Sous vide power issue. Food safety first I read the post that is similar but doesn’t answer my question.

Last night my power won’t out for a few hours.

I was cooking London broil for about 4-5 hours @125.  Around 2am the power went out. I woke up at 4 and noticed the power was out. I then checked the water bath with one of my instant read thermometers, turned out the water was about 118-121. I then took it out immediately and put it in the refrigerator since I didn’t know when the power would come back on.  This morning I out it back in the bath @125 again to finish it for this evening.

Questions are.  Since it really only takes about 2 hours to cook normally, Can I assume it was already cooked to rare, when I put it in the fridge?

Can I also assume it sitting in the water bath for approximately 2 hours at about 118-121 then the meat is fine?

Last me putting it back in the water bath this morning will everything turn out the same as if I hadn’t lost power and it would have been a 18 hour cook? Vs the 5 hours of cook, 2 hours at 120, 4 hours of fridge and now about 7 hours @125?

7 hours at 125°F seems like a bad idea, no matter what happened before.

  If the food is not being pasteurized (as is the case with fish and rare meat), it is important that the food come up to temperature and be served within four hours.
   ... which is why cooking times over four hours are not shown for temperatures below 131°F (55°C). [emphasis added] http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Cooking


How to make a sandwich bread with a very soft crust? And what is the ideal temperature to bake sandwich bread? I have to ask this question as I really tried hard to achieve a soft crust for sandwich bread but couldn't succeed. I have tried lots of techniques and different recipes but I really couldn't make a bread having a very soft crust that we get in supermarkets. And many recipes say to bake the sandwich bread at 200 degrees C and many other say 180 degrees C, but what is the ideal temperature to bake a sandwich bread with really soft crust? I know that crusty bread is good but many people, especially children don't like to have a crusty sandwich bread!

Use a Pullman loaf pan (aka Pain de Mie pan). You'll also get a square loaf great for sandwiches. Grilled cheese, anyone?

The lid inhibits a "crusty" crust on all sides, just like a regular loaf pan does on all sides but the top.

I use my 9" Pullman all the time. These are my two favorite, foolproof Pain de Mie recipes.

Honey Oat

White

I don't know that it's always the right temperature for soft crusts, but for those loaves, I always use 350F (175C).


Can I substitute whole anchovies for anchovy paste? I have several recipes that call for anchovy paste; I think they're typically vinaigrettes.  They don't carry the paste at Trader Joe's so I bought a small can of whole anchovies.

Can I substitute the whole (presumably chopped/smashed/pureed) for paste?  I assume I would use the same volume?  And for others, can paste be substituted for whole in recipes where the whole anchovy is going to be pureed anyhow?

Oh, and since I'll have leftover anchovies from the can, I assume they will freeze fine for further anchovy paste substitutions?

You can easily make your own anchovy paste from canned anchovies.   This America's Test Kitchen video shows how:

Chop the anchovies fairly finely
Mash with a fork until smooth

Some sites recommend adding  a little oil for a smoother texture.

I have never tried it, but I don't see any reason this would not freeze exceptionally well, as neither whole anchovies nor the paste are used for their texture.


What order should I add ingredients when making soup? I am a student with no cooking experience and a very low budget. The former forces me to cook as cheap as possible and I think soups in general are the most cost efficient meals out there, since they can be cooked in large amounts and stored for a long time. But the problem is, I have very little idea of how to make a soup.

So far I know how to make a basic meat and vegetable soup/stew:

1) Stew some kind of meat

2) Chop some veggies, saute some of them in a pan with oil or butter.

3) Add the bouillon from the 1st step and some other veggies. Add the meat from the 1st step too.

4) Add some spices and cook for 1-2 hours.

As you've probably noticed this is a very very rough recipe and I'd like to clear a lot of steps. My main question is, what's the best order to do all this in? Specifically:

1) In what order should I saute the first veggies (for example, garlic onion and carrots) ? How long do I need to cook them for?

2) When I add the bouillon and the rest of the vegetables, should I add the longer cooking ones first, or cut them into smaller pieces? Suppose I'm using potatoes, beans, celery, and parsley. Obviously the potatoes require more time then parsley. So how should I do this? (Should I cook harder vegetables longer, or cut them into finer pieces?)

3) When should I add the meat?

4) If I want to thicken it with starch, when should I add it?

Goldilocks provided some very good general advice.  Just to address a few more points in the specific questions posed:

1) In what order should I saute the first veggies (for example, garlic onion and carrots) ? How long do I need to cook them for?

Garlic takes the shortest time to cook, particularly if it is minced or pressed, so it should be added last, probably only a minute or two before adding the liquid.  (You can also add some spices at this point, to bring out certain fat-soluble aromatics.)  Timing of other veggies don't matter so much.  If you want your onions to partially caramelize, start them by themselves first.

Sauteing is about getting flavors from the fat to interact with the food and somewhat about browning reactions.  So, it doesn't matter if the veggies don't all get very cooked here.  (It's hard to say exactly how long; it depends on temperature and whether you're interested in getting anything browned or just exposing it briefly to the fat, which will still bring out flavors that the stock/broth won't.)

2) When I add the bouillon and the rest of the vegetables, should I add the longer cooking ones first, or cut them into smaller pieces? Suppose I'm using potatoes, beans, celery, and parsley. Obviously the potatoes require more time then parsley. So how should I do this? (Should I cook harder vegetables longer, or cut them into finer pieces?)

It depends on how finicky you are about the final texture of the various ingredients.  If you want them all done to perfect doneness, you can add them at staggered intervals depending on how long it takes for them to cook.  Personally, with many soups I'm okay if some things are mushy, so I often dump most ingredients in along with the stock/broth.  (Actually, to save time, I'm often chopping up things as I go, so I dump them in as I finish cutting.)  But if there's something that you feel is overdone one time, remember that and add it a little later the next time.

Herbs are a special case.  If you want their flavor integrated into the ingredients, add them early (though generally not more than 30-60 minutes before the end of cooking).  If you want a more "fresh herb" taste that stands out, add them in the last few minutes or sprinkle raw over the soup when serving.

3) When should I add the meat?

As Goldilocks said, for maximum flavor you probably want to brown the meat first, before starting anything else.  You then remove the meat and saute the vegetables in the fat leftover from the meat, while scraping the bottom of the pan to get all the nice browned bits mixed in.  Then you add the meat back in along with the liquid and the rest of the ingredients.  If you're short for time, you can also leave the meat in the pan while sauteing the veggies, though it will be less effective.  If the meat is pre-cooked (e.g., reusing roasted chicken in chicken soup/stew), you can probably just add it with the liquid.

4) If I want to thicken it with starch, when should I add it?

It depends on the starch.  Flour usually needs to cook a while so that it doesn't taste "raw" or grainy.  Other starches (like cornstarch) do not require extensive cooking, though you will need to bring to a low simmer for a few minutes to allow the starches to fully expand.  If I'm not following a specific recipe, I often make a roux-like thickener by adding some flour to the vegetables at the end of the saute phase and cook along with the remaining fat there for a few minutes.  Then add the liquid, starting with a little at first to dissolve the flour (and avoid lumps).

I usually do not thicken it completely at the beginning to avoid sticking or burning during simmering.  But this gets the thickening started, which can then be finished by adding a little more starch at the end (the last 5-10 minutes, perhaps longer if using flour or coarser meal as thickener), as needed.  Do keep in mind when adding starch to hot liquid at the end that you should begin by adding some of the liquid (or cold water/other liquid) directly to the starch to dissolve it a bit.  Then add this mixture slowly to the soup; this will help to avoid lumps.


How long can I store cooking wine? I made a dish that used a small amount of wine and now I'm wondering how long I can keep the rest of it for next time.  I know you wouldn't want to keep good drinking wine around long after opening it, but does the wine get too bad to use in cooking quickly?  It's Chardonnay, if it matters.  Thanks!

The trick is that you won't want it to oxidize (although, red wine needs to 'breathe' to reduce some of the tannins, which is why @DanielBingham said it might improve.)  So, if you just need to hold it for a few days, store the bottle upright (minimize surface area exposed to air), and not on the door of the fridge -- it'll get jostled and mix air into it.

They also sell gadgets that inject nitrogen or other non-oxygen gas into bottles, or things to suck out the air, etc.  But if you're not much of a wine drinker, from your earlier comments, I wouldn't bother.  (hell, I don't even know if they work).

Oh -- boxed wine will last longer -- because there's a bag inside the box, when you pour out wine, the bag deflates, so air doesn't go back in (or not much of it).  You can hold boxed wine for a week or two, maybe even longer without problem.

If you're not much of a wine drinker, and only cook with the wine -- you might want to consider freezing it -- as with everything else -- an ice cube tray, freeze, transfer to zip-top bag.  Then, when you need little for a sauce, you can just thaw out of a cube or two.  It might not be as great as "fresh" bottle of wine, but if you're cooking with it, most people won't notice the difference, and it'd still be better than a dedicated "cooking" wine.


What would be an alternative cooking technique for the Orion Cooker to get more tender ribs? After cooking my first batch of baby back ribs on the Orion Cooker, I found that they were more "Kansas City Style", as opposed to what I like (fall off the bone).  So although the Orion Cooker is exceptionally fast (1:15 for six racks), and the smoke flavor is easy to control by adding just a few wood chips, the ribs are not as tender as I would like.

The standard Orion Cooker method is simple (fill it with seasoned meat, fill it with charcoal, light the charcoal, come back after the prescribed time).  Has anyone found a "tried and true' method to alter the standard Orion Cooker method that will provide a more a more tender result?  I was thinking that less charcoal could be used (lower temperature), and just allow the ribs to cook longer.  But it would be hard to come-up with an alternative cooking methodology by trial and error since opening the cooker to check doneness would suspend cooking for a significant amount of time.

I haven't used an Orion, but I watched their video and I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on the concept. I'm like you, I like ribs super-fall apart, and usually a bit saucy. I would try braising them in a big roasting pan in the oven a couple of inches deep in liquid for two hours or so (just at a simmer, don't let the liquid boil), before putting the racks in the smoker. For the liquid you can get as experimental as you care to.


