Which pasta should be used for what sauce? As I understand it, the philosophy of what pasta to choose depends a lot on the sauce. With bolognese, you have a heavy sauce, with fairly large meat particles and tomato parts. This means, that you need to serve pasta, which is going to be able to "carry" this heavy sauce, which means you shouldn't use spaghetti, but rather tagliatelle, pappardelle or another wide pasta variety. You should also not use short pasta like tubes, shells, penne or farfalle for the same reason: none of the heavy meat and sauce is going to stick to the short pasta and it's going to be impossible to eat.

For light sauces (for example Aglio e Olio) other considerations come into play: You want pasta with a small surface because you want to have a higher ratio of sauce:pasta in any given bite. Thin spaghetti is going to be able to carry more of the light sauce.

Is there a reputable, authentic source of set ruleset for when to use which pasta?

Are there general rules, which could help when deciding when to use the different pasta categories like long pasta, wide / thin, tubes, ribbons, fresh vs. dried?

I am mainly interested in how it is being done in Italy generally. I am also interested in the general logic to the rules.

General rules are hard to be made or at least your question made me surprised that, in spite or knowing or feeling what goes with what, indeed I cannot condense everything in few words or even sentences.

Still I can try to list a few lines

a minimalistic sauce in which the principal fat is oil  goes with long dried pasta such as spaghetti or trenette (e.g. aglio e olio; salted anchovies and capers...)
a simple condiment in which the principal fat is butter or cheese goes with short fresh or dried pasta (e.g. penne or maccheroni al burro, cacio e pepe..)
condiments and sauces in which ingredients are cutted into not too small pieces that need emphasis usually go with short formats (penne mozzarella and eggplants, pasta alla norma, ....). I can also say if there are pieces with their own texture and consistency than this requires a solid pasta frame as well, plus comparable size... so short format here. A network of spaghetti would results to loose even if al dente
exceptions to the just above lines exist and one of the more iconic is spaghetti with seafood. I see why no to serve penne ai frutti di mare but I cannot write it down ;)
very creamy sauces goes with long format (spaghetti carbonara, trenette al pesto, ....)

Prevalently tomato or meat base condiments are better discussed in terms of dried no egg versus fresh egg containing pasta while keeping in mind the above "rules":

very red tomatoes sauces containing vegetables and sea ingredients go well with standard pasta, either fresh or dried
reach tomatoes sauces containing meat or high in fats do their best with fresh egg-based pasta.

I am aware that this is just an attempt.

The typical condiment of my town is pesto genovese.
It goes primarily with

Dried trenette, ie a kind of spaghetti with a flattened section

Mandilli (literally tissues, basically lasagna which is cutted down to 4×4 cm or more)

Dumplings.

It is indeed hard to give a rationale to this. Still, if not obliged by shorts of ingredients, I would never serve spaghetti al pesto in spite of the striking resemblance with trenette.  I just know it won't be that good.

It might be against the policy but I am curious to see how many contradictory items we could find and edit this answer accordingly.
Or even delete it if it turns out that direct test / experience / feeling are the only things that count.


A strange cooker or fait-tout or... what can it be? We have this odd cooker. We have not been able to figure out what it is. The top can't be opened.

EDIT : There's some liquid inside both parts, we can hear it if we shaken them. Even if we can't figure if it's water or something else as we can't see it.

Does anyone know what this is?

It might be a Midas Ice Cream Maker, one of us found.

Makes healthy frozen treats in only 20 minutes
Simply place the Midas in your freezer overnight, once frozen fill with chilled ice cream mixture
Use to quickly chill soups and dips, as an ice bucket or a wine cooler
Makes 2x1.5 litre batches before refreezing
Hypoallergenic, durable stainless steel construction
Non-electric, no moving parts
Dishwasher safe
Recipe booklet includes 20 traditional and low-fat recipes

Here is it's guide.


Why does pressure cooking of chicken eggs make eggs easier to peel? In an experiment, I cooked a 12 organic chicken eggs from the same batch:

A) 6 in boiling water and

B) 6 in a pressure cooker:

6 eggs in a basket which is on a tripod inside the cooker
5 minutes in hot steam at 117 °C
waited 5 minutes to cool down until the pressure was at room level
alternatively I cooled the cooker with cold water from outside until the pressure was gone.

In both experiments the eggs were put in the cold cooker without a hole in the shell. The eggs were put in a bowl with cold water in the end.

I found that the shell and membrane of the pressure-cooked eggs were a lot easier to remove. (The eggs also seemed to taste fresher and more intense.) I could not find a reason or explanation. I have repeated this since 2016 once a week.

The effect is remarkable, because organic eggs are often much more difficult to peel than factory farming eggs.

Is there an explanation for the pressure-cooked eggs being easier to peel?

I would like to see reliable sources (e.g. papers or other trustworthy publications), not just personal opinions.

Yes, I wrote a post about this a few years ago - the first to describe the method in a home pressure cooker.  The theory goes that the pressure difference inside and outside the egg PLUS the shock of the cold facilitates the detachment of membrane from the shell.  The Kitchn tried and confirmed my method and many of my readers will no longer hard boil an egg any other way but Serious Eats had different results - I don't know why.


Yield on a Boneless Turkey What will be the yield on an 8lb 15% added solution boneless turkey? I am catering for 700 hundred people next week. I would like to make sure I have as little waste as possible and I do not over order.

Chicken breast, not overcooked, loses 10%-18% of it's weight during cooking.
Turkey will be similar.

As you can see, brining a bird, either wet or dry, results in less moisture loss.

Your 15% solution undoubtedly contains some salt but I doubt it is enough to be considered fully brined.

I would therefore, expect your yield to be around 80%-83%. Obviously, if you overcook the meat you will lose even more water.

Of course, these charts were made to demonstrate the effects of brining and not as an exhaustive study into poultry yields. For 700 people you would want to get this as close as you can. Personally, I would salt and cook one of them today, weighing before and after to give myself more confidence.


Is cooking beans or any other food in metal cans safe? Occasionally, I go camping and cook beans over a fire inside of the [what I am assuming is tin] can it comes packaged in (after opening the lid).   Does heating the metal can release any chemicals in the food?   Is it safe?

I usually have the top of the can open and stir it frequently.

The interior of modern cans are a heat resistant plastic (remember they pressure cook the cans at the factory), and will be fine for heating liquid things

Just don't try using it to fry stuff!


How to roast peanuts on the gas stove without getting the brown spots? I have the iron kadhai and gas stove.

When I roast the peanuts (without exterior shell) they get the brown spots on them. Of course I do keep on moving the peanuts in the kadhai but still I can't move my arm terribly fast since I have to move it continuously for 10 minutes. I get tired.

What can be done so that they do get roasted properly without the brown spots?

Roasting peanuts in a pan on a stove cooks them primarily via conduction (i.e., the surface of the peanuts touching the hot surface of the pan).  Since peanuts are round, each part of the peanut must touch the pan for an equal amount of time during the cooking process to be evenly roasted.  That's nearly impossible without something like a barrel roaster (which very few people will have in a home kitchen).

Cooking with convection (i.e., hot air) will produce much more even results since the heat will transfer to all sides of the peanut relatively evenly.  Roast the peanuts at 175°C/350°F for 30 to 35 minutes, rotating the pan half-way.  You can also try putting the peanuts on a wire rack (as opposed to directly on the sheet tray), which will help the hot air to more evenly cook their bottoms.

If it does not interfere with your ultimate use of the peanuts, you can also try coating them in peanut oil before cooking (roughly 30ml of oil per kilo of peanuts).  The oil will help the heat transfer more evenly to the peanuts.

Finally, you can also use the Chinese method of deep-frying the peanuts in your kadhai; roughly 15 to 20 minutes.  Immersion in hot oil will cook the peanuts evenly.


Have a bent frying pan I have a frying pan that was dropped and is now bent making it where the lid doesn't sit correctly on it.  Is there a way to fix this?

Holding a bit of 2X4 (wood) up to the bent edge and banging on the wood with a hammer works for aluminum pans. If steel, but not too thick, the technique should work as well. You have to start slow, with light hits, to get a feel for how much deformation you get for force applied. Don't use a hammer directly on the pan surface, it'll likely leave damaged areas.


Using a food mill for vegetable stock When I make stock,  I use a potato masher to try and extract some of the juice from the remaining softened vegetables after siving. Can I use a food mill to do this more effectively?

I don't see why not.
A food mill is regularly used to make purees. It's a popular choice for people making baby food. Here's an example with two different mesh options:

Another option might be a ricer, which is more like a giant garlic press, whereas a food mill has a crank, a ricer has a lever-action.
Ricers are also popular for baby food and mashed potatoes and  often have different hole size options.

As a note, you'll want to make sure that there's not anything too hard in the stock like bone fragments. They might be fine in the ricer but they may be problematic in the food mill.
Based on comments here, it seems like the mill is more versatile. Everyone loves the ricer for potatoes but seem to prefer the mill otherwise, so your idea may be better.
User bobcatsteph3 says:

I only use my ricer for potatoes. With the food mill you can puree soups, make smooth tomato sauce, make easy, fantastic applesauce, and yes, mashed potatoes. And you can do all those things with the skin/peels on.
The food mill is harder to clean, and takes more storage space, but I really like OXO's, it's very easy to use, if I could only have one, I'd take the food mill.


Can couscous substitute for acini di pepe? I couldn't find acini di pepe pasta in my nearby grocery store. Can I substitute Israeli couscous (bigger pearls than regular couscous) or do I need to find a store with a bigger selection? What are the differences between the two pastas?

Overall, you should be fine. Those two are closely related, both pasta-like little pearls from extruded dough.

The main difference is that Israeli couscous / Ptitim is toasted, giving it a slightly nuttier flavour. For most use cases they should be useable interchangeably.


