How should I store speck? How should I store speck cured bacon? Fridge, freezer, cupboard? Wrapped, hung etc

You find that storing in the fridge is going to give you the longest life span. Hanging will keep keep the process of drying out continuing , which will intensify the flavour but will eventually become jerky texture. Wrapping will keep a little moisture in longer.
If you do keep it for a period of time , you will develop a white mould which I will just cut of as it is just surface . The curing has stopped the pork breaking down .
When I travelled through Spain , all of the city markets would have whole pieces of prosciutto hanging from there stalls that where covered in a fat that was covered in a green mould. When they needed a new piece they cut the mould and fat off and would start slicing for the customers ( some up there for over a year).
I think the fridge is safer.


What makes a good vessel for storing sourdough starter? I was going to buy the King Arthur set of starter + crock, but the crock is on backorder, so I plan to instead locally source a vessel for the starter. What should I look for? Should I find a similar crock? A jar of some kind?

ETA: More specifically, what should I be looking for? Size? Materials? Lid type? I read elsewhere that I don't want an airtight seal; I'm looking for more advice like that.

Admittedly I have only stored my starter in a glass jar, but I wouldn't want anything else.

You should look for a size that is neither too large, nor too small. It should comfortably hold your sourdough starter when you are simply feeding it - I usually store 200g of starter, at 100% hydration (100g flour, 100g water) or thereabouts. However, when actually making sourdough starter you make more - perhaps 400g or so, depending on how much bread you are making, plus you want to have something left to restart your bread. A typical recipe might call for 20% starter, so 200g for a kilo loaf. The other solution is to of course have two separate jars, and only use both when doubling for bread.

When I say it must be able to hold that much, I mean that it will have to hold it fully risen, which means around 2x to 2.5x of the original size. In addition, narrow and high is better than low and wide, since it makes it easier to tell how much it rises.

Also, you will want a wide opening, so that you can easily clean it.

As for covering it, I just use a sheet of plastic. Just take care not to get it gooey. It will hold in the moisture so the sourdough doesn't dry out, but won't trap the carbon dioxide.

Good luck


How to tell when roasted bell peppers are ready to skin? We eat a lot of sweet peppers, but the children (like a lot of kids) don't like the bitter skins. So when I cook with them, I usually try and skin them.

After a lot of trial and error, I found the best way is to put the peppers, raw and whole, into the oven and roast them until the skins are blistering. Then plunge them into cold water and pull the skin off with my fingers.

However, while this seems the best method, it's hardly foolproof. It still seems very hard to judge when the peppers are ready to skin. Get them out too early and the skin is still stuck to the flesh. But if you leave it too long, the skin seems to almost weld to the flesh, with the same result.

You can buy jars of perfect, ready-skinned roasted peppers. So it's obviously possible to do this with a high degree of accuracy. What signs do I need to look for to tell me when a roasting pepper is ready to skin?

Once roasted, rather than immediately plunging into cold water, place the peppers in a container with a tight fitting lid, or a bowl covered with plastic wrap. Let them steam for 15–20 minutes or until they cool. This will help the skins come off more easily.


Are there different grades of chicken in the US? I don't know how much the grocery store is doing marketing and how much difference there is between different packages of chicken on their shelves. Locally, two of our best known grocery stores advertise their chicken as being "select" so presumably a better quality chicken than off-the-shelf Perdue.

I've also noticed that one store's "select" chicken breasts are larger than the others. When I cook one store's chicken, it tends to be more rubbery (no matter the size) or the leftovers have a chew that almost makes me wonder if it's undercooked. Strange.

Or is one store just handling it better than the other. Are there different grades of chicken?  I'm confused.

Poultry grading in the US is voluntary, while inspection is mandatory.  Per the FDA:

  Chicken Inspection

  All chickens found in retail stores are either inspected by USDA or by
  State systems which have standards equivalent to the Federal
  government. Each chicken and its internal organs are inspected for
  signs of disease. The "Inspected for wholesomeness by the U.S.
  Department of Agriculture" seal ensures that the chicken is free from
  visible signs of disease.

  Chicken Grading

  Inspection is mandatory, but grading is voluntary. Chickens are graded
  according to the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service's regulations and
  standards for meatiness, appearance, and freedom from defects. Grade A
  chickens have plump, meaty bodies and clean skin, free of bruises,
  broken bones, feathers, cuts, and discoloration.

The actual US poultry grading standards can be found in the USDA document.  Grade A chicken overall (the actual standards take 5 pages):

Looks nice--no discolorations, marks, bruises, or inappropriate cuts
Has at least 75% of the skin covering it (where appropriate)
Is plump and "well fleshed"
All the feathers have been removed

Any chicken that was actually graded will almost certainly be labelled, as it is a marketing issue.  Otherwise, it is ungraded but inspected chicken.  My personal experience is that most retail chicken, at least where I live, is ungraded.

Factors that affect the toughness or quality of the chicken, in decreasing order of importance, include:

The age of the bird
Any injections or additions to the meat, such as a saline brine, by the packer; brining partially denatures the proteins in the meat, and may contribute to the "rubbery" texture mentioned in the question
The way the bird was treated and fed (some heirloom or boutique chickens are raised in a more traditional manner, where they move about much more, and may have a more varied diet, and  so have tougher, but more flavorful meat as a result--but I don't want to turn this into a political treatise on poultry production methods)
The breed of the bird

The size of commercial chicken is almost entirely related to the age of the chicken; thus the relative toughness of the meat is fairly well correlated with size.


What does 'white' alone mean in cocktail recipes? I've come across the two following cocktail recipes:

  East Meets West

  Absolut Raspberry vodka, Cointreau, St-Germain
  elderflower liqueur, pomegranate juice, lime juice, white

  The English Writer

  Tanqueray gin, Aperol, pink grapefruit, acacia
  honey, lime juice, white

what does 'white' mean here? white rum? white wine? white liqueur (if there's such a thing)?

As mentioned in a couple of comments, this almost certainly means egg white, which is used in some shaken drinks to create a stable foam on top of the finished cocktail. It can also "round out" the flavor of a drink and prevent them from seeming overly sweet or tart. Neither of these is explicitly identified as a shaken cocktail, but that's the usual technique for drinks that include both sugar and citrus, as both of these do.

Some recipes use as much as an entire egg white, but much smaller quantities can be used if you crack and separate eggs before service, storing the whites chilled in a squeeze bottle, or mixed directly into a syrup you're making in bulk for one specific drink, a technique sometimes used to speed up service in high-volume bars. (For the "English Writer", you'd combine and keep chilled the non-alcoholic ingredients: grapefruit, lime, honey, and egg white. This allows your bartender to measure only 3 ingredients when making the drink rather than 6, which speeds the process and increases consistency.)

The abbreviation to simply "white" could mean any number of things: it could be they're using an egg substitute instead, or don't want to raise health concerns about the egg (which are minimal, but guests occasionally get squeamish) or the recipe simply got cut off (bartenders tend to list recipes from largest quantity to smallest). Without the exact context, it's difficult to say why the "egg" was left off here, but it wouldn't surprise me to see egg along with the other ingredients in both of these drink recipes. It's commonly used in cocktails and I can't imagine what else they might mean.


Alternatives to Broil? I have taken up cooking while stuck in quarantine and wanted to know if there's an alternative to broiling. I have seen plenty of recipes which recommend broiling but I don't have a broiler. Any alternatives to it?
For instance, I found a good pasta recipe that suggests broiling after cooking to melt the cheese. How can I get it done without broiler.
Link to the recipe- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cETpXxcAiM

You can use a torch.

Is it safe to use a propane torch bought at a Hardware store?

https://www.scienceofcooking.com/blow-torch-cooking.htm

https://modernistcuisine.com/2011/02/torch-tastes/


How to make 1/2 inch thick porkchop brown but tender? Cheap porkchop cuts here in the Philippines are only 1/2 inch thick.
It's so hard to brown them or give them color while frying, but still keep it tender. Everytime it's the right color, it's already tough or chewy.
I don't brine the porkchops though. Should I? Will brining help given the thickness of the porkchop?

Double cook them. Have your flat iron on over 2 burners. Lightly oiled. Near smoke point. Sear both sides. for color. Move to second skillet iron with lid. slow fry there. Also every 3/4 inch cut threw the outer fat & just threw the outer inner gristle just under the fat. This helps them to lay flat in cooking. Salt & pepper in skillet once seared. 45 seconds a side to sear at proper heat.     This works like cooking on charcoal in the Philippines. Have your coconut charcoal glowing hot. Sear pork chops. Move to next iron plate. That is hot to cook threw on. Move to next iron plate that is warm to store them on with covers. Just like down town cooking. On a long grill. Some pork in the Philippines comes from older hogs & is ground raised. That I do not know how to cure. Unless you buy your pork from a farm. Or in the city know were a pork house is were you pick out your pig to butcher. Best to go behind the wet markets. Buy a live pig & have butchered there for tender pork.


Should rice be started in cold or boiling water? There are two main methods, either putting the rice into water already at boiling point, or putting them in cold water and then putting on the heat.

Which method is the best to cook rice?

Does it make a difference if you add rice to cold or boiling water?

It doesn't make much difference. A few things to consider and also why I use cold water.

Once you bring the water to a boil you need to turn  it down to a simmer. Adding cold rice at this point can thriw off this process.
Rice is typically cooked based on ratios of volume. Boiling the water first won't effect this unless you lose track of it and the boiling causes your water content to reduce.
Lastly rice cookers these days are set-and-forget and boiling the water first is an unnecessary step.

All in all boiling your water first is not a problem but doesn't add any value.


How can I cool down cooking oil after using it in a deep fryer? I need to be able to cool down cooking oil quickly after using it in a countertop deep fryer- how can I do that safely?

You really can't. The best you can do is put some long stainless utensils in the oil to help dissipate heat, but it's still not going to be fast, just a little faster.


Can palmiers be refrigerated/frozen overnight? I want to make palmiers and refrigerate or freeze them overnight then bake them in the morning. Can i do that, or would they not turn out right?

You should be able to cut them, wrap them up, and freeze them to be baked and served the next day without a problem.


Trimming ends off snow peas I'm curious if it is customary to trim the ends off snow peas or should I just leave them on and eat them.  I always clean them but it is time consuming.  The picture shows an untrimmed one on top and a trimmed one in the bottom.

