Are carrots dyed orange? I was in the supermarket and I noticed that one brand of "organic" carrots was a very pale orange, but another brand of carrots was bright orange.

Is this color difference because the carrots are being dyed?

Probably not.

Carrots naturally (or due to selective breeding) come in an extremely wide variety of colors from white to yellow to orange to red/pink to purple. It's likely that you were simply looking at two different varieties, one of which was more pale than the other.

click image for source

Even the color being only "skin deep" isn't necessarily a sign of it being a dye as many carrots have white cores, or at least cores that are more white than their surrounding flesh. Which you can see an example of below:


How do you reheat rice in a takeout box after you've already made the mistake of refrigerating it straight up? I have refrigerated rice that I want to serve alongside chicken tikka masala (Not for guests, that's unthinkable! For family.). It's in one of those styrofoam containers with a plastic lid, although it's hard and, in present state, unappetizing all the same, so let's benefit Googlers by assuming a takeout box. There's plenty of stuff on the net on how to store it properly in the first place. How do you revive hard refrigerated rice after the fact?

Assuming it's been kept cold & is therefore 'safe', then just drop it into a larger microwave-safe dish with a not-quite-sealed lid & maybe a tablespoon of cold water.

Once it's halfway heated, you'll be able to break it up a bit to stir. When fully heated, it will break up with a fork. Your family will never know ;)


How do I get the butter out of my chocolate fondue? In my chocolate fondue, I used butter to help it melt smoothly. Now, after the meal, I want to use the left over chocolate. There is a slight sheen of oil on the chocolate and, in the refrigerator, the butter settles on top and "freezes".

How can I get that butter out?

Bonus response: How should I use this left over chocolate?

The short answer is:  you cannot get the butter out.  The milk solids from the butter will be throughout the mixture, and the sheen on top may not be just milk fat from butter, but some cocoa butter as well.   Even if you do try to skim the butter off the top, the remaining chocolate will never have the same quality as it did before.

Some options:

Reheat it for more fondue based enjoyement
Add cream or milk, and use the remainder as a sauce over ice cream or another desert
You have not mentioned if there are any other ingredients in the chocolate fondue mixture.  Assuming it is only chocolate and butter, estimate the ratio of chocolate to butter.  You could then probably use it to replace some proportion of butter and chocolate in certain brownies or cookies.

Truthfully, either of the first two choices are your best option.  It should also freeze fairly well if you want to hold it for a future fondue party.


How to predict what the final result of a recipe will weigh? I have a recipe for a mascarpone substitute. How much does that recipe make? I need a pound's worth, so I don't know if that will be a enough or is too much.

Here is the recipe:

1 16 oz block of cream cheese,
1/2 cup sour cream,
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream,

Blend until smooth

Your end result if you follow that recipe would weigh approximately 22 ounces, or 1 pound 6 ounces, or 1.375 pounds. (There are 16 ounces in a pound. Fluid ounce and ounce as a unit of weight are not exactly the same thing, but pretty darn close considering the ingredients you are working with; there are 8 fluid ounces in an American "cup", a "fluid ounce" of water weighs one ounce)

In the future if you have questions like this with other ingredients (particularly how much does a volumetric measurement [1 cup, or 1 Tablespoon] of an ingredient weigh), you might find this chart helpful: Master Weight Chart

Maybe this will help too: To make 1 pound of your recipe you would need 330g of Cream Cheese, 82g of Sour Cream and 41g of Whipping Cream.


Induction cooker hot on inner circle only My induction cooker has two circles marked on it, a small one and a big one. It came with a set of small and big pots that match the size of the circles. After a year, all the pots have a small circle burned into them. Does that imply that the the outer circle on the cooker is not working? Or could it be because the pots have warped - the centers all bow up a little now (about 2mm).

Warping doesn't matter with induction, since you don't need the pan to touch the surface, unlike resistive electric technology.

I suspect that your unit is working as intended. I have personally never seen home units with a large coil, they typically have a 12 cm coil or less, and since most pans are larger, they only create direct heat in the middle of the pan. You can use larger pans on it because there is thermal conduction happening both within the pan metal and within the food in the pan. My guess is that the outer circle is an indication of what is the maximum suggested size of pan, presumably because the conduction will not be sufficient to produce good results. I have not seen units with an inner circle painted on, but it could be a guideline for the minimum size of pan that the unit accepts. This is very likely if the size of the inner circle is the same as the size of the coil (your burn mark).

And by the way, your burn mark and your warping both mean that you are using extremely high heat to cook. There are almost no foods which benefit from that. You may consider reducing to medium-high for most cooking - when I had induction, that typically meant using the first or second wattage setting on my unit (cooking for 1 person).


What is it in frozen food that makes chefs so mad? Gordon Ramsay's number two complaint (we know the first...) is that the food was frozen. But I am confused about the specifics. Does he mean the meat was not thawed before cooking? Does he mean that after being placed in a freezer meat cannot be "saved" even after thawing?

I like chef Ramsay, he can be snobbish and course at times but he knows food and he's a straight shooter and tells it like it is.

Sometimes he's just saying the food isn't hot or even warm in the middle, but some times he is referring to frozen vs fresh ingredients. Most food is better when it's fresh, because freezing destroys cell walls and breaks down some materials. For everyday cooking that may be just fine, but when you are charging a premium for your meal, he expects top notch and I agree with him.

Just to put a foot note on it, try this at home. Steam some broccoli, side by side, use fresh broccoli and frozen and see what the difference is. It's quite a huge gap.


How to store garlic? When I buy garlic, I normally put it in a bowl on the kitchen counter or in the pantry, and then pop off cloves as need.  Sometimes, if the garlic has been around for a while, I find what looks like green sprouts inside / popping out of the cloves.  What is the best way to keep my garlic fresh?

I always store mine in the pantry. I use it frequently enough that sprouting is rarely an issue. If you need it to last longer you can freeze garlic, though I have never needed to.

Shelf Life

An unbroken bulb of garlic can last 3-5 months in a cool (55-60 F) dark place. Once broken, the remaining cloves last only about 7-10 days.

Frozen, you can store garlic 10-12 months.

Source:

http://stilltasty.com/fooditems/index/17237


Vanilla extract cups vs spoon My daughter got confused and added 2 cups of vanilla instead of 2 spoons in a cake recipe.

We were done mixing the ingredients, but we want to salvage the cake. What can we do?

I don't think you can salvage that cake. That's just way too much vanilla, and you can't take it out.

You could take out enough to have two (tea?)spoons of vanilla, though, and use that in a new cake. For example, if the total volume is now 6 cups, and 2 cups of it is vanilla, you'd need 6 teaspoons of it to get 2 teaspoons of vanilla. You could then make the cake over again, and use that instead of the vanilla you'd have added. (Yeah, you'll get a little extra of the rest, but it's a small amount, it should be fine.)

To try to save the rest... all I can think of is freezing it to try to preserve it, so you can use portions of it to replace vanilla similarly in future cakes. With that much vanilla, I don't know if it'll actually freeze solid - it's mostly alcohol. So I might try putting it in an ice cube tray, in case it does freeze solid (so you put the cubes in a bag and still get individual portions) and then if it stays soft, you can always put it in a single container to scoop out of. Vanilla is pretty volatile, though, so use an airtight bag/container and don't expect it to last forever.

If it's vanilla syrup, the same generally applies: you have way too much, and you can't separate it. If you go the freezing route to try to save it, syrup also doesn't freeze very solid, thanks to the sugar, so same potential issue there.


Culinary uses for lavender I have some lavender bushes in the garden. They last well and smell wonderful. I have always considered lavender a herb, but can't think how it is used in cooking.

If people have any good recipes for lavender I would love to know.

First, a couple of notes on cooking with lavender:

-The leaves as well as the flower blossoms are edible.

-If you don't grow it yourself, make sure that you only use lavender that has been produced for culinary usage (often found in bulk form at health food stores).  If it isn't sold in a food store, don't use it (such as that in craft stores).

-A little goes a long way.  Too much and your mouth will taste like it was washed out with soap.

Now for some of the items I have done with it:

Lavender ice cream (Lavender & Honey even better!) is a common use.  Infuse the cream with the lavender buds by bringing it to a simmer and then take off the heat and cover, letting sit for about 30 minutes.

Lavender orange sorbet (infuse lavender buds into the orange juice).

I've also used lavender and thyme in an herb past rub for roasted lamb.

"English Garden Madeleines" using dried lavender and rosewater in the madeleine batter.

I did a presentation on culinary uses of lavender a dozen years ago and don't quite recall what else I did with it but should be able to pull out the recipes I mentioned above.

If you'd like the recipes, email me at: darin@chefdarin.com and I'll forward them to you.


Gluten-free replacement for all-purpose flour in fried fish batter? Recently, I've found a few good recipes for a frying batter for a fish. Unfortunately, all imply using all-purpose wheat flour.
exp. https://akispetretzikis.com/en/categories/pswmia-zymes/koyrkoyti

I'm looking for the closest possible (in terms of taste and crunchiness) drop-in replacement (mix of any, even relatively uncommon, flours, starches, and/or thickeners (exp.
linseed, guar gum) as long as they are gluten-free) for the wheat flour.

I've tested mixtures from Schar and they were somewhat acceptable in terms of crunchiness but completely tasteless.

Every gluten-free mixture I've tested so far burns too quickly compared to the wheat counterpart. Do you have any method to mitigate this? Like a heat-resistance increasing ingredient for the mixture?

I was thinking about adding a bit of white corn flour (maiz blanco) as it is used primarily to make tortillas, but it makes the frying batter behave more like plasticine and gives it a noticeable taste, not suitable for a fish.

What do you think about using a gluten-free mixture designed for pizza or bread (exp. from Caputo)? I suppose it should be more heat resistant and crunchy, and similar in taste to the wheat counterpart.

In general, if something is burning too quickly, you need to turn down the heat, and cook it for longer.
As for recommendations for gluten free batters, there are plenty of gluten free tempura batter recipes out there that use rice flour.  Although it's worth noting that tempura is usually only cooked to 'golden' in color, not fully 'brown'.
And if you're willing to go with a three part breading instead of a batter, you can use rice flour, egg, and (rice or corn) cereal crumbs.