How can I mask the flavor of frozen vegetables in soup? Sometimes it is nice to just grab ingredients from the pantry / freezer and throw things into a pot for a quick "homemade" soup. Typically quick soups like this utilize a mixed bag of frozen vegetables. Unfortunately, I can often taste that the vegetables were frozen. Is there a way to mask this frozen flavor?

What you are describing is often worst when the vegetables are thrown together without care as to what vegetables will do well stewed for a while, and which vegetables only need to be heated through and will suffer if they are cooked longer.

A great example of that is in the case of typical "frozen mixed vegetables". Carrots are never nicely tender in mixtures like that. Lima beans are downright chalky and peas are total mush. If you want to use frozen vegetables, avoid mixtures.

Pick the vegetables that you actually enjoy, and add them to your soup at a time appropriately distant from the time that you actually want to serve the soup. So bring lima beans to a hard simmer before you add corn, bring that to a hard simmer before you add frozen potatoes, add frozen carrots, bring that to a hard simmer before you finally add peas just before you serve - your soup will be better than emptying a bag of mixed vegetables into broth.


Can I safely clean/eat harvested foods that have aphids on them? So a friend of mine went to harvest some spinach and lettuce she planted, only to find lots of aphids. Assuming she can clear off the aphids is there anything preventing her from eating the produce? What's the proper method for cleaning that's sure to make it edible?

The best way to remove the aphids is to submerge the vegetables in cold water for at least 10 minutes.  Then drain, rinse them off, and dry them.  Salad spinners are perfect for this.

Once the aphids have been drowned and rinsed off, the greens are perfectly safe to eat.  Actually, it should be safe to eat the aphids as well, it's just unappetizing.


I've tried to make yougurt but I've got soured milk - what went wrong? I've tried to made home-made yogurt. I've tried to follow the receipt first by pasteurizing milk to kill the bacteria, waiting until the milk is 107 degree and adding culture. I've used incubator for 4 h (as indicated on culture pack).

I've got a rather sour cream at the bottom and the rest was soured milk. While I don't mind it and I haven't drank it in ages that wasn't what I was looking for.

Either you failed to adequately pasteurize the milk, or your culture was bad, or some unclean / unsanitized (some would say sterilized, I know better) utensil was involved on the cooling/inoculating side of the pasteurization step.

4 hours is a remarkably short incubation time - were you aiming for a "liquid/drinkable" yogurt? For a set yogurt 8-12 hours is typical and my process at this point is 24 hours at a somewhat lower temperature (95-100F) as I like the result better than the warmer/shorter incubation.


How to properly freeze kefir grains I have been making kefir regularly for a couple years. Lately, however, my family's interest in it has waned and I have been using it less often and so feeding it less often.

I want to store some kefir grains so I don't lose them due to my own negligence. I've heard that grains can be frozen but I'm scared to kill some in the experiment.

What is a proven procedure for freezing (and subsequently rethawing) my kefir grains such that they stay viable?

Less complicated than the other method, but similar steps at the beginning. I have used two methods and both worked. I have heard success stories for grains in the freezer for over a year. No milk powder involved.

Wash the grains in both cases.

Methods:

Put in fresh milk (the same you used before to make the kefir) and then freeze in a plastic container or so (I used a plastic bag)
Let the grains dry. Not just with kitchen tissue, but actually leave it dry for an hour or two. Finally put it into kitchen tissue and wrap that in a plastic bag or so for freezing.

For thawing I left the grains in the fridge for half a day and then gave them directly into milk.

I tested both methods, as stated. Both worked just fine. In my case the max. time was more than 2 months. However, when "reactivating" the grains it took both some time and the results of the first two or three batches were not consumable (well, I guess they were, but just not pleasurable as kefir proper).


What is a good way to cut potatoes into wedges? I have tried making potato wedges before but can't seem to find a good way of cutting them up. My pieces always seem to be of assorted sizes - so when they cook, the thinner ones burn and the thicker don't cook through.

Does anyone have a good method of chopping potatoes into wedges?

Clean your potatoes. Peel if desired.

Slice in half, lengthways.

Place flat sides down on your cutting board. Cut again in half, lengthways. This would be for very large wedges. For slightly smaller, cut in thirds, lengthways, on a 60 degree angle, from the outside of the potato to the centre line where it hits the cutting board.

For even smaller, slice in half again after the second half cut.


How to prevent oil splattering when placing steak in pan? Lately I've been trying to cook steak.

I pat the meat with a paper towel, then I put salt on it. I wait another 10 mins, then when I put the meat on the pan, the oil splatters and burns my hand.

I am wondering if I should dry the meat one more time right before I put it into the pan? But if I do that, then am I going to wipe the salt and pepper off the meat?
Or what else can I do differently?

Three recommendations:

If you pat the meat with a paper towel, it will absorb some of the moisture without removing salt or other seasoning.
You need very little oil (if any) in the pan to fry a steak, since fat will melt out of the steak. Use less oil, or put the oil onto the steak rather than in the pan. Then there will be much less oil to spatter.
Use a tool such as a spatula or tongs to place the steak in the pan, so your hands are further from it.


How do I add butter to a sponge cake? I made a Genoise following James Peterson's recipe in Baking, but without the optional butter.  I used an electric hand mixer. The cake came out fine, as in the picture.  The second time I decided to add the butter and the whole thing deflated.  What did I do wrong?  How do I add the butter to the batter?

Peterson's recipe calls for beating eggs and sugar for 20 minutes with a handheld to ribbon stage, folding in the flour with a spatula, and tempering the melted butter with 1/5 of the batter before mixing it to the rest.

In examining sponge cake recipes, I've noticed that some call for adding the melted butter with the flour.  Some call for adding it afterwards.

The important thing is to fold in that butter in a way that preserves the network of bubbles that was created while whipping your eggs (unsure if your recipe called for whipping whole eggs with sugar or yolks with sugar and egg whites separately, but both will be creating a bubble structure integral to letting your cake rise).  Ratio mentions that folding in flour helps to preserve that network (as long as you don't overhandle).

If you over handle while folding - and you may have tipped it over the line when adding butter - you will destroy that bubble network and your cake won't rise as you'd like.  It's also possible to under-handle, which will result in only a thin layer of sponge on top with a thick buttery cake underneath.


Can spaghetti noodles replace lo mein noodles? Let's say a family member asked me to try cooking lo mein for dinner, but I don't have time to stop by a big enough grocery store to get Asian noodles. I do, however, have spaghetti in the cupboard.

Are spaghetti noodles a reasonable approximation for lo mein noodles? (As far I understand it, they're both wheat-based.) What textural or flavor differences would I encounter with this substitution?

Round lo mein noodles look veeeeery similar to spaghetti:

Spaghetti

Lo mein

The biggest difference, ingredient-wise is that dried pasta (mostly?) does not contain eggs and lo mein noodles do.

I know that at least once shopping mall food court chinese food place I've eaten from uses spaghetti for their lo mein. It's kind of obvious, but it's not bad. I feel that lo mein typically has a denser, chewier bite than spaghetti. In a pinch, spaghetti will make a tasty noodle dish. It won't quite be lo mein, though.

My advice would be to try it and see what you think. Be careful to not over-cook your spaghetti.


Adjusting the baking time for large cakes? How long should I bake a 13" (330 mm) sponge cake?

Which gas mark should I use?

The recipe should specify the temperature, as it can vary depending on the ingredients and the desired texture. If I had to guess, I'd use a temperature of 180°C (350°F), or gas mark 4. However, some recipes call for 3 or 5.  (Growing up in the US, I had never heard of "gas mark" until just now! Our ovens are usually marked in degrees Fahrenheit.)

As for how long, this tends to be an easy one for most cakes: once it starts to look done (it's starting to turn evenly brown on the outside) stick a toothpick in it. If the toothpick comes out clean and dry (perhaps a few dry crumbs on it) then the cake is done. If it's got batter or wet clumps, wait a few minutes and try again. (Follow the link for more ways to test!)


Best heat source for fondue? Will an induction cooktop work? I recently visited a fondue restaurant, which had a cooktop built into the table.  By all appearances, the cooktop appeared to be an induction cooktop, but I wasn't sure; it could have simply been a contemporary-style glass-top burner.

Does an induction cooktop lend itself well to quickly heating (and maintaining the temperature of) fondue?  I thought about getting one of the various portable induction burners available online.

In a more general sense, is there a 'best' type of heat source for fondue?

In my experience, the lowest setting of my induction cooker - 120 watts - is too high and results in scorched chocolate and will also burn dairy products like a cheese sauce. I wouldn't use it for a fondue - I would use a candle.

It's possible this restaurant had specialty induction cookers that could reach lower temperatures. My single-burner el cheapo induction cooker is standard off-the-shelf.

Edited to add:

I use my induction cooker, never my gas stove, for deep frying. With my induction cooker (which goes up to 2000 watts), 600 watts is the perfect setting for deep frying and no fiddling is required - it always works perfectly. So for hot oil fondues, where you're essentially deep frying meat, I absolutely would use an induction cooker. It would be my cooking tool of choice.


Can you make bread with the yeast in beer? I am looking to make some beer bread by substituting beer for water in some of my favorite recipes. I have heard that beer has yeast though, so I was wondering if the yeast in beer would work to ferment & proof my bread.

I was wondering if there is enough for say, an overnight rise without adding any extra yeast, or should I still use the full amount of yeast in each recipe that I use without the beer?

Made bread today by replacing the yeast and half the water with hefeweizen beer I brewed recently. I used equal parts beer and water, along with a little sugar, to make a yeast starter, thereby multiplying the amount of yeast present. Works great and provides hints of the distinctive hefeweizen underflavors of clove and banana. My advice is to experiment! Use unfiltered, unpasteurized beer to make a starter, remembering yeast is very sensitive to rapid temperature changes. Gradually warm everything to room temperature before combining!


