Best vegan substitute for egg wash What would be the best way for replacing egg wash when baking bread?
I've tried unsweetened soy milk but it didn't brown that well.

You could always try using vegetable, corn, or light/regular olive oil, vegan margarine, or light corn syrup thinned with a bit of water (to prevent over browning):

Wikipedia - Egg wash
Yahoo answers - Vegan replacement for egg wash?

I also saw something here that mentioned the use of soy milk, but you said it didn't brown well. If it didn't brown at all, then it is most likely because you were using unsweetened soy milk (remember, sugar browns when exposed to heat).


In general, would I need to season a meat when making a sauce? I'm making a Romesco Sauce. I wonder, in general, would I need to season the meat that goes with the sauce? or do I leave the meat plain (just cook  thoroughly without even salt and pepper).

The above image is the grilled chicken that the Romesco sauce goes with. Does it look like it has been seasoned?

Learning how to season with salt (especially) when cooking is what separates good cooks from those who are not as accomplished.  Yes, you should season the chicken, whether or not is has an accompanying sauce.  With attention and experience you will learn how to adjust that seasoning depending on the seasoning of other ingredients in the final dish.  However, you should season each component to some degree (again, salt specifically...other spices as needed).


Can you brew black tea in a macchinetta? If I use black tea leaves (not grounded leaves like in commercial teabags), and place them in the macchinetta (either instead of a coffee, or with the water). Is the brewed result going to be any good?

Will it damage the macchinetta? Is it going to extract the tea properly from the leaves?

I highly doubt that this practice would damage your macchinetta.  It's a relatively simple device, and with simplicity comes durability.   If finely-ground coffee won't plug the baskets and filters inside, then it's doubtful that much larger tea leaves will.  As with normal (i.e. coffee) use, just ensure that the pressure release valves are unobstructed (you don't want to fill the bottom portion with water past the valve, for example).  You probably want to avoid over-filling the middle basket that normally contains the coffee grounds, too; tea leaves will absorb more moisture and expand more than coffee grounds.  That's the one scenario where I could see the pot becoming plugged, although in that case the lower pressure valve should release the steam before the pot gets damaged.

The temperature of the water inside is probably just about right for black teas, but way too hot for green and other delicate teas.  These can burn at such temperatures and should be avoided, since you can't control the temperature of the steaming water passing through the pot - it will always by definition be boiling.

Whether you'll get a good extraction compared to steeping is questionable, and it's possible that the pressure which builds up inside the pot will change how flavors get extracted.  A macchinetta does tend to extract more flavor and caffeine from coffee grounds than non-pressurized methods like drip brewing, so a similar effect with tea leaves wouldn't be shocking.  It's worth a try; after all, if someone hadn't tried brewing coffee under pressure, we wouldn't have the liquid nirvana known as espresso.

I say give it a try and let us know your results.


How long does unopened, room temperature pop last? How long does a can of coca-cola last?  Like a case of them, sitting in a room-temperature room.  There is a date on the bottom (MAR1411), but what does that mean?

I have a can with the World Cup on it, and I just became really curious.

It lasts indefinitely. The date you are seeing should be viewed as a "best before" date. Over time the soda can become flat and the flavor will degrade, but it will still be drinkable as long as the can was not compromised.

Based on looking at some Coke I recently purchased, it appears that the date is likely 1 year in the future from when it was canned. The cans in my fridge have a date of JUN1711; I bought these in late July.

Plastic bottles. on the other hand, have a much shorter "best before" window. This is because the plastic bottle leaks the carbonation much quicker than an aluminum can does. I don't have any bottles on hand, but if I recall correctly they typically have a date only 3 months out.


Turning on oven's fan for preheating - Oven turning off by itself - How to preheat properly Should I turn on my oven's convection fan for preheating? Or should I only turn it on when I put the cake inside?

Because my oven OFTEN turns off by itself when preheating, I think it might be the fan.

I have researched a lot about this, oven turning off on it's own means the lack of airflow or overheating, I preheat the oven at 180 Celsuis for 20 minutes with the fan turned on.

I'm asking this question because it happens often times. So trial and error doesn't really work here, if it did turn off all the times, I could try a lot of things to narrow down the problem.  I have tried preheating without the fan and it still turned off again if memory serves me right.  No I was wrong we never tried this, because mom persists to use fan all the time.

This is a gas oven with physical rotating knobs, and about a handful of times when I was about to put the cake inside, I found the oven turned off, the lights are on and the fan is on but the flame is off, and the oven is somewhat cold and if I turn it on, it works fine, I never found it turned off with food inside.

After reading your comments I feel like I'm not doing the preheating correctly.

I searched more and found a suggestion on the internet to preheat the oven 25 Celsius degrees above the required temperature to cook [source].(https://avivservicetoday.com/ovens/how-to-preheat-your-oven/) But I don't like this since my oven doesn't have digital temperature display, I might overheat it or even underheat, it could ruin the cake.

There's also another suggestion saying preheating longer than x minutes could automatically turn the oven off, but as I had read the manual of my oven before asking this question, such thing was not mentioned.

About the fan, the manual suggests to use it to cook the core of food efficiently. In spite of other ovens which suggest to use the fan for browning the tops.

After so much trial and error, I found the solution, and yet, it's so simple:

Leave the oven door open for 2 minutes when preheating, then close.

And I also turn the fan on for preheating, I think it will make it more effective.

It doesn't turn off by itself anymore.


Mushroom soy sauce, brand identification or substitution I am hoping someone knows what brand this.  A few years ago I found this mushroom soy sauce.  It was exceedingly thick, very darkly colored (almost stained one's fingers, it was so dark and concentrated, and dripped black on lightish foods till it diluted down to merely dark brown), enormously savory and salty enough to make a person shiver.  It is the best soy sauce I've ever tasted.

I bought it from a small asian food shop where I was at school, which has since closed down.  I remember it was called mushroom soy sauce, (possibly descriptors like dark or superior(?) in there), but I don't recall the brand, and I don't have a picture.  If it helps the bottle label was pale, yellow or gold or tan, non-english characters, with a red cap, and the bottle looked brown but was actually clear, just glazed with sauce inside.

So, I would like to know how to get either  this or some similar kind of soy sauce.  Some of the various brand's mushroom soy sauce descriptions I find online include different descriptors or reviews that mention terms like sweet, or light, or bitter or sour, which I'm not looking for or recalling in the sauce I had, and descriptions are not always consistent across reviews. Soy sauce in the grocery stores seems pretty thin and sloshy, even tamari which is reportedly on the very dark and savory end of soy sauces. I wouldn't mind liquidy if I knew the flavor would be quite strong, but I don't know how to tell.

I would really rather not buy a half-dozen different soy sauces to find what I'm looking for.  I would like to know what sauce (brand) this is, or what product(s) might be generally available^ that would be very close^^, if the original is not findable or not commonly available.

^ Preferably in regular non specialized grocery stores (USA, PA if that helps), or large, easily findable and navigable online websites with non-exorbitant shipping.

^^ thick, dark, strongly-flavored, salty, savory.  Preferably not sweet.  Would take a product that's liquidy or non-mushroom if it's also strongly flavored, salty and savory.

I think this is what you're looking for.


tinfoil at the bottom of the oven (to catch crumbs) is ruining my pizzas I put a sheet of tinfoil at the bottom of my oven to catch crumbs because I cook pizzas on the rack all the time.  This is ruining my pizzas though, because when the top is done the dough is still gooey.  Should I raise the pizza higher? Use a different material?  I donno if a pizza stone is an option... I often get papa murphies pizzas which say to cook in the tray and are usually quite large (16"), but am willing to try breaking the rules if someone has some good experience with other methods.

I would probably go ahead and get a pizza stone. Even if you don't want to bake your pizza on it, you can just keep on the floor of your oven (unless you have exposed coils/burners there, in that case, go with the lowest rack).

The pizza stone is easier to clean, and as an added bonus, it'll improve your oven by keeping a more even temperature in there.


How long to warm taco bar dishes in a roaster With beef, mexican rice, and refried beans in a roaster that has 3 separator bowls, how long does it take to reheat these taco bar dishes, and what would be the best temperature?

I intend to prepare them the night before, the next day I fill the roaster with hot water and insert separator pans with the taco dishes for reheating. This will be presented in a lunch room with no stove/oven, but it does have a microwave.

Well, if anybody gives you a solid figure on how long it's going to take, they almost certainly don't know what they're talking about. Even if they did know how hot your appliance gets and how quickly; the quantities of your ingredients, the initial temperature of your ingredients; the water content, fat content, and density are of your ingredients; how big the pieces of beef are, etc, providing anything more than a ballpark figure would be overly optimistic. In almost every circumstance, time is the least precise measurement to measure how cooked something is.

A good temperature to shoot for with any buffet items is just above 140 degrees without going too far over. If your beef is rare or medium rare, be sure to heat it immediately before serving so it's not sitting around hot– it will become tough, dry, and overcooked quickly. Stirring makes a huge difference in both quality and reheating time, so be sure to consistently stir it up.


How do I change cake recipes for cupcakes? This is a three-part question:

Which classes of cake are unsuitable for cupcakes?  Can I do angel food cake or pound cake?
What changes do I need to make when converting a normal cake recipe for cupcakes?  Temperature or baking time changes?
Roughly how many cupcakes should I expect from a recipe scaled for a 9x9 pan, a 9" springform pan, or a 12 cup Bundt pan?  I'm not looking for precise counts, just a rough estimate to the nearest 5 cupcakes.

I've not yet found a cake recipe which I could not use for cupcakes instead.
I always change the baking time and only the baking time.  I rotate the tray of cuppies after about 7 minutes, and after another 7 minutes or so I use the "clean toothpick" method to see when they are done.
It does vary greatly, but from most cake recipes, I expect to get 18-24 regular cupcakes, about 40 mini-cupcakes, or 9-12 large ("Texas") cupcakes.


