Jam and Marmalade setting I recently made a batch of marmalade and Ginger Marmalade and although I used the same recipe as I have before, this batch did not set very well at all. I didn't use any extra setting agent. My question is, can I reheat the marmalade and add in some pectin to hopefully set it ?

Yes you can. You do want to make sure you have given your marmalade a couple of weeks to set completely before deciding to remake with additional pectin.

In the US, pectin found on grocery store shelves generally contain a sheet with basic recipes, as well as instructions on how to remake your cooked jam/jelly/marmalade if it doesn't set properly.

Here are additional options from The National Center for Home Food Preservation:

  Making Jams and Jellies

  Remaking Soft Jellies

  Measure jelly to be recooked. Work with no more than 4 to 6 cups at a
  time.

  Please read Using Boiling Water Canners before beginning. If this is
  your first time canning, it is recommended that you read Principles of
  Home Canning.

  To Remake With Powdered Pectin

  For each quart of jelly, mix ¼ cup sugar, ½ cup water, 2 tablespoons
  bottled lemon juice, and 4 teaspoons powdered pectin. Bring to a boil
  while stirring. Add jelly and bring to a rolling boil over high heat,
  stirring constantly. Boil hard ½ minute. Remove from heat, quickly
  skim foam off jelly, and fill sterile jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace.
  Adjust new lids and process as recommended in Table 1. For more
  information on how to sterilize jars see "Sterilization of Empty
  Jars".

  To Remake With Liquid Pectin

  For each quart of jelly, measure ¾ cup sugar, 2 tablespoons bottled
  lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons liquid pectin. Bring jelly only to boil
  over high heat, while stirring. Remove from heat and quickly add the
  sugar, lemon juice, and pectin. Bring to a full rolling boil, stirring
  constantly. Boil hard for 1 minute. Quickly skim off foam and fill
  sterile jars, leaving ¼-inch headspace. Adjust new lids and process as
  recommended in Table 1.

  To Remake Without Added Pectin

  For each quart of jelly, add 2 tablespoons bottled lemon juice. Heat
  to boiling and boil for 3 to 4 minutes. Use one of the tests described
  in Testing Jelly without Added Pectin to determine jelly doneness.
  Remove from heat, quickly skim off foam, and fill sterile jars,
  leaving ¼-inch headspace. Adjust new lids and process as recommended in Table 1..


Do recipes which measure flour by volume assume that I'll sift the flour? I would like to try some baking recipes where the flour is specified by volume, with no alternative measurement for weight.  Do recipe authors generally assume that I'll sift the flour to measure it?

In all the recipes I've followed with a cup measurement (volume) of flour, it is unsifted.

From what I've read, if a recipe calls for sifted flour there's two ways to do it:
If it calls for "sifted flour" you sift the flour first, then measure it.
If it calls for "flour, sifted" you measure first, then sift it.


Why hot pack when raw pack is just as fast? To pick an example, this green bean canning recipe gives the same processing times for both hot and raw pack. Presumably even with raw pack, the 20-25 minute processing time is enough to thoroughly cook the beans. Why would you cook them additionally first? Is it just for people who like very well-cooked vegetables?

According to Pick Your Own, the main reason is that in raw packing, more air is introduced into the jar.  This may lead to discoloration over time, which is an aesthetic issue, rather than a safety issue.

Regarding hot packing, they describe the benefits:

  This practice helps to remove air from food tissues, shrinks food,
  helps keep the food from floating in the jars, increases vacuum in
  sealed jars, and improves shelf life. Preshrinking food also permits
  filling more food into each jar.

They provide the following guidelines regarding which method to use:

  Use the hot-pack method, especially with acid foods to be processed in boiling water rather than a pressure canning method.
  The Raw pack method is fine for pickles and for vegetables to be processed in a pressure canner.

See also:  National Center for Home Preservation describing the differences, benefits, and reasoning in great detail.


Can frozen egg whites be used in a macaron recipe? I put a few egg whites in the freezer a few couple months ago (frozen in an ice cube tray, then transferred to a freezer bag).  Would they be viable for using in a macaron recipe (either French or Italian)?  Or do I really need fresh ones that have been aged?

I've seen a few sources that claim it will probably work fine, while another source claims they will be too watery to work (for a French recipe, anyway).

Yes, you can, but the results may not be the best, when it comes to tenderness and aeration of the finished (baked) product. Coagulated egg products are mainly used for omelettes, scrambled eggs and souffles especially for mass production, or great quantities.

In cooking, but especially in confectionery making, fresh eggs are usually used, especially for preparations that are very delicate, like macarons.


Tetrapaks vs. canned food How does one know if slightly crushed tetrapaks are safe to eat from? I have never heard of problems from them but wonder as they get a bit crushed from picking them up repeatedly. This article How to Know if Canned Food is Safe Past its Best Before Date says to avoid package if it is cracked, crimped or pinched but perhaps that applies to cans? Thanks!

It depends on the damage to its layers.

This is the layout of a tetrapak container:

Now, obviously the container should not be considered safe if layers 1-3 are compromised. But small damage in layers 4-6 should not be considered invalidating.

Since the package is flexible, I don't think that slight crushing compromises any of the more important layers.


Can anybody help make homemade pasta foolproof? I can't even count the number of times that I have followed recipes for pasta using a food processor, only to discover that no matter the care I took with the measurements, my dough was just a bit too dry (add water). Now it's too wet, (add flour). Aargghh, I could have traveled to Italy by now! I'd like to use my food processor, but this is starting to make me nuts.

Can anyone help?

I have found that one egg per one hundred grams of flour works very well. However, the process is important. Here is what I do:

Combine the ingredients as you would, either by hand in a bowl, or in a food processor
Knead the dough thoroughly until it comes together - NOTE: At this point, it is usually a bit on the dry side
Wrap tightly in clingfilm, and put in the fridge for ~30 minutes
Remove from the fridge, and knead again, then fold and run through a pasta machine, folding and running through repeatedly, until the dough starts to become silky
Process the dough on consecutively narrower settings on the pasta machine

I always dust the dough with flour before running it through the machine, and then again as needed, depending on whether it starts sticking to itself, the machine, or the work surface.

As for the "foolproof" part of your question: foolproof is, in my opinion, a product of confidence. Build confidence by practicing, often and repeatedly. After a while, you will likely find that you stop measuring, adding ingredients by feel and instinct, rather than measure.


Brining rack of lamb I am making a crown rack of lamb tomorrow, and today to prep I plan on getting some of the trimming done. I went to a new butcher this time around and sadly they left the extra layer of fat on the meat side of the racks which I want to remove (i'm a bit angry considering I paid about $30 extra because of that layer of fat).

Anyways - I know lamb doesn't have a lot of extra moisture of intramuscular fat. So, it would seem like it is a natural candidate for wet or dry brining. However despite a ton of searching I can't find anything referencing brining racks or crown racks of lamb. I know the amount of actual meat on each bone isn't huge so I am concerned about over-brining or washing out the delicate flavor of the lamb.

So, is brining lamb not a thing? Is there a specific reason to brine or not to brine lamb?

Why do you want to brine it? First, there really is no such thing as dry brining.  It is salting. When brining, however, only salt and water penetrates. The result is a moister end product, but, depending on how long you brine, it can also change the texture.  Some people enjoy brined proteins, others don't.  Brining can also be used as a crutch in potential over-cook situations (like turkey, which has parts that cook at different rates).  I would not brine lamb rack.  You are probably going to cook it rare, to medium rare anyway, so there is no chance of drying it out.


can you refrigerate risen bread dough After I have let store bought frozen roll dough rise can I refrigerate to cook later! Thanks

After you prove dough the yeast will continue to be active until they are killed by heat (or meet some other untimely demise). If you prove store-bought dough and then put it in the fridge, the cold temperature will slow down the metabolism of the yeast greatly, so yes, you are probably OK doing this for some period of time, but that's probably hours or overnight depending on how long you originally proved the dough.

If you prove too long your bread may become too sour or have an unpleasant crumb (it will probably collapse in the oven). If you are forming large bubbles in the bread you have probably proved too long. You can punch it down and prove again for the correct amount of time, or just bake straight away depending on the kind of bread. There are many recipes that call for proving in the fridge overnight to developer a deeper flavor.


Where to order whole-wheat flour(NOT ATTA) in India? Many people are deceived that maida(7.5% gluten) is ALL PURPOSE FLOUR and atta is WHOLE WHEAT FLOUR((10-12%)gluten but starch is lost due to chakki milling) so there is actually a lot of difference and simply one can't be substituted for another. I'm writing this so that many people don't think that I do not have access to atta. So if a bread recipe calls for whole-wheat flour, where can I buy it or order it in non metro cities like Chandigarh at "reasonable prices".
KAF is simply too high in terms of Indian money and the same is with Bob's red mill or Pillsbury, Gold Medal whole-wheat flour.
Out of them Gold Medal brand is the cheapest 626 rupees for 5lbs

We buy wheat grains and get it milled at a local flour mill. This way we can ensure the texture that we desire and also the quality. Time consuming but worth it. Not to mention the reduced cost.


Why didn't my clarified herb butter solidify? I was making spicy clarified butter but wanted to avoid the flecks of red or black that can throw off the color of a dish.  I decided to steep some basil and a few other herbs with an habanero in the butter and then remove them.

The butter did not come out nicely AT ALL. Despite letting it cool for some time, the butter never re-solidified.  I was rushed and didn't have cheesecloth so I might have done a poor job at removing the solids.  At the normal temperature of my kitchen, butter, clarified or otherwise, will solidify - but not this stuff.

Is it possible that the oils from the herbs and pepper prevented it from setting up?

I wouldn't think a handful of herbs and a singular hot pepper would have enough oil to prevent 12+ ounces of clarified butter from setting up.

I can only guess that something from the herbs has "disturbed the balance of the mix" and is preventing it from setting.

Putting my chemist's hat on, the problem is similar to what happens when a solid reaction product forms an emulsion and refuses to precipitate. When that happens, there are ways to induce precipitation, but not all of them can be applied to food.

Try adding a pinch of salt - mix, and wait.

If that fails, smear a knife blade with some fresh butter and stir the mix with it.

If that fails, try cooling it.

If that fails, try mixing in a pinch of bicarbonate of soda.

