New bread maker asks: how to make a bread loaf stay 'firm and solid' without a loaf pan? I've been trying to bake whole-wheat bread from recipes that call for a loaf pan.  The first rise works fine, but after I put the dough on the baking sheet for the second rise, it simply spreads out into a big flat shape that could not be considered a loaf.

I've been using almost 100% whole wheat (no white), and have been greasing the inside of the bowl that holds the dough for the first rise (so some oil enters the dough when I remove it for the second rise).  Could either of those have anything to do with it?

What I'm trying to do is simply make one of those round-type loaves (boule?) that is self-contained and solid for baking after the second rise.  Is my main error following a recipe that requires a loaf pan?  All the whole-grain recipes I've found require one…

You are spot-on: Whole-grain recipes often use more water and tend to "flow", so using a loaf pan is typically the way to go. Loaf pans alow for a "wetter" dough.

It is absolutely possible to bake a free-form whole-wheat loaf, but it needs experience with kneading, resting time and shaping to balance the water content and comparatively low gluten. Also, for the final rise you had better not rest it on the counter, but in a floured basket (in a pinch, a bowl will do) to avoid the "flattening" effect you noticed. Bake in a very hot, well-preheated oven on a hot pizza stone or in a hot dutch oven to encourage proper crust formation and a good oven spring in a humid environment. (Unless you are going for the solid "Pumpernickel" type, but that would be in a loaf pan anyway.)

So find another recipe (or experiment yourself if you have the experience) and you are good to go. I have successfully worked with high water content (up to 80%), but always with a poolish/pre-fermentation with a long slow rise to "soften" the whole-wheat and get the enzymes going. Doing a few rounds of stretch-and-fold during the first rise helps to align and strengthen the gluten structures (and a tablespoon or two of additional gluten ("vital wheat gluten") is a good trick up your baker's sleeve as well...). Sourdough is optional if you are baking wheat-only, but if you use rye, you should definitively look into that subject as well.

If your main goal isn't a whole-grain loaf, use a classic "Artisan bread"-type recipe, and start exchanging some of the white bread flour with equal parts of whole wheat flour (and - optionally - add some gluten). Find your personal ratio where the result satisfies you. For 20-30% whole-wheat you won't notice much of a difference, with 50% your loaf will get denser and possibly need some "tweaking", e.g. a splash of extra water. The "long-cold-rise-with-very-little-yeast"-types are the most flexible in my experience.

(The oil isn't a problem.)


handling sticky bread dough What is the best way to handle sticky "batard dough" to shape it before putting it in the oven? I have tried flouring my hands and the crust comes out too white. I have tried using cooking utensils and find that I cannot shape it properly.

For really wet dough, wetting your hands works (that is, quickly dip them in a bowl of water, let the water drip off a little, and keep doing that as you work the dough). Depending on the dough, you could also oil your hands (see the "Is there a reason to NOT use no-stick spray (Pam) for handling dough?" over to the right in related questions). Also helps to be quick; keep your hands moving and the dough sticks less.

And to some extent, you just have to live with it being a sticky mess.


Base gravy for British Indian food - is it useful at home? The UK has a lot of 'Indian' restaurants, which tend to be staffed by people from Bangladesh.
The menu will often have 100+ dishes available, which they need to cook using as few staff as possible, so it is my understanding that these will be made from a sauce (which seems to contain lots of onions, then garlic, ginger and spices) usually referred to as a 'base gravy', which the relevant meat and vegetables for the dish ordered will be added to.
Obviously this is an essential process in a restaurant, but there is a large community on social media of British people not of South Asian extraction who want to replicate their favourite restaurant food, and overwhelmingly this involves making a 'base gravy' first.
I live in Indonesia and know how curry is made here, and often the best places to eat might specialise in ONE dish, which is cooked from scratch ahead of time, and indeed any place that's preparing a curry from scratch after you order will tend to have bad flavour.
I'm slightly confused by this 'BIR' system, because most of the gurus (of people who want to make 'Indian restaurant' curry at home) seem not to be of South Asian origin, and nor are the people cooking it. So I'm slightly doubtful about the whole process. I'm assuming that South Asian families would tend to cook curry from scratch in much the same we do in Indonesia.
I can see that it could be advantageous if you want to eat a different curry every day for a week, or if you want to create four different curries and plate (ahem) them into aluminium foil trays to eat at the same time, as if you had just ordered an Indian takeaway. And generally, I suppose, if you create say 20 portions of 'base gravy' and then make 'curry for one', with the other 19 portions in the freezer then it could be useful. But that I think is not specific to curry, it's just meal planning, like people making 20 portions of tomato sauce or whatever else.
So the question is is there really an advantage to this as opposed to simply making a curry from scratch, or is this more a case of slavish mimickry? I presume that this cooking technique is not particularly common among British Bangladeshi people at home, for example.

As far as I understand, the base gravy is just something that is used to cook curries of all sorts quickly in a restaurant context, especially in BIR, British Indian Restaurant (I've not looked at other south asian curries)
The gravy is "curry" agnostic, it can be used in many different dishes.
When cooking a curry at home, you can normally take your time and create a curry dish from scratch, bypassing the base gravy.
On the other hand, making a large batch of base gravy and freeze individual portions for when you want to make a mid-week curry is something that should and could be easy to do (I think I'll try making a batch over the holidays)


Why would previously frozen steel cut oats separate, where just-cooked version doesn't? I make steel cut oats regularly, and eat them daily. I'm still figuring out the best way to cook them. I previously made a regular size batch, stored it in the fridge, and ate from that about a week.

Now I'm doubling the batch, and freezing half. The half that's frozen, once I thaw it out and store it in the fridge -it will separate out, the liquid separating from the solid. I can stir it together again, but it will separate out every day.

Why is this?

Oats (like other starches) swell and absorb water when heated.  Cooling them causes the molecules to change their shape and realign to form a different sort of gel, undergoing a process known as retrogradation.  When starches are frozen, this network of molecules undergoes a lot of damage, due to the combination of ice crystals forming (and disrupting the networks) along with general thermal expansions and contractions.  As the network of starches contracts with temperature, it also tends toward syneresis, the technical term for what happens when liquid is expelled from a gel.  (Essentially the starches contract and "squeeze" the water they absorb out, kind of like a sponge that took in liquid and then is squeezed.)

Anyhow, starches are somewhat fragile when they're heated and absorb their maximum amount of water.  When they undergo wide temperature shifts combined with expanding and then melting ice crystals, the starch networks can be permanently damaged so they can't hold as much liquid as before.  Sometimes reheating can help reorient the starch molecules and allow them to absorb a bit more water again, but after freezing you will likely have some permanently damaged starches (leading to the well-known "grainy" texture that happens to many starchy sauces when they are frozen and then thawed).


Is there a trick to scraping the beater of my stand mixer? I've been doing more baking than usual, so this problem keeps bugging me: how do I effectively scrape the butter/sugar mixture or half-beaten cream cheese or whatever it is off of the paddle beater, so I don't end up with lumps later on in the process?

Lots of recipes call for scraping the bowl, but that's easy: it's a smooth curved surface, so any half-decent rubber scraper will do the job. A paddle attachment, on the other hand, has Nooks. And Crannies. And oddly-angled almost-but-not-quite-curved-but-certainly-not-flat surfaces. And did I mention the Nooks and Crannies?

What do people do? Struggle through with messy rubber scrapers and even messier hands? Don't bother scraping the beater, and end up with lumpy cheesecake or unmixed cookie dough? Am I missing some great secret of cookie bakers? Are there beaters that are easier to scrape than my Kitchen Aid flex-edge?

(Don't even get me started on the whisk attachment. Especially when the volume of meringue goes higher than the neck of the whisk.)

Use a rubber spatula to scrape the mixture off one side of the paddle. (For a head lift mixer, do this on the "uphill" side.) Then use the spatula diagonally in the holes, pushing the remaining mixture through the holes onto the unscraped side and off the paddle. The idea is for the mixture to fall out/off in clumps.


Could I add butter to single cream to make whipped/double cream? I want to make some whipped cream for millefeuille but I only have single.

If I added butter to single cream and whipped it, would that add enough butterfat to it to make it suitable for whipping?

Thanks in advance.

Yes, this is possible but you need a high-speed blender like a Thermomix or Vitamix to do so. There's actually a recipe on the Thermomix website:
http://www.ukthermomix.com/recshow.php?rec_id=29

Ingredients
250 gm unsalted butter
250 gm milk (full cream or semi-skimmed)
Method
Weigh butter in pieces and milk into the Thermomix bowl.  Cook 3 minutes/ 90C/ Speed 1.  Blend 30 seconds/ Speed 8.  This emulsifies the butterfat back into the warmed milk and makes a perfectly delicious cream.  Chill in the fridge 4 hours to use as pouring or spooning cream.  Chill in the fridge 8 hours or more to be able to whip the cream.

I presume you could tweak the ratio to account for the difference in fat between milk and cream to make your double cream.


Why does dried pasta say "Do not reheat" on the packet? I've noticed quite a few packets of durum wheat semolina (supermarket own-brand dried pasta) has this warning. This applies to macaroni and spaghetti etc. but similar products from other supermarkets don't have this.

I've also seen it on raw cubed beef and sausages from other supermarkets in the UK.

While I can understand this warning on meat products, and would expect such a warning on storing/reheating rice (but haven't seen that many), it would seem more appropriate to give the appropriate storage/reheating advice than just a blanket, terse "Do not reheat". If taken literally, this would be goodbye to special fried rice, reheated casserole or lasagna.

Provided the dish was properly cooked, stored and reheated, I cannot think of any food safety risk by doing so (especially in the case of pasta). Is this just legal overkill, food presentation advice or marketing jargon to sell more product? Or am I missing some critical food safety factor here?

Consider this as not backed by authority, more opinion, but I believe this is a case of caution because once hydrated and warm pasta can become a prime breeding ground for bacteria.  On reheating, you may well not get it high enough or high for long enough to kill any bacteria, and its density makes it even more difficult to remove any built up toxins those potential bad guys may have produced.

Now, is it a case of CYA?  Yup, more than likely, but I know in the case of rice there are many reports of food poisoning from cold and re-warmed, and I would think it is possible with pasta as well.  I still do it myself, but that is my choice.  I have also never noticed packaging that said not to, so this might be a labeling requirement not adopted in the US.

