Frozen onions in root cellar My root cellar froze while I was away as we had extended single digit temperatures, which was not normal at all and we broke all temperature records. Now I have a whole basket of frozen onions and squash.

Should I go ahead and process them (I really don't have the time or the inclination as they are COLD!) or will they be fine just letting them thaw. Can I just throw them in freezer whole?

Normally, when you freeze onions or winter squash, you'd first at least chop them. Makes them much more convenient to use.

When you thaw them out, they will not be firm anymore. The quicker you freeze something, the less damage it takes in the process—I suspect your freeze was, unfortunately, pretty slow. Each freeze does more damage. So, you don't want to thaw then re-freeze.

You can't thaw and store; the damage from freezing will lead to quick spoiling if you try.

I'd suggest you transfer them to a freezer, to make sure they stay frozen. That'll give you some time to figure out what to do with them. You may want to defrost an onion and a squash (just one) to see if they're still usable or not—if it turns out they're too mushy to be usable, then no point in spending time on the others. Defrosting in the fridge is probably going to be easiest on them. Put them in a bowl; they will probably leak juice.

If you decide to store them long-term in the freezer, you'll want to properly wrap them (or use zip bags).


Wondering if the bottle of wine I have is still good or not During my move to a new place, I found a bottle of wine that I had kept in my refrigerator that was dated 2004. It was still sealed; it didn't look like anything was floating around inside, and to all intents and purposes, it looked to be an average bottle of red wine that you'd find at your typical liquor store. However, I'm wondering if it's still any good or not, and if there was a way to check outside of opening it and taking a swig.

If you want to make sure your wine is still good without opening the bottle (wine, vinegar or broth), there are some things you can check. This doesn't give you 100% guarantee that the wine is actually any good.

Did the bottle lay horizontally (good) or was it standing up (bad). The wine must be in contact with the cork to hydrate it. This way the seal stays intact and the wine doesn't spoil.
How 'aged' was the wine? Normally a young wine will last about one year (maybe two in the fridge), a reserve or great reserve can last longer. Some wines will mature for 25 years or more.
Check the seal. If it's in good state (no 'dirty' spots), that's good.
Check the cork (without opening the seal). If the cork is pushing the seal out, then your wine may have suffered from heat (the air in the bottle pushes the cork out). This may cause your wine to taste of cork (broth).
Remove the seal and check the cork. If the cork is clean, that's good. If it has red spots (see point 4). If it looks dry... you may have a nice vinegar.
Substances floating in the wine doesn't mean the wine is bad, but you'll need to decant the wine carefully.

But anyway, open the bottle soon. Waiting any longer won't make the wine any better.


Will liquid keep longer if I boil it and then leave the lid on? Basically I boiled a turkey carcass on Thanksgiving night for about an hour.  I then turned off the heat and left the lid on (never took it off).  Since then it has been sitting on my stove for the last three days.  I popped off the lid just now and everything smelled fine. I believe I've heard that food prepared and stored in this manner will keep for quite a while without spoiling.  Is this true?

If both foodstuff and cooking vessel are heated fully and tightly sealed, you may sterilize them well enough to delay spoilage. It is not safe to rely on this, because it is easy to compromise the seal.  You can't be sure the lid of the pot got hot enough to sterilize it too, and escaping steam will open the lid slightly, allowing outside air in.  Once contaminated, warm broth and meat are a perfect growth medium for bacteria.

The safer approach is opt for fast cooling in an ice water bath with the lid off to allow steam to escape, followed by prompt refrigeration.  This gets the food out of the temperature danger zone (40-140F) where bacteria multiply rapidly, and doesn't rely on maintaining a sterile environment in your pot.

Sous vide cooking is an exception: with a sealed bag, you're recreating Louis Pasteur's famous proof of the germ theory. In his experiments, he sealed boiled broth in containers that prevented dust particles (carrying microorganisms) from contaminating them.  The sealed containers did not spoil.  Of course, this ignores the problem of botulism: the spores aren't killed, even at a full boil, and can then germinate and start to multiply.  This (and similar pathogens) are why sous vide foods do not have infinite shelf life in their bags.


What is the name of a dish where meat is doused with brandy and lit on fire? In about 1972 as a new bride, I made something with beef in the oven (had to have been from a cookbook) and then poured brandy over it and lit it on fire before serving.  As we were college students, it would not have been an expensive cut of meat.  I have searched using words like beef, brandy, flambee, fire, etc. but come up blank. Does anyone recognize the dish? Would love to serve it for our 45th anniversary next month!

Steak Diane

I first had Steak Diane at the Brown Palace in Denver long ago. I have made it several times and found the brandy flavor is overwhelmed by the other flavors.

If you want the liquor flavor, I have found a smoked or grilled Bourbon Chicken on Food TV that has a lot of flavor. The chicken is brined overnight in soy sauce  brown sugar and bourbon, etc. but doesn't include flambe. Chicken might not be festive enough for your anniversary, though, but congratulations.


Why do I need more time and liquid than my risotto recipe calls for? Whenever I make a risotto, I always find that I need about 50% more liquid and 50% more cooking time than my recipe suggests. I recently made a Jamie Oliver risotto that called for 1 cup arborio, 2 cups chicken stock, and 20 minutes. I used more like 3 1/2 cups of stock and it took a good 30 minutes. My stock is heated in a separate sauce pan, and I add it a little at a time (although probably more than a ladle, maybe two?). I stir frequently but not constantly (probably once a minute). I consistently seem to have this issue regardless of the recipe source.

Am I do something wrong? Or is this a case of a recipe playing it on the safe side?

It doesn't sound like you're doing anything wrong. I've found risotto to be one of those recipes that can vary up to 50% (usually less) from what the author calls for and still turn out great. I've even used recipes that call for "2-4" cups of broth. You may be overcooking it though, the rice should be al dente. It's not uncommon for people to overcook this until you have a mushy risotto.


At what point is water considered "at a boil?" Lots of recipes call for waiting for the water to come "to a boil." However I have never been sure when that is. From my viewpoint it could be at three different points:

First start to see small air bubbles coming up from the bottom of the pan
When the surface of the water is noticeably disturbed by the bubbles
When it is a full on raging torrent of activity

Depending on the amount of water used, these three points could be several minutes apart from each other, which will affect the cooking time.

By definition, 1 is a simmer (once the bubbles form a steady stream), 2 is a boil, and 3 is a "roiling boil."


Storing and Transporting cooked fish I need to take fish to a cooking challenge and the fish has to be cooked, kept hot and then stored and not eaten for possibly 10 hours.  Is there are way to do this without changing the flavor, texture, appearance, etc.?

Cook as close the the presentation as possible. Then separate into a batch for the presentation, and another batch to be immediately refridgerated (or placed in a very cold cooler). Reheat that batch when it's ready to be eaten.

Otherwise.. good luck, glad I don't have to judge that contest.


Easier way to shell out sunflower seeds I like the taste of sunflower seeds, however I really dislike the process of shelling them. The bags say "Eat. Spit. Be happy." But I have found that shelling it in one's mouth is not only messy, it also tends to splinter the shell and hurt gums. I have tried shelling them out by hand, but that is exceedingly time-consuming.

I know they can be purchased shell-less but I was wondering if there is some trick, as I like some of the seasoned kinds, just not a fan of the process. Any trick to unshell multiple sunflower seeds efficiently?

Here's a quick and easy way where you only your teeth and your nails. The tip of the sunflower seed shell has a little bit an edge, so I bite that off and then I crack open the cut that I made with my teeth with my nails.


What would the best Cornflour substitute be for a Pavlova? Our local stores do not sell cornflour so I need a substitute.

Online I'm finding people saying use normal flour, or you can use arrowroot or you can use cornstarch at half the quantity. But these substitutions are given for purposes like thickening agents.

Really I don't know if something like 'flour' would be a good substitute in a Pavlova. What is the right substitute for the purpose of a Pavlova?

Cornflour in that sense being just starch, you should be able to use many starches with decent results. So corn starch, wheat starch, potato starch, rice starch, etc. will work, no matter what name they are sold under (e.g. you are more likely to find "rice flour" than "rice starch"). Try to avoid starches that are high in amylopectin ("waxy" starches), for the pavlova you want fluffiness in the starch.

If you are willing to experiment and end up with results that are farther away from the original, consider trying random flours from gluten free plants. I don't mean the "gluten-free flour mixes" in the supermarket which are enriched with gums, I mean things like oat flour, chestnut flour, etc.


How do kosher food preparation requirements compare with what is known by modern science to make food safe for eating? As discussed in What are the requirements for a dish to be kosher?, kosher food must follow various rules and procedures. I noticed a pattern in these rules which suggests some consistency with modern food scientists' understanding of food safety and handling.

For example:

Shellfish often contains harmful bacteria which can make one sick. Avoiding this is probably good advice.
Many fish or "creatures of the sea", that do not have scales, contain dangerous poisons and are probably best avoided.

Are there any scientific explanations for why it might be good to avoid the other food? E.g.:

Meat in which the blood has not been drained.
Eating milk together with meat or cooking beef in milk.

Pigs are often fed garbage and other meat, including meat from other pigs. Could this lead to diseases similar to mad cow disease?

While some of the kosher rules are food-safety rules developed by the Israelite priests (or given by God), the prohibition against mixing meat and milk is because of an ancient ritual that involved cooking  the meat of a slaughtered animal in its mother's milk, a religious practice forbidden in Exodus 34:26 "... You shall not boil a kid in its mother's milk", part of a passage sometimes known as the ritual decalogue that prescribes the destruction of artifacts of other religions, forbids the creation of idols, and lays out other religious responsibilities.

The laws regarding separation of meat and milk come from the concern that a person might accidentally break this law and boil a kid in its mother's milk if they purchase both meat and milk and prepare them together, or if a residue of milk is left on cooking utensils from a previous dish, which then gets into a dish involving the meat of a slaughtered kid.


Why are berries so expensive? I am trying to eat healthier with less processed foods and I'm a pretty smart guy to begin with. But I can't figure this out for the life of me - why are berries so expensive? I love things like boysenberries and blueberries but I almost choke when I see their price in the store. Why are berries expensive?