What is important to keep in mind when making a white sauce? White sauce is dairy based, but what is it exactly? What are the main ingredients? Is it thickened somehow or not? How thick should it be? Should it contain herbs or oil?

A white sauce, also known as Béchamel sauce, is butter, flour, and milk. The flour and butter are cooked together to make a roux, and that thickened base is thinned out with liquid (in this case, dairy) to make a sauce.

It can have different thicknesses depending on what you want to use it for — varying the ratio of roux to milk results in a thin, medium, or thick white sauce.

Béchamel is a "mother sauce," meaning it is the basis for many other recipes: you can add cheese, herbs, seasonings, etc., to create a variety of sauces. However, a basic white sauce just has salt and pepper (white pepper if you want to avoid dark flecks in the sauce).

Suggestions for the best way to make the sauce can be found in this related Q&A: What's the best way to make Béchamel sauce?


What are some established western cook books from 1920 - 1960? I'm looking for a book that would, preferably, have been written by a renowned chef; or a book that was a standard or staple for, say, French cuisine.

I'm looking to add to my bookshelf of classic cultural texts, and I cook very often, and such a book would be very useful to me.

The book can be from any culture, but one that has a translation in English.

Irma Rombauer published the iconic The Joy of Cooking in 1931. It’s more of a textbook than just a collection of recipes, with whole chapters dedicated to the ingredients. And elaborate kitchen techniques are explained in full. You can pretty much find any ingredient or recipe for any dish, I even think there’s a recipe for haggis! And subsequent editions of the book (the last edition was published in 2006 for the tome’s 75th anniversary) expanded the content greatly to include many ethnic cuisines. It’s a real treasure!

Julia Child published the Bible for French cuisine Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961. It is definitely not for the timid cook. But even if you never plan to make bouillabaisse or coq au vin, the book is a delightful read. Julia’s inimitable character shines through on every page.


Baking or Cooking - why orange and not other sweet citrus fruit? In most of the recipes that have any sweet citrus flavoring, it is usually Orange (zest and juice). In fact I've hardly seen a recipe that uses a substitute like mandarin, grapefruit, etc. Is there a reason why orange takes a preference and how easy is it to be substituted with another citrus? Lime and lemon of course are used a lot, but I'm referring to sweeter citrus fruit like orange, mandarin, grapefruit, etc.

The reason for this question is that I was looking for an orange a month back and couldn't find it in any big supermarket. So, I bought a blood orange for its zest but luckily, after hours of looking, found one at a small grocer. So, if the situation comes up again, how do I know what to substitute the orange with? This is the recipe I wanted to make.

I don't claim that this is a canonical answer, but it seems to be a bit like the situation with apples. You have cooking apples and eating apples, which have been bred for different traits. Similarly you have juicing oranges, eating oranges, and bitter oranges (used for marmalade). The other citrus fruits which taste most like oranges (mandarins, clementines, tangarines) are more suited for division into segments, and you're more likely to see them used for decoration. You could juice them if you don't have a better option, but recipes will tend to use the most suitable commonly available option.

Grapefruit has a very different flavour, so you have to take that into account when substituting. It's also not necessarily sweet, and certainly I have never seen grapefruit sold as "sweet grapefruit" or "bitter grapefruit".


Frying panko crusted pork chops I've been trying to fry panko coated pork chops. Followed standard recipe which includes seasoning, dipping it in egg wash and milk, coating it with panko breadcrumbs, the usual drill. However, when I go and fry it the crust starts to char and burn midway through the cooking process, while the actual meat is nowhere near cooked.

Does that have something to do with oil temperature? Or something else?

That definitely sounds like your pan is too hot. That's a bit unusual as most often people have difficulty with the opposite problem. Here's a great video on testing pan temperature with water. If your pan is non-stick, look here: How can you judge when a non-stick pan is the correct temperature for pan frying?. At any rate, try lowering your temperature.


Conversion rule: how to switch oil and butter? Just a moment ago, I was making muffins. The recipe calls for 125ml oil.
As a footnote, it says that you can replace the oil with 125g butter.

Can you do so in every recipe (not just muffins or pastry)?

I've found this, but the amounts aren't the same (while my recipe says to use the same amount).

Butter and cooking oil are not interchangeable in every recipe.

Butter actually has water in it, while oil is a pure lipid.  This can cause problems with water-sensitive preparations, for example a choux paste (where the proper ratio of water to flour is extremely important) or anything using melted chocolate (where the water in butter can cause it to seize).
Butter can also be whipped; oil definitely cannot (except coconut oil).  You normally wouldn't use olive or sunflower oil in, for example, an icing.
Butter is a solid at room temperature, while oil is a liquid.  When making something that needs to be relatively solid - for example, bread or pie dough or anything requiring a beurre manié - you do not want to substitute butter for oil.  Shortening is a better substitute.
Butter has a much lower smoke point and will scorch at temperatures that oils are often subjected to.  You have to be very careful when frying anything in butter, and you'll need to watch carefully if baking with butter at very high temperatures.

You have to understand the recipe you are making if you want to know how to do the conversion (or if a conversion is even possible).  If the recipe is fat-dependent, you need to use more butter than oil.  If it is water-dependent, you generally should use less butter.  If it is both, you likely can't do a direct substitution and will have to add or remove something else.  And if the recipe relies on the solid/liquid state of the fat, then you simply cannot substitute.

Muffins just happen to be one of those things where it really doesn't matter much.  Like all quickbreads, you can vary the amount of fat substantially and all it will do is change the texture of the final dish; quickbreads with more fat tend to be richer, more moist, and less dense.  The Joy of Cooking recipe for waffle batter recommends anywhere from 1/4 cup to 1 cup of butter, which is a pretty wide margin of error; in recipes like that, you can usually play fast and loose with the substitutions.


Difference between cooking vegetable curries in a pressure cooker and a wok? Is the difference only w.r.t time consumed?
Is it better (in terms of taste) to cook vegetable curries in a Kadhai rather than a pressure cooker?

EDIT 1:
Q: Do the spices change their taste when cooked in Kadhai versus pressure cooker?

I am not sure if you are asking about pressure cooking vegetables or just using the pressure cooker to cook. If you are talking about pressure cooking the vegetables, I think a kadai is more suitable because it preserves the texture of the vegetable you are cooking. If you cook the same vegetable in the pressure cooker, it is difficult to control the 'doneness' of the vegetable.

For example, I have cooked aloo mattar (potatoes and peas) in a kadai and in a pressure cooker. The peas come out much more mushier when cooked in a pressure cooker versus a kadai. If I want a pressure-cooked texture in a kadai, I cook longer.

If you are talking about cooking in a pressure cooker without the lid on, it makes no difference whether you are using a kadai or a pressure cooker.


How can I tell the difference between a rabbit and a cat? I received a shipment of prefabricated skinned rabbit last week and the shipment seemed unusual. Rabbits have a very close resemblance to cats once their “hair” and skin have been removed. Is there a telltale sign that I’m working with Bugs Bunny, not Sylvester?

I have a suspicion that Elmer Fudd is running out of legitimate product.

All jokes aside, how do you tell the difference?

In Germany we have an old (joking) saying that roughly translates to "head off, tail off - bunny", so your question is legitimate. But first thing's first: There is no health risk1 involved if you ate the latest shipment of "meowling rabbit". (To cat lovers everywhere: This is no endorsement, I have a much loved and pampered cat, too!)

The most obvious differences are

head (look at the teeth!),
tail (short vs. long), and
feet (cat claws are quite distinctive).

But I suspect these would be removed prior to sale, so we'd have to dig a bit deeper into anatomy:

Shoulder blades:
Cats' shoulder blades are rounded on top, especially in the front, making the shoulder blade almost semicircular with the ridge making for two differently shaped parts, rabbits' shoulder blades are triangular with the ridge somewhat parallel to the front side.
Femur (thigh bone):
A cat's femora are straight, whereas a rabbit's is more or less bent, especially pronounced in older animals. Same applies to a lesser extent to radius and ulna (forearm), but they might have been removed.
Ribs:
Cats' ribs are "rounder" than rabbits' ribs according to this source. I can't say by how much, but @aitchnyu's comment below suggests the difference is obvious enough to play a significant role in the novel/movie Papillon.
Pelvis:
The same source as above states that the foramen obturatum (= the loop-like opening near/below the hip joint) is oval in rabbits and round in cats. I couldn't find a good picture to show this, though.

Here's a rabbit:

Source: www.onlineveterinaryanatomy.net

And a cat:

1 other than the general risk every meat from questionable sources brings


Could you describe the Soufflé technique? Could you describe the Soufflé technique? What pitfalls should you avoid?

All souffles will fall. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Souffles rise because of the action of steam within them (I don't have my copy on loan, but this is discussed in some detail in McGee, 2004 edition). Popping them back in the oven briefly will resuscitate them enough to take to the table, if they have fallen too quickly.


Cocktail shaker - silver plate but black on the inside I picked up a 1920s, silver-plated cocktail shaker from the op-shop.  It is super fabulous.  However, the inside is all black.  Is it safe to make and serve cocktails from this shaker?  What should I use to clean it??
Thanks  xx  irene

Yes, it's safe.

Silver tarnishes easily, particularly in contact with sulfur-containing foods, particularly egg. The tarnish is not hazardous, and can be cleaned off with silver polish or with DIY chemistry like in Tetsujin's answer. Black tarnish doesn't form readily on its own, so if you're not planning on using eggs in your cocktails then cleaning off the existing tarnish will likely last you a while (it'll be bright silver initially, but will quickly tarnish to a dull greyish silver). However, it can also be ignored (which was apparently the approach taken by the previous owner).


How to Save Overly Salty Tapenade I made a tapenade with the following ingredients: kalamata olives, capers, anchovy, garlic, thyme, lemon, olive oil. Although I rinsed the olives and capers (as per the recipe) the result is pretty salty. It's not inedible but would be a lot better if there was something to counter the saltiness even if it doesn't end up tasting like a traditional tapenade. I just want it to be eaten! Any suggestions what I can add?