As for things like fried rice made from cold rice, not sure that one really applies.  To me that is cooking a new dish, not reheating and to me it seems like that is heating enough it should be safe.  Thoroughly reheating a dish like lasagna to normal serving temperature, especially if the original dish was not left in the danger zone for an extended time would seem safe to me also.  But those are opinions, not facts backed up by lab tests and it is possible UK health agencies have tested and do not agree.

ETA:  Pasta Safety is a posting I found after stating my opinion, and it details the risk.  Their claim is basically as long as it is refrigerated, 2-3 days should be safe, but not longer.  Bacillus cereus bacteria is the sited culprit.  Hmmm.  I personally would say refrigerate promptly and the 2-3 days is likely conservative, but again, that is opinion not backed by tests.


What is a Sauce course? According to the article on Full course dinners on Wikipedia, the third course of a five course meal is "Sauce":

  Entrée
  Main Course
  Sauce
  Dessert
  Cigars

I'm having trouble finding what exactly this is and how one makes a sauce into a course. What sort of sauce is it? Is there something else served with it, or is it just pots and spoons? Other than Nachos and Salsa I can't picture it, and that doesn't sound like a staple of fine dining.

It's almost certainly made up. A user who has edited nothing else on Wikipedia added it in this revision. There has been a lot of other vandalism in the full history, some of it caught and reverted, some not.

Cigars were added in this revision by an anonymous user, and someone helpfully capitalized it (rather than reverting, sigh) in this revision.

Without any sources cited, it's pretty difficult to tell whose version of the five-course meal this was supposed to be, but for what it's worth, before the "sauce" and "cigars" vandalism, the courses were soup, fish, main course, dessert, and cheese, which sounds pretty sane to me.


If I make my own jerky, will I expect the same amount of protein in the finished product as what I started with? If I look up top round steak, it has about 65 g of protein in an 8 oz serving. If it takes roughly 3 lbs of top round to create 1 lb of jerky, I would expect the jerky to contain about 24 g of protein per oz, but it looks like the average is closer to 10 g per oz in commercial jerky. Is this because they aren't using top round steak or because some protein is lost in the process? If I make my own jerky, will I expect the same amount of protein in the finished product as what I started with?

Yes, it's mainly because they use different muscles.
For example here's jerky that contains 21 gram of protein Fatman beef Jerky.

During dehydration you don't remove any calories so you cannot have lower amount of protein, fats or carbs. You just remove water.

What is more important when looking at jerky is that little extra text in nutrition box. As you can see in Fatman there is info about Calcium and Iron.
In other jerky where proteins are around 28% You can see they added a lot of "extras" "Healthy jerky"

So they used what's called "lean beef". A beef that contains 14 grams of protein peer 100g. It's a beef that is usually very hard on it's own and that need a lot of beating (or marinate) to make it chewable.

If you want to make jerky at home I suggest entrecote. It's a little bit more work (due to fat) but it's around 26g of protein and 15 grams of fat per 100g.


Implied cooking temperatures on food packaging Every time I follow directions I see instructions like this:

Bring water to boil
Stir in pasta
Return to rapid boil
Cook for 6 minutes for al-dente

I set the stove burner to high for Step 1. Do I leave the stove burner on high for the remaining steps, or do I lower the burner temperature?

It sounds like by "temperature" you're referring to the setting of your stove. If your stove is powerful enough that you don't need it at its maximum power to keep water at a rapid boil, then you can of course reduce the setting once you've returned it to a rapid boil (between your steps 3 and 4). On the other hand, if you have a smaller, older stove, you might need to keep it at high to keep the water boiling rapidly. So the answer is "maybe" - you do whatever you need to do with your stove to keep it doing what the directions say (boiling).

That said, this isn't necessarily the best way to cook pasta. You should test it, rather than counting on the time on the package to be accurate. And you don't actually have to cook it at a full boil, or boil the water before adding the pasta; see this great column by Harold McGee on cooking pasta in a way contrary to popular wisdom, and a Food Lab article based on it. You can in fact start with pasta in just enough cold water, bring it to a good simmer, and keep it there until it's done.


How to make my scrambled eggs more yellow? I make a very simple scrambled eggs combining two eggs with a knife of cream cheese.

Sometimes I've had this and it has been a warm yellow colour. Other times it has been a pale white colour.

My question is: How to make my scrambled eggs more yellow?

Ah, we consumers and our expectations:
Egg yolks are yellow.

But in reality, yolks come in a range from pale yellow to deep orange. The colour is determined by the food (wheat makes lighter yolks than corn, for example) and can be influenced by feeding  "colourants" for a darker hue. Some regions allow even artificial dyes, but a pinch of paprika will do nicely. Apparently the "expected" or "preferred" yolk colour is also a cultural thing, I found a source claiming that European customers want more orange hues while US customers expect deep yellow.

Organic and free-range eggs typically have a greater variation than those from large agro-industrial production.

So if your scrambled eggs are sometimes lighter, sometimes darker, either accept it as "natural" or check the colour of your yolks when you crack the eggs and for pale yolks add a colourant like a small pinch of

turmeric (what makes curry powder yellow) or
paprika (for more orange eggs).

If you use only a very small amount, it won't influence the taste or only very slightly so. Stir the spice in, then proceed as usual.


Does marinading preserve food's freshness I have 2 questions; 1 is very general, and one is very relevant to my current situation but both are about the same thing.

So, I defrosted a topside of beef over Saturday night/Sunday morning. It is now Wednesday night.

1) Does marinading meat (beef) preserve how long it can last before cooking, regardless of whether the meat was marinaded from frozen or fresh?
2) In my case, is it still safe to eat? It is only marinading in a batter for deep frying!

Marination is a process defined as soaking something in a flavorful liquid to impart that flavor into the object being marinated. Marinating is really only working with the outermost layers of the food and is normally a quick process (hours). The liquid in which you are marinating is the real difference maker. A highly acidic liquid CAN have an effect on the preservation of the food and can also have effects on the texture (think ceviche). However, in most cases marination is not used as a preservation method, that is primarily done through curing in a high salt environment where moisture loss is promoted to prevent bacterial growth (i.e. charcuterie, bacon, etc.).

But as for the food safety portion of the question, as long as it still smells ok and has been kept in the refrigerator for that time I believe you should be alright.

http://www.cookinglight.com/cooking-101/techniques/cooking-class-marinating-00400000002287/


Can acetate sheets be put in the oven? I have tried lining mini cheesecake pan (with removable bottoms)in parchment paper, as I do with larger cheesecakes. The parchment paper bends in the mini version. Can I use food-grade acetate in place of the parchment?

Acetate sheets or strips should not be heated, so do not use them to line a pan that will be put into the oven.


Recipe calls for rolled oats, I have old fashioned oats - can I substitute them in cookies? Can old fashioned oats be used when a cookie recipe calls for rolled oats?

Yes, Old Fashioned Oats and Rolled Oats are two names for the same thing. To wit: "Rolled oats are traditionally oat groats that have been dehusked and steamed, before being rolled into flat flakes under heavy rollers and stabilized by being lightly toasted." (from Wikipedia)


Hot rock cooking - type of rock required For many years now it has been fashionable to cook your food on a 'hot rock' in restaurants. What is the rock that is used?

I live in an area where volcanic rock is available (on the side of the road).  So can I simply take a bit, smooth it down, heat it up and create the same effect as my local eatery?  Or would I be infusing my food with all sorts of nasties?

For hot rock cooking, you want four properties of the stone:

A smooth, non-porous surface.
This is almost (ok, at least a bit) like a non-stick surface and means you can clean it afterwards. Neither food nor detergent should "seep into" the stone.
High thermal mass.
You want to make sure that your stone is not significantly cooled down by your food as this would interrupt your cooking process and increase the likelihood of the food sticking to the stone.
Relatively resistant to temperature change.
During its use, a hot stone will be repeatedly heated up and cool down again. This can cause small cracks or unevennesses to widen and destroy the material.
Food safety.
The absence of toxic minerals that could leech into the food. Probably a pretty self-evident point.

I can not answer this for the volcanic rocks you can get your hands on, although some like pumice are obviously out. But I'm not a geologist. Note that a standard hot rock material would be granite. If your candidate fulfills the four criteria above, go for it.


How to soft boil eggs with a countertop egg steamer? Having misplaced the custom measuring cup for an "egg steamer" device, not quite sure how to steam eggs.  Desired result:

so that:

  The perfect soft-boiled egg should have firm, custard-like whites and
  a warm, runny yolk

Firstly, I've never poked holes in the egg; seems fine without doing that.  I suppose the odd egg cracks, but that's not the end of the world.  So this is assuming no holes are being poked.

Is there a formula?

I'm looking for a method to cook up to four eggs at one time:  soft-boiled.  Not quite sure what temperature the yolk should be, but it's not hard-boiled.

By random experimentation, six minutes with half a cup of water seems to work reasonably for two eggs, resulting in a soft-boiled egg.

I'm reiterating soft-boiled because hard-boiled eggs are just inherently easier.

This is using a generic type "egg cooker", but I can't see that it's any different from steaming in a pot on the stove?

Not using a pressure cooker or anything technologically sophisticated.

I happen to have some experience with steam egg cooker.

For starters: how does an egg cooker work?

The egg cooker doesn't use a timer. Instead, the cooking time is determined by the amount of water you put into it: the more water, the more time it takes to boil off and trigger the overheat alarm. This is why your egg cooker has a water measure cup that has markings for different number of eggs to cook.

Secondly, to soft boil an egg you don't actually control the absolute temperature, but control the temperature gradient: you want the outer layers of the egg to be very hot (rolling boil water or steam) but the inner core of the egg doesn't really have time to heat up, which is why 6min in rolling boil water gives you reliably good results, although you may need to adjust a fraction of a minute depending on the temperature of your fridge. Strong temperature gradient (difference between outer and inner parts of the egg) is what gives you the "water balloon effect" e.g. the yolk is near liquid and white is like a thick and strong membrane.

OK then how do you steam your egg?