There are other suggestions, but I assume you want to eat the butter once it solidifies. Ideally, you want to find that happening after one suggestion has worked. If it takes a succession of suggestions to find a way to solidify it, this is about as far as you can go without the product starting to "lose its intention".


How to make ice cream without a machine? I recently made a poor-man's ice cream by making an egg custard and freezing it in the freezer in a metal bowl, stiring about every half hour. I was expecting it to freeze it 2 hours, but three hours later, it was too late, still not frozen solid and I went to bed.

The resulting ice cream was edible, but had more crystals than one might want.

What other techniques are there for freezing the ice cream short of buying an ice cream machine? Or can this recipe be improved?

This was the general recipe I was using.

This is what we figured out at Serious Eats: How to Make Ice Cream without an Ice Cream Maker

In sum, use more sugar, whip the cream, freeze in icecube trays and run through a Cuisinart at the end.


How to add missing garlic flavor to cooked soup I forgot to add garlic at the beginning of a soup recipe. (I usually add it to hot olive oil and remove when slightly browned before adding any vegetables or meats.. it gives a great flavor which is now missing from my soup.)

I thought about adding raw garlic cloves to the soup while it sits in the fridge overnight, then removing it the next day. (Would this make up for that missing flavor or overpower everythng else?) I also considered cooking garlic separately in olive oil and adding it in, but I dont want the soup to be too oily. Lastly, I considered adding garlic powder but the flavor is not really comparable. Is there anything else I can try to get the desired result?

I wouldn't use raw garlic, as it has a much different flavor from cooked garlic.

If you have some roasted garlic, you can put it in a blender with some of the liquid from the soup, then mix it into the rest of the soup.  If you then let it sit overnight, it should help to spread the flavor.

Another alternative (although it won't necessarily replicate the original) would be to make a gremolata (garlic, parsley and lemon zest) and drop a small spoonful into each bowl when serving.


How to harden a chocolate made from Regular (unsalted) butter? I am trying to make chocolate in following steps-

Take cocoa powder (unsweetened) and powdered sugar. Grind them. Add Regular (unsalted) melted butter, mix them for long. And pour them in moulds.

But the chocolate does not settle, even after keeping it in a refrigerator. Tempering will not help, as it works only for chocolate made with cocoa butter.

What steps I must do to get a chocolate that settles?

Thanks.

This cannot be done. Chocolate has the hardness of chocolate, because it is made out of cocoa butter. Dairy butter is not suitable for that. There are industrial processes which use hydrogenated plant fat and emulsifiers to make chocolate bars with a somewhat different texture than pure chocolate, but still hard - I doubt that you can do that without industrial grade equipment.

For all practical purposes, what you are trying to do is impossible.


Why does Tomato Sauce (ketchup) require refrigeration but Barbecue sauce (like Worcestershire sauce) does not? We have two types of sauce we put on our sausages. Tomato Sauce (Australian - ketchup equivalent) and Barbecue Sauce (Australian - mix of ketchup and Worcestershire sauce). The Tomato sauce indicates it needs refrigeration but the Barbecue sauce (made by the same company) does not say this.

My question is Why does Tomato Sauce (ketchup) require refrigeration but Barbecue sauce (like Worcestershire  sauce) does not?

You don't actually have to refrigerate ketchup. Once it's opened it's good for a month or so with no appreciable change. After that the flavour and colour starts to degrade, but it's still safe to eat.

Worcestershire sauce is fermented for more than a year before it's bottled, so it will change at a much slower rate than an acidic, but unfermented sauce like ketchup. Still, it's only good for a few years after it's opened.


In what proportion should the given ingredients be combined to form a cookie? These ingredients were listed on a cookie pack available in the market.
I would like to know what combinations of the following ingredients can be used to produce around 200gms cookies?

  Wheat flour
  Sugar
  Vanaspati
  Edible Oil
  Atta
  Ajwain
  Glucose
  Salt
  Custard
  Milk powder
  Synthetic colour
  Leaving Agents
  Permitted flavor and Emulsifier Agents

Wheat flour should be read as all purpose flour.

Questions:

What sugar should be used? White or Brown?
Can vanaspati be replaced with anything (clarified butter)?
Custard refers to custard powder or the custard which is ready to eat?
Why is glucose needed when the sugar is already there?
What should be added as Emulsifier Agents?
Water isn't mentioned here but should I assume that it is needed?

Besides for preparing 200gms "crispy" cookies roughly what quantity of each of the ingredient should be added?

It is nearly impossible to reverse engineer an industrial cookie recipe from its ingredient list directly--especially without the final product to compare to.

Some of the ingredients may be unique to the industrial process (such as "glucose" or "emulsifiers"), hard to obtain, or proprietary.  Some of the steps may require special processing or equipment.

Furthermore, your local labeling laws may be different than other places, so we would not know how to interpret this list of ingredients.  For example, in the US, the ingredients would have to be listed in order, by weight.

Instead, you should search for recipes that produce the kind of cookies you want that are designed for the home kitchen.

I cannot speak to local products in India, but here in the US there are many web sites or blogs where authors try to recreate recipes of popular commercial food products.  These recipes are designed for the home kitchen, and may not have the exact same ingredients or techniques as the commercial product on which they are modeled, but are instead designed to have similar outcomes.  I don't know if such sites exist in India, but I would suggest searching to see what you can find; failing that, I would search based on the name of the cookie for recipes for this type of cookie.

In terms of some of the specific questions:

What sugar should be used? White or Brown? If this was the US, it would always be white unless otherwise specified, but your local labeling laws may differ.
Can vanaspati be replaced with anything (clarified butter)?  Probably, but that will affect the taste and texture of the cookie.  Many industrial recipes use ingredients which are less expensive than the ideal ingredient, to keep costs down.
Custard refers to custard powder or the custard which is ready to eat? That would depend on your local labeling laws; here in the US custard would never be listed as a single ingredient without parenthetically describing each of it's ingredients as well.  I would guess powder if I had to guess... but listing it like this may be part of how they keep their actual recipe secret while complying with local labeling requirements.
Why is glucose needed when the sugar is already there? It is almost certainly present to alter the texture of the cookie in some way, either interfering with crystal development of the other sugars at some part of the process, or for its hydroscopic properties to help retain moisture.  This is the kind of ingredient that is often used in industrial recipes, but far less commonly used in home recipes.
What should be added as Emulsifier Agents?  Again, it depends on what your local labeling laws permit, and these may be ingredients that are rarely used in home cooking.  The most common emulsifier in home baking is egg yolks, which contain significant quantities of lecithin.
Water isn't mentioned here but should I assume that it is needed? Maybe, but there was also that "custard" listed, and we don't know what it means or contains.


Cooking pasta in the microwave I have a microwave "pot" that I use for steaming vegetables. The instructions say it can also be used for cooking pasta, which seems sacrilege to me.
Does anybody know if the result would be a good al dente pasta if cooked in the microwave?  I'd hate to waste a batch of my home made pasta just to try it.

You know, I'm right there with you on the sacrilege part, but nowadays I microwave pasta all the time. You need to use a non-starchy pasta for this to work. I use plain store-bought Barilla Plus because I love it anyway.  For fresh pasta, you could try a small experiment; I've never tried with freshly-made pasta.

It takes less time than boiling on the stove for me because I do this:

Fill up the electric kettle with water and turn it on.
I use a 1/2 gallon Pyrex measuring cup as my "pot", and I put an inch or so of water in that and pop it in the microwave for four minutes to warm it up.
When the water's boiling in the kettle and the oven timer expires, I take out the Pyrex container, add the pasta and a little oil and some salt (optionally a little vinegar), and then pour in the boiling water to cover by an inch or so.
Dumpling-like pasta (rotini or penne) take about 8:30 to cook on high (I've got I think an 1100 watt oven; experiment); spaghetti 5:30, thin spaghetti 4:30.

I know it sounds like a horrible sin, but I started doing it when I needed to cook small portions of pasta for my kids.  I tried it myself, and realized that I could tell absolutely no difference from the results I got in my big pasta pot. When I need to boil a lot of pasta (like 2 14oz boxes) I still use the big pot of course, but a pound or less actually cooks up perfectly fine. My pasta cooker is enormous and takes a long time to come up to the boil.

Now once I tried this (not thinking clearly, obviously) with some very starchy, fancy pasta, and it did  not work at all. But maybe because it's got so much extra protein, Barilla Plus comes out absolutely fine. (It's good for you too.)

edit — Here's an update: I still do this, but recently one of the seemingly endless succession of microwave ovens I've had recently died, and I'm pretty sure it's because it somewhat frequently overheated while doing this very thing (cooking pasta). Now I don't blame the technique, really, since an oven should probably be designed with the possibility of hot stuff being inside of them for some periods of time, but be warned. (It overheated probably 10 times or so over the course of a couple years before dying, so it was right about at what I find to be typical end-of-life anyway.)


Why get a chef's knife or santoku if I don't eat meat? If I don't eat meat, is there any reason why I would choose a chef's knife or santoku over a vegetable knife (e.g. Japanese vegetable knives or Chinese cleavers)?

I eat all kinds of foods (from mexican to chinese)  and make nearly everything from scratch (minus things like noodles), so from my cheap interim chef's knife, all I do is chop, slice, and dice. Although I've only recently taken up cooking, I don't see myself doing anything else (paring and bread knife aside). Because of this, I've been debating getting a vegetable knife, such as a Global vegetable knife or Wusthof Chinese cleaver.

Even for meat eaters, almost all knife work is done on vegetables.  Santukos and chef's knives are general purpose knives, with great utility on vegetables.  Chinese cleavers are also general purpose knives, the functional equivalent in that culture to the chef's knife.

The advice offered to you in this question:

Which knife is best for somone just learning to cook?

does not change simply because you are a vegetarian.


What do I need to know about temperature and food safety? What general rules do I need to follow to keep my food safe? How do I know what temperature to cook something to, or whether my food is safe at room temperature?

