Raspberries too wet in muffin I made white chocolate raspberry muffins the other day after being inspired by these muffins at a cafe near work. They were absolutely delicious (warmed up in a microwave for 5 seconds), however, the only problem was that the raspberries were a little bit too wet inside of the muffins that I made. I used fresh raspberries for it. Should I be using frozen raspberries or what other things can I try?

Raspberries are going to leak a little and stain the batter of any muffin they are put into.  Muffins with whole berries are going to have reduced shelf life due to this.

Frozen raspberries would be even more leaky, as the freezing and thawing will soften them.

To make a raspberry muffin, you have to accept that raspberry is very moist, so you cannot overload the muffin; the have to be used with a moderate amount of restraint.

Dusting the raspberries with flour (from the main quantity of flour in the recipe) before mixing them into the batter may help form a barrier, although I wouldn't count on a dramatic change in outcome.  I have not personally tried this, though.

If you don't mind a completely reddish muffin, you can puree some or all of the berries, and use them as a substitute for some or all of the water or milk in the recipe, as they are about 87% water to start with.  This will allow you to balance the liquid level.


Canning pickles and sealing lids I did the whole boiling process of canning the pickles and over night some did not seal but as soon as I placed them in the fridge they sealed. Do they need to stay in the fridge or can I put them in the basement with the others?

You have two choices for those jars that did not vacuum seal:

Treat them as refrigerator pickles, and eat them in the next several weeks.
Within 24 hours of the first processing, process them again completely (using clean, new lids and having cleaned the jar mouths)


Can I weigh without a set of scales? So I'm at my sister's house, and it turns out she doesn't have any scales.

I need to weigh 120g of castor sugar.

What can I do?

This site will convert weights to volumes, and says that you should use .53 of a US cup.


Why do my Eisenhower Cookies turn out flat? This was my mother's recipe that my sisters and I have made several years. They use to work now they go flat. We are going nuts trying to figure out why. Any suggestion would be welcomed.

Eisenhower Cookies (really a ginger spice cookie)

2 cubes of margarine
1 cup and 3 tbsp sugar
1 well beaten egg
2 cups of flour (after sifting)
1 tsp cinammon
1 tsp ginger
2 tsp of baking soda
2 small pinch of salt
4 tbsp of yellow label molasses

Make into balls, roll in sugar, bake at 350 for about 10 minutes, depending on oven.

Have you tried using fresh baking soda? I really don't see anything else that could be off here, especially if the recipe has worked well in the past.


Can I use microwave turntable glass plate in convection mode? I bought a Singer SMW25GCQ6 model microwave oven. It has convection and grill features. For baking cakes and for grilling we don't use the glass turntable plate since we thought it could cause the cakes to brown unevenly.

Is it safe to use the glass turntable in convection mode with the baking to hold the baking cake containers? I'm asking this because there is mode which uses microwave + convection for roasting chicken. So that means the glass turntable should be there and it will work for convection mode as well right?

Then how about grill mode?

Assuming you do not have access to the instruction manual, and/or the manual does not specify whether it is safe to use the glass in convection/grill mode, I would assume not.

Are there any labels and/or writing embossed on the glass?

As I described in this similar question, "regular" soda-lime glass is not heat safe.  Given that the glass was obviously designed for a microwave, it is probably tempered glass, so it can withstand some amount of heat.  Therefore, I would treat it like a Pyrex baking dish and not heat it to over 500°F.  Your microwave's convection mode likely does not get that hot, so you are probably fine with that, but no guarantees.  I would not use the tray in grill mode because even Pyrex is not broiler-safe.


Would adding more egg help crumbling cookies? As this is a controversial subject I cannot just ask it to the majority of the women I know that bake. I make cookies for my father who has cancer and was losing weight at an alarming rate until I suggested pot cookies. I have been using Betty Crocker peanut butter cookie mix. The recipe calls for only one egg, I have been having a crumbling issue. It's too expensive to trial and error in this situation. Would adding another egg help?

Adding a whole egg would help, but you might start with adding just one egg yolk. The additional fat will address the dryness which leads to the crumbling.

You may also try other fats like butter, cream cheese, or vegetable oil.

If even one egg yolk is 'too much' for your desired outcome, you might try a small amount of half&half.


Egg substitution in Indian meatball recipe I am cooking for a dinner party in a couple of days and one of the friends is allergic to egg but the 2 recipes I found and like ask for eggs. The recipe that mum uses also asks for eggs to bind the meat so the meatballs do not lose shape and breakdown when boiling in the curry.

http://cooks.ndtv.com/recipe/show/mutton-kofta-100384
http://allrecipes.co.in/recipe/144/hyderabadi-nargisi-kofta.aspx

Can someone please help and suggest something that will still bind the meatballs without losing too much of an Indian touch to the flavours?

If you add salt to your meat and leave for a few hours this will break down some proteins in the muscle (myosin), which cross-link / bind with each other. Hopefully you wouldn't need the egg to bind. I have done this with burgers and meatballs before, so no reason this wouldn't work OK for kofte


Do I need special gloves for mozzarella stretching? I'd like to pick up some gloves for stretching mozzarella. I've seen gloves sold for just this on specialty sites like thebeveragepeople.com and thecheesemaker.com, but I can't tell if they're just a generic product sold as something specific. Is there something generic that will work equally well for (1) hot temperatures and is (2) food safe? I'd like to be able to buy it on Amazon in particular.

There is no requirement for specific gloves so far as I know. Gloves themselves aren't actually even necessary. They do however keep your hands clean, and they keep any nasties that could be on your hands or arms out of the cheese. When I make mozz for my family I usually just use my clean bare hands. If I was making to sell I'd most likely use food service gloves with a little butter on them to prevent sticking during stretching, similar to when you're pulling taffy.


Flavour Enhancer 635 and Vegetarian The flavour enhancer E635 is a combination of E627 (disodium guanylate) and E631 (disodium inosinate) and is in Fantastic Noodles (Chicken).

If I am correct, the flavour enhancer 627 is isolated from sardines and/or yeast extract and 631 can be prepared from meat extract and/or dried sardines. If 635 is made out of 627 and 631, is it considered vegetarian as 627 and 631 contain sardines and/or meat extract?

If not, does this make the noodles non-vegetarian?

E627 can be produced from seaweed, and 631 may be produced from tapioca starch.

Thus, both may be properly vegan. Or not. What does it make the food? With all honesty, it makes food don't know category. You can't assert it's vegan, and you can't be sure it isn't. If you are going to feed your vegan friends, buy ingredients with guaranteed vegan origin. If you don't know, be sensible to inform your friends you don't know.

If you are vegan yourself, only you can tell if you are willing to risk eating non-vegan ingredients when source wasn't stated explicitly.


Can you reconstitute dried morels in broth instead of water? I'm making some risotto this weekend, and I've always read to reconstitute dried mushrooms in water, but I haven't read anything for or against reconstitution in broth.
Would there be any reason not to do this, such as because the salts would change the way the shrooms did their job?

The only reason I can think of against it is that your dried morels will have dirt in them and will contaminate your broth.
After the mushrooms have been re-hydrated, pick them up careful from the broth (they usually float).
Then, strain the broth using a coffee filter or a fine mesh strainer (@moscafj).
Use the remaining broth for your risotto.


Olive oil instead of peanut oil to air fry potato? I’m allergic to peanut oil, can I use olive oil for baking potatoes in a power air fryer oven elite

According to this chart, the smoke point of extra-virgin olive oil is 160 C or greater, equal to that of peanut oil, although there seems to be a wide variety in the temperatures reported. In this case you should be able to substitute the oils for cooking purposes. Personally I prefer a higher smoke point oil, such as canola, for frying and baking


What's the minimum amount of oil for making popcorn? My wife makes popcorn by adding the corn to a pan, then tilt the pan and add oil until the popcorn is just covered. This seems to be a lot of oil. Does anybody know how to make popcorn with less oil?

The way I do it is put 1-2 tbsp of oil in my pot, add 1/3 cup or so of corn, cover, and heat on medium until it starts popping, then turn down a bit and shake the pot occasionally until it is all popped. So, not oil free, but not a whole lot of oil either.


What German product is the equivalent of cream in a recipe from the United States? I'm looking at a Bolognese sauce recipe from a US cookbook and it contains the following ingredient:

  1 cup cream, half-and-half, or milk

Now I'm wondering what exactly the german equivalent of cream is, as there are many different types.

Does cream in US recipies generally refer only to regular cream ("süße Sahne, Schlagsahne") or to sour cream ("saure Sahne, Schmand") or Crème fraîche as well?

I'm mostly wondering because I read that sour cream or Crème fraîche are especially suited for hot sauces as they don't curdle easily.

I'm interested in both, what is usually meant by cream in US recipies and which type of cream would be appropriate for something like a Bolognese sauce or similar hot sauces.

"Cream" is most certainly süße Sahne. A modifier gives you knowledge about the fat percentage. Half and half refers to 20% fat, which you could mix yourself if needed, but few recipes are that sensitive, so you can use milk (Vollmilch, 3.5) or whipping cream (Schlagsahne, 30 to 35 percent). The only problem is double cream. That's Konditorsahne, at inner 40 percent, and not available retail in Germany. If it has to be whipped, you have to find a high-ish Schlagsahne (33 instead of 30), drizzle some Sahnesteif, and cross your fingers.

If the recipe needed a cultured product, it would have specified Greek yogurt (10) or sour cream (10 to 20, use saure Sahne or Schmand for that). Creme fraiche is not used in traditional American recipes, as it is a rare and expensive imported product. You can use it in a recipe calling for sour cream, obtaining a product with a richer mouthfeel and less tanginess.

The "what type of cream is suitable" question is unrelated to terminology and should be asked separately. Briefly, the answer is "all of them".


how long before a fresh chilli pepper is cooked? If I was to add a fresh chilli pepper at the end of cooking, how long in a simmer would you say before its been cooked(all unsafe  things killed and it has released its flavour)?

You can certainly eat fresh chili raw, so no need to worry about killing anything (give it a rinse first).  It depends on the effect you are after.  Typically, "at the end of cooking" means to turn off the heat and add the ingredient.


Marinate pork loin overnight? I'm looking at this recipe:
http://www.chow.com/recipes/30370-cuban-rotisserie-pork-loin-with-peppers-and-onions

It says to marinate for 2 hours. Do you think it would be ok to marinate overnight?
I'm just looking to make less work the day of.

