Substitute for red bean paste? I recently bought a book of Asian recipes. The author seems to have a huge crush on red bean (azuki) paste, since about a half of the recipes call for it. Unfortunately, the availability of red beans seems to be on about the same level as dodo eggs. Is there something that can be used as a substitute to get a close approximate of the taste and texture?

Black bean paste is also incorporated into Asian cuisine, and has a similar flavor, although earthier.  Add a little sugar, maybe a little ground cashew or peanuts for nuttiness.  It won't be the same, but it should work well enough.

Since black beans are more common, this may work well enough for you.


Should I "bake" a pizza stone before the first use? I've just bought a pizza stone.

The manufacture recommend to put the stone in high temperature (220°C) for two hours before the first use.

No one on the equipment store knew why.Do you know?

Generally that sort of treatment is to get rid of any moisture the stone may have taken on during storage/handling--if it weren't kept dry, there could be moisture deep in the stone that would not be an issue in normal home use. I would expect the instructions were also that you should put the stone in the cold oven then turn it on--that would be the safest way to do the whole process, avoiding thermal shock, etc.

There might be some proprietary reason to do this also, but my vote goes to driving out deeply absorbed moisture.


What type of knife befits peeling/skinning melons and squashes? I prefer to peel/skin melons (e.g. watermelon, honeydew) and squashes (butternut squash, pumpkins), rather than cutting and slicing into wedges. I depict some catalogues beneath.

Which type of knife fits?
Serrated or non-serrated?

http://blog.house.com.au/know-knives-buying-knives-taking-care/

https://shiraleelodge.weebly.com/

You're going to be dealing with large, slippery things, with tough skins.

It's really easy to cut yourself with these.

For softer ones - melons - a serrated knife works well in my experience.  A regular bread knife will often be too thin, but a heavier knife with serrations works fine.

For harder items - the fall/winter squashes - I use a shorter-bladed chef's knife or utility knife so that I have more control.


3D meat cuts references? I always have trouble reading the diagrams that indicate the cuts of meat. It's hard to tell how deep the cuts go, etc. Are there any 3D diagrams out there?
This blog entry has a cross section of the pig and shows you the real cuts which is pretty awesome!

If you watch Alton Brown's show Good Eats (Food Network) he frequently uses 3D models to show where various cuts come from. A good example is the episode "Tender is the Loin", where he uses a model of a steer to show where the loin primal is and then location of the tenderloins.


How do you defrost frozen chili peppers without them turning soggy? How do you defrost frozen chilli peppers without them going soggy? (I suppose this applies to other frozen fruit and vegetables with a high water content.)

I'm afraid this is impossible. It's the freezing, not the thawing, that causes this. Remember, water expands when freezing, so the freezing process breaks the cell walls, so when the pepper thaws, it has lost its crispness.

This doesn't matter if you're going to mince it finely or cook it, though! I freeze peppers regularly.


Can I substitute agar-agar for gelatin in pudding? Can china grass (agar-agar) be substituted in place of gelatin when making pudding?
Or is there any other ingredient i could use as a substitute that could give me better results?

Agar is not a good choice for pudding because it makes a brittle gel and it won't melt in your mouth at body temperature. What you want for pudding is a starch based thickener. What we call pudding in the US at least is typically thickened with cornstarch. Modified starches like Ultra-Tex 3 can also work well. Are you thinking of something more along the lines of panna cotta, which does normally have gelatin in it? If so, you might try carageenan instead of agar. Here's a recipe that looks promising: http://irishherault.wordpress.com/2009/12/24/vegetarian-panna-cotta/


Spotting frozen seafood in restaurants We've just been to Spain and while we were there we ended up in quite a touristy restaurant. There we ate paella which was terrible, at least in my opinion. Then I was wondering how fresh (or not) it was. The prawns were still in their shell but some of them had developed some white areas.

So my question is: do these white spots on the shell indicate that they had been frozen? Or can a prawn go white too if it is boiled or fried straight after being caught?

Just for the record: I'm sure they had been frozen because they didn't taste very nice.

As Rumtscho said in her comment, much seafood is frozen on the boat before it even gets ashore, let alone into a restaurant. However, it is possible to keep seafood fresh using another method. Good seafood restaurants will have live food in tanks ready for eating. I often go to such restaurants and pick out my fish or crab from a tank and watch as the waiter nets it out. In my local market I can buy shrimp still jumping about in the bag as I carry them home. If you insist on fresh seafood, then look for places like these. Usually they will make a show of the live fish in tanks at the front of shop/restaurant.

To answer your question: If you don't see it jumping about live before it's cooked then assume it's either frozen then cooked, or cooked then frozen, or maybe cooked then frozen then cooked again.


How long should I let a tea with lemongrass steep? Every time I have a tea with lemongrass in it the tea ends up with a really strong and rather terrible aftertaste. I drink several different types of tea, and am pretty sure that I am letting the lemongrass steep for too long. What is the optimal time to let lemon grass steep? I typically start with my water at 100 degrees Celsius.

An0r4k,

I assume that you're making a cup of black (?) tea and steeping some lemongrass in it. If so, perhaps you should make the black tea very weak as its tannins might be amplifying the (pleasant) slight bitterness of the lemongrass to distasteful levels.

Alternatively, if you are steeping the lemongrass in hot water, try removing the outer layers of the lemongrass stalk. If they are old or tough, this can increase the bitterness of the drink.

In any case, check that there isn't any dirt trapped between the layers of the lemongrass.

Some recipies call for putting the lemongrass into water, bringing it to a boil and then letting it simmer for 10-15 minutes. I haven't tried this. Even if it does produce a smoother taste, then the boiling might well degradge any health-giving nutrients from the lemongrass.


Using a deep fryer for fish Does using a deep fryer for fish effect
1: the taste of other things fried in the oil.
2: how frequently the oil needs to be replaced or stored between uses.

In short do I need separate oil for deep frying fish and vegetables, pastries... ?

Yes, Yes, and Yes.

Citations:

If you plan on offering seafood as well as other proteins you will want a separate cooker to prevent the dreaded fishy taste transfer.
Typically, once you fry fish in the oil, it tastes like fish, which might not be a flavor you want in your fried chicken.
A fish and chips concept risks not only rancid flavors from frying oil overdue for a change, but also unwanted odors—and more importantly proteins—from fish and breading that could have cross-contact with the fries.


Turkey vs Chicken broth I've tried to research this but can't find much on it.  Most explanations don't really address what I am seeing in my soup pot each time I boil up a used bird.  These are already cooked birds and are the leftovers from roasted turkeys or chickens. I love a pure broth for lunch.  I am also a great believer in 'Jewish Penicillin**, thus lots of chicken broth.  I use the broth for soup stock also.

So.. the main question:
Why is turkey broth always cloudy whitish and chicken broth clearer or brownish? It doesn't seem to be the fat content of the bird or broth. This almost always happens when I use the carcasses from either fowl to make broth.  It doesn't seem to be dependent on how I cooked either bird. Turkeys=white broth...Chickens = clear or mildly brownish broth.  It's almost chemical??? Is there any cautions I should be observing?  **We do not observe any Jewish food requirements...it's only a familiar comment ('cause it's true!)

Turkey fat will emulsify into the water at a lower temperature than chicken fat, so one key to clear turkey broth is to be careful to NOT boil it. You want an occasional burble, no more. Also, the proteins in turkey muscle tend to release their bound up water more readily than chicken (that's why turkey often becomes dry more easily than chicken does) and will begin to disintegrate. So the more meat in your carcass, especially white, the more cloudy it will appear.

[as per my own education in Animal Science]


What kind of soup is this lady most likely making? I was watching Gordon's Great Escape: Vietnamese and they do a scene with an old lady selling soup. However, it isn't clear what kind of soup she actually makes only that it at the very least contains banana blossoms, bean sprouts, water spinach thins, vermicelli noodles, sweet basil and the broth seems to be an orange like color.

A link to the video is here: Gordon's Great Escape: Vietnamese and for your benefit the link should led to start of the scene that I am talking about. If it doesn't the scene starts at 20:07 ish.

Hopefully, that is enough to work off of.

Thanks.

There are actually two dishes being sold, and neither is "Phở". The words that she yelled and had Gordon do the same were "Hủ tiếu, Bún riêu". They are both noodle soups, the former is pork based broth, and the latter, porc and shrimp/crab with tomatoes. You can google the words for more info.


What are the names of the breakfast spreads used in Indian cuisine? I visited Bangalore a few years ago and much enjoyed some of the hotel breakfast dishes.  As I remember they were a sort of paste that could be spread onto bread or toast, etc. I have no idea what they are called or how to make them.

Could someone suggest what they were and how I could make something similar?

Well chutneys are not really eaten with bread. They are eaten with breakfast dishes such as Dosa, Idli, Vada etc. But they might go really well with bread as well. Refer this link for an idea about how to prepare chutneys


Name of the sauce/salad eaten with roast dinners up north UK Its a sauce that contains lettuce and vinegar to eat with roast dinner and can be eaten with chips and cold meat in Newcastle, UK.

I believe you are referring to coleslaw - it's actually cabbage rather than lettuce, and is considered a side-dish. It's often served with chips (French Fries here in the US) as an accompaniment to hot and cold roast meats as well as batter-fried dishes such as chicken, clams or fish. Coleslaw dressing can be creamy or vinegary in the US, and it's largely a regional difference - in Southern Cuisine, coleslaw dressing is primarily vinegar, northern recipes call for mayo or sour cream. Reviewing some recipes online, in the UK it appears that coleslaw tends to have both creamy and vinegary components to the dressing.


How do you apply colored sugar just to the raised image on a cookie I bake a LOT of cookies, but tend to gravitate toward the soft and chewy type - normally a drop cookie but I have also done rolled and pressed cookies. Recently my daughter asked me to make a cookie she saw on TV. The cookie she described had a raised design and had colored sugar only on the raised design.

I am guessing those cookies are some type of shortbread cookie (a cookie with little or no leavening so the imprint stays sharp) either baked in a mold or stamped before baking. However, I cannot find any information on how to decorating just the raised image or the just the imprint. Every web site I have looked at basically covers the entire cookie with colored sugar or uses some variety of royal icing.

How do you decorate just the embossed part of the imprint with colored sugar? Are cookies like this made with stamps, molds, or stencils? Any help would be much appreciated.

