How can I make a homemade latte taste like a restaurant one? At the moment I prepare lattes at home as follows:

1/3 cup water + 1T ground coffee in Krups espresso machine (looks a bit like this one)
2/3 cup microwave-heated milk (the milk steamer on the machine doesn't work)
5 drops honey

It tastes nice, but not like a restaurant latte, and not just because there's no foam. What is needed to make coffee taste as good as restaurant coffee? This machine doesn't work properly so I'm prepared to buy some new equipment but obviously on a home budget not a restaurant one.

Machine: better to get one that grinds beans?
Ratio of ingredients: does it need to change?
Coffee form: beans / ground coffee?
Coffee strength: experimentation has settled on strong and milky, I don't think this needs to change
Milk: does it have to be steamed? do you get hand steamers?
Fat content of milk: fat free / 2% / full cream?
Container: surely not, restaurant stuff tastes better even in a takeaway paper cup! :)
Other variables?

I find that the milk/foam is the thing that makes all the difference. Most of the domestic coffee machines make a poor job of frothing the milk for Lattes and cappuccinos. I use a steel milk frothing pan like this one:

http://www.saltandpepper.co.uk/cook_shop/brand/Judge/Milk+Preparation,195/2507

I bought mine in Italy 10 years or so ago but I have seen them on our high street since then. It goes on your hob where the milk, UHT or Semi skimmed seems to give the best foam, is heated till it is hot but not boiling and then you use the hand pump to force air through the hot milk and make it thick and foamy, this takes about 15 seconds. I then sugar my black espresso and pour it through the milk to make latte.


How much shorter is the turkey's cooking time if I increase the temperature? I'm baking a turkey in a bag, the brown grocery store type of bag. I love this recipe but I don't have time to cook it at the specified temperature. If my recipe says I should cook my 9 pound turkey at 325 for 4 1/2 hours, how long should I cook it at 350 in a regular/conventional propane oven?

You can typically roast a turkey anywhere between 325 and 375, so 350 should not be an issue. AllRecipes provides cooking times for an oven set at 350. Note that a stuffed turkey will take longer to cook.

4 1/2 hours is longer than than most references indicate for a 9 pound turkey at 325.  If you have successfully made this recipe in the oven you are planning to use, you may want to budget in an extra 30-60 minutes.

I have found that the easiest way to keep track of the the status of the poultry is to place a leave-in meat thermometer into a thigh (but not next to the bone). The thermometer probe will stay in the meat and measure the internal temperature as it cooks.  The turkey is done when the internal temperature of the thigh reaches 160 (FDA recommends 165) and the juices are clear when slicing the thigh.


Stainless Steel Pan -- gray bottom. Why? Just started using a stainless steel pan. First thing I cooked in it was bacon followed by some fried rice. Stuff stuck to it, but a quick soak and it all came off. However, once I cleaned and dried it there is a kind of gray discoloration on the bottom of the pan. It essentially disappears if it gets wet, but when I dry it, it comes back. First -- is this normal? If not, is there a way to fix it?

First, this is what it looks like dry:

Second, this is what it looks like wet:

It's an All-Clad 4 quart stainless steel saute pan.

bikeboy definitely has it right, but just to be a little more specific:

What you're seeing is scale, also referred to as fouling and several other terms.  In all probability, it is specifically limescale that you're seeing, and it's very common in hot water taps, kettles, and on air-dried cookware.

If you have hard water (or even if you don't) it will tend to contain small amounts of dissolved calcium bicarbonate, which is completely harmless by the way, but when you boil the water it breaks down into calcium carbonate, which is still harmless but has low solubility in water and precipitates out into solid salts at lower temperatures.

This can also get mixed up with other salts you use in cooking to create more scale.

As you've noticed, soap and detergent do not remove the scale.  Nor would you expect them to; those things are intended for the extraction of oils and grease (and sometimes killing bacteria), and the above salts are even less soluble in oil than they are in water.

Acids such as vinegar or Barkeeper's Friend work because the acidity helps to dissolve those salts.

Bottom line, the mineral build-up is normal and harmless (to both you and your cookware).

If you want to prevent the build-up in the future:

Try not to use more heat than necessary in your cooking (high heats speed up the mineral breakdown).  Simmer, don't boil.
Always thoroughly dry your stainless steel cookware instead of letting it air-dry.  You'll wipe off the salts instead of letting them bond to the metal.
Rinse with a dilute vinegar solution after washing.

If you need to clean the build-up, use Barkeeper's Friend (which is what All Clad recommends using) or a boil some concentrated vinegar as bikeboy says.  Don't just use any old stainless steel cleaner, as not all of them are safe for cookware.


What is water temperature after electric kettle switches off? My tea preparation prescriptions says to prepare it using water heated to 96 Celsius degrees.

When water heated in standard, typical electric kettle reaches this temperature?

Is it (always?) immediately after switch turns off? Or is it 100 Celsius degrees, and I need to wait approx. 3-5 minutes to get to cool to 96?

Seconds, not minutes. Just the act of pouring the water will cool it slightly. At sea-level pure water will be 100C at a full boil, the temperature will drop immediately when it's no longer being heated.

This is unscientific at best, but just for giggles I put an accurate digital thermometer into a room temperature mug, and brought a couple of cups of cups of filtered (not distilled) water to a boil in a saucepan. I poured the water into the mug and held the thermometer in the center of the mass of water. In the time it took for my thermometer to stabilize on a reading (30 seconds), the water was at 92C.

I repeated the mini-experiment using a hot mug that I had heated by boiling some water in the microwave, and pouring it out just before I poured in the boiling water from the saucepan. This time after the 30 seconds it took my thermometer to stabilize, I got 96C.

I'd say that just by doing this (with a warmed ceramic teapot), you'd have your 96C if you moved quickly.

Photo from Instructables


Are Pyrex casserole dishes safe for use on electric stovetops? Would it be okay if a Pyrex baking dish is used on an electric stove top to reheat food?

NO! It would not. They will break, possibly violently. Unless they are labeled for that use, don't do it.


Is Garden salad still good if it's past the best by date? I have an unopened bag of garden salad (lettuce, carrots and red cabbage) That is 9 days past the "Best if used by" date. I haven't opened it yet. It still seems crisp when I squeeze it and I don't see any wilting.

Many salad packages contain freshness preservatives. That is, if the salad remains inside the original packaging, it will maintain its freshness. Regardless of the "best by" date, you should look for crispness of the greens. If the greens are crisp and smell fresh, they are good to go.


How to turn Extract into syrup I have Elderberry extract and want to make elderberry syrup. Does anyone know how go from extract to syrup?

Well, you can't really make "elderberry syrup" (as the term is usually understood) from only elderberry extract.  Fruit syrups are generally produced from a mixture of fresh berries, sugar, and water, which is cooked and then often strained.

You could perhaps make "elderberry-flavored" simple syrup by combining sugar and water, cooking it down to your desired consistency, and then adding some elderberry extract at the end once the syrup has been removed from the heat.  (Generally, you don't want to add extracts to liquids before cooking if you can add them afterward, since they often contain volatile flavor ingredients that could cook off and be lost.)  I can't specify proportions because extracts vary widely in terms of potency, so I'd add a bit of extract to your simple syrup and taste to see if it's something like what you want.

In any case, this result will be quite different from normal elderberry syrup that has actual fruit dissolved in it.  The flavor and consistency will be different.  However, depending on what you want to do with it, it could be useful.  (I would not use it on pancakes, for example.  But I might use it to provide a hint of berry to a mixed drink or something.)


Anodized pans? Cleaning? Hoping SA would clear some controversy.

I was told that it's bad practice to put anodized non-stick pans in water immediately after cooking; as the water will cause it to degrade

I argue that it's harder to clean after the fat has solidified.

So does adding cold/hot water to hot non-stick anodized pan cause the surface to deteriorate and thus losing it's non-stick abilities?

Teflon-coated pans -- no, not a good idea, as the teflon and metal will contract differently when cooled, causing the layer to separate and flake off (eventually).

Hard-anodized aluminum: may cause warping if the pans aren't too thick, as aluminum isn't that mechanically strong, but the layer shouldn't separate, as it is strongly bonded to the aluminum, being produced from oxidation of the aluminum itself.

Pans that incorporate both teflon and hard-anodization: probably not a good idea to throw into water before cooling.

Indubitably, throwing a hot pan in water will deglaze the grease quite effectively, but if a teflon layer is involved, you are inviting trouble.


Freeze friendly baked side dishes No matter how much I love baked food, I cannot avoid a guilty feeling with the environment whenever I turn my oven on.

Normally I try baking as much as possible in one go to make a better use of the space. Recently I am wondering which type of baked food (ingredients or companions, not full dishes) are OK to freeze and reuse later as a side dish or part of other recipes?

Although I understand that the flavor will change, I am looking for food that can be baked and still be acceptable later as a side dish itself or part of one.

For example, I was planning baking a batch of bell peppers and see how they test as unfrozen side dish. I also love baked eggplant, but since it is so juicy, the taste loss will be far more dramatic.

Most things baked in a casserole will freeze well ... in part it's because you have a container that's got a relatively low surface to mass ratio, and only exposed to evaporation on one side.

That being said, when you say 'a guilty feeling with the environment', if you're talking about an enviromentalist type perspective, then cooking, freezing, then cooking again is not energy efficient.  (your energy, sure ... but not electricity & gas ... unless it's the trips to the store that you're avoiding).

There are a fair number of cookbooks out there for what's called 'freezer cooking' or 'once a month cooking'.  You  should find a few websites if you search on those terms.  (and we've even had a question about it before).


Looking for an accurate nutrition database I hope that this is the right place to ask this question. My problem is that I wish to plan a diet for myself but - nearly - every database has different values for the same food. How do I know which one is accurate?

For example if I check bodybuilding.com for raw eggs: Eggs on bodybuilding.com and on the USDA webpage: USDA entry for raw eggs I get different values for the same thing.

You should generally trust the USDA. They've put a lot of effort into getting everything accurately measured for nutrition labeling, and in the US at least, pretty much everyone gets their nutrition data from them.