In my "expert" opinion as a great lover of all things pork, I say yes, that marinade will be fine overnight. It's quite acidic, and that's a concern, but it's not so acidic as to create mush. You'll be fine marinating overnight. As a matter of fact, I'm surprised that the recipe doesn't say "2 hours up to overnight".


creaming butter vs adding to flour in cakes Most cake recipes call for creaming the butter and sugar first, then adding liquids and flour alternately . Recently I have seen several recipes instructing to add cool butter in small chunks to the flour/sugar mixture beating  after each butter chunk, then adding the milk and eggs.  what does this produce?  Thanks

As Jason Sandeman already said in his answer, adding the butter to mixed dry ingredients (including things other than sugar) is called the "two step" or "two stage" method.  Many professional bakers recently have advocated using it to produce more a more tender crumb with a velvety consistency.

In terms of food science, the difference is primarily due to gluten production.  In a typical creaming method recipe, the butter and sugar are combined to create bubbles, and those bubbles are stabilized by alternating additions of flour and liquid, which form gluten strands to support the bubbles.  The cake rises high due to big bubbles and a support structure.

When the flour is combined with the fat first, the fat envelops many of the flour particles, inhibiting their ability to interact with liquid when added later.  Thus, less gluten is formed.  Bubble formation is also inhibited somewhat (and bubbles are smaller sized).  That means an exceptionally tender cake with a fine crumb, but which won't rise quite as high or be as "light."

The reason it's called the "two stage" method is to differentiate it from a "single stage" mix (or a "quick mix"), where all ingredients are just thrown together, as in a boxed cake mix.  (I believe the "two stage" method was originally developed in the 1940s or 50s, when boxed mixes were first becoming popular.)  The problem with the "single stage" method is that it will fail with "high ratio" cakes, i.e., those having a significant amount of sugar compared to flour.  In that case, a "single stage" mix won't allow the moisture to dissolve the sugar granules fully, resulting in a somewhat "crunchy" or "mealy" sugary texture (like a sugar cookie).

If you don't want your financiers to taste like a sugar cookie, you need to dissolve the sugar thoroughly.  And if you value tenderness over lightness, try adding the flour along with the sugar to the butter before the wet ingredients.


Leaves that fall off Brussels Sprouts, any reason not to cook? A lot of recipes recommend removing the outer leaves from Brussels Sprouts.

I understand why'd you remove brown or damaged leaves but I've always thought the leaves that just fall off are perfectly fine to eat.

Any advice appreciated.

The ones that fall off because you've accidentally trimmed off too much stem are fine to cook, although likely to overcook when treated the same as full size sprouts.


What grains are gluten free? I know wheat is the common problem when avoiding gluten, but what about other grains, like barley, rye, or oats?

Note that wheat is a type of grass, and is technically a grain.

Grains without gluten

Not all grains have gluten—only those closely related to wheat do.  Grains which do not have gluten include:

Corn (maize) and its variants or derivatives such as cornmeal, polenta, hominy, or masa
Rice (all varieties)

A note on rice: some varieties are called "glutinous". This just sounds similar to "gluten", but is in fact used to indicate the rice's stickiness. Glutinous rice does not have gluten, not even as traces, its stickiness comes from a special type of starch.
Millet
Sorghum
Oats (although many oat products are processed in plants that may have had wheat)

Sometimes confused for grains

Note that the following gluten free seeds are not grains, although sometimes they are confused for grains:

Wild rice
Quinoa
Buckwheat (despite the name, not a wheat nor a grain)
Amaranth

Non-grains used as gluten-free starches and flours

Therefore, all grain-like, starchy, or flour-type foods which are not grasses are always gluten free, including wild rice, quinoa (despite any other issues), and so on.

Additionally, flours or seeds based on non-grain seeds, nuts, and legumes are always gluten free, although there may be other dietary sensitivities.  These include:

Almonds
Soy beans
Peanuts
Chickpeas
Mesquite flour
Amaranth
Quinoa
Wild rice

Finally, starches and flours based on roots, rhizomes, and so on are gluten free, including:

Potato
Sweet potato
(True) yams
Tapioca

Grains containing gluten

The following grains are all wheat relatives, and have gluten to a greater or lesser degree:

Wheat
Spelt
Rye
Tritical
Barley
Kamut

Note that the following are all processed wheat products or specific wheat varieties, and should be avoided to maintain gluten free diets:

Farina
Durum
Semolina
Couscous

See also:

Gluten Free Living
WebMD guide to gluten free flours


Simmering with or without the lid Many Indian recipes give the requirement of simmering the gravy, covered until reduced. I'm wondering if this advice is flawed as one would presume the pan would need to be uncovered in order to reduce the liquid.

It depends on how long the recipe calls for, and how much reduction is required. Most Indian recipes I make don't require much reduction, they are relatively thick to begin with. Lids don't seal perfectly, you will lose moisture even with the lid on. If you have a long, slow cook it may reduce enough for some recipes.


How do I recreate a restaurant's sauce if I know the ingredients but not the ratios? I recently ate at a Mexican restaurant with a delicious sauce. They were willing to sell it to me if I put in a special order, but they insisted it was so easy to make that I should just make it myself instead. I know the ingredients are jalapenos, habaneros, onions, and garlic. There is no water or anything else, just those four ingredients. The end result is a yellowish green sauce with a smooth, almost paste consistency.

I think I can figure out cooking the ingredients and blending them together, but how do I even take a guess at the ratios? None of the flavors were overpowering (it didn't taste mostly like onions or jalapenos or garlic),  so there's not an obvious base, but I doubt they're anywhere close to equal proportions either. I don't need the results to be an exact match, but I'd like it to at least resemble what I had in the restaurant.

What's the best approach to this?

First, ask if they cook any of the ingredients.

It's likely that they are all raw.

Next, I would probably start with a mix with an approximate base that has the same color as the original sauce ( e.g. 1:1:1 with one clove of garlic).

Save some of it on the side to use again, then add some of each ingredient to your base. 2:1:1:1 / 1:2:1:1 / 1:1:2:1 etc.

Then taste each one, and that should give you some idea of how to tweak it next.


Non-sweet sugar replacement for French macaron I've been working pretty hard on my macaron game lately and have wanted to make a savory biscuit/shell, however I can't think of what I may be able to replace powdered and granulated sugar with, or if something of the sort even exists.

I imagine that the sugar helps with the texture and structure of the shell as much as it is for the sweetness, but I'm not aware of anything that would fit that bill. Is there anything in existence that I could use a savory replacement for powdered- and granulated sugar in my macaron shells?

While I haven't found a substitute for powdered sugar, there are powdered vegetables and other flavors that one can use to cut the sweetness and add flavor. Salt is also an important part, as well as having savory fillings and garnishes.

Another thing that may help is using the French method rather than the Italian, since the Italian method uses more sugar for the syrup that's needed


How to neutralize candied glacé strawberry and kiwi I have 200 gm of candied glacé  strawberry and 200 gm of candied glacé kiwi. I cannot eat it, as it has too much sugar for me. Is there a way to neutralize the candied strawberry and kiwi?

Glacé, or candied fruit, is basically fruit preserved with sugar.  So, yes, it can be very sweet.  Even for sugar lovers, it is hard to eat much.  I would suggest using it in cake or cookies.  Italians have a tradition of such cakes and cookies that call for the addition of chopped candied fruit.  I am sure other cultures do as well. I would suggest using them as an ingredient, rather than attempting to somehow remove or reduce the sugar content.


How to clean scrambled eggs from a pan? As an example, I made eggs using Gordon Ramsay's Perfect Scrambled Eggs, at the end the pan ends up having a layer of eggs attached to the bottom and sides that is very difficult to wash (not a nonstick pan).

I found some recommendations online, but none of them have worked very well.  Maybe there is no good way?

Baking soda
Run under cold water instead of hot

That thin layer of eggs sure is a pain. I take a two-pronged approach: immediately after taking the eggs out of the pan I run it under water until it stops hissing.  This helps loosen the stuck-on stuff and rinse away any heavy crud.

Then I fill the pan with water and leave it on the counter while I eat my delicious eggs.

After breakfast I rinse the pan again and hit it with a green scrubby (e.g. Scotch-Brite brand - don't use this on non-stick) or the scrubby side of a sponge.

After the soak, the eggs pretty much just wipe right out.


Do I need to cook homemade brown beer mustard? I want to try making a spicy brown beer mustard, and was wondering if I need to simmer the mustard to cook off the alcohol, or if I don't need to, how "alcoholic" the mustard can be (aka safe for kids)?

Thank you!

It is probably fine without extra cooking.

The recipes for beer mustard suggest that beer would likely be a third or less of the volume of the finished mustard (the major ingredients I saw being mustard seeds, vinegar, and any other flavorings).  Beer tends to be quite low in alcohol, as a rule, averaging about 5% (I've seen 3%-8%, and a few outliers with higher %s, but 5% is fairly common).  So your mustard is going to be, roughly 1.66% alcohol by volume - for comparison's sake, yeast brewed sodas are usually under 1% alcohol.  That is probably kid-safe, especially since mustard is usually used by the spoonful, not cupful, the alcohol intake will be likely be drops.  Now, if you pick a beer that's, say, 15% (among the highest I recall seeing), then your mustard might be as high as 5%, and if your kids take a cupful or more in a sitting, they will likely get buzzed - so some common sense should still apply.

On the other hand, it tends to take more time for alcohol to cook out than people think - like an hour or two.  Alcohol does evaporate faster than water, but not enough faster that they aren't being lost at the same time, so the going is pretty slow.  So a couple hours simmering will be needed to be pretty sure you got most of the alcohol out (and you will have to replace the water, or use more beer and deal with stronger flavor, something like that).  And if you're absolutely militant about not having any alcohol in your recipe, if for example you're dealing with allergies, you still won't be sure of getting every drop of alcohol out of the mustard.

If you want no alcohol at all, with no wiggle-room, you could probably find a non-alcoholic mustard recipe, or possibly experiment with non-alcoholic beer in your mustard.  But, if you're only worried about excess consumption - your beer mustard is likely safe even for kids, since the amount of alcohol consumed per serving is very low.


Is there a non-recipe specific, nonalcoholic, universal substitute for white wine? For people on medication in which alcohol is strictly prohibited, is there a substitute that one can use in recipes that call for white wine?

