Umbrella term for the 'ingredients' and 'utensils' of a recipe? So every (good) recipe enumerates several lists of things:

Ingredients: a list of all the foods/seasonings/etc. that you'll use when following the recipe
Utensils: a list of all the tools, utensils and appliances that you'll use when following the recipe

My question: Is there an umbrella term for both ingredients and utensils? Meaning, some term that implies both of them?

In other words, instead of maintaining two lists, 1 for ingredients, and 1 for utensils, I'd like to make 1 master list of everything you'd need for a recipe. What would I call that master list?!?

(Not-so-pro-tip: it can't be "recipe" because the recipe is the algorithm you follow to produce some final dish.)

Supplies

(which is way too short of an answer for the site to accept on its own)


Stiff vs Liquid Starter, what are the differences between hydration in a sourdough starter? I stumbled on the concept of a stiff starter from Northwest Sourdough Baker
and have kept a high hydration starter (100% hydration) since I started baking.
Was wondering what notable differences do Stiff/Liquid starters have with one another
(apart from the obvious hydration percentages).
Note:
It's noted that stiff starters have a higher acidity when baking,
but I also wonder if anyone has experience working with stiff starters.
As of posting, I've started a stiff starter, will update if I have anything to update.

So it seems that there's not a vast difference between stiff vs liquid starters if we're comparing it's usage for home bakers like myself.
However, from experimentation, there's subtle differences in the way that you feed, store and refeed the starters that have yield different results in the final baked product.
Context
Stiff starters, also known as pasta madre (italian for mother dough) is typically used in panettone. Due to the richness of panettone, isn't isn't easy for gluten development in a rich mixture as compared to plain sourdough bread (as noted when trying to make sourdough brioche/cookies vs bread etc).
The obvious differences between stiff vs liquid starters in the final product.

Stiff

can generally be keep longer in the fridge if wrapped (doesn't develop hooch/grey skin)
has a more sour taste
due to the lower hydration of the starter, dough shaping is a bit easier/more forgiving

Recommendations:

use in rich doughs, bread loaf pan (develops tight texture, very enjoyable to eat)

Liquid

need to kept in an airtight container to prevent hooch (you'll still have it, but its less dominant than compared to a loose sealed container).
turns grey within 5-7 days, which should still be usable
haven't found it as sour compared to stiff starters
need to be precise with water hydration (I tend to get more liquid doughs)

Recommendations: use for sourdough, wholewheat etc


What is the name of this Israeli street food? When I was in Israel a few years back I tried this really great street food. I had gotten the recipe, but now have lost it and don't remember what it was called. It is a cross between a pancake and a bread. The one I had had za'atar, thin sliced tomatoes, and red onion fried into one side and was flipped over. Does anyone know what this is called?

I was able to track down the dish. It is called Lahuhe. There is a picture of it here. Thank you to everyone for trying to help me out.


How to roast pork shoulder? I used to cook pork shoulder in a slow cooker, however found that this didn't render any of the fat out of it. I prefer a leaner meat, so I figure roasting this in the oven and letting the fat drip out of it would be good. So I want to know how to properly roast a pork shoulder as well as any helpful tips.

Properly?

You throw it in a pit with hard wood coals for at least 8 hours. Of course we don't refer to that as roasting. :)

Oven roasting is easier. Turn the oven on to 250F or so. Put something flavorful on the roast. Stick in a probe thermometer and put it in the oven.

Remove when the thermometer reads 150F. Let it rest for a few minutes before carving.

For more color and fat rendering you can roast at 450F for 10 minutes before dropping the oven to 250F and putting in the thermometer.

Flavorings are varied of course. Apple works well.


Why does holding ice cream mix improve flavor? Why does holding ice cream mix overnight prior to churning improve the flavor of ice cream when it is finally made?

This is true, empirically in my experience, even for simple Philadelphia style ice creams with very simple flavorings such as vanilla and coffee.

Ice Cream Science - Aging the mix was the best reference I could find, though I haven't had a chance to look at Modernist Cuisine and Food and Cooking yet. Basically, it improves mouthfeel, allows more air to be retained (this could be good or bad depending on your opinion of overflow), and helps slow melting. All of the cited reasons have more to do with mouthfeel and texture, rather than taste though.

  (i) Absorption of Emulsifiers

  Two important changes take place during the aging process. First, the
  emulsifiers (lecithin from the egg yolks) absorb to the surface of the
  fat droplets, creating a weaker membrane that is more susceptible to
  partial coalescence.

  When the mix is frozen in the ice cream machine, it undergoes partial
  coalescence, during which clumps of the fat globules form and build an
  internal fat network (Marshall et. al, 2003). These fat globule clumps
  are responsible for stabilsing the air cells and creating a
  semi-continuous network of fat throughout the product resulting in a
  smooth texture and resistance to meltdown  (Tharp et al, 1998).

  (ii) Crystallisation of fat

  Second, the fat inside the droplets begins to crystallise. Nearly
  complete crystallisation is needed to promote coalescence of fat
  globules during freezing (Marshall et al., 2003). Cooling mix to 0-2°C
  increase the rate of crystallisation. Barfod et al., 1991, showed that
  crystallisation of fat  in a mix containing 10% fat requires at least
  4 hours.

  If you do not sufficiently age your mix, your ice cream can suffer
  from defects similar to those found in mixes with no added
  emulsifiers: less retention of shape and relatively fast meltdown
  (Marshall et al., 2003). It will also be difficult to stabilise air
  bubbles during the whipping stage, resulting in a hard chewy texture.


How do I clean off bread stuck to a non-flat / patterened cast iron pan? If this was a normal pan I'd be scraping it with a metal spatula right now, but it's a custom shaped pan (for making novelty shape bread/cupcakes). There are no flat spots, just a lot of grooves and curves. Should I be using a plastic or otherwise non-scratchy tool to scrape out one part at a time, or is there some other approach?

You should not use metal on cast iron or may damage the seasoning. It is best to clean it while still hot with a brush to get into the grooves and never use dish soap. Some coarse salt can help get rid of burnt on areas. Then reheat and coat with a bit of oil to protect the coating/seasoning. Patterned cast iron is difficult to season and may take more time developing a good seasoning.


How to throw a pizza dough? If there are different instructions for different sizes, those would be appreciated as well.

How to throw dough, a basic step by step guide.

Make sure you have a dough that can stand up to being airborne.  This means that you need a high gluten dough.  You can throw wetter doughs as you get more experienced but they require much more precise hand placement and are much less forgiving.
Make sure your dough is fully risen with out being "blown".  It should be elastic and soft to the touch.
Coat dough in flour.  This step is necessary to allow free spinning on your hands and to get good, clean releases.
Create crust. You can use the method that daniel describes, you can use the Papa John's fold and tuck method, you can do it like this video, it doesn't matter as long as you end up with a piece of dough that is flat over the interior with a ridge going around the outside.
You should be comfortable with in-air hand stretching before you get to the actual throwing.  This is when you place the dough on the backs of your hands, support it with your knuckles and stretch it out.  This position is a great way to start a basic toss that won't rip your dough as you will be catching with the backs of your hands and not your fingers. You want to release the dough by having your right hand provide upward thrust as your left hand provides spin. This will provide a straight up toss that is very easy to catch.
The way to do the more advanced throws is learn to release from your finger tips.  This involves having your fingers rest along the ridge that we made in step four.  You can check out a quick tutorial starting at 2:17 on this video. Feel free to ignore the rest of it, but it was the best explanation I found online.  Basically, you want the dough to hang in such a way as to allow you to impart spin and momentum with just one hand, while other is occasionally used as a stabilizer.  This allows tricks like the roll and the through the legs and all the others.

Important tips that will help you be successful at learning this skill.

Cold dough is more elastic than warm dough.  That means its terrible for pizza but great for practicing.  It also resists puncture a little better, so less holes.

A damp kitchen towel has about the same aerodynamics as a piece of dough.  It's what I used to train the guys at my restaurant on for extra practice, and it's way cheaper than one of those rubber doughs.

The dough should always be spinning in the air.  If it's not, you aren't doing it right.

Throwing dough can result in a very thin middle. You want to make sure that you are stretching evenly and keeping an eye on that if you intend to use the dough for it's actual purpose of delicious pizza.

Practice, Practice! Throwing dough is a physical skill and you have to train your muscles a little to be good at it. It can be a little frustrating at first but stick with it, it's a lot of fun.
If you have any additional concerns leave a comment and I'll do my best answer them.


Does the "Game of Thrones" browned butter pie crust technique make any sense? In yesterday's Game of Thrones episode ("Stormborn"), Arya Stark compliments the young character Hot Pie's most recent pie. He replies

  The secret is browning the butter before making the dough. Most people don't do that 'cause it takes up too much time.

For context, this is a double-crust meat pie. Game of Thrones is set in a world that is technologically similar to our European Middle Ages.

I've always heard that one of the most important elements of making a flaky pie crust is keeping the fat as cold as possible right up until the pie goes into the oven. Is there any technique for pie dough that includes browned butter that would make a great crust?

Notes: I thought at first that the browned butter must be an ingredient in the filling, but the reference to dough makes me doubt this. Also, Game of Thrones has had recipe advice in the past that sounded crazy but is actually based in real culinary practices, namely, Hot Pie's Cherry Crumble topped with ground cherry pits. Finally, in looking around for an answer, I came across this technique for making crust with a mixture of flour/fat paste + more flour, which sounds promising but doesn't mention anything about browned butter.

Added: This isn't part of the question, but I was originally interested in what makes such a technique work compared to a cold butter crust.

Any kind of crust that doesn't use cold fat could be made with brown butter easily. You can make crust by melting butter (with water and oil) then adding flour, and it's flaky - though not exactly the same texture as you get with cold fat. So just do that, except brown the butter first.

Or you could brown the butter, cool it til solid, and make a crust with a more normal recipe. I don't know if I've seen a pie crust calling for that, but I've seen it in cookies. I doubt it'd be exactly the same texture as with unmodified cold butter, because you lose some of the fat crystal structure in the butter, but it'd probably still be fine, and it'd taste like brown butter, which I assume is the goal.