What to do if bread dough became hard in the refrigerator I kept bread dough in the refrigerator overnight covered with wet cloth. The next morning I noticed that my bread dough had become hard and caked up. Please help, what shall I do to soften it. What can I do with that dough? Will my bread be soft if I bake it?

I presume that you meant a fridge, rather than a freezer.

Fridges are by design pretty dry, and the best is to cover the dough with some cling film or some other impermeable barrier. (The wet cloth will dry up pretty fast.)

The dry caked surface is just dried up dough, and can be worked back into the rest. (It may need a little bit more liquids, but not much.)


Boiling eggs on an electric or gas stove: why the boiling time difference? Having fairly recently moved from a country where cooking on gas is the standard (the Netherlands) to a country where cooking electrically is the standard (Sweden), I've noticed that I need to boil my eggs a good minute, minute and a half longer than I used to.
I always put them in as the water is already boiling.

Until now my assumption has been: boiling point is boiling point–once the water hits 100°C the heat dispersion goes up rapidly, keeping the temperature close to that–but it appears my assumption was false.

Anyone care to explain?

Is there a difference in altitude between where you live now and where you used to live? The heat of a gas and an electric stove should be the same, but boiling temperature differs. The higher the altitude, the lower the boiling point, since it's a factor of air pressure. (More explanations from Wikipedia.)

Water only boils at 100C at sea level. This site can calculate it for you.


What are the main differences between a stand mixer, a countertop blender and a food processor? I'm looking to replace my countertop blender. Since my kitchen space is rather limited, I was doing some research to see if there are any "multipurpose" devices. I found out that there are also stand mixers and food processors and many of the tasks they can be used for overlap. I've never used a food processor or a stand mixer before.

So my question is: What are their main differences? E.g. thekitchn lists all three (!) of them as essential small appliances which seems very odd to me, given that so many tasks they can do overlap. Why are all three of them necessary?

While two of the three items you mention are similar (though not identical) - the food processor and blender - the third is completely different - the stand mixer. There's actually a pretty awesome, in-depth guide to these and more kitchen tools on BuzzFeed. I'm going to reference this some and use images from it.

Stand Mixers
A stand mixer is not a cutting implement, which the other two are. It doesn't have a blade at all. It's closer in equivalence to a hands free hand mixer.
It usually comes with two or three options for mixing - a "paddle", generally a stiff, heavy, flat metal piece; a "whisk"... which is a large balloon whisk; and a dough hook... which is generally a hooked shape attachment that helps knead dough. Here are what the attachments might look like, though they vary based on the model.

Which attachment you use depends on what you're making and will usually be indicated in the recipe. But, in general, you'll use the paddle for most cake batters and cookie doughs, whisks for whipping up frosting, cream, and egg whites, and the dough hook when you need to knead dough.
Many of the brands of stand mixers, particularly Kitchen Aid's various models, have secondary attachments that can be purchased separately. This includes things like pasta makers, choppers, grinders, sausage stuffers, etc.

Food Processors
I find food processors more broadly useful than blenders - I don't actually own a standard blender, preferring to use an immersion blender instead. They're generally larger but they won't have the vortex action that you really need for things like smoothies. Food processors all come with a blade that spins, chopping up all of the stuff in the bowl. You can use it to quickly chop vegetables or grind meat, though your results can be a bit mixed. It's also great for making pie dough (my preferred method) and making dips and sauces like hummus and pesto.
In addition to the main blade, many brands either come with or sell separately a collection of slicing and shredding discs. I find these to be lifesavers when you're trying to make something like Scalloped potatoes. You can slice the potatoes perfectly evenly and paper thin and then swap out the slicing disk to the shredding one and shred your cheese in 10 seconds.

You can certainly do some of the same things in a blender - making (thinner) hummus and pesto, for example, but it's not going to have the discs and you're not going to want to try and make pie dough in it or anything you just want coarsely chopped.

Blenders
As I mentioned, I don't personally have a stand blender because I rarely make the thing it's really good at - smoothies (and frozen drinks like margaritas) - and it's more convenient to use an immersion blender for soups than to try to transfer boiling hot soup from the pot into a blender bowl.
From the article:

A blender makes soft creamy liquids (purées). For example, you'd put a bunch of cooked vegetables it in with stock to make soup. But if there's not enough liquid in the blender, the blade won't make enough contact with the mixture being blended to churn it around and purée it evenly. Translation: without enough liquid, ingredients in a blender won't blend, and the motor will burn out. So, blenders are better for anything with a thinner consistency, while food processors are better for thicker mixtures.

So, do you need all three? No, not really... you don't need any of them. They're time savers and convenience tools. Anything that we use them for now, we could still make before they existed... but I personally don't want to spend twenty minutes with a whisk and a copper bowl making meringue or trying to evenly slice potatoes for gratin, or actually... maybe smoothies would have been pretty impossible before a blender... but there's always Jamba Juice.
To decide what you need in your kitchen, think about what you cook and bake (or would like to) and go from there.


What are these little crystals in my Cheese? In some Mature Cheddar, whilst slicing with a knife, I've noticed some tiny crystals.

What are these crystals are they a sign of good Cheddar or not?

To quote On Food and Cooking (Harold McGee), page 63, about crystals in Cheddar:

  In aged Cheddar, there are often
  crystals of calcium lactate, formed
  when ripening bacteria convert the
  usual form of lactic acid into its
  less soluble mirror ("D") image.

In blue cheeses:

  The white crystals often visible
  against the blue mold of a Roquefort,
  or detectable in the rind of a
  Camembert, are calcium phosphate,
  deposited because the Penicillium
  molds have made the cheese less acid,
  and calcium salts less soluble.

And, in other aged cheeses:

  In Parmesan, Gruyere, and aged Gouda,
  the crystals may be calcium lactate or
  else tyrosine, an amino acid produced
  by protein breakdown that has limited
  solubility in these low-moisture
  cheeses.

So, basically there are a variety of salts present in the milk, and formed from milk by the action of bacteria and molds.  As the cheese dries, and ripening micro-organisms act on the cheese, these salts fall out of the solution and crystallize.  Personally, I love the slight crystalline texture present in aged cheeses, as it almost always comes with a robust and mature flavor.


How do you cook frozen Lobster Tails? I recently received a large bag of small Lobster Tails (4-6 oz each) that are frozen - It says Slipper Lobster Tails on the package.  Any Ideas as to the best way to prepare - defrost first, boil right away, how long to cook?

Its much like a frozen Shrimp, definetly better defrosting first, either in a cold water bath or leaving them in the fridge. If they are individualy frozen they should defrost really fast in cold water.

Grilling is my favorite way to have them, they are amazing and easy to do. I would think that broil/bake/saute methods would be tastier than boiling.


Can I substitute mascarpone for ricotta? I have left over mascarpone that I don't want to waste

Although my own instinct would be to try using the mascarpone, there are undoubtedly some recipes that might not work.

Consider whether the moisture content, texture, or flavor of ricotta is essential for what your recipe is trying to achieve. For many dishes, such as lasagna or other baked pasta, mascarpone should be no less delicious than ricotta.

However, if your recipe truly needs the specific texture and more subtle flavor of ricotta, then it might be worth waiting until you have some, and make something else with the mascarpone instead of wasting it.

Part of the fun of cooking is experimenting with the ingredients you have on hand, and imagining in your mind how they might taste together. If you can imagine the taste of mascarpone in the dish you're making, then absolutely, you should go for it — it might turn out to be your own special creation!

If you use the mascarpone, I would love to hear what you made and how it turned out!


What is the difference between fruit teas and pure fruit teas? In this Livestrong article they make a distinction between "fruit teas" and "pure fruit teas". The only difference i picked up on is that pure fruit teas have more sugar. But dont fruit teas also have sugar? Im confused.

Teas made with fruit and herbs, or fruit and tea, are often referred to as fruit teas. Teas made with only fruit would then have to be called pure. However a quick look online suggests that "pure fruit teas" also includes some of the former.

The article you link seems to use pure to mean "not containing tea*, as it discusses caffeine quite a lot. The sugar aspect is probably a distraction as even a fruit tea made by soaking dried fruit in hot water can only deliver very little sugar as the total weight of the dry tea is small and most of that is discarded.


Making yogurt I put the yogurt in before heating the milk I've made yogurt before, but it's been awhile and I was distracted. I added the yogurt before heating the milk. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Add more yogurt. When you heated the mix up, you killed the bacteria that was going to ferment your milk for you, so, they should be inert. Then, you just add another shot of bacteria to start the culture after your mix cooled down.


Which cut makes cheapest goulash? I found I like goulash very much, but the bang for the buck is rather poor - I don't get much made for the amount of meat used up.

I tried using different cuts; ham, neck, shoulder. The latter, shoulder cut of pork was one of the cheaper cuts that produced reasonable amounts of it - still, lots of water is drained from the meat as I fry it, and then reduced in the process of frying it before simmering and I ended up with less goulash than meat I used for making it...

In essence either I get a more expensive cut that doesn't lose much water when fried, or I get a cheaper cut that loses most water and I'm left with very little meat once it loses its water and the water is reduced.

I'm looking for inexpensive cut that is suitable for goulash and still retains good mass(volume) once fried/reduced, or is inexpensive enough that the loss of water doesn't matter. Can you suggest one?

EDIT:
I realize Goulash is made very differently in different parts of the world. This creates some confusion here, so let me drop the recipe I use, which was passed by generations in the family.

0.5kg of any inexpensive meat cut. I tend to use shoulder, although most of varied types are fine - smooth, uniform (and usually expensive) cuts are less suitable. Filaments, veins of connective tissue etc in the meat are welcome.
One big onion, or two smaller
2-4 bay leaves
4-6 grains of allspice
1tbsp paprika powder,
salt and chilli to taste (keep on spicy side).
~1tbsp flour, ~1tbsp butter or other fat for roux.

You need either a deep frying pan or (IMO preferably) a common big pot; specifically no non-stick, nothing fancy - a rather worn is preferred as the preparation may leave nearly permanent but harmless stains, so if you keep your pots pristine, get one you don't. Probably cast iron would be perfect, but I don't have such one so can't confirm or deny it for sure.

