Can I use reverse osmosis water for cooking? I am considering buying an in-line reverse osmosis (RO) filter for our new house, as #1, I like to drink good water, and #2, I like to brew with good water.  Somewhere in between those two, however, is I also like to COOK with good water.

I feel like a water report is like a snapshot of a single point in time, when the composition of the municipal water can change throughout the year to match rainwater pH/composition, so I'm likely going to start building from RO up.

I can't seem to find any information on the webs about cooking (baking, bread-leavening, etc.) with water that is good for brewing, that is, good for brewing after some salt/acid/base additions. The last thing I need is to be adding CaCl to my wife's shortbread cookies.

Will plain RO water work for cooking as well as brewing, or will I need to make similar additions?

A good RO system costs about $100,000 as advised to me by a hydrologist.  You may be better off with a good 3-filter (10 micron) setup.  RO is usually used for high volume of consumed water and doesn't get everything out (unless you have the $100k system).

Before you spend the money, I would recommend consulting a local hydrologist and lab about other local tests they've performed over the recent times and what they've found in the water.

You can also walk into the nearest Starbucks as ask them about the filters on their lines.  Regardless their coffee taste, they are usually strict about their water being good.  You may be able copy their set up and be happy with it.

As far as cooking and brewing with 'over filtered' water goes, it may be a better problem to have than unwanted stuff in the water left behind.  Some bottled waters such as Dasani have everything removed, then they add back some minerals to satisfy taste profiles [sales].

For cooking and brewing, you're unlikely miss the taste of the minerals in the water and more likely be happy about crispness.


using deep fried oil for regular frying Is it okay to use oil that was used for deep frying for regular frying (for example frying your omelette ? For the sake of the argument, lets assume that the oil hasn't changed its color or smell at all, i.e. it WOULD be okay to reuse it for deep frying. If not - what is the difference in this regard to reusing it for deep frying?

Yes, that's totally fine. As long as the oil hasn't broken down and still tastes fine, there is no reason you can't use some of it for other purposes.


Cooking Cauliflower so it doesn't fall apart? How do you avoid cauliflower from being so delicate? I cook it and it often falls apart.
I heard there's a way from stopping it from doing this.

P.S. Often we boil it, and cook it with a little of salt and butter; it's just simple and quick.

With broccoli or cauliflower, if you cook it for too long, it'll get mushy and fall apart. Boiling will exacerbate that a bit, so if you're looking for firmer cauliflower, I'd recommend steaming it, and keeping an eye on it. When the fork goes in without a lot of work, it's done.


Is there a downside to tenderizing meat? I'm specifically asking about manual or mechanical tenderization prior to cooking, as with a meat tenderizer (also called a mallet). Wikipedia says

  Tenderizing meat with the mallet softens the fibers, making the meat easier to chew, and easier to digest. It is useful when preparing particularly tough cuts of steak, and works well when broiling or frying the meat.

This makes pounding or mashing meat sound like a magic bullet that can never go wrong. I've learned the hard way that there is no such thing in a kitchen: a sufficiently inventive cook (such as yours truly) can find a way to ruin any recipe.

I recently purchased a steak from a meat counter, and the butcher offered to run it through their tenderizer. I imagined a machine equivalent to a robotic hammer array and agreed. However, I was surprised to find when I opened the package at home that the machine had actually cut a large number of closely spaced striations part way through the steak.

How does this differ from a pounding tenderization process? Is there a guide to which types of meat work better with which types of tenderization? Are there some cuts or species of meat that don't respond well to tenderizing? What are the pitfalls when using either process? Can you over-pound or over-slice a cut of meat and damage it or cause it to toughen? Does manual tenderizing conflict with other types of tenderization (e.g. brasing, enzymatic, brining, marinating etc.)?

Right now, the only downside to manual tenderizing that I can think of is the time and effort required to pound it out. I've been meaning to pick up a meat mallet and wanting to go nuts experimenting, but I'm hoping to avoid any mistakes.

Almost any cut of meat can be pounded--very thin steaks commonly called cutlets or scallopini are made from tender cuts being pounded thin.   This is most often done with chicken or pork, but you will also find, for example, medallions of beef tenderloin pounded to get them into a uniform shape and size.

Obviously, this is work to do, and changes the shape (and thus the cooking properties) of the cut involved, but does not really have a negative effect.

Your butcher did not pound the meat. Instead, he ran it through a commercial version of a jacquard meat tenderizer.  The home version looks like this, with many small pointy blades or needles to penetrate the meat:

Picture from Chef's Catalog

They are used to create many, many small cuts in the meat, physically severing the connective tissue and making it more tender.   The most frequent home use is to make cube steakl; they are also often employed in making chicken fried steak.

The many small holes may also help the steak absorb some seasoning from a marinade.

Is there a guide to which types of meat work better with which types of tenderization?

Tender cuts like chicken breasts, beef filet, pork loin, and so on don't need any tenderization.  THey may be pounded to reshape them, but there is no real requirement.

Tough cuts, typically beef, may be physically pounded or subjected to the tender mercies of the jacquard tenderizer in order to render them easier to eat and more succulent when they are being used for a rapid cooking method like chicken fried steak.  If they are being used in a low and slow method, like braising or barbecuing, there is no point and the many small holes would be a detriment as they would allow more moisture to be expressed.

Can you over-pound or over-slice a cut of meat and damage it or cause it to toughen?

Yes, eventually you will reduce it to shreds, or make to thin and unattractive.

Does manual tenderizing conflict with other types of tenderization (e.g. brasing, enzymatic, brining, marinating etc.)?

Firstly, neither brining nor marinating tenderize, ever, unless there is acid or an active enzymatic ingredient in the marinade to do it.

Braising (and other low and slow methods) work by converting the connective tissue protein collagen into gelatin, thus making the cut succulent and tender, despite being very well done.  IF you are going to do this, there simply is no point in mechanical tenderization.

Enzymatic tenderization works by denaturing the proteins in the meat, and if over done will turn them to mush.   It also works only at the surface, unless left long enough to penetrate--but then the surface will mushy.   Using a jacquard might be helpful in getting an enzymatic marindate to penetrate and act on some of the interior of the cut, but I personally do not like the outcome from enzymatic treatments, and never use them.


How can I pit cherries easily and neatly? I would like to make a recipe I have found for Cherry Clafoutis. But, I have never had any luck pitting cherries. I leave a lot of the cherry flesh attached to the pits, or I just rough the cherries up way too much.

Any tricks?

This is one of the rare cases where I tolerate unitaskers in my kitchen:

A hand-held cherry pitter like in the photo below (or a similar model) needs little space in a drawer and works for olives as well. Unless you plan to pit cherries by the bushel, it is totally sufficient.

 (Source)

For a more "hacky" aporoach, some use a bent open paperclip, but I find them too flimsy and hard to grab. A classic hairpin is a lot sturdier:

Push it in from the stem end, circle the stone to separate it from the flesh and pull / pop the stone out.

If your cherries need not be whole, cutting them half open with a paring knife is an option, use the same technique you'd use for pitting plums. But it's a bit of a fiddly work and, unlike with the methods above, you risk cutting yourself because the juice makes the fruit, the knife and your fingers slippery.


Replicating Good Seasons brand Italian salad dressing dry mix I use the dry mix in a ranch chicken recipe. I would like to make my own version from scratch. How would I go about trying to duplicate there recipe so to speak? I've looked at the list of ingredients on the package but I don't know what actually makes the flavor, and what is preservatives.

Ingredients: sugar, salt, sodium, citrate, garlic, onions, spice, red bell peppers, carrots, xanthan gum, maltodextrin, parsley, guar gum, natural flavor, soy sauce (wheat, soybeans, salt), citric acid,

Classically a Italian blend would be:

teaspoon dried thyme
teaspoon dried basil
tablespoon dried parsley
tablespoon garlic salt
tablespoon onion powder
tablespoon white sugar
tablespoons dried oregano
teaspoon ground black pepper
teaspoon celery salt
teaspoon salt

The just add water/oil/vinegar to make into dressing.


Pots and Pans in the dishwasher Settle a longstanding feud in our household for me: is it safe to put pots and pans in the dishwasher?

Assume we have both stainless steel and various non-stick pans. Assume we have frypans, sauce-pots, and larger pots that would conceivably fit, but we're not talking about cast iron pans here, or bakeware. The answer may differ based on the type of pan specifically being used, but assume all boxes and manuals have been lost since we bought the pans and we don't know if it's rated for the dishwasher.

There is no problem with putting either stainless steel or non-stick pans in the dishwasher in terms of their materials. However:

Non-stick pans are often better washed gently by hand without too much soap, so they retain a bit of oil. This helps them stay non-stick. You may note that a dishwashed non-stick pan is quite sticky the first time you use it after a wash.
Non-stick pans hold odours quite readily. Many dishwasher soaps are quite strongly scented, and this can be retained in the pan itself, and thus transferred to your food when it's heated up. I remember well a batch of marinara sauce with a noticeable lemon-fresh overtone!
Dishwashers knock everything around while they work. If your pans' handles are sturdy this shouldn't be an issue, but you can find that handles can loosen up after a few bouts in the dishwasher.

So, in summary, yes, you can put pots and pans in the dishwasher, with caution. Personally I put my Ikea stainless steel pans with welded handles in without a second thought, but I reserve my non-stick Tefals with bolted handles for hand-washing.

  Go not to the Elves for advice, for they will say both no and yes


What does gluten "do" in baking? I saw many questions regarding converting baking recipes towards gluten-free, and it seems it's not an easy process. But none of the questions I came across helped me understanding what gluten actually "does" in baking.

The background of this question is that I've got friends visiting in October, one of them is a celiac, and there's a few baking recipes I'd like to try while they're here. Knowing what gluten actually "does" would help me to evaluate if it's even worth trying to convert the recipes ...

I went into some detail with this in my answer to What are the factors that affect the chewiness, softness, moisture of bread based desserts like cinnamon rolls?