A proper way to cook Mi Goreng noodles? I've purchased a 30 pack box of these delicious noodles and I'd like advice on how to cook them properly. From past experiences, I've either used too much water which made them soggy and very soft which doesn't retain the Thai flavor. So any advice would be nice (how much water to use, drain the water out afterwards, cook for how long, temperature etc). Help?

@ElendilTheTall's answer would probably make some pretty badass Mi Goreng, but the whole point of packet Mi Goreng is to be a 2 minute meal in the least work possible.

The way I make Mi Goreng is to cook the noodles in a small pot until they're just cooked (a little firmer than you prefer to eat them).
Quickly drain them, throw them back in the same pot and add all the seasonings except the fried onion.
Put the pot back on the hot briefly (or just use the residual heat from the element) and stir the noodles all around. Basically stir frying them within the pot.
Tip them out into a bowl and add the fried onion sachet (or just eat from the pot).

This always works pretty well for me, I get a result that isn't too far in consistency from the real thing.

PS. Mi Goreng are Indonesian, not Thai :)


Will putting a salted steak into a preheated stainless steel pan cause pitting? Typically when I cook steak, I salt/pepper it and then leave it out for a while to warm up.  Next, I preheat my non-stick pan, put in olive oil, and add the steak.

However, I recently bought a set of All Clad stainless steel pans.  I’ve never cooked with stainless steel before and am worried about pitting.

Will adding a pre-salted steak to a preheated stainless steel pan (coated in olive oil) result in pitting? If so, how/when should I salt to avoid pitting?

I don't think so. The contact time is so short. These pans are meant to take a beating. They are very high quality SS. If it bothers you, get a cheap cast iron pan for this type of thing, it's what I do. You can read more here

  Pitting corrosion - The passive layer on stainless steel can be
  attacked by certain chemical species. The chloride ion Cl- is the most
  common of these and is found in everyday materials such as salt and
  bleach. Pitting corrosion is avoided by making sure that stainless
  steel does not come into prolonged contact with harmful chemicals or
  by choosing a grade of steel which is more resistant to attack. The
  pitting corrosion resistance can be assessed using the Pitting
  Resistance Equivalent Number calculated from the alloy content.


What is the purpose of the light coating of flour in a three-step bound breading? I've always understood "bound breading" to refer to a three-step process, performed with chicken or other meats that have been portioned and patted dry:

Dredge through (seasoned) flour and shake off the excess;
Coat with beaten egg, slightly thinned (with water, milk, etc.);
Coat with an even layer of desired breading (crumbs, more seasoned flour, etc).

Recently, I came across this web page which describes bound breading as a two-step process, excluding the first step of dredging in flour. It occurred to me that, although I've always done bound breading this way, it seems like the thin layer of flour between the meat and the egg mixture would actually work against the breading sticking firmly to the meat. And yet, this is the way a bound breading is done in all the recipes and cookbooks I've encountered previously.

What is the purpose of that first light coating of flour, structurally speaking? Obviously if you use seasoned flour, you're adding seasoning; but does it really make the breading stick any better through the cooking process?

The flour as the first dredging step does help the rest of the breading stick. Think traction. It gives the egg something to hold on to, which then holds on to the breadcrumbs. You're right, the vast majority of recipes that call for this kind of breading call for a three step process. That's because it works better. I've done it with and without the initial flour dredge. With is better. Considerably.


I have a bottle of unopened 23 year old corked spanish white cooking wine with laurel leaves steeping in it as well. I bought it at the Placio De Espania in 1992. Would it still be safe for use?

Yes, barring something really bizarre, it is safe.

It probably sucks, but the best way to know for sure is to taste it.

Know one thing, it is not any more "aged" in a positive way now than it was 23 years ago. It's just older. For more information check out the Wiki, Aging of Wine.


What kind of stabilizers can I use when making souffles, Japanese cheesecake or egg beaten products? I would like to know more about effective stabilizers for egg-based cakes and similar dishes. I've heard that some people use gelatine, but wouldn't that make the cake ( Japanese cheesecake) have a jelly texture? Are there other options if this is the case as I want to preserve the light, egg-y fluffiness of these dishes?

For non-culinary reasons, I would offer substitutions to gelatin;

As for a powerful stabilizer akin to gelatin but that doesn't precisely gel (go to pectin for that), when you are heating the food I have found agar to be a pretty effective stabilizer in vegan quiche that rely on a silken tofu base.
I have used it to stabilize cheesecakes, pudding pies, and puree
based pies and been pleased each time.
As for a middling stabilizer/thickener, i.e. if you don't want to
veer nearer to the gelatin edge, you can try tapioca flour; per
Isa Chandra Moskovitz, "[sometimes tapioca flour can be used]
interchangeably with corn-starch in recipes, but we feel it does have
a different kind of cooked texture (thicker, gooier)."[VPITS
p.7]


How to make a "Winter queen" cocktail? A few days ago, I had a cocktail called "Winter queen". It may have been a specialty of the place where I had it, I couldn't find any recipe for it when I searched for it. The menu listed it as "a hot chocolate beverage with rum, topped with cream".

Based on the taste, I can say that the thing had rather low alcohol content, but the rum aroma was fairly strong. Also, I am not sure what liquid they used for the chocolate "beverage" - there must have been some milk in it, but I don't think it was straight full-fat milk. I suspect that it also had other spices, maybe some vanilla, and it was slightly sweet, but not oversweetened. The cream was only a swirl of whipped cream from a NO-bottle, with some chocolate-deco sprinkles on top.

I tried to copy it at home, but couldn't get the same result. I started with semi-sweet chocolate, melted with sweetened milk, added vanilla aroma, a pinch of salt, and Bacardi Gold rum. With a small amount of rum, it didn't have enough taste. When I added more rum, it got very bitter and alcoholic. Also, something with the fat content wasn't right - the original drink was less rich, but still quite smooth, unlike water-based hot chocolate.

Should I have tried to do it some other way? Did I use the wrong rum? Would it have helped to cook the rum first, so some of the alcohol evaporates? Is there a better way to mix it? And what about the smooth-without-fat problem?

I never heard of "Winter Queen" cocktail

But if you're talking about the "SNOW QUEEN COCKTAIL", I found the recipe here:

  Snow Queen Cocktail Recipe

  Snow Queen Cocktail Ingredients

  1 part vanilla vodka
  1 part Bailey's Irish Cream
  1 part creme de menthe
  3 parts Fresh Single Cream
  3 parts milk
  1 dash chocolate syrup

  Instructions

  Mix the Vanilla Vodka, Baileys and Creme de Menthe with ice in a shaker then drain into a glass omitting the ice (or you can cheat/skip this part by chilling the Vodka and Baileys in a fridge). Then add the Cream and a dash of Chocolate Syrup, stir, add the Milk and stir again.

  This is based on the recipe for the popular but seasonal Snow Queen served in Revolution Vodka bars. Now you don't have to wait until Winter to get one! Note: All the ingredients should be correct but the Milk and Fresh Cream measurements are a best guess. Experiment and enjoy :)


Spicy soy, seed bitterness and placental capsaicin If you read this Is seeding peppers a must when making hot sauce it is made pretty clear that chili seeds contain little or no capsaicin but are bitter.

I have personally experienced (and then made) a very hot condiment made by cracking chili seeds with a spoon and mixing them into soy sauce then leaving it to stand. It was pretty potent but the seeds could well have traces of the placenta attached to them.

Is the spiciness entirely attributable to capsaicin from placental contamination? Or is there some other mechanism at play?

It's not that they contain no capsaicin - they do contain some - about 5 mg/g dry weight, compared to 7 mg/g for the main pericarp (the fleshy part that you eat), but most of it is in the placenta/veins (64 mg/g).

The spiciness is attributable to the presence of capsaicin and other polyphenolics in the seeds, and probably some placental contamination too. I have no reference for this, but I doubt that many industrial methods of extracting the seeds will remove all of the placenta from the seed or work so carefully that some of the juice from the placenta isn't coated onto the seeds in some manner.

It is also likely that you are adding a relatively high amount of seeds to a small volume and infusing from there. In addition you are breaking the seeds up a little so you will be able to extract more of the heat than you might with intact seeds.

Normally when I make the chili/soy sauce, I add some sesame oil to help extract the capsaicin and act as a vehicle to enhance the flavour/heat - perfect with some Jiaozi/potstickers.


Refreezing Fish? Safe? So I bought some Atlantic salmon 2 days ago and put it in the freezer soon as we got it from the grocery.

Anyways last night I put it in the fridge to thaw out for today, well today's plan's got moved around and I didn't have a chance to cook it.....so I put it back in the freezer.

Is this safe? (if I decide to dethaw it again for the fridge)?

As far as food safety goes, you are fine:
Neither was the fish in the danger zone for the thawing, nor did you store it in the fridge for too long, even considering the second thaw in the future.

However, the food quality suffers from each freeze/thaw cycle:
Ice crystals damage cell walls and causes loss of liquid, which you then find in the freezer bag or in the pan instead of in your meat, meaning your fish can end up drier than unfrozen or after one cycle. Proper freezing technique minimizes that effect.
Note that sloppy cooking technique can be far worse with regard to dry fish... so unless you do repeated freeze/thaw cycles, you will probaby still very much enjoy your fish.


How long can a packet of sliced ham be used once opened? When buying ham slices from supermarket, I get like 10 slices in them. I want to use it for a week.
But the packing says when once opened it should be used within 2 days. So it seems like the 8 slices just always goes into bin. Is it safe for me to keep it from Monday to Friday?
And is there a way to store them?

When you buy the sliced meat, take out what you'll use in two days and freeze the rest. If you put wax paper in between portions that you would eat in one serving, or use separate baggies, you only need to pull out what you need. The package might recommend against freezing (for best quality, not safety), but a week or two in the freezer will cause no harm at all.

Personally, I find the 2 day limit a bit extreme, a week should be fine (see luncheon meat on the accepted answer here: How long can I store a food in the pantry, refrigerator, or freezer?). But if you would rather not risk it, the above should work well for you.