It is a combination of many factors. To sell you one perfect apple, one perfect bunch of bananas, or one perfect half-pint of berries requires:

the land to grow on
workers to plant, tend, weed, and pick
transportation to market
loss allowance for fruit that's bruised or spoils in transit
loss allowance for fruit that spoils while at the store and people won't buy it

Many of these factors are objectively higher for berries than for applies or bananas, especially given their short shelf life and tendency to bruise.

This puts a floor on the price growers and stores can charge. Then on top of that, they are delicious and healthy, so at least some people will pay that price. This removes downward pressure to sell them at a loss to get you in the store.

A better question is what can you do about it? The answer is generally to use frozen berries (they don't incur the spoiling and bruising losses) or to eat berries only when they're in season locally and eat other kinds of fruit the rest of the year.


How can I make my lemonade more tart/tangy? I'm making lemonade, but no matter what ratios of lemon to sugar I use, I can't get that tartness and tang that I can taste in my favourite commercial drinks. I noticed that even with drinks that don't have a citrus flavour, they sometimes have that tartness, so I examined the ingredients of various tangy drinks.

I managed to narrow down that tart drinks tend to have the ingredients citric acid and trisodium citrate. Neither of those ingredients are things I can get at the grocery store. Is there anything I can get at the grocery store that will have the same tartness as those ingredients? It needs to be something cheap please, because the whole reason I'm making my own lemonade is to avoid the expense of the ready made stuff.

I didn't post a full answer before, because I didn't have the time to expand on one. Aaronut spared me time by writing 2/3 of what I would have (citric acid, citrate) and presenting it very well. I won't repeat that part. But there is another point which I find important:

When you say "tangy", do you really mean "sour"? Because for me, "tangy" means a combination of "sour" + "astringent", with sometimes a hint of "bitter" thrown in.

This means that even if you drink pure lemon juice, your drink will still not appear tangy enough to you. You need to add astringency.

The way commercial drinks add it is by carbonation. There are systems you can use to carbonate your own drinks at home, but you'll have to make the investment first.

You could try making your lemonade with store-bought carbonated water, but given the price difference between carbonated water and store-bought lemonade on the one hand and tap water and carbonated water on the other hand, it will probably not let you save much money. It will, however, help you drink better quality lemonade (as in, made from real fresh fruit instead of synthetic flavors).

Another way you can achieve it is fermentation. Don't let it go on too long, you don't want an alcoholic drink. The trouble is, with wild cultures you never know when a batch will turn out good and when it will have off-flavors.

You can also add ingredients which are by themselves astringent. Chokeberries resp. their juice would be a perfect choice for a lemonade, if you don't mind the red color. Quinces shouldn't add much color. There are no other easy astringent ingredients I can think of right now, except for a tea of oak bark, but the taste will need lots of getting used to if used in a lemonade.

If you find out that it's the astringency you've been missing, you probably need no additional citric acid.


How to prevent liquid-y marinara sauce I made marinara sauce using NYT Marinara Sauce Recipe, which recommends the  28oz of DOP certified San Marzano tomatoes for pizza sauce.

It tasted great, but unfortunately it had more liquid than I was hoping. So I was wondering where I went wrong..

Should I not have squeezed as much as I did?
Should I have used pan larger than 11 inch diameter? (it felt like the sauce wasn't that low).
Should I have pre-processed the squashed tomatoes through a strainer?

You could cook it longer, in a shallow pan, to evaporate some of the water.


How long does lotus root stay fresh? I've got some lotus root that I had in the fridge about a week before I opened it.  I left the lotus root in the water in which it was packaged and I'm wondering how long it stays fresh.  It still looks like the day I got it and it's been 2 plus weeks.  I thought what the hell, looks fine, and ate it and it's still the same old lotus root.

http://www.melissas.com/Products/Products/Lotus-Root.aspx

The link states it can be kept uncut for 2-3 weeks in the fridge, while cut pieces can last up to 5 days. I think since it's a root it should hold up much like a carrot or turnip or other like fleshed vegetable.


My applesauce has fermented, is it safe to bake with? I don't have access to refrigeration, so I use applesauce as an egg substitute. I have a plastic can (it's got a metal & rubber lid like a Mason jar but the container is plastic) of store bought store-generic applesauce that's been sitting on a cool windowsill for... a couple months, I guess? I've used it for baking up to a couple weeks ago with no issues.

Thing is, it's been bubbling, and there was a HUGE release of gas when I opened the can this time. It smells exactly like beer. There's absolutely no trace of "rotten" smell, nor is there mold anywhere on the can - it just smells like Bud Light.

I'm extremely poor and I generally try to avoid throwing away food unless it's actually smells rotten or is molding. Considering I'll be baking a few tablespoons of it as an egg substitute... is it still even remotely safe?

It sounds like it's fermented, and more harmful bacteria or mold could definitely have grown without being visible.

So it's not safe, in that there's definitely some risk. It's hard to evaluate exactly how risky it is. It sounds like you're already routinely taking risks by eating iffy food that's not obviously rotten or moldy, so you certainly could choose to take that risk here. I'd really advise against it, though.

Remember, food poisoning isn't just about stomachaches. If you end up in the hospital, it's going to cost you a lot more than a replacement jar of applesauce.

As a side note, applesauce generally requires refrigeration. The jar you have almost certainly says "refrigerate after opening." So it may not be a good choice for an egg substitute. You might want to look into actually shelf-stable substitutes. If applesauce is working for you, flax (or chia) or mashed banana might be good options. Flax and chia are totally shelf-stable, and while bananas don't last forever you can at least buy them as you need them.


Is there additional risk in cooking meat sous-vide from frozen? I am aware of the additional cooking time required when cooking frozen meat sous-vide.  Beyond that, is there additional risk in cooking meat sous-vide from frozen?

The risk should be less, compared to the same food thawed in a fridge or in room temperature, since it should spend less time in the 'danger zone' or close to it.

In general I do not think the difference is much at all, especially if you thaw in the fridge.


Is extremely young meat indigestible? Extensive rewrite:

Young meat is considered unfit for human consumption by the European Union:

"derives from animals which are dead before slaughter, stillborn, unborn or slaughtered under the age of seven days;" Chapter V, EC 854/2004 [PDF], page 22.

According to a photocopy I have: "The meat is pale, bland and gelatinous. The bones are bland. The fats are grey and filthy. These meats do not have nutritious value and provoke diarrhoea." I do not have a reference for this quote.

The question is whether there is objective evidence supporting this claim. What is the European legislation based on?

Added (note the 'may'):

  decisions concerning meat. All meat which may constitute a danger to human health shall be declared unfit for human consumption. This includes meat from animals which have not undergone ante-mortem inspection (excluding wild game), meat from animals whose offal has not undergone post-mortem inspection, meat from animals which were dead before slaughter, stillborn, unborn or slaughtered under the age of seven days, meat from animals affected by a notifiable animal disease, meat not in conformity with the biological and radioactivity criteria, meat containing specified risk materials, chemical residues or veterinary medicinal products in excess of the permitted limits. In addition, the veterinarian may impose requirements concerning the use of meat derived from animals having undergone emergency slaughter outside the slaughterhouse.

I think that the regulation is there to prevent the marketing of meat from stillborn animals or aborted animals. The EU wants animals to be inspected before they are killed and after they have been killed, and it wants the killing process to be done under certain conditions.
Obviously a stillborn/aborted animal does not satisfy these requirements.

And an animal that has been killed while very young may be hard to tell from an aborted one.


What are these spots on my butternut squash? I just roasted a bunch of butternut squash for dinner and am getting to puree, but am noticing that some of the pieces have weird glue-looking spots.  It sort of looks like when water weeps out of the pores on the squash, only it's white and the consistency of silly putty.  They're very small spots (like the size of a straight pin head), and close to the skin on the flesh, on the cross-section.  I feel like I'm describing this poorly. Here's a picture:

My question: Is this stuff safe to eat, or do I need to compost it and find something else for dinner?  I'd rather not give my whole family food poisoning!

I have seen those before when I have cooked squash; they seem more common when I microwave it. I suspect they are just starchy deposits. I have always just wiped them off and eaten it anyway.


Can I substitute mint tea for fresh mint? I've been interested in making tabouli, but the "fresh mint" part is incredibly expensive where I live. Since I have a huge bag of loose leaf mint tea (nothing but mint), I was wondering if I could use that instead. Would that work? I assume adding the boiling water to it will re-hydrate it.

Also, how would I decide how much to use (for example, one recipe I was looking at said "1 cup fresh mint")?

I have always wondered how in anglosaxon speaking countries, people think that "mint" is always the same as "mint", just because it has the same name. In fact, spearmint tastes as different from peppermint as thymian from oregano. Almost all cooking recipes I know of are meant for spearmint, except for some sweet applications. All mint tea I have encountered is made from peppermint, not from spearmint. So while you can use dried spearmint instead of fresh mint, using mint tea is a bad idea, unless yours happens to be an exception made from spearmint.

You could try finding out if a herbs seller has dried spearmint, but you must remember that it has less aroma than fresh spearmint. Also, dried mint does approximate the aroma of the fresh one when used as a herb, but when used in big quantities (you mention 1 cup) as a vegetable on its own right, the substitution is much more problematic, because juiciness and texture are much more different.

I don't know about the situation where you live, but spearmint isn't used much in Western countries, except maybe England, so it is seldom available at supermarkets and costs a lot there. A better source are Turkish grocery shops, where it is as common as parsley, and the price is comparable. If there are Turkish shops nearby, it is definitely worth trying to find it there.

For a longer term solution, it might be a good idea to grow your own spearmint in pots. The plant is quite unassuming and easy to care for, and a kitchen which smells of fragrant herbs is nicer than one which smells of frying grease or cleaning products.


Weight of a large egg UK recipes give the  amount of eggs in a recipe in grams and I would like to know how many eggs I will need fpr 115 grams of eggs. So, what does the average large egg weigh?

There is indeed a standard for egg sizes. Size M in Europe, corresponding to Large in the US, is roughly 55 grams per egg. This is including the shell, if you have a recipe which doesn't include the shell (e.g. it was developed for pasteurized eggs from a carton), you have to calculate about 5 g of shell for that size of egg.