Yes. White grape juice with a splash of vinegar or lemon juice in it (optional). You can typically use stock/broth or water as well, depending on the application.


How to make boiled and partially fried vegetables palatable? I boiled carrot and beans pieces till they were soft, fried onions and green chillies in a pan, added 1kg of the carrot and beans to the pan, few pinches of salt and some powdered spices.
Fried this for 20min and the taste of the veggies were still bland. No taste at all.
I was told to add red chilly powder to it, but I did not have any at 11pm in the night. Kept the pan in the fridge.

I can buy red-chilly powder today and try continuing to fry it.

Do you have any suggestions on what I could add to it, how much chilly powder to add, how long to fry it without spoiling it or any other precautions and tips to make it into a tasty dish?

If I was frying vegetables like beans and carrots for twenty minutes, I wouldn't bother boiling them at all: you are simply boiling out the nutrients and flavour.

In point of fact, I wouldn't fry those vegetables for twenty minutes anyway. I would slice the vegetables so they were roughly the same size, on a diagonal to maximise surface area, then stir fry them quickly over a very high heat. Sprinkle in any spices in the last few minutes, and perhaps add a splash of water if you want a little sauce.


Should tomatoes be stored in the fridge? Storing tomatoes in the fridge tends to make them last a bit longer, but I've heard that the flavor is negatively affected. What is the best way to store them?

From the great Harold McGee, they may last longer in the fridge, but they will taste like cardboard:

  Tomatoes came originally from a warm
  climate, and should be stored at room
  temperature. Their fresh flavor
  readily suffers from refrigeration.
  Tomatoes at the mature-green stage are
  especially sensitive to chilling at
  temperatures below about 55°F/13°C,
  and suffer damage to their membranes
  that results in minimal flavor
  development, blotchy coloration, and a
  soft, mealy texture when they're
  brought back to room temperature.

Excerpted from "On Food And Cooking", by Harold McGee


What would be an appropriate gluten-free substitute for breadcrumbs? I would like to make a gluten-free eggplant parmigiana, and there are a couple of ingredients that I realize I will need to substitute.

The basic idea is eggplant sliced, dredged in flour, dipped in egg, coated with breadcrumbs, and fried, then layered with sauce and cheese and baked. It's the flour and breadcrumbs that I'm going to need to cope with here. I recognize that there's not necessarily one universal GF substitute for flour, but it doesn't strike me that this is so highly featured in this case that it will make a huge difference. I could probably omit it altogether, or use an on-hand substitute, like cornstarch.

The breadcrumbs, on the other hand, are quite a vital part of this dish. I use panko breadcrumbs to give my eggplant an extra-crispy crunch. I've seen "breadcrumbs" make from corn tortillas used as a GF substitute, but the corn strikes me as stylistically opposed to my intent here. I've also heard of "thinner" coatings, like cornstarch or rice flour, but this again fails to capture the nature of a breadcrumb.

Gluten does not strike me as a particularly vital element of a breadcrumb. It is quite unlike, say, a bagel, which is founded on the properties of gluten. But theoretically, I suppose you could make a breadcrumb out of gluten-free ingredients. So what are my options?

There are a number of rice-based bread crumb replacements, but my experience with them is that they are more like rice sand than bread crumbs.  You can try making you own from other gluten free products like waffles or maybe puffed rice cereal.


What is the purpose of washing pork? I've read in a few recipes, especially ones using gelatinous parts of pork like the head and trotters, that long rinsing under running water, and several changes of water soaking is called for.

Why is this?

Why does this practice seem to be unique to pork?

Thanks

A book I have (Thai Food by David Thompson - a fantastic book, by the way) suggests washing pork and even blanching in boiling water for any dishes involving boiling/stewing/poaching, as it creates a clearer broth with a clearer flavour (author's words, not mine).

I have found I am less likely to get scum and surface impurities in the dish as it cooks.


Is there any botulism risk in homemade cold brew coffee? Cold brew coffee is known to be less acidic and it stays airtight in fridge overnight. It's not heated before consumption.
There are news on the internet about a well known coffee producer recalling its coffee cans for botulism risk. Is there any botulism risk in homemade cold brew coffee?
Also, does covering the can that contains cold brew in fridge (overnight) airtight increase botulism or any alike food poisoning risk? Should I cover it or keep it open to decrease the risks?

There's probably a near zero probability to get botulism from home brewed cold coffee if done properly (clean containers/vessels, clean fridge, cold fridge temperature...  )
As long as you keep it cold, it should be ok.
(I've not made a thorough google search)
There at least one report from 2017 of a recall for nitro cold brew; it's pretty much the only report I've seen.
Here's a report of the findings, taken from this reddit thread.
I might have missed it, but it was probably an issue with their processing.


Raw meat in washing up water We've been having a bit of a debate - my approach to washing up is to get hot, clean, soapy water and then to wash cutlery, plates, bowls and glasses first, before moving on to crockery and finally anything that was contaminated with raw meat.  This way, there is no risk of the raw meat juices contaminating stuff like drinking glasses.

My wife says that this is nonsense and OCD - she will quite happily use my washing up water to wash her raw meat hands in before I've had the chance to wash plates and glasses etc.  Her view is:
-It's hot and soapy - anything bad will die
-She is still alive despite doing this her whole life.

I've explained that it's possible to get ill without dying, but as you can imagine, this did not help matters!

So - over to you guys - am I going over the top with my approach to food hygiene?

You have a sensible approach, and for the right reasons. Food-borne illnesses don't die at the temperature your sink is at, to kill them you'd need water so hot you'd burn yourself, and even anti-bacterial soap would not be good enough to make the water safe. If you chlorinated the water it would be a different story but that's overkill when simply doing things in the right order will keep you healthy.

I use the same approach as you most of the time, although sometimes I clean off my cutting boards first and then rinse out the sink before filling it. Either way I'm not letting raw meat float around in the same water I'm using to clean the dishes I eat off of.

You're right and your wife is wrong - tell her that, she'll like that.


What do I do with a kohlrabi? I've recieved several kohlrabi from my CSA, and I have no idea what to do with them. I found a recipe for a curry using kohlrabi, but it wasn't great.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to get the best out of it? Any favorite recipes?

(Storage note: do not wash the bulbs before storing them; place in plastic bag in the refrigerator. Wash just before using.)

Young kohlrabi is great raw. Peel first, then

add to salads (sliced or grated)
serve as part of a veggie platter w/ dip
grate it and add to slaw (but after grating it, put some salt on it & let it sit, then squeeze the water out of it)
puree it - here's someone who really loves it pureed: http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2007/11/recipe-what-to-do-with-kohlrabi-puree.html

Cooked kohlrabi can be steamed or boiled. Remove the skin after cooking.

You can eat the leaves, if they are still firm and green; use them within a couple of days.
Wash the leaves & remove the tough stem parts (ribs). Blanch in boiling water for a couple of minutes, drain, chop, and serve with a bit of butter, salt, and pepper. A little vinegar or lemon juice is good on them, too.


What is the ratio of molassas and pineapple juice for a non-alcoholic rum substitute? If molasses and pineapple juice can be used as a non-alcoholic substitute for rum in baking, what is the ratio to use?

The common "flavor profiles" in rum is molassess, pineapple, and almond. You will commonly find sites offering "molassess thinned down with pineapple juice" as a substitution tip. It's not a coincidence that all these sites don't offer exact ratios.

Rum when used in baking is primarily for flavoring purposes. Substitutions will therefor not be very strict. Take some molassess and thin it down a little bit with pineapple juice. Do a tasting with each new addition of pineapple juice until you personally think it tastes the "best."


How does a sourdough sponge work? I'm trying to learn more about sponges in breadmaking.

Most recipes that I've found for sourdough bread don't use a sponge. What does it add?

Also, what's a general rule of thumb for how to make one? From what I can gather, it looks like the sponge is just an extra-large batch of starter. By this, what I mean is: I refresh my starter with 50g water, 50g flour. It looks like sponges are essentially equivalent to refreshing a starter with 300g (or whatever) of each. Then the next day, you add some more dry flour until you get something solid enough to work with. Is this the gist of a sponge? If so, wouldn't the sourdough break down the gluten in the sponge, thereby greatly reducing the amount in the final product that you have to work with?

A lot of sourdough recipes don't call for a sponge, per se, because the starter essentially already is a sponge. The purpose of a sponge in a bread with normal yeast is to allow a longer fermentation time and extra time for enzymatic reactions to happen in the flour before adding it to the final batch. This isn't necessary with sourdough the starter is continuously fermenting and reacting.

And your guess is about right, if the proportion of starter you add is too high, the waste products and dead yeast cells in it can cause changes in the gluten that make it very slack and unusable.


What is the US equivalent of "Joint of Sirloin"? Wanting to make a roast for dinner tonight.  The recipe is a British one calling for 1.5Kg of 'joint of sirloin' but I think the butchers in America call it by 'where' on the sirloin it is.  The recipe calls for roasting it around 55 min.  Thanks!

Any butcher can probably get you a Joint of Sirloin by request, but you will not likely find it "on the shelf".

A "Joint of Sirloin" is a rare cut in the US given the other possible uses of the sirloin.
If one looks at the T-Bone/Porterhouse cuts, where the the "T"-bone bi-sects the steak. The smaller side is the tenderloin and the larger side is sirloin. While it is not entirely uncommon for the short-loin primal to be cut to form a tenderloin roast from that side of the "joint" when that is done the sirloin is then usually (in the US) trimmed to be either "New York Strips" or "Kansas City Strips".

Here we see a section of the short loin primal, from this end only a thin layer of fat separate the tender loin from the sirloin.

And this is the trimmed joint of sirloin.

And the Bone-in version of the joint of sirloin


Do I have to tie my turkey legs together? I forgot to buy twine for tying my turkey's legs together.  How important is that?  I've heard that it's mostly for presentation, but it may also help prevent the turkey from drying out and may help keep the stuffing in.

Is there any validity to these claims?

Also, is there an alternative I might have around the house?  I've thought about sewing thread, but that probably has polyester in it and it seems like it could melt.

If you're following a particular recipe to the letter, and it specifies tying the legs together, then you might want to consider it. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother.

