How do you make Yorkshire Puddings rise reliably? Has anyone got a foolproof method for Yorkshire Puddings? With the recipe I have they never seem to rise properly.

While using a hot oven and keeping the tin hot while filling are both critical elements, equal concern needs to be taken with making sure that your batter is at room temperature.
If the eggs and milk aren't room temp to even slightly warm, then it will take a significant amount of heat to simply warm the batter in the pan before significant steam can build for their expansion.
You can warm eggs quickly by placing the whole egg (in shell) in a bowl and covering with hot water from the tap.  Let it sit for 5-10 minutes and you'll have room temperature/warm egg.  Milk can simply be microwaved to only slightly warm (not hot, or you'll cook the eggs).
You might also try using bread flour.  Here in the south all-purpose flour has a lower gluten content than most other all-purpose flour in the US and it's also bleached to weaken the gluten content that's there.  I've recommended to guests of mine that have had issues with popovers not rising that they try bread flour and I've heard positive responses following the use of bread flour. Bread flour will also have a bit more flavor and produce more browning from the additional protein.


What can I do with my failed tomato canning attempt? Yesterday I canned a batch of tomatoes, chunked.  This morning when I inspected the jars, they all appeared to be sealed.  This evening upon inspecting the jars, I found one was no longer sealed.  I believe I broke the seal while checking the jar.

So what are my options with this failed jar of tomatoes?  Can I attempt to recan them or cook them up still?  It has been about 24 hours since removal from the water bath.

Generally, when you find that you have a jar that failed to seal, you move it to the fridge, and use it up quickly.

... but by now, you've had the jar at room temperature for a really long time, especially if you didn't move it to the fridge immediately after you asked.  If it had been a few hours after canning, especially with a high-acid food like tomato sauce, I'd have no problems recommending that route.

As it is now, I'd recommend composting it and recovering the jar for your next batch.  You can decide for yourself how much you're willing to risk getting sick over wasting the food (how hearty your immune system is, how close you are to scraping by 'til the next pay check, etc), but if I were going to eat it, I'd bring it back up to boiling for a while (with the lid on, or a splatter screen at the very least) and only eat it myself, not serve it to others.


How do we keep our roasted cashews from smelling bad eventually? We are from a small manufacturing unit and do roasting and packing of cashews. After roasting we pack them in polypropylene pouches with nitrogen flushing. But after 2-3 months cashews are smelling bad when packets are opened. Kindly help us learn how to overcome this issue.

Presumably you are experiencing rancidity, due to oxygen.

While you have nitrogen flushed the bags at filling time, the bags are not impervious to oxygen diffusion.

A different type of bag (an "oxygen barrier" bag material) or package (glass jar, or metal can) and, in addition, (based on other packaging I have seen) oxygen absorbing packets inside the bag may be required for long shelf life. Either alone would probably extend the shelf-life somewhat.


I am having an issue with leaving macarons to form a skin I have a few macaron orders, so I need to bake them. However, when it is raining and the air is moist they don't form a skin very well. What can I do to make sure they form a skin before they go in the oven when there is moisture in the air?

The need to leave macarons to form a skin is debatable, but if you feel it's necessary, put them uncovered in the fridge, which will dry them out nicely. Be careful that there's nothing else in there with a strong smell that may taint the macarons, however.


How to add savor to a squash and grain mix? My friend and I have been making a sort of health mash for the past few weeks in large batches. The ingredients are something like:

1 sweet potato
1 butternut or acorn squash
1/2 cup dry quinoa
1/2 cup dry lentil
1/2 cup dry Job's Tears
1/2 cup dry millet
2 tbsp roasted pine nuts
2 cups bok choy, stir-fried
1-2 blocks misc. tofu, diced

Everything is cooked in the simplest way possible and then mixed together; grains/legumes are boiled with a pinch of salt, and other things are roasted in the oven.

The problem is that this dish has a pretty subtle flavor (except the roasted pine nuts) and is a bit tedious to eat--much chewing required, it is a slow food (so to speak).

What could be added to these kinds of ingredients (predominantly grains/legumes/squash) to add more savor/flavor?  We have tried things like soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, and anchovies, but these don't seem to be the perfect addition.

We have been keeping it (mostly) vegetarian so far and have some preference to keep it that way but would be open to other suggestions.

It looks to me like you need umami. One easy, healthy thing you can add is powdered dried shiitake or porcini mushrooms. I just throw the dried mushrooms into a spice grinder, it's a powerful punch.

EDIT: (SAJ14SAJ refers to the same concept, glutamates, in his answer)


How do I heat up rice and pasta at work? I want to heat up rice or pasta at work so I can have a hot meal with rice and chicken or pasta and chicken. There is a microwave there - can I use that?

To reheat left over rice, microwave is the best!
Put a clean damp (wet but not runny) cloth or paper towel on top of your rice in a microwave safe dish and heat it for 2 minutes. Don't put a lid on top of the dish.

Left over pasta is always gross, no matter how you reheat it. So stick with microwave. If you pasta is not super saucy, same method (with a damp paper towel) would apply to pasta, otherwise, just heat with a lid on.


What does soaking in a solution of baking soda do to fruit when preserving it? Last year the recipe I used for preserving whole figs involved pricking the figs with a fork and soaking them in a weak solution of baking soda.

What is the baking soda doing to the fruit in this step? Can it be keeping the figs from disintegration (a problem with this year's batch)?

The remainder of the recipe involves boiling the fruit with lots of sugar, then putting the fruit into jars, thickening the remaining syrup and topping off the jars with that.

Alkalinity breaks down the structure of plant cell walls.  I assume the purpose of this baking soda bath is to soften the structure of the fig. That's why yours softened so much.  If you want to maintain the structure of the fig, try using an acidic bath, as acidity helps to maintain plant cell structure.


How to achieve fall-off-the-bone lamb with browned bits in oven? I am trying to replicate a method to cook lamb I experienced in a North African restaurant in Paris. The dish was called "mechoui" (which is a whole-hog ... hmm... lamb outdoor roasting tradition), but when I asked the chef he said all he did was cook the lamb pieces at 300F (180C) for 1hr in the oven with no fat, just some coarse salt.
The lamb (typically a sub section of lamb shoulder with some bone) was served just about fall of the bone tender, with plenty of delicious browned bits. It was clearly roasted and not braised.
Each time I have tried to replicate this I end up with a messy & disappointing situation: plenty of liquid released in the pan, no browning, and tough meat.
What would people recommend?

That temperature is fine, but is never, ever going to produce “fall off the bone” in one hour. That requires hydrolysis of collagen into gelatin, which takes significantly longer.  It’s possible the chef was describing how he finished the lamb, after a longer (and possibly wetter) cook at a lower temperature.
Don’t worry too much about losing liquid. That is absolutely going to happen with long, slow cooking, even if you’re boiling the meat. The “moistness” of long-roasted meat comes from rendered gelatin, not from hoarding the juices. With very long dry cooking you do run some risk of drying out (this will manifest as a thick dry 'bark' on the meat, not as dryness throughout), but just tenting the meat with foil should avoid that.
Try three hours at 180, covering with foil until the last half hour. This will probably produce more fall-off-the-bone than you'd like, but it's a good starting point.


How do you make tapioca from cassava? I am curious as to how tapioca is made from cassava. Also, is it possible to do this at home? Thanks.

It is possible to do at home, but it is very labor intensive and requires equipment that most people don't have at home.

The first major step is to produce tapioca starch (ie tapioca flour). The cassava must be cleaned and peeled, then finely grated or milled to break the cell walls and expose the starch.  This mass is then washed in a large amount of water and the insoluble pulp is strained out and the starchy water reserved.  The starch-water mixture, called "Starch milk", is allowed to settle for 6+ hours and the water is drained off until a thick slurry is left.  This slurry is then either purified further with more water then dried to form the flour.  The additional washing of the slurry is important to remove residual insoluble fiber and, more importantly, cyanide-related toxins naturally found in the cassava. Traditional cultures dried the slurry on basketwork trays, but it is more efficient to do it in an oven at low temperature with regular raking and turning. The dried starch would then be sifted and used for cooking.

Making tapioca balls or pearls from tapioca starch is relatively easy compared to the processing of the cassava.  The tapioca starch is mixed with boiling water to form a dough which is then kneaded and rolled into the desired size balls.  The tapioca balls are then cooked in boiling water until transparent.

Other sources:

http://www.fao.org/livestock/agap/frg/AHPP95/95-81.pdf

http://phys.org/news90080234.html


How long is garlic butter safe, and why is it not a botulism risk like garlic in oil? I've been making garlic butter for years, storing it for months at a time. When I read that garlic-in-oil can grow dangerous amounts of botulinum toxins after similar lengths of time, I wondered how safe garlic butter is and why.

Evidently, the safety warnings specifically target storage in oil. I couldn't find a satisfactory explanation for butter not being mentioned with a preliminary search. The first Google result turns up a grossly unhelpful Yahoo! Answers page whose sources do not mention butter at all.

To the point: is garlic butter safer than garlic-in-oil, and why? Is butter not also an anaerobic environment, so that the same precautions should apply as with oil?

There's no reason to believe it's safer.

Garlic in oil is "unsafe" by FDA standards.  Which means that roughly one in 100,000 bottles of homemade garlic oil kills someone.  Before reading about the botulism risk, my friends and I used to make garlic oil at home and hand it out; I'd say we distributed probably 100 bottles, some of which stayed on the shelf for years before being used.  In that time, nobody got sick from it (most bottles went to friends, so we'd have heard).

So the fact that your garlic butter hasn't killed anyone yet just means that you're playing the odds.  Chances are, unless you get really sloppy, you could go on making garlic butter for the rest of your life and never get botulism poisoning.  But not everyone is comfortable with that risk.

EDITED PER BELOW:  You can improve your odds of avoiding botulism by straining the oil/butter through cheesecloth (to eliminate solids which would hide spores), and heat-treating it to 160F or more for 45 minutes.  This will not eliminate all risk of botulism, but will improve your odds.


Does incorporating whipping cream in a chocolate syrup extend its shelf life? We bought a box/carton of whipping cream a few months ago and it sat on the freezer for some time and we used it earlier to create a chocolate sauce/syrup for a cake. However, we didn't need everything so there was some left in the carton. We looked at the carton and it says that the whipping cream would expire in 2 days (the 20th of March).