I do trim them, but not as rigorously as you do. I really just take off the tips.

There is an exception to this though. The ones you show in the picture have been harvested quite young, but this is not always the case. You can have situations where the end that holds the little peas has a tough fibrery texture. In those cases I still take off just a little on both ends, but also try to pull the fibers from the side.


Does aged onion/garlic turn green when frying? I was frying onions and garlic the other day and the paste turned green. I had bought the onions/garlics many days ago (20-30 days) I guess. Could that be the reason? There was no fungi or something suspicious when I cut them by the way.

I've also had this happen when cooking an onion-garlic paste. I've found several web pages where the phenomenon is discussed, listed below. In summary, it's normal and happens due to certain chemical reactions between the garlic, cooking utensils and water. In your case, it's probably not due to the age of your garlic or onions though, as one source suggests it is less likely to occur with aged garlic. I've only seen the paste turn green myself, though interestingly you could also get blue garlic:

Garlic contains sulfur compounds which can react with copper to form copper sulfate, a blue or blue-green compound. The amount of copper needed for this reaction is very small and is frequently found in normal water supplies.
Garlic Can Turn Blue
Raw garlic contains an enzyme that if not inactivated by heating reacts with trace amounts of sulfur (in the garlic) and copper (from water or utensils) to form blue copper sulfate. The garlic is still safe to eat.
Garlic can turn Green
If the garlic was not fully mature or dry, pigments in the garlic may turn green when in the presence of acid. Garlic will also turn green (develop chlorophyll) if exposed to an temperature change or is exposed to sunlight. Some people say it can be stored for 32 days at or above 70 - 80° F to prevent greening, but I'm not yet sure that is true. Green garlic is safe to eat.
Source: http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/pickle.htm

Some other pages where this is discussed: http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/471608, http://www.cheftalk.com/forum/thread/45254/onions-turned-green-while-frying, http://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/bluegarlic.htm.


How can I get the most flavor out of cashews? I'd like to make a soup that uses cashews for much of its flavor.  For some reason, I can only use a limited number of cashews, but I can use them in any way I want.

How can I get the most cashew flavor into the soup?

By maximising first the flavour of every single nut and then maximising
the surface:

Gently roast the cashews, then grind them finely.

If the resulting "gritty" texture is not to your taste, grind them further until you get a nut butter, which should dissolve nicely especially in cream-type soups.


What dishes don't stain with heavy spices? In most Indian cooking, there is a relatively high chance of staining the dinnerware (plates, serving bowls) due to the high turmeric content. Dinnerware made of metal don't stain, but the heavy spices do most other materials in after a few uses.

What kind of dinnerware could I go for which are unbreakable but look better than metal?

Anything is breakable, but Corelle/Vitrelle, a laminated tempered glass, is plenty tough. I've never seen it take a stain other than rust, which can be removed w acid. Turmeric shouldn't be a problem.


Could plastic or metal cans damage my oven? Is it possible to put vinyl plastic and metal cans in the oven at 200 degrees F for roughly 5-10 minutes?

More specifically, I was came across DIY Vinyl Bowls where you place the vinyl record over a metal can for 5-10 minutes in the oven, it should become really flimsy and then take it out to form it into a bowl.

I can easily watch over the oven for the time duration but I'm mostly concerned that there would be some sort of plastic explosion or something that might break the oven.

Thank you!

You are taking me way back here. Back in my teens I used to do this as a fun project - I used Plexiglass (acrylic glass) instead of old vinyl records (people still used record players back then!), but the principle stays the same.

No, your oven won't suffer if you are careful.

The metal can / bowl / heat-proof object underneath must be something that can withstand the heat. Yet 200F isn't that hot.
Always put a sheet of parchment or foil between your tray/rack and the can/vinyl setup.
Watch carefully. As soon as it shows signs of drooping / bending, take it out. You may always put your future bowl back in the oven to heat it more.
It might stink, so make sure you have a window open and air out the oven afterwards.
Do not try to bake cookies and this at the same time ;-)


Does microwaving fully cook chapatis? I saw a video on how to make chapatis and someone made a comment saying you must allow chapatis to fully inflate because it is the steam inside them that cooks them and not fully inflating means you have raw dough evidenced by areas with lighest colour.

This makes me wonder then doesn't microwaving cause chapatis not to fully inflate and so they would end up partly raw as per comments?

Is the only way to fully cook chapatis to put them over fire?  Couldn't you pan heat, grill or bake them etc to have them fully cooked(though I imagine they will not inflate by these methods)?

I have made chapatis many times, although I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. Most of my attempts have come out just fine.

Chapatis/rotis are usually cooked on a tava (or tawa) - which is basically a flat or slightly concave cast iron pan. A flat griddle pan or even a frying pan(skillet) could be used instead.

I've also seen them cooked over an open flame, but this is certainly not necessary.

I wouldn't recommend microwaving chapatis to cook them.  They won't get the brown spots of colour or develop the same flavour caused by toasting of the surface. They will likely end up being tasteless cooked lumps of dough.

If you are talking about store-bought chapatis, then these are already cooked. If you want to reheat them, you could do it in a microwave. I would sprinkle with a little water first and wrap them in a dish towel, and microwave for 20 seconds or less until just warmed.  I guess you could also reheat them in a dry pan, but not too long or they will just dry out. Again sprinkling with a little water might help them not dry out.


Breakfast protein options I want to cook different kinds of breakfast but I always use eggs because I feel it is easier to digest in the morning. What other kinds of protein could I use instead of egg? Some people recommend me to not consume any protein at all, but I feel I need protein in the morning, but something that is not heavy on the stomach.

How about fresh fruit with muesli/granola (which contains nuts and seeds) and yogurt (either dairy or soy)? That's my daily breakfast.

For example, this fruit, nuts & seeds muesli by Dorset Cereals (which used to be my favorite kind until I started making it myself) contains about 7g protein per portion (70g), and my favorite soy yogurt contains 5g of protein per portion (125g). Together they contain as much protein as 2 large eggs, and it's less of a hassle to prepare.


How long will glutinous rice flour keep unopened? I have one unopened bag of glutinous rice flour, it's 1 year old, I know rice keeps well for a very long time and was wondering if this also applies to rice flour?

As per this website: it should last 6-8 months past printed expiration date.

However, this website says that when stored in a tightly covered container in a cool dry place, white rice flour may last indefinitely. You can also have a look at this answer which talks about bugs and rancidity.

I have previously kept rice flour in a plastic container inside the fridge and it's lasted me quite long, way past it's expiration date.


French Red Rice (Camargue) versus Italian Red Rice (Rosso Selvaggio)? Could anyone here who has had both Camargue and Rosso Selvaggio rices tell me about how they compare? I'm not sure if they're basically the same thing or not. Thanks.

French Red Rice (Riz de Camargue) and Italian Red Wild Rice (Riso Rosso Selvaggio/Selvatico) are each names for multiple, significantly different varieties that might, or might not be similar enough to substitute for each other.

Camargue is merely a region in southern France that is well known (among other things) for producing mostly biological wild rice varieties, or Riz Rouge de Camargue, but these can be of different grain shapes and have different preparation times. Wikipedia is quite blunt in describing this Camargue rice and fails to mention there are more varieties that are sold under the same name. If there is a new (non-wild) variety I wouldn't know, but Wikipedia seems to suggest so. Personally, I've used and eaten two different wild red rice varieties from Camargue (long-grained and short-grained), both with different suggested cooking times (42 and 36 minutes respectively, if I remember correctly), but they were of quite similar taste (the short-grained one being only ever so slightly more bitter than the long-grained one that is slightly sweeter tasting).

What you name Italian Red Rice (Rosso Selvaggio) is also a name for multiple different varieties of Italian Red Wild Rice (Riso Rosso Selvaggio/Selvatico), that might have different preparation times, grain shape, and what they taste like might also be slightly different. Just to be clear, Selvaggio or Selvatico is Italian for wild, I'm not insisting on comparing wild rices just to compare better with your French selection. They're grown in multiple regions of Italy. Some claim biological production, while other producers are cheaper and can't claim that (probably due to being grown in areas that are known to be still too polluted, or the land it grows on wasn't classified to be suitable for biological production for other reasons, such as the use of pesticides in recent history). I've cooked with many different 'Italian red wild rice' varieties, and they suggest preparation time from roughly 30-45 minutes. These 15 minutes of difference might be significant enough not to be suitable as a direct replacement in your recipe.

Both Riz Rouge de Camargue (Camargue, France  regional red wild rice) and 'Riso Rosso Selvaggio/Selvatico' (Italian for wild red rice) are thus of genus Zizania, or simply wild rice. Since there are many types of wild rice grown both in Italy as well as southern France region of Camargue, with more than one variety having red grains, and are usually further classified by their grain length (such as 'long-grained', 'short-grained',...) and grain color, it is thereof impossible to say (based on provided information), if these two rice varieties would be 'basically the same thing'.

I could assume with much conviction (based on experience with both cooking with them, and later eating in risottos, rice with pancetta, filled zucchinis,...) that they would be directly comparable for recipes requiring one of the two, if they compare visually and their packaging claims same cooking time.

Then again, they would be grown in different regions with possibly different climate conditions (saying something comes from Italy doesn't really narrow it down enough for us to know that, but some Italian areas would have comparable conditions to those in Camargue, France, while most others wouldn't), and that alone can make for a big difference in its tastiness.

TL;DR - My suggestion would be to read their instructions and check that their cooking times are similar enough not to cause other problems with your recipe, but most people with less discernible palate probably wouldn't be able to taste any difference between the two in the same recipe.


What to do when too much butter added to my puff pastry dough? I made puff pastry dough, but I figured I've added too much butter to it and now that it is in the oven, the butter has melted and covered the dough! (I need your advice for the next time) What should I have done to fix it? Does  adding flour make it better?

Try slicing the butter more thinly and adding it in more layers. I use a handheld cheese slicer for a nice, thin cut. Alternatively, try freezing the butter and grating it, then sprinkling it on in a thin layer when instructed to apply it to the recipe.


