What is the maximum internal temperature of baked goods? Obviously this will vary depending on the size/shape and ingredients used. But how hot does it get inside, say, a loaf of bread? A cake? How wide is the variation? What ingredients (or factors other than shape/size and cooking temp/time) might affect this, and in what direction?

Edit: to clarify, I mean "maximum temperature during normal cooking."

Jolenealaska's answer provides the basics -- internal temperatures over boiling inside baked goods just don't tend to happen under normal conditions.  The reason is because most doughs and batters contain a lot of water.  The final baked goods generally still retain a lot of that water, too.  When the dough is hot and in the oven, however, that water will be heated and will gradually evaporate from the dough.

Assuming you get to close to 212F/100C, at normal atmospheric pressure, water will actually be "boiling" out of the dough.  For the external surface of baked goods, that moisture can leave rapidly enough that the surface rises to higher temperatures (forming a crust).  But internally, the moisture keeps boiling out, maintaining a temperature below or at boiling.  Unless you have a weird situation where you are somehow cooking your baked goods under pressure, water will continue evaporating out of the batter/dough at 212F/100C until the dough/batter has pretty much turned into a dry cracker internally.  That's the only way you'll ever achieve an internal temperature much over 212F/100C: to bake things until they are basically dried out inside (which is not a desirable feature in most baked goods).

As for the maximum useful temperature, that depends on the baked good and the ingredients.  I have to disagree with Jolene slightly here and say I have a number of bread recipes that recommend an internal temperature of 205F or so.  Temperatures over 200F are only generally for lean crusty bread doughs (like baguettes or something), which often start with a fairly moist dough.  The high internal temperature means that more moisture has been removed, which will keep the crust more firm and, well, "crustier."

The more enriched your bread dough, generally the lower the desired final temperature.  Basically, above 175F or so, the gluten coagulation is complete and the dough structure is formed.  So, bread can be "done" anywhere from 175F to about 210F.  If you have a very rich sandwich loaf or brioche or something, you might find that a temp of 180-190F is sufficient.  Large loaves may also need different temperature handling than small buns, for example, since residual heat will continue the baking process outside the oven longer in larger loaves, but it also takes longer for moisture to migrate out of the center of a large loaf.

As for other baked goods, similar advice applies.  Cakes and quickbreads are generally done once you get to around 190-195F, though the ingredients will really affect this.  A "drier" style cake without lots of "stuff" in the batter (e.g., pound cake) might go to 205F or even 210F before it's "done" according to normal criteria, while a quickbread made with loads of fruit might "get stuck" in the range around 190-195F for a long time because there's just so much moisture.  (And it's basically done there anyway.)  For cakes or other baked goods which are meant to be excessively moist (with a fudge interior or something), 175F might be sufficient, since again that's roughly the temperature when baked goods get a final "set" structure.  (Of course, there are also things like "lava" cakes where the interior is not actually fully cooked; in that case, internal temp should be determined by food safety criteria sufficient to cook the eggs, which might be a little lower.)  And again, shape and size are often important for these numbers, because residual heat will lead to further stabilizing of the structure in large things after they come out of the oven.  So, a particular cake might be "done" at 195F, but making cupcakes with the same batter might require 200 or 205F to get the same texture.

It's hard to specify a generic all-purpose desirable maximum temperature, because various changes continue to happen to baked goods after the structure gets set at 175F or so.  Between 175F and 195F, the starches continue to gelatinize and some enzyme activity will continue.  Above 195F, it's mostly about drying things out to the desired final texture.


How can I make a chocolate cup that looks like the seaweed on a sushi roll? I want to make a dessert that simulates a salmon roe sushi (like this) using rice pudding and spherified melon juice with a chocolate "seaweed" wrapping. But I can't figure out how to make the seaweed convincing.

How do I do this?

"Plastic chocolate" is a form of chocolate used for modeling and shaping decorative elements such as chocolate roses, ribbons and other elements for cakes and desserts.

Take about 1 lb. of bittersweet chocolate and melt over a double boiler.  When chocolate is melted, stir in 2/3 cup of light corn syrup. Mix until evenly blended and then set aside to cool.  When it firms up, wrap tightly in a heavy gauge plastic bag or wrap tightly in plastic wrap.  Let sit for several hours or overnight.  No need to refrigerate it, ambient temperature is fine.

Cut the plastic chocolate into smaller size chunks that will be easy to knead.  Begin kneading to soften it.  If it gets sticky, use a little cocoa powder but be careful not to dry it out.  Knead until pliable and then roll out to desired thickness and cut as desired to shape your sushi rolls, decorative elements, etc.  You can roll it through the roller of a pasta machine to help get it to an even thickness.

If you're wanting the rough look of nori then press some crumpled foil into it after rolling as previously suggested.


What is your training regimen for developing your palate? Hope this question isn't too broad, but one area I have struggled with is developing the ability to identify and isolate flavors in dishes.

How do you train your palate to recognize those flavors? More specifically, do you have a training regimen you'd recommend going through to learn differentiate between such flavors?

Thank you!

Interesting question!

I think the answer for most people is: we don't. At least not in any structured, scientific manner.

Personally, I eat very intentionally when I am trying to learn more about a dish and its ingredients. What I mean by that is I try to break down the dish into its component parts and really think about what flavors I am detecting.

I've listed some guidelines below. Consider how you can incorporate these into your everyday life. While some kind of focused training regimen could work (it sounds like a fun experiment), these are things you can do every single day to improve your knowledge of flavor.

Eat lots of good food and be mindful of flavors as you eat.
Taste often while cooking (including your raw ingredients) to learn about how flavors change, interact, and layer.
Learn about classic flavor combinations from various cuisines around the world and try to decide what makes them work and how you can twist them.
Slow down.
Change things up and try new flavors often. You can't learn how an ingredient tastes if you don't eat it.
Be fearless. People are often hobbled by preconceived notions. "Oh I don't like asparagus." Well that's all fine and good but why don't you like asparagus? For almost any person can find ways to appreciate almost any food given a positive attitude and some experimentation.
Your palate is just as much about your nose as it is your mouth (perhaps more-so), so lots of smelling is in order.


New York strip roast came out like beef jerky OMGosh. Please help! Was I supposed to cover the New York strip roast with liquid? I RUINED dinner because there are no IP instructions so I used the instructions for “beef roast” and “steak”. I’m so upset because I just got the darn thing and was so excited to make this for my husband and it has the texture of beef jerky. Can anyone help?

You made 2 mistakes.

A pressure cooker (like InstaPot) relies on water to make steam to create pressure.  You should not put a roast in the pressure cooker without adding liquid.
A pressure cooker is ideal for breaking down collagen in cheap, tough cuts of meat to make them tender.  NY Strip is a premium cut that is already tender - just roast it in the oven.


Difference between ground cloves and clove powder? Is there a difference between ground cloves and clove powder? Can I easily substitute one for the other?

No, spices are commonly sold as "X powder" or "ground X". As far as I can tell, they are likely the same thing. The only thing I might imagine would be different would be the size of the grind.

I would imagine yes, you can substitute one for the other.

eg:
http://www.livestrong.com/article/497275-cinnamon-powder-vs-ground-cinnamon/


What features should I look for when buying an espresso maker? I got a $30 espresso machine a year and half ago to see if we would actually use it much. It gets used several times a week (and we haven't bought anything from Starbucks in months), and the gasket in it's cap is leaking, so we're looking to buy a replacement.

The price range is truly impressive, and I have no real understanding of what the difference between a $30 machine and a $500 machine. What are the features that I should look for that make one machine better than another?

An espresso machine usually needs to push water at somewhere between 8 and 15 bar pressure, which is quite a lot. And since it is the high-pressure components that are key to how they work, it is the quality and durability of these that tends to set the price point.

The quality of the pump varies from a device intended to be used for two or three cups once a week, all the way to professional machines designed to produce thousand of cups a day, month after month. This is why domestic machines are usually quite clear that they are for domestic use only: they simply cannot cope with the duty cycle of any more than that. Many domestic espresso machines will turn themselves off if they are used to make too many cups in one session - quite simply, they overheat.

It sounds like one you bought is one intended for occasional use. My advice is to visit a couple of retailers that have staff dedicated to selling espresso machines. They will, of course, try to sell you "their" brand, but they will also recognise when someone needs a domestic unit designed for daily use as opposed to one just for special occasions.

As a bonus, you generally get what you pay for with espresso machines. The more expensive domestic ones usually really do last much longer.


Some advice on knives So my parents got a knive set from St. Moritz, and wanted to give them to me. I'm an hobby cook, who just likes cooking simple stuff. I have barely any knowledge about knives or treating them, so here I am. I just had some questions about the knives, since I'm not sure if these are legit.

Here's a picture of the knife set:

Whenever I google the knives, I only get shady sites and stories about people being scammed. Is this brand legit? The booklet that's included says the entire set is worth around 730 euros, but I can't find anything online.

And assuming the knives are legit, are there any tips on treating/using them? Can these be put in the dishwasher when cleaning, or should I refrain from that?

I have a magnetic bar on my wall to store knives, but is it bad to put 'good' knives on them?

They are kind of blunt at the moment, but I have barely any experience sharpening them, should I bring them to a special shop or something?

Thank you for your help! Just figuring out how to use these, if they're legit to begin with.

"San Moritz" is the name of a line of culinary knives by the well recognized brand Messermeister. HOWEVER, the knives shown differ notably in design from that line and are likely a cheaply made product trying to capitalize on the name of that line.

Knives that are actually sold aboveboard (and perfectly worth the money) at ~$100 and higher apiece will usually be of a well recognized brand (eg Herder, Zwilling, K Sabatier, Chroma, Global...), or small-batch/handmade pieces bearing the name of the artisan or responsible workshop leader (eg Heimo Roselli, Jürgen Schanz, Sirou Kamou...).

