In Canada, must commercially sold mussels be purged and purified in UV filtered water for 42 hours? I live in Toronto, Canada. I buy my mussels from Diana's Seafood or Loblaws.

I wonder if the quote beneath from Mussel Myths & FAQs - The Cornish Mussel Shack
holds true for Canada too?

  Do I need to soak my mussels in water and oatmeal?
  No. This used to be done to help purge the mussel of any grit. All commercially sold mussels legally have to be purged and purified in UV filtered water for 42 hours. During this time most of the grit and sediment is released from the mussel.

  Do I need to soak the mussels and throw away the ones that float?
  Salt water mussels should never be soaked in fresh water as this will kill them, and as explained in the above answer there is no longer any need to soak mussels. This was done in the past to identify dead mussels. People thought that a floating mussel was a dead mussel, which is also is not true. A live mussel can often trap an air bubble when it snaps shut, and this is why some mussels float. To identify dead mussels see our page on preparing mussels safely.

How to Clean and Debeard Mussels | Serious Eats says something similar, but nothing about the law.

  As an added bonus, most farm-raised mussels are grown on vertical rope farms, which means that they come to market quite clean—wild mussels can house a good amount of debris from the seabed or rock walls they grew on. On top of that, farm-raised mussels are held in tanks prior to packaging and shipping, which means that the purging step—soaking the mussels in clean water until they spit out impurities—has already been done for you.

In regards to the first of the two questions you asked, " [does] the quote beneath from Mussel Myths & FAQs - The Cornish Mussel Shack holds true for Canada too?"

  Do I need to soak my mussels in water and oatmeal?
  No. This used to be done to help purge the mussel of any grit. All commercially sold mussels legally have to be purged and purified in UV filtered water for 42 hours. During this time most of the grit and sediment is released from the mussel.

  Do I need to soak the mussels and throw away the ones that float?
  Salt water mussels should never be soaked in fresh water as this will kill them, and as explained in the above answer there is no longer any need to soak mussels. This was done in the past to identify dead mussels. People thought that a floating mussel was a dead mussel, which is also is not true. A live mussel can often trap an air bubble when it snaps shut, and this is why some mussels float. To identify dead mussels see our page on preparing mussels safely.

Yes, it does to a point; but not in regards to food safety - just taste. In my experience (I live in Alberta), you should still follow those guidelines simply from a taste perspective because while generally cleaned and soaked prior to commercial sale no process is perfect at any level (think "pre-washed lettuce" found at Loblaws as well). I have found rinsing them as you listed helps with the taste. I do this with both the store bought mussels I cook, as well as the freshwater clams I catch (not quite the same process but very similar).

Now, onto question two - I know in Toronto there will be a local fish market or seafood market that specializes in shellfish, call them. They will be happy to assist you in understanding the regulations as it pertains to the consumption of all kinds of seafood as some regulations also vary from province to province.


Piping whipped cream icing vs buttercream I'm looking to try piping whipped cream icing, instead of buttercream -- what are the major handling differences the feel to it, different tips to use, any tricks or pitfalls I should be aware of? I've never done whipped cream icing before, but it was requested. I am used to a stiff buttercream, and would like to know the handling comparisons when piping it.

You could try adding a piping gel, such as the one found here, which contains no eggs or dairy.

Alternatively, the colder you keep the whipped cream icing, the better it will hold its shape. You could refrigerate the icing until immediately prior to serving which would help.


Over easy eggs sticking in copper pan I was given a new copper pan and tried to cook my over easy eggs in the pan without butter, as it says in the ads.

However, the eggs stuck in the pan horribly. I usually use butter to cook even in my other not stick pan and they come out fine. What am I doing wrong?

Eggs are very hard to get right on a non-teflon pan, but do-able. First, you need oil or butter. I don't care what the infomercials say, I've never been able to fry eggs on a metal pan without oil.

Second you need to get the heat right. Oil forms a barrier between the pan and the egg, and also conducts heat better, what actually keeps an egg from sticking is the steam produced by the egg cooking. If the pan is too cold, or the transfer of heat to the egg is not fast enough then steam will not be produced quickly enough to keep the egg from sticking. You need to get the heat up on your pan. If the egg burns before it's cooked you've gone too far.


How to get best taste out of tomatoes? I'm making an Indian dish, for this I need tomatoes, no matter what recipe I follow I'm not getting the taste of the restaurant.

Is this because I'm not preparing tomato properly or is it because I'm not choosing good tomatoes? How can I identify good tomatoes??

Most tomatoes from the produce aisle will be relatively flavourless— this is because they are frequently picked when they are unripe so that they can ripen en route to the store and extend their shelf life as a result. Try using canned tomatoes instead, which are picked at the height of their ripeness and preserved right away.


Why does my pan always splatter when I make chicken breasts? I've been cooking for myself since summer started and have been pan-frying a lot of chicken breasts in Sunflower oil. They taste great, but from about halfway through, there's a TON of splattering. Even with the splatter shield it makes a mess of the stove.

I cook them on medium, which takes about 12-14 minutes a side on my stove. Reducing the heat doesn't help much and just takes longer to finish cooking them. I've also tried adding more oil, but that doesn't prevent the splattering either.

The reason why fried meat splatters is that correct frying temperatures (~ 180 Celsius pan surface) are well above the vaporizing temperature of water (100 Celsius). Each droplet of cell plasma which comes into contact with the frying fat creates a tiny steam explosion. And explosions splatter.

If you were meaning to ask not why it splatters, but how to prevent it: you can't. See also the existing question about it.

On a side note, 12-14 minutes per side of chicken breast sounds like you are reducing it to particleboard. See this question for correct internal temepratures.


Diagrammatic Notations for Recipes Are there any interesting diagrammatic recipe notations out there?

I have found Nassi-Shneiderman diagrams:

used here at Cooking for Engineers.

An activity diagram from here:

Is there anything interesting in use by anyone?

I mean 'interesting' in two senses

The diagram conveys the structure of the recipe. The user should be able to browse through a recipe book and get an impression what is being done. Similar recipes should have similar diagrams or parts
The diagram uses some fancy mathematical notation that in some way reflects some properties of the recipe (that's why I show the Penrose diagram).

Penrose notation

Actually I like neither of the two diagrams. The Nassi-Shneiderman is more of a nice tabular form than a diagram, and the activity diagram does not show much of the structure of the recipe.
For example it does not convey any idea of time, and if you could not read the text, you had no idea what the recipe is about. The sub-recipes (like making the dough) are not very visible, either.

Sometimes, when planning a new kitchen, you'd want a motion diagram.
With bigger (restaurant/hotel) kitchens, we might pick some of the more complex recipes, and map how the staff would go about making them.

It's basically a diagram of the kitchen with who needs to go where and how often, derived from the recipe. Note that where maps clearly to what the person is doing at the time, so it goes "get stuff from fridge, go to mixing machine, use counter space (to lay out dough), move to ovens etc.

You could add diagrammatic notation for the activity fairly easily, but probably not for the foods themselves. If you do decide to draw up that many diagrammatic icons for foods and cooking activities, let me know and I'll happily use them.


How long does fresh parsley keep in the fridge? How long does fresh parsley stay good if kept in a refrigerator?

If you stand it up in water like a flower, these guys say 7 to 10 days. I say 2 weeks, even.

That link has a freezing technique, but I think thawed parsley is worthless. Dehydrated is okay when you've no option, but it's very bland and too earthy, to me. Where I live, it's cheap, so I just stay stocked up on fresh stuff. Both parts of this advice goes for bundles of cilantro leaves as well.


Storing raw cranberry I want to be able to use chopped raw cranberries instead of sweetened dried cranberries in oatmeal and yogurt year round. Can I chop raw cranberries and then store in the freezer?

According to the Cranberry Institute:

  Yes. In fact cranberries freeze very well either whole or sliced.
  Sealed in an airtight container frozen cranberries will keep for
  nearly a year.

Personal experience bears this out as well, with unsweetened cranberry dressing (fresh cranberries and orange zest, zapped in a food processor. Thaw, add sugar to one batch for those who like it traditional, and splenda to the other for dieters and diabetics.)


What material wok did I get while thrifting today? I asked all 4 employees but nobody could tell me.
It is heavy, and it doesn't look like the same material as my cast iron pan.  A magnet sticks to it.

There are no markings on it at all. I think the red handles are silicone.

It is smooth and dark grey on the outside, and the inside is almost black and you can tell it's been well used.

Thank you!

My guess is carbon steel. It's used in a variety of cooking implements, including stuff like woks and  as bread pans. A quick search suggests that carbon steel is often magnetic as you report.

If it is indeed carbon steel, it benefits from seasoning and ongoing love and care similar to cast iron (lest it rust or deteriorate). Many articles on this, such as this one from thekitchn.

It's a fun material, and looks like a nice find! I hope you like it!

Welcome to Seasoned Advice.


What does flour do to cheesecake? After looking through cheesecake recipes with a co-worker we discovered that many cheesecake recipes include ~1/4 cup of flour while other recipes contain none at all.

What effect does flour have when added to cheesecake? Also, what (in your opinion) is the better way, flour or none?

Flour or starch binds moisture in the cheesecake.

If you use it or not depends on your recipe, the total amount of liquid and the other binding ingredients like eggs.

Using flour can leave an aftertaste, especially if not fully cooked. I recommend using the more neutral starch (corn starch, potato starch) instead.

As a rule of thumb, adding starch or flour can make the cheesecake denser and more solid, leaving it out makes for a softer mouthfeel.

Disclaimer:
I am not saying that you can leave it always out, lest you come back and blame me if your cheesecake doesn't set properly. If you have a recipe that seems quite solid, you could experiment with less or no flour next time, likewise a recipe that is too runny can benefit from a tablespoon or two of starch.


Cooking chicken in microwave? I hear that chicken breasts can be cooked in microwave and that it's the best way to get it juicy and tender. I have also seen some articles about it on the internet.

I wonder if this is just a myth or if professionals also use this trick?

Wouldn't you risk that parts of the chicken is not cooked properly then causing infection?

