"Instant" leftover rice? Making leftover-like rice without the wait? (as in for fried rice) I have a bunch of recipes which use leftover cold rice: rice salads, fried rice, rice cakes, and similar.  However, I rarely have large quantities of rice left over in the fridge when I want them, since we don't eat rice with dinner most nights.

I've tried making some of these things with freshly cooked rice, but the recipes don't turn out well.  Rice which has been cold for hours has a different texture and reacts differently to seasonings, oil and liquids than warm rice.  The starches on the outside of the rice change somehow, and it becomes less absorbent and drier.

Is there any way I can quickly (as in, in less than 2 hours) produce rice which has the texture and starch structure of long-cold rice, at least approximately?  Cool it down in an ice bath?  Soak minute rice in cold water?

It’s a funny thing, I’ve written 2 answers this week saying you should never refrigerate leftover rice, that refrigerating rice ruins it and that you should freeze it instead. Of course there is an exception to every rule, in this case that exception would be when you want leftover, refrigerated rice.

I do have a method to get that leftover refrigerated effect and have been using it to make fried rice for years, but I hadn’t answered this question because I couldn’t get it in under the 2 hour time limit, I’ve always kept it refrigerated on a cold sheet pan for at least 4 hours, 2 just isn’t long enough. Then I saw an answer to another question, and tried it: Rice gets burnt and watery Cooking the rice in the microwave as the poster suggested yielded rice that kind of felt like refrigerated, leftover rice to begin with. That gave me the idea to revisit this question. Several batches of rice (the ravens thank you) and a lot of tweaking later, I’ve got it. To buy an extra 20 minutes, I am choosing to interpret your question as reading “within 2 hours after the rice is cooked”.

I used American, plain, long grain white rice.

Before you start with the rice, place a sheet pan in the freezer. Thoroughly rinse 1 cup of rice in several batches of water. Rinse until the water runs completely clear. I don’t normally rinse American harvested rice, but here eliminating the outside starch helps achieve the effect we’re looking for. In a large microwave safe bowl mix the rice with 1.5 cups plus 2 Tbs water. Add salt if desired, I don't add salt to rice I plan to use for fried rice with soy sauce. Butter is also optional, I did not use it when I developed this method. Microwave on high for 14 minutes (YMMV*, my microwave is 1000 watts), don’t open the microwave, let the rice sit in there for 3 minutes.

--Time starts now!—

Pour 1 Tbs of neutral oil into a small bowl. Lightly dip the tip of a soft rubber spatula into the oil and spread the oil over the spatula head with your fingers. Using that spatula, gently fold the rice a few times. The object here is to rapidly cool the rice by folding, to not break up any individual grains, and to very lightly coat the rice in the oil. Repeat every minute for 5 minutes. Retrieve your now ice cold sheet pan from the freezer and dump the rice in it. Dip your fingertips into the remaining oil and using your lightly oiled fingertips, spread the rice over the sheetpan as thinly as possible, breaking up any clumps.

Put the sheetpan in the refrigerator. 1 hour and 55 minutes later, you’re ready to make fried rice!
I used the above method (complete with timer and no cheating) to make this fried rice:

As you can see from the path I cleared with the spatula, the rice didn’t stick at all and you can see the individual grains on the spatula. Unfortunately, you can’t taste it, but I can tell you that it is as good as any fried rice I have ever made, and fried rice was on the menu at my restaurant/lodge – I’ve made a lot of it. At the lodge I would refrigerate fresh rice on a cold sheet pan for at least 4, preferably 6 hours and then freeze it in individual baggies until fried rice was ordered. That worked well too, but no better than this method.

*YMMV is a common internet abbreviation, Your Mileage May Vary. It's shorthand for noting anything that might be a bit different for the reader, in this case microwave time or power level depending upon the power of the reader's microwave.


Is it safe that my medium-rare steak is cold in the middle? I do my steak in a heavy-bottomed pan on the stovetop for a couple of minutes a side on high heat and it comes out just as I like it - medium rare.

Before cooking, I usually remove the steak from the fridge and let it come up to room temperature. Yesterday I was in a hurry and didn't do that. The steak was done perfectly, but the middle was cold to the touch. Is it still safe to eat if the temperature in the middle is still cold?

It looked between Rare and Medium Rare on this image below:

image source

Solid meat (such as a roast or steak) can be quite rare on the inside and still be considered safe by conservative government or academic standards. Solid meat is different from ground meat because bacteria (Salmonella and E. coli are of particular concern) get mixed into the meat from the surface when the meat is ground. When you sear a steak, you effectively clean the surface where the potential bacteria live.

Those same conservative standards don't recognize rare (as in cold) as safe. However, steak tartare and other raw beef is served in restaurants all over the world.

Source Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics

According to the same extremely conservative source:

  the meat needs to reach 145°F internally and stand for three or more minutes before cutting or consuming. Unfortunately, even if preferred by foodies, there's no way to guarantee the safety of rare meat. That also means raw meat delights, like steak tartare or beef carpaccio, are not considered safe.

I have many years of experience eating very rare and sometimes raw beef. If the  meat is fresh and from a reliable source, I have no problem eating it very rare.

The standard caveat applies that extra care (and heat) is required for the immunocompromised or pregnant.


What are double-cut chops? I was in a restaurant recently and the menu included "double-cut pork chop".  The person I was with ordered this, but it looked like an ordinary pork chop to me.  (I don't eat pork so I don't have a lot of experience with this -- just what I've seen others eat.)  Google led me to speculation, but nothing authoritative, that they're thicker; one site said up to 20oz, but the menu in this restaurant said 10oz.  (I also searched Seasoned Advice but didn't find anything.)

Are double-cut chops cut from a different part of the animal (more toward the center, maybe?), or is it just a wider cut from wherever the butcher was cutting anyway, or is the Google speculation wrong and it means something different?  And is this term specific to pork, or are there other kinds of double-cut chops (e.g. lamb)?

The term "double" is not specific to pork - it's also used with lamb - but it means something different in each case.

A lamb double chop or loin double chop differs from a regular loin chop by including both the top loin and tenderloin, but not the flank. It hasn't actually been cut twice.
A pork butterfly chop is sometimes called a "double chop" because, as the name implies, it's been butterflied. A very thick cut is taken from the loin eye and then cut again to make the butterfly.

Of course, if you cut a butterflied pork chop in half, and served just one half, it would basically be a regular pork chop. So if you that's what you actually got, I'd call it a marketing gimmick.

I've never actually heard the term "double-cut chop" - there are some vague references to it on Google, but as far as I know, it's not a proper butchering term. Perhaps the term got relayed through several people and mutated somewhere along the way.


Can mold grow in vinegar? I found this:

The bottle has a best by date of 2022 and was opened a few months ago.

Is that common that mold can grow in vinegar?

Normal vinegar concentration (usually around 5% acetic acid) is too acidic to grow mold in the vinegar itself. Mold can sometimes grow on the bottle or on the surface of the vinegar. It isn't dangerous and can be wiped/skimmed off.

What you are seeing is called the mother.

Vinegar is produce when acetobacter bacteria consume alcohol and produce acetic acid. The bacteria form a culture as they work. In the case of filtered vinegar, this culture is removed before bottling but letting a bottle of unpasteurized vinegar sit for a while will allow the culture to reform. Unfiltered vinegar often already has some of the mother present.

It is harmless and can be used to start your own vinegar if you have stale wine sitting around.


Why isn't glass ideal for the fermentation of sauerkraut? I last made sauerkraut over 20 years ago, so embarking on it again I did some reading and chose an Alton Brown recipe. He specifically calls for the fermentation to be done in a plastic container. This answer here on SA suggests that fermentation in glass is "higher maintenance" What's the best container to ferment vegetables?, but that is counterintuitive to me.

I believe it, since it meshes with what Alton Brown recommends, but why? And is there an advantage to the traditional ceramic pot or the newer high-tech container?

SUMMARY: Glass containers are perfectly fine for fermentation.  It's usually other design aspects of the container that create fermentation problems.

Do you have any sources that actually say glass isn't a good container for fermentation?  I've never heard or read that anywhere.  The only negative thing I can say about glass is that it's usually transparent, which means you should store it in a dark place to avoid growth of microorganisms that can sometimes be fueled by light.

I assume the reason your linked question mentions that glass jars are "high maintenance" is because most people who ferment in, say, your standard Mason jar may not use airlocks or weights to keep food submerged.  If food stays on or above the surface of the liquid, it is much more likely to mold, especially if the container allows outside air to get in.  Some people therefore tend to stir or skim their fermented foods periodically, and this agitation will prevent some surface molds from forming, sometimes even with food that floats.  With a standard Mason jar, though, your only other option is to keep outside air from contaminating the container by tightening the lid, but then you have to "burp" the jar periodically to avoid pressure build-up.

"Burping" or stirring/skimming on a daily basis (or even more often) in standard jars would probably be "high-maintenance."  But these would be problems with any container material (not just glass).

Of course, neither of these situations is ideal -- what you really want to do is (1) use some sort of weight to keep the food submerged (weights in a big container or a baggie full of water in a small container are typical) and (2) have an airlock of some sort on the container.  If you try to ferment in glass jars -- or any container -- without those two things, you need to use "high-maintenance" techniques to try to prevent mold.  And even if you do the "high-maintenance" things, you may still encounter growth of bad things, so I wouldn't recommend such a setup.

I have no idea why Alton Brown uses plastic in his recipe other than the fact that it's probably the cheapest option for someone to find a container that holds five pounds of cabbage and likely comes with a good lid.  There's nothing wrong with plastic as long as it's non-reactive and doesn't leach anything into the ferment.  Most food grade plastic containers should be fine (though many people avoid them anyway in favor of more traditional glass or ceramic).

The two containers you link to both include an airlock of sorts, and both have common methods to keep food below the surface.  (The ceramic crock usually is used with weights, while the plastic container has an inner plastic lid that can be moved down to keep food down.)  The first is similar to the container recommended in your linked question, and it's those aspects which make it more desirable and requiring less maintenance.