That's true in this case: the bodybuilding.com nutrition page says "This database contains data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service." So there's no good reason they should disagree with the USDA - if they do, I'd assume it's because their data is out of date, or they miscopied it from the USDA database.

That said, the differences are pretty tiny (pretty much insignificant in this case), so assuming they haven't made any big mistakes, you should be fine using either - it's supposed to be the same data. (Personally, I would much prefer the USDA's website or http://nutritiondata.self.com/ because they're a lot easier to read than that bodybuilding site.)


How to reduce the time and cost for making a cheesecake? I have tried making cheese cakes a couple times before. And each time, it ends with discouragement and exasperation.

After spending on even the cheapest cream cheese and sour cream, and a lot of time, the cheese cake ends up being more expensive (including electricity) than the one they sell at Walmart. Also the time I have to spend preparing and cleaning up.

Such that every time I think of making a cheesecake, I would simply buy a ready-made one from Walmart.

Why does it take so much time to make the cheesecake?
What are the techniques to reduce the time I spend making the cheesecake?
Can I substitute graham crackers with animal crackers, because I find animal crackers less messy and an easier task? I also like the taste of animal crackers much better than graham crackers.

Time is a critical component of cheesecake making, as you need to bake it a low temperature so that the middle of the cheesecake gets cooked before the outside gets overcooked.

It doesn't necessarily need to be attended time, however, as there are plenty of recipes that call for shutting off the oven after a few minutes, and leaving it overnight.

The time to mix the filling mostly depends on both preparation ahead of time (making sure that you have the cream cheese at room temperature) and what equipment you have (you can just leave a stand mixer to run for the most part, whereas a hand mixer requires you standing there for a while ... and if you have neither ... well, then it's a whole lot of work).  It might be possible to work it in a food processor, but I've never tried.

So ...

Yes, you can use animal crackers.  Or whatever other hard cookie you have (ginger snaps, chocolate wafers, biscotti), although I'd avoid ones with chocolate chips, raisins, or other 'mix-ins' or coatings (eg, dipped in chocolate).
Make sure the cream cheese is at room temperature before you start -- take it out of the fridge about an hour before you're going to use it.
Find a recipe that calls for unattended baking.
Get a stand mixer, if you don't already have one.
Get a membership to one of the 'warehouse clubs' (eg, Costco, Sam's Club, BJs) for cheaper ingredients ... but it's only cheaper if you manage to use up the larger sizes before it spoils.
Watch for sales on the more expensive ingredients (eg, cream cheese) and stock up when it's on sale (and the 'best buy' date is still a ways off).

And you might also consider that there are other styles of cheesecake that don't use cream cheese, but they're quite different.  Italian cheesecake uses ricotta, and isn't nearly as sweet or smooth as Jewish or New York cheesecakes.  And if silken tofu is inexpensive in your area, you might be able to substitute for some of the cream cheese (although you generally need to add some lemon zest or similar so you don't lose the slight tang); you can find recipes on the internet.


Why fry rice before boiling? Ordinarily when I make fried rice, the general process is:

Boil the rice until done.
Fry the cooked rice in oil.

However, I recently made a different rice recipe which flipped the order:

Lightly fry the dry rice in a pan.
Then boil the rice until done.

This struck me as being really strange.  Why would I lightly fry the rice before cooking it? I usually associate frying rice with textural change, but after boiling it the texture wasn't notably different than if I hadn't fried it at all.

In both cases I was using a medium-grain white rice.

This is sometimes called "pilaf style", though technically actual pilafs do not require the sauteeing step. It is, however, very common in pilaf and related dishes.

The main function of this is to change the composition of the starch on the surface of the rice. This reduces the starches that cross-link and make rice sticky. It helps your rice to cook up into separate grains.

While you're at it, it also adds some flavor to the rice, by caramelizing some of the starches. Plus, it adds oil, which can carry flavors of its own and help distribute fat-soluble flavors in the other ingredients.

The effect is very different from "fried rice", where the starches have already been cooked and gelatinized before frying. The goals are somewhat the same, adding browned flavors and distributing fat-soluble ingredients, but the chemical changes to the surface of the rice itself will be different.


How can I reduce the sliminiess of okra? I don't particularly mind the slime in okra, but my wife hates it.  Is there a proven technique for reducing the sliminess?

I do wish to make an Indian simmered curry (Bhindi) with it, so frying is out.

If you're simmering it in a decent amount of liquid for a while, like curry, the slimy stuff (mucilage) will all go out into the curry and end up just thickening it. The okra itself won't be slimy. This is one of the traditional ways to thicken gumbo! Even just stewed okra, with a decent amount of tomatoey goop, usually isn't very slimy.


Why do most belly pork recipes recommend cooking the pork at a high temperature at the beginning of cooking? Most belly pork recipes recommend cooking the meat at a high temperature at the beginning. And then lowering it for a number of hours.

However, I have found that when I do that, the skin rarely forms decent crackling. Presumably because the skin is still a bit wet and it takes time for it to get hot enough to crackle.

I have only had success when I turn the heat up at the end of cooking.

Why do all these recipes recommend the opposite of what is working for me?

As far as I've always believed there is 3 reasons for it.

I. Theory the high temperature shocks the skin helping the skin crisp up if you've ever put a chip in cold oil you'll notice it takes far longer to crisp up than one dropped into the same oil but once hot. Or a better description is probably ... Have you ever put a poppadum into cold oil? Notice how it never puffs up, just goes brown.
The high heat helps seal the meat I'm theory helping keep the moisture in, even though most of the 'moisture' in belly pork is actually the fat self basting itself.
The high temperature helps raise the interior temperature to above the 'danger zone' quicker.

Now I do agree with you, the initial blast does not make the skin crackle, especially since I cover my meat with foil after the first blast which essentially means the skin then steams for 5 hours. I did however try low from the start once and the end result was a thin crispy but a little chewy almost crackling layer even after half an hour at 230c at the end. So I do think high initial heat plays a crucial role to getting good crackling in the long run even if it doesn't seem like it to begin with.

I would suggest not fixating on any time frame for the initial blast. Keep your oven on full wack until the skin bubbles up, if I can be bothered (it's a bit messy and risks major burns every time) I pour 300c oil over the top of my pork half way into my first blast which really helps the skin blister and results in perfect light crispy skin at the end.


Should a teabag or looseleaf tea brew at room to cold temperature water? I recently noticed that an organic bigelow tea(teabag) starts brewing at room/cold temperature water. Not sure if it is brewing or not but the water starts to get green after dipping the tea few times.

I seriously doubt that tea could brew in cold water and that too in few dips. This has put a doub in my mind, whether I am drinking tea or something flavored? The ingredients on the packets say: Organic Green tea and nothing else!

Should I stop drinking the tea from tea bag and buy loose leaf teas only? Any suggestions/tips are appretiated.

Yes, tea will brew at cold temperatures.  Growing up, we'd make sun tea by leaving it in a sunny window for about 8 hrs.  These days, I put it in the fridge to brew simply because you have a longer window before the more bitter flavors start getting extracted.

Tea bags will brew faster, as they tend to have smaller pieces and possibly dust in them, which means increased surface area.


What does al dente really mean? Initially I was told that al dente meant that the pasta was cooked but still firm, definitely not soggy or overcooked.  Later, someone told me that it meant not quite cooked all the way through. Actually many people began telling me this. In addition, they would also tell me that it was silly to make such a request because no one in their right mind would eat pasta this way.

So what does al dente really mean?

"Al dente" is used to refer to food cooked so it is still "firm to bite" but not soft

This is very important to pasta which should be removed from the cooking liquid just before it has fully cooked through, as like most foods, it will continue to cook after being removed from the heat source

Always gently stir your pasta every minute or so while cooking to ensure it cooks evenly. Then near the end of the cooking time, bite into a piece of paste every 15 seconds or so to see if it has nearly cooked through. It should be firm to bite, and not soft all the way through. It should not resist biting though

With some pasta types like Penne etc. you can sometimes actually see the uncooked inner layer (a thin white line) if you carefully slice it in half which a knife, or just bite cleanly with your teeth

If the pasta is going to be mixed into a hot liquid sauce before serving, take the pasta out of the cooking liquid at an even firmer point

The term "al dente" can be used for all cooked foods that should be cooked to just before soft, and then served (fresh greens, thin meat cuts etc.)

The reason for all of this is that there have been many flavour and nutrition benefits noted when cooking to this point. Also for pasta it tends to fall apart if cooked past "al dente"


How does lemon juice "cook" meat? Various meats can be "cooked" using lemon juice. But how does lemon juice actually "cook" the meat?

Let's start with a definition of cooking.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines to cook as:

  To prepare or make ready (food); to make fit for eating by due application of heat, as by boiling, baking, roasting, broiling, etc.

However, from a chemical point of view, what happens when you are cooking meat is that you are using heat, amongst other things, to denature the proteins of the meat.
Denaturation can also be achieved by other means, such as marinating the meat in an acid, such as citric acid (contain in lemon juice) or acetic acid (contained in vinegar).

You can also use other agents to induce denaturation, but they are not always fit for eating.

However, it is important to understand that from a purely cooking perspective the two things are not the same: "cooking" with lemon (I guess it is fine to use the verb to cook as long as you put it in quotes), gives a completely different result than cooking with heat. This is because other chemical reactions happen during application of heat and because, obviously, you do not end up with an hot product!


What's different between canned beer and bottled beer? Beer produced by large breweries has long been sold in cans, but I've noticed recently that more craft beers are appearing sold in cans as well. Why might they be choosing cans over bottles? Is there a taste or shelf-life benefit to canned beer? Or is it just ecological or marketing concerns?

Cans have a lot of advantages over bottles: they don't allow light in (light spoils beer), are easier to stack (and take up less space when arranged tightly), the materials for each can are cheaper, and so on. From the consumer perspective, this results in cheaper and higher-quality beer, all else being equal.

The reason craft breweries have been using glass bottles rather than cans is largely historical and aesthetic. Some hip craft breweries started using cans recently, and it led to a trend.


