but if you come out with REALLY good kraut, maybe you'll want to try to duplicate your experience :)


What is the "idea" behind thawing out meat? Is it some how better to thaw out meat in a refrigerator versus on the counter versus running hot water over it versus in the microwave? Is it the longer the time meat has to thaw out the more taste is retained? If I'm pressed for time, could combinations be used: for example leaving meat on the counter for 1 hour and then microwaving it until completed thawed?

I would think that USDA would err on the side of conservative when it comes to safety, especially with no financial interests in the equation

http://www.fsis.usda.gov/Fact_Sheets/Big_Thaw/

  Perishable foods should never be thawed on the counter, or in hot
  water and must not be left at room temperature for more than two
  hours.

  Even though the center of the package may still be frozen as it thaws
  on the counter, the outer layer of the food could be in the "Danger
  Zone," between 40 and 140 °F — temperatures where bacteria multiply
  rapidly.

  When thawing frozen food, it's best to plan ahead and thaw in the
  refrigerator where it will remain at a safe, constant temperature — at
  40 °F or below.

  There are three safe ways to thaw food: in the refrigerator, in cold
  water, and in the microwave.

They're all covered in the above link, but here's the fastest one since it best meets your requirement of reasonably quick results:

  Microwave thawing
  When thawing food in a microwave, plan to cook it
  immediately after thawing because some areas of the food may become
  warm and begin to cook during the thawing process (bringing the food
  to "Danger Zone" temperatures). Holding partially cooked food is not
  recommended because any bacteria present wouldn't have been destroyed
  and, indeed, the food may have reached optimal temperatures for
  bacteria to grow.

  After thawing in the microwave, always cook immediately after, whether
  microwave cooking, by conventional oven, or grilling.

  Foods thawed in the microwave should be cooked before refreezing.

And when all else fails:

  Cooking without thawing
  When there is not enough time to thaw frozen
  foods, or you're simply in a hurry, just remember: it is safe to cook
  foods from the frozen state. The cooking will take approximately 50%
  longer than the recommended time for fully thawed or fresh meat and
  poultry.

From personal experience, I prefer the cold water method to microwave for fast thawing, but I rarely if ever use a microwave anyway so others on here might have techniques that minimize the flavor/quality downside of it.

The factors that make the microwave method less safe are what also lower the quality, taste and texture of the food – the unevenly thawed parts, over-cooking some of it while undercooking other areas, etc.


What defines a bread as 'artisan'? 'Artisan' is a term thrown around a lot right now in the bread world.  What defines something as an 'artisan' bread?  Is it a function of the recipe, the technique, or the person?  Note, I'm not talking about just store bought bread here - but books like Artisan Breads Everyday.  So clearly it can't be just a grocery marketing term.  (It could be more generally a marketing term.)

I think everyone agrees that "artisan" gets tossed around as a marketing term that is largely empty or vapid, referring as much to the "old world" images used on the bag than to the bread itself.

However, I think there is an actual "artisan" quality to food, and that it relates to several qualities or ethics of the producer - which you do find in some actual bakeries:

Develops their own recipes - an artisan baker should be developing recipes that meet their needs. If they don't know enough to do that, then they are just following instructions.
Tweaks recipes carefully over time to maximize the intended qualities of the bread. An "artisan" producer understands the variables that impact the quality of their product and constantly adjust them to keep the bread quality high, despite changing or variable ingredients.
Follows the ethic of "Flavor Rules", and flavor is the first priority. Of course they have to be a business-person as well, but recipe changes and enhancements should primarily be made to improve flavor, not reduce cost, improve packability, etc.
Has a real passion for what they are doing, and holds themselves to the highest standard. Artists are always the most critical of their own work, and are constantly looking for ways to improve.

A home baker may not be an "artist", but when I make "artisan breads" at home (and I think this is what Peter R. is referring to), I do so with an intent to make the bread as good as I possibly can, even if this means baking it tomorrow instead of tonight, or ordering special flours online. I contrast this with my "makin' dinner" baking, where I obviously want it to be good, but am willing to give up some perfection in order to get it done tonight. Neither method is inherently better, but they are undertaken with a different intent and process.


Tri tip bison sous vide techniques. Preface:

I am cooking a private dinner for 14. Americana themed, surf and turf is what they asked for the main entree. I want to cook bison. The only cut I could find in town in time was a tri tip. $15 per lb. So $60 later, roughly 4 oz. per person.

Requirements:

I want a perfect medium rare.
Tender/melt in your mouth bites.

My questions:

How do I obtain that maximum tenderness texture.
How long do I sous vide for?
Is there a significant difference between beef and bison?

I have 24 hours to play with the protein.
And I'm open to any suggestions.

Medium rare tri-tip can be achieved using a water bath at 130 - 135F (55-57C) for at least two hours and up to 7 hours.  You will probably not get "melt in your mouth bites", as bison tri-tip is a leaner cut, but it should be quite tender if it is sliced against the grain.


What is the correct temperature for storing home-made frozen yogurt? I have made frozen yogurt for the first time yesterday. It was stored overnight in the freezer at -18°C (-0.4°F). When I checked it this morning it had solidified a lot more than I had expected.

Is this normal for home-made frozen yogurt?

Is the temperature too low?

-18°C (-0.4°F) is not too low for storage (as this would be the normal temperature of a household freezer, where I store my ice cream and frozen yogurt. I definitely wouldn't set the temperature higher if I store also other stuff in the same freezer).

For serving you would probably want to let it sit out a little bit, so that it softens up a little so that you can scoop it (same as with ice cream).

If it is way too solid, you maybe let it thaw too much before storing.

Then, you can fix the texture by re-blending it in a mixer (you can get even more ideas if you search for recipes on "how to make a frozen yogurt/ice cream without an ice cream maker" - often it involves freezing in an ice cube tray for easier blending).
Or by thawing it again and using an ice-cream maker to get the desired texture.


Can soured raw milk be used to make yogurt? I have a large quantity of raw milk at my disposal, and am trying to find creative ways to use it.

Various web sites (here, here, and many others) have suggested that raw milk, even (perhaps even especially) after it begins to sour, can be used to make yogurt.

I've also heard the claim that sour milk is too acidic for yogurt cultures to grow.

Which is it?

Please note this question is specifically about soured raw milk, not spoiled milk, which is not edible. And please assume that the sour raw milk being used is free from harmful bacteria and pathogens and is safe to consume.  I'm not asking about food safety here, I'm asking: Is it possible to make yogurt from sour raw milk?

Based on your edit to your question, and with some additional thought, I'm going to answer this differently.

Soured milk differs from what you called "spoiled" milk in only one way- what wild bacteria reproduced faster: bacteria with tasty waste products or bacteria with disgusting waste products. With that in mind the major potential problems with using this milk to make yogurt are:

If the wild bacteria crowd out the yogurt culture
If the yogurt culture is not able to work because the milk is too sour.

In making homemade yogurt neither of these should be a problem.

In making all yogurt- including yogurt made from raw milk in commercial settings- the milk is heated to 190F for some time to denature albumin proteins and to partially sterilize the milk so that the yogurt cultures will have the upper hand. This means that all yogurt has been pasteurized and the fact that the milk was purchased raw is a red herring. This will make problem #1 above unlikely. Not heating the milk will leave you with @rumtscho's answer- you can only guess what you might get by incubating it.