To summarize my points there and add some more (simplified) detail on the chemistry:

Gluten is responsible for elasticity of dough, which is perceived as chewiness.  The difference between bread, quickbread (muffins/scones), and cake is largely due to the difference in gluten formation, with cake having the lowest amount and bread having the highest.
It does not directly cause rising - the leavening agent (yeast, baking powder, etc.) is responsible for that. What it does do is form a protein network by cross-linking, which not only results in the elasticity above but also traps gas and prevents it from escaping during the baking process. The "rising" in baked goods is essentially just stretching of the gluten network. This is why hydrocolloids such as xanthan and guar gum can mimic some of the effects in gluten-free recipes; although the mechanism is completely different - in essence, they're creating a very thin gel.
Gluten is also exceptionally good at both absorbing and retaining moisture; it can absorb up to 150% (1.5 times its own weight) in water. One thing you'll notice about typical wheat products vs. their gluten-free equivalents is that latter don't last too long and have to be frozen or consumed quickly. Part of this is due to preservatives in commercial baked goods, but much of it is also simply due to the gluten retarding moisture loss.  You can think of it as a kind of natural preservative.
It's activated by water and heat and is (relatively) slow-acting, which gives it a high tolerance with respect to time and temperature. This is why many people will tell you that bread is "forgiving" while cake and other low-gluten/gluten-free products are not. When baking without gluten, you will have to be very precise about all of your measurements.
Its coagulation action is actually very similar to that of egg whites, and pure gluten (AKA vital wheat gluten) is sometimes actually used as a replacement for egg whites. A meringue is just heavily aerated egg whites and specifically protein; gluten is basically doing the same thing inside of whatever you're baking.
Finally, it provides nutritive protein when eaten. Wheat gluten is about 75% protein and all-purpose flour is about 10% gluten. That means 7.5% of the flour you consume is actually protein. Of course that's nowhere near what you get from meat, but it's still a significant contribution to one's diet.

In short: Gluten does a lot of things. Keep in mind when doing gluten-free baking that a lot of the substitutes only replicate one or two of the effects.


What makes coffee grinds sink in a french press? We use a press pot to make coffee at home, and usually after a 3 minute steep, the grounds are  floating at the top, but with this one bag of beans we got, they're all sunk to the bottom.

The coffee basically tastes normal. Maybe a little thin, but that could easily be the roast.

Why would most coffee grounds float, but these sink? Is there something wrong with these beans?

We use a burr grinder and hadn't changed the grind setting. Same water, etc. Only change is the beans. "Medium-Dark" roasted Ethiopian Yirgacheffe from a local roaster, roasted about 2 weeks before brewing...

The question should really read "What makes coffee sink?" It does not matter if it is in the form of grinds or beans (though it is easier with grinds) nor does the receptacle. The issue is buoyancy.

  buoy·an·cy  (boin-s, byn-)
  n.
  1.
  a. The tendency or capacity to remain afloat in a liquid or rise in air or gas.
  b. The upward force that a fluid exerts on an object less dense than itself.

As the coffee is soaked in the hot water chemicals are extracted from the grind, mostly oils, that have an impact the buoyancy of the coffee. Once, the desirable chemicals are extracted to the surrounding water (again, moistly an oil) the buoyancy of the coffee is altered and the residue sinks to the bottom.

During my time in the U.S. Army field coffee was made quickly by getting a 15 gallon stock pot boiling and just pouring a five pound can of coffee in. Allow to boil for 5 minutes, reduce the heat and hit the side the stock pot with a ladle. Immediately all (ok, most...) of the coffee would sink to the bottom and fresh (if not altogether worthy of Starbucks) coffee could be ladled out. Why whack the pot? This would disrupt boiling of the water and allow the coffee to sink quickly.

Why are your grinds sinking? Well, the best guess is that they came deficient in the compounds that make the coffee normally buoyant. If the brand/roast is not up to your satisfaction you should be able to return it for fresh. If this a brand to which you are accustomed, but this batch isn't 'normal' then it is probably an anomaly, as you said the coffee tastes normal, so I wouldn't not worry to much about it.


Does white whole wheat flour need to be refrigerated? I know that regular whole wheat flour needs to be refrigerated, but does white whole wheat flour also need refrigeration? I hate to use up the space in the refrigerator if I don't have to.

I have 5 lb. (2.3 kg), and it would probably take me a month or so to use it all.

The only difference between regular whole wheat flour and white whole wheat flour is the variety of wheat from which it is ground.  Regular whole wheat flour is ground from red wheat while white whole wheat is from a lighter pigmented wheat and thus the lighter color.  In both cases the germ is still intact and thus as Jonathan Campbell stated, it will go rancid more quickly than white flour.

Keep it in a cool dark place and use up quickly if you can't refrigerate or freeze it.

When you keep it in the refrigerator or freezer and plan to use it for yeast breads, remember to allow it to warm to room temperature before using for best results with your yeast.


Are all stainless pans necessarily non stick? Are all stainless steel pans coated with nonstick? Can stainless steel saute or frying pans be distinguished by the quality of their nonstick coating?
I'm just afraid of accidentally buying a stainless steel pan that happens to lack, or to have shoddy, nonstick coatings.

I would go further than the other answers and even say that it is the opposite of your understanding:
The terms "non-stick pan" and "stainless steel pan" are mostly mutually exclusive in their usage. That is, when a cook speaks of a stainless steel pan, or a product description is titled as a stainless steel pan, this is usually taken to mean that the pan has no non-stick coating.
I am saying "mostly", because technically, they are not mutually exclusive, they are orthogonal. You can have a stainless steel pan with or without nonstick coating, and pans of another material with or without nonstick coating. This is why you can still see a product page which has the title of "nonstick pan" and somewhere in the description you will see the material listed as "stainless steel". But this is a minor detail, if you go shopping for a "stainless steel pan" you will almost certainly get only pans without a coating.
Pan materials and coatings can be a confusing topic, and if you have never experienced them live, you may not be able to recognize them from a picture. In your situation, it might be better to buy a pan offline, from a specialized store, and ask a salesperson to show you the different materials so you can start recognizing them. Just don't believe any claim the salesperson or the packaging makes about the durability of nonstick coatings, be it the teflon or the ceramic kind.


Best way to cook a two bird roast? I've bought this for Christmas. It's a boneless turkey and duck rolled together with stuffing. What's going to be the best way to cook this?

Seeing as it's boneless and therefore has no cavities, I'm wondering about sous vide, but it'll need to be long and hot enough to tenderise the leg meat without destroying the breast meat? That's going to be tricky to achieve.

Or do I go for the throw it in the oven at 160 Celcius for a couple of hours then up to 220 Celcius to brown it for 30 minutes at the end?

In my opinion, sous vide is the way to go here.  Throwing this in an oven is going to mean that you are likely going to overcook the outside, by the time the inside is at a safe temperature.  Because you have to cook these birds whole, there is really no way to differentiate between dark and white meat no matter what approach you take. I would sous vide at a temperature that is slightly lower (by a couple of degrees) than you like, then toss it in a very hot oven (or hot pan and baste) to crisp the skin.


Differences between cloth, fiberglass and silicone baking mats? There are various reusable baking/parchment paper substitutes on the market now, and a quick trawl through Aliexpress reveals at least three kinds:

Cloth, reinforced with fiberglass (very cheap, from $1)
Silpat-style mixed silicone and fiberglass mats (from $4)
"Pyramid/fat reducing" silicone mats with a textured surface (from $4)

Is there a meaningful difference between the cloth and the silicone types?  The textured/pyramid ones obviously won't be much good for baking anything where you want a flat surface.

The key difference from my perspective is cleaning. Silicone is the easiest material in my kitchen to scrub clean, with the possible exception of stainless steel. Cloth is very far down the list.

Also, depending on the texture of the cloth, more food will almost certainly stick to the cloth, unless it's sealed with something, in which case what is it sealed with? And how is it sealing the fiberglass in?

I use the kind with a thin grid of fibers inside the silicone. It adds more stability and lets the overall thickness be thinner for better heat transmission, compared to a plain silicone silpat. As long as I don't use it as a cutting board, the fiberglass stays safely inside. It does add a very slight grid texture to the bottom of loaves, but it's barely noticeable and doesn't look bad at all.

The pyramid kind, which would reduce food contact and increase drainage and airflow, sounds like it would be good for specific applications, but not something I'd make a batch of cookies on.


Size of holes for salt/pepper/seasoning shakers? Is there any reference for the sizes of holes for salt shakers?  For cooking I should think that the holes would be larger than for table shakers.

This question is not, "Would you recommend using a shaker?"

I don't think there is any set standard for the size of the holes. Most of the salt and pepper shakers I've seen sold to be used at the stove or grill don't necessarily have larger holes, but they have a lot more holes. They also hold more salt or pepper than table sets. This is an example similar to most I've seen:

If you look at the vast amount of salt and pepper shakers available, you will see that they come with very few holes, lots of holes, different size holes, etc. I think the key in what to use is to find what you feel comfortable with.

Also, consider what type(s) of salt and pepper you are using. Most shakers are sold for use with table salt and ground black pepper. But if you are using a more coarsely ground salt or pepper you would obviously need larger holes.

I, like most of the others who commented, don't use shakers while I'm cooking. The only time I would use shakers is perhaps when seasoning food before or after it is cooked. The real downside is that if you try to shake salt or pepper over hot foods while cooking, steam can cause the salt or pepper to clog the holes.


Do green lentils go bad? How do you know when green lentils expire?   If the expiration label says 9/19 how long can you keep them?

If you are talking about dried uncooked green lentils, then they are probably good for another 4 or 5 months depending on the condition they were stored in and how they look now.

Dried lentils are safe to use after the "expiration" date on the package, provided it is properly stored and the package is undamaged - commercially packaged dried lentils will typically carry a " Best By," "Best if Used By," "Best Before", or "Best When Used By" date but this is not a safety date, it is the manufacturer's estimate of how long the dried lentils will remain at peak quality.

If there are no Weevils or any srot of bugs and you do not see any spoilage you are good to eat them.


What are the differences between fresh beans and dried ones? I recently came across some fresh black beans at my local farmer's market. It was the first time I had seen black beans that weren't either canned or dried.

