Alternative for Buffalo wing sauce What can I use if my family does not like Buffalo wing sauce or any hot sauce for that matter?
I found a recipe for wings and potato casserole that sounds good but not if it's hot.

Really, any sauce you use with other savory meet dishes can be nice on chicken wings. Options include:

BBQ sauce
most Asian ready made sauces at your grocery store (teriyaki, sweet and sour, etc., even better make a homemade version of one of these sauces)
honey mustard
melted butter (or extra virgin olive oil) with garlic, Parmesan cheese, and your favorite herbs
lemon or lime juice & salt (possibly add honey if you like it sweet)
vinegar & salt
real maple syrup and salt
peanut butter and jelly sauce (some of these recipes include chilies, which you can ignore)
you can even wrap wings in bacon, for a dryer but quite flavorful wing


What part of beef is used in beef chow mein? The meat in beef chow mein doesn't look fatty or have white tissue on it unlike say front lamb chops.  What part of the beef is it they use to get these clean cuts of meat and why do they use these instead of say more fattier cuts of meat?

Chow mein is a Chinese dish of stir fried noodles.  While popular throughout Chinese cuisine, I am guessing that you are referring to the dish found at Chinese restaurants throughout India, the UK, or the US.  In these restaurants, a protein such as chicken, beef, or seafood is often added.  Remember, these are high heat, fast-cooked dishes, most often cooked in a wok.  So, the proteins must be cut small enough to cook quickly, and lean enough to result in a tasty and tender bite.  There is not time to render fat or break down collagen when stir frying.  So when considering beef, pork, or lamb specifically, cuts that lend themselves to quick cooking are chosen.  For beef, I would say sirloin or flank are two good options.  In the end, this ingredient choice is mostly about cooking method.


how long can you keep uncooked lentils - red and brown how long  can I keep uncooked lentils in my pantry?

Lentils are good for a long time: Many claim that they stay safe "indefinitively".

While that is clearly an exaggeration, properly stored lentils stay edible for years if you keep them well-sealed in a cool, dry and dark(-ish) place.

Note that dry storage keeps mold at bay, closed jars protect from insect damage and cool temperatures slow trace amounts of fat getting rancid. They might get tough and a bit stale, but that can be mitigated by cooking longer and a generous hand when seasoning.

To add one source (for completeness):
Still Tasty gives one year but states that it doesn't get unsafe, simply looses taste.


How do I make this no bake tart filling less runny? I made this tart for the first time: https://www.taste.com.au/recipes/mango-passionfruit-australia-day-tart-recipe/xr2rx1q4?r=recipes/australiaday&c=9336f356-56fb-44e5-8053-e711fe431650/Australia%20day

It was delicious, but I could not get the mango filling to solidify much. It was way too runny.

I’m guessing the problem lies with where I was cooking the mango purée mixture on the stove. The recipe says 6-8 minutes on medium-low heat until it thickens. Mine didn’t thicken even after 10 minutes. So I guess it’s no surprise it was runny even after cooling.

I have no idea how to make it harden, this recipe has no flour or cornstarch. Do I keep cooking until it thickens or will that be counterproductive? Do you cook on higher heat? Do I add something?

Kind regards,
Elle

Welcome to the site Elle! This tart filling is a custard as the thickening agent is egg yolks. If it isn't thickening up enough then one of two things is happening:

The mix isn't being brought up to temperature. The recipe's instructions aren't very good because it talks about a time rather than a target temperature. Egg yolk will set at about 70°C (160°F), if your heat isn't' high enough you may never reach that temperature. I suggest using a thermometer when making custards because it takes the guesswork out of it. If you reach the target temp and it hasn't thickened up enough then you don't have enough setting agent, which is #2
Not enough setting agent: A few things could be throwing off the ratio of egg yolk: your mango could be less thick, or you could be using smaller eggs than the recipe calls for. This is common when people in the US make UK, Australian and New Zealand recipes as US eggs sizes are smaller - medium UK/ANZ eggs are large in the US. Most UK/ANZ recipes call for large eggs, in the US that would be XL or even Jumbo

I would first try gently cooking down the mango a bit to thicken it up before adding the eggs. This takes more time as you'd have to cool the mixture before adding your eggs to it so they don't scramble and ruin it, it will also intensify the flavor. If you don't want to do that then add another egg yolk, or use larger eggs. Then I'd use a candy thermometer to monitor the temperature to make sure it gets to the target. It should thicken up noticeably when it gets there. If it still doesn't add small amounts of cornstarch slurry (mix with a bit of your extra cream), holding the temperature there until it thickens up. Don't go overboard or you'll have too hard a filling when it cools!


What could cause a sudden loss of sour flavor? Background

During the weekend, my mother made a plum cake and put slices of plum on top. She gave me a piece to try and it was sweet and good for ~1.5 seconds before my face puckered from how sour it was. I can usually take sour thing (I like to eat lemons/limes with salt and keep dipping into a bottle of citric acid), but I was surprised by how a cake could be so sour, even with a small slice of plum.

She took the slice of plum off of another piece and gave it to one of her neighbors who also puckered from how sour it was.

“Problem” / Mystery

The next morning, she had another piece and was surprised to find that it was not sour whatsoever. She gave me a piece later in the day to confirm that it was not just her tongue that was broken and sure enough, it was not sour in the slightest. All traces of sourness had completely gone, literally, overnight. In fact, she made two of them and they both gave the same results (really sour, then suddenly not).

Question

I know that in the culinary field, some kinds of food molecules can break down under certain circumstances, but I have never heard of anything that could explain this.

Now we are both baffled by this mystery. What the heck could cause a homemade cake that was shockingly sour to lose every last bit of sourness in less than a day? Nothing had changed (she did not cook or freeze it); she left it on the counter, covered in a mesh overnight.

It may have been the act of leaving the plums on top of the cake, covered overnight at room-temperature. This might have concentrated the natural ethylene produced by the plum enough to cause it to ripen by breaking down the starches and turning it into sugars.


Tortilla Espinoza — what is it and how do I make it? It's been requested that I make a traditional Spanish dish named tortilla espinoza.  I have no idea what this is, and Google has failed me in finding something remotely close to it.

Does anyone know what it is and could point me to a recipe?

...or Tortilla de Espinacas?  This is a dish from Spain where a tortilla is a potato and egg dish made in a low-sided, oven-proof skillet.  This particular version uses spinach - hence "Espinacas".

http://herbivoracious.com/2012/02/tortilla-de-espinaca-spanish-omelet.html

I'm not sure if this is what you might be looking for but I can't wait to try it!


Roasted chicken ends up only salty outside I tried to make roasted whole-chicken yesterday, by patting dry inside out with paper towel and salting it inside out followed by roasting for 1 hour at 465 F. It was nice overall except that it's tasteless in the meat and rather just salty on the skin and bone.
What have I done wrong? Is it because I didn't truss the chicken?

*The chicken was 4 pounds.

Not trussing is not your problem. I don't always truss a bird and often spatchcock (butterfly) them. I don't find that it makes a difference in the seasoning either way.

What I suggest is to season inside and out, but with about twice as much seasoning on the inside. Then season under the skin. Let the chicken set for about 30 to 40 minutes before cooking.

You may consider adding a small amount of stock to your pan. (I usually put about 1/4 inch.)

I usually start any whole bird breast side down, flipping half way through cooking.

Lastly, you may want to consider lowering the temperature and cooking it a little longer.


how to make a "biting" buttermilk Some brands of fermented dairy products have a certain "bite" to them, literally a tingling sensation on the tongue when you eat them.  I've found it in Danish buttermilk for example.  (I've also sometimes found it in certain non-dairy products like pickles, but I'm asking here only about buttermilk or similarly fermented dairy products.)

I can't figure out how to reproduce that "bite" when I make my own buttermilk.  Does anyone know a technique to produce "biting" results?  I've tried just fermenting longer, and that just gets progressively more sour, not biting.

I'm not quite sure what precisely creates the "biting" flavor/effect you're discussing, but I imagine it's a different mixture of acidity or something (since you also notice it in pickles).

Anyhow, I don't know precisely how to obtain your desired effect, but I do know that there are various fermented milk processes in various countries that create similar yet different final products.  The greatest variables tend to be the exact composition of the fermenting bacteria culture (which sometimes is just a single type of bacteria, but other times contains various cultures) and the fermentation conditions (where time and temperature tend to be chosen based on what's ideal for the particular bacterial culture in question).  Temperature in particular can change the relative proportion of bacteria strains in the final product, and since different bacteria may produce somewhat different waste products as they grow, the flavors will be altered.

The best way to reproduce your desired effect would thus be to find a "live culture" sample of buttermilk with the flavor you like and then ferment it under the same conditions that were used originally.  Alternatively, you could experiment with varying fermentation temperature with your existing culture, and/or proportion of starter to fresh milk and see what happens.


Unopened cheese shipped in heat I accidentally left an unopened block of Monterray Jack at my Mom's house (about 4-1/2 hours away) and she shipped it back to me (1-day air, no less) in a box without anything to keep it cool and the temp today is 84 degrees F.  It's all soft and floppy now, but not at all sweaty.  Would you consider that still edible?  I saw a previous question concerning cheese left out in a car overnight, while cool, but this is slightly different circumstances.

If it hasn't sweated and doesn't have any mold spots on it you should be fine to eat it. Putting it in the fridge for a bit should firm it back up to the consistency you're used to.


Why isn't my American-style baked cheesecake very sweet or rising significantly? I am trying to make a good American-style baked cheesecake.

I tried one recipe and it did not rise as much as I would have expected and it was not as sweet as I would have hoped.

Hope that someone can solve this problem for me!

thanks :)

New-York style cheesecake shouldn't have much rise to it.  The mixture is basically a custard and the only rise would come from steam created in bubbles that are incorporated during the beating process.

While a REALLY smooth texture is the goal, you don't want to aerate the batter as in other cakes or you'll end up with cracking on the surface from the expansion of the air bubbles.  Pull the cream cheese out a couple hours in advance to ensure that it is at room temperature throughout.  Eggs must also be at room temperature and can easily be warmed by putting the whole egg in a bowl of hot water from the tap for 5-10 minutes.  Having these ingredients at room temperature will create a really smooth texture without beating in too much air.

