What is this old "lemon-squeezer" shaped pan We found this odd pan at  the family's summer cottage. The cottage is in Central Finland, and used to be a croft before my grandfather bought it. This thing has been on the edge of the stove for a while, and nobody seems to know what it is.

By the way the handle is pointing, the pan is supposed to be used convex side up. The convexity is about ten centimeters high, and has chevron-shaped ridges forming channels down the mound. It looks a bit like a lemon-squeezer from the side, but with a shallower slope. There's also a channel around the base of the mound, and a beak for pouring. The pan is about the size of my outstretched fingers, or a small frying pan. Here's a side view:

I tried a reverse image search and came up empty. The one guess anyone made is that it's a pan for melting fat, but I couldn't find an image of one of those on Google.

What you have appears to be a vintage or possibly antique cast iron grill pan.

The pan would be used on the stovetop and could be used for steaks, chops, burgers, bacon, certain vegetables, etc. The ridges can provide grill marks, and the channels allow grease to drain away. The shape allows the grease to drain to the outside channel where the pour spout will allow the grease to be poured out of the pan.

As with the grill pans of today, the pan would be pre-heated and the meats or veggies would be cooked at a medium high or high heat, much like outdoor grilling in the US. Also, it would be good for camp-type cooking over an open flame.

Re rendering fat, I suppose it could work but with a low or slow heat.

Update: As per @Sneftel's comment, these grills can have many different uses. @Falken's answer addresses one of these, but certainly not all. In addition to the uses mentioned previously, see this snippet from WebstaurantStore:

  An all-around convenient stovetop grilling solution, this 10 1/4" round heavy-duty cast iron barbecue plate is perfect for making a variety of delicious items including Korean barbecue, pita bread, naan, grilled tortillas, and roasted vegetables.

Similar pans can easily be found online by searching for Mongolian bbq grills.


After full reseasoning of my cast iron, eggs are still sticking Hey there Cast Iron pros,

I've liked my cast iron but it hasn't been very non-stick. When making eggs, even with oil and a good hot heat before adding to pan, eggs will stick to the pan. I'm hoping to get a great non-stick finish that eggs (or anything else) won't stick to.

I fully reseasoned my pans doing the following:

Full removal of seasoning via self-clean mode in oven for 3 hours.
Cleaned out dust and scrubbed some more with steel wool and salt, then washed cleanly.
Heated to 200F then added coatings
Add a small amount of flax seed oil to pan, rub very thinly over pan, and bake for 1 hour at 400F
Repeat step 4 adding new coats 5 times.

After I did all this the pans were looking pretty good, nice clean finish, but there were still a few bumps and imperfections in the pans. I tried making some eggs and they stuck as they had before. It's not terrible, but not great non-stick either.

I'm very curious for suggestions: do my pans just have scratches and bumps in them from years of use and these (even with a good seasoning) cause stickiness?

Is there something else I can try to get a great non-stick finish on these pans?

Photos:

Clean Pan:

Pan after making eggs:

I have a similar (but not the same) frying pan. Your problem is, most likely, a lack of heat, not a lack of seasoning.

I always set my frying pan, empty, on a low/medium fire. When it starts to come to temperature, I raise the temperature to high. [If I have something else to cook, I do that before cooking eggs. This way, I make sure the iron is hot]. When the iron is hot enough, the eggs should not stick.

Learning how to controle the temperature of the pan is quite the process, and I have had eggs sticking to my pan at times... and I used to be a professional cook. Just saying.

The Leidenfrost effect is your friend. See this question as well.


Low-calorie alternative to Lao Gan Ma spicy chili crisp? I've become obsessed with Lao Gan Ma brand chili sauces. This "Old Godmother" brand sauce is apparently a phenomenon in China and feels like it's about to break out in the export market similar to the rise of Sriracha.

  With its signature red label featuring an image of its unsmiling founder, each jar of Lao Gan Ma contains a mix of chili flakes and onions soaked in soybean oil and some combo of garlic, fermented cabbage, mushrooms and black beans, depending on the varietal.

Lao Gan Ma is less of a hot sauce, more of a slightly tingly umami flavor. Salty and savory. The large crisp chili flakes also provide a satisfying crunch.

I would put it on everything I eat. The only problem is that the first ingredient is Soybean Oil. A typical serving, in the way I want to eat it, will be hundreds of calories and many grams of fat.

By contrast, the Nutrition Facts of many other chili/hot sauces such Huy Fong Foods Sriracha and Chili Garlic Sauce are 0 calories, 0 fat.

Are there any condiments that give the tingly/salty/fermented/umami flavor of Lau Gan Ma but without the oil?

Fermented chopped chili (duojiao) or pickled pepper (pao jiao) would be a good alternative in terms of flavor: spicy, tingly, salty, umami. The two are prepared using a very similar recipe, with the former the Hunanese variant and the later the Szechuanese varient. The usage, however, is very different from that of Lao Gan Ma: Lao Gan Ma is usually added to stir fries, but pao jiao/duojiao require a longer cooking process (e.g., steaming, braising, stewing) for the flavor to be fully released.

Fermented chili/pickled pepper is extremely easy to make: the main ingredients are red chili peppers (perhaps chopped), some sugar, salt, garlic and ginger (and Szechuan peppercorns, if you are making the Szechuanese variant) to taste, and (imporatantly) rice wine. The umami flavor comes from the fermentation process, while the wine contributes to an esterification process that adds more flavor to the completed dish.


Storing Cooked Food Hot I have been looking for an answer for the following question everywhere, but could not get hold of any answers.

The question is "At what temperature can I store (keep for serving) cooked meals in its Hot state, and for how long.
Note that the meal portion that I would like to store is for one person (Airlines like meal), the meals should be store in oven like warmer".

Many sources says that meals should be kept at a temperature higher than 60 degrees C, but it never states for how long can I keep it and it does not mention the portion size. As I guess big portions are different from a single portion meals.

I would really appreciate it if you could provide references.

First of all there's portion size: that should not matter. I'm assuming here that you transfer the food from cooking straight into the oven to keep warm, and not re-heating after cold storage. This means that your food will integrally cool down to the ambient temperature in your oven.
For temperatures there are lots of resources available, such as Fact sheet or Governmental guidelines. The first link provides the only real reference to timing I could find. It seems like from a food safety point of view there is no clearly defined maximum storage period, as long as you keep the food out of the "Danger Zone". Regular stirring of the food and the right temperature apparently keep it safe for long enough for the authors of these resources to think it not worth mentioning.
There is how ever always taste and texture to consider. I would not recommend keeping any dish warm for many hours, regardless of the temperature.


Air-fried sweet potatoes come up dry and tough? I just tried air frying rather thickly-sliced sweet potatoes for 160°C/320F for 20 minutes. Tossed them in olive oil and sprinkled some salt before air frying too.
All the recipes I've read online say that the potatoes should turn out soft and moist on the inside but my sweet potato fries turned out really dry and tough. Should I be air frying for a shorter duration, or is it something else (maybe not all sweet potatoes are suited for air frying)?

Use a higher temperature, say 210ºC, and must pre-heat for 6-7 minutes.


How to add richness to a vegan dough? Usually whenever I bake I substitute milled flaxseeds + water for eggs, soy milk for milk, and margarine for butter. This isn't a problem when the sweet gets most of its flavor from other ingredients such as carrot cake, nut-based cakes, and pies. However whenever I try to make something which contains a large bread-like element, such as kolaches, the dish comes out tasting mediocre.

Is there any way I can make the dough taste richer using only vegan ingredients?

Olive oil! Or really, any oil you prefer. Vegan butters would probably work too, but I prefer a good quality olive oil. You can get ones that are pressed with other vegetables/herbs/fruit etc. for example olives pressed with lemon rinds makes for a stunning lemon olive oil.
Just sub out some oil for water/liquid.
Or try adding spices, seeds, something to give it more elements of flavour, perhaps a dash of nutritional yeast would trick the taste buds.
Vegan baking is so chemically different from baking with dairy products that it really isn't always possible to create the same product.


Why use boiling water in a shoofly pie? I made a shoofly pie using the recipe from Joy of Cooking. That recipe instructed to mix 1 cup of boiling water into the mixture (of eggs and molasses) before pouring into the pie shell.

Why boiling water? What does that do for the pie differently from just using hot water?

If the recipe you are referring to is this one or something quite similar, it appears that it is in essence a variation of a custard pie, but the baking time is unusually short.  It is likely that the boiling water is to bring up the temperature of the mix quickly, to shorten the necessary oven time.


Searing Tofu in Stainless Skillet I've been trying to sear tofu in my stainless skillet, but no matter what I do it seems to stick. The nice crust gets ripped off of my tofu pieces. I've played around with different amounts of oil, different starting temperature, different cooking time, etc. Is there anything I should focus on?

If it's not possible, I'm happy to give up and just use a cast-iron or crumble the tofu or whatever instead.

UPDATE

I bought a carbon steel wok and can pan fry tofu in there with no problem!  I sprinkle a bit of salt on there to prevent sticking but I'm guessing most of the nonstick comes from the pan's seasoning.

Toast tofu slices under the broiler.

I agree with Tesujin re stainless and frying.  Tofu turns out ok in my nonstick pan but I know some people don't like Teflon.

I have had great results from the broiler!  Try this

1: Slice brick into rectangles.

2:  Coat rectangles with oil.

3:  Sprinkle on kosher salt.

Under broiler until top of tofu slices is toasty.
Out, flip, back in until other side is toasty.

Heating from above means the bottom doesn't stick.  The broiler pan will get hot too but the coating of oil on the tofu will keep it from sticking.


'home mixed' wholewheat flour I live in Indonesia now and there is no wholewheat flour in the shops. You can buy a ground husk 'supplement' to blend with white flour. Question is, how much husk to mix with how much flour?

It would be ideal if you could find both wheat germ and wheat bran, but substitutes may be good enough.  I'm not sure what's in your ground husk supplement, but I'm betting it's close enough to wheat bran.  Can you find oat bran, rice bran, or ground flax?  They may work as a substitute for the wheat germ.