Wet Brining Chicken with aromatics, does it work? Will pressure cooking be more effective? I read up that wet brining is not very effective to infuse aromatics (such as garlic, tumeric, cumin, galanggal, etc) into the chicken as nothing penetrate deep into chicken other than salt. Is there any tips as to best treat the chicken if you want to permeate aromatics deep into a chicken (for pan-frying/deep frying)? In the country I'm at (Indonesia) sometimes the chicken is pressure cooked first to moisten and then finished up by frying.

Greg Blonder has the best information that I've found on the effects of brining and marinating. In fact, the "food myths" section of his website, has a lot of objective food science.  There are several links that are pertinent to your questions. You can see here, that Blonder uses dye to illustrate the effect of brining.  He concludes that brining is almost always a surface treatment (with the exception of shrimp and other arthropods).  Blonder concludes that salt "diffuses faster than any other component in a marinade or rub." Further, he concludes that "most flavor molecules will only penetrate a millimeter or two, thus basically only effecting the surface."

[On a side note, given that Thanksgiving is almost upon us in the US, Bloder suggests that those folks who enjoy a brined turkey just use salt and water, as the other ingredients added to the brine are fairly useless.]

So, I am afraid that you will not be able to get aromatics to penetrate deep into the chicken (even with injection...he tests that too).

Since brining and marinating happen before the cook step, I don't think the pressure cooker is relevant to your question.  That may make this question a duplicate of the linked, related question.


Why do red kidney beans come in 410g cans? I live in a fully metric country. Every single canned vegetable or pulse comes in a nice round number - and generally 400g of it.

Except for red kidney beans - they always come in 410g cans. And every single recipe I've found always calls for a 410g can. I've searched for this question and all I found was links to shopping sites selling - you guessed it - 410g red kidney beans - so I'm assuming it's across the board.

So why the extra 10g tacked on the end?

Perhaps because the cans are of a standard height and the extra 10g of beans gives the proper headspace in the can?


What quantity and resting time should be preferred for active dry yeast when it is supposed to be used in place of quick yeast? That's the question.

What quantity and resting time should be preferred for active dry yeast when it is supposed to be used in place of quick yeast?

Please specify in spoons or cups.

All different types of yeast can be interchanged.  What differs is the starting amount required and how quickly they rise, and how they are best activated.

Quick or rapid rise yeast activates easily when mixed with your dry ingredients and a hot liquid.   Typically the liquid added to the flour mix would be about 120-130°F (49-54°C).
Active dry yeast should be activated in a warm (110°F/43°c) liquid for a few minutes.

The two yeasts can be substituted for each other fairly equally by volume or weight.

With live yeast cultures, you must always observe the outcome, or high how the bread rises, not just a prescribed or predicted rise time.  Rapid rise yeast will tend to rise somewhat more quickly than active dry yeast, but you need to monitor the progress.

You will find that the very warm ambient temperature that have previously indicated you have where you are makes the yeasts of any type act more quickly than many recipes designed for US room temperatures (with air conditioning) of about 70°F (21°C) predict in any case—this is going to be the more influential factor.


Is ok to have boxes of raw chicken stacked on top of each other I have a small walk in refrigerator. To save space I stacked eight boxes of raw chicken wings on top of one another on a completely separate shelf from everything else. Is this safe health inspector/ food safety wise?

This should be fine if there is no other food below the chicken wings. What you don't want is for the chicken to be in a position to contaminate other foods.
General food service guide lines include:

From "Preventing Cross-Contamination During Storage Fact Sheet" (appears to originally be from the National Restaurant Educational Foundation, hosted here by New York's National Guard food service):

  Store raw meat, poultry and fish separately from prepared and ready-to-eat food. If these items cannot be stored separately, store them below prepared or ready-to-eat food. Raw meat, poultry and fish should be stored in the following [order (top to bottom)]: whole fish, whole cuts of beef and pork, ground meats and fish, and whole and ground poultry.


What is the proper way to cook a hamburger on a Pit Barrel Cooker that doesn't result in fast cooking taste? I have a Pit Barrel Cooker. I have made hamburgers on it before but I keep running into several issues.  When it comes to anything else, brisket, ribs, chicken, etc. everything turns out great! But hamburgers, even with the provided online videos, my burgers always come out like I just fried them on the stove.  I try to regulate the heat by closing the circular air vent on the front but then my fire dies down too fast and it doesn't seem the burgers are being cooked properly. I use 80% ground beef and my burgers also always shrink up like crazy.  Does anyone have a proper method of using the Pit Barrel Cooker to get slow cooked, bbq tasting burgers?

There is no method because you cannot do it. Ground meats lose moisture rapidly when cooked as much of the fat is not contained within the meat itself, but mixed in. This mixed in fat melts rapidly and runs out. The fat that is marbled within the meat itself is lost faster as the ground strands have much more surface area. Therefore, if you cook a burger low and slow it will end up dry.

Slow cooking and long roasting is only good when a piece of meat has enough marbled fat so it will still be juicy when cooked, and a low surface area to slow moisture loss (ie it's fairly big). Burger cooking on the other hand is a race to get a good crust and to the right temperature before losing all moisture.

As for shrinking up this is normal for burgers and you cannot prevent the process from happening. You can, however, shape them flatter and thinner to compensate. I make a flat, thin-ish burger patty, then I use my palm to make the middle slightly thinner than the outside. The result is a burger that has the right shape after cooking. If you start with a thick burger patty you'll more often end up with a meatball shape at the end.


Storing/transporting nut brittle in tins I made different types molasses nut brittle for the first time tonight to give as holidays gifts. I'm going to put a little of each type in small round holiday tins that I found at a craft store. I plan on putting the tins in my check-on bag when I catch my flight. However, I'm not sure how I should package them for this! Should I wrap the contents (if so, with what?), and how can I make sure the tins stay closed during the flight? I haven't packaged using tins before so I wanted to hear your thoughts.

Based on your answer, here's what I would do:

Line the tins with a bit of tissue paper, to cushion the brittle
Use rubber bands to keep the tins closed in transport
Wrap the tins in more tissue paper, again, to provide cushioning


Advice on use and care of Le Creuset cast iron skillet Below is a picture of my current cast iron skillet from Le Creuset.  As a relative cooking novice, could someone let me know if I have possibly damaged my pan, or if this is normal?  I have a Le Creuset dutch oven, and have always cleaned with soap/water and it is perfect, I thought I would do the same here (since both are enameled), but it looks like it may be in need of special treatment.

If this isn't normal, what is the recommended process of keeping this pan clean (daily use and/or the occasional deep clean).

The above pan is not a typical Teflon coated non-stick item. It is a cast iron skillet with red exterior enamel and an interior "Satin Black" enamel. It is not identical to a Lodge cast iron pan, but for care and maintenance, it can be treated similarly. A patina can form on the interior "Satin Black" enamel, which is desirable. The brownish looking area on the surface of the pan is from caramelization, which occurs during the cooking process. Le Creuset says seasoning is not required (unlike other cast iron pans like Lodge), but seasoning the pan will form a better patina, which does improve the natural non-stick properties. As you said, the patina develops naturally, but if you don’t want to wait, then you can help it along by seasoning it. Check Le Creuset's website (someone else linked it) for other details. I usually just use hot water and paper towel to clean with periodic seasoning.


My dishes seem the same I have been learning to cook for a little while now, and can make 10+ good looking and tasting meals but I have a problem I am encountering that I notice more and more as I learn new meals.

It seems all my meals (exception of things like soup or salads) break into the same 3 things

A meat (Chicken, Fish, Ham, Steak, Pork, Lamb, ect)
A starch (Either Pasta, Potatoes done some way or Rice)
A few vegetables (Normally do something like carrots and broccoli)

It seems this way with almost any fancy (ish) dish I try to make, since I don't like cooking simple meals since I one day plan to open a restaurant. I am still young and would love to learn more.

Is there other areas of cooking I can look into to break this trend of 1 meat, 1 starch, and 2 veges (or more)?

Or some way of modifying the #2 and #3 things so that it is vastly different enough to provide variety (since the meat is always cooked different ways or in different sauces).

Thanks for any help I get!

P.S. I should mention I have celiacs so I can't have gluten, but I do generally know all the substitutions in order to make up for it.

Different Cuisines is definitely the way to go.  Many dishes from South America (chile, brazil, argentina) seem truly innovative from an American palette.  Maybe you can gain some excellent insights into these amazing and wonderful cultures through their culinary voyages!

While the meat-vege-starch thing is a staple of a euro-centric diet, something that our privileged positions in society takes a certain advantage of, it's remarkable what you can pull off with the addition of different plating techniques involving sauces and various cooking techniques.


Can I deep fry food in butter instead of vegetable oil? I was wondering if it is possible to deep fry food that would normally be fried in vegetable oil in butter or lard instead? Will the result be different?

You can certainly deep-fry foods in clarified butter (also known as ghee) and in lard.   In fact, there are many foods that are traditionally fried in these fats.  They both have very high smoke points and are excellent for making crisp fried foods.

For example, Puri, Indian fried breads, are deep-fried in ghee (clarified butter).  And many Southern USA and many Mexican deep-fried foods are meant to be fried in lard, such as hand pies or sopes.  In fact, if you watch the videos of Cowboy Kent Rollins, you'll see that while many of his recipes say "frying oil", what he actually uses is lard.

As for the flavor question: yes, using ghee or lard will affect the flavor of what you're frying, but in subtle ways.  Both of these fats are mild-flavored (at least, high-quality lard is).  Generally, the extra flavor you get from the butter or animal fat is considered desireable; they fell out of fashion in the use due to concerns about cholesterol, not taste.  Only foods that are meant to have a very light, airy batter (like tempura) are unsuitable for frying in animal fat.

There are some other animal fats that can be used for frying and deep-frying, such as beef tallow, schmaltz, horse fat, or duck fat. These have a much stronger flavor that is recommended for specific foods (for example, there are many aficionados of duck fat french fries), but aren't a good general substitute for vegetable oil.

One other caution: if you switch to frying with animal fats, you need to make special provisions to dispose of the used fat.  It can't be safely poured down the drain. This is actually true of all deep-frying oil, but animal fats are a greater problem: they may clog your pipes as well as hurting the sewer system.