Is it safe to eat sprouted onions? I opened my onion rack lately to find onions that had sprouted several-inch-long green roots... It made me extremely queasy and I threw them out. But I was wondering - would it be safe to eat them / cook with them?

Sure, but the rest of the onion gets mushy and unpalatable after they've grown for a bit. Some people eat the sprouts; they have a lot of protein, so they're popular with vegans and other protein challenged groups.


Dry crispy skin on sourdough starter: is it mold? My sourdough starter is 2 months old. Some week or two ago it started to have a crispy skin on the top. The smell changed a bit, but it is still sweet-acid smell. I cover a jar with the starter with a kitchen paper towel. I replaced the jar with a clean one but the skin persists.

The bread I got from it is still decent.

Is it
mold?

I would guess it is just drying out.  I keep my covered.  If it is on the counter preparing to be used, it is in a jar with a loose lid.  If it is the refrigerator, for longer intervals between baking, it is in a sealed plastic pint container.


Do extracts add sweetness or just the flavor? I really don't know how to best phrase this question, but do extracts add sweetness or just the flavor? That is, what should I expect from an extract?

For example, say I put maple extract into milk. Should I expect it to be the same as putting maple syrup in it if I use enough? Or if I put strawberry extract into it, is it then going to be as if I blended whatever amount of strawberries with milk without the added bulk of the fruit?

I guess I'm just a bit confused as to what I'm getting, since I've never used them before. I see a lot of baking recipes call for them, but then they also call for significant amounts of sugar on top of it, as well. What if you had, say, strawberry extract and just added more of instead of sugar. What would that do to the taste/sweetness?

I think you're conflating syrups and extracts.

Extracts are some flavoring oil plus alcohol.

For example, Vanilla Extract:

  Vanilla extract is a solution containing the flavor compound vanillin as the primary ingredient. Pure vanilla extract is made by macerating and percolating vanilla beans in a solution of ethyl alcohol and water. In the United States, in order for a vanilla extract to be called pure, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires that the solution contains a minimum of 35% alcohol and 100g of vanilla beans per litre (13.35 ounces per gallon).

There's no sugar in extracts, it's just flavoring... very concentrated flavoring... with a bit of alcohol. It generally comes in very small bottles though large bottles are available for commercial uses.

If you want sweetness and the flavor, try flavored syrups (like they use in coffee bars to make lattes)... but only in beverages and other similar recipes.  You can't use these instead of sugar and extract in baking.


Is it safe to add garlic powder to sesame oil? I am making a Korean BBQ meat marinade sauce that requires 0.5 teaspoon of garlic powder and 1 teaspoon of sesame oil. I read that garlic combined with oil causes botulism. However, cannot find anything about garlic powder.
Would garlic powder be at a risk for creating a botulism environment?

The concern with garlic in oil leading to botulism is about long-term storage, usually in the context of garlic oil as a 'shelf-stable' condiment; the botulism needs time to grow in the anaerobic environment provided by the oil. If you're making a marinade and using it within a few hours or a day or two, as marinades tend to be, and especially if you're keeping it in the fridge, as marinades tend to be, you should be fine.


How to dress sushi to better enhance all its flavours? I would like to know what is the better way to dress sushi and sashimi. What I am looking for is how it was thought to be eaten and what are the ways a sushi piece is supposed to be dressed with soy sauce and wasabi to obtain a balanced taste!

I remain extremely skeptical that there is a right or wrong way to dress, pick up, eat, or otherwise deal with sushi. A Google search for "is there a right way to eat sushi" turns up hundreds of pages, many with contradictory information.

If there is a "right" way, it's most certainly dictated by the locale or restaurant you're in or the people you're with. My advice is to do whatever you want, particularly if you're paying for the meal. If you're a guest, follow the lead of your hosts. But don't sweat it. Enjoy it!

UPDATE since the original question has been edited...

  what is the better way to dress sushi and sashimi.

"Better" is still difficult to define for everyone, and will vary by each person's taste. Something that "enhances" flavors for me may be completely unacceptable to you, and vice-versa. There's no accounting for taste! But since you made an effort to clarify your question, I am updating my answer accordingly.

Sometimes the "better" dressing is none at all. This is particularly true for Unagi or others that have some kind of sauce already applied (though I know some people who dip Unagi in soy sauce and claim it is great). I have a daughter with soy allergy, so she cannot use soy sauce at all and doesn't like wasabi. She enjoys eating salmon and tuna nigiri pieces completely plain. I've tried it myself, and with good, fresh fish it is really good.
I have heard of people dipping the pickled ginger in the soy sauce and using that as a kind of "brush" to gently apply soy sauce to the topping. That may be "better" if you are adept with chopsticks and enjoy pickled ginger along with soy.
Some people dip only the topping into the soy sauce, to avoid getting the rice saturated. This is a little easier to do if you use your fingers to pick up the sushi pieces (and according to some accounts this is perfectly acceptable for sushi) (but not sashimi).
Some people mix wasabi (sometimes, copious amounts) in with the soy sauce and dip the sushi into that mixture. Some suggest that soy + wasabi should be reserved for sashimi only.


My Russian Teacakes are too crumbly I am making Russian Teacakes.  They have been refrigerated per the recipe for approximately 4 hours.  I cannot roll the Teacakes into balls as the dough is too crumbly.  Help!

In the Russian teacake recipes I have seen, there are four main ingredients:

flour
butter
nuts
powdered sugar

If you cannot get your cookies to bind, you need to add more butter (the only ingredient with moisture). If you are refrigerating your dough, make sure to cover it so it does not dry out.


Broccoli Cheddar soup coming out pasty I made such a soup this weekend (my first attempt) that was very pasty and gritty as an end result.  I believe this is due to the preparation of the roux.

I sauteed onions in a stick of butter then added 1/3 C flour and toasted before adding the milk (instructed all at once).

I believe if I prepared my roux closer to what I'm more familiar with, by using less butter for the roux itself (also adding the milk a little at a time), and using the remainder of the butter to saute the onions separately, then incorporating them later, that the final consistency would be smoother.

Is this the right approach, or is there another way to ensure a cheddar based soup not come out pasty?

Your description of the end result as "pasty"  (which I'm interpreting as "very think, like a paste instead of a thick soup") implies to me that there was too much roux for the amount of liquid.  And since the strength of a roux is determined by the amount of flour, I don't think sauteing the onions separately would have had much effect.  Without having the full recipe including the amount of liquid, though, we can't say for sure that the ratio of liquid to roux is off.  But if you try reheating the soup and adding some more liquid and that improves the texture, then I think you'll have your answer.

As for adding the liquid a little at a time instead of all at once, I also prefer that as a method of thinning the roux gradually and ensuring as few lumps as possible; however, it isn't necessary if you're willing to do a lot of whisking.


Are there green tea variants that can be made with 100 °C? Green tea is usually prepared with 80 °C water. However, I found some variants in a supermarket (they are pretty cheap), where there is 100 °C written on the box. Is it some kind of fraud made by the companies, or there really exist such variants?

I'm no expert in this, but some googling lead me here.

Excerpt:

  [...] the naturally farmed tea contains much more poly phenols as compared to the ordinary tea. In addition, the tealeaf of naturally farmed tea is not bitter, even if we chew the raw tealeaf we can hardly taste the bitterness. For the naturally farmed tea, it is highly recommended to use boiling water so as to extract more poly phenols. In order to maintain the freshness of the brewed leaf, we can brew tea at higher temperature for a shorter time, such as 100 degree C for 10 seconds instead of brewing at 60-80 degree C for 1 minute, unless you prefer less flavor and thin taste.

Also, there's another product on amazon which mentions the preparation temperature to be 100 °C.

That said, there's another resource, advocating for that 80:80 rule (80 second in 80 °C temperature), but it also mentions:

  [...]  If you still want to steep at 100 degrees, then just buy a cheap green tea.

Looks like you've just found that variant.


How much is a "scoop" of vanilla sugar? I've seen a lot of recipes that call for a "scoop" of vanilla sugar. I know that this refers to the little scoop that comes with most vanilla sugar containers. However, I live in a country that sells vanilla sugar in little paper packets... How much is a "scoop" of vanilla sugar in tea- or tablespoons?

Some recipes will note 1 scoop of vanilla sugar is required and also somewhere else mention the measurement to be 1 serving size. So for example, 1 Serving of Vanilla sugar would generally be two Tablespoons as seen in the recipe below from here :

"...a little whole wheat flour, a scoop of vanilla sugar, a bit of baking powder, and a pinch of salt."

Pancakes

2 c whole wheat flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
2 T sugar (I put my vanilla pods in mine so it infuses the sugar, but regular granulated will work fine)
pinch of salt
1/4 c sour cream
1/4 c chai concentrate (Not a sweet one!)
1 egg

enough milk, coconut water or milk substitute until desired consistency
oil or butter for the pan

To Garnish

sliced strawberries (enough for pancakes and to garnish)
1/4 c sour cream + sugar (I used rose) to taste
brandy syrup (boil 1/2 c sugar, 1/2 c water until dissolved, add 1/2 c brandy, cook 5 min to cook out harsh alcohol flavor)

Although this may vary from one recipe to another, I would recommend if the measurement is not explicitly provided looking for other recipes for similar dishes which call for the same ingredient.  Reasoning for this would be since it is not outlined, it is probably meant to be considered the common measurement of that ingredient.


Is this some kind of warming oven? These are two chef's kitchens. In both images, there is a small oven(?) on the stainless steel shelf above the main oven. In each image, it appears to be the same device. Any idea what that is and who makes them?

Looks to be some sort of warming oven?

Its a salamander. Its just a small broiler like the one in your oven.


If I have large calamari tentacles, can I achieve the same taste and texture as with small ones? I've tried cooking large calamari tentacles (about 2in at their thickest) with little success. The first time I tried the classic fast-grilling method, but, obviously, they came out raw in the middle. Then I cut 0.4in rondelles out of it and tried it again, ending up with rubber food.

My third attempt was to try the octopus cooking method, so I simmered the cuts for about half an hour and then grilled them for a few minutes. This had the best result as far as tenderness goes, but the taste was nowhere near what I wanted.

Can these be used to get the same taste as in regular-sized, fast-grilled calamari or should I try a different recipe?

Calamari or squid is of course famous for being difficult to cook, because it gets tough or rubbery.

