Baking with Whey Protein I wanted to experiment with baking with Whey Protein and I found recipes for baking online.  I was wondering if any whey protein off the shelf can be used?  Or do I need to find a specific type of whey protein online?  Using Whey is something I'm not familiar with and didn't see any options online geared for cooking, so I wasn't sure if any product was acceptable...

I bake extensively with whey protein concentrates and isolates. Well, to be clear, a combination of whey protein concentrates/isolates and other non-wheat type flours (flaxseed meal, almond flour, coconut flour, psyllium husk powder, etc.).

One thing to mention right off the bat is that whey protein and gluten do not mix. Well, let me explain. In some of my low-carb baking for yeast-raised breads/pizzas, I use vital wheat gluten (VWG) at around 40 - 50% of the total flour weight (see my answer here). Like one would expect, mixing plain VWG with water normally produces a rubbery, elastic dough that can immediately pass the windowpane test. However, if I mixed, say, 20 g of VWG with 10 g of unflavored whey protein isolate and added 30 g water, I would end up with a thick, liquid-like soup — almost a batter: absolutely no ability to hold shape or structure. (I think) the whey protein basically shreds the VWG to pieces. I am still researching why this behavior occurs, but I think it may have to do with whey protein being a super-concentrated source of glutathione (which is why you usually scald milk before adding to wheat flour recipes) and/or L-cysteine. (L-cysteine is the active ingredient in PZ-44, a commercial dough-conditioner). Now, whether this same behavior will carry over to baked goods made with wheat flour + whey protein, I don't know, but it's certainly something to watch out for. Granted, it will likely have a greater effect on baked goods that rely more heavily on gluten for their structure. Interestingly, casein (the other major milk protein), or more specifically, micellar casein, does not exhibit this same destructive behavior, cooperating well with gluten and working alongside the gluten network to provide structure.

Second, at least in my experience (which doesn't include wheat flour), whey protein concentrates/isolates seem to have an extreme drying effect on baked goods, similar to egg whites. For example, if I were to take ¼ cup (28 g) of flaxseed meal and add an egg, it would bake up to have a moist, muffin-like texture. In contrast, if I were to take an equal amount of whey protein isolate and an egg, it would bake up to an inedible brick: chalky and desert-like in its dryness. While previously I was at a loss for why this was occurring, in the process of writing this answer, I realized it's likely because as the proteins set, you're squeezing out the moisture, and without any other hygroscopic ingredients, that moisture just evaporates. This same drying behavior would likely also occur with wheat flour. So, depending on the amount of whey protein used, it may be necessary to counteract that by including hygroscopic ingredients (sugar, flaxseed meal, psyllium husk powder, etc.).

In my experience, (again, which doesn't include wheat flour), whey protein concentrates (75%) are not equivalent to whey protein isolates (90%). I just learned this the hard way. I developed numerous recipes using whey protein isolates, then trying to save a few bucks, I ordered whey protein concentrate instead of isolate. None of the recipes I developed with isolate worked using concentrate (they'll require re-formulation of other ingredients). Since the amount of protein in isolates is higher than in concentrates, isolates have a higher "drying power" and can support the addition of a greater amount of non-egg moisture. Granted, these whey proteins were making up about 50% of my total "flour" by weight. (For an example of such a recipe, see the Buttermilk Pancake (Coconut Flour + Whey Protein Isolate) in my answer here). Consequently, assuming you're using wheat flour, I don't think this difference will be as big of an issue since you'll be using a much smaller amount.

Since I use it so often for baking, I go with unflavored whey protein isolates/concentrates, as they're the most versatile. They're unsweetened and unflavored, so I can have more control over the end product. In my case, this is usually something I have to get online, as most stores I've been to will only carry flavored proteins. If you do go with a flavored protein powder, vanilla is probably the next most versatile, as vanilla is usually at home in a lot of potential recipes. Since the protein powder is usually sweetened, you may need to adjust the recipe's other sweeteners (but do keep in mind the need for hygroscopic ingredients).


Bete Noir -- no dairy I'd like to try this bete noir recipe, but it's for Passover.  I'd like to make it parve (dairy free).  I'm thinking about substituting butter with margarine (which seems pretty straightforward), and for the ganoche, whipping cream with almond milk (which feels iffier).

Any immediate thoughts on a better approach, or advice for using the almond milk, in particular??

UPDATE:  I took the good advice to serve something else, and wait to do this recipe justice.  I was ready -- even found some coconut milk with guar right in it, marketed as a cream substitute, but chickened out.  Made it with whipping cream this week, and it was worth it-- though the ganache is just a thin layer on top of the cake, and I suspect the coconut w/ guar would have worked just fine.

The key to a smooth ganache is fat - add too much water and you will end up with a “grainy” product. There are even recipes that use butter instead of cream (full or partial substitution), and while that’s probably a heart attack on a spoon, the texture is excellent. Almond milk is at least as “watery” as regular cows milk, so yes, that’s a questionable substitute without further changes.

You can benefit from the recent vegan trend and either use full-fat coconut milk (if the flavor is to your liking) or buy a vegan cream substitute, just check what your local store has available. If you want to use almond milk, consider adding a butter substitute (solid vegetable fat?).

Margarine instead of butter in the crust won’t be an issue, alternatively, you may want to check vegetable shortening. We may have a few Q/As on that substitution on the site. And don’t forget to get dairy-free chocolate.


I want a new range hood, how many CFM (Cubic feet per minute), would i need for mostly Asian/stir fry cooking? We just moved into our condo, and I want to replace the combination microwave/range hood with just a cabinet mounted exhaust.  I was wondering how much CFM (cubic feet/minute) I would need if I mainly cooked Asian style stir frys and the like?  I know more CFM's are better, but is there such thing as over kill?  Right now the current range hood is only 300 CFM, which is woefully inadequate for even just boiling water.

Any suggestions on CFM's and perhaps features that are helpful?  I am currently shopping on Amazon.com and the Tatsumaki brand has caught my eye.  The CFM's range from 750 to 950, depending on the model.  Any input on the subject would be most appreciated.

Use these as personal experiences and not as guidelines for construction or for code-compliant renovations.

You can use the commercial kitchen code as a guideline: for every square foot of hood codes suggest between 50 to 100 CFM (cubic foot per minute) of exhaust capacity.  With those guidelines, a hood covering a 36 by 20 inch cooking surface (720 sq. in. or 5 sq. feet) should require 5 time 75 (the average) or 375 CFM.

Now the problem.  While many hoods will provide more capacity than that my experience is that they are not enough.  Unlike commercial kitchens, home kitchen are missing the blowers that pumps air in.  The code for commercial kitchens suggests an in blower at about 90% of the exhaust capacity.  If weather permits you can open doors or windows, but that is never like having the air coming in right next to the stove.

This question has also been asked in the DIY Stackexchange as "How many CFM for a range hood do I REALLY need?"


How to use a honey dipper? I have a honey dipper I thought would be worth making use of. It does great at not dripping honey as I take it out of the jar. However getting the honey out of the dipper is another matter. I've tried holding it at various angles and gently shaking it. How do I get the honey to drip where I want it to?

I imagine it would work well if stirring the honey into a drink. However I am trying to get it on my oatmeal, and it's a pain to clean after stirring it in the oats.

Apparently there is an orientation to the thing. (I can't confirm because I never use mine and I don't feel like honey right now.)

While moving in and out of the jar, hold it with the stick up and down. Honey will kind of "sit on the shelves" of the dripper and fall off very slowly if at all. Move it over to your oatmeal and then turn it 90 degrees so the stick is parallel to the floor/counter/table. Now apparently honey will flow out of the slots and onto your oatmeal.

If this works, it could actually be good for getting a thin drizzle which is hard to do with a spoon.

Try it and let me know?


Frying a turkey while snowing Light snow is in the forecast for Thanksgiving. I plan on deep frying the turkey.

I have deep fried turkey before. I know what to do and what not to do: I wear layers of clothing, goggles, lower/raise the turkey slowly, and have two people nearby to assist in case of emergency (at least one with a cell phone). I have a "little" deep fryer I use indoors as well. So I am not a newbie to frying. While writing up this question, Stackexchange recommended this question which I read:

How do I safely deep fry a turkey?

Still, I don't have a good answer to the question: how do I deep fry with a steady supply of frozen ice crystals slowly meandering down from the overhead clouds into my driveway? Sure, I can turn the burner off while I am lowering/raising the turkey. That removes some risk. But at some point the oil will be hot enough to flash boil water/snow while it is snowing.

Keep in mind this should be very light snow. It is not a blizzard. It is not a thunderstorm. Is the risk of flash boiling snow to the point of causing fire and injury too great? Is there a way to mitigate this risk?

One idea I had while brainstorming is to put up a collapsible gazebo over the fryer -- but that could be comically fatal for other reasons than snow.

There's so much heat around a turkey deep-fryer I wouldn't see how light or medium snow would affect your cooking. Any snow is going to melt and probably evaporate before it comes into contact with any hot oil, and any that makes contact will be gone in a flash. I've barbequed in 20 below and in snow, all that it really means is that you need more heat.

My main concern would be wind, not snow. Wind will blow much of your heat away, and a really stiff wind could blow the whole rig over which would ruin your day. You want to set up the frying rig in a spot that is out of the wind. Light and medium snow really isn't an issue.


Replacement for wine Possible Duplicate:
  What is a substitute for red or white wine in a recipe?

I am making a short rib recipe which calls for white wine in the brazing liquid.  I don't have any wine, what would you recommend I used in place of it?  Will I be missing out on a lot not using the wine?

I've used a sweet vinegar before in place of wine, you don't have to add much and it give's recipes a bit more kick due to the acidity.You will have to use your judgement as you definitely won't want to add as much vinegar as you would wine.


how to store a chicken sandwich overnight for lunch the next day I am currently preparing a chicken breast sandwich using this recipe. However, this is for consumption tomorrow on campus. What's the best way to store this and have it for lunch tomorrow? I only have a microwave so I am thinking if I put it in the fridge and reheat it, it will get extremely soggy.

How do I store it so that the chicken retains its juices and tenderness (and that the bun/sauces) don't make it super soggy.