Often (with a legit expensive knife), the steel type used will be clearly named (either by an industry standard name like VG10, 1.4116, 420B, AUS-8A .... or by a manufacturer-specific product name that describes a combination of steel and proprietary heat treatment method, eg Global "Cromova" ), and sometimes the hardness range will also be specified (eg 60-62HRC would be typical for VG10, 55-56HRC for 1.4116). A steel type and hardness do not signify the quality of the steel alone, since the way the steel is processed makes significant differences. A cheap knife is likely going to be of 420B at 55-56HRC, which CAN be a decent steel but often is not.

Out of the box sharpness is a highly brand dependent matter in all price ranges, for different reasons - a very cheap brand might not bother to sharpen well since it is costly (good abrasives are not that cheap), a high end maker assumes that the user is knowledgeable and will either know sharpening it or know a trusted local professional, and have their own idea of HOW they want it sharpened (there are tradeoffs to be made in sharpness vs durability, and different edges are best for different applications). BTW, for culinary knives, cutting behaviour is a combination of actual edge sharpness and blade geometry.


Mixing mushroom-potato-carrot soup and warming later (Should I?) I've got what is probably a pretty basic question - but this is the first thing I've tried to prepare in my life that didn't involve boiling noodles and adding cheese afterwords.

I'm looking at baking chicken breast in foil packets with cream of mushroom, carrots, potatoes etc etc. The thing is I'm only cooking for two people, so If I follow the proportions on my recipe I'm gonna have a lot left over, so I thought I'd make the leftover mushroom/spud/carrot concoction into a soup (possibly by adding some cream of chicken to thicken it up). This unfortunately adds a whole level of work to what I'm doing and given the fact that I don't want to start heating until my girlfriend is on her way over (which is somewhat unpredictable time-wise) but want it to be ready when she gets here (20 minutes or so) I'm wondering if I can prepare some of the stuff ahead of time.

I don't see any reason I can't cut the fat off the chicken or wash/peal/dice the veggies, but will the veggies get soggy or loose texture if I mix them in with the cream of mushroom up to an hour before I start heating it? I assume if I were to do this, it would be ok to refrigerate? Thanks so much for your help. If something I'm spouting sounds like utter nonsense or would taste terrible, please feel free to let me know! =)

You're fine making those packets well in advance. You could even put them together the night before and leave them in the refrigerator until you're ready to bake (expect them to take five minutes longer to cook). The only possible negative to doing it that way is that the potatoes could get a little brown. You can keep that from happening too badly by making sure that they are completely covered by a thin coating of the soup mixture.

You don't want to serve soup made out of the same ingredients as your entree. That recipe is totally scalable, meaning you don't have to make any more than you will actually eat. At worst you're going to have some of the can of soup and part of a potato left over.

I wish the recipe described the making of the foil packets a little better. If you're at all unsure about how to fold those, come back and ask. We'll help you out.

BTW, that begs for a green salad to go with it. You could put a salad together a few hours before your girlfriend is expected and keep it in the fridge. Just don't add the dressing or any croutons until you're ready to serve.


Are ceramic plates generally oven-safe? Can you cook food in a ceramic eating plate in the oven at 300 degrees Fahrenheit?

Yes, but make sure it's actually ceramic if you intend to roast for a long time. Some plates are a slightly cheaper (but still kiln-fired) clay dipped in glaze, and could be prone to cracking from thermal expansion and contraction.

But at just 300 degrees for an hour or less, I don't think it would be a problem either way.


What to do with soggy mushy potato chips? We had crispy potato chips (not french fries) made by a catering service. They arrived already a bit on the soft side, and on the next day they are quite soft and mushy. I don't like wasting food, so I am looking for ideas on how to turn them into a meal.

My first idea is to bake them, maybe with sauce like a gratin or casserole.

Any other ideas?

Crush them and use them as a breading for deep fried meat.


How to make a stable culinary Parmesan foam I have Knox powdered gelatin, soy lecithin, and a 0.25 liter ISI whipper. I just need to make one cup of this special liquid to pour into the whipper but I do not know the ratios of cheese, water/milk, lecithin, and gelatin. I heard you also use egg whites but the more I research about this the more I'm confusing myself -.-

Im serving this in small amounts as a garnish for a lobster bisque fyi. I do not want the foam to melt into a puddle on top of the warm/hot bisque within 5ish minutes,

Someone help me out pls

First of all you are better off with Xanthan Gum instead of gelatin. Xanthan gum is relatively heat stable whereas gelatin is renowned for its inability to withstand any heat above 35 °C.

200g parmesan grated (including rind).
400ml full fat milk.
1 tbsp
soy lecithin.

Bring to simmer 5 min, then blend and pass through fine sieve. Taste for seasoning now, bare in mind you want it to be over powering at this stage.

Allow to cool and then blend in:

another tbsp soy lecithin
one tsp Xanthan gum.

If warming for serving do not boil or even simmer as this will make the foam weak.

Personally I blend and scoop the foam off the top. However I see no reason why this couldn't work in a siphon.

Regarding egg white and Hy-foamer (the molecular cuisine equivalent to egg white, where soy lecithin is the substitute for egg yolk). These are used/useful in fat free foams such as raspberry coulis. They don't work well in fat based ones like the Parmesan foam you are attempting.


Maintaining Sourdough Starter Given the time of year and my home's shoddy heating, I opted to put my starter on top of the clothes dryer to keep it warm. With five people in my family it gets regular use, especially towards the end of the week, so the actual level of warmth isn't an issue. But I am a little leery of the agitation- will the dryer's vibration affect the starter in any way?

The vibrations will have an effect:

On you, because it will be harder to judge the "ripeness" of your refreshed sourdough. You often want to catch the point "just before its starts to go down again" - which will be hard to do when the shaking machine bursts the bubbles all the time.

I doubt that the yeasts and bacteria in the starter will mind - they won't get seasick.


Why was sauteed spinach watery? I sauteed some spinach in a little oil and when eating the oil with spinach I noticed the oil tasted a bit watery and I could have sworn I saw water(likely from spinach) in the oil while it was frying.

Am I doing something wrong when cooking, can you explain these results? As far as I understand, since the oil should be so hot the water should evaporate rapidly.

There is a lot of water in spinach. It's 91% water.

  Raw spinach is 91% water, 4% carbohydrates, 3% protein, and contains negligible fat (table).

In my experience, sauteeing spinach still requires a good amount of cooking time to actually cook off much of the water and usually still requires draining it or squeezing it to get rid of all of it.

Yes, high heat will evaporate some of the water but "rapidly" doesn't mean "instantly" when you have 6 oz of spinach, that's almost 5.5 ounces of water. Even on the highest heat, that'd likely take long enough that your spinach would be unappetizing to eat.

So, if you're doing a quick saute, just to wilt it, you're still going to have most of that water in the pan.


How can I make moong dal crepe crispy? I'm making a north Indian snack for my toddler, he likes crispy textures.

Moong dal ground with water, added chopped onion and cilantro.

The batter was thin like a crepe batter and cooked in frying pan. The edges were crispy. The interior was like a crepe.

Would boiling off some water help (adding more water in the beginning helps the grinding process and smooths the moong dal)?
Would Rice flour help?
I know America test kitchen adds baking soda to things to increase browning, would that work?

How can I improve the texture to make the outside more crispy?

Just add some semolina and rice flour. This would help a lot to make your crepes crispy


How to go about reducing sugar in a butter cake recipe? Recently I made some cupcakes that turned out mostly great. However, even other people than me – I have an aversion towards overly "sugary" desserts – said they were fairly sweet, and for me it seemed to obscure the other flavors.

(The other flavours being vanilla or rose in the batter. You could certainly smell them so I don't think it was just that they evaporated while baking, and I use a fairly heavy hand with those ingredients for baked goods.)

Is there any rule-of-thumb on what the "correct" ratio of sugar to other ingredients in a cake recipe is so I could tell if the recipe was using too much? (The recipe was: cream butter and sugar, add flour and baking powder, add eggs, add milk, stir until just combined, bake.) Or how far I could reduce sugar from the standard recipe without negatively affecting texture / moisture? And is it necessary to adjust any of the other ingredient amounts along with the sugar?

According to Shirley Corriher, as reported in Fine Cooking, the sugar should weigh slightly more than the flour:

The sugar should weigh the same as, or slightly more than, the flour.
Remember that this is weight, not volume. A cup of sugar weighs about
7 ounces, and a cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 4-1/2 ounces.
So, if we're building a recipe with 1 cup sugar, we'll need about
1-1/2 cups flour (about 6-3/4 ounces).

Sugar plays a very important role in creating the structure and bite of cakes, and also helps to retain moisture and inhibit spoiling, so you cannot simply reduce the quantity without limit to control the sweetness.
That being said, most recipes have a certain amount of tolerance. You can probably reduce the sugar by about 20 to 25% without completely altering the nature of the recipe, although the crumb may suffer a little.

Vanilla and rose are delicate flavors. If you are making a yellow cake with butter, and egg yolks, they may be competing and masking the flavor.
Using a white cake base may allow these flavors to show through more clearly.


What's the difference between gazpacho and normal soups? Gazpacho is (afaik) a tomato-based soup, eaten very cold. I was wondering if there is a difference between gazpacho and other soups, apart from the temperature eaten at.

Could you heat gazpacho and eat it like a normal soup?
Could you chill a normal tomato-based soup and call it gazpacho?
Are there ingredients that are mandatory when making gazpacho? Or things you certainly cannot add?

Gazpacho is possibly Spain's most famous chilled soup. The main difference aside form the temperature is that it's raw, meaning that the soup is not actually cooked it's just blended and chopped vegetables and occasionally bread. There is nothing inherently wrong with heating up gazpacho but it would lose its fresh texture and flavour which is why it's chilled and according to Wikipedia was popular with labourers who used it to:

  "cool off during the summer and to use available ingredients such as fresh vegetables and stale bread"

The main reason you couldn't just chill a normal soup and call it gazpacho is because gazpacho is made up of by no means just tomato. It contains tomatoes, a bit of garlic, cucumber, occasionally bread, some vinegar for tang and a drizzle of olive oil at the end.