My egg roll wraps smell sour. They expire in 2 days. Are they still okay to use? I'm cooking egg rolls and my egg roll wraps smell sour. They say they expire in 2 days. Are they still okay to use?

The dates provided on packaging are not precise. They make excellent guides but too many factors can alter the timeline (as mentioned by @Joe, being mishandled in the market or being previously opened among other things).

As a general rule, if something smells unusual and off, it probably is. I would personally throw them out.


Can I just rinse a shaker, solely used for immediate consumption of whey with milk? ...and wash it properly every 3rd or so day. Keeping the shaker inside of the freezer, to slow(/perhaps prevent?) the bacteria growth?
• By rinse, I mean to just shake it up with some water until all remnants are whisked away
• And by wash, I mean use a detergent with a sponge or a brush

So let’s be clear - rinsing with just water won’t remove all of the fats and proteins in your container. It’s definitely not “clean” afterwards.
But even for the bits left in the container food safety guidelines apply, so if you immediately freeze the shaker in between uses, you just have to add up the time the shaker spends in the danger zone and/or above freezing. Whatever value reaches the „no longer safe“ threshold first (two hours for the danger zone above 40°F/4°C, three days in the fridge) gives you the “now it’s really time for a real cleanup” trigger.
Off the cuff, I‘d say that your three day cycle would still be technically safe. Whether it’s really a good idea is up to you. I like my food prep equipment fresh and clean for each use. More frequent cleaning will also serve as extra safety net in case some cleaning cycle was not perfect. And of course in a commercial setting all food handling and cleaning regulations have to be observed independently of what I outlined in this answer.


Where did hot dogs get their name? Were they orginally made from real dogs?

The term "dog" has been used as a synonym for sausage since 1884 and accusations that sausage makers used dog meat to at least 1845.

According to a myth, the use of the complete phrase "hot dog" in reference to sausage was coined by a newspaper cartoonist in 1900, but there were several earlier references, but no specifics on the origination of the phrase.


What methods are appropriate for preparing a 'chow chow' (chayote)? I saw this in a grocers in an area which is predominantly populated by Korean people. It reminded me of Audrey 2 from 'The Little Shop of Horrors'.

Any ideas on how to use it?

In my experience, this is most commonly known as chayote; if you're looking for recipes you might have better luck searching for that. (Chow-chow isn't actually on Wikipedia's list of names for it.)

You can generally treat it like any other summer squash. It's a bit firmer and juicier than the usual western summer squashes (yellow squash, zucchini) - maybe somewhere between squash and cucumber in texture - but it has a similarly mild flavor. The skin is also a bit tougher than most summer squash, but it's quite edible, and you may not even notice if it's sliced. So just like other squash, you can slice it and fry or saute it, or boil/steam/bake it whole (and even stuff it). Where you go from there is really up to you; whatever you like to do with summer squash will work fine.

Some people also like to pickle it, or marinate in lime juice; the firmer texture helps it hold up to this.


Why do many recipes instruct you to oil or grease the pan at the start of the recipe? I've noticed that most recipes that end up in a pan in the oven will have me grease or oil the pan at the start of the recipe. This is long before I have anything else to put into it. The pan just sits waiting for me to do the rest of the recipe. Here's just one example: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/3073

Why is this? I'm partly just curious and partly interested if I can leverage this some more.

Does the grease (or oil) work better if it ages in the air? If so, what is the ideal time for aging?
Does the recipe author just want to be sure that I have a pan and some grease that I can use before I prepare the rest of the recipe? If so, then I think I'll just wait to do it.
Is it to make sure the pan is cooled to room temperature by the time I get to it, in case it came from the dishwasher?
Perhaps a historical reason?

There are three good reasons to oil your pan beforehand:

Your pan needs to be ready as soon as your batter is.  For cakes, the batter can fall apart while you are greasing the pan.  This is especially true for cakes that have air whipped in, such as genoise, which can fall apart in a few minutes.  Recipes containing baking soda can lose their fizz in this time too.
You can't forget to oil up the pan.  In the heat of the moment, it's very easy to  forget to apply lubrication before transferring the batter/dough; inevitably this wrecks the recipe.
Greasing the pan is part of baking mise en place and should be done before main cooking.  Mise en place is a key principle of professional cooking, and means "everything in place." The idea is that ingredients should be prepped and ovens preheated, so you can do the actual cooking efficiently.


Is it just as effective to mix fat in at the end of a curry? I usually cook low fat curry i.e with fat removed.  Since we still need fat before eating the curry I melt a bit of premade tallow in the microwave then I add the curry to  it and mix.

I'm wondering if this mixing is good enough o get the flavour of the curry into the fat.  It certainly looks mixed i.e I can no longer see white tallow but everyhthing is orange from the spices.

Im wondering if the flavours infuse into the fat properly or of its better to add if this is important to me, if I should add the fat at the beginning? chemically how are the two different if they result in a different outcome, taste etc?

Fat helps carry flavor, it also add to the mouth-feel of the final product.  Fat also adds flavor.  So, getting the "flavor into the fat", or probably better put, to be carried by the fat, is only part of the equation. So, in part this depends on why the fat is necessary for a particular dish.  There are all types of curries, so clarifying your recipe and purpose would be helpful in, at least partly, answering this question.  As @Cindy points out in the comments, since you are adding this at the end, it would be easy to reserve some of your product without the extra fat added, and compare it with the final product once the fat is added.  See which you like better.


Question about safety of eating cooked bread if it is over or under-proofed Not sure if my dough was over or under proofed. I cooked it and it is quite dense. It did not rise as much as I thought it would. I cooked for the time in recipe, and then a little longer. Can we still eat it? It is rye bread. I know I cannot eat the raw dough, but just wanted to make sure we can eat the cooked loaf.

Under- or over-proofed bread will change the "crumb" of the bread but has nothing to do with food safety. If it is baked fully it will be safe even if it's a little dense or too airy.


How to make striking glaze drizzle? In this video the chefs drizzle two colours across their cakes:

https://youtu.be/EJsUDT9Z_Io?t=11m42s

In the comments the presenting chef explains that she doesn't know what that drizzle is but that it could be food colouring and condensed milk.

Having tried this and found it ineffective, I have to ask how else could this very striking colour be made without it fading or melting into the rest of the glaze?

It’s cocoa butter and colour. Probably powdered colour for best results.


My wok pan looks worn off, I can see the silver underneath, why? I saw this today and it's very new. What's the problem? Is it caused by scratching or using dishwasher? What may have caused it? I always wash it with a very soft sponge, but other flatmates might have washed it in an inappropriate way. What could be the problem? How can I prevent this from happening to a new wok?

Your non-stick coating appears to be coming off the underlying metal.
The solution is to discard the wok (it cannot be saved) and replace it with a plain, uncoated carbon steel wok.
Stainless steel is a lousy conductor of heat - DO NOT (buy one).
Avoid non-stick coated woks, they cannot stand the high heat/high temperatures required for proper cooking in a wok.
Season the carbon steel like you would a cast iron skillet and avoid the dishwasher.


The way to cook vegetables that keeps most of the nutrients What is the way to cook vegetables that keeps most of the nutrients?

I prefer the microwave oven - you can cook vegetables in the quickest time in the minimum amount of water.

More taste even than steamed veg!


removing breast before roasting rest of duck? I ordered a duck to roast for Thanksgiving. When I picked it up, it was much larger than I had expected. Since there will only be two of us eating, I was wondering if it would be possible to remove the breasts for a later meal and still roast the rest of it. I was thinking since it would be breast down and with all the fat, plus basting; it would be fine. Or will it dry out? Any other opinions or ideas?

I would actually recommend you remove the breasts, regardless of when you will be cooking them.  It is very difficult to get the duck breasts to a perfect 125–130°F, the legs to ~15° hotter, and to simultaneously render excess fat and crisp the skin when roasting the bird whole.  Cooking the individual muscles separately greatly simplifies this.  Also, with duck, there is (in my opinion) relatively little advantage gained from roasting the individual parts on the carcass, other than tableside presentation.


Home made pickled peppers without sodium - botulism risk? I found a recipe for fresh homemade pickled peppers.

I went ahead and made it today but now I'm freaking out about whether or not I'm going to be able to eat it because of botulism. It's a no sodium recipe, so there's no salt to help the brine.

I boiled the peppers for five minutes, then I chopped them up, chopped some garlic, put it all in a jar and poured apple cider vinegar over. I then let it sit for a minute, closed the lid, let it sit for another 10 minutes and put it in he fridge.

Is this safe or not? I'm not in the best health so I can't afford a serious thing like botulism...

As Lorel C mentioned in the comments, botulinum clostridium won't grow in acidic environments. It also won't grow in cold environments. You've got the peppers in vinegar and in the refrigerator. I think you're good.

Even with the peppers being fairly warm when refrigerated— it's always a good idea to let things cool in the open air before putting them into sealed containers in the refrigerator because even under refrigeration they'll take much longer to cool in a sealed container— adding a bunch of acid and storing the jar in the refrigerator reduces the risk to pretty much nothing.

You primarily have to worry about botulism when you've got things in an anaerobic environment (e.g. covered in oil, or honey, or vacuum sealed, or in a package filled with some other sort of gas, or packed into sausage casings) between 3C/37F and 50C/122F, with a PH above 4.6. Garlic and onions are more likely to have spores on them because the spores are very common in the soil of many places where garlic and onions are grown.

In the famous case where a man was poisoned with botulism toxin when eating a home-pickled egg, they determined the source of contamination was a toothpick which he used to poke a hole in the eggs— a commonly-used (and likely ineffective) method to get the brine to penetrate pickled eggs more thoroughly. The spores entered the egg via the toothpick, the hole in the egg was an anaerobic environment suitable for the bacteria to grow, and he stored them at room temperature. Had he simply stored them in the refrigerator, the spores would have remained dormant, he could have eaten his tasty eggs, and he would have been alive to tell us how tasty they were.

If you want to nerd out on this for a hot second, here is an article that discusses bacterial growth as it relates to food production and storage.


What are those black fibers in my mango? I was cutting up a mango, when I noticed some black threads inside.

What are those?

