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We have bottled Muscat wine and with a few bottles (three out of 30) the cork seems to be pushing out. The storage area is 12 Celsius. The wine was bottled in mid June of this year, by a small winery. This is a very recent event. All the other bottle tops are still that tiny bit concave. What can be going on ? | This is generally an indication that the wine is not stable - that is, it is still fermenting, which is a defect in wines not intended to be sparkling (carbonated) wines. If you made the wine, and the winery bottled it, this is your problem. If the winery made and bottled the wine, I would bring it up with them, as i... | |
I notice when I bake cookies (usually chocolate chip or peanut butter) the recipe often says "place on baking rack to cool". Because I don't have one, I just place them on a plate after removing them from the pan. It doesn't seem to do any harm. What is the point of buying this special piece of equipment? | A cooling rack serves two primary purposes. First, it allows the cookies (or other baked good) to cool faster by letting air circulate completely around the cookie. Second, it prevents the steam escaping from the cookies from soaking the bottoms, and other cookies placed on top. | |
I belong to a CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) and get a basket of assorted vegetables every week. I have very little cooking experience, and if I search the ingredients online I get a ton of recipes that have only 1 or 2 of the ingredients I need to use. So far what I've been doing is putting most of the stuff ... | There is often a need with a CSA box to use up the last of the previous box when the new box arrives. Making soup is a great strategy for doing this. Almost any combination of vegetables works well in a soup, and leftover soup stretches the lifetime of the vegetables and can also be frozen with good results. You can s... | |
Prompted by the question How to cook Lo Mein? and some of the answers regarding types of noodles, I started wondering what the real differences are in the 4 named dishes. I know what the differences are in American Chinese restaurants and I understand that there are variations. (E.g., lo mein is usually wheat noodle... | The problem with your question is that you're kind of asking something akin to "what is the universally accepted traditional preparation for Spaghetti". While conventionally in much of the English speaking world, that refers to spaghetti and meat sauce. The word/dish itself refers to a specific style/type of noodle and... | |
I steam my broccoli until it's 'al dente' and some buds turn brown. I've done a small search, but haven't found anything. I'm thinking maybe the steam is too hot or I'm steaming too long. What do you think? | further to SAJ14SAJ's answer, what happens is the Magnesium atom in the bright green Chlorophyll is lost in acidic conditions and you end up with Pheophytin which is Olive Green. There are other reactions at play mediated by the enzyme Chlorophyllase which can be active even in frozen storage. The main reason for bla... | |
I made peach chutney yesterday, hot ingredients into hot sterilized jars. Wiped the rims. After submerged in boiling water 20 minutes, and sitting placidly on counter all the jars popped but one. Today when checking the seals, depressing the center of lid, the one that had not popped on its own, popped. Now I am not... | You should either store that jar in the refrigerator or reprocess it with a new lid. The vacuum formed is not going to be as strong as your other jars and may be temperature sensitive. It may stay sealed on the shelf, but it may not. I wouldn’t risk having to discard the whole jar. | |
This recipe calls for first frying the sausage until fully cooked and then poaching it in pasta water. Many other pasta recipes from this vendor use similar technique. What is the goal here? Is it to improve the texture of meat, imbue it with some "pasta" taste or make kale taste meaty? Is it important to use "starch" ... | In my experience, a 400 gram can of beans contains about 240 grams of drained beans. That will vary slightly by the type of bean. | |
A friend of mine cooks pasta in a modified electric water boiler which has been modified to keep going even after the water placed in it boils. What are some advantages and disadvantages of this method over placing the boiled water in a pot and cooking it there over a gas stove? Thanks. | Advantages: You can make pasta in your water boiler. Disadvantages: Hard to clean. Waste of energy, a water boiler is on or off, it will expend full energy keeping the water boiling. Incredibly dangerous, a big fire hazard. Because it's modified to ignore the internal temperature sensor it will keep heating and ... | |
I got a pizza peel that feels like it is just plain wood. How can I protect it? I thought I heard somewhere to use some sort of oil. | Wood is actually a pretty good bacterial inhibitor. Wood will last a long time - but not forever. We have a pizza peel that is 5 years old and it is used every day. It still is just fine without mineral oil or any other wood pampering. | |
I tried one recipe with silken tofu, but it didn't set enough and just ran off the carrot cake. | There's no reason to peel besides the aesthetics of it. There's no major flavor or nutritional difference either way. If the ginger is going to be seen then peel it, if not don't bother. The best way to peel ginger is to use the edge of a small spoon to rub it off, it works really well, takes seconds, and doesn't was... | |
As a vegetarian, whenever I have to use minced meat I use minced quorn. But quorn does not add any flavour to dishes, only texture. What are the best "base spices" to add to the quorn when using it in any dish, for example spaghetti sauce? | According to Wikipedia, apple cider (US usage) is different from apple juice (US usage) in that: "Apple juice and apple cider are both fruit beverages made from apples, but there is a difference between the two. Fresh cider is raw apple juice that has not undergone a filtration process to remove coarse particl... | |
I have cooked bone in pork shoulder many times before and I am about to do it again but I feel the need to experiment slightly... My plan is to cook the pork shoulder in the oven for 8 hours at 100 degrees celcius (212 degrees faranheit) then transfer it to my smoker, where i shall smoke it for another 8 hours between ... | 180C (350F) for 45 minutes should do the trick. Just make sure it is piping hot in the middle before serving. Cover the dish with foil to prevent the crust getting any crustier. You will still want to take it off for the last ten minutes of cooking to crisp it though, as the foil will make it soggy. You can absolutely ... | |