While yes it can be done, I wouldn't choose to do it over another technique unless that was my only option or I just needed some chicken cooked quickly for a recipe where it is used in the cooked form and will have a lot of other flavors added (chicken salad).  Remember that a lot of flavor is due to browning and cooking in the microwave eliminates those flavors.  At least with poaching, if the liquid is REALLY well seasoned you'll still impart flavor.

Any cooking technique can lead to tough and dry meat, including poaching where it's being cooked submerged in hot liquid.  Regardless of the technique, if the proteins heat too hot and too quickly they will constrict quickly and squeeze out the juices.  The result will be tough, dry, saw-dusty chicken or other protein.  This is the same thing that happens when scrambled eggs are rubbery...cooked too long over too high of heat.  The proteins act like sponges that are being wrung out.

Personally I think you have much less control over meat cooked in a microwave because the cooking occurs from the inside outward and the residual heat continues to build more intensely than if it was cooked in a saute pan or on a grill.

Is this something that professionals do?  No.  Microwaves in a professional kitchen are mainly used for melting butter, chocolate, reheating things quickly...much the same as I recommend people do at home.  We do not use them for "cooking".  Although I do use it for sweating onions if that's the only thing I'd be dirtying a pan for...put the onions in a bowl with a little butter, cover and nuke for about a minute until tender.


Can i use non stick cooker (futura pressure cooker) for making cake without oven I saw so many recipes but in every recipe simple cooker is used.

You can "steam" a cake in the pressure cooker using the Bain Marie or Pan-in-pot method.  Basically put the cake batter in a smaller heat-proof container (usually 7" or 20cm) that is buttered as usual.  Then in the pressure cooker add enough water to equal the minimum liquid (usually 1-2 cups), and a steamer basket or rack.  Add the container containing the batter onto the rack and pressure cook for about 20 minutes with natural release.  You'll want to increase the baking soda or powder by 50% to compensate for the extra pressure - but generally most of the "rise" in the cake will happen while the cooker is reaching pressure.

P.S. Be sure to construct a sling out of foil (a strip folded three times and placed under the container with the ends coming up the side of the cooker) to more easily lower and raise the cake.


How much cream should I make for my mini Oreo cream pies? I'm making mini cream pies, in custard cups, and I just need to know how much cream to make to fill them all.

You could estimate by filling the cups with water about the level you want the cream to be at, then dumping into a big measuring cup. You'll end up with a bit of extra cream that way unless you compensate for the space the crust is going to take up, but wouldn't be too far off!


Emulsifying (and stabilizing?) a sesame oil ice cream I would like to make an ice cream based on sesame oil and allulose. According to reasons-for-separating-eggs-in-ice-cream, ice cream can be made French-style with milk, cream and yolk, or Philadelphia-style with milk and extra cream. In either case, the creamy consistency is actually achieved by partially “demulsifying” the mixture of milk and cream, either with yolk lecithin, which is a worse emulsifier than casein, or with extra cream. So, I am wondering if it is possible to mix sesame oil, allulose, emulsifiers and possibly stabilizers to achieve a comparable texture.
To get the proportions, I converted all the butter, cream and MCT fat of this Philadelphia-style recipe:

3 tbsp butter (34.5 g of fat), 1/3 cup allulose + 1/4 MCT (56 g) + 3 cups heavy cream (257.6 g of fat)

into the equivalent in terms of sesame oil and water:

1/3 cup allulose + 1.55 cups sesame oil (348.1 g) + 1.4 cups water (to match the volume of 1.) + yolk/lecithin/glycerin/casein?? (to emulsify).

(If I use yolk, there will be more fat. More on that below.)
I haven't found practical guidelines for producing emulsions as related to ice creams, but I got some clues from this research paper comparing emulsions with soy lecithin vs. yolk lecithin. They mixed the emulsions at 50°C. At the conditions they tested, they found that the most stable emulsion was produced at 50:50 oil:water mixture with 5% soy lecithin at neutral pH with the addition of xanthan gum as a stabilizer. On the other hand, the yolk lecithin emulsion was more stable against oxidation; moreover, the most stable egg yolk lecithin was produced at pH 2.3 and also at 50:50 oil:water and 5% lecithin. The reason for the difference in pH has to do with the fact that yolk lecithin is richer in phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylethanolamine, which are zwitterionic, whereas soy lecithin is richer in anionic phospholipids such as phosphatidylinositol and phosphatidic acid.
Should I decide to go with yolk, my preferred choice of lowering the pH would be with vinegar, which has a pH ≤ 2.5. However, that would probably be wasteful, especially because the acetic acid would rapidly volatilize at 50°C. Do I have any other options besides citric acid? Or is it possible that the zwitterionic compounds in yolk lecithin also emulsify well at basic pH, given that the hydroxide anion is an intrinsic emulsifier? In that case, could I use sodium acetate in a sweet ice cream?
To get 5% of lecithin from yolks requires y ≈ 14.9 yolks since the yolk of a large egg has 4.4 g of fat and yolk fat is 30% lecithin (from the equation 5%(348.1 + 70% 4.4y) = 30% 4.4y).
Do all these ingredients seem to be in the right proportion? Will it be possible to create the emulsion with just a spatula and a pot?
Finally, how do other solids (i.e. allulose, xanthan gum, etc.) interact with the oil? Instead of xanthan gum, would collagen, resistant corn starch and chitosan be good stabilizers?

It seems that what you are trying to produce is a thin mayonnaise. So:

Will it be possible to create the emulsion with just a spatula and a pot?

No. You will have to really emulsify the stuff, preferably with something with a motor. Look into ways to make mayonnaise.

However, that would probably be wasteful, especially because the acetic acid would rapidly volatilize at 50°C. Do I have any other options besides citric acid?

In practice, standard mayonnaise, hollandaise and other yolk emulsified sauces do perfectly well with vinegar. Also, you are making a logical error here - if pure acetic acid boils at 50°C (something I've never bothered to check) this doesn't mean that you will get the acetic acid boiling out of a complex mixture of vinegar, oil, yolk and other stuff taken to 50°C. You probably do have other options, but why would you even bother?
I have no idea whether the lecithine will be helped by basic ingredients, but the results on taste will be terrible. With all that fat, you are likely to end up with the worst soapy taste ever. I wouldn't ever try going in that direction.

Do all these ingredients seem to be in the right proportion?

No. 15 eggs per 350 g of oil is very strange. Mayonnaise usually takes one yolk per 50-300 g of oil for taste purposes, although you can use less (books disagree on how much less, Ruhlmann's Ratio for example disproves McGee's On Food and cooking, saying that in practical tests, mayonnaise started breaking at around 1/4 tsp of yolk per 6 ounces of oil). I would say that 3-4 yolks for that amount will be normal.
The bigger trouble here is the water. While you do need a tiny bit of water to start a mayonnaise, if you add too much relative to the yolk, you end up with an ugly greasy soup. So you won't be able to make the emulsion first, then try to use it as milk. I have never used allulose, but I hope that as typical sugars it is water soluble, so you might have to create a syrup with it, then create separately your mayonnaise, then mix the two gently.
The whole idea will be very difficult to pull off. The mayonnaise will be doable, but thinning it with the syrup might prove difficult without it breaking. If you manage that, you have the next problem: I don't think that frozen mayonnaise is any good, I suspect that your ice cream will melt into a very weird and unpleasant texture in the mouth if you can get it to freeze into a usable consistency at all. And beside the texture, I expect the taste to also be pretty strange - more like an American sandwich sauce (you know, these sugared mayonnaises which you get in places like Subway) than like ice cream.
A much easier route might be to try making a gelato style ice cream by cooking a pudding with your water and sweetener and some starch, then mixing the oil (and eggs, if you want them) right into the cooked pudding. It is much likely to stand up to freezing in a machine, then thawing, although it is likely to taste better with much less fat than you are planning to use. Also, the problem with "sandwich sauce taste" will remain.


Can I use garlic leaf for cooking? I planted a garlic clove and now I have a nice garlic plant. The question is: Can I use the leaves to season food safely?

The leaves smell like garlic and I wonder if it's okay to use them dried, like oregano and other seasoning herbs. I don't know if will taste like garlic, or if it is dangerous to eat.

When we have had garlic in our garden I have used the garlic leaves. They do have a garlicky flavor but are milder than garlic cloves. I tend to use them more as I would chives or garlic chives as in addition to having the milder flavor than the cloves they make for a quite nice presentation.

Regarding drying them, I have never tried it. Off the top of my head I can't think of any reason not to dry them for later use but there may be issues that I just don't know about.


Filling a hot Kettle Is it ok to fill an  electric kettle straight after it's been emptied? I heard that it does something to the element. Please help!

Shock cooling anything is never good, strictly speaking, but whether there is serious harm in practice will depend on many factors. Refilling a hot kettle with cold water immediately after emptying probably will not make that much of a difference to the longevity of it.

If you are excessively cautious and a bit pedantic, I would say completely emptying a hot kettle will create more problems, such as increase of scaling especially if you have hard water and iron piping or corrosion. There is far more shock cooling from the last few drops of hot water evaporating off the element. I would not worry too much about refilling straight after. If you really do care, it would be more beneficial to not drain it of hot water to the point of exposing the element out of water.


Undercooked center of a cheesecake baked at altitude After two tries making a baked cheesecake, the center is undercooked.  The outside is fine, but the center remains undercooked.
I have increased the cooking time from 45 minutes to one hour, but still the center of the cheesecake is underdone. I am cooking the cheesecake in a pan surrounded by boiling water but the center is underdone.  I am wondering what effect our location (4000 feet above sea level) might be having as water boils here at around 195°F (about 90°C).  Any advice would be appreciated.

You should not need major adjustments to cook a cheesecake at high altitude. However, you are correct that the baking time may be slightly longer. The best way to account for this is to check for doneness with a thermometer: make sure the center reads 145°F. This is a fool-proof way to check the cheesecake is set, regardless of altitude, oven temperature, pan dimensions, or almost any other factor. This is further explained in a Serious Eats Article:

An instant-read digital thermometer is the easiest and most reliable way to test a cheesecake. Insert the probe into the very center of the cheesecake, to a depth of about two inches, and hold the thermometer as steady as you can while giving the readout time to stabilize. This cheesecake is done when it hits an internal temperature of 145°F (63°C), as carryover cooking will push it about 10° higher as it sits.