As Harold McGee explains in On Food and Cooking, octopus and squid meat are very rich in collagen:

  They are chewy when lightly cooked, tough when cooked to the
  denaturing temperatures of their collagen, around 120 - 130 F / 50 -
  55 C, and become tender with long, slow cooking.

The trick then is to either:

Cook them minimally, so they do not begin to toughen.  This Serious Eats recipe for fried calamari recommends no more than one minute.

My own interpretation of this is that it will keep the temperature of the squid below the 120 F threshold, at the risk of being below the pathogen kill point, so it should be done only with squid from a trustworthy purveyor.
Cook them for a long time, slowly, as in a braise, so they move through the tough phase to tender again.  This Food Network recipe  for stuffed squid by Ann Burrell is an example.  The total squid cooking time is 20 to 25 minutes.

Trying to make a large squid taste the same a small squid would with fast cooking methods like frying is going to be very challenging.

The key obstacle to overcome is that the larger squid are going to have more connective tissue (collagen) in the meat, and will be fundamentally a tougher piece of seafood.  They simply are more suitable for slow cooking methods, which can be delicious in their own right, but are a different outcome.

If you do wish to experiment, your best bet would be to slice the tentacles very thinly, maybe only 1/8 of an inch, and flash fry them quickly.   You may have better success with the bodies, which are not as tough as the tentacles.


Is there such a thing as a bone cleaver? When I was growing up, my mother had a massive, MASSIVE cleaver that she kept in the kitchen. It was immense and heavy. My father had gotten it when he worked in a butchery. This cleaver has since been lost to us. I would like to find something similar. When I asked her what the specific type of knife was, she said it was a "bone cleaver." It was easily 60 years old when I was little 30 years ago.

For the life of me, I can't find references anywhere to bone cleavers. I can find meat cleavers (but most have warnings not to use them for bone). They're smaller than this was, and also lighter. I can also find references to vegetable cleavers and Asian style cleavers. Again, they're smaller and lighter than this. They're hammers compared to the sledgehammer this thing was.

My mom used to use it expressly for cutting through bone. You'd raise it up, give it a little force to accompany it's natural weight, and it could go through almost anything with relative ease (up to and including femurs).

I know bone saws exist, and usually I just keep a spare blade around for my hacksaw to cut through bone when I break down a carcass. So, is there such a thing as a bone cleaver? Would it be a special order thing these days? I'm wondering if it may have been a custom made knife back then because I have never seen anything else like it.

Absolutely.

I have this one here: J.A. Henckels International Classic 6-inch Cleaver   ... it is billed as being designed "for chopping through joints and bones". These cleavers tend to have good, solid weight and a short blade bevel to give it endurance and power. You would not slice things with this. This is a momentum tool to crash through the target tissues with a confident swing. The hacksaw that you mention offers better control, in general.

The opposite of this is an Asian style cleaver that is used primarily for vegetables. Lighter, faster blade with a deeper bevel which makes it sharper for slicing but it would wear down faster under the impact of bones/joints.


How do I properly breadcrumb meat? I have always breadcrumbed meat in a certain way (cordon bleus, schnitzels). But the crumbs on the food are nowhere near a standard that I would make this for guests.

The crumbs always come off, whether  in the pan (while turning), or when we eat it and the whole crust just comes off as one big piece.

Method:
I use 4 bowls.

Milk
Cake flour
egg yolk
Bread crumbs

I dip the meat in the same order as above and as properly as I can. Then it’s over to the pan on medium heat and a small layer of oil.

Where I am going wrong?

The problem that most people make when doing a breading is that they try to put on too thick of a coating of any given layer.

Breading sticks because wet sticks to dry, and visa-versa.  As such, you need to give the item a good shake after it leaves each dry station, and a moment or so to drip (and a little bit of shaking here helps, too) after it leaves a wet station.

I've also seen recommendations to let the breaded item sit for a while before cooking -- I can only assume that this is to allow moisture to migrate into the dry breading, or for the egg to set up some before it turns to steam (which could result in that layer separating).

So, some suggestions to fix your recipe:

Don't use the milk, but also don't dry your meat.
Use whole eggs, but make sure they're well beaten (the color will go to a pale yellow).  The whites act as more of a 'glue' while the yolks only serve to wet things down.
Make sure to shake the item after it's gone in the flour.
If the eggs layer is going on too thickly, thin it with a bit of water before you do the next item.
Really press the crumbs in on the final station.  Shake the container to get a good distribution, then set the item in there.  Spoon the crumbs from the side on top of the item 'til you can't see it, then press the crumbs into the item.
Shake the item as it comes out of the breadcrumb station, or leave it to set for a few minutes on a sheet tray or wire rack, or both.


Most efficient technique to prepare milk and butter for proofed yeast? I have a recipe for rolls where 1/4 cup cubed butter is added to 2 cups of warm milk.  The butter / milk mixture is added to proofed active dry yeast, and then a cup or so of flour is added to get the yeast started.

My problem is that preparing the milk and butter mixture always seems to take too long.  My kitchen seems to be too cold for room temperature milk to take in the butter without clumping.  Then it's a huge hassle to put the milk/butter mixture on the stovetop and heat it until it's warm but not curdled.

What are some easy techniques to help the milk come to room temperature (or a little above) faster?  Can I melt the butter in the microwave, and then put that in the milk?

I would put the milk in a glass, and then put that glass in a large pot filled with warm water, this should help get the milk up to temp quickly with out haveing to worry about going over.  When ever I use yeast i always shoot for around 100 F. Since body temp is 98.6, just stick your finger (clean finger) in the liquid and if it feels slightly warm you should be good to go.


Making salted caramel popcorn - how can I remove the bitter flavour? We've been following a Gordon Ramsay video to make salted caramel popcorn a couple of times, and it usually turns out pretty nice, except that the salted caramel has got a distinct bitter taste. I think it's from the bicarbonate of soda - Gordon recommends using half a teaspoon. We use a little less than half, but it still tastes bitter.

Can we cut out the bicarb completely? Will it ruin the salted caramel if we don't include it, or is there something we can substitute it for that will make the popcorn taste less bitter?

I've watched the video that you mentioned and being a pastry chef I can guarantee you that the bitterness is not due to the bicarbonate of soda even if in the video he uses a huge amount of it. The thing that is causing the bitter flavour is actually the method that he uses to make the caramel itself. Dry caramel is one of the most difficult ways to make caramel because it tends to burn really easily - in fact, it is normally made by adding sugar a bit a time, not all at once, this way you can avoid the burning of the sugar at the bottom and on the side of the pan (as you can clearly see in the video that you linked the side bits are already super brown and boiling while the sugar in the center is still solid).
So my advice to make your life easier will be to put the sugar that you need in the pot and add a bit of water, just enough to moisten the sugar a bit, put in on the heat and let it caramelise without stirring, it will take a bit longer but you can control the colour better, when you reach the colour that you like (it should be a slightly dark amber color) stir in the salt and the butter, turn off the heat and add the baking soda.


How long to preheat oven? This is a silly question, but my wife will turn on the oven to preheat while she prepares stuff, but sometimes it takes her 15 minutes to 45 minutes before she puts things into the oven.

Generally, how long does one need to preheat the oven before it's to the desired temp?  I know that this can easily be solved with a thermometer, but we don't have one.

This depends on a lot of things.

The idea of preheating is that you want to get all the surfaces inside your oven (walls, floor, door, racks) up to the desired cooking temperature. This makes for more even temperatures throughout the oven, and gives a little thermal mass so you don't lose ALL your heat when you open the door for a few seconds or put something cold in there.

Then there's the question of what you're putting in the oven. An aluminum sheet with a few room temperature cookies on it won't pull the temperature in the oven down like a 25 pound turkey that's 40F/5C inside. You want to be more careful to do a complete preheat if you're going to be soaking up a lot of your starting heat.

Our oven, which has a large baking stone in the bottom all the time, takes a while to get uniformly up to temperature, even after the oven says it's preheated, because the stone doesn't heat up as fast as the rest of the surfaces. It takes at least 20 minutes after the "I'm fully heated" beep before the stone is fully up to temp. We have problems with things baking poorly if we don't preheat for quite a while, but on the upside, if we put a cold roast in or open the door a lot, the temperature in the oven stays pretty high.

If your oven is lightweight, flimsy or drafty, it may be as hot as it's going to get the moment the preheat alert goes off.

45 minutes is probably a lot more preheat than you'll need in almost any case. In some cases even 15 minutes is more than you need. It really depends on your oven and what you're putting in.


How can I thicken my smoothie without frozen ingredients? I like thick drinks and I cannot lie.
You other posters can't deny,
That when a shake pours out, all watery and fast
My first thought is "that's just nast(ay)"

Normally, I put in my smoothies a combination of the following:

4-5 med. Strawberries
½ Banana
½(?) cup baby spinach
Rhubarb
Hemp milk
Other seasonal fruits/vegetables
Cocoa powder

I'm also going to experiment with adding things from this list:

Home-made hemp milk (from hemp hearts)
Flax seeds
Small portions of avocado
Tofu

So far, the smoothies have come out with the texture of chocolate milk. I'd like it to be a bit thicker, but I have some very interesting food allergies/intolerance. I'd also like to keep the beverage nearer to room temperature at the time of preparation/consumption.

I cannot consume any of the following items I've found online for thickening:

Xanthan Gum, Guar Gum (other polysaccharides)
Dairy (both cow and goat make me ill, I'm not trying others)
Whey, Pea, or other bean/lentil-based protein powders
Anything considered High-FODMAP

What other methods are there to thicken a smoothie, with neither dairy, nor frozen items?

More FODMAP information:

Examples of low/high fodmap foods
Wikipedia: FODMAP with more reference links

My favorite smoothie thickener is chia seed.

A tablespoon will thicken a blender of smoothie into pudding. According to the internet it is also a low FODMAP food.

It is a small, black seed which will change the texture a bit. With raspberry or strawberry or vanilla they are lost among the other seeds.

It has the added benefit of being neutrally flavored and high in fiber, protein, omega 3 fatty acids, and various minerals.


How is sous-vide different from simply cooking the chicken? I am just starting out with my sous-vide project and ready to buy sous-vide equipment. I am having arguments with my partner, who thinks sous-vide is similar to cooking the chicken breast in liquid. I would like to convince my partner but it is hard for me to argue as I have no experience.