Basically, there are two options:

Use a stencil.
This means, your design can be only slightly raised (or not at all), because the sugar will create a 3D illusion. There are plenty  of examples online, here is one from Martha Stewart (in honour of upcoming St. Patricks Day). This can be done befor baking or afterwards by sugaring an image stenciled with thin icing.
Dip the cookie upside down.
You will need a rather distinct raised image for this. Dip the cookie upside own into a bowl/plate of sugar, making sure to touch the surface only with the raised parts. Depending on your dough you might have to use some water first to make the sugar stick better. You will need a rather thick and well-cooled cookie that can keep its shape while handling.
If you want to decorate baked cookies, brush very little thin icing on the raised part, then dip. Make sure to use the absolute minimum of icing, because otherwise it will start running down either when turning the cookie or while drying, taking the sanding sugar with it in the worst case...


I have a frozen brown bear (roast?) from somewhere in Alaska I have a small 1.3-pound brown bear roast and don't know what to do with it.
It looks pretty lean thru the plastic wrapper.
I am certain it was handled and prepared well, though have no more info.
I tried a marinade on 2 small steaks and have 2 more left. It was pretty good overall, though the (connective tissue?) was stringy.

Would chunks in the crock pot be best?
Any advice appreciated.

Like any meat, the best cooking method for bear depends a lot upon the cut of meat. Brown bear, even if taken in the early spring (before they start eating salmon), is pretty strongly flavored. A lot of hunters in Alaska don't even eat brown bears that they take, preferring to use them for taxidermy purposes only. (BTW, I don't like that, I firmly believe that hunters should eat what they kill, but that's beside the point)

Considering the gaminess of brown bear, that your cut appears lean, and that you're not entirely sure what cut it is; I recommend that you make sausage. Trim away any noticeable pockets of fat since bear fat is not particularly pleasant. Grind the roast with about 25% fat by weight. Since pork is the closest easily available fat to bear, I would go with that if you can. You can use a meat grinder, if you have one available, or food processor. If you don't have either of those, you can also use a knife. Just pound it as you mince it as finely as possible. From there, you can use any recipe for pork sausage that appeals to you, just increase spice a bit to compensate for the strength of bear meat flavor. You don't need to stuff sausage casings or anything like that unless you care to. Smoking or any other specialty technique is also entirely optional.

The one thing that isn't optional is that bear meat should be cooked to a minimum of 160°F (71°C) because many bears carry trichinosis.

Quit looking at my avatar!


What meat should be used for Bolognese? Bolognese sauce is a recipe that has earned my disrespect, despite me always keeping a pound of supermarket ground beef in the freezer ready to make it.

You see, I use it as a fall-back recipe for those days when my interest in cooking is waning and yet I still need to produce food. I therefore never look forward to making it. And since the meaty part of the sauce always turns out a little dry I don't often look forward to eating it either.

This could be a problem with cooking technique, but I'd first like to see what difference it makes using better quality ingredients.

What cuts of meat should I ask the butcher to grind? And is it worth adding ground pork or veal to the mix as some recipes suggest.

It is absolutely worth adding ground pork or veal. I usually use a leaner ground steak and compensate with a fatty ground pork (shoulder is good) - fat = flavour.

Another tip is to take your time. Many people try and cook bolognese in half an hour, but considering ground meat is usually made with tougher cuts, you end up with tough meat and under-developed flavours. Use plenty of onions and garlic, brown your meat well, use good wine, stock, tomatoes and herbs (thyme, rosemary and bay) and gently simmer that bad boy for at least 3 hours. For ultimate flavour, cook it the day before and let the flavours marry overnight.


Freezing Hazelnuts, before or after peeling and roasting? I've got 3 pounds of raw, unpeeled hazelnuts. I probably won't use most of them right away so I'm inclined to freeze them. I'm going to peel them using the boiling with baking soda trick, then toast them. Will it make a difference if I freeze them before or after peeling/toasting?

I roast all the nuts I buy and then freeze them.  I have never had a problem with moisture in them at all. I like having them ready to use when I bake.


What does it mean if my chicken tastes like fish? I got the chicken fresh from Smith's, rinsed it, seasoned it, and it didn't smell at all. I put it in my mother-in-law's baking dish, baked it, and it smelled sooo good in the house while baking. I served it only for my husband to spit it out. It tastes 100 percent like fish. Not smell, taste. What could this be from? Does it indicate the chicken was unsafe to eat?

I can think of several things, but it's not the definitive answer (not enough info in the question):

Oven was used recently for baking fish
Dish/pot was used recently for baking fish
Chickens were fed food containing fish. I don't know if this still happens, but in my country (The Netherlands) some 30 years ago, you could buy a 'powdery' chicken food that was some mix of ground-down grains, corn, and fish serving as a cheap protein source. You could definitely taste that in the eggs - I don't remember about the chicken meat itself.Note that chicken meat is sort of 'lowest on the rung' where quality is concerned, and maybe this was a batch from someone looking for a quick profit.

Note that the smell of fish permeates/overpowers quickly and that taste is very much determined by smell.


Tea-flavored concentration from a teabag I was wondering if there was a way to make a concentrated flavoring from a teabag.  This probably isn't the best choice, but we have teabags readily available in our office breakroom, and I would like to occasionally add flavor to other hot or cold beverages.

Specifically, I sometimes make hot chocolate using steamed milk, and would like to make mint hot chocolate.  Alternatively, I'd like to make some concentrated chai from a chai tea bag and add it to steamed milk.

This may be an XY Problem: have you tried just dropping the teabag into the other hot liquid? For mint teabags, I suspect they'd brew just fine in Hot Chocolate to add a minty kick, and Starbucks makes a chai latte where they brew the chai and then add steamed milk after.


How to adjust the ingredients when recipe asks for salted peanuts and unsalted butter while I have the opposite? The recipe is for cookies. Recipe asks for salted peanuts and unsalted butter while I have the unsalted peanuts and salted butter.

Nutralite Table spread: http://www.nutralite.com/about_nutralite.htm#link2
Amul butter: http://www.amul.com/products/amul-tablebutter-info.php

What should I increase and decrease here to balance out the mixture?

Using the information from the links you provided and the information found at the Planter's Nuts website (your mileage will vary depending on brand...) and little math (for the peanut's sodium per 100g) we learn that per 100g of each ingredient the sodium content is:

Nutralite: 786mg/100g
Amul: 836mg/100g
Salted Peanuts: 430mg/100g

If the recipe calls for (using the Amul):

4 cups of salted peanuts(@150g/cup => 600g peanuts => 2500mg sodium)
and
2 tablespoons of butter (@14g/tablespoon => 28g butter => 234mg
sodium)

So, loosing 2500mg sodium from the peanuts and only recouping 234mg sodium we need to add 2266 mg of sodium...now, sodium is only about 40% of salt...meaning that we need 5.6 grams of salt...at 6.375g/teaspoon means we should add about a teaspoon of salt.

Mathematically, this 'makes sense', however given that the peanuts are probably to be added at the end I would suggest salting the peanuts directly and then mixing the peanuts(with the salt added) as directed. The process of creaming the butter may distribute the salt a little differently in the mix. I would suggest starting with 3/4 teaspoon of salt then adjusting taste.


What is the name of the sauce served with fried rice in Indian restaurants I have noticed a lighter sauce like liquid (watery) with green chilies cut in it served along with fried rice in Indian restaurants. It tastes slightly like soya, and has visible round pieces of cut green chilies in it. (It's definitely not mint chutney.)

Does anyone know the name of that sauce?

Normally I would say this question is too vague- however a common sauce, found in practically every Indian restaurant, fits that description.

Mint chutney:

It is basically mint leaves and peppers blended with garlic, lemon and seasonings.

It is ubiquitous in Indian cuisine (in several regions) and every Indian restaurant I have been to.


Water vs olive oil when sautéing I was recently watching a friend sauté vegetables (specifically artichokes and broccoli) and instead of using olive oil, she used water. What's the difference between using oil as compared to using water to sauté? How do I know when to use which?

In terms of sautéing, the simple answer is that using oil is going to let you develop fond, i.e. the tasty brown stuff, on your veggies whereas cooking only with water will essentially boil/steam your vegetables — and perhaps give them a little char, as well.

In cooking, both oil and water are basically just things you use to transfer heat to food. They are both useful in their own way, depending on what you're cooking.

In practical terms, oils/fats can serve a couple other purposes, too, like:

Help extract fat-soluble flavor compounds from ingredients, like herbs and aromatics.
Keep things from sticking and burning in your pan.
Add flavor.

In a hot pan with only water, your friend was probably boiling/steaming their vegetables — not truly sautéing, in which you really try to avoid steaming. If the water runs low, you risk burning your veggies when they come in direct contact with the hot metal of the pan.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing; it depends on what the food is and how you're trying to prepare it. There are better ways to steam veggies, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

Cooking for Engineers has an illuminating article on the science behind heat transfer. Learning about the Maillard reaction is also a good read. And others more experienced than myself can tell you a lot more, I'm sure. Hopefully this is a sufficient "short" answer.


Chuck or "stew" beef labeled in the super market Preliminary

So I found this simple pot roast recipe here. I have cooked this plenty of times, but for some reason lately, the 'stew' or chuck roast beef is turning out to be too fatty (as it is labeled, it looks like this left picture here:

Lately, I keep buying beef that turns out to so full of fat (even from different super markets) it is just disgusting. I normally would cook this beef in a slow cooker after briefly browning it in a cast iron skillet, and since almost no fat is rendered out, it would end up like eating a stick of butter (nothing about it tasted like beef).

Questions seeking Seasoned Advice:
Are stew beef cuts not meant to be used in stews/pot roasts? If not then what is the ideal cut for pot roasts? Or is the super market selling bad beef?

"Stew beef" is slightly cheaper than buying a whole roast and cutting it up, because the stew beef is made up of bits and pieces that were left over after the prettier roasts had been carved.

If it's not to your taste, spring for a whole roast and cut it up yourself.

WARNING: Fat content in meat that is supposed to be cooked for a long time is a good thing. Keeps the meat from drying out. It's more efficient to simply cook the stew in advance, and then skim the rendered fat off the top, before you reheat it.


Vietnamese burnt sugar beverage A while ago we ate at a Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco's Chinatown. We were given these nice burnt sugar-flavored beverages to drink, but unfortunately the staff did not speak fluent English so I don't know what it was called.

I've tried in vain to research it but can't find anything close.