Trussing a bird will pull it together into a more compact shape, the reasoning for cooking being that it will cook more evenly if it's closer to a uniform spheroid shape, rather than having leg and wing bits sticking out all over. The argument against it is that it decreases total surface area, increases total cooking time, and causes the outside parts (particularly the white meat, which overcooks sooner) to cook more before the inner parts are done. The variations in your oven and in the turkey itself will cause just as much (or more) error as trussing.

That can be risky with stuffing, which will be the last to fully cook, and might have soaked up all those yummy raw turkey juices. Leaving the legs open (not to lewd) can give the stuffing a bit more surface area, and will expose the thin flaps of skin on the sides to allow even more heat to get to the stuffing sooner.

As far as keeping the stuffing inside, I doubt it will be a problem unless you have a very dry and loose or very wet stuffing - and if some spills out, so what? Extra crunchy bits.


Lemon Juice Expiration? My lemon juice went out of date almost 2 years ago. It has been in the fridge the whole time but has been opened. I'm just wondering if its safe to use? I want to put it in a cup of tea.

If you've waited that long before needing a cup of lemon tea, I'm sure you can wait until you've had time to go to the shop for a new bottle ;)

Bin it, don't risk it.

The expiry date, btw is only for unopened. Once opened it will have a significantly shorter life - checking one from the fridge here it says "Once opened, keep refrigerated & use within 4 weeks" even though the full unopened expiry date is another year away.


How to make ridge structure of crispy chicken In food shop, we see many fold ridges on crispy chicken like this Picture:

While googling about the secret, I found most of them advised to put the chicken pieces in a bag after dipping it in the butter, then shake, dip and re shake. But in practical, this shaking process does not create ridges structure [Like in the above picture]. In many youtube videos, although at the beginning of the video, it is showing ridges picture, but after completion of the video, the chicken pieces do not cover with ridges. Some other advised to use corn flakes to make these ridge structure. But corn flakes are expensive.

My question is how to make these ridges without corn flakes? Is there any alternative or real video tutorial?

In many places cornflakes are very cheap, I am assuming where you are they are expensive because they are imported. You aren't going to be able to get the ridged structure without something like cornflakes because it's the flakes themselves that give the breading that texture. You need to find something that you can afford, perhaps another cereal that is similar to cornflakes would work, it all depends on what you have in the stores. If you can find them Panko breadcrumbs would give you a nice texture, not the same as cornflakes but pretty good. Otherwise I suggest you go shopping and see what you can find.


Thickening cream in a blender to increase fat content? I've established that it's not possible(or a compromise at best) to mix other things in single cream to increase its fat content.
I have 25% and 30%(rarer) cream available where I'm at, and I'd like to have whippable cream with a fat content of 35% or more to use in homemade ice cream.
I've considered and rejected the following methods already:

Adding gelatin. This recipe is vegetarian so gelatin is not an option. I have not tried agar-agar or carrageenan yet.
Mixing butter in the cream or whole milk. This'll lead to a grainy ice-cream so, no.

Is a blender or food processor an option? If a cream can be thickened using a centrifuge, will a blender be powerful enough to thicken it by separating out the buttermilk?
If not, what else can I do? Heating the cream on a low flame?

The centrifuge doesn't thicken the cream by mechanical action, but by separating the fat and water by their different densities.  The blender allows- not until solid but until ice crystals form,  you to spin, but not to draw off either liquid.  There's a chance that when allowed to settle you'll get layers, but you're more likely to make butter so you'd have to stop just in time, then let it settle.
It might be worth experimenting with freezing the cream and then allowing it to defrost in the fridge without stirring.  This should break the emulsion and cause it to separate, hopefully into layers.


What are the difference between outside and inside skirt steak? Skirt steak comes in two cuts: outside and inside. While I am sure the difference in cut affects how the meat should be prepared and cooked I am not sure in what ways. A few things I've read about the outside skirt reference the need to trim the membrane, but I'm not sure what the posts are referring to. Leading to my questions about the cuts:

What are the differences between the inside and outside skirt steak cuts?
How do these differences affect preparation and cooking?
When should one cut be chosen over the other? Are the two cuts interchangeable in most recipes?

Per Kenji Alt's Food Lab article on fajitas:

  [T]here are really two distinct cuts from the diaphragm of the steer.

  The outside skirt steak is from the plate section, below the rib and
  between the brisket and flank, and usually comes with the membrane
  still attached, which needs to be trimmed before cooking.

  Inside skirt comes from the flank—it's narrower and thinner than the
  outside skirt, and comes with the membrane removed.

According to the Houston Press, outside skirt stake is extremely rare in the US, as much of it gets exported to Japan due to a quick in the tariffs.  The outside cut is tougher, but extremely flavorful.  Both are used in similar applications, if you can get them.

Given that any skirt you buy is probably inside skirt, the difference is likely to be moot.  In making fajitas, Kenji Alt recommends grilling it over extremely high heat, to get browning flavors on the outside, and not overcook the center.  He recommends not cooking it over medium rare.

A couple of pictures:


Why is eating pretzels safe when they are bathed in lye? I read many recipes of pretzels and they required to dip the raw dough in a bath of lye. As anyone should know for their own safety, lye is caustic and shouldn't be ingested.

What is the process involved that make them edible?

Edit: I am aware of the action of the lye. I wonder how the non-edible lye on the dough is transformed into something that is safe to eat.

Basically, the lye reacts with the CO₂ and moisture present during baking to form a non-toxic carbonate.  This makes it safe to eat.

The reaction:

CO₂ (g) + H₂O (l) ⇄ H₂CO₃ (aq)

H₂CO₃ (aq) + 2 NaOH (aq) → Na₂CO₃ (aq) + 2 H₂O (l)

From here (MS doc)

[EDIT]

Spurred by the comments, I have searched further.

tl;dr There is much going on wrt the lye dip. As far as safety goes, the lye is consumed in many reactions, including the above.

(Firstly: The equation source was not the basis of my answer; rather it was to refresh my memory of the reaction about which I was told/read several years ago was the reason why lye is safe to use on leavened breads, which was its combining with carbonic acid. (I apologize for not checking the balance adequately.)
My recent search only found one reference at The Kitchn to the reaction of lye with carbonic acid as the reason for its safe use. It is also unsourced.
Simultaneously, I found a research paper and a Food Chem Blog entry which referenced it, both of which discussed the behavior of the lye bath on pretzels. There is a lot there, so I shall only quote the paper abstract:

  The effects of alkali dipping on starch, protein, and color changes in hard pretzel products have never been researched. Experiments were conducted to mimic reactions occurring on the pretzel dough surface. Dough was dipped in water or 1% sodium hydroxide solution at different temperatures between 50°C and 80°C. Protein and starch profile after dipping were analyzed. Color development on pretzel surface following the extraction of pigments from flour was investigated. Whole dough and pretzel samples were also made at pilot plant and the properties were analyzed. Only starch granules on the dough surface were gelatinized following dipping. Amylose-lipid complex dissociated at a lower temperature with alkali treatment but were not dissociated, even at high-temperature dipping in water. Treating the dough at 80°C in alkali solution resulted in the hydrolysis of proteins into smaller peptides that could be not precipitated by trichloroacetic acid (TCA). Dough surface color was different following pigment extraction from flour but not significantly different following baking. The results suggest that the color that developed on pretzel surface was not due to pigments present in the flour but was contributed by the reaction within or between the starch and protein hydrolysis derivatives during baking.

and what I think is the pertinent quote from the blog:

  The protein results (2 in the list above [reproduced following]) indicate that the lye dip provides the smaller proteins needed for Maillard reactions, whereas the water dip does not. This seemed like perhaps the most important point to me.

  The dip resulted in the hydrolysis of protein into smaller peptides. This happened a little bit in 25°C water or lye dip, more in 80°C water, and a lot more in 80°C lye dip. Also, the smaller peptides in the hot lye dip had the smallest molecular weights; most of them “walked off” the electrophoresis gel, leaving no bands. The authors explain that the alkaline conditions of the lye dip result in like charges along the proteins, which repel and cause the proteins to unfold; this makes them more susceptible to hydrolysis.

Both the blog and the paper are worth reading.

My conclusion: the lye is consumed by the various reactions and therefore poses no safety concerns.


When I'm separating egg whites, how much does it matter if a little yolk gets in? I was separating egg whites today and one of the yolks broke and contaminated my bowl of whites. I started from scratch, but I'm wondering if I really needed to; would a tiny bit of yolk (say, 1/8 tspn in 4 egg whites) mixed in with the whites make a big difference?

To provide some context, I was about to whip the whites with castor sugar to make almond macaroons.

Yes, it matters a lot. When you are separating egg whites, it is for whipping them into a foam. This foam is a protein-based foam, relying on protein ends hooking into each other. Even small traces of fat will prevent the foam from forming. Egg yolks contain high amounts of fat. Once an egg yolk breaks in your whites, you have to start the separation anew, because it can prevent your foam from forming. Also, don't use plastic bowls for whipping egg whites (their surface retains some fat molecules even after washing, giving you a less stable foam) and only whip with a cleanly washed whisk or mixer attachment (not one you have just used for something else, not even if you wiped it clean).

To prevent big mishaps, just separate each new egg in a teacup and only add the new white to the old whites after it has separated cleanly. Else you are in big trouble if you are separating a lot and the last egg contaminates the whole whites with yolk. And a single contaminated egg is easily reused for a quick egg-and-feta sandwich or something else.

Contamination the other way round isn't so worrisome. You still want to work as precisely as possible, as yolk-only recipes will often have somewhat worse texture if eggwhite is included, but small contaminating amounts are usually not noticeable in the finished product, even in foams (zabaglione, mayonnaise). This is because yolk foams are fat-based, and small amounts of protein don't prevent a fat foam from forming.


How can you know that your bread is done? Most bread recipes give an estimate to how long that bread must bake. However, I find it hard to check whether it's done or not. I don't have a thermometer, and I don't think the toothpick trick works with bread.

Is there a way to know if your bread is fully baked?

Very simply, bake it for the recommended time in the recipe. Then if it looks golden brown (note that if the air in the oven is not humid enough the bread may stay pale, on a side note a humid oven helps to develop a good crust), tap it in on it's base and if it sounds hollow its done. If it feels soft in the base and not hollow or If its still not golden brown, put it back in the oven for a few minutes then try the tap check again. Although you stated you dislike the thermometer technique, for others reading the bread should have an internal temperature of 200F or 94C, if not return it to the oven for a few minutes until it is.