I'm sure the fresh beans will cook faster and not need to soak, but are there any other differences I should know about? How will the resulting beans cook compared to dried beans? Will they also taste different? Are some dishes suited more to fresh beans than dried?

What about other types of beans since fresh Cranberry and Lima beans were also at the market?

There is a difference in texture. Dried beans tend to be slightly more grainy. This is based on my experience cooking fresh borlotti beans and comparing them with dried ones. The skin on fresh ones seemed more tender and they kept their shape better. However this was a very direct and critical comparison with both beans next to each other. I imagine it would be harder to draw these conclusions if you don't have the beans cooked next to each other.

There is also a nutritional difference; dried goods lose most of their water soluble vitamins. These include vitamins B-complex and C. Although neither vitamin is present in great numbers in beans.


How can I thicken margaritas? I've been making margaritas and I've found that, unlike fancy bar/restaraunt bought margaritas, my margaritas come out more like a liquid drink with shaved ice sitting in it than a mixture. I have a Margarittaville mixer for proper shaved ice, but the final drink lacks the same thickness I'm used to in a margarita; the exception being strawberry margaritas. With (lots of) real strawberries the drink comes out much thicker and smoother to drink.

Is there some ingredient that can thicken the mix for a smoother drink? Generally I use tequila, triple sec, agave nectar and then either a mix, strawberries, limeade or whatever for flavor.

If the restaurant or bar is using a margarita mix, they frequently contain additional syrups and stabilizing gums or starches which add body to the drinks. It could also be that the high powered blenders frequently used in bars will be better at creating a smoother and thicker texture, or a more 'emulsified' slush.

If you want to try making it thicker at home, the agave nectar is a good start. You could also try adding very small amounts of food gums, like guar gum or gum arabic. It may also help to chill all of your ingredients thoroughly before blending to keep it as frozen as possible.


Pan stain after roasting cheese A couple of weeks ago I bought this "grill and pan cheese" in a supermarket and I distinctly remember to have chosen this one because it didn't contain any weird chemicals... It seemed to me "only cheese" and nothing else.
It came in a parallelepiped form (just like feta would... and looked just like that) and both grilled and pan-roasted, its consistency was a bit chewy (to the point that I would hear squeaking every time that I put a piece in my mouth).

I'm explaining this whole thing to help you better understand what I am talking about, so you can maybe have a better opinion on the fact.

When I roasted the squeaky thing in the pan to the point that it was brown on both sides, I noticed that my pan was stained. After the meal I rinsed it (when it was cool), and put it in the dishwasher. After having it washed, the rectangular brownish stain remained (and I could also not remove it washing the pan by hand). Notice that the pan is a ceramic "non-stick" one.

What do you think caused the stain? How can I clean the pan?

EDIT:

Just a follow up... After all this time my pan never failed me. Nothing else sticked to it or caused nasty stains. The one of the cheese remained though.

The most likely explanation is that your pan starts failing. When ceramic pans fail, they do so by getting gummed up with food buildup.

I am a bit surprised to see it first occur with cheese, but maybe you dipped it in batter before frying? Also, the herbs on it could have been mixed with starch before being applied to the cheese, this is done to prevent caking and mold. Typically, the worst combination for these pans is starch with fat. On the other hand, I have no proof that it can't happen with cheese, it's just that I haven't heard of it being the first food to start sticking.

Once this happens, you can't really clean it. A lye solution will restore it for a short time, but I don't know the physics of the pan failure, so I have no idea if it is beneficial, or on the contrary, if it speeds up the degradation process.

Just continue using the pan, and once it becomes too non-nonstick, decide if you want to keep it that way and fry with it as with a standard pan (it behaves much like a stainless steel pan afterwards) or throw it out. For me, it depends on the pan heating quality, if it is a good pan with thick bottom and even heating, it continues doing a good job after the coating fails.


Why does oil burn when put into a hot pan? I was trying to make the scrambled eggs based on the answer found here. I set my stainless-steel pan on the burner and set the burner about halfway between medium and high. After the panned warmed on quite a bit (probably all the way), I put some ghee in the pan. It immediately burned and smoked up my home.

Why does ghee (and probably also other oils) burn when put into a hot pan? What is the remedy for this? According to some of the answers to this question, I should either be putting in the ghee (or oil) into a cold pan or warming it or putting it into the pan once it's slightly warm, but not hot.

I found the "Do you heat the pan first?" question somewhat helpful, but the answers don't really give scientific reasons for their responses. If ghee has a smoke point of 485 F, why would it burn just because it heats up rapidly?

Update: As noted in Cindy's answer, I didn't follow the instructions in the referenced question because I didn't put the ghee/oil in the pan before the pan got hot.

I'm still curious as to whether the ghee burned because the pan temperature was over the ghee's smoke point or because the ghee was heated too quickly by being put into a hot pan.

Yes, your pan was too hot.

Because your pan was empty when you heated it, it had minimal heat capacity, and could only lose heat by convection and radiation.  Thus, it heated up quickly, and likely reached a much higher temperature than it normally could with food in it.

When you heat a pan with food in it, some of the heat is transferred to the food, and much of that heat is, in turn, lost when water in the food evaporates.  This slows down the heating rate, and significantly reduces the peak temperature reached.

(Evaporating water is an extremely efficient method of heat transfer, especially at high temperatures, and even solid foods like meat and vegetables still contain quite a bit of water.  Any time you put something on a hot pan and it steams or sizzles, that's the sign of water evaporating.)

Also, because you didn't have any oil or water or food on the pan, you had no easy way to gauge its temperature by eye.  Normally, if you heat a pan with oil already in it, you can tell when it's hot enough just by looking at how the oil behaves.  If you miss all the subtler signs, like the oil turning more runny and starting to form convection patterns, the point where it starts to change color and smoke is an unmistakable sign that you've definitely heated it too far.

With a dry pan, it's quite hard to tell just how hot it is.  One trick I sometimes use is to sprinkle a few drops of water onto the pan and seeing how quickly it evaporates.  (Don't do this if the pan already has oil in it!)  When the drops evaporate all but instantly (but still briefly wet the surface, rather than exploding on contact or hovering over it), it's time to add the oil / butter.

Of course, the modern high-tech alternative would be to get an IR thermometer.  I actually do have one, but I rarely use it — it's just quicker and easier to dip my fingers in some water and sprinkle it on the pan than to get the thermometer out of the cupboard.


What does it mean when a jar lid pops? When opening a glass jar of prepared spaghetti sauce, (with the seal flat), and it makes a loud sound when opened, is that bad or good?

When being canned (or jarred as in this case) the ingredients are put into the jar hot before a lid is put on. When the ingredients cool it creates a suction that pulls the lid down. When you open the lid and hear a pop what is happening is that air is coming in to fill the low pressure inside, which indicates that there was a good seal. This is definitely a good thing.

If there is no pop that means that there is no longer low pressure in the jar, this could be because it was never sealed properly, or the contents have gone off despite the seal and created gas inside the jar. Either way it means that it's not safe to eat.


Will my food continue to cook on the warm setting? I want to start a meal in my crock pot and the recipe only calls for about 4 hours of cooking. However, no one will be home for another 3 hours to turn it off, but it will shut down and go to the warm setting. Once it sets itself to warm, will it still be cooking? I don't want the chicken to be overcooked.

It's still going to be heated, so yes it's going to carry on cooking.

However, the temperature on the "warm" setting is going to be lower, so it will cook more slowly, and therefore you might be okay.

It's difficult to say for sure, because it depends on what exactly the temperatures involved are.


Preserve peppers before smoking -- freeze or dehydrate? I would like to make some chipotle (smoked red jalapeno peppers) at home. Currently I am building a smoker in my garden, where I also I grow a few jalapeno plants.
My problem is that the peppers are turning red already, but the smoker is not finished yet. All the chipotle recipes that I found put fresh red jalapenos in the smoker.
Can I preserve the peppers somehow before I finish the smoker? I believe it should take me about a month to finish. I was thinking about either freezing them or dehydrating them -- which way is better? Or is there some better way?
I found this question that says that it is certainly possible to smoke dried peppers, but the result does not have the smoky aroma as intense as if you make it out of fresh peppers.
I've read that you can substitute the smoker with a grill, but I'm not sure I'll have access to any, so that's not really an option for me.

Freezing is definitely the way to go. It’ll soften the peppers, but smoking softens them anyway. Dehydrating them will allow them to burn before they’re smoked through, since the water in the peppers’ flesh is needed to keep the interior temperature under control during long smoking.


Small baskets for fries Are small baskets for french fries actually used to cook them or just to serve?

They just look like gimmick frying basket used for serving.

When you fry things, you need to have "space" in the fryer to have a good consistent frying so that you have as much surface of the ingredients touch the hot oil as possible.

If the ingredients get clustered together, they will stick and probably not cook evenly.


Light green squash-like ingredient in Indonesian cuisine We've traveled to Indonesia years ago and there was this ingredient I had never tasted before which has had me looking for years. I had it in gado-gado many times there, including in an Indonesian restaurant in North America which had me very nostalgic!

I don't know what the original vegetable looks like but cooked, it was a pale green. I saw it served in many different shapes crescent-like, julienne, or diced, so I figure it may be some kind of squash but it didn't really taste like any squash that I know of.

i've had gado-gado, and may other traditional indonesian salad dishes, i'm not 100% sure but could it be this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chayote


How would changing the amount of egg affect a pancake recipe? When I make pancakes, the recipe I use calls for 1 egg and 1c of flour. However, usually I increase the flour (up to 50%) to make a bit more. I've tried both keeping 1 egg, or adding a second one, but it doesn't seem to make any difference...in other words, it seems like there's an awful lot of room to maneuver when it comes to how much egg to add. If so, I could add 3 or 4 eggs to get more protein into the pancakes. How would adding lots of extra eggs affect the end result?

This answer assumes the US-type of pancake.

There are some pancake recipes with no egg at all.  So the question is, what does the egg do in a pancake recipe?

It contributes soem fat and emulsifiers from the yolk, some water, and a bunch of protein (mostly from the whites).

This will add structure to the pancake, some eggy flavor and richness, and perhaps somewhat mitigate the danger of toughening the pancake through over mixing, by inhibiting gluten formation (mostly due to the fat and lecithin from the yolk).