Storing food: the danger zone
When food is between 38°F and 140°F (4°C and 60°C) it's considered in the danger zone, and bacteria are growing on it quickly. USDA guidelines say that no longer than two hours in the danger zone is acceptable. This applies to anything that should be refrigerated, including raw meat and cooked food (leftovers). Additionally, if it's over 90F (32C), they reduce the guideline to just one hour.
Killing pathogens: cooking temperatures
When cooking meat, cook it to the recommended temperature for that particular kind of meat.  See for example the USDA's temperatures for various meats. These are conservative guidelines, but they'll make you safe. The common ones:

Poultry: 165°F (74°C)
Pork: 145°F (63°C)
Beef, veal, and lamb: 145°F (63°C)
Ground beaf, veal, and lamb: 160°F (71°C)

Different meats have different potential hazards. Most bacteria is killed by heating it over 145°F (63°C), but some things are much harder to kill, so it's important to use the appropriate temperature for what you're cooking.
And of course, once it's cooked, there may be some things that survived, or are reintroduced to the food, so you still have to follow the two-hour danger zone rule above.
Toxins
Even if the bacteria is dead, toxins can remain if the food was out too long, causing problems. No matter how thoroughly you cook something, it won't make up for bad handling. (Also asked and answered here). For more details on killing bacteria and the hazards of the toxins they leave behind, see the many answers to this question.
Botulism
Botulism is anaerobic (it grows without oxygen) so it's often a concern for canned goods, or things suspended in oil (e.g. garlic in oil). Some further information from http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/nchfp/lit_rev/cure_smoke_fs.html (°C values added)

The majority (65%) of botulism cases are a result of inadequate home food processing or preservation (CDC 1998). Botulism results from ingestion of a toxin produced by the bacterium C. botulinum.
This bacterium requires a moist, oxygen-free environment, low acidity (pH greater than 4.6) and temperatures in the danger zone (38-140°F / 4-60°C) to grow and produce toxin. C. botulinum forms heat resistant spores that can become dangerous if allowed to germinate, grow, and produce toxin.
Sufficient heat can be used to inactivate the toxin (180°F / 82°C for 4 min., Kendall 1999). C. botulinum thrives in moist foods that are low in salt (less than 10%), particularly when they are stored at temperatures above 38°F / 4°C.
These organisms will not grow in an aerobic environment, but other aerobic organisms in a closed system can rapidly convert an aerobic environment to an anaerobic environment by using the oxygen for their own growth, permitting growth of C. botulinum.

Nowadays foodborne botulism kills about 10 to 30 people a year in the USA, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


How do packet cake mixes get their lightness without creaming butter and sugar? I don't get it. Do they have some chemical leaveners in them or something?

I just had a slice tonight and upon complementing the chef on its lightness, was told it was a packet mix—just add egg and water.

Cakes pretty much always have chemical leaveners in them, whether you're making them from a mix or from scratch. So yes, there are chemical leaveners, and that's plenty to get it that light. I'm not even sure if it takes significantly more leavening than you'd need if you'd creamed butter and sugar, since cake batters are wet, so sugar will generally dissolve more and not provide a structural component. Some cake recipes don't even bother with a creaming step. In any case, it obviously works. Creaming butter and sugar is perhaps more of a factor in cookies, as mentioned in this question, for example.


Use of algin and calcium chloride in spherification I belong to a cooking club in which we have several home cooks who wish they had gone to culinary school. Anyway, I am cooking a dinner in which I am exploring modern cuisine utilizing new molecular gastronomy techniques.
My question is as follows: is there any liquid in which algin and calcium chloride do not work?  I tried to do the process utilizing chefs Albert and Ferran measurement requirements for the addition and the wash with balsamic vinegar and it did not work. However, when I tried it with milk, it worked. Additionally, how far in advance can you create your spheres before they completely turn into a compact ball. I understand the process does not stop.

There certainly are solutions that will not work. The reaction will only occur within certain pH ranges. You will sometimes see the addition of sodium citrate in a recipe, this is to correct the pH in to acceptable ranges for the gel to form. For sodium alginate, the acceptable pH range is 2.8 - 10. However, if the pH is < 4, that can inhibit the process (requiring the citrate). I can't find a definitive answer in a quick search for vinegar pH, but it looks like it may be too low. I'd guess that was your issue (since you had success with the milk).

I have also heard of issues with getting alcohol to gel at certain concentrations, but have no direct experience with making alcoholic gels (beyond a little flavoring).

Absolutely the best resource for this stuff at the moment is the Khymos Recipe Collection. Check out the appendix for detailed properties of the different molecular substances. However, Modernist Cuisine may soon become the 'bible' when it's finally released (and some people shell out $500 for it).

In my experience, if you want the caviar "pop" with spherification, you need to do it immediately before service. Leaving the caviar in a water bath can leach color and flavor, and as you say, the spheres continue to gel. My best results have always involved doing it at the last minute. Fortunately, it's not hard to do, and it's a great parlor trick, so you can incorporate the creation in to the service.

I also think that reverse spherification (putting a calcium solution into an alginate bath) holds the liquid center better as the gel forms outward rather than inward. This does leave you with a flavorless membrane thought, as the bath is technically gelling around the solution. So for preparations with a thick membrane, this may not be ideal.


What is the white sediment / residue found in ginger juice? I blended up some skinned ginger and squeezed the juice out of it via a meshed strainer with small holes (I only wanted the juice and I was collecting the pulp for cooking). I collected the juice (200 ml) in a steel vessel, where it remained for over 1 hour. Then I poured it into the lime I squeezed for a lemonade. Later on washing the dish I found a white sediment, I use sediment that instead of residue (ginger fiber) as that was thick white coating on the bottom of plate and I had to use the sponge to wash it away.
Even though the ginger juice was yellow-greenish, this was "salt like" white.
What is that white thing?
PS: I am very sure that it was not there before and I cleaned all the vessels & skinned ginger very well.

This white sediment is just something that happens with unfiltered ginger juice. Don't worry--it wasn't contamination, nor any unusual chemical reaction with your equipment.
This happens with fruit juice, too. Fresh fruit juice separates and needs to be shaken to get things reincorporated. If you leave citrus juice long enough, you'll get pulp floating at the top, then also get a watery layer and a cloudier layer.
What you are witnessing is the exact same thing, but with a smaller scale particle. When you allow ginger juice to sit, a white gluey texture layer will sink to the bottom with a more watery juice on top. You would need to use a very fine filter to separate out these solids, or you can just let them settle out naturally and pour the liquid off the top like you did. However, that white stuff has a lot of the good yummy gingerness in it, so I would want to make sure it got stirred into anything I made with my ginger juice. If you look at the fancy cold pressed juices at the grocer to find to ones with ginger in them, you'll notice they likely have the same white stuff on the bottom of the bottle (with instructions to shake it up before drinking!).


What is a tourne knife used for? For my birthday, I was given a collection of more or less esoteric knives, such as two mezzalunas (one with one handle, and one with two), a sicle knife and a tourne knife.

My question is this; what is the latter, the tourne knife, used for?

Also known as a "bird's beak", it's used for tournéeing root vegetables (turning them into little footballs) and making fancy, delicate cuts when carving garnishes from fruit or vegetables. More practically, the curved blade is great for peeling round vegetables and fruit. It's a complete pain in the butt to sharpen without a belt grinder (or pro sharpening service with same), but gosh, it looks neat. Congrats on the fun present!


Cheeses similar to queso fresco Queso fresco is one of my most frequently purchased cheeses; among other things I like it crumbled over salads. I do like a lot of common salad cheeses - crumbly goat cheeses, blue cheeses, and feta - but I often want something more mild.

Unfortunately, queso fresco is not quite so common in stores away from Texas. Are there any common similar cheeses that are more widely available? The best my searches have come up with is "mild feta", but I'm hoping for something a bit better, since in my experience it can be a bit hard to identify mild enough feta in the store, and it's also more commonly sold already crumbled and more expensive.

I use paneer and queso fresco interchangeably. They are produced using pretty much the same technique.

It is also really easy to make it yourself.
How do you make paneer?


How do I prevent curd from getting sour? I usually take homemade curd in lunchbox to work. Since there is almost 4-5 hours gap between the lunch break and time when I get my lunch packed. I don't have refrigerator or any cool medium to store it at work.

Just because of that long gap, curd usually gets sourer and becomes almost hard to consume.

Is there any particular method so I can prevent curd from getting sour?

As you already said yourself, cooling it will be easiest. Either use a cooled lunchbox with an ice pack insert, or, if taking it out of the refrigerator at morning, carry it in a thermos flask.

Alternatively, you have to get it out underfermented and let it ferment properly during these 4-5 hours. If you are taking just-ready room temperature curd, you can instead start the curd later, or start with cooler milk, or use less starter. If you are taking it from the fridge, you can start putting the curd into the fridge before it's done, so it reactivates and finishes fermentation in your bag. In any case, you will need lots of experimentation until you have the process such that the curd is properly done by the time you eat. Also, a few degrees Celsius difference in your environment will make it necessary to tweak the parameters.

Theoretically, the third option to try would be to kill off the culture when the curd is done, by heating it. But too little heat and the culture will survive, while too much heat and you will end up with quark. So this is only used in industrial settings.


Variations in cooking method for Jasmine rice I was at the supermarket today and noticed that the 2 brand of Jasmine rice that they sold had very different cooking times.

Tesco own brand. 75g rice with 113ml water. Simmer for 20 mins, drain, rinse in boiling water and serve.

Tilda brand. 60g rice in boiling water. Simmer for 10-12 mins, drain, cover, stand for 3 mins and serve.

Is this just a different cooking method (ie the first aims to use exactly the right amount of water so there is am element of steaming, whereas the 2nd uses excess water, and is thus simply boiling) or would it be a reflection of the way the way the rice was processed ?
Also, in the first method, what would be the best method to rinse ? E.g. pour it all into a fresh pan of boiling water for a few seconds, pour boiling water into the pan after draining; put it in a sieve and poor boiling water over it, or somthing else?

Yes, those are two boiling methods.
One is using "right" amount of water that get absorbed by rice (that indicate rice being dobe)  and second one is using excess amount of water. Both methods are valid although first one is much more water savvy.
But I have no idea why (and how) rinse cooked rice with boiling water. It's similar advice to using pasta water to help the sauce stick but properly cooked rice have enough surface on itself.


Why does my mayo freeze in the fridge? I made some mayo last weekend and placed it in a large mason jar inside the fridge. After 3-4 hours, I took the jar out to use the mayo, only to find out that it has become 'ice cream' like in terms of thickness and texture. I think it was frozen because after leaving it out for a few minutes, the mayo became watery and separated.

