How do I get rid of bugs in rice? Can you please suggest to me how to prevent rice from getting very small black coloured insects, they are really irritating us by spreading total house and bothering my little kid a lot. I am from Hyderabad, India.

If you can, put all grains you buy in impenetrable containers as soon as you get them home, and freeze them. Keeping rice (or any other grain) in the freezer for a full day will help. Keeping the grain in the freezer for a week will kill just about any creepy crawly that's already in the rice, the impenetrable container will keep new visitors out. Glass or hard plastic containers (like tupperware) are impenetrable, Ziploc style bags may not be.

If you don't have room in the freezer for all of a new rice purchase, go ahead and repackage it in the impenetrable containers, and rotate the containers until they have all had at least a full day in the freezer (a week is better).

Get rid of anything that already seems like a breeding ground. Thoroughly go through all of your food storage space, get rid of anything infested, put all you can save into impenetrable containers, and consider a (hopefully) one time use of a pesticide.

Also, the cooler you can keep the stuff that the bugs like, the better. Bugs that are well fed and warm are happy, happy bugs.

One more thing. I don't know if it actually works, but it can't hurt: Try putting a few bay leaves in each container of rice. It's a bit folklore-ish, but the countermeasure has been touted for decades, maybe longer.

I assume you soak the rice before cooking and get rid of anything that floats?


Why or why not beat an egg before adding? When adding an entire raw egg at the same point in a recipe (not separating the yolk and white), what determines whether it should first be beaten, or dropped in whole? I've seen some recipes call for a beaten egg; others, specifically a meatloaf and a couple of cookie doughs, emphasize to not beat the egg before adding it.

The closest I found in here after an extensive search was this, which addresses why to add a beaten egg after the rest of the ingredients are mixed together, but doesn't explain why or when to beat it.
Why would a recipe say mix all ingredients, then add egg and mix again?

Other than the obvious mixing of yolk and white, how does beating it affect the proteins and other elements, and how do those effects impact other ingredients and cooking processes?

This previous question (and the accepted answer) are related to the food science raised in the final part of the question.  Some of these chemical processes are much easier and/or quicker to accomplish when the egg is beaten by itself than after it may be mixed in and diluted with other ingredients.  These changes in the egg protein structure can affect the final texture or cooking properties of the eggs, such as time and temperature for coagulation.  Changes to these chemical properties can thus affect the final texture and cooking properties of the thing they are added to.

And in some cases where these effects are undesirable, recipes may specify that eggs not be beaten before adding.  As to the specific examples you give:

Meatloaf requires eggs to be used as a binder.  Heavily beating them will often make them "thinner" and runnier, as well as perhaps decreasing some of their binding tendencies.  (The whites by themselves tend to be a better binder than yolks, so pre-mixing them may inhibit that effect a bit.)
For cookies, the answer may depend on the specific recipe, but often recipes that call for unbeaten eggs involve adding eggs one-at-a-time.  If people beat the eggs ahead of time, they are more likely to combine them, which makes it more difficult to then do the staggered additions.  (So, it may be as simple as making it easier to follow the recipe, particularly in well-mixed batters where the eggs will be thoroughly mixed anyway.)  If I had to speculate on a food-science reason, it could be because egg whites and egg yolks do different things in cookies: whites tend to give rising power, provide water for gluten hydration (which promotes structure) and provide lecithin which also binds and enhances structure, while yolks keep the eggs tender and rich.  It may be that beating the eggs together hard before adding them could make it more difficult to achieve some of these effects, for example, trapping moisture and fat together in an emulsion, rather than encouraging the moisture to bind with the gluten for structural reasons, using the white's lecithin as an emulsifier to break up the yolk fats, etc., so the whites can't be as strong structurally and the yolks don't promote as much tenderness.  (I don't think these effects will generally be that large, but in some recipes I imagine they can produce noticeable changes in the final cookies.)

As mentioned in other answers, beating also promotes a homogeneous mixture and aerates the eggs, which could be important in some cases for homogeneity or lightness in the final product.  However, in some cases that specify "beaten" or "unbeaten," the chemical changes in beating involving denaturing of proteins, emulsifying the various components and binding some of them together, etc. may play a greater role in a decision to beat or not to beat.


Why is my fried chicken batter soggy underneath? I dipped the chicken breasts in buttermilk, then a mixture of flour and potato starch, before frying at 390F for 3 mins. The chicken breasts were sous vide beforehand so the deep-frying step was just to give it the crust.

However, I have noticed that the batter skin is always soggy underneath:

Are you allowing the buttermilk to drip off completely? I would either decrease the mixture (a scant coating), as it appears to be too much for this method of frying, or use a pre-made coating which is a bit thinner.


Are sharkfin melon shoots really edible? I read that the shoots of sharkfin melons (Cucurbita ficifolia) are edible. Isn't that kind of unique for a cucurbit? Is it true that they're edible? Are the mature leaves/vines poisonous?

According to a number of sources, the shoots are indeed edible, however all references I found were to "young" shoots, so I don't know about the mature vine itself.

The Curious Gardener says

  It's not just the melon that is edible on this plant; the flowers,
  leaves, shoots and seeds are also eaten.

Although the flowers, leaves and shoots are mostly used raw as salad greens,
The Food and Agriculture Organization of The United Nations adds:

  The young stems (called runners), and also the flowers, are eaten
  as a cooked vegetable.

This
North Carolina State University Article lists a number of cucurbits with edible shoots, including Chayote, Bitter Melon and a few types of Gourds.


Can I use live yoghurt to kick-start fermentation? I am making a type of fermented sausage from the Faroe Islands. The recipe says to keep them above 20 degrees (Celsius) for the first 12 hours, to make sure the lactobacilli multiply enough to initiate lactic acid fermentation.

Included in the sausage mix is 500ml of milk. Would replacing some of this with live yoghurt help to ensure a good colony of lactobacillus is present, thus reducing the risk of the fermentation not starting quickly enough?

And could I extend this to other lactic acid fermentation recipes e.g. sauerkraut?

My advice would be to see if you cannot find a cheese hobby shop that will not sell  you a strain of the bacteria and simply cut out the  middleman. You can inoculate sausage  with bacteria very much like you do with cheese so there really is any need to do the diary.


When cooking grains with vegetables, should I cook them together or separately For example, if I would like to make quinoa with mixed vegetables, should I:
(a) Cook the vegetables, add the quinoa and stock, and simmer; or
(b) Cook the quinoa in one pan, cook the vegetables in another pan, then mix them together?

Which of these is ideal to get the most nutrition, or does it not matter? Will simmering them together make it more tasty? Also, would your answer vary for different grains, for example rice, or bulgur wheat?

I would cook them in different pots.

Most of the time they will take different time to cook; heck, even different vegetables take different time to cook, so cook the vegetable in batches.


Cooking with ground rabbit A few months ago I bought some ground rabbit.  I had sort of forgotten about it until the other day.  I've tried looking up recipes for ground rabbit, but all of the rabbit recipes I've found call for cubes or pieces. If I substitute ground rabbit in spaghetti sauce or chili, would it taste gamey (I know that's somewhat subjective but I haven't eaten rabbit since I was very small so I don't remember how gamey it was but it was a wild rabbit not one raised to be food)?  Would the spaghetti sauce or chili overpower the rabbit?

According to Rabbit Substitute?, rabbit is a gamier version of chicken. So, theoretically could I substitute ground rabbit where I might use ground chicken?  Could I also make rabbit burgers out of the ground rabbit or would that be too gamey (I sometimes make burgers using ground chicken, salsa, and shredded or crumbled cheese)?

This question Substitute rabbit in chicken recipes? sort of asks what I'm looking for, but there's no real answer.

I hope I'm not too off topic or asking a question that's not allowed.  I'm not looking for recipes, just options to substitute ground rabbit in recipes I already have.

I've never seen ground rabbit, but I've eaten rabbit many times in Spain grilled in the BBQ or in a Paella. Rabbit can compare to chicken. The meat is a bit tougher than chicken but not gamey at all. At least the farm rabbits I ate.

So I would say that yes, you should be able to use this ground meat as a substitute of chicken in a sauce and I don't even think that you will ever notice the difference.

If you are going to make hamburgers (and I would do just to be able to say that I ate a rabbit hamburger), maybe you could mix the meat with chopped onion, breadcrumbs and egg to make it moister.


Why does my cake get hard after baking? I am trying to make marble cake. I guess I used the ingredients in the correct proportion, but when I take cake out, I found the cake hard.

This is the recipe I followed:

2 cups all-purpose flour,2 teaspoons baking powder,1/2 teaspoon salt,1 cup
white sugar,1/2 cup butter,2 eggs,1 teaspoon vanilla extract,1 cup milk,2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C)
Place flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, and milk into mixing bowl. Beat slowly to moisten, then beat with an electric mixer at medium speed for about 2 minutes until smooth
Stir cocoa into the 3/4 cup reserved batter.
Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes.
 -

Am I missing some ingredient?
Is there any issue with oven temperature?
How do I fix hard cake?

The first thing to check is if you are using the correct measurements. When a volumetric recipe says "cup", it usually doesn't mean "any cup in your cupboard", it means "a unit of measurement that is exactly 236 ml". This is so commonsense in the USA that nobody tells you about it, and for people from other countries, it comes as a great surprise. While using the wrong cup might scale the recipe proportionally, you still have the eggs to worry about here.

The second thihng is that measuring by volume has a lot of leeway. Try weighing your solid ingredients instead. The conversion to try would be: 250 g flour, 100 g sugar, 115 g butter, 240 ml milk. Sift the flour before use.

The third thing is to bake until done. Hard cakes often result from overbaking, and the time given is just a guideline. Test the cake every now and then, and take it out as soon as the tester shows no stickiness. Don't wait for the full 35 minutes (if they haven't happened yet) and don't let the cake stay in the oven for longer, even if you already turned it off.