ADD: per @wjandrea below, clarified butter, ghee, and brown butter have different flavors based on the amount they were cooked while clarifying, which will affect the flavor of any fried foods made with them.


How to improve the texture of frozen yogurt? I made some frozen yogurt for the first time yesterday. It turned out better than I feared, but had two problems:

It had some ice crystals, and was more sorbet-like than ice-creamy.
Once served, it melted rather rapidly into a thick soup.

Both these problems boil down to texture. How do I get a consistent, thick texture for frozen yogurt that will last long enough for someone to get through a serving?

Here are the details. The recipe I improvised was this. All measurements are US:

Make the yogurt

Put three cups of full-fat, lactose-free milk into a Pyrex bowl
Steam the milk for 30 minutes in an Instant Pot
When milk has cooled to 110º F, remove 1/4 cup milk
Add removed milk to 2 tbsp of full-fat Greek yogurt and stir thoroughly
Add mixture to rest of milk
Empty water used for steaming from Instant Pot and put Pyrex bowl back in
Leave on yogurt setting for 8 hrs
Refrigerate for 8 hrs

This resulted in a caramelized, creamy yogurt.

Make the golden syrup

I figured golden syrup, since it's an invert sugar, would prevent crystallization. I followed this recipe from the Totally Sacha YouTube channel, which involves adding boiling water, sugar, and a lemon wedge to some caramelized sugar and then letting the whole shebang simmer for ~45 minutes.

Make the frozen yogurt

Mix 1 cup golden syrup into the yogurt
Mix 3 tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream into the yogurt
Grind about 1/8 tsp Himalayan Pink Salt into the mixture and stir
Freeze for an hour
Use a stick mixer to break up crystals and blend the yogurt
Freeze overnight
Use stick mixer again
Freeze until time to serve (about 6 hrs)

What could I do differently to improve the texture? It served reasonably well: neither too mushy nor too firm. But as mentioned, the texture was a tad icy and did not stay firm.

Perhaps I could blend it a couple more times to break up the crystals more, as the answers to this earlier question say. However, the bigger problem was the melting. It melted far more quickly than desirable. Eaten at a reasonable pace, the last quarter bowl of each serving was the texture of clam chowder.

I thought of some things that might work, but I'm not confident they will:

Add some pectin?
Reduce the amount of alcohol?
Use some sugar to replace some of the golden syrup? I don't just want to add sugar, as the yogurt would be too sweet. The answer to this question says that sugar will result in a softer set, but I'm not sure "softer set" == "won't melt as quickly". Sugar might make the crystallization and the melting issue worse.
Add an egg to make the yogurt more custard-like?
Strain the yogurt to thicken it before adding the syrup, etc?

I don't have an ice cream maker or a stand mixer; much though I'd like them (especially the latter), that situation is unlikely to change any time soon. So I'm limited to the equipment at hand.

First, you shouldn't have the expectations that your ice cream (or frozen yogurt, or whatever) will turn out to be like storebought. You can get to a "better than now" state, but not to a "out of the heart brand tub" state.

For your ideas, some are off the mark, some are worth trying. 1) a hydrocolloid is generally good in ice cream, since it binds water and prevents it from making large crystals (helps with "icy"). Pectin is an unusual choice though, guar gum works better. But you can start with pectin and then graduate if not happy. 2) don't reduce the alcohol, it will get icier. 3) for the purposes of setting, golden syrup is sugar. You can add more if you want, substitution won't help. 4) frozen yogurts are not custards, cooked yogurt is not tasty. 5) yes, reducing the available water can make it less icy, so do strain.

When you add the emulsifier, you will have done about as much as you can at home to get rid of the crystals, seeing that you are also already adding both salt and alcohol. So, not much more that can be done in that department, except of course proper churning.

And here we are coming to the crux of your problem - you are not churning properly. The "blend, then reblend" method is a substitute that never works as good as an ice cream machine. Also, you are mentioning a "stick mixer" - so you most likely don't have a powerful blender which can turn a block of water ice into snow, just a standard model. You probably have zero overrun, so of course it is melting right away.

The solution is to buy an ice cream machine. Make sure to read test reports, there are some disappointing models on the market. A standard frozen-bowl style will already be an improvement, although it will still have some melty tendency. If you want gelateria-style ice cream and have the space and the money, you'll have to invest in a compressor machine. I doubt that you can ever get supermarket-style at home, unless you get into serious equipment and recipe modding.


Can I put raw ground beef in the crockpot when making chili? When making chili in the crockpot, must the ground beef or turkey be precooked, or can I just throw everything in and cook it all day?

There are two different issues:  safety, and flavor.

From a safety point of view, assuming you don't overload your slow cooker, and it comes up to safe temperatures (140 F, 60 C) in less than two hours (preferably much less), it is perfectly safe to begin cooking in a slow cooker with raw ground meat.

On the other hand, you will not get the flavor development that browning meat provides.   Slow cookers are essentially appliances for the long, slow, moist cooking method calling braising.

Many conventional (stovetop and oven) braising recipes begin by searing or browning the meat, prior to the braising phase.  This develops deeper, richer flavors due to the maillard reaction.

If you skip this step for a slow cooker, you will lose the benefit of this flavor development.  In some recipes, this may not be an issue, or it may even be traditional (such as for Cincinnati style chili).  For other recipes, including many chili recipes, you may choose to brown or sear your meat (or other ingredients) prior to adding it to the slow cooker to benefit from the flavor development; in this case, it is not necessary to cook the food all the way through—that will happen in the slow cooker.


What is this leaf vegetable? It tastes like cress but looks different My girlfriend got this at a Turkish supermarket in Berlin. It's quite spicy and tastes like garden cress or a bit like radish. I looked up cress varieties but couldn't find this particular leaf shape.

I think you have Baby Argula or Rocket.  Check out this site for Turkish greens.
http://www.turkish-cuisine.org/ingredients-7/ingredients-used-in-turkish-cuisine-66/vegetables-69.html


Cooking kidney beans in a slow cooker, how do I make sure they're safe? I'm making 15 bean soup from a bagged dry bean mix that contains red kidney beans. Following the instructions, I soaked them overnight and threw out the water, but then thought I'd be clever and throw them in the slow cooker instead of cooking on the stove. They simmered in the cooker on high for probably about 15 hours (not entirely on purpose... I sort of forgot about them for a little while...)

Today I learned too late that kidney beans have a high amount of a toxin called phytohaemagglutinin, and you're supposed to boil them at least 10 minutes before putting them in the slow cooker. Apparently some slow cookers don't get hot enough to destroy the toxin no matter how long you cook them.

Can I just boil the soup on the stove after the fact to make it safe, or is it too late now? Is there any chance this will not turn my bean soup into unappetizing mush?

(It might be worth noting that Hurst beans, who makes the soup mix, has a slow cooker recipe on their website that says nothing about boiling them first.)

I found this question interesting because I'd never heard of poisoning from red kidney beans before, and have certainly cooked them solely in the slow cooker without ill effects that I can recall, so I did a little internet research. Here's the most authoritative opinion I found:

The US Navy Medical Corps thinks that cooking even at 80C/175F is insufficient, and may be more toxic than even eating the raw beans.

Particularly, I found this specific advisory in at least 4 internet sources, including this one:

  Beans cooked at 80 degrees Celsius, which is common in some of these
  cooking methods, increase the toxicity potential 5 times higher than
  eating raw beans.

This startling theory is never sourced anywhere; all of the sites I can find that mention it provide the information without attribution, even the serious medical ones.  Many use the exact same words.

So it's up to you whether or not you believe this; personally, with a possible night of stomach cramps on the line, I would probably choose to dump them in a pot for a quick boil.  On the other hand, I might consider what % of the soup is kidney beans and chance it.


Does all pizza have butter? Does pizza normally get made with Butter?

For example, if someone is allergic... or has an intolerance, to butter do they need to avoid pizza?

What about individual pizza companies like Pizza hut, Domino's, Jets Pizza and so forth?

Very, very few pizzas are made with butter.  There is no way to make a universal statement, but butter is a rare.  Olive oil would be more likely.

Many pizza doughs are fat-free, including the traditional pizza di napoli; New York style generally contains olive oil.

It is rare for any traditional toppings to contain butter.   Some individual cooks might saute vegetables in butter, but even then, olive oil more common.

As for particular restaurant chains, you would need to check their nutrition information sites.

Note:  as Derobert points out, some deep dish Chicago style pizzas may contain butter in the crust.


how to create gratin with _thin_ cheese skin Several years ago I knew a place where they served ragout fin au gratin in small bowls with a very thin cheese skin.

I'd like to create these myself. I tried several approaches, mostly by putting finely grinded Parmesan into milk or cream, sometimes combined with egg, (with nice results some times), but the resulting cheese skin is not as desired. The problem I'm having is that either the mixture is too runny and flows to the rim of the bowl or it is too thick and will result in a (tasty) skin which is, too thick however. Any ideas what I could try? Different kind of cheese maybe? Try again until I find the correct mixture?

I would think all of the above will give tasty results, the point about the use of a professional broiler or salamander is possibly the real clue for cheese to crisp it needs heat, the rest of the dish probably does not.

There are a few tricks to try,

1 use any of the above mixes but get yourself a blow lamp from the DIY store or garage, not a silly little overly priced armature cook shop one, and use it to flame the tops just before serving(warn guests of the temperature before they burn their mouths) Effectively same as a good crème brulee.

2 make parmigiana disks grate parmigiana very finely on to a silicon tray or baking sheet oven roast until crispy or use grill if you have a hot broiler. let them cool on a rack place them on top at the end of the cooking - Combine with the blow lamp to colour and heat as a professional touch.

3 the lazy way add a dash of butter to the tops during the baking to colour the cheese mixture.


French dressing will not blend or mix to be creamy I make a french dressing >  I blend using a milk shake mixer. Usually as I add the oil, sugar and vinegar it mixes up to a very nice creamy thick dressing. Lately it will not thicken up and stays very liquid almost like a vinegar and oil.

Is there a sequence to mix the oil, vinegar, salt and sugar?