How different a sous-vide cooked chicken from one that is cooked in water?

It's actually not that much different in some respects.  Sous vide is simply a way to precisely control temperature (that's something you can't do very easily with a poach on the stove top).  If you sous vide a chicken breast, remove it from the bag, and serve it up, it will be very much like the result you get from poaching. The difference is that you will be able to control the level of doneness, and impact the texture to a greater degree than simple poaching.  Most sous vide ends with a searing or browning step, so that the exterior of the product more closely resembles a stove top or oven cook.


Keeping steaks hot after cooking in a cast-iron pan I have been using my cast-iron skillet for some time with good results.

Essentially, I bring out the meat from the fridge with time so it gets at room temperature, then I heat up my pan until it smokes and then I place the meat (with some salt and pepper and a little bit of oil) and cook it so it comes out medium-rare.

My issue is the temperature of the meat. As soon as I let it rest for 5 minutes after cooked, the meat cools down and it's no longer hot. I assume, since it has only been cooked for 3 minutes per side, that explains how fast it gets cold.

Is there any solution for this? How do restaurants do to keep the meat warm when it gets to your table?

If you cook rarer you don't need as long a rest period, for rare and medium-rare you only need a minute or two. Put the steak onto a row of chopsticks or a cooling grate if you aren't using a warmed plate so the plate doesn't cool them, then put a bit curved pot lid over the top. You can use a tent of foil if you need, it's just that there's less waste if you use a lid.

If you are cooking many steaks and can't serve right away then put the cooked steak into an oven just a bit lower than the temperature you want at the center of the steak, this will keep it warm without overcooking it. Don't do it for too long though, you'll dry the steaks out.


Flavour espresso with vanilla without adding sugar or other sweetener? I've always thought that vanilla and espresso would be a good combination but the problem is: I don't take sugar! I understand one can buy coffee flavoured beans but how would I get the vanilla flavour using my home set up (espresso machine, burr grinder and preferred brand of beans)?

You just add any vanilla-tasting product to your coffee. It doesn't have to be a sugared "coffee flavor".

The best option should be plain vanilla extract. Then you have synthetic vanilin, which comes as a white powder or in tiny vials of propylene-glycol solution. As it is very concentrated, it ends up being much cheaper than the extract, but its smell is nowhere as rich as that of real vanilla extract.

I suppose that you could also use real vanilla pods. I would cut off a piece, cut it open, and place it within the ground coffee during brewing (if you think it will interfere too much, you can also just scratch out the seeds and use them, but you will be throwing out lots of vanilla that way). I have never done it, so I don't know how big a piece you will need for the taste to be reasonably strong. I suspect that using vanilla extract will be more economical, as vanilla usually needs time to give off aroma, and the short espresso brewing time, even with the pressure, will need a fairly large chunk to make a difference in taste. Still, the pressure-brewed vanilla will have a different taste profile than the alcohol-dissolved vanilla extract, so if you are not happy with the taste the extract gives, this is one more method to try out.


How can I make curved gingerbread sheets for a gingerbread house? I'd like to make a single cylindrical tower for my gingerbread house this year, about 8 inches in diameter and probably 6-8 inches tall.

This doesn't have to be made in one piece. I'm fine with building it out of 2-4 curved pieces and seaming them together.

What I do not want is to use many flat gingerbread pieces and end up with an octagon or dodecagon that "pretends" that it's round.

The goal of this is to find out a good method for making curved sheets of gingerbread by either shaping them while baking or after.

I'm planning to use Stella Park's recipe for gingerbread to be used for construction, which notes that it's soft (for cutting purposes) when removed from the oven, but I'm not sure if that's soft enough to try to shape after baking, too.

Not knowing your recipe too well I’ll assume a gingerbread with a rollable and cuttable texture, like for gingerbread men.

I would use a few empty cans with a slightly smaller diameter than your tower design.

If you cut the can(s) lengthwise in thirds or so, you can drape rectangular strips of dough over them with only some bend, which will put only little  gravitational stress on the soft dough during baking. Make sure that the total width of the segments is more than the 360 degrees circle to allow for shrinkage and some extra to cut the edges to fit.

Bake the dough on the molds (with a layer of parchment, ideally) and let the parts cool on the tins as well.

Assemble as you would for the straight walls. A spare can can help keep the parts upright and in shape until the icing “cement” has hardened.


Turkey Dinners For A Group of 140 People I am cooking turkey dinner for 140 people at our church. My meal consist of turkey, stuffing balls, mashed potatoes & gravy, green beans, noodles in gravy, and cole slaw. I am not sure of the amounts of food I should cook and your advice would be very helpful.   Thank You

Pound per person for bone-in birds, so 140 pounds of turkeys (6-9 whole birds)

Sides are a half cup per person — 60 pounds potatoes, 18 heads of cabbage for slaw, 12 pounds pasta, and 70 cups stuffing.

This is the site I use


Can anyone tell me what this is? It looks to be a double boiler of some sort, but we're not sure what it is.

It's an egg poacher.  Looks like this exact model.

Note that these don't really actually "poach" eggs, the result is more like a coddled egg. They do essentially work like double boilers.


Sour butter from freezer? Earlier today, I defrosted two different sticks of butter from my freezer. Both tasted sour. Neither had expired. The manufacturers were different, so it wasn't the same batch. Has anybody run into this before? Is my freezer a frothing cesspit of bacteria or something?

OK, so I left one of the butters (the Kerrygold) out for a little while longer to see if it would affect the taste. I tried it again the day after taking it out of the freezer and the sour notes disappeared!

So I guess my freezer isn't the culprit after all. Here are the possibilities as I see them:

The first butter (Plugra) was, in fact, a bit rancid. The sourness lingered in my mouth and affected the taste of the second butter (Kerrigold).
The first butter was unsalted and I simply wasn't used to the taste of unsalted European butter. (Unlikely, as I just spent a year in Europe! But I also don't eat unsalted butter very often.)
The sourness of cultured European butters is more pronounced when the butter is colder and/or defrosting. (More with the Kerrigold than the Plugra. The Plugra was already room temperature when I tried it.)
It was all psychological.

UPDATE:

Just tried a fresh, unsalted pack of room-temperature Plugra. Well whaddayaknow, it's sour. So I guess the answer really is:

I don't know what I'm doing.


Shelf life of commercial jams with no preservatives? This commercial peach jam does NOT contain any preservatives.
Room temperature is 20 C.

It is written on the bottle that it should be refrigerated after opening since it doesn't contain any preservatives.

For how long can I keep it in the cupboard after opening?

There'll be a lot of variation depending on temperature, humidity, the exact nature of the jam, and pure dumb luck, but I wouldn't be surprised if it started growing mold within a week, if not within a day or two. When things say to refrigerate after opening, they tend to mean it.


Can I still eat my bean sprouts that I left unrefrigerated? I forgot a grocery bag in my trunk, and didn't realize it until 24 hours later.  I had bean sprouts in the bag, and it says to keep refrigerated.  Are they safe to eat? I am not sure what happens to bean sprouts if left unrefrigerated.

Raw bean sprouts are considered to be a potentially hazardous food item or a TCS  food (time-temperature control for safety). Bean sprouts are likely to become unsafe due to bacterial growth if left un-refrigerated for more than four hours, as a warm, moist environment promotes bacterial growth. To err on the side of caution, you should throw your bean sprouts away.


How can I make my scones rise evenly? I've been making some scones and they are either falling away to one side or just sort of staying flat.

I'm currently just baking them on a tray in the oven at 220C

The recipe is:

450g self-raising flour
1 tbs caster sugar
80g butter, cubed, at room temperature
250mls milk, at room temperature

Are there any tips or techniques I can use to make them rise evenly?

Your technique is going to be critical here.  Leaning scones aren't necessarily indicative of improper technique, but flat ones are.

Keeping your ingredients cold is important when creating scones in every recipe I've read or tried.  Cook's Illustrated went so far as to grate the butter and then freeze the grated pieces and use a laminating technique to provide layers.  Many other recipes use cold butter (frozen or simply very cold out of the freezer) in chunks and a pastry blender to cut them in.  Your milk should also be cold, not room temperature.  You may also want to chill your work bowl and utensils.  You don't want your butter melting before those scones hit the oven.

When your scones hit the oven and the butter does begin to soften and melt, it will leave behind layers of air in your scone which will help it to rise.

You don't want to handle finished scone dough very much.  Use a light touch and minimal work.

I'd also check the date on your self-raising flour.  The ingredients will lose their activity over time, causing the flour not to rise as well any more.


Culinary uses for juniper extract? I bought some juniper extract for making bath stuff, and it doesn't seem to be very effective for this purpose. I have used juniper berries before, so I thought I might be able to use the extract for cooking or baking. I have not been able to find any recipes online.

Is juniper extract ok to eat? What types of applications would it be good for, I assume whole berries is much better choice for marinades. Would it have the same uses as orange or peppermint extract?

I agree with nixy. Make sure it's food grade. If it's not the extract may have other stabilizers that you don't want to consume. Glycerin is an example where glycerin that you use in soap is different from the food grade glycerin one would use to make non-alcoholic vanilla extract.


What are East Coast Chinese Chicken Wings marinated in? Does anyone know what the Chinese Restaurants on the East Coast (in the US) use to marinate their chicken wings? I was told by one owner that they use 10 different ingredients but she wouldn't tell me what they were. Do you know if they parboil them before deep frying them?

The secret of the perfect Chinese chicken wing, is to barbecue it. First to marinate the wings with soy sauce, garlic glove for one night. Barbecue it when almost ready, to brush some honey onto the wings. Taste like heaven. Juicy and tender inside, sweet and crispy outside( the honey will help create a little char on the skin).


Why does coconut milk separate in coffee? When I put coconut milk in coffee, curds and lumps form, which does not look good in coffee. When I heat coconut milk, curds are still form. What can I do to avoid this?

Regular milk is an emulsion - a liquid [fat] suspended in another liquid [water], in its simplest terms.

Coconut milk is a suspension - a solid suspended in a liquid.

Mixing an emulsion into another similar liquid base tends to remain emulsified.