I am making vegetable soup for about eight people and would like to cool it in little time. Refrigeration seems to be a good choice, but I would like to know if there are better methods/techniques out there. | Ice bath. Put a bunch of ice in your sink or in a container large enough to place your soup pot in. Add enough water to cover the ice. If the soup pot is large or wide, you can speed up the cooling by periodically stirring it: this is particularly important for thicker soups or stews, where the middle section of a p... | |
While I was reading the ingredients list of a supermarket-bought bread (in the Netherlands) the other day, one of them caught my eye: acerola powder. I know acerola is a fruit with a high vitamin C content but why would it be used in bread? I don't think it was for its particular flavor since it was just a regular sof... | The only functional reason that comes to mind is indeed the vitamin C content. Vitamin C makes for quite tough gluten, so it is frequently used in bread making. The question about the choice of acerola powder over ascorbic acid can only be answered with certainty by the person who made that choice. An obvious guess w... | |
My mom lives Hong Kong when Toronto's cold. Here are strictures: Healthy frying is OK. Let's rule out deep-frying - it's unhealthy and can cause cancer. Her HK flat doesn't have a convection oven. She never bought microwave oven. She could buy a counter-top convection toaster oven, but she feels it's too eco-unfrien... | You will never achieve the same results without an oven or deep-frying. Just pan-fry the potatoes in a little bit of oil; I'd par-boil the potatoes and finish them up in the pan. | |
I would like to know from you guys, what criteria do you use to select the perfect (green) coffee bean for roasting purposes? | Buttermilk has a delicious flavor that is not at all approximated by lemon juice. It's true that lemon or vinegar with milk will clabber it a little and provide the acid that the recipe needs but the flavor will be distinctly lacking. Get some buttermilk. It's inexpensive and has a longer shelf life than normal milk... | |
Hams are on sale now (end date of sale 4-11). I want to bake my ham on the 16th. Seems to me I would be cutting down on "eating time" for the ham. What do you think? Thanks. | I don't believe it will make any difference, and here's why - You may be buying the ham a few days earlier, and the ham may be part of a shipment that was received and stocked at a certain date, as opposed to a later date, but it's doubtful there is a significant difference in the dates that a ham on sale today, and ... | |
With the cookie baking season upon us I broke out the cookie cutters for sugar cookies, however almost all of them are pretty deformed or broken (from moving houses). I haven't bought any cutters in a long time and didn't realize how expensive they've gotten. Are there any cheap ones out there that are worth buying or... | I think using an empty can is a brilliant, frugal idea...but if you want something a bit more exciting, chain stores like Bed Bath & Beyond sell decent tubs of cookie cutters. If you have one of those mailer coupons, you can get a ridiculous amount (like a pack of 100) for less than $20. | |
I cook things in a pan on the hob, sometimes for an hour or two, and end up with a thick black layer on the bottom. If I used a cast iron pot, would that still happen? | The situation you describe is burnt material all over the base of the pan. That is caused by using too high heat and would not be helped by using a heavier pan. The point of a heavier pan is to spread the heat more evenly across the base. A very thin pan would effectively transfer the heat of the burner directly to th... | |
Miracle Thaws are utensils for rapidly thawing foods. Put an ice cube on one and it melts before your eyes, yet the whole thing stays cool to the touch. How do they work? (Inspired by this question: Utensil to thaw meat) | reference: http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/conductive-heat-transfer-d_428.html Let's take a moment to look at the heat transfer equation. Looking at it, we can see the ways to get more efficient heat transfer q / A = k dT / s q / A = heat transfer per unit area (W/m²) k = thermal conductivity (W/(m·K)) dT = temper... | |
I know there a thousand different products you can make with peanuts. But, my local supermarket has one of these, I'm wondering if the effect will be similar if I use my mini coffee-bean hand grinder.. You can find a picture of it here, | You will get the roasty, caramelized flavors; how much influence they will have on the overall flavor of your stew will depend on several factors including: How deeply you roast the them How much you add, proportionately, into the stew How strongly flavored the other items in the stew are Roasting the vegetables wi... | |
I have purchased a few different types of natural peanut butter and all have stated that refrigeration is required after opening. However, I recently purchased Archer's Farms Almond, Peanut & Cashew Butter from Target which doesn't say anything about refrigeration after opening. From what I've read on other sites (anec... | I don't think I've ever seen peanut butter grow mold, natural or commercial, refrigerated or not. What will happen with natural peanut butter is that the fat (of which there's plenty) will go rancid over time. The oxidation process that leads to rancidity requires heat, light, and usually oxygen; keeping it in the ref... | |
Why is commercial, sliced, sandwich style bread so popular in the US and UK, as opposed to more traditional European loaves (like this Slovakian bread)? | I cannot speak to the historical trends in the UK, but in the US, the rise of commercial, sandwich style bread is part of a larger set of food trends that took place after World War II, into the 1950s. Housewives were looking to reduce the amount of labor they spent in the kitchen, such as baking from scratch, while s... | |
I see a lot of recipes for tinfoil packet meals: various vegetables or meats and aromatics wrapped in tinfoil and baked/roasted. What is the benefit of roasting using a tinfoil packet compared to just roasting in a normal roasting pan? | The packet keeps in most of the moisture, and also changes the way the food is heated - less radiation and convection, more conduction. These two factors change the taste of the food. It gets better heated throughout, less browning, and on the whole, it is more similar to what cooks call "wet heat" than "dry heat" desp... | |
The glass lid for my pyrex 10x10 baking dish broke. What can I substitute? Tin foil doesn't work -- nothing cooks! Ideas? Thank you. | One "hack" to try is to put a larger glass baking dish on top (e.g. 9"x13" over an 8"x8"). It is heavy enough to make a moderately decent seal. | |
Most recipes call for the white and the inner green parts of leeks. I feel like I'm wasting half leek. After googling a little, I've found some people consider it edible if properly cooked. I guess a couple of hours of simmering should be enough, but my book says to use only white and inner green parts for stock. Is t... | Absolutely, go ahead and use it. I always ignore the "white and light green parts" instruction anyway, and use the leek up until the point where it feels dried out instead of firm and fleshy—well into the dark green parts—and it's always delicious, even when cooked for significantly less than several hours. | |