You can look up tables of other egg sizes on the Internet, but that's the most common size in supermarkets, and the one most commonly used when developing recipes, so I suppose it is the one you need.


when to add the curry powder I heard that if I put the curry powder early, the cooking heat will destroy the flavour, and that it should be put at the end, before turning off the heat

but I can't find anywhere on the internet confirmation for this statement.

is that true ? when is the best time to put the curry powder ?

None of these is categorically true. Adding it early or late will give different flavor, adding it at the very end of cooking will usually leave you with an unpleasant raw spice taste unless it is a roasted variety of curry powder.

It does make a big difference whether the powder is added into oil, water, or an emulsion.

For the most "complete" flavor, add it twice - part goes in the oil when your aromatics are mostly done, before adding bulk liquids; part goes in a few minutes before taking the dish off the heat (optionally bloomed in oil).


How to stop Xanthan Gum from clumping? Every so often, I make Irish Cream. The problem I have with it is that the cocoa and some of the cream split a bit in the bottle. It's still drinkable, and shaking the bottle fixes it, but I'd rather this not happen. The usual stabiliser for Irish Cream is eggs, but that shortens the shelf-life far too much for my tastes. I figured I could use Xanthan Gum as a stabiliser to stop it from splitting. The problem is, no matter what, I can't stop it clumping together in anything I add it to. I even bought a tea strainer to use as a sieve, but the fine powder on the top of whatever I add it to still managed to clump together, as though I'd added dead skin. I tried mixing it with sugar before adding, but it still clumped up.

How do I stop it from clumping? Reading about it online, it doesn't seem like that uncommon of an ingredient, so obviously, other people aren't having as much bother with it as I am.

I use an immersion blender angle @ about 45 degrees to create a vortex. I gently and slowly sprinkle the xanthan gum into the vortex then use the blender to make sure all of it is incorporated. I have not had any problems with clumping unless I add too much at a time.


Using my own wood for smoking? I have some apple and fig wood from trees that were pruned yesterday. The pieces range from sticks the diameter of your finger to about 3" in diameter.

How can I use these? Do they need to dry? For how long? Do I need to remove the bark?

Ideally, wood for smoking needs to be chipped, probably using a wood chipper though you could do small batches by hand using a chisel or bandsaw.  Chips allows a greater surface area and gives a more consistent behaviour compared to large blocks of wood.

Whether you need to dry of not depends on several factors such as how old the wood is (I've never used apple or fig to smoke personally) and how much sap/sapwood it contains.  While I have not tried with green wood, I suspect it would just take longer to catch as the fire you put it on will dry it naturally.  Others on BBQ/smoking forums such as http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/index.php?topic=18832.0 say they have tried it and it works fine but obviously YMMV.

As for the bark - I would say for the smaller sticks where the bark is relatively thin then it's fine to leave on, but with larger branches I would remove it.  In some types of tree the bark contains more oil than the rest of the wood (e.g. Birch), meaning you will get a blacker, sootier type of smoke that is generally undesirable for smoking food.


Why does my banana bread have a moist top? My mother always made banana bread when I was growing up, and my favorite part was the the fact that the top of the loaf was sweet and moist, to the point that it would leave residue if you touched it!  Hers is the only banana bread that I've seen that does this.

When I first tried making the recipe, the top stayed dry, but these days it becomes moist just like when she makes it.  As far as I can tell, the top is dry straight out of the oven, then as it cools it becomes slightly tacky.  After saran wrapping, the top develops the moist layer that I'm familiar with.

Does anyone know:

What physically causes this moisture on top?
What I can do to reduce or enhance it?

You've partially answered your own question:

When wrapped in foil, the water contained naturally in the ingredients will re-moisturise the banana bread.
a. To reduce:

don't wrap it
leave it in the oven to cool down with the oven slightly open so that most of the moisture can escape

b. to enhance:

make a dome of tin foil above it before putting it in the oven
Wrap it in micro-wave resistant plastic foil the moment it comes out of the oven

P.S. Don't use Saran foil when it comes straight out of the oven.  I've tried and it's not pretty!!!  :-(
P.P.S. For perfect balance, I don't wrap it in tin foil before putting it in the oven but do leave it out for 5 minutes before wrapping it in microwave-resistant plastic foil, but my mum is not your mum, so YMMV.  ;-)
P.P.P.S. Unless you're my brother, in which case your mum is my mum and I want to know: Why didn't you call mum yesterday??? :D :D :D


How to clean up after a grease fire? So I was about to sear some steaks in my trusty cast iron skillet tonight, when upon pouring a couple tablespoons of avocado oil, it burst into flames. Having read about how to put out grease fires, I covered the pan with a lid and turned off the electric burner, extinguishing the flame, and transfered the skillet to the garage (the door is 3 ft from the stove) to minimize the amount of smoke in the house.

Even though this all happened well within a minute, the smoke alarm went off, and the two wood cabinets above the stove turned grey from the smoke. So my question is twofold:

How should I clean the cast iron after such a fire? It's got some sticky residue on it (burnt oil?), but otherwise seems fine.
How do I clean the soot (?) off of those cabinets? I tried using a little vinegar and some elbow grease, but basically nothing happened.

This is no big deal. Small grease fires happen constantly in commercial kitchens. Ever see a big flame coming from a wok at a good Chinese restaurant? That's probably an oil flare up, not alcohol, and is one of the things that gives a well-made stir-fry its trademark smokey flavor. Most of the time, in between uses, commercial woks just get cleaned out with some water and a stiff bristled brush.

As far as your cast iron goes, unless you let it burn for a while, you should be able to clean it the way you normally would. Give it a good wipe with a dry towel after to get any black bits out so they don't stick to your next meal. People way over think the care of cast iron pans.

As far as your cabinets are concerned, if it is actually soot and not temperature damage to the material, you just need a basic degreaser. Most kitchen/all-purpose cleaners are degreasers. This one is my favorite for non-food-contact surfaces, such as cabinets, if you're interested. For slight graying from a bit of burnt oil, a good quality glass cleaner would probably do the trick with minimal effort. If you end up needing something beefier, check your local grocery store for Lestoil. I have never, ever encountered a greasy soot will stand up to that stuff. It's rarely my first choice, however, because it's got a very strong, distinct, (though not entirely unpleasant) odor. If for some reason, you've got the world's worst grease stain and absolutely nothing else is working, and you'll have to replace the surface if you can't get something to remove it, lye will get rid of it. Lye is also extremely toxic, gives nasty chemical burns on contact and in my opinion should only be used as a last resort. You can buy pure lye, or spray on lye-containing mixtures in the form of oven cleaner. Note: this has a much higher chance of totally destroying the surface you're attempting to clean than any other method. (as an aside, lye is a great way of stripping old crap off of cast iron pans)


Kitchenaid mixer dropping metal shavings My fiance and I have been using our KitchenAid 600 series pro mixer almost daily for close to 7 months now with no issue.

Today I wanted to surprise my fiance with homemade whole wheat pasta, and followed the KitchenAid recipe exactly. First, the recipe was completely incorrect (needed triple the required water, and two tablespoons of olive oil to get the correct consistency). Using their specified recipe basically left me with sand.

After making the adjustments, I re-ran the dough with the paddle, and then again with the dough hook.

This time both parts occasionally had a hard time with the firmness of the dough. At all times the speed limit of 2 was obeyed from the manual. It DID finish the dough; I hand kneaded for a few minutes, and threw it in the fridge where it is currently sitting.

However, afterwards I noticed small bits of metal shavings on the counter around where the KitchenAid had been sitting. Has anyone encountered this? Do I need to get a replacement (if they'll even honor it since we bought it from the original buyer)? Do I need to get it serviced? I ran the mixer without the bowl for a few minutes just to see if more shavings would fall but none seem to be doing that. Could it be a one time fluke? I'm just trying to find out more about my situation.

From the sounds of it, because you were using it for a rather dry dough, it might've had to work more than it usually does, and could have resulted in some grinding of gears.

Now, if the mixer completely bogs down, most Kitchenaid models have a sacrifical gear that's made of plastic that will get destroyed close to the motor (ie, up top, not near the planary action bits near the bowl), but it's possible for it to not be quite bogged down enough for that to get destroyed.

As for servicing them, they're actually pretty easy to work on, provided you keep track of the parts and have a set of lock-ring pliers.  (and if you open up the gear box up top, some grease to re-pack it).

When I helped service a friend's 600, we found plenty of manuals online; but be aware that there's more than one model of 600.  (mine had a different model number than hers).

I'd personally try to check the planetary gears, and check if there are more shavings in there -- if so, it's a problem and at the very least, you need to empty it out.  If I recall correctly, you don't actually need to open up the main housing -- there's either a pin you can punch out, or a retaining clip at the top of the shaft that you attach tools to, and you can remove the cover without too much difficulty.  (I think it's the newer models that use the retaining clip; see the manual I linked to for those that use a pin)

The other gearbox up above isn't going to throw shavings -- it's packed in grease within a sealed case, so if there are shavings, it's going to not get thrown free (instead, it'll continue damaging the gears)


What cheeses make for good gifts? Someone I know really likes cheese, so in lieu of any other ideas, and because there is a local market having a cheese event in the near future, I'm considering getting him cheese as a gift.

The trouble is, I'm not quite sure what cheeses make good/bad gifts, for example is it highly perishable, how much is an appropriate amount, which cheeses are actually impressive and worth pushing the boat out a bit for?

(I'm aware this isn't a perfect fit for this board, however of the Stack Exchange website this was the most appropriate)

Don't; you don't know his taste.

Get him something related to the cheese instead like a small specialty knife (Girolle) or wood/slate platter or books.

If you want to get something edible, get some good honey, quince "cheese", chutneys or nuts.


When adding vital wheat gluten to a bread recipe, should one reduce the amount of flour equal to it? I've always thought that the rule of thumb for adding vital wheat gluten to a bread recipe was to add one tablespoon of it per cup of flour called for. A friend is telling me that rather than do that, I should count the vital wheat gluten as flour, and for every tablespoon of it that I add to the recipe, I should subtract a tablespoon of flour from the recipe. Which of us is correct and why?