Mixing a suspension into another liquid, there is a distinct possibility that the two will re-separate, due to the heat-shock, & form clumps.

Perhaps if you pre-heated the coconut milk, it may tend to mitigate that, though your tests would seem to say otherwise.
I'd hesitate to say add a thickener first, such as cornflower, & preheat - this would bind it, but I'm not sure the result would be pleasant.


Why meat gets tough after soaking it in vinegar solution for more than 24 hours? Vinegar is a marinade and i have tried marinating meat before too but if meat is soaked in vinegar solution for more than 24 hours then it gets tougher.Why?

Vinegar is acidic thanks to its concentration of acetic acid. It thus has a low pH, somewhere between 2.5 and 5 depending on the type of vinegar. Acidic substances can affect the delicate amino acids which form the proteins that make up the majority of your meat (along with other fats and connective tissues).

The end result is not entirely unlike what happens when you apply heat. The proteins in the food change shape and coagulate, whether you're applying heat or acid, and that results in "cooked" meat. It's the principle behind many cures or preparations like ceviche that use chemical action to alter a food from its raw state. The end result often has less moisture; thus it appears firmer and can be perceived as tougher.

The other thing happening is that a strong marinade is much more concentrated than the water inside the cells of the food being marinated, and thus will tend to extract some water through osmosis. Again, you wind up with drier, tougher meat. Most marinades compensate for this to some degree because they contain salt, but 24 hours is a pretty long time for a strong marinade containing vinegar, so that may just be overdoing it.


What can I use, beside applesauce, to replace fat in baking? Due to dietary restrictions, I can not have apples, or any byproduct.  There are lots of recipes that use applesauce to replace fat, but what can I substitute for applesauce in these recipes?

You could replace the applesauce with the fat that it was originally replacing.


Why you can't reverse cheese curdling in fondue? I was wondering why you can't "fix" or reverse a "curdled" cheese fondue sauce?

As some of you know - I am taking a scientific approach to cooking and am now fiddling with cheese fondue.

I got three small saucepans, poured some wine to simmer and tried adding in different cheeses to see which would melt in a fondue-favourably fashion, while stirring constantly.

I'm surprised to say two of the three cheeses melted with no problem while the third - Emmentaler, no less, became a stringy, lumpy mess from the start.
Well, since the same happened to the other cheeses the minute I took the saucepans off the heat I thought the reverse reaction should be possible if I return them to the heat, but it did not.

Irreversible reactions aren't something new or strange to me, but I wondered what IS it in this cheese-wine sauce that would cause such an irreversible reaction?

Most proteins undergo irreversible structural changes when heated. The exact temperature where this happens depends on the protein. In most cases, no covalent bonds are broken or formed during this 'denaturation' process.
But the irreversible nature of the changes means that there's no good way to rescue a curdled fondue sauce (or a curdled egg custard).

Other components present in the environment of the protein (like alcohol, salt) can influence the denaturation process.

In your case, when you first get the wine to simmer, your temperature might just be too high from the start to prevent denaturation of the cheese proteins, suggested temperatures for melting cheese are around 150F (~66°C). And of course, different cheeses have had different treatments during production (some are already heated to 50-55°C), and can have different behaviour when heated. And duration plays a role (the denaturation isn't instantanuous).


Cooking onions without carmelization Is there a way to cook onions in recipes that won’t have them release a lot of sugar like cooking them in liquid. I am on a very low carb diet and am not allowed onions as they apparently release too much sugar when Caramelized

Try lightly boiling them in broth or stock.  They won't caramelize (as long as you don't let the liquid evaporate completely); but they will soften and become translucent.


Help me rescue my bland soup Help I threw in carrot,  potato,  parsnip, turnip, leek and two ham stock cubes but I've ruined it by using to much water and I've already blended it.   I would really hate to have to chuck it in the bin.  Any suggestions on how to rescue the flavour and thickness? Added a little paprika and coriander earlier still very bland.

If too much water is the culprit, then its a simple matter of reducing the soup on the stove top. Just put it in a pot and boil it with the lid off(so the water escapes) until you reached a desired thickness and flavor.


Coconut milk looks like water with butter chunks I bought a can of coconut milk (or a cream really, it is rather fat, around 17%) for my piña colada. I have never bought coconut milk before. It was weird inside. Upper half was like butter paste and lower like water. I mixed it in a shaker thinking it would become homogeneous. But no it looked like you blend butter with water, chunks of coconut fat are floating and it is not homogenous at all. I heated it up a little (in hot water). Fat apparently melted and it because more like what I needed. But once I cool it or mix with ice cubes fat immediately precipitates and become totally unappealing. My question is did I buy some defect product? Or wrong product? Or I am doing something wrong with it?

There can easily be some confusion regarding the terms cream of coconut, coconut milk, coconut cream, coconut water etc. It is normal and even often desirable for coconut milk to separate, and for the fattier part (the cream) to clump. Since that is generally not a great quality for mixed drinks, read on.

For Pina Coladas, the most commonly used product is Cream of Coconut, the sweetened, emulsified variety. Two common brands in the US are Coco Lopez and Goya. Coconut milk and coconut cream are totally different products from each other and from cream of coconut, so read the label carefully. When in doubt, check the ingredients. The product you want will have added sugar and emulsifiers.

Goya Cream of Coconut ingredients:

  Ingredients: Coconut Juice, sugar, polysorbate 60, salt, citric acid, mono and diglycerides, propylene glycol alginate, sorbitan monostearate, guar gum and locust bean gum.

Coco Lopez Cream of Coconut ingredients:

  Coconut, Sugar, Water, Polysorbate 60, Sorbitan Monostearate, Salt, Propylene Glycol, Alginate, Mono and Diglycerides (Emulsifiers), Citric Acid, Guar Gum, Locust Bean Gum.

These products will not clump like what you have experienced.

In grocery stores in the US, cream of coconut will be with other bartending mixers like margarita mix, not anywhere near the coconut milk. If you have any problem finding it, ask at a liquor store.


How can I substitute or make soft brown sugar? I have just moved to Germany.  I haven't yet been able to find brown sugar of the type we have in Australia ie: soft, small grained, slightly sticky in that it holds its shape well when you dig a spoonful out.  The only brown sugars I have seen are granular.  You can also buy molasses.

Crushing the granular sugar is both labour-intensive and not that successful.

Any ideas on the ratios of different sugar products required to produce a 'soft brown sugar'?

As context, I tend to use soft brown sugars in things like fruit crumble toppings, as a base for a very dark caramel sauce, and also as a substitute for palm sugar when (as in Germany) it's difficult to get hold of.  The granular sugars don't behave in quite the same way when melting/added to hot sauces.

Put the regular (refined white) sugar and molasses (about 2 tablespoons per cup of sugar) in a food processor and give it a spin. Use more or less molasses as needed to get the color and consistency that you want.


Why did my roasted butternut squash ferment? I roasted some butternut squash, then stored it in the refrigerator for a few days before I had time to puree it all.  When I pureed it I discovered that it had fermented.  What caused this to happen?  It smelled and looked fine, but the bag I stored it in kept puffing up and it tastes strongly fermented like I added yeast to it.

Assuming you cooked thoroughly, your squash got innoculated after you took it out of the oven. Was your counter clean? Had you just made bread? What's the history of the storage bag? Did you recently spill yogurt in the fridge?
You've got a source of contamination, and need to think carefully about everything that came in contact with the squash after you pulled it from the oven.


Can I make grain-free noodle/ravioli/dumpling dough? I'm celiac and I'm intolerant to virtually all the grains (also to corn/maiz). So, the question is if I can make noodle/dumpling dough without grains?

Yuca and potato starch are good for me, also chickpea and other legumes are fine. Any suggestions?

You could look into cellophane noodles. They're made from starch (often yam or potato), so it sounds like they'd work for you.

If you have a decent Asian grocery store around, you may well be able to just buy them, too. You'll just have to be careful to check the ingredients, as they are sometimes made with corn starch too. (I'm not sure if it's whole corn or even the starch that you can't have.)


Can I substitute "green beans" for "string beans"? The famous Thai salad "Som Tam" uses raw, crushed string beans in small amounts, and I have seen recipes that suggest raw normal green beans as a substitution. How will the subsitution affect the dish?

How safe is the original and the substitution of green beans when it comes to phasin/lectin levels present in the raw vegetable? Googling gets you a lot of conflicting and anecdotal evidence...

In most countries string beans and green beans are exactly the same thing (see wikipedia's entry for green bean). They are both words used to refer to various unripe cultivars of the common bean Phaseolus vulgaris. The phrase string bean is older and dates back to when beans had a fibrous string down the pod that you could peal off. The first stringless bean was bred by Calvin Keeney in 1894, and hence the newer name for this product was the "green bean" to emphasize the lack of the fibrous string. Both names are still in wide use today, even for cultivars where the string is not present (most cultivars). I am unaware of any credible evidence that suggests that green beans are unsafe when eaten raw. Some toxic compounds are present in green and string beans at very low levels (the same compounds found at much higher concentrations in uncooked dry beans). However, note that these trace amounts of toxic compounds are considered safe and that most foods have similar trace amounts of toxic compounds.

So when going into a grocery store, if you see the word green bean (at least in the US) you can safely substitute it for any recipe calling for string beans.

Edit: As pointed out by rackandboneman, the species Vigna unguiculata can be eaten raw and is the usual bean used in "Som Tam". However, when translated to English Vigna unguiculata is rarely translated to "string bean". The most common english name for this bean is "yard long bean", "long bean" or "cowpea bean" (see the wiki entry for the bean used in "Som Tam"). Similar to green bean, there is no credible evidence that such pods are poisonous when eaten raw, and "green beans/string beans" do make a good substitute for Vigna unguiculata in dishes where you plan to cut the long bean anyways.


Items in freezer, including ice cubes, taste freezer burnt. Possible causes? Items placed in my freezer take on an awful flavor that tastes a lot like freezer burn, even ice cubes.  If I put items in the freezer over-night and it isn't tightly covered, this problem occurs.

With the ice cubes I can rinse them off to eliminate the bad flavor, but I'd prefer to find the root cause and fix it.

Any ideas/suggestions are quite welcome.

Freezer burn occurs when water molecules in food gather in a colder location in your freezer—whether that be the sides of your freezer or even other foods.

