Are Pull N Pak plastic bags appropriate for storing raw or cooked meat in freezer snd vegetables in fridge? Pull-n-Pak plastic bags are freely available in supermarkets at produce and meat sections.

When I buy a package of 12 drumsticks or a jar of chicken livers, I plan weeks to  eat them. So I use the Pull-n-Pak bags to separate them, either raw or cooked, into portions per meal.

Since the bags are plastic, are they appropriate for storing raw or cooked meat in the freezer? Is it better to use glass food containers such as Pyrex, rather than Pull-N-Pak plastic bags? Are they appropriate for storing raw vegetables in fridge?

Thanks.

I'm not sure if you mean each portion is in a separate bag and then you're placing the entire contents of what you bagged into a heavier plastic bag designed for freezing. If that's what you mean, it's fine but I'd pick up extra unused plastic pull n pak bags so you wouldn't need to worry about cross contamination with used bags. It's what I often do when separating raw meat. It makes it more sanitary for me as I turn the bag inside out, then put it over my hand like a mitten. I grab the meat with my hand in the bag and turn it so the meat's contained in the bag without me having to handle it.

On the other hand, if you're storing the meat in those bags only, I don't suggest it. Other than cross contamination like Alan mentioned, those plastic bags were never meant as a thick enough barrier between food and freezer air and contents. It's easy to get a tiny tear or puncture in the bag and get freezer burn on the meat or the odor of the raw meat to mix with freezer air. You might not notice it at first but over time, your freezer could get a funky smell affecting other food in it.

My aged mother was always freezing meat in these bags and never noticed how off her freezer smelled. She didn't understand why parts of the thawed out meat looked dry, had freezer burn or developed ice crystals in it. I don't say yours would get that bad but don't rely on those bags only.

Nothing wrong with using them to store vegetables in your fridge though. I prefer to wash and dry most of my vegetables when I bring them home. I wrap a paper towel or two loosely around them and put them in the fridge then.


Fruit peeling techniques I came across this page (How to peel a mango) while surfing and I found it very interesting. What kind of methods and knives/kitchen gadgets do you use to peel fruits? Are there different tools to peel delicate and heavy skinned ones? According to the answers, I'm planning to buy suggested tools/knives to peel fruits.

I am not one to fall for the "as seen on tv" sales pitches... however, I came across the Titan Peeler's on sale at a Bed Bath and Beyond.

Let's say I have never looked back!  They are absolutely amazing, dishwasher safe and great for peeling anything.

Potatoes, apples, carrots, kiwi, you know it the peeler is great.


Bay used to crisp fermenting pickles When bay leaves are specified in a recipe should they be fresh or dried ?
How many  bay leaves per quart are required?

My dad uses fresh bay leaves because he has a bay plant in his yard but, in general, when a recipe calls for bay leaves, it means dried bay leaves. They're cheaper and much easier to find and - in general, considering how they're used - they provide the same results in the end.
To quote Cook's Illustrated:

Fresh vs. Dried Bay Leaves
Fresh bay leaves have become available in many supermarkets. In the test kitchen, we use fresh herbs more often than dried—bay leaves being an exception. To decide whether we should switch, we made two batches of a béchamel sauce, simmering dried bay leaves in one and fresh in the other.
Surprisingly, they finished in a dead heat. Here's why: The aromatic molecules in most herbs are more volatile than water. Herbs that grow in hot, arid environments—like bay leaves—are different: Their aromatic molecules are less volatile, retaining flavor even after water evaporates. Similarly, in long-cooked applications, we've found that rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage, and other herbs native to hot, arid environments do as well as their fresh counterparts. (And bay leaves are used only in long-cooked recipes.) Since they are cheaper and keep for months in the freezer, we'll continue to use dried bay leaves (about 10 cents per leaf), instead of springing for fresh, which cost twice as much.

So, while in many cases, fresh herbs are preferred, this doesn't hold true for bay leaves, so go with dried unless you see a recipe that specifically calls for fresh.
As to how many, I'd go with your recipe on that. What you're making and how strongly you want the bay flavor to be present will determine how many you need to use.


Can I mix multiple types of pudding powder? I would like to create a pudding with vanilla + cocoa pudding powder, from the same brand.

Can I combine the two safely(cooking them all at once)?

Strictly from a safety perspective?  Absolutely. If these are from the same brand then likely the only difference in their formulation is the flavoring agents used.  Most of those will be quite similar, and won't react with each other or anything. I'm also pretty sure that powdered pudding mix is quite safe in general.

So long as you follow the manufacturer's directions you'll be fine.


Frying mustard oils in indian tempering (tadka) Many Indian recipes call for a quick frying of mustard seeds until they start popping. If the oil is really hot the mustard seeds pop right away - But as I'm always afraid letting my oil get to the smoke point, I sometimes add the mustard seeds when the oil is not hot enough, but then they change color but don't pop, even after 1 minute. Should I be waiting for them to pop at the risk of them burning?

You don't have to put the seeds after the oil heats up. I'm Indian and we put it with the oil and then turn the stove on, and when the seeds pop, its like a timer and tells us when the other stuff needs to be added


How much dried herb to use when substituting for fresh herbs? When replacing a fresh or leaf herb in a recipe with the dried or powdered kind, what is the ratio I should normally use for the substitution?

E.g. if the recipe calls for 2 teaspoons finely chopped rosemary, how much dried rosemary should I use?

The Cook's Thesaurus is a great resource for these types of conversion and substitutes. There conversions differ for each herb, but for rosemary, they list

  1 tablespoon fresh = 1 teaspoon dried


Why is my avocado tough and rubbery? This is the second avocado from the same bag that is tough and rubbery. The pit won't come out without leaving a skin, and it won't peel out of it's skin without cutting the skin off. I made sure it was soft and was at room temperature before I cut it open. How can I de-rubberize them?

It's simply not ripe yet.

Don't buy avocados or any other fruit and vegetable in pre-packed bags, because you cannot tell what state they are in.

Buy from a local grocer whom you can trust, and therefore can get honest answers on the state of the produce.

Avocados are usually sold unripe for shipping reasons. Buy ahead of need, and let them ripen at room temperature (2 to 7 days). They will keep in the fridge if you need them later than that.

To recover a peeled unripe avocado, you can cube it, and then cook it in the microwave in short bursts to soften it. It's only good for salsa or sauce at that point though. One advantage of slightly cooking avocado is that the green colour becomes more intense; I suspect this explains the guacamole colour from many fast food vendors. :-)


Does soy sauce counteract hot stuff? I put some soy sauce and a generous amount of Frank's RedHot Extra Hot into my chicken stir fry but it was considerably less spicy than I'm used to.

Does soy sauce counteract heat / hot stuff?

Soy sauce is not known to chemically influence capsaicin or capsaicin absorption. The effect is likely subjective and has to do with something like spicy heat feeling less objectionable in a higher umami dish.

If you used more oil or fattier meat this time, this might be the real cause of the perceivedly milder taste - fats strongly influence how capsaicin is perceived (they do not neutralize it!) because they dissolve and redistribute it throughout the dish.


How is the chai latte in Starbucks made? I can brew my own chai latte (without the foam machine). It smells great with different types of spice. However, it just doesn't seems to reach the taste of the chai latte from Starbucks. The chai latte from Starbucks has a sweet taste like fruit. I wonder if they add other ingredients.
Here are the ingredients I use: cardamom, clove, ginger, cinnamon, low-fat milk, and tea.

The chai tea latte at Starbucks is made from the Tazo Chai Tea Latte concentrate. This product is available at supermarkets and online, and is mixed with milk to make a product not unlike what you have at Starbucks (minus the foam, as you pointed out).

So, what are these flavors (say, if you wanted to make this from scratch)? The website mentions that the black tea is malty. You could likely reproduce that with a maltier tea like Assam, though the box also says a "a rich blend of flavorful teas", meaning that a stronger blend like English Breakfast might be a closer match. It looks like you are on the right track with the spices as well: cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and cloves are all listed, though the website mentions black pepper, star anise, and vanilla in addition, which ought to lift your cup of chai a bit as well.


Would pre-sliced, pre-packaged fish be considered sushi grade if I freeze it for at least a week before consumption? I'm planning a sushi dinner party for my birthday in a month and I'm trying to do research on where to get my ingredients and supplies.

I'm finding that trying to find "sushi grade" fish is the hardest thing to do, and the only place that I can find anything where the person working the deli knows what they are doing is at Whole Foods. But their price for their salmon and tuna is really high.

In doing research to see what sushi grade really means (and searching here on Seasoned Advice) is that it just needs to be Frozen at -20° C (-4° F) for 7 days.

I found this pre-sliced, pre-packaged smoked salmon at my local grocery store: http://www.vitafoodproducts.com/p-315-vita-wild-nova-salmon.aspx

I asked the guy at the deli and he didn't know if it would be considered sushi grade or not. But from what I'm reading, I don't see why I couldn't just freeze the fish in my own freezer for a week or so before my event.

Is this not the case? Should I invest the money on getting already-confirmed sushi grade fish?

I have done several sushi dinners at home: a lot of fun and also a giant saving! One thing that you need to consider is the amount of fish, sushi recipes call for small amounts and so, even if you are preparing straight sashimi, I found that as 'little' as two pound of fish will 'force feed' a team of 6-8 hungry adults. Wish sushi grade fish you obviously don't want to do it wrong and get sick, so I suggest you stay away from home sanitized cuts. The problem is not only the extended frozen period, but also the way the fish has been handled from the moment it's caught. After searching and talking to the best restaurants in San Diego, I found that http://www.catalinaop.com is one of the best suppliers available. I was lucky enough to be able to swing by their warehouse and avoid the shipping cost, but they offer next day delivery at a reasonable price. The quality and variety is outstanding and they are specialists that will answer every single question! Make it special! :)

Hope it helps :)


Does using dark corn syrup instead of light affect the white color I usually get making fondant? The recipe calls for light corn syrup but I couldn't find light corn syrup and would like to use dark instead. Does it affect the color I get at the end (before adding icing colors)?

Yes, it will make it darker and more brown than white. It may also affect any colours you add, adding a slight brown tinge to them.