As for problem #2. Milk proteins begin to coagulate at a Ph of about 4.6. The target Ph for yogurt is usually 4.5. When making yogurt, Streptococcus thermophilus brings the milk down to about 5.0 and Lactobacillus Acidophilus takes over and brings it down to 4.5. Lactobacillus Acidophilus is active well below this Ph. Therefore, if your milk is not already thickened then it is, by definition, not too acidic for the yogurt culture to work.

Unfortunately, as the commenter from your first link indicated, heat combined with acid will cause the milk to prematurely denature. If you milk is too sour already then heating it to 190F may cause the protein to precipitate out and you would have paneer (sort of). I looked but was unable to find at what Ph milk proteins will denature at 190F.

http://www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/dairyedu/yogurt.html
http://food.oregonstate.edu/learn/milk.html

If you can strictly verify the handling of your raw milk to have confidence that it has not been contaminated with harmful bacteria, and if the milk has only slightly soured so that it can be heated without breaking, you should be able to successfully make yogurt out of it knowing that the texture might vary from that of your starter.


Use BBQ for both searing and slow-roasting beef When I make roast beef in the kitchen I typically have these two cooking steps:

Sear on all sides in a frying pan on high(ish) heat;
Slowly roast it in the oven on low(ish) temperatures.

I've varied the temperature in step 2 from 160 degrees celsius down to 80 degrees (about the lowest temp my oven can consistently provide). I've found that the closer (lower) I get to 80 degrees, the better the result.

I want to bring this process to my BBQ now, preferably doing both steps using the BBQ itself. I'm unsure how to deal with the fact that the BBQ should be rather hot for step 1, yet a lot cooler for step 2.

From experience I know that the heat I'd want for step 1 would at a minimum lead to 180 degrees on my BBQ when the lid goes on (or higher if I'd fail to reduce air flow).

The only workarounds I could think of:

Do step 1 in the kitchen with a frying pan (feels like cheating / will reduce BBQ-flavor);
Do step 1 on a lot of coal, and remove some coal before moving to step 2 (feels wasteful);

Do you guys have any suggestions on how to handle this?

Some more details:

I have a Weber BBQ with lid and built-in temperature monitor;
I have a meat thermometer to measure the core temp of the meat as it roasts;
I use indirect heat for step 2 by having the coal on the sides and the meat in the middle, and intended to use direct heat in step 1 by placing the meat over one of the sides;
I have a chimney to quickly get fresh coal started;

In the Good Eats episode on tuna, Alton Brown mentioned that you want as hot of a fire as possible, and that you could cook directly over the chimney starter, once the coals are going:

  As for the fire, well, it's hot. It's real hot. Just take a look. It's like a jet engine down there. Now the normal thing to do would be to distribute those coals across the bottom of the grill and get to cookin'. But, um, I don't want to dissipate the heat. I don't want to spread it out. I want to keep it concentrated. I want to cook on a jet engine! And ... it's ... my jet engine so I say we'll cook on the jet engine.

He then put a grate over the top of the chimney starter, and cooked his tuna.

In your case, you could sear the outside of the roast, move it to the side, then dump the coals into your grill for a two-level fire, and  then put the meat over on the cold side.  It's not all that different from what you were already doing, but it should give you a hotter initial sear.


What role does alcoholic liquid play in cheese fondue recipes? Pretty much every recipe I've seen for cheese fondue includes either white wine (sometimes alongside kirsch/brandy) or some kind of beer in the delicious cheesy sauce.

Why is the added liquid (seemingly) always alcoholic - as opposed to adding, say, water? Is it because beer or wine complements the other flavors in the fondue, or because milk proteins are alcohol soluble so it achieves the desired consistency? Or is there some other reason that combines those two explanations (or presents a different one entirely)?

The advertised reason is that the alcohol will cut some of the protein chains resulting in a fondue that is dippable and not so stringy. Obviously the alcoholic beverage of choice will also add a lot of cheese-compatible flavor as well.

Fondue recipes that don't include alcohol universally call for acid to achieve a similar effect.


Curing with smoked salt I have a question about Ruhlman’s home cured bacon recipe. I do not have a smoker and I know the smoking step is optional but I was thinking that if I used Maldon Smoked Sea Salt Flakes instead of the suggested Morton or Diamond Crystal it would give the bacon a nice smoky flavour. Has anyone tried this or has an opinion?

You could use the smoked salt, but it would not impart that much smoked flavor and would be quite expensive compared to normal kosher salt. Since most wet-cured bacon available at the grocery store is flavored with liquid smoke, an easy alternative would be to rub the belly with liquid smoke prior to roasting as described at The Splendid Table.

As a side note, Ruhlman's recipe yields bacon that has a significant herbal flavor.  If you were looking for something closer to standard bacon, try a simpler recipe like the one from The Splendid Table or this one from Salt and Smoke Food


Make aquafabe from scratch - can the soaking water be used for cooking I would like to make aquafaba from white beans. I am going to soak the dried beans for a couple of hours and then boil them, the remaining water should be aquafaba.
I wonder if I need to change the liquid in which the beans have been soaked or if this will make the aquafaba have less of the desired properties.
I think I read once that you need to change the water if making aquafaba from chickpeas.
I would guess from this response
What is the food chemistry of aquafaba?
that changing the water does not really matter, but I would like to ask nevertheless.

If I understand correctly when you talk about changing liquid, you mean boiling the beans in a water different from the one in which you soaked them? In that case yes, generally speaking it is recommended to boil all your legumes in a different water, because cooking them in the soaking water will make them less digestible, but it shouldn't have any influence on the composition/consistency of your aquafaba.
The most important is the cooking water, because it is during this process that the carbohydrates and proteins of the legume will transfer to the water and make your aquafaba.


How is mustard made? I'd like to make mustard soon. What's the basic process to start with?

Mustard is one of those simple condiments to make, and is fun to experiment with. At it's most basic mustard is two ingredients:

Mustard Seed
Liquid

There are endless variations from there.

Mustard seed comes in white, yellow, brown and black variations. I suggest buying whole and grinding them yourself using either a mortar & pestle or coffee/spice grinder. (Don't use a coffee grinder that you use for grinding coffee! You'll end up with mustard flavored coffee).

Liquids can be water, vinegar, wine, or even beer. Using vinegar/wine will help it last longer than water or beer would.

Once you've fine ground (of course there are coarse ground varieties too) your mustard simply mix it with the liquid until it is the desired consistency.

Additional ingredients can be added to taste. Honey, turmeric (gives yellow mustard its color), sugar, etc. are all possibilities.

Update: I forgot to mention that mustard needs time for the flavors to mix. This can take anywhere from a few hours to weeks. A fresher mustard tends to be hotter, but an aged mustard can often taste "better" with a slight loss of that initial heat. Refrigerated mustard will keep it's heat longer. Also note, mustard made with water should definitely be refrigerated and consumed quicker than others.


Jars of salsa, do I have to boil the jars if they sealed on their own? Wondering if I have to boil my homemade jars of salsa to seal them if they sealed on their own. (Yes I sterilized them before hand)
The salsa went in hot and once the lid was on, about 5 minutes later there was the telltale pop!

IF this is safe, how long does something like homemade salsa and homemade sauces keep for in sealed jars?

Thanks!
~Andrea

Yes, you should fully process your salsa, even if you got the "hot jelly" seal just from hot packing.