If you wanted to make it your own (after all you're the chef!) you could add some Tabasco, bell peppers, spring onions or croutons at the end, basically anything you might find in a salsa dip. Use your common sense for what not to add but even in Spain they have variations that are not at all like what I would think of as gazpacho: in La Mancha they use it like a stew and add game (usually rabbit) and even wild mushrooms!

Hope this helps and gives you some inspiration, if you want a recipe a quick search on Google gives a multitude of results.


Aged cheese allergy, what would be a good substitution? I am allergic to parmesean cheese - any aged cheese really (due to the mold created from the aging process). However, I can eat blue cheese. I'm making a ricotta gnocchi that calls for parmesan. What can I use as a substitute?

Some cheeses, especially here in the Netherlands, are covered in a plastic layer to prevent moulds from gaining access to the product. If the molds are indeed all you are allergic to, you might want to try an aged Gouda cheese as a substitute for Parmesan.

It will provide you with a very similar taste, provided you go for the really aged kinds, like This brand that is sold internationally

To get the effect that you would normally get from Parmesan you need to get a cheese that was aged at least 10 months, otherwise it will be too creamy and might ruin the texture of your dish.


Is powdered sugar a dietary alternative to granulated sugar? How does powdered sugar stack up to regular sugar and artificial sweeteners in terms of sugar/carbohydrate content?

Powdered sugar is, basically, just sugar, but with the grains ground to a fine dust.

To be very precise, powdered sugar sometimes contains an anti-caking agent like corn starch to prevent clumping but as far as nutritional values go, treat it like ordinary sugar.

So:
Powdered sugar is no sugar alternative because it is simply sugar.


Is it incorrect when someones says you can lower acidity with sweetness? It is commonly known that if your food is too acidic, you lower the acidity of the food by adding something sweet. Is this correct?

Acidity can me measured by pH. Does the sweet actually raise the pH(less acidic) or does the pH stay the same and the sweet only mask the taste of the acidity.

Yes, it is incorrect. The correct thing to say is that it reduces sourness. Sourness is a taste, and sweetness indeed reduces it, and vice versa. Coca Cola classic has the same pH as vinegar, 2.5, but the cola is sweet and the vinegar is sour, because the sugar in cola is enough to compensate the acidity and push the taste into the sweet range.

Acidity is a chemical quality of a solution, and is given by the amount of hydrogen ions freely available. It is not changed by the amount of sugar (except for very strong acids like sulfuric acid, which would react with the sugar and bind some protons in the reaction). Acidity "creates" sourness in the sense that we taste acidic food as sour, but as you can see in the sweetness example, our tongues aren't a perfect sensor and can be fooled by the presence of sweet substances, or also other things like miracle berries.

Note that sweetness really reduces sourness, and doesn't just "mask" it the way it masks bitterness or saltiness for some people.


Did I accidentally make cheese? I was making a bran muffin recipe that called for 3/4 c buttermilk, which I didn't have. I took 3/4 c fat-free milk and added 2 tsp white vinegar and let it sit. I added  1 tsp vanilla.

Since I was going to use coconut oil and thus needed the "buttermilk" to be slightly warmer than room temperature (so the oil wouldn't harden), I put the "buttermilk" in the microwave for 30 seconds. The photo shows the unwanted result - I guess the milk separated from the whey and formed this glob. Can I assume this is unusable? I'd like to understand better what happened.

Yes, you did; although in a non-traditional manner :)  You created an acid-set cheese.  These are made by adding an acid (e.g., lemon juice or vinegar) after heating the milk (e.g., paneer) or by heating soured (acidified) milk (e.g., quark).

It appears that your microwave blast caused the proteins to combine into a single clump.  Normally, the heat is more gently applied.  From your picture, it seems to be most similar in texture to the curds used in a poutine.

Let us know how it tastes!


What can I substitute for Guanciale? Guanciale is something I've never seen in the UK. What can I use as a substitute?

Or, alternatively, is there somewhere I can source this in the UK?

Note: I'm thinking of experimenting with an Amatriciana.

Wikipedia suggests Pancetta which is another form of cured Italian bacon, usually without smoking. I think the primary thing you are looking for is cured but not smoked, as smoke will add a strong flavor that is completely missing in Guanciale.


Is it possible to replace the sugar in Tapioca Meringue pudding with stevia? I'd like to know if powdered stevia can be used to make the meringue in the pudding.  I'm trying to get away from sugar, but not sure how to use stevia.  I've seen a recipe for stevia in the pudding, but I like the fluffy form of tapioca made by mixing the pudding with meringue, but I need advice on the meringue part.
Also want to try replacing the milk with coconut milk.  Has anyone tried this?

In meringues sugar is important mainly for the final texture, much more so than for it's sweetening effect.
Since Stevia is much sweeter than sugar, one would have to use far less in order to not ruin the taste.  ("collectively, they give stevia 100 to 300 times the sweetness of sucrose")
Yet even taking half as much normal sugar than the recipe calls for will result in a vastly different meringue (not as stiff and less stable over time). The same problem stands for other  sweeteners.

I'd therefore try using a sugar alcohol that has comparable (or even lower) sweetness to sucrose, so you can use a similar weight of material and get the texture just right (after some experimentation perhaps). Then, if that ends up not being sweet enough, you can still add a tiny bit of stevia solely for sweetening.

For meringue, the following properties seem especially important in sugar substitutes:

similar hygroscopicity to household sugar
less or comparably sweet than household sugar (so that bulk quantities may be used without ruining the taste)
low laxativity (because rather high amounts might be consumed)

Have a look at this list.
Erythritol won't work well because it is not hygroscopic enough, all the other options have a laxative effect.

I'd therefore advise against using sugar substitutes if you  don't absolutely need to.

If you want to just sweeten the pudding itself separately with stevia, go for it. Pudding gets it's texture mostly from starch (or gelatin) so the lack of sugar won't have a detrimental (or even positive, in the case of starch) effect on texture.

Having said all that; it seems possible to get decent meringue without adding any sugar at all if you get the technique just right otherwise (and add cream of tartar and perhaps starch). See also this answer. Personally, I've been dissatisfied whenever I used less than a ratio of 1/3 of sugar to egg whites and find 1/2 best for swiss meringue.


Baked Raisin Cinnamon Bread and shipping I have been baking and selling breads and rolls this year locally. My question is can I freeze the bread prior to shipping or would it make bread soggy during shipping?  I am mailing from Texas to New York

If the bread wasn't soggy before freezing, it won't be when it thaws. Properly sealed, items that are frozen don't absorb more moisture than they already contain.

At room temperature, a loaf of bread will thaw rather quickly, depending on the size and thickness of the loaf. At most, it would take about 3-4 hours to completely defrost, so freezing your product before shipping wouldn't be of much value.

Instead, consider how best to package it to keep it from drying out, or being damaged. Wrap it first in paper, then in plastic. Put it in a sturdy box, larger than the loaf and with enough extra space so that you can insert padding material (e.g., air pillows, bio-degradable peanuts) so that it doesn't move around. And send it overnight or priority, so that it's delivered within several days.


Why does boiling water make dough taste sweet? I was experimenting on dough for chapathi, which is basically wheat tortilla. This is how I normally prepare it,
Mix whole wheat flour and salt with room tap water, often 20 to 30 degree Celsius .
Knead with oil until I get a consistent dough.
Immediately press with a rolling pin and cook in a pan
In this method, the product is often crisp, never fluffy and no particular taste.
But today I experimented with hot boiling water as I read recently it denatures protein in food, which prompted me to experiment.
When I cooked my chapathi, those were extra tender but more importantly, it was very sweet, even though I added salt .
I hope to find a scientific explanation to this phenomenon.

Flour is mostly starch, and starches are long chains of sugar molecules. When you add hot water to starches they gelatinize and burst, and these gelatinized starches soften the dough. Gelatinization works faster at higher temperatures.
There are enzymes in the flour which break the starch down into sugars, and they work more efficiently at high than room temperature as well, say 65°C.
Both these processes work at lower temperatures, but they work faster a higher temperatures, which is why adding boiling water gave you that result. At room temperature gelatinization works faster than enzymes action breaking starch down into sugars, so letting the dough rest will soften the dough without making it much sweeter.


Why is almond bark called almond bark? Almond bark (the candy coating) seems to have no almond in it, why is it called almond bark?

According to a representative from a company that makes it, it's packaged with the words “make your own almond bark".

So "almond bark" (the coating) is a key ingredient in "almond bark" (the candy with almonds). Over time, according to the representative, the ingredient became called with the same name as the candy.


Is it safe to use a HydroFlask (vacuum flask) with scratches on the inside? When I was washing my HydroFlask out before the first use, I put a wet paper towel on the inside of the bottle and used the handle of wooden spoon to push the towel around the very bottom. When I took the towel back out, I noticed a new crescent-shaped blemish/discoloration from where I was sliding the towel with the spoon handle and this blemish will not come out. Upon further inspection, this blemish does appear to be an actual scratch, as water drops stick to it when they don't stick anywhere else on the interior of the bottle.

I am really shocked that such an action would have scratched it in the first place, as the wooden handle never came in direct contact with the bottle. There were several layers of wet paper towel between it and the bottle interior.

Does this scratch compromise the integrity or safety of the bottle? Like will the finish start to wear away and get into the liquid contents of the bottle?

Hydro Flasks don't have an interior lining, they're just food grade stainless steel. You'll be perfectly fine using the bottle as you would otherwise.


Why can't I use toaster oven instead of real oven? My toaster oven has a temperature gauge just like my oven 200-450 degrees. I opened a package of fish sticks and the instructions said "Do not cook in microwave or toaster oven." It only had instructions for cooking them in a regular oven. Do you have any idea why a toaster oven that can be put at the same temperature would not be good to use?