However, as you have already discovered, the egg is not completely essential to the pancake, which basically a griddled quick bread, and can easily get all of the structure it needs from the gelatinization of the starch from the flour.

Adding lots more eggs would start to move you into custard or quiche-like territory, where the product would have a lot more egg flavor, and start to take on a more scrambled-egg type texture depending on how far you go.  You will get less flavor but more textural change from using just whites.

If you love pancakes, I would make them with any pancake recipe you like, and enhance your protein intake from other food items.   Personally, I love a scrambled egg, and they go great with pancakes.

Edit:
I see in your profile that you are in France.  Since we also call French style crepes the same thing in English, I am thinking you probably do mean US style pancakes, so the above would apply.

If you are thinking of crepes, they tend to be a touch eggier than pancakes to start with, which helps give them the structure to role or fold easily while still being so thin.

I imagine that they could take a bit more egg still, with some change in texture and more egg flavor, but might start to stick to the pan more, as egg really likes to stick.  At the extreme end, you would essentially have thin fried scrambled egg, which you can roll up with fillings, as some other cuisines do.

Still, I am not an expert on crepes; I have never made them myself.  If that is what you are asking about, hopefully someone else can give you a more knowledgable answer.


Black Mold On Cheese Black Mold.......How do I get rid of it?  I have been adding some vinegar to my salt solution cleaning, recoated with salt and let stand for a day and I have used 100% vinegar solution to scrub the mold away. But it just returns. John

Black mold, regardless of what type it is, is not good news. It is almost always introduced by contact with contaminated skin. Your best bet is to trim the outside one inch from the entire cheese, ensuring that your hands are covered with latex or nitrile gloves that have been disinfected with bleach and then allowed to air-dry. Between each cut, clean and sterilize your knife to ensure that there is no chance of contamination by spores picked up during the previous cut. Re-salt to create a new rind, or apply some wax as a sterile seal. Ensure that the location in which you age your cheese is completely sterile before setting any cheese on it again, and do not re-use any cloths or paper wraps you may have employed before, even if they were used on a different cheese. If the black mold regrows after you have taken all of these measures and precautions, it means that there are spores in the cheese itself. If that is the case, I would recommend that you discard the cheese and start again.


Pizza Dough Ingredients too runny even after adding flour My husband is trying to make pizza dough as I speak. He prepared the yeast properly. After adding all of the ingredients, he claims the mixture is runny on the top and thick and gooey on the bottom. I am at a standstill as to how to save this dough. He added more flour.

Can the dough still be salvaged?

Personal results, I have never been able to satisfactory save a yeast dough once it has gone wrong.  I have gotten them back to the point of almost seeming right, but it was an illusion, once cooked they were typically like a raw floured lump of baked brick.  Now, if I go wrong, I toss and start over.

Soupy to me sounds like something is likely off on the recipe and liquid is out of proportion would be my first guess.  Verify the units were right, no substituting cups for tablespoons (yes I have), and if you did not misread, try a different recipe.  Also, if you did not, try proofing your yeast first, which will help activate it and make sure it is still viable.  If after 10 minutes in warm water and a pinch of sugar you are not getting bubbles and a nice yeast smell it is likely dead and that is your culprit.


Can I refrigerate homemade puff pastry made ahead of time? Puff pastry is similar to croissant dough. When I made homemade croissants for the first time, a few weeks ago, they were OK but I could have done better. I have a recipe to use with puff pastry but I won't have a chance to redo the puff, if I make it from scratch and mess it up, or thaw store bought.

So if I make the dough ahead of time, can I refrigerate it for use the next morning? Ideally two days ahead but one day before morning use would be fine.

EDIT: Jacques Pepin, in his book "New Complete Techniques" says the following.

  Puff paste tends to darken and become quite elastic when stored in the
  refrigerator. However, well wrapped, it freezes beautifully.

  The dough can be frozen whole or rolled, cut into shapes, and frozen.
  To use, defrost the large pieces to roll. The frozen shaped pieces
  should be placed in the oven frozen for best results.

Classic puff pastry absolutely needs a final resting and cooling time in the fridge before you use it for your croissants, palmiers, danishes....

Most recipes give a minimum rest of 30-60 minutes after the last "fold", but overnight in the fridge is absolutely fine. I'm not sure whether storing it for two days might have negative side effects, but up to one day is no problem at all.


I left kimchi at room temperature for 7 hours. Can I still eat it? I accidentally left Sunja's kimchi at room temperature for 7 hours.  It started leaking.  It's in the fridge now.  Can I still eat it?

Kinchi is a fermented food, then, let out for some time doesn't damage it, except if this is too much time, like days. May be you will experience more vinaigrette flavor, but it is a good indicator and depend of your preferable taste. Also Sunja's kimchi made a statement that they use only fresh and natural ingredients without any additives, and it is a good signal.


How to best cook potatoes to be used in a curry? My favorite restaurants always manage to impart the flavors of the various spices used to the potatoes, rather than only having the potato's own flavor.  However, when cooking curries on my own, I find that my potatoes retain their natural taste, and the spices do not override the natural flavor. Are there methods that can be used to make sure that the flavor is imparted properly throughout the whole potato?
Also, I find it very hard to get a consistent, pleasant texture; some portions of the potato are too soft, and others too hard.  What is the best way to prepare the potatoes, so that they both have enough flavor, and also the right texture?

You don't need to precook the potatoes just put them in and let them cook through (30-40 mins high heat). The real trick I've found is then letting the curry cool completely and leave in the fridge overnight. The next day the potatoes have a lovely soft texture and have absorbed lots of curry flavour.

Other tips are make sure you don't add acidic ingredients early on (lemon, lime, yogurt ect) as this prevents the potatoes softening. Also make sure the curry has plenty of spice and salt to work with bland potatoes.


Is there a way to infuse roasted coffee beans with different flavors? I would like to be able to grind my own flavored coffee beans - hazelnut, French vanilla ect.. However, I don't want to buy the coffee beans that are already flavored but would rather try to recreate the infusion method at home. Does it involve soaking the beans, for how long, at what temperature.....

Coffee shops flavor their beans by taking plain roasted coffee, and adding flavoring oils to them. After the oil is tossed with the beans, they are left alone to allow the flavor to soak in for at least 30 minutes.

The coffee flavoring oils are a lot like candy flavoring oils. Although I haven't tried it, I bet you could use those to flavor your beans.

In the land of everything available through the internet, I'd bet you could purchase these coffee bean flavoring oils on-line, and in small quantity. (We bought HUGE jugs of the stuff for the shop!)

I haven't worked in the coffee shop for over 10 years now (since becoming disabled in an unrelated accident), so I can't remember the exact ratio of flavoring to beans. I want to say that for every 1 lbs of beans, we mixed in .03 lbs of flavoring. I don't know what that comes out to be by volume, as we did everything by weight.


Why do peanut butter sandwiches become hard and how to prevent that? I've done this with many different types and brands of peanut butter and bread, after a few hours (I typically pack them in the morning as a snack for the afternoon) the bread gets rock hard. I'm curious why this happens, but mostly how to keep them from getting hard ?

The bread is never toasted, I just spread the butter. I've tried keeping it in a plastic bag, in the fridge, outside the fridge, wrapped in paper towel...nothing.

Oooh, I hate that. If you put butter on the bread to create a buffer layer between the peanut butter and the bread it may help. Also, be sure to seal the bread from the air to retard the process of getting stale.

The other main option is to keep the peanut butter in a separate container and spread it before eating.


Dense pizza dough- need help! How to make lighter and more airy pizza? I am trying to make New York style pizza at home. I have tried many different recipes and different types of flours. I live in India, so I don't have access to bread flour brands like King Arthur etc, but I have managed to find high quality bread flour that are high gluten.

I have tried to lower or increasing the moisture in the dough by the amount of water in the recipe but I am having the same problem.  The pizza dough is very dense or heavy and does not rise when cooked. Also, the pizza crust (edge) is more dense and often time it stays raw.

I am trying to get a pizza crust that is light, airy and many air pockets just like you find in a very good New York style pizza.  My dough is good and soft after kneading it by hand; my proofing time is 4-6 hours in which the size of the dough doubles in size. Finally, I shape and stretch the dough by hand and put it in preheated oven at the very bottom level to get maximum heat.

Below is the recipe that I use (I have also tried baker's formula).  For a 200g dough ball I use the following recipe:

High gluten bread flour 120g
Water 76g
Salt 0.42 tsp
Oil 0.24 tsp
Yeast 0.3 tsp
Sugar 0.24 tsp

I use a home oven that is able to reach a maximum temperature of 450 Fahrenheit.  Can someone please tell me what my problem might be? I am thinking my problem is with the temperature of the oven. I am going to try to use a pizza stone to see if a get better results.

Baker's formula (proportions) I have used:

NY Style Pizza Dough Formula

Flour 100%
Water 63%
Salt 1.75%
Oil 1%
Yeast 0.25%

I think you might not be giving your dough enough time between shaping and baking.  Proofing lets little bubbles build up in your dough, letting it rise as you mentioned - stretching and shaping will deflate the dough and let the little bubbles loose, even with careful handling.  Some methods of shaping will deflate the dough more than others, and if you're stretching by hand you should try to be careful not to handle too roughly, especially around the edges where you want a fluffy crust.  Letting the dough rest after shaping and before baking will help the dough recover.

Also, you didn't mention your proofing method much, but it sounded like regular counter-top proofing.  Several recipes I looked at prefer a cold ferment for new york style pizza, citing more complex flavors and better gluten development, and also that stretching cold fermented dough tends to produce a fluffier crust (since it holds the pockets of gas from rising through the stretching better).  The pictures look quite convincing that this will let you have an airier crust.  Since this would involve making your dough several days in advance, and letting it rise in your fridge, it may not be your ideal solution - but if you don't mind planning ahead (best results apparently 3-5 days), it may help.