The reason for this is that part of the processing is to ensure that the entire contents of the jar, all the way through, is at a high enough temperature for a long enough time to be safe as a shelf-stable product.   This may or may not already be true from the initial cooking down, but in these matters, you absolutely positively want to be sure.


Barbecue sauce with onion My husband is making barbecue sauce and putting chopped cooked onion in it. He made large amounts and stored some in mason jars and put them in the pantry; he put 3 squeeze bottles in the fridge. I'm scared the onion may spoil but he doesn't think so . Please help

Unless he actually canned the sauce (processing the jars in boiling water bath or pressure canner as appropriate) and was working from a trusted recipe, no, this is definitely not safe.

It takes processing like this to make canned goods shelf stable. And the recipe is important too; for example if the pH isn't low enough it's not safe to use the boiling water bath method. This isn't just because of the onion, it's the sauce as a whole.

The risk here isn't just that the food may spoil. It's that something unnoticeable will grow in there, like botulism, and it could make you extremely sick or even kill you.


Why does some mayonnaise burn when toasted? I've been toasting sandwiches with mayo on the outside, and Sir Kensington's Classic Mayonnaise leaves burnt/black stain on the toaster.
Other mayo (kraft...) leaves no black/burnt residue.

Sunflower Oil, Egg Yolks, Water, Lemon Juice, Salt, White Vinegar, Raw Sugar, Ground Mustard Seed, Black Pepper, Citric Acid.

Which ingredient is burning?

With the exception of the water and salt, any of those ingredients will burn if you heat them hot enough. If you're seeing it more with a particular brand, though, and if it's happening at temperatures below 200 degrees Celsius, it's probably the egg. Mass-produced commercial mayonnaise like Kraft has relatively little egg, while 'boutique' mayo (or homemade mayo) will have more.


Searing after sous viding - what temperature? I just got a sous vide supreme for christmas and I am super excited to use it.  Many of the recipes I have seen online suggest to sear the meat after cooking to provide a crust.  No problem.

My question is about doneness - If I want a medium rare steak, I would cook it to 125-130.  With a sous vide and an after bath sear - should I still cook it to 125, or should I cook it to 115 and let the pan finish cooking it?

Thoughts?

Thanks

The searing applied after sous-viding should not be enough to alter the temperature of the meat notably.   All you're trying to do with the sear is create the flavorful crust on the outside of a piece of meat via the Maillard reaction, not accomplish any cooking of the interior of the meat itself.   This is best done by applying very high heat for a very short amount time, usually just a few seconds.  Some like doing this via pan-searing or on a very hot grill, but I usually use a high-powered blowtorch.  The important thing is that you not sear for so long that interior of the meat has a chance to notice.   A perfectly sous-vided piece of meat should be a uniform color throughout, except for a heavily seared crust.  There shouldn't be any gray band of over-cooked meat under the crust.  Avoiding that is why you're sous-viding in the first place.

Also, I find 125-130°F to be a touch on the rare side.  For a good medium rare, 133-135°F gives me better results.


How much dry ground ginger do I substitute for fresh grated ginger? I don't use ginger enough to really justify getting it fresh, so how much of dried ground ginger should I use in recipes that call for fresh grated?

Fresh ginger and dried ginger are very different, the flavour, texture and properties are not overly similar that they can not readily be substituted for each other.

Having said that, in the instances where they can be substituted I have seen estimated from 8:1 up to 6:1 (fresh:dried).


Are garlic butter and garlic oil interchangeable? When eating something like crab, garlic butter seems to be a Western thing while garlic oil is Asian.

Is it just a personal preference thing, or does it matter which one you use?

Note: Garlic butter is just melted butter with garlic, while garlic oil is oil heated to a high temperature and then poured over garlic.

I agree that they're similar, but I don't think I'd personally call them "interchangeable" in a culinary sense, just like butter and oil aren't really interchangeable in all cases.

Now, it's not like the ingredients police will arrest you for using one in a recipe instead of another. Note that melted butter is about 20% water (depending on how long you've heated it), but you're probably not baking with this stuff (though it occurs to me that it'd be an interesting addition to a salty cracker recipe).


Dry rub baby back ribs My daughter likes dry...dry rub ribs.They come out too moist or wet when slow cooked in foil.Can I just put the rubbed ribs on a rack and cook at 200 for 5 or 6 hours?

Use foil when you want to retain moisture.  Cook uncovered when you want to lose moisture.  Depending on the rib you are using, you'll want to monitor timing for desired result.


Measuring powdered sugar I have some old recipes that call for a box of powdered sugar. How many cups would that equal ? I buy powdered sugar in  two pound bags.

My best guess would be one pound, since it's still often sold in stores in 1lb boxes, regardless of brand:

You can see plenty more like that if you do a Google image search for [powdered sugar box].

As others have pointed out, measuring by volume is inaccurate (one pound could be 3.5 to 4.5 cups), so you'd be best off using a scale, or perhaps measuring your two pound bag into two equal volumes.

That said, if your recipe can tolerate being off by a couple ounces (around half a cup), you could use four cups for a one-pound box.


What is the lowest temperture I can use to cook fresh pasta? Say I want to cook fresh pasta and I don't have access to a stove or hotplate.  I can heat water with an immersion circulator.  I can get close, but can't achieve a boil.  What is the lowest temperature needed to cook fresh (water and/or egg based...but not dried) pasta?  While I provide the circulator as an example, this is less of a modernist technique question and more of a science of cooking pasta question.

Cooking pasta at a full rolling boil (100°C at sea level or less at higher altitudes) is just conventional, it is not the boiling the cooks pasta but the temperature:

pasta cooking is influenced by three factors: water penetration inside the pasta, gelatinization of the starch (it normally occurs at a temperature between 60°C and 70°C for wheat starch) and the denaturation and consequent coagulation of gluten (at 70°C-80°C).
A temperature above 80°C for a certain time (slightly longer than what you'd need at 100°C to compensate for the slower penetration of water into the pasta) should guarantee a perfectly cooked pasta.

This is the same for dried pasta and for fresh pasta; fresh will cook in less time, and you should probably taste it during the cooking process to find the right texture.

The rolling boil helps to keep the pasta well separated and to avoid sticking, but a water circulator would probably take care of that too


How to chill beer quickly? We all know the situation.

The party is about to begin, it's really hot outside and we forget to put the beer (or similar drink) into the fridge...

What is your way to chill beer really fast?

Use a salted ice-water bath. The water increases the contact and heat dissipation, and adding salt allows the temperature to go below freezing.


Do free range eggs have different cooking properties? I've heard the slogan 'Happy chooks make for happy cooks', implying that free-range eggs make for more successful cooking.

Do eggs from free roaming chickens actually have a discernible difference in baking or cooking?

I am not asking for a moral opinion, purely a cooking/baking question.

True free range eggs are noticeably different in terms of yolk colour (a much deeper yellow) and taste. Free range chickens are allowed to supplement their diets with naturally found grubs, inscets etc.

You might find this of interest:

Nutrition – Free-Range vs. Battery-Cage Eggs: Hens with Outdoor Access Produce More Nutritious Eggs


Crackling sound and a thin layer of something on the surface before water boils I washed my cooking pot and put some water in it, and put it on the stove.
When the water came close to boiling, I started hearing crackling sounds and there was a thin coat of some substance on the surface.

I thought maybe the pot wasn't clean enough, so I washed it once again thoroughly, but the same thing happened again.
Then I used another pot and everything went fine.