The primary mechanism by which a cheesecake "cooks" is the coagulation of eggs. Since this starts to occur at about 145°F, and your bain-marie will be at 195°F, it is plenty hot to set the cheesecake. It may take slightly longer than in my 212°F sea-level water bath, but it should suffice. (You could even cook at cheesecake in much colder water; see this Anova recipe that cooks it at 176°F using an immersion circulator.)
This Denver Post cooking column concurs: "Cheesecakes do not need any altitude adjustments to the ingredients." Dever is at 5,280 feet, and they suggest baking an hour at 325°F. This might be a good place to start, but I would still use a thermometer.
Finally, it could be that your cheesecake it completely cooked, but not adequetly cooled. When you take it out of the oven, the middle should be slightly wobbly. It will further solidify as it cools. Be sure to cool completely for the best texture; overnight in the refrigerator would be perfect.


How soft does a Kohlrabi get when cooked? I'm told Kohlrabi will soften when cooked, but I cut it in medallions and it still seemed really firm after stir-frying. How soft can I expect it to get?

I spoke with the farm that sold me the kohlrabi; they have seen people make something akin to mashed rutabaga by boiling kohlrabi for ages and ages, so it gets about that soft. Note that mashed rutabaga is apparently still firmer than mashed potatoes, but obviously soft enough to mash into a pulp.

For a stir-fry, they suggested a match-stick shape rather than medallions; my second such stir-fry found them to have about the texture of halfway-cooked onions, soft enough not to crunch anymore but firm enough to hold their shape on a fork.


Could I use a sous vide rack for cooking lasagna in boiling water? I enjoy cooking my lasagnas in boiling water before using them in the pan. I am perfectly aware that putting a little oil in the boiling water helps avoiding the noodle to stick together. But I cook rather large and thick organic lasagnas noodles and I never really managed to avoid the two following issues:

the noodles will still stick together;
the noodles fall on the bottom of the pot making the water suddenly boil with unexpected bigger bubbles;

I usually cook 5 noodles only in the same pot, and need to do it three times in order to get 15 noodles for my recipe.
Then I discovered the following picture:

and while I couldn't find the very same tool anywhere on the web, I finally discovered a cooking tool called "sous-vide rack", some of them being circular:

(other models here)
I don't know exactly what they are made for, but I would like to know if it would be safe to use them for keeping lasagnas noodles in a vertical position in boiling water for 5 minutes. I understand that this tool is intended to be used with some water, but I am not sure the water is intended to be boiling water (I mostly ask about the temperature and the material), and while I don't see much reason why I couldn't use it for my purpose, I prefer asking before purchasing one.

There are no metals used in cooking that can go in hot water but not boiling water.
While metal racks for sous vide aren't meant to contact food directly they're still cooking equipment, and should still be made of food-safe materials (e.g. common culinary grades of stainless steel).
From a safety point of view I'd have no concerns at all.
Whether these racks would be much help is another matter.  The upper picture shows the lasagne sheets sitting on flat shelves.  I'd expect them to stick a bit; this is one time oil might help but you'd have to apply it to each layer of the rack.  The second picture only has a few slots available, so the sheets would be prone to sticking together.
A stainless toast rack (example from Amazon US, not a recommendation except it's about the right shape) would also work.  Do be sure to buy one that's stainless steel and not chrome plated; the plating tends to flake off at the welds before long
You can cook pasta slightly below boiling, especially when you're only par-cooking as in lasagne.  What I do if I need to precook lasagne is this case is: fill a jug (sized so the sheets sit on end) with boiling water; add the sheets one by one to make sure plenty of water gets between them; briefly microwave (perhaps 2x1 minute bursts).  Par-cooked like this they stick a little to each other but no problematically so.


what is the purpose of adding oil to balsamic vinaigrette slowly? I've been making a lot of vinaigrette dressing lately. Julia Child and Emeril both say that you need to mix up everything but the olive oil, then add the olive oil in slowly (ideally drop by drop) while whisking.

First, this is a pain because you need 3 hands. Ok you don't really, but it isn't easy to do with 2 hands.

Second, it seems like I still need to shake the dressing a lot before putting it over salad, especially if the dressing has been in the refrigerator.

Finally, the question: what is the upside of all this doing-it-slowly when you add the oil to the mix? As far as I can tell, it makes a tiny tiny bit of difference: there will still be some tiny tiny drops of vinegar suspended in the oil a few days later. Why would Julia and Emeril think this is such a big deal?

Specifically, the reason you whisk it in slowly at first is to create small drops. If you just dump the oil in fast, it will adhere to itself and make it impossible to break up into droplets dispersed in the vinegar (or other water based liquid, such as lemon juice). This is the definition of an emulsion: tiny droplets of one liquid evenly dispersed in another. Once you've got the emulsion started, you can pour in the oil a bit faster because the already suspended droplets reduce the room for a big blob of oil to form, and act sort of as "sandpaper" to break up the incoming stream as you whisk.


Utilizing both oven racks when baking Are there any "rules of thumb" when it comes to utilizing both racks in the oven? I'm primarily concerned when it comes to frozen meats in the oven, but I also want to utilize both racks when I bake sweets (pies, cakes, cookies, etc..).

Is this something I need to worry about? For example, does it matter where the racks are placed? I would imagine that foods placed on the lower rack would need to be taken out a bit earlier than the upper rack, because the lower rack is closer to the heating elements.

Bottom line
When you use both racks at once, your cooking pattern will become somewhat uneven.
Normally, you will only see this as a serious effect in thin, rapidly cooking foods like cookies.  Some cookies on the tray may be browned and done, while others are still pale and underdone.     This is why cookie recipes almost always specify swapping the trays between the racks, and rotating them front to back, half way through.  The idea is to balance out the influence of these various affects.
For thicker and longer cooking foods like a casserole or a braise, internal conduction or convection will tend to even out the influence of the local hot and cool spots over time, making use of both racks fairly irrelevent to the outcome.
Background
Ovens transfer heat into food in two modes:

Infrared radiation (much like a heat lamp puts out) warms the surface of the foods (or their containers) directly
The hot air in contact with the food (or their container) conducts heat into the surface

Furtheremore, the conduction of heat into the food from the air is strongly influenced by the convection (circulation of the air due to temperature differentials).  If the air were pefectly still (which it never is), then the part that is in contact with the food would soon come into thermal equilibrium with the food.  As air is a very poor thermal conductor, it would then take some time for it to heat up from the adjectent air, and the food would cook very slowly.
In the real world, air also changes density when the temperature changes, becoming denser and sinking as it cools, and becoming less dense and rising when it is heated.  This causes the air in the oven to circulate, even if there are no fans, and is called convection.  It increases the ability of the air to transfer heat energy into the food.
There are also ovens which have fans to force air circulation, technincally called forced air convection ovens, although often simply called "convection ovens" for short.
Understanding these modes of heat transfer allow you to understand what happens when you use two racks within the oven:
Shadowing
As radiant heat is a major mode of heating, and infrared is light (just of a wavelength too long for people to see), it can be blocked and cast a shadow.
When you use only a single rack, the food (or its container) is bathed in the radiant heat from all of the walls (and floor and ceiling).
As soon as you use two racks, the food on one rack absorbs and blocks the radiant heat from at least one direction from getting to the food on the other rack.
This will cause the baking to slow down slightly, and change the pattern by which heat reaches the food.
Convection patterns
When you use more racks, the pattern of natural convection within the oven will change.  Its like being in a city where the wind patterns are affected by the shape of the buildings.  This can create hotter (more air going by) and colder (less air going by) spots within the oven.
If you have forced air convection (a fan), this affect is reduced but not eliminated, because the air still must circulate past the foods to actually transfer heat energy into them.

A note on on oven design
All ovens have radiant heat as a major cooking modality.  The hot air from burner or heating element heats the walls of the oven, which then begin to emit infrared radiation back to the foods.
Some ovens also directly expose their heating element within the main oven cavity.  In this case, infrared can be an even stronger mode, and become very directional.
This is particularly true of electric ovens with directly exposed coils.  The shadowing affect becomes stronger in this type of oven.


Can I substitute low fat greek yogurt for light sour cream in a high speed blender? I'm wondering whether the blending speed will affect the texture of the yogurt unfavourably. I am making a spinach and artichoke dip, and I want to lower the calories per serving. If I can substitute, should I do it one-to-one?

You can substitute one to one.

Many brands of "light sour cream" (Which is an oxymoron. Cream without the cream?) have a lot of gums and starches to stabilize the liquid as the fat would have done.

Brands that don't have gums dilute the fat with skim milk and are basically just yogurt anyway.

Regular yogurt is fragile. It is a delicate mesh of proteins filled with water. When it is blended the water washes out. However, greek yogurt has already had this done! So there is less water and it stays creamy and loses relatively little extra liquid even when blended.


Silverfish in a restaurant If I'm eating at a restaurant and a silverfish scuttles across the table top, what should I reasonably conclude? Should I be concerned about the food hygiene?

I would not advise eating there again. Silverfish or harmless to humans, but their presence can signify some serious hygiene issues. While silverfish are most known to feeding on decaying wood, in a kitchen setting, they are signs of 1) poor moisture control, which can include leaks and spills that are left unmopped, and 2) the presence of uncleansed floors, corners, and prep areas. Silverfish are particularly fond of starches and food debris. You can find a quick summary of silverfish in a food prep setting at Cannon Hygiene.


Identifying quality fruits/vegetables at a farmers market I have recently started venturing out on Sunday to our local farmers market, where there are a large number of people selling various fruits and vegetables.  I find that they have a better price than simply going out to a grocery store and purchasing the same items there for usually 3 - 5 times the cost. However, there are often so many vendors selling the same items that it can be difficult to choose which one to purchase from.

Is there an easy way to determine which vendors are selling better quality vegetables?  While different fruits/vegetables will have different ways to check, I was wondering if there are some general tips on picking vegetables (or fruits) from a vendor at a farmers market.

I have tried going by the samples that they have for fruits, where the sample was delicious, but some times I would get home and the fruits from that same stand would taste sour. That could just be the luck of the draw though.