Cookies sticking to plate After I bake cookies I let them cool on the pan for 3-5 minutes then move them to a plate.

However I have noticed the next day the cookies on the bottom stick to the plate, then break into small pieces if I try to remove them.

What should I do different so the bottom cookies do not stick to the plate?

you need to let them cool completely on a wire rack before moving them to a plate or sealed container.

This will prevent the starch on the bottoms from steaming onto the plate.


What turned my garlic purple? I commonly use a technique when caramelizing onions, in which I add the sliced onions to a pan with salt, oil, and water. The water softens the onions and helps cook them evenly such that by the time it all boils away, they caramelize quickly and evenly.

I decided to use this technique on garlic the other day, when making a garlic and oil sauce for pasta, and was surprised to find that the garlic turned a fairly vivid shade of purple!

What happened? Was it some reaction the garlic had to the boiling? Or could it have been a reaction with the cast iron pan I was using?

From UC Davis:

  Question: Why did my garlic turn blue?
  Answer: Garlic contains anthocyanins, water-soluble pigments that can turn blue or purple under acidic conditions. This is a variable phenomenon that is more pronounced for immature garlic but can differ among cloves within a single head of garlic. If you grow your own garlic, be sure to mature it at room temperature for a couple of weeks before using it.


Preheat or do not preheat an enameled cast-iron dutch oven? I am ready to make a pot roast in an enameled cast-iron dutch oven. I know I should brown the meat on the stove before putting it in the oven. I have heard conflicting advice as to whether or not to preheat the dutch oven before putting the oil in it to brown the meat. Which advice is correct?

As a follow-up question, should the meat be at room temperature before putting in the dutch oven to brown?

(General advice about making a pot roast in a dutch oven also welcomed! I have a 2 lb. roast and some potatoes.)

With enameled cast-iron, I don't bother to heat the pot before adding the oil. For something that's open-pored, like plain cast-iron or carbon steel (like an old-school crepe pan), it's better to preheat the pan. I can't see any chemical advantage to preheating enameled, as it's inert and non-porous. Of course everything DOES need to be properly hot before you add the meat.

I can take or leave letting my roast get to room temp when doing a braise. It's going to be in the oven/pot long enough that it's going to be cooked to 200+ degrees all the way through no matter what. The only possible advantage of letting it warm up on the counter is that it will take marginally less time to cook. And by marginally, I mean you probably won't even notice, on the scale of pot roast cooking time. For a steak or a rib roast where you want the middle warm without the outside being totally dry and charred, room temp helps a lot.

The only real tip I can give on pot roast is to use the right cut of meat. You want something from the shoulder, which usually means chuck. It has an excellent mix of rich meaty flavor, collagen/connective tissue (which makes that gelatin thats critical to the silky mouthfeel of pot roast and BBQ), and fat. You can also use something from the leg (shank) or tail, which also have loads of connective tissue, but they're usually a little low on actual meat. If you get the right cut of meat and cook it low and long enough to get that collagen rendered, it's pretty hard to mess up the rest of it.


Can I cook apple peels in my applesauce in a cheesecloth bundle? I like to include the peels when I make applesauce to get the benefit of the nutrients in the peels*, but I strain them out afterward for the sake of texture. This is a messy, sticky, time-consuming process, and it makes it harder to maintain a chunky texture to the applesauce.

It occurred to me today that perhaps I could make a sort of bouquet garni with the peels in a cheesecloth pouch and then just lift that out afterward (maybe give it a quick squeeze). Would this work? Would the cheesecloth change the flavor of the sauce? Any other concerns I should watch out for?

*I do know the difference isn't huge, but old habits die hard.

You might be better off using a synthetic jam-straining bag. These have larger holes and are less absorbent and easier to clean. You will also extract more of the pulp from the layer of fruit stuck to the peel.


Why are my canning lids popped out? My wife has been trying to can some foods using the canning techniques that she's familiar with from Romania, but with the American-style canning jars and lids that we get here. This involves packing the jar with the canned goods, filling the jar with boiled brine to near the top, and then manually closing the lid. The jars are not immersed in boiling water with their lids on, as is recommended by most American canning guides.

Is this technique safe? Why do American canning guides insist on boiling the jar after it's closed?
Several of our jars, after cooling, have the lids popped out and slightly convex rather than concave. Is this a problem? What causes this?

If you are seeing this effect after the jars have been in storage for a long period, do not eat the contents! This is a sign of botulism due to improper canning; the bacteria often (but not always) produce gas as they grow spores.

If this is happening immediately after the canning process, it is probably because you are not creating a proper vacuum seal.  There are three accepted methods for doing this: Thermal exhaust, mechanical sealing (i.e. using a chamber vac) and steam displacement AKA steam injection.  See the link for more information; the second two require specialized equipment, so thermal exhaust is what's normally done in a home setting.

In the thermal exhaust method, you get the contents very hot (71-82° C), which causes them to expand and release gases (air and carbon dioxide).  After sealing and cooling, the subsequent contraction will create a vacuum seal.  This is the most common method of home canning.

If you dump in hot brine and immediately seal the container, you are doing the opposite of this. Since the heat takes a while to distribute, you are causing this initial expansion when the jar is already closed, and this will force more gases up into the headspace and probably pop or warp the lid; if you're unlucky, it might even break the container.

Is this method safe?  No.  How unsafe it is depends on the acidity.  Low acid foods must be processed in a pressure canner.  That includes the majority of vegetables and especially garlic, peppers, etc.  The main reason is botulism; the anaerobic environment is perfect for the C.botulinum bacteria, but spores cannot grow in high-acid environments with pH < 4.6.  If the food is high-acid or has been acidified (i.e. pickled) then you don't need to worry, but with low-acid food you must kill all the bacteria and spores, and botulism spores are extremely heat-resistant.

In fact, they are so heat resistant that you cannot even kill them reliably in boiling water.  That is why you need a pressure canner, to get the temperature all the way up to 121° C / 250° F, and you need to hold it there for at least 3 minutes.  That is the only way to safely can low-acid food. Simply boiling it isn't good enough, and pouring in some boiling brine definitely isn't enough.

For high-acid foods, such as jams, a hot water bath is OK. This still involves boiling the entire jar after it's been closed, but you don't need a pressure canner.  Pouring boiling liquid into a jar of cold or warm food will still not get the food up to a sufficient temperature, and even if it did, you would still need to sterilize the jar itself; that's done by boiling the whole apparatus.  In this case you're not worried about botulism (since it can't grow in those conditions), but you still have to kill the other kinds of household bacteria, which don't have heat-resistant spores.

Since canning is intended to preserve the food, i.e. for long-term storage, you have to be a whole lot more careful about bacteria. You can't leave any opportunity for it to grow.  Lots of people can the way your wife does and don't get sick, but it is a risky proposition, and I would strongly recommended you use safer methods, especially if guests or children are involved.


How To Tell When Corn is Done With Boiling When boiling corn, how can I tell when it's done?

I usually remove the husk and silk.  Would there be any advantage to leaving them on when boiling?

It does depend on the corn.

Eat some raw... Notice the starchy taste (Still yummy, just starchy)

What you want to do is boil it just enough to drive out the starchy taste.

I would get 3 cobs, break them in half, and pull one out every minute.

Then have a taste test.


Why did my meringue deflate and go soft? I used 8 egg whites with sugar and beat it. It was so stiff that I could actually maybe cut it with a knife and make a sculpture out of it.

I preheated the oven to 150 degrees and baked it at 140. The meringue deflated and was soft and quite a disaster.

Can anyone please tell me where I went wrong? What made it soggy and deflated? It did not even start to crack. There was not a single crack in the base.

How long did you cook it for?  If it did not form a good crust in the oven it would deflate.  If you used 140 on fan forced oven it could be too hot, which would rise and brown the outsides without forming a crisp crust.

Usually the rule is to turn the oven off and let it cool completely before removing from the oven, but without the recipe or knowing if there was an intention of "softness", its hard to give specifics.


Carrot soup and avoiding the use of a blender? Most recipes for carrot soup I encounter require a final stage of blending/whizzing to get the creamy texture. Eg:

recipe1

recipe2

recipe3

Can the blender/whizzer be avoided? How must the recipes be modified in that case?

One way to modify the recipes (but you won't get the smooth texture of the original recipes) is to cut the onion and carrot a lot smaller than the original recipe ask for. You want to almost dice it. When you are frying the onion and carrot in the pan, do it for like 1-2 min rather than the whole 5 minutes. And finally you will need to cook it in the stock for much longer than the recipe asks. You want to bring the stock to a boil then let it simmer covered to allow the carrot to become really soft. Then use something with a big flat surface(a large wooden spoon or something similar) to help you mash the rest against the side of the stock pot. The results will come out a lot lumpier than the orginal recipes but some texture and "unblended" bits of carrot is actually pretty good in carrot soup.


Is there a difference between coca, focaccia and pizza? I've made a number of pizza's and coca's lately and I thought about making a focaccia... When reading about coca, focaccia was mentioned, and when reading about focaccia, pizza was mentioned.

I have an excellent book on Italian cooking, it explains that focaccia is unleavened (no yeast) because of the climate. However, the wikipedia states that it does contain yeast...

The pizza I make has yeast and some olive oil. The coca has baking powder and lots of oil, and the focaccia also has lots of oil, but no yeast nor baking powder.

But I've seen recipes with coca's with yeast and less oil (=pizza recipe)...

So, is there a clear definition or is it just the name you care to use?

First of all is coca a Spanish dish with huge variety. A coca can just as well be made of thin yeast dough with savory topping (similar to an Italian pizza but not necessarily with cheese) as well as sponge-cake-like (leavened just with the beaten eggs or with baking soda) with sweet topping.

Foccacia also comes in many varieties, but typical foccacia is made of yeast dough, about one inch thick, which is sprinkled with olive oil and herbs before baking. Foccacia can also be made thinner and without yeast, but that makes a much crispier bread. It may be topped with other ingredients, but does not have to and if it is topped, it is mostly only a simple topping like olives, onions or cheese. It is usually not eaten alone, but as a side dish. Here is a typical foccacia, topped with black olives.