My question is, obviously, what was going on with the first pot, and how do I avoid it?
The obvious theory to me would be that there was still some oil in it, but I did wash it properly and don't even remember putting oil in it recently.

Edit: I'm using electricity to cook (the oldschool 3D round thingie, no glass and no induction) and the pot is made out of stainless steel.
The crackling sounds are not from the pot being wet, they're similar but a bit different (and the pot was dry).
 They could be from the pot expanding, but that wouldn't explain the thin layer on the surface of the water.

Edit2: video

I am making a guess here, but a guess based on my own experiences.

You have an induction glass top stove, and you are putting the pot down on top of it wet. The water is getting trapped under the pot, and once it is able to reach boiling (just before the water in your pot does). It is starting to pop (like popcorn).

It pops because it is trapped. Because the pot is wet it gets "sealed" to the stove top, and the steam can't escape until it builds enough pressure to lift the heavy pot just enough for the gas to escape violently.

The way to make it stop is to dry the outside of the pot after you wash it and/or before you cook.


Adjusting cookie recipes for high altitude When baking cakes, I often find that there are instructions for high altitude, which usually is just a matter of adding some extra flour.

I understand the concept of high altitudes having less atmospheric pressure, which then allows baked goods to rise more easily (too much), and thus the addition of flour.

However such alterations are not often provided with cookie recipes. What is a good way to know how to adjust cookies for high altitude, or if such an adjustment is even necessary?

There is a fairly detailed answer to this available here.

It appears that the answer depends a little on the type of cookie.  If you have a cookie that has a great deal of air in it you'll have the same problem as cakes do.  If you are working with a very dense cookie that can't really fall (since there isn't anywhere to go). At that point you're just down to watching baking times and temperatures, which are easier to monitor.


how to make soup less 'meaty'? Salut!

Using a hambone left over from the holidays, I made some split pea soup. The problem is that, deviating from the recipe, I added ham as well as the hambone.

Now, the soup is so meaty  it is quite overwhelming- at room temperature the liquid turns into jelly.

I tried adding a few glugs of lemon juice but that doesn't seem to have helped. Does anyone have any suggestions?

It sounds like you rendered too much gelatin into the soup, a couple easy fixes are to either:

prepare another batch of the soup omitting the ham and bone and then marry the two over a medium/high heat
thin with a low fat/nonfat liquid like milk or water (unfortunately a side effect will be of increased separation in the soup as it cools) the lower the fat content of what you add the more it will separate. ie adding 2% milk will cause less separating than skim milk


Cheapest place to get bulk chocolate? Where do I buy good quality (for truffles) chocolate in bulk quantities (> 3 lbs)? The prices I'm seeing for Valrhona, etc on Amazon reach nearly $15/lb and that is ridiculous. Any preferred vendors? Thanks!

In the world of high-end chocolate, Valrhona isn't even the most expensive - in fact, it's practically entry level.  Amedei Signature retails at a whopping $40/lb in "bulk" (1 kg) quantities.

I don't think I've ever seen Valhrona in bulk quantities and/or at a significantly discounted price.  On the other hand, there are similar-quality brands that are way more affordably-priced.  On chocosphere you can buy 22 lbs of Callebaut callets for just over $6 per pound.  Or you can get one of Felchlin's Grand Cru chocolates for about $10 per pound.  You can even buy Guittard there for what appears to be $6.60/lb.  But you'll notice that they even though they also carry Valrhona, they don't have it in bulk.

I also see Candy Warehouse selling the Guittard wafers for, apparently, $3.10/lb if you buy the 25 lb bag.  Chocolate Man sells the Felchlin Maracaibo chocolate (not Grand Cru) for a measly $7.80/lb.  They've got a variety of other well-known brands as well, although their selection is limited, they don't have a lot of the crazy high-end stuff.

Chocovic chocolate also sells at around the $10 range at most stores.  If you can find it, they distribute 10 kg and 25 kg bags (that's 22 lbs and 55 lbs).  I'm not sure where, but if you go to their official site they explicitly mention that they make that size.

You should consider that the exorbitant prices may not be a result of where you're buying from, but of what you're buying.  Valrhona is just expensive.  You may say that is because it's better than all the others, and you may be right (although some would disagree - it's more than a little subjective) - but that is the price you pay for "premium" products.  They can get away with charging $13-$15/lb, so they do.

Do yourself a favour - try some of the lesser-known brands.  A lot of them really do make fantastic chocolate, they're just not as famous as Valrhona.


Michelin Three Star Restaurant; but if the chef is not there When going to Michelin three star French restaurant in Paris, should I first find out if the star chef is actually cooking or at least present?
 I have been visiting a French restaurant in Paris that is highly rated and I never questioned myself if the star chef is actually cooking.  At my last visit and it was lunch time, I ordered from the grand menu, not express lunch menu.  I thought  something was different with food but was not sure what it was.  Then I was invited (the first time, it was my birthday that day) to the kitchen and was greeted by the those who are responsible for different parts (dessert, sauces, bread, etc) and the chief chef, who was not the Chef I wanted to meet (I didn't say that).  I go there because I like the food which is prepared by the Chef(at least that was I believed til then) but what is the point of spending the same money if the chef is not there and if the taste is not the same?  Is it a damn question to ask if the chef will be there the day I will be visiting?

P.S. I read the first few.  I'd like to thank each of you for taking time to reply my question.  All answers are exactly what I wanted to know!

3 star restaurants are a business (*); for (probably bad) example, if I was to buy a Tesla car, I would not expect Elon Musk to build my car or even be at the auto-dealer.

Chefs will rarely cook; they will create the dishes, they might cook the prototypes and do trial plating to show his staff how the dish should cooked and presented; and the team will do the cooking day-to-day.

Chefs do high-level business management (human resources, produce handling and buying, do PR,...) and that takes time, they are not superman, they need to sleep and rest.

If they have to cook or be in the kitchen, then they need to be there early in the day for lunch preparation, they need to be there in the evening up to late because client will usually leave dinner at around midnight-ish; it is impossible to keep that schedule.

They will even be traveling to their other restaurants or do special appearances at food festivals around the world.

For example Pascal Barbot of the 3 star L'Astrance in Paris will be in Montréal for the Omnivore festival this week-end, so he will not be in Paris to "cook" or handle vip clients (in that case, maybe the restaurant is closed in august, I  don't know).

(*) All restaurants are business, but 3 star michelin are the top of the pyramid.


Does meat (Black Angus) caramelize just with heat? I follow a famous chef in Spain. He uploaded an Instagram Reel showing a quick recipe: Black Angus burger (smash burger), cheddar cheese, truffle cream, fried egg and chips. Watch short video in here.
So the thing is that on the first step, he says "Black Angus" (while putting it on the grill), "very well pressed so it can caramelize" (and pressed the burger to leave a thin and wide burger). He adds later the rest of the ingredients directly to the burger (bread, etc). But I am still curious about that caramelization he mentions. No sugar, nothing else added to the meat. I was looking at the comments of the video, looked for specific information about Black Angus but did not find anything relevant. So he either made an unlucky mistake while talking, or I am definitely missing something.

He's not referring to the kind of caramellisation you see when you make caramel, he's referring to the Maillard reaction between amino acids and reducing sugars that is responsible for among other things meat and baked goods browning.


