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I've been watching Hell's Kitchen USA and they have Starters/Appetisers, Entrees and Desserts. In Australia, we have Entree, Mains and Desserts, so its very confusing what Starters and Entrees are and what is the difference. I found this on Taste.com.au, which makes it only more confusing: Whether you call them appetisers or entrees, starter recipes are incredibly important as they set the tone for the meal to come. Find a starter to suit all occasions in this mouthwatering collection. Can someone please explain their difference?

Entree in American English means main course, despite the original French meaning. This name is a sort of historical accident. Originally there were far more courses than just starters/appetizers, main course, and dessert. There have been a large variety of traditions, but a reasonably common meal structure was to have small appetizers (hors d'oeuvres), more substantial ones bordering on things you'd see as side dishes or half a main course now (entrées), then a large meat dish (plat principal, possibly). In North America the separate large meat dish disappeared from tradition over time, and effectively was folded into the entrées, and that name was retained for the main course. Similar things happened elsewhere, of course - most people don't have four course meals all the time - but the resulting name is essentially unique to American English. In the rest of the English speaking world, the original terms largely remained. This is mentioned in the first part of the Entrée article on Wikipedia.

As of late, I have found myself incredibly interested in perfecting a red sauce recipe. While I don't have the recipe in front of me, I know most of what I put in it off the top of my head. I would like to know if anyone has some tasty additions I could try, or substitutions I should make. Really, I am looking for any advice at all that would help me improve the taste of my sauce. Please note that I am going for a "lighter" tasting sauce, if that makes any sense at all. The ingredients are the following ones, as far as I remember: 3 tbsp Extra Virgin olive oil 3 cloves garlic (mashed) 1/4 cup white onion (chopped) 2 tsp oregano 4 tsp thyme 2 tsp basil 2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes 1/4 cup white whine 1 can crushed red tomatoes ** And possibly some others I can't remember right now. I would love to hear any of your tips!

I second @DHayes answer, although what I do is that I generally start with a base of onions, carrots and celery (which you can also precut & mix and keep in the freezer) which you mix with a little bit of extra virgin olive oil and you let brown a little bit. At this point you may add the tomatoes, a cup of water, forget about it... and let it cook for a while. You can add herbs at the end, fresh basil works very well, as does oregano. Then, depending on the recipe you may add chili, anchovies, garlic (all of which I would add before the tomatoes) etc. Adding a teaspoon of sugar is also good to counteract the acidity of the tomatoes. But, in summary, keep it simple.

My power went out for about 20 hours today, from 1am to 9pm. I'm wondering if the food in my refrigerator and freezer are spoiled. Here's some info: High temperature was about 100F outside, but only reached 90F inside. Fridge and freezer had no power the whole time, but I didn't open them at all while the power was out. The items I'd be concerned about: Fridge: Milk (opened), eggs, cheese (pre-packaged, but opened), bacon (opened) Freezer: sausage, ground beef Actually, the ground beef stayed frozen, but the sausages are now soft. Left to my own accord, I'm inclined not to throw anything out, but I figure I should check with the experts on this site first...

I had a similar issue just recently, where my apartment lost power for twelve hours before being restored. With the doors closed for the entire time, the temperature raised only a few degrees, even the milk had no difference in taste, with it only being cool as opposed to cold like usual. Like yourself, it was also at the peak of summer. Fridges are usually pretty well insulated (as they'd have to be, or else the motors would never stop running to keep cool during the peak of summer), so outside of the eggs, if it was never opened, I wouldn't be too concerned. I only put a caveat on eggs because as someone that cant' stand eggs, I never buy them, and hence have no knowledge of how susceptible to temperature changes they are. EDIT: Personal opinion. Do not take this as a green light to start making bacon omelettes with a big heaping glass of milk today.

I've got a Meringue recipe that calls for castor sugar. Is that different than powdered sugar?

Castor (caster) sugar is known as superfine, or bar sugar in the US. It's not the same as powdered sugar which is even finer, has been mechanically pulverized, and is often mixed with starch to prevent clumping. According to Ochef you can make it with regular granulated sugar in your food processor for two minutes, but let the sugar dust settle before opening. See Also: Translating cooking terms between US / UK / AU / CA

I have now a pile of chicken bones and I have heard they can be useful in making some food. How should I preserve them and where can I use them? Should I cut them into pieces and throw them into a new soup? What is their purpose in the soup? Flavor or something else? I am always looking for ways to cut my costs so any budget-cooking ideas welcomed! I will outline here ways how I can cut my costs with bones: According to Wikipedia, bones are a good source of calcium with acid boiling: A study determined that "prolonged cooking of a bone in soup increases the calcium content of the soup when cooked at an acidic, but not at a neutral pH". so putting some acid there (lemon juice or something else?) I can cut my milk costs, sounds great. more ideas like this? How should the internals be handled?

Notice how dogs enjoy gnawing on bones? Ever been to a restaurant where they serve bone marrow? Boiling bones in water draws flavor out of them. Most canned broth and stock you buy--beef stock, chicken stock, etc--is just this--water boiled with bones for hours. Most literature I've read suggests using raw bones, but some recipes call for roasted bones--the ones I've seen most often involve roasted veal bones. I've also made stock from roasted chicken bones. The stock does still take on flavor. It's easier to get good flavor from unused bones, though. Additionally, I've found another pitfall. I've tried to make stock from the leftover bones of bbq'd ribs. This was not a good idea. The broth had a savory flavor, as intended. Unfortunately it also had the background taste of bbq sauce. Now, when I do make stocks, I'd consider using leftover bones, but there have to be enough bones leftover (otherwise I get very little stock for my time or it's weak on flavor) the bones can't be "tainted" by other flavors (like bbq sauce) To answer your original question, try this: start with a pot of plain water put about 4 lb of bones in per gallon of water while it's still cold, add ~1 tsp of vinegar per gallon of water Once the water comes to a boil, lower the heat so that it's just simmering this keeps the stock from getting cloudy/white (which doesn't taste bad, just looks worse) leave boiling for about 6-8 hours, minimum. Longer is fine, but you won't get too much more at this point. turn off heat, allow stock to cool fully, strain it for the bones, refrigerate you can speed up this step by putting the pot in a sink full of cool water do NOT put a hot pot in your fridge. It will heat up the fridge significantly and just make the food in there go bad. Use this to make soups make sauces (reduce it first) as a substitute for water in savory dish preparations (i.e. make rice with stock instead of water. Be creative here) The main benefits here are flavor and nutrients, but I just do it for the flavor. Cutting bones up does improve the extraction process, but if the marrow is exposed already (most beef/veal bones will be) you're fine. If you save old bones, freeze them until you have enough. Don't bother trying to make stock with the bones from one chicken.

I made the mistake of making my neighbors these cookies peanut-butter-oatmeal-chocolate-chip-cookies. Every time I see either neighbor they thank me again for the wonderful cookies, "Oh they were So Good!" hint hint I'm breaking down and making them another batch tonight, but it got me thinking of a fun Christmas present for them. I'd like to give each of them a baking sheet, a cookie scoop, a roll of parchment paper, and a big batch of the cookie dough. Assuming the freshest possible eggs and butter, how long can I expect this dough to make tasty cookies if kept in the refrigerator? Freezing is an option too, but they're less likely to actually use it if they have to think ahead far enough to defrost it. (BTW, it is a great recipe.) The recipe is in the link, but just in case the link dies, the ingredients are: 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda ¼ teaspoon salt 1 stick (½ cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature ½ cup creamy peanut butter ½ cup granulated sugar 1/3 cup light brown sugar ½ teaspoon vanilla extract 1 egg ½ cup rolled oats 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips Substitution ideas that might lengthen refrigerator life are more than welcome.

Since those are drop cookies, the best approach is to portion them into individual cookie portions, and freeze them on a sheet tray. Once solidly frozen, they can be moved into a zip back or other more convenient storage container. They do not need to be thawed in order to bake, so they still are very convenient. Simply lay them out frozen on a tray, and bake. It will take a minute or two longer than the regular non-frozen time. It might be helpful to drop the temperature by 25 F or so, but it shouldn't really be necessary. The real issue with holding the dough is not just food safety (you should get 2-3 days given raw eggs as the most perishable ingredient); this doesn't give you a very large window. Eat By Date suggests 3-5 days. It is also the loss of leavening power as the baking powder may slowly react, although the dough should be thick enough that most gets retained.

I'm an avid crock pot-ter. My favorite recipe by far is my dad's famous chicken soup. It calls for bone-in chicken. I usually use drumsticks because that is what my dad uses, but I ALWAYS end up with a ton of little pieces of bone in my soup and it makes this amazing soup kind of disgusting. I'm wondering if I'm doing it wrong? I always get out the big bone, but those little ones are hard to find once the soup is made and everything is just falling off the bone. Is there a better cut of chicken that I can use to minimize the bones I have to fish out of it? I've tried it with boneless chicken and it isn't near as good.

I generally make chicken soup in two phases. Phase 1 is chicken stock, simmering (roasted) bones with aromatics for a long time (often, overnight), followed by straining. Phase 2 is chicken soup, combining the strained stock with chicken meat, vegetables, and other ingredients. Because the stock is strained, it has no bones, big or small. There can be vegetables in the stock as well, which will be cooked until they are mushy, giving up their flavor but no longer something you want to eat; they are also strained out. If you're using very meaty bones, or even whole birds, you can salvage the meat by picking it off the bones, and adding it to your soup (though most of the flavor will be cooked out of it.) The bones and the meat don't have to come from the same bird. You can take bones leftover from a roast chicken or other meal, and make stock out of that. You can even save the bones in the freezer, accumulating them from a number of projects, then make one big batch of stock. Freezing the stock means you'll have it on hand any time. Then you could make chicken soup by buying drumsticks (or whatever part you like), and removing the meat. That will turn into soup fairly quickly: it will take just half an hour or so to cook vegetables to the right point, and just a few minutes to incorporate the meat. The bones you removed can go into the freezer, and the process continues.

I have tried to do cakes many times and I frequently have the problem of my cake not having the bubbly structure I expect, but rather looking like a smooth mass on the inside. So far I have attributed this to user error, but after my mom also had the same problem I am starting to think if it may be the oven? What I have noticed is, that I have to frequently bake longer than the recipe suggests until the fork comes out dry. However, when using a thermometer the temperature seems to be generally OK in the oven, although it does seem to fluctuate a bit (+-5°C). This is what my last iteration looks like: What I expect is something like this, a structure with many bubbles:

This is a very vexing case, I douobt that anybody can tell from looking at your cake. So you will have to troubleshoot it yourself by first trying to bake a successful cake by following a traditional recipe and using best practices, and then, if that cake works well, start changing it back towards your preferred recipe one-by-one and seeing what makes the difference. For the test cake, you should bake a very standard recipe that has the best chances of rising well - I'd say that's a pound cake. So, use following factors: 200 g eggs (4 whole eggs), 200 g white all purpose flour, 200 g sugar, 200 g cow-milk butter, 10 g baking powder (not baking soda!). Do not make any replacements here, and don't add other ingredients (flavors, etc.) make sure the ingredients are all room temperature, and have gotten there slowly. Just leave them overnight, no "Oh I forgot the butter in the fridge, I'll give it 15 seconds in the microwave". use the creaming method. Cream the butter and the sugar together until you see an obvious change in color and volume (can take 10+ minutes), then add the eggs and beat well, only then add the flour and baking powder. Use freshly bought baking powder sift the flour bake in a 175 C oven for as long as it takes to pass the skewer test. If that works, as I said above, you will have to slowly change the ingredients back to your preferred recipe and see when the change happens. If it isn't work even for that, there is some hidden factor that is very difficult to guess at. You will probably have to ask a good baker to bake together with you and either show you how they bake, or have them watch how you bake, and see if that person can spot the problem. You can also have them bake in your kitchen and with your oven, to see if they get the same trouble - but if you measured your oven's temperature, there isn't much that can be going wrong there.

I have some bread that should still be good for few days that now smells like vinegar. There is no mold, ect. on it that makes it look bad. It is store bought whole grain bread with some oatmeal, if that matters. Personally, I've never known bread to smell like vinegar, even when it has gone bad. So what would cause it?

I also emailed KAF my question. They think ferment time is culprit. I will have to give it a try. Could it also maybe be combo of time + yeast? Bread is still tasty; I am still experimenting. stephen Here is reply from KAF: Hello Stephen, Thank you for contacting us here at King Arthur Flour. The vinegar-ish smell you describe is from the acids of your fermented dough. If it bothers you, you might try fermenting your dough in a slightly cooler room, or for a shorter time. This should help. Please let us know if we can be of further assistance or if you have additional questions. If you need immediate assistance, feel free to contact us directly at 800-827-6836. Thank you again and have a great day! Sincerely, Jaydl King Arthur Flour 800-827-6836

I plan to sous vide lamb chops, which is going to take 3 hours. Since I have to work, it will be too late for dinner if I start cooking after work. Can I sous vide it for 2 hours the night before, put it in the fridge, and continue cooking for another hour the following day? Do I need more time on the following day as the temperature of the meat is lowered in the fridge?

No, you will need to cook it for the proper length of time all at once. Sous Vide heats the food very slowly and depending on the density and thickness of the food, it can take quite a while for the center to come up to the finish temperature. Additionally, this temperature is usually lower than the temperature applied in other methods of cooking so it kills bacteria and parasites more slowly than high-temp cooking. For proteins, an extended cook time is needed to get the center up to temp. Additionally, because the temp is lower, more time is needed at that temp to kill off any bacteria or parasites. By not heating for the entire time at once, you risk never bringing the center up to temperature! It might be undercooked or worse, it might be dangerous. Note: Some fatty proteins are cooked at a higher temperature for longer periods of time to also break down collagen and connective tissue. Not cooking them all-at-once will similarly not have the desired effect on the collagen and connective tissue. Another Note: Some might wonder how anyone ever cooked and served a rare roast beef in the past if a long exposure to lower temp is needed to make the roast safe in the center. The answer is that contamination of beef with parasites is not common and even though beef does contain bacteria, the bacteria exists near the surface of the meat. The density of the meat makes it difficult for the bacteria to spread to the interior parts. This keeps the center perfectly safe to eat raw if you could somehow cut off the surface without inadvertently contaminating the center with bacteria from the knife. SOLUTION One solution is to cook the protein completely on a day when you do have the time. You can leave the lamb chop still in the vacuum bag in the fridge for a day-or-two and then drop it back into the water bath at the same temp on the day that you want to serve it. Because you have already killed all the bad stuff and it has remained sealed, all you need to do is get the center up to temp and it will be ready for the final searing step or serving. That solution is not perfect however. Empirically I have observed that when using this method some meats will dry out quickly on your plate after slicing. It must be something with the proteins or cell structure so that it releases all of its water quickly after being sliced. I've mostly experienced this with leaner meats like beef chuck steaks. I haven't tried it on lamb chops, but they are similar in leanness to a chuck steak.

It is better to roast a rolled beef roast from room temperature? Or is it advisable to roast it straight from the fridge?

It won't make a huge difference, and excellent chefs disagree on the subject (assuming you're only thinking of leaving the meat out for an hour or so, which actually wouldn't bring it to room temp, just slightly warmer than fridge temp). If you are serving people who prefer different levels of doneness, you can take the cold roast from the fridge and put it into a very hot oven, then immediately turn the oven temperature down to the temp you want for roasting. That will give the greatest variance in doneness of individual servings. A slightly warmer roast to start and a consistent roasting temperature (particularly a temperature on the low side) will more evenly cook the roast. Don't forget to rest the meat before slicing! And don't forget, how much will depend upon the size of the roast, but its temperature will rise upon resting.