I opened a container of sardines and found loads of little round balls in what appears to be its belly. What are these things? Are they eggs the sardine was going to lay (or whatever it's called for a fish) or something it ate? Are they good to eat, or should I throw it out? | Yes, that is sardine roe. In Portugal it is considered a delicacy on a par with caviar. | |
What is the earliest recorded recipe for pizza ever written? I think it’s in the 1700’s, but I’m just not really sure myself, thusly my question. If this is the wrong stack to put it on I apologize. | The earliest example of unquestionable Italian pizza in the modern sense started in the slums of Naples in the late 18th century. These had pizza crust, tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, and other ingredients. Since they were poor people food, it took a while for them to be documented in writing; the earliest clear descri... | |
I saw a commercial on televison for preparing spaghetti without boiling the noodles, just place them in water for about on hour. Can this be done? | You can certainly cook spaghetti in water as low as 180 F. Soaking it in cooler water will hydrate the starches if you wait long enough, but won't cook the proteins, so may not be optimal. | |
I made a tapenade with the following ingredients: kalamata olives, capers, anchovy, garlic, thyme, lemon, olive oil. Although I rinsed the olives and capers (as per the recipe) the result is pretty salty. It's not inedible but would be a lot better if there was something to counter the saltiness even if it doesn't end ... | My 2 Euro-Cents worth: Easy - Serve it with something un- or under-salted. Parsley or spinach are great at this sort of thing. You're not eating it with a spoon, so you can add some greens to your sandwich. Medium Effort - Puree some fresh parsley and mix it in. Parsley is famously good at soaking up salt. Note that ... | |
I have a cake recipe that calls for 1/2 cup of sorbitol. I would like to use stevia instead since I am concerned about the side effects of sorbitol. How do I make that substitution? I could just add water to the stevia equivalent for the sorbitol amount to bring the stevia to 1/2 cup of volume. But I don't know if that... | According to stevia.net one tablespoon of stevia (in powder or liquid form) is the 'equivalent' of one cup of sugar. Similarly, lowcarbdiets.about.com tells us that sorbitol is 60% of the 'sweetness' of sugar. Using sugar as a common denominator, 1/2 cup of sorbitol = .83 cup of sugar and so you should use ~.83 Table... | |
I've made pizza from scratch (dough and sauce) a few times, turns out great. I want to try fresh basil on it. Current recipe: Oven, 425° F: blind bake crust 10 minutes, add tomato sauce & fresh mozzarella, cook another 10 minutes. When would be a good time to add fresh basil? With the cheese? 5 minutes later? Afte... | I cast fresh basil leaves immediately after removing the pizza from the oven. I have found that cooking them with the pizza tends to reduce some (a lot) of the basil scent and flavour. For dried basil, I can't say as I don't use it. | |
I made a lasagna today (Thursday) that will be served on Sunday evening. What will yield a fresher-tasting result: refrigerating or freezing? I know that lasagna keeps in the fridge for about 3-5 days, and this is about 72 hours, but will it taste better/fresher if I freeze immediately after baking? | Ingredient substitution lists say you can use an equal volume of lemon juice or vinegar if you don't have cream of tartar. Most likely, the assumption has been that a baker will be more likely to have cream of tartar on hand than other acid sources due to the fact that it has multiple uses in the kitchen: Leavenin... | |
On America's Test Kitchen, I've seen them wearing a towel around their waist that is somehow attached to an apron. Is there a name for this? Or are they just somehow tucking the towel into a standard apron pocket? This would be a great kitchen convenience--where can I buy an apron like this? (Preferably only coveri... | The traditional butcher's apron tie is to wrap the strings of the apron around behind one's back, then back to the front to tie. This provides a convenient place to put a tea towel or rag. From the photos, this appears to be what the folks in the picture have done (Becky and Chris, IIRC). When I worked in a deli on ... | |
I recently read that cooking stock for more than about 2 hours negatively affects the flavor, and eventually vitiates the vitamins due to heat degradation. This seems to conflict with advice I've read previously, which states that you need to do a "shimmering only" simmer (no bubbles) for 24-36 hours in order to extra... | It is true that flavour is affected by cooking time. Most likely nutrients as well, but its about the vegetables. If you cook beef stock you should indeed cook it for several hours to release the collagen and proteins. My experience with chicken takes less time so 30 minutes in the pressure cooker or 1,5 hours in a nor... | |
I received a shipment of prefabricated skinned rabbit last week and the shipment seemed unusual. Rabbits have a very close resemblance to cats once their “hair” and skin have been removed. Is there a telltale sign that I’m working with Bugs Bunny, not Sylvester? I have a suspicion that Elmer Fudd is running out of leg... | In Germany we have an old (joking) saying that roughly translates to "head off, tail off - bunny", so your question is legitimate. But first thing's first: There is no health risk1 involved if you ate the latest shipment of "meowling rabbit". (To cat lovers everywhere: This is no endorsement, I have a much loved and pa... | |
I like to saute green beans. In case it matters for answering, I saute them in canola oil and soy sauce. I always end up with some of my green beans perfectly sauteed, some overdone and some not quite done. I sit there and stir them every 3 minutes or so while they are frying, but they never distribute evenly. Short... | First off, 30 minutes seems like quite a long time, and stirring ten times seems like it should get things reasonably even. Perhaps you just like your beans really thoroughly cooked, but it does make me wonder if you might be using too small a pan, which would also make it difficult to stir thoroughly and contribute to... | |
For those of you who have rotary evaporators or other chemistry glassware in the kitchen, what do you use to grease the ground glass taper/ ball joints so that the lubricant does not either absorb or introduce flavors into the product? Thus far I have not found anything that is a GRAS food additive marketed as a vacuu... | Many manufacturers and manuals say that you shouldn't grease them. However, for parts of the process you may be able to use Taylor ice cream machine lubrication or Vaseline (see below). Dave Arnold who also runs the Cooking Issues blog, is the king of RotoVap in the kitchen. There is a full article over here on Disp... | |