Wikipedia says, "Wheat consists of approximately 83% endosperm, 14.5% bran, and 2.5% germ by mass. For sifted, unbleached white flour, wheat bran, and wheat germ having densities of 125, 50, and 80 grams/cup, respectively, one cup of graham flour is approximately equivalent to 84 g (~2⁄3 cup) white flour, 15 g (slightly less than 1⁄3 cup) wheat bran, and 2.5 g (1.5 teaspoons) wheat germ."  (Graham flour contains these ingredients in the same proportions as whole wheat flour.)

If you can't find wheat germ (or a suitable substitute), try leaving it out and see what happens.


What vessel to use for baking cheesecake I am wanting to bake my go to cheesecake.  It is baked in a 9" springform pan but I want to half the recipe.  (Well, I don't really WANT to, but my waistline says I should!!!) Anyways, what type of vessel would work best for this?  I am wondering if a large pie plate would work.

A 9" pan has a surface area* of 81π/4 square inches. A 6" pan is 36π/4, or just under half, so the depth will be similar (~10% deeper). 6" springform pans are easy to get.  If your existing pan is dead-on 9", you might like a 6 that comes up a little big, as many pans do.  Or you could make a 2/3 quantity in a 7" pan, something I often do with 3-egg recipes.

*The factor of π/4 cancels, so you only need to consider the ratio of the square of the diameters.  In fact, because π/4=0.79≈1, you can often ignore it when converting between rectangular and round pans, given that the limited range of sizes available.


Creme brulee has hard top layer As some of you may have noticed, I'm on the trails of making perfect good creme brulee.

Recently I've had great success and ended up with creme brulee of nice consistency... however there the top layer seems to be thicker and harder than the rest.

Allow me to elaborate:
After taking the creme out of the oven and allowing it to set in a fridge and before melting sugar on top I find that the top layer of my creme (about a cm's width) is hard and if I press on it it "breaks" almost like it froze on the top like surface water freezes into ice.
Below that layer the creme is like caramel, it's not hard at all and the "hardness" of this top layer is not caused by the low temperature of the fridge (I think).

Could this be because I bake my creme in a bain marie / water bath in an oven with both the top and bottom element on (i.e. the ramkins are getting heat from the top and bottom/sides)?

My recipe:

3 egg yolks
250ml whipping cream
70ml plain white granulated refined sugar (should be the same kind people put in everything)

I put the yolks, cream and sugar in the mixer bowl. Let the mixer mix them for a couple of minutes, pour into ramekins. Put the ramekins in a deep pan. Fill the pan with water so that the water covers the ramekins about halfway. Watch that no water gets in the ramekins. Turn the oven on. Put a thermometer in the water. When the water gets to ~85 degrees Celsius, leave it like that for a while. Turn oven off, let cool.

After all that the custard is still "soft". It continues to be soft after cooled to a little warmer than room temperature. Only after left alone for an hour or two does it develop this "crust".

UPDATE:
I just made Creme Brulee with only the bottom heating element turned on - same thing happened.
I should mention this happens only after the cremes are cooled - when taking them straight out of the oven there is no harder upper layer. Could it be that, akin to pudding, it dries up if you do not cover it in plastic wrap? This does not happen with crem caramel (a close relative of creme brulee).

Maybe I should mention I am cooking them for longer at a lower temperature than most recipes? But please don't jump to conclusions that this is the reason if you do not have some solid reason of thinking so.

I had this happen to me - it's because fat gathers on the top of the creme.

After heating the creme, for some reason, fat/oils gather at the top of the creme and when cooled become the hard layer you have described. It's just what normally happens to fat when you cool it down - it gets hard.

You can try stirring your creme before letting it cool down completely, unfortunately I do not know why this happens or how to fix it, otherwise.

EDIT:
Apparently, as @mathgenius pointed out, this happens if you use vegetable oil based cream. He reported that when using animal far cream the problem was fixed.


Why does peanut butter become very hard when adding egg yolk? I'm making some peanut butter meringue-type cookies and I noticed that when I mix the egg yolk into the peanut butter, the mixture immediately becomes very hard and stiff. Based on the speed, I'm guessing there's some sort of chemical reaction. The peanut butter I'm using is just peanuts and salt and the ratio is 225g peanut butter: 1 egg yolk. I'm very curious as to why this happens. It doesn't affect the finished cookie, but it does make it very hard to fold in the meringue.

Have you ever added liquid straight to tahini when making hummus?
See this quote from Cook's Illustrated:

'You’d think that adding a liquid would thin tahini rather than thicken it. Why the opposite? Tahini is simply sesame-seed butter, made by grinding hulled sesame seeds into a paste. Much of its makeup is carbohydrates, and when a small amount of juice (or any water-containing liquid) is added to tahini, a portion of each carbohydrate molecule is drawn to the water. As a result, clumps of carbohydrates appear. As the amount of water is increased, more clumps develop, causing the tahini to thicken overall. If you keep adding water, eventually you’ll cross over the threshold of thickening it; enough water in the system will cause the tahini to loosen and thin out.'

I believe the same is happening to you with peanut butter, and you would probably find it also happened if you added water rather than egg yolk.
I could be wrong...


What temperature is the "warm" setting of a PC550 slow cooker? I recently prepared a pork roast, but it wasn't ready in time for supper. Once it was fully cooked, I switched it over to "warm" for the night to be ready for today. But now I'm a little worried if it is still good. I have heard that as long as the "warm" setting maintains a heat above 140f it should be fine, but I do not have a functioning thermometer to test this. If someone else has a PC550 slow cooker, and can give me a reference of the (approximate) setting (warm, 1, 2, 3) temperatures, that would help!

so I am wondering what I should do from here (turn up the temperature, refrigerate it, etc.).

Raher late advice given your posting date, but perhaps helpful if you still have and use the PC550.
As long as temperature is over 63C chill quickly. For instance put in small containers and then put them in cold water. Then refrigerate or freeze. And before use reheat thoroughly; preferably on a stove top rather than in a slow cooker.
Note if the warm temperature is not holding at 63 or above the food is not safe to eat, but surely a slow cooker on warm will be designed to hold warm at above 63.  I do not have this model of slow cooker, and did not find the manual for PC550 on the internet.
I did note a post regarding a Presidents Choice slow cooker pointing out it automatically turns off after keeping warm for 6 hours, although the post did not specify the model of PC slowcooker.  You may therefore need to check it is still keeping warm. And as advised by @rackandboneman you really would benefit from having and using a food thermometer.
Note advice is usually that food may be held indefinitely in a slow cooker if over 63 degrees C or as in this USA advice over 140F (that is 60C)
https://www.foodsafety.gov/keep-food-safe/4-steps-to-food-safety


Is there any significant flavour difference between dehydrated and sun-dried tomatoes? I have a large batch of tomatoes which I want to preserve. I am confused between sundrying them and dehydrating them. Essentially they are the same processes but is there any significant flavour difference between dehydrated and sun-dried tomatoes?

Making dehydrated vs. sun dried tomatoes:

Dehydrated tomatoes appeared later than sun dried tomatoes, in part due to the added complexity in how they are made. For dehydrated tomatoes, the tomatoes are washed, then passed through long tunnels in which they are exposed to a current of warm air. It is a speedier alternative to the sun dried variety, and allows for greater variation in the product. Dehydrated tomatoes most commonly produced in Chile, Mexico, Morocco, California and in China. Dehydrated tomatoes have a moisture content below 7 percent, a less sharp taste and lighten slightly in color after 12 to 15 months of storage.
The making of sun dried tomatoes is different. Ripened tomatoes are first washed, halved and then usually put through a water bath containing sulfur dioxide. They are then put into drying trays in the sun for seven to ten days. Thereafter they are cut and packaged. The industrial market for sun dried tomatoes in North America is currently supplied by Chile, Turkey, Mexico, California, Spain, and Italy. Sun dried tomatoes typically have a 12 to 24 percent moisture content, are more robust in taste, and darken after expiration after nine to 12 months. Cool storage is recommended.

Source: Sundried vs Dehydrated tomatoes


How do I grind almonds for making marzipan? I want to attempt making marzipan, and the recipe I'm considering calls for 200 grams ground almonds (link to full recipe). How fine should the almonds be ground? Is it something that I can accomplish at home (I have a food processor or a coffee grinder), or should I be looking for a store-bought product to get the right consistency (if so, what's it called)?

A processor can be used if it has sharp blades and is decently powered. Drop almonds into boiling water less than 60 seconds then introduce to an ice bath immediately. the almonds will literally pop out of skins when squeezed. DE-skin all almonds and dry thoroughly with a tea towel or paper towels. Add dried almonds to processor and pulse until a very small grind is achieved then add powdered sugar slowly while pulsing until desired paste is attained. I use a masticating juicer to make a smooth almond butter before putting it in a processor to blend in the sugar or sweetener of choice.


Cooking a chicken and vegetable curry using a curry paste Can I substitute green Harissa paste for Thai green curry paste in a chicken curry and in what proportions?

No, those two things don't taste the same. They may have a few ingredients in common, but there are plenty of differences too. (Just look up a few recipes and this should be abundandly obvious.) You could certainly use harissa as a base for some kind of soupy dish similar to curry, but it wouldn't be Thai green curry.


What's the safest shape for homemade hard-candy I'm thinking about trying to make some wintergreen hard-candies out of gum paste + wintergreen extract, but wasn't sure what shape / size to make them.

It got me thinking, "What shape should these candies be so that it's less likely that someone might choke / otherwise hurt themselves while eating them?"

I feel like a perfect sphere is probably the most likely to be accidentally swallowed, but hard / sharp edges may not be good for the inside of your mouth. Tried looking this up online, but didn't really get worthwhile search results-- beyond hard-candies being the most likely food item for a child to choke on.

Spherical or spheroidal foods are indeed the most likely to be implicated in choking - grapes are well known. But you're unlikely to get sufficient statistics to answer fully. Most of the medical literature I've seen is at least as concerned with size, and of course that changes as you eat the sweet. You'd have to start unusually small for size to be much help.

Hard edges are much less of a concern. You'd struggle to get them sharp enough to do any actual damage, and the corners dissolve fastest, meaning they blunt almost immediately. This also means that the corners of something like a cube will go fairly fast, and you'll be left with a near-spherical blob.