The beverage was very dark brown, but served with milk (I'm quite sure it was dairy milk, not coconut milk) poured on top, which when mixed turned it a caramel color. The consistency was thin, but the beverage was very flavorful---the burnt sugar flavor would have been almost bitter if it didn't have the milk added. Burnt sugar seemed to be the only major flavor---it was not a coffee beverage, though there might have been other spices. The beverage was sweet, but not extremely sweet. It was served in a standard plastic restaurant glass with ice.

I found the restaurant's menu online. Apparently this is Tra Thai. I must have mistaken the flavor.

Tra Thai


How to make - succulent - Bruschetta? What ingredients do you need, and what steps to perform to make Bruschetta?

While on honeymoon in Tuscany we got bruschetta with chopped tomato and herb topping, on crusty bread (I think there was some olive oil on the bread?)

Is there a trick to making the tomatoes succulent, or is it simply down to good ingredients?

Thanks :)

There's just no comparison between in-season, local tomatoes that you get in Italy and the supermarket crap you get anywhere else, which probably accounts for most of the difference.

Your best bet is to look for heirloom tomatoes, in season. Failing that, try New Jersey beefsteak tomatoes, again, in season. Or any of the "vine ripened" tomatoes you see in fancy grocery stores, although every year those get harder and more tasteless. Finally, if desperate, and you have no choice but to use supermarket rock tomatoes, at least get plum tomatoes, which manage to retain a tiny bit of flavor.

Bruschetta is just:

yesterday's bread (ciabatta or a French baguette), thinly sliced, brushed with olive oil, and grilled or toasted
chopped tomatoes
garlic, basil, Italian parsley, and any other tasty herbs you have lying around (Oregano?)
The finest extra virgin olive oil in the house
Salt and pepper to taste


How to keep blintzes closed I am trying to make cheese blintzes. I made them out of egg and flour.

After packaging the blintzes up and readying to put them in the oven, they slowly start to pop back open. How do I keep them closed?

If your blini are unrolling themselves, they may be too thick, and probably therefore need a higher proportion of liquid in the batter.   They should be thin, akin to western European crepes, and easy to roll.

The other possibility is you are trying to make very small blini, which would be more difficult to roll.  Generally, the crepe for each blintz would be about 6-8 inches across at the smallest

You then fold each individual blintz as you might a burrito:  see How do I make the ingredients in a burrito evenly distributed? for a diagram and description of the method.

The initial fry seam side down should then seal them closed.

See detailed photos of method and sample recipe from Shiksa Chick.


How long does Turkey Crown take to defrost at room temperature? So, I think I've messed up on Turkey defrosting for Christmas Day.  Packaging says defrost for 10-12 hours per kilogram in a fridge at 4 degrees centigrade.  Turkey Crown is 2.8kg so thats 28hours or so.  Well, I removed at 1900 hours Christmas Eve, so I'm in some bother.  Do we know the defrost time at room temperature?

I know Isaac Newton developed at law of cooling that says the rate of temperature change is proportional to the temperature difference.  So I'm hoping room temperature should get the turkey crown defrosted in time.

Any advice?

[The stakes are Christmas Dinner for 13.]

Disclaimer: this is likely to be closed as duplicate, but I couldn't find the corresponding post. And as Christmas dinner and the health of a whole group  is at stake, I'll post an answer anyway.

Do not thaw meat on the counter. No matter what your Grandmother did, it's not safe. If in a hurry, thaw in cold water.

This uses the fact that water is a way better heat conductor than air and has a higher thermal capacity.

Simply submerge the meat in its packaging in a sink or bassin of cold water, either keep the faucet running slowly or exchange the water every 30 minutes to ensure it stays cold and thus even the already thawed parts stay out of the danger zone where bacteria can grow well.

At ca. 30 minutes per pound, cold-water thawing is reasonably quick and safe, plus once thawed, you still can pop the meat back into the fridge if necessary. You can even interrupt the thawing process and go to bed and either finish thawing in the fridge or continue water-thawing tomorrow, depending on your schedule. The maths is pretty straightforward.


Induction vs. propane gas expense? I live in Phoenix AZ. Which will be more expensive in the long run, an Induction or propane gas cooktop?

Some approximate figures

Energy efficiency while cooking

Induction 90%
Electric resistive 55%
Gas 50%

Energy efficiency while heating up

Induction 99%
Electric resistive 0%
Gas 0%

Time, total energy used, and cost to boil 2 l of Water

Induction 2:20, 0.2 kWh, $0.034
Electric resistive 5:00, 0.34 kWh, $0.058
Gas 4:00, 0.37 kWh, $0.016

Assumptions

Gas burner is clean and correctly adjusted

Costs are estimates based on USA high prices as of 2013

In many other countries gas will be much more expensive

Bottled gas will be nearly twice the gas price from town supply gas


Making tea - milk first or tea first For those who take tea with milk, opinion seems very much divided about whether to add milk to the cup before the tea or vice versa. I have seen some suggestions relating to the milk protecting the fine china when the hot tea was poured, and even suggestions relating to killing bacteria in suspect milk.
My personal preference is to pour the milk in after the tea, and I do believe there is a difference in taste but I wonder whether this is simply a case of being able to more accurately gauge the quantity of milk being added, as the colour of the the tea serves as a guide.

Is there a measurable (ie scientific) difference between the processes of (i) adding milk to the tea, and (ii) adding tea to the milk that will lead to a different flavour outcome?

This question touches on the issue, but doesn't quite give the answer I am looking for.

I had the chance to ask a tea scientist this very question about 25 years ago, and he said:

if you put the tea in first, over decades your cups will be more stained than if you put the milk in first
if you put the milk in first, you cannot add less milk on discovering that the tea is weak or there is less of it than you thought

He further reported that the Royal Family always put the tea in first. So, despite being raised milk-first, I am a tea-first person (the milkiness of my tea being more important than possible stains to my cups) and my mother tolerates this when she visits.

Killing bacteria in the milk is really not an issue now and probably never was; even if it were the temperature difference is not important between the two approaches. A little cold milk in a room temperature cup probably won't prevent thermal shock either: many people claim leaving the spoon in serves this purpose, but I think it's just to avoid putting the spoon down on the counter and leaving a dribble.


How do I reheat previously-cooked frozen sausage? This probably has an obvious answer I'm missing. To make a long story short, my mother helped us out with an event several months back involving having to serve breakfast to a large number of people including breakfast sausage, a mix of links and patties. Afterwards, as is her habit, she packaged up the leftovers in a plastic bag and handed them over to us. We set them in the chest freezer and frankly forgot about them for some time. We now have about 3-4 lbs of precooked sausage in a single frozen lump. I've tried breaking them off and cooking then in my cast-iron skillet in the mornings, but the patties break apart more than break off of the main mass, and when the patties are just about to turn into hockey pucks, the links are still frozen on the inside.

I'm a bit hesitant to thaw the mass because we'd just be refreezing it again, and my understanding is that it's a bad idea to repeatedly thaw and freeze meat. Is there a better way to handle this that doesn't involve us trying to eat a few pounds of processed meat at once or risk wasting it?

One option: reheat slowly in the microwave and until it is barely unfrozen enough to break apart.  Then break it down into meal-sized portions, take the part you want for now and wrap the remaining bits in cellophane so they don't freeze together again.  (My advice as a self-judged microwave expert is to heat it up at low power in 3 minute increments at first, then 2 minute increments.  Fairly early, you will find that some parts thaw faster than others.  Once this temperature difference becomes apparent, you can wait like 5 minutes in between bouts of heating it up to allow the heat to even out over the lump.)

Given that the freezing and thawing will probably not do anything good for the texture, you might consider breaking the sausage up and adding it to something like sawmill gravy or strata (or just scrambled eggs) where you won't be eating it in large chunks.


How can I minimize crumbliness in agar based candies? 3.5% agar agar makes a sturdy gel, which can be used to make candy.
However, instead of dissolving smoothly in the mouth, the agar tends to break down into small chunks.
Would adding a percent or two of gelatin add meltiness, or is there some other additive that is commonly used to improve mouth feel in candies of this type?

April 12 Update: Tried various combinations of Agar with gelatin, glycerol, xanthan gum, tapioca flour.
3% agar with 2.5% tapioca was least crumbly, but still not great.
Tapioca alone is pretty sticky stuff, and not suitable for pressing into molds, but with the addition of glycerol to keep it from hardening it can be made into blobs of vaguely palatable candy that don't crumble in your mouth.

I took a look here http://blog.khymos.org/recipe-collection/ but i see no recipe that fixes agar's crumbliness. All the candy recipes use gelatin or cornstarch.


Why do egg white cartons warn that pasteurized egg whites shouldn't be used for whipping or meringue? We're baking a ton of meringue cookies for a party this weekend, so I picked up a carton of egg whites. It wasn't until after I got home that I noticed a warning stating:

"Due to pasteurization, liquid egg whites are not recommended for whipping or meringues."

I don't quite understand this. While pasteurization could denature proteins if the temp goes too high, the eggs whites generally shouldn't be getting hot enough for that to really happen. Further, you can buy dried egg whites at grocery stores labelled as "instant meringue" and those are also pasteurized.

I went ahead and whipped them anyway, and they seem to have worked just fine. The peaks could be stiffer if I had beaten them longer, but I was working quickly and just needed them to come to a reasonable piping stiffness.

I'm just trying to understand the rationale of the warning on the label. Is it also a matter of age? Maybe these were fresher?

Egg white foams are a delicate thing.  They are easy to do, but also easy to mess up, and many things will do so. Here (Wayback Machine) is a blog that addresses many of the common or less so do's and don'ts of foams and tests them to see if the writer agrees with them effecting things.  Items addressed are should eggs be new or old, at room temp, when to add sugar, and if pasteurized eggs work.  For them, pasteurized was fine.

The general idea behind not using pasteurized as I understand it:  For quality foams, the proteins in the egg white must unfold correctly during beating.  In the process of heating the egg for pasteurization, the protein may well be chemically or physically altered and the ability to unfold it correctly for a foam might be reduced.  In their test, it worked fine, just as it seems to have for you.  But, at best, it may not be as consistent or forgiving.  If you are slightly off on another aspect, say whipping speed, it may increase the odds of failure.  Also, you may have gotten a batch of eggs that were pasteurized at an optimum temp, while another batch might have been done at a few degrees higher and affected the protein strands more and that batch might fail. I personally would consider it one more factor that might increase failure rates, might increase the need to add cream of tartar or lemon, might fail with sugar, etc.