Some of the items I look at more often are: Cherries, Artichokes, Oranges, Mushrooms, Onions (Green and Red/White), Garlic, Broccoli, and Celery.

Any help is appreciated!

Some general rules for veggie hunting at your local farmers market.

Get there early and watch how they handle the produce, if they are rough unloading it chances are they where rough loading it.
Does it smell fresh and like the product you are buying. Beware some vendors use air fresheners and other products to hide the true smell.
If the deal seems to be too good to be true it probably is.
The firmness of a item is not always a good sign. Some fruits and veggies tend to get hard as they age.
Talk to the vendors ask them about where the item was grown. True farmers and craftsmen are usually proud of their items and will speak loving of it.
Don't be afraid to haggle, worse they can tell you is no.
Some produce can be very hazardous to your health if eaten rotten.
Check the items for wax or other preservatives

Some quick hints for the items you listed (please note this is in general and may not apply to the variety you are looking at)

Cherries - should be slightly firm and ooze juice if squeezed hard enough

Oranges - should smell fresh and be squeezable without being mushy or firm

Mushrooms - good coloring, should not be mushy, fresh murshrooms tend to be earthy smelling

Onions - firm, good onion smell, no eyes or growths (could always buy them to plant) look for dark spots if found unless they are small or you are going to eat it soon after walk on

Garlic - pretty much like a onion

Broccoli - look for firm very good coloring, check the nooks for bugs and worms

Celery - very firm, should have a good smell to them and should break with a crispy snap


How to prevent fondant from crumbling? I am making fondant based on this recipe and it keeps on cracking when I try to lift it. Any suggestions on fixing this? Someone told me to add Glycerin. Will this work?

I assume you mean more glycerine, since glycerine is already in your recipe. Add a little, knead it, add a little, knead it. You don't want to add too much: fondant is supposed to be firm, though not crumbly.

I always use this recipe. It seems simpler.


Ingredients: Danish local specials I'm visiting Denmark and I'd like to bring home some local Danish ingredients so I can prepare a meal which is specific for Danish cuisine (can be scandinavian if Danish is too narrow).

It doesn't necessarily have to be full-blown meal, it can be snack or something equally simple.

Additional requirement it should survive flight so I tumult more about either something dry or canned or similar.

Any recommendations?

I'm from Denmark but I've lived in so many other places. Here's a list of things that usually go well:

leverpostej, similar to foie gras, tastes very good on rye bread.
marineret sild, marinated herring, also very good on rye bread.
flæskesvær, crunchy salty pig skin :-) people say it tastes a lot better than it sounds, and though I personally disagree, my foreign colleagues like it.
"proper" (strong) liquorice like Haribo's Super Piratos or Leaf's Lakrisal - because anything with less than 6% ammonium chloride is for wusses!
various kinds of cheese and bread, as has been said already.
wienerbrød, Danish pastry, especially kringle and spandauer are delicious.
makrel i tomat, canned mackerel (fish) in tomato juice, yet another delicious treat on rye bread.


Are there any differences in large or small pieces of root ginger? I find the bigger ones easier to peel, but I've heard that, for example, in potatoes all the vitamins are just below the skin, so I wonder if by a similar effect, smaller rhizomes of root ginger would be more potent in flavour or aroma or different in some way?

Quite the opposite, large ginger rhizomes are more potent both in flavour and aroma, because those compounds take time in the ground to develop and accumulate...

There's a Chinese proverb: "It's the older ginger that's got the punch /heat", referring to wisdom of the elders / the experienced...

The younger rhizomes have a milder flavour, and a smoother texture (the older ones are more fibrous) so are used for pickling in both Chinese and Japanese cuisines...


Can a wine press juice citrus? How effective is a wine press at juicing a large quantity (e.g., 50-100 lbs) of citrus?

I'm looking for speed. Auger (masticating juicer) is far too slow, and blending requires straining.

Theoretically, you could use a wine, apple, or or other heavy-duty fruit press to press 10-20lbs of citrus at a time.  But you wouldn't want to.

Both the peels of the citrus and the seeds contain bitter and/or intensely acidic compounds (those essential oils WS talks about in the comments).  If you press citrus in any press that uses pressure on the whole fruit, then those compounds end up in your juice, making it taste bad.

This is why even juice factories do split-and-squeeze(video) instead of using straight pressure.  If this is something you often do, you may need to invest in an automatic-feed juicing machine.


Can I use a 4 quart crock pot instead of a 6 quart? For a recipe that calls for a 6 quart crock pot, can I use a four quart crock pot?  Should I only use 2/3 of each ingredient?

I have encountered very few recipes that can't be scaled. In fact the only recipes I can think of are jelly because the pectin behaves oddly.

If the scaled recipe fits comfortably then you are fine.

Keep in mind that a smaller volume may cook faster. This shouldn't be a problem for most slow cooker recipes but use your judgement. If you are braising a pot roast then a bit too long won't hurt much. If you are cooking peach cobbler it might need to finish earlier.


How to extend holding time for poached eggs? I would like to bring eggs Florentine for a potluck. I usually make them for myself Sunday mornings, but usually I strain the egg fresh from the pot to the muffin.

Is there any way to do this for a potluck with, say, a dozen eggs or more, where I won't have access to goodies to do this live?

Some data:

Egg whites start coagulating at 150F.
Egg yolks start thickening at 150F and become solid at 158F or so.
The danger zone for bacteria is between 40F and 130F.

What this means is that your perfect poaching temperature is going to be somewhere around 150F to 155F depending on how firm you like your eggs. At these temperatures bacteria can't grow and if held at this temperature the eggs will never overcook. Over time the yolks will become thicker but it takes many hours.

The serious way to do this is with a sous vide setup that electronically controls the temperature of a water bath.

A cheaper method is what jbarker2160 referred to as the beer cooler method.

Pour 155F water into a cooler (or hotter and let it cool with the lid
off)
Add the eggs in their shells.
Put the lid on and let them
cook forever. They won't overcook.

They can be served out of their shells. The shape is different than poached but IMO better.

You do need to make sure your cooler doesn't ever dip below 130F very long before serving or you risk bacteria growth.


Dark stock proportions When making croquettes, I always end up with more meat than I can use. That is to say that I'm aiming at about 20% meat in a flavor-full concentrated velouté.

The problem I'm having is that I use about 400gr meat for 1 liter of water, and that's 40% meat to begin with... (OK, after cooking the meat loses 50% weight, but I have no idea how much water evaporates).

I'm afraid to use less meat, but maybe I could add more bones?

What proportions are appropriate for a nice dark stock (or an ordinary one)?

According to the Culinary Institute of America their basic formula for all Meat or Poutlry based stock would be:

8 lb/3.63 kg bones and trimmings
5 -6 qt/4.80 - 5.76 L water
1 lb/ 454 g Standard or White Mirepoix

You would not need any actual cut of meat for a stock according to them.  Those would be reserved for making a broth.  Their basic formula for broth doesn't specify a ratio between meat and bones just 10 lb. of meat or poultry including bones to 5 qt water.  If you are converting a stock into a broth they give the formula of 3 lbs meat to 5 qt stock.  Based on that a good starting point might be 7 lb bones and 3 lb meat to 5 qt water.

Just an FYI they make all their mother sauces using stocks, broth seem to be reserved for soups and other applications.


How to stew chicken properly I have a recipe where I cut chicken breasts into 0.5" cubes and cook them on a medium low gas flame for 15-20 minutes in a stew. When I cook the chicken, it comes out a bit tough and chewy. So I was curious if people had tips on how to properly stew chicken. Specifically, how do you get your chicken cooked so it "falls apart" nicely and doesn't taste--to put it bluntly--rubbery.

Thanks.

Rumtscho pretty much summed it up in his comment above: You can't really stew chicken breasts (at least not from the young chickens that are found in most supermarkets).  The reason is that what makes a meat "fall apart" tender is its fat and collagen content.  Collagen is connective tissue that is usually found in muscles that do a lot of work for the animal.  When collagen cooks in a moist environment at a low temperature for a long time (i.e., a stew), it converts into gelatin, which is soft (causing the meat to fall apart) and is interpreted by the mouth to be moist and delicious.

The problem is that the breasts don't do much work on today's factory farmed chickens.  Even if you were able to find an old rooster that has lived long enough to build up some collagen, there still wouldn't be much in its breasts.

Legs and thighs, on the other hand, do have a bit more collagen and could benefit from a short stew.


Is asparagus generally recognized as the best vegetable, and why? In Germany, everybody knows that asparagus is "the king of vegetables", especially the white variety. When the season starts, there is an asparagus craze, spilling over to unexpected areas like fashion advertising. It costs more than the other vegetables at the supermarket - you seldom see it for less than 6 euro per kilogram - and yet people buy so much of it that late shoppers often only see the empty box under the price label. My coworkers grumble about "not enough variety" when the canteen has pork steaks two days in a row, but when there's asparagus, they can eat it everyday for a week. One of them doesn't ever touch vegetables unless they've spent time in a can, and is unhappy when he discovers that the canteen has smuggled fruit pieces in the dessert, but he happily eats the asparagus as a main dish.

A typical example of its celebration by the press: I opened chefkoch.de, a large source for user published recipes which also has editorial articles. Of course, there was a recent article about asparagus (happens every April in most culinary publications). It had the noble goal of reminding Germans that there is green asparagus too, not only white, and that the green one can be eaten in other ways beside boiled and combined with hollandaise (that's literally what it says). It starts with the words:

  The spring is here and brough the universally loved asparagus time! Asparagus is the most liked of all vegetables and is rightfully called "royal vegetable".

And that's how about every asparagus article I've come across reads.

Don't get me wrong, I like asparagus. The flavor is almost too delicate to eat it as a main dish, but it has some interesting uses. But I've always wondered why it is supposed to be so much better than any other vegetable. Historically, it could make sense that it tastes better than the potatoes, turnips and cabbage which thrive in the German climate. But my generation has been raised on imported tomatoes, bell peppers and champignons. And given that it is much more sensitive to improper cooking techniques - and let's be honest, many housewives/husbands tend to overcook everything - the vast majority of people is probably eating asparagus which tastes far from the optimal. Add to that the "hollandaise" from the tetra pak, and it is really nothing special. Oh yes, nobody is ever thinking that you could have any variation with asparagus. It automatically means hollandaise (or an imitation of it). Often, there is some ham with that, too.