Also, you might want to check how long you knead - a dough that isn't kneaded enough will end up dense and heavy.  You might make sure your dough is kneaded enough to pass the windowpane test - stretch a marble-sized ball of dough between your fingers, it is developed enough when you can get it thin enough to be translucent enough to see your fingers through.  This article talks bout the importance of kneading (and also suggests using a food processor for better gluten formation quicker), since having well developed gluten should trap the bubbles from rising better and give you a more airy crust.

Of course, getting more heat in the oven might help - it might even be all you need, and if your problems are solved after getting a pizza stone, so much the better.  But these tips I found might also help you get the effect you're looking for in the meantime - or possibly stack several of them to get the pizza just the way you like it.  Good Luck!


How to make homemade pinto beans taste like canned refried beans? I see plenty of advice out there on how to make canned pinto beans taste delicious, but does anyone know how to recreate that cheapo refrito taste? I've tried countless combinations of freshly cooked pinto beans, salt, garlic, chili powder, onions...

They always seem to be missing some crucial element, and I don't mean the sitting-in-a-can-forever-flavor!

Lard is the fat of choice in many "el cheapo" canned refried beans, and could be what you are missing.


How long should I saute garlic? I always have trouble figuring out how long to saute garlic for before adding it to a dish.  How do I know when it is ready?

Not long at all.  Usually 1 minute is enough.

If it starts to turn brown, it's been in there too long.


How to thicken a hot chocolate microwave recipe I'm trying to perfect the low calorie hot chocolate that is thick as to the point of being almost pudding like or spoonable and easy to make in a microwave.

I'd like to base it on almond milk, cocoa, a stevia-sugar derivate (erythritol or splenda) and a thickening agent.

I've been experimenting with cornstarch, psyllium husks and xanthan and guar gum but haven't yet managed to make the ideal hot chocolate yet.

Any tips or advice how to achieve that consistency?

I'm not familiar with psyllium husks or guar gum, but I do know cornstarch and xanthan gum. Cornstarch needs be heated to 203 degrees Fahrenheit to have a thickening effect, but xanthan gum doesn't. Since you're making it in the microwave, using cornstarch and maintaining that heat may be difficult. I've actually used xanthan gum to thicken hot chocolate before, and I usually use a pinch per cup of milk, but if you want something more puddinglike I might bump it up to 1/2 teaspoon and go from there. Be aware, though, that too much xanthan gum may cause gas or bloating.


How do I avoid botulism formation when vacuum sealing and freezing raw chopped vegetables? I want to chop onions and green peppers then freeze in a vacuum sealed bag without blanching the vegetables first.

I read the article on blanching after vacuum sealing and then blanching but to your point the heat transfer is dramatically reduced by the insulating value of the plastic and the bulk thickness of the vegetables in the bag.  Any insight that you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

A timely answer would be greatly appreciated as we need to start this process as soon as possible with the utmost safety in mind.

I suppose dropping the bags in liquid nitrogen for a few minutes, and then storing in the freezer might suffice.

mostly fish, but not a bad read:
http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Food/GuidanceRegulation/UCM252416.pdf

Edit post clarification of the question:

Liquid nitrogen is still fun if you can find an excuse, and highly effective.

In a less drastic direction, simply doing the processing on pre-cooled (below 38F, preferably 33F) vegetables (and preferably in a walk-in cooler held below 38F) should keep things out of the botulism growth zone, and putting them in a -20F freezer for long enough (do some test runs where you actually stick a thermometer in a test bag) to get the center of the mass down below 0F before transfer to a 0F freezer (assuming that's your standard freezer temperature) would likely suffice. A cold brine step might help freezing get started faster but would be messy as compared to just using a -20F freezer (perhaps with racks to separate bags and extra air circulation, so you don't have bags packed together until after they are frozen through.) Depending on scale, maybe just size the -20F unit for a days production and clear it out at the start of each day after holding product overnight.

If processing in a warmer environment, you'll want to minimize time between "being held pre-cooled" and "being packed and frozen" - and especially "time between being vacuum-packed and being frozen." But giving the workers warm coats and hot coffee (and breaks) while working in a cooler will be safest. You will also need to sanitize any equipment on a regular schedule, which will be more often if they are not cold (and you'll need to check the temperature of the food contact parts of any machines when they have been running for a while.)


Cooking Sweet Potatos in the Microwave What are the recommended times for cooking sweet potatoes in the microwave?

Microwave wattage associated with those times would be appreciated as well.

Assuming a typical 1200 W to 1400 W microwave

For gold (skin and interior) sweet potato around 4 to 5 minutes per 300 g (large first size)

For purple (skin, and cream interior) sweet potato around 5 to 6 minutes per 300 g

Allow at least a minute sitting time before cutting or serving to allow for an even cook


Coconut milk tastes bland I have been attempting to use coconut milk in both a curry and a rice recipe. I am aiming for a rich and smooth texture, but it keeps coming out bland and watery. Are there any particular methods of using coconut milk that I should be aware of? Does heating it for too long or too hot break down the flavor?

I used the following brand of coconut milk.

In the most recent recipe I used 2 chicken breasts, cubes. 2 tablespoons of coconut oil. 2 tablespoons of green curry paste, 2 cups of eggplant diced, 1 sliced red pepper, 1 tablespoon of grated ginger, 1.5 tablespoons of fish sauce, 2 tablespoons of sugar.

In a stock pot I heated the oil and added the curry paste, then the chicken. Then I added the entire can of coconut milk. Allowed it to reach boiling and then reduced to a simmer. I added the vegetables in and continued simmer for 40 minutes. I then added the fish sauce and sugar and served it.

First off, that probably isn't the best brand of coconut milk. I've never been that impressed, and Cook's Illustrated's review agrees, saying it was "too 'liquid-y' and 'thin'". They like Aroy-D, Roland, Goya and Chaokoh better as of May 2017.

But on top of that, you probably got a lot of water from the eggplant. It's mostly water, and it releases plenty of it as cooking breaks down the structure.

I might try stir-frying the eggplant first, or roasting if you prefer, then adding it to the curry at the end. That way the liquid will be pretty much just coconut milk.

If it still seems too watery, you could do the same for other ingredients. Chicken breasts can release some water, and peppers too, but nowhere near what you get from eggplant. This does let you make sure they're cooked exactly as much as you want, so you might like it regardless of the watery issue.

You can also always just add more curry paste. Often the ratios suggested on storebought curry paste yield a less flavorful curry than what you probably get in restaurants.

To answer your side questions: long cooking is fine, and you don't have to do anything special to coconut milk to make it work.


How to cook ground turkey so it remains more clumpy and chunky? I am trying to make a pizza with broccoli rabe and ground turkey, and I want to cook the ground turkey so it remains slightly clumpy (such as when sausage is cooked). How do I do that?

How to do this partially depends on the way your turkey is ground and how loose or tight it ends up in the package, and whether you want to add flavors to it.

If the ground turkey is tightly packed and doesn't fall apart easily then what I'd do is to put the while slab of it in a hot pan with some oil then press it out as flat as I can, creating a browned crust which will keep it together, then break that up into chunks for your pizza

If it's pretty loose then it's not going to clump up on its own and it needs some help. Or if you want to add flavors in the act of mixing is going to loosen it in which case your best bet is to make a sausage by mixing in your herbs and spices along with some breadcrumbs to bind it all. This would end up being turkey meatballs (I suggest sage and marjoram as they go well).


Reheating Hamburger Helper When I make Hamburger Helper I always follow the directions exactly and the consistency of the sauce is usually good--not too thick and not too watery--but whenever I reheat the leftovers the sauce practically turns into water and it becomes like a noodle and beef soup. This happens with every flavor. What's weird is I always remember leftover Hamburger Helper being too thick and dry and I needed to add water, but now the complete opposite is happening.

Am I draining the ground beef too much when I cook it? Is there something I should be doing differently? Have the ingredients or recipes changed somehow?

I called General Mills, the makers of Hamburger Helper, and asked if there had been any changes to their recipes in the past 3 years. The representative (Thanks Kathy!) told me that the only recent change happened in 2016 when they stopped using artificial flavors and colors and switched to an all-natural formula. (see What does "natural" actually mean?)

I also visited the General Mills website and read the ingredients for all of the Hamburger Helper varieties. They are all thickened with cornstarch. Cornstarch does tend to thin out upon reheating, but I have no explanation of what could account for your change in experience (all other factors being the same). Look to what you’re doing differently, and methinks that there’s your answer.


What part of the squid is edible? Is the part of the squid right above the tentacles edible? I think it's the bottom of the body, I've never cooked squid before. I washed it under cold water and felt it carefully with my fingers and I think the beak had been removed.

The tentacles and the muscular body of the squid are edible.

To clean squid, pull the head and tentacles off the body and remove the skin and fins from the body. Turn the body inside-out, remove the central bone, wash out the inside of the body, and turn the body back into its original shape. Cut the tentacles off of the head, and discard the head and beak. Summarized from: Jacques Pepin's Complete Techniques


Can I make a cake with finely ground coffee instead of cocoa powder? I used all my cocoa powder. Will it taste good if I use coffee instead? If anyone has done this before, please share your experiences and hints.

Coffee cake is good, but it's better to start from a recipe for coffee cake than try to adapt a chocolate cake.  Cocoa powder brings an appreciable amount of fat and bulk to the recipe.

You need to be very careful about terminology.  Coffee powder in many places refers to powdered instant (soluble) coffee, which isn't the best coffee drink but is very suiatable as a flvouring.  It should be dissolved in liquid before adding tot he cake mix (following the recipe).  I have seen coffee powder used to refer to finely ground coffee beans.  It's not unknown to add these to food, but it's not common.  We discussed this recently.


Why would I add garlic to a recipe after onion with such a small time difference? I have a recipe for Tomotillo & Green Chili soup that calls for one diced onion to be sautéed for 3 minutes prior to adding the four diced garlic cloves all of which is then cooked for an additional one minute. After this, the liquids and most of the other ingredients of the soup are added.

(FWIW; I personally don't feel like this is long enough to cook either of these, but that's the recipe...)

Is there difference in flavour development that I could expect by following the recipe as opposed to adding both the onion and the garlic at the same time?

BTW, I can rule out texture as a reason for this as the whole lot is hit with an immersion blender after cooking.