Ideas:

Veer into pesto.  You could add walnuts or pine nuts and basil pesto style.  This would be a good pasta sauce.  I would eat it right now.
Stretch it out with chopped spinach or arugala.
Thin it with cheese.  A dip with your tapenade and feta cheese or a mild blue cheese 50/50 would be dynamite.  Or just with plain yogurt, which is very unsalty.
Top a pizza with it.


Calories in bean liquid? Canned beans come with a liquid that may be eaten. Do the calories shown on the can reflect the calories with the liquid, or without? Either way, is there a way to know the calories in just the beans or just the liquid (without a calorimeter)?

If you want to be certain, I suppose you should ask the canning company.

I can't speak for all countries, but in the U.S., I'm pretty sure the usual nutritional information reflects the total contents (with liquid), unless the nutritional information explicitly specifies "drained," e.g., "Serving Size: 1/2 cup beans (drained)."

The relevant regulation appears to be from the Code of Food Regulations, Title 21, Sec. 101.9(b)(9):

  (9) The declaration of nutrient and food component content shall be on
  the basis of food as packaged or purchased with the exception of raw
  fish covered under 101.42 (see 101.44), packaged single-ingredient
  products that consist of fish or game meat as provided for in
  paragraph (j)(11) of this section, and of foods that are packed or
  canned in water, brine, or oil but whose liquid packing medium is not
  customarily consumed (e.g., canned fish, maraschino cherries, pickled
  fruits, and pickled vegetables). Declaration of nutrient and food
  component content of raw fish shall follow the provisions in 101.45.
  Declaration of the nutrient and food component content of foods that
  are packed in liquid which is not customarily consumed shall be based
  on the drained solids.

But how do we know whether the bean liquid is "customarily consumed"?  For most foods, we can go to this FDA document, which gives instructions for isolating the "edible portion" of foods for nutritional analysis.  Alas, that does not help either, since there are no instructions specifically for canned beans.  Some canned vegetables are apparently often analyzed drained, but canned beans with sauces (e.g., pork and beans, chili and beans) are explicitly listed with instructions NOT to drain.  There's no listing for plain beans.

Yet there's a clue in the USDA nutritional database guidelines (p. 97):

  Data for canned legumes were often developed for the purpose of
  nutritional labeling; therefore data are presented for the total can
  contents.  During the canning process, and sometimes during cooking,
  the cotyledons of legumes rupture, releasing starch into the brine;
  therefore, draining of the liquid medium is difficult.  However, cooks
  do generally drain these products.  Some packers may add sugar to
  certain canned legumes and this may also affect the nutrient content.

Another clue is in the reference amount for suggested serving size of beans in the FDA regulations, which has the following qualifications:

  Beans, plain or in sauce: 130 g for beans in sauce or canned liquid
  and refried beans prepared; 90 g for others prepared; 35 g dry.

My experience is that I almost always see 130g as the serving size on canned beans in the U.S., suggesting that they are following the above nutritional guidelines from the FDA and USDA and would include any sauce or canned liquid in nutritional analysis.  (Also, in the past I've compared this 130g approximate serving size to the number of servings listed on a typical can of beans, and the only way to get close to the estimated number of servings is by counting the liquid.  Usually the beans alone will weigh significantly less than the number of servings.)

Lastly, I would note that in the case of plain beans, the canning liquid likely contains only a small amount of calories anyway.  For beans listed as being "in sauce," clearly the implication is that one could consume the "sauce" and therefore any calories in it would be included.

All of that said, the fact that there's no explicit mention of beans in the first two documents I linked leaves a little "wiggle-room," and thus I don't think a bean canning operation would be in violation of U.S. labeling regulations if they drained the beans before calculating nutritional content.  (Though I'm not a lawyer, so this is speculation.)  But various other documents -- including the other two I cited -- seem to indicate that including bean canning liquid for nutritional purposes is the norm in the U.S.


Razor clams good or bad? I bought some razor clams today and all of them were open with their "tongue" or meat coming out of the shell.  When I got home I noticed they had a really strong smell to them. This is the first time I've bought razor clams....so how do I know if they are safe to eat?

There are two types of razor clams.  Since you are in the US according to your profile, I am guessing you have the type from the Pacific Northwest, which look like this (picture from Washington Fish and Wildlife):

It is normal for the razor clam to not completely fit into its shell; in particular, the digger or "foot" will extend from the shell.

According to Piscatorial Pursuits (I couldn't make that name up):

  The neck tips are very tough and give off a very strong scent.

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife has a detailed page on cleaning and preparing the clams, with pictures.  Note that they indicate (emphasis original):

  During cleaning, you may find small "pea crabs" or flatworms inside
  the body of the clam. NEITHER OF THESE AFFECTS THE QUALITY OF THE
  RAZOR CLAM MEAT.


Why does spinach lose its texture when cooked? I know that cooking spinach until it loses its texture is called wilting, but what is the chemical process that is going on. It it losing moisture? If so why does it look so moist?

Thanks!

Before being cooked, vegetables are like a wall built from tightly filled water balloons.  Each cell has is filled with water (well, technically cytoplasm, but...) which is essentially incompressible.

One of the components in the cell walls is hemi-cellulose, which dissolves into the water when the vegetable is cooked.  This allows the individual cells to partially deflate, expressing water and making the overall vegetable wilt.

Think a blown up beach ball.  Although the wall is soft and flexible, the air holds it rigid.  Of course, air can be compressed, so a beach ball can be squeezed; but water for all practical purposes is not compressible, so there is no almost no give in the individual plant cells.

Once the cell walls loose their integrity, however, it is like the beach balls that comprise the plant have sprung a leak.  They loose their shape or rigor, and at the large scale you see wilting or softening.

Note that the presence of acid in the cooking medium can inhibit the dissolving of the hemi-cellulose, and permitting vegetables to better maintain their shape.   This is one reason why, for example, canned vegetables have acid added to the canning liquid (another being that acidity above a certain threshold inhibits the growth of certain dangerous food born pathogens.)


What is caster/castor sugar? I've got a Meringue recipe that calls for castor sugar.

Is that different than powdered sugar?

Castor (caster) sugar is known as superfine, or bar sugar in the US. It's not the same as powdered sugar which is even finer, has been mechanically pulverized, and is often mixed with starch to prevent clumping.

According to Ochef you can make it with regular granulated sugar in your food processor for two minutes, but let the sugar dust settle before opening.

  See Also:
  Translating cooking terms between US / UK / AU / CA


How to substitute flour with nutritional yeast I am planning on making a pretty standard (read: whichever pops up first in Google) recipe for Broccoli Cheddar soup; i.e. brocolli, cheddar, chicken stock, and about 1/2 cup flour per 4 bowls of soup.

To try to reduce using that much bleached flour, I would like to substitute nutritional yeast. Obviously the flavor will be sufficiently similar without taking away from the flavor of broccoli and cheddar (and the stock is pretty potent so I'm also not worried about that) so I am not worried about using too much nutritional yeast.

To achieve the effect of 1/2 cup flour thickening, what is an approximate ratio for the same effect with nutritional yeast? Also, I have noticed with other dishes that, unlikely the grainy/clotty results of flour, nutritional yeast can be added after the fact without whisking. But in a case like this, am I still better off whisking it in at the beginning?

I think this is not such a good idea. It is going to take a lot of nutritional yeast to get anything like the thickening power of flour. If you really want to thicken this with less flour, there are plenty of other things that will do the trick, like xanthan gum, potato starch, corn starch, ultra-tex, some formulations of methylcellulose, etc. Just add however much nutritional yeast you want for flavor or health reasons, and get your thickening elsewhere.


Why does honey stored with the comb last longer? I recently discovered that honey stored in containers with the comb does not seem to crystallize (or certainly not as fast as when stored without).  What is the mechanism that causes this? Is there a real downside to storing with the comb?

Bees add enzymes to honey that prevent crystallization. These enzymes are destroyed by many of the processing techniques, like heating, but such techniques also physically destroy the comb, so they're not used on the honey that is in the comb.

This type of honey is also called raw honey sometimes.

As a side note, crystallized honey is fine for consumption. If you want to get rid of the crystals you can easily do so by heating the jar a bit.


What do you need for Chinese style Hotpot at home? I love going to hotpot at the restaurant.
How can I do it at home? What sort of equipment do I need?

Pots

There are two options for Chinese hot pot. Either one large pot that everyone dips into or several small pots, one each that you cook your own food in. Both styles are popular in China. It is also common to see the large pot with a divide in the middle allowing one side to have more chilli and spice than the other.

Left: Large pot with divide. Right: Individual pots on burners.

Heat source

Missing from the other answers, you need some way to heat the pot and keep it simmering. In China, people have individual electric hobs with temperature controls specially designed for the job. You can find them online http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/induction-stove.html

For the individual pots, a paraffin wax burner is used blow the pot. Similar to the heater used in a buffet restaurant to keep food warm.

Cheating

Really any pot and a little gas stove would do just fine:

In pot spices

This can vary considerably depending on what region of China you are in and what you like. You could just use plain water or a light broth of chicken or fish. I've seen some that resemble cream of tomato soup. Commonly you will see wolf berries, chilli, ginger, garlic, black, white and red pepper corns, bay leaves and Chinese dates. You really could use anything you like.

Dips

Again this varies. Usually each person has a small bowl into which they mix their own dip. This may contain rice vinegar, soy sauce, peanut or sesame paste, chilli paste in oil, crushed garlic, pickled garlic, picked chilli and some other pastes of things I have yet to identify. You might be able to buy ready mixed spices for dips in you're local Chinese supermarket or online shops.

Food for cooking

Typical food for cooking includes: Thin cut beef or lamb (occasionally pork), fish of any type, shrimp, oysters and such seafood, thin sliced potato or sweet potato (yam), egg noodles, tofu (either fresh or frozen or the skin shredded), and vegetables such as cabbage, bok choy, lettuce, spinach or whatever greens you have to hand.


Whole Wheat Breads Dough Conditioner I do a lot of cooking with 100% freshly ground whole wheat, and have noticed that it often is not very well conditioned. For example: My whole wheat tortillas are never flexible, even when I under-cook them. Bread dough is always really tough to knead and never really becomes flexible.