Anyhow, if you want to read more about these issues, you might find this link interesting, which included a microscope study to look for growth of nasty things after a 28-day ferment in 18 different fermentation container setups.  Bottom line, as I said: the container material is basically irrelevant as long as it's sterile and non-reactive.  The more important things are keeping outside air out and keeping food below the surface.


Why do my egg shells have discoloration? Why do my eggs have discolored spots on them? In the white eggs they look gray and in the brown eggs they look darker. I know brown eggs have speckles etc but these spots are not speckles.
Thanks

You didn't post pictures, so I'm going out on a limb here:

Looking at some eggs out of my fridge, I see grayish spots on some white eggs. They are hard to photograph, but I tried. Look especially at the blunt end:

If you hold the egg in front of a light source, the mystery is revealed - thin shell areas light up:

Your eggs simply have a thin shell. This may be caused by various reasons (older hens and lack of minerals amongst them), but is completely harmless as far as food safety and use in the kitchen is concerned.


Vinegar choice for pickling I just tried my first batch of vinegar pickles and chose what is supposedly a high-quality, accurately diluted apple cider vinegar with an acidity of 5%. I followed a very basic recipe which called to dilute that with an equal amount of water when making the brine, which I did. According to the recipe I used, and also according to the official Ball guide on pickling, that should have produced a mellow taste and allowed the spices and garlic I included to really show through.

However, everything just tastes and smells like vinegar, even two weeks later.

According to the recipe and to Ball, I did everything right and should have ended up with a nice, simple, somewhat spicy batch of pickles. But the overwhelming vinegar flavor makes me think I probably chose the wrong vinegar. Is there a better one I should be using? Should I dilute it further next time?

While you could certainly use plain white vinegar, there's not all that much difference between that and cider vinegar if "vinegar" is the taste you're objecting to.

If you are canning the pickles, changing the recipe could kill you. The vinegar helps to produce an acid environment where botulism does not grow.

So, if it turns out you don't like pickles in vinegar, stick to "refrigerator pickles" if you want to reduce the vinegar further. That is, keep them in the refrigerator the entire time.

You might also want to look into lactic (naturally fermented) pickles where an appropriate salt level keeps things safe until the lactic acid bacteria make enough acid to further keep things safe. Those are refrigerated when complete, typically.

Waiting longer (rather than throwing away) may help the ones you have - it takes some time for the exchange between the inside of the cucumber and the brine to be complete. Or, a refrigerated dip in fresh water for overnight or a few days might help them suit your taste.


Frozen raw beef patties vs cooked refrigerated patties? I love making burgers but it often ends up being very uneconomical since I can only get ground beef in 1kg+ amounts here and it often expires on the same day. Due to its short shelf life, I basically have to munch burgers for breakfast, lunch and dinner for 2 days whenever I buy it.

Having done that a few times, I'm looking for alternatives. The 2 options I can think of is either preparing the raw beef patties and freezing them or cooking all the patties and putting them in the fridge to be reheated.

There are cooked and cooled patties available here at the store but they are extremely disappointing. Then again, those are only like 50% beef and filled with bread, water and whatever other crap that doesn't go in a burger patty so maybe the homemade version would be better. I've never tried a frozen raw patty though nor can I find them at the store.

Which would yield better results? Any tips in getting it right?

Freeze them raw.

Prepare/portion/shape all the patties then put them on small square of parchment paper (or waxed paper) square in a single layer on a baking sheet and freeze them as fast as possible in your freezer.

Once they are frozen, stack them an put them in a resealable bag.


What difference does the bar pressure makes in espresso coffee machines? I read somewhere that 15 bar is enough and any pressure higher than that doesn't make any difference. The standard pressure is 15 bar for home machines and 9 bar for professional machines!

If so, why are there machines with higher pressure (16, 19, 20, 21 bar) and why do these machines cost more money? If professional coffee is made with 9 bar, then why do home machines work with 15 bar?

Brew a standard espresso!
9 bar is the "standard", not 15. This number has been reached after lots of trial/error with other pressures, and is accepted as standard by Italian (page 7) and U.S.A. associations and guilds.
Some guys have even made devices to check how precisely their machines reach that pressure.

Professional (also called commercial) machines can give much more pressure, but control automatically not to give more. They kind of pumps they use are called rotary pump, and due to their construction, the flow rate is independent of the pressure (which will remain quite constant).

Home machines employ the cheaper vibratory pumps. In them, the pressure is indirectly proportional to the flow. To try to have a more constant pressure, and to make it independent of the flow rate, they are added overpressure valves. But they need to have pumps that give more than 9 bar, to assure that those 9 bars will get to the basket in the portafilter.

You can see both rotary and vibratory pumps dismantled in this video.
So, when manufacturers advertise their vibratory pump machines having 15 or more bars of pressure, they are just doing marketing using the not always true motto "the more the better".
But why do I still see many machines high pressure?
One of the signs of good quality espresso is the crema. If the coffee is good it will have a nice layer of crema on top. The marketing guys know you'll think If my espresso has crema it will taste good (which is not necessarily true). So they added a pressurized filter to produce crema even with stale coffee that was grinded one month ago. As their name shows, pressurized filters need more pressure than a 9 bar standard one.


How to cook a 2-inch thick steak to medium? I have a striploin steak that's about 2 inches thick. I'm going to sear it in a hot pan on all sides. And then put it in the oven to cook it.

I want it to come out medium to medium-well.

How long do I need to bake it for and at what temperature?

I think this question is hard to answer exactly. The easiest way to estimate the duration of the steak in the oven is to cook the steak at ~260°C and after >3 minutes each side (altogether >6 minutes) to measure the inner temperature of the steak. 57-60°C should be medium rare. Of course this his method requires a thermometer. (source: here and here)


I burned some sweet potatoes in my new microwave- is the microwave ruined? I put two small purple sweet potatoes in the microwave for 12 minutes and they burned in my new microwave. My dad claims I destroyed the microwave because I burned something in it just once. Is he right!? If that were the case, I’d think most people would be buying new microwaves every month and that’s not the case.

If the microwave still works, when can I use it again?

I think most people don't realize a microwave oven is just a radio transmitter. The cavity you put your food into is part of a tuned area for this transmitter. Instead of feeding the output of this transmitter into an antenna, the power is contained within the cavity and, thus, warming the food. Note: extremely simplified statements.

Mistuned transmitters can cause a mismatch with their antenna. The same thing happens when there is little to no food inside the microwave cavity. Such issues can cause the magnetron, the microwave's "tube", to overheat and cause damage to itself. However, by not being a solid state device, and by being more of a mechanical device, it can withstand mismatches and overheating for a more extended period of time whereas, a semiconductor device (transistors and integrated circuits), could fail within seconds.

This is why manufacturers warn not to run the microwave without anything in the oven. But you did not do that. For most of the 12 minutes, you had potatoes in there. The quality of this "load" on the microwave element deteriorated over time but it wasn't zero. If you had left it like that for half an hour or more, I could claim there would be a deterioration of the magnetron tubes "quality" but it is not anything I would concern myself with and I don't think it would even be measurable.

Source: me. Electronic engineer but haven't dealt with transmitters in a long time.


Would it be alright to substitute white balsamic vinegar for wine in risotto? I'm really craving risotto but I don't have any wine in the house at the moment. I do have white balsamic vinegar, however.

Risotto generally refers to cooking short (or sometimes medium) grain rice, such as Arborio, in some kind of broth/stock until the base becomes creamy.  Anything after that is strictly whatever flavors you prefer.  There are classic additions past that - such as white wine, hard cheeses, mushrooms, etc - but the sky is the limit.

If it sounds good to you, take a small bit of the risotto base, mix a little of your desired ingredient in and the sample it.  If it tastes good, expand on it!  At worst you've messed up a small portion of the dish, at best you look like a culinary genius!

Would white balsamic vinegar taste good?  Sound good to me!


How much can I change the height of a cake? It's pretty common to find cake recipes with pans that don't match the size of pans you have. I know ideally you would make sure total area of the pans is the same as in the original recipe, so that the batter is the same depth and it bakes properly. For example, two 10-inch pans are about the same area as three 8-inch pans.

But if nothing works out that cleanly, and I don't want to just scale the recipe, how much thicker or thinner can you make a typical cake without really messing things up? For example, using two 9-inch pans instead of three 8-inch pans would make it about 20% thicker - would that be likely to cause problems? What about the other way around, 20% thinner?

(I know the baking time can change, but it's easy enough to check for doneness.)

I have found that, for most cakes, variations in the height of the layers doesn't cause any problems. As you noted, you need to keep any eye on them for proper doneness. If the layers are substantially thicker you may need to slightly decrease your oven temperature to ensure proper doneness without drying the cake out.

I use the same batters regardless of the size of the pan or thickness I am looking for. I have 7, 8, 9, & 10 inch cake pans and I regularly vary the diameter and/or thickness of the layers depending on the end result I am looking for, how I want to present the cake, etc.

Regarding my remark about most cakes, there are exceptions. For most cakes, I want a moist cake that doesn't crumble when cut or eaten. Variations don't hurt these layers.

However, I use a different batter when making super thin layers (10 - 12 layers will result in a 4" to 5" tall cake).  This batter results in a dryer texture which works well because they get some moisture from the frosting. Being so thin, the level of moisture works out very well. If the layers were moist to start with, the cake would turn to mush. You wouldn't use this batter for any normally thick layers, cupcakes, etc. as it will crumble terribly.

Hope this helps. And, just an observation here (could be my imagination), but it seems like people think thin layers are more special. Maybe they think you put more work into it
or maybe it's just that it's more unusual these days to see thin layers.


Does an Instant Pot actually save time? For some time people have been making much of the Instant Pot as a time-saving tool. I recently bought one and it produces good results, but I'm not sold on it as a time-saver. Tonight, for instance, I made a recipe that involves a chuck steak and vegetables. In addition to the normal cooking stages, I had to allot time for the IP to come up to pressure and then for the "natural release" of pressure. At that point the time involved seems comparable to what I would have done on the stove. So is there any actual savings of time?

(Obviously it depends to some extent on what you're making.)