Is there a rule of thumb on vinegar's abilities as a preservative? To follow up on the storage of ketchup in particular, many items in cupboards and refrigerators have vinegar listed as a key ingredient. The first things that come to mind are hot sauce, mustard, ketchup. With respect to vinegar as a preservative, is there a rule of thumb in understanding the following:

how does vinegar work as a preservative; is it solely by virtue of its acidic content?
aside from the presence of sugars or artificial preservatives, is there a kind of ratio (or other metric) of foods containing, or whose base is, vinegar to know whether something needs to be refrigerated to keep from spoiling?
what components can act to counteract vinegar's ability to preserve food?
upon combination, can vinegar stabilize anything that otherwise would spoil? (If yes, you can answer generally, don't worry about a laundry list)

Note: This is asking not about specific jarring/pickling or other long term preservation methods, but rather to the on-use storage of food items in the kitchen and their ability to keep outside of refrigeration without spoiling.

is it solely by virtue of its acidic
  content?

Yes, not a lot of biochemistry is happy living at pH 2 - and the stuff that can live there is already happily living in your gut with a ph of 1

  is there a kind of ratio (or other metric) of vinegar to know whether something needs to be refrigerated to keep from spoiling?

You mean foods already packaged in vinegar? It would depend on how well they had been cooked/sterilized before packaging and how strong the vinegar is.
Industrially made pickles will be a lot cleaner than something you pickle at home, but store bought pickles are likely to use much cheaper, more dilute vinegar than your grandmother did.

  what components can act to counteract vinegar's ability to preserve food?

Anything too alkali will neutralise the vinegar's acidity

  can vinegar stabilize anything that otherwise would spoil?

Not necessarily, it has to be something where the vinegar can penetrate into the food - it's not going to preserve steaks as well as vegetables. And of course the vinegar taste is going to help if you are trying to preserve say strawberries!
Also fungal spores can probably survive dormant in vinegar (if not grow) - fungal spores can survive dormant pretty much anything.


How to prepare pie dough in bulk at home? Common knowledge dictates keeping the fats cool and the tools chilled. But when you are preparing more than 8X quantity, this poses some difficulties, or at least some stress. The ambient air, the size of home blenders and food processors--it’s all a mess.

I worked out an answer a week ago, so I'm posting it. But I would love to see a better answer.

Keep the fats as cold as possible before you start. Done right, it will more than compensate for the warmth of hands, blender/processor parts, and ambient temperature.

Having somewhat chilled your choice of fats, separate them into small, 1 inch sized pieces, working with copious flour to keep them from sticking to one another. Place this in the freezer overnight. This allows the blade to chew up even near-frozen bits. I haven’t noticed much degradation with this method, though I wouldn’t the leave fats in for much longer than that.

Mix your dry ingredients together.

Put the thoroughly chilled fats in a blender/mixer, leaving some room. Then, using only as much dry ingredients as necessary, pulse the fats until you have pearls slightly smaller than fish gravel. This works especially good for blenders where the ingredients tend to get stuck at the bottom. If you get the chance, stow the blended stuff in the freezer while you work with the next batch.

Once you have completed the blending en masse, you can add the rest of the dry ingredients. You should have a uniform texture to the whole mixture. Add water until the dough comes together with limited kneading. Wrap and return to fridge as soon as possible.


Do lamb kidneys require their cores to be removed and what is the easiest way to remove them? I am cooking lamb kidneys by frying them on a pan. If I do not remove the cores of the kidneys, that tissue in the core remains and is hard to chew afterwards.

Is there a way to cook the kidneys with the cores in place so that they become softer? this is because they are not easy to remove.

What is the easiest technique for removing the cores if needed?

The simplest way to remove kidney cores is to cut the kidneys in half (horizontally) then snip the cores out with a pair of sharp scissors. With practice this can be done in two or three quick cuts.


Can I make microwave frozen ready pizza? I would like to make frozen pizzas and heat them in the microwave. I understand that to warm in oven would be better but I don't want to use an oven. I want to make my own frozen ready pizza and heat in a microwave and achieve similar results to heating in oven. Is this possible? Can I do it by adding an ingredient to the dough?

The secret to microwave pizzas isn't the ingredients (although that might be part of it) ... the real trick is that they have you cook the pizza on top of the box.

The box has a special 'crisping disk' in it which is susceptible to microwaves ... it absorbs microwaves, heats up and then either conducts or radiates heat to the food to be cooked.

You can buy microwaveable 'crisping trays' or 'crisping pans'.  You can also buy 'crisping paper' which is sold in rolls but only intended for a single use.  Make sure that it specifically says that it's for microwave, and for pizza.  (there are ceramic 'crisping trays' to cook bacon in the microwave, and I don't know if they're susceptors, or just to drain away the grease)


What species is Chinese dried mushrooms (冬菇)? I don't speak any Chinese, but I asked some Hong Kong vendors and they wrote down "冬菇" for me. Some websites call these Shiitake Mushrooms, but is this correct? I know they're dried, but they still don't look like Shiitake to me.

Are these really the same species as Shiitake Mushrooms in American supermarkets?

冬菇 are indeed Lentinula edodes or shiitake mushrooms.
Note that mushrooms can vary a bit in color depending on where the were grown and dehydrating will also change them.


Skillet Cooked Shrimp Texture I was wondering exactly what a perfectly cooked shrimp's texture should be.  I know the "rubbery" texture means over cooked and that if it's clear in the middle it's undercooked.  But in terms of mouth feel and texture what should I expect? There is a "crunch" to each bite, almost like I'm breaking through some sort of layer.  I just don't know if this is normal or not.  I cooked the shrimp in a non-stick skillet on medium heat for about 5-6 minutes total and flipped the shrimp every 30-45 seconds.

The doneness of something is obviously a matter of a opinion, but based on the comments I received the "crunch" in each bite is normal. It is overcooked if it is tough and rubbery and it is undercooked if you cut it open and you see white on the outside but a clear-ish color towards the middle.


Strawberries that keep in the refrigerator for more than two days I buy fresh strawberries frequently. Unlike this question, I try to buy them to last, preferably a few days. I naturally avoid strawberries that look overripe (or worse mouldy), preferring punnets with some strawberries with a little white close to the top. I keep my strawberries in the fridge. Often I keep the punnet in a (loose) paper bag (the shop places them in this). The morning after I buy them they are generally fine, the next morning OK, and more often than not after that they seem to want to turn into compost.
Am I doing something wrong here (selection, way of keeping in fridge) or is this "just life"? I have tried changing supermarket, buying from the market, different varieties but there doesn't appear to be a lot of correlation.
This is in Switzerland if it matters, so no GM. Good quality supermarket. The refrigerator is if anything over-efficient. I'm keeping them in the main body of the refrigerator. I'm normally buying them at lunchtime and eating them in the morning for breakfast.
Prior research here: I've searched and looked (enviously) at this question (which suggests either I am doing something wrong or strawberries in the US are different), and this question (which suggests a couple of days is the minimum).

Your berries may already have mold spores on their outsides. If you kill the spores before refrigerating the berries, they should last longer.
This source recommends submerging your berries in a bath of 1 cup vinegar + 3 cups water, then draining and thoroughly drying them in a salad spinner lined with paper towels. Then they recommend storing them in a wide, flat container so they can be laid in a single layer rather than crowded together and on top of each other. Line the bottom of the container with paper towels and leave the lid ajar.
If you are out out vinegar, the same source recommends a quick (30 second) dunk in a hot water bath (120°F - 140°F). Then dry and store the berries the same way.
Other sources recommend rinsing the berries with plain water after the vinegar bath to remove the vinegar smell and taste.
If you don't have a salad spinner, dry them by spreading them out in a single layer on paper towels. I use a wide pan with edges at least 2" high (a sheet cake pan works well). That way you can gently shake it, so the berries roll around on the paper towels and get dried off on all sides.


Water collects around cooked idlis in my steamer I am running into a problem where water collects around my cooked idlis. I have used the steamer for about 7 years with no issues. All of a sudden, I am seeing that the top most idly tier is fine while water collects around cooked idlis in the lower tiers. The problem gets worse increases as we move down in tiers making the bottom most idly plate impossible to use. Has anybody run into a similar issue and was able to get around it?

I have tried reducing the flame and cooking longer. I have also changed the steam vent whistle. I have even tried switching the steamer! No luck so far.

Maybe try using less water next time and boil the water before putting in the plates. Usually too much water is what causes the lower plates to have water.


Do you need to break up a large dough ball into smaller balls for optimal proving? I often make homemade pizza making the bases by hand from scratch. I'm going away with a group of friends and plan on making a very large batch of pizzas one night. I'll use a full 5kg (11 pound) bag of bakers flour.

With a pile of dough this large, would it need to be broken up into smaller balls while rising or is it fine to leave in a single large ball (I have a very large saucepan that would fit it)? I'm concerned maybe air wouldn't make it into the base of such a large mass of dough or that the weight would prevent the dough at the bottom rising.

Commercially, how are large quantities of dough proved?

Almost every type of yeast bread dough is allowed to rise twice after kneading.  The first rise is called bulk-fermentation - after kneading, all of the dough (the bulk) gets set-aside to allow the yeast to do its job.  After this rise is complete, the dough is deflated (some people call this punching down), portioned and appropriately shaped, then allowed to rise a second time which is called proofing.

So:  first rise in bulk (bulk fermentation), second rise portioned-out (proofing).

The gas that expands the dough is carbon dioxide and it will form throughout the dough mass from yeast activity without any problem during bulk fermentation.


Can ginger root that's gone bad hurt you if you eat it? We use ginger root with a mixture of lemon and other ingredients.

Can ginger root that's gone bad hurt you if you eat it?

Sure. Most foods can cause you damage if you eat it when spoiled. E.g. if its grown moldy, you don't know if the mold is a safe to eat one or not.


Why is my apple pie not crispy? I made an apple pie, but the crust was thick and not crispy. Why? What should I do to fix it?

For the crust, I used:

1 cup of flour
Butter
1 egg
1/4 cup of sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon of salt

As for the apples:

2 apples sliced to small cubes (without the apples cover)
2 tablespoon of sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Thanks in advance.