I am wondering if anyone knows of good dough conditioners. I am looking for something that is hopefully not too expensive because I use whole wheat really often.

Thanks so much!

Of the various things listed when looking up "dough conditioners" the only ones I'd think of using at home would be malted barley flour, lethicin and L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C.) An alternative for what the C is doing (oxidising) would be to buy your flour ahead and age it a few weeks for natural oxidising; possibly keeping it under refrigeration to reduce randicity, which can be an issue for whole wheat stored at room temperature or warmer.

That said, do I wonder if you are perhaps under-hydrating - whole wheat doughs tend to be obnoxiously sticky when "properly" hydrated - adding more flour to make them easy to work with is a common enough approach (been there, done that), with a common enough result that the end products are rock-hard...

My personal preference at this point is to have a more easily worked dough that is not 100% whole wheat. You can view "non-whole wheat flour" as a "dough conditioner" of sorts in that light, if you like.


Is it safe to cook a steak that was left out (raw) for 7 hours? I left a round steak out for 7 hours in a container of cold water.  It was wrapped very well, hadn't been opened yet.

Is it ok to cook this? I planned on cooking it in the crockpot for 8 hours.

It's perfectly safe to cook it, as long as you don't plan to eat it.  The exception is if the water was at or below fridge temperature to begin with.  When food temperature enters the "danger zone" of 40-140F/4-60C, there's a lag time of 2 hours before bacteria go into exponential replication.  Any longer, and the bacteria counts start to increase exponentially, doubling every 30 minutes to an hour.  With the bacteria counts, the risk of food poisoning increases exponentially.  7 hours is just beyond the pale.

Beyond the time/temperature problem, there are 3 things everyone needs to know about food safety:

You cannot smell pathogens, just rancidity/spoilage.  With spoilage, your food is definitely unsafe to eat, but it may be dangerous long before it smells "off."
Cooking to ~165F/74C kills pathogenic bacteria. Different agencies and foods have slightly different temperatures, but most are at or below this temperature.
Cooking will NOT destroy toxins bacteria produce, so heavy cooking is not a solution to meat left out too long.  Staphylococcus aureus ("Staph"), chlostridium botulinum ("botulism"), Escheria coli ("E. coli"), and chlostridium perfringens all produce toxic chemicals, which are not destroyed by cooking.

If it was a very expensive steak, I'd be tempted to cut off the exterior and cook it heavily for myself only (would never dare serve to another).  But, for a simple round steak?  Bin it and buy another, it's not worth the risk.


Ovearheated/burnt my copper pot, is it still usable? I burnt porridge to the bottom of my copper pot. It was too hot and it dried out so now the tin feels rough and has bubbled somewhat.

Is it still usable like this? Or will I need to get it re-tinned?

My main concern is that bits of tin will come off into the food/food will get stuck on the bottom.

Thanks for any advice!

Try boiling a mixture of water and baking soda and then turn off the heat and let it sit until it cools enough to scrub. You might try 1/2 cup baking soda to a quart of water. Another trick is a baking powder paste. Same idea but more intense. Make a paste, bring to a boil only briefly and then scrub.


How can I preserve an orange (peel) for as long as possible? Not really cooking-related, but I thought I might ask here anyway. I got some signatures on an orange, and want to preserve them for as long as possible. Should I peel the orange? Freeze it? I heard something about moisture-controlled refrigeration?

I'm willing to spend up to about $40 US, so of anyone has any ideas about this that'd be helpful. Thanks!!!

EDIT: Picture of what I'm trying to preserve

Speaking of dehydration, it is possible to dry out a piece of orange peel. If you do it properly so it does not rot or get moldy, it will last for years, although it will gradually use its aroma. The problem is that it will shrink when dehydrating, resulting in a worse-looking surface and possibly distorting the signature. A largish section is also practically impossible to flatten, so you will have to live with a curled piece-of-sphere shape. The end product is very stiff and somewhat brittle, with irregular surface whose color is a darkened, somewhat dirty looking orange, not the bright hue of the fresh peel.

You can find instructions for drying orange peel for use in teas or as ground spice. The way we used to do it at my parent's home was to put a single layer of peel pieces on a high shelf and let them sit there for a few weeks. This will not work if your climate is humid, so you might prefer a method using a dehydrator or a low oven.

This site has not only instructions, but also a good picture of the end result. They remove most of the pith (the white part) to prevent bitterness, but in your case, it is preferable to leave 3-4 mm to ensure structural integrity. You can leave all of it if it is a thin-peel variety, but remove some if it is very thick, because you risk rotting and bad texture and geometry.


Cooking meat inside pumpkin I was wondering if cooking meat inside pumpkin in oven would lead to a kore tasty meat or it will only be dry and tasteless.
I still haven't tried it, but watching a video that made octopus inside a pumpkin, brought me up with the idea of repalcing red meat inside. which at first I know , that it needs to be pre-cooked. But then, I was thinking how dry would it come out of the oven? Should I choose a specific type of pumpkin ? any add ins to make more moisture ?

It won't be dry unless you overcook it. The pumpkin flesh will give off steam and keep the meat moist.
The meat will pick up some pumpkin taste from the pumpkin, but it won't brown. So you're trading the flavor of browned meat for the flavor of pumpkin.
If you pre-cook the meat, you can get the flavor of browned meat along with the flavor of pumpkin. As Max pointed out, the pumpkin may not survive the long cooking time required by starting with raw meat, so using pre-cooked meat is probably a good idea anyway.
Here's a recipe that uses ground beef, which is first sauteed with onions and green peppers, then tomato sauce and spices added. The pumpkin is also partially-cooked. Then the pre-cooked meat/sauce mixture is stuffed inside the pre-cooked pumpkin, and the whole thing is baked for another hour.
The final cooking presumably allows the flavors to blend and also finishes cooking the pumpkin. The moisture from the pumpkin should prevent the already cooked meat from getting dry and overcooked.


Tips for cooking seared tuna just right? I'm awfully fond of seared tuna, and I have the recipe down pat. However, I'm rarely 100% satisfied with the results searing part- I typically overshoot on the thickness of the cooked layer. For the record, I use a sesame-crusted recipe, and usually use previously-frozen tuna that I've let thaw completely. Any tips or suggestions?

With seared Tuna the point is to create a charred crust while leaving the inside mostly raw. It's very similar to cooking a steak rare in that the secret is a very hot pan and a short amount of time. So get your pan as hot as you can, coat the cooking surfaces of the tuna steaks with a bit of oil with a high smoke point (corn, canola, peanut - not olive oil or walnut oil), then fry the tuna for as little time as you can get away with. I'd think 45-60 seconds per side. In case you are wondering the oil forms a good heat contact with the tuna, improving conductivity, it's not for any flavor effect.

Now you may have a stove that doesn't get the pan hot enough in which case it takes too long to form a crust and the inside cooks more than you like, in which case you can try:

Not letting the tuna thaw completely. If it's still a teensy bit frozen in the middle the heat from the cooking will thaw it, not cook it. You could also try it straight out of the fridge
Use a cooking torch. You can also use a plumbing torch, it's the same thing except much cheaper


How to tell if preserved chillis are still good? I grew dozens more chillis than I was able to use this year so rather than throw them away I preserved them in a mason jar. I didn't have a lot of time to do it so I looked online and an article (which I can't find now) said I could just preserve them in vodka - I cleaned the mason jar with boiling water, washed, chopped and de-seeded and de-stemmed the chillis, then put them in and covered them in vodka.

They've been sitting for around a month now (I haven't had much cause to use them yet) and the other day I moved the jar and the liquid inside splashed up to the top and I noticed that some of it escaped past the rubber seal. So now I'm kinda worried that the jar isn't sealed properly and that instead of being preserved they're just rotting in there.

Is there any way to tell for sure? They don't smell anything other than spicy.

Alcohol is a disinfectant, so any bacteria sitting around for a month in vodka have been thoroughly killed...

The only thing to worry about is that if some of the chillies were not completely submerged all of the time, you might have a slight problem.  The symptoms to look for is discolouring: look for brown / black spots / extremities.

If not: no worries: they're still good.


How to prevent meatballs from drying out when I substitute a lean meat? The meat in question that I use would be ground turkey, though this could apply for any leaner ground meat used to replace beef. This would also be more for recipes such as turkey burgers and meatballs, where the dryness is more of an issue since the meat itself is the focal point of the dish(i.e not a stew/chili).

I've had fairly decent success with adding chopped chillies to ground turkey, but am looking for more alternatives and non-spicy/less overpowering ways of keeping the meat from getting too dry.

I wasn't sure how to tag this one, so feel free to help me out there.

You'll have different techniques for different recipes.  The most important thing is not to overcook it ... but with ground meat and ground poultry in particulary, you want to make sure you've cooked it long enough to be safe.

For amalgameats, like meatloaf and meatballs, the common technique is a panade, breadcrumbs soaked in milk, and adding vegetables helps too (cooked spinich, onions, bell peppers, carrots, etc.)

For sausages, apples are a fairly common item in chicken sausages to add moisture.  I don't know that the flavor combination would go as well with beef or pork sausages, but you generally want fattier cuts for sausage anyway.

For burgers, it's even trickier, as if you add a ton of stuff into the burger it becomes something that's more a meatloaf patty than a burger.  You can make two thin patties, and put butter or cheese between them, and cook it as a 'stuffed burger', but if you're selecting leaner meats, I'm guessing you won't want to add more back in.  Your better option is to cook the burgers in a low oven until they reach your desired internal temperature, then give them a quick sear to develop a crust; this will help minimize the amount of overcooked exterior.


Can i freeze chocolate cream frosting / ganache? I made some chocolate cream frosting / ganache (basically just double / heavy cream with plain / bittersweet chocolate, melted and whipped up).

I ended up with twice as much as I need. Can I freeze it or will I simply have to eat it all (oh, the hardship)?

You may absolutely freeze chocolate ganache and most other chocolate preparations.  It should keep for up to a year without any noticeable change in quality.