Pizza dough is very similar to foccacia, but in Italy, a pizza is always much thinner. The thick American style pizza is not common in Italy. Except for the thickness, the difference between foccacia and pizza is much more in the topping. A pizza is almost always topped with at least tomatoes or tomato sauce and cheese and mostly with other savory ingredients.


When making yogurt, why doesn't bad bacteria grow as well? I've been making Yogurt and Coconut Yogurt for a long time. I've always wondered why one can't leave milk out for more than an hour or so without it going off, yet when adding cultures or probiotics all of a sudden this isn't a concern.

The initial heating of the milk, besides denaturing proteins to improve the texture, also pasteurizes the milk.

The culture needs to be added in a high enough concentration to crowd out harmful bacteria that might exist.

That said, if your tools or containers are dirty or if your starter is dead, or you don't add enough starter, your yogurt can grow accidental bacteria and go off.

Note
As Bob1 commented, this applies to the first few hours of fermentation before the milk has become acidic enough to inhibit other microbes.


Frying in a microwave? So I like to eat a cooked lunch, but my work break room only has a microwave - incapable of producing the Maillard reaction and only good for reheating decaying food into a disgusting, soggy pap.

I understand that oil doesn't warm up in a microwave because the electrons don't resonate at the right frequency, unlike water.

However... a mixture of water and oil would transfer the heat to the oil, right? So all I need do is mix together water and oil in a cup, microwave on full power till all the water is gone and the oil is at 100C, then add my stir fry ingredients.

Has anyone tried this? Will it work?

While creative, this sounds like an especially poor idea, fraught with disaster.

If the water turns into vapor at 100 C, it certainly would not transfer all that heat to the surrounding oil before leaving as steam, so I'd think you would never reach your desired oil temperatures if your goal was 100 C.  Plus, as pointed out, in another answer, your food would be in this cold soggy mixture of oil and water until it reached it's maximum possible temperature.  And then, once the water is gone, the oil would immediately start losing that peak temperature as it heats the food and gives up it's own energy, with no way to replenish it, except maybe the container getting very, very hot.
If it did heat the oil to a hot enough temperature, and the water wasn't instantly evaporated, which seems physically impossible..... well, what happens when even a droplet of water hits any amount of hot oil?  That kind of volume of water and hot oil seems explosively dangerous.  Plus, it would make an awful mess out of the microwave, potentially.
If you can get the oil heated to 100 C..... then what?  Even a "low" frying temperature is going to be well in excess of 150 C.  At 100 C I'd imagine the result would be a soggy, greasy, inedible abomination, not much better than the decaying pap you are trying to avoid.
You're going to deep fry in a microwave at work? Aside from the mess, is your breakroom really set up to manage the waste oil after you are done?  This all seems to be somewhat inconsiderate to your co-workers. Wouldn't it be better to re-heat leftovers or made-for microwave meals instead of trying to cook raw foods?


Amish Friendship Bread starter with buttermilk I saw a recipe for an Amish Friendship Bread that called for buttermilk in the starter and feedings.  If I made this and gave some away, are the recipients now required to continue to feed the starter with buttermilk or can they feed it like a normal starter?  I don't want to make this one if it is forever required to "eat" buttermilk.

Probably not...

Though there are plenty of starters that include dairy, instant mashed potatoes, fruits, etc to inoculate or feed the starter; the goal of any starter culture is to grow and maintain a of yeasts that can efficiently and effectively raise bread, normally wheat or rye-based bread.  Any ingredient added to a starter other than water and wheat/rye, in my opinion, only increases the chances of ruining a perfectly good starter through contamination. The species of yeasts and bacteria that flourish in milk or on fruit may lead to off-flavors.  In cultured buttermilk (widely available in the US) the milk is first pasteurized then inoculated with a mixture of bacteria to produce the tangy flavor and thicker texture.  Unfortunately, this often includes bacteria from the genus Leuconostoc which are known to cause off-flavor in starter cultures and their resultant breads.

On the Other Hand...

Unlike sourdough starters (where a procession of bacteria acidify the mixture to the point where only wild yeast and certain bacteria will happily live there) your buttermilk starter probably has a pH around 4.5.  This is the pH where commercial yeast functions optimally, lower than that (pH 4) the yeast will produce less gas, a lot lower (pH 3) they won't produce any gas at all and may die off.  Refreshing the starter regularly with a mixture of buttermilk and flour provides food for the yeast and helps maintain that optimum pH.

If your friend stopped feeding the starter with the buttermilk mixture and just used a flour & water mixture, I suspect it might stop leavening properly.  As the bacteria from the original buttermilk keep working they will acidify the culture,  over time it could reach a point where the commercial yeast is inhibited, and if it is kept covered in the fridge there probably won't be enough wild yeast to raise the bread.

In conclusion...

If you or the person you plan to share this starter with is likely to feed/refresh it regularly with the buttermilk mixture, then by all means try it out.  If not, you're probably better off just starting a more traditional sourdough starter.  You can always add milk or buttermilk when making dough to get the flavor and texture you want without the risk of contaminating your starter.


What features should I look for in a fireplace grill? I recently moved into a new apartment that is equipped with a wood burning fireplace.

I am very excited about this, not only because burning wood on a cool day makes the world seem simpler and awesome, but also because I am interested in the potential culinary applications.

First and foremost, I am interested in grilling. There seem to be a number of different ways to use an indoor fireplace as a grill. Given the limited space of my apartment-sized fireplace, what is the best solution to grill a steak, some veggies, or some hot dogs over my interior open flame?

What features differentiate the various styles of these devices?

Example image:

Your primary features should be:

Safe design. This means the unit should remain steady when engaged with the fireplace.
The ability to easily add and remove food from the cooking surface.
The ability to easily move the cooking surface closer to and further from the fuel source.

These are paramount. Your first priority is to do no harm, so you want a stable grill built for the purpose of hearth cooking that won't fall out of the fireplace and set your apartment aflame. The ease of use is also important (and is probably a contributor to overall safety), as you want to be able to control your cooking conditions without much complication.

As a secondary concern, I would want something that either had a rotisserie option built-in, or was rotisserie-capable. Also, I'd want maintenance to be simple. The default thought might be to go for cast iron, but you should consider that it will likely be facing temperatures that will kill the seasoning, and reseasoning could prove to be difficult. So it may be worthwhile to do some research on the best material to use for the long term.


How do I identify the fermentation process in a wild ferment? TL;DR - How do I go about to identify the microbiological processes in a wild ferment?
Background
I have a recipe for rose hip wine based on wild (spontaneous) fermentation, that I got from a Swedish wine/beer makers forum. The recipe is simple (I've translated and summarized it a bit to make it fit better in the Q&A forum style). I've used the recipe above five times now with good results. The wine becomes very sweet and it has a quite low alcoholic content. It has a strong character of dried fruit and rose hips.
The recipe used

Take 2.5 liters of rose hips. Pick off bad parts but don't clean them with water or desinfect them in any way - make sure the wild microbes are kept!
Make a syrup of 3 liters (0.66 gal) water and 1.5 kg (2.2lbs) white sugar.
Add rose hips and syrup to a big ceramic jar with a plate as a lid (optionally use a proper fermentation lock). Let ferment like this for 3-6 months.
Strain and age on a carboy for 3 years. The taste is terrible initially, quite okay after 1 year, good after 2, excellent after 3.

This differ from most recipes online only on a few parts. (a) this is the only recipe with wild fermentation that I've found (b) the amount of water in other recipes is rather 7-10 liters for the same amount of hips and sugar (c) the first fermentation is 3-6 months instead of the typical 1-3 weeks seen in inocculated wine making (d) other recipes typically have some acid introduced in the beginning. lemons or lemon juince and possible lactic acid.
This is similar to other recipes online in the proportion of hips to sugar, and the recommendation to age 3 years is the same.
The current ferment
This year is the first that I use a fermentation lock. I altered the recipe slightly by admitting oxygen freely the first week, stirring occasionally to get the ferment going. After that, I put the lock on.
The fermentation is slow, but carbon dioxide is released continously. A bubble every minute or so, and has now been going so for 3 weeks. The specific gravity is still very high, so there is sugars in abundance. The smell from the bubbles is a little yeasty. The smell is also a little sour, but not at all like vinager. This is the typical smell this ferment makes!
I've read online that rose hips are high in malic acid, so I guess the long aging is for malolactic fermentation to take place.
The question
I would like to know what fermentation is currently going. Is it yeast or LAB? Could there be other carbon dioxide releasing processes of significance?
This very slow fermentation indicates to me that there might be not enough nutrition to sustain a larger yeast population. It would be nice to do some kind of before/after test if I would ad nutrition to see what effect that has.
I have pH measurements and gravity measurements currently. I consider getting other equipment for up ca $200, such as a microscope.
How does one go about to analyze the fermentation process at this hobby level?

In addition to @kitukwfyer's answer. There's quite a bit of biology that goes on here...
Not only are you influencing the competition, you are actively selecting for organisms that grow well under the conditions. This is the real reason brewing (and bread etc) works better with a starter culture. There are a few things influencing this:

With a starter culture you are putting in a high number of organisms, which results in a shorter lag phase. Wild ferments rely on a relatively low abundance of naturally occurring organisms - so have a long lag.
With a starter culture you are also adding organisms that are already at least semi-adapted to the type of culture, so they will grow better.
It takes a while for the wild organisms that are there to actually adapt to the conditions. These are related to abundance of water, salt(s), nutrients, oxygen, CO2, pH etc; all of which may be on the boundaries of what is tolerable for the organisms that are there. Cultured organisms are at least partially selected for these characteristics already and selected against ones you don't want, indeed that is actually part of the reason people add things like acid to fermentations - it inhibits gut microflora like Escherichia coli that can make you quite ill.
In the ferment you are selecting for strains that grow well under the conditions; this will be a small proportion of those that are there, so it results in a very small inoculum, and a long lag phase.
Finally, wild organisms often have slow growth rates compared to cultured ones, because we generally want things quickly, so we select for strains that grow faster under the conditions we want - you probably did this subconsciously a couple of times already - you didn't see any signs of fermentation in a brew, so you threw it out and made a fresh batch; or something along those lines.