If you still dislike the results, turn to a cake recipe with less liquid, something that is closer to a traditional pound cake, with only a little extra liquid, or none at all.


sous vide vs slow cooking I want to become more consistent in what I cook on a daily basis. One option that I've seen suggested is to prepare the ingredients in bulk and freeze meal-size amounts in ziplock bags (without yet cooking it). Then you can prepare the food by simply putting the package in the slowcooker in the morning and then eating at the end of the day for dinner.

So here are my questions. Can you put a frozen package of food into a slowcooker and can it handle cooking it without needing to defrost the food (even if there's meat will this work)?   Additionally, if a slow cooker can't handle such a thing, is it possible to do so with sous vide?

Additionaly, what are the pros and cons of using a slow cooker vs using a sous vide machine?

This is more for slow cooker / crock pot.

If it is single or double meal size and you cut up the meat and other ingredients then you should be fine.

Meal for 4 frozen hard, large pieces, and you are not there to stir it is going to have the bottom more done.  You are probably not going to create a food safety issue of any part between 40 F and 140 F for longer than 2 hours.

Pull it before and let it defrost all the way or at least partially in the refrigerator is a much better plan.  You would want it defrosted enough that you can spread it out in the pot.

If you are only going to cook a single then get a small slow cooker. Consider two meals and then just refrigerate one - it will be good for 3 days and slow cooker meals tend to reheat nicely.

Can also go the other direction and cook four fresh.  Eat one, refrigerate one, and freeze two.  Most of the crock meals reheat nicely.

Slow cooker versus sous vide is a bigger question and likely a duplicate.


How do you grill Shish Kabobs so they aren't so chewy? We cut beef stew into one inch cubes and pierce them on a stick with cherry tomatoes, onions, green peppers, etc, and grill them nicely.

The meat is brown and grilled on the outside, pinkish in the middle, vegetables are grilled, but the meat ends up being not so tender.

How can I make the Shish Kabobs tender?

Using a cut of meat without too much connective tissue will definitely help. Talk to your butcher about good options. Stew meat isn't the best choice; it contains a lot of connective tissue which breaks down during the long, slow stewing process. Grilling is too hot and quick to break down that tissue. If you do grill stew meat, lower temperature and longer cooking time may help some, but in that case you'll probably want to do the veggies separately.

A good marinade will help. You can add some meat tenderizer, or make fresh pineapple juice one of the marinade ingredients. Pineapple contains an enzyme that'll break down some of the connective tissue, but it has to be fresh -- canned juice will have been heated, destroying the enzyme.


Storing cut button mushrooms vs whole button mushrooms Do cut buttons mushrooms have a tendency to spoil more quickly than whole button mushrooms?

Also, what are signs that a button mushroom has gone bad ?

Just curious about this.

Anything will spoil more quickly if cut than if whole. It's all a matter of surface area.

The bacteria/fungi/mold/whatever can only attack the surface that is open to the air. When you cut the mushrooms, you open more surface up to attack, and hence they will be affected  more quickly. This is equally true for dehydration and loss of flavour (by evaporation), which are also linked to surface area.

With regards to spoiled mushrooms, a quick sinff will usually give away any dodgy mushrooms. They tend to stink like nobody's business when they've gone south. If they look right and smell right, they're most probably fine.


Color stain coming off cutting board We received a handmade cutting board as a gift awhile back and I decided to bring it back to life with some Boos board oil and conditioning cream. I noticed when wiping off any excess with a white towel though that the red wood color stain that was used on the board is coming off on the towel.
Does that mean the board is unsafe to prep on? Was it not sealed correctly? Was it the Boos product I used on it?

Welcome to SA!
If the red coloring is wiping off, I personally wouldn't use it for food unless I could contact the maker and find out how they dyed it.  Given that they didn't know enough to seal the dye well enough to keep it from seeping, I wouldn't trust that they knew enough to choose a non-toxic dye.  And while some wood dyes are non-toxic, others are extremely toxic, even from the same source.


Is raw coconut safe to eat? I recently came across this study:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC546945/?page=1

and I am worried about potential salmonella infection in raw coconut meat and whole coconut picked up from my local grocery store (i.e. thai grocery, local organic shop). Is it necessary to pasteurise the meat before consumption? If yes, would the pieces of coconut meat they sell be pasteurised?

Would it be safer to purchase pre-cut coconut meat, or a whole coconut?

IMO, stated again, IMO...

It is an old research paper (1967) about mostly transformed (grated and dried) coconut.

A quick googling does not really give more warnings for whole coconuts (FDA or other sources).

Like all things "exotic", wash the exterior under clean water before opening and use properly clean knives and other kitchen tools.

Enjoy the coconut.


Baking time difference in pyrex versus metal What baking time is optimal for recipes that are done in pyrex for banana bread versus metal baking dish?

Time is only a rough indication of whether any dish is "done", the biggest 'unknown factor' from your question is, "what temp are you baking at?".

I would suggest you use the following 3 tests to determine when your banana bread is done (regardless of whether you are using pyrex or metal):

The bread is very brown and solid on top
A toothpick or chopstick inserted into the bread comes out completely dry. (Even a few moist crumbs are evidence that your bread is not done.)
The bread has reached an internal temperature of 195°F to 205°F (90°C-95°C)

Each condition should be met in order, so don't bother with the toothpick until you see the rich brown color, then once the toothpick is clean, check the internal temp.


Reheating rice for 25 guests I am having a party. I have no rice cooker.  I plan on cooking the rice the day before.  Is it possible to reheat it and have it taste good?  How to?

When making rice for a large group, you should take a hint from the restaurants and do it in the oven in a large roaster or baking pan.  Put the rice in a pan, add boiling water and salt, and then cover with foil.  Or you can make it like a very large pilaf which will make it more special.  But oven in large pan is the way to go and make it fresh.

I don't have amounts because you will know how much you need to make. Common knowledge is 2 times as much water as the rice, and common knowledge is, generally, too much water, particularly in large batches.

Again, a restaurant recipe will do you well.


Why do brisket recipes move to the oven to finish? In the Cooks Illustrated BBQ brisket recipe and many others I've seen, they call for moving the brisket from the grill where they are being smoked to the oven to finish.  I'm wondering why the recipes call for this step rather than finishing in the grill.

Convenience: It's more convenient and easier to monitor the temperature inside the home.  The oven has a thermostat, where the grill temperature needs to be monitored and adjusted manually.

No smoke left: Is could be assumed that the smoke has been exhausted.

Too much smoke: The smoke flavor could become too strong if finished on the grill.


Ways to speed up this chai recipe? This site has what looks to be a good recipe for homemade "Chai" spiced tea; however, it requires a lot of prep and won't work with my current routine, which is the modern English style tea preparation for loose-leaf tea: boil water in an electric kettle, pour into pre-warmed teapot with leaves, steep, dump into travel mug, add milk and sugar, run out the door late as usual. Total time: about 5-6 minutes.

Is the boiling of milk with spices necessary, or can I dump pre-ground spices into my brewed tea along with milk and sugar? Can I boil a large batch of milk with spices and store that in the fridge and add to brewed tea instead of my usual vanilla soymilk?

EDIT: I appear to have misread part of the instructions; it calls for boiling water with spices then adding milk, rather than boiling milk with spices directly. The comments, however, insist that the milk needs to come to a proper boil as well. So, the real question appears to be: is that true, or can I toss the spices in with the leaves in my pot while the tea steeps and add milk as usual later?

That recipe actually says there are two ways you can prepare this:

  There are two ways to do this: throw just about everything in a pot of
  water and simmer, then add the milk, tea and sweetener and brew for a
  few minutes; or, let the spices soak overnight in the water then
  simmer in the morning with your tea leaves and milk.

(emphasis mine)

Have you tried the latter? That way you still only have to heat things up once.

I'd be hesitant to boil milk with spices and then store it cold, reheating again. If you're using dairy milk, that is. If you're using anything other than non-fat (skim) milk, you'll get a "skin" on the top of the milk when you're boiling it - that's one of the classic signs of masala chai for me. But anyway, it becomes substantially less appetizing if it has time to cool into globules and is then reheated again. I'm not sure what problems, if any, you'd encounter using non-dairy milk like almond or soy.

You could dump the pre-ground spices into your brewed tea with milk and sugar, but the flavor profile will be a little different. Boiling the spices with the milk and tea gives everything time to meld nicely and provide a really smooth flavor blend. But I don't see any especially compelling reason that you couldn't do it.

I would like to point out, though, that boiling enough water for a travel mug's worth of tea doesn't take any more time to do on the stove than it does in my electric kettle. Adding milk shouldn't make too much difference; I'm willing to bet that after you get familiar with the routine, you can follow this recipe and still have it take 5-6 minutes. :)

Purists will insist that the spices must be boiled with the water, but those are the same people who would scoff at you adding cold milk to your tea in the first place. There's no reason why you can't, other than it might cool down the rest of your tea.


Can you make a French Buttercream in a food processor? (Experiment Results) Unless I get a credible and resounding NO! very soon, I'm going to give it a shot. I've recently started using my food processor for more and more whipped egg (not whipped egg white) applications, and they have always turned out surprisingly well. My plan is to try a minor adaptation of Julia Child's French Buttercream recipe. I think I'll use the steel blade until it's time to add the butter, then switch to the plastic blade.

I don't have a stand mixer, and I have no desire to try it with a hand mixer. That leaves my food processor. The feed tube could make really easy work of it, if it works.

I should mention that I'm specifically playing with a potential filling for a dense, dark chocolate, flourless tarte. That being the case, high volume is not necessarily desirable.

If you know of any good reason to stop this madness, please tell me now!

Of course I will update with triumph, failure or anything in-between.

YES YOU CAN!!

As I said in the question, I used this recipe: Joe Pastry - Julia Child .

Before I embarked on the experiment, I whipped egg yolks with my hand mixer and in my food processor. Since there seemed to be no difference, I proceeded.

The first picture was before whipping, the second was whipped for 5 minutes with the food processor, the third picture was whipped for 5 minutes with a hand mixer. Prior to whipping the yolks measured 1/3 cup. Both whipping methods yielded just over 1/2 cup after transferring the yolks to a measuring cup which broke the biggest bubbles.