Just opinion, but if it works for you, go for it, but expect that maybe some times it won't.


How to decode some less common food Expiration Date/Date Manufactured codes (US)? I was cleaning out and found some snack chips with date codes that are not in an obvious Day/Month/Year format.  For example:

028 B2 A1 (Bloom's Potato Chips)
021 T B4A1 (Lieber's Tortilla Chips).

Further complicating, neither says if it's a Best Used By date or a Date Manufactured (see pic).

How to decode these?

Manufacturers usually will decode the date if you call them, which I did. I am sharing the codes I have gathered for easier reference.  Other users may wish to click Edit and add other manufacturers' codes.

BRAND / CODE / TYPE(BEST-OR-MFG) / DECODE / NOTES

Lieber's: 021 T B4A1: BEST: The 021 is 21st day of the year i.e. Jan-21.  "T" (20th letter) is for 2019, as "A" is Year 2000.
Blooms: 028 B2 A1: MFG: The 028 is 28th day of the year i.e. Jan-28.  The year is not in the code.

Here is a list of some more common codes, from Bush Brothers to Stagg Chili:
http://www.foodreference.com/html/tcannedfoodshelflife.html#datecodes
Accessed July 2019

Here is another, very long list from 3 Springs Water through Zatarains:
http://www.eby-brown.com/sites/default/files/u3/EbyCodeDateCatalog_0.pdf
Accessed July 2019


How do I cut an oreo? I recently made some decorated cupcakes that required oreo halves. I tried several methods:

serrated knife - lots of crumbs, both halves would shatter
plain knife (slowly) - lots of crumbs, both sides of both halves would shatter
plain knife (quickly) - less crumbs, typically one side of one half would shatter

What's the best way to go about cutting my oreos without turning them into a (delicious) crumbly mess?

Try freezing the oreos first and then cut with a sharp knife.  Let the oreos warm to room temperature again.  They will not lose any texture or crispiness.

Update:

In the name of science, I froze some oreos and tested the outcome.  Freezing the oreos made the cutting much more...achievable.  A room temperature oreo just wants to crumble in too many places, but a frozen one holds together better.


Custard - How much milk can one egg set? If I had one whole egg (my understanding being that the white has more 'setting power' than the yolk), how much milk would I be able to set?

If I tried to set 2 cups of milk with 1 egg, can I expect something like a creme anglaise or something thicker?

It really depends on how thick you want it.  Some sites recommend one egg or 2 yolks per cup of milk.  Ruhlman mentions 2 eggs per cup as 'standard', with 1 egg able to thicken 3/4 of a cup of liquid (but more fat helps).

I can't comment on thickness of creme anglaise -- I had to gave up dairy years ago, and that's not something that I've ever made.


Does cottage cheese melt like other cheeses? I have a lot of cottage cheese, and was thinking of using some to make a cheese sauce (possibley mixed with a blend of shredded cheeses as well).

For some reason all the recipes I find for cottage cheese sauce call for putting the cheese in the blender. This is making me confused, if I skip the blender, shouldn't the cottage cheese just melt, like other cheeses would?

No. Cottage cheese is a type of acid coagulated cheese, much like ricotta, feta and farmers cheese. It will continue to have lumps when heated, which will never be smooth.

The other type of cheese to avoid for melting is long aged hard cheeses like Parmesan or sharp cheddars. These tend to "break" and separate into an oily mess.
Adding butter or cream usually helps, but can dilute the flavor.
Using starch such as a bechamel sauce as a binder has a similar effect, but using a blend of short aged cheeses like gruyere or jack and stronger flavored cheeses like cheddar is a good option.


What are these stones? I am a fan of some YouTube channel, and back in 2018, he posted this video: Slav snacks - Slav party tutorial and I really want to try these foods because I'm an Asian.
In timestamp 7:00, he shows off these stones, which are sugar-covered. I'm certain that since this is slav, it is hard to exactly figure out what the stones are.
Search for "sugar-covered stones" and you won't find the similar dessert. What exactly are these given "stones"?

From the image, they look like jelly beans (or in Serbian, dželi bins) to me, based on the size, colour (including the slightly mottled pattern which tends to indicate better-quality jelly beans) and shine. The comment 'inside is a mystery' sounds to me like a clear reference to the fact that jelly beans often come in a variety of flavours, and it's not always easy to tell from the colour what the flavour will be.
The more general culinary term (although it's not a common one) for confectionery with a hard decorative outer shell is a dragée. The 'stones' in the video could be sugared almonds, although they look too small in my opinion, or something like coated raisins or other nuts.


are there any appliances that can automate feeding of sourdough starter? I am a pretty busy person, and the last two times I've started a sourdough starter, I've ended up forgetting to feed it, and it went bad. I never got anything good out of it, but there were times where it seemed pretty alive (bubbling, etc.). Are there any appliances which automate the feeding of a starter? (Including those not intended for it?)

Thanks in advance!

I have not heard of any machine of that nature, and I try to keep up with an assortment of home beer brewing sources.  If anyone would have come up with something, it would probably be brewers, since we tend to use large amounts of live yeast.    About the most advanced thing I have heard of is storing wort in Nalgene bottles after boiling and using that for a starter.   I can't think of an analog for sourdough that would be safe and keep the starter maintained with a good flavor.   Pro brewers or bakers may have a tool that I'm unaware of, though.

I'm sure you could come up with some sort of Rube Goldberg machine to feed your starter, but really, it's like taking care of any living thing.   You have to water and feed plants, animals, and yeast cultures.   It's a small amount of work, too, really.   Add water, flour, maybe some sugar, and stir.   You might want to stick with non-sourdough breads if you can't make that kind of time investment.


Utensil to thaw meat A very long time ago, I was at a friend's house where her father took out this piece of ribbed metal from the cupboard.

It was a dark piece of metal about the size of an adult hand. It had grooves on one side, and was smooth/flat on the other.

He asked me to touch it and it felt cold to my touch.

Next, he placed an ice cube on it and it began melting immediately. It did not require plugging in, it was just a slab of metal.

At that time, I was just amazed at how it worked and forgot to ask him what it is called. He tried to explain to me the physics behind it but I was just gobsmacked at the thing.

Now many years later I realized that its a thawing utensil and I am trying to search for it but as you can guess from the question, I don't know what to look for.

How nice to have a question I can just answer. I remember the ads for that thing. You can still buy it, it is called The Miracle Thaw. Now there are knock offs.

I am so pleased that you didn't ask how. It's too close to my bedtime for that.


Do I use half as much "double concentrated" tomato paste? I have a tube of tomato paste that is "double concentrated" (brand is "Cento").  Do you use half as much as a recipe calls for, or is this a case where all tomato paste has been "double concentrated" forever and one brand just got around to putting it on the box?

I would not change the amount.

Tomato products are graded as following:

pureed tomatoes (passata di pomodoro), up to 10% dry mass
tomato paste (concentrato di pomodoro) single, 14 to 22% dry mass
tomato paste double, 28 to 30% dry mass
tomato paste triple, 36 to 40% dry mass.

These are German numbers. Other countries use somewhat different prescriptions, but are in roughly the same range. There are higher concentrations of tomato paste too, but they are not commonly sold in supermarkets.

My first reason to not use it is that singly concentrated tomato paste is rarely sold. So I would assume that whoever wrote your recipe intended to use either doubly or triply concentrated paste. It is unlikely that, by changing the amount, you will get closer to what the recipe author used. You may even be already on the low side of tomatoes (if the author uses triple), so you'd make it even less authentic if you try to compensate.

Second, as you see, this is not some simple mathematical doubling of everything. Not even the dry mass jumps exactly double as much, and a tomato is not simply dry mass. If you really wanted to be closer to the recipe (if it has been designed for singly concentrated), you would have to reduce by less than half. And even then, you cannot be completely the same in taste, since the heat/pressure concentration process changes more than just the amount of water.

Third, tomato paste is an ingredient that is used when you want your dish to have lots of tomato flavor and little water. If this was not the case, the author would probably be suggesting the use of tomato puree or canned tomato pieces. Even if the recipe was originally developed for singly concentrated paste, it is rarely wrong to add more tomato flavor by using doubly concentrated. So just throw the whole amount in and see what happens - chances are, you'll like it.


Is there a point in stuffing a chicken if I'm not planning on eating the stuffing part? I'm planning to cook a regular chicken on Sunday and I thought that I should probably try to season it somehow. I've never tried to cook a chicken before (first Christmas dinner as an adult obv!). I thought about stuffing it, but scooping out the stuffing after to eat seems a bit gross to me. Will the stuffing itself impart flavour to the chicken meat?

You can put things in the cavity to help flavor the chicken as well.  A bundle of fresh herbs, garlic, an onion, fresh fruit, etc.  Stuffing from a cavity is divine though, don't knock it until you've tried it!


Is there a substitute for chocolate graham crackers? Where I live, we don't have any kind of Graham crackers. I've used other cookies before instead of the regular Graham crackers without a problem. I now came across a recipe that asks for chocolate Graham cracker crumbs.

What do I do best?
Should I use a regular chocolate cookie? Add cacao powder to regular cookie crumbs? Something else?

Is there anything special about the chocolate Graham crackers?

FYI, I would need the crumbs for this recipe.

If this had been a graham cracker crust, I'd have recommended adding some cocoa powder to the melted butter when making the crust.

In this case, as you're just using the crumbs in a layer of a parfait, you'd want the flavor to be better integrated as it doesn't have a chance to cook.  Therefore, I'd go with either crushed chocolate cookies or a mix of crushed graham crackers and chocolate shavings.  Both will give you the chocolate flavor and crunch at the same time.

You can also try working more chocolate flavor into some other ingredient (either with a chocolate liqueur or cocoa powder), but with something layered like this you often want the contrast of different flavors in each layer.


Any reason to put cornmeal/semolina on hot pizza stone or steel? When I first started baking pizza years ago, I read somewhere that one should toss some cornmeal on a hot pizza stone after preheating, just before putting the pizza on.  Since I tend to bake pizza at the highest setting on the oven, the cornmeal (or semolina, which I later switched to) would immediately smoke and burn.  I set off a smoke alarm in my house a couple times.  And I always had this wasted layer of burnt cornmeal/semolina which I'd wipe off the stone after each use.