Roasting nuts in a rotisserie drum I have a rotisserie drum like this:

I would like to roast peanuts, cashew nuts, etc... in this. If I use the settings given for roasting the nuts in a baking tray, the nuts seem under-cooked consistently.

Is there a general rule for using the rotisserie drum? Like a conversion factor? Also, is it better to use the drum to roast nuts instead of the tray? I wanted to use the drum because of the uniformity in roasting that can be obtained.

Different ovens and air-fryers perform differently, hence I don't think there is a one- size-fits-all kind of a conversion factor. In my case, I roast a kilo of peanuts in one go and it takes 22-24 minutes and another 9 minutes of the free heat from the cooling down. I have another air-fryer that stops operating at the set time and does not offer free cooling down heat and so I air-fry for perhaps 29-30 minutes.

I suggest you invest in a kilograms of peanuts and experiment with the duration. Be prepared to write off losses. Also, do not to expose the air-fryer to the sun. You fryer will suffer for it.

Cashew nuts and hazel nuts brown faster, about half the time of peanuts. You absolutely do not want to roast as long as for peanuts.

Using drum is undoubtedly superior to tray. With a tray, you probably need to stir at least once to get a more even roasting and yet still can't beat drum-roasting.

You can also roast green coffee beans with drums.


What is the meaning of a circle on induction cooktop? If you see prestige induction cooktops, all of them have a cricle over it. What is the importance of it or what does it indicate?

Does it mean the pot/wok base area, which touches the surface of induction cooktop, should be smaller than this circle? And if the cookware is larger than this circle it may not work?

This doubt rose when I tested very small bowls and pots to heat water. It worked, but when I used little large non stick items, whose bottom was either almost equal or was slightly larger, were not working, or working with start stop pause heating problem.

The most important part of it is to help decide where to put the pan. The second reason is to roughly decide what size pan will be OK on it.

With the size, it is very small pans which cannot work. For domestic movable units, the minimum size tends to be 12 cm. If the pot is smaller than that, the cooktop won't work.

The cooktop should always work if you place a too large pot on it. It is still not a good idea to do so, since you will get uneven heating of the food, and your pans will warp. But cookware with a sufficiently large ferromagnetic bottom (which might not be the full width of the bottom for sandwiched models) should in principle work.


How much salt, add to tap water to purge bivalvia? I live Toronto, and our tap water is fresh water, not salty. I talk for each LB of bivalvia like clams mussels.

How much tap water?
How much salt to add?
What g of salt per LB NEVER to outstrip? What concentration kills them?

For pics, pls see After purge mussels 6 time in salt water 20 mins each, why they still exude much grime?

If you want to simulate seawater, you need 35g per 965g (more or less 1 liter)  of fresh water.


How to choose not only juicy lemons but lemons with less acrid flavor What is the teaching in choosing lemons—I know the obvious of picking heavy weight lemons, avoiding a dried-out looking lemon with significant pitting.
I was reading that one must choose thin-skinned lemons but how would u know that without cutting the fruit?
Any other recommendations for getting lemons with a bright, lemony, flavor without so much bitterness?

For thin-skinned, you can try pressing the lemon, they are thin-skinned if you can kinda feel the lemon flesh. While if it is thick-skinned it will be very hard to press. (i mean press in a way not to destroy the lemon).
Generally, the deeper the yellow color, the less sour the lemon is, as it is riper. So if there is any pale yellow or green, then it is not ripe enough. All citrus fruits are green while they are still growing on the tree. As lemons ripe, they lose their green color because the chlorophyll pigment is replaced with a chemical called anthocyanin.


How long does unwhipped whipped topping last in the fridge I have a defrosted container of frozen non-dairy whip topping (specifically, Rich's Rich Whip). How long will it last in the fridge before I whip it?

It's essentially a non-dairy substitute for cream. It comes in a frozen container. You defrost it and then whip it up to make non-dairy whipped cream. Ingredients (from the Rich Whip FAQ):

  water, high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated coconut oil, partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, contains less than 2% of the following: carbohydrate gum, sugar, polysorbate 60, polyglycerol esters of fatty acids, salt, sodium alginate, soy lecithin, artificial flavor, sodium citrate, natural flavor, colored with turmeric and annatto extracts.

According to the proper handling page on Rich's food service page for ready-to-whip products they state (in the last section) that the container should be thawed for 24-48 hours, then whipped. Any leftover liquid should not be re-frozen, but that it can be refrigerated for "up to 5 days."


Best spices to use on minced quorn in spaghetti sauce and other recipes As a vegetarian, whenever I have to use minced meat I use minced quorn.

But quorn does not add any flavour to dishes, only texture. What are the best "base spices" to add to the quorn when using it in any dish, for example spaghetti sauce?

Simple answer:  I would recommend using whatever herbs or spices you would use if you made the same dish with meat.  So, for a Bolognese sauce, I would pick thyme and bay, for an "alla vodka" sauce, basil and garlic, and for Marinara, oregano and peppercorn.  Given that the underlying product (quorn) has virtually no flavor of its own -- or, to the extent it does, it is not a flavor I personally would seek to highlight -- I would not worry about which herb or spice best complements it.


Does a pressure cooker really cook food evenly? My mother uses a 5 liter pressure cooker to cook chicken pieces.

She heats it for 10 minutes, switches off the stove and waits for the steam pressure to go down before opening the lid.

Even though this is done, some chicken pieces, although seemingly cooked; when you chew it, it feels like chewing gum and does not 'disintegrate' well enough to be swallowed. Same way you don't feel like swallowing a chewing gum because it does not 'disintegrate' into tinier pieces, for example, the way cooked rice 'disintegrates' into a mushy semi-solid before we swallow it.

There are other pieces of the chicken which do get fully cooked, and they are not like chewing gum. They 'disintegrate' and can be swallowed comfortably.

I asked her to cook it for longer. She cooks it for 15 min now-a-days, but the result is the same. Some pieces end up like chewing gum.

She believes that since it is cooked in a pressure cooker, the heat and pressure should be even, and therefore all pieces should get cooked evenly. So even though I proved to her that it isn't evenly happening, she still remains stuck with the belief that it should cook evenly, and she's doing nothing to solve the problem.

So:
1. Is the food (especially meat) cooked in a pressure cooker really supposed to get cooked evenly?
2. Is boiling the meat in a pot (instead of pressure cooking it) the only other alternative?

UPDATE: From the answers and comments. Yes, Mom says that first we wait for the steam to come out of the pressure cooker's vent, then we put the weight over the vent and that's when we start counting the time taken for cooking. We can't really depend on the number of whistles, coz it varies among pressure cookers.

As a couple of commenters already mentioned, the base of the pressure cooker gets hotter than the rest, and chicken is no homogeneous size.

I would like to add that besides the size difference between pieces of chicken, there is also a difference in tenderness.  Breast meat is more tender so it will pressure cook faster, while legs and wings will be tougher and take longer.

There is actually a way that you can take advantage of this knowledge to have evenly cooked chicken - by stacking the chicken pieces.

Place the darker, tougher, chicken pieces at the bottom of the pressure cooker (closer to the hottest part) and lay breasts and any other tender meat on top of that.  Add just enough liquid to meet the cooker's minimum requirement (usually 1 - 2 cups).  The breast will steam on top (and cook more slowly) while the legs & ect. will boil on the bottom (and cook faster).

Stacking chicken for even cooking is a technique that I published five years ago, as part of my pressure cooking lessons series.


Egg Integrity/safety I cracked and egg to make scrambled eggs. the egg looked weird. The yolk was sort of orange, and looked kind of mosaic like, and seemed to be sort of congealed. I thought maybe it had frozen a bit on the top shelf of the frig, so I left the skillet on low to thaw it, added the milk, scrambled it, and even tho it never completely dissolves/mixes with the milk, it did so even less this time, and when I pulled the part up that hadn't mixed, it was a lot longer, thicker, just more massive than usual. Is there something wrong or unsafe about this egg?

There is no conclusive reason to say about safe or not either way.

When an egg is frozen, the yolk changes irreversibly. Even after thawing, its consistency is very different, much thicker than normal.

On the other hand, it may never have been frozen, but have been contaminated by something instead. Or it may have been frozen first and contaminated afterwards.

You cannot say what caused the visible, if it was freezing or microorganisms. So it is unsafe. As for there being something wrong, nobody can tell without a trip to the lab.


Should boiled legumes cool before processing? When processing dips, such as hummus or refried beans, is it better to let the boiled chickpeas/beans cool down before processing them in a food processor or is it okay to process them while still hot?

When processing legumes, you're adding oxygen which promotes bacteria growth. If you do that at lower temperatures, risks increase.

Professional cooks have to bring the processed legumes back to a simmer before cooling them rapidly.

So, in your home kitchen, process them while they're still hot.


Am I cooking frozen fish safely? I am always ultra paranoid about cooking food properly - especially fish.

I have started buying frozen salmon. On the packet it says to cook from frozen covered with some water in the microwave. I wanted to make some salmon pasta so I prepared a white sauce (with onion,garlic,flower,water,button,milk,wine,herbs,etc), half cooked the salmon in the microwave then cut off the silver bit, cut it into chunks and chucked the chunks into the sauce to cook for a while.

Is this ok or should I make sure the salmon is completely cooked before adding it to the sauce?

Freezing kills the parasites in fish that are harmfully to humans.  That is why all sushi fish has to be frozen before use.  Since the salmon is frozen and has spent way longer than the minimum time frozen you could consume the fish raw with no danger to yourself.  You could have added the fish frozen to your sauce if you had wanted.

That said, I almost always thaw frozen fish at low power in the microwave so that it is easier to work with.


Substituting canola oil in salad I have a recipe for Asian salad using canola oil and rice vinegar.  Is there a substitution for canola oil that will not be changing the flavor? I would prefer to not use vegetable oil.

Canola oil is a neutral oil (meaning it has little/no flavor of itself) so you need another neutral oil to work. If you want to avoid vegetable oil (which in USA usually means soybean oil), you can try peanut oil, sunflower oil, or safflower oil. These are all neutral oils and should not change the flavor of the recipe.