Why did this happen? This is the mayo recipe I used:

1 whole egg
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons ground mustard
1 cup vegetable oil
1/8 cup olive oil
1 teaspoon white sugar
1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar
1/4 teaspoon salt

You have to heed the difference between two meanings of "frozen" here. In the kitchen, we frequently use "frozen" in sense 1), cooled to less than 0 Celsius, so that the water in the food (most food contains water) freezes to ice. Sense 2) is roughly consistent with what physicists describe as a phase change: a compound which has changed from its liquid to its solid phase. In this sense, alcohol freezes at -114 C, sunflower oil freezes at -17 C and coconut oil freezes at +24 C. A cook is more likely to say "solidify" instead of "freeze" in this case, but it does look and feel like freezing, so sometimes people use that word too, or can even think that if it happened, it automatically also implies freezing in the first sense.

I highly doubt that your mayo froze in the first sense. But as you see from my examples in the second sense, two things can have the same behavior at different temperatures, for example coconut oil at 24 C behaves the same way that sunflower oil behaves at -17 C. It is plausible that you created an emulsified mixture that, at the temperature of your fridge (which is probably in the +0.5 to +10 C range depending on your local food safety rules and propensity to follow them) superficially behaves similarly to how cream based air-whipped emulsions behave at -6 C to produce ice cream. That is, you got the same texture as you had frozen whipped cream, no matter the temperature of your fridge.

It is also normal for emulsions to break after freezing and thawing. So that would explain the separation you saw after taking it out again.

I cannot say exactly what single part of your recipe "caused" it, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was an interaction of many factors at once. To prevent it, you could try variations like using a mixing device which adds less air to the mixture, or reducing the speed if available, using no egg whites, using less acid, using no olive oil, and using a different temperature during whipping. It will be a matter of trial and error to find which one measure (or combination of them) is sufficient for you to prevent the problem. And of course, they all come with their own consequences, so if you discover more than one way to prevent the solidifying-separation cycle, you have to make your own choice which one to use.


Why is dark chocolate dark when pure cocoa is light brown? Kind of a simplistic question, but my curiosity cannot be assuaged. When you look at pure cocoa powder, it has a light brown color, like a milk chocolate bar. And yet a dark chocolate bar, which is much higher chocolate content than milk chocolate, is a vastly darker color than cocoa powder. Even a 100% pure cocoa chocolate bar is a very dark color.

Pure cocoa powder

Milk chocolate bar

Dark chocolate bar ~75% cocoa

Dark chocolate bar 100% cocoa

What is at work here? I know chocolate has fats and solids other than cocoa in it, but that just makes it more confusing why a pure chocolate bar is dark as well. Does compacting the cocoa into a solid form (which is how I assume you make a pure cocoa bar) darken it that much? Are there differences in preparing the cacao beans (like different roasts for coffee)?

There are probably several factors in play:

The chocolate liquor used to make the chocolate may have been dutched (processed with alkali) which makes it darker.  AT the extreme end, it is almost black, like an Oreo (which is made with highly dutched cocoa).
The fat phase surrounds the cocoa particles, and makes them appear darker, much like wetting cocoa powder with water makes it appear darker.
The cocoa used to make the chocolate may be roasted to a greater or lesser degree, which affects its color, might like with coffee.  Thanks to  Didgeridrew for pointing this out.
Milk chocolate is necessarily lighter, as the milk particles are white, and help make the entire bar a lighter shade.

The cacao percentage is not a major factor, as even low cacao chocolates (like the very, very sweet German's Baker's Bar) are quite dark.


how to prepare fresh sardines for bucatini con sarde I tried boning sardines according to on-line instructions and made a mess of them.  Recipes, say this one by Mario Batali, http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/mario-batali/pasta-with-sardines-pasta-con-le-sarde-recipe.html , say remove the backbone.   I'd like to know
1. does anyone know where to find instructions that work  for performing this procedure ?
2.  Has anyone done it ?
3.  when you remove the backbone are all the little bones supposed to come out with it ? If not, what becomes of them ?

Also, I live in NYC and would be please to find a seafood class that dealt with getting the guys off the boat and into the pan, but the usual places don't seem to offer a lot.

If you bought fresh sardines before to clean them and remove the backbone you should keep them in a bowl of water to get soft for an hour at least.

After you make the cut on the neck or simply remove the head with your hands.
Now there is the hole created by the head removal.
Enter your finger and open the sardina.
If you prefer to use a little knife cut from inside to outside the thinner part and open (thinner par is without the backbone).
Remove the tail if you are using them for the pasta, otherwise don't cut it (vertical nor horizontal) if you want to fill them (for "sarde a beccafico").
Now your sardina should be open and still with backbone and little spine.
Since it became soft in the water should be easy to remove the backbone and little spines all together picking the backbone from the head part and separating it from the rest of the fish gently.

If you use stored sardines clean under fresh water gently. Remove Silver skin outside part and interior part. Remove the white long chain of backbone and eventually spines.

If you have any doubt about other passages or ingredients let me know.

Buon appetito.


Adding butter to pizza recipe I like to experiment with my pizza recipe, and I love the taste of butter.
Right now my pizza dough recipe is something like this:

2 cups of flour
3/4 cup of water
1 ts of yeast
2 ts of honey
1 spoon of olive oil

...if I remember correctly.

How and when can I add butter to this?
Or is it better to add it to the sauce?

You won't get a buttery taste from adding butter to the dough. Even in fat-rich batters like pound cake, the difference between butter and a neutral fat is subtle - it is there, but it doesn't taste like biting into a buttered toast. And in a pizza, you can't add such amounts of fat to the dough, because it will interfere with gluten production, resulting in the wrong dough texture.

If you are prebaking the pure base at some point, putting butter on top of it will give you some buttery taste. But most pizza recipes call for immediate baking with the sauce, if not toppings, without prebaking the naked base (the exception is made for baking thick-crusted pizza in a regular, low-temp oven).

Putting butter in the sauce is also an option, but it will tend to be quite overwhelmed by the tomatoes. In general, a sour taste masks fats well, and a tomato sauce is sour.

I think that your best bet is to use some toppings which remain above the cheese, and put pieces of butter on them the moment you get the pizza outside, or, if they are crustable, in the last 5 minutes of baking. This will create small patches of melted butter with a distinctive flavour. If you do it on the cheese, it will mix with the cheese fat, and make it too greasy, so toppings above the cheese should function better.

The last option is to cheat and use butter aroma - this is what many commercial bread producers use. I wouldn't do that, because I am able to distinguish it for the real thing, but many people seem to be happy with it.


What can be done to thin chocolate for dipping? I have been dipping chocolates for many years. I recently tried a new brand of chocolate that has a fantasic flavor, but it is thicker than I'd like when melted. I know adding cocoa butter will help, but I don't have any on hand. Is there anything else I can use that will leave me with a hard (as opposed to ganache-like) chocolate coating?

Most fats work (this is why cocoa butter works) most people recommend Crisco but a small amount of low flavoured oil (or flavoured for that matter) is fine.

I like ganache so personally extra thick double cream does it for me.

Either way it's easier to add more later than take out! Start with a little bit.


At what temperature will the fats on meat render? I am expectantly awaiting the arrival of a sous vide circulator. I saw a clip where someone cooked a duck breast sous vide, finishing it off in a frying pan to crisp the skin. That simply makes no sense to me; as I would have thought that the (rather thick) layer of fat between the skin and the meat would remain, and make the breast nigh on inedible.

Extrapolating from that, I got to think about what temperatures are needed to render fat in genereal.

According to Amazing Ribs:

  130-140°F - Fats begin to melt and render (liquefy). This is a slow
  process and can take hours.

Note:  this is 55-60 C.

The speed of the process will increase with temperature.


Baby parsnips vs. parsley root I cooked parsnips for the first time this week (glad I did - delicious).  When the produce clerk pointed them out, I asked if he had baby parsnips instead (as the recipe called for them).

He pointed out parsley root, which looked very similar.  I did a search while in the store (and got in many shoppers' way), but could not find whether they were the same thing definitively.

A follow up question would be, if they aren't in fact the same thing, had I chosen to make this dish (roast veggies and chicken), how would the taste have differed for the parsley roots?

Parsley root is not the same as parsnip. It tastes more like parsley, which is not really a surprise. Parsley roots don't get as sweet and delicious when you roast them as parsnips do, in my opinion - I get plenty of both from my Community Supported Agriculture box and buy a lot of parsnips as well.

If you can't find parsnips you could use parsley root as a substitute rather than going without. On the matter of "baby" parsnips --  I just cut the large ones into more pieces. The centre of the largest ones are woody sometimes, but unless it's 4" or more across (which I have seen) you have nothing to worry about.


Does splitting spaghetti in half change the taste? I've heard that splitting spaghetti in half before cooking them change the taste. Is it true?

No, it's not true. It will not change the way they cook. Noodle cooking times vary by what they're made out of and by thickness, not by the length of the noodles.

The kids and I seem to prefer eating shorter noodles and dodging the hassle of spinning the noodles, but when there's company over we tend to do it the classic "right" way. No difference in taste.


I bite my nails. How can I keep proper hygiene in the kitchen? I'm not a professional chef, but I think someone will have this issue, somewhere, and is a chef. A similar question asked about having a cold, but nail biting is much worse due to the obvious amount of cuts one develops on fingers.

Apart from the obvious (and difficult to achieve) goal of stopping the habit, how can I maintain proper hygiene and food safety while cooking?

I would say gloves, but I think it's going to be a problem for complex manipulations, and it could affect the taste of what is prepared. Is there a special brand specifically for this purpose?  If not, what other precautions can I take?

Gloves are annoying and, much like condoms, do obscure sensation and--in the case of kitchen work--precision with your fingers. For those reasons I avoid them wherever possible.

As a lifelong nailbiter (from when I was about 9 until I was 31), it was a habit that was really hard to give up. But it has been worth it, not just professionally. I know this isn't the answer you're looking for, but: stop biting your nails.