You might be best off with something like a coin shape - a flattish disc or oval. This is a traditional shape for barley sugars, and I've also had hard fruit sweets that shape. While coins do show up in the choking statistics, they're very common items for children to investigate, including by taste and when not supervised.


What is the thin, colorless film that remains after making oatmeal? When I cook ground oatmeal with boiling water, a thin colorless film is formed around the interior surface of the pot. The film comes off the pot easily, but it is attached and rooted into the cooked oatmeal. It is colorless and very similar to a thin plastic wrap. It easily breaks off into smaller pieces and it could also melt into the oatmeal.

I don't know if this is coming from the pot's material (unsafe), or is it just the water and oat fibers combining to create it (safe). The pot looks completely undamaged and fine. Is this normal? I am just worried about safety. Thank you for any feedback!

Finely ground oatmeal forms a colloid in water. When that dries at the surface, you get a skin. Colloidal oatmeal feels a little odd in the mouth, but is perfectly edible. It's been used medically to treat skin irritation at least back to the 1800's.


why does soy milk curdle when salt is added Why does soy milk curdle when salt is added? Does it have something to do with starch?

As noted in "History of Tofu and Tofu Products", alkaline earth metals (such as calcium and magnesium) in solution cause the proteins in soy milk to curdle. As I discovered by searching for "Magnesium in table salt" and "Calcium in table salt", a cup of salt contains about 3 mg of magnesium and 70 mg of calclum. While those concentrations aren't high enough to turn soy milk into full-on tofu, they should be enough to cause some curdling.

All of this hinges, however, on the soy milk being heated. There are a number of soy milk products available in the US (e.g. Silk) that contain added calcium for health purposes--primarily in order to compete with the calcium content of dairy milk--that, themselves, do not curdle because of the low temperatures of storage associated with consumer soy milk.

While some soy starch is contained in the curds of soy milk, the curdling reaction for any solution primarily involves the kinking of the proteins in that solution, trapping within them fats and starches, in order to form a stable matrix of such.


Kosher alternative for blood sausage The title explains it all, is there a kosher substitute for blood sausage?*

Blood sausage is not kosher due to the inclusion of blood, the consumption of which is forbidden by Jewish law.

Yes, if you consider some kosher sausage to be a sausage, and therefore a substitute for a non-kosher sausage.

No, if you want a sausage which is "like" blood sausage. It's pretty much like itself, and not much else, other than "it's a sausage", in which case, see above.


How to store extra, unused brine? I followed a brining recipe tonight for the first time. I added water, salt, sugar, worcestershire, and various dried seasoning to a saucepan, brought to a rapid boil, let cool, then refrigerated. I am going to use part of this on the 2 turkey legs I bought today, but that will leave me with a lot of leftover, unused brine. (I didn't realize it until I started, but the recipe I followed produced almost 6 quarts of brine.)

What can I do with this 'extra' brine? Would it be safe to store it in the fridge (if so, for how long?) or the freezer? What would this do to the effectiveness of the brine?

Brine can be stored in the fridge pretty much indefinitely. It might even be safe at room temp, but you'll want it to be cold when you use it anyway. If you used whole seasonings (which are, indeed, pretty pointless,) strain them out, especially if you plan to store your brine for more than a week.

I have kept a half-gallon jar full of brine in the fridge on weeks when I want to use it for several small items over a week or two. Brine-making never seems worth it for a pork chop, but my pork chops definitely benefit from a 24-hour brine soak, so it can be worthwhile to have some on hand.


How to dice tomatoes? I like to make pico de gallo which calls for a lot of diced tomato. This is always the most time-consuming part of this recipe.

What are some tips to make dicing a tomato a little easier? I finally got a very sharp knife which has made things quite a bit easier, but I imagine there is some sort of correct technique.

Using romas I usually will slice the ends off and then cut them into rings. Then I'll take about 1/3 of those stacked up and cut them into cubes.

Cut the tomato in half at the midsection or equator (stem end being the "north pole") to expose the seed cavities.  Holding the cut side down over your garbage bowl or trash can, gently squeeze to remove the seeds. You can easily pry out stubborn seeds with your fingertips.

Place the tomato half cut-side up on the cutting board (Cutting waxy skinned vegetables is much easier when the skin is on the bottom so the force of the knive cuts cleanly through the skin with less effot) and cut in half again.  After doing this with both pieces the tomato will be in quarters.

If you want evenly diced pieces of just the exterior flesh (such as for sprinkling on a plate for a garnish), then use your knife to cut out the interior portion so that just the tomato "shell" remains.  You can then easily dice the exterior shell.

Otherwise, after cutting into quarters just gently push down to flatten each quarter and cut into strips lengthwise and then cut cross-wise to finish the process.

While cumbersome to explain in text, it's much safer and quicker than cutting the tomato into slices and then trying to dice from there.


Shelf life and Validation of Coconut Milk? I use coconut milk for a pasta dishes, then put the carton back in the fridge.  I may use some of it for a coffee additive, the use plenty more for another pasta dish or recipe.   Alas, I do not cook at home all that often, and sometimes the stored coconut milk tastes bad, so I toss it and go to the store for a fresh carton.

What is the shelf life, in a fridge, of coconut milk?   Is it actually bad if it tastes bad, or could it still be used at least for some purposes?  How to tell if it's about to go bad even if I can't smell anything out of line?

Refrigerated coconut-based milk substitutes like Silk Pure Coconut or So Delicious Coconut Milk have a stated lifespan of 7-10 days after opening.  I've had cartons last longer than that without any change in taste or smell, but if it started tasting bad or smelling funky I would toss it.  Unfortunately, this type of coconut milk product does not reconstitute well after freezing.


Can I freeze Brownie Truffles? I’d like to make truffles with brownie crumbs and ganache and freeze the balls to be rolled in cocoa powder or nuts when thawed.  Has anyone done this?

I have not made explicitly what you're asking for, but I regularly freeze ganache, with no ill effects. Just be careful when you thaw them. Don't leave them out 'naked' in room temperature air, or you will get condensation on them.


How can I remove excess fat/oil from my slow cooker dish? when we are cooking something, we don’t know how much oil we need, so sometimes we add too much oil, which affects the taste of the dish.

What can I do when this happened? How can I remove the excess oil?

it depend on the dish that you are making.There are lots of method to remove extra oil from the cooked dish .one and the easiest way is that if you are making a vegetable or fried dish you can remove extra oil by just putting all the dish on Slotted spoon.in this way all extra oil can be remove without destroying the taste of dish.but if you are making any liquid dish you can remove extra oil by using ice or you can cool the dish and the whole oil appear in a layer and you can easily remove that layer of oil.


Can I prevent honey from congealing/hardening in the pantry? This question is inspired by this answer suggesting that honey lasts a long time.  Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to last so long in my cupboard.  I make sure it's sealed tight, but usually after only a week or two it's looking pretty nasty.

Is there a way to prevent this from happening?  Or is there a standard (not to mention safe) way to "rescue" hardened honey without losing flavour or texture?

Keep it stored in an airtight container, so that it doesn't absorb moisture from the air.

If it congeals, put the container in hot water until honey is liquid (~10-15 minutes).


Chilli con carne - chocolate, cocoa powder or nothing? I am about to prepare chilli con carne. I have found more recipes than I would even like. I have quite an idea what ingredients and spices to put in. The last question is whether to use chocolate, cocoa powder or nothing. How do mexicans cook chilli con carne?

The origin of chili con carne is actually from the American southwest, not Mexico. It's tex-mex, not mex.

There are many variations on chili con carne, however if you go back to the earliest known recipes cocoa or chocolate are not on them. It's pretty basic, flavored mostly by cumin and chili. So if you want to make the most authentic chili to the origin then skip the cocoa.

However, there are many good recipes out there which have chocolate or cocoa in them and they are as valid as any other, so it all comes down to personal taste. I add unsweetened cocoa powder to my chili because the bitterness balances out the acidity of the canned tomatoes, and I like the flavor combinations you get. The umami from the chocolate enhances the flavor, and I like the way it hits the tongue, it gives it more punch.

Once I made a chili and split it into two, with one I added some cocoa powder, otherwise the chilis were identical. I served both and asked people which they liked better and the vast majority preferred the one with cocoa in it. You can also add a tsp or two of instance coffee instead although I don't think it's as good. Adding sweetened dark chocolate instead of cocoa powder works just as well, there's no much difference except the chocolate adds a bit of sweetness. The main benefit of using chocolate rather than cocoa powder is that you can try different varieties, however as it's just an undertone you aren't likely to notice.

So it's all down to taste.


Does "American" Food exist around the world? In America, foods generally considered to be of foreign origin are referred to by the country or region which they are originally from.

For example, "That Italian restaurant just opened, let's try it.", there are many Italian restaurants in America which serve food generally considered to be Italian.

For countries other than the United States, is this still the case?
This example demonstrates the question, Would this ever be used in a country other than America? "Let's go to that American restaurant for dinner tonight".

The "big chain" type certainly exists basically everywhere by now. There is a reason why the Big Mac Index is suitable as an economic indicator: you can calculate it for almost all countries in the world, because you can buy a Big Mac in almost all countries in the world.
A second type of "American restaurant" is much harder to find. It is the kind of small diner which serves grilled cheese sandwiches, thick pancakes and other American style food, without being a chain. I have seen this in places with large expat populations, but most Europeans will probably spend their lives without ever having been in one. I can't talk about other continents.
A third category of "American food" would be American homemade food. Chicken pot pie, eggplant parmesan, Southern biscuits, that kind of stuff. I have not seen it served in any restaurant in Europe. I have never seen an "American home food restaurant", nor an "American fine dining restaurant". They could exist, but as I've visited many large European cities and lived in places with a large number of American expats, they are likely to be quite rare, or maybe clustered somewhere I haven't been.
What I have seen more in later years seem to be fancy burger places - they are sometimes chains, sometimes not, but I would distinguish them from fast food chains because they tend to have things like mushroom-and-arugula burgers on sourdough bread. Also, you nowadays see more burgers in restaurants which are some sort of middle tier without special relation to a specific cuisine - more of a nonfrench equivalent of a bistro. Also, Starbucks style chains (including Starbucks itself) are pretty established - while Europe had an extensive coffee culture before them, the type of drinks served there is pretty distinctive.
American packaged food such as marshmallows or pumpkin pie filling can be also found in specialized grocery stores selling American products, and as a seasonal article in large European supermarket chains like Lidl, who tend to have "American week", "Greek week" etc. in rotation. A few selected American products are also found as staples in most stores, such as Snickers bars or Coca-Cola, or are less available but still within easy reach, such as Jelly Belly candy.