The bread recipe that I'm following calls for 3 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup of dried, nonfat milk powder. I don't have the milk powder, so I thought that the vital wheat gluten would make a decent replacement for it. I also thought that I should increase the flour to 3 3/4 cups and add the vital wheat gluten on top of that, rather than directly substituting it for the dried, nonfat milk (because I've always treated it as an addition/improver).

ETA: I know that both dried, nonfat milk and vital wheat gluten are added to bread recipes to improve the texture of the crumb. What I don't know is how bakers traditionally treat vital wheat gluten: is it counted as part of the flour, or is it considered an addition/improver?

I wouldn't replace milk powder with vital wheat gluten.  Vital wheat gluten changes the gluten content of your recipe.  It's good for, say, turning whole wheat flour with a lower gluten content or AP flour into flour suitable for bread.

When I add vital wheat gluten, I subtract flour as your friend does.  I only use it when I am not using a high protein flour.

The dried nonfat milk powder is likely in the recipe for flavor.  I would instead use milk in place of water and either up the flour as needed or replace with flour as needed (you can tell this during kneading).  I've done this just fine in bread recipes before.


How can I remove the peel and pit of an avocado without the whole thing turning into mush? Making solid pieces out of a ripe avocado is a difficult business (for me, anyway). What is the best way to remove the peel and pit without ending up with a pile of green mush? I can sometimes remove the peel without too much difficulty, but that pit always gives me grief.

The California Avocado Commission recommends this (safe but wimpy - see below for a better way) three-step process:

Start with a ripe avocado and cut it lengthwise around the seed. Rotate the halves to separate.
Remove the seed by sliding the tip of a spoon gently underneath and lifting out. The other common seed-extraction method - striking the seed with a knife and twisting - requires some skill and is not recommended.
Peel the fruit by placing the cut side down and removing the skin with a knife or your fingers, starting at the small end. Or simply scoop out the avocado meat with a spoon. Be sure to sprinkle all cut surfaces with lemon or lime juice or white vinegar to prevent discoloration.

Source: California Avocado Commission

Notes:

Another (and my favorite) way to remove the pit is by holding the half with the pit in one hand and striking the sharp edge of the knife used in step one into the pit, then twisting to remove. This is the "pro" way to do it, but takes a little practice. The video Nate referenced in the comments shows how to do it, it's not that hard.
If you're going to be chopping the avocado up, you slice it up using the tip of the knife still in the shell, then scoop the sliced avocado meat out with a spoon.


How to know when chicken breast has cooked through? Sometimes chicken breast can be thick and I never know how to tell when it's cooked! How can I be certain it is cooked all the way through?

A thermometer is the only way to be sure.

For methods with a consistent level of heat (stove, oven), you should able to learn the average cooking time, and outwards cues of color and texture that match the right internal temperature. Remember that these will vary with cooking method and temperature. Internally, the meat should look opaque and white.

These are CUES of doneness, not guarantees. Use the thermometer.

For methods with inconsistent levels of heat (bbq, campfire), wait until it looks nearly done and then check with the thermometer.

Err on the safe side. Prepared properly, chicken is a lot more forgiving of overcooking than steak.


Using cloves in stocks/broths I have a (somewhat) recently purchased spice jar of cloves in my pantry that isn't getting much attention.  I've seen stock/broth recipes that call for whole peppercorns, and am curious if subbing cloves would create a different/unique taste profile, or if it will just ruin the stock.   Curious for input on how best to use these as I have some leftover turkey from a pre-Thanksgiving trial run I did and was planning to make the drumsticks/carcass into a stock.

Most chicken (or turkey) stock recipes are meant to be fairly neutral in flavor so they can be used in almost any dish.  In many culinary traditions, especially those of European tradition, black pepper is appropriate in almost any savory dish.

Cloves are an extremely strong and aggressive flavor, which is not traditional in these cuisines.

While you could certainly use it in your stock, it would give that warm clove aroma, and you would then want to use the stock only in dishes where that is appropriate.

Instead, I would stick to neutral flavors, and if you want clove flavoring, do it when preparing the final dish, not he fundamental stock.   You can simmer enough stock for the whatever dish you are making with a few cloves while you are doing your prep on the dish to infuse it, if needed.


Mushroom soup prep in advance Want to make cream of mushroom soup for Boxing Day (26th Dec). How long can I prepare in advance? Planning to cook the mushrooms in white wine and garlic. Boil than cool and blend so I can just add the cream before serving.  Will it be OK to cook  now (23rd) ?

Minimum 3 days, technically safe for 5 and personally I'd be happy for 7. This applies to all soup pretty much, not just mushroom.

So to answer your question, yes you are more than safe doing it today. I did mine yesterday.


Do Parathas, Naan, and Roti have to be burnt a little? On asking the owner of a restaurant, he told me that the Tandoori chicken I was served was meant to have burnt edges because it is roasted on charcoal. I checked, and found it to be true.

But, I see restaurants all over India serving parathas, naan, and roti with black spots all over them and customers happily chew away on it. They laugh at me (and say it is normal to eat the burnt parts) when I pluck out all the burnt spots and keep them separate because I get stomach pain when I eat them. I don't understand why anyone would eat burnt food! Even when food is roasted over a camp fire, I assume people throw away the burnt portion of the meat that's exposed to the fire and smoke, and eat the cooked meat inside.

So is it an understood part of cooking parathas, naan, and roti, that it has to be cooked until it gets burnt spots? Or is there a way to cook it fully without it developing burnt spots? Whenever I've seen a restaurant serve these without burnt spots, I've also noticed that the inner layer (and sometimes the outer edges) of the paratha, naan, or roti is still raw.

Some images:

The charring is crucial to both the flavor and the texture. The charred part itself brings a bitter note to the flavor. If you don't like it, you can cut it out, but many people would miss it. It's also crunchy, which provides a pleasant contrast to the chewy parts of the bread.

It's also incidental to the way it's cooked. In order to get the flavorful Maillard reactions (the brown spots), you need to subject it to very high heat. Because you're cooking it without fat, some parts are closer to the pan than others. So some parts become brown, while other parts remain white, and a few spots become black.

Similarly, that high-heat cooking is important to the texture. It's what gives you a crispy outside without drying out the inside. If you cook thin breads like this at lower temperature, they will eventually become brown without burning, but they'll also become hard.

If you don't like it, discard it.


What effect does closing a lid in some recipe do? In cooking meat like chicken, I've noticed that recipes say to close the lid and wait for few minutes. I'm trying to figure what exactly the effect created by this is. Any insight will be appreciated.

It holds in steam.
This increases the air temperature in the pan, which allows for more even cooking instead of just cooking the the food in contact with the pan.
It also slows down how quickly the food drys out, and may have other secondary effects, such as how fat renders from a piece of meat.


How do you fry a fat, uneven salmon filet? I can nail a decent medium rare salmon filet. But today the salmon I have bought turned out to be really fat - like 2 inches in height. Its sides have very steep slopes so its bound to cook unevenly.

I can manage a 1 inch high salmon filet, but 2 inches seem both too much and too uneven. What do you do?

Bake it in the oven instead.

Start in a frying pan to sear the skin and put in a pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes.

Be careful to get the fish out of the fridge for 10, 20 minutes before cooking it so that its temperature is not too cold so that it cooks more evenly.

Can't you slice the filet to make 2 1-in filet ?


How do you dry fruit slices in a humid environment? In a humid environment, with an abundance of fruit at certain times of the year, what is the best method for drying fruit slices for later use? I don't want to use any type of equipment that needs power/active heating (like an oven)... is it possible to simply slice the fruits and leave in the sun/air?

...a dehydrator.
Unless you have some other constraint you've failed to mention, it's what they are made to do. When we had a gas oven with a standing pilot, that kept the oven warm enough to use as a crude dehydrator; now I just use a common electric heat & fan model.

images are examples, not endorsements.


Should I buy a mechanical chopper? A popular example of this device is the heavily-advertised Slap Chop tool.

Is there any advantage to buying one of these?  Do they tend to be as effective as advertised, and if so, what features should I look for, and how long can I expect it to last?

Generally..no.  There's a very, very minimal advantage...if any.  They chop certain things 'ok', but many things require a knife anyway.

Most large objects will have to be cut anyways to fit in which means you'll need a knife and a cutting board just to use the chopper.
Their blades tend to dull and then they mash, rather than chop.
It takes about 10 seconds to wash a knife and just as long to disassemble one to go in the dishwasher.
Its very limited in the objects it does reliably.

Some are better than others, but even the best doesn't even begin to compare with a decent knife.  Learning a few knife skills will go much, much longer and ultimately be much easier.

No one can reasonably speculate on how long they'll last - it greatly depends on its use.  If you use it daily to chop nuts, don't expect a sharp chopper for as long as you would if you chop lettuce monthly with it.


Non-fermented vinegar substitute for Dijon mustard My allergies prevent me from consuming yeast, alcoholic beverages and vinegar.  I often substitute lemon juice for vinegar, but this does not always work.  I'm trying to find an allergy-free recipe for homemade dijon mustard.  Any suggestions?

Another allergy sufferer claims you can swap in pure vitamin C & water for the vinegar.  It wouldn't be Dijon mustard, which strongly depends on the flavor of white wine, but it could be a strong, fine-grained mustard.

If the flavor isn't quite right, you can also experiment with citric acid crystals (sour salt), or a mix.  For a bit more wine flavor, consider adding a small amount of white grape juice.  Saba (concentrated unfermented grape must) would be even better, although it's difficult to find in some countries.


Are these tomatoes San Marzano knockoffs? I buy these tomatoes at my local grocery and always assumed they were San Marzano brand. I was waiting for my soup to simmer and was reading the label when I noticed the initials on the label actually say "San Merican Tomatoes".

Google turns up nothing for that other than the trademark of Simpson Imports, which is also listed on the back of the can, although as the distributor, not an importer.

They are labeled as "Made in the USA", and I was under the impression that San Marzanos were imported from Italy.

Are these knockoffs? Or perhaps some other distribution? The label is so similar to the traditional SM label.

It's not a knock-off, per se—but this particular brand has never been imported from Italy.