Does near expiration date milk continue to "age" in a cooked dish? I was so happy to find this site. From what I've read, it seems very friendly and non judgemental.
I have 2% milk that has two more days before its Best Buy date. If I use it in a baked casserole, such as green bean casserole, does it continue to age? Would the leftovers be safe for 2-3 days? How about in a boxed cheesecake mix that is not baked? Sometimes this brand does smell off at this point.
I've always wondered about this?
Thank you! Beth

You have either a "Best before" or a "Use by" date.

If it's an unopened pack with a "Best before" date, the milk should still be perfectly safe even quite some time after that date (it's sterilised or UHT treated) in the unopened package.
If it's an unopened pack with a "Use by" date, it depends on how the pack was stored: a "Use by" date is for raw or pasteurised milk, which should always be kept refrigerated. And normally, the milk should be used on or before that date.

If the pack has been opened, you should be able to keep it for a few days at 4°C (refrigerator), but not beyond a "Use by" date.

I use as a rule of thumb "don't use it if it smells off". If the milk still smells good, when using it in a casserole that is baked, the leftovers should keep normally. In a cheesecake mix, if the milk isn't reheated, I'd be more careful, and not go beyond a "Use by date", or 3-4 days after opening the package.

And the "going off" isn't a matter of aging, but of microbial growth. If it's lactic bacteria, you'll finish with yoghurt; if it's something else, all bets are off...


Is smoking with 'barked' wood dangerous? I have been told that smoking with fruit wood that has bark on it is poisonous. I also have been told that there is nothing wrong with using 'barked wood'- that it is only a matter of personal taste.

Which is true?

It depends on the wood if it is desirable or not to smoke with the bark still on the wood.  I have had good results smoking with apple wood bark, but disgusting results with birch (birch bark gave off heavy soot).

Is it poisonous?  Well, I am still alive, but that's anecdotal.


Is it ok to use an enamelled Dutch oven on an electric stove top with the older ring burners? I bought my first enameled Dutch oven and I've been trying to do some research on whether or not I can use it on the older electric ring burner stove tops without it cracking on me.

If anyone could give advice it would be much appreciated.

Oh sure, you can use an enameled Dutch oven on that type of stove. That type of burner (hob) is still the most common in the US; I haven't had anything but that type (in my home) in my adult life. An enameled cast iron Dutch oven will discolor when used on any stove, but it wont crack unless allowed to burn "dry" or if the pan was defective to begin with.


What is the simmering temperature in thermometer? I would like to know the simmering temperature what is when we simmering food.

I just purchased a food thermometer and would like to learn how to use it.

There is no exact temperature, but consensus is that the temperature needs to be below the boiling point of 100 °C / 212 °F and above the poaching temperature of 82 °C / 180 °F.


Will I be able to cook my mac & cheese until it's brown if my cheese sauce is thick I found this recipe that requires thick cheese sauce the reviews was good but her mac & cheese was light and I was wondering will I be able to cook my mac & cheese until it browns or if I'm able to brown thick cheese sauce

I've made many varieties of mac and cheese, both thick and thin so I'm confident in saying that browning is a matter of preference. There's no reason you can't brown the top more if you like.  Use a higher oven temperature or you can put finish it under a grill/broiler to give it more color. I find a layer of breadcrumbs mixed with cheese browns well on mac and cheese.


How to veganize and improve this cake recipe? I have the Build-a-bear cake pan from Williams-Sonoma. The cake recipe is as follows:

3 cups (470g) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
16 tbs (250g) unsalted butter
2 cups (500g) sugar
4 eggs
1 1/3 cups milk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Sift together dry ingredients; cream butter, sugar, eggs; combine milk+vanilla; add flour to butter mixture alternating with the milk.  Bake at 325F for 45-55 mins.

This cake made in a cake pan with two wells.  Each well is a vertical half of the seated teddy-bear.  When it is done you trim the cake with a knife then glue the halves together with icing.  This recipe makes a basic vanilla flavoured cake which is a bit on the dry side.  When it's slathered in mocha icing the dryness is ok but when I use fondant icing to decorate it's too dry overall.

This year I want to make a bear cake again, however there are two changes I need to make.  First, I'd like to make the cake moister without sacrificing its physical durability (it needs to be able to sit up without crumbling apart).  Second, I need to replace the milk, eggs, and butter with non-dairy/non-eggs because my new son is allergic to milk and eggs.  I'd ask two separate questions but I think they both need to be addressed at the same time.

How can I make this cake better tasting AND vegan?

To make it vegan is simple:

Replace the milk with any other kind of milk (soy, rice, hemp, etc.)
Replace butter with some kind of margarine (I recommend Earth Balance, but just pick anything that doesn't have trans fats)
Replace eggs with either commercial egg replacer, or apple sauce

As for making it moister, I have no idea.


Only the core of my banana is black. Is it safe to eat? This banana had a bit of bruising I wasn't too concerned until I noticed the core (and only the core) was dark brown/black in color.  In addition, it's somewhat dry and hollow, unlike normal banana flesh.

I've read elsewhere on the Internet that this happens when they've been dropped (which, incidentally, this one has been).  Is this true?  Are bananas like this still generally safe to eat?

According to my grandfather, it's still under-ripe - he liked them after they were brown/black all over outside and pretty well brown all the way through inside.

So I'm pretty sure it's perfectly safe to eat.


What is this palm like plant called? (Spoiler: leek) For bonus points how do I cook and eat it.
For even more bonus points how long do have till I need to eat it (day, week, month). If someone knows the name I can google the rest.

Update if a google hit lands here under leek: The light green parts in the top core are tastier than the white parts in my opinion. Don't throw them out.

That appears to be a leek, and not one in the prime of health either.

Trim off the root end. If it came from a farm, you might want to give it a traditional de-gritting by cutting it in half lengthwise and rinsing to get out any dirt between the leaves/layers  (typically around the border between white, which was underground, and green, which was above.)

You can bake or braise them, but most people slice them into half moons (because they were already in half lengthwise) and use them wherever you would use onions. Don't use any brown part, nor the really sad green part, but happy looking green part is fine.

Recipes that specifically call for leeks abound, of course, now that you have a name for it.


My white device has turned yellow Here is my white device, which has turned yellow on one side while cooking an over done cheese burger:

Does anybody know whether it is possible to turn it back to the white color?

Probably not, plus it will get worse over time.

I've an old George Foreman with similar marking.
Neither oxygen nor chlorine bleach works - plus it smells.
The only thing that very slightly works is a good hard scrub with something quite aggressive, oven cleaner or barman's friend etc, which will eventually take all the paint off.

You'll just have to live with it.


I have an insanely hot pepper: now what? Someone gave me a Trinidad Scorpion Moruga pepper: according to Wikipedia, it's the hottest one out there. At least, the person who gave me the pepper said it's one of those, and it certainly seems to look like one.

I can take a bit of chili: I've cooked myself meals before with an entire chili pepper in each, and I can take that much without much problem. Having said that, I'm definitely not a pro when it comes to spiciness, so I'm kind of scared to cook with this demon fruit.

What do I do with this pepper? Is there some way I can get the flavor and spice in a meal without upsetting my stomach or searing my mouth (and/or other stuff the morning after)?

edit: I'm suddenly thinking, maybe I could grind it up and make a big chocolate cake out of it? am I right in assuming the oils in the chocolate will dilute the peppery oil in the pepper?

Have you ever eaten something so hot it made you cry and felt like it'd never stop burning? Given what you've said you've tried, this thing is probably 10-100x as hot as the kind of pepper that would do that to you. Please be careful.

In any case, pretty much the sole point of a pepper like this is to try to be the hottest thing in the world. The amount of capsaicin is incredibly huge compared to the amount of other flavor in it; you're basically never going to taste anything but heat from it. So if you want to actually use it, just assume that the only thing you can do with it is make something hot.

I have a decent heat tolerance and love things with a bit of heat, but I still probably wouldn't bother. There are plenty of ways to add heat with much less risk of creating something completely inedible. If I really wanted to make use of it, I'd probably start with a very small quantity in a dish to try to get a sense for the heat level. This means using it in some kind of soup/stew/sauce where you can incrementally add things as you cook, not in something like a cake where you have to just go for it and possibly end up throwing away a whole cake. (For some peppers I might also try touching it to my tongue first, but I don't think I'd recommend that in this case.)

Finally, you can always try to cover it up by using it in a rich, fatty dish, e.g. a sauce with plenty of cream or coconut milk, but honestly, you'll still be lucky if you can taste anything from the pepper besides the heat.


What oven should I buy, which is appropriate for baking? Three months ago I moved to a new apartment. In my old apartment with my old oven, my baked goods turned out pretty well. However, since I moved, my baked goods vary from almost-good to throw-it-in-the-garbage instantly. First I thought I had to get used to the new oven, so I made adjustments to the temperature and so on. Still I just get very sad every time. The oven is over 30 years old, so I think I have to conclude; I need a new one.

I looked around on the internet for a while, and I did not really get an idea of how to choose one. A couple of things are important to me:

It must be appropriate for making pastry
It will be used a lot (almost every day), so for home-use it will be used pretty intensely
I can not install a built-in oven; I rent this apartment and may not change anything
It must be big enough; I have no problem with taking a lot of my space
Here in the Netherlands combo-ovens, which are an oven and microwave in one, are very popular. I'm not interested in the microwave part, so the quality of the microwave is not essential assuming one is in the machine.

I am willing to spend some money on it because I use the oven every day. (Note: The owner of the building is probably not going to help me pay for it)

When looking around for a new oven, a couple considerations were raised for me:

The free-standing ovens have different powers. Which power must I have at least? (I have seen variations from 800W to 1500W)
Prices vary widely, while specifications do not. Are there some brands or types which can be recommended?

I would like to show you the options that I've disregarded, yet I don't even have a clue where to start at all! I am hoping to hear some good advice on how to select an oven to fit this criteria.

-edit-
I start doing some more research. And this is one criteria that must be met for me:
I want top and bottem heat. However, this is not the case in most ovens I can find, and sometimes it is not specified. Maybe I should conclude that it is not the case then?
Does anyone know the influence of only top heat?

Furthermore my research ended in some options. Prices and types vary, but I can not really tell the difference from the specifications. For example, what does the number of WATT says about the specification of the oven?