Try to get a tight seal so it doesn't pick up other freezer odours.  Use a small freezer bag if you can, and maybe put that in a hard sealable container as well.  The freezing itself won't hurt the ganache at all but if it catches a whiff of those tuna casserole leftovers then you won't want to use it!


Shelf life of spices The common wisdom I've heard is that dried herbs and spices:

have a shelf-life of about a year or 2
keep best in a cool dark place
will release more flavor when crushed

That's fine but some spices are expensive. We have over different 50 jars on our spice rack and can't afford to replace them annually. Also, it's hard to believe that all herbs and spices are created equal.

What are some more specific guidelines regarding the shelf-life of herbs and spices? Which last longer? Which last less long? How much is shelf-life really affected by light or lack thereof? Do any actually become health hazards if left too long?

Dried herbs really do only last around six months, certainly no longer than a year. They're generally easy to get in small quantities, though.

Spices are trickier. They'll generally last rather longer, but the time will vary. If the spice is used for the colour and/or heat (e.g. turmeric, chilli) it will generally last much, much longer than one used for its smell and/or taste. Whole spices last much, much longer than pre-ground; I generally buy whole spices from asian stores, they sell them in much larger amounts for the same prices as supermarkets; and use a coffee mill to grind the right amount just before cooking (and keep a separate one for coffee!).

If kept in the dark, in a dry, clean, airtight glass container, spices and dried herbs will certainly not become health hazards, and should not pick up unpleasant tastes or odours. The strong-tasting / strong-smelling ones will, however, lose taste and smell, eventually almost completely; since that is the whole point of using them, you might as well not bother once they're off.


Out of Salt! But I've got a seasoning blend. How do I figure how much to use? I'm making fried chicken. I'm sort of following a recipe that adds 1 TBS salt and other seasonings to buttermilk to brine the chicken, and then adds 1 tsp salt and other seasonings to the flour dredge.

OMG! I'm out of salt. But, thanks to a well meaning friend, I've got a big container of Tony Chacherere's Original Creole Seasoning. It has all of the spices that my recipe calls for, it also contains salt.

I'm sure the spices will be fine at whatever ratio I end up with (my purpose is just fried chicken), but I want to at least get close to the "right" level of salt (Brining and dredging? Being way off with my salt could be a very bad thing).

So how do I go about estimating how much of the seasoning blend to use? The rest of the ingredients aren't much of an issue, but I want to know that my salt level is going to be OK.

If the label on your product lists the amount of sodium per some amount of your blend, then this answer should be useful to you. In the US that information is required on all manufactured food items sold.

IF YOUR LABEL LISTS SODIUM

There are three things you need to know to calculate substitutions involving salt.

Edible salt is very close to 40% sodium by weight. This one is universal, it has nothing to do with your label or the type of salt. Salt, by its very definition, is sodium chloride, NaCl. It doesn't matter if it's kosher salt, sea salt, iodized or non-iodized. It is 40% sodium, 60% chlorine. (Fancy finishing salts like Fleur de Sel or Hawaiian Black Salt are barely exceptions, with mineral content other than NaCl as high as 15%)
1 tsp salt contains 2300 mg sodium (that’s the USDA figure which is also the figure used to calculate values on the “Nutrition Facts” label on products in the US.) Using the 40/60 ratio listed in point #1, that would say a tsp of salt weighs 5.75 grams. (close enough assuming table salt)
Your label will tell you how much sodium is in a specific amount (serving size) of the seasoning blend or other ingredient. In the US, that listing will be in milligrams, 1000 milligrams = 1 gram.

Armed with that information, you can calculate any salt substitution. Let's take your example:

You need two portions of salt, 1 TBS and 1 tsp. Since a tablespoon equals 3 teaspoons, we only have to do this once. We'll figure out how much of your seasoning you will need to have 1 tsp of salt.

By some odd coincidence, I happen to have exactly the product you're using. Let's look at the label:

You need 2300mg sodium (1 tsp salt) for your dredge. Your product contains 1400mg sodium per tsp. Remember cross multiplication? You're solving for X:

So, 2300 / 1400 = 1.6 (1.643)

You need just over 1 1/2 tsp of seasoning to have 1 tsp of salt for your dredge.

3 * 1.643 = 4.9 (4.929)

You need just shy of 5 tsp of seasoning to have 1 TBS of salt for your brine.

Knowing all that, it's sounds like you might want to dig up some chili powder or something. Your "Creole Seasoning" is almost all salt.


What can I make a baking form from? I'm looking for a way to make a precise form for baking bread in it. I have a gas-powered oven at home and I'd like to find an easy to shape material that could be used to make a complex form or parts of it that can be assembled and will not deform from heat or the pressure of dough. I don't think I can manage precisely shaping something as hard as metal pans, but perhaps wooded planks with some preparation could work?

With such tiny details, wood will give you trouble - even with very careful seasoning and greasing you will probably not be able to get the cake to release properly and without ripping the details apart.

My first suggestion would be stoneware / clay:
You can easily shape it including details and after being glazed and burned it will be ready to use. Either find a potter do do it for you (even modeling it off a positive shape you supply) or do it yourself, you just have to find a kiln you can use.

Shaped stoneware molds have been in use for centuries, here are two random examples showing rather fine details:

Or find someone who can make it in metal, but your sheets must be a) thick enough to allow for thinning at the imprints and b) made to resist warping - that's definetively a job for a professional.


Order of ingredients when making Pizza dough I see all kinds of different dough recipes for Pizza. They all contain flour, salt, yeast and water. Some contain olive oil as well. The recipes are not consistent with the order in which ingredients are added to the mixture. So one recipe starts with the water and the yeast until it dissolves, then the flour is added and then salt. Another one starts with flour + yeast, then salt and water. Is there a preferable method? Can you explain to me the different considerations in each path?

Thanks

I read two or three different questions here:

Should I dissolve yeast in water?
a. Should I proof yeast?
Should I mix wet ingredients into dry, or dry into wet?

1) You don't need to dissolve active dry yeast in lukewarm water anymore (if you're using some other kind of yeast, this may not apply).

  You may have heard over the past year or so that active dry yeast (ADY) has been reformulated into a smaller particle size, and can now be used without dissolving it first – as had always been the requirement....

  You don't need to dissolve active dry yeast in lukewarm water before using it. (Even though it still says you should dissolve it on the back of the yeast packet, if you buy your yeast in packets.)

"Active Dry Yeast: Do you really need to dissolve it first?" King Arthur Flour

1a) Proofing yeast doesn't improve anything in the dough, it's just a means for you to discover whether your yeast is still active. If you bought it relatively recently, from a relatively busy story, you probably don't need to worry.

Yeast packages often have expiration dates.  I've found them to be not all that accurate.

2) Typically we add wet to dry: Order of combining wet and dry ingredients when baking

The gist is, dry powdery substances tend to float on top of water and form a skin.  Adding the water to the flour (better) prevents this and tends to allow the wet ingredients to be incorporated more easily.

So, putting that together, you should mix the flour, salt and yeast (unless you think you need to proof it), then mix in the water (and oil, if you're using it).


What cuts are "stir fry beef" and "stewing beef"? I've seen beef chunks in the store labeled as both stir fry beef and stewing beef, but neither indicate what actual cut they are. I imagine it might vary by brand but what are these usually? Are they the same/interchangable?

They are not equivalent cuts and 'should not' be used interchangeably.

Stir Fry meat is cut from the more tender cuts of beef (tri-tip, sirloin, rib-eye) and don't require much time cooking to be 'ready to eat'.
Stew Beef is from less tender cuts (the Chuck or Eye of Round) which will become tender after a 'significant' time braising (cooking in liquid).

That said...the food police won't show up at your door if decide to interchange these, and using stir fry beef for stew isn't a terrible thing to do...but you will likely not be happy if you try to switch the other way.


How to cook common bean in mess tin in campfire during hikers camp ? Possible? How to cook common bean in mess tin in campfire during hikers camp? Each night would be in the other location. The challenge is to first soak the beans and then to cook them. Beans should be cooked on little fire, which is quite hard to achieve with campfire.

I thought about soaking beans in mess tin for the night, then on the next campfire boil the water and keep beans in boiling water keeping the right distance from the center of the fire. The water would probably one moment boil intensively and the other will be a few degrees under boiling point.

Is this possible to cook beans in such way? Is there the other way to prepare it?

Assuming you have access to a food dehydrator or an oven that can be trusted at a low setting, you would be better off pre-cooking and then drying the cooked beans.    When you get to camp, just add boiling water and wait 15 minutes, and they'll be done.

This would save you the fuel cost of the long cook-time that most beans require, and allow you to season them in ways that would be difficult or impossible on the trail.


How can I make a mayo/ketchup-based sauce come out with a consistent color? I'm trying to make a zesty sauce from a mayo base/ketchup base mixture.  Sometimes color turns out dark orange, sometimes off white, even though I'm using the same recipe.  I'm thinking that how I make the mayo base could be altering the color of the final product.  I'm looking to get a pale orange final color.

I've been making the mayo base using hand wisk, canola oil, white vinegar, lemon juice and egg yolks and like I've said, use the same process each time but can't explain the color difference.  Any suggestions on what I can do to get a more consistent final product color?

I would think the main factor in the colouration, assuming you use the same amount of ketchup each time, is the colour of the egg yolks.

There is a specified range of yolk colours, specified on a yolk colour fan (PDF). The colour varies depending on the amount of caretonoids in the feed the chickens have eaten. Most chicken farms will supplement the feed with supplemental caretonoids in order to avoid pale yolks.

As eggs from the supermarket will likely vary widely in source, and thus feed, supplements and colour, it may be worthwhile to find a local, small-scale farm where you can ask the farmer about feed and supplements. If the chickens are truly free range, they may well eat a lot of insects, which also contributes to a rich orange yolk.


Why do sauces thicken as they cool? Why do sauces thicken as they cool? This happens for things like puddings, white sauces, jello, and gravy.