Possible reasons:

Horrible temperature control - this is simply a problem of cheap
construction.  One could theoretically build an excellent toaster
oven with precise temperature control, but why would you?
Low
thermal mass -  If you get an oven to 400F and open it for long
enough to put in food, the result is an oven at very slightly less
than 400F, and which will quickly return to 400F.  Do that with a
toaster oven, and who knows what temperature you'll get, or how
quickly it will get to your desired temperature (if ever, see #1).
This is not a slam at toaster ovens, this is just due to them being
approximately 2% of the volume of a standard oven.
Closeness to
elements.  It's easy for toaster ovens interiors to vary by nearly
50F from middle to edge, simply based on distance to elements

Now don't get me wrong, I once made some kickin' Oysters Rockefeller in a toaster oven, when I thought that they would be the difference between serving an appetizer and being allowed to serve breakfast the next morning (wink, wink).  If you know what you're doing, and watch carefully and continually, a toaster oven can be an excellent source of high(ish) direct heat.  But they are extremely difficult to control, and extremely unforgiving of errors.  I can't think of a circumstance where a toaster oven would be my first choice of cooking tool (and that includes microwave, campfire, plumber's blowtorch).


How to ensure rice from rice cooker becomes dry? I'm adding 1.5 cups of water for 1 cup of basmati rice to my rice cooker. I don't think the amount is the problem.

It's not very watery but it can feel a little watery(which probably isnt an issue for most) but I would like it very dry.

Sometimes I eat straight after its heated, could that be the issue? After it's cooked do I need to leave it open so all the water evaporates?  What can I do to ensure I get very dry rice?

Thanks

What I normally do is fluff up the rice- sometimes its just the top layer which is a little more moist due to condensation, but if it's watery I sometimes leave the rice cooker open for a bit and let it evaporate which works for me (although I don't know if that is how you're supposed to do it)


Is there a way to make ham in a casserole less salty? When I was pregnant, my mother-in-law helped me make several casseroles to freeze.  We're still eating them, but the ones with ham have had some problems.  At first, it was just ham, vegetables, and noodles with no sauce to hold it all together.  So I started adding cream of mushroom soup.  But the ham is still really salty.  Is there something else I can add in addition to or in place of the cream of mushroom soup to help, or should we just toss the rest of the ham casseroles?
Thanks!

You need to add bulky things with no salt, so that it'll average out to a saltiness you're okay with.

Although cream of mushroom soup sounds like a nice easy way to add some goopiness, it's probably pretty salty. If you can find low- or no-sodium soup, that'd be a much better choice. That kind of thing might be easier to find in fancy/organic/"healthy" brands. If you're willing to make your own soup/sauce, you can easily make it salt-free, but it sounds like you're looking for quick and easy options.

You could also try adding more vegetables and noodles without salt. (Starchy things like potatoes can also work well, but maybe you prefer noodles since they're already in there.) If you end up needing more goopy stuff to hold it together, again, try to find something sodium-free or low-sodium.

But there's not really any avoiding the main issue: you have to add a bunch of stuff without salt, so you're kind of going to have to turn your casserole into a bigger casserole.


How to save a bread without enough water I am ready to do the final rise before baking my bread and I realized I didn’t get the hydration up to where I would like it. Can I just knead the extra water in now?

It’s a 1/2 whole wheat bread with seeds and pieces. Hydration is currently 65% which is fine for a white bread but for whole wheat it should be around 75-85.

Yes. It is certainly possible to rescue a too dry dough this way. The amount of water absorbed can shoot up very quickly. I suggest you copy Gérard Rubaud's technique and knead very gently, using stretch-and-fold, so that some of the air from the first rise stays in the bread.  Then give it a final rise as usual.


Can I use mascarpone as a substitute for cream cheese? Is it possible to use Mascarpone in place of cream cheese in cookie recipes? If so, is it an equal amount substitution? For ex: if the recipe calls for 8 oz. of cream cheese, can 8 oz. of mascarpone be used instead with no other changes to the recipe? I want to make a spritz cookie that calls for cream cheese, but would like to use mascarpone instead.

Yes, that should be fine, but bear in mind that cream cheese has a sharper, subtle cheese taste whereas mascarpone is more or less triple cream, and thus milder. If you want that sharp taste, perhaps add just a little lemon juice with your mascarpone.


The Mother Dough Blues I wanted to expand my answer to this question by adding info about the color blue.

Both mother and sour doughs are very stable, but can be 'invaded' by a bacteria that'll give it a bluish taint. I'd throw that dough in the bin (actually, I did once), but I can't find any information confirming that.

So, there's the question: how do you recognize the mother is spoiled?

The sour dough (including the 'mother') should be considered spoiled when:

It smells very bad (like voimit or feces). The natural sour dough smell may be not very pleasant to some, but spoiled dough smells really afwul
It grows hair.  That means mold. And even if it is visible only on the surface, whole dough is spoiled.
It gets strange colour. Generally the dough should be white/gray/brownish, maybe with some darker spots when whole grain flour is used. When it becomes black, red or blue – it is bad.
It doesn't work. Good sour dough will raise when fed and put it warm place. When it is spoiled it usually won't work any more. Good bacteria and yeast are usually mostly dead when bad bacteria or mold took over the dough.


What can be used as a wrapper with minimum taste? I'm creating a recipe, which is essentially a duck parcel.

The problem I have is how to make a parcel.

Filo pastry worked but is too dry.

I then read Giorgio Locatelli's idea on use very fine potato sheets, where the starch will help it to glue, but I couldn't get this to work (may be I had the wrong potato, I don't know, I couldn't create a parcel, it only worked as a 'basket' with no lid).

The potato would have been great because it's not a very powerful taste and would not have overpowered the honey duck.

So, filo was too dry. Potatoes may have worked but I couldn't get it to work and of course bacon is obvious but the taste would be too over powering.

So, what else can be used to create a parcel around food?

It's not entirely clear if this needs to be cooked after being wrapped. If you can cook it beforehand, and you really want something that has no taste at all, then you can't do much better than the technique Adria uses his tomato and black olive ravioli, which is basically to create paper-thin sheets of gelled agar and gellan, cut them into circles, and wrap. Of course the technique makes it trivially easy to adapt to other shapes and sizes. If you really want them totally sealed, a torch or even a smear of very hot water should do the trick, it'll gel again as it cools.

If this needs to actually be baked or fried, then I'd go for dumpling wrappers or gyoza wrappers, which are just circular versions of spring roll skins. This is exactly the application they exist for, and there are various kinds of rice-based skins that are so thin, they're actually translucent:

It goes without saying that white rice is pretty bland and won't add much flavour of its own.

The Cook's Thesaurus also has a long page on wrappers; if the above don't work, maybe one of their other suggestions will suit your fancy.


What is the best way to store carrots? The carrots that I buy come in a sealed plastic bag. In the store they are not refrigerated. I've tried keeping them in the bag in the place where I keep things like onions, garlic, and potatoes (a cabinet with metal racks, and an air opening in the back - I keep the carrots on their own rack). I've tried keeping them in the bag, but I've found that one often rots, from moisture or something similar, and causes all the rest of the carrots to go bad. I've tried taking them out of the bag, but they all quickly shriveled up and went bad. The only thing I can think of still trying is to keep them in the fridge... What is the preferred way of storing carrots? How can I keep my carrots in good condition and prevent them from rotting?

Store them in the bag in your fridge. Also, if you take the greens off they will last longer. I keep mine in the drawer at the bottom.


Which types of tomatoes are good for which dishes? I am just beginning to realize the difference between the tastes and quality of different tomatoes for different dishes. I need help from a tomato expert. Which tomatoes are best for the following dishes :
1. Lasagna
2. Penne
3. Sauce for  polenta
4. Pizza or focaccia
Thank you for your help!

The general consensus is that for occidental-style, cooked tomato sauces - all of the sauces you mention are - you want to use the more plum-shaped, thicker-skinned types like Roma or San Marzano, NOT globe tomatoes, especially not the greenhouse grown, large, watery varieties. The more ripe, the better.

Also, good quality canned product (whole peeled, or peeled strips) is usually considered superior to fresh, due to them being canned at optimal ripeness which would make transporting them fresh impractical. I found that the cheapest brands often are sloppily peeled and/or not ripe enough and/or too sour, it is usually worth going for the 90 cent can vs the 30 cent can.

Also, do experiment with what part of the tomato you use. You could:

-Use it whole except the stem, and puree or strain the sauce later (does not apply to canned peeled obviously :) )

-Use everything except the peel (will need looooong stewing to deal with the seeds)

-Use the flesh, and also the juice strained from the seeds

-Use only the flesh (lot of tomato needed, and you might lose some of the umami from the juices)

Also, mashing vs pureeing vs straining can make a lot of textural difference.


How to protect hand skin when preparing food My hand skin is extremely dry due to exposure to water. But when cooking, it is inevitable to submerge my hands in water, for example, to wash food.

So I was wondering

generally how to protect my skin
during and/or after preparing food?
I saw there are gloves sold in the
supermarkets, but they look like for cleaning things such as dishes
and counters. For example, I have
this pair

it is made of "Premium gloves
specially blended with natural
rubber latex and durable synthetic
Neoprene".

I was wondering if such gloves are
safe for food handling? What kinds of
material for gloves are safe?

Thanks and regards!

I wouldn't wear the medical type gloves recommended in the other answers. They are disposable, and once you get them off, you can't put them back on because they cling to themselves on the inside. So if you were only to wear them when you are working with water, you'd go through 4-5 pairs while preparing a dish. This is not only wasteful, but they also contain a layer of talcum on the inside, and coating your sensitive skin with drying talcum 4-5 times in the time needed for cooking is probably a bad idea.

You are probably thinking that this is nonsense and you were planing to wear them throughout the cooking, not taking them off. The problem is that they are sealed from air circulation, so they get hot on the inside. Your hands sweat and sweat and sweat. The talcum helps a little, but it is used up quickly. After 5 to 10 minutes, your hands are immersed in a permanent sweat bath. Which means that they are actulally much moister than if you are submerging them in water for a quick unprotected wash and then drying them. So this is practically worse than no gloves. The transparent gloves used for petrol or hair coloring don't cling to the skin and don't have talcum, but still make you sweat just as bad as the medical ones.