For your situation you basically need to reverse engineer your measure cup that comes with the steamer. I propose following procedure:

Put about 1-2 tbsp of water in your steamer, turn it on, wait till
boiling.
Put egg in, steam for 6-7 mins.
Turn steamer off and check one egg, three things can happen:

a) This egg is under cooked, you can salvage them by cooking them for another minute.

b) This egg is over cooked, then your data is useless, you need to wait for another chance to repeat this experiment and deal with 4 medium done eggs for now.

c) The egg is perfectly cooked.
If you hit case a) or c) you are in luck, wait for the steamer to cool and measure the remaining water. Subtracted from your initial water you get your desired water amount for 4 eggs.

Based on my experience, 1 tbsp and 7 min should yield a close enough result and I'm sure you can get this right within 3 iterations.

How do I know all this?

I once owned a egg steamer (6 eggs) and lost the water measure cup as well. I ended up putting about 2tbsp of water and cook for 7 min. It takes roughly 20sec for water to boil and generate steam and 40s for the surface of the egg to equalize with steam, so the net cooking time is about 6min and result is mostly perfect. At the end there's always some excessive water, but I never bothered to reverse engineer the measure cup and stuck to the 7min rule. In fact, because I never carefully measured water consistently, the net cooking time varied and fluctuates the doneness of the end product. If you control the water and time constantly you will get much more consistent results than I did.


How to know whether the oven's door has loosened and leaking out some energy or is as tight as it was when new? The child had been playing with the oven door without my knowledge for some time.
How to know whether the oven's door has loosened and is leaking out some energy or is as tight as it was when new?

Unless you have a measured baseline from before your child played with it there's no 100% way to know whether the seal is as good as it was when new - you have nothing to compare it to. If you want to determine if you have a decent seal you need to use your cheek and your ear.

Oven seals not only hold in heat but sound as well, while your cheek is sensitive to heat and airflow. Put something sizzly in your hot oven and then move your head all around the closed door. If you hear the sizzle (or the fan if you have a convection oven) and feel a blast of heat in an area that's a good indication your seal is not effective there anymore. Use your body weight against the door and see pushing it closed cuts the sound and heat. If pushing it closed works it's more likely weak hinges than the seal. If there's no sound or heat leakage you are still good.

Keep in mind oven seals do degrade and some oven hinges weaken over time, if you do have a leak it may have nothing to do with your kid.


How much time and temperature do I add when making 140% of a quick bread recipe? I am going to make a quick bread recipe that calls for an 8" X 4.5" (20 cm X 11 cm) loaf pan, but I only have a 10" x 5" (25 cm X 13 cm) loaf pan.

I've done the calculations and know I need to increase my ingredients by 40%. But how much should I increase the oven temperature and cooking time? The recipe calls for 70 minutes at 375 °F (190 °C).

I agree with FuzzyChef's answer, though I'd emphasize in general that this is often a question as shape as well as volume.  A cake that is increased in size but also baked in a wider pan so its overall thickness is about the same as the original may not need much additional cooking time at all, or the increase might be small.  When one increases all dimensions (and thus increases the thickness too), it takes longer for heat to migrate to the center and thus may need a more substantial increase in cook time.

Also, I want to address the reference made to "increasing the oven temperature."  Generally speaking, when making a larger cake or quick bread, you don't want to increase the oven temperature, as it may very well cause excessive browning on the exterior (or burning, along with perhaps drying out near the edges) before the center is cooked.

If anything, larger cakes and quickbreads sometimes call for decreasing the oven temperature, to allow extra time for the interior to cook before the exterior gets too brown.  If the temperature is decreased, the time must be increased to take this into account.  (FuzzyChef's linked document shows these trends too.)

Unfortunately, there's no general rule that applies in all cases, as some quick breads may be prone more to excessive browning, while others may be fine if baked a bit longer at the standard temperature.  Sometimes adjustments in leavening or other ingredient adjustments may be necessary to take into account different time/temperature as well as to allow a structure that must rise higher.


Substitution for fresh corn I have a recipe for sweet corn bread and it calls for fresh corn and it is very hard to find fresh corn in winter; can it be replaced with frozen corn?

Personally I find frozen or canned is usually much better quality taste and texture wise to the fresh cobs. Good quality canned/frozen sweet corn is picked and frozen/canned within hours of picking whereas cobs in the market could easily be over a week old by the time you get it home.

So yes, you can easily substitute canned/frozen for fresh.

Same goes for peas.


Jam with honey & without pectin has a saucy consistency always My orange jams and strawberry jams with honey are not getting set.. for some reason I don't use pectin (mental block maybe - though I know it's a natural ingredient).. reading a lot of blogs I found this could be the case when lower amount of sweetner is used..
Is this correct? My friends love the saucy consistency so that's not a problem..  but I want to know if this is normal or should I let it boil more?

Strawberry jam:

1kg strawberry + 100 grams water to boil initally to remove seeds (this was for a kid who doesn't like the seeds)
600 grams honey
3 tbsp lemon juice

To start with low flame for 10 minutes and then at a medium flame for 80 minutes.. temperature was 104°C when I switched it off..

Orange :

500 grams orange juice
220 grams honey
1 tbsp lemon juice

Low flame 10 minutes + boil in medium flame for 30 mins - end temp 104.5°C

Jam is set with pectin or it is syrup. Period.

If you are not adding pectin then you are relying on whatever pectin is available in the fruit you use. Strawberries don't have a lot. Oranges have a good amount but it's in the peel- thus the existence of marmalade.

Pectin requires sugar and acid to set. The sugar is not going to prevent a normal jam from setting.

If you boil it longer you will just be removing water which will thicken your syrup and maybe it will be thick enough for your tastes but it still is unlikely to gel like jam.

If you are deathly opposed to purchasing pectin, you can make it yourself by boiling tart apples. It's a lot of work and you will end up with a product that is no better than commercial pectin but you will have control of the process.


How to prevent chicken from having a chalky texture? Even after brining, filleting and cooking to perfect temperature (68 to 71 c) my chicken texture (whole and breast) sometimes comes chalky. Mind you, the chicken can still be juicy while being chalky. Here is a picture:

I have tried different combinations of brining solutions and cooking oils - nothing seems to give a consistent result of juicy, smooth textured chicken:

Mind you, this is not a duplicate of "why my chicken is dry" because many times I can get a moist but chalky chicken.

Your temperature of 68 to 71 Celsius is very high for white meat. This is what makes the mini clumps in the breast you perceive as "chalky". If you cook it to a lower temperature, you will not have this effect, 60 to 65 Celsius makes "medium" doneness chicken meat.

Note that food safety is a separate consideration, chicken is considered safe starting at 73 Celsius (https://www.foodsafety.gov/keep/charts/mintemp.html). So you are lowering the temperature at your own risk.


How am I meant to use these trays that came with my oven? A Turkish oven we recently purchased has no thermostat, but it did come with two metal trays. They are like (American) broiler trays but without a cooking rack.

I could believe that they are just broiler trays, but (1) there are two of them; (2) I believe I have seen people adjusting the position of these trays in similar ovens when making bread.

What are they for, and how can I learn to use them appropriately?

Picture of an oven with and without the aforementioned trays

Unlike American ovens, some European ovens come with built-in baking trays.  These are designed to slide in and out using the oven rails, and take the place of sheet pans that you would put on top of a rack in an American oven.

They're actually quite convenient, except that there's only two of them.

For example, if you watch this Spanish cookie video, you'll see that Albert is using one of those pans to bake cookies.


Does spoiled milk make any ingredient? Bear with me here,

My roommate insist that she wants to keep her spoiled 2% milk in the fridge, it's been 1 month! That thing look disgusting. To my knowledge, you don't use rotten milk for anything/ingredients. So before I throw it out, is there something I don't know of that people use rotten milk for?

The only thing that is even remotely possible in my mind is to use it akin to buttermilk or sour cream (which are intentionally fermented products) in baking.

However, since the culture that fermented the milk was uncontrolled, I would not do so.  I recommend discarding.


Tan ho, a salad green? In the local Asian market I saw a couple of names that I didn't recognize.  Has anyone heard of a green, called Tan Ho in Chinese?  It looked like arugula, tasted like a typical green. Maybe a little peppery.  Does anyone speak Chinese/familiar with this?

There are actually two kinds of tonghao (as it's called in Mandarin). The one that looks like arugula is called shantonghao (mountain tonghao). You can saute it with garlic. The 'regular' tonghao has rounder leaves.

Both types of tonghao are used in hotpots - you just cook them for a short while and they're done. Similarly, they're used in savory tangyuan soup. Tangyuan are small glutinous rice flour dumplings - some are filled with ground meat, some just plain. The savory soup has tonghao, tangyuan, and shallots.

This is in Taiwan at least - I'm not sure whether people do different things with tonghao in other areas.


Is it possible to use jam instead of sugar to make a dough? I followed this recipe to make a dough for cookies to dip in milk:

300g flour
1 egg
70g sugar
60g milk
50g butter
10g yeast

However I replaced sugar with jam (~100g) and butter with yogurt (~200g).

The result are cookies kind of fluffy, that took slightly more that twice the time in the oven (25m instead of 10m at 180C) and are chewy! And they do not dip really well in milk... I am not sure if I added too much yogurt or it is the pectin in the jam working against dipping. The fluffines might have been an overdosage of yeast.

Almost any substitution is about making a trade-off and understanding the ratios involved. In this case replacing 70g sugar and 50g of butter with 100g of jam and 200g of yogurt you both increase the moisture and remove the sugar crystals from the texture. During the creaming process (where sugars and fats are blended) the sugar crystals play a vital role in creating air pockets that will determine the final texture.

  Why Do I Cream Butter, and What Happens If I Don't?

  In pastry-speak, this process is described as "mechanical leavening":
  physically cramming air into a dough so that it'll puff up in the oven
  like a hot-air balloon. Google around, and that's what you'll be told,
  time and again. Creaming adds air. Air is fluffy. Fluffy is good. Good
  is great. Yay, cookies!

The yeast almost certainly made up for a lack of 'mechanical leaving' that didn't occur because of the jam, which lacked the crystalline structure granulated sugar would have provided.

If one substitutes enough elements of a cookie recipe at what point does it stop being a cookie? Your own question answers itself that it is possible to replace A & B with C & D. It even looks like you created something quite good (I'm tempted to try it out), but is it still "a cookie" or something else all together? But then there is the whole "dipping it in milk" goal. This creation is more likely to breakdown in milk (as you have observed) and short of putting it between two graham crackers, probably always will be.