How to identify CTC tea? The Harney and Sons Guide to Tea has the following to say about CTC tea:

  Today, both Flowery and Broken teas are also called “Orthodox” teas, to distinguish them from “CTC” teas. “CTC” teas (so called for the “Crush, Tear, and Curl” steps of the production process) were introduced into the market in 1931, when Sir William McKercher invented the a machine that would “crush, tear, and curl” the fresh tea leaves in one fell swoop. This technique, the apogee of British tea innovation, revolutionized the world of tea production. Essentially a massive sieve, the machine extruded fresh leaves as tiny bright green pellets, then sent them on a conveyor belt beneath powerful blowers. This machine so hastened oxidation that the pellets turned dark brown within one hundred yards, in just under an hour. The result of this near instantaneous oxidation was a tea with extraordinary briskness and consistency. CTC teas have much less of the sort of internal variation that pure whole-leaf teas can provide, the kind of magical alteration that happens when one sips a fine tea or wine. CTC teas are so much cheaper and easier to produce, however, that they have almost entirely supplanted Orthodox teas. Today, CTC teas make up at least 95 percent of the worldwide tea market and are the primary ingredient in teabags. But because they are so blunt, I include only one CTC in this book. All the other British Legacy Teas here are Orthodox, and of those, almost all are Flowery.

I've searched for images of CTC tea, as this one; but in real life, I've not encountered a tea that looks like in those images.

For example, the following is an image (on 0.5 cm paper grid) of an exceptionally cheap (3.50 € for 500 g) Ceylon tea I bought.

Obviously, even this tea doesn't look remotely like the linked image of CTC tea.

Question: How can one unambiguously differentiate CTC tea from orthodox tea by looking at the dry leaves?

Because of the process of producing CTC teas, they leaves have a hard, balled, granular appearance like the ones in the picture you linked.  The primary place to find such tea leaves is inside tea bags; pick up some Lipton sometime.  I've also found that orange pekoe teas tend to be frequently processed this way, even in higher grades.

This comparison of Sri Lanka Pekoe Grades lays it out more distinctly than anywhere else I can find; you can see there the same leaves, both processed orthodox, and via CTC.  The CTC has a "gravel" appearance that's hard to mistake for anything else.

Contrary to Harney & Sons marketing copy, CTC teas are not generally considered superior to Orthodox teas, but instead inferior.  The primary advantage of CTC teas for the drinker is a faster steep to produce a dark cup of tea (and hence why they are suited to tea bags).  However, the process is expected to prevent tasting any of the subtler flavors in a tea blend.


Making soy milk: best way to separate okara? When making soy milk, what is the best way to separate the okara (fibrous material) from the hot liquid?

My observations:

When pouring through any kind of a screen, the screen becomes clogged almost immediately, and the material removed from the screen still contains a lot of liquid.
Cheesecloth works well to remove the remaining liquid, except that it is a difficult and awkward procedure because the liquid is so hot.

Does anyone have a "secret weapon" for this process?  Some thoughts that have occurred to me (but which I haven't actually tried) include:

Using a large French press (of the type ordinarily used to brew coffee)
Sending the thick liquid through a Juiceman-type fruit juicer (because juicers seem to do a good job of drying out and ejecting pulp)
Using a smaller version of the centrifuges used in soy milk factories (but where to buy such a thing?)
Simply waiting for the liquid to cool before attempting to separate it (time-consuming, but definitely would simplify the cheesecloth approach)

What is the best way?

When straining things that clog up the screen, I tend to use a spoon or spatula to move the stuff around, so you can get expose un-obstructed parts of the screen.

Of course, you might end up pushing some of the pulp through the process, but it's generally minimal.

You can then either dump out the pulp as you go (possibly into muslin or cheese cloth, let it cool, then give that part a squeeze), or use the back of a large spoon or a rubber scraper to push the pulp against the strainer to get out some extra liquid. (or use an oven mitt, covered in a plastic bag ... it's messy, but it works).

Of course, if you have a cheap strainer, too much force on it can cause the whole screen to pop out, splashing you and making a quite large mess.  (I've since made sure that my strainers weren't basically a screen just held in by pressure to a loop of metal that attached to the handle, but are actually one integral part).

...

If you're looking at buying new equipment, I'd look into getting a chinoise with the proper sized stick (not sure what it's called), which you can use to basically compress all of the pulp into the bottom as you're working.


Is frozen crabmeat OK to use for crab cakes? I have some frozen precooked crab meat that I was going to use in a sauce for pasta but thought maybe crab cakes would be a nice change of pace.
Does the fact that it has been frozen make it unsuitable because of texture change?

Most crabmeat is pasteurized, so the texture has already suffered a bit.  Crab cakes are basically a binder, crab meat, and seasoning.  The binder can add all sorts of interesting textures.  There are recipes with Panko, bread flour, flour, eggs, ...  If you are worried about it being dry, add mayo as @Darin suggested or increase the oil a bit.

Look at the packaging, the crab meat may be already cooked, so you may get away with cooking it less.


What does it mean when you feel bubbles pop when kneading bread dough? Sometimes when I am kneading my dough I can feel some of the air bubbles popping. Is this a bad thing? Does this mean I am kneading it to long? Every were I have looked it says it is important to have air bubbles in your dough. I always use both the poke test and window test. The bread usually turns out ok. I'm just not sure why this happens sometimes.

This is completely normal and actually what you want bread dough to do, the bubbles mean that your yeast is active, and your bread will rise. However, bubbles that are too big can be undesired in your finished product and may actually cause the bread to cook unevenly. I make sure to eliminate all large bubbles during each kneading session. The presence of these bubbles means that you have a fair amount of gluten developed in your dough, which will ensure you get a light fluffy and well risen result.


Is it possible to freeze salad dressing Is it ok to freeze Vinegarette Dressings.  Need to take on a flight for a friend.  Label says keep refrigerated so would this be ok for a 12hr flt in checked luggage in a insulated freezer bag.
Thank you.

Depending on what the ingredients are other than oil and vinegar, the tolerance to freezing is flexible. I would err on the side of caution and wrap the bottle/container twice in bubble wrap so that the ice or cold packs don't directly contact the container. That way, you still get excellent cooling while greatly reducing the risk of damage or separating of the dressing from direct freezing.


How to cook liver in microwave? Delicate parts such as liver, kidney and heart can be quickly fried in a little oil. I wonder if there any way to cook them in the microwave while preserving the tender texture?

I haven't tried this myself, but I have a suggestion. You could slice the liver as you might when frying it. Then put butter/oil and a single layer of the meat in a glass pan. Cover with a paper towel. Microwave only a few seconds at a time and always keep an eye on it. It could explode or burn. Rotate the meat a few times.
You could also try boiling it, but I'm not sure that's what you want.
I fear the meat will never be as tender as you would with other cooking methods :(
But try it, it'll still be edible, unless you burn it


Do I need to wash the flax and sesame seeds before grinding them? I have a bag of flax seeds and a bag of sesame seeds from Food to Live at  Amazon. I want to grind them in a coffee grinder, and eat their powder.

For food safety and health consideration and best absorption,

are the seeds ready to eat from the bag?
Do I need to wash them before or after grinding them? If yes, how?
Do I need to cook them before or after grinding them? If yes, how?

Thanks.

Yes, they're all ready to eat.

Washing them is just going to get them wet, and it'll be difficult to impossible (especially for the flax) to get them dry enough to grind to a powder.

People do sometimes soak flax seeds, or mix ground flax seeds with water, in order to get something to use as a vegan egg substitute, but I don't think that's what you're going for.


Can I roast nuts in a convection microwave oven? I am looking for a new microwave. I heard a lot of good things about convection microwave ovens. I am wondering if I could also use one for roasting nuts or any kind of seeds, so I don't have to buy another appliance for roasting nuts and seeds.

just toast them in a saute pan on low to medium heat youl achieve the same effect.

if you must use your microwave convection, you shouldn't use the "microwave" aspect of it and simply the convection.  Any use of the convection will increase your electricity substantially.


Why is  Ice Cream used in Hot Buttered Rum? I'm looking at recipes for Hot Buttered Rum, as I have plenty of rum and it's cold out. Several of the recipes call for vanilla ice cream. Is that traditional? What is it for? Wouldn't it just cool off some of the water and possibly interfere with the steeping of the spices? Would it be better to just toss in some vanilla and extra sugar, or does the milk content actually change anything?

Example with ice cream: http://www.drinksmixer.com/drink5667.html

Example without: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/hot-buttered-rum-cocktail-recipe/index.html

I don't think I've ever even had hot buttered rum, but I can take a stab at some of your questions:

1 part ice cream and 2-3 parts boiling water will still average out pretty hot. If the ice cream is at, say, -20 to -10C, that'll get you in the 60-70C range initially, which is I think fairly normal for hot drinks. And of course, if you keep it in the refrigerator instead, your drink will be hotter!
I suspect mixing ice cream with butter will help it all mix together better in the end, by helping disperse the fat.
Ground spices aren't going to need a ton of steeping. I imagine the boiling water would be enough, and if not, the pre-cooking could easily compensate. And since some recipes just have nutmeg sprinkled on top, it sounds like steeping isn't necessarily the goal. If you're really aiming for spiced hot buttered rum, you'll probably want more spices than those recipes, and perhaps to cook them briefly with the butter.
If you intend to freeze the "batter", including ice cream will help keep it soft enough to scoop/slice. If it were just butter and sugar, it'd get quite hard in the freezer.
Yes, the milk/cream content of the ice cream would make the drink a little creamier - but I don't know whether hot buttered rum should be a bit creamy. It sounds like it'd be fine either way - personal preference, perhaps?


How should one go about reheating pasta? Ok, so, I know the answer, "You shouldn't, because it's easy to make it fresh."

But on occasion, I end up making too much pasta, not having enough sauce, etc. and the pasta gets stowed in a tupperware awaiting a secondcoming. Usually it just ends up being packed for lunch and eaten cold. But on those other occasions, when I may like to have it warmed up and served with a sauce of some kind, what would be the best way to go about doing so?

I haven't really experimented yet, but thought maybe putting the pasta in a steamer basket could work well? Has anybody tried this? thoughts?

easiest way is to mix it with the sauce and heat both up together.  Usually I'd do this in a pan, but you could use a microwave.