The cleaning gloves you linked are a better solution. They are non-toxic, so they are safe for handling food. Practically any material used for washing gloves is food safe. You just need to wash them on the outside with soap as often as you'd wash your hands. They won't make your hands sweat as bad, because they don't cling to your hands. There is air between them and your skin. The good ones have a very thin layer of some kind of fuzz on the inside, which absorbs sweat, but is not as drying as talcum. Also, they are reusable and keep for a lot of wears. You can put them on for washing, then remove them, and only put them on again for the next washing.

They also have their disadvantages. First, you must take care that no water comes on the inside, because then you'll have a permanently wet glove. Second, they are not especially thin, so tactile input and dexterity are impaired. Third, when they are wet, they get slippery on the outside. Most producers reduce this by covering them with a thin raised pattern, like an inverted tire profile. This worsens the problem with the missing feel and also makes them somewhat worse from a food safety point of view, as the structured surface gives pollutants more oportunity to cling to (but is probably still safer than your fingers with the ridges of your fingerprints). Fourth, they are very easily punctured - a touch with a knife which you probably wouldn't have felt with your skin can puncture them - and useless once they are punctured. But still, if you want to wear gloves, this is probably the way to go.

If you want to go gloveless, you need to find a moisturizing agent which does not impair your food even if a significant amount is transferred to it. Some organic hand creams, a homemade hand cream, or pure oil should all do the trick. Then you have to keep a thick fluffy towel nearby (a normal muselin kitchen towel is probably not good enough). Apply the moisturizer before starting the cooking. Then apply it again, thick, before washing the food, wash the food, dry immediately with the towel, and apply moisturizer again.

An interesting thing to try out would be to use the medical gloves together with oil or a deep conditioner for skin, or something like a facial mask. Sometimes people condition their hands by keeping them immersed in a warm bath of either. You could try applying a very generous dose to your skin, much more than it could absorb, and then put the gloves on, eventually adding some more oil/conditioner (you'll probably with a syringe without a needle for that, as there won't be enough space for pouring). The sweat will still develop, but it will disperse in the big amount of oil or conditioner, so your skin will be kept in a fatty conditioning environment instead of a moist drying out one, which means that you can keep them on for the duration of the cooking. You will still experience the disadvantages I listed for the washing gloves, some of them even stronger (e. g. slipperiness). You may wish to use an edible conditioner or oil, because a puncture could result in everything leaking over your food.


What's the benefit of chilling my cookie dough before baking? I'm making some chocolate crinkle cookies, and one of the recipe steps is to refrigerate the dough at least four hours before baking.

Does this cause any changes in the dough such as something to do with gluten formation (or relaxation), or is it largely about getting a good consistency for the cookie to properly shape itself while baking? Should I be doing this with pretty much any cookie I bake? Is the four hours important, or am I looking for a temperature rather than a time limit?

Anecdotally, the difference is in the spread.

When tested, this is confirmed, along with it affecting the browning and the texture.

When you start with cold dough, the outer edges of the cookie start to firm up before the middle has warmed up a lot. This means it will start crusting (and browning) before the fat in the middle starts to spread out. The cookies are taller and have a smaller footprint and (if not overbaked) will be nicely chewy in the center.

There's a really nice guide about it on King Arthur Flour's blog.

  The cookies pictured above are the same size, weight-wise. But look at the difference in spread – the cookie dough that was refrigerated spread less.

  The cookie dough without refrigeration also browned less.

As you can see, there's a big difference even in only a thirty minute time in the fridge and again, a nice improvement after sixty minutes.

The author compared cookies as old as ten days but noted diminishing returns the longer they waited.

What's happening? Well, the blog states:

  1. Chilling cookie dough controls spread.
  Chilling cookie dough before baking solidifies the fat in the cookies. As the cookies bake, the fat in the chilled cookie dough takes longer to melt than room-temperature fat. And the longer the fat remains solid, the less cookies spread.
  In addition, the sugar in the dough gradually absorbs liquid. If you bake the dough immediately, before sugar has a chance to absorb much liquid, that liquid remains “free” in the dough, and promotes spread. Think of this in terms of thin vs. thick pancake batter: the more liquid in batter, the more it spreads, right? Same with cookies.

  2. Chilling cookie dough concentrates flavor.
  As the dough chills, it gradually dries out, concentrating the flavors of all the ingredients. Think of watered-down lemonade, vs. lemonade with less water: dull flavor vs. bright, tangy flavor. Same with cookies.
  Something else happens as the dough rests: part of the flour breaks down into its component parts, including a simple carbohydrate, sugar. Thus, since sugar is a flavor enhancer (like salt), the cookies may taste more flavorful, as well as sweeter.

  3. Chilling cookie dough changes texture.
  Again, it’s not really the chilling, but the dough gradually drying out, that’s responsible for texture change. The drier the dough, the more concentrated the sugar.  And a higher percentage of sugar creates cookies with chewy/crisp (rather than soft/doughy) texture.

So, allowing the ingredients to rest lets them absorb some of the liquid, gives you less spread, taller, browner cookies. Now, in your case, browning probably isn't an issue, but you do want a nice chewy texture, which chilling your batter will do. Based on the article, you probably don't have to wait the full four hours but it might be interesting to give it a try and see how your cookies change after baking at different times to see if you can only wait an hour rather than four.

Note, because it's not only the chilling factor that affects your outcome, it's not only about getting the dough cold, so it probably wouldn't speed up the process with identical outcomes if you shaped the cookies before chilling the dough. If the water absorption is a big part of it, the surface area to volume ratio isn't going to affect the speed (probably).

This blog was specifically about chocolate chip cookies... your cookies pose an additional concern when it comes to spread. If the dough is really sticky, rolling the dough into a ball and into the powdered sugar will be difficult when the dough is warm. Chilling it will make the dough more manageable.

Plus, with the powdered sugar coating, you want to reduce spread so that you get the nice crevasses without them being too huge. If the cookie spreads less, you'll get narrower breaks in the powdered sugar. It may also prevent the dough from absorbing the powdered sugar so that you get the good contrast you're looking for.


How can I thicken/firm up this caramel? At the weekend, I made millionaire shortbread according to the recipe in Nigella Lawson's "How To Be a Domestic Goddess" (the full recipe is below for completeness). For the caramel part, Nigella uses a microwave and the instructions are as follows:

200g butter
397g sweetened condensed milk
4 tbps (100g) golden syrup
Melt 200g of butter in the microwave (in a large microwavable bowl)
for 2-3 minutes, then add the condensed milk and golden syrup. Whisk
the mixture well until the butter is thoroughly incorporated. Heat for
6-7 minutes until it is boiling, stirring thoroughly every minute.
[...] It's ready when it's thickened and turned a light golden-brown.

Now the result of this is delicious, but it is far too soft for millionaire's shortbread, and it squishes out the sides when trying to eat or cut. My partner has also made this recipe with the same results.
I don't really understand the science of caramel, so I'm not sure what to change to get the results I want. So I have a few questions:

What can I change? Is there something in the above recipe I can do more of, do less of, add more of, etc.?
The answer to this question suggests that the above ingredients are more reliable (than standard caramel) for getting the right texture, but the linked recipe does not use the microwave. Might I get better results without the microwave?
In Nigella's foreword, she advocates the use of the microwave as "what would normally take a good couple of hours takes only a few minutes". Caramel does not take a couple of hours, does it? What is she talking about?

The problem with quick caramel recipes is that they aren't reliable due to the variations of water content in the butter and brands of condensed milk. Butter can vary between 15-30% water, if your butter has more water the caramel will be looser.
The way to fix it it to simply cook it down longer. I personally think the microwave method is a bit gimmicky, all the opening and closing of the door and stirring doesn't save much time or effort. I use the same ingredients and cook them on the stove as it is the condensed milk which is the secret to the quick caramel, not the microwave. Cook it high to get the color, then low to thicken it until you get the right consistency. A wide pan helps with this as it increases the surface area for evaporation. It really doesn't take that much longer, just a few minutes in my experience.
If you are in a hurry reach for the cornstarch and add in small amounts of milk cornmeal slurry until you get the consistency you want. This will do the job but won't have the same strength of flavor as if you cook it down to thicken it.


Can you boil the potatoes for mashed potatoes too long? I know that you should cook potatoes for mashing until they are fork tender but what happens when you boil them too long?

Edit: if I need to hold them before mashing, what's a good way to do it?

Yes, you can.

The problem is that the potatoes start absorbing water, and you end up with a really runny mash that's difficult to flavor (as most people flavor their mash by the addition of flavorful liquids).

update : There's a few things that you can do to hold them.  The first is to drain the water, and leave the potato bits (unmashed) in the pot.  If you leave them uncovered, they'll cool off, but it'll also let moisture evaporate, which can help to fix some of the problems I mentioned earlier.

You don't want to let them cool off too far, or they'll not mash up smoothly; if you're going to need to hold them for more than 5-10 minutes, put a lid on them.  Once it comes time to mash, refresh them with whatever liquid you're going to add to the mash, warmed.

If you're going to need to hold them a really long time, you have two options ... one is to mash them but intentionally reduce the liquid, and then refresh them with more hot liquid a few minutes before serving.  The other is to transfer them to a baking dish after mashing, and put it in a low oven.  (if you rough up the surface, and put it under the broiler right before serving, you can get a crust on it for a bit of variety).


How clean should the outside of pots and pans be scrubbed? I’m the official pot-scrubber in our household. I have a question on how clean one should scrub the outside of stainless and copper pots and pans and whether this is merely an aesthetic choice.

I note that cast iron cookware shouldn’t be scrubbed at all.

Does keeping the outsides of stainless and copper pots and pans serve any purpose other than aesthetics? For example: might heat transfer be better if the bottoms were shiny instead of blackened?

I think this is purely aesthetic. The outside of my stainless cookware looks terrible. The oils polymerize and are really difficult to clean after that point.  I don't worry about it too much, though I have a friend who takes great care to keep his stainless shiny.  I doubt the buildup is enough to impact heat transfer.