Gluten is what makes doughs chewy, and gluten is associated with high protein flour, so you should try and get low protein ("soft") flour.  Also, the colder your fat (i.e., butter) the flakier and crispier your crust will be.  You also may want to substitute some of the butter for lard or shortening; the lack of water in the lard will also help the crust become crispy and avoid gluten formation associated with hydration of the flour.  Note that you cannot substitute lard/shortening for butter in an equal ratio; you should try and find a recipe that specifically calls for it to get the ratio correct.  As rumtscho noted, you can also blind bake the crust to start its cooking process (but as ElendilTheTall warns, you may not be able to call it a "pie" after that!).  Finally, it may be the case that your pie filling is too moist and therefore makes the interior of the crust very soggy.  I've found that almost all good apple pie recipes call for pre-cooking the apples to remove a lot of their moisture before putting them in the crust.


How can I add salt and get it to permeate throughout chocolate? Based on a previous question I understand it is not possible to make chocolate from home since specialist and expensive equipment is reqiured.  As such I bought premade dark chocolate from the shop, melted it(brang water pot to simmer, added anotther pot wih chocolate in to top of first pot). I then added salt in as I wanted to increase the salt content of the chocolate ensuring the salt is distributed well.

When eating the chocolate I noticed that the salt did not distribute throughout the chocolate and the grains didnt even dissolve properly. large salt grains were present in the chocolate.

I then melted some coconut butter in the same way, added salt and noticed the salt grains didnt dissolve either so clearly need to do more to get the salt to dissolve and distribute.  I added water to the coconut butter and it the salt did dissolve however it seemed to still be seperate from the coconut fat in the same way oil seperates from water.  I then added coco powder.  When I ate it although the salt grains did dissolve it still seems not to have distributed/penetrated the chocolate well.

Chocolate bars with a high salt content e.g. twirl, flake have the result i'm looking for i.e salt is distributed well throughout.  Anyone know how i can get premade chocolate, add salt and get it to distribute like the aforementioned bars, or cook from scratch getting the salt to distribute properly?  I cant just use the aforementioned premade bars because they have many other ingredients which I'm trying to avoid.

-- UPDATE --
I have just noticed that the chocolate bars I have been comparing to e.g. twirl, flake do not have salt added as an ingredient.  However they still have 0.25g of salt per 100g of chocolate.  I guess it means its naturally occuring as a result of one of the ingredients or managing to merge that ingredient with the other ingredient hence getting the seemingly well distriuted salt.  Does anyone know which ingredient gives it the salt(I'd guess milk).  If I wanted to then emulate the recipe would I simply melt chocolate as previously and then add milk, is there some possible way to make the salt distribution like aformentioned store bought chocolates now that I know it definately wasnt as a result of adding/cooking salt?

You can't. Salt is water-soluble, and chocolate is made out of starch suspended in fat, without water. You cannot dissolve the salt in the fat.

Adding small amounts of a liquid in which the salt is dissolved will also not help, as it will curdle the chocolate. At least it will certainly happen with water. Alcohol can have some chance of working, as it dissolves both polar and nonpolar compounds, but you will need pure (96% medical) ethanol, not an alcoholic drink. I think this is quite impractical even if it works, but you may want to experiment with it. A commenter who has tried it notes that not even alcohol will work.

The closest you could do at home is to make a ganache with either cream (standard) or water, and dissolve the salt in the water phase before making it. The least amount you can have is 20% water (if using cream or another liquid, you have to adjust for its solid content so you end up with 20% water in total). This will give you a creamy ganache, and quite concentrated, but not a chocolate bar.

The only other thing I can think of is to go the way you already did - retemper chocolate and adding salt while melted - but you will not have it dissolve. What you can change is to grind it into a fine powder first, so you don't feel the grains as much. But it will still be grains suspended in the chocolate, not salt dissolved throughout the chocolate.


Ready to eat food not suitable for microwave I bought a pre-made cornish pasty fromt the supermarket. The packaging says it can be eaten hot or cold, which presumably means it is already cooked. But the packaging also says it "is not suitable for microwave" and recommends 22 minutes in an oven at 200Cif it is to be heated. Why can't I heat it up in the microwave?

Because it is made from pastry dough. Pastry dough (and any other kind of dough) gets ruined by a microwave. See this question for details of what will probably happen.

The only exceptions for dough in the microwave is pasta (which is supposed to be boiled in water anyway) and some kinds of very soft batter, which can be eaten immediately as a "microwave cupcake" (I think they get unappetizing if left to stay for a while). Any other kind of dough is destroyed by the water escaping the starch as steam.


How do I fix improperly seasoned cast iron pans? I'm quite new to cooking as a whole.

A few months back I bought a set of VonShef cast iron pans. When seasoning them, I unfortunately made two errors. First, in my naïveté, I used vegetable oil as the seasoning; and second, I didn't remove the excess oil, leaving a sticky and uneven finish in the pans. After a couple of failed attempts at cooking with this situation, and some food sticking to the pans, I've been putting off using them to avoid further catastrophes.

So how can I go about rectifying my mistakes? I've watched a few videos on YouTube about the proper way of seasoning, and it seems you can clear seasoning by either sanding it down or burning the pan. But how would you also clear off burnt food stuck to the pan?

I hope you can see what I mean in the below pictures.

Cast iron care need not seem so intimidating or mystical. There are lots of ways to take care of it, and though many will profess their own gospel and taboos associated with cast iron cookware, many different solutions will work. You just need to understand some of the basic principles and the rest is personal preference.

  First, in my naivete I used vegatable oil as the seasoning

There is nothing wrong with using vegetable oil as your seasoning. That is often what you will be cooking with anyway, and every time you cook with oil you are contributing to the seasoning on your skillet - so obviously it is a fine type of oil to constitute your seasoning.

  second, I also didn't remove the excess oil, leaving a sticky and uneven finish.

This has happened to me a number of times, even after removing excess oil. When you season it in an oven (preferably upside down), the oil heats up which can often cause it to run more easily before it has a chance to bond to the iron. That can cause it to leave spots without seasoning, and the spots that are seasoned will sometimes be sticky. I would just repeat the process again until the surface is completely seasoned. I usually wipe a light layer of vegetable oil on mine, turn it upside down in the oven, and bake it for an hour or two at around 350°F with a cookie sheet under it. It'll probably smoke a little bit, but don't worry about it.

Additionally, when I break in a new cast iron whatever, I like to cook with really greasy and oily foods (like bacon) the first few times I use it. It will help create a better seasoning and get rid of those sticky spots. Really let it pool up and try to cook for a decent amount of time. That can help get a nice, uniform finish on it. Scrape it clean with a lightly abrasive sponge or nylon brush and rinse it in cold water (maybe a tiny amount of dish soap if you really want, but it honestly doesn't need it). Dry off. Cook on it again. The more you cook with it, the better the seasoning will get.

Looking at your pictures, I would not do anything so drastic as use a caustic cleaning chemical to strip the seasoning off and start over. Just scrub it nice and clean with some soap, dry it off, and try seasoning it again. And again if you are still not satisfied. You'll get there.


Why does salt taste different in different dishes? If I salt tomato, potato and pasta, their tastes change in completely different ways to me. Why is this? Had I put oregano on them, they'd all taste like oregano.

Update: The question is not "is it so?" but "why is it so?"

Two properties of salt that oregano doesn't have:

water solubility: you drop salt in water, you put it on chicken, you put it in tomato sauce.  Most or all of it ends up dissolving, making it easier to mix.

osmosis: related to above.  Sprinkle some salt on raw meat.  Come back in 5 minutes and you'll see beads of liquid on the meat, almost like it was sweating.  That's a combination of salt dissolving into the liquid on the surface of the meat, and osmosis pulling less salty water out of the cells of the meat to balance the salty water on the surface.  In 10 minutes, some of that liquid will have disappeared.  Part of this might be due to evaporation, but part of this is due to the liquid pulling salt into the cells, which changes the equilibrium and allows for the cells to draw liquid back in (principle behind brining meats).

Salt has a natural way of penetrating organic matter that oregano and many other seasonings don't.  There are other mechanisms at play too--salty foods can make you salivate, which may make something feel "juicier" in your mouth.  I'd highly recommend the Good Eats episode on salt as a start.


Kneading dough by hand I don't have a bread machine or a mixer.

Kneading dough by hand is a long and tiresome process. Are there any tricks to developing gluten?

Time and stretching will do the trick as well. Full on kneading or using a mixer is not necessarily required.  There are other techniques, such as "stretch and fold" or "slap and fold", which are generally used with high hydration dough.  Here is one example of a no-knead bread.  Also, This guy is a master...if I recall correctly, none of his recipes use a mixer or the kind of kneading that you are asking about.  It does take some practice to use the techniques he describes.  Bottom line:  using a mixer, or kneading by hand is not always necessary.


Beating eggs & sugar when making gelato I have attempted to make coffee flavoured gelato.  I have run into a problems specifically when the beaten egg yolk/sugar mixture is heated with the cream/milk mixture - until "it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon".

I used two recipes - one with just plain cream and one with cream/milk.  Both times - the final mixture, when heated, would not thicken enough to coat the back of a spoon.  The mixture was heated once to 74° C and then again to 98° C.

I used chicken egg yolks the first time - they seemed too small.  I used duck egg yolks the second time.  Still no luck thickening.

I guess I would like to know when I should stop and take the mixture off the stove.  If thickening doesn't happen after 20 minutes on medium high heat with a temperature of 98° C - then what?

No, it doesn't have to thicken, at least not in the way custards like creme caramel thicken. "Coat the back of the spoon" is just a misnomer, a term known to experienced cooks which confuses everybody who learns to cook on their own.

For "Coat the back of the spoon", read the comment riotburn left at the question What is the correct consistency of a cream soup?. It says: "The best way to describe 'coat the back of a spoon' is where if you dipped the spoon into the soup, take it out and holder over the pot, you'll find thin film (<1mm thick)."

For the ice cream, heat to between 80 and 85°C. I've explained it somewhere else, but in short, this gives you enough thickening without overcooking. If it is really gelato and not French style, it should be thickened with starch anyway. Also, watch videos on the Internet for how to make ice cream, they show the correct consistency. I think Allrecipes had a good one, but their search is so strange, I can't find it and don't know if they have it or not.


Ingestion of small piece of uncooked meat I have a question about e coli. I ate a little bit of a very small piece of uncooked beefalo hamburger. I am under 18, and over 11. I know that there are bi-products of this, but what exactly are they? I was being an idiot, and ate it. The piece I bit off from was an inch at most, and I only bit off a bit, if I bit off any at all. I guess I wanted to taste it.