While the yolks were whipping, I made my syrup and pulled it off the heat at exactly 148F, and transferred it to a pyrex measuring cup. It was at the next step that I first saw an actual advantage to the use of the food processor vs a stand mixer. There was no need to stop the machine, pour, stop again, pour... I just poured in a slow steady stream until all the syrup was incorporated. One thing I noticed after that is that it was taking forever for the mixture to cool, so I wrapped the bowl in a cold damp towel.

WHOOPS! This isn't supposed to happen!

See the hole at 2 o'clock? That's a finger press mark in the still not quite cool mixture. At this point I figured I was toast, but I'd come this far so I kept going. I turned off the machine, took off the lid, and just waited for it to completely cool. When the mixture was completely cool (almost an hour later), I restarted the machine and started dropping in the softened butter. After about a stick I used a butter knife to scrape off the hardened mixture that was still adhering to the blade and bottom of the bowl, and just kept going. When the hardened bits finally dissolved (at about halfway through the butter), I switched from the metal blade to the plastic blade of my food processor. I should note at this point that I found the same advantage to the food processor here as when I incorporated the syrup, the feed tube and lid made it really easy, I only stopped the machine once to scrape down the sides.

OOH! It's starting to look like buttercream!

The peaks in the bowl were created sicking in the whisk and pulling it out. Because the camera was giving me a hard time, the pictures of peaks were actually taken 10 minutes after the peaks were created.

At this point the frosting was delicious and of a perfect constancy to frost cupcakes by the dip and twist method. Since what I really wanted to do with it is use it as a filling, I took SAJ14SAJ's advice and gave it a 3 minute whip with my hand mixer. That did give it a slightly more matte finish and a bit more structure.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. EEK is that a BOXED cake?? <hangs head in shame> I refrigerated the bottom layer with the filling (which of course significantly solidified the filling) before placing the top layer, then I let the whole thing come to room temperature, frosted the cake, refrigerated, and smoothed the frosting with a hot spatula.

The chocolate frosting in the final picture was made with the experimental buttercream mixed with melted bittersweet chocolate and powdered sugar.

I don't think that I'm going to have replaced my stand mixer in time for the next time I want buttercream, but my results with this experiment are such that I think I will do it again. The one thing I will do differently next time is that I will stop processing every 3 minutes during the cooling stage, remove the lid, and refrigerate for 2 minutes, repeating until the mixture is cool. That was the only point at which I became less than optimistic. If I do it again, I will update with the results of the procedural change.


Is slow cooking in an oven safe with long cooking times I've been reading about slow cooking in an oven and I have some questions.

We cook meat until it reaches a certain temperature; we can assume this temperature is deemed safe by food experts! However, I'm confused about what makes the food safe! Is it the heat of the meat, or the heat of the oven, or both?

The reason for this question, is on some site (which I can't find now), they suggested (with Lamb), not to slow roast it under 135°C (with no reason why). However, I have a friend who is a chef, and he will slow roast lamb at 100°C.

Let's assume pork must be cooked to 70°C for it to be considered safe. Is it considered as "safe" to cook it at 100°C for a 'long' time (until the pork is at 70°C), compared to cooking it at 200°C for a shorter time (until pork is at 70°C)? Does the length of cooking time, at the lower heat mean bacteria could actually spread?

So, to summarise, if I cook meat (and I assume lamb and pork obey the same rules/laws) at a high temperature am I killing more bugs (due to the higher temperature) than if I cook it at a lower temperature?

In general, the issue is how long the food spends at the middle temperatures, warmer than refrigeration, and not as hot as truely safe cooking temperatures, the so called "danger zone" from 40-140 F, 4-60 C.

While an over simplification, pathogens do not grow well outside of the danger zone because it is so cold that they are inactive, or so hot that they are distressed or killed.

Slow cooking, done properly, is safe because the time spent moving through the danger zone to the safety of temperatures above about 140 F / 60 C is minimized, thus minimizing the opportunity for any pathogens to grow and create toxins; then, at temperatures above the threshold (if held for several minutes), most pathogens are killed.   (Do not take this to mean food is "sterilized" as spores can remain, that can become active later.)

Foods are not cooked to a single temperature to be considered safe.  Instead, there is a combination of time and temperature at which they are considered safe, assuming no other problems existed.   This is mere seconds at 165 F / 74 C, but perhaps half an hour (going by memory, so don't take this as gospel) at 135 F / 57 C.

Still, general audience food safety recommendations suggest temperatures of 160 F / 71 C because the 99.9% kill time at that temperature is only a few seconds--it doesn't require careful monitoring or timing, and so is a simple rule to follow.

275 F / 135 C (I see you edited the question) is definitely a temperature range for slow roasting that is safe when done properly.

135 F / 57 C is possible, but on the borderline, although it would require very precise control not usually available in an oven; this is more the realm of sous-vide cooking techniques.  It also requires longer periods held at temperature, and so is not a method for casual cooks.

100 F is not safe.  It is well into the temperatures at which food is being incubated so the pathogens have a cozy environment for growth.


Can I substitute...whole wheat for all-purpose flour for baked goods? If we do any kind substitution in between whole wheat and all purpose flour, then what will be the effects on baked goods?

Whole wheat has more gluten/protein than all purpose flour. This causes the baked goods to have a "stronger/tougher" consistency which may be appreciated in breads, where we want to chew on them, but not in other items like cakes or cupcakes where we want a soft, light texture. In terms of gluten content, in US you can find from higher to lower gluten content:
Whole Wheat flour -> whole wheat pastry flour -> all purpose flour -> cake flour


My caramels sugared but I don't want to throw them away. Is there any way I can reheat the sugared mess and turn it into a caramel sauce? My caramels sugared but I don't want to throw them away. Is there any way I can reheat the sugared mess and turn it into a caramel sauce? I am determined not to waste this great taste but want to lose the lousy texture.

Worry not, you can fix this: The sugar crystals that formed in your caramel behave just like ordinary sugar crystals - they dissolve in water or other liquids.

This means you can still turn your caramels into a caramel sauce, drizzle or spread.

You don't give an amount, so no recipe, but gently heat the caramels with some cream in a pot. You may also want to add a knob or two of butter. Cook until the sugar is dissolved and you get a not-too-thin sauce, pour into jars and refrigerate. If it solidifies in the fridge, gently warm in the microwave until spreadable/pourable before using. The consistency will depend on how much cream and/or butter you add, obviously.

There is a great Serious Eats article on caramel sauce, which you might want to use as a base when calculating how much butter and cream you shoukd add.


How to convert a recipe calling for active dry yeast into rapid rise yeast? I have a recipe for rolls where the first stage calls for 2 packages active dry yeast, 1 tbsp sugar, and 1/2 cup warm water to be mixed until the yeast is proofed, and then 1/4 cup cubed butter is added to the proofed yeast.  Then all of that is added to half of the flour (2 cups) and 2 tsp salt and allowed to do the first rise.

If I wanted to use rapid rise yeast instead of active dry, could I skip the proofing step?  Would I need to add the butter at all?  Could I just mix all the dry ingredients, add the warm water and start the dough that way?  What effect would this change have?

First off, it's good to understand the difference between active dry yeast and rapid rise yeast.  Active dry yeast is a larger granule of yeast in which the outer shell is composed of mostly dead cells entombing the dormant nougaty goodness inside.  It has to be proofed to seperate out all the cells and rehydrate the interior active cells.

Rapid rise yeast is a typically a combination of 2 different strains of yeast (so those with a very discerning palate might be able to tell the difference, I've never really tried).  The granules of yeast are smaller and dried slower to preserve more yeast cells. Ascorbic acid is also added to push the yeast into overdrive a little faster.

A great video that helped me a lot is http://how2heroes.com/videos/dessert-and-baked-goods/yeast-101  I have noticed before issues with Rapid Rise yeast not proofing very well the second time around.  Apparently it's designed to give you one really good proof and then die out (play hard and die young).  Instant yeast however is Rapid Rise yeast without the hardcore party attitude.  It's what they use at the King Arthur bakery test kitchen, so that's good enough for me!  They say to use them interchangeably, but many other sites I see show a difference of about 20%.

2 Tbsp Active Dry yeast ≈ 1.6 Tbsp Instant Yeast


Why breadcrumb is necessary for deep-frying? As I've always known, or at least this is the habid in Hungary: adding covering meat slices with breadcrumb (after the flour and the egg) is necessary, even the frozen but previously deep-fried turkey meat slices are made this way.

Why is it necessary? I've already eaten deep-fried meat covered with flour and egg only, that's almost the same! Maybe the surface is  more plain (obviously because that had no crumb on it)

Maybe it changes the taste? Or prevents burn while frying?

The nature of deep frying, contrary to expectation, is that it is a dry cooking method.

The heat from the oil vaporizes water at the surface of the food.  The steam coming of the food pushes the oil away from the food, and keeps oil from soaking in during the main frying process.  This is also what causes the bubbling.

The consequence of this is that by its very nature, deep frying rapidly dries out the surface of whatever is being cooked.

From some foods, including some meats, this would leave the outside of the meat dry, tough, and rubbery.   A coating of breading prevents this by providing a barrier between the hot frying oil and the meat.

The breading itself also browns, which adds flavor and crunchiness that can greatly enhance the appeal of the food item.  It may also have spices or other flavors or seasonings in the breading to compliment the food.

Still, not all meats have to be breaded before deep frying.  For example, chicken wings are often deep fried plain.  The skin browns and bubbles and gets very crispy.

So, the main reasons for breading are:

Protect the food product
Add brown, delicious crunch
Add flavor through other seasonings


Safe to use pot that has a scratch inside? My pot has a scratch in it, is it still safe to use? I attached a picture of the scratch

I think this is the inside of a non-stick pan, on the side near where the handle is riveted (scratched rivet at the right of the picture).

It doesn't look like it's peeling from the scratches.  So the amount of coating getting into the food would be miniscule. Even the if it did peel, the result would be more unpleasant than dangerous (paper on the use of PTFE as an inert bulking agent for food); the main component of a Teflon non-stick coating is PTFE.