Is the advantage of wagyu and other fine beef obliterated when formed into minced burger patty? The best thing about wagyu and similar cuts is its fine marbling.  I've recently seen a 'wagyu-beef-slider' on a menu at an upstanding and well respected establishment.  Upon internal reflection of appetizer selection (which I recommend all must do) I came to the startling realization that ground wagyu beef, which is the foundation of this slider, might in fact taste the same as any other pedigree with the same fat concentration. I got french onion soup.

Was I right that with ground beef, there's likely no advantage to using wagyu?

The main thing that wagyu is supposed to get you is dense marbling. That's especially important for cuts low in fat, like the filet and the sirloin. That is, steaks.

The rest of the cow has to go somewhere. The parts that get ground into burgers on conventional cows might as well go into "Kobe sliders". There will be some differences from conventionally-raised beef, where the ground meat is usually made by combining fatty cuts with lean cuts to achieve a precise fat ratio. I would expect ground wagyu to have more fat than a conventional burger, and to have the fat incorporated somewhat differently, but it will vary from processor to processor.

So I'd say that the advantage isn't obliterated, exactly. I'd just say that a wagyu burger will be a lot more like a regular burger than a wagyu steak compared to an Angus steak. There's nothing wrong with that, at least as long as they're not trying to charge massively superpremium prices for it. (In my experience they come with a modest upcharge.)


What makes the Pillsbury canned biscuits puff up? What is it in canned biscuits that makes them puff up immediately upon opening the can yet stops them from raising further? What kind of food voodoo is at work here? Please explain the food science behind this and what additives cause this effect in the "food".

It could be achieved with almost any leavening, but I suspect it's baking soda or baking powder, and not yeast.

You'd just need to package it before the reaction is completed, and let it finish in the container.  This would create additional gas, which would pressurize the can.

As for why it doesn't continue to rise, it's because they can control how much leavening goes in, so they'll have a known amount of gas created.  Once that gas gets to one atmospheric pressure (roughly, depending on how close to sea level you are), it'll expand appropriately.

It's effectively the same sort of process that happens with fizzy drinks -- when you open the bottle or can, you allow the interior pressure to equalize with the surrounding, which causes the bubbles to escape.  The difference in that case is that the bubbles are dissolved in the liquid, and so may need some agitation or nucleation sites to escape.  But there's still a fixed amount of bubbling that could happen.


English Translation of Gastronomie Pratique I was reading Julia Child's autobiography, and she mentioned that she loved the book Gastronomie Pratique by Ali-Bab. It's apparently a classic compendium of French cooking recipes and techniques. Does anybody have a particular translation they recommend?

There is apparently an english version however there are whole sections missing and it is poorly translated. You are far better off going with a different book or if you have the time taking up french. The Book I went with was Larousse Gastronomique which has been endorsed by Heston Blumenthal and Gordon Ramsay.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Larousse-Gastronomique-Hamlyn/dp/0600620425/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1302582324&sr=1-3


What is the modern alternative to sieving soup recipes? In soup recipes of Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking, the reader is often instructed to sieve to puree food multiple times with increasingly finer mesh. I suspect that such a sieve is rare these days even in UK or US. In such instances, I always use a blender instead. But, I'm not sure this is a right way to do this. Is one of the purposes of sieving  to remove coarse particles ? What is the modern way to do this ?

The modern way is still to sieve.

I actually did this a couple of days ago. I made a sauce out of boiled onions, capiscums, chilli peppers, canned plum tomatoes, carrots, garlic, ginger and spices. This was then whizzed in a blender and sieved through a fine metal sieve to remove the pulp, seeds, large fibrous pieces that wern't blended.

It makes for a smoother sauce.

The fine metal sieves are fairly cheap and easy to obtain. There are also finer sieves made from plastic or even muslin you can also use.

The technical term seems to be chinois.

A food mouli:


How to understand flavors and when to use combination of them? I want to be a home cook and at some stage to become a chef having my own café or restaurant.

Marco Pierre White always says when he likes a dish in masterchef:

  Great dish. It tells me that you understand flavors.

What does he mean? How to understand when to combine salty and sour, sweet and sour and salty, sweet and hot, umami and sweet, and all the other combinations? Should all dishes have flavor combinations?

Yes, all dishes should have flavour combinations, unless the dish consists of one single ingredient with no seasoning added, no oil added, it can't help but have them... even then a tomato for example has different flavour in the skin than it has in the pulp, than it has in the seeds, the inner leaves of a brussels sprouts will have less bitterness and more sweetness than its darker outer leaves... flavour combinations are almost impossible to avoid.

So to balance flavours you do have to understand them. Not everyone might agree with the combinations you choose to create and not everyone enjoys the same taste combinations, but even so, to reliably create the blend you do like, you need to understand how it is composed.

There are any number of resources online which will break flavours down to a few key groups, though not everyone describes it the same way. Essentially you need to understand what is meant by basic terms such as sweet, bitter, sour, umami and salt. To those five you can also add 'spiciness/heat' which is often considered to be more sensation than flavour.

You should read up on what it already accepted knowledge about the effects these flavours have on each other, how salt changes perception of bitterness, how sweetness can counteract excess salt but leave the umami clear. Read up what chefs have to say about these interactions and test them out, see if you detect the same effects they do.

Spend time tasting your ingredients and training your palate (I was so busy thinking of flavours as a palette from which one can choose the equivalent of colours to paint a dish as you might paint a picture that I originally spelled 'palate' as 'palette') so that you can analyse a dish and detect what makes the difference between a combination you like and one you don't. Understand your ingredients, both fresh and storecupboard ones well enough to know quickly what will make that difference.


soy milk production with no beany flavor does anyone know how big industries like Silk are producing soy drinks with no beany flavor? I read that a you should soak beans in boioling water (which temperature? for how many minutes?) in order to disable some enzymes. Then you should rinse the beans (is there anything to be careful to?)
Finally you have to remove the skins.

what else?

How to bring a better texture?

Ok - given your clarification try the following:

Rinse your beans before handling, through transport and storage dust accrues and can increase their natural nutty flavour.
Blanche them in boiling water for roughly 90s. Then strain and rinse under cool water in your sink (have a catch of some kind to prevent bits of going down the drain).
Cook as normal but add a pinch of sugar (can't say for sure how much, as I don't know the volume you are making).
When cooked/milked, strain again, and then let it rest in the fridge until cool.

This is exactly how I make mine (I make both varieties though), and there is very little  (if any) beany taste left. In fact, sometimes as a result (mind you I use the same beans everytime) it comes a little bit nutty.


How can I integrate molecular gastronomy into regular cooking? I love the science-y, geeky side of cooking, and molecular gastronomy really appeals to me. I've been experimenting with it for a while. The issue I have is that it tends to become an end in and of itself rather than an integral part of a dish. This is a criticism that is often leveled at the molecular gastronomy chefs. While I can get some really "wow" textures, flavors, or presentations, I never feel like I have a coherent, integrated dish.

I don't think it even needs to be "regular", it just needs to be coherent and not gimmicky. The surprise/wow factor of the texture can't be the main point of the dish, it needs to be the flavor. For what it's worth, I think Grant Achatz probably does the best job of using molecular gastronomy to augment a dish rather than controlling it.

I've had some wonderful molecular gastronomy dishes, but they always seem to rely on the novelty of the presentation/technique as the main interest in the dish rather than flavor pairings. Whatever the molecular aspect of the cooking is, it's presented as the dominant aspect of the dish. I'm interested in incorporating it so that it enhances my dish rather than defining it.

How can I use molecular gastronomy as a part of a dish in an interesting way, without it just becoming a gimmick?

Wow. This is a big topic. As someone who is deeply interested in this cooking movement, let me try and suggest a few things.

First, reading this article would be a very good start. In it, Ferran Adria/Harold McGee/Heston Blumenthal and Thomas Keller (not exactly a man known for avant garde cuisine) put forth the position that in essence there is no such thing as molecular gastronomy, it is merely a logical continuation of cooking techniques that have stood the test of time.

Bearing that in mind, I think what you're asking is 'how do I paint from the new palette that Adria has spearheaded?'

The answer is both simple and complex. At its most basic, MG is about playing with perception, and tries to look at food in a couple of different ways. First is what is widely known as deconstruction: taking a well known dish and reimagining it in order to play up a specific flavour from the dish, provide the same flavours with new textures, or provide a new spin on the dish. Even something as simple as substituting a pancetta cracker on a Caesar salad instead of lardons is fundamentally deconstructive in its approach.

What Adria does is out there at the absolute bleeding edge of cuisine. He views texture and flavour as separate things, and during their working sessions at elBullitaller and in the restaurant (which is, sadly, closing as a restaurant on 31 July of next year) they focus on presenting interesting flavour and texture combinations. Blumenthal and Achatz, by contrast, aim at providing more recognizable food and trying to make the 'molecular' processes in the dish more transparent.

So look at some of the things you make on a regular basis. How can you highlight a specific flavour? How can you change perception of the dish? As an example, I was thinking last night of making bite-size creme brulee; encapsulate the creme using the calcium/alginate method and set with gelatine, make spheres. Modifying Adria's technique for his pumpkin oil sweet (from A day at elBulli), one can then coat the whole thing with a crunchy layer of caramelized isomalt. Alternatively, use his method for adding a layer of caramel to an egg yolk. Voila... reimagined dish that everyone will recognize in flavour, but very different in texture and how it behaves in the mouth. Garnish and so on are then up to you.

But that may be going too far for you. So let's look at some other ideas. A restaurant I used to work at served a sous vide short rib that was actually two pieces of (bone out) short rib meat glued together with transglutaminase, allowed to bond overnight, then cooked sous vide for 24 hours until medium rare all the way through. Beyond that, the rest of the dish was grounded very solidly in classic French technique. To the guest, the 'molecular' aspect of the meal was entirely transparent.

Or consider the classic combination of smoked salmon/dill/lemon/cream cheese. You could make a foam of the cheese (to reduce the claggy mouthfeel while sacrificing no flavour), mix in encapsulated lemon caviar (to provide a textural counterpoint when your guest crushes it with their teeth), and dress the whole with a dill oil. Same flavours, slightly different textures... and it's all 'molecular.' You could go way out there and infuse the cheese with the flavour of smoked salmon, or make a smoked salmon cracker or whatnot, but I think that is going too far for you.