If you have to heat the pasta up on its own, what I usually do is do it in a pan and add a little boiling water, just a couple of tablespoons, enough to stop it sticking, and keep stirring until its warmed through.  If it starts to stick add a little more water.

You could do this in a microwave I'd bet, but I don't have one.


Forgot to grease ceramic pan for strata I made this strata recipe, but in my haste, forgot to grease the pan. The ingredients are nicely layered at the moment, but Im worried about sticking. Its currently sitting for 8hrs to soak up the egg, but Im trying to decide if I should:

Just bake it
Dump the contents into a bowl, grease the pan, redump
and bake a distinctly less beautiful non-strata strata.

If you're careful not to overcook it, it'll likely be fine. Eggy bready things will indeed eventually stick pretty badly, but if you pull it out when the eggs are just barely set all the way through, it won't have time to truly stick or burn on the bottom yet. I might bake it pretty high in the oven so that the top will be more likely to be well-browned in time.


How can you make a sauce less spicy/hot? Sometimes when I'm making a sauce or soup that needs to be a bit spicy, I have no troubles spicing how I want to.

But if the dinner party is a bit late, or I made the sauce in advance to really draw out all the flavors of the spices, vegetables and meat, sometimes I end up with a way too spicy/hot dish.

You can always pour a bit water and try to dilute it a bit, but that also takes away all of the good flavor. So is there some trick that I'm missing I can use, when this happens to me (other than being more careful or using the spices later)?

In general, it is a good idea to go light on spices when trying a new recipe, if you're not intimately familiar with the flavor and spice combinations in question.  It's a great deal easier to add spice later than it is to mask it once you've added too much.

Assuming you are reading this because you didn't do that, and have now ended up with a sauce that's far too spicy, then read on.

The pertinent question here is where is the spiciness coming from?  There are actually several kinds of compounds that can produce that general aroma and/or sensation.  In most dishes they'll tend to fall loosely into one or more of the following:

Piperine, which is the active alkaloid in black pepper.  This has poor solubility in water, however, it has better solubility in alcohol.  If you can incorporate wine or better yet, brandy or vodka or some other strong alcohol, this can go a long way toward reducing the heat from pepper.
Capsaicin, the heat-producing compound in most types of hot peppers, is the highest on the Scoville Scale; extremely piquant and can produce a "burning" sensation in very small quantities.  It is also poorly soluble in water, but is far more soluble in fat, especially oils.  Adding some olive oil or a good quantity of butter to your recipe is a good bet for reducing capsaicin/capsicum heat.
Garlic, onion, and other members of the Allium family put out a volatile sulfur compound called Allicin.  Although this is not "spicy" in the same sense as pepper, many people perceive it as such.  Like piperine, it is more soluble in alcohol than in water.  However, and here's the catch: That allicin breaks down into various polysulfides when cooked, and those polysulfides are fat soluble.  So if you're trying to mask a strong garlic or onion flavour, it's best if you can add alcohol and fat to cover all your bases.
If you've added too much Ginger - another ingredient often perceived as spicy - then you're dealing with Gingerols and Shoagols, the latter of which pack a much bigger punch.  One of the things you can actually do with ginger is cook the spice off which converts those into much milder Zingerone.  In other words, add some water to the sauce and then boil it to reduce the sauce again - you'll lose some flavour but in the process you'll break down the ginger spice.

Alternatively (for ginger), all of the above compounds are alkali soluble, so if you add a buffering agent - say, Trisodium citrate (additive E331), it will improve the solubility a great deal.  If, like most people, you don't happen to keep food additives in your kitchen, you can try using something like baking soda, but too much of that will completely ruin the taste, so be careful.  In fact, don't add too much of any buffer because the acidity of most sauces is an integral part of their flavor.

I think that about covers it for common "spicy stuff" that goes in sauces.  If you want to fix a dish that's too spicy, you need to know where the spice is coming from and choose what's most appropriate for that particular sauce.

You can also try to mask or balance the spice with something sweet, for example roasted vegetables or plain old sugar.  That will not eliminate the heat at all, but does seem to make it more tolerable for many.


Will chopped up dried fruit still be fine to use after it's been sitting in the fridge for about 3 weeks? I was making some fruit balls, like raw/bliss type balls. I chopped up some dates (dried), dried apricots, dried apple, and sultanas; I put these in a bowl and poured over a small amount of boiling water to soften them a bit, and stirred in some cocoa powder and a few drops of liquid stevia.

Then I got busy with other things and never made the balls. The mixture has been covered and refrigerated since then, about 3 weeks ago.

Is this still safe to use? I'm thinking the dried fruit would have become partially re-hydrated by the boiling water.

Thanks

The process that preserves fruit in a drying situation is the significant reduction of water activity in the product, which inhibits bacterial growth.  It is impossible to know how much you re-hydrated the product, but you certainly increased the water activity significantly.  Then, you added other ingredients.  All of this increases the potential for bacterial growth.

Of course, refrigeration also slows bacterial growth, however, for me, there are too many unknowns here, from the source and condition of the fruit, to the nature of the additional ingredients and the time between re-hydration and refrigeration.  Three days is probably fine.  Three weeks would concern me, and I would not recommend use.


Pickling without Sterilization - Is It Safe? Is this recipe safe? The author is making pickles without sterilizing the jars first and I've ALWAYS read that you have to sterilize the jars first.

The recipe appears to be close to a standard Summer Pickle recipe.
It's about a 9% brine with 3.75% acetic acid, which should effectively discourage human pathogens.
It is not a fermented product.
They're meant to be refrigerated for at most a few months, not stored on some dusty basement shelf.
Refrigerated properly, I'd eat them without concern.


What makes frozen burger patties bland? This has confused me for a while: it's observable that a lot of all-beef burger patties from grocery stores and fast food joints taste dull compared to homemade ground beef, but is the key difference in the fact that they're frozen, or is it in the cuts of meat that they use?

For instance, I had a sirloin burger from McDonalds that tasted only marginally better than their norm - assuming that they're not lying about the cut of meat, does that mean the patty was bland just because it was frozen?

If that's true, then is it a bad idea to grind your own meat and freeze it? I'm asking because I wouldn't mind just grinding a bunch of chuck instead of buying preground meat if it'll taste as good as the homemade burgers I've had, but I wonder if there's a catch.

And yet it'd be strange if freezing ruined the flavor, because I assume grocery store meat is previously frozen anyway. So I'm not sure what to make of this.

When you buy a burger from a fast food restaurant you are buying a product that has been engineered to provide absolute consistency, be very fast to cook, and be as cheap as possible so it can be offered at a low price for a reasonable profit. The grill marks are engineered in, and they are given coatings which will give the right appearance when cooked. They also have flavorings added so they taste as the designers (yes there are burger designers) intend. It's not a simple bunch of ground beef at all. Most frozen pre-made burger patties are similar, they use cheap cuts of beef (and sometimes reclaimed meat) and artificial ingredients to produce a consistent and inexpensive product. They also tend to be very thin and are easy to cook all the goodness out of by accident.

If you want a really good burger then you need good burger meat, it's as simple as that. You can't make a good burger out of low quality meat no matter what you put into it. The simplest way to make a good burger is to find a local source of good quality ground beef and make your own patties. Making patties is very easy and quick, just get your hands in there. Many supermarkets have perfectly good packaged products (I get mine from a local grocery store and it makes good burgers), so that would be my first port of call, next would be butcher shops.

If all else fails and you want to make your own (or just give it a try) then you're in luck because the best cuts for burgers are also the less expensive ones, like brisket, chuck, short rib, and round. Round has great flavor but is very lean, and working cuts like brisket and chuck are also lean, so you'll want to add some fat. Many burger nuts say you need 30% fat by weight, personally I'd aim for 20% as 30% is too much for my taste, but that's up to you.

As for frozen versus fresh, freezing does cause some loss of flavor, however it's not much. You are much better off with frozen good quality meat than fresh low quality.


Is sushi so difficult? I've read somewere in the net that sushi is an extremely difficult food to prepare. It will take at least one year just to learn to cook the rice, and ten year to complete the experience.

It's so difficult? To do a comparison, one could prepare a decent home sushi like one can prepare a decent home dish after some years of home cooking?

It's more like a western chef that needs anyway to study and practice for a long time?

Like many crafts which originated in Japan, their sushi training more or less creates sushi artisans.  If you just want to make a snack, you'll have plenty of ability given a basic review of techniques.  You should focus your learning on understanding food-safety, getting the rice right, and making the roll not fall apart.  The rest is just levels of mastery which you need not approach in your kitchen in order to experiment and enjoy a good dish.


Why does cheese need boiling while paneer not? I am from Syria, but currently I am living in India. Back in my country we have to boil the cheese (and the milk) before consuming, otherwise it may carry harmful bacteria. One of my friends was taken to hospital after consuming raw cheese. In my country all people boil the cheese (and the milk) because of this.
In India, there is paneer which is similar to our cheese but not identical. However, I asked many Indians and they said it is ok to consume it raw (they said the same answer for milk).

My question is:
1) Is it ok to eat paneer (and milk) without boiling in India (or any other country)?
2) If yes, then why in my country we have to boil both cheese and milk?
3) Isn't cheese made from boiled milk, so why do we need to boil it again to remove the bacteria?

(I'm in Germany, in case that is relevant)

Here, you can eat/drink most dairy products without boiling - with the exception of raw milk that is sold "has to be boiled before consumption".
Milk: possibly because in your country milk is usually sold raw?
Cheese: some recipes/processes call for boiling at various steps, e.g. for removing whey.
Not all cheese is made from pasteurized/boiled milk. And in particular fresh cheeses can spoil by mold or other microorganisms with which they can get contaminated after the cooking.

There may also be regional differences in the prevalence of various diseases that mean that in some parts of the world you can skip the additional boiling steps while in other parts that comes at a high risk. TB comes to mind in that respect.