What can I use as a substitute for hoisin sauce? Is there anything I can use as a substitute for hoisin sauce that's less salty or even salt-free? This is for a sauce to go with pork steaks.

Hoisin has a few primary flavors: salt, sweetness, and umami. If it's a significant part of a recipe, leaving it out isn't really an option; you'll notice the lack of all three of those.

If you can find a fermented soybean paste that has less salt, that'd be the closest substitute, possibly with some added sugar. Otherwise, you'll have to look for other umami-rich seasonings, and again likely add sugar. See What is a good vegetarian source of umami flavour? for some ideas. You could also use things like bacon or anchovies since your case doesn't have to be vegetarian. Of course, anything with a distinctive flavor of its own isn't going to be an exact substitute (anchovies don't taste quite like fermented soybeans), but at least you'll have a sauce in a similar direction.


Meringue Imitation to practice decoration Does exist a product in market of imitation of not eatable meringue with the same consistency?

This in order to practice decoration and re-use several times the " practice meringue" without the need to make and waste real meringue.

Thanks for any advice

they make this stuff called Presto Pastry Pride ready to whip topping. It's pretty similar in consistency and can be piped very well. It's also pretty great as frosting. I think it would be perfect for you and it's pretty cheap. You can find it in the frozen section at smart and final.


potato and carrot dumpling,how would you make it diabetic frendly? not sure how to put this recipe up for others to cross-reference but it's on food.com if anyone wants to find it. the recipes name is carrot and potato dumplings and my question is how would you make it diabetic friendly? I'm honestly not sure myself, thussly my question here.  Also I'm diabetic myself, so ANY advice as to how to make it diabetic friendly would be nice! I'm not sure how to make it better for diabetics in anyone's interested.

I referenced the recipe which has only the two ingredients, grated potatoes and carrots, and seasoning. For the potato, substitute cauliflower, cooked until very soft, mashed. Fold in the carrots and a beaten egg white to bind the mixture before steaming, rather than the boiling option.


How to prevent shami kabab from breaking at the time of frying them? I am making shami kabab, but the kababs are breaking when fried although the pre-frying mixture is hard. What should I do to prevent them from breaking? It spoils their look.

In these types of recipes, you have two approaches to hold the minced meat together.

If you’re not using eggs, or using less than what standard recipe calls; you should use a bit more.
Overworking the minced meat with salt creates a thicker texture, it’s not desirable in many kabab/kofte applications; however it will denature the proteins so they will bind... Essentially the same chemical principle with the egg whites.


If I'm using milk as an ingredient in soup, how can I prevent it from curdling? There are numerous chicken stock based soups that also have milk as an ingredient  and the milk always seems to curdle - how can I prevent this?

Milk curdles due to acidity, so if you can raise the pH of the soup by adding something basic, it would help, although it could affect flavor.

The other thing to try is heating the milk to ~90 degrees C before adding it to the soup. This will cause the protein in the milk to change in a way that curdling won't result in as bad a final result--it may in fact appear that the milk hasn't curdled at all.

You can also "temper" the milk (as mentioned by Ocaasi): add a bit of the soup to the milk first; then add the milk-soup mixture to the soup at large.  And yes, higher fat milks will tend to work better.


Does whole milk or soy milk spoil faster? Why? I'm doing a science fair project and I need some help. My question is does whole milk or soy milk spoil faster? Does anyone know which one spoils faster or if they spoil at the same rate? Please explain why.

Not sure about why, but in my experience cow's milk spoils much faster than soy milk.


Why are my sauces splitting? Recently all my attempts at sauces are splitting and I'm not sure what's going wrong.
Tonight I tried a balsamic vinegar reduction / chicken stock / pan juices recipe to go with my lamb chops, but once again the dreaded split occurred.
My wife is patient and forgiving, but I feel like I must be missing something fundamental to get this wrong so often.

Two questions.

What could I be doing wrong to cause these sauces to split?
What can I do to recover when it happens again?

UPDATE:
The Pan juices contained a tbsp or two of olive oil, and some of the fresh herb rub I'd coated the lamb chops in (thyme, rosemary, and mint). I did not drain the pan before starting the sauce. It has crossed my mind that perhaps there was too much oil / fats in the pan at that point?
For completeness, I should point out that I also sauteed some chopped shallots in the pan juices immediately before adding the vinegar.

There are four main reasons that a sauce splits; the fat was added too quickly, the sauce got too hot, the sauce was refrigerated and seperated, or the sauce was left standing warm too long.  The fat should be added one teaspoon at a time and blended well, or the emulsifying agent gets overwhelmed.


What is a good substitute for avocado oil in Indian food recipes? I am making dal and would like a suggestion for an oil that could be a substitute for avocado oil.

For dal, any oil will work because it is a fairly minor flavor component of the dish. The other flavors (I assume onion, garlic, and spices) will predominate.  I have used vegetable oil, grape seed oil, and olive oil when making dal, all with no problems.


How do I check stew doneness? I'm doing beef stew in a slow cooker. When cooking slabs of meat (e.g. steak), I can check doneness with a meat thermometer, but I'm not sure that method really applies in a stew. The broth will heat faster than the meat, presumably, and I don't think I can get a good reading off a 1" beef chunk.

How do I tell when a stew is done? I've had bad experiences trusting to just a timer.

Stew meat is generally from tough cuts. Meat is tough because of collagen, which takes time to break down into gelatin, and gelatin gives a luscious mouth feel. The meat will get up to temperature and stay there for hours, the way tell it is done is with a fork - if it falls apart it's done.


why didn't the brownie bake when cheesecake was put on top? I found a recipe for Cookies and Cream Brownies.  First time I made them they were great, in a 9x13 aluminum pan.  Second time, I used an aluminum foil-type pan that you take to potlucks, and while the cheesecake was completely baked on the top, there was raw brownie batter on the bottom, giving the appearance of a fudge sauce on the bottom.  It was really weird, that it didn't even partially bake.  Does this happen when using the foil-type pans?  That's all I can think of.  The directions do not say to bake the brownie first then put the cheesecake on top and bake more...you bake at one time.

One thing that can matter is that darker pans often absorb more heat (from  radiative heating). So if your 9x13 pan is dark-bottomed (e.g., nonstick, or darkened from years of use) it'll run hotter than a shiny foil pan. I'd be surprised for that to result in raw, though, normally its just more or less browning.

If you put a baking sheet under the foil pan, that could also function as an insulator, especially if its a steel pan instead of aluminum.

I'd guess instead some other "human error" thing happened: measured and ingredient incorrectly, left something out, added something twice, set the oven temperature (or mode!) wrong, etc.


When boiling potatoes, should I put them in with the cold water or in to the hot? I've heard both. What's the correct way to boil a potato? Why?

Cold, it gives the inside more time to come up to the same temperature with the outside, for more even cooking.


What are some clear honey and chili sauces in Chinese cuisine? I used to go to a Chinese restaurant near my house for years and I usually ordered what they called "Hunan Chicken". It was breaded chicken pieces, similar to what you'd get with Sweet & Sour Chicken, but with a very sweet, very hot sauce, and diced onion and bell pepper. It was nothing like any other Hunan Chicken I've had before or since.
I'm looking to make this myself, as I haven't been able to find it again anywhere else, and I think I can use chicken bits like from Sweet & Sour Chicken, but I just can't figure out the sauce.
Is there a golden, clear, honey and chili oil-based sauce in Chinese cuisine that I can use as a starting point to try to recreate this dish?

Could it be a standard sweet and sour sauce, but with Chili's / Szechuan peppercorn added?

Perhaps experiment with this sauce with various chili blends (using both fresh and dried).

https://thewoksoflife.com/sweet-and-sour-chicken/

Chinese peppers aren't usually insanely hot.

The below recipe has some pictures of peppers that I often see in Hunan food, and the fermented sauce might add a certain something to your dish.

https://www.chinasichuanfood.com/chinese-fermented-chili-sauce/

Another possibility is the inclusion of Szechuan flavors, such as mala, from various types of Szechuan peppers. Let me know if you need more information on this. Szechuan peppercorn powder lack the punch and are just floral.


Does "the canned spinach taste" have a name? Other than "the canned spinach taste"? The taste (which is nasty in my opinion) that is specific to spinach or many leafy greens and sometimes asparagus which is cooked in water, does this taste have a name?

What causes that flavor to emerge?  I suspect its something to do with chlorophyll since dried basil added to sauce doesn't produce the flavor, yet fresh basil does.  I added fresh basil to sauce to which it gave the flavor of canned spinach.

Most likely, the taste you are referring to is oxalic acid, which has a bitter/astringent taste and is found in many green vegetables including spinach, Brussels sprouts, green beans, collard greens, etc.

Herbs such as basil don't contain a lot of oxalic acid, and I can't say I've ever noticed it there, but they do have some.

One important thing to note is, cooking green vegetables and herbs in water (i.e. boiling them) is a very effective way of removing the oxalic acid - but the most important part of that process is removing the vegetables afterward. If they're canned, or added raw to a sauce, then the oxalic acid is just going to stew.

Dried herbs likely contain lower oxalic acid content because it's been evaporated away along with the water.

If you're only finding this taste in leafy greens (and not green beans, green peppers, broccoli, etc.) then it's also possible that you're tasting iron. It tastes like... well, metal. Some of the foods highest in iron include shellfish and seeds (pumpkin, sesame, etc.). So if you're finding a similar taste in those, even just a hint of it, it may be the high iron that you find "nasty".


Is it safe to store applejuice in an opened glass bottle outside of the fridge? I've got a few glass bottles of clear applejuice in the cellar (just pure clear store brand applejuice) that I want to take to my computer room so I don't need to constantly go downstairs to refill my glass.

can I just put them on my desk and take refills from them over a 2-3 day period with the bottle being at room temperature and not stored in the shade? or would that detract from the quality, taste or healthiness of the drink?

Most of the apple juice sold in the US at least is Pasteurized. So unopened, you should have no problem storing at room temp. Once you open the bottle, microorganism's can get in. With a sugary liquid like Apple juice, wild yeasts will find a happy home, and ferment up a bubbly alcoholic apple beverage for you. This can take a week or two to happen, and the result is usually tasty rather than deadly. Sometimes you'll end up with vinegar rather than an alcoholic ferment.
There's some small chance of picking up a nasty microbe in your apple juice over a three day period, but it was never enough to stop people from drinking unrefrigerated cider in the days before Pasteurization or refrigeration.