They are quite tough, brown-black, about an inch long (2.5 cm):

It's an indication that the fruit has started to rot:

When dark spots start appearing on the side of a mango, it's starting to rot. A mango can rot from the pit, the skin, or from the non-stem end. Any black fibers also indicate that the fruit has started to rot, and at that point, you need to toss it into the trash.
From: Student's Vegetarian Cookbook For Dummies, page 301

Edit: Yes, the above is probably being overcautious in stating “any black fibers? → trash!” It's from a “Dummies” book after all. ;) I couldn't really find another good reference. But I'm sure you can make the distinction between a piece of fruit that has a small brown spot and one that's black and shriveled. Still, the color of the fibers is a result of the late ripening/rotting process of the mango, rather than a result of an earlier stage in its growth. But having eaten this mango with the one, tiny black fiber shown in her picture, I don't really expect to read Mien's obituary on this site tomorrow. ;)


How do I make bread with LOTS of seeds? A local bread shop cooks a loaf of bread that is packed with seeds, much more than a couple tablespoons. The seeds are mixed within the matrix of the bread, plus sprinkled on top and in the baking pan.

I wanted to make a wholemeal loaf at home and add in the large amount of seeds.

Are there any modifications to the standard bread recipe I should make, or changes to cooking times?

Using a large amounts of seeds will significantly influence the humidity of your dough and bread. Dry seeds will soak up quite a bit of water - either during resting time or afterwards. This is especially bad when this soaking happens after baking, as your bread will get very dry... Wholemeal tends to have the same effect.

The best way to counteract this effect is to

add more water and
add more time

This can be done either by

pre-soaking the seeds, which will then "bring" the required extra water to the dough or
letting a rather wet dough rest for a long time, preferably over night.

The first approach is easier, because the seeds take up the required water "automatically", the latter preferable taste-wise. Longer resting times allow for the development of complex flavors and need very little yeast or sourdough.

As for recipes, you should be able to find plenty on the internet.


I forgot to add brown sugar to my chocolate chip cookies......and didn't realize I forgot the brown sugar until it was done cooking I remembered everything else, it taste fine but a little bland. Even though i already cooked it, is there anything I can do to make it taste better?

Well, you can't change the cookies themselves! You could frost them, though, and you can get as much sugar as you want in that way.

You could also try to integrate them into something else, possibly crumbled up. I could see them being good in/on ice cream, or maybe as a cheesecake topping or even crust, or in a parfait. In general, things that have sweetness on their own but could do with some texture would probably work.


Can I make Turkish Delight with jelly powder? I have come across some Turkish Delight recipes calling for cornstarch, others for gelatin, some use both and one that uses store-bought jelly powder (aka gelatin dessert aka Jell-O).

The jelly powder recipe confused me because it has few other ingredients, so how does it end up with the texture of Turkish Delight rather than gelatin dessert?

On the other hand, using store-bought powder gives me easy access to lots of flavours. Can I use store-bought jelly powder to make feels-like-the-real-thing Turkish Delight?

As the answer to the linked question states, original Turkish delight is made using only cornstarch.
I understand you're asking specifically about the recipe linked and how it differs from other recipes. I'll try to answer the following points:

Q: Why do some recipes call other gelling agents such as gelatin, next to cornstarch.

A: Like most thickeners, gelling agents, cornstarch is also susceptible to syneresis/weeping. Using other hydrocolloids helps preventing this. In Turkey, apart from traditional confectioneries, to cut down the syneresis, pectin is mainly used as the choice of additional gelling agent.

Q: Can gelatin alone be used to get the same texture, as the traditional Turkish Delight?

A: The answer is simply: "No". As gelatin will form a brittle gel, which is not really even close to texture of the gel that would be formed by gelatinized cornstarch.


Can I mix cutting boards when I dishwash them I have a dishwasher safe set of boards. I've heard a common advice to use separate boards for meat, fish and ready to eat food. However it got me thinking - I don't mind mixing plates or other utensils as they are cleaned by dishwasher anyway (or hand washing).

Does the advice applies to mixing without cleaning? Or are there reason not to mix despite cleaning?

I'm not sure I  understand the question.  In a cleaning situation, where you are using soap and water, there is no reason you can not clean your boards together. Once you have clean boards, there is no reason they cannot be stored together. The potential issue is cross-contamination.  If there are no contaminates, there is no issue.


What are purple small Brinjals called in English? There are white and green Brinjals too. Are the purple ones known by some special name?

In Britain (and France), the large purple varieties are known as aubergines. Other (pale and/or small) varieties aren't usually found outside of Asian supermarkets, where I imagine they are still referred to as brinjal.

The name 'eggplant' is used in the US, Canada, and the Antipodes, mainly because the lighter varieties are more common there, which arguably have the colour of eggshell.

They are, however, all just different varieties of the same plant, like yellow and red tomatoes.


Vietnamese Coffee (cocktail) - what to sub for condensed milk? If you've ever enjoyed a Vietnamese Coffee, they're to die for.  Blend:

crushed ice
shot of espresso
condensed milk
... avocado

(add dark liquor like bourbon if a cocktail)
blend them together and this is where the condensed milk and avocado shine:  ends up this buttery sweet thick ice cream texture, from a blender.  I add bourbon to it (which really doesn't matter unless it impacts the substitution ingredient).
Question:  if you are serving a milk-intolerant (not vegan) guest, what could you sub for the condensed milk?  I'm thinking I could replace condensed milk with honey or sugar mixed with soy/almond milk.  Maybe blend the whole crushed ice and all together ahead of time in order to avoid heating milk substitute.
Edit: here's a credible-looking recipe, as it says, this drink is quite common in SE Asia.

I would suggest that you use cream of coconut, which is the base for piña coladas as a substitute. It's thick and sweet, and should complement the avocado pretty well. Note that this is a canned produce, the most widely available brand in the USA is Coco Lopez.
Outside the USA it's harder to find, and can be pretty expensive. There are also products that are confusing, like creamed coconut, which isn't remotely the same thing. I make my own by spooning the cream off the top of coconut milk and mixing it with some palm sugar (regular sugar works fine too) and then cooking it down to thicken it.


Difference between demi-glace and beef stock. Can I use a demi-glace instead of a beef stock? Making of demi-glace is well defined for me as a product of veal bones and vegetables reduced to gelly concentrate in temperature 5-10C.

Here is my demi-glace which I refer to:

Beef stock, on the other hand, has ingredient similar to demi-glace but some recipes refer to only veal bones and some to bones and meat. The final product is less reduced than demi-glace like this:

So my question is:

If some recipes refer to use beef stock as an ingredient (for example onion soup) can I use my demiglace instead? If yes, what proportion I should dissolve my demi-glace with water to achieve beef stock substitute? Also if this recipe involves reduction after adding beef stock is a point of dissolving my demi-glace with water?

demi glace is beef stock seriously reduced. So yes you can use it just need to add a lil extra water. What proportion no idea depends on how strong a flavor your wanting really. Just put some demi glace in a sauce pan (low heat) let it melt, add water till you get the right consistency/flavor your looking for.


Does pre-packaged spaghetti sauce need to be cooked? My daughter-in-law and I both prepare our spaghetti dishes with pre-packaged spaghetti sauce, bottled or canned.  We both add it to browned ground beef.  I use it as a base  - to which I add sauteed onions, diced tomatoes, freshly pressed garlic, extra seasonings (basil, oregano, thyme, sage, coarsely ground black pepper, paprika and a bay leaf). I brown the meat (sometimes using ground turkey instead of beef), drain & remove, saute the onions & garlic with a little olive oil (evoo), add all the seasonings (except bay leaf) and simmer a little (about 5 minutes).  Return ground meat to the pan, add tomatoes, canned/bottled spaghetti sauce, bay leaf - and simmer about 20 to 30 minutes.  I then remove the bay leaf and serve over hot spaghetti noodles.

My daughter-in-law, boils the spaghetti noodles, while she browns the ground beef, then combines the cooked spaghetti noodles, the cooked meat and the pre-packaged spaghetti sauce in a large bowl, mixes with a spoon and serves it.

Is there any danger in not cooking the sauce?

No. Canned food (when done correctly) is preserved properly and is safe to consume without further cooking.  Imagine that it's jam or oil packed sun dried tomatoes or canned tuna... something similar that's jarred or canned and then never (or only sometimes) cooked before consuming. There's nothing unsafe about it.

If it was unsafe, no one would can foods.


Why did my hot chocolate stink? So I ran across a recipe for “crock pot hot chocolate”.

For those of you who are curious it is:

1.5 cups of heavy cream
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 cups of vanilla chocolate chips
6 cups of milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

I don’t have a crock pot so I did this in a spaghetti pot. The only thing I did differently is that I used a smaller saucepan to melt the chocolate chips, using the sweetened condensed milk to hydrate it. This just made things easier. Afterwards I simply stirred and waited for it to get to about 70 degrees Celsius.

I was careful to scrape the bottom and sides of the pan as I stirred, although mostly during the beginning part when the chocolate was just added in. Later on I would leave it alone for maybe about a minute at a time but I would immediately stir to get rid of the film that had formed.

The hot chocolate was fantastic! Like a HUGE hit! However I am worried very much about something. There was this smell that I noticed occasionally while cooking. I had assumed it was just something on the burners, maybe even something from the recipe.

However, later on I let the remaining drink cool and was pouring it down the garbage disposal and the smell was back. It was really bad and very strong. I have no clue why! A friend had earlier smelled the chocolate after it was cooling and said he noticed the same thing.

What was the smell from? Do any of the ingredients I use smell particularly noticeable when burnt? Can burning a small amount account for the strong smell that was produced when the remainder was poured into the drain?

I really wish I could describe the smell but I really can't relate it to anything. It certainly wasn’t a rotten smell but it was bad and very strong.

Deliberately burn some chocolate so you have a reference to compare the smell with. Burnt chocolate does smell bad.

If you were heating the chocolate directly over a heat source -- and not e.g. using a water bath (which protects the mixture from overheating) -- then chances are that you did burn some chocolate/condensed milk, and then stirred the burnt material into the mix. Letting the mixture sit may have allowed the burned solids to accumulate at the bottom of the pan, making the smell more obvious when poured out.