I am camping over the weekend in Idaho. Plan on catching primarily trout. Will keep the fish fresh and alive until dinner time. A camp fire will be maintained through out the day to ensure hot embers to cook on. Ingredients and utensils I will have: • box of kosher salt • an abundant amount of tin foil • tongs • a half sheet pan • clean towels • lemons • fresh herbs from garden; thyme and sage. • butter • garlic I plan on cooking the fish wrapped in foil after cleaned, salted and stuffed with condiments stated above. What else should I bring? Other techniques on camp fire cooking? Will be out there for two days, so a salt cure? My time spent is fishing and cooking so plenty of time to play around and get technically with my preparation.

As you will have the freshest fish possible and only limited equipment and ingredients in your camp, why not choose a preparation that is in its simplicity highlighting the fish, needs almost no equipment and creates no trash: Plank cooking, also known as Loimulohi. The cleaned fish, filleted or butterflied, is nailed on a wooden plank, either with ordinary nails or wooden pegs. Then the whole board is either stood up vertically around a (blazing) fire, leaned forward towards the fire or placed over the embers, depending on your preferences. You can use basically every untreated, non-poisonous wood, in the Pacific North West, cedar is traditionally used because of the aroma it imparts.

I would like to cook finger food for my one year old. I am looking for a recipe for a soft cake-- something like a loose cheesecake or set custard in terms of consistency. I did make a bread pudding serving the middle portion to him, but I would like to avoid using so much bread or flour. I would adapt the recipe to accommodate savory vegetables or do a low sugar, or no sugar, option when using it for fruits. Anyone know the name of a bread/cake/tart that would come close to what I am after?

You cannot simply leave out the sugar in a cake or pudding recipe, as it is quite important for the setting and the final texture. If you are looking for something which is made out of custard, has vegetables, and can be held in the fingers, you are describing a quiche. It can be made as mini-quiches too, for less messy eating.

I've read a lot of tips on storing lettuce in the fridge, with paper towels, after washing and drying, and such. The way I've been keeping lettuce for a while now, is by filling a small plastic container with water, placing the leaves in it submerged, and then closing the container and placing it full of water in the fridge. It seems to keep the lettuce from rotting longer than usual (though it may harm crispiness, but that matters less to me). Is this safe? Is there any reason not do store it like that?

I don't see any reason for it to be unsafe. However, I think you are wrong in assuming it will keep longer. I keep my lettuce in a closed container with water on the bottom, then a trivet, then the lettuce on the trivet, raised above the trivet, and the whole thing in the fridge. It keeps that way for weeks, not getting yellow, and not wilting too much. If a leaf falls into the water, or the water is so high that the bottom of the lettuce touches the water, these parts rot within 2-3 days, not unlike how the leaves of flowers rot soon if submerged in the vase while the leaves and blossoms above the water level keep well. So, I don't see why you would place the leaves in water on purpose. Since the rot is easily perceivable, I would say it's safe (you won't eat it once it turns bad), but it is not really a good storage strategy.

As there are different kinds of salts which contain different minerals, is there a kind of salt that is better to use when baking? Does the kind of salt depend on what I am baking?

Salt that is used for food consumption is always meant to be sodium chloride (and may or may not contain other things such as iodine). Other "salts" (to use the term in the chemistry sense) such as potassium chloride are not generally used by themselves for human consumption or specified in food preparation, even though they are potentially safe to eat. Sea salt is still 85% sodium chloride but because it has additional chemicals/elements/compounds in it, does have a different taste. For best results when baking, use plain table salt, sodium chloride, with or without iodine (which is added to provide a necessary nutrient for those not living near a salt-water source of fish or not eating enough salt-water fish). Note from the link that sea salt does not contain enough iodine to supply a nutritionally adequate amount.

I have a De Longhi Espresso machine that takes ground coffee. When I use normal coffee (for example with Illy Classico), the coffee is foamy and generally very good.  When I do exactly the same thing with decaffeinated coffee (for example Illy Dek), the coffee comes out watery and actually quite bad, with the filter getting almost blocked and steam coming out of the side. With decaf, the coffee seems to block the water, making the flow very slow. I tried to vary the quantity and compactness of coffee in the handle to no avail. I also tried to descale the machine, but the decaf remains watery and undrinkable. Is there anything I'm missing? Why is decaf behaving so differently?

While I start mine on the stovetop, it mainly cooks in the oven. That might help.

I ordered some sushi grade steaks online. They came frozen, as they were shipped with dry ice to keep them nice and cold. Frozen, I cut them into pieces and put them back in the freezer, taking out one chunk at a time and thawing in the fridge. Sushi grade steaks do not need to be cooked, since they are kept frozen at temperatures where parasites cannot survive so there is no concern of the meats contaminating anything. Once thawed, how long do I have to keep them in the fridge until they pose a health risk? Since this might depend on the type of fish, I will leave the question open to all fish types. However FYI I ordered yellow fin tuna (Ahi), yellowtail tuna (Hamachi), and salmon (Sake). Also Capelin roe (Masago), and salmon roe (Ikura).

I have always made sure that I only defrost enough to meet the needs of the moment for sushi. If you cut the blocks into 4 to 8 rolls worth, they should defrost under running water in just fifteen to twenty minutes, just about the time it takes me to do a batch of sushi rice. That said, fish once defrosted will start to lose flavor immediately but will remain edible for 2 days. Once it starts to smell, get rid of it immediately, and I would play it very safe on that "starts to smell" the faintest whiff should be enough to send it to the bin.

I found an old family recipe for a big size sponge cake. Are these measures correct? 10 eggs 6 heaped tablespoons of flour 3 heaped tablespoons of corn starch 10 heaped tablespoons of granulated sugar 1/2 heaped tablespoon of baking powder The recipe uses the separated eggs method.

Different types of cakes are recognizable by their ratios. Recognizing the ratio of your recipe is very hard, because it is given in nonstandard volumetric measurements. In fact, the use of "flour" (without differentiation of the type) together with cornstarch, and the formulation "heaped tablespoon" suggests that this is a continental European recipe, where tablespoons are not a normed measure from a standardized measuring system. Your relatives probably used whichever spoon they had in the cupboard to measure the flour and sugar. Still, unless they had some giant sized spoons, the cake is quite heavy on the eggs. A standardish sponge would be around 1:1 eggs to flour by weight, while my conversions give me less than 200 g flour and about 500 g egg for even generously heaped tablespoons. Home laid eggs would have been smaller, but not half of today's ones. Also, the lack of fat is suspicious. In comparison to standard Western cake recipe categories, it is closest to a genoise. The second best match is angel food cake, but the use of baking powder and the high egg ratio is quite off for it. The unusual thing is that it uses baking powder, since both a traditional genoise and a traditional angel food cake are purely egg leavened. It is likely to be a home baker's addition to a more traditional recipe, either because of a misunderstanding (some people don't realize that you can make cakes without chemical leaveners) or because they had difficulty to get it rise without it and added it to get a rise. If you are asking whether you should try it: you can, or you can try a different genoise recipe from somewhere else. The advantage of using a modern source is the reproducibility and better testing - when you heap your own spoons, you will likely end up using a very different amount of flour than whatever your relative used. Also, if you have never made a genoise before, it's a more difficult recipe than typical sponges. It is very sensitive to the proper ratio, proper duration of mixing, and proper baking time and temperature, and people usually need a few practice tries until they master it. It's not rocket science, more like throwing darts - invest your time and it's learnable, just don't expect perfect results the first time round. The learning curve is another reason why I would suggest looking around for a different source for a genoise recipe. If you make this one and it goes well, great. If it doesn't, you won't be able to troubleshoot it well until you have learned how it's supposed to work, which is best learned with a tested recipe with good instructions, not a grandparent's notes to a process she knew by heart. Still, the recipe does have a chance of working, it's not a totally unusual one. If you really insist, you can try making it. Just set your expectations properly and don't be disappointed if it isn't an instant success.

I made the mistake of putting all of the chopped onion in my macaroni salad before testing it. Now the onion taste overwhelms all the other ingredients. Any easy way to tame down the onion taste?

If it goes well with the other ingredients of your salad, you can add some mint of fresh parsley, it will balance a bit the strong onion taste.

Saw this at a flea market with other kitchen tools and do not know what it is. The end of the tool that is pictured is attached to a wooden handle, not a gear or some other mechanical attachment. Update: I'm still Google searching periodically. Other ideas include parts for a cookie/pasta press. This is what the handle looks like: (source: bullbbq.com) I think I'm on a lead with these grill scrapers.

I'm fairly confident that the tool is in fact a grill scraper. The handle matches the wooden one shown below. I can't think of any other explanation for the one indent on the tool that is like a hook. You ban see it matches the one in the two metal scrapers. The idea behind the design is to scrape both sides of the grill rung at the same time.

I have been wanting to try a nice red wine with fish and I'm not a huge fan of white. Recently I have been drinking Pinot Noir. But I'm looking for one more suited for fish (I know this isn't traditional)

Pinot noir is generally made as a light bodied red wine, and in many cases, tends to have enough acidity to make it a wonderful pairing with lots of different kinds of foods. (Barberas from Italy are similar). Knowing that red wine is not a traditional pairing for fish, I would go ahead and see if you like Pinot Noir with whatever fish you like. Dry rosé (there are some lovely French, Spanish, and Italian dry rosés) is also a nice choice, as they are generally light, easy to drink wines. Remember, what YOU like is the right wine for whatever you're eating, no matter what the experts say.

Would this be weird? The bread says it has garlic but that's the only "Italian" ingredient I see.

French Toast is just French toast because you are soaking it in egg and pan or griddle frying it. You can use white sandwich bread, Italian loaf, French baquette, wheat bread what ever. I think we evolved to this in the French toast category. I don't think the garlic would taste good with the sweet syrup. So yeah Weird. Personal taste though. If its not an overwhelming taste of garlic it should be fine.

I frequently see buffalo chicken dip showing up at parties. The idea of it sounds pretty good, but more often it ends up all separated with pools of grease like this: (Source: browneyedbaker.com) What could be done to stabilize the dip so it remains creamy and unseparated. I had the idea of adding egg yolk, but I suppose you'd have to at least be careful with it to prevent the egg from curdling.

I would suggest making this on the stove top, or in the microwave, instead of in the oven. What is happening is that the oil from the cheese separates from the rest of the dish. If you are using bottled salad dressing and cream cheese, there is already many thickeners/stabilizers in those. (Xanthan Gum, Guar Gum, Carob/Locust Bean gum) I suggest that you slowly melt the cheese, along with the cream cheese & salad dressing on low heat. An immersion blender would help to make sure the lumps are gone, after adding the hot sauce, but before you add the chicken (as long as you want to have the chicken texture). From my experience, the oily separation with the cheese is caused by it over cooking. If you aren't a cheese snob (I am), you could substitute Velveta cheese for the cheddar/jack cheese. Do you remember their commercials with the oily gooey messes with cheddar vs Velveta? It is the same principle at work here.

I mean the flat but thick bread you get at turkish restaurants. I've tried it twice now, with two difference recipes, and each time it's come out hard and crunchy, more like a thick pizza crust. Seriously, two separate recipes? Obviously I'm doing something wrong but I don't know what. Can someone who knows how to do this ask me some questions about what I did to try and help me find out what I did wrong? Edit: I can't find the first recipe I tried, but this was the second: http://mediterraneanturkishfoodpassion.blogspot.com/2009/05/turkish-flat-bread-pide-ekmegi.html Also: I used unbleached enriched flour from the bulk section of the health food store, if that makes a difference.

Secret to good turkish bread. Do not fully develop dough during mixing. High hydration 60-70% Long rest with gentle stretch and fold sequence. Brush with egg wash just before baking or spray with water until moist. Seeds are optional but nigella seed is what gives the distinctive flavor. Bake at 250deg c for 7-9 mins if you want soft crust; 13-15 mins 220deg C for a harder crust. Tips Only mix until just past half of kneading stage the rest of development takes place during fermentation. Handling of dough is crucial. Must be gentle to avoid knocking all the gas out of the dough. Gas bubble formation short mixing high hydration and high temp baking are responsible for internal structure. Add a cup of water to hot oven just before placing dough in oven. This creates a moist baking atmosphere to ensure maximum volume and a thin crust. You can also brush with oil. Plain or flavored upon removal from oven.

I am a bbq rookie and learning to cook various kinds of meat on the grill. I usually cook chicken, lamb, pork, beef and fish. However, I am struggling to get any of the meats I cook to be well-cooked yet juicy. What are the factors that influence juiciness of meat on a bbq? What are the noobie gotchas when it comes to this?

Common noob mistakes: Cooking things too long. Meat dries out when it's cooked to too high an internal temperature. That's the whole thing, and it's true no matter how you cook something. If you like your meat to be completely devoid of pink inside, it will be dry. No avoiding it. Find out what's a good temperature for the doneness you desire, and use an instant-read thermometer to find out when you get there. You will also find that some cuts of meat want more cooking than others. A skirt steak wants hardly any cooking because it dries out easily. A New York strip, with good fat marbling, can withstand more cooking because it has that nice fat to keep things moist. Cooking with too much heat or too little. When the heat's too high, you burn the outside before the middle can get to the temperature you want. If it's too low, you never really get a good sear on the outside, and miss out on much of the grilled food experience. And you'll need to learn to tailor your heat to the needs of what you're cooking--fish typically needs less than chicken, which needs less than beef or lamb. Putting the meat on too early. You need to wait for the charcoal to ash over and stop flaming. If you don't wait for the coals to get right, you run a much greater risk of flare-ups and scorched food, not to mention off flavors from unburned wood or fillers in your charcoal. This is a non-issue with gas grills. Not preheating the grate. You need to put the grill grate over the coals as soon as you can so it preheats well. If your grate isn't preheated, you won't get grill marks, and your meat is more likely to stick. You need to do this if you have a gas grill too--maybe more so, since they typically don't get as hot. I'd recommend that you find a basic book about grilling. Any of Steven Raichlen's books will give you the general tips on how to do things. I'm not wild about his overuse of rubs and sauces--I think they're totally unnecessary most of the time--but he does know his way around a fire and a grill grate. However, if you want your meat well-done, be prepared to eat a lot of dry (and likely tough) meat. Your only option at that point is to switch to low-and-slow techniques that cook things like pork shoulder for a really long time at a low temperature (traditional barbecue). The meat gets fully cooked, but because it has a lot of fat and connective tissue to render, retains a moist mouthfeel. But this isn't grilling, per se, and takes many hours.

While researching about pressure cookers, I found a comment in a review that says: As with all aluminum pressure cookers, the metal will react with some foods and can overheat if you are not careful [...] This is news to me. Further research seems to mention only a couple of salient points: Aluminium is very reactive in general Acidic foods may react in a pressure cooker Since I don't see myself puting lemons or tomatoes in a pressure cooker, I'm really at a loss as to why this could be an issue. What foods commonly react in an aluminium pressure cooker, and what do I do about it?