Safety of old, unopened bottles of ketchup I just found two bottles of unopened ketchup dating back several years. One says "Best used by September 19, 2008," and the other says "Best used by May 10, 2010." I think I should throw them both out, but I wonder if there is any chance they could be used in making a barbecue sauce which calls for boiling the ingredients together for 30 minutes. What about in baked beans or other such recipes which are baked? Would that kill botulism or other dangerous organisms?

Assuming that there are no apparent problems with it (either from storage method or upon opening and inspection), I am one to agree with StillTasty in this case and say that you would not likely encounter any problems making barbecue sauce. They say twelve months, though.

For the sauce though, not only will the long, slow boiling help; but the ketchup is likely chock full of high-fructose corn syrup (which acts as a preservative), and you will be suspending more sugar (again, a preservative) in it.


Is it okay to keep opened loose leaf tea packages in the freezer? I've bought approximately 10 kilograms worth of tea and it's taking up a lot of space in the fridge. Family isn't happy about the sudden lack of fridge space, and so I'm thinking of stashing 80% of each packet and leaving the remaining 20% on the shelf for frequent access. The question is, where to put the big packs.

With Japanese green teas which come vacuum sealed and with a special packet of oxygen remover, I've found that if left out in the open, they tend to go bad much much faster than if I keep them in the fridge. And then if I also keep a big portion of it always closed in a glass jar with a tight lid in the fridge, and only use some small portion of it and refill only every once in a while, the big jar doesn't get oxydized and stale as fast as when I use just that one big jar. So with this experience I was thinking of doing the same with this tea, but there's just too much of it to keep it all in the general fridge space.

Does tea get ruined or lose flavor or otherwise becomes worse if kept in the freezer instead of the fridge?

This time it's a lot of black teas with all kinds of flavorings and some fruit/herb mixes, so it shouldn't be as oxydizable as green, but I'd like to learn more about storing all sorts, if possible.

There's a lot of disagreement on this question online, much of it uninformed.  There are also a lot of assumptions that seem to go along with the question of freezing.

First of all, despite warnings on many tea websites, let's be clear that tea producers and shippers frequently keep tea refrigerated or frozen for long-term storage.  It's true that in those cases, we're talking about vacuum-sealed containers often with nitrogen gas or some other way of lowering moisture.  Moisture is an enemy of loose-leaf tea.  So the question is not whether or not you can store teas in a freezer: obviously, major tea sellers do sometimes.  The question is how to do it properly.

Some would claim it's impossible.  Some reasons:

freezing will harm the cell structure and damage the tea
you'll get too much condensation, which will degrade the tea
you'll get freezer burn from freeze/thaw cycles
odors from the freezer will permeate your tea

The first thing is a bit true, which is why major Asian tea producers (to my knowledge) tend to go with storage around 5C or so.  But the trade-off (as with much frozen food) is that you get the tea to last a lot longer in the freezer than at room temperature or in the fridge.  So yes, keeping tea in the freezer is probably not as good as serving it fresh from the package in the first few weeks or even few months.  But for longer-term storage, the freezer will keep the quality higher than storage at higher temperatures.

As for the other concerns, most of them have to do with poor storage containers and methods, not freezing itself.  You will want to store tea in a container with as much air removed as possible.  So some sort of sealing bag that can conform to the amount of tea is probably better than a rigid container.  On the other hand, you need a completely sealed container to keep odors, etc. out, so if necessary, you might try a sealed bag inside of a more rigid sealed container for an extra layer of protection (if you're not confident in the seal of the bag you're using).  Freezer burn is unique to freezing, but it can be mitigated by the same precautions, as well as storing tea deeper in the freezer where it is not as likely to experience freeze/thaw cycles (as opposed to on the door).

For obvious reasons related to the above, you shouldn't store tea intended for daily use in the freezer.  Pulling the container in and out of the freezer will expose the tea repeatedly to warm, humid air, which will lead to degradation.  Your plan to keep the long-term bulk storage in the freezer, while keeping smaller quantities at higher temperature is good one.

Nevertheless, most sites assume you'll store your tea improperly, in which case freezing is probably not a good option.  But you don't need to go to extremes with commercial packaging to make freezing viable.  Here's a page with some actual experimental data about storing green teas at various temperatures, and they didn't use nitrogen/low oxygen/special low moisture packaging for freezing or anything.  They found freezing green tea was best for long storage, refrigeration was also good but changed the tea a bit, and room temperature tea degraded most over time.  (In several searches, I was unable to find any similar experiment that showed significant problems with freezing, as long as packaging was sufficient.)

Also keep in mind the guidelines listed there (and elsewhere) for warming up frozen tea.  If you pull a container out of the freezer and open it up, moisture will rush in along with the humid air and condense on the tea leaves, which can cause them to degrade.  Instead, it's best to wait a day or so (depending on size of bulk container) for tea to come up to room temperature, then use the tea.  Ideally, it would be best to perhaps store frozen tea in individual packages with the amount you would want to thaw each time.  (Even individual airtight bags inside a larger even more airtight container could work.)

If you don't want to go to that trouble, you'll have to play off the advantages/disadvantages of how to remove the tea from the bulk container.  If you open it up without letting the whole bulk package thaw, the moist air each time will contribute to problems.  But if you do let it completely thaw, the tea will undergo more freeze/thaw cycles, which will also harm it over time.  If you're relatively quick with removing tea and are sure to get as much air out as possible before returning to the freezer, I'd probably go with the former method (not thawing the whole package), rather than make the tea undergo more temperature fluctuations.

However, with all this in mind, I'd probably start by following the procedure you tend to use with your refrigerated tea that you're currently happy with.

Oh, lastly regarding oxidation: although I couldn't find any good sources on this quickly, my guess is that black teas compared to other teas will be more stable if stored in the freezer, just as they are at room temperature.  With greens, oxidation will be a lot slower in the freezer than at room temperature (or even in the fridge).  As long as you avoid freeze/thaw cycles as much as possible, as well as keep excess air/moisture out, it should allow your tea to stay fresh much longer.


Can I use amaretti cookies in a cheesecake crust? I'm making a cannoli cheesecake from this recipe (http://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a43604/cannoli-cheesecake-recipe/).  I will be adding 1-2 tsps of cinnamon to the cheesecake batter and possibly almond extract.  All the recipes say to use a graham cracker crust, but that doesn't seem like it would be as authentic.  Can I use crushed (ground) amaretti cookies, like in the cookies below?  It seems like it would behave similarly to graham crackers or Nilla wafers.

Again, I'm asking about the crust and the use of a different cookie (since I've never used something outside of wafers or graham crackers or Oreos for crusts).  I understand that this will not be actual cannolis but a cheesecake designed to remind you of a cannoli.  I've updated the title as well so hopefully my request for help is clearer.

Sure you can. Just blitz the cookies in a food processor, and add a stream of melted butter until you can form the crust into a ball in your hand. Then just press the cookie mixture into the pan you want to bake the cheesecake in.


Metal dust/shavings in food from knife wear? I've been wondering about this for a while, since getting interested in knife sharpening.

When using a knife, it will get duller. One (the primary) reason being that you "bend" the edge. You fix this using a honing steel.

After a while though, you need to sharpen the knife again.
Another setting: If you have a brittle knife and/or mistreat your knife you will chip it.

As far as I can tell, this should mean that small pieces of metal (dust, shavings, etc.) come lose, and then likely get in the food.

Is this correct?
Are there no health considerations when digesting small pieces of very sharp metal?

At a microscopic level metal is malleable, and so the edge tends to bend rather than spall or break off.  Still, it is probably technically true to a certain extent, and based on many many years of metal knife usage by millions or billions of people through history, completely irrelevant.  Whatever effect it may have is vanishingly small.


How long will fermented/brined pickles last? I've been interested in making some pickles, and a lot of the places I've found say that salt brined or fermented pickles generally taste better than acid-brined pickles. That is, pickles pickled in a saltwater brine taste better those pickled in vinegar. While that's subjective, it's still gotten me intrigued in saltwater brining some vegetables.

However, each of the sources I find give me a different estimate for how long they last in the fridge. Some say 1 week (too short, surely?) and some say up to 1 year (that seems too long...). So my question is, how long will a pickle last in its brine after being put into the fridge?

Edit: After some thinking, I guess it would depend on a lot of factors, but mostly the salinity of the water and the temperature of the fridge. Given that these are the most important factors (but I could be wrong!) if the temperature is 35 deg F in the ideal fridge, how will salt content change how long the pickle will last?

The short answer is 1-2 years for traditional pickles, assuming a good recipe with adequate salt content and fermentation time (traditionally anywhere from a month to a few months).  For modern quick fermented homemade recipes, where the pickles are fermented in a week or so instead of months, I'd recommend using them up within a month or two.

Some representative sources (note the bolded bits about fermentation time):

"Fermented or processed pickles also have a very long shelf-life, about two years." (source)
"FERMENTED PICKLES: The oldest method of pickling, when a naturally occurring bacteria transforms the sugars present in the ingredient into an acid, preserving the food. These are called 'processed' pickles, and though they take as many as five weeks to cure, they last up to 2 years." (source)
"The product is completely fermented in 3-6 weeks.... In contrast to salt stock brining procedures [i.e., pickles removed from their liquid after fermentation and stored in a very heavily salted tank for future processing], genuine dill pickles do not require desalting and are often sold with the filtered fermentation liquor that is produced during the process.  The product must be consumed within 12 months." (source)

While these are common estimates, many books on the subject won't even give such shelf-life estimates (e.g., Sandor Katz's The Art of Fermentation), because there is so much variability depending on recipe and storage conditions during and after fermentation.

The other issue is that fermented brined pickles are "alive" in the sense that they continue to have microbial activity even after refrigerated.  Unless you "process" the pickles after fermentation by heating to a high temperature and canning, you should expect that pickles will change their taste and texture continuously.  You might like pickles that are "just finished," but dislike their flavor or texture after a month or two in the fridge (or the reverse).