However, next to my confusions, this are the options I selected to give you an idea about what I am thinking about:

http://icecat.it/us/p/delonghi/eo3275/freestanding-cookers-8004399181762-eo-3275-10726854.html

http://www.tristar.eu/en/Home_Appliances/Cooking/Ovens/OV-1417/3/3195

Well this is to give you an idea what I am thinking about. I hope to get some feed back about a possible mistake I make with this kind of oven, or what is good about them. If you would compare them, which one to choose? The price is around the same and within my budget. (less then 250-300 euro's is fine, and this is around 150-200 euro's)

Why did I choose these two? The main two reasons:

-They have top and bottom heat

-They have a volume of around 35 liter. I make pretty large plates, especially cakes. I want enough space in my oven, but maybe I am exaggerating and 24 liters really is enough for home use?

I know this are a lot of questions at the same time. Basically I want a good advice, and feedback about buying an oven. I want to know I a forget any criteria that are important. Also I want to know how you can know ffrom specifications what is a good oven. Can you know quality difference from it? Or is the only way read experience from other people and base my opinion on that? If someone can tell me how I know which oven is a good one, you helped me a lot! Thanks a lot!

You probably have already purchased an oven at this point, but this video from America's Test Kitchen seems to explain a lot of things and offers some purchasing suggestions.

The model they recommend is the Breville Smart Oven, however it is made for the US and I could not seem to find a version made for 230V outlets. A reviewer suggested using a "step down transformer," but I don't have any experience with using US appliances in other countries so use your own judgement here.

If you've already purchased an oven, please let us know what you got and how it turned out! I find the idea of using a small toaster oven for heavy duty baking fascinating and would love to hear if you were able to make it work.


What should I use to marinate chicken with a lime seasoning? I'm trying to marinate chicken with lime for a party. I know I can't use metal as a marinating dish otherwise it corrodes. Is wooden okay to use? I need an answer hopefully within the hour because of the upcoming party tomorrow morning. I have already used up my plastic bowls for fruits. Are wooden bowls okay to use or should I use multiple Tupperware dishes?

Your best bets are glass and stainless steel.   There is no risk of corrosion with stainless steel, as opposed to aluminum or cast iron, which may react with acidic foods.

Zip-type bags are also excellent for marinating, and disposable.

You can use plastic like Tupperware, but there is some risk of staining.

I would not choose wood, as the marinade may permeate into the grain of the wood, leaving stains and a permanent aroma.


Failed griddle seasoning I have a viking stove in a house I recently purchased.  It has a griddle, I cleaned it with a grill stone using oil while it was cold (the griddle).  It cleaned well.  Next, I used flax oil to season it. I have never done this before nor have I owned a griddle.  I watched several youtube videos.  I turned the griddle on to medium heat spread flax oil with paper towel on it.  I allowed it to burn for about 10 min, the smoking stopped, allowed it to cool, I then did it again, this time I got distracted and the heat was left on for about an hour, when I checked it the edges looked black (although scattered and uneven, nothing like what I see on the youtube videos).  The middle area (scattered) had an appearance that I burned the oil.  Some areas look like a thick and hard.  It looks nothing like what I saw on the videos.  How do I fix this

WWGD? (What would Grandma do). To avoid uneven seasoning, best to wash it all off as much as you can and start the seasoning process all over again.


Freezing Egg & Cheese Omelet A Super 8 motel we just stayed at had egg & cheese omelets on their breakfast bar.  They said they get them frozen from Farmers Brothers. They are thawed on the breakfast bar and warmed up in the microwave. They were delicious, just like fresh made.  Has anyone else ever heard of them?

I looked online, but they are a wholesale outfit for restaurants etc. However, I saw recipes listed for freezing your own omelets. I would like to try to make some.

Would it work to make omelets, freeze them on a cookie sheet, wrap them, and eat them later?  I think it would be great for quick mornings breakfasts, camping etc.

Quite surprising, but cooked eggs (hard boiled, scrambled and omelets) freeze particularly well. I keep large thin omelets for shredding over fried rice. Cheese and egg are mostly composed of fats and proteins that freeze well. I would think that most omelets composed of cheese would work well. I can also see a spinach omelet made with frozen spinach working well as well.

I would avoid trying to freeze an omelet that contained crispy/crunchy vegetables. Or maybe omelets with a saucy filling that may split during reheating.


Converting bread recipes for an overnight rise? I often find myself with an urge to bake things in the evening, but without enough hungry mouths left to justify actually producing anything substantial by the time the recipe is done.
As such, it'd be handy to have some guidelines for how to modify a recipe so that I can do part of the preparation in the evening, leave the dough to rise overnight (either at room temperature or in the fridge), and continue with the recipe the next morning.
Things I imagine might come into play:

A conversion from counter rise times to fridge rise times - does 90 minutes at room temperature correspond to a certain duration at 40F? Is the risk of over-proofing more or less, if I sleep in and miss my target?

Reducing the amount of yeast in a recipe by some fraction, so that it doesn't rise as quickly (but what fraction?)

Specific features of a recipe that make it an especially good or bad idea to try this kind of modification - certain ingredients, cooking temperatures, whatever.

Any advice along these lines would be appreciated! Interested in guidelines for both bread and other yeast-based doughs (rolls, buns, pizzas, etc.).

There are no strict formulas or conversions, the mathematics of bread baking are too complex for such predictions.
Rising at room temperature overnight is not recommended, it is generally way too warm in our homes.
The thing you can do is to take any recipe you have, and stick it in the fridge as-is, either for the first or for the second proofing. It should generally turn out OK overnight, but if it tends to overproof or underproof, you will have to adjust the amount of yeast in the future. You have to find this out by trial and error. In the morning, you will have to give the dough time to warm up back to room temperature before continuing to work with it.
There aren't that many things to be said about ingredients. Doughs with very high amounts of butter will tend to change their handling with refrigeration and are more demanding about the temperature at which you shape them.


How to cook grass-fed, high-fat hamburger on electric stove? I've managed, through trial-and-error, to learn how to cook regular hamburgers on an electric stove. But recently, I've switched to grass-fed beef (with 25% fat, higher than regular hamburgers), with less-than-stellar results. So, given these conditions:

An Electric stove (Yes, although every cooking book I've seen, thinks you should be cooking with gas - my apartment has an electric stove, so that's what I use.)
U.S. Wellness Meats grass-fed, 75% lean burgers. These are pre-formed, and 25% fat, which is higher than the standard burgers I used to cook. I'm sure the fat content affects cooking - I'm just not sure how.
12" Calphalon non-stick skillet (although I'm wondering if I should replace it, that's a separate issue).
Infrared thermometer - very nice tool, I can't imagine not having one after using it.

What I want to know, is how, using only these resources, to cook a burger that is at least medium-well, if not well-done. So far, I've generally managed to get the outside too cooked, or the inside too pink.

I'd appreciate detailed, step-by-step instructions, if anyone has them. Even the so-called basic cookbooks seem to give just one-liners, for things like hamburgers.

For instance, one situation I don't know what to do about - after about a minute, the burger starts to bow up, so the underside isn't touching the skillet. It's obviously not getting cooked, so now what? I've seen posts saying you shouldn't press down grass-fed burgers. Most of the time, I'll flip it after a minute, so it's flatter. Is that a good method? I have no idea.

Or they say "cook on medium-high heat". Well, my electric stove doesn't have a medium-high setting, it has numbers 1-6. Give me a specific temperature (say, 350F), and I'll use the infrared thermometer to find it.

Update: yes, the hamburgers have thawed out in the refrigerator for a day, and I usually set them out while the stove is heating up. I also have an internal thermometer. As for using an oven - I'd prefer to use only the listed resources (with a skillet), rather than extra items (don't have a cast-iron skillet, don't want to cleanup a baking dish). If there is no other way to cook them well, I'd go with the oven, but I'd rather not.

Summary or "detailed" instructions: flip frequently, and if it's still cooking too fast on the outside and too slow on the inside, adjust the temperature down a little. Maybe you'll take two or three tries to get it perfect, but such is life.

Medium-high probably means somewhere between halfway and maximum on your stove. There's no temperature, don't worry about obsessing with a thermometer. Just try something 4-5, see how it goes, and adjust if necessary. (A thermometer doesn't really help, in any case, because what you care about in the end is the power output of the stove, not the temperature the pan is at.)

Flip as frequently as you want or need to. It'll make it cook more evenly, because you're effectively heating from both sides, instead of letting one side stay cool while the other side cooks. It will also reduce the total cooking time. Notably, Harold McGee has been advocating this for a while, and it really does work - see this blog for some nice plots and cross-sections from simulations, or this Food Lab post for a nice hands-on test with burgers. You can flip as often as every 15 seconds if you want to pay that much attention to it.

If you still have trouble with the outside being too cooked (or the inside not being cooked enough), simply reduce the heat. This is universal advice, not at all specific to burgers. Alternatively, for burgers, you could make them thinner.


How would I make a Paleo yogurt-based frozen custard? OK, I've been tasked with making a Paleo dessert, and I'd like to try to make a frozen dessert. Here are the ground rules for Paleo desserts: only fermented dairy (yogurt is fine, milk and cream are not), only honey and maybe palm sugar as sweeteners, eggs are fine, nuts are fine, raw coconut oil is fine.

I'm thinking it might be possible to combine full-fat yogurt, strained perhaps, with egg yolks and honey, bring it up to 170 to make a custard, then chill, to get something that would freeze acceptably in a standard home ice cream machine.

Any suggestions? Would this work? I'd think it would taste good, especially with some chopped almonds and berries mixed in, but I'm worried about texture. What issues will I have with using honey as the sole sweetener? Will there be enough fat in the yogurt?

Frozen yogurt made with full fat yogurt is very creamy and full flavored. You might find that the eggs are unnecessary.

If you do do the custard watch you temperature carefully as yogurt curdles easily when it is heated. If you have a lot of fat in the yogurt then it will be resistant to curdling otherwise you can take out some insurance by mixing in a little bit of corn starch- if that is allowed.

Honey is perfectly fine and many frozen yogurt recipes call for it.


What is this rust-like stain on my aluminum pot, and how do I clean it? Today I tried making Dulce de Leche from a can of condensed milk, using my aluminum pot as it's the biggest cookware I have.

However, after lifting the can, it seems to have left this circular, corrosion-like residue on my pot. Hot water and scrubbing with soap did not help, though it did reduce it slightly.