I would personally wait with assembling it until right before eating. Put the bread in a bag, the sliced chicken in a bag, and find a small container to keep the pesto in. Then you can assemble and heat on "grill" for a minute or so when you're ready to eat it. That should prevent any sogginess.


Why does the "almost no knead bread" recipe use beer? Can it be replaced? In America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated they have a recipe for an almost no knead bread that has beer as one of it's ingredients. What does the beer add? And can it be replaced by something else (that's not alcoholic)?

The purpose of the beer (and the vinegar) in this case is to add some of the malty, fermenty flavors typical of longer-fermented or sourdough breads.  You can either leave it out and replace it with an equal quantity of water or use a non-alcoholic beer

The carbonation from the beer might add a little extra lift at the start to establish some air cells and work the gluten a bit, but with an 18 hour room-temperature bulk rise, that benefit would be negligible. In most beers (especially large US commercial bottlers) there isn't enough active yeast left in the bottle by the time it is drunk to do anything either.

The author of the original article (Cook's Illustrated #90, Jan 2008) added the beer and vinegar in order to add flavor to a bread recipe that already produced decent bread.

  My bread now had tang [from the vinegar], but it lacked complexity.
  What I needed was a concentrated shot of yeasty flavor. As I racked my
  brain, I realized that beyond bread, there is another commonly
  available substance that relies on yeast for flavor: beer.


how to figure out cooking time I seared by prime rib at 450 degrees for 30 minutes and then I was supposed to reduce the temp to 325 for an additional 3 hours.  I forgot to turn down the temperature and caught my mistake 25 minutes into cooking.  How much time should I reduce my cooking by?

It's hard to tell, since it depends on a lot of different factors. I would estimate that you should reduce the cooking time by about 20 minutes. For the future, I would recommend investing in a meat thermometer. Then you can tell when the meat is done without relying on oven temperatures and times.


Whether a piece of meat is near its shelf life or not, does it also determine how long it can be stored after it is cooked? For example, to buy two pieces of meat in supermarket. They are well sealed and can be kept for a few days; one piece is new, another piece will be expired just next day.

Generally speaking cooked meat can be stored in fridge in a few days. So can these two pieces of meat be stored in the fridge for the same long time after they are cooked?

Food safety rules are simplified to the point where you apply them without any further considerations, edge cases, additional calculations, or anything else. You just do what it says.

So, when the rule is that cooked meat holds 3-5 days in the fridge, then this always holds for meat which was safe when it was cooked. It doesn't matter if it was cut fresh from the cow or on its last day of safety. The date on the package is calculated such that it will still hold for 3-5 days if cooked on the last day.


How do I use no-boil lasagna noodles in a normal recipe? How do I convert a normal lasagna recipe to use no-boil noodles?  Do I need to add extra liquid or just make sure that the dish is covered really well?

You can use 'no-boil' pasta straight from the box, alternatively, you can soak it it warm water for a few minutes. The soaked pasta may prove to be a little easier to manipulate when building the lasagne. However, providing there is enough liquid in the sauce, soaking is unnecessary.

Personally, I'd cover the dish with foil until the last 10 to 15 minutes of the cooking process, this will allow the pasta to cook and it should prevent the sauce from drying out. The last 10 to 15 minutes uncovered will provide the colour.


Are strawberries really dyed? I stopped by a farm stand last weekend, and found the strawberries were rather pale looking. I commented on this, and the farmer assured me that this was no worry, and that furthermore I should be wary of bright red strawberries. His claim was that bright red strawberries at the supermarket are in fact dyed that color.

Is it common practice to dye berries? Is it even legal? Is this something one would normally expect to find at a grocery store, or is a technique used elsewhere (say, commercially, or in restaurants?) Or is this guy just trying to convince me to buy his product?

Strawberries turn a natural red color in their ripening process. This is usually a very strong, ruby-red color. Rest assured, strawberries in the US are not dyed. FDA clearly lists all adulteration done to fruits (oranges can be dyed), but strawberries only has a regulation of when the product is considered moldy, etc. Note that even though dyed strawberries may not be sold in US, they may be exported in countries that permit it ( fruit intended for export is exempt).

Rest of the world is a different story. It wouldn't be uncommon for you to  find strawberries that are picked too early in the process, or are just grown in poor conditions that are dyed red to give it the luscious red appearance. There have been anecdotal reports of this in China - this color comes right off when washed, showing a white strawberry. Strawberries do leech a red fluid when washed, but that shouldn't result in a white strawberry.


What's that scum at the sides of my home-made burger when I cook it? When I do home-made burgers, my mix is as follows:

ground beef
bread-crumbs or grated potatoe
egg
parmezan cheese
salt, pepper, sweek paprika
dijon mustard
a bit of olive oil
sometimes pieces of ham and some other cheese
sauteed onion and garlic

I take a handful, make a patty and drop it in a hot skillet. In time, I see some gray scum coming mostly from the sides of the patty (which I dutifully separate with a spoon).
At the end, the burger's texture is pleasant, so...

What is this scum?
Am I doing something wrong?

thanks!

This scum is made from proteins. Meat contains muscle fibers (the proteins actin and myosin) as well as some loose proteins swimming in the fluids within the meat (the cell plasma). When you cook meat, the protein-rich fluids are expelled (that's why overcooking makes meat dry). Under hot temperature, the proteins in the fluid coagulate, making it firm. It is especially noticeable in your burger, because there is more liquid flowing out quickly from your cut-up meat, but it also happens with whole pieces of meat, albeit more slowly. It is also very noticeable when cooking stock, because the stock is cooked for a long time and the liquid has time to come out from the meat.

The coagulated liquid can form a single piece (as it does with steak on a slightly oiled pan), but when it flows into water or oil, it mixes with it without dissolving, creating small loose particles. They float to the top, creating the frothy scum you describe.

The process is perfectly natural, you're not doing anything wrong. You can in fact eat the scum without any ill effects, but the taste isn't that great. So it is better to fish it out from the oil (or water when making stock). In dry cooking (aforementioned steak) it is exactly this stuff (after getting nicely browned on the hot pan) which makes gravy taste so well, together with the dripped fat.


What can I do to " fresh cream" to substitute "double cream"? Here in NZ you can buy "cream". It does not even say "single" or "double" or "whipping". I do know however it can be whipped in to a nice thick cream. Lots of recipes/sauces call for "double cream" what is the difference and how can I make cream into "double" cream or is their anything else I can add that will result in the same taste ?

In NZ normal pure cream is close enough to "double cream" in performance, it's around 35% to 40% fat. By general global definition it should be called "heavy cream"

NZ cream is pure skimmed cream from fresh milk, and does not need thickening or other processing to produce excellent results as a whipped product, or for a thick cream additive in sauces or fillings

Cream can get a little seasonal just after calving time (Aug), but in general it's just perfect

The export variety is often labelled "Culinary Cream" and is 38% fat or higher. This is what many people around the world would consider NZ cream (other than NZ butter or AMF)

If you want closer to 50% fat cream, ask your local farmers for some raw milk and skim out the lumps of fat from that. Let the milk settle overnight and skim the cream from that. Then gently heat the fat lumps to melt and carefully mix into the skimmed cream. Not for the faint of heart!

NZ "Thickened cream" or "Mascarpone cream" is standard pure cream with a thickener like E1442 added, you can make your own too


What is the purpose of heating agar powder Is agar powder heated so that it will form a gel when it is cooled? if not then what is the purpose of boiling it?

An agar gel sets as it cools, like almost every other thermoreversible gel - including those made from gelatin, carrageenan, and various types of gellan and pectin.

One of the properties of almost any gel is that the gelling agent needs to be dispersed and then dissolved in the solution, otherwise you'd never be able to mix it - you'd just instantly get a solid lump as soon as you tried to mix it in. The particles need to be very small and the molecules fairly far apart from each other in order to work their magic.

Most substances dissolve more easily at higher temperatures. You've probably seen this with sugar if you've ever tried to make a candy or syrup. You can saturate cold water and up with... well, sugar-water, but to get a syrup (or hard candy) you need it to be supersaturated - i.e. to have a higher concentration at some temperature than would normally be possible by just mixing at that temperature.

Here is a more detailed explanation. It's due to the second law of thermodynamics, and it's a little hard to explain in simple terms; but basically, higher concentration implies lower entropy at some given temperature, and you cannot lower the entropy of an isolated system. It needs to be able to transfer that entropy to another system, and in this case it does so by dissipating heat (and to dissipate heat, it must be given heat). It's really not the best explanation - if anyone with a stronger physics/chemistry background can summarize it better in one paragraph, feel free to make an edit.

Anyway, hydrocolloids like agar and gelatin have exactly the same issue. They'll disperse in cold water, but won't dissolve. To dissolve them, you need to heat the solution first. Agar just happens to be the most dramatic because it won't dissolve at all until you reach temperatures of about 90° C. Technically you don't actually need to boil it, but it's easier to just boil than it is to try to hold it slightly below boiling. Precision isn't necessary, as long as it's at or above the dissolution (AKA hydration) temperature.

Only once these agents are properly dissolved will they exhibit any gel-forming properties. So, you need to heat them past the dissolution temperature first.


Why does my rice smell? I don't understand why my rice smells like eggs.. We have a new rice cooker that we used for two months now. I wash it, but should I deep clean it? Also, I put my rice in a big plastic bin so I won't have to keep going into the bag and have the rice spill all over. Would anyone know the reason why the rice smells?

Have you considered your water source? Where we live it is a normal for our city-supplied water to smell like swamp water (nasty) or like sulphur (strong egg smell). We never drink or cook with this water. We found out early on after moving to this area (10+ years ago) that the water affected the taste of everything we cooked, including brewed coffee and tea.

We constantly hear on the news for our area and surrounding areas to not pay attention to the color or smell of the water, that is safe to consume. Safe or not, I can't get past the smell or taste. All said and done, the quality of your water can greatly affect how your foods taste.


UHT Milk: small white floating stuff? Sometimes the UHT milk I use has some small floating white particles (about 1 cm long, few mm wide)

This is milk that has been kept sealed at room temp (30-35C) for about 2 months

Any way to know if its safe?