Extremely tender beef at hospital My dad was recently in the hospital for intestinal surgery.  While he was recovering they served him some beef that he was very surprised to find incredibly tender.  He let me have a bite.  It was so tender you hardly needed to chew at all.

It was served as some kind of boneless fillet with a dark brown gravy on top.

I've cooked a lot of beef, but never was it this soft.

Can anyone help me find this recipe or teach me a technique with the same effect?

One possibility is that the meat was cooked in a crock pot. This would make sense on a few levels.

First, since it is a hospital and presumably they have a large amount of people to feed, cooking multiple steaks in a large crock pot at once would save time and still produce quality food.

Second, cooking the meat slowly in a crock pot (or in liquid) over the period of 10 hours will produce incredibly tender meat, especially if the steak was already of good quality to begin with. Similar process is used to produce various roasts and also pulled pork, for example, which will literally fall off the bone once done cooking.


Large milk dough for pizza; doesn't seem to knead at all So I set out to make pizza dough, with these ingredients:

1.25 cups whole wheat flour + 3.75 cups refined flour(5 cups total; around 750g)
1 cup water + 1 cup milk
1 tsp active dry yeast
10 tsp olive oil
2.5 tsp salt
2.5 tsp sugar

The dough I made from this is yellow/white in color. The strange thing is that despite having 66% hydration ratio, it wasn't sticky when I started kneading it. It wasn't elastic either, so kneading wasn't optional(obviously).
The trouble is, no matter how much I kneaded it, it just didn't seem to "set" into that elastic dough ball that we're after, after normally about 8 minutes? I kneaded for more than 20 minutes and it was still breaking.
I had to literally pound it with my closed fist like a hammer. It wasn't done even after that.
Right now, it's in the fridge, and I'm letting it cold rise for 24/48 hours.
What's the issue here? Why didn't the dough come together even after all that kneading?

Probably a combination of causes. You're using whole wheat flour, which really does not knead like white flour, even used in moderation with other flour: in addition to having less gluten, the shards of bran cut through the dough structure as you knead. Particularly if the "refined flour" (hmm) you were using wasn't high-gluten bread flour, that could leave you with very little cohesion. The olive oil will also interfere with gluten formation, as will the milk to some degree, particularly whole milk.
Now, none of that may actually matter. Pizza doesn't need a gluten matrix for structure in the same way a free-form bread loaf does, and the recipe you've chosen indicates that you're not looking for the classic Neapolitan crust texture anyway. If you're forming the pizza on a pan, you don't need the gluten to pull the crust, and the starch gel that forms during baking will make it hold together just fine as a cooked pizza. Treat it like pie crust, and roll it out instead of pulling it out.
Oh, incidentally, 10 tsp is a real weird measurement. It's just shy of 1/4 cup; use that instead, and give your measuring hand a rest.


how do I make my goat cheese creamy? I tried to make goat cheese following the recipe below, I did not use any buttermilk although a comment indicated that could be done. I kept the milk at the desired temperature for 10-15 minutes with no curdling occuring, took off the stove then added the reccomeneded amount of lemon juice and still no curdling occured.

http://guiltykitchen.com/2010/12/06/back-to-basics-culinary-fundamentals-goat-cheese/

My solution was to put the milk back on the heat until it started to curdle, and then take off the heat and add more lemon juice which produced curds, and then I was able to continue following the recipe. The result was a crumbly cheese that wasn't very spreadable. I used milk from a local farm, it did not have any indication of how pasturized it was.

What did I do wrong? Should I have left the milk on the heat at a stable temperature until is started to curdle?

I'd say the buttermilk was a necessary ingredient that you shouldn't have left out. Milk usually needs to be inoculated with some kind of culture before your rennet (or lemon juice in this case) will successfully curdle it. Buttermilk is cultured (which means it has an active colony of beneficial bacteria), and would work well to inoculate your goat milk.

Leaving that out made the milk much more difficult to curdle, and left you with a less stable curd.


Is the mixing order important when substituting white sugar + molasses for brown sugar? I bake cookies at a relatively large scale (16 qt batches) My recipe calls for both white & light brown sugars. In an effort to make production more efficient I would like to substitute the brown sugar with a combination of cane sugar and molasses.

My question is this: Must we premix the cane sugar with the molasses? Or may we just add the cane sugar and molasses into the mixer at the "creaming" stage? Or add the cane sugar at the creaming stage and the molasses in with the eggs? What would be the anticipated outcome of each scenario?

I am aware of the hydroscopic properties inherent in the brown sugar, but somewhat confounded by the question of whether separating the molasses from the cane sugar, then reuniting them in the dough, would impact this.

As you probably know, the creaming step is important.

Sugar crystals cut up the fat and make a lot of air pockets.

If liquid is added early then the sugars dissolve and creaming doesn't happen.
If there is too little sugar it is less effective.
If there is too much sugar the fat is reduced to a crumbly mass and is not fluffy.

Your recipe calls for a certain amount of white and brown sugar to be creamed and then more molasses to be added with the wet ingredients.

The safest method would be to thoroughly mix your white sugar and the white sugar + molasses to approximate the original recipe and then cream- adding the additional molasses later. Beyond this substitution you are creating your own recipe and it will require some experimentation.

Try adding all the molasses in the initial mix and see if that doesn't dissolve your sugar too much.
Try leaving all the molasses until after creaming.
In both cases- the creaming is successful if the butter is creamy and fluffy. Not a batter and not crumbly sugar.

Obviously I would do these experiments on a smaller portion and not risk a huge batch.

I doubt anyone could tell you exactly how this will turn out without experimenting. I've never seen a table that lists the water concentrations at which creaming is effective.


What kind of cream is used to make tomato sauce into an orange colour i.e. creamy tomato sauce? What kind of cream is used to make tomato sauce into an orange colour i.e. creamy tomato sauce? (the creamy tomato sauce that restaurants serve with pasta)
I'm looking to buy some cream to do that but I'm not sure the right type.

Any milk or cream will change the color of your tomato sauce.  It just depends on the fat content you want in your final dish.  I would assume that many restaurants use a light or full fat, cream, but you could certainly achieve the color change with milk, half-and-half, or cream.


Why do you add couscous to boiling water? All recipes for couscous I've seen instruct to add the couscous to already boiling water.

Why is that so? What difference does it make if it will be added to boiling water or cold water on the stove?

You don't really 'cook' cous-cous, it's already cooked - you just need to rehydrate it sufficiently, without getting it too wet & going sloppy.

Starting with boiling water give you a better time-reference - 5/10/15 minutes from that known start-point, depending on the specific cous-cous type. You switch off the heat as soon as you add [or in many cases just pour water onto it fresh from the kettle then let stand.]

Starting from cold would introduce an unknown variable - how long does it take to boil?


Do blueberries affect gelatin's ability to set? Will blueberries cause gelatin not to set?  I made orange gelatin adding canned peaches and fresh blueberries.   It did not set completely. Is it the blue berries causing the gelatin not to set?

No, the fault isn't with the blueberries. Certain fruits contain enzymes which denature ("digest" or separate) the amino acids in gelatin. Pineapple with the enzyme bromelain is one example. Blueberries don't have any protein digesting enzymes. The likely cause of your partially unset gelatin is not thoroughly draining the juice from the peaches. Possibly there was enough juice clinging to the peaches to thin out your gelatin. Next time, add a little less water when you make it.


How to clean up after kneading dough? I've been making my first steps in baking recently. I usually knead the dough in the same large bowl I mix the dough in to minimize the mess but it's still a pain to wash the bowl and any sponge I use for it gets ruined afterwards.
Any advice on how to make washing off dough?

Kneading in a bowl is time-consuming and doesn't give as good a result as kneading on a flat surface, however I'll concentrate on cleaning.

First, don't let things dry out, it's much easier to clean when things are moist, if you do let it dry out moisten it and let it soften before you try and clean it. Use cold water as hot water makes starches and proteins stick a lot more. Next, invest in a curved dough scraper, and use it to scrape out the dough scraps from the bowl into the garbage before you clean it. A curved plastic one works best as it has a bit of flex, although in a pinch you can use a big metal spoon. I scrape by bowl pretty much clean before I put it into the sink. Use the flat of the scraper to clear most of the dough and flour from your countertop, then spray down with water, let it soak for a few minutes, then scrape again. Once you have it scraped well sponge it down.


Pancetta leaking into cheesecloth I cured my Mangalitsa pancetta for 7 days and it was stiff. Then I rolled it and it got very soft. I double covered it with cheesecloth and now it is leaking into the cheesecloth. Is this good, bad or indifferent. Right now it is in my basement which is very dry, 40%. I am upping the humidity to 65% (all I did was turn the dehumidifier up to 65% and the basement is doing the rest) and the temp is between 65F and 70F. (Right now I'm double checking the top temp because it was reading 75F as the top temp.) BTW, the Mangalitsa belly was very thick and I used prague #1 and prague #2. (I thought I might age the pancetta for longer but it looks like that's not a good idea.) What should I do? BTW, by accident I put 10X the amount of prague #2 and caught it 4 hours later. I washed off the cure and completely redo it with Prague #2 at the appropriate strength.

This is difficult to assess and provide a definitive solution for because you've got several conditions that are not ideal. As you point out, your temp is too high and your humidity is too low, for starters.  Given the 7 day cure, I would normally say you are ok from a safety perspective, however, I am concerned by the "leaking", but that may just be the nature of your product.  Given that you say this belly was rather "thick", 7 days may not have been enough, but hard to tell from here.  Firmness after the cure is what you are going for.