Aluminum isn't exactly toxic or harmful to the same degree as lead, but it's not exactly good for you either. And as you've identified, aluminum is fairly reactive. Higher acidity, salinity, and cooking time will all contribute to further reaction and absorption in any aluminum cooking vessel (or utensils for that matter). This is an issue for three primary reasons: Absorption of aluminum is, as noted above, not necessarily healthy. Absorption of aluminum can result in a metallic flavor in your food, which is generally unpleasant. Absorption of aluminum into your food also corrodes the cooking vessel. That third is probably of the most concern here, since you're talking about a vessel that's under pressure when in use. Sufficient corrosion and the resulting structural weakness could (in very rare cases) cause a rupture and sudden pressure release, i.e. hot stew explosion. This would take a long while to occur, and you'd almost certainly notice the corrosion on the inside of your vessel before it became truly dangerous, but this type of problem is exactly why modern pressure cookers have such fancy pressure-sensitive locks and come with warnings all over them. They can pop if abused, and they do this in your kitchen, possibly while you're nearby. So, extended cooking of certain acidic items (what if you wanted to make, say, tomato sauce in your pressure cooker?) could be dangerous with long-term use, hence the warning. Such foods will also contain more aluminum than they would otherwise, and taste like it as a result. Here's a thread with information on the general pH levels of common foods, which may help you identify specific items of concern. Another good way to avoid this is to select a stainless steel model instead of aluminum. Stainless is more expensive and doesn't heat up as quickly, but it's not as reactive as aluminum either, so there's less concern when cooking acidic ingredients over a long period. Here is a decent buying guide with comparison of features and some more specific recommendations.

My favorite yeast bread dough yields more rolls then my family can eat. I usually freeze it in quart-size Ziploc freezer bags. When I'm ready to bake a few rolls, I take a bag out, let it defrost enough to shape the rolls, let them rise, and bake them. Sometimes this worked really well, yielding delicious fresh fluffy rolls. Other times it flops into a sticky flatbread that doesn't bake through. I'm not sure why sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Is it a problem with the yeast? The defrosting process? The storage?

I've had better luck freezing bread dough before it rises, or at least right after punching it down. At normal household freezer temperatures, the yeast may keep growing very slowly. If you freeze the already-risen bread, you risk getting a yeasty-tasting flat pancake :-). And of course you're right to look at the defrosting process too. If you try to push this too fast, you could end up killing the yeast entirely.

I recently discovered I have mice or rats in my garage, where I had some stuff stored for space purposes, including a barely-used newly-seasoned frying pan. I found a bunch of rodent droppings in it (blegh), and I scrubbed it hard, twice, with soap and hot water, and washed it out. I also re-seasoned it (stove-top method, not oven method, where the oil smokes and burns) since the seasoning was not that well done. I thought the soap/water/scrub would damage it, but I didn't see any visible deterioration of seasoning. I have young children (two under 5 years old), and I'm not a food safety expert. Is this enough, or do I need to do something more to guarantee the sanity of my cast iron pan? Edit: After doing some reading, I've found a few things to verify: Bleach dissolved in water, soaked for ~5 minutes, will kill everything rodent-specific. But what will that do to my cast iron? Droppings themselves are easily discarded, if not green (from poison) Rodent urine (which will exist anywhere droppings exist) will soak into the seasoning, even if it's sterilized now. Baking it in the oven for a couple of hours is probably a safe way to sterilize it. 350F seems okay. Is it high enough? Based on all this information, I think the best approach would be to strip down and re-season the pan from scratch. That'll remove anything soaked into the existing seasoning, and it'll sterilize the surface.

If it's cast iron, and you're really paranoid about it, just stick it in the oven, run a clean cycle, then re-season. Cast iron can withstand stupidly large amounts of heat: in traditional Chinese cookery, woks are cleaned by building a big fire, and throwing them in...When the fire burns out, you dig out your wok, re-season, and you're back in business. If it's stainless, just stick it in the dishwasher.

Often, when you buy meat from the store, it comes with guidance on how long the meat needs to be roasted, presumably calculated as a function of its weight. Is there some well known general algorithm for calculating how long to roast various types of meat (e.g. for display on packaging). Perhaps something like: roasting time = c * weight of meat Assuming the algorithm is this simple, is there some reference of ideal oven temperatures and scaling constant c for each type of meat (chicken, beef, pork etc)? Relatedly, is there a well known set of algorithms for converting between say, fan oven, AGA, and/or gas mark standards for oven temperature? I'm assuming these facts must be well known in meat supplier's product development departments, due to the labeling I see on meat that I buy. However, having Googled it a fair bit, I can't find these details summarized anywhere.

I use nylon straining bags for making wine. You can get them in various sizes at homebrew stores. (for example: http://www.midwestsupplies.com/nylon-straining-bag-18-x-32-coarse-mesh.html) I'm sure they'd do the trick for what you need. Although this may only work for passing juice, you might inquire at your local homebrew store if they have a slightly larger mesh size.

The reason I ask this is due to the fact nothing on the bacon packaging indicates it can or cannot be eaten 'raw' and in general eating raw meat is a bad idea.

In such a case, for any food item, ask yourself a question: In a 19th century household, would it have been kept in the cellar, or eaten immediately? For bacon, it is common knowledge (or at least I think everybody knows it) that it was kept in a cellar for long time. So this is definitely not a food which perishes too quickly. You can eat it raw. (In fact, I often do when I need a quick sandwich). It can be a bit tough to tear apart with your teeth, so pre-cut it. The reason for this is that bacon is cured meat. There are two reasons not to eat raw meat: taste and food safety. Taste is individual, some people are OK with the taste and eat raw meat as long as they can find a source of meat fresh enough (think sashimi, carpaccio, steak tartare). Food safety is not a problem with bacon. The process of turning pork to bacon includes salt and smoke. Both of these kill bacteria, create an environment which is not hospitable to new colonization (dry, salty), and give the meat a new flavor which is better than the raw meat. If you are now asking yourself why we are bothering with the fridge for bacon and other ex-"cellar foods" at all, there is still a reason. First, most of us don't have a convenient cellar at 12° - 15°C, and not only is the bacon's life shortened if kept at usual kitchen temperatures, it also doesn't taste too good. It is just greasy. Second, you seldom get dry bacon at the supermarket; even if the curing process doesn't include brining, bacon is often aged much less than in old times, and then packed in vacuum, so it doesn't get really dry on the outside. So bacteria could very well start growing on it outside of the freezer. Inside the freezer, it keeps much longer than raw meat, and is certainly OK for consumption without frying. I guess that the popularity of fried bacon is mainly due to taste reasons.

I make keto pancakes out of a bought keto flour pancake mix (almond flour and cassava and coconut flours are main components). I mix these with either water or whole milk, making not too thick mixture, and cook on a cast iron pan with a pad of butter placed on heated pan first. A problem I run into consistently is this: the first pancake cooks very well--well browned outside and cooked inside. But subsequent pancakes come out slightly burned outside while under-cooked inside. I make sure to keep the pan on medium heat throughout and add butter in between pancakes in order to keep the pan well-greased. I make sure to turn pancake from one side to other when bubbles form. However, that doesn't help it. Is there something else I can do to make sure to have several pancakes in a row come out well-cooked inside and not burnt outside?

Your pan is getting too hot. Cast iron has a lot of" thermal mass", which means that it takes a good bit of energy (and time) to heat up, then it holds on to that heat and takes time to cool down. Most likely, your pan is still heating up when you cook your first pancake. It's at the right temperature, but still on the upswing and getting hotter. By the time you get to the other pancakes, the pan is too hot. There are two easy solutions to try: turn the heat down a bit, and also wait longer to cook the first pancake. At a lower temperature, it'll take even longer to reach maximum/equilibrium temperature, with the goal to max out at the temperature of your first pancake. use the same procedure for your first pancake, but once it's in the pan, turn down the heat, just a little. You've hit the ideal temperature, but you need to reduce the heat to maintain it at this temperature, rather than continuing to get hotter. It'll take a little experimenting on your cooktop to find just the right adjustment of heat, but it should just be a matter of finding a slightly lower temperature.

When making pizza, do you put the spinach on raw or cooked? I would prefer to put it on raw, but I am concerned that the high water content in the spinach will release in the oven and make the crust wet. I have used well drained cooked spinach in the past but I find no matter how hard you ring it out, it is still very wet for a topping! I am using baby spinach. Any suggestions?

The moisture that you're talking about really has nothing to do with draining it or wringing it out. When it's heated, the cell structure breaks down and the water in the cells is released. Since it's predominately water, that means you have a lot of moisture on your pizza to make your crust soggy. At the restaurant I used to work at we had two methods. If there wasn't going to be a lot of spinach on the pizza, then we would just put it on raw. If there was going to be a lot of it, then we would give it a quick saute and then put it on the pizza. I would do the same thing with squash, eggplant, etc. Anything with a high moisture content. You could also roast it first. In both cases, I wouldn't cook it for long as the goal is to just get most of the water out and then let it finish on the pizza in the oven.

I heard that putting spices in something and putting it in the oven will eliminate the taste of the spices. Is this true? For example if I were to put spice in lasagna before putting it in the oven you will not be able to taste the spice afterwards.

The flavors of most spices are quite stable, and will not be destroyed by cooking from any method, including baking. You will see that traditional recipes often add spices at the beginning of a recipe, especially for robust hard spices like cinnamon, anise, caraway, cumin, allspice, dried chili powder, and so on. In fact, in many cuisines, the spices are bloomed by frying or toasting as part of assembling the dish in order to bring out their aromas and flavors. This idea may have originated with herbs (especially the more delicate ones like basil, tarragon, or cilantro) whose flavors are more volatile or heat sensitive, and so are traditionally added in the last few minutes of cooking, or even after the cooking. Even so, with herbs, this is not universal as some of the more hardy ones do stand up to cooking, such as oregano, sage, and similar.

Are there more omega-3 fatty acids in fresh than smoked mackerel? Is there something in process of smoking that would cause the mackerel to lose some of the fatty acids? In other words, does the quality or amount of the omega-3 fatty acids (or other 'healthy' oils) in fish decrease over time? Is fresh fish have more or better omega-3 / polyunsaturated fats?

Theory is a good thing, but data is always better. Especially when somebody else does the whole work of gathering and evaluating it. Luckily, there is somebody who does it for food. Following data comes from the USDA. It is very verbose, so I had to cut off most of the screenshots. I left all the lipids in the first one just to show how much they measured, and only used the data for Omega 3 in the other ones. The first data set is raw Atlantic mackarel. I picked Atlantic just because it was first in the list, they have several kinds. Sadly, they didn't have data for smoked mackerel. But as Frankie points out, you can do a hot smoking process and a cold smoking process. I think that the cooking in both is very well approximated by cooking on dry heat, resp. salting. Of course, it is possible that the smoke itself destroys more fatty acids than just applying heat or brine, but these numbers give us an upper limit for the amount of omega 3 left after smoking. Now we can start making conclusions. First conclusion: there is something fishy about the data. Zero standard deviation for all the values in the raw fish? Zero data points for the salted fish?! I can only assume that they just wrote a zero where the actual information is missing from the record. Still, I think we can trust the data (because the USDA has no interest to lie and because we don't have a better data set). Before we start making further conclusions, we should remember that these are values per 100 gram of end product. 100 g of salted mackerel isn't made with 100 g of raw mackerel! Luckily, the source also gives the water percentage of the samples (not shown on the screenshots), which is 43% for salted mackerel, 53% for cooked mackerel and 63% for raw mackerel. So, we should in fact compare the numbers per 100 g of dry matter (we assume that the cooking process neither adds nor subtracts dry matter - not exactly true for salting, but we can assume that the difference is small). The numbers are: Second conclusion: Heat (so presumably also hot smoking) destroys around 40% of the fatty acids in mackerel This is straightforward, comes from the numbers in the table. Third conclusion: The salted mackerel didn't come from the Atlantic Unless I have made a big mistake in my reasoning about the comparison based on dry matter, a salted fish has more omega 3 than a raw fish of the same size. The difference in data is small enough to have been caused by the choice of a different kind of fish (note that the standard deviation within a sample of the same kind of fish is 10 to 15%). Fourth conclusion: Cold smoking probably doesn't destroy a significant amount of omega 3 acids. While the data comparison here has some problems (the assumed different kinds of fish, the fact that salting isn't the same as smoking), I think we can see the trend here. If the salted fish had lost too much of its omega 3 in the salting process, then it wouldn't have such high omega 3 values after the salting. We can assume that a cold smoked fish is also salted (my personal experience and Frankie's answer support that), so any possible preserving effect of salt should be present in cold smoking too. There is a risk that the smoke itself could destroy the fatty acids, but I doubt it. After all, the smoke doesn't penetrate the tissues very deep, so there shouldn't be much contact. Of course, I am not 100% sure about the conclusions above, but I think it is reasonable to assume that they are true. I have tried to make clear any possible problems. So the short answer is: fresh mackerel and cold smoked mackerel have about the same amount of omega 3 fatty acids, but hot smoked mackerel has much less omega 3 than the original.

If I pour vodka (40% abv) into an open glass, and then leave it out overnight (or for some time), what percent ABV does it stabalize at? Or does all of its alcohol content evaporate (leaving just barley-water in its wake)? Also, as a followup, does the same behavior apply to other alcohols, like whiskey? And finally, at what rate roughly does vodka lose ABV at room temperature?

As a chemist I'd say that the question is really impossible to answer as given. The gist is that for a water/ethanol mixture both components will evaporate. So if the liquid is left out long enough, the liquid will evaporate completely. The atmosphere contains essentially no ethanol so an equilibrium between the whole atmosphere and the ethanol in a glass can never be reached. There is water in the atmosphere (aka humidity) so the evaporation of water could be retarded, or prevented entirely if the "local" humidity is 100%. But unless the "local" humidity is already 100% then an equilibrium between the liquid and the atmospheric water won't be reached either. Pure ethanol has a higher vapor pressure and thus evaporates faster than pure water (in 0% humidity). So the gist is that as liquid evaporates the water/ethanol composition of the liquid will change. Thus the relative rate of evaporation of water and ethanol changes too. In terms of the rate of evaporation there are a number of unspecified parameters. How much volume compared to the exposed surface area? So liquid will evaporate more slowly from a tall narrow glass than a short wide one. Temperature? The higher the temperature the faster the evaporation. Air currents? If you use a fan to blow air across the glass evaporation will occur much faster than if a fan isn't used.

I usually cook a beef pot roast by putting the meat and vegetables (potatoes, carrots, onions) in a slow cooker with a little bit of water and letting it go for ~8 hours on low. This works well int hat everything is well cooked, the meat is moist and tender, etc. The one issue I have is that the meat tends to have an overly strong taste of vegetables. I don't really know how to describe it beyond that. Particularly from the carrots. I prefer my meat to taste more like meat. What can I do to accomplish this? Should I try browning the meat first to try and "seal" it up? Add the vegetables later?

I think you've answered your own question. Browning and adding veggies later will both help. Browning doesn't "seal" the meat to keep flavor or juices in, but it does create a very nice flavor that's almost always associated with meat, caused by the Maillard reaction. I think browning could go a long way to resolving your flavor issue. This is a little counter intuitive of cooking with a slow cooker, but you can start the meat with a bit of water (or wine, stock, other juices) and then only put the vegetables in much later in the process. Of course, then you have to tend your crock pot, which is often not the point. That would decrease the time that the vegetables had to affect the taste of your meat. You could even experiment with which ones to add later and which to add at the beginning. If it's just the carrots that are offensive, that may be the only thing you need to throw in later.