In my experience, sometimes the uht milk can be a bit dense so the bits that are stuck to the top/opening of the tetrapak can dry out and look like nail clippings dropped into the liquid milk. Perhaps this is what you have? If the milk doesn't taste off and it's only a small amount, that's probably what it is. The milk otherwise is safe to consume.


How to know when to stop churning ice cream? I've got a simple Cuisinart home churn, the kind that uses a frozen bowl rather than a compressor. On a couple of occasions, I'm pretty sure I've overchurned the mix, because it seems to leave a buttery coating on the palate and lips. On the other hand, I don't want to underchurn it for fear that I'll get ice crystals in the freezer. The user's manual for my churn is no help. Anyone know a solid way to determine when I've churned enough but not too much? Or could it be some other problem contributing to my making butter instead of ice cream?

If the ice cream mix is setting up but tending to leave a buttery coating in your mouth the best thing would be to try cutting back on the cream and replacing it with whole milk or half & half.

If it's a recipe that you've used in another machine with great success but it doesn't seem to in this one, it's probably a case of how long the frozen bowl is staying cold.  I have used the freezer bowl ice cream attachment for KitchenAid machines and have been frustrated more times than not as it doesn't freeze up as it should.

Too much sugar can also be a culprit in the mix not freezing quick enough.  Sugar doesn't freeze so a really sweet mix is going to be softer.  You might try decreasing sugar content slightly....not too much or you will end up with an icier result  (If adding fruit to ice cream, combine the chopped fruit with some sugar and cook just a little to allow the sugar to dissolve and the moisture to evaporate.  The sugar soaking into the fruit will keep the fruit softer in the ice cream instead of forming icy chunks of fruit.  Or, just mix in fruit preserves.)

Make sure that the mix is VERY cold, ideally chilled for several hours or overnight before it goes into the the freezer.  If time isn't on your side, then quick-chill it in a metal bowl or container in an ice bath and stir frequently to help chill it throughout.

The primary indicator for most ice cream freezers is that the dasher starts to sound labored in its attempt to stir the mix.  Or if cranking by hand, you start to sound labored in your attempt to crank it!

Another factor that can affect freezing of ice cream (although probably not the case in your instance since you don't have control of the speed) is the speed of the machine.  In the case of the KitchenAid insulated bowl for freezing ice cream, they warn not to go faster than "stir" or the mix won't have a chance to freeze to the side of the bowl before the dasher scrapes it.

I would try one of their recipes with it to see if it freezes up firm enough without turning to butter and then compare differences between your current recipe and theirs, adjusting sugar, milk to heavy cream ratio, etc.


Can a jar that has had botulinum food in it be cleaned If a home canned jar has botulinum in it can the jar be cleaned and saved? If so what is the correct way to clean the jar?

Typically if you suspect that a jar is actually contaminated with botulism the procedure is to leave it sealed and throw it away. This is due to the ability of botulism to become airborne.

(see: http://nchfp.uga.edu/how/general/identify_handle_spoiled_canned_food.html )

The washing of old gross jars is usually aimed at high-acid foods that may have popped the seal and become mouldy, stinky, or just plain old.


How to prevent "sweating" chocolate covered strawberries? Last year for Valentines day, I decided I was going to be romantic and make some chocolate covered strawberries for someone special. I melted and tempered some milk chocolate. Then dipped the washed and thoroughly dried strawberries into the chocolate and put them on a plate in the refrigerator to quickly "set" the chocolate.

Later that night as my special someone and I were eating the chocolate covered strawberries, we noticed that there was condensation both on the outside and in between the chocolate and strawberry. It was delicious nonetheless, but I was curious as to why it was "sweating" and if there is anything I can do to prevent this if I decide to ever be romantic again.

Very simple: don't store your chocolate in the fridge. The ideal temperature for setting chocolate is 20°C. You can store it at less or more than that, but not too much. Setting in the fridge results in bad chocolate. Remember, when you work with chocolate, exact temperatures are extremely important.

Here a loose translation from a good article on chocolate/couverture coating:

This is the usual case. You only want a temperature difference of 12° to 13° between the chocolate and its environment as well as between the chocolate and the confect interior.

If the interior is colder than the room, the setting will happen "inside out". The cocoa butter film which gives a confect its shine will build on the inside, leaving the outside looking dull.

This is a really good case for some types of confect, but you can't do it with most types of filling (definitely not with strawberries). Cooling from the outside gives you a beautiful shine.

If you want to achieve a good shine, it is possible to put the confects in the fridge for a short time, but only after they have cooled to 20°C at room temperature. Don't let them fall to fridge temperature, take them out at 15°C. The continued cooling from the outside is beneficial.

This shouldn't happen. The temperature difference is too small, and the confect doesn't set quick enough. In this case, cocoa butter pools on the surface and creates a yellowish layer after it hardens.

When you make your confect, you should time the first piece. The setting should need 10 minutes. If it is less, you don't get all the possible shine. If it needs more, it will get grey or whitish yellow.


How do I pick artichokes for deep frying? A few years ago I was wandering around the Jewish Quarter in Rome with my sister and spotted Carciofi alla giudia (deep fried artichokes) on a menu. Intrigued, we tried them. Every since I've been trying to replicate the pure crispy deliciousness!

It's not very hard to make actually, and a few experiments back and home turned out a delicious replica of the dish: part salty crunch and part melt-in-your-mouth sweet.

The trouble is, after many attempts, my results are not consistent. Sometimes it will turn out just right and be an unforgettably yummy dish, other times they are inedibly tough or bitter (or both). I am unable to put my finger on what the difference is. Is the oil tempurature and cook time that sensitive to small variations? Is it all in the artichoke to start with? Steaming seems to turn out much more consistent results. Obviously some are better than others, but it's at least always edible.

I've pretty much decided it's mostly in the original produce. I generally have a wide range at the local fruit and vegetable bazaar. I can get big ones, little ones, a couple colors, long stem or short. I've tried quite an assortment now and seem to have the best luck with smaller but older more open ones. However as many as I try, the results are still inconclusive. Sometimes the tightly packed jumbo ones come out fine too.

Basically, I have no idea how to tell whether a given artichoke will deep fry well. What should I be looking for in a thistle? Or am I on the wrong track and it's actually something I can fix by doing the fry just right?

Although they may be using a different variety of artichoke, the results shouldn't vary too drastically. Ones descending from the italian varieties are often also purple in colour and will have a similar flavour

Selecting artichokes

Squeeze the artichoke. You're looking for it to be firm and dense, indicating it is moist inside.
You actually want the centre leaves to be compacted, indicating they are freshest.
Try and break a leaf off, if it snaps satisfyingly then the artichoke is most likely fresh.
Rub the leaves and check that they squeak, another sign they are moist.
During winter, try and find ones with white blisters on its leaves as the slight bit of frost causing this improves the flavour.


Are ladyfingers and Genoise made the same way? I think I have heard somewhere that ladyfingers are made from the same batter as Genoise cake layers. But I don't remember where I heard it, whether the source was reputable, and if I'm not misremembering something else.

Now I want to make a cake or trifle which will go well with a ladyfinger-like texture. So, when choosing what layer to make, I thought of Genoise. But will I get the same texture as store-bought ladyfingers, and if not, how will it differ?

Delicious variations abound, so it is hard to make absolute statements of what is "officially" a ladyfinger.  In my pastry class, we were taught that the classic recipe for ladyfingers is close, but not identical, to genoise.  Store-bought ladyfingers can be anything from, essentially, a meringue to a shortbread cookie.

Foam-based batters -- i.e., those that do not use chemical leveners or yeast -- can be divided into two categories: whole-egg and separated-egg.  The main difference in results is that the latter tend to be stiffer and can better tolerate being overcooked a little.  The primary example of whole-egg batter is the genoise cake.  Because the whites are whipped together with the yolks (and sometimes extra yolks are added), it is a finicky batter, requiring more skill to assemble properly than others, but when it works, it is more tender.  Separated-egg batters are far more common, as they are easier to assemble; the key is that you whip the whites into medium-to-stiff peaks, then fold it back into the rest of the batter.  Examples include chiffon, dacquoise, and the French "biscuit" cakes.

Most recipes for ladyfingers use a separated-egg batter; others use a simple meringue.  The meringue version will make a crisp cookie, the version with with the yolk, soft.  Either will work well for uses like tiramisu or trifle.

Here is a recipe for ladyfingers from Allrecipes.com and a recipe for genoise from Epicurious.  For my ladyfingers, I add a pinch of salt and some flavorings, such as vanilla or nut extract, but the base recipe is essentially the same.


Can I substitute vanilla powder for cocao in a quinoa cake recipe ingedients:

2 cups quinoa
1/3/cup milk
4 lg eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2/cup granulated sugar
1 cup unsweetened cocao pwdr
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2/tsp salt

Typically no. You need much more cocoa powder for a chocolate cake than you need vanilla powder for a vanilla cake. Adding a cup of vanilla would be both very expensive and very overwhelming in terms of flavour. And the vanilla doesn't have the same chemical properties as cocoa. Cocoa has a bit of fat in it, so a substitute should include some fat.


How to clean smell from granite mortar and pestle I recently grinding some chilies with ginger in my granite mortar and pestle, and after cleaning it still has a bit of gingery smell (and maybe a bit of color too?). I washed it with warm water, let it dry, and then grinded some white rice in it as well.

Is it okay that it still smells a bit like ginger? If not, what should I do to remove it?

Thanks!

Should be fine, in fact some people argue that a pestle and mortar is suppose to have remnants of past spices and that it adds to variety and such.

If you're really concerned of the taste, smell or if you ground nuts (allergies), etc. or just don't want the smell/taste then soak it for a long period of time, then rewash it and repeat till it fades.


How to get crystallized honey out of a bowl I was attempting to make a teriyaki sauce with soy sauce generous amounts of honey and orange juice boiling it all down on medium heat with some starch to thicken it. I ended up overdoing both the boiling and the honey. Pouring it into a ceramic bowl and having it sit in the fridge overnight made it solidify.
The end product is a vile mess somewhere between crystalized honey the colour of sewage and a ceramic bowl of solidified hot glue. The failure of a sauce might be a helpful learning experience but I still need my amn bowl back. Any advice on getting it off as I can barely scoop it with a spoon?