I guess, for starters, I would suggest unrolling and hanging as a flat piece (called tesa).  I find that I get more consistent results, faster, making pancetta tesa. In your case, this might also help with excess moisture. You really just want to hang until it loses about 30% of it's pre-hanging weight. For me at about 55F and 70% humidity, that that usually takes in the neighborhood of 2 to 3 weeks.


enamelled pot with a chip on the outside on the bottom I have an enamelled pot with a chip on the outside on the bottom. This isn't a problem, is it?  It is about an inch long and maybe an eighth of an inch wide.

It should not be a big problem.

Just be careful not let the exposed area rust,

Clean and dry thoroughly.


Why is a copper bowl recommended for whipping cream and egg whites? They say you can get the whipped cream or egg whites "higher" or "stiffer" if you use a copper bowl.  Why is that?

According to wikipedia, the copper bonds to the sulfur in the egg whites, which has the effect of stabilizing the foam.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_white#Copper_bowl

Cookwise by Shirley Corriher says the same thing.


How do I cook large quantities of sliced bacon? This question is pretty straightforward. Are there ways to take a sliced slab of bacon (i.e. a whole large package) and effectively cook all the slices to be used in standard scenarios, like breakfast? Non-microwave methods are strongly preferred.

It really depends on how you're planning on using the bacon:

If you're going to be crumbling it anyway, you can cut it across the strips, and drop it into a pan and slowly render it, then turn up the heat to let it crisp.  You might also need to drain the grease part way through.
If you're willing to take a loss in flavor ... you can separate it into slices and simmer it.  It won't crisp up, but you can par-cook it, and then finish it using some other method.
If you have the time & equipment to sous-vide it as moscafj mentioned, I suspect you'd get a similar effect as simmering, but wouldn't lose as much flavor.  I'd also recommend splitting it up some to increase the surface-to-mass ratio as much as possible while still fitting in the bag, to decrease the cooking time.
If you want strips, the easiest bulk method is cooking it in the oven.  If you have multiple sheet pans and cooling racks (or use a broiler pan), you can cook a whole pound of bacon at once.  It can take an hour if you're cooking it slowly, but it's mostly unattended.  (although using a broiler pan requires flipping them over a few times).

If you do go with the simmer method, save the water for some other meal later (eg, beans & rice).


How much weight does pasta gain when boiled? In the diet my dietetician has prescribed me, I have amount of pasta allowed listed for dry (uncooked) pasta.

This is not a problem if I have the foresight to weigh the pasta before boiling, but it is a problem if I buy a dish with ready-made pasta or forget to weigh it before cooking (or just forget how much I had measured, and didn't write down).

Can you give me a rule of thumb / estimate, how much 75g of dry pasta weighs after it's boiled?

The accepted answer to the question about a closely related matter: "how much water does pasta absorb", to obtain its result goes through a calculation involving direct answer to my question.

  100g dry pasta turns into 100g*75/31 = 242g of cooked pasta.

and

  The estimate below from the nutrition facts is 1.4x, which probably corresponds to typical American overcooked pasta - a surprisingly large difference from mine. I'm guessing you'll be somewhere between, maybe 1.25x.

Obviously getting the amount of pasta+water involves simply increasing these factors by 1, so al dente will weigh 2.25x the original, and 'typical American overcooked pasta' will be 2.4x the original weight.

For my allowance of 75g that gives me 180g of "overcooked" pasta or 170g of al dente.


Is there any advantage to cooking beans in a pressure cooker, besides saving time? I cook beans quite frequently, and typically soak them overnight then cook them the next day.  I don't find that particularly laborious, so I've always wondered why people use pressure cookers. Are there any other advantages besides the time they save?

Besides what Layne mentioned :

If you're at extreme altitudes, you may not be able to get things hot enough to cook.  A friend in Boulder, Colorado once mentioned that she can't cook beans without one.  (I don't know if that's technically "too long to be practical" or "completely impossible", though)

Also, for pressure cookers that don't release steam as they're cooking, you prevent the aromatic compounds from leaving, resulting in more flavorful food.


How to easily peel fresh walnuts? Due to allergies the thin skin on the walnut itself needs to be removed. The walnuts itself are not dried yet and it is possible to remove it by hand in a time consuming effort. Is there an easy way to do that? Bonus if that method works as well on dried ones.

Below methods work on dried and fresh walnuts:

put walnuts in bowl and pour boiling water, after 15 minutes pour out the water. skin should be easily removes with nails or small knife
put nuts on a baking tray, put in oven warmed up to 200C (400F) for 15 minutes. When walnuts will cool off you can rub the skin out in your hand (if you have allergy you may use gloves)


Crisp skin of meat in the beginning or end of roasting and meat in aluminum foil 1) I would think that crisping the meat towards the end of the cook could result in drying the   already cooked portion, specifically if the heat is turned up for the crisping process near the end.

What do you think? Is there science behind this?

2) Also, why do some recipes require you to roast with the meat tucked in aluminum foil? Then we're effectively steaming the meat. Is there an advantage to that, flavor-wise, or is it only to speed up the cooking process?

Short answers:

Browning after cooking through works better because the surface is already dry;
Its to speed the cooking.

Both of your questions are all about the water, so it is important to understand how water influences the way that meat cooks.

Water, as is well known, boils (at sea level, anyway) at about 100 C / 212 F.  What is not well known is that the amount of energy to take liquid water at just at 100 C to steam just at 100 C is comparatively very large.  This energy (required to break the inter-molecular hydrogen bonds as water is a polar molecule) is called the enthalpy of vaporization.

In order for a water molecule to jump from the liquid at the surface of the food, into the free steam above its surface, it must absorb enough heat to "pay for" the ehnalpy of vaporization.

This means that when water evaporates, it actually cools the surface (which is why sweating works for people).  Conversely, when steam condenses on the surface of the food, it warms the surface because the enthalpy of vaporization is metaphorically paid back.

This process ensures that as long as their is liquid water at the surface of the meat (including being replaced from the interior as fast as it evaporates), the surface temperature of the meat cannot exceed 212 F / 100 C.

In order for steak or any other meat to brown, it must be brought to temperatures on the range of 250 - 300 F, at least, for the Maillard browning reactions to happen at a reasonable pace.  This cannot happen when there is free water left on the meat because the temperature will be too low.

So the best way to brown meat is after cooking it through at low temperature.  The low temperature cooking will have dried the surface, and it will be relatively easy to brown the surface for good flavor.  This will also lead to less over cooking at the surface.

A roast in the oven that is uncovered cannot obtain a surface temperature higher than 212 F so long as moisture from the interior flows to the surface and keeps it wet.  The evaporative cooling will ensure this.  This means that the heat conducting into the center is also limited to 212 F, and it may take a while to bring your roast to its desired temperature.

By wrapping the roast in foil, the steam evaporating from the surface is trapped close to the roast.   Eventually, the vapor pressure inside the foil will be such that water condenses back onto the roast almost as fast as it evaporates, essentially shutting down the evaporative cooling, as condensing water returns the energy lost in the enthalpy of evaporation.

So the surface temperature of the meat can now climb above 212 F, and thus allow conduction of heat into the center of the roast more quickly, allowing it to cook through to the desired temperature more quickly.

Of course, this is at the cost of keeping the surface moist, so won't develop crust as well.  This is why the foil is usually removed towards the end, so that the surface (which is quite hot) can now dry, and allow the delicious browning to proceed.

See also:

Does water boil faster with the lid on?
Amazing Ribs article Understanding and beating the stall


What's this discoloration in my saucepan? I've noticed this discoloration on or near the bottom of my saucepan, which stays even after cleaning. When dry, parts of the pan will appear slightly pinkish or greenish. Furthermore, there is often some white staining.

Is this a cleaning issue (given that I haven't entirely been good with cleaning the pan out promptly)? Or is this perhaps related to something lile my water supply? The saucepan appears to be made of stainless steel.

If Your Sauce Pan is Stainless Steel
All grades of stainless steels are iron-based alloys with significant percentages of chromium. Typically, stainless steels contain less than 30% chromium and more than 50% iron. Their stainless characteristics stem from the formation of an invisible, adherent, protective and self-healing chromium-rich oxide (Cr2O3) surface film. While stainless steels are resistant to rusting at room temperatures, they're prone to discoloration by oxidation at elevated temperatures due to the presence of chromium and other alloying elements such as titanium and molybdenum.

Factors that contribute to increased oxidation include high dew points, high oxygen and oxides of lead, boron and nitrides on the surface. For bright stainless steels, process them in a highly reducing atmosphere with a dew point lower than –40oF and a minimum of 25% hydrogen.

How to treat Heat Stains
A quick dip in an HCl solution followed by a thorough rinse should remove the oxide "stain", providing it only has a slight "heat" discoloration.

Hard Water Stains
Hard water stains. These result on metal surfaces like sinks and faucets and come about when those areas have been exposed to a large amount of affected water. Read on for some tips on removing hard water stains from metal surfaces in your home.


Can a loose leaf tea basket be used for steeping/brewing coffee? Is it possible to brew a good cup of coffee by steeping freshly ground coffee in a tea basket? Would the time amount be the same as for a french press (4 minutes)? It seems like it would technically work, but I couldn't find any personal accounts of its effectiveness. Has anyone tried this before?

Similar to this question but I'm curious about using the tea basket specifically along with determining the correct steeping variable values.

I have brewed coffee with my tea steeper in a pinch.  If you are not grinding your coffee you should either buy a percolator grind, or if using a drip grind, you will want to use a filter.  I have a used a melitta #2 coffee filters in my steeper.  They require a little finagling, but I can get it in there.

A side note, after doing this you either need to treat the steeper with vinegar (or other acid) or wash it really well.  Otherwise all of your delicious (and expensive) loose tea will be tainted with coffee flavor.


Best way to juice a pineapple What's the best way to juice a pineapple? Should the whole fruit be used or should the core be discarded?

(I'd prefer a method that doesn't require one of those huge electric fruit juicers. The only fruit juicers I have are for oranges and a hand one for lemons.)

To juice a pineapple without a juicer, cut off the rind and remove the fruit from the hard, inner core. Slice it up and pulverize the fruit in a blender or food processor with a few tablespoons of water. Filter through a screen colander if you want a lot of pulp, or line it with cheese cloth if you want less pulp.