I was wondering if this cult of the asparagus is common to other cuisines, or a typical German phenomenon. Also, are there any proven reasons for its enormous popularity? (It would be nice if you could support them with evidence).

Don't really like to define one vegtable as better than another, but Asparagus has always had a reputation as a luxury item. A combination of the expense of producing it (You cannot get a high yield, plus it takes a number of years to develop a productive asparagus bed) and a relatively short season (At least in the UK) meant it would be a rare treat for most people. Of course now with it imported from all round the world, it is much less so.


Best thickness for shaped pizza dough for good sliding from the peel/tray into the oven I made pizza yesterday and encountered an issue.

My dough was not very sticky, it was sliding well when adding flour to the surface.

However, after I added toppings (tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil, olive oil) it seems like the weight made the dough stick a little bit or at least it did not slide well. I had issues to slide it into the oven and had to end up putting the first tray where I put together the pizza into the oven, losing the heat of my pizza stone.

I assume this issue is caused by the thickness of my shaped dough, which was maybe too thin and did not have enough "body" to slide out properly from the tray (peel).

What is the ideal thickness for a Neapolitan pizza when you shape it? I mean the inner areas of the pizza, not the external crust.

Sliding well has nothing to do with weight or thickness, although too thin makes the dough prone to tearing. A generous spread of ground semolina under the pizza dough after shaping will keep it from sticking to your counter while you top it, and in your oven when you bake it. The grainy semolina will act as a barrier, keeping the bottom of your dough off flat surfaces, think of it as natural ball bearings. You can use corn meal as well but I don't like the taste or texture as much.

As for the ideal thickness of an authentic Neapolitan pizza I've never measured it, but let's just say you can't get the dough any thinner in the center without it tearing. I make mine thin in the middle and just a bit thicker on the outside.


Does using Electric stove vs Gas stove have any difference in food taste? Does it make any difference in taste when you use Gas stove and Electric Stove?
AFAIK, it doesn't but some people I know (amateur cooks) say that it does make a difference in taste.

Enlighten me on this one please?

The simple answer is: no, heat is heat, it should taste the same.

Reality is slightly more complicated than that. In reality, a cook learns how to cook well by instinct with his stove. When he changes to a stove with a different behavior, his instinct is suddenly wrong, but he probably does not know it. So he cooks as usual. But because the stove works differently, he should have changed the setting and time he uses. So, a stove change alone can cause food to taste worse - not because the stove is worse, but because the cook's skill is lacking.

Also, an electric stove (especially an old fashioned one with iron hobs) cannot do some things a gas stove can, such as a very quick change in temperature. If the food absolutely requires this, it can turn out worse on the electric stove. But a good cook should be able to work around that.

So, the more complete statement should be: There is no difference in taste between cooking on electric or gas stove, if the cook knows how to compensate for the difference in heating speed.


How do I know a beaten egg has “set” while cooking stovetop rice pudding? The pudding is good, nice and creamy. My concern is feeding people uncooked egg as the time to stir in egg mixture is more a texture while stirring than a time to be sure the egg is cooked into the pudding.

How hot is the pudding?
At or near boiling the egg will be set by the time you can stir it in, certainly by the time you can serve it.
One egg in a couple of pints of piping hot (semi) liquid will be at temperature almost immediately.


How to substitute peanut butter for peanut butter chips I'm making a Peanut Butter Blondie recipe, and I'm trying to make it healthier for a Health Class my son is in. The recipe calls for 2 cups of peanut butter chips and I want to use natural peanut butter instead. How would I convert 2 cups of chips to an amount of peanut butter.

Here is the recipe for those interested. http://www.squirrelbakes.com/2011/01/peanut-butter-blondies.html?showComment=1295643747439

You cannot convert it, because they are two different ingredients.

Peanut butter chips are pieces which stay whole when baked. They don't melt, just sit there so you can bite on them after the cookie is baked.

Peanut butter is a creamy substance, and if you try to put it in a blondie, it will not form a chunk, it will become part of the dough, giving it a completely different texture and maybe even hindering its baking well. Even if it bakes properly, you will get a totally different result, with dough that tastes uniformly of peanuts, without a contrast taste to bite on.

You could try putting in whole peanuts (shelled, without the papery skin, but unsalted and toasted), in which case you can use the same amount in cups. It will still be somewhat different, because they will be harder to bite on than the chips, and it can make the blondies drier as a whole.


Red/Brown color on some Shiitake Mushrooms These mushrooms have been in the fridge for two weeks (sealed by wrap)

Are they bad already? what cause the red/brown color(only under it, not on top)?

Thank you.

Already? They were probably bad last week :-). I know mushrooms often come wrapped in plastic at the store, but they'll last much longer if you take them out of the plastic. If they're discolored (and probably soft), don't eat them.


What can I add to veggie burgers to make them less brittle? I have a bunch of veggie pulp left over from juicing, and it is packed down into little patties.  After mushing in some black beans, it conforms to a hamburger shape, but is still very brittle.  Is there anything I can add that will make it stickier, so it won't fall apart while cooking or eating?

Wheat gluten.

Buy some powdered wheat gluten at a health food store.  Add it to the mix, add some water if necessary, and stir it around in the same direction for 30 to 50 strokes.  The gluten will bond and start forming long chains, and bring the whole mixture together.  Nothing else really works as well.

Eggs and cheese will also help hold a veggie burger together, but only gluten really gives it cohesiveness and a springy texture.

FWIW, I can't imagine that veggie burgers made from juicer pulp will be even remotely appetizing.


What to do with too-bitter sorbet? I made cherry sorbet according to a recipe, only to find that the cherries I'd bought have a strongly bitter taste to them (not unusual for cherries in my experience). Now the sorbet tastes strongly of cherries I'd prefer not to eat :/ what can I do to improve the flavor, either as a last-minute addition during churning (too late for this batch but useful for the future) or a topping? I'm looking to make it sweeter.

If you're worried about the sugar not dissolving, you can add golden syrup to the thawed sorbet. It will also make your sorbet softer. I've only tried making sorbet a couple of times but when I used golden syrup, its consistency was softer than when I used sugar.


What's this odd stuff coming out of my meringue? I used this (http://m.allrecipes.com/recipe/58871/authentic-french-meringues/) recipe, but added some vanilla, probably a bit extra sugar, and baked them at 185 instead of 200 with the door open.

Definitely egg white seepage, by the looks of the shape of it you've either over whipped the egg whites OR let them sit for too long before cooking which meant they spilt slightly before going in the oven.

Another possibility is the oven wasn't hot enough to begin with OR the environment (kitchen) was too warm.

When ever I've cooked meringue I've had the oven on 180 for 10min then turned it off and left the meringue in undisturbed over night. Never had any issue's that way. The only time I've had seepage is when I've beaten my eggs then got disturbed by a check coming on and having to leave the whites for 5-10min before shaping and cooking...


Why does my pizza dough (and other doughs) go sticky on freezing and defrosting? I make this simple sourdough pizza dough, with the slight variation that I weigh my starter.  A half quantity does me 2 pizzas.  So that's 150g 100% hydration starter, 125ml water, 250g flour, kneaded in a stand mixer and rested (30 minutes to 2 hours depending on my evening).  That gives me a nice easy to work dough.  But I only want to make one pizza, so I freeze half of the dough - I roll it into a ball, roll it in flour, and put it in a generously floured plastic container, then freeze for about a week.
When I defrost it (in the fridge for 24 hours), it's always stickier and harder to work with than it was before freezing, despite having added a little flour in the dusting.  The resulting pizza is just as good though (fairly thin, baked at 240°C on a slab of preheated granite).
It happens consistently, and I've noticed the same with naan dough.  The last 2 batches of pizza dough I froze with a note about how easy they were to handle, to be sure I hadn't just made a sticky batch and forgotten by the time I defrosted it.
Why is this, and is there anything I can do about it?

There are several effects which I think are at work here:

starch hydrates over time. Sure, within an initial kneading, it already hydrates quite a bit, but if you leave it longer, it continues changing. (That's also why it is recommended to rest crepe batter). So the starch which was somewhat-dry is now completely wet, making the dough as a whole stick. If you had patches of completely dry flour on the outside left from shaping, they are now also completely wettened, giving you more initial sticking at your first touch of the dough, which probably contributes to the sticky impression even more.

24 hours is quite long for an already-risen dough, even though the temperature is very low (starts from frozen). I wouldn't be surprised if the overleavening process starts already in that timeframe, and overleavened dough is sticky.

the gluten mesh is susceptible to physical disruption. I mostly notice this with home-ground wholemeal flour, the bran basically cuts it too much for proper rising. I guess that the formation and expansion of ice crystals also has a bit of an effect on your gluten, even though it's milder because of the lack of kneading while the crystals are present.

So I think this is to be expected, and not exactly worrisome. If you want to reduce the effect, you can freeze the dough in discs instead of a cuboid or cylindrical container. You will then have shorter defrosting times, and your dough won't overleaven on the outside while the center is still defrosting.


Gaul Divided into 3 fats There is a cookbook with at least two editions about French cooking based upon dividing the country into fat regions: butter, olive oil, and lard (?). I cannot find it on-line though I did previously. Do you know this book?
Many thanks!
+PAX!

Waverly Root (1966) "The Foods of France" ... is referenced in Sari Edelstein's "Food, Cuisine, and Cultural Competency for Culinary, Hospitality, and Nutrition Professionals" (2010) when talking about dividing France into butter, fat & oil.  (see page 135)

... but I suspect it's a typo for "Waverley Root" author of "The Food of France".


What biological factors affect a meat's taste? What biological factors affect a meat's taste?

Does the relatedness of species affect their meat's taste? For example would the meat from two different placental mammals taste more similar to each other than meat from poultry?

Does domestication affect a meat's taste? I've heard kangaroo meat is described as "gamey", ie tasting like wild game (presumably non-domesticated northern hemisphere placental mammals such as deer).