After a few years of doing this, I realized that my pizza dough never stuck to the stone in the oven (though I occasionally had trouble getting it off the peel as it was going into the oven).  So I just stopped doing it.  Even with the minimal amount of semolina I tend to use on my peel these days, I never have had a case of the dough sticking to either a preheated pizza stone or a pizza steel.  (I have had cases where the pizza got stuck due to sauce or cheese leaking through a hole or over the side, but a little dusting of cornmeal/semolina wouldn't have prevented that sticking.)

Recently, I watched Alton Brown's pizza bake on his fun Mega-Bake Oven contraption.  I noticed he too tosses what appears to be semolina on the hot pizza steel (which smokes immediately) before loading the pizza on.  I've seen this recommended occasionally in other reputable sources.

I can certainly understand putting some sort of cornmeal/semolina/flour on a cold pizza stone or steel, for those who tend to bake raw dough without preheating first.

But is there really a good reason to throw some semolina or cornmeal onto a screaming hot pizza stone before baking, assuming a "normal" pizza dough (of some sort)?  I would assume that perhaps some recipes might stick, though I tend to use a very high hydration dough that sticks easily to my hands and the peel, but it always releases easily in the oven.  I also have baked many loaves of various kinds of breads and again have never had a problem with sticking.

Am I just lucky?  Or are there some particular recipes/stones that stick more?  Or is there some other reason for doing this?

I agree with you and don't do it either.  Rather, like you, I put some cornmeal or semolina on the peel, upon which I construct my pizza.  This, of course, allows the pizza to slid off and onto the steel.  Clearly, some of the cornmeal or semolina winds up on the steel itself, but I don't toss it on intentionally.  Never had sticking issues.  I use a very high hydration dough.  I also don't use anything on the stone when I bake bread...no sticking.


Could I use orzo instead of paella Rice? I'm making a paella but don't have paella Rice! Could I use orzo?

It's not a direct substitution, but you can use orzo in place of paella rice as long as you vary the liquid. When I make a paella I use 3x the liquid as the rice by volume. With orzo that may be too much - if it doesn't absorb it you'll have a watery paella.

My approach would be to add 1.5 times liquid to the pasta by volume (not including your tomatoes) and see how it goes. If it starts to dry out and the pasta isn't done you can add small amounts of liquid until it is cooked.

FYI, any short grain rice will do for paella, you don't have to buy rice specifically saying paella rice.


How do I cook store-bought glutinous rice dumplings? I bought some pork-filled glutinous rice dumplings from a Chinese supermarket, but I've no idea how to cook them!

Someone told me to drop them into a pan of water to steam for three hours, but that sounds like a very long time and I'd be concerned that they would become too moist and fall apart.

I have access to a pan and hob, a microwave and a microwave rice steamer. The only frying equipment I have access to is a chip pan.

The dumplings look a bit like these:

I would not follow the advice of boiling them for three hours, you will likely have nothing left! I would not boil them at all in fact, most dumplings you get from asian supermarkets in western countries are made so that they can be steamed from frozen for 15-30 minutes and then eaten. They are often produced for the catering trade, you see, so quick cooking times are important. The picture you posted looks like they are possibly fried, but it's hard to tell.

I am making the assumption you are not in Asia, and this is a specialist supermarket, so I would simply call up the supermarket and ask. It's pretty likely someone there will be able to speak with you.

If not, the important thing is to make sure that the dumplings are cooked throughout to at least 160F (72C), this will at least make them safe. I'd recommend using a digital instant-read thermometer for the job. The three methods I know of to cook pre-made dumplings are:

Steam: you can use a bamboo steamer if you have one, but any steamer will do really. If you can get banana leaves use them to line the bottom, but if not use something to line the bottom of your steamer because these things stick like glue!
Fry then steam: this is done with a wok, you brown the dumplings in the wok in some oil, then you pour a bit of water in and cover. The dumplings then steam under the cover, and the oil gets vaporized as well giving the dumplings a nice sheen. I've only used this for small wonton-style dumplings, I wouldn't recommend this method for your big ones although there's no reason you couldn't try it. Just remember that pouring water into hot oil causes spurts, a top tip from me to avoid being singed would be to hold the cover over and pour the water in through a small gap. Keeps the mess down as well
Deep frying: I'm sure shallow frying would work as well, however you must thaw these out before frying them. Throwing frozen dumplings straight into a pool of boiling oil is dangerous! I don't have a deep fryer and I don't like the mess of shallow frying so I avoid dumplings that require this. Also, not many dumplings are deep fried

All in all I'd try steaming one of them for 25-30 minutes and then testing it. Vary the steaming time accordingly.


Microwaving frozen tofu before marinating I froze some tofu in order to get extra water out of it before marinating and cooking. I'd kind of like to get a start on the marinating process, but it's taking a while to thaw at room temperature - is it ok for me to put it in the microwave, or will this ruin the texture?

According to this page http://www.ehow.com/how_6514671_change-texture-tofu.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_6514671_change-texture-tofu.html
freezing and micro waving will change the texture.

But it seems the author actually prefers the texture change...


Putting freeze dried strawberry into my soft cookies,the texture is more like cake -how to make it more chewy I love strawberry cheesecake and soft cookies, so I created a recipe and added a large amount of strawberry powder (made by putting freeze-dried strawberries into a grinder).

I have tried two recipes. Both have the same ingredients except the flour.

Recipe A:  I used all purpose flour. It results in cakey soft cookies; the texture is not smooth and not gooey/chewy. They can break quite easily.

Recipe B: I used bread flour. It results in a better texture, more dense and smooth but still cakey and not gooey/chewy. However, while they are great right after taking them out of the oven or not long after putting them in the fridge, they become too soft after taking them out of the fridge for a long time.

Could you please advise how to make this more like soft/chewy and gooey cookie? I have tried changing ingredients a few times, but it turns out worse. For example, I use 2.5 g baking soda instead of 5 g baking powder, and it resulted in a less breakable yet more cakey and dry cookie. I mixed bread flour with all purpose flour and it resulted in a less smooth texture. I tried baking them longer but it resulted in a dense and cakey cookie.

I don't want to decrease or change the amount of freeze dried strawberry and sugar because the taste right now is perfect. Everyone around me loves the taste, the problem is the texture.

Updates: here is the update of recipe that I tried and it works! Pls see below

I believe that by cooking the dry strawberry powder in your cookie mixture, you are inadvertently rehydrating the strawberry substance with the small amount of liquid available within your mixture, primarily from the butter. This isn't necessarily an issue, but like you noticed it does mean that you have less liquid for the rest of the cookie to make use of, resulting in relative dryness, denseness, and graininess.

Rather than decreasing another ingredient, I believe increasing the butter by about 65g (a similar ratio as what you have between flour:butter) may help with your list of issues.

This does give you a significantly high butter:flour ratio, which may cause your cookies to soften too much, but I believe that the extra, slightly absorbent material added by the strawberry powder ought to bring things a bit more in-line with your expectations.

If you're feeling a bit more cautious, you could try adding only 38g of additional butter, such that in the absolute worst-case scenario you only have a 1:1 flour:butter ratio for your cookies, which is still within relatively normal expectations, albeit a much thinner cookie, but will hopefully normalize out with the strawberry powder.

Best of luck with the cookies, and I hope you let us know how it goes! I love strawberry. :)


What is the effect of the fat content of milk when making cottage cheese I made cottage cheese yesterday using 1% milk while the recipe called for 2% milk. This got me wondering...

What effect does the fat content of the milk used in the recipe have on the final cottage cheese product? Does using milk with a higher fat content produce more cottage cheese than a milk with a lower fat content?

BOUNTY:

To see if anyone can come up with anything about the quantity of cottage cheese resulting from milk of different fat contents.

Not having made cottage cheese before, I'm unsure of what effect it has on the quantity produced. However, I do know that it has a significant effect on the flavor of the finished product. Just like skim milk tastes blander than whole milk, the same applies to cheese. When you buy non/low-fat cottage cheese in the supermarket you'll notice they add sugar to prevent it from tasting like runny mashed styrofoam.

Update - I sent some emails out to a few food science professors regarding the role of fat in cheese yield, and got a response from Art Hill, Professor and Chair, Department of Food Science, University of Guelph.

Fat is a principal yield component in cheese. Fat is trapped in the casein protein matrix during cheese making. Thus the mass of the fat contributes to the cheese yield. However, lower fat cheese often contains more water so yield loss is partially compensated by increased water retention.

I did some additional research and found that many cheeses have strict MNFS (moisture in the non-fat substance, calculated by subtracting the fat and expressing the moisture as a percentage of what is left) limits in which they can legally be called whatever they claim to be. Take Cheddar for example, the highest moisture, lowest fat cheese that can legally be called Cheddar 56.12% MNFS. To limit the moisture content of low-fat cheddar at less than a 1/3 fat reduction, fat substitutes are used. These can include protein based beads designed to mimic fat globules, and starches.

Sources:

http://www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/cheese/sectione.htm#yieldefficiency
http://www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/cheese/sectiong.htm
http://www.cheesereporter.com/Neville/neville.july.27.htm


Vegetable similar to ivy gourd? I'm looking for the English name for a vegetable / fruit that looks like an Ivy Gourd. The taste is similar as well, but the texture is gritty. The Gujarati pronunciation is puhr-ver, but I have no idea what vegetable / fruit this is. Thank you.

Found it! Here is the Wikipedia article on the gourd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichosanthes_dioica

It is also known as the Pointed Gourd.


Why does my cupcake texture end up with a watery-scrambled egg texture, with a sulfurish smell I've gotten a batter recipe, but I fear that it might have something wrong with it.

Mix together 250 grams butter and 200 grams sugar
Add 4 eggs, one at a time
Add 2 tbs baking soda, 2 tbs Sodium bicarbonate, 300 grams flour
Stir; add food coloring and extract flavor, to taste

I did add some titanium dioxyde to make the butter whiter before adding the coloring. Then, I added a few drops of red, and a few drops of strawberry taste for the fun of it.

They were baked at 180c-(350F) for about 12 minutes. When I opened the oven, the front row of cupcakes fell together. I then closed it, and let them bake for another 5-7 minutes

I have tried it twice now: some of the cupcakes fell, those that didn't ended up smelling funky, and the texture resembled finely scrambled eggs.

Are there some ingredients that don't really mix together well?

I did taste the batter, and the batter did taste delicious; that's why I wonder why the cupcakes won't cook correctly and be tasty.