Whipping double cream with amaretto I was making a chocolate mousse style dessert and wanted to finish it with an amaretto flavoured whipped cream.

I whipped some double cream not too stiff, then added a glug of amaretto and some ground almond for good measure, and whipped again.  After tasting I wanted it to have more amaretto flavor so I put a bit more in and re-whipped. The cream curdled into a blobby, watery mess straight away.  I tried again with the same results.  Did I add too much amaretto?

Whipped cream - as in, pure cream that's been whipped - isn't stable. Even just left on its own for a long enough time, it will collapse without a stabilizer like gelatin, xanthan gum, and/or dextrose.

You added water and alcohol, which is pretty much the opposite of what it needs. I'm hardly surprised that it collapsed. Most whippable items will fail to whip if you add more than a tiny bit of water. You might have been OK if you'd used a stabilizer, but even then, I wouldn't count on it.

Chantilly cream is a mix of 3 parts whipping cream to 1 part pastry cream (which doesn't whip, but is thickened with eggs). Because it is so much more stable, it can accept much more in terms of flavouring. It takes much longer to make but would probably have handled the amount of amaretto that you added.

But a much better solution would be to use almond extract instead, which imparts far more almond flavour with far less liquid.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that flavoured treats can be easily made from liqueurs. Most of the time, liqueurs have far too much liquid. I once, long ago, made the mistake of trying this with truffle ganache, which is far more forgiving than whipped cream - it got way too soft and still had hardly any of the flavour.

If you're able to adjust the water in a recipe then you can use liqueurs, but usually you're better off buying some concentrated oils or extracts, which tend to pack as much punch in a teaspoon than a full cup of the liqueur. Some are easily found in grocery stores (almond extract, mint, etc.) and others you can get from specialty vendors like Lor'Ann.


Alcohol evaporation of beer in a cake I'd like to bake a Guinness flavored cocoa cake. My direction say to start by beating room temperature butter with brown sugar, then eggs and a mixture of flour, cocoa powder and baking powder. Finally, incorporate the Guinness as it is. The picture show also the foam.

My question is: I'd like to heat the beer beforehand in order to have the alcohol evaporate; bring it back to room temperature and then incorporate it.

Do you think it will affect a good raising/cooking and the texture of the cake?

Alcohol never all evaporates unless you evaporate all the water as well. The actual amount per slice is minimal anyway - equivalent to about a shot of beer in a portion, in the recipe I use. If even that's too much for you, start with de-alcoholised beer. You may have trouble finding alcohol-free stout.

From the USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors Release 6 quoted in merl's answer to a related question, baking reduces the alcohol to 25% in an hour and 10% in 2 hours. Quite a lot of water will evaporate as well during that time.


Does the inside of a lid used to cook rice or steam vegetables have anything besides water on it? After cooking rice or steaming vegetables the inside of the lid used to cover the pot has water droplets on it - is it just water or do elements of the food make the lid "dirty" and require washing?
Edit:  I should have mentioned the assumption that the food has not made contact with the lid and that if the lid is removed after cooking and placed on the counter, the next day it has no visible residue on it.

Starchy foods, like rice, tend to bubble and splash.  They will get starch on the inside of the lid.  If you don't let it dry out, you might decide a quick rinse is sufficient, but if it dries it will probably need a proper wash to remove the starch.
Steaming is more interesting.  There shouldn't be any splashing above the level of the food, so it should just be clean water on there.  I'd rinse it before drying and putting away.
That's a minimum; I would just put mine in the dishwasher; there's often a space when it's otherwise full that wouldn't be much use for something really dirty.


Why do HK restaurants' wok fried scallops stay big? My pan fried ones at home shrink! In Toronto Canada, I've bought different BIG, raw scallop species like at Whole Foods Market. They are big like HK restaurants'. After I add oil to pan on cook top and stir fry them, they shrink. Why?   See photos –

Now see HK restaurants' wok fried scallops  Jade Scallops – 西蘭花炒帶子  in Chinese. Top to bottom – House of Canton in Kowloon Tong (first photo beneath),Ming Kee Restaurant in Wan Chai, 金龍冰室 in Tai Po  大埔, Joy Point Dim Sum in Tsim Sha Tsui.

Regarding the scallops shrinking, it could simply be the difference in dry vs. wet scallops. Most grocery stores sell wet scallops. At times, dry scallops can be quite hard to find at retail. Wet scallops naturally shrink because of the loss of so much moisture when cooking.

Also, the higher the heat and longer the cook time, the more the moisture is lost.


Why do you stir italian sauce all day Its mentioned in Goodfellas so this is obviously a thing among Italian families and their cooking.

Do you stir to prevent it from sticking? Why cook the sauce for so long?

To cook a sauce for a long time, particularly without a lid, concentrates the flavor of the sauce as the water evaporates. That's also called reduction. Yes, sauces that are cooked that way need to be stirred frequently to avoid allowing them to stick to the bottom of the pan. Sticking is bad enough, but it leads to burning, which is worse.

In meat sauces (sauces that include meat), long cooking can also contribute to tenderness of the meat and allow the meat flavor to permeate the sauce as the long cooking breaks down the collagen in the meat.


Bamboo Steamer VS Normal Steamer I have heard that using a Bamboo Steamer provides/preserves the nutrients/elements that are good for, or at least more so than a normal plastic/metal steamer.

Is this true? Or only for certain types of food/dishes? Or perhaps not at all?

Also, does either of these produce a higher quality result (in taste or texture) than the other?

Bamboo Steamer:

VS

Normal Steamer:

The only difference between a bamboo steamer and a metal/plastic steamer is that a bamboo steamer will absorb (some of the) moisture from the steam, rather than allowing it to recondense and drop into the food.

It's possible that recondensed moisture could take a small amount of water-soluble nutrients with it, but between the limited ability of bamboo to absorb water and the limited amount of time that water would be in contact with the food, I don't imagine it adds up to much.

What it may add up to is a slightly different cooking process in total.  A metal steamer gets a bit hotter than a bamboo one, meaning the bottom of the food might be a bit crisper.  That can be useful, or not - making dumplings or other bread products, lower heat means less sticking to the wrapper/steamer.  A bamboo steamer will absorb some of the flavor of what you're cooking (and keep it), meaning it can add some interesting flavors to other things you cook (which can be good or bad), although that's controversial and appears to be only a minimal effect.

I tend to stay away from plastic steamers, as even if they are BPA-free, who knows what the next BPA will be.


Why do my cookies fall flat and not cook on the bottom? I'm fairly new to baking, but I've been attempting to make cookies lately. They taste good, but come out looking like this:

The bottom looks like this:

They spread out a lot in the oven (they went in as balls ~1 inch diameter and came out as flat disks ~4 or more inches across) and don't really have a crust on the bottom. I used these ingredients:

1 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
~1/2 - 1 cup milk chocolate chips

To cream the butter with the white sugar I let it sit for about half an hour, cut it into small chunks, let it sit a little longer, and then alternated beating them with a fork and a hand mixer with beater attachments. I'm looking into getting a stand mixer. The dough for the pictured batch was chilled in the fridge overnight.

How can I keep them from spreading out so much and develop a crust on the bottom?

Edit: I baked them at 350F, fully preheated, for around 15 minutes on a bare cookie sheet. I peeked after about 8 minutes and then probably two more times after that before I took them out.

Welcome to Seasoned Advice first I will point you to an article in our blog Silpat, Parchment Paper or Plain Baking Sheet. @KatieK contrasts these cooking surfaces.Look at the instructions for time and temp. Are you thoroughly Preheating? You pictures indicate that you are using parchment, but you don't mention time/temp.

My first inclination based on what I see is that you are baking them too long at too low a temp, and not fully preheating. If you raise the temp and shorten the time the cookie will not spread as far. With 'scoop' cookies you expect the dough to spread some, but you are getting too much spread. The higher temperature will cause the cookie to form a solid (ok, solidish, it should be soft but 'strong enough' to hold form) This will also give you better "bottoms" as they will bake faster as well.

Another thing you might be doing is opening the oven door too often, this releases a lot more heat than you think, extending the correct baking time and slowing the process. I know it is sometimes hard to resist peeking, try to not open the door till you are at least 75% through the projected time.


How to make Fresh Asian Noodle? How do I make Fresh Asian Noodle (similar to Egg Noodle)? What are the ingredients and the steps to make them? I am asking about noodles, not a dish.

You just make fresh pasta....dry pasta doesn't usually have egg, fresh pasta does....egg noodle is just dried pasta that was made with egg.

Follow a basic fresh pasta recipe using 2 eggs per cup of AP Flour.

You'll want a pasta roller and cutter...You don't have to have one, but you really do want one to make life much easier.


Confirming Fried Chicken is completely cooked I'm currently involved in a food startup and we're refining our process for product quality.  We fry Bone-In breasts, Dark quarters, Wings and Boneless breasts.  The challenge I'm currently facing is ensuring chicken is fully cooked (165F) but not overcooked (170F for white, 180F for dark).  My main issue is getting an accurate temperature reading:

Do I need to go with the lowest temperature reading? Sometimes I'll get ~140F in one temping, but another place on the same piece I'll get ~170F
What do I need to be careful of in order to ensure an accurate temperature?  I know it's hotter closer to the surface than internally, but I've also heard I need to avoid hitting bones as they get hotter than meat; are there any other outliers like this?
How much might fried chicken increase in temperature after sitting.  For instance, If I pull a piece from the fryer @155F can I expect it'll reach 165F after sitting 5-10 minutes?

While not specifically an answer to your measurement question, you might consider cooking your chicken low-temp (sous vide) to ensure optimal doneness, then just quickly deep fry for crust formation.  That would guarantee safety and specific temp. for specific parts of the bird.  See here, for example:  http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/sous-vide-fried-chicken


Cutting cold butter into flour - which mixer attachment should I use? I have a kitchenaid 6 quart stand mixer and a large family of nine.  At the moment we're using coupons to buy biscuit dough, but I wanted to look at the time and effort to make our own.  Not just for cost savings (though that would be nice) but more to control what we're actually eating.