The most significant factors are probably:

Muscle function and activity
Fat content and distribution
Diet of animal
Age

Basic muscle structure in most vertebrates is somewhat similar, so taxonomic relatedness is often not paramount in matching flavors.  (There appear to be some phylogenetic connections in flavor, particularly among many "beefy" animals, though.)

There's a reason that many people say lots of random meats taste like chicken.  Since muscle structure is often quite similar even in very unrelated animals, a lot of reptile and amphibian meat can "taste like chicken."  The texture is often different, because muscles may be used in different ways, but if you put the meat through a meat grinder, the flavor wouldn't be as varied.  (Thus alligator sausage is not as adventurous or odd tasting as you might think at first.)

What makes "light meat" vs. "dark meat" often has a lot to do with muscle function/activity, and if you try similarly colored meat from different animals, it often has similarities in flavor.  Ostrich meat tends to be dark and "beefy," while many parts of pigs are advertised as "white meat" which is presumably closer to birds.  I remember my first experience a number of years ago eating a smoked turkey leg -- it was smoked for a very long time and cooked slowly for many hours.  It tasted almost exactly like ham.  And it was like ham: a leg muscle from an animal with similar fat distribution in that area which was processed in the same way.

The "gaminess" of wild animal meats often has to do with (1) increased age, (2) different/more varied diet, and (3) more muscle activity than most domesticated animals get.  In my experience, for example, farm-raised venison is distinctly less gamey than wild venison.  Moreover, most of our farm-raised animals these days tend to be slaughtered rather young (generally as soon as mature), so as to maximize profits.  If you encounter older meat from old farm animals which are slaughtered late in life, it often has "gamier" or "deeper" flavors than the young animals we are now used to.  We also tend to breed domesticated animals to maximize muscle content in certain desirable areas of the animal (e.g., chicken breasts) which often tends to make them more "bland" and less gamey, because the animals don't generally need so much muscle in those areas and thus never use them much.

(It's notable that tastes have changed significantly over time.  Years ago, it was common to hang wild game for days or weeks until it began to rot in a process called mortification.  While it tenderized the meat, it also had the effect of heightening the "wild" gamey flavors of each individual meat, which was considered desirable by many.  In most industrialized cultures today, the trend is toward blander and blander meats, with young, lean animals the norm, and the boneless skinless chicken breast -- with the flavorful fatty skin and bones/connective tissue removed, produced from chickens which never exercise and eat uniform bland diets -- as one of the most common meat sources.)

Muscle texture and fat distribution can also create distinctions, even if flavors are not that different.  Most muscle tastes somewhat similar, so it's often the fat that makes the big difference, since the fat tends to store energy from whatever food sources the animal has.  As Harold McGee describes it in On Food and Cooking (p. 134):

  Fat: The Flavor of the Tribe  The machinery of the red and white muscle fiber is much the same no matter what the animal, because it
  has the specific job of generating movement.  Fat cells, on the other
  hand, are essentially storage tissue, and any sort of fat-soluble
  material can end up in them.  So the contents of fat tissue vary from
  species to species and are also affected by the animal's diet and
  resident gastrointestinal microbes.  It's largely the contents of the
  fat tissue that give beef, lamb, pork, and chicken their distinctive
  flavors, which are composites of many different kinds of aroma
  molecules.  The fat molecules themselves can be transformed by heat
  and oxygen into molecules that smell fruity or floral, nutty or
  "green," with the relative proportions depending on the nature of the
  fat.

Thus, wild or older animals are more likely to have different sources for fat (and more marbled fat mixed into muscle), which gives it a more distinctive ("gamey") flavor.  Fish meat tastes a lot different mostly due to fats/oils distributed throughout (instead of in pockets like most higher vertebrates), and the structure of the muscles tends to create a flaky texture due to different usage and less connective tissue.  There are also distinctive chemicals (particularly in the fat) that give fish its characteristic "fishy" flavor, but when you encounter very "mild" fish, it's the texture and fat distribution that makes it most different from another white meat.

One last thing I would mention is expectations.  Many, many studies have shown that pre-existing assumptions can have a great impact on our experience of flavor in food.  (Expensive food tends to be rated as "tasting better," for example, even if the same exact dish is sold at different prices.)  The combination of a "weird meat" expectation and a slightly different texture can often make the distinctions between meat flavor seem greater than they are.  If you put the various meats (of similar color) through a grinder and then prepare them the same way, you might be surprised at how small the differences are between various animals.


Are semi-frozen meat and vegetables safe to cook? My refrigerator maintains a temperature between 0-5 degrees C. However, I quite often find that carrots, mushrooms etc. stored in the salad drawer are either coated in ice, or semi-frozen. Today I found some chicken that had been stored on the bottom shelf semi-frozen and quire hard, although sliceable with a knife.

Is it safe to cook with these items?

Sure. What would make them unsafe?  We freeze to preserve food all the time.  More importantly, this freezing will likely impact the quality, especially the vegetables.  I am guessing there is likely some freeze and thaw, which is not good for storage, as the ice crystals damage the cell structure of foods.  However, as long as you cook the chicken properly (to the appropriate internal temperature), there is not a safety issue.  Maybe adjust your refrigerator settings so that this doesn't happen...or store vegetables in an alternate location in your refrigerator.


Vanilla fudge won't set My clotted cream vanilla fudge just won't set. I am using a sugar thermometer. I'm melting my ingredients then bringing the mix to a temp of 115C and cooking at that temp for 20mins before increasing the heat. I've tried taking it to 121C and even last night to a temp of 130C! Then I'm beating with a hand held electric whisk until thick and matte. The fudge tastes delicious but it's still soft and squidgy.

Ingredients are:
275g caster sugar
100g golden syrup
227g tub clotted cream
1/4 teaspoon vanilla paste with seeds

What (else) can I do to make it set?

If you live at any altitude other than sea level, you may need to adjust your recipe's temperature. If you live in the mountains as I do, that temperature may vary enough to mess up your recipe, even if you've checked the boiling point of water just prior to starting the candy. The air pressure up here seems more volatile than it was when I lived at sea level. Maybe that's just because one usually doesn't get up to much candy making if there's a hurricane coming in.

At any rate, here's a link to the Unviersity of Utah's The Art of Candy Making. It has a chart on page three that will help you adjust your finished temperature (if that should happen to be your problem). I hope it will help.


Substituting Soy milk +vegan butter for whole milk +margerine for whipped fluffy icing I would like to make an icing for my family member who has a milk allergy.
I have a recipe for whipped fluffy icing using whole milk, flour, sugar and margerine. It is cooked, then cooled and additional steps follow. Will it turn
out well if I substitute soy milk and vegan margerine? Also, can it be refrigerated?

Yes. Soy milk (or any other non-dairy milk such as almond milk) can be used as a direct substitute for dairy milk. (Your mileage may vary if you make homemade soy milk, which may have a more "beany" flavor.) In addition, vegan margarine such as Earth Balance can be used as a direct substitute for butter. In fact, these are two of the easiest vegan substitutions.


Vegetable Broth/Stock from Kirkland Organic No-Salt Seasoning Is it viable to make stock from store bought Kirkland Organic No-Salt Seasoning?  I'd be ok using a bullion cube but they all seem to be loaded with salt.

Mix with water and bring to a boil.

Ingredients:

Organic  Onion,  Organic  Garlic,  Organic  carrot,  Organic  black  pepper,  organic  red  bell pepper,  Organic  tomato  granules,  Organic  Orange  Peel,  Organic  Parsley, Organic bay leaves, organic thyme, Organic basil, Organic celery, Organic Lemon  peel,  Organic  oregano,  Organic  savory,  Organic  mustard  seed, Organic  cumin,  organic  marjoram,  organic  coriander,  organic  cayenne pepper, citric acid and organic rosemary

Converting comment to answer.

How much salt could a boulion cube have? Certainly no more than the volume of the cube itself. Generally when you make a broth, it needs salt or it tastes insipid, flat and flabby. Just reduce the salt in your recipe by however much boulion cube you are using and it will balance out fine.


Can you eat beans after using them as pie weights? I'm making a recipe that involves using pie weights when pre-baking a pie crust, and suggests using dried beans as an alternative if you don't have purpose-made pie weights.

Can you eat the beans after using them for this purpose? Does it change how long you'd cook them or anything else about how you'd prepare them?

If not, can you re-use them in subsequent pies?

Beans are already dried, but it's certainly possible that baking them dries then further, or cooks them without softening. It's worth testing, for which I'd use chickpeas - I buy them in bulk, and they soften quite easily (plus I cook them on their own too make hummus while my other beans cook in chilli etc). I'd rinse them and put them on to soak once they've cooled a little, rather than storing them.

For reuse as baking beans I'd be concerned about two things: safety, and scorched beans giving an off flavour. The latter is addressed by not reusing them if they start to brown, and for the former, it's important to keep them dry, as dry beans keep indefinitely. If the beans are in direct contact with the pastry during blind baking, I'd rinse them briefly (to get any flecks of pastry off then return them to the cooling oven to dry quickly).


Controlling variables in homemade yogurt Making yogurt at home is a fairly straight-forward process.  Heat milk to 180F (82C), cool that milk to at least 110F (43C), add live cultures, usually in the form of yogurt with said cultures, incubate, then chill.

There are several variables in the process, some of which are: The fat content of the milk (I typically use whole), how long to hold the milk during the initial heat step, how long it takes to cool the milk, the temperature of the incubation step, and the length of time for incubation, to name a few.

While length of time for incubation, and temperature at this stage, clearly contribute to sourness, I am trying to nail down the variable that contributes to a creamy texture.  I'm not referring to breaking or clumping, as described in Why isn't my homemade yogurt smooth?.  My yogurt comes out smooth.

My initial hypothesis is that holding the milk for a length of time at the initial 180F(82C) (rather than immediately removing from heat and/or chilling) has an impact on final texture. Any thoughts or experience that might inform my hypothesis?

The initial heating stage takes a little time to denature the water soluble proteins in the milk.

The hotter your milk, the faster the process. At 180 it takes 30 minutes. At 190 it takes 15 or so. Heating the milk longer than this won't improve the texture. I don't believe the texture will change very much unless too much water is lost.