This is standard in most recipes. Onions take a lot longer to cook and become aromatic. Garlic does it within 30 seconds to a minute.  Three minutes is a long time for garlic. I promise you, you don't want burned garlic in your soup.
When you add the remainder of the ingredients, particularly the liquids, you reduce the direct heat that the garlic is subjected to and prevent it from burning.
Here's some supporting info from The Kitchn:

Early in our cooking career and for a long time after, we assumed that you needed to cook garlic as long as its cousin, the onion. Our results were spotty: sometimes it was ok, sometimes we picked burned bits out of our dinner. It wasn't until we got serious about cooking that we learned another way...
Whether they're being used in a quick stir fry or as the base for a soup or sauce, both onions and garlic need to be cooked at least little to get rid of their raw bite. However, while onions benefit from a longer cooking time, garlic will quickly burn and become acrid if cooked the same way.
Garlic usually does best if it's cooked quickly and over medium heat. About thirty seconds will do the trick. This is just enough time to cook off the rawness, allow the flavor to mellow into the dish, and let the aroma to hit its peak. You'll know it's done when you can smell the garlic and your mouth starts watering!
To account for these different cooking times, start the onions first, cook all the other main ingredients, and then add the garlic last. We like to clear a little spot (or "clean slate") in the middle of the pan to let the garlic cook by itself for a few seconds before stirring it into the rest of the dish.


How do I cook large quantities of Boston pork butt? I am cooking approximately 30 lbs of boston butt pork roast.  (one roast is a little over 15 lbs and the other is a little over 16 lbs)  Should I cook the roasts together in one big roaster at about 250 degrees or seperate them?  I am doing pulled pork for a crowd.  How long do you think this might take?

Thanks in advance for your advice!  :)

You can keep them together, but I would recommend budgeting a very long time for cooking. In my opinion, your better bet would be to slow roast them in the oven, with some air space between the two roasts. I would also consider cutting each roast in half. Four 7-8 pound pork butts will cook much faster than two 15-16 pound ones.


Why is matcha whisked? I find that in authentic videos of making matcha (ones made by japanese people themself) that the preparation begins with mixing a bit of matcha powder with water and then whisking it (see 1:46 of this video for an example). My question is what exactly is the reason for doing this?

Because matcha is ground so fine, whisking helps break up clumps; usually with a matcha whisk (chasen). If you were to try with a spoon or a normal metal balloon whisk you would find that clumps form.
Think about cocoa powder and how that sticks together perhaps? Usually a good whisking is needed to mix it into e.g. milk.


How are macaron feet formed? Why and how are the feet of the French almond meal macaron generated? (I'm interested in the physical process.)

I am a little confused because I know that the piped macarons shells, after drying for 30-50 minutes, become inflexible so they can't expand outward. They also can't expand downward because of the baking tray (which blocks the expansion in that direction). So how, after all, are the feet created?

When the macaron batter sits on the sheet tray prior to being baked, the outside dries a bit and becomes solid and inflexible (at least relative to the rest of the batter).

During the baking process, the batter inside is heated, which causes some of the water to turn
to steam and expand.   This forces the interior batter to expand.  It lifts the dried outer shell up, because that is the only direction it can go to start.

Once the harder shell is raised,  some of the softer interior batter then can spread sideways as it expands.  However, it is now directly exposed to the heat of the oven, and quickly sets itself before it has gone very far.  That small bit that expanded sideways out from under the lifted shell is the foot.

This may be hard to visualize, so imagine a big restaurant style griddle, and a small disposable aluminum pie pan, upside down, over some unpopped popcorn.

As the popcorn pops, it cannot go sideways because the walls of the pie pan are in the way.  So it ends up lifting the pan.  Now it can spread sideways a bit, so there will be a rim or foot of popcorn around the pie pan, which will be an inch or two (or several cm for our metric friends) above the surface of the griddle.


Substituting invert sugar for corn syrup I am working with a gumdrop recipe that calls for 1c. sugar and 1c. corn syrup, which is heated to 280 degrees and then blended into some other ingredients. In order to avoid the corn syrup and simplify the recipe I would like to substitute an invert sugar syrup for this mixture. In a perfect world, I'd like to start with some amount of sugar and water and find the temperature/time balance to proceed with the recipe from there.

I'm stuck with the math of the conversion. I don't know how to measure the % of water, fructose, glucose, sucrose, etc. I care more about getting something chemically similar than about having the same level of sweetness, since the recipe involves pectin and the final consistency is most important. Can anyone advise me about how to make this work, or even how to test and figure it out?

The website you gave has a page for corn syrup, suggesting substitutions. It suggests the following:

1/2 cup sugar + 2 tbsp water = 1/2 cup light corn syrup;

or

1/2 cup honey = 1/2 cup light corn syrup

This is a good start, but to be more precise you might want to dig in the composition of light corn syrup. The USDA National Nutrient Database suggests the following composition (by mass) for light corn syrup:

23% water
77% sugars

The composition of those sugars varies from a corn syrup to another. Wikipedia lists four common High Fructose Corn Syrups (HFCS) standards, namely :

HFCS 42, 55, 65 and 90

The number represents the mass percentage of fructose once the water is removed. HFCS 42 is said to be the one usually used in 'baked goods', so aiming for 42% fructose seems like what you may want to be 'chemically similar' as you said.

Honey is not a perfect substitute as it contains less water (17%) and different sugars, but water it down a bit (add 8g of water for 100g of honey) and it could do the trick. Of courses different honeys will probably have very different water content, so unless this water content is written on the product the best available solution is probably to just try to get the same thickness as corn syrup as best as you can, slowly adding water.

Apparently the average honey, once the water is removed, contains 50% fructose and 44% glucose (the remaining few percent's are other sugars such as galactose, maltose and sucrose). This is probably close enough to the 42% fructose 58% glucose of corn syrup.

Inverted sugar is precisely 50% glucose 50% fructose, so like honey it will give something similar to corn syrup, but not exactly. Adding 30g of water to 100g of inverted sugar will give you a syrup with 23% water content which should be a good substitute to corn syrup.

The suggestion made on the website to use 1/2 cup sugar + 2 tbsp water in place of 1/2 cup light corn syrup will give you something more chemically different than using honey or inverted sugar. Corn syrup is fructose and glucose, usual table sugar is sucrose, a molecule formed by gluing a glucose and a fructose molecule together. It might make no difference in this particular recipe, but it just is chemically different, so the other options might be better substitutes.

Finally, if as you said you want to start from just sugar and water, partially inverted sugar can be done at home by heating up a sucrose/water solution with a bit of acidity. Now, if you want to really have the right water content of 23%, my tactic would be to mix 100g of sucrose with 30g of water (of which some could be lemon juice, but then you might have to add a bit of baking soda to correct for the acidity if that might become a problem later in your recipe...) and put that in a sealed container that I would put in the oven for a couple of hours at 114°C (237°F) (a bit more should be ok, but be wary that the container will experience high internal pressures, and that all the more that you increase temperature. Manipulating and especially opening the jar while it is still hot might be dangerous).

Most recipes on the web call for having a higher initial water content and boiling the mixture at this temperature, I have no idea if this is somehow more efficient, but clearly you will end up not knowing the final water content, unless, and this might be a good idea, you weight your saucepan with only the sugar in (say 1kg) (call that mass M), add 480g of water and boil that for a while with 1g of cream of tartar as I saw on this website, and at the end of the procedure boil a little longer or add a bit more water until your syrup weights M+300g, at which point it should be a good substitute.


Can you refrigerate unbaked quiche for baking the next morning? Can I put my quiche together the night before with an unbaked crust, refrigerate over night, and then bake it off the next morning?

The crust would get soggy.

If you want to make a quiche in advance, you can make the shell and blind bake it, if required.  Wrap the shell in plastic wrap and refrigerate it over night.

You can make the filling custard and have it in a bowl (I would actually use a sealable container).  Eggs and cream are highly perishable, so you want to refrigerate them right after mixing.

Then, to bake your quiche, all you need to do is pour the filling into the shell and bake.

The Kitchn and Fifteen Spatulas also say you can pre-bake your quiche and then reheat it the next day for service.  Fifteen Spatulas even claims the flavors meld and improve.


fluffiness of medu vada without baking soda How do we keep the medu vada batter fluffy without adding baking soda?

I would like to use it less, hence trying to find a substitute for the ingredient, or better if the technique for cooking medu vada can be changed so that I don't need to use a substitute either.

I believe baking soda was a recent addition to medu vada and is not a required or traditional ingredient. It helps to make the vadas fluffier and it might make it easier to have a good result if your batter consistency is to not quite right, but it isn't required. Personally I find that it affects the flavor so I don't like to add it.

I think you can just leave it out entirely.

The keys to having fluffy vada without extra leavening would be oil temperature in frying and the amount of water in your vada batter. Also, whip the batter again after adding the seasonings so there is a lot of air in the batter to begin with.

The oil should be hot enough that when you drop a bit of the batter in, it immediately puffs up and floats to the top and starts cooking. If it immediately starts turning color, the oil is too hot. If it doesn't float, the oil is too cool.

If the oil is too cool, the vada will soak up a lot of oil and it will be soggy and dense and won't rise. If the oil is too hot, the outside will burn before the inside is cooked.

The batter should be almost like a very soft dough. If you hold a clump of it in your palm you should be able to hold it and not have it run out between your fingers, and it should hold the shape you give it. You should also see that it is a bit lighter and fluffier when you whip it. If it has too little water, it will tend to stay clumpy when you whip it up.

If the batter has too much water, it will not hold its shape and won't support the rising action and will be soggy. If there is not enough water it will be too dense and not rise well, so it can be hard after cooking.

It is easier to add more water if the first one is too firm, though, so err on having too little water if you aren't sure and test the first one you make.

Here's a recipe with a video so you can see how the proper texture looks. I really like Manjula-ji's recipes and demonstrations, they are very clear and easy to follow, so hopefully this video can help with the batter.


Brewing Hibiscus tea I'm about to start a batch of Kombucha using 100% Hibiscus flowers as the tea. Just received a 1 pound bag of organic Hibiscus flowers. Can anyone give me some recomendations on amounts to use in a gallon of water and possibly some brewing methods for this type of tea? I know what to do for the Kombucha but I've never brewed Hibiscus flower for tea before and want to do it as nicely as possible before adding to the Kombucha first ferment.