In regard to sweetness, you might be able to increase the sugar slightly (compare the ratio of sugar to cream cheese in your recipe vs. others), but be careful not to add too much.  Excessive sugar will make the custard too watery from the formation of sugar syrup and will make it difficult for it to set up.


Is there any trick to make sweet potatoes as regular potatoes? My question is how to change the taste of sweet potatoes into regular potatoes as my younger siblings don't like it whenever I cooked they leave dining table without finishing.Is there any trick to make sweet potatoes to the regular potatoes?

White potatoes and sweet potatoes are very different varieties of tuber, you can't get rid of the sweetness and distinctive flavor of the sweet potato. If there's something in particular your family doesn't like then you can work on that, you can also try the LoB (Lots of Butter) technique, or you can try using them in a dish like sweet potato pie or a curry. At the end of the day if they just don't like sweet potatoes then it may be better to just make something they do like.


Why won't my pudding thicken up? Some of you might have noticed recently I am dabbling with pudding. Well - to no avail.

This is my recipe:

yolks -  1
cocoa -  30ml
sugar -  60ml
butter - 10ml
milk -   164ml
starch - 14ml

And the pudding just won't thicken. Once I even tried with double the amount of corn starch.

I have no idea what is going on, 14ml of corn starch is approx. 8.4g. I am using such tiny measures, because I am still testing it and would not like to end up with a big batch of yuck!.

In addition my hotplates are stupid and even the lowest setting is way too strong and burns anything you attempt to cook on it, that is why I decided to stir the pudding with a mixer/electric beater to ensure it will be stirred so fast - it will not have a chance to burn.

I will be getting a new oven soon, but in the meantime I would appreciate any advice.

You are probably stirring the pudding too much. Cornstarch starts thickening at about 205°F/95°C. Once the pudding has got to that point and has thickened, stop stirring, otherwise you will interfere with the starch formation that causes the thickening. Using electric beaters probably means you are missing the point when the pudding has thickened and quickly beating the living daylights out of any starch formation that has occurred.

It may also be the case that you are beating so much air into the pudding that it just doesn't get hot enough to activate the cornstarch in the first place. I would use @ecnerwal's suggestion of a double boiler, along with a balloon whisk, and some patience.


Cajeta with powdered goat's milk? Or evaporated? I have fallen in love with Dulce de Leche, which I make by long boiling unopened cans of sweetened condensed milk.

I've heard wonderful things about Cajeta, the same thing but made with goat's milk.

I want to try it. Alas, sweetened condensed goat's milk doesn't seem to be something I can get a hold of. I have been able to find recipes, like this one for Cajeta or Dulce de Leche that start with whole fresh milk (cow's or goat's). I'd do that, but I can't find find fresh goat's milk around here.

That leaves me with powdered or evaporated goat's milk (full-fat).

Especially after reading SAJ's answer here: Can evaporated milk be converted to "regular" milk?, I don't doubt that either of these products would work if I reconstitute them first with water, and then follow the recipe as if I had whole fresh goat's milk. Is there anything I should consider when choosing powdered vs evaporated?

Finally, can using canned or powdered milk for Dulce de Leche or Cajita speed up the condensing process by starting with less water (or even none in the case of evaporated) than I would use to fully reconstitute the milk? But still optimally caramelize the sugars?

EDIT Well, with no answers so far, and not being able to find any, I'm trying it tomorrow with evaporated, whole goat's milk I bought today. I have 2 cans, 12oz (355ml) each. They are double strength, so I would add 2 cans of water to make full strength goat's milk. I'm going to try it, but only add 1 can of water. I'll add the sugar, salt and baking soda according to the above recipe as if I had 48oz of milk, but in fact I will only have 36oz of liquid. So I'll multiply the other ingredients by 1.5. If all goes well, I should end up with just over 1 1/2 cups of Cajeta. As of this writing there is still time to stop me if you have reason to believe it won't work.

By golly it worked! :)

Short Answer

Yes, evaporated goat's milk works just fine in Cajeta and you can start with at least 50% less water than you would use to fully reconstitute the milk.

That being the case, powdered goat's milk would probably work just the same way, but that has not (yet) been tested.

EDIT one year later:

I did it again using slightly more than 50% of the water that would be required to fully reconstitute the milk, and the process was smoother. I mention in the text below that I would try it with 2 tablespoons more water next time. That is the way to go; it worked better.

Much Longer Answer

Here's what I did:

24 Fluid Ounces (710 ml) Evaporated Goat's Milk (double strength)
1 1/2 cups (300 gm) Granulated Sugar
12 oz Water (355ml)
1/2 tsp salt
3/8 tsp baking soda in 1 TBS water (yes, I did actually measure 3/8 tsp)

Optional (I used both)

Cinnamon stick
1/2 TBS Vanilla Extract

Or if you're made of money

1 vanilla bean, scraped (are you kidding me? That would more than double the price of this whole operation!)

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, who adapted loosely from Rick Bayless

Check, check, check, check...alright, lets go!

Everything but the baking soda and vanilla went into the pot and was brought to a simmer.

Add baking soda

Now this is kind of funny. I carefully measured 3/8 tsp of baking soda and mixed in the the little custard cup with a TBS of water. When I went to pour it in, half the baking soda stayed in the cup.

Screw it. The cup is stainless steel and I have to dig out the cinnamon sticks anyway.

Now it's just a matter of simmering, and stirring. And tasting, lots of tasting, tasting is very important. Did I mention tasting?

As the caramel thickened, it needed a lot of stirring, a lot of scraping. Towards the end it was tricky to stop stirring long enough to taste, but I managed.

It took about an hour and a half to get from simmering milk to dealing with thickening caramel. The last stage of constant stirring lasted about half an hour.

With practice I'm sure I could get the whole operation in under an hour, I was just very conservative with the temperature 'cause I've seen way too many pots of dairy boil over. With all this sugar, that is one mess I did not want to deal with.

I stirred in the vanilla just before I pulled the pan off the heat.

Well, I patted myself on the back for creating my first Cajeta. Both of the recipes I looked at while developing this recommend straining the warm caramel, and I can see why, it definitely has specks of darker and harder stuff. But, this particular batch of Cajeta has a destiny, it's going to be cooked in a custard base for ice cream. That custard gets strained twice, and it will be whole lot easier to strain that than it would be to strain this sticky stuff.

So it's done, and it's absolutely delicious, but I have one more cool thing to share with you.

I've been making (perfecting) this ice cream for a while. I've been starting with two cans of sweetened condensed milk turned into Dulce de Leche. One can goes into the ice cream base, the other goes into a Ziploc baggie. I snip off a corner and use the baggie like a pastry bag as I'm packing the ice cream into its container. Then I get the swirls of Dulce de Leche. Of course I only use like a quarter or a third of it. So to store the remainder, I just squoodge the caramel away from the corner and fold it over. No mess, no fuss. So....

Lookie there, 14.85oz. Perfect for a batch of ice cream. (minus 4.75 grams for the bag, but who's counting?) Putting it the baggie allowed me to get a volumetric measurement too, by displacement of water in a measuring cup. It was pretty darn close to exactly what I expected it to be, 1 1/2 cups.

The caramel is a wee bit hard, I'll know better next time and take it off the heat a few minutes sooner. If it's difficult to deal with cold, I can just drop the whole baggie into almost simmering water for a while. Or I can just cut off the bag. Chilled, I think it'll just peel away from the bag in one piece. I can just drop the chunk into the simmering milk and mix it in before adding the eggs to my ice cream base.


Molasses cookies - Do I need to start over? I am making molasses cookies. I accidentally put a cup of sugar in the dry ingredients, when I was only supposed to have a cup of sugar creamed with shortening. Should I throw out my dry ingredients and start over or can I keep it and maybe my cookies will just be extra sweet?

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 cup shortening
1 egg
3/4 tsp vinegar
3 cups sifted flour
1 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup molasses
3/4 cup evaporated milk
3 tsp soda powder
1 tsp cinnamon

Cream shortening and sugar. Add egg and molasses, beat well. Stir in vinegar and milk. Mix and sift dry ingredients. Add to mixture. Drop from teaspoon on greased baking sheet. Bake at 350F for about 15 minutes.

You do not need to start over. The texture will be a little different than the original recipe but mixing the dry ingredients is not a huge mistake. Go ahead and bake the cookies according to the remaining recipe.


Fried gnocchi with spinach, bacon, cream sauce in a single pan If I only have 1 hot plate and 1 pan, what is the best order of cooking these ingredients.

The tricky part is the spinach.

I suppose I should precursor this with
"I'm really, really fussy about fast-cook Italian food. I will almost never eat in Italian restaurants [in the UK] because they simply fail to get something as simple as this right, every single time.
I won't eat anywhere that I can out-cook."

I'd forget all the 'putting aside', you can do that in one pan, no savers.
10 mins start to finish.

I'd add one extra ingredient, though

Start with a hot pan, full burn. Use the ingredients as you add them to knock the heat back.
Chunk the bacon, fry in a good slug or 3 of olive oil until it starts to brown on the edges.
From comments - if you actually want a sear on your gnocchi, drop it here, but make sure you don't kill it by the end. Over-cooked is not good.
The extra ingredient - a good splash of white wine. You can do without, but it will a) taste nice & b) deglaze the pan.
(Depending on how practised you are at dropping cold wine into hot fat, you might want to lift off the heat for a second to do this ;)
Drop the spinach & gnocchi in together, keep turning & stirring for a minute or so, until the pan is getting back up to temperature [Don't over-do this part, you're only getting the gnocchi started here, not 'cooking' it. Overdo it here &  you'll get squishy, slimy gnocchi at the end]
Drop the cream sauce.
Season to taste, then a quick stir, until it first shows signs of bubbling. Reduce the heat to minimum & put the lid on.
Let it steam 2 mins.
One more quick stir, check seasoning, & serve.

This is very much a staple menu item at my house. Slight differences, but I've modified this to suit your stated ingredients.
I would normally use a large chef's pan or a wok to do this, it's easier to keep everything moving so you don't catch anything. Keeping it all moving until the lid goes on is an important part of the process. Stops burning, spreads heat evenly & makes the gnocchi shed surface starch, which helps the sauce.