Cooking and keeping food warm while traveling? Can somebody keep food warm by using heat from inside of an electric vehicle or do these vehicles waste less thermal energy, meaning more efficient in traveling then warming?

Because electric vehicles don't rely on combustion to create energy, there is no waste heat generated that can be diverted to the passenger compartment.
I've never driven a modern electric vehicle (although I did help build one that took first place in the 1995 World Solar-Car Rally and 4th in the 1995 GM Sunrayce), but my understanding is that they use electric heating, which will decrease your maximum distance.
In addition, battery packs can be discharged deeper when warmed, and so you'll lose range from that, as well.  Consumer Reports recommends pre-heating your vehicle while it's still plugged into wall power if your vehicle can do that.
I would instead recommend looking at other questions about keping food warm while traveling:

How can I keep hot food hot when transporting it?
Low tech strategies for keeping food warm
How to keep fried fish warm and crispy during transport to venue?
How to keep my pizza hot and crispy during transport


Why do my mung beans turn from green to dark brown in a rice cooker? I use a rice cooker like the one shown below to cook dried mung beans and red beans (Adzuki beans) as well as rice of course.

After boiling and cooking, the rice cooker switches to a stable hot temperature to store the contents for a second meal, I suppose the idea being that bacteria don't grow readily when it's too hot.

That seems to work fine for all of them, except that while the rice is still white in the morning and the red beans still red, the mung beans turn dark brown in the morning. In fact they start changing color within a few hours. It doesn't matter if I've made them fairly dry or quite wet.

I cook them on different days, they are not mixed. Just the dried product and an equal or larger amount of tap water.

Is it possible to understand why the mung beans turn so dark brown if they stay hot? I don't notice any big change in taste, but the color looks quite discouraging. Is there anything I can add that would prohibit the color change?

My mung beans also always turn brown before it's fully cooked. I never tried blanching them though. It's the way of preserving colors in cooking. But I never even heard of blanching Legumes. I might give it a try though. Hot water/Cold water shock in the beginning, and then the rest of cooking. We'll see..


Making large batches of syrups and sauces without reducing the majority of what I originally started with? I've recently come across the recipe to make one of my favorite glazes, "Jack Daniels Glaze" from T.G.I. Fridays and am close to perfecting it. The only issue I'm currently facing is that in order to get it to the thick consistency I want, I have to reduce down it to 1/4 of what I started with. For example, I started with 8 cups of water and end up with 2 with my heat on medium high for about an hour. I've tried this on something as simple as a run of the mil pot to my higher end copper core All-Clad sauce pan both yielding the same results. What's the key to making large batches of my sauce? Do I need even more water? Note that I've tried high and low heat. Here are my ingredients:

8 cups water
1 cup teriyaki sauce
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
2 cups of brown sugar
1 lemon
1/4 of a yellow onion
1/4 cup Jack Daniels Whiskey
2 cloves of roasted garlic
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 tablesppon of crushed pineapple

Original Recipe: https://hostthetoast.com/jack-daniels-burgers-t-g-i-fridays-copycat-recipe/

Follow the recipe and increase everything by the same proportion if you want to make more instead of just adding more water. You've octupled the water but kept everything else about the same. Of course you'll have to boil off all that extra water before the consistency is correct. If you had a recipe for a gallon of lemonade but wanted two gallons, would you add an extra gallon of water to the original recipe and expect it to taste the same? Or would you add more lemon and sugar in addition to the extra water to keep the flavor the same? Same thing here, adding more water will water it down, you need to increase everything to increase the yield and keep the consistency the same as the original.
Interestingly that page even has a button to scale up the recipe. Click it and you'll see it does exactly what I say here: it doubles or triples all ingredients.


Finishing chicken thighs under broiler Rather than pan-searing chicken thighs after sous vide cooking, is broiling in the oven an option to crisp the skin?

Sure you can broil, however consider this:  Sous vide cooking does not render any of the fat.  So a quick broil might char the outside of the skin, but the fat could remain more rubbery. Some of this will depend on the nature of your chicken thighs.  I've noticed that, depending on the chicken (organic v. non...brand to brand), some chicken is more fatty than others.  One way to deal with this would be to do a good pre-sear, before you sous vide.  Then cook sous vide.  Then post-sear (or broil).


Why is grocery store celery trimmed of its leaves? I only use celery as an ingredient. It’s part of the trinity, and gumbo wouldn’t be gumbo without it. While I was in Asia, I learned how useful and delicious celery leaves are, but I can’t find a local supermarket that sells un-trimmed celery. Is there a reason why produce wholesalers remove the leaves?

You did not disclose your location, but here are some reasons:

It is an opportunity taken by the producer to increase the price. They can sell the product as-is, or process it further and sell it for more (ex. whole onions vs diced onions, the diced onions will be more expensive for the same amount). Sure they need to spend a little more time fabricating it, but they can also sell it for higher profit margins. This is called value added.
Where you live, celery leaves are simply not used as an ingredient. Before you went to Asia, did you ever hear of people adding celery leaves in their food? I've worked in restaurants for five years, and indeed we always cut the leaves off and threw them away. We didn't need to use it. Not once did we have a recipe that called for it.
It is the part of the celery that spoils the fastest. Even if the rest of the celery is fine and all you need to do is cut off the leaves, it is harder for the provider to sell celery with leaves that brown quickly versus selling celery without.


How should I handle food that sticks in stainless steel pans or woks after cooking in sunflower oil? Possible Duplicate:
  Why does my food turn out poorly using an All-Clad Stainless-Steel Fry Pan?

Is there a way to prevent food that is cooked in sunflower oil from sticking to the pans / wok? Would a low heat help? If the food does stick, how could it be removed?

To prevent sticking, your pan surface should be around 150 to 160°C. The farther away you move from that (higher or lower temperature), the more likely that your food will stick. So the temperature is very important, but without knowing how you are cooking, I can't tell you if you need more or less heat.

If you have a layer of food which sticks, but hasn't burned, scratch it with a spatula and stir or turn. If it is burned, remove from the heat, scoop the food above the burned layer, and, if not yet ready, continue cooking in another pan. Be careful, because if you include flakes of burned food, your whole meal will taste burned.


Making pizza toppings stay intact without using cheese I am going to be following this recipe to make my pizza dough
https://tasty.co/recipe/2-ingredient-dough-pizza

However, I have just realised we ran out of cheese. I have processed cheese slices but I don't think that would taste good on the pizza. They're only good for cheese toasties.

How can I make sure my pizza toppings stay intact on the pizza base? Once I made a pizza without cheese and everything just fell everywhere when I start cutting into the pizza. Is there an easy alternative to cheese, or a tip to make the ingredients stick together?

You can try adding some sauce on top of the toppings, just a light layer to hold things in place.

It'll brown a bit and harden slightly, which might add enough firmness to keep things from sliding off.

The cheese normally does this, plus it's "sticky" and stretchy, so it keeps all the ingredients in one place, more-or-less.


What can pasta absorb from the water it's cooked in? I know you're supposed to put salt in the water when you're cooking pasta, both to aid in anti-starch gelation and to add flavour.

This got me thinking - what ELSE can pasta absorb from the water it is boiled in? I suppose it couldn't be anything, probably depends on the surface of the pasta, its cells, etc.

To test I put a LOT of nutmeg in a bowl of water, boiled it and dropped some couscous in it.

The couscous didn't taste like nutmeg at all. I guess it could be because the nutmeg does not dissolve in water but still - does pasta absorb everything that is dissolved in the water it is cooked in? Does that mean we can create super-pasta if we boil it in sauce or something?

It can absorb spices.

I have a Sicilian couscous recipe which involves boiling large couscous in water with a couple of cinnamon sticks.  The couscous tastes mildly of cinnamon when it's done, which is part of the balanced spicing of the recipe.  The large couscous in this case is boiled for 7 minutes, and you put the cinnamon sticks in while the water is still cold.


What temperature and time should I use for a cupcake recipe? I am having difficulty baking a vanilla and chocolate cup-size cake. The ingredients are as follows:

12 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup butter, cut into pieces
1 cup cold milk
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup white sugar

The problem is that the cake burns on the outside, and then the inside is not completely done. If I reduce the amount of batter I use in the tin to a half-size cup, they end up as cookies. I have also tried to reduce the temperature from 200 degree to 100 degree, extending the time from 15 minutes to 30 minutes but still do not get a well-balanced end result.

I would like to know if I have a bad mixture of ingredients, or a completely wrong temperature and timing for cupcakes.

Firstly, it strikes me as odd that your recipe has no raising agent - no baking powder, no bicarbonate/baking soda, no self-raising flour. Unless you're whipping a lot of air into the batter, the cakes will barely rise, and you will end up with 'cookies'.

I would add 2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda) and see if that helps.

As for the temperature of your oven, I wouldn't go so far as to halve the temperature and double the time. The idea is that you need enough heat for the cakes to rise at a decent rate then form a crust on the outside. 100 degrees will do little but slowly dry the cakes out.

Domestic ovens are rarely well calibrated, so your oven may be running hotter than the dial indicates. Invest in an oven thermometer to make sure you are setting the temperature correctly: I have had an oven run 40 degrees hotter than the dial said before now!

If you haven't got the time to get a thermometer, try setting the oven about 20 degrees cooler on the dial, to around 180 degrees.


Are there certain kinds of salts that work best for baking (cakes, bread, etc)? As there are different kinds of salts which contain different minerals, is there a kind of salt that is better to use when baking?

Does the kind of salt depend on what I am baking?

Salt that is used for food consumption is always meant to be sodium chloride (and may or may not contain other things such as iodine). Other "salts" (to use the term in the chemistry sense) such as potassium chloride are not generally used by themselves for human consumption or specified in food preparation, even though they are potentially safe to eat.

Sea salt is still 85% sodium chloride but because it has additional chemicals/elements/compounds in it, does have a different taste.

For best results when baking, use plain table salt, sodium chloride, with or without iodine (which is added to provide a necessary nutrient for those not living near a salt-water source of fish or not eating enough salt-water fish). Note from the link that sea salt does not contain enough iodine to supply a nutritionally adequate amount.