Try adding a bit of egg yolk. The lecithin in that usually helps these things emulsify. Obviously you can't do that if you're young/pregnant/old.

If you don't want to try egg yolk. Put everything in but the oil. Add maybe half the oil and shake, then add a bit more and shake. Do it piece by piece as if you were drizzling into a bowl and mixing by hand with a whisk.


Tea leaf grades and plucking standards How do the plucking standards of tea (imperial pluck,
 fine pluck, …) actually relate to the leaf grades?

PG Tips claims “we pick the top two leaves and a bud known as the tips”, so that would be called ‘fine pluck’ in the following diagram:

But going by the following diagram, we wouldn't get an orange pekoe with a fine pluck – that doesn't feel right.

So how do they relate? Or does it differ from region to region? Maybe I'm wrong but it seems in Nilgiri even expensive teas are designated with less “colorful grades”.

The importance of leaf grade differs mainly between tea types and to a lesser extend between regions. For green tea picking is the most important. And the finer the pluck the more expensive it is. Anything between just a bud up to one bud and two leaves are considered premium.

However, for oolong and pu erh tea this is less important. For example with pu erh, you sometimes buy very expensive tea that consists of very large leaves, yet they may be expensive as they're from old arbor trees from famous regions. There's a grading system for pu erh though when it comes to blends. For more info you can read this post: pu erh tea grading system. Still, the higher the grade of the raw leaves, doesn't mean that the is better or more expensive. In fact, many prefer pu erh teas made from bigger leaves. When such leaves go through fermentation, it results in a sweeter flavour, while small leaves and buds result in more complexity. The latter is less durable though when it comes to the amount of brews.

As for oolong, I rarely see oolong teas made from just one bud one leaf, as it's far from optimal for the taste (this is due to a more intensive processing methodology applied relative to green tea).

At last, for white tea and yellow tea the grade of the leaves become a more important determining factor.


What does a fridge do apart from storing and cooling? There are quite a lot of recipes ending with 'Put it in the fridge for a couple of hours'.

I've had this with tiramisu, chocolate mousse, panna cotta to name a few.
All of these have ingredients like whipped cream, whipped egg white or gelatin.
The reason to do so is - I think - that the fat particles, which were distributed by whipping, would stick together; and this is easiest to achieve with a low temperature.
In case of the gelatin, I think it's just: the colder the firmer.

In my experience, when I get one of these things out of the fridge and they stay on the table for +1 hour, they still are stable.

Does the cooling down causes some irreversible change in the texture of things? Or it really is only the temperature that's changed, so if I would put it out of the fridge, it's just a matter of time till it gets runny again?

The fridge itself does storing, cooling, and dehydrating. But the last part is rather slow, you don't see the effect all that much. It is more prominent at low temperatures (manifests as freezer burn). But try leaving unwrapped bacon slices in the regular fridge and you'll see what I mean. But anyway, it isn't all that interesting what the fridge does, because we only use it for cooling. The interesting things happen in whatever you put into the fridge.

The explanation will be somewhat long even without details. The dishes you described have different reasons to need cooling, so I have to deal with them separately.

First, egg whites. Stiffly beaten egg whites tend to weep. Cooling them slows the process. You know, less Brownian motion, etc. Still, overbeating them is never a good idea :) In this case, there are no fat particles responsible for the foam stability; in fact, the smallest amount of fat can disrupt the building of egg white foam.

The second class are the dishes which contain lots of saturated fat. They are made with (raw) cream, chocolate, butter, or other such stuff. Saturated fat is an amorphous solid, it has no sharp melting point. It gets very soft before it melts, butter is a good example. So these things are kept at fridge temperatures. If they are left to warm again to room temperature, they become much softer than in the fridge. (The exception which gets softer than in the fridge, but not all the way to the state before cooling, is ganache. This is because cocoa contains starch, which thickens. See the part about gelling below).

Third, we have custards. Panna cotta is a good example. They set by way of denaturing egg proteins. This happens at around 85°C, on the stove. They are put into the fridge to get colder, because they taste better that way. They don't get firmer in there, and they won't melt if taken out of the fridge.

Then we have the hydrocolloids, or gelling agents. While technically starch gels in a different way than gums, I'll put them together here. The important point is to know if they are thermoreversible. Starch isn't thermoreversible. If you create a blanchmange thick enough to stay on its own out of the mold, it will need to be cooled before it is set completely. But once set, it won't go fluid again at high temperatures. Gelatin, on the other hand, is thermoreversible. It needs to be heated before it will dissolve at all, but then it must be cooled to set again. If you make jello and keep it outside of the fridge, it won't be much softer than in the fridge. But if you heat it up all the way to 50°C, it will melt to liquid again. Then there are the even funnier ones which will harden at high temperatures and soften at low temperatures, etc. But mainly, you don't have to keep hydrocolloid gels cooled once they are set. In fact, they don't even need fridge temperatures to set. Gelatine is perfectly happy to gel at summer room temperatures. But the cooling takes much longer because of the smaller heat difference between liquid and air. So it sets quick in the fridge, but has to be left overnight in order to work at room temp.

As for the practical meaning of all this: you can keep most stuff outside without a texture problem. The exception of this rule is anything made with saturated fat: cream, chocolate, pastry dough, buttercream frosting. But it is common knowledge that these should be kept cool anyway.


How to freeze your own produce & meals, without cell wall break down? I've just spend 30 minutes reading online, and got a bit frustrated. I want to be able to freeze my own grown vegetables & even meals to a very high standard. I can't quite be bothered with liquid nitrogen, but I'd like to get great quality and I'm up for almost anything.

Given things lose quality due to cell wall break down, what I'd like is for someone with experience to explain, how I can get good results, freezing food.

I get the feeling a traditional freezer just isn't cold enough, how do we get around this? Is there a certain temperature? Are there colder freezer's than normal? If I increase the surface area of the food, does that prevent cell wall break down? Any techniques?
What sort of quality have you had with freezing foods? Any recomendations?

...far from an expert, but I think there are two issues.  First, the speed with which you can get an item frozen.  Quicker freezing means smaller ice crystals.  I assume this leads to a reduced cell structure breakdown. LN might get you there quickly, but the item will warm up when you put it in your freezer. The second issue is, not only is a home freezer not cold enough for prolonged storage without cell structure breakdown, but it probably also has an auto defrost cycle that cause temperature fluctuation.  This probably leads to additional cell structure breakdown as things warm and cool over time. There are definitely other pieces of equipment, blast freezers and super low temperature freezers, however most make little economic sense for the home.

Personally, my best success has been with vacuum sealed foods...used in weeks, not months.


What role does a stoneware bowl play in the baking of Artisan bread? I'm looking into baking sourdough bread; I've read that I must have a stoneware or earthenware baking bowl in order to make it come out with a nice crust. Is this strictly true? Or can I substitute something else, say, baking it directly on my pizza stone with a pan of water underneath to provide steam?

I don't see any reason to buy anything like that. It is correct though that steam is key to great crust!

You can simply use a spray bottle with water.

What I do, is preheat a flatish sheet in the oven at as high the oven goes (I usually go for 275 degrees C), on the bottom rack. Put the loaf on the pan, and mist the sides of the oven and quickly close the oven door. It's important that you don't have the oven fans on at this point (convection oven).

Reapply mist to the sides of the oven to create steam every 3 minutes or so for 15 minutes, or until you see a firm, nice crust forming. At that point, lower heat to 200 or so, and LET ALL STEAM ESCAPE. I set my oven to use it's fans at this point. Bake until finished (about 40 minutes more when I do my bread).

The reason I put it on the bottom rack is because the pan seals in moisture to the bottom of the loaf, or something like that. Atleast I get better results if I heat the bottom more.

Edit:

Of course, a preheated pizza stone is even better than the pan idea! I just don't have a pizza stone. Go ahead and use that, and you won't be disappointed. You could probably just set it in the middle of the oven, since the preheating will make the stone retain alot of heat.


How do you make whole-wheat bread less crumbly? -- (Without adding gluten) I usually make bread with 100% whole wheat flour, but I have never been able to make good sandwich bread that way, because it is does not have a very elastic texture to it.

I have heard of adding gluten to bread to increase its elasticity, but is there another way of achieving this effect?

I have found the water roux or tangzhong method effective for 100% whole wheat bread, as it makes the texture less dense, and therefore less crumbly.

Also, you may simply be using too little moisture overall. Now that I'm baking bread for a 2 year old, whose tastes lean slightly less rustic in bread than mine, I've rediscovered high-hydration loaves, which, when baked at a lower temperature than my beloved crusty, chewy breads, are pretty suitable sandwich material.

Another strategy, if you want to embrace the density of whole grain breads instead of avoiding it, is to try the strategy employed by dense German multigrain or pumpernickel loaves, which often employ moist sweeteners (honey, molasses or sugar beet syrup), sometimes additional moist ingredients (apples, carrots) along with various nuts and seeds that offset the grains, sometimes alternate grains like rye or spelt, and moderately high hydration. A picture of one example can be seen here: http://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/1168871222955627/Apfel-Karotten-Mehrkornbrot.html. Then you get a fairly chewy but reasonably topping-friendly bread. (Most German sandwiches using this type of bread are remarkably minimalist in comparison to contemporary American preferences, sometimes meant just as a take-along "second breakfast", and may only have a slice of cheese or salami, some butter and mustard on thin slices). The combination of factors makes for a moister-than-you'd-expect, less-crumbly-than-just-grain, dense bread.


Defrosting individual frozen fish fillets---- in their plastic packets, or not? The directions in the packet says to remove the plastic packets first before defrosting. But the packet helps to manage the mess and stops fishy water running all over the place.  I defrost them by submerging them in room temp. water.

Is there any danger in defrosting them in their original packet?

If you defrost in water, by all means keep the plastic on. If it weren't wrapped, you'd put it in a baggie anyway and not dump it directly into the water.

The instructions to unwrap are for defrosting in the fridge and to allow the water to run off. Fish is often covered in a thin protective layer of ice, which you want to be able to drain instead of staying on for a long time.