Sous Vide without vacuum. What liquid should be used? I'm new to sous-vide and I am trying to figure out how to do it without vacuum. I've seen how other people have done it with oil to displace the air in the bag. But is this the best liquid to use? This is for pork. I am concerned the oil might change the flavor of the meat and was wondering if there is any other liquid I can use.

If you look here, at the last paragraph of Yossarian's answer, he gives you a fairly easy way of removing the air from a plastic bag without a vacuum.

  Put your food in the bag and then submerge the bag in water just to the zip. The pressure will expel all the air. Then zip the bag up as you pull the closed portion underwater. This gets results comparable with a home vacuum sealer, I think, with the added benefit that you can include liquids easily.

While I wouldn't consider myself an expert on this topic, I wouldn't fill the bag with anything you wouldn't want to marinate your meat in.


How much does freezing grapes longer sweeten them more? My grandparents in Toronto bought 10 kg of Ontario coronation grapes from Loblaws on Sep 1 2019, as they have been doing the past 10 years. They don't know why, but the grapes taste too sour and acidic this year, and they couldn't eat any more after tasting a few. So they placed them in a freezer to sweeten them.

Today they thawed 20 grapes but these still taste inordinately sour and acidic! So:

For maximal sweetness, how long ought they freeze them?
How does the duration of freezing affect the sweetening? To wit, what are the 1st and 2nd derivatives of freezing w.r.t. sweetening? Did I formulate my question correctly with calculus?

The time doesn't matter. What you need is a single freeze-thaw cycle. Once your grapes have been frozen solid, holding them frozen won't do anything more.

I get it that you are not happy with the results you got so far, but that is just because your freezing idea is not really suited to your situation. I have never tried eating thawed bananas, so don't know how large the effect is there, but the article states the two reasons for more sweetness: juices leaking out of cells, and amylase converting starch to sugars. First, grapes are a juicy fruit, unlike bananas, and you easily have access to their juice once you bite into them. Second, grapes have practically no starch.

The problem with your grapes are not that they are a mealy banana, it's that they are sour. The acid is not going anywhere when you freeze them, and you can't create more sugar out of nothing. They will stay the way they are, freezing or no.


Are cooking thermometers essential? I've been watching some cooking shows, and they seem very keen on there thermometers.
They have prob thermometers, oven thermometers, meat thermometers, confectionery thermometers, oil thermometers...
(Possibly these are all the same device, I don't know anything about kitchen thermometers).

Only thermometers I ever saw in real life, was my mother's roast thermometer (and I've made plenty of roasts without owning one), and her confectionery one that I broke as a child (and I've made plenty of toffee, with just the cold water test.)

So I've got on for quiet a while without owning one, and I've never seen one (out side of TV) used to check the oven temperature, or the oil temperature.

I'm wondering what the big deal is?
Will using the right temperature change my cooking? Am I perhaps doing something unsafe in using any of the many methods for estimating temperature?

Thermometers are really practical when you do not have a lot of experience cooking things; it let you keep track of the proper food temperature.

For example, I do not cook beef roasts often, so I will use a thermometer to not mess up my cooking and waste a good amount of money on a good cut of meat.

Thermometers are essential for confectioneries where exact temperature are needed, mostly for sugar caramel stages.

Thermometers are also essential if you decide to try "molecular" cooking techniques with different chemicals; where temperature needs to be precise for certain reaction to happen (I do not have examples for that).


What happens if you cook chocolate pudding too long on a double boiler? I am having some troubles getting my pudding consistency right.

The kind of pudding I am trying to make is of just milk, cream, sugar, cocoa and cornstarch. The double boiler I use is a small pot in a slightly bigger pot, filled with water.

Until now my pudding almost always turned out runny, like a thick sauce. Then I had the revelation that this happens when the water level in my big pot drops below the smaller pot, so that only the vapours are transferring heat to it (I am guessing in my case it doesn't work, since there is a gap between the pots and thus the temperature can't escalate much in this way). So I sort of solved this problem by adding more water. This allowed me to get one pudding right (or so I think) but then the next one was runny again. I got pissed and thought I simply hadn't cooked it enough (I usually take it off the stove when I think it is the right thickness, wait for it to cool down and refrigerate overnight). So I put it on the stove again and left it there for a whole lot of time ~50 minutes or more (I have an automatic stirrer to stir it, first fast, then slowly to let the starch coagulate). And THIS time it became so thick I think it can rightfully be classified in a solid body state. There is no hint of runny-ness, but now it is really hard and gooey, when pulled it stretches sort of like taffy or thick gum, it holds a solid shape and you can't "scoop" it with a spoon, instead you only pull it. It is also a darker color than usual, so I am wondering if I might have burned it or just added too much starch or sugar (this time I was experimenting with more sugar)?

All I knew, the double boiler prevents any burning (in my case there are no burn marks, but maybe the milk got burned/heated too much?) and cornstarch, once heated to the sufficient temperature, would just thicken and further heating it wouldn't change anything, unless it is TOO much heating.

My recipe is:

cocoa 150ml
sugar 500ml
cream 50ml
cornstarch 100ml
milk 800ml

(I measure in ml, don't ask)

So, if nothing was burned or heated too much, it could be that roughly a third of the entire mixture is sugar, while only half is milk and maybe 1/16th of the entire mixture's volume in cornstarch is too much? I have never gotten a definite valid correct sample with this recipe to be able to compare to anything and it will be some time before I can experiment again.

Try using a heat diffuser for your hot plate/burner. You can get them quite inexpensively on Amazon and other places.


Which meat tastes different by gender? I know of "boar taint," which describes an unpleasant taste in the meat of non-castrated pigs.  Which left me wondering more broadly: Are there other animals whose meat (from an animal of the same age on the same diet) tastes different depending on whether it came from a male or a female of the species?

And if that depends on conditions, as it does with pork, please note such.

Deer and it's relatives (goats and sheep) are famous for their musky males.

At a mere three months old my male goat had already developed a significant "bucky" aroma. He would not have become sexually active for another month or two.

The best way I found to cook him to deal with that flavor was smoking.


Fixing Sticky Seasoning on Cast-Iron Pan I screwed up the seasoning on my cast-iron pan. I forgot to flip it upside-down, so instead of that hard, smooth surface, it became sticky and gummy.

Is it possible to repair by reheating it again, upside-down, at the proper temperature?

Or do I need to strip it and reseason from scratch?

You don't have to re-season from scratch, just get rid of the sticky residue and make sure that the next layer of seasoning is very fully cooked on.  The easiest way to remove the sticky residue is to scrape off what you can with a spatula, scrub off the rest with kosher salt and baking soda, and clean that up. Then give it a couple more passes of seasoning to even out the layer, making sure to leave it in the oven extra-long for the next seasoning.  The extra cook time helps avoid having a sticky spot reappear.

What causes this?
This happens when the oil pools in one spot, and doesn't get heated long/hot enough to form the seasoning layer.  If you resume seasoning without removing the sticky residue, it will form a bubble of uneven seasoning that flakes off, exposing the less seasoned stuff below. I learned that the hard way.


How to make stiff mashed potatoes? Some recipes call for stiff mashed potatoes, e.g. to help well formed shapes as in this recipe:

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/crunch-swiss-and-ham-appetizers

Should I just boil the potatoes, mash way too much, and add no butter nor milk?

The second easiest way to get stiff, but still edible mashed potatoes is to bake the potatoes whole, then put them through a ricer.

The easiest way is to use potato flakes ... and then you can make them as thick as you want, and even thicken them further if they came out not to your liking initially.

You can still mash potatoes that have been baked (although you'll probably want to peel them), but if you use a wet cooking method, after they're done cooking, drain them and put them back into the pot (still warm, but with the heat off) with the lid off for a minute or two.   Once you don't see any more steam coming off them, check to see if the bottom of the pot is dry .. if it isn't, move the potatoes to another pot (lift them out, to avoid moving the water with them), and drain the water.

I'd personally then dump them back into the now dried pot ... I just find that when you're limiting the amount of moisture going into the potatoes, making sure they stay warm as you're mashing helps the process.  You'll still need some liquid, but making sure that the water is out gives you more control of what liquid is added back in (and you can make sure it's a flavorful liquid ... dairy, olive oil, chicken stock, etc.)


Making sorbet with fruit frozen before processing I've accidentally frozen a bunch of good strawberries with the leaves still on. I want to make them into sorbet. I don't plan to cook the berries. Should I:

Thaw the berries, cut the tops off, puree, make sorbet?
Try to cut the tops off the berries while still frozen, puree, make sorbet?
Leave the tops on, puree, make sorbet?
Some other procedure?

Thaw just enough to easily remove the tops and cut into halves or quarters, then puree while still semi-frozen. That will give you a head start on the chilling of the sorbet mixture. You want that super cold anyway, before you put it into the machine.


Can alcohol evaporation get you drunk? So, there was an article saying if you vaporize alcohol and Inhale, that you can consume it and it will go into your bloodstream and make you drunk.

I’m wondering if when you cook with alcohol and it burns off/evaporates if you are consuming any alcohol since it’s in the air and if you are also consuming any calories from it? Less of you have a cover to the pot of the food you are making ???
How long do the molecules from the alcohol stay in the air surrounding you?

Can you get drunk off alcohol vapor? Absolutely. Apparently in the early 2000s, a alcohol vapor device was invented and subsequently banned in some American states, see Wikipedia here.

However, if you cook with alcohol, e.g. deglazing a pan with some wine, sherry, etc., the amounts are not that high, and I doubt you stand above the pan and completely inhale every part of the alcohol vapor. Still, if you want to avoid getting tipsy, just let the alcohol evaporate, maybe set your range hood (correct word?) to a higher setting so it draws away the vapor quickly.


Recipe websites for bulk/restaurant quantities just wondering if there are any chef websites out there which specialise in recipes for large quantities, 25+ portions, any recipes at all Entrees, Mains, Pastries or Desserts. Many thanks in advance for your time.

I have a few cookbooks for caterers that have this sort of thing.  I've even gotten one from our library system (although not my local branch, I was at one of the larger ones)

So, using that term, I tried searching for 'catering recipe websites' had a bunch of false positives, but it did find :

http://lotsofinfo.tripod.com/ ("Over 500 Make ahead or Large Recipes and MANY Self Catering Tips Below  --- enjoy").