Commercial fudge recipes A book "the 50 best fudge recipes" advise from scaling up the recipes. Does anyone know of any commercial scale fudge recipes or can the recipes simply be increased proportionately?

They advice against scaling, because cooking a batch twice as large will take more than twice as long. Nothing terrible will happen if you scale a recipe, but you will likely spend hours waiting by the stove for your fudge to reach the correct temperature. It's faster to just cook several small batches one after the other, or making several in parallell in different pots.


How do I make crispy potato pancakes? I have made potato pancakes / potato latkes many times and they've come out quite edible.  However, they are very soft, sometimes fall apart easily, and have a very soggy feel.  Here is approximately how I make them:

I peel and slice approximately four potatoes.  I then use my Food Ninja to dice them roughly into a pulp.
I pull the blades out, and mix in finely diced onions, a few tablespoons of flour (or matzah meal), two eggs, a teaspoon or so of baking powder, and some salt.  (I'm remembering this recipe by memory, so I apologize for the lack of detail.
I mix the batter with a whisk until it has the approximate consistency of pancake batter, although it ends up being a bit lumpier due to the potatoes and onions.
I heat a skillet with 1/4" of canola oil, and use a soup ladle to make roughly 2-3" pancakes that cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side until the edges are golden brown.
I place the finished pancakes on a dish with a paper towel to absorb some of the oil.

What factors in the recipe or preparation would produce a better, crispier, firmer potato pancake?

I have used these tips from TheKitchn for my latkes and they have always turned out fantastically!

  Strain, Squeeze, Strain: To avoid soggy latkes, you need to wring out your potato mixture really, really well. Folks have different theories about how many times you should wring out the mixture and what you should use. I favor cheesecloth if you have it. If you don't, a clean dishtowel will do the trick. Just keep in mind that you can't do this too firmly: it's impossible to hurt the latke mixture. Be tough. Be firm. Squeeze like there's no tomorrow. Then squeeze again.
  Watch Your Oil Temperature: This is the one tip that I struggle with mainly because I don't do much frying at home. So I usually end up heating my oil too much and burning the outside of my latkes and then the insides aren't even cooked all the way through. My dad always puts a pinch of the latke mixture into the pan before frying up the latkes. If it's at medium heat and it still sizzles, the oil is ready.
  Finesse Your Timing. Or Don't: In our family, we eat the latkes to order. So some of us will have a few while the others don't yet have one and my dad is standing cooking them off the whole time. While I generally love sitting down to eat together as a family, latke season is the one exception. After resting for a moment on a paper towel to drain, they're really best right out of the skillet. That being said, if you're serving them for a party or would rather set out a large plate for folks to serve themselves, you most certainly can set the oven to 300 F to keep cooked latkes warm while you cook off remaining ones.

Additionally, on the consistency of batter/how to handle potato prep please see here for this this is a great tip about hand grating.

Hope this helps and good luck!

(Edited to clarify final tip (thanks Laura))


yeastless bread help! My family has been trying to get away from using yeast.  So I've been experimenting with using baking powder and baking soda as a leavening agent in my bread loaves.  Our first loaf was very salty!  I don't see why you would need salt in the bread especially when baking soda and baking powder has such a salty base/flavor.  I have had other loaves that resulted in less saltiness, but then I run the problem of it not baking properly being doughy in the middle no matter how long I bake it.  I'm not certain if my loaves are too big and using the baking powder/soda is resulting in the necessity of smaller loaves.  Hope this is enough info for some help please??

Yeast raised doughs, and quickbreads (chemically leavened doughs) have very different basic chemistries (see the answers to the linked reference question for much more detail).

You cannot simply convert one into the other.

I suggest you search for breads designed to be quickbreads, such as Irish Soda bread.

See also:

Why are there no recipes combining both yeast and baking powder?


How to prevent olive oil container from getting oily outside? I'm using this kind of container to add just drops of oil on top of my food or whatever:

Problem is it's always oily so after using it I have to clean my hand. Any trick to keep it clean and non oily outside?

I've worked in a couple kitchens, one of the better methods I saw involved snagging a used pour bottle from the bar, cleaning it out and using that for oil. Something like imaged, with the right-sized bottle.

Because it has separate tubes for liquid and gas, you usually pour out only what you need. The trick here is that is sounds like you use as little oil as possible, and this method tends to be best for more generous usage.


What is used in the production of dubu (Korean tofu)? Tofu, in Korea, is known as 'dubu'. This product is very similar to (possibly exactly the same as) the Japanese counterpart.

What is used in the process of making authentic dubu?

A quick internet search has failed to give me any results for making dubu, but there are plenty for tofu. These recipes usually require soya beans, water and Epsom salt/lemon juice. I'd be interested to know if the Korean process is the same.

As far as I know, Korean and Japanese tofu are effectively identical in taste and preparation: my Japanese wife, who is generally quite particular about her ingredients, happily buys Korean brands from a Korean grocery for her Japanese cooking.

If you're dead set on making your own, in both countries the key ingredient for curdling is nigari (Japanese) aka 간수 gansu (Korean), basically magnesium chloride.  Epsom salts are magnesium sulfate, so close but not the same thing; lemon juice is out of the question (for one thing, neither countries had lemons until recently!).

When experimenting, bear in mind that both countries use several different styles of tofu.  "Standard" tofu/dubu is momen-dofu in Japan, but Korean soft tofu (sundubu) is even softer than Japanese kinugoshi-tofu and more akin to a rare Japanese type called oboro-tofu.


Weird Smoke Coming from Stock Pot on Stove I have recently purchased a stockpot and I have been using it for making pasta on an electric stove. The first two times I used it, everything was fine, but tonight I put it on the stove to make pasta on a high heat, and there was a weird smelling smoke coming from the bottom of the pot. Can anyone advise me on why this pot was smoking and how I can solve this problem?

Did the water from your pasta overflow the previous times you cooked? If water from cooking pasta spills and then dries, the residue left behind after evaporation can smoke or even burn. Alternatively something could be stuck on or under the burner itself, and it can be hard to notice depending on the type of electric stove. For example on my ceramic cooktop it's hard to notice residue stuck on the burner unless I look at it from a really shallow angle to get light to reflect off of it.


Is it safe to eat veggies that were chopped on bloody cutting board and then cooked? I made steak last night, and my girlfriend just chopped up some broccoli on the cutting board I used to prepare the meat, without washing it. She plans to cook the broccoli in the oven, which she said will cook off any bacteria that would have been transferred from the cutting board, but I'm really worried about cross contamination since it was 80 something degrees today and that cutting board had a fair amount of dried blood on it...

Should I eat the veggies tonight? I always err on the side of caution and think I'd rather mildly offend her by not eating that part of the meal than risk getting sick.

Your girlfriend is right (lucky you). As long as food is going to be cooked thoroughly after coming into contact with the blood on the cutting board there is no risk as the heat of the oven will kill off any microbes that can cause foodborne illness.

The concern would be cross contamination of food that will not be cooked, for instance salads, breads, etc. This is why good professional kitchens are strict about washing boards after being used - in a busy kitchen it would be easy for mistakes to be made. In a home kitchen when there's good communication or just one person cooking you have much less chance of that happening. However, it would be all too easy to forget and crunch down on a piece of raw broccoli or for a small child to get exposed by raiding the uncooked vegetables, which is why it's good practice to wash boards after cutting meat even in a home kitchen.


Is burnt milk that sticks to a pan something used in cooking ever? Does it have a name? This might be a weird question but I have to ask it anyway. I make my dad boiled milk and I find the burnt milk that sticks to bottom of the pan has got a really great taste.

Does it have a name and what sort of recipes would it be used in?

Short answers (in Indian languages): Thirattu paal (in Tamil); Doodh peda or Khoya (in Hindi/northern dialects).

If you mean you just boiled and reduced the milk to its minimum volume, that is a common recipe for a "milk sweet" in many parts of India, to my knowledge. In south india, in the state of Tamil Nadu, it is called 'Thirattu paal'. That just loosely translates to 'stirred milk' where paal definitely stands for milk.

In the northern regions of india, it is an intermediary to "doodh peda" where doodh means milk and I dont know what peda means. Maybe it means "soft block".

Here's is one 'recipe` that calls for a low heat simmer, so things don't burn unless your vessel is thin bottomed. Usually heavy bottom vessels are used for low heat stirred sweet recipes with milk. You can add small amount of sugar, grated vanilla or cardamom powder etc to flavor it additionally.


Safety with vacuum packed food I left a vacuum packed chicken casserole from Whole Food  out four hours.
Is it safe? The car ride from store is included in the time. Our house is not freezing nor too hot.

Yes, it is. The important part, for nearly any dish, is to heat it properly.

Meat is mainly spoiled by bacteria, worms and larvae. Proper heating solves these problems. Bacteria and mold digest proteins and might generate harmful molecules; while heating does not eliminate them, they are easy to smell, especially those in meat. You won't want to eat it way before it becomes a health risk. The other health risks are unhealthy proteins, like the mad cow disease, hormones and antibiotics. They are stable to heating - but they don't propagate, so if they are in there, then they are in there the moment you purchased them.

Note that fat oxidation/rancidity are not actually health risks, even though they will ruin the taste. But 4 hours is way too short to make any fat rancid.


What are some of the benefits of electric stoves versus gas stoves? I have recently moved house and one of the downsides is that I'm now stuck with an electric stove instead of a gas stove which was in the previous house.

I'm not liking it one bit:

It takes too long to heat up (I have to pre-heat it like an oven)
You can't do any funky stuff with the open flame, like charring the skins off capsicums so you can peel them

Okay, I see some advantages:

Easier to keep clean
Flatter stovetop means less chance of a pot falling over

But seriously - I don't think any professional or keen amateur chef would be able to argue that an electric stovetop is better than gas.

I'd like to replace it with a gas stove in the near future.  In the meantime, can anyone convince me that electric is better?