For the relatively short time in a defrosting water bath, you will be fine. Just pat the fish dry before frying or you get a lot of spattering.

From a food-safety perspective you should be using cold water, btw, it works just as well and you can be sure your fish stays out of the danger zone.


Heat pot first or is it okay to heat with food? There are a few posts regarding when to add oil to a pan, but I was wondering if the same applied to making soups with a pot.

When making a fresh pot of soup, would I heat the pot first (using the water-drop test), then add, say vegetable oil, then the ingredients? Or does it not matter?

On the other hand, if I'm reheating a soup that I've stored in the fridge, is it okay to heat it with the pot or should I heat it and then add the soup?

First off, when reheating soup, it won't matter much. If you get the pan too hot before you add the soup, you could get some spattering, but that's about it.

As for making a fresh batch, there are those who believe that browning the ingredients before adding the liquids will develop more flavor. This will be a lot easier to do with a hot pan, than trying to get a cold pan full of stuff up to a heat sufficient to cause browning.

Overall, it's a tradeoff. If you're in a hurry, it might be worth saving the few minutes to just throw everything in the pan and heat it up. If you really want to develop every last bit of flavor, you'll probably be better off heating your pan, browning ingredients, then adding liquid.


Is it better to use soft or hard ladyfingers when making tiramisu? I didn't realize they came in two varieties.

I always use the hard ones and they contribute to a good end result.

I guess with the soft ones it can end up soggy. The hard ones will absorb the liquids and will get a little softer, so the end result won't break down immediately.


Does cooking wine go bad like regular wine? I bought some cooking wine last week and made a delicious meal with it.  I only used half a bottle, so the other half is still in my pantry.

I know that regular wine goes bad after about a day where as regular alcohol (rum, scotch, etc) doesn't really go bad at all.

I looked on the bottle to see if it says "keep refrigerated", "expires after opening", etc... and there's nothing of the sort.

Will that wine go bad, and if so, how fast?

Thanks in advance!

Generally... not as quickly. The salt content of the wine is much higher than drinking wine, which will preserve it longer. It will still "go bad" eventually. (Going bad is more a decrease in quality. It will still be edible, but unpleasant. It won't make you sick, except by the bad taste!)

See this from a Wikipedia Article: "Cooking wine typically available in North America is treated with salt as a preservative and food coloring."

So, it's safer than normal wine, but I'd try and use it soon. The sooner, the better.


Closest thing to a donut I can drink coffee out of One joking characterization of a topologist is someone who can't tell their donut from their coffee mug. As a novelty, I would very much like a food I can drink coffee out of. Does this exist? If not, what could I do to make it? It doesn't have to be anything like a donut, but if it is, that would be excellent.

As far as foods that double as dishes, off the top of my head I could only thing of a bread bowl for soup. You could certainly drink coffee out of a bread bowl, but I don't think it will be enjoyable.

A bit of googling leads me to:

http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680504/a-cookie-coffee-cup-thats-easy-to-recycle-just-eat-it

The trick behind this is that it's a cookie lined with "special icing sugar" that works as a semi-waterproof barrier and an insulator. It will dissolve over a long enough time, though, and will sweeten the coffee as it sits in the cup. I can't find any information on when it hits stores, but it's a Lavazza product.


Does the vegetable crisper make a difference? My wife is always yelling at me for not putting the vegetables back into the crisper in the fridge. Does the crisper make a big difference vs. just putting vegetables in another part of the fridge? Or is it primarily helpful just in keeping it all organized?

As stated by Jefromi back in a similar question;

The crisper provides a somewhat enclosed environment, which prevents moisture from escaping as rapidly. Vegetables keep best at a certain humidity, higher than that typically found in the rest of the fridge, but not so high that condensation starts accumulating on them. Vegetables kept in too-dry air in the rest of the fridge will tend to dry out and shrivel up faster; those kept in the crisper will retain their water and texture better, keeping them crisp.
Leafy vegetables are also much more prone to drying out, since they have much more surface area, while hardier vegetables with a decent skin on them (like bell peppers) don't dry out nearly as quickly. Fruits benefit somewhat from this as well, but don't generally need as high a humidity as vegetables.
Some crisper drawers have little sliders on them which vary the size of the opening to the rest of the fridge, letting you vary the amount of circulation and therefore the humidity; you can adjust this to suit what you tend to store in the drawer. If you have two crisper drawers, both adjustable, then it might be a good idea to put fruit and hardier vegetables in one, and more vulnerable vegetables in the other.

Also, by always putting vegetables in the crisper drawer, you can prevent potential cross contamination between foods i.e., the vegetables can never come in contact with raw meat, because they're all in their own separate drawer.


Optimize use of seasoning in salty food How can i optimize the use of seasonings in salty food? When i cook, for ex, chicken breasts, i always put way more pepper and paprika than the original recipe (however, i put the same or an smaller amount of salt) but in a lot of cases, my food comes out tasteless!
Does the amount of seasoning implies more flavour?
For example, when cooking meat: is it better to add the seasoning when the meat is already at the fire or should i add it before? Does a small amount of salt makes the food be "less tasty"? Thanks.

Crickey, where to begin.  Firstly there is a great article here which will put things far more eloquently than I can.  However, everyone is different.  I assume that you are cooking for yourself/friends/family, and not in a professional setting.  Salt brings out flavors, and unless you actually want to taste salt (for example, crisps), then it should be used solely for that purpose.  I think that maybe you should start using a touch more salt, and go back to your original recipe's other seasoning amounts.  This should help balance things out.  Like a lot of cooking, it is a case of try and try again until you get it right (for you).  have fun!


How to incorporate quick soaked beans into a simple vegan chilli recipe I make a big pot of vegan chilli roughly as follows:

Saute onion and garlic.
Brown soya mince.
Add 1 tin corn, 1 tin tomatoes, 1 tin chickpeas, 2 tins beans, various spices, cocoa powder, and tomato paste.
Simmer for a while.

I'm sorry if all the tins made you cringe. I'm not a cook and I like how convenient the recipe is. Nevertheless, I have dry beans now so I can do better! I want to use the quick soak method from here to cook the beans:

  Place 1 lb. dried pinto beans in a large, heavy pot. Cover with water about 2” above top of beans. Cover pot, bring to a boil, then remove from heat. Let rest 1 hour. Stir in 1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt and bring to a boil over medium heat. Uncover, reduce heat, and simmer until beans are tender and creamy, checking after 1 hour and adding more water as necessary to keep beans submerged, 1–1 1/2 hours total.

However I have no idea how this fits into the grander scheme of the chilli recipe. I see three options:

Once I've gone through the above soaking, consider the beans equivalent to tinned beans and just continue as usual.
Reduce the amount of time soaking and heating to compensate for the time spent simmering with other ingredients.
Cook the non-bean ingredients on their own and only mix the two parts after both are done without further cooking.

Should I add the spices to the beans as they soak?

What should I do with the soak water?

I bought the dry beans from my local supermarket and they're not the typical varieties I see in recipes (I have no idea where to find dry black or pinto beans where I live). I have:

White kidney beans
Half white sugar beans
Red speckled beans
Small white beans

Which of these beans can I use in the recipe, and what modifications to the recipe should I make?

Thanks for reading all the way through! I'm sorry if there are too many questions at once, they all seem tightly related to me.

I would soak the beans for several hours, or overnight; discard the soaking water. Tinned beans have been cooked, so place the soaked beans in your usual cooking vessel and add fresh water to about an inch over the beans. You could add in your tomato paste, spices, and cocoa powder.

While it simmers for about 20 minutes or so, I would separately saute your onion, garlic, and mince before adding that mixture to the pot, along with all your other veg.  Simmer for an additional 10-15 minutes. You can always test a few beans, to make sure that they're becoming tender.

You might try the white kidney beans first; they're very commonly-found in many chili recipes, but any of your bean varieties would work. Some may need shorter soaking and cooking times; the package directions should guide you in this.


What food dissolves in acid but not in water? I've recently been learning about molecular gastronomy, and I was wondering - what edible substances do not dissolve in water, but do in other liquids (e.g. acid)?

In particular, I'm looking for something that can hold other things - for example, consider this hypothetical scenario: a glass of water in which float tiny spheres. You pour the glass into another bowl which contains some other liquid, and as they mix, the tiny spheres dissolve releasing the scent of some highly aromatic component they contained.

So, what substance can be used to contain something else, does not dissolve in water, but does dissolve in another non-poisonous liquid?

If your question is specific about acid: Nothing.

The conventional way acids work is by dissolving them in water. I even have some vague memories that it's not technically correct to call a substance an "acid" before it has been dissolved in water - for example, pure HCl (a gas) is not an acid, but once it is dissolved in water, it becomes hydrochlorid acid. pH, the well-known measure for acidity, is defined as the logarithm of the number of protons swimming around in the aqueous solution - and before you dissolve the acidic substance, the protons stay firmly attached to their host molecule. I have never heard of an acid working without water being present.

I am not a chemist, and maybe there is an way to get acid to work using some other polar solvent instead of water. So I don't want to tell you that it's absolutely impossible to have an acid without water (although this could be the case, I just don't know). But:

The acid itself is by definition water-soluble. You can't bring acid and water two together and not get a new, weaker, acid-water solution.
I can't think of any edible polar solvent besides water. Ethanol could qualify, but most people don't consider 96.4% ethanol to be "edible".

If it doesn't matter to you what the other liquid is (not an acid), you can easily use anything non-polar. In food, any fat will do.

You could start by floating solid-fat spheres in water and then pouring them into oil. The problem here is that they will take quite a long time to dissolve (although this can be circumvented by using warm oil). The other way round will work better. Take something which dissolves in water quickly, and make the hollow sphere out of it. Float it in oil. Then you'll pour it into the water to release the fragrance.

Crystals are best for dissolving rapidly in water. I think that either salt or sugar will work well for your spheres. Of course, you are left with two problems: 1) how to manufacture the hollow spheres, and 2) what fragrance to use which will not dissolve the spheres themselves. For 2), you are probably looking at essential oils (warning, use foodsafe ones, not all are!). For 1), you probably need some precision candy-making techniques.