What would happen if we decided to use it all up for chocolate syrup? Would our chocolate syrup's shelf life extend beyond the 20th? Or it wouldn't, since one of the components would expire already?

If you have an ingredient which is supposed to be cooked through, and cook it before it expires, the shelf life of the now cooked dish would be the standard for all cooked dishes, 3-5 days, no matter if the expiry date of the ingredient falls within these 3-5 days or not. Assuming that your syrup is cooked, and your cream is still good, I think it is safe to use that rule.

But in your case, the problem is that you already opened the cream "some months ago". This means that you bought UHT cream with an expiry date months in the future. The important point here is that this date assumes a closed container. UHT is a sterilization technique, similar to canning. Just like you can't open a tin of beans and expect them to sit in the open and stay good for months, you can't expect the cream to stay good. UHT dairy, once opened, should be treated like any other perishable food: refrigerated and used up within 3-5 days. Most people don't care about this, as it doesn't change its taste for over a week outside of the fridge, but keeping it out is not a safe practice. In any case, sitting at room temperature for months is way too long.

You mention freezing: don't freeze dairy, it doesn't work well.

Bottom line: When you open cream, you have to use it up. Whether you make syrup with it or not, it has the same shelf life from the point of opening.


Freezing and defrosting Cantaloupe is still good in the fridge? I recently sliced a Cantaloupe and put it in the freezer for future use to make some easy-and-cold shakes. Then I read somewhere that putting it in the freezer for a long time is not a good idea, so I moved it to the fridge. I'd like to know how long does it last in the fridge and is a defrosted and sliced Cantaloupe healthy?

It should be healthy for now (assuming it was still relatively fresh when you put it into the freezer) but will actually break down faster now that you have frozen and thawed it.  It will also have a much softer and significantly less pleasant texture than it did before, although that won't have much effect on blending.

When you freeze foods, the water in the food forms ice crystals, which are very sharp and which puncture the cell walls of the frozen food.  These punctures cause the cells to lose a lot of water when the food is thawed and their water becomes liquid again.  You will probably notice that your cantaloupe will look somewhat translucent and will have a lot of juice in the bottom of its container.  This is due to cell damage and water loss post-freezing.

In fruits and vegetables, cell walls provide the structure that forms the fruit's texture, and damaging these walls will significantly weaken that structure.  So the cantaloupe will be less firm and a lot less pleasant to eat on its own.  It's probably still safe for now, but puncturing the cell walls will also make it easier for stray bacteria to get to the food's sugars and start multiplying, resulting in faster spoilage.

I would recommend using this immediately; failing that, 3 days maximum in the fridge would be as far as I'd go.  If you want to do this in future, just leave the cantaloupe in the freezer until you're ready to use.  Assuming it's tightly sealed to avoid freezer burn, it will keep for up to 6 months there.


Printer for applying royal icing Is there something like a printer that makes it easy to create icing art on cookies?

All the work to create the example below, I believe there is something that can facilitate production

The term I wanted to find is: Cookie Icing Machine domestic

According to Joe's comment I managed to find information I didn't know how to look for ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AJYc3mPvRg


"Screaming" noise while steaming milk? When steaming milk (for a latte or other coffee drink), it sometimes produces a loud, high-pitched "screaming" sound.  I think you can usually prevent it by keeping the tip of the steaming wand on the surface of the milk longer before putting it in deeper, but that's just a guess more than anything I've actually been taught.  I've always assumed this noise means the milk is scalding, but I'm really sure.

What causes the screaming noise, and what is the best way to avoid it?

The screaming noise occurs when your steaming wand can't draw in enough air. The worst that will happen is your milk will taste a little sour. Just pull the wand out of the milk for a second then put it back in.


Broiler vs. second baking steel? How are the results in pizza baking different between one baking steel using a broiler, versus baking the pizza on a lower steel with a second steel on a higher rack?  Is one easier to control (less likely to burn the cheese or crust)?  Does a second steel above the pizza do a good job at cooking the top?  Does anyone have experience with that?

I would say that in most cases neither is that helpful.  I have great success with one steel, placed at the highest possible elevation in the oven.  Preheat for at least an hour, and allow the steel to recover for a few minutes after removing the completed pizza, and before adding the next one.  I have found minimal to no improvement with a steel or stone above the pizza.  Also, in my oven, turning the broiler on, means the heating from the bottom goes off.  I also need to keep the oven door slightly ajar when the broiler is on, so I lose a lot of heat this way.  I find I don't need the broiler with my set-up.  It is less convenient for marginal gains.


Can you make whipped cream with a SodaStream? So, whipped cream is basically just cream that’s been whipped until lots of tiny air bubbles become suspended in it and it becomes a much thicker foam, right?

Would it be possible to use a SodaStream machine (or some similar carbonation machine) to make whipped cream by carbonating the cream until it becomes whipped cream?

No, because the bottle would explode off the Soda Stream, spraying cream and foam all over your kitchen.

Per the Soda Stream FAQ:

  No. Only water should be carbonated in the SodaStream Sparkling Water Maker. You risk damaging your Sparkling Water Maker, not to mention making a big fizzy mess! The money-back guarantee and the warranty are both invalidated if you carbonate any liquid other than water in your Sparkling Water Maker. Stick with plain, cold water and adding any one of our fantastic flavors - AFTER the water has been carbonated!

Speaking from personal experience, the Soda Stream won't tolerate anything even a little more viscous than water ... not even fruit juice.  The liquid foams too fast and blows the bottle off the device.  Cream would be a hilarious mess.


How long do refrigerator pickles keep? I pickled zucchini slices last summer with plenty of vinegar, sugar and spices and still have some jars in my refrigerator.  They look fine but I wonder about bacteria etc. Thanks

It is impossible to answer this. Normally, food is quite clearly divided into the categories of "perishable" and "shelf stable", with perishable food being safe for 3-5 days in the refrigerator and shelf stable food being safe indefinitely prior to opening.

Refrigerator pickles are one of the very rare cases in the middle. They are not shelf stable (else they would be suitable for canning), but they are still not very pathogen friendly. Just how much slower is bacterial growth in them? It will differ from recipe to recipe. And just saying "plenty of vinegar" is not at all sufficient to predict a real use-by date. Not even the exact recipe in gram of each ingredient would be sufficient for this, since bacterial growth is a complex system, which makes it practically impossible to calculate such a prediction.

Your only information source is your original recipe. If it gives you a time period, you should use that (and hope it is trustworthy). If it doesn't, then there is no way for somebody to just say how long it is safe.


What method of coffee preparation gives the most caffeine in the finished cup? As the question asks, which method from the list below will give the most caffeine in the final product (ie. a cup of coffee).  Assume the same beans with the same grind (while the different techniques should use different grinds, lets try and keep things simple) and as much as possible assume things are kept constant - Aiming for a 200ml cup of coffee made from (if appropriate) a double shot of espresso, the rest made up by water. :

Professional Espresso maker (i.e. in a coffee shop)
Aeropress
Stovetop espresso maker
French Press
Consumer grade capsule coffee machine (e.g. nespresso).  Once again assume that we can find the same bean in a bought capsule.

This question is nearly unanswerable. Typical caffeine content data is given as a range based on the normal brewing factors of each method, there isn't data for abnormal methods i.e. french press with fine grind or espresso with coarse grind.

Typical caffeine contents:

3oz Espresso double shot: 70-200mg
8oz drip: 60-100mg
6oz French Press: 80-100mg
6oz Aeropress: 60-80mg

On average the espresso or moka pot coffee would have significantly higher caffeine concentration than other methods (with the moka pot maybe edging out the espresso because it uses higher temperature for extraction). There is so much variability that I don't know if there's any point in trying to answer this question. The article linked below shows that one method alone (espresso) can yield shots with caffeine concentrations that are radically different:

  The extended range of caffeine values found in retail coffees in this study suggests that it is presently not possible for individuals interested in assessing the caffeine content of their diet to do so if the intake includes retail coffee. Our data highlights that, if just two retail coffees are consumed in a day by the same individual, that a variance of more than 290 mg can occur if both of these espressos are purchased from either the highest or lowest 10th percentiles of all the beverages sampled

If you control for volume by diluting everything with a typical serving size less than 200mL, all the methods are going to yield caffeine doses in the range of 60-100mg.  A typical espresso based Americano (1 shot + water to make 5oz) would also fall in that range.

http://www.aseanfood.info/Articles/11020406.pdf


Over-stirring muffin mixtures In muffin recipes, the instructions often say to stir the mixture till "just combined".

Why does over-stirring the muffin mixture result in tough muffins?
And how do you know if you did too much stirring?

The easiest way to tell if you've over stirred muffins, quick breads or cakes is the texture when it's baked.

Correct, and it's all even.  Over stirred, and you'll have a series of larger bubbles in the cake, called 'tunneling', where it looks like worms have burrowed their way through your cake or muffin.

Stirring develops gluten, which is essential to trap in bubbles for most yeast breads, and to give it a little bit of chew -- but not something that you want in a typical quick bread. (muffins, cake, etc.)


Where can I find strong sharp tasting olive oil in the US? I was hoping you could all educate me. I remember living in Turkey and travelling around the Mediterranean in general and a lot of the Olive Oil was sharper or you might call it bitter, and I know it was fresh. I loved the taste. In the US where I'm from, all the store bought olive oil that I've purchased is smooth and doesn't have any special kick to it. Why is that?
I assume it's for one of three reasons

I am not always the cheapest but I won't go all out and spend the most on something usually, and I wouldn't know what bottles to choose anyway.

The manufacturers know or think they know their market, and they think, probably correctly, that American's wouldn't go for that.

The process of storing and transporting it either reduces the sharpness or requires they refine it in a way that reduces it.

I'm interested in EVOO of course. I assume the stuff in the Mediterranean I ate was Extra Virgin but if it wasn't, that's fine too. I know it was fresh.
Am I correct with my reasons above, and more importantly where can I find sharp strong olive oil like I remember (including on Amazon)?