Heating for a shorter time than this will make the yogurt significantly more fragile and less creamy.

"The milk mixture is pasteurized at 185°F (85°C) for 30 minutes or at 203°F (95°C) for 10 minutes."
http://www.milkfacts.info/Milk%20Processing/Yogurt%20Production.htm


How does the order of mixing ingredients affect the resulting cake? I wanted to bake a Devil's cake yesterday. I got my recipe from a trusted book and I was surprised to see that the order of mixing was as follows: sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, then mix eggs one by one. Then butter, then other ingredients.

This is contrary to the process I was used to i.e. butter & sugar, then eggs etc.

I was suprised to see that the eggs mixed very good and that, in the end, there was no sugar granules had remained. I was not suprised to see that the resulting cake was dense.

But it still baffles me. I guess there are different ways to mix a cake, depending on how you want your cake to be. Like, flour first -> dense cake, eggs first -> light cake, butter first -> standard cake.

While I can understand that beating the eggs first traps air, what the other methods do is not clear to me.

So, what result do the different mixing strategies give?

I'll try to break this down into components to make it simpler.

If a recipe starts by combining sugar and a solid fat (creaming), this incorporates small air bubbles into the batter which will be seed bubbles for the carbon dioxide produced by chemical leavening. Occasionally, this creaming is used alone for leavening (as in traditional poundcakes).

If the flour is added straight to this, it can help prevent the batter from curdling later if a colder ingredient is added. This also coats the flour with fat, preventing gluten development and making a very fine, tender crumb since the flour is "waterproofed" before other liquids are added.

If eggs are added to the fat and sugar, you can make an emulsified cake but the presence of water when the flour is added can make it slightly tougher.

Some recipes (usually with oil) require all the liquids to be mixed together, and then added to all the dry ingredients which have already been mixed. Again, this can sometimes lead to a tougher cake since the flour is exposed to water.

Another method is to mix all the dry ingredients, then incorporate the solid fat into that, then add liquids. This will usually lead to tender cakes as the flour has been coated with fat before liquids are added.

If a cake is leavened with whipped egg whites (or whole eggs), those will be added last to prevent the bubbles from being knocked out by excess stirring.

You pretty much always want the fat to be present when the flour is added though. As you saw in your recipe, adding liquid to the flour without the fat will allow too much gluten development and make your cake tough and dense.


What kind of whetstone for sharpening a nylon edge? I have an unusual question on the topic of whetstone. Although this isn't a knife's edge, I thought that maybe someone here might be familiar enough with the types of stones to offer an answer.

When working on electronics I use nylon tools to prevent damage to the surfaces I'm working on. The problem with this is that I will quickly damage a tool either my losing its edge or by chipping and cracking. The edges of these tools are also fairly dull and I would like to give some of them a very sharp edge suitable for cutting (rubber and silicone in this case).

What kind of whetstone would be able to give me a very sharp edge on my spudging tool and allow me to recover an edge in the event that I damage the surface?

Here is a photo of the surface of the spudger:

I'd use fairly fine wet/dry paper taped to a hard  flat surface, probably used wet. You could move to a finer grade to finish. This will keep it nice and flat.

Or you can shave/whittle the edge with a scalpel or razor blade. That's what I've done with a nylon spatula that I want a nice edge on, but on that the edge tends to deform rather than wear down, because it's used to push against hot things.


Does ornamental cabbage make decent sauerkraut? I've heard that ornamental cabbage/kale can be bitter. I'm interested in using it for food, but I would want to make sauerkraut with it (lacto-fermented ornamental cabbage). Is the bitterness going to be as much of a problem here as it would be with cooked cabbage dishes? I'm thinking maybe the sourness from the lactic acid would overpower the bitterness, or maybe the fermenting would change the bitter flavor to something else—or even complement it.

Apparently, it has been done. According to this website, the flavor will be strong compared to sauerkraut:

  The flavor is strong; hard to describe — not just simply more acidic but strong, and the texture is a little tough... I also find that kale ferments accentuate the salty flavor, no matter how carefully I salt and I have no idea why. Mirror this with bold flavors. Ferment kale with lots of garlic, chiles, smoked salts, chipotle, curry or other unflinching spices.

So the proposed solution is to make kale kimchi mixed with other vegetables, or add kale to a normal sauerkraut to dilute the harsh flavor.


What's the proper way to dispose of used fats & oils? Down the drain? Does it depend on the type? With bacon fat, I usually let it solidify in a cup lined with foil, and then throw it out. With used canola oil, I'm not quite sure what to do because it doesn't solidify.

Never down the drain.  We've had a few incidents in my neighborhood where the sewer pipes were clogged with fat, and a few people's basements flooded with sewage as a result.

For fats that solidify, let them do so, then pitch them in your regular garbage. Chill grease in the fridge if you need to get it to harden up. For ones that don't solidify, pour them into a sealable (hopefully non-recyclable) bottle, and throw the whole container away with your regular garbage.

It's possible that your area might accept cooking fats & oils as part of a recycling effort. Ours does for motor oil (I live in Maryland).

For restaurants, some places (eg, the state of Maryland) require a system for catching grease that's been washed down the sink. It's my understanding that they're fairly expensive (a couple thousand dollars US), but the fines for not having one installed may be even more, and they won't let new restaurants open without one.


What went wrong with my brownies? I've read numerous forum posts and mini-articles about substituting applesauce for oil in brownie mix, but for some reason it went horribly wrong:

(Okay, that's actually after trying to salvage it by putting it back in the oven after grabbing some good slivers off the edge)

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say...underbaked.

Either you didn't leave it in long enough or your oven wasn 't hot enough.  Realize many, many ovens can be significantly off their 'set' temperature.  An oven thermometer is a great investment.

(I don't believe applesauce had anything to do with this unless you put like 10x the amount of applesauce in.)


Discolouration of Sushi Rice In our sushi rolls with plain cucumber - the sushi rice seems to get a black discolouration around the cucumber after a few hours stored in the fridge. Any ideas as to why and how to prevent it?

well, for starters, sushi should be eaten fresh, but if needs must:

1) the cucumber has some alkaloids that we usually take out when preparing (my mom call it the "evil" of the cucumber). I cut the "tops" of the cucumber and use a circular motion to friction the sliced tops on the main cucumber "body" and let capillary action do the rest;
2) also for freshness and crunchiness, after you slice the cucumber, sprinkle it with some salt and let osmosis work for ~15 minutes. Squeeze the water out and roll your sushi. If you do this, the sushi rice (which is seasoned) won't draw out the water in the cucumber and take with it the coloring

I've never had this discoloration problem, and this are the 2 main things that I know that both me and my mom do that are not exactly common when preparing sushi.


What can I do with a large amount of glacé cherries? I accidentally bought 1 kg of glacé cherries instead of the dried cherries which I meant to buy.

Aside from fruitcake, which I hate, is there anything I can do to use these up?

If you search for glacé cherries you're going to get nowhere; these are much more commonly referred to as candied cherries and there are plenty of recipes to be found.

More specifically, the most common pairing seems to be almonds. Seems you can make just about any confection from almonds and candied cherries: cookies, nut brittle, bourbon/almond balls, cookies/biscotti, quickbreads, and even fudge.


Alternatives to roasting squash for soup? Premise that you can access merely an electric range, and can't access any functioning oven, not even a toaster one. Then what can you do in lieu of roasting your squash? Pan-fry or caramelize it in a cast-iron skillet?

Roasted Acorn Squash and Apple Soup - Making Thyme for Health

  I find that acorn squash is a little bit harder to peel and chop so I decided to roast it instead of boil it in the pot. I know roasting it might sound like a lot of work but it’s actually pretty easy.

  After you slice of the top, you cut in half, clean out the seeds, rub it with a little bit of oil and then bake it in the oven face down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper for about 45 minutes.

Holiday Soup: Roasted Acorn Squash Soup with Sage and Sour Cream - Family Spice

  To make the flavors of this soup pop some more, I roasted the acorn squash instead of just sautéing them or boiling them in broth. I also added some carrots – hello, even more beta carotene! After the veggies were browned from roasting, I added it to my pot of sautéed onions and poured in some vegetable broth.

It is easy to create a little oven on your range top in a pan with a lid.

simply cook on low heat with a well-fitting lid on the pan (I use a glass lid so I can see the food).
if you want to steam the food for part or all of the cook, just add a little water to the pan
for the ultimate stove-top oven, put your food on a small rack to raise it off the pan's surface so it will get much less direct heat (see photo below).

If you want to caramelize the squash you can do so using options 1 or 3 above very easily.  Directly on the heat will be faster but more aggressive, and you'll probably want to use a little oil or other fat. Let it brown on one side and then turn it over. Depending on the thickness of the cut you may want to turn it more frequently so it cooks through tender by the time it's browned on both sides.

Put it on a rack on lower heat if you want a longer bake time, more gently like an oven. This is an especially good method if you want to bake it dry with no fat.

.


How to honey roast peanuts? http://m.wikihow.com/Make-Honey-Roasted-Peanuts

Here it is mentioned that peanuts should not be raw. Why?

When I will put them in the oven, they will get roasted. Why does that link want me to not use raw peanuts?

For sure, @TFD is correct that you should be wary of Wikihow - in the link you shared, the proportions of ingredients listed at the top don't appear to match the actual amounts of ingredients shown in the pictures.

"Honey Roasted Peanuts" is a catch-all phrase that is used to describe just about any type roasted peanuts in a candy coating.  The catch-all extends to recipes that don't even call for much honey (typically a touch of honey and a bunch of sugar) and to recipes that don't even call for much roasting.

To get roasted peanuts in a candy coating using an oven, you either have to roast-then-coat or you have to coat-then-roast.   The primary difference is oven time.  If you use cooked peanuts, you only need to cook the coated nuts long enough for the candy coating to bake onto the peanut - you're just honey-glazing the peanuts - they won't be in the oven nearly as long as they would be if you were roasting raw nuts.  It's a fairly quick process that's easy enough to gauge by sight.  Technically, you'd be roasting the honey coating onto the nuts - not roasting the raw nuts in honey.