A dish I was working on at the restaurant (and have had to abandon for now, due to switching jobs) was a simple coconut cream pie, deconstructed into a napoleon-esque stack. But instead of pastry, I made coconut crackers with methylcellulose and coconut water. The pastry cream was made with coconut milk instead of cream (note: you need to leave the cream overnight for the flavour to develop properly; also ensure you cook it long enough to cook out the cornstarch). To be served with a toasted coconut macaroon of sorts (coconut bound with barely enough lightly whisked egg white to hold it together, baked until toasted) and a white chocolate and lemon sable cookie to provide the missing pastry flavour, and a little chantilly enhanced with Malibu rum. Again... molecular elements, but largely transparent to the diner. The focus was on providing the most intense coconut experience I could come up with.

At its base, MG is really about finding the truest and purest expressions of flavour. If you look at most MG-centric dishes, they focus on a single flavour with everything else on the plate providing a supporting or contrasting role. Not all that different from classic techniques, is it?

One of the other approaches to creating a new dish that Adria uses is to consider a single ingredient, and what works well with that. Exploring flavour compound databases is a really good way to go about this process. Here is one that I find useful, even if the design is stuck somewhere circa 1995. It is a method that Blumenthal uses extensively, which is how he came up with his salmon coated in licorice (not that far a stretch, given the affinity of tarragon and fennel for fish), as well as the sounds-bizarre-but-is-delicious combination of cauliflower and chocolate. Easy recipe: clean and cut your cauliflower into florets. Dust lightly with cocoa powder, coating each piece. Shake off excess. Season with salt and pepper, roast approx 15 minutes at 375. Sounds weird, yeah? Well, turns out that cauliflower and chocolate both share distinctive flavour chemicals. So they go well together.

At its heart, molecular gastronomy really is just the same classic techniques we are familiar with. The key difference is that it asks three questions:

How? (do we make this better/enhance this flavour/provide a new texture)
Why? (do we put these flavours together/cook things this way/follow these steps)
Why not? (do it differently)

I think I will stop my rambling here. I hope it helps. And I will leave you with three incredible blogs (one of them courtesy of Michael at Herbivoracious).

Playing With Fire and Water - truly spectacular molecular-influenced cooking.
Ideas in Food - Wonderful. Molecular weaves in and out of what they are doing.
Studiokitchen - Questions a lot of sacred cows, aims at making molecular transparent to the guest.


3 tier steamer: Will chillies in the bottom tier make veg in the other levels spicy? I was wondering if anybody had tried this or if it's even possible, but I thought I would ask before failing miserably and wasting good ingredients. Is it possible to place strong tasting ingredients, eg chillies, ginger, garlic etc, into the bottom of a 3 tier steamer for the sole purpose of infusing the veg in the other tiers with the flavors as the steam rises through?

If anyone has tried this or knows the answer please let me know! :)

I wouldn't rely on steam to spread flavors through food. If you put chilis and ginger in one tier and meat/veg in the other tiers you will get meat and veggies with maybe, possibly a hint of chili and ginger. Many flavor compounds are oil based, and oil and water don't mix, so you aren't going to get the steam and vapor carrying your flavors around for you. Some of the oils may get airborne, but the majority of the flavor will stay with the foods.

If you want flavor transfer in a steamer you'll need to have the food in direct contact. Sliced chilis and garlic placed on top of a piece of fish will transfer some flavors to the fish, but it's better to contain them by placing them in between 2 pieces of fish/vegetables/meat, or wrapping them up in foil or wax paper.

Alternately you make a sauce separately and put it on the steamed ingredients after cooking.


Ways for success on cast iron crepe pans without cooking spray I get good results making crepes on non-stick pans.

It's quite easy to flip a crepe, but it's hard to get the surface to be golden. The color remains closer to white, as you see in the picture above.
On ceramic-enameled cast iron, I can get the heat considerably higher, but crepes will stick.

I see on the market cast iron pans marketed specifically for crepes, and I'm wondering whether the polymer cover from a good seasoning makes it easier to prepare a batch of crepes.
Is there a way to avoid cooking spray when preparing crepes on a cast iron pan? One reason for my failure on enameled cookware (I'm guessing) is that it's hard to add fat to the pan. Here I'd like to avoid using cooking sprays with a multitude of ingredients. I'd like to use butter only. Adding butter on the hot pan will brown (burn) the butter too quickly. Hence it's necessary to remove the pan, cool off for a few seconds, add the butter, then return to heat, which makes the process too time consuming. And even then, the butter is not a uniform coat. Using a brush, whether made from hair or from silicone, is a way to melt the brush.
The batter already has fat (butter). On non-stick, no additional fat is needed. On either of the other two, it's necessary.
Asked another way, what is the secret of making crepes on a (well-seasoned) cast iron pan?
Related:

Does cast iron enable making crepes with no additional fat (besides that in the batter)? (that would be nice!)
Is the Leidenfrost point relevant?

Enameled cast iron is indeed not as good as non-enameled, because you can't heat it as much. But it still should give you good crepes. If your butter burns, just use simple oil instead of butter - any oil will do, the more refined, the better (so the cheapest no-plant-named ones work best). It may burn to the point of getting dark brown, but you won't get the tiny coal particles you get when butter solids burn.

I'd like to use butter only.

it's hard to get the surface to be golden

These two wishes are mutually exclusive. No matter what pan material you are using, if you get the proper heat transfer rate for getting a golden crepe, butter will burn badly.


What stops my pickles from turning into alcohol? Just trying to learn the difference between lactic fermentation and alcoholic fermentation.. I'm a bit confused - is the only thing stopping my pickles from becoming an alcoholic beverage is the salt?

If not, what is the difference causing the final product (to either be lactic acid or alcohol), I understand the type of bacteria and yeast etc I mean does adding sugar to my fermenting pickles suddenly start producing alcohol or how - what is the definitive reason to why it ends up either a fermented pickle or booze

Thanks so much!

So, fermentation is complicated, and the answer to this question really depends on multiple factors. You're particularly interested in the role of sugar vs. salt, not lactobacillus vs. yeast. The simple answer to that question is that lactobacilli are salt-tolerant, while yeast is much less so. So adding salt gives the lactobacilli a headstart in converting the sugar present in your pre-pickles into lactic acid, and causes any yeast not killed by the salt to starve, and thus not produce much alcohol.

If you add more sugar on top of the salt, it won't cause alcohol production because the yeast will still be retarded by the salt, while the lactobacilli are not. You will just get really, REALLY sour pickles because the lactobacilli will convert all that extra sugar into acid as well.

That said, you can still get alcohol in your ferment. If you initially bite into a pickle and it's fizzy, that's a sign of alcohol. The yeast, while slowed down, is still going to grab some sugar for itself at the beginning and produce both alcohol and carbon dioxide. So carbonation itself is a sign that there is alcohol in your ferment.

That doesn't mean it's strong enough to make you feel anything, but it's important to remember if anyone consuming the ferment is on probation, or young, or pregnant, or a tee-totaler, or anything else you can think of. I've heard stories of children going to the hospital with high blood alcohol from drinking too much water kefir -- which is NOT a salty lacto-ferment, but still makes a point worth considering. I also know someone who failed a mandatory blood test because she drank kombucha, characterized by acetic acid and friends, not realizing that it could contain trace amounts of alcohol (luckily she managed to explain things and get out of trouble).

So, if you wanted to have an alcoholic pickle, you'd want to 1) leave out the salt, 2) inoculate with yeast to ensure that lactobacillus (or assorted nightmare bugs) don't manage to outcompete the naturally present yeasts, and 3) control the oxygen present. Adding sugar should be optional, but would be recommended I think.

[I don't drink alcohol, personally, so I wouldn't know, but I think if you're drinking pickle-born booze, you'll either want it sweet or really, really strong. That way you either won't have to taste it or won't have to think about it very long.]

I should also point out I don't make explicitly alcoholic ferments, so I'm not a practiced expert. But, the general rule is that you should initially use an aerobic ferment before introducing an airlock and creating an anaerobic environment. That's for two reasons. The first is that yeast can use both oxygen and sugar to produce alcohol, but only require sugar. So, Initially, to get the best of both worlds, you allow the yeast both. However, after a short period of time, if continually exposed to oxygen, the newly produced alcohol will start being converted into acetic acid by other bacteria. That means vinegar. If you take away the oxygen, vinegar doesn't happen.

That's why kombucha and kefir, for example don't become strongly alcoholic since they ferment entirely in an aerobic environment. Alcohol IS produced by the yeast, but is then in turn converted into various acids by the various strains of bacteria present. This is also why many people choose to perform a secondary ferment with kombucha and beer (although I only know kombucha thoroughly), where they add more sugar, in the form of fruit or flavorings, then cut off the oxygen supply and let the yeast work for a few days while many of the acid-producing bacteria take a backseat. This produces a fizzier drink, which indicates increased alcohol production. Kombucha is still very mild compared to other drinks that are intended to be alcoholic, but it's still worth remembering.


Overnight storing of raw fish I discovered that I love raw fish. I'm planning to buy a sushi-grade fish to make myself a sashimi or poke but I wonder if there is method of bringing it for lunch to work after preparing it day before.

Is it possible to store a prepared raw fish (poke/sushi) in fridge/freezer overnight or is this a safety hazard and it needs to be eaten soon after preparation which includes thawing.

EDIT I mean fridge at home then at work. I live 5-10 minutes from work so if isolated it should not change temperature significantly, I think.

Keeping it in a regular refrigerator should suffice for most situations even for a couple of days, but for longer periods freezing is probably recommended.

As for transportation to your workplace I'd recommend a thermal bag, or insulated bag, or any type of insulated plastic box or container should do the trick well.


What temperature of water will kill yeast? In other words, what is the maximum temperature of water I can use in yeast bread dough? I don't proof the yeast, I use rapid dry yeast and I just add it to the other ingredients and knead it in.