Microwave the bowl, or let it sit in a pot of boiling water, to loosen it so you can remove most of the gunk. Soaking in hot water for a while will remove the rest.


Are the claims legitimate linking botulism to vacuum prepared foods? I have read in many places 1,2,3 claims of a link between preparing foods sous vide and botulism, with claims that this is because the food is prepared in a vacuum.

This struck me as illogical, so I looked around online and could find no solid references to back up the claim that cooking food in a vacuum can result in botulism poisoning.

From what I can tell, there has been misunderstanding and confusion about the risk of vacuum sealed foods and botulism.  I suspect it's because often vacuum sealing is performed to preserve food.  In this case, fresh food is being vacuum sealed just before cooking to protect the food from the water, but still let it come in close contact with the water, after which it is immediately unsealed.

I also assume that clostridium botulinum does not thrive in a vacuum more than it does when exposed to air.

Is there any solid science to these claims I am questioning or is this a misunderstanding?

There is absolutely real truth to improper sous vide cooking and botulism.  Clostridium botulinum is an anaerobic organism - it grows when there isn't oxygen - like in sous vide vacuums and canned goods.

The risk is that sous vide cooks both without oxygen and at temperatures so close to the perfect repoduction rate for the organism.  If you cook it a little lower than recommended, you could be creating a perfect place to reproduce.  Clostridium botulinum dies around 126 F (52.222 C) - so most sous vide won't go lower than 130 F (54.444 C).

The opponents state that the temperatures in general are far too low and if we were cooking for a few seconds, it would be.  Luckily, pasteurization is a function of temperature and time.  This is part of the sous vide magic.  Bacterial death is a result of heat and time - if you have a high heat you may only need it for seconds.  If you have lower, but sufficient heat, then as long as you cook it long enough (see recommended reading below) - then you can still pasteurize the food.  Sous vide often cooks foods for hours and hours - either for taste and/or pasteurization sake.

A great resource for information here is Douglas Baldwin .

Additional, real, danger comes from if you store your finished product in the vacuum bag at improper temperatures (not freezing).  Botulism spores need to reach 250 F (121.111 C) to die (this is why, in canning, some food needs to be pressure canned).  You won't hit that in sous vide cooking.  If you cook the food, cool it, and then store it in a non freezing temp - there's a real risk that the spores could eventually become active and reproduce.  If you're going to keep sous vide food after its been cooked, generally freeze it and then reheat (quickly, in sous vide terms) in an eating temp sous vide bath to consume.


Why do we peel carrots? So I was sitting there, looking down at my counter, realizing that I probably had a good carrot or two of shavings just going to waste.  (well, I'll compost it, but it's non-food at that point).

Is there any reason we peel carrots and don't just give them a good scrubbing?  I mean, the scrubbing works for potatoes (so long as they're not green under the skin), and carrots grow in dirt, too.  I don't think it's a pesticide issue, as we did it growing up, and I don't think we cared about pesticides back then.

I admit that sometimes there's odd crooks that might be harder to scrub dirt out of, but is there something fundamental that I'm missing here?

I find when cooked, the skin retains a bit of bitterness and toughness, so in desserts, juices or when shaved/julienned , I'm inclined to peel them. In fast salads, quick application, I usually don't bother.


What temperatures do low-medium-high on the stove correspond to? I'm quite suspicious that my electric stove runs hot.  Recipes that suggest medium-high on my stove are incredibly, incredibly hot and you can feel 'high' radiating heat from across the kitchen.

As such, I've semi-recently purchased an IR thermometer - what pan surface temperature should low, medium-low,medium,medium-high, and high approximately register as?

They don't correspond to a temperature, they correspond to a rate of heat input.

The elements in your oven are connected to a thermostat with regulates their temperature, they are really constant heat/fixed temperature devices, like the heat in your home. The oven turns the elements on and off to regulate temperature, but the elements are only ever ON or OFF.

The stovetop elements, by contrast, are variable heat/variable temperature. There is no thermostat, but the elements can be variably adjusted between MAX and OFF. For every setting the temperature will just keep getting hotter and hotter (unless something is removing the heat, like cooking food) - the higher settings will just get hotter faster.

The important thing to know (for an electric range) is the wattage of the elements - most 8" elements are ~2500W, and most 6" elements are ~1500W. But there is a lot of variability. Additionally, if you are living in a home with 240V power but have recently lived in an apartment (which likely had 208V power, but 240V elements installed in the oven, even if you didn't realize it), your heater elements will seem much hotter than before. It is also possible that the oven maker or previous owner installed higher wattage elements (perhaps by installing elements intended for a 208V service in a home with 240V service, which would have the effect of "turbocharging" them a bit).

Temperature measured with an IR thermometer may not be useful for you to determine if your oven is hotter than usual, since an empty pan on Low will still reach 400+ degrees (it will just get there slower).

What might be more useful is to find out what setting people do certain cooking tasks at, and see if that is different than what works on your oven. You can also remove the elements and find the voltage/wattage stamped on the bottom - let us know what those values are and we may be able to tell you if they are abnormally high.

Personally, I sweat onions on 4/10, fry an egg at 6/10, simmer soup at 2/10, and maintain 1 gallon water at a consistent, but not vigorous boil at 8/10.


Xanthan Gum v. Guar Gum v. Cellulose Gum v. Glucomannan Of these four titular ingredients, can someone please help elucidate for me when one would want to use each one? So far the only one I've used personally is glucomannan(konjac root flour), and I have used it in a pudding and in cakes, both of which completely lacked any sort of grain or flour. I'm wondering primarily for making things like syrups, sauces and jellies. I've stumbled across some Walden Farms products and saw that different combinations of these gums seem to appear in nearly all of their products and was wondering what I would want to use to imitate those recipes. I've seen recipes like this online:
http://gwens-nest.com/stevia-syrup-recipe/
And also like this:
http://jamesonwolfffitnesssystems.com/2014/homemade-walden-farms-pancake-syrup/
And am not sure what to expect the difference(s) between them to be. Would I be able to get away with only using glucomannan, or would that only be able to give me a "solid" gel and not a syrup? If it wouldn't work, what would? Any help appreciated.

Methyl Cellulose is the same stuff used in wallpaper paste. Food grade, with no fungsides added (etc) obvious.

A notable property is that it thickenes as you heat it. And it thins as it cool. The oposite of most gels. This let's you create things like 'hot ice cream'

Guar and Xanthan gums are ment to be pretty interchangeable in baking (I think). I find that Guar gum when used in sauses/gravey can be a bit slimy to my taste.
(I haven't tried Xanthan gum for that yet)

I haven't used glucomannan before.

There are a few other gelling agents you can look at:

Sodium alginate. Made from seaweed. This is the thicker used in MacDonald's apple pies. It is temperature stable. (Same thickness hot or cold) Adding calcium causes it to thickened more. This let's you make 'fruit caviar' by dropping slightly thickened juice into a bath of water with calcium added.

There are kappa and iota carrageen. Also made from seaweed. I forget which but one is a very brittle gel (think like jello or egg white) the other is a not brittle (think soft boiled egg yoke)

There is gelan. It is very clear. Good for making fancy cocktail jelly's. Haut couture jello shots!

There is pectin. Made from citrus. This is what makes jam thick. Nuf said.

This site has some good info, recipes, and a shop for these gelling agents etc: http://molecularrecipes.com/


What cooking gadget is that? I was watching youtube vids about cooking and I saw this Gordon Ramsay one about broccoli soup. Around the 56 second mark to the right of the broccoli on the table is an elevated piece of metal with holes in it. What is it?

So far I'm thinking some kind of weird large grater or a popcorn sifter. Can anyone help?

I believe that is the ventilation for the range, rather than a kitchen utensil.


Is there any loss of nutrition when toasted? I have heard that when you toast whole grain bread, you lose most of the nutrition. I'm wondering if this is true, and if so, do you lose the nutrients when toasting nuts?

Toasting only effects the thin outside layer, and most nutrients cannot be modified by the low heat used in typical domestic cooking, so the amount much "lost" (modified) should be very small

As with many foods, cooking actually increases the availability of some nutrients to the human body's digestive system, and improves the flavour so you will eat the food. This is probably more important then the small loss, if any, from toasting

One of the worst cooking nutrition losses is water soluble vitamins when cooking them in hot water, and the water is then not returned into the finished dish/meal. For general vegetables you would expect a 25% loss of vitamin C with 5 minutes in hot water. Not great, but not a disaster


Teryaki sauce becomes viscous after boiled I recently cooked chicken in a Teryaki sauce/marinade, and it turned out great. I cooked the chicken on both sides, and then cooked it in a bath of Teryaki for about 3 minutes. The Teryaki bubbled a lot.

I let the Teryaki sit there in the pan, after cooking, for about 24 hours, and it turned into a tar-like, viscous substance. It reminded me of a video of a guy doing the same with coca cola, which had the same type of affect, which brings me to the question: is this a problem, or a harmless effect expected to happen?

Also, is it bad practice to cook it in a bath of Teryaki like this? Would marinading it be a better alternative? How long should I marinade it for?

This is Yoshinoya's Sweet & Sour (Teryaki-like) sauce, from Costco. Very tasty.

Teryaki has sugar in it.  If you bring it to a boil, the sugar will behave like it typically does in candy-making, and become viscous and possibly tar-like.

You often want this sort of behaviour if you're trying to make a barbeque sauce from meat drippings, but it sounds like you let it boil a little too long.


Homemade nori -> aonori? In the USA, sheets of nori cost about 7 cents per gram.  But it's 140 cents per gram online as a powder, "aonori," an essential topping for takoyaki and okonomikayi.  (My town of 100,000 has several Asian groceries, but none stock aonori.)

To avoid this 2000% markup, has anyone tried turning nori into aonori in their kitchen?  Will a blender work well enough?  Mortar+pestle?

The nori that you buy as sheets is usually a different species than that of the form prepared as aonori. The form that you buy in sheets is, additionally, typically roasted, which changes the flavor.

Aonori is usually of the genus Monostroma or Enteromorpha. Toasted nori for sushi is usually of the genus Porphyra.