I wonder if perhaps you've made a typo in regards to the proportions of this formulation. Try to source a reliable and tested recipe and compare ingredient components to modify what you're trying to achieve.

Please note, baking soda and sodium bicarbonate are identical ingredients.
Also, it is good advice to not open the oven until the cake(s) are close to completion.

I'd love to inquire as to the reason you are adding titanium dioxide to butter/trying to "whiten" it.

As for the off-aroma, ensure the eggs you use are fresh.

I hope this is more PC of an answer.


What is the purpose of bitters in cocktails? What is the purpose of small amounts of bitters in cocktails?  For example, 1/32nd tsp angostura bitters in a Manhattan?  Do they provide any function other than flavor, such as binding, texture, or mysterious chemical reaction?

Bitters originally were supposed to have medicinal properties, which is why some still have "tonic" in their names.  Now they're just a flavoring agent, a concentrated way to enrich the cocktail and bring out more subtle flavor notes.

Given how little bitters you put in most drinks, it's unlikely they alter mouthfeel or other qualities much.


how often is cleaning done in a professional kitchen? Today I saw Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares. Regardless of the alleged nature of "reality", he said that fridges at his London restaurant are cleaned twice a day. Is that excessive or in line with standard hygiene guidelines ? What about the kitchen and storage rooms ?

I have worked in two professsional kitchens. The main kitchen itself (all the work tables, stoves, floors, refrigerator fronts and so on) is cleaned after each service, and very thoroughly each night with hot soapy water and sometime sterilizing solution. The insides of refrigerators and other storage areas don't need to be cleaned that often because everything in them is in sealed containers. They should normally be emptied and wiped out at least once a week, and of course immediately if there is any kind of spill.


How to make mozzarella from curd? I have two questions:

1. Are curd and paneer the same thing?

I prepared the curd by acidification of milk (adding vinegar). In the recipes, I see that the result is called curd and also paneer (Indian cheese).

In the second step, I found easy instruction for making mozzarella from curd, by cooking it in hot water for about 5 min.

This recipe was perfect, when I used curd purchased from the market. But when I used homemade curd (made by adding vinegar to milk), the curd was fallen apart instead of forming elastic mozzarella.

I am a little bit confused, the curd (or paneer) I make by adding vinegar is similar to that I buy from the market (even tastes are similar).

2. Why homemade curd cannot produce mozzarella?

Most mozzarella recipes call for a combination of citric acid and rennet to produce a stretchy curd, vinegar (or a different acid) alone may not be sufficient.  Curds used to make mozzarella need to be able to melt. According to "On Food and Cooking" by Harold McGee, certain cheeses do not melt well and therefore can't be used for mozzarella:

  These include Indian paneer and Latin queso blanco, Italian ricotta, and most fresh goat cheeses; all of them are curdled exclusively or primarily by means of acid, not rennet. Rennet creates a malleable structure of large casein micelles held together by relatively few calcium atoms and hydrophobic bonds, so this structure is readily weakened by heat. Acid, on the other hand, dissolves the calcium glue that holds the casein proteins together in micelles, and it eliminates each protein’s negative electrical charge, which would otherwise cause the proteins to repel each other. The proteins are free to flock together and bond extensively into microscopic clumps. So when an acid curd is heated, the first thing to be shaken loose is not the proteins, but water: the water boils away, and this simply dries out and concentrates the protein even further.

Additionally, some pasteurization processes used with milk intended for drinking can adversely affect its ability to for a curd cohesive enough to be heated and stretched into mozzarella.


Bitter tasting salad I've noticed that sometimes when eating salad the first bite can taste quite bitter. Is this just the natural flavour of particular leaves and my palate adjusting to it?

Is there a possibility it's caused by poorly washed salad that has not had the pesticides cleaned off?

The most likely thing is that it is the salad itself. Most lettuces are quite bitter plants, naturally. Modern supermarket varieties are bred for removing that bitterness, but it is not infallible, and you will still get the occasional bitter leaf. Heirloom varieties and less widespread salad plant species tend to be outright bitter. Also, endives are a widespread species which tends to be bitter even in the supermarket.

It is also normal to get a bit of a habituation for the bitter taste after the first bite. Bitterness can be an enjoyable acquired taste, even though it still catches one by surprise at the first bite.


What do I need to make pho at home? For those people that don't know, vietnamese pho is usually a beef broth with noodles as the very basic; variations of pho will include beef, beef meatballs, etc.

However, I'm looking for ingredients and instructions on how to create this perfect bowl of pho at home. Has anybody done this before?

In Serious Eats, the author provides some insight on how to do this:

  The process was easy: onions browned and then removed, meat and water
  added and boiled, then the rest of the aromatics go in, skimmed
  occasionally and simmered for six hours. By the time the broth was
  finished it was incredibly phở-like—the cinnamon and anise came
  through beautifully and the stock was insanely meaty.

  The next day I took off the layer of fat and set about assembling the
  rest of the phở ingredients. I got my hands on lovely basil, bean
  sprouts, and some shabu-shabu beef.

Source: Serious Eats

Additionally, Viet World Kitchen provides some great basic techniques for building your pho broth:

  Pho Secrets?

  Roasting the bones.
  I've tried this and have not found that it's done
  much to the broth aside from making the broth dark, something that
  I've not found to be attractive. If you start with good bones, there's
  no need to roast, as the French would do for a veal stock, or
  demi-glace...
  Source: Viet World Kitchen, 2007

Viet World Kitchen has so many great articles about pho as well:

Advanced pho techniques
Beef Noodle Pho recipe

If you're looking for more resources loving pho has a great article about pho:

  There is no single perfect technique for creating good pho broth. The
  Vietnamese always say that the best pho you will ever taste is the one
  cooked by your own mother (plus maybe one or two favorite
  restaurants), and she will have her own ideas of how good pho broth is
  made. These ideas, in turn, are ones that have been handed down to her
  by her own mother. Thus, no two bowls of pho made in two separate
  kitchens will ever taste the same.

Source: LovingPho 2009


Lighter texture for chocolate pie I've used the recipe below to make chocolate pie a few times recently:

  1 c heavy cream
  1/2 milk
  8-10 oz chocolate
  2 tbsp sugar
  pinch salt
  2 eggs

  Heat the milk/cream over low heat until it just starts to simmer.
  Remove from heat, add chocolate, sugar, and salt and stir until
  smooth. Lightly beat the eggs and temper in with the chocolate
  mixture. Pour into crust (usually graham cracker) and bake 20-30
  minutes at 325 degrees until set.

It tastes great, but after the pie cools the filling becomes very dense almost like a fudge. Sometimes this is fine, but sometimes I'd like it to have a lighter texture almost like a pudding. How should I modify the recipe to do this?

This is a basic chocolate custard filling.

The one thing I would suggest is changing out the whole eggs for egg yolks only, at a ratio of about 2-3 yolks per cup of dairy, so 3-4 egg yolks in this recipe.  This should yield a more tender and silky custard, as the whites tend to contribute a more rubbery or resilient texture.

Even so, the original proportions do not look that far off.   A custard pie like this one should be able to be sliced when cool, and the slices should hold their shape without slumping.  That does require a certain amount of strength in the custard.

You might wish to look for recipes based on a mousse filling, which is not baked in the shell, such as this one from Epicurious.


Bread and using a proofer I have a bread proofer machine and would love to make Sourdough bread.

I have no idea if I'm supposed to use active yeast or follow a recipe that calls for basic Sourdough Starter, and if so, what is the difference?

What purpose does the proofing machine serve? And when do I use it during the bread making process?

I'm very green at bread making, as you probably have ascertained.

The bread proofer machine serves mainly one purpose:

Keeping a choosen temperature.

This comes to play whenever you want to let yeast grow and multiply. Yeast can develop at very different temperature ranges, from fridge to warm room. But "cosy & warm" is usually the temperature where it's most active.

The most obvious use is:

proofing dough, both during bulk and final rise

But looking closely there are other yeast-related uses:

refreshing sourdough
brewing (don't ask me for details here!)

And even non-yeast uses like

making yoghurt

Now, you are asking for a sourdough bread. I won't give you a fixed recipe, but encourage you to choose something nice from the vast realms of the WWW. Try The Fresh Loaf, Wild Yeast or whatever strikes your fancy. I'd assume a Sourdough bread to be made with - obviously - sourdough. But that doesn't exclude yeast, some recipes use both.

The main differences are that sourdough (which contains yeasts and strains of lactobacillus in symbiosis) is more the slow-and-steady type of dough with rather long rising times (as in hours up to days) whereas pure yeast-based dough may be ready to bake after only one to two hours or so. (But there are yeast-only recipes like baguette which take days of proofing  in the fridge.)

Choose a simple recipe to start and use your proofing machine whenever the recipe says something along the lines of "let dough rise in a warm place / oven with pilot light / ... for X time / until doubled in bulk.

Remember: When you start baking, it's a good idea to follow the instructions, note what you didn't like and work from there. Perhaps you'll be back here with a more specific question after a few trial-and-error runs - we'll be happy to answer again. And: Have fun!


How to convert cooking times So a reacipe for mochi balls says to have the shiratamako mixture in the microwave for 1 minute, but i don’t have a microwave, i have a toaster oven. So basically ; 1 minute microwave=__minute(s) in toaster oven.  Thanks.

There isn't a direct conversion, and certainly not one applicable across a multitude of dishes.  The toaster oven supples dry, radiant heat that starts from the outside in, and the microwave supplies "wet" heat that starts 1" inside the food.  The only case where the two devices are interchangeable is if you just want to warm up some leftovers.

For mochi specifically, you don't want to use the toaster oven at all.  If not using a microwave, you want to use a steamer, and steam it for around 20 minutes.  Your goal is to make the dough wet and pliable and not dry it out.


Is oven an important factor in getting great baking results? I bake almost everyday, sometimes I am very happy with my baking results and sometimes I am not and when I don't like it, I think it's me as a beginner, I might have done something wrong or not quite right. After 15/16 months of baking at home, I feel like something is wrong with the oven I use. I use the upper level to get better results and I even bought a new baking tray. It actually made the result better but the result did not meet my expectations. I would pay for a better oven if it makes a very big difference. How important is oven in getting great baking results?