A search for 'catering recipes' was a bit more helpful:

http://recipehut.homestead.com/Bulk.html
http://www.party-recipes-and-ideas.com/
http://www.customcatering.net/recipes.html
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/feed-crowd  (although 'crowd' is 8-10, it looks like)
http://www.bigoven.com/recipes/catering/best (has options to set the number of people to serve ... but that's not going to tell you how to adjust cooking times for larger pan sizes, etc)
http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/recipe/catering-for-large-numbers-keyword--italian-cuisine.html ('large numbers' seems to be 4, but there are some that are 12 ... which might fall into 'entertaining', I guess)

I'm actually pretty disappointed in most of these -- I'd have expected recipes for 'catering' to talk about what parts you can do in advance vs. morning of vs. last minute.

There are also websites w/ tips for caterers, eg. https://www.webstaurantstore.com/article/26/catering-menu-ideas.html

I also found a website for 'Essentially Catering Magazine', but many of the recipes they have serve less than 8 people : https://www.essentiallycatering.co.uk/recipes.php

I suspect that cookbooks might be a safer bet -- many of these have the 'look inside' option on Amazon, so you can see if they're what you're looking for:

https://smile.amazon.com/Armed-Forces-Recipe-Service-Cookbook/dp/0615862683/
https://smile.amazon.com/Cook-like-Caterer-Entertaining-Catering/dp/1475019017
https://smile.amazon.com/Feeding-Masses-Planning-Events-Parties/dp/1462110711/
https://smile.amazon.com/Secrets-Caterers-Kitchen-Indispensable-Planning/dp/1557883521/  (I've since gotten this book ... most recipes serve 8)
https://smile.amazon.com/Cooking-Crowd-Recipes-Strategies-Entertaining/dp/1594860114/

Which also led me to Army cookbooks:

https://smile.amazon.com/G-I-Cook-Book-Authentic-Recipes/dp/147520650X
https://smile.amazon.com/Recipes-Cooking-Schools-annotated-study-ebook/dp/B009F7K7ES
https://smile.amazon.com/British-Army-Cook-Book-1914/dp/1445643421

Update: A friend mentioned a website with recipes for school cafeterias. There are some pre made sauces referenced, but it starts at 25 people and includes instructions for advance prep and just before service:  http://www.thelunchbox.org/recipes-menus/

Update 2: I've since learned that the preferred term seems to be 'quantity cooking', which helped me find:

http://recipesforacrowd.com/
https://www.foodhero.org/quantity-recipes (Oregon State University)
http://www.ellenskitchen.com/bigpots/


How do I prepare ash bolete mushrooms for recipes? I got about a grocery store paper bag in about 10 minutes under pine trees in the yard, so I was wondering what the best way to prepare the ash bolete mushrooms before using them in a recipe would be.

Every experienced forager knows that the first steps of preparation happen already at the place where you found the mushrooms. Most of what’s listed below is general advice for mushroom foraging, as it’s valid for your ash-tree boletes and hopefully helpful for other readers with similar questions.

In the wild:

Pick only what you consider fit to eat and what you can identify with certainty1. Leave overly old, mushy, damaged, half-eaten, maggot-infested... mushrooms right where they are. With a bit of experience, you will recognize these before cutting them off. Let them be food for animals and disperse their spores.
Check for hitchhikers like slugs, spiders and insects and remove them. A slimy trail left by a slug wandering all over the mushrooms in your basket is not pleasant.
The same is valid for larger bits of dirt and debris. Even if one kind of mushroom is dry, others can be sticky  (or get sticky during transport) and you’ll thank me later in the kitchen when you don’t have to painstakingly wash or pick of caked-on pine needles.
For some species, there are special steps recommend, e.g. removing the skin from slimy spike-caps. No specific treatment is necessary for ash-tree boletes.
Ensure freshness of your mushrooms by transporting them carefully, preferably in (shallow) baskets or, in a pinch, paper bags. Don’t pile them too high or delicate mushrooms at the bottom may get smushed. And don’t even think about putting them in plastic bags on a sunny day.
The jury is still out re. the “cut vs. twist” debate, but as you want to cut off the bottom part of the stems anyway, you can simply cut the stem, especially if you will be using the mushrooms more or less immediately.

At home:

Immediately after your return, do a second “hitchhiker and debris” check as described above. Use this also to make absolutely sure you have only edible mushrooms 1.
If you have a mixture of mushrooms (and large harvest), consider sorting them. You can go by species, but group will often suffice, e.g. boletes in one pile, chanterelles in another. From a cook’s perspective, you will probably want to use them for different preparations anyway.
Ideally, you will be preparing your mushrooms as soon as possible. Always consider the storage times for different mushrooms - chanterelles will keep in the fridge for a few days, a shaggy ink cap should hit the pan basically as soon as you come home. So plan accordingly. If you must store mushrooms, a paper bag in the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator is best. You want to prevent drying out, yet avoid condensation.
Contrary to what you may have heard, mushrooms can be washed - but proceed with care. There’s a huge difference between a quick rinse to remove dirt and dust and soaking them in water. I personally would never wash very delicate mushrooms like the aforementioned shaggy ink cap, for example. For mature boletes, you may notice that the spongy hymenophore at the underside of the cap tends to soak up water (more on that below). A brush and a wet cloth or paper towel will come handy if you don’t want to wash your mushrooms. If you wash, do it before cooking the mushrooms, not before putting them in the fridge.
Next, take a paring knife and cut off all damaged or dried-out bits, stem ends (if not done at the forest) etc.
For some kinds, halving them lengthwise is recommend  - morels, for example, have hollow stems and I have removed more than one small slug that had gnawed a little hole in it and taken up residence inside. Boletes sometimes have lots of fly larvae mining through the stem and later the cap, a quick cut will help you gauge the degree and whether it’s usable. In general, if you see “pin pricks” when cutting crosswise, you may want to investigate further.
The spongy layer of boletes is often discussed. As described above, it soaks up liquids and becomes mushy, sometimes slimy during cooking. Some eaters find this very unpleasant. I suggest removing it for larger mushrooms and leaving it for young ones where it’s thinner and firmer. My personal rule of thumb: if you can squish it with your thumb, it gets removed. A teaspoon or melon baller is a good tool for this. If you plan on making something where the mushrooms are cut finely (duxelles) or puréed, you can ignore this bit.
For the ash boletes in the question, this is not applicable: their tube layer is hard to remove and as it’s comparatively thin, it won’t be much of an issue. For very old specimens, you could try scraping it off nevertheless. As I said, it’s largely a matter of taste (or rather texture, as the actual taste is not different).

Now your mushrooms should be prepared for whatever dish you planned. Cut as needed and proceed with your recipe.

As you asked about separating caps and stems, note that some mushrooms have stringy, fibrous stems. Boletes in the other hand are “use everything” mushrooms.

1 The importance of a proper id can’t be stressed enough. If you come across a mushroom that you want to identify at home or are unsure about, keep it separate from the general collection in your basket and observe as many details as you can. Consider digging out the stem instead of cutting and note the flora around. Photos help. Never taste an unknown mushroom and I have cleaned my knife after cutting “mystery mushrooms”. Exaggerating? Perhaps. But as they say, there is no such thing as an old, bold mushroom hunter."


Is it worth roasting my own red peppers? I recently realized roasted red peppers make so many of my dishes pop, but it's a pretty pricey ingredient. A small jar costs three bucks and a big jar is seven. At my local grocer I can get red peppers for two dollars a pound. Does anyone have experience roasting their own and, if so, do you save cost and how do I store them?

I roast them "fresh" as I need them, but my method scales up easily.

I use a gas grill and turn it to high.   Set the whole peppers on the grill, and turn them when the skin is black on the hot side.   When they're black all over (after maybe 2-3 minutes per side for all 4 sides of the typical ones in my local supermarket), I put them into a large disposable plastic container with a tight fitting lid and let them cool in it.   The skin peels off quite easily, and they can be seeded and de-stemmed quite easily.

If I were going to preserve them, I'd probably chuck them into a plastic container or zip-top bag and freeze them.


Are arborvitae branches safe to use as a seasoning? Back in old times (really old times), when people would get scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) on long voyages, Arborvitae (Thuja occidentalis) was used as a treatment/cure to help folks recover from scurvy. That shows that it is useful in some amounts, and can be ingested.

So if it is healthy/safe, what amounts can be used as a seasoning/flavoring, and can it be used in place of (or mixed with) any common herbs/seasonings?

My first instinct was no way, remembering that the branches and leaves contain a high amount of thujone, which is a neurotoxin and not without risks, especially if used over a long time or while pregnant. This is the same stuff that caused absinthe to be discredited for decades.

But Thuja oils typically contain 40% α-thujon, sage (salvia officinalis) up to 60%. Thuja's pungent smell would prevent ingesting too much.

So my conclusion would be:

do not use for a long time or when pregnant (most midwives caution against using sage, too, btw.)
use sparingly for health reasons, a limited amount is considered safe by health agencies world wide, see information on absinthe for example.
use very sparingly for culinary reasons, because the taste is quite "pronounced". I had to take a herbal medicine with thuja decades ago and still shudder to think of it. (It did work, though...)

When thinking of potential culinary uses, think of uses for sage or juniper - you will want to use it as a spice in foods that can "handle" the woody, bitter tinge. Dark red meat or even game perhaps? Complement with a generous amount of pepper and perhaps a good red wine.

Another approach that might be worth a try is sweetening it up - like "fir syrup" (is this known in American cuisine?).


American equivalent for British chocolate terms When the British recipe calls for plain chocolate do they refer to cocoa powder, chocolate syrup, cooking squares, or Nestle style chips?  Is it unsweetened, semi-sweet, or bitter?

The closest US equivalent to British plain chocolate is semi-sweet. If a recipe calls for, say, 5oz of plain chocolate, it will mean chocolate in bar form (unless chips are specified of course).

Obviously if the chocolate is for melting it doesn't matter what form it comes in.

Cocoa powder and chocolate syrup mean the same thing in Britain as they do in the US, incidentally.


Techniques and ingredients to make marinara sauce from canned spagetti sauce My wife dislikes the flavor and thickness of canned spaghetti sauce.  She finds it thin and tasting like vegetable soup.  Can one spice and cook this down to make it the taste and texture of a marinara sauce (say like Prego)?