How do I get pepper to stick to my beef jerky? I have been making beef jerky for a few years now and have settled on a recipe I like a lot and use the majority of the time. It includes cracked black peppercorns which add a pepper flavor to the marinade, which gets absorbed by the meat, but also (ideally) sticks to the sides of the meat.

What I find is that by the time the jerky is done, at least half of the peppercorn pieces are in the bottom of the dehydrator or in the colander I use for draining the marinade.

I am careful not to dump much marinade on the beef already in the colander. I start by dumping it off to the side until most of it is gone, then the beef slides out into the colander with only a tiny bit of marinade left. I do not appear to be losing many peppercorns to the rinsing effect of dumping the liquid marinade over the peppered beef.

One or twice during dehydration I flip the beef pieces for more even drying. I try to avoid brushing off any peppercorns, but invariably I lose quite a few.

How can I get more cracked peppercorns to stick to the finished product of my homemade beef jerky?

Can my technique be improved?
Is there an ingredient I can add to the marinade to encourage the peppercorns and beef to stick together without altering the flavor?
Something else?

The recipe is very basic but very good: for each cut of flank steak (approximately 1.5 lbs) I add one bottle of Worcestershire, fill the bottle with water and add that, two tablespoons of salt, and two tablespoons of cracked peppercorns. This all goes in a one gallon Ziplok bag, and the bags all go in a plastic container to prevent spills/leakage in the fridge overnight. I sometimes add other spices, but I find the core ingredients are often very strong and flavorful enough.

I can think of two solutions, but both are just suggestions, takeoffs from other food prep.

One is to do what I do when I make peppered steak, and that is to press the cracked pepper into the meat before dehydrating. I coat the meat in cracked pepper and then use a fry-weight or press down with the side of a cleaver to impact the pepper. It makes the pepper cling through cooking, so I'm thinking it might work for drying as well.

The other is to glaze your jerky with a bit of diluted honey or brown sugar solution for sweet, or egg wash (seasoned or not) for savory, so that when it dries, it makes a glue to adhere the cracked pepper. Again, this is a method I use with something else, but I see no reason why it couldn't work with meat.

If you try either one, please let me know how it works for dehydrating meat.


How can I correct this Brandy Snaps disaster? I recently got a copy of the "Be-ro book of Home Recipes". Near the beginning is a recipe for 'brandy snaps'. This is a kind of cracker that is rolled after cooking to make tubes that are then filled with cream. However, my attempt to cook them failed and I want to know where I'm going wrong.

The first set was on parchment paper but not properly greased so they stuck to the paper.

The second set was greased but still tore when trying to lift off the paper. Also they have to be rolled when hot but they are far to hot to touch until they cool but then they are too stiff to roll.

The third set again just tore and couldn't be rolled.

On the plus side, the did taste nice but how can I stop them looking like something the dog should be eating.

You will have to put on your asbestos chef's fingers and roll them while hot I'm afraid. You should leave them for about 15 seconds once they're out of the oven. If you leave them for too long to cool you can always pop them back in the oven for a few seconds to re-soften.

One thing that might help you is silicon baking sheets. Not only are these very 'non-stick', they also flexible, so you can use them as pseudo-oven gloves to roll the brandy snaps up.


How to season my tagine if my oven doesn't have setting for the temperature the instructions call for? I recently bought a tagine for cooking. I have to season my tagine by heating it in the oven with the temperature below 300 F. My oven works with two settings of 350 and 375F. May I prepare my tagine for use on the stovetop with a diffuser or does it has to be prepared for the initial use in the oven? May I use a higher temperature of 350F? Please help me with your advice.

Ask a good friend, neighbor or nearby relative with a real or proper oven, if you can use theirs for the short period of time required to accomplish this task.

Make them a nice, flavorful dish and carry it over as a Thank-you gift after you are done.


The quantity of which ingredients should be increased to raise the moistness of a cake? I tried this recipe and found the result to be quite dry for my taste.

It contains milk, oil, and eggs.

Which among the three should be increased to how much amount in order to raise the moistness of that cup cake?

In order to keep the question generic I request that the answers should describe why, how, and which such that the answer is useful for generic cakes.

Talking about the role of each single ingredient and how they interact is way too much for an answer here, and parts of it have been discussed in other questions anyway. So I will give a quick info on the recipe you linked:

It has way too much flour. For a standard pound cake, you want equal weights of flour, sugar, fat and egg, and most muffins follow a similar ratio. Some of them add liquid. But what you have here is a recipe which adds 50 g of sugar, 55 g of egg and 60 g of oil to 130 g of flour. Luckily, the oats are soaked, so they are probably not sucking out additional moisture from the batter. But still, you should change the ratio to get a standard muffin. Or, better still, you can get a recipe that works instead of fiddling with a bad one; finding a new, good recipe is generally easier than repairing.


What would cause maple syrup bottles to bulge? This year a lot of our maple syrup bulged out the bottles and almost blew the tops off when loosened. There were particles found in the syrup.  What is going on??

Even though the risk with canning/bottling maple syrup is supposed to be virtually nonexistent, it sounds like yours was somehow contaminated. I definitely would not use them as "bulging" cans or bottles are a prominent sign of botulism spores.

See the CDC's Home Canning and Botulism:

  Home-canned food might be contaminated if:

  The container is leaking, bulging, or swollen
  The container looks damaged, cracked, or abnormal
  The container spurts liquid or foam when opened
  The food is discolored, moldy, or smells bad

That said, it's not necessarily botulism, that's just the worst-case scenario - but it definitely sounds like some sort of bacterial contamination which is usually due to either improper canning or improper storage. What you're seeing is the result of a pressure build-up, and the pressure has to be created by something, and that "something" is usually bacteria eating the food inside and producing gas.


inside dimension for homemade digestive cookie mold I'm interested in modeling and 3D printing a digestive cookie mold in metal. I plan to model some text into the press itself, so that the cookie's all have a consistent wordmark after baking. Since I have never baked these before, I don't know how thick they should be before baking (ie how deep the mold should be) and I'm thinking if I make the letterforms too thin, the text won't be readable in the event that the batter swells up when baked and fills in the gaps.

Do any of you seasoned bakers have any suggestions for how deep the press needs to be, and how best to model the letterforms? Thank you!

The dough used in a mold has a lot to do with the end result. It's best to use a firm, non-sticky dough, that can be gently pressed into the mold to imprint the design.  Commercial digestives are not baked in a mold, but are machine embossed and cut before baking, using a rotary mold that incises the distinctive design (e.g., Digestives, Oreo). For your biscuits, you might consider creating a stamp or, if you're really ambitious, a rolling pin version.

Here's an example of a stamp sold at Jarrold (UK)

And a commercial roller manufactured by F&S Engraving (Mount Prospect, Illinois US)


Is Consumer Reports really correct about 6 parts water to 1 part rice? There's been a number of news reports recently about possible high concentrations of inorganic arsenic in rice. I heard that Consumer Reports says to cook 1 part rice in 6 parts water to minimise risk:

  "We say to use about 6 parts water to 1 part rice," says Michael Hansen, a senior staff scientist at Consumer Reports. "And then drain off the water after it's done."

What!?!? Are they cooking rice soup? The only way I see that helping to reduce arsenic consumption would be to make the worst tasting rice ever so you don't want to eat it!

For years I have always thoroughly rinsed my rice and let it dry for about 10-15 minutes, brought water to a boil in a small saucepan (just under 2 parts water for 1 part rice) and then added the rice, covered, and cooked on low heat for 20 minutes. After the 20 minutes I don't drain anything, I just server the rice. It's always perfectly cooked.

Is Consumer Reports really correct about 6 parts water to 1 part rice!? Would the rice be any good cooked with that much water? If so, would I need to do anything differently?

I am accustomed to the boil-and-drain method of cooking rice. If you like your rice very soft/mushy, you can even cook rice 3.5:1 and wait until all water has evaporated on moderate-to-low heat (this is how my grandma always does it). The texture is different from the aldente 2:1 rice common in the USA, but I think the preference is a matter of habit.

It is perfectly possible to boil and then drain rice, although 6:1 is an uncommonly high ratio of water to rice. Obviously, Consumer Reports are more concerned with leeching contaminants out of the rice than with culinary aspects such as convenience and taste. Still, the rice cooking method exists, and there is no culinary objection against it except that some people don't like the resulting soft texture.

The boil-and-drain method (actually simmer-and-drain) is often combined with first frying the rice in oil until translucent, as for pilaf, but it is not technically required. You can just simmer in salted water until it has reached the desired consistency (depending on the type of rice you used, it will be somewhere on the spectrum between soft separate grains and a sticky soft mass where you have trouble separating the grains), then remove from the heat and drain. Add your aroma after the draining, as you don't want to throw it out with the water.


What is the name for a round flaky pastry that has a chocolate cream filling in the middle I'm trying to make a dessert I had in Palermo, Sicily. I wanted to find a recipe for it online, but I can't remember the name of it now. I know it's fairly common, but googling didn't help. It's basically just a large round flaky pastry with a large opening in the center and filled with a chocolate cream. The cream is not hidden by the pastry, but it is in the open. It's similar to a danish.

Edit by rumtscho

Unless I am terribly mistaken, this question is about this thing, only with a chocolate creme instead of vanilla pudding in the middle:

And no, I don't know an English name for that thing more special than "Danish", else I would have answered already.

That sounds a lot like a Czech Kolache, except that usually has fruit in the middle rather than chocolate.  I suspect a lot of European regions have something similar.  Some bakeries have made variations with different fillings

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolache)


Ma Po Doufu without Pork In China there is a famous dish called Ma Po Doufu 麻婆豆腐 and most of the recipes I find online have pork. I was wondering if anyone knew if pork was an essential part of the dish (in terms of flavoring) or if there was something you could do to make it a vegetarian option? Would the dish work with chicken/beef?

A number of Chinese restaurants are happy to prepare it without pork or beef. I've seen it with pork (most common) or beef (sometimes).