Does steeping the same amount of tea in different volumes of water lead to the same or more caffeine? If I were to steep the same amount of tea in two vessels of hot water: one 12oz cup and one 24oz carafe, would the 24oz carafe have more caffeine or the same amount? Assume steeping is the same amount of time.

TLDR: Yes.

The amount of difference is a complicated question as there are many variables involved. There is an osmotic pressure differential and there is also an equilibrium that will be reached between the tea compounds in the leaves and the water, so technically speaking tea steeped in more water will have more caffeine and other compounds, but there are many factors that will affect how much more.

To do an experiment correctly you'd need to have two bags with the same concentration of tea per volume unit and the same surface area exposed to the water and two cups of the same size and material with the same amount of water at the same temperature. Putting a tea bag into a larger vessel will introduce other factors (such as fluid dynamics and temperature).

Here are some of the variables that would have to be taken into account:

volume of water
temperature of water
surface area of tea:water
turbulence of water
type of tea
pH and other chemical properties of water
infusion time
surface area of water:volume of water
permeability of tea bag (if any)
type of tea
loose leaves vs in a bag; stirred loose leaves vs. clumped loose leaves


How to prevent sticking and get a nice searing on scallops When I am searing scallops, they often stick in the pan and most of the time, they are very hard to turn.

I use only a little oil 1-2 tablespoons.

Am I not using enough?

Most likely, you're not heating your pan enough before placing the scallops in.  Without knowing your exact method it's hard to say what's going wrong, but 1-2 tbsp of oil should be enough for a normal amount of scallops.

To learn about properly heating your pan, I recommend this link:

http://www.houseboateats.com/2009/12/on-properly-heating-your-pan.html


Prevent the dough from "oxidizing"? I was practicing and trying to make an apple pie depending on this source: http://allrecipes.com/howto/perfect-pie-crusts/detail.aspx

In the Liquid section, it's said: "A little bit of acid--vinegar or lemon juice--helps tenderize the dough and prevents it from oxidizing."

What's "Oxidizing"? First time I read/hear this term in cooking?

Please help me learn, I'm still a beginner!
Thanks in advance

I'm not a chemist so I'll let wikipedia do it for me:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxidation

As far as it's culinary effects in crusts- I have seen unreliable reference to the flour oxidizing and developing a off color.

I have never seen this personally and I am skeptical of it. Pie crusts can be made just fine without vinegar. Vinegar does significantly tenderize the crust as well as add an interesting flavor.


Frothing Milk By Hand What is a consistent method to froth milk if I do not have a steam wand?  I have tried things like a whisk and an Aerolatte with mixed success.

I've used a french press with good success when a steam wand was not available.  Pour some warm milk in and froth away.  You're not going to get the same shimmery-silky texture that a steam wand will do, but it'll be pretty decent.

The combination of a wide surface area and lots of small holes is excellent for introducing lots of air into the milk and keeping the bubbles really fine.


Flavour in different cuts I read somewhere that different cuts of beef have different flavour intensities. The general trend was that the more the muscle was used (ie: rump), the more flavour it had but the tougher it was and the less the muscle was used (ie: fillet), the more tender but less flavour it had.

So it seems like flavour and tender are inversely propotional to each other.

Is there a basis behind this? Whilst we are at it, what is it that makes a cut 'tougher' than other cuts? Is it that the meat is more 'dense'?

I don't believe they are inversely proportional.  You can a tender cut that has a lot of flavor, such as a good rib-eye steak.

For flavor, the general rule of thumb is "fat is flavor".  Were not talking about all the thick and hard gristle fat on the edges, but the marbled fat speckled in the meat.  That fat helps provide flavor and moisture as it breaks down.

For toughness, it relates to where on the animal the cut is taken from.  Meat taken from areas where there is alot of muscle activity and movement is going to be "tougher" and required the more low and slow cooking approach to break everything down.  Meat taken from the opposite side of the spectrum that gets very little physical activity is going to be softer and more tender.

At the end of the day, you have to cook the cut of meat properly.  You can make a tender cut tough and a juicy cut dry if you don't cook it right.


Key ingredients for classic Sauce Bolognese (Ragù Bolognese)? What are the ingredients, both main and optional, for a classic Ragù Bolognese?

I tried getting an answer to this question. First I looked around this site. I found one question about a "secret ingredient", a specific question about the type of meat, and a good question about flavoring the sauce with spices. I also tried making my search query more specific, but no dice.

After that I looked at Wikipedia's Ragù Bolognese article, which does contain a certain list:

  Ground meat (beef or veal, sometimes pork)
  Onions
  Celery
  Carrot
  Tomato paste
  Wine

This is only a basic list, e.g. Pancetta's missing, even though it's mentioned in most recipes. Other recipes ranked highly in Google (bonappetit.com, foodnetwork.com, epicurious.com, and for fun BBC even chips in etc.) mention several others as well:

Regular olive oil
Extra-virgin olive oil
Butter
Tomatoes (fresh, or more often: tinned or "tin crushed")
Pancetta (sometimes even bacon, but I guess that's just a inferior alternative?)
Wine (both Red and White get mentioned)
Stock (beef, chicken, as well as veal get mentioned)
Ground pepper (usually black, sometimes white)
Milk
Garlic
Cloves
Basil
Bay Leaves
Oregano
Parseley
Nutmeg
Sugar
Cinnamon

A certain related site also has a similar question that lists a subset, but without any references, explanation, historical background, or whatsoever.

So, to reiterate, my question is: what are the ingredients for Bolognese sauce? What are the staple ingredients, and what are the additions made by chefs over the years?

Italy is very protective of its food heritage and there are many examples of recipes being officially codified by various authorities, e.g, the EU designation, Traditional Speciality Guaranteed, was applied to pizza margherita in 2009 and strictly mandates the ingredients that may be used.

The recipe for Ragu alla Bolognese doesn't have the weight of the EU behind it but in 1982 the Bolognese chapter of the Accademia Italiana della Cucina did produce an official version and it is on their website, unfortunately only in Italian. Using Google translate you can see that the required ingredients are:

Lean minced beef, pancetta, carrot, onion, pureed or peeled tomato, dry white wine, whole milk, beef broth, olive oil or butter, salt, pepper, cream

I'll leave the translation of the instructions as an exercise for the reader lest I be accused of posting a recipe. ;-)


Is tea that has been out on air for long dangerous to drink? Suppose you made a cup of tea (the real tea, not bagged, and not a fruit drink) with no additions, but you forgot about it while doing other things (house stuff, homework, your job) and it has now been 2 hours since you made it. The tea is cold, possibly bitter, and a significant portion of its flavor is gone (this has been the usual result for me with all real teas). It's not so good any more, but is it safe to drink now?

As the saying goes, a cup of tea left overnight is poison. How true is that in terms of actual hazards?

As long as you haven't added something that will dramatically increase the spoilage time (milk, or sugar), it should follow roughly the same rules as coffee. Most citations I've seen say the taste begins to go off at around 8 hours, which is a good indicator of spoilage. It's going to taste yucky if you forget and leave the teabag in it as well, but that's just over-steeping.


Pumpkin pie, how long does tin foil need to be around the pie while baking? How long does the tin foil need to be around the crust when baking?

It helps if you think about the reason the foil is used in the first place:

If a pie filling needs a certain time to set or bake, the crust might brown too much or even burn. The foil partially shields the crust from the oven heat.