For reliable baking you need to know what your oven is doing. If the internal temperature fluctuates wildly, you're dead in the water: replace it. If it's fairly stable, spend some time learning it. Get a decent oven thermometer; set the oven's temperature control to, say, 350 degrees (F) and let it settle; check what the oven thermometer says. Then work through various other temperatures, so that you know what you need to set the oven's temperature control to in order to get the internal temperature that you want. For example, to cook something at 350 with my oven I set the control to 325; to cook at 450 I set it to 420.


Is it worth making Thai red curry paste from scratch I noticed that many Thai curry recipes start with a foundation of red curry paste.

My local grocery store has one, small, overpriced jar of the stuff. The Asian grocery store, located at a very inconvenient distance, has several varieties as you would expect.

I found very straight forward recipes for making the paste myself. However, they use ingredients that I would have to get from the asian grocery store anyway.

Is the quality and cost of bottled products comparable to what I can make myself?

You should definitely have a go at it, but I am afraid your time and effort would be better spent on finding a quality source of pre-made paste. This applies to most Asian cooking pastes and sauces.

In most non-Asian countries you cannot get the fresh ingredients required to make them. If they are available, they generally are not the same variety and quality to make a suitable analogue of the Asian masterpieces.

I live in a country with a sub-tropical climate; we have soil that can grow anything, including really good Ceylon tea leaves, and even Chinese Gooseberries (Kiwi Fruit). 10% of the population is Asian. However, for that recipe,  alone, I would be faced with these problems:

Cilantro (coriander) roots - most growers trim the roots for presentation and because they tend to rot quickly. You can get bottled roots but they are't very nice
Chillies - There is a reasonable range of chillies available, but which one. Asian chillies have totally diffident taste profiles than our local ones for some reason
Galangal - you can substitute local ginger which is excellent, but not the same as Galangal. I can get seeds to grow my own but that is even more work, and may still not taste right
Garlic -  local stuff is English style, imported Asian Garlic has been fumigated and stored for too long to be any good. It loses its pungency very fast!
Lemon Grass - the local stuff is VERY expensive and not quite as pungent as Asian grown variety.
Shrimp paste - imported from Thailand anyway, hmmmm.
Kaffir Lime - you can get the leaves, but the fruit doesn't really grow here.

The difference if flavours from herbs and spices growing in Asia and growing in your own local climate is similar to why same varieties of wines taste different too. The soil and weather "makes" the flavours

In general I have found pastes vacuum packed in plastic pouches to be of better quality and freshness than the large jar varieties.

Good luck


Pre-cook liver before frying? If I am making fried liver tempura style should I pre-cook the liver? I think when you make an item like, say, shrimp tempura, the shrimp is cooked beforehand because the tempura frying is not sufficient to fully cook the shrimp. Is the same true of liver?

It's not exactly the same for liver, but there is some reason to roast it before frying:
Some people believe in roasting (grilling) before the cooking/frying in order to make the blood drip out of the liver. Can do on fire or in an oven; doesn't matter.
Personally I prefer to go directly to the pan and just fry so it gets less dry. It is definitely sufficient cooking for the liver.


How long should you keep Salami for? I bought a piece of salami from a supermarket a week ago (a large chunk of a full sausage from the delicatessen, not sliced stuff in a pack) and I was wondering how long past the 'use by' date it's safe to eat the stuff. I know that the idea behind salami is that it can be store for many months at room temperature, but food bought from a modern supermarket usually bears little resemblance to the traditional meat. It's now a week past it's 'use by' date, and when trying a tiny piece earlier to see if it tasted ok, it had a slight sour taste to it, and I dared no go any further. Does this sound like it's not safe to eat, or is it stil ok if I can handle the new flavour?

I can't speak specifically to the shelf life of salami, especially considering all of the factors that come into play (source, type, age, storage, etc.), but when dealing with meat in general, you should never eat it if it smells or tastes "off".  Smell is really the most reliable means of determining whether or not meat is still good - far more reliable than the use-by date.

It's unusual for meat to smell or taste sour as a result of foodborne bacteria; sourness is more likely to be due to rancidity of the fats, which is of course equally dangerous, albeit in a different way.  Oxidation is very likely if the meat was not properly wrapped and/or stored in an airtight container.

Of course, many people have trouble telling the difference between spoilage due to rancidity and spoilage due to bacteria, and so what you're perceiving as rancid (sour) may really be bacterial spoilage.

Either way, if it tastes off, it's spoiled; don't eat it.


How to correctly infuse cream into vegetables I tried to cook a butternut squash curry, and I feel that the squash wasn't exactly "infused" with the sauce. I've had similar experiences with making gratin, and I feel I may be making the same mistake.

As for the recipe, it is basically:

heat up butter, cook garlic and ginger.
throw in curry powder, after a minute add in the squash + cream.
bring the mixture to a boil, then cover and lower the heat.
cook around 20 min, then uncover and raise the heat for 5 min.

The result was very tasty, so it wasn't a failure, but I felt like the dish came in two parts: the sauce, and the squash. They didn't really 'join forces' so to speak, which is something that I feel is a hallmark for a good curry (squash, pumpkin, etc). To try and be more explicit I expected the squash chunks to be more creamy and moist. Mine seemed to resemble a baked potato in terms of texture, a little dry and grainy. The flavors also seemed to remain separate (most of the flavor being in the sauce), whereas I was expecting the sauce/flavor to be absorbed by the squash.

Side note: the recipe asked for coconut milk, and I used whipping cream and water as a substitute, hope that wasn't the culprit...

I think you expected to get curry flavored squash chunks, but it doesn't work like that. Sliced up squash simply isn't going to absorb that much flavor. If you really want to meld the two you need to physically combine the two. You could either smash it all up, or use a blender of some kind, of the two mashing would be my choice as it would preserve some texture.

If preserving the chunked-up texture of the squash is important to you then try blending 1/4 of your cooked squash with all of the sauce, then reducing it down a bit in a pan before adding the squash back in, that will make the sauce much more squash-y.

Also, I'd recommend you use coconut milk next time, it has much more flavor than whipping cream and water, and flavor is what you need.


What properties allow something to be considered "milk"? Traditionally, milk is defined as (from Merriam-Webster):

1: a white liquid produced by a woman to feed her baby or by female animals to feed their young; especially : milk from cows or goats that is used as food by people
2: a white liquid produced by a plant

In today's day and age, if you go to a grocery store (or coffee shop) you can get many varieties of milk: animal milk, lactose-free animal milk, soy milk, coconut milk, rice milk, almond milk, hemp milk, and more.
My question is, is the traditional definition of milk complete? Are there any exceptions to definition #2 of milk (i.e. white liquids produced by plants that are NOT considered milk, or non-white liquids produced by plants that ARE considered milk)? What other properties do all milks share that allow them to be substitute ingredients in the same products?

I will disagree with Johanna here. While hers sounds like a reasonable definition, it is not how the word is used in practice.

Milk is

A) Cow's (also goat's, sheep's, camel's and mare's) lactated fluid, or
B) Any liquid which kinda looks like A), doesn't have an overly strong taste, and there is a convention of being called a milk. It can in many cases be a substitute for A, including when drinking straight out of the mug.

So not only are there nut milks like almond milk which contain both fat and carbohydrates, but there are also grain milks like rice milk and oats milk, which have practically no fat and get their white color from the starch in the grains. This goes against the "fat in water emulsion" definition, but it is common usage.

There are also foods which have "milk" in their name while nobody would say that they are a milk, like the "donkey milk" wine.

In the end, there is no rule. Whatever people call "milk" is a milk. And they call "milk" whatever reminds them of the milk they have encountered before.


How can I make milk cocoa powder so it does not stick to the top and bottom? A package of milk cocoa powder contains "20% cocoa powder, sugar, emulsifier (soya lecithin), flavouring (vanillin)". I have tried to make cocoa milk drinks to cold milk but the cocoa stuck to the top and the sugar goes to the bottom. With the ready-milk-powder, things go more to the milk more stabily. What is the trick with the manufacturers? Can I do it myself? I have noticed that the ready-cocoa powder contains much smaller sugar particles to my sugar, apparently they use some sort of special sugar, what is that and how can I get such sugar of such fine size?

For me, the price of cocoa is 12 EUR per kg. I do not like the ready made powders (although their kg price is about 5EUR per kg but 20% cocoa content), I like more cocoa. I have heated the drinks and the cocoa and sugar does not stick so much to the top and bottom but my home-made drinks are strikingly different to the manufactured. What is the emulsifier and where can I get it? Is it the trick how the cocoa/sugar -mixture forms more uniformly in the drink?

I do not think your problem is an emulsifier that you are missing, I think it's just basic temperature and technique 'issues'.

Firstly, you will get a better result if you use a liquid chocolate syrup. It's like adding granulated sugar to an iced coffee - it will sweeten the cold liquid a bit, but most of the grains will just get wet and clump together at the bottom and not mix together. That's why using a simple syrup is a better idea, because the solid elements (sugar) have already been incorporated into a liquid form so the cold temperature won't be a detriment to mixing.

However, if you really want to keep using (or not waste) your existing cocoa, you have a few options. You can make a slurry of the cocoa powder. Get a container that can be sealed well and add maybe a teaspoon of the cocoa mix to 3 or 4 tablespoons of milk and shake it vigorously. Once it is well mixed, you can add more cocoa, and more milk as needed to keep it totally liquid. After it is fully incorporated, stir it into the rest of your milk and it should mix completely.

This other method may not work for cold milk, but it is how I make smooth hot cocoa without having to make a slurry. I take a good quality cocoa and put it in a small bowl and then add granulated sugar - the ratio isn't vital (and I like a sweet, very chocolatey cocoa), but it does have to be enough sugar to fully incorporate with the smooth, powdery cocoa. Basically I am looking to use the grains of sugar to break up the potential clumps of cocoa by having the mixture as thoroughly incorporated as possible, and then stirring very thoroughly as well. I prefer glass mugs so that I can see that I've gotten all that's fallen to the bottom.

I hope this helps.


Is Wagyu ground beef too beefy? As a result of a promotional offer from a mail-order meat company, I receive 1lb of Wagyu ground beef each month. I have experimented with it in various dishes. It makes an excellent burger. Great flavor, and not sensitive to overcooking (doesn't get tough or dry).
My question is about other dishes that feature ground beef but aren't "about" ground beef, like chili, seasoned ground beef for tacos, red sauces, etc. In those dishes, I have found that despite the presence of other strong spices and ingredients, the resulting dish is very "beef forward". For example chili made with Wagyu ground beef almost tastes like a burger with chili topping. Is there something about my technique that is leading to this? Can I make this into an ordinary chili, or is it really reserved for burgers?
(In most of these dishes the ground beef is browned, and then drained, retaining whatever the usual desired amount of beef fat is for the rest of the dish. Even so the Wagyu ground beef (which isn't marked with a leanness percentage) doesn't seem that much fattier than ordinary ground beef.)