Because of those two details, I don't believe you can get the same results from grinding up nori. However, that's not to say that it can't be done if the taste satisfies you. I sometimes grind nori furikake (which contains small strips of nori) not to simulate aonori, but just to get the nori and sesame to adhere to other ingredients (like popcorn).


Is there a definitive way to know if a tin can is lined with BPA? Many tin cans are lined with BPA which has been connected with various health issues in various studies.

Is there a way to determine whether a can of food contains BPA lining?

Can the place of manufacture/packaging give an indication?
Is there something obvious from the appearance of the inside of the can?

Probably not. Cans are generally marked at point of filling, not at point of manufacturing

The plastic liner looks plastic'y in all cases, it's very hard to tell. Epoxy is harder than other plastics, but there are epoxies that are BPA free anyway

Aluminium cans are more likely have a epoxy liner that will give off a trace of BPA

Many steel cans do not use epoxy or other BPA plastics

Having said that the tested BPA release from a can is 100's of times lower than the recommended maximum daily dose. So in theory there is nothing to really worry about

The common sense answer is, if epoxy dissolved into the cans contents they wouldn't use it would they. The whole reason it's there is to stop the contents 'eating' the can


How long can you keep bacon (from a butcher) in the refrigerator? I bought smoked bacon from a local butcher and I want to know how long I can keep that bacon in the refrigerator. It is an all natural product with no preservatives other than the process by which it was cured, so no nitrates etc. I forgot to ask the butcher thinking it would be gone before it became an issue.

Most cured products last 7-10 days in the fridge although you most likely will see a quality drop off before then at around day three or four.  You can also freeze the bacon for up to two months and thaw for use to extend the shelf life.


Can I broil a box cake in the oven? my oven has recently broken, it turns on but does not heat. On the other hand, my broiler works just fine and I've been able to cook peach cobbler and peach bread, though that calls for a different recipe. Of course. it's a pandemic and I'm unable to get the oven fixed right now, I will be making a 4 tier chocolate box cake for my friends birthday in a square 8x8" pan and I really don't want to mess it up, is there any possible way to figure out how long to bake a cake in the oven on the low broiler setting, should i just check it every 15 minutes?
Thank you in advance

I would suggest putting the cake on the lowest shelf your oven has and put a second oven rack above it then put a baking sheet or hotel tray on the upper rack to block direct radiation. If you have an oven steel or pizza stone, you can put that under your cake while you're preheating to help with the bake (leaving it in). It will hold a lot of heat and make the cook more even.


Indian Mango Pickle producing gas is that normal? I am trying to pickle some mangoes the Indian way. I boiled the jar in hot water, dried it and then added the mixture of spices, salt and mangoes to the jars after the mixture had cooled. I made the mixture in a frying pan to try and remove as much water as I could. After it was cooled, I put it in the jar and heated some mustard oil till it just barely started smoking. I let that cool and poured it over the mango spice mixture.

For the first three days it was fine. On the fourth day, I opened it to test the taste and ended up adding more salt. Now, there seems to be gas forming in the jar. I've noticed it a few times now. When I open the jar, I hear a whooshing noise as air escapes. It's quite a lot, since I opened the container about 3 times in a 10 hour period and each time gas escaped. Has this pickle gone bad? Or is this something that's normal?

This is completely normal and expected.

Indian pickle is fermented. One of the by products of that fermentation is gas.
The salt keeps undesirable bacteria from growing.

In the future you should use a container that can be less tightly closed and allow some of the gas to vent as it ferments. You wouldn't want a bottle to burst.


How does buttermilk affect a waffle recipe? A lot of waffle recipes call for buttermilk and some claim its addition makes superior waffles. Apart from thickening the batter and giving it a slightly acidic flavour, does its addition do anything else?

The role of buttermilk in most recipes, including waffles, is to provide acid into the reaction with baking soda to cause it to 'rise' more. The thickness helps the batter retain the air pockets that the acid + baking soda creates when heat is applied, resulting in a 'lighter fluffier' waffle.


Would cooked quinoa stay overnight? I cooked quinoa like rice and ate half of it. I am planning to have the other half for breakfast. Is it safe to leave it in room temperature overnight (I don't have a refrigerator)?

There's some good advice here:

http://www.savvyvegetarian.com/blog/advice/food-safety-tips-food-spoilage

In summary, everything goes bad, quinoa is no exception. To be safe, refrigerate when possible. Leaving food at room temp is asking for trouble.


Why do some pie crust recipes include vinegar? I experiment some with pie crusts and have seen recipes that include vinegar as well as eggs. What does the vinegar do and what does the egg do.  I have heard the vinegar promotes tenderness but have read on one of the posts here that it speeds gluten formation.

From On Food and Cooking:

  Acidity in the dough - as from a sourdough culture - weakens the gluten network by increasing the number of positively charged amino acids along the protein chains, and increasing the repulsive force between chains.

And weaker gluten structure is definitely a good thing for pastry doughs!

From the same source:

  [Eggs] supplement gluten structure with tender protein coagulum, tenderize products; slow staling

So eggs help provide a more tender structure, again good for pastry doughs.


What should I look for in a cooking class? I'm looking classes where I can learn to cook. I've found many options, but I'm weary of spending time and money (and a babysitter) for an experience that would have worked better in my own kitchen.

Is there anything I can look for when reviewing the cooking class's info?  What things should I avoid? Or is it trial and error?

It really depends on what you are looking for in a cooking class.  I can give you some thoughts from my own personal experiences, but I am sure there are many factors that you must consider, so you will get a variety of answers.

I am assuming you are talking about recreational (that is the industry term, as opposed to professional) classes; I don't claim to have good advise for choosing professional programs to become a line cook or patisserie on a career path to being a chef or pastry chef.

Facilities

The cooking school should tell where their class is taught.  A local community class in a high school home-ec room or in a community center will usually offer basic facilities (although I imagine some will stun you...)

Commercial cooking schools or businesses should have photos of their classroom for you to peruse, and will usually brag about the equipment they offer (such as Viking stoves...)

Look at the pictures, and ask if the environment will be comfortable for you.

Level

How advanced is the class?  If you already know how to temper your own chocolate, and own three dipping forks, you don't want to take a basic workshop in chocolate.  On the other hand, if you have never made a biscuit, you might not want to take an advanced pasty course where croissants and puff pastry the order of the day.

Choose a class that is at the level you desire--the course guide should make this very clear.

Cleanup

Find out if the school has interns, or other staff who do the cleanup.   Commercial schools tend to--otherwise, you might expect to be helped police and do dishes, especially in a community program like one hosted at a community center.  You should be comfortable with the expectation.

Curriculum or Menu

Good cooking classes list exactly what dishes or items will be taught in the class in their class guide or curriculum.  They should also specify the lessons learned or techniques applied.  Often there is a theme, like "Valentines Dinner for Two" or "Pastry Intensive"  Select classes that teach the techniques you want, and dishes you like.

Duration

Is it a one evening class, where you are in and out, and little is at risk, or a week long adventure where if you don't enjoy the format or the instructor, you have lost a week's tuition and a week's enjoyment.  I once didn't come back from lunch on the 2nd day of a five day course because I didn't like the instructor's style.

For longer classes, you might ask for guarantees of a partial refund if the instructor or style or presentation is not to your liking, before signing up.

For day long and longer classes, find out if lunches or other relevant meals are provided (at commercial schools, they often are, either cooked as part of your curriculum, or done by staff or interns for your enjoyment), or whether you bring your own.  Often there is not enough time to go out for lunch.

Presentation and Participation

There are several main ways cooking classes are taught; you want to be sure the style is one that you enjoy.

Presentation only -- the instructor prepares dishes at the front of the room, and the students watch.  Kind of like a cooking show on TV, but live and in person, so you can smell (and maybe taste afterwards), and ask questions.
Each person (or group) prepares some -- the class is broken up into groups or individuals, each of whom prepare one or more dishes from the menu.  You might not get to do the dish you wanted from the curriculum, but you will get hands-on for something.  Usually, the groups will share afterwards, so you get to taste everything.
Every person (or group) prepares everything -- you will get to prepare everything listed in the curriculum, and usually eat it.

Choose a format you are comfortable with, especially if you want to be sure you get to try a specific dish hands-on.

Pacing

When you evaluate the curriculum or menu, the manner of presentation, and the overall duration of the course, you should have some idea of how fast it goes.

Make sure you are comfortable with the pace.  If you like a slow and pleasant pace, you don't want to be a in class where folks are expected to knock out their dishes fast--although those are often more the advanced classes at commercial schools.

Ingredients

Find out whether you bring your own ingredients, or they are supplied.  (Most commercial cooking schools supply them, but community programs may not.)

Cost

Cost counts.  Need I say more?

General

Talk to the folks at the school's customer service line (if they have one) if you have questions.  Take a short class at the school to evaluate the facilities and their general style before splurging on a longer or more expensive class.

And bring your patience.  By the nature of the beast, you often sit through things you know, or repetitions, or have to wait through lectures and demos before the hands-on portion.

If you can, bring a friend to share the experience, gossip with, and generally have a good time, should you be so disposed.

Bon chance.


Ratio of marrow bones to regular bones to marbled meat? I didn't see any question particularly addressing this so I thought I'd ask.

Today I've attempted my first stock. It is still cooking, using:

Beef marrow bones
Ox tails
Leek and onions
Water
Some herbs

Marrow bones to ox tails to veg is something like 10:3:1

Since I started cooking it, I read a bit about stock. Some people seem to think using marrow bones will give it a kind of nasty, "innardy" taste. Before reading up a bit I kind of thought that bones were bones.

Would I have done better if I'd used some marbled meat instead of the marrow bones? My local grocery store only sell marrow bones, so I can't really get other bones...

Marrow bones add a marrow-y flavor. That flavor is very thick and rich, but can taste of innards. Have you ever eaten marrow? (It's delicious, as far as I'm concerned. You can roast and add a touch of salt if you want.) I would say that it sounds like you've got a lot of marrow bones in your stock. That could cause problems, since even a few marrow bones will make the stock fairly greasy. Marrow is almost all fat.