I have made potato pancakes / potato latkes many times and they've come out quite edible. However, they are very soft, sometimes fall apart easily, and have a very soggy feel. Here is approximately how I make them: I peel and slice approximately four potatoes. I then use my Food Ninja to dice them roughly into a pulp. I pull the blades out, and mix in finely diced onions, a few tablespoons of flour (or matzah meal), two eggs, a teaspoon or so of baking powder, and some salt. (I'm remembering this recipe by memory, so I apologize for the lack of detail. I mix the batter with a whisk until it has the approximate consistency of pancake batter, although it ends up being a bit lumpier due to the potatoes and onions. I heat a skillet with 1/4" of canola oil, and use a soup ladle to make roughly 2-3" pancakes that cook for about 2-3 minutes on each side until the edges are golden brown. I place the finished pancakes on a dish with a paper towel to absorb some of the oil. What factors in the recipe or preparation would produce a better, crispier, firmer potato pancake?

I have used these tips from TheKitchn for my latkes and they have always turned out fantastically! Strain, Squeeze, Strain: To avoid soggy latkes, you need to wring out your potato mixture really, really well. Folks have different theories about how many times you should wring out the mixture and what you should use. I favor cheesecloth if you have it. If you don't, a clean dishtowel will do the trick. Just keep in mind that you can't do this too firmly: it's impossible to hurt the latke mixture. Be tough. Be firm. Squeeze like there's no tomorrow. Then squeeze again. Watch Your Oil Temperature: This is the one tip that I struggle with mainly because I don't do much frying at home. So I usually end up heating my oil too much and burning the outside of my latkes and then the insides aren't even cooked all the way through. My dad always puts a pinch of the latke mixture into the pan before frying up the latkes. If it's at medium heat and it still sizzles, the oil is ready. Finesse Your Timing. Or Don't: In our family, we eat the latkes to order. So some of us will have a few while the others don't yet have one and my dad is standing cooking them off the whole time. While I generally love sitting down to eat together as a family, latke season is the one exception. After resting for a moment on a paper towel to drain, they're really best right out of the skillet. That being said, if you're serving them for a party or would rather set out a large plate for folks to serve themselves, you most certainly can set the oven to 300 F to keep cooked latkes warm while you cook off remaining ones. Additionally, on the consistency of batter/how to handle potato prep please see here for this this is a great tip about hand grating. Hope this helps and good luck! (Edited to clarify final tip (thanks Laura))

I am making cupcakes and was wondering if it is okay if you leave the batter out for a couple hours before cooking.

Yes, it is bad. Most baking powder will begin to produce co2 as soon it gets wet. If you let the batter rest before putting it in the oven, your cake will thus lose some of airiness.

Possible Duplicate: How can I make McDonald’s type French Fries I have prepared french fries couple of times in my home. But I couldn't get the same kind of spongy fries as I had in Mc donalds. I want to prepare a delicious spongy french fries. In some blogs I read that we have to put cut potatoes in cold water before frying. But that too doesn't work. Help me

French fries are often double-fried: They are par-fried at a low temperature, to cook all the way through, after which they are often frozen They are finish-fried at a higher temperature to crisp up and be hot for presentation The type of potato matters--high starch like Idahos are ideal. Here is a link to a Serious Eats article by Kenji Alt describing his preferred technique in exquisite detail. His technique actually involves par-boiling, then par-frying, then (for optimal results, he says) freezing, then finally finish frying. The interesting thing is that freezing actually has an affect on the outcome--it isn't just for storage and transport.

I don't have an oven and I am not planning to purchase one but there are lots of recipe that need an oven. My question is, is there any way I can get the same functionality on a gas burner stove by some use of utensil or trick or hack!

When I was young in Asia, my mom would bake a cake on a coal stove in a cast iron pot. Hot coals were then added on top of the lid as a secondary heat source.

Possible Duplicate: How can I grind coffee without a coffee grinder? I like my coffee super-fine. I've had some luck with using regular coffee grinders and running it for a long time, but I'd like to explore (possibly manual) alternatives. There are 2 reasons I want to try the manual alternative: 1) Electric coffee grinders are extremely noisy. This makes it kind of impractical to grind coffee at odd hours (which I love to do) 2) My electric coffee grinder seems to be wearing pretty fast. I tried the Kyocera "Hario Skerton" grinder which was eah. It's a bit fragile, and when trying to get a fine grind you get a lot of crunching of the ceremic plates, which again will pretty much destroy it really fast.

Your best bet is probably mortar and pestle: I've never used one for coffee until just now and it didn't take long to grind up a scoop of beens into a very fine powder. When searching for a picture, I found lots of references to mortar and pestle being used for Turkish coffee, so super-fine seems to be no problem.

Where did adding nutmeg to eggnog come from? I've tried nutmeg before and can't really taste anything other than nog. So where did the idea of adding nutmeg come from?

Here are the players: butter (~80% fat, salt varies) margarine (~80% fat, added salt) vegetable oil spread (less than 80% fat, salt varies) shortening (100% fat, no salt) I only list it that way, because some people think a vegetable oil spread = margarine. It is not. If you substitute an oil spread for butter, you could have problems. My experience is that butter and true margarine can be substituted freely without negative results. Though, most people believe butter has a better flavor profile. Salt content could also be a factor. Salt varies in different butter/margarine brands. I'm not sensitive to salt levels, but you might be.

I've seen some recipes call for green onions but always use spring onions? Is there a difference between them? Is there a better substitute?

It's a regional preference on what they're called. When you're buying seeds, they're also called "bunching onions", and I grew up calling them "scallions", although I think that scallion specifically don't have a bulb yet formed, while green/spring onions might. update : A little research suggests that "spring onion" is the preferred term in the UK, AU and Canada, "green onion" in the US south, and "scallion" in the US northeast, however I'm not sure what the exact boundries are as in the US mid-atlantic, I'll see both "green onions" and "scallions" for sale, with "green onions" being larger (scallions with no bulb, maybe 12"/30cm long, while green onions might have a 2"/5cm bulb, and have over 24"/60cm of green top). It's possible that "green onion" might be a polysemous term that varies by region.

So my sourdough starter is about two weeks old, but it suddenly stopped growing three days ago (after a couple days of very active growth)and developed a brown layer on top.The layer is mostly brown with about 15 percent of it being normal starter. Most of what I researched is that it is hooch, but the brown layer is more solid (the same thickness as my starter) and isn’t separate from the top layer of the normal starter. I have been keeping my starter in the oven with just the light on. As for my feeding schedule, I feed it 1 cup of AP Flour and 1/2 cup of water every day. If anyone has an answer, please let me know; it would very helpful.

Your starter is drying out. Don't keep it in the oven with the light on. It's been too warm. Depending on your comfortable room temperature, you should be able to leave it on a kitchen counter top. You should have a lid or other covering on it, too.

As described here, most common baking powders contain two acids, one that reacts to moisture, and one that mostly reacts when heated. Does that mean that if my dough is already acidic (and has no baking soda to neutralize said acid), all the baking soda in the baking powder will get used up when mixed with the wet ingredients, leaving none for the second reaction during heating? If so, what rules can I follow to make sure that my dough/batter has a neutral pH and will therefore get that second rise? How much baking soda would be needed to neutralize certain amounts of acidic ingredients like buttermilk, sour cream, cocoa, honey, vinegar, lemon juice, molasses, etc? EDIT: I'm using Magic Baking Powder by Kraft Canada, which consists of cornstarch, monocalcium phosphate, and sodium bicarbonate.

The short answer to your question is YES. The extra acid in the ingredients will hamper the second act of the double acting baking powder. The acids are timed/staged for reaction not the baking soda. The Magic Baking Powder (happens to be in our kitchen, too) is mostly a single acting formula since monocalcium-phosphate is a low temperature acid (with apparently some double acting properties due to generation intermediate step of dicalcium phosphate; per your link). High temperature acid for second acts typically include sodium aluminium sulfate, sodium aluminum phosphate and sodium acid pyrophosphate. You can try to counteract that by adding a bit of baking soda, but you run the risk of altering the taste and not having it all neuralized. If you really want to get pedantic, use a pH meter to measure the acidity of your dough. I suspect tasting the dough might give an indication as well. (bitter alkaline, sour acidic) Another test might be to mix your acidic ingredients in a bowl with some water and start adding measured baking soda until you see no more reaction (bubbles) and use that as a your basic of neutralizing your dough. All said and done, I agree with SAJ14SAJ that you'll be just fine going with the existing recipe. There should be enough baking soda left to get something out of your double act. I also heard it from a world-class baker that most recipes can be done with only baking soda, let alone baking powder or double acting ones.

I have had the real thing in Japan and it was fantastic and very expensive. I don't usually eat steak at all. The Kobe beef steak was the first I ate in my entire life. It was very tender and tasty, cooked medium rare. I had it because there was nothing else on the menu I would consider eating. I live in Canada. I want to know if there is a cut of beef that's available in Canada that's close to Kobe beef quality.

Hello @Huangism and welcome to Seasoned Advice. You may consider domestic wagyu. To get the best, it will still be pricey, but not nearly as much as Kobe. Please see this excerpt from Lobel's of New York . You Get What You Pay For All Wagyu beef is not created equal. In Japan, Kobe beef sells at more than $300 per pound. But now Wagyu is starting to be seen in grocery stores and casual-dining restaurants for $30 per pound. This mass-marketed variety of Wagyu will have a marbling score at the low end of the 12-point scale. American Wagyu Beef from Lobel's of New York will score 9 points or higher. More expensive than our USDA Prime, our American Wagyu costs a bit more than $100 per pound (depending on the cut). In terms of quality, taste, and texture, Wagyu and Kobe beef are indistinguishable. If what you're looking for is best quality Wagyu, you should expect to pay $100 or more per pound. The linked page has a lot more information and more links to additional info. Although this place is in the US, I linked it because of the information available. Performing anther search, I found that wagyu beef is now available in Canada at Loblaws in Toronto and also at Costco (various provinces).

I used this recipe and followed it to the letter. I used organic/unsprayed lemons (and was careful not to zest the pith) and free-range eggs. I did a quick Google search, but the only cause I could find was using a reactive saucepan, which couldn't be the case because both the whisk, the strainer, the bowls, and the pan were nonreactive, stainless steel. Yet the lemon curd ended up with a metallic aftertaste, that got stronger as it chilled. Why was my lemon curd metallic, and is there any way to fix it? How? 3 large eggs, or 1 large egg plus 3 large egg yolks Zest of 1 medium lemon 1/2 cup strained fresh lemon juice (from about 3 medium lemons) 1/2 cup sugar 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks Set the strainer over a medium bowl. Whisk the eggs (or egg and yolks) in a small nonreactive saucepan to blend. Whisk in the lemon zest, juice, and sugar. Add the butter. Whisk over medium heat, reaching into the corners and scraping the sides and bottom of the pan, until the butter is melted and the mixture is thickened and beginning to simmer around the edges, then continue to whisk for about 10 seconds longer. Remove from the heat and scrape into the strainer, pressing gently on the solids. Scrape any lemon curd clinging to the underside of the strainer into the bowl. Refrigerate until chilled before using. Lemon curd keeps in a covered container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. EDIT: I made a new batch, using 1 part lemon juice to 1 part sugar plus the zest from the lemons, and the same amount of butter. I omitted the egg yolks and used cornstarch instead. The lemon curd came out perfect, so it must have been the yolks. Why?

From your Edit, it looks like you have narrowed the problem down to the egg yolks. Did anyone else taste your original batch of lemon curd? If you still have original batch, you may have a close friend or relative see if they can taste difference. For years (side effect of medication) I would perceive either "off or metallic taste" which my husband or anyone else could not taste. Pregnant women will also experience metallic taste (dysgeusia): https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/symptoms-and-solutions/metallic-taste.aspx Off taste from yolks are usually associated with "old eggs." It is usually described as tasting like sulphur. What chickens eat also affect the taste of the eggs: https://grist.org/urban-agriculture/2011-11-1-peebottle-farms-what-to-feed-your-chickens/ archived at: http://archive.is/WccwR http://homesteadingguide.com/115/news/best-tasting-eggs-what-to-feed-your-chickens/ archived at: http://archive.is/rt2RF The following post has made me shy away from any "natural feeds" which contain kelp: http://www.maryjanesfarm.org/snitz/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=64661 archived at: http://archive.is/EUac3

In Japan, at two occcasions, I had chicken skewer with a green leaf wrapped around it, and in it was also some red sauce with a sour taste. Is there a specific name for this dish? Ultimately I'm looking for what kind of leaf (maybe Shiso/perilla?), sauce (possibly something with plum?) and marinade it was so I can try to cook this dish myself. I had the dish at two different small local grill bars near Nijo Castle in Kyoto. Edit: An answer suggested the name "shiso chicken". Googling that brings up mostly pictures of different combinations of chicken and shiso leaves, but a few do show something similar to what I had, this is one of them:

It looks like tsukune/tsumire chicken with shiso, search terms are chicken tsukune, ooba and plum. This yields some recipes, more without the plum, basically take minced chicken, add egg mirin soy sake potato-starch, divide, wrap in leaf and cook. Google translate/rikaichan will help you. For the plum sauce, basic recipe is to take Japanese plum pulp and add soy, not sure it is easy to do otherwise since it requires the special sour and salty plums. More assistance with translation can be found on the Japanese Language Stack

I love biscuits and have made many. The one thing that gets me is cutting the butter. I have used several different approaches with varying degrees of success. What works for you.

I used to use a pastry cutter, but it was hard work and a pain in the butt clearing the blockages. So I switched to using a food processor. It's so much quicker, and providing you cut the cold butter into 1x5cm sticks, it yields perfect results with just a few pulses.

I'm referring to vegetables like baby carrots, baby spinach, baby cucumber, etc. Supermarkets sell quite a few "baby" varieties of vegetables and they seem to be priced more expensive per ounce than their "regular" counterparts. Am I naive thinking that (for instance) baby carrots are simply carrots harvested early? Or are they a different kind of carrot, just small? I'm looking for nutritional as well as culinary differences. For instance, if a recipe calls for a "baby" vegetable, can you substitute it for a finely chopped regular vegetable?

Talking about nutritional value on here can be tricky, because this site about cooking Are baby carrots are simply carrots harvested early? Or are they a different kind of carrot, just small? Yes they are harvested earlier, or even grown more closely. However nowadays they have developed miniature strains which are mature when small in stature. This page contains lot of information about baby carrots, an even a video, so you can try growing this in your garden. Baby carrots are not as nutritious as full whole carrots, because a lot of the goodness in carrots is contained in the skin and just below it. This is removed in the baby carrot making process. A pack of baby carrots look more aesthetic and they are more tender/sweeter, that is a selling point.

I threw a whole bunch of vegetables in the crock-pot with water and realized I had forgot to buy meat for it. I cooked it anyways and it is extremely bland. Any ideas on what I can do to fix it now? I don't want all this to go to waste... I basically just threw a bunch of random vegetables that I picked up from the farmers market in there: 3 squash, 2 zucchini, an onion, kale, a handful of green beans, 4 servings pearl barley (I had half a bag laying around I needed to use up), 2 handfuls black beans, half a head of cabbage. I put some salt & pepper, about 6 teaspoons of chicken bouillon, garlic powder. It's a big crock-pot and I filled it to the brim with water (besides all the veggies). Any suggestions would be great...