For quantities, I'd say just enough cream sauce to glaze but not enough to run in pools underneath once served. It will all thicken slightly between serving & table, as the gnocchi takes on more water, so allow it to be served slightly wetter than you want to eat it.

Oh… one more [important] thing. I'm assuming fresh gnocchi.
If it's dried or that peculiar 'half-alive' vac-pack stuff you find near the pasta but not in a fridge at the supermarket, pre-cook it according to the instructions, but leave it slightly under what they say.
…and next time get fresh, it's night & day.

I'm also assuming fresh spinach, if frozen defrost it first. For this recipe you can treat fresh or defrosted the same. Fresh will need time to wilt, defrosted won't change apparent state at all really, but you don't need to make allowances either way. it will just work.

Another option - nutmeg goes really nicely with spinach - a good pinch [¼ - ½ tsp] in at the same time as the spinach & gnocchi might be an interesting twist.

Other alternatives - mascarpone makes a great 'instant' cream sauce. Add some proper [freshly-grated, not that powdery stuff] parmesan to add some interest.

Advantages of this method…
It's fast, one pot.
No slimy, re-heated gnocchi. It doesn't deserve that treatment. It should be just done, not left around to go gooey.
Bacon will still have a little bit of bite left because you browned it at full-tilt & didn't give it time to relax.

Late Edit:
As this has attracted a fair bit of attention, let me add some twists & tweaks you could use.
If it comes up too 'wet' grate some parmesan* [or even at a push, cheddar] right at the end & stir it in. That will help bind the sauce. It will also add salt, so be careful of your seasoning.
Substitute sausages [links] for the bacon - sicilian are ideal, but any you like - chopped into 1.5cm chunks whilst cold. Get some good colour on them but remember they'll get another few minutes to finish cooking after the fry-off.
Mushrooms & onions instead of the spinach, 2-3 mins before the wine goes in; no more, you don't want them soggy at the end  [& leave out the nutmeg].
Garlic goes well too, crushed or finely sliced; drop it just before the wine.
If you use the 'cheese trick' at the end, you can even leave out the cream sauce/mascarpone. The starch from the gnocchi & the wine will already be giving the sauce some body; you use the cheese at the end to perfect the sauce texture & thickness.
Because this is a quick-cook & relies on the fresh flavours of your ingredients I tend not to add more than salt & fresh-ground black pepper to any of these alternatives - but no-one will complain if you add a little of your favourite herbs with the wine. Thyme, oregano, or even some fresh basil right at the end.

*Parmesan - Fresh, fresh & above all… fresh. This cannot be over-emphasised ;-) That powdery stuff in a tub will not do, ever.


How to make Hummus that doesn't have a hardened layer? When hummus has stood outside for some time, a harder layer on top forms.

Can this be avoided?

Plastic wrap works for storage.

Some folks brush olive oil to the top of the hummus to create a barrier from the air drying it out when it sits out on a table waiting to be eaten.


Why is there cornstarch in powdered sugar? I was looking up how to make my own powdered/confectioner/icing sugar. Some 'recipes' say that you should add a bit of cornstarch while others just leave this out.

So what is the role of cornstarch? Does it act like a filler (since it's cheaper than sugar)? Is it to prevent lumps? Does it help with texture? Does it do something else?

If this question is too broad, assume I'm only talking about frosting, since that's a frequent use of this sugar.

It's to prevent caking. See, for example, the second FAQ on Domino Sugar's website:

  It is not recommended to substitute confectioners sugar for granulated
  sugar. Since confectioners sugar has a much finer texture, and it
  contains a small percentage of cornstarch to prevent caking,
  substituting can give you unexpected results.

Many shredded cheeses include corn starch for the same reason.


Use orange juice instead of water for syrup to make Orangettes? I used this serious eats recipe to make orangettes. After removing the oranges from the syrup in the end I further reduced it in order not to waste it. After tasting I though it could do with a bit more orange flavour and wondered:

Could I just squeeze the peeled oranges and use their juice instead of part or all the water in the syrup to make the leftover syrup taste stronger of orange?
Would this affect the Orangettes? How?

I'd also be interested in suggestions as to how I can use my syrup.

Letting the peel simmer in the syrup is to candy the peels, as they are too bitter to be eaten as is. In my opinion, adding orange juice to this syrup won't make that big of a difference. The peels in themselves has a much stronger orange flavor than the juice has. If it makes you happy, you can replace some of the water with juice. When not wanting to waste, I just eat the oranges.

As to the syrup, I understand you do not like to waste stuff, but it is just water and some sugar (with some extra flavor now), so I usually discard it. However, if you really wanted to, you could use it in several applications, but make sure you account for the correct ratio (orange sauce for a duck breast, maybe you could add it to a cake if the water is no problem, you could make turkish delight with it, etc.)


Chopping fresh cranberries Are there any good ways to chop fresh cranberries? It tends to end up a bit tedious for me, not catching too many at a time with the knife, and chasing after the ones that roll away. (And I don't have any machines that'd do this for me.)

If you don't mind losing some of the juice, try breaking them before cutting them.  Use a potato masher or meat tenderizer or something like that to break them into pieces.  That way they won't roll around when you're trying to cut them up.  Once they are in pieces, you can lay them out on a cutting board and chop away.  You can also put several on a cutting board and mash them down with another cutting board on top.  That will make them less spherical.


What is the best time and temperature for taste when cooking a salmon fillet in the oven? I have an Atlantic salmon fillet in my frig at the moment, but I really have no idea what the normal cooking temperature and time are for a salmon fillet.

What's the best temp and time to cook a 1lb salmon fillet in the oven?

When you're determining the doneness by time, you're doing it wrong :)

There are too many differences between individual fish to go just by weight, thickness, oven temperature, and time. The best way is to measure the internal temperature (stick a thermometer into the thickest part of the fillet); I like about 120 F (50 C) for salmon (carryover cooking raises the temperature a little higher after taking it out of the pan), but then it has to be good quality fish. You need to check early and often, because it can go from undercooked to overcooked fairly quickly. Now, like zanlok says, my experience is mostly with pan frying, and I'd expect using the oven would be a bit slower than using a pan because of slower heat transfer; so you should be a bit safer.

If you don't have a meat thermometer, an easy way to test fish for doneness is to look for translucency. Salmon can still be just a little translucent in the middle. Also, properly done fish flakes along the natural "seams". Another nice trick (which doesn't work for boneless fillets - sorry) is to find a bone in the thickest part of the fish: if it comes out fairly easily, then the connective tissues have mostly dissolved and it's done.

That leaves the temperature for your oven. I would go with very high - that way the fish gets the least possible time to dry out (which is going to be a big risk with this cooking method, I would think - unless you wrap your salmon in bacon or something like that). At a guess, I'd try 450 F (230 C).


Smoked meat too smokey tasting I bought a large quantity of smoked cuts of pork (Ham, Sausage and bacon) and find it is too smokey.  Is there anything I can do prior to cooking or method of cooking that will lessen the smoked taste?

You can soak it, or you can boil it in several changes of water, or both (then bake to finish if that's what you want, or dry it then fry or grill it in the case of bacon).

This works better for smaller pieces so you may want to cut it into the minimum acceptable size first.

Slow cooking a gammon joint in plenty of cider or apple juice, possibly spiced, can help to mask the smokiness. You can throw in roughly chopped apple and/or onion as well.


Which foods are most likely contaminated by dairy due to processing methods used? I am Vegan but also highly allergic to milk and wondered if anyone is familiar, or has come across any knowledge about which foods and food groups are typically processed in a factory which also handles dairy, other than the obvious like milk, cheese and products labelled with dairy.

So for example, a lot of different chips/crisps have been exposed to dairy as have dark chocolates even though these products don't always have dairy in their recipes.

I am essentially, trying to eliminate dairy from my diet but sometimes products inadvertently are contaminated with diary by the lines they are produced on etc.

Practices will differ with country (or community in some cases) of origin. A country where few dairy products are commonly consumed or produced, or where a significant amount of the population is not dairy tolerant (parts of asia) or where religious codex exists about dairy use (eg jewish communities) is likely to have different practices from scandinavian countries that lead the world in per-capita dairy consumption.

Equally, the country where the product is marketed/consumed is important, especially when it comes to what has to be declared on the label, with which tolerance levels, by whom. Also try to take advantage of multi-language, multi-market label text - sometimes important hints are found only in foreign language versions of ingredient lists or allergy advice (ever noticed that they sometimes differ - where it is unlikely that two different products are described)....


Would this recipe really work Found this coconut cake  recipe in https://www.completelydelicious.com/southern-coconut-cake/

A lot of people indicated success with it, but several readers including myself got a really dense cake instead of the light and fluffy cake image posted in the webpage.

I'm a bit skeptical because the butter is not creamed, just added to the dry ingredients along with some of the liquid ingredients (1 cup coconut milk). In addition, egg whites are just slightly beaten before being mixed into the batter.

Im not an expert baker, but have successfully baked enough cakes to realize that as written, the above recipe for the cake may be missing some details.

Can somebody advise me if this cake is really do-able so that i can stop trying if its not.

Thanks in advance.

That recipe is going to be a problem -- it has flour measured by volume, and it compacts.

For the recipe to be useful, you need to know how the person measures their flour:

dip and shake
dip and sweep
spoon and sweep

It's basically, do you just dip the measuring cup into the flour, compacting it more, or do you use a spoon to fill the measuring cup, which aerates it more resulting in less flour ... and then how do you level off the top of the cup.

This is why most European and professional recipes use weight rather than volume.

You also have to beware of differences in flour by region.  In the US south, the flour tends to be more towards cake flour vs. the US northeast being more towards break flour.

So even though it calls for 'cake flour', if they're from the south, you'll want to use White Lily or some other southern brand of flour.  But just because it says 'southern' in the name of the recipe, if it's someone from Maine who tested it, you'll want some other brand (I'm not even sure what the northern brands are).


Should I use raw turmeric that turned rubbery? I have some raw turmeric, which has become rubbery lying in the deep freeze. Can it be used for cooking? If yes, does it require any special processing first?

This is very common, I store my turmeric and galangal in the freezer and they always come out a bit floppy. This isn't a problem if you plan to grind, puree or grate the turmeric as you are breaking down its structure anyway (grating may take a bit more effort than harder turmeric but it's very doable).