The ox tails have lots of bones in them. They'll give you the deep flavor and gelatin of bones. (Neck bones give you the same thing, as you can see from the picture below.) The only thing marbled meat would have added is extra fat, which isn't necessary for stock -- you'll end up skimming the fat off anyway. You want both the bones and the meat for stock, as you would for chicken stock. It's true that marrow bones are fairly clean, but they're used for a different flavor.

Another option for adding lots of flavor is to add what are known as flanken style ribs. This is short ribs that are cut across the bone. They're also used in Korean Short Ribs. They give you some of that marbled meaty flavor, along with the bones from the ribs.


Is there an easy way to french trim a rack of lamb? I had to be part of a lot of french trimming of racks of lamb at the weekend, and it seemed to take a long time, so it got me wondering, is there an easy way to do this? Some preferred tool?

Alton Brown demonstrates using a piece of string to scrape the bone clean.  First he cuts and trims the bulk of the meat down to where he wants it.  Then, he uses a string tied to a garage door handle (very cheap at any hardware store).  Loop it around the bone a couple of times and pull, and it cleans it right up.


What is the difference between a prawn and a shrimp? Are prawns and shrimps the same thing or are they different? Basically, I think they're the same but one of my friends was arguing that they're similar but definitely not the same thing and they differ in size.

Biologically speaking, they are actually different species, but the names are so commonly used interchangeably as to completely muddle the distinctions. For example, spot prawns are actually shrimp while ridgeback shrimp are actually prawns.

Prawns have claws on three of their five pairs of legs, shrimp have claws on two of their five pairs of legs. Their gills and body shape are different too.

As far as cooking them goes, they are virtually identical and interchangeable.

Source


Oil substitution for butter in pastry recipe I have just made a pastie in a pie dish using S.Burt's recipe Can I substitute olive oil for butter/shortening in pie crust?. It was really delicious but has no strength. I used rice oil and lite milk and did not rest the pastry. I used plain all purpose 9.7% protein flour. Can anyone advise how to get a stronger pastry so that the pastie is contained by the pastry and doesn't need a pie dish?

Traditional Cornish Pasty pastry is made with 1 part strong bread flour, 1/4 part each of butter and lard, about 1/3 part water, and about 1% of the flour's weight in salt. The pastry is worked quite hard, almost like a bread dough, and left to rest for a good hour. The resulting pastry is leathery enough to withstand a miner's pocket, faintly crisp on the outside, (with an egg-wash), and slightly gooey where it meets the filling ingredients, which are introduced raw, and cooked in the pastry.

Doing the sums, that's about 450g of fat to a kilo of flour,and 380g of water. Bread flour is 12-15% protein, higher than yours. The stronger your flour mixture, the more pliable the result.. the more oil, the more prone to crumbling (pure oil> shortbread.. pure water>something like a salt crust which it might take a hammer to break)

If I was experimenting with oils, I would combine the oil with the flour first, (probably in a food processor - it doesn't matter if it's overworked) and introduce the water slowly, until a coherent ball is formed, bearing in mind the paste will become more pliable after resting.

For a Cornish Pasty, the paste is rolled quite thick, about 5mm, cut with a dinner-plate as a guide, back half flopped over the pin to be filled, then folded over, and crimped.

Forgive me if I've misunderstood what you mean by 'Pasty' .. but then, I come from that part of the world.. :)  But it might, anyway, be an informative parallel to the kind of pasty you're aiming for.


Do I thaw frozen sea food before cooking? Do I need to keep prepared frozen sea food frozen before cooking?  I purchased cod, shrimp, and scallops.

If this is just raw seafood, and not already prepared, heat and serve meals, keep frozen until use.  Thaw (ideally in the refrigerator), then cook. If they are meals already prepared (with other ingredients), simply follow the package directions.  Many of these items are cooked from frozen.


BBQ-style baked beans without mustard? My friend has some kind of weird food sensitivity to mustard. He's coming over for dinner and I wanted to make baked beans, but just about every baked beans recipe I've seen calls for mustard.

I have a feeling I can probably just leave the mustard out, but I feel like it might leave the flavor somewhat unbalanced. What can I do instead?

Just omit the mustard. In just about every recipe I have seen for beans, it is proportionally a very small component. And while we tend to think of mustard as being bold in flavor, it's really the vinegar that makes it seem that way.

You should also stray from any recipes that call for store bought barbecue sauces, as many will contain mustard.

Finally, one reason mustard appears as an ingredient in dishes like this is it is an emulsifier. You may wish to find a substitute emulsifier, making sure of course that your friend can handle it as an ingredient, to keep too much of the pork fat from separating in your mixture.


Self-cooked chickpeas not as good as canned? I tried cooking my own chickpeas after being a fan of canned ones from Trader Joe's for a while.

I soaked them for 24 hours and then washed and cooked them in lots of water for 2 hours. They came out kind of cardboardy (lacking in flavor and harder to chew).

I guess canned chickpeas get softer from being canned. Still, is there anything I can do to improve mine?

I salted them after cooking. Is that a mistake? (I figured it's less sodium for the same saltiness in taste, because all the salt will be on the surface)

I have made chickpeas 2x recently and I was happy with them.  What I did:

1:  Rinse and then short soak - maybe 1 hour.

2:  Long cook, covered - more like 12 hours.  Chickpeas are little beasts.  They can take it.

3:  Salted cooking water, enough to cover chickpeas and not extra.  I think cooking in salty water gets the salt thru and thru the bean.  I topped up with extra water once during long cook (I got up at night to check them).  There was only a little water left when I was done and I kept it.  It sort of became jellyish presumably with broken down chickpea.  It was good. If you do that, salt your water to taste.

I would be nervous about scorching the bottom if cooking 12 hours on a stove top.  Try a slow cooker or a dutch oven inside the oven set to bake, as low as it will go.  Mine was actually in a foil tray covered with foil (1st time) and a dutch oven (second time) on my 2 burner gas grill with the peas over the cold burner and the other burner set to low.  Didn't want to heat up the house.

If you try, post how it turns out in the comments.


Covering food while cooling Is it a good or a bad idea to cover food that is cooling? For example I have bolognese cooling in a tupperware container but don't know whether I should cover it and refrigerate or leave uncovered out for a while?

There are two factors to consider, both related to the evaporation of water from the cooling dish:

Evaporative cooling:  if the water vapor can leave the container, the food will cool faster, but may dry out slightly
Condensation:  if the water vapor cannot leave the container, it will condense on the lid, and possibly drip back down onto the food

Modern refrigerators are very powerful, so if a little water dripping back is not a problem (which it would not be for a bolognese for example), go ahead and cover the item and place in refrigerator.

On the other hand, if water dripping back onto the dish would mar the surface (of a pumpkin pie, for example), you will want to cool it without a cover until it is no longer steaming.


Pancetta Mold. How to tell whether it's safe to eat? I've been hanging my own Pancetta based on the recipe in Ruhlman's 'Charcuterie' book. Some small white dots of mold have started to appear.

I want to identify whether this mold is to be expected or whether it is a sign of my preservation gone wrong. I realise mold is almost an ever present factor in charcuterie but how can you tell the safe mold from the dangerous ones?

On another couple of sites (Ruhlman for starters) I found the answer to this. It appears that mould is expected sometimes in the Pancetta making process and as a general rule of thumb as long as it isn't too green and furry then it should be OK. I've followed Ruhlman's advice and dabbed the spots of mould with a vinegar soaked cloth and it wiped straight off and looks fine.

My meat was coming up to the end of it's hanging time anyway so rather than worry about it further I've refrigerated it.

I hope this helps anyone that stumbles across this with the same issue.


Storing water after reconstituting dried mushrooms I like to use dried mushrooms when I cook. I soak them in water for a while and then I use the mushrooms. Normally, I either pour the water down the drain or use it right away to give more flavor to rice.

Would it be safe to store that water in refrigerator to use for cooking rice another day? If so, how long can I keep it in the fridge? Are there any special precautions I should take?

For one day, I would think keeping it in the fridge is ok; use a covered container.

For more than one day, I'd freeze it;

Heck, I would freeze it from the start just in case I don't use it a day after.


Sweet and sour chicken not sticky I have been trying now for a while to make sticky sweet and sour chicken. It tastes great. But its not sticky. How do I achieve this?

I only use chicken wings for this. I make a sweet and sour sauce in a separate pan first, where I followed the recipe found on the internet.

•3/4 cup white sugar
•1/3 cup white vinegar
•2/3 cup water
•1/4 cup soy sauce
•1 tablespoon ketchup
•2 tablespoons corn-starch

Combining all the ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat then when well mixed I boil and stir until thickened.

I then bring the chicken to oven pan, spice with chuckny spice, add some olive oil to pan. Turn oven to 165 degrees. When chicken slightly begins to grill, I add over the sauce. And then increase heat to 180 degrees until chicken is done.

Should I be doing something different to the sauce or chicken? Perhaps flowering the chicken? Or Thickening the sauce?

I would consider adding some soft brown sugar. The molasses content should increase the stickiness and thickness of the sauce overall. You may want to reduce the amount of white sugar to compensate.


What can I use to replace eggs in the recipe? I'm not a vegan or something, but my stomach can't take many chicken eggs in food.

I've got a recipe for an Imeritian khachapuri variant (cheese-filled flat bread) recipe where eggs are used as a "glue" (I think) for the filling. (Sorry, the recipe itself is in Russian, I'll give any details if needed.)

Now, this recipe also uses eggs for the dough. That is a bit too much eggs for me. I'd like to replace eggs in filling with something. (Other option is to leave eggs in filling and replace them in dough — but I feel that the taste will change too dramatically.)

Note that I'm not interested in commercial (or "chemical") solutions.

Update:

Ingrediends for the filling:

Soft cheese (150 g)
Hard cheese (150 g)
Two eggs
Some herbs and salt to taste

Here is a Google Translate version of the recipe. I think it is more or less understandable.

Another update:

Note that it is not necessary to get the exactly same taste with the modified recipe. I will settle for anything that tastes good enough and is more or less along the same lines as the original.

It looks like you're basically making a cheese custard for the center of the bread. Flax seeds aren't going to give you a firm, egg-like texture. Instead, I'd use something that already has that cooked-egg texture, like tofu, which also won't impart any flavor (so you'll need to tackle that issue separately).