It is going to depend greatly on what you cook and where you are. Long braises can be shortened by hours. It is nearly impossible to cook beans in Bogota Colombia without a pressure cooker. cite

Lentils on the other hand. The recommended times in the IP manual and on the bag for not in a pressure cooking are the same. And as you say, with the IP natural release is not included in the time given.

Another time savings is not having to manage the cooking in the middle. Thanksgiving evening dumped turkey carcass, mirepoix and water. Set for 2 hours of high pressure. Ignore for three hours. Cool and refrigerate one gallon of turkey stock. No checking to see if it is simmering, adjusting the heat up, checking again, adjusting the heat down.


Which part of blue fish is not edible? I bought a blue fish caught in Maryland. Can I eat the entire fish, or are there some parts of it which are not edible?

From Fishing Tips: How to Catch, Prepare, and Cook Bluefish:

  When you clean the fish, remove the skin and any dark-colored flesh. This part of the fish is especially strong tasting and somewhat oily.
  Check out these fish recipes to learn to cook bluefish.

Also see How Can You Cook Bluefish To Make It Taste Good for advices on improving the flavor (e.g. soak it in milk).


How quickly can chicken stock turn sour? So, I made a pot of chicken stock (which I've never done before) and it seemed to be going great! I roasted a whole young chicken, pulled the meat off, and tossed those bones into a pot with a couple more skin-on, bone-in chicken breasts, some chicken thighs, and some onions, garlic, and shallot.

I wasn't following a particular recipe, but used Chef John's recipes for the basic technique. I left it simmering until around 16 hours because I got distracted, and have read that letting a stock simmer too long can result in bitterness, but that didn't happen.

I forgot to let the stock sit and cool for an hour before straining as the recipe says, but I can't imagine how that would negatively impact the stock...

I tasted it when I strained it, hot, and it tasted fine! I decided to transfer the now-strained stock to a clean pot and reduce it so it would fit in my storage containers. But when I went back and tasted it after it had returned to a simmer, it had a very noticeable sour taste.

I went online and tried to see what could make a chicken stock turn sour literally as it's cooking, but I can't find anything. The only information I've been able to find doesn't really apply here: I didn't even let the stock cool before straining it and returning it to the heat. I really can't imagine any lacto-friends gaining a foothold in the maybe 30 minutes max the stock was off the heat.

Literally everything I've found has said that chicken stock will turn bitter if overcooked. Can it turn sour instead of bitter? What on earth would make it do that?

I'll use this stuff for hot and sour soup I guess, but I'd like to know what I can do to avoid this in the future. Is it most likely because of how long it cooked? Or is there a reason you need to cool the stock before straining it?

UPDATE: I poured a couple tablespoons in a ramekin to cool ASAP just to see what if anything would change and.... the sourness is gone? Or greatly reduced? It still smells good, still tastes chicken-y, but that sourness is still present in the larger, still-warm container.

Boiling stock for a long time will not make it sour.

In my experience, high protein food will not go sour when it goes bad. It goes putrid. Sourness requires sugars. Either way, I agree that your stock would not have been given sufficient opportunity to go off.

I am forced to blame experimental error. Perhaps your utensils were not as clean as you thought. Maybe you just ate a spoonful of honey and your tongue was uncalibrated.


Why isn't my bread machine making any bread? I bought a new 1-pound bread machine. After many tries, the machine has yet to make any bread. I am using all raw ingredients, as the local supermarket does not sell any bread machine mixes.

I tried following some of the recipes in the included recipe book and marketing video, which requires that the the flour and yeast be placed in the machine last, on top of the liquid ingredients.
I also tried these Bread Machine Bread steps from Allrecipes.com, which asks for the yeast, 40°C water, and sugar to be placed in the machine first, to sit for 10 minutes, but I used the ingredient measurements described in the machine's recipe book, as my machine is only 1 lb.
Some recipes on-line call for "bread machine yeast", but I can only find "dry active yeast".

After the clock reached 0, I opened the machine and always found either: (a) the ingredients just compacted and cracked, but dry and not mixed up or (b) a yellow, jelly-like blob, somewhat baked, but still soft, with unmixed, still dry and powdery flour at the top.

What do I need to do to get my bread machine to work?
Do I need to mix the ingredients before putting them into the machine?

It sounds like you may be missing a very important piece.

 this

belongs here:


what is a loose spice? I read this sentence 'We probably buy a variety of ground spices every month and when packaged spices of our choice are not available, we end up buying loose spices. This increases our risk of consuming adulterated spices.'

Ground spices means the spice has been ground down into a coarse or fine powder.  However what's a 'packaged spice' and a 'loose spice'?  I know ground spices are packaged small bottles or plastic bags or what am I not understanding?

I take the term "loose" to mean spices sold from large containers, scooped into a bag, rather than a sealed and packaged off-the-shelf product.

A sealed container, produced commercially, is (presumably) inspected and regulated to avoid adulteration. When you buy from an open container at a market or store, you have no way to know if it was mixed with something.

And still, I prefer to buy fresh loose spices, from vendors I trust.


How can I increase bifido bacterium strain density in kefir Both water and milk kefir contain Bifido strains and I would like a way to increase the density of bifido strains.

If the variety of strains could also be increased, that would be a bonus.

Bifido is anaerobic and consumes oligosaccharides (I think), so could adding juiced chickpeas after initial fermentation has removed all the oxygen work?

The simplest way to increase the diversity of strains might be to start from a mixture of kefirs from the most diverse and independent sources you can find. There's no guarantee that putting two symbiotic communities together will improve either of them though, or produce a final more diverse community.

What are the constraints on density? I would imagine that density will increase until either nutrients are depleted, or pH or other toxicity factors reach a certain limit. You might find that some strains tolerate a higher/lower pH range than others, and also that careful pH adjustment would allow density to keep increasing, provided you supply enough nutrient.


Are chocolate brands taking countries temperatures into account? Today is an unsually hot day where I live in France, we are reaching 40°C in some cities.
As I grabbed a KitKat out of its bag, I noticed that it was completly melted. It's 35°C in my appartment.
It made me wonder: Does hot countries like Mexico, Spain or Algeria have chocolated products specifically designed to be more heat resistant ?
And how would you achieve something like that ?

It's simple: people in hot countries eat dark chocolate.  In Southern Italy, chocolate is dark as coal and almost as hard.  Mexican chocolate classically contains only cocoa, sugar, and spices.
Well-tempered dark chocolate, without dairy products, wax, or other additives with low melting points, melts at a higher temperature than your Kit-Kat does.
Per Gizmodo

Dark chocolate has a higher percentage of cocoa in proportion to milk fat, so it has a higher melting point. Dark chocolate melts in your mouth; milk chocolate is much more likely to melt in your hand.


Why did my tenderloin end up undercooked inside? So last Thanksgiving, I tried (for the first time in a while actually) to cook a tenderloin and every single time I tried (I split the entire loin I bought into 5 4 oz-ish pieces) I kept charring or burning the outsides while the insides stayed rare/raw.

What I did before cooking it was I marinated the pieces in Ponzu a full day before taking it and putting on the pan. I used olive oil on a non-stick pan (?). I think I kept the heat at around medium-high and generally let it cook without moving the steak around too much.

I let it cook on each side for about a minute and a half just to be safe. Then when I finally cut steaks into slices, it was still mostly undercooked on the inside while being thoroughly cooked and charred on the outside.

I still served the steaks after cooking it again on the pan and giving it a squeeze of lemon over it...

I am going to guess that your 4 oz tenderloin was probably about an inch thick.  Not moving that, in a hot pan, for only a minute and a half left it under cooked in the center and over cooked on the outside. The pan was too hot and the cook time was too short. Given your limited experience cooking tenderloin, I would suggest a couple of adjustments.  First, get a thermometer to accurately measure the temperature of your steak.  Identify the doneness you prefer and look up the associated temperature. If you are cooking in a pan, on the stove top, then turn the heat down to medium at the most...add some fat to pan.  Cook your steak, flipping every 30 seconds for about 5 minutes.  Check the temperature.  Continue flipping regularly until you are 5 - 10 degrees below your target temperature.  Remove from the heat, tent with foil, and allow to rest 5 - 10 minutes (carry over heat should get you the rest of the way to your target).  With experience, you will gain a feel for the doneness and can eliminate the thermometer.  Time is not an accurate measure, as there are too many intervening variables.  So, get a feel for temperature instead; not only measured temperature, but actually touch the cooked meat to see what it feels like.  Over time, with experience, this can guide you quite well.


Is there a brand of salsa I can cook with that doesn't contain seeds? I love salsa, mexican food, and anything spicy, but most salsa has tomato and or Jalapeno seeds in there. Hope to find one without seeds.

I wouldn't trust any store brand to omit seeds entirely; it's just not going to be a priority for them.
I'd suggest making your own instead.  It's fairly easy and fast to seed tomatoes using a chinois, and to seed peppers using a knife.  And it'll taste better, too!


candied mints storage and transporting long distance I'm making mints for my nephew's wedding (containing powdered sugar, butter, white syrup). The wedding is in August. I have to travel more than 1,000 miles to wedding. I have two questions:

If I make them ahead of time, how do I store them to keep them fresh?
How do I transport them in an automobile?

Your main limiting factor is the butter, which can go rancid and it highly sensitive to warm temperatures.

You should freeze the mints for storage until you take your trip.  You don't want them absorbing moisture or off flavors, so you want to wrap them very well, using freezer grade storage bags.  I would suggest double bagging, small bags in larger ones.

Get a cooler large enough to take the mints on the car trip, packing it with dry ice (which you can buy) or commercial freezer packs (sometimes called blue ice, such as this product on Amazon) to keep the butter at least cool for the duration of the car trip.

You may need to plan to find a purveyor of dry ice at one of the places you stop during the trip, or arrange to have your freezer packs rechilled along the way.


Is it okay to freeze fish at home, after it was only refrigerated in the supermarket? Let's say you buy packaged fish from the supermarket, which was kept cool, but not frozen, by their commercial refrigerators.

The wisest thing to do would be to prepare and consume this at the earliest convenience, as it would be most fresh, but what if you wanted to keep it stored at home for later?

Is it okay to store packaged supermarket-fish in your freezer, especially after it was merely cooled by a normal store refrigeration system, and it had time in the car to gain some temperature?