How pronounced the “crust getting too dark before filling is done effect” really is depends on the recipe (combination of type of filling and type of crust) and the oven temperature. The characteristics of your oven are also to be considered. So giving you a formula is not effective and may even be plain wrong.

What you should do is:

If the recipe gives a recommendation, stick to that, adjust as needed if the crust browns too quickly or not enough.
Otherwise, observe the pie and if you notice that the crust seems “almost right”, but the filling needs obviously longer than until the crust is done, add the foil shield.

I encourage you to start baking without the foil and add it according to visual clues. If you have enough experience with a specific recipe and know quite precisely how long to bake with or without foil, you can also shield first and remove the foil later, if you really want to.


How can you make pancakes more healthy (without making them taste bad)? I'm a big pancake fan, but also a big fan of eating healthy. How can you go about making your pancakes more healthy, provided that you're starting out with a recipe consisting of eggs, milk, wheat flour and oil? I'm talking both about the pancakes themselves, and whatever you eat them with (I'm using jelly).

As an example, I tried exchanging the wheat flour for squashed chick peas. That wasn't very good, but fairly healthy I'm sure.

We have had good luck with canned pumpkin in the pancake batter.   That and some pumpkin pie spices go really well with maple syrup.   We just add half a can to a variation on Alton Brown's pancake recipe.   It generally adds one pancake or so to the pile.

Adding a cup of blueberries or sliced strawberries has also worked out well (especially with a thumb of minced ginger tossed in).


How to spread dried blueberries evenly when using bread machine? This blueberry oatmeal bread recipe says to add 2/3 cup dried blueberries to the bread machine at add-in time. When I just dump them in on top of the dough, they end up clustered at the bottom of the loaf, as shown:

(How) can I get them to be evenly distributed?

Update

As bob1 suggested, I tried adding the dried blueberries at the very start. That worked. The blueberries were evenly distributed and none the worse for the earlier inclusion.

You can add them at the start of the mixing process to help distribute them evenly. You may find that soaking them for a few minutes in warm water to re-hydrate will help the berries mix more evenly if adding at the add-in-time.


How to prevent filling getting squeezed out of chocolate coated candies? I made some chocolate coated peanut butter candy-eggs, and after I dipped the first egg in chocolate and set it on the rack to cool, the filling is getting squeezed out. How can I prevent this?

For context, here's the recipe I'm using

2 lbs (.9 kg) confectioner's sugar
16 oz (453 g) peanut butter
12 tbsp (170 g) butter
1 tbsp (15 mL) vanilla

Mix those ingredients, add milk as necessary until it becomes a thick cream
Chill in the fridge for an hour, form into egg shapes, chill in the fridge for another hour
Just barely melt some semisweet chocolate chips, dip the eggs in there

Here's what the filling looks like as it's getting squeezed out

If I had to guess I would say your filling is not cold enough when you dip it so it starts to melt and pockets of air form when it comes into contact with the warm chocolate, which then doesn't cover the egg properly, causing filling to leak when it warms up a bit.
Try putting the fillings in the freezer for a bit (30 minutes to an hour) after you've shaped them, if possible. This will allow the chocolate to harden far quicker since the filling is much cooler, it should potentially stop the leakage (assuming the problem is the temperature).
For a nice looking coating of chocolate, try adding some cocoa butter to your melted chocolate. This will add a glistening sheen.


how long do you have to cook lemon curd for? How long does lemon curd have to be cooked in order to ensure a good set? if pectin is being used, what type of pectin is suitable?

Lemon curd is not cooked so much for a time—in general times are only guidelines to help cooks not yet familiar with a recipe do planning—as they are to a specific outcome.

The traditional test for lemon curd (and all custards, really) is the nappe, or coating the back of a spoon.  If you dip a spoon into the curd, and then run your finger through it, the little "mound" or "ridge" of curd that builds up on either side should not immediately flow back into the path of your finger.  The clear path should remain.  This tells you the curd is thickened.

(Image credit:  Baking Vintage)

A more modern method would be to take the temperature with a high quality instant read thermometer (the curd should be well stirred, so the temperature is a good representation).  It should be approximately 180 F /  82 C when fully thickened.

The amount of time it takes to get to this stage depends on your volume and your heating method.

I have never heard of a lemon curd being supplemented with additional pectin (there may be some natural pectin from lemon zest already in the recipe); the thickening agent is the proteins in the eggs, which is why it is a custard variant.


What qualities should one look for when choosing Egg cooking gear? Stainless Steel seems to be all the rage in cooking stores these days, yet frying eggs on one leads to an extremely messy cleanup situation, assuming you can get it out without breaking it. Scrambling eggs works fine but the cleanup is brutal, even with loads of butter.

My goal is to cook/fry eggs in a pan, Teflon seems the obvious choice; but it quickly starts to flake off making the food uneatable.

What type of pan and associated tools (spoon, spatula, etc) should I look for? I’d also like to avoid using loads of butter, PAM, and oils, seeing as eggs have enough fat and cholesterol already.

Modern non-stick pans should not have problems with coatings flaking off. Spend $50 on a non-stick pan and it will last you for a very long time. Coatings on good pans should hold up to any non-metallic utensils. Very expensive pans suggest that you can hit them with a hammer and not hurt the surface.


Is continuously simmering or refrigerating cooked soup a more effective way to prevent spoilage? I've cooked a large pot of soup for myself. I know it'll take me at least 3+ days to drink it, and I don't like to drink it after 4 days because it sometimes smells funny.

I was wondering which would be a more effective way of preserving the soup: continuously simmering it over a few days or refrigerating it?

For bacterial spoilage, keeping the soup hot would be more effective. As for "preserving" the soup, refrigeration will be drastically more effective.

The high temperatures of simmering would keep the bacterial level pretty much nil, but the constant heat will ruin your soup on it's own. Anything in the soup will become mush, flavors will become over-concentrated, and some flavors can drastically change from prolonged exposure to such heat.

Prompt chilling and cold storage after cooking will greatly slow down the rate at which bacteria can repopulate the soup, and will also keep everything else in the soup about the way it was when the soup was at it's prime. To really keep textures nice, I'd recommend pulling off the soup that will be stored while vegetables & meat are still a little firmer than you'd like so that they'll finish when you reheat.


Why is fish not considered as meat? While reading a thread on cooking, an old question popped into my head: I am an Asian and had no problems with dishes with both meat and “fish.” But some of my elder German friends say that meat and “fish” don't fit.

Why is fish not considered as meat? And what kind of species are considered as "fish"?

Some thoughts about that:

When I was a child, I thought every creature that has muscle tissue has meat. Fish (these animals that swim in the water and have fins like Nemo or your goldfish) included.

A friend of mine calls herself a vegetarian. I thought a vegetarian is someone who doesn't eat meat or more explicit: Someone who avoid dishes that contain parts of something that has a central nervous system or called "animal." But she eats fish.
Another case: On Good Friday (or Friday in general?!) some Christians in Germany (or anywhere else) eat "vegetarian" food - but including fish.

Then I heard about the biblical story: God hated the humans but liked Noah, Noah built an arch, rescued himself, his family and some animals and God made it rain until everything drowned. The only species that didn't drown... fish. So I thought fish were the holy animal since the Protestants had a fish as a symbol (aside from the cross).

And what about shrimps, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, squids, clams, crustaceans (I avoid to use “shellfish” ;D), …? They are also called “fish.” I don’t think that the bible would refer to these kinds of … fish. The texture of these compared to real fish is completely different.