Can I convince you that electric is better? No, I can't, because I don't think it is. The issue I have is related to how long it takes to warm up (and cool down). Electric cook tops just don't respond quickly. Little too hot? Too bad, nothing you can do about it (in time to save a dish that's starting to burn anyway). Not hot enough? Check back in 2 or 3 minutes. I find this particularly irritating when a recipe requires varying heats while cooking. Sorry I don't have better news for you.


Do you season a cast iron waffle pan before using? I just bought a cast iron waffle pan.  I've seen conflicting advice about whether it should be seasoned. I have several old cast iron pans and my instinct would be to season it but I've also read that in a waffle pan the seasoning will get gummy and the waffles will stick to the pan.  Some sites recommend just brushing the pan right before pouring the batter in.  What are your thoughts?

I see no reason that a cast iron waffle pan should be treated differently in regards to seasoning than other cast iron.  Since it won't be cooking anything with significant fat in it naturally, if anything it may be more important!  Seasoning is both for non-stick reason and  non-oxidizing reasons.

Season it well on your own, then use it with some fat (of some kind) very lightly brushed on to keep it well. Only brushing right before use will keep one good likely, but would take a long, long time to naturally season since a large portion of the fat will immediately get used by the food.

Cast iron gets gummy if you either 1) season with a spray like Pam consistently or 2) don't cook your seasoning long enough and/or high enough.  Use a fat, bacon fat, would be great here and season away - properly.  In regards to seasoning, I recommend checking out this question, as its unneeded to replicate detailed information elsewhere in the site.


Getting butter from yogurt The common way for taking butter from milk is to shake the cream captured from milk. There is also a traditional way to shake yogurt to separate butter. However, I was unable to find any instruction for separating butter from yogurt.

Although, separating butter from high-fat cream is quite easy, but full separation of cream from milk at home is almost impossible. However, transferring milk to yogurt is quite easy. Therefore, there is an advantage for getting butter from yogurt (rather than cream), when the starting point is raw milk.

Why this method is not popular? Is there any drawback for that?
Where to find a practical instruction for this procedure? the
best temperature? using Greek (heavy) yogurt or adding water to
it?

I am skeptical that butter from yogurt is a thing.

When yogurt is made the milk proteins denature and form a mesh that traps all the large molecules in the milk. Water, sugar, and some small molecules can come out but the fat never does- it's huge and tightly bound up in the gel.

Even when yogurt is blended up the whey will separate out but the fat never does. I have a hard time believe that extricating the fat from that protein mesh will be easier than just letting it rise to the surface in milk.

Perhaps thoroughly cooking the yogurt would melt out the fat but you would still lose the rest of the milk solids and would have ghee.

With purchasable yogurt it would be even less feasible because it is often made from low-fat milk to begin with.

EDIT-

Searching online I was able to find Indian recipes for making butter from yogurt:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vK8hW_oSu0
In this case they made yogurt from heavy cream. The goal was a cultured butter- not easier butter.


What method should be used for caramelizing chopped lime? I was making this recipe from Andrei Lussman the other day, but I was having some issues with one part of it:

  Finely chop the remaining half of lime and cook gently in a separate pan to release the fruit sugars, until caramelised.

However, after having chopped the lime it mostly resembled lime juice with some chunks in it, and leaving it on the heat it just reduced until it was a very sour mix. Turning up the heat a bit, it looked like it might start to caramelize a bit, but mostly just in a thin film which stuck to the bottom of the pan. Adding a little bit of water and vigorously stirring made it release from the pan, but it still didn't have any sweet taste, just condensed lime-flavor.

I ended up with a very sour glob of semi-solid lime remains, which really didn't work well with the rest of the recipe.

Does anyone have some experience with caramelizing lime, and if so could you explain in some more detail than Lussman how to do this in order to achieve the desired result?

Use a sharp knife that can chop the lime without squeezing and drawing any juice from it.

Sprinkle a tiny bit of honey or sugar if the lime decides it doesn't want to caramelize at all. It will balance the sourness of the lime as well.


How to save my almonds from moths I bought a large amount of almonds at a bargain price. While moving the almonds to jars, I spotted a white powder which was very reminiscent of the eggs of the pantry moth. In the past, such powder quickly became larvae that turned into moths.

I don't want to throw away all the almonds. Is there any way to clean them?

My personal choice would be to throw this away just because I'm too squeamish.

But people here use salty water to get rid of larvae from wild mushrooms. The idea is to soak the unprocessed mushrooms containing living insects, which will try to escape and eventually die outside the mushroom. You then rinse couple of times with fresh water and dry it to avoid mould development.

I've found this is used as a laboratory test here with fruit. They use 1/4 cup salt in 4 cups water, but they mash the fruit with a potato masher.


Do "Chinese Ironwood" cutting boards dull knives quickly? I have an end-grain cutting board of "Chinese Ironwood" like this one from the Wok Shop.  I've used it heavily for the last 16 years, and it shows very little sign of wear.

However, I have to sharpen my knives more often than it feels like I ought to after use with an end grain board; like every 3 uses to maintain a keen edge.  This has brought me to wondering: what exactly is "ironwood" usually, and is it one of those woods that wears down knives faster, like teak or bamboo?

All I've found so far is a thread on Chowhound that's little more than speculation.  It doesn't seem to be this plant, which would never be large enough, and the same goes for acacia.

Based on its density when compared to other hardwoods, I would say it would (see here). Also, having used one (I had a nice circular board, when I lived in China actually) and I noticed it as well. Just like you say, in order to keep a good edge on my knives I was sharpening more often than I was accustomed to with my endgrain cutting board (made myself out of maple and walnut) as well as my bamboo one.


Eating food from a slightly rusting cast iron dutch oven...is it safe? I have a cast iron dutch oven. It has a self-basting lid, basically it has a grid of little cone shapes on the underside of the lid. The idea is that liquid condenses on underside of the lid and these little cones help the liquid drip back down onto the stuff that is cooking.

I noticed that the tips were a little rusted but I decided to cook a one pot chicken and rice dish in it any way. It the food safe to eat? I couldn't discern any type of rust flavor or anything in the food. I searched around on the web a bit and couldn't really get a straight answer about eating rust. All I've read is that you have to injest quite bit to be of any concern. I think that cooking and eating the food this one time probably won't put my health at risk.

Does anyone have a more definitive answer on this?

You're going to die horribly from cooking in a rusted pan!

Just kidding! A little iron in your food isn't going to hurt you, and can actually help prevent anemia.  To quote On Food and Cooking (pg 790): "Excess iron is readily eliminated from the body, and most people can actually benefit from additional dietary iron."

Now, to back this up further:

You won't get much iron out of the pan unless you cook something acidic in it.  Rust is insoluble in water without acid present, and in order to become soluble you have to convert to iron nitrate, sulfate, or chloride, according to the solubility table.  Nothing you cook in there is likely to cause the necessary reactions to render it highly soluble.

I found a source quoting specific numbers for iron from cast iron cookware, if you are concerned.  The gist is that most cooking in cast iron added from 1 to 5 mg of iron to the food, with the highest numbers coming from acidic foods with tomatoes.  Applesauce was the highest, good for about 7 mg.

This level of iron intake is quite safe and healthy. To give you a point of comparison, the FDA suggests iron intake of 8 mg/day for men, and 18 mg/day for women, and 80% of the world may be iron deficient.  Iron toxicity occurs at about 45 mg/day.  So, as I initially stated, you're perfectly safe cooking in your cast iron, and are probably helping your health rather than hurting it!


Is there a resource on food prep times for labor costing? The Culinary Institute of America released an excellent book on food costing - The Book of Yields: Accuracy in Food Costing and Purchasing. In it there are lookup tables on yields on over 1000 foods. The thing it's missing are average time estimates for achieving those yields, say like "it takes about t minutes to trim 20 pounds of carrots."

Anyone know of a resource like that?

After +35 years in the Hospitality Industry, I would agree with Erica's response, and include other factors as well.
Prep times can be different dependent upon:

efficiency of individual
efficiency of environment

1) Individual: experience counts, obviously, this is why the "new person" starts in the prep section- peeling potatoes, dicing carrots, cleaning shrimp; with more experience handling the tools of the trade & understanding how to consolidate movements and improve workflow, more intensive and valuable items are added to the Prep List, such as pin-boning fresh fish fillets or dressing game hens;

2) Environment: in food production, as in the production of any other product, an efficient Work Space is of great benefit ( also obvious, once it's put into perspective ); compare your home kitchen to the kitchen of a commercial bakery, for example, with deliberate lay-out of equipment, work spaces, and storage, as well as the division of labor that will dramatically shorten the time to produce 100 apples pies, for instance, with one apple peeler, one apple chopper, four crust makers...

Therefore I would submit that to author a definitive prep time for the myriad of food items currently used in the Restaurant / Hotel / Institutional arena would be foolish, actually, maybe impossible, without taking these two ( and other ) factors into account.
Also, to create and enforce a standardized, or minimum / maximum prep time would actually be harmful. To expect an aspiring chef to be able to clean and prepare 25 whole turkeys for a buffet, within the same time that an able and experienced chef would complete such a task, risks danger to the new-comer by hurried, improper, and unsafe knife handling ( for just one example ). Furthermore it increases the risks to the guests that may consume a contaminated final product, due to the our new-comer attempting to finish this task in the arbitrary allotted time.

( other factors: just gonna put this out there... a large hotel operation, with a prep staff that is in the union, in my experience, will be much slower - or more deliberate, perhaps - that the aspiring sous chef who needs to prepare the dinner special at 4 pm...! )

An efficient operator will calculate these times themselves, and continually review them, to save labor, and increase efficiency.

Veritas!


Why does my fudge always set up like a rock? I've followed the recipe for an opera fudge (and several others) as close as I can, yet my fudge always turns out grainy and crumbly. The best results I've gotten have come from not washing down the sides of the pan, but transferring the mixture to a new pan instead.