I did notice that the can itself became slightly rusted near the bottom. Is this rust? How do I remove this stain from my pot?

This will be from an electrochemical reaction between the can (mostly iron I think) and the water and possibly the aluminum (a better chemist than me would be able to tell you).

Aluminum has a fairly impermeable mono-molecular oxide layer on its surface (incidentally this is why you can color coke cans and the like; the color is in the oxide layer). The oxide layer in the case of your pot has probably been compromised by the reaction between the can and water, possibly scavenging some of the oxygen from this layer.

To remove this you can do either of some scrubbing with a steel based scrubber - basically polish the pot surface, or you might be able to remove it by boiling the pan with a weak acid solution; vinegar is probably the easiest, but any acid should do. Note that both will make the pot shiny, and you should do a short boil with some water to re-establish the oxide layer.


Making pearl couscous in slow cooker I've been using a slow cooker to make casseroles lately and would like to try using it to make Israeli couscous. I can't find anything online that tells me how to do this. The reason I would like it to sit is so that it will absorb the herbs and spices I make it with. Most recipes just have you add it in the last 10 mins. That doesn't seem long enough to absorb enough flavor. Anyone have any idea how to achieve what I'm looking to do?

I got it to work! I added chicken stock and zucchini and cooked on high until zucchini started to soften. I added sautéed onions, garlic, spinach and let sit for a while so stock would absorb flavors. Then I added canned tomatoes and cooked sausage. I let the liquid get hot and then added the couscous. I let it cook for 20-30 mins. It took longer than I thought for it to soften. It's not "fluffy" but that's not what I was going for. I wanted more of a casserole feel. Then I added some cheese and feta after I turned the heat off. I ended up having to add a lot of salt, but it tastes great!


Is eating uncooked spaghetti dangerous? Sometimes I like to eat some (15 to 20 pieces) uncooked and dry spaghetti from the store as a snack.

Still, I am worried a little about salmonella and other such things, so my question:

How safe is eating uncooked spaghetti?

Thank you

Yes and no;  in smaller quantities; no problem.  If you sit down in the morning and eat bowl daily; you will cause some serious long term issues.

Raw flour is full of lectins and phytates; which can pose a danger in higher amounts; damage the lower GI and cause IBS; other issues
Nutrient problems can develop from the raw flour intake at higher amounts
Bacteria standpoint; no problem; eat away.

As the comment mentioned; some fresh pasta could be harmful because of the raw egg.


Why is the dishwasher not recommended for my All-Clad MC2 line of pot and pans? I just looked on the All-Clad website (faq 7 and faq 13). It says that because the MC2 has a brushed aluminum alloy exterior, it mush be hand washed. Why is the dishwasher bad for it?
It's just soap and water (and sometimes rinse aid) right? Is it the rinse aid that does something to the pot/pan? Is it because the jets of the dishwasher too strong for the pot?

I can answer you with first hand experience and a picture. Your lovely dark gray finish will become light gray, streaked, and hideous. I'll never buy this style of pot again, it is just too useful to be able to dishwash them sometimes.


Should I refrigerate hot sauce? I am an avid hot sauce collector. I own about 2 dozen bottles in various states of completion, some of which are a couple years old. They are currently in my refrigerator. Is that where they should be?

Frank's FAQ says yes.

This article on Chow.com says no.

What do the hot sauce experts say?

Most hot sauces are pretty inhospitable to foodborne illnesses, and can safely stay in the cupboard rather than the refrigerator. Nevertheless, the flavors in the sauces will break down over time, storing them in the fridge as opposed to room temperature will slow deterioration and keep the sauces fresher longer. If you use your sauces quickly enough then you probably won't notice a difference, but if you like to keep them around for awhile it's worth the fridge space.

There is an argument that making hot sauce cold will dull the flavor, and this is true. However, given how small the amounts used are they will come up to temperature very quickly, a dash of cold sauce on hot food will be warm by the time you get it to your mouth, so it's not a good reason to keep hot sauces in the cupboard.

The only time I would store a hot sauce at room temperature is if it will thicken up too much to come out of the bottle easily (presuming it does not say it requires refrigeration of course). Then I will keep it in the cupboard (not exposed to sunlight).


Chilled puff pastry vs frozen Just found out there's actually two kind of puff pastry in my local supermarket, one called chilled and one called frozen. Do anyone know the difference?

Some people said the chilled one is fresher as it's kept in normal fridge not frozen. But then I'd also want to know if I have left over of this chilled puff pastry sheet can I freeze them for storage?

Chilled means refrigerated, and frozen is frozen.  The first is for shoppers who want to use the pastry dough right away, and the frozen is for most shoppers who aren't using it immediately.

You can freeze puff pastry.  In fact, you can freeze and thaw it a couple of times before the freezing/thawing process starts to ruin the dough.


How can I have a dough attachment when I have a Dretec Handmixer? I have a Dretec Hand Mixer and as far as I can see it doesn't have additional attachments for sale online. Can I attach some other mixer's dough attachment onto it?

AFAIK it's really difficult to knead dough with a hand mixer even if it comes equipped with dough hooks.

I was in your shoes a while ago too and after some research, found that it's basically useless for kneading dough. Unless you're Popeye, you're not going to be able to hold the mixer and the bowl steady enough for the dough to get kneaded. I ended up buying a KitchenAid.

Either spend the money on a stand mixer or just knead your doughs by hand.


What's the difference between pan frying, sauteing, and shallow frying? As I understand it, all of these terms refer to cooking food in a small amount of fat/oil. What exactly is the difference?

Pan frying means letting the food sit in the pan and occasionally stirring or flipping.  It tends to be done with larger pieces of food, and at a medium to medium-high heat.

Sautéing means shaking the pan back and forth - making the food "jump", if you're translating directly.  It's done at a high heat, for a short time, usually with thinly-sliced or finely-chopped ingredients.

Shallow frying, according to some references, refers to the food being partially (halfway) submerged in hot oil and flipped once, as opposed to deep-frying where the food is fully-submerged the whole time.


Does dry pasta need washing? When I am cooking at home I usually cook with dry, store bought pasta shapes. Before I cook it I usually partly wash it under the tap so that the water isn't too cloudy when it cooks, I don't usually bother to wash it thoroughly so there is still some cloudiness.

My question is basically, is it necessary to wash pasta before cooking it? Is there an advantage to washing it completely so it is boiling in clear water? I think it is just the starch that is being washed off (please correct me if I am wrong) so by washing it the cooked pasta would not stick together as much but I haven't tested it.

No, there's no need to wash the pasta, and really, it's best not to.

It's good that the water gets cloudy from the pasta starch. If it has enough starch in it, it'll leave the surface of the noodles a bit stickier, making sauce adhere better. And you can also use some of the pasta water in a sauce to the same end. Getting the water that starchy generally requires using less water (see What is the correct water to pasta ratio?). If you're using tons and tons of water, like the pasta package probably says, it's probably going to be too diluted.

The one case in which you might want to wash the pasta is if, even when you start it from cold water and stir enough, it sticks. The only kind of pasta I've had this happen with is orecchiette, which is shaped perfectly for getting it to stick to itself.


Chocolate mousse with cooked eggs? Most recipes I have seen for mousse require you to use egg yolks and don't involve any cooking of the egg. It's my understanding that when an egg's yolk is still soft (or not cooked at all in this case), it hasn't been cooked long enough and can contain salmonella.

Is there any way I can still use eggs in my recipe but somehow ensure that I don't need to worry about salmonella?

I've tried looking for pasteurized eggs, but couldn't find them at any of my local supermarkets.

First of all, it is extremely rare for the yolk of an egg to become contaminated if the egg is reasonably fresh.  Contamination only tends to occur when the egg is quite old and the yolk membrane weakens. (Source)

Now, that said, egg yolks begin to set at a temperature of 62° C (144° F), and salmonella can be killed at temperatures as low as 59° C (138° F), so it actually is possible to "cook" the yolk sufficiently to kill any bacteria without letting it set, but you have a very small window to work with, so you need to be careful.  If the temperature is even 1° too low, you'll just be encouraging the spread of more bacteria, and if it's even 1° too high, you'll ruin your recipe because the yolk will set.

Nevertheless, if you have a reliable, uniform heat source, you could attempt to heat the egg to 60-61° C for about 1 minute.

Unfortunately, you won't be able to use the technique used in other recipes - such as Bavarian cream - of simply using the residual heat of the other wet ingredients to cook the yolk sufficiently for safety while not allowing sufficient time to set.  Dark chocolate is the most heat-resistant but will easily burn at temperatures significantly above 50° C (125° F).  Mixing the chocolate with cream may raise this temperature slightly, and I admit to not being certain of the exact amount, but I'm pretty sure it won't get you up to the required 59° C - and it really actually needs to be much higher than that because the temperature must stay that high for several seconds after adding the eggs.

So my advice to you is to either:

Pre-cook the yolks very carefully to a temperature just below 62° C (use a thermometer!); or
Use very fresh eggs from a reliable source; or
Don't eat mousse made with egg yolks, if you can't tolerate the (very low) risk.


How do I quickly get okra to stop being goopy? It's irritating to cook any recipe with okra. I love okra, but it always takes a long time to burn off all the goopy stuff. Is there a way to get rid of it more quickly so my okra will be ready sooner?

When I cook an okra, I've found that adding tomato suppresses the slime. For about one or two cups of okra, I add one small ripe tomato. I do that whenever I cook an okra curry.

Deep frying okra in some kind of batter also works well and is delicious.


Bread - Liquid proportion in french toast Torrijas are a Spanish version of French toast (as seen in Kramer vs Kramer). Very popular here during easter.

The trick is to get the torrijas very moist without the bread falling apart. If they stay too dry, it's not very nice.

I've seen a recipe with 750g bread and 1l milk.

I'd like to know what variables influence the perfect french toast, and what proportion of bread vs milk is best. My guess is that the bread type plays a role in the quantity of milk. Or maybe it's a matter of trial and error.

I'll try this answer next time around.

As Adele's comment suggests, it's really milk+eggs that matters (along with any other significant liquids in your recipe), not just milk.