After some googling, I found some “nutrition scientists” in a forum who claim that fish are no mammals and therefore have no “meat.” But then I would conclude that poultry and reptiles would neither have “meat.” Other claimed “scientists,” say that only animals with red meat would have meat. No, then whale meat, tuna meat, duck meat, and beef would exist but no chicken meat, turkey, pork, ...

A mutual property of real fish, shrimps, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, squids, clams, crustaceans is the ability to stay for some time in the water (sea, lake, river or pool) and the ability to reproduce themselves by laying (?) eggs. What about sea snakes, jellyfishes, lungfish, whales, dolphins, seals, frogs, turtles and other animals which go for some time from water into land and vice versa?

I suspect that this is a question that it's impossible to give a definitive answer for.
In reality it's probably a mixture of religion, culture and confusion.
I reckon that in most cases that it boils down to "Fish isn't a meat because when I was growing up I was told it's not a meat", or something like that.
In terms of etymology, "meat" originally just meant "food" and as such could be used for food of any kind. This carries over to some extent in modern usage - we sometimes talk about meat of a fruit/vegetable to describe the inside of it, coconut for example.
Personally I use meat to describe animal flesh regardless of the origin, I don't view the meat/fish deviation as being one that is either meaningful nor useful.
RE: fish and vegetarianism,
Fish isn't vegetarian.
Phew, glad we could clear that up.

There's an accepted meaning for the word and it excludes the eating of fish. There are a lot of people who eat fish and are otherwise vegetarian*, which is perfectly fine, but it's a misuse of the word. At the end of the day we all eat what we're comfortable eating, but it can be difficult grouping that many variations. This confuses others and in the end leads to inconvenience to vegetarians.
Oh language...
*Although this probably isn't true. If you're eating fish than it's obviously not on moral grounds so you're less likely to exclude animal products in some of the more obscure places, like may be in wines, cheeses, or indeed any processed goods.


What's an appropriate shelf-life for refrigerated pre-peeled garlic? Buying pre-peeled/crushed/sliced garlic is great because it saves so much time during prep -- hand-peeling and crushing garlic in the midst of of everything else is a big time sink. However, I've been told that pre-peeled garlic is one of the things that spoils quickest and is one of the leading causes of food poisoning.

Can anyone confirm this? And if so, what's an appropriate shelf-life for refrigerated pre-peeled garlic?

According to one farm (Christopher Ranch), theirs lasts 7 weeks from the packaging date, and has a "best by" date on it.

I doubt this is identical for all sources, but it seems like a decent baseline.

As for botulism, I'm pretty sure what you've heard was related to keeping peeled garlic unrefrigerated in olive oil, which used to be a common practice, and is dangerous.  Here's the original report on the incident that started it, and this article has more info on safe handling practices.

From my experience, it'll start to turn slimy and lose its texture and flavor near the end of its shelf life, and you won't want to keep using it.  But as for health risks, you don't have much to worry about as long as you're keeping it in the fridge.


How do I prevent smoked brisket from being chewy? Last night I smoked my first brisket. I used a charcoal smoker which was given to me. I followed the advice given to me by the previous owner coupled with some quick reading from the manual and internet. While my brisket was full of flavor it was a bit chewy, though not dried out. I'm wondering if it is the way I prepared the meat. Here's an outline of the process I used:

About 5 lbs. of brisket
No marinade on brisket
1 gallon of Apple juice in pan
Started smoking when about 1/3 of coals were white with ash
Added soaked alder chips wrapped in tin foil
Placed brisket on top rack of smoker
Kept temperature to the left of ideal (advice from previous owner)
Added more soaked alder chips and charcoal 2 1/2 hrs in
Cooked for a little over 4 hrs
Smoker was in sun for first hour

Photo to illustrate what I mean by left of ideal:

Which leads me to my questions:

Is brisket generally chewy when smoked?
Would a good marinade prevent chewiness?
Is there something else wrong in my preparation (cook time, temperature, etc.)?

Chewy means undercooked. Most of your standard "barbecue cuts" of meat contain a lot of connective tissue. This must be rendered to achieve tenderness. This goes for brisket, pork butt, and ribs, to name a few. If you are using the words "chewy" or "tough" to describe the texture of your meat, in nearly all cases it has not been cooked enough. Your time/temperature pretty much confirms it.

The best thing you can do is deemphasize time and temperature as your measure of "done." Rather, use a skewer to probe your meat when you think you are getting close. It should slide in and out of the brisket with VERY little resistance. Some people like to wrap in foil a few hours in. This will finish the brisket faster, as you will mitigate the evaporative cooling effect that causes your cooking process to stall. Plus, you can add some liquids and spices to the foil, which adds to the flavor profile of your meat. This is better known as the "Texas Crutch," and there is no shame in using it. Plenty of competitions have been won employing these tactics.

Brisket is a little intimidating because of the small window between "too chewy" and "dry and falling apart." But you should probably err more on the side of the latter, as that can be more easily compensated. The real takeaway here is have patience, and look to the meat itself for clues as to whether or not it is done, rather than using a timer and thermometer.


Sources or name of study concentrated on basic ingridient combinations for basic recepies I am new to cooking and I was always wondering if there is a study for the amount of time to cook different type of styles:

What are the most basic ingredients to make a batter for deep frying?
What are common cooking times for different type of meats and fish (just fliets, nothing too complicated)?
What are the basic ingridients and time for curry?
What are the most basic ingridients for pasta sauce?

A lot of this knowledge seems to come from recipes, but I was wondering if there is a name for this (food chemistry? food science?) or a source where I can find "all" (or most common) the methods to treat basic (primary) materials (meat, dairy, vegtables, fruits etc.)

I know there exist recipe books but I am looking for the very basics where no "flavour" or "taste" is involved. i.e. where the primary knowledge I need to know about cooking different types of food.

It seems to me that Ratio meets your needs:

  Ratio: The Simple Codes Behind the Craft of Everyday Cooking Paperback – Sep 7 2010
  by Michael Ruhlman (Author)

  Ratios are the simple proportions of one ingredient to another. Biscuit dough is 3:1:2—or 3 parts flour, 1 part fat, and 2 parts liquid. This ratio is the beginning of many variations, and because the biscuit takes sweet and savory flavors with equal grace, you can top it with whipped cream and strawberries or sausage gravy. Vinaigrette is 3:1, or 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, and is one of the most useful sauces imaginable, giving everything from grilled meats and fish to steamed vegetables or lettuces intense flavor.

Amazon's related titles and "customers also bought" features will probably also be helpful here.


Can whole pablanos be frozen whole? My neighbor brought me several pablanos & I can't use them all right now. Can they be frozen whole?

Yes, you can, but ideally you should roast them first. I would peel them as well. You could leave them otherwise whole if you wish, to give you greater versatility when you defrost them. If you roast, peel, de-seed, then freeze, you could even make a passable (not great, but passable) Chile Relleno out of the not-quite defrosted pepper. Stuff and bread them while still partially frozen and they'll be easier to work with.

Here's an article on the subject from The Kitchn.


What is this tissue in chicken called? I previously asked a question on whether chicken contains suet and the answers was no. however if you look at his picure the tissue highlighted in red looks like suet. If not suet, what is this and how is it different from suet?

Also what parts of a chicken contain these the most?

"Suet" is beef fat, especially from around the cow's kidneys. By definition, a chicken cannot contain suet, unless it's recently eaten some beef.