With such a random collection of ingredients, I'm hesitant to suggest anything lest it conflict with one of the flavors. With that in mind, add extra ingredients a little at a time to make sure it doesn't go overboard or taste jarring with something already in there. Suggestions to improve the flavor: Celery salt or celery seed (preferably ground). Fresh celery is normally part of the mirepoix in veg soup, but it's probably not a good idea to add to a cooked soup, so we're adding the next best thing. It is amazing the difference celery can make. White wine vinegar (for acidity and a richer flavor, and pairing with the cabbage and onions) Dry vermouth or white wine. Some flavor compounds are more soluble in alcohol than water, so this can help bring to the front additional flavors that are already present but undetectable. A jigger of sherry or cooking sherry (the latter has salt, so add it before salting the soup). This is a common suggestion when serving canned soups to guests, to make the soup taste fancier. Rosemary, thyme, and parsley flakes/stems (adds aromatic and herbal flavors) Worcestershire sauce (use carefully, it's potent stuff) -- this adds umami and spiciness Paprika and a pinch or two of cayenne -- adds warmth and back heat, and smokiness Dijon mustard (use sparingly). Adds front heat and a little richness to the soup A little more salt and pepper Parmesan or parmesan rind (for the rind, plan on simmering for a long time to extract flavor). Self-explanatory here. Balsamic vinegar -- adds sweetness, acid, body, and umami. Use caution, it may conflict with the cabbage here.

I read in this question: Why add salt to the water when cooking pasta? that adding an acid like lemon juice to water you're cooking pasta in will help keep it from getting waterlogged and having the starch form a gel. My wife is gluten intolerant, so we make quinoa pasta. Will this same trick work for non-wheat pasta?

I'm not a chemist but I'm pretty sure it has to do with the things that happen to starches in general. In particular, the chemistry isn't about the wheat gluten, it's about starch. Thus, if you feel your quinoa pasta is coming out too gummy or mushy on the outside, you might try it. (If your pasta is already mushy or gummy, how much worse could it get?) I use vinegar in pasta water with Barilla Plus, which has a lot of wheat but also other stuff, and it causes no problems. I will also say that with really good pasta like that it's a little hard to tell the difference. I have a box of fancy Italian super-starchy pasta that I should try it on. edit — whoa I just re-read the last line of your question, and now I'm confused. "Keep it starchy"? No, that's not what acid does. The intent is to keep the pasta "pasta-like" in the water; to make sure that the outer layers of the pasta don't get "waterlogged" before they firm up from the heat. Is that what you mean by "keep it starchy"?

A while back I got a set of wooden spoons that contained 5 differently shaped wooden spoons. Take a look at the following photo to see the different shapes. I have mainly been using wooden spoon #1 because that is typically the shape I am most familiar with when I think of a wooden spoon. I have yet to figure out what the other wooden spoons can be used for. Are there any specific applications that each shape excel at?

Great question! Adding to the others: 4 and 5 appear to me home-made modifications of standard Chinese bamboo spatulas in order to use them for different purposes. 4 is probably intended to be a wooden fork, which would be useful for tossing pasta (together with another wooden fork or spatula). However, the homemade slotting is too narrow, and the "tines" to wide, to be really useful. You'd want something more like this: 5 is, as rumtscho mentioned, a folding spoon for dough. This one seems to be improvised out of a spatula, though; the more common shapes of folding spoons are like either of the below: I think I might disagree with rumtscho about spoon #1 though. I use wooden spoons all the time for cooking and mixing, especially in non-stick pans. If what she's saying, though is that particular wooden spoon is not very well shaped, then I agree with her. The bowl of the spoon is too shallow, and you'd want a round handle rather than a flat one.

Bitter almonds contain traces of hydrocyanic acid, which can be lethal to animals and humans. 7 to 10 unprocessed bitter almonds can be lethal to a human, according to “Encyclopedia Brittanica.” The sale of raw bitter almonds is prohibited in some countries but it's quite often to find bitter almonds mixed with sweet ones. My question is: How does food industry to detect the bitter ones? If you just eat some almonds at home you are unlikely to swallow big quantities of poison because you would spit out the bitter ones. But when the almonds are processed to make some raw preparation everything gets mixed and the presence of minimum quantities of bitter almonds would be perceptible, unpleasant and even dangerous. I guess they don't throw everything to the bin. The toxicity of the poison is destroyed by heat and processing, usually by boiling or baking them. Thus my concern is about raw preparations. How are bitter almonds detected? (*) Or how is prussic acid removed without affecting the food? How is their flavour used at Disaronno or Amaretto leaving out the poison?. I have friends that drunk a whole bottle in one night and are still alive. (*) of course without performing a chemical analysis to each almond nor using spectrography nor having somebody tasting every almond. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaretto PD: Some spirits use apricot kernel instead, but the problem is the same.

I only have an answer for your first question: How does the food industry detect the bitter almonds? They don't need to. According to Wikipedia, bitter almonds come from bitter almond trees, and "sweet" almonds from that variety, so if you plant only "sweet" almond trees in your orchard, you don't need to sort through your almonds rejecting the bitter ones. This is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almond#Sweet_and_bitter_almonds and matches my experience of seeing certain almond trees that remain loaded with almonds even as the squirrels are stripping all the other trees in the area. No wonder! Those almonds taste terrible; even the squirrels won't eat them.

I have a 6 cup Moka pot (about 250-300 ml) but I want to prepare a single cup of coffee just for myself. How should I reduce its load - reduce amount of coffee beans and amount of water or reduce only coffee amount? Will this reduction affect taste of prepared coffee?

The Moka pots like Bialetti are very similar to the esspresso process except that the water goes through the coffee from the bottom in Moka's case. They are designed to match the pressure of the water with the resistance from the coffee grind/puck (IIRC 1-3 Bar of back pressure). If you use significantly less coffee, the water can just run through the coffee compartment without extracting much flavor or worse, it can fill the compartment (replacing the missing coffee) and soak for too long. My guess is that you'd need to reduce the volume of the compartment to allow proper pressure build up on the coffee. Perhaps roll a coffee filter into a ring shape and place inside the coffee compartment to take up the missing 5 cups worth of coffee grind and fill the inside of the ring with the now less coffee grind. Again you may not be able to reduce the water all the way since it needs to be above the opening of the spout/pipe that descends into water reservoir. The solution here is to take the Moka off the heat when you're near your one cup so you don't dilute your Moka Espresso too much.

I'm planning to make a chocolate orange cake and fancied making an orange caramel sauce to go with it. My plan is to make a caramel sauce by heating up butter and sugar in a pan , stirring all the time until a golden caramel and then adding whipping cream and stirring like crazy and taking off the heat. My question is what is the best way to get orange flavour in there? Can i add orange juice instead or cream? That doesn't feel like it will work. Could I mix orange juice with the cream first then add that? If I reduced the OJ down before mixing it with the cream I assume I'd get more orange flavour? Any other ideas? I will only have access to oranges and juice, no orange oil or anything fancy.

I make orange caramel at work for one of our desserts. You will need: zest of one orange. big chunks is fine 2 cups sugar 1 cup water 2oz grand marnier/cointreau/triple sec (optional) approx 1/2c butter, unsalted approx 1/2c 35% cream generous pinch kosher salt 1-2tbsp pulp-free lemon juice Combine the first three ingredients in a saucepan. Brush the exposed sides of the pan with lemon juice--this prevents crystallization. Dissolve the sugar in the water over medium heat, turn down to low simmer for 20 minutes. Strain out the zest, return sauce to heat, bring to boil. Cook until the sauce has taken a light amber colour, pour into stainless steel bowl. Whisk in butter, then cream, then grand marnier if using, then salt.

I got some Ceylon Cinnamon sticks, but I haven't purchased the coffee grinder yet. I was wondering if I could add the sticks whole when I brew coffee or tea. If so, how much per cup? Do I need to boil the stick for prolonged period of time, or can I just put it with the coffee grindings and pour boiling water over it? Also, would it be wasteful compared to grinding the stick into powder before brewing first? I.e., will a stick release its compounds fully, or will a lot of them remain inside the stick?

You can definitely put a whole stick of cinnamon in with your coffee grounds or tea leaves. If your cinnamon stick is very tightly coiled, the hot water may not reach the inside of the coil. Split the stick lengthwise so the water can more easily reach the inside of the bark (that way you get flavor out of both sides of the cinnamon bark instead of just one side. You're correct that you won't get all the cinnamon flavor out of a cinnamon stick in a single use. However, it doesn't have to be wasteful - you can reuse the cinnnamon stick multiple times. After your coffee is brewed, pull the cinnamon stick pieces out of the grounds, tap off any remaining coffee grounds, and lay them out to dry. It helps if you do this while the grounds are still hot, so the residual heat in the cinnamon stick helps it to dry fully. Make sure the cinnamon stick doesn't end up sitting in water. You can put it on a dry towel, or prop it up on the edge of a clean mug, or put it in a mesh strainer. Re-use the cinnamon stick as often as you make coffee. When you notice it starting to lose flavor, break it into more pieces. Eventually, the parts will run out of cinnamon flavor and/or get too small to be worth the effort of saving, and you'll start a new stick. Note: this works because the cinnamon stick has only been exposed to coffee grounds (or tea leaves) and hot water. Don't save a cinnamon stick that you've used to stir a cup of coffee with milk or cream. You won't be able to get all the milk or cream off of the cinnamon stick, and it won't be food safe for your next use, and it might taste bad. (Of course you can reuse it if you make your next cuppa immediately; just don't save it for tomorrow.)

When travelling one has to make do with whatever cooking equipment is available. Typical deficiencies I've encountered are: thin saucepans and frying pans that have lost any non-stick coating (maybe only one of each), a hob with just one or two rings, unreliable ovens, a toaster but no grill, blunt knives, limiting working space, .... My original question was overly broad, and asked for cooking techniques (rather than recipes) that are reliable even with poor equipment. In this edit, I'll ask just one specific question that's troubling me at the moment. Please assume that I can buy all the usual spices etc, but not cheaply. I don't want to buy very many, because they will all be duplicates of better quality ingredients I have back home. How, if at all, given the constraints above, can one make a reasonable vegetarian curry using only one saucepan, and a small frying pan that's lost its non-stick coating?

An ulu knife That looks like a variant on an ulu knife, a knife whose blade is below the handle.

First let me explain how I make tea. In the morning I take a pot of boiling water and pour it into a carafe. I let the the water sit for a minute. I then pour the tea into an old pot from a coffee maker, put the tea bags in the original carafe and pour the water over the tea, let steep. Pour into another large pot to dilute with water. Over the day I either nuke the tea or I pour it over ice when I want some. For more then ten years I had a nice pitcher ( from Ikea ) for this.till one morning it shattered. Now a second pitcher shattered after about two months. So I need another pot. I would prefer for obvious reasons that it did not shatter. I do not want to use a stainless steel pot because I notice stainless steel leaves a taste when I boil water in it. The initial amount of tea I make is approximately one quart, and I have not found a measuring cup that large. Can anyone make a suggestion?

Heat-resistant glass is called for, which will be much better suited to withstand the thermal shock of boiling water than regular glass. I'd use a Pyrex measuring cup -- which are available in one quart (4 cup) sizes, my mother owns one. (I generally just stick with two 2 cups if I need that much liquid, but that won't work for your tea steeping process.) This may require hunting through a few stores (large places dedicated to kitchen goods generally have them) or buying online. I even found a 2 quart measuring cup on Amazon, which I've never seen in a store. You could also get a second old coffee pot, which is similarly designed to cope with hot liquid, or do the steeping in your existing old coffee pot before diluting.

At the weekend I made some Turkish Delight based on the recipe featured in a recent BBC series called "Sweets Made Simple". Simple maybe, but highly effortful. The recipe is here, but the brief summary is: make a sugar syrup, take it to the required temperature. Make a thick cornstarch paste. Add syrup to paste and stir and simmer for an hour until it's smooth and not lumpy. Now maybe it's just me, but pouring a load of liquid into a cornstarch paste has always been the thing you're supposed to avoid if you don't want lumps. Maybe it's different with sugar syrup at this temperature and with a cornstarch paste this thick, but it seems to me that surely there must be an easier way to make it. The end results here are good enough that I'm intending to do some experiments, but I wanted to consult the wisdom of this community beforehand in case there is already an easier way known. I've seen other recipes which say you only need to stir it every 8-10 minutes for an hour, but that to my mind isn't going to be enough at all, judging by how my mixture reacted to stirring. Of course, maybe there was some subtle difference earlier in the recipe which I haven't noticed.

I've just had a go today. I only stirred until all the lumps of cornstarch lumps had gone, about 20 mins. It was getting very thick then! Note that the lemon juice with the sugar and the cream of tartar in the cornflour mix will convert some of the sugar to invert sugar, which is supposed to help reduce the growth and size of sugar crystals (I learnt about this whilst making fudge, which starts with the same sugar heated to softball stage, and marshmallows, which are like the Turkish delight mixture if made with gelatine, just whipped to incorporate a lot of air.) Overall the process is quite simple, as you say, it is time consuming. Good luck with future trials. Chris

My icing is 1/4 cup butter to 1 1/2 cups of icing sugar and a couple tablespoons of milk, so I'm thinking that with so much sugar, the answer is "almost indefinitely in the fridge." So, as the title says, how long is it reasonable to keep the remnants of a batch? Although I've made small amounts (like the above recipe) on occasion, I'd like to make a big batch, seal it up, and use it as needed. (I realize that it might not work as well a month or two down the road, I'll experiment with it if I decide it's ok to use.)

Well you're kinda right about it lasting a long time due to the sugar content. That will help the preserving process to the extreme. However, to be pratical you should be looking at how long the butter fat will survive in the fridge before it starts to take on funky flavours and loses it's moisture. You'll be fine in an air tight tub for a month or so but then flavour will suffer. If you freeze it (it can be done but the quality will really suffer later) you can get away with 4-6 months before freezer burn kills it. Honestly, I'd just do smaller batches and enjoy the higher quality product. For what you save on time doing the larger batch, you'll give up on taste and quality later.

I'm thinking specifically about Frangelico, but Kahlua is another one that I use quite a bit. I don't care about alcohol content, but I would like stronger flavor and less liquid.

Many of the aromatic qualities of liqueurs are due to volatile substances that will likely evaporate while reducing the liqueur. So it really depends on how volatile the substances are that you want to keep. I performed a simple experiment with Frangelico. So, what I did is (over low heat for 20 minutes) I reduced 1/4 cup of store bought Frangelico to cca. 1/8 cup hazelnut and caramel flavored sugar water/syrup. It tastes pleasant, but the hazelnut aroma is a bit weaker - which might suggest that some of the hazelnut aroma evaporated together with the alcohol and water (wouldn't be surprising) or that the alcohol helped with distributing (hence perceiving) the aroma better or that the sweetness and other flavors now overpower it. Anyway, as stated above in many cases the aromatic substances in mixtures are aromatic because they are highly volatile - we can smell them cause they escape from the mixture. So, what can you do? Some techniques that I have used in the past come to mind: Distillation. Where you separate aromatic substances depending on their boiling points and catch them after condensation. However, the heat might not be good for some substances. Rotary evaporation. Which became a "hot" technique in molecular cooking =) Here the idea is similar to distillation, but the method is gentler in terms of temperature as it operates under reduced pressure - however it requires special equipment - a rotary evaporator. I successfully used it to separate the aroma from walnut liqueur and to make whiskey syrup. Freeze distillation. It has been suggested for separating menthol and other stuff from the alcohol medium (you might find suggestions for similar techniques by searching the internet for "homemade [whatever] essence/extract"). Making your own liqueurs/alcohol extracts - with more concentrated aroma than the commercial ones - so you have less volume for the same amount of the aromatic substance. This might be possible as the amount of alcohol in the solution might be able to accept more of the aromatic substance than there is in the commercial liqueur. However, it is very likely they are adding a concentrated/distilled essence, which gives a more clean and stronger flavor than what you can get from just extracting it (from say hazelnuts) with alcohol. However, as perviously suggested by @TFD you can just want to avoid all the hassle and buy commercially available essences/extracts or use some alternative flavorings as @razumny suggests. Or simply try the reduction technique if you don't mind loosing some of the volatile substances - and if the result is satisfying enough. That said, I made very tasty reductions of some liqueurs with very strong flavors (homemade wild blueberry liqueur and Terrano liqueur) to pour over deserts, where I mostly just wanted to get rid of the alcohol taste and to thicken it a bit. So, the results will vary from liqueur to liqueur and your best bet would be to just try it out with small quantities to see how it goes.