There are multiple temperature points per yeast family might be of Interest:

The growth limit temperature, see this paper.  It indicates as high as 45°C for some and 20°C for others.
'Injury' temperature (for bread and brew generally thought be around 120°F)
Death temperature.

Keep in mind for bread: Bread Yeast at higher temperatures produces off-flavours that may be undesirable to your goal.  If you are trying to speed up your dough, you may want to add the yeast to water with some food and let develop for a while before mixing in the flour.


Why is commercial sandwich bread so popular in the US and UK? Why is commercial, sliced, sandwich style bread so popular in the US and UK, as opposed to more traditional European loaves (like this Slovakian bread)?

To put it bluntly, convenience, price and availability. While more artisan or rustic breads are available in supermarkets (where the vast majority of westerners shop, especially the US and UK), they are generally more expensive, a less convenient shape and size for sandwiches, and don't keep as well.

Having said that, in recent years in the countries mentioned, there has been an increasing interest in home baking of all kinds, including bread.

It's worth pointing out that some western countries like France and Italy still have a strong tradition of buying fresh bread daily.


How do I make raw peanut butter creamy? I bought fresh ground peanut butter, and it's great and all, and I really like it for peanut sauces, but I really just want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and this stuff just isn't right for that.

What additives should I mix in to get a more classic PB&J peanut butter from fresh ground, raw peanut butter?
I am sure I will need to adjust on the fly, but what kind of oil should I add? Sugar? Salt?
What equipment should I use to mix?

You've pretty much answered your own question. Put the PB in a blender, drizzle in a little peanut oil, blitz and season to taste with salt and a little sugar if you want it. I'd add them all slowly: you can always add, you can't take away.


How to get spices off pan - even after washing I cooked using spices a lot, and I notice this problem most after cooking with turmeric. I wash the pan after I'm done using it, with dish soap, and allow it to soak, then scrub with a scourer or brush. Then
I clean with tissue paper. Even after this, the next meal I cook is often coloured yellow. I don't think it tastes of the spices, but the colour is there for sure. How can I make sure the spices are fully off the pan before I next use it?

As the coloured component Curcumin is soluble in oils not water it may help to wipe the dry and washed pan with oil. Hopefully the colour  will be absorbed in to that oil rather than into the next dish you cook. You may leave the oil on while the pan is stored and wash that oil off before cooking the next dish.
Turmeric does not seem to stain the plastic (ptfe) of non stick pans but it does result in hard to remove stains on some other plastic utensils, containers and surfaces. Neat household Bleach works to quickly remove such stains on counter surfaces but would not be the first choice to use on a food pan.
Soaking with "Milton" eventually removes stains on plastic containers so may work on Aluminium. I have also seen suggestions that vinegar or lemon juice may work. They are both acidic and could theoretically corrode Aluminium, but I doubt it has a noticeable effect. My sweet and sour source will be acidic as will be Rhubarb but I have not noticed them damaging aluminium cookware.
(Although I do recall a health scare about aluminium leaching in to acid food which may have some scientific backing e.g. )
Links

Milton Steriliser A traditional method of sterilising babies milk bottles etc.

It is actually   based on a very dilute Sodium Hypochlorite https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_sterilizing_fluid
And whilst I would not recommend drinking it to cure covid. It does have a history of dilute solutions being used as a mouthwash

14 methods to remove turmeric stains. It may not cover frying pans but may provide useful tips to experiment with


How to modify a bread recipe to accomodate longer proofing times? I used to bake a lot but since I've switch jobs, I do not have enough time in the evening anymore. But I work really close from home so I can go home for lunch if needed.

My idea is to start the bread in the morning before work, then return for the second kneading during lunch, then I can bake it at night. I know that I need to lower the temperature during the proofing, so I though of putting the dough in the refrigerator.

Will this work? Is there other ways to achieve what I'd like?

Aside from (or even instead of) lowering the temperature, you can drastically reduce the yeast; it will take time for the smaller initial yeast population to multiply to a similar population as the larger amount of yeast to start with, and this will reduce the activity of the dough.

As a generally salt-avoiding person, I hesitate to say, but will, that additional salt also slows things down, ferment-wise. It will impact flavor, of course, and at some point become effectively inedible, so don't overdo that.

If your recipe uses any sugar, you can reduce or remove it...but that will also affect browning and flavor.

You may find that the refrigerator slows things down too much to get a loaf risen in the course of a day - or you may need to go the opposite direction on the various yeast-retarding things I just mentioned to overcome the refrigerator temperature on your timescale. Or you can extend your timescale to suit, as needed.


How to make perfect pearl rice in a rice cooker This question is specifically about short grain pearl rice.

I recently got a nice Zojirushi rice cooker that has all the bells and whistles, and I've been wanting to use it to prepare perfect rice. I know that is a little subjective, but let's assume I just want distinct, not mushy, kernels that are clean and moderately sticky.

Items that I would like to have addressed:

Washing. I already do this, but including good methods would be appreciated.
Water proportions. I've found a 2:1 ratio makes them a little mushy, but any thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Soaking. I have heard people do this, but I haven't ever tried it. Does this affect how much water you use? What are some good methods for doing this?
Post cooking instructions. E.g. should it be allowed to cool, taken of warm setting, should the top be opened to let steam out, etc.

I know a lot of these items can be somewhat opinion based, so if that is the case, just comment on how any changes will affect the end product.

I absolutely LOVE my Zojirushi Rice Cooker. I found it important to use the plastic cups that it comes with to measure the rice. As one conventional cup puts too much rice in there in relation to the water line for white or jasmine rice. 3/4 of a conventional cup of rice is what my son uses in his as he missplaced the plastic ones it came with. I don't wash my rice at all. It is about convenience and they have it all figured out for you. I do add just a smidgen less water (just below water line) if I want an extra firm rice. Also use the spatula it comes with so you don't break up and mush the rice.


How to fry crispy chips but not too brown? I recently got a mandoline slicer and started doing some potato chips. They come out great but I wish they were a bit less golden/brown. I tried removing them from the oil earlier but they come out not 100% crispy and a bit soft in the center.

Any tips to get 100% crispy chips but keeping them as white as possible?

Thickness is important and there are different strategies for dealing with different thicknesses.  But if you're having a problem getting them dry and crisp in the center before the exterior browns too much, there are a few standard suggestions.  In order of complexity/extra work:

Make sure you're frying at an optimal temperature.  You might try varying a bit: going a little lower in temperature might allow the chips to finish cooking before they brown too much.  But it could also make them greasy or soggy if you go too far, so this may not be ideal.
Rinse the raw chips in water before frying.  This removes some of the surface starches that will lead to faster browning.
If you're willing to do even more work: After rinsing in cold water, drop the raw chips briefly in boiling water and cook briefly (for a couple minutes).  Strain them or pull them out with a large spider before they begin to fall apart.  Better yet, add a little vinegar (about 1 Tbsp. per quart) to your water, which will help the chips cook longer without falling apart and will remove even more surface starch.  Let them cool and dry for a few minutes before frying.

For more details on the last two tips, see this article at Serious Eats (which contains photos of the results).


What's the most efficient/effective method for removing the rind of a well-ripened Brie? My family really loves "cheese crack", i.e. the "savory toasted cheese" from Digby.. (Our proportions: 1 block cream cheese, 1 stick butter, 1 wedge of ripe Brie. Cut up, nuke, stir. Seriously, try it.)

The only problem is that the rind of Brie doesn't melt, so leaving it on leads to oddly-textured bits floating around unpleasantly in your cheese dip. Thus, we need to cut off the rind of the Brie. If it's a mild and firm (read: less ripe and flavorful) Brie, this is easy enough, but when your Brie is at that perfect stage of almost-but-not-quite-oozing-out-of-the-package, like Wegman's store-brand "Intense" Brie, it gets... harder. And messier. And worst of all, more wasteful of all that yummy Brie flavor.

Is there a trick or technique for removing the rind, so that you don't leave behind little bits that'll ruin the texture of the end product, but you also don't end up leaving half the cheese on the cutting board?

Alternatively, the frame challenge: is there actually a way to get the rind to melt? I wouldn't object to a stovetop method - after all, we only use the microwave if we're making a single batch. I know some people use slow cookers to make large batches, but AFAIK that still involves removing the rind.

Addressing the frame challenge: I forgot about the Brie in the cheese drawer for a bit too long. It was nearly liquid, so there was no hope of removing the rind; I was happy just to get the plastic wrap off.

I put it on the stove with some butter and heated it on low for quite a while, stirring frequently. Eventually I added the cream cheese. (Twice the usual amount, because it wasn't "coming together" without it.) Then I put it through a fairly fine-mesh strainer. The result is slightly grainy (for lack of a better term), but not unpleasantly so. However, it was enough extra work that I think a less-ripe Brie, properly "peeled", is the better way to go.


Will the ingredients of "baking powder" store indefinitely? I don't bake as frequently as I used to, so if I decide to bake on some random evening, there's a good chance my baking powder has already lost much of its leavening ability — another trip to the store.

If I just keep baking soda and cream of tartar on hand, will they create "full strength" baking powder, even if they're left to sit around for months or even years (sealed, dry, etc)?

Baking Powder

1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar

For all practical purposes, yes. Just don't let moisture get near them.

Both are a single chemical compound which does not react with air. The only thing you have to worry about is entropy, and it will not do anything bad for the next few decades. It doesn't matter if you mix and use the day after buying or years later, unlike the mix, which ages because the components do react over time.

But you still will have suboptimal results when compared to commercial baking powder. In baking, you want a slow and even leavening action, which continues to happen after the cake has started baking. This is why today's baking powder uses multiple ingredients, some of which react at once, others at high temperatures. You cannot do this with your simple mix here. It will still work reasonably well (a century ago nobody had slow-release baking powder and they still made cakes), but you should try and see if the result is good enough for your standards. Also you will have to be more stringent with the baking directions (working very quick once the powder is moistened, not leaving a batch of batter stand around waiting for a free place in the oven, etc.)