Milk:

The vast majority of milk that one can buy here is already pasteurized, so no further boiling is needed.
Raw milk can be sold/bought only if:

either the customer is told unambiguously that they should boil the milk. This is allowed only if the milk is sold directly at the farm.
so-called attested milk (Vorzugsmilch): here the farm is under a very strict hygiene and animal health regime and is therefore allowed to sell raw milk that is for raw consumption (I know that this possibility exists, but I've never consciously seen any such milk offered).

Cheese:

In general, some cheeses are made from raw milk, while others are made from pasteurized/cooked milk.
Whey cheeses are always prepared by cooking: the whey protein is the protein fraction that did not precipitate by acid (casein), it precipitates by heat.
Many cheeses (as well as Qurk, yoghurt etc.) are made by adding particular microorganisms to the milk. This includes cheeses made from raw milk. "Bad" microorganisms that may be around in small quantities will at least be seriously outgrown by the "good" ones that are added.  Of course, processes starting with pasteurized/cooked milk are of still less concern.
So one difference between German Quark and Indian Paneer is that while both precipitate the protein (curdle the milk) by acid, for Quark the acid is produced by (lacto) bacteria rather than adding acid like lemon juice or vinegar (and AFAIK, both usually start from pasteurized or boiled milk). Because the milk is inoculated with these bacteria, we know they are "good" ones.
The harder the cheese, i.e. the longer it did ripen, the safer: if a "bad" microorganism gets into the milk, that will become obvious long before the year or two of ripening is over.
Many hard cheeses also start with raw milk but have an intermediate step where they are heated to maybe 60 °C.
Fresh raw milk cheeses have again particular hygiene restrictions. Such cheese has also to be labeled as "made with raw milk", so e.g. pregnant women or people with compromised immune system can avoid them (toxoplasmosis and listeria risk)
For immunocompetent (and not pregnant) people, the recommendation is that our senses are good at detecting if something is wrong with dairy products (exception is the raw milk for raw consumption).
Around here, bovine tuberculosis is very rare nowadays (it basically only happens to happy cows out on a meadow who meet a coughing deer or if a farmer with TB infects their cow). In 2018, there were 63 cases of bovine tuberculosis among the 5429 tuberculosis cases (and 70 % of the tuberculosis patients are foreigners, but most farmers have German nationality).
The vast majority of dairy products here is produced industrially and under industrial hygiene regulations.
The only exception are fresh cheeses like yoghurt or kefir that are home made from boiled milk that is then inoculated with the desired microorganisms.
I don't know anyone who still makes sour milk by hoping that the correct bacteria fall in (and the family tales do include stories of that way of making sour milk going wrong every once in a while, usually leading to some bitter slime). My yoghurt experience also includes that this can go wrong.
As I understand Indian Paneer, that is consumed really fresh. I.e., in contrast to Quark, there is no time needed to culture microorganisms. You boil the milk, add acid, get rid of the whey (in the cold) and it is ready to eat. This naturally leaves less time for contamination after the boiling and consecutive growth of microorganisms than keeping the stuff at a nice warm temperature for several hours before you start separating the whey.


How effective is the George Foreman grill in draining fat from cooking meat? New to this site, and new to cooking, well cooking properly.

I have in my possession a George Foreman grill, not because of the advertising hype, but because I have a very limited space for cooking in my apartment.

My question is, just how effective is the George Foreman grill (or any other grill like it) in draining the fat off meat while cooking?

There are a couple of fluff pieces on the web that appear to indicate the George Forman Grills remove fat from foods, due to the tiled bed allowing draining:

Chron.Com
Disabled World

In my opinion, both have the feel of echoing press releases from the manufacturer.

Neither compares the effectiveness of the tilted bed grill to a more traditional grilling method.

Consider griddling a hamburger on a flat griddle or in a flat style panini press, with or without raised grooves.   Even without the grooves, as the hamburger cooks, it expresses fat and other liquid as the proteins in the meat tighten.  With a fatty hamburger, this can be a considerable amount, even though it is not draining away.

The issue in expressed fat is not the tilt, but rather the squeezing effect the cooked proteins have, forcing the fat out of the food.  This happens regardless of the angle of the bed.

Consider also that it is the contraction of the meat that is important in expressing the fat.  If the fat were simply liquefied but the proteins not fully tightened, less or no fat is expressed.  This can be seen in low temperature sous-vide cooking.   Adhesion and capillary action would keep the fat in the meat otherwise.

The logical conclusion is that the tilt of the bed is irreverent in expressing the fat, but does help clear it away and collect it.  This may have some minor effect on the amount of fat adhering to the outside of the food item, but is not the major effect.

You can argue whether the clearing of the fat away during cooking is a positive or negative for culinary quality, but it doesn't affect the amount of fat.


How do I choose between shredded and finely shredded cheddar cheese? I use shredded cheese for spur of the moment enchiladas or to top burgers with.  I learned the hard way that my supermarket store brand sharp cheddar does not melt well, so my next purchase will be for a mild cheddar. They have both "shredded" and "finely shredded" and I'm wondering what the optimal use case is for each. Obviously finely shredded will melt faster so I'm wondering is there any reason not to get that? (Btw, I know hand shredding block cheddar is best for melting but I like the convenience of having a bag of preshredded cheddar in the freezer I don't have to worry about molding over.)

You probably want to check for the lowest proportion of added anti-caking agent (here potato starch is used).  That's the reason it doesn't melt very well.
If you're going to freeze it, you could grate a large batch of a block you like and freeze that - the best of both worlds but a fair bit off effort in one go. If I was doing a lot I'd use the grater attachment for my food processor.


Wok preparation and caring What is a good technique for initially seasoning a wok, keeping it seasoned, and preventing rust?

Make sure to seriously wash the wok before initial use. Scrub it with hot soapy water and dry thoroughly.

After drying, place the wok over the stove on high heat until it starts to smoke. Rotate the pan so that all parts of the inside are exposed to high heat. Then rub the wok with oil on a paper towel.

After this, try not to scrub the wok. A rinse and rub down are usually all that is needed to clean it up. Always rub the wok with a little bit of vegetable oil after washing/drying. That will help to prevent rust.

And the most important factor of seasoning a wok is to use it. It's definiteily my most used kitchen item, and it's just getting better and better with each use!


Sombra Pumpkin: Is it known by other names? I bought pumpkin from German Supermarket and its name is Sombra.

But I can't find any information about it in internet. Is it known by some other name? I want to know so that I can look for recipes.

Upon searching I found may be its called as Winter sweet Pumpkin, but I can't find any information about that either!

Most winter squash is fairly interchangeable when cooking.
Obviously, there are differences in them (sweetness, density, size, flesh color), but if you're cutting it up and roasting it, then it's fairly universal (but you might need to cut up denser ones into smaller bits).
Tozer Seeds describes it as:

a combination of sweetness, flaky texture and depth of flavour

(Kings Seeds uses the exact same description)
I'm not sure what they mean by 'flaky', but it might mean that it can be treated like spaghetti squash, where the fibers are such that it can be cooked whole and then removed from the skin in long strands as a pasta substitute.
As it looks to be a smaller pumpkin, and they mention it's sweet, I'd recommend trying recipes for "acorn squash".
And, if you roast it and it's not quite right ... then you can always mash it with other flavorings, or blend it with some stock to turn it into soup.


How long does it take for unopened cheese to go bad? I bought one of those blocks of Dubliner cheese (at Costco, sealed relatively well in wax paper) and left it in my car all afternoon and overnight by mistake.

Given that it is unopened and the weather is relatively cool, what are the chances that it is still good?

The term "bad", when applied to cheese, can actually refer to a great many defects (p. 14), several of which are caused by improper or over-aging and only some of which are dangerous.  The issues that you most likely need to worry about are:

Moisture loss applies primarily to soft cheese and is probably the first negative effect you'll see.  In a sealed package, it will "sweat" as Ivo points out, caused by water evaporating and then condensing again on the packaging, forming little droplets.  Unsealed, it will simply dry out and become hard.
This is not spoilage, and the cheese is still perfectly good to eat, it just might not have as pleasant a texture and might have a slightly flat flavour.  You can just cut off any hardened edges.

Oxidation gives a slightly metallic taste but more importantly leads to rancidity - discoloration and a sour smell/taste.  This is caused by light and is why you should store cheese in a dark place.  If you left it in the car during the afternoon, it may have been exposed to a good deal of light.  However, proper packaging greatly slows oxidation and wax paper in particular is an oxidation inhibitor (that's why cheese is often wrapped in it!).  Light exposure also would have been minimal at night.  You're probably fine in this respect, but use your nose.  If it smells sour, don't eat it.
The chemical process itself results in peroxides and free radicals, which are obviously not good to eat, although there seems to be some debate about just how dangerous they are (some say it raises the risk of cancer, although I'm unable to find an authoritative source, and this might just be an urban myth).

Mold is the most obvious form of spoilage and usually also the last.  Although most mold is technically aerobic, many strains are capable of growing with very little oxygen, and I personally have seen mold growing on an unopened package of cheddar that I'd forgotten about for several months.  I'm sure I don't need to tell you that mold isn't safe to eat; however, by the time there's enough mold to be dangerous, you'll be able to see it.
Contrary to what Ivo's post suggests, the mold you'll see growing on spoiled cheese is not the same as the mold that the cheese was made with - some cheeses, like parmesan, aren't made with any mold at all, although they can certainly grow mold later on.  The molds used in cheese-making are typically some variety of penicillium, which is safe to eat.  The mold that grows weeks later could be anything, and is not safe to eat.  Ivo is also partially correct in saying that the packaging does not prevent mold growth; however, it does slow it down by restricting the available oxygen.

On the whole, I tend to agree with the other answers that your cheese will almost certainly still be good after only 1 day.  Keep in mind that cheese is thought to have been popularized as a method for preserving milk before refrigeration existed - the whole idea is that it lasts a long while, usually well over 24 hours before food safety becomes an issue.


How to increase Thai curry flavour without increase spicy I'm using this Curry paste but my girlfriend doest like too spicy, therefore the flavor is really bland.. how can increase the flavor without make it too spicy?

I did a search for Gelbe Curry Paste and found the product in your pic in a result from Amazon.

Based on what I read in a review, you add coconut milk to this curry paste. Therefore I'm hopefully correct that you are toning down the heat and flavors by adding more coconut milk or other milk. So after you tone it down, you want to add flavor back but not add more heat.