Your best source for quality olive oil with strong flavors in the US is going to be a specialty market, either an upscale "gourmet" one, or an ethnic market, such as a Greek, Arabic, Italian, or Turkish market, or even a specialty olive-oil only store.  Farmer's markets can also be a good source of premium olive oil.  Once COVID is over, you can even find markets that will let you taste their olive oils, so that you can pick the one with the degree of pungency you're seeking; many producers create a range.
The bitterness you're talking about is hopefully from oleocanthal and is a sign of quality.  I say "hopefully" because there is a lot of fake virgin olive oils out there, and the wrong kind of bitterness comes from "deodorizing" low-quality oils.  These taste different, but you'd have to try both to recognize it.
You are also right that most Americans don't like pungent or bitter olive oils. That's why the oils you buy in mainstream supermarkets are usually bland, and why you usually need to go outside of them to find better oil.
The fake olive oil problem is why I can't recommend trying to find any high-quality Turkish olive oils here in the the US.  While Turkish producers to create very fine olive oils, overwhelmingly what reaches the US is fake olive oil with Turkish labels, and there are no reliable brands available here I've found.  So I'd recommend getting an oil from Greece, Lebanon, or Israel instead, since all of those countries do have import channels that follow labelling laws and their oils should be fairly similar to Turkish.
This is also why I'm avoiding the term "extra virgin" in this answer.  The US does not enforce conditions on "extra virgin" labelling, so seeing those words on the bottle tells you absolutely nothing.  Instead you need to go by producer and recommendations.


How can I keep the cheese from leaking out of my cordon bleu during cooking? I use flour to coat, including the ends, and I use toothpicks to hold the wider part shut.  Even when I try to fold the cutlet envelope style, most of my cheese melts out. I cook them on the stove top with butter.

Is there another technique that would prevent that?

P.S. I use Swiss cheese.

The most common reason for leakage with Cordon Bleu Chicken is that the packets are too thick, which makes it impossible to get a perfect fold; you need to pound the breasts very thin - less than 1/2", maybe a little more than 1/4".

The other "trick" is to make a small cut along the folded edge of the breast after you fold and seal the packets, which essentially makes it almost like a sandwich; the top and bottom parts can move independently and you don't have tension trying to pull the top piece away.

Just don't cut so deep that you cause an immediate leak; if you've pounded the breast to 1/3" thickness, then your cut should be no more than about 1/8".

If you do it this way, you shouldn't even need to use toothpicks; I never do, and I haven't sprung a single leak in my last 20 or so preparations.


Top of Dough "Cracked" During Cold Rise - is it bad? I made a brioche/sweet dough and did a cold rise overnight. The risen dough had cracks at the top of it. See:

Is this normal? Or symptomatic of a problem?

I used a glass bowl and covered it with plastic wrap. The bowl was oiled, and I also oiled the outside of the dough. When the dough was done kneading, it was very elastic (passed window pane); it also was a bit on the wetter side, I think -- it was hard to ball it up as it didn't want to hold its shape.

You can certainly try baking it, but that dough looks quite overleavened to me. You might end up with no body, bad crumb, and/or terribly sour taste. Still, at that point, baking it is a better thing than throwing it out outright - there is a good chance the result will be okayish/edible, if not great. Also, I might be wrong in my diagnosis, since I am basing it on a single picture and cannot touch and smell the dough.

To make it clear, I am not saying "overleavened" because of the mere description of "cracks", it is that the picture looks like the dough rose a lot and then slumped. You can get cracks from other processes too, but they don't usually look like in your picture.

To prevent overleavening, take care to not proof for very long times, unless the recipe was specifically designed for it. Also, never use more yeast than the recipe suggests.


I am attempting to preserve the shelf life of ice tea up to six months with citric acid, I need a perfected ratio? I am attempting to preserve the shelf life of ice tea up to six months with citric acid, I need a perfected ratio?

I have tried several ratio, but still end up with molds in a week time not refrigerated.

The last ratio I tried was
4 cups of warm filtered water 3 of 1/8 of a teaspoon of citric acid.
27 bags of tea steep

also tried again,but this time with less tea bags.
17 bags...still horrible smell and mold!

Does anyone know a ratio that can prolong at least 3-6 months with out being refrigerated?

If the tea was distilled water, a 5% solution would have been sufficient. That is, you'd need 50 grams of acid to 950 grams of water. The problem is, the impurities of the water and the tea itself buffer it somewhat, so it's impossible to predict the exact amount you need. You'll have to use a pH meter, and an accurate one, not strips, to make a pH solution at 1.8 or below. And then hope than you don't have high-acid liking mold around.

The problem is, at this concentration, tea will taste more sour than pure lemon juice, in fact it will have to be more acidic than your own gastric juice. Drinking it will feel like having heartburn all the way from the mouth to the stomach.

My suggestion: ditch the whole project. Tea is not a shelf stable product. Trying to invent home methods for food preservation is dangerous, you were lucky that mold is visible. You'll have to step your tea fresh.


Pork shoulder low slow cook time I am planning to cook a 10lb (4.5kg) bone-in pork shoulder at 250°F (121°C) for about 8 hours.

Is there any danger in overcooking if I cook for a few hours longer? I know it needs the time for the collagen to break down. I'm just wondering if there is an outside time danger of it becoming dry?

If you cook it too long uncovered it will lose moisture and dry out. If it is covered and you have a bit of liquid in there you could cook it longer and it would stay moist. You could turn it down to 200 too to slow the cooking process.

EDIT:
If I was going to cook a piece of meat that long I'd opt for a braise instead of a roast as if you cook any meat dry too long it will dry out even if it's well covered. For pork some thin stock and white wine would do, or maybe cola or ginger ale which works well for ham.


How to brown the sugar for pumpkin flan? I've made pumpkin flan from the following recipe http://www.rachaelraymag.com/Recipes/rachael-ray-magazine-recipes/mucho-gusto-latin-recipes/Pumpkin-Flan

I follow the instructions to a tee: "In a medium saucepan over high heat, add the sugar and pour 2/3 cup water around the perimeter. Using a wooden spoon, cook, stirring, until golden, about 5 minutes. Lower the heat and cook until copper-colored, 1 to 2 minutes."

My sugar never browns like shown on the picture. It's a translucent off-white. I feel like there is too much water.

Is my pan just too small of a diameter? What is the diameter or volume for "medium saucepan"? Is it something else - like the recipe? When I put the sugar into the pie dish, it seems to be a really thick layer of sugar when usually it's a thin layer for flan, no?

Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

A medium saucepan would probably be in the 8-10 inch range.

Your sugar isn't colouring because the heat isn't high enough or it's high enough but not long enough. Just keep cooking, the change will happen. You can try less water but if you're not familiar with working with sugar, better to err on the side of caution; I do work with caramels a lot, and when I know I'm liable to get distracted by other things I have on the go I purposefully use more water than needed to give myself breathing room.

Are you using the correct size of dish as specified by the recipe? Some of the caramel will dissolve into the filling as you pour it in and as it cooks; I wouldn't worry about the thickness at this stage.

Beyond that, I would personally stay far, far away from anything done by RR. I don't criticise cooks lightly, and I generally try to cook some of their recipes before I'll pass judgement. The recipes of hers that I have tried, both from 30 minute meals and the website, are uniformly awful. Poorly written, ingredient quantities are off, and generally they just taste nasty.


Gas or electric oven with gas stove Always have I wanted a gas stove top. Now is my chance. I had envisioned years ago the best combination in the kitchen would be a gas stove and electric oven. I don't bake often except for old world breads and holiday birds. What would be my best combo? What are the advantages and disadvantages of gas and electric ovens?

I have used gas ovens with gas hobs, electric ovens with electric hobs, and electric ovens with gas hobs. By far the best combination is gas hob and electric oven. I'll break the pros and cons down:

Gas Hob

Pros:

Heats up quickly
Heat changes quickly - when you turn it off, it's off.
Fine control over heat

Cons:

Can create 'hotspots', but this is why you have different sized rings
Can be fussier to clean
Obvious danger of gas leaks, but modern safety systems mitigate this

Electric hobs are pretty much the opposite. They can be slow to heat and react slowly to heat changes (so if you want to go from a boil to a simmer you have to plan 20 minutes ahead). They also have the disadvantage of remaining hot even when they're turned off, which can be dangerous. Their only advantage over gas hobs is a more even heat across the pan, and being easier to clean.

Electric Oven (preferably fan)

Pros:

Quick to preheat
Even temperature throughout the oven
Precise temperature control

Cons:

None that I can think of

In contrast, gas ovens are slow to preheat, have marked zones of different heat (cooler at the bottom, hot at the top) and have coarser heat control. Also, because the flame is generally at the back of the oven, you can end up burning larger dishes that butt right up to it. All this builds up to make an unreliable oven (in terms of cooking results).

In conclusion, a gas hob/electric oven combo is the best because it gives you ultimate control over your cooking.


Color bleeding when piping I'm trying to mix color in whipped cream for decorations, but it always bleeds the color down to my white cake coat foundation. Can somebody help?

Make sure your cake fondant isn't too runny.
It might be a good idea to let the fondant on the cake set for a few hours before topping on the whipped cream, in order to harden the foundation to prevent colors from bleeding in.
Here is a thread of comments that focuses on the issue with bleeding colors from whipped cream: Keep Colors From Bleeding?


How do I separate two fish fillets that have been frozen together? Sometimes when I get frozen fish, it comes with several pieces frozen together (specifically, Trader Joe's does this with all of their frozen fish).

Is there any good way of separating them without fully thawing?

This could also apply to other frozen things, but I'm mainly interested in fish.

If the pieces are only frozen together in a few places, you might want to try heating a butter knife up under hot water and then using that to pry them apart. This is similar to heating up an ice cream scoop. It won't work if they are really packed in together tightly though.


Imparting flavor to steamed vegetables What flavors, when added to the steaming water can impart its flavor to vegetables being steamed? I know ginger has some water soluble compounds.  What else is similar?

Water solubility isn't enough - that gets the flavour into the water but says nothing about whether the flavour gets to the food. Consider salt as an extreme example.

You may get somewhere by putting the source of flavour on top of the food being cooked. There are recipes that do this with mint for example, though they normally add more mint at the end.

The ginger you mentioned may work in a similar way, but testing is difficult as this approach tends to scent the kitchen or even the whole house, so you perceive the flavour even before the food is served.


Can I use Maida atta instead of plain flour for breading? So guys I want to make a dish called Crispy Chicken Burger patties and in the recipe it is prescribed to coat the chicken in plain flour to make it crispy so I wanted to ask if I can use Maida atta as a substitute. Thanks in advance.