Does it ruin the texture/flavour of the meat? Is it hygienic/sanitary/unhealthy to do this?

I'm looking to buy a bunch of fish (and shellfish) for the weekend, as I'll have no time/means of going to the supermarket the day of the meal.

Edit: I am aware of, and often practise, the method of buying frozen fish and storing it at home in the freezer, but in this example, I'm referring to fish that was not frozen in the supermarket.

This is a relatively common practice in my household, no harm has come from it to date, but do it at your own risk.

One may say "Why buy fresh fish and freeze it, just buy it frozen instead, it is probably a lot fresher", but at least where I live (Portugal) there are a few reasons to buy fresh fish and freeze at home. Just to list a few:

It is still generally relatively fresh even compared to pre-frozen packages, and you can get a lot more different varieties and species than you could from the pre-frozen selections alone.
You get to see the whole fish "live" and unspoiled and easily assess it's quality, size, freshness, and characteristics etc.
Unfrozen fish can also be cleaned up a prepared at the supermarket by the staff to your desire, which is unavailable for frozen items, and saves some trouble and mess at home, while being prepared by professional, or at least trained staff.

Flavor and texture should be well preserved, suitable even for more delicate preparations like grilling, as long as you don' take too long before freezing it, or store it for very long periods in the freezer.

Just make sure it is actually fresh fish, here local supermarkets specifically label store thawed fish for immediate consumption, and often verbally advise the customers at the moment of acquisition to not re-freeze.


Can I saute in one pan and bake in another? Usually I saute my chicken then put the pan in the oven to finish cooking. But I need to make more than my one oven safe pan will hold. Can I saute in a few pans and then transfer all the chicken into a baking pan to finish cooking? Would I need to add oil to the baking pan and/or let it preheat in the oven?

You certainly can. To make cleaning up easier I would line it with parchment paper rather than add oil, although a little bit of oil would work too. There shouldn't be any reason to preheat the baking pan before putting it in the oven.


How to convert a bread recipe to Tangzhong Method? I would like to know how can I covert my bread/pastry recipe  and apply the Tangzhong method.

King Arthur has a description:

The typical sandwich bread or dinner roll recipe (like these Golden Pull-Apart Butter Buns) has a hydration level of around 60% to 65%.
But when you’re using the tangzhong method, you want your recipe’s hydration to be about 75%.
Why? Because when using tangzhong, some of the liquid in the dough is “trapped” by the pre-cooked slurry (the tangzhong), and thus plays no part in the dough’s texture; as far as hydration is concerned, it’s as if that liquid isn’t even there.


Pyrex glass coffee pot I have a very old Pyrex glass coffee pot that belonged to my grandmother.   As a kid, I have a distant memory of her using it on a gas stove to boil water.  The pot has a picture of a flame on the bottom of it, but it doesn't say either way whether it's safe to use on a gas stove.   I'm sure the pot is very old;  maybe 1950s or 60s.  Any advice?

Sounds like what you have is Pyrex Flameware, which is range safe.
From the link:

Flameware by Pyrex by Corning Glass Works of Corning, New York is a line of range top kitchenware...
Identification of Flameware is easy as most pieces were imprinted in the bottom of each piece with the "flame" logo, plus the item number and size.


Use of robotics in gourmet kitchens I don't know if this question is relevant here, or if it should wait for the upcoming Robotics Proposal, but I'll ask it anyway.

Chefs such as Heston Blumenthal and Ferran Adrià are known for appropriating various high tech pieces of equipment from labs and industry, and using them in their kitchens. I was wondering if any of them use robotic systems in the kitchen. I imagine that robotics would allow increased repeatability, reduced cost, and the ability to do things that would be very difficult for a human to do accurately or quickly, such as decorating food in novel ways.

By 'Robot' I mean something which has the ability to make controlled coordinated movements, on at least two axes, and manipulate the external world. This definition would not include things like bread makers or dishwashers, no matter how smart.

The simple answer is YES!  There are a number of chefs currently experimenting with the implementation of robots in their kitchens.  There are various technologies and the research is on several fronts, including what I think is most interesting which is controlling nutritional values for specialized diets.  Food printing is where I am seeing most chefs focusing their attention.

One of the first examples is actually just a concept design called Cornucopia by Marcelo Coelho: http://web.media.mit.edu/~marcelo/cornucopia/

I started a site to document these developments which are currently unfolding.  For example, Paco Morales is experimenting with Food Printing in his kitchen: http://robotsingastronomy.com/food-printing-at-restaurante-paco-morales/

There are several other examples I hope to add to the site soon.  It is really an exciting field!


Why does my mozzarella crumble? I'm trying to make mozzarella at home. I'm following this recipe (without citric acid), but I also tried this one (with citric acid), without any result. I think my italian is sufficient for understanding the above recipes. I'll summarize the video recipe for you:

I took 2l milk, (exact type below) and heated to 40°C
Add 1tsp natural yoghurt for each liter of milk (I doubled this)
Add the rennet dissolved in cold water (exact type below)
wait 1h, cut up the curd (so far seems to be ok)
wait 20min, till the curd and the whey separates (bit suspicious: the curd does not sink)
break the curd into small ("piccoli-piccoli") pieces, and let them separate for 4 hours (very suspicious: does not sink, floats on top of the whey)
remove whey, put the curd into a sieve, and let it drip-dry for 18 hours (suspicious: when it seems dry, I put it onto a plate for the remaining time c.a. 4h?, but the plate fills up with whey)
now I should be able to form the cheese in warm/hot water, but I do not get to this point, because the curd/cheese falls apart, it stays in little crumbs, like cottage cheese

What am I doing wrong? The materials I use:

milk: 3.5% fat, pasteurized (not UHT or ESL) and homogenized
rennet: c.a. 0.5ml for the 2l milk

I'm planning to try to get natural milk, only cooled, no pasteurization and homogenization, but before I do that, I'd like to know, what went wrong.

Note: I've looked around here before placing the question, I found these:

this does not apply, because the milk I'm using is not UHT pasteurized
the other questions are mainly about microwave recipes, which I try to avoid

It's a bad recipe.  Here's why:

The way to make mozzarella without using citric acid is to use cheese cultures to acidify the curd, since in order to achieve the cheese's characteristic stretchiness it needs to have a pH of between 5.0 and 5.6..

That recipe has you add a "culture":

  Add 1tsp natural yoghurt for each liter of milk (I doubled this)

... however, yogurt is not the same as Thermophilic cheese culture, which is what you use in mozzarella recipes. In fact, the 40C temperature you used is enough to kill the yogurt culture, meaning that it likely didn't acidify the milk at all. Besides which, the yogurt culture would have had other, undesirable, effects on the texture of the curd.

There's lots of other weird and suspicious factors in that recipe (18 hour drain?  WTH?); I'd recommend simply discarding it and using the Ricki Carroll recipe instead.


How long will egg yolks keep? I have one recipe that calls for several egg whites, and no egg yolks that I plan to make soon. I have other recipes that call for more yolks than whites (which I am not planning on using 'soon')...
How long will egg yolks 'keep' in the fridge?
(alternatively/additionally) Can yolks be frozen (for instance, in an ice cube tray) an preserved?

Egg yolks, optionally covered with water, and in a well sealed container should hold for about 2-3 days in refrigerator.

You may also freeze them, but they require treatment with sugar or salt to prevent the proteins from turning them rubbery, at ratio of about (per the Egg Board):

1/8 teaspoon salt  OR
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar or corn syrup

per 1/4 cup of egg yolks (about 4 yolks).

Of course, you then have to adjust whatever recipe you use them upon thawing to account for the sugar or salt already mixed into the yolks.

See also:  Still Tasty


Jamon Serrano smells awful I don't know a thing about cured ham, but I just opened this ham, and while I realize a cured ham probably has a peculiar smell, I can't imagine this horrific stench being intended. My entire apartment smells like a trashcan on a hot day, and the ham has both black and green spots on it. Seven meters away, the smell is still strong enough that it just about makes me gag, and every instinct I have is telling me this is not edible.

tl;dr: are jamon serrano hams supposed to smell overpoweringly like old mouldy food, or did I just blow $80 and a perfectly good towel on a worthless chunk of rot?

This is what it looks like:

Follow-up: I've been in contact with the store, and I'm going to go get a refund. I showed the ham to some knowledgeable people in real life as well, and they agreed that it's spoiled. Thanks a huge lot for all your helpful answers!

Nope, Jamon Serrano should not smell bad. It can be normal for it to have mold on the very outer surface, which is generally harmless and can just be scrubbed off, but a foul smell means that there is something wrong. I'm afraid your ham is trash.


How can I safely improve my cutting technique I'm not bad with knives if I should say so myself. My cutting speed is definitely above average, but I've have never been trained by professionals. Most of what I know, I have picked a long the way, trying out some different stuff, practice etc.

I would really like to improve my cutting speed, for when it's really needed to be able to cut fast, but I don't know how to go about it. I really don't want to risk my fingers. So is there some good rules, guides or techniques I can use or practice to become more proficient with knives without risking cutting my fingers?

All of the following play an important role in cutting technique/speed:

Practice! Probably the single most important.
A very sharp, clean knife. Always hone your knife before use, and have it sharpened regularly (6-18 months depending on use)
A fast and stable cutting surface. A solid end-grain cutting board is ideal.
The food should be stable. As Nick says, make a flat side to your food if it doesn't have one.
Proper off-hand placement. Your off-hand should be curled with your finger tips resting on the food. Your first knuckles should be against the side of the knife blade. Your fingertips should be tucked out of the way due to the curling. Your thumb pushes the food under the knife as you slice.
Proper knife-hand placement. This can vary based on your biomechanics, hand size, knife, etc. However, the gist is:

Don't hamfist it
Relax your hand and arm
Gripping high up on the bolster of the blade can help with control and speed. I pinch the blade itself between my thumb and forefinger.

Unless you're actually chopping (e.g. using the rocker technique to chop herbs quickly) you should actually be slicing your food. A slight forward movement of the knife blade as it passes downward through the food decreases resistance and speeds the cut. It also is gentler on your food.