Tips to prevent freezer burn:

Don't put hot food directly into your freezer, let it cool first
Put your food in air-tight containers
The longer food is in the freezer the greater your chance of freezer burn

I'm going to go out on a limb though and guess that—at least with your ice cubes may just be acquiring a "freezer smell" from the other foods in your freezer. If I don't use the cubes in my freezer fast enough they end up tasting really unpleasant. Give your freezer a good cleaning and cover your ice cubes with saran wrap and this should help stop the funny smells/tastes.


What is the difference between Greek yogurt and plain yogurt? One of the ingredients of a recipe is Greek yogurt. May I replace it with plain yogurt? If I do it, what is the difference that I would immediately note?

Greek yogurt is thicker. You can turn not-so-greek yogurt into it by letting it strain. Put cheesecloth into a colander, dump yogurt in, and allow to sit. Not too long, or you'll accidentally achieve paneer instead.


Refreezing thawed out bread dough I have a bag of Bridgeford frozen rolls.   Defrosted the whole bag and realized it's too much.  Can I refreeze it before it rises?  It's still in the refrigerator.

You've likely already made your decision by now, but I personally would not refreeze them unless they were still mostly frozen or only partially thawed.  The repeated freezing and thawing action could have negative consequences: if you try to thaw them again and bake, the yeast may not work as well, the texture and flavor could be off, etc.  As FDA guidelines say for handling thawed bread dough after a power outage, "quality loss is considerable."

In most cases, I'd prefer to bake the rolls/bread anyway.  If I didn't think I could use them up immediately, I'd freeze the baked rolls after they had cooled.  They won't be as nice as if they are baked fresh, but if you then defrost and warm them in an oven or toaster oven, they will likely still taste pretty good.

That said, refreezing will likely work, though be prepared for the yeast to be more "sluggish" when thawing again.  If the dough is completely thawed and has begun to rise, I might fold it (or reshape the rolls, if it's in the form of individual rolls) to degas it before refreezing; that should help a bit when the yeast start to "wake up" again.

Again, if the dough is completely thawed, I think you'll likely have better quality by baking it now rather than refreezing.  But either way you'll probably still be able produce passable rolls which won't be quite as good as if you had just baked them and eaten them now.


Ribs burned to a crisp following directions. What does "medium high" mean? I'm learning about grilling by making mistakes. The instructions on some pre-seasoned "St. Louis Ribs" say the following:

  Remove ribs from package. Preheat grill to medium high. Place ribs on grill and cook on medium high for 12-15 min. Flip ribs over and cook for an additional 12-15 mins. Finish cooking ribs on indirect heat on medium high for an additional hour to hour and a half temperature should reach 175 degrees.

They seem quite clear that everything should be at "medium high" the whole time.

I thought things were going well when I flipped the ribs the first time. But when I went to flip the ribs the second time they were on fire and quite black.

Oops! This is a new grill, so I'm a little unfamiliar with it, but I actually had the dials set at about the halfway marker. I would expect that to be somewhat closer to "medium" heat than "medium high". But all nuance is lost when the food catches on fire! Should I have ignored the directions and done the initial searing for less time, or at a lower temperature?

I have another rack, and I'd like to try again tomorrow. What should I adjust about these directions to prevent setting St. Louis on fire? (And even with indirect heat, is medium high the right idea for 90 minutes of cooking?)

Ribs should not be cooked with direct heat, generally. The directions on the meat are VERY defective. You should turn the left burner on, and put the ribs in the right side of the grill. You should cook at a temperature between 250-300F, typically for 4-5 hours. They're done when the meat pulls back from the bone and when you can easily tear the meat between bones, not when they hit a certain temperature.

Check out amazingribs.com, and also get your money back. The instructions on the packaging border on fraud.


Can I add lemon zest to a shortbread cookie recipe? I would like to use a shortbread recipe for making lemon short bread cookies, this recipe only uses sugar and butter and doesn't use any eggs or milk, I was thinking that perhaps I could add lemon extract and use lemon zest do you think it would work?

If the recipe on its own (without alteration) works, your modifications should be safe, mind that an oily extract or coarsely cut zest could have an additional shortening effect.

Be careful with lemon JUICE though, the acidity can change the texture. And avoid putting in other watery ingredients (milk,juices), they will encourage gluten formation and lead to a softer, cakey cookie.

Expect there to be SOME leavening and deformation in the oven if using butter/margarine, since there is still water bound in these fats. So if a perfect "commercially baked" look is desirable, constraining the cookies in molds and/or using different fats might be needed.

Experimentation with different flour grades, and probably with adding pure starches, is a good thing to do once you have made the base recipe work.


Blending eggs for omelette? When I was preparing eggs at my uncle's house, since he was a techie, he insisted on blending the eggs in a miniature food processor as opposed to, say, beating them. Is there any advantage to this practice besides looking sophisticated?

Using a food-processor to beat scrambled eggs is going to over-beat them. Over-beaten eggs will turn rubbery.

  The American Egg Board describes well-beaten eggs as "frothy and evenly colored." This generally takes about 20 to 35 seconds of beating - do not over beat. You want to get them to a uniform color and texture with minimal amounts egg white showing. A fork works as well as a wire whisk but requires a slight bit more time and more energy. Use a bowl that is deep enough to support vigorous whisking.
   - What's Cooking America

To make the perfect French omelet, America's Test Kitchen counts (yes, at that even I rolled my eyes) precisely 80 turns of the whisk. The object being to thoroughly mix the eggs while allowing the curds to be creamy when formed. Over-mixing the eggs makes the curds dry and rubbery.

Tell your uncle that sophisticated cooks use a whisk or a fork. Once the eggs are in the pan, you can look really sophisticated by stirring with chopsticks.


DIY blender lid replacement I just got a used Braun MX32 CDN from a thrift store.  It's in great shape.  Unfortunately, it came with a lid from some other model that apparently somebody tried to cut to make it fit.  Naturally, it leaks, but it even leaks if I hold it down as tight as I can.

So, not wanting to spend too much on replacement parts, and preferring not to take it back, I was wondering what my options were for manufacturing my own water-tight lid.  Has anyone had success with this?

Any round piece of something that's reasonably solid will provide a start for a lid (think, arts and crafts store). Then trace around the top of the blender to see where the top of the container meets the lid. Then glue a foam-rubber gasket (DIY home store... windows) just inside the line and it should create a tight seal between the blender and the lid.

This will provide a makeshift but usable hold-while-in-use lid.


Better way to make Iced Tea Should I brew at full strength, allow to cool to room temperature before refrigerating, or should I brew at a higher strength and “shock cool” over ice?

The advice I have heard is for stronger tea use more tea.  Do not steep longer as it can get bitter.

If you are in a hurry a stronger tea with ice could work but if you want to come from brew temperature to ice temperature it would need to start very strong.

Maybe experiment with double strength and let it cool to like 100 F. You would add as much ice as tea. If all the ice melts then you need to let is cool more next time. If almost none of the ice melts then you need to let is cool less next time.


Oil for pan-frying lamb chop I'm learning to cook, and would like to pan-fry a lamb chop. I tried it yesterday, using a tempered chop and some EVOO in my medium-high heat stainless steel frying pan.

The result was kind-of OK -- just a bit rare for my liking. The oil smoked as soon as it hit the pan, and the room was very smoky by the end of it.

So, which oil would be best for pan-frying a lamb chop? Assuming I properly control the pan temperature this time!

Thanks

Any food oil will do, except extremely strongly flavored oils like sesame oil.

You may use olive oil if its flavor will compliment the dish, and is to your taste.  You could even use animal fat like clarified butter, lard, or bacon fat if you choose, but each of these will bring a unique flavor.

You may choose a neutral oil if you want less flavor influence from the oil.

See also:
What is meant by "neutral" oils?


Why add salt to potato water? I add salt to pasta water in order to reduce the stickiness caused by starch. However, I've never seen potatoes stick together. Why add salt?

Salting the water in which you cook starches (pasta, rice, potato) is an effective way of enhancing the flavour of the finished product - boiling starches absorb salt well (which is why adding chunks of potato to an overall salty stew will lessen the apparent saltiness of the dish.

But salt does other things. When I am making roasted potatoes, I parboil them for 5 minutes before drying and roasting them in oil. if you divide them into two batches and boil one half in unsalted water and the other half in well salted water (1tbsp/2 quarts water), the salted potatoes will brown and crisp much better than the unsalted ones. I'm not sure why this is, but I would encourage you to try it because it's amazing to see.


Why did my chicken soup go cloudy? I made chicken soup tonight in my usual way - recipe is chicken flash fried, then onion, ginger, garlic added, then stock or water, then lid on and cook.  Coriander added later.

Usually, I end up with a mostly clear soup, lots of floating bits of herbs, spices, meat etc, which are fine.

Tonight, the soup was completely cloudy.  A dense yellow colour, which didn't settle after leaving it to cool for 40mins and then reheating it (which I thought may help it 'settle').

Why would this happen?  It didn't seem to affect the flavour too much, although I noticed that it was a heavier soup than normal.  Are there any immediate health or safety concerns associated with a cloudy soup?

My guess would be that you boiled the soup at some point, possibly for an extended period of time.

If you bring it to a full boil the fat from the meat will emulsify and distribute itself through the liquid.  This is the same stuff that foams to the top, the "scum" that a lot of recipes (usually ones that say bring to a boil, then simmer) tell you to skim off.  I would venture to say that this distribution of the fat into the liquid is also why it tasted heavier.

When making stock or soups, the most I'll heat them is to just below boiling and keep them at that simmer for a little longer to make up for not bringing it to a boil.  When making stock, I strain once through a chinois and again through a piece of cheesecloth in a chinois to help reduce the floating particulates, but this won't really solve the cloudiness problem (though it will help some).

You can also try putting it into the fridge overnight so that the fat comes to the top and solidifies, but I don't think this will solve the problem, only help reduce it.

If it's just the stock that's gone cloudy, this page has some suggestions on how to clarify it, but honestly unless you're presenting it to guests, I see no reason to even bother.  I've made cloudy stock and clear stock before and except for a slight "heaviness" difference, the taste is generally about the same.  The cloudy stock sometimes has a more oily mouth feel, but it's not a major difference - and I've found some people seem to prefer the soups or rices I make with a cloudy stock.