The type of bread might have some effect: denser breads might not have as much room to take up liquid. But most people use some sort of reasonably light bread, so it can get a good amount of the custard in it - that's kind of the point. Nothing too open, like ciabatta, but also nothing too dense. So really, the amount of liquid is just the amount of free space in the bread, and that doesn't vary that much from bread to bread. If you're asking this in the context of looking at recipes, and the recipes in question specify a number of slices, the size of your loaf of bread and thickness of slices will far and away be the biggest factor.

What does have a bigger effect is how full the bread gets. A lot of people make it by dipping a slice of bread in the liquid mixture for a few seconds on each side, enough to soak up a decent amount of liquid, right before frying in a pan. This might not be long enough to really let it soak in, so it'll use less liquid. But I'll go out on a limb and say most people like it if the custard is thoroughly soaked into the bread. The answer you linked to is a great way to do that. You can also make it by soaking the bread for a longer period in the fridge (an hour to overnight). It'll have time to take up a bit more liquid that way. (You can then fry it as normal, or bake it to get something similar to bread pudding, except in slices.) Either way, the important thing is that the bread pretty much gets saturated.

So as long as you're really letting it soak in, there aren't really a lot of variables: the bread will get full of the custard mixture. If it's critical to plan ahead and get quantities exactly right, find a recipe you really trust. Otherwise, just wing it - if you're dipping the bread in, just mix up a batch, keep going until you run out of liquid, and if you want more, mix up a bit more. You can call this trial and error if you like, but honestly, it's what I do every time. It'll come out well if you let the bread soak up enough.


How to go from a full pigeon to just the breast We have 9 people coming for Christmas tomorrow and have 9 pigeons like this:

We are going to follow this recipe. And as you can tell we only need the breasts of the pigeon. How do I go about not wasting the rest of the meat.

We have thought about cooking it in bacon for 15 minutes but don't really know any more than that. Any advice would be great!

I'd butcher the bird in three portions:

Use the breast as in your recipe.
Remove the legs, set them aside.
Roughly chop up the carcass and make a fonds, then stew/braise the legs from (2.) in it.

If the usual Christmas hustle and bustle doesn't allow a long cooking session now, I'd freeze the carcasses and make the fonds another time, perhaps with a few other delicious scraps. In this case, de-boning the legs (fiddly work, I know) and searing them together with the breasts is an option, or you could decide they are so small that they aren't worth the effort and use with the rest of the carcasses.


Eggs sticking to the pan Everytime I fry eggs, in any pan, it sticks. If I add oil or butter it helps, BUT if I go to make a second egg, it sticks unless I add more butter or oil. And when I add more, the butter or oil burns and makes my eggs taste gross. What am I doing wrong?

If it's a stainless steel pan then the eggs should not be sticking. Your pan is too hot I think. It is always best to cook eggs over low heat, they won’t stick that way. I always remember this: “More butter less heat”.


How is unsweetened plant-based yogurt possible? For plant-based (soya, almond, cashew, etc.) unsweetened yogurt, how does the yogurt bacteria grow and develop without sugar?

From online recipes for soya yogurt, one tablespoon of sugar per 1 liter of unsweetened soy milk is needed to promote bacterial fermentation. As these plant-based milk alternatives themselves do not contain sugar (lactose/ milk sugar), for which is the basic food for yogurt bacteria (eg. Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus/ Streptococcus salivarius subsp. thermophilus/ bifidobacteria).

Also, there is not much sourness in some brands of soya yogurt (eg. Sojade etc). I wonder instead of sugar, what is added to cover the lactic acid that was produced by the yogurt bacteria during fermentation?

Would like to try making unsweetened soya yogurt at home. Appreciate any insights :)

Actually, the yogurt cultures, usually some strain of the group N Streptococcus and Leuconostoc species, mesophilic cultures, converts the lactose into lactic acid, which gives the diary product it's tart taste.
Furthermore, bacterial enzymes transform the milk carbohydrates into oligosaccharides, some of which have prebiotic properties.
Different LAB (Lactic Acid Bacteria) produce different fermentation products, although they have in common that they are alive in the product and can interact with microbiota during intestinal transit and the cells of the intestinal wall.
Fermentation of soy milk with lactic acid bacteria offers a means of
preserving soy milk and the possibility of modifying the characteristic
flavor and texture to make it more acceptable to Western taste.
It is possible to make soy milk yogurt-like products with acceptable texture
and clean acid flavor. The choice of fermenting organisms is limited to
those that can ferment the sugars typical of soy milk. i.e. stachyose.
raffinose or sucrose. unless sugars fermented by the desired cultures
are added to the soy milk.
SOURCE
SOURCE


The Warm Oven Temp. for Cakes My Mom is making a cake. Its an old recipe, 50 - 70 yrs old (or older). All it says is to use a warm oven. No temperature range, just a warm oven. What temperature would this be?

Without any details on the recipe, it is hard to offer any firm recommendations. That said, I have had success using a convection oven on 180 degrees Celsius (356 degrees Fahrenheit), and checking for doneness with a bamboo skewer.


How do potatoes work against salt For people cooking now and then it is common knowledge that you have to add an extra of salt if you're including potatoes in your meal.

But what is the (biological? chemical?) reason that potatoes - at least for our taste buds - cushion salty tastes?

I see two possible reasons for such a statement. First, it could be that traditional home cooks are accustomed to salt vegetables on a very rough basis, using some homemade rule like "a teaspoon for one pot of soup", and potatoes being blander (less sour, less aroma) than many other vegetables, they prefer to add more salt to potato-heavy meals to achieve a similar level of seasoning-ness.

The second could be a logical derivative of the idea that adding potatoes fixes oversalted soups. If they are an antidote for salt, they need more of it to reach normal saltiness when added deliberately, right? Only the problem here is that they are not a magical anti-salt thing at all. They don't really "fix" the soup, they are just a convenient way (cheap, bulky) to provide dilution in the salty soup, reducing the average saltiness of the chewed potato-stock mixture in the mouth.

Both are not really good reasons to stick to the rule. The second one is plain wrong, and the first is overly simplistic. The better way is to adjust your seasoning based on all factors of the recipe, not just the presence of potatoes. And always taste test when adding seasonings.

So, to sum it up, there is no such reason at all. Your assumption is based on misunderstandings and kitchen myths.


Can I marble two cakes that call for different cooking temperatures? I have two cupcake recipes that I would like to combine into one marbled cupcake.  However one recipe bakes at 350 degrees and the other bakes at 375 degrees.  Can a combination be done?

I have found that as long as the two recipes don't have a huge variation in baking temperature (and as far as I have found, 25 degrees is not that huge of a variation), as long as they bake for a similar amount of time, it turns out okay. What I usually do is set the oven at the lower temperature for the indicated bake time (in your case, 2o minutes), and then check them at that time to see if they are baked. Usually they are, or they are really close and only need 2-5 minutes more to be done perfectly.


Will mechanical blending denature alpha amylase / glucoamylase? I am trying to break down the starches in a certain variety of oats in the most efficient way possible. I have to break the whole oats down after cooking, so they are fine particles for the amylase to do its work.
However, if I add the amylase at the beginning of the blend, could I be damaging / denaturing the enzyme from the shear forces of the blender (I am using a 600 Watt stick blender)

There are three ways in which a protein can be denatured:

Chemically (for example, the 'cooking' of protein like fish by acid, as in ceviche).
Through heat.
Through mechanical force.

I will assume that in your situation, chemical denaturation does not occur.
From a quick search through some scientific literature, mechanical protein denaturation is a fairly new research topic. I found an MSc thesis that lists three experimental techniques for mechanical denaturation: optical tweezers, magnetic tweezers, and force mode AFM (atomic force microscopy). All these methods act on a single protein molecule, grabbing it at two ends and 'stretching' it, which denatures the protein.
While it is possible that your stick blender denatures some proteins mechanically, but it seems unlikely to have a large effect. It seems much more likely that the blending is causing your mixture to heat up above the denaturation temperature through friction. This could also explain your inconsistent results, if you do not always reach this temperature.
A good test is given in mbjb's comment: blend the oats first, let the mixture cool down if it has warmed up, then gently mix in the amylase. You could measure the mixture's temperature throughout the process if you want more information, potentially comparing it to amylase's denaturation temperature (which I could not quickly find, but you might be able to).
PS. in response to your comment: the enzyme reaction process will be sped up by temperature (where warmer means faster, until you get to the denaturation regime) and proper mixing. I see no other mechanical advantages of blending in the amylase using a stick blender.


What can be added to veggie burgers to increase texture? I add chopped onions, garlic, grated carrots, some flour and spices to pre-soaked TVP. Onions add a bit of texture but after baking tvp densifies becoming like soft rubber.

I think mushrooms, beans, corn and peas can make it more texturized but I'm not a big fan of all those ingredients. Anything else you can think of?

Instead of adding ingredients as an answer, how about tackling the TVP texture?

Try many-hour soaking first off. Drain and let steam in it's own 'juice' in a tight-lid pan (not too big) on low for just a few minutes. Done at your desired chewiness.

This has the effect of giving off some of the soaked up liquid that would otherwise wick off during burger frying.

Can add in your seasoning while cooling. Binders best added when room temp.

Now, for texture and sogginess prevention, my fav vegburger addition is cooked brown rice. A little goes a long way.
Also, terrific crunchy chewiness with fine chopped raw broccoli.
Raw sunflower seeds add meaty-ness if burgers are fried several minutes.
If quicker fried then maybe soak them first. Pumkin seeds too.


Rolled marzipan as cake filling? Do people ever use rolled marzipan as a layer between cake layers frosted in buttercream?

Probably someone has done this. Why not?
On the other hand, you don't want a thick marzipan layer, because the material is expensive and has a strong taste, so it is more naturally to use the cream as the bulk filling and have a thin cover on top. This makes the cake more stable, too. If the cream serves as the frosting, it has to thicker.

Normally in a cake one often has the harder layer outside and the soft stuff inside.

As an inspiration, here is something that has marzipan on top of a jelly layer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominostein


Dying a white iced cake black I've had an Xbox cake made for my son, but they made it white and I wanted it black. It can't be remade, because it's too late.

Can I do anything to dye it black?

I was thinking about brushing black food colouring on it but I think it will go grey and ruin the icing.

Yep I agree with Stefan I'd get a can of edible spray paint!! (no affiliation)