If your recipe requires shaping the turmeric in some way, like cutting fine strips, you may have some trouble as it won't cooperate with you.


Making pork pernil, and had a slight "lasagna battery" issue - is it safe to eat? I am in the process of making the cook's illustrated recipe for pork pernil. For the first hour, you heat marinated pork at 450, covered tightly in a roasting pan with aluminum foil.

Lo, pulling it out of the oven I see several tiny spots where the aluminum foil has been eaten away. The edges are black-ish, which suggests galvanic corrosion, what's commonly called a "lasagna battery" or "lasagna cell" - the results of 2 metals sandwiching a piece of food that is acidic. I was using a stainless steel roasting pan, and basic aluminum foil.

The spots are tiny, and they're shotgunned all over the top of the pork. They're very small, and they're in several clusters, but overall MOST of the pork wasn't impacted. It would be difficult to scrape it off because it is so small. This is a huge cut of meat, and I'd hate to throw it out, but I don't know if the galvanic reaction can do any other damage.

So, is it safe to eat?

The best authoritative answer I could find specifically concerning the food safety was from a chemistry professor and science columnist.  According to him, there is no known danger from consuming food that has fallen victim to the 'lasagna battery' effect.

Personally, I have had this happen numerous times and served and eaten the offending food with no perceived effects.


Why are the cinnamon sugar bagels I buy becoming so wet? Every time I get a bagel box from Bruegger's Bagels, I get a few cinnamon sugar coated ones for the sweet-toothed people in my office. They look fine at first and are great for the first hour or so, and then they start to look damp... and then essentially become completely wet on the outside. To the point where I take it out of the bag and it drips.

These bagels aren't usually warm or heated up when I get them -- they're room temperature. After people take their fill, I put them in into these plastic "freezer" bags that Brueggers give out for storing bagels. They're plastic and see-through and look like the bags that store bought bagels come in. I just leave them on the table and tied off.

I thought that it might could be condensation, but it seems to only happen with the cinnamon sugar bagels (I put the types in different bags). I thought maybe the sugar was melting, but our office isn't warm, it's actually abnormally cold.

Do you know what could be causing this/what the liquid is? I mean, it looks/tastes fine...but it's really odd to eat a dripping wet bagel.

Sugar is hydrophilic (literally, 'water loving').

This is useful in some baked goods -- sugar will help to keep them moist, but in this case, it sounds like you're in a high-humidity area where it's pulling too much water out of the air.

My only suggestion would be to squeeze as much air out of the bags before sealing them, to avoid trapping moisture in there with them.


Getting crispy chicken nuggets at home I have been trying to make chicken nuggets at home, but the nuggets did not come out as crispy as expected. The chicken inside is cooked fine, it is just the covering that did not come out fine.

I used flour and bread crumbs dipped in egg as batter. I fried them in oil in a pan instead of deep fryer as shown in different videos on internet. So what could be the reason for that. Is it something that I did not add to the batter or is it the way I cooked (without using a deep fryer)

Deep frying is certainly an easier way to get things crispy, but there are things you can do to get crispy batter without it.

First off is the bread crumbs. Ideally the bread should be relatively stale and therefore dry. If you blitz your own breadcrumbs, leave them out for a few hours to thoroughly dry out before you pane. You can also try using panko, which are pre-packed Japanese breadcrumbs that are very crispy. You can usually find them in supermarkets these days.

The other thing you can do is double-crumb the chicken, so flour, egg, breadcrumbs, egg, breadcrumbs. This double layer of crumb should make for a really crunchy crust.

Finally, you can pseudo-deep fry using a wok. Rather than a full pan of hot oil, just put an inch of oil in a wok and fry in that: safer and less waste. A good way of knowing when the oil is hot enough is to use a wooden chopstick. Simply put the tip into the oil and if bubbles immediately gather around it, the oil's hot enough.

Set your oven to about 120 degrees F/50 degrees C, pop a plate with some kitchen paper on it in there, and fry in batches, placing the chicken on the plate while do you the rest.

If you use this method, you could try a tempura style batter. Take 100ml of chilled soda water and mix with 140g of self-raising flour and mix well. Dust your chicken with cornflour (cornstarch), then into the batter and straight into the oil. Turn a few times to ensure even cooking - when the batter is a nice golden brown it should be done, about 5-6 minutes.


Where can I buy borosilicate (Pyrex) bakeware in the U.S.? Because of the shattering dangers of the apparently inferior lime glass that Pyrex uses for manufacturing in the U.S. as exposed by Consumer Reports, I'd like to replace my Pyrex with borosilicate bakeware.  Apparently Pyrex used to manufacture their bakeware with borosilicate until about 10-15 years ago in the U.S..

I thought I found a manufacturer (Marinex) that used borosilicate, and though they advertise it as such, based on this report, it turns out that the materials used by Marinex still may not be as safe as "true" borosilicate bakeware.

How can I purchase true (new) borosilicate bakeware from the United States?  It doesn't have to be manufactured in the U.S., and I'm open to ordering it from foreign stores that export to the U.S..  Specifically, I'm looking for 13x9 and 11x7 rectangular, and 8x8 square baking dishes.

I believe the following companies advertise that they produce bakeware made out of borosilicate available in the US, :

Luminarc
Arcuisine Elegance

I can't speak to the boron/boron plus/zero boron debate, but those are the two I would investigate.

I know that Bodum also advertises borosilicate products, but I'm not sure if they make bakeware.


What's the origin of the name of the "Chinese Cookie" found in Jewish deli's in the US? At a classic Los Angeles Deli for lunch yesterday, I snagged my usual take-out guilty pleasure for later: a fresh-baked Chinese Cookie. This is a four or five inch diameter short-bread cookie with a dollop of chocolate frosting in the center. They appear to be a standard fare at every Deli I've visited.

The thing is, although it is unquestionably a cookie, there isn't anything obviously Chinese about it. So, why the name?

Update: Here's a link to a kosher supplier's product page for their version of this cookie.

It is something I've only found in Jewish Deli's. Yesterday it was Langers across from MacArthur Park, but I've also had them from Cantor's on Fairfax, Brent's up in the Valley, and Billy's in Glendale.

The ingredients label on the wrapper of yesterday's says eggs, cake flour, sugar, shortening, baking powder, baking soda, chocolate.

The recipe for Jewish Deli "Chinese Cookies" seems awfully similar to the recipe for Chinese almond biscuits, except that the lard is replaced with shortening (to keep it Kosher) and chocolate is added.  A recipe for Chinese almond biscuits was printed as a "standard Chinese cookie" in The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook as early as 1984, and this exact same recipe was reprinted in From Lokshen to Lo Mein: The Jewish Love Affair with Chinese Food.  Given that love affair with Chinese food, I am guessing that at some point in time a cook at a deli decided to recreate the beloved Chinese recipe, either due to his or her own love of the baked good or by request.

I know a Jewish guy who owned and operated a Chinese restaurant in the 1970s (staffed with Cantonese cooks), so the intercultural culinary collaboration is a definite possibility.  (Almond biscuits are very popular in Hong Kong, which is the epicenter of Cantonese cuisine.)  A Glatt Kosher Israeli-style restaurant close to where I used to work recently converted to a Glatt Kosher Chinese-style restaurant (under the same management, and likely with the same cooks)!

Edit (more speculation): If the "Chinese cookie" is in fact a descendant of the almond biscuit, it may have been originally motivated by its almond content: It wouldn't be hard to replace the small amount of wheat flour in the recipe with something like almond flour, thus making the cookies Kosher for Passover.

Edit (even more speculation): About 95% of the ethnic Chinese are lactose intolerant.  Therefore, almost all Chinese confections are dairy-free.  If you think about it, there aren't many Western cookie recipes that don't call for some form of dairy.  The laws of kashrut prohibit eating meat alongside dairy in a single meal.  In other words, if someone who keeps kosher were to eat a meal with meat, he or she would then have to follow it with a non-dairy desert.  Therefore, Jewish delis may have adapted a Chinese cookie recipe to provide non-dairy desert options for their kosher clientele.


What pots work the best on electric ranges to sautee, fry and simmer? I end up burning my food because I can't get the right temperature in the pan to fry, sautee or simmer vegetables, rice etc.  The rice either burns on the bottom or doesn't cook.  My oil turns brown very quickly which ends up turning my veggies black.

While a cook will tell you that good pans are always better, I think that they will not solve your problem. If anything, better pans conduct heat better, so if you keep cooking at the same temperatures as now, you'll burn more food. A good temperature control with bad pans is useful, good pans with bad temperature control don't bring much.

The correct solution sequence is listed below. You can stop at any point, as long as it has solved your problem. But getting later points done before the earlier ones is unlikely to do you much good (although in the case of new stove, it is understandable if you skip the point because of the expense).

Whenever in doubt, use a lower heat setting. It is almost always better (and the result tastes better too). There are very few cases where this principle doesn't work (deep frying, not enough browning on the outside) and in most of them, you can correct if you raise the temperature in the end, after the food is cooked through (exception: deep frying). It is almost impossible that your stove cannot cook rice through; I have seen recipes for "cooking" rice at room temperature (it gets soft after a day or two in water). It takes lots of time to cook rice, about 20-30 minutes after the water has started to simmer. You are probably turning the heat up earlier, resulting in the burnt rice.
Learn the correct cooking temperatures for different kinds of food and food preparation methods. There are books for that. The classic one is McGee on food and cooking, but many others contain this information. Having such a book is much more important for cooking than any recipe book.
Utilize a method to recognize the current temperature of your food/cooking vessel. Easiest way with best results: get a thermometer (three is better - infrared for pans, flexible-connected feeler for roasts, candy thermometer for everything else. But start with infrared, you can point it at cooking liquids too). The so-so way: learn the common tricks and use them. Water is easy, you can see how much it is boiling. Oil is more problematic, but the water droplet should work for meat and the white bread for deep frying. I don't know of a good collection of all "recognize temperature" tricks, you'll need to hunt them here and there. Least helpful solution: learn from experience, developing a feeling for how long it takes a certain amount of food in a certain pot on a certain setting. Takes lots of trial-and-error, and lots of burnt food. Once you have to cook outside of your "comfortable area", you have a big chance to get it wrong.
Upgrade your stove. I know, this costs a lot. But based on your description of the rice situation, your stove could be one of those which gets 85°C at setting 3 and 220°C at setting 4. These are a real pain in the neck when cooking, and in this case, even a €50 portable induction single-hob is a real improvement. If your budget and space allows it, it is highly recommended to consider it before upgrading the pans.
Finally, upgrade your pots and pans. I guess that your problems with the burnt food will have gone by now if you have done the other points, but if you can afford it and cooking is a hobby for you, it gets much more pleasant with better tools. You get the best value for the money from iron, and good quality nonstick (with the mineral mix, or ceramic all the way, over a thick bottom) is almost indispensable for some applications (e.g. aerated omelettes). But if you really want to know what makes a great pot/pan, here is a really great article on the topic. It is highly recommended read for anyone who is serious about cookware. It should answer the question in the title too. While the author doesn't specify resistive heat, what he writes is suited for everything except induction (actually, the facts he describes are useful for induction too, but you have to make your own conclusions because of the different heating method - for example, tin-clad copper is one of the best things for outer heat, but definitely a bad solution on induction).