Dice the meat. 2x2x2cm dice are sufficiently small, but the smaller the better. Pour minimal amount of oil in the pot and drop the meat in. Stir from time to time. The meat will release water soon and start simmering. Reduce that water till the meat starts frying. It should release a plenty of own fat too so no need to add more. Stirring from time to time fry both the meat and the sediment from the water that escaped from the meat till it's deep brown, bordering on burnt black (even getting a little of it completely burnt is acceptable). The meat may keep sticking to the pot; keep scrapping, scratching, this is perfectly right. Building a lot of deeply browned sediment on the pot is your goal.

If you have a good sense of timing with frying onions, you can add chopped onion to the meat and fry them together, but if your timing is off when adding it, the onion may end up anywhere between raw and burnt when the meat is just right. It's safer to brown it on a separate pan and add when the meat is right.

Pour water to cover the meat plus some more. Add bay leaves and allspice. Bring to simmer, and gently stir to dissolve as much of the sediment from the pot in the water as you can. Keep simmering for at least 3 hours; longer is better.

Add paprika, salt and chilli, simmer some more while preparing roux by frying flour with butter. No need for the true dark roux but get it a few shades of gold below light roux. To avoid clumping add a ladle or two of the goulash sauce to the roux, mix, then the mix it back into the pot. Simmer another 3 minutes.

Serve with mashed potatoes and salad, or in large potato pancakes folded in half, or just in a bowl, with bread to dip in the sauce.

I think that your problem doesn't come from using the wrong cut, but from using the wrong quality tier of meat.

The cheapest pork in the supermarket, no matter which cut, is produced from cheap mass-held pigs with a certain type of "lifestyle" - no movement opportunities, cheap feed, lots of antibiotica. It produces a certain kind of meat, known as PSE meat, which stands for "pale, soft, exudative". The last word means exactly what you describe: a meat which loses lots of water during cooking. So no, you cannot get more "bang for the buck" by changing the cut.

I still assume that you are getting a better price per gram cooked meat from buying cheap meat and cooking it down than from buying expensive meat which will lose less water, so I guess that, if price is the most important part for you, you shouldn't change anything.

Another word about quality: the S in PSE is also your enemy when making goulash. Generally, you want lots of collagen in goulash, and some fat for taste. PSE meat has almost none of them. The old idea that cheap meat is best for goulash comes from times where the difference in meat prices was based on the cut: a shoulder cost less than a filet, and that was it. Nowadays, this connection still holds for the same animal, but if you look at the different price tiers, the cheapest meat, especially in pork, is not at well suited for long and slow cooking methods. If you buy cheap meat, the best you can do with it is usually mini-steaks or schnitzel, heavily dressed to make up for the lack of taste.


What's in a 'Paella'? Answering this question, I made an ass of myself claiming that

Onions are not used in a real Paella.
Tomatoes neither.
Paprika / Pimentón neither as this will overpower the saffron flavor.

I've seen loads of recipes with all of these ingredients in some way or other (and I posted a recipe with all of these ingredients :-( ).

As I understand it, onions are not used because the will 'pass' the rice. I have no idea whether this is true or not, but I've never eaten a paella with onions. Not that I usually eat paella.

The tomatoes and pimentón will impart too much flavor so it will overpower the saffron taste (by far the most expensive spice on earth). Food coloring can be used to make the paella 'saffron' yellow.

The question is, what defines a real paella? One definition of paella is the 'pan' or 'skillet' itself, meaning that whatever rice dish you make in it can be called paella, but I'd rather have a more 'traditional' view as to what ingredients can or cannot/should or shouldn't be used.

Onions (yes or no)
Tomato (yes or no)
Paprika (no :-)
Saffron (yes)

Traditionally paella is a poor man's food, so what went in depended on what you had. If the only meat you had was snails, you made your paella with snails. So you'll find some people today insisting that to be truly authentic, paella valenciana should have snails.

The "anything goes" mentality still persists to some extent: it's not easy to find two Valencians who agree 100% on the recipe. And in addition to valenciana you have paella de mariscos, de verduras, and mixta (and should arròs negre count?) On that basis the defining aspects would be the type of rice and the technique: a flat pan and a long cooking time to extract flavour from the ingredients before the rice goes in.


What happened to my macarons? I baked macarons earlier and this happened. You can see that they're pretty tall (which I don't want) but mostly importantly, what happened to the shell? I baked at 290F for about 20 minutes (they're about 1.5 inches). I can't tell whether the middle is underdone or whether the ridges are well done. It seems that interior is most full in the center.

I'm thinking I might not have deflated this properly during macaronage and it needs to be cooked at a lower temperature.

Thanks!

Edit 1: I used a new recipe via Chef Nini and it solved them problems I was having. This time, I paid close attention to the temperature of the oven and overbaked them a little. I'll let the maturing to take care of softening them again. I made chocolate shells and most turned out well. The ones that were piped last were a little overmixed in the bag and turned out a little funky (top collapsed, wrinkled). I'll wait around to vote for best answer though.

Edit 2: Some of them still collapsed in the middle, but it's by an acceptable amount. However, some are still a little hollow, which is disappointing. Onto more trials!

I work at a charcuterie but we are partnered with a professional baker who provides us with macarons to sell in our store. From your picture, it looks like the tops of your macarons have deflated.

I wouldn't decrease your temperature, but instead increase it. Our most common problem was deflation and often times our temperature wasn't high enough in the oven. Also, it is of prime importance that you do not take your macarons out until they are done, or they will deflate and never rise again. Make sure they are cooked through before you remove them.

Also, if your ridges are cooking faster than the middle, check the position of your oven. Every oven is different and may have inconsistencies in heat dispersal. My own oven is hotter on the right side, and I have to be careful to rotate things accordingly. I heat macarons, biscuits, and souffles with this in mind.


Why are there so many different pasta shapes? Do the different pasta shapes serve any purpose, or are they just for fun?  Some difference appear to be cultural (lo mein vs spaghetti), but there are so many different syles of Italian pasta, is there a reason for this?

Clearly there need to be differences for stuffed / not stuffed, but why do we have penne and ziti?

One answer to this is that Americans have a reversed understanding of the relationship of pasta to sauce compared to Italians. In Italy, the sauce is called the condimento, meaning literally it is a condiment to the noodles, which are intended to be the main source of enjoyment in the dish. When you begin to understand it that way, it makes sense that you would want to have a wide variety of sizes, shapes and textures. (What Taeraresh said is also true, there are functional differences in how the different shapes hold sauces.)


What's the difference between Red and Panang curry? I love Panang curry and Thai food in general. However, whenever I try to make  curry at home it always comes out as indistinguishable from Red curry. What's the distinction between these two dishes? I feel like I'm probably just missing one or two ingredients that make the difference, but my trusted recipe books and google haven't been of much use.

I have just looked in the book "Thai Food" (by David Thompson).

Both are very similar. The main difference I can see is that there are souring agents in the red curry (fish sauce and shrimp paste). These are absent in the panaeng which has peanuts as a major ingredient in the paste (and nutmeg).

The panaeng is also usually made with beef which is simmered in count milk until tender.


Advice on time for cooking potatoes au gratin? So, I was following a recipe in an Amish cookbook that was pretty minimal on details:

  Baked Pork Chops

  Put a layer of thinly sliced potatoes
  into a baking dish, and cover them
  with shredded onions, salt and pepper.
  Lay over this as many pork chops as
  needed, seasoned well on both sides.
  Add enough milk to moisten the
  ingredients, then bake them at 400°
  until done.

(note, the rest of the most of the other recipes have ingredient amounts, baking time, etc ... but this is kinda like one of those assembled church / military wives club / etc cookbooks where there's lots of different recipes and some are of a different style)

Now, I admit, I didn't realize until after the pork was cooked that I had set the oven to 350°F and not 400°F ... but as I had remembered problems in the past with cooking potato au gratin before, and it taking a really long time, I opted to use two dishes, so the layered potatoes weren't more than 2 cm (~3/4 inch) thick, and the second dish was au gratin, without the pork, and with cheese added between layers.  (I broke out the mandolin, and had maybe 1mm thick slices).

Now, it might've been that because I cut the potatoes so thin that testing for doneness with a knife just didn't work ... so I went and looked up recipes online to see if I could find a pattern between time/temperature/thickness of the potato slices/thickness of the assembled layer ... and I'm at a loss, as there are a lot of recipes that don't even mention what size baking dish to use, so they'd end up with different layered thicknesses, and some don't mention the thicknes of the slices to use.

Is there some formula to use?  If there isn't, and I just have to go by sticking a knife in it 'til it comes out easily (or is that a bad test?), are there any tips so it doesn't take almost 2 hrs to cook?

Microwave the potatoes before putting them in the oven for about 7 minutes(start with 5 minutes, add 30 seconds every time till done), covered with a little water (very little, couple of spoons full)(potatoes whole or sliced)

Make sure you're not using a 'heavy' oven dish, glass ones can taka a long time to heat up. Place the oven dish into the oven while heating and add a drop of oil. When you put in the potatoes you should hear a little 'hiss' indicating the termperature is right.


What are the options for sweetening? This question relates to a tomato based sauce, but I imagine it applies to all dishes.

I recently made meatballs in a tomato sauce; typically, I find that any tomato sauce is too bitter.  I found a recipe that suggested boiling a halved onion and butter in the sauce for almost an hour, and that worked really well.

I've also tried adding sugar, which obviously works.  My question is: what are the other options that can be employed to make a dish sweeter?

Some quick things which you may or may not find in your nearby stores which can act as sweetners:

Honey
Jaggery
Corn Syrup
Some citrus fruits like oranges
Berries
Winter Squash like Acorn, Butternut


What is "pastry butter"? I was recently watching a television show where a reference was made to "pastry butter".
This was in the context of making croissants saying that normal butter was incorrect type to use.

After searching for some time I have been unable find any information about "pastry butter" being a specific type of butter.

Has anyone come across pastry butter and know what the difference is between this and normal butter?