"San Marzano" is a variety of plum tomato, as well as a protected designation of origin for those tomatoes grown in a specific region and in a traditional way. There is no single "San Marzano" brand or trademark owned by a particular company, and the name is not legally protected in the USA; instead, products originating from the traditional region are indicated by trademarked "DOP" certifications.

Your can is produced by Simpson Imports, the same company that made the San Marzano canned tomatoes with the recognizable design that you're familiar with, which has always been grown in the USA—so in that sense, your can is not a knock-off. However, historically, the brand has probably benefitted from confused customers who thought they were buying tomatoes from the traditional region. The "SMT" design appears to be a newer rebranding; without actually knowing the motivation, it's possible that it may perhaps be to try to establish a trademarkable name, or to incorporate non-San Marzano varieties of tomatoes in their products, or to respect the designation protection and reduce consumer confusion, or perhaps some other reason.

Old label:

New label:

(This label is for puree tomatoes instead of whole, so there are additional differences beyond just the rebranding.)

Brand website: http://www.simpsonbrands.com/
San Marzano tomato drawing (but not "San Marzano" name) trademarked by Simpson Imports

Information about the San Marzano protected designation:

http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/12/what-is-a-dop-italian-san-marzano-canned-tomato.html
https://livethelive.com/2015/08/14/san-marzano-tomatoes-real-or-fake-3/
http://www.pastene.com/san_marzano.html
https://www.gustiamo.com/san-marzano-2/


I've heard that sugar, and especially brown sugar, loses its flavor over time. Is this true? I've heard that you can revitalized lumpty or hard brown sugar, but also that doing so doesn't recover the actual flavor.  Does baking with other brown sugar that is "revitalized" really impact cookie flavor?  What about white granulatd sugar?

White sugar is generally sucrose and has been heavily refined, so it won't undergo any chemical changes over time.  In fact, sugar is actually used as a preservative.

Brown sugar is a bit different.  It gets hard simply because it loses moisture - i.e. the water evaporates - and that won't cause the taste to change.  However, some people have reported brown sugar actually fermenting on its own (also here).  This fermentation is more likely to happen than in white sugar due to the presence of molasses.

It takes a long time for fermentation to occur, but it can definitely occur, and that will most certainly change the flavour.  I'm not sure if I'd call it "losing" the flavour; some might argue that the presence of alcohol is a good thing, although fermented sugar obviously will not be as sweet.

I would not worry about the flavour of brown sugar that has merely hardened; if it smells like alcohol, though, you might want to be more careful.


Slow cook pork shoulder without it falling apart I have a 2Kg pork shoulder which I would like to cook in a slow cooker (first time user of a slow cooker) so it tenderizes but I also would like it to be able to be cut it in some way to serve with vegetables rather than shredding and being pulled apart. I would also like some sort of sauce with it maybe made using some cider.

How best should I cook it in the slow cooker and what would I be best adding in along with it to create a sauce/gravy which could then be served along with the pork when cooked?

Also is there anything I can do overnight, for example, which would improve the taste of both the joint and the gravy?

It can be done, but requires a bit more time.  The trick is to cook it, then cool it, then heat it back up again:

Cook the pork shoulder
Drain the liquid, being careful not to poke at the meat too much
Remove the crock from cooker, and let it cook down
Place the crock in the fridge, and let chill overnight

The next day you can slice the meat, then pour the juices back over it to warm it back up.  (or reduce the juices to make a sauce)


Making your own drink powders? I love the flavor of crystal light, but it is expensive, and I don't like the artificial sweeteners. I don't think I would mind the drink without the sweeteners, and would like to try to make my own.

I've googled and googled, but I cannot find any talk about what is actually in crystal light or any of the other drink mixes, or how to make your own.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

From Asian supply shops you can often find small packets of powdered fruits. Check the packet but many are made from actual fruit!

I have seen Apple, Cherry, Coconut, Lime, Mango, Pomegranate, Strawberry etc.

Google for powdered fruit and you'll find a variety of online sources

My favourite is Lime powder (99% Lime, made in Malaysia)

Add Aloe Vera powder to make a thickened drink

Add Arrowroot or instant custard powder to make a cloudy "juice"

Add Ascorbic acid powder (Vit. C) as a preservative (be careful not to exceed RDI)

Add Citric acid to make it more citrus like

Add sugar (real or fake) to bulk it out so a simple measure (e.g. one tea spoon) makes a glass of drink

Experiment with the quantities, but you don't need much of anything to get an effective result


Pan-frying fish filets with skin on When frying filets with skin on, the piece of fish curls and doesn't cook evenly.

I've been told to score the skin with a paring knife. Will this work to stop the curling?

The tried and tested method for solving this is simple. As you add each fillet to a hot pan press down for 60 seconds then repeat as you add more fillets. If you are good you could do a fillet with each hand so as to make the process quicker.

Another really good method, and my favourite. Use a cold pan. Simply oil a decent non stick pan, put your fish in then put the pan on the heat as high as it'll go. You still get nice crisp skin but no curling.


How do you handle the fires caused by adding wood chips to coal? I've been using wood chips in my BBQ (adding them to the coal) and I enjoy the flavor they add but I have a tough time cooking with them because:

They cause flare ups
I have to close the lid to smoke the meat
Opening the lid would let out the smoke yet handling flare ups isn't possible without access to the food

Of course, I've tried soaking the wood chips in water hours before using them and the only thing that buys me is a slight delay before the flare ups begin. Maybe 5 or 10 minutes, tops.  Then, as soon as the wood ignites, I get fires burning the food.

What are some ways to handle flare ups when BBQing with wood chips?

Don't bother soaking them. Dried hardwood doesn't readily soak up water, so for this to work you'll have to either soak for a rather long time or start with green wood... but if you're using green wood then you don't need to soak it.

For good, consistent smoke, you want to control heat and airflow: as hobodave notes, you can control heat by simply moving the chips away from the coals. If the design of your BBQ allows, you can do as he suggests (horizontal separation); otherwise, try placing the chips in a pan above the coals.

For airflow, you can adjust the vents on your BBQ - if you're getting flair-ups with the lid on, chances are you're letting too much air through. You can also limit airflow to the chips themselves by wrapping them in a packet fashioned from sturdy aluminum foil with holes punched in it (but you'll still want to separate them from the coals, or you'll just burn through the foil and be back where you started).


Keeping crawfish alive overnight? I'm going to buy Crawfish this Friday night at 9 or 10 and boil them Saturday at noon. Is it possible to keep Crawfish alive overnight? If possible how does one do so?

Oh you're fine. For maximum freshness, follow the advice from (this one is better, no spurious exclamation points!)  this online FAQ

How do I keep crawfish alive until I boil them?
Keep them in the sack and cool with ice, but not submerged in water. A large ice chest works great with the drain spout open and the lid cracked for breathing. Properly wash the crawfish by submerging 2-3 times in clean water. Let them soak for 20-30 minutes the last time. Use of salt on final cleaning is best.


browning meat in Dutch oven--why doesn't it work for me? A stew recipe I was using said to brown the meat in the Dutch oven first. I tried to--added oil and let it get hot on the stove top with lid off. However, the meat did not appear to brown as much as, I think, broil. I am unsure if I waited long enough to get the Dutch oven hot all the way--but the oil seemed to get hot in it. I was wanting to let the meat stay longer in the Dutch oven but it began to stick to the bottom without looking browned. I made sure not to crowd the bottom of the oven and the oven itself is a 4.3 quart cast iron enameled one.
Is there a particular approach to browning meat in a Dutch oven vs a pan?

A few things that I would suggest for browning in general, some of which moscafj has already hinted at:

Dry your meat: Any surface moisture has to be evaporated, cooling down the meat and the pot.  A dry piece of meat will brown more easily.  For grilling, many people use paper towels, but for stews you can also roll the chunks in flour so it later acts as a thickner ... but if you do this make sure to shake off any loose flour before adding it to your pot.

Work in small batches. You want to have a bit of space around each piece of meat so that any moisture given off can quickly evaporate, rather than pooling and cooling off the pan. (if you're not using flour).  Generally I try for at least 1cm (about 1/2 an inch) gap between the various chunks when browning meat.

Be patient. Browning takes a little bit of time.  If the food sticks, just leave it alone.  This is a sign that the proteins are starting to change.  Once they're fully browned, they'll release their hold.  (this is a useful test for if it's browned in a large pot, as you can't easily see under it ... just wait until you can prod it from the side and see if it releases ... but don't push too hard, as you can end up ripping the crust that's starting to form and leave that stuck to the pot;  if this happens, deglaze before your next batch, and save the liquid (to add back to the stew later).

But specifically for a dutch oven:

If you have a fan near your stove, use it.  The high-sides of a dutch oven prevent the moisture from escaping easily, leaving you with steamed meat.  If you don't have a fan, you may want to leave a little more space between your chunks of meat.

If you're crunched for time, it's often quicker to brown large batches of meat chunks under the broiler (grill / top heat) of your oven, rather than in a dutch oven, but you need to keep a closer eye on it.


Can you cook quince whole? All the instructions I've read for cooking quince talk about how much of a pain it is to peel and quarter them before cooking them till they are soft.

Am I missing something, or could I cook them till soft and then cut and core them?

No, this should work.

But you need to get that precise point between too hard and too soft to cut. And during cooking the fruit will soften from the outside inwards: You might find yourself handling the fruit during cooking, so either you have to touch hot fruit or interrupt the cooking, let cool, peel, cook again....

If you are aiming for quince puree, just rub off the fuzz, cook the fruit and then push it through a food mill or sieve. You'll need a pretty large pot though, if you want to cook whole fruits vs. smaller pieces.

On the other hand, if you have a reasonable sharp and heavy chef's knife and a sharp paring knife, I suggest you try cutting a raw quince first. You might find it less difficult than it's often said.


Can I selectively breed my sourdough starter? I have a nice bowl of sourdough starter sitting in my kitchen, and I love making my bread as sour as possible.

Right now I let my loaves rise for a little longer, but is there a way I can alter my starter's environment to select for a sourer mix of microorganisms ("selective breading" would probably be the appropriate phrase)?

Yes, but it might have other effects that make it less effective as a leaven.