How do you make the shell for this dinosaur egg dessert? I found this very interesting dessert online:

How can I make this? In particular, how would you make the eggshell?

This seems to be a version of the chocolate ball, only not intended for melting.

The standard chocolate ball is made by covering the inside of a spherical mold with tempered chocolate, then melting away the bottom so it can be placed over a scoop of ice cream. For the detailed process, see this video.

This version seems to use white chocolate instead. It is impossible to tell what the dots are, exactly, my best guess would be Oreo cookies ground to fine crumbles. An alternative would be ground (unpeeled) nuts like hazelnuts, or some poppy seed (that's probably not what the picture uses, but it would work well when you recreate the recipe).

The biggest problem would be the mold, I have no idea where you can source one. There are methods for making your own silicone molds from mixing caulking silicone with cornstarch, but I wouldn't consider them foodsafe. Maybe you can get away with using the paint-a-balloon method, but the shape won't be completely egglike. You may be able to hide this by using a more egg-shaped balloon, like the ones with a bit of a tube before the round body, and melting some more of the base away (where the balloon's tube is).

The egg in the picture looks like the ice cream is larger than the base. For that, you may need to work in two halves and glue them, which would be very fuddly work.

The nest looks simple, just use whatever form of chocolate sprinkles and shaved chocolate you have.


How do I cook ribs Chinese style? I love Chinese style ribs. They seem to have a sweet plum flavour/fragrance to them and the meat seems to be caramelised. I'd like to try this at home, how are they prepared and cooked?

When cooking Chinese ribs, they are usually boiled down... (I am a cook from Hong Kong) We usually cut the ribs bone-attached into small cubes before cooking, quite unlike the western cooking style.

stir-frying: Usually we stir-fry the rib with a sauce of choice; black bean and chili is my favourite. One can also use the sweet-sour (sometimes with the ribs sort of diced with bone attached, fried with a flour dip), and chinese preserved vinegar (This is often an unpleasent flavour for most foreigners who aren't familiar with it IMHO)
steaming: You can marinade the rib, either with black bean and chili or sometimes plum-sauce and a little bit of salt to taste. Then just throw it in there and steam it done. The resultant meat is nicely done and we mix the sauce with the rice to make it great tasting (sort of a good idea when i'm out of money and need to eat more rice, and less meat... The sauce is then quite rich in pork fat though, unhealthy, pardon me...)
braising: this one is often done with five spice, sometimes red preserved-tofu (nam-yu, as we call it in cantonese).

or you can make your own homemade marinade by using different amount of (1) soy-sauce, (2) salt, (3) pepper (white) and (4) sugar. Then stir-fry it, or saute it, then optionally you can add little bit of starch-water to get the 'sauce' thickened, and serve.

Sometimes we use the oyster sauce to marinade the food as well, but mind you that the quality differs, if you want the best, I would suggest 'lee-kam-kee' premium, old-style oyster sauce for this purpose, for best result, add sugar.


Are there any features of cookers that make them rodent resistant? Our gas cooker has started leaking gas. It is likely that it is because mice have been living in the cladding for a good few months and they have finally got around to chewing through a gas pipe.

I am now looking for a replacement but there seems to be no direct indication in any cooker specifications that suggest it would be rodent resistant. What features could I look for that would suggest the mice will not get in again.

There does seem to be some notes on the Amazon website that some cookers have some rodent-proofing feature (such as the Bush AG56D) but the wording is unclear.

The hose that supplies the gas is probably not part of the cooker itself, but a separate part which can be swapped by an armored one.

Manufacturers don't have a rodent-resistant label, what you need to know is whether chewable materials are part of the construction. The best way to tell this is to lift the lid and look at the supply to the burners. Generally these will be metal, not materials like rubber or flexible plastics.


Is US flour significantly different than it used to be, or than flour outside of the US? I encountered this statement elsewhere:

  The wheat in the US has been genetically modified to be much higher in
  gluten. People who live in other countries and then come here cannot
  use their old recipes because our flour is so different than theirs.

Is the second sentence true for a non-professional cook purchasing all purpose flour in a US grocery store? Would a bread recipe calling for AP flour used by someone from outside of North America need to be modified to work with the AP flour typically available in the US?

Please address the first sentence only if it's relevant to your answer regarding the second sentence.

The summary would be that there is a larger variety of flour (measured by gluten content) in the US than in Europe.

SAJ14SAJ described the gluten categories of American flour, although exact figures for the category limits are hard to pin down. Peter Reinhart says

  cake flour has 6 to 7 percent gluten, pastry flour has 7.5 to 9.5 percent gluten, all-purpose flour has 9.5 to 11.5 percent gluten, and high-gluten flour has 13.5 to (rare but possible) 16 percent gluten.

(From The bread baker's apprentice, section Types of flour). I measure exactly my gluten percentages and can confirm that these are good for recipes of the respective categories.

These flours are all made from the same flour grade, with about 50% of the grain removed and only the soft center used for fine bread. The difference comes from the grain type used, hard spring wheat (high in gluten) or soft winter wheat (low in gluten). In Europe, where only soft winter wheat is grown, all the flour is in the 9-11% range. But mills will sometimes enrich certain types of flour with added gluten, or by blending with imported flour, or by milling more of the bran (wholer flour always has more protein) in order to make some specialized high-gluten flours, e.g. Italian pizza flour. These flours are, aside from whole wheat flour, not widely available to home bakers.

I can well imagine that a European trying to bake a European recipe with American bread flour will get bad results. But if they get the AP flour, there will be no problem in the gluten.

There are many other properties of flour which differ, beyond the gluten content. But recipes are never so sensitive to them that they'd fail. If you can't tell the difference between two brands of flour in your home country, then you won't be able to tell the difference between flour with the same gluten content from the other continent either, if both are unbleached and of the same grade (= amount of bran included and particle size).

All in all, this claim sounds like an unfounded emotionally-loaded attack. It is possible that the person who made it indeed failed because of gluten content, because they didn't know that they should be buying AP and not bread flour. Or that it failed for another reason and they were looking for a scapegoat, and garbled some half-remembered knowledge (by the way, while the American wheat is genetically different, the gluten level difference was achieved centuries ago by selective breeding) to excuse their failure.


Are there negative effects of freezing for bread and cake? Are there any negative effects to flavour and or texture to freezing breads/cakes and such?

I notice many layered cake recipes have to bake a cake cover it in a layer then cool or freeze in the fridge, is there any negative affect to the cake?

Not that I know of. In fact, freezing is usually beneficial because it keeps the cakes firmer for assembling, layering, and frosting. It also helps crumb coats adhere better.


Making liquorice--temperature advice We're experimenting with making black liquorice from scratch. We've been using backstrap molasses, liquorice root powder, aniseed powder, and star anise. All the recipes we've found say equal part molasses to equal part flour, to thicken. The flavour has been great, as well as consistency, but we can't seem to get it as hard as we'd like. We're going for the thickness of a Finnish Panda liquorice, not a very chewy or hard. None of the recipes we've found seem to stress a temp. Has anyone tried this and have a temp they can advise? Get the sugar to 130C before adding flour, for example?

Thanks for any help.

These folks add sugar mixture to heated gelatin, then bring to a boil before adding flour. Then cook again with flour. They vary the texture with the flour addition.  More flour creates a firmer product.


Electric Stove Coil Heating Unevenly !
After Pot

My electric coils have what I think are cold spots. None of my food heats evenly when cooking. I noticed that when I turn the stove on, the coils heat up perfectly and are bright orange but the minute I put a pot on they get black spots, which I’m assuming are cold spots. If I boil a pot of water, I can see where the heat is going and the cold spots always match to wherever the black spots are on the coils. Is this normal? Or is this something that can be fixed?

It's very common for coil type electric elements to heat a little bit unevenly, even when they are brand new. If it's really uneven it's usually due to:

The element wearing out, leading to some parts being hotter than others
The element warping, leading to a loss of contact with some parts of the pots and pans you use

From the picture you've sent it could be a mix of both of these issues.

A pan with an uneven bottom can lead to this as well, if your pan rocks back and forth on a flat surface it's a sign maybe the pan is part of the problem.

You can't fix these elements, when they're shot they're shot, so if it's due to worn elements replacement is the best bet (if you live in a rental ask your landlord, you shouldn't have to pay for it). They don't cost much, you could probably do all 4 for less than $50 USD. Some brands have upgrades where you can install ceramic or maybe halogen ones instead, if I owned it that's the way I'd go, but they are more expensive.


Can dried peppers get hotter with aging? I have some dried hot peppers which are over a year old.  These are hybrids, part chile de arbol, but less hot so that I can use them for mixed company.  A friend grew them for me specifically because of their medium hotness.

After around 16 months in doubled ziplock bags, I used some of these in a couple recipes last week, including a Mexican squash casserole.  The dried peppers were partly rehydrated prior to use.

While I remember being able to use 2 or even 3 of these peppers in a recipe when I first got them, even one of them made the dish so hot I had to quickly make something else for two of our guests.  This happened three times over the last couple months, so it's not just which individual pepper I pulled out.  It seems like these peppers got hotter with ageing, something I'd think was impossible ... shouldn't they lose capsaicin as they age?