Many of the better recipes call for the butter to be cut into the flour.  I have a hand tool for this, but am unsure whether the paddle or whisk is best, or if there's another tool I should consider purchasing.

What tool should I use, and at what speed will best duplicate the process of cutting cold butter into flour without warming up the butter too much?

Since you ask about other tools, I recommend avoiding the mixer altogether and instead grate frozen butter into the flour. If you have a food processor you can use the coarsest grating blade--chilling the bowl and grater first will help keep the butter cold will help--but it goes quickly by hand with a coarse grater.

The key is to get the butter distributed quickly and keep the butter and dough cool while working the dough as little as possible. If you do use the mixer, chilling the bowl and paddle helps.

And, regardless of method using ice water and very cold liquids helps.


How long does jarred chopped garlic keep? I have some chopped garlic in a jar (from Spice World if it matters). I have used it. Not sure when, but it is open. The best by date is June 2018.

My question: I have always heard that after opening jarred food you should throw it out after 2 weeks. For chopped garlic: should I look at the use by date or should I toss it 2 weeks after opening it?

"Use by" is typically for an unopened container, as they have no way to control for how you have stored it or possibly contaminated it with other ingredients after opening.

The specific risk of garlic is that Clostridium botulinum spores are pretty commonly found on garlic. These spores are hard to kill, although commercially-prepared canned garlic has usually been processed hot enough and long enough to do so or you hear about recalls. However, that is typically after someone gets ill.

The general risk of any food left in refrigeration long-term is that when you remove it from refrigeration, scoop out some, and return it 1) how long was it outside of refrigeration and what temperature did it get to, and 2) did you contaminate it with anything that might now be growing, albeit gradually, in the refrigerator.

If it is bubbling, definitely throw it out. If it smells bad or unusual, definitely throw it out. Otherwise, there is an ever-increasing risk the longer the opened jar is in the refrigerator, influenced by how it has been previously handled, but specific information is not readily available on the USDA or FDA websites for this product.


What is the purpose of a pressure cooker in a rice cooker? Some of the more expensive rice cookers advertise that they use pressure in combination with induction to cook rice.  On one Japanese website that sells rice cookers, they showed some diagrams that I couldn't follow since they were in Japanese, however, the images seemed to indicate that the water is changed in some way (maybe taste) because of the pressure cooker.

The rice cookers that include a pressure cooker cooking method are also more expensive.  So, what exactly is the purpose of this pressure cooker method?

Thanks!

The usual purpose of pressure in pressure cookers is that they can heat water to >100°C without it starting to boil, thereby reducing cooking time.


Using heavy cream vs whole milk Can I substitute heavy cream for milk. I am making crepes for manicotti and am wondering if they would be fluffier.

I don't think the type of milk you use would contribute too much to the fluffiness. The eggs in the crepes is what makes them fluffy in my opinion, the more eggs you add the fluffier the crepe. To make a lump-free batter, mix it in a blender till smooth.

Let batter rest for 20 or 30 minutes in the fridge to relax the gluten in the flour.  You should have fluffy crepes, just remember the more eggs you add, the more flour you will need, and don't make the batter too thick, it should be about the consistency of stirred yogurt.


Can I use butter in cookies the same if recipe calls for margarine Can I use butter in a molasses cookie recipe instead of margarine
I

Definitely yes, and they will probably taste better. 1:1 substitution.


Why does ice form mostly on one side of frozen sliced bread? I keep my store-bought bread in the freezer and I've noticed that after it's frozen, every slice has a lot of small ice crystals on one side, but almost none on the other. I was wondering if it had to do with the opening of the bag or the direction it faces in the freezer so the last time I bought a loaf I put it with the sealed opening facing the back of the freezer, when normally I put it facing the front of the freezer. In both cases the crystals formed on the side facing the back of the freezer with almost none on the side facing the door. What causes the ice formation to be uneven?

EDIT
I have experimented further and discovered that the ice crystals form after the bread is already frozen. The longer the bread is left in the freezer, the larger and more numerous the visible ice crystals get. Turning the bread around after a few days causes the ice crystals to form on the other side of each slice without noticeably reducing the ice that's already formed.

Your freezer causes this, as your experiment has shown.

Freezers don't magically cool down their contents, like ovens have a heat source, freezers have a "cold source", so in your case the back cools / freezes first, encouraging condensation and subsequently the formation of ice crystals on the colder parts. If your freezer has an auto-defrost cycle, this may contribute as well.


How do you make the wishbone break easier? Real simple.  Kids love breaking the wishbone from a turkey or chicken.  What do I need to do so that the wishbone has a nice crack (more brittle) when they are pulling it.

Simple, you dry it.

If you want your kids to be able to snap the wishbone on the spot, save one ahead of time from the last chicken or turkey.


How to reduce the heat on a gas burner I have a new gas cooktop and the lowest setting on the smallest burner still produces afast rolling boil rather that a very low simmer. How can I reduce the heat?

1. Simmer/Burner Plate

You can use a simmer plate or something to diffuse the heat. For example:

http://www.thekitchn.com/good-tool-burner-plate-for-low-107122
Google: Heat Diffuser

From the first link, a suggestion is to use a cast iron skillet as a heat diffuser. That should work in a pinch.

2. Adjust the Flame

Alternatively, some stoves allow you to adjust the flame level. I'm not a technician, so please do this at your own risk, read the manual, etc....


Capsaicin - how sourced and what's in it I face a problem here, cooking thai quite often and using the same sort of chillies every time, bird's eye chillies. The problem is that some of them are hotter than other and sometimes the meal is not hot enough even when adding more chillies than the recipe says.
I want to try capsaicin extracts but before I go and get any (not shops with this sort of stuff in the area) I would like to know 2 things:

how is this sort of extract made, how is the capsaicin sourced from the chillies
what's in the bottle, any additives, unhealthy things?

Thanks you in advance.

There are a ton of different extraction methods used in the industry and it would be very difficult to pinpoint which one is used for a particular brand unless they tell you.

The "conventional", low-tech method is to use an alcohol solvent (capsaicin is alcohol-soluble; good thing to know in case you ever "burn" yourself with it).  Very pure ethanol (grain alcohol) is probably the safest and what you'd use in a home extraction, although there are more effective solvents that are less safe such as acetone.

You grind up the dried chilies, let them sit in the solvent until it turns dark red, strain out the solids, filter the liquid remains, then evaporate the alcohol. That is a very simplified explanation, so do not try to actually do it yourself without a proper guide.

Manufacturing processes are much more precise. Solid Phase Extraction is one, Supercritical Fluid Extraction is another, there may be more.  These are all highly purified (some claim 99% or better) which is far more pure than anything homemade.

So as to your question about what's in the bottle, the answer is: capsaicin.  It's strange to ask if there are "any additives" because capsaicin is an additive.  You cannot use that stuff as a hot sauce; you use it in minuscule quantities, i.e. one drop for an entire pot of chili.  Of course, many brands of capsaicin extract are heavily diluted already (such as the "Pure Cap", which is only 500,000 SHU instead of the 16 million that actual pure capsaicin is).

It's easy enough to ascertain if it's diluted by just looking at the ingredients. Most will have an oil as the first ingredient. Not unhealthy, just filler. If capsaicin is the first or only ingredient, then it's pure.

Rest assured that a bottle of concentrated capsaicin is not going to contain significant quantities of anything more harmful than capsaicin itself. Even though it can't literally burn you, if it comes into contact with any part of your body, the reaction will be similar to that of a very serious burn. So don't worry about what else is in the bottle, worry about the capsaicin itself!


What is a mealy tomato, and how would one use one? When people say a tomato is or isn't mealy, what does that really mean? I've never had a tomato that was grainy, as it's sometimes described. Is that even possible? That sounds like a tomato with sand in it. How would you personally describe the consistency without using the dictionary definition?

Also, what are mealy tomatoes good for?

Yup, tomatoes can most definitely be a bit grainy. It's not a hard graininess like sand, but a softer graininess. The best comparisons that come to mind are hydrated but uncooked cornmeal or slightly wet breadcrumbs. Instead of being juicy and smooth (whether firm or soft), you'll notice a bit of small texture. It'll probably also be less juicy, and the flavor may not be as fresh and full as you'd like. If you've never had one, awesome - you've had good tomatoes!

It's also a common texture in some varieties of apples, especially when not too fresh. It's especially noticeable there; instead of a crisp crunch as you bite through it'll feel a little crumbly.

They'd be all right for things where you're going to cook them thoroughly so you won't notice the texture, like spaghetti sauce, though again the flavor may suffer as well. For anything remotely fresh, they're still edible, just noticeably not as good.


After purge mussels 6 time in salt water 20 mins each, why they still exude much grime? I  buy mussels at Pusateri and Whole Food Market for a year in Toronto. They sell them on ice and dry, not in running water.

10 s this video, Bart teaches add salt to cold water and
soak for 20 mins. But I repeat 6 times...so 20 mins x 6 times = 120 mins of soaking!!! Mussels exudate less black grime every next time, but even after 6 times, water still has much black grime! See my pic under! Why? This happening for a year!

Part 2, Step 2 has GIF that shows you what I mean.

If your mussels are really that dirty, scrub them well first, then soak them in fresh water + salt (about 35g per litre) - or sea water - and add a scant handful of ground oats. The oats are supposed to irritate the mussels and they'll purge it together with the sand, while the salt water will keep them alive.

It can take a long time to purge really gritty mussels (according to some sources, from 2 to 12 hours). I'm not sure how clean you expect your mussels to be, just make sure most of the sand is purged.

You should also ask the shop if the mussels have been purged before - it's usually the case.


How does pepper enhance/increase the saltiness of a dish? I have found that after adding ground pepper (any type, color, or heat level), some dishes seem to be saltier. This sometimes occurs with other spices, as well. Note that I am not using anything else that contains salt.

I always taste as I go and something will seem to have the perfect amount of salt. But almost immediately after adding pepper or other spices the dish will seem to be too salty.

Also, I have cooked something that seemed to be perfectly seasoned, but if one adds ground pepper at the table, it seems to be saltier.

Another example is that when I cook certain types of curries and use a wide range of other spices, a minimal amount of salt is needed, and the dishes do not lack any salt flavor.