When I was experimenting with sourdough in the past year or so after a long hiatus, I had a pretty good batch going and parked half in the fridge, then had some life events that caused the part that was out to be left 24 or more, not 12 hours between feedings, and it turned very, very sour - but it also didn't do much for raising the bread.

Unless you are fixated on getting there via sourdough, I'd suggest picking up some citric acid if you like your bread "as sour as possible" - though even that might do in your yeast if you use too much - of course, there's always really sour flatbread, I suppose, by either method.


Can you freeze an avocado? Is it possible to freeze a raw unpeeled unripe avacado for use later?

If not why? If so what is the process to ensure maximum freshness?

Freezing affects the texture of avocados rather poorly.  Freezing a whole one or chunks will result in a mushy avocado on refreezing.  Its not recommended apparently.

To properly freeze an avocado, it should be washed, pureed (not just mashed) and frozen with a bit of lemon juice (or other applicable acid) to prevent browning.


What is the difference between Atlantic and Steelhead farmed salmon in taste and how to cook? I noticed today at the grocery for the first time a new type of salmon called Steelhead farmed salmon next to the regular Atlantic farmed salmon. The Steelhead was about 10% cheaper in price and slightly deeper pink/red (the packaging assured me that the color was artificial like the Atlantic).

What is the difference between Atlantic and Steelhead farmed salmon in taste and how to cook?

Technically, steelhead is an ocean-going subspecies of rainbow trout (a term more commonly applied to fish who live only in fresh water).  They're definitely related, though; salmon, trout, and char (you can often find Arctic char in the fish case alongside salmon) are all members of the Salmonidae family.  As such they're pretty similar from a culinary perspective.

Personally, I find the flavor to be somewhat "fishier" and the texture less oily than Atlantic salmon, which is relatively mild.  Steelhead is a bit closer (as the color would indicate) to Pacific salmon varieties, with coho being the closest match in my experience.  But farmed fish are almost always milder, so don't expect anything close to really flavorful wild salmon.

The bigger difference is likely to be the physical size of the filets you get from steelhead.  They are smaller fish than the quite large Atlantic salmon, which means a generally thinner filet and a finer grain.  That in turn means they'll cook more quickly than thicker Atlantic filets.

Definitely an easy substitution, and not a bad difference in price (which is probably more due to where you're located in relation to the respective fish farms).


Why do fresh mandarin oranges get very bitter when baked? Why do fresh mandarin oranges get very bitter when baked?

What compound in mandarin oranges turns bitter when heated?

The white, pithy part is a source of the bitterness. Either peel more thoroughly, or trim off with a knife.

The pulp of some oranges (of the navel variety), can turn bitter when exposed to air.
http://www.preparedpantry.com/CitrusQuickGuide.htm


Will terrible things happen if I replace part or all of the refined sugar in this recipe with malt extract? Behold the recipe: https://www.howtocookthat.net/public_html/giant-mars-bar-recipe-milky-way-bar/

I'm planning to make a cake based on the Zero Candy Bar for father's day, because it's my dad's favorite and they aren't always available in stores around here.

The nougat in the Zero bar is slightly chocolatey, but has a much stronger malt flavor and is very chewy as well--especially compared to the nougat in a Milky Way bar, for example. So I've been trying to research different nougat recipes. I've found different chocolate malt nougat recipes using malted milk powder, but I don't have any of that. My mom's a home-brewer, so I have actual powdered Malt extract.

I might try the recipe as stated first--to see if it's good enough as is, but what might happen if I replace part or all of the white sugar with my malt extract? I know they're different chemically which means they might (will?) react differently to heat, but I can't find much information on malt extract being using to make candy at all. Does it have a hardball stage?

The only nougat recipe I could find using just malt syrup/extract does not say anything about its resulting texture.

Can anyone give me solid information before I go flying off into the great molten-sugar unknown this weekend?

The more of my egg white stash I waste, the longer it will be until I can make macarons again, and that's no joke.

I don't know about the substitution of dry malt extract for refined sugar. I know that measure for measure they have very different apparent sweetness, protein content, etc...

You said you have two possible alternate recipes for nougat, one using malted milk powder and one using liquid malt extract. You should be able to manufacture either of those products using dry malt extract.

Malted milk powder is essentially milk powder, with dry malt extract and flour added. I don't know the ratios for these ingredients, but they are all readily available at the store.
Liquid malt extract and dry malt extract are very nearly the same thing, just in different forms. You should be able to add water to your dry malt extract to create malt syrup to then substitute in the recipe. See ratios from this link. https://homebrew.stackexchange.com/questions/1348/what-is-the-conversion-rate-between-dry-malt-extract-dme-and-liquid-malt-extra


Timing an oven to start while I am out - but what about preheating? Many ovens have a timer which allows you to set the start time, so you pop your item in and later in the day it will automatically start cooking it unmanned.

But all the oven cooking I can think of requires I preheat the oven before putting anything in it.

Is it that preheating is desirable rather than essential, or is it that the timer feature is designed for those few cases where preheating isn't required?

Preheating is mainly needed for breads and anything that has a short cooking time (< 15 mins or so). I don't bother preheating when I'm roasting something for a longer time. If you're setting a timer, I assume this is something that will take a while to cook, so I wouldn't worry about preheating.


Bad tasting mussels and avoiding buying them Sometimes when you buy mussels, you find that they taste sort of rancid or at least not very fresh, even if they are alive (or at least closed).

How can the taste get so bad if they still are alive? And how can you tell at the supermarket or fish monger?

Always check that most of the mussels are alive when you buy them.

Check that the shells are not broken, and that they are wet.

At your house, throw away all the dead mussels and process as soon as possible.

Cook (steam) as fast and as furious as you can for no more than two minutes. At that point, the mussels should have opened and nearly done.

Overcooking can produce a rubbery texture and spoil the taste.


Is there a way to tell if a pumpkin is going to be good for cooking? It's the season for pumpkins and I was wondering if there is a way to tell if a pumpkin was going to taste good enough to cook with. I guess this is a similar situation as with a watermelon - you can't really cut it open to check if it will taste good.

Many of the varieties of pumpkin sold in US stores in the fall are decorative -- they're grown for their appearance and size, not for cooking with.

Ask for 'sugar pumpkins' or 'pie pumpkins' at your grocery store, farm stand, or farmer's market, and you should be able to find them -- they tend to be smaller, more squat than round (although, some farmers markets might have other varieties of "pie" pumpkins).

If you can't find them -- I'd go with acorn squash, instead of using one of the decorative pumpkins.


Is deep-frying silicone oil safe for home use? Perhaps it is due to confusion surrounding silicone, but what studies exist that document the safety and best practices of using silicone oil? I understand it is used for as an anti-foaming agent in deep-frying, and also has medicinal purposes (as an anti-flatulant); but in a high temperature evironment, does it remain inert and safe?

Not much is out there.

Food-grade silicone oil (dimethylpolysiloxane, for the chemists out there) is routinely used in medical and food-prep devices, and it has been approved by the US FDA Office of Food Additive Safety for use as a direct additive in diverse foods, like milk, dry gelatin dessert mix, canned pineapple juice, and even salt.  Of course, we're talking about minuscule amounts, in the range of 100 ppm; at high concentrations, it is a skin and eye irritant.  So what level is safe?  We can't assume that the FDA ever tested it, as the Office of Food Additive Safety is woefully underfunded.

An informal literature search yielded me only a handful of scientific articles looking at silicone oil in frying.  The most promising was by Bertrand Matthaus, Norbert Haase, and Klaus Vossman, "Factors affecting the concentration of acrylamide during deep fat frying of potatoes," Eur. J. Of Lipid Sci. & Tech., V.106(11), pp. 793-801 (Nov 2004) (fig. 3 specifically measures acrylamide concentration as a function of the amount of silicone oil).  Unfortunately, I don't have a subscription, so I can't tell what the bottom line was.

Myself, I don't see the benefit of using it at home.


sushi rice vs pudding rice I've done sushi a couple of times, successfully I must stress, and while in sainsbury looking for it I came across the pudding rice which looks exactly the same as the more expensive sushi counterpart. I found another thread here What is the best rice for sushi? saying essentially the same thing, but not many people posted in it, so I was wondering if anybody else has tried it. Any idea?

So, just a quick update as it seems i forgot about all this. I eventually did it and used pudding rice for the sushi and it gave good results. Granted, I'm not a sushi maniac, or sushi trained l, meaning, somebody who's really into it perhaps will spot the difference straightaway. But to me it tasted and felt pretty much the same.


For microwave hot chocolate, why pour the hot milk into the chocolate rather than mixing the milk with chocolate then heating? I read on the back of the unsweetened Hershey's cocoa powder box that I should first heat milk in a microwave and then pour into another cup with the powder, salt and sugar. This tasted much better than when I directly mixed in the powder with milk and heated.
What exactly is causing the taste difference? i.e: are there any scientific explanations for the above?

You were using real cocoa powder, not an instant drink. You probably cooked it in the microwave, or at least part of it. When milk over the powder, it was certainly not hot enough to cook the powder. So beyond any lumps that might have come together (you don't describe if you took measures against it), there is certainly a taste difference between cooked and uncooked cocoa.


How do I achieve a light and even 'dusting' of paprika? I'm trying to perfect my seared and roasted pork loin chops, and I'm hitting a bit of an obstacle. Part of my recipe involves a very light dusting of smoked paprika after being seared, prior to going into the oven. That seems easy enough, but it turns out to be quite difficult to sprinkle a very light, and even dusting of it on the chops. I'm holding the paprika back because it gets a tad bitter on a very hot skillet, needed for searing.

Because paprika (smoked or otherwise) is so finely ground, trying to release an even amount from pinched fingers far above the chops results in too much (or a blot) landing on the chops randomly. This is quite difficult to fix post-sear, as the chop is on its way to the oven; paprika has a very distinct and immediate color.

I have tried very fine mesh strainers, cheese cloth tapped with a spoon, and I still can't manage to get a very light and even coating of it.

Normally, I'd just combine it well into whatever seasoning I was applying for the sear, which distributes it pretty evenly, but how can I manage the spice on its own in a manner that doesn't create random tiny dots where there's much more of it? What ends up happening is it concentrates in flavor on random bites, and fixing that means ruining presentation to an extent.