So, my question is:

Is it possible for a dried chili pepper to become hotter with ageing, instead of losing flavor?
If so, what causes this?

I'm guessing that it's just my faulty memory, but I'd love some verification.  Thanks!

You could be just that lucky to get hotter peppers recently. Chilli peppers are known to have variable hotness, even when harvested from a single plant. Most of peppers on a plant may be mild, but a few very hot.

Also, you can remember them being milder than they are if you were used to eating them more then.


Can you re-use parchment paper when baking batches of cookies? I just finished making cookies. The dough was enough to make multiple batches. I only have one baking sheet. Every time a batch was ready, I used new parchment paper on the baking sheet. Is this necessary or could I just re-use the same piece of paper till all my cookies are baked?

You can reuse parchment paper several times for your cookies (it also works for other dry dishes), depending on cooking time and temperature, with no problem. Change the paper when it gets dirty, dark and/or brittle as it may crumble beyond this point. I always do so with no difference in the results, saving both on money and waste.


Date cookies are thin and spread out When I bake my date cookies they spread out and don't get high.  They are very thin.  I follow the recipe but this happens.  There is baking soda and baking powder in the recipe.  Any suggestions?

Presumably, you're following a standard cookie recipe that creams together butter and sugar, mixes with some flour, and adds leavening and other stuff.

In my experience, thin cookies are usually the result of two things: too much liquid, and white sugar. The ratio of dry ingredients to wet ones should be pretty self explanatory: for thicker cookies you might want to try adding less liquid, and/or more flour.

More likely is that you're using too much white sugar. White sugar liquifies at a high enough temperature, and in cookies this translates to a spreading out of the dough while baking. Then when the cookies are cooled and the sugar crystallizes again, the cookies become hard.

To remedy this, start by substituting half of the white sugar in your recipe for brown sugar. You can also try experimenting with other sweeteners such as molasses and honey, which should also help the cookies stay thicker (and likewise more cakey). Just keep adjusting the ratio of white sugar to other sweeteners until you get the texture you like.


Does a home produce refrigerator exist? It seems there are many foods that benefit from 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit / 10 to 15 degrees Celsius storage temperature--herbs, peppers, tomatoes, etc.  As it stands, I store tomatoes and some herbs on the counter, which shortens their shelf life.

Is there a small home refrigerator available that will provide a suitable environment for such produce?

You could try wine coolers*. Wine likes temperatures around 50F, so they should all be around the temperature you want, and the nicer ones will have accurate thermostats too.

Mini-fridges could work - if their warmest temperature setting is warm enough. But be careful: they tend to have very bad circulation. On normal fridge temperature settings, a lot of them range from frozen on one end to too warm on the other end. If you set it warmer, you might end up with a range from too cold to room temperature. If all you're storing in it is roots, this is totally fine, but it could cause problems if anything is sensitive. So your mileage may vary, and it can be tough to tell without buying and trying.

That said, you don't want temperatures that cold for tomatoes. Storing them at room temperature is fine and generally recommended, unless your room temperature is excessively hot. (For example, Harold McGee says this in On Food and Cooking, and that temperatures below 55F will mess with the texture.)

Most herbs also do pretty well in the refrigerator, wrapped loosely with paper towels inside an open bag. Things like basil that like warm weather do better at room temperature, with cut ends in water, like flowers. (You can also do this in the fridge, if you're having problems with them drying out too much - you'll want to cover the "bouquet" loosely with a bag still.) See How to Store Fresh Herbs for more.

The things that you might want to store at intermediate temperatures are root vegetables - this is why they were traditionally stored in cellars (like wine). Potatoes, for example, have an ideal storage temperature around 45-50F. But it's not a huge concern; their storage lifetime is pretty long at room temperature. Unless you find them sprouting before you use them, there's not much to worry about!

* Note that I said wine cooler not wine cellar - in general the ones marketed as cellars are more expensive, but there are ones marketed as coolers that are back down closer to the minifridge price range. Rumtscho's additional suggestion of drink refrigerators is probably good too - though quickly searching, I didn't find ones that were any cheaper than the cheap wine coolers.


Will eggs absorb flavor from cooking liquid? Making scrambled eggs by boiling them seems all the rage these days. I tried it with mixed results; there seems to be a bit of a knack.

I’d like to know, if I use a liquid other than water, like stock or dashi, will the eggs absorb any of the flavor from the liquid?

I think it's pretty clear that eggs absorb flavors that they are soaked in. Just look at these pictures and decide for yourself. These are soy sauce eggs, but eggs can be soaked in anything and readily absorb that liquid and associated flavors. The brown color is not the shell but soy sauce:


How to make softer frozen whipped cream? I recently found out that a few decades ago frozen whipped cream was a thing and my mom liked it. It was similar to normal whipped cream only a bit harder frozen (but still softer than ice cream) and could last for ages in the freezer.

Now I tried to make some for her and it was good, however mine is always too hard while frozen compared to what she loved. When it warms up it is fine and personally I don't find it too hard but whatever.

The process I use is simple, mix cream (36%), some sugar and vanilla extract whip until done and either freeze in one piece or in smaller ones.

Any ideas how to make it softer while frozen and ideally hard when it thaws? I've thought about adding some milk (it's to late to buy one with less fat) to reduce the fat content or not whipping it as much. Do you think any would work and if so which would you recommend?

My advice is to use inverted sugar

Inverted sugar helps to avoid crystallization and the frozen cream will be substantially smoother.


How to add maple and brown sugar to cream of wheat I'm a total novice to good cooking. I was wondering how to add my own maple and brown sugar to regular cream of wheat. I live in Canada and cannot get the full box of maple and brown sugar c.o.w. and have to buy the variety box where you  get packets and only 2 are maple and brown sugar! So I thought why not make my own. And now for the questions. How much maple and brown sugar per serving? Do I add during cooking or after? Do I use maple extract, maple flavoring, or maple syrup? Should I just drive to the states and buy a box? Ha. Thanx.

Just sprinkle the brown sugar and drizzle maple syrup on the cooked cereal. It's better that way than the flavored packets anyway. Start with a little of each and add more until it is as flavored as you want it. No need to mix it in, that it is a bit separate from the cereal is nice. BTW, peanut butter is good that way too, in addition to one or both of the other ingredients you mention.


Should I flip a roasting chicken in lieu of having a rotisserie? I don't have a rotisserie, but would love to impart some of the flavor that seems to come with rotisserie cooking.  The rotisserie chickens I've had were significantly juicier and more flavorful than the roasted chickens I've had in the past - plus the skin seems to be much crispier all the way around.

I feel that besides the crispier skin, one of the benefits of using a rotisserie is that the filling (herbs, garlic, etc - but specifically liquids like lemon) will coat the entire inside while the bird rotates, instead of just "sitting still at the bottom" during roasting.

Will flipping the chicken during roasting help with a more even crispy skin?
Will flipping the chicken affect/enhance the flavoring that comes from what I put inside the chicken?
If I should flip it, how often?

I should add that the chicken won't be sitting in liquid, I use a modified version of this recipe, which may make a difference when answering.

I am aware of this question about rotisserie beef, which is about why a rotisserie is better, but does not seem to address how one can get closer to a rotisserie style chicken in the oven.  Tim's answer is related, but assumes the chicken is sitting in liquid, and mine will not be.

There are two general approaches to making chicken juicy in the oven. The first is to cook a short time at a high temperature. For example, Barbara Kafka's recipe for roast chicken
calls for cooking the chicken at 500 degrees F for less than an hour.

The second option is to cook at a low temperature for a very long time. This recipe calls for cooking for an hour at 250 degrees F, with a high heat sear at the beginning and end of the time. Even more extreme is this recipe, which cooks at 140 degrees F for 4-6 hours. However, low heat will not give the yummy crisp skin.

Neither of these requires flipping the chicken.

However, if you really want the crispiness of the skin, flipping is the way to go. Two recipes from Cooks Illustrated (one and two) both call for high heat and a couple of flips. (As does Barbara Kafka's recipe for cut-up chicken, which I make all the time. Season the chicken, and put in a 500 degree F oven for 10 minutes, flip, 10 more minutes, flip, and 10 or more minutes or until the skin is crispy.)

If you want to go with the classics, Julia Child's recipe for roast chicken from also calls for turning the chicken onto different sides. She also bastes frequently, although the above recipes don't call for it.


How to change a vanilla cake recipe to make a chocolate cake? I've seen this question about how to alter a chocolate cake recipe to make a plain cake, my question is the other way around, how to alter a vanilla cake recipe to make a chocolate cake? I read in a website that replacing 1/2 cup of flour with cocoa powder would do, is that right? I'd like to know a formula to use for every recipe but in case that is not possible and depends on the recipe one is using, here is the recipe for my vanilla cake:

  4 eggs
  1 and 1/2 cups sugar
  1 cup oil
  1 cup buttermilk
  2 and 1/2 cups flour
  2 and 1/2 tsp baking powder
  1 tsp baking soda
  1 tsp vanilla powder

I did this as an experiment last month, because I wanted a marble cake. The part that I wanted chocolate, I just swapped out a half-cup of the flour for cocoa. I should note, however, that while it tasted great, it made a denser, slightly drier cake than did the white cake batter. Next time, I plan to add a couple of teaspoons of grapeseed oil and some extra baking powder to counteract that problem.


Cooking and storing rice for a whole week I work long hours and my commute to work is about 2 hours long, when I get home, I basically grab a bite to eat and sleep.

Recently though I have learned to cook a big portion of a meal to last me through the whole week. This way I can eat healthy instead of going to Chicken Zone (my local fried chicken shop).

I have a couple questions with regards to Rice:

How do you cook it perfectly (each and everytime) so that its softness is 'just right' and each grain is not stuck to the other? I use a Gas Cooker/Oven and my rice is Tilda Basmati.
How can I safely store it in the fridge to last a week?

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Don't put it in the fridge, that makes rice hard. Pack it in individual servings (sandwich or snack sized zipper bags are great for this) and put them in the freezer. When you reheat the rice (microwave or boil in the bag), the rice will be almost as good as freshly made.

See: Safe to wash rice the night before and leave overnight before cooking?

And: Rice gets burnt and watery - Basmati is just the same (should usually be rinsed though).