I like to include the peels when I make applesauce to get the benefit of the nutrients in the peels*, but I strain them out afterward for the sake of texture. This is a messy, sticky, time-consuming process, and it makes it harder to maintain a chunky texture to the applesauce. It occurred to me today that perhaps I c... | Induction tops are usually glass or ceramic, and they will scratch over time no matter what pans you use. Cast iron works very well on induction, and is inexpensive. It is heavy though, if you drop one on your induction top you could crack it. | |
I am on a mission to get CRISPY chicken skin on the BBQ. I don't mean to LOOK crispy. I mean to actually "crunch" when bitten into, if that's at all possible. I'm trying to do all the right steps. I dry off the chicken thighs (bone in, skin on) with paper towels, liberally sprinkle with Kosher salt and pepper, & spray... | It's one thing to buy salami which comes with its own built-in mold, but to let one develop some possibly different mold spontaneously in the fridge? If nothing else the fridge would not provide the ventilation which I understand is an essential part of the process (that's why you hang them and don't pile them up on a... | |
Every time I try to roast a pork leg a lot of water drains from it and it becomes dry. Last time I did it this way: 24 hours before, I seasoned a 1.5kg (3 pounds) piece with salt, pepper, garlic, orange juice and lime juice. I put it out of the refrigerator 1 hour before roasting, and roasted it (covered), with low h... | It is hard to tell just from text descriptions, but I believe your pork leg is under-cooked. Note that it is likely fully cooked in the sense of safety, but it has not had long enough for the slow process of collagen to gelatin conversion. Pork legs (or hams, depending on what you have exactly) are well used muscles ... | |
Lots of recipes call for waiting for the water to come "to a boil." However I have never been sure when that is. From my viewpoint it could be at three different points: First start to see small air bubbles coming up from the bottom of the pan When the surface of the water is noticeably disturbed by the bubbles Whe... | By definition, 1 is a simmer (once the bubbles form a steady stream), 2 is a boil, and 3 is a "roiling boil." | |
I saved the gelatinous material from roasting a turkey. Is it appropriate to use this when making turkey soup? | Yes it is appropriate, and should be used within five days for freshness. The gelatinous material from roasting the turkey is often used to make homemade bone broth soup. | |
I have looked in many different recipes and tried different things, e.g., brown sugar, diastatic malt, etc, and have gotten pretty good at breadmaking but I can't duplicate that taste of a bakery-made Italian bread. Response to questions in comments: I have tried a biga with AP, bread flour, bromated flour. I've use... | I'm assuming this is not a speciality Italian bread such as Panettone or Pan d'oro. It's a regular bread loaf. Hard to know for sure, but in all likelihood, the missing taste is due to short rise times and yeast type. Most of the taste in bread is developed, not put in. As suggested in the comments, the ingredients... | |
My husband is on a low sodium diet. I have been thinking that Calcium chloride might work for making pickles, smoked fish, etc, because the sodium is the bad actor, not the chloride. Who knows about this? | This is an interesting idea. I have heard of using some potassium chloride to make reduced sodium pickles, but never calcium chloride. So I did some googling: Here is a PDF from OragonState that says you can use potassium chloride it for quick pickles, but not brined pickles. I'm assuming calcium chloride can techni... | |
I've been experimenting some with do it yourself microwave popcorn, and some trouble getting the 'burn time' right has led me to a question that I can't find a good, definitive answer to. What is the scientific explanation for the mechanism for how popcorn burns? I'm not looking for "Because it gets too hot", but wha... | Graphics and quoted text from: Whole Grains Council Grains, by definition, have 3 major parts: the germ, the endosperm, and the bran. Whole grains are those that have all of the parts of the natural seed, or kernel (not including an exterior husk that is generally inedible). To be called "Whole Grain" the product must... | |
[I'm an amateur that experiments.] I recently realized I like chicken wrapped in tin foil after using salt, pepper and oregano on it, in 250C for up to 2 hours. Also, I used sliced lemon on parts of it [during cooking]. However, I wonder if any other spices would be suitable and if any other wrapping would be better... | If you're worried about the aluminum foil, you can always just use a covered casserole dish ... it might not hold all of the steam in, though. (there are methods, like mixing a pough of flour and water, then using that to seal the lid on the pot). Also, if you're worried, I'd just consider not using acids, like lemon... | |
I normally add tzatziki sauce when I eat roast left-overs. I cut the roast in slices (without warming it), and I add some tzatziki sauce. Are there different uses for tzatziki sauce? (I am sure there are.) | You can use it on its own as a dip with pita bread, use it as a spread on sandwiches, or as an accompaniment to fish and meat as you're already doing. | |
I'd like to make sodium carbonate for ramen noodles. The instructions on the web however vary greatly. One source says to bake baking soda at 350 degrees for 2-5 hours. Others say 250 degrees for an hour. Another says just 200 degrees for an hour. Does the temperature even matter at all? How about if I use a higher ... | 160 °C (320 °F) for 1-2 h worked for me once, but higher temperatures should not hurt the process. If you are starting with dry sodium hydrogen carbonate, the mass should reduce to 63 % of the starting mass (more reduction in case of wet starting material). Explanation for the mass loss number: You are converting t... | |
So the other day, while baking off excess water after washing, I spaced out and forgot it was there and headed upstairs for say, an hour. When I got back down the pan had a white-ish ring in the center. After cooling and scrubbing it down it appeared that the seasoning had been vaporized in the area that has the ring... | Personally, I'd just season the pan a couple times to cover the spot; it seems excessive to strip off all the other seasoning and start from scratch unless the pan is really deeply rusted. Other people may feel differently, of course; there are as many opinions about caring for cast-iron as there are people that own... | |
Due to dietary restrictions, I can not have apples, or any byproduct. There are lots of recipes that use applesauce to replace fat, but what can I substitute for applesauce in these recipes? | You could replace the applesauce with the fat that it was originally replacing. | |