Thanks.

The reality is you will likely be just fine. Food poisoning, or getting E coli. are possible when eating raw meat that hasn't been handled properly. Cooking the meat to the USDA guidelines is merely done to reduce that likelihood to near zero.

If you start to feel ill you may need to see a doctor, but we can not give medical advice here.


Fruit Tea- Tastes Sour? I've been trying to get into teas with more fruity flavors (pieces of fruit in the tea or tea based on fruit pieces) and I've noticed that a large majority of them have unpleasantly sour notes. Am I brewing incorrectly or is something else supposed to be added into the tea?

EDIT: It's teas that already have fruit pieces in them, and doesn't appear to be a particular fruit of any sort. I just steep tea leaves in a glass for a few minutes, usually with near-boiling water, then drink.

Your question seems to assume that the sour flavor is not how it's supposed to be. But that may simply be how the tea you've bought always tastes. If it's really sour, maybe it's just not a good tea; it could also be that you simply don't prefer this kind of tea. You could try to cover it up with a bit of sugar. But failing that, I think this is just not the tea for you. There are tons and tons of fruit-flavored teas out there, so I'm sure you can find some different ones to try.


Why do my pancakes taste dry? I've tried various pancake mixes, and they always taste "healthy" and dry compared with the ones at a good cafe, and I don't mean greasy like iHOP's. What am I missing, fat?

More careful inspection of the good pancakes revealed that I was overcooking mine. The cafes brown the outsides but leave the insides slightly raw to be moist


Using previously frozen salsa I hope this isn't off base because I'm not asking for recipes, just suggestions that I might not have thought of.

I made a HUGE batch of roasted cherry salsa (like normal salsa but where all the ingredients except cilantro [but including the additional cherries] go on a grill for about 10 minutes in indirect heat (my husband always puts wood in with the charcoal so the salsa has a nice smoky flavor too).  It wasn't eaten as well as I'd thought (it was taken to a BBQ), leaving me with TONS of it.

I know I can freeze salsa.  Everything I've read says the thawed salsa loses its texture and is best to be incorporated into something.  It also says that it gets watery and the flavors all blend together.

OK, that sounds great, but then I think of spaghetti sauce, chili, lasagna, or soup.  None of those sound good with the addition of cherries.  I think I could make the roasted/smoky flavor work in any of those, but cherry spaghetti?  Or cherry chili?

I thought about a dessert pasta sauce (for chocolate pasta), but the garlic, cilantro, and major smoky taste veto that idea.  The only thing I can come up with is a borscht hybrid, but I'm not crazy about beets.

Does anyone have any suggestions that I might be able to incorporate my thawed roasted cherry salsa into?  Or are the reviews of thawed salsa not right and it really does taste good?

I did think about canning the leftover salsa, but it seems like that might make it lose more of its texture and flavor than freezing.

What about pureeing it and using it as a base for BBQ sauce or a basting sauce for roasts.


What is the difference between instant and filter coffee? http://www.brucoffee.in/OurCoffees.aspx

They have labeled their coffee's as instant and filter.
What would be the difference between them? Why should I choose one over the other?

"Filter" coffee in general, is coffee beans that have been roasted and ground and is for use in coffee making machines. This makes 'fresh' coffee that may have a variety of qualities not found in instant - such as sweeter or more distinct flavours, etc.

"Instant" coffee is normally a coffee that has already been made (they had the fun already!) and is dried (usually through freezing) into a dehydrated state, hence we just add water and get coffee.

I would think that most people who have drunk proper (freshly made) coffee would prefer the flavour, quality and effects from caffeine, over that of instant. For me, instant is a back up, in case the real stuff runs out, but I feel always tastes a little woody and not as satisfying in terms of a caffeine hit. There are several coffees available now - Kenco Millicano is one - that offer both instant and some kind of coffee bean, but all I see is coffee grinds in the bottom of the cup, and not much difference in flavour.


Why put Sprite in a baking recipe? My Apple Dumpling Recipe calls for Sprite or Ginger Ale to be added around dumplings before baking. What is the effect of the Sprite?

The soda does a few things:

adds moisture to steam the dumplings.
cooks down into a syrup to make a sauce.

You can typically change out the soda, but you don't want to use a diet soda, as it won't thicken the same and some artificial sweeteners will break down when heated.  You don't just want to replace it with sugar water, as the acid in the soda will help to keep it from seeming overly sweet.


Good book on the chemistry of cooking? What is a good book on the chemistry of cooking? I am looking for a book that discusses fermentation chemical reactions and reactions that occur when food is heated.

The standard and most commonly referenced home-cook-approachable book on the science of cooking is On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee.


Freezing Peanut Butter Balls Something I have been making recently is brownie cupcakes (much the same as the molten cakes without the fudge). Using a standard box of dark chocolate brownies, I pour the ingredients, post-whisk, in a cupcake pan.

 I came up with an idea to have frozen peanut butter balls inside of these cakes.

The typical peanut butter ball calls for peanut butter, sugar, and butter then refrigeration.
Now the issue arises: Would freezing the peanut butter and allowing it to melt in the oven, while the cupcakes cook, cause any issues (peanut butter through the bottom)?

This is part 2 of a question asked previously.

The cold temperature of the peanut butter will completely change the cooking process of the brownie, as it will be cooled from the inside while heated from the outside. I don't think this is a good thing. You could try room temperature peanut butter, but PB has a melting point around 150F (depending on the emulsifiers), and would probably melt before your brownie was fully cooked.

Unfortunately I do not think this will work.


High altitude pizza crust - how to adjust yeast? I'm trying several pizza crust recipes at an altitude of 4,500' (about 1500 meters).  All of the recipes I have are presumably for sea level, and the results are as expected - too much yeast for this altitude causes the dough to over-rise and then collapse.  Can anyone suggest how much to reduce the yeast at this altitude - 30%, 40%, 50%, more?

Sugar fermentation occurs more quickly at high altitude so you need to cut back on the time that you're allowing the dough to rise.

Salt controls the action of the yeast so you might be able to increase it slightly since you're talking about pizza crust and not a sweet yeast dough.

Are you using all-purpose flour?  If so, try bread flour.  The higher gluten content of bread flour typically requires a longer amount of time for rising due to the extra gluten that needs to stretch and expand.  Additionally, it will be a stronger dough even when it is expanded.


Self-made fatty dough separates in refrigerator, how to prevent I'm not sure if this dough has a specific name in English, it consists of 3 parts (by weight) flour, 1 part fat (mix until it consists of small crumbs) and 1 part water (+salt, mix until it's smooth). Used either to wrap around some filling, or as the bottom below the filling. I'm using liquid plant fat (sunflower) for the fat. Recently I tried making a double portion and keeping half in the refrigerator to use later.

But the dough partly separated, i.e. some of the fat ran out.

Where I live this type of dough is readily available in stores and I've never had the separating problem with store bought one.

But the store bought ones usually use butter or hardened plant fats. Apart from using such less healthy and/or non-vegan fats, is there something else I can do to prevent separation?

I would like to emphasize that I'm after some small change or trick to solve my problem, not another kind of dough. No, I'm not preparing it wrong. When used fresh, it's just fine, i.e. the way I want it to be.

I have had this problem before too, and the only solution I have encountered is to freeze the dough you want to store, this requires a bit more planning as you will want the dough to thaw completely before you use it. The best way I have found to thaw the dough is covered on the counter or placed somewhere it can rest without being touched or moved much. I hope this helps and you solve your problem:-)


Is it safe to eat potatoes that have sprouted? I'm talking about potatoes that have gone somewhat soft and put out shoots about 10cm long.

Other online discussions suggest it's reasonably safe and the majority of us have been peeling and eating soft sprouty spuds for years. Is this correct?

Not safe enough for me to try it. Potatoes actually contain a very dangerous toxin called solanine. This toxin is concentrated enough in the green parts in the plant to cause solanine poisoning. This includes the sprouts/eyes, and the potato itself if it's green.

This article from the New York Times health guide indicates that it is something to be taken seriously. Per this article, if the sprouts have been removed, and the potato is not green then it is safe to eat as far as solanine poisoning is concerned.

However, a potato as far gone as you have described sounds disgusting. A soft potato is on its way to going bad. Where I am from, potatoes are cheap enough that it's just not worth the gross factor for me to eat a potato that has 10 cm sprouts and is squishy. I do eat potatoes that have little nub sprouts on them and that are slightly less than firm, after removing the sprouts of course.


Can I use cream of tartar instead of wine to avoid alcohol in a meat braise or risotto? I admit it, if I open a bottle of wine to cook with, I am very happy to drink the rest and I need to not do that, but still make my Kümmelfleisch and risotto.
Wine does affect proteins - pork, beef, egg, differently than does lemon juice, sauerkraut juice and other acids based on acetic or lactic acids. My anecdotal experience is that wine softens and disconnects collagen, etc more efficiently, and I read that it contains more heat stable acids. And that of course is also one reason to use wine and not lemon juice in making a risotto. (Yes I am ignoring any other flavor that wine imparts)
I looked up the acids in wine and saw that it is basically tartaric acid, malic acid and acetic acid. Tartaric acid is heat stable, so it seems that is what is doing the trick.
Buying tartaric acid here, in Germany, is expensive and difficult, but I can now get cream of tartar. I am aware that this is a somewhat neutralized form, but I currently imagine that in fact I could use a gram or two to substitute for half a cup of wine in a braise.
Is there some other factor I am not considering?

There's a few misconceptions there. Tartaric acid, malic acid, acetic acid, and citric acid are all "heat stable" in the sense that they won't boil or decompose at the temperature of boiling water. They'll evaporate over time, just like the water will, but if you take a bunch of lemon juice and boil it down, you'll eventually be left with a precipitate of mostly citric acid.
(Note that lemon juice itself is not 'heat stable', because other flavor compounds in it undergo hydrolysis and oxidation at cooking temperatures.)
The reason wine is used instead of lemon juice in risotto is for the taste; different acids taste different, there are flavors in wine other than acids, and the taste of classic risotto is derived from the flavors in wine.
Finally, while acidity does affect the rate of hydrolysis of collagen, as far as I know this effect is entirely dependent on pH, rather than on the specific acid used.
Tartaric acid, or cream of tartar, can be used as a substitute for wine if you're just relying on the acidity of wine, but other, more readily available acids will work just as well.