To be completely safe you could use a finger guard. For example, Jamie Oliver Finger Guard. I've never used one of these, but it seems like it would significantly decrease the chances of a mishap. It also seems there are a few other brands out there to try.


What is fine semolina? (For baghrir recipe) Background: I would like to cook baghrir. There are many recipes, all very similar: put fine semolina, warm water, yeast, sugar, salt in a blender and blend it for a few minutes, in the end it should have a liquid consistency. I tried it once but it was a disaster, I figure the problem is that it wasn't liquid at all, but very thick and sticky. It didn't have many bubbles and stuck to the greased pan badly.

Semolina, according to Wikipedia, is coarse by definition. So the first problem is that fine semolina sounds like an oxymoron to me, a finer version of it would be flour basically. I can only buy one type of it anyway (here in Switzerland), here's a close up photo: https://i.stack.imgur.com/3sQwG.jpg . Looks quite coarse to me. Also I don't think my blender has any effect. Here's a photo of it: https://i.stack.imgur.com/y7U78.jpg .  I know it says chopper, but it has sharp blades that rotate so I figured it should work. I saw a video that suggested that blending coarse semolina should give you fine semolina. So I tried grinding raw semolina for a few minutes and the result looked exactly the same, I couldn't tell it from the original.

So the recipes suggest fine semolina, blended even finer, and I have coarse one and unable to blend further. Do you think this issue could cause my batter to behave badly? Any suggestion to fix this?

I never have made baghrir, so I can't guarantee that this will work. But if your problem is indeed only particle size, I would suggest that you just buy your raw material ("semolina") from a specialized provider online. If there are none in Switzerland, I suppose that German mills may ship to you.

My suggestion would be to try buying Weizendunst. This is a grade of milling that is finer than Grieß (which is the typical translation for "semolina") but coarser than flour. This will give you a particle size that is smaller than what you can buy in the supermarket. Seeing that this kind of dish was likely traditionally prepared with home milled semolina anyway, you are unlikely to need something very exact in milling size. If that's too difficult for you, just try flour - Spätzlemehl might work better there, since it's coarser than baking flour.

The durum vs. soft wheat difference might be more important. I frankly don't know if original baghrir are made with durum or wheat flour, the term "semolina" is a bit unfortunate in English because it sometimes refers to the milling grade only, sometimes to durum flour only, and sometimes requires a combination of the right milling grade and durum wheat. If nobody else tells you which wheat is meant, you might want to get one pack of both kinds and see which turns out closer to the original.

The "didn't have many bubbles" and "stuck to the greased pan" parts don't sound like a problem with the flour size though, more like the wrong temperature. Make sure that the temperature is hot enough, that you have enough oil - not just brushing a bit of fat on the pan, use enough oil and if needed add after every pancake - and be prepared to sacrifice the first one or two pieces, they are always worse in any style of pancake.

To address the exact question in the title, "fine semolina" is not an oxymoron at all, there are just many milling grades for flour and semolina. The German Wikipedia defines them as:

coarse semolina: 600-1000 µm
medium semolina: 475-600 µm
fine semolina: 300-475 µm
Dunst: 150-300 µm (no idea what the English term is, likely they either label it as flour or as semolina, not recognizing a middle type)
flour: less than 150 µm

And above coarse semolina, you have other grades like bulgur and broken wheat.


Where can I find a recipe for less-dense coconut bread? I was looking for a recipe for coconut flour bread.  I found several like this Amazing Paleo recipe.  However, all of them are rather flat and seem very dense.  I found another site that sells coconut flour bread that looks more like what I'd want.  It seems they added baking soda and apple cider vinegar to get the volume (the air bubbles) like you would with yeast.

Is there a recipe for coconut flour bread that's more similar to traditional sandwich bread?

It is quite easy to find the ingredients of the bread from the picture you posted. They are:

  Purified Water, Organic Coconut Flour, Egg Whites, Psyllium, Organic Apple Cider Vinegar, Baking Soda.

J.A.I.L.'s answer already explains part of what makes bread texture what it is: you need raw proteins which form a flexible 3-d mesh to trap the air when they set during baking. You also need a thickener combined with water which makes the whole thing soft instead of rubbery. In wheat bread, the proteins are called gluten (actually a mixture of two different types of protein, both coming from the wheat), and the thickener is starch (also coming from the wheat). In the bread you posted, the protein is the egg white, and the thickener is the psyllum mucilage. Coconut flour doesn't even come into play; it consists mostly of fat and some fiber, but the fiber is not of the rare thickening kind (as opposed to psyllum fiber). It contains nothing helpful for the bread structure, so they obviously use it as a filler. Of course, it will provide you a pleasant mouthfeel, aroma and lots of calories; it just won't give you a bread-like structure.

Conclusion: Trying to build a bread recipe around any nut flour is totally wrong. You have to search for a recipe which has the right balance of protein source, thickening agent and leavening agent. Once you have found it, you can substitute your favorite nut flour (or some other food item) as a filler. By the way, making such recipes from scratch is very hard, because you need not only the combination of ingredients (in this example, it is easily found), but also the correct ratio, and the correct timing for mixing and baking; these artificially-constructed combinations are nowhere as forgiving as wheat doughs when it comes to leavening. I would suggest looking for existing recipes. Sadly, it would be off-topic to give you one here, even if I had one, but I can give you a tip for your search: stay away from the ones which don't have all three things: leavening agent, protein and thickener.

Probable protein sources are: eggs, vital wheat gluten, possibly extracted soy protein (if you can get a source for its raw form). Probable thickeners are: anything described in this e-book. As for leavening mechanisms, the Wikipedia article should give you enough pointers. If you find a recipe which has one of each, it is likely to end up puffy. I must warn you that alternative thickeners have a mouthfeel which is very different from starch, so most breads made from such recipes will probably be much less soft/cottony than white wheat bread, and some of them might have a slightly rubbery or gooey feel. But the good ones will have a decent approximation of bread texture.


cooking in a plastic bag without removing extra air, at 100c? What happens if I just use a zip lock bag, and closed it on the food, without sucking out the extra air, and then used a heavy spoon at the bottom of a pot, with boiling water ?

What i am trying to do is just get zip lock bags, without any other special equipment.

@Jefromi , looking for easy & economic way of cooking, with minimal effort to clean the pot afterwards.

During sous vide cooking, it is not uncommon to place food in a zip lock bag and leave the top unsealed and hanging over the edge (so water does not get in) of the vessel you are cooking in.  It can easily be weighed down with some flatware, as you suggest.  There is no need to suck a vacuum and seal, in most cases. Alternately, you can use the displacement method to remove air and seal the zip lock.  However, your temperature is a concern.  Many vegetables can be cooked sous vide at or near 90C, but I don't think it is wise to go much beyond that, as zip lock bags can fail...and there really is nothing you want to cook that high anyway.  If you want to boil something, just place it in a pot of water and boil it.


Incorporating Italian meringue into mousse Yesterday I made some mousse using whipped cream and Italian meringue as aerators.
I incorporated the whipped cream to the base first and the Italian meringue last.
However, the Italian meringue was a bit 'chunky' and did not easily incorporate into the mixture.
In fact, I ended up having some white meringue spots throughout the mousse; my choices were either that or deflating the mousse in the process of 'smashing' the spots to better incorporate.

Now, this reminds me of when I over whipped common, French meringue and it would not easily incorporate into joconde batter.
That said, I've searched around and many sources claim that Italian meringue can't really be overbeaten and that it's usually whipped 20 or even 30 minutes after adding the syrup to reach stiff peaks (without going overbeaten).
I definitely did not whip the meringue for this long.

  Is it possible to overbeat Italian meringue and could that be the problem?

Searching around, I've also found an article on Serious Eats that suggests Italian meringue is best whipped to soft peaks when using to aerate mousses.
Other sources suggest that the virtues of Italian meringue in mousse is the lightness it adds to the dish, so I'm worried that using soft peak Italian meringue may not be truly how it's supposed to go.

  Should Italian meringue be whipped only to soft peaks when aerating mousses? Should it be whipped all the way, or is it a matter of preference?

Finally, there's a matter of order of addition of aerators.
Some recipes instruct to incorporate whipped cream before meringue and some go the other way round.
This article on Food52 suggests that meringue always comes last.

On the other hand, on the book Advanced Bread and Pastry, Michael Suas claims that whipped cream is generally added last (regardless of whether meringue or pâte à bombe is being used).
He claims that overmixing during the fold in process can overdelop the cream and this leads to a grainy texture; adding cream least helps prevent this.
I am inclined to believe Michael Suas.

I also don't really think this has to do with the chunkiness encountered when incorporating meringue into the mousse, but I'm not sure.

  Should Italian meringue come before or after the whipped cream? Does it matter?

More generally, are there any guidelines or tips and tricks to successfully incorporating Italian meringue into a mousse base?

I'm not sure it's possible to overbeat the meringue (not without falling asleep while doing it), so I don't think that could would be the main cause of a failed mousse.

On the other hand, it's definitely possible to overbeat the cream for the purpose of being an aerator, and it's a very common issue. For mousses you don't want cream to get to stiff peaks: it should be shiny and not hard. This also helps to avoid overdeveloping the cream when folding it in.  If you need a visual reference, this video could help.

As for order of mixing, you should generally mix softer things into stiffer things, so I would do whites first and cream last, and for each add it in three separate steps, folding them in gently.

One final but vital thing to consider to avoid graininess in a mousse is the chocolate itself: a chocolate with too much cocoa butter will result in a grainy, unpleasant texture - a chocolate with too little cocoa butter will yield a mousse that is too soft and not able to stand as a layer in a modern entremet. Some brands of baking chocolate will explicitly say which products are the most indicated in a mousse.


how does the poaching eggs recipe scale for different sizes of egg? The recipe for poaching regular chicken eggs states to leave the egg in a pot of simmering water for ~4 minutes (besides of messing with the liquid pH levels).

I was wondering how the temperature, pH and the time would change for eggs of different sizes, e.g. quail and ostrich ?

As stated above in various comments it is a complicated question. I do have some info.

First read khymos I think that the formula they have answers the question :-)
They have a answer in a graph but it is only displayed for a very small range of chicken eggs.