I have a Seagull "4 star" "Marathon" "non-stick cookware" pan. I have decoated much of the black metallic coating of that pan with a stainless metallic scotch brite. I made the above decoating the above after a few months in which the pan had some matt black carbonated stain with some scratches in it, which kept stayi... | Looking at the close-up, I'd say that the 'black stain' is where the actual non-stick Teflon coating has already been scratched off. The bare metal is where you finished the job & also removed the substrate, which was probably used to get the Teflon to stick to the aluminium. I think you've reached the point where it'... | |
I have a recipe for a sponge cake only consisting of sugar, eggs and flour. To be honest, I am a bit afraid to to try it. How can this create a fluffy cake - where does the air come from? Won't it be really dry because there is no fat in it? Also, when doing a cake like this, do I need to pay special attention to som... | The key to this cake is the whisking of the eggs and sugar to the ribbon stage. This incorporates a significant amount of air into the batter. You didn't mention it, but I imagine the flour is then folded in. The cake will work mechanically. However, I cannot imagine it will taste very good: there is no salt to en... | |
Even after conditioning/seasoning one can expect microscopic chips from using a mortar and pestle. Intuitively it seems that a metallic M&P would be more inclined to shed not so healthy chips, in contrast to a combination of a hard mortar (granite) and a (food safe) soft pestle (wood) whose chips are non toxic. | A granite mortar and granite pestle; this combination will do everything. The granite is hard and dense and will not chip under regular usage. You need to remember that the mortar and pestle must be harder than what you need to grind. Serious Eats Mortars and Pestles is a good read. | |
Let's say I want to make bread. In this case, kneading is what develops more gluten. So would it make any difference if I fully developed the gluten first (until it passes the "windowpane" test) by kneading the dough and then adding the yeast vs just kneading with the yeast already mixed into the dough? | The whole idea of adding the yeast before kneading is to be able to mix it uniformly. By adding the yeast after the dough is formed, it will be mechanically more difficult to combine it and you might end up with lumps of yeastless dough. Those lumps won't rise. I suspect your bread will have a denser, non uniform crum... | |
Instead of prosciutto, I used capers to try and maintain the salty aspect. It worked ok, but something about the capers and cheese didn't seem right. Any other suggestions? Also, to round out the dish with a bit more substance, I also added some diced zucchini, sauteed with garlic and shallots. | I'd recommend thinly sliced and seared shiitake mushrooms for an umami boost and appropriate texture. Really get a nice brown crust on them. | |
I've been cooking Sous Vide 2-3 times a week for about 10 months now, and I absolutely love it. The control of temperature and time makes for some really interesting possibilities. But, one of the touted benefits of the method is better imparting of flavors during the cooking process, and I'm not getting this at all. ... | Sous vide not only keeps the proteins (main component) at a lower temperature, but also the spices/oils/flavorings. Heat helps release the taste and aroma of all the ingredients, and the sous vide might not be hot enough to do that. So, while it kind of kills the simplicity, you could always sautee the seasonings in o... | |
I may have dropped a can food top in my soup but i am not sure. It's not in the soup but could it have melted ? | No, it won't melt to the point where it becomes liquid and mixes evenly with the soup. You cannot have consumed a melted top without knowing it. There are very few "everyday" metals which melt at below 500 C. Even tin (which I doubt is actually used for food packaging any longer) needs 231 C, while soup is at 100 C m... | |
I'm struggling to find a solution for my apartments coil stovetop and its uneven heating. I've never run into the problem until I started working on my holiday hard candy recently. I can't keep the coils heating consistently at high temperatures. I need to measure the temperature but I can't do that when it varies dras... | A copper diffuser plate will help spread the heat more evenly. Is it possible the coils are not all touching the bottom of your pot? | |
I am making a corned beef with a glaze to be eaten next week. Is it better for me to freeze the meat + gravy together, or to freeze the meat in one container and the gravy in another? | I use two containers when possible. The meat and the sauce usually thaw at different rates, so you end up w chunks of frozen meat embedded in thawed sauce. This can be messy to work with. Once frozen, it's OK to combine meat and sauce in a single container. Just separate when thawing. | |
I absolutely love cannolis but every recipe I see requires a deep frier. Is it possible to make them without one? | The very nature of cannolis is that they are deep fried, but you don't need a fryer for that, a large pot, a half liter or so of neutral oil and a thermometer are all that you need. Like doughnuts, fried is the way to go, but they can be baked (if you must). Here's a sample recipe: Baked Cannolis. | |
In this video about making chocolate chip cookies, eggs are the last ingredient added. This is different from what I've learned so far; what's good about this method? | In home recipes the eggs are added whole. They can't be added until after the creaming step or else they will dissolve some of the sugar. They are added before the flour to make sure that the yolks and whites are completely blended. In this video- the process has been simplified for industrial quantities. In the step... | |
I've finally mastered my technique for creating english muffins. They come out light with lots of air bubbles. Unfortunately, they don't taste like english muffins. They taste like regular bread. My recipe is 2 cups flour, 1 cup water, 7g yeast, and 1/2 cup scalded milk. After mixing the dough/batter, I poor/scoop... | English muffins are not usually baked. Instead they are cooked in a skillet or on a griddle. You can bake English muffin dough, but it will turn out like a holey white bread (as you describe). To cook, heat a skillet or flat griddle to medium (temperature for a griddle would be 350 degrees F). Also preheat your ove... | |
I just returned from the store with all the ingredients for baking cookies, and now I notice that I am out of baking paper. Is there some common household item I can use instead (Regular paper? Tinfoil? Just put them on the raw baking tray?), or do I have to make another trip to the store? | First of all, if your baking sheet is nonstick you may not need baking paper at all. If it is not, then either directly greasing the baking sheet, or putting tinfoil on it and greasing that works reasonably well as a substitute. | |