You don't note which one you would want to use. Maida and atta are both made from wheat. Maida is made only from the endosperm (the large, starchy part of the wheat kernel), while atta is made from the whole grain, including the bran. Both are super-refined, though, so you might want to add a couple of tablespoons of finely crushed dried bread crumbs to the flour to give it some grain (texture); that way, it won't be as prone to soaking up your cooking oil and turning the patties soggy.


Tomato skin in roasted tomato soup? In preparing roasted tomato soup, which includes tomatoes that I roast in the oven at 200 °C (392 °F) for 30 minutes, and then simmer for a long time, I am having an issue with tomato skins. I find these skins largely inedible: They separate from the pulp and become very tough. Since these skins might contain some flavour, I simmer them with the rest of the tomatoes, and only then throw them away. This is a bit fidgety and takes a while.

I noticed that some tomato varieties, namely the ones that are sold on vines, have much softer skins that do not separate from the pulp and remain edible.

Do tomato skins have, in fact, any flavour that I would want to keep? What is the correct way to handle tomato skins?

I wouldn't bother keeping the skins, if they're hurting the texture.  Many recipes using tomatoes end up removing skins for this reason. My exec chef showed me an easy way to remove the skin from tomatoes (we were doing tomato concasse):

Wash tomatoes thoroughly, and slice a shallow cross in the bottom.
Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil, and also prepare an ice water bath nearby.
Drop tomatoes into the boiling water for 30 seconds to a minute, until the skin starts to crack.
Using a slotted spoon, transfer tomatoes to ice water to cool for a minute or two
Peel -- the skin should already be peeling back around the X-mark.


What are the differences between brown/golden sesame seeds and black ones? Unhulled sesame seeds can be either light brown (golden) or black. Other than their color, are there other differences are their between these two varieties?  Why might you choose one type over the other (again, I only care about reasons that aren't related to color or aesthetics of a dish).

Dark sesame seeds are more common in Indian cooking. I personally think that they have a more intense taste. They are also smaller, for what little difference that makes. I wouldn't rush to use them to make tahini, because the color would be surprising and I suspect that the flavor would be a bit bitter.


Properties of a good steak? I'm talking about what makes a good piece of meat for a steak.

not how to cook it.

What type of cut? Thickness? dry aged? to marinate or not? seasoning?

I've always been partial to a Ribeye (high fat content), cut to a minimum of 1.5 inches to achieve a nice crispy (more brown then grey) outside with a red interior.

lots of pepper, little salt.

I've come across two great, and very different, types of steak. The first is typical in Argentina and is not aged at all, but from a young calf (6-10 months old), free ranging and grass fed (hence not like classic veal). This is really juicy, tender, and with a very "bright" taste. Good high-end Argentine restaurants usually serve meat like this, and in the UK you can order it from pampasplains.com, which I think is great.

The second is from an older cow and dry aged to tenderize, but the aging also gives it a deeper, more bone marrow-like flavour. The best I've had of this type was a cow from Limousin in France, served in Paris at a small restaurant called Le Sèvero (8 rue des Plantes, 14th Arrondissment, reviewed in the NY Times a while ago). It was amazing! In London, 32 Great Queen St's "Hereford beef" is a similar style and also excellent. They get it from a Hereford farmer called Tom Jones (seriously), who serves several restaurants.

Good steak should never be marinated in anything - all it needs before cooking is salt, maybe pepper if you like (though I sometimes eat it with Coleman's English mustard).

I'm fairly sure that grass-only feed is important to good meat, i.e. no cereal-based fattening-up, though it's hard to separately test this one variable. Breed also clearly matters (all Argentine beef seems to be Aberdeen Angus or Hereford). I love a nicely marbled, fatty steak like the ribeye, but my (Argentine) wife prefers leaner cuts like sirloin and filet - clearly a matter of taste.


Can I simply soak fruit and vegetables in water for several hours to sanitize them? To optimize my time as much as possible, I would like to know if I can simply put them in water and leave them there for a while. This would help if there are lots of fruits and vegetables to be washed. Would this help to remove bacteria and pesticides on them? How long should they be soaked in minimum to really be effective? How long in maximum to avoid effects on taste and nutrition? How long before they get spoiled? Should I put something into the water?

Washing fruit and vegetables in water is less an exercise in sterilisation and more a case of simply washing off any mud or debris. Soaking in still water does nothing to clean, well, anything really. Even if you sterilise the water and container, the fruit itself will still be teeming with bacteria which would be perfectly happy to multiply in stagnant water.

Simply wash the fruit/veg under a briskly running stream of water to remove any major dirt. There is unlikely to be anything terrible on fruit or vegetables in any case, assuming you have a healthy immune system.

If you really want to reduce bacterial load, the only solution is thorough cooking.


How to cook spaetzle (German homemade noodles/pasta) without it ending up soggy? I've made spaetzle a few times now but every time I struggle with it ending up a bit wet/soggy, I try to drain it the best I can but it holds a lot of water still.

I do sometimes end up cooking it longer then usual recommended 2/3 minutes because I worry it will stay too raw. am I doing something wrong, or could I do something to stop that its always so soggy/wet? I use a spaetzle maker (the sliding bucket grater type).

The usual kind of recipe I make is this:

Ingredients (Makes 2 servings; Modified from original which served 10)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground pepper
2 large eggs
1/4 cup milk

The full recipe is here: http://hickitchenblog.com/2013/06/21/cheese-spaetzle-recipe-and-spaetzle-maker-or-hobel-tips/

I see that recipe says the pot of water should only be simmering. I just read when researching that the water should be at a rolling boil for it not to be soggy, maybe this is what I need to do? I'm sure I tried that at some point though. Or that I overcooked the spaetzle until now and that makes it soggy? Im not sure.

Looking at your recipe I see two issues:

Two eggs plus 1/4 cup extra liquid is likely too much for one cup of flour.
My rule of thumb is one egg per 100g flour (that's the "cheap" version from the "poorer" regions that requires a bit extra liquid, more on this later). One cup of flour is about 120 g, so I would guestimate 5/6 of a cup. But you can wing it a bit. Use little liquid to thin the batter a bit, it should be still rather stiff and if you lift it with a spoon stretch a lot, not simply flow down. For your "Spätzehobel" (the grater-type thingy) you might have to thin a tiny bit more, just enough to cause gravity to let the batter form thick drop-like "blobs" underneath. If it flows, it's too much.
Ditch the milk, use water and use it only to adjust the consistency.
I see no benefit and admittedly it's a regional thing, but (and like so many things it's a cultural question) as a purist it's flour, eggs, salt. Nothing else. Off the cuff 1/4 c sounds reasonable, but follow the instructions above. You can also increase the egg amount and omit the water entirely.

The batter must be beaten well. You can do this with a mixer, but it's likely to "creep up" your dough hooks. I know a few restaurants that do even large scale recipes by hand (or arm, in this case). You need the gluten to develop and the batter to become nice, smooth and quite stretchy:

(Not beaten with the spatula in the pictures, but with the dough hook in my mixer.)

Bring a pot of salted water to a roling boil, just like you would for pasta. Use your "Spätzleshobel" (-> "Knöpfle"1 / "buttons") or a potato ricer (-> (long) "Spätzle" / noodles) to form your Spätzle right into the water. Do not put more than one "tool filling" in the pot at a time, work in batches. They will sink to the bottom of the pot. A quick stir can loosen those that may have stuck to the bottom. Once they float, take them out or leave them in the pot for another minute or two, depending on the "stiffness" of your dough. With your "Spätzlehobel" it's probably best to take them out as soon as they float to the top. Place them in a colander to drain. Repeat with the next portion.

 Left: not yet done, right: ready to take out.

When you have cooked all your Spätzle, either pour the hot water over all Spätzle or return all noodles back into the pot (give a quick stir to loosen) and drain together.

On stickiness:

Don't expect "al dente" like for Italian pasta. This is something Spätze will never be - it's simply not in their nature. That said, the goal still is to get them quite firm, never a glutinous mass (bleach!). Also, if they stay in the serving bowl, they will start to stick, period. To counter this, you can add a tablespoon (or more) of butter and gently stir to coat them. Note that stickiness isn't much of a problem in traditional Swabian cuisine because we tend to serve generous amounts of gravy with our food. (Non-Swabians have claimed that we "drown" our food, but to each his own, right?)

1 On Nomenclature:
There are regional differences on what qualifies as "Spätzle". Some will only accept the long noodles as such and call the round blobs "Knöpfle" ("Buttons"), other regions have mainly the round variety and call them "Spätzle". For your "Kässpätzle" which hails from the Allgäu, the latter is the case.


Black spotting/dust in stainless steel utensils.Is this mildew? I moved into this house a couple of months ago and bought some high quality stainless steel utensils with me from my house. I am noticing some black spots that don't go away with scratching or washing or baking soda. All my stainless steel kitchen utensils have this and some plastic containers have black dust which could be wiped with a dry paper towel.

My mum has been using the same set of utensils for years and has never observed anything like this. The only difference is that I wash my utensils with warm to hot water(and fairy dish soap).These spots also seem to increase in number(not in thickness) day by day. Have any of you heard or seen anything like this in stainless steel utensils ? What could this possibly be?

(There is a lining of black mold in the sealant lining the wall near the sink and also some in the shower which was scraped away when I moved in)

The specks are corrosion pits. Austenitic stainless (aka- 18-8 , 304 , and several other numbers) are notorious for pitting in salt (halides). The 316 and 317 with molybdenum are more resistant but I doubt any cookware producer would go to the extra expense to use these alloys. However, I expect sitting for a couple days with salted water would be needed for pitting to develop. Out of curiosity, check it with a magnet; If strongly magnetic it is likely 13 Cr (410 SS) which would be likely to pit.


Why did my whole milk go bad faster than skim milk? Why did my whole milk curdle and get yucky and smell before my skim milk when left out?  I thought it was supposed to be the opposite.

Bad luck.

There isn't consensus on which would spoil faster.

Apparently there has been a controlled study that found that skim spoiled faster but the difference was slight. It would have to be in a controlled environment. At home, with all the other variables involved, it would look much more random.

Does whole milk spoil faster than skim milk?


How can I grate soft cheeses? Sometimes I need to shred a block of a soft cheese such as mozzarella, or cheddar. When I use my grater, the cheese starts to get kind of chunky as I'm grating it. I end up wasting a lot of cheese when I try to grate it.