I looked around a little and maybe the reason is different for each of those different things. For some of them it makes sense that the fat would become less viscus as it cools and maybe that is the same for the geletin. But that doesn't really make sense for the white sauce because I thought the thing that makes it thick for white sauce is the gluten. Does anyone know a general scientific reason?

As they cool, many proteins go from long, flexible and un-entangled to short, rigid, and entangled.  For all of those, the basic thickening is due to protein structure. The proteins in question are

puddings - albumin (egg) (Note: egg is complicated, and can be made to entangle at many temperatures, e.g. souffles, meringues)
white sauces, gravy - gluten (flour)
jello - gelatin (from a variety of sources, could be either animal or vegetable)

Similar protein processes also explain the various cooking levels of meat (rare, medium rare, medium, etc.), and the various ways of cooking eggs.


How should I store herb butter? I tried just keeping it in a tightly-closed container in the refrigerator, but soon it was moldy.

I've read this question, which seems to indicate that ordinary butter should keep safely for weeks at fridge-temperatures... But my preparation is hardly ordinary butter.

My technique is very simple: 200g butter in boiling water and 30g of chopped herb (a mixture of leaves and buds) An hour of boiling, strain the herb with a filter gauze and put the liquid in the refrigerator until the fat solidifies and can be easily separated from the water. (The herb is in my case cannabis.)

Freezing is something I've considered trying, but would this affect the texture, or otherwise damage flavor?

Butter, even a compound butter like this, shouldn't have enough moisture to get moldy easily. I think the issue is that you are clarifying the butter in boiling water, which could be causing pockets of moisture in the finished product. You could try melting the butter in a pan without water, adding the herbs, and then allowing the water based part at the bottom to cook off. Once that has happened, you can strain and chill the butter as usual.


I have a recipe for an asparagus/pasta dish with a goat cheese sauce, Can I substitute Feta? Even generally speaking can Feta be substituted for Goat Cheese? I'm guessing that since Feta is usually more salty I would have to watch the salt, but any other consequences?

Probably not.

Goat cheese is a creamy cheese that melts well and makes a great sauce. Feta, on the other hand, does not melt. It will soften some, but still remain crumbly and chunky. The flavor is significantly different as well; it's much harsher.

You'd be better off with a fromage blanc, but chances are if you can find that in the US you'd be able to get the goat cheese there too. A common and more accessible substitute for goat cheese is cream cheese.


Dry milk substitutions? I'm trying to make homemade Tootsie rolls, and the recipe calls for 1 1/4 cup of instant non-fat dry milk powder, which I don't have. Is there any way I can substitute regular milk for this? If so, do I use the same amount?

Maybe you can try whey powder, which you can find in the sports drink column in grocery stores. Whey is one of the proteins present in milk.

Also, whey powder is low fat and low carb, some comes in vanilla flavor, which maybe good for making sweets/dessert. Hope it helps :)


How to treat brik dough? I have no experience at all with brik dough. This is a very thin and fragile dough that's mostly used for frying and baking.

Once the package is opened it should be used as the dough dries out really fast.

My question is how long after cooking does it stay crisp? Or can you re-crisp it if it becomes soggy?

To answer my own question, after experiencing, once cooked, the brik stays crisp for over a week.


What's the correct temperature to prepare confit cod? I've been cooking confit cod at 40°C (104°F). Once it reaches 40°C, I keep it for about 5 minutes and take it out of the oven. However, the thinner parts of the cod lose more moist than the thicker parts.

Is it safe to prepare cod at that temperature (I am referring to salted cod)?
Can a lower temperature produce a better result (for both the thicker and the thinner cuts)?

The official position of the USDA is that all fish must be heated to 145°F (63°C), else it is considered undercooked. In practice, most people don't do it, because fish is terribly overcooked at this temperature, and they seem to mostly live through it without ill effects. With salted fish, there is even less actual risk of foodborne illness. Still, I don't think that anybody will assume the responsibility to tell you that it is "safe" when the responsible officials say it isn't. You are taking a risk, but none of us can quantify it or tell you if it is justifiable. Food science books often recommend preparing fish at temperatures lower than 63°C, but include a disclaimer that this is against food safety guidelines.

A lower oven temperature can definitely produce a better result for your problem, because slower, more gradual heating means that you have a lesser heat gradient within the piece of fish. This means that the thin parts will overheat less in the time the center of the thick parts reaches 40°. However, this will only alleviate the problem, not eliminate it completely, unless you go for a very low temp cooking method like sous vide. If the lower oven temperature isn't enough for you, you might try other tricks to eliminate the problem, like changing the shape (e.g. by creating rolls of fish).


Why do BBQ sauce recipes specify that you must cook the sauce? Most BBQ sauce recipes specify that you cook them, why is this? Would it not suffice to just mix the ingredients together as they will be cooked when you use the sauce on the grill anyway?

Most of the popular ingredients for BBQ sauce (vinegar/ketchup/sugar etc.) tend not to mix very well together. I know whenever I've made BBQ sauce, placing all of the ingredients into a pan together they tend to separate and are difficult to combine.

Heating up the ingredients, however, causes them to combine better, and after a short time cooking they will bind together and give a more consistent texture/taste. Otherwise the different ingredients may continue to separate even when mixed, and you may find clumps of sugar that have not dissolved into the liquid etc.

It's quite possible your BBQ sauce recipe doesn't need cooking, so long as things are substituted (like sugar for sugar syrup or honey) in order to combine better, but this may well give an incorrect texture because of the change in ingredients.

Therefore if the ingredients you use can be combined without being heated, it's likely that it doesn't need cooking, however you may end up with an uneven flavor.

As pointed out in a comment by @ToddWilcox, there may also be constituent ingredients that do require cooking, such as garlic or onion, in order to achieve the correct flavor so that they do not taste raw.

Some sauces may also specify being cooked simply to make them thicker or more concentrated, as adding thickening agents such as flour may affect the taste, particularly if it is uncooked.

So whilst there are some BBQ sauce recipes that may get away with being uncooked based on their ingredients, there are others that will definitely require cooking.


Changing Protein Content of Flour I heard from someone that you can use all purpose flour as cake flour by altering it's protein content by addition of sodium bicarbonate (baking soda).

Is this really true? If yes, can someone provide me with a ratio to do so.

Sodium bicarbonate on its own is not baking powder but baking soda. A mixture of such with all purpose flour will not change the content of gluten-producing proteins beyond very slightly lowering their content per equal (to AP flour) weight of mixture.

The way the gluten forms in a dough/batter, and the way the whole product will brown/caramelize while baking, will actually be somewhat altered due to alkalinity, but this would still not mean equivalent behaviour to cake flour. Also, potential extra leavener (if an acid is present) will be there in addition to what the recipe describes.

What such a mixture, if using actual baking powder instead of baking soda, could be intended to substitute for would be self raising flour.


How do I diagnose and adjust my bread recipe? Our family has maintained a sourdough start for several decades. It has great flavor, but we use it mostly for pancakes. I've tried making bread with it several times, but never get good results.

This experience has led me to look for some sort of diagnostic procedure for bread. I'm hoping to find some sort of bread trouble-shooter, with common problems and their cause. And, I guess, not just problems, but say I just want more chew, or a flaky crust, the ideal guide would give me some things to try.

Can you recommend a good bread trouble-shooter?

I think your 'troubleshooter' and the desire to know what to do to get a different result ('more chew, or a flaky crust,etc) are definitely one in the same.  You'll need to understand the basic chemistry of bread (and some critical techniques as well).  Baking in general is more (not all) chemistry than normal cooking.  If you throw too much of something in, it may not just taste different, but change the entire critical chemical reaction in the oven.
Once that's cemented in your head, then if your bread doesn't rise, you immediately know that its one of a few things.  If you want a crisp crust, you'll know what to add. Its the same knowledge.
The best two references that I've read in regards to this are :

The Bread Baker's Apprentice by Peter Reinhart - Its pretty much a classic now and a must read for anybody wanting to get into baking.  Its got great chemistry, technique, and recipes in it.This is the book that made MANY things with bread just 'click' with me.  A large chunk of this book deals with sourdough.

I'm Just Here for More Food by Alton Brown - Just like on TV, he goes through the why and the how of everything.  It's a general baking book - not just for bread, but there's a whole section on dough.  I like the techniques and understanding here, but found the recipes to be a bit lackluster.  (He's got pancake info here too!)

Additionally, I'd encourage you to ask specific problems in regards to your bread issue on here.  There's a wealth of knowledge on the site and absorbing some via here would be a perfectly valid resource.


How to make a gooey apple pie? I really love the gooey consistency of frozen pies. i would like to replicate that texture in my home made recipes. Does anyone know a method of preparing the filling that would accomplish this? I have tested it with cornstarch but with no success.

I would suggest using potato starch instead of cornstarch. In my experience it definitely resulted in gooey pie filling. (Cherry in my case)


Sous Vide Strip came out medium well, what did I do wrong? I picked up two NY Strip steaks, about 6 oz each this weekend with the hopes of showing off how awesome my new sous vide circulator (Anova Precision Cooker) with a nice medium-rare steak. I pre-heated my water to 130 degrees, brushed olive oil on the steaks and seasoned them with kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. After that, I vacuum-sealed them (not touching) and submerged them for 2 hours. When they came out, they felt pretty tender, so I seared them in a heavy aluminum pan in hot oil, 30 seconds per side.

They came out OK, but certainly not medium rare. They had the slightest of pink centers, so I would call them medium well to almost well done. I really want to master the art of the steak, so what did I do wrong?

130 degrees is certainly the temperature to aim for, I'm thinking that it's the pan sear that did it. 1 minute in a pan is actually quite a bit for a thinner steak (at 6 ounces I'm thinking yours were maybe 1/2 - 3/4 inch), certainly enough to add 10-20 degrees or so to the steak's temperature and make it medium well.