I have learned over time that when other spices are to be added to decrease the amount of salt, so it's not an issue. (I can always add more, if needed.) However I am curious as to why/how this happens.

It's not just saltiness, but various taste sensitivities that are impacted by pepper.  Basically, piperine (the component in black pepper which causes its pungency) and capsaicin (the "hot" chemical in hot peppers) cause mild irritation and inflammation in the mouth when consumed.  That inflammation leads to additional sensitivity of taste receptors.  Saltiness, acidity (i.e., sourness), and feelings of hot and cold are generally the most impacted by this inflammation; all of these sensations are enhanced.  (For a brief summary of some of the various impacts of pungent pepper compounds, see here.)

However, in excessive amounts, piperine and capsaicin can inhibit the normal taste receptors for the major flavors.  But a small amount of inflammation, as produced by the relatively mild form of black pepper's piperine, will make parts of the mouth more sensitive and thereby enhance certain flavors, including saltiness.

(I don't know the details for which other spices you mention, but many spices have effects beyond the basic taste buds.  In fact, many substances are chosen as spices for the wide variety of bodily sensations they can cause, often resulting in pain or irritation, which is why they tend to be used in very small quantities.  Particularly other "pungent" spices -- ginger and cinnamon, for example -- also have mild irritating effects on the body, which might induce alterations in sensation and taste.)


How do I *safely* use an aruvamanai The aruvamanai is an indian kitchen multitool used by my grandmother's generation consisting of a fixed curved blade on a roughly boat shaped block. Its typically used by placing it on the floor, somehow holding down the block and pushing the thing to be cut against the blade.

It seems counterintuitive, but considering the condition of some of the ones I've seen, there's clearly a 'proper' way to do this safely.

So, how do I use the cutting surface of one of these without accidentally losing a finger or a hand? What's the safe way to use a aruvamanai? The coconut grating part of it is out of the scope of the question, since we don't use it, and that design is fairly well understood

Let me tell and admit that usage of Aruvamanai is a bit tricky. It is not mostly used by younger generations. But my mother and my mother in law still use them and they wont switch to board and knife.
I have seen watching them use it skillfully, hence I can tell the ways to hold it down and use it properly.
First sit on the floor with left leg extended straight without folding. Next place the Aruvamanai and fold your right leg such that, the leg part below the knees is placed tightly on the wooden plank of the Aruvamanai. Make sure the grip is proper.
Once it is positioned tight, you can start cutting or slicing the vegetables. I have to admit that vegetable cutting will actually take shorter time when this equipment is used. Hold the vegetable with both of your hand, and start slicing it. Push it through the blade and stop when sliced, and keep repeating the particular position of the vegetable with respect to the blade till you finish it. Place a plate beside to keep the cut veggies. In case of veggies like cabbage or even leafy greens, you can spread a news paper or something of that sort (you must be knowing if i say muram) to collect the cut vegetables. You will know at what speed you need to cut once you begin. Experienced people can cut vegetables much faster and easier with this. It needs experience.
Unlike other equipments, which you can learn and get used to, this Aruvamanai needs lot of practice. Once you achieve that, you can pretty much start using it.


What does the rind say about a cheese? There is a lot of variation in the rind of cheese, I dare say perhaps even more than in the cheeses themselves. Does the colour, texture, hardness etc. reveal anything about how the cheese was made, how it will taste, how old it is, etc.?

Simply by looking at a piece of cheese, what can you deduce?

You can learn a lot from the rind of a cheese.

http://cheese.about.com/od/howcheeseismade/tp/cheese_rinds.htm
There are three types of rind: Bloomy, washed, and natural. While I don't think it is technically a rind I would also list waxed as a category.

Bloomy rinds are formed when molds and such that grew during the cheese aging are smashed flat. Usually such cheeses will have unique textures because of the action of the mold. Think of the creaminess of brie as an example. The rind is edible if it is in good condition.

Washed- the cheese is wiped with vinegar or similar while it ages.

Natural- The top layer of the cheese is allowed to dry as the cheese ages. Parmesan is a good example of this.

Waxed- Wax is applied to inhibit drying and mold growth. It is common with many semi firm to firm cheeses and doesn't tell you much except the favorite color of the cheese marketing people. Cheddar is almost always waxed.

Some cheeses don't have a rind at all- this generally means that they weren't aged. Cream cheese, queso fresco are examples. Mozarella and feta are both brined and so don't have rinds.

Of course- it is a good thing when you can see any rind at all as odds are good that the cheese wasn't mass produced for an undiscriminating clientele.


What can I add to Splenda solution to prevent spoilage? Trying to save some money on buying Splenda packets by buying sucralose powder and mixing with water. This works great and is waaaay cheaper - 10x cheaper than buying the packets!

However, after two weeks, I noticed my solution, which I keep in an eye-dropper bottle, developed fungus floaties and so I had to pour the contents of the bottle down the drain.

Can anyone recommend a method of preventing things from growing inside my solution? Is there something people use for this sort of issue? Some kind of available food preservative? Obviously, whatever the solution turns out to be, it has to be safe for human consumption.

Thanks in advance for your help.

The easiest and best solution for the problem is to not dissolve it into water in the first place. Powdered sweetener keeps indefinitely. Dissolved sweetener falls smack in the middle of FAT TOM, so you have converted a shelf stable food into an unstable one.

Assuming that you want to keep it at room temperature, there is not that much you can do. You can reduce the water, but I don't know enough about the solubility of sucralose, it is possible that it is still susceptible to mold at the saturation point, just like sugar.

You could try acidifying it sufficiently to stop the mold from growing. But then it will taste much less sweet, so you will have to add a much larger amount to your drink, several time the amount you normally use. Alternatively, you can acidify it less and use sodium benzoate as a preservative. It is normally used for industrially produced food, so I cannot suggest the correct ratios of acid to sucralose to sodium benzoate. But note that simply mixing them in any old way won't give you a safe product, you may need industrial recipes for correct usage.


Is it safe to drink the whey? If you make cheese with starter culture and rennet is the whey that is a byproduct of this process safe to drink? I have heard from some that there does exist some who are fond of drinking this but I'm not sure if the whey from rennet is safe?

Whey is an excellent source of protein and whey protein in particular is used in many body-building supplements.

Please see the excerpt below from  FARMcurious .

  Drink Up! – The acidic tang of whey may be a bit of an acquired tasted but I actually find it refreshing.  Cultured whey has pro-biotics that can help balance the microflora in your gut as an extra bonus to the protein.

The web page gives a lot of information about whey and the many other uses for it as well as a great tip for storing.

Hope this helps!


Is there an easy way to tell if a pan/pot is oven-safe? I have a couple of old pots and pans laying around in the house and unfortunately I don't have the original box. Is there an easy way to tell if they are safe to use in the oven? Like for stainless steel or non-stick pans are they generally safe to use in the oven? Maybe only for certain temperatures?

Speaking in generalizations, without knowing the details of content:

Anything with a non-stick coating- I wouldn't put it in the oven. If you don't know what the non-stick coating is made of, you can't be sure if it will melt. Additionally high temperatures and non-stick coating make for off-gassing.

Anything with plastic handles, knobs or any other plastic parts- don't put it in the oven at any temperature. No way to know how it will react.

Cast iron- always oven safe to almost any temp that a non-commercial oven would reach

Enameled cast iron (like Le Crueset)- oven safe to 500°F (260°C)

Uncoated stainless steel- oven safe to 500°F (260°C)

Uncoated anodized aluminum- I would say no more than 450°F (230°C), to be safe

Copper- 500°F (260°C)

Glass- 450°F (230°C)


Do roasted almonds have similar calcium value to raw ones? I have stopped consuming any kind of dairy so I need substitutes for, among the rest, calcium. I've been advised to eat almonds, but I dislike the taste and texture of the raw ones. When I grabbed a bag of roasted almonds in the store, I saw no calcium in the contents. Do the roasted almonds(maybe with added salt or oil) lose the calcium value? Can I roast them by my self to keep the calcium?

Looking at the USDA database, roasting the almonds does not affect the calcium levels (comparing equivalent weights).  Look at the value per 100g or value per ounce rather than volume-based values and you'll see what I mean.

Raw almonds average 269mg of calcium per 100g (or 76mg per ounce).

https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/3635

Dry roasted almonds average 268mg of calcium per 100g (also 76mg per ounce).

https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/3637


How to reheat sauce made from cream reduction I plan to serve a sauce made by reducing 950g cream until it splits, then whisking in 50g cold cream to form a homogeneous thick sauce.
The recipe I’m referencing estimates the reducing time to 1.5 hours, and I wonder how to add some flexibility to my timeline, so that I can serve the sauce warm.
I have considered refrigerating the broken cream and reheating it before finishing with the cold cream. Alternatively, I would just finish the sauce completely, and reheat it gently in a pot.
Can anyone share some experience with reheating this kind of sauce?
My Norwegian cookbook says that this is a French sauce, and lists the French name as “Crème Triple”. I was unable to find this sauce when googling. Is there a common English term for it?

I attempted the approach suggested in @moscafj’s answer, and heated the sauce in a bath at 60C. The sauce broke horribly, and I couldn’t re-emulsify it with an immersion blender. Adding in more cold fresh cream did not create an emulsion (as it did the day before).
At this point I was at least somewhat stressed, but I was able to cool down by fanning by my face with the gentle breeze from the blades of my immersion blender. Then I added some Dijon mustard, and an emulsion formed nicely.
In the future I want to try reheating the reduced cream and mounting the sauce with the cold cream right before serving.
A safe option seems to serve the sauce at room temp. I held back some of the sauce when attempting to reheat it, and found it was stable, smooth/pliable and tasty at 25C.


When can I use coconut oil as a substitution for other fats? Aside from imparting a different flavour, when baking and cooking can you substitute coconut oil for other oils (including butter) with the same results? I have been reading about the apparent health benefits from coconut oil, unless it's another fad!

It depends on the application: coconut oil is highly saturated compared to most vegetable oils, so it is more solid at room temperature.

If you are using it as a medium to saute or fry, this is not going to matter very much.

If you are using it a baked item, it may or may not depending on the item.  Most of the time in baked goods, you can substitute fats pretty freely, but you will get some change the in ultimate texture if you use a much more saturated fat.

In recipes which expect the oil to be liquid, you either have to melt the coconut oil before using it (if that is reasonably possible, for example in a muffin recipe), or not use it.