Experiment with different preparations, but I'd start off with a silken tofu, then purée the tofu in a blender with a bit of cornstarch (to help it firm back up when cooked). Once the tofu has been processed you can mix in the shredded cheese. and throw the filling in.  You'll probably  have to do several attempts before you get the ideal preparations and keep in mind that it won't taste like the original thing, but may bear enough resemblance.

EDIT: In response to the comment, I would say you could try using tapioca in a high concentration, dissolved in a bit of milk or cream. After cooking (hopefully) the tapioca will help to create the texture you want, and it will actually not affect the flavor.

The other (obvious) option is to just leave out the eggs and not replace them with anything. It won't be the same, but neither will any of these substitutions, and it will likely still be good.


Is copper cookware really better than stainless steel? This is somewhat related to the question about copper vs. cast iron, but this is about copper vs. pure stainless steel.
I had an old stainless steel stockpot that warped (it was very, very cheap stainless steel, paper thin) and have to replace it ASAP.  I have a family member with a few connections that gets a deep discount on one of the more expensive brands.  I asked her to look into getting me a copper stockpot (lined with stainless steel, of course, so the reactivity problem more or less goes away), and got this response as an explanation to why it is apparently unavailable here:

[...] there is apparently no advantage cooking-wise to using copper, and people just buy it for the look.
[...] None of our big accounts, including [XYZ] etc even had any interest in stocking it, which is why we never brought it in.

Note that these stores do carry the same brand of stainless steel products, just not copper.
Now, I am taking this with a grain pile of salt because (a) this family member never cooks and (b) the advice came from a marketing manager who obviously wants to push the products that are available locally.  Nevertheless, I think it's worth asking people with knowledge/experience:
Is there actual evidence confirming any of the advantages of copper cookware (durability, conductivity, heat spread, etc.)?  Has it actually been proven anywhere that copper is (or is not) superior to stainless steel?
Or are articles like these just parroting a bunch of myths?
I'm looking for strong evidence here, so please answer only if you are prepared to back it up.
Clarification (with apologies to Ward): I am looking for evidence of the practical benefits.  It's obviously indisputable and easy to look up the fact that copper is a better conductor than steel, and lighter; the question is, does this matter with respect to responsiveness, hot spots, and so on?

Modern stainless steel pans with clad bottoms can be as good as copper pans.  McGee developed a simple technique to test the heat distribution where he fits a piece of paper to the bottom of the pan, placing the pan over a burner and carefully watching how the paper browns.  Thick aluminum, clad bottom stainless, and copper all worked equally well.

There are differences that relate to the techniques used in cooking.  A thin copper pan is great for melting butter or chocolate straight on the burner.  Modern air-gap wall stainless steel pans hold the heat better and work better for simmering or boiling.  Copper is harder to upkeep.

Pans will develop hot spots, even copper which is the better conductor. Until we get graphite added to the cladding  or some other exotic material to distribute the heat, thickness will matter the most for even heat distribution.

I have read several consumer tests and reviews of pans and they fail to note that thermal conductivity and thickness can both be used in practice to balance the temperature distribution and heat flux in a pan.


Equivalent of cracked fennel seed to ground fennel seed I have a recipe that calls for a 1/2 cup of cracked fennel seed. If I wanted to use a light ground fennel seed what would be the equivalent?
Thanks!

I used a spice grinder to actually measure how much ground fennel I would get from 1TBS cracked. I got just over 2tsp ground. Therefore, 1/2 cup of cracked fennel is in a sense equivalent to about 6TBS ground. However, don't do it that way! Cracked fennel gives a little burst of flavor as you crunch the seed. Powdered fennel will strongly permeate the whole dish, and that much ground fennel will seriously overpower all other flavors. If the fennel is really necessary to the dish, and you can only get ground fennel, start with a single tablespoon, and then add more to taste. My guess would be that 2TBS will be plenty, but seriously, I wouldn't even try the substitution.


Different cooking times for red and brown lentils? I'm making dal for dinner tomorrow and am short some red lentils. I usually cook it for 25-30 minutes after everything's combined in the pot. Can I mix in some brown ones or are the cooking times different? I'm expecting so, since they're much bigger than the red ones.

You likely won't find a definitive answer out there, as there's a range of times for the lentils.

To summarize an article from the Washington Post :

Red, orange or yellow split lentils : 15 to 25 minutes
Black beluga lentils : 20 to 25 minutes
French du Puy lentils : 25 to 30 minutes
Brown or green lentils : 30 to 40 minutes

... suggesting that you'd need to add the brown lentils 15 minutes before the red lentils ... but you mentioned that you cook the red lentils for 25-30 minutes, suggesting that either you like them to fall apart, or you're cooking over lower heat.  If it's lower heat, I'd give the brown lentils a 20 minute head start.

If that's going to put a crimp in your timing, I'd suggest starting the brown lentils in water (or some flavorful liquid), and cooking for 15 minutes while you're getting everything else together, then draining and adding them at the same time (or shortly after) the red lentils.


Would ground "popcorn meal" differ from regular corn meal? Purely a theoretical question I'm afraid - I haven't experimented (yet). If you take popped popcorn and grind it to a flour, would the result be similar to cornmeal? One difference, I imagine, is that it is in principle ready to eat, as opposed to regular cornmeal which still needs to be cooked to denature the proteins.

Are there things you could achieve with this "popcorn meal" that don't work with regular cornmeal? For example, what would you get if you used this for making polenta? Could you make a "raw polenta" that doesn't require much cooking?

Interesting question. so I pulled out a hot air popper (you wouldn't want to use a oil popper to try this.) and put some popped dry corn into a food process and let-her-rip. I wouldn't call the results "masa" but it might be usable for an ingredient in a breading.

I call your attention to the book "POPCORN". It has a nice collection of recipes which include popcorn, and in no case does the author suggest reducing popcorn to corn meal, so I suspect the answer is, "Yes, ground popcorn meal would differ from ground corn."


Does adding salt before cooking toughen scrambled eggs? I have been told by two different cooks who's opinions I trust that adding salt to a beaten egg mixture before cooking will dry out and/or toughen the eggs, but also that adding salt at this stage seasons the eggs, and does not affect texture. I can't tell the difference in texture, but my palate isn't the most refined. I imagine the salted eggs taste better, but it's a slight rather than dramatic difference, if there is a difference. Can anyone with a golden tongue or superior scientific method tell me whether to season before or after?

Per Harold McGee, in On Food and Cooking (page 86 of the 2004 edition), there is no truth to this common assertion.

  Acids and salt do pretty much the same thing to egg proteins.  They get the proteins together sooner, but they don't let them get as close together.  That is, acids and salt make eggs thicken and coagulate at a lower temperature , but actually produce a more tender texture.

McGee explains that the salt separates into ions, which cluster around the charged regions of the egg proteins, allowing them to get closer before being denatured because they don't repel each other.  This causes them to bond together earlier, before they become unfurled and could form tighter (and thus tougher networks).

McGee concludes:

  So eggs end up more tender when salted, and especially when acidified.

So salt them when you beat them, or in the pan, in practice it will make little difference compared to many other factors, such as the temperature and technique with which you cook them.


Do oat flakes (Spar S-budget) contain gluten? I am intolerant to gluten (was diagnosed with Hashimoto thyroiditis, my symptoms become much milder when I don't consume gluten). I wish to eat lots of healthy fiber, preferably cheap one, to lower the chances of colon cancer. Do oat müsli by Spar S-budget (picture below) contain gluten?

This is a situation similar to what consumers with food allergies face - the critical substance is not in the food items per se, but cross-contamination may be a problem.

Oats are gluten-free1, but during processing and packaging, residue of e.g. wheat may get mixed in with the oat. While this is probably minimal and not a problem for consumers who avoid gluten as a dietary choice, the effects on someone with a medical condition may be different - but this is difficult to quantify generally. Some brands offer oatmeal that is certified gluten-free, with the higher effort reflected in the price.

The only reliable answer for your question can be obtained by asking the manufacturer and whether the possibility of contamination is a problem for you and your body should be clarified with your healthcare provider. We don’t offer medical advice, for many reasons. For everyone who just wants to avoid gluten for non-medical reasons, they should have no problem with this product.


How can I add flavorings and colorings to white chocolate? Today I melted some white chocolate in a double boiler along with some red food coloring (liquid) and strawberry flavoring (liquid). The liquid was added before the chocolate melted. As the chocolate melted, I quickly got a blob of pink play-doh with half-melted cubes of chocolate embedded in it, rather than the creamy liquid chocolate that you get when white chocolate is melted on its own. Apart from anything else, this made it hard to evenly stir in the coloring and flavoring.

With a little effort I was able to spread the mixture into a slab and let it set, and got my strawberry chocolate. It was nice, but the chocolate's traumatic experience in the double boiler seemed to have changed its texture a little.

How can I combine melted white chocolate with liquid ingredients without causing it to congeal?
Does it matter if it doesn't congeal? Does melted and resolidified chocolate taste better if it was melted properly?
As a side question, is there a more intelligent way of combining flavorings and colorants with white chocolate?

Have you checked your food coloring to make sure it isn't water-based? The addition of any water into chocolate will cause it to seize. You might be better off looking for a powder like this one: https://www.ckproducts.com/categories/276/Powder-Color-Cake-n-Candy
Because it's a powder, it won't cause any harmful side effects to your chocolate. They sell it at most cake art stores, and potentially at places like JoAnn.


Can Grapeseed oil be considered edible after it has passed the expiry date? We have an un-opened bottle of grapeseed oil that got buried away and never used.
It has 'best by 3/31/2012' on the label.

Should I just throw it out or is it possibly still good? It's from Italy and a 'gold medal winner' so I'd prefer not to throw it out if I don't need to.

Is there any health risk of using it? Is there any use that would be better than others (eg do not use for salad dressing but still OK in skillet)?

It has a decent glass bottle, and airtight cap? It wasn't in bright light for two years, and doesn't look like it has polymerized deposits or smell rancid? As a polyunsaturated oil, grape seed is susceptible to oxidation/polymerization/rancidity. If it hasn't done any of these things, by the evidence of your senses, it should still be OK.