For my breakfast oatmeal, I use a variety of nuts. I tend to make large batches beforehand. My biggest issue with the way I do it now, is how to prepare large batches of hard nuts that I'd like to chop roughly. I have tried several methods: A blender, or food processor, which grinds the nuts into a paste Smashing th... | A chopping jar: (photo from Etsy) should be exactly what you need. (You may also want to look at multi-blade mezzalunas, but they're really meant for mincing herbs.) | |
My boyfriend has been using this idea, for a long time. He makes bean soup, with just ham and beans.. maybe a onion, then it sits in the crockpot on warm until digested, by us. LOL. well today. I grabbed a bowl.. and noticed a faint sweet taste to the ham.. I have been digging for suggestions since, to know if I should... | I fully endorse the "when in doubt, throw it out" doctrine, although I personally wouldn't consider a sweet taste to be doubt. As rfusca wisely points out, you can't taste or smell several kinds of contamination, and the ones that you can taste or smell, are usually sour, bitter, or generally pungent. I suggest you ha... | |
I wonder if an artificial sweetener like sucralose or erythritol could be used to make a reasonably soft ice cream. | Weeeellll...remember, the sugar in ice cream helps it not form into a solid chunk of ice (as does the fat). Often reduced-sugar recipes call for alcohol, which can help do the same thing. You're really going to need something to keep all those ice crystals from forming. If you want to play with artificial sweetener, I... | |
I've noticed that I never taste cumin in the tacos I get at restaurants, yet cumin is often the most noticeable flavor in pre-made taco seasonings. When and why did cumin get associated with tacos? Why is it not used in most restaurant preparations? | I'm going to supplement Cindy's answer, by addressing this part of the question: When and why did cumin get associated with tacos? According to Wikipedia, Serious Eats, and History.com, the cumin was brought by workers the Spanish imported to Texas from the Canary Islands in the 1500s, who themselves were the d... | |
Quite a lot of the time I'm able to get large parts of seeds by hitting the shell against the ground. This causes bigger cracks in the shell than the seed, I can then pry off the outer layer. However, I've never been able to get a whole seed this way. The only other ways I can think of would be dissolving it in an aci... | The amount of sugar in this recipe looks a bit low for a 10 minute simmer. I estimate that the bulk of the ingredients consists of, ~200g sugar ~330g cranberries ~330g bell pepper That's less than 25% sugar. If this were a straight cranberry jelly, you'd need about 40% sugar content for optimal jelly strength and, ... | |
I've got a new enameled cast iron skillet that I've been cleaning with stainless steel wool along with a standard dish rag. It occurs to me that scratches in the enamel might eventually cause problems. What's the consensus? Is steel wool safe to use on an enameled surface? Thanks. | it is perfectly safe to use stainless steel wool on a Vitreous enamel. I presume that the cast iron skillet has a Vitreous enamel finish. The reason is simple: Vitreous enamel is essentially a type of ceramic and has a hardness of around 5-6 on the Mohs scale. Steel has around 4-5 on the same scale. This means that ge... | |
Would it make a difference in my cheesecake if I used liquid heavy whipping cream instead of heavy cream? ( Husbandbought the wrong thing) | Heavy cream and heavy whipping cream are almost the same thing. The only difference is the amount of fat they contain. Heavy cream contains about 36% fat, while whipping cream contains only about 30%. (That means that heavy cream actually produces better, thicker whipped cream!) Since this is going into a cheesec... | |
In the past I've bought many pickled cucumbers and other veg, but a few weeks ago I bought pickled 'sandwich' cucumber slices (similar to this) which were in sweetened vinegar and liked them much better; the key thing about these pickles is that they are in "sweet" vinegar rather than normal pickling vinegar which is q... | As far as I'm aware, the difference between 'regular' pickles & 'Jewish' pickles is sugar & dill. [I honestly don't know what makes them Jewish, but my partner grew up in the Jewish community & that's what she calls them, so that's about as much research as I've done ;-) So - you'd think that adding sugar & dill & lea... | |
Are convection microwave ovens a useful item to have? Or are they not good as a microwave and not good as a convection oven either? I understand that a regular convection oven helps to cook things faster. But a microwave cooks things pretty darn fast already so why would you want a convection feature? | Microwave: A microwave heats water and molecules in the food by using microwave radiation. It will heat food efficiently and quickly, but does not brown or bake like a conventional oven. Oven: Fueled by gas or electricity and heats from the bottom (baking, roasting) or from the top (broiling). The heat is from a s... | |
I've seen many bread recipes and they used different combination as egg-wash. Egg white plus water, egg yolk plus milk, beaten egg plus milk or water, and I myself sometimes give it a sprinkle of saffron ti get a goldener final result. Is it better to use egg white or egg yolk? Milk or water? Do they make any big diffe... | I have always used egg and milk. Two thirds egg to one third milk. Use a spray bottle to ensure that you get a nice, even coverage. Also make sure that you have a full proof on your goods, because (obviously) anything that gets exposed to the heat due to oven spring will not have color. Just the way I have always don... | |
When I buy packaged chicken breast at the grocery, I get the untrimmed ones because they're significantly cheaper, and trimming fat isn't a problem for me. But the rib meat that comes attached is connected by a rather large chunk of fat. I always end up cutting the whole thing off and throwing it out, with the rib meat... | Save in a bag in your freezer along with all chicken bones you come across. Cleave through the bones to expose some collagen before freezing (consider roasting all ingredients before hand). Add whatever vegetable bits you don't use in your cooking - including things you wouldn't eat (but nothing poisonous) to your ba... | |
I need to frost a ton of cupcakes (hundreds) for an event in a few months and I'm looking for something to help me do this. Has anyone ever seen a manual multi-nozzle (like 3 or 4-nozzle) piping gun, or something like that? (Imagine 3 or 4 caulking guns side-by-side.) This project is too big for a home kitchen and yet... | Food safe zip ties do exist. A thin rolling pin or knife steel could make a handle crossbar for a couple of piping guns, and palette knives or narrow cutting boards could be useful as structural elements to cross-tie the piping guns too. Everything made out of food safe parts :) | |