One job as an an apprentice baker in Germany was to prepare the butter for the next day's croissants by mixing in 10% flour by weight. This was to make it more pliable and less likely to break through the dough layers.

that was our pastry butter at any rate


Beef breakfast sausage I found a beef sausage recipe using ground beef. The flavor is great, but it fries up kind of stiff. I was wondering if I could put oatmeal or something in it to give it a more spongy texture, like traditional pork sausage.    My question is: How can I make my ground beef breakfast sausage have a pork texture?

Professional charcutier here. We usually only make beef sausage from grass fed beef, which means our ground beef is very lean. Depending on the recipe, we have various tricks for improving the texture:

We add beef fat if available to add richness, or even pork fat if we
don't have enough beef fat.
For a 5lb batch of ground beef for hamburgers, we'll add an egg or two and that
will give it some cohesion.
As thatdude says, cooked rice is a good way to give your sausage some
starchiness, as in boudin.
You could try mixing your sausage with heavy cream in addition to
adding eggs (as is done with traditional bratwurst)
Add about half a cup of milk powder for every 5 pounds of sausage.

Any one of the above should accomplish what you're seeking. You can even combine some methods. In our bratwurst, we add milk powder, eggs, and heavy cream. Experiment and see where your texture is after that!


Sun light on sour dough starter I have left my sour dough starter on the North facing window during the day.(I live in Australia)
It has been exposed to warm, direct sunlight.
Have I killed my wild yeasts?
Should I start again?
I have seen little to no activity.
The starter is 4 days old.

It's hard to say, not knowing the exact temperatures reached in your starter.  I would move so that it no longer is in the sun, and continue to feed for a couple of days to see if it has any life.


What are Japanese rice seasoning packets called? While I lived in Japan, I would often buy little packets of seasoning that were carried in every supermarket. I believe their purpose was for seasoning things like fried rice (チャーハン) and rice balls (お握り). What are these packets called, and is there an easy way to buy them in America? Or better yet, does anyone know how to make them?

The packets were typically salty and had bits of colorful seasoning/particles in it, like nori (海苔) flakes, sesame seeds, spices, etc.

I think it's called furikake. Per Wikipedia:

  Furikake is a dry Japanese seasoning meant to be sprinkled on top of cooked rice, vegetables, and fish. It typically consists of a mixture of dried fish, sesame seeds, chopped seaweed, sugar, salt, and monosodium glutamate.


Baking course online I want to learn baking and have been reading recipes from the internet and trying them but, I want a more structured approach starting with the basics and going to the advanced. I don't feel that the ad-hoc method of reading recipes and executing them is very satisfying. In my country, we don't bake a lot except for the professional pastry chefs. So, I don't know of anyone who's a baker or any baking classes around my home. So, does anyone know of an online baking course?

It might be easier to find handbooks or informational sites than classes specifically, as the former can be put up once and left there, whereas the latter requires a teacher be present for each iteration of the course.

I found a good bread-making handbook at The Fresh Loaf; they also have lessons on specific topics. Prepared Pantry has a free baking cookbook as well, plus lessons, though their classes are done I believe at their store location.


How to carve poultry? What's the best way to carve poutry so that you get the most amount of meat?  Are there any tricks you've found that will make this easier?

This is difficult to describe without pictures or diagrams. However I have found a great video on YouTube courtesy of Gourmet magazine.


Can you cook with a partially healed open wound? I got a small cardboard cut on the top of my thumb 3 days ago. It's not bleeding or anything but the cut hasn't fully healed. Technically this question is after the fact since I just cooked some chicken so I guess what I'm asking is is what I did safe or will I get sick from this?

According to the World Health Organization, it is technically possible to catch certain diseases by handling raw meat with cut or abraded skin. However, that example was a pig disease only occurring in a specific region.

I could find no references to similar disease transmission from chicken, and you definitely won't get food poisoning, which relies on long population multiplication times. As long as you practice basic handwashing, care for your cuts normally, and don't live in a region with notable chicken diseases, you'll be fine even in the case of an open cut.

Just try not to bleed in the food, please.


Which type of chicken to use in a recipe if called for a "hen"? I have an old recipe titled Minced Chicken. It's a casserole type dish. It says to use 1 hen, cooked and minced. What type of hen is this referring to? I found a cornish hen at the store but it was small, I didn't feel that this was the right type to use.

I suspect what's meant by hen, as opposed to chicken, is a laying hen. When a laying hen's egg production slows down, usually between 3 to 5 years in backyard chicken farming, they're killed and used as 'stewing hens'. Commercial layers are generally culled earlier between 1 to 2 years.

You definitely don't want a Cornish hen. In North America, they're simply whole broilers (usually 7-10 week old birds) - nothing else. Older stewing hens make the best soups, stews and casseroles as the flavour is stronger and the method of moist slower cooking tenderize the tougher meat.


For kosher thanksgiving roasted turkey, is oil a good substitute for butter for brushing the turkey? For a kosher thanksgiving roasted turkey, is oil a good substitute for butter for brushing the turkey?

I'm not expert on Kosher thing, but what about using chicken schmaltz?


What is the proper way to bake meat balls in the oven? I tried baking meat balls with various temperatures and meat mixtures (regular to extra lean); however, every time, I end up with lots of water oozing out of the meat ball.

How can I cook them with minimum lost deliciousness?

One technique I have used is to support the meatballs with toothpicks over a muffin tin. This allows the liquid to run off and collect. I forget which food network show I learned this from, but it has been a good technique for me.

  I'm trying to minimize the outbound
  loss of fluids

As fat is rendered to liquid it has to go somewhere. It is either going to be absorbed into something (like dry bread crumbs) or it will leave in the form of 'juices' oozing out of the meatball. I have to disagree with @Bruce's "breadcrumb slurry" as that adds an additional saturated element that leaves no place for fluids to go (other than to leave). Dry breadcrumbs will absorb those juices before they escape. One way to put that juicy goodness back into your dish is collect those juices, mix with some butter and an equal (total) amount of flour to create a rue and then either add milk to that to create a cream gravy to serve over the meatballs or add it to a tomato sauce to thicken the sauce in infuse the meaty/juicy goodness to the sauce and so it will stick to the pasta :o).


How to make garlic oil in a safe way...tomorrow I am planning on making some garlic oil for a friend of mine as a birthday present. Her birthday is tomorrow, so this question is a bit urgent.

I've read a few of the posts that indicate that botulism is a real risk when doing this.

Is there a way to make garlic oil without the risks?

A couple thoughts:

make the oil, then remove the garlic
use vinegar to prep the garlic (but how, and with what kind of vinegar? How does this affect the taste?)
heat up the garlic and oil to above 250 degrees, then place in a sanitized vessel.

Any solutions? Having garlic oil on hand is quite useful.

According to research conducted at the University of Idaho and published in 2014 in the journal Food Protection Trends, there are now consumer guidelines to process garlic (and certain herbs) safely through acidification before adding to oil.

I would read the first link thoroughly to understand the necessary process.  To ensure safety, follow the steps precisely.  (The second link provides the original scientific paper with detailed data and testing protocols.)

To summarize the procedure:

Peel and chop garlic so that pieces are no more than 1/4" long in any dimension.  (Whole cloves or larger pieces are NOT acceptable, since the acid needs to penetrate fully.)
Make a 3% solution of citric acid by combining 1 level Tablespoon of granular citric acid with 2 cups of water.  (Note that other acids, lemon juice, vinegars, etc. have NOT been verified and tested for safe home use in this step.)
Combine chopped garlic with a 3% solution of citric acid in a ratio of 1 part garlic to 3 parts citric acid by weight.  This is about 2/3 cup of chopped garlic, if you use the amount of acid in step (2).
Let garlic soak in the acid for 24 hours.  (This is a minimum to ensure safety; a longer soak may be used, but it could degrade the flavor.)
Drain the acidified garlic well.  Combine the acidified garlic with oil, and infuse.  A ratio of 1 part garlic to 10 parts oil by weight is recommended, but the ratio can be varied from this to achieve appropriate flavor.
While the procedure recommends removing the garlic once appropriate flavor has been achieved (generally in 1 to 10 days), there is no food safety risk if the garlic is kept in the oil for longer.

As for storage, they write: "Refrigeration of these infused oils is recommended for quality, but not required for safety."  And later:

  While oils infused with flavors from acidified garlic, basil, oregano,
  and rosemary can be safely stored at room temperature, oil flavor
  quality is maintained for a longer period of time with refrigerator or
  freezer storage.  It is also best to protect infused oils from light
  by storing them in dark-colored bottles.  Make sure the bottles are
  clean and food grade.  All vegetable oils retain quality better at
  cold temperatures and when protected from light.

The scientific paper also notes that the taste and quality of the infused oil produced using this home method was not less than infused commercial oil:

  Since panelists were not able to distinguish olive oil infused with
  garlic that was acidified with citric acid from the same olive oil
  infused with commercially acidified garlic (acidified with phosphoric
  acid), the acceptability of citric acid for use in consumer
  acidification of garlic and herbs for the production of infused oils
  was verified.

Note that acidification is the essential step here and is the only method tested for home use so far to ensure safety for longer storage.  The paper specifically notes that there are no approved procedures for pressure canning garlic in oil at home, and non-acidified garlic in oil mixtures must be refrigerated (and used within 2 to 4 days) or frozen.

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Food preservation is not to be taken lightly, particularly in situations that are known risks for botulism. People who are familiar with home canning recipes already know that one should only use approved recipes and procedures that have been thoroughly tested; this procedure is no exception. Botulism risks are generally low, but the consequences of deviating can be severe.

If you are not willing to go through this detailed procedure (or another one approved by a reputable food safety and preservation organization), be sure to store any garlic-infused oils in the refrigerator and use within 2-4 days or freeze.


Why did my mango pickle become bitter? I dried the mango in sunlight, heated the oil and slightly roasted all masala before grinding it.
Now the problem is that masala taste bitter.

How can I fix it?
The masala I used includes salt, rye seed, methi [fenugreek] seed, saunf [fennel], turmeric powder and black seed [nigella].

My first thought would be you over-roasted the methi.

Fenugreek seeds benefit from a light roasting or bhuna which removes the slight bitter edge they have - however, if you over-do it that bitterness comes back with a vengeance.