-moved from comments


What is the yellow colour and what ingredients go into seekh kebabs fat? When grilling seekh kebab fat drips I notice it's yellow colour.  If you grill plain mince or meat it's usually white colour so it must mean some ingredients are getting imparted into the seekh kebabs fat to give it that colour. I really like the taste of look of this fat.

What is giving the fat this yellow colour and what typical ingredients do you think are going into the fat since it doesnt seem to be pure fat?

I think typical ingredients for seekh kebab are garlic, ginger, onion, coriander, cumin, powdered pepper.

Common sources of fat-soluble yellow colours are curcuma (curcumin as colorant, tends to give an almost fluorescent yellow), and chilli peppers (lycopene, tends more towards the orange in higher concentrations). But a lot of other carotene-containing items can give a yellow to orange colour (cumin among them, but it's less known as a colorant).


How to make "salt-crust-baked" chicken? A while back I heard mention of a way to bake/roast chicken that supposedly would make it very good and juicy.  Unfortunately I didn't get the details, so I haven't dared try it myself.  I was wondering if someone here had done this or something similar, and could describe the methode (especially temperature and timing) to me - and confirm that this actually work and give a good result.

The idea was to take a whole (or half would do?) chicken (I assumed plucked, cleaned and ready for cooking), and cover it with salt!  You would basically take lots of salt and add a little water, so you got a thick "goo" of salt.  Then you would cover the chicken with this salt-goo in a thick layer.  Then you would put the salt-goo covered chicken in the oven to bake.  In the oven, the salt-goo would become a thick salt-crust, that would trap in the moisture.  When finished, you just crack the salt-crust open.

Does this actually work?!  I can't help but thinking that the result would be a very salty chicken...

Does it work? Yes, it does.

The idea is to create something akin to an individual "dutch oven" around the chicken or fish you are baking. The meat is "steamed" in his own juices. There are a bunch of different "recipes" for the salt crust, often with some "binding agent" like egg whites.
Usually, the skin is removed when serving (go ahead, give it a try, if you like), so rest assured that the meat underneath is not too salty.

An alternative to salt (and arguably more "paleo style") would be baking in clay.

A quick internet search should yield plenty of recipes for both varieties. (Remenber: asking for recipes is a big no-no here.)


Doubling a batch of soup Straying from the printed recipe still makes me a little twitchy, so I ask you, gentle cooks (chefs?):

Can I safely double the cooking time? (In this case, it's a split pea soup, dried split peas - used 2 lbs instead of 1, and doubled everything else)

On a side note, the pot I picked is somewhat undersized for a double batch, as it turns out. The broth is nearly to the lip of the pot. Other than making sure it doesn't boil over during the simmer phase, is this a bad thing?

Kara, you shouldn't need to adjust the cooking time at all. If the recipe says to bring to a simmer and then cook for 45 minutes, it will probably take longer to come to a simmer, but once it is there, you can leave it for 45 minutes.

The best recipes (in my opinion) will give you a time as a guideline, but the real instruction will be some target like "until 160 degrees" or "until peas begin to break down". If your recipe has that, you can look for those cues at roughly the same time the recipe suggests.

edit: I forgot to mention the pot size issue. It shouldn't be a problem. The two issues you could encounter would be:

boiling over
temperature variation

The former you're aware of already; the latter issue is that the soup at the top of the pot could be a bit colder than lower down. The two solutions are:

use a lid (this keeps the heat in)
stir periodically (this keeps both the heat and the peas better distributed)


How can I improve an asian sauté / stir fry? When I make a sauté, I use bell peppers, green onions, beef slices, carrots, ginger and mushrooms. I fry all the ingredients together, add some lime juice, soy sauce, salt, pepper and oregano. Then, I serve the fried ingredients over white sticky rice. The results are good, but how do I make it fantastic? Any additional sauce I can add to make things more savory? Should I add the rice in the wok?

Edit
Thanks for your answers. I made a fantastic sauté last night!

A few tips:

Marinate the meat first (after chopping, before stir-frying);
Mix the sauce first - don't just dump the ingredients separately into the wok;
Add corn starch or tapioca flour to the sauce to thicken it.  I wouldn't even call it a sauce without any thickening agent.  About 1 tbsp per cup of sauce should be alright.  (Note: The sauce should be about 50-60% water, don't use a whole cup of soy sauce!)
Add some other savoury or flavour-enhancing ingredients to the sauce - i.e. toasted sesame oil, rice vinegar, brown sugar/honey.  And ditch the oregano.
Briefly steam the vegetables in the wok - add just a little bit of the sauce, then cover it for a few minutes.  This will make them much more tender after frying.  (Note that this only applies to hard vegetables like carrots, celery, broccoli, etc. - add the soft vegetables afterward)
Add minced garlic with the ginger.  The two go together like white on rice.


What can I substitute for flour in pancakes? I don't have flour to make pancakes. Are there ingredients I use as a substitute, or is there a way to make pancakes without flour?

Oats can be a good substitute, just blend them and use as normal flower.

250-300g oats, two medium sized eggs, 300 ml milk and 1/2 portion bag of baking soda.

Normally I use a mix of flour and oats, so I have never tried it with oats alone but I guess if you do not have flour you can try.


why my brownies taste bitter? I made brownies with the recipe of this:

egg           : 2

coco powder   : 1/2 cup

white flour   : 1 cup

milk          : 1 cup

baking powder : 1 tea spoon

oil           : 1/2 cup

sugar         : 1 cup

then i put oil, egg, and sugar in the bowl and beat it then i add coco powder and white flour and again beat them all for 5 minutes. Then i add milk and start beater. And then i spreading less oil in the dish and then add my ready brownies in the dish.Then i put brownies in microwave oven for 8 minutes for bake.

This is the recipe that i made but the brownies which i made is always bitter. Whenever i made it taste bitter a lot but why?

I don't know what step i done wrong can u please let me know what i can do that my brownies taste not bitter anymore.

How can it taste changes?

Unsweetened Cocoa powder is a very bitter ingredient, and 1/2 a cup of it seems like a lot considering the ratios. If you want your brownies less bitter then you may want to reduce the cocoa some, or add more sugar, or do both. Try reducing your cocoa by 2 tbsp and adding 2 tbsp more sugar, adjust the ratios that way until you have the right balance.


Why do I need more gelatin in a half fat cream cheese cheesecake? Why do I need to add extra gelatin to my cheesecake recipe if I want to exchange full fat cream cheese for half fat cream cheese?

What comes to mind is the emulsifying properties of eggs. When eggs emulsify with the fat it creates a smooth or luxurious texture. Less fat might make the texture less desirable and the gelatin might improve the texture.

As for how well the cake will set, I don't think that adding more gelatin because there will be less fat is going to matter. Eggs are usually the setting agent in cheesecakes.

Hope that helps!


How to get rid of Garlic taste in tomato sauce Hi I have added some garlic paste in tomato sauce now it tastes somehow a little strange how to get rid of that?

If "strange" means like the garlic paste is rancid (or otherwise spoiled), then throw it away and start over. If "strange" means too garlicky, then your best bet is to add more tomatoes to dilute the recipe, then adjust as needed with other ingredients. You may want to take half the sauce and freeze it for another use then add another can or two of diced tomatoes.


New takes on recipe format I'm working on a cookbook that is designed to make it easier to master the steps that go into a recipe, and understand the timing, especially when trying to get multiple items to 'line up' so they all complete around the same time to serve a meal.

I've seen a number of interesting takes on recipe format that take it beyond the typical list of ingredients--list of steps format. These include the cooking for engineers format, and a wide range of illustrated recipes that are cute but actually make it more difficult to understand for a novice.

I have 'invented' something new unlike anything I've seen anywhere else, but I want to look around and make sure I'm not accidentally stepping on an existing idea; I don't want to be accused of having stolen someone else's concept. So I'm am curious if anyone has seen any interesting formats for recipes around.

The cookingforengineers site has a nice ingredient plus method layout. I use a similar format for my personal recipes


How can I make cookies with no eggs? I'd like to make some biscuits (cookies), but I have no eggs, and I don't want to leave the apartment.

Can I use something else?

There's a replacement, but it's not an ingredient most people have sitting around -- flax seed.

I use it when I'm cooking for a few of my friends who are vegans.  Grind up some flax seed in a coffee grinder.  For each egg, take 1 TB of flax seed meal, and 3 TB of water.  Stir it up and let it sit for a while -- it'll get kinda slimy.  Use that in place of the eggs.

Obviously, this won't work for anything where the whites and yolks are used separately, but I've used it for years for Christmas cookies -- the only problem is that the dough doesn't hold together quite as well when you're dealing with refrigerator cookies.

update: it's also a good idea to make friends with your neighbors.  I've known the folks living in one of the houses behind me since high school ... we've been known to call each other up when we're short on sugar / flower / eggs / milk / vanilla, etc.


Cooking lemon juice into stew I have recently discovered a much broader use of lemon juice in my cooking and now add it to almost all stews and soups a few minutes before the end of cooking.  But I am curious if there are benefits to adding it earlier, e.g. if it will cook in better and give it a zestier flavor if I cook it longer than just adding it at the end of after.  One example that comes to mind are fava beans, which are great zesty.  The downside of cooking lemon juice is that it can cause undesired curding of some vegetable protein.

Cooking lemon juice longer won't make it "zestier."  Like most foods added in small quantities as flavor enhancers, lemon juice has a lot of aromatics and flavor components that could boil off, break down, or get absorbed by your stew/soup with longer cooking.

There's a reason why a fresh lemon or lime slice is often served beside a lot of foods (and drinks) -- you'll get a stronger lemon flavor when it is added fresh at the end of cooking.  A splash of lemon juice added earlier will just give a generic acidity to a dish; you might as well use vinegar or any other (cheaper) acid.

The only reason to add it earlier is in a dish where you use a lot and want the lemon flavor to penetrate the dish fully.  But in that case I wouldn't tend to use plain lemon juice but perhaps more of the actual fruit.  Rinds can be bitter, so you could add zest or chopped up peeled lemon pulp, but lemons are sometimes a bit of work to peel and remove seeds.  A better option for this application is preserved lemons (i.e., lemons added to salt and kept for long storage), which can be chopped -- rind and all -- and added to stews earlier in the cooking process.