The product description lists the ingredients as:

  Product of Thailand Dried Red Chili, Shallot, Garlic, Lemongrass, Salt, Galangal, Tumeric, Cumin, Coriander Seeds, Spices

You can add flavor back by adding some of the listed ingredients (to your liking), but not adding more chili. In the US ingredients are listed in order of amount, highest to lowest. While this may or may not be the case here, it may help with deciding which to add more of.

You'll likely have to play around a bit, but hopefully you can get that flavor back.


Ways to displace liquids while cooking I want to cook some beef in the slow cooker and I want it to be completely submerged in the sauce. To do this I will need considerably more sauce than I require. Since the ingredients are expensive, I don't want to waste it. I was thinking I could put something into the slow cooker to displace liquid and allow me to submerge the meat without needing more sauce. I don't know what to use though. I'll need something that won't hurt the flavor of the food, can handle the heat and more importantly won't cause a lot of sauce to stick to it. Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do here?

There are many kitchen utensils which will work. My favorite will be canning jars, filled with some water so they don't float, and sealed. Food safe, can withstand the temperature, easily cleaned. One may be enough, if you find the perfect size.

If you don't have them and want to try it with something else first, look in your kitchen for metal or ceramic vessels which can stand upright and are several centimeters taller than the sauce level after displacement. This can be a thermos flask without the cap, or even a tall mug. Just put it there, again fill with some water, and fill the sauce around it. The biggest risk is that it topples over, and you end up with a somewhat watery sauce.


How does the food industry know the expiration date? I always have this question in mind whenever I see the EXP date on different products.  I wonder how they can know a chocolate bar will spoil after 1 year or 6 months, and why they have such longer shelf life time compared to homemade chocolate bars, for example.

Just to clarify:

"Expiration dates" (or sometimes "Best if used by" dates) are the dates when a product may no longer be of high quality.  It is not a safety indicator.  It is a quality indicator, and it is just a guideline.

Companies determine expiration dates during storage studies or stability tests.  More detail can be found here.

The reason why manufactured food items often last longer than home-prepared items is that companies add ingredients to prolong shelf life.  This is simply for economic reasons.  You could add the same ingredients, but it is often not necessary because of the scale of home cooking.


Multiple tea infusions and caffeine concentration I have read conflicting things about the volatility and solubility of caffeine, and at what point during the tea brewing process caffeine is released.

When tea is used for multiple infusions, such as in Gongfu style brewing, do the different infusions have different amounts of caffeine?

This study specifically addresses the question regarding multiple infusions:

  Results for all kinds of tea samples showed that the second tea
  infusion contained the highest contents of caffeine, catechins, and
  gallic acid when bag teas were steeped in 70°C water.  It was different
  from that steeped at 85 and 100°C, the highest contents existed in the
  first infusion.  These compounds decreased gradually in later
  infusions.

The paper measured 8 successive infusions on a variety of teas.  You can see how caffeine content varied exactly in their data.


Closest substitute for alder wood chips when smoking? In Finland, the tree of choice for smoking is alder (leppä), but this is difficult to find in Australia and close to impossible to import due to biosecurity restrictions.  What's my best substitute?  I'm particularly interested in smoking fish (salmon, trout).

Peach and Apple wood are readily available, and I use them regularly for fish.

You may find that since the wood is in fact considered treated, you may find it is in fact available...

Try here: http://www.smokedandcured.com.au/alder-wood-chips-350gm/


Why do chicken wings turn chewy if cooled between cookings? I prepared some chicken wings by:

Place chicken wings, raw, in cool oil.
Heat corn oil to ~180°F, hold at ~180°F for 3 hours (in the oven).
Heat peanut oil in deep fryer to 370°F (as high as the deep fryer goes). Time such that deep fryer is heated by the end of the 3 hours.
Drain now-cooked chicken wings
Deep fry (while still hot) for 4 minutes, flipping half way through.

These came out good. While somewhat dry (but not overly so), they had very tender fall-off-the-bone meat and crunchy skin.

However, for a few of them, I inserted a step 4(b), put in plastic bag and chill in ice bath. I then deep fried them for an extra two minutes. They weren't quite as browned, but more importantly they could have been passed off as chewing gum.

Why did cooling the chicken wings turn them to chewing gum? Is there any way to avoid this (other than not cooling them, of course). It'd be nice to be able to do the time-consuming part in advance.

Your temperature is too high. Go for 78ºC (172F) instead of 82ºC. 3 hours seems a long time for chicken wings. Get a thermometer and take it out when it reaches 78ºC. After cooling, before frying, do you dry the wings? That could be an important step.

Lastly, instead of frying them as is, try panning them with flour or breadcrumbs.

If you're going to fry immediately, aim for 75ºC instead.


Can I freeze stir-fry vegetables? I have been buying pre-cut and prepped stir-fry veggies at Trader Joe's and I was wondering if I could freeze my own bags of veggies. Would there be any issues with cutting up stir-fry veggies and freezing them in a conventional home freezer? Are there any veggies that do not freeze well to stay away from? Are there some that work especially well?

You will have the best results if you prep by cutting and blanching prior to freezing. This should ensure that moisture content in the veggies does less damage over time in the freezer and improve color duration. I find it helpful to freeze vegetables separately rather than as mixes as you can always grab from multiple bags, but you can't unmix mixed vegetables without more work.

The majority of vegetables for stir-fry (e.g. broccoli, peas, etc) will freeze well enough, the ones in your freezer aisle obviously freeze a bit better than others. If a vegetable has a high water content (i.e. lettuce, which I hope you aren't stir-frying with) that is more integral to its structure than the cellulose it is likelier to burst cell walls in freezing; these vegetables are better to avoid.


High powered blenders (e.g. KitchenAid, 1800watts, 3.5 HP peak) I'm not technically minded, but if the friction of the blades in high powered (& expensive) blenders creates the heat when making hot soup, why when making smoothies are the smoothies not hot?

It is well known that the blades in high powered blenders create so much force that it can heat the liquids inside. In fact, I can put a can of tomatoes in mine and they will eventually become hot enough to be eaten as a warm soup.

That being said, creating this much heat takes time and also usually works best if you're starting from something already at least room temperature. A smoothie will not become warm because:

Smoothies only take a few seconds to make, therefore not enough energy is transfered to make it warn.
Ingredients often start somewhat cold from the fridge and don't heat up enough.
Ice is usually added, which makes things very cold.

You could make a hot smoothie if you ran the machine maybe for 5-10 minutes, which I wouldn't suggest!


How is apple syrup made? I've been making dutch apple pastries for a couple of weeks now, and I've noticed that the apple filling that spills from the pastries turns dark brown like apple syrup (or apple butter, apple paste or apple cheese) The taste is similar, as well. But the texture is off.

The question is how to make a real batch of apple syrup? Apple, sugar & heat for some amount of time? Or are some other ingredients needed?

When I make apple syrup, I use apples (2 cut, peeled, sliced, and cored), sugar (1/2c), and two tablespoons of water.  Combine everything, let the sugar dissolve, and then bring to a boil.  Let it simmer for 10 minutes until the apples have become nice and soft and the syrup thickens.  I usually do it for a bit longer just to be on the safe side.  I have also found that adding a bit of cinnamon gives it just a bit extra!


How can I stop my pavlova from "leaking"? I'm learning to make Pavlova. I'm five attempts in and generally pretty happy with my latest one except for the weird "leaking" that happens during baking. Anyone know why this happens and how to stop it?

Photos:

Ingredients:

160g egg whites (at room temperature)
1 teaspoon lemon juice
200g icing sugar (I tried caster sugar the last time which had the same problem)
2 teaspoons cornstarch
A few drops vanilla extract

Method:

Wipe the bowl and whisk with a piece of paper towel dipped in a little lemon juice
Preheat oven to 150c (300f)
Beat until egg whites are stiff - check by turning the bowl over (slowly!), if they move keep whisking! (I tried doing a bit less whipping one time - same problem)
Add lemon juice to egg whites
Add the sugar gradually, one heaped tablespoon every 45 seconds; check for graininess every 8 additions
Put the pav in the oven and then turn down it to 100c (200f) right away
Cook for 1.5 hours
Turn off oven but leave pavlova in overnight

The most common reasons I know are:

Preparing when humidity is high.  Tough to avoid when you are on a schedule like wanting it for an occasion.  But in my experience, having an oven that circulates fresh air in can make this worse by bringing in more moisture all the time, or ever opening the door or trying to cook something else at the same time.
Over beating can cause it.
Undissolved sugar, which of course is opposed to trying to not over-beat.
Overcooking.

A couple things I do see in your recipe:  I am used to seeing a bit of vinegar.  I assume the lemon is to cover the same with a bit fresher flavor, and it may but it might be worth trying such a recipe.  I know the point it to help create the classic Pav crust while I am used to lemon in pavs being more to help the foam form buy your recipe calls for it after you already have peaks.

The 2nd thing I see is your recipe calls for a bit higher temp than I am used to.  For instance the first I checked to refresh my memory called for 190F for 5 minutes, then drop to 130F for an hour, then turn off.  I think what may friend from NZ who made much better than I do used was 200F for about 10 minutes, then just the light that kept the oven at about 140F for an hour.  That is quite a bit lower than yours, so I would question possible over cooking as the issue.

I have even seen the higher pre-heat skipped and instead torch the meringue and only do the low heat to slow cook the center, but when I tried that I got the nice cruch, but raw egg inside and it also leaked, but it was a egg white leak.  Yours visibly looks more of a sugary leak to my eyes.


How do I use this knife sharpener? I'm a little bit confused since I can't find this model on the internet.

This looks like a pull through sharpener, using a combination of a carbide bit (left) and one type of ceramic wheel (right).

The carbide section is best ignored unless there is a need to (badly) make a completely blunt knife usable, it will take off a lot of metal. Do not use on any valuable knife.