To avoid the issue, I usually add fenugreek powder to my sauce as it's cooking. It still develops the full aroma that way. It adds a very slight bitterness, but removes the danger of over-roasting right at the start & not finding out til right at the end.

I'm not sure it can be 'fixed' as such, other than by trying to balance [or really mask] it with sweetness, more acidity, or trying to dilute it in a larger batch.


Do I need to thaw fish before steaming it? Can I thaw fish during steam cooking or is it better to leave the fish the night before in the fridge?

Thawing as part of the cooking process is safe.

If your fish is very thin, you may get good results.  The risk is that the outside will overcook before the inside is thawed and cooked through.

You will probably get better results thawing the fish in the refrigerator before steaming it.


Is my green pickled garlic edible? I tried pickling some garlic in turmeric and the garlic turned green. Just wondering if I should toss or not?

Garlic produces non-toxic allicin and allicin in the pickling process. When allicin and allicin are mixed together, the garlic becomes a hundred green.
The pickled garlic turns green not because the pickled garlic contains chlorophyll, which will produce green when exposed to sunlight like a plant, but because the garlic produces non-toxic allicin and allicin, allicin and garlic in the pickling Mixing the yellow pigments turns the garlic into green. After answering the questionnaire, the antioxidative ability of allicin is very strong. Therefore, eating green pickled garlic is not only non-toxic, but also has the effect of strengthening the body.


Oven temperature when increase bread recipe? I increased my bread recipe by 50% to get a larger loaf. I used the oven temp for the original (smaller) loaves I baked consistently with success in the past.After the same baking time the center bread temp was too low (i.e., it was not done on inside). Did I need to increase oven temp too?And if s, is there a formula to increase temps? (I.e., a percentage in relation to recipe/flour increase?).
Thank you.

You need to increase something and time is the easiest:  for 50% more weight add 50% more time is the rule of thumb for an increase up to 100%.

You can also increase both temperature and time but then you should halve each so 25% hotter and 25% longer.

Note: This works up to an increase of 100%. Larger than that, volume calculations come into place too.


Does oxidation inhibit caramelization? Getting ready to make some fried plantains, but I wanted to get a jump on prep before caramelizing in place (approximately 2 hours from prep). If I cut them now, and they oxidize, will this inhibit their caramelization? Would oxidation promote caramelization?

It is possible to prevent oxidation of bananas and plantains with use of an acidulated water soak for three to five minutes, then pat dry. However, the plantains are a bit too ripe and soft to be able to pat dry without either leaving behind paper bits or mussing the surface of the fruit.

How does oxidation impact caramelization, if at all, and if the plantains oxidize, what would be the best method for caramelization?

If the plantains were on the greener side, they would take longer to fry than riper plantains like you have.  The more ripe plantains are, the higher their sugar content, and the faster they will caramelize.  The only effect of oxidation is an increased speed of caramelization.  They will be done when they are soft and brown, but be careful not to let them burn since the sugar content will make them brown in less than 10 minutes.


What should I look for in a cookie jar? I would like to upgrade from the novelty plastic bin I currently use for cookies. What cookie jar features would prevent the cookies from getting stale for the longest amount of time? What shape of jar will allow for storing the most cookies? Is light sensitivity a factor?

I've found a cookie jar buying guide on Walmart.com that has some interesting tidbits. For functionality alone, looks like a glass jar should do the job well. Something like this would have an advantageous shape to make cookies easier to reach, and the jar less prone to falling.

One feature you may want to look for specifically would be an hermetic sealing lid, which would help keep moisture in the jar and slow down the drying. Same kind of jar that is often used to store flour, sugar, coffee, beans, etc.

  Is light sensitivity a factor?

I don't think it would be, in most cases, unless you kept your cookies in an area that is heavily lit by the sun.


How can I bake muffins without an oven? In the Big Man's Blog, there's a recipe for Banana Bread Muffins, which I'd love to make. The problem is the very first item below, since I have no oven. I have a microwave and an induction stove (and can obtain an insertion for the pot for steam cooking). No heated oven, though, regrettably.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line up muffin liners and grease lightly.
In a large mixing bowl, add all the ingredients and mix until fully incorporated.
Pour batter into muffin liners until close to the top.
Top with extra chocolate chunks and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden on top.

Is there a way to cheat around this problem using the available equipment? I've read blogs showing how some people describe black magic work-arounds but I'm not sure if they actually made it and also if perhaps the tricks work for their cakes and not in a general case.

You can actually steam a lot of cakes. The basic idea is seal the cake pan tightly with foil (or even plastic wrap if your can handle the temperature) and then place it in your steamer insert/basket. I find it takes about 40 min for it to cook all the way through. Makes for a super moist and fluffy cake.
Here’s a random example I found online.
Paper in reference to streaming gluten free cakes (which is where I first got the idea)


How to Remove Excess Water from Chicken/Other Meats Prior to Cooking? Here in the UK, supermarket chicken and other meat cuts are infused with water to bulk them up prior to sale.

So, when frying or browning the meat, I often end up half boiling it from all the water that comes out and I end up having to spoon the excess water out of the pan (along with a lot of flavour) so I'm able to carry on with the stir-fry/browning.

Aside from simply buying more expensive (water free) meat or smothering in salt, is there any way of getting rid of this water before cooking?

You can salt the chicken a few hours or a day in advance of cooking it (you don't need a lot of salt, just whatever you'd normally use to properly season it), and store it uncovered in the refrigerator on a small rack over a plate. The salt will draw moisture to the surface of the meat, and leaving it open to the fridge will allow some evaporation to occur. This is sometimes called "dry-brining". That should help but I don't think it will ever get the meat to the point it would be if the water had never been added in the first place.

Another thing to consider is the type of pan you're cooking in. A frying pan with short, flared sides will allow more evaporation to occur during cooking than a pan with taller, straight sides. Also, don't crowd the pan: make sure that there is empty space around each piece of chicken to allow as much evaporation as possible.


How much liquid jaggery equals 1 cup jaggery powder? I have liquid jaggery and I want to know how much to use if I need 1 cup of jaggery powder for a recipe

Liquid Jaggery is not a terribly common ingredient, and I couldn't find any conversions for it ... but I could for a close relative, cane syrup to granulated sugar.  This recipe claims that cane syrup is equivalent to a 2:1 mixture of granulated sugar to water by volume.

So, reversing that, and using this question to find that sugar dissolved in water retains about 60% of its volume (and vice versa), 1 1/4 to 1 1/3 cup of liquid jaggery should be about equivalent to 1 cup of crystals.  Also, you should reduce the other liquid in the recipe by 1/2 cup.


How can I find out if yeast or yeast producing are present in foods? How can I know if a food or ingredient contains yeast or yeast-producing ingredient?  My condition requires yeast-free foods and ingredients.

There are no "yeast-producing" ingredients - either you have yeast present or not.

Yeasts are fungi that live on many plant-based ingredients. Whether they will multiply depends on the environemental conditions.

Without discussing medical aspects (which are clearly off-topic here), you might expect natural yeasts on the skin of most fruit and grains, they are the reason that these can be fermented1 without adding yeast from another source. Heat kills live yeasts, but the required temperatures are different depending on the strain. Classic baking yeast starts to die at around 50°C for example, boiling your food should eliminate them.

And then theer are the typical foods that have yeast added, which are baked goods and alcoholic beverages. Many of these are heated, thus killing he yeast, but not necessarily so for some beers and some (young) wines may still contain a few live cells. A dietician should be able to answer this in detail.

1 e.g. in the production of alcoholic beverages like wine and beer or for sourdough in baking


differences between cooktop, range and stove? I am looking for an apartment to rent. There is one that the agent said has no oven but only something I didn't catch from her speaking. I usually call those round things on the top heated by either cooking gas or electricity, "stove" or "range". But I am not an native American English speaker. So I wonder if cooktop, range and stove all refer to those round things on the top? What differences are between them? Thanks!

Yes, the cooktop is the top part of a stove (also known as a range) - just the burners/heating elements (the round things you refer to), which as you've discovered can be found without the oven underneath! There's not really a difference beyond that. You can see this pretty easily if you google "cooktop" and look at the pictures of the products you find.


Yogurt Fail Questions I just tried to make yogurt and ended up making something else (the question is what).  I just finished the process of bringing the milk up to 180 f and then bringing it down to 110 f and was ready to add my starter when I opened up the pot and realized that the milk had already solidified and separated completely into a custardy yogurt like substance and whey.   I tasted the result and it seems OK but its not sour (and definitely not yogurt).

FYI, I added powdered milk and was using 1/3 1% and 2/3 0% Milk.  All milk was fresh and pasteurized.

Questions:

What did I make and is it edible?
What did I do wrong?

Thanks

The point of heating the milk to 180F (and then holding it there for a few minutes) is to denature some of the milk proteins so they will participate in the yogurt structure and improve the texture.

You wrote that you added milk powder. This is a good thing because it adds extra protein. It is perfectly reasonable for there to be enough protein that simply heating it will form a loose curd. Acidifying the milk would produce a more firm structure for yogurt or cheese, etc.

Milk can also curdle prematurely if it has accidentally acidified already. For example if it has started to spoil from a mixture of wild bacteria. If your milk is of questionable freshness then I would recommend throwing it out to be safe.

If you are confident that your milk is fresh and has been handled well, and if the curd is fragile and tastes like milk, I would recommend inoculating it and fermenting it for yogurt as normal.


Homemade Kahlua - something missing Basic recipe for homemade Kahlua on the Intertubes is lots of sugar, some coffee, high alcohol content something or other, and vanilla.  Some minor variations on this theme is all I've found.

But real Kahlua is heavier than Irish Cream.  The layered shot, "Duck Fart," is made of, from bottom to top, Kahlua, Irish Cream, and Whiskey.  When I try to make this with homemade Kahlua though the cream sinks.

The amount of sugar in this stuff is huge, it's basically syrup.  I doubt it needs more.  I use brown sugar.  What could be missing from the recipe that makes it heavier than cream?

Adding more sugar to a small amount did fix the issue.  I think that boiling down the coffee/sugar mix would go a long way toward increasing the SG without making it sickeningly sweet.  Next time I make a batch it's what I'll do.