Traditional pickle-makers often take advantage of these changes, for example by selling "half sours" which taste like something between a fresh cucumber and a pickle and have only been partially fermented.  "Half sours" and other pickles that have not completed fermentation before refrigeration have a much shorter shelf-life (usually a few weeks), because the lack of full acidity in the liquid and remaining sugars and other nutrients in the cucumbers may still allow other things to grow and for spoilage to occur.

Even after a longer fermentation, expect pickles to gradually get more sour and to soften in texture as the months go by.  However, with adequate salt content and full fermentation, and as long as you are not contaminating the storage container, there's no reason to expect they will actually "go bad" at refrigerator temperatures for at least a few months and potentially much longer.

Traditionally, long-storage pickled cucumbers were fermented in (and subsequently stored in) a cool place, like a root cellar or other underground compartment, which probably stayed around 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit most of the year.  At these cooler temperatures, pickles usually needed to ferment for at least a month and sometimes a few months before achieving full flavor.  Since the root cellar temperatures were often above refrigerator temperatures, they would then continue to get even more sour and gradually begin to break down as the months went by.  However, the purpose of storage was to have cucumbers available throughout the year, so last year's batch would be used up and then be replaced by the new harvest.

Today, most people tend to ferment homemade pickles faster (often at room temperature) and often with less salt than the season-long ferments of the past would use.  This produces pickles more quickly, sometimes in as little as a week or so, with pickles that are not as extreme in their sourness and saltiness as the long-storage pickling of the past.  The flavor profile can also be somewhat different, due to greater activity of some microorganisms at room temperature.  Depending on the recipe, they are often not as stable and should probably be consumed within a few weeks or months.  (For example, Alton Brown's relatively fast pickle recipe recommends storing the pickles no longer than two months in the refrigerator.)


How to correct egg nog that is too sweet? I have a large carton of Producers “All-Natural” Egg Nog. The actual taste itself is only slightly too sweet but the main issue is that it leaves a SUPER sweet after-taste that tastes like flavored lip gloss. Is there anything I can do to fix it?

1) Too sweet, you could dilute it with some rum or other alcohol. That might mask the sweet aftertaste with an alcoholic aftertaste....

2) Grate some nutmeg on top: fresh nutmeg has such a bite, your tastebuds will forget about the sweetness.

3) While you're at it you could further dilute it with a little half and half, or just plain milk.


Mold on Vinegar Batch? About 2-3 months ago I decided to start my own batch of vinegar.  I started with some Braggs apple cider vinegar which contains the mother, and I added some old wine and some fruit juice to the mix.  I kept it in a dark and warm place, as per instructions online.  A few layers of cheesecloth were placed on top to allow it to air, without letting anything else get into it.

When I recently opened it, I found a layer of what appears to be a yellow-orange mold on top.  There are also some small worms or maggots living on the top, but that doesn't seem as problematic to me.

As you can (sort of) see in this picture above, there is definitely a mother at the bottom.  The mother has grown since I last saw it.  I am not sure what to think about that top layer though.  Is the vinegar batch completely spoiled?

Picture #2 (a closer look at the top)

Great question.

First off, the mold. This is nothing to worry about, you should be skimming it off but as far as Vinegar creation it's normal and to be expected.

These "worms" have a name :-) Turbatrix Aceti (a.k.a Vinegar Worm) you can read more about them here -> wiki/Turbatrix_aceti

Why is that mold there? Well if you think about the fermentation process. It's just thousands of bacteria 'eating' your 'mother' now they have to produce something as a byproduct which is the mold you see on the top. Get rid of it and leave it to carry on.

  If you see a scum forming on top, don’t disturb it; this is the
  mother. Eventually the mother will sink toward the bottom and continue
  its work. However if you see mold forming on top, by all means skim
  that off. Mother isn’t moldy; it’s scummy.

Source: http://www.rural-revolution.com/2013/07/making-fruit-scrap-vinegar.html <- Well worth a read since you're making vinegar :-)

Mold = Bad (Clean it off)
Froth = Good (Leave it alone til' it turns to mold.

Question: Is the vinegar batch completely spoiled?
Answer: No.


Is IKEA frozen salmon safe to eat raw in sushi? I was wondering if IKEA's frozen salmon was safe to be eaten raw in a home cooking environment? It's farmed which is a plus from what I've read, but I couldn't really find any data on their freezing process (except their little note about customer storing conditions that says it should be kept at -18°C or bellow).

Unless if it's labelled "sushi-grade" or "sashimi-grade", they probably don't freeze it deeply enough, so I wouldn't recommend it as-is. This is because of Salmon's high risk of parasites. However, you can turn it into sushi-grade fish if you have a freezer that reaches -20°C, and don't mind waiting.

Here in British Columbia, the government has Sushi Safety guidelines (as there are a huge number of sushi restaurants here) which instructs to use one of the following methods to destroy parasites in raw fish (except for Tuna, in which freezing is not required) when served in restaurants;

Store frozen at -20°C or below for 7 days
Store frozen at -35°C or below for 15 hours
Store it at -35°C until solid, and then keep it at -20° or below for 24 hours.
Actually, it may be better to read Manitoba's version of this document, as it gives clearer instructions for the same process.

After the fish has gone through this "sushi-grade" process, it is safe to store it at -18° before eating it raw.  This is the most common temperature for household freezers, and probably grocery store freezers.

Disclosure: I have never done this process myself. However, I have never gotten sick from eating sushi in Vancouver, where they are supposedly following these guidelines. I have occasionally heard of others getting sick for a day (allegedly) from sushi, though this may just be because the restaurant (or fish distributor) made a mistake.

Update: It appears that the terms "sushi-grade" & "sashimi-grade" are not regulated by either US or Canadian law, and probably not in the UK either.

It appears the EU laws are more liberal, only requiring 24 hours at -20° for wild salmon, and don't require any freezing for Scottish-farmed Atlantic salmon (due to low risk of parasites). The salmon at Ikea is probably farmed Atlantic, so it might actually qualify (so much for everything that I wrote), though I'm not certain. I unfortunately don't have any research data, so I'm just going by law.

For alternatives, you can go with tuna, which is rather low-risk even without the deep-freezing, which is often not required by law. If you don't mind being less traditional, you can also use smoked salmon or sous-vide salmon.


My tomato sauce is very watery It has flavor, but its consistency is too thin.
Will letting sit over medium low heat evaporate enough to increase its density or is this useless?
Would bringing it to a boil help more. I don't want to ruin its flavor and am afraid bringing it to a boil with high heat will do just that.

Yes, cooking it more to evaporate off some of the liquid will definitely help. This is called reducing a sauce. A moderate simmer would be the appropriate temperature. You want to see occasional bubbles but definitely not a rolling boil. Stir it occasionally, making sure to get the bottom of the pot to avoid any scorching. It is possible to have it be quite liquid on top and rather dense in pockets on the bottom, which can then get well above 212 F and reaching the point of burning.


How do I prepare fresh clams for clam chowder? I regularly prepare New England-style clam chowder with all fresh ingredients except for canned clams which I use out of convenience. I have been feeling guilty of trying to pass my recipe off as "fresh clam chowder" and I want to make it better. I would like to pick up a bag of fresh clams at the grocery store and use them as an ingredient.

I basically want to know should I shuck the clams and add them to my soup raw, or should I steam them and pry the cooked clam meat out?

Cook them first. I consulted few recipes including this very representative 5 star recipe from Anne Burrell, she uses one dozen little neck or cherry stone clams per serving.

Scrub the clams and put them over high heat with one cup of water, covered, for 6-7 minutes. Remove open clams (careful, don't waste any juice). Continue cooking unopened clams for another 2-3 minutes. Toss clams that haven't opened.  Remove shells and coarsely chop meat, again, careful with the juice. Strain the clam juice from the clams themselves and from the pan through a coffee filter.

The clams are added to the soup as the very last step, so you won't overcook them this way.

As always with a Food Network recipe, it's worthwhile to read the reviews, but take them with a grain of salt. Some people are idiots. Have fun!


Lightly defrost chicken in microwave to separate them I had two pieces of chicken breast in a tupperware container in my freezer. I wanted to separate them and put one in the fridge below, so I put it in the microwave on defrost (fairly weak machine, and defrost was the second lowest setting) for about 30s.

When it came out, the thinnest edges of the chicken became bendable, but still stiff. The other parts of the pieces were still stuck together, cold, and rigid.

I separated the two pieces by hand (it actually took a bit of force to bend them, and rip them apart because the thin transparent skin layer and the fat bound the pieces together when freezing), I then put one piece back in the same container, back into the freezer, and the other piece in another container into the fridge below.

I just bought them today, and the best before date is not for another 5 days. Before freezing, I rinsed them under very cold water, and patted them down with some Bounty towels.

I've been told to never refreeze meat after defrosting in the microwave. Is this still safe to eat or am I just being paranoid?

What you have done is fine. Not only are you not facing a safety issue, but because you didn't allow the piece that was to be refrozen to completely thaw, you're unlikely to even face the quality issues that refreezing poultry often sees. (Refreezing poultry tends to play a bit of havoc with the texture)

One small thing...our grandmothers rinsed chicken. It has been definitively shown that rinsing chicken (purchased from a reputable store) is unnecessary, and may actually do more harm than good because it doesn't significantly reduce pathogens on the surface of the chicken, but it will spread those pathogens (if present) around your kitchen.

Related: Cooking, freezing, recooking, and refreezing chicken


What to do with ginger leftover from ginger ale production so I have been experimenting in ginger ale brewing lately and I have been following a method which involves fermenting the ale as always (ginger, water, sugar) and then discard the ginger before bottling.

But as a good ginger lover, I found it to be a pity to discard that much ginger for every batch I make. So, is there any usage for those leftovers? Maybe some kind of candy?

Thanks

I have used excess ginger by candying it- I boil it for about twenty minutes in a simple syrup, when I take the ginger out of the syrup I place it on a cooling grate and let it cool completely. I then roll each individual piece in turbinado sugar(I have used white sugar too.) To store I place it in a plastic bag with a little extra sugar to prevent the pieces from sticking to each other. I also keep the syrup tightly sealed in the freezer, the syrup is great for cocktails, or as a remedy for an upset stomach.
I have also peeled leftover ginger and stored it in a tightly sealed container inside my freezer. This is convienent because when you need ginger, you can easily grate the frozen ginger for your recipe. Generally you can store it frozen for at least a good three months. Hope this helps.