I use 1 rounded teaspoon for 12 to 16 ounces (depends on the mug I'm using), so about 8 teaspoons (or about 2 1/2 tbsp) for a gallon of water. Hot water, just under boiling, is best.  Ideally, the water is heated and poured onto the tea at just under boiling.  Because I don't think you want to boil a gallon of water, I'd use the amount of hibiscus for a gallon of tea, but only use about a quart of hot water to start, let the tea steep in that (at least 5 minutes, longer will give a stronger flavor) then add the remaining 3 quarts of water.


How much do egg yolks and whites weigh, in grams? I have an Italian recipe that has been translated to English. The recipe calls for 360g egg whites and 240g yolks. Can anyone tell me how much this is?

The rule of thumb to divide an egg is:

60% egg-white
30% yolk
10% shell

So it depends on the size of egg you use (note that the size definition varies between countries).

Example:
For a 60g (middle of the weight range) European M / American L egg, that's 60*0.6 = 36g whites and 18g yolk.

-> So you'd need (about) 10-11 whites and 13-14 yolks.

Of course, not all eggs have the exact same weight and therefore I recommend you use the estimated number of necessary eggs as a guideline and weigh the whites and yolks.


I put too much water in my cake mix! I accidentally put 2 cups of water in one box of strawberry cake mix, and i was only supposed to put 1 cup. I dont have any extra boxes to start over with, and the consistency of it is too thin! How can i fix it?

The short answer is no. There really is no good solution short of making a double batch. I'd recommend looking for cake recipes from scratch as you might have the ingredients on hand, or go to the store and buy a second cake box.


Removing fat from a recipe If I see a recipe I like and it includes a marinade or sauce where butter or oil is a significant ingredient, is there any way to substitute that fat and preserve a similar taste and texture? For example, I recently cooked a citrus shrimp recipe and simply skipped 90% of the recommended oil and it tasted pretty good, but I don't know what I may have missed out on. I know fat is pretty fundamental to food, so maybe the answer is no.

It depends entirely on the recipe and how it will be used. Fat can work as a medium for flavors and heat, to provide texture (especially in the case of emulsification), and for its own flavor. Blindly removing it from a recipe may "work", but leave you with something quite different from what was originally intended - whether that's ok with you is a personal decision.

Rather than looking to eliminate fat, look to maximize your benefit from it. Find out what purpose it serves in a given recipe, then find an oil you like that fulfills that purpose and add only as much as is necessary.


Fermenting Sauerkraut - Should I Stir? I haven't done this for a very long time. I am following Alton Brown's recipe, which conveniently fits perfectly into a little hack-job of containers I already had. (Related: Why isn't glass ideal for the fermentation of sauerkraut?) @Athanasius' answer to that question led me to what I'm doing with this batch. At this point I feel pretty comfortable with it:

The two containers are identical, and I have a few inches of water in the top container so that it weighs down the cabbage in the lower container. It seems to be working pretty sweet. I'm three days in and it's starting to smell like something is happening. There is a funk in the air.

So far so good.

Now I am dying to stir it...to do something! Everything I have read (including Athanasius' answer) suggests that in a less awesome container I might have to stir, but now I don't necessarily have to do anything but scoop off scum which has yet to appear.

That's killing me.

Is there a reason not to stir? Will stirring offer any benefit?

Well, having grown up near "the" Sauerkraut region in Germany - I'd say don't.

Honstly, I hadn't ever thought about why until today (can't have been only lazyness that my ancestors left the kraut in peace until done.), but:

Why making really sure to create a water-seal when you are breaking it with stirring? The kraut is supposed to ferment under the absence from air! You are supposed to check on the kraut regularly and even fill up with saltwater, if if the water level is too low. If even the smallest bit of cabbage sticks out from the brine, you risk mold.

Besides, I'd be afraid to drag something nasty into the half-done kraut (and I'm so not implying that your utensils aren't clean!).

I'm adding a detail from a classic fermenting pot: note the groove at the top which is supposed to be filled with water. The lid sits in this, ensuring the seal. The two stones are supposed to weigh the kraut down (what you do with the second plastic box).


Should I peel Boskoop apples for a pie? We have the question about peeling apples for a pie, and the accepted answer is "depends on the apple".

I seldom make desserts involved baked apples, so I am not well versed in the baking cultivars. A seller recommended Boskoop for pies and baking in general, and I bought the apples, but I did not think of asking how thick their skin is.

Are Boskoop the type of apple which has a thick, unpleasant skin after baking, or does it have a soft skin? Also, how likely is it to fall apart if baked after peeling?

My parents have a Boskoop tree in their garden. I would probably peel the apples before baking them into a pie, but it wouldn't be impossible to not peel them.

The skin is thicker than most red/yellow apples but not as hard as a Granny Smith's, say. When I lived in the Netherlands, if I bought Boskoop (or Goudreinette, as they're commonly called there) in the store, the skin would be a little thinner than from my parents' tree (maybe because the conditions are not as carefully controlled as with professional growers?), but the statement above still holds.

Boskoop apples are one of the foods I miss from home, living in Canada now. Sniff.


How to make round popcorn? In many high quality ready made popcorn, the popped grains are almost perfectly round, while home popped grains are the usual irregular shape.

How is that lovely round shape achieved?

Round popcorn is just made from a different variety of popcorn, called mushroom popcorn. The "normal" kind is called butterfly popcorn, or sometimes snowflake popcorn.

The two are mentioned in the wikipedia article (last paragraph of the linked section), along with a photo. It looks like it's pretty easy to buy online, if you prefer it.

Mushroom popcorn kernels are a little sturdier and easier to coat, so it's well-suited for prepackaged popcorn and especially things like caramel corn, but at least to me that sturdiness is also a slight toughness, so I prefer the butterfly-style popcorn most of us are used to.


What kind of pan is this? (photo) How would you use it? This is antique or at least vintage (family heirloom). It looks like it might be some sort of double-boiler?  The bottom part is ~ 9.5" diameter and ~ 2" deep and appears to be ceramic-coated metal. The insignia on the bottom looks like a lion leaning on a coffee-pot with a "B" in it, and lettering under the stamp is illegible, except for the number 134.  On the metal rim it says 'Patented May 23, 1899'.  The top part is possibly aluminum, is less than 1" deep, and it is textured as shown, with no markings on the bottom.  Handles on both are wood.  Even when holding both in hand, these are not heavy.  All ideas are welcome, as I am baffled.

Update 12/12: The enameled pan has been identified as a chafing dish, but the textured pan is still a mystery, so if there are any ideas on what it is or how it might be used, please feel free to share!

(click for full size)

It looks possible that the two pieces don't actually go together. The patent referred to is number 625702, for an enameled chafing dish with a domed lid. (It's kind of hard to tell, but I think the innovation being claimed is the lip/indentation which allows the handle to be attached without damaging the enamel.)

The patent does mention the inventor's desire to apply the patent to other dishes, not just ones of the chafing variety, but the enameled piece you have greatly resembles the enameled portion of the dish in the patent drawing.


How to recover jam that is too liquid? I made redcurrant jam some months ago, with sugar/pectin-mix. I used the appropriate amount. However, the mix was very old (+5 years). I tried it anyway. The jam turned out like a syrup, it is very liquid, but the taste is fine.

If I heat my jam/syrup and I add some new-bought pectin, would it turn out fine?

I have done this before and it has worked for me. It should work, but if it doesn't, I know what will. My aunt sold Jam for a while and when the pectin didn't work she reheated and added a small amount of gelatin, I helped her stir it in, and that was the final fix for her bad mix.


Maintaining drip pans on coil oven hobs The drip pans under the coil hobs on my standard GE Oven don't look as bas as others I've seen in other apartments but I'd like to keep them functioning well. They are the solid black kind, not the metallic looking ones. I am certain these have a use beyond just catching drips and that it's one of those things people just don't know about.

Can someone tell me...
 1. Should liners be used at all? (I've read several times that tin foil should never be used.
 2. I know there are also the metallic shiny ones, are they any better than these shiny black ones?

Thanks!!

I missed your point about heat completely until you pointed it out.

If you have a textbook-perfect black-body of a drip pan (totally non-reflective, thus not shiny), it will radiate heat in all directions once itself is heated by the coil above it.

If you have a perfect reflector of a drip pan, it would not absorb any heat and simply reflect any heat back up.

A silvery tray is much nearer to being a perfect reflector (still a long way off) than a shiny black one to a perfect black body.

I have no measurements or data of any kind, just as an educated guess, I would lean towards having a shiny silver tray rather than a shiny black one if you are concerned about efficiency. Besides, a silvery foil tray is most likely going to get less hot itself, less heat absorbed. However I am questioning how much of a difference is actually there between the two. I could be wrong on this without any data, but I suspect that would not be your main heat loss, convective losses around the coil (spaces under and along its circumference) and your sauce pan and radiative losses would far outnumber that.

You said they are non-shiny black metal trays. Could they be coated with a catalyst to self-clean any food residues like you have inside self-cleaning ovens?

Edit: you might want to check with the manufacturer about using shiny liners just in case if the coils are not designed to cope with reflected heat.


How do I know when fish cooked in parchment or salt is done? I want to try fish (either fillets or whole) baked in parchment or salt.  I have found several recipes but they specify a certain weight fish.  How do I adjust the cooking time for the size fish that I have?

Thanks!

The baking time should vary with the thickness of the fish (or anything, really), not with the weight. This is because the heat is coming from the outside, and has to conduct through the fish to get to the center. Of course, for the most part, a heavier fish is also thicker, so a heavier one takes longer to cook.

One option is to use a food thermometer. Cook until the center reaches your target temperature minus a few degrees (the center will continue to heat even after you take it out of the oven, as the temperature inside the fish evens out). The USDA recommends 145°F for food safety, but often lower temperatures are used (many people consider 145°F overcooked).

Another option is to cut the filets to the size expected by the recipe.