In Scotland we make a kind of fudge that is deliberatly hard and crystallised known as Tablet. This was a popular treat when I was growing up. Essencially the recipe for tablet, soft fudge, toffee and caramel are quite similar. The difference is made by how you cook and treat the mix as it cools.
Essentially you need to know about sugar boiling points. There are two important levels used: soft boil, and hard boil. My cook books suggest using a sugar thermometer to get the perfect boil but I've never found a sugar thermometer in the shops. Instead I rely on a great deal of practice, the colour, the texture and the drip of the mix to gage how hot the sugar is.
In a soft ball (234–240 °F or 112–115 °C), if you drip the mix onto a very cold surface or into cold water, then touch the drip with your finger, it will be soft like caramel. Additionally the colour will change from cream to yellow/tan.
In a hard ball (250–266 °F or 121–130 °C), dripping again onto a cold surface or into cold water, then touching the drip with your finger, it will be firmer or even hard. The colour will darken slightly to a dark yellow or light brown.
For caramel and fudge you go to a soft boil then cool. For tablet and toffee you go to a hard boil.
The next part is the cooling. This is equally important as the boiling. The faster you cool the mix the smaller the crystals become. The slower, the larger. If you want a caramel or a toffee, you must avoid agitating the mix as it cools. For fudge you should stir the gently as it cools slightly before pouring onto the try. For tablet, the mix should be vigorously stirred until stiff then poured onto a try.


Is it true that putting spices in something then baking it destroys the spices? I heard that putting spices in something and putting it in the oven will eliminate the taste of the spices. Is this true? For example if I were to put spice in lasagna before putting it in the oven you will not be able to taste the spice afterwards.

It is not true that baking destroys spices (for most spices I know; unless you put them to bake dry on top of something, which might burn them).

I made this answer a bit broader as we add flavor to food not only with spices but with herbs or flavorful vegetables, mushrooms, and fruits as well.

Baking/heat will likely change the texture and flavor of spices, vegetables, and especially fresh herbs, but it will not destroy them. Sometimes it will take away the fresh sharpness (like in garlic or onion).

Sometimes frying or roasting spices before cooking is even desired to give them a slight toasty flavor (like whole cumin and other spices in Indian cuisine). Some say that "only with roasting all flavors can be unlocked".

So it depends on what effect you want to achieve with a spice/seasoning.

And in your case putting spices into lasagna before baking will help blend the flavors together. However, putting some fresh herbs on top of the lasagna before serving will give the dish some color and freshness.


Best temperature to freeze pie filling? I am in the process of replacing my commercial freezer. We typically freeze our pie fillings to simplify production. In looking into new freezers I can choose between 0 Degrees Fahrenheit and -10 Degrees Fahrenheit depending on the unit we purchase.

I was thinking I might try out the -10 degrees model for our pie fillings. My thinking being, pie filling is kind of sort of very loosely like sorbet (in so much as it's basically fruit and sugar) and may benefit from the lower temperature due to the sugar content.

I have no additional info to back that claim up other than a hunch, so I figured I would ask if anyone else had additional experience on this topic.

We don't use cornstarch in the filling, so I'm not concerned about the freeze/thaw stability issues that presents. We do use tapioca though.

Additionally if the lower temperature is preferable (-10 Degrees Fahrenheit), would that same temperature also be appropriate for the pie crust dough or would that lower temperature have other consequences?

Whether colder is better would depend on how freezing "simplifies production" for you and how long the food will be stored.

In a long-storage scenario, lower temperature is definitely beneficial as it does improve storage lifetimes. If it's a matter of weeks or days so that you can prep a batch and cook as needed, no real benefit.

Without knowing how freezing "simplifies production" for you, it's hard to say if colder would be of any benefit on that mark. All other things being equal (as they often are not) a colder freezer will take more energy to run, since additional refrigeration is not free.

My sorbets typically hold more than long enough at 0°F. If the mixture is not churned, it freezes hard at that temperature. Some sugar syrup will weep out, but that will also happen at cooler temperatures. Even if churned, it would not slop out of a pie shell, so I'd say it would handle similarly.

{not that you seem to be considering one - but mention might be made of "blast freezers" which are sort of the convection-oven of freezing, and may run as cold as -70F - those have the benefit of very fast freezing, minimizing the size of ice crystals - then the product is typically moved to a storage freezer once it's been "flash frozen" - not clear that this would offer your product any benefit, as the filling will be cooked after thawing. }


Am I missing something with Beer Can chicken? I've tried beer can chicken a few times, BBQ and in the oven, but it doesn't seem overly special to me.  I am not sure if I should also be covering the chicken with some kind of sauce, but the chicken never seems to absorb much flavour, so I am wondering if I am using the wrong kind of beer, or if I am doing something wrong.  While people seem to rave about the juiciness, it doesn't seem any more juicy than rotisserie or just baking in the over with some kind of marinade.

Beer Can Chicken has a few tricks to have it turn out amazing as opposed to just average.  I always take my thawed chicken and rub it all over inside and out with vegetable oil and pureed garlic (about one large clove). Then I coat the skin with seasonings like salt, pepper, seasoned salt or chicken/poultry seasoning like sage or an \Italian mix; you can use anything the you want. Cajun spice and lemon are also pretty good.  The beer has to have some flavour to it, don't use a light beer. Apple ciders (strong bow, perry's pear cider, black thorne) or a white wine/cooking cherry will also do the trick. I use a half a pop/beer can and then stuff the chicken and the bottom tray with onions, red peppers, garlic and celery. The key to crispy skin and moist chicken is low heat on the BBQ, turn one side onto medium heat and put the chicken on the off side with the lid closed for 20 minutes per pound of chicken.  Practice makes perfect....chicken.


How to choose a pan for making caramel? Is there any noticeable difference in taste and texture when making caramel on a non-stick pan versus a normal pan? I have seen a few cooks making caramel on a stainless steel saucepan and others on black frying pans most probably non-stick. But, is there a difference?

Surely, the most annoying thing is cleaning up the mess of caramel afterwards, any fast tips?

You ask about coating, but it is actually not very important. There are other criteria with much higher priority when you are making caramel or other types of candy. The important thing about pan when making caramel is even heating. Especially when making your caramel dry, you cannot afford hot spots, because you cannot stir. But if you are taking the candy into the later caramel stages, even heating becomes important for syrup-started candy too.

You need a responsive pan if you are making caramel. Sadly, the most evenly heating pans are also the least responsive and vice versa. I would never make caramel on a resistive stove in iron, but I use a small enamelled Dutch oven for caramel on my induction plate. A good sandwiched steel with an aluminum core should offer a decent tradeoff between evenness and responsiveness on most stove types.

You also need the correct size pan. If your caramel is less than 1 cm deep, it is very hard to handle without burning it. If it is deeper than 5 cm, there is too much of a heat gradient in the depth. Choose the pan diameter such that your caramel depth will be between 1 and 5 cm roughly.

If you are going to add any kind of liquid to the caramel (or butter), you'll experience lots of foam. You need a deep walled vessel to catch this foam. Use a deep sauce pan or a small pot instead of a frying pan. You want 10 cm wall above the caramel level.

Aside from a seasoned cast iron pan, I haven't experienced a coating adsorbing flavors. PTFE, ceramic, enamel, anodized alu or no coating - none of them matters. Use whatever you have handy. For cleaning, follow Elendil's advice for dissolving the smears in hot water.


Julia Child beef bourguignon question In Mastering the Art of French Cooking, for the beef bourguignon  recipe, there is an instruction towards the end I'm not sure if I'm understanding.

After the meat is cooked, you pass the sauce thru a sieve and reduce it. She then says

  Wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it.

Does that mean that the small onion and carrot that cooked along with the meat are to be discarded? It was kind of a hassle to take them out. Should they be cut large so as to make that easier?

I agree the original instructions are unclear, but "return the beef and bacon to [the casserole]" implies that the "beef and bacon" includes the other ingredients cooked in the casserole - the onion and carrot. Sometimes recipes refer to mixtures by their predominant ingredients, and this recipe seems to do this, albeit a little vaguely.

Looking at similar techniques, while onion could be used to impart flavor and then removed, there isn't really a good reason to add carrot if it will be removed later. Unless browned, carrots don't tend to add much flavor after removed.

The instructions also say, "Pour the contents of the casserole into a sieve set over a saucepan." This would include the sliced carrots and onions, and sliced vegetables should be large enough so as to not pass through a sieve, so it shouldn't be much of a hassle to separate them from the sauce.

Here is where I found the recipe online.


Does chocolate syrup need to be refrigerated? Hershey's chocolate syrup recommends that you "refrigerate after opening", but unlike many other sauces with this recommendation (e.g. ketchup, mayonnaise, BBQ sauce etc.) chocolate syrup bottles are not sealed when sold on the shelf (i.e. there is nothing under the cap to remove before first use.

So for these other liquids I understand the argument that the bottle is sealed at the factory and once the seal is opened bacteria can enter, but the chocolate is never sealed so this argument doesn't seem to hold.

Is there any good reason (Hershey trying to protect themselves from lawsuits doesn't count) why chocolate syrup needs to be refrigerated after opening?

It is likely that prior to use there is minimal likelihood of the ingredients separating as the transport and shelf storage of the item is likely considered controlled. Once in a home kitchen, the problem is not with spoilage (there are plenty of preservatives in it), but that storage fluctuations and use may throw the emulsifiers.

Although I am inclined to dismiss the need for refrigerating it, the is likely that across a few million units, a less stable batch may make its way into a hot and then cold and hot and then cold kitchen and the contents would separate.

For big brands, a major focus is to ensure consistency among products in spite of quality or diverse ingredients; hence watery domestic beer (U.S.), Lay's potato chips, and refrigerated chocolate syrup that is harder to use than when stored at room temp.


What's the approximate dry to cooked weight conversion ratio for beans? Cooked in water, they of course absorb some of it. Looking for weight, not volume conversion. If it varies by type, this is for Red Kidney Beans, but I'm guessing one general number can be good enough for most of them.

Cooking without soaking in a pressure cooker.

I'll try to update this after I finish cooking, but I have 3 pulses soaking right now that are about to be cooked. (red kidney beans, black chickpeas and urad dal)

For dry vs soaked, it seems the kidney beans (and both the black chickpeas and the dal) have pretty nearly exactly doubled in weight. When I cook them, I will include enough water to cover them. I know from experience that they will absorb some of it, but not all of it, but if you don't have enough water in there when you cook them in the pressure cooker, they will scorch.