Why tandoori chicken does not dry out despite the high heat Indian tandoori chicken is cooked in a tandoor oven, with heat reaching 900F. How come the chicken does not dry out? Because of the yogurt marinade?

The chicken stay moist because it cooks quickly (very high temperature); it does not have the time to dry out.

I would imagine that the cook time must be controlled because it can over-cook very quickly.

The yogurt marinade will impart some flavor and help tenderize the meat.


Should beans for making flour be soaked? I am considering trying to make my own bean flour from black/pinto/red beans, for use in pasta. I cannot find any references to soaking first, all recipes just says to grind them into flour. Except for one I found using chickpeas.
Is soaking not necessary, or is it maybe just taken for granted?

https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/gram-chickpea-flour/

the answer is yes according to this article cat


How to make softer scones? I used the scone recipe from here, but the scones turned out really hard and dry. What should I have done differently? More butter, more milk. Less cooking time?

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/8163/basic+scones

That recipe has a very old style problem - it predates modern definitions of "cup". Methinks the cup in your recipe is a small coffee cup.

If you are using 80g (3oz) of butter, that will make a good scone recipe with about 225g (8oz) of flour and about 150ml (5 fl.oz) of milk.

I just weighed a 250mL cup of SR flour, it contained about 155g.  The cup in the recipe is a "not quite full" 5oz coffee cup according to my calculations.

There's your trouble ... too much flour and milk. The fact that the adjusted amount of milk needed in proportion to the butter is very close to the customary ratios reinforces the points I have made. Another clue is that the recipe says "makes 16". If you get a lot more than the recipe says, that should ring an alarm bell.


How to reduce the bitter taste in broccoli rabe My typical way to cook broccoli rabe is to saute it in olive oil, garlic and red pepper flakes for a few minutes and then eat it just above room temp.  While I don't mind the bitter taste others do.  I had it out and sometimes it's not bitter at all other times it is similar.  Is there a technique to reducing the bitterness?

Broccoli rabe are hard to grow without turning bitter, and this is why in general they are not that popular

Like most vegetables you can reduce bitterness by soaking or cooking in milk, or by adding a small amount of lime (Calcium hydroxide) to the blanching/cooking water

See What counters astringency?


Couldn't snap the bones in my chicken stock I followed Alton Brown's recipe for stock in which he gave a rough estimate of 8-9 hours at a low simmer to extract maximum flavor. At one point, he said, paraphrased, "How will you know you've extracted the maximum amount of nutrients from your bird? Well..." at which point he fetches a rather large leg bone from the discarded remains and easily snaps it in half. Alas I couldn't do that. I'm wondering if I did something wrong or if my results are typical.

I had a half carcass including wings, neck, back, gizzards, skin, and bones. They were raw and I froze them. For the stock, I gathered 3 carrots, 3 ribs celery half a bulb of garlic, and some thyme. I skipped on any salt or acids. I threw these with the frozen chicken into cold water, brought it up to a low simmer, and left it as such for 9 hours. The flavor was tremendous. Certain smaller bones became mushy toward the ends. However, I couldn't snap my bigger bones.

With all respect to Alton Brown, "snapping" the bones is not a test I have ever heard of.  He does not mention that in the official recipe on the Food Network site.

I just watched the entire episode on youtube, and he does show the snapping thing with a very frangible bone.   I think this result will depend on the age of your chicken and the size of the bone.

In general, the thinner bones and younger chickens may be somewhat rubbery when a chicken stock is done.

8-9 hours also seems excessive for poultry stock, although that is actually in his recipe.  You should get the vast majority of the flavor (and nutrition) in 3-4 hours (plus maybe a little bit to thaw, if you are starting from frozen), especially if you have chopped your carcass up into pieces or chunks (which he did not discuss in the episode).


Prefermenting the whole sourdough rye bread Why is it recommended to preferment only a portion of the dough required to make a sourdough rye bread? What can go wrong if I preferment the whole batch? My current knowledge is that it should only help to get better and more acidic taste - more time for yeast to process starches.

I am still very much an amateur in this area, however my current mental model is that the way to develop more flavor is by slowly cultivating many generations of yeast.

So, the potential problem with letting your young yeast get all the sugar all at once, is that you greatly reduce both the time and the number of generations.

One option is let your yeast multiply in a small portion of you total
dough before it joins the rest of your dough.
Another option is to let your yeast multiply under refrigeration.
A third option is to do both.


Old, unpasteurized orange juice has extra tang I've been buying unpasteurized orange juice recently for its richer flavor, as compared to pasteurized OJ.  I've had some sitting in the fridge for about a week, and upon tasting it just now I noticed an extra tang that I'm pretty sure was not there when I first bought it.  I presume this is due to some new acid in the juice that has formed from the breakdown of other components of the juice as it aged.  I quite like this additional complexity of the flavor, but I am curious: What is it?  In particular, what acid might I be tasting?

It is almost certainly a fermentation - opened juice does not keep for a week in the fridge. So you got some bacteria in it which are creating tangy byproducts (lactic or acetic acid). It is a method of creating fermented drinks such as cider (or even fruit wine), but without following a tested process, you cannot be sure if some of the bacteria may be harmful. So it is not safe by today's standards.


Liquefying through long boiling Is there a name in English for the process of turning ingredients of a dish into liquid through boiling them long enough?

Usually this happens as cook's errors, but at times it's the desired effect (e.g. you may create an excellent, smooth, creamy sauce by simmering the ingredients for a long time).

Judging by what Google Images show, it seems that "overcooking" usually means burnt or nearing burnt fried/grilled food, which is definitely not the same thing.

It appears simply there is no word in English to describe this process, and you have to use descriptive expressions like "simmer until dissolved".


Are there ingredients I should avoid in a brine? I see good answers to What brine ingredients are effective?, and I am looking to really push the envelope. I realize that there is some debate as to the effectiveness of brine to add flavor to the meat itself, so I'm going to experiment to answer that question for myself. My intention is to brine a big (6 lb) chicken overnight in a 5% salt brine adding tons of flavor to the brine. After brining I think I'm going rinse and dry the chicken and throw it on to my "set-it-and-forget-it" counter-top rotisserie. When the chicken is just about done I'm going to glaze it with a very basic soy-based glaze Mr. Yoshida's.

Some of the ingredients I'm considering, just because I happen to have them on hand, are brown sugar, finely minced preserved lemons, powdered ginger (I'm out of fresh), hot pepper flakes (lots), crushed fresh garlic (lots), any combination of the myriad of whole spices I used in my recent successful pho (star anise, cinnamon stick, cloves, cardamon, fennel), Ras el Hanout, harissa, onion, dry sherry and even fish sauce.

I'm confident that I can play with those ingredients (selectively, of course) and create a brine that tastes good at that point. One of my concerns is the tendency of some ingredients to become more powerful over time. For example, if I use star anise to flavor the brine I will fish it out before I add the chicken. I don't want the final chicken to taste like licorice. Another concern is the possibility that a particular ingredient might cause a chemical change that I don't want. Alcohols and acids come to mind.

Are you aware of any particular ingredients that should be avoided in a brine, or any caveats concerning specific ingredients?

A brine serves two purposes: to make the meat moist and flavorful.

How the moist part works: "Brining makes cooked meat moister by hydrating the cells of its muscle tissue before cooking, via the process of osmosis, and by allowing the cells to hold on to the water while they are cooked, via the process of denaturation." (Wikipedia)

It makes the meat flavorful by acting the same way a marinade does. So you're pretty safe following "standard" marinating rules. Chief among those being that you want to avoid using too much acid or using acid for too long because it might make the meat mushy.

Avoid alcohol as well. "If your marinating anything with alcohol, cook the alcohol off first. Alcohol doesn't tenderize; cooking tenderizes. Alcohol in a marinade in effect cooks the exterior of the meat, preventing the meat from fully absorbing the flavors in the marinade." - Thomas Keller, the French Laundry Cookbook

Remember to use a nonreactive container (no metal) and avoid ingredients like olive oil that solidify when chilled.


Can I Sear Sous-Vide Rib Eye Under Infrared Broiler? I'm new to sous-vide and plan on trying it for the first time with a rib eye steak that is about 1-1/4" thick. I know when it's done cooking, I need to sear it. I was thinking of trying my gas oven's infrared broiler instead of a cast iron pan.
When using my broiler for a fish filet, the broiler element (not the flame) is about 3-1/2" from the top of the filet. This has always worked well for me, but I think it might take too long for the rib eye to sear at that distance (so might end up further cooking the interior of the steak). I can get it closer but don't know how close to try.
Question: Can a 1-1/4" thick steak cooked sous-vide be adequately seared under an infrared  gas broiler? If so, roughly how close to the element should the top of the steak be?

You can do it.  It really depends on the result you are looking for.  The reason to sear is simply to produce a maillard reaction, and caramelization.  The issue with sous vide is that you want to do that rapidly so as not to continue cooking the internal part of the protein.  On the other hand, some people cook a couple of degrees lower, then take a little longer to sear.  There are all kinds of options here and no perfect answers. I don't think you want it much closer, as you will likely have fat popping off the top of your steak.   I would give it a shot and see if you like the result.  There is no reason to discard the idea out of hand.


What is the difference between Devil's Food and Chocolate cake? I always thought they were (perhaps regionally) different labels for the same cake. While at a local fair, I noticed that there were separate categories for Devil's Food and Chocolate cake.

PracticallyEdible has a nice description of Devil's Food Cake.

Originally, Devil's Food Cake had a medium dense texture.  The colour had a reddish tint that was probably caused by baking soda reacting with cocoa powder.  In fact, I have an old cookbook (The Day by Day Cook Book, 1939) that contains a recipe for Red Devil's Food Cake.  This recipe calls for 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate and 1 tsp. of baking soda.