As to how you can identify the organisms - your best bet would be to get or make a bunch of bacterial (aim for lactic-acid fermentation ones here) and yeast plates (use some filter sterile fermentation broth as the liquid base if possible) and start streaking out your cultures. You most likely won't be able to culture all the organisms in your ferment, but you probably can culture those with the highest abundance (you already know they grow well under some conditions). You can then pick off individual colonies from our plates and grow them in liquid culture to see which have characteristics (flavour profiles) you like by themselves or in combination (try smelling them before drinking...). This is not a trivial task (list of techniques you might need) and relies on a bit of good sterile technique and a knowledge of what a "normal" organism looks like, not a contaminant from your own microflora.


Olive oil in Japanese cooking I recently ventured a bit outside my usual European cooking and started making recipes from a "westernized" Japanese cookbook I was gifted.

Some recipes for salads call for "vegetable oil" in the dressing. I usually make salad dressings with olive oil and didn't have canola or sunflower seed oil at the time, but I wondered: would Japanese cuisine clash with olive oil? Most dressings in the book use soy sauce and sesame oil, which are very aromatic ingredients anyway, so would olive oil be "masked" by those anyway, or do Japanese sauces/dressings nnecessarily need a more neutral oil?

Olive oil is not native to Japan and is never used in traditional Japanese cooking.  (Yes, olives are now grown in Japan and olive oil is readily available, but so are burgers and pizza.)

Your recipe's "vegetable oil" is almost certainly a translation of the Japanese サラダ油 sarada abura, literally "salad oil", meaning any of a number of mildly flavored, neutral oils like canola oil (probably the most common) or sunflower oil.  According to the relevant JAS standard, olive oil is explicitly not a type of "salad oil".

That's the theory, but in practice, for things like salads you probably can use olive oil without significantly changing the flavor.  Salads are also not traditional Japanese food, so there's more room for experimentation anyway.  Stick to mild olive oils though, avoid funky extra virgin and the like, and definitely do use a "salad oil" if the recipe involves frying etc.


Temp and time for using half the recipe of cake I have a recipe which makes cake for 6-8 ppl. I want to bake the same recipe using just the half recipe. It's original temp. Is 180 C using 40 minutes. Now after using just the half recipe what will my temp. And time be.. Please reply

As @joe said, it does not scale linearly.

There are various factors that effects cooking time:

Thickness: the heat transfers mainly from the top and bottom for a round on a not too thick to thin dish, so for half a cake with the same thickness the time will stay about the same. Think of a pizza for example, whether it's 5 or 15 inches in diameter the cooking time is nearly exactly the same. For a very thick cake, though (sponge cake for a wedding cake for example), the lateral heat transfer will matter far more.

Chemical reactions: Some chemical reactions (egg coagulation, Maillard, unfolding of proteins etc.) happens at a very specific temp under which they don't happen at all or takes forever. For example  the  coagulation an egg at ambient temperature will take several years, where it would happen in a few minutes at 65 centigrades. Try browning a toast at 90 c (half of the temp needed), it'll never happens. It takes 180c to start burning bread, anything under will stop the expected result from happening .

Most chemical or physical reactions (water boiling) that gives the expected taste or texture to something you bake happens between 60 to 180 c so do not change the temp when changing the amount in a recipe if the temp indicated is within that range.

If you cook a bigger item a higher temperature it won't have a chance to cook internally before being burnt on the outside, on the opposite, a smaller item with the same shape will be crisp and nice at the same temp.

As for the time needed, only on very compact items, nearly spherical, such as scones, choux pastry, or poultry (think of the time needed to roast a breast of chicken vs a whole chicken vs a turkey) the amount of time will be more closely proportional to the size or weight. You cook the smaller item less longer.

In brief: don't change the temp if it's equal or less than 180c. If your cake is compact (like a banana bread cooked in a tin) drop maybe  around a quarter  of the time for a halving of the recipe, and maybe a sixth of the time for a thinner cake.


What is the 'Steam-Chill-Bake' method of making hot wings? This question had a response mentioning the 'Steam-Chill-Bake' method.  What is that?  Why would someone cook wings this way?

I believe you're referring to my comment and it was actually referring to my answer to the question.  To summarize (follow the link for specific instructions), the technique is:

Steam the wings for 10 minutes
Season, then chill them in the refrigerator for 1 hour
Bake at high temperature (450° F) for 20 minutes on each side
Toss with sauce.

Why cook them this way?  Because it makes them perfectly crispy and juicy, almost like deep-fried wings (better, if you ask me).  Assuming the sauce has an appropriate amount of fat (butter) then it will also bind perfectly.


How can i convert all purpose flour to bread flour? Sometime I want to cook something that requires bread flour, but bread flour is unavailable. I have all purpose flour. How can I convert it to bread flour?

The difference between bread flour and all purpose flour is that bread flour has a higher protein content. While bread flour has 12 to 14 percent protein, all purpose has 8 to 11 percent protein.  The reality is that you probably won't notice the difference without a side by side comparison, so, if all you have is all purpose, just use that.  If you want to increase the protein level of your flour, you can do that by adding vital wheat gluten.  However, I am guessing that if you don't have access to bread flour, you will probably not have access to vital wheat gluten.  In the event that you do, I found the following conversion: Measure out 1 cup all-purpose flour (4 1/2 ounces or 129 grams).  Remove 1 1/2 teaspoons (1/8 ounce or 4 grams). Add 1 1/2 teaspoons vital wheat gluten (1/8 ounce or 5 grams).  Whisk or sift to combine.


How to strain yogurt What is the best method for yogurt straining? cheesecloth? yogurt strainers? coffee filters? I appreciate it if you could share your experience.

Yogurt is a protein mesh that traps the rest of the milk components. Many of the trapped components are water soluble- in particular un-denatured albumin, residual lactose, lactic acid, and riboflavin. The water and these water soluble components are the whey.

Draining off the whey makes the yogurt thicker, and sweeter as some of the acid washes away.

Stir the yogurt well to break up as much of the protein mesh as possible and free the trapped whey.

Then do as Elendil suggests and hang the yogurt in a cloth to drain for a couple hours. I use sturdy mesh cloth from the remnants pile at the fabric store. Cheesecloth is too fragile to be used very many times. How many times can cheesecloth be reused?


Any food safety risk eating cold refrigerated pizza? I love eating cold pizza leftovers straight from the fridge. Someone recently told me that you should always reheat leftover pizza to kill off any bad bugs that could be growing in there. Is there any scientific basic to this? I've never got sick so far.

Not really. Assuming that the pizza has been cooled down and stored properly (for which see here and here) then it most likely won't have developed a potentially harmful microbial load. Additionally, while reheating might kill off most of the microbes in the food (assuming that you reached and maintained a temperature sufficient for pasteurization, which isn't a given) that still wouldn't render the food completely safe, because even dead microbes can leave behind toxic substances that can make you sick.

Be warned that just because you haven't gotten sick in past, that doesn't mean your method is completely safe. Food safety is a science of relative risk, not absolute certainty, and getting lucky 99 times in a row doesn't mean that the 100th time won't be a miserable one.

But, bottom line: put your pizza into the fridge when you're done eating it, and don't keep it for more than a couple days or if it shows obvious signs of spoilage, and most likely you'll be okay. Reheating is not essential.


Using kalpasi (which is also known as Black Stone Flower) in a biriyani? Can we ground kalpasi (also known as Black stone flower) be added to a masala for marinating chicken/mutton for making Hyderabadi Biriyani?

Will it taste really good; does this spice add good flavoring and aroma to the Dum Biriyani?

Are the results better if you first cook the kalpasi in oil before adding it to the marinating mixture?

Kalpasi is type of lichen, usually used in spices for typical Chettinad and West Indian (Maharashtrian) Cuisines.

Dry ground kalpasi has little or no smell and should be roasted in little oil to get its actual and full aroma.

It has a distinct smell, which it would impart, if used properly i.e. after roasting (also depends on how and for how much time you marinate).

Its generally used in combination with other spices like cardamom, cloves, bay leaves, cinnamon, nutmeg, star anise, saffron, peppers etc. for flavor.

On its own, it can't add much flavor.


What are the fault tolerances on the FDA food handling guidelines? Sometimes I have suggested that food that sat out a little longer than optimal may be safe to eat.

Granted, this is based on my experience, and I always qualify that it shouldn't be served to guests (and by extension, customers) and that one should determine their own tolerance to risk, but I want to know if there is information as to the methodology of the FDA guidelines.  Specifically, what is the contamination rate at n hours, and what are the initial conditions of the food and environment?  How much risk is there REALLY (in incidences per n-population and such) in a standard kitchen for food that has sat out 50%, 100%, 200%, etc. longer than recommended?

The recommendations (in the US at least) are based on a risk model, which takes into account a number of factors:

frequency of outbreaks and occurrence of illnesses
severity of illness, taking into account illness duration, hospitalization and mortality
likelihood of contamination
growth potential/shelf life
manufacturing process contamination probability/intervention
consumption
economic impact

Some of these factors are statistical (frequency, economic, for example), and some are measured (growth, aspects of severity). For the measured aspects, a large number of methods are employed, including animal testing, human histories, and toxicology reports (including LD measures).

Primarily, most home cooks should follow the FDA guidelines as the recommendations take into account the supply chain and common outcomes for most pathogens (for a given food). It's important to note that live pathogens are not the only risk in food safety, also toxins (as produced by the pathogens) are an important factor depending on the specific life form. These toxins are not mitigated by cooking (generally), and some pathogens are not completely mitigated by heat or cold. The risk is related to the combined risks, time, and supply chain.

The FDA site contains the regulations, methods, and sampling guidelines for various stages of food production and food safety.