It never happens when I grate harder cheeses like peccorino.

Is there a way to grate softer cheeses without ending up with big pieces of wasted chunks? Is there a particular grater that works better for softer cheeses?

I currently use a mandolin grater, and not a box grater.

I usually freeze mozzarella and then grate it (longer the better, unless you are in a hurry, then 20 minutes or so works OK).  This works very well.  Other soft cheeses, such as those meant to be eaten at room temp, brie, for example, I wouldn't freeze...  Of course, I don't think many of us are grating brie anyway.


What is a substitute for half-and-half cream? I need to know if there is a substitute for half-and-half (~10%) cream because I am baking a cake without it and I am allergic to it.

When I am substituting in a recipe, I usually use coconut cream instead of cream or half and half if called for in a recipe. (There is a question posted here that covers how to get the cream from a can of coconut milk.) Sometimes I use soy creamer, but sometimes that can be hard to find. I'm sure you could experiment with a mix of soy creamer and soy milk.

My ideal solution is to use vegan recipes to start with, because they are formulated without milk or eggs. Maybe in your case, just look up dairy free cake recipes, if you don't mind eating eggs. There are a lot of cookbooks and blogs out there with a ton of vegan cake and dessert recipes.


Ridding cooked food of burnt particles I am preparing some fried shrimp now. The recipe requires me to boil the shrimp in a pot until most of the water evaporates. I did that and the shrimp is cooked, but some of the ingredients seem to have got stuck to the bottom of the pot and got burnt a little, so there is a slight burnt smell.

My first instinct is to take the shrimp out little by little and wash it in salt water to get rid of the tiny burnt particles and then proceed with the second step of the recipe, which is to roast the shrimp.

So is washing with salt water the right way to go or is there something better?

http://malayali.me/non-veg/chemmeen-ularthiyathu-kerala-style-sauteed-prawns

I would think that would be fine, but keep in mind that rinsing is going to remove some of the flavor that you've cooked on to them.  It is certainly safe, so long as the water is potable.  I would even venture to say there's no reason specifically to use salt water.  Looking at the recipe, it seems you're going to add more seasoning(and salt) after this step anyway.  In addition to that, I always tend to cook with slightly less salt than a recipe calls for, so I can allow my guests to add salt as desired at the table.  Always remember that you cannot remove salt from the food, and shrimp is no exception.  That said, rinsing shrimp in cool/cold salt water is not likely to add a significant amount of salt to the end product, assuming you drain and/or dry them afterward.

*This is a segway to my answer, but it seems to me that the recipe is a bit misleading by telling you to boil them until "most of the gravy dries up".  I would say you want to cook them until you have only a very thin layer of simmering gravy left in the pan.  Continuing to cook until the gravy begins to dry up is what will result in greatly increased temperatures(hot spots) and charred particles.  As long as you have water lining the bottom of the pan, the gravy should not exceed 212 degrees F(100 degrees C), and you should have a minimum of anything becoming charred.  The shrimp itself would be likely to still undergo mild maillard reactions on the surfaces directly contacting the pan(which is a controlled precursor to charring).*


Can spherification be done with hot liquids? Like hot chocolate or something. I realize some liquids are thicker than the other, would it work if its thick and hot?

You might be able to use konjac flour, but you'll need to raise the pH.  Start with Dutch process cocoa, as regular cocoa is acidic.

From Guy Crosby (the science guy on America's Test Kitchen):

  But even more surprising, when the pH of a viscous 1% dispersion of konjac flour is raised to pH 9-10.5 by the addition of a mild alkali, then heated to about 85° C (185° F) for 20 minutes, and cooled, the sol transforms into a very firm, but elastic heat-stable gel. So stable that it will not melt even when placed in a 177° C (350° F) pan or oven!


Altering halvah recipe Here is basic recipe for Halvah:
Ingredients
2 cups honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups unsalted pistachios or almonds
2 cups tahini

If I were to drop ratio of honey to tahini to 1:2, what would the outcome be.
One normally bring honey to soft-ball stage than fold in tahini.
I am attempting to make halvah with minimum about of sugar.
Or, maximize other ingredient. e.g.: Double up almonds.

This is candy.
It is sugar cooked to a particular concentration with other things mixed in for texture and flavor. Low sugar candy is like low fat ice cream- a contradiction.
If you were to reduce the sugar in half compared to the other ingredients the product would have a harder time holding together. It wouldn't take too far before it was simply nut butter. Still tasty but not halvah.
Try it. You might like the outcome anyway and simply prefer a less sweet and less firm but more nutty spread.
You might have to come up with a new name for it.


Why is it called spit roast? Why is a spit called a spit? I can't imagine it, but historically, was it spat on?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotisserie:

  Rotisserie is a style of roasting where meat is skewered on a spit – a long solid rod used to hold food while it is being cooked over a fire in a fireplace or over a campfire, or roasted in an oven.

A spit is a long solid rod :) (as confirmed by http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/spit#Noun)


How much sugar should I put with the fruit in a pie or crumble? I just made a plum and apple crumble, which was delicious but I was worried it was going to be too sweet because when I was pouring the sugar in straight from the bag, it slipped and I ended up with about 50% more sugar than the recipe called for :-)

In fact, though, it was only just about sweet enough - if I'd put in the amount of sugar the recipe called for it would have been way too tart.

I seem to find this a lot, and I don't have a particularly sweet tooth - I actually like things tarter than many people seem to.

Does it depend on the fruit (if so, which fruits need more sugar?) and/or on whether the fruit was frozen or fresh?

All the fruit that's currently in-season is bursting with sugars already, which means I usually go a bit easier when adding sugar.

When it's mid-winter though, and you get the out-of-season/glasshouse variety fruit, adding a bit more sugar usually works well.


How do I stop porridge sticking to the pan? I love porridge but I always seem to end with some stuck on the bottom of the saucepan. I use a non-stick saucepan, keep on a low heat, and stir regularly. I tend to use porridge oats and enough water and milk (about 1/2 and 1/2) to cover the oats. Does anybody have any hints/tips to prevent sticking? The porridge always tastes lovely and isn't burnt etc. Thanks.

I keep it on low heat after I've gotten it up to boiling initially.  It will stick sometimes, but after I stir it, the stuck stuff will be reabsorbed into the water.  I try to get as much stuff as possible unstuck when stirring, and then a moment later the remainder will have magically become unstuck.  I guess it sticks because the water rises and the oats precipitate down to the bottom of the pot; conversely, it magically unsticks because the stuck oats get reabsorbed into the water.  I find it's okay as long as I stir it every few minutes.

I turn the heat off after a bit, usually when big, slow bubbles start to balloon up or it just looks like it's thick enough.  At this point it won't be totally thickened, but it will have absorbed enough heat to make it the rest of the way, so I just let it sit on the stove for another 10 minutes or so, maybe more.

I also go 2:1 water:oats.. actually a bit more water than that, probably 2.2:1.  This is partly to compensate for the small amount of water that will boil off even though the lid is on when I'm not stirring it.


Which leaves of Savoy cabbage to use in smoothies? In Germany we don't have kale all year, only in winter. I am substituting it with Savoy cabbage.

I am wondering if I should use the outer leaves which are very green or just the inside. Also are there any drawbacks of using outer leaves?

The outer leaves would be a better substitute for kale. My reasoning is that the kale plant is fully exposed to light. With the cabbage only the outer leaves get to enjoy the sun, thus the greenness. I would say flavour wise the outer leaves come closer to kale too. The cabbage core tends to be sweeter.


Why does making instant coffee in the microwave taste burnt? First off, I did see this question about reheating the coffee in a microwave oven, but the answer merely suggested that stale coffee tastes bad irrespective of the microwave.

I make instant coffee a lot, and whenever I use the stove to boil my milk and add coffee, it turns out fine. But if I am lazy and use the microwave to boil the milk and then mix the coffee, more often than not, the coffee tastes burnt. So burnt that I've had to throw it away.

This isn't specific to one particular brand of instant coffee, I have tried 3 brands.

I've noticed that it seems less burnt if I put it in the microwave for lesser time, but I like my coffee piping hot in the morning and it doesn't turn out well.

So what is it about microwaving instant coffee that makes it taste so revoltingly burnt and what can I do to avoid it?

EDIT: I do microwave the milk in short bursts so as to avoid burning the milk. And also, if I just microwave the milk for the same amount of time, the milk doesn't taste burnt.

It could be that the milk is getting so hot that it burns the coffee granules when you add them. Liquids can boil in the microwave without bubbling, because the inside surface of ceramics are often so smooth as to have few nucleation points. Try leaving the milk to cool for a minute before adding the coffee.


Overheated stainless saucepan - food now sticks I overheated my Stellar stainless steel saucepan. It is discoloured and if I poach an egg in it, it sticks. Is there any way of restoring the surface?

Googling "Stellar non-stick stainless steel saucepan", I read that it has a coating of polytetrafluoroethylene or PTFE - Teflon being one of the brand names people are most familiar with for this product. Stellar Non-stick Cookware reads

  Never use a non-stick pan on full heat - overheating it will almost certainly damage the coating. ln fact, many more nonstick pans are damaged by being overheated than by being scratched.

Sorry to say but non-stick coatings that have been over-heated are damaged and can't be salvaged.


How to get rid of weevils? At first I thought they are plain moths, until I noticed some larvae climbing towards the ceiling, always in the kitchen. I made an inventory and discovered a package of hazelnuts which contained more larvae and excrement than hazelnuts. I threw away all open nuts, grains, flour and chocolate packages I had, and started keeping all of them in tightly closed containers after opening. I also placed a pheromone trap in the kitchen.

But I am still seeing them, both larvae and adults, weeks after the big throw-away-day. I went again through the pantry, but this time, I didn't find contaminated food, just a few larvae outside of food containers. Periodically throwing the stuff away is too expensive, and it makes no sense if it doesn't get rid of them. Any idea how to remove the infestation? Also, are they just unpleasant, or can they present a health risk (e. g. as carriers of microorganisms which infect the food)?

In addition to throwing things away as needed and using the pheromone traps, cleaning the pantry thoroughly once a week with hot water and a disinfectant (both shelves and outside of containers) helps.

They don't like bay leaves.  Try scattering a couple of bay leaves on each shelf, closest to the 'high-risk' items like flour, rice and oats.

Good luck - they're a real nuisance!