How can I make whipped cream if I can't always get cream? I sometimes want to make whipped cream for dessert, but can't get cream in the market. What can I do in that case?

One possibility: I did find that there is a quick way to do it by mixing a commercial powder called Dream Whip and milk. What are the actual ingredients of Dream Whip? I suspect that it mainly contains some foaming agents like corn starch or gelatin, but I couldn't find a recipe as an alternative to commercial Dream Whip powder. Can I make that at home?

Cream does last quite a while in the fridge, especially before it's opened - it has a pretty high fat content. So you may be able to buy it when you can, and still have it around when you want it.

Failing that, honestly, I think that anything you can do with milk and additives is probably not going to be nearly as good as actual whipped cream, so you might as well fall back to another substitute: aerosol whipped cream. If you get a decent one that's actually made with cream (not milk and oil and stabilizers, like your Dream Whip) it'll probably still taste better. And I'm pretty sure it lasts a really long time (months?) in the fridge even once opened. (But I don't have any to check for sure.)

As for actually making Dream Whip: as mentioned in several comments, it has a lot of ingredients that'll be way harder to find than cream. Sure, they're probably shelf-stable and you could probably buy them online, but it'll be a lot of trouble, and it might well be more expensive than just buying the Dream Whip itself. It's possible that there's a more home-ingredients version (I'm no industrial food authority), but unless you have some more restrictions I don't know about, I'd still prefer the other alternatives I suggested.


Coconut Cookies have bitter underlying taste so I made these coconut cookies for the first time and everything tastes fine except for this added unflattering bitter aftertaste. The taste wasn't pungent but it did make the cookies not enjoyable to eat. The cookies also came out very flat even though it contained baking soda and I chilled the dough. I don't have proper dry measuring cups, so I didn't use any for the cookies. I also used an actual spoon to measure a teaspoon, would this make an actual difference in anything? I also think I might've used a little too much vanilla. What do you guys think could be the problem?
Recipe: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/9589/chewy-coconut-cookies/

Ingredients

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut

Baking requires accurate measurements. In fact most people who bake seriously avoid volume measurements for anything but liquids, and use weight instead (with the exception of small quantities up to about a tablespoon, which affordable scales have only been able to measure accurately in recent years.

That said, there aren't any particularly bitter ingredients, except the baking soda, and you say the rise wasn't good. However baking soda needs to react with acid, and a shortage of acid would lead to both a poor rise and a bitter flavour. Coconut and butter are both slightly acidic, and even poor mixing  of the soda and acid can cause bitterness and a poor rise


How to use and store galangal? I keep a whole hand of ginger in the freezer, not even wrapped. I microplane it into whatever I'm making and it works great. Is it OK to treat galangal the same way?

If I use it in recipes that call for ginger, is it a one to one substitution? Is there any way I should treat it differently from ginger?

Galangal should keep equally as well in your freezer as ginger does. Some Asian markets even sell frozen galangal. However, galangal is usually harder than ginger so I'm not sure if your microplane will handle it.

Regarding substitution, one to one is correct. Keep in mind though that galangal has a different flavor than ginger. Whenever I use galangal I am specifically looking for that different flavor rather than the flavor I get from ginger.

I have seen several cooking shows that basically said that the flavors were pretty much the same. Based on my experience, I disagree and treat them as two different ingredients.

Hope this helps. I would be interested in your feedback as to your use and what you think about the flavor.


Ingredients of Root Beer I want to make root beer, what are the ingredients required to produce that signature flavor?

The primary ingredient in the root beer flavor is traditionally sassafras root. However, modern root beer uses artificial sassafras flavoring because the US FDA banned safrole, the oil from sassafras root. It is considered a weak carcinogen as well as a List I chemical by the DEA (used in the manufacture of illicit substances).

Beyond sassafras the ingredients vary widely and drastically between manufacturers. The most common include vanilla, wintergreen, cherry/spruce bark, licorice, anise, and many more. A more complete list of root beer ingredients can be found on the wikipedia page.

If you're looking to make your own, I suggest finding a recipe and following it. Given the vast array of ingredients present, you'll have to do a ton of experimentation to stumble upon a suitable flavor without a recipe.


What features should a food processor have in order to make nut butters? I'm looking for a food processor that I can make nut butters (peanut & almond) in.  No reviews on Amazon show any promising information about being able to blend nuts to a buttery texture and the ones I've bought so far have just ground them up into dust.

Are some food processors better than others for making nut butters?  If so, what makes them better?  How can I choose the best one for this task?

Resurrecting this thread in case people end up searching for it.

The only requirement for which food processor is that the motor is powerful.  Underpowered will tax the motor too much. If the FP says that you can knead bread dough in it, it almost certainly will be fine.  Run long enough with a cutting blade, and you will get a smooth butter.

Blenders mainly have powerful enough motors, but they are not shaped properly to get thick/pasty substances in contact with the blades.  My Vitamix would work for a cup of nuts, but more would be too annoying.

Top end Breville FP that I have will make smooth nut butters, with the caveat that some nuts (hazelnut. Walnut) always feel somewhat “pasty” in comparison to peanuts or cashews.  I don’t add additional oil, so perhaps if I did so the mouth feel would be better.


How do I use tamarind powder? If a recipe calls for tamarind pulp/paste/concentrate, can I substitute powder? If so, how much tamarind powder should I use?

I would like to point out that the block, pulp, paste and powder each impart different properties to anything you cook or prepare.

The blocks of tamarind pulp are the tamarind fruit pods stripped of the outer husk and compressed tightly together. It is full of fibers and seeds.

The pulp is usually a processed version of the block and should be relative free of fibers and seeds.

The paste is further refined and has been sifted and strained to remove the fibers and seeds.

From what I understand the powder is the dehydrated juice made from the process of compressing the block.

To prepare a container of pulp from a block; break up as much as you need and reconstitute it by covering it with boiled water. 15-20 minutes is sufficient to allow it to soften. Push a bit at a time through a fine meshed strainer. We find that a spatula or small scraper is really helpful for this step. You're essentially rubbing the fibers (and seeds) against the strainer to separate the pulp from the fibers. The pulp falls through and the fibers stay behind.

In the end, you should have a bowl full of soft tamarind paste that is about the consistency of apple sauce. This is now ready to be used and can be stirred directly into your dish.

Save the water that was used to soak the tamarind. You can use it in your cooking in place of some of the water or broth.

How does this paste you made from the block compare with the powder... It doesn't... It seem in my opinion to be a completely different taste. I would not use the powder to prepare pad-thai or a Malaysian curry as it rarely imparts the same punch as freshly prepared pulp.


What herbs and spices are in "Italian Seasoning"? I'm beginning to grow my own herbs and would like to put together something similar to the "Italian Seasoning" found in the grocery store spice section.  (It's an easy way to add more flavor to pasta sauce.)

Is there a commonly accepted list of ingredients and proportions, or does it vary between the spice companies?

I cannot +1 Peter V because of my poor reputation, but he is right: in Italian cooking you don't go for mix, what you look for is a balance between a few ingredients, normally one from different kind of foods: one cereal, one vegetable, one spice for example.

The main spice (or fresh herb) is parsley: it is so common that it is used in figurative language as well, think about a celebrity you see everywhere, just like parsley.

Fresh basil is a must for spaghetti sauce and freshness, as Peter V said, is the only option.

I never heard about red pepper in Italian cooking; I bought mine during a travel in Asia and use it for Asian food. Black pepper is for sauces and meat, white pepper for fish, normally.

Oregano, thyme, marjoram, are common, and they normally don't mix. Oregano is widely used on the top of some pizzas, especially when they have got anchovies, capers and/or olives on top.

Pizza margherita requires fresh basil.

Rosemary, bay leaf and sage are used commonly with meat or beans/lentils: in this case you often prepare a bouquet tying together some small branches from these three herbs with a cooking lace and let the bouquet rest in your preparation for some time.

You should probably add fennel seeds to the most-common-Italian-spices list.


How to set yogurt so that it doesn't get watery? The yogurt which I purchase from the market looks too perfect and intact. Is there some special trick which prevents the home made yogurt from getting watery?

Many of the commercial yoghurts use stabilizers like pectin to prevent the yoghurt from separating during transport.  All fruits naturally contain pectin (some more than others), so one option, if you are making your own yoghurt at home, is to add some fruit to it.  Here in the US, supermarkets carry small bags of dry pectin powder; if you can get some of that, you could try adding it to your yoghurt.

Another option is to initially heat your milk to 85°C for a half hour before cooling it and adding your yoghurt starter.  This heating serves two purposes: (1) it gets rid of some of the excess moisture through evaporation, and (2) the heating will denature (i.e., stretch out and relax) some of the milk's proteins.  Denatured proteins will be able retain more of the liquid that is in the final product.

Finally, you can add powdered milk to the mix (about 125ml of powdered milk per liter of milk).  Powdered milk is basically just milk protein, so the added protein will help contain some of the final liquid.


Why does Mexican food taste dissonant with balsamic vinegar? I assayed an attempt at hot sauce the other day by cooking 3 pounds of peppers (jalapeno and hungarian wax) in olive oil and balsamic vinegar for about three hours, then throwing them in a blender. The result is thick in consistency and tastes like very mild balsamic vinegar with added heat (as you might expect). It's not super hot, and the bitter "cooked-pepper" taste has all but vanished.

The original plan was to use it for tacos, but now that I've finished, the flavor just doesn't seem appropriate for use in Mexican food.

What are the flavor bases of Mexican/Tex-Mex cuisine, and why do they seem so dissonant when paired with balsamic vinegar?

As a follow-up, are there such things as known consonant flavor-pairs (bell peppers and onions?), and if so, does balsamic vinegar have any?

For reference, when I say "known", I mean widely accepted and agreed upon among the professional (or at least experienced) cooking community.

This is the same question, in essence as why any of these combinations are dissonant or unexpected:

Marina sauce on soba noodles
Cheese on Chinese stir fry
Haggis jambalaya

Every cuisine is a part of a culture, and there are cultural expectations for what is normal or not normal.

A deeper question would be how and why such cultural expectations develop.