Japanese Ingredient question I have a recipe I received several years ago from a sushi class I took for spicy tuna rolls. There is two ingredients I can't find when I search the web. They are: KOBASHI and TOBIASHI. Any idea what these are?

I've a feeling one of those items should be Tobiko, flying fish roe. Normally a pale or brightly coloured orange little eggs like this:


Why is my gravy opaque? I only started making gravy a year or two ago, so I don't fully understand the process, although I appreciate the taste. As I was making gravy for Thanksgiving, I noticed that the color was significantly yellow and it wasn't clear, but milky-opaque. I know from this question that the yellow color is from using the fat I skimmed off of my stock to make the roux. (I made a combined chicken and turkey stock.)

But what makes the gravy appear opaque and almost milky? The color came almost as soon as I mixed my stock into my roux.

(Incidentally, my stock wasn't hot when I added it to the roux. Would that make a difference?)

Gravy is supposed to be opaque and is a result of using flour as the thickener.  If you want clear gravy, like what you would get in a Chinese restaurant, then you need to use corn starch or arrowroot as your thickener.  But the opacity is considered to be a good thing.  It's the canned stuff you buy in the store that is clear.


Trouble tempering Valrhona Couverture Manjari (64%) Chocolate I have tried to temper equal amounts of Valrhona Couverture Manjari (64%) chocolate + baking chocolate (Van-Heusen brand, dark chocolate) without any success.

Used the seeding method & followed the instructions given by Valrhona, ie melt @ 131-136F, cool to 82-84F, reheat to 88-90F. Working with a very small batch (~400g), used a bain-marie, IR thermometer.

The chocolate is nice and shiny but simply does not harden at room temperature.

The instructions provide by Valrhona say it needs to be melted for 12h, but I have read articles where others have been able to temper it without melting for 12h.

I have no clue what's going wrong. Would be grateful for any guidance.

Thanks in advance,
Asha

A couple of thoughts...

Not commenting on Valrhona specifically but 12h at 131F seems like a very long time at a very high temp. Can you temper it on its own at a lower temperature? Cooling the chocolate to 84F without contact to a cold(er) surface won't seed it well. You can also try adding rough shaved tempered chocolate in sufficient quantities during the 82F-84F state.

What is the cocoa butter content of the Van-Heusen? I don't know anything about it but if it is extremely low, you may be creating a low cocoa butter chocolate that is difficult to temper.

Take all of this with a grain of salt (please don't add any). I worked in chocolate for 10 years but haven't for the past 15 and I may be losing my mind. These are the steps I would take if it were up to me.


Can I make cakes in a tagine? I am living in Marrakech and in our new place I don't have an oven, and don't really want to buy anything expensive as we will only be here for a few months.

I would like to make cakes/biscuits (and possibly bread), but is this going to be possible without an oven?  I have a tagine, could I re-purpose that to make some sort of cake or biscuit?

I would think you'd be able to.  I'd look for recipes on camping websites for baked goods in dutch ovens, as it'd be pretty similar.

You should be able to pull off biscuits and brown bread pretty easily.  And I'd tell you about cakes cooked on campfires such as upside-down cakes, but you're the one who asked about it earlier.


How do I make egg drop soup thick and golden? I had egg drop soup at a Chinese buffet which was bright golden and thick. I thought the thickness was due to cornstarch called for in many recipes but I just used cornstarch, and instead of thick and clear/gold, it's thinner and a milky color.

I think you need a better broth.

For a satisfying soup, you will want a broth that is not only thick but flavorful.  Additionally, the salt can give an impression of thickness - lack of salt can make a soup taste watery even if the thickness does not actually change when salt is added.  The gold color probably comes from a chicken broth, in the original recipe, although you might use vegetable broth or something if you prefer.  And you might not get exactly the same color if it was due to a specific recipe of broth - or the addition of food coloring - but you can still get a nice golden color if you pick a good broth, and perhaps enhance the color a bit with turmeric or even saffron if you really want.  If you start with a hearty broth, with a bright color and plenty of flavor, you will be half way to your soup.

A good broth will already be a little thicker from flavorful compounds simmered out of your stock ingredients - not much, but the more thickness comes from the flavor in the soup, the less you will need to add in cornstarch.  A homemade stock will be the best, thick and rich to your specifications with lots of fibers and juices from your ingredients to thicken the stock.  A store-bought stock will be convenient, consistent, and pretty flavorful - although it will have some of the thickness filtered out and replaced with thickeners, it will also the benefit of some flavoring agents.  Using bullion cubes or powders as a base is still pretty workable - I have made good egg drop soup with them, but will be thinner since the process reduces the flavors to their most compact and concentrated from, and you may be missing out some of the natural fillers and thickeners that form in broth as it is made.

Each option has its plusses and minuses, you can pick which option serves you taste and convenience.  Whichever you choose, you may want your broth to be a little more concentrated for this soup, perhaps reducing a store-bought broth through simmering or adding extra base (bullion cube or what you have on hand) for the same amount of water - the flavor will be a little bit diluted with the addition of cornstarch and cold water in the slurry.

Then, you can thicken your broth still more with cornstarch (at the correct stage in the recipe, of course).  Make a slurry with the cornstarch and cold water, mix it to make sure it's dissolved, and slowly pour into your soup, mixing well.  You should bring the soup to a simmer afterwards, for at least a minute, while the cornstarch works and thickens - but not too much longer, or it can thin again as the cornstarch overcooks.

Your milky thinner broth might not have cooked long enough to activate the cornstarch, since it is very pale in the slurry, or you might have overcooked it so even a lot was much less effective - I usually don't notice a big color change from the amount of cornstarch to a broth unless I'm using a lot, it seems to me to clear up a bit as it cooks.


Can I re-cook pre-cooked conch? My local store only carries pre-cooked conch meat. I cut it very thinly for my salad yet I still find it tough.

My question is: Can I recook my conch meat to tenderize it? I have tried to find fresh conch meat locally but there is nothing available.

I know that I could easily go buy some to try this method; however, at the price per lb. I hate to throw away the money.

According to ochef, conch is tender only if barely cooked or simmered for at least an hour.  If your conch is tough, it was probably cooked too long but yet not long enough.  You may want to give it a light pressing (not pounding) with a kitchen mallet and then simmer it in fish stock for an hour or so.


Is it OK to wash other things than dishes with the same sponge scrub? My friend does it and I argued with her that the dish sponge scrub should only be used for dishes and not the sink or the counter top because it will make the sponge too dirty for future uses for the dishes.

Yes, it's ok to wash other things with the sponge. You can easily use it for counter-tops, the sink, stove top, the floor - anything like that wthout a problem.

The sponge will become dirty, of course, as you clean with it, but the same is true of washing dirty dishes with it.  If you can clean a sponge well enough to keep using it on dishes until it's soft and thin, you can clean it well enough to also use it on counters, sinks, and so on, the cleaning process is just the same.  You will find the sponge is worn after fewer dishes, specifically - but the absolute amount of cleaning should be the same, just the extra wear and tear happened while cleaning other things.

While you can use the sponge to clean most things without issue, if you're using the sponge to wash dishes and food preparation surfaces you should be very careful if using it to clean messes that aren't people-safe, in case the sponge should become contaminated with enough non-food-safe substances to leave a residue.  The aforementioned sink, counters, stove, and kitchen floor and in fact most household areas should all be fine, they are surfaces that you come in contact with regularly and should not leave anything on the sponge that regular cleaning won't take care of.  But you might want a separate sponge if you're regularly using it for things like paints and solvents, mechanical lubricants, motor oil or adhesives, heavy chemicals, pesticides, or anything of that nature - that is, things you wouldn't allow in your living space without extra precautions.


Re-purpose Sandwich Cookies I am trying to find a recipe to re-purpose black and white sandwich cookies with the icing inside.

I have two bags my family will not eat; I would hate to waste them.

If they are crunchy cookies with a fatty icing, you can probably smash them up (to crumbs), fatty component and all, and make a crust out of them for some kind of cream-pie or cheesecake. Sort of like a chocolatey "graham cracker" crust. Not clear on the exact composition of your cookies, but this works perfectly with "Oreo"-type cookies. If you make crumbs out of the whole cookies, you don't need to add any other ingredients to a pie crust. If your cookies are less sweet, or more sweet, or less fatty, etc. you might need to tweak the "recipe" a little, but I think you could work something out.

On the other hand, if your family don't like the cookies, they may not care for stuff made out of them either. Maybe you should give them to a neighbor, or local food-bank.


From which culture did our North American meal progression (soup/salad/appetizer + meal + dessert) come from? In North America (i.e. U.S. and Canada), a typical supper progression is as follows:

Appetizer (optional)
Salad or Soup
Main course (which is called "entree" -- in Europe, "entree" means starter)
Dessert (pies, ice cream, etc.)

My question: How did we end up this progression? Did we inherit this from the British? The French? Or the early settlers?

The reason I ask is because Italian meal progressions aren't like this at all. There go for the primi, secondi, but typically no dessert (well, if they do choose to  have dessert, it's usually something light like fruit; never pies or cakes). Pastries/biscotti are eaten at tea-time.

The Italian progression makes a lot of sense to me. Tea time (around 4-5 pm) is just ideal for a little something before dinner. As for dessert, it doesn't make sense to eat something as heavy as cake or pies after a full meal. For me, eating sweets when one is stuffed takes away from the enjoyment of the sweets. In my own culture, we don't have tea-time, and we don't eat dessert. The main course is the prima donna at supper time, and we don't feel a need to supplement it with anything else.

The basic principle of serving a dish at a time is called Russian Service by the French, who started using it in the early 1800s.  The particular order of the dishes has changed with the times and with theories of how meals should be served. The book Arranging the Meal by Flandrin describes the history of these changing fashions.