If for some reason, you only have canned goods available in your area, I would start with canned tomatoes -- either crushed, diced or a mix, depending on how chunky you like your sauce.  (some people would argue that whole peeled have better flavor, but you end up with a can with a lot of juice in it so requiring more cooking (or reserving the juice for minestrone or some other purpose)

If canned spaghetti sauce is all that you have, or you're trying to use up a case, you don't necessarily need to cook it down for a long time.  You can instead pull the pasta early, and finish cooking it in the sauce; the pasta will then soak up some of the moisture thickening the sauce.  You may want to reserve some of the pasta water in case it ends up a little too thick by the time the pasta is cooked through.

As for spicing, yes you can modify things if it's bland, but if it's an off flavor ('tinny') or something too strong, it's more difficult.  Sometimes a little bit of sugar can help if it's a touch sour, but you can also cook down some onions or finely diced carrots and mix that in to get it some  extra sweetness (and texture, and other flavors)

And if the issue is price differences -- If you have a Wegman's near you, try their store brand sauces.  It's like $1/jar (about the same as what a can of sauce costs), and it's quite good.


How to make saffron really color my risotto? So I've recently bought some saffron (stems, not ground), then tried to make some Risotto with it. I got my water boiling and added about 5 stems to it. I didn't really measure the water because I can just eyeball it, I was making about a cup and a half of rice.

The saffron made the water just barely yellow. As I kept adding the water to the rice, I didn't really notice a change in color. So I added 5 more stems directly to the rice, and kept stirring. The thing never got as yellow as I wished or had seen in pictures. It actually almost didn't change in color by the time the risotto was done. So I gave up on making the classic milanaese risotto and added sun dried tomatoes and some mushrooms to it. It turned out really good, but by far not the color I wanted.

What did I do wrong?

How yellow were you expecting it? How much saffron did your recipe call for?

Generally, when a recipe calls for a "pinch" of saffron that can be anywhere from 15-20 stems (expensive, I know).

Saffron can take time to impart it's yellow coloring, and the depth of that yellow can vary based on the quality, age, or phase of the moon (not really). Some things you can try include:

Soaking the saffron in hot water/stock for 20 minutes to an hour prior to adding.
Grinding the saffron with a mortar/pestle
Using more or a higher quality

Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of images aren't purely saffron induced coloring. Often turmeric is used for an additional punch, or even food coloring. Here is an example of an accurate image of a saffron risotto.

Finally, your primary reason for using saffron should be for it's remarkable and unique flavor. The yellow is just a bonus. If you want more than what your batch can give you, well... cheat. :)


Do tea-like drinks typically require the plant material be dried or processed? Many of the plants in my garden have leaves or flowers that are, in various places, described as being good for making a herbal tea. A couple of examples are lemon balm leaves (Melissa officinalis) and strawberry guava leaves (Psidium littorale). I also have a number of different varieties of mint.

When you buy herbal teas, the leaves or flowers (or bark) that the tea is made from are obviously dried. Is the drying process an essential aspect of the tea preparation, or is that simply for storage and preservation? If you have access to the raw ingredient, do you need to dry or process it in some way first or can the tea be made satisfactorily without any drying or processing?

Dried vegetation usually suffers cell wall degradation. So when rehydrated all the oils and flavours will easily leach out. This is very desirable for vegetation you want to extract oils and flavours from

Many "teas" are also partially fermented for additional flavour. This processes need to be stopped otherwise the whole plant will be consumed. Drying is the simplest way to stop fermentation, and make the product storable and transportable


Boil an egg in the microwave Is it possible to boil an egg in the microwave?

Ideally without having to pierce the shell first

It's possible to blow open the door of your microwave if you try it on high for too long.
For best results, watch it from about a foot away.


How can low-carb bread rise? As far as I know, yeast helps the dough rise by eating away some of the sugar in the flour. But if we make low-carb bread (with, say, soya flour), yeast has nothing to eat and the bread will not rise. One solution might be to use baking powder, but then our bread has a cake-like texture. Do you have any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

If you're worried about feeding the yeast, you'll probably want to add a little sugar to your recipe. If you keep the amount low enough (I'd probably start with half as much as would usually be used for a given amount of yeast) the yeast will consume all or nearly all of it.

As to cake-like texture, that's as much a factor of lack of gluten development as it is the leavening agent. If you don't have much gluten going, you get that crumbly cake or muffin texture--which is what you want in cakes or muffins.

If you're going to use very little wheat flour or none at all, you might consider adding vital wheat gluten to your recipe so that you can build a decent structure in your bread.

I imagine you'd have to make hundreds of loaves of bread to get the balances right on your own, so I'd recommend looking for low-carb yeast bread recipes that contain a bit of sugar and maybe vital wheat gluten. Those would probably have a decent chance of success.


What cut of meat is used to make shabu shabu? I'd like to explain to a butcher what cut of meat is required to make shabu shabu. Can anyone help me?

Very high fat, thoroughly marbled ribeye is a good start, but there's a fair amount of variation. The extremely thin slices are also not something that every butcher is accustomed to producing, but that should get you to the right beginning.


Soy chicken on a backpacking trip I'm planning a long distance hike and I would like to add some variety to my meal planning.  Does soy chicken need refrigeration?  Does it keep for a couple days?

Protein of any sort tends to spoil somewhat quickly when it contains water. I suggest you bring icepacks and eat any meat or meat substitutes on your first night if you want to bring them at all. For the rest of the trip, perhaps you could get your protein from dry beans you soak at the camp, meat jerky, nuts and seeds in sufficient quantity, or fish you catch on the trip yourself (while observing all local laws and regulations on the subject).


When do you add bok choy when cooking stir fry When do you add bok choy when cooking stir fry?  Other ingredients are mushrooms, carrots, red peppers, broccoli, green onions. This is my first time cooking stir fry and I'm not sure of the order to add them.

Bok choy should be the last ingredient you stir in; it is the ingredient that take the less time to cook.

but,

I would do it in two steps.

Stir fry the bok choy first, set aside and stir fry the other ingredients and add the bok choy back at the end to bring it back to heat.

The reason I would do it like that, is that bok choy will release lot of humidity when cooking, you do not want to start steaming ingredient.


How long is too long to cook meatballs in sauce? We use ground Chuck for the meatballs when making meatball subs. No spices or chopped onion, just meat and the meat sauce is a basic tomato based concoction. Then we cook the meatballs(raw) in the sauce in a crackpot for about 10 hrs! When we serve it, the sauce has cooked away by 95%. What I need to know is can you overcook meatballs and/or sauce (on low setting)? They always have a terribly strong and bitter taste that ground beef shouldn't have.

That long time in the crock-pot sounds bad to begin with. Ground meat should be just cooked to a safe temperature -- any more and it will lose moisture and get tough.

The bitterness could come from prolonged exposure to the acidic tomato sauce. If you've ever made ground taco meat and over-seasoned it with lemon or lime juice, it will often taste bitter or astringent.


Keep "soup greens" once done cooking? I have a Polish cookbook (translated to English) from the 1950's and most of their soup recipes contain a bunch of greens/veggies but it's not always clear if they are just to be used as flavor or as ingredients. For instance (partial recipe):

1/2 oz dried mushrooms
2 med. onions
1 leek
2 stalks celery
2 carrots
1 parsnip
...

Simmer mushrooms and vegetables until thoroughly done, about an hour.
Cut mushrooms into thin strips and return to pot.
...

This would imply to me that the other vegetables should be discarded. Is that accurate?

Polish-style soups typically keep all the vegetables used for cooking. You may do the same with veggies as with mushrooms - chop and drop back into the soup. An exception done by some is parsnip root.

Unless... it is Christmas-eve mushroom soup (eg. from Mazowsze, central Poland) - then you grind the vegetables into the dumplings mushroom filling. The dumplings are served in the soup anyway.


Using hardware store dowel as rolling pin? Is there any reason not to use the wood dowelling I always see in the hardware stores/wood shops for a rolling pin for pastry?

Assuming that the wood is untreated (ask the store!), you can use whatever you find in the wood isle.

There are very few woods with questionable compounds that might leech undesirable substances, but neither is a typical mass market material. And even for woods like yew or oak, the amount of tannins or other is extremely tiny if used as rolling pin. I would hesitate to store wet or humid food in an oak bowl, though, unless I'm aging wine.

Try to find a hardwood dowel, pine and its relatives are rather soft and dent easily. Not a problem if you need a quick substitute, but if you want to use it as rolling pin for years, probably less sturdy. Also, make sure you pick something resin-free, especially if you have fluctuating temperatures in your kitchen.

Before you use the wood for the first time, clean it well, note that it was neither produced nor stored in necessarily the cleanest of enviromements. Then after it's dry, check for splinters and loose wood fibers. You might want to give it a quick wipe with sanding paper to get rid of them or they could make your dough stick to the pin. You might also want to go along the edges of the ends, to be sure nothing can hurt you during use.

For long-term use or to further reduce sticking dough, you could season the pin with a light coating of oil, like for chopping boards. Find more on that procedure here. After that, the grease in your doughs should suffice to maintain the wood.


Decoration food long-term preservation I need to preserve some fruits (raisins, figs, pomegranates, and dates), in tiny bottles, so they last for years.
I don't mind ruining the food, as it will anyway not be used for eating.
I can fill the bottles with liquid if required, as long as the original color is preserved.

How and what can I fill these bottles with to avoid the fruit's spoilage and decay?

None of the classic food preservation techniques will work for you. They are about having the food stay edible, not stay beautiful.

Most fixation solutions will work, but you probably don't want to keep them around your house. For example, if you filled the bottle with formaldehyde, it will not only be a major problem should it break in an accident, but I'd be also worried about anything which might seep through an imperfect seal - it is highly volatile, and neurotoxic and carcinogenic already in the ppm levels.

The one good way I see to do it is to use man's favorite poison: alcohol. Fill the bottles with ethanol until they are fully submerged. In principle, drinking alcohol at 37.5% will do, but in this case, the stronger, the better. Just use medicinal ethanol, it's also cheaper because you don't pay taxes.


Should I lightly boil or steam meat (eg, beef) before searing? The common technique I know of is braising, or, basically, sear the meat (eg beef, pork, chicken), 2 minutes per side, then add liquid, cover, and put in oven at low heat for 1 - 2 hours. This works great for flavorful, tender meat. However, it does not develop a crust or 'bark' on the surface, I think because the 2nd part of covered heating in the oven causes the surface of the meat to get lots of liquid. And any sauce or dry seasoning I put on the surface of the meat falls off. This leads to the meat having a single texture of tender and moist.