This is not my speciality, but I did teach food safety many years ago (please refer to the current guidelines and methods for current recommendations).

References:

Designating high risk foods
Home food safety cheatsheet
Example toxicity studies - I'm not certain these feed into these specific guidelines, but the methodology will be similar


Please explain my meat dry curing observations I am currently testing dry curing.  I noticed that within 2 days most of the water had dropped out of the meat and subsequently there was no more water loss.  I know because I placed some newspaper underneath the items, caught the water, removed the paper and then placed some new paper underneath the cured food which is showing no signs of being wet at all.

Since no more water is being loss after 2 days does that mean no point curing further( I have been told to cure for at least 2 weeks).  Although there is no further water loss I notice that the meat gets more red and harder over the days, what does that mean?

Also I notice some smaller pieces have had little to know water loss.

Does that mean I didn't put enough salt in( I thought I put quite a lot) or is there some other explanation.

Thanks

There are several variables that need to be considered to properly and safely dry cure meat...temperature, humidity, ph level, for example.  Just on the topic of moisture loss, however...you will not be able to tell simply by looking.  People who do this for a living can tell by touching...most of us weigh our product before hanging.  In general, when there is a 30% reduction in weight, the meat is properly cured (given that all of the other variables have been properly dealt with).

Meat getting harder means it is drying, however it could be drying too fast.  In this case the outside will dry before the inside has a chance to.  If this is the case, the meat will not be pleasant to eat, but more importantly you could have a potential safety issue.  Proper humidity and temperature will help control this....around 60 degrees F (15 C) and 60 - 70 percent humidity.

As far as salt goes, be sure to use some sort of curing salt.

I recommend reading up on the process.  Many things can go wrong and you can make you and your guests sick very easily.


How to extract the most flavor out of vanilla beans? Today I made creme brulee, which I'm not very familiar with but have done once or twice.

The consistancy was fine, aswell as the caramelized sugar, but it had a very low taste of vanilla, even though I used 4x the amount specified in the recipe. (I used 2 whole vanilla beans for 2 cups).

I cut, scraped and put everything in cream/sugar, heated to about 80-90c (almost a boil), mixed with the yellow of the egg(yolk?) and cooked it in a pan half-full of water.

Is there anything I can do to facilitate more vanilla flavor? Is it somehow volatile and doesn't survive.. cooking? Maybe I should have boiled the cream with the vanilla? Make extract using high-strength alcohol first? Buy better vanilla?

Getting the Vanilla from the bean to the taste bud takes time. While many will advocate the use of fresh vanilla beans (as you have tried), I have always preferred the flavor that is granted from a good vanilla extract. In my opinion it is stronger and better distributed throughout the dish. Whether you buy or make your own extract I think you will get a more consistent and rich flavor that way.

(note: thanks to @rfusca for providing the extract link in a previous question)


Olive wood cooking utensils: Seasoning, care, and maintenance? I just got my dear one a nice olive wood ladle a week or so ago. It's sitting out still since I would like to know what steps I should take in regard to seasoning (first (few) time(s) of use), care (treatment after each use), and maintenance (what to do down the line).

There's a really great discussion at: What is the best material for a cooking spoon?

However, we've already got the spoon. So, with some questions inspired by the one linked above, and some of my own:

How might I detect varnish? Or is it just assumed to be present? If it is present, how might I diminish its ingestion?
Are there other steps to seasoning this type of spoon?
We use very mild/gentle (and non-toxic) [Planet Brand] dish soap/detergent 99.9% of the time. I'm certainly not going to put this in the dishwasher, but is there anything to watch out for when washing/drying? (i.e. should I not use super hot water, is olive sensitive to sit drying, etc.)
Is there an upper temperature limit or hot surface type that should be avoided in cooking?
Should it be maintained by say rubbing it down with some type of oil once in a while?
Note: This is our first olive wood utensil, and the grain appears not to be ideal, regarding knots and possibly a propensity for cracking at a couple places. This may be normal from reading the linked question above, however it may merit different treatment, I don't know.

How might I detect varnish?

No utensil intended for real use (other than perhaps as a salad scoop or bowl) should be varnished.

It may be difficult to distinguish a varnish from an polished and oiled surface, but look for a clear shiny type of appearance where the grain of the wood is completely masked.

Are there other steps to seasoning this type of spoon?

Just rub it with mineral oil, as described below, if it is dull and untreated.  If it is already seasoned, there is no need.

You may want to repeat the process two or three times, for a brand new utensil.

[I]s there anything to watch out for when washing/drying?

The main thing, as you have already mentioned, is to not use the dishwasher.  Don't soak it in water.   When you wash it, give it a quick towel dry and then let it air dry.

You don't want water soaking into the grain, which will help raise the grain and may eventually lead to splitting or cracking (at which time the utensil should be discarded).

Is there an upper temperature limit or hot surface type that should be avoided in cooking?

I don't know a specific one; use your good judgement.  Wooden tools are often used in scraping up the fond from a pan after deglazing, which is probably the hottest treatment they would normally be exposed to.

As you happen to have a ladle, you are unlikely to be using it on the bottom of scorching hot pans in any case.

Wood is actually quite fire resistant, and while one may show a few scorch marks at the tip from a very, very hot pan, in general, routine use is not going to harm it.

Should it be maintained by say rubbing it down with some type of oil once in a while?

Yes, occasionally you will want to rub it with a little food grade mineral oil (which resists rancidity).    This will help prevent liquid from soaking into the spoon.

When you see signs that the last treatment is wearing off, wipe it down with just a bit (maybe a half teaspoon or even less for the whole ladle), let it sit an hour or tow, then rub off the excess.

This will help you get a longer life from the ladle without splitting or cracking.

See also:

WiseGeek How Do I care for Wooden Spoons and Cutting Boards


Why is there so much crema on my espresso? I buy fresh beans of lighter roasts, grind a few minutes before extraction, pull a double shot normale, and end up with a lot of crema, I mean a lot!

Right when I'm done, the top 90% of the shot is crema moving around like the head on a fresh Guinness. After it dissipates for 30-60 seconds, I'm left with roughly a centimeter of crema of light color.

Crema is a pretty bitter flavor, so I wonder if there is something I'm doing to cause this type of extraction, and what can I do to improve on my technique?

Crema is basically carbon dioxide fizzing up the coffee oils. By the description you're giving, it is likely to be too much. Your beans could be too oily and/or too fresh. It could be a combination of the type of beans / blend / or the way it's roasted.

Just as a guide, it is best for the beans to rest for around about a week after it's roasted. And if your beans end up soaking in oil, that is not good!


How long can we store honey in the home? Sometimes honey changes its colour; can this affect its taste? How long can I store honey in my home kitchen?

From beeraw.com:

  Honey is a highly concentrated sugar solution. It contains more than 70% sugars and less than 20% water. its means that the water in honey contains more sugar than it should naturally hold. The overabundance of sugar makes honey unstable and crystallize. Thus, it is natural for honey to crystallize.

From Iowa State University:

  Over time the honey will darken and flavor will change but it will be safe to eat. [...] As it darkens, it may lose some flavor or become crystals. Resist the urge to use boiling hot water to melt crystals as this can damage the color and flavor of the honey

but still is it safe to use that honey.

Honey jars are stamped with "best before date" that suggests life of 3 years, or even up to 5 years.


Thoroughly cooking stuffing in a Turkey I like to cook stuffing in the bird because I think it imparts flavors you just can't achieve cooking it out of the bird.  The problem is, it's virtually impossible to get the stuffing to 165F/74C without way overcooking the meat.  I read one suggestion to cook the bird until the meat is done and then remove the stuffing and finish it in the oven.  That makes sense, but is it really a safe method?  Is it possible the lining of the cavities also aren't fully done yet since they've been exposed to cooler stuffing and not hot oven air?

If so, would a good alternative be to remove the stuffing when the meat is, say, 10 degrees short of being done and then putting both the stuffing and bird back in the oven to finish?

I am firmly in the "stuffing is evil" camp... but lets take that as read :-)

If you absolutely must have in the bird stuffing, here is a link to a (I hope legal) excerpt of Alton Brown's Good Eats, showing his technique for doing turkey with stuffing:

http://www.aol.com/video/alton-browns-turkey-with-stuffing/444711017/

He uses a food-safe cotton bag, and pre-cooks the stuffing in the microwave.  Then, he uses what looks like a flexible plastic cutting board to guide the bag of stuffing into the turkey.

The summary of his technique is that the stuffing is partially pre-cooked, so that it is hot when it goes into the bird, and comes up to temperature together.

. . .

In the abstract, independent of the pre-cook the stuffing method aluded to above:

The temperature of the inner surface of the cavity is going to be essentially equal to the temp. of the outer surface of the stuffing. Since neither is in contact with any of the heating modalities in the oven (radiation from the hot oven walls, conduction from air contact, convection from circulating hot air), that interface will only heat by conduction through the outer turkey. You want cooked stuffing without overcooking the turkey--that is tricky. But the short answer is yes, the stuffing prevents the turkey from getting convection/conduction heat on the inside.

To assess the temperature at the inside of the turkey, take the temperature of the stuffing, at the edge of the cavity. It will be safe at approximately 155 F (there is some variance depending on your assessment of risk, and which source you look at). This only indicates the turkey is safe, not the center of the stuffing, which you should also check.


Substitution for curry powder Can garam masala be used as a substitute for curry powder or vice versa?  Garam Masala also known as all spice powder

You can use garam masala to make curry, but it doesn't contain everything needed for a typical curry. Other ingredients are required.

Garam masala typically contains cumin, coriander, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, bay leaf, and mace (the outer casing of nutmeg). It's a basic spice mix often used in Indian cuisine.

To turn it into a curry, you really also need to fry some garlic, ginger, and chilli at the very least. Also, the yellow colour in western style curry powders is turmeric. Don't forget to add some salt too!


food safety regarding re freezing twice cooked chicken I am defrosting a cooked chicken to use in a curry it will be thoroughly heated at a high temperature. If I have too much curry will i be able to freeze it, as the cooked chicken was frozen before?