Raw turkey leaked in shopping bag - how to clean other groceries? I bought some raw turkey drumsticks and put them in a plastic vegetable bag at the store. When I got it out of the grocery bag to put it in the fridge I saw that the shrink wrap had broken and the outside of the package was wet (inside the plastic vegetable bag). Some of my other groceries looked very slightly wet so I assume they could possibly have gotten a little turkey liquid on them. How do I clean them? I wiped the other groceries with vinegar using two different paper towels, I'm not comfortable using bleach on food though. Can I rinse the cucumber and oranges really well or is that not enough?

And is it safe to eat the part of turkey that was exposed? I assume the plastic film was too thin for heavy turkey drumsticks.

I would proceed considering the rest of your product was contaminated. That being said anything that was contaminated can still be brought to a temperature of 165°F to ensure safety. (Oranges can make a good sauce and cucumbers are great for pickling. Many other vegetable are great fully cooked.) I would not risk treating the surface as contaminants can spread. For this reason I always keep a separate bag for product I eat raw and a separate bag for product that could pose a cross-contamination risk.

As for the exposed turkey I would assume safety based on what you told us. Unless you believe the package was tampered with your biggest drawback to exposed turkey is the may drying out.


Should you add specific garden-fresh herbs to a stew at the beginning or the end? There are several questions about when to add spices and herbs to soup, but this one is more specific. I'm making a stew that is to be thickened with roux. A soupy tomato based soup will be simmered for a few hours, blended, chilled, then added to a roux to thicken.

I have a variety of garden herbs that I'd like to cut and add; specifically some combination of basil, oregano, thyme and summer savory.

Should I add these to the soup as it is simmered, so they will be blended and incorporated? Or should I mince the herbs and stir them into the thickened stew at the end.

Mind you, this isn't a bouquet garni situation where you flavor the stock as it simmers, I'm experimenting with incorporate a larger volume of fresh herbs into the meal itself as a principal component; something I picked up from the heavy use of dill and parsley in some spanakopita recipes.  I want the herbs to provide a green bulk to the stew, but I also want the flavors to persist.

It depends on the herbs.

Something like thyme or rosemary or oregano can withstand cooking for a long time and should be removed before eating or blending (IMO)

Other herbs like basil will not withstand long cooking time and should be added raw at the end, or at serving time to have their full flavor shine.


How do you make a cake lift equally and minimize doming? Some time ago, I baked a cake (Sachertorte to be exact).
The taste and texture was fine, so my recipe is okay.

My biggest issue was the shape. In the middle it was really a lot higher than on the sides.
I would like to redo it in the near future, but preferably with a flat(ter) surface.
(Especially since I put icing on top and I don't want it to drip off this time.)

Anyone knows the cause of my problem, or even better a solution?
I think I put enough butter on the side of my springform pan, in case this is an option.

Why the doming happens

When you heat leavened dough, two things happen:

leavening agent creates bubbles, causing the soft dough to rise. For chemically leavened doughs (baking powder or baking soda), the amount of lift mostly depends on the time the bubble creating reaction goes on and the concentration of non-spent leavening agent.
The gluten in the dough sets, building a sturdy 3-d mesh of long, branchey molecules. When the mesh is strong enough, further bubbles cannot stretch it more, despite the fact that the leavening reaction is still going on. The setting of the mesh depends mostly on heat and the amount of gluten present in flour.

The pattern you are seeing means that your cake gets hotter on the sides than in the middle. The sides get set early and stop rising, while the middle is still soft and continues rising.

This happens because the walls of the pan conduct heat to the sides of the cake quicker than heat is conducted inside the cake. You see the phenomenon in an exaggarated form in a muffin, which is usually higher than wide: it is always rounded on top, and often split, because the liquid core from the middle continues to rise after a crust has formed on the surface.

How to prevent it

Slower heating
One good solution could involve a slower, more even heating method.

This can be accomplished by using a pan which insulates well. With an insulating pan, the sides will stay liquid longer and rise more. Unfortunately there are no insulated drop-out-bottom pans.

Porcelain
I have had good results in a porcelain or Pyrex pan. The pan insulates the cake from the bottom and the sides, but not from the top, so you will need to bake it on a lower rack and/or reduce temperature on the upper heater in order to not burn the upper surface.

Getting a cake layer out of the pan in one piece can be hard.
To deal with this problem, if your batter is not too sticky, the bottom of the pan can be lined with parchment paper. The sides can be lined with a strip of parchment or well lubricated with fat. This approach is a hassle.

Insulate a metal pan
Perhaps, when combined with other approaches, a metal cake pan with thicker walls will work well enough.
You could also try a more DIY solution, like attaching 2-3 layers of a cut-to-fit silicone rolling mat stripes to the outside of the walls of a metal pan. However, it is quite hard to come up with a good attachment method (glue could release toxic fumes at oven temperatures, if it holds at all). So this method should work, but is somewhat hard to apply.

Glass and silicone pans
There are pans with glass bottoms and silicone walls but I think these would not help because the glass would insulate better than the thin silicone.

Preheating
Perhaps preheating the detached bottom of a metal pan with the oven could help, but I haven't tried it.
Minimize the center
A second approach is to minimize the liquid core by making a thin cake.
If the middle of the cake is heated quickly enough from above and below, it will set shortly after the walls do, and there will be no unset center to "bloom".

Use a bigger pan.
I think that Americans mostly use 9 inch pans, but if you used an original sacher recipe from Austria, it is probably meant for a 26 or a 28 cm pan.

Bake the two layers separately
Divide the batter into two pans instead of making a single layer and cutting it. This is unorthodox, as you get more crust but it's better than a hunchbacked sacher. You should use a scale or at least a measuring jug to divide the batter, or you'll end up with different thicknesses. Also remember to reduce the baking time, as the core will heat up faster.

Use a toothpick for probing doneness.
Reduce the leavening
The third idea is to reduce the amount of leavening agent.

The walls will always set before the core and, if there is enough baking powder, the core will still expand a little bit more. If the concentration of baking powder is low you'll get less bubbles, so less lift.
Of course, using too little baking powder will also ruin the cake, so you'll have to be cautious and experiment a bit before hitting the correct amount.
Lower heat
The fourth approach is to give the outer portions of the cake more time to rise by baking at lower heat.

This is somewhat risky, as it can result in a different texture of the final product, due to the different rate at which water will evaporate from the dough and a longer baking time. Also, if your temperature is too low, you won't get a golden crust on a light-coloured dough. This should not be a problem for a frosted cake like the sacher.
Less gluten
The fifth approach is to use a flour with less gluten.

With less gluten you get a mesh which is less dense and needs more time until it gets firm enough to prevent rising. Use cake flour instead of all purpose flour. A bit more fat will also help to inhibit gluten development but too much will change the taste and texture.

All methods I described should attribute to a solution, but probably none of them will be sufficient by itself. You'll have to pick a combination of them and see what works best for you.

General Cake Techniques

You should also apply all the usual methods for getting a good cake:

measure with a scale
use room-temperature ingredients
sift your flour
only combine dry mix with fluid mix at the last moment before putting it into the oven
preheat the oven well

These techniques ensure a better batter texture, which means a more even heating. They will also ensure a more consistent leavening process because:

the ratio of leavening to other ingredients will be correct
the batter will be more thoroughly mixed
the leavening reaction will not start early

Not following these techniques is more likely to result in a lopsided cake or a big bubble. I realize that this hasn't happened in the case you describe, but it would be too bad to get an asymmetrically risen cake after you took all the precautions against a disproportionally rising center.


Chicken Stock - Absorbed all water? I atempted to make a chicken stock that I can keep in my fridge for a few days. After roasting a couple chicken breasts, carrot, onion, garlic, mushroom stems for 45 minutes I put all of that in a pan, covered with water and set to simmer for a couple hours.

Aftee checking it about half way through, I noticed that all the water had gone, absorbed by the chicken and veg. The thing was I tried making this last week, and I think I added too much water resulting in a fairly tasteless stock, so I made sure I just added enough to cover.

Totally didn't expect to see all of the water gone! I'm now left with a bowl of pretty dry chicken and veg. Can I reuse them? Any ideas where I went wrong and any tips?

Much appreciated!

CookingRookie.

You don't mention covering your pot, so I'm assuming you left it uncovered for the duration. If that's the case, you boiled all your liquid off. Next time you can try using a lid, that should slow the evaporation of water from your pot and leave you with some stock still in the pot. Even if the pot was covered, though, "a couple of hours" is a pretty long time for something that only had enough water to cover-- no lid seals perfectly.  Some evaporation is always to be expected, so you probably needed a little more water to start, or to have topped off the pot at some point.

You may be able to reuse your chicken pieces and vegetables, but I wouldn't. You mention using chicken breasts. If your aim is to produce a flavorful stock, this is the wrong part of the chicken to use.

Meat is typically used in broths, which can be flavorful, but chicken breasts are notoriously bland even when cooked whole. Stocks are typically made with bones and very little meat. Rendering the flavor and gelatin from the bones gives a rich stock using much cheaper cuts (or even scraps, if you have a recently roasted bird).  Price may or may not be a factor for you, but the result is usually far superior when using an appropriate ratio of bones:water.

In your case your chicken breast is like so dry and overcooked at this point that there's not really any flavor left to impart to a stock/broth. You may have slightly better luck with the plant matter, but I doubt it.


How to store blanched garlic? I've gone through the process of immersing my garlic in boiled water 3 times to remove that bitter taste. But how do I store it? I've blanched close to 5 heads of garlic (40-ish cloves). I would rather not pickle it. Any advice?

Once you blanch garlic it needs to be treated as cooked, so if you don't want to pickle it then your options are to refrigerate it or freeze it.


Honey-glazed gammon (ham) - What to serve with it? I've got down a pretty good honey/whiskey glazed gammon but previously I've always used it cold in sandwhiches or on meat platters.

This evening, however, I am planning on serving the joint hot as part of a main meal.

I'm out of inspiration regarding what sides to serve with it.  I was going to go with a selection of steamed vegetables but would these also need a sauce/gravy?

So, in short, what would work well with hot gammon with a sweet glaze?

I know we don't like questions that solicit opinion so I'll add that I need some proven pairings with reasons why the different flavours, sweetness, acidity etc of the ingredients work.