The ceramic wheel section is to be filled with a bit of water (in the bottom half) so the wheel runs through the water, this helps lubricate, clean and cool the ceramic wheel. The Knife is then inserted in the slot and pulled through several times (as if to slice the device. Edge resting at where the ceramic wheels meet), stabilizing it with your hand as much as possible (keep it straight and wobble free as much as possible). Stropping on paper afterwards is a good idea. The rubber pad is just for holding the device to the work surface with the other hand, though it can with some models be misused as a stropping pad.

Compared to freehand sharpening on a stone or more sophisticated devices, these gadgets have limits to be aware of:

There is no control over the (pre set) sharpening angle, nor can a microbevel, convex or other compound edge be established. A V edge is not the most optimal edge for many knives since you have to choose a more obtuse overall angle than otherwise needed to get a stable edge.
Each time you use them, you worsen/thicken the geometry of the behind-the-edge section, and there is no way to remediate this with the device alone. Also, if the area behind the edge is damaged from other devices or sharpening techniques used in the past, you cannot fix it with this.
Since there is only one grit available in this particular device (there are other versions with up to three wheels), there is little control about what KIND of edge finish you get.
Deburring is imperfect at best, usually leading to edges that do not last long compared to a bench stone job.

In practice, such devices will work better-than-nothing to good with certain knives and horrible on others. Do not attempt to use on an asymmetric (eg sushi) knife.

Knives are configurable tools - unfortunately, the configuration happens on the whetstone.


why is exterior of the microwave oven getting hot & the lights getting switched off cooking pizza @ 180 degrees celcius then the exterior gets too hot and the lights on the microwave oven get switched off. after it cools down the lights start again

`

The exterior is getting hot because it is generating a lot of heat.  A pizza has a bit of mass and 180 degrees Celsius is hot.  It could be a safety shut off.

And it could be broken.

If it works fine with smaller items then more likely it is a safety shut off.


Can I pre-prepare dauphinoise potatoes? I am hosting my first Christmas for the mother-in-law so of course am freaking out.

I'm planning on cooking a roast something but with a slightly different spin on it from normal Christmas Dinner as it'll be on the 27th so I thought of making something different.

I thought dauphinoise potatoes would go down a treat. I haven't made them before but the recipe seems fairly straightforward. My question is how much prep can I do the day before? As I'm keen to have a few dishes ready and on trays to go in the oven without needing lots of morning prep.

Can I pre-slice the potatoes? Will they keep in water in the fridge?

I have seen some recipes which include cream, garlic and gruyere. I'm guessing these ingredients need to be cooked off immediately prior and cannot be made up beforehand.

You can make it days in advance and freeze it.

Bake it as the recipe says, then cover with aluminum foil and plastic wrap and freeze it as quickly as possible (that it the most important factor)

On christmas day, get it out of the freezer, pop it in the oven and serve when really hot.


Preventing matcha deposits I've recently started preparing matcha latte at home, I bought matcha powder and I proceed as follows:

Put 2 tsp of matcha powder in a cup through a sieve
Add 2 tsp of brown sugar
Add 2 tbsp of hot (below boiling) water
Stir the whole thing with a fork for a couple of minutes
Add boiling water to almost fill the cup, then add milk to taste

the result is very good but I find myself constantly stirring it to prevent it from depositing on the bottom of the cup. If I don't stir it all the time I get a very light taste at the beginning and a very strong taste at the end.

The question is: how can I prepare matcha latte so that it doesn't deposit on the bottom of my cup?

(apparently I am not able to create new tags from the mobile app, I would have used "green-tea" and "matcha")

Matcha doesn't dissolve.

It is very finely ground to be suspended in water after very vigorous whisking when the preparation is done the traditional way.

A few tips for your matcha latte:

Use good, high quality matcha. High quality matcha is bright green and a very fine powder (almost like confectioner's sugar or cornstarch) - this helps keeping it suspended in liquid
Whisk very vigorously with the appropriate tools. Traditional tea ceremony uses a bamboo whisk with a lot of room in the bowl to make sure the tea is very well suspended and aerated, and the fork is not the best tool for that. Use a fouet and prepare in a bowl or, if possible, use a blender (a bullet blender or immersion blender would work for small quantities). If all things fail, even a nutritional supplement shaker (the one that has a wire ball inside to help dissolve whey) would be more effective.


How do commercial operations defrost large amounts I know the basic health regulations but practically what do large scale operations do to defrost chicken/meats? Trying to defrost it all in the fridge takes approximately forever, and doing it all under cold rubbing water seems very inefficient.

As Allison C commented. You move meat to walk in fridge and wait. You always have a few days reserve waiting for you. It's also safer as meat that have been in cooler for 4 days can be used on fifth day. While if you thawn it completly in room temperature (or under water but it was in room temperature while you taken it ou tof the sink) you would need to use it immediatelly.


What should be understood by "refrigerate until firm, 2 hours or overnight"? The cookie recipe asks for:

1½ cups plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1¼ teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1 tablespoon unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
¼ pound (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon freshly grated peeled ginger
½ cup packed dark brown sugar
½ cup unsulfured molasses
1 teaspoon baking soda
1½ teaspoons boiling water
7 ounces best-quality semisweet chocolate, cut into ¼-inch chunks
¼ cup granulated sugar

then, it asks us to combine all these ingredients and

  ; turn onto plastic wrap. Pat out to a 1-inch thickness; seal with wrap. Refrigerate until firm, 2 hours or overnight.

Questions:

How do you define "firm" here? Something which is not melting, or something which we'll have to crack with our hands?
There is a great difference between 2 hours and overnight. So, what temperature should be set of the fridge that'll result in fast firmness in less time? Will that be counter productive? Can I use the freezer?

When I've seen that step in cookie recipes, generally there's no way you can over-firm in the fridge; if you're doing all the steps on the same day, it'll take two hours to set, but if you're trying to prep the night before, you can break for the night at this step.

Generally you'll have a wet, sticky, soft dough you can't cut into shapes, and after a trip to the fridge, it'll be firm enough to hold a shape when you go at it with a cookie-cutter (or roll it into a pinwheel and slice, or whatever shaping is happening). It's basically letting the butter go back from room-temperature-butter consistency to fridge-butter consistency.


Using noodle cooking water to loosen sauce? One of my guilty pleasures is perusing my wife's Real Simple magazine for recipe ideas and cooking tips. In the March 2013 issue one of the cooking tips has me a bit confused. In the Three Steps to Knockout Noodles article step 3 recommends:

  Reserve ½ cup of the [noodle] cooking water. The starchy, seasoned liquid is great for loosening up cheesy, creamy, or tomato-based sauces.

What is being recommended here:

to use the cooking water in the sauce?
to use the water as a cleaning agent on plates?

I always reserve a bit of pasta water to add it to the pan. The reason is simple: if you drain your pasta and add it to the sauce the pasta will suck up all the sauce and become a bit dry. Adding the pasta water ensures that your pasta will remain moist. Also yes, it helps thickening the sauce (this does not necessarily apply to tomato sauce).

Now, let's be clear: you DO NOT add your pasta water to the sauce when you are preparing the sauce. You only add it when you put your pasta in the sauce. It also helps if you don't drain the pasta, just take it out of the boiling water (using tongs, ofc) and put it in your sauce while still on the stove. A quick 30-50 secs stir and that's it.

Hope this helps.

PS: 1/2 cup seems like a lot to me. For two portions of pasta I usually add around 3 tablespoons.


Does anthocyanin still exist once the purple beans have changed to green during cooking? When purple beans are cooked and they turn green I understand that is because the anthocyanins are only purple in an acidic environment.
So, when the beans turn green after cooking does that mean there is no anthocyanin remaining?

The anthocyanins are still there; they've just changed color. They're an indicator, like litmus, except that they range in color from red to purple to blue to green to yellow, depending on how acidic or alkaline the liquid is that they're in, instead of just pink or blue.

Red cabbage will do the same thing.


How many times can I use a salt block? I've been reading up on Himalayan pink salt blocks.  I am mainly interested in cooking with them, like cast iron.  But, I noticed that they are a bit pricey, about $40 to $70.  It also seems that they die after some usage.

My question is, how many times one can cook with a salt block before they are unusable?

I think the cost effective-ness and worth it portion of the question is quite subjective since there isn't a way to directly compare salt with cookware grade salt block. These salt blocks are considered unusable when it becomes cracked and fall apart, not when all the salt has been used up. Thus the price is for the novelty of using these blocks to cook food rather than the actual salt content. And whether the flavor is worth it is complete up to you to decide.

Due the obscurity of Himalayan salt blocks, I will provide a little background information for those who aren't familiar. Due to the Himalayan salt blocks' unique lattice formation, it has very low moisture and porosity. Due to this property it can be heated up to extremely high temperatures (up to 900 degree Fahrenheit). Also because of the lack of porosity the saltiness that comes off of it when cooking on top of it is minimal and will impart only a moderate amount of sodium. On top of that, it has many trace amount of other minerals including but not limited to sulfur, calcium, potassium, and magnesium. These additional trace minerals are what given the Himalayan pink salt its unique flavor.

Now if you want to cook using the block merely to try out its taste, i would recommend you use this instead. It is a bag of Himalayan pink salt that is meant to go into your food as seasoning.

How long a salt block last purely depends on how well you take care of it and luck. This article explains proper heating and washing techniques. Because these blocks are naturally carved out of the earth, fault lines(sometimes not visible from the outside or even with the human eyes) can exist on it. These fault lines will naturally grow bigger as the block is continuously heated to high temperatures. Because of this unpredictability, there isn't a "real" answer. However some can crack after just several uses(on one testimonial, one woman claimed it broke after two uses. But she was able to get it replaces for free) while other can last much much longer(others have report using it for over a year). Usually you can get a replacement if the block cracks in a short period of time. Find out about this warranty period from the supplier before buying.


"Prepared" pizza base - does that mean cooked? I have reproduced on my website a recipe for a pizza, out of my Mediterranean cookbook: http://www.justrightmenus.com/recipe.php?id=275

What I'm looking for help on is whether they more likely meant for one to start with a raw-dough pizza crust or one that's already been cooked. The recipe in the book said to use a "prepared" pizza base.

I would imagine, if the book is of reasonable quality, by prepared, they mean one that you have prepared earlier. If there's a recipe for pizza base in the book, that's probably what they'd like you to use.