My electric oven just has two settings: broil and bake. I have a recipe that calls for "roasting" a duck at 400 degrees. Is that the same thing as broiling or is it baking? | Assuming an electric oven as typically seen in the US: Roasting is the same setting as baking. The words mean slightly different things, but not to your electric oven. Using the baking setting has the heat coming from the bottom of the oven, broiling has it coming from the top. The temperature is usually set very hig... | |
I bought this "Mantita's italiano Crispy Pizza Crust Mix", but I own no pizza pan. All I have is a 8 inch wide, ~2inch deep, round "Lodge" cast iron pan I have never used before. I want to make a deep dish pizza with it. How much of the crust mix should I use in the pan? The crust mix says its for a 12inch pizza and ... | No soy and no ginger is a challenge, it can be done though if you pick the right recipes. Galangal has a similar flavor as ginger and may work, it's in the same family as ginger but is a different sub-family, so it may be different enough not to cause a reaction. Cardamom and turmeric are in the same family as well, if... | |
In another question I suggested that milk might be used as a tenderizer. That generated an amount of scepticism, so I think it is worth breaking the question out. The idea came from "The New Best Recipe" which has a small section entitled "SCIENCE: Why Does Milk Make Meat Tender?". I'll repeat a little of what it says... | The paragraph you quoted is utter nonsense. Milk contains absolutely no factors which will tenderize anything. Tenderization is a process whereby protein strands are broken down, resulting in shorter strands, resulting in a more tender product. A lot of substances and physical processes will tenderize, to a greater or... | |
I'm currently making 9 litres of quite thick lentil soup in a 10 litre stainless steel stockpot. It needs to simmer gently for an hour or two. Despite the sandwich base and my weakest gas ring on minimum*, it needs stirring every few minutes or it will stick, and soon burn. I've found this with other similar soups t... | When I am cooking very thick soups I often put the pot in the oven instead of the stove and cook it that way. Because the heat is distributed around the entire surface I don't run into problems of it burning and sticking. Be sure to manage the temperature though, just around boiling is good. | |
Everything I read about making stock indicates that using raw chicken will create a gelatinous stock. I used leftover rotisserie chicken and it is delicious but very gelatinous. I let it simmer a LONG time, at least 6 hours. I did not skim as it was simmering. After straining, I poured it into jars, let it cool before ... | Fat will thicken a stock, but will not make it gelatinous. Gelling comes from collagen which comes from the bones or — in my opinion — even better from the joints. My experience is that this is easier to achieve from a cooked bird than a raw one rather than the other way around. The gelling may have locked up some of... | |
I stumbled across this blogpost which claims that coffee is awesome for our bodies but only if it doesn't have mycotoxins (toxins generated by fungi). To quote them: One study showed that 91.7% of green coffee beans were contaminated with mold. This is before they were processed, which allows even more mold to gr... | Time to apply a bit of healthy skepticism here: The blog post: Is (so far) the first and only one I've ever seen stating mold to be a practical problem in coffee - in the sense of being present in a high enough quantity to matter (mold grows everywhere). Uses all kinds of weasel words to describe symptoms ("edgy", "... | |
Not sure if there is an proper name, had it in Israel but have seen it (or similar variations) in Moroccan restaurants (in the US). Comprised of primarily diced cucumbers and tomatoes, that have been seasoned. | Not too surprisingly given where you found it, it's called an Israeli Salad in most parts of the world. In Israel, it's just called a chopped salad or (according to the wiki article - I never personally encountered this) an Arab salad. | |
One problem I've had that I know others have too is when pouring from those Pyrex glass measuring cups. I just saw it happen in the Binging with Babish video: Is there any good way to prevent this? I've tried pouring fast and slow, but it always seems to get liquid coming from the sides, thus making a mess. | Use a larger measuring cup so it is only partly full. Then the cup will be tilted more when the pour starts. | |
I have no idea what this thing is, and it appears to be a kitchen tool, but for what? I put up a YouTube video of it, and would love to see if anybody knows exactly what it would be used for, because we have no idea: http://youtu.be/do5_D8Sjhk8 It would appear to be some kind of corer, or to cut shapes out of some f... | It looks like one I bought a few years ago, it was suppose to cut corn off the cob. You put it around the small end of the corn and rotate in a downward motion. I didn't like the results and went back to using a knife. | |
I have a can of Red Kidney Beans, and I want to use it to make Japanese Red Bean Paste Buns. Looking online, I found that these buns require Azuki Beans for the paste, not Kidney Beans. Is there a way to turn Kidney Beans into a replacement for Azuki Beans? | Welcome. According to the excerpt below from this page , kidney beans are an acceptable substitute. azuki bean = adzuki bean = Tiensin red bean = aduki bean = asuki bean = field pea = red Oriental bean = feijao bean = red chori Equivalents: 1 cup dried yields 3 cups cooked beans Pronunciation: a-ZOO-kee Not... | |
Cornstarch is used in various recepies for many purposes but sometime it is not available in kitchen. So, what can I substitute for cornstarch? | Genrally speaking, you can substitute any pure starch for corn starch. This would include: Potato starch Arrowroot powder Tapioca starch Usually, you can use the same amounts you would have used for corn starch. You cannot substitute flour in the same amounts without changing the flavor and/or texture of the dish... | |
Which food books (and I'm thinking books on food and cooking rather than recipe books) do you find on your bedside cabinet rather than on the kitchen shelves? McGee on Food and Cooking: An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture keeps creeping back as it answers all those questions about why something wor... | Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver In Defense of Food and Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan Those are the ones I've been working on recently. | |