As for how to avoid it there's a few things:

Get a thick steak: a thick steak can take a minute in the pan without cooking much more
Cook to rare: if you want to use a thinner steak cook it to 115 or 120F instead of 130F, that way the sear will bring it up to the perfect temperature
Use a torch to brown it: A chef's torch would give a good, quick sear without cooking the steak as much as a hot pan
Sear the steak first: it's not as good as searing after, but then you will get your perfect temperature
Cook the steak, then let it cool, then sear it. Your steak will only overcook if the temperature goes over 135F


Ceramic pan overheating damage How can you tell if a ceramic non-stick pan has suffered damage from overheating?

Will there be a point at which the pan is no longer safe to use? If so how can you tell if this is the case?

The main issue you will see with ceramic pans is crazing (a network of small cracks) of the enamel layer from  thermal expansion and contraction.

This may reduce the non-stick properties of the enamel layer and is not terribly attractive, but otherwise the pan will continue to be usable.


Is iodized salt unsuitable for baking bread? I've heard it said that iodized salt produces an acrid flavor when heated to high temperatures, such as for baking. Is there any truth to this?

TL;DR: yes, use it.

Many folks out there (my sweetie among them, so I hope she doesn't read this) claim to be able to detect an aftertaste of iodine in baked goods made with iodized salt.  This is the primary reason we have non-iodized salt in the kitchen.

The reason this is highly unlikely is that salt is generally only between 1-2% of the mass of baked goods, and iodine is only 0.0045% of the mass of the salt.  Which means that to taste the iodine from iodized salt, you would need to taste something that's present in only 0.05 parts per million (PPM) of the raw baked goods. For comparison, the Scoville Scale is also a dilution scale, and only pure capsaicin is detectable at that level of dilution.  So it's pretty unlikely that you could tasting the iodine in the finished baked goods.

There's also the idea that the iodine could vaporize during baking and somehow affect the other ingredients.  This is equally unlikely; even at 350C only 20% of the iodine vaporizes, and almost none at standard baking temperatures like 180C. And again, how much effect could 0.05ppm of iodine have?

You can work through similar exercises, but the simple truth is that iodine is present in such minute quantities that it's highly unlikely to have any adverse effects on baked goods.


Chocolate Sweetening in Ganache I need 1 more ounce of 60% bakers chocolate, but i only have unsweetened. How much powdered sugar should I add if I add 1 ounce of the unsweetened?
I'm trying to make a ganache.

Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it. It depends a little bit on the ratio of cream to chocolate you're using, but your ganache will turn out fine without adding sugar. If you're only using, say, 2 Oz of chocolate for your whole batch then it's worth adding some sugar to compensate. But if you're making enough to fill or cover something, the reduction in sugar would be hard to notice. You can (and in my opinion should) add a pinch of salt as well, which will help balance the flavors a little bit.

If the ganache does split or curdle, there are ways to fix it as well, usually by adding a little more hot cream at a time and whisking.


Mixing vegetables in a blender (e.g. for soup) - does the percentage of fiber decline? Imagine you have some food (e.g. 100g of mushrooms) and you mix them to a soup. To what degree the percentage of (insoluble) fiber is affected? I don't mean the question "raw" vs. "cooked", just the fiber-contents of the 100g mushrooms before and after mixing.

I am not able to find any information about this except for some unclear statements, e.g. here:

  David Katz, director of the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center at
  Yale University … wrote that while the blending process “certainly
  [has] an effect” on fiber, there has been little research documenting
  precisely how much it breaks down insoluble fiber and reduces the
  benefits of fruit. He added, “Let’s face it: Chewing grinds up fiber
  to some extent, too.” That said, “we have a fairly solid basis for
  saying: Whole food is best,” he wrote.

You seem to be mixing up three things in your question: the total amount of fiber, the degree of mechanical change to the fiber, and the health effects of eating fiber which has been mechanically changed.

For the first, the answer is clear cut: there is no change at all in the total amount of fiber. Blending is not a chemical reaction, it won't turn inulin molecules into anything else any more than grinding lead will turn it into gold.

For the second, it is unlikely that there will be a single answer. First you have to define exactly what kind of mechanical change you are interested in, and for any of these changes, to live with the fact that all accompanying variables (what blender you have, how long you turn it on, what are the other ingredients in the recipe...) will change the answer quite a bit. And you yourself found a specialist saying that people don't seem to have studied that.

The third is simply off topic here. Any answer based on the health effects of mushrooms, either telling you something about them directly, or choosing how to answer the amount-related second question ("there are many types of mechanical change, but only type X is interesting from a health point of view, so we will tell you the amount for type X") is out of scope and will get deleted.


Does honey actually tenderize meat? I was recently reading a cooking manga named Shokugeki no Soma, in which the protagonist uses unconventional methods to cook specific dishes. In one chapter, he uses honey specifically to tenderize meat in a short amount of time.  Here's the chapter page specifically:

I tried it for myself but can't seem to replicate the same thing he's done, if anything the beef remained relatively hard, and not soft as the manga describes. While some scenes are somewhat outlandish there is a certain truth to most of the cooking terms thrown around in the manga, so I'm curious: does honey actually contain proteases that tenderize meat quickly?

This article on LIVESTRONG.com seems to support the other fact in the same page which claims that pineapple can be used to tenderize meat, but it doesn't make any reference to honey at all.

If you're curious, this is the anime version of it:

https://youtu.be/5GCUzTyp9sE?t=6m36s

Based on the description given in the manga (specifically "I rubbed it on the meat before boiling" [emphasis mine]) I would guess that this is not actually an effect of tenderization at all.  Instead, the effect is possibly closer to that of velveting.

The velveting technique is typically done with a thin coating of corn starch, and my working theory is that this seals in the natural juices of the meat while preventing the outer layers from drying out. Being thick and viscous, honey might have much the same effect. As a result, the final product seems more tender, but that's just because it's been more delicately cooked - not due to any special tenderizing power of the honey itself.


Substituting honey for sugar in bread I want to make one of my favorite white bread sandwich loaves, but I'm out of sugar. What I do have is honey. How much honey should I use to replace 3 Tbs of granulated sugar? How much should I reduce the water in the recipe to compensate?

I've never tried this in baking before, so I did some poking around.  Here are a couple of the more helpful articles:

SUBSTITUTING HONEY FOR SUGAR

Ask the Experts...About Baking with Honey

These and others seem to agree on a couple major points:

For larger quantities (not applicable here) you'll want to add only about 3/4 the volume of honey in place of sugar.  You'll also need to reduce the water in the recipe to compensate.
Lower the baking temp by about 25 degrees; honey seems to accelerate browning.
Add a very small amount of baking soda (1/4 tsp per cup of honey) to compensate for the honey's natural acidity.

Since you have such a small amount, probably only #2 applies here, but you may want to exercise some caution if making a larger batch.


How to sprout quinoa (and other grains) safely I've recently begun sprouting my own grains but I've found (no matter the method I use) that they tend to be too...crunchy? My boyfriend described my last batch of black quinoa tasting like it had some sort of "husk" or "shell" on it that made the flavor and texture less desirable.

I make sure to rinse the quinao thoroughly to avoid getting a bitter or soapy result at the end (rinsing at least three times). And rinse at least 2-3 times a day to make sure to avoid mold growth.

So far I have tried the following methods, plus some (note: I do not have a sprouter, I use a large mason jar):

WikiHow with a short rinse/soak period
Ehow with a longer soak and a 2-3 times a day rinse
Power of Food with a upside down container to make sure everything is drained off thoroughly

I also have used paper towel, light cloths and cheese cloths as covers depending on which method and what it describes.

It seems consistently I am getting a little better each time, but they are still a little hard. Is it my water temperature (I've used tap and make sure not to make it too hot or too cold).

Any suggestions or tried and true methods to get a good result with grain sprouting?

As you stated above that you have used every possible method, i use simple method for grain sprouting. First i wash grain properly to remove dust and then soak them in normal temperature water for at least time mentioned in recipe.The first step in preparing quinoa is to remove the saponins, a process that requires soaking the grain in water for a few hours, then changing the water and re-soaking, or rinsing it in ample. So, continuously changing water after ever 3 hrs to keep them fresh. Then followed by your usual sprouting method. But for sure there must be the problem with the quality of grain batch which may be due to fertilizing,soil or any other reason. You better purchase from some good quality grains then follow the usual procedure of sprouting.
It happens sometimes, i had been through same once but till that stock lasts in my kitchen. There after i went to have good quality grains and issue resolved. Hope it would help you out.


Shortening to Swiss Buttercream Can shortening (Sweetex or something similar) be added to a swiss buttercream? If so, at what ratio?

Thanks!

Yes, shortening can be used in Swiss buttercream. Comments on an online article suggest a couple of good reasons you might want to:

The buttercream will hold up better in warmer weather than an all-butter recipes;
If you want a pure white "buttercream" then shortening is the way to go.

The same article notes that some tasters didn't appreciate the buttery aftertaste of a low-sugar recipe. A vegetable shortening like Crisco is practically tasteless and could be used to fix that problem although you presumably want at least some butter taste in your buttercream.

In various other places online I see comments stating shortening should not be used. Mostly this advice is given without any clarification of what might result, but I saw one suggestion that shortening is responsible for the greasy feeling that some buttercream leaves on the roof of your mouth.

There are actually not that many Swiss buttercream recipes online that include shortening, but I decided to average out the proportions of those I did find to come up with this weight ratio:

  1 : 2.2 : 2 : 0.7 (egg white : sugar : butter : shortening)

Or, to make ~1kg of buttercream,

  155g, 150ml or 5 egg white where each egg white is 31g
  349g or 414ml sugar
  332g or 328ml butter
  109g or 125ml shortening

I ignored that some recipes use either granulated sugar, confectioner's sugar or both.

I whipped up a batch with these proportions and the result has a pleasant butter flavor. I didn't detect the greasy mouth-feel I had been warned about and although I don't have a piping bag handy I can tell that it will pipe just fine.

Since you asked for a ratio you could do worse than start with that I've given.

Side note: if you do use this ratio I screwed up dissolving the sugar, so you might either want to use slightly less sugar, or leave it on the bain-marie a while longer. Either way, don't do like I did and just assume the sugar has dissolved.