Is there a technique of slow, covered cooking first, followed by searing or heating to get the desired crust or bark on the surface? My goal is to have the tender, moist texture on the inside, complemented by a drier, crunchier surface with lots of dry seasoning.

Yes, but I don't know if there's an official name for it. We do this a lot in pressure cooking, to get the appealing mallard reactions (caramelization). Typically, after cooking you can put the meat under the broiler to crisp it up (common examples are a whole chicken or carnitas).

Example recipe for Carnitas: https://callhimyeschef.com/2013/02/19/carnitas-under-pressure/


What varieties of beans are high in calories? Which beans have the most calories per dry-weight?

Note: This includes anything someone might refer to as a "bean" and excludes foods that are perishable.

This is possibly pointless to answer, the general calorie difference between bean varieties is less than the difference from sub-varieties and growing conditions

Use wikipedia or wolframalpha to get average figures for the beans you can get locally, but you really need to test them if this is truly important

For what it's worth chickpeas are very high and commonly available. Wheat is much higher still!

Beans are around 1 to 1.5 calories per g
Wheat is around 3 calories per g
Chia seed is around 5 calories per g
Dried beef is also around 5 calories per g, and much tastier :-)


Bread: Hydration change for making Wholewheat bread with oats I make 100% whole wheat bread with 80% hydration. I want to experiment by replacing some whole wheat with oats. How should I change the hydration level?
I replaced 50% whole wheat with oats and made hydration to 100% as oats absorb more water, and the bread was fine!
Next I tried to replace 80% whole wheat with oats and made hydration to 140%, and the bread was quite gooey (soft and sticky) from inside while the crust was hard!
Any suggestions? I think I should decrease the hydration.

If you try to make a bread exclusively or almost exclusively out of oats, you are missing good gluten formation. Oats are gluten-free(1), so won‘t be able to develop the network that traps the CO2 from your yeast like a wheat bread does and what you made was (slightly sloppily phrased) baked oatmeal. Most bakers will tell you that you need a minimum percentage of wheat (or wheat relative like spelt) for a good bread. That’s not true, as some bread traditions that are based on rye have shown. Oat is not a classic bread grain, though.
Now, it would be too easy to simply say „you can‘t make bread out of oats alone“. It is indeed possible, but you need to use a few tricks along the way - and accept a few differences. I am basing this answer largely on the experiment of one German baker and blogger that I usually trust, so I will be paraphrasing the core findings in this post. He used an oat sourdough, a pre-soak/autolyse step for 1/5th of the oats and a comparatively low amount of yeast (which is probably more of his trademark than essential). Overall, he works with a hydration of 125%, which is lower than your 140% and still ends up with a quite wet crumb, so perhaps that would help you getting closer to your desired target - you were perhaps a bit overzealous when amping up the hydration?
The dough is quite soft and sticky (I don’t think classic kneading would work too well here), and is left to rise in a pan until almost fully proofed, then baked with a standard falling heat from 250°C to 250°C. The high hydration means it needs a significantly longer time to fully bake, aim for over an hour (65-75 minutes) and a core temperature of 98°C.
If you look at the photos, you will notice that the bread doesn’t have the light structure of a wheat bred, but is indeed still rather wet.

(1) Not going into the finer details of food chemistry and all that.


Can this ratatouille be saved? I just made a batch of ratatouille using green bell peppers. There is a bitter metallic taste. Is there anything I can do to salvage this batch?

This is what I did. Olive oil was used throughout.

Peeled eggplant,  sliced in chunks, salted, rinsed

Cut slender young zucchini in same size chunks; Did not salt

Cut an onion and green pepper in chunks

Defrosted frozen Roma tomatoes from last year's garden. Rough chopped

Sauteed eggplant , added to casserole dish

Sauteed zucchini with an garlic clove, added to casserole

Sauteed green peppers, onion

Added last year's frozen  Roma tomatoes to the onion/pepper mix, reduced and added to casserole

(I tasted the tomatoes after they defrosted; no issues there)
Added some Herbs d'Provence, covered casserole and baked.

It is bitter and metallic.
What happened ?
Can it be rescued?

How to avoid this next time?

(I really like fresh made ratatouille in the summer)

Thank you

What you're tasting is likely the eggplant -- eggplants with more seeds can have a distinct metallic taste, and can definitely ruin a dish.  There's probably nothing that can be done for this batch, but for next time:

Look at the bottom of the eggplant when you're picking it out -- if it has a small round indentation, then it's a "male" eggplant and will have less seeds;  if it's a larger horizontal indentation, then it's a "female", and will have a higher seed content (and ruin your Ratatouille).  Once you look at a couple, you'll see the difference -- they're distinctly different and easy to pick out once you know what you're looking for.  Google "male vs female eggplants" and you'll find plenty of pictures of this.

One note: the "male/female" nomenclature isn't exactly correct:  What they call a "male" is an eggplant that was less pollenated and therefore generated less seeds, though the eggplants don't technically have any gender -- but, this is the common terminology used to describe the difference.


Safety of Sous-Vide for long cooking times Note: all of the questions I saw on this focused on higher temperatures.

Brisket, being a fairly large and tough cut of meat, takes longer to cook than a a steak or many roasts. Would it be safe to cook a brisket sous-vide at medium-rare (131˚ F) or rare levels of doneness ?

The reduction or elimination of pathogens in cooked food is not simply a factor of temperature, but a factor of temperature AND time. Lower temps typically mean longer cooks.  This changes the texture of the final product.  Sometimes to the point that people find it unpleasant to eat. You will need to factor in the thickness of the cut, and the desired effect you are looking for, in order to determine the length of your cook.  Your best bet is to look here for a comprehensive treatment of the subject.  In fact, Baldwin has a short section on brisket.


Failing to make mozzarella So i've taken it on me to make fresh mozzarella. I've read up on the task in some articles and with multiple recipes but for some reason I never succeed. The seperated curds always stay little crumbs and never take up the shape of solid blocks/curds/strands.

This is the recipe i'm following:

I use 1L pasteurized organic non-skimmed milk. It's non-homogenized milk but I don't know the pasteurisation temperature. I've used different brands. I dissolve a teaspoon of citric acid into 5 tablespoons of water. Adding this to the milk brings the pH to around 5.8. I've measured the amount of citric acid necessary to lower the pH of the milk to this acidity.

I then heat the milk to 30C. (i've also tried adding the citric acid to the milk at 30C instead of from the start). Once it has reached 30 degrees I take the pan off the stove, add 10 drops of microbiological rennet. The rennet is around 200 IMCU. Stir for 30 seconds.

Put the lid on, wait for 5 minutes.

Drain with strainer.

Result: poor crumbly curds, some even so fine they slip through the strainer. Cutting the curds is something i can't even think about.

Any mozzarella specialists here who could help out with this one? I don't want to give up on this endeavour but not sure if I want to keep wasting all this milk.

The problem is the organic milk. Or rather, the fact that organic milk available in grocery stores is high-temperature pasteurized, rather than conventionally pasteurized. That helps it keep a lot longer, but it disrupts the proteins so that they don't coagulate well enough for cheese.

I'm told that there are brands of conventionally-pasteurized organic milk, but I've never seen one. You might try it with plain old grocery store milk, and it should work. Or you could try to find a local producer, who won't use HTST pasteurization. (You might even be able to find unpasteurized milk, though the USDA definitely frowns on that: even though you're cooking it you won't have aged the cheese long enough.)


How far in advance can I stage pizza? We're having friends over and I'd like to make 3 or 4 pizzas. I'm considering stretching out the dough and put on the toppings ahead of time, say an hour ahead of when I pop them in the oven. How long can the pizzas sit on the counter in this pre-oven state?

You can stage pan pizzas (chicago style, or pizza hut style) for up to four hours as long as you keep them covered.  You can stage a stretched dough for up to an hour and a half between two pieces of wax paper.  However, you need to take the time into consideration when proofing your dough so that you don't get blown dough as that will not be delicious.  You should not sauce the crusts or top them as pre-saucing will change how your dough cooks in the oven.

If the dough forms a harder crust/ dries out, you should consider tossing it as it will not result in good pizza after cooking.


What is the "Chili sauce" ingredient in this recipe? I want to make this Copy Cat A1 Steak Sauce but I'm not exactly sure what one ingredient is.

What is it calling for when it says Chili sauce?

Also, if it turns out I don't have the chili sauce they are referring to, are there good substitutions for it?

Heinz and some other companies sell a product that they call 'chili sauce', which might be what you're looking for.

It's a tomato-based sauce, with some spices and seasoning, but it's not particularly spicy.

If you have access to Dutch & German ingredients, you might replace it with one of the thicker shashlik sauces (aka 'curry ketchup').  If you have access to UK ingredients, you might try brown sauce.

If you wanted to make it yourself from scratch, see http://www.food.com/recipe/heinz-chili-sauce-copycat-457947


Do you need to pre-heat a gas oven? I mean it's gas - an open fire - and heats up in less than a minute. Does preheating making any difference when baking with gas?

Yes, preheating warns up the entire interior of the oven which is important for keeping the air hot such as when you open the door. It helps the oven bounce back to full heat much sooner. If you don't preheat, it will take several minutes before the oven reaches proper cooking temps, and interfere with even heating.

If you want to see the difference most dramatically, bake some chocolate chips. First without any preheating and then when those are supposed the be done, do another batch and bake them for the same amount of time.

If you are baking something for an hour or more, it may not make much difference, but shorter baking times can be dramatically affected.


Help finding information on Marble coated woks I've been looking for a wok and was considering a carbon steel wok, but from my research, it seems that carbon steel woks, even if they have a flat bottom, may warp slightly from the heat and not remain flat.

Since I have a flat top cook surface, I'm not sure if one of these is right for me.

I have read about marble coated woks that are supposedly good for flat cook tops, but I can't find any detailed information on them.

Do they require any special care (e. g. seasoning) and are they good for stir frying at high temperatures?

Perhaps you could benefit from user experience by posting your question in the Customer Questions and Answers section of a product sold by Amazon.

For example, try posting here:

http://www.amazon.com/Ceramic-Marble-Coated-Aluminium-inches/dp/B004FSS43I#Ask