This page in Norwegian gives you a online tool to manipulate the size of the egg and get the cooking time, but it only handles 12 to 17 cm circumference, translation here for the terms here if you need it


Are these mushrooms still edible? Are these mushrooms still edible? The colour of the gills changed.

I'm not sure what kind of mushrooms they are. They're not store-bought though, my mother picked them from the forest. She also washed them straight away. They've been stored in the refrigerator for 5 days. No off-odour. Gill's colour changed from light brown to dark brown-black.

No - not edible, is the only responsible answer to this question. From the given information and photo, it's impossible for someone on these message boards to positively identify what you have.

The saying is "When in doubt, throw it out". As with all foraged mushrooms, don't eat it if you are not able to 100% positively identify it. This goes for fresh and as well as 5-day refrigerated specimens.

My background: 3 years experience foraging local wild fungi in midwestern USA and scientific fungi identification.


Freeze-drying fruit at home? Is it possible to freeze-dry fruit at home without expensive special equipment (or get the same dryness otherwise)? Especially I want to get the fruit to the crisp dryness1 of freeze-dried fruit compared to the still slightly damp / soggy dryness of hot-air dried fruit.

[Edit] Well, turns out, basically no. Freeze-drying not only involves the ability to freeze the food to low temperatures (which can be achieved), but also creating a low pressure environment and controlled heating of the the food in that environment (Not easily achievable or controllable at home). More info from Wikipedia

1. It should feel absolutely dry to the touch, and crumble / break when handled roughly rather than stretch / bend.

Assuming you have a frost-free freezer (which dehumidifies the cold air), I'd experiment by laying sliced fruit on a sheet (maybe on a layer of waxed paper) and putting it in the freezer. Pull out a slice every day or two to check its crispness. The time necessary will depend on the type of fruit, its moisture content, the slice thickness, and the room's humidity.


What's the best way to crack open a Brazil nut without breaking the nut? How does one crack open a Brazil nut in order to get the whole nut? When I go to the store I can get entire nut meats. Unfortunately, with whole nuts, it's a pain.

I've used the nutcracker longitudinally and horizontally and/or both, but the nut never comes out whole.

From here

Freeze Brazil nuts, or soak them in water for several hours before cracking.

Stand frozen nuts with the point facing up and hit with a hard object, such as a hammer, to crack.

Crack soaked nuts with a nutcracker. Place the nut in the grip of the nutcracker so that the seam of the shell is subjected to the direct force.

Use minimum force necessary to split the shell when squeezing, in order to avoid crushing the nut kernel inside. Rotate the nut while squeezing so the shell cracks slowly.

Extract the kernel from the shell.

Allow the kernels of soaked nuts to dry for a few hours after cracking.

Read more: How to Crack Nuts | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_10768_crack-nuts.html#ixzz16j8GzCOo


How do I remove bloomy rind without wasting too much cheese? Suppose I have a cheese that has a bloomy rind such as camembert or brie. I want to completely remove the rind before eating. What are some reliable methods I can use to remove the rind without wasting too much cheese? I could cut off the rind using a knife, but that wastes a lot of cheese.

When the cheese is very cold (even frozen), use a sharp knife and it will be easier to cut the rind off more precisely, to waste less cheese.
(I assume you're aware that the rind is edible and indeed enjoyed by many people. Another way to avoid wasting cheese would be to find a rind-eating friend to share your cheese with.)


Does using frozen coconut milk lead to poorer consistency than canned? Curries or baking, I use coconut milk/cream often with my share of failures. I put it down to the variations in fat content between brands or when measuring out of a large container -which I then freeze for later use... Could freezing be the source of some of my issues? Or is graininess, splitting while cooking, small flecks of pure fat after blending, all signs of my inferior skills?

This is from http://www.realthairecipes.com
"There are bags of frozen coconut milk available in some Asian groceries. While the flavor is better than canned, it separates and gets chunky when you heat it. I’m not sure why freezing does this to coconut milk. I’ve experimented with freezing my own homemade fresh-pressed coconut milk, and the same thing happens. The flavor is OK, but the consistency is quite odd. So, I recommend canned. If you are lucky enough to find Chao Koh brand coconut milk in a paper carton, this is even better."

*I prefer pure coconut in UHT packages (no gums or preservatives)

Jennifer Frazer experimented with frozen coconut milk and wrote about it on her blog.
The conclusion is that you can freeze cococnut milk. The taste is preserved, but the consistency is not.

Jennifer writes:

  The thing is, you can still use it just fine for purposes that
  don’t depend on coconut milk’s texture or consistency;

Coconut milk is an emulsion of oils in water. To freeze and thaw the coconut milk is enough to affect the emulsion. You can compare the situation to cow's milk. Cow's milk is also an emulsion and the mouth feel will change if you freeze and thaw it.

References:

Jennifer Frazer's blog
A paper on the stability of the emulsion in coconut milk.


Can I bake a finished Ginger Bread House I made a gingerbread house using store-bought gingerbread cookies (from Ikea, if it matters) and using just royal icing made from whipped egg whites, powdered sugar and vanilla paste. Because I couldn't find meringue paste being sold anywhere around me, I had to use the unpasteurized egg whites.

From the remaining icing I had, I made meringue kisses, which were pasteurized in the baking process.

Now I have a gingerbread house which was fun to make with the kids, but I'm afraid to give them to eat because of the unpasteurized eggs.

Will baking the house in the oven as I did with the remaining icing (90 deg C for 1.5 hours) to pasteurize it have any adverse effects?

This seems like a bit of a catch-22.

If you bake the assembled gingerbread house for an extra 90 minutes at 90°C, the gingerbread cookies will possibly/likely become dried out, hard, and inedible.

Candies and decoration may become similarly dried out and inedible. Some chocolate or gummy candies may melt, even at the relatively low oven temperature.

I wouldn't consider baking the completed gingerbread house as a means to make it edible. I think it would have quite the opposite effect (though, I've never done it).

I think the real question is whether the raw egg whites used are safe to consume as is. As mentioned in one of the comments, this can vary depending on where/how the eggs are sourced and what country's regulations you're listening to. Here in the US, the FDA warns against eating raw eggs, but US eggs are quite different than European eggs due to the differences in cleaning/processing eggs between the farm and table.


What is the proper way to make a cup of mate? I've seen different videos on how to make a perfect cup of mate. After putting loose tea in the gourd, some people cover the gourd and shake it upside down, some people shake it on its side, some people don't shake it at all. This is all in an effort to move the smaller bits (after you've right the gourd back up) to the top, so that when you insert the bombilla (metal straw with tiny holes at the bottom), the smaller bits won't be sucked up.

What is the proper way?

Mate = the ritual

Mate = also means the gourd or wooden cup you use

Yerba = the ground up tea

bombilla = metal straw

termo = thermos with hot water, not boiled

Fill the mate with yerba about 3/4 of the way
Place hand over the mate and shake anyway you would like. The goal is to remove the dust because the straw will not be able to filter this out.
Fill the mate with a small amount of water on one side and pack the yerba into one side creating a 1/4 empty space
Pour water into the empty 1/4 and insert bombilla covering the top to prevent tea or water from entering (just like cover a regular straw and inserting into a cup to prevent liquid from entering)
The "servidor" is the person in charge of serving the mate. This person takes the first cup and tests the water temp, rids the cup and bombilla of any dust or bits of yerba that go through the bombilla the first sips.
*Note- it is an insult if you are to pass the first testing round to a guest.
Each mate full of water is per person. A good servidor will pour water over only part of the dry section of tea in order to allow each person a tasty mate.
Continue serving, wetting more and more of the dry tea section each serving until all is wet and the taste begins to wither.

Video Reference: How to prepare and serve mate correctly


Spaghetti sauce consistency / coating noodles I made my home made spaghetti sauce this weekend, which I've been making for several years.  As always, the flavor turned out great, so I don't want to change my recipe too much.  However, I do have one concern.

Whenever I use store bought sauce, it always coast the noodles completely, or near completely, as well as anything I may add to the dish, meatballs in this case.  The noodles end up with a thick red coating of sauce on them.

When I use my own sauce, it just runs off the noodles.  It leaves enough on them to have a good flavor, but does not have the same visual appeal to me that I get with store bought sauce.

I used to use cans of whole tomatoes, but lately, I've been starting with fresh tomatoes.

Is the quality of sticking to the noodles something artificial and a result of the mass production / preservatives?  Or is it something to be desired in a sauce?

Should I be doing something different?  Would more tomato paste or less water help?  Or is there something else I should be adding?

Adding a bit of the pasta water that you cooked it in helps sauce stick to your noodles. Have you tried that?


Marinade sauce bottle left open for longer than recommended - safe to use? I have a marinade bottle from Nandos, it was opened and then kept in a cupboard for about 6 months.

Is it safe to use?

I can't find any information of what could go wrong about sauces. It still smells the same so I don't see any issue aside from the bottle saying:

  Once opened, keep refrigerated and use within 3 months

If it says keep refrigerated and you didn't, I wouldn't chance it. A lot of things need refrigerator temperatures to prevent nasty things from growing and keep them safe. There are also some things that are actually safe unrefrigerated but retain quality better when refrigerated, and will say "keep refrigerated" on the bottle, but you don't really know which is the case here.


Using double cream in icing I'm looking at a recipe for icing that uses double cream as the substrate for the icing.

How well will the cream be preserved on a 1:4 (or better, given its application) mix?

Also, how well would such icing set? I'm looking for a fairly stiff mix that will retain peaks; can I expect such with cream as the substrate?

Just simply use whipped double cream only:

add a knife point of starch and a few grains of vanilla per ¼L of double cream
whip it (not too much or it'll turn into butter)
pour into a piping bag
refrigerate overnight

and it'll remain stiff enough so you can create anything you want including flowers:


Will MSG improve taste of a food for someone who dislikes the food itself or will it make it worse? Let's consider a situation where someone dislikes a taste of, let's say, broccoli (or some other food), and MSG is added to that product during the cooking process to improve the taste. Will the taste actually become more pleasant for the person who dislikes broccoli, or will it make the taste even more unbearable (by making it more pronounced)?