Yes, it will be more beefy than what you might be used to.
Whether it would be "too" beefy depends heavily on your taste.
If you're worried, add more spices and/or cooking liquor.

I sometimes use wagyu (or U.S. angus) mince when I make Chinese dishes such as mapo tofu, and I feel that both are too beefy than what I'd like (compared to the meat of Chinese breeds, which is quite bland). The solution is very simple too: just add more Shaoxing wine and minced ginger & garlic than usually add. In your case, if you're making chili for example, you'd just add more onions (or shallots), garlic, and wine than usual. Be careful about the excessive fat, though: it's a good heat conductor, so you might want to cook your aromatics for a bit less time, otherwise you'd overcook them.


Which torch to buy for finishing sous vide meat? Butane or propane? I have started cooking sous vide and am thinking of buying a torch to finish off the meat. I have seen stores selling little butane torches for creme brulees, but some have claimed they are not hot enough and I should use propane.

On the other hand, some have claimed that propane leaves a flavour in the meat that should be avoided.

Anyone tried both? Anyone uses the little butane torches? What kind of flavour does the propane impart?

I use Propane all the time.  There are several factors as to why:

It is cheap, about 1/4 the price of butane.
It’s more readily available.  You can buy a propane torch at many different stores for very cheap.
The torches typically put out a lot more heat.  I’ve used both propane and butane, mostly for crème brulee, but other food as well.  The butane torches put out such a focused small area of heat, that it would get uneven burning.  Whereas with Propane, they often put out a much larger area of heat, making it easier to caramelize across the surface evenly.

As for the concern of it imparting propane flavor, I have had that happen, once, but I’ve also had that happen with butane.  It’s all about flow control.  If you have the dial turned up too high and it’s spewing out massive amounts of propane, plus hold the flame too close to the food, you MIGHT get then hint of propane.  But if you have the torched dialed in to the proper settings, you really can’t beat the ease and convenience of “energy-efficient clean-burning propane gas”


Is there a known 'lifehack' to facilitate the picking back up of the bay leaves after cooking with them? I'm about to do a Spaghetti sauce batch this afternoon, and I can't seem to remember a life hack that I read that made it so you didn't have to go through you sauce and pick the bay leaves one by one.

I can't remember if you have to put them in a teabag or something like that.

So is there a known 'lifehack' to facilitate the picking back up of the bay leaves after cooking with them?

In Germany there is a „Spickzwiebel“ especially for red cabbage. You put your bayleave on the onion and attach it with cloves. For other dishes I use onions the same way but substitute the cloves with a sprig of rosemary or some other hard herb. Works best if herb bags are too small for lager sprigs that don‘t fit the bag.


Cake Pops: Ratio of cake crumbs to frosting? I'd love to ask either of the following two questions:

What's a good ratio of frosting to cake crumbs, when making cake pops?
Does anyone know of a good website that lists baking ratios, including the frosting:cake crumb ratio for cake pops?

Cake pops all depend on moisture of the baked or scrap cake you are starting with (and about a hundred other factors including ambient temperature and humidity, fat %, age of cake, etc etc etc).

The best way to determine your ratio is to first start with your cake in a stand mixer (if you have one) with a paddle attachment. Mix the pieces of cake on low speed and slowly work up to medium speed. Once it's all crumbed and uniform, grab a handful or one cake pop worth of cake and give it a squeeze. Does it form a ball on its own? If it's close to forming as is, add very little frosting/icing/buttercream. If it's still loose and crumbly, add a small amount of your frosting/icing/buttercream and continue mixing and test the batch again by squeezing a portion.

A little trick: to help in binding the mixture and to incorporate the sweet component of the icing (without adding so much icing it becomes too loose), add a good dusting of icing sugar before the icing while you are mixing/crumb-ing.

Hope that helps, cake pops can be tricky sometimes, epsecially with very fresh cake or very stale/hard edged cake. There's no specific fool-proof formula for these.


Uneven baking in a convection microwave oven I'm just starting to learn to bake. I have a convection microwave oven and I've read at a lot of places that a convection microwave can be used for baking. But, everytime I bake something, it gets baked unevenly. I have never baked in anything but my own convection microwave oven. So, I don't know that the uneven baking is due to the oven or not. If anybody has ever faced a similar problem and has a fix for it, please reply.

Could it be because of rotation inside the oven?
Thanks.

Convection-baking in a "convection microwave" is a bit like conventional baking in a toaster oven; it's more or less the same principle but you really can't expect the same results as a conventional oven (or full-size convection oven).

That being said, if you're attempting the recipes in a convection microwave or even a real convection oven without any modifications, you may be using too high a temperature, or cooking for too long. The guideline for conversion (and this is just a guideline, not a rule or guarantee) is to subtract 25-30° F / 10-15° C from the temperature, and 25-30% from the cooking time.

So, for example, if a recipe calls for baking at 350° F for 60 minutes, your first attempt in a convection oven should be 325° F for 45 minutes.

Again, please keep in mind that a convection microwave is still fundamentally a microwave oven. No matter what their marketing claims say, it is not a substitute for a conventional/convection oven and you are not going to see equivalent performance.


How many minutes between 115 F and 120 F for a ham? I'm preparing this ham recipe.  It calls for a ham 7 to 8 lbs. Well, I ordered a ham described as "7 to 9 lbs" and what got delivered was a hair under 10 lb, so that's what I'm using.

Using the recipe's 20 minutes per lb instruction, I popped that ham in the oven with the understanding that it would be there for three hours and 20 minutes, total.  The recipe says to glaze the ham with 40 minutes to go, and when the internal temp is 120 and 125 F.  So at 2 hrs and 40 min, I checked the internal temp, and it's 115 F.

How much longer does it need to be in there (325 F) to get up to the 120-125 range?

I have no way to check the internal temp without opening the oven door and pulling out the ham, so when should I do that?  (My natural inclination would be to check like every thirty seconds which I understand is counterproductive.)

Probably another 10-20 minutes. The interior should be heating somewhat faster now than it did initially, since it took a while for the heat to propagate all the way in. And assuming it was refrigerated at 40F, it's averaged about 10F increase every 20 minutes. (Your 15-20 minutes outside the refrigerator isn't going to change that much.)

It's also really not that sensitive, so it doesn't matter that much if you over shoot. So I'd check after 10 or 15 minutes, and if it's not all the way there yet, you'll at least have a good idea how fast it's heating.


Original baking time based on ingredients already being warm to hot How do I convert cooking time when original recipe assumes prep to oven ingredients already warm? I've put the casserole together and refrigerated overnight.

Thank you!!

I think there is only one possible answer, if we don't know your recipe, volume, oven characteristics and cookery.

Stick a probe thermometer in the middle of the casserole and heat it at the normal temperature until it is bubbly, browned and internal temperature reading at least 140F˚ / 60C˚.


Is my heavy cream not actually heavy cream? I am under the impression that the difference between milk and heavy cream is the percentage of butterfat/milkfat. I purchased a gallon of D enriched whole milk today, as well as some heavy "whipping" cream.

The heavy whipping cream lists Serving Size as 1 Tablespoon, Total Fat at 5g: 8%, Saturated Fat at 3.5g: 17%, and Monounsaturated Fat at 1.5g (with no percentage).

The whole milk lists Serving Size as 1 Cup, Total Fat at 8g: 12%, Saturated Fat at 5g: 25%, and does not list Monounsaturated Fat.

I believe that g = grams.

The Heavy Cream that I purchased is the only heavy cream available at the local store where I generally do my shopping.

So, if heavy cream is supposed to have more milkfat than whole milk (I've read 30-40%, and in some cases higher), why does my "heavy cream" seem to have much lower fat content than whole milk? Is it not heavy cream? Am I missing something?

Is my grocery store committing dairy fraud? (it's a store brand). If so, is there anything that I can or should do about it (aside from shopping elsewhere)?

I live in the U.S., btw,

You're comparing different quantities. A serving of cream (per your label) is a tablespoon. You're comparing that to 1 cup (or 16 tablespoons) of milk.

The percentage that you're seeing is not what percentage of your dairy product is fat, but the percentage of the recommended daily amount of that nutrient found in a single serving. % Daily Value is figured using 2000 total calories per person, per day.

From @Jefromi in comments: "And a tablespoon of cream is 15g, so with 5g of fat, that's indeed about 33%, right in the expected range. Similarly the milk is 8g of fat out of about 237g, or 3.4%, what you'd expect for whole milk."


Olive oil, Canola oil, or almond oil Which kind of oil is best to fry steak in a cast-iron skillet with?? Olive, Canola, almond ?? I'm looking for the best taste profile also. Thanks.

Taste is a matter of opinion; best requires some sort of criteria with which to evaluate.   See related:

What oil or fat to use for different purposes?
How do you cook a steak like those found in fine steakhouses?
What is meant by "neutral" oils?

Depending on the steak, your preferences,and the cooking method, either canola or olive might be the winner from the selection you have enumerated; almond oil is fairly exotic, at least in the US, and would not normally be used for steak cookery.


Non-shellfish Shrimp Substitutes? When I was young, I loved shrimp, crab and lobster.  Sometime in my twenties, I started to develop a mild allergic reaction to them (i.e. tingling in the throat), so I have for the past years been avoiding them.  Once in a while I will steal a spoonful of my wife's seafood bisque, but that's about as far as I will push it.

Last week I read a recipe for Shrimp Scampi, and that got me thinking about how I could make it without shrimp.  My first thought was to use imitation crab, which I can eat with no problem.

Does anyone have any suggestions for substitutions for shrimp for those with shellfish allergies?

Use a vegetarian alternative! I just ran across these recently myself, and I am finding the idea really intriguing. Not sure how they compare in flavor or texture, so your mileage may vary... http://www.vegecyber.com/cgi-bin/vege_item.cgi?detail=10416

(photo by Rainer Zenz, source)

Asian cultures have figured out how to make vegetarian and mock meats of all kind, since buddhism and vegetarianism in general is so common in their parts of the world. I love the diversity of it all.