Why does this chicken recipe result in a glutinous mess? Countless times I've tried to prepared a recipe that calls for dredging chicken tenders in flour, dipping them in beaten egg (or a mixture of egg and water), and then coating them with a bread crumb mixture.

It just doesn't work for me. In the process of dipping the chicken in egg, much of the flour gets wiped off and ends up in the egg; the flour that remains sticks to the chicken in gooey clumps, and those clumps tend to resist coating with bread crumbs. After the third or fourth chicken tender has been treated, the egg has become a mess because of all the flour that's been washed off.

I've finally given up on that method and I simply do the egg and bread crumb part of the recipe, which seems to work just fine.

So why would I put flour on first - what's the advantage? And what am I doing wrong that makes it work so badly?

The reason for the flour being part of the breading process is to create a barrier between the meat and the breading, which will during the frying step allow for the formation of small steam pockets and a crisper crust. In a Wiener schnitzel this leads to the characteristic wrinkled surface. On the other hand, it’s the flour-egg mix that acts as „glue“ for the breadcrumbs or whatever you are using.

The amount of flour that is needed to achieve this is minimal. If you end up with flour in the egg, then I suspect you aren’t shaking off the excess flour.

The proper procedure starts with dry meat. This ensures that only little flour actually sticks to the meat when you then shake your meat to make sure all extra flour falls off. In this way you prevent the formation of what you describe as “glutinous mess”.

Then you proceed with the egg (again, let the extra drip off) and breadcrumbs.

Shallow-fry and serve immediately to ensure the crust is still crisp.


Can I substitute salts 1:1 by weight? In a recipe where you’re dissolving salt in water or a similar mixture(not sprinkling it as a seasoning, etc.) is it possible to substitute, for example, 1 gram of kosher salt with 1 gram of table salt?

I understand that you can’t do this by volume, but if both salts are mostly NaCl and I’m going by mass, then they should be close to equivalent, right?

Yes. In general diamond crystal kosher salt requires about twice the amount (by volume) as table salt, but measuring by weight is best and works with any salt.


How hot does garlic need to get to lose its sharpness? Inspired by the recent questions here, I made manicotti over the weekend. The recipe I used called for minced garlic in the filling. I love garlic and usually put in at least double recipe-prescribed dosage.

After baking for about half an hour the cheese was completely melted and the filling was set to my satisfaction. The garlic, however, was not sufficiently cooked and, although minced fine, was still caused some bites to be unpleasantly sharp. I wish that I had roasted the garlic in advance.

The question is twofold:

How hot does garlic need to get to be
cooked? That is, sweet and not sharp.
Is there a better way besides
pre-roasting to ensure that garlic in
such a dish does not distract?

My favourite way to remove the sting (which I love, but doesn't always work) is to poach in milk. Generally I do this when making macaroni & cheese; I poach the garlic in the milk which I then use for making the Mornay.

Poaching in water also works, mincing and then sauteeing... anything that cooks it all the way through. Bear in mind that how you cut your garlic will have an effect; smaller cuts (mincing, crushing) break more cell walls, releasing more of the sulfur compounds that provide the flavour.


Why does whipped Cream sometimes sink in warm beverages? I am a former barista who has encountered this phenomena many times, but could never consistently re-produce the effect.

Heavy cream should be lightly whipped, still in a somewhat pourable state. If it is over-whipped, it will have more of a tendency to sink.

The beverage should be at least slightly sweetened with white sugar or brown sugar. The dissolved sugar in the beverage will help to keep the cream afloat.

So, the problem could be over-whipped cream, no sugar, or both. Inconsistencies in either of those areas may be why your results varied.

Lastly, I have always been told that unwhipped or whipped heavy cream should be poured gently over the back of a warm spoon. That is supposed to ensure a gentle addition of the cream around the sides of the cup/glass that will make it float. (It's a useful technique for adding the cream.) I have seen many people do this, but I have always been successful without using a spoon.


My ciabatta dough hasn't risen after 2 hours! I mixed my ciabatta dough 2 hours ago, and it's barely risen at all.

I put it in a greased plastic container in the hot water cupboard, and marked the level to know when it "tripled in volume". The hot water cupboard isn't particularly warm, but it's not cold. The container is a tall storage container (it used to hold flour), and I had put the air-tight lid on lightly which the dough has opened (with air pressure).

I made a biga last night, which had fermented for about 6 hours before I put it in the fridge. I made the ciabatta dough with biga, high-grade flour (although recipe called for AP flour), yeast (1 tsp), salt, cold water. No sugar. I mixed it with a food processor.

Sorry about all the details, I don't want to miss out anything that might be a silly mistake. Is there any obvious reason it's not risen?

(I can provide more details about the recipe if that helps...)

Edit: I just touched the dough and its pretty cold, so no wonder its not rising! I guess it would have been a good idea to "wake up" the biga before mixing the dough? Any suggestions how to proceed from here?

As it turns out, my dough was very cold. Due dilligence: here's a full answer.

One of the requirements of yeast for fermentation is appropriate temperature. Cold dough straight from the fridge won't rise, or it will only rise very slowly. 25-30°C is a recommended temperature range for rising, although cooler temperatures can work.

Duh.


How will baking chicken at a high heat differ from a lower heat? I want to fix my daughter's favorite foods for her birthday -- chicken and fries -- but don't want to actually deep-fry anything.  (Don't have a deep-fryer, for one thing.) I have found a couple of highly-rated recipes for baked "fries"  and pan-fried then baked chicken breasts.  The only problem is that the fries call for a 450-degree oven and the chicken calls for 375.  I only have one oven, so I am trying to figure out the best way to cook both and have them ready at the same time. I thought about baking the fries first, then the chicken and putting the fries back in to re-heat for the last 5-10 minutes.  I don't want soggy fries, though, and am not sure this way is best.  I also don't want dried out chicken. although the pan-fry then bake method promises that it will be tender and juicy.  Ideal would be to find a way to cook them at the same time, as I will be doing this after getting home from work. I do have a convect-bake setting on my oven, if that makes any difference.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

It is possible to cook chicken at 450 degrees. I have a recipe that cooks 1/2 inch thick chicken cutlets at 500 degrees for 8 minutes , so at 450 I would cook them for 10-12 minutes, or 15-20 for full-thickness chicken breast. This high-heat method can actually keep your chicken moister than a lower-heat method, and will work with your French fries, so maybe find a recipe that cooks at 450 degrees. There are many available if you google "chicken breast 450."


Substitute for flaked coconut I would like to bake an Italian Cream Cake. Most recipes call for sweetened flaked coconut and a few shredded coconut.

I readily have fresh grated coconut and dessicated coconut. Can either of these be used in place of sweetened flaked   without significantly altering the cake texture / moisture?

Thanks in advance

Grated coconut will probably be your best bet. However you will need to add a tiny bit of sugar so the taste is not thrown out of proportion.


Gnats were in my bag of potatoes; can I still cook and eat the potatoes? There are some holes in my plastic package of potatoes. Gnats got into them (maybe 20 or so) and were buzzing in and out of them until I shoed them away. Can I still either bake or boil the potatoes and eat them?

Opinion answer, no authority here, just going by what to me is common practice.

Potatoes are grown in the ground with dirt and bugs around all the time.  In general, not a big deal.  Gnats or small fruit flies are not an issue for a relatively hard and skinned item. As long as there is no soft spots or rot, just scrub then and you should be rid of any eggs they may have laid.

However, if the potatoes themselves were doing the attracting, that is a sign you may have rotting potaties. Those potatoes involved I would consider not only contaminated, but in danger of contaminating the remainder of the bag, drawing more unwanted visitors, and ready to smell up your world. I would remove any that show such signs.

If it is more than one or two, well, potatoes are relatively cheap in most places, so time for a new supply.


How does adding one ingredient to a dish prevent another from burning? I hear this in cooking videos all the time. Make sure to add ingredient X to prevent ingredient Y from burning.
This could probably be applied broadly and the answer would be different depending on the situation, but I wanted to ask just incase its a rule of thumb.
Ex: https://youtu.be/gFk0LZi8qr4?t=98
In this video he says the peppercorns will burn easily, so add the ginger shortly there after to prevent them from burning.
Is there some sort of property of ginger, or is it that the ginger will cool down the oil slightly enough to prevent the peppercorns from burning?

There is only one way that adding an ingredient prevents another one from burning: it brings down the temperature.
Usually this is because the added ingredient has a lot of moisture in it.  Boiling off water, whether that water is in liquid or inside an ingredient like onions, requires a lot of heat energy, and while the water is being boiled off, the temperature of the cooking vessel drops towards 100C.
That's the case with the ginger in that recipe; ginger has water in it, and that water has to steam off, and will lower the oil temperature.  However, since the ginger doesn't have much mass, it won't lower it very much or for very long ... which is why the chef adds the sliced potatoes less than 30 seconds later.  The potatoes also have a lot of water, and they have a lot more mass.
Sometimes the ingredient will also lower the temperature because it is cold, and is being added to a cooking vessel with the heat turned off.  A common example of this is adding cold butter to finish a sauce.
Now, sometimes online chefs will tell you "add X to prevent Y from burning" wholly inaccurately.  If the added ingredient doesn't follow one or both of the criteria above, they're talking nonsense.


Can I Brown Beef For Slow Cooking the Night Before Many slow cooker recipes suggest that beef be browned before being added to the slow cooker, which is definitely better for the flavor of the dish.  I've always believed that this browning must occur just before adding to the slow cooker for food safety reasons, and this article from the USDA backs me up.

Yesterday in an online chat, one of the writers for the food section of a national newspaper said it is safe to brown beef the night before.

I know that the USDA is often extra cautious and provides the strictest possible guidelines to ensure food safety.  Are they being overcautious on pre-browning, or should I skip what the food writer said and trust my original gut and the USDA?

EDIT: My slow cooker recipes are usually for larger cuts of beef, not ground, and so browning will not cook them through.

I assume that the section of the USDA article you're referring to is this:

  Partial Cooking
  Never brown or partially cook beef to refrigerate and finish cooking later because any bacteria present wouldn't have been destroyed. It is safe to partially pre-cook or microwave beef immediately before transferring it to the hot grill to finish cooking.