In Ireland boiled or glazed ham is a staple.  Traditionally it's had with cut up cabbage (ideally you would cook the cabbage in the same water the ham was boiled in as this gives it lovely flavour) but you could just cut it up and pan fry it with a little butter.  Normally it would be served with boiled floury potatoes.  Traditionally (in Ireland) you wouldn't have a sauce with it but a parsely sauce (as stated in the other reply would be lovely) or simply serve with some strong mustard or a brown sharp sauce such as HP.

You could also shred the ham and serve it with noodles in a hot broth with some shredded cabbage and other vegetables.

The ham is going to be centre of attention - salty, rich with a sweetness.  The cabbage and potato are happy bedfellows as the cabbage cuts through the saltyness/sweetness.  You don't want strong flavours competing with the ham and neither cabbage or potato will.


Alternatives to halloumi? Are there other cheeses which have similar properties to halloumi, like the fact that it doesn't melt easily and can be grilled, fried or barbequed?

Paneer (Indian cottage cheese) doesn't really melt and is often fried. Other cottage cheeses, and I suspect cheeses made with low-fat dairy, will have high melting points.

Yogurt-based cheeses (feta) don't melt much, but don't have a lot of structural integrity either.

Edit:

The Wikipedia article above linked to farmer cheese, which linked to Queso Blanco, which is a Mexican farmer cheese that is also resistant to melting (although apparently there are different types that do melt). Flavor is sorta similar to halloumi, although I've only had one brand and flavors probably vary.


Curious mold growth in a sealled BBQ, how does one avoid it? When finished cooking with the BBQ and cleaning the grill, I leave it running for a bit then shut off the intake and cap the exhaust (it's a Big Green Egg).

At this point the BBQ is essentially sealed and with temperature being above 300F everywhere inside, presumably sterile.  It cools down naturally over time with practically air-tight conditions.

However, in a couple of weeks there is visible mold on the grill.  The question is:

How can this happen?
Are others experiencing this, is it 'normal'?
How do you prevent it?

Mold is growing because there's something for it to consume, the only way to prevent it from happening is to clean your grill more effectively, or carbonize it before the fire goes out. No grill is air-tight, so even though it gets a good heat blast (not enough to sterilize it as you may think), spores will get in from outside. Remember, hot air is less dense, so as the BBQ cools it will draw air in, hence the spores. Once there they thrive in the sheltered and often damp conditions in a closed-up barbecue.

I think where you may be going wrong is that you close the valves after cooking. That cuts off the air and kills the fire. I leave all my valves open to keep it as hot as possible after I'm done cooking, and it does a better job of charring all the leftovers.


How much baking powder & baking soda do I need to use for my cocoa cookies? How much baking powder & baking soda do I need to use for my cocoa cookies?
Based on the following recipe that does not contain egg, and makes use of both types of cocoa powder. I am trying to get the crunchy and airy texture.
200    grams  all purpose flour
 10.5  grams  natural cocoa powder
 10.5  grams  Dutch process cocoa powder
  0.5  gram   ammonium bicarbonate
  1.3  grams  salt
  0.2  gram   vanillin
113    grams  sugar
 61    grams  butter

You don't strictly need to use any leavener in this type of cookie. You can certainly get a firm, nonchewy texture without it, although it is unlikely to be "crunchy" and not very airy - it is more sandy, melts-on-the-tongue thing. Of course, if you use crystal sugar (as opposed to powdered sugar) you will experience some crunch from the non-melted sugar crystals, which might be what you wanted.
If you want to try a leavener, a typical amount would be 1 teaspoon (around 5 g) of baking powder for 250 g of flour. Use that as a starting point for the recipe development - I don't think you have to reduce it to 4 g from the start, since 1) traditional recipes are not that accurate anyway, and 2) the cocoa powder also adds starch, which kinda "counts as flour" for the purpose of calculating leavening. There is no reason to use any baking soda. And of course, remove the ammonium bicarbonate - if you really want to experiment with a combination, do it after you have created a working simpler version of the recipe with just baking powder.


Himalayan salt in a brine I would like to brine a brisket for pastrami but would prefer not to use curing salt. Does himalayan salt in  brine make  brisket pink as if  using curing/pickling salt?

No, not really.  There are plenty of curing recipes for pastrami that do not use curing salts and you can use Himalayan for them.  It is really just rock salt with some iron oxide (rust) in it.  Some people claim an improved taste, others say it is imaginary, but it is a substitute for table salt, not curing salt.

As said, plenty of recipes do not use curing salt, and you can make a pastrami you may really like.  But the more vivid pink color will not be there.  That color comes specifically from the reaction with the curing salt nitrates and/or nitrites, not the pink coloring added to many of the salts.  That coloring is added as a warning that this is not table salt, don't confuse it and use it as table salt.  The current popularity of Himalayan is confusing some people and could cause accidents that need to be avoided.


Kneading Bread After Rising Why should bread be kneaded before rising?

If I knead bread after the first rise what difference will it make?

The purpose of kneading is to develop gluten in the dough. Gluten is made of long strands of protein — it makes the dough stretchy, so it can contain the bubbles created by the yeast or sourdough culture, enabling the dough to rise. Therefore, you need to knead before rising.

If you knead the dough again after its first rise, you'll destroy many of the bubbles and your dough will become flat and dense. Most recipes call for a "forming" step after the first rise — this should be done gently, so as to keep as many of those bubbles in the dough as possible. This will keep your bread light, with a nice open crumb.


how to freeze individual chicken pot pies I am trying to find a good way to freeze chicken pot pies...I am assisting a person that is low income next week and we are working on making healthy meals for her to freeze instead of buying processed food.

She loves chicken pot pies so what I was thinking was (since she has limited kitchen equipment in her house) was using my large ramekins, put parchment paper in the bottom, line it with pie crust dough, make the filling and wait for it to cool, then put it in the dough in the ramekin and place pie crust dough on top.

Freeze until just set then take a double amount of heavy duty foil, make a mould around the bottom and then top with foil and put in the freezer. then when she is ready to eat, she can just take it out of the freezer, bake for about 30 minutes, then just take the top foil off so that the top can brown, then she can eat and enjoy.

Does this sound reasonable? I have looked online and Iha ve not found anything like this so any help would be appreciated.

Alternate suggestion:

When making food for others, often I like to purchase a bunch of disposable foil containers. I prepare the meals right in them, and that way I don't need to worry about my own dishes entering the picture and neither do they. I pick a size that is enough for their household times two (some people find it easier to have a few days of food and just reheat it the next day). This works well, for pies, lasagnas, other casseroles. Of course this depends on your own budget, but if you look around these are pretty cheap. I get the local no name or store brand for this purpose...


Reasonable level of inaccuracy in thermometer? A little over a year ago I purchased an expensive digital scale / thermometer combo: http://www.breville.com.au/thelittlegeniustm-kitchen-scale.html

It works fine however recently I took a go at testing the thermometer to see if it was reading accurately. I fill a pan up with water and left the probe sitting in, waiting for the water to boil.

When the water was a rolling boil, the thermometer was only reading about 94C or 96C (can't remember which one, will do another test tonight), which was disappointing given the cost of the product.

The scale has a five year replacement warranty so I sent an email through to the customer support department. This was their response:

Thanks for your enquiry.

The temperature probe tolerance is +/- 5 percent and there is no way of resolving this.

Hope this helps with your enquiry.

Personally, I find this hard to believe and couldn't see it specified anywhere on their website. The thermometer is stated to work up to temperatures of 150C, which, means it could vary as much as 7.5C at that level...

Given that the thermometer gives reading to one decimal point (i.e. 96.6%) it seems ridiculous to accept that the temperature could actually be anywhere between 91.X% to 100.X%.

Is this to be expected with food thermometers or should I argue my case? Are there any other reliable thermometers I can use as a point of reference?

EDIT: Did some further testing over the weekend. I tested it again in a shallow pot of boiling water and it was hovering around the 96C mark. After filling the pot so that most of the probe would be submerged, it began to hover between 97C and 97.5C.

I also tested it in a cup full of ice cubes and it read 0.0C...

That is ridiculous. 5% is simply too large for an acceptable margin of error. I'll accept 2 degrees F tops, and I have never spent that much on a thermometer.

If you want to spend that kind of money, this one won America's Test Kitchen testing:

That's the Thermopen. It's accurate to less than a degree F and it gives a reading in 3 seconds.

These two thermometers tied the testing for less expensive thermometers. They are both also accurate to less than a degree F.

RT600C Super-fast Water-resistant Digital Pocket Thermometer

CDN DTQ450X ProAccurate Quick-Read Thermometer

Incidentally, this is my scale. Amazon tells me that I bought it in July of 2011. I highly recommend it, it's spookily accurate. That scale, a dollar store timer and one of the recommended lower cost thermometers would pretty much wipe the floor with your product at significantly less than half the price, and would be more convenient to use. I want a timer I can put in my pocket, and a thermometer I can bring to something on my oven shelf without bringing my scale along for the ride.

To me, that makes no sense, imagine trying to gauge the doneness of a Thanksgiving turkey with that thing! Never mind that you can't trust the reading.


Effects of correcting partially mixed/kneaded dough with flour or liquid Often, doughs (be it quickbread, enriched yeast bread or cake doughs based on these) turn out too dry or wet in home baking practice, be it by temperature issues, measurement imprecisions, properties of local ingredients, wrong assumptions.
 A typical response is adding liquid (same as originally added, or maybe even just milk or water if all available wet ingredient mix is already used up) or flour when discovering the problem.
 Since that means adding these ingredients into an already hydrated dough or even a partially built gluten structure, it is obvious that there will be differences in outcome vs a dough that has been mixed to a perfect ratio from the beginning.

What additions, in what amount/at what time in a mixing/kneading process, cause what change in final texture is confusing. Gross deviations in ratio are obvious (the dough is swimming/immersed in liquid, or sitting in dry flour, or falling apart because of layers of dry flour), my question is more about the range where a usable result is still made.

Are there documented experience values on WHAT these changes in outcome will be? On the other hand, can these effects ever be used for a textural advantage?

The effect that adding flour or water after initial mixing will vary depending on what you are trying to build. Different techniques leverage different properties of flour, water, and fat and so will behave differently.