How to get sprinkles to stick to the side of a cake? I need to prepare a cake, but in my previous attempts, I can't seem to get the chocolate sprinkles to stick to the sides of my cake. The cake will have a layer of  icing as a base for the sprinkles, but I keep getting the cake squished or the sides lacking in topping. Ideally, I want the entire cake to be covered in sprinkles of the same density as the top of the cake.

Help :(

This is a little hard to do without making an epic mess.

First, lay out a big piece of parchment or wax paper to catch the sprinkles that you are about to throw everywhere.

Place your cake on it's platter over the parchment paper and tilt it so that you can apply sprinkles to the uppermost side. Don't tilt it so far that it slides off! Apply the sprinkles with your free hand, pressing them gently into the frosting (some suggest wearing a glove, I don't). Turn, and repeat. Periodically collect all your sprinkles from the parchment paper.


What's the role of bread in pickling cucumbers? In the summer, my mother always made Hungarian-style pickled cucumbers (kovászos uborka) by putting cucumbers, spices, salt, and water (no vinegar!) in a jar, putting a piece of bread on top, and letting the jar stand in the sun. Many many recipes say that the bread is meant to aid fermentation, as do the question and the top answer in this thread, for instance.

Wikipedia says:

  Additionally, a slice or two of bread are placed at the top and bottom of the solution, and the container is left to sit in the sun for a few days so the yeast in the bread can help cause a fermentation process.

My question is, how does this work biochemically? Is the bread just traditional voodoo? I'm a bit sceptical for two reasons:

Many breads are leavened with baker's yeast, not with sourdough. Yeast performs alcoholic fermentation, so it should not have an influence on the lactic acid fermentation in the pickles, right?
Yeasts and bacteria are temperature-sensitive, so after baking the bread in the oven, everything in it should be dead. How can dead yeasts or bacteria affect the fermentation process?

My best guess is that since sourdough bread is slightly acidic, the acidity helps a little bit with creating a favorable environment for the desired bacteria. However, I imagine that the bacteria do not come from the bread. But I would like to understand this better.

There's enormous amount of yeast and lactobacteria on the old bread (mostly sporulated, captured from the air). There's also the same tremendous amount of them readily available on fresh cucumbers.

While the yeast don't thrive much in the brine, lactobacteria are tolerant to salt -- similar process happens in sauerkraut. The difference from sauerkraut here is that getting into cucumbers is a bit harder, and cucumbers don't contain nearly as much nutrients as cabbage. Bread provides lots of starting sugar (and much other tasty stuff) for the bacteria/yeast to survive before they get into the cucumbers and adapt to feeding on something new.

Putting the jar into direct sunlight can get the temperature to 30-35 degrees, which is ideal for growing lactobacteria.

Specifically to your two questions:

Alcohol easily oxygenates into acetic acid (vinegar). This is further supported by presence of various other bacteria (esp. acetobacters).
Bread is an ideal catcher of bacteria&yeast from the air, so even if baking kills everything, a 2-3days old loaf will do. Even by touching an otherwise sterile bread you provide enough microflora to start visible fermentation in a few days. You just filter out the "bad" bugs by putting it into the brine, where only few mentioned species survive.


Why does rice go bad next day? I'm using a rice cooker to cook rice and I find the very next day it starts to increasing smell bad and I feel like puking just smelling it.

Not sure what the cause is but the rice cooker has started making funny noises when cooking(though rice cooks fine so probably not that) and I leave the rice in a poorly ventilated and warm environment.  Still dont think that should cause it to go bad so soon as Ive always made rice in the same place and it doesn't do so bad.

Thanks

Leftover rice is one of the most common causes of food poisoning. Once cooked it needs to be immediately cooled down if you aren't going to eat it straight away, and it needs to be kept cold until reheated. Reheating should be a quick process that doesn't allow it to sit for a long time at a lukewarm temperature.


How to store spinach to extend its shelf life? How do you store spinach long term? What is the best way to store spinach in order to extend its shelf life?

Fresh spinach, like other leafy greens, is best stored in the fridge in some way that keeps it dry but not too dry.  The things that cause spinach to wilt and spoil are:

dirt & insects
being wet or too damp
getting too dry
cut, crumpled, and broken leaves

I've included a number of references below, but here's my method that allows me to store fresh spinach for up to two weeks:

If the spinach is sandy or dirty, separate bunches, wash in several changes of cold water and spin dry them.  This is even more important if the spinach has any insects.  Cut off any dirty roots, but do not trim off stems.
Having made sure the spinach is thoroughly dry, wrap loose bundles of it in a couple of paper towels, and then put these bundles in plastic bags.  Do not overpack the bags.
Store the plastic bags of spinach in the fridge, preferably in one of its more damp spots like a vegetable drawer.  More importantly, do not stack anything on top or jam the spinach in a tight space.

This way, fresh spinach can keep for up to two weeks in the fridge.  If you need longer than that, then chop, blanche, drain, and freeze it.

Resources:

https://www.thekitchn.com/we-tried-3-ways-to-store-salad-greens-and-heres-our-winner-tips-from-the-kitchn-211770
https://dawnjacksonblatner.com/2018/03/make-your-leafy-greens-last-longer/
http://pickyourown.org/freezing_greens.htm


Can I use the grill tray in my oven for grilling? My oven came with 2 baking trays, and a small tray which looks like a grill (i.e, its got rows of vertical metal strips the same way as a grill does). Can I use this tray for grilling or broiling, and if so, how would I use it?

I.e If I wanted to grill a chicken breast, would I just leave the tray in the oven to heat up, marinate the breast, then put it on the tray and close the oven? Or what would I have to do?

Here's what I do - it simulates the high direct heat and then lower, indirect to finish ( like on the real grill with multiple zones):

Put the 'grill' on the top rack (make sure its not coated or non-stick, that it can take high heat).  (I do mean to put a pan under this to catch grease.)
Turn the oven to broil for a few minutes.
Prep your chicken.
Put it in the oven under the broiler for a few minutes (I can't really give you a time here because it depends on thickness and other things), but you're trying to promote that browning and a bit of char like the grill.*
After its been in a few minutes and browned/charred somewhat, pull it out and quickly flip it and repeat.
If your dish isn't fully cooked to your liking, move the item to the middle rack and turn the heat down some.
Pull it out when finished and Rest the meat.
Enjoy

To be honest though, for indoor grilling - I usually preheat the oven to 400, get some grill marks on a cast iron grill pan, and then finish in the oven. Its only when the volume is too much that I do the above method. Cast iron grill pan for a couple of servings has always been much less troublesome than the broiler which can bring items from tasty to ruined in record time for me.

*Some people close the oven door here, some don't - its the difference between if you just want to sear it or really start to cook it.  I pretty nearly always close the door, but I'm also the guy who always puts the lid back on the grill.


Does Heating Up A PTFE Non-Stick Pan Create "Fumes"? Given the advances in technology regarding non-stick pans, do they still give off fumes if they are heated with nothing in them?

I never pre-heat my non-sticks with more than low to medium-low heat, and have never had any issues. I have read various answers to this question, so I will defer to the knowledge of this group.

PTFE (Also known by Dupont's trade name, teflon) can decompose.  For this reason PTFE pans are not recommended for broiler use.  Per the Dupont Key Safety Questions:

  At high temperatures, the quality of the coating may begin to
  deteriorate — it may discolor or lose its nonstick quality. This can
  begin to occur at temperatures above 500°F (260°C). If heated to an
  extremely high temperature, the coating may begin to decompose and
  give off fumes. Fats, butter, or cooking oil will begin to scorch and
  smoke at about 400°F (204°C). DuPont nonstick coatings will not begin
  to significantly decompose until temperatures exceed about 660°F
  (349°C) — well above the smoke point for cooking oil, fats or butter.
  It is therefore unlikely that decomposition temperatures for nonstick
  cookware would be reached while cooking without burning food to an
  inedible state.

Note that even heating a pan completely empty on a high flame will take some time to achieve these temperatures, so if you exercise even a reasonable level of care, you are extremely unlikely to have this occur.


How can I make sugar-free sangria? I love sangria, but I avoid sugars. According to the NCC database, there's 300x as much sugar in sangria as in merlot.

I had this idea to try to make "sangria" with red wine + sugar-free Cool Aid + pure stevia, all blended together. It came out positively disgusting (and I like stevia)

How can I improve this combination so I get something drinkable?

Sangria doesn't have "fizzy pop" of any description in it.

It has brandy.
That was where it went wrong, long before the sweetener stage.

Sugar of any description is optional, though personally I'd rather stick my head in a fire than put artificial sweeteners in it, I'd just rather it without anything.

Rioja - Tempranillo, Garnacha etc
Brandy
Fruit

You can adjust the sweetness by modifying the fruit mixture if you don't want to add sucrose; though the difference between fructose & sucrose is almost indiscernible 'health'-wise.


What is a yeast cake? Kids and I are reading a book written in the 50's, and there's a recipe in the book that uses one "yeast cake"?  What is a suitable replacement in dry yeast?

The rest of the recipe (this is from memory) uses 1C Milk, 1 Egg, 1C flour and several other smaller amounts of flavoring/ingredients.

Bob's Red Mill website states that one cake is the equivalent to one packet of dried yeast (0.25oz or 2.25 tsp):

  One (1/4-ounce) yeast packet of dry yeast OR 1 cake fresh, compressed yeast EQUALS 2- 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast (active dry or instant active dry)


What organic grains can I substitute for self-rising (Gold Medal) flour? My nine (7) year old step-daughter is expecting to help me make Chicken and Dumpling today. I have the recipe for the stew, my question lies in the dumplings:

I am aware that I can replace 1 1/2 cups of self-rising flour by adding 1 1/2 tsp baking power and 1/2 tsp of salt to 1 cup of regular white flour - but I want to avoid the white flour altogether.  What (organic) grains can I substitute for bleached white flour?

You might try whole wheat pastry flour, too.  It's usually used in things like pie crusts, and probably would be the closest in texture to white flour.

Any grain other than wheat will not have the same amount of gluten and thus may have a vastly different texture.