MSG has a flavor itself; it tastes of "umami", the savory, meaty flavor. This is because it's made of glutemic acid (or glutamate), with a little sodium (less than salt). Glutamates are the compounds responsible for the basic umami taste, and they are found in high concentrations in kelp, cheeses, soy sauce, and oyster sauce.

To the best of my knowledge, it's not like salt, which is said to enhance existing flavors; this would be more like cooking broccoli in bacon grease to impart a bacony flavor to the broccoli. Therefore, it depends heavily on the existing flavor profile of the food in question and the taste preferences of the person involved. If the person likes broccoli dunked in soy sauce, it might be worth a try.


Is there a use for bean juice - the cooking liquid of beans? When I cook beans there's heaps of brown-coloured water. Is there a use for this? Do you drink it or something?

It can be used as an egg substitute in various baking applications; search with the keyword "aquafaba" to learn more about this.

Also, it is used as a thickener in some bean-based dishes (eg common in chana masala).

Also, it can be used as stock for some types of soups.

Since you describe the juice as brown, it seems that you are cooking dark coloured beans like black or kidney beans; the same usages apply but might be limited by the unwanted color.

The same usages apply to bean juice from canned beans.

Mind that bean juices do have the same (or even stronger) flatulence-inducing effects that beans have.


What makes alcohol-free beer sweet? Yesterday, I had a can of alcohol free beer which tasted almost like normal beer, just without the alcohol bite. Practically any other alcohol free beer I've had has a different taste. They all are slightly sweet (but not with a sucrose sweetness) and remind me very much of the taste of young corn, specifically the white liquid contained in the raw kernels before the corn is ripe. This happens with beer which contains enough hops and no corn at all (brewed by Reinheitsgebot), while alcoholic beer which actually contains corn (like Tuborg) doesn't have that taste. I am talking about regular light lager here, not the strongly malted dark beers which turn sweet with caramel products.

I think that young corn is sweet because of its glucose, which converts to starch while ripening. Is it glucose which makes the alcohol free beer sweet? If yes, does it ferment in the alcoholic beer, or is it still there, but covered by the alcohol taste? Or is my sense of taste misleading me?

Beer is made from malted cereal grains. These can be corn but more commonly malted barley. The malting process turns the starch in the grain into sugars then the fermentation turns the sugars into beer. To get a strong dry beer, first start with a sweet malt and the ferment until as much sugar as possible becomes alcohol. For a non alcoholic beer, you need to remove the alcohol so you start with a low sugar malt and ferment just long enough to get the flavour but not too much alcohol. Since the fermentation is short, even through the initial sugar content might be low, there is sugar left in the beer thus giving you a sweet taste.


What can I do to fix store-bought mayonnaise that split? My dad brought 2 bottles of mayonnaise from Kuwait. When we opened the box, it looked like water/oil had come up above the other contents.

How can I fix this?

Your mayonnaise probably got a little too hot in transit.

Mayonnaise is an emulsion of oil and water. That is, an emulsifier is added to a water-based ingredient that effectively coats droplets of oil and allows those droplets to dissolve into the water instead of coalescing and floating to the surface.

Lecithin is the most common emulsifier used. It is found abundantly in egg yolks.

The emulsion can be damaged if the mayonnaise is heated. When this happens the oil coalesces and you are left with a vinegary base with oil floating on top. Yum.

To fix it you have to reform the emulsion. There are many answers here about how to make or fix homemade mayonnaise.
Briefly: You beat an egg yolk well with the water-based portion and then slowly drizzle the oil in while beating like mad until the mayonnaise is thick and white again.

The whole point of making homemade mayo is to use better quality oil and vinegar or incorporate different flavors. It really isn't worth your time trying to save commercial mayo.


What is a close alternative to Graeffe brown sugar? Maybe it's because I'm Belgian and grew up with the Graeffe brown sugar, but I've always found it superior to the hard/crystalline brown sugar you find in stores in the US. Is there a brand close to the Graeffe one that comes close or do I have to order it from Europe?

Here you can find a picture of said sugar (on the left; the right is granulated sugar, for comparison).

Normal cassonade is cane or candy sugar with added molasses (I don't know what the exact difference is with brown sugar, I think cassonade is just a type of brown sugar.), however this cassonade is from sugar beets.

My best guess to replicate it is to put some regular granulated sugar for a couple of seconds in a blender, so the size of the particles is smaller. Then add some molasses and if you can find it, a drop of inverted sugar syrup. I've also found that there is caramel added in Cassonade Graeffe, but I don't know whether they add that flavour or they caramelize the sugar for a short amount of time. If I find the time, I will try to find out more, but it's not a product with a lot of information about.

If you just want a close alternative, I would advise you to just buy different kinds of brands of brown sugar. Perhaps, one will be softer than the other (I don't live in the US, I can't speak to that). Try to find brown sugar from beets, not from cane sugar (not sure if this is available).
Or if you're willing to pay the taxes and shipping costs, I can send you a package.


When is it necessary to cover food with aluminum foil during baking/roasting? Often a recipe calls for covering a dish while it bakes. I understand that this can help to trap steam.

How do you know when it's necessary to use aluminum foil when baking a dish without a recipe?

What are the other advantages of using aluminum foil to cover your dish while it's baking?

If it calls for tightly wrapping it, they're trying for steam.  More than likely, they're just trying to shield the top from radiant energy, so the top doesn't brown before the whole thing is cooked through.

If you're ever baking a cake, and it's starting to brown, but a toothpick is still coming out wet, I'll move it to a lower rack, and put a sheet pan on the rack above, to keep it from browning much further, but not seal it in such a way that it would steam the cake.


Can I use raw sugar to make cookies instead of granulated? I am currently outside of the United States and I haven't been able to find granulated sugar, all I've been able to find is what seems to be raw sugar and powdered sugar. Would either of these work to make chocolate chip/sugar cookies?

Granulated sugar is 100% sucrose with the molasses removed. Raw sugar on the other hand is refined sucrose with its natural molasses. The answer is yes, you can use them but you might need a bit of tweaking within the recipe. If your raw sugar looks a bit more like brown sugar then your chocolate chip cookies would come out more chewy (not that its a bad thing) because of the molasses in them, whereas granulated sugar would yield a crumb that is more crisp.

P.S. Its alright to use powdered sugar. Some recipes even call for it when baking cookies. However, when substituting granulated sugar to powdered sugar, i recommend that you use a scale since powdered sugar holds so much air when packing into a cup measurement. Measure 7 oz of powdered sugar per 1 cup of granulated sugar.


why does coconut ice turn brown after a couple of days Please can someone help or give advice to solve my problem. I have tried using sorbex but with no advantage

Whenever you have a fresh fruity thing go brown, the word is "oxidation."

There are a couple of ways to prevent oxidation in sorbet or other fruit ices. The first, and easiest, is to cook your mix before you freeze it. You'll lose some of that "fresh" taste, but your color will be more stable.

The second is to add an acid...Acids love oxygen, and bind it away from your fruit (for a while)...This may not work in your case, since I imagine "Sorbex" is a version of "Fruit Fresh" which is a citric acid powder. Regardless, this will obviously effect the taste.

Finally, you can grind up a chewable vitamin C tablet (or buy powdered Vitamin C) and mix that in.


Best way to preserve nutrients while dehydrating fruit and veggies I am getting into fruit dehydration (and maybe of other foods) for backpacking. I'd really like to backpack with my own made food as much as possible and reduce vitamins and minerals supplements to a minimum - or to nothing, if possible.

I have read that dehydration spoils some nutrients, most cited are the vitamin C and A, that are volatile and that would be "killed" by a 50°C temperature which is the one that is recommended by most instructions I found on the web.

I would then like to know what are the recommendations about this; like, if there are some fruits that are less susceptible to this loss, or if there are any fruits that can be successfully dried at a smaller temperature (30°C is the minimum allowed by my device) thus reducing the nutrient loss as much as possible, or any other useful technique/tips.

Dehydration in all ways spoils nutrients. There are few tricks (like freeze/dry dehydration, sulfur dehydration, and orange juice bathing), but in the end you will always loose something along the way. That said, home dehydration is not as bad or aggressive like industrial one is, so you will probably still end up with a positive weight/nutrients ratio. But, be aware that being sugar much more resistant than everything else and much more present in fruits and vegetables, you'll basically end up with "lot" of sugar and few nutrients. From this point of view, fresh fruit is always the better trade off.

That said, maybe you can solve your problem if you look at it from a different perspective.

So, first a step back: as of today marketing is trying to convince people that the more, the better; things like "if 100% of the daily recommended intake make you healty, imagine how super you will be with 1000%". Now, that's entirely marketing bull***t, dangerous for your health and on top it even if for some vitamins or minerals it could be not dangerous to exceed, it will force your organism to do lot of work to expell all that is unneeded/unused (yes, there is practically no "storage" of nutrients in our body)

Then, if you want to bring your own dehydrated food with you, instead of worring about maximising how much nutrients will remain after dehydration, maybe just do the math to understand how much dehydrated food you'll need to bring with you; maybe you'll discover that even after loosing 90% of nutrients you will need just a couple of hectograms of dryed food instead of 2 kilos.

That said...try not to kill yourself with spoiled dryed food or by doing the wrong math and bringing a 2 days reserve for a 5 days hike, ok?


Did I blanch baby-cut carrots correctly? The Cook's Illustrated How-to-Cook Library suggests blanching 3/4 lb baby carrots for crudités in boiling salted water until bright orange, about 15 s. I added a tablespoon of salt to almost four quarts of water and blanched almost 2 lb of baby-cut carrots for 15 s. They didn't change color in this time, but they seemed bright orange from the start. After shocking in ice water and draining, I tasted the blanched carrots against the original raw carrots. They tasted roughly the same. Maybe the blanched ones were slightly less bitter but I'm not sure I would consistently say that in a blind taste test. What difference in taste should I have noticed?

Did I do something wrong? Should I have left them in the boiling water for longer than 15 s? The National Center for Home Food Preservation suggests 5 min for small carrots, but that's for a freezing application rather than raw consumption.