Update: letting food react with acid.

The answer above assumed that you are really looking for stuff which will dissolve in acid. The commenters pointed out that this is not necessary, as you can let the food react with the acid instead. It's an interesting idea, but it won't be easy to get done.

From the major food groups, you can exclude all proteins. We are made of protein, and any acid strong enough to quickly corrode spheres of gelatin or similar will ulcerate our mouths right away.
You can also exclude the sugars. They are water-soluble.
The polysaccharides are a better bet. Especially the hemicelluloses should be good candidates, as they are insoluble in water, and the result of the hydrolisis is edible (sugars and some polisaccharides). But they typically need very strong acids for the reaction. You might try to use a concentrated edible acid for the reaction, then dilute the result for consumption, but you'll have to pay lots of attention to proper ratio. Also, I don't know how you'll manage to physically shape one of the insoluble polysaccharides into a water-tight capsule at home.
The fats are also bad candidates. They are largely unimpressed by acids, in fact their most interesting reactions are with bases (saponification, etc.) The short unsaturated ones will probably react with an acid, but you'll need a fairly strong one, and the result won't really disappear.
The probably easiest way to do this is with salts. Especially the sodium salts tend to be edible and to react readily with acids. Plain old calcium carbonate sounds like a promising material, and with a bit of heating you can get it to react very quickly with acid solutions dilute enough to drink afterwards. Again, you have the problem of somehow making spheres out of it.


Whiskey inside a metal flask for a month. Safe for drinking? Taste aside, is it safe for drinking? Whiskey that was left inside a stainless steel flask?

Whiskey is quite high in alcohol, on the order of 40% by volume, and is not hospitable to pathogens growing.

The flask is intended to hold liqueur, and so is made from or lined with a food safe material, such as food grade stainless steel (assuming you have one from a reputable manufacturer).

So yes, it should be fine.

Remember:  when it was distilled, the whiskey was probably held at different stages for long periods in a stainless steel vat.


How can I keep the shape of my free-form bread dough when it is rising? I have been trying to bake my own Italian bread, French bread and Rolls. I have found many tasty recipes but I keep having the same problem so I'm guessing it's my technique somewhere.  Please advise your thoughts.

The dough always has considerable spread during the rising time. Instead of rising UP it spreads out. It's not that it rises and then falls.  It just seems not to gain much height.

Thanks.

Jay's answer of a couche is great for relatively long loaves like baguettes or even ciabatta.  For oval or round loaves, however, you'll need support on more than two sides.  In that case, the solution is a basket known as a banneton or brotform (depending on which language you prefer to make your bread in).  Again, they are not for baking -- you dust them with flour and then gently flip them to get the dough out right before baking.  (Note that this is how bakers often make those lovely patterns of rings of flour on the top of their loaves.)

If you don't use either, you may still be able to achieve greater height by shaping more fully.  Many people have been cautioned by various books to shape very gently and avoid degassing.  I spent years producing flabby flat loaves this way, thinking that the key to loaf height was avoiding degassing and letting the bubbles grow.  But it's often the opposite: by leaving the bubbles too big and shaping gently, you don't stretch the gluten enough to provide support and the yeast actually grow more slowly since they are immersed in their own waste product gases.  (The only time to shape gently is if the yeast isn't strong enough to raise the dough again, which can sometimes happen with long sourdough fermentations or with very rich doughs like brioche, for example.)

While it's good advice to avoid unnecessary degassing (you don't actually want to "punch down" the dough to shape it), the main way to achieve a tall loaf is by having a very taut "skin," and that generally can only happen if you shape forcefully to stretch that "skin" multiple times.  When I make free-form loaves without a banneton or other support, I generally:

Cut the dough into pieces after bulk fermentation.
"Preshape" the loaves roughly into rounds or ovals by folding repeatedly to tighten the "skin."  (Stop when the skin feels taut, and definitely stop if it tears.)
Bench rest for 10-15 minutes.  (This allows the gluten to relax, before being stretched one last time.)
Shape very tightly, again being sure to pull the skin quite taut.

For more shaping advice, I'd recommend looking at Jeffrey Hamelman's Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes, which devotes a 30-page chapter to shaping techniques, with a lot of drawings to illustrate the individual steps for each particular loaf shape.  (He also has another entire chapter on braiding techniques.)

Also, to increase the "strength" (elasticity) of the gluten in the dough, you could also try incorporating "stretch-and-fold" manipulations periodically during your bulk rise.  This will prepare the gluten even more before shaping.

Lastly, using a baking stone or steel can help in inflating the dough fast enough in the oven before it has a chance to spread even more: you want the bubbles in the dough to blow up like a balloon quickly during baking.  If they bake too slowly, the bubbles can collapse or the gluten will stretch out and allow the dough to slacken before the crust hardens.


How much is a “glass,” in an old English cocktail recipe (1930)? Cocktail recipes in a reprint recipe book frequently call for liquors by the measure of a “glass.”  Just how large was this?

I am not sure if "glass" in your recipe is the same as this, but in David Wondrich's book, "IMBIBE!" (about vintage cocktail recipes), he indicates that a "wineglass" measurement in vintage recipes was equal to 2 ounces.


Undercooking tofu causes a bad stomach. Is this true? My girlfriend, who is Japanese and has thus eaten and cooked a lot more tofu than I have, says that tofu should either be eaten "raw" or well cooked. To be half and half will cause a bad stomach. She last said this to me when I said I only added silken tofu to miso soup just before I eat it.

However, in the last year I started to make my own tofu, so I know that the last heating of the soy milk makes it digestible. Then, for example with silken tofu, the soy milk is steamed/cooked in a bain-marie to produce the silken tofu. So from my experience of eating it with miso soup I've never had a bad stomach (because I'd assume dropping it into hot soup would constitute undercooking) and from my knowledge of the process it is rendered edible at the milk stage.

However, tofu is so ubiquitous in Japan that I find her input hard to dismiss. Does anyone have any insight that would help clarify this.

Firstly…  Do you think your girlfreinds may simply be worried about being gassy from eating beans?

It is a misnomer that tofu is ever technically “raw” because because all the ingredients for making tofu are cooked (brought to a simmer or boil) in the manufacturing process.

The soymilk is often cooked twice when making tofu: first when making soymilk from soybeans and second when making tofu from the soymilk. (However the process of making silken tofu from soymilk does not always involve a second step with high temperatures.)

Some possible reasons that tofu could cause a bad stomach:

tofu is past it’s expiration date.
tofu was not refrigerated properly.
tofu is somehow contaminated.
allergies to soy.
eating beans can cause gas.

If it's the gas, try fermented soy products (such as tempeh) which cause much less or no gas.

References:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2011/08/how-to-make-fresh-silken-tofu-from-home.html
http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/08/fresh-silken-tofu-recipe.html
http://www.veggieboards.com/forum/21-general-food-discussions/14467-raw-tofu-safe-eat.html
https://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/soy-alert/soy-carbohydrates-the-flatulence-factor/
https://therightplan.com/tofu-does-not-equal-eating-healthy/


Pink salt vs regular salt What is the difference between pink salt and more typical coarse salt (e.g. sea salt)?

I know it is pink due to mineral deposits, but culinarily is it any different? e.g. does it taste different, is it used differently, etc.

Since there may be more than one kind of pink salt, I'm talking specifically about "Himalayan Pink Salt".

In my experience, the difference between various salts has little to do with flavor, once you've moved beyond iodized table salt and bulk kosher salt, and assuming we aren't talking about salts that are flavored by additions like herbs or smoke during processing.

So limiting the discussion to natural, high quality finishing salts, the differences are mainly texture and color. Some salts, like Maldon, are flaky, while others are large pyramids or cubes, and others tend to a small grain size and hold on to a bit of moisture. Each of these textures can bring something special to a finished dish. For example, flaky Maldon adds a delightful crunch, while another salt might adhere better to a French fry.

Color, like the pink salt you mention, is used pretty much for the visual interest. And there is nothing wrong with that. Simply save it for a dish where it will be noticeable. For example, those pink grains would look amazing on a chocolate truffle, or a savory meringue.

If anyone thinks they can actually taste the difference among unflavored finishing salts, I'd challenge them to do a triangle test with those salts dissolved in water (in equal amounts by weight) so that texture and color isn't confusing the issue.


Edible supports for a fondant palm tree I am working on a zoo themed cake for a 2 year old. I have made all the animals and added a piece of spaghetti through the body and attached the head on it to keep everything edible on the cake as its a kids' cake. I do not want to add toothpicks or wires as they are not edible. I now want to make a palm tree (about 10-15 cm). I have been looking on the web and all the tutorials ask for wires or dowels for support.

Can someone please suggest what else could I use as an edible support to make a fondant palm tree?

P.S. It could also be used as a support for other tall fondant figurines.

Pretzel sticks sound promising! The normal sized ones aren't quite 10-15cm, but there are longer ones out there. You could also look for Pocky or some other kind of cookie stick - sometimes things like that are sold as edible coffee stirrers (maybe coated with chocolate).

If you can't find any of that, it should all be easy enough to make yourself; pretty much any crispy cracker or cookie, rolled out into thin sticks instead of its normal shape, should get you started.


Should a sous-vide-cooked meat be frozen then reheated? New to sous-vide, I was wondering, once you are done cooking, will it degrade the quality of the meat if I freeze it then reheat it back? The method of reheating probably matters, but let's say I am gonna re-sous-vide it back to eating temp. Also, this is for pork if it's relevant.

This shouldn't be a problem. What I recommend is to go in this order:

Don't pre-salt the food, other seasonings are fine but anything with a high sodium content should be left out
Cook to your desired temp (and I would recommend pasteurizing since it's not a direct serve situation
Pull food from bath and plunge immediately into an ice bath filled about half and half with cold water and ice to rapidly drop the temp of the food
Once chilled, put in freezer to store, leave them directly in the bag your cooking with. If your using ziplocks I would suggest wrapping them in plastic wrap and then putting them back in the ziplock before freezing.
When it's time to reheat, repeat your sous vide process from the initial cook. It will take the same amount of time it initially took to bring the core up to temp + the time it will take to unthaw the food in the bath. Reheating direct from frozen is your best bet for quality.
Post-sear the food and add salt at that point. Adding salt at this point will prevent the food from taking on a cured texture when it is frozen and held for a period of time.
Enjoy!