If you have a hard time controlling the temperature on your range-top, you can use an oven-safe stock pot and cook it in the oven at 180°F to keep it just below a boil.

One other trick, depending on what kind of soup you were making - if you were making (for example) chicken soup, consider trying to turn it into a cream of chicken soup to hide the cloudy broth :)


How to make mayonnaise with a cooked yolk? I have heard of mayonnaise made with cooked yolks before, but was suspicious of it. Now a user posted another question with a link to a recipe which shows the making steps. It shows the making a mayonnaise with a hard boiled yolk, emulsifying 150 ml of oil with a single yolk (and as far as I can tell, no additional liquid - the text is in Romanian). The mayonnaise in the picture looks nicely emulsified and smooth.

How is boiled-yolk-mayo made? What is the best ratio? Should I follow a different method than with raw yolk? How different is the result from normal mayonnaise?

Regarding Romanian recipe...

Actually in Romania people tend not to use raw yolks so much. Most often we eat relatively raw yolks just in fried eggs or soft boiled eggs.
In most of recipes the yolks are cooked.

Regarding mayonnaise there are three ways of preparing it: using just raw yolks (most simple), using raw and cooked yolks 50-50, and using just cooked yolks (harder).

For the last one, which helps storing mayonnaise safer and longer,  the eggs are well boiled and then the yolk is removed. After cooling done until lukewarm it is finely crushed (often by passing it through a sieve several times) and then oil is added little by little. Sometime a small quantity of soft mustard is added for creating more chance of success. For one yolk about 100 ml oil can be incorporated (depending yolk size, as well). The mayo resulting it is slight harder then regular one. For making it softer, if you would like, you can add at last bubbled water (like a teaspoon), some lemon juice and even a tablespoon of cream or yogurt. Enjoy! Pofta buna!!

PS: we have some recipes of mayo without yolks, at all. These are for the period when we traditionally fast and no animal product is allowed.


Canning salsa without a hot water bath I just started canning hot peppers last year. This year I am canning salsa. I boil the jars, lids, and rings just before I seal the jar. I make 3 pints at at time. I combine all my ingredients and add 1 cup of 5 percent vinegar with 3 tablespoons of lemon juice, and bring to a hard boil for about 10 minutes. Then I turn it down to a mild boil and hot pack into the jars that I took out of boiling water.  I fill the jar, place lid on top and hand tighten the ring. Is this good?

This is not safe. Lids "pop" from any temperature change. You could "can" anything this way but that would not make it safe. What you did/want to do is called "open kettle canning" and is not a safe canning method.

  Why is open kettle canning not recommended?
  In open kettle canning, food is cooked in an ordinary kettle, then packed into hot jars and sealed without processing. The temperatures obtained in open kettle canning are not high enough to destroy all spoilage and food poisoning organisms that may be in the food. Also, microorganisms can enter the food when it is transferred from the kettle to jar and cause spoilage.

Also, when canning properly (including a waterbath step of 10 minutes or more) sterilizing jars is an unnecessary step in the process as the processing step essentially sterilizes them along with everything inside them. (see below, same source as above)

  Is it necessary to sterilize jars before canning?
  Jars do not need to be sterilized before canning if they will be filled with food and processed in a boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes or more or if they will be processed in a pressure canner. Jars that will be processed in a boiling water bath canner for less than 10 minutes, once filled, need to be sterilized first by boiling them in hot water for 10 minutes before they're filled.

And lastly, canning is a science, not an art as cooking often is. It is not safe to just use any recipe off the internet/cookbook/granny. The ratio of low acid ingredients (peppers, onions, etc) to high acid ingredients (vinegar, citrus juice) to tomatoes (almost acidic to can on their own in a waterbath) is incredibly important to yield a safe product and is not something that should be guessed at. (See below, also same source as above)

  Can I can my own salsa recipe?
  Salsas are usually mixtures of acid and low-acid ingredients; they are an example of an acidified food. The specific recipe, and sometimes preparation method, will determine if a salsa can be processed in a boiling water canner or a pressure canner. A process must be scientifically determined for each recipe. To can salsa at home, use our recipes for Hot Chile Salsa or Mexican Tomato Sauce. Your county Extension agent may have additional tested recipes for salsas.

Of note and directly related to salsa is the requirement for added acid even when canning tomatoes plain. They are "borderline" acidic enough to can on their own in a waterbath, so additional acid must be added to push them into "definitely safe to waterbath". Many "pressure canner" times can be found for tomatoes and tomato products. For tomatoes this is a process that mimics the waterbath process under 5lb of pressure and is not a "true" pressure canning process. The tomatoes must still be properly acidified even if following the pressure canning directions for canning them.

  Acidification: To ensure safe acidity in whole, crushed, or juiced tomatoes, add two tablespoons of bottled lemon juice or 1/2 teaspoon of citric acid per quart of tomatoes. For pints, use one tablespoon bottled lemon juice or 1/4 teaspoon citric acid. Acid can be added directly to the jars before filling with product. Add sugar to offset acid taste, if desired. Four tablespoons of a 5 percent acidity vinegar per quart may be used instead of lemon juice or citric acid. However, vinegar may cause undesirable flavor changes.

I highly advise reading through this website to learn the basics of safe canning, it also has MANY fantastic and safe recipes designed for canning:
https://nchfp.uga.edu/how/can_home.html


Is it okay to prepare "Cannelloni with Spinach" recipe and put it in fridge BEFORE baking? I'm working on this "Cannelloni with Spinach & Ricotta": http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/awesome-spinach-ricotta-cannelloni

The last step is bake it for 20-25 minutes. Is it okay to do everything, and just before the last step, place the dish into the fridge, so the next day I can just take the dish and bake it, and it's ready. Is it okay, or will it ruin the recipe's flavor?

Most casserolles are OK to be stored in the fridge before baking, or even made several days ahead and frozen. Assemble it, cover it well (e.g. with plastic wrap) and put it in the fridge. When you are ready to eat, you can bake it as usual, but you will have to make the baking time longer, because it starts out at fridge temperature, not room temperature. I can't tell you how much longer, in the worst case you will have to try cutting into the cannelloni a few times to see if they are done.


Sterilizing Mason Jar for Oat Yogurt? Making homemade Oat Milk into Yogurt for the first time! Unfortunately I made an oversight and pulled a Mason Jar out of the cabinet and just washed it with soap and hot water let it mostly air dry, then added my cooled down mixture of Oat milk (boiled to 180f + tapioca starch & coconut oil), let it cool and then added probiotics. Planing on letting it go for 12-24hr.
Is this unsafe and am I talking a large risk here by letting this culture without technically sterilizing the mason jar? I assume this can't be as risky as animal derived milk, but I have no idea, and don't want to cultivate bad bacteria or something toxic.

It's not particularly risky.  In general, any bacteria or fungi that will hurt you will also cause the yogurt to turn visibly and smellably bad.


Soften fats for buttercream I am trying to make a stable buttercream and I am using butter and shortening [in the UK we call it trex or cookeen].

However, in this cold weather the fats are not getting to room temperature.

What is the best to soften them?

I don't own a microwave.

I have had to deal with this several times recently as the people who I bought my house from didn't see fit to have a radiator in the kitchen, so it is often cold in the winter. There's 2 things you need to deal with, one is getting the butter up to temperature and the other is keeping it there. Radiators do work, but are often too hot and if you lose track you can end up melting your butter.

What I do to get the butter up to temperature is to cut the butter/shortening up into cubes and submerge it in warm water. Not hot water, but somewhere between normal room temperature and body temperature unless the butter is fridge temperature in which case I use body temperature water.

Once I make a buttercream  I use a warm water bath to keep the buttercream up to a workable temperature, basically I have a roasting tray of warm water and set the bowl with the buttercream in it. If I'm piping it I will put the side of the piping bag in the warm water, which also works when piping stiff doughs like Viennese cookie dough.


Can you mix oat and wheat flakes into bread mix? When mixing wheat flour to make bread, can I add some wheat and oat flakes?

I mix all kinds of things into my bread, so yes, you can do it.
Things to note: if you add things that draw water, you may want to either soak them first (i.e. seeds) or add more water to your dough (i.e. oat flakes, which would loose their structure when soaked).
I don't know how you raise your bread, but in case let the dough raise, then knead again for a second rise:
You may want to put in your additions after the second knead (to make sure your yeast stays undisturbed for the first).


Can whole chilli peppers be frozen? I have some Dorset Naga chilli peppers bought from the local supermarket.

Aren't they lovely?  :)

Well, unfortunately, my local supermarket (I think the only one in the UK that stocks them) doesn't always have them in stock, so when they do appear on the shelves, I quickly stock-up on them.

Storing them in the fridge, they'll last maybe a week or so before starting to deteriorate.

My question is, can these chili peppers be frozen and, if so, will freezing them have any "negative" effects ?

I buy these particular peppers for their heat (and also their great smoky flavour), so I'd hate for either the heat or the flavour to be negatively impacted if they were frozen.

Yes, they can be, but you'll want to prick each one with a sharp knife once or twice to prevent them from bursting. Once that is done, put them into a small freezer-safe storage bag, remove as much air as possible from the bag, and seal it. They keep reasonably well for about six months without tasting "burnt," but they tend to be a tad mushy upon defrosting.

I always thought the mushiness factor had to do with length of freezing time, but since you asked, I did a bit of research. Apparently, what makes chilies turn to mush actually has to do with how quickly they initially freeze:

  The undesirable mushy end product that comes from freezing fruits and vegetables isn't from the act of freezing itself, but from how you freeze. Your ordinary freezer, or even deep freezer, freezes food slowly. Chilies have water in their membranes, and as they slowly freeze, it forms jagged ice crystals that pierce and puncture the membrane, so that when you defrost it, you're left with a leaky and "tenderized" result. The solution to this problem is easy … faster freezing. If the water doesn't have time to form jagged ice, you won't have a mushy membrane.

Happy Living (from which I pulled the above quotation) has an article about how to safely use dry ice to freeze chilies quickly. (I'll probably keep going the way I always have and accept the mushiness, but if you want to freeze a lot of chilies for a variety of applications, the dry-ice method looks promising.)