Cast iron, stainless steel, or anodized non-stick: which makes the resulting product taste best? The thing with a cast iron pan and stainless steel pan is you've got to season them. Once they're seasoned, they have a non-stick (more or less) layer that's transformed olive oil, vegetable oil, or butter. I've been told that the jury's still out on which could be more harmful: that, or non-stick plastic. One advantage of a regular seasoned pan is you don't have to be afraid of overheating it past 350 or so degrees. Another one is you can use a metal spatula on it. With non-stick pans you have to use wood, or plastic (the latter option scares the hell out of me). As for the heat spreading evenly: it won't. Each individual pan and skillet has its own little faults and foibles.

I'm a great fan of Italian cuisine. I would love to cook French, but it's just too labor-intensive for me: I favor efficiency over meticulousness.

I use my pans to cook chicken, veal, lamb, turkey, fish, vegetables, and pasta, plus, occasionally, eggs and pancakes. All other things being equal, what's the best option for those who put taste first: cast iron, stainless steel, or anodized non-stick? Or should I try ceramic?

I  give you my opinion

Cast iron pans give you exceptional results when you have to cook, because they are facilitating a chemical reaction with the sugar contained naturally in food. However, I find them heavy and for my way of cooking I prefer an iron frying pan (de buyer does fantastic pans. I suggest carbone plus).
I have three of them, one for fish, one for meat and one for vegetables. It requires a bit of effort to clean them and take care of them. If you're not planning to use them often be sure you keep them oiled to avoid rust. After a while the pan will be naturally non stick, just keep use them, avoid water and enjoy your cooking. I use them almost daily.
Aluminium (non anodized) is great for boiling, it has an exceptional heat transfer and you can cook keeping your flame lower. Do not use these pans for anything acid, the aluminium will enter in your food and is very dangerous for your body.
Aluminiun (anodized): brilliant pans! Resistant, easy to clean, the best ones are even dishwasher safe, despite I don't really feel the need to put them in a dishwasher, it takes me less then a minute to clean them with a sponge, the food doesn't stick.
Copper: requires a bit of maintenance. You have the best thermal diffusion, it has to be covered with a layer of stainless steel, or tin. Tin is not as sturdy as stainless steel.

-stainless steel: very good. You can cook everything in here, sturdy pans, food will stick a bit.

I have all these pans at home and I use them in base of my needs.
In any case, never leave the food in any of these pans, take it off as soon as you can, for the best result, and use the right size. It's incredible how food will improve with these two simple tricks :)


Small charcoal grill - raise fire grill? Here's a typical small-cheap charcoal grill ...

These are only about 20 dollars (the "Weber" branded items are popular).

Regarding the lower wire grate that holds the coals.

Is there a way to set the grate to a higher or lower position?

(Many big expensive charcoal grills have such a feature -- either a crank, or, just dogs on which you can manually move the grate up and down.)

Am I missing something obvious, or is there a "usual way" to do this??

The issue of raising or lowering the fire is effectively a question about how to raise or lower the amount of heat that's getting to the food.

For the type of grill that you've mentioned, the typical procedure is to put the coals on one side of the grill -- either in a pile, or as a sort of crescent shape along the edge of the grill.

If you want to cook over a cooler fire, you move the food further away from the coals.  If you want to cook with a hotter fire, you move them directly on top of the coals (which can also cause flare-ups, leading to even faster cooking).

You can also put the lid on the grill and change the temperature by opening or closing the little vents on the top & bottom of the grill, which will control how much oxygen is available to feed the fire ... but I've never really gotten the hang of that one, myself.


What cattle do we get our "beef" from in the US? What type of cattle (i.e. cow) do we usually get our "beef" from? There are different variations of cows - e.g. longhorn, bull, buffalo and more - but when I buy "beef" in the market I am never told what kind of cattle the meat is originated from - just say it's beef.  There are a few restaurants who specialize in cooking a certain cattle meat and would tell you what specific kind of cattle the meat is from, but not when you're buying meat yourself.

So, generally when we buy "beef" in the market, what is the cattle?

[EDITED]

When I says "beef" I meat "USA beef"

As someone who has raised beef cattle (here in Oklahoma) I must say the TFD is (unfortunately) mistaken, (at least here in the U.S.) Most cattle fall into one of two varieties, Beef and Dairy (there are also some breeds that are almost exclusively show cattle) The most popular (and common) Beef varieties are Angus, Limousine, Herefords, Longhorn; This list, including cross breeds (for instance, limangus, what I raise, is a cross of limousine and angus) and constitutes somewhere around 90% of beef production with in the US. (not include 'beef' used for things like dog food). I would consider that list to be in descending order of beef quality (but that is a matter of opinion...)

There are several varieties of cattle which are raised for dairy production, and these do not generally produce quality cuts of meat, but do produce copious quantities of milk. These breeds are led by Holstein-Friesian, Brown Swiss, Guernsey, Ayrshire, Jersey, and Milking Shorthorn.

Buffalo (or Bison) is a separate breed altogether and is no longer all that exotic. I regularly use bison to make chili.

Yes, cows are 'females' but not all cows are heifers, a heifer is a female that has not yet given birth to her first calf .

And @Scivitri while feeding and ranging cattle do make a difference the driving force in beef flavor is still the breed. I can tell the difference between breeds by flavor but the difference from feeding and ranging is really more about tenderness and texture.


Are olives always salty I've just bought olives in foil bag in Lidl (name Baresa Aceituuas verdes) because I like to eat olives. This is probably the 1st time I eat them with no other products (not in salad etc.)

They are so salty that I can hardly eat them. In country where I live it's not possible to buy fresh olives. So my question is: are olives from shops always very salty. Are fresh olives salty?

Biologically, they can't be salty when fresh. The tree would die if its internal juices were salty.

As Elendil said, fresh olives are practically inedible, or at least have a very unpleasant taste. This is why you can only get pickled olives, never fresh ones.

But olives differ by salt level. The worst offenders are probably Turkish stafidaki style olives (for some reason, they are saltier than Greek stafidaki style). They are small shrivelled black olives sold dry (without a brine). On the other end of the scale, you get some black Mamuts which are pretty bland. Markets with multiple olive types will sometimes note unusually high or low salt content on the label.

I find that many olives are not too salty to be eaten by themselves. They are salty, sure, but not more so than some dried meats. You may have gotten one of the saltier styles. You can try another style next time.

When you buy olives without knowing how salty they are, and they turn out too salty, you can remove the brine and keep them in clear tap water for 2-3 days, then eat.


Can a few bad (dead) mussels harm a larger batch? I realize there are numerous related questions on freshness of mussels:

Fresh mussels, or are they?
How do I determine if my mussels are fresh?

I couldn't find exactly what I'm looking for. So feel free to argue if you think this is a duplicate and I've just missed my answer.

I've bought this:
http://canadiancove.com/products/high_oxygen_tray_packs
here in Canada numerous times (Costco if anyone is curious, half the price of everywhere else, which is awesome for a landlocked province). The product is usually very good; no bad smell, very clean, responds well when rinsed/tapped lightly etc...
I always check to make sure the vacuum seal is good and their "best before" date is as far out as possible. This time, I noticed a higher count of mussels that appear to be dead; at least a third were questionable. There was a noticeable smell that usually isn't there when I opened the pack. The ones that were clearly dead, smelled off, no movement when rinsed/tapped, no spring, etc... Assuming I've done a good job of sorting the dead from the alive, can the dead ones giving off smell, pollute the rest of the batch that I should probably avoid the whole thing?

I tried cooking the ones that were clearly alive and they tasted off anyway so I ended up discarding them. I decided it wasn't worth the risk. Just curious for next time.

If a third of a batch of anything is dead, I would expect the other 2/3 to be near death and taste accordingly.


Is it okay to remove oil/grease stains from anodized aluminum pan using vinegar? I bought a brand new hard anodized pan for making roti. I used some oil while cooking. After cooking, washing I saw these stains (most likely grease) that would not be removed after washing with my usual dish washing liquid.

Pan photo

I heated the pan hoping that oil would come off. It didn't.

Then I gently scrubbed vinegar soaked toothbrush on the greasy spot. Some of the grease got removed, (50%) but it remained there in other spots.

Is my cleaning process correct?

Try this approach, as I describe on my blog:

  1) Fill the pot or pan or other aluminium utensil with water.

  2) Add a tablespoon of vinegar or two teaspoons of cream of tartar for every quart of water.

  3) Boil this solution for 10 to 15 minutes and scour the vessel with a soapy steel wool pad.

  4) Rinse and dry.


How can give expirey date using scientific way? I'm going to make food as startup business? If we make food for market, how can give expiry date using scientific way.

First, when developing (R'n'D) your product, you must decide how long you want your product to last, a few days? couple of weeks, months ?

You then engineer your recipes to make it so; different recipe variations, different packaging methods ...

Then you need to find a food testing laboratory to help you test your product at different times to se how well your product lasts at different times.

At those different times, the product will be tested for any kind of degradation and/or microbacterial growth, mold, texture and taste/smell defects

Then with all the data, you can decide the expiry dates taking into account all of that.

https://haccpmentor.com/labelling/how-to-set-your-food-expiry-date/

https://lifehacker.com/how-food-manufacturers-pick-expiration-dates-and-what-t-1782752993

https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/food-labeling/food-product-dating/food-product-dating


Substitute frozen cranberries for fresh berries I just came across this recipe that calls for 1 1/4 cups of fresh cranberries. I was wondering if it was possible to substitute frozen cranberries instead. I am assuming that I have to

thaw the cranberries
pour off any excess water
measure out the required amount (1 1/4 cups)

Is this correct? Will there be any major differences?

As long as your frozen cranberries aren't in a syrup, this should be just fine. The most noticeable difference would be the texture. The flavor will also be slightly concentrated due to the water loss that Michael points out.


Does brewing tea for longer result in higher caffeine content? The ISO standard for brewing tea says "6 minutes".  Of course different teas have vastly different properties, but...

For "average commodity black tea" and "average commodity green tea", will leaving the tea bag in longer (say 1 hour or 1 day) result in higher caffeine content in the cup?  How much?

I recently observed the effect of time of steeping on caffeine content in tea. We used High Pressure Liquid Chromatography to determine the levels of caffeine in Green Tea in samples that were steeped for 1, 2, 4, 10, 15, 30, 60, and 120 mins. The concentration of caffeine over time did not show any significant trends. Our results suggest that caffeine content does not depend on the steeping time and instead the caffeine dissolves in the hot water within a minutes of starting to steep the tea. Hope this helps.