Can I whisk macaron batter like meringue? I was wondering whether there's any reason you shouldn't whisk macaron batter like you whisk merengue batter, i.e. first whisk the egg whites until you get soft peaks, then add sugar (in the case of macaron batter, sugar and almond meal mixed together) and then keep on beating for a little while? It seems it'd be easier to get a batter with meal/sugar properly incorporated yet not too runny. But while this method is standard for making meringues, it's obviously not for macarons, so I'm guessing there must be some kind of a reason for it?

The reason I'm asking is because I tend to either undermix the batter (giving the macarons proper feet/pied, but lumpy domes) or overmix it or otherwise getting it too runny (getting smooth domes, but no feet/pied). It seems like it'd be easier to maybe have the batter a little too stiff, and then just massage it a little when it's in the piping bag.

edit: I actually tried it out (with a batch of just a single egg white) and I guess I realized the answer to the question. As soon as the almond meal/sugar mix is added, the egg white contracts and it becomes impossible to whisk any more air into it. So my follow-up question then is if it might work better to add only the sugar first, and then, after reaching the desired consistency, add the almond meal? Or would you only be creating an unnecessary extra step with no big difference in outcome?

The process I follow for making macarons is:

Whisk egg whites until foamy
Add caster sugar gradually and whisk until very stiff, adding any colouring near the end.
Stir in almond meal and icing/confectioners sugar (there is no need to fold gently)
Use a dough scraper to mix the batter in a back and forth motion until the batter falls like a ribbon off the scraper.

I tend to hand-whisk the almond meal and confectioner's sugar together before adding to the egg whites to ensure even mixing.. Since I have started using the above method, found in Jill Collonna's book Mad About Macarons, I have always had very nicely shaped macarons, with excellent feet. Prior to this, I had been carefully folding in the almond meal/sugar with generally poor results.

You are correct in your findings that adding the almond meal during whisking the egg whites prevents more air being incorporated. The almond meal is oily and the oil 'kills' the meringue. This is why your beaters and whisking bowl should always be spotless, and why you can't have any egg yolk in your whites.

Making macarons is part science, part art, and it takes a lot of practice to get the results just right. I have cracked the macaronnage (mixing) stage, but I'm damned if I can bake them correctly without browning the top! Keep practising and you will get there.


What are good instructional cooking TV shows? In the spirit of Aaronut's comment on my answer to TV Programs like Good Eats, what are good shows for people to really learn about cooking (the science behind cooking; the history and cultural significance between dishes), rather than just watching a chef prepare their favorite recipes?

(web videos and animations count, too)

This is community wiki, so please edit the main answer instead of posting a new one.  Please also make sure to include a description of the show and, if possible, a link.

Good Eats (Food Network): Explains some of the science behind why techniques work, and occassional information about the history of the ingredients or dishes.
America's Test Kitchen (PBS) and Cook's Country (PBS): Explain the techniques that they've used to improve dishes, and have occassional segments explain the science behind cooking processes.
Mexico - One Plate at a Time (PBS): Describes the differences in the regional differences of mexican cooking, and often compares historical versions of dishes to the modern versions.
Deep Fried, Live! (web animation): Flash animation cooking show that allows you to click at various points to get more information about ingredients & techniques.
In Search of Perfection (BBC 2): Heston Blumenthal brings his molecular gastronomy techniques to some of Britains favourite dishes such as roast chicken, fish and chips, spaghetti Bolognese etc. The show was followed up by a second series, "Further Adventures In Search of Perfection".  At the time of writing, episodes from both series can be found on YouTube.


What is the difference between "European Butter" and American butter? I am in America, recently I noticed in my grocery store in the last year or two that there is a type of butter called "European Butter".

Is "European Butter" really different from regular butter, yes/no?

If yes, what is the difference between regular butter and "European" butter?

p.s. I thought there was only one way to make butter. So... is there such a thing as "European Butter" or is "European Butter" just made with different type of cow milk (i.e. a more organic... more grass fed.... less processed type of milk... maybe less homogenized)?

Most butter in the US is sweet cream butter, meaning that the cream is not cultured before it is churned. European style butter is cultured by adding bacteria to the cream and giving it time to thicken and acidify before churning. This results in subtle flavor changes. European style butter also has a slightly higher fat content.

FWIW, imported and domestic cultured butter is becoming pretty common on US shelves. Expect to pay considerably more for it.


When coating raw meat with flour, does leaving it for a period of time make the flour 'disappear'? I recently trying the flour coating trick before frying it so my meat can withstand more temperature and does not get dried up so easily inside.

However, when I rolled the meat with all-purpose flour so it became white, I observe that if I leave it for a period of time, the white-ness is kind of gone away. Did the flour somehow goes in the meat? What is the consequence of it? And should I apply flour coating again before immediately drop into my frying pan?

It doesn't go into the meat, it soaks up water and becomes a slurry. The slurry is transparent, so you don't see it.

If you fry it as it is, you won't prevent spraying and sticking the same way it would have been possible with a dry flour layer. If you roll it again, you will have these effects again, plus slightly more heat buffering because of the double amount of crust. The crust will be more noticeable in taste, towards schnitzel style.

In general, you don't want it to happen at all. If you miss your timing and it happens, re-roll. But the proper way to do it is to roll each piece separately, directly before dropping it in the pan. This gives you the optimal effects from the flour with minimal change in taste.

If you want the benefits and taste of a thick crust, make a real schnitzel, including pounding the meat thin and making several alternating layers of egg and flour in the crust. Double dipping in flour is not a good approximation, it is a middle thing which doesn't approach the good parts of either technique.


How long does doughnut dough need to chill? What is meant by "chill over night?" In the recipe it says chill over night, but how many hours would that mean?

"Overnight" is just a word, not a precise cooking term, so it would mean "during the time that typical people have retired for the night". I.e. 5 or 6 hours should do it. In cases where it is possible to over-do it (like yeast dough rising), I think the upper limit would be 10 or 12 hours.

"Overnight" is a pretty lax instruction. If the recipe requires something more precise than what laymen would assume from the word, then the time would have been specified in hours.


What type of yoghurt should I use for making curry? I've seen a lot of recipes specifying "yoghurt" when making an indian-style curry, but very rarely do they specify what type.

The problem is compounded for me in that I live in a country where I don't speak the native language, and their concept of what may or may not be yoghurt is possibly different from mine.

Is turkish yoghurt okay? Or should I look for something else? Or does it not even matter?

For reference, I'm intending to make a chicken korma or something along those lines.

Edit: I live in Sweden.

I think for Indian recipes you should in general look for an unstrained, set yoghurt. There are other factors that determine the final taste and texture of the yoghurt (the bacteria, the type of milk, length of fermentation, …) but you may not have much choice w.r.t. other factors than these two:

Production process: Set yoghurt is yoghurt that's made the traditional way, it's fermented in the pot that it's sold in. Stirred yoghurt on the other hand is fermented before being packaged; it's a more industrialized production process which is cheaper, but results in a more sour, thinner yoghurt. Stirred yoghurt has a smooth, pourable consistency; whereas set yoghurt is firmer. I got a bit confused when I was using stirred yoghurt the first time I tried making raita and the recipe told me to whisk the yoghurt till it was smooth. The pretty sour taste of the yoghurt also didn't go well with the spices, and the juice from the cucumbers made the already-thin yoghurt too watery. You could try fixing both problems by straining the yoghurt a bit and adding sugar, but it's better and easier to just buy set yoghurt. The yoghurt's packaging might say explicitly what type of yoghurt it is, but if it doesn't or you don't understand the language: avoid yoghurt that comes in “milk carton”-like containers, that most definitely means it's stirred yoghurt. A plastic pot doesn't mean it's set yoghurt though, but it's a better bet.

Thickness: Strained yoghurt (like “Greek-style yoghurt” in Europe and the USA) is yoghurt from which the whey has been removed. It's pretty thick and sometimes also referred to as “yoghurt cheese.” In India it's used for example in the dessert Shrikhand, but if a recipe doesn't specify that you should strain the yoghurt, you should assume it's unstrained or briefly strained. Wikipedia says: “In south Asia, regular unstrained yoghurt (dahi), made from cow or water buffalo milk, is often sold in disposable clay pots. Kept for a couple of hours in its clay pot, some of the water evaporates through the clay's pores. But true strained yoghurt (chakka) is made by draining dahi in a cloth.” Should you really only find strained yoghurt, you can probably just thin it back with water or milk.

I should maybe add I don't have first-hand experience with what yoghurt from India tastes like, but I've observed that the ethnic shops in my area and one Indian take-away where I could peer into the kitchen all sell/use the exact same brand of yoghurt, which is an unstrained, set yoghurt with a mild (not too sour) taste.


How to check on something baking in oven Whenever I bake something, I am afraid of opening the oven door because I think heat/hot air/steam will escape.

For example, today I made baguettes with a water source at the oven bottom. When I opened the oven, a huge blast of steam came out, which seems detrimental to the baking of the bread. At the same time, in my experience, oven lights can be quite deceptive in seeing how done something is. Are my concerns valid or is there a better way to check on the "doneness" of something baking?

Yes, clearly steam and heat will escape when you open the oven door.  It is best practice to do this as little as possible during a bake.  Of course, there are many variables, such as ambient room temperature and how long the door is left open, but I have read some estimates that one can lose 150(F) or 66(C) in just a matter of seconds.  To combat this, preheat your oven fully.  For many artisan bread baking formulas, that is often around 475(F) or 246(C) - 500(F) or 260(C). These temperatures are then reduced after steaming. If you are setting up for steam, have those materials in the oven during the preheat.  Place your loaves and water for steam in the oven as quickly as possible.  Don't open the oven until the steaming period is over.  Depending on the recipe, this is typically anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes.  At this point, when most bread recipes call for a reduction in oven temperature anyway, opening the door is less problematic.  Remove the steaming apparatus, close the door, and continue the bake.  Now, nearing the end of your bake, with the bread being almost completed, temperature loss by opening the door probably becomes less important.  The bread is close to completely cooked, so checking near the end should not be too much of a problem. I find that the critical time is during the use of steam and the initial oven spring.