As long as you treat the food safely in between, and the communicative time in the danger zone of 40-140 F / 4 - 60 C does not exceed about 2 hours, you can thaw and refreeze foods an unlimited number of times.  Whether they are raw or cooked doesn't matte for safety.

On the other hand, multiple thawing and refreezing may degrade the quality of the food, especially its texture, and is generally avoided for that reason.

Thawing cooked chicken once, cooking in a curry, then freezing the cooked product is probably well within the tolerances of most people's palette, and you probably will not notice any quality loss, especially in an application like curry.  Just don't over cook your chicken--that will definitely result in dry, tough chicken and won't be pleasant.


When boiling water without any other ingredients in it, why start from cold? A question about probably the most mundane subject in cooking: boiling water.

For cooking techniques where you drop ingredients in simmering or boiling water - such as for vegetables, pasta, many rice recipes - I have often seen the recommendation that you start by putting cold water into a pot, then bring it to a boil. Why would you not start with hot water from the tap? It's going to be quicker than heating cold water, and your water heater is going to be way more energy efficient than your stove top at heating the stuff.

In particular, is there any physical or chemical process that starting from cold water encourages or prevents from happening?

(To reiterate: in the case where you add stuff to cold water and then start heating it, there clearly is a difference with starting with hot water; this question is about the case where you drop your ingredients in pure water that's already boiling.)

There have been plumbing systems in which the hot water was likely to have dissolved more [toxic|unsightly|unpleasant-tasting] material from the pipe walls or joints than the cold. In particular any system that uses lead-based solder, can leach minute{*}, but detectable amounts of lead into the drinking water, and the hot water is more efficient at this.

In this case that advice amounts to "use the clean water".

{*} Really minute. Like "Use this water all you life and not suffer any ill-effects" minute. But it can be detected, and who wants to chug down a glass of lead solution...


What is a nutrient for yeast? I was looking at a recipe and it said I needed to add sugar, ginger, yeast and yeast nutrient and other stuff.

I would have thought that it would be referring to the sugar, but can anyone confirm for me please.

The recipe is for Ginger beer, if it helps.

They're likely referring to di-ammonium phosphate, which is used in wine making and mead brewing, as it provides nitrogen to accelerate the yeast growth.

I found a site giving instructions for using egg whites as a replacement, but it might be easier (and safer) to just go to a shop that specializes in brewing or wine making supplies and getting the right stuff.  (I have no idea how expensive it is, as I've never done it)

Your other option would be to find an alternate recipe that doesn't call for it ... it might take longer to brew, though.


How can I get my bread to be more fluffy and less dense? I've been making bread for a while now, but I can never get it to rise enough. The bread comes out really dense, so it's not very useful for sandwiches. I give it ten minutes after kneading, bash it down again, then another hour before baking. I've tried adding sugar as well but this hasn't made much impact.

A big factor besides the dough is the temperature at which you bake the bread.

If you are not baking it at some recipe specified temperature you are probably playing on the safe side and your breads won't raise much.

You have to heat the CO2 pockets quickly so that they expand before the dough hardens. The more temperature you can give it the better.

Another possible factor may be the yeast. Are you waiting enough? Are you using enough? Like temperature, more yeast and longer fermentation times can't go wrong.


How do I get the best possible texture when making vegetable cream soups? Many recipes call for straining the almost finished soup to get rid of any extra chunky bits and get the best mouthfeel. But I am really confused, because with any reasonably fine sieve I filter out almost all of the vegetable matter and end up with a very thin soup.

Not mentioning it's hard to actually finish the filtering process, because the sieve gets all cluttered. The same goes for certain sauces such as Bechamel. Not sure how I can strain the sauce, because it's so thick and doesn't go through the sieve very easily.

What's the best way to achieve really smooth soups and sauces? What kind of sieve should be used?

You could always blend before you strain.  I find that when making soup of all kinds that a few minutes with my immersion blender does wonders for the final product.  Not only does it puree all the solids into much smaller chunks, but it also makes sure that all the liquid is a homogeneous whole.

After blending, I also tend to strain just to get out anything that I might have missed.  I use a fine mesh strainer and a spatula to force the liquid through quickly.  I also own an old flour sifter that I have used quite a few times instead of the strainer, but it doesn't offer any real benefits over the other.


Substitute actual vodka for storebought vanilla extract True vanilla extract is vanilla split vanilla pods steeped in vodka for four months. I have never had a taste nor a whiff of this. Can I assume that the vanilla pods simply add aroma to the vodka, and that the vodka's sharp alcoholic flavor still dominates the substance?

Therefore, is it possible to just use clear vodka, particularly, in cookie recipes? Since my idea is that there are already so much ingredients in chocolate chip cookies, maybe the recipe would do better with the "freshness" of vodka, which is closer to the real stuff, rather than the bitterness of storebought vanilla extract.

No, vodka is nothing like vanilla extract.

Unfortunately the premise of your question is wrong. The thing that makes "true" vanilla extract true/pure/real is that it's made from real vanilla beans, as opposed to artificial flavors. Artificial vanilla is often just vanillin, one of the key flavor components, and it's been manufactured from another base ingredient (probably lignin), with no vanilla involved.

In both cases, the exact source of the alcohol isn't important, it's just that it's alcohol (ethanol) and water. I've mainly heard of using vodka for homemade vanilla extract, because as far as readily available liquor goes, it's about the closest you can get to pure, flavorless ethanol/water. It's hard to imagine that mass-produced commercial vanilla bothers insisting on vodka in particular.

Anyway, flavors. Artificial and real vanilla extract are really pretty similar, which is kind of the point. If you can't easily get the real stuff, or it's too expensive, there's absolutely nothing wrong with using artificial.

In particular, for baked goods, artificial is totally fine. The heat means you lose a lot of the flavor complexity, and the two end up indistinguishable, or close to it. Notably, America's Test Kitchen has done vanilla taste tests and says "It matters not a whit whether you use real or imitation vanilla, because you can’t tell the difference when you bake."

The difference is much more noticeable in things like icing/frosting, pudding, and ice cream, where you don't use much if any heat after adding the vanilla, so the complex flavors remain. So if you're making any of that, and you want it extra good, that's when you may want to splurge for real vanilla extract, or vanilla beans.


How can I make Chinese chicken fingers like in the northeast USA? Does anyone know how to duplicate the chicken fingers found at Chinese restaurants in the Boston area? The batter on them is very puffy, and doesn't really conform to the shape of the chicken.

Google has been no help in finding a recipe (though it did find this picture):

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/179/385182683_6af6fbf451.jpg?v=0

I couldn't find them at any of the restaurants I checked in California, so they may be a Northeast-only thing. Someone must have discovered the secret though! Anyone with a recipe?

I tried this out the other night. It's extremely close. As michelle suggested, self-rising flour seems to be the key. The recipe I used was:

1/4 cup self-rising flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
1/2 cup water (or a little less)

Sift dry ingredients into a small bowl. In another bowl, slowly mix dry ingredients and water, being careful to avoid adding too much water.

It's meant to be really thick. As in, if you lay a small strip of chicken on top of the batter, the chicken should not sink.

Heat up oil for deep frying (360F to 375F). Slice chicken into thin strips, batter them, and deep fry until golden. Check one or two to make sure the chicken is cooked through.

Serve with duck sauce, if you can find it (ask a local Chinese restaurant if you can buy a pint). Nom nom.


Do onions help to sweeten tomato sauce? I have a school project. We are to create a recipe of our own and also explain the effects of the ingredients used when cooking.

I would like to know if adding onions to tomato sauce helps to sweeten the sauce and how it helps to sweeten the sauce.
Can someone help me?

Onions contain a good amount of sugar; that is why they brown and burn easily.

The sweetness is more than often hidden behind the sharp onion smell and taste.

Some onions like the vidalia onion varieties are really sweet.

One way to test if an onion will sweeten the tomato sauce would be to prepare two similar batches, one with onion, and one without.

After that sauce is cooked you need to measure the sugar level of the sauce; there are many ways to do it (chemically, mechanically, use Google).

Another less precise test is just to do blind tasting tests from the 2 batches. Use friends and fellow students to taste the 2 sauces and ask them which one is sweeter; statistically, the sauce with the onion should be sweeter.

You could also do multiple batches with different increasing amounts of onions to see how the amount of onion changes the sweetness of the sauce.


Difference between saucepan, frying pan and skillet What, if anything, is difference between a saucepan, frying pan and skillet? I am heating up some frozen vegetables and the directions said to boil 1/4 in a saucepan. This doesn't really work as 1/4 cup is not much and the pan I used is so large it barely covers the whole surface.

To be complete, the word "pan" in general means any flat metal surface I take it? For example you could also have a baking pan.

Skillet and frying pan are fairly interchangeable - generally a broad (usually around 30cm), circular pan with slightly sloped raised sides around 2-4cm high.

Saucepans are much deeper in relation to their base width, however. Saucepans come in a variety of sizes, with small pans generally being about 15cm across and around 10cm high, all the way up to big stock pots that can hold 3 or 4 litres of liquid that will be a good 30cm tall if not more. Saucepans almost always come with a lid.

Frying pans, as the name suggests, are made for shallow frying food. Saucepans are made for making sauces and cooking things in liquid. They are better suited to this as the higher sides and narrower base, along with the lid, serves to give better control of evaporation.

Boiling vegetables in a frying pan, with a large surface area to evaporate off and no lid to keep the liquid in, will mean you will either burn your vegetables or constantly be topping off the pan with hot water.

If you are going to be cooking small amounts of vegetables regularly I would suggest you invest in a smaller saucepan, or a set of three different sizes to give you some options.


Mixing ingredients ahead of time Can you mix all dry ingredients for a cake and place ingredients in container and make cake the next day?

Typically, yes.  (it depends on the exact recipe).

There's actually a whole category of crafts / gifts for various 'mixes in a jar' where you mix up all of the dry goods, put it in a jar, decorate it, and label it w/ instructions on what else needs to be done.

update:

To clarify -- if the recipe calls for mixing all of the dry ingredients together before you start, there will be absolutely no problem.  If you specifically go out and search for "Mix in a Jar" recipes, you should have no problem.