The differences come down to fat and protein. I'm sure you know that wheat flour contains proteins (glutenin and gliadin) that, when mixed with water, form stretchy gluten.

In biscuits, quick breads, cakes, etc., the stretchiness of gluten is very undesirable and the techniques focus on minimizing it.
The biscuit method is cutting fat into the flour and then mixing the liquid in very briefly. The lack of agitation minimizes the gluten formation.
The muffin method involves beating sugar and fat and then mixing in the flour and liquid. The sugar makes the fat fluffy which is vital to the texture. The large amount of fat coats the flour and prevents it from mixing with water.

Bread dough is completely the opposite. Gluten makes bread what it is. The more gluten the better. Flour is mixed with water and either kneaded or allowed to sit in the fridge for a long time to maximize gluten. Fat is sometimes used for flavor or to soften the bread but it is mixed in completely.

The implications:

For doughs that rely on minimizing gluten by minimizing mixing, adding more flour or liquid is undesirable.
Adding the flour a little at a time means that it will have a lot of time to be kneaded and the product will be much tougher.
A good example is the second rolling of a batch of biscuits. The first rolling is always lighter and fluffier and when the scraps are rolled out again, the dough forms more gluten and the second set of biscuits are tougher and don't rise as much.

For doughs that distract the gluten with fat adding more is fine within reason.
Mixing will create more gluten but if it is still coated with fat it won't be too bad. It is bad if the ratio of fat to flour is thrown off. I can't tell you how far off you can get and still have a good product.

With bread doughs, flour and water can be added at any time and still be good.
The problem is purely mechanical. It's easy to add water to flour. It's easy to add flour to bread dough. It's hard to add water to bread dough- the water just splashes around and it takes a while to get it integrated.
When kneading bread by hand, it is good to start with too little flour because adding water is so difficult. In a mixer it's not so bad because it's doing the work and the mess is contained.

Remember that flour and water have almost no flavor and adding too much will dilute the flavor of the product. Even in cases where the flour itself provides much of the flavor, as with yeast risen bread, there won't be enough salt. How much you can dilute the recipe with flour depends entirely on the recipe and your own personal preference.


bread making remove butter Most recipes for bread machines have 2 tablespoons of softened butter in them. Will omitting this modify the recipes, and are there substitutes for butter?

Fat softens bread because it interferes with the gluten formation. It also gives the bread a richer flavor.

Many breads, including standard sandwich bread, include fat for these reasons. Butter has great flavor but any fat will do. You should soften any solid fats.

You can probably leave the fat out if there isn't much in the recipe. Expect the bread to be a little less flavorful and a little less soft.

If there is a lot of fat that is being left out you might have to increase the liquid to compensate for the dough being stiffer. At that point, unless you enjoy experimenting, I would just find a recipe that doesn't use fat.


why my dishes are always over satiating? whenever I cook dishes its always over satiating, I believe it has too much umami on it, and whenever I cook I always feel like being full already by just tasting while cooking. Like its too delicious and you cant eat more of it. Is there a way to get rid of that over satiating taste?

"Too delicious, and you can't eat more of it":

I don't see the "too delicious" part as a problem. Delicious is good.

"Can't eat more of it", as others have pointed out, sounds like it is just too heavy, or too rich. So, as others have also pointed out, it might help to cook some less heavy foods. In general, fish, tofu, and vegetables (especially raw or steamed) tend to be lighter and less filling than meats and heavy cheesy or buttery sauces.

Depending on your cuisine tradition, however, substituting different food items may not be an appealing option. If most of the dishes that you and your family find acceptable happen to be on the heavy side, at least you can serve them along with other things in the meal to add variety, like plenty of plain rice or other simple grain, green salad, and/or steamed, pickled or raw vegetables and maybe a refreshing cold beverage or fresh fruit.


Days kept after opening mentioned in packages and how valid are they? I bought a pita bread package, that I saw it writes: after opening keep in an airtight container and consume within 2 days.
The thing is that I am keeping it in the refrigerator and it is been more than 2 days and it looks fine.
I don't understand why they mention that taking into account that the package is quite big to be consumed within 2 days anyway (too many pita breads).
Is there something I should be cautious of?

It's probably a "best before date," which means the pita bread will lose quality after that date.
Pita bread tends to dry out and get stale quickly.


Do I need a stand mixer to make good pizza dough? If so what should I get? A lot of recipes I read for pizza dough call for a mixer. Is that the best way? If so, which mixer should I get? I've seen the kitchen aid and a electrolux. What else should I consider?

You don't need a stand mixer, but it's a shortcut for those of us who don't like kneading the dough.  You could also use a bread machine (most have an option to mix and kneed, but not bake), or a food processor (use a dough blade), or just knead by hand.

If you look, you can find some no-knead, or at least less-knead pizza dough recipes, and there's some styles of pizza crust that are more biscuit like than what most people think of as pizza.  (It's popular in Maryland, and it has the advantage that you don't have to wait or things to rise, etc, so there's no advance planning necessary other than pre-heating an oven).

...

As for brands of mixer ... I won't get into that discussion, as I haven't owned enough of them to be able to give a good comparison.  Just make sure it has a warranty or a return policy, as my neighbor had some problems with the first model she bought ... she ended up going with a different brand because of all of the problems.


Can I cook beans without salt? I made some refried beans in a slow cooker, loosely following the recipe from my cookbook. The recipe says to cook the beans with ½ teaspoon of salt. Is this necessary to properly cook the beans? I am starting from dry beans.

I actually used ½ tbsp of soy sauce instead of plain salt and the beans tasted fine, but I would rather add no salt or soy sauce.

I see from this question that salt can affect the softness of the beans, but it seems like the beans should soften eventually either way. Since I am making refried beans, I only need the beans to soften enough for me to break them apart with a hand mixer, and then I can continue cooking them until they’re ready.

This post at the New York Times only discusses using salt to add flavor to the beans, but I am not worried about that. If I make a salt-free batch of beans and don’t like the taste, I can always go back to adding salt next time.

So will the beans cook properly in a slow cooker without adding salt?

Yes.  In fact, many, many people believe (falsely) that adding salt before or during cooking will keep beans hard (a myth addressed in your first link), and most of these people have been cooking perfectly good beans for many years without adding salt until the beans were fully cooked.

The cooking time may vary slightly.  In some circumstances, the texture of the beans and/or their skins may soften at somewhat different rates than with salt.  But the beans will still cook fine.

(One note: some chefs have claimed that cooking beans without salt causes people to add even more salt afterward to create a flavor that tastes "properly salted."  Beans are generally enhanced by adding flavoring components early enough in cooking for the flavors to penetrate.  But you can always add salt afterward too; the resulting flavor distribution will just be different.)


what is the exact time to add food color in sweet rice? I always confused to add the color in sweet rice .what is the exact time to add food color .As i add color when the rice is boiled. is it right?

No it is not perfect time to add color after boiling the rice.

After boiling the rice you should add sugar and other ingredients of your choice and than at the time of steaming stage you should add color in your rice.


How do I stop my pastry shrinking? So I line a flan tin with shortcut pastry. It's quite a nice deep pan (sides are maybe 2 to 3 cm) so it looks like there's going to be plenty of room for a filling.

But after 20 mins baking blind, I get the pastry out. The sides have shrunk right down to about 0.5cm in height. Almost no usable depth for a filling.

Is there anyway to stop the pastry shrinking like this?

This has happened to me on occasion when I got lazy and tried to skip steps. My pastry walls were melting and sliding down the pan before they were able to set.

There are several best-practices that will help solve this:

Keep your dough chilled. If the dough is warm or if it is built into a warm pan it will melt in the oven before it has a chance to set.
Make a better lip (if there is one). A more substantial edge around the pastry will give some physical support to prevent falling.
Use foil and pie weights to reinforce the structure during the beginning of baking.


What do I do with the neck? Often when I buy a dressed fowl, it comes with the neck, a bony object, which in the case of a duck, is suggestive of the male anatomy. This item is so hard and bony, it would take a heavy cleaver to cut it. What am supposed to do with this part of the duck?

Use the neck to make a pan sauce...or add it to other poultry parts when you make stock.


How do commercial sauce companies remove seeds from tomatoes? When I remove seeds from tomatoes it is a tedious process. I scoop out the pulp which is in different compartments inside the tomato and push it through a strainer. It takes a long time.

How do food companies automate this process? Is it something I can do?

Update

I tried a food mill, but this just liquifies the tomatoes and excludes the pulp as well as the seeds. For example, see the video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWnhKJBV0UU showing a food mill being used. You can see that the guy just gets tomato juice out of it. All the pulp is left mixed with the seeds and skins. I want to just remove the seeds without losing any pulp or destroying its microstructure.

I am considering getting a tomato press. This device uses much more pressure than a food mill. The secret to using the press is that you pass the discard through twice. So, on the first pass you get tomato juice out of it, and on the second pass you get a puree. It seems to do a pretty good job of separating the skins and seeds. The downside is that the puree does have the pulp but has lost some of its structure.

Ideally, I would like to preserve more of the structure.

I have seen one chef who quarters the tomatoes and then slices the whole seed cavity out, which seems like a pretty good and thorough way to do it, but is manually intensive. The squeeze-out-the-seeds strategy is not useful for my case because I need to remove all the seeds and squeezing is a partial solution at best. Also, squeezing or quartering a bushel of tomatoes will take hours.

In a commercial setting, i.e. a food processing plant, industrial, large capacity equipment is used. This equipment is specifically designed for this purpose and is part of the production line.

In a home setting, there are a couple of options. First is an electric tomato mill. These can be a little pricey, but are designed specifically for tomatoes and other soft fruits. Some come with different size strainers to accomodate different textures and seed sizes. Here is a link to a mid-priced unit on Amazon.

Second, and more affordable, is the manual tomato strainer and sauce maker. They are much more affordable and are designed to remove the skin and seeds while leaving the juice and pulp. Here is a link to a moderately priced and highly rated unit on Amazon. The pics for this item clearly show it discarding the seeds and skins, while keeping the juice and pulp. The texture looks quite nice, also.

To be clear, I am not endorsing these items, just using them for examples.