I thought of holding back some salt that I'd normally season the chops with before searing, and mix the paprika with that, but I end up with a selectively permeable sear where the salt just collects and alters the taste negatively.

What else can I try?

I use a 3 inch Tea Infuser Ball and hold it at a good distance above my cookies when dusting powdered sugar so that it will spread out even further. It will most likely work for paprika as well.


Substitute for margarine in graham cracker crust I have a recipe for cheesecake with a graham cracker crust, and the crust recipe calls for melted margarine.  I'd like to make the recipe without hydrogenated oils/trans fats.

I have butter and a non-hydrogenated oil shortening (palm oil).  Can I substitute one of these for the margarine in the crust recipe?  If not, is there something else that would be a good substitute for margarine here?

Use the butter; historically margarine is a simulated butter in the first place, and you will probably get a better product, since butter tastes much better.

You could use the shortening, but it will not help the flavor at all, and doesn't have the approximately 18% water that butter and margarine do, although this usually doesn't matter in a graham cracker crust.


Is this soup, stew, or something else? I ate some East Asian dish recently and it looked something like this:

[image source: http://www.thetabletopcook.com/images/tabletop-cooking-homemade-taiwanese-hot-pot.jpg]

I had never eaten anything that looks like it. I was confused, is it a soup with some solids added to it?

I want to know about nomenclature for this type of food and how they would be classified (not according to taste, but according to how they look/are arranged/are mixed).

It's a hot pot or steamboat as we call it in Malaysia. It's a clear soup made from stock. Raw ingredients are gradually added to it as it simmers. Soup and the cooked ingredients are fished out when they are done (each time when the pot boils). At the end, you are left with a rich, delicious soup that has flavours of all the ingredients intermingled and it is usually eaten with noodles.

Going by this, it would be classified as a soup or broth. It wouldn't be a stew as flour has not been used to thicken it.


What is the shelf-life of home-made tomato sauce? My husband made home-made tomato sauce two years ago that we still have on the shelf.  It's stored in air tight mason jars and smells fine.  Can we still eat this?

I would be very wary of that sauce, despite its good smell. For full disclosure, I am extremely conservative when it comes to food safety and shelf life, but here is some information that I found compelling:

WRT to average time any commercial tomato sauce can last on the shelf, a quick answer can be inferred by using this site:
http://www.eatbydate.com/vegetables/fresh-vegetables/spaghetti-sauce-shelf-life-expiration-date/

It states that commercial sauce has a shelf life of about 1 year past the "eat-by" date. Your sauce, of course, has no such date, but assuming an eat-by date of about 1 year past bottling is probably pushing it. So, even a commercial product is probably on the edge of your 2 year scenario.

From a home-preparation POV, if you used the boiling-water method to preserve the sauce, I would say no, don't eat it. The pH associated with most spaghetti sauces (~5.0) is rarely low enough for the boiling-water method to be workable. Pressure-canning is an option (and if your sauce had meat or any meat products in it pressure canning is the ONLY option). If you pressure-canned, then I still think you're on the edge, but it's less scary to me.

Here's a link to a good article on that subject.

http://foodinjars.com/2010/08/canning-101-why-you-cant-can-your-familys-tomato-sauce/


Should I throw away my pan if I accidentally melt plastic on it? I have a pan/wok that I use for toasting flatbreads.

Yesterday, I placed it in my cupboard while it was still hot and it accidentally touched a plastic bag full of salt. The plastic immediately melted off and stuck to the pan.

I was able to peel off the plastic after it had solidified, but am worried there may still be some "invisible" remnants left (I have no idea if that's possible). I'm not sure what plastic the bag was made out of or anything: should I discard the pan? Or is it sufficient to wash it well?

You do not need to throw out the pan

Metals tend to be impervious to absorption of much in the way of plastics (or anything else), which is part of the reason they make great cooking implements.

If the plastic is on the cooking surface and that surface was seasoned, to be absolutely sure, I would recommend that you remove the seasoning and re-season.

If you touched the outside of the pan to the bag, then anything that remains after you peeled the plastic off will burn off next time you heat the pan.


Why don't my muffins rise and develop tops properly? I would like to make muffins that have that "spilled over" look that shop bought muffins have, but no matter what I do, the ones I make always look flat or only just reach the top of the paper cases.

What can I do to make the muffins rise more and have wide tops?

There are many reasons why muffins might not rise as expected; I'll list the ones I know of in order of probability:

Over-mixing the batter.  You'll know that you've done this if the muffins also turn out tough and chewy.  This prevents rising because the gluten network is too tight to expand around the gas bubbles.
Under-mixing the batter.  You have to develop some gluten, otherwise there's nothing to trap the gas bubbles and the muffins will just deflate before they get any rise.  It's a lot easier to over-mix than under-mix, but if you drastically under-mix and don't even bother to get all the dry ingredients wet, then you won't get any leavening action at all.
Not enough leavening agent. This can happen with unsifted flour (sifting also helps incorporate air), using the wrong type of flour (especially if the recipe calls for self-raising), or using old or improperly-stored flour or baking soda/powder.  You should be able to see some bubbling action before you pop the muffins in the oven; if you don't, you might have this problem.
Improper substitution of baking soda for baking powder.  A lot of people think these are the same, but they aren't.  Both use sodium bicarbonate, which is what produces the CO2 bubbles but needs an acid in order to do it.  Baking soda is intended to be used with mixtures that are already acidic; baking powder has an built-in acidifier, usually cream of tartar, which reacts with the water as soon as you incorporate it.  If you ever substitute baking soda for baking powder, you need to add cream of tartar or some other acid/acidifier.
Not resting the batter, or resting too long.  If you use double-action baking powder (the norm, e.g. Magic brand) then you are supposed to rest for 5-10 minutes to allow for the first action.  If you use single-action baking powder, you must get those muffins into the oven right away or they'll start to collapse.
Finally, and this might be stating the obvious - not filling the tins enough.  It's possible that the muffins are rising just fine, but they're not supposed to double in size like bread or triple like pastries; you should be filling the tins at least 3/4 of the way up if you want tops.


How to approach making fruit custards? I've recently enjoyed finally being able to reliably make lemon curd. Now I'm wondering: is there a way to use different fruit as the flavour?

Is there anything special about lemon that makes it uniquely suitable for this that couldn't be achieved with other fruits? The fact it only adds a small amount of liquid, or maybe the high acidity offsets that? My first idea was trying raspberries reduced as much as possible without burning, and maybe adding some lemon juice to brighten up the flavour and add acid.

As a baseline, the recipe I use for the lemon curd is:

2 eggs and 2 yolks
200g (1 cup) sugar
125g (1 stick) butter
juice of 2 lemons, zest of 1-2 (to taste)

I think you're on the right track. Curds exist with many fruits, but the most common are all very strongly flavored (citrus, raspberry, cranberry, etc). As long as you use a fruit that will add a lot of flavor before adding too much liquid (or reduce the liquid out), you should be fine.


How can I estimate the time required to bring a piece of meat to a certain temperature? I would like to cook a couple steaks using the "reverse sear" technique (e.g. this Youtube video).

The general instructions are:

Preheat the oven to 275F.
Put steaks in oven and bake until they reach an internal temperature of 125F (for rare).
Remove the meat from the oven and let it rest for approximately 15 minutes.
Sear for about one minute per side and serve.

In the video, they use a probe thermometer but without one of these available, how can I estimate the time required for step 2 based on the weight and/or thickness of the meat? Obviously each cut of steak has a different amount of fat, etc but are there any general guidelines? It would be nice to keep the number of thermometer-meat-stabbings to a minimum.

I think this will be impossible to do accurately, in an oven, without a thermometer. I know you want to estimate, but a few degrees will be the difference between rare and medium rare, for example. Variables include: thickness of steak, internal temperature of steak when you begin, accuracy of your oven temperature, and time.  In an oven, even though you set the temp for 275...not only might that be inaccurate (thus the use of oven thermometers), it also fluctuates fairly widely throughout the cook time.

If you were cooking in a water bath (sous vide) you could solve this problem with excellent accuracy.  See http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html#Beef

Caution: Do not apply Baldwin's charts to oven cooking.


What is the effect that cooked sieved egg yolks added to pastry dough will have on the final product? I have heard that this will create a more tender end product.

I have seen some blogs (without any references) that some old European recipes utilise hard boiled eggs, for Cakes & Sablé.  It is mentioned that it is used to reduce the gluten binding together too much.  I would guess it works similarly to gnocchi, the quantity of mashed potato mixed in the flour reduces the gluten leaving a soft pillowy texture.


How long do breadcrumbs last? I'm currently trying to make a dish that calls for breadcrumbs, but the only ones I have expired on October 22 of 2019.  They are unopened and were kept in a cool dry place. It sounds stupid but are these still usable?

If they're the dried bought type, they keep almost indefinitely so long as they stay dry (even open; I use them very slowly) . The date is about quality not safety.

As always, if there seems to be anything wrong, such as signs of dampness on the container (at least here they're packed in cardboard), be more cautious


How far ahead can I bake puff pastry? I’m hosting a party at our home in a couple weeks, cocktails and appetizers. I have a recipe I like for little meatballs in puff pastry. I was wondering if I can bake them all ahead of time and keep them in the warming drawer or oven or if I should bake each batch fresh.

Puff pastry itself holds fine a couple days (and the raw dough can be kept frozen months!); it's normally very dry so there's very little difference between baked fresh and "old". As long as you don't burn it and don't make it soggy when reheating, the pastry will be fine. OTOH if you keep it on heat, it will start getting too dry and unpleasant in some 3 hours or so.

The meat stuffing is another thing you should worry about. 4h on very modest heat will dry it up badly.

Just bake everything ahead of time, leave in the open in room temperature or even refrigerate and reheat every batch before serving.


How are bitter almonds detected or used? Bitter almonds contain traces of hydrocyanic acid, which can be lethal to animals and humans. 7 to 10 unprocessed bitter almonds can be lethal to a human, according to “Encyclopedia Brittanica.”

The sale of raw bitter almonds is prohibited in some countries but it's quite often to find bitter almonds mixed with sweet ones.