Note that this is a speculation, but an informed anthropological speculation:

Every cuisine is associated with a geographic region, where certain agricultural products are prominent.   The people in the area, quite naturally, learned to cook with the resources they had available.  So it would be odd for a mountainous culture like Tibetans to have seafood dishes, just as it would be odd for the inhabitants of modern day Shanghai to have Yakk milk dishes.

Over time, the culture adapts and finds flavor combinations and techniques that are applicable to its resources (stir frying in china, for minimal fuel use, for example).  These traditions form the backbone of the cuisine, and are how we recognize what is or is not part of that cuisine.

This allows us to make an educated guess as to why balsamic vingegar seems odd in Mexican food.

Mexico has not historically been a land of the grape, so they do not have a wine making or vinegar making tradition.  Therefore, a product like balsamic vinegar is not a part of their tradition.

Balsamic is also well identified with the part of Italy now called Modena, where it would have evolved because grapes were available, and there was a wine making industry already.

Putting the two together confounds cultural expectations.

Nonetheless, there are many chef's who enjoy and practice combining foods and technique across cultural and cuisine boundaries, and thus we have the modern practice of fusion cuisine.


Flour vs cornstarch for keeping fresh uncooked pasta from sticking together I am planning on making my first batch of fresh pasta soon and have been researching all of the steps.

One of these steps is to dust a bit of flour on fresh pasta dough to make it easier to work with and to stop freshly cut noodles from sticking together when handling. In some cases I have seen people mention using cornstarch to dust their pasta instead.

What is the difference in using cornstarch vs flour to prevent fresh uncooked noodles and dough from sticking to each other? Is one better than the other?

Use bench (AP) flour for working with your dough. I will sometimes toss the freshly cut pasta with a bit of flour to keep it from sticking together, if my dough is too tacky.  I typically use semolina to keep the freshly cut pasta from sticking to the plate that I place it on. I never use cornstarch for pasta.  Your best bet is to roll into sheets.  Dust those sheets with a bit of flour.  Depending on the humidity level, I let them hang out on the counter for a bit to dry.  Flip over once, you'll get the sense of how much flour is necessary to keep the sheets from sticking to your counter or board. Try to use as little as possible.  The correct dough hydration is a bit tricky and will take some practice. After they air dry for about 10 minutes or so (this could be much shorter if it is very dry), cut your pasta.  Toss with a bit of flour, and place on semolina sprinkled plate or tray.  Once you fill the tray, freeze your fresh pasta (unless cooking immediately).  Then cook from frozen.  Go for it.  Even if you make mistakes, it is edible!  You will get better.


Does black interior of a cocotte/dutch oven such as Staub create problems with accidentally burning ingredients/fond? The Staub cocotte has a black interior (in contrast to the Le Creuset) as can be seen below. Does this black interior significantly increase the chances of accidentally burning the ingredients and especially the fond which forms at the bottom of the pan. The fond is dark brown in colour anyway so I am worried that it would be very difficult to discern if it's starting to get burnt and turn black against the black interior of the cocotte.

The color of the interior of a pan isn't going to effect how food cooks, but you are right that a dark pan does contrast differently from a light or metal pan. My own experience with pans of many types is that color doesn't make any difference in the end result, I can tell if onions are browning on a dark cast iron pan just as well as a light ceramic coated pan or steel pan.
If you are concerned about it just look at the food on the spoon as you sauté, the spoon is the same color no matter the pan you use.


Replacement for pop rocks? I'm a big Heston Blumenthal fan and I'd like to try one of his recipes, which requires pop rocks. The problem is that I live in Brazil and nobody seems to have heard about pop rocks and I really don't know where to get it. Any suggestions for a replacement?

The method to make them is patented, and involves highly pressurized C02. Doubtful, you'd be able to find a replacement product. Online store maybe? shrug

However, you could try making a cheap home-made subsitute. Don't think it'd be an exact duplicate, might suffice for your purposes?


How to determine amount of mother starter to use to build a levain for STIFF/dry sourdough starter? I have a healthy, active dry sourdough starter (50% hydration). Most of the recipes I want to use it in, ask for anywhere between 100 g, 150g and 200 g. How much of the starter would I have to use in order to prepare a levain of those quantities?

Well, in case anyone is interested, I managed (finally) to find an answer. Apparently, you don't dilute a stiff starter but just measure the required amount from the mother starter.


What is a substitute for Anaheim Peppers? I am making a dish that requires Anaheim Peppers.  They don't have them in my local store... what else can I use.

You need to substitute a mild pepper . . . be careful not to add something much hotter or you may change the whole concept of the dish . . . unless of course you are trying to kick up the heat a bit.

As suggested, a Poblano is the best substitute. Other names for Anaheim peppers are: California Green Chile; Long Green Pepper; and Chile Verde.


Can I replace sugar with honey in baking? Can I substitute honey for sugar in baked goods.If yes then how much honey would be equal to one cup of sugar?

Yes, it can be. The general rule of thumb is to use half the amount of honey as you would cane sugar, reduce the other liquids by 1/4 cup, and add one 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda for every cup of honey used. I've done this with a couple different muffin recipes and had them turn out fine.

I've also combined honey with sugar substitutes (1:4 ratio) to use in place of brown sugar when baking for my diabetic father. When I do this, I don't eliminate any other liquids as the sugar substitutes tend to dry out baked goods.


Do canned kidney beans contain Toxins? I'm attempting my first slow-cook today but, of course right after I started it, I read that there's some nasty chemical in uncooked kidney and cannellini beans that can cause vomiting. And apparently slow-cooking, even for eight hours, is not sufficient to deactivate it.

I'm confused as to whether this applies to just dried kidney beans, or if it is also true for canned beans one gets from a store (i.e. in water). Will these have been pre-cooked to remove this toxin?

If Wikipedia is to be trusted (and in this case, their source is the FDA), there is in fact a toxin in some raw beans, such as kidney beans.

  The toxic compound phytohaemagglutinin, a lectin, is present in many
  common bean varieties, but is especially concentrated in red kidney
  beans. White kidney beans contain about a third as much toxin as the
  red variety; broad beans (Vicia faba) contain 5 to 10% as much as red
  kidney beans.3

  Phytohaemagglutinin can be deactivated by boiling beans for ten
  minutes; the ten minutes at boiling point (100 °C (212 °F)) are
  sufficient to degrade the toxin, but not to cook the beans. For dry
  beans, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also recommends an
  initial soak of at least 5 hours in water, which should then be
  discarded.3

During the pressure-canning process beans undergo (they are fully cooked in the can), the toxin is certainly deactivated.  Canned beans are ready to eat, even cold, although they probably taste better hot, and with some flavor from a sauce or accompanying dish.

The danger would be in slow-cooking dry beans of this variety, which have never been previously cooked.


What could the dough of this cookie be made of? After repeatedly eating what I consider the most delicious cookie I have ever eaten, my wife soon became frustrated trying to replicate it. So I am reaching out to gather ideas. This is the cookie, from a pastry shop. The filling is some kind of soft nougat, but the mysterious part is the cookie itself.
Here are some thoughts:

We assume that ingredients include (shortbread): flour, butter, and sugar
We tried icing sugar but it became too sweet
We tried milk with unclear success (?)
We tried eggs (white, yolk) but the taste did not match and it became too soft
The surface is a bit sticky
The taste is sweet and salty, a bit toasted/burnt which makes it so special

Unfortunately, I was not able to take a picture of a full cookie, so here is it half-eaten, as I could not control myself.
What could the dough be made of?

This is quite a shot in the dark with the minimal information, but I will give it a try.
My best guess is that you already have all the ingredients you need: butter, sugar and flour. What you are missing is probably the ratio. The dark edge with the crisp texture and the nutty flavor is very likely sugar that has self-caramelized in melting butter (similar to the tuille somebody mentioned in comments). Also, the image shows that the cookie is "flowing" - it was not stamped out from a rolled short crust, for example, it was a ball which melted in the oven. And it melted enough that it became very thin, with the edges flowing out to become thinner than the center.
I would suggest that you don't continue trying random recipes, but find a recipe for a cookie of this kind and follow it. You are most likely to find these recipes as recipes for malleable cookies for making e.g. edible ice cream bowls. I don't have my books here, so I can't post the recipe I have (you can come tonight(CET) into chat, if you want) but you can just search for this type of recipe online. Even if you don't find the perfect match, it will probably be a better starting point than random trying.
If you insist on trying yourself though, or cannot find one of these recipes, I would suggest you modify a German shortbread ratio (3-2-1 flour-butter-sugar). Make sure you are using butter, not a margarine or other substitutes, these have different spreading behavior when melting. And then simply reduce the flour substantially, possibly also increase the sugar, and see where that takes you.


What is nattō supposed to taste like? I recently tried nattō on top of rice.  All I tasted was bitter.  I didn't get any nuttiness or saltiness.  The natto was also generously garnished with scallions, maybe that was a major bitter contributor.  What is nattō alone supposed to taste like?

Natto shouldn't be salty by itself, because salt kills the culture that grows on the soybeans. Salted soybeans are fermented into miso; unsalted ones become natto.

Normally, you'd season the natto with some combination of strong Japanese-style mustard, soy sauce, scallions or Japanese leeks, and maybe grated nagaimo if you want an even more mucilaginous texture.

The flavor of natto is fairly mild; the aroma is certainly stronger than the flavor itself, and is reminiscent of bleu cheese and sweat. I'd say it's slightly sweeter than a boiled white soybean would be, but it's possible than an objective measure of sugars might disagree with me there.

Soybeans are very mildly bitter on their own. Tempeh, a similar cultured soybean, tends to be slightly bitter, but I would say it's not a very pronounced trait, if at all present, with natto, as most of the bitterness seems to be removed by the fermentation.

Assuming you started with frozen natto that wasn't freezer burned that you allowed to reach room temperature, or fresh natto that wasn't excessively old, I would simply mix the natto aggressively in a small bowl for a few minutes until the mucilaginous strands form. Then season as desired.

If you're expecting a surprising flavor, by the way, you may be disappointed in nattō. Japanese cuisine emphasizes contrasting textures much more than aggressive flavors, which is to some extent why so many dishes are seasoned only with varying proportions of salt, soy sauce, sugar, sake and mirin, and vinegar (su).

But if you're experiencing an unusually bitter natto, that sounds like a problem with the natto that you purchased, rather than the ingredient itself.