Beyond that, it is probably less critical when dealing with items (such as roast meats or vegetables) which are less sensitive to fluctuations in temperature.


Chicken kebab turned hard The chicken kebab which I cooked today was tastier. I had marinated it overnight with salt, tumeric, chilli powder, garam marsala, curd, lemon juice, ginger garlic paste and kebab marsala.

After frying it turned out hard. The one we get in hotels are very tender.
What went wrong.. Although I fried in medium high heat.

This was my first try!. I used different parts mix of thigh and breast for cooking. The pieces were not boneless. Also I fried them in oil by heating the oil first at high and then reduced to medium. Approximately one batch I cooked for 10 minutes.

What probably went wrong for the meat to turn hard is that it was overcooked and dried (which happens easily with chicken).

Having said that, you could experiment with reducing temperature/time for better results. Also, a trick I use with chicken kebabs (but I grill them, so this might not work for frying) is that I cover them in yoghurt, which works as a protective layer to keep the moisture inside while the meat cooks.


What is the white powder on sourdough bread? I often see sourdough bread loaves with a white powder/dust on the crust.

What is this white powder?

Typically that would be whatever was used for dusting the loaves or the bannetons, either flour, starch or sometimes semolina.

It is done to prevent sticking and for decorative purposes - often both:

(Source)


Metal cutlery food pairing Given the recent research on the taste of metals in cutlery (flatware) and their potential food pairings, is there any food unsuitable for stainless steel, or is this the universal make do metal?

Has anyone tried metal/food pairings for specific dishes?

We do use the heirloom silverware for delicate desserts, but that's about it!

Some references:

Institute of Making - Sensoaesthetic Properties of Materials

Fine Dining Lovers - Cutlery food science

I only have experience with metal and non-metal cutlery/food combination. I'm aware this isn't really what you've been asking, but still find it worthwhile to share.

From my personal experience there is a tasting difference between metal (I only know stainless steel) and non-metal (in my example nacre) with eggs. The difference comes from the "mouth-feel" of the spoon. I tried this with the same egg and the spoons both rested at the same place (to compensate temperature differences).

I experienced the metal spoon as cold (even though it was at room temperature), kind of "hiding the eggs flavor", while the nacre spoon was not only warmer, it felt kind of as if it wasn't there or at least much less prominent, offering a fuller flavor of the egg.


Why would a cookie recipe start producing puffier, slightly oily cookies over the past few years? I have a recipe for some chocolate chip cookies, and it's near and dear to my heart. I watched my mom making these when I was little, and it's older than I am, being from her mom too. They're both gone now though, and I have no idea what's wrong. I have not changed anything.

The ingredients are:

1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup butter
2/3 butter flavored Crisco
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
2 cups chocolate chips

I've been making these for the past 10 years, since my mom couldn't anymore, and only the past few years I've noticed the changes. The cookies themselves are much puffier than they're supposed to be, and though they mostly taste the same, there's a weird bit of aftertaste to them that I can't place. I also just now realized that the dough is kind of oily almost, and not sticking together like I remember it doing before, but again, haven't changed anything. I'd post a picture, but for some reason it won't let me...

I'd really like some ideas as to what I can do to fix these. They were something I loved helping my mom make when I was little, and it breaks my heart that I can't figure out what''s wrong with them.

Short answer:
I suggest you try all butter
...and make sure you don't make it too soft before creaming it.

By comparison, here is a famous and popular chocolate chip cookie recipe (just the ingredients, not the process):

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips

Yours is very similar, and basically is the same except many of the ingredients have been scaled up about 30% (flour, butter/shortening, sugar, eggs).
I would say there are a few ways your results could change. First, if you accidentally buy a different size egg. Your recipe doesn't list the egg size, but it's almost certainly meant for large eggs. As Daniel commented, more egg will lead to a puffier cookie.
Second, if the formulation of the shortening has changed. The oiliness and the bitter aftertaste make me want to blame the shortening. Also, I personally dislike shortening. I suggest you at least try your recipe with all butter, by using 1 and 1/3 cups of fresh, high-quality unsalted butter. I would avoid cultured butter. If you can only find salted butter, you might cut the salt amount in half or omit it. Or you might like the extra saltiness. All-butter cookies come out a bit shorter and denser, but they should still be chewy and crispy and IMHO the flavor can't be beat. Notice that this famous recipe uses all butter. I think shortening actually entered these recipes back in the 1950s when butter might have been more expensive or harder to come by, not because shortening in any way improves the cookie.
Third, there may be something in your process that has changed slightly. The oiliness makes me wonder if the butter and/or shortening is becoming too soft or melted before you cream it with the sugar. It does matter the order in which you add the ingredients and the consistency of the butter and shortening when you cream it with the sugar can matter. Instead of using a microwave, just let the butter sit at room temperature for a little while before creaming it. If you use a stand mixer, you don't even need the butter that soft, just cut it into tablespoon sized pieces and let the mixer beat at it for a minute to soften it up and warm it a little.

Upon further thought:
I'm not sure about all the chemistry that might be going on, but I think Steve has a good thought in his answer when it comes to the flour. I don't agree that you're adding the "wrong" amount of flour, but normal changes in your kitchen environment can have a big change in how flour behaves.
If your problems persist, it could be that your kitchen and/or flour is too damp (Steve mentions temperature, but temperature and relative humidity are closely linked). Normally in cold weather our kitchens are dry, but many things can affect the humidity in a kitchen, such as unusual weather outside or other cooking going on (boiling water can put a lot of moisture into the air). Also, if you've kept your flour for a long time, it may have absorbed moisture and be retaining it even after the kitchen dries out.
Some ways to deal with environmental affects on flour:

Buy fresh flour and don't buy too much of it. Avoid having flour sitting around in your pantry or cupboard for months on end.
Transfer flour as soon as possible after you buy it to an airtight container (this is also a good idea for sugar - both often come in paper bags). Keep the container in a cool, dry place. Not the refrigerator, but a cabinet or cupboard that is not near any heat sources like the stove, oven, or back of the refrigerator.
Measure flour by weight, not volume. Get a good kitchen scale and determine the weight of a cup of your favorite flour. Convert your recipes to weight and then measure using the scale for future baking. If you need to make an adjustment, edit the recipe to show the new weight. If the flour gets too wet or too dry, you will automatically add more or less of it since the weight will change, but not the volume.


What is the difference between acetate sheets and baking paper when making chocolate deco? I would like to make chocolate decorations with melted chocolate. After searching on the web, however, I am not quite sure I could find acetate sheets. But I can find baking paper.

Would there be any substitute, like baking paper, parchment paper? What is the difference between them?

I want to make melted-chocolate decorations like those around this cake:

Acetate sheets posses a firm and rigid shape, with a glossy coating that assists the removal of decorations such as chocolate decoration. It also can be shaped without being indented at any point which baking parchment most frequently fails to do.

Baking parchment is very agile, this fails to support decorations as a mould, and would consequently lead to breakage of the decoration should the parchment not retain a flat edge. It could also bend in frequent points, misshaping the chocolate. This is what makes it suited towards cakes, as as it can be ripped off.

I would therefore conclude that it would be most suitable for you to use acetate sheets.


How to prepare Stevia leaves for consumption? I have a Stevia plant growing on my deck and I'd love to use it in a recipe. Does anyone know a way to use Stevia leaves?

Stevia leaves are commonly cut, then hung for drying, then either ground up into little flakes and used sparingly in drinks such as teas or recipes. The leaves themselves are also very commonly used unground as garnish in drinks as well as added to recipes.

Just remember to compensate accordingly for the extra sweetness they will provide, and you really cant go wrong with some experimentation at first.

In terms of a particular recipe I'm not really sure what to recommend so hopefully this is still helpful.


How long to cook stuffed turkey What is the cooking time for a stuffed turkey at 350 degrees?
I read that it should be 20 minutes per pound, is this correct?

Stick a thermometer in the stuffing; when the stuffing is at 160F, you're done. Since heat radiates inwards from the outside, you don't want the very middle of the dish (where the stuffing is) to be any colder than needed to kill salmonella. Estimate a bit longer than an unstuffed turkey.


What is cold pressed method to extract Juice? Yesterday I came to know about the term when I was looking for some juice. They were stating that we will deliver cold pressed Juice. So that make me wonder about what is Cold Pressed method and how can we extract juice using that way.

Cold pressing is as the name implies, to press(instead of blending) juice from a fruit while minimizing heat generation. You can buy these cold pressing juicers from the market as they're quite common nowadays.

Cold pressers from the market will likely have a rotating core (think drill bit) fixed in a tube structure. Drop your fruit from the top, and juice comes out after it gets pressed by the slowly rotating core.

The need for cold pressing juices likely came about when people thought that the traditional style of juice extraction via a blender/juicer subjects the mixture to high shearing/centrifugal forces which introduces heat and oxygen, which degrades the nutrients and vitamins in the juice. On the other hand, cold pressing purportedly negates these effects by "gently" treating the fruit. (think your cold pressed olive oil, coconut oil etc.).

Personal opinion: Since you essentially discard the fibrous parts of the fruit (that has a ton of benefits!) and consume the sugary mixture, your body will absorb a lot of sugar in a short time. Have a whole apple instead! :)

Slight addition:

For the heat generated by a blender, you may refer to this:
Experiment on waste heat in a blender. Over 3 minutes time, 9.4 degC rise was achieved in 200mL of water with a 350W blender. Of course, with fruits in the mixture the figure might vary slightly so take it with a grain of salt.

Sources:

(1) https://www.wired.com/2015/04/nobody-can-prove-cold-pressed-juice-better/

(2) http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/fact-check-are-cold-pressed-juices-worth-the-hype-1.2926121

(3) My mum bought a cold pressed juicer