The bits you've circled are fat deposits, though, like suet. In a butchered chicken, it's easiest to find similar fatty deposits on the thighs, back, and tail. The breast and wings have comparatively little.


Can I salvage an uncooked bread? I made pan de muerto roughly following this recipe. I put the breads in the oven (made 3), took them out and let them cool completely. Today (the morning after), I cut into the first one and see that the middle is completely undone. Raw dough, with raw eggs and orange juice still in the mix.

What can I do to save this? Can I put them back in the oven or something like that?

I wouldn't recommend to bake this again and eat it because there is a food safety issue. If you had noticed this right after baking, this would not be a problem regarding food safety. But since the bread stayed for many hours in the danger zone and since it contained perishable ingredients like eggs, I strongly suggest to discard the raw bread.


If the egg whites are old, is it safe to make Italian meringue? If the eggs are little bit old, and I used the egg whites to make Italian meringue, is it safe to it ?

Egg whites could contain salmonella, and especially in my country where eggs are sold locally from local farms without being tested. I have the eggs in the refrigerator since 2 weeks, and sometimes I make scrambled or boiled eggs with them, but could I eat meringue with them that is made by adding hot syrup (Italian meringue) ?

The syrup will cook the whites or there still a danger of eating it ?

In short, if they are safe to eat cooked still they are likely safe to eat in a meringue.

There is a higher chance of salmonella on the outside of shell than the inside. 2 Weeks for eggs in the fridge is not very long. To find out a bit about the bacteria actions within the egg, submerge the whole egg fully in 2 cup a measuring cup of water. Make sure there is a couple inches of water above the egg when you first put it in. If the egg stands up, it is not super fresh, but also not spoiled, if it floats then it is not very fresh. If it jumps straight to the top of the water and bobs around, I wouldnt make meringue with it.

As the egg ages and bacteria develops inside, gases are released which will make the egg float. Eggs that float are still edible, but not super fresh and should be cooked more thoroughly.

This is a rough guide, but it has always served me well, I learned it from dumpster diving.


Potato in the microwave My brother in law was telling me the other day that he just sticks whole potatos into the microwave wrapped in wax paper for a quick snack.  Is this ok/safe?  If you do this, do you have other suggestions to make it tastier?  I haven't tried it yet, but am tempted!

Before microwaving (or baking, for that matter) a potato, I always poke it deeply with a fork several times to let steam escape.  I prefer the taste of a baked potato to a microwave potato, but will often speed up baking a potato by microwaving it for a few minutes first.  You can definitely microwave until done.

After it is done, butter and salt and pepper are good, simple accompaniments.  Shredded cheese melts nicely over the warm potato, but a crispy melted cheese poured over the potato is really amazing.  Other good toppings would be sour cream, bacon, chives, green onions, and caramelized onions.


What's the best way to get a charcoal taste on a propane grill? I recently was given a propane grill that is a lot nicer than my charcoal grill, however my family really likes the cooking and taste of a charcoal grill. I hear the propane grill tastes a lot different. Is there something specific I can do to get a taste similar to a charcoal grill, while using the benefits of my newer, nicer, larger, propane grill?

From what I see you have 2 options.

you can Add liquid smoke to your bbq sauce you use (if you use). Warning, a little bit is alot.
you could create a 'smoke packet' soak a handful of hickey wood chips, wrap in aluminum foil and poke some holes. Place this packet underneath the grill, once you get some smoke coming out, start cooking your meat


Sesame soy vinegarette There is a restaurant called Merci Mon Ami in Toronto and they had a really good salad dressing. I don't live in the area anymore, so I want to try to make it myself.

The only thing I know about it is really just the name. It was a bit sweet and tangy. I don't think it had soy sauce in it, because it was light in color (gold). So, I am guessing soy is referring to soybean oil? So, my best guess is toasted sesame seed oil, soybean oil, and some kind of vinegar and possibly honey (sugar?). I would appreciate any suggestions.

When you are making a vinaigrette you essentially make an emulsion from a liquid and an oil. That this liquid is also acidic does help with the formation of the emulsion and does wonders for the taste, but is not necessary.

The reason I am mentioning this is that emulsions look a lot like long chains of lipids under the microscope, held together by the emulsifier, and keeping the liquid in place. That does a number on the refraction of light and might make your, generally rather dark-ish, soy look golden in the process. Not all soy oil (as opposed to soy sauce) is black, by the way, the taste of soy in oil can be even stronger than that in sauces.

Lastly, if the recipe is anything like the soy vinaigrettes I have done, it's 6 tablespoons of mirin to a cup of tamari, three tablespoons of sugar, four tablespoons of rice vinegar (the unseasoned kind), and a tablespoon of fresh lemon juice. Sometimes I substitute half the honey for the sugar part, since honey is an effective emulsifier above and beyond the tamari.


Will steel cut oats work for oatmeal cookies? I usually use rolled oats or quick cooking (but not instant) oats for oatmeal cookies. Can they be made with steel cut oats?

Steel cut oats take a lot longer to cook than rolled or quick oats. It's unlikely they will completely cook before the cookie is done. You could try it, but I'd recommend presoaking them in hot water for an hour, or maybe even parboiling them for a few minutes. You'd need to adjust your wet ingredients accordingly as well.


Preserving oil and lime based dressing for resale I make an oil and lime based dressing that everyone loves and says I should sell. I am having a hard time finding out the requirements to safely preserve the dressing for resale. There has to be a method or there wouldn't be oil and vinegar dressings on store shelves.
I don't want to contact a manufacturer/distributer yet because I'd like to see how well it does on a small scale at farmers markets before I pay  manufacture/distribution costs.

You can't reasonably create a shelf-stable lime juice and oil dressing in a home kitchen.
Oil and vinegar dressings don't really need much to preserve them because both oil and vinegar are shelf-stable on their own.
Lime juice, however, degrades at room temperature, so you would need to sterilize it in a hot water bath.  That's pretty simple; lime juice is extremely high acid, so 10 minutes at 180F will do it.
However, that brings up a second problem: hot water bath canning anything containing a lot of oil is not recommended.  There's some problems with canning anything containing a lot of oil:

Any oil on the jar seal can cause it to fail;
Oil can go rancid in the jar, even if heat-treated and sealed;
Times and temperature formulas for non-oil packing do not work for oil packing, because oil takes longer to transmit heat;
Adding the oil lowers the overall acidity of your dressing, possibly making it a low-acid food and requiring pressure canning.

Moreover, because home canning with oil is officially not recommended, it's very hard to find any reputable advice on how to do it.  This means you'd be experimenting ... not just with your recipes, but with the health of your customers, which is very risky in most places.
However, there is another option.  Many small producers sell dressings that need to be refrigerated and consumed within a few weeks; I have a feta-cheese based dressing from a local cheesemaker in my fridge right now.  You could experiment in your own fridge to see how long it keeps.  Consider this as your path forwards for selling your dressing.


Why does chewing gum sometimes change its texture Although this is more a general food related question, I wonder why chewing gum sometimes changes its texture and looses its chewy quality?

I think it has something to do with the type of hydrocolloid that is being used in the specific gum you are chewing. Most are pretty stable but also need a specific combination of pH, moisture, and temperature to stay within their desired texture range. A comprehensive understanding of the different types of hydrocolloids can be found here:

http://blog.khymos.org/recipe-collection/