Personally, if you're going to the trouble of making home-made pizza, make your own base. Invariably, the pre-made bases you can buy from stores taste like chalk.

There's a few topics here that may be useful:

What is the best flour to use for pizza dough?

How to make pizza crust thin and elastic at the same time?

For Pizza cooking at home. What is the best alternative to the pizza stone?


Is sweetened condensed milk a substitute for evaporated milk? I have a recipe for Thai Green Curry that calls for evaporated milk, which I don't have. I do have sweetened condensed milk, will that do?

No.

Sweetened condensed milk has a 40% sugar content. It is very sweet, suitable for desserts and such. It is entirely too sweet to substituted into a curry.

The consistency is drastically different. Evaporated milk is about the same consistency as heavy cream. Sweetened condensed milk, because of its high sugar content, is more the consistency of a warm caramel.

Also, they are different colors, evaporated milk is white, sweetened condensed is light brown.


Will a lid with a hole in it work with a crock pot? I have an older crock pot, and the lid needs to be replaced. It's an odd size, and the only appropriate lid I could find has a tiny hole in it for venting. Will the crock pot still work normally if it's vented?

I have used a rice cooker lid as a replacement on an old crock pot. It has a small venting hole as you described.

I have been using this lid for years now and have yet to have a dish dry out. The hole is just too small to let much water out.


I made white bread yesterday, and it smelled similar to sourdough...why would this happen? I used plain white flour to make homemade bread. I followed the recipe from the 2011 cookbook titled "Blue Ribbon Recipes". I have been using this recipe since I bought the book in 2011, and have never had my bread smell like sourdough before. The smell was strong enough that it overpowered the smell of homemade huckleberry jam. I store my yeast in the refrigerator. There is no vinegar used in the recipe, and the yeast starter sat for approximately 10 minutes while I measured and added the other ingredients to the bowl. I've never had this happen before.

It could be an issue with how long you let it rise or maybe how warm you rested it at. I was making a deep dish pizza at home once and the recipe called for resting the dough in the fridge (mixed with the yeast and other ingredients), for 4hrs minimum. Due to my getting home a little after 5pm from work and some of my family leaving for work at 6:30pm, during the time I was attempting to make this, I couldn't use the suggested times for the different steps of the recipe. To shorten that time, I made the dough the day before. I let the dough rest in the fridge from about 9pm until 5:30pm the next day. When I made the pizzas the dough was very good, but it tasted a lot like sourdough, and that was using instant yeast out of a packet. I've since made the recipe with the correct resting times and it's good dough, but there is no sour taste.

So a long resting time for your bread, or possibly having it warmer might induce the yeast to process their 'food' faster. I know it's not true sourdough as the sourness there comes from a combination of yeast and lactobacilli's, but I did get a similar taste from the instant yeast packet and it was because of the duration I let the yeast work. Some of my family actually prefers the sourdough taste of that dough, so I sometimes make it that way. It also saves me from having to do too much work on any given day.

You can test my theory out and see if temp or the leavening time affects the taste. While you didn't originally want that particular flavor, you may come to enjoy it.


Boiling Chicken Breast (or any meat) before cooking to cook evenly Good day. I've had another disagreement with my mother on how to cook Chicken Breast. I know it seems like a small topic and it is situational, but do consider it.

The scenario is this, let's say you forget to take the Chicken Breast (whole, not chopped or butterfly cut) out the freezer and you need to cook it as soon as possible, OR you want to make sure you don't over cook the chicken as you fry it since they can get thick sometimes and you don't know if you cooked it all throughout.

In that scenario, my mother believes that it is okay to boil the chicken meat first in water before frying it. Her logic is that boiling actually cooks the inside evenly without burning the outside and frying gives it color.

However, I think that boiling the chicken takes the flavor away, just like how chicken bones are boiled to make stocks. Also, I think that boiling the chicken for too long causes the chicken to dry out (just like overcooking it).

I tried to tell her that butterflying it would be the best solution to cooking the chicken breast evenly, next to cooking it in the right temperature to not boil it (which seals the flavor inside) and then putting it in the oven (optional).

What do you guys think? Is boiling meat that detrimental to the flavor and overall quality of the dish?

Short answer - you are right on all counts and she's wrong. Tell her that, she'll love it. ;)

The longer answer is that boiling a frozen piece of meat, especially one that is thick in the middle  like chicken breast is exactly the opposite of what you want to do as you'll cook the outside but the inside will still be frozen, and boiling (as you rightly point out) will remove flavor from what is already IMO flavorless to begin with. Any cooking method will dry the chicken out whether boiling, baking, or frying, so by cooking twice you are liable to end up with food that is overcooked on the outside and undercooked on the inside.

Cooking frozen chicken isn't a great idea from a safety and quality perspective but it can be done if the meat is cut thin, so your point about butterflying it is very valid. What I do personally is I thaw chicken meat (thighs in my case) partially in the microwave, then I slice it into 1/2" (about 1.3cm) pieces across the grain before cooking in a saute/stir fry of some sort. I like partially rather than fully thawing in the microwave because it gives a better taste/texture than a full thaw in the microwave, and it is very easy to slice when partially frozen.


Why should I let bread cool before slicing and eating? Many recipes for bread and such suggest that bread should be fully cooled (like 2 hours or so) before eating.  It's sooooo tasty right out of the oven - why wait?  Does something important happen in the cooling time that's worth waiting for?

It is because of the way starch retrogrades. It does so in stages. The first stage needs between 1 and 2 hours, the second one a few days.

You have probably seen it more clearly in starch-thickened puddings: they thicken a bit on stovetop, but are only ready to unmold after a few hours, else they wuoldn't keep their shape. In a bread, the starch granules are the same way: right after baking, they contain too much moisture.

Sure, if you eat the bread right away, the aroma is very good. But the texture is problematic. It gets doughy and dense at the smallest amount of pressure. Tearing instead of cutting helps a bit. And if you are at home, eating with your family, go for it and eat the tasty still-hot bread. It is especially good with soft, low-gluten breads made with AP flour with the least amount of bran (50% milling grade or even less), my grandma would say that they "melt in the mouth" when they are hot. But if you serve bread slices to guests, or want to spread something on the bread, wait for its starch to set.

On a side note, the second stage of starch retrogradation is the reason why you should use day-old bread for crumbs for thickening, and the third stage is the one which makes bread inedible. But this goes too far away from the original question.


What is the difference between a thickener and an emulsifier? I ask this because I have used a minuscule amount of Xanthan Gum to slightly thicken a chilli sauce I have made. However upon looking at the ingredients of many popular chilli sauces they all tend to use a "modified starch" (modified cornstarch, modified maize starch, modified tapioca starch, are the common ones I've come across) as a "thickener" and Xanthan Gun as an "emulsifier".

Given this what is the difference between a thickener and an emulsifier? How would my chilli sauce change if I used a modified starch instead of Xanthan gum? And why is it ideal to use both?

As Max points out, emulsifiers work by allowing two normally incompatible ingredients to mix. There are different ways that emulsifiers do this. Lecithin, probably the most common emulsifier, can do this because its molecule has a water-binding end and an oil-binding end. Hydrocolloids, like xanthan gum, can also have emulsification properties, but they work quite a bit differently.

Hydrocolloids work by binding up water, which causes a marked increase in viscosity. This allows them to function as thickeners. They are sometimes used in this capacity in combination with other emulsifiers as the increased viscosity helps to make emulsions more stable. Some hydrocolloids can work as emulsifiers on their own because they either increase viscosity enough that the droplets of differing materials can't separate, or they have a small protein component that helps to bind the ingredients.

In your case, the main difference if you switched ingredients would probably be texture. Different hydrocolloids can have similar thickening capacities, but give markedly different textures. Because of this, they are frequently used in "synergistic systems", where multiple hydrocolloids are used to modify each others' textures to acheive a desired result. This is basically what's happening in the commercial sauces.

If the xanthan gum worked fine for your purposes on its own, I'd just stick with that. Modified starch can be a lot of different things with different purposes, so if your problem is solved more simply, it's probably best not to go down that rabbit hole.


name of the process of heating butter to give it the special aroma One of common toppings for fruit pierogi and several other dishes, usually sweet, is butter that has been melted and heated on a skillet/saucepan until it got a somewhat deeper golden color, and a special unique aroma and flavor.

What is this process called?

(I believe it's also the first phase of preparing clarified butter, but I'm not sure about that.)

It's called browned butter or beurre noisette.  It is essentially heating butter beyond its melting point until the solids start to darken.  E.g.: a recipe is here at Kitchn.


How can I know how long home-cooked food will stay good in fridge? As through the week we too busy to cook we have gotten the idea of cooking a big bunch of food in the weekend, storing it in the fridge and eat it later in the week.

I am a bit concerned how long things will stay good in the fridge. For example mashed potatoes (which is prepared with milk), minced meat steaks or a cream-based sauce.

Are there any general rules of thumb that can be used to estimate how long things will stay good? And are there any 'dangerous' foods, foods that can be spoiled but not show any mold or smell strange, but are not good to eat?

The USDA says to eat refrigerated leftovers within 4 days.

Be aware that how long you leave something out before refrigeration and the size of the container can shorten the edible lifetime. The gist is the longer it's warm, the more [likely] pathogens will be able to multiply to unsafe levels. A large container holds heat longer and takes longer to reach 40°F.

There's also some other interesting information on the linked page about safe storage durations for many store-bought items as well, including recommendations for how long it will stay good in the freezer. To be fair to @Allison's answer, many of the durations listed in that chart are 3-4 days or 3-5 days, though some are longer or shorter.


What am I doing wrong during the seasoning process of my cast iron skillet I have read a lot of articles and watch several videos on how to season a cast-iron skillet. But the outcome I am getting is nothing like what I find online.

My cast iron skillet comes out with spotty marks which are a bit sticky. I've repeated the process twice but now I am doubtful about doing it one more time.  I am using canola oil and a convection oven at 450F, leaving the pan upside down for 1 hour.

Here is a photo of the results.

You're using way too much oil. "A thin coat" really means thin--apply a small amount of oil, spread it around, and wipe it ALL off, leaving nothing but the shine.