It is a little hard to calculate exactly the cooked weight of the beans themselves without the cooking water because, at least for the dal and the kidney beans, they get pretty soft and some break up in the water. Unless you cook them with the exact amount of water they will absorb, it's pretty tough to say what is beans and what is water at a certain point.

For lentils and dals that don't need presoaking, I generally cook them with 1:2 dal:water and they absorb all of it and generally turn nearly to mush. For dal that needs to be soaked, I use the same method as the kidney beans -- just barely cover with water (note that this is additional water after soaking, and enough to cover their plumper volume). For those (whole urad dal, whole moong dal) it will absorb most of the water, but there will be some liquid left. I'd guess that it is probably less than half the original weight more in water.

So my best estimate is about 1 dry becomes 2-2.5 cooked, by weight.

I know you're asking about weight, but from a cooking perspective, for any lentils/dals, I always make sure to include twice the volume of water to the volume of the dry dal. For kidney beans i would probably cook them with 4x there volume of the dry beans. For anything where I expect to use some sort of sauce or gravy, I increase that. This is sort of the bare minimum so that they fully hydrate and don't scorch.


How can I thicken tea? I tried thickening mint tea with cornstarch.  I was hoping for something with a more thick mouth-feel.  I got the consistency I was looking for, but the cornstarch imparted a slightly mineral/dirty flavor.  It certainly didn't ruin the tea, but it wasn't what I was hoping for.

My specific steps were:

Boil water
Add cornstarch slurry
Cook 4-5 minutes more
Take off heat, add tea bag and sugar (Splenda) then steep.

Will cornstarch always impart this flavor or was it my technique?

Will another common thickener work better (I don't want to have to buy some powder off of Amazon)?  Ideally, I would like a thickener that adds no color or flavor, though I'm perfectly happy with one that just adds color.

Thanks.

You could try using arrowroot. This is a widely available alternative to cornstarch - it is used in cookery because it doesn't turn liquids cloudy like cornstarch does. In your case, it might work better as it also has a more neutral flavour.

Substitute 2 tbsps of arrowroot for 1 tbsp cornstarch, and make a slurry with cool water as you would cornstarch. One issue is that overheating can break down the arrowroot, preventing it from thickening, so you are probably better off adding it to the tea after removing it from the heat.


Chicken and Beef stored in the freezer not entirely frozen - safe? Recently (four days ago), a friend gave me a large chicken leg and some beef chunks for me to use at some point to cook with. Both of them were raw, but totally frozen, when I received them.

I put them in the freezer of my small fridge (I am a college student studying in a foreign country) to keep until I decided to make something with them. However, I opened the small freezer door (it's one of those student fridges where the freezer is a small box at the top of the fridge - you have to open the main door to open the freezer) and realized that the meat was no longer totally frozen. The freezer itself is apparently still cold enough that there is still ice and frost on the walls and floor of the freezer, and most of the meat is still frozen as well. However, some of the edges are not frozen, and are actually quite thawed. They are still cold, though.

Is this meat safe to eat/cook with?

If it's not completely frozen, then it will last roughly as long as meat stored in the fridge. So if "recently" was within the last 4-5 days, it's fine. If "recently" is more than a week ago, it should not be eaten.


Edible painting pens and biscuits Can I use an edible food painting pen to decorate shortbread biscuits or can it only be used on icing?

Thanks

From the Wilton website:

  Draw edible messages and designs on molded candy or dipped treats! As easy to use as a normal marker, you can use these edible ink markers to add fun and dazzling color to fondant, icing, cookies and more. You can even brighten everyday foods like toaster pastries, cheese, fruit slices and bread.

So yes, you can draw on shortbread.


Are there any ingredients I should not add to a no-knead dough with an extended proofing time? I am having great results with no-knead bread, generally leaving this to proof for up to 18 hours in a coolish (20 C) room.

I'm thinking of upping my game and adding fresh ingredients (e.g. minced fresh garlic, salami, tomato etc.) to the dough. Is there any ingredients I should avoid for food safety or quality reasons due to this long proofing time?

I will be using white bread flour and approximately 1/4 Tsp of bread machine yeast, and possibly sugar and olive oil as well.

I don't think there's anything specific to worry about with bread dough.  The important point is the temperature: if you're considering adding an ingredient that you normally wouldn't let sit out at room temperature for 18 hours for food safety reasons (and/or because it might start tasting "off"), you probably should add that ingredient toward the end by folding it in before shaping or something.

Most no-knead bread recipes that sit out at room temperature for a long time are quite flexible.  You likely won't cause any problems by folding in an ingredient late in the first rise.


Should you store cutlery upside down? I try to touch only the handles of my cutlery (as recommended here), but I have one doubt. After washing, I place the cutlery upside down in a plastic basket. This way the handle is 'handy'.

Is this the correct way to reduce risk of cross contamination?

This discussion is a bit far fetched, (going for safety's sake).  If by upside down you mean the 'business end' of the utensil is down and the handle up, this comes to mind:

If there is a drop of contaminated water (from hands or a splash) it'll work its way to the very tip. The tip also is the last place to dry.
the tip of the utensil (nearly guaranteed to touch food and likely lips and mouth) is touching a surface that many other utensils hit (bottom of the basket).  A parallel issue to ground meat from multiple animals here where if one piece is carrying something, then it's spreading.

A clever thing I saw a banquet hall staff do, was to bring the utensils with the bucket to the table which was covered with clean (disinfected) table cloth and tipped it over.  That way she didn't have to pull them out by the business end and could grab the handles once they rested on the table.


Keep a frittata puffy My frittatas always deflate. I've heard all kinds of differing advice: add flour, add tapioca flour/starch, add corn flour, add baking powder... I was once even told to add a little yoghurt! The base recipe I use calls for 6 eggs and 1/4 cup milk, and then some onions, garlic, and then a little of whatever vegetables are in the fridge chopped up fine... and then shredded cheese on top once it's already half done (but I don't think the cheese is so heavy that it's causing the whole thing to collapse and deflate - I really only use a sprinkling). What's the best way to keep a frittata from deflating?

You may want to see Serious Eats' coverage of scrambled eggs.

Getting them to puff initially requires a little higher heat.  Adding extra liquid (water, milk, cream) will result in softer eggs, so you may want to reduce or eliminate it.

As for the cheese -- it really depends on how much you're adding.  If it's so thick you can't see the eggs under them, I'd recommend either reducing it so it's a bare sprinkling, or mixing some in with the eggs and then only a small bit on top.

For a fritata specifically, you should be careful about not overcooking it -- it can cause it to deflate if the air bubbles over-expand and burst.

When dealing with serving frittatas at room temperature or chilled, make sure that you let it cool slowly -- you need to make sure that the proteins get a chance to set up before the air bubbles shrink significantly.


Cafe brulot in emily post's etiquette I've searched everywhere and I've been unable to find a copy of the recipe I found in the 1938 or so edition of Etiquette by Emily Post. She describes a drink that is served flaming mixed with spices, and as far as I can find, it's probably cafe brulot.

As I have been unable to locate my copy, can anybody point me in the right direction, or do they have the recipe from the book?

A quick internet search "Café Brulot" returns a number of recipes.

There is even a scan of"Good Taste Today" by Emily Post in the St. Petersburg Times Feb 6 1938) that describes the Café Brulot (not a recipe).

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=nx9PAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Wk0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=3267%2C872400


Sourdough starter used too early So I was making my sourdough starter for almost three weeks, and it still wasn’t floating in water. I used this recipe: https://www.theclevercarrot.com/2019/03/beginner-sourdough-starter-recipe/ However, when I was searching, I could not find I could not find unbleached all-purpose flour. So I used bleached flour instead. I do not own a proofing box, so I proofed my starter in an oven with the light on. I didn’t notice it rise much, but I continued to feed it. It was showing some bubbles, but not enough to make it in the dough. For almost three weeks, I kept feeding. After then, it did have bubbles, both big and small, but a lot of times it would have a brown-ish liquid before feedings. It smelled like unbaked bread dough. I was becoming impatient, and decided to make the sourdough dough with the unripe starter. Everything was mixing well, and I followed the directions until I got a nice dough consistency. It was 4 hours into the bulk rise, when my dough hadn’t grown a centimeter. I concluded that this was because of my young starter. Will it still be okay? Any tips for finishing the bread? How can I make a future sourdough starter less time consuming? Thank you!

Using a starter with insufficient activity is basically the same thing as forgetting to add yeast to a non-sourdough loaf. If there's very little activity in the starter, then you don't have an established colony of wild yeast so there's nothing there that will make the dough rise. At this point, your bread is pretty much a loss. You could try to turn it into some form of flatbread by frying small rounds of it in a pan if you don't want to throw it out, but you're not getting a loaf of bread out of it.
As for your starter, the brown liquid is most likely hooch. It typically indicates that you're not feeding your starter often enough. Typically, your starter should be ready for use in 7-10 days from starting it. However, lots of factors like the temperature in your kitchen and precisely what kind of flour you use can affect the time it takes for a yeast colony to establish itself. Using it before you have a stable colony of wild yeast is a waste of time and ingredients since without the yeast it cannot replace commercial yeast in your bread. Patience will get you there faster than rushing.


Does sprinkling salt on top of brownies give the same result as putting it in the batter? Standard recipes for brownies have a teaspoon of salt in them. Questions like this one and this one explain that it's only for taste. Can you just put some salt on top after they are baked?

For example, the linked answer might imply that yes you can just sprinkle salt on the baked brownie afterwards. But is that true? I also don't understand the comment about "raw flour". None of the flour should be raw after the brownie is baked!

Sprinkling salt on top won't have the same effect as mixing it in the batter, you'll get a big salt hit all at once and then nothing in the brownie itself which I wouldn't expect to be very pleasant.

Some recipes withhold some of the salt from the brownie and put it in a sauce for the top like a salted caramel drizzle. This works because it's not pure salt on the top and there's still salt in the batter.