Pulled noodle dough: how can you realign the gluten after a failed attempt to pull? I've seen many videos regarding how to knead the pulled noodle dough. The one recipe I used for this is:

For hand pulled noodles you need:

Bread flour (wet gluten 29-30%, protein 11%-12%)
45% added water 1%
sodium carbonate (soda ash)
0.2% sodium chloride (salt)

sourced from here.

I believe I've done the kneading right because the dough is smooth and elastic. I can pull & twist it a few times. Then I made a mistake and the dough broke and then it failed. After a few attempts to re-knead the dough using fold and knead techniques, it seems the gluten structure is messy. I can see the dough is rough. Seems like it's too alkaline or something.

Anyway, the question is can I fix the dough? because no matter how long I kneaded it, it seems not to realign (the dough is coarse and lacks the plasticity and flexibility, and tears easily if you tried to pull it, revealing the gluten mess).

Can anyone make any suggestion or recommendation from experience?

I'm new to the site and I wish I could make this a comment, not an answer, but I don't know how.

Hand pulled noodles use cake flour with less gluten and baking soda to reduce the gluten even further.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze2SphqrWyg&feature=g-hist

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBSTSKY_DQs&feature=g-hist

If you are hand kneading, it's unlikely you are over-kneading because the dough will become very hard. The issue is very likely the soda ash overreacting with the wheat. But if you did over-knead, there is nothing you can do to save it

If you did break, there is no way of fixing it. Maybe to save the dough, change the strategy: Add eggs and more flour and make egg pasta. I have over-kneaded egg pasta many times in my KitchenAid mixer and it still turns out alright.


What can I substitute for lady cream peas without noticeable flavor change? I was emailed a recipe by a friend -- she'd like me to cook a Strawberry and Lemon White Bean Bundt Cake. One of the ingredients is going to be a problem, though:

  1/2 pound Camellia Brand Lady Cream Peas, cooked and drained

The cooked peas are pureed and then mixed with other, more conventional cake ingredients; presumably the strawberry and lemon flavors predominate, rather than the peas.

But for my question: I'd never heard of lady cream peas! According to the manufacturer's website (from whence the recipe comes), it's a type of cowpea.

  They have a sweet flavor and creamy texture and are featured in Southern dishes

I've looked in a couple of stores and can't find lady cream peas -- would I be able to substitute black-eyed peas (another strain of cowpea) with little risk of changing the flavor, or are they stronger (beanier?) than lady cream peas? What other bean/pea options are available? My lack of cowpea experience is showing :)

Camellia brand has a store locator for it's products and the OP was able to find the lady cream peas at a location close to her.

For anyone who isn't able to find them, butter peas are a good option. I've seen them fresh, frozen, and canned. Other acceptable substitutes could be cannellini (white kidney) beans or great northern beans, although great northerns are not quite as sweet. Both of these should be available dried or canned. However, if you are to prepare them without salt, I would stay away from canned.


What are these white 'bits' in my nutella I recently discovered an ancient, sealed jar of Nutella at the back of a cupboard. Like, really ancient! Like, it claimed it expired in 2012!

When I open it, there are all these white 'bits' on the surface.

They don't at ALL look like mold or fungus - they're definitely not spores, to my eyes. My first thought is that they're "granules" of fat that have "condensed" together in some manner? Perhaps kinda like bloom on chocolate?

Does anyone have a better or more certain answer?

Obvious follow up... do the white bits indicate that it's unsafe to eat?

The expiry date doesn't concern me at all - if it looked fine and tasted fine then I'd eat it; if it were clearly moldy, then I might scrape the moldy layer off, microwave it and eat it.

Great pictures: those are so clearly areas of oil/fat which have separated from the main nutella emulsion.  Carefully gouge one out and smear it around or put it onto a heated surface & see if it doesn't melt immediately. See if they go right back into the mixture if you stir a little portion together.  I wager you can convince yourself this nutella is right edible.


Is it possible to have chocolate chunks in ice cream that aren't waxy? My wife loves mint / chocolate chip ice cream. It hasn't been my favorite because of how waxy the cocoa butter in the chocolate becomes when it is cold.

Is there a type of chocolate that won't become waxy when it is frozen?

Alternatively is there a good intensely chocolatey, chunky, ingredient that can be mixed into ice cream? And in particular, mint ice cream.

I'm wondering about solid ingredients not syrups.

I use dark chocolate chips (Whole Foods brand, vegan) when I make my own ice cream, and have not encountered any waxy texture. I can vouch for that but you can probably experiment with your favorite chocolate chips.

Somewhat OT but making mint ice cream isn't too hard if you have an ice cream maker, just follow the instructions for vanilla but use mint extract instead. Then add the chips when the ice cream is about 5 minutes away from being finished in the ice cream maker.


Are there any dishes that can only be cooked with a microwave? I read this question for microwaving chicken, and it left me wondering:

Are there any dishes that can only be prepared with a microwave? If such dishes exist, what are their characteristics and why will in this case only a microwave work? What is the crucial difference between a microwave and other cooking methods here?

Searches I've done have come up with dishes that can be cooked using a microwave instead of using other appliances, but what I'm looking for are dishes that can only be cooked in a microwave and can't be cooked by any other method.

Yes!

In 1969, the physicist Nicholas Kurti gave a talk in which he demonstrated a variant of Baked Alaska called "Frozen Florida": a shell of frozen meringue around a center of hot liquor. This was done by chilling the meringue and the liquor together, then cooking in a microwave oven which had a rotating platter and no stirring fan. Because the microwave beam was always heating the center but only intermittently heating any given part of the meringue, and because the meringue was low-density and frozen, the liquor could be heated while the meringue remained frozen.

(The idea was broadly similar to, and presumably inspired by, radiation therapy for cancer, in which a tightly focused beam of radiation revolves around a particular spot which may be deep inside the subject's body: only that single spot is always being energized by the beam, so it receives much more energy than the rest of the body does.)


Could it be bad black olive that I've eaten? I tried some black olive on the pizza from a USA style pizza shop and it taste really bad. Given that it is praised as a really good stuff I am wondering if it is a matter of taste or the black olive also have some grading.

What should a good black olive taste like?

Olives are naturally bitter and often fermented in brine to give a salty flavour - so they should taste bitter and salty.

American black ("California") olives are not fermented, which is why they taste milder. If you've never had European (fermented) olives then you'll notice a bit of a kick. It may be that you've never had non-fermented olives and the flavour was just new to you. Olives are an acquired taste.

Also, given that olives are either preserved in brine or fermented they're not likely to go bad for many years. They should keep at least a year, unrefigerated.

Read more about the fermenting process here.


Do alcohol and salt help in preservation of dehydrated vegetables? I dehydrate vegetables and keep them in glass jars for a long time. Is it a good idea to put a small amount of alcohol 70% in the jar before I insert the vegetables, in order to kill the bacterias? Is it a good idea to put some salt inside? Does it prolong the shelf life of the dehydrated vegetables? Does it have any side-effects (besides a small effect on taste)?

I don't understand what you are trying to achieve here.

Food, or at least vegetables, is spoiled by bacteria (sometimes also mould). Bacteria need quite a few factors to maintain homeostasis and live. They can't live if 1) a toxin is present, or 2) their living conditions are not met.

When you preserve food, you remove one of the conditions bacteria need to live. In the case of dehydrated vegetables, you remove the water needed for all the biological processes in their cells. From now on, each bacteria which falls onto your vegetable will die without multiplying. You will never get a bacterial colony on your dehydrated vegetables.

Pickling vegetables is another preservation method. You can use for example a salty brine. At sufficiently high levels, salt is a toxin for every organism. If you want pickled vegetables, you can put them in a brine with sufficient salt levels and keep them there. Again, any bacteria which fall in there will die.

Using both at once on the same vegetable is useless. You have no bacteria living on it any more - you don't need a second way to kill them. Putting salt on dehydrated vegetables is like putting rat poison on the moon - it doesn't reduce the rat population, because it started out with zero rats.

Food safety wise, dehydrated vegetables will last forever (and if they don't, you didn't dehydrate them properly) - so why would you want to extend their shelf life?

If you don't want to eat ancient dehydrated vegetables, this is probably because of their taste. They are not unsafe, the aromatics in them have decomposed with time. This is also a kind of "shelf life" - but it gets shortened, not prolonged, by adding prodigious amounts of salt, alcohol, sugar or other preservatives. With them, your vegetables taste worse from the start.


How should I pick a flour volume to weight conversion for an arbitrary recipe? There are a variety of weight-to-volume conversions online for flour, with considerable variation even among reputable sources:

King Arthur Flour says 4.25oz/cup but in their measuring tips article says it's 4oz/cup when sifted, up to 5.5oz/cup when scooped, and yet that somehow 4.25oz/cup is "closer to what bakers actually measure volume-wise".
The Kitchn says 4.5oz/cup.
Cook's Illustrated says 5oz/cup, based on real testing: "...had dozens of volunteers measure out 1 cup, weighed the results, and took the average..."
Serious Eats sort of agrees, with J. Kenji Lopez-Alt finding a 4-6oz/cup range from tests, and ultimately deciding on 5oz/cup as an average but with Stella Parks deciding to use 4.5oz/cup, with the cup measured by spooning flour into the measuring cup.

The full explanations with varying volume measurement methods and big ranges all seem pretty realistic, but of course leaves the issue of what number to actually use when confronted with a recipe that just has a volume, and no mention of a measurement method.

Of course, after testing a recipe we can just note weights and forget about volume, but if I'm starting from an arbitrary recipe and I want to measure by weight, how can I decide what initial guess to use?

This may seem to be an overly simplistic response, but if it's in a decent cookbook that deals with baking, the book often has an introduction or appendix or chapter that describes how to measure flour.  If it does, I measure the flour according to their directions, which can give a weight estimate.  Older cookbooks tend to advocate a lot of sifting before weighing (in my experience).  Newer ones sometimes mention spooning then leveling.  And I've seen at least a couple which just admit they scoop and sweep.

If the recipe is from a book without such instructions or an internet resource without such instructions, I generally avoid it unless it's a type of recipe where I know exact flour measurement is unlikely to have a big impact.  If I end up using such a recipe with no guidance on flour measurement, I sometimes try to take the era of the source into account if I know.  Otherwise, I'm not sure my personal practice matters, because I'm just guessing -- like anyone else who answers this question will likely be.  (Frankly, I worry this question is likely to turn into a poll.)