The issue comes when the dry ingredients aren't added all at the same time -- sugar is often mixed with the wet ingredients ... it might be used for creaming the butter, or in a chiffon or angel food cake whipped with the egg whites.  In those cases, you may need to hold back an ingredient from the others, not pre-mix them.


Searing stew meat the night before I read the question (and all of the answers) Can I Brown Beef For Slow Cooking the Night Before.  I can see how it might be conceived as a duplicate, but I'm not meaning for my question to be.  It talks about large cuts of meat and I want to ask about small chunks of meat.  I wanted to ask the question on the other post, but since it's four years old, I wasn't sure if it would get read or answered.

I have a slow cooker recipe that calls for stew meat to be seared before adding to the slow cooker.  I know I can skip that step and have less "beefy" stew, but I'd like to have the beef flavor shine.  Since I plan to do this in the morning, can I safely sear the chunks of meat ahead of time and immediately refrigerate?  Would the same rules that apply to large chunks of meat apply to smaller stew chunks?

The accepted answer from the linked question is just as accurate in this situation.  Assuming you're talking about "stew meat" sized pieces (about 2cm per side or so) by the time smaller pieces brown sufficiently, they should be nearly if not completely cooked through.  By similar logic, when you refrigerate them they should cool down more quickly than a larger roast.  So there's even less risk here than with larger pieces.


Preserving small amounts of milk My husband and I do not drink milk during the week, and rarely use it for cooking. However, on weekends when I am home I like to make coffee and have it with milk. The problem is it is very expensive to purchase even the smallest container of 2% milk at the store only to have it go bad before I've gotten more than a quarter of the way through it.

Is there a way I can preserve a quart of milk for my coffee, without it going bad? Is freezing an option? I am not a fan of milk alternatives, or the little creamer things that are shelf stable.

Freezing is most definitely one of the best options.

If you are only going to use a little at a time, then it would be a good idea to divide the quart into smaller portions so that you do not have to defrost the whole amount. You can use an ice-tray and take out just as many cubes as you need.


How long is canned ham good for left out of the fridge? My son was needing help with some food because he was laid off from work. So i told him i would leave him care package on the porch that consisted of an armour canned ham. It was late at night in October so it was cool out and i thought it would be ok, but had text me saying he wouldn't be able to come get it until the next day sometime, but i didn't see the message until around 11:15am. So by the time i got it and put it back in the fridge it was already starting to get a little warm. I went ahead and stuck it in the fridge immediately. I just need to know if it would be safe for him and his family to eat it. All opinions appreciated. Thanks!

It depends on if it was shelf stable or marked “keep refrigerated”.

From Arizona Cooperative Extension

  Canned hams labeled “keep refrigerated” require refrigeration and, unopened, will keep 6 to 9 months in the refrigerator. Once canned hams are opened, keep them refrigerated and use within 3 to 5 days. Make sure the can isn’t showing any bulges, cracks, dents or rust, or leaking any liquid. A canned ham should not be frozen. Shelf-stable canned hams do not require refrigeration and may be stored in a cool, dry place for 2 to 5 years.

From USDA

  Refrigerated - May be stored in the refrigerator for up to 6 to 9 months. Its weight can be up to 8% more than original uncured weight due to the uptake of water during curing. It need not be labeled "Added water" except for "In Natural Juices." Net Weight is the weight of the actual ham excluding the container. Processed at a cook time and temperature sufficient to kill infectious organisms (including trichinae); however, the ham is not sterilized so spoilage bacteria may grow eventually.


What cooking techniques depend on controlled temperature between 100 and 120 degrees celsius? Many preparation techniques rely on controlled temperature. Sous Vide, Chocolate making, etc.

I am trying to identify specific techniques that have their range in 100 to 120 degrees. For example, Fudge needs 115 degrees.

Context: new Thermomix (version 5) advertises the maximum temperature increase from 100 to 120 degrees. I am trying to figure out what difference that can make.

There are a couple of places where the ability to get to 120˚C might be useful.

You've already touched on one, which is cooking sugar.  With a range up to 120˚C you get up to the firm ball stage, allowing you to make syrups, fudge, caramel, fondant, butter creams, marshmallows, meringues, and toffees.

You can get some caramelization (mostly of fructose) at that temperature.

I don't know how practical it would be with the machine in question, but you can get Maillard reactions at temperatures that low if you use prolonged cooking time and/or optimize the environment by adding alkaline.

This machine does not seem to have a pressurization feature, but that would be another place where the higher temperature would be useful.  At a pressure of 1 bar/~15 psi above the existing atmospheric pressure, water in a pressure cooker can reach a temperature of up to 121 °C (250 °F), depending on altitude. Pressure cooking can be used to quickly simulate the effects of long braising or simmering.


Bread with strong vinegar smell I just bought a bread.  It looks fresh, no mold or any other marks, but it has a strong smell of vinegar.  I toasted and ate some, and it tastes totally fine... just the smell...  Anyone know what this is and whether I can do something about it.  Thanks!

I'm guessing this is sourdough bread, naturally leavened. The tastes can vary because the fermentation is natural and therefore a little bit random. The microbiome is different in every bakery so two loaves from different bakeries will always taste different even if they have the same starting flour and water.
The sourness of the bread comes from the fermentation duration and the microbial culture of the starter.


What is leftover in the pulp after making oat milk and how can you use it? I've been making oat milk and looking for recipes which can utilise the pulp which is left after making the oat milk. I tried cookies and pancakes but they end up wet and soft.
Is this because all of the starch is taken out of the oats when they're mixed with water? Is the leftover pulp mainly just fibre with only a little bit of starch?
If I made flour with the leftover pulp after it has been dried, should it have to be treated differently from regular oat flour?

Yes, most of the fat, starch and flavour of the oats ends up in the milk, so what you have left is mostly fibre. Dough or batter made from it won't gelatinize much if at all, so will not hold together when cooked like regular oat flour.
Sometimes I add the residue to baked goods (along with wheat flour) in small quantities. It seems to work OK in cakes and soda bread (where a soft texture is desirable), but I need more oil than usual to get a good taste.
I also make quick raw snack balls out of it. I grind 1 part of it with 1-2 parts nuts and/or seeds (usually almonds, walnuts, sunflower seeds) and then I either add dried fruits and/or sugar and sweet flavourings like vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom or dry ginger, OR I add salt, chilli powder and herbs for savoury snacks.
I have also successfully tried mixing it with oats (using about 1 part residue to 3 parts oats) for making oatmeal/porridge or flapjack. I add some desiccated coconut to these dishes to compensate for the lower fat content and blandness of the oat residue.
To be honest, I feel it's not much use as anything but a bulking agent since most of the nutrients and tastiness have been extracted.


What would happen if you use warm base on a compressor ice cream machine? Note: This question is for an ice cream machine WITH a compressor

Pretty much all recipes for ice cream/gelato call for completely chilling the mixture before starting to churn.

I get that for "passively" cooled machines (compressorless) it's important, so that you don't loose any of the pre-cooling you've done to the hardware.

Does it actually matter for a compressor-based machine? The machine can certainly cool it down without a hitch, but would it impact the final texture?

Firstly, it will work and you will get ice cream.  However, cooling the base (a) decreases the time it take to freeze, and (b) potentially improves the flavor of the base (as ingredients meld together).  Let's say you are not concerned with "b".  The more quickly you freeze ice cream, the smaller the ice crystals...the creamier the texture.  So, in any ice cream making scenario, it is better to begin with cold base.  How much better?  How much creamier?  It's probably a matter of preference in the end.  It sounds like you probably have an ice cream maker with a compressor.  Why not make a double batch of base, freeze one immediately, place the other in the fridge for 24 hours.  Freeze that one the next day.  Taste them at the same temp/consistency, and tell us here what you've learned.


Consuming cardamom pods I'm making a dish that calls for six cardamom pods added while cooking. After the dish cooks, should I make the effort to locate and remove the pods? I'm assuming they're like Bay Leaves, unpleasant to chomp on but otherwise harmless.

When something calls for cardamom pods, you get a lot more flavor if you put the entire pod in, and split open to expose the seeds. You also get a lot more flavor if you happen to pick the pod up in a bite, and it's .. quite strong. Some people like it, I certainly don't mind it, but my kids would rather not have them as a surprise. I tend to remove them.

I love making orzo with chicken, celery, herbs and mushroom and cardamom is a key ingredient that I use. Fishing the pods out of the pan later was rather difficult; it was difficult to spot them with all that celery.

I have some tricks that really help. For starters, remember how many you put in, make sure you get that many out. Note that they can split in half and come apart while cooking, so don't stop fishing at 2 1/2 when you know you put three in.

Use the biggest pods in the jar in recipes where they're going to be hard to spot after cooking. If you're just flavoring some rice, use some of the smaller ones - they're easily spotted. If they'll blend in easily within the dish, use the larger ones.

You can also color them with food coloring, without affecting the flavor (proper food coloring is flavor-neutral). Soak them for half an hour in blue or red coloring, then again for fifteen minutes in tepid to warm water to make sure they're done giving back any of the coloring you gave them (you don't want your risotto turning blue). Split them after you've done this.

They take on enough of the coloring that they stand out from most other things in your dish, you shouold be able to tell if you're about to put a pod on someone's plate (or just let folks know to watch for them). This saves you from the fishing expedition, allows people that enjoy them to just eat them and saves some time. Note, they sort of just stain a little, they don't take on much color, but it's enough to make them stand out from other small green things :)

You can also pierce them with a bamboo toothpick and cut the toothpick off a few millimeters away from the shell to make them stand out fall away more easily, but that doesn't always work if they're cooked rigorously. Leave enough toothpick to be easily spotted - eating one of those in a bite would be worse than eating one of the pods. This is handy mostly for slow cooking.

Finally, you can cook them out in a stock, which you add to the dish - it's very easy to strain them out that way. May or may not work depending on your recipe.