My question is: How does food industry to detect the bitter ones?

If you just eat some almonds at home you are unlikely to swallow big quantities of poison because you would spit out the bitter ones.
But when the almonds are processed to make some raw preparation everything gets mixed and the presence of minimum quantities of bitter almonds would be perceptible, unpleasant and even dangerous. I guess they don't throw everything to the bin.

The toxicity of the poison is destroyed by heat and processing, usually by boiling or baking them. Thus my concern is about raw preparations.
How are bitter almonds detected? (*)
Or how is prussic acid removed without affecting the food?

How is their flavour used at Disaronno or Amaretto leaving out the poison?.  I have friends that drunk a whole bottle in one night and are still alive.

(*) of course without performing a chemical analysis to each almond nor using spectrography nor having somebody tasting every almond.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaretto
PD: Some spirits use apricot kernel instead, but the problem is the same.

I only have an answer for your first question: How does the food industry detect the bitter almonds? They don't need to.

According to Wikipedia, bitter almonds come from bitter almond trees, and "sweet" almonds from that variety, so if you plant only "sweet" almond trees in your orchard, you don't need to sort through your almonds rejecting the bitter ones.

This is from    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond#Sweet_and_bitter_almonds
and matches my experience of seeing certain almond trees that remain loaded with almonds even as the squirrels are stripping all the other trees in the area. No wonder! Those almonds taste terrible; even the squirrels won't eat them.


What is wrong with my icing? I have read recipes that says mix half cup butter and 1.5 times the icing sugar and beat, add some milk, not more than 2-3 spoons. I have been beating it for last 30 minutes and tasted it, the sugar is still not dissolved in the cream, am I doing some thing wrong?

Based on comments to the original question:

It sounds like you used the wrong type of sugar.  Icing sugar is also referred to as powdered sugar or confectioner's sugar.  From your description, it sounds like you used what we call (in Canada) superfine or fruit sugar (sugar for sprinkling on fruit, not from fruit).


Searing Burgers and Pot Roast For a single burger I am using a Cusinart 7 ¼ model II 9022-18 18/10 stainless pan. For my first attempt at searing a 3 lb. pot roast I will be using a 4 quart Dutch Oven. My oil is GV Light Tasting, which is supposed to have a high smoke point.

Up to last night I have avoided seasoning my burger to avoid salt. Last night I seasoned one with salt and pepper: that seemed to help with the sticking, but the burger still wanted to become one with the pan. Unseasoned if I used too much oil when cooking the burgers (90/10) they got oily: if I used too little they stuck to the pan.

So how do I determine how much oil to use in each application so that the meat does not stick to the pan at all and sears properly? I am thinking that there should be an optimal depth of the oil in millimeters for specific types of meats?

Secondarily I am uncertain if I should expect seasoned meat to stick to a pan as part of the searing process, and if I  should flip the meat for minimizing any sticking of a forming crust.

Thanks for any thoughts.

Meat sticking to metal happens in the very first few moments of contact. Salt will help a little because it draws moisture out of the meat, and that moisture is what is reducing the stick. You can reproduce the effect by oiling the bottom of the meat rather than the pan, this reduces the amount of oil required. If you want to avoid oil you can use water instead, I know this sounds wrong somehow, but all you are trying to achieve is a barrier between the meat and the pan for a few moments until the meat releases its own juices.

Leave the meat to form a crust - crusts are good, they give you flavor and texture, once they are formed they also won't stick to the pan. If you flip and it sticks a bit that's okay, let if form a crust and use a thin metal spatula to get it loose.


How can I make my tomato-herb pasta sauce a lighter color? I've been making a simple tomato sauce using tomato puree, basil, oregano, dried pasilla peppers, and garlic (as well as the left-over bits from cooking beef meatballs in the same pot). The flavor is good, but the sauce is visually very dark: a dark red that isn't very appetizing. I think this is because of the amount of basil I'm adding, but I'm not sure.

What techniques can I use or changes can I make to my recipe that will lighten the color closer to the red color of the tomato base, without changing the flavor too much?

Maybe too much basil, depending on how much you are using.  It really only takes a couple of leaves to add flavor, if you are using fresh.  I would not recommend dried.  You are probably also getting color from the dried pasilla pepper.  You could leave that out.  If you want a hit of pepper, add some to your final presentation. Cooking time will also effect the color of a tomato sauce.  Try cooking for a shorter time.  My basic tomato sauce cooks for 20 - 30 minutes.


Alcohol-optional desserts? I am having a dinner / make-fancy-cocktails party, and trying to work out the menu.  Since it's a cocktail party, having some sort of alcohol in the dessert seems appropriate.

The difficulty is, for the designated driver, we need to have a non-alcoholic version.  So a recipe where you only add the alcohol at the last step would be ideal.  Unfortunately, my attempts to find such a thing is only turning up recipes where it can be omitted entirely, as opposed to not added to certain serves.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

The only dessert I can think of where alcohol would be truly done on a portion by portion basis would be the type of ice cream parfait we used to serve at a restaurant I worked at in my long ago youth:  it was essentially vanilla ice cream layered in a parfait glass with a sweet liqueur such has au de noisette or Framboise--the possibilities are endless.  You will note this is essentially a minimalist adult sundae, so you could easily have one made with plain caramel sauce or chocolate sauce for the designated driver.

Still, if the issue is a designated driver, rather than a recovering alcoholic who can have no alcohol whatsoever, I wouldn't worry overmuch.  Many desserts which contain alcohol have very little per serving, and should not be an issue for the driver.  Some of these are spectacular show pieces.    Some you might consider are:

Bananas Foster
Crepes Suzette
Rum cake
Truffles (as lemontwist mentioned in their comment answer)
Trifle

Another option would be any number of rich coffee based drinks, where you could omit the liquor for the designated driver's portion.   Not truly a dessert, but in line with your theme.

Lastly, I don't think a party of any sort, even a cocktail party, requires desserts with alcohol in them.   Be free.  Serve what you like.  Serve no dessert at all if you like.


Why do tomatoes react with sourdough starter? I sometimes make sourdough and have found by accident that by adding fresh tomatoes to the dough, it seems to swell substantially more during proving, or more quickly.

There must be some chemical reaction and I just wondered if anyone knows more about it?

Apart from the pH and sugar your tomatoes bring (as mentioned in the comments), I think there's a third part to the explanation - you're likely adding more yeast!

In Wild Fermentation by Sandor Ellix Katz, there's a section on how to get a sourdough starter started. They suggest that if your starter never gets going, you put some pieces of fruit - like apples or grapes - in it, and the wild yeast which almost invariably inhabit the peel of the fruit will get the fermentation going. There's no reason why tomatoes wouldn't be likewise inhabited.

I suppose you test this hypothesis by making two doughs, one to which you add fresh tomatoes, and one where you add tomatoes from the same source which have been cooked.


Why do my fried eggs start browning very fast? I've seen people mention how eggs shouldn't become white after they are dropped in the pan. This keeps happening to me even though I use the "water test" and my eggs keep sticking to the pan (I add oil after the pan heats enough). The eggs are already brown around the edges while the top is still liquid. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

Your pan is too hot. To perfectly fry an egg--without browning--you want medium to medium-low heat; what you want is the heat at which butter will juuuust sizzle. And don't use oil.
The easiest way to ensure that the residual white is cooked on top (assuming you want sunny side up) is to put a lid over the egg when it's almost cooked. Optionally splash a tablespoon of water into the pan (but not on the egg) immediately before putting the lid on.


How to get a cake or pie like flavor with tea? My fiancée and I are becoming heavy tea drinkers. We wish to get our own flavored tea from raw leaves and other ingredients. I want to reproduce the flavor of an apple and cinnamon pie.

To do so, I will mix the tea leaves with dry apple and pieces of cinnamon stick. But I do not know what to use to reproduce the taste of the pastry. I am thinking about almond but I am not sure. This is what I am looking for : this pastry taste.

If anyone has already tried to get this (and succeeded !), I would like to know the trick !

From looking at several companies that sell cake and pie flavored teas, it appears that they use a couple of techniques that you may have uneven success with at home.

First off, you want to create a tea base that is as sweet as possible and creates a base flavor profile for you to use. Most companies achieve this by adding things like vanilla and rooibos to the tea. Vanilla is obvious, and rooibos has a smooth, slightly sweet, flavor reminiscent of pipe tobacco. Many also have dried fruit or spices added, as fitting for the flavor you're working toward.

Beyond this, some of the companies use natural and artificial flavorings. As the website for David's Tea states, "The fact is, flavouring is the reason some of our favourite blends taste so great. We couldn't create the juicy melon flavour in Luscious Watermelon from dried melon alone."

You can add flavorings to your tea at home too, but they are very strong, so it may be hard to do it on a cup-by-cup basis. You may have better luck mixing the flavoring into a larger batch of tea. For things like cake and pie, I'd suggest adding butter flavor to mimic the pastry element, and an appropriate fruit flavor for pies. There are an amazing array of flavors available though, everything from "birthday cake" flavor to rosewater. Though they only sell to food service establishments, Gold Coast Ingredients' website illustrates some of the crazy flavors available. The teacup is your oyster!


Chicken Tikka Masala tastes a bit off I have made chicken tikka masala recently and it turned out alright. I got the texture and look properly, but, however, the taste seems a bit off. I have used the chicken tikka masala, onions, cihlli powder, heavy cream, tomato puree and orange peppers, as per directions.

However the taste is not satisfying as I had in restaurants. Anyone can suggest anything to improve my taste? Any spices that I can add or something?

Thanks!

You aren't getting the 'Indian restaurant' taste because you aren't using Indian restaurant techniques. Most Indian restaurant curries are based on a 'gravy' made with copious amounts of garlic, onions and ginger, stewed for several hours. They also use large amounts of ghee to add richness (and a boatload of calories), and finally they use marinaded chicken, cooked in a tandoor (a very hot, dry oven) which gives a unique flavour.

It is simply not possible to replicate the flavours at home without using the same ingredients or similar techniques. It is not something you can knock up in half an hour.

If you'd like to have a go at replicating a restaurant curry, try reading The Curry Secret by Kris Dhillion.