Before I go on, I should point out that the USDA obviously has much greater expertise than I do when it comes to food safety.  Nevertheless, I find this recommendation to be extremely bizarre bordering on silly.

For full cuts of beef (not ground beef), bacteria should only be present on the surface.  That is why most people - or at least most people I know - choose to eat their steaks rare, or at most medium rare.  The "interior" is not fully cooked, nor is it supposed to be.

Searing the beef will kill any surface bacteria almost immediately.  That is why rare steak is (relatively) safe to eat.  As far as I am concerned, once the beef has been browned, it is already cooked sufficiently.  The only reason to add it to a slow cooker later would be to tenderize it or even out the cooking.

If the USDA expresses concern over refrigerating beef that has basically been cooked sufficiently, it must be because they believe that browning/searing kills enough of the bacteria to make it safe for direct consumption, but not all of the bacteria - such that they could multiply again and contaminate the food over a long period of time.

But refrigerating immediately after browning should prevent that.  No part of the beef will be in the "danger zone" for longer than 45 minutes or so, and even if you did miss some of the bacteria during the browning and they manage to multiply overnight, you're still tossing them into a slow cooker and that's going to kill any remaining bacteria.

Perhaps I'm missing something obvious, but from what I can tell, any health risks associated with browning a large cut of beef and subsequently refrigerating it for a relatively small period of time would have to be infinitesimally small.  It's not something that I would concern myself with.

Edit:

I did just think of one other possible reason for the USDA warning.  The key phrase is "partially cook."  If the browning is being done as a means for shortening the subsequent cooking time (i.e. slow cooking for 6 hours instead of 12), then you might have a problem.  Because if you don't manage to kill all the bacteria, then the total required subsequent cooking time is going to creep back up as they multiply; that means your 6 hours in the slow cooker that might have been enough if you had seared the beef immediately before, are no longer enough to guarantee safe consumption.

So I am adding a caveat to my original answer: It is probably safe to refrigerate the browned beef, but you should calculate your cooking time as though you had never browned it.  If you are concerned about safety (and I maintain the risks are minuscule), then treat the browned/refrigerated beef as uncooked meat.  If you do that, I cannot see any reason why this wouldn't be safe.


Flavor notes of olive oil varietals? I prefer extra-virgin olive oils with fruit and grassy notes, rather than the peppery back-of-the-throat flavors that some folks enjoy. Are there particular olive varietals that are more likely to be fruity and/or grassy? Obviously when possible I taste before buying, but in the event that I need to choose just based on bottle info, is there any way to increase my odds?

EDIT: so just to be clear, I know well some brands that meet my needs. For example, Frantoia is widely available and hits just those fruit, grassy notes. My question is more for those situations where I don't have my own supply; maybe on vacation and just need to pick a bottle among the 6 at a small town-grocery, which ain't gonna give me a taste. At that moment, do I have a better shot of getting grassy and fruit with say an arbequina vs. kalamata oil? Or is there some other method of reading the bottle that might help?

When food researchers want to compare the flavors of a food item, they assemble a group of expert tasters and train them on a controlled vocabulary to describe the many different compounds that can be detected in the food item.  Over time some of these vocabularies get standardized.  A limited vocabulary has been adopted by the International Olive Council to describe commercial olive oils and will give you a rough idea of what to expect from a brand.

To try different oils you can look for a local tasting bar (similar to wine bars) or search for “tasting notes” and “olive oil” to find postings from olive oil enthusiasts.  A good place to get started with oil tasting is the olive source, which enumerates a vocabulary with short descriptions, offers tips on tasting olive oil, and lists tasting bars.


Help with a chili recipe: need help on fruit/sweet selection Follow up to Bean Selection I am planning on making a new chili using grilled venison, Great Lakes Black Out Stout, and roasted corn. There was a sister thread to this about deciding on a bean. Thanks to @justkt 's suggestion i am keeping it simple with chili beans (the kidney beans in sauce). However, as i was thinking about the heat, i forgot the other crucial element: the sweet.

For me a good chili isnt just kinda hot: It should be perfectly good and hot, but kept in check with sweet. This in particular is why you see a decent habanero hot sauce with lime, lemon etc in it. Normally I add citrus fruits to my chili.

Since I am cooking Venison, stewed in Stout beer, and hoping for a dark woods moodiness to the food I am thinking of breaking away from the norm. What sweet would you bring to chili in this case?

I googled 'what fruit pairs well with venison' and cherry (for its acidity) was suggested. This is a really sexy idea to me, but i am unsure if thats just my brain overthinking it. if added, i suppose it should be as a salty puree, probably quite early in the staging (ie when the meat is prepared and added with the beer).
normally i add the components in this order (and it works well): garlic, onions, spices, beer reduction, tomatoes, meat, [fruit x?] beer reduction, beans... and typically have it simmer for 4-6 hours. Will this make a grilled venison steak tough or tender?

Traditional Cincinatti chili calls for half a square of grated baker's chocolate.  I don't know how set you are on fruit, but given the gaminess of venison, this might be less of a flavour clash than actual fruit.

Unsweetened chocolate is usually used in the former, but if you want something sweeter, then you could substitute bittersweet chocolate here.

If that idea doesn't turn you on, I would stick with a mild unrefined sugar (i.e. brown sugar) or maple syrup.  The notion of chili peppers, beer, kidney beans, venison and a sweet fruit in the same stew sounds like a risky combination to me (but then again, I can't claim to have tried it).  Personally, I'd have to recommend a subtler sweetener.


White ganache from cocoa butter won't set I want to create white truffles which doesn't taste like white chocolate (sugar and vanilla) but like dark chocolate. So I tried to create them from cocoa butter.

I added 60 g of cocoa butter, 17g of cream and 12g of powdered sugar (because it tasted sugary enough) and a little of salt. The problem is when ganache cooled down it was made from 2 layers. Hard top and quite liquid bottom. I could add more cream but I am afraid that the bottom would be more liquid and the top would be the same.
Maybe the problem is that most recipes for white chocolate from cocoa butter needed milk powder (which is very expensive) or egg white powder (which is also expensive) and I did ganache without them. Do I need an emulsifier? I have soy lecithin and some others modern thickeners.

I can made truffles from dark chocolate without problem.

What you're missing is solids. 17g of cream (especially when you consider the high percentage of fat in cream in relation to solids) is not going to be enough against 60g of cocoa butter. Where are you from? In the US, milk solids (in the form of dried milk powder) are cheap compared to cocoa butter. Many high quality white chocolate brands do not contain any kind of emulsifier, but all contain a significant volume of solids. Those solids are almost always milk, with the exception of a few specialized vegan varieties.

I'm wondering in what way you are trying to emulate dark chocolate, since the difference between dark chocolate and white chocolate is cocoa solids (the dark stuff)?


Non-alcoholic mint julep? Can I substitute Bourbon in this recipe? Lemonade would make it too sour. Water would make it too watery.

I know this isn't exactly cooking per se, but the reason behind this is that I have a BUNCH of left over mint that's probably a day from going bad and I'm scrambling to

In the world of cocktails, the term for creating a drink with no alcohol is "virgin".

If you google "virgin mint julep", you will find recipes to try to simulate the beverage without bourbon.   They employ a variety of strategies, but ginger ale, lemon juice, or lemonade seem to come up fairly frequently, alone or in combination.


Where can I obtain cream without additives? Until a few years ago, with only a little effort, I could find whipping cream and heavy cream without carrageenan and other undesirable ingredients in grocery stores. Now my source has dried up. How can I obtain cream that consists of nothing but cream? I typically only need small amounts and not all that frequently. I don't imagine I can just drive up to a dairy, knock the secret knock and whisper "psssst...where do you keep the good stuff?"

Looking for a farmers market is a good way to find fresh possibly additive-free dairy, or to find recommendations on where to get fresh additive-free dairy. Just talk to the vendors. Most know more about the bad side of additives and hormones than us and look very diligently to avoid them.


If your bread doesn't sound hollow can it still be done? This may be an old question, Can bread be done even if it does not sound hollow? The temperature is 197F but the bottom does not sound hollow. The bread is golden brown. The only thing that doesn't fit for being done is the hollow sound. It is a buttermilk bread. I have baked it 5 minutes longer than it says too.

Absolutely, bread can be done without sounding hollow. We can make the analogy to a drum--if the drumhead is too loose, it won't sound hollow, and if the drum is full of something, it won't sound hollow. Similarly, if the crust is soft or if the inside of bread is undercooked and doughy, it won't sound hollow.

That said, for many breads--especially those made with enriched doughs--a crisp crust and a stiff interior are not good indicators of "doneness".

For a typical sandwich bread (one made with some milk, egg, sugar, and butter, like I expect your buttermilk bread is), it does often sound hollow when done. However, this is not a perfect (or even very good) test--even if it does not sound hollow, it may still be done.

The best test is to take a slice from the middle of the loaf after it has cooled. If the interior is too soft and doesn't spring back to shape when depressed, just bake a bit more next time--to 200F or 205F. Some more enriched doughs need to be baked to slightly higher temperatures.


Whole Egg, Egg White or Egg Yolk for binding Hamburgers When I make hamburger patties for the kids I like to add extra grated vegetables in there - usually zucchini, carrots, and onion. Also some herbs. Unfortunately when I cook them the burgers disintegrate most of the time in the pan - I don't even try to cook them on a BBQ as I know they'll fall through the cracks into the fire.

I have tried adding an egg or 2 to bind it together better, but perhaps I need to add more? But which part of the egg is the binder? The yolk or the white? If I add 4 yolks will it help - or would I be better adding 4 egg whites? Or do I need the whole egg?

If it helps:

I try to use the 80/20 beef mince,
include wheat bran or breadcrumbs as filler,
squeeze the extra liquid out of the mix when forming into patties,
put a dimple in the top for expansion,
refrigerate for 30 minutes before cooking,
and then cook on a high heat for 4 minutes each side with the lid on.

Generally you'd use the whole egg. The egg white provides most of the structural integrity, but the yolk does a little too. Also, the yolk helps with what might otherwise be a rubbery texture. Letting the patties sit in the refrigerator for half an hour or so will also help them stay together.