I'm really confused about what these products are supposed to do, and if some products can do the same as others in the following list. What are the differences between the following devices? Rice cooker with keep warm/cook button only Rice cooker with multi function/programs Slow cooker Pressure cooker Multicooker Does a multi cooker do all of the above? Or only some multi-cookers in the market? How can i tell if a pressure cooker can be used also as a rice cooker, etc? It's very confusing.

There are several different categories of these devices, but they do all tend to look quite similar. Prices can vary by a very significant amount, though. So. Rice Cooker The simplest kind of rice cooker is the kind with just a switch on the front to turn it on. Mine is like this - when plugged in, it's in "warm" mode, press the switch and it goes to "cook" mode. Rice cookers are designed to boil their contents, then wait until the water's all absorbed/evaporated and switch back to a keep-warm mode. That's all you need in order to cook rice, so it's all a basic rice cooker will do. You can cook other things with it, if you bear this in mind. Rice Cooker with other functions Depends what the other functions are. I've most commonly seen rice cookers which can also be slow cookers, in which case they heat more gently and disable the automatic shutoff used when cooking rice. Slow Cooker A slow cooker, commonly also called a crockpot after a popular brand, is a device that looks quite a lot like a rice cooker but usually has a fairly chunky ceramic cooking pot instead of a thin metal one. Slow cookers are designed to heat up to a moderate temperature and stay there for long periods of time, allowing you to gently cook something like a stew or a shoulder of pork for hours upon hours without having to use the oven or dance attendance on a saucepan. Slow cookers often have two or more temperature settings - mine has "high", "low" and "warm", but they can come with more. A common extra feature is an even lower temperature setting designed for making yoghurt. As mentioned above, a common combination is a rice cooker which can also be a slow cooker. Pressure Cooker A pressure cooker is a very different beast. Pressure cookers have a sealed chamber (typically with a big, heavy lid which you put on and twist to lock it into position) and a pressure valve. They heat up and form a high pressure environment, which raises the boiling point of water. Because the water stays liquid at higher temperatures inside the pressure cooker, food cooks a lot faster. A lot faster. This also has impacts on flavour and texture of food, sometimes positive, sometimes negative. To answer one specific point in your question, you can cook rice in all pressure cookers, in much the same way as you can cook rice in all saucepans and all microwaves, regardless of if they have a "rice" button. You can get stovetop pressure cookers, which require careful control of the heat from the burner to maintain the right pressure inside. People tend to be wary of these as we worry about them exploding, although modern cookers have excellent safety valves which will vent long before there's a risk to the integrity of the pot. The easier kind to use is the electric pressure cooker, which heats itself up and takes care of maintaining pressure automatically. These come in a variety of models with more or less sophisticated features including multiple pressure levels, automatic venting/keep warm/cooling at the end of the cooking time, and various other cooking functions, which leads us to... Multicooker Any one of a number of devices which aims to combine one or more of the above categories, plus more, into one device. A rice cooker with a slow cooker mode is technically a multicooker. Some multicookers claim to do techniques usually done on the hob and be able to roast things and deep fry things. Whether this is successful or not is something you should really check the reviews about. The popular multicookers these days are usually electric pressure cookers with more modes. They may have a hotter heat setting to use for frying and searing with the lid off, or a slow cooker mode which lets you put the lid on but won't build up pressure as it would in pressure cooking mode. Some have a rice cooking function, although typically they will pressure cook the rice rather than simply boil it as a standalone rice cooker does. How to choose one First, decide what you want. Then, decide how much you can afford. Then, read the feature lists. If a rice cooker can be used as a slow cooker it will tell you, because this is more expensive so they need to advertise that capability. Electric pressure cookers seldom come without some claims of being at least 6-in-1 devices. Mine's one of the most basic on the market and claims 6-in-1, in reality it's only capable of sauteing things (with the lid off) or pressure cooking them (with the lid on). So check carefully. Read reviews. There's no substitute for some research work in choosing a device for your kitchen. You may wish to have multiple objects so you can use them all simultaneously - which means you can gradually acquire a very affordable slow cooker, rice cooker, pressure cooker, whatever, one by one. But that takes up lots of space as well, which maybe you don't have, so you might want to spend more money and get something which has many modes for different ways of cooking.

I have a great cast iron skillet that I use frequently and also take superb care of. Until I noticed the bottom is coated in rust. I believe the high heat that I use from the range top cooked off all the seasoning on the bottom + I never re-season this skillet ever since the business end of the skillet is in such fine shape. What should I do to repair the bottom?

Get the rust off completely (wire wool or even the plastic equivalent will do), and lightly re-season (thin coat of oil, then cook it on the stovetop--you don't need a "real" seasoning, which will just endanger your interior if it's already good). Then, don't depend on the seasoning to protect the pan. Always dry it thoroughly before storage (towel dry carefully then give it just a few seconds on the heat to be 100% sure) and make sure the place it's sitting is always dry as well. You might consider placing it on a paper towel or other absorbent surface if you feel that the place you store it can't be kept sufficiently dry, or if you're storing it on a metal surface (to eliminate the chance of galvanic action causing the rust). If you never leave water in contact with your pan and keep it from being in contact with exposed metal, it won't rust in normal use. A little bit of seasoning on it is a little insurance policy, but as you've seen, it's not sufficient by itself.

How do you prepare mushroom pepper fry? I wanted it to be crispy, but the mushroom itself was generating lot of water. Any suggestions would be helpful.

Mushrooms typically release water if they are overcooked and also if salt is added too early in the cooking process. When cooking mushrooms, cook them on a relatively high heat until they have just developed some colour. at the end of the cooking process add your seasoning.

I only use celery as an ingredient. It’s part of the trinity, and gumbo wouldn’t be gumbo without it. While I was in Asia, I learned how useful and delicious celery leaves are, but I can’t find a local supermarket that sells un-trimmed celery. Is there a reason why produce wholesalers remove the leaves?

You did not disclose your location, but here are some reasons: It is an opportunity taken by the producer to increase the price. They can sell the product as-is, or process it further and sell it for more (ex. whole onions vs diced onions, the diced onions will be more expensive for the same amount). Sure they need to spend a little more time fabricating it, but they can also sell it for higher profit margins. This is called value added. Where you live, celery leaves are simply not used as an ingredient. Before you went to Asia, did you ever hear of people adding celery leaves in their food? I've worked in restaurants for five years, and indeed we always cut the leaves off and threw them away. We didn't need to use it. Not once did we have a recipe that called for it. It is the part of the celery that spoils the fastest. Even if the rest of the celery is fine and all you need to do is cut off the leaves, it is harder for the provider to sell celery with leaves that brown quickly versus selling celery without.

This is not yet about a problem, I am trying to avoid wasting time and ingredients or creating unsafe conditions while experimenting. Many vegetarian recipes for kimchi and kimchi-style fermented food suggest adding soy sauces and other similar flavourings instead of fish and fish sauces. The thing is: Many such condiments have benzoates or other preservatives added, and the purpose of at least some of these is ... being antimicrobial, and not in the same manner as acids or salt are, more in a "let's make the microbes get sick and die so you don't" manner... Now, an antimicrobial compound, even if diluted, could probably interfere with a fermentation process, maybe even in an unsafe way (shifting the balance towards something harmful gaining the upper hand). Are there known rule of thumbs what will and will not cause such problems?

Chlorinated tap water. The effect on the ferment may be negligible, but I've never bothered to test it, lest there be unwanted putrefaction. Boil the water that you're going to use to make your brine, then add salt and let cool. The chlorine should volatilize at the boil.

Someone mentioned searing food to "seal in the flavor". My response was that searing was a way to add a delicious crust, and nothing more or less. However, I recently noticed a frozen food mentioning their ground beef product is "flash frozen to seal in flavor". These are really just buzz words, right? Even if you're talking about juices as opposed to "flavor", you can't seal them in, can you? When the product rests the juice will be redistributed, won't it?

Searing on a grill to "seal in juices" has largely been disproven. Meat loses juice at roughly the same speed regardless of searing the meat first. Searing does produce the Maillard reaction and caramelization which enhances flavor; however, searing first doesn't produce better results. A test performed by Alton Brown in 2008 demonstrated that searing at the end of the cooking process loses less water than searing at the beginning. For more information see this link. For the Alton Brown results see this link (video).

I have tried deep frying chicken wings few times. The first time I tried it, the oil was heated a lot and I continued Frying it until it was crisp outside,but when ate it, it was not cooked all the way through, it was pink and the joints of the wings still had blood. Second time, because I thought it was because I cooked the wings on high heat, it was burned on the outside but still not cooked inside, I tried Frying the wings in low heat, but the result was the same, undercooked bloody joints in the wings and burned skin. So how do I deep fry the chicken wings so that it is cooked all the way through? Do I boil it in water before i deep fry?

It sounds like your temperature is way too hot. You need a thermometer as there's no reliable way to tell the temperature of your oil without one. A simple method is 190C for 10-15 minutes depending on the size of the wings, that's from refrigerator temperature. Serious eats has a page on wings here if you want to get more complex.

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.                             

I avoid dark-colored pans when I want to watch the color of a transparent or translucent mixture, such as cooking down fond or making caramel. (Situations where I need to make a split-second decision on when to stop cooking.) But I agree with GdD -- other things, like onions, are easy to watch in any color of pan.

I recently purchased a local taco spice blend (basically: chili pepper, paprika, garlic, cumin and oregano) but it tastes bland when I cook with it. In fact, I often find this when I try to use spice rubs (even mixing things from my spice cabinet) on meat. What is the right technique to maximize flavor? For example, I will take my chicken breasts, coat it in the spice mix, and add a little bit of oil and salt. From there, I'll cook in the pan. Food comes out under-seasoned, and I don't really get any of the flavors/aromas that I'd expect. When I use store-bought seasoning, like this one, I always get a better result: good flavors, good "stickiness" to the food. Or, when I use a glaze (eg, a char siu sauce) then I'm able to get great stickiness, coating, and flavor. Is there a trick to getting home made blends and seasonings to "work" on meat? Seems like just mixing and sprinkling on are not sufficient!

Salt TL;DR, The ingredients you list in your local spice blend doesn't include anything that would primarily hit the salty, sweet, sour, bitter, or umami tastes. The commercial product you link to has ingredients that hit four of those five tastes. Primarily, you probably need to use a bunch more salt, and maybe a touch of something sweet, sour (acidic), and/or umami. In nearly all cases, commercial products taste better because they are heavily salted--but depending on your personal taste & palate, you might also be missing some of the "background" flavors brought by other ingredients. The product you identified as consistently giving good results has this ingredient list (Ingredients are listed in order by the amount of each item--that's important to remember): Yellow Corn Flour, Salt, Maltodextrin, Paprika, Spices, Modified Corn Starch, Sugar, Citric Acid, Yeast Extract, Natural Flavors, Silicon Dioxide. You can look at this ingredient list to get a better idea of differences between what you might be putting together at home, compared to this product that you know you like. Hopefully, by looking closely at the one you do like, it will help you identify what you're missing (and why) from the other mixes that fall short. Yellow Corn Flour You'll notice the first ingredient is corn flour (corn starch is also listed separately further down). In the context of taco seasoning, this is a binder & thickener for the "sauce" that coats the meat. But you'll often see starches & flours used as a sort of binding "glue" to help seasoning stick to the (wet) surface of food. Salt The second ingredient is salt. This means that there is more salt than any other spice or seasoning. Salt is a fairly critical ingredient to make food taste like itself. This is why "a pinch of salt" is so ubiquitous in recipes, even for non-savory things. If you're finding that you use a bunch of spices, and it still tastes bland, my first guess is always that you didn't use enough salt. There are some alternative methods, but when comparing homemade spice blends to commercial spice blends, it is almost guaranteed that a major taste difference is that commercial spice blends have a lot of salt. Maltodextrin Maltodextrin is another bland-tasting ingredient that serves as a binder or thickener, rather than a flavoring. Paprika, Spices Finally, the 4th & 5th ingredients represent the actual "spices" that make up this taco seasoning. These two ingredients alone represent the entire list of ingredients you noted on your local taco seasoning mix (chili pepper, paprika, garlic, cumin and oregano). Modified Corn Starch More binding/thickening. Sugar Sweet is another "base" taste, where a little bit of sweet can make other flavors "pop". This is another spot where adding just a little sugar to homemade spice blends can help them taste more like commercial products you love. Additionally, it seems that Americans love sweet things, so this pops ups in most commercially available products in US groceries, especially seasonings & condiments. Sugar can also help with browning, and as it melts (around 367°F), it will get sticky. Citric Acid Salt, sweet, and acid (which is sour) are three of the main "base" flavors, and this item in the ingredient list brings the third one into the packet. Having all three in the right proportion can help food taste well-balanced or "well-rounded". At home, a squeeze of citrus juice, or splash of vinegar can replace citric acid in commercial products. Yeast Extract This bring umami to the party. Umami is another "base" flavor, which is usually described as "savoryness" or sometimes "meatiness" (many sources of umami are not meat, so while I don't love that description, many people find it helpful). Yeast extract has glutamates, which are the food science word for the compounds that taste umami (like the way sugars taste sweet). Another popular glutamate is monosodium glutamate (MSG), but many manufacturers shy away from including MSG on the label because of it's (IMHO unfounded) reputation. You can get yeast extract or MSG for your home spice cupboard if you're missing that background hit of umami from this. Natural Flavors There's a long list of things that this could be, but most likely they are just very small quantities of things that are tasty. Silicon Dioxide This is another utilitarian ingredient, rather than a flavorful one. It is an "anti-caking agent," which just means that it keeps your spice blend from clumping together. Spice blends that don't contain anti-caking agents tend to stick together, and you get one big lump, particularly when the air is humid.

As part of my Thanksgiving preparation, I made a chicken and turkey stock by first roasting the bones and then cooking them very low for a few hours. About an hour or so before the end of their cooking, I added roasted vegetables -- a combination of onion, carrot, celery, parsnip, turnip, and parsley root. I didn't add any other flavoring other than a touch of salt. (I know most people don't salt their stocks, but I tend to undersalt everything, so adding it at every step will help.) My stock is tasty, but rather sweet. Is this a factor of too many sweet vegetables (or not enough celery)? Or is there something else I'm missing? (I compensated in my gravy by adding a touch of soy sauce and fish sauce to add more umami flavoring. But I'd like to understand why it happened.)

Some vegetables are aromatics for infusing flavor without changing the underlying base, and certain combinations become known for cuisines. Onion, celery and carrots make mire-poix. Onions, garlic and tomato make sofrito. Turnips and parsnips are not those kinds of vegetables, usually. Parsnips get very sweet (a good thing usually) as do onions and carrots. You just combined a lot of the ones that get sweet and intensified it by roasting. If you are looking for a more neutral broth, stay with onions, celery and carrots and simmer, don't roast.