There has been a debate since classic Greek times of when to have, or even whether to have, a salad course.  The Greeks suggested eating after the meal to help with the ensuing drinking.  The British were having it before the meal in the 1600s.  By the 1800s French meals served à la russe placed the salad close to the end of the meal, a tradition kept up to today.  I remember reading that the starter salad, common in the US, is a simplified antipasto, but have not been able to find the reference, so for now it is just a guess.


Is sausage casing edible? I bought some pork sausage and baked them in my oven.  The taste was good but the sausage casing were a bit hard to chew.

Should I remove casings before I bake sausages?

I also find them hard to chew when baked, but they are edible.  To make them easier to eat, you want to finish them up using a different method to get a crunch on the outside.  I find you can either:

turn the heat up in your oven at the end, or broil them
briefly pan-fry them after they're done cooking in a little bit of oil on a skillet (cast iron preferred)
grill them after baking

I usually boil or bake them first, or simmer them in some water in a pan on the stove (not enough to cover them, just enough to kind of steam them) and then finish them on the grill for best flavor and texture.  I'd recommend finishing on the grill over any other method.

You can also completely cook them on the grill if preferred, but that can be a bit tricky if they're raw sausage and not pre-cooked, so keep an eye on them and make sure they're done completely throughout.

You can definitely remove the casings, and depending on what dish you're making that may be preferred.  However I have had success making an appetizing whole sausage using the above methods.


What is the effect of adding eggs to a pastry dough? As I understand it, making dough is really the process of hydrating flour so that a gluten network can be formed and the dough structure emerges.
Pastry dough usually adds butter in order both to reduce the amount of gluten formed and also to interleave sheets of fat to sheets of gluten to make it crumbly and oh so good.

What I don't understand is what eggs do to the dough. Most American apple pie recipes use no eggs for their dough, but almost all italian pastry dough (pastafrolla) use an abudance of eggs in lieu of some water.
What do these eggs do to the flour/butter mix?  Do they increase gluten formation or decrease it, or no effect at all?

While many bread and pastry products do depend critically on the formation and management of gluten from wheat flours, this is not universally true.

Some types of pastry have structure dependent more on the starch networks which is the other major component of wheat flours; the texture and properties of these pastries is often dependent on the gross mechanical manipulation of the structures, depending on how the product is manipulated.

American style pie crust is a case in point.  Flaky pie crust is generally manipulated in a manner which minimizes gluten production:  low hydration, resting periods, and minimal mechanical manipulation.

The structure and flakiness emerges because the dough is essentially a series of butter flakes or bits, coated in starch.  When baked, the starches gelate and steam from the dough pushes the butter pockets apart before the butter is fully melted and integrates into the dough structure.  This is not dependent on gluten formation.

Taking La Cucina Italiana's pasta frola recipe as typical, it appears that pasta frola has more in common with flaky pie crust than it does with bread or puff pastry, where gluten formation is key.

The egg in the dough will contribute mostly water (eggs are 75% water).  The remainder is primarily proteins (from the albumen in the egg white, and fats from the yolk).

This will somewhat tenderize the final pastry, and contribute an eggy flavor.  It certainly does interfere with gluten formation, helping prevent a tough outcome, except in this application, gluten formation simply is not key.  It will also contribute to the final color, both from the yellow pigments in the yolk, and by slightly promoting browning.


What can I substitute for pineapple in punch? I want to make St. Cecilia's Punch, which calls for 1/2 small pineapple.  My friend has a pineapple allergy and I need a suggestions as to what I can replace the pineapple with in this recipe.  Any suggestions?

If this recipe from Fine Cooking is typical, it looks like pineapple is as much garnish as flavor.

The things it adds to the punch are:

Fruitiness with a complex floral quality
A somewhat tropical feeling
Some acidity

I would suggest trying instead some mango, with extra lemon juice to compensate for the acidity.

Another choice might be really nice red grapefruit supremes.


Does it make sense to vacuume brined meat? Why not sous vide in water directly? If you wet brine a piece of meat and don't apply anything else to it, why exactly do you need a bag?

Why not cook the meat directly in the brine? While it cooks, it can brine some more. Handy, if you are short a couple hours on the brine.

I always thought, that the point of the bag is to keep the meat dry. But when you take it out its swimming in a lot of liquid.

So why not simply cook it in water, still controlling the temperature precisely?

Theoretically, there is no problem with your logic. In fact, during the early days of restaurant sous vide adoption, when chefs were using the same immersion circulators that scientists were using, it was not uncommon to poach fish directly in oil using an immersion circulator.  Those original tools could handle that job. However, most home sous vide devices of today are designed only to circulate water.  The biggest issue I see is the mess (at best) or the destruction of your circulator. Also, it is possible to over-brine a product.  So, you may not want to cook in a brine for that reason as well.


How to make XXL Watermelon Jell-O Shots without falling apart? I was trying to make XXL Watermelon Jell-O Shots but the Jell-O was not firm enough and fell apart. Should I use more Jell-O and less water next time? The recipe requires unflavoured gelatin but I can't find it in the grocery store nearby, hence can I use more Jell-O so its more concentrated and thus more firm?

I'm totally retracting everything I said in comments. Doing this with just Jello (no unflavored gelatin) works just fine. The key is A LOT of Jello.

After reading your question I researched the question of "How much gelatin is in a box of Jello?" The only answer I was able to find was that a 4-serving box of Jello contains as much gelatin as a .25oz packet of unflavored gelatin powder (Knox). So, in order to test the ratio of the recipe with one 4-serving box of Jello, I added 80ml each of boiling water and vodka.

Unbelievably, it worked. The firmness of the gel seems just right for the purpose.

This is cherry Jello, so the color is too burgundy. Unfortunately, I had to do it again to say for sure that the flavor is OK. I had no Jello, but my next door neighbor had some sugar-free. I so fully didn't expect it to work that I didn't care that it was sugar-free even though I knew full well that aspartame at that concentration was going to be inedible (and I was right - UGH).

So, I went to the store today and bought an 8-serving package of Jello. This time I used strawberry flavor with real sugar. In a bizarre coincidence, I saw something else in the store that I had never before seen in the state of Alaska: Mini Watermelons.

WOW, so I got one of those too.

Here we go again. I mixed the double sized box of Jello with 160ml of boiling water and whisked until dissolved (that took a couple of minutes), then I mixed in 160ml of vodka. As that cooled on the counter I scooped out most of the flesh from half of the watermelon.

After chilling overnight, it's all over now but the cutting.

The only reason I felt the need to lean the slices up against the custard cup in that shot is that I sliced them too thin. I was trying to make up for the fact that the watermelon is tiny. Cut these suckers a good inch thick (2.5 cm) and they'll stand just fine.

So, it works. Use 6 8-serving or 12 4-serving boxes of Jello to 4 cups (946ml) each of boiling water and vodka.

I had just enough jello/water/vodka mixture left after filling the watermelon to make a shot of that plus a shot using the same ratio of Jello/gelatin/water/vodka as in the original recipe.

This stuff is so boozy, that I think the additional flavor and sugar of the all Jello version actually tastes better than the original recipe.

I'm shocked, but you don't need unflavored gelatin to make this silly thing.

EDIT: 24 Hours later, I've got to add this. As I was carving the flesh out of the watermelon rind yesterday, I realized that I was being silly to be so thorough, especially at the ends. I really only needed the center slice for the experiment and a photograph. So just now I knocked off the Jello from one of the end pieces to eat some watermelon. That was really good! It had absorbed some of the vodka and flavoring, but the texture was just like fresh watermelon. So if you do this, do it a day in advance and leave some of the flesh of the watermelon. You'll thank me :).


Making doughballs (dumplings) with strong brown flour and shredded suet In Scotland (and other parts of the British Isles) when making "mince and tatties" (cooked ground beef accompanied with boiled potatoes) it's not uncommon to cook doughballs, or dumplings in the mince near the end of the cooking process.

Normally I'd do this with self-raising white flour, shredded suet (using a product branded as Atora), water and a pinch of salt. However due to supply chain problems these days all I could get was strong brown flour and suet. What do I need to add to the mix that would give me the "self-raising" action? I'm thinking baking powder, but I don't know how much to add per 100g of brown flour to create "self-raising brown flour".

Any guidance would be appreciated.

In the UK self-raising flour doesn't have salt in it, SR flour is just fine plain flour with baking powder in it. In the UK to make a substitution you'd use 150g plain flour plus 2 tsp baking powder mixed in, 100g would be 1 1/3 tsp. In the US most SR flour has salt in it for some reason, so for completeness you would use all-purpose flour plus 2 tsp baking powder plus 1/2 tsp of salt.

Strong brown flour (whole wheat bread flour) isn't ideal for your doughballs as it has a lot of gluten, and the flour is courser, but it should work okay as long as you:

Add a small amount of water to help bind the dough if they don't stick well
Work the dough as little as possible. SR flour is generally lower in gluten, strong flour is high in gluten, if you work the gluten in the dough it may make your balls stretchy rather. The fat should help to minimize that, but it still helps to stop as soon as the mix is combined
Cook the doughballs longer. Bread flour is courser so may need more time to cook. They may absorb a bit more water than SR flour as well, so be prepared to top up the moisture if you are cooking them in a stew


Why did this bread not expand properly? I made a loaf of bread and scored the top with a razor to regulate its expansion as it baked. However, it had its own ideas and pretty much ignored mine, as below:

Why? And how can I produce a more beautiful loaf next time?

Most of the expansion did occur at your score, and you got a good rise, so I think you should not be too disheartened! It looks like you cut diagonally rather than downwards: this works well for rolls and smaller loaves, but I'd suggest the simpler cut for a full pan loaf. Scoring techniques are discussed here: https://food52.com/blog/13136-how-to-make-pretty-bread-like-a-pro.
For loafs baked in pans, I suggest making multiple diagonal scores across the top. I find this more attractive than a longitudinal scoring, and it also gives more places for the dough to expand.
Generally it is important to knead (or stretch and fold) the dough quite thoroughly before it proofs. This removes any large air pockets and ensures the remaining air is evenly distributed through the loaf. If you underproof the loaf then it may expand in unexpected ways in the oven, breaking through the skin. I recommend the 'poke' test.
Finally, you might try turning down the temperature slightly in the first 20 minutes: if the oven is too hot then the outside of the dough sets before the inside has finished expanding, causing unpredictable ruptures.