I suspect that the answer you linked, talking about how the yolk is the "only binder", is mistaking emulsification for binding. Ground meat, veggies, and egg whites are all water-based mixtures; they don't need lecithin to play nice with each other.

Incidentally, if you like zucchini and carrots and onions inside the burger, you'll like them even more on top of the burger. Take all that stuff you were going to mix in (other than the egg), slice the veggies rather than mince them, add a bit of olive oil and more salt than you think you should, and saute the crap out of them on high heat for a few minutes. Really char it up. Vegetables in a burger don't want to be steamed in a jacket of meat; they want to do their own flavor work.


Why are my (italian Whole foods) sausages still pink inside? I bought some italian pork and garlic sausages from Whole foods.  I cooked them on a low heat, they were in the pan for probably an hour but the middle remained slightly pink.  To be precise, by middle I mean if you cut the sausage the inner 2/4 would be slightly but noticably pink.  I checked with a thermometer (which I checked as accurate) and the temperature was at in the 180s, although I could just be measuring wrongly (I cut the sausage open and stuck the thermometer straight into the pinkish park).  I tried them still and they taste kind of dry and overcooked.

I understand sometimes preservatives are used which makes things pink but 1) These were from wholefoods and there is nothing in them except for salt, garlic, pepper and sugar 2) The outer area near the skin was gray and not pink.

Any ideas?

Checking for redness is not a good indicator of doneness.  For instance, freezer burned chicken tends to look less red or pink--taking on white spots and a grayish color.  Some meats will also stay red no matter what.  Think back to every time you saw real pork bacon.  Were the meat strips ever any color except red, even when fried to a crisp?

The most advised way to check for doneness is to use a meat thermometer, inserted into the deepest part of the meat.  Once it reaches a temperature you're comfortable with, that should be sufficient.  The FDA publishes a table, which was revised in 2011 here.  For some of their meats, I go off of other sources that actually suggest lower temperatures for more desired textures--but some people want a higher guarantee and that's fine.

For me, the main reason to heat meat is to eliminate bacteria.  This chart illustrates how long it takes to sterilize cook chicken at various temperatures.  The bacteria-death-rate chart will look similar for other meats, but might have different temperatures because of different natural bacterias.  Often times when I cook, meats come out reddish or pinkish in the middle, and I enjoy that.

Edit: This link provides a detailed bio-chemical explanation for why meat will turn brown or not during cooking.  Nitrites and nitric oxide are one explanation, but in general a lack of oxygen, presence of carbon monoxide, or certain pH levels in the meat will cause cooked-pinkness as well.

Some presence of carbon monoxide is common when cooking in a gas or charcoal oven.  Furthermore, a sausage cooked in its casing fully intact will have very little oxygen available to the meat--meaning the iron inside will not oxidize and brown.


Vacuum sealed ham left out for 9 hours, is it still safe to eat? I accidentally left a vacuum sealed ham steak out on the counter for 9 hours. If I reheat it is it still safe to eat?

If the seal isn't broken I'll eat it without hesitation...

Don't forget the purpose of making ham is to preserve the otherwise perishable pork... so that the meat can be maintained and eaten over a much longer period...

The ham houses may have temperature & moisture controlled rooms to enhance flavour (and it's NOT fridge temperature)... but the butcher shops hang the hams in display... for much longer than 9 hours...

If ham cannot withstand being kept in room temperature, it's not ham... The kind you described contains a bit more moisture, but the salt level is just as high... way high... high enough for retarding bacteria even if it was out of the package for 9 hours...

If it was on my counter overnight, I'd definitely pan fry it with some mushroom for lunch, and eat it with cranberry sauce !!


How does adding baking soda to soaking beans/lentils reduce the gas they make you have? I've heard a few times that adding a pinch of baking soda to the water you use to soak beans/lentils in, reduces the gas it makes you have. I've not do any measured experiments myself, but I have anecdotal evidence it does help. But what's the science behind it?

Summary: Baking soda is mostly used to soften the beans faster and decrease cooking time by increasing pH.  In some scenarios, it has been shown to aid in breaking down gas-causing sugars as well.  Higher concentrations of baking soda and/or pressure cooking may be needed to make this latter effect significant.  In most cases, an increased soaking time will have a much greater impact on gas-causing sugars, so baking soda should perhaps be reserved for situations where preparation time is limited.

Baking soda isn't primarily added to reduce gas.  As pointed out in previous responses, it can use its sodium ions to replace the magnesium in the cell walls of plants, resulting in faster softening.  However, this can also be done with the addition of regular table salt.

The reason baking soda in particular is often added to bean recipes (either during soaking or during cooking itself) is that it makes the beans slightly alkaline, which increases the softening effect.  As Harold McGee says in Food and Cooking, "Acidic cooking liquids slow the dissolving of cell-wall hemicelluloses and therefore the softening process, while alkaline cooking water has the reverse effect."  He further recommends:

  Baking soda at 0.5% (1 teaspoon/qt) can reduce the cooking time by
  nearly 75%; it contains sodium and in addition is alkaline, which
  facilitates the dissolving of the cell-wall hemicelluloses.... The
  alkalinity of baking soda can give an unpleasantly slippery mouth feel
  and soapy taste.

The softening of the cell walls will allow faster breakdown in some of the sugars with cause gas.  Scientific research showed this effect of alkaline substances like baking soda on beans and legumes many decades ago, dating back at least to the early 1970s.  Unfortunately, most of this research is only available in obscure food journals, but this free article gives a sense of common findings (here regarding Seker beans).  As for the mechanism, they offer:

  Ku et al. (1976) noted that soaking in the 0.5% sodium bicarbonate
  solution might increase softening of the testa [seed coat] and cotyledons [interior of bean] that
  could increase the sugars extraction.

Ultimately, the combination of an 18-hour soak in the baking soda solution followed by cooking in a pressure cooker achieved the highest reductions in gas-causing sugars (up to 70%).  (Pressure cooking also destroys these sugars more effectively than conventional cooking.  Also, note that, unlike McGee's advice, they rinsed the beans after soaking and used fresh water for cooking.)

While baking soda speeds cooking and can reduce flatulence, it also has negative impacts on nutrition.  Ku et al. (cited above) noted protein destruction when cooking tripled when baking soda was added.  But the more significant concern is B vitamins.  Again from the Seker bean article:

  [A]lkali condition may cause further destruction in the Vitamin B
  contents, especially thiamin and riboflavin (Swaminathan, 1974).
  Therefore tap water might be a good alternative to protect vitamins
  and have a moderate decrease for the flatulence factors.

And actually, it's important to note that pressure cooking had a very significant impact on how effective the baking soda solution was.  Assuming an 18-hour soak, the following reductions in gas-causing sugars were seen on average:

Plain water soak, pressure cooking: 51% reduction
Baking soda soak, pressure cooking: 69% reduction
Plain water soak, normal boiling: 48% reduction
Baking soda soak, normal boiling: 51% reduction

Baking soda thus barely had a significant effect in this study without pressure cooking.  Other studies have also seen the effect of baking soda affected by cooking method, but elements such as soaking time may play a role as well.  This study, for example, measured statistically significant decreases in gas-causing sugars due to baking soda in five other bean types under almost all types of preparation conditions (6-hour soak vs. 12-hour soak, soaking alone vs. boiling vs. pressure cooking, sprouting for 1-4 days, etc.).  However, in almost all preparations the sugar contents were only decreased by a few percent with baking soda.  (Even pressure cooking did not change this in most cases.)  Only one sugar, raffinose, was reduced by more, in some types of beans achieving an additional 5-14% reduction with baking soda.

However, the important finding to take away from these studies is the relative importance of the various parameters.  In order of effect, they are:

Length of soaking (or germination, for even greater effect)
Pressure cooking, instead of simmering
Adding baking soda

For almost all scenarios, it appears that soaking for an extra few hours, doing a 24-hour germination before cooking, or choosing to pressure cook beans will have far greater impacts than adding baking soda.  Moreover, extended soaking or germination tend to actually release more nutrients from the beans as various enzymes break down indigestible substances, rather than destroying some of the nutrients as baking soda can.  Other studies have suggested that long cooking will also break down gas-causing compounds more quickly than soaking could do.  Thus, in some circumstances, an extended low simmer with no prior soaking might achieve a greater reduction than a brief soaking period with baking soda.  (The baking soda might even be counterproductive in this case, since it would soften the beans faster and not allow a longer cooking period.)

In any case, most of these studies have assumed a rather significant amount of baking soda during soaking (generally around McGee's recommendation of 1 tsp/qt), since the pH must be increased significantly for the baking soda to have effects.  Adding only a "pinch" may have only a negligible impact, particularly if the beans are only boiled and not pressure cooked.

Moral of the story (again): While baking soda does something in reducing gas, the effect is generally quite small.  Use it primarily to speed up cooking or soften beans instead.


safe to sear beef tenderloin the night before? Possible Duplicate:
  Can I Brown Beef For Slow Cooking the Night Before

I would like to prep my Beef Wellington the night before.  I would sear, cover with mushrooms, prosciutto the night before, refrigerate overnight then wrap in pastry the next day before cooking.  Is this safe?

Yes, should be safe, provided your beef was fresh before preperation.


How to keep a lunch box fresh for more than 2 hours? I've been searching about making a lunch box. From what I searched, food is usually safe for up to 2 hours after it was taken from the fridge (pasta, hardboiled egg, etc).

However, if commuting takes 2 hours and the place I'm going doesn't have a fridge, which foods could I bring and make sure they're still fine to eat?

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think most people leave their lunch boxes for more than 2 hours before they can get to eat them. Is it still fine to eat?

I also read that eggs especially shouldn't be eaten after 2 hours, However, I've seen a lot of students, incl. me eat egg sandwiches 2 hours later. Is this a written rule that nobody follows?

I was planning on making some cold pasta with cucumber, cherry tomatoes, hardboiled egg (?), carrot, pickles and some fruit on the side, but now I'm not sure whether it is safe to bring and eat after ~4-5 hours.

For a great answer on safety and temperature, see this answer.

For your lunch, you could get an reusable ice pack to keep your food chilled.

You could also separate the ingredients that need to stay chilled from those that don't and mix them just prior to eating.