I got two circular cake pans for Christmas, and finally put them to use for home-made yellow cake layers. Feeling lazy, I tossed them into the dish washer afterwards instead of hand-washing, and realized afterwards that I didn't know if they were safe for it. After coming out they've turned from silvery to looking like they have a chalky white "coating" all over, that won't wash off. It feels very strange to the touch, almost like a chalk board. The "coating" (I'm guessing it's actually a lack of coating, that the dishwasher destroyed) is very uneven over the pans. Nothing comes off on your fingers when you rub or scratch at it, though. Are these still safe to bake with? I'm perplexed and don't know what to do with them now.

That sure looks like anodized aluminum that has been put through the dishwasher. I have never seen a non-stick coating that washes off in the dishwasher. If it is anodized aluminum then it is harmless to continue using the pan. I suggest contacting the manufacturer (stamped on bottom) if you want to be safe.

In this answer to another question, someone mentioned that they got gelatin out of rendering cow fat. I'm about to render a bunch of cow fat in a few days, and I was wondering how to get gelatin from it, in addition to the tallow? (i.e. I don't want to accidentally throw any good non-tallow parts away) Do I have to use 'suet' or can I use any cow fat? I'm just getting "the fat" from a cow, and it's probably going to be mixed together.

When I render fat scraps (usually taken from brisket and shoulder roast), there is usually a significant amount of connective tissue mixed in (although I try to trim away all of the meat). Thus, after rendering the tallow and letting it cool, the liquid below the tallow is quite gelatinous. It is a whitish color. It is thicker than a typical stock, although not quite as thick as calf's foot jelly. I save this and use it to thicken broths and soups (although it doesn't have much flavor, so I don't use it by itself).

In another question, I asked about pasteurization of raw milk at home. I got some interesting comments (of course, I further searched on the internet) that some people prefer not to pasteurize raw milk to keep its original flavor and nutrition properties. Pasteurization (whether industrial or at home) at 63 - 72 C will cause a significant loss of vitamins, useful ingredients and generally nutrition values of milk. Not only for the sake of pasteurization, but also we boil milk for preparing hot drinks. Of course, the boiling point is not necessary, and we let it to cool down a little bit. Is it really bad to let milk boil? Does it significantly reduce the nutrition values?

So long as we are discussing this topic. The Center for Disease Control has a specific answer for your question and their answer is NO. However, According to this paper from the National Center for Biotechnology Information pasteurization causes a breakdown in milk-caesin protein which after uptake through Peyer's patch can promote allergic sensitivity. There are other controversial claims that the higher temperatures required for milk pasteurization and boiling breaks down some of the ingredients with negative effects. There is a rebuttal to the FDA note from realmilk.com that counters the FDA facts with other scientific papers. However, it's been noted that their paper may not be heavily grounded in rigorous scientific data. There is a more idepth look in this presentation to British Columbia Centre for Disease Control seems to cover the spectrum of myths based on scientific evidence and critiques. Some of the points discussed are: Raw Milk is not a high-risk food (in today's age). Raw Milk does have protective properties to allergies and Asthma. also noted in this NCBI paper The notion of "the loss of nutrients due to pasteurization is insignificant" is based on an antiquated nutritional paradigm. Pasteurization and temperature does reorganize some of the milk proteins, but the effects of that is unknown. You may wish to watch the presentation, the gist of the discussion start at about 8 minutes in. In the end, if you believe pasteurization has negative nutritional effects, then boiling raw milk will, too (minus the safety of pasteurized milk).

Everything I have read says that you do not need to soak lentils like you would beans. Unfortunately the last several times I have cooked lentils they have seemed a little chalky. Should I be soaking my lentils before I cook them?

No, it's not necessary. You can do it, and if you'd soak them for about an hour, the cooking time will diminish strongly (half). I'm not sure if this would affect the chalky taste. Which kind of lentils do you use?

We have some radish that have these darker areas in the flesh. Currently, we are on the island of Malta where food ingredients are very low quality in general, so anything out of the ordinary immediately becomes suspicious :) Click for larger size image.

It's a fungal infection. If you google Aphanomyces raphani you will see much more serious examples but that how it looks usually when the outside is not affected (so also not thrown out by seller)

When a fruit (flavored) beverage says it contains all natural flavors but no juice, where is the flavor coming from? Is it possible there are man-made additives being thrown in that can be technically considered "natural"?

Ok... I'm going to ruin your day with this. In orange juice for instance, the process of homaginization and storage kills the flavor of orange juice, so the industry has enlisted the help of the perfume industry to help them. Each orange juice company has basically a perfume of orange flavors that it uses from the peels and rinds and biproducts that it uses to try to recreate the taste of real orange juice... It's why every orange juice brand tastes slightly different even though they are all "fresh squeezed" (btw, they are technically fresh squeezed, they're just then stored :)) If you google "orange juice flavor packs" you can see what this is talking about. The flavor packs are incidentally made out of parts of the orange, so the fda has no problem with them (sadly). http://consumerist.com/2011/07/oj-flavor-packs.html So to directly answer your question, you can flavor something with fruit derived perfume and call it "natural flavors" Here's a quote from the site: Juice companies therefore hire flavor and fragrance companies, the same ones that formulate perfumes for Dior and Calvin Klein, to engineer flavor packs to add back to the juice to make it taste fresh. Flavor packs aren't listed as an ingredient on the label because technically they are derived from orange essence and oil. Yet those in the industry will tell you that the flavor packs, whether made for reconstituted or pasteurized orange juice, resemble nothing found in nature. The packs added to juice earmarked for the North American market tend to contain high amounts of ethyl butyrate, a chemical in the fragrance of fresh squeezed orange juice that, juice companies have discovered, Americans favor.

I have a seasoned cast iron skillet, and I don't want to mess up the seasoning when I'm cleaning it. What do I use and what don't I use to get it back to clean? I've heard not to use soap and to make sure it is dry, but nothing beyond that.

Kosher salt and a small amount of vegetable oil. Scrub the pan with the salt on a rag or paper towel, if there are stubborn bits mix a couple drops of oil with the salt, wipe dry with clean towel. If you use a wet method to clean the pan re-heat it after cleaning to make sure it is completely dry before storing.

I've been following a recipe for meatballs but they are far too loose for putting on the bbq. I thought I could maybe put them in the fridge before cooking them, or brown them in a pan before putting them on the bbq - I was wondering, does anyone have any idea of how to make them a bit more solid? or any better way of making meatballs / keftedes? The recipe is here : http://www.meatwave.com/blog/keftedes-grilled-greek-meatballs-recipe

a few tips here I noticed that the beef was "80% lean", try to go with little bit fatter beef like "60% lean". This sounds strange, but I would try to beat up (or stir) the minced beef before mixing with other ingredients. When you beat or stir the beef, you will notice the fat will create a gel texture that helps to stick the beef better. I would also separate the egg yolks and egg white. I would put the egg yolk in 1st with all the ingredients and put the egg white last. Egg White on its own will also help you to stick the minced beef better. Lastly, if it still doesn't work, try to lightly apply flour on each meat balls before cooking. The flour will help sealing the juice inside the meat balls, which the meat balls will stick together better

The other night I made a derived version of pomegranate chicken and came up with a few questions. The recipe I used was: 1/2 pomegranate (smashed) 1/4 cup of water 3/4 cup of powdered sugar 1 oz. salted caramel vodka 2 orange slices (smashed) I let the mixture simmer and added it before cooking the chicken. The questions that arose were: Besides powdered sugar what other ingredients can be used to thicken a sauce? Is there a possible sour contrast that I could add to the mix (besides the pomegranate) to cut the edge of the sweet?

Powdered sugar doesn't seem like a great thickener to me. It takes a lot to thicken a small amount of liquid, and as you've noticed, that means it'll end up pretty sweet. As an example, you can make a glaze (e.g. for cinnamon rolls) with a cup of powdered sugar and only a few tablespoons of liquid. Generally, people thicken things using starch, most commonly flour and cornstarch, but also things like potato starch, arrowroot powder, tapioca/cassava starch. They're stronger thickeners, and don't really have much flavor of their own. So I'd use as much sugar as you want to balance the pomegranate's sourness, and then use starch to thicken. You probably won't need extra sour at that point, but if you want it, you could certainly add something like lemon juice or vinegar.

I once marinated chicken breasts for the grill using some habaneros for heat and bananas for sweetness (and some vinegar and salt thrown in to cut some of the sweetness). To everyone's surprise, the bananas actually cut the heat of the peppers to the point where it was mild-to-medium...quite tolerable and delicious. I know it was the bananas because we have tried it other times with the same results. The question: what is it about bananas that cuts the heat of peppers? I once thought it was the fat content of bananas until I found out they are low in fat. Has anyone had similar experiences with bananas and hot peppers?

I found a reference searching on how to cool your mouth after eating a pepper. Eat starches. Eat starches if your mouth is burning from ingesting chili peppers. They should give you some relief. Although starches like rice and bread aren’t going to be as effective at dissolving the capsaicin as fats, oils or alcohol, they will help cool the burn. There is a reason that many cultures serve spicy food alongside white rice (or potatoes). This is common in many Asian and Indian cultures. According to this starched dissolve some of the capsaicin. Personally I would skip the banana and go for a less hot pepper. You are using one the hotter peppers.

I know the answer is "it's for cutting bread" but what I really want to know is when does its uniqueness actually help? What I've noticed is that it's sooooooooo much easier to use the santoku knives to cut breads with a harder crust like french bread or sourdough or a batard. They require no pressure, they easily cut all the way through, and they don't make a giant mess of crumbs. Where as when I try using the bread knife, since what I'm cutting is bread, it requires much more effort to cut, there is always a big pile of crumbs and the last cut, the cut needed to separate the slice from the rest of the bread is always very difficult without feeling like I'm going to accidentally saw the cutting board instead of the bread. Am I doing it wrong or is the bread knife really not designed for hard breads but maybe only soft breads (the kinds that are usually bought already sliced?)

The "problem" with using your Santoku knives is that they dull fast when you use them on bread. If you keep your knives well sharpened, you can do without the bread-knife. Other uses for bread-knives, is cutting tomatoes, for instance. Another thing you can use a well sharpened Santoku knife for.

I have a tart recipe that has a shortcrust base that I have done several times. On the first attempts, everything was okay with the base - the "dough" was crumbly but could be rolled and kept its shape relatively well. Now I tried making it and the "dough" turns out very crumbly, more like dry flour than dough. Rolling is impossible, and only after a lot of compaction with my hands was I able to make something workable. The ingredients are: 300 g flour 100 g sugar 200 g butter, cut into small cubes 1 beaten egg The instructions are: Mix flour, sugar and butter Add beaten egg and stir until combined Flatten the dough, wrap in cling-film and place in refrigerator for 2 hours The instruction imply to use a food processor, but I have been using my KitchenAid stand mixer with the flat beater. I also tried mixing by hand (with a fork as well as literally by hand), with minimal improvements. What am I doing wrong now, and why did it work before but not anymore?

If your dough is very dry and crumbly, it needs more water. Add a few mL to the dough when adding the beaten egg.

I'm the proud owner of two forged iron pans (I'm using them on a regular basis). They kind of work out for everything I do, occasionally, food will stick to the surface, but it can quickly be pushed away mechanically while cooking without burning in or something like that. To season the pan and create the "non-stick" effect, I used instructions from a german webpage on seasoning pans. However, searching around, it seems to me the only source of information about frying pans and how to season them seems to be oral traditioned knowledge that everybody just passes on. I've seen so many different webblogs / youtube-videos / information-pages on pans and how to treat them, which are in general inconsistent with each other (what oil to use, what temperature, potatoe peels yes / no, salt yes / no, how often to repeat the process .... ). What's even worse, none of the sources I consulted so far has an answer to the questions: What does the anti-stick-layer consist of? How exactly does this layer prevent sticking (linked to the first question)? Even if I found a webblog that answers this questions, I wouldn't know where this knowledge would stem from, and wether it is trustworthy. Unless somebody had actually done research on this questions. So my question is: Is there research about the non-stick-layer of seasoned iron pans, especially what it consists of, how it is formed (best) and wether it's detrimental for ones health? If somebody has an answer, please also provide a link / an adress, or another way to obtain the details of the research. By research I don't necessarily mean a study conducted by a public institute. It could also just be some person who executed some experiments, and shared the results along with the details of the experiments. Additional information: Since I have forged iron pans, I'm asking about the seasoning of forged iron pans. Since I assume the non-stick layer of cast-iron pans doesn't differ too mutch, the question can be broadened to address any type of iron-pan seasoning.

Try this link Is there a difference in the ease of seasoning cast iron, forged iron, and carbon steel? and the article it links to "that explains the science behind seasoning". Another https://www.eatthis.com/season-cast-iron-tips/ "Unsaturated oils include canola and vegetable oil. They are chemically structured in a way that helps them polymerize to the metal, which helps create that non-stick surface on a cast-iron skillet." And more on the science of it: https://www.scienceofcooking.com/science-of-cast-iron-skillet-cooking.html

so I'm writing a story where one of the characters is trying to make some bread with minimal ingredients in a short amount of time. I'm not having much luck with my normal means of researching so I came here for some help. I'd like to know what bread takes the shortest amount of time. Breads that can be made with minimal ingredients. And also I would just like to know if you have to knead flat bread.

A basic flatbread can be made by mixing flour, a little oil (if possible) and just enough water to make it stick together. Salt is often added. No real kneading is needed, just mixing, but a little kneading helps. Then roll/pound/press flat and cook in a frying pan or on a hot stone. In Egypt I've seen something similar cooked on the side of an old jerrycan over a wood fire. This is basically what a chapati is, so very recognisably bread (but not risen).

I have not heard about this stuff before.. It is not used in Indian cooking..! What exactly is shortening? I read it in a recipe to bake a rose shaped cake and it uses shortening to grease the pan..

In baking, the term "shortening" alone is used to mean any fat; "vegetable shortening" is a fat made from vegetable oil to be solid at room temperature. Most vegetable oils, such as corn oil, peanut oil, soybean oil and so on are liquid at room temperature because they are unsaturated fats: their fatty acids do not have hydrogen bound to them. Vegetable oil is converted into vegetable shortening by hydrogenating it, forcing hydrogen to bind on to the ends of the fatty acids. This is done by forcing hydrogen to bubble through the oil under pressure, heat, and in the presence of a catalyst. Compared to vegetable oil, vegetable shortening is solid at room temperature, white in color, and much less prone to rancidity as it is a saturated fat. It has essentially an unlimited shelf life. It is also very neutral in flavor, so is often used to grease pans. However, any fat will do for that purpose. In baking, it performs very well in making North American style pie crusts, where it helps promote a flaky crust, but it has little flavor. It also performs very well in deep frying. As a solid fat, like butter, it can also be creamed with sugar to help leaven baked goods, although it does not give the flavor benefits of butter. Note that margarine is essentially an emulsion of vegetable shortening (about 80%) and water (about 20%) plus colors and flavorings, meant to imitate butter. See also: Are there any substitutes for Shortening?

I have a piece of cold smoked salmon, vacuum packed, in my fridge. Unfortunately when leaving the house I turned the fridge off accidentally and left the house for 8 days. The house was unheated and the kitchen is on the north side so is unlikely to have got outside the 4-8C range and the fridge was unopened. I shoved a thermometer in when I discovered and it read below 5. I'm inclined to think in those conditions it should be OK but I'm not sure. It doesn't look or smell any different than before.