How do you grill a perfect burger? I'm a pretty good griller (gas barbeque).  I can turn out perfect steaks, fish, duck breasts, and even an entire leg of pork.  The one thing that eludes me is the simple burger.  Even with lean beef, I get constant flare-ups and greasy black smoke.  What's the trick to grilling the perfect burger?  (fresh meat, hand pressed, not a recipe question)

Edit: Definition of a perfect burger

Cooked through with just a suggestion of pink in the center.
Juicy on the inside - Your bun should soak up lots of beefy goodness after it's been bitten

Honestly, don't grill.

Don't run away!

Hamburgers were originally cooked in pans, not on grills. One of the reasons for this is thta with grilling you lose any fat and moisture that comes out of the burger.

So I use Heston Blumenthal's method now. While I tend to ignore the preparation elements (I have neither the time nor the money to hand-grind my burgers with a specific ratio of this cut to that cut to the other cut), the cooking method is flawless:

Make your burgers.

Over very low heat, place a pan with just a little oil (or bacon/duck fat, which is lovely). introduce burgers to pan. As soon as they release easily from the surface, flip. Thirty seconds later, flip. Repeat until cooked through. (fifteen to twentyish minutes).

This will give you the juiciest, most tender burgers you have ever had in your life. I promise. Essentially what you're doing is basting the burgers in their own fat.

Alternatively, if you have an immersion circulator, cook your burgers sous vide and then just mark on the grill when done. I've had burgers done this way and they are excellent.

Burgers will flare on the grill--that's all the fat (and therefore flavour) being squeezed out by the action of cooking and burning away.


No broiler - is there a way to fake it? My range (oven) does not have a broiler (grill), but I've been coming across recipes lately (for pizza, in particular) that require one.  Any suggestions on how to fake it?

One thing I've tried is to preheat a baking stone, placing it above where I'll put other things.  Unfortunately, it didn't work too well.

I hate to say this, but broiling a pizza IS faking it!

You could get one of those small electric ones that are popular with students and other one room living people for less than $20 - or just cook things right at the top of the oven (that works too well for me) - or use a blowlamp.

Personally, I don't need a broiler to reduce food to a charred mess ...


Alternative to arrowroot I have a lovely recipe (for stir-fried tofu) that uses arrowroot as its thickener. This is easy to use, and adds a nice subtle flavour of its own to the dish. However, I am now living somewhere where I can't find any - what would you recommend as an alternative? The flavours of the dish are quite delicate, and it is fried at a quite high heat.

Corn starch (aka cornflour) will usually work and is more readily available, but it won't work well for acidic sauces, where you'll want to use tapioca starch.  (aka. cassava flour; if all you can find is tapioca in granule form, grind it up first).

For a more thorough list of starch based thickeners and their alternatives, see Cook's Thesaurus: Thickeners


How do I make large spheres using spherification? I've had great success making 'caviar' with sodium alginate and calcium chloride. I've used both an eye dropper and a Parmesan shaker (when I needed a whole lot of spheres). But I've never been able to make the larger spheres, sometimes referred to as ravioli. I've had them in restaurants as big or slightly bigger than a grape. What's the technique to get them this large? Anything in particular I need to watch out for?

All you need to do is put the liquid on a spoon and slowly lower it into the bath while tipping so it falls off. It may take a few tries but it isn't difficult to master. Naturally, larger spheres are a bit more delicate so will require gentle handling to remove from bath, rinse, and plate.


How do I ensure that I cook scallops all the way through? Whenever I cook scallops, they tend to shrink up quickly and burn on the outside.  Even though I leave them in the pan for several minutes at a time, despite the shriveling and burning, they always end up raw in the middle.  The insides are cold, fishy tasting, and, to be honest, pretty nauseating.  What am I doing wrong?  I usually saute them in a little oil on high heat, flipping them every so often when the side touching the pan starts to brown and stick.  Scallops are my favorite food; please help!

Thanks!

Alyssa

High heat and quick cooking are essential for scallops. Several minutes cooking will result in fishy racquetballs.

Firstly, remove the scallops from the fridge half an hour or so before you cook them, so they're not stone cold (but don't put them anywhere warm or in the sun). Heat your olive oil in a pan until it starts to sizzle. Season the scallops, then place them in the oil. Don't move them for 90 seconds so they develop a nice crust. Once that's happened, turn them over and cook for another 90 seconds. That's it.

If you want to see the process, Gordon Ramsay's official YouTube channel has a couple of videos:

Part One
Part Two

(Part two follows straight on, so you can see how quickly they're done).


Why do some melons contain removeable dark tiny bits? Here's my procedure for cutting melons:

Wash the original whole under tap water.

Peel/unpeel the rind.

Wash the peeled melon again under tap water.

Wash my cutting board and entire knife.

Cut the peeled melon.
For convenience, call these tiny bits 'motes'. Possibilities for their origin:

Growth inside. But how can they originate from inside?

Originally on rind? They might've fastened to the knife while I cut the rind, and became transferred to the inside. But this looks unlikely: see 4 overhead.

Not growth inside
As you point out it is highly unlikely that these flecks are growth already in the melon when you cut it for a couple of reasons: 1) there's no wound shown in the fruit into which the contamination might have been introduced and 2) it seems you are finding them only on the cut surface, and the odds of cutting the fruit exactly where these very few and small bits happened to be are poor.
Unfortunately, after ruling that possibility out, it's difficult to know where else in your environment these bits might be coming from. The knife is the best possibility, as you guessed, so is your work surface, or your hands, or these could be tiny bits of ash from the air if you have a wood-burning stove, and so on.


What forms the pocket in Arabic/Pita bread? I have always been curious of why a pocket is formed in the Arabic/Pita bread, what causes it & why does it NOT happen frequently, for example, in flatbread with yeast, it doesn't split and form a full pocket.

What's the science behind it?

Thanks!

The crucial ingredient is water - which turns into steam in a very hot oven.

Let me explain based on a standard pita bread process. A comparatively simple dough (flour, water, salt, yeast) is kneaded, shaped into balls and left to rise. Before baking, the balls are rolled out in thin circles or ovals and baked on a hot surface, either a baking stone in an oven or even near an open fire.

The pocket is physics: the high heat causes the outside of the dough to become firm almost immediately, while the water in the dough turns into steam. The steam needs a lot more room than water, but the vapor is contained by the outer surface. The only way the expansion can happen is by swelling up like a balloon - and the upper and lower dough portions are separated, forming the pocket. Of course the pita isn’t fully airtight, so it will deflate again after baking as it cools, but the pocket remains.

For other flatbreads or flattish breads, baking temperature is significantly lower, so that the bread gets an overall texture of holes. An example is focaccia, where a good baker will be super careful to preserve the larger bubbles created by the yeast in a comparatively soft dough. Large bubbles in pita are purposely destroyed by rolling them out immediately before baking. If you look really closely, you will probably see that some pitas have more than one major cavity, often ripped up at a later stage. And of course there are lots of ways how a baker can influence the texture (large holes, uniform small holes, one pocket) by the raising, shaping and baking techniques they choose.


How to make a sauce using sugared citrus rinds? I finally separated the citrus rinds (orange and lemon) from  the citrus sugar. All the bits of rind are small. With them I was planning on making a citrus sauce to go on top of my brownies and was wanting help on what flavors would go with citrus rind and how much rind to use?

I have lots of blueberries and a few raspberries available as well.

EDIT:

I ended up using raspberries, citrus (orange/lemon) rind, cranberries and sugar. It tasted so good on the brownies!

There are noted resources for flavor pairing, many of which you can find on this site.  Check out flavor.  You'll find:

Why some flavors work better together than others
A list of books and websites providing information on flavor combinations, including suggestions for

FoodPairing
Khymos
The Flavor Thesaurus
cuuks (here's a start for your combo)
The Flavor Bible

How to determine if two ingredients will go well together

For your specific question of what goes well with citrus rind, you already know chocolate is a good match and that you are putting the sauce on brownies.  Nuts in your brownies will be a good match too, especially pecans.  Caraway, thyme, cardamom, or black pepper might add an unexpected note with orange.  Rosemary is a very nice match for lemon.  I recently made cookies using orange zest and black pepper that came out quite well.

If you want the citrus flavor to dominate I would leave out the berries.  Otherwise I'd definitely use the raspberries, which go well with citrus.  The bluberries would be fine, but I wouldn't consider them your best choice.


What's the difference between fresh and frozen blueberries for baking? A recipe I have has a review that states that frozen blueberries in a blueberry muffin are absolute garbage and only fresh ones will give you that desired taste. I have also seen this answer that notes that frozen blueberries that are thawed will give a better taste and composition in a blueberry muffin.

My wife insists that fresh blueberries are the only real way to make blueberry muffins, and that frozen blueberries are usually rotten, and aren't as real (she cites the fact that when baked, frozen thawed blueberries come out blue, but fresh ones come out purple.

Is there any real life merit to her claims? From a baking standpoint, what's the difference between frozen and non-frozen?

When you are making blueberry muffins, frozen and fresh blueberries will give different end results. Frozen blueberries will almost "melt" when you bake the muffins, because the skin becomes more fragile after freezing. If you use fresh blueberries, they will be more intact after baking and will sometimes still "burst" when you bite into them. Which of these outcomes you prefer is entirely subjective (though obviously frozen are better).

As for the taste, some blueberries will have more taste than others. If they are grown out of season, they will most likely be flavourless. This goes for both fresh and frozen blueberries. I've found a brand of frozen blueberries that I use for muffins that give a have a nice taste year around: others may be terrible.

For the remark your wife made about frozen blueberries being rotten: I don't know where you live, but that is most certainly forbidden in the US and Europe, and probably most places where frozen blueberries are available. That is the only part of her argument that was most definitely wrong. Everything else is subjective or depends on the specific brand of blueberries or even the time of year.