Sometimes, if you leave something like chips out in the open, it catches moisture from the air and is not as crisp after that. Is the food good to consume even after that? | There's different things here -- loss of texture/freshness (ie, stale), and unsafe to eat (spoiled) There's lots of things out there that aren't unsafe to eat, but you might not want to -- eg, the brownies that have become so hard that you might be worried about chipping a tooth. Some things can be saved after they'v... | |
I don't have much theoretical knowledge about wine, but I like the taste. So I often get a random bottle from the wide selection at the supermarket, avoiding only the bottom line of TetraPack wine. I have noticed a few trends (e.g. I don't like Chillean wine), but it is still mostly a hit-and-miss. One of the "bah" mom... | There are a couple of reasons why a wine would be slightly fizzy: Maltreatment: wine which has been stored in a hot place will often be slight fizzy, as well as having a "sour cider" taste. This wine is ruined, throw it out. Varietal: in addition to Champaigne/Prosecco/Cava,several other wine varietals are deliberat... | |
With Spectre being released in cinemas around the world soon, I've been looking for some James Bond montages on youtube. One of them that I came across was the classic "Vodka Martini. Shaken, not stirred". We already have a question about why Bond asks for this special preparation, but one thing that I always found wei... | Olives (and onions) are a very traditional garnish used by bartenders to add a slightly savory flavor to a drink. As with many things behind the bar, they're used nowadays largely because they're iconic, but they do have a subtle effect on flavor. It's not really known where traditional garnishes such as citrus peels,... | |
My friends and I had this idea while drunk one night, to create a big batch of small cakes shaped like LEGO bricks and interlock them into a larger, round cake. Morning came, and we grew daunted by the task we had set, so promptly gave up. My question then, is this: were we right to give up, or is this actually a possi... | You never said what size the cake had to be, or how well it had to actually hold together. If you make too large of a cake, it's not going to work -- cake is heavy enough that as you get larger, you need to add additional supports. Most multi-tier cakes have some sort of rods (plastic or wood) placed in them to help ... | |
It was my first try to canning tomato sauce but I failed. I prepared a tomato pizza sauce. I boiled a jar and lid then removed it I filled the jar with sauce and left one inch empty space and closed with the lid. Then I put it in the boiling water and what happened: As soon as I put the jar in the hot boiling water... | Jars burst either because of internal pressure or thermal shock. There are a couple things you can do to reduce the risk of bursting. use actual canning jars. Some people like to reuse regular jars that aren't as strong. This will often work fine but increases the risk of bursting. make sure the jar is hot. A cold j... | |
I'm a fan of modernist cooking, and its emphasis on precise measurements and consistency. I'm curious how to apply this to tea preparation - in particular, several things: It seems to be well established that different types of tea should be prepared at different temperatures - black tea and fruit infusions with boil... | There is an ISO standard for tea preparation. To quote the summary: The pot should be white porcelain or glazed earthenware and have a partly serrated edge. It should have a lid that fits loosely inside the pot. If a large pot is used, it should hold a maximum of 310 ml (±8 ml) and must weigh 200 g (±10 g). ... | |
So, we found the omelette in a bag recipe, and decided to use it. Pretty simple, beat the eggs, drop in ingredients, (Usually either Great Value Mozzarella, Fiesta Blend Cheese, or Cheddar) and some Jimmy Dean's Breakfast sausage, boil for 20mins, done. We store them in the fridge since we don't have time in the morn... | Cooking, not storage, to blame Storing cooked eggs under refrigeration for a week is not turning your eggs gray. Instead the discoloration is from the iron in the yolk reacting with the sulfur in the albumen at temperatures of 170F or higher creating ferrous sulfide. Overcooking the omelettes initially, or perhaps hot ... | |
When we go to a restaurant for breakfast and order eggs, we are often asked how we want them. I have a handful of ways that I will eat them (I often prefer over-medium) and I am sure there a large number of ways to prepare eggs I am unfamiliar with. I have a question then on the various technical definitions of these... | Fried Eggs: Sunny Side Up -- Not flipped, unbroken yolk. The top of the egg is just barely set. Basted -- Sunny Side Up, hot fat spooned over until the white surrounding the yolk is opaque. Over Easy / lite -- Flipped, whites fully cooked, unbroken yolk, yolk runny. Over medium -- flipped, whites fully cooked, unbrok... | |
I always thought they were (perhaps regionally) different labels for the same cake. While at a local fair, I noticed that there were separate categories for Devil's Food and Chocolate cake. | PracticallyEdible has a nice description of Devil's Food Cake. Originally, Devil's Food Cake had a medium dense texture. The colour had a reddish tint that was probably caused by baking soda reacting with cocoa powder. In fact, I have an old cookbook (The Day by Day Cook Book, 1939) that contains a recipe for Red De... | |
I am planing to buy my first cast Iron pan and I would like to get advice on which size/shape/depth should I should choose. For example I am looking at this: size: 25.4cm depth: 4.45cm size: 25cm depth: 5.08cm Also what shape/width/depth would be best in your opinion, not necessary from these two pans, but in gen... | I'd offer the following recommendations if someone hasn't worked with cast iron before: Cast iron is heavy. If you're not used to them, and used to flipping things in your pan by just lifting and shaking ... it will not go well until you've gotten used to it. You'd likely be better off with a smaller pan, provided ... | |
Let's assume that they are both made with chicken, and that the curry is a traditional Indian curry, with tomato and traditional spices, not with "curry powder" tossed in it. Various articles claim to describe the differences, but they disagree with each other. Recipes for both use the same seasonings, and appear prett... | Your cooking method will clearly increase the fat content of the dish. If the bacon is removed after cooking, I don't think it is possible to say how much bacon fat remains. There are probably multiple variables. Even with some fat remaining on the surface, or possibly getting past the surface, removing the bacon it... | |
I can eat yellow parts without a problem. But I throw up when i eat whites. I tried many ways to eat but failed. Scrambled, spiced, souce, etc. I need to get rid of the taste and smell of the eggwhite. Any ideas? | I'm the same way. Add milk to the eggs while beating them for scrambled eggs. Mix well. Even add a little garlic, salt and pepper. Cook low/mid heat until the eggs are somewhat dry. |
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