Note - Planters nuts are labeled as "Dry Roasted Honey Roasted Peanuts" - the peanuts are dry-roasted first then coated then roasted again.  Also, for what it's worth, the ingredients list shows they contain more sugar than honey by weight:  http://www.planters.com/varieties/nutrition-information.aspx?Site=1&Product=2900007345 .

If you use raw peanuts, you would need to keep them in the oven long enough for the peanuts to roast as well.  Given the oven time your link recommends, raw peanuts would not cook - so that would be one fundamental reason why your link specifies that you not use raw peanuts.  Potential flaws of Wikihow aside, your link proposes a way to roast honey onto nuts, not a way to roast nuts using honey.

You can certainly honey-roast raw peanuts using more time in the oven - but the timing could present problems with the coat-then-roast method.  The candied coating is going to brown as your mixture cooks in the oven making it difficult to visually gauge when your formerly raw peanuts have cooked sufficiently (or if they are cooking evenly).  Also, you should be aware that once nuts are cooked and hot, it is very easy for them to go from done to burnt in very little time - it is probably pretty easy to burn your mix if you overshoot the roasting.  It would definitely be easier to determine when a honey glaze has roasted onto cooked nuts than it would be to know when raw nuts were finished cooking in a glaze.

But if raw peanuts are easier to come by or if you want to have literally roasted honeyed peanuts, it's definitely possible but I would recommend looking to a more reputable source for guidance (especially for cooking time).  And once you start roasting your mix, stir/rearrange the nuts thoroughly and frequently to insure even cooking and to keep burning at bay.


converting pure chocolate to "bittersweet" chocolate A chocolate cookie recipe I'm looking at calls for melting down a cup of bittersweet chocolate chips. However, I happen to have a brick of completely unsweetened cooking chocolate in the fridge. Can I convert that to "bittersweet" by simply melting it down and adding stuff (sugar, butter?) to it? If so, what should I add, and in what ratios, relative to the amount of unsweetened chocolate?

Thanks,
-- Matt

Can you melt unsweetened chocolate, add sugar, and have bittersweet chocolate? No. The resulting chocolate might taste fine, but it would be gritty from the sugar. To get an idea of what is involved in sweetening chocolate, check out this page about making chocolate from cocoa beans: http://www.chocolatealchemy.com/conchingrefining.php

Of course, since you're using it in backing, the simple solution is just to increase the sugar in the recipe. Instead of adding the sugar to the chocolate, just add it to the cookies.


Does using egg+yolk in a chocolate chip cookie recipe make a big difference? Some recipes I've seen use an egg + yolk combination. A lot of them just use one egg. Does it make a big difference, as long as there is enough liquid in the batter? Would big brands use egg + yolk for a chocolate chip cookie? Wouldn't that waste a lot of whites?

The main reason that you'll see recipes use a specific part of the egg is that the whites and yolks have a very different composition.  The whites contain a large number of structural proteins (which is why they can be whipped into stable foams) while the yolks contain most of the fats in the egg. Fats and proteins play very different roles in baking.

So, if you see a recipe that uses a whole egg plus an additional yolk, the yolk is there to add fats without adding the additional proteins that the white would bring to the party. This affects the structure of the batter and the texture/flavor of the finished product. Generally the extra fat will contribute extra softness and richness, from its composition and of course extra moisture. Here's a good question with related information.

In regards to commercial production, I'd be really doubtful that large commercial producers are using anything like whole eggs. Based on scale alone, they're more likely to be using pre-separated eggs from a supplier, or perhaps some kind of horrifying egg substitute. Not to mention all sorts of stabilizers, emulsifiers, preservatives, and so on that all perform functions similar or complementary to the chemical action of the egg.

As for extra whites, there's any number of uses for those. Powdered egg white is a surprisingly common food additive because of its thickening and emulsifying properties, and it's possible to find packaged, pre-separated egg whites in cartons. The same producers that make these are likely supplying the commercial baking operations too. Don't go imagining that the Chips Ahoy factory is full of a bunch of enterprising bakers cracking and separating eggs all day long, casually chucking out extra whites. If there's waste, it's further up the supply chain, and most likely the supplier is finding something to do with those extra whites.


Can I eat a sauce that ruined my carbon steel pan seasoning I cooked a sauce of dry spices, coconut milk, ginger root and lemon grass in my steel carbon pan. I finnished the sauce of with the juice of one lime fruit.

I thought that the coconut milk would protect the seasoning by neutralizing the acidity of the lime juice, but when I cleaned out the pan, the seasoning in the bottom was destroyed -- down to the steel.

It is a deBuyer pan Mineral B type.

The seasoning is from flaxseed oil, Sheryll Canter style with six layers of oil polymerized on top of each other in a 250 degree Celsius oven etc.

My question is: is it safe to eat the dish with the corrosive sauce, in the sense that it contains the residue from the corroded seasoning?

Cheers
Mats

You have some misconceptions here.
First, coconut milk doesn't neutralize any acid, it is just fat in water, probably with a very mild acidic pH itself. For neutralizing an acid, you need a base (and it has nothing to do with the perception of diminished sourness coming from eating fat alongside the acid).
Second, it wasn't the acid that stripped away the seasoning. Bases strip seasoning, acids don't. And you need something a lot more corrosive than an edible sauce for that. The advice to not make highly acidic sauces in iron pans is connected to concerns about rusting the pan underneath the seasoning. Your seasoning probably went away because flaxseed tends to make nonrobust seasoning.
As for the safety, it is obviously safe in the strict sense, polymerized oil gets created in everyday cooking too and nobody has created a regulation forbidding us from serving food where that has happened. This means that you won't keel over from food poisoning tomorrow. If you are asking it in any other sense (e.g. whether it has long-term effects on your health), this is a topic which is explicitely excluded from discussion on our site.


Microwave stopped working/works again I spilled coffee on my counter top and it went under my microwave.  It did not appear to me that it went inside the unit at all.  When I went to use it several hours later there was obviously a problem.  When I opened the door the microwave started working, turn table started going and light on.  I could still set the timer and use it but I did not.  This continued for approximately 24 hours.  It now appears that everything is back to normal but I am a bit worried to use it.  Is it safe to use?

Please help this frightened Grandma!

The fact that the microwave malfunctioned clearly indicates that a damage is done. Judging based on symptoms that you're describing, this a typical short circuit. Now that things have dried up a bit, it might just keep working fine.

Chances are, corrosion caused by residue liquid will eventually destroy the circuit. But that's not the worst part.

Damage made to electric circuits by liquid can be unpredictable. By all safety standards and guidelines, your microwave is not safe to use. Fair enough, the chances that something really bad would happen are slim, but consequences can be brutal as well (think deadly electric shock or a fire). For your own safety, please, either find a technician and service your microwave, or buy a new one.


Frying then finishing breaded pork chops in the oven I want to pan fry first then finish in the oven. For 1" pork chops how long to I bake & at what temperature.
Thanks

A quick google search give multiple results.

Most are in the range of oven at 350F, pan fry 3 minutes each side and put in oven for 10 minutes or until around 150F internal temperature.


How do I debone fish quickly? A week ago, we bought some salmon, that was oddly cheap.  Today, after cooking it, we realized why: there were hundreds of bones in the fish, all waiting to make their way into our throats. We stopped eating it and threw it away. I realized at the same time that even though they were potential hazards, it was such a waste of money.

Question is, how do we best efficiently filter out fish bones from fish that have tons of them? In other words, is there an easier way besides manually pulling out the bones one by one?

If you are speaking of a salmon filet, you must remove the pin bones one by one.  The easiest way to do it is with tweezers or needle nosed pliers.   This brief video demonstrates the technique:

Run the back of your knife across the line where the bones are, from tail to head, to make them pop out more.
Pull each bone, on an angle towards the head of the fish


After breakfast, egg plate clean up I wash breakfast plates for about 800 people every morning, I scrub the plates before putting them in the dishwashe, is there some kind of chemical I can use to break down the egg protien and no longer have to scrub? - tired hands and all!

I feel you pain. I spent 2 summers cleaning dishes to help pay for summer camp and that was only 100 campers (3 meals a day). 800 eggy dishes is not fun!

Getting egg off doesn't require anything special, just a soak in cold soapy water for a few minutes. Egg is a mix of protein and fat. Fat comes off better in warm or hot water but proteins come off much better in cold or cool water as heat makes the proteins stickier. If you can, set aside a container of some kind with cool soapy water and put loads of the plates into it. Soak as long as you can, then pull them out a few at a time and wash the gunk off with a sponge, then get into the dishwasher right away. If you're scrubbing you're working too hard!


Is it wise to use an aluminum foil in the microwave? Is there a substitute for the aluminum foil? I was recently looking up a recipe for quick Chawanmushi and came across a recipe which used aluminum foil in the microwave.

First of all, I thought that aluminum foil, with it's jagged edges would cause sparks.
Second of all, why can't you just use some plastic wrap?

I did not try it because I didn't want to cause some sort of fire or do something bad to break my microwave.

Is there a good reason to use this method?

See this wikipedia page, it states that if not crumpled aluminum foils is generally safe, so make sure you do not crumple it.
Then it says

  The USDA recommends that aluminum foil used as a partial food shield in microwave cooking cover no more than one quarter of a food object, and be carefully smoothed to eliminate sparking hazards.

The reference states

  However, small pieces of aluminum foil can be used to “shield” areas of foods,
  such as poultry drumsticks and wings, to prevent overcooking.

It also states

General Rules for Safe Use of Aluminum Foil:

Use new, smooth foil only. Wrinkled foil can cause arcing (sparks).
Cover no more than 1/4 of the food with foil.
Shape the foil smoothly to the food so no edges stick out
It makes no difference which side of foil (shiny or dull) is facing out.
Do not place the foil closer than one inch from the oven walls.
If the microwave oven has metal shelves OR a metal turntable, don’t
microwave food in foil containers or metal pans, and don’t let foil used for
shielding touch or be close to the shelves or turntable.
If you see arcing (sparks), immediately remove the foil shielding; transfer
frozen food from foil container to a microwave-safe utensil.

My bolding.

So make sure you only cover the top of the cup and make the foil smooth, do not crumple it and it should be safe.

The reason to use this as stated in the blog is speed, a few minutes compared to much longer.