And of course, coconut oil may carry a slight flavor or aroma of coconuts.


Is it safe to cook pancakes on a copper surface? I've read a lot about copper cookware and how it's useful for heat management and its non-stick qualities, as long as it is tinned.
But after watching this video showing a Korean restaurant preparing pancakes on a copper griddle, it occurred to me to ask, is it safe to cook this way?
It looks like the original coating is gone, and the pancake is cooking on bare copper.
My further research said that it'll be fine as long as the thing I cook on copper is not acidic; is this true?
I've always wanted a pancake griddle but the cost is way out of my allowance, so I thought it might be better to just buy a copper plate and try it out.

Yes, copper is safe to cook on. The darker area around the edge of that plate is not an "original coating," it's just the area where the copper has tarnished over time.

The reason the copper has a "bare" look in the center is most likely because the cooktop has been maintained with a cleaning product specially intended to remove the tarnish. This is the appropriate way to maintain and use copper cookware. While copper work surfaces can be kept bare and allowed to tarnish, or intentionally colored through the application of e.g. particular acids and then sealed with a clear epoxy, copper cookware should be maintained with appropriate cleansers to keep the surface bright.
(NOTE: When I say "work surface" I'm talking about something that is not heated and usually doesn't come into direct contact with food. Commonly called a kitchen counter (AmE), countertop (AmE), worktop (BrE), or bench (AuE/NZE). When I say "cooktop" I'm referring to an appliance that produces heat for cooking, and when I say "cookware" I'm referring to the pots, pans, etc. that actually come into contact with the food.)
Natural and chemical weathering of copper surfaces can create a variety of different compounds, some of them dangerous. The only significant risk I'm aware of with naturally-weathered copper cookware is verdigris, the distinctive green patina seen on e.g. the Statue of Liberty. I manufactured my own copper countertops about ten years ago and did some research on safety to decide whether to seal the surface with an epoxy or let it weather naturally; I found only one notable incident of deadly verdigris poisoning, related to industrial cooking vats that were not cleaned and which developed a heavy patina that then leached into the food.
It's not difficult to remove patina from copper; anything acidic will usually do the trick, even ketchup. (Of course, you would wipe the ketchup away and dispose of it after using it to dissolve potentially toxic copper compounds. Better just to use a cleaner specifically designed for copper cookware. I do not recommend the readily available Bar Keeper's Friend products as they're designed more for SS and will produce a black byproduct on copper.)
All this said, I wouldn't recommend cooking on bare copper surfaces. They're a lot of work to maintain, we have better solutions in modern cookware that use copper as a conductive layer married with other metals for the cooking surface, and there is always the chance of an adverse reaction to the small amount of copper that does end up in the food.


Sanitizing a meat rack If a meat roaster rack has become contaminated with mold, etc, would soaking it in hot water and bleach (0.5 cup bleach to 1 gal of hot water) for 2 - 1 hour cycles with hard scrubbing between soaks the baking in the oven at 450°F for 1 hour be sufficient to kill any toxins that may be present?

You don't have to go crazy, you just need to get all the grease and accumulated gunk off of it to make it safe to use. Bleach won't help you get it clean, it will only sterilize, and then only if the water itself is clean - there's no point putting chlorine in dirty water. If you want something to help you get it clean a heavy duty kitchen cleaner or something like simple green is what you are looking for, although lots of liquid dish soap and a scourer will probably do just fine. If you get it good and clean you won't need to use chlorine or bake it because you'll have removed anything potentially harmful, but if once you clean it you still want extra assurance then wiping it down with a chlorine solution or baking it as you suggest will work - both is overkill.


Ratio to subtitute mesquite liquid smoke for mesquite smoke powder? I'm making some seitan sausage and there's a new recipe I want to try but it calls for mesquite smoke powder (1 1/2 t for flavor). I only have mesquite liquid smoke, which I'd like to use instead. I'm aware I'll likely have to adjust the dry ingredients slightly since I'll be adding another wet one, but my question is:

How much liquid smoke do I use in place of the smoke powder to achieve the same flavor?

I've never used the powder, but liquid smoke is pretty strong, so I doubt it would be a 1:1 swap. Does anyone have any experience in trying such a substitution?

Because of the strength of liquid smoke, it's hard to provide a substitution ratio without knowledge of the full recipe you are using.

As you mentioned, liquid smoke is pretty strong stuff. Smoke powder seems to be made from liquid smoke, thus the powdered smoke may be more concentrated than the liquid smoke.

Many comments on smoke powders on Amazon mention that a little goes a long way. According to this official description this powder is "tenfold-strength":

  Mesquite smoke powder is made from real mesquite smoke, which is spray-dried onto a neutral maltodextrin base. Shake a little of this tenfold-strength mesquite powder into barbecue sauce, baked beans, or homemade potato chips for an addictively sweet and smoky flavor.
  Ingredients:Corn Flour, Natural Mesquite Flavor. Gluten free.

  – thespicehouse.com/mesquite-smoke-powder

Another consideration when using liquid smoke instead of powdered smoke is if the powder part (maltodextrin) plays any part in the formation of the seitan. This description of another smoke powder mentions that the powder is "highly hygroscopic" (it absorbs water) thus if substituting liquid smoke you may want to also add some maltodextrin or perhaps a little cornstarch.

  This smoke powder is to be used as a dry rub as it is highly hygroscopic in water, meaning it balls up when combined with liquid and does not mix well. When using this as dry rub, I recommend that it's used at a rate of 1oz-5oz per 100 lbs of meat (It really doesn¡¦t take much to get a very good smoky flavor). I also recommend that you use gloves when applying this or you will smell like hickory smoke for a while :)º Alternatively, you can mix the smoke powder with a small amount of vegetable oil, creating a paste, and apply it to your protein that way. A tiny bit of vinegar can also help break up the smoke powder and won¡¦t impact the flavor at all. After you have applied the rub or paste to your protein, you should let your protein rest so that all of the smoke flavor permeates the meat. I always use the smoke powder as a dry rub and have transferred it into a salt shaker for easy application.

  – comment from The Colorado Spice Team on Amazon

If you are open to other liquid smoke substitutes:

Smoked Paprika Powder
Chipotle Powder
Smoke Tea

If you wish to use liquid smoke as your substitute, I would suggest that you look at a few other seitan recipes which use liquid smoke and adjust based upon your recipe’s yield.

Also take a look at this guide on How to Make Perfect Seitan


How should I prepare Bok Choy before I cook it? I just bought a pack of bok choy that I want to steam inside a bag along with some halibut.  How should I cut it up before putting it in the bag?  Would the preparation be different if I was cooking it for stir-fry (or something else)?

Should I separate the white stem from the leaf and eat both?  Won't the leaf cook much faster than the rib?  How much of the stem should be eaten?

Also, this isn't the "baby" bok choy, the shape is more like a head of romaine.

I've never tried steaming bok choy, but yes, the ribs and leafy bits cook at different speeds.

For stir frys I trim the bottom so the ribs come free, clean off any dirt that's gotten trapped in between, then stack up the leaves and cut the leaves from the ribs.  I slice the ribs into about 5mm / 3/16" slices, and add them towards the end; the leaves I cut into ribbons (perpendicular to the ribs), and stir them in at the last second, so they barely cook.  The center I just chop the top off the leafy bit, and slice the more rib-like bits a litte larger than the rest of the ribs (they're thinner, so cook faster).

As I've never tried steaming it, and I don't tend to cook in bags (except for silver turtles when camping), this is going to be a complete guess.  Now, it tastes fine al dente, so you could leave the ribs as large as I use for a stir fry, but en papillote tends to be fancier cooking, so I'd probably try for maybe 1/6" slices or a little thicker (maybe 2-3mm), and if you had a mandoline so they all came out even, that'd be great.  I'd still cut the leaves into ribbons, just because it's easier to eat than a huge intact leaf.

I'd assume that the leaves would cook at a similar rate as spinich, and the ribs closer to fennel, if that helps at all.


Canning Jar bottom pops off during canning Each canning season I have a canning jar that the bottom cracks off during the canning process. Anyone know why?  The jars are checked for cracks, chips and sterilized before each use.

Having the bottom of a jar pop off is a symptom of thermal shock to the bottle.

Don't place cold bottles into hot water or refill a canner full of hot bottles with cold water-- there is a good chance of cracking a bottle.

Another consideration, though in my opinion less likely to be the issue, is that your rings on your bottles should be only lightly tightened-- just enough to keep the lid on.

When the bottles are processed, the air in the head space expands and some of it pushes out past the lid. When the jars cool, the air in the head space shrinks and, since there is no longer enough to fill the space, it creates a vacuum that seals the bottle.
If there is no head space or if the rings are tightened too much, the extra pressure in the bottle will not be able to escape and the bottle can burst.


Is it worth to install a gas stove with a big gas bottle in the kitchen? There are several options when it comes to choosing a stove. From my own experience, electric stoves are not really that great. I guess most households have them because their are convenient to install. Induction stoves are expensive. Gas seems to be the 'professional' way to cook. I lived in a flat with a gas stove for a few years and really enjoyed cooking on it, it's so easy to control.

However, most modern houses don't have a gas pipe anymore. Do you think it is worth installing a gas stove with one or two big LPG bottles in the kitchen? How often would I have to change the bottles?

Yes.

It's much more fun to cook with gas, and the way I see it, any incentive I can provide for myself to cook good food at home is a major net positive in quality of life.

The setup I have is three gas burners and one electric stove top element, and an electric oven. The electric stove top really comes in handy when reducing stocks or making long-cooking soups and stews, and it can significantly reduce the amount of gas you use in cooking.

For oven I would definitely go electric. See the When baking is it better to use a gas or electric oven question.

I have one 5 kg liquid gas bottle stashed under the sink, and it lasts 3-4 months of heavy daily cooking for two, maybe 6 months in the summer when I eat more salads etc. In addition I have another 2kg bottle for backup if I run out of gas in the middle of cooking, and for the day or so it takes me to haul another bottle from the store. Having a smaller backup bottle doesn't waste too much space.

I've been considering upgrading to a 11kg composite bottle, which I expect to last 10 months to a year, and it's way more economical. So far though the convenience of having a smaller bottle I can carry to the store for changing without a sweat has been great.