My guess is that you dropped 2lb of carrots into the water. This drops the water temperature under the boiling-simmering point. So, you're not blanching correctly. You should have taken about 3/4lb portions and blanched them successively. (Or you should have used more water on a bigger stove top.)


Dried tofu - does it have another name, and where can I get it in the UK? A local Asian supermarket used to sell this stuff that the proprietor referred to as dried tofu. In came vacuum packed, and seemed to be dehydrated tofu that had been marinated in Chinese barbecue or chili sauce. It was soft, but slightly chewy, and totally delicious.

That closed down, but by happy coincidence I switched jobs and had a colleague with a Chinese wife. They would buy this stuff on visits to China, in an even wider variety of flavours, and were happy to bring me some back when I asked.

I've now moved on. I've been searching the other local Asian markets for this snack without success - indeed most staff in the shops seem visibly confused when I ask for "dried tofu", as though they have no idea what it might be.

Searching online for "dried tofu" turns up a variety of products that are obviously meant for cooking: unflavoured blocks or strips of tofu that need seasoning or rehydrating before use. This isn't what I'm after at all.

"Flavoured dried tofu" doesn't bring up much different either.

This made me wonder if this stuff has a different name other than the "dried tofu" I was given? And whether anyone knew of anywhere I could order it online for UK delivery?

I wonder if it was bamboo tofu or "tofu skin": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tofu_skin


Oil-like stain when cooking with gas I've been boiling water with some new pots on a gas stove and it leaves (left) a stain on the bottom (on the inside) that has the same color pattern as when oil drifts on water.

What could be causing this and is it 'a bad thing' ?

I've seen a number of varying explanations of this phenomenon, but all agree that it's a normal effect to see on stainless steel cookware and is harmless (assuming you are cleaning your pan well).

It is probably some combination of the minerals in your water, high heat, and oil or soap residue.  The harsher detergents and sometimes less effective rinse of a dishwasher might make the problem more prevalent than if you wash the pots by hand.   It may also be caused by oxidation of the metal itself and you can remove it by scouring or with a bit of vinegar or lemon juice.

You can pretty much ignore it, unless it bothers you for aesthetic reasons.


Chappati flour (Indian store flour) Can someone elaborate on chappati flour from an Indian grocery store. Is it considered a hard wheat or soft wheat? And is it really whole wheat because it looks more like white flour to me. Could I use it for muffins or pancakes?

From what I understand chappatti flour (atta) is very finely ground whole wheat flour, so it does appear to be more white than regular whole wheat flour, but it does have a noticable difference if you compare the two flours side by side, both in texture and colour.
You could definitely use it for muffins or pancakes if you're so inclined! Just as you can sub whole wheat flour, you could sub atta.


canning a mustard vinegar sauce I canned a mustard vinegar sauce that contains granulated sugar and brown sugar plus ketchup. I washed the jars in my dishwasher and cleaned the lids in water and vinegar. Do I need to do anything else after canning the sauce that was held over heat for 30 minutes? Please advise.

Depends how acid it was ("contains vinegar" is not a pH) and what temperature it was "held" at, as well as jar size.

As a rule, canning is best done by following tested recipes and procedures which have been checked to work for the particular food type and jar size - i.e. many things are not considered safe if packed in quarts due to the larger size of the jar, or those that are/can be require more time.

If I guess that you might have boiled/steamed the jars at atmospheric pressure (boiling water bath) that is only an accepted technique for "acid" foods, where "acid" specifically means having a low enough pH to retard botulism growth, not "yep, there's some vinegar in here." One normally attains that by following a tested recipe.

Pressure canning at 15 PSI/1 Bar is required for safety with "low acid" foods. You still need a procedure that ensures that all the contents of the jar get to an adequate temperature for an adequate time to kill botulism spores.

There are many canning procedures that were used, or are being used in some cases (by folks following tradition rather than science) that are not particularly safe. Grandma always doing it this way and not having a known problem is not any guarantee of a safe procedure.


What's the difference between Salami and Pepperoni? What is the difference as far as content-pork, beef?

Pepperoni is a variety of Salami. Salami is a dried sausage which can be made of pork, beef, veal, horse, donkey, poultry or game. Different spices, smoking and vegetable ingredients give the different salame their particular taste.

Pepperoni limits its ingredients to beef pork and poultry and belongs to the more spicy varieties of salame.


Can I make Jachnun in a Dutch oven? Jachnun is prepared from dough which is rolled out thinly, brushed with clarified butter, rolled up and baked overnight. The preparation calls for a Jachnun pot.

Trouble is, I don't own a Jachnun pot, and I don't feel like paying for a pot that I can only use for one dish, that I've never made before, and might decide never to make again. I want to try making Jachnun once.

I do own a cast iron Dutch oven. Can I use that instead? What difference would it make? Aluminium has different heat conductivity from cast iron, but considering I'm sticking the thing in the oven on 100C for 15 hours, what difference would heat conductivity make?

While a jachnun pot is traditional, many recipes mention alternatives:

"an oven proof pot"
"grease a pan that has a cover or use aluminum foil"
"a 9 inch by 13 inch cake pan or casserole"
"Generally, jachnun is baked in a round oven-safe metal pot with a tight-sealing lid, but I've also had fine results baking it in a crockpot."
"1 steel pot (pot and lid made of steel)" (included mostly because it's material-specific, but not aluminum)
"an 8-inch springform pan"

The key to preparation really seems to be the low and slow bake temperature and time. A well-sealed lid may date from a time when this was cooked in the embers of a fire; covering the jachnun rolls while they bake is universally recommended, but a very tight seal does not seem to be critical.


How do I eliminate Corn Meal "grittiness"? I recently made some corn bread on my own from scratch for the first time. The flavour was perfect as was the general firmness/crumbliness of the bread. However, the corn meal in the recipe resulted in an extremely gritty eating experience. It was like eating uncooked steel cut oats. But it's not like you can make corn bread without corn meal...

Anyway, every other corn bread I have ever had, whether it is made from scratch or from a pre-packaged mix, has not had this gritty quality.

I used a relatively fresh purchased package of yellow stone ground corn meal. It was open for about 3 days since I used a tablespoon in another recipe, but I stored it in an airtight container in the freezer (which is apparently what one should do).

Did I purchase bad corn meal? Is there something I can do to modify the recipe and make it less gritty?

Here is the recipe I am using.

If you don't want gritty bread, use finely milled polenta. Roughly milled polenta is like semolina, and results in a gritty batter. Finely milled polenta is like flour, and results in a smooth batter.

I don't know the proper names for the different milling grades in English. I don't mean cornflour, which is pure maize starch from the inside of the maize kernel. I mean whole maize kernels milled so the particles are the same size as wheat flour. It is yellow and tastes the same way as the rough one, only the texture is different.

The two types of polenta differ in their water absorption and soaking times, so you may want to use a recipe developed for the fine milled type, or tweak your own recipe.

To give you a better example, here is what you need:

You don't want to use the rough form, which looks like this:


Does using a sponge in a brioche make a difference? I want to make brioche and have seen several recipes. Some use a sponge and some don't. Is there a difference in the end product (flavour, texture, look...)?

In general, preferments of any kind are used for several reasons:

They activate questionable yeast to make later rises more effective
This is less of a concern these days with freeze-dried yeast and freezers that keep them viable forever.
They promote a more open texture
With the extra time to rise and distribute themselves, the yeast blow the dough up into large pockets instead of a bunch of small pockets. This will happen less with a very wet preferment like a sponge but it will still make a noticeable difference in the texture.
They enhance the flavor
The longer the yeast are able to work the better the bread will taste. If you put your sponge in the fridge overnight the yeast will slow down but keep working and in the morning you will have maximized your flavor.

With all of these reasons the choice is totally yours. You will see a definite improvement using a preferment, especially with something like brioche that should be rich and flavorful. If you are in a hurry though- a fast brioche would be better than none at all.


Is risotto or paella rice a better substitute for my Japanese dish? My supermarket has stopped stocking Japanese ingredients, just as I decided to make a Katsu Curry for my dinner party tonight!

I have Paella rice and Risotto rice (Arborio) - both by Sainsbury's and I know that they should both be ok substitutes as they are traditionally short grain white rice (although the box of arborio lists it as medium), but I want to know which is better.

I am planning to cook according to this BBC recipe.

Which rice is my better bet and are there any considerations/changes to the recipe?

There is a QA about the differences between paella and risotto rice on this very site, but it doesn't really answer your question.

For your purposes any arborio rice will do, the secret is to make it sticky using technique. Firstly, don't rinse the rice, you want to keep the starch, not wash it off. Next this you want to first put the rice and water into a pot and let it sit for a couple of hours, this will loosen up the starch on the outside of the rice. Then cook the rice as normal in the same water you soaked it in, letting it sit for 10 minutes after it is done. Don't stir, you want to keep the starch on the outside of the grain as much as you can.


How can one test if a vegetable is organic? If I buy some vegetables and take them home, is there any way to determine if the vegetables contain dangerous levels of pesticides?

No, there is no (reasonable) way to check it for yourself.

There are thousands of toxins in the world, and any of them could land on your vegetables. Some of them might be easily discovered, but most of them would require a complicated lab test. Even if you had the knowledge required to conduct such a test, and the equipment needed, you would have to run hundreds of tests on each batch of veggies. There are attempts to develop easy tests (full text behind paywall) for consumer use, which cover a few common pesticides, but I don't think they have been turned to a commercial product yet.

This is why there are regulations, and government organs which enforce these regulations. Sure, they don't have the capacity to test each tomato field for pesticides. Their control is based on levels of risk - for example, each slaughtered pig should be tested for parasites dangerous for humans, but for organic vegetables, they are only taking random samples. It is expected that the risk of fines and other financial loss will deter farmers from using pesticides on vegetables labelled as organic. Additionally, independent eco organisations run their own tests and expose producers who sell contaminated vegetables. This results in a functioning system, where only a small fraction of organic food is actually contaminated.

If you have reasons to suspect the vegetables you aren't in fact organic, you could always pay a lab to run tests for you. It would probably cost a lot more than the price of the vegetables, so I can't imagine a situation where this would make sense.