A vegetarian Chinese place that I occasionally visit uses a "vegetarian ham" along with some vegetables like peas to augment the custardy texture of the soft tofu. I like to add some ja tsai (zasai, depending on romanization preferences) pickles in there, though I'd guess that's not that common.

Pork is not absolutely essential to the identity of the dish, but it's certainly the most likely version to be served.


Mexican style taco cheese So I know these cheeses are a blend of yellow and white cheddar as well as some Monterey Jack (sometimes pepper jack), but do you know what seasonings are used to make these taco style shredded cheese blends?

I am guessing cumin and chili powder, but if anyone knows for sure that would be great in order to duplicate when recipes call for these shredded blends.

We do a fajita night once a week in my house; so I have tuned the following recipes over the last 10 years or so.

1/2 tsp of each:
ground cumin
onion powder
salt
chili powder
cornstarch (ONLY if melting cheese)
crushed red peppers (optional for spicy)
garlic powder
oregano leaves
(Heavy cream and butter if melting)

Cheese base is pending my mood; queso fresca, standard white sauce with cheddar or some fancy mexican blend with the standard, colby/cheddar/jack...

Based on your post i would recommend the colby/cheddar/jack with spices (can we call that the fajita trinity?).


Should I peel garlic before pressing it? I've never been sure about this. It doesn't impact the taste or texture, as far as I can tell.

I'm talking about those little crushing tools that you put a clove of garlic in, and squeeze it like pliers, and it presses the garlic through little holes.

Should you peel the clove before you do this? Why or why not?

You don't have to peel garlic before using a garlic press, but doing so lets you press more garlic before you have to clean out the skins and so forth.  If you only need to press a clove or two, there is not a lot of reason to peel first, since you will just have to clean the press out once.


Mayonnaise gets too thin after adding solids I make a mayonnaise by slowly whisking a cup of extra light olive oil into two eggs yolks and a tablespoon of dijon mustard. The mayonnaise is not as thick as store bought mayo but it is thick enough to spread.

However, when I stir in solid ingredients to make an aioli the emulsion suddenly becomes very thin. It doesn't break, but it turns into a liquid. This has happened with minced garlic and with chopped clams. Sometimes after stirring in the solid ingredients it looks as if there are bubbles coming out of the emulsion.

What causes this, and how can I prevent it?

I'm going to step out on a limb based on experiences I've had. I suspect that adding garlic and or chopped clams after you have emulsified your other ingredients is simply adding moisture and making your mayo/aioli thinner. (Especially since you said that it doesn't break.)

I would suggest putting your garlic or clams in at the beginning with your other ingredients before you emulsify with the oil. If you still find it to be too thin you can whisk in another whisked egg yolk or a little more oil to get your desired consistency.

Re the comment about acid, I don't use any. Also there would likely be vinegar in the Dijon mustard, so you are not sans acid.


How can I prevent bacon mayonnaise from splitting when above fridge temp? I know how to fix a split mayonnaise made with olive or vegetable oil - that's not a problem.

I have made Kenji Lopez-Alt's recipe for animal fat mayonnaise (bacon fat, for putting on a burger). It emulsified beautifully, chilled wonderfully.. and then as soon as you put it on a burger it gets too warm and splits faster than a gymnast at the Olympics.

The recipe I used:

2 egg yolks
1.5tbsp Dijon
1tbsp white wine vinegar
salt and pepper
600mL bacon fat
800mL vegetable oil

Two egg yolks should be more than enough to emulsify this, and indeed were -- I had to add tons of vegetable oil just to get the right consistency. But as soon as the bacon mayonnaise gets above fridge temp, it splits immediately. It re-emulsified with agitation, but that's a bit tough to do when one is trying to serve a burger in a restaurant. Help?

I think the problem is actually not the heating, but the refrigeration!

Consider: bacon fat solidifies easily and thickly, and does so even at room temperature. When you throw it in the fridge, the micro-droplets of bacon fat will turn to solids and clump together. These solid droplets are frozen in place when solid, but when you thaw it, they melt and reveal how wrecked your emulsion is.  Now, you could add additional emulsifying agents (lecithin, extra yolks) but that's not really going to solve the problem of refrigeration.

The solution is to break up the bacon fat as it melts, and re-establish the emulsion before it can break.  To do this, you have to whisk constantly as you gently heat the mayonnaise, generally in a warm water bath.

How to execute this in a restaurant setting:

Prep a big batch of bacon-mayo and throw it in the fridge. Just before service, warm some water in a pot and throw a cup of the mayo in a small bain marie or metal 6th hotel pan.  Immerse the bain/pan in the pot, and whisk it as it melts.  Hold the mayonnaise for service in water warm enough to melt bacon fat, and DISCARD THE WARM MAYONNAISE EVERY TWO HOURS AND THAW A FRESH BATCH.  Make sure no cooks get lazy about that -- it's a food safety problem.  Ideally, you should be using pasteurized eggs to reduce the risk of salmonella. Basically, you're treating your mayonnaise like a Hollandaise or Bearnaise.

I've found that the thawing trick works fairly well for home hollandaise (which most people say shouldn't refrigerate), and which does the same thing if heated fast.  It should apply to easily-broken mayonnaise too.


Using pesto as a sauce ingredient I have some leftover turkey (still) and a jar of pesto, so came up with an idea to make a kind of turkey pasta pesto bake: my thoughts were to end up with something along the lines of baked ziti (only discovered when Googling this).  However, having had a quick search, there seems to be a consensus that pesto shouldn't be heated.  Are there any recipes or techniques that might be applicable to what I'm trying to achieve?  I was basically just going to switch the beef for turkey, and add pesto to the sauce.

In this case, I'm using red pesto; although I'd be very interested if the answer differs between pesto types.

I found one or two recipe about baking pesto pasta. In my first try in making pesto spaghetti, I also accidentally cooking spaghetti with pesto in pan, heating. Turns out basil flavor will a bit less, though really not much different, same with heating with other herbs. If you are serving for families (same for me:)), place a jar of pesto when serving in case somebody wants more "pesto taste" .

This link is to make a tomato-basil-cheese baked pasta

-- Sound similar to your red pesto

While this link is to make a chicken pesto baked pasta

-- You can substitute with turkey then

For the red sauce, if you are using those for beef spaghetti sauce (bought from supermarket?!), and taste meaty, add some fresh tomatoes to increase freshness and sweetness!


How to increase spiciness without abusing hot spices? It's easy to make food more spicy by dumping a bag of ground hot pepper in it, or adding a pound of sambal, or pick one of the capsaicin concentrates and add a few drops.

I'm interested though in methods/additions to spicy food that make it more hot - which are not (or only mildly) spicy in themselves.

One way I know is to make it literally hot; the sensations add up. Another common one, though not applicable frequently is alcohol, which acts twofold, washing off any isolating substances like thin layers of oil etc off your taste buds, and increases blood circulation making absorption of substances faster.

What other ways are there to make food feel more hot than its capsaicin content would suggest?

If you wish to explore adding spiciness to a dish, there are two primary methods for increasing the heat: additive and reductive. The one you choose will depend on the dish and what you are trying to get out of it.

For something like a simple oil and pasta dish, the latter may be preferable, whereas with something like a three meat chili the former may be better.

One that I couldn't quite class was thermal. The capsaicin acts on the VR1 Ion Channel, which is somewhat heat dependent. At higher heat (in excess of 42'C/107'F), the channel remains open longer and gaps between openings drop. You may want to avoid reducing the heat of the dish when served. However, this was dependent on a higher ambient temperature, so your subject may need to have a fever or something. For the findings:

  Instead, heat had a localized effect on the reduction of long closures
  between bursts (of ionic receptivity) ... and the elongation of burst durations.
  ...Both membrane lipids and solution ionic strength affected the
  temperature threshold of the activation, but neither diminished the
  response

Reductive Methods

If you wish to simplify your dish, reductive methods would be ideal. They are simply ones in which you would analyze the ingredients that you are using in your dish, assessing which ones either water down or act as solvents of the capsaicin, and then remove them.

Capsaicin is lipophilic, fat soluble. If you have dairy products, excess fat from meat that could have been rendered, and so on, I would remove or substitute these as possible. Alcohol in some contexts can dissolve the capsaicin, however does not typical work in this fashion when consumed or if combined in the same dish (i.e. if the capsaicin has nowhere to dissolve).

Additive Methods

If you are not concerned about adding complexity, additive methods may be ideal. This approach will include not just adding a given capsaicin medium, but could also include adding a variety of them. This would also include adding items like beer, tomato, or really any carbonated, acidic, or alcoholic liquid that enhance expression of flavors generally and not just of capsaicin.

If you add only one medium (ground cayenne, capsaicin extract, etc), you will have only one form of the spiciness. The concentration and distribution of the capsaicin will be singular.

If you think about the dishes' ingredients as a range of slots to fill, food preparation will only distribute the capsaicin of the capsaicin medium into a given number and type of slots. However, if you utilize a number of capsaicin media, then the range of slots will begin to open up and the expression of the spiciness will become more diverse.

Although I am unsure how to express this in chemical terms, I think that this is a decent way of explaining the phrase "the heat builds." A "building heat" is one that relies on more than one capsaicin medium; a good case for this might be a 4-pepper chili where the heat is derived from multiple types of hot peppers.


Non Pork Bacon Alternatives So, I love turkey bacon, and have it a lot; however, I always feel that i'm eating a mush processed meat.

Are there any meat cut alternatives to pork bacon from other animals?
Has anyone tried to make "processed bacon" at home?
Now in England, I've had Beef bacon. In retrospect I should've asked what cut of meat it was

The problem is, few animals have anywhere near the fat content of pork. Bacon is actually leaner than some other cuts from the pig (Mmmmmm, fatback...Had fried fatback once, true story.)

So to get a cut of meat with as much fat as bacon? Pretty much impossible. But bacon is also about smoky flavor, and delicious nitrates (and gas phase polycyclic aromatics, the best carcinogen on the planet). There is duck bacon, lamb bacon, beef bacon. There's probably veal bacon, but that'd be pretty expensive.

Most people recommend lamb bacon, if you can't handle pork, but the beef bacon is probably easier to find in the US.

Edit:

Behold fried fatback!