If you want to try and estimate the time, the general rule is that heating time follows (approximately) an r² law, that is, twice the thickness, four times as long to heat through. Note that different materials heat differently, so two different species of fish may be slightly different. There is of course a a formula to compute this, but you'd spend longer in the lab measuring the exact properties of your fish than it'd take to do either of the other methods :-P


Why does my red wine reduction go 'grainy'? After frying some meat, say beef or lamb, sometimes I want to make a red wine reduction.

After lifting the meat out of the pan I turn the heat down to low and add the wine. The wine tends to bubble furiously and reduces quickly. I quickly try to scrape the meat remnants as it goes.

Trouble is, the sauce ends up looking grainy with dark spots in the sauce, and it tastes bitter.

The wine is always wine I wouldn't mind drinking.

I have to wonder if you are using a wooden utensil to 'scrape the meat remnants'.  If so, stop using wood.  The wood will char and leave bits in your sauce, creating the bitterness.  Try slowing down the process a bit and using less heat, at least initially as you deglaze the pan. The graininess could be charred bits of food which are burned before they are loosened from the pan surface; this could account for the black spots too.

Cooking is love, and love doesn't hurry.

:)


How do I cook food in this square stone oven? I've recently become the owner of this outdoor stone oven.

However, I am at loss how to cook in it.

It continues up into a rather large chimney. The bottom has two furrows about a thumbs length in it. There are about 6 bricks made out of clay (I think) that I guess are supposed to be used in the bottom.

I've tried using coals - that didn't work very well.

It's a barbecue. The firebricks in the bottom can be used to contain the charcoal in a smaller region, and/or be stacked to raise the grill. I recommend raising the grill as going by the picture, it looks like the food would be too close to the coals and burn before it cooks through.

The chimney takes the smoke away from you quite nicely and is well worth having.


Cooling multiple items on a sheet pan rack Do I cool items coming out of oven above or below items that have not gone into oven yet?

I do not know your setup and why you'd have something above or below something else when cooling but I'll answer from a physics point of view. When you take something out of the oven and it is still hot it will heat the air around it. The hot air will rise and come into contact with whatever is above it. If that happens to be unbaked items then heat will be transferred to them, and for many things you don't want that. So if I had to put fresh baked goods above or below unbaked ones I would put them above so that the unbaked ones stay cooler.

My recommendation would be to keep the unbaked items separate if you can as even putting the baked ones above would still heat the ones below somewhat.


Should I be reducing salt amounts in recipes if cooking with tap water that has passed through a salt based water softener? Should I be reducing salt amounts in recipes if cooking with tap water that has passed through a salt based water softener? Or is the amount of salt from the softener negligible? I'm probably over-thinking it.... :-)

No
Water softeners do not add any salt to the water. They use the sodium from the salt, not the salt itself.
This is known as an ion-exchange process
If your softened water tastes at all salty, you need to check with a maintenance engineer.
In 'health' terms, there is a slightly increased sodium content, but in flavour terms there is no additional salt.


can the degree of white to black parts make coarse ground pepper taste mild? I previously asked this question about what makes black pepper mild:  What makes black pepper strong or mild?

Both ground type and freshness could be the cause however it has occured to me that the parts in the mild bottle had more white than black bits.  I understand that white pepper(the inside of black peppercorn tastes different to the exterior black bits).  On the other hand when it has tasted stronger thats because I was using a pepper where it was predominantly black bits.

so could this be a cause for the mild taste?

Yes, the white pepper is the whole black peppercorn with the skin removed (and possibly fermented via a water soak). A lot of the pepper flavor is in the pepper skin (the black part) which is removed in the process of making white pepper. The compound that gives pepper its flavor is piperine which isn't found in the pepper berry as much as it is in the skin.


Canned Stewed Tomatoes without lemon juice I'm making stewed tomatoes & forgot to put the lemon juice in before sealing the jars. Will they still be ok or should i start over?

Unfortunately you should start over. The lemon juice (or citric acid) is necessary to get them acidic enough to prevent botulism growth, since tomatoes aren't quite acidic enough on their own.

That means completely starting over, in particular clean and re-sterilize the jars.

You can reuse the lids, though. It does mean slightly increased risk of them not sealing quite properly, but it's still pretty unlikely, and you can just test the seals to catch it and keep whatever doesn't seal in the fridge or freezer.


Why do doughnuts have holes? We're all familiar with the ring doughnut as an American confection. One thing I've always been curious about is why they have holes in them (or are toroidal in shape). What advantages, if any, does this shape have in the preparation process, and are there any other historical reasons for this shape?

Legend has it that the inventor of the ring shaped donut with a hole came up with the idea because he was dissatisfied with the raw centre of regular donuts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doughnut#History_in_the_U.S.

Having done quite a few doughnut experiments recently, it's true that having shapes where the distance from the centre to the surface is smaller increases your chances of properly cooked doughnuts. So toroids make sense, but then so would thin cylinders.

You can however, fry up donuts will no hole, that are cooked all the way through. Look at Berliners or jam-filled doughnuts.


Is re-freezing the same beans bad? I have a bunch of frozen beans in the freeze and I found out that pouring hot water on them is easier to take them out of their container with a measuring cup. But them I re-freeze them. Is this a bad idea or unhealthy? I'm too lazy to freeze a bunch of separate small cups of beans.

In general, refreezing food is safe--but your thawing method is not a good idea.

While the rule that pathogens grow in the temperature "danger zone" of 40-140 F is oversimplified, it does reflect the fact that these temperatures are the most friendly to them.  By thawing with hot water, you are raising the temperature into this range.

You would be better off thawing them with cool running water, which is one of the four acceptable methods of thawing food—see: What are the acceptable methods to thaw food items?

Even so, foods thawed with that method should be cooked or consumed immediately, as it does not ensure they stay at a safe temperature the entire time.

IF you really plan to refreeze, you should thaw in the refrigerator.

The total time the beans spend in the thawed state outside of the refrigerator should not exceed approximately 2-4 hours.  Each time you thaw the beans, that clock is ticking.

Within that time frame, assuming you are thawing them with a proper method (such as in the refrigerator), they will be safe to refreeze, although you may get some degradation of texture.

Still, all of this thawing and refreezing seems like more work than packing them in smaller portions... one might argue that individual portions is actually the lazier approach.  You don't need expensive or bulky containers; small zip type freezer bags will do.


What was wrong with using White Truffle Oil? On the show "Chopped", a contestant was running out of time to finish his entrée (using the mystery ingredients: gingersnaps, sweet potatoes, farina and turbot), and his dish did not have a sauce, so without any time to make one, the chef got a bottle of white truffle oil and dribbled a little amount on the plate.

The judges were horrified and screamed out "Noooo!" when he did this.

He got chopped.

What was so wrong with what he did with the white truffle oil?

It most likely contained artificial truffle flavoring (a synthetic agent such as 2,4-dithiapentane), and the judges were purists. Little to no real truffle flavor is used in truffle oils.


Is it possible to make fudgy brownies without oil? What can I substitute for oil in brownies and still get fudgy brownies? I've tried yogurt and sour cream (individually) and only replacing half the oil with one of those, but the brownies always end up cakey. Should I just give up and accept that brownies are not a health food, or are there other ways to use less oil?

If you have a recipe that already produces a dense fudgy brownie and you're looking to do it without oil, you're just out of luck.

If you're looking to produce a dense fudgy brownie and wondered if, while you were at it, you might cut back on the oil...NO, but here are some suggestions for making a cakey brownie more dense and "fudgey":

Follow Tim's advice above on using butter instead of oil.  It's not doing anything as far as calories but it will produce better flavor vs. a neutral oil.  However, particularly if you're planning to put nuts in them, you could replace a portion of the vegetable oil with walnut or hazelnut oil for enhanced nutty flavor.
Replace half of the whole eggs with egg yolks.  Cakiness in brownies is partly due to the use of whole eggs.  Egg whites have a drying effect on baked goods.  In converting a brownie recipe I did, I used 2 egg yolks for each whole egg.
Replace part of the granulated sugar with corn syrup. They hygroscopic nature(ability to absorb moisture and retain it) of the corn syrup will create a more dense moist result.  I think I replaced about half the sugar with corn syrup.  The added moisture of the corn syrup will help to off-set the loss of moisture from removing the egg whites.

Method/Technique:

Heat chocolate, butter, cocoa powder over a hot water bath until chocolate is melted.  Stir to blend to a smooth consistency.  Set aside to cool slightly.

Beat egg yolks/whole egg with sugar and corn syrup until thick, light in color, and mixture forms a "ribbon".

Combine dry ingredients and make a well in the center.

Temper chocolate into egg/sugar mixture.  Mix to blend well.  Add to dry ingredients and fold together just until moistened.  Pour into greased pan and bake until set.


Rice - Expiration Date How relevant is the expiration date on uncooked Rice (different varieties)? Are there ways to store rice to prolong it life?

This website: http://www.eatbydate.com/grains/rice-shelf-life-expiration-date/ has the following table.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
| Dry                    | Pantry      | Refrigerator | Freezer    |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| White Rice             | 4-5 Years   |       -      |     -      |
| Oxygen Free White Rice | 25-30 Years |       -      | 30* Years  |
| Brown Rice             | 6-8 Months  | 8-12 Months  |     -      |
| Wild Rice              | 6-8 Months  |       -      |     -      |
| Minute Rice            | 4-5 years   |       -      |     -      |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| Cooked                 | Pantry      | Refrigerator | Freezer    |
--------------------------------------------------------------------
| White Rice             |     -       | 5-7 Days     | 6-8 Months |
| Brown Rice             |     -       | 4-5 Days     | 6-8 Months |
| Wild Rice              |     -       | 5-7 Days     | 6-8 Months |
--------------------------------------------------------------------

From personal experience, rice that has been picked recently has a much better taste. I normally buy rice from the Asian market that has a harvested date on it. Often this date is within the last month. After about 6 months the rice tends to start losing its aromatic flavors.

Brown rice has a much shorter shelf life than white rice, and will go bad if kept in a humid or hot environment. If you aren't going to use rice within 1-2 years I would say maybe freeze it so it will keep the aromatic flavors longer.