If the salmon was actually nonperishable (perhaps refrigeration was needed only for quality), you're of course fine. You'll have to try to figure that out from the packaging or maybe the manufacturer. If the salmon needed refrigeration for safety... the danger zone is temperatures above 40F/4-5C. Even in a warm house, refrigerators generally are insulated well enough to keep a safe temperature for up to ~4 hours. (Really old refrigerators, or ones with a damaged seal around the door may not do as well.) So if the room cooled down fast enough, the refrigerator would never have gotten into the danger zone. On the other hand, if it stayed at 10-20C for most of a day, the fridge may have gotten too warm for a while. You can try to guess at this based on your knowledge of your house and the weather, but it's hard to say from here. If you think the salmon spent several hours over 5C, and it needed refrigeration for safety, it's no longer safe. If not, it's fine. Take your best guess, and when in doubt throw it out.

I am relatively new to pizza making... I've made 10 pizzas or so. I am having trouble understanding the process the yeast makes it my dough... I see recipes ranging from 1/2 TS to 2 TS of yeast, the time the dough must sit before going in the oven varies, and all that seems to be insignificant to me compared to the heat and time it will spend in the oven... Can anyone explain the science of it to me?

Kenji over at Serious Eats gives some of the best "pizza science" lessons on the Internet. Here's a good article on the role of yeast and fermentation in pizza dough: http://slice.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/09/the-pizza-lab-how-long-should-i-let-my-dough-cold-ferment.html In short, time and kneading cause proteins in dough to form an elastic network of fibers called gluten. Yeast consumes starch and emits carbon dioxide. Gluten traps the carbon dioxide which causes the dough to expand or "rise". The amount of yeast and time may vary based on the intent of the cook. More time allows the cook to use less yeast (the yeast organisms will multiply) and allows for a greater development of the proteins in the wheat flour. A longer, slower rise will allow for the greatest flavor to be developed. In his tests, Kenji found the optimum rise time to be 2-3 days in a refrigerator. However, this must be balanced against the cook's desire for an expedient dinner :-) In my personal pizza cooking, I usually use 1 packet of yeast (2.25 tsp) for approximately 13 cups of flour. I will typically allow this to rise for around 24 hours on my kitchen counter-top (my house says cold at around 55-60degF). If the dough will not be used right away, I will put it in the fridge but will allow it to warm to room temperature for several hours before cooking it. Good luck with your pies!

Frozen juice or frozen punch freeze up as a solid block of ice. I want them to be more like a sorbet or gelato, though still solid enough to hold the shape. How might I make them softer? Either aerated, or polycrystalline without having to "do anything" while it's in the freezer? One thought is to somehow make it more syrupy so it will hold air long enough to stay there while freezing. Gelatin comes to mind, but I wonder if something better is advised?

The main factors are a gelling agent, alcohol, sugar and air/stirring. Sugars may decrease the freezig point - add enough sugar and your ice remains soft-ish. Unfortunately this can mean your ice gets too sweet. So instead of using plain sugar, add some "inverted sugar": glucose syrup (aka corn syrup), which stays runny and doesn't crystalize. You could even take it up a notch and use trehalose, which is basically two linked glucose molecules. It is used in ice-cream making to inhibit the formation of ice crystals. It tastes also less sweet than regular sugar, allowing for less sweet ice cream. Find an award-winning sample recipe here (further down). And if you really must have some hard science, a study on the use of trehalose in ice cream. Alcohol has a low freezing point. But apart from the question whether you want to use it at all, you should note that you need a certain amount of ethanol to have a noticeable effect - high-proof alcohol and yes, you will taste it. Glycerine (a sugar alcohol) helps keep ice cream soft. Likewise the addition of gelling agents may inhibit the formation of ice crystals - locust bean gum is often used to replace eggs in custard-based ice cream and agar agar and pectin may serve a simmilar purpose. And finally you can mechanically avoid / hinder the formation of large ice crystals by churning your juice first and freezing the slush instead of pouring the juice straight in the molds. The ice will still be rather hard, but not as much of a "solid icicle", especially if combined with one of the additives above.

I purchased a head of garlic and I have 2/3's of it left over, I am storing it in the fridge in a ceramic covered dish (made specifically for garlic :) a gift from my mother) and I would like to know how long I can continue to expect fresh flavor from it. What would the garlic look like if it had indeed spoiled?

Garlic will spoil faster in the fridge actually. I don't know how long it will last in the fridge, but I understand that it lasts longer if you leave it in a cool, dark, dry storage. I believe one reason is that your fridge is generally too humid. In my experience, garlic kept in the fridge is also more likely to develop mould (goes soft, and dark discolouration). I keep mine in a ceramic thing in one of my cupboards. It lasts anywhere from a few weeks to a few months depending on the garlic (probably how long it sat before getting to my kitchen). If you store it like that, garlic that goes "bad" will usually start to sprout (green shoots, will come through the top.

I want to know what is the extra step that make the difference between: Caramel Sauce; Soft Caramel; Chewy Caramel. I will take Christophe Michalak recipe: 100 g sugar; 100 g cream; 20 g butter. What is the key step that will make the difference. And what if we added less cream, so we can be aware from slightly oily caramels.

There is no "extra step". The recipe proportions determine which type you get. Standard caramel is just chewy. If you add fat or milk proteins (insider tip: try milk powder), it becomes soft. The more fat, the softer. Also, if you add liquid, it becomes liquid, and can be used as a sauce. The more liquid, the lower the viscosity. Also, it is a continuum, there is no hard divide. You can't say that up to 30% cream it's a soft caramel, from 31% cream it's a sauce" or similar. A recipe should tell you which kind it produces. The one you posted looks a lot like a sauce to me, although I don't have ratios handy to say for sure. I tried searching for it, but the only one I found was https://djoudjousemetauxfourneaux.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/sauce-caramel-maison-recette-de-christophe-michalak/, which has much less liquid and more butter, and is still supposed to be a sauce.

Yesterday I thoroughly cleaned my cast iron pan, reseasoned it four times for 30 minutes at 450 with liquid canola oil. The seasoning looked really good, and I had a great sheen across the entire bottom and sides of the pan. I cooked bacon this morning, then cleaned by scouring with a sponge. I dried with a paper towel, buffed some more canola oil on with a new paper towel, and turned my stove on high. After 15 minutes, the iron was up to 700F-800F. I turned it off, let it cool down and it looks like the seasoning has been stripped from where the pan was hottest, pictured below. Is there a temperature at which the seasoning is destroyed? If so, what is it? If that's not what caused my problem, what did?

As Jolene linked to in comments, one can certainly burn off cast iron seasoning at a high enough temperature. The exact temperature where it will begin to disintegrate depends on exactly what the seasoning layer is like (composition of oils etc. used to treat it, thickness and number of layers, how thoroughly the oils may have been polymerized, etc.). Depending on the exact seasoning layer composition and thickness, you'll see a number of different possible scenarios -- the layer could effectively "evaporate off" mostly through smoke, it could flake and degrade, and/or it could turn into a layer of powdery ash (sort of like what one sees after a self-cleaning oven cycle). There's a lot of kitchen "lore" surrounding cast iron seasoning, even on websites that claim to be based on "science." Everybody has their favorite seasoning methods and materials. So, I'm really not certain of all the chemical details here. But my personal experience is that a "young" seasoning that is rarely or never heated very hot is more likely to "smoke off." A very old seasoning that is quite thick will often leave ash residue (and will require a higher temperature to strip down to bare iron). No matter how good your seasoning is, though, it will be destroyed by heat long before you get close to damaging the actual iron structure of the pan. There's an old traditional method of stripping seasoning off a cast iron pan that involves throwing the pan into a hot campfire. So this is a very old practice.

So I know it may sound a bit weird, but I like milky tea with some lemon juice added. I pop a teabag into the mug, fill it about 2/3 with boiling water, let seep a bit, remove teabag, add some freshly-squeezed lemon, then slowly add cold fat-free milk (and add stevia for sweetness). How can I make myself a cuppa without the milk curdling?

I use lemon zest in my tea while its steeping, then I strain it through a fine strainer. Gives you all the benefits and no curdling.

I have an inductive stove, and some very large pots that don't work on the stove. It seems that the material is invisible to the induction coil, and if I were to place a steel disk inside the pot, then that steel disk would act as a heating element. Would this work? This would be for liquids, boiling large amounts of mostly water (bone broths, beer, etc.), so the cooking surface isn't really a factor. edit: The stainless pots I'm using are quite thin. I have tried placing them on a cast iron skillet similar to the adapter idea, but that doesn't work well at all. I am hoping the disk would heat, and being inside the pot, would be much more efficient. I could also test with some generic bits of steel I can find. I thought I'd ask first.

The usual approach would be to put the steel disk under the pot. Such disks are even produced commercially for this purpose: look for an induction interface disk. The basic mechanism is straight forward. The disk heats due to electromagnetic induction; then heat moves from the disk to the cooking vessel via conduction. As long as your cooking vessel is a good conductor and the bottom of the pan is in direct contact with the disk, it will heat up relatively efficiently. Putting the disk inside the cooking vessel seems iffy. If your cooking vessel has a thick bottom, then the disk will be further from the stove-top. Because the magnetic field strength decreases with distance, induction would be less efficient. Also, if the disk is inside the vessel, it will come into contact with the food and probably need to be washed. Putting it under the pot leaves one fewer item to wash.

For the first time since i started dieting, I'm making a stir fry dish for dinner. Usually, I include white rice with the finished product to absorb some of the sauce and provide that fluffy texture. What is a low carb, or even carb free, alternative I can use that provide a similar texture and absorbent quality?

Quinoa. I only recently discovered it as part of doing P90X, and man, it's so, so delicious. It's kind of a nutty flavour that goes really well with sauces. It's also pretty high in protein, which is good. Note that this isn't "no-carb", though it is lower in carbs than rice. It's important that you wash quinoa before you prepare it. Otherwise, it's prepared in a very similar way, 2-1 water-to-quinoa, boiled and simmered.

I keep going to restaurants around my city (São Paulo) where in certain days of the week, some of them serve middle-eastern food. Curiously, there's always a whitey cream that some of the restaurants call "sour cream" and some of them, call the same cream as "curd". Now I searched through Google and I discovered that both terms seem to describe different dishes, even though these restaurants interchange them as if they were the same thing. Also, when looking on the web, I couldn't find much result on which one is right, some pages of middle-eastern cuisine doesn't even list it as one typical food, but they do list baba ghanoush and hummus, that is also served here. Which led me to think that sour cream isn't really from the middle-eastern cuisine, but just misthought to be, as it's similar to baba ghanoush and hummus. Is sour cream and curd different food, or the same? Is it really from middle-eastern cuisine, or just some restaurants that think it is, when it isn't? And if it is, what is the correct name of it?

This looks like it's most likely labneh, a form of yogurt that's strained to remove some of its moisture. The texture can range from a thick sour-cream consistency to something like dense cream cheese, and it's common in the cuisines of the Mediterranean and Levant. Sometimes it takes the form of rolled balls, sometimes it's served as a dip or sandwich ingredient, but it always has the characteristic sour taste of yogurt. Often it's garnished with mint or za'atar, but not always, though it's usually served with olive oil. It's also referred to variously as "strained" or "Greek" yogurt (which can mean something different than the common slightly-thickened "Greek yogurt" that's currently trendy in the United States) so I wouldn't be surprised if there were a slight difference in translation that's causing the confusion. As you've found in your research, "sour cream" in the US usually denotes cream that's cultured in the same way as yogurt. "Curd" is more confusing; in the US it usually refers to cheese formed by treating with acid to produce solid clumps, but it can also refer to similar substances produced from fruit, as in lemon curd.

About once per month, my mother prepares chicken with rice and a currysauce with pineapple. I don't know exactly what the method of preparation is of the chicken because it's prepared by one of those traveling grilling trucks. However, what I do know is that there is a small (like 2 cm wide and half a cm deep) cavity in one of the hips of the chicken that's filled with really tasty meat. The cavity is open on the inside and I think it's the best part of the chicken. It appears to be some kind of organ meat, but I'm not sure what exactly it is. I also don't have a picture of the meat, sorry. What could this meat be?

Those are the chicken oysters -- muscle meat, not organ meat. I'm glad you've learnt to enjoy them by intuition, as they are indeed a prized portion of the chicken. Wikipedia tells me the French call this portion sot-l'y-laisse: "(only) a fool leaves it there", because it is little known, easily missed, and much prized.

Last week I successfully made my own greek yogurt! I was and am very excited that I finally got it to work. But now the problem is, the yogurt I am making is just not very smooth. Store bought greek yogurt (such as Dannon Oikos and Fage) is silky smooth, thick and creamy. This texture is one of the biggest reasons I enjoy it so much. My DIY greek yogurt has a rough consistency closer to ricotta cheese. It also has very small (1 mm) cottage cheese like curds in it. I found out that you can make Ricotta simply by heating up whey. That causes the albumin protein to turn into ricotta. The first step to make Greek Yogurt is to heat up the milk to denature albumin protein. Apparently this results in the protein staying in the yogurt instead of the whey. So I thought if I didn’t heat the milk up as hot, it would keep more albumin protein in the whey and the result would be a smoother yogurt, and a higher yield of ricotta from the whey. What I ended up with was more whey and less yogurt. More importantly, the yogurt had the same texture as before. Does anyone know of something I can change in the yogurt making process that leads to a more silky smooth consistency?

You are correct that the milk is heated to denature the albumin so that it becomes part of the structure of the yogurt instead of washing out in the whey. When distributed through the yogurt properly this protein will not cause the clumping problems you are seeing. You shouldn't expect to make ricotta from yogurt whey- even if the milk wasn't boiled it just doesn't work well. Most yogurt problems, including breaking and clumping, are caused by poor temperature control. Heating the milk too much during incubation, over incubating, or erratic temperatures, can all cause your bacteria to misbehave. Often this causes the yogurt to be too acidic and to curdle which would explain your clumping. As has been canvassed in other answers; the best yogurt incubation temperatures are between 100 - 110°F (38-48°C) but it seems to vary a little with the starter. The best results seem to be had from putting 110°F (48°C) milk in an insulated container to incubate rather than trying to use a heater. Many yogurt recipes call for powdered milk to boost the milk protein in the mix. Another possible explanation is if you mixed it in insufficiently.

Just found out that adding potato to a bread recipe can make it softer and more moist. I'd like to experiment with this. If I were following a recipe that didn't include potatoes, how could I modify it to include potatoes? Do the potatoes need to be a certain percentage of the flour? Do I add more liquids along with the potato? Do I remove some flour and replace with potatoes? Also, will potato flakes work as well?

You'll want to be careful when trying to modify an existing non-potato recipe. Potatoes, like any other agricultural product, have a variable amount of starch and water. Some are big, some are small, etc, so it's hard to tell just how much flour and/or water you'd want to replace in an existing recipe without doing some serious lab-testing or trying to remove all the water somehow. The Non-risky method: Look for published recipes that already have potato added: http://www.thefreshloaf.com/search/node/Potato The Experimental Method Take a recipe you like that could use a bit more moistness. Throw in a cup of baked potato. Remove a half-cup of flour and 1/4 cup of whatever liquid you're using. You can also try using Potato flour: http://www.bobsredmill.com/potato-flour.html Bake that loaf and see what happens. Adjust the variables as necessary, and try it again, carefully documenting what worked and what didn't. If you develop something that you like, publish it so the rest of us can enjoy!